The Sims 3 Collectors Edition

Enjoy the freedom of creating unique Sims and immersing them in a living, open neighborhood where they can pursue short- and long-term wishes to reap rewards. Customize your Sims’ appearances and choose individual personality traits to make them truly distinct. With unlimited design options, you can build everything from the ultimate dream home to a quaint beach cottage. The Sims 3 Collector’s Edition will amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief; get you all these exclusive extras:

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Neverwinter Nights 2 Storm of Zehir Expansion

Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) is a computer role-playing game set in the fantasy world of the Forgotten Realms, one of the popular campaign settings of Dungeons and Dragons. It takes the player from the tiniest of villages into a sweeping tale of danger and war, chronicling their rise from a peasant to a full-fledged hero of the Realms, defending it against one of the greatest threats of the age. Build a character that suits your style of play - good or evil, chaotic or lawful, with any number of skills, feats and professions available at the click of a button. Whether lobbing fireballs and researching forgotten spells as a powerful Wizard, hacking a trail through legions of orcs as a Fighter armed only with a battle axe and your courage, or taking on the role of a Rogue that can slip into the shadows at a moment’s notice, the choice is yours. Choose your alignment, your allies, your companions, and how you want your character to develop… design the character you want, role-play the way you want, and carry the battle to the enemy.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Hard core fans will love it.
For those who thought Neverwinter Nights had ended…you will be pleasantly surprised. This is the second expansion in the NWN series. There aren’t many changes but it does get you back playing the game. As the world recovers from the damages of the last campaign, a sect arises that worships the god Zehir. You start on a boat with a massive storm approaching…which is always a good way to start a quest…but most hardcore fans will see what’s coming a mile away. Once the ship wrecks it is up to you and your mates to navigate this new land with lengthy quests that will help make a name for you and your crew.

One of the biggest changes is your ability to fully customize every aspect of your party…they do include pre made designs…but trust me, take the time and build the party you want. But the most talked about addition is the 3-d map (overland map) that you use to move from point-to-point. It also shows you the location of all the enemies, allowing the user to decide whether to avoid confrontations…or to attack with swords blazing. Long time fans will also be introduced to two new races and three new classes.

Another less significant addition is the trading system, this is the users’ commerce, but it is really lack luster in Storm of Zehir…which you’ll find yourself avoiding whenever possible. The graphics haven’t improved much, but the sound is top notch…it does an excellent job conveying the emotions and scenes of the game. Despite the short comings this is a good addition to the Neverwinter Night series that gives you plenty to explore and plunder. Over all there is plenty to justify the second expansion and fans of the series will find themselves in similar places as they begin playing again.

1 Star Unforgivable
Based on the synopsis, I was rather pessimistic about this game, but I enjoy the Neverwinter franchise, and was eager to find myself mistaken.

I can forgive the endless loads. I can forgive the dozens of tedious encounters, all of which involved killing mindless monsters and none of which involved imagination. I can forgive the error-prone controls. I never actually finished the game because, even though I was a couple of levels higher than the game recommended, the last fight was impossible. Even that I can forgive.

Someday I may forgive the wretched voice acting. I might even be able to forgive that fact that the Neverwinter franchise is too cheap to hire the original actors when reintroducing characters from the original NWN2 campaign (using Dave Walsh instead of Asa Siegel for Bishop in MOTB made me want to drop-kick my computer . . . when they hired someone else to play Khelgar in SOZ, I had had it).

As I said, the synopsis I was given made little sense, and I suspected that the story wouldn’t either. I was wrong. There was no story at all. The half-hearted attempts at plot exposition and character development were turgid and purile. It had the sophistication and intrigue of a second grade school play (no offense to second-graders). There was no character interaction; it was like a party full of mannequins.

Before anyone accuses me have lacking the imagination to make up my own story, let me defend myself: There is a reason why I read, a reason why I play table-top D&D and a reason why I play video games. Table-top games allow me to invent my own characters and plots; video games and books allow me immerse myself in someone else’s inventions. If I wanted to immerse myself in something like SoZ, I’d reread “Jane and Dick.”

4 Stars Great Game! Like the Party Sytstem!
I really liked having multiple of my own custom builds in the party while still being able to have a cohort minority in the party. The game still has a biased protagonist leader (the character you loaded into the module) like Baldur’s Gate II (you have to hack through multiplayer, join with a single client and take control of some or all the slots), but unlike Baldur’s gate II, the the leading protagonist isn’t treated as anything special in the plot and all party members get the most of the epithet feats. The teamwork feats are cool and all current party members get those too upon grant.

