Like previous titles, Zeus focuses on the building and development of a city in ancient times, this time Ancient Greece. It features some changes to the Caesar III engine, most notably the new housing blocks, now dividing “common” and “elite” housing from the start, and more detailed walkers. (Wikipedia) CHEATS Press Ctrl + Alt + C, then enter one of the following case-sensitive codes to activate the corresponding cheat function. Codes +1,000 Drachmae Delian - Treasury Win current scenario after a few months - Ambrosia Strike specified location with fireball - Fireballs from Heaven Towers shoot cows - Bowvine and Arrows Dairy workers wear cheese costume - Cheese Puff Unlimited food - Fishy Sound effects - SoundFrags GAMEPLAY HINTS Shoot cows from the sky Enable the Bowvine and Arrows code followed by the Fireballs from Heaven code to shoot cows from the sky. Hero’s Hall Sometimes a Hero’s Hall must be built in certain places. For example, Theseus’ Hall needs to be built by the palace, surrounded by walls and have good appeal. On maps where space is at a premium this can be difficult to accomplish. To get around this, after you have filled the requirements to summon the hero, and while the hero is on his/her way to the city, you can demolish the hall and any of the structures you had to build to meet the requirements. Then, rebuild the hall anywhere that is connected to a road. The hero will not care and will serve your city as usual. source

Multiplayer shooters have advanced stupendously since the likes of Doom and Quake. Contextual actions, unlockable weapons, team and objective based combat, physics, sprawling maps, class systems and a slew of other complexities have been crammed into modern frag-fests.

Nevertheless, there are still a few features and concepts we’d like to see perfected before the inevitable next step involving wires poking out of our brain stems. Potentialities like Call of Duty 5, Halo 4, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and Half-Life 3 will undoubtedly offer things we’ve never even thought of, but here are a few humble suggestions that we have considered. Easier said than done, right? Probably. (more…)

Hellgate London is notable because it’s from the same folks who brought us Diablo. Diablo was a Mexican holiday game where you would try and bowl pumpkins down a bowling alley while trying to knock over bottles of Tequila. No it wasn’t. Actually Diablo was a top-down-perspective dungeon crawl that was very popular. Why was it so popular? I’m not sure anyone sent out a survey to find out, but if I were to guess it would be that the game had low system requirements, online multiplayer, and unique items. The later being attractive to players since their characters could be fairly well customized and interesting. Somehow this combination made the game a huge success. I’m sure everyone has their own reasons why they liked the game as well, but I just wanted to hit on those basics to give you an understanding of why Hellgate: London doesn’t work like Diablo did so many years ago.
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Where cars crash, smash, and explode: It’s our idea of Paradise in this latest look at Criterion’s ultra-fast racer.

The world of Burnout is about to open up. With Criterion Games’ upcoming Burnout Paradise, the high-speed, crash-’em-up style of Burnout play you’ve come to expect from the series is expanding to include go-anywhere, open-world gameplay, as well as online play that will keep you and your friends zipping through the highways and byways of Paradise City long after the game is released in January. Hot on the heels of last week’s look at the Paradise demo, we’ve been spending some time with the full game for a sneak peek at what to expect once it crashes into store shelves.
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If you thought that Killzone 2 had been looking too good to be true, then it’s quite possible you were correct in your assumption. Developer Guerilla has admitted that the last batch of screenshots had been “touched up” to make them look better than they actually were. Bad form, you dirty boys. Bad, bad form.

Guerilla’s Seb Downie made the confession on the official PS3 forums, trying to justify the misleading promotional material by saying the enhancements were only small:

They are only the tiniest bit touched up. Short answer is yes. Long answer is that there was a little bit of colour-correction done and some minor polish, but nothing major. Still very close to reality and it looks better in motion in my opinion.
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Censored blood or not, I’m still a big fan of Grasshopper’s Suda51, the eccentric creator of Killer 7 and the new Wii game, No More Heroes. Sadly, it seems not even his native Japan appreciates his abstract work as No More Heroes kicked off to a disasterous launch in the man’s home turf.

Suda and executive producer Yasuhiro Wada were on hand to sign copies of the game and give out the promotional toilet paper we’d all heard about, but after twenty minutes, not a single person had bought the game. Ouch! It’s rumoured that a Famitsu reporter, there to cover the washout, eventually went ahead and bought a copy himself.
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Fighter’s Stronghold includes new castle, treasures.

After about a year of frequent downloadable content updates culminating in a full-on expansion, the extra content for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivionhas dried up in the last six months. We figured the blokes at Bethesda just got busy working on Fallout 3, but apparently they weren’t quite finished with their early next-gen hit. Today they announced the sixth and final downloadable content update for Oblivion, Fighter’s Stronghold.

As the name suggests, Fighter’s Stronghold provides a more muscly alternative to previous add-ons like the Thieves Den and Wizard’s Tower. The swordsman’s place of residence, a giant detailed castle, is full of special goodies including new treasure and the ability to choose how the place is decorated right down to hiring a taxidermist to make trophies celebrating your triumphs.

Fighter’s Stronghold will be available on Monday, October 15th for the PC and Xbox 360. Unlike most of the previous downloadables, it will be free for the first week. Bethesda has not said how much it will cost after then, but previous downloadable packs of this type have ranged between $1 and $3, so probably not much.
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New entry reportedly planned for a late 2008 release.

The next “true” sequel in the Battlefield franchise hasn’t officially been announced, but DigitalBattle.com claims to have gotten their hands on a leaked PDF document full of juicy details that sound legit. The file apparently says Battlefield 3, which will again have a near-future setting similar to Battlefield 2, is planned for release some time in late 2008.
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Hidden Fronts map pack will drop its price tag, as promised.

The Gears of War “Hidden Fronts” map pack, which sold for 800 Microsoft points ($10) when first released in May, will be made available for free starting Monday, September 3rd at 2am (PDT). Hidden Fronts — which includes the Bullet Marsh, Garden, Process, and Subway multiplayer maps — has been downloaded by nearly 500,000 gamers to date, and will follow the original map pack and the Annex gametype into the realm of free content for Epic’s system-selling shooter. (more…)

EA celebrates C&C’s 12 years in style — with free stuff.

Twelve years may seem like a strange milestone to celebrate, but as Command & Conquer community manager Aaron “APOC” Kaufman points out, very few video game franchises have remained active and in mainstream gamers’ eyes for that long. Mario, Final Fantasy, Zelda, and a handful of others others — an elite list that Command & Conquer now calls home.

Today, August 31st, marks twelve years since Command & Conquer Gold was originally released for the PC. To celebrate the occasion, Electronic Arts has done something undeniably cool. Command & Conquer Gold can now be downloaded 100% free from the official Command & Conquer website. ISOs for both the GDI and NOD discs can be downloaded and burned onto a CD, giving anyone who hasn’t yet checked out the franchise a chance to do so at its very beginning. (more…)