With the release of the movie 300, Spartans rekindled a glorious (if warped) life in the general population's imagination. Unfortunately, the recently released Ancient Wars: Sparta isn't going to help promote much fascination with the time period. This is a game we've all played before in virtually every aspect. Combat is dull and devoid of many of the tactical trickeries that we see in many other real-time strategy titles and the campaigns, while occasionally interesting, don't provide a consistent stream of entertainment. Even one of the most interesting ideas in the game that allows players to outfit their own armies with different types of weapons and armor suffers because of the lack of focused units with purpose.

Ancient Wars: Sparta takes place during the period of Xerxes and Leonidas. The conflict between the Greeks and the Persians of this time has become legendary thanks to the famed battle of Thermopylae where 300 Spartans (in reality they were accompanied by a couple thousand more troops from around Greece) held a narrow passage against an army of Persians nearly one million strong. The game presents three campaigns following the Spartans as they unite and then fight the Persians, Egyptians as they struggle to gain a life out from under the crushing boot of King Xerxes, and finally the Persians and Xerxes rise to power and ambition. The stories in each campaign are told through pre-compressed cutscenes that use in-game assets. Unfortunately they're compressed to hell and back and look terrible when playing on decent sized monitor.

Each of the campaigns comes with a variety of missions but all of them devolve into simply massing units and attacking. There are very few real tactical strategies used when making your way through a map. If you've got some ranged units and some melee units, that's about as complex as you can get. Most of the units have only a standard attack without any special moves or formations to make gameplay more unique. While some of the missions are paced fairly well, like one in the middle of the Egyptian campaign where you ally with Lybians, many of them are ponderous in their progression. Constructing an army can take a painfully long time.

The only way to speed up incredibly long training and upgrading processes is to gather the weapons and shields of fallen enemies in order to add them to the build queue. Not only does collecting these items make build times shorter for the units that use them, but also makes them much less expensive. It still can be a chore collecting the things when workers have to run halfway across the map to your home base. Constructing a new home base can be cost prohibitive as well as collecting gold can take a serious amount of time.

Sadly, one of the most interesting features also causes one of the game's worst problems. It's the unit design. Each of the factions has light, medium, and heavily armed warriors. Each of these basic types can be outfitted with several different types of weapons. Training a warrior from the basic infantry structure will give them melee first priorities while the ranged training facility will allow for ranged combat first. Each of the weapon types (of which there are many) have different damage values and work better against certain types of enemies.

The cool part of this is that you can set up your own types of units using different combinations for different costs, armor, and damage values. The problem is, the unit design loses focus too quickly and it's hard to keep track of what units are where and which weapons they're using. When you mix in armor and weapons from other factions, the visual queues on the battlefield can be very confusing. The same goes for mounts. Anyone can hop on a ride on the battlefield, which makes micromanagement a bitch, and can confuse the issue even more. Picking the right guy to ride the horse as the horse walks away back to the stable is a pain.

This kind of design also tends to muddle any uniqueness to the factions. Who cares who you're using if most of the units basically act the same? There are some difference between the factions that matter, but at a base level, I've found no reason to favor one side over the other.

Even the presentation of audio is aggravating at times. When Persians sound straight out of Monty Python, you should know you've done something wrong. Why not hire some people with the correct accents to do your voice work at least? There's a lot of people of Persian descent in the world to choose from.

Perhaps one of the most disappointing things for someone with a good computer is going to be the game's lack of support for 1920x1200 resolution. In fact, if you have a 16x10 monitor, the highest res you'll be able to play at is 1152x864 because the game won't let you choose a resolution that doesn't fit your aspect ratio. It's really too bad because the game certainly isn't ugly and would probably have looked pretty good at a higher resolution. The art won't blow anybody away but combat units and environments look decent enough to be upset by the gigantic interface that takes up way to much real estate.

©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In your first few moments, it's the story that pulls you in. Just like Bilbo famously leaving Bag End without his pocket handkerchief, you are thrown unexpectedly into the great events of the story of the Lord of the Rings. Frodo has fled the Shire., and your first quest finds you along the road toward Bree, when suddenly the screen darkens as one of the Black Riders, searching for the Ring, comes into view.

Whichever race you choose (Hobbit, Elf, Dwarf or Human) you'll find yourself caught up in a different part of the story. A series of storyline quests takes you from your starting point into the world at large, punctuated with climactic battles and events. As a player, you still have complete freedom to go where you like and do what you want -- but the story backbone always gives you something to return to, even if you have taken a few detours.

And once you get a look at the game world, you're going to want to take a few detours. Middle Earth looks great. The rolling landscape feels solid and fairly realistic, but doesn't lose touch with its fantastic roots. Settlements, towns and ruins hide behind each hill, and seeing distant mountains crowned with stars is a downright elvish experience.

You'll be rewarded for exploring the world, too. In addition to quests, which lead you to various locations throughout an area, LOTRO keeps track of what you've seen and accomplished with a system called Deeds. Once you have visited all of the Dwarf-ruins in an area, for instance, you'll accomplish a Deed and earn a new title or a bonus point to one of your attributes.

Although Tolkien fans will enjoy exploring Middle Earth, they may be disappointed to find the lore of the world is not as deep as they might like. Many of the ruins are just scenery, and the histories and cultures of the various areas don't live up to the rich tales Tolkien wound through all of the locations in the novels. But even with these omissions, the world still feels right.

For the game to last past a few hours of story and exploration, it's got to be fun to play. And here developer Turbine sensibly decided that if it ain't broke, they shouldn't fix it. Like World of Warcraft, LOTRO's game mechanics are solidly designed, easy to learn, and very polished. The game features seven classes with roles so well-understood that they are even identified as "buffer," "crowd control" and "tank" on the character-creation screen (or at least they were during the beta test.)

Lord of the Rings' combat has the familiar slow-to-medium pace of most MMOs, and borrows liberally from the WoW-standard user interface. The class balance is good, and the characters themselves prove distinctive and fun, from the dual-wielding Champion to the concussive shouts of the Minstrel.

If there are a lot of familiar elements of the gameplay, there are also a lot of unwelcome ones. Apart from the storyline, most quests are of the tedious "collect ten pelts" variety. There's plenty of spawn-camping, even in the beta, and the high respawn rates ensure that half of your fights are going to be joined by a newly-minted monster.

Turbine has added a few evolutionary features -- mostly to keep the gameplay tightly aligned with the story and ethos of Tolkien's novels. For example, the death penalty is represented as Dread -- which also afflicts you when you get too close to a Black Rider. Most famously, Turbine has implemented player-vs-player combat as "Monster Play." Because two elves would not fight in Tolkien's world, instead players are able to take on the identity of a servant of Sauron to fight other players. You can't play the whole game as an Orc -- but it's a great diversion from the serious business of saving the Ring.

And as unimportant as it sounds, you don't look for a group - you look for a Fellowship. This isn't so much a change of game mechanics as it is a change in attitude. It's a reminder that LOTRO isn't just a game: it's a world and a story that both players and developers truly care about. Maybe that's a small step toward a more respectful player culture, but it's still a welcome one.

