DUNGEONS & DRAGONS FOURTH EDITION is finally here. The grand-daddy of role playing sees its first revision in almost ten years and the developers have done away with the geeky and confusing in favour of a stylishly made revision that has one massive selling point: mass appeal. The game has done an about face from previous editions in making the game organised, intuitive, and easy to follow.

Fourth Edition (4e) has suffered a lot of criticism for being too radically different to previous editions. Critics claim that it’s too much like World of Warcraft or that it’s trying to copy other games (like Warhammer Fantasy Battles), but despite the changes, it’s quite clearly recognisable as D&D. The game has quite naturally gone through a number of changes over the past thirty years, yet it has not lost its core identity. It’s still the same game with the same basic premise: go on quests to achieve fame and power, gain levels, and retire to a magic flying castle in the clouds (OK, so that might have been my goal as a twelve year old, but it's perhaps best not to dwell too much on that). A game must evolve to survive, and regardless of the controversy surrounding the new edition, Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is great addition to the gaming world and a fantastic entry into the hobby for new or younger gamers.

The Player’s Handbook: The new edition of the PHB looks fantastic. It’s bright and colourful and well-organised and is without a doubt the best looking book the game has ever seen. Powers and abilities are colour coded for easy reference and gone are many of the geeky and confusing tables that once saturated the tome in favour of a few easy to learn mechanics which apply to every aspect of the game.

Presto Chango: My first question on leafing through the book was: where are the spells? The majority of the book is now (quite rightly) taken up with the character classes that are now substantial, to say the least. Gone is the whopping list of spells that once dominated the latter half of the tome (which always made for interesting reading but if you weren't a wizard, it was simply wasted space in the core book). The new classes are incredibly detailed and the new revision benefits the classes once light on abilities (such as the fighter), but to the detriment of the spellcasters (like the cleric and wizard).

Core Mechanics: The core game remains the same: six statistics, hit points, amour class, classes, divine and arcane magic, but while things look the same on the surface, much has changed underneath. Wizard’s ethos for the game’s creation was clearly “less is more”, for everyone has fewer abilities and powers that they can use, which waters down the mystery of the game but levels the playing field at the same time. Now everyone is more or less the same with the same ability to dish out damage and use a wider variety of abilities. No longer is the hapless Fighter consigned to a few attacks while the Wizard bursts out a dizzying arsenal of spells; both classes have exactly the same number of powers that they can use.  

Race / Class: There are a standard eight races and eight classes in the PHB. The races are: Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling, Human and Tiefling. As you might know, Wizard of the Coast has gone for the more action / visual races, with the dragonborn (no guesses for what kind of creature they are), and the planar creatures Eladrin (part angel) and Tieflings (part demons). The eight races are Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Warlord, and Wizard (oh look, a Dungeons &  Dragons Ride – sorry, couldn’t help myself). The Warlock is a kind of sorcerer that gains power by making pacts with otherworldly entities, while the Warlord is the leader of battles.

The Lofty Heights: In addition to the 30 character levels, there are two subsets: paragon and epic paths. Paragon levels range from 11th to 20th, while Epic paths range from 21st to 30th. They allow a player to pick up a subset of their main class (such as Blood Mage for wizard) and to further focus their powers. It’s just like prestige classes, only with niftier names.

All About the Battles: Combat remains exactly the same, only with the emphasis on a character’s location, as much of the combat is now based on the tile system (clearly Wizards wants a piece of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles pie) and everything is geared up to a more visual play style in which your location in the battle is as important as what you do every round). Attacks of Opportunities are still in game, as are all the rules you loved (or loathed) in Third Edition.

A new addition to the game is the standardised character system. Characters are no longer consigned to just a few paragraphs in the PHB; each now takes up a good many pages, beginning with a half page about the class and followed by pages of details of their level-based powers.

The reason the classes take up so much space is that every class now has a number of actions they can perform. These actions are divided up into three categories:

• At Will: Meaning a character can use that ability whenever they like.
• Per Encounter: Meaning the character can use that ability once per encounter, or after a few minutes’ rest.
• Daily: Means a character can use that ability just once per day (like a fireball spell or performing a complex attack)

There are also Utility powers, but they fall into one of the above categories. This system means that all classes have ‘spells’, which balances the game, but it does again water down the wizard, bringing the class in line with the others.

Second Wind: A new mechanic is that all characters have the ability to take an action to heal themselves – a “second wind”. You can use this to heal your wounds or to defend yourself and it’s an interesting mechanic which adds a lot more survivability to the weaker classes.

It’s all Tougher (except the magic): Everyone starts at first level with hit points equal to 10+ their Con Bonus and the hit point totals at later levels skyrockets quickly into triple figures. Even wizards of 20th level and above can easily have 200+ hit points, which jars somewhat with previous games where wizards were glass cannons. Now they’re beefed up somewhat, but its their spelsl that have failed their saving throw. With so many ways to heal, it’s very difficult to die. Even when a PC falls to 0 or lower hit points, the Stabilising Roll is now a saving throw and is much easier to succeed (especially at higher levels). Removal of the threat of death takes away yet another edge of the game.

Shopping For Loot: Most items in the game are more than just armour or jewellery. They each have a varying degree of abilities that can be used a varying number of times per day (for example a Horned Helm gives you a major bonus to your charge attacks, while a mystical shield confers a healing bonus upon you). This adds a whole new element to the suit of armour you choose, or which wand you decide to wield. It’s a great new system that adds a whole new layer of customisation to your character.

Spellcasting: Spellcasting in 4th Edition deserves the majority of this review as it has been completely revised. There are no longer any key levels where you get your first truly meaty spells, nor as there any awesomely destructive fireballs or earth-shattering cone of colds. Gone is Power Word Kill in favour of a set of more generic offensive spells. They’ve also removed many of the spells that make or break a battle on the roll of a die (like paralysis). So, what’s left is a bunch of low-power offensive spells, and the best of the bunch of the old spells (like fly and dimension door). A fairly weak selection, to be honest. In fact, most of the old spells have now been removed entirely, to be replaced with lots of similar elemental spells and effects that pretty much all do the same thing, but with a variety of side effects (like slowing an opponent) and a slightly increased damage.

Spells have been divided up into levels, from 1st to 30th, and choosing new spells isn’t easy, and forces you at many levels to simply choose a more powerful spell to replace an existing one (losing magic missile (a staple of wizards in D&D for over 30 years) to Prismatic Burst was painful).

One think you’ll never do now is assault your enemies with a vast barrage of damage that sends you scuttling into the bottom of your bag for yet another d6. You might manage to do 10d4 or 6d6 with some of the higher level spells, but most spells do a modest amount of damage. Combined with the fact that you have to hit with your spells now and you have a positively lacklustre affair. To compensate, most spells have sub-effects (example, if you miss with your ice spell, you do half damage but the opponent is slowed).

Spells are MUCH weaker and they don’t scale. A fireball at 5th level is the same as one cast by a 30th level wizard. Gone are the old days of knowing a bunch of different spells and being utterly versatile in favour of the Warcraft school of melee. Now you have a scattering of spells which you can cast at will, per encounter, or daily. It’s far more restricting and loses much of the flavour of the original game. It’s fine that you’ve got a bunch of attack spells you can spit out per encounter, but it all feels somewhat bland and empty, with players creating a bunch of cookie-cutter identikit wizards with all the best powers (and none of the useful utility spells).

Fireball is now a “Daily” spell, while Lightning Bolt is per “Encounter”. That seems strange to me, as they were both such key staples of D&D. Now you can only cast ONE fireball per day, and you cannot learn the same spell twice. You can of course cast the ‘awesome’ lightning bolt (with a whopping 2d6+ Int mod damage) per encounter now. Doesn’t that more than make up for everything!

In Closing: Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is a polished piece of work. It’s absolutely been designed for mass appeal and is simple, great to look at, and cleverly put together, but that all feels at a loss of the flavour that once went into the game. Right now it’s more like a generic RPG than the beloved grandparent we’ve loved for so long. With wizards being watered down and hit points so numerous, it’s hard to say whether a campaign in 4E will have the same impact it once did. Some of the rules are poorly defined (and the PHB is badly in need of a FAQ), but the game more than makes up for the issues with its playability. It’s so easy to pick up, visualise the class you want to play, and get gaming. Never before has DMing been so easy with the stat blocks easily recognisable and abilities clearly defined. I actually think this version of the game could shatter those geeky stereotypes and give the game more credibility.

And talking of credibility, it seems developer Wizards of the Coast has taken a leaf out of popular Massively Multiplayer Game World of Warcraft, for the game seems more akin to the offline version of that than it has to its roots of previous versions. Perhaps it should be called Dungeons & Warcraft, because it’s clear the game draws much of its inspiration from the online action adventure.

Now all we need is the 4.5 Edition to come along to fix all the things wrong with this version.

Coming Soon: Revelations on the cleric, the fighter's abilities, sample items, and more...

This is fascinating. Researchers have produced aerial photos of jungle dwellers who they say are among the few remaining peoples on Earth who have had no contact with the outside world.

Taken from a small airplane, the photos show men outside thatched communal huts, necks craned upward, pointing bows toward the air in a remote corner of the Amazonian rainforest.

The National Indian Foundation, a government agency in Brazil, published the photos on its Web site. It tracks "uncontacted tribes" - indigenous groups that are thought to have had no contact with outsiders - and seeks to protect them from encroachment

Check out this link on CNN for more.

More than 100 uncontacted tribes remain worldwide, and about half live in the remote reaches of the Amazonian rainforest in Peru or Brazil, near the recently photographed tribe, according to Survival International, a nonprofit group that advocates for the rights of indigenous people.

It's not such a large world, after all.

There's a copy of the core Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition books doing the rounds on the internet at the moment. If you download these PDFs and DON'T buy the books, Wizards of the Coast is potentially losing countless dollars in revenue.

These books cost millions of dollars to create. If you've downloaded them, please make sure you buy them. Over ALL game books in the industry, these are the ones that matter. If Wizards goes under (due to poor sales 'cos everyone's downloading them), we could condemn our industry to small presses only. Which would be a very bad thing. 

So, if you've downloaded the books, saying "I'd never buy them anyway" is NOT an excuse if you're going to keep the files and play the game with them. Nor is "they're too expensive".

I've said it a hundred times: piracy is theft. And (regardless of quality of the new edition) you're stealing the world of hundreds of people.

So, this once, if you've downloaded them, go out and buy the books. The PHB will only cost £16 ($30). Of course, if you've checked them out and decide that they're not for you (after all, some people rely on mail order and this is as good as browsing in a store), then delete them.

I'm off now to try and work out why Wizards in the new edition seem so utterly pants.

Well, it's here. I finally got my mitts on Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, and this is my early, quick glance, preview.

It's very glossy, the big and bold artwork is exceptional and the pressentation is gorgeous. Everything is intuitively laid out, and the several pages for each class and race feel substantial and are a major change from previous books (where the classes were given precious little space).

I can't say I was overly impressed with the content, though. While there are some great ideas here - they've added a lot, but it feels something of a mish-mash of styles, flavours, and ideas.

It also feels like a gaming primer, with the first portion of the book given over to how to play a role playing game. These books are clearly aimed at newbies to the game, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but gone is the style of previous books. The Player's Handbook is no longer filled with endless pages of spells, and it's quite different in feel. It's more like a glossy coffee table book than an actual sourcebook for the world's most beloved role playing game.

In fact, on first impressions, this feels a lot more like World of Warcraft meets Dungeons & Dragons - the action adventure, and not the game we've known and loved for thirty years. It's all very powerful and bright and brash, but I couldn't help but think: "is that it?" for it seems to have lost all sense of identity to become a game that appeals to the widest audience.

I'll read on and see what treats (if any) this new game has to offer. It's certainly a lot more impressive than previous books, but let's see if there's any substance with that style.

I went to a Game Republic conference last night in Leeds. Game Republic is a UK based company that allows networking between people who work in gaming and people who want to work in gaming.

I picked up some very interesting contacts.

And come Monday, I should have some very exciting news. 

Check out Game Republic 

If you're getting this error when installing the game (which is apparently very common), all you have to do is run the game and rather than click on "Play", do the following:

1. Click on Settings
2. Click on  Resource / Database
3. Click of Verify Data Integrity

The verification program should then run. It'll take a while but it should sort out your problems. It will tell you how many files have been fixed, but it should sort out any problems you have with the game.

Note: If you have any other options to tick under the Verify Data Integrity option, then make sure you select those too.

Happy gaming. 

Well, consider my timbers well and truly shivered! I've just played an hour or so of Age of Conan and it seems that everything Funcom was saying about the game is true.

There was a whopping 2.6gb "miracle" patch which took an age to download, but it transformed the game. I played all the way up to the city of Tortage, and reached level 5.

And, I take back everything I said. The game plays beautifully; no lag or crashes or even particularly evident bugs. The zoning is perfect and the voice acting is great.

But it's the combat that's most exciting, possibly the best in MMO history with fast and frenetic action.

I'll have a more complete review soon, but Age of Conan could really be a contender for game  (MMO) of the year. At least on first inspections.

More to follow... 

EA has released a new movie for the summer blockbuster game Spore. This is a short movie of the Primordial 2D stage where you're swimming in the ooze and trying to survive. 

Check it out by clicking here

It may not look like much from this limited movie, but trust me, the gameplay is compelling and the graphics are gorgeous. This is one title of 2008 that you're not going to want to miss.

What sounds better for a book title:

• Twenty Eight
• Thirty One
  
• Thirty Two
  

I can't decide! Vote NOW!

It's been twelve hours since the Phoenix Lander touched down on the surface of Mars and NASA has issued a press statement saying the mission landing was almost perfect.

They're now ready to start the second stage of the mission, which is for Phoenix to drill down into the surface of Mars in order to find water, and, for any signs of life.

What will they find, and, more importantly, how many of the findings will be doctored by NASA (ooh, conspiracy theory).

Find out more here at the NASA Phoenix Website.

If they find life on Mars, will the Government admit it? 

Marvel Studios has finally hit gold with the news that it is adapting Runaways to the big screen.

"Runaways" follows a group of teenagers who discover their parents are actually super-villains. Running from their legacy, the six teens band together and begin a journey of discovery, both of their parents' origins and of their own super powers.

This is great news as it's such a phenomenal series. Now, let's just hope Marvel doesn't screw it up by having hopelessly unsuited big-name stars in the lead roles.

I can see Keanu Reeves in there somewhere. He's nearly fifteen... isn't he? 

It's official: The Hobbit is ruined. Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens (murderers of the Rings trilogy scrips) are back to pen the story for the new two-parter.

My worst fears have come to pass, for now the movie will be about, well, merely glancing down at who's been asked to return (namely Viggo (Aragorn) Mortensen). I don't remember Aragorn being in The Hobbit... So, it's clear the movie is going to be about Bilbo's secret paramour, or how he and Gollum had a nasty love affair, or - well - I'm sure they'll get Arwen and Aragorn's relationship into it somehow.

I know I should be elated these movies are being made, but they made such a pig's ear of the trilogy (in terms of story), I know they're going to make a mockery of this script, too.

Anyway, yes, Aragorn will be in the movie, whether he should be there. Or not.

I told a lie today. I'd just bought a stack of game books from a gaming store in Sheffield and a colleague asked me what the books were. Rather than explain, I replied (oh so casually) that they were graphic novels for a friend's birthday.

So that got me to thinking: are graphic novels less geeky than role playing game books?*

And: is it wrong to lie about your hobbies? I mean, I can imagine lying profusely if I was into train spotting (still a valid hobby for some), or if I had a rather large collection of Hello Kitty products, but gaming...

So, was it wrong of me? Am I ashamed of my gaming proclivities?

Should I just out myself at work as a gamer and have done with it? Should I be punished for my lies, and if so, how?

*Clearly, I think they are. There's a hierarchy of geekiness at work here:

Computer games > playing World of Warcraft > board games > graphic novels > comics > role playing games > stamp collecting > train spotting > monthly subscription to Trainspotter Monthly (trumps all).

Can you think of anything geekier?

I hate mobile phones with a passion. They're such impersonal things (but oh so useful).

On one hand, they are a huge bonus in that you're never alone. But, on the other hand, they're equally a huge minus in that you're never alone. 

The main bugbear I have with mobile phones is when people completely ignore grammar and punctuation in their text messages. I know I'm probably going to get shot for it, but is it really THAT hard to compose proper sentences in a text? I manage it every time, so why can't everyone else?

Merely seeing "U" on a text just rankles me.

Anyway. I was standing in a queue today and I 'accidentally' looked down at the girl in front of me sending a text. She was a student, probably around 19. Her text read: "Hi U. Soz to wke u. Do u hv a yelow highlyter I cn borow for tmrws lcture."

It took all my stoic British powers of resolution just to avoid saying: "hello but do you realise that, aside from "do" and "to", there wasn't a single correct word in that text?"

Textspeak is so common nowadays, it made me wonder if we are turning into a nation of near-illiterates? Do people not understand apostrophe use? Is it even being taught in schools these days? 

The amount of adverts I see around with DVD's or 1000's of price cuts, even on TV, astonish me. And these are big-budget advertisements made by highly paid professionals who should know better.

I wonder if that girl was doing an English degree.

Work is well underway on my new book (whose name shall remain a secret for a bit longer). BUT, I've been giving serious thought to the ending and, in particular, the kinds of zombies that will feature in my book.

It sounds straightforward, but it's really not. I was leaning toward the traditional zombie, but I'm also eager to write about supernatural zombies (ie. ones that aren't created through genetic research). 

Are normal (biological) zombies inherently scarier than ones created by magic (even if they act exactly the same)? And, strangely enough, are the mundane zombies somehow scarier?

So, which option do I go for?

• Mundane zombies
• Mundane zombies with a supernatural element
• Forget the dull mundane stuff and go for the all out black magic / sorcery storyline.

And, should zombies' eyes glow in the dark?

I was going to talk about NASA's findings today (will do that tomorrow), but I watched the remake of Dawn of the Dead last night, which is such a great horror movie.

And, it inspired me to start writing a new book. I'm already several chapters into it (worked pretty much all night) and I'm really excited about it. I haven't been this inspired to write a book in years, so let's hope something decent comes of it.

I'm not going to say too much just yet, but you can bet that if I was inspired by Dawn of the Dead, that it's got something to do with zombies.

For me, though. I struggle with great ideas and concepts. I can write about people all day long but I struggle to get started if I've not got a strong concept. And while it might not be the most original of ideas, I certainly think it's got a very strong story. More news as I have it (although it could just as easily be condemned to obscurity at this stage).

I am not a conspiracy theorist; I believe we landed on the moon and I think there is life out in the universe. I’m not sure whether those life-forms are currently visiting the Earth (as so many are quick to claim), but the Earth is ancient and there have been millions of years for explorers from another planet to have visited our world.

I’m covering this story because it genuinely filled me with wonder. Military Man Karl Wolfe was working at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia when he claims it was revealed to him that there were a number of structures on the dark side of the Moon.

Wolfe said (of the structures): "Some of the structures were half a mile in size. So they're huge structures. And they're all different sized structures in different photographs. Some of the shapes, as I said, were ­ some of the buildings were very tall, thin structures. I don't know how tall they were but they must be very tall. They were angular shots with shadows. There were spherical and domed buildings that were very large. They stood out very clearly, they were large objects. It's interesting because I tried to relate them in my own mind to structures here on Earth, and they don't compare to anything that you see here in scale and structure."

You can see a movie of the footage by visiting here.

And you can see Wolfe’s testimonial by clicking here.

So, is this a genuine story, or yet another wack-job seeking attention? I was dubious until I found out that a few other top-secret security cleared ex-NASA staff hadn't stood up and commented on the validity of this story (including the artists hired to fake the images before publication).

Could it be that there are structures on the Moon that weren’t made by Man? And if so, why don’t we know about them? Is this Government cover up? And if there are structures on the Moon, why haven’t they sent more humans to explore them? Or have they and we just don’t know about it.

I really think this is genuinely interesting and worthy of speculation. I can’t imagine why the Government wouldn’t tell us about an ancient alien base on the Moon. It could be many thousands of years old and left by aliens that haven’t visited Earth in tens of thousands, if not millions of years.

Still, whatever the truth, even the vaguest possibility that this story is true still leaves me with wonder.

Piracy of DVDs, music, and films seems to be the norm in today's society. Remember my review of The Nines? I had at least three people tell me they'd downloaded it on my recommendation?

Yet those same people will be the first to say that everything's crap these days and that companies don't take risks with new things. I'm hardly surprised, when tens of thousands of people are downloading their content, there's no room for error with TV shows, movies, and games. Companies want to stick to what they know will sell...

Piracy has become so commonplace that it's frowned upon to comment negatively on a person's illegal behaviour. It's almost like you're in the wrong simply for diagreeing with the concept of stealing through the internet. I remember one family who used to think it was desperately cute that I was against piracy and that I was on some kind of misguided campaign. Needless to say, they didn't stop buying their pirate DVDs from a local shop in the area. Who knows what the guy was doing with the cash? Maybe it went to drugs, or maybe it went to buying him and his family a new car.

Irregardless of the truth, piracy is theft. People do it because, quite simply, there's no recourse. They know they won't get caught, and so they continue with their downloads unabated. People t give little or any thought to the fact that it's theft.

But it IS theft. I've had thousands of my books downloaded, and I'm only a crappy Z list writer (OK so maybe I'm around the Ns). I can't imagine what it would be like to have a best seller and know hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of my books had been pirated. And not one of those people would give any thought to the fact that I'd lost revenue from that book.

Most of them would say I had earned enough from it already. A few would comment that they'd never have bought it anyway (so, by their reckoning, they're allowed to download it). There are a rare few who would download something to check the quality before buying. I think this is sensible and should be an option for most products these days (Amazon has started doing this and it's great). I can't think of the number of times I've been burned by a truly abysmal music CD in the past few years.

My only gripe is that we have to wait to see USA shows for sometimes months, if not years, before we get them in the UK. The technology is in place now for us to be able to download shows direct from the production company, yet does the FOX Network have a delivery system in place? Of course not.

They gripe about so many illegal downloads, yet here I am, clamouring to give them my cash for an easily configurable distribution service where I can legally download the shows I like. yet there's no movement. I would glady cancel my pricey (and rubbish) Virgin service for a pay per show subscription. At least that way I get to pay only for the shows I watch. Sadly, I doubt this will happen any time soon...

So, if the companies themselves don't do something, internet piracy is here to stay and no book, DVD, or music CD is safe. 

The latest issue of Shivers is now on sale at Borders across the UK.

Featured this month is:

• Top 10 Movies to Watch at Beltaine (the magazine was supposed to be out on the 1st of May).
• A glowing review of God of War.
• Preview of the fabulous Dead Island, by those uber Polish Developers, Techland.

Go out and buy it at once!

I've just finished Dead Rising on the XBOX 360 and what a great game it is!

It is, quite frankly, far superior to the traditional zombiefests like Resident Evil. If you haven't played it, it takes all the basic elements of zombie mythology, and all the great movies (Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later), and merges them into a really terrifying blend of zombie action horror.

The story is this: photojournalist Frank West goes to an American shopping mall to cover the story of a riot. You, as Frank, have 72 hours to complete missions, unlock the main storyline, to rescue the few survivors, take photographs, and, of course, to stay alive. It's a horror action adventure, with role playing elements (in that you can level up and gain new abilities).

Wilamette Shopping Mall comes to life in the most minute detail in Dead Rising, and you'll really feel like you're trapped alone with tens of thousands of zombies for company. While I won't spoil the story, it really is sensational. Movie writers should take note: THIS is how to write a zombie story. 

But it's the bad guys (known as psychopaths) that are the highlight of the game. Never have I hated the boss battles so much - each boss evoked genuine feelings of loathing, pity, disgust, and anger in me. 

Sure, the game has its problems. There's a lot of backtracking in the shopping mall, NPCs have abysmally bad intelligence, and with a game so reliant on combat, Frank isn't as manouverable or skillfull as you would have liked. The steep learning curve makes the game particularly difficult and frustrating at first, and I almost didn't persevere after the first few hours of endless deaths. But once you realise how the game should be played (and it does have a unique style), things become a lot easier and you can settle into the wonderful horror of the game.

The graphics are truly fantastic with some of the best skin tones seen in a console game.

So, if you haven't checked out Dead Rising, you can get it quite cheaply these days. It might be tough to get into, but you cannot beat it for story, style, and most importantly, substance. It's only the second game ever to give me cabin fever (System Shock 2 was the other, if you're curious). Sure, I found plenty of niggles with the game (like Otis, the mission giver who calls you pretty much constantly on the radio - very annoying), but its positive qualities far outweigh any negatives.

Overall: 9/10 - Spine-tinglingly scary and genuinely chilling. Unmissable.

I'll be bringing news of the sequel - soon... 

Every so often a game comes along that’s so unique and wonderful that it almost defies description. In every generation there can be only one.

Oh, hang on, that’s Highlander. Or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Anyway, I digress. EA recently offered me the chance to visit their spanking-new offices in Guildford for an exclusive hands-on look at their opus, Spore. Up for grabs was an hour with the first Stage of the game and a session with the Creature Creator.

Describing Spore isn't easy. It’s one part creature simulator, one part god game, with a splash of real-time strategy added for good measure. It blends all these elements perfectly into a brightly coloured universe of your own making.

The game is made up of five Stages, the first being the Microbial Stage where you as a single-celled organism must fight for survival in the primordial oceans, but I’ll speak more of that in a moment. The second is the Creature Stage, which sees you evolved into a land-dwelling beastie. The third - the Tribal Stage – is where you build a race for your creature. The fourth – the City Stage - transforms your now thriving race into an empire where you do battle with other similarly evolved tribes across your world. The fifth and final game – the Civilization Stage – takes you into space where you can seek out (and conquer) strange new worlds and life forms, and to boldly go where no strange alien critter has gone before.

The First Stage - The Primordial Soup
It’s impossible to talk about Spore’s gameplay without referring back to the Creature Creator, which allows you amend your creature’s genetic code at any time. Through it you can alter any aspect of your critter from its abilities to its physical appearance. You’ll be using the Creature Creator a great deal throughout the game and its beauty lies in its simplicity, ease of use, and the sheer depth of things you can do with it. You'll use the Creator to change your creature on the fly, sometimes to give it new abilities and genetic traits, at other times to allow it to more efficiently perform a task you've set it. The Creator is at the heart of Spore's gameplay, but more on that later.

Each of Spore’s five distinct Stages plays very differently, and the first sees you as a single celled organism swimming in the two dimensional waters of your world. The primordial soup is teeming with life, and resources are hard to come by. To evolve, you have to consume as much food as you can, avoiding the larger critters and competing for the limited foodstuffs. Combat is fast and fun and you’ll find yourself fleeing from the larger, more evolved, organisms while battling it out with critters around your own size.

Spore is all about development and evolution and you’ll need every advantage to survive in this primal and primitive world. How you interact with your environment is up to you, for you can mould your tiny creature any way you see fit. Want him to eat meat? Give him a jaw (but you’ll have to battle other critters for food). Fancy a peace-loving herbivore? Then give him a filter for eating plankton. Want to be greedy? Then have both. The choice is yours.

You initially only have a few ways to customise your creature, but you’ll occasionally encounter an opponent that contains valuable DNA, or, in simpler terms, a genetic trait you don’t have. You can integrate this into your creature making you more evolved, and often, more powerful. Enhancements I found were jet propulsion, electricity field, poison sting, and a larger mouth.

Spore's attention to detail is exceptional, and of particular note is that you can see much larger creatures in the blurred distance behind you as you play, giving you a sense of the great scale of it all. As you consume food, you advance your Evolution Meter and when it reaches a certain point you expand to the next size, forever leaving behind the smaller, less evolved creatures. There are five or six of these evolutionary jumps in the first Stage and while they all play similarly, each represents your growth from single-celled organism to something much larger and more powerful.

By the end of Stage One my critter had a whopping great spike on its snout, two large carnivorous mouths, a poison gland, and an electric field generator. The more enhancements you give yourself, the larger and more cumbersome you become and the slower you move. I initially steered like a cow with all my endowments, but gave myself a nifty speed boost with the addition of four water jets. It’s a trade off between size and speed and manoeuvrability. You only have so many genetic points with which to empower your creature (so you can’t load them with every trait and advantage you possess), but you can sell back evolutionary traits to buy new ones.  

First Stage Summary
This first Stage feels incredibly atmospheric and evocative and could easily be a stand-alone game in its own right. The difficulty is spot on and the control mechanism is almost perfect. The ability to transform your creature at any time is a unique tool and you can (and probably will) spend hours refining your creation's abilities.

The Creature Creator
Rather than force you to play through each of the five Stages of Spore in sequence, EA has allowed you to jump straight into the action at any point. This is where the Creature Creator comes into its own. You can build a creature from scratch utilising the tool to build pretty much any type of beastie you require. Choose from a template of body parts to make up your critter, and once made, you can access the Creator again to amend each and every aspect of your creation. It really is THAT versatile. The sheer number of creature permutations is mind-boggling. If you can see it, you can alter its texture, size, shape, angle, or colour. You can change obvious things about your critter like its number of arms, to the small and subtle placement of its eyes. There are hundreds of different hands, feet, bodies, and faces available and an equal number of skins to make them look unique.

You can access the Creature Creation tool at any time (at the press of a key) to create pretty much anything you can think of. And once made, no matter how many legs, arms, or bizarre appendages you have, Spore's software will extrapolate its movement in an oddly appealing manner. Lastly, you can give your creature all kinds of sounds and emotes to fit their personality from the soft crooning of a pacifist to the warlike bellows of a warmonger.

Love at First Sight
I fell in love with Spore the moment the loading screen first flashed into life. The game is gorgeous and the beautiful and brightly coloured graphics will appeal to everyone, kids and pensioners alike. But if you’re into the dark and brooding then fear not, for due to the power of the Creature Creator, if you can’t stand all that cutesy nonsense, the tool will allow you to create drab and monstrous-looking creatures. It seems that those developers at EA have thought of everything!

Dumbed Down
A lot of people have worried about Spore being dumbed down. But that’s just not the case. Well, not entirely. The original intention was to have you play through all five Stages of the game in sequence, but now you can flit back and forth between the various levels at will. There are advantages and disadvantages to both ways of playing, but the open-ended accessibility grants more options for those gamers that prefer one particular Stage over another, or for people to hop straight into the Galactic Conquest part of the game.

Missions
There’s a lot more to do in Spore than just fighting for survival. For example there’s a story and objectives to complete. In the Galactic Conquest stage I found myself having to visit certain cities in my spaceship (that looked like a cute teddy bear) in order to prove to the locals that I was friendly. EA is keeping quiet on the overarching storyline but it looks interesting from what I've seen of it. Of course, you can forego the story and just blow any race you encounter to kingdom come, but there are always alternatives to fighting…

Friend or Foe
There are plenty of ways to achieve victory in the game. It’s not all about slaughter. You can make friends with other tribes (through friendship, trade, or threat of superior firepower), and you can fall in love. The amount of detail in the game is astonishing and your creatures have a wide range of different calls, emotes and ways of communicating.

Sporepedia
Everything created in Spore will be collected in the Sporepedia (http://www.sporepedia.com/) the repository of everything create by every gamer. Ever! You can visit it to look at the wealth of creations made by others, and download those critters, world themes, and styles to your own game. And then compete against them.

Summary
Spore is a one-of-a-kind game. It’s unique and fabulous and utterly intoxicating. I hope the gaming addiction wards are ready for this one because it’s going to draw an awful lot of people into its warm and appealing universe. I played the game for two hours and I barely scratched the surface. The amount of things you can create is limited only by your imagination, and when you can have a world themed around Christmas, or erotic-looking garden fruit, the world is quite literally your oyster.

I would have genuinely liked to have seen Spore contain some form of online PVP with other gamers, or at least a simulator that doesn’t necessarily destroy your world but allows you to pit your skills and creatures against other players. A missed opportunity, perhaps?

That said, Spore is a truly impressive game, perfectly polished with a rich and stylish theme throughout. It might not be hardcore enough for the serious gamers, but for everyone else, there’s enough in Spore to keep you creating forever…

It's not quite dead - yet - for Dungeons & Dragons has rolled a natural 20 to avoid fading into obscurit (oh, the nerdy gaming jokes are endless).

Publisher Wizards of the Coast is releasing the fourth iteration of the popular role playing game on 6th of June 2008, and they are celebrating the release with Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Day on June 7th - just one short month away.

So if you're salivating for news of your favourite player class or race, you've only got a few weeks to wait.

Find out more about Worldwide D&D Day here.

If you ever needed proof that movie producers are seeking riches over artistic integrity, then Terminator 4 is the final nail of proof in the bejewelled coffin of greed. The fourth movie in the series (due out next year) has been given a PG 13 rating, which brings in the big bucks and appeals to a wider audience, but doesn't that just strike you as wrong, somehow?

Surely, having three movies in a series that are R rated establishes a continuity (there's blood and lots of gore) which can't be shown in a kiddie-friendly version. They've castrated the series for cash.

They did exactly the same thing with Die Hard 4. Which was the highest grossing of all the quartet.

So, with movie producers willing to slash the adult rating from their movies to make a few extra bucks, does this mean the end of the blockbuster R rated movie? I doubt it, but they will be few and far between from here on out.

I'm finding this cash over art philosophy a bit depressing. Just think what could be on the horizon:

• A Nightmare on Elm Street - for pre-schoolers (start 'em early).
• Star Whores (the Reformed Years).
• Beverley Hills Cop - the Sesame Street Singalonga Version.
• The Omen: Songs of Praise - where they sing their hearts out to the Carmina Burana (as opposed to having them torn out).

They could remake every R rated movie for a teen audience.

• Instead of Rosemary getting raped by the Devil (Rosemary's Baby), Satan could pop around for tea and, shortly after, Rosie has a bun in the oven. And they could all laugh about it later (and maybe have a sing song).
• The zombies in Dawn of the Dead are replaced with geriatric clowns (hmm, that might be scarier, actually).
• The chest-burster in Alien has been replaced with Michael Hurt choking on a Rich Tea Biscut. Then they could have a sing song, too (tap dancing aliens shouldn't be sniffed at). 
• ... In fact, that movie would now be called: Allergy: the crew gets hassled by a rare flower which makes them all a bit poorly for a few days.
• ... or they could have a pet. Cats are always good. People like cats (and dogs).
• Plus, cats give people allergies (can you see where I'm going with this?) Clearly, I should write movie scripts for a living... Or not!

Anyway, as you can see, they've dumbed down our movies. Now they're taking away all the adult content. That means no sex, no violence, and definitely. Absolutely. Categorically. No boobies.

Or exploding heads.

Which is a shame, 'cos I like all those things in movies! 

This was supposed to be a beta review, but as I can't even get the game to start, all you're going to get are the negatives.

I had tremendous poblems installing the game, with all kinds of error messages, but - as per the PVP Weekend - the game installed and ran, patched and played.

Only it all hangs on the loading screens.

I can make a character with an exceptionally choppy handful of frames per second, and I can load up the game one in every ten attempts, but there are just too many problems with the code (appalling frame rates, glitches and problems) to make this game worthwhile.

If you're one of the lucky ones who is playing generally problem free, then fine, but I urge everyone else to avoid Age of Conan until the game has received at least some positive reviews that the title has been optimised to actually work.

Right now I think we're all playing the Macintosh version of the game on our PCs. That can be the only excuse for releasing such a shoddy piece of code. 

In their defense, Funcom has stated that the "open" beta is using an older version of the game code installed with lots of analysis software running to obtain configuration statistics. I find this bizarre in the extreme, and probably not even true. The open beta has been the chance to show off the game, to engender people to your title, and to really spread the positive word of mouth. The last thing you do is release a buggy version of old code to the public. Funcom has swiftly shattered all expectations of the game in one clumsy sweep. If this old version of the game story is true, they've made a critical mistake and may have doomed their game to mediocrity. If it's false, they're in a whole mountain of trouble as the game is nowhere near ready for release.  They can't win either way (well they could have by making a polished game on release - but that doesn't seem like an option for them).

We've learned so much in the last ten years. The public knows better. We're more discerning than we were back in the days of Anarchy Online. We have lots more options in the games we play. Polish is king and if a game doesn't make the grade, we can abandon it for another. We've seen the previous casualties, yet the only people not learning the lessons of the past are the developers. Learn the lesson now: 

Don't Release Half-Finished Game Code. Polish is King! 

So, Age of Conan released WAY too early? You betcha.

Come back in six months - or wait for Warhammer Online.

Both are an alternative (and far less frustrating) option to paying to beta test Age of Conan on its release at the end of May.

It's no secret that the UK pays a high price for its television. I pay about £120 ($250) a year just for the BBC Television Licence, which you have to have if you are capable of receiving any TV signals.

Now, I don't watch a great deal of actual TV, and despite enjoying a few shows on BBC's network (maybe three or four shows a year) I just can't see why the TV production companies can't arrange a direct download service for their shows.

I'd be more than happy setting up a subscription service to the various stations I like (HBO, FOX, etc). Surely in this electronic age they'd be striving to keep up with technology, allowing us to download the shows we want, in the format we want, when we want.

I'm sure this will come in time, but right now, it seems the TV companies are way behind current delivery systems, which is a shame as you always see tens of thousands of shows being downloaded illegally, when a majority could be eliminated overnight with an official channel. So that proves this kind of service is in high demand. No one wants to wait six months for a show to start in the UK when it's already finished in America. The TV studios need to get their act together. I know you can buy shows on iTunes, but many of them are region-locked. It's just not good enough.

I would be willing to forever get rid of my TV receiving equipment (and the crummy BBC TV Licence) in favour of customising exactly what TV I want to watch. And when.

It seems that Age of Conan has gone just the same way as Hellgate London as the 'open beta' code is plagued with bugs, installation problems, and crashes. Players are experiencing regular BSoD (blue screens of death), falling through the world, game freezes, and all manner of other niggling issues that should have been ironed out months ago.

In it's defence, Funcom insists that beta testers are using an OLD version of the game code and that the game will be substantially polished for release.

Regardless of whether that's true, people play betas for an early look at the game before they buy. It's like a demo, and they're going to be far less inclined to purchase a bugged and clearly unfinished game than they are something that plays beautifully and is optimised for every PC configuration known to man. Age of Conan is definitely not the latter.

With clear comparisons to Hellgate London's dismal launch, Age of Conan isn't far behind that in terms of needing six more months of development.

Like so many other games before it, it could have been so good, but instead it's a 70% complete game with major balance issues and requiring an awful lot of polish. The general consensus is that Age of Conan needed another three to six months' development time before release just to sort out the issues like falling through the world in key places.

We ALL know by now how important polish is to a game's release. If you polish it, people will play. Fail to perform that task and the game is doomed to obscurity.

It's just a terrible shame that Funcom's second major release may join the ranks of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Hellgate London, and Shadowbane, as games that could have been magnificient, but endless bugs and a total lack of polish destroyed any chance of them being a successful contender in today's highly competitive MMO market.

I'll have a full review soon, but right now, I'm concerned that what we're seeing is a clear indication of what we will (or won't) be playing in just 20 days' time.

As we all know, the UK price of petrol is about to sky rocket, but how many of you know exactly what the breakdown of those costs are?

Well, get ready for a surprise (or not) as this is the scary truth. If the price of a litre of petrol was £1.09, the breakdown would be:

Duty: 50.35

Petrol Actual Cost: 32.6

VAT: 16.07p

Retailer Delivery: £8.88p

That's right, you heard me! Fifty pence! That's just about half the price of petrol that goes to the Government. In what universe, is the tax on an item amost 50%? This is SHAMEFUL exploitation and I cannot believe the country hasn't stood up and demanded a reason why we're being taxed to the hilt on petrol.

I don't like posting political comments but the world is ruled by whoever controls its resources. Right now we're being manipulated by the oil barons and our own Government, both of whom are prepared to fleece us for all they can possibly get until resources run dry. It's a pretty bleak situation and I'm certain that we won't see another viable source of energy until the oil industry is sure it can't get any more blood from the proverbial stone that is the world's car owners, hauliers, and everyone who makes a living in a motor vehicle.

And, what's worse, is that as petrol prices rise, so does the price of everything else to compensate. So it all impacts the economy and makes everyone poorer.

The Government is worried about the oncoming recession. Well, how about slashing the Duty on petrol for starters. That has a massive knock-on effect which would massively cut costs for everyone in the UK.

But, of course, that would never happen. There's way too much greed involved. This can only end in tears...

It's all very worrying.

It's the first of May and the year is racing along without any kind of regard for the fact that we're all getting older.

And it (apparently) brings you good luck if "White Rabbits" is the first thing you say when you wake up on the morning of the new month.

Being a gamer, I think it should be White Dragons, personally, but I've tried to do this ever since I was a kid, and failed every time.

It usually goes something like this: Open eyes. Groan. Think oh my god it's early..

And then I realise what I should have said, but by then it's already ten seconds too late.

So, no good luck for me this month then. 

Has anyone else heard of any other strange new month customs?