<-125x125 Button - left->Crysis has become a “legend” for the fans who wanted to get to see a video game that beats a movie in terms of visual quality and reality rendering. The developers of the CryEngine 2 (namely, the Crytek Company), have managed to bring unprecedented visual reality and quality and this is not just a phrase you can hear or read when describing any new game. This is one of the first games that actually bring true HD gaming to a new level, and, if played on a proper system, the player will really think she/he plays a role in an action movie.
Crysis Running At High Settings

The PC requirements are pretty clear about one thing – there are some “minimal requirements” that can offer you a “decent” game-play and some additional hardware that you can add to your system or even upgrade in order to enjoy a fully featured experience. The CPU needs to be of 3GHz, the RAM should be 1.5 GB (or more), the needed Hard Disk space is 12 GB, Nvidia 7800 or ATi X1950 as video cards (or the better newer models), a DirectX compatible sound card and a fast network/Internet connection for LAN or Internet multiplayer gaming.
The Nano-Suit

Among other novelties, Crysis also brings the muscle nano-suit concept: a highly advanced armor suit, capable of giving the gamer a few operating modes: super armor, super strength, extreme speed and advanced cloaking, according to what the tactics require for a successful combat technique. It has also been described as an exoskeleton military prototype suite as it really does look amazing and it can also help Jake Dunn (our main hero) in performing really difficult tasks. Too bad you can't use all the armor features at once! The artificial intelligence of the enemies in Crysis tends to be very realistic and very believable – for example the North Korean soldiers might smoke, salute superior officers, joke around (if you understand or know their Korean dialect) while Dunn can sneak behind them with the help of the cloaking system.
Crysis Action Video

How come only the Americans always have their government sponsoring such highly advanced military projects? I’m very sure that the governments in other countries are capable as well of providing the financial requirements in research for their defense systems. And this is “thrown” into their face when Jake Dunn (the US Army Delta Force Soldier) gets a strong fist into his face from a North Korean soldier wearing a very similar “nano-suit” in one of the first levels of the game. The tactics of the enemies are varied and complex too: they know how to hide, ambush and to adapt according to the surrounding environment. Although in the game description on the official website it is stated that the American and North Korean must join forces in order to fight against the aliens, I did not encounter a single moment when the two teams worked together against the aliens – so, the way I see it is that each “team” has its own interests and priorities and fights for its own purpose.

The game story is not very long and doesn’t have anything special or unique about it and that is one of the downsides of Crysis. It is spread out on 11 huge world-maps that take a lot of time to explore. It’s about a race of robotic aliens – they “land” on the Lingshan Islands, in the Philippine Sea, with their 2Km high ship. The North Korean troops have surrounded the area, have started evacuating the civilians and are already researching for ways of exploiting the new discovery with the help of a team of scientists. The first alien to attack the Delta Force squad appears while they were gliding down from the flying vehicle and makes them land in various areas, thus making things a little more difficult already. The next alien takes away Prophet, the team leader, away from them. This alien looks incredibly similar to the aliens with very big legs we saw in Half-Life 2 and War of the Worlds.

Following a few mission stops, Nomad (the codename of Jack Dunn) reaches a school in a village where a CIA agent was held hostage and she gives him critical information about the research facility that was set up by the Koreans. Nomad reaches the facility in the end and fights against Kyong, the Korean General. Because the structure of the research center becomes unstable, Dunn tries to get the research assistant out of there, but he remains blocked near what it looks to him as being a mineshaft.

He goes further into it in order to explore it and to find out a way hoping to get out of the mine. But what he discovers is that he wasn’t walking into a mineshaft, but the alien huge ship itself, as soon as he sees that the gravitation force fails to pull him down to the ground any longer. Through a series of “self-suggestive” comments, Nomad helps the gamer in getting through the twisted paths and air-vents of the ship in order to reach an opening where we see Prophet again, not only alive and kicking, but also wielding an alien big gun that can be used in defeating the flying blue aliens with robotic “tentacles”. This part was a bit annoying and reminded me of the Gothic game series where whenever you had a mission to guard someone or to escort somebody to safety they had the nasty and stupid habit of jumping out of the way and attacking beasts, mainly putting themselves in danger for no reason at all, making your mission even more “pleasant”. Sometimes he jumps right in front of your firing gun, but Prophet needs heat sources very often so be sure that you spot and mark a few while shooting the aliens.

