2004 Winter CPL Day of Defeat event coverage

Our coverage from the 2004 Winter CPL event.

CPL, Day 4

The big day - the last of the tourney. We will keep you up to date and try to have stats up soon. Sorry about the delays but I am having trouble getting all the log files. I also added a few more pictures to the team pics section. The important news of today was top seed Karma Police's loss to Check Six. This moves KP, the favorite to win, into the losers bracket. They are still far from out, but it will defiantly be a challenge to comeback. Check Six on the other hand is now heavily favored to win. -MattyC

 

CPL, Day 3, part 5

Aparently another bracket will also be held tomorrow for the losers from today. No prizes will be awarded its more just to say whos less loserly.. heh. I got a few more pics and added Xeno's pic to the teams section below. Tomorrow morning will start with Xeno playing the Check 6 and the Dice Pug playing Karam Police at around 10 am. Noteable matches today include Trademarks loss to Karma Police 129-47, Xeno's narrow defeat of Highball 110-98, and Ronin's equally close loss to Check Six at 65-53. Several teams will continue to play in the losers bracket for a chance to make a comeback so we will keep you posted on that. -MattyC

 

CPL, Day 3, part 4

Here are a few new pics from today. Also, the first rounds of the DoD Tourney are over. Check back in a bit for up-to-date stats and scores on that (I am working on them now). Tomorrow morning will start with Xeno playing the Check 6 and the Dice Pug playing Karam Police at around 10 am. Noteable matches today include Trademarks loss to Karma Police 129-47, Xeno's narrow defeat of Highball 110-98, and Ronin's equally close loss to Check Six at 65-53. Several teams will continue to play in the losers bracket for a chance to make a comeback so we will keep you posted on that. -MattyC

 

CPL, Day 3, part 2

Day 1 of the CPL Day of Defeat Tournament kicked off today with the start of round robin play to determine team seeding for the double elimination tournament. Matches began at 10am and continued on until early evening. Each team played 5 matches over the course of the day. Maps played included donner, anzio, chemille, harrington, and railroad. The top teams at the end of the day included Karma Police, Check Six, and Highball. The complete round robin play final seeds are as follows: 1. Karma Police 2. Check Six 3. Highball 4. Team Spars ( dice ) 5. Lawn Chair Mafia 6. Xeno 7. Ronin 8. Trademark 9. RAV 10. Unidentified (Despise) 11. Pizzabagels 12. Mafia Gaming Syndicate 13. Pound You 14. D-Day 15. PwnedByCAL-I 16. Catalyst The double elimination tournament will being at 10:00 a.m. central time on Friday December 17th. The finalized brackets can be found here. -Money-B

 

CPL, Day 3, part 1

Here are the brackets for today. They were finalized based on yesterdays round robbin. (1) Karama Police vs (16) Catalsyt (9) Rav vs (8) Trademark (5) Lawn Chair Mafia vs (12) Mafia Syn. (13) Pound You vs (4) Team Spars (dice) (3) Highball vs (14) D-Day (11) Pizzabagels vs (6) xeno (7) Ronin vs (10) unidentified (despise) (15) PwnedByCALI vs (2) Check Six Today is double elimination and the REAL tourney. We will have live stats for you guys as soon as the matches start happening. Also, any teams that haven't come by for a team pic please do. You can find behiend Karma Police under the Shuttle Banner by the admin table. Thnx. You can also expect some video coverage from today. It will mostly focus on the big two, Karma Police and Check Six. -MattyC

 

CPL, Day 2

Day two is consists of a round robbin to determine the seeding for the actual tourney. I will post the final bracket after todays matches have been played.   Here are pics of the teams/groups here: (will be updated all day long)   -MattyC

 

CPL, Day 1

Day one was basically check in for the teams with a lot of BYOC lannage and a few exibits. Abit had a 4 man Unreal Tournament 2004 frag tourney that will continue all week with some nice prizes including mobos and soundcards. Sorry about the low quality of some of the pictures. We should have a better camera out tomorrow.   -MattyC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Avid Gamer LANs

Some images from our LAN events.

