Only for fans of simulators: German Truck Simulator – a new  computer game (racing) like 18 wheels of Steel, in which you have to drive trucks, to carry goods from one place to another, to make as much money, to upgrade the trucks, hire drivers, etc. The ones that will want to play this game must know that initially is in German, so, you will have to download and install one patch for English.

Trackmania 2 – was officially announced by Nadeo Games Festival from Paris. For those who do not know TrackMania, it is computer racing game in which the players have the opportunity to construct their own routes, plus many other interesting modes.. You will have to play it to understand its charm.

I was very excited to find out about  the appearance of Trackmania 2, and that’s because the new game will be part of some more beloved elements by me now, in previous versions. For example, the split screen in Trackmania 2 will be at “home” because we will  meet it in most game modes. Another reason for which Trackmania 2 is expected by me and by gamers in general, is that the game is totally dedicated for PC.

Nadeo has announced that the new game will have a much improved racing editor, which will lead to huge replay ability. Also, they worked hard to improve online modes and interactions between players. It was not announced yet any release date but the game is expected this year (2010).

Blur – it is a racing game created by Bizarre Creations and published by Activision and it will be available on XBOX, PS3, and PC.

Blur will be different from other computer racing games that have been or will be released? First,  it will be an arcade racing game. How the simulators market will be blocked for a period by NFS Shift, Blur makes the right choice and it will address to gamers with some old features (because they haven’t been seen in games since a long time), including:

Power Ups – we will able to get an advantage (speed, missiles, shield, shocks, etc.) to win races.

Realistic racing – good graphics, realistic damage, inspired from reality tracks and licensed cars will try to bring a dose of realism to the game too.

Reinvented Multiplayer – I say “reinvented” because Blur brings a facility that I have not seen much in racing games, SPLIT-SCREEN. We will be able to divide the screen in 4, so.. It will be fun! Online, it seems that we can compete at the same time with up to 20 players.

Beside this, Blur will have another original part. Social networks – are designed to help players to interact with the Blur world (to see charts, buy cars, upgrade them, make friends or rivals, etc.). The same way will work the multiplayer too, even more, Activision said that online Blur will be a “Facebook of racing”; they also praised with the fact that Blur is not linear because each track will have some power-ups, shortcuts, alternative routes, jumps…etc. It sounds attractive, although it is a bit forced  for an arcade game.

Let’s recap: good graphics, realistic damage, power-ups, multiplayer.. will be attractive enough to handle the expectations? I think that the game has a good chance to be loved but only if Blur will really have everything that Activision said it will have.

At the beginning of this field, when the first computer games appeared, people had to save the game on their computer and then play it. Nowadays it’s a different situation, because you can play computer games online and what’s even better, is that these online computer games are free. Online computer games have the advantage that you don’t need to install them and that they do not occupy space on your personal computer. Like every computer games, playing online computer games has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Some advantages could be that you don’t waste time installing them and that they do not occupy space on your hard disk, but a big disadvantage is that you can always take viruses.

I suppose that everybody has tried at least once in his life to play an online computer game. There are different types of online computer games and for all people, of all ages, nationalities, religion etc.

So there are online computer games for toddlers, for children between 10-14, for teenagers, boys, girls, adults, old people, computer games about war, about fairies, about animals, plants and so on. It’s very easy nowadays to play a computer game online because most of them do not require an account and you can just play it like that, without having to pay for it. Of course, there are some online computer games that require an account but those are more complex games and following the steps in order the register the site is not difficult alt all.

One of the most common online computer game is “tetris”. This is a dynamic puzzle game invented by Alexey Pazhitnov in the year 1985.It’s really easy to play. The square pieces must be rotated and shifted as they fall and fill in the blank spaces. The game ends when the bricks don’t have any space left where to fall.

Another online computer game that is very famous is the arcade game “Pac-Man”. What is the most important fact about this game is that is non-violent, reason why it actually became very popular during the 80’s. It’s simple to play, all you need to do is eat dots and other prizes and try not to meet the four ghosts that are trying to catch Pac-Man.

Card games such as “freecell”, “Yukon”, “pyramid”, “shamrocks castle”, “blackjack” “solitaire” are also a category of very popular online computer games. The most played in my opinion is solitaire and especially FreeCell solitaire where the player must place all the cards in each suit in ascending order. The victory in this game depends more on strategy than on luck.

Online computer games, simple complex or strategic they can also be a meaning of entertainment and they can all help us relax. Online computer games have become quite a business nowadays, a real life area that people use every day for fun, field that they can even use to make money, by inventing, using and selling computer games.

