Don’t get me wrong, the third-person fantasy RPG has been done before, but Demon’s Soul look sufficiently atmospheric enough to be entertaining. Under development by From Software and being published by SCE Japan, Demon’s Souls is setting up for a Japanese release on the PS3 this year. There is no word yet on a North American or European release but, as with all things, patience is a virtue.
Author - Jerry Paxton
Hidden Path Entertainment has released their highly-anticipated tower defense game, Defense Grid: The Awakening. For those of you unfamiliar with tower defense titles, they generally put you in charge of placing defenses along a predefined route on which enemy ‘creeps’ will attempt to pass by in an effort to attack your home base. These started quite a while ago but in recent years have become extremely popular as casual web titles. Defense Grid raises the bar, however.
While keeping the same tried-and-true tower defense gameplay, it boasts vibrant and well-detailed 3d graphics, which is something that cannot be said about most other TD games. In addition, it features an evolving storyline over its campaign which adds a much-needed narrative to what is going on. Finished, a level can be played from other modes such as sandbox-games, etc which allows for quite a bit of replayability as you try out different tower combinations.
Speaking of towers. In Defense Grid, you will find a vast assortment of tower-type, from basic machine gun turrets all the way to unguided artillery pieces. Each can be upgraded and look sufficiently different in each level of capability as well which is a nice touch. Effects are well done with vivid explosions and other weapon effects. All of these options in terms of which towers to place where creates a big dilemma for the budding player: what to put where? Certain towers play better off one another, such as starting off with a slowing ‘temporal tower’ followed by some area-effect ‘inferno’ fire towers. By learning what each tower does and planning accordingly, your wins will be far more elegant and brilliant to watch unfold.
Creeps are of the anime ‘mecha’ variety and, while not as well-detailed as the environments or turrets, do their jobs nicely. There are light, medium, and heavy creeps to deal with. Some even have shields which are harder to break through. Then there are the air units, which do not always travel on the same path as their terra firma-rooted brethren. All of this makes for a brilliant display of action on the screen as you are not always watching the same creep go by a thousand times in a row.
Available off the Steam digital distribution service for $19.99 (with a current 2008 Holiday sale for $14.99), it would be a shame to pass up this engaging and addictive game. Defense Grid: The Awakening is truly the best tower defense game to date and I hope Hidden Path has plans to go further in the genre as they truly have a knack for it and we just can’t wait to see what they have in store for a sequel.
Bigfoot Networks has always held a certain place of mystery in my brain. I never truly thought that their line of ‘Killer’ NICs would be capable of living up to the hype surrounding them. In an age where just about everything has a ‘*PU’ of its own (CPU, GPU, SPU…) now we have to worry about an ‘NPU’ (Network Processing Unit). ‘Just perfect’, I thought. Finally, I got the chance to play with their flagship NIC, the ‘M1’, and have been thoroughly and excitedly wrong about my previous misgivings. This review should shed a bit more light on my change of heart.
Tech Specs:
Design:
The M1 is almost identical to its ‘little’ brother, the K1, with the biggest exception being the M1’s very cool K-shaped heatsink. The thing looks like some sort of ninja weapon. Thankfully, the heatsink is fully-secured to the board so those of you with an inkling to throw it at deserving individuals will be denied from doing so. On the back of the Killer M1, you will find the standard LAN port as well as a USB port. Yup, you heard right, there is a USB port on the NIC. Why? Well one of the coolest features of the Killer M1 is its use of FNA applications.
FNA Applications:
FNA stands for ‘Flexible Network Architecture’ and represents a novel idea in network interface cards. Essentially, the Killer M1 is a small Linux-driven computer inside your computer. This small computer acts as a gateway from your PC to the network sure but with ‘FNApps’, as they are called, you can put this small computer to work handling various tasks without taxing your system’s standard hardware. Unfortunately, there are not too many FNApps out yet, but we hope this will change. Thankfully, what FNApps do exist are pretty cool. For instance, the FNA Torrent application allows you to download torrent streams onto a USB drive (attached to the port on the NIC). FNA Voice is a hardware-accelerated voice streaming program and FNA Firewall is, well, a firewall app. Using the Killer M1 as a firewall is an extremely smart idea as it can detect and deny attacks before they reach your PC’s bus.
