Lost television serial’s fans will have soon the opportunity to feel the same sensations as while watching the series, with this new video game developed and published by one of the top leaders in the gaming industry, Ubisoft.



<-125x125 Button - left->Lost: The Video Game is inspired, off course, from the Lost action, and has nothing to do with the LOST game for mobile, released in January this year.The game it is under production and was officially announced at Comic-Con 2007.
It will be released in February 2008 for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.Its development started in 2006, after Ubisoft had licenced the rights from Touchstone Television.



According to Ubisoft, it will be more complex as the TV serial, having some extra missions which are expanding the playable content.
Damon Lindelof, the head writer of the TV show, was asked how is the game looking from what he’d seen. His replied: "From what I've seen? RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME!".The game’s action is said to be involving Resident Evil-style fetch quests and puzzle solving, while an integral part of the story will be the flashbacks.



It transfers the player in the skin of a previously unseen survivor, Elliott, a photojournalist suffering from amnesia.
You will explore exotic locations that appear in the show, and interact with Jack, Locke, Sawyer, Kate, Sayid, Michael, Walt or Hurley.



From what Ubisoft showed at Comic Con, and what we’ve heard, in the game you’ll encounter the key elements from the series, like the black smoke that can kill, the black rock, the cave and even the Other’s territory and the Swan station.There are 7 levels in the game, plotted by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, co-host at the Official Lost Podcast.



Jorge Garcia, Hugo in Lost, declared in an interview: “From what I saw in the trailer, it definitely captured our sets very well. The Hatch was pretty detailed. From what I saw it looked pretty good.”



That was all the information made public by now about Lost: The Video Game.

I was talking to a cross server mage buddy of mine how mage DPS has raised a lot when it comes to encounters past Lady Vashj. <-120x240 Vertical Banner - left->Then he said something that got me thinking: "Our guild has imba rogues and locks and that's why they're on top." Naturally, I asked what kind of imbalance is that, and he replied with a screenshot of a 10k shadowbolt critical hit. But given the chaotically nature of most 25-man instance boss encounters, I’m inclined to believe that focus shifted from having godly gear and cookie-cutter talent build, in favor of players that actually have skill and know how to play their class. It has become too important to stop DPS when asked to, keep changing positions and survive, instead of just camping the same spot repeatedly using the same class ability. Thus I compiled a list of must-have addons in order to achieve top performance while raiding. World of Warcraft has long surpassed the simple scripts of Onyxia and Molten Core at a point where regular human reaction isn’t nearly enough for most of us, so wee need the extra edge. In fact Blizzard stopped improving they default user interface more than a year ago, giving total freedom to players when choosing the way their interface looks like.

First off you need to be sure that the site which hosts the download is legitimate. Recent studies show more than half the trojans on the net target WoW through addons spyware infested addons. Having powerful antivirus and firewall tools is recommended. Just download the mod and copy the archived files in your World of Warcraft/Interface/AddOns/ folder. Remember to select the new addon once you login to your WoW account. Blizzard releases patches with new content and new coding of game events on a regular basis so older addon might not work after a patch. Every once in a while you’ll need to download newer versions for your mods.

Perl Classic Unit Frames Classic is a popular addon which operate off basic game events instead of custom made detection methods. It’s not unlike the original Raid Assist and will provide you with information regarding party members’ health, target, main tank targets and the like. Each raid member will have a designated control bar and you can automatically cast skills on them. It’s great for everything from removing harmful effects, to healing and buffing.

Big Wigs is the boss alert mod which gives you automatic notifications on upcoming boss phases, repeatable boss abilities and effects. It takes care of everything special a boss can throw your direction and lets you know in advance so that you can take appropriate action. It consists of many individual boss modules, and can be running up at any given time. Sound notifications and colored text chat-alerts will start once you target or mouseover a boss or someone in your raid and using Big Wigs does. Are we switching to Phase 2? No problem. If that blue glow around the boss is harmful, you will know fast!

Decursive it’s a combat assistant and cleaning mod which will let you know immediately if a raid member is affected by a curse or a magical effect debuff. If your class can either remove curses or dispel, then Decursive is the addon for you. It shows if the target is in range or not and you can bind a key to automatically decurse targets in range.

