Another new game made its way onto my desktop and goes by the name “Clive Barker’s Jericho”. It’s about a “special-ops” team heavily armed and trained to deal with occult dark powers. This game is based on a story written by the horror-fiction author Clive Barker. While in my opinion, he is not exactly an outstanding writer, the way in which his story has been implemented is impressive and the level of details in some areas is quite amazing.As far as PC specs go, the game needs Windows XP or Vista, AMD X2 or Intel Core 2 Duo as CPU, up to 4 GB of RAM (yeah, the more the better), and a graphics card from the current generation of ATI HD 2xxx or GeForce 8xxx. Even if in the game requirements some older cards are mentioned as well – it’s not worth playing this game on old hardware so that you’d be getting 3-4 frames per second, it spoils the fun completely. As for the required hard drive space, 4,5GB will be enough for a full installation. This game has been rated M (mature) due to the use nasty language in some levels – but seriously, I think such insertions bring color into what would otherwise be just a simple (as opposed to outstanding) game.

Game Intro
The game story is also the common background that brings us to the action from the first chapter – we find out that there was a “firstborn” long before Adam and Eve, who was neither light or dark, but dangerous and beautiful at the same time, and since he had a disturbing appearance, the Almighty banished him into the Abyss. The Firstborn kept waiting and tried to get out of the Abyss and there were 7 Sumerian priests who stopped him from getting out but at a great cost. Since then there was always an order that would train 7 warriors to stop the Firstborn from escaping, but none of the members of those teams has made it back alive, which gives the player a very “optimistic” view upon the game ending.

There was a special unit created in 1930s, called the Department of Occult Warfare, which was meant to fight against the dark spiritual forces. One of the Nazis from the German division, Arnold Leach, was a valuable member until he was expelled for extremely violent and cruel behavior. He has done so much evil that he was secretly placed on a list for assassination. While it appeared initially that the assassination was successful, he has found a method to survive and was never caught. The action in game starts in present day in the city of Al-Khali, where the team members are ordered to search for a Swiss Guardsmen squad. They find the bodies of the guards horribly mutilated. During the first mission that goes beyond the original quest, the captain of the Jericho squad dies, killed by Arnold, but his spirit comes back to possess each of the bodies of the members of Jericho squad in order to lead them into victory.

Before I go deeper into details, I need to present you the characters, especially the three ladies from the team who are hot! They all are typical characters, but there’s more to them than meets the eye:

The Captain Devin Ross is a war veteran, and is very skeptical towards the paranormal phenomenon. As squad leader he has very good skills in organization and management. His psychic skills involve healing and reviving other team mates who are wounded or hurt badly. His weapons are the “Patrioteer” (a 5.56 mm G36C assault rifle as primary) with a semi-auto shotgun (XM-26 as secondary). After he dies in the game, at least from a physical point of view, he can enter in any of the team mates’ bodies and control them. This ability can be used on short distances, and any of the members with Ross inside them can gain healing abilities.
Captain Devin Ross
Corporal Simone Cole is the one handling the intelligence (she is a genius!) and information processing. She also is in charge of getting supplies for the rest of the team, by “downloading” them – now that’s quite interesting to go on a mission and never to run out of ammo! Actually she “rewinds” time in the ammo belts so that they are full again. Also her powers explain the checkpoint system within the game. She is really amazing when she presents to the team various data and background info on the surrounding areas where they are located. She can spot the weak points of the enemies and can use her X-86 submachine gun to fire extremely accurate shots, by using her face-mask with zooming options. Since she is a reality-hacker (ok, that sounded weird, but here’s how it works) she can manipulate space and time so that everything goes into slow motion while she keeps her fast speed – and that lasts about 12 seconds – enough to heal a team mate or to inflict big damage on fast opponents in very a short time by use of the second power, “firestorm”.

