Ok, so I’ve heard that Fallout3 is controversial but I can’t figure out why exactly though or what’s so controversial about this game. The controversy could be that Bethesda made such a great game all the others will be left behind? I can understand where some might say the whole post-apocalyptic thing is controversial, but I just don’t see it, it’s game only after all.

Fallout3 is set in the far future after the world has basically ended due to the usual things, greed, power, and nuclear war, eventually I’m sure it will end this way, so it might be a peek into our own futures… Seriously though Fallout3 is a magnificent game in visuals, actual gameplay and storyline, it’s a bloody, gory romp through the post-apocalyptic wastelands that will keep you coming back for more.

When you start the game, you start out at birth, pretty much literally just coming out into the world, and from there it’s all pretty much downhill. It turns out that you actually live in a fall out shelter or Vault as they are called and the game continues on for quite a bit going through the stages of life until you’re a teenager, that’s when your father decides to leave you. At that point in the game you decide to leave the safety and security of the vault to enter the wastelands in search of your father, where of course you’ll need to quickly adapt to the new harsh environment you’ve just decided to venture out into. Along the away you’ll meet many people and things, many of which are just there to do you harm, but some are friendly and you’ll actually learn quite a bit from them about yourself, your father and how to survive in the wastelands.

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Ok, I’ve got seven great reasons to grab Command and Conquer Red Alert 3:

I couldn’t help with that one, sorry, I’m a guy, it happens… now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get into the real review of C&C Red Alert 3 for PC.

Strategy games like Command and Conquer, Supreme Commander and Act of War are my second favorite type of games to play after first person shooters, I just really like having all of that stuff going on at the same time, having to control different units and playing to see how the game is going to turn out. Most of the RTS games are story oriented, with many cut scenes involved making the game that much more interesting and getting the player more involved and wanting to continue playing as to see how the story unfolds. Most of the newer games of this type have enlisted Hollywood stars to help promote their games and even participate and start in them as well.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a Red Alert game from EA, and for Red Alert 3 they’ve pulled out all of the stops creating a game that isn’t just pleasing on the eyes, in more ways that one, but lots of fun as well. EA called upon several big names to participate including David Hasselhoff, George Takei, Tim Curry, Gemma Atkinson, and Jenny McCarthy, just to name a few of them, to start in the game and help promote it. The main eye candy factor is obvious, but the other of course is the game itself, it features excellent graphics for an RTS game, and great gameplay overall. You start the game playing as the Soviets, or at least it’s suggested you do, there are three factions to play, the Soviets, the Allies and the Empire of the Rising Sun. All feature different aspects of play including varying types of vehicles, special weapons and deployment types. It’s all essentially the same storyline played from three different viewpoints, and even though it’s similar, it’s a totally different experience with each one.

So continue on for the rest of the review, including screenshots, a gameplay movie and more pictures of the cast…

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By now I’m sure most of you have heard that Far Cry 2 has nothing at all to do with the Far Cry we’ve come to know and love, to some that might be a good thing and to others it might not be. Far Cry 2 is a gritty,  set in the real world, adventure type first person shooter that has the hallmarks of an award winning game, the good things about this game are boundless, but it has one glaringly annoying downfall, that takes the game and just makes it not fun to play at times really: malaria. I’ve never had malaria, and I don’t want  it anytime soon, but this whole character having malaria thing is just downright annoying, and there are a few choice words that I don’t think I should type out here that I have for my feelings for this whole thing. I mean I can understand having some ailment, making the game somewhat more interesting or more lifelike, but malaria? why? You’re playing along, happily gunning down bad guys and everything goes a funky, pukey, green, you’ve got to stop and take your meds, then of course for 5 more minutes, what seems like an hour really, the screen goes from clear to blurry at regular but frequent intervals. It might not be so bad in the game, but me, myself, it actually bothered me physically, my eyes anyway and my head really, I sat and played for over three hours straight one night and went to bed with a headache. I found myself squinting at the screen when it was blurry trying to focus, it’s an automatic response so I couldn’t help but to do it, but it was like why did they do this?!? Ok, so that was my rant about FC2… really though it’s an awesome game that any FPS lover should grab!