The dungeons are much smaller, which is a bummer. I generally like the random roaving overland encounters (Ultima Exodus was like this) but I know other people don’t. But it is your 2nd biggest source of experience (quest rewards are 1st). Also the in-party dialog is a lot less, and the game doesn’t have companion influence, and very few things alter your alignment like in the original campaign. The Merchant company, if you really develop it, will make you filthy rich and you cannot even come up with a way to spend all the money. This requires most or all caravan routes setup, fully upgraded, with you helping out with the security by ‘joining’ the battles at the wagon trains as you see them get attacked going from point a to b (caravans do not get attacked or suffer damage off-screen), which can get very tedious. The new crafting system is much easier to use, but you have to have the recipe to craft. Can’t just look it up online and craft without a recipe like in the OC.

The plot is a lot less demonic (not in praising them or having them win, just in glorfying their strength, power, and numbers) than the OC or MoTB. It is more like playing regular-old D&D. There is still a lot of statue/idol worshipping and one statue-idol that actually does stuff, for the christians. Also the Forgotten Realms god of commerce, Waukeen, appears to have taken over all religious worship within the game, which signals that the love of money is being promoted big-time.

The party conversation is a sinch to put in your own modules. The player-creaed party system isn’t too bad, just have to set up a campaign with the built-in toolset plugin. Your own module scan have whatever party size limits you want, and there is a separate player-created party size limit (set through a campaign property), and a larger total party limit (set through script). The overland map is not as easy as it requires a lot of scripting to get things to work right.

1 Star Worst of the NWN2 games
There were two things that most people disliked about NWN2…the horrible faces of the characters and the awful load time. So what did they do? NOTHING about the first and a horrific INCREASE IN THE AMOUNTS OF LOADING. You have to load to go from the map to the towns/caves/towers and even load to fight. So what used to be 5 mins of loading (where one or more players got stuck and lost connectivity)with 30 or so mins of action is now 5 mins of loading x 2 mins of fighting x 10 times! To say I got bored is an understatement…and I tried several times to give it a chance.

And only one of the players get to move across the map leaving the others to watch and then to wait for saves, and wait for the fight/area to load.

This expansion is also very anti-spell caster as sleep to renew spells is not allowed in any area other than an inn (that you pay to rent a room) or the map (where you may run into trouble.) This is ironic because Resurrection is NOT automatic so you need a cleric; unfortunately, a cleric needs to be able to sleep to renew spells to heal and to resurrect.

I have no idea who rewrote the engine and this expansion but they should be fired for not giving a rat’s butt about what the people who went out and upgraded their pcs just to play the awesome graphics and put up with the lousy load times were saying about NWN2…Not MORE loading, LESS time loading.

Geez. How hard is that to get?

4 Stars Big plus, some minuses
The big plus here is FINALLY being able to control your party to the same level as Baldur’s Gate and some of the older D&D games. You can create every member of your 4 person team from scratch and control how they level up. There is also room for 1 or 2 other pre-created people in the party. Unlike some other reviewers, I don’t really miss all the bickering and cut scenes you get with pre-created party in NWN2:MOB, for example.

The new world map is overall a bit of a minus. There are just too many wandering monsters and the fights all take place about the same way - the monsters running at you in group from medium distance. Blast them with area spells, clean up and you are done - gets a little monotonous. Can’t say I really like the whole trading thing either - just a distraction.

The story line seems pretty standard stuff so far - I am not really that far into it. Lots of doing various favors and errands for people. And haven’t we had the Yuan-Ti as the bad guys before?

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Fallout 3

For 200 years, Vault 101, a fallout shelter, has served the surviving residents of Washington DC and its environs, now known as the Capital Wasteland. Though the global atomic war of 2077 left the US all but destroyed, the residents of Vault 101 enjoy a life free from Giant Insects, Raiders, Slavers, and yes, even Super Mutants. Yet one morning, you awake to find that your father has left the comfort and security afforded by Vault 101 for reasons unknown. Leaving the only home you’ve ever known, you emerge from the Vault into the harsh Wasteland sun to search for your father. Fallout 3 is a singleplayer action role-playing game (RPG) that combines the horrific insanity of the Cold War era theory of mutually assured destruction gone terribly wrong with the kitschy naivety of American 1950s nuclear propaganda.

Mind-Blowing Artificial Intelligence - Radiant AI, America’s First Choice in Human Interaction Simulation. Facial expressions, gestures, unique dialog, and lifelike behavior are brought together with stunning results Eye-Popping Prettiness - Witness the harsh realities of nuclear fallout rendered like never before in modern super-deluxe HD graphics

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars A “Blast” of Fun!
Fallout 3 was a lot of fun! I spent about 100 hours and never truly got bored. Bethesda did a great job of providing a sense of freedom in a world that was graphically stunning, logical, darkly charming, and for the first several game sessions downright scary. Even the soundtrack/music/radio options provided logical and humorous choices! Much better than Oblivion. This is the best “solo” FPS/RPG that I have ever played and my only complaint is that I am already done and I will miss the world of Fallout 3.