Almost
the entire staff here at AvidGamer are located in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The only downside to this is well... there are no big LANs in this area.
We decided to host our own. Basically every weekend we have a small
LAN and every now and then we host some larger more official ones. Here
are some pics from our past LANs:

More pics are on the way!

We would also like to thank our past LAN sponsors: nVIDIA and Automated Retail Systems. Be sure to check the forums often for dates/times of upcoming AvidGamer LANs!

 

 

Fight Night Round Failure

The new Fight Night demo is out on Xbox live. MattyC and Musashi spend some time with it. The verdict? Garbage.

First off this is not a review. I would never base a review around a brief bit of time spent with a demo. That is why this is under my rants and raves area. With that said, Sashi and I spent some time with the Fight Night Round 4 demo this weekend and well... it is just awful. I was a huge fan of 3 and couldn't wait to get into 4. After playing it for about 15 minutes I can say with confidence that you can probably skip this game.

Don't get me wrong, it isn't all bad. One of the week points of Fight Night 3 was Joe Tessitore play the pronoun game by himself until you could hardly tell which fighter he was referring to. This appears to be massivly improved. Tessitore is joined by Teddy Atlas who adds a great amount of flavor. Once the action gets going they can often lag a bit behind, but this is still leaps and bounds ahead of 3. The boxer intros are also much more elaborate now. While that isn't a make or break feature it does add to the immersiveness. The new 'get up from a knockdown' is accomplished by lining the sticks up to level yourself rather than just getting two circles to overlap. Again a small thing, but it just feels better than Fight Night Round 3. As far as controls go they are still as solid as ever. I was unable to find the button masher setup in the demo so this may be lacking in 4, but since I never used that it had little impact on me.

Ok, now I have covered the good, let us touch on the bad... and this Fight Night has plenty of bad to go around. First off the graphics are awful. You would think between 2006 and now EA could have made some strides in that department, but you would be very wrong. The boxers look plastic, and not just plastic but also cartoonish. It is like an unholy union of a Wii Smurfs game and Sarge's Heroes do boxing. Muscles look like stretched GLAD trash bags, horribly out of place flashes of light spark on opponents after counters, and I think Pacman was replaced with a zombie Jafar from Aladdin. It is horrifying, and sadly the failing are not limited to the visual realm. The sound effects are even worse. The punches sound something like Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. In our first demo match we were both dying of laughter after just a few punches.

Now you might be thinking "Hey that doesn't matter if the gameplay is great!" and I guess you would be right. Except for the punch sounds; seriously you can't overlook those. That said it could still be a great game to play on mute! Alas, this was not to be! The gameplay is about on par with the visuals and budget sound effects. The game now has a big stamina bar. We never figured out what it is for, but hey it is there. You can apparently unload punches for about... ever and not deplete it. The cut and swelling between round game now has something to do with cups or water for points, again we didn't really understand this and frankly it frightened us.

In conclusion, this is one of the worst game demos I have ever played. It isn't even that the game is that bad (though it isn't good by any measure) so much as it is a letdown. I really hope this is some sort of joke and EA plans to deliver a real followup to Fight Night Round 3 soon. Until then if you want a fighting game stick with 3 or pick up a copy of the new UFC game.

Final Fantasy VII Debug Mode Guide

This month I decided to do something besides my column... a tutorial (of sorts). This is my little guide to the Final Fantasy VII PSX (Playstation) debug mode that I have been playing around with this summer. This article only covers the first room, but I plan to follow up with more in the future.

NOTE: You cannot mess up your PSX, your memory card, or your game CD with this... but you can mess up data on your memory card! Be careful.

    First things first... What the hell is the Final Fantasy VII debug mode? WELL, it is a nifty little feature that the fine folks at Squaresoft threw in, just to prove that they really do have to much free time. It allows you to (through a series VERY cryptic and often annoying) rooms to edit parts of the game. You can make a super character, watch your favorite move, bring Aeris (yes, Aeris, I don't care what the Japanese version calls her!) back to life, have Sephiroth in your party and other cool things.