It's been a long time coming, but Turbine's brilliant new MMO has opened up Middle-earth for the masses.

By: Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch

It hasn't been an easy journey for The Lord of the Rings Online. What first began in 2003 as Middle-earth Online has been plagued by name changes, publisher changes and a huge retrenchment in which the developers essentially went back to the drawing board and rebuilt the product from scratch. Unlike the fantasy stories the game is based on, this is usually a recipe for disaster in the real world, but like the hairy-footed heroes of Tolkien's novels, the development team at Turbine soldiered on and emerged triumphant, creating an exceptional MMO that can easily stand among the best in the genre.

The basic gameplay of The Lord of the Rings Online will be immediately familiar to anyone who's played the original EverQuest, World of Warcraft or, really, just about any MMO released in the last five years. The four racial choices each offer an array of benefits and drawbacks and there are a number of classes that fall more-or-less into basic MMO roles such as tank, healer, crowd control, and ranged and melee DPS. Combat is a familiar series of turn-based rounds punctuated by the player triggering a variety of special attacks and watching the cooldown meter on the interface.

The world is filled with quests to complete, instances to experience, items to craft, PvP that (while segregated from the main game) makes for a nice diversion, and an end-game consisting of several high-end raid zones in Northern Angmar. There's almost no learning curve for anyone even slightly familiar with how an MMO works, and the game's first five or six character levels are structured as a fun tutorial for MMO newbies. Far from being a weakness, the lack of innovation in basic gameplay structures actually turns out to be a strength. It may indeed be WoW-with-Hobbits, but there's something to be said for not fixing what isn't broken.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

The real genius of The Lord of the Rings Online lies in the way it mixes up familiar MMO structures to offer a constant stream of player accomplishments -- the "ding" moments -- beyond the obvious ones of increasing character level and acquiring new gear. The heart of this dynamic (and the game's best innovation) is the "deed log." This is an achievement-like system of rewards given out for accomplishing things. There are deeds for almost every type of activity in the game. Kill four or five brigands in Ered Luin, for example, and the player gets a message that they've uncovered the "Brigand-slayer" deed. Killing 30 more brigands entitles the player to have "Defender of the Halls" underneath his or her name. Kill 60 more and the player gets the "Justice" trait -- one of a series of permanent buffs that can be loaded on a player by bards in towns. There are exploration deeds accomplished by visiting Elf ruins or scouting out the enemy, class deeds won by just using class skills over and over, racial deeds ferreted out by discovering hidden conditions, and even legendary deeds acquired by fighting the most powerful enemies in the game.

As a practical matter, the deed log operates as a highly customizable talent system. Since traits can be swapped in and out, acquiring the right ones can drastically impact the way a class is played. The right traits can help a Lore-master to become a ranged DPS class or build up their animal companions to bolster their crowd-control capabilities. A Captain can be an effective off-tank with the right system of traits or can just hang back and act as a buffer in an instance, setting up "Fellowship Conjunctions" that offer boosts to damage output or replenish health or mana bars. This customizability also helps in party formation since as players enter higher-level areas, there are situations in which every class gets the opportunity to shine and there really isn't any situation in which a particular class is "useless."

The impact of the deed log system is subtle and profound: it dramatically cuts down on the level of grind in the game. Since deeds are broken up by regions and can be incremented, it makes almost every encounter in the world an opportunity for advancement. During the long run to a quest location, it's actually OK to get jumped by a wandering monster, even if said monster doesn't offer any experience points. If it's a wolf, the player may be working on his or her "Wolf-tamer" title or "Advanced Wolf Slayer" which offers a +1 to the Zeal trait. If they've completed that, there are still class ability deeds that can be worked on during a fight, or the creature may drop a rare piece of crafting material. During my first 20 levels, I spent considerable time doing very low-level quests and fighting low-level monsters that offered no experience points at all because they gave me the opportunity to complete deeds. It stretches the available content for the player by making it worthwhile to run quests that they've out-leveled.

Words and Music

One of the best elements of the game is the emphasis on storytelling as an integral part of the play experience. Every player character starts their lives in one of four multi-layered instanced areas. Elves, for example, start in a short tutorial course that takes place during the burning of Edhelion, an Elven city destroyed by renegade Dwarves called Dourhands. This tutorial area is designed to teach the basics of movement, equipment, combat and questing, but far from being a one-off zone, the characters and story elements in that area continue to come up even as characters level. Much of the Elf and Dwarf starting area of Ered Luin is about questing to re-establish the bonds of trust between Elf and Dwarf that have been broken by the Dourhands. There's even an epic quest-line that goes through the game's current level cap of 50 in which the rewards for completing "chapters" of the line is a string of pre-rendered cutscenes that show the impact of the character's actions on the Fellowship's journey. The bad news is that these pre-rendered cutscenes are rather fuzzy and filled with poorly animated 3D characters.

I also really enjoyed the game's player-created music system. Once a player reaches level five, they can purchase the ability for their character to play an instrument using the number keys on the keyboard. While it has no in-game effects, this simple-to-use system has become amazingly popular. It's not unusual to walk through the center of a town like Bree and see six or eight players hanging out and jamming in front of the town hall. Player bands and orchestras have formed and go on tours of the game's cities and as players translate real-world songs into the game's music system, trading new music has become a hot topic on the official message boards. In fact, it's not unheard of for players in the middle of an instance to occasionally break out into an impromptu performance when one of their members goes AFK.

In Service to The Eye

LOTRO has an interesting (though heavily segregated) PvP element. The majority of the game is PvE-only and everybody must play on the side of the good guys. Starting at level 10, however, a player may look into a "fell scrying pool" and enter the body of one of five different level 50 monsters in service to Sauron. This "Monster Play" system takes place in an area called the Ettenmoors. High-level player characters can enter and exit this area freely while monster-players cannot. The area houses a number of monster-infested ruins including three castles, some logging camps, a small Hobbit village and cave-and-tunnel complexes. Each of these areas comes with its own contingent of elite level 48-50 NPCs to protect it. There's a parallel quest and deed-and-title system that mirrors the one for a player's main character. The area also has leader board rankings and a system of "destiny points" that can be spent on either temporary buffs for a main character or to improve one's monster.

The genius of the system is that it offers PvP to players who really want it in a structured environment with tangible rewards. For those who hate PvP, they need never enter the zone nor worry about balance shifts made for PvP (since Free Peoples players can't fight each other, only monster-players) affecting the PvE game. Even better, because it's mostly segregated from the rest of the game there's not much risk and great reward associated with entering the zone. That will hopefully encourage more players to do it.

The down side of the system is that it is dependent on player participation and there seem to be very few players willing to give the Ettenmoors a try. This is in part because there aren't many high-level players yet, but I've spent considerable time in the Ettenmoors as a monster doing quests and fighting NPCs to get essentially free destiny points and most of the time I'm in there alone without even other monster-players to keep me company. Hopefully this will be remedied as players hit the level cap because Monster-play is too much fun (based on my pre-launch experience) to just be left to wither on the vine.

