Content and news by Rob Williams

Delightful, disappointing, and frustrating-Age of Empires III in a nutshell. In many ways, AOE3 acts as a shrewd follow-up to developer Ensemble Studios’ acclaimed Age series, incorporating choice bits of Age of Mythology with the history-buff reverence of the Empires games. But in many other ways, it paints a clumsy and confused picture of what might have been.

Wow, while some websites have been giving this game great reviews, 1UP has not. Check out why here.

Jeff Smith’s Bone comic book epic is a fantasy story for all ages starring the Bone cousins, Phone, Fone, and Smiley, who find themselves lost after being run of out of their native Boneville. Although the Bones themselves look sort of like Snoopy from Peanuts, the stories also involve humans, insects, dragons, and “stupid, stupid, rat creatures”, all of whom can talk to each other. The comic is a great read, how I would describe the comic if recommending it to others is that Bone is “cute, funny, and charming”. Bone: Out from Boneville (Bone) is an adventure game that retells the events of the first compilation of the comic book series, also titled Out from Boneville.

Wow, I had no idea that this was being made into a game. I used to read Bone comics all the time when I was younger. Definitely check out the full review over at Gamers Info.

For millennia, a godlike being as old as the cosmos itself floated free across the universe. As the fetid swamps of the Earth’s Cretaceous Period began to recede, this god Merulina crashed into the turbid waters of the expanding Atlantic. Settling into the ocean depths, the deity conjured followers, calling forth the Coralax from the incandescent coral thriving in the warm shallows. Made from coral imbued with Merulina’s divine essence, the first Coralax were Shapers, high priests meant to lead the burgeoning Coralax civilization.

This one is looking good, and I can see myself enjoying it more than City of Heroes. Good stuff! Check it out at Boom Town.

Neversoft’s upcoming Activision-published Gun has shown quite a bit of promise since the Southern California-based developer took the wraps off the third-person Western-themed action game earlier this year. The game blends elements and technology from Neversoft’s own Tony Hawk franchise, as well as a smattering of GTA-inspired bits. We’ve been anxious to see just how this Western romp–which promises much shooting, female interaction, and mystery-solving–will handle, ever since we got our first look at it this past June. Our subsequent looks have done little to diminish that positive impression, so we were naturally anxious to take the reins in the game and get some hands-on time. We were finally able to do that recently when we tried out work-in-progress versions of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 games, which featured a sampling of levels taken from the start of the adventure.

Check out the full preview, with screenshots, over at Gamespot.

Hidden deep within the levels of Ritual’s SiN, a dedicated gamer could find a slightly baity sign that read: ‘Caution: Do Not Play With Valve’. Never one to follow their own advice however, the cheeky SiN monkeys have found themselves sleeping with those who were once the enemy (of sorts) – playing with their engine, playing with their delivery system and, indeed, playing with the very form of games as we know them. Episodic gameplay, that which bends to the demands of the player, is the name of the game – and my, but isn’t it looking tasty?

I for one, am looking extremely forward to this one. It better not be a disappointment like so many other recent games have been. Check out the full preview at Computer and Videogames.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Oct. 19, 2005–2K Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO – News), and FIRAXIS Games, the world renowned video game developer, today announced that Sid Meier’s Civilization IV for PC has gone gold and is off to manufacturing. Sid Meier’s Civilization IV will ship to North American retail stores on October 25th.

This game has some serious potential and I can’t wait to try it. I wonder if it can keep me away from AoE III.. Check out the official site here.

BFGTech has just released a water cooled GeForce 7800 GT-based video card for all the water cooling enthusiasts out there. We look at the card’s gaming performance and image quality, overclocking performance, and heat generation.

This card had my attention when it first came out, but it costs way more than the regular 7800GT. I’d rather void the warranty and install my own water block for the price difference. Check out the full review at Hard|OCP.

The good folks over at Xoxide sent me what is called the Remote Control 12V DC Relay Switch, made by Logisys. This little outfit will let you control your case lighting or even you car lighting remotely. I’m going to remotely dive into this product to give you the ons and offs (ins and outs) about it.

Check out the full review over at Extensive Mods.

All new hardware, all new software, makes this thing all the better. Gone are the old annoyances of the Audigy series, replaced by the X-Fi, which isn’t very annoying at all!

