With all the great console games coming out this holiday season, it’s easy to overlook two small releases from Atari which haven’t received much face time on ad banners compared to some of the big games. Due to my extreme admiration for PC gaming, I have been following both these titles since they were first reported. Finally within the last month, both of them found their way onto my PC. Mask of the Betrayer requires the original Neverwinter Nights 2 game to play while The Witcher is its own game. While they are both excellent games, they are also very different from each other while using the same engine. It’ll make more sense as you read on.
Like I mentioned above, both games are published by Atari and they use some form of Bioware’s Aurora Engine to create the visuals. They are both RPGs with complex story-driven plots and isometic cameras. However for enthusiasts of a more down-to-earth camera, they both over an OTS (over the shoulder) camera mode to be more close to the action. So why did I mention both of these games? It’s because they’re different, and they both try to shift the focus of modern RPGs from being a happy-go-lucky good guy to one of moral ambiguity.
Posted by Risrepkel 
Back to our favorite gaming pseudo-news site, Kotaku has posted the 
The “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six” series began in 1998 as a Windows PC game developed by Red Storm Entertainment, called “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six,” loosely based on a then incomplete book called Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy. Stop me if I’m going too fast. In an time where games like Quake 2 and Half-Life had you shooting aliens, robots and rooms full of explosive barrels; Rainbow Six offered something different: realism, planning, strategy, and teamwork. These key elements were passed down, unscathed and in some cases improved, to the two sequels that followed: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 2: Rogue Spear and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield (seriously who comes up with these ridiculously long names). All seemed good for the series until. . . . Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown.
Oddly enough, this blog has been around for a week now and we haven’t received any angry e-mails. Obviously we’re not doing a good enough job of pissing you off. So, Game Reaver presents an exclusive look into what fanboys are made of. If you don’t agree with us, call 911 and tell them we hurt your feelings. Remember kids, police dispatchers love receiving collect calls.
What does it really mean for something to be difficult? I believe true difficulty comes from a well written AI. Sometimes it may feel frustrating, but it should never feel cheap. A game is difficult when the enemy provides a challenge, yet is still bound by the same rules and skill set as the player. This proves a daunting task for many developers. Computers – and therefore AI – are excellent at logic and conditionals, yet they do not adapt well to situations not prearranged in their program. In other words, if a situation should arise where the AI is not programmed for, then it will be unable to form an effective strategy. The root of this problem lies in duplicating the higher functions of the human brain. The brain is just an organ which produces electrical and chemical signals. However, the mind is more than just the sum of its parts. Our mind is a complex entity not completely understood. With it, we can form complex thoughts such as beliefs, theories, strategies and attain awareness, not just of ourselves, but of our surroundings, the world and the universe. This is what limits AI in any game. As any competitive game can show, the most skilled player easily triumphs over even the hardest AI levels. Therefore until we can fully understand our mind, the true challenge in any game will be from a fellow player.
