The shop turned out to be more like a warehouse and was full of a really great selection of all sorts of fancy dress costumes on all sorts of themes, from Gothic horror (Dracula, Frankenstein and stuff like that) to gangster gear and so on.  Of course the part we were most interested in was the Star Wars universe stuff and I was really pleased to see lots of alien outfits as well as the usual Star Wars stormtrooper costumes and Darth Vader.  Although were shopping for costumes for adults there was a great selection of items for kids that would be awesome for a childrens Star Wars costume party or Halloween. The whole party outfit thing has got me feeling young again – let the party games begin!

Despite trying my hardest I couldn’t convince my girlfriend that a Princess Leia slavegirl costume was a good idea.  She definitely isn’t shy, but I respect her decision.  Actually, she convinced me of this by asking me to wear the Chewbacca costume.  I did toy with it for a while, but the idea of wearing a furry wookie outfit in the middle of summer put me off. The head piece/mask was hot enough. The actor playing the role in the actual movies (Peter Mayhew) deserves a medal. As he is 7’3″ in real life I guess that his authentic Star Wars costume would have been too large for me anyway! Filming in a furry suit in the desert really is going far beyond what you would normally expect of an actor.

We eventually decided to order the Princess Leia outfit from when she was held captive on the Death Star in Episode 4 and a the Star Wars stormtrooper outfit for me.  The body armor took a bit of adjustment, but it fits OK now which was a relief.  It has an expanding section in the middle which allows you to bend over etc and this section was elongated to fit me as I am quite tall.  As it is covered by a utility belt type of thing it isn’t as obvious as it might have been and I am quite happy. The armor panels sit on a sort of overall so the outfit allows you to cool off which is really great.

The best bit of the costume is that the stormtrooper helmet has a voice processor built in!  Yes, it could be extremely annoying long term, but it eats batteries so that probably won’t be an issue for anyone else but me.

Really looking forward to the party now that we both have Star Wars costumes to be proud of!

This Evony guide is for people just starting out in playing the game, or thinking about joining. In the past Evony has had a reputation for being dominated by bullys and being hard to get to understand, but both of these perceptions are incorrect.  In order to set a few things right this article aims to give beginners some basic hints and tips to get them started in this hugely popular real time strategy war game.

Beginners Get 7 days of Protection

When you start playing Evony for the first time a new player cannot be attacked by anyone for a period of seven days.  Of course if you attack someone during this time then beginners protection will be removed, but most players use their first week to build up a reasonable city and army before they go off adventuring. Apart from attacking another player, the only other thing you need to be aware of is that if you build your town hall to level 5 this automatically removes beginner’s protection. Use your first week wisely by building up your army, city buildings and production ability as far as you can.

Follow the Evony Routine Quests Early On

Evony routine quests, or beginner’s quests, are there to help you.  Many of the buildings in the game and early research require what might be seen as a lot of resources to complete.  If you follow the routines quests then often the reward for completing the quests is in excess of the resources needed to complete the building or research required.  This means that you effectively get many advances in the early game for free just by following the quest lines. Routine quests can be seen as a beginners guide or Evony walkthrough of sorts – follow them and you will do much better when beginners protection wears off.

Build Up Your Defences Early

You can never lose your last city – or if you are a beginner you cannot have your first city taken away from you. The worst that can happen is that you can be beaten in battle and put under suzerainty.  This means that a small proportion of your production is taken away and given to the player that beat you. A good way to stop this happening is to build up your walls early on and make sure that you build more than one barracks so that you can generate troops quickly. Many players make their first city have 5-10 barracks depending on how aggressively they like to play.

Maximise Game Resource Production

As the level of your town hall increases this enables you to utilise more of the fields outside your town.  Make sure that all available building plots are being used and remember to upgrade them as much as you can.  Build at least one of each of the four types of resource gathering squares – wood, stone, food and iron and make more as soon as possible. Resources are very important in many strategy games and Evony is no exception – you can never have too much.

Of the four resources wood is probably the most important in the very early game as you use it to build building and also many of the unit types.  Later on this balance between needed resources will change, so watch your reserves carefully. So long as you are making more food than you use this should never be a problem, but remember that troops require food and having reserves is always a good thing.