Installation:
Physically installing the Killer M1 is simple, being really no different than any other PC card. Simply insert it in a PCI slot and boot up your PC. Install the software and you will be good to go. It is that easy and we must applaud Bigfoot Networks for such a simple, yet functional set of configuration programs. Handling the FNApps is equally simple, and adds a ton of value to this card, especially for those of your who like to use torrent programs while gaming. The following is a screen capture from the main Killer Configuration app. As you can see, it is a strictly no-frills piece of software that does not confuse or barrage you with needless information. This is indicative of all the FNApps’ software as well. They have really kept things simple and efficient for the best user experience possible.
Technology:
The Killer M1 NIC takes control of the Windows network stack and increases the speed at which the NIC looks at incoming UDP (User Datagram Protocol) packets which, incidentally, is what most high-performance online games use. This is opposed to TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) packets which require acknowledgement packets to be sent back to the sender and a lot more overhead in general. In that respect, using the Killer M1 won’t make too much of a difference when sending and receiving TCP packets, as the algoritm for doing so is set in stone. With UDP applications and games you will definitely notice an improvement as the NIC offloads this processing from your PC’s CPU to its own 400mhz processor. This amount of processing power on the card is what enables it to not only mind your network, but also run its FNApps.
Performance:
Bigfoot Networks touts that the Killer M1 will not only improve network ping, but should also increase my graphical frames per second as it takes on the responsibilities of the Windows network stack, freeing up the CPU to focus on the game at hand. They tout that in Age of Conan, tests have shown frames per second values to increase by up to 20fps. Also regarding Age of Conan, they claim ping improvements of up to 20ms. We thought we would focus our tests on this MMO from Funcom. Our test rig runs an AMD 6000+ 3.0Ghz Dual Core CPU with an Nvidia GTX 280 video card (stock clocking). Also on the test machine is 4GB of DDR2 800 RAM.
Our first run of the MMO without the Killer NIC installed (using the onboard Gigabit NIC) gave us an FPS rating of 38 and an average ping of 162ms. We then moved over to the Killer NIC instead of the onboard network adapter. This yielded us a frames per second rating of 45 and an average ping of 149ms. This represents an increase of 7 FPS and a decrease in ping of 13ms. Not an altogether stellar increase in visual performance but a respectable decrease in ping, especially in the fairly busy game-city of Tarantia.
Our our second run of the game, we moved over to an emptier zone on our server – the Lacheish Plains. This time, we rated values of 44 FPS and 159ms using the onboard NIC. With the Killer NIC, we received ratings of 57fps and 144ms. This is an increase of 13 FPS and a decrease of 15ms, a much better result
These two tests constitute an average ping decrease of 14ms and an average increase of 10 FPS in performance. To us, this test represents a success on the part of the Killer M1 NIC to provide a benefit to game performance, both on the graphical and network levels. 
Conclusion:
Bigfoot Networks’ Killer M1 network interface card provides a noticeable improvement in game performance, both from the standpoint of visual frames per second as well as lower amount of network ping. This fact, coupled with the promise and convenience of FNA applications and the added security of the NIC acting as a firewall makes it the perfect fit for that dedicated-gaming PC. Its price tag is hefty at $249 in most retail outlets, but if you can afford it we highly recommend it. We found it on sale at several web-based outlets for $209, so look sharp!
Tritton has a fairly large line of gaming audio products. Their headsets in the past have generally been focused on one type of input. For instance, the Tritton AX PC is geared towards PC and Mac usage while the AX 360 is, as you can probably imagine, geared for use on the Microsoft Xbox 360 console. This AX Pro, however, is a new breed capable of utilizing multiple types of inputs while also including Dolby Digital and Dolby Prologic decoding for a true 5.1 channel experience.
