BFBC2 Review - 12th May

By: [MBT[UltimaWeapon

The sound of explosions, of rifles ejecting bullets, of your teammates shouting away from a distance, people running from one corner to the other, of cannons blasting away with echoes of sniper rifles being shot in the background and of buildings crumbling, those were the objects of fascination and usually associated with heroism, excitement, action, leadership, teamwork and maybe fear for some. It was, one of the things that most people have often tried to imagine themselves to be in. In the midst of a battlefield, the feel of covering for your squad, planning ahead the path to thread and threats to eliminate next, has made a great deal of excitement in a lot of people.  It was a wonder, how would it feel like to be in the situation of a war? With immersive sounds supported by Dolby Surround, and believable graphics, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 makes explosions right next to you. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was developed by DICE, a Swedish company well-known for its Battlefield series, and published by Electronic Arts. DICE was the company which revolutionized the multiplayer component of gaming, where 32 players can play in the same field where previously, it was limited up to 8 players only on other games. In this game, although the single-player component is not the main selling point, but the game play was very well worth the money paid.

Battlefield:Bad Company 2 single player campaign focuses on a squad known as Bad Comapany, consisting of Sarge, Marlowe, Sweetwater, and Haggard which were characters from the original Battlefield:Bad Company 1. First mission starts off during WWII which serves as a background to the story and tells of a weapon of mass destruction developed by the Japanese during WWII. The weapon was then acquired again in the modern day and threatens to unnerve worldwide safety. With your squad of four, and armed with modern day variety of weapons and rifles such as the M16A4 assault rifle, AKS-74u, M95-Barrett sniper rifle, M60 Light Machinegun and UMP-45 sub-machinegun, your mission is to prevent the destruction of the world and recover this weapon. The excellent sound design further enforces your sense of place. Though there are some blurry textures, occasional screen tearing, and awkward moments caused by the pervasive environmental destructibility, these are mere blemishes on the ambitious look and immersive sound of Bad Company 2. Environments range from lush and dense forest with even mosquitoes buzzing to snowy locales which the howling winds could literally chill your ears.

 With the new Destruction 2.0, every building, every nook and corner can be used to your advantage or disadvantage, working like a double edge-sword. Almost every building and structure can be leveled to the ground and many a time, this has been used to achieve objectives, either by killing enemies or crushing your objective. Any object you find in the environment can either be your worst enemy or your best ally depending on situation. Often, you would find yourselves running for a new cover when your previous cover was blown to bits, maybe from a cannon shell or making new cover for yourselves by blowing up the walls of a nearby building. This adds to the unpredictability and often you would find that you will never stay in the same place even in different rounds of the same map. Never are two games the same, even the way objectives are achieved or places which you used for cover, which promotes for creative thinking such as hiding a tank in a building or even using a C4-rigged UAV to blow up buildings. When the building starts creaking, it’s either run or risk being crushed.

Multiplayer wise, depending on your preference, there are four kits available which are: Assault, Medic, Engineer and Recon. Main tasks of the assault would be the main attack force in the front, pushing enemy lines back with a number of rifles, while the medic provides first-aid healing and reviving fallen teammates armed with his light machineguns. Destroying objects are the specialty of the engineer and his arsenal of rocket launchers and mine. Lastly the recon scouts and spot enemies for his teammates while providing the quick elimination of sniper rifles. The sensation of getting a sniper headshot after a careful target lining up while compensating for bullet drop is very satisfying is also part of the war-stories told after having played the game. Balance is not a question as even snipers requires two shots to kill unless it’s a headshot, which is an instant death for the target. With ACOG and RDS as unlockable options, accuracy is no longer an excuse for missing targets.

With over 51 weapons and 16 vehicles such as Abrams, Bradley, Bakhcha, Hind and Apache, there are almost countless ways to do what you wish in the game, and achieving the objectives of the 4 available games mode including: Rush, Conquest, Squad Deathmatch and Squad Rush. Each game modes play distinctively from each other, being Rush having to either defend or destroy stations situated across the maps and conquest to capture and defend flags for points. In terms of multiplayer experience, the main concern was of lag issues. Lag or latency is the way how a game compares the timing difference between you and other people. This is important to determine the hit rate and whether does your firing actually hit a moving target which either results in your target surviving or meeting his fate. Even for countries far apart, such as between the United States and Malaysia, the lag was very much playable due to the dedicated servers available for the game with a large number of locations for each region. This ensures that there are no arguments on who has the latency advantage as everyone is tuned to the player with the highest latency.

 In Malaysia particularly, the Battlefield community was spearheaded by the Malaysian Battlefield Team (MBT, www.mbtcentral.net). MBT was established in 15th September 2006 by four gaming enthusiast with the sole intention of creating a dedicated, well managed and reputable organization of gamers. MBT focuses on First Person Shooter genre game the Battlefield series from Electronic Arts and other titles which emphasize teamwork play. Since then, with limited means of advert MBT has grown steadily over the months and the number of members has increased from a mere 8 to currently a total of 51 and still counting. Anyone from Malaysia is free to apply for membership which is only given after a week of trial playing with current MBT administrative personnel. Members are then divided into divisions according to their preference, such as the Alpha ( α ) division for frontal assault and Borneo Head-Hunters ( B[H]2 ) division for reconnaissance and sniping. Although each player is free to switch between kits, each division they belong are expected to perform tasks provided over the VOIP system, Teamspeak 3 which promotes teamwork and tactics. For best gaming experience, MBT has started their own dedicated servers based in Singapore which guarantees a much lower latency for players in the region. To play in MBT servers, search for MBTCENTRAL.NET and you’re in for a blast!

