In the first installment of Lost In The Zone we begin our adventure, what wonders await us?  Our journey starts with a Death Truck driving south.  Traveling too fast, and with the winds and rain too fierce the inevitable happens, and the truck screeches off the side of the road.  The following morning a Stalker stumbles on the wreck, scattered about are bodies, one of which seems to stand out.  A closer inspection reveals they are still alive, the only survivor, and he’s not the driver, so who is he?

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The Star Wars Breakdowns are officially over, ending with two excellent reviews of two excellent games.  Now things will return to normal around here with more content for all categories. Rants and Satire both will get a little more love in publishing.

There was going to be an announcement in regards to the Bargain Bin Breakdowns, but I’ve decided to cancel that, or possibly hold it off for later.  I did however add a breakdowns page under the locations to the right.  This will bring up a list of all the games reviewed, with the most recent at the top.  At some point I will switch this to an alphabetical listing, maybe.

I have a something else to announce, a brand new series!

Lost In The Zone, will be making it’s debut next week.  In honor of the everything that has been going on with GSC Game World/Vostok Games, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, and Survarium.  I will be playing the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game and writing journal-themed entries of my adventures.  This is a completely new area of writing for me, and I’m hoping that I can actually produce here, what I think I have in my head.  This should be entertaining, I hope…  My main goal in this undertaking is to 1)see if I can write in this manor 2)bring the great S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games to the attention of those that haven’t played them 3)show my support of Vostok Games new project Survarium.

That’s pretty much all the news for now, you can also expect to see less News updates, as nothing really happens around here that is news worthy.

-Kore

The MMO.  Can I really review a MMO?  Even a MMO that has been killed by its owner?  Is there a different grading scale for MMO’s when compared to any other game?  How can I rate something that has been changed in so many ways and then laid to rest.  How can I rate and review a game that’s no longer playable?  It’s simple really, Star Wars Galaxies isn’t dead.  It’s very much alive in the community that loved it from the beginning.  It’s alive in the form of Star Wars Galaxies Emulator.

Star Wars Galaxies Emulator is simply a recreating of SOE’s game Star Wars Galaxies.  The first Star Wars MMO, but also a groundbreaking design for any game.  Continuing the somewhat forgotten trend of improving upon the wall and pushing beyond the barriers.  Sony Online Entertainment managed to create something that, even without the greatest licence in entertainment, was a phenomenal gaming experience.  Reinventing the MMO in its infancy, and destroying every MMO that would follow for years to come.  SOE would then go to destroy everything they created, and replace it with another clone of the same old game.  SWGEmu is bringing it back to the fold, bring balance to the force.

Q. What is SWGEmu?

A. SWGEmu is an acronym/abbreviation for Star Wars Galaxies Emulator.

• Star Wars Galaxies is a massively multi-player online role playing game introduced by Sony Online Entertainment in the year 2003. It is the game this project focuses to recreate at a specific milestone referred to as Pre-CU, or Pre-Combat Upgrade. The Combat Upgrade was a set of game changes which radically changed the game-play, to the dislike of thousands of players. These changes led to the founding of this project, in an attempt to “recreate” the game as it was during the Pre-CU era.
• Emulator can be defined as “to try to equal or excel; imitate with effort to equal or surpass” (Dictionary.com). At SWGEmu, Emulator refers to the software the SWGEmu team is building. This Emulator is meant to imitate Sony Online Entertainment’s server-side software, which hosted the galaxies of Star Wars Galaxies during the Pre-CU era.  -SWGEmu.com

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At a time when Star Wars games weren’t anything to brag about, a bright star shined in the dark. It was Knights of the Old Republic, and Star Wars gaming would never be the same. There have been a lot if Star Wars games, some good, some bad, mostly bad. Because Star Wars will always sell, storyline, graphics, or game type will never matter. A Star Wars game will make money because all of us nerds want to experience that galaxy far, far away.

This fact is somewhat apparent in many games, even today. There are numerous games that don’t push the boundaries of the box they are in. But reside happily on the average baseline of their gaming counterparts. While you can’t expect every game to push the boundaries, otherwise there would be none, you don’t want a game to exist solely on its license.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) is a role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts. It was released for the Xbox on July 15, 2003, for Microsoft Windows on November 19, 2003, and on September 7, 2004 for Mac OS X. The Xbox version is playable on Xbox 360 with its Backward Compatibility feature. The PC version was re-released as part of the Star Wars: The Best of PC collection in 2006 as a limited release. – Wikipedia

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I don’t know about you, but I think the first ever Imperial March to May the Forth Star Wars Breakdowns has been a hit. I’ve managed to knock out six reviews in eight weeks, which is kind of a big deal for me. My normal speed is closer to once or twice a month. So expect to see things slow down a bit once it’s fully over.

There are two more Breakdowns in the can scheduled to post. Two of the biggest, and possibly greatest Star Wars games ever released.  I was more than happy to play and review both these games.  I’m sure there are plenty that wont agree with me on this, but deal with it.

There will also be some changes in the way Bargain Bins are made/released. I’m not giving it all away now, but expect to see something different in May.