I will start this article by telling you a little story that I have read some time ago, about a young man and his addiction to computer games. This boy has always been a good child, the only child in his family, always had good grades in school, never caused any problems to his parents, finished a good highschool and also graduated from a good University. He was that type of person who is very calm, and kind who liked long walks, good movies and good books. He actually had a thing for books. He liked to read and books were his life. He even opened his own Book Store, and everything was great for him. A lot of people trusted him to buy books from because they got the books in a short time and because it was obvious that the guy really knew what he was doing. This situation lasted for a few years, until…until he discovered the pleasure of playing computer games. He started like everybody does. Playing a little bit today, a little bit tomorrow and so on, until he started not to care about his life anymore. His friends called him everyday asking what was happening to him, and he would just answer “I’m busy, I can’t talk right now”. He was indeed busy, playing computer games while his books were just standing there waiting to be sold. By the end of the year he had lost everything; his family, his friends and his little store. He now works as a salesman. He sells computer games in a video store.

The conclusion of this little story is that once we are trapped in the computer game addiction is really difficult to escape from it, and most of the times people realize it when it’s already too late.

Computer game addiction has indeed become a problem, especially for young people. This story is one of the many of this kind in the world and unfortunately it hasn’t ended in a happy way.

.Ask yourself how many of these stories have a happy ending? How many of these young people know when to stop? How many of them even realize that they have a problem? I believe that not many of them. Taking into consideration that the cases of computer games addiction are more and more numerous then I believe that not enough people realize what they are getting into.

A lot of teenagers and young men have a computer game addiction nowadays and most of the times neither their friends nor the family can help them escape this addiction. The only one who can help these people is themselves. It’s important learning from the mistakes of others so next time when you feel like playing computer games all day ( and all night) long, think about the story of this guy and about what his computer game addiction did to him.

Computer games that have already appeared this year are listed below, along with other games announced for 2010.

For example, Twin sector is an action-adventure, produced by DNS Development and published by Headup Games; the game can be found in different versions already. The action takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, where people who have managed to survive are found in cryogenic sleep rooms, until the planet can be inhabited again.

The character that the gamers will play with, will be awakened at some point by the computer that controls the maintenance of life, to fix a flaw that could kill them all, last survivors. Of course, something does not go according to plan, and Ashley Simms (the feminine character that goes with you through the action), must confront all obstacles. Gamers will also have to solve many puzzles and many enemies to kill until they achieve the objective.

Details provided by manufacturers so far sounds interesting and I hope the game will manage to enchant us.

Twin Sector minimum system requirements:

Pentium 4 2,0 Ghz or equivalent AMD processor

1GB RAM 1GB RAM

DirectX 9.0c Grafikkarte 128MB Shadermodel 2.0 (Geforce 6600 or Radeon 9600) 128MB DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 2.0 graphics card (GeForce 6600 or ATI ® Radeon ™ 9600)
p style=”text-align: left;”>DirectX 9.0c compatible soundcard

8 GB hard disk space

Vancouver 2010 – Sports – release date: January 12, 2010
Twin Sector – Action-Adventure – release date: January 16, 2010
Dark Void -  Adventure – release date: January 19, 2010
Mass Effect 2 -  Shooter – release date: January 26, 2010
STALKER:Call of Pripyat – Shooter RPG – release date: February 2, 2010
BioShock 2 – Shooter – release date:  February 9, 2010
Aliens vs. Predator -  Shooter release date:  February 19, 2010
Napoleon: Total War – Strategy – release date:  23 February 2010
Order of War: Challenge – Strategy – release date:  February 25, 2010
Silent Hunter V:Battle of the Atlantic – Simulator – release date:  February 25, 2010
Battlefield:Bad Company – Shooter – release date: March 3, 2010
Supreme Commander 2 – Strategy – release date: March 5, 2010
Assassin’s Creed2 – Action – release date:  March 9, 2010
Command & Conquer 4 – Strategy – release date:  March 16, 2010
Metro 2033 – Shooter – release date: March 16, 2010
Prison Break:The Conspiracy – Action – release date: March 16, 2010
Mount & Blade:Warband -  RPG – release date: March 19, 2010
R.U.S.E. – Strategy – release date: March 23, 2010
Just Cause 2 – Action – release date: March 23, 2010
Splinter Cell:Conviction – Shooter – release date: April 13, 2010
Grand Theft Auto:Episodes from Liberty City – Action – release date: April 13, 2010

