Having reviewed The Sims 3 and its first proper expansion World Adventures I was looking forward to the next instalment. It seems I’ll have to wait a little longer for the inevitable Pets expansion. Design & High-Tech Stuff does exactly what it says on the proverbial tin, this is a stuff pack, no more, no less.

As the contents of this pack are limited I’ve decided to take a slightly different reviewing approach so below are the key features of Design & High-Tech Stuff.

Home Sweet Home – Homes are transformed into cutting-edge spaces with contemporary sofas, sleek coffee tables, and eclectic art.
High-end furnishings – Add to the bedroom, entertainment room, office and patio for a modern look.
Electronics – The latest gadgets are now available including high-tech, ultra-slim TVs, video game systems, stereos and more.
Wardrobe – Upgrade that closet with fashion-forward apparel, tailored suits, and sophisticated outerwear.
Plus Bonus Anniversary Items! This special 10th Anniversary pack also includes three well-loved items from The Sims and The Sims 2 games: the heart-shaped vibrating bed, the electric guitar, and the aquarium.

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I love Bioware. I love Mass Effect. What I didn’t love is waiting what felt like an eternity for this sequel to be released. In reality the wait wasn’t long at all but it felt that way because Mass Effect made such a big impact. When I completed the first game, and that upbeat 80’s style music played out over the credits, I wanted the sequel to be sitting there waiting for me. I wanted more and Bioware, in their infinite kindness, have duly obliged.

The screenshots speak for themselves. This game is blessed with some stunning visuals. In my review of Dragon Age I mentioned how expansive the game felt with, amongst other things, the enormous Dwarven statues towering over your characters. In Mass Effect 2 a similar sense of size is created with the many detailed and busy horizons and is noticeable on the likes of Omega. The soundtrack is once again atmospheric and brilliant. Walking into one of the clubs with your bass turned high is a nice feeling. The voice acting would have been just as good as in the first game but it’s made even better with the inclusion of the mighty Martin Sheen.

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Atmosphere is a word which game reviewers love to throw around, and gamers lap it up, without too much thought. An appropriate description is that atmosphere in games is the combination of writing, visuals, and sound to create a living world around the player. Of course, you don’t need all three and sometimes if a game excels in just one of those elements it can be highly atmospheric. Bioshock 2 had a lot to live up to as the first game, which excelled in visuals, sound, and most of all writing, had an abundance of atmosphere. Unfortunately this sequel fails to live up to high expectations.

The format is near identical to the original with your character wandering around Rapture trying to make sense of what’s going on around them. In the original you fought your way through many foes before finally climbing inside the huge metal Big Daddy suit. In Bioshock 2 you are a Big Daddy throughout and this slightly cheapened the experience for me as unlike the first game I didn’t feel as though I had earned the right.
Through most of the game you find yourself alone, apart from the lunatics trying to separate your head from the rest of your body, while various voices guide you on your journey for better or worse. The original title was defined by its great twist and because of this I was paranoid all the way through. I believed everyone was out to get me, including myself. This meant that when the inevitable twist happened, which isn’t as good as the one in the first game anyway, the impact was minimal.

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Having missed the first Army of Two title I come into the 40th Day with a fresh and unbiased approach. The downside of this is that I don’t have any ready-made comparisons to draw upon. This game is a mixture of good, bad, and frustratingly mediocre.

One thing I really like is earning cash for successfully completing missions regardless of how important they are to the overall objective. A good example is when you’re asked to save civilians. Whether they live or die isn’t really important in the grand scheme of things but the extra income makes it worth the effort. Using your earnings to purchase new weapons and customize them with upgrades is the sole reason for earning this cash. You can access the Weapon Customization screen any time you’re not in combat. Weapons have a certain number of points over four categories: aggro, handling, precision, and damage. Upgrades such as types of barrel, stock, and scope, will raise or lower each of these categories. This gives you a lot of control over what type of weapons you carry with you which will affect the way you play the game.

