Men of War: Red Tide

Being a Black Coat must have been very annoying. This is one of the lessons we’re taking away from Red Tide, a WWII RTS with an eye for historical accuracy and realism that focuses on the exploits of these little-known yet resourceful Russian marines. Here’s another lesson we’re taking away: the Black Coats had to quicksave all the time.

That Red Tide selects Easy mode by default is telling. While plenty of missions provide an enjoyable challenge (on Easy, once you know what you’re doing), some don’t. The astonishingly unfair second mission could put you off for life: you and eight guys are dropped in a forest outside a village with 60 or so enemy soldiers, who have two machinegun emplacements, an armoured APC, a tank and two armoured cars.

In a house is a Romanian POW. You wipe out the enemy troops, get the POW, and then a convoy rolls up and you have to obliterate it. Then you jump into some vehicles to escape, but your route is littered with obstacles. By the end of it, your eight men have slaughtered an army. Imagine an orange, and when you peel the skin off it there’s more skin underneath – and then when you get that skin off too, underneath it is a bomb. Our quicksave finger is calloused.

In what can only be a nod to the lack of professional training afforded to Russian officers, there’s no tutorial or tips of any kind. That lack of training is also re-created in your troops’ pathfinding and AI. It turns out that despite their fearsome reputation for night-time amphibious bayonet assaults, the Black Coats had great trouble getting in and out of their boats. Even on land, our marines would go for tactically unsound walkabouts.

But it feels like being a Black Coat could be a great time. The same realism and attention to detail that make Red Tide so hard also create a hugely engaging and satisfying experience that ticks over in your head long after you’ve stopped playing. Each time your plan comes together, it feels like finding a chink in the armour of some faceless khaki goliath, and the pop and slump of every felled enemy soldier becomes a balm to your soul. At these times you can relax a little and enjoy the mass of new vehicles that are Red Tide’s only concrete addition to Men of War, plus the simple pleasure of your little soldiers commandeering a big gun and blowing sizeable holes in a garrisoned building.

Shame you’ll be doing it alone. In a decision we’re not sure is historically accurate at all, Best Way have removed all multiplayer from Men of War. Gone are the host of competitive multiplayer modes and the fabled co-op, rendering Red Tide no more than a hastily put-together standalone mission pack for a better game. Twenty sprawling, multi-part missions that beg to be solved, true, but also ones that eschew a difficulty curve in favour of a difficulty mountain range.

Men of War A4, the other standalone expansion for Men of War, is currently in development. You might be best off waiting for that.

Read More »»»

Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War

In Rise of Flight the brutal honesty is confined to the physics, damage models and virtual cockpits. Russian outfit Neoqb have created a fleet of fake Fokkers, Albatrosses, Spads and Sopwiths that deceive the inner ear as consummately as they do the eye. We’ve flown every WWI sim since Red Baron and have never experienced anything quite this raw, exhilarating or believable.

The first air warriors perished in numerous hideous ways and RoF lets you try most of them. Burn alive after taking a gas tank hit, drop to your doom after shedding your wings in an over-eager dive, or break every bone in your body after spinning out of a duel. Piloting these wiry war machines is actually pretty straightforward, even with realism options such as engine management active. The challenge is flying them at their limits while some bedroom Boelcke riddles your tail with sizzling lead.

Multiplayer is at the heart of the sim, and most of the servers are ‘full realism’ and crawling with canny aces. The good news is that half those aces will be on your side. Until Neoqb patch-in a dogfight mode, all scenarios are team-based.

Sadly, there are a few lice nestling in the seams of this exquisitely stitched sheepskin flying jacket. Louse number one is the DRM. To fly RoF – even alone – you need an active internet connection. ISP playing silly buggers? Oak tree KOed your phone line? You’re grounded, old son. Louse number two is the spartan single-player mode. Call us old-fashioned if you must, but we like our sky sims to come with configurable dogfight generators and enveloping, dynamic campaigns.

A mission editor, a sprinkle of single sorties and a campaign engine that randomly generates its challenges but doesn’t encourage freelancing or foster a sense of squadron don’t quite cut it. If you demand a rich, colourful career mode, stick with Over Flanders Fields or the venerable Red Baron II, or wait and see what external DCGs the community cook up (there’s already one in the works).

You may also want to hang back if you like your hangars well-stocked. RoF ships with just four flyables: the Fokker D.VII, Spad XIII, Albatross D.Va and Nieuport 28. Extra birds such as the iconic Camel and Dr.I cost money for each. Ah IL-2, how we miss thy generosity.

Read More »»»

Ninja Blade

Urgh, what a slog. There’s just no joy at all to be had from playing this game, even though you’ve got all sorts of whizz-bang action and swords chopping at enemies with wanton abandon. But there’s no soul there, none at all.

Ninja Blade is as corporate a game as you’re likely to ever play, with virtually nothing to identify it from the hundreds of other games that block up the shelves with their inane drudgery. And, on top of all of this, it’s riddled, nay, infested with quick time events, those three dreaded words that plague all right-minded individuals.

You play a character called Ken Ogawa, who likes to wear ninja clothes and do ninja things. The question of why global organisations are recruiting ninjas to battle ‘infected’ creatures across the globe is left unanswered. (Argh, even the choice of bad guy is so thoughtless, it makes us angry just to write it.) Anyway, as our Ken chops up shambling entities, upgrades his weapons and presses Space when prompted to by the game, he has to contend with that most hideous of things: the shoddy console port effect. Yes, when you save the game it says, “Do not turn off your console”. Would it have been too much trouble to change that word to “machine”? Really?

All the controls are marked in Xbox 360 control pad symbols, so you have no idea what key you’re meant to be pressing. Yes, we could have plugged in a pad, but what if we didn’t have one or ours broke? So we had to guess which keys did what, because there’s no way the game’s going to actually make it easy for us. Press RT and move the left stick to wall run. Right, we know WSAD is the left stick, so what’s RT? Quick check of the controls reveals nothing, so we’ll just spend five minutes pressing all the keys and falling off a ledge to find out which one it is. Ah ha! CTRL! At last, you little rascal.

As you can see, we hated playing this game. The unendurable boss battles, the combat, the ridiculous American accents for the clearly non-American characters, the astonishing number of QTEs and, finally, the lack of anything approaching an original idea contrives to make this one of the most ghastly games we’ve had the misfortune to play. Refuse to accept a game with such little creative effort put into it and vote with your wallets.

Read More »»»

God Of War Collection

God of War Collection – comprising the original PS2 games, repackaged on one handy blu-ray disc and remastered in HD – looks like a PlayStation 2.5 game. It may be a purely cosmetic overhaul – astutely handled by Bluepoint Games, the developer behind PSN’s Blast Factor – but Kratos’ PS2 adventures have lost little of their brutal substance.

The disc comes with the brilliant God of War and the even better God of War II, except the visuals are delivered in 720P. Nothing has been lost in translation from the PS2 version to PS3, so it plays exactly the same. For the uninitiated, GOW set the benchmark for hack and slash ultra-violence, twinned to epic screen-size boss battles. Oh, and anti-hero Kratos is a mad man. Armed with the Blades of Chaos (read: massive slicey blades) and coated with – in a plot twist that goes some way to explaining why he’s so furious – the ashes of his scorched family, he wades through harpies, minotaurs, screaming sirens and most other mythical beasts you care to mention. He’s also packing magic spells including Poseidon’s Rage – an electric blast radius that fries all within it or Typhon’s Bane – basically a glorified bow and arrow.

In GOW he’s a mortal working with the Gods to knock Ares – the original God of War – down a peg or two. Problem is, Ares stands taller than the Empire State building, which is pretty tall. Thus begins an adventure through Athens and down to Hades in search of the tools to eff him up. In GOW II, Kratos is tricked into relinquishing all his powers by the vengeful Gods, so he teams up with the Titans to teach his old holy chums a lesson in revenge. Across both games you’ll kill thousands of enemies without batting an eye-lid. OK, maybe you’ll wince a little when he pulls an archer apart with his bare hands.

Aside from the glossy visuals, both games being on one disc and the obligatory Trophies, God of War Collection doesn’t contain anything else you could call new. But it’s not like we expected new levels, weapons and a custom soundtrack. Hell no. What we want, and what we’re pretty sure you’ll agree with when you play it, is a stunning reminder of why God of War made such an impact on PS2 in the first place.

From the opening moments of both games, you can’t help but marvel at the beauty – and scale – of the environments, reveling in glee at the undimmed, visceral brutality of Kratos’ attacks. Countless games have tried and failed to match the epic scale and stylish kills of God of War since it first appeared in 2005 and they’ve all been left bloody-nosed. But while God of War Collection highlights how some of the visuals haven’t aged well (especially the untouched cutscenes) these HD remakes still play great and don’t feel out of place on PS3. For us, the opening to God of War II, where you methodically take down a giant angry statue, stills ranks as one of the greatest openers in any game we’ve played. And with this collector’s edition’s spit and polish, it looks even better than before.

