Disk Inserted

Good evening once again, fellow Gamers and Gamerettes! Your’s truly, Mike checking in, and I have a review on a really cool PC game you might wanna check out. It’s called Tropico 3.

For those of you that are fans of city building experiences, as I am, Tropico 3 is nothing short of pure fun. First of all, I must say the graphics are absolutely astonishing with everything beautifully rendered in high definition detail. Kalypso entertainment gave their graphics engine a MAJOR overhaul. So much so that it won’t even run on my PC! I have to play it whenever I go to Jonathan’s house since his computer is the only machine that can run it.

But Tropico 3 not only has it’s astonishing, crisp graphics to boast about, but the added realism that comes with a city building game is there too. For instance, when you construct a building, you will see it start out as planks and scaffolding. A truck from your construction office will then bring builders to the site, and they will build your building for you.

At first glance, the “Island” and it’s style of buildings, will bear a striking resemblance to Cuba. In fact, this is what the game is based on. In Sandbox mode, you can choose to play as Fidel Castro, Che Guevarra, or create your own avatar that wanders the island and supervises everything that you, El Presidente, are “watching”. Another thing I find to be a really cool feature of the game is how you not only manage tourist attractions, but also the native people within your own country. Have a rebel that is conspiring against the government, and you’re trying to avoid being overthrown? NO PROBLEM! simply arrange for your secret service agents to take him out. Got a riot going on? Call in the army to eliminate and disperse the rioters. In addition, for newer players, the people at Kalypso have also taken the liberty of starting off every island you play with essential buildings – e.g. construction office, Teamsters office to move product to the docks for shipping, and a dock, seeing as how this is the only way for your island to make money.

When you first start playing the islands, I would strongly recommend you place at least one or two tobacco farms right off the start. Tobacco usually gets a good export price to get you going, then you can build a cigar factory later and really amp up your income. The same applies with sugar cane farms and rum distilleries. You can also make a lot of money by building the right tourist attractions. once your island starts attracting more affluent tourists, they usually are extremely hefty spenders, and you’ll make a substantial profit. On the training side of it, the tutorial is extremely user-friendly and thorough, and it’s quite easy to get the hang of the way the game runs.

Overall, Kalypso has come a long way from the Tropico 1 and 2 days back in 1998 and 1999. I would strongly recommend this as a can’t miss edition to every gaming library. a solid 10 of city-building genius

Hello my fellow gamers! Just checking in once again, and apologizing for not posting anything in a while. I recently have set up my Xbox Live account and have been somewhat addicted since my last post. For those of you that would like to add me, my gamertag is HrubixCube. If you forget, just ask Jon.

Anyway, what I have come to write to all of you about is a review of two levels I have recently downloaded for Tomb Raider Underworld- Beneath the Ashes, and Lara’s Shadow. For 800 Microsoft points each, I must say I was disappointed by the length of both of these levels. I would have liked to have had more time playing as Lara’s doppelganger and a more involved story involving her double- but first, those of you that are not familiar with the plot behind both of these levels, Lara’s shadow allows you to play as the doppelganger of Lara- the one that killed Alister in the game- and use its powers to overcome challenges Lara couldn’t otherwise pass.- on that subject, Lara’s double possesses what is known as “Shadow power” which gives her increased speed, agility, sharper aiming, and basically the “Lara on steroids” approach to the game. The thing I did not like about this level, firstly is that Lara’s shadow is actually the SAME LEVEL split into two parts. The level it takes place in is the remains of the Yggdrasil ruins after Lara kills Natla. The double is entrusted with activating a machine to keep Natla alive, then destroying the machine at the end of the game, which means you essentially visit the same area twice. Another thing I dislike about Lara’s shadow is that if you download this level, be prepared to face thralls over and over and over again. tons of them. After a while, I got sick of constantly fighting thralls and wanted an actual enemy I could shoot. The thralls seem to be immune to Shadow Lara’s bullets, and even if you use her enhanced firing ability, you’ll go through an entire clip before the thralls actually die. Lara’s double can also perform hand-to-hand combat against her enemies, the designers didn’t vary her combos. Her Shadow blast is effective as a knockback attack, but initially that’s all it’s good for. you’d have to significantly damage an enemy before it kills them. The same result occurs if you shadow strike your enemy on the first hit.

With Beneath the Ashes, the plot seems disconnected from Lara’s Shadow- Lara returns to Croft Manor to examine the Eitr stone, which can not only create thralls, but when she learns the phrase “Akeshiva” at the end of the game, she can control them. All Beneath the Ashes consists of is a level that is supposed to be a dungeon beneath Croft Manor that Lara ventures into in search of this thing. A lot of unanswered questions remain- What happens after the doppelganger kills Natla again? Does Lara create any Thralls using the Eitr stone? the levels were too short to really answer these in depth, and had it not been for the six new uniforms that Lara can wear for these new levels, and her double’s “Shadow combat” I probably wouldn’t have downloaded them.

I’d give these a 4 at best.

