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Preview:Assassins Creed Revelations
In Assassin's Creed: Revelations, a grizzled Ezio leaves Italy behind to seek out Altair's secrets in Constantinople and Masyaf. He is hunting down the five keys of Altair's Library of Masyaf--relics which, it turns out, each function like an Animus, allowing Ezio to skip back through time to relive the memories of his fellow assassin. So you're playing as Desmond, playing as Ezio, playing as Altair. Still with us?
Ezio recovers one of these keys from Leandros, a sneering Templar captain with a scarred mug and plated mail armour. This is the guy who tries to hang Ezio in the debut trailer, and who Ezio assassinates atop a tower in the snowbound Masyaf fortress. The fortress is overrun with Leandros' forces, a Byzantine faction of Templars, who suffer death by hidden blade, naturally, but also by various explosives, each created in Revelations' new bombcrafting system.
The system is accessed via bombcrafting stations set up around cities by the Assassin Order, which the developer likens to the pigeon coops used to manage your team of assassin trainees in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Here, players can use ingredients looted from chests, such as caltrops and shrapnel, to create bombs in three categories: lethal, tactical, and diversion. Bombs are built by combining a shell material, a gunpowder material, and an "effect" material. Where the effect material is caltrops, for instance, the result is a caltrop bomb, which Ezio can use to scatter the spiked balls in the path of a pursuer. Where the effect material is shrapnel, the result is a shrapnel bomb--a grenade, in effect.
Other bomb types include small explosive devices to produce loud, guard-distracting bangs, and tripmine bombs, ideal for planting traps for patrolling enemies. We're glad to see the endless bric-a-brac looted from chests and enemies in Brotherhood being put to better use.
The proliferation of bomb types in Revelations also gives rise to a second weapon wheel. Players now choose their primary weapon from the first and their bomb of choice from the second, though each can still be mapped to the directional pad for quick, in-battle selection.
Besides taking up bombcrafting in his old age, grey-bearded Ezio has honed his eagle vision--the mode that gave coloured auras to enemies and objectives--into full eagle sense. With this advanced version of the skill, Ezio can track and foresee a target's path, all the better for tailing and chasing victims. There is the odd verbal nod to Ezio's advanced years ("This used to be so easy," he grumbles, finishing a climb), but otherwise the Florentine assassin seems as mobile as ever--maybe more so, with the addition of the hookblade, the modified hidden blade that enables zipline use and acrobatic combat moves.
And then from elderly Ezio to postadolescent Altair. In the Gamescom demo, we see the aforementioned key relic transport Ezio back in time into the memories of young Altair, to events before the start of the first Assassin's Creed. Here, at the Masyaf assassin base of the first game, the fresh-faced Altair has been betrayed by a former ally, an armoured crusader who has taken Altair's mentor and assassin cohorts hostage. Cue a spell of classic Assassin's Creed free-running and high-dive-style kills, back in the familiar assassin castle setting of much of the original Assassin's Creed. It ends with Altair's mentor musing about how quickly his mentee has grown up. "You fit your father's shoes as if they had been tailored to your feet," he says, referring to Altair's assassin father.
The five keys that let Desmond, as Ezio, nip back in time to revisit Altair might be a contrivance, but it's one that's worthwhile, drawing the franchise's three leads and three timelines together for what we hope will be a fitting finale. A finale, that is, for Ezio--Ubisoft sees Revelations as the last part of his trilogy. Look out for it in November.
I vividly remember the first time I played a Splinter Cell game; half the time I was busy retrieving my jaw from the floor. Right from the amazing graphics to the stealth, from staying in the shadows to making sure that the guy you just knocked out had to be tucked away in the shadows as well, each and every mechanic of the game worked together to make it a truly memorable experience. Sam Fisher has come quite a way down the line. So much so that in his fifth outing, it is almost for the fans of the original game to even recognize Sam Fisher, and for that matter, Splinter Cell. But is that such a bad thing, more so when we harp about games like Call of Duty never staying from the tried and tested formula? Let’s find out.
Probably the only thing that has been carried over from the previous Splinter Cell games in Sam Fisher itself. Gone are the hi-tech gadgets that we so used to love including the iconic night-vision goggles. Instead of a cutting edge stealth suit, Sam has to make-do with normal street clothes, a backpack slung on his shoulders as he sneaks into the enemy lair. Without the hi-tech sensors to tell you how much visible you are, you have to rely upon the in-game color itself. If you are well concealed in the shadows, the whole game world will turn black and white. The moment you move into light, all the color seeps right back in. So if you intend to play the game like a classic Splinter Cell game, then your game would be consisting mostly of black and white.