Far Cry 2 is a visually stunning and action oriented masterpiece of a game that any gun loving geek will be thrilled to spend hours at a clip playing. The visuals and graphics are nothing short of amazing, you can easily just get lost driving around Africa looking at the sights and admiring the scenery, from the rocks, trees and water, to how the sun shines through those same trees. The wide open, free roaming nature of Far Cry 2 tends to allow the player a lot of freedom when it comes to how to play the game, most likely everyone will have a different experience with it. If you don’t have a mission you can just drive around and explore a bit, and maybe shoot a few people along the way, this style of gameplay leads to a game that could last forever really.

The fire in Far Cry 2 was one of it’s hyped features, it does look good, but it falls a bit short of realistic, quite a bit short really. There are some other small quirks with the game as well, but overall it’s a great game.

So continue on to check out a couple movies and a whole slew of screenshots, along with performance as well running on my Diamond Radeon HD 4870 1gig at 1680×1050 resolution..

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Crash Bandicoot is almost as famous as that little blue hedgehog fellow that runs around collecting rings, but I think Crash should be the more famous one as he’s got a lot more charm and pizzazz about him.

In the latest Bandicoot adventure we see him up against his arch nemesis Neo Cortex, who’s devised yet another fiendish, and dastardly devilish, evil scientist plan to take over the world. This time he’s using basically a brain control device to turn the denizens of Wampu island into his unwitting pawns, and of course they fall for it through Neo’s clever use of infomercials. So it’s up to our friendly neighborhood bandicoot to come save the day once again, this time though he’s got some special tricks up his sleeve, or should I say in his pockets. Crash has the ability to ‘jack’ monsters, or take control of them to do his bidding to help him fight Neo Cortex and his hordes of henchmen. When Crash doesn’t need the monster he puts it in his pocket for later use, Crash and his monsters can be upgraded as well by collecting jewels, or Mojo.

Crash Bandicoot - Mind Over Mutant is a rather fun game, but it can get repetitive at times. Even with the repetition I found I had to keep playing because the cut scenes are just great, from spoof infomercials, old style cartoons and to even anime inspired movies, they’re just well worth playing to get to them.

So continue on for a bunch of screen shots, and two movies for you, including one of the aforementioned cut scenes..

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When you’re a product reviewer, or run a product review site, there are times when you’ll get requests for products, many times in fact, and as you get more popular the more requests you’ll get. With these requests comes decisions, there are quite a few products I’ve turned down for review that just didn’t fit with the site, we try to focus on certain things and sometimes we get requests that are just not something that would fit with our site. The product I have for review today was one of those products, it was actually one of two that Black and Decker sent me in the same message, and I let the message go for a bit because I had to think about it to make sure it would really fit with the site. After some thought I decided that yes it would fit, it’s a gadget, it’s electronic, and most of all I think it’s something very useful and something that many people would appreciate seeing a review of.

The product is the Black and Decker Power Monitor, B&D isn’t quite known for it’s electronics, more tools and appliances, but the Power Monitor is a very useful device overall. The Power Monitor is basically a two piece unit, one part that attaches to your electric meter, and the second part that resides inside of your house. The idea behind the Power Monitor is to help you monitor your power consumption and adjust things accordingly.

Saving money is something that I believe we all can understand and probably something that we all would like to do, any way that we can cut corners and save some cash is most likely going to appeal to many people, myself included. Of course we can also look at it from the ‘green’ angle as well, using less electricity is obviously good for the environment and our wallets.

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Yesterday we looked at the Playgear Gear Pocket Slim for the PSP. Since we don’t want our Nintendo DS Lite friends to feel left out, today we will look at the PlayGear Pocket Lite. This case is also designed to protect the Nintendo handheld gaming system from trauma and includes the ability of personalization.

One difference from the PSP model is that the PlayGear Pocket Lite is able to store and protect up to four DS Lite games. Also, all the buttons and slots of the DS Lite can be accessed with the gaming system housed within the case. Otherwise, the DS Lite model has all the features of its PSP brethren.

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Everyone has optical drives and as time has passed they’ve gotten faster and faster, one problem I’ve encountered though is that for newer drives there is no media for the latest speeds, something I’ve never been able to quite figure out. IDE is becoming obsolete, with SATA becoming the new standard, first it was hard drives now more and more companies are coming out with optical SATA drives as well. On a personal note I’ve moved now to all SATA connections, so no more IDE for me in my main system.