I have never bothered to write a review before, but Fallout 3 deserves the praise. Please don’t be fooled by the average of “three stars” - that average is brought down by technical glitches. When you read through those “one star” reviews you will see that even most of those disgruntled by the technical glitches loved this game.

5 Stars Fallout 3
There is nothing bad that I can say about Fallout 3, I have the PC and the 360 versions of the game and I love them. I have spent many hours just wandering around and doing whatever I please, that’s what makes is a great game. The free roaming and the battle system and complimented by the level ups that you gain through killing monsters and finishing quests.

1 Star F for Fallout 3
I enjoyed both Fallout and Fallout 2. I’ll pass on Fallout 3. I refuse to believe a game has to be laced with foul language to make it gritty or more realistic.

5 Stars Fallout 3
oh man..bethesda did a great job on this even though this is my first intro into the fallout series, and for all of you vet fallouts it clearly states this doesn’t really follow off of the last chapter. instead another story in the wastes of america and focusing on a certain character. im 8+ hours into the game and have just begun on the 2nd part of main story! last 7 was doing sidequests and getting higher lvl. exploring the wastes of D.C. is insane! was overwhelmed on the options of what to do….and intimidated cause anything above 3 raiders and i was owned xD. im runnin this on a c2d e8XXX proc with a 8600gt 512mb card so i cant really do much pertaining to graphical specs on this game although what ive experienced even for these spec areas is unbelievable! windows xp seems to have a problem loading the client for me to download the latest expansion, liberation anchorage…says i need a hotfix but just forwards me to a troubleshoot page..wtf is up with this? no problems considering bugs as of yet..though had one switching out of my pip-boy one time fighting some mutants..might of been cause i was testing out high settings on my gfx…whether if your an rpg person or just curious this is worth the buy. i seemed to have gotten this while it wes 39.99 ^^. lucky me as well with the super save shipping. refer to other reviews for more thorough input as this is my first take on the fallout happenings. i will say this is well worth the 40bucks unlike some others ive bought which turned out to be 10hr sitdowns…

5 Stars Simply Stunning
Fallout 3 takes you to the future, and lands you in the middle of the Capital Wasteland. This game is absolutely stunning for any RPG fanatic. Best of all, you can play it however you want. Don’t feel like shooting things? Sneak around them or even talk it out. Fallout 3 is THE game of the year for 2008.

The DRM in this game is nothing more than a disk check, but cracks are readily available. Also, it did freeze, but that wasn’t the game’s fault. My computer was overheating. After I fixed the heat problems, I haven’t had a single hiccup. I suggest to the one star reviewers that they actually play the game, or at least make sure they have a reason to complain.

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World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack

Fans of World of Warcraft, prepare for Blizzard Entertainment’s next installment — World of Warcraft: Wrath of King Lich. In this latest expansion, something is afoot in the cold, harsh northlands. The Lich King Arthas has set in motion events that could lead to the extinction of all life on Azeroth. The necromantic power of the plague and legions of undead armies threaten to sweep across the land. Only the mightiest heroes can oppose the Lich King and end his reign of terror.

The tuskarr, a walrus-like race of nomadic fisherman, inhabit the icy Borean Tundra. View larger.

Half-giant warriors, the vrykul, once inhabited the land. View larger.

You’ll enjoy exploring Northrend and all its environments and dungeons. View larger.

Explore Northrend and battle the Lich King with World of Warcraft’s first hero class character — The Death Knight. View larger.

One of many new environments, Dragonblight is an arctic wasteland surrounded by dense forests. View larger.

Many strange and terrifying creatures inhabit this frozen continent. View larger.

Enter the Death Knight
This expansion adds a host of content to the already massive existing game world. Players will achieve soaring levels of power, explore Northrend (the vast icy continent of the Lich King), and battle high-level heroes to determine the ultimate fate of Azeroth. As you face the dangers of the frigid, harsh north, prepare to master the dark necromantic powers of the Death Night — World of Warcraft’s first Hero class. No longer servants of the Lich King, the Death Knights begin their new calling as experienced, formidable adversaries. Each is heavily armed, armored, and in possession of a deadly arsenal of forbidden magic.

If you have a World of Warcraft account with a character of at least level 55, you will be able to create a new level-55 Death Knight of any race (if on a PvP realm, the Death Knight must be the same faction as your existing character). And upon entering the new world, your Death Knight will begin to quest to level 80, gaining potent new abilities and talents along the way. This expansion allows for only one Death Knight per realm, per account.

New Environments in Northrend Await
Journey through the remote, diverse lands of Northrend and explore Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Borean Tundra, and Howling Fjord. Named for bones of perished dragons and majestic shrines to the fallen creatures, Dragonblight is an arctic wasteland surrounded by dense forests.

Not everything is frozen in Northrend. The lush mountains of Grizzly Hills are the ancestral home to the furbolgs, who have grown accustomed to relative peace. Although their tranquility is being challenged by trappers, goblins, and ice trolls, Grizzly Hills remains a vast and dangerous wilderness.

The southwestern tip of Northrend is home to the sprawling Borean Tundra. The Horde has established a dominant presence in this icy portion of the continent and has formed a bond with the tuskarr, a walrus-like race of nomadic fisherman. Magical energy is afoot in the region, and it has caused increased tension.

High above the Great Sea at the southeastern tip of Northrend lies the Howling Fjord. Ancient mythology holds that a race of half-giant warriors, the vrykul, once inhabited the land, founding a prosperous civilization. They mysteriously vanished, leaving deserted villages and abandoned temples. In present times, the Alliance and the Horde have come to Howling Fjord to confront the Lich King. Strangely, this has prompted the return of the vrykul, who are attacking the Alliance and Horde settlements. Howling Fjord presents a difficult challenge on two fronts: withstanding the vrykul’s onslaught and battling the evil Lich King.

A Multitude of Monsters
Strange and terrifying creatures inhabit the frozen continent of Northrend, such as Nerubian Viziniers, Plague Eruptors, Shoveltusks and Flesh Giants, to name just a few. Half-spider, half-humanoid, the viziniers utilize sorcery and high intelligence to emerge as the rulers of Nerubians’ underground kingdom. The Plague Eruptors are walking corpses created by the Lich King’s evil experiments to spread horror and chaos across the living world.

Massive curved antlers make it easy to identify the Shoveltusks. These grumpy beasts are very dangerous, territorial, and best left alone. The Flesh Giants are nothing short of nightmarish abominations. Cobbled together from the pieces of giant body parts, the Flesh Giants employ tremendous strength to carry out the Lich King’s wishes.

The World of Warcraft: Wrath of King Lich expansion pack allows you to engage in epic siege warfare. The pack presents the first Hero class and allows you to transform your Death Knight’s look with character customization that even include hairstyles and dances. You’ll enjoy exploring the Northrend and all its environments and dungeons, filled with some of the deadliest creatures — and greatest treasures — on all of Azeroth.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great Expansion
I love this expansion! It has added so much more depth and more fun elements to this game. I (like many people I’ve talked to) were getting really sick of the Burning Crusade. I actually almost quit playing but held on with hope that Wrath of the Lich King would deliver. All that gear grabbing and trying to get into raids wore very thin. Thankfully Wrath was everthing I needed to jump start my passion for this game. I’m glad that Blizzard made this more of a questing game again and added a lot more story to the quests. A must buy for all.

4 Stars Wrath of Lich King……FINALLY
Like most obssessed WoW’ers I waited and waited for the new expansion to finally hit the shelves. I plotted my midnight run, took time off to install and try to level, and planned on all the new goodies I was going to get for my char. With the new content and so much to see you hardly have time to level before you’re looking at new raids and instances to get up to epic mode again. With any expansion pack there are the good points and the bad. The new content can become a grind to level up, and the new raids are for serious raiders only. Casuals can usually find a good PUG, but if you’re not seriously geared, you’ll have a long time before you’ll find anyone to help out. Also there are the “cons” of the new content. Most of the classes have been nerfed beyond recognition, and if you’re playing a Warlock, you’ll want to immediately start a new char until they get the class repaired. The Death Knight is a nice new hybrid, but with everyone building one, the servers are DK heavy and actual class light. Healers have become almost non existant, so choose wisely Luke (LOL). You’ll want something you can smash through almost all content alone with and be able to pick up some decent trash gear so you can get that coveted invite to a PUG for heroics and raids. There you’ll find the best gear, if you can get an invite. Then you have to deal with master looters, and greedy ninjas. With new professions added and new recipies for all profs, you’ll never run out of things to do. My personal favorite is the new Wintersgrasp BG. Even the casual Pvp’er can get some choice items after only a few battles. Since it’s such a popular event, joining a group for WG is pretty easy, making the points pile up. In fact with only one battle I was topping 2K xp for new armor. The regular arenas and battlegrounds are again under construction, but I have faith that the Blizzard elves are working hard to get it back to where it was. Of course,there’s the constant whine on the forums, but isn’t that why we love the game??

3 Stars Long Time Fan, Let Down
I’ve been playing WoW since the beginning, and so it pains me to have to say that I feel this expansion either isn’t finished, or that Bliz has gotten sloppy.

What’s wrong:

1. They’ve created massive buildings in many of the towns, and if you go upstairs or look around, there’s literally nothing in half of them. They’re totally empty. No chairs, no couches, no fires, no nothing. Floors, walls, and stairs, that’s it. It makes the world feel so much less alive. In one town in particular they made huge buildings, and it’s like they forgot to put things in them. I sent upstairs in one and there was literally about four giant floors to this building and outside of the first floor there was nothing on any of the other floors. Not an NPC, not a chair, not a fire, not a picture. Nothing.

2. In Burning Crusade I was changing out lvl 60 purples for new lvl 61 greens. Meaning, my rare gear was being made worthless by common items at lvl 61. That bugged me, but what bugs me more is that from level 70 to level 79 I had only replaced 2 pieces of my level 70 epic items. They went from one extreme to the next, and going through a long leveling process without the fun of upgrading gear made the game a lot less fun for me. I hit level 80 and upgraded all of my gear with auction house rare items, and finally got that upgrade, but it was pretty much one big upgrade, and not a process. Again, not fun. Next time, hopefully the split the difference between BC and LK.

3. No recipes to search for and buy in the world. It seems they did away with having rare recipes be given by various NPC’s in the environment. Everything is trainable now, and the reasons for checking all of the NPC’s are gone. If you need to sell something or get a repair, it’s your only reason to talk to an NPC merchant. This relates again to point one, the world feels dead. Those little hidden items that only certain merchants would sell added something to the game that made it seem a bit more alive and interesting. No longer could I go into a town excited to see what I might find for sale there, because there’s nothing to find of interest anymore.

So those may seem like minor gripes to some, but it made the entire leveling process, which is long, a boring chore.

5 Stars WOW! need I say more
This is a very addicting game. From roleplaying to doing quests and learning professions. You can play in groups or solo. This is a great game I really like the graphics and in general it’s a clean fun game to play. Although blizzard could be more original with some of the buildings it’s fun to play.

3 Stars For better or worse, its WoW with a new difficulty curve
For the most part, this is by far the best incarnation of WoW yet. Northrend is joy to quest in since it looks nice, has excellent lore (at least for the alliance) that involves you like never before, and a new class that is really fun to play. However, after awhile the novelty of all this new stuff wears off and you’re left with the end game content to keep you playing. As someone who can’t raid, I was really looking forward to getting to run the new heroics and things. However, Blizzard’s new philosophy on the “difficulty scaling” of the game has pretty much completely changed the way end game content runs. After less than a month of playing, my friends and I were tearing through the heroics like nothing. Its hard to get psyched for new gear when you can already dominate in what you have. Heroics in TBC were basically hard as heck raids for 5 people, and I miss that. Heroics aren’t the only casualty to the new system: I’ve never seen so many people with the best gear in the game before just running around. My friends that do raid have nothing left to do, and are now just epicly gearing out all their alts. That situation will be fixed with patches, but it stinks to have to just wait for everything. This is basically the first time playing the game I (and my friends) were left with nothing to do except level alts. I can’t really comment on the pvp state of the game since that’s not my thing (bg’s are the most frustrating thing ever… especially on Alliance).

In summary, exploring the new world for the first time is fun, but that’s about it. If you can’t raid and aren’t obsessed with pvp, find an alt you love or be prepared for boredom.

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Call of Duty World at War

Go to war in the final tension-filled, unforgiving battles against a new ferocious enemy in the most dangerous and suspenseful action ever seen in WWII. Call of Duty: World at War completely changes the rules of engagement by redefining WWII gaming. It brings an uncensored edge to combat, as soldiers face the most harrowing and climatic European and Pacific battles. From the remains of Russia and the ruins of Berlin, to the beach and jungles of the deadly Pacific Theater, the volatile action takes on added depth as you employ new features that previously were only available in multiplayer, including perks, rankings and online stats in up-to full four-player cooperative gameplay.

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars No Controller Support
I picked up this game for PC because I really enjoyed it on XBOX 360, but don’t feel like spending the money for the console. The box for this game states that it has game controller support, specifically support for the XBOX 360 controller when used via USB in a PC. This is not the case, and the PC version actually offers no game controller support, despite the fact Activision says it does on the game box. Just a heads up. I was pretty disappointed, and got a pretty lame excuse back from Activision when I inquired about it.

5 Stars COD has done a good job again
All I can say is I am still playing it and it is cool with the zombies, flame thrower, bazooka and bayonet action. Graphic are good especially when you use the flame thrower. Thank God they made a PC version I have them all now and hope the next one they dont wait to put it out in PC as well as Xbox playstation versions. The game is worth playing.

1 Star Bought 2 copies and feel doubly stupid
This is my first product review ever.

I actually bought 2 copies of this game so we could play co-op over the LAN.

I was such a COD fan. COD1, COD1:UO, COD2, COD4. They were all great.

COD5 stinks. I can’t believe that I can’t get my money back. We have two computers that easily meet the minimum specs, but the game is essentially unplayable with incredible long, long load times and choppy performance if you’re patient enough to wait for the game and level to load. We both run COD4 at the highest settings with super smooth game play.

I combed every forum and tried every possible fix. Forget Activision’s own site. It’s worthless.

I think I’ll put the DVD’s in the shredder. That’ll surely be the most fun I’ve had with this game.

4 Stars A good WWII sim, with Co-op
I know the software developer got raked over the coals for Call Of Duty 3, but this was a good game. By splitting the 15 missions between the Eastern Front and the Pacific Islands, you get to alternate flavors.

I’ve never been a big fan of the Call of Duty “limitless enemies until you move to the next checkpoint”, which is one of the few things keeping this from a 5 star rating. If you attack a small bunker, Japanese soldiers should not be able to continuously pour out of it like its a circus clown car. But the overall game is tense, action-packed and has a wide variety of missions.

The zombie level is a bit disappointing after playing Left 4 Dead, but still an interesting spin. If the loading screen didn’t announce what it was, it would have been a fun one to surprise my friends with who had just got the game when we did a LAN session.

The flamethrower is great for the trench fights. You SHOULD be able to pick one up from a German flamthrower that you headsniped, but I guess they are saying it is too much for your Russian peasant brain to handle. A pity that. Plus, it seems strange that the Russian you play is considered to be quite the hero, yet he never gets past the rank of Private.

The single player was enjoyable, but coop brings it to an all new level. Most of the time I am stuck with single player due to time constraints (playing on a laptop at lunch) but online and LAN games are the best. I am very glad they made a coop mode, instead of just the team versus team or deathmatch modes. Now, how about a sequel letting you play as Germans or British in North Africa?

4 Stars Great Game
COD5 is a great game with great graphics, especially with DX10. If you can find the game for under 40 bucks– get it, u’ll love it.

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The Sims 3 Collectors Edition

Enjoy the freedom of creating unique Sims and immersing them in a living, open neighborhood where they can pursue short- and long-term wishes to reap rewards. Customize your Sims’ appearances and choose individual personality traits to make them truly distinct. With unlimited design options, you can build everything from the ultimate dream home to a quaint beach cottage. The Sims 3 Collector’s Edition will amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief; get you all these exclusive extras:

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The Sims 2 Double Deluxe

If you love the Sims, you’ll love this collection. It includes The Sims 2, The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack, The Sims 2 Celebration Stuff Pack, plus a bonus DVD in one great collection. Create your own Sims, homes, and family dynasties - then help your Sims experience the rewards of a life well lived or neglect their needs, indulge their fears, and see what happens. As your Sims’ family grows, you’ll even see them pass on genes from one generation to the next. With The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack, take your Sims downtown in their own cars for an unforgettable night of dancing ’til dawn, romancing that special someone, and much more. Then host the social event of the season with The Sims 2 Celebration Stuff Pack. Throw an elegant wedding, the ultimate fiesta, the biggest birthday bash, whatever your Sims want to celebrate.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Haven’t got a chance yet
I haven’t been able to play it yet, be cause my computers vid card doesn’t support it, but my sister has played it. She said it was really good.

5 Stars My two cents - must have game!!
Lots of reviews to tell you about gameplay. I just want to add that my four kids all love this game. Two boys who usually spend their time on COD4 and two girls who usually have no use for computer games. I came home last night and all four were gathered around the monitor discussing how their various “families” were interacting.

All games can teach logic to some degree - but I think that Sims teach several lines of logic as well as gameplay theory without ever bringing the subject up… with school age kids - how sweet is that!!!?

Definitely a must have game - I highly recommend!

All the best,

Jay

4 Stars How Fun!!
Once I looked up a cheat code so I would have enough money to really enjoy the game…it has been a blast!!! It is very addicting!!

1 Star The Sims 2 : Double Deluxe
Could not get this game to work and EA Games customer service wasn’t any help. I installed and reinstalled this game several times, followed instructions to the letter and searched for help on EA Games website. It sits on my shelf now to collect dust.

5 Stars Must be great.
One of my kids is addicted to this. Is that good? I’m not sure. In terms of the number of starts, I’m rating it as I think my kid would.

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Neverwinter Nights 2 Storm of Zehir Expansion

Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) is a computer role-playing game set in the fantasy world of the Forgotten Realms, one of the popular campaign settings of Dungeons and Dragons. It takes the player from the tiniest of villages into a sweeping tale of danger and war, chronicling their rise from a peasant to a full-fledged hero of the Realms, defending it against one of the greatest threats of the age. Build a character that suits your style of play - good or evil, chaotic or lawful, with any number of skills, feats and professions available at the click of a button. Whether lobbing fireballs and researching forgotten spells as a powerful Wizard, hacking a trail through legions of orcs as a Fighter armed only with a battle axe and your courage, or taking on the role of a Rogue that can slip into the shadows at a moment’s notice, the choice is yours. Choose your alignment, your allies, your companions, and how you want your character to develop… design the character you want, role-play the way you want, and carry the battle to the enemy.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Hard core fans will love it.
For those who thought Neverwinter Nights had ended…you will be pleasantly surprised. This is the second expansion in the NWN series. There aren’t many changes but it does get you back playing the game. As the world recovers from the damages of the last campaign, a sect arises that worships the god Zehir. You start on a boat with a massive storm approaching…which is always a good way to start a quest…but most hardcore fans will see what’s coming a mile away. Once the ship wrecks it is up to you and your mates to navigate this new land with lengthy quests that will help make a name for you and your crew.

One of the biggest changes is your ability to fully customize every aspect of your party…they do include pre made designs…but trust me, take the time and build the party you want. But the most talked about addition is the 3-d map (overland map) that you use to move from point-to-point. It also shows you the location of all the enemies, allowing the user to decide whether to avoid confrontations…or to attack with swords blazing. Long time fans will also be introduced to two new races and three new classes.

Another less significant addition is the trading system, this is the users’ commerce, but it is really lack luster in Storm of Zehir…which you’ll find yourself avoiding whenever possible. The graphics haven’t improved much, but the sound is top notch…it does an excellent job conveying the emotions and scenes of the game. Despite the short comings this is a good addition to the Neverwinter Night series that gives you plenty to explore and plunder. Over all there is plenty to justify the second expansion and fans of the series will find themselves in similar places as they begin playing again.

1 Star Unforgivable
Based on the synopsis, I was rather pessimistic about this game, but I enjoy the Neverwinter franchise, and was eager to find myself mistaken.

I can forgive the endless loads. I can forgive the dozens of tedious encounters, all of which involved killing mindless monsters and none of which involved imagination. I can forgive the error-prone controls. I never actually finished the game because, even though I was a couple of levels higher than the game recommended, the last fight was impossible. Even that I can forgive.

Someday I may forgive the wretched voice acting. I might even be able to forgive that fact that the Neverwinter franchise is too cheap to hire the original actors when reintroducing characters from the original NWN2 campaign (using Dave Walsh instead of Asa Siegel for Bishop in MOTB made me want to drop-kick my computer . . . when they hired someone else to play Khelgar in SOZ, I had had it).

As I said, the synopsis I was given made little sense, and I suspected that the story wouldn’t either. I was wrong. There was no story at all. The half-hearted attempts at plot exposition and character development were turgid and purile. It had the sophistication and intrigue of a second grade school play (no offense to second-graders). There was no character interaction; it was like a party full of mannequins.

Before anyone accuses me have lacking the imagination to make up my own story, let me defend myself: There is a reason why I read, a reason why I play table-top D&D and a reason why I play video games. Table-top games allow me to invent my own characters and plots; video games and books allow me immerse myself in someone else’s inventions. If I wanted to immerse myself in something like SoZ, I’d reread “Jane and Dick.”

4 Stars Big plus, some minuses
The big plus here is FINALLY being able to control your party to the same level as Baldur’s Gate and some of the older D&D games. You can create every member of your 4 person team from scratch and control how they level up. There is also room for 1 or 2 other pre-created people in the party. Unlike some other reviewers, I don’t really miss all the bickering and cut scenes you get with pre-created party in NWN2:MOB, for example.

The new world map is overall a bit of a minus. There are just too many wandering monsters and the fights all take place about the same way - the monsters running at you in group from medium distance. Blast them with area spells, clean up and you are done - gets a little monotonous. Can’t say I really like the whole trading thing either - just a distraction.

The story line seems pretty standard stuff so far - I am not really that far into it. Lots of doing various favors and errands for people. And haven’t we had the Yuan-Ti as the bad guys before?

1 Star Worst of the NWN2 games
There were two things that most people disliked about NWN2…the horrible faces of the characters and the awful load time. So what did they do? NOTHING about the first and a horrific INCREASE IN THE AMOUNTS OF LOADING. You have to load to go from the map to the towns/caves/towers and even load to fight. So what used to be 5 mins of loading (where one or more players got stuck and lost connectivity)with 30 or so mins of action is now 5 mins of loading x 2 mins of fighting x 10 times! To say I got bored is an understatement…and I tried several times to give it a chance.

And only one of the players get to move across the map leaving the others to watch and then to wait for saves, and wait for the fight/area to load.

This expansion is also very anti-spell caster as sleep to renew spells is not allowed in any area other than an inn (that you pay to rent a room) or the map (where you may run into trouble.) This is ironic because Resurrection is NOT automatic so you need a cleric; unfortunately, a cleric needs to be able to sleep to renew spells to heal and to resurrect.

I have no idea who rewrote the engine and this expansion but they should be fired for not giving a rat’s butt about what the people who went out and upgraded their pcs just to play the awesome graphics and put up with the lousy load times were saying about NWN2…Not MORE loading, LESS time loading.

Geez. How hard is that to get?

4 Stars Great Game! Like the Party Sytstem!
I really liked having multiple of my own custom builds in the party while still being able to have a cohort minority in the party. The game still has a biased protagonist leader (the character you loaded into the module) like Baldur’s Gate II (you have to hack through multiplayer, join with a single client and take control of some or all the slots), but unlike Baldur’s gate II, the the leading protagonist isn’t treated as anything special in the plot and all party members get the most of the epithet feats. The teamwork feats are cool and all current party members get those too upon grant.

The dungeons are much smaller, which is a bummer. I generally like the random roaving overland encounters (Ultima Exodus was like this) but I know other people don’t. But it is your 2nd biggest source of experience (quest rewards are 1st). Also the in-party dialog is a lot less, and the game doesn’t have companion influence, and very few things alter your alignment like in the original campaign. The Merchant company, if you really develop it, will make you filthy rich and you cannot even come up with a way to spend all the money. This requires most or all caravan routes setup, fully upgraded, with you helping out with the security by ‘joining’ the battles at the wagon trains as you see them get attacked going from point a to b (caravans do not get attacked or suffer damage off-screen), which can get very tedious. The new crafting system is much easier to use, but you have to have the recipe to craft. Can’t just look it up online and craft without a recipe like in the OC.

The plot is a lot less demonic (not in praising them or having them win, just in glorfying their strength, power, and numbers) than the OC or MoTB. It is more like playing regular-old D&D. There is still a lot of statue/idol worshipping and one statue-idol that actually does stuff, for the christians. Also the Forgotten Realms god of commerce, Waukeen, appears to have taken over all religious worship within the game, which signals that the love of money is being promoted big-time.

The party conversation is a sinch to put in your own modules. The player-creaed party system isn’t too bad, just have to set up a campaign with the built-in toolset plugin. Your own module scan have whatever party size limits you want, and there is a separate player-created party size limit (set through a campaign property), and a larger total party limit (set through script). The overland map is not as easy as it requires a lot of scripting to get things to work right.

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The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Game of the Year Edition

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition (GotY) for Windows is a compilation of this classic RPG game. Oblivion GotY will include the original version of the award-winning RPG Oblivion along with the official expansion, The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles, and the downloadable content, Knights of the Nine. This new product allows players who have never played the 2006 Game of the Year to experience Oblivion for the first time with additional content. In addition, gamers can continue their existing games of Oblivion and experience the new quests and areas offered by the expansion and downloadable content.
Oblivion features a powerful combination of free-form gameplay, unprecedented graphics, cutting edge AI, character voices by acting legends Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, Terrance Stamp, and Lynda Carter, and an award-winning soundtrack. Gamers can choose to unravel Oblivion’s epic narrative at their own pace or explore the vast world in search of their own unique challenges.
With more than 30 hours of new gameplay, Shivering Isles allows you to explore an entirely new plane of Oblivion - the realm of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness. Shivering Isles features a bizarre landscape split between the two sides - Mania and Dementia -filled with vast, twisting dungeons mirroring the roots of the trees they are buried within. Sheogorath himself looks to you to be his champion and defend his realm and its inhabitants from destruction as you discover all new items, ingredients, spells, and much more. The Shivering Isles features a bizarre landscape split between the two sides - Mania and Dementia -filled with vast, twisting dungeons mirroring the roots of the trees they are buried within. You’ll encounter more than a dozen new creatures including hideous insects, Flesh Atronachs, skeletal Shambles, amphibious Grummites. Throughout your adventure, you will discover all new items.
Knight

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Stopped Working after 1 month
This is a great game but unfortunately within a month the pc keeps telling me “please insert Cd”. It isnt working anymore though other CDs work in my pc. This one does not work in other people’s CD drive either- what a waste of my money!

5 Stars Oblivion pc
Awesome Game. And you can download Mods for it at planet elderscrolls that add tons of hours to the game as if it wasn’t big enough or something.

5 Stars What can I say?
This game is incredible! The depth of gameplay, the graphics, the voice acting, the music, it’s all top notch and adds up to a very fun and satisfying experience. Although I have come across a few minor bugs and crashes playing this game on my Vista 64-bit machine, overall it is pretty solid.

5 Stars great PC game
This game is awesome. Unfortunately, on my machine it has to run on relatively low graphics, but it still looks good and is tons of fun. Strangely, the only time I’ve seen it crash is after I’ve chosen to quit.

5 Stars Great buy
I purchased this game a couple of days before I had to be back to college. I received it the day before i left, and was very pleased. The game play has been great, easily being one of the best games I have played in a long time. If you enjoy these kind of games, I would recommend this one. I have put well over 70 hours into it, and am still around half way done with the main quest line, with many other side quests to accomplish, along with 2 expansion packs in which I have not even started yet. This game is worth every penny you put into it.

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Empire Total War

Control the sea, command great armies, forge a new nation and conquer the globe. Empire: Total War takes the Total War franchise to the 18th Century and the Age of Imperialisma time of near perpetual war. This latest installation in th

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