Image via Wikipedia

According to MSNBC video (Video: ‘Star Trek Online’ is now free), I guess Star Trek Online is now allowing people to play for free.  Why guessing?  I haven’t heard of this game till today, therefore I don’t know much of it.  Nonetheless, I have become a big fan of Star Trek just recently since I have been watching the original Star Trek in the past few days on Netflix, and it’s still an ongoing thing for me.  I’m having a blast with the original Star Trek show!  Now, after hearing of Star Trek Online game, I think I might try it out sooner or later.  I might have to do a review for it too.  The best thing of all is that I don’t have to pay to play Star Trek Online since it’s now going free!  MSNBC video (Video: ‘Star Trek Online’ is now free) suggests there will be paid players still, therefore there might be some restrictions in game for free players.  Hopefully, such restrictions won’t be a show stopper, but I won’t know until I try it out.  You know?

You can know more of Star Trek Online before trying it out by reading about it on Wikipedia.  The link to Wikipedia’s Star Trek Online article is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Online.

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• Star Trek Online Now Free To Former Subs (rockpapershotgun.com)
• Star Trek Online Free-to-Play Access Begins (escapistmagazine.com)

Who should watch this video?  People who have never played MMORPG type of games before!  If you are a pro in MMORPG arena, then you should skip this long, boring video.  Or else, preparing to waste an hour or so of your time!  You have been warned!

Diablo III has one hell of an opening short cinematic film clip, because the elements within it are gorgeous.  Gorgeous enough to peak my curiosity how the game is going to be like.  I’ve not tested the beta, therefore I’m in the dark just like the majority of onlookers.  Nonetheless, speak no more, because you should check out the awesome Diablo III’s short cinematic film clip right after the break.  Enjoy!

Source:  http://www.slashgear.com/diablo-iii-launching-february-1-2012-says-retailer-08207168/

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Right off the bat, the game’s graphic tells me that it has to be one of the best for MMORPG.  Well, at least for now.  I also notice that in Star Wars The Old Republic, you can’t really adjust character’s statistical points like how many other MMORPG games would allow when your character gains a level, instead Star Was The Old Republic just allows you to train for additional skills with a trainer.  Of course, you have to seek out the trainer that belongs to your class first.

Star Wars The Old Republic isn’t any other MMORPG game since it allows you to choose one among three actions right after a short interactive cinematic movie clip which tailors to the mission your character is participating.  On each mission, your character may encounter a series of short interactive cinematic movie clips, and so the gamer can truly immerge into rich story sequence of each specific mission.  The short cinematic movie clips not only move your character’s missions forward, but these short cinematic movie clips are also very well done.

I’m not sure what the purpose of having a character chooses among different possible actions when a character encounters a non-player character, but I think it’s for allowing you to pick side eventually.  For an example, you can start out as a naive and friendly Jedi Knight, but you eventually may want to join the dark side.  Then again, I’m not very sure on this since I’m not exactly playing this game long enough.

Star Wars The Old Republic has eight classes.  Four classes are for the good side, and the other four classes are for the dark side.  The good side has Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight, and Jedi Consular classes.  The dark side has Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, Imperial Agent, and Sith Inquisitor classes.  Within Star Wars The Old Republic universe, there are many planets, and I think as time goes on, the game developers might add more planets to expand the game map.  The available starships are D5-Mantis, Fury, BT-7 Thunderclap, X-70B Phantom, XS Freighter, and Defender.  Also, you might want to check out Star Wars The Old Republic new player guide here.

I confess, I like this game a lot.  It looks good, feels good, and it is fun.  I can see I’ll be spending more time playing this game so my Jedi Knight character can advance to a much higher level.  Yep, this game can be time consuming indeed.

For your information, Star Wars The Old Republic isn’t available for any gaming console, because this game is only released for computer.  Well, at least for now, but you never know right?  Your computer system might need to be upgraded to the minimum specs before you can play this game.  The minimum specs are:

• Operating systems:
• Windows XP,
• Windows Vista,
• Windows 7,
• Processors:
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core or better,
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz or better,
• Memory:
• 2GB RAM or better,
• Video:
• ATI X1800 or better,
• nVidia 7800 or better,
• Intel 4100 Integrated Graphics or better.

Having high end gaming computer system will allow you to play not only this game for now, but also for many other upcoming games in years to come.  I notice on the back of the Star Wars The Old Republic game box, it says you might need to upgrade your computer system to play this game in the future.  This means, as time goes on, game developers for Star Wars The Old Republic might improve the game graphic which requires you to upgrade your computer system.