Having being said, the Battlefield Bad Company 2 game is indeed a well-worth for money game to get. There are no further doubts about this and could easily be one of the better FPS games out at the moment. With the unpredictable single-player and action oriented multiplayer, coupled with the dedicated servers, especially the MBT servers in Malaysia, it’s time to blow things up. Excuse me while I see an enemy in my 12x scope, I have a bullet here with his name on it.

Pros: - Destruction 2.0, Balanced Weapons, Vehicles, Large maps

Cons: - Not much variety in game modes, Very addictive

Thanks to Gest, Guardian77, Mobster, Wallydragon, Apam_Savior

No Thanks to Schizodroid

Infinity Ward Mass Resignations - 18th April

With the firing of Vince Zampella and Jason West from Infinity Ward by Activision over an issue which the gaming community calls as a abomination, the chaos was created by Activision so that they will not have to pay Vince and Jason the royalties that they deserve for the sales of Modern Warfare 2, many other staff of Infinity Ward are now currently in the process of leaving Infinity Ward and more are possibly coming. The video shows people who are currently not in the company anymore.

Video Games | | Who's left Infinity Ward so far?

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

As a summary, people who have already left:-
Directed By:- Jason West
Engineering Leads:- Francesco Gigliotti
Engineering:- Jon Shirling, Rayme E.Vinson
Design Leads:- Todd Alderman, Steve Fukida, Mackey Macandlish, Zied Rieke
Art Leads:- Christopher Cherubini
Animation Leads:- Mark Gringsby, Paul Messerly
Story By:- Jason West, Todd Alderman, Steve Fukida, Mackey Macandlish, Zied Rieke
CEO:- Vince Zampella

Starcraft 2 Beta Review - 6th April

Although the beta has been opened for quite a while, I'm doing the review only now as this review must be not be messed up and actually conveys what I actually think of the game from the beta experience only. Due to the fact that this game is widely anticipated, expectations were rather high and being helmed by Blizzard made the game on of the more "must-haves" of the times.

As this game is only in its beta, much of the story is not yet known but the basics is that it starts after the end of Starcraft: Broodwar and the first installment of a 3-part series focuses on the Marines or humans of the game in "Wings of Liberty". Therefore, story is out and the general idea for the beta would be on the balancing issues if the units and also bugs and glitches, whether graphical or the system itself. This review would focus on the graphics, sounds, gameplay and overall of the beta so far.

In terms of graphics, I was not too impressed with what I was looking at. It seems to look like and upgraded version of the Warcraft 3 graphics with some improvements and in space. With addition that the graphics seems so much darker and gloomy. Although the unit graphics have been changed over from 2d to 3d, they, in my opinion do not reflect the older units that most gamers are familiar with. This also goes for the structures as well where they've lost their grandness of design and even the futuristic look has been eliminated by a large amount. I'm not sure if it is a result of being unfamiliar with the new graphics, but due to the graphical changes, unit control felt very unresponsive. Even some of the units look particularly downgraded at this point, and I would like to stress one of the more obvious: why does the Zergling now have wings? They sure do look like small flies now.

I've actually one issue with the sounds department, which is:- Give Me Back the Old Sounds! The truth is, the current sounds for units and structures is very much annoying and not satisfactory. The old coarse sound of the overmind, the human voice of the Marines and the templar sounds of the Protoss bases is being wiped by the annoying Kerrigan sounds for the Zergs, electronic sound of the Marines and weak sound of the Protoss in the new game. Unit response sounds are no longer familiar and sounds like they've been running for ages and so feels so tired. Unit deaths sounds are toned down and felt like "just another unit dead" and not a part of your army. In whole, the game environment just became less lively and more monotonous.

Overall, I would say the experience felt tedious and some what unexpected for a high-profiled game. In fact, even with effort of trying to like the game, there just isn't any mood or excitement of playing it. The whole experience felt forced and pointless. Seriously, I wonder why some games these days felt repetitive and lack of quality. I used to think that Blizzard has a reputation to make addictive and polished games, but now, no longer. Hopefully, the actual game wouldn't be as bad as this game has degraded into in the beta.

Bioshock 2 Review - 28th March

The world of Rapture, in theory, it is an utopia but indeed the human nature is unpredictable and bound to it's true instinct: destruction and rebellious. It's been 10 in-game years since the days of Bioshock and Bioshock 2 now tells of another story. Instead of the human you played in Bioshock, you now are what you've feared the most in Bioshock, a Big Daddy. Actually, I've finished this game a couple of days ago and only today I've decided to write an article about it. As usual, this review will talk briefly about the game on overall, the graphics, and also the gameplay.

The main backbone of the story is on you as the Big Daddy trying to locate back the child under your care, the Little Sister. Earlier in the story, the main antagonist, Sofia Lamb instructed the main character to shoot himself but revived 10 years later with the Bio-Tube. Throughout the game, there will be decisions to be made but most of them involves either saving or killing someone, which will affect the ending. Some of the story elements in the game are pretty standard after Bioshock 1 with someone taking over the helm of  the administration of Rapture and the citizens themselves making a mess of everything, although there are small surprises here and there. On the story, I wouldn't say that it is marvelous but rather mediocre, in fact, I had to look up online for the actual story as from the conversations littered throughout the game, I couldn't get the big picture only rough sketches of what was happening in Rapture.