Once you are far enough along to build a feasting hall and inn you can recruit heroes.  A hero with a good politics score will enhance city production and will also gather experience from doing so.  At least one hero per city with a good politics score should be appointed to mayor on a permanent basis.  You can also swap heroes around if you need to level up a low level one by making him mayor for a while and then swapping the regular hero back in.  This stops you going into battle with a low level character leading your army.

Getting a Second City

To take a second area and build a city is probably the easiest path to go down here.  If you scout a FLAT in the vicinity of your home city you should be able to find a low level one, (e.g. level 3) that will be quite easy to beat. If you have researched your informatics and want to be certain then send a small scouting party to see what is there before sending in your army.  The scouts will tell you how many enemies are there.  Ideally you want to outnumber your enemies by at least 3 to 1.  For low level areas this is easy to achieve and you should win this battle with no difficulty.  Once you hold the square you need to send 250 workers and 10,000 of every resource to be able to build a new city on the square.

Congratulations!  You now have two cities!

Don’t forget to leave defenders at your first city as now you have two you can be attacked and you don’t want to lose your home city while expanding.

This ends our Evony Guide for Beginners. We hope that it has helped you see that Evony is a simple game to get to understand and is fun to play. See you on the battlefield, my lord.

Evony is a popular online game that is marketed under the slogan “Free Forever”. Formerly known as “Civony”, it is a medieval fantasy game in an enduring world. The game plays in a similar fashion to Sid Meier’s “Civilization” PC game, but supports micro-transactions if players want to speed things up or get other in game boosts and power ups. Although often described as an RPG game, it is probably better to describe Evony as an MMO RTS game.  Real time strategy (RTS) is a more important gameplay aspect than any roleplaying element, although it is possible to outfit heroes in the game with personal equipment and perhaps for this reason some describe it as an RPG.  Whatever the classification used, Evony is a cool game that is fun to play and best of all, it is free.

Evony is a Cool Game

Example of the Old Style Evony Adverts

At time of writing this Evony has over 18 million players in 167 countries.  This is phenomenal growth by anyones standards and is a credit to both the games designers and their marketers. At times the marketing efforts of Evony have attracted criticism for the style of adverts used, but this takes nothing away from the game.

The advertising campaign has at times forced parents to ask ask “Is Evony safe for children?” and my answer is “Yes, providing you are OK with your child playing a fighting game”.  There is no nudity or animated violence in Evony that I have seen and I have been playing some months now. This is in sharp contrast to many other free online games out there.  What the game does provide is fun and lots of it.

Learning to Play Evony is Easy

When you first learn to play any online game the number of options can be daunting, but Evony is quite simple to understand.  You can only build one building at a time per city and so in the early stages it is merely a choice about what is most important right now.  As the game progresses and you have more cities to look after the complexity goes up, but of course by then you have a lot more experience and so it is far easier to understand.  There is also an Evony guide built into the game, sort of.  The game offers quests and if you complete the initial quests it will take you through everything you need to know and learn.  Completing these basic Evony quests is highly recommended as they speed up the development of a new player as well as instructing them in how to play.

Is Evony Really Free Forever?

Evony has changed much since its launch in 2009 and no doubt this will continue, however at the time of writing; the game remains 100% free to play.  There is no restricted version, or features only available to subscribers or other nonsense. What does cost money in Evony is a system of micro-transactions that allow you to buy various in game powerups or other enhancements.  These micro-transactions are in no way necessary and merely speed up some aspects of game play. I personally play Evony for free and have done so for some time now.

What Makes Evony a Fun Game?

Everyone will enjoy different things and of this there is no doubt, so here I can only offer my personal opinion. Two things really make Evony a fun game; firstly it is easy to play in an extremely casual manner. As it is a browser game I can set building orders and then go and do something else while those orders are processed – the game continues to play in the browser window in real time even if I am not watching it. This allows me to work or do other things around the house and just check in now and again.

