The Battlefield 3 Beta has been announced. If you own the limited edition version of Medal of Honor, you will receive an invitation to the Battlefield 3 beta within 12 moths following the release of Medal of Honor.

Battlefield 3 Beta Details from the site: "Beta offer is contingent on Beta availability within 12 months of Medal of Honor release. Beta will be available for a limited time only and offer expires upon close of Beta events. Participation in Beta requires acceptance of Beta Agreement. Must be 18+. Xbox GOLD membership required for Xbox users. Visit www.ea.com/beta for details, including availability."

For more information, check out the official page.

Sam50000 has beaten the all time record for Geometry Wars 2.

New promotional Pokemon Black / White Trailer that shows new Pokemon.

Check out this exclusive footage of Chun-Li, Amaterasu and Trush face off against Camptain America, Thor, and Iron Man posted by Famitsu.

Here are a few tips for beginners who just can't seem to win a game in Starcraft 2:

1. Don't skip the practice league, all games here will not count and it is a excellent opportunity to learn the game while facing real human opponents.

2. Don't think that by finishing the campaign, it will make you better, many of the campaign units don't even exist in multiplayer.

3. Pick a race and stick with it for a few games, just because you are bad with one race doesn't mean you will do any better with another one, all 3 races are unique and it takes time to learn to play with each one.

4. Spend resources at all times and don't let them build up, having 2000 crystals will not win you the game, turning them in to units will.

5. Watch some high ranked games on youtube, I recommend HuskyStarcraft and HDstarcraft channels, they have great commentary and the games aren't usually boring. You can learn a lot by watching "the pro's". Look for things like:

Early game builds for a good economy
Building a counter to each race
How to effectively use your resources
How to properly utilize the maps to your advantage

6. Scout around! You need to know what your enemy is doing so you can counter him, once I almost lost a game despite being having much better economy and more units simply because I missed a players mass carriers and did not have sufficient anti-air.

7. Don't give up. You can't learn by not doing, play and you will get better in time.
Even if you keep losing, each game that you lose will only make you a better player, and next time, you won't make the same mistakes again. Even if your record becomes 0-40, don't give up. Eventually you will start winning. Remember a lot of people have played Starcraft for 12 years now, so they have their strategies down. Don't get discouraged if you keep losing.

---

A Rough Zerg Opening
9 overlord
(late) 10 scout
13 or 14 pool
see core, 15 or 16 hatch
16 overlord
@pool: 2 lings 1 queen, kill scout then control watchtowers/watch for zealots
drones
gas around here (get gas around 15-16 against 2 gate so you can get roaches or speedlings in time, or if you want to do roach pressure/feint instead of power drones--you can get it a bit later otherwise)
@expansion: queen
@first queen: spawn larvae, start third queen
@second queen: spawn larvae, lair
@25 energy on first queen: creep tumor in main, move this queen to nat to start spreading creep, third queen finishes

If you have some of your own tips for Starcraft 2, please leave a comment. Thanks for visiting!

• Back to the Starcraft 2 section

A Dragon Quest 9 Alchemy Recipe Guide by Zaraf. (Email: fqureshi.zaraf[@]gmail.com, v1.1 07/29/2010)

(Note: To find an item quickly, hit CTRL + F on your keyboard to search for it.)

Recpies

• Introduction..
• Weapons
• Swords
• Spears
• Knives
• Wands
• Whips
• Staves
• Claws
• Fans
• Axes
• Hammers
• Boomerangs
• Bows
• Armor
• Shields
• Head
• Torso
• Arms
• Legs
• Feet
• Accessories
• Items

Locating Ingredients

• Items Found on World Map
• Monster Drops
• Alchemy
• Drops - Non
• Alchemy
• Shops - Consumables and Alchemy
• Shops - Weapons
• Shops - Armor and Accessories
• Making Money With Alchemy

Just a little update to let you know that we have added two new Starcraft 2 cheat codes to the Starcraft 2 Cheats page.

Effect	Cheat
Gives 5,000 credits	whysoserious
Units no longer cost resources	moredotsmoredots

To see the rest of the cheats, as well as easter eggs, click here.

Here's the official reveal of the Civilization V box art.

