Far Cry (PC)

Far Cry (2005)

When I heard about Far Cry 2 and saw the development reviews and previews of the game, I thought it would be a great 3D game and got the first installment of the title since at that time I haven't played Far Cry... yet. The other day I have just finished the game in "Challenging" difficulty and played in "Realistic" afterwards and I am now halfway through with no other sign of difficulty changes except for more accurate enemy fire that kills you with four hits on a full armor and health status. With the upcoming second installment of Far Cry with a more realistic and stunningly beautiful environment, I can say that the first game already has a great jungle environment that makes me wonder what Far Cry 2 would look when released.

Anyway, you are Jack who has been hired to take this lady Valerie into a group of islands somewhere out in the middle of nowhere where you get hit by a rocket propelled grenade. You have no choice but to swim to the nearest island and figure out how to get out of the jungle. As the story unfolds you will then find out that Valerie is a CIA agent on a mission and have chosen you to get her into the "jungle islands" because you are the only boat for hire with special forces training and thought that you might be able to help. There have been mutation experiments on the islands and both of you are there to stop it whether you like it or not.

The first encounters with the mutated creatures are mutations of monkeys/apes. You later find out that what you encountered were just the untrained mutants, which means there are trained ones out there and I'm not talking about monkeys trained to hunt down prey. They have been inoculating trained human soldiers that mutated into firearm-carrying mutants that could kill you not only with their guns but with one or two swipes of their claws. This game feels very similar to Half-Life but with a jungle theme and mercenaries. I like the part where you get to blow out everything in your path and also the stealth infiltrations at night with your night vision goggles.

The boss fights are very frustration as you get to battle not only the boss but some mercenaries and soldiers as well who snipe you if you don't take them all out first to concentrate on the boss. Better carry that rocket launcher all the way in the game with full ammo as it will help you clear out these enemy soldiers on boss battles very quickly. And when you get the chance to carry that Machine Gun with a capacity of 100 bullets, then do so as it will help kill those big nasties with rocket launchers on their arms with a full burst at their heads.

Some jungle tips. Before entering an enemy encampment on the jungle, try to get everyone on the binoculars as this would enable tracking of your enemies on your radar. Just prone in a good distance away from the camp, use the binoculars and wait for most of them to get registered for tracking. Then snipe or shoot the enemies on guard towers first as they would be your most likely killers from above with sniper rifles and rocket launchers. Move to another location as the mercenaries would be converging on the last known disturbance, which you can see as red dots on the radar which means they are alarmed by your presence. Always aim for the head to deal with them swiftly. You can drown mutant apes if you are near deep water by letting them follow you to the depths. And finally, do not waste your ammo!

I will be gaming with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Shadow of Chernobyl) tomorrow as my game break is still ongoing. Stalker is very much similar to Fallout which I am a fan of, and I'm also waiting for Bethesda's Fallout 3. Will also try to acquire the Stalker film for the Stalker game review after playing the game.

Fable: The Lost Chapters (PC)

FABLE: The Lost Chapters (2005)

Fable was first released in XBox while PC gamers felt left-out. But when it was released in Windows (PC), XBox users felt left-out because the PC version has additional content: The Lost Chapters where you get to go to the Northern Wastes in the Old Kingdom after defeating Jack of Blades in the original Fable storyline. The Lost Chapters offer new weapons, new quests and more choices to make... whether you continue to be a good hero or an evil villain of the Heroes Guild.

You will be able to get the Holy Warrior Helm, a perfect fit for that Bright Plate Suit of yours or the Demon Warrior Helm for you terrifying Dark Plate Suit. You can also acquire Archon's Armor, a more powerful plate suit with better defense but gives a good modifier for those planning on playing with an evil character. In the Northern Waste you get to battle Jack of Blades once more in his new (a perhaps his true) form, a fire breathing dragon. In the end, you get the option on wearing Jack's mask or destroying it, which if you plan on wearing it you become Jack of Blades himself and play as Jack at the end of the storyline after waiting for the game credits to roll out.