Those are so far the computer games which are about to be launched in 2010

Lost Planet 2  – Shooter – release date:May 11, 2010
Split /Second – Racing – release date:May 18, 2010
Alpha Protocol – RPG – release date:May 28, 2010
Pure Football – Sports – release date:May 2010
Transformers:War for Cybertron – Action – release date:May 2010
R.U.S.E – RTS – release date: July 4, 2010
Superstars V8 – Racing – release date:June 26, 2010
Prince of Persia:The Forgotten Sands – Action – release date:July 2010
Mafia II – Action – release date:August 24, 2010
Max Payne 3 – Action/Shooter – release date:N/A 2010
Diablo III – RPG – release date: N/A 2010
Blur – Racing – release date: N/A 2010
Rage -  Racing/Shooter – release date: N/A 2010
Crysis 2 – Shooter – release date:N/A 2010
Deus Ex 3 – Tactical Shooter – release date:N/A 2010

Hellgate : London

Hellgate : London is an action computer game which answers to your question: What if you would take all the elements from Diablo and put them into a shooter? Even if you did not ask yourself this question, Hellgate remains an interesting game.

Of course, the action of the game is taking place in London into a near future. A huge gate to hell has been opened and demons started passing through it. The story of the game starts by putting you in the role of a character from six possible classes, throwing you into an adventure which will take you on a certain path, on which you will need to find different oracles, to kill a lot of demons, and even to pass through that gate. The game is spiced with scenes, videos, written or spoken dialogues and funny moments, like one of the characters which thanks to the action of the game, will have a small demonic bulge on the face till the end of the game.

The story is not different even if you play online or offline. The main goal of the game is to collect everything you can in order to upgrade your character. You must keep in mind that often you will find goods which you will not be able to use on the character you have chosen; you have the possibility to equip your character in order to show off in front of other players in the online mode.

The game generally takes place in safe locations, usually train stations where you will start missions, buy or sell items, or, if your are online, you will interact with other players. But there is a multitude of areas which connect to these safe locations, these areas being filled with a variety of enemies which you can stab or shoot. The mode you attack depends on the character class your are playing in. There are two character classes which fight at close quarters, and the other classes are attacking from distance, either you are firing different weapons, or casting spells. Anyway, playing with one of the classes which attack from distance, you will observe that the game is almost transforming into a shooter, but yet not a great one, because it is more an RPG (Role Playing Game) than a shooter.

Of course, it has more to offer than the basic attacks, because every character class has specific skills that can be used. The archers can mark targets so that these can receive more damage, the engineers are calling for help which are making all the difficult jobs in battle, other are casting spells, and so on. As you increase in level, you will win more and more points which you will be able to add to your skills, but you must be careful how you “build” your character, because there is no going back, being very possible that you won’t spread the skill points and you will end up with a weaker character than the most majority.

The appearance of the enemies is amazing, you will see a wide range of demons including: imps, crawling demons, beasts that attack by surprise, or ghostly images that float through air. Also the game’s levels are looking good, as you explore train tunnels, destroyed streets of the city and even hell.

Young people in general play more often computer games than adults. It is a good way to have fun and many students don’t know when to stop playing these computer games.

The first and main negative effect of computer games is violence. Many computer games are violent and most young people actually start to enjoy violence. It would be a good thing if students learned how to keep violence only in the game but most of them have the tendency to also be violent in real life. Parents usually see this effect on their children most of the times when is already too late. So the violence of computer games is the most negative effect that computer games have on students.

Another reason why computer games are not good for students and why computer games have a negative effect on them is the ADD (attention deficit disorder).More and more students suffer from this syndrome and most of the time this happens because of computer games. Students tend to get very involved in a certain game and when they must deal with facts or situations in their life becomes very difficult for them to do that.

I was reading the other day  a story about a 14 year old student who had a very big problem with computer games. He started like every student does, by playing one computer game, then another one and so on. The young man started not to care anymore about school, his friends or his family. By the time his parents realized it was already too late. His parents took his computer and locked it in another room, but the boy managed to open the door and take his computer back. Trying to talk to the child didn’t work and the parents did not know what to do anymore. Fortunately, one day, the child realized what he got himself into, and decided that this was not the way he wants to live his life and decided by himself to quit playing computer games. The fact that this child realized what he had done was a great thing, but how many students in the world manage to solve these problems by themselves without specialized help?