But then Conviction deviates from the Splinter Cell mantra by allowing the games to ditch stealth in favour of more run-and-gun kind of gameplay. However, to make it stand out from the rest of the third-person shooter crowd, it gives you two new mechanics; “Mark and Execute” and “Last Known Position”. The option to Mark and Execute opens up as soon as Sam does a hand-to-hand takedown. Now you can mark up to four enemies within Sam’s range and a small red arrow would show up on the marked men. The moment you press the Execute button, the game will slow down as Sam efficiently takes out all the marked men in a flurry of precise shots. You can easily combine this with other attacks as well like marking a gas tank instead of the two guys standing beside it, thereby taking out two at the price of one or dropping down to take out another guy right after executing the other three.
Last Known Position on the other hand is when you get caught on the wrong side of a fire-fight. The moment you are spotted by one of the enemies, your silhouette is left behind, even though you have moved behind the next available cover. The enemies will concentrate on that silhouette while you can flank them and take them out unawares. The cover mechanic works well in this case, allowing you to effortlessly slide between covers, peek around and choose where next do you want to hid next. A small set of arrows will tell you where all exactly the cover available is allowing you to choose the optimum place for you to hide. You can hide behind sofas or even hang from window sills and pull down any unsuspecting bloke to his death or shimmy around, popping up just to pop a few guys before hiding again.
When Conviction first showed up, the trailer featured an amazing interrogation scene where the game showed of Sam beating up a guy in a restroom while he gets him to spit out all the details. The good news is that the game actually allows you to do so, letting you choose which object will make a violent contact with the guy being interrogated. The bad news is that this mechanic, though undeniably cool, is heavily scripted, without allowing you to use the surrounding environment much more than what the developers intended. Another cool visual effect that plays out during these sequences is the flashback videos that are projected on the surrounding environment, seamlessly merging the past with the present. The same effect is used while presenting in-game objectives as well by projecting them on the walls, on the floor or even angled across the stair-case. These effects raise the game presentation a notch or two.
Graphically, the game just about manages to scrape through. Not surprising since the game is running on a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 2.5; the age of the engine is bound to show. Still, the above mentioned effects go a long way in getting Splinter Cell: Conviction to still look good enough for the current generation. A relatively short campaign of around 6 hours means that the game manages to show you a good variety of levels. The levels feature a few environmental-weapons as well, which when combined with the Mark and Execute mechanic, can clear out a room pretty quickly. Micheal Ironside again shines in the role of Sam Fisher but rest of the cast is pretty forgettable as is the story of the game. While the music does the job, the enemy A.I. could have seen some more work, not to mention a look at the inane dialogs that they loop through.
To make up for the short campaign, the game comes with a multiplayer component as well which includes a co-op story mode which serves as a prequel, a terrorist hunt mode where the number of enemies double up if you trip the alarm and an Infiltration mode where you rack up the kills without being detected. Sadly, this part of the game was botched up for quite a while. Basic features like voice chat were left out from the PC version of the game and had to be fixed with a patch later on. A broken matchmaking service meant that PC gamers missed out on the multiplayer aspect of the game for quite a while. Thankfully, things are limping back to normal and PC gamers would now be able to experience a more complete Splinter Cell: Conviction experience like there console brethren’s.
To sum up, Ubisoft took a gamble with Splinter Cell: Conviction, the results of which are still inconclusive. By abandoning the hardcore stealth roots in favor of a much more faster run and gun style of gameplay, Ubisoft lost some fans of the series while gaining quite a few who would have never considered playing a Splinter Cell game before. If you can ignore the few glitches and a short story campaign, Splinter Cell : Conviction will let you have enough bang for your buck.
7.5 / 10
Crysis 2 PC Review!
"Lock on his position, we're going back"
Review:HALO Reach
Crysis 2 PC Review!
"Lock on his position, we're going back"
The Intro
Famous last words. Nomad, Helena and Psycho head back to Lingshan island in the year 2020 to rescue Lawrence Barnes a.k.a. Prophet. And thus ended one of my all time favorite games. Fast forward to the year 2023, where natural disasters and an alien invasion make you feel that the earth has seen better days.
The game starts in the year 2023 with you as a US marine named Alcatraz, inside a submarine. Aliens attack your submarine and you and others jettison it. Some make it out, some don't. You swim up to the surface and see New York City, in all its destroyed glory. You get attacked
, you faint and then you wake up in a dingy warehouse. Oh, silly me, just before you faint, you see a nano-suit-clad soldier, none other than Lawrence Barnes a.k.a. Prophet shooting some aliens with a huge machine-gun. He takes you to the aforementioned warehouse, takes off his nano-suit, gives it to you "and shoots himself." and shoots himself. And so begins Crysis 2.
Now, Crysis had some really good dialogues from Nomad, the protagonist who speaks, and others. Players of the game might recall Oscar material like My chute's gone, my damn chute is gone!and If it's any consolation, they look like cheap knock-offs. Alcatraz, much to my disappointment, remains silent throughout the game, except for towards the end.
Okay, now
back to the present times. You are contacted by Nathan Gould, a conspiracy nut/scientist. He operates under the delusion that you are Prophet and silly 'catraz doesn't even bother to say 'hey pal, barney's sleepin widda fishes' or something. He stays mute like a Trappist monk and does whatever thehippie tells him to. Watch out for Gould's ingenious dialogue, which is punctuated with "man" every now and then. "Go here man" "Hurry up man" "Get this man"...it gets boring.
Overall, the plot is average. Some twists at the end might appeal to some. I disliked it. The voice acting is passable. Except for the guy who voices Jacob Hargreave. He. is. simply. awesome.
Review:HALO Reach
Halo means so much to so many people. This is not extraordinary in the culture of videogames. What's exceptional is how many different things it means to those players. For me Halo has always been a social experience, with lifelong friendships forged over a shared love of the game. Some hop online to randomly test their merit in competitive matches. Others find themselves lost in the fiction, playing through the campaign alone and then poring over the extended story in books and anime. Still others look to Halo for a creative outlet as level forgers or machinima producers. This range in how we play Halo is a testament to how feature-rich development studio Bungie has made the franchise, and Halo: Reach is the ultimate punctuation on a decade's work.
This is the end of the Halo road for Bungie -- the group is set to move on to a new original game next while Microsoft takes over responsibility for the franchise's future -- and that sense of this being a finale is in Halo: Reach. It shows clear reference to past games, refines well-established game mechanics, adds a few exciting twists, and polishes the rest to a glossy finish. The result is one of the most complete, fully-featured packages you'll find in gaming.
Little here will surprise the hardcore Halo fan, especially if they were among the millions that took part in the multiplayer beta earlier this year. The approach to making a first-person shooter remains the same as it has in the past for Halo. There's a co-op friendly campaign filled with the dreaded Covenant aliens, sparkling online competitive multiplayer, the four-player Firefight mode, and lots of flexibility to allow everyone to tweak settings to their liking. If you've played a Halo game in the past, you'll feel instantly at home.
That's not to say this is just another rehash. There's plenty of new and exciting content in Halo: Reach and it begins with the main character. Master Chief is out. This time you'll step into the shoes of Noble 6, a nameless hero for players to project themselves onto. Noble 6 doesn't even have a defined gender. Thanks to a deep new customization system, you're free to fit Noble 6's look to your personality.
A dark tale of destruction awaits you.
Noble 6's tale begins with an introduction to Planet Reach. This colony is the center of humanity's military might, and home to the Spartan program that produced Master Chief himself. The events of Halo: Reach take place as a prequel to the main Halo trilogy and -- though they take small liberties with the established fiction -- help to tell the story of the events that lead up to events of Halos 1 through 3. The war with the Covenant is already raging, and things don't look good for us humans.
Noble 6 is the rookie member of Noble Team, a squad of Spartans stationed on Reach. You'll get to know each of the other team members through the course of Halo: Reach as you work with them to complete various missions, but the action always follows Noble 6's adventure.
Assassins Creed: Brotherhood Review
Assassins Creed : Brotherhood Review
Before I begin, yes I'm aware that this game has been out for months. Reviewing the third game in the Assassin's Creed franchise isn't easy. There are SO many details that encompass this wonderful and gorgeous game that it would take someone really good at writing to mention it all in one read-able review. Roger Ebert I am not, so do bear with me.
Mini spoilers ahead!
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The Story : We start the game as Ezio Auditore and the story resumes directly after the events of the previous Assassin's Creed game. He climbs out of the vault and meets Uncle 'Its-a-me" Mario. They exchange pleasantries and fight guards and jump over rooftops; just another day at the office for our Italian assassinos. Since describing everything word-by-word will get tiring, I'm going to try to sum up the plot:
After a battle of epic proportions at Monteriggioni (see pic above), Mario Auditore dies at the hands of Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander the VI, Rodrigo Borgia. Cesare steals the apple of Eden and leaves the Auditore villa and family in shambles. Ezio uses the help of former allies such as Caterina Sforza and Leonardo Da Vinci to liberate Rome from the seemingly unbreakable grasp of the Borgias and to extract revenge from Ces.
That wasn't so hard.
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The Gameplay : While the motto of the Assassin's Creed does say 'Everything is permitted' you have to exercise caution as an assassin. You cannot kill civilians because doing so will cause desynchronization. You cannot kill guards in broad daylight and expect fellow guards to sagely shake their heads and mutter 'young blood, young blood.' That said, you can do hit-and-runs using a variety of weapons, from the crossbow to the battle axe. You can engage in an all out war, killing everyone in sight. Not recommended if you have little health. You can upgrade your armor and purchase extra pouches to store more ammunition and medicines. Fighting feels like poetry in motion; that's the best way to describe the smooth swordplay. It's not too difficult though; a minor let down for a guy used to fighting ninjas in Ninja Gaiden on high difficulty.