    Now you are probably saying... how do I get this "debug room". Well first off, you have to have an old style GameShark and an old style PlayStation (sorry PC users). In theory you can use a new PSX and new GameShark, but I haven't been able to get it to work... I HAVE been able to go to all the debug rooms, but I HAVEN'T been able to get back to the regular game with edited data, like with the older equipment. Drag the PSX out of your attic (not much good on the PSX lately, huh?) and boot up Sony's good old gray box o' wonders. Now, with your GameShark, enable this code: 8009A05C 0041 and/or this one: 8009ABF6 0041. The first code is the original, and the second code is a "new and improved version." I have NO IDEA what the difference is... I use the second one only... Use whatever one (or combination) works best for you.



Next, start FF7 and select new game. It is probably a good idea to take out your memory card the first few times you mess around with the debug room as it has a tendency to cause 'undesired' effects. You should be in a room that looks like this:

    The numbers, my Japanese friend told me, are in Kanji. I don't know anything about Japanese, so I will just have to trust him on that :)  Also, since I don't know anything about Kanji, I can't count it, so I am gonna make up my own system. It goes clockwise from 1-8. For thouse of you who are number impaired (I know I am) I provided a map:

You should now remove/turn off the GameShark. If you leave it on, you WON'T be able to leave the room! The way I have this guide set-up, the options are divided into rooms and are followed by a short description of what each option does. Now, on to the rooms!

---

INTRO ROOM (Yuffie)

See Yuffie?? Well, she has all the options for this room...

YUFFIE'S OPTIONS

page one

NEXT the next page of options.

MENU ON WHOO HOO!!! Now you can use your menu throught the debug world!

BATTLE LOCK Disables random battles (in the game). Useful if you just want to explore

UNLOCK Enables random battles

MOVIE LOCK If you just can't stand to see Aeris die, select this. It will lock every movie in the game...

MOVIE UNLOCK Enables the movies (if you locked them before).

GLOBAL RESET Sets everything back to the way it was when you entered the debug mode.

FULL NAME You would think this would make your characters have names like Cloud Strife, but instead, it just messes their names up.

NEW START Has the exact same effect as selecthing NEW GAME from the Final Fantasy 7 start screen.

EXIT Leaves Yuffie's menu.

page two

BACK Takes you back to the first page of options.

SOUND RESET Turns off any music/sounds that are playing. Really helpfull, when sound loops get stuck in the PSX memory!

FULL MATERIA Get all the games materia! Well, not really... you get some mid-high level materia, and alot of blank materia that does nothing.

BATTLE999 You fight 5 little defenseless pyramid things for a bunch of experience.

EXIT Leaves Yuffie's menu.

That is all for now. Hopefully I will have more of the guide up soon.

HTML5 Browser Comparison

HTML5 is coming. Not soon, but it is on the horizon. It boasts several new features. The most exciting of which (for me anyway) are new multimedia capabilities. It could bring about the end of plugins like Flash and Silverlight for video/audio playback on the web. While this next revision, is not set to become a W3C recommendation until around 2020, many of its features are already usable and starting to appear online. How do today's browsers fair with current HTML5 content? Well I decided to do some highly unscientific testing with html5test.com.

The results were not to surprising. Apple's Safari was the clear winner with a score of 208. The loser was Microsoft's Internet Explorer with a miserable 27. However, you should keep in mind that HTML5 is not exactly expected to roll out over night. For now this is more of a curiosity than a benchmark. Now, with that disclaimer out of the way, on to the results.

Results

• Apple Safari - 208 (+7)
• Google Chrome - 197 (+7)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer - 27 (+0)
• Mozilla Firefox - 139 (+4)
• Opera - 159 (+7)

As you can see Safari took the lead followed closely by Chrome. Opera and Firefox rounded out the middle while IE ended up in last place. The full score breakdown for each browser is posted below.

IRS's Guide to Mice

IRS's Guide to Mice as it Applies to Twitch Games...

The goal of this guide is to help people maximize thier performance and not be able to legitemately excuse lack of performance on thier crosshair imput system.

Picking a mouse.



I reccommend one of the Logitech MX series as they have the highest hertz. Basically hertz refers to the number of times your mouse scans the surface per second. The microsoft intelli mouse is good too, it's just older technology - so it is somewhat less accurate and powerful. The gap is not so wide however that it overides personal preference.