Mobinfo-2 features may be included in the previous mods, but it’s a good idea to have it on stand-alone too. It will give you numeric details concerning the targeted creature current and maximum hit points, along with the number of creatures killed (of that particular type) and their respective item and gold drops. Once that creature takes a hit, the addon will estimate that data and it will be henceforth available by default. It’s nice to have in raids, but crucial in PvP, since you can time that last minute swing on a dying foe.

WhiteboardNG is a strange one in the world of addons, since it provides the means to help your raid members get into position at various stages of a boss fight. It’s an in game drawing board useable to setup locations for the tanking spot, decurser spots, healer places and the way your DPS should move between phases. Let’s take the Archimonde fight for example. You need four to five casters being able to decurse the raid at all times and they will be marked with raid marks in the process, so you could see their locations and stay in range. With WhiteboardNG you can setup positions for virtually every raid member. If everyone sticks to the plan, half the fight is already won. There’s no need to keep explaining in Ventrilo who goes where.

Omen is one of the best threat meters out there. It’s a graphical combat tool that synchronizes with other players and displays the agro list of your current target. You will see how much threat are the tanks doing and agro pulling can be avoided with ease. Regardless of how much DPS or healing you’re dishing out, a warning message will be shown when you pass 90% of the current agro owner threshold. Watch out for other threat meters in the raid, since Omen doesn’t like others parsing the same data and might get into conflict with, say, KLH Threat Meter.

There is a tendency to combine threat meters with damage/healing meters into a complete raid analysis tool. Recount is one such tool and will provide information about damage done, healing taken, idle times, effective DPS and pretty much everything you would ever want to know about your character’s behavior during combat, along with your raid mates’.

The list is by no means complete and favorites change as some mods stop getting support from their independent developers, while other new tools surface the WoW gaming scene. Keep an eye out for and useful addons. In the mean time, these should get you started nicely and improve your gaming quality a bit, along with your in-game performances. As a tip, should your display become too crowded with various tabs and boxes, you can always raise your WoW resolution and get more viewing room.

It so happens Halo is “THE” Xbox franchise, a series that moved so many copies that it became the prime reason to own the little Microsoft console. With Halo 3 being the next installment, ready to hit the shelves in less than a week, some tricky individuals were bound to get their hands on the game prior to release. It seems big titles as Halo 3 get shipped in advance to retailers, way before launch day, thus a mix up occurred in UK where retailer Argus went off to sell Halo 3 a week before official release. With Halo hype rising to frantic levels, I wouldn’t blame anyone rushing home and trying their new shiny Halo 3 into a XBL connected Xbox.

Microsoft didn’t see things that way in the beginning as rumors of Live accounts being banned surfaced the net. It appears the misunderstanding was cleared and the latest official word is that no-one playing this early retail copy will have the respective Gamercard associated with the progress banned. They said only Microsoft and distributor employees are passable for such a gruesome fate, in the face of overly correctness towards buyer innocence.

Microsoft have always had a strict policy about their products being pirated, thus the coin could have tossed either way. First the Halo 3 ending cut scene leaked, and now there are reports of a Halo 3 cracked version available for download through regular torrent channels. Temptation is great and the perspective of a freebie before launch date is known to seduce many gamers. Given the fact that we have it just days before the release, it should count for some progress, since Halo 2 was pirated a month before its launch back in 2004. While a discussion about ethics can ensue, be aware that downloading Halo 3 has severe legal implications, starting with huge fines and ending to, well, prison time for up to five years. That’s basically what the US law says. Moreover, cracked Xbox titles require modded versions of the console and Microsoft will likely ban you from Live once they catch you.

Microsoft announced that Halo 3 will be the last game in the Halo trilogy, urging gamers to finish the fight. While this statement has been met with disbelief from the fans’ part, with the game available in stores starting September 25, the company is looking at new ways to get money off the title. Thus Halo has become a fully fledged franchise and deals are in the making for action figures, table top games and replica weapons for the mature audience.