The other thing that I really like about Evony is the people. Games like Evony are made or broken by the people that you meet.  So far the people I have met through my alliance have been helpful, casual and easygoing.  We chat while waiting for stuff to finish building and help each other where we can. If you are new to Evony then I would recommend joining an alliance as soon as you can, as a good one will make all the difference to the amount of fun you have in the game.

Where to Get a Star Wars Costume?

I am 6’5″ tall and so getting a costume to fit an adult like me can sometimes be difficult.  We considered paying for a kit to try and learn how to make a Star Wars stormtrooper costume as my partner is pretty good with her hands, but making something that looks authentic would be a real task.  After some thought and discussion we decided that it would be easier to look for a fancy dress hire store than caters for adults.  Eventually we found one, but it is on the other side of the country and somehow paying for mail order Star Wars costumes doesn’t excite me.  How do you know if it fits?  How would you know if it looked good before you order?  I mean what some people think is a great Jedi costume is actually a brown sack and some kind of camping light-stick!  So, it looks like a roadtrip is in order.

Renting an Authentic Star Wars Costume

The good news is that they have a wide variety of fancy dress costumes and not just the usual Darth Vader costumes (read long black cloak and a black helmet).  They claimed on the phone that their products are “authentic Star Wars costumes“, but because of licensing I am curious to see exactly what that means in reality.  As I am reasonable tall, a Darth Vader costume might look good, but my plan is to go in the generic looking Star Wars stormtrooper outfit, complete with Star Wars blaster (and sound effects if I am lucky).  The games playing kid in me is coming out already!  The reason for choosing this costume is that probably a lot of people will come in duplicate costumes and having two dozen Darth Vaders or Obi-Wans running around will be a bit cheesy.  At least if I go in a storm trooper costume then we will actually look better if there are a lot of us.  Another possibility is to try the clone trooper costumes as that is slightly less well known and so might be rarer.  We will have to see what is available.  Whatever happens I am not going as a Wookie!  Perhaps wearing a fur suit in the middle of summer to look like Chewbacca is a bit too much like suffering for my art.

Breathing in a Stormtrooper Helmet

My plan is to get my partner in a Princess Leia outfit if possible and find a realistic Star Wars stormtrooper outfit for myself.  This sort of nicely relates to the first movie, but no doubt the guys would prefer the Princess Leia slave girl costume from The Empire Strikes Back.  Hard luck guys…  Her outfit should quite easy to find and fit as it is sort of a Greek Toga style of dress, but I kind of have some misgivings about getting a stormtrooper helmet that I will be able to speak/breathe in, but we will see.

Star Wars is a copyright of Lucas Films

If you are a fan of free games, science fiction and the Doctor Who series I have some really good news for you – The BBC are giving away four free Doctor Who games completely free of charge and that’s not all!

Doctor Who is a hugely popular family entertainment television show produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the United Kingdom.  As a public service broadcaster the company provides its service free of charge and the new Doctor Who games are no exception.

Doctor Who Adventure Games

Image of Daleks Courtesy of the BBC

The first game in the adventure games series features one of the Doctor’s arch enemies, the Daleks.  In this first free adventure game, the TARDIS has transported you back in time to the year 1963 and you must travel to the Daleks home world in order to rescue the last survivor of the human race, the doctor’s beautiful assistant, Amy Pond.

The second game and subsequent games will feature other foes from the Doctor’s vast array of enemies, such as the Cybermen.

The first game is available for download now and the other three will be released over the coming weeks, but before you go off to follow the download link let me tell you about some of the other free Doctor Who games that are available.

Other Doctor Who Games

The BBC are also making a number of Doctor Who action games available such as “Save Paris”, “K9: Deja Who”, “Into the Vortex”, “Security Bot”, “Flight Simulator”, “Clockwork Quest” and “Black Hole”.  But wait, there is more!

If you prefer strategy games well there are some of those available too.  You can try your hand at Daleks vs The Cybermen, Attack of the Graske, Odd Escape, Sonic Decloaker, or Dalek Breakout.

Finally, if that isn’t enough for you ,or you prefer your games to be more mentally challenging you can try your hand on four free Doctor Who puzzle games, or one of the eight Doctor Who jigsaw puzzle games.