Blizzard has admitted that there is an overheating bug in Starcraft 2. The good news is that they have also released an easy fix. The problem is that the frame rate in the game menu screens is not limited, which causes your graphics card to overheat from overworking itself.

Here is the fix for the Starcraft 2 overheating bug:

1. First find the "Variables.txt" file on your PC, which is located in your Documents / Starcraft II folder.

2. Second add the following variables to the file:

frameratecapglue=30
frameratecap=60

3. Save the file. This should cap the frame rate during the menu screens and will prevent your video card from overheating.

Ten years after Worms Armageddon, and a few sequels that were not nearly up to par, Steam has announced a new Worms game titled Worms Reloaded which will be out on August 26th, 2010. Worms Reloaded is an all-new edition specifically designed to work for new PC's with Steam. If you are like me, you have tried to get Worms Armageddon and it's sequel Worms World Party to work on your Windows 7 or Vista PC, but the games just were not designed to work on newer systems. I have tried many patches and fixes, but have not been able to get them to work, no matter what. Well our dreams have come true, finally a great 2D worms game that works perfectly on your new PC. Now the long wait begins. Less than a month, will seem like an eternity.

Here is a Starcraft 2 review by Sirius.

"Starcraft II - An Epic Sequel that is addictive and keeps to the original while borrowing from others such as Dawn of War II"

Starcraft II, the sequel to a game that became something more than any RTS that had come before. It propelled the genre forward in huge leaps and bounds while bringing gaming into the mainstream across the globe. To some it is only a passtime, to others a competitive and televised sport. Want to know how the sequel stacks up to expectations and know if it is a sequel worthy of the original? Keep on reading.

Campaign

Gone is the simple mission - next mission system with little cutscenes. You now have a hub in between missions starting as a bar, and later as an upgradeable ship that you can visit different parts off. When you return to these areas after a fight you are treated to a ton of conversations, cutscenes, purchasable unit upgrade capabilities, watching TV, and even playing an arcade game in the corner. It really brings the experience to life. Those who have played dawn of war II will notice the strong draw from it's new campaign style in what is offered here. (Review continued after page break.)

Check out this new Halo: Reach cinematic from the campaign.

Check out this magazine scan we found of Street Fighter IV for the 3DS! (Click the image to see the full size)

Intense magic wand action from E3.

Image by nathanbatson.com

Dragon Quest 9 Monsters and Bosses guide by Zaraf & Darksun45230. v1.2 07/27/2010

(Note: If you are looking for a specific monster or boss, use CTRL + F to find it quickly.)

Choose a section:

1. Introduction

2. Monsters (By numbers)

A. Regular Monsters

B. Boss Monsters

C. Legacy Bosses

3. Monsters by Family

4. Legacy Boss Info

5. Top Ten Monsters

Pre-Game

6. Grotto Monsters

7. Contact Info

8. Comments

Important note: You do not get achievements if you use cheats.

These Dragon Quest 9 treasure maps were made by Zaraf:
(Click each map to see it's full size.)

Area 1 - Angel Falls

Area 2 - Zere & Doomingale

Area 3 - Eastern & Western Stornway

Area 4 - Eastern and Western Coffinwell

Area 5 - Newid Isle

Area 6 - Slurry Coast, Dourbridge and Lonely Plains

Area 7 - Bloomingdale

Area 8 - Lonely Coast and Pluvi Isle

Area 9 - Djust Desert

Area 10 - Urdus Marshland & Hermany

Area 11 - Iluugazar Plains and Mt. Ulzuun

Area 12 - Mr. Ulbaruun, Khaalag Coast and Ondor Cliffs

Area 13 - Snowberian Coast, Snowberia and Cringle Coast

Area 14 - Wormwood Canyon, Eastern and Western Wormwood

Area 15 - Wyrmtail and Wyrmwing

Area 16 - Wyrmneck and Wyrmsmaw

Area 17 - The Gittish Empire

Here is a mini strategy guide for those who are in need of some help of starting out in Starcraft 2. Enjoy these great tips, and please, if you have some of your own tips, leave a comment to share them. (Thanks to OneZero for these tips)

Starcraft 2 Tips:

1) Learn the tech tree.

2) Learn which units counter which. Each unit has tags such as "armored", "massive", "light", and "biological" attached to it and certain units do bonus damage vs those types.