After the return to the big aircraft carrier ship from the sea, Nomad will be shown another prototype of canon that can overload and destroy the internal structure of the alien mechanisms. In the meantime, the recordings of Nomad during his time in the alien ship have created a reason for issuing a nuclear attack against the alien ship from the island. Although, Helena, the research scientist, points out that it is useless and even more dangerous to launch such an attack, the missiles are launched anyway and thus the sphere that surrounded the alien ship (and the island as well – which caused the extremely low temperatures) expanded its size. A swarm of alien ships and aliens started heading towards the aircraft carrier ship in order to reach for its nuclear power core.

Nomad prevents them from accessing the nuclear power and starts a shoot-out on deck against a big alien monster that kidnapped Prophet earlier on. Now it was a very good time to access the functions of the nano-suit very wisely in order to win the battle. And no, this is was not the end – while fighting the aliens inside the carrier ship, Nomad took the prototype cannon as well and uses its power on the weak spots of the last enemy in the game, the big alien ship itself that is. The game ends with Nomad jumping into a VTOL flying vehicle, and the gamers gets to watch how the two big ships sink into the sea.

The sound in the game gives a good impression and I really liked the voices that announced the state of the nanosuit. The music, just like in other successful shooter titles is stimulating enough and has its own way of announcing certain events within the game. Since this game has an M rating (Mature) you will definitely hear some “raw” military language coming from the orders if you waste time and don’t follow the exact path towards an area you’re supposed to reach and act upon. Here’s what the developers have to say about the game:
Crysis Developer Interview

The multiplayer part has also a lot to offer as up to 32 players can join the game on a lan-party or on the internet servers. The game engine, Cry-Engine 2 has an impressive amount of features that could be explored a lot more, and so there is an application that comes bundled with the game, Sandbox Editor that allows the gamers to create and edit levels which is quite good and encouraging for the fan communities (just like the Unreal Editor was bundled with the Unreal Game Series). This might be the first game of a trilogy like more sources have mentioned – the point is – if this first game looks already extremely good and very lifelike, just imagine the graphics details of the next ones in the series.
Game Trailer

Digitainment Mark: 9.8 out of 10 (for truly impressive and life-like graphics)

Publisher: Electronic Arts (EA)

Official site: http://www.ea.com/crysis/

Developer: Crytek http://www.crytek.com

The fate of this game was decided long before the actual work for it had even started. The developers are the same ones who left from Blizzard a long time ago and are the authors of the Diablo game series. The history of this game started in the house of one of the developers and later on they had a fully working studio which got the name “Flagship Studio”. The fact that they started out in a small place working on this project bonded the developers very much. What they wanted was to give life to a new game that would create a new genre within the list of the types of games of today.

<-250x250 Square - left->The original idea that gave inspiration for the concept of Hellgate was “Half-Life meets Diablo”, according to one of the developers (Diablo2 was the only game that lasted more than 2 years on my hard drive – so you can only imagine how interested I was when I heard that a new game made by the same team was in the works). The result is pretty much a lot more than they originally expected – thousands of fans are active daily on the official site posting in the community. Yes, this game is more like “next-gen”, but you should take this phrase literally – the requirements are pretty much important and need to be respected, otherwise you will never enjoy the game at its best. The game has a multiplayer version as well (where you can go with your friends from your clan and defeat the demons together), based on monthly subscriptions with relatively good prices. If you hurry up, you might get a lifetime subscription as well.