"Gold and Jools, They Say!"

If there's one major sticking point with LOTRO, it would have to be the economy. In part, the economy is still young and people have yet to figure out just how much objects are worth. The game also controls its money supply so tightly that it makes Ebenezer Scrooge look like a philanthropist. The big culprit is fixed costs for players. Repair, class training, traveling, postage and crafting components are outrageously expensive and many characters hit level 20 completely broke.

The game's crafting system ties into this. It's well-designed in theory and is really enjoyable as far as it goes, but at this writing it's economically insane. Farming is hopelessly broken because cooks (who farmers are supposed to supply) can get their components cheaper from NPC vendors. Tailoring recipes routinely call for components from creatures four to five levels above the item level. Gear suitable for a level 10 player, for example, require components from level 14 and above creatures which means that tailors can essentially only make gear for lower-level players. As a result, there's not a whole of trade in those items and won't be until players reach levels where they can afford to sink money into the profession. Certain professions, though, especially anything involving medium or heavy armor, are practically a broken slot machine when it comes to the amount of money they can generate. When a big chunk of the player base is broke and the rest are swimming in money, that's an issue that needs to be addressed.

The game does have a few technical issues. There have been a couple of times during which the game's login servers were overloaded and I had a problem getting in. The client seems to run fairly smoothly although I did experience noticeable lag in Bree when it was crowded. This could usually be remedied just by turning off the floating names. There are a number of escort and story quests that are bugged. Sometimes story-based NPCs don't leave or die when they're supposed to, denying the player credit for a completed quest. This isn't a consistent bug, either, as often dropping and re-running the quest or re-logging would solve it. I also experienced the occasional crash to desktop. None of these were more than occasional annoyances and certainly didn't dissuade me from loading the game up again to continue my adventures.

Finally, the game's graphics merit praise. Those who've always wanted to wander the fields of the Shire, hang out in Rivendell, hoist a few at the Prancing Pony or visit Tom Bombadil will be in heaven in The Lord of the Rings Online. This is an amazingly beautiful game filled with stunningly gorgeous forests, stark mountains, placid lakes and fields filled with gently waving flowers. Indoor and city spaces are filled with an eye for detail and enormous respect for Tolkien's work. While walking through Thorin's halls in the Blue Mountains or the streets of Bree, one is filled with a sense of rightness about the world -- the sense that yes, this really is what Middle-earth looks like.

The Road Goes Ever On...

The Lord of the Rings Online had a difficult journey to make it to launch day. Never mind the impossible expectations of legions of Tolkien fans who probably know the lore better than Tolkien himself did, the game also had to be a fun MMO in its own right. That The Lord of the Rings Online could whether the storm of player expectations and its development troubles and still be a decent game is an achievement in itself. That it could go through all that and come out the other side as an exceptional entry into the genre is nothing short of miraculous. Oh, the game has some shakedown issues it needs to deal with -- particularly the economy -- but all told, The Lord of the Rings is off to a great start and its future looks boundless.

©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Turbine's latest MMORPG delivers.

By: Charles Onyett

Put aside the Lord of the Rings license for a second. It's an insanely popular fictional universe, the foundation for a majority of today's fantasy works in games and literature, and of course it's going to color perceptions when examining this game. If you're one of those people whose knees get wobbly while savoring the idea of questing for Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, you're in all likelihood going to enjoy this MMORPG. If you are, on the other hand, one of those rare gamers hooked on role-playing games yet care little for Tolkien's work, we've first off never met you, but figure it'd be more important to convey how this title plays than how faithfully it reproduces Tolkien's vision.

Dwarves, Elves, Man, and tiny humanoids called Hobbits constitute the playable races in this game, available in male or female flavors. It turns out they're all good guys, all fighting for the same cause, eliminating the possibility of open-world player-versus-player (PvP) combat. Instead, such fighting is restricted it to The Ettenmoors, one of the game's nine spacious zones. After selecting a race, one of seven classes can be chosen, including a Champion, Hunter, Burglar, Captain, Guardian, Lore-Master, and Minstrel. Each class' function serves roles any MMO veteran is undoubtedly all-too-familiar with You've got the damage-absorbing tank, pure damage dealer, healer, group buffer, enemy debuffer, and crowd controller. To facilitate solo play, each class is also given skills from outside their traditional class role. A Champion, LotRO's dual-wielding, damage-dealing off-tank, has a few limited healing abilities, for instance. Minstrels, the main healing class, can wear medium armor for increased protection. Infusing each class with this kind of variety means you don't always have to be grouped up to progress, making the game more accessible and forgiving for newcomers to the genre or those who generally like to play alone.

Classes can be further tweaked with traits that can be equipped on your character to alter their ability focus. These aren't immediately available, instead requiring you to execute a certain number of specific kinds of enemies, complete quests in a zone, or discover a series of landmarks to unlock. Such tasks, called deeds, are given to you as new areas are entered, and work to make it seem like you're making additional progress, bonus headway, while questing. For instance, if you wander into the North Downs and hack apart a Troll, you'll get a notice indicating you've unlocked the Troll-slayer deed. Eighty dead trolls later you get a title, Troll-hewer, which can be displayed over your character's head, and unlock the advanced version of the deed. After another canyon full of Trolls go down, you get a trait, which can be equipped to your character to buff resistances, augment vital statistics, or alter damage output.

The trick is to find the deeds that unlock versions of the same trait, allowing you to power it up. So if Barghest-slayer (Advanced) in Bree-land and Warg-slayer (Advanced) in the North Downs reward you with the Determination trait, completing both deeds will net you the more powerful Rank 2 version of Determination. While the whole point of the deed system was to offer a mechanic that operates and rewards you as you're doing quests, it also adds to the amount of work you need to do to keep your character up-to-date. If you're running around at level 30 with Rank 1 traits, you're not going to notice their effects. So, while deeds are completed as you quest and you are rewarded for things you didn't directly set out to do, you still need to fill sizable kill quotas to keep your traits relevant with respect to your character level. The discovery and quest-completion traits work well to keep you active and exploring for tangible reward, but the kill deeds can get tiresome, particularly because you can't see what the trait reward actually is until you unlock the advanced version.

Aside from the zone-specific traits, you also access race and class traits that can't be leveled and are always useful. These things can change your character's performance in significant ways, and switching them around is a great way to keep your character fresh should the experience be rendered stale by exhaustive hours of play. After level 41 you can slot legendary traits that provide new skills to further diversify your character's possibilities on the battlefield.

If you're a hardcore MMO fan the amount of grinding here will seem like a laughable trifle. Turbine has done a great job in making the play experience in this game more fluid, keeping you moving and discovering new things, instead of requiring you to sit in one spot and beat on the same kind of enemy for a horrifying number of hours. There are always quests to do, they generally offer great rewards, often a nice selection as well, meaning there'll be a reward item tailored for each class. That being said, the side quests are still quite standard. Go kill 24 bears in the old forest, the NPCs tell you. Go harvest 10 harrow weeds in Nan Amlug East, they say. Though they may seem generic, they are worth doing and not only for the rewards. A majority of LotRO's side-quests are prerequisites for the tasks that require a group, or fellowship as it's called in this game.