Graphically, the game does portray the city of Rapture rather realistically in the sense of the setting and mood. The timeline of the game which is in the 70's can be felt from the decor, the way the enemies dress and also the furniture. Lights and shadows are well made and sometimes you might look behind you for fear of an enemy due to some shadow of someone running behind you. Although this, I'm not too sure if it is intentional, but the citizens of Rapture has been portrayed to look rather less "spliced" than 10 years ago? In Bioshock 1, the enemies looks much more hideous, grim and of course, much more prone to attacking you but they look like they've become better after 10 years? Not sure on this though. But well, there's no complaints from me on other graphical elements. The underwater scene looks very believable and water looks like water.

It's good that Bioshock 2 did manage to change the gameplay from a human point of view to the Big Daddy. It sure did play differently in the second game. Although this, some of the game elements are seriously not fun, well at least not for me. Getting ADAM now means that you've to snatch the Little Sisters from their respective Big Daddies which is a routine, but what's with the extra ADAM which you've to defend the Little Sisters from the citizens of Rapture? I've seen Little Sisters (un-snatched yet) plunging their needles into any of the corpses while in serenity and no one disturbing but "our" Little Sisters are so selective with the corpse they get the ADAM from and is a sure-fire way of getting the attention of the citizens of Rapture? Hacking the different machines in Rapture requires for you to click with precision, having to click once the needle reaches the green / blue zone which was much simpler than the pipe-mania of Bioshock 1. The other thing of concern would be the lack of sounds of the machines makes me wonder if the machines' sound boxes actually got spoilt after 10 years that they don't make their distinctive sounds anymore. Bioshock 1 machines' each makes memorable sounds that make them somewhat in contrast to the environment which is an experience by itself which is lacking in Bioshock 2.

It is not fair to say that Bioshock 2 is a bad game, it is not too bad but in comparison to its prequel, it does not match up in terms of quality and gameplay. There are spooky elements in Bioshock 1 that just doesn't cut it Bioshock 2 which results in a rather tad plain experience and not the kind of awe generated by Bioshock 1. My score for this game:- 8/10

Mass Effect 2 Review - 28th Feb

Mass Effect 1 was a great experience as it was utterly new system where no other RPGs have gone before and on 26th January, Bioware released the sequel for this game, Mass Effect 2 and I've just finished it once yesterday with a clock time of exactly 24 hours. In this review, we'll talk about the story, gameplay, graphics and the whole game on the overall.

Now, lets start with the story. As with the prequel, Cmd.Shepard (whether male or female) has to fight against the Reapers, a race of sentient machines which are extremely large as seen as the Sovereign in the first Mass Effect series and this time, a new enemy has emerged, but in fact not entirely new as the sequel would reveal (Play the game to find out) and this new enemy is also working for the Reapers, The Collectors. The new enemy is abducting colonies of humans and Shepard intends to stop them. At the start of the game, Shepard is attacked and considered dead but resurrected again by Cerberus which just a minor excuse for you to have an entirely new team. In general, ii's all about you and your team saving the universe again.

In my opinion, although the story is about you and your team trying to save the universe's humans from abduction and probably are racing against time, the feeling of the urgency does not exist and there's nothing that's pushing you to do anything. As long as you choose to, you may progress your story at any time. Other than that, you may spent all day leisuring around, scanning planets for resources and there won't be any consequences. There whole story actually revolves in 4 stages which would be recruiting stage, know enemy location stage, prepare to get there stage and lastly assault stage. Overall I would say that the story is nothing special and not too memorable and pales in comparison for maybe say: Final Fantasy 7?

In terms of gameplay, in comparison with the prequel, this game has a much better mechanics and much simplified Upgrades to a better weapon is done automatically and you'll find weapons on the field instead of buying them. What you can buy is the upgrades for the weapons, such as accuracy, damage and ammo upgrades. There is no longer any add-ons for your weapons etc. Missions vary from diplomacy,  search and a court case or just plain fighting. The side missions are not much to be bothered as they provided only 40 exp which minuscule to what you have to do sometimes, simply not worth it. Overall, I would say that although the current new system is quite good, but I miss the old times where you can purchase better weapons in shops instead of finding them in the field which you may miss sometimes, which I'm not sure will or will not make it much harder for you at later stages. Firefights are relatively easy and the chances of dying is particularly low unless you don't take cover from enemy fire. What I don't like is that taking cover involves only one button, while it may be useful during intense fights, but sometimes I like a little bit of customization on how I'm taking cover and when. At times, holding (space key) to run puts me in the nearest side cover, e.g facing right  which is directly in the path of a frontal enemy fire. Besides that, I also miss the vast space to explore in Mass Effect, think Citadel, and is now confined to small spaces and only a couple of minor forgettable places. Instead of overheating, you now have thermal clips which act as a sort of ammo and not to worry, its abundant, although at times, you're forced to conserve as sometimes it becomes rare.

In terms of graphics, there is nothing much to brag about, although it is a little bit nicer than Mass Effect 2. There isn't much to complain about in terms of performance as I did not even touch any of the settings and yet still displays nicely, unlike Mass Effect 1 where there are sometimes some lag issues at certain parts of the game Graphical glitches are quite a common sight at times where what shouldn't be there is there. Scope zoom images are still clear and detailed which is particularly great for me. Overall, the feel of the different planets and locales are very convincing and atmospherically right although the vast awe I had in the first game no longer exists.