3) Go back to #2. Everything has a counter and the game really is quite balanced at this point.

4) Scout. The above is useless unless you know what the enemy is doing. If you lost a game, first thing you should ask is: did I scout? What did I learn from the scout?

5) Macro. 30 harvesters per base is "saturated" (24 on minerals, 6 on gas). Thirty. Not 25, not 28. Thirty. If all your buildings are producing and you have extra money, that means you need to build more production buildings. For reference, Protoss can support 4 Gateways per base. If you ever have 500+ minerals in the bank and aren't saving for an expansion, practice more. Spend that money.
Make sure to build supply ahead of time, so you don't get supply locked.

6) Micro. Learn to play with at least 2 hotkey groups of units. Don't just stick them all in a single control group and "attack move". Try to move injured units to the back. Learn when to retreat. Repair damaged Terran units, etc.
A good tactic with ranged units is to move them away, hit 'H' for "hold position"...this will cause them to fire on anything in range...move them away again. Practice your timing on this, then try target firing (right click) weak enemy units instead of just pressing 'H'.

7) Misc stuff. Learn to wall your ramps, when to expand, various build orders, stealing your enemy's gas geysers, blocking their expansion sites with buildings, etc.

For those of you who have not purchased Stacraft 2 yet, here is some information about creating your Starcraft 2 account that everyone should know:

(2013 Update: It is now possible to change your name for a fee through battle.net.)

1. You are stuck with the name you pick forever. As of right now, you are not allowed to change your name, so make sure you pick something you will want to stick with for a long time. When it asks for your "character profile", it is asking you for a permanent battle.net name which you will be playing online with. Blizzard has not announced any plans to implement a feature to change your name, and if they do it will probably require a fee.

2. You cannot rename your account, you cannot delete your account, and you cannot create more than one account. You also cannot delete your account and then create a new one. The one way to get a new name is to buy a new copy of Stacraft 2.

3. Names are not unique because what separates you is your character code, so you can have pretty much any name you want! (But once again, I can't stress this enough, you cannot change your name) If you want to play with a friend, you will need to tell them your name and your character code, that way you will not get mixed up with people who chose the same name as yours.

So in conclusion, go ahead and pick a name you want, but just remember you will be stuck with it. The good thing though is you can have any name you want, since once again, they are not unique.

Remember that when it asks you for a name, it may seem like the name is just for the single player campaign, but it is really the name you will be stuck with for battle.net as well.

Back to the Starcraft 2 section

1up recently did a large poll all about Starcraft 2, here are the results. (Click the picture to see it's full size)

Starcraft 2 has a strange memory leak which causes it to crash and lock up while loading between a mission and the ship. There is a memory leak once the game passes 2GB of memory used, it hits the limit and crashes. Thanks to Arof for this fix.

Here is an easy fix that requires installing Explorer Suite

Steps:

Before anything, make sure you backup your original SC2 exe file because the next time you patch Starcraft 2 you will need the original exe.

1. Open CFF Explorer and then open your SC2 .exe file.

2. Go to the "File Header" section (under Nt Headers) and click the "Click here" on the Characteristics row.

3. Check the "App can handle >2gb addressest" box, then click OK

4. Go to "Save as", and then rename your existing SC2.exe (for backup)

5. Save the current version as SC2.exe, and voila, the game now won't crash when it's memory space gets too big (you still might want to restart occasionally if you have 4GB of ram or SC2 will push all your other programs out of memory)

This has been done for Firefox, World of Warcraft and Sims 3 before to prevent crashes, so it is known to be safe.

Check out this unboxing of the collector's edition of Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty by IGN.

According to Sony Online Entertainment, Everquest 2 is going free-to-play this August.  The entire game will not be free though, the announcement stated that there will be a parallel service offering that is intended to draw in new players and allow the game to grow. Still, for such a great MMORPG, free-to-play sounds great!

Check out these Starcraft 2 ringtones and SMS alerts you can download straight from Blizzard:

• Guild Tones
• SMS Alerts
• Children of Aiur
• Preparing for the Worst

Check it out, this video takes dodging attacks in Super Street Fighter IV to a whole new level!

Welcome to the Starcraft II section. Feel free to browse through the content below. If you would like to contribute something, please send us an e-mail. Thanks for visiting.