The Lost Chapters starts as with the original Fable game. You are a boy where the village you start out with gets attacked and burned to the ground, with your father as one of the casualties. Maze, a wizard from the Heroes Guild will somewhat find you and train you as one of the heroes in the game. You then decide which abilities to hone and master as you grow old (at about a few game minutes or a few hours in real time). As you grow you become older, become scarred and grow your hair and beard if you decide not to get to the local barber of Bowerstone. Experience is dropped for everything you kill (as long as they are not inanimate objects) as experience orb. A battle multiplier is also present for every strike you make which can multiply the experience you get from enemies and will slowly count down to a multiplier of one if not attacking, or will be halved or lowered by ten if you take a hit.

Experience distribution is applied to skills you need to improve in the Heroes Guild's Map Room. General experience (green) can be distributed to all skills (warrior, thief and magic) while red, yellow and blue experience can only be distributed to warrior, thief and magic skills respectively. You gain red experience by using your melee weapons or fists, or eating strength enhancing food like meat. Yellow experience is acquired with using your bow, or eating carrots (not the golden ones). You get blue experience points by using your Will/magic and by eating certain types of fish. If you master one or all of the three skills, your appearance will also change. For example, mastering most of the magic spells will grant you magical tattoos just like Maze's, plus your hands will be glowing with Will energy. Mastering warrior skills of strength will give you muscles and a pumped up body.

You will also have choices to make in the storyline which will bring you to the path of good or evil depending on your choices and actions. Stealing, breaking barrels and killing innocents will bring you closer to the dark side while fighting monsters and some good deeds/choices/missions will bring you to the light (the good side). Some food items will also change your alignment like eating a crunchy chick will give you an evil alignment while tofu will make you good. The good character will have blue eyes at first, then butterflies flying around you on the second level, a halo on the third and a bask of holy light on your feet on the final level (with a more distinct halo). The evil character will have red eyes, small horns on the head, flies, and finally an evil red glow on your feet/path with full grown horns. Some magic spells can only be mastered depending on your alignment like heal for good and drain life for evil but regardless of your alignment you will still become a Will Master if you master enough spells.

For every town you can get to buy your own house where you can rent it out for extra gold, or get married and live in the marital home you bought, so you can have a wife for every town you have a house on. You can also marry Lady Grey in Bowerstone North even if you don't own a house. Married life can have its rewards, your wife gives you gifts like powerful weapons or armor which you can sell since you already are using that legendary weapon (artifact) which is more powerful than the expensive weapons. And if you're evil, you can sacrifice your wife in the Chapel of Skorm which might bless you with the game's most powerful bow if you sacrifice her at midnight. If a villager or shop owner is killed, you have the option to buy the house they live in or the shop, but make it quick as when the game respawns a new villager or shop owner, the replaced villager will automatically buy the vacant house or the replaced shop owner will resume the shop's ownership. Taverns can also be bought if you kill the game master, the bartender and the bar maid.

Fable provides a good role-playing theme, and will also change your appearance for the role of the character you are trying to create... somewhat different from other RPG's where you decide the role of your character at the start through a character generator. I will also be keeping an eye out for Fable 2.

Overlord (PC)

Overlord (2007)

This is a first person fantasy game where you are the overlord, master of goblin-like creatures called minions. You start the game with brown minions waking you up from your evil slumber on a sarcophagus with a steel helmet, armor and axe. There are four types of minions. The brown minions are your standard melee attackers and are available in the start of the game. The red minions are the ranged fighters, hurling fireballs at enemies and can survive on fires (can extinguish them as well). The green minions are your stealth assassins, when grouped (flagged) they can become invisible and can back stab enemies within their range while the enemy is looking away from them, as well as survive poisonous areas and can disable poison producing plants that block the overlord's path. The blue minions are the support creatures, they can resurrect fallen minions and can swim/traverse water but are weak fighters (but can swarm an enemy and resurrect the fallen comrades if some will die).

