World of Goo Review

Introduction

World of Goo is a puzzle game where you build structures so balls of goo can reach a target location on a level. Each level has a target number of balls to reach the exit and once you have reached the target the level is complete.

level from chapter 2

Gameplay

The structures you build are made of goo balls. Different coloured balls have different properties, black builds rigid structures and white builds non-rigid structures. There game is split into 5 chapters each chapter with a different theme.

The graphics 2D and have an interesting and unique art style. The found the puzzles interesting and fun.

Once the game is complete there are OCD challenges involving replaying a level but needing to collect much more goo balls. There is a tower building level where you have to build as tower as tall as possible, you also get to see the heights other players towers.

level based on desktop of operating system

Conclusion

World of Goo is a fun puzzle game that has interesting physics for the way the goo balls stick together and interact. The difficulty is just right, and if you need more help in-game sign posts have tips on them. It is a lot of fun and I recommend playing.

9/10

Merry Christmas

Company of Heroes Campaign Review

Introduction

Company of Heroes is a World War 2 real time strategy game. Its follows Able Company a group of American soldiers through operation Overlord which was the allies invasion of Western Europe specifically Normandy. It starts with the landing on Omaha beach. The game is played in full 3D.

ammunitions capture point

Gameplay

In Company of Heroes you control infantry units in fixed groups. Once an infantry unit in a group dies they cannot be replaced and groups cannot be combined together.

The cover system works by areas on the map having cover levels of red, amber, and green from worst to best. You send infantry to the cover points for increased defence. This works really well.

Base building allows you to build different units. The resources are man power, fuel, and ammunition. Resources are needed to build units and buildings. Resources are obtained from control points.  Units available in game are artillery, light vehicles, infantry and tanks.

There is fun a campaign where you must kill a tiger ace (a top German tank commander in a tiger tank). You are given the heavy tank M26 Pershing which is a strong tank but not stronger than a tiger, so you must lure the tiger tank into your traps.

There are cut scenes between missions following the American soldiers, they are very well done, and worth watching.

defending axis attack

Conclusion

Company of heroes is a fun game, and definitely worth playing. I think that I learned some things about history playing it, and it is also fun. My only criticism is that there is no axis campaign.

Score:9/10

Dead Space Review

Introduction

Dead Space is a third person survival horror game set in space. You play as Isaac Clarke who has been sent on a mission to repair the mining ship USG Ishimura which has lost communication contact. Isaac is an engineer providing support for a senior security officer called Zach Hammond and a technologist called Kendra Daniels. Soon after making contact with the USG Ishimura the mission does not go to plan and Isaac finds himself trapped on USG Ishimura. The aim of the game is to escape the ship.

Isaac Clarke with Pulse Riffle

Gameplay

The guns in the game are plasma cutter, Force Gun, Line Gun, Contact Beam, Flame Thrower, and Rip saw. They are all very different to use and all include an alternate fire mode which can change the situations they are useful in. Isaac's suit has a stasis module slows down objects, useful for slowing difficult enemies down. Isaac's suit also has Kinesis model that allows you to pick up and move heavy objects easily.

Most games gives increased damage for headshots, dead space is different by giving increased dame for shooting limbs.

You will never get lost in Dead Space because there is a button that draws a line between you and your next objective. This is good for not betting lost but it also means you can complete the game with never exploring much.

Space walking in vacuum

Conclusion

There is good replay value because there are many weapons upgrades as well as easy, medium, hard, and impossible difficulties. The graphics, sound and atmosphere of the game are excellent you get a real feeling of being trapped on the USG Ishimura. The game is not as scary as it could have been because all the weapons available make the game fairly easy and it end up like a third personn shooter game. A very fun third person shooter game.

Score 9/10

Osmos Review (PC)

Introduction

Osmos is a puzzle game by indie developer hemisphere games. You control a bubble like object called a mote. In the game you absorb smaller motes and larger motes absorb you. The goal is to grow the size of your mote until it is the biggest. It is possible to slow or speed time as needed.

