Someone just couldn’t wait to get their hands on Half-Life 2 so they created this absolutely AMAZING case mod. See all of the components come together. Yow-za!

Click the title above to see the Resident Evil: Apocalype trailer. The first movie was pretty good. This one has a nice style already

Although I cannot write a full review of Ground Control II, I would like to share my thoughts on the 3 Mission Demo that became available yesterday.

Tested on “m0nk3y”
AMD 3000+
1024mb
ATI 9800 pro (Latest Drivers)

Graphics:
This demo shows off a whole lot of pretty. The Cut scenes before each mission are well done and give you a general layout of the terrain and get the wheels spinning as to where to go and where troops can be placed. Units when zoomed in look great! And the explosions in the game give you a great feeling of destruction. I have a major issue, with how the game looks when you have to zoom out in order to play. Your units are nothing more than specs on the screen, and zooming in to see the eye candy make strategy impossible!
The engine itself seems stable, however I did notice clipping issues if I were to zoom all the way into a unit. Also there were drops in frame rate but this was with a full view of a city map, 30 or so units (soldiers and vehicles) and a dropship coming into the battle. All in all no issues here, and those that do exist I hope will be addressed by the time GCII is shipped.

Game play:
This is where GCII lost some points with me. GCII is a Real Time Strategy game, however there is little to no strategy needed when taking on opposing forces. The game try’s to give the player new options when using foot soldiers. The player is given unit bonuses for using: higher ground, taking bunkers and buildings, and hiding in forests (a little nod to Advanced Wars on the GBA sp).
Having these options makes you think of the best way to take a hill or a base, in theory sending units in “Strategically” with artillery support from the rear, will cause minimal losses and a feeling of accomplishment. In truth you can simply do the following to win ANY confrontation. Select all of you foot soldiers and vehicles, and then send the straight into the battle! This will always result in a, win if you have more units that the opposition even if the enemy is hold up in a bunker with anti-tank weapons you will win its just a game of numbers, and that is a disappointment…
I will admit one of the best things about GCII is NO RESOURCE MANAGEMENT!!!! The game uses a model that I hope gets into more and more games, you are awarded acquisition points for each Landing Zone or base you take. The more you win the more units you can call down from you drop ships. While resource management has its place, I think GCII idea keeps the game moving at a good pace.

Control:
The controls on GCII are the usual set; much of the troop movement can be one with a 3-button mouse. However there were some areas of frustration in this 3d world.
For starters let me address the camera, the camera I feel should be an antonymous tool in the game the camera in GCII is bound by the same laws of physics you units are. I cannot count how many times I would set up a nice view where I could see everything going on only to move the camera over a gorge and have it fall in!? This was not a huge deal but you spent a lot of time setting up a view (because its a 3d field) and then you loose it. The camera in a game should never get in the way but in GCII it does.
Due to the layout of some of the maps, you units will get close or among buildings. This is where more frustration enters the game, if you pointer is anywhere near a building or bunker the game is stuck thinking you would like to send them into the building…a majority of the time i would have to select units then move them back out of the city, then move them from a new position. Again this is just something that gets in the way of game play.

I did enjoy playing this demo, however my major gripe with GCII is that underneath the surface, the game play is awkward and really has not changed a lot from the first. There is nothing that really set it apart from any other RTS. If I have some spare time and GCII ends up on the sale shelf I would love to play it.

If you have a Gamespot Complete account Go Here. The demo for Ground Control II is out, rumor has it you can frag Major Tom……..play it MEOW!

Red Orchestra - A Total Conversion Modification for UT2004

Slashdot games reports this mod is released in beta form to the public. Looks like fun. Ill let you konw how it goes.

In Paper Mario 2, Mario is made out of PAPER? Weird. If you watch the video, you even see they even throw in a little nod to an old game Mac users will remember, “Glider Pro.”

A web-based political simulator, Nation States exists in a niche of it’s own. You create a nation, customize its name, flag, the currency, etc, and then are asked a series of political questions. The system creates a nation of citizens with the ideals that your answers represented.

Each day a political issue is presented, and as the leader of your people you can chose to act on it. For each decision you make your nation evolves slightly and sometimes in unforeseen directions. As an example, today’s issue was:

“In response to a slow news week, certain highbrow newspapers have stirred up the debate over voluntary vs compulsory voting.
The Debate

1. “Compulsory voting makes about as much as sense as having the death penalty for attempted suicide,” says civil rights activist Al Frederickson. “You can’t force people to be free! You can only give them the choice. Besides, if all those derelicts who can’t be bothered to get off their ass once every few years voted, who would they elect? I shudder to think.”
[Accept]

2. “It’s not contradictory at all,” argues political commentator Steffan Silk. “The fact is, if not everyone votes, the outcome isn’t truly representative. Some groups–like elderly gun nuts–vote more often than others. That’s why always we always end up with such terrible politicians.”
[Accept]

3. “This raises an interesting issue,” says Freddy Dodinas, your brother. “And that is: why do we need elections, anyway? Seems to me it would be much simpler if you just decided what was right, and did it. Wouldn’t that save everyone a lot of time?”
[Accept]“

Your nation sits in one of many regions. A region’s countries interact with each other ( in ways I’m not quite sure about since I’m a novice ). Each region sends world delegates to the UN.

If your country joins the U.N., you will have the chance to vote for or against resolutions that alter world dynamics. As far as I know the resolutions are player created and debated within the forums. The resolutions only affect UN members, so if you don’t even want to worry about this dynamic, you need not participate.

Lastly you can create your own regions for your friends to participate in. Anyone can move into a region at any time to try to take it over ( thus wining delegates ) but from what I understand regions are meant as a sandbox for peers to have fun in.

I’m in, I’m playing, and if anyone wants to join me in a new region, I’m game. My country is The Grand Duchy of Grinnsland, and our shores are open for trade.

For more information check out the game’s FAQ.

Good Morning Monkey’s
Today on /. there is a post about Xlink This is a multi console tunneling client. The client resides on your “Rig” and allows you to play any system connected game online. For the sake of being fair I have to give props to the WarpPipe Project This is the open source project version of the client for the Gamecube. One last option is Xbox Connect.
For those of you who like me, are unable to use Xbox Live (for reasons I will not go into here), and oh i don’t know play (xbox) Halo online, then there you go!
Take it easy.

This is exactly the type of game/online experience discussed so many years ago with the Infinite Monkey clan. Looks like Eidos is going to release it for download before even sending it to stores? I also think to myself - at 415mb - this had better be a good pick up joint. It’s also ADULT ONLY and there is NUDITY - but not in the demo. Yes - my porn game trend coverage continues…VIVA LA GAME PORN!

Singles gets AO rating, release date - PC News at GameSpot: “That a major publisher would first release a game as an online download is nearly unheard of. But that’s the case with Singles: Flirt Up Your Life, which also earns the distinction as one of the few games to earn the ‘AO,’ for ‘Adults Only,’ ESRB rating. Since most major retail chains refuse to carry AO-rated games, Eidos has opted to circumvent them through Web-based distribution. Gamers will be able to download a trial version of the game this Sunday, May 23, on GameSpot DLX.”

In an effort to spice up Monkey Games - I give you SomaDoll! I saw this on Fleshbot.com - a site that is run by Gawker Media - who also runs Gizmodo. It’s essentially a virtual blow up doll all made from Poser. They even have a site called Somavision. I’m very tempted to download the demo - but it feels…well too naughty.

SomaDoll - The Interactive Cyberbabes Experience