Good afternoon to all my fellow gamers and gamerettes out there. In case you were wondering why I have not posted anything in the last few weeks, my Xbox was sitting in a repair depot in The Lone Star State, being fixed for the red ring of death. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the red ring of death and your 360, I will enlighten all of you on the particulars. Usually, the red ring of death on your 360 signifies a hardware problem of some type, whether it be the X-clamp cracking and needing to be re-soldered, your console overheating, or any other numerous problems, the causes of the ring of death are many and varied. You will usually need to send your console out for repair if this should occur. Unfortunately, the closest repair station happens to be in Texas, so you’ll be Xbox-less for a few weeks.

First, allow me to share with all of you my experience in dealing with the ring of death, as this was my first time encountering this problem on my system.  I was watching one of my favorite movies,  The Waterboy, to be exact, when, in the middle of the movie the screen froze. I had watched this movie a lot of other times and never had this problem. As I had taken the DVD out to check it for scratches, I thought the CD was bad. It turned out there wasn’t a scratch on it. I then tried to see if National Treasure 2 would work. No luck. It was then that the upper left, lower left, and lower right quadrants on the 360 flashed red. I thought to myself  “well, that does it. I’ve been cursed with the red ring of death.”

After looking for the number for the Microsoft repair center for about fifteen minutes, I placed a call to Texas and after being on hold for ten minutes, wound up talking to a middle-eastern guy named Andrew (I doubt that was actually his real name) who informed me that the ring is a problem often associated with the 360 that could be fixed, and that thankfully, my system was still under warranty. Just as an aside, the ring of death was so common when the 360 was first released, that Microsoft had to place an extension on the RRoD warranty that came with the console. When you call the service techs, they will tell you to give them the serial number on the back of the console, and your email address.

They will then send you an email with instructions that include a shipping label for you to tape to a box to mail to Texas. When you send it out, firstly make sure you use a box with no writing on it whatsoever. you will also need to remove any games or movies inside the system, as well as disconnect the hard drive and remove any custom faceplates if you have them on there. BE WARNED THAT MICROSOFT CANNOT RETURN THOSE ITEMS TO YOU SHOULD YOU ACCIDENTALLY MAIL THEM! Along with the emailed shipping label, will be a tracking number. You can go to the Xbox support website and track the status of your console repair.

For more about how to prevent and fix the ring of death, click here.

Jonathan says: If you’re console is still under warranty, you’re crazy to try to fix it yourself. Send it in!

This post is a little bit about Capcom’s remake of Street Fighter 4. I played this game at MicroCenter the other day, and firstly, I must say that Capcom did an excellent job with re-making the graphics engine. The high-def monitor that the game was being demoed on only added to the impressiveness. The sharp 3-D graphics engine applies to the backgrounds as well, which have been brilliantly done for this remake.

All of your favorite classic Street Fighters are back, such as Cammie, Chun Li, Ken, Vega, Dhalsim, Balrog, M. Bison, E. Honda, and the other originals, as well as some additional new fighters: Dan, El Fuerte, Fei Long, Gen, Gouken, and more. In addition, in Arcade mode, each character has sort of an “Anime” cutscene involving them joining the street fighter tournament. Even though this is a Japanese game, as much as I dislike anime, I find these cutscenes to be very well done and smoothly added into the game.

Character gameplay is very smoothly edited and each character’s moves are seamless in transition. I was using Vega for the game demo, and I will be the first to admit, even though I am not good at fighting games, Konami could have gone with more of a Mortal Kombat control system to pull off combos. I found myself pulling off combos out of sheer luck and button mashing instead of accuracy in button pressing. there are also “Ultra” and “Super” combos for each character, which deal massive damage, but some of which are quite hard to execute. I managed to pull off Vega’s super by sheer luck. He jumps in the air, and flips over and pancakes the opponent about three times… not really impressive, but different characters have different supers.

Overall, Street Fighter 4 is good with graphics, but I didn’t find the combos to follow any coherent string. It was all button-mashing and moving the joystick wildly with the hope that you’ll get lucky and pull off something that’s actually good. Other than that, if you’re good at fighting games of any type, you can’t go wrong with this. I’ll give it 7/10

TIP:

This post is a little about the game Sims 3 for PC. I got this game recently, and despite the $50 price tag, it was worth it. A lot of different elements from previous Sims games were added, such as the ability to “Garden”- from Sims 2 seasons- and also the ability your Sims now have to “collect” things- e.g. rocks, insects, seeds, etc. The community lots are still there from previous Sims games, you can’t build on a community lot, nor can you see inside the actual building at what’s going on- two features I think are lacking from this new installment. An expansion pack is in order, as there are still some things missing-e.g. going to college, pets, running your own business, etc, but it’s hard to say what Maxis is going to be releasing for this series in the future.

In addition to the nice things about this game, the “Style creator” lets you customize anything. and I mean anything. want a plaid paint job on your sports car? go for it! A pink guitar? No problem! This is one of the things that I would have to say that Maxis got very creative on, and I think the style creator is a neat idea in and of itself. Instead of downloading patterns and taking up more space tho, Maxis needs to come out with a “Style package” for the Sims 3, and put new style patterns on a CD that nobody has seen before.

There is so much that can be done with and to this game, that I can’t wait to see what Maxis has in store next. I’ll give it 8/10