When I realised that EA we’re offering the game as a direct download from their website, I couldn’t resist downloading it last weekend and giving it a good look through.

I am pretty impressed so far to be honest - it’s not perfect but then what game is right? It did meet my expectations, and exceeded in some cases. 

After reading a lot of reviews, I came across this one posted on the Eurogamer website. I think it sums up nicely the entire gameplay pretty well and so wanted to share. Here’s the original link, or pasted below for the lazy.

So what do YOU think - is everyone having as much fun as I am? Oh, and one last thing - if you watch the entire intro video on the game it is absolutely amazing. Fantastico!

“The acronym should be WOAR, not WAR,” our esteemed and not at all pedantic editor complained in the pub last night. Well, he’s half-right; Mythic Entertainment’s long-awaited, oft-delayed, EA-backed, Games Workshop-licensed monster fantasy MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, should technically be dubbed WOAoR.

But he’s also missing the point. Mythic picked the abbreviation with the same single-minded sense of purpose with which it has crafted this impressive new entry in the field of massively multiplayer RPGs. Those three angry letters send a message just as clear and pointed as Blizzard’s three-letter exclamation of wonder. For all its tremendous debt to World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online is not about losing yourself in the scale and grandeur of an extravagant fantasy world. It’s about the hard and gritty business of battle. WAR is all about war.

The push and counter-push of the battlefront is everywhere you look: from the bar in the top right of the screen that indicates whether Order or Destruction controls the zone you’re in, to the grand Realm-versus-Realm endgame of capital city sieges; from the dynamic NPC battles littered throughout questing zones, to the way even small-scale player-versus-player battles naturally coalesce around a single, see-sawing frontline. At its best, WAR is less about standing toe-to-toe with your enemies than shoulder-to-shoulder with your allies.

As we remarked in our recent E3 and closed betareports, this makes Warhammer Online a genuinely massively multiplayer game in a way most of its immediate competitors aren’t. Although it’s entirely possible to enjoy solo - and although it contains almost everything the millions who came to MMOs through WOW have come to expect - WAR’s focus on realm warfare and the brilliant Public Quest system rely heavily on player mass.

  

Horses for courses, dinosaurs for scandily-clad evil elf ladies.

This makes it hard to review before launch, especially on the underpopulated servers of the European open beta. However, there’s nothing to say that this side of the game will have settled down in weeks’ or even months’ time; and in the meantime, we’ve had ample time on the finely finished and stable beta, exploring both early and late-level content. That’s the basis of this review.

It’s been obvious for some time now that Warhammer Online would be fighting-fit for its launch, and that’s absolutely the case. With those final troublesome crash bugs eradicated, the game boasts sturdy networking, stable servers, rare bugs, a functional and detailed interface, a lavish amount of quests and play styles, and a reasonably if not spectacularly well-optimised engine (the frame-rate struggles a little more than it should, although most landscapes are more than usually busy with monsters and NPCs). With the account-creation problems of European operator GOA now ironed out, this is a very solid gaming experience, by MMO standards.

Solid is also the best word to describe the way WAR tackles the MMO basics. Mythic’s grand vision and greatest innovations are all focused on pitching the Chaos mutants, Greenskins and Dark Elves of the Destruction side against the Empire humans, Dwarfs and High Elves who fight for Order. But like all grand visions, this needs to be built on something, and in this case it’s the foundation stones of every RPG: class design, character progression, combat, loot, questing. In these, Warhammer Online is absolutely competent - but seldom inspired.

  

Dwarf on gyrocopter not pictured. Yes really.

With Warhammer lore demanding that every class must be specific to one of the game’s six races (technically seven, if you count both the goblins and orcs of the Greenskins), Mythic has had to field a huge roster of character careers. The fact that an additional four had to be cut shows just how difficult this was, and of the 20 remaining careers, there are no out-and-out duds. Most offer an interesting spin on one of the four classic archetypes (melee damage, ranged damage, tank and healer), but few have the clear personality, depth, and flexibility that characterise the very best MMORPG classes.

There’s an attempt to give each class more individuality with a plethora of gimmicky skill mechanics, but in most cases, this doesn’t help. The Witch Hunter’s Judgements are just dressed-up combo points, and do nothing to distinguish this admittedly stylish gun-slinging crusader from a regular rogue. The Black Orc’s three-stage battle plan makes playing this capable tank more limited and repetitive than it should be. The Sorceress’s gradual build-up of risk-versus-reward is exciting, but frustrating in day-to-day play.

It’s notable that one of the game’s best careers - the Dwarf Engineer, a defensive rifleman who can build gun turrets - has no such overlaying system, succeeding on the ingenuity and variety of his abilities. Creating skills for 40 levels of play across 20 careers seems to have been too much for Mythic, and far too many of them are anonymous and indistinguishable variants on damage-over-time, or damage X plus debuff Y.

Past level 30, the skills can become something of a mish-mash, and there are limited specialisation options - the Mastery talent trees are basic, although equippable Tactics make up for this a little. But it’s probably more important that each class is well-defined and functional, both solo and in a group, and that much is certainly true. The broad range of adaptable and fun-to-play healers who can handle themselves in combat is particularly welcome, and they seem popular with players so far - a definite plus on the battlefield.

The feel of Warhammer Online’s combat worried us when we first played it early this year, and although it’s made some strides since then, it still falls short of perfection. Skills now have plenty of punch, but the timing is off, especially in the laborious animations. It’s easy to trigger skills too early or too late, and it does make the combat feel stodgier than it actually is. The Morale system, however - which rewards constant fighting with increasingly powerful super-skills - brings a terrific guts-or-glory savagery to prolonged battles, especially in large groups.

With so many classes to cater for, you’d think Mythic would make itemisation as flexible as possible - but no. Weapons and equipment are allotted on a purely per-career basis. It means each career has a very iconic look, but it does lead to a sameiness in appearance which is only partly remedied by the ability to equip trophies and dye your armour sets. This is not a game for individualists - you could argue that WAR’s greatest pleasure lies in feeling like part of an army, rather than feeling like a great hero.

Although loot drops are pretty frequent and generous, you’ll mostly be getting your new gear from Renown and Influence rewards. The former relates to your contribution to fighting other players in RVR, the latter to your contribution to Public Quests. They provide a satisfyingly steady stream of new equipment - almost too much so. You don’t really lust after loot in Warhammer Online, when incremental upgrades are never more than an hour or two’s play away.

  

Best handlebar moustaches in gaming, 2008.

This has implications for the game’s economy - it’s hard to imagine player trading being a major part of Warhammer Online. That impression is reinforced by the game’s perfunctory crafting professions, essentially a bunch of simple refine-and-combine mini-games that make consumables and trinkets and little else.

Tick feature box, make it as quick and painless as possible, move on. Warhammer Online has everything you expect from a modern MMO, but anything that might distract you from Mythic’s mighty war effort, or from rapidly levelling your character, has been streamlined and curtailed and smoothed away.