The game on the whole, I had a great time, but it could tedious especially on the planet scanning for resources part. Couldn't they make it simpler or more fun? But well, for those who liked mass effect 1, should definitely buy this while for those who never like mass effect 1 due to its complexity, should try this. In conclusion, the score for this game according to my opinion, would be:-

Story:- 6/10 (Plain)
Graphics:- 8/10
Gameplay:- 9/10
Overall:- 8/10

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - 27th Feb

I've ordered battlefield Bad Company 2 from The Software Boutique yesterday for RM129. Well, I'm not too sure on how the whole process is, so maybe I'll post it up here!

Kind of excited too as, truthfully, it's very rare of me to buy original games and I think that Bad Company 2 is an awesome game to support. It's also a step for me to show how much IW.net for Modern Warfare 2 really is terrible and degrading.

Call me a Modern Warfare 2 traitor all you want, but Infinity Ward got a kick from my gaming list quite a while ago with all the insanity they've commited. Well, come back for more updates on this!





Update:- 2nd March
I've already got the game and playing it. Seriously, it was so much fun, at least it does feel like you're shooting something in comparison to Modern Warfare 2, where you're not even sure if you actually hit or miss. Anyway, with the destructible environments, anything can happen which makes it more suspenseful and makes you feel like you're actively participating even for the single-player. Well, the reviews would come soon but here's two pictures of what I bought.


The un-opened box.
The case was basic with nothing special.

The Opened Box.
There wasn't much in the case itself, some manuals,
some redeem codes and the DVD itself. Can't complain as they're selling it for RM129 here which much less compared to the exchange rate in the United States.

The Freebies
You get: A poster, a T-Shirt and the DVD.









Well, order yours now from TSB!

Update:- 12th May
Made a review on the game. Read it: Here

Disciples 3 - A Review - 31st Jan

It's been awhile since I last written a game review. I think it has been almost 2 months already. In fact, I've also finished and not-finished some games already on probably would be nice to have some reviews which I planned to post soon. Anyways, I've just recently played Disciples 3: Renaissance lately and here's my two cents on the game.

Well, first of all, I didn't bother about the story. Why? Let me illustrate why.
I started the game with the tutorial section, supposedly teaches on how to play. Seeing that I've got experience in Disciples 2, I skipped all the tutorial messages as I was fairly sure that I could manage without them. As expected, I breezed through for a while.Suddenly I realize, what happen to all the game mechanics that most players have grown to love? Graphics-wise, I talk about that later in the article, but in terms of combat-wise, it was one my main gripes at the moment. I'm not too sure as to why the developers would change a system that differentiates itself from the similar "Heroes" series.

Now, here I have is a screen-shot of one of the combat scenes:-

In combat, you can now move your units to hexagonal spaces, which means, you can move units around behind enemies etc. Now, I don't really find this to be fun. If I would, I could have played the Heroes series.

Before this combat, my hopes were still high, trying to adapt to the strange new 3d view, revamped graphics, new system of gathering resources etc. While the combat is running, my interest in this game straight went down to zero and down the drain. My first thoughts were that I'm going back to Disciples 2. It's not that it's unplayable but the overall design has changed and degraded into a "Heroes" type clone instead of being in its own class. When the Heroes series degraded from the high-quality of Heroes 3 to Heroes 4 and the much much lower Heroes 5, I've switched to Disciples 2 and stuck to it since, but it looks like the series is also on another trip to the dark-store room.

Graphically, I'm not impressed either, the Gothic feel of the previous game has been reduced by quite a large amount. Disciples 2 made the lords and warriors look utterly "uber" even when they're actually at a low level. But in Disciples 3, the game just made a low-level warrior just puny and weak and from some images on various websites, a high-level one isn't any better. And I was wondering, what actually happened to all the "cool" looking attacks? Here's a comparison picture for both games for the hero.

Let me ask: Who looks and feels more a Hero?

 

Disciples 3 - Hero

 

Disciples 2 - Hero (The one on the Pegasus like Horse)

Well, I think I just straight give this game an overall score:- 3/10. Some points scored are awarded to the fact that the devs are able to maintain some moods of the game and not totally make it a new series. But well, I really don't like what they have done with the rest of the in-game systems.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Single Player - 24th Jan

Battlefield Bad Company 2 will be released on March 5th and I'm sure many gamers out there will be anticipating the game as it among the game to watch out for and as a "cure" to the disappointment caused by IW.net. Well, GTTV has recently showed Battlefield Bad Company 2 on its latest episode and so, here it is:-

BATTLEFIELD BAD COMPANY 2 - GTTV

Warning! - 21 Min Video ( Patience Required )

Well, from what I saw, I'm impressed. Finally, there will be single-player. For so long, I've been wondering on single-player for the battlefield series which usually was an "offline multiplayer" mode considered as single-player but now finally there's story and it will be a smaller learning curve with the single-player available. Now we just have to wait for March 5th...

Borderlands Review - 9th Dec

Borderlands, the game which I had actually finished quite a while ago but only now did I managed to a review for it.Well, first impressions before playing: This game must be really fun to play in multiplayer or singleplayer. Impressions after playing: This really is fun! The waepons are endless, I can get any kind of weapon! Playing with friends is cool! After playing for 4 weeks: Bah, this is getting kinda monotonous...kinda feel like the Claptrap in the main screen now looking at it...Anyways, here's a review on one of the more anticipated games of the year published by Gearbox. No Spoilers ahead!