Corporal Simone Cole
Lieutenant Abigail Black has a reserved attitude and is a telekinetic sniper - guiding the bullet - a pretty similar procedure to the secondary fire of the Redeemer from the Unreal shooter games. She is my favorite character because she is in control of the team for most of the time after the captain dies because of her accurate fire power and team management abilities (she helps Simone get back to her senses in the Crusade level). Even if Delgado jokes about the fact she is “into girls rather than boys”, she throws back “cute” one-liners to keep up the “exchange of kind words”. Her powers are focused on telekinesis, and beside the ability to control a bullet in order to shoot multiple enemies with one shot, she can also throw or break items out of the way in order to clear the path. She is very amusing when she says “I hate when you do that” to Ross, when he enters her body. She has a techno-gothic look and outfit and has high hopes just like any other member that the team might be able to return home alive.

Lieutenant Abigail Black
Wilhelmina 'Billie' Church is a ninja blood mage and she is the assassin and also works as scout for the Jericho team. She is trained in stealthy arts and is Delgado’s girlfriend. As weapons she prefers the katana sword, but she is also using an Uzi-fire-style automatic gun because the squad imposed it on her. Her magic abilities include the creation of a blood ward that blocks and slows down the enemies, while the other power is a fire ward that causes heavy damage to the demons. She can also open blood seals, but we can see that only in cinematic sequences.

Wilhelmina 'Billie' Church
Sergeant Frank Delgado has a Spanish origin, and his powers are the result of a long study of alchemy and shamanic arts and wisdom. One of his arms is cased within a protective metal shell that contains Ababinili, a fire-flame spirit that Delgado uses to summon in order to burn down the demons while the fire-snake feeds on them (“Feeding time!”). As weapons he has a big and heavy 7.62 belt-fed chain-gun that compensates for his lower dexterity, called “Hell’s Keeper”, and “Pain”, a semi-auto pistol. His main magic power is pyromancy as mentioned above and the secondary skill is creating a wall of flame around himself and the team that shields from environmental or physical attacks from the demons.

Sergeant Frank Delgado
Father Rawlings (the chaplain in the military) is a preacher with a southern American accent, with a high level of knowledge of the history of the Jericho squad and the real purpose of their mission. His strong personality makes him assume command in some occasions when he knows better than Ross what needs to be done. His weapons are two custom made handguns (dubbed Faith and Destiny), that have 3 fire modes. His powers obviously have to be connected to the divinity, and thus he can heal team members with his Ghost Healing power from a distance, and his second power is the exorcism ability, but it is manifested only in the cutscene with Hanne Lichthammer, a sadistic German officer, in the World War II level and at the end of the game.

Father Rawlings
Xavier Jones is the “ghost” of the team – he can literally render an astral projection of himself outside his body and flip switches or open doors with the help of telekinesis or burn fuel containers with his pyromancy abilities. His weapons are a “Patrioteer”, just like the one Ross has at the beginning of the game and a XM-26 semi-auto shotgun. The others think of him as a law-enforcer, like before the ending level of the game.

The Spiritual Projector - Xavier Jones
The levels in the game are pretty much linear and you will have to pay attention to all the details and everything the characters have to say to find out as much information about the missions as possible. The action in each section of the big five levels follows a straight pattern – “kill all demons and move on”, and that can be really annoying after some time, especially when you will encounter the same type of demons in areas you wouldn’t expect to. Also, make sure the “sniper” chicks stay behind the squad and the “big-guns” stay ahead – so that there would be a balanced attack. The historical mission series starts in Al Khali, in present times, when the team finds out that they’re actually meant to fight for something else than just finding the Swiss Guards. Almost at the end of this level, Arnold shows up and kills Ross.

In the World War II, the level name gives the timing when the action happens (“not where are we, but rather when are we?” says Rawlings) this is where you will meet some Flamethrowers for the first time - make sure you take them down as fast as possible. When you get to be in Rawlings’ body, in a movie sequence involving the exorcism of Hanne Lichthammer (who is later destroyed by Billie who slits her throat), you will use the divine powers to chase away the evil spirits. She uses very bad language in order to distract Rawlings. I also enjoyed the company of the 3 English blokes who help the team go further.

