News Game

God of War Origins Review

2011-08-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

Sony repurposes Kratos' PSP adventures. Praise Zeus.

Look up "dumb character" in the fictional dictionary, and you'll find a photo of Kratos. He screams everything he says, he disembowels everyone he meets, and he can't muster a smile to save his life. I find him about as deep as a puddle, and as an admitted "story whore," the fact that I enjoyed playing as the big idiot in God of War Origins surprised me.

Spoiler Alert: you don't need me to tell you God of War Origins rocks. A bundle of two PSP God of War games that each scored around the IGN 9.5 mark, Origins ports Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta into high definition, adds 3D, and slathers on PlayStation Network Trophies. Sony succeeded in making good games better.

In 2005, Kratos and PlayStation became synonymous. The original God of War introduced quicktime events, the Blades of Chaos, and insane finishing moves. Every iteration of the franchise pushed the limits a little bit further -- that includes these two titles. God of War: Chains of Olympus acts as a prequel to the original game,casting the protagonist as a servant to the Greek gods. Kratos deals with a Persian invasion and things go from bad to worse when the sun disappears. God of War: Ghost of Sparta fits in between God of War and God of War II. A vision invades Kratos' brain, and he sets off to find his brother

Some love the God of War story and swear by it. I say it doesn't really matter. I constantly forget what ancient Al or Annie I'm chasing and where it all fits into Greek mythology. The bottom line: the fun factor of the gameplay outweighs the convoluted story.

I tried every God of War game upon release but only finished God of War III. I found Kratos so polarizing that I couldn't get into his adventures. I figured I didn't have enough testosterone to appreciate his exploits and put the controller down time after time to try something else. But settling into review God of War Origins, it all clicked. I wanted to bash enemies' heads in, snag lots of orbs, and collect things. God of War Origins excels at all of that. With the other games, I tripped up by looking for an engaging story when I should've seen the engaging gameplay.

Hopefully, you don't need a blow by blow on what makes up God of War gameplay -- and if you do, check out the original Chains of Olympus review and Ghost of Sparta review. Two blades attached to chains wrap around Kratos' arms, and the player uses heavy and light attacks to dish out damage. From there, you unlock magic, weapons, upgrades and moves. While simple, the satisfaction in discovering a boss' pattern or perfectly dodging an enemy attack to unleash a killing blow curls my toes. And I can jump in and out of when I feel like it.

God of War Origins also offers a rare opportunity in the video game industry -- a time lapse of a developer coming into its own. Playing the two portable Kratos games back to back, I saw the studio learn and grow before my eyes. Both of these games looked good on the PSP, but Chains of Olympus occasionally looks simple and stiff on a massive flat-screen TV. However, Ghost of Sparta pops with detail, cinematic cuts and character. I didn't understand why I couldn't slide down walls in Chains of Olympus and -- bam -- I can do it Ghost of Sparta. Quicktime prompts show up in the middle of the screen in Chains but on the sides in Ghost. Putting the games back-to-back shows how much Ready at Dawn put into them.

While I wish I could quit one game and go to an Origins main menu rather than quitting back to the XMB, that small quibble rounds out my complaint list. Bonus material such as costumes, documentaries and the challenge rooms made the jump to Origins. The game pauses here or there as a big event queues, but Chains and Ghost run extremely well. The adjustable 3D looks very good for wide shots but gets too crazy for up close attacks. Sometimes the fixed camera makes fights harder for no reason, but that's a God of War trademark.

Closing Comments
God of War Origins collects two of the best PSP games and gives them all the PS3 treatment -- HD visuals, 3D options, Trophies and DualShock controls. It also acts as a time lapse experiment for players to get a really good look at how a developer evolves from one game to another. If you haven't played these titles before -- and even if you have -- recommending God of War Origins is easy.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

2011-08-29T21:51:00.000-07:00

In the battle between terrorists and counterterrorists, no matter who wins, we also win in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Since its initial release as a humble mod roughly 13 years ago, Counter-Strike has grown into a first-person shooter icon built on quick matches and hair-trigger reflexes. At this year's Penny Arcade Expo we got the chance to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the latest chapter in the ongoing struggle between terrorists and counterterrorists. The game is being developed by Hidden Path Entertainment, which codeveloped Counter-Strike: Source and runs on an updated version of the Source engine. The result is a crisp and smooth FPS that's every bit as frantic as we remember it.

During our hands-on time with the game we made sure to sample the three new pieces of gear that were on display: the Molotov cocktail, the decoy grenade, and the Taser gun.

Just like its many other video game incarnations, the Molotov cocktail laid down a bed of flames that would gradually damage those who dared to pass through. While we were limited to one per round, we found that the Molotov was great for cutting off key areas of the map. Setting one hallway ablaze meant our opponents had to either wait the fire out--which lasted about five seconds--or funnel into the obvious alternative path. And if we were feeling extra devious we could drop it near the bomb site and make the counterterrorists' job that much harder.

Next up was the decoy grenade. When thrown, it placed a marker on the enemy's radar (falsely) indicating that someone was firing a gun. To help maintain the illusion, the grenade also emitted gunshot noises depending on what weapon we were carrying. After roughly 10 seconds, it would explode. Our trick when using this item was to catch the enemies' attention, duck behind cover, and drop the grenade at our feet. By the time our foes realized the ruse, we had already rolled up behind them for a sneak attack.

Finally, there was the Zeus x27 Taser gun. This weapon could be fired only once before being automatically dropped and could kill any enemy in a single hit. It also required that we get pretty close to our target, almost within knife range. New additions aside, CS:GO felt every bit as intense as its predecessors. After being spoiled by years of cover mechanics and regenerating health, we found our character's vulnerability jarring. However, after a few rounds, we settled back into the series' iconic, white-knuckle tension. From the heavy boom of an AWP to the bark of "Counterterrorist win," the game felt like classic Counter-Strike at its core.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will be released on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Mac sometime next year. In the meantime, PC players will have the chance to get their hands on the game early with a beta for the game starting in October. For more information on CS:GO, be sure to check out our interview with Valve's Chet Faliszek, including details on cross-platform multiplayer between the PC, Mac, and PlayStation 3.

Xenoblade Review

2011-08-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

Xenoblade Chronicles is a sublime, wonderfully paced game that both refines and modernises the Japanese role-playing game.
The Good

    Excellent sense of pacing
    Combat is fantastic, in-depth, and fun
    Locations are vast and beautiful
    Huge game with loads of interesting things to do
    Thoroughly modernises the genre while respecting tradition.

The Bad

Occasionally difficult to find where to go.

UK REVIEW--It begins with an epic battle, a clash of titans in a world without time or form. The scale, the scope, and the vast expanse of the gameworld are established in this moment. The two giants collide, swords clashing in the misty gulf of the universe, and developer Monolith Soft makes it very clear that you're about to embark on something special. Much like the thundering behemoths that mark the game's opening, Xenoblade Chronicles is groundbreaking. It's a true evolution of the Japanese role-playing game, shedding the restraints that have caused the genre to stagnate, while retaining the tropes that made it popular in the first place. It's fast-paced yet in-depth, challenging without being punishing, and features a combat system that draws on the best parts of the RPG world, both Eastern and Western. It's remarkable to think that this understated release--which sadly hasn't even been confirmed for North American territories--might justifiably be hailed by many as one of the most important JRPGs in years.

In the millennia since the titans--Bionis and Mechonis--faced off against one another, their corpses have become entire worlds, populated by a variety of races and species. The game proper opens onto conflict. Colony 9, home to the main protagonist, Shulk, sits at the base of the Bionis' leg. The soldiers of Colony 9 are facing off against spindly mechanical foes--Mechons--in the crumbling, ruinous battlegrounds situated on one of the giant's thighs. The opening battle serves as a brief tutorial featuring party member Dunban, and then you're catapulted one year into the future where peace has settled once more. Shulk and his friends Reyn and Fiora have managed to rebuild their lives in the wake of the Mechon attack. Naturally, the peace is soon shattered, and the Mechons return. Xenoblade does a fantastic job of easing you into the story, encouraging you to explore the expansive Colony 9 and come to the aid of its residents before launching into the tale proper. It's an example of the superb pacing which is prevalent throughout the game.

While Xenoblade Chronicles has numerous areas in which it shines, its combat is paramount to the overall experience. Action takes place in real time, with enemies immediately visible in the field. Some enemies are aggressive, others passive, enabling you to pick your fights wisely. In the beginning, fighting involves choosing one of a series of attacks. Rather than simply requiring you to choose a command then sit back and watch, each attack has certain criteria that can be met to power it up or achieve a status effect. Attacking from behind with certain abilities causes extra damage, while attacking from the side with another can lower physical defence. This system adds a hands-on, real-time element to the combat that--while menu-based--is immediately accessible.

Each chunky, colourful command button features a text description. Then there are the character-specific moves, the chain attacks in which you can link moves between all three active characters, and the enemies that require specific means of defeat, and that's just to begin with. It's a complex and rewarding system that makes getting into fights a joy. And though the battle system is deep, it's remarkable just how well developer Monolith Soft has tailored it for accessibility. New combat abilities and tactical approaches are gradually introduced throughout the course of the game. Not once is the gameplay overwhelming; the pacing is sublime, and the tutorials are brief but descriptive. It functions on the ethos of "learning by doing," and in this area alone Xenoblade Chronicles outshines the majority of its genre stablemates.
The focus on accessibility extends to more than just the battle mechanics. The world of Xenoblade Chronicles, the land that's sprouted up on the corpse of a giant, is vast and beautiful. Expansive plains stretch across ancient thigh muscle; waterfalls tumble from naturally formed cliffs. Swamps are moodily drenched in shimmering purple mist, and colourful forests populate the Bionis' chest. The sheer scale of each area is a sight to behold. Traveling around the Bionis could have been a pain, particularly as you frequently want to return to older areas or head to the other side of a huge map. Thankfully there's a fantastic fast travel function that lets you return to any previously visited landmark. There are often up to five or six landmarks within a given area, so when it comes to backtracking you're never required to spend time walking around pointlessly to get where you're going. And with so many interesting things to discover and so much going on, revisiting areas is an appealing concept.

