Online Games

Warcraft Game

2008-04-05T08:09:00.000-07:00

World of Warcraft (commonly known as WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It is Blizzard Entertainment's fourth game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. World of Warcraft takes place within the world of Azeroth, four years after the events at the conclusion of Blizzard's previous release, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Blizzard Entertainment announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001. The game was released on November 23, 2004, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise. It is currently the world's largest MMORPG in terms of monthly subscribers.The first official expansion pack of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007. During the 2007 Blizzcon event, Blizzard announced a second expansion pack called Wrath of the Lich King on August 3, 2007. The release date of Wrath of the Lich King has not yet been announced.Unlike previous games in the Warcraft series, World of Warcraft is a MMORPG, not a real-time strategy game. As with other MMORPGs, people control a character avatar within a persistent game world, exploring the landscape, fighting monsters, performing quests, building skills, and interacting with NPCs as well as other players. The game rewards success with money, items, experience and reputation, which in turn allow players to improve their skill and power. Players can level up their characters from level one to level 60, level 70 if they have The Burning Crusade expansion (released on January 16, 2007), or level 80 if they have the yet to be released Wrath of the Lich King expansion. In addition, players may opt to take part in battles against other players of an enemy faction, in PvP battlegrounds or in normal world zones subject to the rules in place on the particular server. Duels can also be fought between members of the same or opposing factions, although these do not provide tangible rewards. Many players also choose to join guilds in order to conduct raids against enemy territories and instances.

Graphical Adventure Games

2008-04-05T05:18:00.000-07:00

Graphical adventure games are a form of adventure game. They are distinct from text adventures. Whereas a player must actively observe using commands such as "look" in a text-based adventure, graphical adventures revolutionized gameplay by making use of natural human perception.Graphical adventure games were introduced by a new company called On-Line Systems, which later changed its name to Sierra On-Line. After the rudimentary Mystery House (1980) they established themselves with the full adventure King's Quest (1984), appearing on various systems, and went on to further success with a variety of strong titles.A number of games were released on 8-bit home computer formats in the 1980s that advanced on the text adventure style originated with games like Colossal Cave Adventure and, in a similar manner to Sierra, added moveable (often directly-controllable) characters to a parser or input-system similar to traditional adventures. Examples of this are Gargoyle Games's Heavy on the Magick (1986) which has a text-input system with an animated display screen, and the later Magic Knight games such as Spellbound (1985) which uses a window-menu system to allow for text-adventure style input.In 1984 a new kind of adventure games emerged following the launch of the Apple Macintosh with its point-and-click interface. First out was the innovative but relatively unknown Enchanted Scepters the same year, then in 1985 ICOM Simulations released Deja Vu that completely banished the text parser for a point-and-click interface. In 1987 the well-known second follow-up Shadowgate was released, and LucasArts also entered the field with Maniac Mansion - a point-and-click adventure that gained a strong following. A prime example of LucasArts' work is the Monkey Island series.Graphical adventure games were quick to take advantage of the storage possibilities of the CD-ROM medium. Games such as The Journeyman Project, Spaceship Warlock and Iron Helix incorporated pre-rendered 3d elements and live action video. By 1993, Myst represented a major milestone for graphical adventure games. It featured a first-person viewpoint and reached 6 million sales, making it one of the best selling PC games of all time (and the best selling adventure game).

The Legend of Zelda:Twilight Princess

2008-04-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (, Zeruda no Densetsu Towairaito Purinsesu?) is an action-adventure game developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Wii and Nintendo GameCube video game consoles as a part of Nintendo's critically acclaimed The Legend of Zelda video game series.Originally planned for release in November 2005, it was delayed by Nintendo so that the EAD staff could add more content and refine the game. The Wii version was released on the dates of the Wii launch, in November and December of 2006. This makes Twilight Princess the first Zelda game to debut at the launch of a Nintendo console. The GameCube version was released in December 2006. Twilight Princess was called The Wind Waker 2 during its early internal development, but was changed to Twilight Princess as development progressed.Twilight Princess is the first game in The Legend of Zelda series to be rated T by the ESRB, for fantasy violence and animated blood. The game's story focuses on Link as he tries to prevent the Twilight Realm from engulfing Hyrule as both a human and a wolf with the help of a mysterious creature named Midna. It takes place many years after Majora's Mask, on the timeline created after the events of Ocarina of Time.Twilight Princess features a stylized, naturalistic art style (similar to, but far more advanced than that found in Ocarina of Time), rather than the cel-shaded look that The Wind Waker exhibited — although it still makes use of cel-shading effects, as it uses a very heavily modified version of The Wind Waker’s engine. In a further departure from The Wind Waker, Link is once again a young man, as opposed to a child, as in the latter part of Ocarina of Time and in The Adventure of Link. The game also has a darker tone, similar to Majora's Mask.