Andy Wood

As you may or may not recall, last week I made a trek to visit my friend Jr and his family. It was a lot of fun, as we watched cartoons, played computer games and even had time to play a couple of table top games.

One of those table top games that we played was called: Heroscape. In the basic version of the game, all pieces are eliminated after taking a single hit, but the master game introduces hit points as well as special powers for many of the pieces. Very simple rules provide for things such as line-of-sight, varying levels of terrain, zones of control a fun experience, while not having to stop from time to time to read a manual. Even the master level game is simple enough for young kids to understand which allows for a quick ramp up.

At around $40, HeroScape is right up there with cost of a PC game or even a value priced console game, the big difference, is the replayability. As with most games that have pieces there is always that part of getting all of the darn game pieces back into the box.

I got my tail kicked in the two games that I played (honestly, samurai deflecting bullets from a mech?) , but it was a ton of fun!

If I played more board games than computer and/or console, then HeroScape would one of the most torn up board game boxes on my closet shelf. It is a simple war game made up of about thirty painted plastic figures and almost 100 different sized groups of interlocking terrain tiles that can be used to build a battlefield. Once the game is laid out on a table (you will need a nice size table too), the layout and the dimension was enough to pull me away from City of Villians and eBay. Thankfully, the game itself is a fairly decent and streamlined and a fun tactical war game.

Quality threshold is going to be a lot higher at release, says Digital Illusions’ Marcus Nilsson

We’ve just returned from a trip to not-so-sunny Sweden to visit Digital Illusions, maker of the epic Battlefield series, to see how the newest entry Battlefield 2142 is shaping up.

We’ll be bringing you a full report and an interview with the design team in the very near future, but during the course of a very interesting look at the game, senior producer Marcus Nilsson went on the record to tell us that BF2142 will be “A lot less buggy than Battlefield 2 – and you can write that down.” Which we now duly have.

Nilsson was responding to many fans’ criticisms of Battlefield 2, which saw a number of patches post release to fix bugs and exploits for the epic online shooter. Nilsson added that the team were taking the quality threshold extremely seriously this time around and would be setting a higher benchmark in QA to ensure Battlefield 2142 would debut as bug-free as possible.

Nilsson also said game balancing was a very ‘delicate’ issue for the shooter and the team would be tweaking the game right up until release, but that Battlefield 2142 would offer a faster paced, more rewarding and much deeper squad experience for Battlefield fans through its network battlefield system – although Lone Wolf style players certainly wouldn’t be neglected. Nilsson concluded by saying the move to a futuristic setting had allowed DICE’s development and art teams to be a whole lot more creative in their approach to making the Battlefield sequel. via CVG

Good news! The Hulk statue will soon be in our warehouse and will be shipping out to all those that have pre-ordered. By the way, this guy is HUGE, nearly 18 lbs. of resin muscle (box and all)!

Hulk Cold-cast Porcelain Statue
1000 piece Limited Edition
Stands over 14″ tall, 11.75″ width
Includes full color collector’s box
Sculpted by Seth Vandable

Performance Improvements

* Far Cry performance improves 4-5%. Larger gains of up to 18.3% can be seen when using anisotropic filtering.
* Fear performance improves as much as 8.5% on X1800 and X1900 Single card systems and as much as 14% on X1800 and X1900 Crossfire systems.
* Splinter Cell (original) performance improves as much a 7% on X1300 and X1600 Crossfire systems.

Issues Resolved

* City of Heroes: Display corruption is no longer noticed when playing the game under Windows XP with an ATI Radeon X1×00 series product

Known Issues

* World of Warcraft: Playing the game for an extended period of time may result in the game failing to respond when using a Radeon X800
* Battlefield 2: The game may exit to the Windows desktop after the game logo is displayed

Resident Evil: Extinction is again based on the wildly popular videogame series and picks up where the last film left off. Alice (Milla Jovovich), now in hiding in the Nevada desert, once again joins forces with Carlos Oliveira (Oded Fehr) and L.J. (Mike Epps), along with new survivors Claire (Ali Larter), K-Mart (Spencer Locke) and Nurse Betty (Ashanti) to try to eliminate the deadly virus that threatens to make every human being undead… and to seek justice. Since being captured by the Umbrella Corporation, Alice has been subjected to biogenic experimentation and becomes genetically altered, with super-human strengths, senses and dexterity. These skills, and more, will be needed if anyone is to remain alive.

The flick, which hits the big screen next year, is directed by Russell Mulcahy from a script by Paul W.S. Anderson. Anderson produced the film along with Jeremy Bolt and Robert Kulzer.

There is an article up on Computer & Video Games, stating that we may well be seeing the much anticipated and oft-delayed Prey demo hit the Xbox Live Marketplace this Sunday. Just in time for July 4th.

There is more to read here

Warner Bros. Pictures’ Superman Returns opened with $21 million on Wednesday. The movie was shown in 3,915 theatres giving it a $5,368 take per screen. The tally includes the Tuesday night screenings where the film technically opened a few hours before Wednesday. The official box-office total of $21,015,000 ranks the film as the 8th biggest opening movie for a Wednesday.

The Wednesday opening record is held by Spider-Man 2 which took in over $40 million in 2004.

Superman Returns, directed by Bryan Singer, stars Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Eva Marie Saint, Parker Posey, Sam Huntington, Kal Penn and Kevin Spacey.

Following a mysterious absence of several years, the Man of Steel comes back to Earth in the epic action-adventure, Superman Returns, a soaring new chapter in the saga of one of the world’s most beloved superheroes. While an old enemy plots to render him powerless once and for all, Superman faces the heartbreaking realization that the woman he loves, Lois Lane, has moved on with her life. Or has she? Superman’s bittersweet return challenges him to bridge the distance between them while finding a place in a society that has learned to survive without him. In an attempt to protect the world he loves from cataclysmic destruction, Superman embarks on an epic journey of redemption that takes him from the depths of the ocean to the far reaches of outer space.

For a long time, Xbox 360 owners have been asking for a first-party keyboard and mouse for the Xbox 360 that matches the console’s style. This might not ever occur but if it indeed happens, this could be the perfect mouse keyboard combo.

Microsoft has launched a teaser campaign for its next desktop hardware. Touted as the “marriage of performance and style”, the Microsoft Ultimate Desktop is the first wireless, rechargeable, backlit desktop. A teaser page suggests that the keyboard will have the ability to automatically turn on its backlighting when you dim the lights and will turn off again once you have left the room.

Two buttons confirm special functions for existing Windows Media Center PCs and upcoming Windows Vista powered computers.

via TeamXbox

Lionsgate has provided ComingSoon.net with a first look at the new teaser poster for Saw III, opening in theaters on October 27. You can view the poster in full by clicking the image below!

When we last tuned in, Jigsaw has come up missing, but he has a new apprentice Amanda to help run the intricate games that have terrified a community and baffled police. While city detectives scramble to locate him, Doctor Lynn Denlon is unaware that she is about to become the latest pawn on his vicious chessboard. via ComingSoon