Gameplay

The game is split into three zones sentient,  force, and ambient. Each zone has the same basic gameplay but with something extra. Force zone has attractor motes so you will need to deal with orbits. Sentient zone has motes with a.i and you have to compete with the A.I motes to get the largest. Ambient zone has antimatter motes that reduce the size of other motes.

Conclusion

Osmos has a lovely relaxing soundtrack and also nice graphics. I think the game would be better if some of the force levels with orbital physics were easier. Other than that, this is an excellent game.

Demo is available here

Score 7/10

difficult level with orbits

Force zone. Aim is absorb the four repulsors. Repulsors push objects close to them away.

Legend of Princess

Introduction

Legend of princess is a 2D platform game that is free to play and is what a zelda game would look like as a 2D platformer. Legend of Princess is the work of indie developer Joakim Sandberg.

Gameplay

The game is much faster than games like mario, and needs quick reflexes to avoid enemies and reach ledges. There are some good puzzles in the game for opening doors and also during boss fights. The game might be short but there are plenty of boss fights and each one is unique and fun to play.

The main character is an elf wearing green just like zelda and there are two weapons a sword and also a boomerang type object you can throw. There are many secret locations containing bonus items. The game is very short but the time you complete its in and te number of bonus items collected is recoreded so you can replay to beat your previous best.

colourful 16-bit style graphics

Conclusion

Overall this good but short platformer, definately worth playing.

Score 7/10

Cave Story Review

Introduction

Cave story is a freeware action adventure game that is a 2D platform game with simple graphics like a Nintendo NES game. Cave story is completely free. To play in English you also need to get an English language translation pack.

Gameplay

The main character is an un named solder who finds himself stranded on a floating island. There are minigma creatures being hunted by a doctor, and also another outsider to the island called Sue who is missing. Who you rescue and don't rescue is part of the game, you can play the game helping everyone or just to find a way to escape the island for yourself.

Conclusion

Cave story is a very good game, which at first glance the depth is not obvious, but I advise being patient and giving the game a chance. Music is Cave Story is excellent and you will find yourself humming some of the tunes when no even playing the game. The game takes 6 hours approx to complete. Here are some cave story wallpapers.

Score 10/10

Main character, Curly, Balrog

Curly

Outer Wall

Alien Swarm Review

Intruduction
 
Alien swarm is a free top-down view space shooter. It is offered free because it is an advertisement for the Steam gaming platform from Valve. Previously it was a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004. A similar game to Alien Swarm is Alien Breed which was released originally for the Commodore Amiga.

flamer gun used on drones and two boomers

Gameplay

Alien Swarm is a co-operative multiplayer game. You play in a team of 4 to complete the objectives of a mission. The story mode called Jacobs Rest has 7 missions each with different objectives. To succeed you must work as a team.

Before starting a game you choose your class. The 4 different classes in the game are tech, Officer, special weapons, medic. Each class has different strengths.  Officer is good all-round, medic good at healing, tech is good at opening doors, and special weapons can use a chain gun. There are many weapons in the game including flamer(flame thrower), M42 Vindictor(shotgun) and Electric gun(IAF Tesla Canon).  Characters can also carry items such as stun grenade or damage amplifier.

While doing objectives you will be attacked by aliens. There are multiple enemy aliens and some will need a specific strategy to defeat. The shieldbug for example is best attacked with two people, one person acting as a decoy and the other person going behind and shooting. At the end of a match you are shown detailed statistics about the movement of your team, the number of kills, deaths, and friendly fire. Not always useful, but can be interesting.

The story mode can be completed in 1-2 hours. The game does have good replay value because there are multiple difficulties, and a levelling system that unlocks new weapons as you gain experience.

Conclusion

Overall Alien swarm is fun and definitely worth playing.

Score 7/10

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl Review

Introduction

Stalker is a first person shooter game set in the area radioactively contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986, and fictional second accident which enlarged the size of the area contaminated and also mutated the inhabitants.