Tragedy stuck last Sunday as rally driver super nova and owner of the Colin McRae racing game series was reported dead in a terrible helicopter crash accident in Jerviswood, Lanark. His son and two family friends were also on board as the group was returning from a visit to the nearby village of Quarter. The helicopter got into difficulty and crashed close to its destination, on the reaches of the McRae mansion. The reasons behind this misfortunate event are still unknown.

<-125x125 Button - left->While such a recent passing can be used as a major public-relations tool, out of respect for the family of the dearly departed, Codemasters decided to go along with a silent launch for the next title in the DiRT series. They pulled off the tube a series of TV adds for Dirt’s PS3 upcoming release.

Son of five-time British Rally Champion Jimmy McRae, Scottish Colin McRae managed to keep his father’s legacy intact. He won his first world rally in 1993 New Zeeland and from there on multiple victories ensued until the 2002 Safari Rally. Colin McRae then joined the Guinness Book of Records as the driver with most event wins in the World Rally Championship, but his driving career was lessened in glory afterwards.

While still top shape, he lend his name to a series of racing video games, starting with Colin McRae Rally in late 1998. The series were constantly updated with yearly releases up until 2005. Codemasters released the sixth installment on June 15 this year, Colin McRae: DiRT. The game had noticeably improved graphics and gameplay and promised a new beginning to the franchise, but with Colin McRae untimely death, there is no telling what will happen to the series. The PS3 release will go live today and Codemasters wanted to pay their respects to the man who started it all. "With consideration to and in agreement with McRae's family, there was a stop put on the TV ads that were planned to run on Sky channels at the weekend and through this week," said a Codemasters spokesperson.

Three days ago World in Conflict has been launched in the US and tomorrow we’ll witness the European release. The new real time tactical game from Sierra Entertainment has been rated 12+ and will be available for a suggested price of 36E, and 43E for the Collector’s Edition. The game features a complex blend of real time strategy, squad play and first person shooter, a good recipe for success using DirectX 10 native functions for massive eye candy. World in Conflict has also been announced to be in the Cyberathlete Professional League rooster for competitive play in 2007.

The synopsis has the players back in 1989, when instead of falling to internal economical difficulties; the Soviet Union finds financial salvation into blackmailing NATO to support Russian economy. Conflict is unavoidable as NATO refuses to get involved. However, there is a second US front, to keep their involvement in Europe mainland business of war. Thus you will be able to take either side in the single player campaign, which promptly begins with the Russian invasion of Seattle. This trailer released in spring gives a good overall image. It seems to be an appealing scenario for US nationals, especially given the War on Terror hype.

You don’t have bases and resources to harvest in World in Conflict. Instead, you fight for map control and owning strategic points on the map results in better reinforcement point regeneration. With these points you can call in more troops and the fight moves forward. Killing as many units as possible isn’t the main idea, since good tactical leadership can lead to victory in the face of overwhelming odds.

Regardless of faction you can direct your troops as an Infantry, Armor, Support or Air master. Infantry allows control of various ground units which have mobility issues yet can effectively counter most enemy types on the battlefield. Armor types provide armored vehicle support, from heavy tanks to mobile and armored personnel carriers. Support deals with stationary anti air cannons, with medium of heavy shells, along with medium armored mobile anti air defense. Air superiority is the key to victory, yet your bombers, helicopters and hunters will often need support from your allies and can’t win a battle on their own. During gameplay reinforcements are called in to strengthen your positions. Often enough a successful defensive is followed by a devastating offensive so map borders don’t stay the same for long. In fact, the calm before the storm is usually followed by a massive clash, and within minutes, most of your troops can be lost. Air strikes, paratroopers and carpet bombing will help to that end, and if it’s not enough, the all popular nuke will definitely clear the battleground.

The multiplayer mode provides generous options as you can either play one on one against a human opponent in the No mode, fight against an all-AI team or a combination of both. World in Conflict will feature in this year’s Cyberathlete Professional League as a team game, so expect perfect troop balance and immediate clash of egos to ensue. To this end, Team Dignitas CPL champions have already issued a nice strategical overview of the game which you can read here.