You need to sit up and pay attention, because if you don't, you may very well miss out on what is quite possibly one of the most incredible titles to ever grace the modern gaming world.... Things start getting interesting, when your father finds a way to get out of the bunker, leaving you in all sort of trouble with the local head honcho, so you make an escape to the outside world to find out where he has gone.... Yes this game is huge and yes it involves more than just shooting anything that moves, but what Bethesda have done here is create something so incredibly massive, yet simultaneously made it so deep and intriguing that you will be hard pressed to find a moment of your daily life that isn't spent wishing you were on the couch playing the game some more.... While it does involve guns, it's not quite what you would call an action shooter but at the same time, with all of the action, you will not be able to sit back and call it a standard run-of-the-mill western RPG either. The Vault Dweller's Survival Guide While the entire game is handled from a first person perspective, a lot of the action will be handled with your V.A.T.S (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System). Basically, you can use your own abilities to try and shoot at your enemies (although skill levels of your character still influence accuracy), but enemies are quite tough and ammo can be scarce, so you want to make every shot count.... The V.A.T.S system is really simple and allows you to select which part of the enemy to shoot at as well as telling you what kind of percentage you have of making the shot and how much damage it will do.... The greatest part of this game mechanic is that once you have accepted your actions, the camera switches to a dynamic external view, allowing you to watch the action unfold as your characters let's loose with his hand cannon of choice.... When it comes to character leveling, I don't want to go into too much detail, but you can be assured that the leveling and perks system has been polished as well, so that even those new to RPG's will not have any trouble figuring it out in minutes.... The game uses the same engine that was used for Oblivion, but when you see it in action you will wonder which one of the programmers had sold his soul to satan, just to get it to do the things that it's doing now.... Those who played Oblivion will also be happy to know that this time, Bethesda hired more than four voice actors, so you won't be running into tons of characters with the exact same voice.... In only a few days, I have managed to wrack up a massive 26 hours of game time and the truth is that I am only starting to get into the meat of the game now.... In Fallout 3 however, the story is so engaging and missions so interesting that instead of feeling like I am wondering around in one game, it feels like I have completed many little ones.... The truth is that I haven't been this drawn in to a game for years and to give you my reasoning, when I put the game in my console for the first time, I only managed to stop playing 14 hours later and it was only because a mean thunderstorm forced me to unplug all of my devices.... Besides those of you who have any issues with swearing and violence, I can fully recommend this as a must-have title that will add a considerable amount of value to your console purchase and could very well be my choice for game of the year.

Just like with Dead Space, I seem to be sitting in yet another awkward situation. Left 4 Dead will now be the second game that I have ordered and am left wondering why in the hell I did it. As much as this game looks awesome, I really can't afford the extra laundry bills that are going to need to be paid because I will be browning all of my pants on a daily basis. Well, at least I will be able to do it with four of my friends, but judging from the look and quantities of the enemies, I'm not entirely sure if that makes me feel any better. The game releases on November 18th, and maybe if I have actually mustered up the courage to finish Dead Space by then, I will actually put the game into my console.

When I first heard that a new Need for Speed title was on it's way, I wasn't incredibly excited to tell you the truth. I though that Carbon was a step in the wrong direction and I couldn't really bother to comment on what I thought of Pro Street. Underground is however, starting to make me take interest in the franchise again. The trailer is looking pretty fun and EA has even gotten Nissan to debut their new Nissan 370Z in the game. How the car still looked so good after slamming through a wall of cop cars is however, a mystery.

Joystiq reports that product pages from GameStop and Amazon seem to now be displaying the release date of GTAIV for PC as December 2. Now, if you can't remember, the original release date for the game was November 18, meaning that the game is possibly looking at a two week delay. With many PC gamers dying to find out what all the fuss was about, as well as the fact that a lot of Christmas shopping will be done in November, the delay may hurt sales as well as test some PC gamer's patience. While the port does promise enhancements over the console version, you really have to wonder what could have possibly caused the delay. We reckon that there is the possibility that it could have something to do with the dreaded DRM. With so many PC sales being lost out to piracy these days, Rockstar could full well be taking some extra time to layer on a stronger copy-protection system for their game. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. The worst part of it all is that there is probably going to be a pirated version available on the net by November 18 anyway, which is not only sickening but also makes you wonder how much a two week delay could hurt sales.