The Tritton AX Pro comes out of the box in a very daunting fashion. Aside from pulling out a ton of accessory components which ship with it, the actual headset itself is large and covered in a sleek silver plastic shell. Its ear cups are gigantic, allowing them to cover your entire ear for maximum comfort. In the box, Tritton even sends along a set of feux-leather pads so that you can find the best fit and feel for your head.
This is really something to take note of, because if you look at most any other headset review I have done, you will notice I say it is ‘too tight’ or that the unit doesn’t fit around my ‘gigantic noggin’, or something to that effect. These Tritton’s fit extremely well, and kudos must be given to them for taking into account the large-headed. The AX Pro feels very sturdy, and the quality in which they were made is immediately apparent to the wearer. They come equipped with a detachable boom microphone which worked splendidly during Skype calls, and also was heard loud and clear during Xbox 360 gameplay.
The package contents:
Setting the headset up is a fairly confusing experience for the uninitiated. Tritton provides a large, fold-out poster detailing the setup procedure for each type of input, but nevertheless it is still somewhat confusing until you have done it a few times. The AX Pro comes with two power adapters, one for the Dolby decoder box and the other for the headset unit itself. Usually, the headset will plug into one of the two (yes you can connect an additional AX Pro headset) headset ports on the Dolby decoder box, and from the box to your input source. Technically, you don’t need to connect the decoder box for PC usage unless you want to make use of the optical or USB connections, or, the Dolby decoding coolness. You could use the PC adapter cable and plug it directly into the multiple speaker outputs of your sound card. However, I must say that the sound from the optical connection on the sound card is exceptional and what you should opt to use as much as possible. The problem with all this cabling going back and forth is that the area all of it will sit in gets a bit messy. Even with the initial confusion and mess however, the effort is worth it when you finally get the headset up and running. We would like to see a wireless version of the AX Pro (and rumor has it that CES might see the reveal of this – stay tuned).
We tested the headset out on a friend’s Xbox 360 (see here as to why) and played some HD-DVDs. The sound is just amazing and really replicates the theater experience, but better, because you don’t have to keep yelling ‘Shut up!’ at the annoying teens talking behind you. We took the AX Pro to our PC and, after plugging in the fiber optic cable (and enabling it as an output on our Sound Blaster X-Fi) were off and running in Fallout 3. The ambient noises of the D.C. Wastelands filled my ears from seemingly all directions. The channel positioning is just a hoot and it was never an issue to track which direction a molerat was coming from so I could introduce him to my ‘Shishkebab’. All of this is thanks to the four drivers in each ear cup which are assigned to a different channel. There is even a 40mm driver in each ear cup assigned to be the sub-woofer. While the bass response in the headset is not what you could get out of a bigger home theater system (obviously), I have to say it is very nice and firing my ‘Eugene’ mini-gun at some feral mutants made me crack a geek smile the length of the mighty Mississippi River! Turning the volume up and down on the headset is done via an attached control pad with color-coded levels of intensity on a per-channel basis which allows for a high-level of volume customization.
Official Specs:
Overall, the Tritton AX Pro Precision Gaming Headset performs like a champion worth twice its retail price of $179. If you are looking for a true 5.1 channel headset for use in most (if not all) of your devices you need look no further. Whether it is gaming or HD-DVD (we are what the kids call ‘old-school’) watching, the AX Pro will deliver every time.
2008 has seen some really incredible titles released for the personal computer. I would say that this has been one of the best years for PC gamers in quite some time actually. It seems that while developers know that console games have the most market saturation, the PC gaming market is far from dead. If you are someone who is looking for that perfect PC game or peripheral to buy a loved one or even put on your own Xmas list this year, look no further as we have compiled our top choices by genre/type. Enjoy!
SHOOTERS
Left 4 Dead by Valve Software – Valve really has a winner on their hands in Left 4 Dead. In plainest terms, it is a cooperative, first-person shooter set in the wake of a zombie apocalypse. These aren’t Romero zombies we are talking about here – these are Dawn of the Dead re-make zombies and the come at you in very large numbers. Left 4 Dead isn’t just about zombies though. In fact, because of the threat you and your three survivor buddies face, the game emphasizes teamwork above all else. One day, I would love to see company ‘retreats’ where their team-building exercises consist of Left 4 Dead rounds (I wanna work there!). Coupled with the fact that it is available via Valve’s Steam service, allowing it a built-in community, means you will not have to wait long to get game going. Aim for the head!