What we didn’t remember about either game is how hard they are. It seems unlikely that Sony would’ve advised Bluepoint Games to up the ante in terms of difficulty, but there’s a Trophy specifically called Getting My Ass Kicked, which is a bronze award for dying so many times that you’re offered Easy mode. We don’t remember the beasts being so tricky to dispatch the first time around, especially the super-strength minotaurs. But we see this extra difficulty as a new challenge for us to enjoy and absolutely not a steady decrease in our gaming skills.

One slightly annoying thing about God of War Collection is that once you enter either game’s menu, you can’t simply drop out and fire up the other one without quitting out all the way to the XMB. It may just be a flaw in the version that we’re playing but it’s pretty grating if you fancy a change halfway through. Another gripe is the fact that the challenge rooms aren’t unlocked from the off. These bastard-hard rooms consist of special challenges like firing a giant stake into as many undead creatures as you can in a set time limit. Or fling as many enemies off a flying platform as possible with your throwing skills. But alas, you’ll have to work Kratos’ grey dangly bits to get them.

If you’re in any doubt about God of War’s importance to gaming, let alone the PlayStation brand, here’s the perfect chance to get acquainted with the titles that pushed PS2 to its limits – uniting arcane, but precise, Japanese play dynamics with Western accessibility and production bombast. You won’t be disappointed with Kratos’ HD adventures. That ashen grey look was meant for 720P. A hulking reinvention? By Zeus’ ragged beard, no – but you’ll sure like Kratos when he’s angry. If you're in the UK, you could wait for the official release or import it (the game’s already out in the US and runs on a UK PS3).

Read More »»»

Dark Void

Groan, groan, groan to the high heavens. Is this truly all we have to look forward to for the next 10 billion years? Do we just have to watch some guy who looks pretty much the same in every single game trudging about scenery rendered in Unreal Tournament 3’s engine? Are developers deliberately failing to come up with anything new whatsoever to shape their games? And no, we don’t just mean “make the same game and then stick some bloody gimmick into it so people think it’s different from the last one.”

That’s exactly what’s happened here, yet again. Dark Void, a game that had the potential to be something special if it hadn’t been crushed underneath the hammer of unoriginality. Just because you’ve got a jet pack in the game doesn’t mean it’s going to hide the fact we might as well be playing Dark Sector, Damnation, or Terminator: Salvation or... well, you get the picture. It doesn’t help that said jet pack sections are very difficult to control effectively using the traditional mouse and keyboard setup. It’s better with a pad, but it’s still pretty weak and imprecise. We’ll concede that when it does work it feels pretty cool, but it’s so fiddly, you always feel that this facade could shatter in the blink of an eye.

The best thing about the game is the plot and setting. While the idea of “humans stranded in rebellious bondage seek saviour to break free of chains” isn’t an original one, the whole tie-in with the Bermuda Triangle is interesting. You feel more could have been made of this – why didn’t they really play on this aspect and have more than just a cameo from a scientist based on Nikola Tesla? There’s all sorts of missing celebrities they could have had, but enough of that. We could go on for a long time about it. So yeah, the setting is good and you just wish the game could back it up, as is usually the case with these over-the-shoulder titles we’ve been seeing so much of.

There’s a cover system, which is of little surprise to anyone, and there’s also a ‘vertical cover system’, which just involves flipping the viewpoint to face up a surface, and your character performing prescribed moves by pressing the C key. It can serve up some pleasant visual moments, but other than that it’s just an unnecessary gimmick.

Speaking of visuals, they are bland and washed-out, especially with the ever-present distance fog blighting the land. To add to the uninspiring visuals, the crux of the game – shooting Geth-like creatures with big slugs controlling them – is vapid and tedious too. Every enemy seems to take about 40 bullets to the face before they go down in time-honoured “stretch-the-gameplay-out-artificially” tradition until you upgrade your weapons using the obligatory upgrade system that every game has to have now. You don’t actually get to make many upgrades, as the points you collect to enable them take ages to accumulate.

There must be something good about this game, though. There has to be. As we mentioned, there’s the “when it works” air combat. Once you get used to it, it can feel fluid and exciting, but the line between success and failure is much too fine. If you’re using the mouse and keys, the temptation is always to use the WASD keys to move around – but when flying, you need to use the mouse, which is criminally sluggish and imprecise – the very opposite to what it should be. So, definitely use a gamepad, as it’s clear the mouse support was added as a very last-minute afterthought. If you can use one, or if you can force yourself not to press A or D to strafe left and right, then it’ll be good fun soaring around in the clouds. Just don’t expect to be too accurate with your gunfire and you’ll be fine.

Dark Void is a criminal waste of time and energy, as standard and generic a game as you could hope to find, with a couple of little things that raise it out of the meat grinder and back into the land of the living. The flying side of things is reasonable but not worth all the hype, as the main game is a total bore and the plot is wasted on the rest of the package. That about sums it up.

Read More »»»

Twin Sector

Twin Sector is doubly disappointing. It begins by stealing some of the best ideas from other physics-based puzzle games, which would be bad enough, but then it adds an extra layer of aggravation by not actually doing anything interesting with those ideas. The end result is an exercise in wasted potential, where the few small bright spots that you do stumble across are quickly obscured by sloppy mechanics, a dull story and a succession of boring environments. The sad part is that there really are the makings of an enjoyable game here, but it fails on nearly every level.

You begin the game with a very stiff and awkward cutscene that sets the tone for the game's tedious story. It seems that all of humanity has been placed into cryogenic suspension to wait out some sort of crisis. The player takes on the role of Ashley Simms, a star athlete and hero of a recent cave rescue, who is awoken from her cryogenic sleep by OSCAR, a HAL-like computer program, who warns that a generator failure will soon cut of life support to all the cryo units. Ashley has ten hours to get down to repair the generator before all of humanity dies. Of course, a series of twists and new challenges will appear along the way to drive the story in a new direction.

The story itself is pretty thin and the exposition doesn't really give you much to go on. The unexpected developments in the story aren't really that unexpected. A sentient computer program wants me to run an errand? And seems completely unable to turn off the automatic security defenses along the way? Having never seen anything like this before in my life, that sounds totally reliable to me. By the time you reach the first big twist halfway through the story, you'll hardly care.

A big part of that is due to the ridiculous circumstances you'll find yourself in, but it's also due to the terrifically awful voice acting. While I get that OSCAR is supposed to be a sort of lifeless computer program, that doesn't mean the voice acting has to be totally flat. Compared against the writing and acting of other memorable AI programs like HAL, SHODAN or GLaDOS, OSCAR has absolutely zero personality. Given that he's the only character you'll be interacting with for almost the entire game, it's hard to care at all about the story. What's more aggravating is that Ashley's voiceover seems only slightly more human.

You'll be tempted to turn the sounds off altogether and rely on the subtitles alone. Even then, you're not safe from the writing, which features such classic lines as using fire to "lit up a bottle," "Did this thing just moved?" and, my personal favorite, "From where is all this trash coming from?" At this point, there's no compelling reason to stay invested in the story.

Even if you manage to get past the thin story and monotonous voice acting, you'll find just as little personality or appeal in the generic and repetitive environments. The layouts are very linear with lots of big, pointless rooms and plenty of hallways that go nowhere in particular. It's as if the levels are designed without any regard for the purpose of the actual space, so you'll find yourself confronted with an arbitrary assortment of fans, locked doors and crates. I mean, what's the point of a glass walled room filled with motion-tracking turrets? Or the endless moving laser fences? Or chutes that automatically spit out water canisters or explosive barrels? There's no reason for any of this stuff beyond the demands of the gameplay. There's no sense of purpose or consistency in it.

So if the story and setting are uninspired, the gameplay must be awesome, right? Well, if not outright awesome, the gameplay is at least a mixed bag. Ashley makes use of two telekinetic gloves in Twin Sector; the left one attracts objects and the right one pushes them away. Simply hold down the appropriate mouse button and you can charge up the ability to deliver a super-powered push or pull. An overcharge system appears later in the game that gives you even more power.

You'll use the gloves in one of two ways. First, you can use them to attract or repel objects. Use the left glove to pick up a barrel, then charge up the right one to fire it at a distant switch. Or charge up the left glove to pull a water canister through a fire to extinguish the flames. Use the right glove to push away the electrified tracer drones that hunt you down in some of the levels. Or use the left glove to pick up a crate and shield yourself from a turret.