Xenoblade Chronicles' vast array of side quests range from the simple--killing X number of enemies--to the complicated, such as performing a series of tasks to rebuild an entire colony. These side quests are varied and provide insights into the lives of the other characters, with entire subplots strung out over seemingly minor questlines. Unlike in the majority of RPGs, most of Xenoblade's side quests don't require you to return to the quest giver upon completion. For the most part you can stack up on fetch/kill quests, and then as soon as you complete them in the field, you reap the rewards. It's an elegant system which negates the need to traipse around looking for the correct non-player character. On top of this, the day/night cycle that affects which NPCs are present can be manually changed, with an in-game clock allowing you to set the time of day.

Spider-Man Edge of Time Video Game Preview

2011-08-24T21:33:00.001-07:00

Spider-Man: Edge of Time follows the present-day Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 in their efforts to prevent a catastrophic event from taking place, the death of the Amazing Spider-Man. The story starts out in the future as Miguel O'Hara (Spider-Man 2099) works at Alchemax. Walker Sloan, a rival scientist who works in the temporal physics lab, has decided to go back in time and remake Alchemax in his own image, decades before it was originally founded. He eliminates Stark Enterprises, Fujikawa and all other competitors. This creates a new, alternate timeline. In Miguel's attempt to stop Sloan, he becomes caught between the two timelines and the world changes around him. He's spit back out into the revised future as the only one outside of Walker Sloan with the knowledge that the timeline has been altered.

The game is written by Peter David. Walker Sloan is the first character he's created for the 2099 timeline in 15 years. According to Activision, there will be cameos of characters from both time lines, as well as other new characters created specifically for the game. Josh Keaton voices the Amazing Spider-Man and Christopher Daniel Barnes voices Spider-Man 2099 in Edge of Time.

The game starts in the "Amazing" timeline. O'Hara must contact Peter Parker, who us quite content and doesn't believe this isn't the life he should be living. The two form an adversarial relationship at the start when Miguel contacts Peter across time to tell him that everything he knows is wrong. According to Activision, as they work through the challenges of the game together, they eventually build a strong friendship.

Picture-in-picture is used to show the two Spider-Men communicating with each other. Instead of a classic level set up, the PiP is used to switch between the two time lines. Equal time is given to both Spider-Men in their time lines. Spider-Man 2099 will have to react to changes in environment. Pathways will open and enemies will appear and disappear as Amazing Spider-Man acts in his timeline.

The two Spider-Men share the same core combat system, with slight differentiation. Amazing Spider-Man is more acrobatic, with ranged web attacks. He has a new ability called, Hyper-Sense, which is a half offensive and half defensive move. It taps into Spider-Man's spider sense to auto-dodge and avoid obstacles. During the course of game play you can upgrade your Hyper-Sense and use it for longer periods of time.

Spider-Man 2099 has a slightly different combat style. Because he's faster and has talons, he engages in melee combat and uses swipe attacks. His signature move is called, "Accelerated Decoy". He has accelerated vision, which allows him to see the environment faster. You can use it to shoot decoy versions of yourself across the screen to either distract enemies or as a offensive move. The two characters have a shared move called, "Time Paradox" and it can be used to freeze enemies in time.

In continuing the level we discover Spider-Man's foe will be Anti-venom, who is being controlled by one of Walker Sloan's chips. If Parker does not fight him, the building will explode and kill people for blocks around. Miguel's attempts to convince Peter to avoid the upcoming fight fall on deaf ears. As you fight in the "Amazing" timeline, it can have an immediate effect on Miguel's time. An explosion coursing through present-day Alchemax destroys atomic regulators in the building. Those explosions cause radiation to leak in 2099 timeline, slowly killing Miguel. Spider-Man must race against time to stop Miguel's death from occurring.

In Anti-Venom boss fight, Eddie Brock attempts to fight against the influence of the control chip embedded in his brain. Walker Sloan sends more power through the chip to set off his more bestial side. During the course of the fight, hits from Anti-Venom drain Parker of his powers and he has to dig deep into his arsenal to take his foe down.

According to Activision, you'll be able to beat it in one very long sitting if you want to. Check-points will save your progress. A mini-challenge system is built into the game. You're prompted to engage in these challenges during game play and can go back to retry the challenges at any time. Giant spheres and golden spiders hidden across the levels will allow you to unlock health and shield upgrades, You'll also be able to unlock bonus Spider-Man suits.

With Beenox as the studio behind Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time, we wanted to know the what differences fans could expect from this latest entry. Activision said the pacing would be different, as well as the types of enemies you'll encounter. People will be familiar enough with the controls that they can jump right in. They felt Beenox honed what they learned from Shattered Dimensions.

The game will also be released to the 3DS. It will essentially be the same game, with the Picture-In-Picture elements taking place across both screens and some touch screen functionality to compensate for the fewer buttons available on the 3DS.

Spider-Man: Edge of Time will be released to the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, 3DS and DS this fall.

Eileen Cruz
Writer for toonzone.net
Eileen_Cruz

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review

2011-08-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

A weapon of choice.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in a future you can see from here through half-lidded eyes. The world of Human Revolution meets somewhere between Blade Runner and Robocop - caught between the utopia of revolutionary scientific discovery and the dystopia of the people inevitably left behind. Protagonist Adam Jensen becomes swept up in a globe-spanning conspiracy hinging on powerful - and dangerous - augmentation technology. Adam's employers sit on the cusp of a breakthrough that might fully "unlock" human potential, courtesy of a love interest from his past, Megan Reed. But before you can say "Alex Murphy," Reed is dead, and Jensen lays mortally wounded on an operating table, receiving an involuntarily hands - and legs, and lungs, and eyes - on crash course in humanity's future in the post-human era.

The majority of Human Revolution involves Jensen's quest to unravel that conspiracy through missions spinning off of main city hubs all over the world. While each hub has a central plot thread carrying through Jensen's investigation, side missions populate each locale. These aren't the maligned fetch-quests of other RPGs. Each mission has several layers to it, several angles to be explored or not, several perspectives to consider, and several possible outcomes that often tie into the greater mission at hand in unexpected ways. This creates a well-realized sense of choice and consequence throughout Human Revolution.

The most obvious choices you'll make involve your augmentations. As you play, you'll earn Praxis points, which allow you to unlock and upgrade new abilities. Augmentations are responsible for the biggest differences in moment-to-moment play between one player and another - the wide variety of abilities force you to pick and choose what you want to do. Do you want to hack terminals and discover the hidden secrets of some random guy's apartment? Then you might not be upgrading your sight to see through walls, or jumping ten feet straight up, any time soon.

Eidos Montreal's prequel quickly establishes what the world of Human Revolution allows. There's a vocabulary of play that you'll learn quickly, and once you speak Human Revolution's language, if you can think of a solution, it's probably an option. There's room for stealth, there's room for guns blazing, and there's plenty of middle ground too.

I never felt like the game punished me for particular choices in augmentation, or in my play style. There were advantages and disadvantages to my selections, but I was always given avenues to success - and I always, always felt like a badass. Eidos Montral brilliantly coaxes players into a space where experimentation is comfortable. It's fun to feel like you're outsmarting a game's rules. But Human Revolution provides a particular kind of satisfaction as it rewards you for it. Human Revolution incentivizes everything, as everything you do yields a reward, more or less. Whether that means playing the part of cold cyborg or tortured, empathetic ex-cop, or choosing between stealth and direct action, your choices define your experience.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review

2011-08-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

A weapon of choice.

The hype machine behind big games often mirrors the precarious Icarus myth - fly too close to the sun, promise too much, and you're just as likely to tumble out of the sky as deliver on your potential. Eidos Montreal have promised so much with Deus Ex: Human Revolution that it's hard to see how they could succeed, how they couldn't burn up in the harsh heat of audience expectation - of the potential assigned to a predecessor now more than a decade past. That heat already turned on one Deus Ex sequel, scourging it beyond all rhyme or reason. Playing the part of a better Daedalus, Eidos Montreal has given Human Revolution the wings to fly true - with just a few scorch marks to show for it.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in a future you can see from here through half-lidded eyes. The world of Human Revolution meets somewhere between Blade Runner and Robocop - caught between the utopia of revolutionary scientific discovery and the dystopia of the people inevitably left behind. Protagonist Adam Jensen becomes swept up in a globe-spanning conspiracy hinging on powerful - and dangerous - augmentation technology. Adam's employers sit on the cusp of a breakthrough that might fully "unlock" human potential, courtesy of a love interest from his past, Megan Reed. But before you can say "Alex Murphy," Reed is dead, and Jensen lays mortally wounded on an operating table, receiving an involuntarily hands - and legs, and lungs, and eyes - on crash course in humanity's future in the post-human era.

The majority of Human Revolution involves Jensen's quest to unravel that conspiracy through missions spinning off of main city hubs all over the world. While each hub has a central plot thread carrying through Jensen's investigation, side missions populate each locale. These aren't the maligned fetch-quests of other RPGs. Each mission has several layers to it, several angles to be explored or not, several perspectives to consider, and several possible outcomes that often tie into the greater mission at hand in unexpected ways. This creates a well-realized sense of choice and consequence throughout Human Revolution.

The most obvious choices you'll make involve your augmentations. As you play, you'll earn Praxis points, which allow you to unlock and upgrade new abilities. Augmentations are responsible for the biggest differences in moment-to-moment play between one player and another - the wide variety of abilities force you to pick and choose what you want to do. Do you want to hack terminals and discover the hidden secrets of some random guy's apartment? Then you might not be upgrading your sight to see through walls, or jumping ten feet straight up, any time soon.