Onto mouse pads. Mouse pads are important because they reduce the friction between your mouse and the scanning surface. That friction can negate the accuracy of your specialized mouse. You see, friction does more than increase the required force to move your mouse, it makes your mouse jump. The jump from the initial movement is more than potential choppiness in continuous movement. All of this made simple: your crosshair will jump pixels and it will be hard to aim precisely where you wish.



A mouse and mousepad cover the hardware, now lets move on to the software concerns. I would reccommend installing the drivers that come with your mouse or getting the most up to date drivers off the internet.




Is it possible to tweak your mouse?



Why yes it is. You can get more hertz out of your mouse by switching from usb to ps2. You see, while usb is capable of handleing more data by default, ps2 is capable of more by tweaking. Every mouse I know of on the market has a usb to ps2 adapter included so just attach that - install the software, and then set the ps2 rate to 200. This is quite an improvement over the less than 100 hertz on usb. I highly reccommend making this tweak, when I did it I was able to turn off mouse smoothing. Why would you want to turn off mouse smoothing? It averages the last two inputs of your mouse together to create a crosshair location between them, which is to say, it places your crosshair not where it should be according to your mouse movement.




What about sensitivity?



Good question, I was hoping I'd ask that. I'm going to be brutal here, if someone tells you to turn up your mouse sensitivity high, they are 99/100 times a noob. I dont know of any invite level player or CPL goer that uses high sensitivity. This is a little secret that is starting to become more well known: turn your mouse sensitivity down low for supreme ownage. Even in fast paced games with lots of quick mouse action such as ut2k3 and Quake 3, too much sensitivity will burn you.



For tactical or realism games such as Counter-Strike you would do well to turn your sensitivity down to what is currently considered extreme low levels. My sensitivity in CS is 1.6, I brought this down from 8+ back in the day (default windows sensitivity), and let me tell you, I make shots that I couldn't before. Why is it exactly that low sensitivity aids your marksmanship? It's really quite simple. For the same reason that old people have phones with big buttons. It's easier to hit a target that is bigger, and in hand-eye coordination terms low sensitivity makes targets bigger. Think of this, if i have a sensitivity of 2 or under, and you have sensitivity of 6, then the area that my mouse has to move into to score a headshot is 3 times as big as yours.

On that note, good luck with the fragging.

Interview with |NUDE|Cheese

IRS has a chat with the CAL-I DoD player.

Avid Gamer, IRS Can you give the readers some background on yourself?

|NUDE|CheeseWell, I've been gaming a long time, but I didnt really get into the community until I started playing CS, did that for a year then I learned about DoD when it was v1.3 and I liked it way more than CS so I've been playing it ever since.

IRS What particularly did you like about DoD over CS?

|NUDE|Cheese It's faster paced. CS you spend so much time camping and watching bombsites and shit, then theres like 3 seconds of shooting and you die and wait 3 minutes to spawn. In DoD you're always spawning and you always have something to do.

IRS How did you come to be the leader of NUDE?

|NUDE|Cheese I'd been playing CS with the NUDE cs team for a while since we're all local to Memphis, then when I learned about DoD I wanted to start a NUDE dod division. A guy named Grift actually was the first leader but he didnt want to do it anymore after like 2 weeks so I picked it up, and have been running the clan for the past year and a half.

IRS What was the most important or perhaps biggest match you ever won?

|NUDE|Cheese We've won so many huge matches it's hard to say, after we beat 101st people started taking us seriously, but probably raping Ve for the UGS championships was my favorite.

IRS How did nude come to be in CAL-I?

|NUDE|Cheese When they first decided to split up CAL into open and invite most of the people who played dod sucked at it and we had a pretty good record from that first CAL season, so we were among the first CAl-i teams.

IRS Who do you think will win this season of CAL-I?

|NUDE|Cheese Its between us and ve, just like it was last season. Either of us could win it'll probably come down to who's scrimmed and if josh isnt drunk or something and cope isnt matchowning.

IRS> lol

IRS Who would you say are the most promising CAL-M clans?

|NUDE|Cheese It's hard to say from our standpoint, because whenever we scrim a non invite clan its usually just a rape. uTi's got experience and rltw or whatever is pretty good I think.

