The newest flash game on TheGN.com is Flash Crisis, a flash game by Tom Thornton (coded/developed) and Aaron Pilon (graphics/art).

Game Description:

A critical and challenging mission to shoot down the armed men by launching an attack in their own territory. Your mission is to shoot down as many armed evil guys as you can before you die; you have several guns at your disposal.

Just like the classic arcade game Time Crisis, use the hide option to reload and defend yourself when your under fire. This flash games loaded with power ups and multiple stages...

Hope all of you have as much fun playing this game as much as we had making it...

Play Here Now!

North American television channel spike tv has announced initial details of its 2005 VGA Video Game Awards, which will be held on Friday, November 18 at Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. Though held and recorded on that date, the awards themselves will be shown on Spike TV on Saturday, December 10 at 9 pm ET/PT.

Last year's awards, hosted by hiphop star Snoop Dogg, were led by Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which won four 'Vector Monkey' accolades.

The nominations for the awards have also been announced, with perhaps the most interesting aspect being a number of nominations for games that have not yet launched. Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie from Ubisoft tops this year’s VGA nominations with seven including “Best Action Game,” “Best Graphics,” “Best Performance by a Human – Male & Female” for actors Jack Black and Naomi Watts and Michel Ancel for “Designer of the Year.” 50 Cent: Bulletproof (Vivendi Universal Games); World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment); James Bond 007: From Russia with Love (Electronic Arts) and Call of Duty 2 (Activision, Inc.) and each have six nominations.

Of particular interest to game professionals: 'Game Of The Year' nominations were for God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment America), Resident Evil 4 (Capcom), Call of Duty 2 (Activision, Inc.), World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment), and F.E.A.R. (Vivendi Universal Games). The 'Viewer's Choice' nominees for the most addictive game include We Love Katamari (Namco Hometek Inc), World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment), Lumines (Ubisoft), Nintendogs (Nintendo Co. Ltd), and Meteos (Nintendo Co. Ltd.).

According to Spike TV, ballots were sent out to the VGA Advisory Board, which was responsible for advising on categories and determining nominees in selected award categories. Winners of the VGAs are determined by votes from the Video Game Industry Voting Council which is made up of more than 200 industry journalists - all of which will have presumably received review copies of the unreleased games in time to vote. Winners in two “Viewers Choice” categories will solely be determined by viewer voting.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Vin Diesel, The Rock, Missy Elliot, Snoop Dogg, Carmen Electra, Xzibit and Ozzy Osbourne are also set to appear at the third annual awards event. Casey Patterson, Executive Producer of the awards, commented: "Video games have taken over the world as the most creative, cutting edge platform for major names in entertainment to showcase their talent and reach a massive audience. Sam Jackson is one of the coolest guys on the planet; we’re thrilled to have him hosting this year’s show which promises more stars, more rock and more games than ever before."

- Simon Carless www.gamasutra.com

Image from http://www.cgsociety.org/

CGI shops are always making up new images that impress, but how far out could the above CGI screen be from actual game implementation? We're talking gameplay not pre-rendered cut scenes. Five years? 10?

True, we are a long way from graphics like that in your typical PC game or console system. However, the industry that will benefit from these high quality CGI effects first will be the big screen.

Movies due to come out within the next few years are already showing higher quality CGI effects that surpass the so called norm of today's graphics. Movie remakes of comic book hero's like Ghost Rider (In theatres 2/16/07) Are promising the next level in full motion CGI effects.

If that's the case then you can expect the same quality in games due for release at least by 2008. Seeing as how the movie and game industry are becoming more and more intertwined everyday.

Image from http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/ghostrider/

Well it almost seems that way when you sell out the entire first generation crop of your gaming machines within 20 minutes (speculation) of launch. However, if your one of the die hard gamers that stood in line for hours only to be turned away with nothing but a "sorry, where sold out!" Don't worry; it might have been the best thing that could have happened to you (well not really but it might make you feel a bit better)!

New owners of the console posted complaints about crashes to the Engadget, Xbox Scene, Team Xbox and Microsoft's official Xbox 360 forums. The messages posted reported that some of the consoles stopped working after a short bout of playing or crashed during a game and flashed up an error number. Some users posted video and photographs of the crash screens.

How brutal is that? Wait in line for hours to get your very own Xbox 360 when so many others where turned away. On the car ride home your thinking how lucky you are and how your going to be the envy of all your friends. You get home run in the house tear open the box and hook it up to the T.V. and BAM, error screen!

But in all fairness to Microsoft a spokeswoman Molly O'Donnell reported that the calls involved a "very, very small fraction" of all the consoles sold. The volume of calls was in line with Microsoft predictions, she said. "With any launch of this magnitude, you're bound to see something happening," she said.

We have yet to see how serious the problem is as it's very difficult to get exact or even ballpark predictions of a percentage of malfunctioning units compared to units sold. However, I would have to take my hat off to the Microsoft for giving every professor from here to Timbuktu a new example of supply and demand. Even with error reports plaguing the Xbox 360 forums, I'd still like one sitting in my living room...

The Xbox 360 console only went on sale in the US on 22 November to much fanfare and the full price version costs $399.99. It goes on sale in Europe on 2 December.

- Aaron Pilon

InfoPlant, an established marketing institute based in Japan, recently conducted a survey of several hundred consumers regarding next-generation consoles. The questions ask whether participants desire to purchase the PlayStation 3, Nintendo Revolution, and Xbox 360. The results are about what you'd expect, and are separated into age brackets for accuracy. Each question was asked to 100 participants.


Ages 10-19, 100 person


Do you want to buy the PlayStation 3?
12% - I plan to.
63% - Yes.
25% - No. 

Do you want to buy the Xbox 360?
0% - I already own one. 
1% - I plan to.
26% - I think about it.
73% - No.

Do you want to buy the Nintendo Revolution?
5% - I plan to.
34% - Yes. 
61% - No.


Ages 30-39, 100 persons


Do you want to buy the PlayStation 3?
10% - I plan to.
50% - Yes.
40% - No.

Do you want to buy the Xbox 360?
0% - I already own one. 
1% - I plan to.
29% - I think about it. 
70% - No. 

Do you want to buy the Nintendo Revolution?
3% - I plan to.
26% - Yes. 
71% - No.

I think microsoft should hire a better marketing team! (If they could afford it)

Microsoft chairman touts interactive free online games aspects of new Xbox Live

On Thursday, Verizon Wireless said will launch a music store this month, with Microsoft's help, that lets customers buy songs and free online games through phones or over the Internet.

If you played WoW, or FFXI you'll likely be disappointed, don't play the game without some level of tolerance. this ISN'T WoW, no powerlevelling. powerlevel and your skills will be left to die. you need to skill many things, or else your character will be so imbalance it's useless, and, as with all games it gets harder to skill at the later levels. again, this isn't WoW. If you like anime to ANY extent, however, you will love this game, or at least find a warm spot in your heart for it.

There are many little niggles-- such as movement; choppy translations or the user interface. Action bars can have the same in them only once, unless you have the corresponding number of items, which negates using a different action bar for each situation. Some people are annoyed by the size of the dialog box and the fact that you can't resize it-- didn't bother me, personally.

Storyline needs some work. okay, a lot. okay, maybe it just needs a decent translation, it feels like they've left some stuff out, there. now, onto the game itself. First of all, RFO is >HEAVILY< PvP based. levels 1-29 are basically skilling, killing NPC level-chaff, acquiring the items ready for level 30, when basically you will be drafted en-masse to go PvP, Raiding the telic mines to kill off miners, or straight-up fighting for control of said mines.

Combat; it's wonderful, think of a serious clan-war on Ultima online, add in about ten thousand times that hp for each character, give them pistols, guns, rocket launchers, swords, knives, bows, rotary cannons and you'll just about have it. oh, can't forget the flame-throwers. Or Giant mecha. unfortunately (well, fortunately in a bellato player's case) as soon as a bellato player reaches level 30 (the level I mentioned earlier-- pvp time~) they gain the ability to drive giant mechs called MAUs if they take a class change to driver. You won't just find one MAU walking around, either. battles in this are HUGE, no understatement. and they are beautiful, too. armies clash, then retreat to lick their wounds while the rangers of each sides continue to blast away, until the armies clash yet again. An amazing game in all respect, but not for WoW players, imo.

Last few niggles deserve to be mentioned: on each server you have to choose a race, so you can't have say a Bellato specialist and an Accreatian ranger on the same server. you have to choose either Bellato, Accreatia or Cora, and then can have three characters, which is annoying, but I guess if you're trying to socialise with your accreatian buddies it can be hard to say 'oh, but yeah... sorry, but I was kinda that Bellato ranger who singlehandedly murdered you all... sorry about that...' Soundtrack deserves a few marks, but eh, it gets repetetive. might wanna stick some Trance or Jpop on for this. Halko<3 final statement? get the game and play it. 30 day trail period. best MMoG I've played for a while.

Review by: 
~Frost~

Ryzom Ring: release on October 3^rd!

Paris, FRANCE – September 21^st 2006

Nevrax, the developer and publisher of the massively-multiplayer online science fantasy role playing game (MMORPG) Ryzom, announced today the Ryzom Ring launch for October 3^rd, preceded by a 2 weeks preview on the main Ryzom servers. The Ryzom Ring is a free upgrade that makes Ryzom the first MMORPG to empower players to create their own adventures in persistent online worlds.

"On this Ryzom's second anniversary week, we are proud to be able to offer to all of our subscribers a preview of Ryzom Ring directly on the main live game servers", declared Daniel Miller, CTO and Executive Producer of the Ring. For the next 2 weeks the preview will give paying subscribers full access to the Ryzom Ring adventure creation tools and player run adventures, with a restricted set of creatures and maps to play with. Players with free trial accounts will also be able to discover the power of the Ryzom Ring with full access to the adventure creation tools and a basic set of creatures and scenery to play with, but will not be able to participate in player run adventures.

With the October 3rd Ryzom Ring launch, content restrictions for paying players will be lifted and the rating and reward systems that allow the best to stand out from the rest will be activated.

To try out Ryzom for free, with unlimited playing time, follow the free trial link on ryzom.com (no credit card is required).

About Nevrax SARL

Founded in early 2000, Paris-based NEVRAX is an online game and software development company that specializes in MMORPG engine and production tool technologies and products. Utilizing NeL, its open source platform, Nevrax’s team of over 50 engineers and designers have completed their first MMORPG, a Science Fantasy game entitled Ryzom.

About Ryzom

Three generations ago, the proud civilizations of Atys perished in the Great Swarming, when hordes of Kitins swept from the Prime Roots and wrought war and genocide. Now it is time to reclaim your heritage. Join forces with thousands of others, master the arts of sorcery, war, and tradecraft, and re-forge the destiny of your people. The secrets of the past have been lost, but Ryzom has just begun. For more information please visit www.ryzom.com

About Ryzom Ring

Ryzom Ring is the innovative extension for Nevrax's online roleplaying game, Ryzom. It provides tools that allow the players to access Ryzom's creatures, buildings, maps and missions to create their own events and scenarios, giving them unprecedented power to shape the game. Thousands of other players can experience one person’s handiwork, or kept as a private sanctuary only accessible to a select few. For more information please visit www.ryzom-ring.com/