This is by no means a bad thing - there’s little downtime or fuss in WAR, and the game has a fast, linear, well-crafted and densely-packed flow that makes it highly compelling, and unusually rewarding if you have limited time to play. However, it does raise a question mark over Mythic’s aim to make the ultimate, all-consuming hobby experience. While there’s plenty going on, the variety, the silliness, the lazy luxury of wasting your time in a world you love, isn’t really there.

Case in point: the linear structure of tiered zones, divided with systematic neatness into questing chapters and RVR war camps, leads you smartly through the levels without punishing travel times or backtracking. But with trainers and merchants in every encampment, and rally masters throwing new gear at you faster than you can equip it, why take time to visit the game’s two extravagantly well-appointed capital cities, Altdorf and the Inevitable City? They’re often quiet (at least in the early stages of a server’s life; how they’ll develop once city sieges kick in is an unknown at present). WAR lacks genuine social hubs; places you’ll call home, hang out in, grow attached to.

  

Silliest armour set in gaming, 2008 (runner-up).

Not that WAR’s world isn’t well-realised. The races have strong characterisation and the architecture, in particular, is stunning, almost every landscape having been littered with rampant Gothic constructions of staggering detail and size. Natural landscapes are a little less graphically impressive and more clichéd in style, with some puzzlingly complex layouts that make the route from A to B something that requires detours through J and Q. Zones are large and there are a respectable 27 of them, but their division into three separate lines - High Elves versus Dark Elves, Dwarfs versus Greenskins, Empire versus Chaos - dents the cohesion of the world somewhat.

But we’re forgetting ourselves; we’re forgetting those three letters, scribbled repetitively in blood on every loading screens. We’re forgetting the WAR. Every barrier, every curtailment, everything that seems to limit your freedom and immersion is there for a very good reason: to relentlessly channel and focus players on the deadly serious business of beating each other, and everything else, to a pulp.

Disparate players, following the disparate threads of solo quests, find themselves thrown together in one of the game’s hundreds of excellent Public Quests - the addictive, dynamic openworld scenarios that culminate in big boss fights and exciting fruit-machine loot drops. Opposing bands of players charging from spawn point to Public Quest (respawning on death is instant, and penalties are cheaply bought off, meaning you can use suicide as a travel short-cut) find their paths crossed, and battle ensues.

All hell breaks loose, all over the place. The culmination of this is seen on the final level 30-40 tier, where players naturally fall into Keep sieges and monumental scraps for control of key zones; we took part in one memorable massed battle for Praag, the central town in the final tier of the Empire versus Chaos line, the fulcrum of the ultimate struggle for control of Altdorf and the Inevitable City.

Keep sieges, intended to be the focus of Guild-on-Guild warfare, allow you to employ cheap, consumable siege engines, from boiling oil to battering rams, around their strategically-placed choke points. Incredibly, every single zone has its own instanced Scenario battleground, with a flawlessly simple queuing system that allows you to jump in at any point in play. They’re based on simple game-ypes - capture the flag, base capture, tag - but with a splendid variety of tweaks and quirks of map design, and agreeably short-and-sweet play times. They’re always busy, and rightly so; as good as WOW’s handful of Battlegrounds are, this lavish banquet of PVP action shames them.

The openworld battlefield objectives seem less successful at gathering a critical mass of players behind them at the moment. Once a side has gained control of them, they’re guarded by tough NPC opposition, which despite some tasty loot drops, tend to scare off the losing side. One of WAR’s greatest strengths is how easy it is to get involved with other players without formally grouping with them - in Public Quests and RVR alike - but the downside is that the will to get organised when it’s called for is a little lacking.

  

Stuck together with spit. Orc spit has excellent adhesive qualities.

This, Mythic hopes, is where guilds will come in to play. It’s offered every incentive, with a guild-levelling path that allows access to ever greater rewards, and the system of Standards that can be used as buffs in battle as well as decorative emblems. Social organisation is key to making a game like this work, and while it’s still relatively untested, the very fact of its existence shows that Mythic knows exactly what it’s doing here.

It’s probably fair to say that there isn’t a single massively multiplayer game out there that’s better at throwing players together than WAR. But - and it’s a pretty big but, this - the players have to be there in the first place. When they’re not - because it’s a quiet server, because it’s an unsociable hour, because everybody’s over on the Empire versus Chaos line - Warhammer Online has the life sucked out of it.

You can play it solo, or in a small group; WOW made that a base stipulation of the modern MMO, and WAR meets it to a fault. It’s just not that much fun. It’s hard to say what, if anything, is wrong with the questing, because it’s painless and well-organised and grind-free and provides a steady stream of cash and XP and generally does what’s needed. The Tome of Knowledge in-game encyclopaedia, and excellent map system, make it a breeze to keep track of your achievements and progress, and the Tome provides the satisfaction of constant unlocks and plenty of diverting nonsense besides.

Perhaps it’s that the monster behaviours aren’t all that sophisticated, or that their placement isn’t just so, or that the humour and storytelling seem a bit forced. Perhaps it’s that those watercooler quests, despite Mythic’s evident and worthy efforts, aren’t really there. Perhaps it’s just that you know that the other things the game has to offer - Public Quests and Keep sieges and Scenarios - are that bit better. You can theoretically advance all the way through Warhammer Online without questing, and that amazing fact tends to dent your desire to quest.

  

Iron like a Lion in, er, is that the Chaos Wastes?

Mythic has dutifully done everything it needs to to compete with Blizzard’s jack of all trades and master of most. Crafting is weak, and dungeons - the small, instanced experiences that really cement the group dynamics in an MMO - are frustratingly rare, but aside from that WAR does it all, and does it well. That said, you can very easily tell which parts of this grand enterprise Mythic’s heart was in, and those parts - RVR and Public Quests - are completely thrilling, and surprisingly accessible.

Loco TV is an on demand television station.

This means that you can watch the shows you want to watch, any time you want to watch them. The vast amount of our content is free to stream to your PC, TV or web enabled device. For instructions, check the How Do I Use It section. You will also be able to download our shows to your 3G phone, iPod or iPhone for a small charge (coming soon).

There are many places on the Internet that you can download and watch TV shows, but not like these. LocoTV film, produce and broadcast their own shows on a variety of different subjects and styles.

In fact, they also offer true community television where any individual or company can have us produce their own TV series or channel. Even though they’re based in Western Australia, they can broadcast anywhere in the world and for anyone in the world.

Although they have launched with 5 different series, they have over 20 more in production and episodes will be added regularly. The cover everything from comedy to food and even dramas.

The days of waiting for your favourite TV shows are over! Finally you can have TV on YOUR terms.

I upgraded to 7.7.1.11 recently and since the upgrade none of the $1,000 worth of songs videos and TVShows purchased and downloaded will play in iTunes or our Apple TV.

When I click on a song, movie or show, we receive the message “This computer is not authorized ….”.

I than put in the password and receive the hopeful message: “Machine Authorization was Successful”, but the songs, videos and shows still don’t play. When you click on the title again it again re-asks for “authorization”.