IRS What do you think the DoD team should do to improve DoD?

|NUDE|Cheese Make arm hitboxes do chest damage so the garand doesnt suck dick, make bullets (esp MGs) penetrate walls like they used to.

MATTYC'S EDITORS NOTE: I couldn't agree more. Damn 1.0 n00bz ruining my favorite gun!

IRS What is your favorite thing about 1.0 over 3.1?

|NUDE|Cheese Capping is 50 points instead of like 5, so capping is worth it, makes games so much more fast paced.

IRS Are there any games whose release you are looking forward to?

|NUDE|Cheese Half life 2 and Doom 3.

IRS What do you think Nude will do when HL2 comes out?

|NUDE|Cheese Unless dod totally goes to shit we'll probably still play it, and since we all LAN we'll probably be playing together.

IRS Thanks for your time, any last comments/shout outs?

|NUDE|Cheese Yea i want to tell cope to suck a d.

IRS =D



IRS hehe thx for the interview

For more info on Clan Nude check out their site at www.nudeclan.com.

by IRS on July 28th, 2003

New Call of Duty: World at War map pack

Activision/Treyarchn has released a new map pack for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 versions of Call of Duty: World at War. It adds 4 new maps: Banzai, Corrosion, Sub Pens, and Shi No Numa. Also included is another zombie map and ten new achievements. This weekend the staff took it for a spin.

First we took a spin on the new regular maps. Shi No Numa and Corrosion didn't really offer much newness, but Banzai and Sub Pens had a bit more to offer. Sub Pens features some weather effects and fills the niche for another small map besides Dome. Lots of small rooms and halls made it a bit of a nade and satchel fest, but it was still fun. Banzai doesn't offer anything new in particular, but with its open bridge and waterfall tunnels it is probably the most visually impressive map for World at War to date.

As for the new zombie map, it is a bit different than previous attempts. For one you are free to roam out with the zombies instead of just being locked inside. It also includes some spiffy traps to dispose of enemies. A new lightning gun is around, though I can't say I really cared for it. I still prefer my MG/Laser pistol combo. Also added in this are dogs. The dogs will destroy you. We usually make it at least 18+ rounds in even with just 3 of us. In this map we have yet to beat round 6... The dogs are that mean. I think we may have made it a bit longer in one of our games, but our gun box was smote by a teddy and the rest of the time it seemed to just give molotovs.

Another new feature of this zombie map is the player characters. You have a German (we have yet to see him), an American, a Japanese, and a Russian player. Each have their own sound bits. Most of them were amusing, but the American one just annoyed me. Adds a nice touch as long as it isn't the marine talking.

Overall I would rate it the best WaW DLC so far. Well worth a purchase.

StarCraft II Collector's Edition Unboxed

This week Blizzard released StarCraft II, sequel to the smash hit of 1998. In addittion to the regular edition, devoted fans can pick up a collector's edition packed with extra goodies. We got our hands on a copy.

The CE includes:

• StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty for Windows and OS X
• a 176 page StarCraft II art book
• 2GB "Jim Raynor dog tag" USB drive with the original StarCraft and Brood War expansion
• Wings of Liberty behind-the-scenes DVD with developer interviews and the game's cinematics
• StarCraft comic issue #0
• Wings of Liberty soundtrack
• World of WarCraft baby Thor pet
• Art and character portraits for Battle.net
• Guest passes for World of WarCraft and StarCraft II

The box itself is pretty neat. Its sturdy and should hold up well.



The spread...



The USB "dog tag". It isn't just some cheap feeling plastic. It has a good bit of heft too it. The USB connector comes out via a slider on the back of the drive. It includes the original SC/SC:BW for both Windows and OS X.



When you plug in the drive it lights up.



And here is the mini Thor in action.



The CE portrairts include a Tauren and Night Elf as well as a 'Diablo Marine'. Also included are Diablo and World of WarCraft themed icons for multiplayer and a "Dedicated Fan" Feat of Strength Battle.net achievement.

