Computer Center

World of Goo Review

2009-02-21T20:03:00.000-08:00

Description:

World of Goo may ship in a plain-Jane box that makes it look exactly like the usual third-rate dreck that takes up space on a back shelf in your neighborhood department store, but this physics-based puzzler is one of the most innovative and addictive games to hit the PC in years. Independent developer 2D Boy has hit the jackpot, turning what appears to be a simple building game into what could just be the next casual-gaming obsession right up there with classics such as Tetris and Lemmings.

Actually, World of Goo's concept owes a big debt to Lemmings, the early '90s sensation that involved guiding suicidal green-haired goons across 2D levels loaded with hazards. The objective here is rather similar, although instead of guiding lemmings to an exit in each level, you're leading globs of goo across similarly dangerous terrain to pipes that suck them up. This rather odd task is accomplished by selecting the cute, gibberish-spouting blobs and turning them into nodules in framework buildings that reach for the sky and stretch across yawning pits like sticky scaffolding. When your wobbly structure is close enough to the level exit pipe, all of the goo balls that haven't been used as makeshift building blocks then roll over their former buddies to freedom.

Well, at least to as much freedom as can ever be offered by getting slurped into PVC plumbing. Each level requires you to "save" a set number of goo balls to succeed and move on, so you have to be economical in the amount of goo used as construction material. If you pass enough goo balls through the exit pipe to the glass beaker waiting at the other end, you win to gather goo another day. If you fall short of the required number, you do it all over again, trying to get your goo to safety in a more ecfficient fashion. Final scores are based both on the number of goo balls rescued and the amount of time you spent in the level.

The Good

* Brilliant design loaded with gameplay depth
* Varied levels sporting wide-ranging objectives and different types of goo
* Quirky, surreal sense of humor
* Fantastic, atmospheric soundtrack.

The Bad

* The controls can't always keep up with the action
* Visuals aren't as vibrant as they could be given the cartoony premise.

System Requirements

Minimum:
o Supported OS: Windows® XP or Vista
o Processor: 1GHz or faster
o Memory: 512+MB RAM
o Video: Any 3D graphics accelerator less than 5 years old
o DirectX® Version: 9.0c
o Hard Drive: 100MB

Dead Space Review

2009-01-10T00:26:00.000-08:00

Description :

The survival horror genre is rife with games in which you are isolated in a hostile environment full of monsters, and Dead Space is no exception. But from the moment you're thrown into the middle of the fray in the heart-pounding introduction until the bone-chilling conclusion, it's clear that this is something quite unique. With its disturbingly twisted visuals, its deeply engrossing story, and innovative strategic dismemberment combat system, Dead Space is a best-in-its-class game that surpasses other entries in its venerable genre in nearly every way and will be the standard by which they are judged for years to come.

When the Concordance Extraction Corporation loses radio contact with its Planet Cracker-class mining ship, the USG Ishimura, engineer Isaac Clarke is dispatched on a routine mission to repair its communications array. However, Clarke is also on a mission of his own, having recently received a cryptic message from Nicole Brennan, a medical officer serving aboard the Ishimura. While on board he intends to reunite with her and learn the meaning behind her strange broadcast. Unfortunately, the moment you set foot on the derelict ship, it's obvious that something terrible has happened.

As Isaac, you are separated almost immediately from the rest of your team by the former crew of the Ishimura, which has been transformed into horrifying monsters called Necromorphs. Forced to fight for his survival, Isaac makes do with the tools at hand to defend himself with, which are for the most part repurposed mining instruments like plasma welding guns or buzz saws. These improvised weapons are put to graphic, gruesome work as bodily damage and even severe head trauma isn't enough to kill a Necromorph--only by severing their limbs can you put them down for good. This nuance, referred to as strategic dismemberment, vastly alters the way combat is approached in Dead Space from the typical "aim for the head"-style gameplay seen in most action games and zombie apocalypse scenarios.

Every class of Necromorph requires a different strategy to handle, and knowing how to combat multiple types simultaneously is an essential skill if you want to survive for long. Though dismemberment is ultimately the key to victory, failing to finish off a monster properly will only send it into a berserker rage and force it to adapt to its new, partially appendageless situation so that it can continue trying to eat your face. Even more alarming than their ghastly appearances and uncouth manners is the fact that they are quite intelligent. Necromorphs attack in packs using loose team tactics, and are capable of traversing the ship's extensive ventilation system to sneak around for outflanking or ambushing. They feign death among the corpses of their peers to rise up and attack when you least expect it, and they often come in waves, leaving you wondering if it's truly over or if they're simply toying with you.

The most basic Necromorphs are humanoid monsters that attack in a frenzy. Horribly mutated undead babies also make an appearance, and they run along the walls and ceilings sprouting tentacles from their backs capable of throwing organic projectiles. Others still are heavily armored but vulnerable from behind, are bloated with dozens of spiderlike parasites that are released upon their host's death, or shriek madly as they carry explosive pods toward you in a suicidal charge. In one fully interactive gameplay sequence that comprises some of the more amazing moments to be experienced in Dead Space, you're assaulted by the gigantic tentacle of an even larger, unseen beast that drags you to a gruesome and bloody death as you struggle to shoot yourself free.

Finally, at several key points in the story, Isaac stumbles upon some of the most incredible and truly terrifying boss monsters to be seen in the survival horror genre. Though revealing the circumstances around which you confront these nightmares would do much to spoil them, it is safe to say that these epic encounters are easily some of the most remarkable seen in years.

The Good

* Deeply engrossing story
* Breathtaking visuals and nerve-wracking audio
* Strategic dismemberment adds an entirely new, satisfying dimension to combat
* Complete lack of a traditional heads-up display immerses you into the experience
* Truly terrifying gameplay keeps you on the edge of your seat.

The Bad

* Repetitive mission objectives
* Close-quarters combat is troublesome.

System Requirement

Processor: Pentium 4 2.8Ghz or Equivalent
Display Card!: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 XT
Memory: 1024MB
Free Disk Space: 13GB
Operating System: Windows XP / Vista

King's Bounty: The Legend Review

2009-01-04T03:46:00.000-08:00

Description :

King's Bounty: The Legend is a Real-time / Turn-based Strategy with RPG elements. In a fairy tale fantasy world of fearless knights, evil mages, wise kings and beautiful princesses the player controls a hero. Leading their character through the game world, exploring it, commanding armies in battle and accomplishing various quests can mean great reward or huge defeats.

Actually, about the only fair negative comment you could make about King's Bounty is that there isn't really anything new here. Just about everything feels like a rip-off of Heroes of Might and Magic. As with that long-lived Ubisoft franchise, the core of this game is all about taking on the role of a hero in a solo campaign (there is no multiplayer option) and guiding parties of mercenaries across a real-time map to fight turn-based battles on hex grids. A strong RPG flavor is granted through character creation, which allows you to choose from warrior, paladin, and mage classes and then trick out your avatar with skills, artifacts, weapons, armor, spells, and assorted other Gygaxian accoutrements. You then explore the huge medieval fantasy world of Darion in the service of King Mark the Wise, plying the trade of a treasure hunter. A story slowly develops regarding the king's older brother and the standard evil threat to the continued existence of, well, everything, although you don't have to pay much attention to it. Essentially, you just wander around doing good deeds, guiding an icon of your hero through the usual D&D-inspired landscape to slay monsters, loot treasure, scoop up skill runes, mana crystals, and leadership banners, and solve quests handed out by your king and various passersby.

Despite that description, this isn't a hack-and-slasher. Instead of whaling on monsters with a small party of adventurers as in the typical RPG, you wage tactical battles with veritable armies of troops on turn-based battlefields. Mages, priests, knights, archers, monsters, and the like are hired at special buildings such as the king's castle for use as shock troops in your hero's party. You start off with a paltry handful of these goons, but soon wind up at the head of a tremendous force of killer Renaissance fair refugees. Stuff enough gold into your pantaloons and increase your hero's leadership skill as you increase in level and you'll be able to afford the services of loads of hirelings. The scale of battles always remains manageable, however, as each unit type is depicted by just a single character model on the battlefield no matter how many of those units you actually command. This keeps the focus on pure tactics and allows you to whip through battles lickety-split, while still letting you make use of each unit's special abilities. As just about every unit comes with some sort of skill involving spells or bonus attacks, cutting to the chase without dealing with hordes of units is vital to keeping the game straightforward and simple.

Difficulty is also scaled well. Starting off on easy knocks down monster hit points to something quite manageable, and cranks up the amount of gold awarded so that you never seem to run out of the coin needed to hire reinforcements. It's gratifying to see newbies getting let in on the action like this; too many games of this ilk seem to want to punish players, or at least present such a grueling level of difficulty that only veterans of the genre need apply. With that said, moving to normal difficulty is one heck of a leap. Enemy hit points take a huge jump and your gold gets slashed to practically nothing, turning what was a pretty fast-moving game into what can be a grueling slog through battles of attrition.

The Good

* Solid gameplay based on a traditional tactical RPG formula
* Good turn-based tactical depth
* Strong RPG flavor and storyline
* Colorful graphics evocative of old-time role-playing.

The Bad

* Not much in the way of innovation
* No multiplayer.