Up to six can band together to plunge into the game's more challenging content, which is split up into three general types. First, you've got the world group quests, usually involving beating up elite enemies wandering the countryside or huddled in camps. Next are the main narrative instanced group quests, which we'll get into a little later. Then you get the more time-consuming content designed to appeal to hardcore gamers, the group instances, which Turbine calls adventure instances. There are five in the game right now, from the Great Barrows in the Barrow-Downs around Bree to Carn Dum, a high level sprawling dungeon in Angmar. These experiences will be familiar to anyone who's ever played an MMO before. For the uninitiated, the instanced dungeons are usually the source of an MMO's most powerful items, dropped form bosses and elite mobs within. Breaking down the mobs is simply a matter of having a balanced group and slamming hot keys until the target buckles to the floor.

It's not all ho-hum hotkey bashing in LotRO, however. Conjunction attacks, only possible with a fellowship, make playing with others a much more effective, enjoyable experience than in other games. Anyone who's played Final Fantasy XI will be familiar with the mechanic at work here, though LotRO's version is largely simplified. By stunning an enemy during battle, members of the fellowship, regardless of whether it's the full six, are prompted to enter red, green, blue, or yellow attacks. Depending on the order of the colors hit, different effects and attacks are enacted. For instance, if you're in a three person fellowship and all hit green, you get healed. If you all hit red, you do a direct-damage special attack.

The system gets more rewarding with if your fellowship decides to get organized. In a full group, you'd ideally want to pull off an attack like Wings of the Windlord, which needs blue, red, green, yellow, blue, and red to be triggered in that order. When successful, the attack puts on a fancy light show as well as summoning two Oathbreaker spirits to help out with the fight. There's a good amount of variety to these attacks, and they're a lot of fun to toy around with to discover new ways of dismantling enemies while recharging your power and morale stock. The system itself seems a little hit or miss right now, sometimes failing to register party members' color inputs, but in general coordinating to perform these kinds of attacks was one of the most entertaining aspects of the game.

Such an emphasis on successful conjunction maneuvers vaults the Burglar class, capable of regularly triggering their use, into nearly as high a value as a Minstrel. Should a Minstrel be unavailable, your fellowship is going to be at a significant disadvantage as the other classes can't fill in as reliable healers. Captains and Lore-Masters do have healing abilities, but they're nowhere close to as effective as a Minstrel. There's also a slight issue with Champions' effectiveness. While it's nice to gather a balanced group, with a hunter setting traps, pulling, and dealing ranged damage, the Lore-Master on crowd control, and guardians amassing threat on the target, if you gather together five Champions and a Minstrel, you can rapidly and utterly decimate the opposition. Of course in higher level areas packed with high damage output enemies, you'll need the skills provided only by other classes. Ultimately these class issues we saw aren't that big of a deal, since every class is useful in a fellowship and entertaining to play. It's just that other classes may not be as useful as adding another Champion to the fellowship, unless they're a Burglar or a Minstrel.

Aside from the traits and conjunction attacks, the other feature that really makes this game stand out is the story, and not just because it's The Lord of the Rings. Of course you want to run quests for Strider. Of course you want to talk to Radagast the Brown. They're all here, Gandalf and Frodo too, as well as many other characters like Old Man Willow, the Sackville-Bagginses, Farmer Maggot, and on and on. The simple fact about most MMOs is that their storylines stink, and generally the storytelling mechanics are even worse. Here you get dynamic quests full of NPC interaction and narrative revelations during the course of the quest, making trudging through the story instances much more engaging than simply clicking to assist the main tank every time. You're actually there to find out what happens, not just get an end reward or hope for loot drops.

Here's where the power of The Lord of the Rings comes into play, since the game lets you play concurrently with the One Ring's journey eastward. The eight books of main narrative released at launch, only spanning Middle-earth's western area of Eriador, are all split into numerous chapters and focused on pushing back the Nazgul and the dark forces pouring out of Angmar. You'll start out questing rather close alongside the events of the books and gradually move away into areas not covered by fantasy epic you likely know so well. The fact that there are characters, both evil and good, that continue to make appearances in the storyline goes a long way towards making the main narrative feel more like a cohesive whole, a comprehensive tale, than a series of fractured quest lines against seemingly random bosses.

Aside from the core gameplay, Turbine has implemented the standard range of gameplay distractions, chiefly professions. You can harvest ore and chop wood, recover artifacts, farm, and cook, as well as craft weapons, armor, bows, spears, potions and everything else you might expect in an MMO. Accessible recipes are broken into tiers, and to access more powerful crafting methods you need to first become proficient in a tier by repeatedly cobbling together the items it offers. After you've become proficient, you can continue crafting the same items to gain mastery giving you a chance to create more powerful versions of the base items. Unfortunately some of the professions aren't as useful as others. Weaponsmiths, woodworkers, and armorers all yield valuable items that can sell for considerable sums, whereas farming and cooking aren't as handy. Farming is the supply craft for cooking, and though some interesting things can be made to eat that provide decent statistic boosts, you're going to have way more fun time making armor or swords. Some work definitely needs to be done in the realm of professions to bring all production crafts closer to level footing.

Like the incentive to join fellowships for better rewards and the ability to unleash conjunction attacks, all professions do require products or services from others. Weaponsmiths need to make Etched Steel Emblems for a few Tier 3 recipes, something only possible with a polished sapphire. While you can find the sapphires at auction in major city centers or in mining nodes, you'll need to get them polished by another player. While this kind of profession interdependence certainly isn't anything new in the MMO realm, it's successful in LotRO because it spotlights social interaction, which is the entire point of playing this genre of game in the first place.

Then there's the Ettenmoors, the only zone for PvP in the game. Starting at level 10, anyone can go in and create a level 50 monster, all variations of which can be augmented with skills, traits, and differing visual appearances. Hero characters can only enter at high levels, so since the game has only been out a short while there isn't much happening in the zone. We did get to get a brief glimpse of what full scale PvP would be like by joining a group of max level Turbine employees who'd alerted the community of their presence. Quite a few people decided to bring their monsters out for the battle, resulting in a rather one-sided conflict. Strongholds are set up at various spots in the zone, affiliated with either heroes or monsters. By heading out with a group of others, it's possible to assault the strongholds and flip them to your side if you manage to take out the commanding officer. The few hours we spent smacking around other players, we certainly had fun, mostly because there were so many targets for our Champion to slice with area-of-effect strikes, but there's really no telling what kind of chaos will ensue once hundreds and thousands of players swarm the zone in a month or so.

Even though the true nature of LotRO's PvP gameplay has yet to emerge, it's still worth heading into the Ettenmoors to check out all the player-versus-environment content. Completing quests and dispatching AI opponents in the zone earns you destiny points, used for upgrading your monster or bestowing temporary boons on your hero character. Whenever you wind up doing actual PvP, you'll also be able to earn infamy and renown, boosting your ranks, as well as earn special items.

