Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2

Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: GRIN
Genre: Modern Tactical Shooter
Release Date: Jul 17, 2007 (more)
ESRB: TEEN

Online Modes: Competitive, Cooperative, Team Oriented
Number of Players: 1 Player
Number of Online Players: 32 Online

Ghost Recon is a franchise that was born on the PC, so it was nice last year when Ubisoft commissioned a separate version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter that was built directly for the PC instead of merely porting over the Xbox 360 game of the same name. That way, Xbox 360 gamers could get a third-person action game while PC gamers could get a hardcore first-person shooter. That trend continues with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, which again comes in a separate PC version that's tailored for the platform. Nevertheless, you'll need to be a pretty die-hard fan of extremely unforgiving combat to get through this one.

GRAW 2 picks up immediately after the events of the first game, though you needn't have played it to understand what's going on. Mexican rebels have some nukes and are setting up shop next to the Texas border, and you, as a member of an elite U.S. Army Special Forces unit, must stop them. While the PC version features entirely new levels and environments, it does lift many of the story elements and voice-overs from the Xbox 360 version. In essence, this is basically a retelling of the Xbox 360 game.

The major difference between the two versions is that the Xbox 360 is much more action focused, while the PC is a lot more simulation heavy. It's a huge difference. You can sprint your way through the Xbox 360 game, knowing that you can heal up easily whenever you hit a resupply point. In the PC version, the pace is a lot slower and more methodical. If you try to run-and-gun through you'll get cut down within seconds. It's all about moving slowly, using cover, and suppressing the enemy with cover fire. You have a fairly small health bar, and it can be drained relatively quickly. Even worse, a hit in the wrong place will kill you no matter what, so the PC version is very much one shot, one kill. And if you do manage to find a place to resupply, you do not heal.

While this kind of realistic authenticity is the hallmark of Ghost Recon games on the PC, GRAW 2 is a lot tougher than its predecessors. Part of that is the nature of the gameplay, which is very unforgiving, but it's also due to the huge size of the levels. You have to carefully ration your health bar or else you'll find yourself in a bad spot. For instance, if you take a couple of hits early on, it's usually best to just start the mission over because odds are you'll never survive the middle and later parts of the level, especially since you can't heal. There is a quick save and a quick load that you'll need to use early and often, as you'll get cut down without warning a lot. And this was on the easiest difficulty setting. Trying to play at the default difficulty is murder.

If that weren't bad enough, GRAW 2 also likes to put you in a lot of really difficult--dare we say unfair--tactical situations. The end level has a helicopter drop you off in the middle of a bridge, with one end garrisoned by Mexican rebels armed with rocket launchers and heavy machine guns. If you manage to survive that, you'll next face an attack by troops and vehicles, and then have to take down a helicopter, and then attack the other end of a bridge defended by snipers and machine gunners, and so on. It's a lot to tackle in a single mission, and it will undoubtedly require a lot of trial and error.

You do have up to three other soldiers at your command, as well as various support elements such as aerial recon drones and the ability to call in air strikes or artillery. The squad controls are fairly simple because they're context sensitive. Simply move the cursor onscreen and you'll tell the squad to move to that spot or attack it. Unfortunately, the artificial intelligence, while sharp, isn't sharp enough. It's pretty good about using cover, but nowhere near as good as a human mind. It's not hard for your guys to get cut down behind you, which at times makes them more of a hindrance. The better missions in the game are the ones that have you going almost lone wolf. It's during these levels that the PC version shines, as you don't need to worry about micromanaging the squad and can go around stalking the enemy.

The PC version does allow a bit more freedom in mission setup: you can select the troopers that go with you, as well as custom-outfit their gear, choosing from different weapons and accessories, like grenade launchers, scopes, and silencers. (If a trooper is cut down, he's unavailable for later missions.) The only thing that this mode needs is a way to save a loadout so you can easily outfit your team with the same gear. Instead, you have to load out each trooper separately, a somewhat annoying process.

Aside from the sheer difficulty of the game, the other hit against the PC version is its drabness. The game recycles much of the textures and buildings from its predecessor, so the slums of Juarez look almost identical to the industrial areas of Mexico City. The game is dominated by its brown-and-yellow palette, and the color scheme is so bland and lifeless that it sucks a lot of life out of the otherwise solid graphic engine. You'd be hard-pressed to find something in the game that's a bright red or green or blue. Even the skies feel oppressive. The Xbox 360 did a much better job of actually creating environments that felt like they had some color and culture to them. The PC version feels like it's set in what appears to be the dullest and driest place on Earth.

The multiplayer options are nicely fleshed out. There are some cooperative gameplay levels, though the single-player campaign itself isn't playable in co-op. Then there's deathmatch and team modes, such as hamburger hill (one team holds a hill as long as possible against the other) as well as recon-versus-assault, which is an objective-based mode that tasks one team on defense and the other on offense. There's enough here to keep you busy for a good, long while, which is sort of the point. And multiplayer has always been one of Ghost Recon's strengths.
While the difficulty will undoubtedly be one of the things that the dedicated fans of the series will look forward to, GRAW 2 raises the challenge bar to a new level. That said, if you're looking for a relatively quick and painless shooting experience, look elsewhere. If you want to experience a brutal battlefield where death can happen suddenly, then check out GRAW 2.

By Jason Ocampo, GameSpot

System Requirements

Minimum:

Processor: Intel or AMD, 2 GHz

Operating System: Windows XP/Vista

Memory: 1024 MB RAM

Disk Space: 2 GB

Graphics Card: 128 MB DX9.0c compatible card, GF6200+ or ATI9700+

Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible

DVD-ROM drive : x2 read speed

DirectX Version: 9.0c

Network: High-speed modem with 128 Kbits of data transfer upload rate for a client, 512Kbits of data transfer

upload rate for a server on a full game.

Recommended Configuration:

Processor: Intel or AMD 2.8 GHz

Operating System: Windows XP/Vista

Memory: 1024 MB RAM

Disk Space: 2 GB

Graphics Card: 256 MB DX9.0c compatible card, GF7300+ or X1600+

Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible

CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive : x2 read speed

DirectX Version: 9.0c

Network: High-Speed Modem with 128 Kbits of data transfer upload rate for a client, 512Kbits of data transfer

upload rate for a server on a full game.