One of the problems here though, is that the crates you'll be using are so big that you won't be able to see anything when you're holding them. This makes them ideal shields against the turrets and lasers in the game, but makes them tough to aim as projectiles. Trying to aim a massive crate at a small grate or button or tracer is more about luck than skill. Though you can rotate the objects in your control, it's nearly impossible to orient them properly when working in the close confines of the levels. It's also a problem in the few instances where you're required to stack objects on top of each other.

The physics are also a bit crooked in places. Bottles can jump and spin and ricochet around from the gentlest of pushes and crates can bump into one another in ways that make stacking them particularly frustrating. The upside to that is, of course, that you can simply pick up a crate and walk into the turrets to knock them over.

You can also use the gloves to get around the environment. Simply charge the left glove and aim it at the wall to pull yourself up into otherwise inaccessible locations. Or use the right glove to cushion yourself from a fall that would otherwise have killed you. Believe me, until you get the hang of this one, you will be dying from lots of very short drops.

All in all, the puzzles presented by the game are fairly satisfying, but OSCAR usually gives you enough information that the puzzles are more about execution than thinking. There are some bright spots where you'll have to be a bit more logical about things, and even a few spots where I was happy to discover an improvised solution to what appeared to be a very scripted problem, but these moments were brief reprieves in a succession of puzzle cliches.

Read More »»»

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter

If you're tired of all the sophistication and nuance in modern first-person shooters, you may want to take a trip back to simpler times with Serious Sam HD. There is no cover system, no elaborate story, and no characters to care about. What it does have is testosterone to spare and plenty of cheesy action movie one-liners delivered by our meathead hero, Sam. All you do is run around blowing the crap out of everything in sight, an activity that remains entertaining some 15 years after we first blasted our way through Doom's corridors. The whole thing has a very low budget B-movie feel to it and, despite the title, it definitely doesn't take itself too seriously.

Monsters from another dimension are here to kill us all, and Sam 'Serious' Stone is the one-man wrecking crew who will save us. You'll guide Sam through mostly linear levels set in ancient Egypt, stopping to solve only the most simple of puzzles along the way. In the spirit of Wolfenstein 3D, though, there are plenty of secrets to find.

As the focus is on shooting stuff, there are several fun weapons you'll find lying around. In addition to your standard shotguns and machine guns you'll find a Predator-style portable mini-gun, an effective laser blaster, and a cannon that shoots giant cannonballs that instantly take down just about anything. Regardless of your weapon of choice, fallen enemies explode in a very satisfying splatter of meat and gore.

Enemies swarm at you from every direction almost constantly, but there are only a handful of bad guy types so you're basically being attacked by never-ending waves of clones. This is one of those games that locks you in a room and keeps respawning enemies for way too long -- a mechanic I've always felt was lazy on the developer's part. Serious Sam is pretty challenging, but too often it's because of these cheap gimmicks.

Aside from the shiny new high-definition graphics the only other new component to Serious Sam is the four-player co-op mode. It can be fun to blast through the game with three friends but the framerate drops pretty seriously. Other than that, there are no new levels, enemies, or weapons to be found. In fact, the 16-player Deathmatch mode from the PC version has been removed here, which is a disappointing move considering the excellent Battlefield 1943 has been hosting 24-player online XBLA battles for over six months now.

With so little in the way of new content, players who already blasted their way through the adventure eight years ago might not find enough here to bring them back for another go round. But if you're a shooter fan who missed Serious Sam the first time, now's your chance to see why it's a cult favorite.

This XBLA version includes a very handy auto-aiming option that makes it much easier to hit your target. Some gamers might find it a little too easy, actually, but I appreciate it.

Read More »»»

The Lord of the Rings Online: Siege of Mirkwood

You are about to enter the first true battle of what will likely be our last war in Middle-earth." With that pronouncement, you enter the Mirkwood. From the golden shores of Lothlorien, we cross to the eastern shore of the Anduin where the forests have been corrupted by the forces of Sauron. It is a dark, dreadful place, filled with patrolling goblins, orcs, poisonous spiders, dank forests, and murky swamps. The foothold the elves have carved out is a pitiful bridgehead barely holding its own and we are assisting the elves in assaulting the orc fortresses and defending the ground they have gained.

The content in The Lord of the Rings Online is much more linear and focused on narrative than many other MMOs, based as it is on the works of Tolkien. There is an overarching storyline to follow in the War of the Ring, and Turbine has done a great job in bringing the story and the atmosphere of it to The Lord of the Rings Online. From the Shadows of Angmar to the Mines of Moria, Turbine has created a game and a world that is at once both familiar and unpredictable. The Siege of Mirkwood is no different. The next chapter of the story as it were, we are brought into Southern Mirkwood. Dol Guldor is occupied by one of Sauron's lieutenants and that is what we are pushing for.

Turbine has created a sense of impending doom as we move from the glorious sunlit wonder of Lothlorien, right into the frontlines of the battle. The atmosphere, the ambient sounds, the music, the immediate quests, all assist in creating that visceral urgency of being in the frontlines of a war zone. This then, is what we've been training for. All through the Shadows of Angmar, even through the "long dark" of the Mines of Moria, the War of the Ring has been a backdrop to our adventuring, but this, this is the frontline. No longer are we singing to trees; now we are patrolling the pickets, defending camps and assaulting the enemy.

The Siege of Mirkwood has been termed a "mini-expansion" by fans and certainly, it seems to be that as there's only one region, Southern Mirkwood, with nine areas within it. They are all dark, even in the day cycle, but still quite different from each other. Canyons and valleys and ruins mark one region, putrid swamp gases rise from another and the sense of being watched is high as you encounter goblins and orcs behind dead tree stumps and rocks. A high level expansion, The Siege of Mirkwood raises the player level cap to 65 and the Legendary item cap to 70. It also brings with it, several welcome changes to the game.

Legendary items, introduced in the Mines of Moria, are equipment that changes with you as you level. The Identify skill now gives more information about the Legendary item so players will get a better sense of where the item is headed before they invest a great deal of time into it only to find it less than useful later on.

Mounts have become a skill rather than an inventory item, freeing up an inventory slot, and in exchange for a long summon, players can interact with NPCs while mounted instead of having to dismount each time and you can ride them through portals and stay mounted when you zone.

More important is the change to combat. A change to the queuing of skills vis-a-vis auto-attack has made combat feel much more interactive and live, firing off when the skill is activated rather than a second or two later.

This expansion also brings a new feature to the game, Skirmishes. Skirmishes are combat instances that can be run solo or with a fellowship. Accessible via the UI, players can choose between eleven different maps and set the difficulty level between one and four. It is an alternative path for advancement from level 30 on up, and designed to complement Session play. Both are deeply entwined into the lore and further develop the story of Middle-Earth. The tutorial for example, takes you back to the brigand invasion of Bree with you defending the Prancing Pony. They are replayable and contain enough randomized elements that each instance feels different. One of these random elements is the placement and types of Lieutenants (mini-bosses) that may enter the fray, and another is the additional objectives that show up as you play through the instance.

A feature of Skirmishes is the minion system. Each player is provided with a soldier that they can train, advance, pick traits for and assign roles to. However, the soldier is not a pet. Usable only in the skirmish system, they are AI controlled and can sometimes seem to run around aimlessly. They are meant to complement the player character and can be used as a healer, archer or warrior, etc. The Skirmish system has a separate reward system. Different types of Skirmish marks are earned and these are used to upgrade your soldier and to purchase rewards from vendors in Skirmish camps found outside major cities.

A number of these Skirmishes are also part of the Epic Book and they feel more like full-scale battles than mere a mere skirmish. This sense of scale is greatly enhanced by the presence of soldiers together with your fellowship and their pets. A twelve-man instance can have twelve soldiers as well as the Captain and Loremaster pets, creating an allied force of over twenty-four.

The Lord of the Rings Online always had beautiful graphics to complement the gameplay and this expansion is no different. The dark atmosphere of Mirkwood greatly enhances the immersiveness of the game. The graphics and animations of creatures such as the spiders, Orcs and Felbeasts are also second to none, and there are plenty to be seen, both in Mirkwood itself as well as in the instances. Turbine has also managed to do wonders with contrast and color saturation so you aren't just tempted to crank up the gamma on your screen. It's not all browns and grays. There are colors and shades of browns, greens and grays as well as intense black contrasting with the more subtle shades.

Lest you think this is an entirely outdoor zone, we then get to the end objective of Dol Guldor. A massive structure inhabited by one of Sauron's lieutenants and his Fell Beast. The walls and towers of Dol Guldor loom menacingly in the distance long before you reach them. The Hell Hawks circling the sky, the eerie silhouettes of dead trees, the tendrils of fog that creep along the ground, all contribute to the feeling of dread even before the beast flies overhead and your character cringes in response. There, players will raid in the sword halls and dungeons of Dol Guldor, and in the chambers of the tower itself, all the way up to the final tower raid for a 12-man raid against the Nazghul on his Fell Beast. If that isn't challenging enough, there's also a "challenge" mode in the Dol Guldor instances. Light the challenge brazier and the instance becomes much harder. More NPCs perhaps and/or more mini-bosses, or even all the mini-bosses at once and again, there is the randomization factor for replayability.