Eidos Montreal's prequel quickly establishes what the world of Human Revolution allows. There's a vocabulary of play that you'll learn quickly, and once you speak Human Revolution's language, if you can think of a solution, it's probably an option. There's room for stealth, there's room for guns blazing, and there's plenty of middle ground too.

I never felt like the game punished me for particular choices in augmentation, or in my play style. There were advantages and disadvantages to my selections, but I was always given avenues to success - and I always, always felt like a badass. Eidos Montral brilliantly coaxes players into a space where experimentation is comfortable. It's fun to feel like you're outsmarting a game's rules. But Human Revolution provides a particular kind of satisfaction as it rewards you for it. Human Revolution incentivizes everything, as everything you do yields a reward, more or less. Whether that means playing the part of cold cyborg or tortured, empathetic ex-cop, or choosing between stealth and direct action, your choices define your experience.

Pirates of Black Cove Review

2011-08-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

IGN.com>
Set sail for woe and disappointment.

There's a fine line between campy and crappy. The way Pirates of Black Cove's lighthearted "Yaaaarrr"-heavy humor waffles back and forth from amusing to cringe-worthy is forgivable, but a strong personality doesn't save this sinking ship of a game from its numerous shortcomings. Sluggish high seas adventure and dull, simplistic gameplay detract from an otherwise charming presentation that struggles to stay afloat under its own awkward girth. Simply put: plundering loot across the beautifully shimmering waters of Black Cove should be a lot more fun than it is.

With a choice of three over-the-top piratical protagonists, overthrowing your ship's captain to set out for a life of piracy gets things off to good start. Plunked down in the middle of the ocean's island-pocked map, you sail to-and-fro, taking on missions on sea and land for the game's three pirate factions. There's lots of booty to pursue, tasks to tackle, villages to pillage, and places to explore. It's an exciting prospect, except the scope of the gameplay is far more limited than it first appears, making the repetition that quickly sets in even more disappointing.

Exploring the tropical island waters offers some gorgeous sightseeing opportunities as you pass by lush islands and gaze deep into the blue depths. Sadly, that's all you can do at times, since getting where you need to go is a painfully slow process. Even at top speed, it can take minutes of straight sailing to travel between mission hotspots. Waylaying passing vessels – a prime pirate pursuit – only offers a meager amount of amusement too. Ship-to-ship combat boils down to you and your adversary circling around one another and exchanging cannon fire until your foe hits the sea floor. Most enemy vessels are too easy to beat, and the repetitive ocean battles lack much punch.

The going doesn't get any better on land. A large number of Black Cove's missions send your small band of no-goodnicks on island assaults to destroy specific buildings, capture key characters, and cause mayhem. These plodding affairs play out in a very similar fashion each time. Starting from the beachhead, you'll send your main hero and any accompanying rabble you've hired on a slow trek inland. Though there are small pockets of opposition along the way, in almost every case I plowed through them with relative ease, reached my objective marker, and battled my way back to the shore. Moving around is slow and tedious, and the trek back to your ship after the mission is done is a real slog.

Any traditional real-time strategy elements found in these encounters are sparse at best. Most island battles are overcome by selecting all of your troops and hurling them at a particular foe until it's mauled, and trying to do much else hinders your effectiveness in combat. Instead of being able to select and manage individual units, you can only direct particular groupings of units. And the limited unit types (minor variations on melee, ranged, heavy artillery) don't add much to the gameplay. There's surprisingly little room for strategic variation or direction, which feels like a real misstep in a RTS title.

A smattering of light RPG elements pop-up subtly throughout the game. Completing missions gains you favor with pirate factions, opening up new tasks to tackle, and you'll also earn experience, letting you pick a new ability for your smarmy hero every few levels. These minor nuances add a little extra flavor and purpose to the repetitive task of plodding back and forth across the same islands. You can also unlock a few structures on each pirate factions base area for producing new units, and some buildings allow item crafting when you've foraged the right components.

Closing Comments

Aside from its uninspired combat and limited scope, Pirates of Black Cove is an endearing game at times. I wanted to love it, and kept diving back in hoping that something would click. It didn’t. The hokey character dialogue and D-list voice acting grew on me, and the vibrant vistas in the sprawling world map’s oceanic terrain are beautiful. It’s too bad so many other areas of the game sputter and flop like a beached whale. This pirating RTS adventure hints at depth and promise but just doesn’t deliver.
IGN Ratings for Pirates of Black Cove (PC)

Dead Island Game Review

2011-08-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

Dead Island is a highly anticipated zombie game being developed and released by Techland for the Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3. It's an open-ended game dedicated to zombie survival. The overall game utilizes a first-person perspective however, the designers are declaring that the overall game shouldn't be labeled an initial-person shooter because of a larger focus on melee combat and ammunition conservation, as opposed to the usual blast everything in sight shooter game.

Dead Island has the possibility to emerge as the next zombie gaming hit. Similar to how horror B-movies bloating the movie industry, there is no shortage of game titles featuring the undead. Why is Dead Island game exciting however, would be that the developer is getting gamers to an interesting game world dominated by flesh-craving zombies in ways we've not really seen in a game before.

Although sometimes compared to Dead Rising, it is really a much deeper game than that. Involving gamers inside a tropical paradise plagued with the undead, Dead Island combines aspects of other zombie and action games in to the experience in a seamless way.

It even utilizes similar options from games like Killzone -- in-between slaughtering zombie hordes with solid instruments and sharp objects -- you are constantly hunting your environment for supplies essential for your lifeline, including matches to money. The different options can consume hours just searching through abandoned luggage and hotel cabinets.

Looking for equipment may not always seem as an exciting feature in a game title where your primary objective would be to kill zombies, but this really is just an example of how Dead Island's gameplay pushes player movement and creativity.

Still, going through the game's amazing graphics is unquestionably tempting; because the moment the overall game starts the player will find themselves encircled by tropical greenery and beaches with amazing water clarity. It is a vivid contrast towards the gruesome undead occupants from the island, whose decaying flesh is displayed in nasty graphical detail.

Among the figures or hero is Xian Mei a worker in the Royal Palm Resort, born and raised in China. She appears just like a weak character in the beginning, but in the right player's hands, she can be a zombie killing machine.

Rather than carrying out a typical script or story, Dead Island game originates mainly with various quests that you are able to accept. Compared to other open-world games that tend to force you into situations or quests, Dead Island feels natural. There's also a lot more to Dead Island's missions than going from one location to another so never underestimate a simple quest. It could turn out to be much more complicated than you realize.

While you will find couple of rough spots within the gameplay of Dead Island like a few graphical glitches, this open-world zombie game is looking to being a must-own for zombie buffs and fans of action games.

Michael_V_Allen

Toy Soldiers: Cold War Review

2011-08-16T10:01:00.000-07:00

Toy Soldiers: Cold War is an action-packed tower defense game that improves upon its predecessor at almost every opportunity.

The Good

    Loads of replay value
    Good number of competitive and cooperative options for two players
    Barrage abilities are a great addition
    Makes numerous improvements and tweaks to the Toy Soldiers formula.

The Bad

    Frame rate can't always keep up with the action
    Versus mode leaderboards are easy to game.

History tells us that in the 40-plus years of the Cold War, forces from the United States and Soviet Union never actually faced each other in a major battle. The story is very different in the Toy Soldiers universe, though, where the opposing superpowers go head-to-head on battlefield dioramas across the world. Like its predecessor, Toy Soldiers: Cold War is a tower defense game in which quick reflexes are often as important as strategic thinking. You defend your toy box base not only by setting up gun emplacements, but also by manning said emplacements and, where they're available, taking direct control of vehicles and commando units that are powerful enough to turn the tide of a battle. Commando action figures are a great addition to the original Toy Soldiers formula, and Cold War makes plenty of smart improvements elsewhere as well; new kill combos offer significant gameplay rewards, minigames let you hone important skills outside of battle, a new rewind feature lets you correct costly mistakes during campaign missions, and cooperative play (online or split-screen) is now an option in both the Campaign and Survival modes. You get a formidable arsenal of toys to play with for your 1200 Microsoft points, and you won't want to put them away until long after you've ensured victory for the US.

Where the original Toy Soldiers campaign afforded you an opportunity to play through World War I from the perspectives of both the Allies and the Central Powers, in Cold War you play only as the US. The 11 missions typically take 20 to 30 minutes each to play through, but that certainly doesn't mean that you can expect to be done with the game in five hours. For starters, you're unlikely to beat all of the missions on your first attempt; the default difficulty setting isn't overly challenging, but you unlock new turrets and vehicles (and face new enemies) as you progress, and it can take a while to figure out their respective strengths and weaknesses. You're also likely to play through missions more than once, and not only because you want to improve your scores on the leaderboards.

When you finish a level, you're awarded medals based on how many enemies made it past your defenses, how much money you finished the level with, and how much time you saved by manually triggering enemy waves prematurely. Score three gold medals, and you earn yourself a platinum grade, which is no mean feat. Furthermore, there are two decorations to unlock in each level that encourage you to mix up your play style. You might be required to destroy fast-moving ATVs using artillery, kill 100 units while using a helicopter's night vision, or torch infantry by dropping napalm on them from your F-14 Tomcat. Replaying levels in Cold War is never dull because there are so many different ways to approach them. There are also five difficulty levels to choose from, which, in addition to the requisite easy, normal, and hard settings, include two that change the gameplay significantly. Elite mode, which is carried over from the first game, prevents your defensive emplacements from firing automatically, so the game almost turns into a turret-based shooter. The new General mode does the opposite: emplacements can't be commandeered, so after positioning them on the map, you're at the mercy of the mostly smart AI soldiers that are manning them. Both are a lot of fun and pose a significant challenge.