The 10 Best RPGs You (probably) Never Played

The 10 Best RPGs You (probably) Never Played by MattyC

Since we are between Final Fantasy's and well, pretty much any good RPG right now, I thought I would let you guys in on a few classics that most people (myself often included) missed over the years. The great thing about these games if you can probably pick them up for a few bucks in a any local store's bargain bin (or for free off an abandonware site - but you didn't hear that from me!) and they will still give you as many hours of enjoyment as most modern titles. Now keep in mind that not all of these games are old, just most of them. Anyway, without further adieu let me present my list of the 10 best RPGs that (almost) no one ever played:

10) Phantasy Star 4 (Sega 1994, Sega Genesis) width="120" height="83" hspace="8" vspace="8" align="right">    Many people completely ignored the Sega Genesis as a RPG fan's platform simply because it lacked Squaresoft. I, fortunatly, was not one of them. ;) The Phantasy Star series is a collection of some of the best RPGs ever written and (IMHO) Phantasy Star 4 was the highlight of the series. It had gorgeous graphics that not even the SNES Final Fantasy's of the time could surpass, a well crafted story line that differed from the 'rescue the princess then save the world' style of most RPGs of the 16-bit period, and most importantly, it was FUN! You play the youngest member of a mercenary force that slowly unravels the mystery surrounding the sudden return of monsters to the world in this title. Unfortunately Genesis games have been out of production for a long time, but you can still probably pick this one up at href="http://www.freeroms.com">www.freeroms.com (but I didn't tell you that)

9) Final Fantasy Legends II (Squaresoft 1991, Gameboy) Well since all the Gameboy FF games were underplayed we knew one was going to be on here ;). Final Fantasy Legends II is my favorite portable Final Fantasy game and is also the first FF I played. On the ungodly long ride down from Knoxville, TN to Panama City, FL one spring break my friend let me play it - I was hooked. I played the entire game through over the course of the ride. This motivated me to try the newest Final Fantasy (FF7) when I got back and well, the rest is history. In this game you play a young kid in search of his/her father who ran off when they were very young. This game is still in production so you should be able to find it just about anywhere.

8) Entomorph: Plague of The Darkfall (Strategic Simulations Inc. 1995, PC ) Though overshadowed by Blizzard's Diablo, released that same year, Entomorph: Plague of The Darkfall, is a great game in its own right. The fast paced hack and slash style of play found in Diablo is definitely evident in this title though Entomorph has much more of a story element to it. In the game you play Cedric, a young wanderer who's land has fallen to a plague of insects. You slaughter the hoards of insects using either your own abilities or borrowing some of the powers that your insect enemies have infected you with. In the end the game is a race against time where you must defeat the insects or succumb to the infection and become one. This game is no longer in production but you can snag it from target="_blank">The Home of the Underdogs abandonware.

7) System Shock 2 (Looking Glass Studios 1999, PC) Long after most of the other titles listed here hit the shelves this great game was dying on them. This is probably the most underplayed game of all time. On the sales charts it was a complete failure. BUT, if you did/are going to pick it up you are/are about to be the proud owner of a truly great game. The atmospheric effects in this game are amazing and probably the best of any title to date. I have to admit, this is the only game other than Silent Hill that has made me literally jump in fright. If you want a great survival-meets-RPG-game or if you just don't believe that a game can actually scare you, pick this one up.

6) Betrayal at Krondor (Sierra 1993, PC) Re-released to promote its sequel, Betrayal at Krondor is one of the most underappericiated games of all time. It featured great graphics, a intuitive combat system, and a detailed storyline back in 1993! One of the coolest parts of this game is the original story line with a theme of betrayal. Betrayal at Krondor has been released as freeware and you can get it here courtesy of Sierra's FTP site. Note: This game is NOT Windows friendly so if you don't know a decent amount about computers I would leave this one be or wait for Windows XP's compatability mode.

5) Ultima Underworld - The Stygian Abyss (Blue Sky 1992, PC) Ultima Underwold was one of the most groundbreaking games ever released. Talk about taking leaps and bounds - this game had a fully 3d world, advanced RPG engine, movies with voice acting, a mouse driven interface, and the *gasp* ability to jump before Wolfenstein3d was even finshed! I missed this one when it first came out for obious reasons (it was released in 1992 - I was 8 at the time) but I have made up for lost time playing it now. The only downside to UU is that their are no outdoor areas which gives you a confined feeling throughout the latter part of the game. PC Gamer released this one on its Classic Games CD awhile back. If you missed that you can get it as part of the Ultima Collection that you can find in your local game store's bargain bin for around $10.00. If you like this title you should also try Ultima Underworld 2 (released later that same year) which features improved graphics and gameplay.

