Sunday, June 3, 2007

Quake III: Arena


Published by Activision, Inc.
Developed by id Software, Inc.
Released 1999
Genre Action

Description :

Quake returns for its third action fest, however on this occasion the emphasis is on multiplayer and team gameplay over the series' single player roots.

The games storyline will take you through a number of 1on1 and team based challenges, slowly ranking upwards in difficulty, as the character of your choosing. As usual, there are a number of weapons (from the trusty shotgun to the BFG, and everything in-between) that will aid you in battle, along with power-ups and armour which all comes in handy to keep you alive as long as possible.

Online multiplayer is where Quake III: Arena is at. You'll get the chance to battle your friends in a range of different game modes, including Deatmatch, Team Deathmatch, 1 Flag Capture The Flag, Capture The Flag and Possession. Again, the emphasis in most of the game modes is in team play, whether it be holding off the opposition as your teammate collects and scores the flag, or protecting you and your team as you horde the skull over time.

Requirements :

Min.CPU PIII
Min.OS Win 98
Min.RAM 128MB
Min.DirectX 7.0
CD ROM Speed 4X
Keyboard
Mouse
Internet/LAN Support
Offline Players 1
Online Players 32

Notes :

Supported 3D chipsets:
  • All 3dfx chips
  • ATI Rage Pro & Rage 128
  • S3 Savage 4
  • nVIDIA Riva 128 and 128ZX
  • nVIDIA Riva TNT and TNT2
  • nVIDIA GeForce 256
  • Matrox G200 & G400
  • Intel i740

  • Trivia :
    • While this game was in development, it was referred to as Trinity. This was an obvious reference that it was using the third and possibly final Quake engine

    • The game contains a reference to a popular online comic called User Friendly (www.userfriendly.org). When playing on q3dm19, pick up the fly power-up from the top of the level and fly all the way down until you’re below the final platform. Look up at the central floor and you’ll see an image of the Dust Puppy, as featured in the comic.
    • A downloadable add-on map pack is available on many Quake 3 sites on the 'net, which contains all the maps from the Dreamcast release of the game. This add-on pack allows players of the windows/linux version to play on servers with Dreamcast players. This makes Quake 3 one of the first games to support transparent Internet play between a game console and the PC!

    • "Quake III Arena" presents some of the heroes from previous Id games as playable skins, including the Space Marine from "Doom", the marine from "Quake", and a few of the different marines from "Quake II". All of these models and skins have both male and female counterparts, and different color variations.
    • id Software released a technology demo of the game, called Q3Test, in early 1999. In the following five days, 2 million Quake 3 Test internet games were started worldwide. That works out to around 4 games every second.
    • 50,000 copies of the game were sold within the first 3 days of its release.

    Cheats :

    Display the console at any point in the game (during game play or at any screen). Type /sv_cheats 1 then enter /devmap map

    Use the one of the following values for map:
    q3dm
    <1-18> or q3tourney<1-6>
    Or, you can use any custom map (leave off the map extension *.bsp)

    The game will load in single-player mode with the current settings of the bot variables, and cheat mode enabled. Enter one of the following console commands to activate the corresponding cheat function.

    Effect Code
    All skills unlocked at skill 1/iamacheater
    All skills unlocked at skill 100/iamamonkey
    Toggle God mode/god
    Toggles no clipping mode/noclip
    All weapons and ammo1/give all
    Spawn indicated item/give
    Change view range/cg_thirdpersonrange <320-500>
    Change view angle/cg_thirdpersonangle <-360-360>
    Change gravity2/g_gravity <0-800>
    Hidden Sarge skin/model sarge/krusade
    Set team model/team_model
    Quad damage /give quad damage
    Flight ability /give flight
    Invisibility/give invisibility
    Move faster; default is 320/g speed
    Regenerate damage/give regeneration
    Invincible against lava, drowning, acid and similar hazards /give battle suit
    100 health over the limit /give mega health
    Use indicated character head/headmodel *
    Use indicated head for team/team_headmodel *
    Set rail gun trail time/cg_railtrailtime
    Set gravity/g_gravity
    Third person view /cg_thirdperson 1

    1. The Grenade Launcher and the BFG10K weapons that are unlocked by this codes function, but the graphics are incomplete. It will appear that your character is not holding any weapon when they are selected.
    2. Set to 0 to fly, 800 is default.