The area radioactively contaminated is called the zone, and in the zone there are many valuable artefacts. Stalker is the name given to people in search of artefacts. Artefacts have properties such as increasing someone resistance to radioactivity, fire, chemicals, electricity, increasing endurance, or increasing health. You can collect artefacts to increase your characters strength or to trade for money. The game has multiple endings depending on, how much of the back story you discover, how much other Stalkers like you, and how much money you collect.

abandoned industrial facility

Gameplay

Carrying out tasks for different NPC's such as helping defend a camp, killing another stalker, or finding documents. Exploration is very important in stalker and lots of the disused industrial sites area based upon real building in the zones. This shows and the environment has lots of detail to discover.

You can get more money in the game by fighting in the arena. You get money for winning a fight, but if you lose its game over. Next to the arena is the bar where you can talk to people for jobs, or trade items and information. There are lots of weapons to collect they all have different abilities. As you do more difficult mission you will get better guns. You can loot items from dead bodies to sell but you can’t take everything because of a 50kg backpack limit. You must also take care of eating, if you go too long without eating, a warning icon in the HUD will show. The staple diet of a stalker is tinned food, bread, sausage, and vodka.

One criticism is there is always light any never night time. It would be an improvement if there was a day and night in the game as well as a way to sleep to replenish health. Some of the many community made mods for the game do this. One if the popular mods is Stalker 2009 complete.

The A.I in stalker is hit and miss sometimes you will be shot dead with a single shot before you can even see the enemy, other times the A.I will just stand still and let you shoot them with no reaction. The A.I mostly works ok.

exploring the zone with Tsunder S14 assault riffle

Conclusion

Overall I enjoyed stalker, the grim and desperate world has lots of atmosphere, and some parts of the game are very scary. When an enemy is coming towards you, sound is used make you aware, but also does not make it easy to know the direction or the distance from of the attacker. This increases tension and then when you are attacked it is surprising even though you are expecting it. The back story is interesting and the game only scratches the surface of the Stalker world. There are other stalker games as well as books.

The game has a fair few bugs, but it is easy to forgive the bugs for all the good things about the game. The graphics are good, and the soundtrack is also good.

Score 7/10

Braid Review

Introduction

Braid is an Indie 2D platform game with puzzles based around time manipulation. You play as Tim who lives in an apartment at the top of a building. The game is split into 6 worlds. Each World is made up of levels. Each Level has Jigsaw pieces to collect. The main challenge of the game is collecting the jigsaw pieces which are sometimes out of reach or blocked by different obstacles. To complete a world you collect all the jigsaw pieces and then put them together to make a picture.

World:2 Level:Three easy pieces

Gameplay

The graphics in the game look very good thanks to the watercolour art style, and the multiple layered animated backgrounds. At the beginning of every world there are books which tell a story. The stories can be confusing, but there is some extra meaning to the stories if you spend the time to think about it. All the levels in braid are very well designed and there is little repetition in the puzzles. The game is not very long.

The game does have good replay value because there is a speed run option with times to beat. There are also secret stars to collect. The stars are very well hidden and very difficult to find and also reach. As a bonus for collecting the stars you get a more full ending to the game.

The soundtrack is very nice. The music is relaxing. When you rewind time the music also plays backwards.

World:4 Level:Fickle companion

Conclusion

Braid has excellent puzzles that are unique and very satisfying to complete. Global scoreboards for speed runs would have improved the game. I recommend playing Braid.

Score 9/10

Resident Evil 4 Review

Introduction

Resident Evil 4 is a horror game played in 3rd person view as police officer Leon Kennedy.

It is the 4th game in the series and is different from previous instalment of the series by having the camera follow the character. In Resident Evil 1,2 and 3 the camera was fixed for every room. It is the first game in the series not to be set in Racoon City.

Story

Leon a police officer from Racoon city is sent to Europe to protect the president’s daughter who has been kidnapped. The enemies are zombie like humans that have been infected with a parasite. There are also monsters in the game which are the result of experimentation on the parasite. Ada is a police woman previously known to Leon is an independent agent not working for the police.