I have tried all of the suggested fixes and set of instructions received from iTunes Store support and the support website, including:

* De-authorizing, re-authorizing
* Re-installing iTunes
* Removing the SC folder
* Re-building the iTunes Library
* Re-building iTunes Preferences
* Creating a new user acount and installing iTunes
* Installing iTunes on a different computer with a different operating system
* Re-installed songs from a backup …
* Updating iTunes Store Account Information, as instructed by support.
* Scanned for viruses …
* Updated Windows …

.. of course every time you do most of these things the Apple TV is wiped and spends hours re-syncing with iTunes over my wireless network which adds to the frustration.

I have been a loyal shareholder and customer to Apple and iTunes and was even in the process of purchasing iPhones for the family, but this most recent set of issues (this is the second time by the way for us to go through this exact problem) is becoming very aggravating - beyond what I can put up with.

Having invested well over $1,000 in Apple, and having also upgraded my internet connection to cater for more download limits, we have decided to ditch our Apple love affair, and move to a much more reliable and robust on-demand entertainment delivery system - like the new Foxtel HD On Demand.

Apple - you have absolutely received the very last dollar from me.

It seems that the static image of a syringe is no where near as damaging to our children and unstable gamers as the moaning and groaning that accompanies jabbing a huge green syringe into your veins like in Bioshock.

Gametrailers has put together a short video compiling what it believes are the top ten of these moments, from Final Fantasy characters dying through to bumping uglies in Grand Theft Auto.

EVE Online is a massively multiplayer game. Hundreds of thousands of players compete within a single persistent universe for military, economic and political power. Players explore the suns of New Eden, mine and refine resources, drive the economy, and wage war on one another in a richly detailed virtual world set 35,000 years in the future in a stellar cluster far from Earth.

This summer, CCP will bring EVE into the Empyrean Age. The four major Empires of EVE have broken their long-standing peace and are marshalling their forces for war. The outcome hinges on the actions of the galaxy’s immortal pod pilots, allowing players to direct the course of the conflict.

The events of Empyrean Age have been a long time coming, building upon nearly a century of political tension. Access to Jovian technology ushered in the age of the pod pilots and shattered the balance of power, and recent events have sparked a march towards total war.

The events leading to the outbreak of war in New Eden unfold in EVE: The Empyrean Age, the first EVE novel, written by Tony Gonzales and published in the UK by ORION Books.

The pre-launch days of Grand Theft Auto IV were interesting to say the least. Even more so for Australians and Kiwis who, much to their chagrin, discovered they’d be receiving a censored version of the game. NZ recently earned the right to make use of its R rating and sell the unmodified game, but Australia is still living with the consequences of its silly classification system.

We heard all sorts of stories about what was removed from our version - everything from guns and anuses, to stuff not involving guns and anuses. Regardless of what was real or not, Rockstar couldn’t be bothered telling us exactly what to expect.

That’s why we have people like reader Mick, who went to the trouble of comparing the Oz GTA IV with an uncut copy to find the differences. I can tell you, they’ll definitely come as a surprise.

Firstly, when picking up a hooker in the Australian version you’ll notice that you’re unable to select your services (i.e. hand job, blowjob or standard intercourse) and the sex animations for these services have been completely removed. You’ll merely see the car bounce from a locked rear-view. Although there are glitches one can perform to get a front view of the action, the animations are still non-existent. Therefore as in previous GTA games you’re only able to see the hooker and Niko sitting side by side doing absolutely nothing. In the uncut version you’re able to select your services after driving a hooker to a secluded location by cycling through the three different services. For which ever you choose the hooker will begin performing the act on Niko and you’re be able to rotate the camera to see the action as you see fit.

Secondly, in the Australian version no blood pools appear beneath a dead person after shooting or stabbing them to death. Although there are blood splatters, there are no blood pools. In the uncut version blood will slowly ooze out from under a body and you’re able to create bloody footprints by walking through it or bloody tyre-tracks by driving through it.

Finally, when Niko or other NPCs are injured in the uncut version light blood patches appear on their bodies which basically represent bruises/bullet wounds. After having played through both versions of the game I can confirm that no other alterations have been made. Although the changes to the sex scenes come as no surprise one must wonder why Rockstar censored blood pools and body injuries. These elements are present in numerous other games which have been released totally uncut in Australia.

So Rockstar, why couldn’t you tell us this yourself? Minor alterations that, if made public before the sale of the game, probably would have seen a lot less people importing. Ah well, we can only hope it’s a lesson learned by the publisher… but my fingers aren’t crossed.

Roman’s Missions

The Cousins Bellic

A nice easy introduction to GTA’s driving. Drive to Roman’s place with your drunk cousin in tow. If you fail this, you’ve got a long road ahead.

It’s your Call

Another simple mission, and your first chance to use your mobile phone. Just watch out for the loan sharks and phone Roman when they arrive. Get back to the depot. Easy.

Three’s A Crowd

Another mission with the loan sharks. Pick up Mallory at the subway. Then go pick up Michelle, then take her back to her apartment. Call Roman and he’ll tell you to buy some clothes - just don’t spend too much, because money’s tight at the moment.

First Date

Here you need to take Michelle bowling. We’re not sure if you need to win, but she’s so hopeless at bowling that you probably will anyway. Then just take her home. After this, you can call her anytime to set up another date.

Bleed Out

Go and find Roman on the basketball court. You’re going to have to fight the people beating him up, but try to only take on one at a time, or you’ll get surrounded. Use the disarm on Darden to take his knife away and then stab him.

Easy Fare

This is your first cab mission for Roman. Pick up Jermaine, take him where he wants, then lose the cops. After this you’ll be able to take on taxi missions to earn extra money.

Little Jacob’s Missions

Jamaican Heat

Pick up little Jacob and take him where he wants. Go to the vantage point and wait for dealers - if you stay where you‘re told, there‘s no chance of them hitting you. Shoot them all, then get back to Jacob’s house. Another easy mission.

Concrete Jungle

This is your first chance to do some in-car shooting, but it’s just as easy to run Little Jacob’s competitors over. After that’s done, take Jacob to the dealers’ house and let him keep them busy while you shoot everyone. This mission introduces cover shooting if you haven’t done it yet.

Vlad’s Missions

Bull In A China Shop

Go to the shop that‘s giving Vlad trouble, and throw a brick through window to convince them to pay up. This brick trick’s handy for causing a distraction in situations when pulling a gun might be considered going a bit far.

Hung Out To Dry

Here you’re chasing the owner of the Laundromat, so you’ll want to pick a fairly chunky car to ram him off the road - if you hit him directly from behind you might go through the windshield. There’s a car out the back you can hotwire, but a Patriot might be a better choice.

Clean Getaway

Here you just need to catch the subway, then punch out the two guys there. If you’ve got a gun, just shoot them. Then it’s off to the car wash and then to the garage to finish the mission.

Ivan The Not So Terrible

Ivan’s a pretty ropey driver, so the tough bit of this mission’s chasing him across the rooftops.

Chase him in car, across rooftops, stamp on his hands or let him go. This might affect what happens later, though…

Uncle Vlad

Head to Comrades but park your car out back and equip a shotgun. Pop the bodyguards, sprint through the doors, drive out front and make sure you pick up Roman, then follow Vlad. You need to be quick, but you finally get to execute the guy who’s been causing you so much grief.