Before you can actually play Star Wars The Old Republic, you must either pay for a digital download or the physical copy of the game.  After paying for the standard edition copy, you have only around 30 days to play.  After 30 days, you’ll be paying for monthly recurrent or other recurrent periods of subscription that you have subscribed to.  So yes, this game can be quite expensive if you are intending to play it for a long time to come.  Nonetheless, if you are a hardcore gamer, I don’t think you would mind.

Check out couple cool Star Wars The Old Republic gameplay videos right after the break.

You can find more of Star Wars The Old Republic gameplay videos on YouTube.

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Image by Colony of Gamers via Flickr

Skyrim is nice, and I’m still not even halfway through the main story, and yet Star Wars: The Old Republic is now out.  I can’t really comment on Star Wars: The Old Republic yet, because I haven’t got it.  Planning on getting it though!  Nonetheless, check out its awesome opening short film.

The computer graphic for Star Wars: The Old Republic opening short film is well done, and the acting of the computer graphic generated characters is nice. I like it.  Let just hope the game will be very good too when I finally get my hands on it.  This Christmas maybe?  I’m giggling inside.

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• December 18 – 25 Games Featuring Star Wars: The Old Republic (geardiary.com)
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I think Microsoft has released a better Xbox Dashboard, but I’m not impressed.  Sure, the new Xbox Dashboard is way better than the old one, but voice controller is somewhat iffy still that I prefer the use of the controller.  If I’m not wrong, Microsoft should be hard at work in improving the intelligence behind the technology which allows Kinect and Xbox to be able to process the words that come out from the mouth of any human.  If Microsoft isn’t, then I think Xbox will eventually lose luster and play catch up to something else that does it better in respect to voice intelligence.

I think voice intelligence that is able to understand the words that come out of the mouth of any human in natural way will be very popular and useful in many ways in the future.  One example would be telling a device to search for something on the Internet.  OK, sure, Xbox is now allowing users/gamers use voice commands and demand Bing to search for something, but I’ve found out that it’s rather hard to do so.  Either I’m clueless how Xbox Bing should work, because for the life of me I could not ask Xbox Bing to search for what I want.  Correct me if I’m wrong, perhaps Xbox Bing is only searching for games, music, videos, movies, and whatever else that is available on Xbox Live and console.  If this is the case, then Xbox Bing isn’t yet capable in searching the entire Internet as how Bing normally does through a web browser.

Shutting down Xbox through voice is fun if you know how to; the correct way is by saying “Xbox Go Home, Settings, Turn Off , Yes.”  This is why Microsoft definitely needs to make Xbox understands longer phrases in natural way and not through specific commands.  Nonetheless, it’s easier now for Xbox users/gamers to control Xbox through voice than before.

In summary, it’s now possible for Xbox users/gamers to play movies, music, games, and do other things with voice commands.  Before, Xbox users/gamers could only command Xbox through voice in a more limited way.  Still, Xbox voice intelligence leaves much to be improved, because it’s not natural for users/gamers to remember specific commands and reading what could be read inside Xbox Dashboard and other sections inside Xbox Live.  It’s much better if users/gamers can just speak naturally to Xbox.  Xbox isn’t Siri, but don’t we wish Xbox is capable as Siri?  How about even better, I think Xbox should be able to talk back to Xbox users/gamers in a natural way.

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The but is about how Xbox users have to pay $60 annual fee for Gold Membership.  Without Gold Membership, Xbox users cannot even watch Netflix which they have already paid for anyhow.  Playstation 3 is different in this regard as in how Playstation users can watch Netflix through Playstation 3 without needing to pay anything.  In the end, as I do not care to purchase or waste a $60 for a Gold Membership, I think Xbox users who are in the same boat as me will excite little over the new Xbox Live.

Remember, even right after you pay for $60 Gold Membership, you still have to pay for Netflix, Hulu Plus, Verizon FiOS, and others before you can actually get to enjoy the contents.  The reasons for people to cut TV cord is not that they only want TV on demand, but they are interested in cost cutting, enjoying better TV experience, and then cost cutting.  I think Xbox Live has to rethink on how to help Xbox users save costs without sacrificing great contents, otherwise I think just subscribing to one awesome service such as Netlfix and stream it over computers will be just as great.

Source:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/microsofts-xbox-update-voice-control_n_1129104.html

Image via Wikipedia

Elder Scrolls V Skyrim is by far the best RPG I’ve ever played, but also by far the most annoying and unplayable at times RPG I’ve played.  Let talk about the goods first!  Skyrim is gorgeous in regarding to its level of details.  Every object, however big or small in the game, from a bowl to a mountain, the details are overwhelming and extraordinary.  Skyrim isn’t hard to play, but it does take one to play enough hours before one fully becoming addicted to the game.  How come?  It’s starting out slow and with very little tutorial to begin with.  Then again, it’s so simple to play, but too simple to a point that requires gamers to experiment to figure out how simple it is.  How ironic, isn’t it?  Skyrim is also fun to play since you can do almost anything and go anywhere within the game.  The map is so large that gets your jaw drops wide open.  So far, I had joined the Companion and acquired werewolf power/form.  I suspect I cannot get bore with this game until I truly finish it, and even then I’ll poke around with Skyrim’s landscapes for some picturesque moments.

The bad of Skyrim is that it’s glitchy!  At the moment, I’m stuck at the part where I’m being pursued by Vilkas every second and a menu would pop up to pause my gaming process, because Vilkas wants to say “We’re going to make them pay!”  This is also the part where Vilkas has to follow me to finish a quest known as Purity of Revenge.  So, the glitch began when a guard wanted to arrest me, but I ran into the Companion sanctuary within Whiterun.  Inside the Companion sanctuary, the guard started to attack me but the Companion fellows attacked the guard which led to more guards came in and attacked more Companion fellows.  I went crazy and used a fire explosion scroll (don’t remember of the scroll name) which exploded and killed all the guards and some Companion fellows.  This led to Vilkas turned on me and wanted to kill me, but instead of killing me, he pursued me everywhere and wanted to talk to me which prompted the glitchy menu to pop up every second.  (Update:  Someone suggests that by following the guard’s order to take up jail time, the glitch will end, but I’ve found out that this isn’t the case.  I guess, the glitch goes on for now!)

The glitch got worse at one time that I had to laugh out loud.  So, I got pretty much fed up at this point since Skyrim was unplayable with stupid Vilkas bothered me and pursued me pointlessly, I picked pocket a woman in Whiterun.  Instead of calling for a guard, she would let me picked pocket her and then ran up the stairs a little repeatedly.  Eventually she would ran to a guard and asked for help but a male bystander would pull out a sword and smacked her to death with it.  I laughed hysterically, because the artificial intelligence of Skyrim at this point was anything but sane.  I slowly came up to the corpse of the woman who lay on the cold ground and stripped her belongings, and this was the last occasion of picked pocket of this unfortunate woman if you considered taking things from a dead corpse was picked pocket.

After putting in a substantial amount of time into Skyrim, it was and is finally unplayable.  Can I have my $60 back?  I love Skyrim, but hate it for the glitch.  I don’t feel like to restart the game from beginning or even roll back to previous saved points!  Too much time I’d invested in Skyrim already!  For your information, I’m experiencing a glitch with Skyrim on PS3 console, and so I can’t comment how glitchy Skyrim would be on other consoles and game platforms.  I wonder could Skyrim developers release a fix somehow over the Internet to PS3 so I can continue my Skyrim quests?  For now, I hold my breath on this!

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ArcheAge has caught my attention since it promises every action within the game can potentially change the course of the entire game forever.  How?  Each player can do almost anything in ArcheAge as in real life, but in a world of fantasy where clans and magic and monsters come to life.  Basically, when a player chooses to destroy an object or a location within ArcheAge world, if I’m not wrong on the assumption, ArcheAge will allow the object or location to be forever destroyed.

According to Wikipedia, ArcheAge allows massive PvP (100+ people).  PvP stands for player versus player.  It means players take on players in combats, starting many virtual wars.  It also means real human players are behind the motivations and desires that dictate the characters’ actions.

Besides the normal MMORPG stuffs, amazing naval warfare is a plus for ArcheAge gamers.  It reminds gamers who love the idea of becoming Blackbeard in the world of ArcheAge.

Besides features, ArcheAge needs to have great graphic to attract modern gamers.  I’m not sure how ArcheAge’s graphic will pane out, but so far I heard the developers will use quality graphic engines to develop this game (e.g., CryEngine 3).  Also, by watching YouTube videos on ArcheAge, these videos confirm my belief that ArcheAge will be a beautiful game in terms of art style.  Check out the YouTube videos of ArcheAge that I’d found on YouTube right after the break.

There are a whole lot more of ArcheAge videos on YouTube, so check YouTube out for more of the same or better.

For your information, ArcheAge is still in beta.  Therefore, I’m not sure when this game will be available for USA.  Nonetheless, according to Wikipedia, ArcheAge will be released in 2012.  This is somewhat unclear, because it does not tell me if ArcheAge will be released in USA in 2012, for all we know this game might be released in Korea and China in 2012 and not in USA — perhaps USA might get to see this game even later.  Basically, the release date is still up in the air for USA gamers, I think!

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArcheAge