As a fan of the Geralt of Rivia novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, I was interested in The Witcher from the very first moment I heard about it. Some time ago I had the luck of finding its limited edition at a very good price and I'm now enjoying this great game.

Like in any other good RPG game it looks like I'm gonna be wandering through Geralt's world for a long time, but I want to write some lines about my experience so far, 'cause I can't wait till I finish it to express my opinion about this game.

The Witcher is everything I expected and more. Its graphics are terrific, the landscapes, cities, Geralt, the monsters... are impressive, and help you feel like you were inside the world of Sapkowski's novels, which is perfectly recreated. Fighting is really well implemented, Geralt's animations and the way you control him make fights very dynamic and entertaining.

The story and characters are interesting (even more if you've read the books) and fighting and exploring The Witcher's world is real fun.

So far, this game seems almost perfect, the only bad thing I've found is the fact that NPC's models are repeated too often, and you can see lots of people who look the same inside cities (which, I think, is one of the things the developers are going to fix in the soon to be released enhanced edition of the game).

If the rest of the game is at least as good as what I've seen and the story keeps me hooked, The Witcher has everything to become one of my favorite games.

I was really looking forward to playing Crysis: Warhead, the new Crysis stand-alone expansion, due for release this week. I had pre-ordered a copy some time ago but, yesterday, I canceled my pre-order. Why? because, after reading the requirements shown in the backcover of the US version posted in Crymod, I don't like the DRM copy protection it seems it's going to have, with online activation required (and I read in Amazon's forum it will also have limited number of installs as Spore, another recent EA's game).

I buy a lot of games, I think developers deserve being paid for their work, and I really liked the original Crysis game (which I happily paid for). I'm sure I'd enjoy Crysis: Warhead, it looks great, but I don't like this new DRM methods, which punish the legitimate customer, in a lost battle against illegal copies. People with illegal copies don't suffer any of this, while paying customers have to. I don't want to be forced to activate my game online just to install a single player game on my PC, depending on an internet connection and the publisher's external server, when there's no real need for this requirement. The limited number of installations goes even beyond annoying, If Crysis: Warhead's DRM includes this too, it would be another huge reason for me not to buy it.

So, sadly, I won't be playing Crysis: Warhead, and my money will go to another game (I've pre-ordered Far Cry 2, from Ubisoft, which I hope won't have this kind of DRM and looks great) [update: Far Cry 2 DID include the same kind of DRM so, sadly, I canceled my pre-order too]

This game is just for gamers who like the TV series. Although the first impression when you run the game is great, thanks to the good engine and the realistic models, the developers seem to have forgotten that what makes a game good is its playability and, in this one, it's quite limited.

You have a beautiful scenery to walk through, some people to talk to, some repetitive puzzles based on electrical circuits, and some boring and, again, repetitive action scenes, being the worst ones those where you have to run and hide from the black smoke. I really hated the smoke levels, I found them boring and totally unnecessary.

The only reason I enjoyed playing this game is I like Lost. Walking through the island, visiting some key settings of the series and talking to the main characters was fun. The story is simple, but it serves as an excuse to visit the island.

I really like Dragonlance books, especially those written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, and it had been a while since I had read one, so I bought online this one and the "War of Souls" trilogy.

"The Second Generation" is divided in five independent short stories, each one concerning one or more children of the "Heroes of the Lance", most of them taking place between the events told in the last book of the "Legends" ("Test of the Twins") and the ones told in "Dragons of Summer Flame".

Although I usually prefer novels to short stories, this book was quite interesting. Not necessarily a "must have", you can read "Dragons of Summer Flame" without reading this one but it's a good introduction to some of its new main characters.

I didn't know what to expect from Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. I only read interesting things about it while it was being developed, it looked like it was going to be the perfect action game, but once it was published opinions were mixed. Some people were disappointed, others said it was a good action game, maybe not the revolution some imagined it would be, but really fun.

I had the opportunity to play it this weekend and, while it's far from perfect, it is a pretty entertaining game. The best thing about Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is that playing it is like being part of a movie like Heat, one of my favorite action films and a clear inspiration for the developers. It's a pure action game, with a movie-style plot (not an award winning one, but amusing enough), full of spectacular shootings, car chasings, ambushes...

The design of some levels is really exciting, being my favorites the one in the streets of Tokyo (Heat comes to your mind all through this level) and the prison one. The level design and graphics are uneven, some levels are really well designed and look great, and others are simply entertaining. The graphics engine is far from looking like Crysis or Call of Duty 4, but, in general, the game looks good. One of the things I liked most about the game are the sound effects, the crude sound of weapons is very realistic.