So why is the BBC giving these games away?  Well, as part of their remit as a public service broadcaster the corporation hopes to “encourage the family to gather round the PC or Mac in the same way they do the television” said Simon Nelson, head of the BBC’s Multiplatform in Vision Department.  This is part of the drive to increase computer literacy in the UK.

All of these downloads are free and not available anywhere else on the net.  Please avoid the “free download ware#” type sites out there as unfortunately some of the games have been found with virus and trojan additions and remember the BBC is the only reputable source of these free Doctor Who games downloads.

BBC Website

BBC Doctor Who Games Free Download

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The game has a diehard fan community and there are a number of player designed maps and missions available as well as two content expansions called Heroes of Might and Magic 5 Tribes of the East and Heroes of Might and Magic 5 Hammers of Fate. Ubisoft has also released Heroes of Might and Magic Complete Edition in 2008 which includes all of the first 5 games and their expansions.

For those unfamiliar with the franchise, Heroes of Might and Magic is a fantasy medieval type of battle game.  Each side in a battle moves in an alternating order until one side is victorious.  The basic game has six factions which are Academy, Haven, Dungeon, Sylvan, Necropolis and Inferno.  Later expansions add another two – Fortress and Stronghold.  Unlike earlier games in the series HoMM5 takes place on a new and previously unheard of world called Ashan.  The central character in this new world is Isabel Greyhound, the Queen of the Griffin Empire.

Heroes of Might and Magic 5 Gameplay

Heros 5 uses a time and resource model of strategic planning in which the most important resource is gold.  Gold may be used to buy most of the units in the game and is raised from the population of the towns under a player’s control.  If a player loses control of all their towns the game is over.

Combat takes place on a battle map that employs a square grid type overlay to enable a player to see how far a given unit can move or the area of effect of a particular spell.  The combat screen is true 3d and is graphically appealing.  Each creature has their own animations and special attacks and abilities.

Heroes of Might and Magic Gameplay Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

The heroes in HoMM5 almost take the game into being a RPG game as they have individual statistics, racial abilities, spells, equipment and back stories.  Combining these attributes with the excellent sound and graphics in the game and it becomes a really great overall experience.

Anyone who has played and enjoyed Heroes of Might and Magic 3 will enjoy this version too.  It is definitely and improvement over the much maligned Heroes of Might and Magic 4, which many consider to be the poorest game of the franchise.  Although the magic system is different in this release it works just fine.  It is different, not better or worse.  Here it may actually be an advantage if you have not played the game before as you will have no preconceptions.

Thanks to the patches that Ubisoft has made available Heroes 5 is a solid game with no outstanding stability issues that I experienced.  Some players on Ubisofts forums have complained that the game was not stable on their systems, but this seems to only happen on “bleeding edge” type PC’s.

Can We Recommend Heroes 5?

If you are a fan of fantasy turn based battle games the HoMM5 is one of the best games available in this genre and we would definitely recommend it to you.  If you want a more fluid real time game then perhaps other games would suit you better, such as Age of Empires.

Fans of the original games will undoubtedly play and enjoy HoMM5, especially if you liked HoMM3 as they play similarly in many respects.  When combined with the two expansions and the map editor this game offers endless hours of on and offline fantasy battling fun.

After some initial difficulties at time of release Heroes of Might and Magic 5 is now (when patched) a reliable and fun game that we can recommend to anyone interested in this type of fantasy battle genre.

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Limited EditionDVD  includes HoMM3 and HoMM4.

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Planescape Torment is a True RPG Game

Self evidently the idea of a role playing game is to play a role, or to put it another way, to escape from everyday reality.  Unfortunately many RPG games promise an escape from the everyday grind, but then just force a player down a virtual railroad track and right back into that grind.  The choices offered are false and the ability of a player to truly affect the game is often quite limited.  I hope to show that this is not the case in this Planescape Torment review.

While the game is in some ways quite linear, it is the choices a player makes that allows the game to be truly your own.  This is the essence of role playing.  The richness that these choices add to the game tend to make any but the most basic kind of Planescape Torment guide redundant – the whole point is to play and enjoy it rather than chasing after powerful items and maximum level.