You start with only five minions that you can summon but the maximum number of minions can be increased by collecting creature objects or by upgrading your helmet on the forge. Minions can only be summoned on summoning pits: browns are summoned on brown summoning pits, reds on red summoning pits, etc. Your tower is your headquarters, where all the tower objects are placed like creature, health and magic objects as well as creature hives. In order to summon creatures of a certain type, you must acquire their hive.

Weapons, armors and helmets can be created on a forge somewhere within the tower but first you must acquire the steel forge and command your creatures to carry it to the nearest teleporter to your tower. You can also upgrade your equipment on the forge, sacrificing minions to give it additional damage, power and abilities. For armors, you can sacrifice green minions to give it health regeneration, with a percentage depending on the number of green minions you sacrifice. Brown minions increase the armor's defense, red minions increase your maximum life bars and blue minions increase your magic capacity. You can get two other forge types as well which increase the maximum number of minions you can sacrifice to give your battle equipment more abilities.

Although you can summon a limited number of minions (from you current maximum summons), you will have a pool of available minions that you can summon to replenish your ranks which reside in your tower. You can increase your minion pool by gathering lifeforce. Sheeps that you or your minions kill will generate brown lifeforce (with a yellow color) and is the most common. Red lifeforce from certain creatures/enemies will increase your red minion pool, green lifeforce for greens and blue lifeforce for blues. There is also an arena in your tower where you can battle previously encountered enemies, very useful for filling up your creature pools because these arena enemies will drop lifeforce. The bugs are a perfect arena combatants as they drop lifeforce depending on the species and I would suggest you try to find these bugs in the game to make them available in the arena as soon as possible. The battler beetles drop brown lifeforce, the magma beetles drop red lifeforce, the puff beetles drop green lifeforce and the dazzler beetles drop blue lifeforce for a total of 75 lifeforces in every arena battle with a specific bug.

---spoilers---
Now on to the summary of the game storyline. You were actually a gallant knight who once fought an evil overlord along with your other hero comrades. You were left for dead in the last overlord's tower after that overlord was defeated by the other heroes. The leader of the heroes was a wizard who was determined to stop the overlord's evil reign. Unknown to all, the wizard was possessed by this overlord in their battle and all came to believe that the overlord is dead. The wizard then corrupted the other heroes and the new overlord (you), the knight left for dead in the tower was resurrected/awaken to take over the overlord's tower temporarily which the wizard planned in taking back later. You will battle all of your corrupted hero friends and finally meet the wizard who you must defeat to remain the tower's current overlord, your minions will battle against his minions and prove yourself to be the best overlord. In the end, the minion jester who you beat up in the training sessions and kick around in your tower will give an evil grin with eyes glowing, probably possessed by the overlord wizard.

There is also Overlord: Raising Hell expansion which I plan on acquiring.

July-August 2008 Game Time

Went on a game time break with three PC titles: Overlord (2007) by Triumph Studios, Fable: The Lost Chapters (2005 PC) by Lionhead Studios, and Far Cry (2004) by Crytek Studios.

With Overlord, you control an evil master of creatures (minions) in the game to help you do your evil deeds. You can just be an evil overlord or become more evil by choosing your actions in the main quests. Your armor, helmet and weapons can be upgraded by sacrificing your minions in your forge. This game reminds me of Dungeon Keeper and enjoyed it for 1 week of full game time.

Fable has been released for XBox, but the PC version includes additional contents: The Lost Chapters. You start out as a little boy, gets trained in the Heroes' Guild... then you choose which class you are going to develop your character with. Your character will also show signs of aging and scars from battles as time goes on. This is one great first-person role-playing game! Enjoyed it for a week and a half, finishing the story as both good and evil hero.

Far Cry has a wonderful game world, a paradise of islands in the middle of nowhere. You can enjoy the scenery while blasting out mercenaries on your way to the mission area. Then you fight your way through hordes of mutated creatures; mutated monkeys at the start of the game to mutated mercenary soldiers which are trained for combat. Got this game after reading up on the upcoming Far Cry 2 PC title, with a better paradise and lots of terrain to cover. Finished it on "Challenging" difficulty and still halfway on "Realistic".

Full reviews coming up while getting ready with another game title, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.