Read More »»»

Batman: Arkham Asylum

How many games are using Batman as the main character and how that success? That's the first question that arises when we read the news about the plan-making Batman Arkham Asylum game a year ago. At that Eidos still has not purchased by Square Enix and staying as the game publisher. Answering this question, it's rarely the caped crusader has a successful game based on human imaging. Most of the Batman games on the market success story and the runway wearing character from Batman The Animated Series. Perhaps this is because the character of Batman  illustrated considered difficult to form realistic in video games. Batman Arkham Asylum will change that view by presenting gameplay and a very neat story and an epic for the human form of Batman, not the animation.

Batman Arkham Asylum story opens with a scene that Batmobile raced toward Arkham Asylum, in the Batmobile looks chattering Joker figure is not clear in the conditions attached. Batman figure apparently was transporting eternal enemy to Arkham Asylum, where dangerous criminals undergoing therapy. After arriving at the Arkham Asylum Batman met with commissioner Gordon, the figure of the anti-corruption police and a close friend of Batman. Batman felt something was wrong from the beginning of their visit to Arkham Asylum, Joker too fast for him giving up just yet damaging Joker Blackgate prison. This is what makes Blackgate jail inmates transferred to Arkham Asylum and Batman did not like it.

Sure enough when the Joker left entirely to the guards Arkham Asylum, Joker immediately fled to the Arkham Asylum who had been commanded by Harley Quinn. Joker also announced that he had put a bomb at some point the city will he destroyed if the police or regular army had set foot in Arkham Asylum. Faced with unfavorable conditions choose to pursue Batman Joker in Arkham Asylum, and this is where your adventure as Batman begins.

Batman Arkham Asylum have story ideas fresh enough for a Batman game. How it would be like a Batman must fight in a place that it was full of people who hated him. Not just one but all the enemies of Batman's enemies, the Joker as the main enemy of both the core story.

Plus the first value comes from the gameplay. Batman Arkham Asylum has a hodgepodge gameplay. This game has some freedom style games that use the concept of an open world, the concept is supported by some secret and hidden content that we can access when we are reaching or have certain points in the game. This causes us to often check the area around or back and forth to the area previously explored. So for the problem Longevity Batman Arkham Asylum game is guaranteed.

Above plus the new terms of the area and how to play, wait until you're faced with the enemies and fought with them. Batman in this game has three basic movements to fight. The first movement is to attack, then counter attack and the last is the stunt attack. Every movement can be combined in such a way that could produce enough destructive attacks. Try to do counter then forwarded to the stunt followed by a long combo. Certainly you will see the final attack that pretty cool. Combo-combo-owned batman we can also upgrade experience acquired as Batman, so start simple combo movements to the complex combo is here.

We had also had a chance to tell you that Batman Arkham Asylum gameplay mixed enough, never in the battle hodgepodge elements had already seen. The reason we are given many options to defeat the enemy. Starting from frontal attacks to attack crept Solid Snake style. Rocksteady Studios also not forget to add sliding movement which followed a typical style kick Batman. So Batman is in this game is not a figure of Batman reliable gadgets gadgets-for battle. Batman is very strong power even with his bare hands could rip Batman iron lid that blocks the vents, so why are we not using energy to kick Batman's enemies?

Another plus comes from the characters and the voice of business in the in-game voice. For this one advantage we have to thank Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin managed to turn the character of Batman and his friends very well. Watching cutscene in Batman Arkham Asylum was like watching a scene that was Batman The Animated. So for now forget about Christian Bale's voice growling or late Ledger's sinister chuckle, because Batman Arkham Asylum is a different world with The Dark Knight. For the business vote, Batman Arkham Asylum has everything you need to pamper your ears. All material sound in this game has a quality that can given two thumbs at once, especially when combined with the ability to voice the character, Batman Arkham Asylum atmosphere became very wearing. Ever listen to growl Crocc Killer in Batman Arkham Asylum? I swear, we do not want to see the creatures at night.

This game has a feature called detective mode. With this feature we can see through walls, see what our enemies, to see what weapons they had brought, seeking a way out and many more. This game also has exploration system that is easy to understand, you simply turn on detective mode, all objects that can be invited to interact can be seen. This game also has a relatively easy puzzle, the article several places that have made platformer elements quite easily with the hook grapling firing features.

The only weakness in Batman Arkham Asylum game actually comes from the Unreal 3.0 engine which is very famous. Rocksteady Studios because it seems less mastered the use of these engines. If at first glance Batman Arkham Asylum has incredible graphics, but try to see detailed textures and lighting that is sometimes too vibrant. Also this game suffers the same disease with the other games developed using the Unreal 3.0 engine, the shadow moving irregularly. So practically Batman Arkham Asylum has graphics are ok but not exceptional. It was graphically presented Batman Arkham Asylum graphic is only equivalent to Gears of Wars was released three years ago.

Read More »»»

Need For Speed: Shiftt

The Need for Speed has always been guaranteed a certain quality racing game for a decade. But although the Need for Speed series is very well known, in the era of PS2 and PS3, games Need for Speed flying less than the PC era. When Need for Speed: Undercover sales drop, the more convinced that EA NFS fans needed something new. To meet these demands return back EA Need for Speed series to the most basic roots, and so was born a Need for Speed is a racing circuit with simulation gameplay.

Unlike the series of Forza and Gran Turismo is the initial target was already racing simulation, Need for Speed: Shift start everything from scratch. EA seems to not want to throw all typical Need for Speed, for it retains EA development base gameplay is arcade, but adding elements simulation

When I first played this game, you will undergo a test lap. When I drive a car is very rough and uncontrolled, then this game will suggest the type of easy to use, packed with aid so that you can keep playing. But if you successfully complete the lap with perfect, this game will offer advanced settings you use. Despite its advanced control, simulation elements offered by the Need for Speed: Shift is still far below the Forza and GT series.

Weakness in the apparently intentional, because playing Need for Speed without seeing a car pull unreasonable or Nitro is too fast. The cars in Need for Speed: Shift does not have realistic damage. You can make a BMW car dented, but the damage was limited to mere cosmetic. With the features in this game is not wrong, when NFS: Shift could be called the perfect marriage between arcade and simulation gameplay. All were supported by a balance between these two elements and the gradual pleasure of simulation and arcade elements.

Need for Speed: Shift wear RPG gameplay element. In essence we will get EXP which depends on the time your performance race. If you managed to constantly be in the prescribed lines and turned steadily, surely you will get high points as an accurate driver. Whereas if you hit enemies with aggressive and turning the barbarian way, then the points will increase your agresif. Until a certain point these two points we can see the results, whether you're a driver or an agresif rider accurate.

If you have an orientation to drive with accurate, then you will get the design and the additional equipment based on these points. Whereas if you drive carefully and you will get points accuracy. Both these points have a different way so if you want to get them the only way is to repeat the game with a different playing styles.

Because a system like an RPG game, then you will have a level indicating the level of your level. Unfortunately, the level provided by the NFS: Shift only reached level 50. When you reach that level there is nothing you can do. Fortunately, the disappointment is slightly relieved by the presence of 70 + cars that can be used.

Another disappointment is in NFS: Shift is, the same mode short career with the time you take to raise the level. Imagine to finish this game 100% you only need about eight hours. Eight-hour time was very briefly when compared with the experience of playing Need for Speed series of options.

Online mode in NFS: Shift is fun to play. There are two modes that we can use to play online. The first mode is a versus mode that allows us to quickly collided with seven drivers at once. The second mode is the Duel mode drivers. In this mode we have to catch drivers in front of us, pursuer and pursued buffer replacement switch play. If you win a lot of events there is a possibility Duel driver you can follow Duel Driver Championship.

Need for Speed: Shift is an interesting improvisation of the NFS series, ranging from the visual, cars, circuits, they have added details and effects. Remarkably, all these additions are not sacrificing framerate. NFS: Shift also has a scene that decorated prerender throughout the game. Prerender scene is very cool and detailed, unlike the previous NFS NFS, which tends to look like a cartoon. NFS: Shift smoothly collection of generic NFS soundtrack that you would not have felt out of place with its genre. For sound business NFS: Shift has an amazing collection of sound, imagine every sound machine has characteristics of each, so that eventually our goal to listen to the Ferrari engine sound across.