The Borgias have constructed several towers, unimaginatively named 'Borgia towers'. These are guarded by some of the Borgia's men and a captain. Killing the captain gets you about 950 francs and allows you to burn down the tower, thus liberating the area of Borgia rule. You can build stables and renovate shops to increase Rome's and your income. Your long time friend Leonardo Da Vinci aids you in combat by giving you nifty toys like the war ship below to fight the Borgias.
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Free running is quite challenging now, with Ezio running and jumping through old runes, crumbling cathedrals and other picturesque environments. Players of the previous AC game might recall collecting six artifacts to unlock Altair's costume. This time, you explore six ruins and collect keys that unlock a powerful (albeit odd looking) armor. Navigating through these ruins feels very satisfying.
Just like the previous game, you can scour the cityscape to look for hidden glyphs which are perceptible when you enable eagle vision. Finding one enables a little puzzle which leaves a small clue. These clues bind together to unravel a grand conspiracy.
As Desmond you don't get to do much except lie down and relive your ancestor's lives. Well, you do get to do some extreme free running when you aren't in the Animus. Especially near the end of the game.
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Another new element of gameplay is the BAM (pictured above), or the Brotherhood of Assassins Movement. Some citizens across Rome start one man uprisings, and are always outnumbered. If you see them in distress and help them, they will join you in your fight against the Borgias. They become amateur assassins. Call them often to combat and they level up. You can equip them with deadlier weapons and more effective armor. You can also send them to do assignments across Europe. It's fun and useful when you are facing lots of guards. The music composed by Jesper Kyd blends perfectly with the rhythmic combat.
As usual, I don't know anything about the multiplayer (blame my dialup!). I do know that it involves hunting a target, in a group or alone, and simultaneously try to evade the player who is hunting you. Check out Youtube for some videos of the MP in action; It looks delightful. Here's a bio of one of the many playable multiplayer characters, the doctor:
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The Graphics : The game looks breathtakingly beautiful. It's evident that the guys at Ubisoft did their homework while researching medieval Rome. Everything from the Colosseum to the Castle st Angelo looks photo realistic. Character models look fantastic and the whole game is one beautiful piece of art. Though the draw distance is a let down; I don't like to see humans pop up while I'm running on maxed out settings.
That said, the game runs at a constant 60fps on my rig (an HD 5770, an unlocked 555be and 2 gigs of ddr3 1333mhz ram), maxed out details at 1280x1024, no AA. It never slowed down for me. Hardly surprising if one takes into account the draw distance. This game shouldn't pose a problem to folks with cards as low as a 9600gt.
Conclusion : While not a con, the game's ending is just as, if not more shocking than AC2's ending. Though...well I can't go into the details. Let's say it leaves you fogged and eager to know more. Assassin's Creed Revelations, the final game in the Ezio trilogy is slated for a November release. All the loose ends should be tied up to form a digestible conclusion to the end of one of the finest video game trilogies ever. Arrivederci till then!
Battlefield :Bad Company-2 Stratergy Guide
Once you have managed to not lose your sanity trying to get to connect to one of the many servers available on the PC version of Battlefield Bad Company 2 (BFBC2), you will discover that the guys at DICE have managed to craft a wonderfully addictive multiplayer game. It’s a shame then that so many people out there playing the game are deprived of really enjoying the game to its full extent only because they are either new to the series in the general or are haven’t yet grasped the basics of Battlefield’s multiplayer mode or are just douche-bags who enjoy using an Abram as their personally taxi or are just there to boost their K/D ratio. While we can’t do anything about the douche-bags, here are five quick tips that you, can use to be a good in BFBC2 without breaking a sweat.
1. Be what you want to be:
BFBC2 allows you to choose from a good list of classes that suits your playing style. Do you like to hide behind the bushes and deliver death from a mile away? Go for the Recon class. Prefer being the one that got to blow up the M-COM station or finally capture that hotly-contested-for flag? Step into Assaults shoes please. But what if you get to play as…well…everything? See that Medic guy who just got shot? Walk over to him, pick up his kit by pressing ‘E’ and voila! You are medic now. Whip out the Shock Paddles and revive the downed guy, earn some points and gain a ticket back for your team. Or just be the Ghillie-suit clad, Repair Tool toting Engineer guy charging towards the marauding M1 Abrams tank just for the heck for it. The possibilities are endless.