In “The Crusades” level, your team will split in half for a while leaving you to work only with Delgado, Abby and Billie. Once you finish slaughtering some very ugly allegedly “doomed templar knights”, you will find back the other members of the team and help Simone Cole to get over her fears and scary thoughts. They too have been dealing with ghosts of children. The Bishop Maltheus Sinclaire was a horrible person but also insane – he built an army of children against the saracen armies of Saladin, because he thought their innocence would protect them. Obviously, they were killed by the soldiers and they remained furiously as ghosts in the Bishop’s chapel hoping to get revenge for their deaths – the activity of the Jericho team renders the Bishop’s spirit vulnerable and they destroy him. After that, they go happily to the Heavens.

The next chapter takes us through another historical age, that one of the Roman rulers, namely the governor Cassus Vicus (in the Roman Provinces). He was thrown into this place because of his terrible crimes and he erected a palace, some temples and even a coliseum, not to honor the old gods but for himself. After defeating his champions in the arena, including big and disfigured gladiators, you will also get to fight with him. What bothered me the most is that there isn’t a progress bar telling you how much more shooting is required to kill an enemy – you can only guess by looking at the demons and listening to the sounds they make. Vicus is too obese to move himself too fast and so he hangs by a metallic mechanism that carries him in a circle type of movement. When he is finally defeated, he opens a new portal that takes the team to the next level.

Sumeria is the last big level that has a lot of twists and turns, many of them based on defeating double enemies, one at a time, as they tend to work together and you need to guess which of them is providing the energy for the other. This is where Lt. Black (Abby) takes control again as hers is the first body that Ross finds when they are “teleported” by some rays of white light. At the beginning you just have to reunite the team members and move on to the next area where you have to recreate Antadurunnu (to join his body parts) who claims he can help you end well the mission.

However, things will start looking suspiciously to Delgado who thinks Antadurunnu will betray them, having in mind the prisoners they have seen in the Crusade palace and in the Roman Provinces, who were doomed to spend their time in torture for eternity. In the end, Delgado shoots Antadurunnu and they go through the portal to defeat the Firstborn. Make sure you know by now how to use the magical abilities of the characters because as soon as he will try to possess any of the team members, they will have to strike back by using their magical skills. The normal ending shows how the Jericho team goes deep into the water to escape, while Arnold "assumes" responsibility for the destruction of the Firstborn. Some rumors hint that if you finish the game in hard mode, you will battle on the plains of purgatory as Ross against Arnold and that you have to make sure you sink his eyes deep within his brain in order to defeat him.

The sound in the game was pretty creepy in some areas, after all, this is supposed to be an action-squad-horror. The ability to switch among characters is rather new and interesting – that way you won’t have time to get bored. The music is merely ambiental and has nothing special. This is somehow compensated by the visual effects, especially when you use the magical powers of each member of Jericho. The controls should be very familiar to any gamer who likes shooters.

Digitainment mark: 7 out of 10 (penalty for the scripted events – those were so annoying!)
Designer: Clive Barker
Developer: Mercury Steam (the game engine bears the same name – the Mercury Engine)
Publisher: Codemasters
Website: http://www.codemasters.com/jericho/

Discovering Nature is not one of the hardcore gaming enterprises which we’re usually reviewing. It won’t charge an arm and a leg for you to play and doesn’t even require you spending long vicious hours on a daily basis to provide a sense of achievement. In fact Discovering Nature is the kind of game you pass on to your kids when they are young, in the hope that they’ll learn something when the day is done. Maybe the girlfriend or wife will enjoy it, and rest assured, when you have a break at the office you’ll enjoy its catchy casual scent just the same, dear reader.

Discovering Nature has been released by the independent Croatian game developer Ocean Media on October 24th, 2007. Since we’re talking about discovering nature, expect the game to have a strong educational value coming from the myriads of creatures and plants from all over the world. As the story goes, blonde Professor Jane Pinckleport needs to follow the leads and get samples needed to cure a deadly virus. Players are going to be of assistance by helping her in specific locations all over the world. Jane meets about 60 animal species to save from mortal danger by pairing and moving them to the lab. As you might have guessed by now, Discovering Nature is a puzzle game where wits gain you more points and a quick solution to reach the next level.

Each encounter faces you with the challenge of pairing up a certain number of creatures belonging to three different types. The simple drag and drop process allows you link them together according to the current level rules. This is to say, it’s ok to group three little squirrels together and take them out of harm’s way if we’re on a matching trip. But if we’re in the predator game, your advancement relies on triplets like snake – guinea pig – grass, like a food chain condition. All in all you can link as many creatures as the setup allows you to, start the chain wherever you like, and end it as shown in the screenshots.

There are even great bonuses if you manage to link every creature belonging to the current selection in the entire level. The intriguing part is that huge chains will grant you more points but won’t get you closer to the final goal. The yellow box is your trap and it can only be activated when two creatures of the same type share its bonds. Thus the Tetris-like movement of your puzzle pieces needs to clear the way for such pairing.

What starts off as a relatively easy task turns into a real challenge later on. Animals begin to get stuck in spider webs which need to be cleared by collecting and using water buckets, only to see trappers showing up and stealing your prize. It’s a real jungle out there and only the smartest assistants can survive. Should you get stuck in one of your attempts, you can reverse the latest move or even roll the dice once more at a hefty score penalty. You start off in the Amazon and quickly make your way into similar natural habitats. Professor Jane’s friends eventually show up and guide your progress as the virus gets treated in the end.

Discovering Nature is addictive and a great time killer should you need a pause from normal and slightly boring activities. Your kids can delve into a pleasant, mind stimulating, activity and learn a thing or two about ecosystems at the same time, food chains and native animals from all over the planet. There’s a demo available for you to try out and who knows, maybe you’ll even make someone happy with this present. A little bit of casual gaming never hurt anyone.

Microsoft faced the extremely high and unacceptable failure rate of the Xbox 360 systems earlier in July that brought a $1.05 billion loss that covered the repairs for customers experiencing the “Red Ring of Death” error on their systems for three full years.

 Even the retail partners have started to find this failure rate as quite hard to deal with, and that is also the case of GameStop, where the employees received an e-mail: "effective immediately, GameStop will no longer offer PRPs (product replacement plans) on new, refurbished, and used Xbox 360 systems". They were losing themselves too much money already because of the faulty returned consoles.

I had some suspicions from the start that this console wouldn’t perform as expected, even if it does have a video graphics chip made by ATI. There are other products on the market with very similar defects – mainly caused by bad manufacturing procedures, untweaked or improperly mounted wired connections, cheap components and sensitive plastic parts.

Further down the rabbit hole we went, to find our fame and fortune in the temple so black, where fel orcs and demons keep us dire company. The Temple of Karabor was once a marvel to behold, a dream of pure light where the Draenei found shelter and ancestral guidance. It was our duty to help in their release, but fate now sets us on bone littered path. We went through the sewers and defeated Naj’Entus, then into the courtyard where Supremus guards the entrance and helped Akama fight his Shade. Outland shall be restored and Burning Legion cast out of The Black Temple, along with Illidan himself. There is hope, but also a price to pay. With this thought in mind we make our way deeper into the Temple, to Teron Gorefiend’s outer cloister and deep beyond light and hope, to the Reliquary of Souls and Gurtogg Bloodboil.

Doing the Ashtongue a favor …

<-250x250 Square - left->Straight ahead from the Sanctuary of Shadows, in the back of the room and to the left lie the stairs which lead to him. Know that Teron Gorefiend is the first of the real challenges of the Black Temple and when your guild reaches him you’ll discover the meaning of pain. Trash packs leading to his terrace are particularly hard due to the mixed AoE setups, with fel orcs dealing both magic and melee damage. Pulls require two to three mages sheeping and three melee offtanks. I can say from experience that paladin tanks are great since they can hold agro from three targets without ending up in a bloody mess. Felorc casters use bloodbolt, an area of effect ability which deals about 4k damage to each target in a cone and also heals him for the same amount. Curse of tongues or slow on should be on at all times when fighting them as they’re usually sheeped by mages and killed last. Trash pack positioning was never exceptional so watch out for double pulls, especially when going up the stairs. Marking can get tricky here. However, you can handle a regular pack and a patrol at the same time should you be unfortunate enough to pull agro. Once you dispatched the warmaster and his many minions, you need to go up the second staircase, into an open terrace adorned with tall statues in semblance of Felorc warriors.

There are some low hit point orcs which can seemingly be soloed (they have about 20k life) and I’ve seen videos about this part, where a healer and a damage dealer managed to sneak up here and slay them all for incredibly powerful and free random loot. It seems the recent Mount Hyjal itemization on the undead waves was a response to this clever use of game mechanics, thus the Black Temple random drop rates as a whole have been reduced. You can still take a look at how people used to do it before the nerf here.

Teron Gorefiend

Past the two statues like the secluded hall of Teron Gorefiend, an old “friend” you might recall from a while back, when you were questing in Netherstorm. There was a long quest chain that led up to you completing a time old armor initially tailored for the great warlock Gorefiend himself. You let your body be possessed by this armor and defeated its Eredar guardian in its stead, only to find out that a great evil has been let loose into the world once more. It was you who freed Teron Gorefiend from its captivity in Netherstorm and as a matter of honor you must now put his soul to rest for good.

Teron Gorefiend is literally deadly. As the fight starts, he needs to be tanked between the pillars, relatively close to the door. From now on, every thirty seconds he will cast Shadow of Death, debuff which lasts 55 seconds and will kill you once the duration has ended. If you can’t serve the raid in life, then maybe you’ll be useful in death. Once the debuff has 25 seconds left, you need to move to Gorefiend’s starting position, between the braziers, and patiently wait your demise. Upon death, four shadowy constructs will spawn at your location and head towards the raid. Do you see the flying ghosts above the room? Now you just became one of them and must immediately proceed to eliminating constructs as only ghosts like you can hurt them. In order to do so it’s mandatory to bind keys to the three paramount ghost abilities. One will damage all constructs in sight, the second chains them to the ground for a couple of seconds while the third should be spammed each second because it deals moderate damage to one construct and also slows his movement speed. This fight it’s not about dispelling, healing or tanking – it’s about managing your constructs correctly, before they get into the raid and kill everyone. So be sure to bind CTRL+5, 4, 3 to comfortable positions or even get macros for casting Spirit Volley, Spirit Chains, and Spirit Lance accordingly. Use the first two when not on cooldown and using Spirit Lance while continually switching construct targets.

The winged, cowled figure is one of the darkest in the game. He still hits like a truck and his spells hit random targets which need to be healed and dispelled, but it’s nothing that can’t be held under control. Chances of success rise when healers die to Shadow of death first, because DPS is needed. Locks must devise a soulstone rotation of on targeted players, so that the first two can come back to life after ghost duty. Shamans can get up on their own, which pretty much leaves Divine Intervention the only wipe recovery tool. Running back to Gorefiend’s room after a wipe never gets old but as long as constructs are under control, Teron’s wicked soul will soon be put to rest.

Gurtogg Bloodboil

Descending back into the temple main room it’s time to take a sharp right, into the Halls of Anguish where Felorcs are trained in to grow more powerful and ruthless, ready to pierce the enemy wherever the fight may lead them. The great hall hosts many skirmishing packs and you are presented with a choice in confrontation. Darkness takes many shapes should you go right and pass the ghost fields, into the Reliquary of Souls chamber. Unlike its spiritual counterpart, on the other side of the compound resides Gurtogg Bloodboil, a being anything but ethereal. First you will have to get past the huge Bonechewer Behemoths, which rain fire from the sky. While they don’t hit hard in melee, meteor after meteor will run your healers dry and the raid hurt.

