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Thursday, September 1, 2011

Skyrim's Perfect World

Skyrim's Perfect World top games
  ign.com
How crafting, alchemy and well-constructed mythology could make Skyrim one of the most impressively cohesive worlds in gaming.
UK

If there's one thing that games almost always lack, with their eagerness to entertain and often underdeveloped scripts, it's believability. It usually stems from a lack of cohesion: it's difficult to believe that you're wandering around a real world when everything that you can interact with gleams with a highlighted shine, or when helpful tips keep popping up to remind you to press Y to get on your horse, or when there's a ridiculous story told in unskippable cutscenes. You're often snapped back to real life by their lack of subtlety.
Skyrim's Perfect World top games
Indeed, modern games are so tailored to the player's comfort that they often compromise their own fiction for the sake of it, making things purposefully obvious and easy to digest instead of rich and rewarding. The end result is that their worlds aren't easy to really believe in. How many times in a game have you really felt like you were wandering around in a real place, rather than a series of carefully-crafted scenarios for you to "experience"? 
Skyrim's Perfect World top games
Bethesda has always excelled here, creating games that succeed where almost all others come up short. Bethesda's worlds exist independently of you, the player. Follow a Skingrad drug-dealer as she leaves her home in Oblivion, and you'll see her spend an entire day and a half walking all the way across the world to the Imperial City to supply some off-the-wagon soldier with Skooma, whether you're there to watch her do it or not. That haggard old booze hound in the derelict bar in Fallout 3 will sit there all day, getting up occasionally for a go at the slots. Foxes chase rabbits, wolves chase foxes, and guards valiantly defend villages from bandits (and dragons). Bethesda is far from the only developer to attempt this natural, player-independent game ecology, but it has always done it extraordinarily well.

From Dust Review

ign.com
Beautiful yet menacing, From Dust leaves a lasting impression.
From Dust top games
God games 
From Dust top games
are usually all about power. They give you omnipotence and the choice to do with it what you will – be good or evil, vengeful or merciful, kind or cruel. They give you power over your worshippers, the ability to command, help or destroy them. They court player fantasies.
From Dust top games
From Dust 
From Dust top games
is a god game in a different sense. You are not all-powerful; instead, you only have control over the land. You're able to shape and reshape it by scooping up the earth and water and magma in undulating orbs and depositing it elsewhere, creating bridges across channels, islands out of cooled lava and lakes in the middle of the desert. The people of the tribe under your care rely on you to make their harsh world habitable, but you have no influence over what they do.

King Arthur: Fallen Champions Review

Fallen Champions is a short and mostly sweet compression of many of the good elements in its King Arthur predecessor.
King Arthur: Fallen Champions
The Good
Innovative blend of choose-your-own-adventure quests and RTS battles Smartly designed battle scenarios Intelligently aggressive AI Impressive, atmospheric visuals. 
King Arthur: Fallen Champions
The Bad
No save-on-demand feature.

King Arthur - The Role-playing Wargame had surprise on its side when it was released in 2009. Developer NeoCore Games' blend of choose-your-own-adventure quests and real-time fantasy battles came out of nowhere with impressive cross-genre experimentations, even if the end result was uneven and a bit too offbeat for its own good. Stand-alone add-on Fallen Champions also comes as something of a surprise for how much it pulls back from what its big brother brought to the table. The action here is distilled to the basics, giving you a close-up view of the innovative storytelling devices and the tactical real-time strategy combat without any of the kingdom building that gave the earlier game a Total War vibe. So you might not be getting exactly what you expect, although the game is very good in its own right and a great way for newcomers to ease into the deeper waters that await in the full King Arthur.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Lord of the Rings Online: Rise of Isengard Preview - News

 Lord of the Rings Online top
 Plenty more free content in the land of Middle-Earth
 Lord of the Rings Online top
Ever since moving to the free-to-play model, Lord of the Rings Online has been enjoying great success, with even the cheapskates among us able to make a run for the gates of Mordor. It seems obvious then that penny-pinching gamers will be ecstatic over the game’s upcoming expansion, Rise of Isengard, the studio finally revealing some much desired details at PAX Prime.
 Lord of the Rings Online top
For starters, three new regions will be introduced to the game. In addition to allowing players to battle their way towards the evil wizard Saruman’s tower in the land of Isengard, there’s also the perilous forests of Dunland to traverse, while the Gap of Rohan will require defending from the endless legions of Sauron. For players who believed themselves masters of the realm, the level cap has been newly raised to 75, allowing brave warriors to reach even greater heights. And perhaps most excitingly is the newly announced 24-player raid on the den of Draigoch, a gigantic battle between your clan and this ancient dragon.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Fruit Ninja Kinect Review

