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While in game, press Control+Shift+C on your keyboard to bring up the code console.CheatEffect

fps on/off	Shows your Frame per Second in the upper right area while on.
testingcheatsenabled true	Turns on Testing Cheats, just shift+click a Sim, or anything else, like your Mailbox.
quit	Like it says, quits the game.
help	Lists all available commands at the moment.
jokePlease	Gives you a joke in the code console prompt.
moveobjects on/off	With this On, it will allow you to move anything, including Sims, in your Buy/Build mode.
kaching	While on the lot, entering this will give you $1,000.
motherlode	While on the lot, entering this will give you $50,000.
unlockOutfits on/off	Unlocks outfits in CAS (Create a Sim) mode. This must be enabled before going into CAS.
fullscreen on/off	Adjusts your game screen to full or windowed mode.
slowMotionViz <level>	Puts the game in slow motion. Optional parameter, value 0 = normal speed and 8 = slowest.
fadeObjects [on/off]	Toggles whether objects fade when the camera gets close to them.
hideHeadlineEffects [on/off]	Hides all meters and effects in the game, such as the plumbbob and skill meter.
disableSnappingToSlotsOnAlt [on/off]	When on, objects will not snap to slots while holding alt.
constrainFloorElevation [true/false]	Allows all terrain adjustments regardless of objects, Sims, and other structures on them. Walls, fl oors, and objects will move with the terrain.
enableLlamas [on/off]	Gives a message that says, “Llamas enabled.”
resetSim <fi rstname> <lastname>	Resets the named Sim with neutral motives, no moodlets, and teleports Sim back home.

Despite some drawbacks, this satisfying adventure is just what you’d want from a Ghostbusters game: it’s funny and it’s fun.

It’s good. If you’re a fan of Ghostbusters (and maybe even Ghostbusters 2), that’s all you needed to know, so you can go out and grab your copy without worrying that you’ll have to tread through bad game mechanics just to get a few good laughs. If for some reason you’re a newcomer to the franchise, that’s OK too. Ghostbusters The Video Game is a humorous and amusing third-person action-adventure with some clever mechanics and loads of personality. It’s not all pleasurable, due to some tedious mechanics and other issues, but if what’s most important to you is some lighthearted fun, then you’ll find enough in this package to keep a smile on your face.

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Spore’s first full expansion is overflowing with wit and charm, and it offers resourceful players a chance to get creative.

Some expansion packs offer more of the same, but Spore Galactic Adventures is not one of them. In fact, it adds an entirely new facet of gameplay to the original game’s space stage: adventures that beam your captain onto a planetary surface and send you on a short series of quests. The expansion comes with plenty of such adventures, and there are already developer-commissioned adventures ready to download for free. However, if you enjoyed making your own creatures and buildings in the original Spore, you’ll probably also get into the expansion’s adventure creation capabilities, which offer imaginative players a set of fantastic tools to express their creativity. Like all of Spore’s creation tools, the adventure creator is robust, though learning its intricacies takes some time. There are some nagging issues scattered throughout this otherwise excellent package. However, the new adventures and tools bring the charms of the creature stage into the space stage, and a leveling-up mechanic for your captain results in a welcome sense of progression.

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Top production values and exciting gameplay make Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood one call you should definitely heed.

Prequels are by definition concerned with looking at what has come beforehand, but Bound in Blood is anything but a backwards step. This game–a prequel to 2007’s Call of Juarez–is a tense, riveting, and superb-looking first-person shooter that ditches the stealth elements that clogged up the original like molasses. Instead, it focuses on action-packed shoot-outs and set-piece moments that will make you feel like you’ve strapped on the six-shooters and stepped straight into the dusty, violent Wild West. And while it’s over all too quickly (and filled with none-too-smart enemies), Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is sure to scratch the itchiest of trigger fingers.

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This demon-controlling adventure lets you do more fun things with your evil minions, but Overlord II hasn’t shaken all of the issues that held back the first game.

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You play as Alex Mercer as he tells the story of the events of the breakout as it happened 18 days ago. He is a man with no memory and wakes up in a morgue wondering what the hell is going on. You find yourself holding a power that you have not yet realized the potential of. Alex is unfortunately at a loss as to how he got these powers. His mission? Find anyone who had an involvement in creating the monster that he is. The game teases you into thinking you’re beginning as this powerful antihero on a revenge plot to find out what and who you are. You are dropped into the game with all of you’re powers in tact giving you the chance to mess around in the world before taking them away like taking candy from a baby, cliché phrase but it’s literally how the game works.

At the outset, Mercer is a much easier character to control than he is to understand, especially if you opt to play with an Xbox 360 controller rather than a mouse and keyboard. Making giant leaps, gliding through the air, and even running up the sides of skyscrapers are effortless actions. You could probably make it from one end of Manhattan to the other in a straight line using nothing more than the sprint button if you really wanted to, since it’s the only one you need to scale buildings, barge through crowds, and overcome obstacles like cars and rooftop air-conditioning units parkour-style. No fall will ever hurt you, no obstacle is impassable, and there are very few enemies who can keep up with you when you’re at full clip. Combat is also relatively simple early on, but as you progress and learn more about who and what Mercer is, his repertoire of moves grows exponentially until remembering which button combinations or keys trigger which moves in which of his five forms becomes something of a challenge. You certainly don’t need to remember how to use every single move you unlock with evolution points, which are earned by doing just about anything, but it’s unfortunate that even after picking favorites you might find yourself having to hold down up to three buttons (a trigger and two opposing face buttons) simultaneously to perform them. You don’t need to do anything quite that crazy on your keyboard, but there are a lot of keys to remember.

The biggest selling point of the game has to be Alex’s ability to “consume” or absorb anything in his path. By pressing a specific button combination you can easily regain your health and the memories of unsuspecting victims to give you the advantage in your mission. You’ll be doing a lot of this as you reach deeper into the game and find yourself in an overwhelming position. There are times where the difficulty is sneakily bumped up a bit to keep you on your toes once you start fighting more and more infected enemies. Consuming also has its benefits by allowing you to take the disguise of the person you just consumed. This will help as you sneak into military bases and try to uncover the secrets of the viral outbreak and where you’ll need to head next. Another big thing that you’ll notice about the game is your detection-meter. You are obviously a target that the military is trying to search for and kill. If you get anywhere near a military presence, your meter will turn yellow and if you do things that get their attention the meter will build up and if it hits red be prepared to be pummeled with gun fire and rocket launchers from every possible angle. The only way to escape it is to run away as fast as possible until the meter drops and you’ll hear on the radio that military has lost track of you.

The game certainly doesn’t get any easier as time passes, and the city starts to become a rather perilous place to be. Prototype manages to keep one word in mind, satisfying. While it will manage to annoy some at times, especially when the difficulty ramps up, the option to just explore the world will ease your mind from the trials and errors of the main campaign. You will die a lot, especially once you start getting overwhelmed and have no idea what you’re doing. Prototype has enough unique abilities and missions that it’ll keep you busy and interested for the time being while waiting for something else to pop up. In the long run, Prototype is an interesting new IP and is certainly welcomed in an industry that always seems to lavish in the sequel realm.

Story structure mimics that in the first game, with the action once more flipping back and forth between characters in very different situations. Once again, the star is Victoria McPherson, an on-again, off-again FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer that the media has charmingly dubbed the East Coast Torturer. Unlike the first game, which blended McPherson’s modern investigation with crimes investigated by her grandfather back in the 1920s, the secondary character here is a reporter named Paloma Hernandez who is actually in the clutches of the killer. This tweak allows the tale to fill in the blanks about the murderer’s identity and methods. Seeing as so much was left unsaid in the first Still Life, you can’t complain about finally getting a better glimpse at the sicko behind the mask. Unfortunately, the killer’s sinister accoutrements (most notably a gas mask oddly reminiscent of Fallout box covers) are the most original thing about him. The rest of his act is a straight rip-off from the Saw movies, down to the enterprising use of video cameras and sadistic games that involve such gadgets as shock collars.

Yet despite the lack of originality in spots, the experimental script is almost an exercise in metafiction. It self-consciously bounces back and forth between tracking down the murderer and trying to escape the murderer–an artificial yet satisfying manipulation that always keeps you creeped out. Spending time in each woman’s shoes really ratchets up the tension. There is always a lot on the line, right down to the very end of the game, where you have just one shot to save a life and can only try again through a saved game by finding and inputting a code. Only some subpar voice acting and occasionally cheesy dialogue break the dark mood. Emotions can also bounce all over the place. Characters intermittently go from steely determination to whiny and overwrought in the blink of an eye. Far too many lines have been cribbed from an eighth grader’s take on Dashiell Hammett. You can tell that the author was going for an old-time detective novel vibe with such lines as “The only place for an ice cube like that is a glass of whiskey.” But it’s hard to feel the noir when all you want to do is laugh. Jaunty crime noir-speak fits fine if you’re dealing with thugs in fedoras and dames with legs all the way up to their necks, but it isn’t quite as appropriate when you’re tackling a serial killer who vivisects his victims. These corny lines don’t work well with the grim, stylish visuals, either. Black-and-white photos of cut-up corpses, run-down houses in the forest straight out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and even the eternally scowling visage of McPherson stand in stark contrast to the cornball commentary.