The cut-scenes in the game are really nicely done and the voice acting very good. The story is shown by cut-scenes, but also notes and videophone. The videophone works well and some of the conversations with the enemy are good. Notes are left throughout the game by different enemies. There is information in the notes that happened minutes ago in the game, I don't know why they would write these notes in such short time however the notes are very useful for understanding more of the story.

Leon shhots possesed villagers.

Gameplay

The game features a nice selection of guns like shotgun, riot shotgun, semi automatic rifle, and handgun. The guns are all very upgradable for shot power, shot rate, ammo capacity and reload speed.

The game has some really good bosses that look really unique, and also need different tactics to beat. Sometimes you will need to use the environment to beat a boss. Some boss fights last a very long time if you don’t have powerful guns and lots of ammo.

There are a lot of quick time events, and you will need to get good at them. In my opinion there are too many quick time events. The inventory in resident evil has each weapon taking up a set number of squares in the inventory. With limited squares in the inventory, if you carry large weapons you will have less space for ammo and health kits. Overall the inventory works well.

To change weapons you will need to go to the inventory and this can become very time wasting when wanting to throw a grenade because you need to go to the inventory, equip grenade, exit inventory, throw grenade, enter inventory, select weapon, and exit inventory. I think there should have been a button to change weapons.

Melee knife attack is very powerful and very useful when you do not have ammo. A good tactic is hitting enemies with the knife once they are on the floor. When an enemy is stunned if you walk close to the enemy there will be a quick time option to kick the enemy.

The game has a lot of replay value through treasure hunts, shooting galleries, and extra missions where you can play as Ada.

Leon vs El Gigante.

Conclusion

Overall I liked the game. It is fun. I really liked the enemy characters and how each one needed different tactics. The story is complex, and will make most sense if you play other resident evil games. The is atmospheric, the early parts of the game set in the village are scary.

Score 7/10

Sol Survivor Review

Introduction

Sol Survivor is a tower defence real time stratrgy game that has similar gameplay to plant vs zombies.  It is set in space with goal to defend human colonies from the bad aliens called the Acendancy. The game has campaign and multiplayer modes, global scoreboards and achievements.

Gameplay

You set defence turrets in strategic locations to destroy the attacking enemy. Enemies move along a preset path meaning you can plan the locations for turrets so the most enemies are hit.

There are different defence turrets such as flame thrower, laser, radiation, and canon. All the turrets have different pros and cons. Turrets are upgradable in game and one of the decisions you will have to make is whether to upgrade turrets or build more. Turrets need a resource called mass to build. Mass is regenerating. Support units can be called to help defence turrets. Missiles, mines, and increasing the turret rate of fire are support units.

You play each game as an executive officer.  Different officers have different weapons to choose from.

There is an in-game encyclopaedia where you can get information about enemies, turrets, executive commanders, and support units.

There is single player campaign mode with Easy, Normal, Hard, and Intense difficulty. There is a single player Survival mode with where the challenge is to last as much time as possible.

Laser and Canon turrets next to critical hit booster

Multiplayer

Co-op multiplayer is a lot of fun because you can work as a team to use the turrets specific to your commander to help other players.

There are six campaign modes. You can replay all the campaign in co-op mode and also play a mode called duo campaign where one player drops turrets and the other is in charge of support.


Conclusion

I like Sol Survivor because it does have a lot of tactical depth. The multiplayer works very well and the campaign mode is good. The soundtrack in the game is excellent. A downside to the game is setting up defences can get repetitive.

Score: 7/10

Sonic 4 Episode 1

Sonic The Hedgehod 4 Episide 4 is soon to be released (2010 release date), and it is the first from the main series since Sonic & Knuckles was released in 1994. It will have similar gameplay to Sonic & Knuckles but with improved graphics. It aims to capture the quality of the classic sonic games and update them.

