{"title":"Frontpage","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"assassins-creed-pc","title":"Assassin's Creed (PC)","description":"\u003cp\u003eAssassin’s Creed features one of the most unique gameworlds ever created: beautiful, memorable, and alive. Every crack and crevasse is filled with gorgeous, subtle details, from astounding visual flourishes to overheard cries for help. But it’s more than just a world—it’s a fun and exciting action game with a ton of stuff to do and places to explore, rounded out with a complex story that will slowly grab you the more you play. The PC version has a few more issues than its console counterparts, and the keyboard-and-mouse controls strip away some of the smooth magic of exploration. Nevertheless, if you don’t mind plugging in a gamepad and have a system that exceeds the system requirements, you’ll find the same free-form travels and atmospheric game world that console owners enjoyed last year.\u003cbr\u003eNot enough can be said about the living, breathing universe that you’ll inhabit in Assassin’s Creed. As assassin extraordinaire Altair, you’ll explore three major cities of the Holy Land in the 12th century: Jerusalem, Damascus, and Acre. Each city is beautifully rendered from top to bottom and features meticulously crafted towers that reach for the sky, bustling market squares, and quiet corners where citizens converse and drunks lie in wait to accost you. As you wander the streets (and rooftops), you’ll push your way through crowds of women carrying jars on their heads, hear orators shout political and religious wisdom, and watch town guards harass innocent victims. Altair has a profound effect on this world, but the cities are entities all their own, with their own flows and personalities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eThe visual design has a lot to do with how believably organic everything feels. The cities are absolutely huge, and though you don’t get full exploration privileges in the first few chapters, they eventually open up to let you travel seamlessly from one side to another. Everything is beautifully lit with just the right amount of bloom effect, and almost everything casts a shadow, from tall pillars to Altair’s cloak. In fact, sometimes the shadows get to be a bit much and may make you think for a moment that there is artifacting on your screen, when in fact it’s a character’s head casting a shadow on his or her own neck. Every object, from scaffolds to pottery, is textured so finely that you’ll feel as if you could reach out and touch it. Animations are almost as equally well done. Altair scales walls, leaps majestically from towers, and engages in swashbuckling swordfights that would make Errol Flynn proud. And he does it all with fluid ease, generally moving from one pose to another without a hitch. Minor characters move with less aplomb, but that’s easy to forgive, considering that the cities are populated with thousands and thousands of individuals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eOn a high-powered PC, these elements look even more stunning than they did on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but the splendor comes with a price: The minimum requirements to play Assassin’s Creed are surprisingly high, particularly where the \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eCPU\u003c\/span\u003e is concerned (a dual-core processor is mandatory). On one test PC that runs Crysis at a respectable frame rate on medium settings, Assassin’s Creed slowed to a crawl at lower settings. A high-end test machine ran the game with much better results, though with some occasional slowdown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eWhat you hear is even more impressive than what you see. At the top of a temple, you hear little but the rush of wind, the twittering of birds, and the barking of a far-off dog. In the most populated areas, your ears will fill with the din of street vendors, the pleas of beggars, and the occasional humming. It’s never too much, though, and the game does a good job of making sure you hear what you need to hear (for example, the cries of citizens who need your help) without filling your ears with pointless noise. The voice acting of the supporting cast is similarly remarkable. Conversations are completely believable and delivered with the perfect amount of solemn dignity. Oddly, the weakest link is Altair himself. Actor Philip Shahbaz does an all right job, but he isn’t up to par with the first-rate acting of his fellow troupe. Rounding it all out is a beautiful orchestral score that is most notable for its subtlety. Many of the game’s most impressive moments are accompanied by lovely musical themes that add even more threads to the game’s rich living tapestry. We did run into some audio glitches on two of our three test systems, however, in which sound effects would occasionally stutter and hitch. The game’s readme file included a potential workaround for this issue, though in our case, it didn’t solve it. \u003cbr\u003eThe story that binds it all together rises to the occasion. Actually, there are two related stories in play. The unfolding drama of Crusades-era Palestine is a mere memory, forcibly pulled from a modern-day bartender named Desmond by a resolute researcher using a machine called an animus. The memories aren’t Desmond’s own—they are Altair’s, stored safely in the hapless subject’s genetic code. We follow Altair as he assassinates nine public figures at the command of his master, and as the common thread that ties these men comes into focus, so does the true identity of Desmond’s captors. There are no cutscenes in the traditional sense; every bit of story exposition and dialogue flows smoothly from the gameplay and takes place entirely within the game engine. The ending is confusing and blatantly leaves open the possibility of a sequel, but this is a small blemish on an otherwise stirring tale. Altair’s world is not one of absolutes. His assassination targets aren’t always evil, and Altair isn’t always likable. As he is fond of reminding us, “Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eOf course, such an authentic world would be meaningless without a lot