Fruit Ninja Kinect Review
 I wonder if in a few years people will talk about IOS games being consolized. If they did, would they use the term in a good way or would it still have the derogative connotation that's attached to it now? Whatever the case ends up being we've got one of our first true case studies in Halfbrick Studios Fruit Ninja Kinect, the popular IOS game that's been adapted for Microsoft's Kinect motion sensor. It's a strange choice for the Summer of Arcade and people might wonder why they'd pay for a game they can already get on their phones, but the most surprising thing is that it's actually a great showcase for the Kinect and hopefully a model they can learn from going forward.

Ten Times The Fun?

Fruit Ninja is a game for mobile devices where you use your fingers or thumbs to slice fruit. You might have to avoid bombs mixed in with the pineapple and papaya or you may be tasked with getting as high of a score as possible in a short time limit but for the most part that's really all the game is. Fruit goes up and you have to slice it before it falls. It's a simple game but it more than earns its 99-cent price tag. Fruit Ninja Kinect isn't 99-cents, though, it's 800 MS point ($10) and that's going to be a hard thing for a lot of people to ignore. I can't really justify a game that's ten times the price on one platform when it adds very little. Fruit Ninja Kinect adds some, but not necessarily enough. The good news is that it's still a highly addictive and enjoyable game.

Dragon Age: Origins - Classically Immersing

Dragon Age: Origins
 RPGs, or Role Playing Games, have always been very popular. Those role playing games allow the player to create a character and live in a fictional world, the game, through his character. The player therefore becomes "responsible" for the action of his or her character. With their immense popularity, it is not surprising that the popularity of RPGs transferred to the multimedia. Hence, who hasn't seen Final Fantasy, or even Zelda?
Dragon Age: Origins
Although these classics remain the favorite of many, other RPGs have known a great success among video game players. These new RPGs stand out by their realistic graphics and outstanding gameplay. And one of the best RPGs ever made is "Dragon Age: Origins".
Dragon Age: Origins
The video game "Dragon Age: Origins" can be described as a "good versus evil" type of video game. The storyline tells your story, where you are part of one of the surviving groups of the legendary guardians, the Grey Warden. You character takes on the responsibility to save humanity from its archenemy. The are 6 possible playable preludes known as 'Origin Stories' and players must travel across Ferelden in order to end the political struggles that lead into the kingdom's civil war.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Shaiya: Light and Darkness - Free-To-Play Fantasy MMORPG

Shaiya: Light and Darkness - Free-To-Play Fantasy MMORPG
 Shaiya: Light and Darkness is a free-to-play, fantasy-themed MMORPG set in ancient times, in the world of Teos. The story begins when The Goddess Etain created three races - the Dragons, Nordein and the Dumianas. The Nordein were deemed imperfect by Etain, and were cast into the soil. The Dumianas questioned The Goddesses power and authority, and as a result, was weakened. The Dumianas took the opportunity to attempt to kill her, but instead, her soul was ripped in two. Teos was left out of balance, and other gods began to vie for power, creating monsters in an attempt to conquer the land for themselves. The dragons faded from the face of the world, hiding themselves amongst the chaos. In time, two Goddesses came to rule over Teos, and the remaining Dumianas were split into two factions - the Elves and the Vail. Soon after, Humans appeared, and joined with the Elves. Similarly, the Nordein re-emerged, became the Deatheaters and joined with the Vail. The two resulting factions became known as the Alliance of Light and the Union of Fury.

