For those that enjoy playing Medal of Honor, EA Games announced the releasing of Airborne, the new game in this series. It is available in North America’s stores in Xbox 360 and PC versions.
Who lives in Europe, will be able to get it starting September 7.

Airborne transfers you into the boots of Boyd Travers, Private First Class of the 82nd Airborne Division, to engage in battles in Europe.
Each of your missions begins behind enemy lines.
After viewing the operation from the air, you will control your parachute to land onto the right place where you will assess the terrain with customizable weapons at your disposal.

The action surrounds the invasion of Sicily, and your unit received the order to drop into the town of Adanti to ensure the security and prevent the enemies from using it as a staging area for counterattacks against Allied amphibious landings on the coast.
The first goal is the neutralizing of the antiaircraft emplacements and drive out the enemy.

The experts that participated in the development of the game ensured creating its action historically accurate. At the authentic experience that Airborne will make you feel, contributed also Capt. Dale Dye, who was the Military Technical Advisor for the last 7 Medal of Honor games.

It is the first FPS where players airdrop into combat from a C-47 and land anywhere in an open battlefield.
The course of the battle changes depending on the player’s landing spot.

Patrick Gilmore, the VP and Executive Producer at EALA said that “In recreating the largest airdrops in history, Medal of Honor Airborne brings a dramatic change and opens up the FPS genre with the innovative airdrop experience" where ”Players have the ability to land anywhere on the battlefield, and choose their own tactics to achieve victory, delivering unprecedented variety and freedom to the combat experience.”

Non-linear gameplay of this FPS offers a different approach to this type of game, changing the way in which shooters are played.

The soundtrack, that is available for download on the official website of the game, is composed by Michael Giacchino, famous for its collaboration with Lost, Alias, M:i:III (2007), The Incredibles (2004), and Ratatouille (2007).
The full album in MP3 format costs only 9.99$ and contains 20 tracks.

Airborne was developed by EA Los Angeles and has the rating T for Teen gave by ESRB, 16+ by PEGI and 18+ by USK.

The Xbox version price is of 59.99$ while the PC versions of 49.99$. The PlayStation 3 version is expected in November.

The PC demo is available here and offers you the first operation of the game, named Operation Husky, where you’ll discover the first four objects of the game and experience the jumping.
The loadout weapon includes the Thompson and the M1 Garand.

    It seems Chinese officials are trying the propaganda scheme with new and modern means. I’m talking about “The Incorruptible Warrior”, a new MMO game commissioned by no other than the Chinese Communist Party Disciplinary Committee of the Haishu district in Ningbo city. The special thing is that the game itself revolves around fighting corrupt government officials instead of killing the next innocent looking rabbit you come across for experience. Since China is currently in the midst of an anti-corruption campaign, The Party saw the game as means of raising awareness among teens and teach them the way to properly fight it. At least that’s the main idea, but unless the officials expect people lounging at the mayor’s throat in real life, I’d say there is still a long way to go in this direction.

    The developers set up a single server for the game which was expected to hold up to 500 simultaneous connections. You don’t have to be a computer expert to figure out that having 100.000. downloads over a short period of time might pose a problem later on. Players started to experience severe lag as the game became unplayable within just a week after launch. Eventually the server was shutdown for a massive hardware upgrade. Regardless of the actual impact “The Incorruptible Warrior” has yet to have on the average gamers moral fiber, questions of copyright still remain, as the title rudely borrowed a lot of content from well known private Chinese MMOs, like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or Legend.

    The idea isn’t new in itself, but boy, do I love the thought of a free MMO game sponsored by my own taxpayer money, where I have the chance to crush my boss with the +9 Two Handed Mace of Doom. Think about it, the limitless possibilities, and the fun factor. Although graphics are mediocre and developers did a shabby job when creating the models, you still have a shot at completely obliterating your opponents. Not only you get to kill the corrupted officials, but you also get to pick on their children, wives and bikini clad mistresses. Unfortunately the skills you need to improve are a bit of a turnoff, reeking propaganda from a mile away. What would you like to improve this level up, “Combatting corruption,” “Moral character” or “Degree of being corruption free”?