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Day Watch Nival Interactive

Scheduled For: 2007
Game Type:3D Role-Playing
Developer:Nival Interactive
Publisher:Noviy Disk
Homepages:None listed by 3D Gamers
FAQs:None listed by 3D Gamers
Requires:Windows / Direct3D
Keywords:third-person / turn-based / modern / fantasy
ESRB Rating:Unavailable

Vampires, battling good and evil, supernatural humans possessing mystical powers; sounds like your average fantasy/sci-fi plot, right? But what if all of this takes place present day, and in Russia? Day Watch was developed by Nival Interactive, who is most famous for Heroes of Might & Magic V and Silent Storm. While being based in Moscow themselves, Nival decided to develop the game entirely in Russian, which sounds fine for anyone that is Russian. So what about the rest of the world? Unfortunately, you have to suffer through a poorly translated game with half-baked gameplay mechanics. The plot is pretty neat and there are some interesting magical powers to wield, but everything else is rather mediocre.

Day Watch is based on a planned trilogy of films (which are based on a series of novels) from director Timur Bekmambetov. Night Watch, the first film, was released in 2004; Day Watch, the second, is opening in the U.S. in June. The trilogy is based around a "truce" between the forces of light and the forces of dark, where both sides keep watch over one another to make sure no one breaks any rules. Living with humans are supernatural beings belonging to the two sides, named Others. This is where you come in Day Watch as Anna, an Other who is living in Moscow some years after the events of Night Watch went down.

As an Other, you're imbued with some magical abilities. First, you have the power to shift from reality to an alternate reality called Twilight. While I'm sure it's necessary in terms of the magical/supernatural world that the game/movies take place in, it's pretty unnecessary in-game. To me, including Twilight in the game was just another excuse to add another unneeded element to combat. In the end, while it does add some strategy to how you choose your skills to use, it's rather unnecessary to be able to fight in reality and in Twilight because most of your enemies will fight only in Twilight anyway.

Luckily, you also get some magical powers, and they're pretty interesting and entertaining to watch. Starting out, you only get a few weak magic spells but as you level up you gain better ones, and your already existing powers increase in potency. One weak magic spell is called Magic Press -- it sucks away an enemy's health after each round. As you gain levels, it'll suck away more health after each round and is harder to resist.

Other magic skills include Triple Blade, a ranged attack where you throw three blades; Remorse, basically a thorns attack; and Freezing, which freezes enemies in their tracks. Certain magical powers can only be used in Twilight or in reality, like I stated before, so make sure to choose which ones to use wisely. For example, Gremlin is only usable in Twilight and as the name implies, it summons a Gremlin. As you level up, you can control the Gremlin even longer.
Day Watch is part RPG and part turn-based strategy. You got your NPC interaction, inventory organization, experience gaining, and quests that make up the RPG part while the combat system makes up the turn-based part. You have a set number of action points to use every round of combat so be sure to plan them out. Thankfully, the game labels any/all actions with the appropriate number of action points so you won't be fooled that you just spent all your points by running up to an enemy to just have him shoot you in the face. However, the point system is rather unforgiving. Just simply turning costs action points, which is pretty stupid.
You'll be picking up a lot of items during your journeys and at first glance it'll seem to be just random stuff -- apples, dolls, cards, etc. But all of these items are essential to fuel your magical powers. Apples and chocolate bars fuel your healing and magic restoration powers, for example. For whatever reason, you can't eat apples to regain health; you have to cast a spell on them in order to regain health, which seems impractical since you have to use energy to eat something that'll refuel your energy.

While the gameplay itself is rather stale and nothing new, the game's weakest point is by far is the translation. Since this game was developed by a Russian team, the translations to English definitely hit bumps on the road; no, not even bumps: complete and utter disastrous car wrecks on the road. While I'm used to seeing a spelling or grammar error every so often in an international game, the errors in Day Watch are completely horrendous. These aren't even minute errors, these are obvious and glaring errors -- poor grammar usage, clear spelling errors, and not even a hint of a proofread or simple spellcheck run. All of the in-game dialog is spoken in Russian, so I hope you're ready for some heavy-duty reading of subpar subtitles. I don't have any problems reading text (classic 1990 RPGs conditioned my brain) but since most of it is riddled with errors, this opens up some major borefests and confusing moments.
Want some examples? Try approaching a salesman and he'll say, "What would you like to take," which isn't too bad -- it's some of the better translating. When Anna encounters a group of Night Watch (light guys that patrol the night), she exclaims, "It is the Night Watch underpaid work performed collectively!" I don't know about you, but I have no idea what that means. Randomly placed adjectives in sentences, poorly structured statements, and just bizarre quotations made me not only laugh like this is some hilariously bad B-movie, but also sigh in frustration and anger.

Other problems in the game include extremely awkward AI animations (especially in conversations), clipping (due to limitations of the engine), and just obvious graphical glitches. When talking to NPCs, you'll be treated to random hand movements, awkward pauses and faces devoid of any emotion. It's things like this that make any game -- especially a RPG that relies on interaction with NPCs -- unpleasant to play through. In addition to NPC conversations, if you happen to talk with someone but end up standing too close, your hand movements, head pivots, or arm swinging will just clip through the NPC. There was one scene where Anna's car crashed into another car. Upon collision, the car magically transformed into an entirely different car -- make and model and color, which just seemed so weird, and it doesn't look like a magic spell altered the car at all, if that was the explanation.

Day Watch has an interesting concept and some neat spells, but its buried underneath miles of poorly translated text, poor AI (stupid pathfinding problems -- ugh!), lanky animations, obvious graphical glitches, and a poorly implemented RPG system. The two films were hugely successful in their native country and earned some dough and cult followers over in the U.S (such as our EiC Brendon), so instead of shelling out $30 for this game, watch the movies or read the books instead. They're cheaper, and certainly more enjoyable.

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Crashday

Publisher: ValuSoft
Developer: Replay Studios
Genre: Racing
Release Date: Dec 20, 2006
ESRB Descriptors: Alcohol Reference, Violence, Lyrics

Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network
Customization: Editing Tools
Online Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1-4

If you were to smoosh together the FlatOut series of demolition racing games and Nadeo's TrackMania stunt-racing franchise, then systematically vacuum out all of the most appealing aspects of both titles, you'd have the basic equivalent of Crashday. It's not that the game is terrible, but so little of it feels genuine or original; it's more of a cheap, hacked-together clone of the aforementioned titles. And what's more, it isn't even a particularly good clone. The game's race modes lack coherency--let alone excitement--and the stunt and combat modes fall flat.