Shaiya: Light and Darkness caters to many play-styles, whether your preference is solo, questing with groups or forming large, powerful guilds to take on the game's greatest challenges. There are 12 classes available in Shaiya - each of the 4 playable races (Humans, Elves, Vail, Nordein) have 3 classes to choose from, each with their own well-balanced strengths and weaknesses. Shaiya is largely set apart from other free-to-play MMOS (or really MMO games, in general) by the fact that there are 4 difficulty modes. In Easy mode, less experience is required to gain levels, but levels are capped at level 30. The other 3 modes are capped at level 70. Normal mode is a "standard" baseline, Hard is unlocked once a character reaches level 40 in Normal mode, and Ultimate mode is unlocked once a character reaches level 40 in Hard mode. Though the harder difficulty settings offer greater challenges and characters gain experience slower, there are also increasingly greater rewards for the harder difficulties. But beware - if you are brave enough to attempt to play on Ultimate mode and your character is slain and if they are not resurrected within 3 minutes, that character will be permanently deleted! A harsh punishment to be sure, but it truly adds a unique sense of danger and excitement to gameplay.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Spiderman VS Venom Games

Spiderman VS Venom
 Spiderman VS Venom
Spiderman VS Venom
Latest game for people who love to play the game Spiderman.
Spiderman VS Venom
Spiderman game usually consists of very many levels to complete the game spiderman.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

PS3 RPGs

Final Fantasy XIII-2
How many good PS3 RPG games are there? There's a lot of them! Okay... not really! There a few good ones though! I would like to say that I am somewhat upset with the number of "quality" RPG games that have been released on the PS3. Most of the games on the PS3 are action, shooter, or racing games... and a few fighting games and RPG games. Thankfully over the last couple years there have been a few good PS3 RPG games released. My favorite RPG games that have been released and my list of Best PS3 RPG Games are:
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Demon's Souls
Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy XIII-2
That's a short list isn't here? The good news!? They are BOTH coming out with a sequel! Why did I like these games so much? I'll give you the short version! Demon's souls is an incredibly fun game, but hard as hell! At least it is when you first start playing it. It's a tough concept but in the game you are actually meant to die! You will probably die often as well. It's annoying because you would lose all your souls, which is the games form of money, experience, and used for pretty much all the important stuff. Thankfully you can get it back, but only IF you make it back to where you died, without dying... if you died again they were lost forever. A concept I learned the hard way my first day or two of playing (LOL). Once you get the hang of the controls, and familiar with the levels the games is quite a bit easier, the game is fair... if you get killed it's not because the enemy cheated but because you messed up... although there is one enemy known as the Red-Eyed Knight during the first level that is very hard, but you will see notes to avoid going that direction if you are a newbie.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II
 After the crushing disappointment of the first Ninja Turtles game for NES, Konami had to make it up to gamers big time. What made it even worse: the first arcade game was released around the same time, giving gamers the exact gameplay they were expecting. So it makes sense that for the follow-up they would port said game and fulfills everyone's wishes.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: the Arcade Game was released in 1990 to the delight of gamers everywhere. A beat em up like Final Fight and Double Dragon, the arcade game was everything we expected and then some, featuring a never ending supply of cameos from the cartoon, 2 player co-op and your choice of Turtle, each with subtle differences. I can remember spending illegal amounts of money playing the game every week with friends and strangers alike as I was fully entrenched in Turtle mania. The NES port, while not arcade perfect is well done and succeeded in washing away any lingering memories the first game had left.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Call of Juarez

We wanna go back in time.
Call of Juarez
The Call of Juarez franchise always interested me in the past because of its western themes. The previous titles told interesting enough stories, and had engaging enough characters, that they were appealing despite their lack of polish. Call of Juarez: The Cartel, however, doesn't even succeed in this regard. The characters are unlikeable and under developed, and the story is completely forgettable. Beyond that, The Cartel feels rushed, unpolished, and repetitive to the point of frustration.
Call of Juarez
Call of Juarez: The Cartel tells the story of three law enforcement officers put together on a special task force to take on the infamous Mexican drug cartels. Of course, they all come from different backgrounds, making each of the three playable characters a little different. Ben is a typical gunslinger, sticking out like a sore thumb with his predisposition to using old cowboy revolvers. Eddie and Kim, on the other hand, are sassy modern cops who've grown up in the streets, and come with all the clich�d dialogue and one liners you'd expect. Together they form a motley crew, one that has to fight against enemies on the outside and within.
Call of Juarez
The problem is that the story fails to be engaging. The characters are caricatures of American law enforcement officials, with laughable dialogue that makes them hard to take seriously. Moreover, all the intrigue and emotion that developer Techland attempts to seed in the story is pointless because they never create any good bonds or trust between the characters. You don't like them, you know they don't like each other, and you don't really care what happens to them.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Call of Duty - Black Ops

Call of Duty - Black Ops
 After another year of controversy and a ton of media coverage we're back again in the hands of Treyarch, usually in the shadow of its "bigger brother" Infinity Ward with the hottest franchise of the moment, Call of Duty. We find out if a new approach, and setting, can invigorate a series that some are losing faith in. With the release of Modern Warfare 1, we saw the invention of a completely new game, far away from what the Call of Duty fan base was used to and a re-invention of the IP Activision had created. Ditching the WW2 setting we saw a new direction, backed up by a revolutionary multiplayer experience and an explosive single player narrative that Hollywood would have been proud of. Since then both Infinity Ward and Treyarch have been given the reins to the title, each trying to outperform the original in every single way, with sales only growing with each release. Does Black Ops continue the trend?

Call of Duty - Black Ops




Call of Duty - Black Ops



Friday, July 15, 2011

Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters

Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters
 I've led you astray, IGN reader. Back in April, I played Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters from developer Griptonite Games and told you it was cool.
 
Now, after playing the final version, I'm telling you it isn't. That's the difference between a preview and a review, I guess. At a glance, the simplistic nature of Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters is charming, but in practice, it's extremely repetitive and boring. Plus, the game just doesn't run well.
Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters
Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters is a cartoon version of the movie universe, but it's not telling the movie's tale. Here, I played as Hal Jordan, the newest member of the intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps. The Guardians (little blue dudes) run the organization, and more than 3,000 Green Lanterns serve and protect. Rather than guns, Green Lanterns use power rings that create whatever the wearer imagines out of green light. However, before the Lanterns were out there, the Guardians used robots known as Manhunters. Then, the machines went nuts and got shelved. Now, they're back and looking to destroy the universe; Hal has to stop them.
Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters
The story plays out in still cartoon screens. No voices, just text. That's disappointing, but the gameplay is where I was really let down with Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters. Like most Griptonite games, I took my hero from one side of the screen to the next and wailed on everything that got in my way, but in Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters, there just isn't enough variety to keep the combat fresh.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Okamiden Game New

Okamiden Games

Okamiden for the DS is a video game that manages to be both really cute, and really lovely. Though it follows events in the more expansive Okami (PS2 and Wii), it doesn't feel like a full-fledged sequel, nor is it necessary to have played the first game to enjoy playing this one. And while die-hard fans of the original may be disappointed by the smaller scale, Okamiden makes for an extremely approachable introduction to the unforgettable world of both games.
Okamiden Games

Okamiden Games

Okamiden Games

Monday, May 16, 2011

Dirt 3 Review

dirt 3
The race for the genre's crown of best is always a very exciting occurrence. Last year Codemasters won the BAFTA award with an excellent re-introduction to F1 racing, a title that received high honours from this site among others. Now they're introducing Dirt 3, is it another potential winner? Let's find out.

Modes

This year's instalment of the rally series offers plenty of changes including a new menu scheme. The trailer sequence is gone and replaced by a simple menu structure that is highly inspired by the triangular shape. It definitely reminds me of the Need for Speed series for some reason, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Without the trailer I can't help feeling less immersed into the whole driver experience.

The now simplified menu gives access to a host of familiar modes including: Dirt tour, multiplayer and singleplayer. The last mode offers all the different types of racing and grants control over all the criteria.

Dirt Tour

As I mentioned earlier, the career mode in Dirt is no longer accompanied by a nice little trailer sequence that stitches it all together. Instead every year of racing is represented by an unwrapped triangle. You will earn points by participating in races and once you've earned enough, the grand final will open up.

The races offer plenty of variation and challenges for gamers of all backgrounds. All the previous types of off-roading are back, but to mix things up Codies added a few more into the mix including smash attack and Gymkhana. Both of them rely heavily on the art of doing tricks on wheels and moving about with absolute ease. While they definitely help cement Dirt 3 as the ultimate arcade racer, I'm not a huge fan of this type of racing. Luckily they can be skipped by excelling in other, more meaningful, events.

Great success comes with more privileges than just the option to skip. Podium finishes will earn points that go into Dirt's ranking system. By obtaining higher levels other teams will offer you a seat in their team. Most of the time these offers will be a trade off between having a faster car and earning more credits for the win, but luckily there're some exceptions to this rule.