Faustin’s Missions

Crime and Punishment

This is the first mission where you need to get a cop car: to do it, either call 911 - although this means one guy will stay in the car and need to be dealt with - or fire into the air to attract police attention. This way both cops will leave their car to investigate, and you can steal it without getting a wanted rating. Now all you have to do is pull over vans - but make sure you’ve got a shotgun equipped for when things inevitably go wrong.

Do You Have Protection?

Drive to the Sex shop, then kneecap the guy Faustin tells you to. Head back to the gun shop and you‘ll be rewarded with an SMG.

Final Destination

Here you’re heading to the subway to whack a guy. Have a gun ready, because one of his bodyguards has an SMG and you need to take him out fast. After that’s done, sprint across the tracks and pop your target before he gets in a car. Or shoot out his tyres and kill him when he crashes.

No Love Lost

This is one of the first missions where there’s no point in shooting at your target - you just need to be careful you don’t fall off your bike and chase him at a distance. When his gang turns up in the park, dismount at a distance from them, and use trees as cover while you shoot them all. There’s no rush for this.

Rigged To Blow

Here Faustin’s given you a truck rigged with a bomb. Drive carefully, because one or two knocks will make it explode. Just take it to the destination, and watch it blow from a distance. Easy.

Killing Faustin

Before taking on this mission, answer Dimitri’s text to find a bulletproof vest behind the bins. Shotgun pull before the club. Shogtun everyone, through the alley, up the stairs. Wait for him to get to the roof, then you can do him as he pops out. No mercy, because he’s got a machine gun.

Brucie’s Missions

Logging on

This is your introduction to the internet cafe. Just go and set up a profile at Lovemeet.com - the second part of this mission comes later.

Search and Delete

First, get a cop car and use the computer. When you find your target, you can’t stop him until a certain point, although you can shoot out his tyres. You need to watch out for trucks swerving around in the road in front of you, but the trickiest part of this mission is losing the police attention you’ll get from running through toll booths. Just stay calm and don’t bump or shoot any civilians and it’ll be fine.

Easy As Can Be

This is a tough drive with lots of shooters. Brake early on the corners - it’s better to slow down a bit than power slide, mess it up and have to reverse out of a spot while everyone’s peppering you with gunfire.

Shadow

Although this mission’s called Shadow, you don’t really need to be that stealthy - you can just spook the dealer you’re after, then sprint after him. Then shoot him and his mates, and you’re done.

Russian Revolution

Little Jacob will help you out on this mission, but this is mainly about precision aiming and taking cover. You’ll have to brave the cops to make it out of the front, but if you pop a couple you’ll have a fairly clear route past the rest. Then it’s plain sailing to lose them.

Out Of The Closet

Go to the internet cafe. Your date’s going to be at the diner on 69th and Hove. There are cops around, so stab him when he runs to avoid any trouble.

No. 1

This is the game’s only story mode race - the only thing you need to worry about is the second to last checkpoint where crashing through a barrier could put you in the riverbed. Otherwise, just take the corners steady - you‘ll have plenty of time to outdistance the other racers on the straights.

Manny’s Missions

Escuela Of The Streets

This is the first mission where you really need to tail someone. Watch out at the traffic lights and on corners, because it‘s easy to accidentally get too close and scare your targets off early. When you get to your destination, shoot everyone. You can either shoot the lock off the door - which’ll warn them that you’re coming in - or throw a brick through the window, climb in that way and take them by surprise. There’s a Sprunk machine at the back of the warehouse to top up your health when you’re done.

Street Sweeper

Here you need the element of surprise to get all your targets. Kill the first two gang members by ramming your car into them, jump out to finish stragglers then get the other car. There are cops everywhere, but if you start a gunfight there’s a chance they’ll actually do your job for you.

The Puerto Rican Connection

Here you‘re following an elevated train. Just switch to the far view with select and look out for corners by watching the radar. When it stops, pop the two goons then sprint after the guy. You can shoot him at a distance if you use the lockon, but try to do him in one shot to minimise police interference.

Elizabeth’s Missions

Luck of the Irish

A relatively simple introduction to sniping, this. The only tricky bits are that you’ll need to shoot the guy struggling with Packie on the left, and the last guy through the window of his truck.

Blow Your Cover

Don’t pull a gun until you’re up the first flight of stairs in this mission - even though the people downstairs threaten you, you don’t actually need to take them on. On the way up the stairs, blast everyone, and grab the medipack on the stairwell. Get the vest on the rooftop, then blast a path out through the SWAT teams.

The Snow Storm

If you‘ve got a sniper rifle, you can shoot the first couple of guys with that. Then head into the old hospital and methodically clear everyone out. The room with the coke has two guys with guns and a bulletproof vest inside - you’ll need it to escape from the cops. Don’t get bogged down in a gunfight, just clear a path and grab one of the SUVs parked on the left as you leave.

Playboy X’s Missions

Deconstruction for Beginners

Although Playboy X wants you to go up on the roof with him, you don’t have to - the three lookouts are on the end of each crane and you can shoot them from ground level with a sniper rifle. Switch to the AK as you enter the building site and be methodical before you move forward. Clean out as many people as you can before you shoot the third union boss - this’ll send in a chopper full of backup for the final boss. You move in a fairly straight line, so as long as you don’t dash forward nobody should get behind you.

Photo Shoot

Here you’ll need to use your mobile phone camera to identify your target, but as long as you get him vaguely in the shot you don’t actually need to get a close-up of his face. Marlon’s the one in the black jacket - he’s got two cars parked for the getaway but you can pop him before he gets to them if you shoot straight away. If he makes it, they’re both Patriots so you’ve got a tough chase ahead…

Francis Mcreary’s Missions

Call And Collect

The blackmailer you’re looking for is wearing a black and yellow puffy jacket. If you can’t see him, just walk through the crowd - you can call him on the phone twice, but the second time Niko will start threatening him and scare him into running. There’s no way to kill him without attracting police attention, so shoot him in the head and make a run for the nearest car.

Final Interview

Go to Perseus to get a suit plenty of time ahead of your job interview. Once you’re in the office with him alone, shoot Goldberg. The easiest way to escape - assuming you’ve got a bit of health left - is to shoot out the windows and jump out, avoiding taking on security in his office. Then grab a car and make your getaway.

Lure

Once you’re on the roof with the sniper rifle there are two ways of getting the target in your sights - you can either shoot his satellite dish so that he gets up to adjust his TV, or check his phone number - it’s on his phone - through your sights and give him a call to make him get up. Either way, pop him in the back of the head.

Dwayne’s Missions

Ruff Rider

Go to the arcade: you’ll be given a choice of killing a girl or letting her go, but either way you’ll need to chase down her boyfriend on a motorbike. He’ll crash eventually, and you can run over his head.

Undress To Kill

This is a slightly tough mission, because there are three guys to kill. The first is in the front office, near the doors, with a shotgun - if you sneak in, you can kill him with a melee weapon without alerting the club staff. The second target’s near the stage, chatting to a stripper - you can’t shoot him without causing a massive ruckus. The third guy’s in a booth at the back, having a dance - he’s carrying an AK and being guarded by a guy with a shotgun, but you’re best off popping him second, then killing the second target when he runs. Anyone who makes it to the car park will jump in a van and head down the stairs at the rear, making you chase them - if more than one guy gets away, the passengers will shoot at you as you chase them. If you’ve got a car, you can block the steps, but trying to break into any of the vehicles in the car park will set off the alarm.

