With the advent of high-quality 3D graphics, it has been possible to create very engrossing, atmospheric worlds in video games. This means that some games go to great lengths to provide creepy or just downright scary levels to test a player's already itchy trigger finger and one-against-the-world paranoia. Here are a few of the most effective eerie levels from the past few years in gaming.

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Since 2003, one of the most popular MMO games has been EVE Online. Its appeal is easy to see. The game provides players with a huge galaxy of planets, moons, space stations and other locations to explore in a far-future setting with plenty of opportunity for combat, commerce and the pursuit of new upgrades to their ships. In the space flight simulator genre, another important game came out in the same year, though it has been relegated to increasing obscurity thanks to frequent delays and business woes that kept it from being as revolutionary as it should have been. That game is Digital Anvil's Freelancer.

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March was a pretty good month for simple but entertaining games. There were a number of strong offerings in the platformer category and at least one memorable addition to the growing list of browser-based strategy games. March also saw the official beta test of a fun, creative 2D MMO that is sure to have a healthy subscriber base when the full title launches later this year.

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Deus Ex

We're promised more of Deus Ex: Human Revolution at E3 2010. The teaser itself shows us nothing new. Adam Jensen's face was shown in concept art a long time ago. The mechanical augmentations (as opposed to the nanoaugmentations of Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War) are only to be expected, given that Human Revolution's role as a prequel was announced even longer ago. The visual augmentation looks cool, but whether we'll actually see it like that (no pun intended) is yet to be seen.

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Deus Ex

At the 2010 Game Developers Conference, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix presented a teaser trailer of the upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution (formerly known as Deus Ex 3). It's the second trailer of the game, following the first trailer shown in November of 2007. With the game expected to hit shelves this year, interest and debate has stirred as the third installment in the groundbreaking series looks back on the origins of Deus Ex. 

 

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One of the most hotly anticipated games of 2010 is Assassin's Creed 2, the sequel to the fun but flawed action title that capitalized on the parkour fad by putting players in control of a medieval hitman who darts across the rooftops of several Middle Eastern cities. In what may be the most absurd attempt to discourage piracy yet, Ubisoft decided to implement a new Digital Rights Management program that has already rendered play for paying customers impossible once and is practically guaranteed to fail again.

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After something of a slump in January, the browser game community came back with a variety of excellent titles last month. There were a lot of fun, innovative and exciting games released in February in a variety of different genres. Here are some of the best of them.

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When video games got so complex that it became unreasonable to ask players to just dive right into the main experience, designers started to put together quick, low-stakes introductory levels to school newcomers on the controls and basic mechanics of the game. Some tutorial levels are fun, but most end up being boring, frustrating or even entirely unnecessary. Many who picked up a copy of Driver for the Sony Playstation, for example, never got to play the actual game because of the unreasonably difficult and utterly mandatory tutorial garage. It's also rare to find a first-person shooter war game that doesn't start in an abridged bootcamp scenario. Good tutorials are hard to come by, but they can end up transcending their purely functional roles to become an essential part of a game.

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Those who deny the educational potential of video games have obviously never played Oregon Trail. Several generations of bored elementary schoolers learned to love that buffalo-hunting, wagon-axle-breaking and dysentery-suffering simulator because it represented a break from the doldrums of a normal history lesson, but they also came away with an impressively visceral understanding of the westward expansion of America. Oregon Trail teaches players that life in a wagon train was a struggle against disease, resource scarcity and the great unknown. Though it's just a video game and can't be expected to portray the experience with complete accuracy, it does a lot better job than one might expect. I doubt any modern schools have computers than can even run Oregon Trail (unless some cheeky admin installed DOSbox), but maybe there's a different game that can be used for history class. I would suggest Sid Meier's one-of-a-kind Civilization series.

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Mummies were introduced with the World Adventures expansion pack.  They live in Al Simhara (the Egyptian world), inhabiting underground tombs.  

Finding A Mummy

To find a mummy, look for a sarcophagus.  They sleep there - all the time, apparently!  (Mummies must be even lazier than I am.)  You can awaken the mummy by right-clicking on the sarcophagus and instructing your Sim to look inside.  Mummies may also spontaneously awaken if you start stealing treasure from their tomb.

Fighting The Mummy

Once the mummy awakens, it will pick a fight with your Sim.  If your Sim loses this fight, they will receive the mummy's curse.  


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