Regardless of which difficulty level you choose, your goal in Cold War is always the same: to prevent enemy units that attack in distinct waves from reaching your toy box. You do this by building defensive emplacements in predetermined locations that come in two sizes. Small build points can only accommodate machine guns, antitank guns, mortars, and "makeshift" weapons that include flamethrowers fashioned from upturned aerosol cans and the like. Large build points can also accommodate heavy artillery and antiair guns. All of these defenses and their respective upgrades cost money, and the only way to earn money is to kill enemies. At all times you can see which units the next couple of enemy waves are going to be composed of, so the challenge is to prepare for impending threats while dealing with current ones. Build too many machine guns when confronted by a massive wave of infantry, and you might struggle to deal with the tanks that arrive 30 seconds later. Place powerful artillery cannons on both of your large build points to combat enemy tanks, and the next wave's aircraft are going to fly into your toy box largely unchallenged. You always have the option to sell off emplacements that are no longer useful, but you get back only a fraction of the money that you spent building and upgrading them.

Upgrades are interesting in Toy Soldiers: Cold War because while they invariably make your defenses more powerful, they don't always make them better for your current situation. For example, when you upgrade a level 1 antitank gun to level 2, its rate of fire increases dramatically, but when you man the gun yourself, you no longer have the option to take control of the projectiles and steer them around obstacles toward targets. And when you upgrade a level 1 antiair gun, its rate of fire decreases but it gains the ability to lock onto targets, which is vital when you're being attacked by speedy MiG fighters but might not be up to the task if you have an armada of Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships hovering above. Less-than-ideal emplacements can be made to work if you man them yourself (your AI soldiers let enemies get relatively close before attacking and certainly aren't creative enough to, say, use antitank rounds against a helicopter), but there's only so much that you can do manning one turret on a battlefield, and while you're focusing on that, you're not managing upgrades and repairs elsewhere.

There's very little downtime during battles, and what's great is that even at times when you could conceivably catch your breath and let your turrets do the work, you're encouraged to get involved. Destroy an enemy unit with a manually guided projectile at high speed, and you can earn extra money in the form of a "thrill ride" bonus, and if you manage to string together a combo of at least 40 kills or take down an enemy with a red star icon above it, you gain access to a randomly selected "barrage" ability.

Marvel Teases Return of Fantastic Four

2011-08-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

Marvel unveiled its latest teaser this morning, hinting at the return of a team that only disbanded a few months ago after the death of Johnny Storm, forming the Future Foundation. That's right, it looks like the Fantastic Four might be making their return.

Billed under Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting, the teaser shows the familiar Fantastic Four logo with only a date... November 2011. Does this signal the return of Human Torch, the end of the Future Foundation, or something else entirely? Speculate away.

Update #1: Marvel looks like they might be releasing a new teaser every day (as they love to do), and the latest seems to dispel the notion of Johnny Storm making his return. But the latest teaser raises a new question: if the team consists of Thing, Sue Storm, Reed Richards and Spider-Man, what happens to the rest of the Future Foundation? And why do they drop the name? Also, I guess it's safe to assume that The Thing makes his way out of Fear Itself relatively unscathed.

As someone in the comments pointed out, FF double ships in October, taking us to issue #11. Issue #12, if you were to go by original Fantastic Four numbering... is #600. This year also celebrates the Fantastic Four's 50th anniversary. Coincidence?

Update #2: Before you fire up the machines of hate after seeing the image below, consider this: this is a Joe Quesada image, and it resembles a wrap-around cover. Probably a variant cover, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the team. That's my best guess. Or perhaps the new Fantastic Four will run alongside FF, offering up adventures from the heyday of the team, similar to Captain America and Bucky?
Update #3: Alas, all of our speculation paid off today, as Marvel revealed the latest teaser (which appears to double as a cover by John Romita Jr.) that confirms Fantastic Four #600 is indeed coming in November. No hint at what will become of the FF series, however.

Update #4: Scratch that. Marvel's newest teaser confirms that FF will be sticking around past issue #11. The newly revealed art, as well as the solicit text, for FF #12 reads simply "It's not over." Hickman is listed as writer, while Juan Bobillo (She-Hulk) is the artist. The question now is whether both books will co-exist, or if Fantastic Four is only returning for the #600 issue. The former certainly looks to be the case given the cast shown for FF #12 below.

Final Fantasy XIII-2: What to Expect

2011-08-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

ign.com Director Motomu Toriyama speaks exclusively with IGN about how the new Final Fantasy game will make something good even better.
UK

The Final Fantasy series has some of the most devoted fans of any gaming franchise. Whether it's cosplayers dressing as their favourite characters or die-hards who collect every piece of merchandise going, people care about Final Fantasy. It's no surprise considering the love and emotion the development teams have poured into the games since the original Final Fantasy launched almost 25 years ago.

Fans are already juggling their Moogles in excitement over the prospect of the latest in the series, Final Fantasy XIII-2, so IGN spoke with director Motomu Toriyama to find out how the sequel is going to improve on the original in every way.

IGN: FFXIII-2 returns to the more open environment of Gran Pulse. Is that a way of addressing fan complaints about the linearity of FFXIII?

Motomu Toriyama: The development team are taking all the points of criticism levelled against the previous title very seriously and in FFXIII-2 we are aiming to respond as far as possible to what the players have told us. With regards to the expansive nature of the world map, we have not created it as a completely open-world style game but the gameplay will certainly not be linear this time round. We have changed the overall game design so that it allows the player to enjoy the freedom of searching and exploring the world, while still maintaining all the good points of the previous game's story driven play style.

IGN: Can you explain a little more about the Cinematic Action events during battles? What made you decide to introduce Quick-Time Events to combat?

Motomu Toriyama: One of the big concepts we are trying to implement this time round is making the gameplay and action very much player driven. To that end, the player will be able to interject with actions of their own in all the different scenes of the game. Cinematic actions are one aspect of this and have made it so that the player can get a stronger feeling of control and achievement, even in the visual effect scenes in battle that were previously just passive sequences. We are essentially aiming to increase the player's attachment to the character and the feeling that they are part of the action and not just watching.

IGN: Will the Monster Hunts from FFXIII be making a return in this sequel?

Motomu Toriyama: We have altered the overall design philosophy so that the player can enjoy monster hunting missions in Gran Pulse like the ones in the original from the very start of the game. The player will be able to experience many exciting missions and mini games in parallel to the main story scenario.

IGN: What's the thinking behind re-introducing random encounters in FFXIII-2 as opposed to the free-roaming enemies in XIII?

Motomu Toriyama: In the original the monsters were placed in the field for players to see and this led to a style of play that was very clinical and strategic, with the player being able to make preparations for every battle and calmly deal with things in order. We changed the lead up into battle for FFXIII-2 to make it so that the player will have a feeling of tension and anticipation from never knowing when an enemy might jump out and attack, and to emphasise a more active play style where the player will proactively move to attack enemies once they are discovered. Even though these are classic random encounters they are done using new visuals that are only possible on an HD console. There are also monsters that will appear in the field as well so you can think of these developments as having improved this area overall from the original.
IGN: Last year, it was said that enough art assets were cut from FFXIII to make an entire game. Is that the reason behind such a direct follow-up, or more a desire to explore the game world and the character of Lightning?

Motomu Toriyama: The art that we did not use in the original title were mainly world building resources and concept pieces as well as art that was rejected for not being up to standard and these pieces do not appear in FFXIII-2 at all. One of the largest reasons that we decided to make a sequel was very much the second thing that you mention - that we wanted to delve deeper into the characters of Lightning and her comrades and the world that we had built up in the original game and continue the story on to new levels. Another big point was that we also wanted to make a game that could fix the points that were criticised in the original and respond to players desires.

Spider-Man's Lizard Talks!

2011-08-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

ign.com. "I'd never want to get my first [erection] in that costume."

Rhys Ifans is finally talking about playing the Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man reboot, which is nice considering how little he had to say on the matter during the Hall H panel at Comic-Con. Of course, that might've been because Ifans had just been citizen-arrested or something right before the panel started.

Whatever the case, The Wrap is now reporting that the actor won't be charged in that incident. Which is perfect timing for damage control, with Ifans talking to Hero Complex today about the film. As always, watch out for spoilers.

"Curt Connors [a.k.a. the Lizard] is by no stretch an evil villain," says Ifans. "He's not like the Batman villains, like the Joker, who are the embodiment of evil. Curtis Connors is a great man who makes a bad decision. That's the whole magic of the Spider-Man idea. These people are the embodiment of our flaws and our desires that lead to tragedy. Curt Connors is a man with one arm and he wants to grow his arm back. He has access to a science that can enable that. But he has to make a moral decision, an ethical decision, to achieve that. In [the] story both he and Peter Parker are presented with these amazing abilities, and it's about this gift that life gives us. More than any other super-hero, Spider-Man presents us with something very local in its ethics. It's not messianic. It's far more tangible. He is ... a working-class hero."

He also says that director Marc Webb has brought back the "delicate, human domesticity" of Spider-Man with this film. A comparison to Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll is also made regarding the Lizard and Spidey.

"It's the human condition in flux -- in physical flux but in moral and emotional flux as well," he continues. "The teenage state, interestingly, is a state of flux too, it's riddled with hormones and change, and Spider-Man more than any other hero is a metaphor for puberty. I feel bad for him. I'd never want to get my first [erection] in that costume. But you have a hero and a villain in flux and not all of it is science fiction."

I hear that. Check out the full interview at Hero Complex.

Do Violent Games Desensitise Children to Violence?

