In the mood for some survival horror gaming? Do you miss that warm fuzzy feeling you get from cutting off the limbs of your enemies, or that satisfy crunch when you crush their head? If you've been longing for some hot bloody action, Dead Space is definitely the game for you. Having heard nothing about this release in prior months, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but so far I'm extremely happy with what the game has to offer and how it is presented. Simply put, it advertises itself as a straight up survival horror game and it has turned out to be all that and more. The title might be a bit confusing, but Dead Space really is a combination of all four of those elements in one beautiful game. Of course it's far from perfect, few games are these days, yet it delivers on every level from psychological immersion to intense sound to beautifully crisp visuals.

When I bought the game I brought it home fully expecting to be disappointed, or to have another Doom clone that would just be average. Instead, I've been extremely pleased with it and found myself scared on more than one occasion. So, whats to like? It's all in the presentation.

So, you've played STALKER: Clear Sky and after hours of frustration, bugs, patching, and utterly failed game play, you're pissed as all hell. The good news is that if you haven't played the original in awhile, there are three great reasons to give it another spin: Oblivion Lost, Sky4ce, and Float32. As you've probably noticed, many of the top games these days have a huge community mod following. These three in particular stand out as must haves and really overhaul the game to what it was meant to be. In their early stages each promised to enhance varying aspects of the game, but now that they have matured combining them gives STALKER a completely different feel... and for the better!

Let's start with Oblivion Lost 2.2, the latest release as of this article. Designed as a complete reinvention of STALKER, OL adds all the elements they TRIED to use in Clear Sky without success. Faction wars, random deadly blow outs (pictured above), cooperative play, a larger selection of weapons and armor, tweaked game balancing, random and moving anomalies, new enemies, sound and weather overhaul, and a ton of additional features. OL really is STALKER as it should have been from the beginning! I definitely recommend installing this and starting a fresh game. You'll really feel as though Clear Sky was a completely botched attempt at doing what a couple of people implemented for free.

After spending the last two weeks playing Clear Sky, the follow up to STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, I thought I would give a few impressions of the game and maybe do a bit of ranting while I'm at it. When the original game came out I wasn't quite sure what to expect after only seeing screen shots and reading a hand full of reviews, but as the second release, Clear Sky has a lot to live up to. The first game wasn't exactly a mind blowing experience, but it was innovative and overall had some amazing atmosphere to it. There were many points in the game where I was actually scared or felt completely emotionally involved because of the wonderfully created environment. Simply put, I enjoyed playing it and Clear Sky promised to be just as good, if not better.

Unfortunately, after about thirty hours of game play I have to say that Clear Sky fails to deliver and disappoints in a huge way, but more on that in a bit. First, I want to point out all the ways that the game succeeds or at least attempts to succeed in delivering what we all expected. Without a doubt, one of the most impressive features has to be the world's weather and day/night system. The game literally convinces you on many occasions that you are in a living and breathing world through its use of an actively clocked in-game time. The sun rises and sets with stunning beauty, complete with DX10 god rays and volumetric lighting.

I'll admit, lately I've been a bit behind the times with gaming. After FF2 and Valkyrie Profile 2 came out, I haven't really turned it on much. The PS3 and XBOX 360 look amazing, but ehhh, so much money when I know they're just going to get cheaper... and so will the games! Honestly, I'm going to wait for the platforms a bit longer, so lets focus on the PC. I recently (and reluctantly) moved to Vista in order to get DirectX 10, but honestly, I'm glad I did because I couldn't wait any longer to play a couple of these.

First up is Mass Effect... and holy shit is this an awesome game! I hadn't heard much about it prior to release, so I was a bit surprised that I missed it. Not only does it look amazing, but it runs great even with all of the eye candy, but as we'll soon see, only eye candy doesn't necessarily make a good game. Mass Effect need not worry though, this game has got it all. The scope of the game is amazing! I've tried describing it a couple times to people that have never played it and the best combo I can come up with is Oblivion meets KOTOR... essentially a full blown space RPG. The amount you can customize your character is fairly in depth, the story is very addicting, and just the free reign you have to explore the galaxy is amazing. Did I mention you can also land on random planets and explore in an armed rover at your will? Yep. It kicks some serious ass.