Being Africans ourselves means that our experience of FarCry 2 was always going to be different to those who have never had the chance to see Africa with their own two eyes.... Be it the sounds of familiar birds in the trees, the sunset over the veld or the banter of the Afrikaans mercenaries in the guard posts, you are going to be amazed at exactly how much detail has been added into this game to make it feel like a true African experience, the environment nearly steals the show entirely.... You will run into two major factions in the game and it will be up to you to play them against each other so that you can complete your objective.... If you get 'killed' in battle and your second best buddy is available, they will come and pull you out of the mess you have made and help you clear out the enemies in the area. Be warned though, any of your buddies get hurt and you are unable to heal them or choose to put them out of their misery then they can die, for good.... The type of shooter that's weapons feel so solid and the action so intense that it reminds of those good old days when gaming meant nothing but playing FPS games on your PC.... While I am not a fan of developers relying too much on their tech-wizardy to make a game feel fun, it is the exact reason why FarCry2 is a real treat to any shooter fan.... I realised that I didn't really mind that so many missions were similar, the sheer difference that the locations and environmental differences made meant that every single repetitive mission played out in a completely different way.... On the other hand, the first time you manage to silently take out an entire guard post without attracting any attention or alerting any other soldiers, you will feel a deep sense of pride and accomplishment. I say it again, FarCry2 is a shooter, put into a setting that allows you to play as much as you want and experiment with different ways to accomplish goals.... So if you are looking for a fun shooter that you can pick up and play for a long time to come, here it is.... While the multiplayer is quite a lot of fun and plays fairly similarly to the formula seen in the Call of Duty franchise, it does come across as quite obvious that the single player game was the main focus of the developers.... All of the elements in the map editor are taken straight from the disc, which means that they can be easily shared over Xbox Live and PSN because of their small file size because essentially all that other players will be doing will be downloading the configuration settings and placement info.... Say yes and you will have it in a minute or so and can jump straight in. At the end of the map, you can rate it if you want and then decide to keep it or dump it.... With smooth and stunning visuals, amazing sound and the fact that you will never ever leave the first person view, you really will feel like it is you standing under a tree in the African veld, stinking like something that died a few days prior.

As many of you will already know, Fallout 3, created by acclaimed developers, Bethesda SoftWorks, will be hitting South African shelves this Friday. With the current line up of games this season, it has become increasingly tough to decide on which game/games to spend your money on. While Farcry 2 has been quite popular, Fable 2 has seen massive sales and popularity in most regions. So which one to chose? Fallout 3 reviews are pouring out onto the net this week and the game is pulling in a current aggregate of 93/100 on Xbox 360 and PC and 90/100 for the PS3 on Metacritic. Perfect scores (100/100) have been given by some of the major sites and magazines such as 1UP, Gamespy, GamePro, Official Xbox Magazine and EuroGamer which really surprises me considering that a lot of the seem to be unusually negative and cynical when it comes to their review scores. Scrolling down also revealed that the lowest score given for the game was an 80, meaning that even the ones who didn't really like it, still kinda liked it. Is Fallout 3 the (not completely) unexpected overall winner across all platforms of this seasons line-up? With all the rest of the Xbox 360 and PS3 exclusives yet to arrive, we can't really tell yet. What I can tell is that this game looks like it's going to be worth the money and should keep a lot of us happy for quite a long time to come.

Valve have announced that a Left 4 Dead demo will be made available on Xbox 360 and PC on November 6. Here is the catch though, if you want the demo on November 6, you will need to have pre-ordered the game. If however, you are one of the many people that couldn't be bothered about pre-ordering a game that will obviously be in steady supply, the demo will be released to everyone on November 11. The demo will include both single player and multiplayer, with the multiplayer component being reported to end on November 18, the day of the games release.

So... you have heard all these great things about Fallout 3, which is releasing at the end of this week. The game sounds really interesting but you really have absolutely no idea of what to expect. What happened in the first two games and why were they so popular? This awesome retrospective created by Gametrailers.com takes us back to the beginning and explains the whole deal. If you are interested in Fallout 3 but never had the chance to play any of the previous versions, check this out.