What Makes Planescape Torment So Good?

Planescape Torment begins with your character awakening in a dark tomb with no memories of who you are or how you got there.  The idea of the game is to rediscover who you are and no, being called “The Nameless One” isn’t good enough!  This is fundamentally different from many other RPG games as it offers the chance for the player to affect how their character develops and also to make changes in the plot of the story.

This helps to explain part of the reason why this game is still popular so many years after its initial release, but it is only part of the story.

The game make good use of the Forgotten Realms combat system which is well known to fans of Dungeons and Dragons, or the earlier and also excellent Baldurs Gate.  The biggest difference here is that the Infinity Engine is used to generate a much closer view of the game world.  This makes the models used in the game appear larger, which improves the visual detail, but can sometimes cause a problem if you are casting a ranged spell for example.  This closer focus means that creatures tend to be a lot closer before you start the cast and that they can be upon you before you finish.  This has obvious implications – especially if the spell has an area of effect!

Another difference between Planescape Torment and other roleplaying games is the fact that in this game your character is immortal, but this fact does not reduce the difficulty of the game as you might expect.  Immortality brings with it a different set of problems and using your brains will often prove more effective than your brawn.  It is worth mentioning that when Torment was released the whole aim of most RPG games was just to survive.  A game with an immortal hero, with puzzles that could be “solved” by dying was revolutionary.

A wise man once said “You are what you do” and you have almost endless choices in Planescape Torment, each one will alter how the game progresses.  For instance you character can play as a warrior, mage or thief – at the same time.  Similarly your actions will alter your declared alignment.  If you fail to keep promises then of course you will become known for that, where as if you keep them you will become known as being lawful/good and so on.  This exploration of morality, along with some excellent voice acting is part of what makes the game memorable.

If you have ever wondered “What can change the nature of a man?” then Planescape Torment is the game for you.

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Making WoW Leveling Fun

When you first start playing any game, levelling is fun as you are learning the game as you go and watching your character grow.  The thing is that content is never as fresh as when you play it through the first time.  How can you level a character to maximum level several times and keep it interesting?

If you play alts, then no doubt the second character you progress to maximum level will get there much faster than the first one.  You get to know that some quests just take forever, or make you do a ridiculous amount of travelling and so you avoid them.  Some quests require you to take things to a quest giver that can be gathered on another continent, yet if they are already in your inventory you can just hand them over and get instant XP.  This kind of quest knowledge speeds up the rate at which your character gains experience means that you level faster overall.

Finding a Good Power Leveling Guide

Of course some people just want to level quickly and don’t want to go through the process a few times in order to learn the special quest knowledge themselves to enable them to powerlevel their own characters.  For these kinds of players there are many levelling guides available.

I have personally used James horde levelling guide, as well as the one by Joana.  I have also tried TourGuide, QuestHelper and a number of other addons to increase levelling speed.  In game addons are generally much better than using a website to get your information as they don’t require the endless alt-tabbing to switch between the game and the information you need, but any guide that gives you a direction arrow as well as in game descriptions of how to complete the quest is awesome.

The reason that descriptions are necessary is that sometimes the quest area you need to get to is underground or upstairs in a building and Warcraft waypoints only work in two dimensions.  If you are blindly following a GPS type direction arrow then sometimes it will be pointing to an underground cave or similar and leave you totally confused as you run around on the surface.  A good guide will mark a waypoint to the entrance and then describe where you need to get to once you are inside.

Another thing to look for in a good levelling guide is that it can be adjusted if you are levelling faster or slower than it is designed for. Many guides, even paid ones, don’t do this.  This leaves you either having to grind, or fighting endless green mobs for low XP just to get the next quest in the chain.

No matter whether you are playing a pet using class like a hunter or a warlock, or a class that is just plain tough like a paladin or a deathknight, there will be times when fighting mobs higher than your level will slow you down.  Similarly not every rogue likes fighting green mobs to ensure a quick kill.  If you are playing a healer specced priest or druid then most likely green mobs will be all you can handle.  (To be honest, if you are healing specced then a respec or a dual spec will help you more than any guide, but some people like levelling as a healer.  The jury is out as to whether this can really be called “power leveling” though.)