    Item names:

    Use one of the following item names with the /give code.
    allammo
    armor
    battle suit
    bfg10k
    flight
    gauntlet
    grappling hook
    grenade launcher
    haste
    health
    invisibility
    lightning gun
    machinegun
    medkit
    personal teleporter
    plasma gun
    quad damage
    railgun
    regeneration
    rocket launcher
    shotgun
    mega health
    speed

    Rise of Nations


    Published by Microsoft Deutschland GmbH
    Developed by Big Huge Games
    Released 2003
    Genre Strategy

    Description :

    Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy game which covers a long period of time, from the early stone age up to the modern-day technology.

    The game offers many unique features that you can not find in other RTS games, such as: National Borders, Rare Resources, "Conquer the World" risk-like campaign, Citizens can occupy themselves, 18 Historical Nations (with unique powers/units), Multiple victory conditions, and many more. Also, a multi-player mode is included and offers a ranking system.

    Requirements :

    Min.CPU PIII
    Min.OS win 98
    Min.RAM 128MB
    Min.DirectX 9.0
    CD ROM Speed 8X
    Keyboard
    Mouse
    Internet/LAN Support

    Trivia :
    • Rise of Nations was ranked # 36 in the 50 Best Games of All Time list published by PC Gamer Magazine in its April 2005 issue.
    Cheats :

    Press [Enter] during game play, then type one of the following codes to enable the corresponding cheat function.

    Effect Code
    Toggle game pausecheat pause <0>
    Set all players to human and full mapcheat sandbox
    Set AI statecheat ai
    Machine guns around every human capital cheat safe
    Set difficultycheat diff <0-5>
    Display achievementscheat achieve
    Force alliance with nationcheat ally
    Force peace with nationcheat peace
    Force war with nationcheat war
    Force encounter with nationcheat meet
    Force encounter-off with nationcheat unmeet
    Turn off computer controlcheat human
    Turn on computer controlcheat computer
    Defeat nationcheat defeat
    Victory for nationcheat victory
    Show or change technologycheat tech
    Show or change resourcecheat resource <+ or ->
    Add indicated number of all resourcescheat resource all+
    Show or change age for nationcheat age
    Show or change military level for nation cheat military
    Show or change civic level for nationcheat civic
    Show or change commerce level for nation cheat commerce
    Show or change science level for nation cheat science
    Show or change all library tech levels for nation cheat library
    Toggle bounding box modecheat bbox <0>
    Show combat rangescheat ranges <0>
    Kill object or all selectedcheat die
    Adjust damage to object or all selected cheat damage <+ or ->
    Insert unit or building at pointer location cheat insert
    Insert unit or building at pointer location cheat add
    Finishes selected building(s) or next item in queue cheat finish
    Drop a Wild Bird at pointer locationcheat bird
    Drop a Nuke at pointer locationcheat nuke
    Packs the currently selected unit(s), if they are packing units cheat pack
    Deploys the currently selected unit(s), if they are deploying units cheat deploy
    Toggle full mapcheat reveal <0>
    Change game explore configurationcheat explore

    Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon

    Published by Ubi Soft Entertainment Software
    Developed by Red Storm Entertainment, Inc.
    Released 2001
    Genre Action,Strategy

    Description :

    The year is 2008, and Russian rebels have taken over Moscow in an attempt to restore the old communist regime. You are in command of The Ghosts, an elite military team and the United States' first line of defense.

    Both single-player and multiplayer modes are available. In the single-player missions, you have an entire platoon of men at your disposal. In multiplayer, you command just one man, with the rest of your platoon controlled by humans instead of the computer.

    Ghost Recon is a first-person tactical shooter. You can choose one of four characters: sniper, rifleman, demolitions expert, and support expert, with specialists being unlocked as you complete the single-player missions.