of fun things to do in it. Thankfully, Assassin’s Creed is endlessly entertaining in that it features a fine mix of stealthy exploration, tight platforming, and exciting combat. To discover the whereabouts of your assassination targets, you must first follow up on possible leads. There are several different mission types in this regard. In some cases, you sit on a bench and listen in on secret conversations. At other times, you will closely follow someone carrying an important letter that you’ll pickpocket. Alternately, you can beat the information out of your target. There are also some tasks specific to this version of the game. Oddly, some of these new missions feel more contrived than the others, such as timed sprints and escort tasks in which guards execute scripted attacks as you move to your destination. Since the game’s greatest strengths lie in its unscripted events, these additional tasks feel less organic than the others. On the other hand, missions that let you silently assassinate rooftop archers and fling guards into market stands are more interesting and fit better into the game’s sandbox world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shopify","offers":[{"title":"Default","offer_id":4797642,"sku":"","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0014\/5422\/products\/51mb1_een8l._sl160_aa115.jpg?v=1212612713"},{"product_id":"pro-evolution-soccer-2009","title":"Pro Evolution Soccer 2008","description":"\u003cp\u003eIf you’re looking to play this year’s Pro Evolution Soccer, you could do worse than check out the PC version. Judged on its own merits, it stacks up well against the console equivalents by looking sharp and playing well, especially if you have a couple of Xbox 360 joypads. However, compared to other sports games, Pro Evolution Soccer is struggling to keep up with the times. The presentation is unpolished, with poor online functionality, mediocre commentary, and few officially licensed teams. More importantly, practically no new features have been added to last year’s game while the online gameplay is buggy with frequent lag and disconnection problems. Ultimately, \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003ePES 2008\u003c\/span\u003e plays a great game of football, but it’s starting to seriously fall behind its contemporaries in terms of features.\u003cbr\u003eIf you’re a newcomer to the series, you’ll be impressed at how well Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 plays. It captures the realism of the sport almost perfectly but, most importantly, it also remains eminently playable. Thanks to a combination of exquisite control, superb animation, and worthy artificial intelligence, it’s highly replayable in single-player, but it really comes into its own in multiplayer. With that said, series veterans may wonder what exactly Konami has done to improve the gameplay in the past year. Aside from making minor tweaks to the animation and AI, it’s fundamentally unchanged from Pro Evolution Soccer 6.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eThe biggest upgrade to the game is supposedly the new Teamvision artificial intelligence system, although its claims to revolutionise the playing experience prove to be overstated. Computer-controlled opponents are slightly more intelligent when it comes to changing playing styles, although defenders still feel a little bit superhuman in their ability to resist attack. Overall, the game feels more fluid than last year, but rather than feeling revolutionary, the improvement just feels like a return to the earlier glory of the series. In fact, the immediate changes feel so minor that even hardcore fans of the series will have trouble picking them out. The ball feels slightly weightier and players move with more physicality. They also tussle with each other more, pulling shirts and out-muscling each other over the ball. It adds up to a more natural-feeling game this year where you can still play an accomplished game of football. Anyone who hasn’t played Pro Evolution Soccer will find that this is still a solidly playable game, but long-term fans may wonder what Konami’s done this year to deserve the £50 upgrade fee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eMany of the new gameplay tweaks are actually more annoying than they are welcome. Goalkeepers now fumble the ball with infuriating regularity, and the fast pace now makes Pro Evo feel more like an arcade game rather than a simulation. Another new feature that betrays the game’s simulation roots is the ability to make your players take a dive. It’s something that undoubtedly happens in the real world, but its inclusion in a serious video game could be seen to tarnish an otherwise respectful representation of the sport. Used in the penalty area, the dive can win penalties, and while it’s only successful in the minority of cases, it could be used to tip the balance of the game. We expect that discerning gamers will shun the new skill out of sportsmanship, but it’ll be a real shame if faceless online players manage to win games by effectively employing the tactic. \u003cbr\u003eIn terms of features, the PC version is broadly the same as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 iterations. Unfortunately, it lacks some of the cool new game modes from the PlayStation 2, including the world tour and the community mode. The latter mode allowed up to 16 people to compete in cups and tournaments on a single console. Instead, what you do get is the usual match, tournament, and cup modes, which up to four people can play simultaneously as long as you have enough controllers. There’s also the master league, which forms the main challenge for the single-player mode. As well as allowing you to play through a series of proper football seasons, the master league offers up basic management functions that include training and transfers. This year, players also talk to the media and do interviews, although as with every other part of the master league, this pales in comparison to dedicated management games. While it’s not really trying to compete with such games as Football Manager, many of the tasks feel like distractions from the main job of playing the league