Review: Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45

Dev: Tripwire interactive
Pub: Valve
Available via Steam for about £15.

So you thought the WW2 genre was stald did you? RO is the “full game” of the incredibly popular UT2004 mod of the same name. Dev team Tripwire interactive won prizes equalling a millino dollars for the original mod in the Make something unreal (MSU) conrest a while back so its fair to say hopes were high for this release.

Mod Roundup: Half life 2 singleplayer mods

In this roundup I will be looking at two mods which alter the original half life 2 singleplayer, both leave the story mostly intact, but add loads of cool goodies.

SMOD simply adds bullet time and loads of new weapons. The bullet time works very well, much better then the standalone bullet time mod, bullet trails are fun and it’s not too slow. The weapons are the real attraction to SMOD though, it adds some weapons from other valve games, the ak47 from csSs and the kar 98k from Dod:s for example. But above all SMOD is about the comedy, Gordon’s magical wand looks like something from “Hello Kitty” but shoots magical bolts of electro death. The psp is another fun weapon, firing explosive umd’s at hordes of combine doesn’t get old. In a tribute to worms the banana bomb makes an appearance, but it’s not as cool as throwing a pair of scissors which instantly destroy anything in their path. The list of weapons is too huge to go into now, mainly because I’m lazy, but it really does add another layer to hl2, a comedy layer admitedly, but it does make replaying half life 2 that bit more enjoyable.

Civ IV: Teh Review

Format: PC
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Firaxis
Genre: 4X
Price: Variable, £30 new
Reviewer: Munki

Yeah, so this is about my third attempt to review Civilisation IV, I’ve actually had the game for ages, it’s just been difficult for me to commit my thoughts to paper. Erm, E-paper. Yes. Civ IV is the latest in Firaxis’ brilliant 4X series (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit & eXterminate) and manages to improve on the winning formula and easing the series into the third dimention.

Review: Avast! Antivirus

Hopefully this review will prove a little useful to those looking to escape the pitfall that is Norton Antivirus, or even just those that want to try a different antivirus.

Firstly, I shall give you a link to the site of this wonderful (and free for home license) antivirus.

You will find it at the nice short url of

http://www.avast.com/

You’ll want to click downloads, then Avast 4 Home edition. You should get to this page

Review?: Battlefield 2 :)

Format: PC
Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Dice
Genre: FPS
Price: Variable, £30 new
Reviewer: Munki

I don’t like this game. I don’t actually have fun whilst playing it. That’s not actually a bad thing, I don’t enjoy playing cs:s, but I’ve still racked up hundreds of hours playing it, it’s an addiction thing. However I only take part in a few bits of the game, only experience a tiny part of the game. I do two things in BF2, I heal people and I drive up and down hills. Healing people gets me ranks and driving cars up and down hills gives me ammusement.

[I'm pretty sure Munki was drunk when writing this - Ed]

Seven out of Ten

Review: Thievery (UT)

Thievery

This excellent, if now aged, multiplayer mod for the original Unreal Tournament builds upon the stunning PC series, Thief (from the now sadly deceased Looking Glass Studios). Thievery allows you to play as either the Thieves, where the experience is very like the original games(sneaking around in the dark, nicking stuff) or as the Guards. Playing as the Guards is a very different, but equally enjoyable, experience – where the Thieves use stealth to break into the levels, the Guards team have to do their best to defend the levels valuables – using traps and far heavier weaponry than the Thieves have available to them. The ingenious part of the mod is the stealth system – based around the visibility gem, the core of the Thief series. Thieves can see each other glowing red anywhere on the level – but what Guards see is linked to the light levels. Pitch black shadows make Thieves invisible, in full light, they are fully visible. Between these two, the level of shadow affects whether the Guards see a only vague outline, or a fuzzy but clearly visible Thief.

HL2 Mod reviews

Reviewed by Sam Street

Having recently played a few Half Life 2 based mods I thought I’d do a little review of them on the website. Firstly I should just point out that I haven’t completed Rag Doll Kung Fu yet so as to how qualified I am to review the game is questionable.