Have A Heart

This is an easy mission - just remember to pay the toll on the way to the hospital, or you’ll get bogged down in a police chase and run out of time.

The Holland Play

This is where you get to make the game’s first major decision - whether to kill Dwayne or Playboy X. Dwayne’s only protected by one guy with a bat. Playboy’s protected by a gang of goons, and he’ll make a run for it - but killing him gets you his apartment as a safe house.

Michelle’s Missions

Wrong Turn

Check your emails and go to the jewelry shop to find your target. Watch where you can cut him off at corners as he runs, and you’ll be able to chase him down easily.

Patrick
Mcreary’s Missions

Harboring A Grudge

When Packie says ‘Get at ‘em’ - DON’T. Stay hidden behind the sign with him, and pick off the Triads one by one. More will appear when you jump down, so be ready - and watch for the ones on the right. When you’re done, go into the office behind the truck to find a medipack, then steal the truck. Be careful when you’re dropping grenades - only do it when you’re on a straight with nothing ahead, otherwise you run the risk of getting stuck and blowing yourself up.

Waste Not Want Knots

This is your first heist with the McReary boys, so make sure you look after them. You can barrel in the front, but there’s much less risk if you climb over the fence and head for the side door. Once you’re inside, the boys will announce that they’re pushing forward - stay with them, or one of them’ll die. Get to the office so the boys don’t get shot, then sprint out again.

Three Leaf Clover

This is one of the toughest missions in the game - and the longest. Don’t get bogged down killing cops - you need to avoid taking damage and pop the guys marked in red on the radar to clear a path. Don’t stay in open spaces because you’ll get shot, and grab the medipack as you head into the tube station. Make sure you get a big four-door when it’s time to run - you’re going to have to run four police roadblocks so you need something chunky. You can get loads of distance on the bridge, but as soon as you hit the off-ramp, veer right and towards the tree-lined park - here it’s pretty easy to lose the cops because they’re terrible at off-roading. If you break your car but you’ve got rid of police attention, you can call a cab to get you back to the safe house - it’s much less risky than trying to steal a car.

A Long Way To Fall

Check the text to find the guy you need to intimidate, then head upstairs. You need to be really careful on this mission, because every doorway means you could be shot from two angles. Stay close to the walls, and always tackle the stairs slowly. The last guy isn’t packing a gun, so you don’t need to worry about him too much.

Hostile Negotiations

Roman’s been kidnapped, and it’s time for a huge gunfight. On the lower levels, fire in bursts so you don’t get shot while you’re firing at someone else, and feel free to lob grenades around. When you get to Roman, you can use the sniper rifle for a perfect shot at the guy holding him, bUl ut it’s fairly easy to just free-aim.

Ul Paper Missions

Dust Off

This is a pretty simple one. Just shoot the two guys guarding the chopper, then make a run for it and jump in. Nobody’s going to chase you if you do it efficiently.

Paper Trail

Here you need to pick up the chopper you were using earlier and fly it in a chase after another copter. The only bit to worry about is flying under the bridge - don’t descend too sharply, or you’re dead. After that, stay on the right of the enemy chopper to let Little Jacob get a clear shot. After that, you’re free to try making friends with him.

Portrait Of A Killer

This is basically a street fight, so you run the risk of attracting police attention if you shoot from the wrong place. You can get behind the Russians and attack from above, which is probably the best bet - otherwise they’ve got a height advantage on you. Just stay as far away as you can and pop the lot of them.

Ray’s Missions

Taking Out The Trash

This is an easy one. The boys on the back of the Trashmaster keep the enemies off you, so you just need to drive. And not crash into anyone, obviously.

Meltdown

This is an easy car chase. Just make it to the park, shoot Luca’s henchmen and chase him to the toilet. Shoot the doors open and you’ll find Luca cowering. Kill him and leave with the diamonds.

Derrick Mcreary’s Missions

Smackdown

Tricky one, this. When you find Bucky, follow him through the back alleys to his house. Now you’ve got two options. You can stay at a distance and work your way in slowly, shooting the guy on the porch and then taking cover outside the door - but that’ll alert the police, and there’s a risk that they’ll shoot you in the back. The other option is to do things quick - ram your car into the house and try to take out a couple of Bucky’s boys before they get inside, then dash in and take cover behind the sofa to shoot the rest. The last man’ll be hiding at the top of the stairs with a shotgun, so be careful about popping him. There’s nothing you can do about the police turning up, but that can work to your advantage - if they get drawn into a firefight, they might finish off Bucky’s boys for you. Whatever happens, leave via the back door and circle around to the right to find one of the getaway cars parked in the yard.

Babysitting

Another tough one. The key here is to stay close to Kim’s boat - as long as you’re relatively nearby, he won’t die, even if you can’t kill his pursuers. Once you get the rocket launcher, use it to take out any boats behind you, but be careful about using it on any boats near Kim’s - you’re probably better off switching back to the machinegun and shooting the men rather than their boat.

Tunnel Of Death

There’s no rush to block the tunnel here, so make sure you’re loaded up before you do it. When the ambush starts, shoot the guy who’s approaching you, then start rolling grenades into the police cars - don’t risk using the rocket launcher, because it’s too easy to blow yourself up. Once the mission’s done, you can take it fairly steady in the police transport.

Story Mission

This isn’t really a mission - it’s more like a decision. Do you shoot Francis or Derrick? Pick Derrick, and you’ll get a cool reward from Francis. But if you pick Francis, you’ll unlock the Undertaker mission for later…

Phil’s Missions

Museum Piece

Get behind cover straight away. There are guys coming at you from all sides, so make sure your back’s covered while you clear out one aisle - then you can concentrate on the others. There’s a medipack at the top of the stairs, so grab that and watch out for more people appearing on the balconies as you head through the museum. When you get outside, shoot the first two guys you see, then jump in a car and lose everyone.

No Way On The Subway

Another mission where you can’t kill the people you’re chasing until a certain point. You’ll need to chase them through the subway - you can actually kill the first biker after passing a couple of trains, but if you leave him alone he’ll crash into an oncoming train on his own and die anyway. After that the last biker veers onto the bridge - follow him, and accelerate to take the jump when he brakes. He’ll crash, so you can shoot him or run him over at leisure.

Late Checkout

Once you get up in the lift here the shooting’s going to start straight away, so tap left on the D-pad to pull out your biggest gun and get blasting. This is actually a fairly decent place to use a rocket launcher, grenades or Molotovs, because the confined space makes them very effective. The toughest section happens as you reach the roof - the glass stops you dashing through to take cover, but doesn’t stop bullets. Keep your head down and blind fire over the top to take down the first few enemies.

Truck Hustle

This one’s a simple matter of shooting absolutely everyone before you even try to make it onto the truck. After you sprint to the truck and grab the back, just pull back on the stick to hang on at the corners.