Our path leads to Gurtogg Bloodboil’s lair to fight the greatest Felorc gladiator to ever walk the face of Outland. Just like every encounter henceforth, we were faced with a harsh reality check when we couldn’t keep Gurtogg’s fury in check. He just slashes away at cloth users like a knife through butter so group setup is of paramount importance. Get 10 healers, less mages and warlocks, with more melee DPS than usual since they are the prime damage dealers. It can be done with a two-tank rotation but three are advisable since Gurtogg leaves a debuff which lowers armor and does damage over time. Tanks must switch agro control from one to another on 10-13 debuffs and no-one is allowed to past their threat because Gurtogg also disorients tanks on occasion. The boss must be tanked at the right wall position while ranged DPS and healers stay further away, near the opposite wall. Bloodboil is his main damaging ability in phase one, a damage-over-time attack which hits the furthest five raid members. It gets cast every 10 seconds thus three healer and ranged DPS groups must take turns at taking Bloodboil. It can stack up, resetting the timer, deals 15k damage and must be healed through. So if you’re in a sponge group, every twenty seconds you’ll run away from the tanking position, roughly to the opposite wall and take the next Bloodboil, then come back and resume your role.

Every minute Gurtogg goes into a rage and throws a buff on a random party member. During phase two, fel rage grants you armor, hit points and a sizeable damage buff, because Gurtogg will only attack you. Everyone else in the raid becomes insignificant and will generate no threat so and they can DPS at their hearts content. The problem lies with Gurtogg getting fel rage himself, dealing incredible damage to his new found obsession. This is the phase where wipes occur, especially if a cloth user gets targeted. With a bit of practice your healers will be able to heal through the rage and phase one starts again. We usually undergo three fel rages until the boss is down but mana is hardly an issue and when the acid clouds lift from your gaze, Gurtogg Bloodboil will be laying in ruins, crushed.

The Reliquary of Souls

One being of immense power still calls the Halls of Anguish its home. They call it the Reliquary of Souls, the collective spark of every lost essence that found its end in the Black Temple. From the entrance and to the right lies a medium chamber patrolled by ghosts, some visible and some invisible. Every member of the raid must follow the tank and move as one because the main tank will “schedule” three stops, picking up three subsequent ghost packs which must be killed by AoE fast. There is little room for error, because the area has a very fast respawn timer of about 15 seconds, so if you’re slow, additional packs will agro, making your progress impossible. Once the third stop has been performed and the ghosts are dead, make haste down the stairs. It’s a common occurrence that casters don’t have time to drink at this point, but don’t worry, phase one is not mana intensive and everybody gets refreshed before entering phase two.

A huge monolithic box resembling a cube starts pulsating as you approach. It is in fact a prison and the first face of darkness you’re going to see is the Essence of Suffering. During this phase, all healing and regenerating effects (including mana) cease to work and basically you will body tank every little bit of damage thrown your way, with the notable exception of priest power word shield and mage shields. This boss fixates a target pretty much like Thaladred does in the Kael’Thas encounter and will swing a couple of times in melee before switching to its next target. As a rule of thumb, the Essence of Suffering always attacks the closest target in melee, thus hunters are the best choice in taking the first hits because they need to distance themselves afterwards in order to deal damage. The first hunter gets in melee range, fixated, then he needs to move one step further away but still within melee range. That’s when a second raid member moves in even closer to the boss and gets the next fixate. Once hunters have done this one time each, the bulk of the raid moves in and gets damaged. It’s important to remember that you can’t remain in the same place when fixated, but you can’t move away more than one step away either. The point is to keep the Essence still, while everyone soaks some damage. Once you get hit and lose more than half your hit points, it’s wise to move away for the rest of the fight and keep doing damage. The essence of Suffering also casts damage over time curses at random group members so dispellers must keep alert. Rogues and dedicated tanks should never get fixated because their massive damage avoidance capabilities need to be used on enrages. The Essence of Suffering enrages for ten seconds roughly every 45 seconds and attacks a single target for sustained damage. Rogues with evasion can do the trick, or tanks with high dodge and parry chance. If everything goes well and no-one dies, after the third enrage the suffering end and the essence runs back into the cage.