4) Strife (Rogue Entertainment 1996, PC) Strife was a truly original and unfortunately almost completely ignored title that was blending the FPS and RGP genres long before Deus Ex was even thought of. For its time this game had an immensely complex story where you played a rebel trying to free your people from an oppressive Order. You had to use stealth and diplomacy in addition to your trigger finger to beat this game - which was revolutionary in its own right. Strife also had a seamless world long before Half-Life. The game was one interconnected world with no levels. You were free to traverse the different areas as you pleased. You took on missions at your will. You could accept some and ignore others. Your armament was immense, featuring far more guns than even the FPS games of its day, and if things got too bad you could even call on some of your fellow rebel soldiers for help! Bottom line, if you liked Deus Ex or System Shock, GET THIS GAME! It may not have the same grade of eyecandy, but Strife has gameplay and features equal to, if not better than, what you will find in both those other titles.

3) Shadowrun (FASA 1993, Sega Genesis) Though most people assume I am talking about a recently out-of-production board game when I mention this title Shadowrun was also a RPG for the Sega Genesis. Shadowrun was the first RPG I ever played and it secured my love of the genre. It didn't really 'wow' you in any one area, but it was just a great game overall. Shadowrun has astounding depth and has an insane amount of play time for a game from that era. You play one of 3 classes (basically fighter, hacker, or mage) as you search the Seattle of the future for your brother's murderer. I was lucky enough to find this gem in Babages used games section about 2 years ago (my old one was ruined when I was little) but those of you without my luck can check www.freeroms.com.

2) Nox (Westwood Studios 2000, PC) Often overlooked as a Diablo rip, Nox was in actuality one of the greatest games I have played in recent memory. You took on the role of a modern redneck sucked into a mystical world called Nox where you eventually pick up the task of saving the world. You could play through the game as one of three classes, Warrior, Conjurer, or Wizard. Unlike Diablo each of the different classes had its own story, though they all tied together at the end, which really upped the games replay value. Nox also featured graphics far in advance of even Diablo II. The ability to chose your characters appearance (which was also affected by the items you equipped), real time lighting with line of sight, support for resolutions as high as 1024x768, and the ability to interact with objects in the game world (i.e. move tables and rocks) all added to Nox's appeal. The games only real drawback was its lack of a 'Diablo-like' multiplayer. To Westwood's credit Nox FPS style multiplayer was both innovative and fun. It featured games like Capture the Flag and King of the Hill. However these games couldn't make up for the lack of a real story based multiplayer experience. Westwood later attempted to mend this problem with the release of the free Nox expansion pack. This pack allowed people to play through a simple single player game in the Nox world. Unfortunately this effort was too little to late. You can currently get the EA Classics edition of Nox for around $15.

1) Planescape Torment (Black Isle Studios 1999, PC) Yep, 1999's RPG of the year is my number one pick for most underplayed game. It was never a big seller on the sales end, despite its rave reviews. I am sorry to say that I also missed this game when I came out. However, I recently corrected that mistake and I must say this is the best PC RPG I have ever played! You play a member of the living dead with little memory of your past and a talking/flying skull for a sidekick. You slowly start to remember things as the game progresses and one thing leads to another...  It is by the same people as Baldur's Gate and it shows. The game has a great storyline with wonderful prerendered graphics and a above average voice acting. This 4 disc behemoth packs MANY hours of gameplay that any true RPGer shouldn't be without! I picked this up this game last month, bundled with Myth 2, at one of the local Best Buys for $19.99. At that price you have no excuse not to go get it right NOW! Anyway, that concludes my list of the 10 Greatest RPGs You (probably) Never Played. Didn't like my picks? Thought I left some amazing title out? Send it to the mailbag. ;)

WoW Wrath of the Lich King beta video

Some video from the Wrath beta showing off the Death Knight, new Warrior abilities, and the calendar.