You will need a dual core CPU with at least 2GHz, 2GB of RAM – yes it needs a lot of RAM, the more the better (seriously this game needs 4 GB RAM because of the high amount of data that keeps being loaded as you progress from one area to another so that the transition would be smooth), latest generation and especially top level video cards – the developers have worked mostly on Nvidia cards and that is also what they promote in their game. Momentarily, the 2x00 ATI cards work very well with the game, but only with the Catalyst 7.9 driver series. The page-file of your computer needs to be resized to a little above 10GB and the hard drive requirements are 7.5GB. You may wonder why this game needs so much – well it’s because of the engine. Even if you install the memory leak patch from Microsoft that the set-up will ask you to, it will still have problems with managing the video memory and the RAM memory – it would certainly need some tweaking, and the developers have released 3 patches so far, one after another, each giving a better overall performance, but the memory issue hasn’t been solved completely yet.

latest game trailer

The story of the game is neatly connected with its development - they began the concept arts with the Templar Knights because they have existed for a long time and they know how to deal with threats, always protecting the humankind. And around this idea the other classes have caught shape. “First person shooter meets RPG” – this was the full concept that determined the developers to create a fully featured and brand new game-engine, specialized in generating new maps and in handling massive amounts of characters, monsters and other 3D objects in motion, infinite replayability and an individualized gaming experience through dynamically created levels. As you can imagine it was not easy, and it took them years before they even came close to an alpha version of the game, when I received an invitation to take part in the testing. I was very happy that somebody was finally thinking of making something quite revolutionary, while bringing new concepts.

The alpha and beta testing went pretty much OK, but I can tell you now – the alpha version was already very good and performed impressively nice. The beta was tweaked and changed a few things, like the design of most of the tube stations. There are as many “levels” as many stations – in each of them you will have to do some “chores” in order to gain some experience points and there is of course the main line of quests, meant to bring you closer to the “Hellgate”. I am presenting the game levels from the point of view of a Knight, so it’s a Templar Knight’s version of the story, following mostly the main quest. The other classes have pretty much the same path, although they will definitely use their own special abilities to move through the hordes of demons and travel to each station doing good deeds.

Although, you will have to take up as many quests as possible and solve them, there is a purpose for this – increased experience will give you many points to allocate to the skills panel and 5 attribute points per gained level to distribute to the accuracy (the precision of the attacks), strength (for wearing the heaviest and strongest armors and also to hit better the monsters where it hurts), stamina (the life power – this increases directly your health levels) and willpower (the magic abilities). What this game has to offer is high-action single player that can be played also on the multiplayer. I strongly believe that this game is one very good advertiser for tourists who wish to visit London (as if there weren’t too many already). The weapons in the game are very capable of tweaking and have slots for inserting items that give them aditional and enhanced abilities. So here it goes:

“I still remember the orders from the first day I arrived at the Holborn Station, after meeting Murmur and helping out the Techsmith to restore the gate towards Covent Garden: “Fire and Glory! Remember the dead but fight for the living! Leave NONE (meaning demons) alive! Save London!” What happened that lead to this totally unbalanced universe: “A post-apocalyptic London has been overrun by hordes of terrifying demons, leaving the city desolate and scorched by hellfire. Those who were unlucky enough to survive now gather in the only sanctuary left, the Underground, banding together in order to gain a foothold against the minions of darkness and ultimately save the bloodline of humanity.” There are 3 factions with the necessary skills for “demon-thrashing” and these are:

The legendary Templar Knights were the ones who have been doing “this job” for centuries and were specialists in sword attacks and extreme physical damage. They have developed quite unique and highly advanced armor along with cutting-edge powerful swords. The game’s general idea is focused around them and they were the first ones prepared to face the demons. Since I was “called for duty”, I had to join them and “regain” my former armor. I was ready as a blademaster to “match the blades” against the demons again, but this time it was going to be the end of them.

Blademaster Templar in action

The Cabalists were the students of the dark arts and advanced science. They find themselves pretty much at the border between good and evil, luckily they use their forces to help the armies of the knights in mid-range combat against the demons. They use the force of the demons against them. This class reminded me of the Necromancer one from the Diablo game. They don’t do very much physical damage themselves - it’s the summoned creatures and the spells that do the tricks for them.

Cabalist Summoner in action

The Hunters are former highly ranked and trained military operatives and spies who make use of advanced technology to defeat their opponents – while they also use a lot of guns. They are the ones to show us the real first person shooter mode within the game. The developers wanted to make them look outstanding and not just like the "usual" marines.