Driving

Friday, April 15, 2011

Gravely Silent House of Deadlock Collectors Edition

Gravely Silent House of Deadlock Collectors

Quality: Full

Video Game Category:Hidden Object

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

OS: Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista
Processor: Pentium 4 @ 1.8 GHz/Athlon XP 2400+
Memory: 512 MB (1 GB for Vista)
Hard Drive: 13.33 Mb Free
Video Memory: 128 MB (NVIDIA GeForce 6600/ATI Radeon X800)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 9.0c
Keyboard and Mouse
DVD Rom Drive



Save your sister from the grave! After receiving a troubling phone call from your brother-in-law, you’re off on an adventure! Investigate the troubling scene and discover the truth in Gravely Silent: House of Deadlock. Scour gorgeous Hidden Object scenes for valuable clues and unravel the mystery behind your sister’s disappearance. This is a special Collector’s Edition release full of exclusive extras you won’t find in the standard version. As a bonus, Collector’s Edition purchases count toward three stamps on your Monthly Game Club Punch Card!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Dungeon Siege III

Dungeon Siege III
 An errant dungeon crawl.
Dungeon Siege III
A dungeon crawler without good loot, like Dungeon Siege III, is missing something essential. If the prizes that pop out don't feel valuable, there's no slot machine appeal of opening chests, busting apart wooden barrels or slicing up monsters. Dungeon Siege III's bits of loot come with all kinds of statistical bonuses, and a multitude of special effects like elemental damage or chance to stun. But it's rare to ever get a strong sense that swapping one item for another has a significant effect, many items have near identical visual designs, and no piece is moddable. After not too long, scooping up loot begins to feel like garbage collection instead of treasure hunting.

Obsidian Entertainment, which took over the franchise from creator Gas Powered Games, is more interested in offering satisfying combat mechanics than a tantalizing loot lottery. Each of the four character classes gets nine core abilities - three defensive, the other six offensive and split across two fighting stances. All the abilities can be evolved by gaining experience and leveling up, giving Anjali's area-of-effect firestorm a healing effect or Reinhart's glyph magic a chance to slow enemy movement speed.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Dead Space 2 Review

Dead Space was a game that rocked the foundations of horror video games for a long time. With its innovate AI that would stay hidden and pop out at you when you least expected it. It even continues the particularly weird and at the same time awesome storyline from the previous game. Dead Space 2 does include a few things to mix it up but keeps true to the first video game in the series. Most first video games where the main character just killed off an entire armada of enemies and lost everyone they know and love in the process portray the main character as unaffected in the second game. In Dead Space 2 however Issac(the main character) is torn apart by the previous games events and the death of his girlfriend. Several game play elements actually have to do with the fact that Issac may be losing his grip on reality. Despite that fact he still fights on anyway but at least they acknowledge it and make it a part of the game unlike other video games.

We will start Dead Space 2 on a good note by reviewing the main portion of the game or single player as some would call it. For the most part you will playing in dark environments with a light at your side and the hope that the necromorph's (zombie alien things) don't come up from behind to get you when you least expect it (they will). Often times you will hear them but not see them putting you on the edge and starting your cautiousness. It would be a lie to say that you won't spend a lot of time looking for the enemy in one room and not finding them. Then just as you are about to move on they come from behind you and attack when your guard is down. This is just one classic example of how smart the AI actually is in this game. Adding to that is the music which adds to the intensity and excitement of the unknown darkness that often surrounds you. Dead Space 2 even has a unique health bar that is located on your characters back which was used in the first video game. Basically Dead Space 2 his game is what all horror movies and horror genre video games should look at when they develop from now on because this game does it very well.

The armor of this game looks just as amazing as it did in the Dead Space and thankfully they decided not to give us the most powerful armor in the game if we purchased it the first day it came out, as they did in Dead Space. However for the first part of the game you will not be wearing armor and will look like just any other person until you get your armor back and can look totally awesome again. In a way this does make sense because in real life you could not be possibly be wearing that heavy armor all the time, so it seems like a good choice by the developers to have you get your suit as the first task in the game. A lot of the weapons from the Dead Space make a comeback in Dead Space 2 with a few changes to them(mostly for the better), all of them remain pretty unique and you may actually have to change weapons sometimes and not just blast one gun the whole game like most other shooting games. To add even more worth to single player the upgrade systems and purchasing system is very well done and you cannot just buy everything too early or not have the ability to buy things due to money restrictions later in the game.