As I write this, Halo 3 is boiling hot, and it seems that Bungie's game will get again high ratings from everyone, but we shouldn't forget that Microsoft is the big boy in this game. While this partnership brought fame for Bungie and a lot of money to everyone, including the Redmond giant, it seems the game developer wants more. So, why would Bungie split ways with Microsoft?

According to various inside sources, Halo's producers don't want to live for the rest of their days making "Halos", because we all know that Microsoft, once it has a good product that sells on the market, keeps issuing new versions over and over again, sometimes ending up reinventing the wheel just to sale the same product under a different shape. Another reason is that Bungie wants to get back in the Mac world, as well as starting to create games for PlayStaton 3 and Wii.These being said, let's see what happened today...

Moving from rumor to reality, the Bungie-Microsoft rupture happened a few hours ago, when Microsoft Corp. announced that Bungie will become an independent company once again. While Bungie's Harold Ryan said that ""[We] greatly value our mutually prosperous relationship with our publisher, Microsoft Game Studios,and we look forward to continuing that affiliation through 'Halo' and beyond.", the fanchising director of the company, Brian Jarrard, speaking to Macworld, claimed the return to the Mac world is possible.

As you can figure out, Microsoft won't just give Bungie freedom without keeping rights to the Halo titles, but that's OK, as well as long they will be able to create games for other platforms from now on, too. Obviously, we won't see the results of today's event in a month or two, but we should keep our eyes on Bungie Studios from now on, because we may get some pleasant surprises, especially if we're using a PS or Wii for our gaming needs.

Bungie Software Products Corporation started back in 1991 as a game company with products aiming at the Mac OS only, and before joining Microsoft in 2000, produced notorious Mac games such as Oni, Myth or Marathon. What happened afterward, it's already history, because if you didn't play at least one of the 3 Halo games, you can't call yourself a serious gamer...

The Chosen: Well of Souls is a hack and slash single player role playing game set in a medieval fantasy world, developed by Rebelmind studios and released by Meridian 4 on October 1^st, 2007.

Story

The synopsis is quite simple. The Emerald tabled which was passed down through generation to generation, from the great god Hermes Trimegistos himself, has been stolen. This catastrophic event shows vile repercussions immediately as someone used the Tablet to open the Well of Souls, thus the hordes of Hell are unleashed upon the earth. Not only that, but the one who was first and foremost in charge of protecting this sacred oath, champion of the people and defender of the Alchemical secrets - the Chosen One is presumed captured and defeated. In these times of dire need, the Alchemists call for three heroes to take up the task of recovering the Emerald Tablet and set things right. You will face the evil sorcerer Marcus and his army of infernal beasts, in an attempt to preserve the life of God’s Envoy. Maybe you can save the world from doom and rise as The Chosen.

Concept

<-250x250 Square - left->This is where you come in, to guide the vengeful blade of Frater, Elena or Khan. Using spells come as a second nature to Frater, as he is a monk schooled in the arts of the Alchemists. His dedication added to the powers of faith, furthermore helping him fight the demonic threat as a master of fire, ice and ether. Elena is of a different breed, adept at hunting her enemies down from range. Being raised by Siberian hunters, her background as sole survivor in a werewolf attack only made her more determined. Khan is also a warrior at hart, but would rather use his hand to hand skills and big shiny swords when engaging the hell spawn. The Blade of Spring they called him, great wrath bringer and beacon of hope for the oppressed, wherever the pursuit of justice took him.

Your hero has five basic statistics to improve as the game progresses, strength, dexterity, knowledge, vitality and faith. Whenever you level up, five points can be distributed among these. Experience is gained by killing monsters and completing quests. Strength increases your melee damage and generally is needed as the main armor and weapon prerequisite. The higher strength is, the better the items you can wear and wield. On the other hand, dexterity benefits ranged attacks, in both terms of damage and proficiency with better weapons. Bows and guns are available, but the later require you manually reloading them. Knowledge is the primary stat for caster types as they govern the amount of mana you have. Better spells can be learned from books as Frater’s knowledge increases. No hero would be able to take on the challenge at the Well of Souls without vitality and the generous hit points it provides.

Faith is a very strange statistic which will improve as the game progresses. You can’t really do anything to increase faith and points will regenerate in time. This second mana pool is used to summon demons from their outer planes. These demons are immortal and incredibly powerful, yet they have no allegiance with either good or evil. At first only one demon can be summoned at a time, but characters powerful in faith will be able to call upon two or more, later in the game.

A very handy form of enchanting is can be used to augment your items through cauldrons. You can increase the defensive factor of armors, increase melee weapon damage (but decrease durability) and even lower the requirements for spell books. It can be done at any time though the cauldron interface and it will cost you an item and sizeable amounts of gold, which can then be lowered by throwing in rings or potions.