2011-08-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

Over recent years there have been many arguments proposed by those who are not in favour of computer games or video games, or have concerns about either the amount of time spent playing such games, or the nature of the images and scenes watched by those playing them. One of the common arguments put forward is that computer and video games , through the nature of violence and graphic horror, are desensitizing children to violence and horror in the real world. There argument is that by watching vivid and repeated images on the screen of violence, aggression, killing and other physical attacking, the children or young people playing the games will start to accept this level of violence, or way of interacting with those around you, and in the real world, be more likely to be aggressive, or produce an aggressive or violent response to a given stimuli.

This argument, however popular it may be, is deeply flawed, and in truth holds no water at all. There have been many studies that have demonstrated that there has never been, and is not today, any measurable correlation between the amount of video gaming a person plays and any violent characteristics in the real world.

One explanation for why this may be the case can be found not in humans, but in a wide variety of other animals - in particular apes and other primates. These primates will frequently take part in what we call play fighting. To an outsider it can look and sound quite frightening, with expectations of blood, injury or even death. However, what the observer will also notice is that once the fight is over, both parties happily walk away completely uninjured and none the worse for wear. More than likely they'll be related or good friends within the family or group. This is quite different to genuine fighting, for perhaps defence against an intruding group, or a fight for leadership, when injuries might be suffered. These primates know the difference between play fighting and real fighting, and no matter how active it may appear, they both know and follow the rules of play fighting within that environment.

Children follow the same behavioural paths as primates, in as much as they know and understand the difference between fighting and aggression on screen, within a play environment, and such behaviour in the real world. In particular, primates and humans (some would argue that they're the same thing!) are very good at being able to catalogue and separate behaviours in this way, and that no matter how aggressive a child may be in game, they understand that it is just a game, and mentally apply a different set of rules.

This ability is almost certainly hereditary, since if our ancestors, primates, didn't have the ability to understand the difference between play fighting and real fighting, the chances that we would have evolved this far is somewhat unlikely.

Kyotokei Review

2011-08-12T03:25:00.000-07:00

ign.com. Maybe the closest thing we'll ever get to Ikaruga 2.

It's taken over eight years for it to happen, but somebody finally wised up and decided to bring Nintendo fans a successor to the sensational Ikaruga. GameCube owners remember that game well, as it was the boldest, most challenging, most innovative shooter ever released for the console – and served, for a time, as a Nintendo exclusive that loyal Big N followers could point to with pride.

IGN even offered the game its infamous box quote for its 2003 release – "Our frothing demand for this game increases." A brilliant bit of writing, no question.

It was one core mechanic that made Ikaruga so memorable, and that same core mechanic is copied now by Kyotokei – on-the-fly polarity switching. You control a character who can switch colors at will, from black to white and white to black, back and forth as many times as you like. When you're black, you can absorb black bullets from foes with no damage – but one touch of something white will kill you. When you're white, it's the reverse – white bullets are no worry, but black attacks will knock you out of the sky.

Kyotokei starts off slowly, allowing you to get the hang of the mechanic through its first few minutes. But then, quickly, all bullet hell breaks loose. The screen fills with shots of both shades, interwoven and mixed together in increasing complex patterns – navigating through these screen-covering sheets of imminent death tasks both your reflexes and your brain, as you have to both dodge the bullets and simultaneously pay attention to what color you're supposed to be dodging.

It's brutally difficult (in a good way), and just as fun today as it was years ago when Ikaruga first arrived. Kyotokei also goes the extra mile and offers three difficulty settings and two-player co-op play, which makes things even more hectic on-screen.

The art style isn't the greatest here, and I've got no good clue why they've decided to brand such a hardcore shooter with the image of a schoolgirl and some dude wearing an ascot – which is why I've been shamelessly tossing around the Ikaruga comparison so much, to hopefully help this title fight back against its own poor marketing. The game is also on the short side, with only five levels to fly through and conquer. (Though Ikaruga was short, too, and the difficulty level that'll send you back to the title screen more than once makes up for some of the lacking length.)

Closing Comments
Overall this is a solid spiritual sequel to the GameCube great it's copying, and at just five bucks anyone who enjoyed that older polarity shifter should seriously consider downloading this new one.
IGN Ratings for Kyotokei (Wii)

Games in Google+: fun that fits your schedule

2011-08-11T21:44:00.000-07:00

My family has a games closet. Inside you’ll find a few decks of cards, two decades’ worth of board games and a Twister mat for those times when we’re feeling limber. Playing games is a great way for us to spend quality time with each other (and a little healthy competition never hurt anyone either).

Today we’re adding games to Google+. With the Google+ project, we want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web. But sharing is about more than just conversations. The experiences we have together are just as important to our relationships. We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life.

That means giving you control over when you see games, how you play them and with whom you share your experiences. Games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don’t.
When you’re ready to play, the Games page is waiting—click the games button at the top of your stream. You can see the latest game updates from your circles, browse the invites you’ve received and check out games that people you know have played recently. The Games page is also where your game accomplishments will appear. So you can comfortably share your latest high score—your circles will only see the updates when they’re interested in playing games too.

If you’re not interested in games, it’s easy to ignore them. Your stream will remain focused on conversations with the people you care about.

You’ll have a fun initial set of games to play with on Google+. Thanks to the developers who’ve worked with us to make them available:
If you’re a developer interested in building games for Google+, you can learn more on our new Google+ developer blog.

Today we’re starting to gradually roll out games in Google+. We look forward to making them fully available to everyone in Google+ soon. When you see a Games page in your account, please give games a try and send us feedback. Look for the "send feedback" button in the bottom right-hand corner of any page in Google+. Thanks for playing! Like the rest of the Google+ project, we're just getting started.

Posted by Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President, Engineering. admin

Final Destination 5 Review

2011-08-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

ign.com It's more of the same, but not in a bad way.

Eleven years into the franchise and audiences know what to expect when they buy a ticket to Final Destination 5. The latest in the series is a solid, fun installment that delivers what the fans want: Over the top, elaborate and wildly cartoonish death scenes. In 3D! Because the kids love 3D!

Nicholas D'Agosto (Heroes, Fired Up) stars as Sam, who we meet while he's on his way to a corporate retreat with a busload of coworkers, including his newly estranged girlfriend, Molly (The Walking Dead's Emma Bell). While the bus sits idling, thanks to construction on a bridge, Sam has the requisite Final Destination premonition – seeing the horrific bridge collapse that is about to occur, killing them all. Sam's warning about what is going to happen are heeded by a select few of his coworkers and… Well, you know the rest. The bridge does indeed collapse and those who survived count themselves lucky to be alive - until they begin dying one by one. Because you can't cheat Death!

When a formulaic series gets to movie No. 5, you begin to appreciate any little differences that set it apart from the rest. Thus I was happy (and rather surprised) to discover the main characters in Final Destination 5 were all adults working at a paper company – not one high school kid in the bunch! Okay, the vast majority of the cast (including Miles Fisher, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, Arlen Escarpeta and Ellen Wroe) happen to be young and attractive, but that's par for the course. By the way, the fact that having any story focusing on the employees of a paper company is now going to evoke The Office doesn't seem lost on the filmmakers, who amusingly cast Todd Packer himself, David Koechner, as the office manager. I also enjoyed P.J. Byrne's goofy performance as the guy in the office who is lecherous, thieving and causally racist - and thus just asking for a nice, long, prolonged death scene.

Saved by the Bell Meets Final Destination!

Yes, of course, the bread and butter of this series are the deaths – the glorious, glorious deaths. And Final Destination 5 has some excellent ones. We know exactly when these sequences are beginning (even without the flickering lights and spooky wind and such) and it all becomes about the growing anticipation, followed by the big payoff. The screw that seems ready to rip out… the dripping water… the unattended machine… Throughout the film, director Steven Quale does a great job of setting the scene and creating a nice amount of tension as we near the inevitable moment of doom for these characters – which often includes a bit of a swerve when it comes to what seemed likely to be the most obvious cause of their demise. Kitchens, factories, Lasik surgery offices, college gymnastics... Once again, this series will make you afraid of doing, well, anything, anywhere, lest you be Final Destinationed to death.

It's nice to see the always cool Tony Todd reprise his role as Bludworth, the mysterious coroner who always knows more than he should about this whole "Death has a plan" thing. Except for an audio cameo in the third film, Todd's been MIA from this series since Final Destination 2. Upon his return, he brings a ton of his usual gravity, humor and menace to the role – though having seen him show up for a scene here and there now in three Final Destination movies, I hope the next sequel (come on, you know it's coming) might finally go a bit more into the backstory on this overly knowledgeable fellow.

Screenwriter Eric Heisserer (the Nightmare on Elm Street remake) does a serviceable job hitting the beats we all expect from the series – let's face it, these movies are about getting from set -iece to set-piece and no one watching really cares if Sam and Molly can work out their relationship woes. The one major new element this time out is the idea that if these survivors kill someone else, then they can save themselves. It's an intriguing new addition to the storyline, though I wish a bit more had been done with it and that we'd seen more of the characters have some true turmoil over this potential "out" rather than use it to fuel a bit of a psycho-slasher conclusion that seems a bit forced.

Fortunately, the very ending of Final Destination 5 contains a clever little turn of events that is an affectionate nod to a the history of the series – which is appreciated, considering the Final Destination series have had almost no ties to one another since the second film. Final Destination 5 is a much-improved installment for the series on the heels of the terrible fourth film, The Final Destination, and an example of getting what you pay for in a suitably satisfying manner.
Now let's talk about the 3D, since, like with the fourth film, it's a much touted aspect of the movie that the studio is pushing hard.

Personally, I'm sick to death of 3D. I've seen great 3D and I've seen crappy 3D, but in the past two years, it's all become, well, a blur, as I've simply seen too much 3D. And I hate to argue with the King of the World, James Cameron, but the vast majority of the time, I don't find 3D to be all that "immersive" and to help draw me into a film – I find it distancing. Even when it's well done, it makes me hyper-aware of the technical aspect of the film and the fact that I'm sitting there wearing uncomfortable glasses, rather than simply getting swept up in the story like a great movie can do.

Cameron has also spoken out against "gotcha" type 3D – the classic B-movie horror movie use of 3D, where things jut and poke out at you, often comically drawing attention to themselves in the process. Which is amusing, because Final Destination 5 director Quale is a Cameron protegee who's worked on a ton of his films and co-directed Ghosts of the Deep with Cameron – and yet he's making exactly the kind of 3D movie Cameron has complained about. And guess what? It looks great! Quale knows his way around this technology (he was a second unit director on Avatar) and uses it in very effective and clever ways.

At this point, being so burnt out on 3D in general, Final Destination 5 is the only kind of 3D movie that I can have a lot of fun with. Because no one is going to see this movie to get immersed in a complex story and characters. But seeing some poor girl's intestines shoot out at the camera in 3D? Now that's just a good time at the movies! So, yes, in a summer where I've basically scorned 3D altogether, I can endorse Final Destination 5 and say 3D is the best way to see this movie – even though the higher price still sucks.

Age of Empires online

2011-08-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

AGE OF EMPIRES ONLINE -- With over 20 million copies sold, this long-running strategy series has earned Microsoft respect, cred, and gobs of cash. Perhaps that’s why they’re releasing a new version for the smashing price of zilch. The new free game plays out much like older AoE games – create a city, build an army, deal with your neighbors -- but for a few dollars less.

AGE OF EMPIRES ONLINE -- With over 20 million copies sold, this long-running strategy series has earned Microsoft respect, cred, and gobs of cash. Perhaps that’s why they’re releasing a new version for the smashing price of zilch. The new free game plays out much like older AoE games – create a city, build an army, deal with your neighbors -- but for a few dollars less.

Game Spiderman

2011-08-11T08:15:00.001-07:00

The action of Spiderman in game.

The action of Spiderman in game.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes Review

2011-08-11T07:08:00.001-07:00

A world where apes are smarter than the movie they're in?
Watch out for normal, mild movie review-style spoilers.

The problem with creating intelligent apes is that they can wind up being even smarter than you... And if there's a problem with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it's that its apes are so much smarter than the movie they're in.

Check out IGN's handy Planet of the Apes infographic cheat sheet, tracing the characters and timeline of the series from 1968 to today!

According to Fox, director Rupert Wyatt's Rise is not a remake or a reboot or a reimagining (I'm looking at you, Burton) of the classic sci-fi series from the late '60s and early '70s. So let's just call it a new version, shall we? New not just in terms of story -- the film breaks with the old cyclical timeline that kept Chuck Heston eternally trapped in a loincloth -- but also in terms of the presentation of the apes. Gone are the monkeyshine make-up effects, apes who were seen as such mostly because we were told that's what they were, replaced by amazing motion-capture/CGI work by Weta Digital that represents an evolutionary leap forward for digital characters not unlike the seismic shift between the average, poop-tossing chimpanzee and Rise's main monkey, the hyper-intelligent Caesar.

Andy Serkis, who has been at the forefront of mo-cap since portraying Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films, is an automatic Oscar snub in waiting post-Rise. His Caesar is a living, breathing creature, and also the protagonist of the film -- don't let James Franco's presence fool you. Unlike Franco's Will Rodman, Caesar receives honest to Ape-God character development as he grows from an itty-bitty baby chimp and pseudo-human to a confused and tortured soul, torn away from the only family he's ever known, and then finally to an ape freedom fighter and proto-rebel leader.

Franco is miscast as Will, a geneticist who is searching for a cure to Alzheimer's. (He plays it as if he's the dude who works at your local skate shop but also went to MIT.) His dad, played by John Lithgow, is suffering from the disease. So Will's been using an experimental drug on chimpanzees which is meant to repair brain cells but, as it turns out, is also giving the chimps heightened intelligence. After one ape, Bright Eyes (one of many references to the original series), goes berserk, the program is shut down by Will's Evil and Greedy Boss (David Oyelowo).

The thing is, prior to her outburst, Bright Eyes had given birth to a baby that no one knew about. Will, surely breaking every rule in his fancy-ass scientist contract, sneaks the baby home with him and winds up raising the chimp -- Caesar. The years pass, and Will attempts to rebuild his cure program, even managing to stave off his dad's illness. Meanwhile, Caesar, now able to communicate through sign language, is clearly a very special ape, but he is ultimately an ape and living among humans proves impossible. Eventually he winds up in a nasty primate sanctuary headed up by the even nastier Brian Cox and Tom Felton, and it's there that he must learn to live among -- and lead -- his fellow apes.

The viewer truly feels the plight of the apes, both those in the "sanctuary" and the ones who are being experimented on, which is amazing considering that none of these characters actually exist. But the film takes the low road when it comes to placing blame for the suffering of the primates. Franco, painted as the secondary protagonist, can't be portrayed in a negative light, right? Even though he's the one running the program. So instead, the filmmakers opt to go with cartoonish human characters who are bad for the sake of being bad: Brian Cox plays yet another version of Evil Brian Cox, Tom Felton is the kind of guy who tortures apes for the fun of it… there's even an obnoxious Mean Neighbor who actually roughs up the elderly, confused, Alzheimer's-stricken Lithgow at one point. Because that's what the plot needs at that time.
(Don't worry though, kids, he'll get his in the end!)
Sure, we're talking about a movie where apes have become smart enough to one day lead a rebellion against humanity. I get that. But Wyatt and his screenwriters are clearly attempting to tell the Apes story in a more realistic way, which they very much do except when dealing with the only actual real thing in the movie: the humans. When you watched the original, Doctor Zaius was evil, yes. But as the film progressed, you came to understand why he did what he did.

Of course, Rise tracks most closely with the fourth film in the original series, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which dealt with Caesar rebelling against evil human masters. Those guys weren't the best realized characters either, but that was also a time when we accepted prosthetic masks and Roddy McDowall playing both his father and his own son. Times have changed.

So when Freida Pinto shows up as Caesar's vet and Franco's potential love interest, we expect her to be more than just… Caesar's vet and Franco's potential love interest. But she's not. And when Franco's Will is separated from Caesar and his character stops having much of importance to do, well… at least Ricardo Montalban knew when it was time to jump out of that window.

It's a shame, because Rise of the Planet of the Apes had the potential to be a truly great film. As it stands, it's good, it's solid -- it's a reboot (sorry Fox!) that mostly gets it right. It's also chockfull of inside gags for Apes fans, from character names to lines of dialogue to an actual passing reference to Heston's space voyage which started it all in 1968. In fact, sometimes these references are too abundant, as when the famous "damned, dirty ape" line is inserted into what otherwise should be one of the dramatic highpoints of the film, resulting in a muddled, half-jokey feel.

But still… Caesar and his fellow rebels. They make it all worthwhile. And if their uprising seems slightly hollow at times, remember that they can't help it if they're so much more intelligent than us humans. Don't hate them because they're smart; Caesar made them that way. ign.com

My Top 10 SNES Games

2011-08-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of the top 10 best SNES games ever, From the golden age of my childhood

10 - Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting - This game probably made it to number one on any best SNES games list that was created by someone who loves fighting games. It is arguably the best fighting game for the SNES. With the addition of the Super Turbo feature, this game took the Street Fighter series to a whole new level.

9 - EarthBound - Although not very successful in the United States, EarthBound was extremely successful in Japan. It was praised there for its humorous depictions of American culture (can't imagine why it sold poorly in the US) and parody of the RPG genre. Since then, it has become a cult classic.

8 - Final Fantasy II - By some, the graphics were considered outdated at the time of release. But FFII was praised for its length and bonus content and shipped over 1.28 million copies within five years of its initial release. It is considered one of the best Final Fantasy games and a great Final Fantasy game for the SNES.

7 - Mega Man X - This game was the second series for the Mega Man franchise and debuted on the SNES. It was intended to give a new image for the Mega Man series and it did. The game spawned over half a dozen follow-up games as well as another series, Megan Man Xtreme, and a spin-off series, Mega Max X: Command Mission.

6 - Chrono Trigger - Considered by some to best the best RPG of all time on the SNES, Chrono Trigger has also made the number slot on many other overall lists as well. Its primary competition in the RPG category comes with the Final Fantasy series, specifically Final Fantasy III. But Chrono Trigger is definitely one of the best games of all time on any console.

5 - Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - A hybrid game that was part adventure and part role-playing game, the Super Mario RPG was the final Super Mario game on the SNES. It has received very good reviews since its release and was consistently featured in many "best game of all-time" lists.

4 - Super Mario World - This is often considered the best platform game for the SNES. The Super Mario series is the captain of platform games and Super Mario World is no exception. It was the best selling game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with over 20 million copies sold worldwide.

3 - Final Fantasy III - Probably the best game of arguably the best RPG series of all time, Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy III had great 2D graphics, an incredible soundtrack, and was a massive success in both Japan and the United states. The game appealed to both hardcore RPG players and newcomers to the RPGs.

2 - Super Metroid - Although the Metroid series did not originally reach the commercial success that some of its counterparts did, Super Metroid was given near-universal acclaim upon release. It is considered by many to be one of the best, if not the best, 2d action adventure game ever.

1 - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - This game may not be number one on every list of the best SNES games ever, but for any fan of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System it absolutely must make the list. Both the Zelda series and the character of Link remain some of the most popular game icons in video game history. The game is considered to be one of the greatest video games, of any console, of all time.