itself. Basically, the master league is the same as it’s been in previous versions. True, signing talent is an important part of winning, but it simply isn’t in-depth enough to warrant spending lots of time on training and scouting. The main idea is to perfect your starting lineup, get your players in a decent formation, and play well on the pitch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eThe online offering is built to offer two-player ranked and unranked matches over the Internet. The retail build of the game was lamented by fans for lagging too much, and even though Konami quickly issued a patch, it’s done little to remedy the problems. It’s nowhere nearly as bad as the PlayStation 3, but a fair bit of slowdown affects online performance even when you have a decent connection. We also encountered a high proportion of disconnections. While some of these could have been down to the users, it was indicative of a patchy and unpredictable service.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eAside from the somewhat patchy performance, Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is severely lacking when it comes to overall Internet functionality. There are no real-world score tickers, no news feeds, and no online leagues—features which the rival \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eFIFA\u003c\/span\u003e series has been offering for two years now. There’s no voice chat either—just a text interface for typing in pre-match messages. Even worse, the only games you can play are single matches. The complete lack of online leagues and tournaments is restrictive when compared to other sports games on the market. It’s also worth noting that the online registration process locks your copy of the game to your Konami account for online play. This means that if you ever want to sell your copy of the game, the next person will be unable to play online unless he or she has your registration details.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003ePresentation has never been Pro Evolution Soccer’s strong point, and the 2008 version does little to break with tradition. The menu system is basic and unwelcoming while the soundtrack tries to span genres but is awful throughout. The majority of teams also don’t feature the official kits. This will be a familiar problem to fans, but Konami’s selection is becoming increasingly schizophrenic. English Premier League teams Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur are now included. But this is at the expense of Manchester United and Arsenal, who’ve been out since the last game. We assume that Newcastle was included thanks to star striker Michael Owen adorning the cover of the game, but the same theory doesn’t apply to Christiano Ronaldo and Manchester United (who are named “Man Red”). There are only 15 stadiums, and although Mark Lawrenson is now onboard as a commentator, his contributions are frequently inaccurate. \u003cbr\u003eIn terms of graphics, the PC version looks even sharper than its \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003ePS3\u003c\/span\u003e and Xbox 360 counterparts, running well even on modest systems. We had no problem cranking the detail and resolution right up to the maximum settings on an 18-month-old test machine, with no drop in overall performance. Certain player likenesses, such as the aforementioned Christiano Ronaldo, are very realistic. However, the game offers little in the way of incidental graphical effects, such as true cloth deformation, video walls, or goalkeeper head protection. We also like the fact that the referee can be seen on pitch, although waiting the few seconds for him to blow his whistle for free kicks is detrimental to the pace of the game. Ultimately, the success of Pro Evolution Soccer is a paradox for the game’s designers. It’s difficult to improve on the standard that was achieved with the fifth version of the game, but the designers could certainly start by introducing some truly new features to build on the excellent playability. Konami has tried to make subtle changes to the gameplay, some of which are successful and some of which are not. However, what the game really needs are new modes, features, and online offerings to warrant the upgrade, as well as bring it in line with other PC sports offerings. It will be quite a task, but next year’s game needs to deliver all this and more if it’s to retain its massive fan base.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shopify","offers":[{"title":"Default","offer_id":4797762,"sku":"","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0014\/5422\/products\/940564_90439.jpg?v=1212614033"},{"product_id":"supreme-commander-forged-alliance","title":"Supreme Commander : Forged Alliance","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt’s hard to come up with a real-time strategy game that’s as large and ambitious as Supreme Commander, which came out at the beginning of this year. The spiritual successor to 1997’s famed Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander is a sci-fi strategy game that occurs on a scale far larger than regular \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eRTS\u003c\/span\u003e games. With battlefields that are as large as 40-by-40 square kilometers (or even 81-by-81 in skirmish and multiplayer), the game offers a lot of flexibility and room. When you flash forward to the end of the year, we get Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. What’s impressive is the amount of stuff that developer Gas Powered Games has managed to squeeze into the standalone expansion in relatively little time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eThe zoomed-out strategic view gives you a nice idea of how big the battles in Forged Alliance can get.