There's supposed to be a premise to Crashday, but it's anyone's guess as to what it is exactly. Booting up the game's career mode simply drops you right into the middle of a backstory that features up-and-coming racers in some cockamamie imaginary racing league. But the text doesn't explain much, and the guy doing the voice acting is practically indecipherable. Imagine, if you will, a game developer tracking down the man with the thickest British accent in the world, plopping him down in front of a series of bad New York mafia movies, handing him a script, and demanding he talk exactly like the gangsters portrayed onscreen. That's how awful the voice acting is in Crashday.

Once you realize the premise is best ignored and actually jump into the game, you'll find gameplay that's just as clumsy as the voice acting. Racing in Crashday is exceedingly frustrating. Cars are a floaty, slippery mess, sliding out and crashing into random objects on a regular basis. This is an arcade racer, so no one's asking for a devout dedication to realism. But arcade or not, these cars are not fun to drive, nor do they handle well. Of course, the trick is that you have to drive especially fast because the other racers have a preternatural ability to use their speed boosts at all the right moments and will always blaze past you if you screw up. So what you end up having to do is memorize every nook and cranny of each race track just so you can figure out where to use your boost and where not to use it. Another weird thing is that the game's sense of speed isn't all that good. You definitely get the sense that your car is about to go flying out of control at any second, but the visceral thrill of high-speed racing is basically absent.

Only the stunt and combat races are slightly better than the sense of speed. Stunt modes include tracks filled with ramps, jumps, and loops, but there's a highly limited scope to the stunt track designs. The game lacks the sort of "look at how completely insane these tracks are" vibe that such games as TrackMania have all but perfected. They're not kooky or bizarre; they're just a bunch of ramps and loops. And they're not even laid out well. The bonus is that the game does include a track editor, but even its scope is limited, allowing for a few bizarre twists but not much more.

The combat modes come in a couple of forms. There are straight-up demolition races where the goal is to just slam into opponent cars over and over again until everyone has exploded but you. Then there are weapon-based modes that give you a Gatling gun and a missile launcher so you can go nuts. These are, by far, the most entertaining modes in the game because, in stark contrast to the driving physics, the game's crash physics aren't half bad. Cars break apart pretty nicely, and the weapons aren't hard to aim or use, which makes wanton destruction a fairly painless process. The main issue here is the limited array of tracks and weapons. It would be nice if there were more variety to the destruction at hand. But sadly there isn't, and after a few plays against the computer, the action does get a bit tiresome.

Multiplayer would theoretically remedy that issue, but even the multiplayer isn't without problems. The primary problem is that there's nobody online to play against. Sure, the servers list lots of games being played, but they're all being played across the pond by players in Europe. And the European version of the game isn't compatible with the US version for some reason. So you won't be able to play against any of them until Moonbyte patches one version or the other. We spent a considerable amount of time trying to find a US-based opponent but only found one playable online match during that entire span. To make matters worse, lag practically wrecked the experience. Trying to play a crash race while cars skip and jump all over the track is just about the most obnoxious thing you'll ever experience.

Apart from the awful voice acting, the remainder of Crashday's production value is bit more laudable. As mentioned previously, the crash effects are done quite nicely, and the cars deform and explode about as well as you would hope. The car models aren't exactly impressive, but considering you're just thrashing them over and over again, they don't need to look pristine. The tracks are easily the weakest point of the visuals. The background environments are extremely generic, dressed up with bland-looking towns and set pieces, as well as unattractive textures. They're not hideous, but they're definitely not pleasing to the eye.

Of course, someone could try to justify the plain-Jane gameplay and total lack of originality found in Crashday by simply mentioning that it's only a $20 game. Do you want to know how much a new copy of FlatOut 2 costs on the PC? Yes, that's right, $20. And a copy of TrackMania: Sunrise? It's the same price. Do yourself a favor and go right to the sources of Crashday's inspiration rather than pay for a bargain-basement, bush-league version of the same basic gameplay concepts.

By Alex Navarro, GameSpot

Minimum System Requirements
System: Pentium IV 1 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1500 MB

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Monster Madness Battle for Suburbia

Publisher: SouthPeak Interactive
Developer: Artificial Studios
Genre: Shoot-'Em-Up
Release Date: Jun 12, 2007 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Mild Language, Tobacco Reference, Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes
Connectivity: Online
Number of Players: 1 Player
Number of Online Players: 16 Online

Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia really wishes it was born in the '80s. It's got its heart in the right place, aiming to capture the kitschy vibe of such zombie-murdering classics as Zombies Ate My Neighbors and creating a gameplay design that feels like a 3D mash-up of Gauntlet or Ikari Warriors. When you throw in four-player co-op play, a bunch of goofy competitive multiplayer modes, a lengthy campaign, and a ridiculous number of monsters to kill, the recipe for some good old-fashioned fun would seem to be in place. But Monster Madness botches the execution. This includes a counterintuitive control scheme, oddly balanced difficulty, obnoxiously repetitive combat, and a nearly useless camera in co-op mode. Eventually such problems become too numerous and too annoying to tolerate, turning what could have been a simple monster-killing romp into a scattered, clumsy mess.

Monster Madness revolves around a quartet of teenage stereotypes (the geek, the bro, the goth chick, the cheerleader) who find themselves in the midst of an invasion from a greatest-hits collection of the monster world. For some reason, ghouls, ghosts, goblins, skeletons, mummies, werewolves, gremlins, vampires, martians, UFOs, harpies, banshees, leprechauns, jack-o-lanterns, chupacabras, evil trees, demons, medusas, imps, evil clowns, spiders, gargoyles, swamp monsters, the grim reaper, zombies, zombie dogs, zombie pirates, zombie samurais, zombie Indians, zombie grannies, zombie tanks, and exploding zombies, among others, are attacking suburbia. And the four hapless kids are the only ones around to do anything about it. Armed with melee weapons, such as axes or plungers, they dive headfirst into this monster-killing adventure, cracking bad jokes and pining for one another all along the way.