Hunter Marksman in action

Moving on with the story, I managed to help the Techsmith in fixing the gate towards Covent Garden and I literally hacked and slashed through the restless packs of demons in order to reach the Covent Garden Station. This is where I met one of the highly ranked knights, namely Brandon Lann. He was pretty full of self-importance, but later on when I met him again he was very respectful. He sent me to search for one of his wounded knights from one of the Hellrifts (small portals between human world and the demon one). There I found a device that helped me destroy the Hellrift from the British Museum and I met “the oracle”, The Sage (very amusing, just like in the Matrix) who told me a “piece” of the truth. And that is what happened in Act 1 from the game.

When I came back, Lann sent me to Lord Arphaun, from the Charing Cross Station. Here I got the orders to clear out the Piccadilly Circus and the surrounding areas. While my skills have improved and I gained some “cash” I decided to get “some respectable gear”, as Lann suggested, at least until I would get the armor I was waiting for such a long time. And I must say I really enjoyed talking to Holloway, and I bought a lot of items, armors and swords from her. She is one of the cutest people to talk to, (but only before you apply any patch to the game – the patches remove her cool personality). Here, I was sent to talk to Lucious Aldin, a crazy old fool who proved to be pretty skillful in managing to keep me busy for a while in the Green Park Station and in Chocolate Park. After bringing down some uglies in the Millennium Battle and in the level that turns out to be RTS-like, namely the Embankment Redoubt, I reached the end of Act 2.

Embankment Redoubt
The next stop was the Temple Station – this where I found armor which resembled very much the one I’ve been waiting for. It wasn’t very sleek looking, but it protected me lots of times during my travels to The Barge House, The Big Gundown, The Puddle Dock and the Angel Passage. Rorke Pherral was in charge here, and he was from the Hunter faction. I noticed that the Templar Base was just one tunnel away, but I only visited it for the new gear and armor at that time. Things were starting to look better and the occasional “epic battles” were bringing me closer to the final fight against the big demon with blue eyes. When I went through the Angel Passage, I saw a lot of big and very ugly wart-like creatures that released a lot of infesting fumes – I used the special gun from the wizard-lizard Lady from the Temple Station to get rid of them and I finally met another form of “truth”, in a heaven-like area.

That was the end of Act 3 and the beginning of Act 4, and I moved on to the Monument Station where I was happy to find Lord Arphaun again and he asked me to rescue some fellow knights who were located in Aldgate, Canon Street Rail, and to clear out the Tower of London area. I helped the Techsmith to fix the train from Canon Street Rail, by bringing back the missing pieces and then I attacked the demons that were standing in the way of the train. I also returned to the Templar Base where I felt pretty much like home and very welcome, although Lord Maxim was arrogantly abusing his power. Hilariously enough, the game has a sense of knowing how good the player is and I received a hint during the missions from the Templar Base, and that was: “You should really know what you are doing by now” and I was like “wow, no kidding, you think?”

Next, at the beginning of Act 5, I went to Liverpool Street Station, in order to meet Jessica Sumerisle, the young lady with blond hair and blue eyes, the leader of the Templar and of the whole movement against the dark forces. This is where I finally found the armor I’ve been looking for from the start. I helped Jessica to find the Sigil Sign in Necropolis and then I was sent to Finsbury Square to prove again in 5 “simple” tests how worthy I was to face the most dangerous demons out there. These tests reminded me a lot of the adventures from the Unreal Tournament, especially the “capture the flag” competitions.

The tests (Knowledge, Fellowship, Leadership, Beauty and the Final Test) weren’t exactly easy, but I managed to pass them in a relatively short time. I enjoyed very much the travel to Ploughyard, where Lucious Aldin and his 314 Techsmith were waiting for me along Murmur and Emmera: I was given a big robot to fight against the huge demons and I was very happy to use its automatic machine guns against the Furies that were standing in my way. At the end of this test, Murmur disappeared mysteriously because of the big demon, Sydonai, who made a short appearance. The last form under which the truth took shape was a child who foretold the future of the final battle. Next, Emmera encouraged me to go and be victorious in the battle at the Hellgate from St Paul’s Station, the final stop.