Whatever class you play, look for a levelling guide that will allow for these kinds of differences.  Who knows if your favourite class will get nerfed in an upcoming patch?  Although you planned on using a druid levelling guide, you might find that your next character will be a mage and the play styles are very different.  Any decent guide should be capable of being used for any class

WoW Levelling Guides – Some Advice

Have fun.  Sounds obvious, but no matter what, this is a game.  The reason you are looking for a guide to level faster is to reduce the time taken to get to maximum level, but there is a lot of content you will be blowing through.  Missing that content might actually reduce the fun you can have and that is no good thing.

Don’t powerlevel your first character.  Warcraft has a lot of great content.  Enjoy the journey, at least the first time you play.

I personally level with a lot of self installed, third party addons these days, but some people don’t like installing addons and my own UI would scare some people.  Designing a UI is a subject for another day though.  If you want a simple solution that will enable you to have an in game levelling guide with minimal fuss then you should try Zygor’s Guide.

Zygor’s leveling guide is available for alliance and horde.  It is regularly updated after each content patch so it is always relevant and it adjusts to any class played, at any level.  It installs just like any other windows program so if you installed Warcraft you can install this no problem.

If you are looking for a simple to understand wow leveling guide then Zygor’s Guide is one of the best.

Download Zygor’s Leveling Guide – Click Here!

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Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

For those unfamiliar with the plot or gameplay of the Resident Evil (RE) franchise they are a series of games in which a player attempts to survive the attacks of zombies.  The game offers some role playing elements to go along with a combat and action rich game.  The majority of combat occurs indoors, in cramped and dark surroundings which help to add to the sense of suspense and impending doom.

Spoiler: Resident Evil 3 Gameplay Video

Despites its age Resident Evil gameplay is quite good, although graphics are not up to the standards of modern games.  Anyone looking for a game to stretch a modern video card needs to look elsewhere, but if you are looking for a good budget game this title is for you.  RE 3 has sold over 4 million copies worldwide and is still selling well as a budget game.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The enemy in the video is known as Nemesis and is a type of bio-organic weapon.  Without wanting to spoil the game, he is effectively unkillable and usually avoidance is a better policy when engaging him than direct combat.

Resident Evil 3 PC Version

One advantage of playing the Resident Evil 3 PC game is that the graphics are much better than the console versions and if the game is played on a modern PC it really flies along with full detail and high frame rates.  This is the game as it was meant to be seen.

The game is mostly played from the perpective of Jill, although there is a short section where the player plays as Carlos.  The game offers a number of improvements over earlier versions, both in terms of game moves allowed and weapons to be used, ammo and AI for the enemy Nemesis.

The PC version allows the unlocking of addition weapons and some new outfits for Jill that are unavailable on the console versions of the game.  RE3 includes a mini game called “The Mercenaries – Operation: Mad Jackal”.  Successful completion of this minigame unlocks five different costumes and several different pieces of game story relevant to the characters as well as the new weapons.

Top Ten Resident Evil 3 Tips

• Reload before entering new rooms.
• Drop ink ribbons into item boxes to save inventory space.
• Don’t waste powerful ammo on low level enemies like worms.
• Save magnum ammo for Nemesis
• If you are outnumbered, run into the nearest room.
• Sounds in a room will tell you what enemies are in there.  Zombies groan, Cerebus growl etc.
• Use dodge move and 180 degree turns to get away from enemies and gain an advantage.
• Only combine ammo in large amounts as you will receive more bullets than doing many small loads.
• Don’t use the auto reload feature.  Load the guns manually by combining the gun and ammo on the inventory screen page.
• Avoid fighting more enemies than you think you can handle safely.  Separate them if possible.

Why Buy Resident Evil 3?

It is true that RE 3 is an old game and the graphics are kind of retro, but the gameplay is as good as many games out there at the moment.  If blowing the heads off zombies with a shotgun sounds like fun then this game is definitely for you.  Today, the Resident Evil 3 PC game is available very cheaply on budget labels and offers great value.

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