The story is more of an excuse to get you killing monsters than anything else, though it's also an excuse to insert as much awful comedy as possible into the proceedings. Occasionally, the game elicits a chuckle or snicker, but for the most part, the script isn't all that funny. Part of this has to do with the jokes, which often rely too heavily on slightly obscure and rather lame pop- and nerd-culture references. The other part has to do with the voice acting, which is largely flat and unremarkable. Even in the rare instances where enthusiasm is mustered for a line or two, none of the actors seem to have much in the way of comic timing. The game often has characters repeating the same tired lines again and again, as well.

Monster Madness comes encumbered with a gameplay design that is best described as cluttered. You begin the game with just a simple melee weapon, but over time, you can buy and build a whole mess of new weapons with the help of a friendly mechanic named Larry Tools, who pops up in various level areas. Your weapons include everything from nail guns, shot guns, and tazers to rocket launchers, CD launchers, and laser cannons. As nice as the weapon variety is, you actually need very few of the weapons, save for very specific situations. You'll often find that it's more useful to upgrade a few key weapons as opposed to buying everything that comes your way, especially because you'll often need to switch between certain weapons quickly. If you've got a bunch of useless junk cluttering up your inventory, it makes the scrolling process much more difficult. Fortunately, you can hotkey a few weapons if necessary.

Combat might have been enjoyable if the controls were not so wonky. The control scheme on the PC is manageable only because you can configure it as needed. On the Xbox 360, you have no such luck. Attack buttons are mapped to the triggers, weapon scrolling is mapped to the bumpers, and to jump--of all things--you have to click in the right stick. Considering how much time you spend with your thumb on the right stick, that might sound like a good idea, but the stick button often seems unresponsive. That becomes a spectacular frustration during the few bouts of platforming the game tosses at you, which is made even more insane by the fact that the A and B buttons are just redundant weapon scrolling options. Melee attacks are easy enough because all you have to do is hammer on the attack button while enemies happen to be near you, but if you're still using melee attacks past the third or fourth stage, you're doing something wrong. Weapons combat is OK, except that aiming tends to be a bit of a chore. There's no target-locking feature, and moving the aiming reticle seems a bit slow (and there's no mouse sensitivity adjuster in the PC version). It's not that big of a deal when you're just blasting away at big groupings of larger baddies, but any time you've got quick, nimble enemies in front of you, hitting them is a severe pain.

Scratch that; the whole game is just a severe pain, especially if you're one of the unlucky folk who happens to play the game all by your lonesome. This is one of those games that thinks being really hard equates to being really fun. On the default difficulty level, the game becomes frustrating only a few stages in because the number of enemies you're fending off happens to be massive and because the game's checkpoint system is abysmal. You'll have to do multiple sequences all in one line without getting killed, or you'll have to do them all over again. These are five-to-10-minute chunks of the game too, and you'll be doing them several times each because of one crazy onslaught of enemies or another. Boss fights are even more infuriating. If you set the game to the easiest difficulty, it's more playable. It might be a little too easy, but you can get through it without wanting to take a sledgehammer to the game.

What makes that aspect even more frustrating is that the game encourages you to explore the levels as much as possible to find hidden parts for weapons. Larry uses these parts to build your upgraded weapons, and there are tons of them scattered throughout the game. That's all well and good in theory, but if you're being forced to replay big chunks of each level again and again because of the stupid checkpoint system, why would you want to waste your time going back to explore the same areas again only to lose all the items you just picked up? After a while, you'll stop picking up any items you can't just grab easily along your normal path.

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Xpand Rally Xtreme

Publisher: Techland
Developer: Techland
Genre: Rally / Offroad Racing
Release Date: TBA (EU)

Xpand Rally Xtreme is a totally "xtreme" variation of the Xpand Rally racer. Apart from rally cars, gamers will find super-fast GT vehicles, DTR buggies, off-road 4x4 vehicles and Monster Trucks. The game features approximately 40 tracks in typical SS contests, off-road cross-country rides, and racing track races against challenging opponents. Like the original Xpand Rally, the game contains career mode, single races and multiplayer.

I am starting to believe that developers are intentionally avoiding the rally racing genre even though it is unpopulated and ignored in favor of track racing games. After all, fans have the long running Colin McRae (CMR) series for their arcade racing desires and the one and only simulation Richard Burns Rally (RBR), each with a large and dedicated following. That is why Techland are being really brave, as with XRX they are trying to challenge both at the same time, and while it is certainly not the ultimate rally racing package it has enough to compete with the current favorites.

What initially attracted me the most were the two racing modes, arcade and simulation, or more specifically how they played. Overall, I found the arcade mode a bit more demanding than CMR, and the sim mode a bit more forgiving than RBR. Xpand is literally the game which addressed the biggest issues I had with those games, which I thoroughly enjoyed in every aspect minus the physics. Not being particularly fond of hardcore simulations, I mostly struggled with RBR, yet I wasn’t that uncaring to ignore the unnatural and weird way cars behaved in CMR. Best of all is that both modes offer a challenge and in a way represent two difficulty modes, each requiring a certain amount of skill and concentration.

I believe this works so well largely thanks to the track design. In most simulations, for the better part of the race you are fighting with the vehicle, trying to keep in under control around the bends. In Xpand, you are fighting the road and your vehicle in equal well-balanced parts and, unless you are traveling on asphalt, the ground is never flat or leveled. A bump here, a rock there, trees or houses around you, water on the sides or a cement wall, grass and plants obscuring your vision, alternating road surfaces having real impact on handling, and everything becomes deadlier when you add speed, rain, or night conditions. The good thing is that few of these obstacles completely stop you, so damage and losing speed or direction are the usual penalties.

All of this, of course, remains challenging even on arcade mode where the vehicle is quick and maneuverable and it’s easy to get carried away and trick oneself into being careless. Both game modes require constant input from players, especially when tracks consist of turns after turns which need to be negotiated with care. Mistakes are allowed, however, and thankfully this isn’t one of those cases where you need days of practice and outstanding skill; if you drive well you’ll be rewarded and do well – you don’t have to be meticulous to advance in the championship.