Now the story of the game is relatively simple with not much twists and turn until you reach the ending. All the tension build-up would lead to a surprisingly weak ending.Heck, even the story itself is rather cliched of you saving the world. There's no back-story of any of the characters in the game, even for the NPCs nor for yourself, which makes it somewhat a blind wandering in the world, dictated by the flow the game have already set. This makes the game somewhat dependent on your own initiative to finish the game and also to reach the destination teh whole game was all about. If you lack the will, this is probably not for you. Although most quests are entirely dependent on your decision to do them, save the quests provided by the NPCs, I find myself constantly wanting to finish them just to see what else this game can offer. These quests themselves aren't something to be applauded of either, but neither are they lacking in variety: Search for items to build a custom gun (It's not really custom, more like a fixed assembly in which the parts are already scattered at pre-determined places), kill this amount of creatures and collect their stuff, switch off machines, kill bossess, and such. In fact, I would say that the gameplay is rather standard, but comparatively it has the fun element.


Graphically, this game is in a class on its own as it is not that realistic, but somehow it manages to model most things correctly and convincingly. It really has the comic book feel to it with the cell-shading, but sometimes looking at a something from a different angle would remove the cell-shading and reveal a realistic looking object. In overall, I really liked the graphics as it is something fresh from the usual realistic looking graphics in the latest FPS games as of late. The damage values, and the info screen for the items is rather a nice touch to the game and environment to the game. Due to the fact that the game has limited inventory (Not by the strength values we have but the number of items in your inventory), the info screen for the items eases the process of managing your inventory by letting you choose which item do you want to stock. After finishing the game, I would say that this game has done a very good job in providing unique looks for itself.

In other matters, this game did not meet up to my expectations actually. Is is boasted to have a multitude of weapons, tonnes of them with various variety, but the thing is that: where's the so-called rocket spewing assault rifle or machine gun? So far, I've only found a rocket shotgun and it's not even fun to use due to its horrendous accuracy. But accordingly, there were supposed to be guns firing all sorts of crazy stuffs with mixes here and there, but so far, it didn't exist for me. And I thought we were able to customize the vehicles? The only thing I could customize was the paint color and either a machine gun or rocket launcher as the mounted weapon. In fact, I would expect a much more detailed customization, such as having your own garage to store the various vehicles you created, armory to store the various weapons assembled from scratch and such. It just puts me off that there are only some parameter change in weapon variety.Although, the concept of having modifications for your grenades is a great concept and totally alters the gameplay in comparison to other FPS games available now.

Well, besides the ones shown above, I have here also other actual screenshots, with low medium quality texture and standard resolutions and they still look ok to me.

 

  

Overall here are the scores for the game:-
Story:- 5/10
Graphics: 9/10
Gameplay: 8/10
General: 9/10

MW2 Multiplayer - 17th Nov

Yesterday I had my first shot at Modern Warfare 2 Multi-player. Public games were working while the private Matches were not, and it confirmed a lot of my theories on the servers having a lot of issues that makes the experience a lot less fun compared to Modern Warfare. Among them:-

•  You can't kick players

During matches, there are bound to be hackers / cheaters or players who are downright annoying with their tubing or grenadier tendencies and there are also players who actually camp tonnes of time. Well, I don't actually mind the camping issue and all as it is part of the game but irritable players are the main concern here. Some players, from their kill cams, you can see clearly that they're cheating / hacking but there doesn't seem to be anything done on them, which means that the VAC fails and Steam actually fails. Infinity Ward says that the system will work, but this proves that it doesn't.

• Matchmaking

Infinity Ward also mentioned that this system would match you up with players that have the same skill and relatively similar pings (which is about 100ms), but I'm not sure why that I'm experiencing lags like no other before. Furthermore, even that no player is known to be the host, but the relative advantage is still there. You see people slower than they do see you. Not only that, I was also wondering why lvl 40~50 guys are also playing in the same game and the thing is that they're always on the same team / side (Team Deathmatch). Often the other team is paired with people with the same skills and therefore, usually got beaten by the team with higher lvl 40~50 player numbers? Is this the fair match-making provided by Infinity Ward? Total failure! This would have been solved if the dedicated server support was retained!

Battlefield Bad Company 2 - 16th Nov

With Modern Warfare 2 being a rather disappointing failure lately, I'm turning my head at the moment towards another modern warfare game: Battlefield Bad Company 2. Hopefully this game does not follow the suit of Modern Warfare 2 by making bad publicity.So, here therefore, I have a few videos which shows the multiplayer gameplay aspect of Battlefield Bad Company 2. Enjoy and hopefully there will be tonnes of people playing this game as it is massive!







I've bought the game! Read HERE !

No Original Modern Warfare for Me - 16th Nov

The latest Call of Duty Series called the Modern Warfare 2 has been recently released and a large number of reasons has prompted me to avoid getting this game original. In fact, as of, now, I'm so pissed of by the ruse created by Infinity Ward of their recent crazy behavior, I've decided not to even write a review for them. The reasons as of why I'm not supporting the company by buying original would include:

1> Features in the original game itself

•  Lack of dedicated servers and also LAN support

[ They say that it will all be done by match-making by selecting the best server for you, in other words, totally random matching. It will also match you with people of the same skill levels. I mean, if I want to play with my friend who has a higher ping but considered playable to us, how is that possible? How bout Private Match? It's not like there can be a spectator, therefore, the host would have the greater advantage which means connections trump skill]

• Single-Player requires Steamworks to play

[ If I'm traveling, lets say on a bus to a destination which is far away, and I might play a mission or two on my laptop, am I supposed to bring also all my Internet connection pephirals just to login into Steam? Won't it be more viable to exempt Single-Player from Steam? or Maybe, login to Steam once to authenticate the game, in which later Steam is no longer required for Single-Player. The greatest selling point of the series was the multiplayer aspect of the game (which they had ruined it now), so why so much trouble with the single-player? Furthermore, why would get Steam anyway when it delays the game for an additional day compared to people who had bought the game in DVD format?]

• Multiplayer Issues
  

[ It is said that you can customize your game to your liking when you host a Private Match. Well, I personally won't mind this as I'm more of a casual gamer although theprofessional gaming community would surely blast away this issue, but the thing is that without the console, how the heck am I supposed to customize it properly to my liking, following my own rules and whatever else that tickles my fancy when the customization aspect is limited? And the thing is you can't even kick players. IW guys actually gave a subpar answer to that issue by saying that you can simply mute foul-mouthing players and the kicking part would be handled by Steam VAC. Why can't we kick manually? If the player is using hacks that are able to bypass VAC, what the heck can the other players do? Quit game and hope the player doesn't join the same game? ]


2> Bobby Kotnick and Activision
I'm not interested into delving into more issues of this guy as he's not really interested in making games but making more mone only. The reason why, I guess, that Infinity Ward is churning up this load of rubbish (MW2) is that they were being pushed by Activision, their publishers. Bob here wants to make loads of money and tehrefore, any game that does not have much sequel potential is being shelved. And the fact that we have to pay USD$60 for a substandard game is also his decision. Bob here did mention before: "If it was up to me, I would've raised it to USD$100". This guy has no idea on gaming and isn't even gamer. Sometimes, you ever wonder why Starcraft 3 has an additional 2-sequels? Activision decided that this would help them make even more money as they know that gamers would gladly lap up all the crap they throw.

With this, Teknogods HERE have my full support! Go Teknogods!

Modern Warfare 2 Out Now - 12th Nov

The game that most of the population of the gaming world has been released recently on the 10th of Nov. Now I should probably be excited and quickly go buy the game, but I'm not at the moment and still a little hestitant. Why? Well, the guys at Activision and Infinity Ward has sure made the whole "Undergraound' scene nervous with all the Steam protection systems and no dedicated servers ruse. Even I have been thinking of getting an original copy just for the multiplayer as it surely looks fun to me and will probably last for a very long time after the release date which is well worth the money. But heck, I think I'll just wait for the scene to release some sort of workaround! Anyways, here are some videos of other people playing this game already:

Fallout 3 Review - 31st Oct

Well, after the rampage with Crysis. I've moved on to Fallout 3 the game for the Post-Apocalyptic Experience and my, this one great experience. When the usual Role-Playing Game would provide you with some standard screen where you input your name, and distribute your attribute points accordingly, together with selecting the skills that you're proficient with, this game made this integral to the game, by playing your early years of life, even your appearance can be customized during these stages. This in my opinion is masterfully done and deserves an applaud for being different than the current mainstream. Well, this game is in fact relatively subjective in terms of game-play time, as it depends on your curiosity and speed.You may play it longer or even shorter than what I've done, but heck, let's move on to the main story first.

Living in a vault for 19 years, your in-game father suddenly left the vault and you're not sure why. (Sorry Mr., I've amnesia and I only remember 4 days of all these years:- My birth, 10 years old, 16 years old - GOAT test and today, when I'm 19 years old.) So, you decided to search for him outside the vault ( Can't I choose to stay in and not go outside?) And in the process, you find out all your father's projects such as the Project Purity, to bring clean water to the people of the Capital Wasteland and in fact, you're not even born in the vault. The ultimate objective here would be the Project itself and finding your father is one part of it. In between, you'll meet all sorts of people, ranging for common people to the Enclave. The story in this game is rather generic, saving the world, although this is not so important before you found your in-game father as it will be your main focus, halfway throughout the game. Although, the story seems rather odd and it is one of the main cons of the game. I believe Bethesda should have done a better job in this department.

Gameplay wise, I would say that, even it may seem a little repetitive after a while, but with the high number of weapons available for you to use, makes it variable even towards the end of the game. The graphical gore of limbs flying and heads bursting with eyes popping gives a minor sense of satisfaction when you shoot something. Due to the fact that you're able to play in real time or using the VATS, it plays like a first-person shooter and also like an RPG, which helps in prolonging the gameplay. But I would rather have the enemies to be a little more varying. So far, i fought: Cockroaches, Molerats, Bugfly, Deathclaws, Humans, Super Mutants, Enclave, Centaurs, Mutant Behemoths, Robobrain, Giant Ants and Protectron which sums up all the enemies I've encountered during my play through. I've played it through in 24 hours and would say that it is possible to play it up to at least 50 hours if you are willing to finish all quests and explore every inch of the Capital Wasteland but one annoyance would be that your level cap is only at 20 which makes it rather pointless to actually explore and do everything.