Trespass

Phil gives you two options here, but the best one is to head around the back and shoot your way up the building. It’s best to take a rocket launcher on this mission so you can take out the chopper easily, but a few clips of carbine ammo will do the job just as well.

Catch The Wave

Once the shooting starts in this mission, hide behind the truck to shoot the mobsters, then stay between Phil and the boats once you’re on the water. All you have to do is stay alive and between Phil, and eventually you’ll ‘lose’ the other boats. Simple.

To Live And Die In Alderney

Things go wrong as soon as you get to Frankie’s house in this mission, so be ready to get driving. You’ll need to follow Phil’s car - shoot at the cops if you want - until it’s time to do a runner on foot. Don’t worry if Frankie gets hit, because it doesn’t seem to matter too much if he dies. The main thing is to lose the cops, which is easiest to do by going through people’s back gardens until you cut off their line of sight.

Story mission

Weekend At Florian’s

Instead of getting a GPS in this mission, you need to listen to directions. If you can’t be bothered with that, though, just head to Middle Park West in Broker - that‘s where you‘ll find Florian.

Bernie’s missions

Hating The Haters

This is another chase scene where you can’t kill your target until a certain point - just be aware that you’re going to have to pick Bernie up on your moped, because you don’t want to drive past and lose him.

Union Drive Blackmailers

This is possibly the toughest chase in the game, because the blackmailers can’t be stopped and will flip cars over as you chase them. Once you’ve made it along the freeway - and don’t worry about the cops who show up to tackle the blackmailers - they’ll become vulnerable and eventually crash, letting you take them down as they dash through the park. Just don’t go too nuts with the shooting, or you’ll have to lose the cops before you can finish the mission.

Buoys Ahoy

Inevitably, your picnic’s going to go wrong - so when it does, just follow the enemy boat until it crashes. You can actually flank Dimitri’s men by scrambling up the bank and getting behind them, which takes them by surprise and lets you shoot them in the bank. Get the one nearest the boats first, so that when the cops turn up you can hop in the boat with Bernie and run for it.

Gerry Mcreary’s Missions

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

This is another tailing mission, but unlike the last one the bad guys don’t stop at red lights, so it’s more important to stay with them than to keep your distance. When you get to their HQ, leave your car on the getaway spot, then trigger the bomb and finish off anyone left. Afterwards you’ll have to evade the police which can be tricky because of the lack of places to go - stay on the straights until you find a place with a junction, then zigzag.

I Need Your Clothes, Your Boots and your Motorcycle

The bike you need’s around the side of the house. Go and find the man you’re supposed to be killing, but be aware that he’s going to bolt straight away. There aren’t too many preset events in this chase - although you need to be wary of buses coming out of the side streets - so the main thing is to practice hitting your power slides to get around corners fast. Dab the brakes coming in, then hit the handbrake as you go into the bend and accelerate out.

I’ll Take Her

Although you’re technically supposed to drive your kidnappee towards the coast so she doesn’t get nervous, it isn’t really that important - as soon as you crash or do something crazy in the car, you’ll spook her and you can get on with the kidnap. Don’t go too fast - she’ll grab the wheel or slap you, making you swerve, and if you’re travelling at speed you’ll collide with something and trash the car. Keep it steady and brake every time she goes nuts - after five or six, Niko will knock her unconscious, letting you tackle the freeway drive in peace. Just don’t forget to pay the tolls.

She’s A Keeper

You can’t afford to switch cars in this mission because Gracie’ll die - so focus on avoiding the Ancellotis rather than shooting it out with them. As always, zigzagging is your friend - once they’re all gone, just cruise on home.

Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend

Another mission gone wrong - again, get straight to cover. Don’t worry about Packie too much, but be aware that the walkways don’t give you much cover - you’ll need to stick close to the pipes if you want to avoid taking damage.

Jimmy Pegorino’s Missions

Pegorino’s Pride

You’ll want to wear a suit to get into this mission. The sniping’s relatively easy - just start shooting as soon as the guys run in from the back. Keep your distance as much as possible as you make your way into the building, and shoot as many people as possible from as far away as possible - you can pop the lookouts on the stairway and in the window from miles away with the sniper rifle, saving you from making a dash across open ground. Once you get to the building, stay in cover and shoot as many people as you can before you go inside, paying special attention to the guys coming from the doorway on the right. Once you go a certain distance into the building you’ll be told to get to Pegorino before he dies - run, because you’ve only got about thirty seconds to get to him. A bulletproof vest really helps out in this mission, because you don’t want to be worrying about your own health. Then it’s a simple car chase to clean up the final few guys.

Flatline

The important thing here is not to pull a gun - if you do, it’s an instant two-star wanted level. Head for the ER and shoot Anthony’s bodyguard, then Anthony. This makes the police arrive, but they’ll leave their cars out front, so shoot a path through and grab a motor to get out. If you’re running low on health, there’s a Sprunk machine in the lobby that you can use for top ups.

Story Mission

Undertaker

This is a massive shootout at the church - keep an eye on Packie, and take cover behind the hearse as you roll grenades under the Albanians’ cars. Shoot the dudes. When you get in the hearse to drive to the cemetery, don’t drift around the corners or you’ll lose the coffin.

Gambetti’s Missions

Entourage

Find the gangsters and get in convoy - this opening bit is simple enough. When the shooting starts, get to cover straight away. Shoot all the gangsters from the alley, then jump in your car. Four cars will get on you when you hit the intersection, so drive straight at the lead one and veer around it to break out of the ambush. Then just zigzag through the streets until you’re away. Try not to shoot too much, or you’ll have the cops to worry about as well.

Dining Out

No point messing around here: shoot the maitre d’ of the Korean restaurant (he’s packing), then shoot the guys who come to investigate. Then shoot everyone else, being careful as you head up the stairs, and go through the kitchen to kill everyone else. As Fuk escapes, slide down the ladder (by holding X) and sprint into the alley to blow up his car. Job done.

Liquidize The Assets

When you get to the compound with the cocaine vans, climb over the fence to the right of the gate - now you can clamber up onto the walls. Wipe everyone out, but before you start blowing up the trucks, head around to the right and shoot the people who come out of the side door - otherwise they’ll make a break for it in one of the vans, making you fail the mission. Once everyone’s dead, conserve ammo by driving all the trucks into a group and leaving the forklift truck near them, then detonating the cylinder on it with a shot or two. This’ll make everything go up like a bonfire.

The End

Finally, Gambetti and Ray come good on their word and Niko’s greatest nemesis - the crooked soldier Darko - is delivered, bound and beaten, into Liberty City airport for Niko to do with as he pleases. This isn’t really a mission as such; more of a chance for Niko to either settle the score or be the bigger man and walk away. We chose to spare Darko, since he’s a drug-addled, guilt-ridden wreck. Or you could just cap him in the head. Either way, that’s it for this particular mission. And you thought Darko was going to be the final boss, didn’t you?

