Adams Venture 3 Revelations

Adams Venture 3 Revelations - 1DVD

Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
Developer: Iceberg Interactive
Genre: Adventure

Unusual release for a group like SKIDROW, anyway, they have just released the third episode of this famous adventure game : Adams Venture.

Description:
Adam’s Venture is an adventure game franchise that is focused on non-violent gameplay set in the early twenties of the 20th Century. With state of the art Unreal 3 graphics providing colorful and lifelike 3D environments, a gripping storyline and many puzzles to solve varying from easy to difficult, Adam’s Venture supplies everything that an adventure gamer is looking for.

In Adam’s Venture 3: Revelations, you get to experience a flashback Adam has to earlier events in Oxford, which have set his adventure into motion. Left for dead by the megalomanic Clairvaux leader in Solomon’s collapsing palace, Adam relives his first meeting with Evelyn and their expedition to the small French town of Luz. Templar secrets, powerful corporations and the importance of keeping a promise all fight for attention in his feverish mind. Will he come to his senses in time to save Evelyn and the day? It’s up to you in this third installment of the episodic series.

Features:

New locations and varying weather types
25 new challenging puzzles, varying in difficulty
Find out how it all began and how the Clairvaux corporation means to end it.
Meet Adam’s father, a lazy French postman and other characters from the series.
Brought to life with stunning 3D visuals from the Unreal 3 engine.
Game soundtrack, as always, by award winning composer Jonathan van den Wijngaarden

Ship Simulator Extremes + Update 5 + DLC

 

Ship Simulator Extremes + Update 5 + DLC - 1DVD

About the Game

VSTEP and Paradox are proud to announce the next installment of the acclaimed Ship Simulator series. With over 550K copies sold, the series returns to take you into the most extreme conditions on earth…

Ever wonder how it feels to sail a half-million-ton supertanker through the perfect storm? To take on illegal whale hunters in the Antarctic? Or to feel the rush of being part of the Coast Guard as you evacuate a cruise liner in distress? Ship Simulator Extremes has players take on exciting missions all over the world as they pilot an impressive array of vessels and live the stories of real ship captains. With missions based on actual events in realistic environments at locations all over the world, the new Ship Simulator game is sure to take you to extremes!

Key Features:

From the very hot to the very cold, sail to the most enchanted regions in the world. Explore the Antarctic or take in beautiful Bora Bora. Includes famous harbors and locations from around the world.
Wide range of vessels to captain, including hovercraft, Coast Guard interceptors, mammoth tankers, tugs, cruise liners, and many others.
Includes exciting storylines and missions from all over the world.
Save the environment campaign: sail famous Greenpeace ships and take on ecological missions based on real events!
Realistic water and weather system. Sail calm waters or take on the most extreme weather ever witnessed at sea.
Online multiplayer mode. Sail online with your friends.

System Requirements

OS: Windows XP (Min. service pack 2), Windows Vista or Windows 7. 32 and 64 bits OS supported
Processor: 3 Ghz P4 Intel or AMD equivalent processor
Memory: 2GB (Windows XP) or 3GB (Vista or Windows 7)
Hard Disk Space: 3.5 GB
Video Card: Geforce 8800GT or ATI Radeon 4850 with 256MB ram (At least Shader model 3.0)
Sound: DirectX compatible
DirectX®: 9.0c

Ship Simulator Extremes Update 5 info:

[ UPDATE ]

[ Multiplayer ]
* Fixed issue where creating ropes on your own server would not work properly
* Improved rope / towing behaviour
* Connection points updated when ropes are changed, prevents issue where connection points show incorrect information
* Prevented an issue where leaving a server would leave a ghost-ship behind
* Horns and watercanons are now syncronized
* Sinking has been disabled
* Player names are displayed above the ships.
* Statistics being tracked

[ Ships ]
* Improved various ships with new lights, better bridge graphics, improved dynamics
* The Hide GUI action no longer resets the controls

The following DLC has been included:

Ship Simulator Extremes Harbor Pilot DLC

 Ship Simulator Extremes Sigita Pack DLC

Ship Simulator Extremes Ferry Pack DLC

Painkiller Recurring Evil

Painkiller Recurring Evil - 1DVD

Publisher: Nordic Games Publishing
Developer: Med-Art
Genre: Action

Scene group SKIDROW released the game Painkiller Recurring Evil for PC. A pretty cool shooter game. Enjoy!