Harmless ghosts rush the raid and regenerate 2000 hit points and mana upon death, so everyone will get topped off by the time the Essence of Desire emerged from its prison. Imagine healers having twice the normal healing power and your offensive abilities doing twice the damage. It’s beautiful, but with a twist. Every raid member takes half the amount of damage they’re dealing. To make things worse, your mana cap will constantly lower to the point where in 90 seconds you have zero mana out of zero maximum mana. Needless to say it is a DPS race but you still have to keep the fight under control. The Spirit Shock casts need to be interrupted by a three squad rotation (consisting in a rogue kicking and another class as a backup); otherwise their casting speed increases and the tank gets disoriented. On the other hand, the deaden ability should never be kicked, but spell reflected back to the Essence of Desire by the warrior main tank. Thus damage is again doubled against the ethereal presence. There was a joke among mages, about an instant empowered pyroblast critical strike on the deadened essence, which basically one-shots the said mage due to partial damage reflection. Do not try this at home because it is possible and likely to happen. Mages can still have fun by spell stealing a rune shield the essence occasionally casts, for 10 seconds of damage immunity and 100% greater casting speed. Otherwise, the shield needs to be dispelled, or devoured by the felhunter warlock pet since spirit shock interrupts aren’t possible as long as rune shield holds. It’s gamble really, and your luck has better hold if you want to get past to the third face of despair.

Yet again, everyone gets refreshed to maximum hit points and mana before engaging the final and deadliest of them all: the Essence of Suffering. Where do I begin? This time you will not run out of mana in 90 seconds – you’ll flat out die in 60 unless the essence is destroyed, due to it’s aura of suffering. It starts off by dealing moderate damage, somewhere around 130, but then continually doubles until its next tick one-shots you. Everything goes in this phase, every little dirty trick, the most mana consuming spells, all potions and cooldowns are blown right off from the start. Soulstones should be placed on rogues because once they die, they can revive and even evasion tank the essence for a while. Damage ticks will just start from 130 again so a rogue can live without healing for 10 seconds more easily. Since there is no way to recover from a wipe here (due to the ghost halls) shamans will just self resurrect in this fight and keep the battle going. I found out the Reliquary of Souls to be a most brutal skill check for everyone in the raid, as well as a massive gear check. Although luck is a big factor, incompetent players will get stuck here for ages. This is hands on the most challenging fight in the game, in line with Illidan and Kael’Thas. 60 seconds and you know if fate chose you victor. There is always silence after the kill, with half the raid dying at the same time, but casualties can bask in the glory of a job well done once the Reliquary of Souls crumbles and its spirits get released.

The way to Illidan’s upper sanctum is now cleared as the gate opens downstairs. The last demise brought us one step closer to final victory and we can but wonder what the future has in store for us. Tomorrow is another day, and this time we are prepared.

An official statement on the game's website states that all beta accounts and login servers have been taken down for preparation and maintainance in order to be ready and fully functional for the day of the release of the game, along Haloween, on October 31st in USA and on the 2nd of November in Europe.

The downtime is necessary to ensure a smooth ride for the customers from the very first day of online play. In the meantime I am getting myself ready for the one of the biggest and most comprehensive review I ever wrote for a videogame, as this one will change concepts and will revolutionize the gaming industry. There are loads of new elements and key concepts like shooter action is combined with 3rd person hack-and-slash in order to bring a full gaming experinece to the table.

As soon as the required maintenance is performed, the website and forums will once again be operable, and the ones who were beta players, such as myself, will be able to keep their characters and to choose their favourite names for their characters. I've got a BladeMaster and a Lady Summoner wating for me, lots of monsters and demons to slay... More details will be added soon.