System Requirement

Minimum system requirement:

* OS:Windows XP/Windows Vista
* Processor:Intel Pentium 4 2.6GHz
* RAM:1GB
* Graphic Card:Nvidia GeFirce 6800/ATI Radeon X800
* VRAM:256MB
* Free Hard Disk Space:5.5GB
* DirectX version:9

Recommended system requirement:

* OS:Windows XP/Windows Vista
* Processor:Intel Pentium 4 3GHz
* RAM:2GB
* Graphic Card:GeForce 7900/ATI Radeon X1900
* VRAM:512MB
* Free Hard Disk Space:5.5GB
* DirectX version:9

Microsoft Flight Simulator X Review

2008-12-25T00:30:00.000-08:00

Description :

Microsoft Flight Simulator X is an incredible piece of software, providing almost unbelievable capabilities for a consumer product. Unfortunately, on most systems at anything other than the lowest of the game's graphics settings, the simulation has significant performance issues. How much these issues hinder your enjoyment of the game will depend upon what kind of frame rates you need to enjoy a civilian flight sim.

All of the features hardcore simmers have come to expect in the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise are here in spades, such as the entire world being modeled in exquisite detail; simulations of everything from ultralights to gliders to Cessnas to commercial airliners to helicopters; realism that makes the sim a great trainer for those seeking a real pilot's license; and more. But Flight Simulator X also adds significant features tailored to the player who would be bored to tears by simply flying from Akron to San Francisco in real time, most notably a series of goal-oriented missions (and an editor that will surely result in a huge number of add-on scenarios). These include well-done tutorials and many missions with compelling goals and surprising midflight twists. Some are lighthearted fun, such as playing the role of a stunt pilot (complete with announcer) trying to land on a moving bus or racing a jet-powered truck. Others are intense--for example, trying to fly a chopper to an exploding ocean oil rig and rescue stranded workers. Even simple missions have a compelling nature to them, particularly search and rescue scenarios where you may be seeking a capsized sail boat or a lost camper in snowy mountains. You collect rewards and souvenirs, which is a nice touch that adds an extra incentive to complete the tasks. Even hardcore simmers will find themselves sucked into these missions, wanting to find out just what's behind that clandestine mission flying into Area 51 or what is going to happen on your flight to pick up a famous movie star.

There are about 50 missions in the deluxe version of FSX and about 30 in the standard version. The deluxe version comes with 24 airplanes, versus 18 in the Standard version; more high-detail airports, 45 versus 40; more high-detail cities, 38 versus 28; the advanced Garmin G1000 glass cockpit; and the new tower controller module. This last feature lets you step into the control tower and take the role of the air traffic controller in multiplayer mode. While it probably won't keep you out of the cockpit for long, it is an interesting (and stressful) option. And for the record, if you're interested enough to purchase Flight Simulator X, you should go ahead and purchase the Deluxe version. All of the additional content makes it worth the added costs.

In addition to the missions, free flight mode provides practically unlimited options. You can select from any of the included aircraft (or add-ons that you may download or purchase) and fly to or from any of 24,000 airports around the world. Not only is it pretty much guaranteed that any significant airport that you'd like to fly in or out of is in the sim, but the odds are also good that your local neighborhood grass airstrip is in there, too. The new high-detail airports show off Microsoft's new "living world" emphasis in FSX. Now when you taxi into one of these featured airports, you'll see fuel trucks realistically dashing from gate to gate, luggage carts driving out to aircraft, Jetways extending to connect with your parked airliner, and more. The new active world extends beyond the airports, as you now can look down while in flight and see moving automobiles and trucks on the roads below. You'll also see a variety of boat and ship traffic while flying over water (buzzing a cruise ship with your 747 provides a special thrill!) and an assortment of wildlife, depending upon your location. While it sounds like a small touch, it does make a significant impact on the feeling that you're flying in a real-world environment.

The Good

* An incredible amount of content
* realistic enough to be used for real-life flight training
* missions are a fun challenge for casual gamers and serious simmers alike
* the entire world simulated in amazing detail.

The Bad

* Low frame rates on most current-day PCs.

System Requirements

* Microsoft® Windows® XP SP2 / Vista
* PC with 1 GHz equivalent or higher processor
* 256 MB of system RAM for Windows XP SP2 / 512 MB Vista
* 14 GB available hard disk space
* DVD-ROM drive
* 32 MB DirectX 9 compatible video card required
* Sound card, speakers or headphones required for audio
* Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
* 56.6 Kbps or better modem for online play

The Witcher Enhanced Edition Review

2008-12-19T20:41:00.000-08:00

Description :

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition is a great role-playing game. Developer CD Projekt has corrected almost all of the problems that made the original something of a flawed gem. Butchered English dialogue has been rewritten and expanded upon, removing the nonsensical lines that made the plot something of a guessing game last year. Engine performance has been dramatically improved across the board, so the game runs smoother on moderate systems, and you no longer have time to read a magazine while waiting for levels to load. Character models have been dramatically enhanced, removing a fair number of the unrealistic features that made the original game come off as somewhat cartoonish in spots. A pair of new stand-alone adventures has been added to bulk up gameplay outside of the main storyline. Just about everything seems more solid and stable, from the smooth-as-glass combat mechanics to the speedier interface. And, best of all, these gameplay enhancements are freely available to download for those who purchased the original game last year.

Core gameplay is more polished than revamped, so in some cases, you have to look pretty closely to tell the difference between old and new. You still play the lank-haired Geralt of Rivia, a monster-killing mercenary known as a witcher who travels a medieval fantasy kingdom in search of jobs. Basically, you're a battlemage who can freely switch between using a pair of great big swords to slay fantasy-game beasties and firing off spells with elemental magic signs. Basic melee attacks are handled through the left mouse button, with you timing your clicks to string sword strokes together into big-damage combos. If you run four such attacks together, Geralt becomes a whirling dervish capable of slicing his foes to ribbons. Each sword can also be wielded in strong, quick, and group styles, allowing you to tailor attacks depending on what sort of opponents you happen to be facing. Spells are cast by mapping elemental signs to the right mouse button. Much of this magic is generic to fantasy RPG gaming. For instance, you'll launch fireballs, you'll throw up a protective shield, and you can charm enemies into doing your bidding. None of the spells are all that involved or time-intensive, so you can readily hack and slash with one button and launch fireballs with the other.

Character development is equally clear-cut and carried over unchanged from the original Witcher. Skills are purchased and buffed with bronze, silver, or gold talent coins earned every time you level up. These abilities allow you to increase Geralt's basic chance to hit, damage done, along with adding special effects, such as stunning opponents or causing them crippling pain. Nobody's reinvented the wheel here, although there is a broad range of abilities to choose from that let you specialize in various areas. You can roll all of your coins into spells and turn into kind of a wannabe sorcerer. You can go for strong sword skills and become a melee brawler. Or you can do the jack-of-all-trades thing and spread your abilities across the spectrum of choices. Geralt remains a sword-twirling fighter first and foremost no matter what you do, although you can at least tweak his talents to favor preferred combat methods.

Where this enhanced Witcher takes a welcome turn is with its story and presentation. Although the plot of the first game was a remarkably mature tale that ditched traditional black-and-white RPG morality for a gray universe, the story was sloppily adapted from its original Polish. In it, you took the lesser-of-two-evils approach and found a common cause with rapists and murderers. A bizarre decision to cut back the English dialogue preserved only chopped-up portions of the full script, leaving plot points hard to understand and cut-off conversations in midstream. All those issues have been corrected here. Thousands of lines of English dialogue have been rerecorded, fully fleshing out the storyline and removing the awkwardness of the original game. The English translation has been gone over with a fine-toothed comb to get rid of some jarring word choices from last year. The game is still a lot more modern sounding than some would probably like, throwing around F-bombs and curse words in ways that just don't seem to fit with swords and sorcery. But at least the script has been smoothed out and given a unified voice. Any way you look at it, this is a huge improvement over the first Witcher, which veered wildly between formal D&D-speak and New Jack City.

The Good

* Revised and expanded script vastly improves the storyline
* Graphics enhanced across the board in comparison with the original game
* Load times greatly improved
* Lots of additional content.

The Bad

* Still a little buggy
* Both new adventures are short and rather shallow.

System Requirement :

* MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP Service Pack 2, Vista (Operating System must be up to date with the latest fixes) Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon 64 +2800 RAM: 1024 Mb RAM for Microsoft® Windows®XP / 1536Mb for Microsoft® Windows® Vista Video: 128 Mb Video RAM or greater with DirectX9 Vertex Shader/ Pixel Shader 2.0 support (NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon 9800 or better) Free HHD Space: 8.5 Gb available hard drive space Soundcard, speakers or headphones DVD-Rom 8X.

* RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP Service Pack 2, Vista (Operating System must be up to date with the latest fixes) Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (dual core) or equivalent AMD processor or better, RAM: 2048 Mb RAM Video: 256 Mb Video RAM or greater with DirectX9 Vertex Shader/ Pixel Shader 2.0 support (nVidia 7900 or faster with 512 MB of memory). Free HHD Space: 8.5 Gb available hard drive space. Soundcard, speakers or headphones DVD-Rom 8X Unsupported Hardware: · Processor: o AMD Duron Series o AMD XP+ Series o INTEL Celeron Series · Video: o S3 Colt o S3 S27 o S3 S8 o ATI X300 o ATI X600 o ATI Crossfire Series.

HIS HD 4870 IceQ 4+ Turbo Product Review

2008-12-15T21:12:00.000-08:00

Overview :

The return of The Legend - IceQ 4+ Cooling Technology!

HIS IceQ 4+ is the revision of the 4th generation of IceQ cooling technology, which is endorsed by the media worldwide. Thanks to the newly designed dual heatpipes and heatsinks, the cooling capacity is increase by up to 60%! Thicker spreader and heatpipes are used to allow a more even heat distribution among the fins. Spreader is the metal base of the heatsink. In IceQ4+, 8 mm instead of 6 mm diameter heatpipes are used to enhance thermal transfer efficiency.

HIS IceQ 4 effectively dissipate the heat from the GPU, thus enabling it for high levels of performance. It cools down the GPU temperature dramatically when compare with the reference cooler, allow you to maximize your overclocking potential. What's more? The ultra silent and durable fan delivers ultra-quiet and stable gaming environment for enthusiast gamer.

1. Efficient transfer of heat outside of computer case
Cool air is drawn from both sides of the fan and hot air is forced out of the computer case. This ensures effective cooling when there is another card in front blocking the fan inlet, such as in CrossFire setup
2. Crossfire Advantage
Ensure you can conveniently connect the CrossFire cable to run a CrossFire setup.
3. Silent and durable fan
Significantly reduce noise level and extend service life
4. Isolated heatsinks
memory and GPU heatsinks are completely separated, preventing any heat transfer from GPU to memory. Memory heatsink is actively cooled by air stream from main cooler.

Faster

Turbo-charge your gaming environment
HIS take an already great product and make it better. The IceQ Turbo models are bios-overclocked out of the box. For the TurboX models we push the core clock even further to its limit, deliver the ultimate gaming experience!

Turbo - You can benefit by a manufacture pre-overclock graphics card with the balance of the best performance and cooling effect.

Heat transfers rapidly out of GPU and reduces temperature faster
In order to improve the power capacity, we have changed from simple extrusion heatsink to stacked fins with bigger surface area to improve the heat transfer efficiency significantly. Thicker spreader and heatpipes are also used to allow a more even heat distribution among the fins. Spreader is the metal base of the heatsink.

Cooler - Efficient transfer of heat outside of computer case:

Cool air is drawn from both sides of the fan and hot air is forced out of the computer case. This ensures effective cooling when there is another card in front blocking the fan inlet, such as in CrossFire setup. Memory and GPU heatsinks are completely separated, preventing any heat transfer from GPU to memory. Memory heatsink is actively cooled by air stream from main cooler.In IceQ 4+, the memory and VRM components are directly cooled by a metal base plate.

Crossfire Advantage:
Cooling Performance - IceQ 4+ vs Single Slot Cooler

By expelling the hot air, IceQ 4 removes all the heat generated by the GPU out of the computer chassis, prevents the hot air from accumulating inside and enhancing the overall stability. The more crowded the chassis, the greater will be the impact.

Product Spesification :

Cooler	IceQ 4+
GPU	4870
Core Clock	770 MHz
Memory Clock	4000 MHz
Memory Size	1024 MB
Memory Type	GDDR5
Memory Interface	256 BIT
Interface	PCI Express x16 (PCI Express 2.0)

Source : www.hisdigital.com

Sacred 2 Fallen Angel Review

2008-12-14T04:25:00.000-08:00

Description :
Hack. Slash. Grab loot. Repeat. That formula is followed to a tee in Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, another action-first RPG you can toss onto the pile atop Diablo, Titan Quest, and the first Sacred, now more than four years old. But this isn't just another paint-by-numbers take on the fast-clicking genre that gave too many of us carpal tunnel syndrome. While the new game hews closely to the modus operandi of traditional hack-and-slash role-players, it offsets the lack of innovation with a monster-slaying rhythm guaranteed to hook you so thoroughly that you might as well have been hypnotized. This, plus a decidedly offbeat sense of humor and great multiplayer support, makes the game stand apart from the pack.

As usual with clickfest role-players, there isn't much here in the way of plot. Bad things are going down in the D&D-style land of Ancaria, and you play either the noble hero who can set everything right in the light campaign or the evil villain who can wreak even more havoc in the campaign of shadows. The main plot isn't well laid out at all, particularly in the beginning. You can figure out on your own that problems are brewing with the High Elves and T-Energy, a glowing blue substance pumped all over the land in what look to be oil pipelines, and hone in on the main story by forgoing side quests for plot-oriented ones (which is easy to do as side quests are marked with gray circles on the map and story quests are marked with orange ones). But beyond that, nothing is given any serious dramatic push.

At least the game keeps you busy. Running around handling tons of quests is always in the forefront, which gives everything a hectic, odd-job feel. It's as if the game is constantly building toward something, but never gets there. Just when you think you're going to finally find out what the deal is with the elves and the T-Energy going nutso, you're instead hit with another apparently random assignment to find rare herbs for a potion, search a graveyard for a lost chicken, find somebody's missing spouse, kill a bunch of undead, or whatever. Only the sheer number of quests, their good variety, and the way that the game constantly hits you with these rat-a-tat-tat errands keeps you interested. It's tough to get bored when you have over a dozen quests on the go. Still, the massive size of the map will occasionally annoy you. A lot of time is spent hoofing it from Point A to Point B to solve or wrap up quests, as the game's teleportation system is awkward and lacking in gates. At times, you'll think the world feels unnecessarily big, and that you're spending more time in transit than you are killing monsters and collecting loot.

Most of Sacred 2's character is actually provided through visuals and sound. This is a real looker, with gorgeous sylvan scenes that include flower-strewn fields, dense forests, and babbling brooks, along with mountain and desert terrain reminiscent of postcards. Load times are practically nonexistent, except for those odd moments when you venture below ground for a bit of dungeon-crawling. Added details are everywhere, particularly in the towns and villages that seem to have been laid out by master architects and landscapers. The only drawback to the countryside is that it is often too meticulously sculpted. There are lots of impassable cliffs, uncrossable rivers, and impenetrable bushes, forcing you to check with the full-screen map constantly to avoid wandering into a dead end or cul-de-sac. Unless you're one of those people who never gets lost, you will run into a lot of "can't get there from here" moments. Character art and animation are equally superb. Many creatures in the game are given distinctive touches that separate them from fantasy archetypes. Kobolds here, for instance, are wizened gnomes with massive schnozzes, not the little lizard-goblin things of D&D fame. Earth elementals are muddy flying spirits. And even more generic fantasy monsters tend to show off at least one distinctive design element, such as the weird, spiky helmets on the skeletal undead. Each type of creature also generally comes in a half-dozen or more varieties with differing appearances and abilities, from grunts all the way up to bosses.

Audio adds even more personality. Background music and battle effects deal in the usual Renaissance fair string plucking and sword clashing, but the game also has a unique take on some of the tunes and the character voices. Part of the soundtrack consists of licensed songs from German hair-metal band Blind Guardian, most notably a title track so gloriously stupid that you can't help banging your head to the opening cinematic. Character lines occasionally consist of droll commentaries that break the fourth wall. Dying enemies will mutter things like, "I knew it, I'm nothing more than an extra" and "I know where you parked your car, player!" Heroes shout typical battle cries along with comments such as, "My statistics continue to improve."

The Good

* Solid, if mostly traditional game design
* Wide range of quests
* Good variety of enemies and monsters
* Gorgeous visuals and offbeat audio.

The Bad

* Bugs make the game unstable
* World map is massive and convoluted
* Poorly developed main plot.

System Requirement
Minimum system requirement:

* OS:Windows XP(32 / 64 Bit)/Windows Vista(32 / 64 Bit)
* Processor:Intel Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
* RAM:1GB
* Graphic Card:nVidia GeForce 6800/ATI Radeon
* Graphic Memory:256MB
* Free Hard Disk Space:20GB
* DirectX Version:9

Recommended system requirement:

* OS:Windows XP(32 / 64 Bit)/Windows Vista(32 / 64 Bit)
* Processor:Intel Dual Core 2.0Ghz
* RAM:2GB
* Graphic Card:nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS/ATI Radeon HD 3870
* Graphic Memory:512MB
* Free Hard Disk Space:25GB
* DirectX Version:9

Source : www.gamespot.com

Brothers in Arms : Hell’s Highway Review

2008-12-11T23:54:00.000-08:00

Description :

The first two games in the Brothers in Arms series distinguished themselves among the crowd of WWII shooters on the strength of their smoothly integrated first-person squad control and gritty, moving portrayal of a band of Allied soldiers. Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway sticks to these strengths, and commanding your squads through Nazi-occupied territory is more thrilling than ever thanks to the vibrant, beautiful scenery and the brutal, exhilarating action. Sergeant Baker (your character) and his squad are all nuanced, sympathetic characters, though the story doesn't quite live up to the promise of its protagonists. Despite a few irregular beats, Hell's Highway is an exciting, intense shooter that is sure to quicken your pulse.

This go-around finds Sergeant Matt Baker and his crew carrying the memories of their fallen brothers and welcoming replacements into the fold. As they get set to drop into Holland as a part of the ambitious but doomed Operation Market-Garden, you meet the men whose lives you will be responsible for. The story isn't so much a narrative as it is an exploration of the relationships between soldiers; it's a mature look at the way bonds can be forged and broken in the emotional furnace of war. Through engaging cutscenes and lively battlefield communication, you'll find yourself developing an attachment to these characters. Many great moments, both comic and tragic, resonate with an admirable emotional clarity that unflinchingly evokes the turbid reality of war, where triumph and tragedy walk hand in hand.

Unfortunately, some of these potentially great moments will fall flat if you're not well acquainted with old characters like Leggett, Allen, and Garnett. Hell's Highway often tries to lean on emotional pillars created by traumas from the first two games (both released in 2005), but the "previously on Brothers in Arms" segment isn't solid enough to support these references, and the framework crumbles a bit as a result. As the game progresses you'll gain the knowledge needed to prop up these references; this makes a second play-through more appealing, but it's a shame this understanding isn't established earlier.

Once on the battlefield, your comrades become potent weapons at your command. Hell's Highway offers a tutorial on the proper way to manage your squads, and you'd best pay attention, since going it alone will get you into trouble in a hurry. Strategy boils down to firing on German positions to keep them suppressed, then flanking around to a better angle and finishing them off. Your men are capable soldiers and will shout advice at you if you seem to be stagnating. They will also do their fair share of killing but are still occasionally liable to run on the wrong side of a wall when ordered to a different position. It hurts to lose one of your men in battle, regardless of the fact that he'll be patched up at your next checkpoint. You are their commander and they are entrusting their lives to you, a weight expertly transferred to your shoulders by Sgt. Baker's cutscenes and voice-overs. Hell's Highway motivates you strategically and emotionally to be a smart leader, and it's surprisingly engaging to focus on something other than yourself in a first-person shooter.

Battles become even more complex as you take more squads under your command and incorporate machine gun and bazooka units. The former is excellent at suppressing enemies, while the latter can destroy sandbag barriers and elevated enemy positions in houses and towers (particularly awesome). As you get the hang of squad command, you'll begin wielding your men as extensions of yourself and moving through battlefields as an elite, coordinated unit. Taking apart and dispatching a field full of entrenched German units is immensely satisfying, and this feeling of power is what makes Brothers in Arms so rewarding.

The Good

* Great blend of squad control and first-person combat
* Vibrant, detailed environments
* Battlefield sounds will put you on edge
* Interesting characters
* Action camera is exhilarating.

The Bad

* Story relies overmuch on knowledge of past games
* Texture irregularities can sour cutscenes.

System Requirement

Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: Pentium D @ 2.6 GHz or Athlon FX-55 Equivalent
Memory: 1 GB
Hard Drive: 8 GB Free
Video Memory: 128 MB
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
Keyboard & Mouse
DVD Rom Drive

Recommended System Requirements
OS: Windows Vista
Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.6 GHz
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 8 GB Free
Video Memory: 256 MB (nVidia GeForce 7600)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 10
Keyboard & Mouse
DVD Rom Drive

Source : www.gamespot.com

Prince Of Persia 2008 Review

2008-12-10T03:58:00.000-08:00

Description :

In many modern games, you rain death upon your enemies; how refreshing, then, that your main task in Prince of Persia is to breathe life into a darkening world. That doesn't mean that the forces of evil aren't on your tail in this open-world platformer, but the most indelible moments of this enchanting journey are uplifting, rather than destructive. Similarly, the latest iteration in this long-running franchise is a rejuvenation for the series, and it's an ambitious one, offering up a new titular prince and casting certain game traditions aside in favor of player immersion. And for the most part it succeeds, eliminating illusion-breaking mechanics like game-over screens and long loading times in the process. This re-imagining comes with a few caveats, however, and if you're a longtime series fan, you'll quickly discover--and possibly resent--that Prince of Persia is, far and away, the easiest game in the series. But if you can clear your mind and let the game's magic wash over you, its easygoing joy and visual beauty will charm you into forgiving a sprinkling of flaws.

n some ways, Prince of Persia represents a return to Sands of Time's storybook vibe, which had been somewhat lost in that game's two sequels. Yet our new hero isn't exactly Prince Charming, but rather a wisecracking nomad interested only in his donkey (named Farah, in one of several nods to previous games) and the riches she apparently carries. His royal status is referenced but never fully explored, though his companion Elika is clearly a princess, and as the game progresses, you'll become much more invested in her past than the prince's. Together, they seek to imprison the evil god Ahriman, who has been inexplicably set free by Elika's own father. To do so, they must restore a series of fertile grounds to their former fecund glory, thereby banishing the inky black corruption that has enveloped the land. Storytelling isn't the game's strong suit, and the dismissive, often unlikeable prince is hardly beguiling, a poor fit for the captivating journey ahead. Thankfully, Elika exudes enough charm for the both of them, and the relationship they slowly forge lends plenty of emotional impact to the game's final moments.

This relationship enriches the very core of the experience, given that Elika is not your standard game sidekick. She isn't just a helpless companion, but an important part of a number of gameplay mechanics. As the prince, you will pull off moves familiar to franchise fans: jumping, climbing, scaling, and wallrunning among them. There are also a few new acrobatics to play with, such as the aptly named roofrun, where the prince scuttles along the roof in a vaguely simian manner. But if the moves are familiar, Elika's presence enriches and enhances them. She will jump on your back as you scale across vines, reach for your helping hand as you climb, and perform an elegant pas de deux with you when you need to pass her on a narrow beam. In some ways, this relationship recalls that of Ico and Yorda in 2001's ICO.

While in ICO Yorda was totally dependent on her companion, here Elika is far more helpful to the prince than he is to her. She is, in fact, your constant savior, because she will not, and cannot, allow you to die. Should you fall, Elika will grab you by the wrist and whisk you to safety--meaning the last checkpoint. There is a checkpoint at almost every platform, so aside from possibly having to repeat a few seconds of gameplay, there is absolutely no penalty for plummeting to your doom. You will never see the words "game over," and you won't need to save and reload before difficult sequences. Nor will you need to ever puzzle over how to make it from point A to point B: Elika can fire off a magical homing orb that will show you the precise way of getting to your destination. Combined with simple platforming controls that require a minimum of key or button presses, these facets make Prince of Persia one of the easiest games you'll play all year.

This ease of use makes each individual action seem relatively meaningless as you string moves together. For many, this will translate to a diminished feeling of reward; aside from a few exceptions, there is no sequence that feels remotely challenging, certainly not for players familiar with the old-school difficulties wrought by the early games in the series. Yet while the unique satisfaction of overcoming hurdles is missing, it is tempered by other kinds of rewards. The platforming is fluid, and seamlessly chaining a number of moves together is simple but visually appealing, making for some silky-smooth motion that you'll get a kick out of. To get the most out of it, however, you will want to use a controller. While the keyboard controls work surprisingly well for platforming, the numerous quicktime events aren't well suited to a keyboard, and the key prompts are more confusing when you aren't using a gamepad.

The Good

* Intricate level design
* Beautiful art direction
* Platforming is entertaining and looks great
* Cinematic combat moves are cool to pull off and impressive to watch
* Elika's presence leads to unique gameplay mechanics.

The Bad

* Really, really easy
* The new prince isn't a good leading man
* Some combat and platforming annoyances.

System Requirement

Minimum system requirement:

* OS:Windows XP/Windows Vista
* Processor:Intel Pentium D 2.6GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
* RAM:1GB(Windows XP)/2GB (Windows Vista)
* Video Memory:256MB
* DirectX Version:9
* Free Hard Disk Space:8GB

Recommended system requirement:

* OS:Windows XP/Windows Vista
* Processor:Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
* RAM:2GB
* Video Memory:256MB
* DirectX Version:9
* Free Hard Disk Space:8GB

Source : www.gamespot.com

FarCry 2 Review

2008-12-08T18:31:00.000-08:00

Description :

Caught between two rival factions in war-torn Africa, you are sent to take out "The Jackal," a mysterious character who has rekindled the conflict between the warlords, jeopardizing thousands of lives. In order to fulfil your mission you will have to play the factions against each other, identify and exploit your their weaknesses, and neutralize their superior numbers and firepower with surprise, subversion, cunning and, of course, brute force. Real-time story telling, systemic auto-healing, minimal in-game interface are just few of the features that make you feel the tension of being alone against barbarous warlords that threaten thousands of innocent lives. Choose from a wide range of weapons to make your way to your primary target. Meet the fight head-on with your machine-gun, go berserk with your machete or make stealth kills as a Sniper. If you feel that the atmosphere is not warm enough, light up your flamethrower and let your enemies and everything around them feel the heat.

In Far Cry 2's chaotic world of mercenaries, gunrunners, and armed militias, you'll find yourself dropped into a dizzying web of shady clients and paper-thin alliances. All manner of names and faces are introduced during the course of the storyline, but the real star isn't anyone brandishing a smuggled weapon in search of blood diamonds; it's the daunting and awe-inspiring 50-square kilometers of African landscape that make up the game's open-world setting. Aside from providing the opportunity to soak up an amazing sunset, Far Cry 2's free-roaming terrain brilliantly harmonizes with the first-person combat. The diverse landscape and myriad environmental factors work alongside a wide assortment of weaponry to give you tremendous freedom to approach each mission. Combined with solid multiplayer, Far Cry 2's sheer breadth of action provides you with plenty of reason to stay lost in the African wilderness despite an underwhelming plot and the occasional sense of tedium in navigating from one location to another on the gargantuan map.

Far Cry 2's story is filled with potential. You're a mercenary working for a client who's sent you to an unnamed African nation engulfed in civil war, and your job is to take out a notorious arms dealer known as "The Jackal." He quickly proves to be an elusive figure, so you'll need to begin working for various warring factions that the Jackal has armed so you can trace the supply line back to your target. The two primary organizations at the heart of all this bloodshed are the militaristic UFLL and the revolutionary APR. You'll spend the bulk of the story working for these two groups, getting to know their power structures, and taking on all of the violent tasks they throw your way. Complicating things is the fact that your character has malaria, which means you'll need to occasionally play nice with the more ragtag Underground, the only group with the medical connections necessary to keep your potentially life-threatening symptoms at bay.