Gameplay

There is no character customization at first, as you choose one of the three avatars and start right in. You’re introduced to the chaos of this world by the words of your mentor: “Evil has come on flaming wings! I shall fall … I Callidus, Master Alchemist… Magus …” It seems someone has intentionally dispatched the Alchemists from their earthly burden into the next world, and soon there will be none able to tell the tale of the Emerald Tablet and the source of the demonic invasion. In the town of Kamieniec lies your first clue in solving your forefather’s untimely death so your adventure starts here.

Once you enter Kamieniec you’ll be accompanied by a henchman by the name of Fredrick Kalinow. He is supposed to help you navigate through the city and does a good job at doing so since he’s almost impossible to kill and will take care of the first couple of creature packs. I noticed right away that melee does a lot more damage compared to spells and ranged attacks. If you’re not heavy on hit points and wielding a heavy axe, then it will take some time for you to kill a special monster. Kiting monsters all around the city is your best option, especially since your running speed far surpasses theirs. The city layout is quite linear so getting lost is quite a feat. Still, I got bored of kiting zombies and decided to take advantage of my superior speed and run straight to the objective. While this didn’t get me killed, I need to consult the map when … surprise, the map isn’t working. I just see a black screen which I can zoom in and out of, but no actual image.

Developers put the game engine to good use with the often addition of cut scenes. Whenever you get close to a band of peasants fighting zombies or while approaching a wizened Alchemist, the camera will do a sweep over and the characters will engage in a short dialogue. I felt it added depth to the whole concept. Keep in mind that you can’t pass and of the in-game cut scenes and whenever you start the game, you’ll have to patiently watch them again.

As a hunter or monk you need to press shift to fire your projectiles while standing still, otherwise your left click will be interpreted as a movement action. While playing hack and slash games, success is often brought by killing as many opponents as possible in a short period of time. To this end, the warrior Khan seems the most proficient. Health and mane regenerate over time and it benefits Elena the most. She can just kite until full health and go again. I can’t really say the same for Frater, since he will always have mana issues. Health and mana potions are about as rare and eventually your mana pool won’t be enough. In addition, demons are known to have natural spell resistance or immunities, which make the spell caster life a chore. In the end, spell and skills will be complemented by powerful abilities learned through the skill trees each class has available. They are unique to the character and will eventually boost your capabilities to hero level. As a warrior you will deal excruciating strikes along with wielding twin weapons. The hunter gets better damage reduction from hits and learns poisons, just as the mage can summon ethereal creatures to his aid and blast enemies with area spells.

What I dislike about the system is that you have limited slots for equip able items. You can wield a weapon, put on a helmet, chest piece, shield, rings and that’s it. Rebelmind developers advertise over 200 types of armor, weapons and magic items, but it loses significance in the wake of such limitation.

Sound & Video

It struck me right from the beginning that voice acting is lacking in The Chosen: Well of Souls, as actors read the text with no special intonation and fail to sound fantasy-like. This flaw is often a sign of a low budget game and usually characteristic for games released by independent developers. If I were to make a supposition, I’d say voices were done in-house, by the developers themselves. Music is sample based thus the tune evolution is anything by natural. On the other hand, sounds make up for suitable ambience within the gloomy game world. You can hear rain drops while exploring the first town, along with crows making a mess of things and zombies dragging their feet through the mud.

Well of Souls features full 3D models of everything within the game world. I found the backgrounds to be heavy on detail; with functional eye candy whenever you throw a bigger fireball of your average zombie boss decides to resurrect its minions. Unfortunately the game engine is limited and can’t handle basic key movement. You do point and click wherever you wish to go, but that’s about it; no jumping or crossing over rivers, no strafing. I got confused when the usual movement keys would only change the camera angle, pretty much what the mouse wheel is already doing. Since the character is relatively small compared to the environment (like houses along the road), you’ll find yourself struggling for a better camera view more often than actually hitting enemies on the head with an axe. Poor implementation of movement is a serious drawback.

Conclusion

The Chosen: Well of Souls is one of those games that are beyond time, misplaced. The golden era or action adventure single player RPGs has been long dead, as developers shifted attention to RPG console titles and MMORPGs. This dying breed greatly appeals mainly to nostalgic and hardcore role players. Rebelmind tried to recreate the glory of old, but the outcome could have been better. Movement issues, poor voice-overs and a relatively simple implementation of the plot are the weak points, balanced out by decent 3D graphics and a good story. In the end, I think the choice should come from you - the reader, so be sure to grab the demo and tell us what you feel.

Borderlands is another surprise brought by 2K Games, scheduled to appear in 2008, being the first in a planned franchise.

<-125x125 Button - left->Gearbox Software, its developer, projected the game on Unreal Engine 3.0, creating a combination of first-person shooter and role-playing game, with a science fiction theme.
Described as a mix between Mad Max movie and Diablo the video game, Borderlands will feature single player, multiplayer and a four player cooperative gameplay.

Players will have access to a customizable character and combat vehicles, dropped equipment from the deceased enemies, and three different playable characters to choose from.

Borderlands will have an improved feature inspired from Diablo, the random level generation system which will generate round 500,000 item variations.

The game will be available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 platforms.