Choose a page

• Starcraft 2 Review
• Choosing a Starcraft 2 Account name
• System Requirements
• Cheats
• Mods

Tips, hints and strategies

• Achievements Guide
• Tips and Hints
• Insane AI Rushing Guide
• Mini Starcraft 2 Strategy Guide
• Protoss Tutorials
• Battlecruisers Hints, Tips, Tactics and Strategies

Media

• Ringtones and SMS Alerts

Game Fixes

• Memory Leak / Crash Bug Fix
• Overheating Bug Fix

Game Details

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is an epic RTS developed by Blizzard. The game revolves around three species: the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; the Zerg, a super-species of assimilated life forms; and the Protoss, a technologically advanced species with vast mental powers.

Wings of Liberty focuses on the Terrans, while the expansions Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void will focus on the Zerg and Protoss, respectively.

The game is set four years after the events of 1998's StarCraft: Brood War, and follows the exploits of Jim Raynor as he leads an insurgent group against the autocratic Terran Dominion. The game includes both new and returning characters and locations from the original game.

• Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
• Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
• Platforms: PC
• Release Date: July 27, 2013.
• Genre: Real-time strategy

Check out this Marvel vs Capcom 3 gameplay footage of Thor from ComicCon.

"After a decade of waiting, the biggest names from the Marvel Universe will clash head on with the combined might of Capcom's best known and most feared roster of gaming characters.

Powered by the mighty MT Framework engine, MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3 will deliver the best ever match up of legendary fighters and no holds barred fighting action. Get set for the ultimate faceoff when MARVEL™ vs. CAPCOM® 3: Fate of Two Worlds hits the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in Spring 2011."

Here's a quick Alien Swarm tip, if you want to play solo, first open the console by pressing the tilde [~] key and then type in

asw_ignore_need_two_player_requirement 1

Now you don't need other players to play through the game!

• Back to the Alien Swarm Section

Today at ComicCon Bioware confirmed that Star Wars The Old Republic will have space combat.

Here is a quote from "SeanDahlberg": (Source) "First, thank you to all of you who participated in our Comic-Con Reveal mission! While we didn’t quite make the numbers, we definitely saw how excited the community is about this and how everyone came together. After all of that, there’s no way we could hold back with our special reveal at Comic-Con!

If you’ve been following the news coming out of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ panel at Comic-Con International, you’ve heard the announcement that we will indeed have Space Combat as part of the TOR experience!

But what does that mean? Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat. In space combat, you fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map. From there, you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles.

To learn more, pick up the October 2010 edition of PC Gamer which hits newsstands starting August 17th for screenshots and an exclusive interview or check back with us in the weeks to come."

The forge mode from Halo 3 has been perfected in Halo Reach with Forge World, the largest map ever shipped by far.

The announcement of Starcraft 2 back in 2007 at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul/Korea.

Only 5 more days to go...

Dragon Quest 9 Chest / Key guide by Daytimefrogger. (daytimefrogger [@] hotmail.com. (Note: To find something faster, hit CTRL + F on your keyboard to search the page for it.)

Contents List

• Introduction
• Chest Locations
• Observatory
• Stornway Castle
• Zere
• Coffinwell
• Porth Llaffan
• Slurry Quay
• Dourbridge
• Bloomingdale
• Your Ship
• Gleeba
• Gerzuun
• winedimples Academy
• Gortress
• Oubliette
• Urdus Marshland
• Western Wormwood

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep walkthrough by David Arthur.

Main Menu:

• Section 0: Introduction
• Section 1: Walkthrough: Prologue
• Section 2: Walkthrough: Terra's Story
• Section 3: Walkthrough: Ven's Story
• Section 4: Walkthrough: Aqua's Story
• Section 5: Walkthrough: Last Episode
• Section 6: Mirage Arena
• Section 7: Mini-Games
• Command Board
• Rumble Racing
• Rhythmic Icescream
• Fruit Scatter
• Olympus Coliseum Training
• Section 8: Collectacthons
• Command Charge
• Finisher Commands
• Icescream Shop
• Acknowledgments and Contact Info

Note:(Back to Menu) To find something faster, use CTRL + F on your keyboard to search for it.

