Thief: Deadly Shadows
2004 | Action | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 823.7MB
The thief series has been leading the stealth action genre for some time, the whole series reached it’s pinnacle with the latest version “Thief: Deadly Shadows”. The same great missions and style of the previous two games, it’s a pity the series never continued beyond this.

Hospital Tycoon
2006 | Strategy | Windows | Codemasters | 134.3MB
Every remember Theme hospital? It was a rather fun god game produced by Bullfrog back in the late ninety’s, now, nearly ten years later, Codemasters have a shot at the same thing. This is a very obvious clone of the original, but upgraded with 3D graphics, sadly the whole charm of Theme Hospital is lost here, the sounds get frustrating beyond belief and the gameplay is horribly repetitive. New patient enters, send them to get examined, if it’s a new disease send them to research, build new test rooms, build new treatment room, cure disease. This repeats over and over without any kind of variety, which is a real shame as I did enjoy the old Hospital game.

Delta Force Task Force Dagger
2002 | Action | Windows | NovaLogic | 185.5MB

Delta Force Xtreme
2005 | Action | Windows | NovaLogic | 310.1MB
The Delta Force series was hugely popular around the beginning of the series, with it’s ability to render huge areas on machines that could usually not achieve large draw distances. The series isn’t as popular as it was, but it is fun to play these two games and see how far the series came graphically in just 3 short years. My biggest gripe with the delta force series was always the extreme accuracy of the weapons, basically, if you can see it, you can hit it, no matter what gun you are equipped with. This made multiplayer matches very focused on camping, and matches could take a frustratingly long time. Besides a couple of gripes though, both these games are well worth your time

Praetorians
2003 | Strategy | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 366.3MB
I didn’t get a lot of time with this, it’s a lot like Age of Empires and seems like a great game of it’s kind

Championship Wrestling
1987 | Sports | Commodore 64 | Ironstone | 225.8KB + Mac
Wow, I remember playing WWF Wrestlemania back on the C64 the loading times were well beyond what anyone could tolerate today. Playing Championship Wrestling is a painful reminder of ‘classic’ wrestling. It’s worth trying out for a look into the past, but not for any kind of in depth fun.

Today only Amazon.com are selling Rise & Fall: Civilizations At War DVD-Rom for the PC at $3.99, reduced from $29.95 with free shipping if you add another $21.03 to your cart.

Wow, this isn’t something I’ve played before and the reviews aren’t exactly showing this as grade A material, but $4 for a year old game?

Today only Woot.com are selling Nyko Air Flo EX USB Controller for PC/MAC – 2 Pack at $8.99, with $5 shipping.

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen Woot sell video game accessories, $14 for two rather nice looking game controllers seems like a good deal to me

Today only Amazon.com are selling Bad Day LA for the PC at $7.97, reduced from $19.99 with free shipping if you add another $17.03 to your cart. No free shipping here

A 2006 American McGee game for under 8 bucks? Sounds like a heck of a deal huh? I’ll give you a quote and a piece of advice and let you make your own decision.

PC Gamer gave it a 20, saying it was “so tasteless I needed to wash myself with lysol after playing the game”

Don’t buy this game!

Garou: Mark of the Wolves™
1999 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 38.1MB + Mac
I had never tried Garou before, I’m a hard set fan of the Street Fighter series but ended up enjoying this a lot more than I expected, maybe my second best 2d fighter.

Beach Life
2002 | Simulation | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 343.1MB
Sadly I couldn’t get this to run on Vista, no short review here.

The King of Fighters 2003
2003 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 40.2MB + Mac
I’m getting quite burnt out on fighting games with this summer throw-down even, this seems like a fine fighter, but they are all seeming to blend together.

Atlantis Evolution
2004 | Adventure | Windows | Dreamcatcher | 2.3GB
Atlantis has a very classic style to it which will remind you of games such as Zork but with some very creative backgrounds. Fans of this type of game may get quite a kick from it, but there’s a little too much random clicking for my taste

Jaws™ Unleashed
2006 | Action | Windows | Majesco | 741.8MB
Jaws was slated with terrible reviews across the board, I find the premise rather interesting and the first few minutes of the tutorial made me feel like I could bleed a little joy from this game. However it becomes quickly apparent that the horrific controls won’t be something you quickly get used to. The controls and the whole feeling of the game was so bad that I couldn’t progress further to find what other flaws Jaws was hiding

Enemy Engaged 2
2007 | Action | Windows | Strategy First | 768.5MB
This sadly doesn’t live up to it’s potential, the campaigns are a lot of fun and varied, but the game just feels broken at it’s core with bad terrain and AI.

Today Stockers all across North America are desperately try to keep BioShock on the store shelves. But with all the hype of last weeks premature release by several stores, it looks like keeping this game on store shelves may require allot of extra work and lots of inventory. Last week there were reports of copies of BioShock going for as high as $159 on EBay. With all the hype surrounding this game on the Internet, and the great reviews this is sure to be a huge seller. European gamers will have to wait until August 24th to get their feet wet in this game.

BioShock is a “genetically enhanced” first-person shooter that lets players do things never before possible in the genre. Gamers enter the game as a castaway in Rapture, an underwater utopia torn apart by civil war. Caught between powerful forces and hunted down by genetically modified “splicers” and deadly security systems, players have to come to grips with a deadly, mysterious world filled with powerful technology and fascinating characters. No encounter ever plays out the same and no two gamers will play BioShock the same way. “With the release of BioShock, we are redefining the shooter experience by providing players with the freedom to decide how to proceed and which actions to take,” said Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K. “The teams at 2K Boston and 2K Australia have captured the essence of this underwater world and brought it to vivid life in the art design and open-ended storyline. Welcome to Rapture.” In the decaying art deco underwater city of Rapture, players can turn everything they encounter into a weapon, biologically modify their body with plasmids, hack devices and security systems, upgrade weapons, craft new ammo variants, and experiment with different battle techniques. “The development team has been working on BioShock for years to push the limits in every way possible, so we are excited for gamers to finally experience BioShock as we’ve always imagined it,” said Ken Levine, President and Creative Director of 2K Boston. “We delivered on our promise of bringing gamers a unique and enriching first-person shooter experience that not only challenges their capacity to adapt and survive, but tests their values and commitment to the inhabitants of Rapture.”

