I just couldn’t resist posting this here because a) it’s funny and b) every man and his dog are talking about New Moon right now so here’s my contribution:

New Moon as seen in the Sims universe

Enjoy:

Thanks to an article posted on Digg, this curious feature over at Total Film just caught my eye and now I see why. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you’re going to absolutely adore these rare and unseen photos taken from the original Star Wars set.

Thanks to Total Film for the image. This photo shoot is fantastic! And boy does it bring back memories of old school Syfy…

You can view the entire photo gallery here at Total Film.

“Dead? Lonely? Your decased soul mate is just one click away!” Just got this via twitter – a website to zombify yourself!

Give it a go, it’s neat fun but you have to be over 18 to use the site.

Even the undead need lovin’!

Zombie Singles – where being ugly is the new hot!

The PC multiplayer beta for Section 8 the new first-person shooter from TimeGate Studios began for Australians and New Zealanders on the weekend and thankfully, I was lucky enough to score a beta key. I hadn’t done any homework on this title and the only thing I knew about it was that it’s a shooter (which immediately sparked my interest).

I decided to jump straight in (without reading the forums or the online manual) and found that the basic control mechanics used in most online shooters these days seemed to work fine for Section 8. The W, A, S, D keys are used for movement (strafing etc) and left mouse button for shooting. But there are quite a lot of different control keys required for alot of the other basic gameplay mechanics in Section 8 so I’ve got a few hours of gaming ahead of me to learn about all of the weapons and their functionality.

From a gameplay perspective, it reminds me of Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. You play as a soldier that is shielded in special protective armour capable of absorbing damage (just like Halo 3). You get to choose from several different classes (such as Assault, Infiltrator) much like Call of Duty with specific weapon sets (which you can edit and change before each respawn). The sprint boost is unreal! Finally, a game where you can dash around the map at super speed that lasts longer than 4 seconds!

Weapons are also really pretty kickass – grenade (like rocket) launchers, assault rifles, sniper rifles etc. There are various other weapons too which I have yet to use. I’ve spent most of my time playing Assault class but when I get more time, I’ll blog about the other classes. Section 8 also features vehicles (much like mechs).

There’s no campaign mode and you can’t upgrade when you rank up as yet. From the looks of things, ranking up (by team assists, kills etc) will be fully featured in the release and you’ll be able to upgrade everything from weapons to armour. Connecting to US servers was easy but laggy. My ping to Aussie servers was looking good on 37. It’s nice having local servers to connect to for online multiplayer.

So far, my first impressions of the beta for Section 8 is ranking at about a 4/5. I’ll blog more once I’ve had more time with the game online but so far, it’s looking pretty solid.

Quake is one of my favourite game franchises of all time and the dudes at id software some of my favourite developers. I interviewed a kiwi gamer named ‘ChiQ’ some time ago when I was editor of GC magazine and she had some pretty amazing things to say about the guys at id when she was developing skins for Quake. So I support the devs and the franchise wholeheartedly. I’d also give my right arm to attend QuakeCon which is where this trailer was first shown. Thanks to Joystiq for the tweet!

If you haven’t heard of ‘Rage’ you need to check this trailer out!

Yesterday I blogged about not having access to the Huxley Dystopia beta via Fileplanet. Today I received an email in my inbox stating that keys for the ‘Worldwide’ beta of Champions Online were available.

This confuses me. So how is it decided what games are made available ‘worldwide’ and what games are not? Obviously, Huxley Dystopia is for US and Canadian subscribers only but Champions Online is available for anyone with a subscription…

So I’ve got my beta key and I am now downloading the pre-load file. Champions Online looks like a whole lot of fun but I really wanted to try Huxley Dystopia because it’s a first person shooter and that’s one of my fav genre’s.

As always, I’ll be updating this blog with details of the beta so watch this space!

I’ve been a member of Fileplanet for a couple of years now, paying the subscription fee for the founders club annually. My issue is that my money doesn’t seem to get me the same beta game opportunities that people in the US and Canada receive.

But why not? I pay the same amount (in NZ dollars) to get access to the services they offer but when it comes to beta testing, somehow living in New Zealand is a curse. Thankfully, I can get access to beta keys through my work but that isn’t always guaranteed which is why I signed up to Fileplanet in the first place…

I understand why some beta keys are limited and it’s a ‘first come, first served’ basis which is fine. But why advertise that ‘All Users’ can gain access to the beta of a game when that’s clearly not the case.

So now I have to wonder what the advantages are for people like me living in countries outside of the US and Canada when we don’t get access to the same things yet pay the same amount of money every year.

And to think, I was really hyped about playing this game…

I blogged earlier about the new MMORPG Aion currently in beta and releasing in September in New Zealand. I was facing a dilemma at the time as to whether or not to continue playing Warhammer Online or to close my account and focus on Aion and get ready for the September release.