    Requirements :

    Min.CPU PIII
    Min.OS Win 98
    Min.RAM 128MB
    Min.DirectX 8.0
    CDROM Speed 4X
    Internet/LAN Play Supported
    Keyboard
    Mouse

    Notes :
    Requires 16MB 3D accelerator.
    Requires 1GB minimum hard drive space.


    Trivia :
    • Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon was ranked # 14 in the 50 Best Games of All Time list published by PC Gamer Magazine in its April 2005 issue.

    Cheats :

    Press [Keypad Enter] to display the console window. Then, enter one of the following codes to activate the corresponding cheat function.

    Effect Code
    Achieve objectives one at a timecisco
    All inventory itemsrefill
    Change your kit to specified filekit
    Chicken grenadeschickenrun
    Disable constant shaky screenrumbleoff
    Enable constant shaky screen rumbleon
    Exit gamequit
    Faster movementrun
    God modesuperman
    Hide corpse names hidecorpse
    Invisibilityshadow
    Lose current mission autolose
    Mark location on map for teleportmark
    Mark location on map for teleportmark2
    Paintball modeextremepaintball
    Report current location loc
    Screen shakesboom
    Set gamma; default is 0.5setgama <0.0-1.0>
    Show object namesnames
    Show texture properties for objects showtextureprops
    Squirrel launchersquirrelkite
    Suicidegod
    Take over enemy basesrock
    Team God modeteamsuperman
    Team invisibilityteamshadow
    Teleportteleport
    Teleport to preset locations spawn
    Toggle actor stats toggleshowactorstats
    Toggle AItoggleai
    Toggle display of tracers tracers
    Toggle effect stats toggleshoweffectsstats
    Toggle framerate displaytoggleshowframerate
    Toggle freezing treestogglemovetrees
    Toggle interface stats toggleshowinterfacestats
    Toggle level stats toggleshowlevelstats
    Toggle performance counters toggleshowperfcounters
    Toggle system memory stats toggleshowsystemmemorystats
    Toggle texture memory stats toggleshowtexturememorystats
    Toggle total stats toggleshowtotalstats
    Toggle user interface toggleui
    Unlimited ammunitionammo
    Unlock Hero characters unlockheros
    View debug countersperf
    Win current missionautowin
    Everyone has face with pink cheeks and beard eviltwin
    Show range of enemies and your team members in meters range
    Exit to Windows cover
    Hunt down enemiesgogetem
    Play current recording journalplaystart
    Stop playing current recordingjournalplaystop
    Start recording gameplayjournalrecordstart
    Stop recording gameplayjournalrecordstop
    Dog growling sound testpath
    Load game loadgame
    Quick save savegame

    All heroes:

    Create a backup copy of the file before proceeding. Use a text editor to edit the "'unlocked_heroes.xml" file in the game folder. Replace the existing text with the following.

    henry_ramirez.atr
    nigel_tunney.atr
    will_jacobs.atr
    jack_stone.atr
    guram_osadze.atr
    susan_grey.atr
    klaus_henkel.atr
    buzz_gordon.atr
    lindy_cohen.atr
    astra_galinksy.atr
    scott_ibrahim.atr
    dieter_munz.atr

    Alternately, successfully complete the first twelve missions in campaign mode to unlock all twelve heroes as playable characters in quick mission and campaign modes.

    Mission select:

    Create a backup copy of the file before proceeding. Use a text editor to edit the "unlocked_missions.xml" file in the game folder. Replace the existing text with the following.

    m01_caves.mis
    m02_farm.mis
    m03_rrbridge.mis
    m04_village.mis
    m05_embassy.mis
    m06_castle.mis
    m07_river.mis
    m08_battlefield.mis
    m09_swamp.mis
    m10_ruined_city.mis
    m11_pow_camp.mis
    m12_docks.mis
    m13_airbase.mis
    m14_mountain.mis
    m15_red_square.mis

    Hint: Medals

    Purple Heart: Get wounded or killed in action.
    Bronze Star: Get 15 kills
    Silver Star: Get 20 kills
    Distinguished Service Cross: Get 25 kills
    Congressional Medal Of Honor: Get 30 kills