Description: Battle never ceases in the realm known as Hell. This time around it’s a battle for the freedom of your very soul. Will you be able to escape from the prison hidden in the darkest deepest chasm of Hell? Do you have enough courage to travel through the most dangerous and twisted areas which are infamous for their unsafety even among demons themselves? Are you prepared to significantly reduce the demonic population of these areas? Once again you’ll have a chance to experience the magnificent dark atmosphere of the good (or evil?) Painkiller, the only true oldschool First Person Shoot, tough as nails, without a trace of remorse, without a glimpse of motion blur or other technological makeup. Just Painkiller and nothing else matters!

Features:

5 completely new levels with impressive locations like an Angkor temple, a massive old warehouse and a highway where hundreds of cars crashed.
A new campaign guarantees for 5 hours of new and genuine Painkiller action.
Even more bloodshed and action per square meter: immerse into freaking intense gameplay & ultimately challenging FPS action.
More dense maps and sick enemies than ever before: kill over 6.000 uniquely spawned wicked monsters.
Continues the story of Bill Sherman.
Improved graphics, AI, environments as well as new atmospheric soundtrack.

J.U.L.I.A

J.U.L.I.A - 1DVD

Platform: PC
Gener: Adventure
Publisher: Digital Game Factory Ltd

J.U.L.I.A. is a narrative driven adventure game in a science-fiction scenario, released by scene group RELOADED.. Enjoy!

Description: In the year 2430 an elite group of scientists are sent off on mankind’s most exciting space mission: to explore the first ever discovered extra-terrestrial life-forms. After a long journey, Astrobiologist Rachel Manners suddenly awakes from a cryogenic sleep to find out she is the only human survivor of her team. To make things worse, their giant space ship, currently orbiting an unknown planet in a far-off solar system, is severely damaged. Together with her now only companions – J.U.L.I.A., the spaceship’s very temperamental artificial intelligence system, and Mobot, a huge reconnaissance robot, Rachel must now solve the mysteries of the events on board the space vessel, repair it and explore the unknown planet.

Features:

Step into the spacesuit of Rachel Manners and find out why she was the sole survivor of this ill-fated expedition
Utilize an ingenious MOBOT – a mobile robot designed for planetary exploration
Solve the mystery of the mission`s failure and locate the missing crew
Travel to six unique planets and uncover their secrets

The Vita Post

The things the King of All Cosmos says will never get old.

As you may be aware, a certain beefy little handheld finally made its way overseas on the 23rd (22nd if you live pretty much anywhere but Australia) of February. What do we call it? The PS Vita? Playstation Vita? PSV? Or simply... Vita?

Well, regardless of how you prefer to refer to it (I'll be calling it the "PS Vita"), it is definitely one fine piece of hardware. You may already know where this post is leading, but to cut to the chase: Yes, I bought one. Not only bought, but Shaun and I preordered an Australian one, making it the first console I've ever preordered, let alone picked up on launch day.

My reasoning for this was twofold: My colleagues over at VGW were heckling me to get one, mostly due to the fact that they needed someone with my area of gaming expertise (read: someone who'll play all those weird Japanese games) who could pick up a few of the titles in the console's mighty launch lineup. Not only that, but I'll begrudgingly admit that I only just bought my first PSP last year, and it was used. Shaun and I absolutely love the PSP, and if the PS Vita turns out to be half as good as that system was, I want to give Sony my support (read: cold, hard cash).

Factoring in some exciting titles to look forward to and the fact that Shaun unblinkingly responded with a simple "yes" when I told him I was thinking of getting one meant that come 10 am on Thursday the 23rd, a beautiful new PS Vita was all ours for the unboxing.

Title-wise, I got hard copies of Touch My Katamari and Shinobido 2, along with a download voucher for BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, all for reviews. As Touch My Katamari was the main launch title I was interested in, I haven't felt the need to purchase any of my own games yet.

By the way, have you seen how small these cartridges are?

Teeny tiny!

The cases are extremely small and thin, too. Makes sense, considering that
they don't contain a manual as a rule (anyone who is interested in holding a
funeral to commemorate the death of the physical game manual is more than
welcome to join me).

I tried to get a few pictures of the system itself, but unfortunately it's a bit too glossy for me to get a proper photo of. But you all have seen it already, right?

I was told many times before I actually had the PS Vita in my own grubby hands that the system really shines when you get some hands-on time with it. I have to say, I wholeheartedly agree. Though the system looks a little bulky, and it does have some weight to it, it feels great to hold and even better to play with. The directional and command buttons have a real weight when you press them, and the dual analog sticks feel great, albeit a little small. Touch screen functionality is integrated seamlessly into the system's control panel, and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the in-built camera.

Basically, the PS Vita is my equivalent of hardware porn. I was still waiting for my games to come in on launch day, but I'll be darned if I didn't just pick up the Vita and turn it on 10 times over the course of the afternoon, just so I could hold it. Yes, my husband thinks I'm crazy.

But what about the launch lineup?

The built-in screenshot function is amazing, if a little hard to execute in some games.
In this screen I'm playing as the pink girl, Platinum, my new favorite BlazBlue character. 

Of course, you won't find me commenting on such AAA releases as Uncharted: Golden Abyss or the latest shiny Wipeout racing game, but I can tell you about the few Japanese titles I'll be reviewing.

Touch My Katamari – This was, without a doubt, the title I was most looking forward to. Touch My Katamari is very standard Katamari fare, so if you're a fan of the series, there's a lot to like here. I don't want to spoil my review, so click the link to check it out if you're interested. Needless to say, I really enjoyed my time with the game, but it was much too short. I beat every single level the game had to offer (and there were a number of repeats from past Katamari titles) in just about 3 hours. Disappointing, but boy, does it look great on the Vita!

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend – A beautiful portable version of BlazBlue: Contiuum Shift. It not only contains the DLC characters from the PS3/Xbox 360 versions, but another new character and dozens of modes to sink time into. The only problem I've had with it so far are the load times, and a nasty bug that causes the screen to freeze randomly when a battle is loading while playing in arcade mode (this has happened to me every time I've played arcade mode). I'm not sure if this problem is something wrong with my download or not, but I did find someone with a similar issue over in the GameFAQs forums. I've contacted Aksys PR to see what's up. Review forthcoming.

Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen – I honestly don't know if there's anything good I can say about this one. It looks and feels like a PS2 title, and the controls are finicky and annoying. The ninja gameplay mechanic is fun, but this title doesn't do anything that the original Shinobido or the Tenchu titles didn't do better. In fact, Shaun played Shinobido on the PS2, and agrees that Shinobido 2 feels like more of a glorified port than a sequel. Review forthcoming.

All in all, I'm more than happy with my Vita. The possibility of playing PSP titles downloaded from the PSN with enhanced graphics is another great bonus – I even purchased a copy of Half-Minute Hero just so I could see how great it would look. Though the battery life is nowhere near good enough and there isn't an amazing new must-have JRPG for the system yet, I do not in any way regret purchasing the system on launch.

Did any of you grab a PS Vita, or are you thinking of getting one? If you're on the fence and want to ask me some questions, feel free to leave them in the comments!

"Poison has a Stick" may be the best idea for a joystick mod ever

Let me profess that I literally know next to nothing about joystick modification. In fact, I'm not much of a fighting game fan in general, though I am known to rock a pretty solid Lee in Tekken and Arc Systems Works is always on my radar for their sleek titles (I'm looking at you, BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend Vita). In fact, I can honestly say that I've never played more than 5 minutes of a Street Fighter game (or Final Fight, for that matter), and as such I know next to nothing about the intriguing, pink-haired character known as Poison who will be making an appearance in the roster of Street Fighter X Tekken... Except for the fact that she is famous for being a transgendered female character. Which I think is thoroughly awesome, if you had any doubts.

Long-time games writer shidoshi (who you may know as @pikoeri) echoes my sentiments – he even got the chance to interview Yoshinori Ono about Poison, and he refrained from any of the usual snide remarks that most so-called games "journalists" make when talking about her. I highly suggest checking the interview out if you haven't seen it already.

But now you must allow me to get right into the meat of this post: the beautiful Poison-themed joystick mod shidoshi has created, aptly named "Poison has a Stick":

Beautiful, is it not? I'd play a fighter with that joystick any day of the week. For clarification on the little innuendo you may have picked up on regarding the interesting placement of the joystick, here are shidoshi's thoughts in his own words:

"[...] This stick wasn’t made with the intention of making fun of the character Poison or her “is or isn’t she transgender” status, nor was it done simple for some sort of cheap “it’s a trap” connection. I mean, of course—the design was absolutely done in good fun and with a lot of humor—but it was done in celebration of the character of Poison, not in mocking her or what she is." (source)

Now excuse me while I go brush up on my fighting skills so I can justify a snazzy joystick purchase – it's just too bad this one's one of a kind!

UPDATE: shidoshi posted over on his Twitter this amazing picture of none other than Yoshinori Ono holding the aforementioned joystick at a Street Fighter X Tekken event! How awesome is that?

Black & White 1 & 2

Black & White 1 & 2 - 1DVD

The minimum system requirements to run "Black and White 2" are as follows:

    OS: Windows XP/2000
    Processor: 1.6 GHz Pentium 4 or above
    Memory: 512 MB RAM
    Hard Drive: 3.5 GB
    DVD: 8 Speed
    Video Card: 64 MB with 1.1 Pixel Shader
    DirectX: Version 9.0c (included)
    Sound Card: Directx 9.0c compatible
    Input: Mouse, Keyboard