2. Armor buster:
Ok, so the Ghillie-suited Engineer just got shot down by the Abram’s secondary gunner. Too bad! If you too are sane engineer, avenge your team-mates death by sneaking up to the tank and firing a tracer-dart at the tank. Now whip up the shoulder-fired rocket launcher, look through the scope until the red triangle around the tank becomes solid and then let loose a rocket. It will home in for the kill. Always try to hit the tanks from the sides or back for better results; the armor is weaker in these sections. Be generous with the anti-tank mines, especially near objectives where the tanks are prone to drive up to. Seeing points for blowing up the tank and the enemy pop up ten minutes later is always pleasurable. Snipers can chip in by calling a Mortar Strike on a stationary enemy armored vehicle.
3. Snipers can take out M-COM stations too:
Just called in a Mortar Strike on one of the Abrams? Liked the way it blew up the tank and its unfortunate occupants? Why not try the same thing on that single storied building housing that last M-COM station? Remember that BFBC2 featured Destruction 2.0. Now not only do you get to blow away the walls and smoke out the campers but also actually bring down the whole building itself if you can concentrate the fire for long enough. The best part is that a collapsing building will take down the M-COM station it is housing, down with it. Point your binoculars at the building and call in a mortar-strike. Wait for it to refill and then repeat until you hear the beautiful sound of a building giving up. Even more beautiful if you do it just when the defenders are trying to diffuse the timer!
4. Spot, spot and then spot some more:
So you blew up the tank and then brought-down the house on that M-COM station. What do you do next that will make sure you do not go down in the history of that round of Rush as a camper? Use the ‘Q’ button. In fact, we advise you to overdose on it if you can. For every time you look down your scope, zero-in on an enemy and press ‘Q’, that bad-guy shows up on the map with a big red arrow pointing down on his head. Do this even before you squeeze the trigger so that the team-mate he is stalking will know there is someone behind him. So in case you miss or the shot is not a one-shot-kill, it gives your team-mate to turn around and finish him off. And if you happen to be the afore-mentioned team-mate, return the favor by spotting, no matter which class you are in.
5. Don’t be trigger happy:
Notice how none of the above mentioned guys are going after the enemy, racking up kills and boosting up the K/D ratio. Because if that is what you intend to do in BFBC2, then it will not take you too far. The whole game is built around getting to the objective, i.e. either destroying/defending the M-COM stations in the Rush mode or capturing and holding on to territory in the Conquest mode. If killing is all you want to do, you are better of in Deathmatch mode or any of the other countless multiplayer games that allow you to do the same. Here, all that matters is if you achieved the objective; a great K/D ratio is just the fringe benefit. In the end all that matters is if you won the particular round or not, so play smart.
Do you have any tips to share with us? We would love to hear from you in the comments section.
Note: While some of the tips mentioned here use the key-bindings from the PC version of the game, all of them are as relevant to the console version of game as they are to the PC version. On the consoles, the ‘BACK’ button is the equivalent of ‘Q’ button, to be used for spotting.
I could never really understand the obsession of setting their games in a nuclear winter setting in this part of the world. First there was GSC Game World with the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series and now we have A4 games, a bunch of developers from Ukraine with their rendition of a nuclear winter ravaged Moscow in the near-future. Based on the best-selling novel by the same name by Dmitry Glukhovsky, the game features Moscow, devastated in a nuclear war, leaving it’s survivors trapped below the wasteland in its intricate metro tunnels, as they try to survive in any which way possible. Is the game good enough to send chills down your skin as you fight your way through claustrophobic underground tunnels as you battle hideous mutants? Let’s find out.
You play as a war-orphan, Artyom, brought up by his step-father after the survivors had to move underground, into the metro tunnels to save themselves from the nuclear storms and the mutants that roam on the surface of Moscow. Now an adult, Artyom is asked to deliver an important message to another station on the metro network. This is where the story starts off, with you, as the player navigating through these dark catacombs complete with haunted tunnels, noises in the dark and scurrying monstrosities ready to pounce upon you. Even the humans are not all that friendly, with paranoia reigning supreme all around and would rather shoot first and ask questions later. Between all this, you will soon realize that the simple messenger boy that is Artyom has a bigger role to play in the grand scheme of things.
The biggest USP of this game is the atmosphere that it creates bordering on survival-horror. The human settlements are dirty and cramped, claustrophobic and reeking of the desperation that has driven the survivors to this. The dark tunnels offer a reprieve from that but as soon as you start hearing the scurrying of the mutants, the noises echoing from deep within the tunnels, you cannot help but grip your mouse a bit more tightly, in anticipation of what kind of monster would rear its ugly head. Your flashlight is barely able to cut through this all-enveloping darkness and even then, you can barely make out if the shadows that loom ahead are friends or foes. All of this combine together to create a superb atmosphere that will have you at the edge of your seats all the time, not much unlike that found in Bioshock or Dead Space.
The God of War series burst into the console scene just when the ageing PS2 was on it’s last legs. Many a jaws were left hanging after seeing what Sony Santa Monica could do with technology of 1980’s vintage. While the original God of War (GOW) showed what the PS2 was still capable of, God of War 2 (GOW2) pushed the bar even further in terms of visuals, presentation and the sheer experience of Kratos with his twin blades of chaos. No surprise that gamers worldwide were dizzy with anticipation ever since the next-generation PS3 hit the shelves. A cliffhanger ending for GOW2 all but confirmed that the next game in the series will show up on the advanced PS3 hardware. Possibilities were endless. Would the wizards at Sony Santa Monica (SSM) weave an even more spectacular spectacle again?
GOW3 picks up right where you left off in the preceding game. Kratos has begun his ascent towards Mount Olympus, his all-consuming hatred for Zeus spurring him forward in his quest for revenge. Aiding him in his quest are the Titans, each of them setting up set-pieces of never-seen-before magnitude. Zeus, suitably angry, urges all the gods to unite against this mere mortal and stamp him off the face of earth once and for all. So now you have the likes of Hermes, Poseidon, Helios blocking your path towards Zeus, setting up the stage for jaw-dropping set pieces and amazingly bloody boss-battles. This forms the core of the plot for GOW3 and generally does a good job of spurring the narrative forward as Kratos relentlessly pushes forth, decimating everyone who dares stands in his way.
Combat has always been the hallmark of all GOW games. The sheer brutality of Kratos as he rips through enemies and innocents alike will make you cringe, yet you will keep on mashing on those buttons, mesmerized by the brilliance of the swinging Blades of Chaos. Considering this aspect had not been constrained by limited hardware capabilities, we were not really expecting any breakthroughs on the new hardware either. It was pleasantly surprising to see that SSM managed to refine the combat even further with GOW3. While it is still shares the same core-mechanics with the previous games, the variety that is on offer is truly astounding. Ignoring the other weapons in favor of one would be a grave mistake for gamers for they would be missing out on a variety of combos, their magical powers and the beauty of seeing a particular weapon in action.
Besides the weapons, you also gain godly powers once you have brought down one of the Gods in the boss-battles. These powers grant you access to newer abilities thus opening up new doors for you. Slaying a God will grant you access to portals that were locked before and enable you to see objects and doors that lay just beyond a shimmering veil of gold dust; things that you knew were there but could not see them till now. These abilities help in mixing up the game-play and keeping tedium at bay. Platforming and puzzle elements also help maintain the delicate balance between providing enjoyment without being a cakewalk and frustration. Quick time events, which make up for some the most beautifully choreographed sequences are now easier to get right, thanks to the intuitive placements of the prompts on the screen.
Cinematic presentation remains the corner-stone in GOW3 as well with its mind-boggling set pieces that will have you going “whoa!” every time you see it. Taking the camera controls out of the player’s hands means that the game presents the scenes in the best possible manner. Frankly, we would be least concerned about the camera while we scale the massive Titans, battling enemies while the Titans themselves climb up Mount Athena, battling their own enemies all the time. Such battles within battles atop moving platforms and lumbering Titans dwarf similar sequences seen till now in other games. At other times, the game will toy with your point-of-view and gameplay elements in such ways that you will start to seamlessly merge with the character of Kratos, getting inside his head in more ways than one.
Graphically the game delivers all that was expected from it. Lights and shadows bounce around with each swing of your blades, brilliant light streams through shafts while you despair in the pits of darkness and incredibly detailed levels still feel new ever as you visit them again during your travails. The sound department is not let down either, be it the sweeping orchestral tracks or the sounds of Kratos weapons sweeping through a mass of enemies or the brutal snapping of a neck. Voice acting also does the job suitably, showing off the anguish, contempt or rage that each character is going through. Completing the game unlocks the Challenges mode, extending the experience of GOW3. Of-course with such beautiful set-pieces and massive battles, gamers would love to go for even second of third play-through of the game.
Answering the question asked in the beginning; yes, Sony Santa Monica have gone ahead and done it for the third time, surpassing every expectation from them with GOW3. Set-pieces are even grander, the boss-battles ever bloodier, the whole experience even more cinematic then ever before. GOW3 comes as a welcome addition to ever-growing family of AAA exclusives for the PS3. The previous two GOW games set the bar high. GOW3 effectively shatters the bar and goes much beyond it. This is the kind of an end we wanted for Kratos journey. Kudos to Sony Santa Monica for giving the fans of God of War in particular and gamers in general a game they will cherish for ever.