Each story mission can be played in multiple ways. There are 12 potential buddies randomly scattered throughout the storyline who you can befriend (nine of whom are available to choose as your silent protagonist), and they're often keen to tack on their own interests to the quests handed out by the UFLL and APR. Instead of just taking out a target, you have the option to earn extra reputation points by working alongside your buddy to first squeeze any remaining assets from the soon-to-be-deceased. This also earns you the ability to increase your level of companionship with that buddy. It's a neat reward, but it doesn't shed much light on their backgrounds. But that's par for the course; the main story is delivered in such a rushed, quick-and-dirty way that you never feel very involved in the game's overarching conflicts. The plot is less Blood Diamond than it is early Grand Theft Auto, a long roster of changing faces that scroll by far too quickly to capitalize on the politically charged setting.

The Good

* Incredible amount of freedom to approach each mission
* 50 square kilometers of visually stunning African landscape
* Hefty single-player campaign should take at least 30 hours
* Diverse reward and upgrade systems feed off each other very well
* Robust map editor on all three versions.

The Bad

* Story does very little with politically-charged setting
* Traveling for long stretches can become tedious.

Farcry 2 System Requirement

High Requirements:

* CPU: E6600 Core 2 Duo
* Graphics: Nvidia 8800GTS
* RAM: 2GB
* Hard Drive Space: 6-8GB
* Optical Drive: DVD Drive

Minimum Requirements:

* CPU: Athlon 64 3000+/Intel 2.8ghz
* Graphics: Nvidia 6600 or ATI X1600 - Shader Model 2.0
* RAM: 1GB
* Hard Drive Space: 6-8GB
* Optical Drive: DVD Drive

Recommended Requirements:

* CPU: Dual-Core CPU (Athlon X2 / Pentium D / Core 2 Duo)
* Graphics: Nvidia 7800GT or ATI X1800XL Pro (SM 3.0)
* RAM: 2GB+
* Hard Drive Space: 6-8GB
* Optical Drive: DVD Drive

Source : www.gamespot.com

Reshade Image Enlarger Free Download

2008-12-08T18:21:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wanted more control out of your image resizer?
Well, now you can have it!

Reshade offers the highest quality photo enlargement available for your computer. Resize images without the usual blur, jagged edges, halos, loss of sharpness or detail associated with image enlargement. Create accurate, crisp clear and photorealistic enlargements at almost any zoom factor.

Easy-to-use self-adjusting settings, quick previews, keyboard shortcuts and drag-and-drop functionality make the Reshade photo enlargement application the perfect choice for beginners and experts alike. Resize images in many file formats including jpeg, tiff, png, bmp. Adjusting your images for print is easy, Reshade includes support for most image modes including CMYK.

Key Features
- Get crisp, clear edges at almost any zoom level
- Remove blur and refocus image edges
- Contrast and enhance image features
- Easily remove photo defects
- Go from smooth to precise contours
- Make selective edge transformations
- Extract even the finest details from your photos
- Get best color estimation with a little more processing time
- Choose between speed or better edge quality
- Enlarge images over 20x maintaining contour definition

Who Needs Reshade Image Enlarger
- Professional photographers creating gallery prints from digital photos captured with high-end cameras, having perfect focus and adequate noise levels.

- Amateur photographers making posters from their favourite photos taken with low-end or camera phones having slight focus problems.

- Web designers in need of resizing online graphics such as logos, illustrations, banners, drawings, diagrams.

- Scientists requiring image scaling without any detail loss uses in space technology, security, medical, forensics and other applications.

- Traditional art lovers taking advantage of the digital medium enlarge scans, paintings or old photos for digital storage and high resolution printing.

You Want To Try??

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Alcohol 120% 1.9.8.7117 Free Download

2008-12-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

What is Alcohol?

Alcohol brings new meaning to the word multimedia! It is without a doubt a leader in its class, bringing the ability to emulate and record CDs and DVDs together into one amazingly easy to use software program. Now includes Alcohol Xtra. A unique Pre-Mastering function.

Using the latest technology the program is constantly being developed and improved to add new features, allowing it to maintain it's position as a leading software package.

Imagine being able to store your most used CDs as images on your computer and just call them up at the click of a button! And then run them at 200x the speed of some CD drives and without requiring the CD itself! How about being able to make a backup of that CD onto another CD either using the CD itself or just using the image you have created? This is what Alcohol allows you to do and much more.

* Alcohol 120% enables you to make a duplicate back-up to recordable media of nearly all your expensive Game/Software/DVD titles, and/or an image that can be mounted and run from any one of Alcohol's virtual drives.

* No other software available enables you to create up to a staggering 31 virtual drives, allowing you to run your game images at over 200x faster than from a conventional CD-ROM. Alcohol 120% is a powerful utility that uses a unique combination of options to ensure a perfect back-up every time.

* All you need is a PC combined with a CD or a DVD burner. No more replacing your expensive original discs due to loss, theft, scratches, or other media imperfections. Your duplicate works just like the original; your entire collection can be archived and your investment protected.

* In the home: Have you had experiences with the common conditions of CDs/DVDs? They can easily get scratched, damaged, broken, lost or even stolen. Alcohol provides you with peace of mind and protects your investment.

* Your original games/program discs can be safely stored away. Alcohol-created images mean that you always have your expensive media stored safely on your hard drive for instant retrieval at the click of a button. No more searching for the correct game disc or software application install disc, everything is at your fingertips.

* You can now, for instance, simultaneously play your favourite game and bring up your route planner without having to eject and reload any physical discs, The 31 virtual drive ability of Alcohol means you can have the equivalent of a staggering 31 CD-ROM drives in your Home PC, all instantly accessible. You can simply and quickly run your Disc image at around 200 times faster than that of a conventional CD-ROM drive. If you need a program or CD it is immediately there - always ready to use!

* At the office: Program discs and many other applications generally require the original disc to be in the computer's CD-ROM drive. This restricts the amount of people in your office who can have access to the same software at the same time without the cost of additional discs. Alcohol's virtual drives resolve that problem for you. No more hunting around the offices for that elusive disc you need to run your application, everything you require is just a click away.

* With Alcohol you can store your CD images on your office server, your colleagues and employees at their respective networked workstations will never need to come asking for a CD again, they will not even require an expensive CD-ROM drive installed in their workstation PC! A simple click is all that is required for them to have full access to any disc image they require for their day to day work. Your valuable CDs can be safely kept under lock and key.

* Does your company have a promotional CD for it's customers? Original pressed discs are expensive, using the Alcohol 120% writing engine you can copy the original to inexpensive blank discs for distribution to your customers and keep your overheads down.

* Alcohol software offers unrivalled usage to people from all walks of life regardless of if you are a hardened game player, busy school teacher, salesman, IT manager, student etc. Alcohol has a niche in all your everyday computer needs. Let Alcohol help you to help yourselves and give you the peace of mind you deserve when it comes to expensive PC media.

Want to Download ??

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DVD-Cloner V 5.60 Download

2008-12-07T03:22:00.000-08:00

Description :
DVD-Cloner is excellent DVD copy software that makes quality DVD backups to DVD-R/RW super easily. DVD-Cloner makes backing up your copy-protected DVD movies simple. With your DVD burner and DVD Cloner software, you pop in the DVD you want to copy in your DVD-ROM and a blank DVD in your DVD Burner and click the button to start the DVD burning process.
You can clone your DVD entirely within 2-3 hours, in the same quality as the original. The cloned DVD can be played in any compatible DVD Player. Plus, DVD Cloner is one of the few DVD backup software titles that has a built-in CSS/DVD Ripper.
The new burning engine can make perfect 1:1 copy. It can intelligently identify the disc type and display relevant copy modes on the interface for you to select. Supports for the backup of Blu-ray / HD DVDs. You do not need to download a separate program like DVD43 or AnyDVD. Works on 2000/XP/Vista.

DVD-CLONER Features:

Perfect 1:1 DVD Copy
- Brand-new burning engine, Perfect 1:1 DVD Copy - brings you an excellent backup experience. The copied discs will remain 100% same to the original, no quality loss! New
- Makes perfectly audio-and - video synchronous copies! New
- Copies DVD movie to ISO or NRG file and backs up DVD movie to hard disk drive (FAT32, NTFS supported), burns ISO and NRG files to DVDs. New
- Copies CSS-encrypted, Region- protected and Sony ARCCOS protected DVD movies.

Customized Copy
- Intelligent Identification Tech - intelligently identifies the disc type and displays relevant copy modes on the interface. New
- Copies any chapter you like with DVD-Cloner V New
- Now you can define the number of discs to be burned - great for batch copying. New
- DVD-5 to DVD-5 copy
- Movie only copy - copies main movie only with extras and special features omitted
- Adjusting the compression rate from 10% to 100% - saves your disc space
- Splits DVD-9 into two DVD-5s
- DVD-9 to DVD-9 copy
- Burns DVDs from hard drive to blank DVD-r/rw
- Supports for episodic DVD copying - You can copy your preferred chapters.

Other features
- With a third party Blu-Ray/HD DVD Copy Helper, you can backup HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies to your hard drive and watch them with Cyberlink Powerdvd or Windvd as you like! (You can download and install the Blu-Ray/HD DVD Copy Helper.

You Want To Download??

Click Here For Download

Internet Download Manager 5.15 Build 3+Patch Download

2008-12-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

Description :
Downloaders Internet Download Manager has a smart download logic accelerator that features intelligent dynamic file segmentation and safe multipart downloading technology to accelerate your downloads. Unlike other download accelerators and managers that segment files before downloading starts, Internet Download Manager segments downloaded files dynamically during download process. Internet Download Manager reuses available connections without additional connect and login stages to achieve better acceleration performance.
Internet Download Manager supports proxy servers, ftp and http protocols, firewalls, redirects, cookies, authorization, MP3 audio and MPEG video content processing. IDM integrates seamlessly into Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, MSN Explorer, AOL, Opera, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Firebird, Avant Browser, MyIE2, and all other popular browsers to automatically handle your downloads. You can also drag and drop files, or use Internet Download Manager from command line. Internet Download Manager can dial your modem at the set time, download the files you want, then hang up or even shut down your computer when it's done.

Other features include multilingual support, zip preview, download categories, scheduler pro, sounds on different events, HTTPS support, queue processor, html help and tutorial, enhanced virus protection on download completion, progressive downloading with quotas (useful for connections that use some kind of fair access policy or FAP like Direcway, Direct PC, Hughes, etc.), built-in download accelerator, and many others.

Main Features:
• All popular browsers and applications are supported
• Easy downloading with one click. When you click on a download link in a browser, IDM will take over the download and accelerate it. IDM supports HTTP, FTP, HTTPS and MMS protocols.
• Download Speed Acceleration. Internet Download Manager can accelerate downloads by up to 5 times due to its intelligent dynamic file segmentation technology.
• Download Resume. Internet Download Manager will resume unfinished download from the place where they left off.
• YouTube grabber. Internet Download Manager can grab FLV videos from popular sites like YouTube, MySpaceTV, and Google Video.
• Simple installation wizard. Quick and easy installation program will make necessary settings for you, and check your connection at the end to ensure trouble free installation of Internet Download Manager
• Drag and Drop. You may simply drag and drop links to IDM, and drag and drop downloaded files out of Internet Download Manager.
• Automatic Antivirus checking. Antivirus checking makes your downloads free from viruses and trojans.
• Advanced Browser Integration. When enabled, the feature can be used to catch any download from any application. None of download managers have this feature.
• Built-in Scheduler. Internet Download Manager can connect to the Internet at a set time, download the files you want, disconnect, or shut down your computer when it's done.
• IDM includes web site spider and grabber. IDM downloads all required files that are specified with filters from web sites, for example all pictures from a web site, or subsets of web sites, or complete web sites for offline browsing. It's possible to schedule multiple grabber projects to run them once at a specified time, stop them at a specified time, or run periodically to synchronize changes.
• Download Categories. Internet Download Manager can be used to organize downloads automatically using defined download categories.
• IDM is multilingual.

Want To Download??

Click Here To Download IDM 5.15+Patch

Download Accelerator Plus 9 Download

2008-12-04T23:33:00.000-08:00

Info :
Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) is the leading download manager with over 160 million registered users worldwide. DAP leverages patented technology, ease of use and rich features including: multi-connections for the fastest downloads from most responsive servers, auto-recovery from lost connections and errors, Always Resume feature (where server-resume is not supported), scheduling, file management tools, privacy and security features, and much more.
DAP integrates with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape and is compatible with Windows Vista. DAP is available in 10 languages including German, Dutch, French, Chinese (traditional), Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian and Italian.
New features in DAP 8.7 includes an upgraded download window for faster downloads with ease and simplicity, improved management window, the ability to upload and send large files and the SpeedBit Video Accelerator expansions to reduce buffering problems and video "hiccups" from over 100 video sites!

Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) will accelerate the speed with which you can receive files over the Internet using FTP and HTTP protocols by simultaneously downloading several file segments from the same or different servers.
Download Accelerator Plus enables you to pause and resume downloads, and to recover from a dropped Internet connection.
In addition, DAP searches for mirrors and implements the downloads from the best or most responsive mirrors. It is configured by default to automatically Integrate into your Explorer or Netscape browser when it is installed, and to self-activate each time a download is performed.
No further configuration or action is required on your part - simply use your browser to access the desired site, click on the download file, and respond to the self-explanatory DAP dialogs that appear.
Advanced options enable you to tailor the operation and responses of the application to your needs. You can choose to trigger specific responses such as messages, queue update, closing the application, and disconnecting after the download is completed or is not available.
DAP is fully integrated into the browser, providing the best possible performance from ANY Internet connection, broadband and narrowband (cable, DSL / ADSL, T1, dial-up etc.).
DAP will allow you to benefit from a faster and more reliable download experience, optimize your download performance, and help you to recover interrupted downloads. DAP is available in two versions: a Free version (ads supported) and a Premium version (with a richer set of features and no ads.).
What's New in This Release:
· Security check by ZoneAlarm for every site and application you download!
· Tabbed downloading!
· NEW and improved interface!
· New and improved download triggering!
· Automatically open downloaded files!
· Simplified options and updated menus!

Download :

Click Here

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009

2008-12-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

Description :

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009, soccer games, which have been waiting for the game of football lovers by rival Winning Eleven. Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 attended by more humor gamers, the game players can enjoy all the logo of their favored team in the game that were previously impossible to enjoy.

In addition to the team Manchester United and Liverpool, Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 will also display the logo and all the attributes of the Champions League during the 4 years of the contract. Video Games football will be launched also for mobile phones so that users can play anywhere, anytime, provided that the ability to support mobile phone applications.

On the graphic, image design, all players will again be improved so that more resembles the designs again appearance of the original players, and also the movement while playing in a more subtle. In addition, there is a feature that allows users to manage, design and a great leader.

The good

* Become A Legend mode is promising.
* 2 vs. 2 online multiplayer for the first time.
* Online lag has been ironed out for the most part.

The Bad

* The Champions League mode lacks substance.
* An auto-trick feature spoils the fun.
* Player animations are jerky at times.

System Requirement

The Minimum system requirements:
- Windows XP SP2, Vista
- Intel Pentium 4 1.4 GHz
- 1 GiByte RAM
- 6 GB an empty seat on a disk
- GeForce FX or Radeon 9700th Pixel / Vertex Shader 2.0 and 128 MiByte VRAM.
- 800 x 600 expansion of the display

Recommended system requirements:
- Windows XP SP2, Vista
- Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz
- 2 GiByte RAM
- 8 GB hard disk
- GeForce 6800 GT / GS, Radeon X1600 or higher. Pixel / Vertex Shader 3.0 and 256 MiByte VRAM
- 1, 280 x 720 expansion of the display

Edit Plus Download

2008-12-03T04:16:00.000-08:00

Description :

EditPlus is an Internet-ready 32-bit Text editor, HTML editor and Programmer's editor for Windows. While it can serve as a good replacement for Notepad, it also offers many powerful features for Web page authors and programmers. Syntax highlighting for HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP, Perl, C/C++, Java, JavaScript and VBScript. Seamless Web browser for previewing HTML pages, and FTP commands for uploading local files to FTP server. Other features include HTML toolbar, user tools, line number, ruler, URL highlighting, auto-completion, cliptext, column selection, powerful search and replace, multiple undo/redo, spell checker, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and more.

You Want To Download??

Click >> Download EditPlus

PDF.Password.Remover.v3 Review & Download

2008-12-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

The type of pdf file is the most popular in the world of the Internet.
pdf of this type are usually in use for sharing data in the form of writing. for example, an e-book, tutorials and so forth.

Pdf files in the Internet world, we are not necessarily free to copy, or change the file. Sometimes pdf files on the protection or give the password by the author or creator of the file to the writings can not copy or change in other people.

This time I will give you a software package that allows you to open a pdf file on the protection, namely pdf password remover v3.0.

This little review of the software

VeryPDF.PDF.Password.Remover.v3.0
PDF Password Remover can be used to decrypt protected Adobe Acrobat PDF files, which have "owner" password set, preventing the file from editing (changing), printing, selecting text and graphics. Decryption is being done instantly. Decrypted file can be opened in any PDF viewer (e.g. Adobe Acrobat Reader) without any restrictions.

You want to try >> Download PDF Password Remover V.3

TuneUp Utilities 2009 Review & Download

2008-12-02T08:06:00.000-08:00

Review :
You can easily solve PC problems and at the same prevent others while effectively increasing the system's performance with TuneUp Utilities. Your PC intelligently adapts to your individual needs. The new TuneUp Start page, the new TuneUp Speed Optimizer, and the improved 1-Click Maintenance make the optimization of your Windows system even easier, faster, and more comprehensive.

Fast, Effective Windows Optimization

* One-click overview of your PC performance
* Quick analysis of your PC’s hardware, operating system, and programs
* Real performance increases, real fast
* Easy-to-understand help functions

Intelligent Windows Optimization Built in for Every PC

* Intelligent recommendations for your unique PC optimization
* Identifies your personal settings and protects them
* Highlights your PC’s optimization potential, including unused programs and resource-draining settings
* Recommends options and explains performance results before taking any action

Safe Windows Optimization

* Provides you with safe and effective optimization results
* Corrects all mistakes created from previous tuning attempts
* Comprehensive and easy rollback ability for any changes made to your PC

Perfectly Designed for Your Windows Operating System

* Automatically detects and configures for your operating system
* Ideal for XP and Vista (32/64 bit) users
* Designed to leverage the unique features within each operating system

You Want to try??
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Left 4 Dead

2008-12-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

Description :
Fight together...or die alone. A new and highly virulent strain of the rabies virus emerges and spreads through the human population with frightening speed. The pandemic's victims become grotesquely disfigured, wildly violent psychopaths, attacking the uninfected on sight. One of the "lucky" few apparently immune to the sickness, you, unfortunately, are also trapped in a city crawling with thousands of the bloodthirsty Infacted. Together with a handful of fellow Survivors, you must fight your way to safety or die alone. A co-operative multiplayer action game from the makers of "Counter-Strike," Left 4 Dead is built atop the most advanced version of the Source Engine and introduces version 2 of Turtle Rock's artificial intelligence (A.I.) technology.

System Requirement :

* OS: Windows XP, Vista, Vista64
* CPU: 3.0 GHz P4, Dual Core 2.0 or AMD64X2 (or higher)
* RAM: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
* Disc drive: DVD-ROM Drive
* Hard drive: At least 7.5 GB of free space
* Video: Direct X 9 compatible video card - Video card must be 128 MB or more and should be a DirectX 9-compatible with support for pixel shader 2.0 (ATI 9600 or high. Or, Nvidia 6600 or higher)
* Sound: Direct X9.0c compatible sound card

Source : www.gamefaqs.com

Dynasty Warriors 6

2008-12-01T00:02:00.000-08:00

Description

Featuring a new proprietary combat engine, Dynasty Warriors 6 delivers the exhilaration of single-handedly destroying thousands of soldiers on massive fields of combat. The lightning-fast, kung-fu fighting, fluid motion-captured animation, intuitive combat system and immersive environments create an unparalleled gaming experience, and push the limits of tactical action.

About DYNASTY WARRIORS 6

Selling over 18 million units combined worldwide, KOEI's award-winning DYNASTY WARRIORS series and SAMURAI WARRIORS® series of Tactical Action games have become a global phenomenon.

Based on the epic novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the genre-defining DYNASTY WARRIORS 6 depicts the massive battles ignited by the fall of the Han Dynasty when three rebellious states moved to overthrow the Emperor of China.

DYNASTY WARRIORS 6 delivers the unparalleled exhilaration of single-handedly destroying thousands of soldiers on massive battlefields. Utilizing spectacular fighting techniques motion-captured from some of today's leading stuntmen and stuntwomen in Asia, DYNASTY WARRIORS 6 immerses gamers in a truly cinematic kung-fu adventure. The game's lightning-fast fighting, intuitive combat system and breathtaking environments create a visceral gaming experience that pushes the limits of Tactical Action.

Also slated for this November, DYNASTY WARRIORS 6 for the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system will now come as a single disc. Action-packed with the full cast of playable characters and pulse-pounding scenarios of the original release, this new version features platform-exclusive content including never-before-seen "Musou" mode stories, new weapons, plus five additional stages and 10 new scenarios.

DYNASTY WARRIORS 6 for the PlayStation 2 ships to North American retailers the week of November 18, 2008. The game is in stores now for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.

Developed by KOEI's Omega Force, DYNASTY WARRIORS 6 is rated "T" (Teen– Violence) by the ESRB. DYNASTY WARRIORS 6 is for 1 to 2 players (offline). For additional information

DYNASTY WARRIORS 6 for Windows-based PC System Requirements :

Minimum: Pentium® 4 1.6GHz, Windows XP/Vista, 512MB RAM, 5GB or more of free space, 640×480 High Color enabled, 3D Accelerator with Hardware T&L and Pixel Shading supporting 128MB or more of VRAM, DirectX 9.0c+, DirectX 9.0c+ compliant, 16-bit stereo with 44KHz playback supported by Windows XP/Vista, keyboard

Recommended: Intel® Core™2Duo 2.4GHz, Windows XP/Vista, 512MB RAM, 5GB or more of free space, 1280×720 True Color enabled, 16:9, 3D Accelerator with Hardware T&L and Pixel Shading supporting 128MB or more of VRAM, DirectX 9.0c+, DirectX 9.0c+, DirectX 9.0c+ compliant, 16-bit stereo with 44KHz playback supported by Windows XP/Vista, DirectX 9.0 compatible, 12-button game pad

The following video cards have been tested and found compatible with the product.

ATI Radeon™: X1650, X1950, HD 2600, HD 3650
NVIDIA GeForce™: 7600, 7900, 8500, 8600, 9600

Security and Internet Browsers – Firefox vs. Internet Explorer

2008-11-30T23:05:00.000-08:00

Introduction

The Internet is becoming a more and more dangerous place to be, due in no small part to the inherent security risks posed by viruses and spyware. Additionally, applications that access the Internet as part of their normal operations may have errors in their code that allows hackers to launch attacks against the computer on which those applications are running. The safety and integrity of digital assets is further compromised by the fast-growing threat of cybercrooks who devise and implement large-scale hoaxes such as phishing and ID theft.

In the light of all this, it’s clear that users need a reliable and secure web browser between them and the Internet, which will be free of these problems and won’t let harmful content invade the computer.

The web browser industry continues to be dominated by the Windows-bundled Internet Explorer, with an 85% market share, but in recent years a new breed of free, more functional and resilient browsers has appeared – the most popular being Mozilla/Firefox and Opera. All have received serious security upgrades to help protect against recent scares and safeguard users online.

Internet Explorer is at version 6.0, essentially the same product that was included with Windows XP in 2001. Eighteen months ago, the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 substantially increased IE safety; however, it did not eliminate many of the loopholes exploited by hostile program code. At present, Firefox is at version 1.5, but its very different development history (see next section) means that it can be considered at a similar level of maturity as Internet Explorer.

Currently, Microsoft is preparing its next-generation browser, Internet Explorer 7.0, which it plans to introduce sometime during the first half of 2006. The company has stated that it intends to make the browser stronger and more secure to help protect its users against the many problems that have dogged the software over the years.

We, along with Internet users everywhere, await the final results with interest. In the meantime, we decided to undertake our own security evaluation of both IE 7 (beta) and its closest rival, Firefox 1.5.

History and overview

Internet Explorer is a proprietary graphical web browser developed by Microsoft. In 1995, the company licensed the commercial version of Internet Explorer 3.0 from Spyglass Mosaic and integrated the program into its Windows 95 OSR1 edition. Later, it included IE4 as the default browser in Windows 98 – a move which continues to raise many antitrust questions.

Firefox is an open-source browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation; anyone who is proficient enough can collaborate in writing and improving its program code. Mozilla is known for its stringent approach to security, promising a bounty of several thousand dollars for any major vulnerability found in the product.

Security incidents and threat response

While no browser is perfect, major security lapses happened rather more frequently with IE than with Firefox. To be fair, Firefox has less than a 10% market share and is thus a rather less enticing target than IE; that’s probably also why security researchers focus much of their attention on the vulnerabilities of Microsoft’s browser, not Firefox’s. Some people have argued that if the market shares were reversed, bugs in Firefox would start appearing on a more frequent basis, as has recently been the case with Internet Explorer.

The open-source architecture of Firefox contributes to the overall safety of the browser; a community of skilled programmers can spot problems more quickly and correct them before a new release is available for general use. It’s been said that threat response time for Firefox averages one week, while it may take months for Microsoft engineers to fix critical bugs reported by security analysts – an unacceptable situation for users who remain unnecessarily vulnerable to exploits (hacker attacks) during that time.

>From the threat response standpoint, Firefox is clearly the winner.

Security features

Phishing safeguard

New protection against financial fraud and identity theft has been incorporated into the new IE. A so-called “phishing filter” now appears on the Internet Options menu, which is intended to protect users against unknowingly disclosing private information to unauthorized third parties. Here’s how it works:

If a user visits a spoofed site which looks exactly like a genuine one – usually as a result of clicking on a link in a fraudulent email - the browser senses a phishing attempt and compares the site against a list of known phishing sites. If the filter finds the site is a phishing culprit, it blocks access to the site and informs the user of the danger of leaving his/her personal details on sites like this. The database of known phishing sites is updated regularly, and users have an option to report a suspected phishing instant to Microsoft for evaluation.

We’re pleased to report that, even in beta, the filter appears to work quite well, correctly identifying half of the test sites we visited as phishing sites.

In Firefox, phishing protection is delivered through third-party extensions such as Google Safe Browsing (currently in beta for US-based users only (see http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/safebrowsing/index.html); this can be plugged into the browser’s extension menu.

As additional protection against accidental phishing, the authors of IE have stated that they plan to make their product display the URL of every visited site. With IE 6, this capability was not available and many pop-ups appeared without displaying an address in the previously non-existent address bar. Unfortunately, in neither browser were we were able to achieve more than a fifty percent URL display ratio; we trust that this percentage will increase as the release of IE 7 approaches and Mozilla continues to work on improving its functionality in this area.

Restriction of executable Web content

In the current version of IE, suspect websites have been free to install almost any software they want on visitors’ machines. While XP SP2 has dramatically reduced this possibility, many unnecessary add-ons and toolbars can still be easily installed by inexperienced users. IE 7 should provide more protection for naïve users, as it will offer to run in protected mode, thus restricting access to the host OS files and settings and making these critical elements of the computer inaccessible to malware.

The default setting for Firefox 1.5 is to have installation of extensions and add-ons disabled; the user must manually change settings in order to enable adding extensions to the browser.

There will always be a tradeoff between security and functionality, but security experts always maintained that letting websites unrestrictedly launch executable code within the browser creates unlimited potential for exploitation. IE 7 will offer much greater flexibility in configuring which external code will be permitted to run within the browser and what impact it would have on the OS.