There comes a time where every one of us thinks about that significant other, maybe the one that got away. You may dream about it when the night is cold and you seek shelter from the outside world within your fantasies, yet sometime we're not talking about THE girl. Such is life that I came across a moment just like that, and it's actually about a game.

<-234x60 Half Banner - left->Auto Assault, I never got around to revel in its magnificence. Honestly, for a hardcore gone casual gamer, there is always the temptation of starting anew, especially when it comes to Multiplayer Online Games. Auto Assault was my fantasy, not as epic as World of Warcraft, not as technical and cold as Eve Online, yet somewhere in between, on the fast track of Sci-Fi. I often feel we have way too many medieval oriented MMOs so, this was a promise, a breath of fresh air which as all gone now. Yes, my curious friend, MMOs are born, grow in power and eventually die. With Auto Assault it was sooner than later, because only 16 months after its launch, the servers shutdown for the last time, never to be restarted again.

It was a money issue, said the NCSoft owners, the same guys that keep Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Lineage and Tabula Rasa alive. They always wanted to promote a different kind of MMO to the market, be it like Guild Wars, where you can play on an official server with steady maintenance yet you wouldn't have to pay for it a monthly fee, or the comic-based City of Heroes. Auto Assault had its own unique elements, starting with the whole concept of battling automotives, in the vein of the old Carmageddon insanity, only this time around there were real players you could tamper with.

As a newcomer to the Wasteland you could either join the Humans, Mutants or Biomek. This race suggestion would then dictate your class and then the world would be yours. This means you get to interact with other players in cities, then leave the comfort of the garage for some solo or convoy teamed action while blasting away through NPC machinery. While PvP was fairly limited in the early stages, it would only go all out, in a free for all PvP environment called Ground Zero, once you reached the maximum level. It's all about questing and tactical encounters in a type of game that appealed both to casual and hardcore gamers, due to its lack of time limitations.

Unfortunately the game wasn't promoted enough, saw no expansions and it just collapsed unto itself. There are worse games out there still living the good life. I couldn't really say who is to blame, since developers did their best and there were regular weekend bonuses for casual players, along with catchy events and collaborations. Even 1UP.com joined to help at some point last year, with major Easter eggs and special vehicle customization to give you bragging rights for a life time. There are worse games out there still living the good life and Auto Assault didn’t deserve this fate.

And so it came to pass that on 27 August, players and developers alike played a gruesome monster bash, with instant power leveling, group battles and free end-game weapons being handed to whoever would crave for them. In a sense they kept this dreamy image I had alive, since I can't really remember the last time when game masters were so benevolent in a MMO game. Four days later servers shut down permanently. It was a death to remember! So rest in peace Auto Assault and may your memory spawn progeny in the following years. Who could resist a vehicle based MMO, blasting away your enemies with your front weapon and bashing them with melee at 150 mph?

If you were a part of this Wasteland community and you'd like to share your thoughts with us, you are more than welcome to do so in our comment section. But until then, let’s take a look at what Auto Assault had to offer, the juicy piece of pie you and me will never get to taste.

After The Sims, the brilliant mind of its creator Will Wright conceived Spore, a captivating strategy game about evolution of species from the origin of life through the development of civilization and technology and finally into the deepest reaches of outer space.

At the beginning of the epic journey, in the TidePool phase, you are a simple microbe on its way to evolve to an intelligent creature.

The world, in which the game’s action takes place, is populated with creatures evolved by other players and shared over the Spore’s central servers.
While exploring this universe of unique worlds, the Sporepedia feature will track all the creatures you have met and places you have visited.

In the Pool Phase you’ll have to fight with other creatures and consume them in order to adjust the abilities of your creature.
In the Creature Phase the only way to grow is by taking chances, helping your creature to learn and evolve.
In Tribal Phase you will have the control on an entire tribe of creatures until you enter in the Civilization Phase with a city well organized and your creatures will interact with other cultures.
The goal here is to conquer the planet.
The final step in your evolution is the Space Phase where you will be able to move to other worlds in the solar system and conquer them.

Spore was developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts, being categorized as a massive single-player life simulation game.
Its releasing is planned at the beginning of 2008 and is already appearing on the list of the most wanted games.