As a conclusion for this little story, we can easily see that the reasons why computer games are not good for students are related to the fact that they interfere in student’s social and family life. Computer games have the tendency to become addictive and as every addiction, it’s quite hard to get cured by your own and without help from friends, family or specialized persons.

The reasons why computer games are not good for students are very numerous and computer games really have some negative effects on students, and the reason why I choose to talk about these two is because they seem to be the most frequent and the most dangerous ones. In order for these things not to happen, a student must be educated in a certain way so he doesn’t fall in the trap of computer games addiction.

Some may think that playing computer games is always something negative, especially for children .But are those who believe this always right? Further on I will try to find and explain some reasons why computer games are good for us.

First of all, living in this world,  when the time passes very fast, when the entire world is based on a very fast evolution, computer games are one of the most relaxing and especially cheapest ways of relaxing ourselves. Think about people who work all day long, and can not afford all the time to pay for the gym or go to trips. One of their relaxing ways is playing computer games, half an hour per day, or even more. This can not harm anybody .So, a reason why computer games are good for us is because they are relaxing.

Second of all, there are numerous educational computer games, such as “Conquiztador”, or games about mathematics, literature, word order, chess etc. So another reason why computer games might actually be good for us is because they can teach us things, in an easy and pleasant way. This reason applies for people of all ages, such as children, adults and old people.

Third of all, by playing computer games we can easily interact with other people from all around the world. Think about the fact that not all of us have the possibility to travel around the world, and by playing computer games is easier for us to meet new people, to find out more about other countries, their culture and their way of living. This is a good reason why computer games are good for us because as we all know, there are two types of people around us, introverted and extroverted people. For those who have problems in interacting with others (introverted) and showing their feelings or opinion about all sorts of things, computer games can be very helpful.

Last, but not least, one reason why computer games are good for us is because most of the games that we play are so much fun. By playing a computer game we can be whoever or whatever we want, whenever we want it. It’s great to be able to have some sort of idea about how life would be in another reality. For example, playing real time strategy, real time tactics, and role playing games etc. can make us fell a lot better after a bad day at work or even in our spare time.

There are many other reasons why computer games are good for us, but there are also a lot of reasons why computer games are not good for us, so the important thing is to always keep in mind that there are only computer games and try not to loose our connection with the reality in order to have a happy and healthy life.

Land of Chaos Online (LOCO)

Land of Chaos is a free online computer game that will be released this summer by Danal and Burda:ic. It is a mix between a role playing game (RPG) and a real time strategy (RTS) giving players the opportunity to choose among 30 characters, with different abilities. The two sides of the game will be called Army of Hell and Forces of Nature, each will have classes that will resemble warriors, monsters or petite.

Burda:ic GmbH is a German publisher who is specialized in free online computer games; it released known games as Florens, Avalon or Fantasy Tennis Heroes.

Need for Speed World Online (NFS: World)

Need for Speed World is a free online computer game, developed by Black Box and Electronic Arts Singapore. NFS World Online is announced for release this year, initially in Asia and then probably it will be released and be online also in the U.S and Europe (it would not take longer than several months).

Developers have said that NFS World Online will include more game modes, as licensed cars or licensed car parts. They did not give many details yet, but it seems that cars can be customized and improved in a virtual garage.

Besides Need for Speed World Online, Electronic Arts has announced two more titles:

NFS: Shift (PC, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP) and NFS: Nitro (Nintendo Wii, DS).

Fifa Online is a free computer game announced by Electronic Arts, which will be released this year, first as a beta version. Fifa Online will be launched under EA Games banner, being licensed 30 leagues, 500 clubs and over 15000 footballers.

Gamers will be able to take their favorite team and bring it in the league of the “big teams”, with the opportunity to transfer and to develop the facilities of the lands and training bases. Even if it is a “free to play” game, with the help of the micro-transactions, gamers will be able to “enrich” the accounts of their virtual teams. After announcing the game Need For Speed World Online, the EA SPORTS FIFA Online is the second title of the excesses of the Electronic Arts, which will have a free edition like I said above.

Allods Online

Allods Online is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Game developed by Nival Astrum which will be distributed free by Gala Networks Europe via Gpotato servers. It is cataloged as a Fantasy Space Opera and it had its development budget approximately $12 million.

In this game, players will have to choose between 2 factions, 6 races and 28 classes. Developers have announced that the game will have over 1500 quests, PvP battles, a manufacturing system and dozens of islands Astrology (Allods).  Also, players will be able to own a pet or to participate at flying ships’ sailing.

Allods was created using an engine developed in-house, and it is expected some time soon this year.