Read More »»»

Heroes Over Europe

Before you start playing a game, maybe this is a question we must ask first. Are you the type of gamer who wants to know everything in detail, from the dashboard of a boat until the buttons are detailed in a plane or you are the type of gamer who just wants to use a simple controller, flying straight away and finish enemy after enemy visible? All that really depends on the mission given in the game. For a more casual gamer, it might be more interested to play this game with a similar playing style as well as arcade game. Well, Heroes Over Europe is more focused on style arcade game, where you only need to direct the enemy planes and dropping away. Unfortunately, because the game is not too good, plus a few specific errors in this game, has made games that should be good, be not too good.

Before you start playing the online mode, there are 14 missions that you can run. Serving the picture was still impressed though not good enough really. As a game, you will be given a direct order and characteristics of each person who gave the order you can hear directly from his voice and the history of that person.

Game for themselves do not follow the chronological storyline there and they prefer to go through a couple of years there just to tell the story and that of course would be a bit troublesome for people who are trying to find out how the story goes. Each successful mission you complete, will automatically open the new ships, which each has its own characteristics. There are more suited to be the engine of air combat and there is also a more suitable vessel used as a tool to remove the bomb and ran away just like that.

As usual, given the mission would surely have known by the veterans of this game like a plane. You will be assigned to protect certain forces, destroying ships at sea, killing a soldier and AA guns in the mainland, mainstay kill enemy soldiers from the air and dropped a bomb straight into collection tanks there. Sometimes, you also will get a mission where you have to fly through the streets and undulating flight between the existing buildings.

The mission provided here is actually quite a standard for simulation games flight, but unfortunately, this type of mission is too often used so it will seem a bit bland though you've managed to run the mission. Very often you will face a situation where you have to feel safe, but you will come back again another same enemies, but with higher numbers, or sometimes even come back the enemy with a body size much bigger for you beat.

Even so, there are some additional given here. Supplement is you can get some special attacks that can instantly kill and clean the ceiling of the enemy aircraft. By directing you to the enemy target that is, automatically there will be a gauge that is slowly but surely began to fill. As already half full, it is possible you can enter Kill Ace mode. In Ace Kill, time will slow and allow you to direct your weapon and kill the enemy. Of course it would be more stable again if you can meet the first gauge. Because the gauge is full, even if you've managed to kill some enemies, Kill Ace mode will not go away immediately.

Keep in mind, AI here is less reliable, so you have to do it all their own. With a game like this, do not be surprised if up to a point, gamers are bored and do not intend to continue the game anymore.

There are other several other elements that make us somewhat disappointed with this game. These elements is when you're riding bomber very large, bi-planes or planes that have a high level of agility, it just feels the same and there is no difference at all. Well, for gamers who want to feel he exclaimed full control plane, there is an arcade mode and professional mode. By activating the professional mode, then automatically you will get the freedom to control the aircraft in full and in accordance with your wishes. But according to our advice, should not have tried. The reason, given the level of difficulty because some games are not very fit, will surely make things more difficult, unless you really are a seasoned pilot.

Once again, as we said before, the graph is here is not too well.  Starting from the blast effects, the effects of damage to the ship, model ship to the environment around you look very ordinary and even music can not make a gamer is not going to feel something good enough to remember. This game really did have something to be proud of, but unfortunately not supported with lots of things that make this game fail.

Read More »»»

NBA 2K10

Although until now EA Sports has always been a pioneer in most sports games, the NBA 2K franchise is still remains a game they have unmatched quality. With a very good picture, games outside and inside the field of fairly steady and the number of features available, NBA 2K is always successfully put its competitors who always tends to produce games that are not too good. Now, after 10 years to act in the world of gaming, 2K Sports will still seem to continue their dominance in the sport. After all this time, 2K Games is also getting help from the Sony, so this game will certainly have a very big improvement and will not disappoint gamers as well.

Of course for the veteran NBA 2K9 will always questioned how the game of basketball itself as being in the field (in the NBA 2K10). We must admit, this game has one game tempo is faster and good enough to play. One change that must be recognized by gamers of all is the turbo system or run fast no matter if you are in defensive positions or attack. 2K10 has added a new energy system where you will be running by relying on two bars given in the game. This bar has two stages. The first stage of yellow and blue second stage. Yellow is a bar that shows you the energy to run and the blue color is your stamina. If you spend a second bar, the characters are you using it will need a break before starting to play again. This is a pretty good way to keep the game will not be like the basketball version of the arcade game where the characters can be used continuously as if spurred not have the stamina.

Changes are also made on the playcalling system (a system where you will provide specific instructions to change the way you play). When the NBA 2K9, there were only 8 types of commands you can use, so this time you will get 24 types of commands you can spend to change the game so that you can turn the situation around the game. It's just that, with the existence of too many choices is, of course, will require some time to choose what order would you use. As it will be as vulnerable enough for you because the enemy can easily win you the ball and put the ball into the hoop without any means of your obstacles. So, it's good you own the right to determine what command would you spend.

There are also some things that seem not changed by the 2K Games. In the previous game, gamers can easily put the ball lay-ups or put the ball in the style of jumping. But this was not maintained in the NBA 2K10 because very often we get the ball we were holding and while we were doing lay-ups, the ball should bounce into it instead of the ring and actually taken by the opponent. Things like this will surely damage the glorious moments of you and it is not impossible that such a destructive and even demoralize you. This time, when you look at the game in this game, every time you want to do a movement that suddenly, the opponent can easily steal the ball and immediately took him away.

Speaking of defense issues, this time feature lockdown defense is back again and this time even more better when compared with the previous. Of course this will only happen when you watch someone who was holding the ball. Well, when your opponent was carrying the ball, you can keep the enemy with a very tight and if you can guess the direction of the enemy fled, it is not possible you can force him to do the double team or even out of the field and lead the team moved the ball to you. Only the biggest problem here is the ball carriers tend to be more straightforward and fast in this game and even they often do not need help from anyone.

For a given AI problem, actually we think AI here is pretty good and effective. But they also often make stupid mistakes that could result in defeat for you. If you ask AI to keep one of your opponent, sometimes he'll just stand still and not doing anything against the holder of the ball. Even the AI is also often movements headaches. Take, for example, AI justu often give the ball to another player who was in a position out of bounds. It's confusing.

Another problem emerges here is 2K10, which very often can damage your timing has been set up in such a way. If you're carrying the ball in the field or are trying to make shots while jumping, this will not be a problem. But the difference as if you've moved to the bottom of the ring, his framerate sometimes be decreased in such a way and will cause you confusion and it is not likely to cause you to lose the ball. This really feels conspicuous in Xbox360 console.

NBA 2K10 for this, one thing that really made us chuckle was amazed offered graph. This time, not just the players look so realistic, but almost every move they do look solid. All things start from the pass from behind his back to attempt to steal the ball is falling freely look so natural, cutscene before the game started well and looked so good when it is animated on the field was quite stable and did not disappoint at all.

Other elements can also be an additional value for this game is the reaction from the audience when you're playing. If you managed to score three in one shot, then the audience will be instantly cheered. If you are a guest team and the position you now is to win, then you will often hear a groan from the audience or even the audience was silent instead. When this happens, usually the speaker will try to improve the spirit of the audience. So extraordinary is not it?

Latest features attached to the NBA 2K10 NBA Today that can provide the latest news, info exchange of players, status and many more topics of conversation are given here. That way, Harlan, Kellogg and Miller will look much more natural and not so rigid anymore like the previous version.

One mode else can you use as a place to develop characters that you use the development mode leagues and teams, which allows you to develop and prepare your team to play together with other gamers. Then there are modes where you can create and shape the careers of the characters that you create and train a character in order to compete with the mega star. If you still had the ability not good enough, eventually you will be sent back to the development league team to improve your skills again.

All these modes are given a fairly exciting fashion and fun to play. The challenge that you will get more and more and you can also create and train your character to become a star in the world of basketball as Michael Jordan or any other characters.

Read More »»»

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter: The Half-Blood Prince is the sequel to 6 of 7 books authored by JK Rowling and should be recognized, both the novel and the movie is selling like peanuts. In addition to his debut in a book or movie, Harry Potter, of course, is to debut in the world game and has recorded a 6 game with the same title with the movie. Admittedly, too, that rarely made a game based on the successful film version. Fortunately this one is not included in it.

Harry Potter: The Half-Blood Prince told him about the 6th year Harry at Hogwarts wizarding school, where he will be back adventure in a world filled with shades of magic along with his friends, Ron and Hermione. This time, besides having to deal with the enemy, Lord Voldemort, Harry must also deal with romantic nuances that have started burning inside him (not surprising, considering the age Harry was hit puberty).

For gamers who read his book, of course will know with certainty about the way the story of this game. But we will try to translate it as accurately as possible about the 6th year at Hogwarts Harry. But definitely, everything in the series to-6 times this has begun to be serious. As usual, Harry's archenemy, Draco Malfoy is still the culprit of all the fad for so long. Not anymore.

Notes for gamers who have not read the book, maybe this game will not be able to tell more clearly about what is happening. So, advice from us before playing this game, gamers should read it before playing the game fun and have been made with this in such a way that can have its own appeal.

Like in previous games, you will do a lot of activities related to the magical world, ranging from making potions, learn magic to defend themselves, fly using broomsticks, wizard-style duel with another character and do a lot of exploration to reveal very very secret at Hogwarts this many (if gamers still remember the words Dumbledore himself said that he did not know all the secrets at Hogwarts).

In between all these activities, perhaps our activities according to the most unique and exciting is the activities you to create potions. In this activity, you will have 16 kinds of materials you can use to create a potion that you want in a first person perspective. When you play, you'll get an indicator on the right that shows what material you use, and until the stage of colors do you have to stop pouring the material. If you pour excess material required, you will be a screen full of smoke and you'll be prompted to press LT and RT buttons simultaneously for a while to remove all the smoke.

Another element that is not less interesting here is flying. In the Half-Blood Prince, Harry has been appointed as captain of Quidditch and of course have a duty to try to bring his team to victory. In contrast to some previous games, this time all you have flights arranged by the computer and you just try to adapt your movement to try to sort through the star to be getting closer to the Snitch (which is usually golden ball into decisive victory or a decisive completion of the game). If you can not follow the path that has been given by this game, slowly but surely, you will be asked to repeat the game because you have been deemed a failure. So do not look lightly on this one.

Elements of the fight in the wizarding world is also quite interesting. If the fight earlier in the Order of the Phoenix extremely difficult, precisely this time a little easier, but still is far from word perfect. Here are 6 magic tricks you can use. There Stupefy, Protego, Expelliarmus, Petrificus Totalus, Levicorpus and Charging and everything was arranged with the help of your controller. Also different from previous versions, this time you will find the bar before the blood that is not included here.

In addition, now you will receive assistance from Nearly Headless Nick to find the way to your destination. Different from the previous where you only get a few footprints will take you there. Now Harry is already able to run, an additional unique and good enough. We never try, where we made Harry ran at full speed but because it collides with another student who was in the vicinity, Harry actually fell.

Need to be recognized that Harry Potter game is far from word perfect. It is true that this game has a design environment is a very good school, but unfortunately the face of each character that is sometimes just looks like a robot who is learning to speak. But only up to our disappointment there alone, because in general this game is good enough for a standard game of Harry Potter.

Read More »»»

The Saw

Who is not familiar with the name Jigsaw? Jigsaw is not the name of a puzzle used by the children to play. In this case, Jigsaw is the pseudonym of someone who has felt the cruelty of the world on him that has a lot to do good for the people. That person is John Kramer. Which became the beginning of all this is when his wife who was carrying her first child, suffered a miscarriage due to the action of a bully who can not get away from drugs. Because the sense of profound sadness, he was separating himself from friends and his wife.

Any misfortune befall John continued. At times like that, she had been diagnosed with cancer that can not be cured. In sadness and fear that he suffered during that time, he also made observations of those around him and just see that people around him just not showing gratitude for the life given by God to them, even though he himself did not get it from God's goodness.

Starting from there, he began to give them a test and the test is more likely to resemble as the rehabilitation rather than examination. Although said to be the rehabilitation of John, but this test uses the lives of its main stake. As already gamers know, John was finally getting the nickname Jigsaw because he always took the pieces of the victim who did not successfully pass the test. These pieces illustrate that something is missing from the victims who had died and John called it a "survival instinct".

Well, in a game which will also bring you face to face with Jigsaw, you will act as Detective Tapp. In the story, when Tapp realized, she realized that she had been fitted with an iron helmet, and if not successfully released on time, then loses his head Tapp. From here, you're going to start the first game you are trying to escape from the iron helmet. The first exam was not too hard and still you are going through. But should we admit, when we started this game, feeling tense already started creeping ourselves and we were quite excited to get through this ordeal.

Soon after he was free, Tapp realized that he was one of the many people who are trapped in the house (or room) and he has become one of the toys from a murderer. The man who kidnapped her is the one who had always pursued by Tapp, Jigsaw. During this, he always claimed that he never committed murder, and he has always given a choice for them to stay alive and so far, the victims are rarely willing to take the painful choices (mutilation, suicide and murder). In addition, they are also often faced with a series of puzzles that will make you fear and panic.

In the game, you'll meet a lot of obstacles that would kill you instantly killed with a single subject only. There is a trap (the most we have encountered here) shotgun, and there are also traps in the form of electricity. For a shotgun trap, this trap will be difficult to see, especially if you're not careful. A touch of the cable into the main trigger, loses his head Tapp. Therefore our advice is, be careful.

The problem is, just be careful is not enough to guarantee the safety of you in this game. The reason, Jigsaw has placed a key in the lock Tapp and is the key to free the prisoners themselves that there is there. Jigsaw has made Tapp became the most sought-after in the place and unfortunately again, everything has a purpose to kill Tapp in order to get the key. To make the game exciting enough, you'll be presented with a variety of puzzles that enough to make your brain spin fast and under pressure from the death of more and more approaching. But after all this time we play the Saw, this game was beginning to feel a little boring with the collection of the puzzle is likely the same. Luckily the lives at stake here made this game a little bit of life and more stressful.

During the game, Tapp could be arming themselves with various weapons that are in place, ranging from broom sticks, iron bars and a revolver is quite deadly. For Melee weapons which we have mentioned above, the weapon did not have the effectiveness that we expect from a weapon. The main problem here is that every time we are faced with new enemies and start swinging a weapon, the enemy often had launched an offensive to Tapp and lead our attack failed. That is why, during the game we prefer to use my bare hands than Melee weapons are completely ineffective it.

You will also get some other things like blood bars, equipment you can collect to make a trap or lock of some object locked here. You also need to be careful of broken glass which will also very often you meet. Unfortunately again, this is sometimes broken glass you can not avoid and you must pass with bare feet. Every time you pass the broken glass, you will lose blood.

For business graphics, this game has pretty good graphics. Starting from the surrounding environment that is designed in such a way as to cause fear and tension, coupled with a grim design and dark from every room you enter (just look around you are filled with dead bodies, blood, body parts hanging pig, a former corpse people who previously had been the victim of Jigsaw, a pool of blood and many more). Yes, indeed this is a game that managed to make us feel tense and worried because every step that one, either from you or from the way the puzzle provided by Jigsaw, then this means "instant death". All this is also supported by the placement of a suitable voice and distinctive style Saw.

Read More »»»

FIFA Soccer 10

Is not an easy task to try to exceed the previous games that have been successful. Instead, most developers just failed in his efforts. But it was not the case for the Electronic Arts pan more successful at developing sports franchise to franchise. Look at games like NHL 09, NBA Live 09 and now, FIFA 2010 which has been developed by Electronic Arts with a very neat and nice. It is no big secret, if the gamer talk about the latest franchise, they will ask for an increase in the graph supplied by the game, FIFA 2010 did not disappoint in the affairs of a given graph.

Let's try this game with Virtual Pro mode, where you will start the game by creating a player, design attributes of these characters that can match your desires, make changes to the face can be adjusted to your liking or maybe just make the changes odd-odd, depending on your wishes. Mode this one works very well and even how it works can be said more perfect when compared with the previous version. Even you also can use GameFace feature to upload your own photos and put it directly in the game.

Once finished with figures of your character's body, it is time you tried the player's ability on the field. This is where the difference between Virtual Pro with Be A Pro mode in the past. This time, rather than just being a football player who has the full capability, you can directly use the products of your character in any mode available in the game. You can just bring the character into the arena of practice and try to sharpen your skills, or you can also go straight into Play Now mode. If not, maybe you want to try your luck in Manager Mode, or try to play online and live play Club Pro Championship mode with other gamers. All of these modes you can use to improve your performance as a football player. To help improve your characters abilities, there are some specific goals that you must fulfill and all that is included with the game just perfect. There are developmental in nature is only temporary and there is also a nature to eternity.

One problem that may also be felt by all gamer Be A Pro mode is that you can only develop one character and only one character that is all you will train and develop you. Unlike the case with Virtual Pro mode that lets you do whatever you want and this is certainly pleasant enough. In addition to creating a character and develop the ability to attribute that you want, you can also create a set-piece in accordance with your imagination. A feature that certainly is very suitable for a Kotaker who was a football enthusiast and has its own fantasies about the set-piece like what is most suitable for the use of a team.

Manager Mode still remains to be one part that can not be removed from this game and frankly, this one mode does not disappoint. You can make the transfer of players, you can make observations of other players, to upgrade some of the staff team by using the money you have you get from ticket sales and of course you will be required to meet the expectations that have been given by the ranks of the club owner where you work so that you can survive. Even sometimes you will also get input from the two commentators in the game and they will provide comments and input for you to be more successful.

For issues commentator, two commentators are certainly familiar in the world of football, Andy Gray and Clive Tilsley is doing its job very well and they really can produce sounds that really add to the spirit of the game. Certainly not the commentators are forever making mistakes such as giving a false observation. But that does not mean that their comments will not be useful and in our opinion, they are still able to comment that could help add keseruan in the game.

Player movement provided by Electronic Arts this time also has experienced a remarkable development. If the previous character you can only run in accordance with the eight wind directions are available, so this time you will see movement very smooth and flawless, so you can add the ability to attack and defense with more perfect. You can move in any direction you like, move a foot to the strong or weak, depending on the angle when you're in a position to attack and do some really cool motion.

Performance during the game has been developed in such a way that in accordance with the attributes it has in the real world. Our point here is, if a small football player, so he will not have a strong endurance and will not be too strong when invited to fight for the ball. Unlike the case with a football player high and strong. Of course, this footballer would be difficult to overcome and win the ball he was sleigh. In addition to all the movements you can see it, you'll also witnessed a few scenes where the characters you will lose control and for a short time, they will drop or even lose the ball (it is quite common in the real world).

Unfortunately, the performance of AI given us here still feel inadequate. Although the EA has said that the ability of AI has been improved, we still often find several instances where the AI is just not react to the ball that happened to be in front of them. But, it must be admitted that they have the ability to run a very solid and very often they will ask for the ball to us if they feel their situation is safe enough. It's still a lot of shortcomings here and there, but still changes given here is quite satisfactory.

Graphically, FIFA 10 only gives a little change, but performance is in FIFA 10 is already enough to make you spellbound with admiration. However, it is undeniable that so far, only Electronic Arts who can present a graph that can spoil the eye and combined with a very attractive game.

Read More »»»

Way of the Samurai 3

Way of the Samurai is a typical game that uses Japan where the samurai era is still the dominant community. During their work in the game (which already had two games), this game is one game that is interesting enough to play. The main core of the game here is that you control a samurai who will start the journey and tried to broker from two different clans.

You're free to do whatever you want, whether it is talking with people, helping them to do a job, join one of the parties and help so that they can win a war or a party favor and try to knock all the people in these places. In this game, you will be asked to play the game a few times and tried several different things every time you play it.

Unfortunately, there is no franchise Way of the Samurai who could really use a full idea of what was above it and even they did not succeed spawned something quite special. Likewise with the Way of the Samurai 3. Although this game had entered the next-gen consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox360, there is absolutely no new anything that could improve the quality of the game itself.

Like I said before, you can do almost anything that you want to do. When you talk to someone, you can choose to fight with them directly in the middle of conversation, no matter who they are and it seems that in this game, you can kill anyone you meet, except the children. When you attack someone who is dead, then for all these characters will never appear again (during the game). But there are also characters who have been murdered earlier though, will still come back alive again and replace the previous one had been killed. For example when you kill someone in charge to do recruitment. When he was murdered and you go back to the place, it will be no substitute for that person and it will continually repeat.

Another case when you talk to the leader of a clan and then kill him and his colleagues. After they die, then they will die and you can choose to be their leader. Pretty cool? Yes, the idea of becoming a leader for a group sounds pretty cool. But unfortunately, not many changes that occur during the game, but later his subordinates you will bow to salute when you pass. That's it.

Even in this game, where you can explore the relatively very little. When calculated in total, you only have about 8 places you can visit and all those places you can easily explore without the need for a long time. There is no such thing as doing exploration to other countries, looking for new places, or the like.

Then there are also problems with the mechanics of the game. There are some tasks you have to do and actually quite simple task. Take for example when you are asked to catch a thief. We pursue these thieves, characters that you will use it and this sword is the problem. Although you do chores to help the villagers, but the guards in this game will come after you and at the same time, the population is around even become afraid of you. Villagers who do not have a weapon, it will immediately run away as soon as look at you and it will be difficult course.

If you want to try to do a task that is not too sadistic and cruel, you might choose to do the job as a message or search for specific items to residents around. That way, means that you use the sword it will only serve as decoration only and will not make much sense when you play a game with the theme of war. Unfortunately again, in this game you can only run one mission every time and you can not collect a large number of missions and work together.

The battle is not too good here. Every weapon that you have had a statistically separate attack and defense. If the defense you were lower than the level of enemy attacks, then you will not be able to resist the blow. Even so, this game does not mean it contains the problem. As we said before, the idea used here is good enough and the consequences of the mechanism used here can be regarded as a pretty good idea.

Read More »»»

Borderlands

From the beginning of the game, you'd be taken straight to a world of open-world, with a large number of missions and some groups of criminals who are ready to do anything to prevent that you do not kill their leader, killed a large number of members of their group, steal documents and objects, Other important objects. In addition, you will also be equipped with an old weapon for a start. But you do not need to worry, because as a game, you'll find lots of lethal weapons ever created by humans, ranging from shotgun, sniper, SMG (Sub-Machine Guns), handgun and a rocket launcher. Each weapon also has its own effects that will give the effect of each of the enemy. Not only that, you will also find a weapon powerful aliens that you can use.

Of course, as the game and the higher your level, you will also continuously change your equipment with more powerful equipment again. As for skill trees are full of passive skills, each class is to have one main style that must be used once you wear during the game. Hunter classes will often ask for pet birds to attack from afar, Berserker class will immediately forward to attack and kill enemies by using his strong hands, Siren class will change to become invisible for a while and the Soldier class could be asked for assistance in the form of a turret to help his fight. Well, to strengthen each of the passive skills, you can reinforce it with the points you get from each time you level up.

But, with so many weapons that you can use, maybe you'll soon forget the fact that this game actually has elements of a game like Diablo because actually, most of the time in this game would you spend to kill the enemy using these weapons. Even for the character customization process just seems so shallow, though still quite good. For character customization, you can just change the name and also your clothing color. It's not something that is varied enough, but we think it is quite interesting.

Now start the pull. One aspect that makes this game was very interesting was his enemy. The first enemy you'll find here are of course common enemies are weak. But the longer, the greater enemy, the brutal and certainly will bring a weapon much larger and deadly. If for small enemies, most of them will arm themselves with a shotgun, someone using a sniper from a distance, someone using a shield and a lot more enemies that will make you a hassle.

You're not just going to fight against humans only, but you also will fight against the horrible dog who can jump, throwing dangerous liquids and attack you with it. Anyway, this dog is one of the most annoying creatures we've encountered so far. There is also a creature called Pitch Black Winged could fly, then immediately attack you from the air with the goal of course is to kill you. Worms Burrow is also a creature that was quite troublesome, because these creatures attacking you from below ground and there are also insects that can be used protective projectiles fired at you.

Not enough to make you even more stressed by the enemies, you also will meet with soldiers far more trouble again. It can be seen from all of their equipment much more sophisticated. Is that right? No. That was only a part of the common enemy and you find there are so many enemies that you'll find. For the record, the enemy will not attack you with just a half-strength squad-half, aka they will always attack you with full force. That's just common enemy we share. What about the boss? Do not be surprised if later on you will be faced with the bosses of large and deadly course.

Graphics business, we think this game could be said to offer one of the best graphics we've ever seen. The view you get in a dungeon, dungeon really look fantastic. Even the scenery during the day and night were also seen very clearly. Transportation vehicles is also quite exciting, because in addition to speed the journey, you will also get cool weapons you can use. A maximum of two people who can drive a vehicle, which means you can play this game with your friends in multiplayer mode, another aspect which is also the advantage of this game alone.

It's an adventure to explore the world alone, the mission and strengthen your character can sometimes seem quite exciting. But if you continue like that, we think over time would also seem quite boring. Well, this is the role of the multiplayer modes. In this mode, you can play together with your friends. But, along with joining your friends in the game, enemies will be stronger too, and the items they drop will also be better. Because of that, maybe you want to start considering more often play together with your friends to get things much better. Not only that. If on one occasion you have started dying or even dead, your friends can help bring you back and that too can be done without using any special abilities.

A maximum of four players who can immediately play with and it is recommended, because this is a point that can make you very very addicted to the game, especially when you see it from the combined classes in four-person team. Oh yes, before we forget, every object that was dropped here can freely be taken by anyone. So, if you and your friends like to compete for a falling object, then we suggest that you want to move quickly in order not to be preceded by other gamers.

Read More »»»

The Saboteur

The Saboteur can be regarded as the last work of Pandemic Studios, the new studio was soon dissolved by its parent company. For information, Pandemic Studios has also previously issued games are pretty good as Mercenaries and Star Wars Battlefront. As with Mercenaries, The Saboteur is also using the open-world elements. Only, in our opinion not very good results.