Console Codes and Commands

Use the ~ key during gameplay and type in "sv_cheats 1" to enable cheat codes, then enter any of the following commands (can not be used in offline practice):

Effect	Console Command
Disable auto-reload	asw_auto_reload 0
Enable The Director	asw_horde_override 1
Enables 360 controller support	exec 360_controller_pc.cfg
Full ammo (all weapons)	asw_gimme_ammo
Full health	asw_gimme_health
God mode	asw_god 1
Let's you play in first person view	firstperson
Open the level tile-based generator	asw_tilegen
Open the server browser/td>	openserverbrowser

• Back to the Alien Swarm Section

This trailer was released as an unloackable reward from Blizzard Entertainment's Join the Dominion.

For more information and to view the unlocked rewards, check out www.starcraft2.com/dominion/

Check out these incredible Starcraft 2 mods!

METAL SLUG (Download)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAvZlonNTDg

ORIGINS (Released in 8 days)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWXtq8mkYg8

ZOMBIE DEFENSE (Release: TBA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah4HVmBpFvk

ASTEROIDS (Download)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz84U36WVBY

CHESS (Download)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly2vw6wyeHw

REAPER (Release: TBA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sEORA5QDQc

FINAL FANTASY (Release: TBA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjuf7DELz9s

Also check out this video as well

THIRD PERSON SHOOTER (Pre-Alpha Stage)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQSpelnU31s

STEAK RACER (Download)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEMWi7NbEcs

• Back to the Starcraft 2 section

Here is a video of Alien Swarm in 1st person.

To try it yourself, do the following:

Bring up the console by going to Options > Keyboard > Enable developer console.

Then hit ` (to the left of 1 on the keyboard) and type:

• firstperson
• asw_hide_marine 1
• asw_controls 0

• Back to the Alien Swarm Section

According to research from NPD group surprising 48 percent of PC game sales in 2009 were digital downloads. Digital download purchases reached 21.3 million in the U.S. during 2009, slightly fewer than 23.5 million in retail box sales during the same period.

According to these numbers 48 percent of unit sales for PC games last year were digital downloads, and accounted for 36 percent of dollar sales, according to NPD Group estimates.

Here are the top digital retailers in 2009: (based on unit percentage share)

Top 5 Casual Digital Retailers in 2009

1. Bigfishgames.com
2. Pogo.com
3. Gamehouse.com
4. iWin.com
5. Realarcade.com

Top 5 Frontline Digital Retailers in 2009

1. Steampowered.com
2. Direct2drive.com
3. Blizzard.com
4. EA.com
5. Worldofwarcraft.com

Welcome to the Dragon Quest 9 section! Feel free to browse through the content below. If you want to add something or report any incorrect info, please contact us and let us know. Thanks for visiting!

Choose a page

• Monsters and Bosses
• Weapons Guide
• Alchemy Recipes
• Chest and Key Guide
• Treasure Maps
• Review

Welcome to the Alien Swarm section. Alien Swarm is free game from valve, released on Steam. If you would like contribute something or have a question, send us an e-mail or leave a comment. Thanks for visiting!

A Dragon Quest 9 Weapons guide written by Zaraf & Zarakava.

(Email: fqureshi.zaraf [@] gmail.com, v1.0 07/20/2010)

(Note: If you want to find a specific item quickly, hit CTRL+F on your keyboard (PC) and search for it.)

Weapons

Introduction

- Swords
- Spears
- Knives
- Wands
- Whips
- Staves
- Claws
- Fans
- Axes
- Hammers
- Boomerangs
- Bows

Check out this game you can purchase in the Xbox live marketplace for 80 Microsoft points ($1.00). It looks and plays just like Pilotwings, the classic N64 flying game.

Alien Swarm is a game and Source SDK release from a group of talented designers at Valve who were hired from the Mod community.

Available free of charge, the game thrusts players into an epic bug hunt featuring a unique blend of co-op play and squad-level tactics. With your friends, form a squad of four distinct IAF Marine classes. Plan your attack using an unlockable arsenal of weapons with countless loadout configurations against a wide variety of aliens. Blaze your way through an overrun, off-world colony, eradicating the alien infestation in environments ranging from the icy planet's surface, to a subterranean lava-flooded mining facility.