Min. Requirements:
• Win 2000/XP
• P4/AMD Athlon 1,8GHz
• 256MB RAM
• DX 9.0 compatible (Geforce 5700 or ATI Radeon 9600) video card
• DX 8.0 compatible sound card
• DirectX 9.0c

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TomClancy's RainbowSix : Lockdown

Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Red Storm Ent.
Genre: Modern Tactical Shooter
Release Date: Feb 16, 2006
ESRB: MATURE
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Violence, Language
Number of Players: 1-16

The newest game in the Rainbow Six shooter series, Lockdown, has finally arrived on the PC. What you won't find in this version of the game are elements of a straight console port. The game's environments are as large and detailed as you'd expect from a PC shooter, while extraneous elements from the console versions, like the hokey cutscenes and hidden briefcases scattered around the levels, have been toned down or removed entirely. Most importantly, the game feels like a PC shooter, with all the precision in aiming and movement that mouse and keyboard control can afford. While the developers have done a great job in ensuring Lockdown for the PC didn't end up just being a sloppy port, it bears mentioning that the game has definite arcade underpinnings. Lockdown is still a lot of fun, though.

As in all the other Rainbow Six games, you play the squad leader of an elite counterterrorist force called Rainbow. You'll start each of the game's 16 single-player missions at a nicely presented briefing screen where you get the lowdown on the situation, some maps of your objectives, and an equipment setup screen for your four-man team. Lockdown includes a great variety of assault rifles, submachine guns, combat shotguns, and pistols to choose from, many of which are based on real-life guns such as Kalashnikovs, MP-5s, and Desert Eagles. You'll also be able to outfit each operative with frag or flash grenades and entry tools like hammers and breaching charges. The best part is that each gun can be outfitted with one accessory, ranging from red-dot sights and scopes to silencers and high-capacity magazines. There's a noticeable difference in feel and utility between the various weapons, so choosing the right tools for the job is not just a cosmetic feature in Lockdown. What's missing from the mission-prep screen is the tactical planning portion that used to be such a staple of Rainbow Six games on the PC. However, with the ability to direct your team to do room-entry maneuvers in-game, there's less need for a planning phase.

The missions in Lockdown for PC are based on the same missions in the console versions of the game for the most part, but the mission order has been jumbled around a bit. You'll see a variety of different environments, including desert towns in the Middle East, the Parisian catacombs, the Scottish Parliament building, and a French ferry ship. You'll also ply through lots of underground terrorist bases. (Anarchists hate sunlight, apparently.) All of these areas are similar in layout to the ones on console, but in many cases, the levels are much more expansive and intricately detailed, with sharp-looking environment textures. But you won't participate in any shooting-gallery sniper sequences, which played a big role in the console versions. In many of the terrorist base levels you'll find lots of interconnected rooms to clear out and more than one pathway to get from one side to the other. There are also a lot of knickknacks and debris that can get knocked over by gunfire. In one level featuring a shootout in a police station, we were actually able to shoot boxes and other obstacles off a desk in order to get a clearer shot at the terrorist hiding behind it.

Some levels require hostage rescue and escort or bomb defusing, but in every case you're going to be taking out terrorists, and lots of them. Even on the normal difficultly level you'll be taking out upwards of 100 or more terrorists on a single mission. Most weapons you carry come with just under 500 rounds of ammunition. Do the math, and realize that if you're not relying much on your teammates to do the shooting, you better be thrifty with the number of rounds you're expending. You could easily find yourself down to your pistol at the end of a long mission. You and your teammates can survive several glancing shots before dying, but it's very possible in Lockdown to go down in a single hail of gunfire if you get careless.

The threat of immediate death adds to the tactical nature of the game and encourages you to go at a slower, more measured pace. Aside from your quicksave and quickload keys, you'll rely a lot on your motion tracker in Lockdown, which lets you see behind walls. You can also use your tactical commands to have your teammates peek around corners or stack up on doors for dynamic entry. Your teammates can open doors in a variety of ways, ranging from simply opening an unlocked door to placing an explosive and blowing it open, or using a shotgun to blow off the hinges. They will then toss in a frag or flash grenade before going in to clear the room. In most cases this works well, but from time to time you'll see your squadmates screw up a dynamic entry. We've seen team members muff a grenade throw and blow up the whole squad. We've also seen teammates take more damage than they should when entering a hostile room. Flashbangs and violent entry don't seem to have the stun duration and stun radius that you'd expect either, so you can't rely on these measures entirely. The enemy artificial intelligence in the game is pretty decent, seeking cover when possible and peeking from around corners. They'll pop smoke grenades to obscure their positions, or even throw frag grenades. They're not always very perceptive at detecting you if you peer around a corner, though, so it's possible to get quite a few cheap headshots on unsuspecting bad guys.

Minimum System Requirements
System: Pentium 4 1.5GHz or equivalent
RAM: 512 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 7000 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: Pentium 4 2.0GHz or equivalent
RAM: 1024 MB
Video Memory: 128 MB
Hard Drive Space: 7000 MB

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BattleField 1942

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Digital Illusions
Genre: Historic First-Person Shooter
Release Date: Sep 10, 2002
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Violence

Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network
Number of Players: 1-16
Number of Online Players: 64 Online

It started as a buzz and grew to a roar. When Digital Illusions' Battlefield 1942 was first announced, it looked pretty much like just another in a seemingly endless supply of World War II-based games. But thanks to leaked and official demos, Battlefield 1942 soon became one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. That's hardly surprising, given its ambitious design. Here's a game where dozens of players can fight online together on expansive World War II-inspired battlefields while controlling planes, tanks, and even aircraft carriers with ease. Other than some frustrating technical problems and bugs that should have been fixed before the game shipped, Battlefield 1942 is one of those games that actually lives up to most of the hype surrounding it.

Battlefield 1942 can be a lot of fun things to a lot of people, but first it's important to tell you what it's not: The game definitely isn't a realistic WWII combat simulator. This is a pick-up-and-play action extravaganza, a comic book version of WWII. The fact that any player can casually hop into a tank, drive around, hop out and pick off an enemy soldier with a sniper rifle, hop into a plane, parachute out, and then call in artillery fire (within the span of a few minutes) should tell you a lot about the game--and a lot about what makes it so much fun.

