So farewell

I was debating whether to write something or not, but since I have a lot of things to write, I decided to keep on going. As I promised from the previous post, here are my impressions and thoughts about the new Prince of Persia.

First thing anyone would notice from the Prince of Persia (2008) is that the Prince doesn’t sound like a prince from Persia, but rather a western dude. That aside, this new Prince of Persia game is pretty good.

It uses the same engine that powers Assassins Creed but with added Cel Shading effect to give the game its new distinctive and magical look. The animation department is pretty good as expected from a Ubisoft game, especially a Prince of Persia game.

Unlike the last Trilogy, the new Prince uses the aid of princess Elyka in this adventure. So no more messing with time element here, this is all gone since this is a different re-imagining to Prince of Persia story, so it has nothing to do with the previous Trilogy.

Story wise, the game is ok and has a very predictable story so nothing really impressive in that department.

What really is cool about the Prince of Persia, is the platforming element, which is taken to the next level, Ceiling walking anyone? Also, a departure from the last Trilogy is the more focused one-on-one fights. No more the Prince going against a dozen guards. With that, there is now more complexity to the fight and more depth to it, or so I thought. As soon as you learn the controls, all the fights are really the same, from the first mob to the last boss. There are some encounters that have some small gimmick changes to make them less repetitive which helps a bit. Also, Elyka adds some depth to those encounters. It almost transforms to some sort of reduced Soul Calibur fighting game.

Also, the game doesn’t have any kind of loading, it is one seamless world and it is very very beautifully designed. Just going through them is enjoyment on its own.

The game is moderately lengthy, you can expect 15 hours of gameplay if you aim to reach the end, or you could go and collect every sphere there is to add more length, but that is merely a small thing to keep you doing that.

All in all, this is Prince of Persia as you would expect it. Is it better than the last Trilogy? Story wise it isn’t, that is for sure. Gameplay? It can go to preference, I would say they are both great and give you different yet similar experiences.

Yes, I finally managed to get around and complete the single player portion of Command & Conquer Red Alert 3. All I can say is that it is a well done campaign with lots of variety in it. Each side boosts nine missions each can take you from as little as 20 minutes and as long as one and half hour, depending on both how you play and the mission it self.

The variety is quite nice as well, even though you have your destroy the other side in between the lines, it has been designed in a way that it really isn’t at the fore front and not direct at all. The units are also introduced quite nicely as you play along the missions and the variety is quite big that I often end up not using some of them. Not because they are useless, but rather because you can pretty much use any kind of combination of units. The secondary modes for each make the decisions even broader and less restricted.

The cut scenes are not bad, but I honestly expected alot more from a Red Alert franchise. I also hate the fact that CG cutscenes are very few. Bring back the win and lose CG cutscenes from the original Red Alert and C&C games (During Westwood days). Those made me want to win and lose each mission just to watch them.

Anyway, the game is still sitting on my desktop just because I still want to explore the MP side of the game which I really see some great fun to be had there, thanks to the very different factions and the fun units you control. Add in the fact that combat can be on land, air or sea makes it even more engaging.

On another Note, I started playing the new Prince of Persia and until now, I am liking it. I managed to manually configure my Rumblepad 2 on it but still can’t manage to get vibrations to work. That was lousy work from Ubisoft to be honest. More impressions to come soon.

Anyway, I am hoping to pick on the new stuff and whatever I have that is collecting dust on my shelves.

Stay Tuned!

Wow, it has been about 2-3 months since I last written a post in here. As usual, I have been busy with life and the same stuff I mention before are keeping me from blogging.

Anyway, so lets kick off from where I stopped. Games wise, I managed to finish the epic gory/thriller game Dead Space and I must say, if you can get your hand on it, do so. The game is full of amazing scares and horrors that are just well done. It has also a nice ending chapter with an epic finale. The game will take you around 10+ hours to complete and even though it is repetitive at some places, such situations are far and few. The graphics are both great and have a nice tone to it and includes some nice space-sort of effects when it comes to going in and out of the space ship. It also runs very well and so you can probably crank the graphics fidelity all the way to the max with hardly any performance drop. One annoying aspect is lack of proper Anti-Aliasing support but with the dark environment, sometimes it is hard to notice except on the main character’s armor suit which, to be honest, is cool but blocky. It also gets uglier as you upgrade it. The monsters themselves are the stars of the show since they behave as such and can cause you a lot of pain. The variety is nice if not extensive but the way the come to you on each encounter is fresh. What you will really love about the game is “oh no, am in trouble” situations that you get in that usually end with your character becoming food for someone else and hence you need to be swift with using your weapons and movement AND you need to be sure you be conservative with some of the more powerful weapons since ammo for those aren’t that abundant. In the end, you will feel that you have really gone into that messed up space station and got involved with lots of scary horrors and end up trying to get out of it by doing lots of missions that involve you going into the scariest parts of the station to fix, get, replace items that will help you in leaving such place.

After that, I managed to get Red Alert 3 (normal edition) and started with the Campaign. Finished the Soviet side story and am going through the Allies side. What can I say, corny story, cheesy dialogue and accents and the shortage of clothes on the females during a world war era. Then again, Red Alert 3 was never meant to be serious. The missions themselves are fun as long as you crank the difficulty to Hard since medium with a Co-Commander is quite easy. Switching to hard makes it even hard for your Co-Commander as well (Human or AI). Oh and if you have been wondering what i mean by Co-Commander, it is the other team that is helping you get through the campaign. It can be a human player or the AI based on what you select before you start the mission.