Graphics-wise, it is quite nice, considering that the developers were able to provide the atmosphere and mood to the post apocalyptic condition of the Wasteland. This in my opinion translate rather well from the previous versions of Fallout and I think, have done a better job in making the whole scenario more believable. In the previous installments of Fallouts, the wasteland is rather empty with barren lands while the Capital Wasteland is strewn with all sorts of structures and roads, and places to go. With the proper setting, the Capital Wasteland would definitely look realistic but with my computer specifications, I'd rather put all to low settings and surprisingly, it still looks great. The grim and half-destroyed buildings, even the obelisk in the distance is mesmeriizng.

Overall, I would say that this is a great game and very well made, but minus a couple of annoyance and this would be the perfect way of experiencing the post apocalyptic world that we may face in the future. And so, the score for the game would be:-

Story:- 4/10
Gameplay:- 8/10
Graphics:- 8/10
Overall:- 8/10

Games Galore - 16th Oct

The end of the year period is often a joyful time for gamers. This is when, a number of publishers decide to release games in anticipation of the holidays for winter, especially in North America and Europe. This is the season when students get holidays from school and adults get bonuses from work, in which, the gamers among them would be buying games, coupled with them staying indoors, the perfect timing to release any new games. We, who live at the Equator, although do not just sit at home, but too relish this period of the year as gamers. Well, henceforth, there are a couple of games that will be released that I myself is waiting for, including: Modern Warfare 2, Borderlands, and also Dragon Age: Origins.

Well here we have a couple of videos on the games mentioned.
Although, Modern Warfare 2 is not shown as it was posted before on this blog.

Borderlands


Dragon Age: Origins

Divinity 2 Short Review - 12th Oct

Divinity 2: Ego Draconis by Larian Studios is in fact not officially out yet but the German version is released and I had the oppurtunity to play the German version. With a little tweak (which I would not reveal how) converts the dialouge to English. This would enable me to understand the dialouge by reading the actual text as the spoken language is still in German. Anyhow, I've only gotten the game quite a while only ago and there wasn't much progress at this stage but several of the ideas and mechanics are already there which I think is sufficient for a small review without the scores.

So, in the game, there's only one playable character that you can customize. Although the aesthetic customization is not as extensive as Fallout 3, as most of the customization available are presets. I'm still not sure what are the effects if the gender but it is available to choose. You start with yourself being transported to somewhere without being told of your backstory and why. All you need to know is that you are undergoing a series of training to help you become a Dragon Slayer, an elite kind of Hero. At this stage, you'll be able to select your first specialization although at later stages you may even combine specializations such as having mage spells with warrior skills. There are 4 specialzaions to choose from: Warrior, Ranger, Mage, Priest and the standard Slayer skills.

In terms of graphics, I'm rather annoyed. Having a 8600gt w/1Gb VRAM (See My Computer Specs HERE doesn't even let me enjoy the graphics properly. I've disabled most items or set it to lowest, besides the resolution (anything less than the 1024 setting renders the text incomprehensible on screen) on the Graphics Menu but yet it still feels sluggish and laggy. Although with this setting, the graphics still look somewhat nice but not as expected with everything blocky or textury. There's no slider bar or anything for you to set it to lowest details or such which is not good for older systems.But, as I do not know whether is the posting of screenshots of unreleased game illegal, it shall remain on my computer for now.

In terms of gameplay, I'm not sure is it me or the game itself, but I feel lost in every quest available as I'm not sure where everyone or everything is. It feels like the world is just too large and I'm wondering why I can't afford some of the most basic weapons in the game at this moment. The combat is just umimaginative and like Diablo, it a mouse-clicking fest. The thing is with the combat is that the you have to face your enemy to actually hit it, but with the ease of camera turning, it becomes rather apparent that its hard to be a warrior, especially when you're being mobbed and surrounded by several critters. Overall, the game is quite ok, but the low framerate really puts me off, which I hope can be fixed soon. The combat also should be fixed soon to keep the player engrossed.

Crysis Review - 8th Oct

After the run-down with Far Cry 2 on the 27th Sept, which can be found HERE, I continued on to try and finish Crysis, which I did yesterday. And so, here's a small review of the game in my own experience and opinion. It took me about 10 hours plus or take to finish this and it's indeed short.

Well, the game starts with a nice note, a group of elite US Marines trying to save an archeologist who were captured by the North Korean Army. The time line is in the near future. Although its in the near future, not many things actually reminds us of this. You are a part of the elite US Marines and you play as "Nomad" although your real name / how you look like is unknown, and you wear a high-tech nanosuit with various powers such as superhuman strength, speed, cloaking and can also turn your suit into a tough regenerative armor. In the story then you will encounter alien technology which is rather unknown and not reveal a lot in detail even at the end of the game. What's known about them is that they're biological, absorbs energy and they're over thousands of years old.

Graphically, it was pretty impressive. Although my settings is where all were set to medium (on a 8600gt), it still manages to look great with the shadows and glare still breathtaking. I did, a couple of times, just stand and look at the surroundings without doing anything else. The forests themselves look pretty much realistic although you can still tell its computer graphics. Instead, the alien world, doesn't look too convincing to me and it's just bland. The cut-scenes themselves are quite good but I'm annoyed as to why Dr.Rosenthal just doesn't look like realistic, but more like a simply made model. She's one of the main NPC's of the game and essential to the story, why not make her look nicer? Other than that, I do not have much other qualms about the graphics, in short, its really great. Sometimes, people would compare this to Far Cry 2, but I would say that in comparison to Crysis, Far Cry 2 is not much of a looker as there isn't really much to see in Far Cry 2.

