World of Warcraft

You know it, you love to hate it, some 11 million people actually enjoy playing it. World of Warcraft is one of the most widely played video games in existence today, with a commanding 64% of the MMORPG market and numerous awards to boot. From spawning nerdy words such as ‘noob’ and ‘pwn’ to people making WoW dance videos to the (in)famous Leroy Jenkins, almost every gamer has in some way come into contact with this game. Here’s a brief history.

November 24, 2004. Blizzard releases World of Warcraft. The craze begins. World of Warcraft is in the Guinness Book of Records as the most popular MMORPG’s (massively multiplayer online role playing game) in the world. The first expansion released in January 2007, The Burning Crusade, expanded the character level cap, added myriad quests, a continent, and two new character races. A brand new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is set for release on November 13 this year.

When beginning the game, you choose from one of eight different races, four on the Alliance and four for the Horde. The races are Gnome, Dwarf, Night Elf, and Drainei for the Alliance. On the Horde side are Orcs, Trolls, Taurens, and Blood Elves. Each race has its own unique attributes and bonuses. Once you pick your race, it’s time to pick a class. You can be a Hunter, Mage, Druid, Shaman, Warrior, Priest, Paladin, or Rogue. As with the race, each class has its own unique attributes and quests.

To progress through the game, you fight enemies and complete quests to gain experience and money. Generally most quests keep you within a certain area for 5 or so levels. To help earn money, the character is allowed to learn two professions, such as leatherworking or engineering and a set of secondary skills including cooking, fishing, and first aid. Once you get some extra coin, what do you do with it? You buy the best gear possible and show it off to all your friends.

A players gear says everything about them. People are always checking you out, whether you know it or not. You constantly are getting new items through quests, vendors, or through trading. Always keep gear up to date that way you progress faster and die less not to mention just for bragging rights. The best gear is often found at a Player versus Player vendor and is bought with Honor points and Marks, which are collected when you compete in certain PvP battle grounds.

This is why World of Warcraft is so addictive. The game never ends. Ever. There is always better gear that you can get, and there’s always a quest you haven’t done. Even if someone manages to get the very best gear and complete every single quest, a new expansion will be released to keep you hooked. I enjoy playing this game, but I must warn my fellow gamers. Always play in moderation, never for more than a few hours at a time.

Counter Strike Source

Released in 2004 by Valve Corporation, Counter Strike: Source, or CSS has become one of the most popular first person shooters today. Done as a remake of Counter Strike 1.6, Source has by far surpassed its predecessor in terms of popularity. Source also comes with Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, Half-Life Lost Coast, and Day of Defeat: Source.

Source puts Counter Terrorists (CT) against the Terrorists (T) in several different modern environments ranging from an office to an abandoned train station, with mission-style game modes such as bomb defusal, hostage rescue, and death match.

When starting a game, you choose game options including the map, number of players (human and artificial), time limit, and game type. At the beginning of each game, you choose what team to be on (T or CT). From there you get to pick from 4 different player models that represent the team such as a SEAL or Guerilla Warrior. When the game starts, players have a set grace period during which they buy their gear with the money they start out with. Purchasable items range from a variety of different assault rifles, pistols, shotguns sub-machine and machine guns and sniper rifles as well as armor and different grenades. Players earn more money at the beginning of each round.

Maps beginning with cs_ are hostage rescue game types. Counter Terrorists must go into enemy territory and rescue a number of hostages and bring them to a safe zone, while the Terrorists must prevent the hostages from being rescued without killing them, usually by guarding the hostage area (camping) or by seeking out enemy players and eliminating them. Map names beginning with de_ are bomb defusal games. One player on the Terrorist side starts with a bomb that he must plant at one of two different bomb sites, while his teammates protect him. Counter Terrorists must either eliminate all the Terrorists or defuse the bomb within a certain time once it has been planted.

Custom maps and game types are extremely popular in CSS. One such game is the ‘Gun Game’ in which you start out with a pistol, and for every kill you get, you get a better gun. Gun Game has reverse and turbo variations. In Australian servers, you are likely to encounter the Surf game type, where you ‘surf’ across ledges all over the place and eliminate your opponents.
Counter Strike is an amazing game that can keep you busy for hours at a time. With so many ways to play, and new customizations being developed all the time, I don’t see Counter Strike Source getting old anytime soon.

Halo PC- Still Going

Halo: Combat Evolved® has been around for PC for nearly 5 years, and is still going strong today. This week I am going to be talking about why Halo has been able to keep thriving for so long, without gamers getting bored with it after five games of Capture the Flag.

Halo PC has several different game types that keep the players busy. Slayer is a death match. In a Race, you use whatever means possibly to complete laps around the map. For Oddball hold on to the skull as long as you can without getting killed. There are also different versions of capture the flag as well as special game types such as Stalker and Phantom where some players are invisible and you must kill them to win the game. Halo features more than 15 maps, including Ice Fields, Danger Canyon, and the infamous Blood Gulch. You can also choose a weapon set to use such as Rocket Launchers, Pistols, or Sniper Rifles.

Clans also keep things interesting. A clan is a team of players that play together, and sometimes compete. Clans that compete sometimes register on klanwars.com and have their matches recorded on the site for points. Other clans are more laid back. I personally belong to one such clan called Grim Inspirations. We are a clan that mostly just plays video games together without very many strict rules other than respect.

The number one most important thing that i think keeps Halo PC alive, though, is mods. Mods are custom alterations to the game. One very popular mod is called Sniper Dream Team Mod. This is a simple game of capture the flag, with just a few twists. Its snipers only, with A LOT of ammo, and they shoot tank rounds. Pistols are super-powered, and plasma grenades are mini-nukes. Good luck getting to the other side without being blown up. Mods became so popular, that Microsoft released Halo Custom Edition. A version of halo purely used for customized games. People have come up with crazy things such as anti-armor sniper rifles, jet planes, battleships, and an array of vehicles. New gigantic maps such as Extinction can take as long as 20 minutes to walk from one side to the other without a plane.

All of these things together have kept Halo alive, and I intend to play for much longer.

Xfire- Gaming Simplified®

Xfire is quickly becoming a staple for PC gamers. With over 7 million users, Xfire has become one of the most popular gaming tools today. Xfire has many features that have won the favor of so many gamers all rolled into one.

First, Xfire has a game detection system that allows users to join the same game as their friends, if they have it installed. Xfire will tell you what game your friend is playing and also what server. Also, depending on the type of game, there is an option to track your kills and deaths for display on your public profile. The detection feature also tracks the number of hours that you play each game while logged on.

The main feature of Xfire is its chat system. When somebody sends you a message, rather than having to close out of your game to talk, a little window pops up in your game. Simply press Scroll Lock and X, and you can chat away with minimal game interference.

As well as text chat, Xfire has a voice chat feature, similar to that of Ventrillo or TeamSpeak. Its convenient if you want to have a conversation with a friend, or if you need to talk strategy in a game like Combat Arms with the rest of your squad.

Yet another feature is that Xfire has the capacity to take in-game screen shots. I use this all of the time in Halo to take pictures of my better scores. Recently, Xfire has added a video capture feature. Although one major drawback of this is that the videos take up an enormous amount of disk space considering the length of the videos.

On the whole, Xfire is a very useful tool and a must-have for pc gamers. It is reliable for the most part, and it is updated regularly. I've been using it since 2005 and I haven't got tired of it yet.

Download Xfire here