BioShock’s features include:

• Biologically modify your body with plasmids which are genetic augmentations that empower you with dozens of fantastic abilities including: send Electrobolts storming from your fingertips, unleash a swarm of hornets hatched from the veins of your arms, or strategically turn enemies against one another with irritants.
• Take control of your world by hacking devices and systems: reprogram enemy security bots into personal bodyguards, modify vending machines to change prices, and transform machine gun security turrets into powerless pieces of metal.
• Upgrade your weapons at Power-to-the-People stations located through Rapture: craft variants of ammo and plasmids by picking up materials in the city to modify them at U-Invent kiosks.
• Turn everything into a weapon: the environment, your body, fire and water, and even your worst enemies. BioShock’s free form combat options allow gameplay scenarios to be approached with a variety of weapons, active and passive plasmids, environmental objects utilization, exploitation of political alliances, or a combination of techniques. Find your style but know when to adapt.
• Explore an incredible and unique art deco world hidden deep under the ocean, vividly illustrated with realistic water effects and truly next generation graphics.
• Make meaningful and mature decisions that culminate in the ultimate question: Do you exploit the innocent survivors of Rapture to save yourself…or risk it all to become their savior?

For more information, visit the BioShock website, and the community site.

Today only Amazon.com are selling The Sims Life Stories for the Mac at $12.99, reduced from $29.99 with free shipping if you add another $12.01.

The Sims life stories is your basic Sims 2 package without any of the numerous expansion packs available, this would make the game worthless if it wasn’t for the addition of multiple story lines, much like you’d expect from a console version. Collectors of Sim games will likely get a kick out of something new, even if they are missing many of the items and additions they are used to.

Fatal Fury 3
1995 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 19.1MB

Real Bout Fatal Fury 2
1998 | Fighting | Neo-Geo | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 30.2MB

Hitman: Blood Money
2006 | Action | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 2,159.8MB

Athena
1986 | Action | Arcade | SNK PLAYMORE CORPORATION | 143.3KB

Imperial Glory
2005 | Strategy | Windows | Eidos Interactive | 1,175.8MB

When I got wind of the BioShock Demo being available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace I started the download before I went to work this morning. But at 1.3 gigs in size I could not wait around and get a little game play in before work. If only I had picked the right six numbers for the Powerball last Saturday, my gaming would not be bothered by this pesky work stuff and I could have sat in my underwear playing BioShock all morning. Sitting at my desk this morning was the longest five hours of my life. As soon as noon rolled around, I was heading back home to play a little BioShock, and I have to say it was worth it.

I will try not to give away to many specifics of the story, but keep my comments mainly to game play and environment. The controls are your basic First Person Shooter controls, so not really anything new there and besides developers are kind of locking into a formula that seems to work with the controls. The visuals are amazing there is not another Xbox 360 game out there that looks this good. There is a scene where you are floating underwater trying to get to the surface. Between the visuals combined with the sound effects really evoke the sensation of terror. You almost feel like you are truly struggling to get to the surface for air. When you fight enemies they have certain presence that seems to make them really scary. You will notice as you finish them off they all seem to look a little different. One enemy that attacks you while being on fire is truely amazing, he is covered in flames as he lunges at you doing his best to send you to the same demise as he is certainly headed for. When you are finally finished beating him to a plup, you will notice his body is covered in burns. Like I said the visuals really REALLY good. The game seems to have this formula of crazy heart pounding action, then calm, then the suspense leading up to another super intense action scene.

I did notice a couple of visuals that seemed kind of off. First when you are swimming on the top of the ocean, I kind of got the feeling that I was floating over the water. Think of Shadow Run and floating up the ladders and you sort of have the idea. Since this is a first person perspective I kind of expected to see my arms reaching out in front of me as I swim. Second some of the clouds seemed kind of a strange color and texture as I was swimming, for those of you who have ever run Microsoft Windows in 256 colors instead of True 32 will understand what I am talking about. It just did not seem quite right. But honestly these two small instances do not even compare to the great eye candy that is the rest of the game. Seeing fish flopping on the ground or the flames that are consuming an enemy as he attacks you are incredible.

Before I played the Demo I was thinking about picking up this game when it got its first price drop. But now I am going to go out and pick this game up day One! My suggestion is try out the Demo. I think you are going to be like me and start racing to get through whatever game you are playing right now so you can be ready to start this game the day it comes out. I just finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Sunday, and I am planning on working twice as hard to finish up Call of Duty 3 before August 21st so I can dedicate myself to this game. If you are someone who believes in try before you buy then you definitely need to bump BioShock to the top of your Game Q.

Today only Amazon.com are selling MonsterGecko PistolMouse FPS Console for the PC at $5.99, reduced from $9.99 with free shipping.

Don’t be fooled, this isn’t a PC light-gun, it is in-fact a PC mouse shaped like a gun. This frankly looks horrible, and I can’t imagine using it in a FPS with any great accuracy compared to a decent Logitech mouse, but I’ll reserve judgement since I’ve not tried it. Alternatively this would make a great mouse for my desk at work.