You can read our extensive review with included objective and subjective hearing tests and of course gaming benchmarks like f.e.a.r, 3DMark03, CS, Call of Duty 2 and BatlleField 2.

Check it out at Guru 3D.

Nyko was founded in 1995 and is based out of Los Angeles, California In that short ten years, they have proven themselves as qualified developers, manufacturers and marketers of innovative peripherals to enhance the digital lifestyle. They produce peripherals for every major console, as well as PCs and the iPod. Their latest foray into the PC game market brings us the Nyko Airflo EX, and brings PC gamers closer to the console.

Check ou the full review over at Think Computers.

With the arrival of Athlon 64 X2 dual core and power-hungry graphic chips like ATI Radeon X1000 or NVIDIA GeForce 7800, power supply makers have seen the need for more powerful PSUs loaded with more and more features like sleeved cables, modular design, ATX 2.0 compliance, 120mm LED fan, active PFC, 6-pin PCI-express connection, dual 12V rails and much more. The Sansun Artic 550W PSU is one of these and it also offers an impressive level of performance for a price that should not exceed 95$.

Check ou tthe full review of this new PSU over at AMD Board.

Amazing is another word. From this, vertical is the way to use this Asetek VapoChill Micro and of course the Ultra Low noise fan for a quiet life. If we had tested at our 70 watts it would be below the level of the graph and at 170 watts would probably be only something like 26 degrees Celsius.

Head on over to A1 Electronics for the full review.

FOR THE PAST 12 months, Intel and AMD have praised the merits of their respective dual-core CPU designs and focused on thread-level parallelism as the key to better perfomance, while gradually distancing themselves from the old “clock speed” performance standard. Although Intel beat AMD by a handful of weeks when it came time to formally launch dual-core desktop systems, AMD was the first company to offer dual-core solutions across the server, workstation, and desktop markets.

Check out the full review of this pricy CPU at Tech Report.

The Creative Nano packs a ton of features in an incredibly tiny MP3 player. Creative included everything in the box that you’ll need to take this miniscule music toy out for a jog. While you will be stuck using an external battery charger and a mini USB cord to transfer music, these minor inconveniences shouldn’t deter most people from considering it a top-of-the-line MP3 player worthy of serious consideration.

Head on over to Design Technica for the full review.

TV tuners add a whole new dimension to any PC, and don’t have to cost much to do so. With the ability to watch TV full screen or in a small window, as well a recording programs much like commercially available personal video recorders, they can be quite a convenient accessory to have… This Tech Tip will look at some of the basics of computer TV tuners, including the interfaces, the technologies, and the performance.

Check out the full article over at Big Bruin.

The Chaintech uses the newer NV42 GPU. This makes it a true PCI-E based graphics card, instead of using the NV40 GPU which AGP cards used. The NV42, unfortunately, keeps better track of its pipelines, making use of all 12. So there is no way to unlock the core, which was popular on the older AGP versions. However, the NV42 is said to be more stable, so a higher overclock might make up for the lack of the 4 extra pipelines.

Check out the full review over at Paradise|OC.

The enthusiast 2GB solution from OCZ started off in their Gold line and came with loose timings. They are back with yet another
enthusiast solution that offers much better timings at high speeds.

Check out the full review at InsaneTek.

Thermaltake has engineered a completely new video card cooling concept. A self-contained water cooling unit which is mounted into two PCI slots keeps the GPU cool. People who think watercooling requires a lot of maintenance or leaks easily will be proven wrong. The installation is also remarkably easy. What makes this unit even more attractive is its competitive price. Powercolor liked it so much, that they use it on their X800 GT EVO series.

Head on over to techPowerUp! for the full review.

Considering that HTPC enthusiasts would be a large part of the MX6’s target market, it is positively criminal that it is not Media Center compatible. Again, if one had the determination and skill, one could use LCDC to produce your own custom screens to display various HTPC activities. If you were seriously hardcore, you might even code your own Media Center plug-in for LCDC. However, having forked out big bucks for this display, this functionality should be a mere installation wizard away – it should not be down the community to write their own software.

Check it out over at Bit-Tech.

Does your latest FPS lack the ‘kill kill kill’ feel? Well you may want to try out Serious Sam II, which will give you more than you will ever need! From Croteam comes the latest game in the Serious Sam series, with great graphics, powerful weapons and of course, creative creatures! Let’s see if this sequel was one worth waiting for.