2002 FIFA World Cup Game

2011-08-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

It's coming home, it's coming home, football's coming home. This June sees the biggest sporting event the world has ever seen taking place in the land of the rising sun, the FIFA World Cup. And the Rising Sun is just where I'll be watching it. The Rising Sun pub, Bracknell. When I'm not in there though, I'll be taking England to glory myself, barring the dreaded penalty shoot-outs of course - which could see me back in the Rising Sun drowning my sorrows at yet another humiliating exit. To restore some national pride to our long suffering battered emblem, myself and resident FIFA convert Gary Foy took 2002 FIFA World Cup through its paces on the next-gen consoles, PS2, Xbox and GameCube.

The first task to fall on our heavy shoulders was to make the all important team selection and the excitement of the opening match against Sweden had us both leaving Seaman on the bench, as according to the stats, Martyn is a better keeper! McManamanamanaman is placed in the starting line up by EA, and promptly dropped by us in favour of Bowyer, statistically a better player but an inferior likeness. In fact Bowyer has to be the worst player likeness in this game. Sporting a jet black barnet and not a single aggressive movement he's nothing like the Bowyer we know and love. Other higher profile stars however are eerie in their effigies, Beckham and Owen in particular. Unfortunately Beck's haircut will be at least three styles out of date by June.

The first thing that strikes you about this game as being different from FIFA 2002 is the crowd. They are far more realistic in terms of animation and sound, with individual chanting depending what team you play with. 'Come on England! Come on England!' could be heard echoing from the stands. Even Argentina's fans sounded good, though naturally we gave them nothing to shout about.

This crowd atmosphere is supplemented by a full on orchestral score that's more 'tasteful BBC coverage' than 'tacky ITV glitz'. It is perhaps a little over dramatic, but when it accompanies a golden goal winner by Beckham in the final against Italy you can't fail to be moved on an emotional level.
Important goals are also accompanied by a rendered celebratory sequence, such as the opener in a match or the late equalizer against Belgium in the Quarter finals. Paul Scholes milked that one for all it was worth, standing god-like on the advertising hoardings in front of the adoring Belgian fans. That was no mistake, you read correctly. Both sets of fans celebrate a goal. It is amusing to see the French going wild as Fowler nets an injury time equalizer - doubt that would happen in real life.

This game is extraordinarily easy to pick up, allowing you to whip in corners and score from bicycle kicks at the first play. Each star player has individual skills that add to the carnival atmosphere of the World Cup, finding and using these unique talents is tricky to say the least.

Like FIFA 2002 the through ball function is no more, forcing you to use skill and judgment to pick out that killer pass. Of course relying on the AI to make that killer run is like expecting Bolton to beat Arsenal (I'm not bitter) but luckily I had a human team mate capable of making those runs for me. This is where the game really comes to life, and teamwork produces some of the truly most satisfying moments.

'Communication guys, you're only sat next to each other' advised a colleague as we both slid in on the same man, missing him completely. He raised a valid point. Communication between team mates is vital, thus avoiding school boy errors such as bunching and both going for the same ball.

'Anyone can pick up and play, only a few will master' is the slogan on the back of the box. It's not strictly true though as mastering FIFA on its lower skill settings isn't the great challenge it first appears. Of course winning the World Cup on FIFA's world class setting is about as difficult as England will find winning the real thing. Not having played any FIFA for a prolonged period since the ancient FIFA 95 on the Megadrive I was surprised at how easily I got to grips with this game. The standard skills are very easy to use, easier than in FIFA 2002, yet they are not necessary to win any games. More emphasis seems to be on pass and move to break down teams, and the all important commodity of pace.

In fact the Chris Waddle step over is the most useless skill of all time. It just doesn't work. For some reason Waddle would perform this same move every time he got the ball on the right wing, the defender knew it was coming, the commentator knew it was coming and the crowd knew it was coming. No one could stop it though. In 2002 FIFA World Cup it never works. You try this fancy little step over and you'll get clattered.
Clattering is of course a vital part of the game, and the aspect of jostling for the ball seems to have been improved. As two players fight for the ball, the one that gets the upper hand will invariably hand off his opponent with extreme aggression. Pressuring a defender into running the ball into his own net is also a sure fire way of scoring in those frantic goal mouth scrambles.

Our path to the final comprised of two golden goal winners and the inevitable semi final penalty shoot-out with the Argies. Two nil up and coasting, we took off Gerrard and Owen to save them picking up second yellows and missing the final. Didn't want any repeat of the Gazza scenario. A quick Argentina goal caused us to regret our conservative substitution but we held on 'til the end, or so we thought. It was like playing at Old Trafford as they scored a dramatic equalizer in what seemed like ninety eighth minute. Typical Argentina, even their video game team cheats.

The penalty shoot-out had us thinking back to '98 and yet another disastrous England exit, but we had an advantage over Hoddle's men… Ince and Batty weren't there! For the first time in any football game, and possibly the first time in England's history, we triumphed in a semi final penalty shoot-out with some great precision shooting.

An interesting dilemma occurred in a second round match with Uruguay. Five - Nil up and Michael Owen's pace was causing them to slide in at every opportunity, resulting more often than not in a red card. After four players were sent off I thought I was playing against Sheffield United, what would have happened had they gone down to six men? Would the game have been stopped as the rules dictate?

The commentary is again provided by John Motson and Andy Gray. Now I like Andy Gray, I find he rarely gets things wrong and genuinely knows what he's talking about. This commentary however was as enjoyable as watching repeats of Wish You Were Here. Andy would drop in little facts about the players and stadia as though he were a tour guide. Once you've played through the game twice you'll have heard all there is to hear several times over. Yes Gerrard is a good passer of the ball and Beckham was sent off in the last world cup, you've told us before Andy. I guess it would be different should you play with through with other teams, but let's face it, who wants to win the World Cup with France? Not me.

Winning the World Cup with England unlocks an all star European team consisting of Zidane, Raul, Figo, Dessaily, Morientes, Beckham and Owen. This truly is a dream team, one that Man UTD are no doubt hoping to put together, and I used them for the purpose that god intended - I battered the Germans. Having a team full of stars such as this makes winning so much easier. They are all faster, more skilful and better shots than most mere mortals.

The star players also have an arcade style whoosh sound attached to every pass and shot, complete with a colourful trailing effect. Seeing a colourful blur following the ball around does nothing to add to the realism, except of course for Paul Merson.

Winning the tournament with other nations unlocks even more special teams. A Brazil victory unlocks an all-Americas team, but they're not half as much fun as the Europeans. Not having won with teams from other continents I'm not sure what other hidden sides exist. I'd like to think there was a mascot team somewhere, but that may just be wishful thinking.

This game also comes with a bonus film montage of football fans from across the world, similar to something that might be shown on Trans World Sport at 2:00am. This isn't really worth having on the disc, or wasting time watching. If it had been a collection of great World Cup goals or behind the scenes on the making of the game then fine, but the DVD extras style attempt here fails. More gameplay options would have been a better use of time.

It may just be my ogre like hands but I found the Xbox controller ill suited for FIFA. The close proximity of its buttons meant I was shooting all over the place, and making passes at people to whom I really shouldn't have been. The Xbox version looks much better than the PS2 though, and doesn't suffer from slowdown as much. The slowdown on the PS2 is a real problem, taking me back to the dark days of playing fps games on an archaic PC. This shouldn't happen, yet does.

The detail and refinery present in the Xbox version make it stand head and shoulders above its PS2 counterpart, but I believe that they both pale when compared to the GameCube. This is a controversial belief, but for me the GameCube version is the best of the three. It has the graphical beauty of the Xbox version, without the slowdown present on the PS2 and a controller more suited to frantic play.

The big drawback with this game is its lack of longevity. Once you've won the World Cup, a mere seven games, you've completed it. Sure you can up the skill level or take another team to glory, but it's always the same. If like me you only want to be England, you'll always start against Sweden. There's no option for customizing the cup, or at least making it a random draw. There are of course no club sides, meaning that for a fuller footballing experience you'll need FIFA 2002 as well.

A major niggle that we found during multiplayer games is at the start of every game you have to go into options and select which players are on which team. It doesn't remember this for you. So as the tension builds during each round, the elaborate intro, the crowd roar and you click pause, go to set up and select your controller. What a mood breaker.

For some reason there are teams that didn't make it to the World Cup available to you in friendly mode, such as Scotland. Now I've nothing against Scotland, but why are they included when Holland are not? Surely the total footballing Dutch with stars such as Bergkamp and Van Nistleroy would be more entertaining than a nation of players with a league the strength of our conference?

2002 FIFA World Cup looks better than previous versions, it plays well and has a great atmosphere but unfortunately the game is too short with too few options. If you own FIFA 2002 already then this may be an unnecessary purchase, unless of course the World Cup is the be all and end all of your summer. What better way to get in the mood for a match than rehearsing it several times first?

If you've grown out of World Cup football stickers though, this is the World Cup item, and no humiliating England defeat would be complete without it. admin

F.E.A.R. 3 Review

2011-06-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

Let's have a bloody good time.

The shooter market is definitely a saturated one, rife with derivative titles that rarely buck any trends. But every so often, a title comes along that does things a little bit differently. F.E.A.R. 3 is one such game. A horror and gore-inspired romp, F.E.A.R. 3 approaches the conventions of first-person shooters from a different perspective and successfully mixes together familiar gameplay elements with a unique and authentically chilling setting. F.E.A.R. 3 isn't without its problems, and these problems stop it from being a top echelon shooter. Still, its tendency to go off the beaten path is largely successful and will appeal to shooter fans and horror aficionados alike.

In F.E.A.R. 3, gamers are placed in the role of the genetically-enhanced Point Man, the protagonist from the original F.E.A.R. As you may remember from the end of F.E.A.R. 2, the mysterious female foil Alma forces herself upon that game's playable character -- Becket -- and becomes pregnant with his child. Alma is an evil psychic dynamo manipulated by Armacham, the same company responsible for Point Man's genetic enhancement, but her powers far outweigh his own. Thus, stopping Alma from having this kid is the name of the game in F.E.A.R. 3. Because after all, if Alma is so powerful, who knows what that kid is capable of?
Stopping Alma's pregnancy will be no easy task for Point Man, especially because he's accompanied continuously by the apparition of fellow Project Origin prototype Paxton Fettel, another character fans of the series will be familiar with. One of F.E.A.R. 3's great strengths is that you can actually play as Fettel through any level that Point Man already beaten, which gives a completely different feel for getting through the main campaign.

While Point Man is your typical gun-toting badass, Fettel is able to possess enemy soldiers and generally cause an insane amount of havoc. Better yet, you can play the campaign together with a friend locally or online, utilizing both characters' strengths simultaneously.

In terms of aesthetics, F.E.A.R. 3 provides passable graphics that look slightly dated but still get the job done. And the game runs fairly smoothly, with the exception of some stuttering when the game is loading and saving mid-play. Regardless, you won't mistake F.E.A.R. 3 for a top tier shooter in terms of its looks. On the other hand, F.E.A.R. 3 is a sonically appealing game. The voice-acting is at times over the top, but the sound effects and music add greatly to the scary feel of the game. There's audio nuance everywhere.
Both single player and co-op will require you to work your way through the same eight stages (known as Intervals). Playing through on co-op will allow you to blaze through the game significantly faster than playing on your own, but F.E.A.R. 3's campaign is best enjoyed as a solo affair. Though the game is much more difficult this way, playing on your own maximizes the frights and scares. Co-op is a fun experience in its own right, but should definitely be left for those who have already played through the campaign once before.

Mechanically, F.E.A.R. 3 will feel familiar to fans of the FPS genre. Your characters will have access to a number of firearms, explosives and more. Point Man and Fettel can also use their own psychic powers, primarily in the form of time slow-down and enemy possession respectively. The combination of the conventional and the supernatural isn't revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination, but it works well in F.E.A.R. 3. And though the stages are generally linear, there's reason for ancillary exploration, mostly to take in the sheer amount of ambiance present on most levels (not to mention to find collectibles).

If I have one major complaint about F.E.A.R. 3's core gameplay, it's in terms of grenade throwing. It's hard to use grenades in the game with any modicum of accuracy. Chucking grenades way over the intended target is more likely to happen than the perfect toss. Additionally, the AI glitched out on me once in a while, not reacting to my presence when I was clearly in view. None of this breaks the experience, but it certainly hampers it unnecessarily. ign.com

LEGO Star Wars 3 - The Clone Wars

2011-06-18T23:41:00.000-07:00

LEGO Star Wars 3 the clone wars is a great adaptation of the popular series by LEGO. So now, for the first time, players experience their favorite stories from Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the Clone Wars TV series.

The game is easy to play, fast paced, and tons of fun. Not only can you have one on one light sabre battles between the Jedi and the Sith, but you also get to take control of massive ground battles. This is an exciting new feature that allows you to recreate the epic battles from both the moves and the animated series.

There is another new feature called SceneSwap that allows you to take control of several different teams at the same time that work together to complete various objectives, this adds a whole new dimension to the game, and while it may be slightly too difficult for the little kids, it definitely makes the game more enjoyable for older fans.

Just like in other Lego Star Wars games, there is plenty of light sabre fun, however Lego Star Wars 3 introduces new lightsabre moves, like cutting, throwing, and even climbing! you can also pick up and throw enemies, basically using them as weapons against themselves.

There are plenty of classic characters like Darth Vader, and Chewbacca, to keep the original fans happy. However there are also some new ones that come into the game, particularly during the all new Boss Battles which incorporates big bosses from the animated series like, Gor, and the Zillo Beast.

The gameplay has also been improved with much greater control over the characters and their environments than previous LEGO games. If you enjoy playing in multi player mode, or have to include the rest of your family in your game time, then you will really like the dynamic slit screen mode that allows your friends to jump in and out of the game as they please.

All in all the game is great to play, not only is it easy to set started and hooked, it has excellent animation, great graphics, and some pretty cool video interludes. One os the things that I like best about this game is that it is aimed at the whole family, so you know there are no surprises for little Johnny to find when you aren't looking. It si good clean fun, even when you kill the bad guys they just fall into smaller pieces of LEGO, there is no blood or guts involved!

The LEGO Star Wars 3 game is so good that I couldn't really do it justice with this article, if you would like to read more about it then please visit my blog, where I go into more detail about all things related to LEGO Star Wars. Philip_Greene

Games News Assassins Creed: Brotherhood

2011-06-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

Release Date: November 16, 2010
Publisher: UBI Soft
ESRB Rating: Mature

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is the third game in the AC canon despite the fact that Ubisoft is reserving the actual numeral 3 for the next iteration of the franchise. The game picks up where Assassin's Creed II leaves off, so if you haven't played the previous titles, you may be better off starting there. Just in case though, here's the breakdown. Desmond has been recently liberated from the Abstergo Company who, by using a device called the animus, forced him to relive his ancestors' memories in the search of information on the whereabouts of a long hidden artifact that is itself the key to world domination. Desmond and his rescuers find a secluded place to set up their own animus to further probe his ancestors' memories- in this instance, one particular ancestor: Enzio Auditore da Firenze. Yeah, I know. It's complicated.

When we last saw Enzio at the end of the 15th century, all kinds of crazy stuff went down, and the end result is a Rome run by the Borgias. The previous game's villain, the Spaniard Rodrigo Borgia, has secured the artifact, the Apple of Eden, and has become Pope. The Templars, now backed by the Papacy, launch an attack against the Assassins and Enzio, and his few surviving allies are forced into hiding out in the city of Rome to bide their time and rebuild.

Much of AC: Brotherhood's single-player experience remains faithful to AC2, but a few new dynamics are thrown in that prove to be a positive addition to the already tried and true Assassin's Creed gameplay. For one, Enzio can recruit new assassins into the order. Once you have liberated a district from Borgia rule, you can rescue citizens fighting the guards and train them to become assassins. You can then send them out on contracts in exchange for cash and occasional items. If not out on a contract, the assassin can be called out to assist in battle, to silently take out a guard in Enzio's path, or if Enzio has been busy recruiting, have them rain arrows down on a patrol or guard station.

In addition to the rebuilding effort, you'll also be tasked with assisting the other guilds allied with the assassin order (namely, the consorts, thieves and mercenaries) on several missions, and an old friend will call on you to recover some stolen schematics. All the while Enzio will be making his play to recover the stolen apple from the Spaniard. Throw in the usual flags, feathers and various treasure chests to hunt down, and the single-player campaign will easily last you a good 35+ hours if you're a completionist.

Brotherhood is also the first game in the series to feature a multiplayer component. I admit I was initially unsure about the idea, but I was pleasantly surprised. There are several game types- my favorite, and the most basic form, is Wanted. Up to eight players take to the crowded city streets in a game of cat and mouse. The object is to eliminate your target while at the same time staying one step ahead of your pursuer or pursuers.

Kills and escapes are awarded points in varying amounts based on the number of bonuses achieved. While simply running a mark down and plunging a knife in his back will earn you a cool 100 points, if you can manage to poison him unseen while blending in with a crowd you'd be looking at something like 1,000 points. These points not only determine the round's winner, but they also act as experience points by raising your level and unlocking new perks and abilities.

You'll need them in order to adapt since not all quarry act in the same manner. One map you might be playing against a bunch of guys using stealth and hiding in crowds. The next, all the players could be running around on the rooftops. The overall effect is a surprisingly fun, although somewhat uneven, multiplayer experience. The bright spots are further tarnished by long load times and, in my experience at least, occasional connectivity issues. Although neither of these issues has yet to keep me from the addictive online play.

All in all Brotherhood is a great game, but not one that will win over naysayers of the series. New players will feel a little lost on the story, especially if they accidentally stumble on one of Subject 16′s "The Truth" files, but fans of the previous titles will be pleasantly surprised by how much there is to do here. Don't let the lack of a 3 in the title stop you, this is no AC 2.5 or Assassin's Creed Lite. There's plenty of meat on these bones to keep you busy for quite some time.

To learn more about Slackers, visit http://www.slackers.com/! Where playing around is serious business. Josh_Vollmer

Download game Gratis Mystery Trackers 2

2011-05-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

Mystery Trackers 2: Raincliff Collector's Edition [FINAL] | 943 mb

Setelah sekelompok siswa muda pergi hilang, Pelacak Misteri yang dipanggil untuk mencari kota Raincliff! Mengatasi hal ini sulit dan mengungkap misteri aneh untuk menyelamatkan para siswa! Jelajahi seluruh kota dan mengetahui siapa yang mengawasi setiap gerakan Anda di Mystery Trackers: Raincliff! Gunakan Tersembunyi bakat Objek untuk hati-hati membedah adegan dan menyusun teka-teki membingungkan!

Edisi Kolektor meliputi:
* Lucu Gambar Animasi Layar
* Panduan Terpadu Strategi
* Wonderful Wallpaper
* Bonus gameplay

Download :

Download:

http://www.filefactory.com/file/cb196f6/n/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part1.rar

http://www.filefactory.com/file/cb197d7/n/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part2.rar

http://www.filefactory.com/file/cb198cf/n/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part3.rar

Or:

http://www.filesonic.com/file/914318844/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part1.rar

http://www.filesonic.com/file/914516564/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part2.rar

http://www.filesonic.com/file/914768174/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part3.rar

Or:

http://www.fileserve.com/file/XXqs837/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part1.rar

http://www.fileserve.com/file/p786rK3/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part2.rar

http://www.fileserve.com/file/SuQFvNY/MysteryTrackers2-RaincliffCEFIXED.part3.rar