After spending considerable time playing the Aion beta a few weekends ago, I’ve made some major decisions about what I will be doing with my PC gaming time. I’ll explain these one by one so it’s clear as to why I’ve decided to make this change.

Like any other gamer, I play games to enjoy them and to get the best possible gaming experience I can. When I am paying for a game monthly (as opposed to paying for Xbox Live which I also do, once a year), I expect alot from the gaming experience I pay for. Quite frankly, I didn’t feel I was getting the best possible gaming experience I could for my money and my time any longer. This heavily influenced my decision to close my Warhammer Online account.

In WAR I had exhausted almost every area of content in the game apart from finishing off every public quest and finding every tome unlock. I decided to play Warhammer Online for the sheer enjoyment of online player versus player combat. That was the one thing that attracted me to the game and was the heart and soul of the experience. When this began to falter, so did my enjoyment.

I was the guild leader of my own guild for the better part of a year and when I retired it, I joined the top guild on my server (DiE which was also the fourth guild worldwide to reach guild rank 40) and for a time, felt that being with DiE would sustain my interest in the game. DiE was an RvR (PvP) based guild and focused on aspects of the game I enjoyed. But even this did not prevent the inevitable decline in online enjoyment for me.

The server instability was extremely frustrating but paled in comparison to the inconsistencies I could see every day between Order classes and their equivalents on the Destruction side. Everything came down to this. Every encounter I had was almost always the same – frustrating. Server instability on the oceanic servers was also very annoying. When you’re connecting to a US server and you’re not getting lag of any sort then swap back to the oceanic server only to lag out every time, it becomes more than an issue. It was supposed to be more stable for me to connect to an oceanic server and it just wasn’t.

Aion seemed to be alot more stable when I played (during peak times with no lag) but again, I cannot ascertain how this will be once the game is released and more people will populate the servers in September. I have also been unable to get to level 25 in Aion and therefore cannot comment on the PvP aspect of the game. But the tradeskill and questing systems in Aion are alot more comprehensive and alot easier to navigate than their counterparts in Warhammer Online.

And then there’s the flying in Aion which adds a totally new dimension to the gaming experience and opens up a completely different level of enjoyment, especially from a PvP aspect. Aion does look beautiful but Warhammer looked very nice as well. Visually, they are both very different games and I don’t really play a game for aesthetics. Ultimately, it’s gameplay that is important to me as a gamer.

I will be finishing off the beta testing this weekend for Aion and will focus on PvP gameplay to complete my comparisons but so far, Aion is looking very much like the next big MMORPG to play for MMO gamers. I’ll be reviewing Aion in early September for Gamefreaks magazine just before the game releases in New Zealand.

We’ve got 2 x free movie tickets to give away to the latest Sam Raimi horror ‘Drag Me to Hell’. PLEASE do not apply for this competition if you live outside of New Zealand. The movie tickets are valid until the end of the movie season so get in fast. Tickets are valid from the 6th of August, 2009.

All you need to do to be eligible is to read PCR’s review here and tell us the name of the demon that hunts the main character in the movie played by Alison Lohman.

Contact us here at PCR with your answer and postal details. We’ll be making the draw for the tickets on the 3rd of August, 2009.

Competition closes August 2nd, 2009 at 5pm.

Good Luck!

Well, sort of… you see I’ve been playing Warhammer Online consistently for about 11 months now but the game seems to have lost its… zing (for lack of a better word). And tomorrow I begin the beta testing for Aion, the new MMORPG released by NCsoft.

I knew nothing about the Warhammer universe before I started playing Warhammer. And apparently, as far as games go, it has a very vast and rich history for many gamers worldwide. Which is cool and all that but means little to me. As a gamer and a journalist that writes about games (and subsequently rips them apart, pixel by pixel if I’m in the mood), the history of a game doesn’t seem to have anywhere near as much impact on me as the presence (or absence) of a good storyline, non-stop action (whether that be campaign or multiplayer), strong characterisation, good dialogue, intuitive AI and graphics that won’t suddenly disappear on me, turn black or turn my screen into a behemoth of pixels!

The factors that make or break an MMORPG (especially when you’re paying for the game monthly) seem to always come down to server stability, lack of developer input and support (bug fixes that never get fixed or break even more things!) or the biggie – lack of content to keep players interested and immersed. I feel that Warhammer Online is coming close to exhausting all of these areas, especially in the content department. And I could go on and on about the intricacies of game play that I am now beginning to totally despise but I will spare you that awful experience.

What I will do is continue to write about these two games and compare them as much as possible (without breaking any NDA’s) so that you, the gamer won’t make the same mistakes I have made with some of the MMORPGs I’ve decided to play (and pour hours of gaming time into, not to mention money).

Of course, there is only so much comparison one can make from a fully realised (and released) game versus a beta, but I’ll do my best to remain fair and objective in my comparisons. Beta testing for Aion starts tomorrow so wish me luck!