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eForged Alliance delivers six massive new single-player missions, as well as a slew of welcome improvements and enhancements. These include a new user interface, a graphical upgrade, and a fourth playable faction. The game continues the story of the 1,000-year old Infinite War, where three warring factions of humanity have slugged it out against one another. There are the regular humans in the United Earth Federation, the cybernetic humans in the Cybran Nation, and the alien-influenced humans in the Aeon Illuminate. The end of Supreme Commander showed the “end” of the Infinite War. Depending on which faction you played as, you seized control of the Black Sun superweapon, fired it, and won the war for your side. But if you stayed and watched the end of the credits, Supreme Commander hinted at something else. A rift opened, unleashing an alien horde known as the Seraphim. Forged Alliance picks up a couple of years later, with the surviving human factions trying to fend off extinction. You can play as any of the human factions in the six-mission campaign, and your choice will affect the dialogue that you hear, as well as some of the secondary missions, but the core objectives remain the same in all cases.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eIf the three single-player campaigns in Supreme Commander have a weakness, it’s that each one ramps up slowly. The first mission gives you access to the most basic of units and buildings, then each successive mission unlocks new toys with which you can play. But it isn’t until the final mission that the game unlocks all of your units and buildings. By that point, there isn’t a lot of opportunity to play with the really cool stuff, like mighty experimental units, which are gigantic war machines that can turn the tide of battle. Sure, you can always play a skirmish or multiplayer game and get access to everything, but the single-player story always feels a bit lacking in that regard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eThat problem is solved with Forged Alliance, which assumes that you’ve played through Supreme Commander and are ready to remove the training wheels. Each of Forged Alliance’s six missions gives you access to almost everything from the get-go, with a handful of new units introduced during the course of the campaign. There’s no ramp-up here because each battle is far bigger than anything seen in the original game. The warfare is much more epic and the battles are that much fiercer. You’ll finally be able to unleash navies, air forces, and armies on huge maps. Opponents will throw masses of advanced and experimental units at you, which you’ll need to respond to in kind. The average mission will take at least an hour and a half or so, although some will take longer. There’s a nice variety of missions, including a large, naval battle set amid frigid seas; a desperate last stand against overwhelming odds; and a struggle among three sizeable foes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eYou can’t play as the alien Seraphim in the campaign; they’re only available in skirmish or multiplayer. Skirmish mode introduces a nice new adaptive artificial intelligence personality that alternates between offense and defense. There are also a slew of new maps to beef up the overall number considerably. Multiplayer over Gas Powered Games’ excellent \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eGPG\u003c\/span\u003eNet service is excellent because it makes matchmaking a breeze. You can also check statistics, watch replays, and track the geographical location of your opponents.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eOn top of the epic campaign, Gas Powered found time to completely redo the user interface, making it slightly more informative and a lot more attractive. Supreme Commander’s interface always seemed bland and dated, but this new UI is sharper and more colorful. The interface improvements are nothing compared to the graphical upgrade. For example, polygon counts on units, textures, and shaders have been improved; thus, the difference between Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance is almost startling. However, this comes at a slight price because performance seems to bog down a bit more on midrange machines, but you can tweak the settings down to what they were before. On high-end rigs, the graphics are a very nice improvement.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eThe visual improvement over Supreme Commander is considerable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eForged Alliance does feature some balance tweaks that aren’t quite as welcome. One of the most notable is how nuclear weapons have basically been taken out of the picture. Nukes now take a ridiculously long time to construct. In fact, they take so long that they’re almost useless because almost any game can be resolved before a nuke is even constructed. For instance, the \u003cspan class=\"caps\"\u003eUEF\u003c\/span\u003e’s mighty and superexpensive Mavor artillery gun, which can launch an unending barrage of shells anywhere on the biggest maps, is a lot faster to build than a single nuke, as well as a lot more valuable. As it is right now, nukes seem like a red herring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\t\u003cp\u003eAside from the nuke quibble, there’s a lot to like in Forged Alliance because it makes an already gargantuan game bigger and better. Supreme Commander fans will finally get to experience campaign missions that let them unleash the full weight of their arsenals, while the size and scope of the game remains far beyond almost anything else on the market. When we look back at 2007 in terms of strategy gaming, it may very well be remembered as the year of Supreme Commander.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shopify","offers":[{"title":"Default","offer_id":4797782,"sku":"","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0014\/5422\/products\/941687_92096.jpg?v=1212614231"},{"product_id":"the-club","title":"The Club","description":"\u003cp\u003eFight as a modern-day mercenary gladiator in The Club, an underground blood-sport in which ruthless killers try earn respect and infamy in deathmatches.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Shopify","offers":[{"title":"Default","offer_id":4797842,"sku":"","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0014\/5422\/products\/939454_87514.jpg?v=1212614378"}],"url":"https:\/\/cdshop.myshopify.com\/collections\/frontpage\/creed.oembed","provider":"Cd Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}