In terms of gameplay, it was pretty fun at the start but a couple of things put me off.  One would be the lack of weapons and second would be the lack of the ability to combo the suit powers. I mean, so as long as I'm within the confines of power consumption, combining powers should be fine? Like say, strength and cloaking. In this game, its only either powers activated at certain times. The lack of guns is apparent after a while, but maybe due to its short gameplay, it makes it not too noticeable. Another would be the satisfaction of shooting someone down is just not there. If compared to Far Cry 2, the satisfaction is there, which I'm not sure is caused by which reasons, but I was hoping something similar. Without the satisfaction, it sure would seem bland. Overall, the gameplay it just as expected from an FPS (with exception of COD), with tonnes of shooting action. Combine the nanosuit powers and the shooting action of the game, its not too much of a new experience but its sort of an extension of the current FPS out there at the moment.


Overall, the scores for Crysis are:-
Gameplay:- 7/10
Graphics:- 9/10
Story:- 5/10
Overall:- 8/10

I was thinking to buy Crysis Warhead, but some review says that Crysis and Crysis Warhead is almost similar and do not vary much in terms of gameplay, which puts me off buying Crysis Warhead. Anyone got any first-hand experience on this?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Perks - 30th Sept

MODERN WARFARE 2 OUT NOW! HERE

Well, here's a new video for Call of Duty 6 which reveals the perks available. The video also shows some of the new functions compared to Modern Warfare (COD4) which I think would lead to a more varied gameplay. This I think would be the first game that I plan to buy original!





And for Cod:Modern Warfare 2 (COD6) fans out there, here are a couple of gameplay videos to whet your appetite before the arrival of the game! Enjoy and leave some comments! The videos in my opinion is really great, showing the actual gameplay and thank God I'm not being rick-rolled here!

Favela Map - CTF



Afghan Map -TDM


Highrise - TDM (SNIPER)

 

Far Cry 2 - 27th Sept

I've just recently finished the game Far Cry 2. It took me about a couple of weeks to finish with on and off playing spread over the few weeks. Well. it is about a mercenary in Africa, doing missions for various parties to gain money, and to stop the character, "Jackal" from providing arsenals to the warlords fighting in the country of Africa.. The thing is about this game is that is what I thought the story is about. There was no clear indication of the story and up to now, there are a couple of questions unanswered such as:-

1> Why did the main character come to Africa in the first place?
2> How did the main character get to know about "Jackal"?
3> Who is the "Jackal" and why is he providing guns to the warlords?
4> What happens to the main character in the end?
5> What happened that lead to the war?

Maybe I didn't get all "Jackal"'s tapes which might provide some story that answers the questions but I'm not so sure about that. I've discovered some of the tapes but from what I can discern, it's all gibberish and nonsense which doesn't make much sense.This and several other factors lead me to give a low score for the story. In fact, if anyone tries to play it, try to grasp the story, it seems like it doesn't even exist. All you do is just kill and more killing without even understanding why.

In terms of game-play, there's nothing more than killing and more killing besides the occasional blowing up stuffs.  Although, the explosion effects look great and the fire propagation is somewhat quite interesting. The reputation aspect sounds quite interesting but somewhat, to me, it doesn't add any form of extras to the gameplay. The reputation description says that people would run in my presence, but in gameplay wise, all I know, they're still shooting at me as they would in the lowest reputation. The AI is rather erratic, sometimes really smart by flanking you in directions which you're not aware of and sometimes not even reacting to shots form far-distances. They don't use grenades which is a good thing. Although, I'm not sure why some of them survives a shot from a .50 caliber sniper rifle (which is used to be able to shoot through tanks). Oh, and I wonder why, they have so many vehicles around and all of them , even a lowly buggy has a GPS? They must be really rich to leave all these lying around. The check-points are one of the more annoying aspects of the game, I mean, after some distances, you'll have to stop, come down from your vehicle, start shooting the crap out of everyone in which after that you continue on either until you find another check-point or you reach your destination. Where's the fun in that you keep doing that for a single mission? Sounds like they're delaying you from finishing the game too fast.

Graphics wise, my computer isn't the best of the best so, putting all settings medium is  playable, with a minimum of 20+ FPS at certain points, including scenes with fire. In-game depiction of Africa looks somewhat like Africa. It awes you due to the sheer scale of it at first but playing the game for a couple of hours takes of that awe as most places look the same after a while. I really like the day / night cycle action and the occasional rain which is quite realistically done.

Overall, I would say that this is a playable game although not too much of my favorite choice as the missions are too much repetitive. They would be nice to also add some motorcycles in the game. And the particularly "suprising" part towards the end of the story sure makes a good twist, and it's really unexpected, so try the game to see for yourself. So, the scores for the game:-

Story:- 2/10 (Where's the story?)
Graphics:- 8/10 (Although I can't enjoy it to the full)
Gameplay:- 6/10 (Interesting, but gets old after a while with all the repeating)

Overall:- 7/10

COD6: MW2 -> Flag Runner Demo - 3rd Sept

MODERN WARFARE 2 OUT NOW! HERE

Whoa! Whoa! After seeing this video, I really want Call of Duty 6 to come out fast! I hope it is as great as shown in the videos! Well, here's the video to the Flag Runner match (aka Capture the Flag). The last few minutes even show throwing knives. I'm impressed. Well, the video is here:-



A number of things this video shows: Styer Aug, Dual wields etc. You'll have to watch it closely yo see all these things. Enjoy!

Update: The latest Modern Warfare 2 Videos are HERE