In Battlefield 1942, you can fight offline with decent but unspectacular computer-controlled bots. Online, you can play in four different game modes against up to 64 players at a time. Realistically, you'll usually find servers capable of handling only 32 players, at most. Even with that reduced number, and even if you have the game's first patch installed, have a cable Internet connection, and get a ping in the 50s or 60s, there's a good chance you'll experience some lag or choppiness. Trying to shoot bazookas at tanks, which will suddenly appear elsewhere because of lag, isn't exactly enjoyable.

But when you manage to make a good connection to a powerful server, Battlefield 1942 has lots to offer. For instance, the game's popular conquest mode, where each team tries to capture and hold various control points on the map, can be great fun. The control points are set at strategic locations, like ruined villages or outposts with bunkers or heavy machine-gun positions, making them a challenge to occupy.

Bodies will quickly start filling the fields and streets, which leads to one of Battlefield 1942's more interesting features. Each team is allotted a certain number of tickets at the beginning of the match. You can respawn within a few seconds of dying (the exact time varies) to reinforce your team, but for every death, your team loses tickets. When the enemy holds a certain number of control points at once, your team will also start losing tickets. When your team runs out of tickets, you lose the battle. This system is a welcome compromise between some of the other death-and-respawn systems found in other shooters. In Battlefield 1942, you don't have to sit out around and twiddle your thumbs when you're "dead," yet you're still usually penalized by a brief wait, and because of the ticket system, every death ultimately affects the outcome of the battle.

Every time you enter the battlefield, you get to pick your respawn location. At the minimum, you'll usually get a main base that always remains under your team's control, but you can also respawn at control points that currently belong to your team. Each time you respawn, you also get to choose from five character classes, each with a number of distinctive weapons and abilities. The scout gets a sniper rifle and can help direct long-range fire from the big guns with his binoculars. The assault class gets a powerful light machine gun or assault rifle. The antitank class gets a Panzerschreck or a bazooka. The medic wields a submachine gun and can heal himself and his comrades. The engineer can lay mines and explosives and repair vehicles and stationary weapons.

Overall, these classes complement each other well and provide just enough diversity without bogging you down with too many choices. And while the engineer and antitank classes sometimes tend to be unduly favored because of their relation to the vehicles, don't underestimate the power of a few good assault and medic troops working together, particularly in dense terrain where tanks are at a disadvantage.

But one thing you'll quickly notice is that Battlefield 1942's small arms seem pretty inaccurate, lag or not, which can be frustrating. The fact that some maps offer little cover other than some slight slopes can take even more of the fun out of fighting on foot. Overall, infantry combat in the game is rather weak compared to many online shooters. Hopefully a future patch will tweak the weapons to put more life into them.

Minimum System Requirements
System: PIII 500 or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1200 MB

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Premier Manager 08 (Rip)

Publisher: Zoo Digital Publishing
Developer: Zoo Digital Pub
Genre: Soccer Management
Release Date: Aug 17, 2007 (EU)

Forget Madden and all its heavily armoured, deathly dull memory games. If you want real sports management, you want to manage a lowly team of journeymen to the top of the English Premier League - if you don't then you're in the wrong place - and you can pick up your helmet, padding and EPO down the hall.With the beautiful game firmly in my mind and soul, I took a trip across to Sheffield to sit down with Zoo Digital Publishing and take a look at Premier Manager 08.For those not familiar with the Premier Manager series, it's the charming, smiley brother in the family of the most quintessentially English of all games genres: football management. If Championship Manager and Football Manager are impenetrable pre-Lord of the Rings Tolkein, then Premier Manager is Harry Potter. Fun, accessible and kid-friendly.

Jon SeymourInstead of a complex interface that hurts your eyes as you try to understand it, Premier Manager has a user-friendly hub that's never more than two clicks away. Instead of reams of figures hitting you on a daily basis, you'll find the progressor, an accessible daily update with your staff on hand to give you updates. Instead of dense text giving you information on your players skills, you'll find a new RPG-style graphical interface.In short, Premier Manager is set up as the friendly Saturday afternoon kick about to other footy management games' brutal Sunday league.I could go on, but instead I'm going to turn you over to Jon Seymour, the Producer of PM, and Andy Gray, Zoo's PR and marketing manager, to talk us through what this season has to offer.

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Hacker Evolution

Publisher: exoSyphen Studios
Developer: exoSyphen Studios
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: May 07, 2007 (EU)
Number of Players: 1 Player

We recently got the opportunity on a full copy of Hacker Evolution (from Giveaway of the Day [which I will talk about more later]), a new game about hacking for the PC.
The game has a lot of themes that remind me of the Matrix/that movie that had that computer named HAL. You play as Brian Spencer who is a former Intelligence Agent (AI backwards, pretty tricky) for the US. Set in the future, a new kind of internet connection has been made that allows files to be set at the speed of light. So that it messes with the Time-Space continuum and allows files to be sent before they are even requested. The game describes it as a Time warp digitally. When it was made, there was an AI put in place to make sure the internet technology never screwed up. And guess what? It screwed up.
It all starts when the NYC Stock Exchange got hacked (or at least that’s what the government thinks) and you have to figure out who did it. The game features a very very very helpful tutorial and is pretty realistic (with the exception of the crack and decrypt commands, it’s never that easy).

After going about the game, I find that it’s music is really helpful to keep the game fun (else you might go insane trying to hack the idiot who logged in to the exchange’s site right before the attack). Remember the game is extremely hard. Sometimes you have to guess (other times you have to cheat, which gets annoying). Money is also a problem in the game. Beware of high trace percentiles.

Hacker Evolution is a unique twist on the puzzle genre, as the puzzle this time around is figuring out the correct way to hack into a series of computers and servers to complete each mission. The story goes that by 2010, a new way to send information has been discovered that moves at the speed of light. Unfortunately, it starts to become sentient, and instead of destroying humanity as such a program might in science-fiction movies, it begins to cause chaos in an attempt to evolve and survive. Playing as a hacker, it's up to you to help set things right and restore order to the world's information superhighways.

For those who haven't played around in DOS before, there's a tutorial to help you get started in the game, but even with that tutorial, it's not an easy time. I did get stuck on one occasion and had to start over. The game looks good, though there isn't a whole lot to look at, and the controls are mostly keyboard-based, but if you get lost, they're just a help command away. All in all, Hacker Evolution is frustrating at first, but in the end, turns out to be a pretty decent game.