Runners-Up: Crysis: Warhead, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Call of Duty: World at War.
SINGLE-PLAYER RPGs
Fallout 3 by Bethesda Softworks – If you never got the chance to experience the original Fallout or its first sequel, you are really missing out as they are truly some of the best RPGs ever made. Thankfully, this tradition has been carried on by Bethsoft even when taking the game into the first-person from the previous title’s overhead, isometric view. In Fallout 3 you will wander around a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. in a quest to find your father, who mysteriously disappeared from the vault you have been living in since you were born. It features an incredibly immersive world replete with tongue-in-cheek humor and 1950’s retro styling. The game will take you many hours to get through, and even then you will not be able to experience everything, forcing you to play through it again and again.
Runners-Up: Dead Space, Mass Effect, Far Cry 2.
Hit the full list up After the Jump!
MMORPGs
EVE Online by CCP – The MMO with one of the toughest learning curves on the market is still one of the most fun, featuring a living, breathing economic model on a galactic scale. Upgrade components of your starship, take on missions, join up with player-run galactic corporations and more. The depth of this game is so staggering it can turn a new gamer away within the first forty-five minutes of play. Our advice: Stick with it and find a helpful player-run corporation, you will thank us. Oh, also watch for scammers as CCP takes a Laissez-faire approach to their in-game economy.
Runners-Up: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
SIMULATORS
Spore: This species simulation had some serious hype surrounding it and, while unfortunate that it did not live up to all of it, what we did receive was a very creative life sim that allows you to take your small, multi-cellular beasties all the way from algae eating to space colonization. Suffering from a fair mid-point, the game’s first and last stages are more than worth the play-through. Plus, this is one of those family-friendly games that makes a great gift for the little ones you do not wish to see blowing away wastelanders with their Fat Man!
Runners-Up: T-34 vs Tiger.
STRATEGY
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 by EA Montreal – While not the most advanced game when it comes to gameplay innovations or visuals, it is easily one of the most well-balanced RTS titles we have played in quite some time. This can lead to some very fun and highly-pitched battles between you and your friends (or enemies) in multi-player games. The single player campaign also stars the likes of Tim Curry, so get out there and defend Mother Russia for Dr. Frankenfurter!
Runners-Up: Combat Mission Shock Force: Marines, King’s Bounty: The Legend, Sins of a Solar Empire.
SPORTS
Out of the Park Baseball 9 by Out of the Park Developments – Unfortunately, aside from a racer or two, the PC market has not been very lucrative for sports gamers this year. Even though Out of the Park Baseball 9 is a baseball management game, it still tops our list as, well, nothing else was very notable. It features some of the most in-depth sports management ever seen in a PC game. Manage your players and team in both offline as well as online seasons against other players. Sorry sports fans, your future looks to be console-bound.
Runners-Up: Pro Evolution Soccer 2008, Need for Speed: Undercover (Even though it is not a sports game by concept, it does deal with street racing and that is as close as we could find to a runner-up).
GAMING MICE
Microsoft Sidewinder X5 Gaming Mouse: Microsoft released a bare bones version of their feature-packed Sidewinder gaming mouse this year dubbed the X5. While cutting-down on the extras, it still features extremely responsive handling as well as a unique design that feels far more comfortable than it looks at a discounted price point.
Runners-Up: Wolfing Trooper MVP, Cyber-Snipa Stinger.
GAMING KEYBOARDS
Saitek Cyborg Keyboard: Saitek’s Cyborg is a large and very capable keyboard that, while looking like something out of a Tie Fighter’s cockpit, is sure to help your gaming performance. It features a multi-color, multi-region back lighting system as well as a touch-sensitive control panel and twelve macro keys. The keyboard is no slouch on construction either, featuring a very fine key-action and gold-plated USB connectors.
Runners-Up: SteelSeries 7G, Microsoft Sidewinder X6.