Sonic jumping

The story is Dr. Eggman the main villain has been collecting animals and turning them to robots, and sonic must stop him doing this at all costs. The story in Sonic 4, continues where Sonic & Knuckles left off. In sonic 4 Dr. Eggman returns to get Sonic once and for all using all his know how to build some powerful and destructive machines.

Expect to many returning enemies from the earlier games. Motobug the ladybird type robot on a wheel. Obinaught the ball surrounded by 4 moving spikey balls. Chopper the robotic fish from the Greenhill zone that jumps and bites you when crossing bridges.

Some of the confirmed levels are Splash Hill and Lost Labrynth.

Team Fortress 2 Update

There was a major Team Fortress 2 update today which added with new weapons, hats, trading system and microtransactions. It is now possible to buy the items you want instead of waiting for them to be dropped randomly.

items available through in game cash shop

All updates for Team Fortress 2 and other valve games up till now have been free. Is this the begining microtransactions being used in more Valve titles?

Bayonetta Review

Introduction

Bayonetta is a hack and slash single player game that you play as a witch called Bayonetta who kills lots of angels.

Gameplay

You play in third person perspective and all moves are done with a combination of punch and kick. The timing between punch and kick buttons does different combos. You can practice combos at any time if you press select during loading screen. Dodging is important in the game, while you dodge you are invisible, you will dodge a lot.

Like sonic the hedgehog collecting rings in Bayonetta is important as they are used for getting items/techniques at the Gates of Hell shop. They are generally given as reward for completing levels and enemies.

The enemies are varied and the bosses massive. I had a lot of fun addapting different stregegies for the different enemies.

The game can be frustrating to play and extremely difficult. I recommend not starting on hard difficulty untill increasing your magic and vitality guage by 50%. Broken Witch Hearts is what you need to collect for health bar increase, and Broken Moon Pearl for magic bar increase. Limited suplpy are available from Gates of Hell shops, beating a challenge portal (called alfheim), and finding them at different hidden locations.

torture attack on an angel

Extras

You can buy new outfits for Bayonetta such as P.E kit, Swimsuit, Cheerleader, or alternate witch outfit.

There is a global high score board so you can see how your combo or time compare globally or with friends.

You can unlock weapons such as ice skates, or whip by collecting parts of Vinyl LP records. Each complete record gets you a new weapon when you next visit the shop. The weapons are not needed to complete the game, but fun to collect.

There are challenge portals called alfheim challenges. You have limited time to beat all enemies usually with a restricition e.g limited kick and punches. There are 21 challenges in total.

There are crows scattered accross the game to collect, called umbran tears of blood, 100 in total.

The diffulties are very easy, easy, normal, hard and Infinite Climax.

Artwork and Models for the game are available for viewing pleasure through the main menu

shooting an angel

Conclusion

If you have never played a hack and slash game like Bayonetta I would definately recommend playing it because it is lots of fun. Its excellent if you want to play it through once, but has a lot of depth through different difficulties, weapons, and collectables.


Score: 8/10

Men of War Review (PC)

Introduction

 Men of War is a Real Time strategy game which takes place during the events of World War 2. You can play as Germany, Russia, or the Allies (Britain and USA).  It is different than other RTS games in that you can choose any individual unit and take complete control of them from a 3rd person perspective. Features a campaign mode and multiplayer mode and high levels of historical detail are featured throughout the game in terms of the tanks and military units including the physical appearance, and also their strengths and weaknesses in terms of unit speed, turret rotation speed, range, fuel, armour, and even locations of strong or week armour on a tank.

artillery and supporting troops

Gameplay

The game is implements a full 3D engine allowing zoom, tilt or rotation of the camera.

There is fun physics in the game like exploding dynamite next to a troop send them fly through the air 100 feet. Bullet can be deflected depending on the angle of the surface being hit, or the angle the bullet is hitting the surface. It is possible for bullets to go clean through a tank destroying it and destroying the tank behind it. If you attack a tank with a Molotov or a flame thrower the tank engine might catch on fire leading to a destroyed engine. Tracks on a tank can break stopping the tank from moving but leaving a turret fully functional. Turrets on tank can be destroyed leaving the tank mobile, and still able to shoot, but unable to rotate the turret. If you damage wheels on artillery guns the gun become slower to rotate to aim on a target.

Each unit in the game has its own inventory and can carry pretty much carry anything it is physically large enough to be carried. It is your responsibility to make sure units inventory have all the items they might need. Items you can carry a range the things you would expect like health kit, to more unusual items like an enemy officers cap, or welding machine.

In game interface is good enough, and has a tool bar which you can customise to put the items you use the most. I put a landmine button and a pick up and drop button, its useful for looting items from enemies or getting rids of items you don’t need.

Some missions have a large number of objectives that need to be completed and there is an objectives screen for seeing the objective and if they are complete.

Campaign

Campaign mode is split into 9 Soviet missions, 6 German missions, 5 Allied missions, and some bonus missions. Missions can take anything from 30 minutes to a few hours to complete.

Voice acting in the game is amateur to say the least. You can turn it off in options, or leave it on if you find it amusing.

Each of the campaigns follows the events through the war as they happened through the eyes of an individual. German and Allied campaigns cover the war in Africa, and Soviet campaigns cover the battles on the eastern front. Cut scenes are used during and between missions to tell the story, and tell the story well and are worth watching.

There are stealth mission in the game which range from frustrating to excellent, and mean you don’t have to play massive tank battle after massive tank battle.

One awesome mission is a level that plays in the style of on the rail shooters Time crisis or Virtua Cop as you race through German enemy outposts shooting everything in site with a machine gun of rocket launcher. You don’t control the direction or speed of the jeep you are travelling in, just the shooting and its fun. Also the cut scene for this features some heavy metal music which is in no way accurate to the 1940's, but I don’t mind because it sounds awesome.

Allied Us support tanks

Multiplayer

Multiplayer in Men of War is fun if only for a chance to try all the different units out.  The games need good team work as well as really good reactions to respond to enemy moves. For a new comer it is quite unforgiving and it is recommended to join a large team game, so you can learn from team mates

One of the problems of multiplayer is stale mates where both teams set up a line of artillery. These matches happen a lot and are not nearly as much fun as when one team has a decisive victory.

In multiplayer you can play as Japan, but not in single player.

Conclusion

I enjoyed both the campaign and multiplayer modes of Men of war a lot. It is a worthwhile game if only for learning about some of the lesser known battles of WW2. If you care about the pros and cons of different tanks and strategies for attacking then this is a game for you.

The game is great fun, and its very satisfying to destroy a massive heavy tank with a single unit anti tank grenade or a rocket launcher. Also Ripping through a convoy of light/medium tanks with a flack truck is satisfying too.

Score 9/10

Extract Data From Html- Reading HTML/XHTML with XQuery

An XPath query selects the title node in the Xhtml then the next line assigns the Xhtml to page title. Make sure to define a namespace prefix and use this in the XPath query.

String page = HttpGet("www.myXhtmlPage.biz");
StringReader sReader = new StringReader(page);

XmlDocument doc = FromHtml(sReader);
XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(doc.NameTable);
nsmgr.AddNamespace("games", "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml");

XmlNodeList list = doc.SelectNodes("//games:html/games:head/games:title",nsmgr);
String title = list[0].InnerText;

To convert html to Xhtml I recommend the excellent SgmlReader. This is the code to use SGMLReader to convert Html to Xhtml (from the Sgml main page here).

XmlDocument FromHtml(TextReader reader) {

// setup SgmlReader
Sgml.SgmlReader sgmlReader = new Sgml.SgmlReader();
sgmlReader.DocType = "HTML";
sgmlReader.WhitespaceHandling = WhitespaceHandling.All;
sgmlReader.CaseFolding = Sgml.CaseFolding.ToLower;
sgmlReader.InputStream = reader;

// create document
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.PreserveWhitespace = true;
doc.XmlResolver = null;
doc.Load(sgmlReader);
return doc;
}

This is the code to get a web page in string format, otherwise known as HTTP Get.

public static string HttpGet(string URI)
{
System.Net.WebRequest req = System.Net.WebRequest.Create(URI);
//req.Proxy = new System.Net.WebProxy("myproxy", true); //true means no proxy
System.Net.WebResponse resp = req.GetResponse();
System.IO.StreamReader sr = new System.IO.StreamReader(resp.GetResponseStream());
return sr.ReadToEnd().Trim();
}

Xvid Video Compression

If you use virtualdub to compress a video with the Xvid encoder you might come accross this error.

Cannot start video compression:

An unknown error occured (may be corrupt data).
(error code - 100)

The problem is that the input video dimentions must be even. My input video was 638x397, so re-recording the video again at 638x388 fixed the error and the video encoded OK.

Fixing a corrupted recycle bin in Windows 7

I recently had an issue with the recycle bin in windows 7 that meant that I could not view the contents of the recycle bin, and the contents could not be restored.

The problem can be fixed by

1. click start, type cmd to find cmd.exe shortcut
2. right click on the cmd.exe shortcut and click on open "Run as Administrator"
3. type following command not including quotes "cd C:\", then "rmdir C:\$RECYCLE.BIN /s"
4. repeat for every partion, I have an e drive so I also did "cd E:\" "rmdir E:\$RECYCLE.BIN /s"
5. when prompted say yes to agree to the delete.
   
6. reboot machine

*warning - be careful that you write the correct directory as the rmdir /s deletes an entire directory tree.

Star Wars: The Old Republic JavaScript countdown timer

This is a Javascript for counting down hours minutes seconds for the game Star Wars The Old Republic. The script automatically updates every second. To use add this script in head tag of html. Maybe you can modify to make countdown timer for other games.

<script>
var one_second = 1000;
var one_minute = 1000 * 60;
var one_hour = 1000 * 60 * 60;
var one_day = 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24;
var one_month = 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 30;
var one_year = 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 30 * 12;

function moo()
{
alert("wowowowow");
}

function updated()
{
displayage(2010, 11, 26, 'days', 0, 'rounddown')
setInterval("displayage(2010, 11, 26, 'days', 0, 'rounddown')",1000);
//setInterval("moo()",5000)
//displayage(2010, 11, 26, 'days', 0, 'rounddown');
//moo();
}



function displayage(yr, mon, day, unit, decimal, round) {
today = new Date();
var pastdate = new Date(yr, mon - 1, day);

var countunit = unit;
var decimals = decimal;
var rounding = round;

finalunit = (countunit == "days") ? one_day : (countunit == "months") ? one_month : one_year;
decimals = (decimals <= 0) ? 1 : decimals * 10;

if (rounding == "rounddown") {
var days = Math.floor((today.getTime() - pastdate.getTime()) / (finalunit) * decimals) / decimals;
days = Math.abs(days);
//document.write(num + " " + countunit)
var jjgjk = document.getElementById('iddays')
document.getElementById('iddays').textContent = days;


if(countunit == 'days')
{
var hours = Math.floor(((pastdate.getTime()-today.getTime())%(finalunit))/one_hour);
//document.write(" " + hours + " " + "hours ");
document.getElementById('idhours').textContent = hours;

var minutes = Math.floor(((pastdate.getTime()-today.getTime())%(one_hour))/one_minute);
//document.write(minutes + " " + "minutes ");
document.getElementById('idminutes').textContent = minutes;

var seconds = Math.floor(((pastdate.getTime()-today.getTime())%(one_minute))/one_second);
//document.write(seconds + " " + "seconds");
document.getElementById('idseconds').textContent = seconds;

}
}
}


</script>

Then in the html body add the following to call the javascript and present the data.

Time to release date: Star Wars The Old Republic 26/11/2010 or <span id="iddays">boo</span> days

<span id="idhours"></span> hours <span id="idminutes"></span> minutes <span id="idseconds"></span><br/>

<script>updated()</script>