Hidden and Dangerous 2

Launched in 1999, the Hidden and Dangerous series has built the path of tactical shooter games. It needed a good plan, coordinating the team, the necessity of taking an opponent down with a single bullet, etc. and all these have become defining terms for this genre, while you needed to face some dark days of the World War II. You had to control a very brave commando team which was part of the British Special Air Services and which had as missions, facing the aggression of the Axis force both with the mind and sneaking, and with the force of firing weapons. Now, Illusion Softworks company has came back with a continuation of the series, Hidden and Dangerous 2 which takes you inside the boots of the guys from SAS which have to meet tough missions behind the enemy lines, a great game which deserves the spot between the best shooters which have as theme this great conflict of human history.

One of the first things you will understand in this game is that you have to put a pretty big effort in it. Almost everything lasts too much and it is more complex than some other games of this genre. in addition, the reaction speed is crucial here, because enemies really know how to use their weapons. One of the most interesting features of the game is the possibility to control up to 4 soldiers at a time, from which one you control directly from a first person perspective or 3rd person, as you wish. That character can give orders to other people in your team, spoken or signaled by gestures. More, you can pause the action in order to consult a map where you can give orders with maneuvers, movement speed, advancing positions, etc.

These missions are pretty complex and sometimes will test your patience. A level which inside another game it would not have taken you more than 20 minutes to pass, here will take up to 2 hours thanks to the strategic complexity of the objectives and the opponent army resistance.

If this is what you want, you can play in the “lone wolf” mode your missions, having the possibility to go into missions by yourself, without the help of your team, but a part of the game’s captivity is controlling the people which accompany you in battle. These you can choose depending on their good and bad parts, like life, sneaking skills, shooting skills and other skills which will contribute to a faster success over the mission, skills which will improve after each mission they attend. You will have to be very careful when you send your men on the field, so that you can benefit more from their skills. Also, each of them can carry along a limited quantity of equipment, which will have to be enough for you along many consecutive missions, components of a mini campaign. So, you will have to choose carefully the equipment you need to use before beginning a mission, and then choose what you need after checking the enemy corps.

Hidden and Dangerous 2 shows off with a huge range of equipments and weapons, from knives and pistols, to semi-automatic rifles, anti-personal mines and explosives, photo cameras, compass, wire pliers, and much more. The weapons are inspired from real weapons from World War II, so you will be able to use the famous M1 Garand and MP40, as the less familiar Arikasa Meiji 38 of the Japanese.

Adults as well as children need to entertain themselves. Playing a computer game now and then doesn’t harm anyone.

One of the games that many adults play nowadays is “Conquiztador”. This is actually a computer game for adults that everybody can play, from teenagers to old people. The game is something like a war, but a war of knowledge. The one who has more knowledge wins. The questions are from different fields, such as geography, history, literature, mathematics, physics and so on. Another thing about this game is that the answers must be given in a certain time such as 30 seconds for example. This computer game for adults is a good way of improving one’s knowledge, of meeting new people and can be also played just for fun.

“Travian” might also be a good game for adults. All you need to do is to find a nickname and choose whether you are a warrior or merchant. There are several resources that you will receive and further on that you will have to obtain by yourself, such as iron, lumber, clay and crop. In order to extend your village you need to develop some of these resources fields. You have to build houses, granaries, crannies and so on. Playing this game means that you are not alone. There are other players that have their own villages and depending on where they are situated in the map, they are (or not) important to you. Good relationships with your neighbors are vital in this game. This is a good game because it requires strategy and patience. It is a good adult game because is not very far from reality. You must make and develop your own life and you also need to have relationships with other players.

“Heroes –of might and magic” is a special game, at least in my opinion. This game requires a certain capability of strategy and certain patience. There are 5 versions of this game and I believe that the last one is the best because the graphics is absolutely wonderful, every flower, every tree are shown in detail and the image is full 3D.The music, the language, the image, all these things make the one who’s playing to believe that he or she actually lives in that period of time.

Most of the times this computer game for adults is played by smart and calm people but everybody can play it as long as they are willing to be patient because it’s a game that requires time to be spend in order to play it every day.

There are a lot of computer games for adults and I have only talked about some of them, the ones which I believe to be the most popular these days and the most interesting ones. Who wouldn’t like to live in the Romans era or who wouldn’t like to be a great warrior? What these games actually do is show people that reality is not the only thing that we have in life, that there is possible for someone to be a plumber during the day but in his spare time to be a great peace leader or a great warrior. And this, in my opinion, is great.