HEADSETS
Creative’s HS-1200 Digital Wireless Headset: When we first looked at Creative’s wireless gaming headset we were skeptical at best. Usually, wireless headsets that cost less than a couple hundred dollars are lackluster. What we found, however, was that the HS-1200s featured incredible sound quality and a generally comfortable fit that made gaming (or just listening to music while relaxing) a joy. Plus, the boom microphone’s muting system makes it very easy to tell when your broadcasting, minimizing the risk of accidental outbursts to your friends playing with you.
Runners-Up: SteelSeries 5H V2 USB, Creative’s HS-1000 Gaming Headset.
In an interview with Kikzo.com Sony Online Entertainment’s Kevin O’Hara calls their upcoming MMO, The Agency, the company’s ‘…online persistent shooter’ and also says that the game will not adopt a standard $15 dollar a month subscription fee. Instead, he explains, they are looking at in-game advertising ala Free Realms, SOE’s upcoming casual MMOG, which solely uses in-game ads. The Agency is set for release sometime in 2009.
Via Kikizo
We got the chance to interview SOE’s Matt Wilson on the Agency at this year’s E3 Media and Business Summit. Here is the interview:
Sacred 2 Fallen Angel is one of those games which makes for a very tough review. On one hand, it does a ton of things well and, on the other, has a ton of stuff to be improved on. We shall explain…
At the start of the game, you must select from quite a few options, each of which will tweak the gameplay experience somewhat. For openers, you have to select one out of six different characters to play as. Each of these characters is a different class and, as such, will directly affect your play style. For instance, the cyborg Temple Guardian character focuses on ranged combat with an energy weapon but also has a bladed weapon for close-quarters combat while the Shadow Warrior is strictly a melee-combat class. The cool thing about these characters is that they are well-developed and different enough to make you curious as to how each plays. Each character has a unique voice and personality of their own to boot, from the Temple Guardian who makes cracks at the expense of the game itself to the Shadow Warrior who’s gravelly, dry delivery of one-liners while he dispatches enemies reminds me of a campy Schwarzenegger flick (in a good way). You can select between a ‘good’ and ‘evil’ campaign mode (of the six characters, only three can partake in either one) as well as select a God to worship, each of which shall imbue your character with a special godly ability. For instance, worship the evil god Ker and you will be able to summon a nasty Sakkara demon to help you battle the forces of good, although the god’s hold on the demon doesn’t last long and then you will have to face off with it yourself.
After selecting a character you are treated to the opening cutscene explaining about the T-energy which emanates from within the planet and is the source of conflict in its inhabitants (people fighting for fuel? no way!). This pre-rendered, expository cutscene will give way to an in-game cutscene which introduces your character. After some introductory quests in the gameworld you are let loose to go about your business. Now, we have to say that the world of Acaria is gigantic and will surely provide you with hours of exploration. The environments are generally pleasing to look at with all manner of flora and fauna going about their lives.
As far as gameplay mechanics go, there really isn’t anything unique here. If you have played the aforementioned Diablo II or Titan Quest, you will be able to jump right into Sacred 2. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as the formula lends itself nicely to these hack-and-slash games and if it ain’t broke, why fix it! Sacred 2 does offer a couple of nice additions such as a button which will auto-loot everything within a pre-determined radius from your character, and the previously mentioned unique ‘god ability’. Characters will gain experience and levels and as they do you will be able to customize them further with unique skills and abilities.
Unfortunately, the narrative of the main quest just gets really lost in the game world and you will find yourself mainly spending your time hunting creatures and performing mundane quests all in the name of getting better gear and leveling your character. If this is not your cup of tea, you may wish to avoid this one. However, if you are a fan of multi-player gaming and love doing those things with your buddies you are in luck as Ascaron has included some great multi-player modes. There are PvP as well as PvE modes, and players can jump in and out of each others games. Spending a couple of hours with your mates killing mobs is a lot of fun and we have to give kudos to Ascaron for their attention to the game’s multi-player features.