System requirements
Windows ME/XP/2000/2003 or Vista
Microsoft DirectX 8.0
Pentium® 1 GHz processor or faster,
512Mb RAM,
200Mb free disk space
16Mb DirectX 8.0
compatible videocard Microsoft compatible keyboard and mouse

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Dragon Throne : The Battle of the Red Cliffs

Publisher: Strategy First
Developer: Object
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Mar 26, 2002
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Violence
Number of Players: 1-8


Object Software's Dragon Throne: Battle of Red Cliffs is the sequel to Fate of the Dragon. Both are real-time strategy games that take place during the legendary Three Kingdoms era in ancient China. Like Fate of the Dragon before it, Dragon Throne is a strategy game that uses somewhat simple 2D graphics and has full speech in Chinese. And like Fate of the Dragon, Dragon Throne is a decent enough game, but there are better real-time strategy games that you can spend your time and money on.

As you might have already guessed, Dragon Throne also sounds pretty much the same as Fate of the Dragon. The original Fate of the Dragon had two language options for audio speech: English and Chinese. Dragon Throne has only Chinese speech, though you can choose English subtitles. The game's voice acting is quite good, but unless you're fluent in Chinese (or attempting to learn the language), you'll probably end up ignoring it entirely. As with Fate of the Dragon, Dragon Throne's synth-instrumental soundtracks combine traditional Chinese folk music with more upbeat rhythms. The music is well suited to the game, though it isn't particularly memorable.

Does Dragon Throne also play the same as Fate of the Dragon? Yes, it does. In both games, as with most other real-time strategy games, you must recruit peasants to build a base of operations, then create an army to crush your enemies. And Dragon Throne more or less has the same base building and combat as the previous game. You recruit peasants to build houses to increase your population limit, farms to grow food, barracks to create soldiers, and mechanical workshops to build siege engines--it's all quite similar to other real-time strategy games you may have played. As in Fate of the Dragon, your infantry comes from training peasants at a barracks. The one interesting new feature that the sequel has is that soldiers can revert back to peasants in times of peace. In other words, instead of having soldiers standing about idly in times of peace, you can assign them peasant work. This occasionally comes in handy during longer campaigns, in which your armies have to travel long distances to fight and will gradually run low on strength (provided by food and wine, which your peasants can produce or carry in slow-moving supply wagons). So, the new feature simply allows you to build a new base of operations so you don't have to walk all the way back home to replenish your strength.

Minimum System Requirements
System: PII 266 or equivalent
RAM: 64 MB
Video Memory: 8 MB
Hard Drive Space: 240 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: PIII 800 or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 300 MB

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Starwars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Publisher: LucasArts
Developer: Raven Software
Genre: Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter
Release Date: Sep 17, 2003 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Violence

Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network
Online Modes: Competitive, Team Oriented
Number of Players: 1-16

There are dozens of Star Wars games on the market, but none captures the excitement of lightsaber combat as well as the Jedi Knight games. Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is the third game in the series, or, technically, the fourth if you count 1995's Dark Forces, which didn't bear the Jedi Knight name (and didn't let you use lightsabers or Force powers, either). It is not a revolutionary product--as it uses the same Quake III engine and gameplay elements as last year's well-received Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. It manages to take all the fun parts from its predecessor and greatly expands them to create an engaging, new action game in its own right.

You play as Jaden, the new protagonist in Jedi Academy. You previously played as Kyle Katarn, a strong yet reluctant Jedi, in the previous Jedi Knight games. Kyle has since joined Luke Skywalker as a teacher at the Jedi Academy and is looking for new students. You can actually customize Jaden's character. You can be male or female, choose from one of several different races, and wear different outfits. In any event, you also happen to be the most promising student in the new class. Apparently, you've even built your own lightsaber, which is highly abnormal as lightsabers are usually built during training.

If Jaden is considered an unusual student, then your training is anything but common. Jaden's transport ship is attacked when it arrives at the Academy. Then it crashes into the ground. You and another student, Rosh, are the only survivors. He becomes your friend, yet he seems to become jealous of your abilities and his own slow progression. You don't have time to worry about Rosh, though. The storyline revolves around solving several questions related to your attack at the start of the game. Why did a female twi'lek steal information from Luke's chambers when the students were away rescuing the downed ship? What role does the Imperial remnant fill in this attack, and is it related to the mysterious Cult of Ragnos that is appearing in the galaxy? After a short training mission, you immediately set out to help Luke and Kyle obtain answers to these questions. The game's story doesn't get in the way of the action but serves to tie the numerous missions together.

Jaden travels all over the galaxy in the game. The missions are surprisingly varied, and that is one of the most pleasant aspects of the game. One mission has you fighting stormtroopers on a refinery, while another mission has you stranded on a desert planet until you can find pieces to repair your ship. Like its predecessor, Jedi Academy takes you to familiar locations, such as Tatooine and Coruscant. Some missions can last over an hour while others take five minutes, so you never quite know what to expect. Jedi Academy has an overall linear path, but you can mix this up to a certain degree. You start out with a set of five missions to choose from. Once you complete four missions, you can either return to the academy to gain new skills and advance the story, or you can play the fifth mission. There isn't a reward for doing so, but you may find yourself doing so just because the missions are diverse and entertaining. After returning to the academy and completing a plot-critical mission, you are offered a new set of five missions. This repeats three times until you complete the game, adding up to about 15 to 20 hours' worth of solid single-player action, depending on what missions you choose and what skills you utilize.

Jedi Academy does an excellent job of balancing its missions. Your first set of missions puts you on reconnaissance or rescue missions where you'll face mercenaries, poorly equipped stormtroopers, and the occasional dark Jedi. This is by no means boring. Let's face it: It's very satisfying to completely dominate your enemies, hacking through them with your lightsaber as they desperately try to shoot you down. By the last set of missions, you'll constantly be fighting dark Jedi and stormtroopers in power armor. The game justifies this by explaining that new students take easier missions and then progress to more challenging ones as their training continues. You also drive a variety of vehicles throughout your journey. You get to take speeders out for spins, and you get to control an AT-ST while attempting to ravage Imperial remnant bases from within. While not a crucial part of the game, vehicles are a welcome addition to the normal gameplay.