Just when I thought it could get any better armor-wise I was bewildered to discover that the knights have developed another type of armor, a newer one that was visibly stronger and thicker. When I put it on, I felt as if I was one of the Transformers, those really awesome robots. And it wasn’t a bad thing at all – I actually felt invincible in that “voltaic” armor. Before proceeding to the Hellgate, I saw that all the important people were at the entrance towards the gate, like Jessica, Lann, Arphaun and Emmera – they all wished me well and said they hoped to win the war. There is just one thing I need to mention now – all the knights that I encountered on the battle field were either stupid or simply incapable to handle the monsters – I had to “dispatch” the uglies up close and personal.

So it wasn’t something new when I saw the "little" Templars on the streets fighting without any hope against the demons. I cleared the path as usual and proceeded into Hell in order to fight against Sydonai. First I had to defeat 5 big demons who impersonated 5 lies (flaws), and then Sydonai showed up. Emmera used her powers to weaken him but she soon fainted and sent the remaining energies to me. So I took the chance and started to bring on all the “heavy artillery” I had available and also used a little magic to boost my finishing moves. It was a good idea because the big blue-eyed demon fell down struck by the lighting from my swords.

What happened next was the biggest surprise of all: Murmur showed up, but totally disfigured and he thanked me for clearing up the place for him – he casted a spell upon me and sent me back, outside the Hellgate, while he remained there reading and casting spells from a book he just unwrapped. I was told that this was the end and that the story would begin again in Nightmare mode, but it would have to take a lot of time before I was to return to the battle field – I needed some rest.”

Signed,
Lt. LightSabre

The developers have worked a lot on the detail of the sound in the game, and each effect was tweaked as much as possible in order to give a realistic feel. The thematic music wasn’t present in every action scene, but it was very well spread throughout the game, especially in the “crowded” areas, in order to stimulate the player. For more details check out the interview with the developers from the video below:

Interview With Hellgate London Developers

As a conclusion, I would like to thank the developers, especially Bill Roper and Max Schaefer, for creating such a great game, for giving life and shape to things I’ve been dreaming ever since I was a very young boy and for putting into spotlight moral values that make the humans stick together through hard times. Even if the game is not perfect (but then again nothing is!), it brings a totally new perspective for the gaming communities, by combining RPG elements with FPS style and even RTS features into one big and solid package. I would also like to thank Ping0 from the Hellgate London Community for keeping us up to date with the latest patches and news regarding the game development.

Digitainment Mark: 10 out of 10 (for creating a new genre in the gaming universe)

Developer: Flagship Studios

Publisher: EA, Namco Bandai Games, HanbitSoft, IAH games

Official game website: http://www.hellgatelondon.com

<-250x250 Square - left->Yes, that’s right, another dose of “hand-to-gun” combat and shooting piece of action that is somehow a remix of the original games from the Painkiller series. Some time ago I presented to you a review of the Battle Out Of Hell add-on to the game which actually brought some refreshing graphics and a really tweaked engine – such novelties are a considerable “effort” for many developers. What does this new game from the series bring to the table? Merely a new story to wrap the game scenario around it: the engine is pretty much the same one used in the Battle Out Of Hell, so nothing new about that, even the graphics look similar and were probably created in pretty much the same way as before. Since this wasn’t a real game to begin with, but rather a game mode that evolved into a stand-alone game - we shouldn’t expect very much either, only the fans of the series could appreciate it. However, the loading times between levels tend to be hilarious after a while, but the game requirements are similar to the ones from Battle Out Of Hell.

The game story is connected to the fight between good and evil, just like in the previous games, though it adds a sick twist in the plot – a male angel was seduced by a demon lady and they had a child who had both demonic but also holy features. Although it wasn’t his fault, he became soon the enemy of both sides, as they feared him because of his mastering of portals between the Heaven and Hell. And so, there was a pact that was signed (thematic entry from the Painkiller game series) in order to destroy the “creature”. Cerberus, the guardian dog of Hell was ordered to destroy the wings of the half-angel, while the traitor angel Samael was watching.

game trailer
Nobody even suspected that they might need to use the portal powers of Belial, the “wretched creature”. They tried to control him, to use him, and he was pinned down into a cage with enchanted locks. These locks would react only to Lucifer’s command. When Daniel defeated Lucifer in the Painkiller, he also set Belial free without knowing it. And because he was released, Belial started looking for revenge on “the mad dog” and Samael.