While the game looks very nice, it is definitely suffering from some optimization issues. Our test rigs can run Far Cry 2 as well as Crysis (the original) at extremely high detail settings and get 50 to 60 frames per second. In Sacred 2, we are definitely seeing some slowdown. It is not unplayable by any means, but we are hesitant to see how it would run on a lower-end system without turning the detail way down. In addition, there were several times we would crash out of our single and multi-player games for some unknown reason. Then there is the game’s camera, which allows you to zoom in and out and rotate around your character. The problem is that the trees and other structures do not fade or become transparent when looking through them so it is easy to lose your character and select enemies if they are behind or under them.
Sound design is excellent in the game, with realistic ambient noises which really help sell the game world. Unfortunately, the voice acting in the game is often down right wooden. Now, the version we played was localized for the US, so we do not know if the original German actors were more natural-sounding.
Thankfully, none of this will really matter should you choose to play Sacred 2 Fallen Angel in a casual manner with your mates in multi-player. To us, that is where the game really stands out and is a lot of fun. It provides just enough narrative to keep things interesting and plenty of loot for your party to obtain. Unfortunately, the single-player mode can become very monotonous as you do not have the companionship of your mates to help you see past the game’s shortcomings. In addition, we hope Ascaron will continue releasing patches (as they have been) in order to fix the game’s instability and performance issues as the title definitely has a good deal of potential.
When we heard about this new HDD docking station from iStarUSA, we knew we had to try it out. Unfortunately, we have a ton of drives all over the place and their solution, especially since they billed it as hot-swap capable, sounded too good to be true. Thankfully, we have since then discovered that the xAge-N99SAU docking station is a welcome addition to our desktop despite a few limiting factors.
The xAge-N99SAU features an all-black plastic design with a slightly dull sheen. It has simple lines that are more than aesthetically-pleasing enough to fit in with most desktops. 
The biggest improvement over its slightly older brother, the N99US, is the addition of an eSATA connection. The front and sides of the docking station are clean, with no controls to speak of. There is an LED power indicator on the front, but its cool blue light is rather stylish. The ports and controls run down the back of the docking station. There you will find the AC power port, power button, and eSATA/USB ports.
iStarUSA’s xAge-N99SAU does have one drawback that is quickly apparent
when setting it up and that is the power cable is very short. This causes problems while trying to figure out where to set the unit up with relation not only to the eSATA/USB ports but also the power outlet.
There is no software to install in order to use the docking station, simply plug your 2.5” or 3.5” eSATA drive into the docking station and go. Since the unit uses an eSATA interface (even with the USB aspect), it is hot-swappable meaning that you can change out drives on the fly. This capability, coupled with its 150MB/s transfer speed while in the eSATA port, make it an excellent piece of equipment for testing, full drive usage, or even making quick backups of data on multiple disks.
Having been a longtime fan of flight simulators in general and especially great peripherals to go with them (I still remember my original CH Products flight yoke fondly), I could not pass up taking a look at Saitek’s new Proflight Headset.
On a looks basis alone you would think you were sitting in a 737 getting ready to take off. They have been designed with that style of headset in mind and feature a (mostly) metal construction with screws, knobs, and cables. The shiny black metal contrasting with the chrome parts just look incredible and very realistic.
The headset’s construction is top-notch and as it turns out is relatively heavy for a headset. This, however, adds to the realistic feel it provides. The boom microphone features multiple axis of movement for comfort and the best sound receiving possible, while on the left ear cup you will find a large rotary knob which controls the volume. The Proflight Headset cables to the standard 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks for compatibility. There is no special software required here, just plug in and fly.
Something that was of the utmost concern to me was the sound quality the headset would provide. Often times companies will skimp on the functional to go with the flashy. Not so in this case as the Proflight Headset offers great sound quality. Don’t quote me on this, but it would not surprise me (based on sound quality) if they were using drivers from their Cyborg-line of headset. In any event, you will not be disappointed, although with their bulk they are far more suited to flying around the world as opposed to easy listening.