The main Red Alert 3 game is fun both in single player and multiplayer modes. Though the recently released expansion, Red Alert 3 Uprising, is lacking at best since it only includes single player missions and nothing new added to the multiplayer. Based on various reviews, I decided to skip it.

I think I have written enough for now but be sure that I will be do more follow ups more frequently so stay tuned.

Well, for a while there wasn’t. Been so busy with lots of stuff; study, work, family, leave, WoW!… and other stuff that pop up when you least expect them.
Well, lets kick off with some news related to WoW. Patch 3.0.8 has kicked in with lots of bugs and issues. An emergency maintenance has been made and hope to sort things out.

As for other games, well, I still have to finish Dead Space which is until now the scariest game I ever played. I suggest you try it out too. It is available on PC, Xbox360 and PS3. Hanging on the shelve are Fall Out 3, Prince of Persia (4!), Far Cry 2 and GTA4. I still need to go out and grab Red Alert 3 (An expansion has been announced already!). They are all not only great games, but very very good ones that will get you hooked. Though with so many great games coming out very soon, you can’t imagine but ask yourself how will you find the time to play them all.

Oh and regarding the cable cut, it seems it has been restored to about 80% of its previous performance. Expect full recovery with time. Some of you won’t notice it and will start saying that it has fully recovered, which it didn’t.

Last but not least, I picked up some nice post and articles for your enjoyment:

• PC 2009 Preview: What can we expect in 2009. Weird that there is no mention of Duke Nukem Forever!
• 4870 X2 Price Cut: Yay! Though I am still skeptical about to GPUs running on one board in some sort of SLi/Xfire mode.
• Street Fighter 4 Hands On: The fighting game that the world is waiting for.
• Weak Economy = Cheap Games? Read on and see if it is possible.

Well folks, I am on leave and thought to put something for you to read on until it is over. Will try to update more frequently whenever I can.

Be happy that it wasn’t a total black out!

BBC News has the full story.

Oh and that also means NO WoW!!!

Since they are fairly new, don’t expect a lot but you can be sure to find the latest games at prices that are far cheaper than the rip-off prices of Al-Emad (25 RO for Wrath of the Lich King anyone!) and I hope they don’t get Omanized when it comes to prices and stick closer to the UAE prices which are still expensive but nowhere near as Al-Emad outrageous prices.

The store still lacks a lot of hardware and currently have a few shelves with new games. Hopefully that will improve and will get better. They are already beating Al-Emad when it comes to pricing (18 RO for Wotlk!) and maybe that will pressure Al-Emad to use proper pricing this time since this will create competition.

You can call Oman Geekay at +968 24470498 and +0968 24470499. Their email is gkoman@geekaygames.ae.

You might be wondering about what is special about this. It is just a mount, but as many WoW players know, this is THE mount that rules them all. It is almost impossible to get and only a mere fraction of players have it. Though it is your chance (and mine) to get one. Blizzcore is a new WoW site and they are starting it with a bang by offer people a chance to win the mount simply by making a comment on their website regarding this topic.

So what are you waiting for, go go go.

Note: As of writing, 1500+ comments have been made and this is running for 2 weeks but still, 0.0001% of a chance is good than 0%.

Yep, I couldn’t help it. WoW is great fun and even though many hate it for being an addictive game, for whatever reason, it is just that good that I went back. Lots have changed since I left back in March 2008 which is when patch 2.4 was released with new content on the Island of Qual’Thalas that brought the Scryers and Aldor together against the forces of Kael’Thas who is planning to bring Kil’Jaeden back in the new and tough raid instance: The Sunwell. In addition of lots of new dailies (almost all daily quests are on that island) and badge gear, lots to keep people busy. Oh and lets not forget the cool new 5 man instance: The magisters Terrace.

Now that I am back, post patch 3.0.2, lots have changed and have been added since 2.4. Mainly in preparation of the second expansion pack: Wrath of the Lich king. Talents have been changed a lot, lots of class changes, the new inscription profession, the cool achievements system and huge raid encounter nerfs (Reported by many as 30% reduction from mobs to bosses) are just some of the main highlights of the patch. You can check the patch notes for further details. Also because of WotLK release date is nearing, you will find Argent Dawn officers around the cities asking for help to kill the undead showing up because of the Scourge invasion. There are cool rewards that you can find there so easily that can compete against Tier 5 items but as of writing, the invasion has stopped and only the vendors are still around.

The best thing is, everywhere you go in Azeroth or Outland, you will find huge amounts of activity going on. Mainly because people are trying to earn achievements or leveling their alts. I also started to level two new alts as well on separate accounts and using dual boxing to level them. Dual boxing is simply controlling two or more WoW characters at the same time on one or more machines. For me am using the same PC but having two windows open. The idea is that both characters level at the same time and help each other quickly to finish quests.

As for my main who is a Warlock, he is trying to finish any remaining quests in Outland and get exalted with remaining factions before the expansion arrives.

One big change I noticed is how much the latency has improved since early this year. Currently the ping stays in the range of 200-400 ms which is damn playable compared to the disaster that was before in the ranges of 600-1000+ ms. Also, a nice graphical update has been done to the game as some cool lighting and shadow effects have been added. It would be nice if Blizzard adds more shaders to the game to make it shinier at least.

Will keep you posted on new stuff as they arrive with my progress as time goes.