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When it comes to addictive videogames there’s nothing quite like a good MMORPG to have you glued to a chair for hours on end. My first taste of the genre was with Ultima Online. A game which by today’s visual standards looks like some kind of sick joke. Kids all over the world would do a double-take and proceed to call whoever showed them the images a filthy liar. That was a damn good game though and I am blessed with many fond memories. I spent countless late nights slaughtering animals in the woods and leaving their blood-soaked corpses just outside town before returning home to play some Ultima Online. I jumped from Ultima Online to a bit of Everquest, then came Dark Age of Camelot which I found to be a very under-rated game, I then graduated to World of Warcraft, and more recently Guild Wars.

Aion comes from NCsoft who brought us Lineage, City of Heroes, and Guild Wars. I must point out that GW technically isn’t an MMORPG as the only MMO sections are in towns and even then there doesn’t tend to be a huge number of people in any area at once. However, I feel it important to mention that series as Guild Wars 2 will not only be a proper MMO game it will also follow in the footsteps of GW in having no monthly subscription fee.

A good way to describe Aion is that it includes a mixture of Eastern and Western MMORPG styles. The Asian influence is mostly true of the visual style and narrative. This game looks as though some wonderful genius has invented a device which can suck up an Anime and spit it out into a videogame format.

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Another Pokemon game but according to the back cover this is a little different. “Now you can go beyond darkness…Outside the limits of time…And into the skies!” Hold on. Let’s rewind a little. Outside the limits of time. Whoever wrote this text believes that the sky exists outside the boundaries of time. This does not bode well. In and of itself a tiny piece of text on the back cover shouldn’t indicate how good a game will be but this is Pokemon. Watered down sequels is what Pokemon does best and I desperately wanted to grab onto something, anything at all, which would suggest this is more than another run-of-the-mill title in the long running series. Oh, this is a dungeon crawler, well now, that changes everything.

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The Sims. The title is a little misleading. The idea that this series is a simulation of real life is more than a little far-fetched. The walk of life this most resembles, if it does at all, has to be a comfortable middle-class suburbia. This is very much a family friendly affair. Everything on offer is safe. There are comedy burglars but no violent murderers, rapists, or child molesters. Coming from the cartoon ethos which spawned classics from Disney and Warner Brothers rather than the grittier Anime offerings. But we love this. We love how safe everything is. It is charming. World Adventures is an expansion which will take your Sims from the comfort of their homes and place them in lands of adventure and exploration…in a safe and family friendly way, of course.

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Bioware, the geniuses behind Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and more recently Mass Effect, are back once again. Not only some of my favourite games of all time they’re also arguably the most significant titles in the RPG genre. Dragon Age Origins was to my mind a curious beast and I wasn’t quite sure what I’d make of it. Bioware have a history of pushing the genre forward and everything I saw before getting my hands on this game hinted at a wonderful hybrid and a modern classic. I wondered if it was possible, could this game really combine the likes of Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, and Oblivion? That’s a rhetorical question but the answer you’re looking for is yes and I’ll now spend the rest of this review telling you why this game is an absolute joy to play.

Dragon Age is epic along the lines of The Lords of the Rings. In Tolkien’s classic trilogy Frodo finds himself out in the middle of nowhere with the weight of the world on his shoulders. That’s what’s in store for you here. You’ll find yourself in the middle of a big bloody war and you’re Frodo, or Neo, or perhaps Crocodile Dundee, whatever helps you picture the scene. In sticking with RPG tradition you’re not entirely alone as you’ll encounter various other characters who will help you along the way.

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The first couple of Terminator movies are easily two of my all time favourites. Pure unadulterated entertainment. I was really looking forward to the third, Rise of the Machines, but it turned out to be a horrible waste of time. That third movie managed to severely dent my interest in anything with the word “Terminator” in the title. Because of this I avoided the first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles like the plague. As a huge fan of actor Christian Bale I decided to give Terminator Salvation a chance. My faith in humanity was somewhat restored – or at least my faith in murderous time travelling cyborgs from the future and that’s what really matters. My renewed interest coincided with the release of the second series of Chronicles on Blu-Ray which gave me the perfect opportunity to check it out.

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I have a ritual when it comes to Football Manager. I install the game, start it up, and choose Celtic as my first team to manage. I wanted to shake things up a little for this review and decided to start in the English Coca-Cola League 2. Since an unfamiliar challenge was my intention I decided to start from the very bottom and manage Burton Albion who had a media prediction of 24^th in the league. This was going to be an uphill struggle but I was looking forward to it.

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