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Blizzard has done it again. With the new release of StarCraft II, Blizzard continues to be the point of reference for collecting the real time strategy gameplay in a multiplayer beta system and new elements of the game to be revealed.

What is new?
Let’s first take a look at the Terran’s strategy; the Medic and Dropship are gathered into one Medivac unit that seems to heal better than a Medic, it is able to keep your biologicals in a top shape, while the new Reaper units can blow a big part of opposing armies with fast-firing pistols. The Vulture (Jim Raynor’s conception) is replaced by the fire-breathing Hellion (a fast moving vehicle that throws flames) and the Firebat with Marauder (an armored infantry unit), both of them appear to be more effective.

In the beta system, Terran air units have suffered changes too. The new unit type called the Viking is enabled by shifting between a ground-based walker mode and an air-to-air combat flight mode, but when shifted to the latter it brings more damage to capital ships. The existence of Thor, a giant robot, brings a plus of excitement though its 250 mm strike cannons that can blow powerful targets.

The next look we take at Protoss where Dark Templars are still to be found but merged into Archons, Stalkers have replaced the Dragoons in the functionality mode, but otherwise Dragoons are presented as Immortals (with the ability to strengthen up their shields to reduce damages), and Phoenix is the new air-to-air fighter of Scouts and Corsairs. There is present the massive Colossus, a spindly-legged robot, equipped with powerful lasers which sweep through masses of enemy units and as it has a spider-like ability to move it can also climb cliffs fro getting good firing positions. The strategy of the Protoss is upgraded to enable a fast close in on ranged targets, but when multiple caster units are selected and you use an ability, only one unit will spend the energy to be cast. Although the ReaverDrop strategy is taken away, the Protoss episode is still fun to play.

And the last, the Zerg, is replacing the Defiler with Infestor, the Guardian with Brood Lord, while the Devourer is gone. Banelings are used as effective suicide bombers and while they explode they can blow much more costly targets due to their big punch package. The Zerg episode introduces the Roach a new ground unit which is able to regenerate health at an alarming rate that can be upgraded and have great defensive options that keep the enemy forces at bay. Infestor proves to be a new menace, it can spawn Infested Terrans, spread plague, and take control over the minds of enemy units. The Mutalisk weapon is as usual an effective multi-purpose one, for those who are familiar with the game.

StarCraft II is displaying a high demand for players that have got enough skills to put up with the new forms of strategy the game shows, so if you think you can manage, than take your chance and engage yourself in this adventurous trip that StarCraft II with new exciting strategies is offering.

Bohemian Interactive continues its former owned series of Operation Flashpoint with ArmA II with the same approach to realism, though it fails in its usability and accessibility. The game takes place in Chernarus, a fictional area located in Eastern Europe; the player’s role is that of a leader of the US marine recon squad who is sent as part of a larger force to lend a helping hand in a civil war between communist Russians, Chernarus democratic leaders and a number of guerilla groups.

The game allows you to take command, this feature is quite new for the Bohemian Interactive games, and it proves to be working well so long as it gives the player a certain degree of involvement next to a whole range of responsibilities. The command system is loaded of options and flexibility but the negative thing is that you can not be instantly familiarized with it since it is covered by so many layered menus that it may take you few days before you start to know it better. During your performance you have the good feeling of being an important part of the plot as you carry a lot of individual contributions. The strategy you are supposed to build and taking the decisions are the features that give strength to the character and significance to the game’s world.

You face situations where you need to decide what is the best to do in the given circumstances, and your decisions do not have to lead to creating chaos or collateral damages that will stain your integrity, you must think of ways to avoid these consequences. The game is quite generous in this matter offering you choices to get to the objectives in your own way, adding also bonuses and opening new challenges that are based on your decisions. But there are situations when triggers don’t always work correctly in that they can make you loose a fight without you or your mates being involved in some way, and this is kind of frustrating.

The game is wealthy in providing chances to drive T-72s, laser designators to pick out targets on a distant location, and possibilities to climb to heights being armed with sniper riffles. The graphics is very impressive while defining the ballistics model, but the vehicle physics is not so well rendered. The game’s armory mode gives you the ability to take out anything for a test drive and run some interesting mini-challenges.

It is the ArmA II’s Real Virtuality engine which the game currently uses that allows you to see the expressivity on soldiers’ faces and the detailed elements that are part of the environment. As a conclusion, ArmA II presents a difference between the accuracy of the military hardware and the broken nature of the elements that constitute the missions, not to mention that the player has sometimes the feeling that the scores that he gathers are not always representative, and together with the inelegant interface of the game they all make the sum of the flaws that ArmA II offers.

The new release of Harry Potter’s Half Blood Prince was expected to lift up to the complex creations of the previous releases, but the gameplay reveals itself quite simple having the story telling a little bit incoherent, and leaving the players with the feeling of an unfinished game. It seems that one had to read the book before starting to play the game, since a lot of details fail to be delivered, thus failing to be comprehensible to the gamers. The editing of the scenes reveals awful images with poor acting, no talented actors’ voices, and the resemblance to the real actors is clumsily displayed. Out of all the recreations of Hohwarts, the Order of the Phoenix seemed to be the only one faithful to the purpose. For those who haven’t played this previous adventure, the Half-BloodPrince may seem quite a challenge to take shortcuts through the portraits lined on the walls, to navigate the moving staircase, etc.

The game offers three activities based on wizard themes; as Half-Blood Prince you will spend a lot of time mixing potions in the dungeon, confronting the recipes full of ingredients, this activity enabling you to use the motion controls while pouring, stirring and heating the mixtures. But this assignment takes too much of your time, giving you the sensation of an everlasting burden. Quidditch, who missed his part in Order of the Phoenix, is now back but not so imaginative and not as funny as mixing potions. Your role is that of a seeker riding a broomstick with simple handling of controls while flying among the stars. In the novels, Harry needs to avoid opponents that attempt to knock him off his broom, but this hindrance is not at all present here.

The final task in Half-Blood Prince is dueling, and this activity looks to be funnier than others before, though it is not revealing too much. These one-on-one fights allow you to cast magical spells at your enemy and tricking the ways that can determine you to loose your energy. The controls for this part are based on motion, so it is up to the remote’s action that activates one of the six spells you have available. Protego though seems to be more satisfying since it gives you the possibility to cross your arms in order to form a shield that will protect you against a blow. The tactic is quite cheap, you amaze your opponent with a powerful spell for in the end to merely spam your weaker attack. As it is the case with nailing your enemy with levicorpus, he will float in midair, and then you simply shake your arm to release a string of attacks, that will drain the health out of the foe’s body.

The Harry Potter video games should stick to the visual beauty of the movies in order to match its excellent story, but this part of Half-Blood Prince doesn’t offer the fun to play as long as you got acquainted with the few simple tasks. The game is presenting itself as repetitive minigame actions, managing to display a Harry Potter wizard without the thrills that belong to the condition of a wizard.

When you say Gaikai, you say revolutionary technology, and revolutionary in this context means the possibility to play on line in your browser ANY game you want. Gaikai comes in with an extremely new approach – it hosts the games, runs them, updates hardware and software streaming them to the users, that is why it is called the “Streaming Worlds”. All is there to be needed is a browser and internet access. Browser’s ability to give free streaming of video enables the flow to be fast, efficient and reliable. The Gaikai puts its service at your disposal with a high resolution, high quality steam with stereo sound.

The developer David Perry made a demo of the new Gaikai game streaming showing a variety of games from Mario Kart 64 to World of Warcraft in only one browser window. The question that one raises is in what way this new Gaikai approach differs from its previous OnLive? The point is that OnLive is striving to get an audience that sits comfortable in the living room and play this feature. It is quite a struggle since they have to put up with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo by trying to gain more players, thus “stealing” them from the above mentioned corporations.

Gaikai plan is to help developers and publishers to change the manner in which people discover their games. Once sold the technology to the publishers it will enable them to save a fortune on advertising, and they will be the ones to worry about how the users are charged. Gaikai at the moment are not licensing, publishers can host the games through Gaikai service, and therefore no license dealing is requested.

Launching in the public will happen in California, and depending on how this launch goes, the open beta will start going nationwide. Up to now there are a lot of companies that have started licensing the last Rockfree game even before they have finished developing it, and in this light they will reach the level of having an incredible amount of player traffic in the following 6 months. The partnerships they have with GameInvestors and Acclaim are great. These two companies incorporate very talented people, and Acclaim, for instance, has now over 10 million players, but for the time being the main focus of Gaikai is to develop games with no frictions.

They are still working to develop the Open beta, but the results are yet to be seen in the progress at Rockfree Web site. Gaikai is still considered to be one of the first companies to promote free playing and this aspect is gaining more reality in the USA, whether you like it or not.

In an interview with Gary Dunn, managing director of European development for Sega, talks about the publishers propensity toward mature titles for Nintento’s Wii, about his desire to work on 2012 Olympic games in developing Sonic titles outside Japan. He speaks about the developers he gathered inside the Technology Group, developers that perform the best graphics together with other general game programmers; they were the same to assist in creating PS 3 version of “Viking: Battle for Asgard” and their work is quoted to be tremendous.

As Dunn declares, Sega has a focus in being overall developed in Europe, and with the release of “Total War” they have already taken the first steps. They have also the Football Manager Live on which they are still doing the PSP content and have to be sure of its availability on proper devices. As it was the case with Xbox 360 that didn’t seem to be an appropriate format thus determining Sega to pull it off the market.

As to the mature-rated content for the Wii, such as “House of the Dead: Overkill” and “Ghost Squad” proved to be profitable to Sega comp. That step allowed them to gain confidence in wanting to push the experiment even further. With the “Mad World” released in combination with Platinum Games it was merely an attempt to get behind the products and even though the game didn’t sell good, that doesn’t necessary mean that the mature Wii titles is history for Sega. With money to invest in development it will not be a hard thing to keep the story going.

Dunn expressed his desire to personally work on a game based on the 2012 Olympics, since he saw this as an wonderful opportunity for a game developer, but there hadn’t been nothing established yet. At the same time, working outside Japan is a big responsibility but also a challenge that maybe every developer would grab at, if offered. The co-operation with Sonic Team proves to be very constructive in the SumoDigital, that makes Sega want to take further steps next to them.

The Wii-mote that uses motion control technology from Microsoft and Sony opens a new area that offers so many possibilities in performing good tasks with videogames. This also implies a new way in approaching the things they have for so long accomplished in Sega comp. as totally different styles of games could be conceived. This new technology needs to be considered since it enables them to have access to genres that weren’t to be approached before. This requires also money and time investments into products that have to be created from the scratch. As one of the largest publisher on Wii, they have experience in gesture features so it won’t be so much of a problem to grab at this new opportunity.

Wii-mote comes with three different motion controls options, as well as three different platforms, and it is up to Sega to determine which one is the best to work with.