Star Wars The Old Republic is a PC game, classified as a MMO, for all of you that are not familiar with that, a MMO is a Massive Multiplayer Online, which means that the whole game is online and thousands of other players can interact with you while playing. The game is brought to you by Bioware and Electronic Arts, so if you are worried that the game may be canceled or not supported, you do not have to worry because with those titans of the industry behind it and the Star Wars name, this game should have a long life expectancy.

When starting the game you can choose from a variety of different types, from Sith Warrior, Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, to Jedi Knight. The one thing different from most MMOs, is that each class you choose has it’s own distinct story line. So if you played as four different characters you would get four different story lines.  Another great feature, is all missions are acted out with voice overs, which means no text box telling you the mission, Bioware took the time to animate every NPC that gives you a mission, which adds to the story driven missions.

The ability to solo most of the game is a nice touch for us loner console game players that just want to play the game, but there are many options to buddy up and play with friends.

The gameplay itself is nothing new. If you have played a MMO like World of Warcraft, then you will be familiar with the gameplay.  Pretty much walk here click on enemy, select different powers until enemy is dead then go back to person who gave you the mission and collect your experience points. That is basically it for gameplay, and you will do that for hours upon hours. Some people love it, some hate it. The graphics are pretty good, it really depends on how powerful your PC is. The sound of course as with any Star Wars game is always top notch, by far the best in game sound around.

If you will like Star Wars The Old Republic really depends on your love or hate for MMOs. It does not bring anything drastically new to the formula, but it does have a lot more story driven content then most MMOs.  So you won’t find yourself killing rabbits in a field for two days to level up.

Call of Duty Modern Warefare 3 is another game in a long line of Call of Duty games. By the title you can tell that these games no longer stick to just World War 2. The last game,  Black Ops covered the Cuban Missile Crisis. This title takes place in the near future, with Russia pretty much invading the whole planet.

The story is continued from the previous Modern Warfare games, there is an evil Russian general that has tricked Russia into going to war. Like usual, there are some over the top set pieces,  from the Eiffel Tower exploding, to whole buildings falling and fighting through them.

The single player is like playing a Micheal Bay movie, explosions and gunfire are the name of the game and if you have surround sound this game is one of the best sounding ones you will ever encounter. Really the only thing holding back the single player is the length which will probably only take around five hours.

The multiplayer is the bread and butter of this franchise, the spec ops is a lot of fun to do with a friend. But strangely you can not play co op in the campaign. There are tons of online modes, and for people who are rookies do not be afraid, I managed to get to level ten and I am horrible.

All in all the best Call of Duty game so far. 8 out of 10

The long awaited sequel to Marvel vs Capcom 2 is finally here, Marvel vs Capcom 3, is it worth the wait? Well sort of, Marvel vs Capcom 3 once again pits the super heroes of the Marvel Universe vs the characters of the Capcom universe. What Capcom has been able to do lately is really recapture the excitement of fighting games again, with 2D style game play with 3D visuals. If you have played Super Street Fighter 4 from last year you will be very familiar with this game.

The difference between this game and the Street Fighter series, is the simplicity of this game. The appeal of this game is anyone can play and have fun right away with it. There are still air combos and long chain combos, but they are not necessary to be competitive in this game. The hard core fighting fans in the long run will probably stick to Street Fighter, but for the rest of us, Marvel vs Capcom 3 will be your game.

The visuals and sounds really capture the feel of the old arcade, and there moments when the action is so crazy you can not even tell whats going on. Each match you get to choose three members of your team, and the objective is to knock out the three members of the other team before time runs out. There are about 39 characters to choose from, two of which will be released on March 15th for $5.00 each. The usual ones are in the game with a handful of new faces like Dante from Devil May Cry and Deadpool from Marvel.

As fun as this game is there is really not much to it, you get a standard arcade mode, where you fight about 8 different teams and then fight the main boss, Galactus. Then there is a mission mode, which is basically a mode to try to pull off all the combos for each character. Finally there is online which is a mixed bag, there is no spectator mode, so if you are in a lobby with people you just sit and wait and see nothing, kind of boring, also online you have your standard ranked matches and shadow matches where you play AI based on certain players.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a fun game, hands down, but could of used some more modes and features. Also the whole DLC route Capcom has been taking is a little on the cheesy side, $5.00 for one new character seems a little steep. The endings for each character are a little lame as well, just a still picture with a couple lines of text. Since it has been 10 years since the last game came out, they could of really loaded this game with more.

One piece of advice, if you get a chance and you can find an arcade stick for your system to play this on, go ahead and get it, it makes the game a lot more fun. The only problem is these can get a little expensive, so watch for sales!

A couple of years ago, EA (Electronic Arts) decided to launch some new franchises, Dead Space being one and Mirror Edge being the other. Neither game sold all that well, but EA felt that Dead Space was a franchise they could continue and profit from. Well their gambled paid off, Dead Space 2 out sold the original almost 3 to 1 making the sequel a much bigger hit and almost guaranteeing there will be more sequels to come.

How much you will like Dead Space 2 depends on how much you like sci-fi and horror movies. The game takes place on a moon of Saturn’s. You play as Engineer Isaac Clarke, and for the past several months you have been drugged and tricked into building a alien artifact. Of course everything goes wrong, you come out of your drug induced coma and now have to make it off the planet before the Necromorphs tear you limb from limb and you also have to destroy the alien artifact that you built, which is the size of a building.

Necromorphs are the monsters of this game, they are more or less mutated humans that just want to kill humans but not each other. You know I never understood that, why don’t monsters or zombies attack each other?  There seems to be more of them in these movies or games, you would think they would be easier targets for each other. Anyways, soon you find some gear and weapons and off you go through corridor after corridor of dimly lit rooms and hundreds of elevators.

The graphics are what you would expect from a AAA game, but the game is so dark at times it really does not matter what the graphics look like. The game play is your standard horror survival 3rd person view. On harder levels there is limited ammo and health, which is funny because they give you a ton of guns to choose from but just no ammo for them. There are also a few puzzles and anti gravity areas. The story is getting pretty large, not only do you have this game but you also have a animated movie and a downloadable game to help fill in all the back story, and there are also audio and text logs in this game to fill you in even more.

The game pretty much plays out  like this, go to a room kill the monsters, fix the object, then realize you need to fix another object in another room, so walk down dark corridor to elevator, then go into room kill monsters again, rinse and repeat for about 10 hours, while collecting health and ammo along the way. Dead Space is a fun game, but if this was a longer game it would probably become boring very quickly, but being about 10 hours is the appropriate length. Basically Dead Space 2 is Resident Evil in space.

Rent the game, play through one weekend and enjoy yourself.  You hardcore guys can play through it on all the different difficulty levels for many more hours of play.

The Fable franchise started on the original Xbox. The first game was a action adventure game with some role playing elements. The game was in a 3rd person view and had lots of British humor. The sequel came out on the Xbox 360 and expanded on what the first game started. Unlike the first one, this game leaned more heavily towards the role playing aspect of the game. There were tons of power ups, weapons, clothing and armor to buy as well as the introduction of buying properties. Just as the first one, the game was fairly simple with the combat and loaded with humor.

Fable 3 expands and subtracts from Fable 2. The cool thing about the Fable franchise is they move the time line forward with each new game. Fable 3 takes place about 50 years after the events of the second Fable. You play as the offspring from your hero in Fable 2. Unfortunately you have an older brother who has claimed the throne and he is not a beloved king, he is more like a tyrant, and your job is to gather the people and lead a revolt against your evil brother.

The combat is a simple as it comes, a button for each attack, one for melee, one for magic and one for ranged attacks from guns. I played the whole game and did not die once, it is that simple. Also the role playing elements have been very streamed lined, it just upgrades automatically, so if you are the type that like to upgrade certain aspects of your character than this game is not for you.

When playing Fable you soon realize that messing around and doing side quests are much more fun than actually playing the main missions. Really if you did not do any side quest you can finish the game in 8 hours. The pause button now is a sanctuary for you, so no matter where you are on the map, when you press the start button you will go to your hide out. You can still do all the fun things that make Fable unique, such as get married, have kids, buy houses, be friend villagers and take on an odd job or two.

Fable 3 is a fun game, but not with out faults. There are a lot of bugs in the game, your trial that leads you to your next objective will disappear at times and freezing in the game occurs from time to time. The only major gripe of the game I have is, you spend the whole game building your army and then the huge battle with your brother is one of the biggest let downs ever in video games.

This is a fun streamlined adventure, for more hardcore role playing you may want to look elsewhere, but for the more casual fan this is the game for you.

By Steve Markey From Movies-n-More.com

Halo Reach is a prequel to the first Halo game. This is the big battle where the humans got their butts kicked. So for this Halo there is no Master Chief, but there are a group of Spartans known as the Noble Unit. You play as Six, a member of Noble Unit. The game starts right before the invasion happens and picks up from there. When it comes to Halo I am more of a single player, I know, that is not the strong point of Halo games, but I do enjoy the story and finishing a single player campaign.

Why Halo Reach is the best single player experience out of all the Halo games is for one simple reason, no Flood! That is right, no annoying little crab creatures to shoot, thank you Bungie. In every Halo game the Flood stages are the worst. Also you can design your own Spartan to use during the game, male or female and all types of armor to pick from, there is no real bonus to any of the different types of armor, just makes it look cool.

The single player is not very long, right about the same length as all the previous games, coming in around 7 – 10 hours and that is plenty. the majority of the time will be spent playing countless hours of multi player for most gamers. Multi Player is where Halo games really shine, Bungie and their online game play is top notch and many companies should just follow their lead. Firefight is back, where you and some friends can go against waves of enemies, and there also a ton of other multi player options.

There are stages through out the single player where you will get to pilot a spaceship and a helicopter, these are some nice change of pace stages. Also new to this game are armor upgrades in the levels, you can swap them out as you find them, like a jet pack or hologram of your self. The hologram I found to be a nice addition, send it off one way while you come around and flank the enemy.

Graphics and sound are top notch, on level with any AAA title out there. The only thing I would of like to of seen is perhaps some new weapons to try out, all the guns are the same ones you have been using for years in this game. Also a lot of the game has a been there done that feel, there a few minor game tweaks but for the most part this game gives you exactly what you have had before, it is starting to get a little bit of the Madden syndrome, minor tweaks but same exact game.

Halo Reach is a nice send off to Bungie, they are moving on to different games and a new studio will be taking over the Halo franchise. Hopefully the new studio can freshen up the formula a little and give us something new in the future. But for now Halo Reach is a great multi player game with an average single player campaign.

Halo fanboys should buy the game.