Ever since Wii came along, developers have been shunning out one game after another and they have all been hits, owing it to the popularity of the interactivity factor of Wii. However, lately that popularity is decreasing along with the number of titles coming out on the console and despite nintento insisting that they can hardly keep up with the demand for the console,developers have started being nervous about making new Wii games. Several newspapers have been researching the demand for Wii in recent times and several developers seem to be claiming that the only benefit gained from Wii’s success was aimed at nintendo, and its ability to predict demand for the console. Developers have been thinking along the lines that put Wii into the position of being a fad that wil fade away in time along with other consoles that didnt make it, whereas others have been listing Wii in the category of one of them ost successful consoles of all time. Only time will tell the fate of the infamous Wii and its advantages and disadvantages. 

Ever since it was officially announced last year, gamers have been driven to call itValve Softwares The Orange Box the best bargain in all of gamings history. While the statement can be debated upon, it cannot be denied that this particular game is one of the must-haves of late 2007 releases, and not just that, it has to be one of the best ittles out there on Xbox 360 to date. The classic Half-Life elements have been regenerated and used to create a highly entertaining and equally innovative reminiscence of the game, hence reelingi n old fans as well as new. Although there are a few issues to be dealt with in the game, it is just as enjoyable as all the other Half-Life titles have been. It comprises of single-player action, offering the player a solid limit of 8-10 hours of gameplay. The player is also going to be geting the chance to play the previoulsy released Half-life 2 Episode one, and the newly released Half-life 2 Episode 2, which is the icing on top, proving itself to be the best bit about the Orange Box. It also introduces Portal, which is a mind-bending title blending pure  first-person action with puzzle-solving, along with Team Fortress 2 which was one of the top games to bring multiplayer action to the masses, and which as been previously previewed.

The sequal to Team Fortress has finally arrived, proving more eventful hours of bizarre gameplay. It has a winning approach which is both artistic and blazingly quick in its accessible albeit powerful gameplay. it has enough zing to even soften the hearts of those who have critisised the first of the two games. However, it still cant be labelled the best shooter out there and,for now, lacks bot support. Nevertheless, the game has enough factors to keep its followers interested, and has an inbuilt statistics system, into Steam, to help the player keep track of the game.So those who favoured the first game will definitly want to buy this one, as it provides a more thrilling experience then the first, and for new comers, the visuals themselves will reel them in. One major aspect is that Team Fortress 2 will get more maps, which is a relief because the game has been in development for years on end, and for a game to spend that much time in development, the end result can be nothing but kick-ass.

You Are Empty, a game by the Russians, depicting the Russians is one that appears good at first glance, but it takes only moments for the illusion to wear off. The game commences with a bizarre yet artistically depicted intro formed as a collage of stop motion videos and silhouettes depicting a soldier’s life in the post world war era of the Soviets. He’s off to work when he gets struck by a vehicle, only to wake up in what looks like a medical facility. He is attacked by patients in straightjackets and head clamps and nurses who have an acute resemblance to a Pamela Anderson zombie without makeup. Escaping from the hospital with a revolver which is found lying around along with a large spanner, he leaves the building only to be attached by a fireman with bloodshot eyes and an axe. Reaching an outer office building in this deserted medical campus he enters and office where he finds a note taking about a drug that was administered to the patients and this is where he is attacked by an old scientist wearing a gas mask. And this is how the game progresses, abstract videos that make no sense what so ever, throngs of brainless opponent clones launching themselves at the protagonist with no real purpose as he aimlessly trudges through level after level finding bits of paper supposedly revealing a story and meeting a couple of people sane enough to share intel with him. It doesn’t take long for someone to figure out the story which couldn’t have been more cliché. A Communist Russian empire in the early 50’s where a hospital’s denizens are subjected to a drug that makes them into superhuman soldiers, but of course something goes wrong (or had to) and before you know it, the hospital, then the whole town gets infested with the virus and Mr. Soldier here, the unintentional test subject has to get to the bottom of it before the virus activates in his blood stream, fighting off every Tom Dick and Harry that was playing their civic role in Soviet society before the catastrophe. Despite being bland in every way, the game doesn’t fall short of its target variety ranging from middle aged skinny farmers wives and the toothless elderly with double barrel shotguns, Russian ballerinas and air borne assault units with dual propeller blades whirring in the air and above all giant featherless raptor-chicken hybrids being bred as an experiment by Soviet scientists. Nevertheless, the swarms of enemy clones are only visually different and at the most either hack at you or have a firearm with no intelligence whatsoever. Even the weapons though nothing outrageous are amusing to play with. The Communists have left behind the usual pistols, shotguns and submachine guns to play with, apart form the awe inspiring hydraulic nail-gun and Molotov cocktails (petrol in empty beer bottles with burning rags at the end). The games visuals are 2 years old and probably because the developers didn’t meet the expected deadline, hence the game should run smoothly with crispy visuals on older rigs. The aesthetics of the game suit the premise i.e. a USSR industrial colony filled with mutated people, dull and boring to the core. From the hospital to the industrial zones, there isn’t much to gorge at because the soviets back in their golden days didn’t really have spectacular towns for their blue collar workforce. There is exceptional detail in the environments with plenty of socialist propaganda, operatic scores of Russian opera played here and there and posters in their native language symbolically exhibiting Stalin and the hammer and sickle. The graphics are quite static in nature with no dynamic lighting and shadows, animated environments or visual ambience that would depict the feel of a zombie infested neighborhood. It does however have a basic physics engine with rolling barrels and destructible furniture, but nothing like Half Life-2 or Penumbra where physics was put to practical use rather than a visual gimmick. The sound too is limited to grunts and cackles with the occasional voice over for some of the NPC’s. Music score isn’t too bad yet not worth mentioning either. A final verdict: You Are Empty is truly worth no more than the cost of a pirated PC DVD. A pastime when there is no good game to play all over and nothing better to do. It is uninteresting and brain dead in every aspect considering the standards set by some first person shooters with no real premise or purpose of existence unless if one considers the half baked story it claims to have.

What with only 2 days left till the release of the much awaited Hal3 sequel to Microsoft’s Halo series specifically designed for Xbox,Xbox360 and the PC. The world waits with bated breath to see what the teams have come up with this time.Both the Xbox gamers and PC gamers may soon be seen queing up in lines outside the stores to get a copy of the Halo3.