Settings used in this game is set in France that was invaded by the Nazis and you will act as Sean Devlin, a seducer of women and also great drinkers. Actually, at first it was just Sean Devlin who is not too concerned with the situation around him and only cares about what's in front of it. At first, he had only one intention which is to follow the race which was held in the Grand Paris. One of Sean's competitors is Kurt Dierker. In the event the race is held, Kurt cheating that makes Sean irate and he plans to ignorant to Kurt. But, all his actions just ignorant even penetrated into a big problem and makes Sean vowed to kill him with a Nazi as well.

Now, when we talk about the difficulties in making an open-world game, of course, we'll talk about how if a person free to act in the game. The Saboteur successfully achieve all that. Every time you get a new objective, you will immediately get assistance in the form of yellow spot on your map, so you can more easily find the location you are headed. Now, in order to achieve this goal, you must have the appropriate weapons to carry out your mission and you must have guessed what you need to do. Now the choice is up to you, whether you want to play this game without following the plot or are you going to follow the story that it has been given by this game.

Starting from here, all kinds of shortages began to appear. As a man, Sean has immune highly unreasonable. To kill a Sean, it takes about 50 shots before he died and that too is still supported by the speed of regeneration is very fast and includes unreasonable. That means, all of the features provided such features for cover and the like are not really work anymore because of this body endurance. Sean can be regarded as a super soldier is hard to beat. The core story, this game is pretty fun to play, but not too much hope on this game.

If you want to try to kill the enemy silently, this game provides these features. But there is a problem here because the wrong steps, you'll be chased by dozens of bullets whizzing behind you. Yes, the enemy suspicion indicator tends to rise quickly and if the limit is reached, then the alarm is sounded and you can do is run away before your body becomes a beehive. When the alarm was sounded, then you should immediately turn off the alarm if you want to run your mission calmly and was also one of the biggest problems that you have to face when compared with the current mission you are running.

Here, you not only can kill the enemy with it quietly, but you can also become one of the undercover Nazi soldiers to avoid suspicion by the other Nazi troops. The problem is, you disguise it will not last long and the problem was compounded by the fact that there are some special soldiers who can recognize you and cover to turn on the alarm. It only takes a few missions just to make us feel that the features of this sink in disguise and less exciting. Another thing we also feel are disturbing enough, with only one eruption capital weapon, whether it is killing people around or not, the Nazis would have scrambled to come to where you blow up your weapon.

Just as the game-open-world games in general, you can drive anywhere you want and you can save your favorite vehicle in the garage for your use later. Only here the vehicle control was a little too stiff so that it can seem a bit difficult than fun. In addition, Sean, too, can climb any building as well as Assassin's Creed. Unfortunately, an animation when Sean was climbing seem strange and not visible as smooth as Assassin's Creed. In general, it is to climb here features work well enough, but still there was a feeling of satisfaction when he saw Sean's climbing, especially if you've played Assassin's Creed 2 earlier.

One of the main features offered in this game are white, black shades covering the city. Black and white is intended to indicate that the communities around living in fear because of the Nazis. Every time Sean successfully completed its mission in a certain area, you'll see colors again appear in the area indicating that hope has reappeared in the population.

Indeed this game is not a completely disappointing game, but we feel this game could have a better offer than this. Overall, if you only have to run its main mission, you will take about 13 hours to finish the game. In addition, there are also some side missions are quite interesting to you playing.

Read More »»»

Guitar Hero: Van Halen

There are few rock stars who may not know when it was appropriate to resign and retire from the world of music. There are very many bands always tempted lure of money and immediately agreed to do so despite the risk that there has been enormous. One example is the Guitar Hero: Van Halen, a game that uses one of the famous band in the 80s, but the result instead is a disaster.

By using big bands like Van Halen, of course, Activision hopes to re-boost the popularity of Guitar Hero which is slowly but surely this has begun to decline. Although there are appearances from members of famous bands such as Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth, this is still not very helpful.

If you claim to be a Van Halen fan and feel that this game is one game that is suitable for you, maybe you'll soon rectify greeting you after playing this game. The reason is, almost half of all the songs are there (a total of 45 songs), not the song ever sung by Van Halen before this. Instead, you will only see the names of other bands that appear in this game. Call it Weezer, Blink-182 and Fountains of Wayne, which is actually the third band did not have anything to do with Van Halen.

All this is exacerbated by the fact that Activision is not trying to get a copyright on the songs Van Halen, especially after the age in which David Lee Roth left the band. Perhaps it makes sense, given the many calls that after Lee Roth left the band, the band had not called the song a true Van Halen. But would not that be better than just relying on songs from other bands?

The only positive value of this game is the song that was a song from Van Halen himself. Their songs quite enjoyable and challenging to play. Even so, the fact that the songs are still not enough to form an album itself, there must be many who Kotakers wonder why Van Halen is not made into a downloadable version of the content (DLC) for the game just another Guitar Hero.

There are other other failures seen in this game. Guitar Hero is, it should be a game that made separately reminiscing and showing the original form of the singers are famous in their time. But what you get in this game, it is a member of Van Halen that has begun with age. To be able to get the appearance of Van Halen when they were young, you have to play the career mode there first before I can get it. Only, we believe at the time you've got the classic version of Van Halen, maybe you already do not have the interest to play again. If you still intend to try, which would you get is the movement of the Van Halen that was very stiff.

Then, whose name is Career mode can also be said quite deceptive. Why? Because here, you're not going to play the Van Halen group through all the steps there as they have traveled before. You only have to pass a number of songs and collect the stars. After everything was over, it was done. You will not find anything related to Van Halen.

In addition, this game still provides a lot of disappointment at gamers. You will not find any features for downloadable contents. There is no option to remove songs from Guitar Hero 5 others. There is no such thing as Party Play again, where you can play together with your friends. Perhaps the only consolation here is a feature of GH Studios, where you can try to create their own favorite rock song for you, then you share with other gamers.

Read More »»»

Darksiders

Darksiders is a game that is a combination of God of War, Devil May Cry and some elements from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Darksiders Although not as good as those games, but we think Vigil Games managed to develop this game so that could be a game quite interesting and unique and great to play.

In general, this graphics from Darksiders looks quite smooth and sharp. His voice is also quite adequate and there was fitted with the game, plus the length of time you need to finish the game, which is about 15 hours to complete the single-player mode itself. There are many tools that you can gather, the weapons you can upgrade, combos to learn and also special items you can find. Enemies will you encounter also very diverse, existing dungeon full of puzzles that challenge and there are many hidden things which you can find, it's become a special reason for you to keep coming back to play this game and look for objects these hidden objects.

In this game, you'll play as War, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Its power is well known and he is very respected by even those who are the characters of the most powerful enemy even. Although in appearance he is not a typical character that has a hero in general. Everything was caused because the personality of the War itself can be said not too concerned with all things around him.

If you've ever play God of War, then this one element must be very you know very well. After some time you attack the enemy, later on the enemy's head is displayed the image of a button (X button). If at that moment you press the button in question, then WAR will immediately kill the enemy with brutality. Is the movement will always be the same? No. Animation at the time you defeat an enemy is weak and strong enemies will differ from each other. Of course, in this case, while killing the enemy is stronger, War movement animation will look more complicated and cool.

For gamers who are quite proficient at playing games like this, might be interested to increase the difficulty level of the game. We need to admit, the level of difficulty in this game was far less when compared with the bout in the Devil May Cry is comparatively very complicated and even the enemy who came out they were not too challenging as well as God of War. Here, you will not need a high reflexes. So anyone who can actually play this one game easily and effortlessly.

During the game, you'll get three weapons you can use to fight, from the sword that has become your primary weapon, a scythe and a large Gauntlet all that you can use according to your fighting style. One thing we also need to admit to this one game is, this game is not a game intended for those who are already very skilled at playing games like this.

During the game, you also will collect the soul that uses the form of a green ball. The function of the soul is to buy weapons, upgrade your weapons and get a new movement that is more deadly than the stance that you previously had.

Above, we have explained briefly that this game also has elements similar to the game The Legend of Zelda. What's similar? We'll explain here. As a game, you will find a lot of dungeon-dungeon full of puzzles. In each puzzle there, there are weapons or equipment that will allow you to explore locations that previously could not you explore it and even it is not impossible if you will go into a room where there dwells a boss. There are so many things you can find here, from the dungeon map, box prices, a key intended for a particular door and bombs you can use to destroy the wall of red crystals. War will also be accompanied by a horse named Ruin he could ride. As long as he was riding Ruin, of course he could also cut both the enemies around him.

If traced more clearly, this game really did not present an original thing. In addition, there are also some other aspects that make us feel this game has certain shortcomings. One of them is the setting used. This game has one of the darkest setting is there and the world that you meet here can be said is arid and almost not feasible to be occupied again. Everything on the surface is the monsters and demons. But unfortunately, the game failed to create an atmosphere that supports these conditions.

Read More »»»