Along with the game get the complete code base for Alien Swarm that features updates to the Source engine as well as the SDK. Alien Swarm adds 3rd person camera, depth of field, improved dynamic shadows and a wide variety of gameplay additions to the Source engine.

Alien Swarm Features:

• Tactical, 4 player co-op action game with a top-down perspective
• Complete game code and mod tools
• Unlock persistent items by gaining levels
• Over 40 weapons and equipment with countless loadout configurations
• 4 unique classes and 8 unique characters
• Matchmaking, Steam Cloud, Steam Stats
• 64 achievements
• Tile-based map generation tool
• Powered by Source and Steam

Remember, the game is 100% free of charge, so get steam and download it today!

• Back to the Alien Swarm Section

Here are the passwords in Red Dead Redemption

Here are the Starcraft 2 System Requirements. Good news for people who don't have very latest hardware, Starcraft 2 is forgiving with it's requirements!

Starcraft 2 System Requirements:

Minimum System Requirements*:

PC: Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7 (Latest Service Packs) with DirectX 9.0c
2.6 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
128 MB PCIe NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT or ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card or better

Mac: Mac OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.2 or newer
Intel Processor
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT or ATI Radeon X1600 or better

PC/Mac: 12 GB available HD space
1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista/Windows 7 users, 2 GB for Mac users)
DVD-ROM drive

Broadband Internet connection
1024X720 minimum display resolution

*Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time.

Recommended System Requirements:

PC: Windows Vista/Windows 7
Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor
2 GB RAM
512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon HD 3870 or better

Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo processor
4 GB system RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT or ATI Radeon HD 4670 or better

• Back to the Starcraft 2 section

Apparently National Geographic has found a real life version of the Forest Temple from Zelda.

Click the image for the full size, the temple is Ta Prohm Temple at Angkor Cambodia

Photograph by Gray Martin.

An NES bundle which includes 42 games was recently sold on Ebay for $50,000. The seller mentioned that he wanted to stop living paycheck to paycheck and that he needed to pay some bills.

The eBay user Ronald3868 sold the NES at $15,000 more than he was originally asking for. I have no idea why someone would pay that much money for a standard NES system with some games. The only thing I can think of is if the bundle included a very rare game.

Starcraft II cost $100 million to make. [Gamespot]

100% Objective Review of Final Fantasy XIII [Destructoid]

Red Dead Redemption: World in Motion Time Lapse. [Eurogamer]

THQ 75% off Summer Sale: Metro 2033: $12.50, Dawn of War 2: $7.50, Shadow of Chernobyl: $5.00 and more. [THQ]

Here's the James Bond 007: Blood Stone Trailer.

Deadliest Warrior: The Game review by Gohda_Motohide.

Deadliest Warrior, the game. The newest thing from Pipeworks Software, based on the show that I've never seen, yet still I know pretty well that their method of testing of fairly bad. Basically, we're in for a ride.

The first thing I should mention, is the price. At only $10/800MSP, it's not that bad of a deal, at least not if this is your kinda thing. I must stress - try the demo first. Don't just buy it outright.

First thing we'll notice, is load times are pretty bad. I clocked mine in at varying times between 10 and 15 seconds. Which wouldn't be bad, if it weren't for there being two or three loading screens between fights. As well, the gameplay itself is muddled in a very odd, sporadic lag. Sometimes it happens due to the slowdown effect (And I don't mean the slowdown is lag, I mean after a slowdown ends, it lags).

I can't describe it very well, but I'll say this - odds are, if you've played a game like, say, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, or Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion, or Fallout 3, you probably know it, since this lag is what it instantly reminded me of, the sort of unexplained slowdowns that happen in a game with a bad engine. Personally, it seems tied to the warpy effects they applied to moving weapons and shields, so odds are that you'll lag out when you need speed the most, during the middle of the fight.

Here is a Dragon Quest 9 review by Mykas0.

If you've ever wondered how many words it takes to sell a game, this game will certainly answer it for you. If you're a fan, merely hearing the words “Dragon Quest IX” will certainly sell this game for you, but if you

Now, if you're expecting to find the very same features that have been popularizing turn-based RPGs for years, you'll find them here, with a few twists. OK, there are still towns where you can buy improving equipment and items, elemental dungeons and battles against several different enemies, but everything else seems to include a twist, sometimes expected and, more often than not, totally surprising.