10 / 10
Here is the date that all Halo fans have been eagerly waiting for. In a few more hours, the Halo Reach Multiplayer Beta will go live for all those with a copy of ODST. As for us, we have been mucking around in the beta for the past three days now, thanks to Microsoft India. So here is a quick primer of what to expect in the beta. This is by no means a comprehansive preview but a quick and dirty hands-on.
Once you are past the opening credits, you can start getting acquainted with the new controls; yes, they have changed so it would do a world lot of good if you take a few minutes to familiarise yourself with the control scheme. And while you are there, you can get to the armory to check out all the armor parts and breast-plates that are available there and how many credit points it will take to unlock them. You can mess around with your armor color scheme as well if you feel like it.
Next comes “Matchmaking”. The nifty new user interface shows all your friends who are online and playing the beta so that you can directly join them in the game. As of now, only a few playlists are available. We were able to play Grab Bag (4 vs 4 Slayer objective based) and Free for All (8 players free-for-all) while Slayer Arena (4 vs. 4 seasonally ranked Slayer) was not available. Matchmaking was quick and we were consistently getting green network-strength bar which is quite a surprise for India.
Once you have selected the playlist, you get to select between four classes i.e. Scout, Guard, Stalker and the coolest of all, the Airborne. While the Scout can sprint across short distances, the Guardscan create a temporary force field around them when being attacked but are rendered immobile during that time. Stalkers can go invisible making them the perfect weapon for assassination. And the Airborne come with jet-packs, allowing them to fly over the map across short distances.
Weapons have gone a change as well. So now you will have to adapt your gameplay around the old and new weapons to get the best results. We felt that the aiminig reticule needs some work to be done as in it’s present avataar, it is pretty difficult to get accurate shots. Grenaded explosions need to be toned down a bit as the blast and damage radius is just too huge. And what’s with this slow movement? Sometimes it feels like wading through mollasses, especially when you have others closing in to take you out.
Graphically, the game is not breaking any bars…yet. It is a beta, yes and a surprising well done beta at that, with all those beautiful explosions happening on screens and bodies getting thrown around the map. But the jaggies are still visible and texture loading takes some time occassionally. The Halo 3 engine is showing it’s age. Hopefully, the final product will be much more polished version of the beta.
All in all, the beta has proved to be fun to play and it will get even better once our regular gang gets access to the beta. With some many credits to earn and stuff to unlock in the armory, we can only imagine the sort of carnage that Xbox LIVE is about to witness. So set aside some bandwidth to download the 1.15 Gb client in a few hours and we will see you on the battlefield Spartans.
Creative Assembly’s Total War series has reserved a special place in the hearts of RTS aficionados across the world. Empire: Total War (ETW), the latest in the series till now, was breathtaking in its scope. No wonder that it is on the must-play list of all RTS gamers. Maybe that is what prompted Creative Assembly to go for a sort of stand-alone expansion in form of Napoleon: Total War (NTW) instead of a full-fledged new game in the Total War series. So instead of a free-flowing game style that most Total War fanatics would be accustomed to, you will instead be stepping into the shoes Napoleon Bonaparte.
Veterans of ETW will feel immediately at ease with NTW as they happen to share the same code. There have been tweaks and new features being added into the game so gamers hopefully should be able to see some of the niggles from ETW being addressed in NTW. So at the end of the day, you still have the good old turn-based game which transforms into a real-time war game when the need arises. The only thing different would be that you would be following the exploits of Napoleon over a course of four campaigns, namely, Egyptian, Italian, European and the infamous Waterloo.
While most of the stuff from ETW appears in NTW relatively untouched, there are few welcome additions that give new depths of strategy to the game. One of these additions is the brand-new Attrition model. Earlier, you could have had your troops charge right through the wind-swept deserts of the Egyptian campaign. Now, you will troops will incur causalities with each turn, because of the inhospitable desert climate or for that matter freezing winters. This neat touch makes you think twice and plan accordingly before you commit your troops.
Other new additions to the game include a greater focus on your generals, the well-being of whom would translate into greater troop morale. Losing an experienced general can be a real blow in the game. Once you have rolled over a town, you can now either chose to loot and pillage or grant them freedom, in which case they turn into allies that you can fall back on in times of crises. Improved physics system and environmental effects means that terrain-deformation due to cannon balls and soggy gunpowder because of rain can be few head-aches us arm-chair generals will have to learn to deal with.
Graphically, the game is a delight to look at if you have a system good enough to handle it. It must be mentioned here that the game scales well but then you will be missing out on all the fun of cannon-balls ripping through armies and smoke pouring out of muskets. Navel battles in particular look absolutely amazing with ships maneuvering in the open seas, lining up to take the shots and then letting loose their fifty-odd cannons. Splintered wood flying around and sea-men tossed around from the explosion; all these come together in perfect harmony.