Undoubtedly, the biggest issue I encountered was the squeeze felt on my large noggin. I have a big head and the Proflight Headset felt very tight on it, the huge ear cushions squeezing my ears like a python. They are meant to be snug, mind you, but beware ye of large headed-ness! I felt a wave of disappointed come over me along with a headache, that is, until I applied gentle pressure to the headband thereby adjusting its curve. After that, it was nothing but smooth sailing for my ears, which now felt just the right amount of pressure, the large ear cups providing the noise-canceling effect they were designed to do.
Like the rest of the Proflight line, these are not cheap, retailing for $99 dollars in most outlets. However, if you want to top off your flight sim experience with an extra dose of realism, as well as good sound quality, these bad boys are for you. Saitek’s Proflight Headset gets two thumbs up from us! That is, if we were to rate products with that scale of measurement.
Open-air cases are the latest thing in PC gaming enclosures. For years, many gamers chose to run their PCs with the side doors open and large external floor fans pointed at the components. While this solution provided good airflow, the components are still all mashed into a vertical ATX PC case. Plus, you would have to worry about keeping enough space around the case to place the floor fan.
Antec has attempted to fix these frustrating issues with their first open-air case, the Skeleton. Looking like some sort of futuristic reactor more than PC case, the Skeleton features room for four internal drive bays as well as four additional drives along its side. The motherboard is seated horizontally on the upper-tier motherboard rack, which slides out the back of the unit like your friendly neighborhood server slides out of a rack mount, making reaching around different places of the motherboard easy. There is an issue with fan overhead however, and we found that tall aftermarket CPU coolers will not make the clearance given by the large 250mm unit. What this means is that you will have to use a shorter third-party cooler or the stock unit.
The room is not nearly as plentiful in the below-mobo area where the PSU and internal drives are located, with snaking cabling about becoming a real pain at times. In addition, the way the PSU faces to one side takes away from valuable cable length when pulling cables to the opposite end of the case. These bottom-tier space issues aside, the ease of getting to your mobo components makes it well worth the trouble to be found underneath. Need to add a video card? Simply slide the component tray out the back of the unit and slap it in there, all easy like!
The Skeleton comes equipped with two fan units. The most prominent being the 250mm Tri-Cool fan at the top of the unit. It draws cool air in and pushes it down onto the components below. Also included is a smaller 92mm fan which attaches to the front of the internal 3.5′ drive bay, providing hard drive cooling. It is important to keep the air moving underneath the motherboard as it acts as a barrier from the forced air coming from the 250mm fan above. By circulating the air underneath, this problem is alleviated.
Installing everything was actually fairly difficult. Not because the process itself is overly hard, but deprogramming myself after years of vertical ATX case installing took some time. 
To make matters worse, Antec’s in-box documentation is not very good, and they refer you to the much more well-written online PDF. In the online document (available here) you will find color photos of the setup in action which are very helpful.
If you are like me, you have a ton of hard drives in your current PC case. With the Skeleton only supporting four internal drives (two 3.5” and two 5.25”) you may feel like you have run out of room. Do not fear, as the case allows you to mount up to four 3.5” drive bays on the outside of the frame using special mounts provided in the packaging. This solution, while a bit unconventional, does the trick nicely and keeps those drives easy to access.
Unfortunately, testing the Skeleton against the old-school open ATX case and floor fan would not be very scientific as reproducing the results would be highly dependent on fan model, age, etc. So, we turned to aluminum case maker Lian Li’s PC-X2000. This tall (and expensive) metal monstrosity is renown for its thin profile and cooling. Lets see how they stack up.
Temperature Rating (Lian Li PC-X2000 / Antec Skeleton)
Case Ambient @ Idle: 28C / 24C
Case Ambient @ Load: 30C / 24C
GPU @ Idle: 38C / 34C
GPU @ Load: 53C / 44C
As you can see, the Antec Skeleton consistently provides lower temperatures than the Lian Li thanks to it being more exposed to a cooler source of air. Cool air just spends less time turning hot and lingering around the Skeleton due to its open design.
Overall, we did like the component cooling given by the Skeleton’s unique design as well as the easy access to mobo components when you slide the tray out. While not perfect, the Skeleton is a good purchase for gamers and PC tweakers out there. Just watch out for that overhead height limit with regards to the CPU cooler.