Gameplay really takes the police procedural aspect of the story to heart. Every challenge you’re presented with is as formulaic as an episode of CSI or Law & Order. The whole game consists of either investigating crime scenes with McPherson and her nifty suitcase full of forensic goodies or being stuck in a succession of rooms as Hernandez with the only way out to be found via random junk hidden in every nook and cranny. The forensics stuff can be slow, with you examining locations and hauling out the swabs and fingerprint powder to gather clues in a very methodical, step-by-step manner. Hernandez’s scenes are more generic adventure. You know the drill. Everything starts with a look around, moves on to scooping up whatever isn’t nailed down, and finishes up with random experimentation. Hmm, will that fireplace poker smash open the truck window? How can I combine a roll of tape with this mine? OK, the cape is wet, so what do I do with it now? And so on.

Imagine what it would be like to become a Transformer. Walking, jumping, and climbing in your humanoid form would be pretty familiar, and you could easily get the hang of whipping out your guns to blast enemies. Driving yourself around might be a bit awkward at first, and flying would be significantly trickier, but the real problems would come when you tried to transform. Shifting your physical form would be disorienting, and it would take a while before you mastered it. That’s actually a pretty accurate breakdown of what it’s like to play Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. In the early going, the controls are uncomfortable but functional. As you play through either of the solid campaigns, you’ll get better and better until you reach a point where you can fluidly move between different forms and dispatch your enemies with style. That is, you would, but an array of technical flaws and performance issues will probably keep you from getting that far. Whether you suffer an erratic frame rate, washed-out environments, or some other breed of problem depends on your particular computer, but it’s very unlikely you’ll be able to play unhindered. It’s a real shame that Revenge of the Fallen, which is a fun game to play on other systems, fares so poorly in its PC incarnation.

There are three different forms (”modes”) that each Transformer can take: robot, weapon, and vehicle. In robot mode, you walk around in humanoid form and can jump, climb buildings, and melee attack. Holding the right mouse button changes you into weapon mode, allowing you to strafe and blast opponents with your primary and secondary weapons. These two modes are easy to master and switch between, but vehicle mode is a bit trickier. Holding the left mouse button will transform you into a vehicle, and you’ll immediately start driving or flying, depending on your character. It’s cool to watch, but figuring out how your momentum will (or won’t) be preserved through the transformation is a bit tricky. Until you get the hang of it, you’ll often find yourself on an unexpected vector, speeding off in the opposite direction or just plowing into a building.

you’ll find that the two campaigns–Autobot and Decepticon–loosely follow the plot of the movie. Each one takes a solid amount of time to complete, and they are different enough that it is worth playing through both. The Transformer models are shiny and detailed (unless you suffer the contrast issue), capturing the look of the movie nicely. The voice acting is less impressive. While some Transformers, such as Megatron and Optimus Prime, sound great, others are almost unintelligible, thanks to poor volume matching or overzealous robotic effects. And the human characters (specifically Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox) are so badly voiced that you’ll be thankful only some of the missions parallel the movie. Other missions diversify the action with familiar mission archetypes: escort/kidnap, defend/destroy, checkpoint race, miniboss fight, and the like. Each mission plays out in an open area full of items you can destroy (cars, tankers, and light structures), though your wrecking power is so substantial you’ll probably wish for a bit more environmental destructibility.

Online multiplayer offers a distinct new challenge that is best tackled once you’ve mastered the controls. The modes and maps are pretty standard fare, and they serve as a competent stage for battle. Each Transformer has a unique loadout that includes a primary weapon, secondary weapon, and special attack. In the single-player campaigns, these different abilities provide some welcome variety. In multiplayer, they add a whole new level of strategic depth, though you have to delve through performance problems to uncover it. Having Long Haul’s combat healing ability can help a Decepticon team stay alive long enough to capture a control point, while a well-timed electromagnetic pulse attack from Bumblebee can give the Autobots a deadly window of opportunity. Teams have to strategize in order to make the best use of the complementary special attacks, though team-only chat doesn’t kick in until the match begins, so be careful about how much you say in the game lobby. Coordinating your team roster and experimenting with different lineups yield a surprising number of possibilities. The interplay of abilities and weapons also makes the otherwise run-of-the-mill game types much more complex and engaging.

At its core, Revenge of the Fallen has a good amount of fun and satisfying gameplay. Unfortunately, the entertaining stuff is buried beneath sizable technical problems that make it hard to enjoy what the game has to offer. Other issues, like the tricky controls and unimpressive mission diversity, seem like comparatively small hurdles. It’s a shame that the fun of being a Transformer gets so muddled in this problematic PC port.

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