If you are exasperated by the dodgy AI, you can always choose to let another human player drop in during the campaign session and play as the rival faction. This alone boosts up the replay factor several notches. Then there is the much awaited multiplayer mode which fans have been demanding for quite a while. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer anything different from the standard single player experience. You can set the interval between you and your opponents move to anywhere between 3-20 minutes which would entail you having to sit for extended periods of time doing nothing.
At the end of the day, NTW is more like ETW with patches to iron out the bugs of ETW and a new, focused story-line. Long-time fans would anyways pick up the title any which way. But if you are one of those taking baby-steps into the Total War universe, this will make for a tempting deal with its new features and a more stream-lined approach to the game. Napolean: Total War remains quite faithful to its predecessor which is not necessarily a bad thing to say about the game. Just think of it as an expansion and you will end up having loads of fun with the game.
8 / 10
Right from the faintly prehistoric front-engine, fuel -guzzling, oil-spitting machines of the early 1950’s, the killer 67 monsters, through the ground effect and turbo eras and right up to aerodynamic in 2010, F1 has been the pinnacle of motorsport for more than three decades. When Codemasters took up the mantle to finally bring Formula One into our consoles and PCs this generation, they had to come up with something extraordinary. Codemasters F1 2010 certainly looks great; the amount of detail that has gone into the circuits and cars in it is pretty impressive but will that be enough for it to see the checkered flag is something that we will cover in the later part of the review.
Given Red Faction: Armageddon's extensive destructibility and delightfully devastating arsenal, the prospect of fresh opportunities for wreaking havoc on Mars is an appealing one. Path to War struggles to capitalize on this potential, delivering four new campaign missions that give you a glimpse of the events that preceded the original game. Two of the missions are vehicle-based, and though that ups the destructive ante, vehicle handling isn't Armageddon's strong suit. The two on-foot missions fare better, arming you with two mildly amusing new weapons and delivering the exciting action you've come to expect. Unfortunately, the whole thing is over in about an hour, and there's nothing else to do but play it all again. Even with some entertaining moments, Path to War doesn't justify its seven dollar (540 Microsoft points) purchase price.
Even though Armageddon didn't have a very interesting story, Path to War starts out with an intriguing twist. In the first mission, you play as one of Adam Hale's top lieutenants and blast your way through scores of Red Faction soldiers while sabotaging their defenses. It's too bad that this mission takes place in an aerial vehicle and you aren't given the chance to play the role of a villain in a more up-close and personal way. Instead, you hover slowly through constricted passageways, blowing up all kinds of stuff with your missile attack and gunning down tiny soldiers. The explosions are pretty enough, but the vehicle isn't fun to pilot. The floaty controls do little to impart the sense that you are in a powerful weapon of war, so the whole mission feels flat. The same is true of the next mission, in which you drive an awkward tank with reversible (and disorienting) treads. Again, you pack a big punch, but because the camera is zoomed out to encompass your large vehicle, the destruction isn't as impressive or satisfying as it is when you're on foot.
Fortunately, the second half of Path to War puts you back on the ground as Darius Mason, wielding familiar weapons as you fight through industrial areas, outposts, and caves thick with cultist enemies. Though you start off with only part of your full arsenal, you are almost immediately granted one of the two new weapons featured in this add-on: the shard gun. This repurposed cleanup gizmo gathers up a hovering ball of nearby debris and then shoots it wherever you choose. Clobbering enemies with a tangle of building materials is definitely amusing, especially when the junk you kill them with used to be the bridge they were standing on. Playing around with the shard gun can be fun for a while, though it's likely to make you long for the creative mayhem fueled by the magnet gun, which you get to use during only one of the four missions.
The other new gun is less exciting, but more deadly. The sharpshooter is a powerful bolt gun that impales your target to any surface behind it. Sticking an enemy to a wall is good for a chuckle, and when you use this gun in conjunction with your shockwave ability, you can send a foe flying lazily across the map. You don't get to watch them fly for very long, however, because the sharpshooter is so powerful that it kills human enemies with one hit and they dissolve soon after being pinned. Larger enemies won't be propelled by the sharpshooter's bolts, and this limits the amount of nasty foe-pinning fun you can have. Also, you get to use the sharpshooter only on the fourth and final level of Path to War, and you can't use either new gun in Infestation or Ruin mode.
Path to War also comes with a handful of new achievements, but it's easy to get them all on your first and only playthrough. Completing the four missions and exhausting everything this add-on has to offer takes only about an hour, and it's a shame that so much of it is dedicated to lackluster vehicle sequences rather than the explosive core action. The new weapons provide some entertainment, but like everything else in Path to War, it's short-lived. Folks hungry for more Red Faction: Armageddon are likely to get more enjoyment out of a New Game Plus than this brief excursion, which asks too much and gives too little.