ActiveX restrictions

Aside from some graphics enhancement of web pages, in most cases ActiveX is more damaging than beneficial. Many sites that serve up spyware and pop-up ads use ActiveX scripting technology, and ActiveX scripting in the Windows environment can be allowed to run unrestrictedly with administrator (root) privileges. Firefox 1.5 does not support Microsoft’s proprietary ActiveX technology and so the Firefox browser is more resilient against spyware infection.

In IE6, even with SP2, ActiveX is allowed to run by default, which automatically renders IE users less protected against the threat of spyware. In the upcoming IE 7, it is not yet known whether Microsoft will continue this approach, but early indications point to this being the case. This would be unfortunate, since the current approach is a clear security vulnerability.

Of course, IE users can manually disable ActiveX scripting on a particular website and let ActiveX be started automatically on all other sites visited. Or, vice versa, they can disable ActiveX scripting on most of the sites visited and permit it to run on a particular site. All this can be configured under the Security tab in IE’s Options menu. However, it is hardly realistic to expect Internet novices, who need the most protection, to do this.

Java, JavaScript and Visual Basic components

Java and JavaScript can be enabled and disabled by both browsers. Firefox allows users to specify permissions for particular actions performed by these scripts. IE 6 allows users to create a group of trusted sites to which global limitations on these scripts will not apply. In IE 7, more flexibility will be added that will lead users toward a more customized display of web pages belonging to a particular site; it appears Firefox also plans to introduce more flexible parameters.

Internal download manager

IE 7’s download manager will be revamped, and feature an option to pause and resume downloads - a feature not available with the current version. Specific actions will be able to be defined following the completion of a download, and users can check the newly-downloaded file with their anti-virus before running it. This approach is already in place with Firefox, so Microsoft appears to be playing catch-up here.

Encryption of data on protected sites

When you submit sensitive information, such as transaction details to a bank or financial institution, it travels in an encrypted form through a secure HTTP (SHTTP) connection. The information is encrypted by your browser and decrypted at the receiving end. The new version of IE will use stronger encryption algorithms to reliably transfer your data without the risk of being intercepted and deciphered by someone in transit. A padlock icon indicating that a user is on a secure site will be placed in a more obvious place than currently, and more detailed information will be provided to help visitors check the authenticity of such sites.

Firefox currently has a better-organized display of security certificates for its users, so clearly Microsoft has a room for improvement.

Updating

Both browsers are updated automatically when new code is ready. Firefox has this update mechanism already in place, and for IE 7, it is expected that updates will be provided through Windows update technology.

Privacy enhancements

IE 7 will have the ability for users to flexibly set what private data will be saved and can be applied to different sites; users will be able to easily remove browsing history and other private details such as passwords, cookies, details submitted on web forms, download history, and temporary files. In IE 6, these files were stored all over the place and users have complained that there is no clear way to delete this information. Firefox 1.5 already provides this capability.

Conclusion

IE 7 promises a lot of interesting security and privacy enhancements that will help users stay more secure. With the final release users will receive a good, solid browser that, if Microsoft promises are fulfilled, will help it to compete well on the security front. As we have seen, Firefox 1.5 is already a role model, and it will be interesting to see what lies ahead for this talented challenger.

How To Clean The Registry

2008-11-30T22:55:00.000-08:00

In the beginning Windows' registry consisted of two files totalling around 5mb in size. Today it consists of at least 12 files with the Software file itself being 30mb or bigger in size. As the size of the registry has exploded, so has the trash and clutter in it. It may seem like a daunting task, but cleaning the registry properly can fix system problems, speed your computer up, and make it run more efficiently.

I have spent many years developing and refining thousands of procedures to do just that. I could share these methods of hunting down the trash with you and let you find them and delete them by hand, but if you were to sit down at your computer right now and work nonstop, you would still be busy with them a week from now when the next issue of Ray's Computer Tips arrives. By then your registry would have new clutter and you would have to start all over again.

To make registry cleaning easier on everyone, I wrote a program called RegVac Registry Cleaner (http://regvac.com/regvac.htm) to perform those procedures. It has been so successful that several companies have asked me to model their registry cleaners after RegVac and even more have copied processes that first debutted in RegVac.

The first place RegVac cleans is the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT section (the Classes Vac in RegVac does this). This section contains settings for the classes of Windows. Think of a huge box full of snakes and you will get an idea of how complicated and interwoven it is. It is so complicated that many registry cleaners bypass it or simply perform surface scans of it. RegVac uses over a hundred processes to follow each tentacle of each class deep into this area and make sure that they abide by the rules.

Next RegVac validates the entries in 22 lists with 7 different methods (the FilesList Vac does this). This is a minor part of RegVac but the bulk of most other registry cleaners even though they usually do not clean all 22 lists.

Another part of RegVac, the Software Vac, which is unique to RegVac, finds old software sections in the registry and provides a way to remove that software's entire branch. Other registry cleaners only remove a few entries in this area often leaving huge portions of the registry that do nothing but take up space and get in the way.

Even more trash can be discovered in hundreds of stashes used to store data you will never use. Most registry cleaners do not even touch these. The Stash Vac lists these stashes and lets you go through and select which ones to empty out. Please use caution when using the Stash Vac because some of the items listed there may be important. For example, one folder in the Stash Vac lists places where data for international keyboards are stored. You probably will never use the data for Bulgarian keyboards, so you can remove it, but if you live in the US you may experience problems after removing the United States 101 keyboard. The items that you can safely remove are usually obvious.

Last but not least, when cleaning the registry, you should look for broken links to files on the computer (this is what the Bad Link Vac does). If a file is referenced in the registry but it does not exist on your hard drive, that is a good indicator that something is wrong. Many programmers start out writing a registry cleaner thinking all it has to do is check for these broken links and remove them. In fact, that is all many registry cleaners do.

Even though that is all they do, they often don't do it correctly. If you check the results of such scans, you will find out that many of the broken links are really good links. I spent several months refining this part of RegVac so that as far as I know it is 100% accurate. Despite this, please realize that some software enter broken links in the registry and require them to be there in order for them to run. RegVac skips the ones it knows about, but you still need to be careful with this part of RegVac.

RegVac has six more tools that clean even more areas: the Add/Remove Editor, the System Config Utility, the OpenWith Editor, the AutoComplete Editor, the Junk Keys Editor, and Registry Backup, Pack, and Restore.

Keep the Windows registry clean and running smoothly with RegVac Registry Cleaner.

The Battle of the Browsers – The History and the Future of Internet Browsers

2008-11-30T07:43:00.000-08:00

With Internet Explorer 8 now available, can Microsoft hope to retain market dominance over fierce open source rivals such as Mozilla's Firefox or the feature packed Opera web browser. Can history give us a clue to what the future of web browsers/browsing might hold? How did Netscape Navigator go from having a dominant 89.36% market share of all web browsers in 1996 and yet only 3.76% by mid 1999?

Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.

People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla's Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?

Origins

The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 - that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The Browser Wars - Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer

Mosaic's decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

....................Netscape.......IE
October 1998..........64%......... 32.2%
April 1998............70%......... 22.7%
October 1997..........59.67%...... 15.13%
April 1997............81.13%...... 12.13%
October 1996..........80.45%...... 12.18%
April 1996............89.36%...... 3.76%

In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.

Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape's dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.

By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company rather than Netscape's user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 – 2005

These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape's ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it - adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.

2005 – Present

Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990's – Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer's market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.

The Future of Web Browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.

However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online 'world' creating an online virtual You to go from 'shop to shop' with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some 'worlds' allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.

Will 'worlds' like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? - It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.

Call of Duty: World At War (Review & Cheat)

2008-11-28T01:53:00.000-08:00

Description:

Utilizing the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare engine, Call of Duty: World at War throws out the rulebook of war to transform WWII combat through a new enemy, new tactics and an uncensored experience of the climatic battles that gripped a generation. As U.S. Marines and Russian soldiers, players employ new features like cooperative gameplay, and weapons such as the flamethrower in the most chaotic and cinematically intense experience to date. Call of Duty: World at War introduces co-operative play, bringing fresh meaning to the "No One Fights Alone" mantra with up to four-players online for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, or two-player local split-screen on consoles. Nintendo Wii will also support a unique co-op mode for two players. For the first time ever players can experience harrowing single-player missions together for greater camaraderie and tactical execution. The co-op campaign allows players to rank up and unlock perks in competitive multiplayer by completing challenges and earning experience points, adding continuous re-playability and team-based gameplay. Whether playing competitively or cooperatively â€“ if players are online with Call of Duty: World at War â€“ they always gain experience points. Based on a playerâ€™s experience rank and rank of the player's friends, Call of Duty: World at War scales dynamically to provide a deeper level of challenge.

System Requirement :

Minimum System Requirements
OS: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: Pentium 4 @ 3 GHz/AMD 64 3200+
Memory: 512 MB (1 GB for Vista)
Hard Drive: 8 GB Free
Video Memory: 256 MB (nVidia GeForce 6600/ATI Radeon X1600)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
Keyboard & Mouse
DVD Rom Drive

Cheat Codes

While playing the game, press ~ to display the console window. Type "devmap mak" and press [Enter] to enable cheat mode.

Password	Effect
give all	All weapons
sf_use_bw 1	Black and White movie mode
devmap [map name]	Change maps
notarget	Disable AI
god	God mode
sf_use_ignoreammo 1	Infinite ammo
mapname	List maps
noclip	No clipping mode
sf_use_invert 1	Photo negative mode
sf_use_chaplin 1	Silent movie mode