Perhaps the best improvement in Jedi Academy over Jedi Knight II is that it grants you your lightsaber and Force powers at the very start of the game. You spent the first portion of Jedi Outcast without your abilities, and it made those sections rather tedious by contrast. The weapons were interesting enough, but people play these games for the Jedi combat. So this time around, the developer's decision to focus the gameplay on these Jedi abilities is a major boost for the game. That's not to say that conventional weapons are useless. While it's possible to finish the game without ever putting down your lightsaber, sometimes rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and grenades help dispatch some pesky foes.

Jedi Academy also changes how you progress your Force abilities. You start out with eight core Force abilities: pull, push, speed, sense, jump, saber offense, saber defense, and saber throw. Your abilities are limited at first, but you automatically become more advanced in these areas every time you return to the academy. There are eight advanced Force powers to choose from: four on the light side of the Force and four on the dark side. The light side abilities are absorb, protection, heal, and Jedi mind trick. The dark side powers are comprised of life steal, lightning, grab, and Force rage. You receive a point when you complete a mission, and you can distribute it in any of these eight powers at the start of the next mission. Each power has three levels of improvement. For example, one point in Force heal allows you to heal while standing still. A second point lets you heal while moving around, and a third point improves the healing ability altogether. The point system works well to represent the fact that you are slowly learning from your master, Kyle. There aren't enough points in the game to become a master in all categories, so you can either specialize or choose a little bit of everything.

Minimum System Requirements
System: 450 MHz CPU or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB

Recommended System Requirements
System: 600 Mhz CPU or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB

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Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour

Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Dreamworks Games
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Sep 22, 2003
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Violence


It's only been eight months since the release of Command & Conquer: Generals, the latest installment in this extremely popular real-time strategy series. Though Generals was the first C&C that did not bear the name of Westwood Studios (the series' original developer), it was still every bit as action-packed and fast-paced as the series has ever been. It represented a great combination of the over-the-top pyrotechnics the series is known for, along with some of the gameplay elements perfected by Blizzard's competing RTS franchises. However, the game clearly left some room for additional content, so, while it's no surprise that Generals went on to get its own expansion pack--as pretty much every Command & Conquer game gets at least one--the newly released Zero Hour was put together surprisingly quickly. You wouldn't know it just from playing this fully featured expansion pack, since it makes plenty of meaningful and interesting changes to the original game. Additionally, it packs in a lot of great tweaks and improvements to those aspects of Generals that could have used more polish. The result is a great expansion that's a must for anyone who enjoyed Generals. It fundamentally improves the core game, it and should ensure that C&C Generals continues to be popular well into the next year.


Zero Hour does what any good real-time strategy expansion pack should do: it adds appreciable amounts of content and depth to the original product. It introduces various new units, technologies, and "generals powers" to each of the three factions from Generals--the high-tech USA military, the powerful forces of China, and the terrorist conglomerate called the GLA. It also introduces a completely new single-player mode: the generals challenge. Zero Hour also features follow-up campaigns for each of the factions, consisting of five good-sized missions apiece. The core game, too, has undergone a number of little tweaks and enhancements that make it play a bit better overall. These tweaks and enhancements address issues that players may have encountered in the original, either through its interface or its multiplayer. However, perhaps the most interesting addition to Zero Hour is the inclusion of nine new subfactions.

These subfactions are referred to by their respective commanders, lending Zero Hour a refreshing bit of personality that was curiously absent from Generals. These commanders include the likes of General Malcolm "Ace" Granger, a specialist with the USA's air force; General "Anvil" Shin Fai, a Chinese infantry leader; and Prince Hassad, a GLA master of camouflage. Just as it could be said that C&C Generals was influenced by some of Blizzard Entertainment's real-time strategy games, so too can it be said that Zero Hour is influenced by the real-time strategy games of Ensemble Studios, like last year's Age of Mythology or Age of Empires II. That's because Zero Hour's subfactions, while not completely different from the core factions they're based on, do play quite differently from one another, do have a few unique units and technologies, and do give the game considerably more variety than what the three core factions offer alone. So, as with the different civilizations in Age of Empires II, the new subfactions in Zero Hour differ enough from one other to offer a distinctive playing experience. Furthermore, since these subfactions are inspired by popular playing styles, chances are, at least a couple of these are going to naturally appeal to you.


Essentially, Zero Hour contains a total of 12 different playable factions, up from just three. In skirmish and multiplayer modes, you may choose to play as either the "vanilla" factions from C&C Generals (though with their new units and upgrades), or you may choose to play as one of the specialist general's armies. Since the specialized armies have disadvantages that offset their relative strengths, you intuitively have a sense of what your opponent is going to throw at you in a multiplayer match. This is particularly true if, say, he chooses General Ta Hun Kwai, the Chinese tank commander, rather than just picking the standard Chinese army. Fortunately, in the skirmish and multiplayer modes, if the opponent chooses a random faction, you won't know which of the 12 different armies you're up against until you do some early-game recon.

These character-driven subfactions are also the focus of the new generals challenge mode. Actually, it's structured a lot like Mortal Kombat or other fighting games. You choose your character--one of the nine specialist generals featured in Zero Hour--and then you proceed to fight against each of the other generals on his or her own turf. These can be some pretty tough battles, especially since the default level of difficulty in Zero Hour, thankfully, provides a much more significant challenge than the cakewalk that was Generals' default difficulty. Since you take on these rival generals in environments that specifically benefit their unique abilities, you have a tough time overcoming their defenses. In so doing, you either learn or practice some key strategies that can help make you more competitive online. One very nice touch in the generals challenge is that each general has his or her own voice, and you'll hear these characters gabbing at you during the course of a match. While they do repeat their lines occasionally, they have lots of contextual dialogue. For example, they might chastise you for doing an inadequate job of countering their armies, or they may curse when you knock out one of their key facilities. Not only is this dialogue pretty amusing, but it can provide some helpful hints. The generals' propensities toward giving you fair warnings before attacks tend to be their undoing.


Minimum System Requirements
System: 800 MHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 1400 MB
Other: • A retail copy of Command & Conquer (tm) Generals already installed on your PC

Recommended System Requirements
System: 1.8 GHz or faster Intel Pentium IV or AMD Athlon processor or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB


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