Now Dimitri’s on the phone; surprisingly, he wants to make pals! This is another crucial juncture for Niko - should he side with the traitor and bring home potential megabucks or opt for revenge and chase Dimitri down to his lair? So, choose your poison - whichever mission you opt for, there’s going to be a crazy amount of shooting so make sure you’re tooled up on both the ammo and armour fronts…

Head to the warehouse down at the docks, where - surprise - just waltzing in with Phil Bell and grabbing the money doesn’t exactly go according to plan. An enormous warehouse shootout beckons, so make damn sure you’re packing full AK ammo and body armour. Then it’s simply a case of taking your sweet time, seeking cover at every opportunity and using manual zoomed aim to gradually pick your foes off one by one. After about fifty are dead, you should have worked your way up to the office at the top of the warehouse interior. Drat, some SOB is making off with the proceeds! Leg it down to the floor, snag that van waiting outside and chase the thieves across the docks. Be careful not to let them get too much of a lead otherwise you’ll have to restart the mission. Once you’ve caught them, it’s mission completed…

A Dish Best Served Cold

But you don’t want to do that, do you? Nah, revenge is much sweeter, so it’s off to Dimitri’s tanker to finally flush the traitor out. This ship is literally crawling with machinegun and shotgun-toting grunts, so take advantage of the crane that’s located right next to the boarding plank. Take down the nearest guards from above with your AK, before switching to sniper rifle and eliminating every enemy in sight. Be sure to look carefully; the more you can pick off at this stage, the less there’ll be to worry about onboard. Once you’re on the ship tread carefully; it’s not uncommon to have left a foe slip through the net, and if they catch you unawares Niko’s history. Work your way through to the bridge before activating the opening of the bow doors. This’ll trigger another wave of baddies, so remember to seek cover and - above all - take your time. After you’ve reached the interior of the hull, wipe out the goons protecting Dimitri before taking him down with grenades from cover. Dimitri can take a lot of punishment, so be careful. After he’s been incapacitated, enjoy the sweet satisfaction of kneecapping him before popping a cap in his sorry head. Phew, only one more mission remains!

Finale

He’s hardly a contender for the Biggest Bad Guy in GTA IV, but that doesn’t stop paranoid mentalist Jimmy Pegorino from deciding he wants Niko dead after the Dimitri debacle. Niko feels likewise, so he, Little Jacob and Packie tear across Liberty City to dish out a final dose of justice. Pegorino’s holed up inside an abandoned pier building, but instead of going for a direct all-out assault, slip around the back by the pier and up onto the roof via a handy ladder. Pick all the goons off from your handy vantage point with your AK, before dropping down onto floor level and clearing out the rest of the building by nipping in through the now unguarded front door. Pegorino’s making a break for it, so chase him down the pier - taking out any remaining stragglers with extreme prejudice.

Drat, he’s got a boat! Never mind, snag the nearby trial bike and hair down the beach in hot pursuit. After a few minutes, you’ll see a ramp pointing out to sea. Gun it and tear off the ramp - Niko will grab hold of a handy chopper piloted by his pals. Suspend your disbelief for a moment, because this next bit is tricky. Your mates tell you to stay low to Pegorino as you tail him, but since he’s blasting rockets at you that means less dodging time - so keep nice and high so you’ve got ample time to maneuver. After a period of sustained pelting with your minigun, Pegorino’s mashed up boat docks at Happiness Island where Niko finally has the chance to end his particular Liberty City story. Sadly, for Niko, it’ll come at a hefty personal price.

Finale, take 2

But wait, did you pick money over revenge? If so, then things will unfold slightly differently. This version of the mission is pretty much identical to the one we just went through - except that, when Dimitri (not Pegorino) makes a break for it, he’ll scamper over the roof to a waiting helicopter. Once the cutscene plays out, immediately swim to the nearest boat and start chasing the bastard, dodging the rockets that he’ll lob your way. Finally, a friendly chopper will roar in and hover low over the water for a few seconds; in that time, you’ll need to pull in underneath it, which is no easy task. We had a lot of trouble with this one, but found that if you come in from the chopper’s right - thereby avoiding some of the wake it tosses up - it’s slightly more feasible. Once you’re in control of the chopper, tail your enemy and pelt him with minigun fire until you both crash-land on Happiness Island. After that, it’s all a matter of chasing the traitor down and delivering one final dis in the form of a hail of bullets.

Original Source: Gamesradar

Rock, Paper, Shotgun recently posted the following interview with Jumpgate Evolution’s Producer, Hermann Peterscheck (copied below).

etDevil have had an interesting journey. They’re a privately owned, Colorado-based company that started out by making a niche space-combat MMO, Jumpgate, in 2001. They then went on to create the disastrous post-apocalyptic vehicle combat MMO Auto Assault in 2006 - a game so unpopular that it was switched off just over a year after release by owners NCSoft. Now NetDevil are back on track and working on two projects: a remake of their original MMO, JumpGate Evolution, and the LEGO Universe MMO. Both are looking extremely promising, but in this interview with executive producer Hermann Peterscheck we focus on lessons learned from the failure of Auto Assault, and what we can expect from this second attempt at Jumpgate.

RPS: How did the team feel in the aftermath of Auto Assault? What was learned from that project?

A lot! Honestly it could fill a book! Obviously after the game didn’t do as well as expected and was eventually turned off, that’s a very difficult thing to get through. As a team you end up spending years of your life working very long hours and when that doesn’t pay off the way you expect, then that’s certainly a painful thing. We ended up spending a lot of time thinking and evaluating why things didn’t go better and learned a lot of lessons from that which we are applying across the board. There’s probably a million things that contribute the success of a product but on a high level there’s a few big lessons which I think are important for MMO development. The first is to polish early, and not at the end. Numerous high profile game failures result directly from breaking this rule. The idea is that at the end of development you will always be in chaos, fire fighting mode - and if performance optimizations are thrown in with that as well, it’s not a very good scenario. The other problem is that if you don’t have a great looking, well running game early, then it’s really hard to evaluate how good the game really is. The “law,” if you will, is there’s no such thing as a good game with a bad frame rate.

The other big lesson we learned is that features don’t save you. This means that development needs to be a progression where you work on a few core features and stay on them until they are done and working. This takes a lot of discipline because developers always want to work on the “next cool thing.” In addition there is always enormous pressure to have all the features that every other game has. Once again you can see a number of high profile failures where games had a ton of features, but that didn’t save them. Conversely, there are example of games with very limited features that did quite well - Portal is the recent example, but there are lots of others.

The third major thing is that for MMOs I feel it’s important to look good and run well on reasonably spec’d hardware. If you look at the larger, more successful MMOs they tend to run on lots of machines. I think the reason for this is two-fold. The first is that you have to get lots of people playing for the game to be fun, which means the higher the system spec, the smaller the initial population. The other reason is that you need to run the game for a long time. This means that if you have super high end ultra realistic graphics, the next evolution in hardware will date your game. World of Warcraft, notably, has kept itself looking really good by being highly stylized, which means that you don’t think of the game as getting graphically behind as quickly as more realistic looking games.

RPS: What’s the motivation behind returning to something you’ve already had one pass at, with Jumpgate?