Today I’ve got a combination review and article for you, more of a roundup, or comparison piece really. Samsung sent me their new Super Write-Master 22X DVD burner for review, just the drive though, the OEM version basically, and I’ve been meaning to do a small article about optical drives, comparing their speeds, so I figured why not incorporate the new Samsung into the article.

The Super Write-Master features LightScribe, which I’m sure everyone knows about by now, but it’s main feature is of course the speed of the drive, writing DVDs at 22x, though there is no media capable of that yet that I know of. Another great feature of this drive is the SpeedPlus which is an optomised algorithm for writing at the fastest possible speeds, along with that the drive also features Speed Adjustment Technology, low noise and Buffer Under Run Technology. I’ve put the Samsung up against four other drives for comparison, and interestingly, during my testing I found the Super Write-Master will burn a 16x DVD at over 18X speeds, coming in at just a little over 5 minutes to burn a DVD, with the closest competitor coming in at almost 6 minutes.

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Cases designed to protect portable gaming systems can be bland. Sure you get the physical protection, but they lack individuality. Logitech has addressed this issue with their newest case the PlayGear Pocket Slim for the PSP 2000 series aka the PSP Slim. This case allows the user to access all the controls and connections while the PSP is housed within the PlayGear Pocket Slim.

Logitech includes a template for creating custom skins that lets one personalize the case to their style. In addition, the case can accommodate the larger 2220 mAh Extended Life Battery.

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Corsair is very much known for it’s excellent performing memory,  but they’re recently moved into the power supply business and all over the place they’ve gotten rave reviews and praise about them, so apparently they’re very good.

Today I’ve got the Corsair TX750 750Watt Power supply for review and it features plenty of connections and power for most systems. the cables are sleeved nicely and I have to note that they are nice and long as well, it also features 80% efficiency and 99% Active PFC to round it out.

So read on to learn more

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There’s all sorts of mice out there today, and you’ll find that none of them are created equal, they all have pros and cons, and it’s really going to take a bit to find the one that’s right for you. Razer is a company that is well known for their top-quality gaming accessories, many people rave about them and covet their Razer products. If you’re a gamer, then most likely you’ve heard of Razer and probably own one of their products.

Today for review I’ve got the Razer Lachesis gaming mouse, it features a 4000dpi laser sensor, 32kb onboard memory to save profiles, nine buttons, one the fly sensitivity adjustments and many other features that make this an excellent choice for a gaming mouse.

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So a few days ago I took a look at the Radius Atomic Bass Earphones, and I found they weren’t too bad overall, just with a bit too much bass for my tastes really..

Today I’ve got the Radius RadHeadphone LIVE Earphones with Titanium Drivers in Savage Red color, and these are specifically made for my kind of music, Rock, Metal, Techno, and they’re supposed to be a decent all around set of earphones as well. This set costs about twice as much as the Atomic Bass set does, but it comes with a carrying pouch and a cord extension, along with the titanium drivers, is it worth the cost? Let’s find out…

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Being a reviewer I’ve got the chance to test/review many, many types and styles of keyboards that are on the market today, every kind from multi-media, gaming to specialized styles as well and I’ve learned that not all keyboards are created equal. I type a lot, I mean a lot,  and I’ve learned that a good keyboard can mean the difference between comfort and agony after typing for hours on end. Needless to say, but I’ve learned to appreciate the differences between keyboards, and I’ve learned which ones are the best for people that use them as often as I do. For almost two years I’ve used the same keyboard, yes I’ve reviewed many in that time but I’ve always come back to that one keyboard for my everyday use, it features mechanical gold plated switches by Cherry that produce a clicky sound and a tactile feedback when the keys are pressed. The keyboard I’ve been using is a Raptor-Gaming K1 Gaming Keyboard, and it’ expensive, and one of the best out there today not only for gaming but as an excellent general use keyboard as well. The keyboard I have today for review utilizes the same technology under the keys, and now I’m torn between two of the best keyboards on the market…

I’ve got arguably one of the best keyboards on the market for review today the Das Keyboard or The Keyboard, in other words THE Keyboard of keyboards! The Das Keyboard is more than a keyboard, it might be considered a work of art actually, it’s very nice to look at with its high gloss finish and blue LED indicators. Looks aren’t everything though as we all know, under the keys are Cherry brand gold-plated key switches to provide tactile and audible feedback while typing which provide a typing experience that has to be experienced to be understood.

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