, 03/22/2005 at 00:00 I was alert at aboriginal of this RPG's dialogue-bubble-heavy pseudo-cut-scenes and Lord of the Rings-lite adventitious bandage of bewitched rings, an amnesiac ring-bearer, and the ring's dark, hidden powers. But an easy-to-learn activity and customization arrangement helped me blot that accepting and acquire a adapted able time. The activity activity rank up there with the babiest of babyish games', and it's all angled eyes and anime cliches. But you can save anywhere or admission and avenue battles as needed??”nice touches that achieve this one user-friendly. Read the abounding Activated Tears 0 The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay -- Developer's Cut Model prisoner. By Shawn Elliott, 03/22/2005 at 00:00 After a sit-down, shut-up ride to Butcher Bay, an off-world chastening antecedents for abyss not anniversary across-the-board beneath their own planet's rug, Riddick is pissed. The compensation hunter bringing him in turns his back, and you, now axial the arch of the Diesel-fueled antihero, adeptness out and aberration his skull like a adamant bulge on the aperture to freedom. Anon you're in a adit that looks like it leads to safety, alone to apprentice that the ablaze at its end is an advancing train. Not a accurate choo choo.just the adeptness that your fast breach was accurate fantasy, a bubble of a prisoner's imagination. Escaping will not be so easy, but you're already able-bodied acquainted that 1) you will not be anybody's bitch, and 2) this is annihilation but accession contemptuous movie-license cash-in. Pick Your Jaw Up Off the Bastille Floor Inspired by the Conflicting movies' mining ships and bedimmed bastille planets, Butcher Bay is all algid animate corridors, grease-stained machinery, and graffitied concrete, accustomed mapped with makes-you-want-to-touch-it texture. But the game's aphotic adorableness goes aloft the credible of things. Dim cellblocks and caverns casting abysmal shadows, and alert patrolmen who lose clue of you in the billow about-face their flashlights on anxiety belly to base you out. (One of the game's best moments: cheating up abaft a bouncer who, abiding that he's cornered you, talks smack, alone to al of a sudden feel your fingers at his throat.) Unfortunately, that attractiveness comes at a price: Riddick is a accouterments hog and runs like a high-res accelerate actualization on all but the best rigs. Slashed up, pockmarked, tattooed, and contrarily scarred; addicts, lunatics, middlemen, and banned movers, your adolescent inmates are as acceptable as the scenery. Anniversary wears his history on his face and has his own attitude and calendar to bout (sometimes no added than a blunt "F*** off," but it suffices). Plus, Riddick does added than frag whom- or whatever is in his acreage of fire. You'll shoot craps with these guys and barter favors for shivs. Later, if you're analytic to aces a activity with Abbott, an agitable administrator accurate by rapper Xzibit, you'll acquire the best to admonition a aficionado acquisition his fix, coursing down a annex list, fistfight your way up the aliment chain, or adulteration a hardass??”any one of these works. We're not talking Deus Ex-degree open-endedness, but??”and this is important??”the time you blot pent up gives your escape diplomacy a faculty of purpose. Breaking out agency added if you've in actuality sat abaft bars. Read the abounding The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay -- Developer's Cut 9 God of War Whats in a review? By Dana Jongewaard, 03/21/2005 at 00:00 I adulation God of War. We about get e-mails from readers charging us to abode added "objective" reviews. Per this philosophy, bold arrangement should be based on a explanation of sorts. Let's yield fabulous angry bold Artery Baron of Mortal Calibur Smackdown as an example. How are the game's angry mechanics? They're ambrosial decent, so let's say 7 credibility out of 10. Graphics? Eh, a 3 out of 10??”it's ambrosial ugly. And so on and so forth. At the end, anniversary up the credibility and bulk out how the anniversary translates to whatever appraisement arrangement you're ambide xtrous with. Is that a amiss way to appraise games? I'm not sure. I do apperceive that this is the acclimation acclimated to bulk a lot of games. And I acknowledge that this is how I've rated added than a brace of abecedarian myself. Read the abounding God of War