Honestly there’s lots of reasons, some of them are business related, some of them aren’t. At the end of the day, though, you have to be working on something you really want to do, so that’s the big motivator. There’s no big action space MMO, something Freelancer Online or Wing Commander Online. We want to play that game and since it doesn’t exist we want to make it. We also hope and suspect that there are other people who feel the same way. I think that it is very difficult to “time” the market. You don’t ever really know which game people are going to like, or what they are going to respond to so I think that it’s important to work on stuff that you can be passionate about. The other, less exciting reason, is that we have experience making this kind of game and if you look at the games that are really great they tend to be iterations on an existing game. For example, compare Halo, Halo 2 and Halo 3. Bungie got better and better by iterating on the same game over and over again. Just like everything else in life, you get better with practice so I think it’s logical to assume that if we make another space action MMO it will be better than the first.

RPS: How is Jumpgate different from other MMOs?

I think it’s different in lots of ways, but then also similar; which sounds like a dodgy answer. On the different side we really are a space action MMO. This means that the game plays like Wing Commander, Privateer or X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter. We want to capture the experience of flying a ship through space and doing various activities: fighting, trading, mining, crafting and so on. Thus from a player experience, the game is different than anything else out there in the mainstream. That being said, there are some similar mechanics. For example, you get missions and earn experience. You gain rank (level) and get access to new equipment and ships You can play with other people in groups to accomplish more difficult goals. You can build stuff and sell it to other players, or buy from them. You can earn medals and titles, gain faction rating and so on. All the basic kinds of things that MMOs tend to have are all there. My hope is that people will be comfortable with the mix of mechanics and features and that we can basically capture a kind of “Han Solo” type of experience… if that makes sense.

RPS: Can you tell us something specific about Jumpgate Evolution that really excites you? A “dungeon”, a mission, a particular place or game mechanic?

Hmm… this is a very common question and it’s really difficult to answer. I think the reason why is for me, the value of a game comes in the overall experience. It’s hard to nail down this feature or that content that makes something really awesome – it’s the culmination of everything that makes it work, I think. Having said that an area that I feel is really cool right now is the unpredictable nature of the AI. We have AI that behave like patrols around a spawn point, which is typical of most MMOs. However, our AI system allows us to have AI do many more things like band together, jump through various parts of space, fight each other and so on. Something that happened a few weeks ago during a test was that I jumped into a core station system and there were some Conflux that just jumped in behind me (Conflux are the “bad” alien race in the game). The station AI responded to the threat by sending out a defender patrol who engaged the Conflux ships and took them out. This was not planned, scripted or triggered in any way, it was just a result of a few simple behaviors interacting in unpredictable ways. We want to exploit those kinds of things a lot and hopefully tie them in so that the player can directly take advantage of them.

RPS: Specifically, how will the long-game of Jumpgate play out? (In Eve people end up building empires, in WoW they end up raiding, what will long term Jumpgaters be doing?)

It’s an interesting question and I’m not really sure how it will play out. We plan to have both high end game play, such as really tough boss like opponents who require a number of people to take out. There’s also PvP which was a big part of the original game and more advanced players tend to like that. Then there is the economy which tends to be a long term meta game. People like to keep making more and more complex stuff and sell it for more and more money and you can generally keep adding to that at the top to keep the game going. Adding content is another thing that we have to do on an ongoing basis. In other words I think endgame content is a pretty well known strategy. Again, it’s all in the execution, not in the idea per se. The critical thing is to have a number of options for people. If you only have one thing for people to do at the “end” they are likely to get bored. The other thing is to be responsive to what people want to do. I suspect that as the game grows, we will get a lot of ideas from the players themselves.

RPS: How do you plan to keep player numbers down in PvP battles? I mean, won’t players simply gang up into bigger and bigger groups to defeat their opponents? How does that work?

I am often surprised at how these things tend to work out. I know that EVE has had some reported problems with huge battles causing issues. At some point it’s inevitable that if you have an open world environment with PvP, it will attract a larger number of people as the shard population grows. You may notice that World of Warcraft doesn’t seem to have that problem mainly because they split their world into shards. Now, of course, they don’t have the benefit of really huge battles either – so it’s really a design decision more than anything else. For example, nothing stops the entire shard population of World of Warcraft from going into one central location and messing up the game; so why doesn’t that happen? I think a lot of it is that people don’t deliberately do things to screw up their own game experience. If an area is too full, people tend to go somewhere else. People behave in predictable ways when it comes to social environments. For example, I may really want to go to a certain restaurant. If the wait is 20 minutes I may wait, if the wait is 3 hours, I won’t wait. So by virtue of the frustration being high enough I will go somewhere else to enhance my enjoyment. Thus, I think that as developers we shouldn’t be so quick to control the player experience. I know that you have to take into account things like high populations, but at some point you have to let go and watch what people do. So, if in Jumpgate all 2000 people are in one area fighting and they hate it because it’s crowded but don’t have anything else to do, is the problem that the game can’t handle 2000 people in one area or is the problem that the game doesn’t give people options so that it doesn’t have to handle 2000 people in one area? Is the solution forcing people to separate or is the solution giving people reasons to separate? I like to try and think of ways to make people choose in ways that are both fun and work well in the game instead of forcing people to play the game the way we want them too. Besides, players are smart… they are not going to play the game the way you intend them to in most cases anyway.

RPS: NetDevil is in an interesting position now, with two MMOs in the works. Is the ability to work on multiple projects something that is important to the direction the company is now taking? What is the future for NetDevil?

I think the future of the company is to keep making MMOs. It’s something we have been doing since the birth of the genre, and it’s the kinds of games we really enjoy working on. We might do other things as well, but I can’t imagine that NetDevil will ever stop making MMOs; assuming MMOs themselves don’t cease to exist, which I doubt will happen. As far as multiple projects, it’s really not an uncommon thing. Most 3rd party developers work on at least 2 things at a time if for no other reason to mitigate risk. You never really know what is going to happen when you release a game; even if you release a great game. By doing a few things at the same time you have a better chance at success which is what you need to keep making games. It’s a very competitive industry with rising development costs and a tiny percentage of titles dominating most of the market share. This is in-line with every other entertainment segment, so it’s not really surprising, not will it change. Making MMOs is really hard. Making two MMOs is even harder. Honestly, the biggest limit to growth is talent. It’s difficult to find people who can work on these kinds of games, and it’s also hard to hold onto them because the demand is so high. Our strategy is to make a company that has an environment that produces quality products. Then you use that to help attract and keep the talent that ensures you can keep doing it. If you do that I think eventually you will be financially successful as well. It sounds really simple, but it’s incredibly hard to make games that are worth people’s time and money. I hope that we can achieve that.

The eagerly awaited fourth installment of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hits Australian stores on 29th April, 2008 with many of the country’s leading game retailers such as EB Games urging fans and customers to preorder their copy due to strictly limited stock availability.

The game will be available in two versions - the standard edition which retails for $119.95 and a special edition for $149.95. The special edition comes in an exclusive customised Grand Theft Auto metal safety deposit box which contains:

- Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system or the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, both with special packaging
- The Grand Theft Auto IV Art Book, featuring never-before-seen production artwork from Grand Theft Auto IV
- Selected soundtrack CD from Grand Theft Auto IV, featuring new material from top artists, only available on this release
- An exclusive Rockstar keychain for the safety deposit box keys
- Completing the collection is a limited edition Rockstar duffel bag