This is what this game is all about – the levels are organized into 3 big chapters, each having 5 “episodes”, each getting Belial closer to his purpose. For every fighting sequence in the game there is exactly the same scenario – you will take the role of Belial, and enter an area and a door shuts behind you with a big noise. The demons are spawned almost instantly one after another and you will have to “dispatch” them all, unless you wish to get stuck in the same level, over and over again.

The “episodes” are each one more stupid than the other, making you fall asleep by seeing how predictable the enemies will get. The repetition is very boring and there’s nothing changed but the surroundings and the types of the enemies. I’m going to mention though a few instances where I had “some” fun. While I was shooting ninjas in the “Japanese Massacre” I remembered a good joke: if you wish to get a ninja salad, just go among them and tell them something “nice” about their mother – this totally applies in this level, although they are the ones to become “salad” splattered on the walls when the gamer uses the “skeleton”-shotgun. Next, you will arrive in the Desert, where you will “shake-hands” with the Egyptian mummies, bugs and wannabe pharaohs in their lame attempts to bring some damage to our traveler. The scorpions that turn into bugs are the most hilarious types. But then again, what do the crazed spell-casted templar knights (standard or huge sized) have to do with Egyptians? There’s no answer to that as there is no logic that could explain a lot of silly and scripted apparitions from the game. And as if this wasn’t enough, we go even into Star-Wars and Asteroids with this story – that was really not necessary, the whole game is a SF-like adventure, so why bother? If you use your shotgun and the demon head with the laser-beam out of his eyes long enough, the level will be finished pretty quickly.

Another “ammo-demanding” stop is the Black Tower – the first boss-battle. Next, you will have to jump-through a Nuclear Plant and an Animal Farm, and as new element, you will gain a new weapon during the shooting spree, that operates on toxic waste ammo.

The ancient Vikings won’t give up that easily their fortress from Ragnarok and you will have to use excessive force to get rid of the annoying magicians who throw telekinetic hits at you. At the end of this level you will have to take your best shot at Cerberus, the dog that ripped apart Belial’s wings. Between this chapter end and Samael’s Lair there are just a few stops, each being filled with enemies you’ve seen before in the first series of levels, but in a large number this time, especially the Haunted Valley (candy-like images and trees – the realm of tales about witches, moving trees and bad tempered knights, all of them with nasty habits that need to be cured …permanently) and Loony Park (that is a total “remix” of the Loony Park from the original Painkiller - Battle Out Of Hell, except for the fact that you get no free ride on the electric cars, and because of that it is a total failure – not only the music is annoying, but there are all over again the same lame characters from last time; the addition of the “pirates” and the ships was a very good one though!).

Of course, as expected, you will have to fight against Samael, once you reach his place. First you will have to deal with some more giant knights and then use any weapon you like to produce heavy damage with and knock off Samael.

The sound in the game was very much the same as in the Battle Out Of Hell, but the music was a bit different, even the ambiental sounds, as there are specific areas of some levels where you will have to go through.

game presentation
Digitainment mark: 5 out of 10 (for lack of innovation)

Developer/Publisher: DreamCatcher, Mindware

Website with demo:
http://www.projectoverdose.com/

Buy: $39

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/

The sequel of the highly acclaimed Operation Flashpoint promises to redefine the FPS genre when it comes out in 2008.

Operation Flashpoint 2 has been in production at Codemasters Studios for two years now and the largest development team ever assembled is working on it, so…we might be in for something really amazing, let's hope so.

<-234x60 Half Banner - right->Set in modern-day theatres of war the game will offer realistic conflict scenarios that will give players the impression they really are taking part in a war. The game is said to offer different military classes to make the warfare experience even more believable and a multiplayer component which will create battles at an impressive scale.

The game will use a new FPS variant of Neon engine technology, the company’s proprietary middleware.

More details about Operation Flashpoint 2 will be available this summer.