Complementing the gameplay are gorgeous graphics, which serve to drastically boost LotRO's immersion factor. Vast expanses of plains, snowy hills, detailed forests and swaying grasslands make for a Middle-earth you want to explore not only to nab new items, but also to see the sights. Little details are packed in as well, like flocks of birds that randomly flutter off into the atmosphere, spectacular sunsets and some great architectural designs that give each zone an organic, believable feel. Armor and weapon designs excel as well. Though the beginning items looks rather boring, they're supposed to. By the time you hit level 30 you'll be wearing intricately detailed armor pieces that shimmer in the sunlight, adding more of a sense of satisfaction to acquiring fancy purple and teal items. Enemy animations are generally good, particularly the larger Trolls and giants we've seen, who lumber and swing their weapons with a distinct sense of weight. The music tracks are absolutely stellar, leaving little reason to turn on iTunes unless you really, really need to hear another Mastodon song while running an instance. Sound effects are more inconsistent, however. For instance, we found ourselves wishing the sounds of various class skills were more distinct.

Beyond all these polished large scale elements, Turbine has done so many of the little things right with LotRO, likely a result of their extensive experience developing MMOs. There's an excellent Looking for Group menu, a personal light for nighttime, a hilarious player-made music system, easy to find and use click-to-assist buttons, and some of the most specific quest descriptions we've seen in a game. Now, many RPG fans who consider themselves hardcore or enjoyed Gothic 3 may argue that too specific a quest description ruins a game's immersion factor. After all, how could the quest-giver know exactly where everything talked about for the task is located? Well, we don't care. We greatly appreciate the detailed quest descriptions that tell you with a good deal of precision where to go and how to turn the quest back in. This way, if you walk away from the game for a few days or weeks, you're never at a loss regarding how to pick things back up. You don't spend unnecessary hours just searching for the person you're supposed to meet to start the quest. You jump in, easily make progress, and log off with no regrets.

Normally this is where we'd harp on the instability of this MMO and how many amazingly aggravating bugs we've found. Though we have run into a few issues, LotRO is impressively stable, which says a lot considering the dreadful conditions of other MMOs at launch.

©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Halo 2 isn't due out in stores for a few weeks but Microsoft was kind enough to send us an advance review copy so we get a jump on things. Though the title won't carry many surprises for the handful of gamers who haven't already experienced it on the Xbox, there are a few graphical improvements, some interface changes and a whole new range of Vista-powered multiplayer options to consider. Although those are worthwhile additions to the game, Halo 2 will live or die on the strength of the outstanding game design. With that in mind, fans of the original Halo will find that Master Chief has a whole new range of cool tricks here that he can use to put an even greater hurt on the interstellar baddies stupid enough to cross his path. Those who have played the game on the Xbox already might have to look a bit further to the new LIVE features and editor to find a compelling argument for picking it up on the PC.

We won't spoil the story here but we will say that there are some cool new surprises in store and you'll get to see the action from a variety of perspectives, including getting a look at how things look from the enemy's side. Across 15 levels, players will see the story from the original Halo develop into an even more dramatic and intricate (if sometimes confusing) tale of sci-fi slaughter.

As with the console version, the pacing and combat in Halo 2 is excellent. If all you care about is getting involved in intense firefights with otherworldly types, then Halo 2 will definitely deliver the goods. Moving from one area to the next, you'll constantly be presented with a vast array of clever and cleverly designed enemies who provide endless entertainment. Better still, there's much less backtracking here than was required in the original Halo. The whole affair is also interspersed with intriguing cutscenes that heighten the drama, albeit without ever really sufficiently explaining it.

Unfortunately, as well paced as the action is, it can sometimes be hard to place the individual battles or levels within their proper context. Those of you who have played games like Call of Duty or Half-Life 2 can understand how well those games relate each encounter to the overall story of each level. Here you'll find yourself taking elevator rides, battling through massive hangars and jumping onto the backs of giant war machines without a clear idea of how it relates to the action that comes before or after it.

The original Halo led players through a variety of inventive and unique locations and Halo 2 goes even further to deliver several large and original levels. There are loads more locations here than we saw in the original game, each of which presents spectacular architectural design. On the downside, the symmetry and monochromatic palette for many of the interior levels tends to get a bit tedious.

Like the original Halo, Halo 2 doesn't go out of its way to give a purpose to each room. The larger installations are full of rooms that exist solely as interesting spaces to fight in. While it definitely makes for rewarding action, it doesn't give you the same sense of place that you'd get in a game like Jedi Knight where the rooms all seem to have some sort of purpose and relationship to each other.

We honestly weren't sure how much we'd like the keyboard controls. Having had some hands on time with the game at GDC, it felt more natural to use the gamepad. Now that we've had the chance to play through a lengthy portion of the game, we're actually finding that we prefer the mouse and keyboard controls. The game's still fun with a gamepad, but the precise aiming that the mouse allows more than makes up for the finger dancing required to access the rest of the commands on the keyboard. You can remap the keys to give you access to the actions you use the most but the default layout is very intuitive and convenient.

Halo 2's dual wield system is brilliant. Being able to pick up a second pistol or submachine gun in your off-hand makes you so much more lethal this time around. It's true that you won't be able to throw grenades while you're carrying two weapons, but you can more than make up for that by delivering twice the firepower. Switching and picking up additional weapons is just as easy as it ever was and you can also swap weapons out with your allies if they've got something you really want.

With one lone exception, the weapons are all much better this time around. The new submachine gun is terrific for in close fighting and the new and improved Needler finally makes it a worthwhile weapon to use in a firefight. Other neat alien weapons include the powerful carbine and an awkward but oh-so-enjoyable grenade launcher. The only weapon that really disappoints is the new pistol. It's deadly enough, to be sure, but it just pales in comparison to the sniper pistol from the original game.

The most powerful new weapon by far is the Covenant energy sword. Having been on the receiving end of this one for long enough, it's a real treat to be able to turn the tables and use it on your enemies. It has a limited charge but the amount of damage it does is just tremendous. This is particularly useful when you run into the uber-powerful enemies who won't go down with a simple smash to the back of the head.

There are some cool new vehicle options this time around as well. Most significantly, you can actually jump on vehicles and toss their drivers out on their heads. The great physics system from the previous game is still in place but added to it is a cool new incremental damage model. The Ghosts and Warthogs now take progressive damage, catching fire and dropping parts as they're hit with weapons. Seeing your vehicle smoking with fire and cracking with energy as fenders and wings fly off really ups the excitement of vehicle combat. Additional drama is provided by the cool secondary explosions that sometimes occur when a vehicle is destroyed.

The AI shows a bit more initiative in terms of using vehicles as well. We've even had small sequences where we'd be driving around in one vehicle while another group of marines followed us in their own Warthog. It really adds to the feel of being in a massive battle when you run into these multiple vehicle combats. The AI still drives into walls from time to time but then again so do we under the wrong circumstances. Outside of the vehicles the friendly and enemy AI seem a little savvier about taking the appropriate actions during battle. Enemies armed with long-range weapons don't tend to press the flesh quite as much and enemies that feel overpowered will definitely look around for some cover.

Halo 2 looks quite nice with higher resolutions and better lighting than we remember from the console version. The textures are still a bit off here and there, which is particularly apparent when they're used to paint broad, flat surfaces. Still the overall artistic effect of the level and character design is impressive. We were particularly stunned by the great vistas that the game offers. From the massive planetfall scene to the vast cityscapes, the game is full of plenty of jaw-dropping environments.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has requested that reviewers not post their own screens of the game, so we can't show you just what the game looks like on our systems until after the game is released. There are a number of graphical options that you can adjust to get the right balance of performance and quality but the high-resolution visuals definitely hamper the framerate. If you stick with the level of visuals seen in the Xbox version, the game runs much better. There are also some very noticeable hiccups in the transition between levels. While these are usually cleverly hidden by cinematic triggers, you can sometimes run into the stutters while in the middle of a fight.

The game also makes use of lots of bump and normal mapping. While it's a wonderful effect during the battles, it can be a bit too much during the cutscene close-ups. You'll sometimes feel as if you're watching a skin cream commercial starring Edward James Olmos and Morgan Freeman. Overall though the character models are definitely improved from the previous version, both in terms of their detail and their animations.

The cutscenes incorporate lots of dialogue and can be at turns quite humorous or dramatic. For our money, the little chicken aliens are still the funniest part of the game. It's hard not to laugh when one of them intones, Star Wars-style, "I've got a bad feeling about this." It's great the way the dialogue relates to the action as well. While you won't be getting cues for every single event in the game, hearing the odd, seemingly spontaneous comment that relates to the action in front of you really brings the game to life.

As expected Halo 2 delivers great sound design. The music is so tightly bound with the overall pace of the level and the battles that it can be hard to separate the two in your mind. Just hearing the music ramp up gets you amped for the coming battle. When it dies down in its quieter moments, you can feel the tension ease out of your muscles. Again, the voice work is well done, not just in the cutscenes but in the course of the game itself. Hearing your allies and enemies shouting out during a battle really makes them seem like real people. The battles are also helped along by great weapon sounds and explosions, of which there is no shortage.

The new Vista platform still presents a few significant hardware and software complications but it adds some intriguing elements to Halo 2. The Tray and Play feature seems to work okay once the game has managed to transfer sufficient data to your PC but the beginning of the game, particularly the tutorial, is a bit clunky. Happily, no one's actually shooting at you during the first minutes of play so this is more of a nuisance than an actual obstacle. Once the game gets enough information loaded, you won't have to worry with the clunkiness ever again. Even if you reboot your PC, the information is still present and readily accessed.

Since the game isn't on shelves yet, we haven't had a chance to check out the promising LIVE options for Halo 2. All the maps previously released for the Xbox version are included right out of the box with the PC version and there are even two new exclusive maps just for the PC. If that's not enough (and it probably should be), the PC version also includes a brand new map editor that allows players to create their own playing areas and game types. Additionally players can now host their own servers.

We'll dive in to check out the multiplayer options when the game hits general release and be back with our full review then.

©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Is three years too long to wait?

By: Steve Butts

Well, after three years of waiting (not to mention several last-minute delays) Microsoft has finally managed to deliver up a PC version of Halo 2. Beyond just being a port of a very popular Xbox game, the new PC version of Halo 2 also happens to be one of the launch titles for Microsoft's new Vista platform and its new Games for Windows Live! features. For gamers who missed Halo 2 when it came around on the Xbox, the experience of playing the PC version will be rewarding but more than a little dated. For gamers who already blasted their way through the Master Chief's second adventure, Halo 2 for the PC is a very tough sell.

The game really doesn't offer many surprises to those who already played it on the console. There's no new content and very few graphical improvements. But if the last time you saw Master Chief was as he was driving down that ridiculously long hall in the first Halo, then you're in for a treat. There's a new dual wield system for the weapons now, new opportunities to steal enemy vehicles, more interesting and varied locations and even a few other surprises in store. Better still, the pacing has improved and there are no incredibly long backtracking sections.

We were skeptical that the keyboard controls could approach the ease of use of the original gamepad configuration. Happily, the developers have done a very good job of laying out the keyboard controls in a way that makes sense. It's still a little tricky moving and looking while also executing a melee attack but, overall, the mouse and keyboard controls are intuitive and in some ways actually preferable to the gamepad.

The dual wield system is a wonderful addition to the game. Being able to pick up and use two one-handed weapons at once allows for much more mayhem in each level. Picking up, switching, firing, and reloading dual weapons is just as easy as it can be which leaves the player free to consider just how best to use the weapons he or she has equipped. This system is nicely balanced by restricting the player only to one-handed weapons (a carbine and a shotgun would just be too much) and keeping them from being able to toss grenades. Whatever the limitations are, being able to charge into battle armed with two weapons is hugely exciting.

Many of the weapons have been tweaked a bit. The original game's main rifle has been basically split in two. The new SMG gives you that same volume of fire while the new assault rifle focuses on high damage hits. Having two such varied yet equally effective weapons gives players a great sense of choice as they progress through the game. The new alien weapons are, in some cases, even more effective. The carbine and energy sword are two particular favorites but there are others that, used appropriately, are just as effective.

We're also big fans of the new vehicle hijacking system. In the previous game all you could do when facing a reckless alien driver was to blow up whatever vehicle they happened to be in. Now if you get close enough you can actually jump onto their craft and toss them out on their heads. You can even plant grenades on some of the larger vehicles before hoping off yourself. This new trick is a real blast, particularly when you can then use the same vehicle to run over its previous driver. A new physics system and an new incremental damage model makes vehicle combat even more exciting.

The AI in Halo 2 exhibits real behavior, both on the friendly and enemy sides. Sure, you'll still have folks driving Warthogs repeatedly into huge walls, but for the most part, the folks in Halo 2 act in a way that's believable and tactically challenging. Enemies seem not to want to get shot so they'll make effective use of the abundant cover. Fire off a shot as you enter a room full of unsuspecting enemies and they'll all immediately run for cover. Well, the weak ones at least. The really tough guys will turn and start shooting the crap out of you. Enemies also seem to know when it's advantageous to attack in groups, to circle around your flank or to charge straight ahead and hope for the best.

As in most games, the real challenge is found online. Designed, like Shadowrun, to take full advantage of the new Games for Windows Live service, Halo 2 has a lot to offer in the multiplayer arena. The maps and player limits have been kept down at the levels they were at when the game was released. Gamers looking for Battlefield style matches won't find them here. What they will find are intelligently designed maps that offers lots of tactical excitement for small numbers of players. The wide variety of game types and abundance of maps will ensure that the experience stays fresh for some time to come.

The Live functionality is a great step in the right direction for Microsoft. We've been saying for years that online games need more consistency and more options for interacting with other players outside of the game world. (Longtime readers who remember the news posts, board threads and email chains it took just to get a game of Tribes or Battlefield 1942 going can surely sympathize.)

The game browser, party matching system and voice over IP feature are definitely overdue in the world of PC gaming, but there's some disagreement as to whether or not it's worth actually paying to have access to some of those features under Microsoft's two subscription plans. On the one hand, some games have been giving that stuff away for free (or nearly). On the other hand, Microsoft's attempt to build some consistency and reliability across the PC catalog deserves our support. The fifty-dollar-per-year Gold membership would be easier to swallow, of course, if you weren't already being asked to pay fifty bucks for the game and another hundred-and-fifty for Vista.

It can be a real trick finding the right balance between a playable framerate and a good visual image. We tried the game on a number of computers including one that sat squarely between the minimum and recommended specs. Even with the details turned down, the framerate was too low to really lose yourself in the action. Our recommendation is that you stay clear of the game until your PC exceeds the recommended requirements. The real disappointment is that, even on our new super computers that run the game at a ridiculously high resolution with little slowdown, the game still looks like a three-year-old console game. Even at its best, it suffers in comparison to the visuals in more recent, top-tier PC shooters.

The good news is that Halo still gets by on style. The characters are all inventive and generally believable and the environments range between cramped and eerily lit sci-fi style hallways and truly stunning outdoor vistas. We still feel that the rooms you'll be fighting through have no apparent purpose behind them (Where do the aliens eat? Where do they go to the toilet? Oh, look! Another completely superfluous conveyor belt!) but they do make interesting spaces to fight in. Even if the rooms seem to have no real reason for existing, the architecture is appealing. Things can sometimes get a bit monochromatic and overly symmetrical from time to time but, for the most part, the levels are inventive and unique.

Among the various cutscenes in the game, there are some really dramatic moments and, even if the camera sometimes gets too close for the game to look pretty, the whole affair is staged nicely. Personally, we didn't find ourselves getting too wrapped up in the details of the story. If all a cutscene ever told you was "Kill every single thing you see," it would be sufficient to get the player through to the end of the game. Technically, when we say "end" what we mean is "middle." Halo 2 has an ending that ties everything up just about as well as The Empire Strikes Back so you shouldn't play this game if you're not also planning on playing the inevitable sequel. It's good marketing for Microsoft but we're likely to stop caring in the three to four years it might take before we see another Halo game on the PC.

The sound in Halo 2 is excellent. The music swells and shrinks at just the right moments to support the mood of the moment. There are games out there that have themes that are so effective that just hearing the first few bars can trigger an immediate and irresistible emotional response in you. Battlefield, Rainbow Six and Halo all belong to that category. To make things even better Halo 2 adds in thick and convincing weapon sounds and plenty of humorous dialogue that transforms the friendly and enemy soldiers of the game into believable beings.

©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

When you enter a point and click adventure game, you pretty much know what you're going to get. You point, click, progress through what's hopefully an engaging story. Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle does all of those things with an occasionally decent sense of humor and a cool cartoony art style. The puzzles, also a mainstay of point and click adventuring, run the gambit from logical to lame. The grand result is a game that has a healthy helping of frustration with a light frosting of fun on top.

One of the most important aspects of an adventure game is the story. Because there's no action to draw players along through an otherwise slow environment, the dangling fictional carrot has to be pretty tantalizing. The premise of Runaway: DotT is ridiculous enough that you actually do end up wondering where everything is going even if it takes a while to really get into groove. The story follows Brian Bosco and his girlfriend Gina (both holdovers from the first Runaway game) as they run into trouble after going to take a tour of the fictional Mala island on their Hawaiian vacation. Brian quickly finds himself stranded on the island while Gina is shot and at the bottom of a lagoon. From there, Brian meets with all sorts of crazy characters including more that fans of the original will recognize.

When the real challenge and mystery is identified, you're halfway through the game and still a little confused. The main crux of the story is presented so nonchalantly that it's like the characters are talking about what they had for dinner when in reality any sane person would wig out a little. Yes, it's a cartoon, but incredulous reactions to crazy things work in cartoon-land also and can lend to some quality humor. That said, the developers at least realize some of the ridiculous nature of adventure games, such as when the main character comments on the size of his pockets to hold such gigantic items like chainsaws and hockey sticks.

Part of the problem with the story probably stems from the anemic voice-work. The main character Brian Bosco doesn't seem phased by the fact that he's been nearly killed by several different things nor that life beyond Earth exists. He just moseys on, as mellow as can be, while his loving girlfriend is missing. Nothing later on in the game experience seems to make much of an impression either. Of course, Brian is a total doofus, which is part of his character, but he's just not very likeable. While Brian's voice work occasionally has more personality as the game goes along, the rest of the cast is a big hit and miss. Characters like psychopathic smartipants Archbald are fun to listen to, but Brian's friend Sushi is boring as all hell and both Joshua and Rutger (obviously voiced by the same guy) are like nails on a chalkboard.

All that said, the game does have some good cutscenes. Not all of them are paced appropriately but others have a ton of animated personality and fun. The brightly colored cartoony art style really lends to the adventure well. Environments are detailed and great to see. The major problem is that the developers didn't make it easy enough to find certain objects in the environment. One of the very first puzzles requires an object to be found in the middle of quicksand and it's near impossible to see. You'll need a lucky pass with the mouse to see the cursor change to know that anything is there. Unfortunately, the desire to make the interactive objects not stick out so boldly also makes them blend into the environment pretty easily.

Puzzles work along the same lines of other adventure games you've played in the past. They vary from some clever and logical puzzles like using a hose to siphon gas from a car to slightly more illogical ideas like welding a key back together using a magnifying glass and a ray of sun. The biggest problem is that the game requires players to choose the wrong solution to find the correct one at times instead of giving rewards for smart thinking.

Let's take one of the middle puzzles as an example. Brian, at one point, is supposed to go fishing for a salmon. Without going into too much detail about the way it's done, he needs to use a hockey stick and a fake bear paw to do it. I made the mistake of figuring that out right away and tried to combine the two objects together to make a fishing device. Poor Brian says "I can't see any reason to do that," which of course, confused the crap out of me since the paw didn't work by itself and everyone had been talking about how bears catch salmon. After wandering around looking for other devices I became frustrated, walked back to the hole and decided to try every object. The hockey stick allowed me to try and fish but wasn't successful. Seeing that I at least was able to try the hockey stick out, I once again, with hope in my heart, tried to use the bear paw with the hockey stick. It worked. Why the game wouldn't allow me to use the "logical" solution immediately is beyond me. I probably should have figured it out given that the game had basically required me to use the wrong solution before being able to use the correct one at other times before this, but that's just stupid design to an otherwise decent puzzle.

©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Don't let the pretty pictures fool you; this adventure game hides a pretty dark heart.

By: Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch

Oahu itself looks fantastic and will surely capture nearly all of your attention. The lush flora that makes it a favorite vacation destination has been recreated faithfully making for some vivid scenery. Simply driving about and enjoying the scenery can be as much fun as hopping in a competition. It should be noted that the end result of playing too much of Test Drive Unlimited will be the desire to take a little trip to Oahu.

If you look on a map, Oahu may not seem like a very big place. Try driving around it in Test Drive Unlimited and you'll see exactly how many miles of road there are to cover. You can drive nearly anywhere on the island, though some places are blocked off by fences, and you won't find yourself with a loading screen until you enter a race, mission, or warp to a previously visited location. Streaming technology has come a long way and Test Drive Unlimited is a great example of what can be done with it. Many of the texture pop-in issues on Xbox 360 can be made negligible with the right settings for your rig. For the most part, the driving is seamless and with such a large island, that's mighty impressive.

Like the graphics, the animations and physics in the game also have a lack of polish, or in some instances, a lack of existence. Driving into any sort of solid object will create a brick wall experience regardless of what you just hit. Slamming into a small bush will create the same response as hitting building on occasion. While the cars around you will deform a bit when you slam into them, you can't total your car or even tip it over.

The sound effects in Test Drive Unlimited are almost saved by ample options for adjusting them. When you first turn the game on, you'll find that the levels for the car sounds are way too loud. You'll also hear an annoying voice from the GPS that constantly will tell you which direction you should be going in. Thankfully, you can turn the voice off, and you will once you realize that it is often faster to go the wrong way down a one way road despite the fact that the voice will be telling you to turn around every few seconds. You can also turn down the noise that the cars make which have a tendency to drown out the music and sound a lot like a lawnmower. The music in Test Drive Unlimited has a great variety of styles and works on a radio system similar to many other driving games. You can even edit your own playlists using your MP3s for a nice in-game soundtrack of your own. When races can last over a half of an hour and simply cruising can last for hours, the tunes tend to repeat far too quickly so this is a welcome touch.

©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Exotic cars, a tropical paradise, and a near-revolutionary spin on multiplayer makes this above-average racer exceptional.

By: Li C. Kuo

Eden Studios has done something amazing with Test Drive Unlimited. This team of developers has crafted a game that virtually recreates pretty much the entire island of Oahu, and done it in a way so that you can drive from one end to the other without seeing a single loading screen. Technically, it's an incredibly impressive achievement.

Not only that, but TDU blurs the line between single-player and multi-player gaming. If you enable the online mode in TDU the game becomes a cross between an MMO and a racing game. You can do solo races or race against AI or you can instantly challenge any other racer you come across to a one-on-one or group race. While you drive around you'll see other players doing the same thing, just like in an MMO. Eden Studios calls this a "massively open online world."

These two unique achievements alone make TDU worth checking out, and we haven't even started talking about the heart of the game. A wise gamer said to me once, "TDU is more of a driving game than a racing game." Yes, you will race. You'll race AI drivers, you're race the clock, and you'll race other gamers, but the vast majority of your time will be sent simply driving from one point to another. If you love driving, this won't be a huge problem for you. Exploring the island is fun, and required if you plan on finishing this game. If you're impatient you'll be happy to hear that you can warp to any point on the map as long as you've driven there once before.

When you first start off you're tasked with picking an avatar from a small selection of stylishly dressed drivers. The look of each driver can be customized: Change your face, your hairstyle, and even buy new clothes. You'll then buy a car and then a house to keep your car in, and participate in your first race. Each event you participate in will give you either cash or coupons. Cash is used to purchase new homes with bigger garages to accommodate your ever-growing collection of automobiles. It can also be used to tune-up cars you already have and buy new cars. Coupons are what you'll use to buy new clothes and accessories for your avatar.

There are a total of 125 licensed vehicles available in TDU. This includes both cars and motorcycles. The manufacturers include Ferrari, Lotus, Ducati, Mercedes, Lamborghini, and Jaguar. There are also numerous exotic vehicles that only diehard car enthusiasts will recognize, as well as a number of classic cars. Fans of muscle cars and exotics will definitely be pleased, but there will be one group of car fans that will feel left out: Japanese car lovers.

Yes, Nissan is included, and we love tearing around in a 350Z, but what about Acura, Mazda (we know it's actually owned by Ford), and Mitsubishi? We'd have loved the chance to race around in an NSX, RX-8, or Lancer Evolution. Sure, most of the million dollar exotics in this game can burn any of the aforementioned cars, but there are plenty of car lovers who would have relished the chance to take a WRX STi through some of these curvy island roads and see how it stacks up against their buddy's Ferrari.

A number of motorcycles are also available from companies like Ducati and Triumph. These little machines are amazingly fast and mastering them is a whole new challenge. You only have access to the motorcycles after you've discovered every car shop on the island, so you'll have to work for the privilege to ride these two-wheeled wonders.

Both types of vehicles are gorgeously rendered, as is the island of Oahu itself. When you max out the detail levels you'll find yourself in awe of the scenery as it races by at 150MPH. (There were actually moments when I slowed down to enjoy the view.) Even now after I've spent dozens of hours with the game I'm still finding new back roads and other such areas. As odd as it may sound, TDU does an excellent job of recreating the fun of exploration that you get with an RPG like Oblivion. The only weak spot in the graphics is in the faces of the character models. Everyone's face looks like they took a dose of Smile-X, as they all have the same creepy Joker-style grin.

Single-player events include multi-car races, timed races, delivery missions where you have to drive an expensive car from one point to another without damaging it, and challenges where you'll have to give a person a ride to a certain location within a certain time limit. There are also player-created single-player challenges that you and other TDU owners can set up online. These challenges can be found by driving to one of the many cafes dotted along the island. As you do more challenges and finish more races new events will appear on the map. You'll also find new challenges by exploring the island.

The biggest problem with the single-player portion of the game is how dull the AI drivers are. You'll often see them wipe out or run into regular civilian traffic, but the most glaring issue is that they act like AI drivers and have no personalites. From what we could tell they all drive the same way and are only a big challenge if their car is far more powerful than yours.

Multiplayer match-ups are far more fun and challenging, but we had a hard time finding people to play. We love how you can see other players driving around the island while you do your thing, and we like how you can challenge them on the fly by flashing your headlights when you see them, but there were times when just finding someone was a challenge. We also noticed that the servers would become unavailable randomly. This usually didn't last long, but it was annoying.

A handful of smaller problems did annoy us. TDU first came out on the Xbox 360 so you'd think that if you plugged in an Xbox 360 controller to your PC the game would automatically configure the buttons for you. It doesn't. You'll have to manual set up the controller and, somehow, there aren't enough buttons on the controller for all the commands in the game, so you can't just kick back and use only the joypad; you'll have to use the mouse to navigate some menus and the controller to navigate other menus. Also, while you can do damage to the cars you slam into, your own car is invincible and won't even show the slightest scratch. And when you're on a motorcycle you won't be treated to spectacular wrecks; instead, you'll just reset further down the road.

However, this isn't Burnout, so crashing isn't the focus. TDU is all about driving fast in expensive cars through gorgeous locales and that's exactly what it delivers. It's not a sim, so don't expect GTR2-level realism. It's a game that encourages any car enthusiast to pick up the controller and enjoy it and it doesn't try to beat you up for not having the skills of Mario Andretti. If you want a gorgeous, fun, and easy-to-play racing game to eat up your time, TDU will scratch your itch.

©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved