When was the last time you felt totally lost in a fantasy gameworld? When was the last time you played a game with such a well-crafted and enjoyable story that you knew you’d remember it for a long, long time? Dragon Age: Origins is that kind of game, so rich and involving that you are powerless to resist its wiles and whims, so touching and triumphant that your mind and heart will be moved. In the fictional land of Ferelden, you meet memorable characters and fight for a cause you believe in, and it's this backdrop that makes developer BioWare's newest role-playing game so extraordinary. Dragon Age is more than a well-crafted story, however: It's a lengthy, intricate, and thoroughly entertaining adventure that's easy to fall in love with.
Dragon Age's plot, which deals with the impending invasion of a horde of demonic creatures called the darkspawn, isn't where the story's biggest surprises lie. The shocks, the joys, and the disappointments spring from the repartee among a number of remarkable characters; they lurk within books of lore and stories of martyrs; and they burst forth during spine-tingling moments when you must choose from a selection of difficult choices that affect the tale's direction--and the way your associates interact with you. Ferelden is a colorful and fascinating kingdom that takes enough cues from well-known fantasy tropes to be familiar, but bends enough conventions to feel original. Dragon Age features dwarves, but their caste-based society and the social paragons that rise above it twist the norms enough to keep you intrigued. Mages remain under the constant watch of templars, a restriction that doesn't sit well with those who view such policing as virtual slavery. The role of religion in human circles is of particular note. Chantries provide refuge to those worshiping the all-powerful Maker, and chanters recite the holy word near their houses of prayer. But lest this world sound too serious, don't despair: One such disciple slides food references into her chant, and a few dwarves warn you not to fall into the sky. Small, humorous touches like this are plentiful. Even if you aren't the literary sort, Dragon Age may inspire you to read every note, every character bio, and every creature description, thanks to the richness of the world and the consistency with which it's presented.
You'll learn even more from the companions who join you, and you'll grow to care about them on your quest for glory. There's Morrigan, the cynical apostate mage bound to your cause for reasons that become clear only late in the journey; Sten, the strong, silent type who isn't so quick to reveal his innermost thoughts; and Zevran, a darkly mischievous would-be assassin with a wild streak and a playful disregard for the law. There are others too, including Alistair, a wisecracking, vaguely insecure member of the Grey Wardens, an elite group of champions that recruits you early on. Great dialogue and fantastic voice acting make these characters leap off the screen as if they were real friends, and the way they interact with one another feels authentic. Morrigan and Alistair banter about the role of templars in the lives of mages, and the sweetly devout Leliana tries to communicate with your trusty canine cohort in some amusing exchanges. You may even develop a romance (or two) before all is said and done. The course of love isn't always a smooth one, though it can be a bit steamy, in a PG-13 sort of way.
Relationships must be nurtured; in the world of Dragon Age, love doesn't develop at first sight. Rather, you must improve your standings with available party members by giving them gifts and fulfilling quests in ways that please them. Doing so opens more dialogue options and may even reward you with unexpected gifts beyond the private pleasures of your tent. Your personal relationships aren't all you need to worry about when facing a difficult decision, however. On significant quests, you'll encounter complex choices that force you to weigh the risks against the rewards, even as you try to stay true to your own vision of your character. Are werewolves heartless killers, or is there a method to their madness? Should you wholeheartedly embrace a political candidate, or will some unexpected information have you playing double agent--or just killing the opposition? Such open-ended quests have become staples in many similar RPGs, but few make these decisions feel so momentous. The anxiety that results when you encounter important choices is a result of superb writing and character development: When you care about your destiny, decisions have more weight.
Even Dragon Age's initial moments present important decisions that affect how your adventure plays out. You'll customize your own avatar's look from a variety of presets, but more importantly, you'll choose a race and class. The choices may seem initially limited, but your options eventually expand. Later, you can choose up to two subclasses once you reach the necessary level requirements, and there are a few different means of unlocking additional skill trees. Your initial race and class choices don't just determine the kinds of skills and spells you will have access to, however; they influence how the first few hours of the game progress. You will experience one of six different "origin stories" that follow the events that lead you to the elite Grey Wardens. Every origin story leads to the same place, but that doesn't mean you leave these events behind for good. Characters you met early on will cross your path again, and crucial moments of your origin story will continue to haunt you. The varied origin stories not only provide plenty of replay value, but allow you to see familiar characters from a different angle. A prisoner you meet within a dank dungeon may not have much impact on you if you are playing as a Dalish elf, but if you play as a human mage, this encounter is a bittersweet reunion.
You aren't a lone adventurer, however. You can take up to three companions along with you, and eventually you will meet more willing (or unwilling, as the case may be) darkspawn slayers. You can switch out party members back at your camp or in other friendly areas. Party members you don't use will remain at camp, though they thankfully level up even when you don't take them along. Your comrades aren't just AI-controlled henchmen; you can take full control of any party member at any time, though how you do so depends on the platform. PC owners get the most versatile and rewarding experience in this regard. You can zoom the camera in to a close third-person view when exploring and conversing with non-player characters, or pull the camera back to a tactical view, which makes it a breeze to quickly and easily micromanage every spell and attack, in true Baldur's Gate tradition. On consoles, you always view the action from behind a single character, and you use a shoulder button to switch among them. It's a great way of experiencing the buzz of battle, though occasional pathfinding quirks are more apparent in the console versions, simply because you experience the action from a single perspective at a time, rather than while managing four characters simultaneously.
If you've played a BioWare fantasy RPG in the past, you'll feel right at home with the combat system. By clicking on your target or pressing the attack button, you don't just swing a sword, but you approach your target and queue up your attack. Once your party has gained access to a good number of spells, stances, and skills, battlefields explode with bright colors and raucous sound effects, and it's a lot of fun to switch back and forth between party members, managing your abilities and taking advantage of various spell combos to wreak havoc. There are dozens of different types of enemies to slice up, from giant spiders and darkspawn, to ghosts and walking trees, to demons and, of course, dragons. Allies will join you in the biggest battles, and the best of these, particularly those toward the end of the game, are thrilling. On the PC, they're particularly challenging, and many battles benefit from frequent pausing and tactical thinking, so that you can queue up attacks across your entire party. The same battles on consoles are noticeably easier.
All of these elements coalesce wonderfully, making for a memorable and exciting adventure that keeps you on the move. The flow of loot and pace of leveling are both highly satisfying, and because you have four active characters to consider (in addition to others back at the camp), you spend a lot of time poring over armor and weapon choices. The tempo is even quicker than the Dungeons & Dragons games that preceded Dragon Age, thanks to important tweaks that minimize downtime. For example, you do not need to rest between encounters to replenish your health and recharge your spells. Instead, health and stamina are replenished quickly once the skirmish ends, allowing you to string encounters together without unwanted breaks in between. Should a party member fall during battle, he or she will be resuscitated once the battle has ended, albeit with a stat penalty applied (though it can be cured with an injury kit). These factors, and more, give Dragon Age an excellent sense of forward direction.
All the spells, tactics, and skills sound like a lot to organize, but the interface does a great job of helping you keep track of things. The PC interface is brilliant, letting you browse through your inventory and tweak your quickbars quickly and easily. The console versions do a surprisingly great job as well, making it simple to sort through your quests, and to queue up actions while battle is paused. One particularly useful feature is the ability to identify inventory items as trash and sell them all with a single button press once you're back in town. There are some console-specific interface irritations that could have been cleaner, however. For example, identifying new codex (that is, lore) entries can be troublesome, because the list doesn't scroll down until your highlight cursor reaches the bottom of the window. As a result, you can't always distinguish new entries from old ones, which is an issue that doesn't plague the fantastic PC interface. The consoles' radial menu, on the other hand, is an excellent way of letting you access every battle skill, and it works somewhat like the similar interface in Mass Effect--albeit with a few more layers.
The differences between versions aren't limited to the interface. Dragon Age doesn't look amazing on the PC, but it's an attractive game nonetheless. Zooming from an isometric view to a third-person perspective is slick, and while environments don't hold up quite as well when viewed up close, they're consistently lovely when viewed from above. On the flip side, the Xbox 360 version looks positively disappointing. Textures are highly compressed and colors are washed out, though the upside is that this version maintains a smoother frame rate than on the PlayStation 3, where things might get jittery when swiveling the camera around. The PlayStation 3 version features higher-quality textures than those on the Xbox 360, better color saturation, smoother facial animations, and shorter load times. Minor visual hiccups, like corpses that disappear and reappear, are a bit more common on the PS3, however. The PC version is the superior experience, but if you're choosing between the two console releases, the PlayStation 3 has the upper hand. Some minor glitches are shared between the console versions, however, such as rare occasions when the soundtrack or voice-overs disappear. We also ran into a few quest malfunctions that could be replicated on all three platforms, though they were relatively minor and did not interfere with the progress of the main quest.
No matter which version you choose, however, there are plenty of audiovisual details to note. In many ways, Dragon Age looks and sounds like other high-fantasy games, but while the towers, forest paths, and underground caverns are what you've seen before, the art style is attractive, and a few sights, such as an underground dwarven city, are particularly eye-catching. Character models don't exhibit Mass Effect-level expressiveness, but they look good and animate smoothly enough. Also of note are the splatters of blood that appear on your party members after battle. It's a nice idea, but the splotches look like they've been splashed across you with a paintbrush. The crimson stains are a cool thematic touch, however, because blood plays an important role in Dragon Age. The sound effects are excellent, console glitches notwithstanding, and the soundtrack, while typical for a fantasy game, swells and murmurs at all the right moments.
Few games are this ambitious, and even fewer can mold these ambitions into such a complete and entertaining experience. You might spend 50 or more hours on your first play-though, but there are so many paths to follow, so many details to uncover, and so many ways to customize your party that you'll want to play again as soon as you finish the first time. PC owners even get an extra dash of depth via the downloadable toolset, which lets you create new levels, spells, skills, and even cutscenes. But any way you slice it, here's the fantasy RPG you've been waiting for, the one that will keep you up late at night, bleary-eyed, because you have to see what happens next. Like the best fiction, Dragon Age will sweep you up in its world, so much so that when you're done, you'll want to experience it all over again.
source gamespot.com
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Medal of Honor
The new series in medal of honor bring you to new level of modern warfare.
The single campaign bring you to Afghanistan and face the Taliban, the story is quite comprehensive. You are part of an American military effort to find and eliminate Taliban forces, and the grounded-in-reality premise feels more immediate than those that feature fictional enemies. The nicely varied environments provide an attractive array of places to wage war, and even though the visuals suffer from some technical imperfections, the fact that the whole campaign takes place in one region of the world creates a good sense of cohesion. It's easy to keep track of who you are and where you fit into the offensive even though you play as multiple characters. While come cut-scenes provide good dramatic set-up, the ham-fisted interactions that take place in the command outpost often feel cliche and cheap. It's probably for the best that Medal of Honor didn't take on a wider representation of the current conflict, focusing instead on the characters you meet in the field and their soldierly attitudes. The great battlefield chatter portrays intriguing facets of professionalism and camaraderie among the soldiers, setting an authentic tone that enhances the experience.
During the course of the campaign, you engage in heated firefights and quietly infiltrate enemy encampments, which are familiar actions that feel good thanks to solid controls. Playing as different soldiers provides markedly different combat experiences, and the game transitions between protagonists in logical ways. For example, after fighting your way through enemy artillery positions, you find yourself facing a frightening onslaught that threatens to overwhelm your squad. Your desperate stand ends in a dramatic rescue, and you then play as rescuers as they take on their next mission. On-foot missions are punctuated by exciting moments when you direct powerful air support, and an intense vehicle sequence gives way to a more methodical assault. Things proceed at a good pace, and it's invigorating to realize that all of the exciting action you are engaged in takes place within the bounds of a realistic military operation.
Despite the focus on realism, however, Medal of Honor tries to tightly control your experience throughout the campaign, and this leads to some unfortunate problems. Part of the campaign experience immerses you in the dialogue among your squadmates and up the command chain (some of which is thoughtfully spent ensuring that the individuals in your crosshairs are actually enemies). Much of this chatter is delivered on the run, but there are times when your progress is halted at a flimsy door or a short rocky ledge to let your squadmates talk. There are also a lot of invisible walls that prevent you from going off the beaten path. These two elements seem designed to keep you in line so you can experience the campaign the way it was meant to be experienced, but they can feel heavy handed and restrictive at times. Perhaps more egregious is the not-so-hot enemy AI. The Taliban soldiers can shoot and take cover reasonably well, but they often enter the battlefield or stick their heads out from behind cover in alarmingly predictable ways.
The campaign lasts about six hours, and on the normal difficulty level, it isn't particularly challenging. Ramping up the difficulty makes your foes appreciably harder to kill, and those who like to test their skills will likely enjoy Tier One mode. In this mode, you are timed as you play through individual campaign missions on the hardest difficulty. Performing headshots, melee kills, and kill streaks freezes the clock for varying lengths of time, shaving precious seconds off your completion time. If you manage to complete a level, you are ranked on an online leaderboard in a bunch of different categories, including fastest time, most headshots, and longest distance kill. The challenge of going slowly enough to survive but fast enough to register a strong time creates an exciting sense of tension, especially if you're competing against a friend or a rival.
Medal of Honor also caters to those who prefer more direct competition. The online competitive multiplayer supports up to 24-player matches and covers a range of familiar team-based modes, including deathmatch, sector control, objective raid, and the progressive combat mission. The maps are well designed but not terribly big, ensuring that the matches are almost always intense. You can play as the rifleman, special ops, or sniper, and each class has its own series of guns and gear for you to unlock as you rank up. Success in a match not only helps you rank up, but it can also earn you powerful offensive or defensive support actions, like mortar strikes, enhanced body armor, unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance, and radar jamming. All of your abilities and assets remain strictly within the realm of realism, meaning you will always hear the footsteps of an enemy running up behind you, and you can't revive your bullet-ridden teammates.
Though it may be tempting to look at its flaws and dismiss Medal of Honor as inferior to its competitors, there is a lot to enjoy here. The campaign has its shortcomings, but its unique sense of scope and well-orchestrated pacing make it an enjoyably cohesive adventure. Tier One mode offers an accessible yet formidable challenge, and the competitive multiplayer captures the brutal intensity of a battlefield where one errant move can result in your abrupt death. Medal of Honor doesn't set any new standards for the genre, but it delivers a lot of entertainment and excitement if you're looking to add a splash of realism to your first-person shooting.
source from gamespot.com
The single campaign bring you to Afghanistan and face the Taliban, the story is quite comprehensive. You are part of an American military effort to find and eliminate Taliban forces, and the grounded-in-reality premise feels more immediate than those that feature fictional enemies. The nicely varied environments provide an attractive array of places to wage war, and even though the visuals suffer from some technical imperfections, the fact that the whole campaign takes place in one region of the world creates a good sense of cohesion. It's easy to keep track of who you are and where you fit into the offensive even though you play as multiple characters. While come cut-scenes provide good dramatic set-up, the ham-fisted interactions that take place in the command outpost often feel cliche and cheap. It's probably for the best that Medal of Honor didn't take on a wider representation of the current conflict, focusing instead on the characters you meet in the field and their soldierly attitudes. The great battlefield chatter portrays intriguing facets of professionalism and camaraderie among the soldiers, setting an authentic tone that enhances the experience.
During the course of the campaign, you engage in heated firefights and quietly infiltrate enemy encampments, which are familiar actions that feel good thanks to solid controls. Playing as different soldiers provides markedly different combat experiences, and the game transitions between protagonists in logical ways. For example, after fighting your way through enemy artillery positions, you find yourself facing a frightening onslaught that threatens to overwhelm your squad. Your desperate stand ends in a dramatic rescue, and you then play as rescuers as they take on their next mission. On-foot missions are punctuated by exciting moments when you direct powerful air support, and an intense vehicle sequence gives way to a more methodical assault. Things proceed at a good pace, and it's invigorating to realize that all of the exciting action you are engaged in takes place within the bounds of a realistic military operation.
Despite the focus on realism, however, Medal of Honor tries to tightly control your experience throughout the campaign, and this leads to some unfortunate problems. Part of the campaign experience immerses you in the dialogue among your squadmates and up the command chain (some of which is thoughtfully spent ensuring that the individuals in your crosshairs are actually enemies). Much of this chatter is delivered on the run, but there are times when your progress is halted at a flimsy door or a short rocky ledge to let your squadmates talk. There are also a lot of invisible walls that prevent you from going off the beaten path. These two elements seem designed to keep you in line so you can experience the campaign the way it was meant to be experienced, but they can feel heavy handed and restrictive at times. Perhaps more egregious is the not-so-hot enemy AI. The Taliban soldiers can shoot and take cover reasonably well, but they often enter the battlefield or stick their heads out from behind cover in alarmingly predictable ways.
The campaign lasts about six hours, and on the normal difficulty level, it isn't particularly challenging. Ramping up the difficulty makes your foes appreciably harder to kill, and those who like to test their skills will likely enjoy Tier One mode. In this mode, you are timed as you play through individual campaign missions on the hardest difficulty. Performing headshots, melee kills, and kill streaks freezes the clock for varying lengths of time, shaving precious seconds off your completion time. If you manage to complete a level, you are ranked on an online leaderboard in a bunch of different categories, including fastest time, most headshots, and longest distance kill. The challenge of going slowly enough to survive but fast enough to register a strong time creates an exciting sense of tension, especially if you're competing against a friend or a rival.
Medal of Honor also caters to those who prefer more direct competition. The online competitive multiplayer supports up to 24-player matches and covers a range of familiar team-based modes, including deathmatch, sector control, objective raid, and the progressive combat mission. The maps are well designed but not terribly big, ensuring that the matches are almost always intense. You can play as the rifleman, special ops, or sniper, and each class has its own series of guns and gear for you to unlock as you rank up. Success in a match not only helps you rank up, but it can also earn you powerful offensive or defensive support actions, like mortar strikes, enhanced body armor, unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance, and radar jamming. All of your abilities and assets remain strictly within the realm of realism, meaning you will always hear the footsteps of an enemy running up behind you, and you can't revive your bullet-ridden teammates.
Though it may be tempting to look at its flaws and dismiss Medal of Honor as inferior to its competitors, there is a lot to enjoy here. The campaign has its shortcomings, but its unique sense of scope and well-orchestrated pacing make it an enjoyably cohesive adventure. Tier One mode offers an accessible yet formidable challenge, and the competitive multiplayer captures the brutal intensity of a battlefield where one errant move can result in your abrupt death. Medal of Honor doesn't set any new standards for the genre, but it delivers a lot of entertainment and excitement if you're looking to add a splash of realism to your first-person shooting.
source from gamespot.com
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Assasin's Creed: Brotherhood
Traditionally, the Assassin's Creed series has been a story-driven single-player experience, but with the upcoming Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Ubisoft is introducing a full-blown multiplayer mode for the first time. While the stealth-driven gameplay might not immediately come across as multiplayer friendly, a number of tweaks have been introduced to the combat to try to ensure matches remain fair, balanced, and, most importantly, fun. Ubisoft will be road-testing the new online modes in an upcoming beta for the PlayStation 3, and we got an early peek at the content to see what players can expect.
Unlike many multiplayer experiences, Brotherhood's is set up with a narrative, albeit a brief one. You play as an agent at Abstergo Industries who has been handpicked to take on the Assassins. You're placed into an Animus training program, which sends you into reconstructed training areas to practice your skills against other agents. It's in those training areas that the multiplayer takes place, which conveniently lets you play in areas from both the first and second games, as well as all-new locations. There are two maps unlocked from the start in the beta: Rome and Castle Gandolfo. Rome is what Ubisoft calls a "neutral" map, because it contains indoor and outdoor sections, as well as a ton of tall buildings to climb up. Castle Gandolfo is much more enclosed, with most of the action taking place indoors. An additional map located in Sienna isn't available from the start of the beta, but players will be able to unlock it later. Details for the unlocking haven't yet been finalised, but it will likely revolve around a certain number of matches taking place or a certain number of kills being reached.
Before jumping into a match, we played through a brief tutorial section, which introduced us to the unique gameplay mechanics behind the multiplayer. Rather than a free-for-all deathmatch where everybody is a target, Brotherhood's multiplayer allows you to kill only those enemies that you're specifically assigned to. A picture on your HUD lets you know who your target is, and a compass at the bottom of the screen tells you where he's located. As you get closer to your target, the compass turns blue, gradually getting brighter until you are at close range. There is also a detection meter to worry about, which decreases if you execute visible actions, such as sprinting through crowds or killing civilians. Once the meter drops below a certain point, your target is alerted, and you then have a limited amount of time to chase him before you lose the mission. However, all the usual assassination tricks from the single-player game can be used to sneak around, including blending in with the many non-player characters, hiding in hay bales, sitting on benches, or assassinating from rooftops. The tutorial had us practice sneaking up on targets in the city of Florence, and once we had killed three targets, we were able to jump into a proper match.
The beta will launch with two modes: Wanted and Alliance. Wanted is the simplest mode, with players all fighting against each other deathmatch-style, albeit with the aforementioned targeting system. You can play with up to eight players, each of whom is assigned a target from the group. This means that while you are attempting to assassinate someone, another player is attempting to assassinate you. This unique twist constantly keeps you on your toes, and we found we had to juggle our stealthy attacks while attempting to hide from our pursuer. Each kill nets you experience points, the number of which vary depending on how stealthy your kill was. You also net XP for more dramatic kills, such as leaping from a rooftop, or by flanking your victim.
XP is used to level up your character in a progression tree similar to that of first-person shooters like Modern Warfare. There are 50 levels in total to work toward, though only 20 are present in the beta. Reaching a certain level unlocks a number of bonuses, which can be used to upgrade your character. These fit into one of three categories: abilities, perks, and streaks. Abilities are tools that you can use, such as disguises, smoke bombs, and poison. There are also more physical abilities, such as sprint boosts and morph, which transforms NPCs into clones of your character. There is a cooldown time attached to abilities, so you can't just spam them at opponents during combat. Perks act like modifiers for each ability but have no cooldown attached, meaning they are active throughout each match. Examples include enhanced auto-bash, which increases the number of NPCs you can bash through, and blender, which automatically morphs one NPC into a clone of your character when you blend with a group.
The final set of upgrades are streak bonuses. These give you a reward depending on the number of kills or deaths you have in a match. For example, you can choose to receive 100 points if you kill three players in a row, or you can choose to receive 300 if you kill all three using stealth. The reverse also applies, so you can receive a temporary skill, such as extra compass sensitivity, if you die more than three times in a row. As well as ability upgrades, gaining XP unlocks character customisations, including new costumes and accessories. However, these customisations are purely cosmetic and do not affect the strength or skills of your character.
The second gameplay mode is Alliance, which is played cooperatively. There are three teams of six players who are assigned each other's team as a target for the entire five-minute round. You have to assassinate your target while evading death from an opposing team. At the end of the round, the targets switch, ensuring that everyone gets a turn at assassinating each other. Like in Wanted mode, you're awarded with XP for killing targets, using stealth, and escaping. However, there are additional points up for grabs by helping a teammate with a kill. This can take the form of distracting your target while your teammate takes the kill, or you can simultaneously kill the opposing team's players. We found this mode to be a lot of fun, and by working with our teammate we were able to execute some amazing-looking kills. By using the height of buildings, we could sneak up on our target and take them down in one swift move without their knowing what hit them. However, this did make us more vulnerable to being seen after the kill, and often we found ourselves being killed instantly afterwards by our pursuer. At times we were also too eager to attack, which gave our position away. This meant our targets had the ability to stun us, giving them a 10-second head start before we could chase them.
Of course, that is also incredibly useful when on the receiving end of an attack, and the extra 10 seconds made all the difference between surviving and being killed. To help with escaping, each map had active elements, such as doors and gates, which shut behind us when we sprinted through them. Later, we were able to exact our revenge on our would-be assassins, which made the kills all the more satisfying. Speaking of kills, there are a number of gruesome death animations, which are unique to each character. Some of them involved the slitting of throats, while others showed knives going right through our victim's body. One of the more hilarious kills involved a stunned character. After we recognised one of our pursuers, we stunned him, only to find that his pursuers were right behind him. They proceeded to kill their target by simply kicking him in the head once and running off--the most humiliating of deaths.
Though we had fun, we did find some niggles with the beta build of the multiplayer. At times it was difficult to see who our targets were, even after we had identified them, meaning we often killed civilians by mistake. It was also impossible to escape assassination once our opponent had hit the button on his controller, meaning that even if we spotted him just before, there was no way to avoid our death with a timely button press. Despite this, Brotherhood’s multiplayer is a lot more fleshed out than we expected. A full levelling system, along with customisable abilities and characters means there's a lot to get stuck into. It also shares its single-player counterpart's good looks, with a large amount of detail on show in each location. Also impressive is the number of NPC characters on each map, which makes each locale feel like a living, breathing place, and without any significant amount of lag.
The Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer beta launches on September 27 for PlayStation Network Plus users only. Players who preorder the game from select retailers will be able to get access to the beta on October 4. The full game is due for release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 19, with the PC following in 2011.
Source from gamespot.com
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy makes its way to the PC as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
thought I'd put this out there because I see so many reviews that are basically summing up their reviews with day one open beta problem. Much of what people talk about has been either changed, doesn't work that way in the first place, or that person hasn't played MMO's before this.
Quests: All MMO's pretty much have quests. Some make you grind a bit more then others. FFXI made you grind the whole way from start to finish, after level 10-15 though most of your grinding would be done with a group. FFXIV takes away a big part of that grinding, while not being quite as quest focused as say World of Warcraft.
UI & Mouse: That problem was quickly addressed, they just didn't have hardware mouse in place at the time. The UI itself is a turn off to many MMO players because most enjoy keyboard mouse setup, while FFXI worked and played much better with a gamepad or on the ps2. Same thing applies to FFXIV, it feels and plays much better on a gamepad.
Empty World: Almost everything was locked out during open beta.. That would be why. Even all the monster stats, placement etc weren't correctly set. They just wanted to know the servers could take it once they had the problems ironed out.
Anyways, to sum it up it not a good idea to actually review games in beta; or at least not to summarize it being horrible and broken purely off beta restrictions. it causes a lot of misinformation, deliberately or not.
Source from gamespot.com
thought I'd put this out there because I see so many reviews that are basically summing up their reviews with day one open beta problem. Much of what people talk about has been either changed, doesn't work that way in the first place, or that person hasn't played MMO's before this.
Quests: All MMO's pretty much have quests. Some make you grind a bit more then others. FFXI made you grind the whole way from start to finish, after level 10-15 though most of your grinding would be done with a group. FFXIV takes away a big part of that grinding, while not being quite as quest focused as say World of Warcraft.
UI & Mouse: That problem was quickly addressed, they just didn't have hardware mouse in place at the time. The UI itself is a turn off to many MMO players because most enjoy keyboard mouse setup, while FFXI worked and played much better with a gamepad or on the ps2. Same thing applies to FFXIV, it feels and plays much better on a gamepad.
Empty World: Almost everything was locked out during open beta.. That would be why. Even all the monster stats, placement etc weren't correctly set. They just wanted to know the servers could take it once they had the problems ironed out.
Anyways, to sum it up it not a good idea to actually review games in beta; or at least not to summarize it being horrible and broken purely off beta restrictions. it causes a lot of misinformation, deliberately or not.
Source from gamespot.com
Civilzation V
Strategy fanatics have lost hundreds of hours of their lives to Sid Meier's beguiling creations over the years, and they should prepare to lose hundreds more. Civilization V is yet another glistening example of turn-based bliss that will keep you up long past your bedtime. It exercises its power over your mind using many of the tricks the series has long been known for: varied ways of accomplishing your goal of world domination, the thrill of expanding a paltry city into a bustling empire, and the suspense of venturing into unknown territory. The latest Civilization game takes those basics and layers onto them new features that make moment-to-moment gameplay feel more dynamic than in the past. Most noticeably, the square grids of previous Civilization games have been jettisoned in favor of hexagons that nicely accommodate the other most consequential transformations: Military units can no longer be stacked, and ranged units can fire from multiple tiles away. The tactical combat that rises from these modifications is a lot of fun and makes warfare a lot more exciting than in Civ games of yore. AI quirks and a few other minor issues become apparent the more you play, but these are wholly forgivable foibles in an attractive and sophisticated game that constantly begs you to remain at your keyboard for just one more turn.
First, here is a quick primer for newcomers. Civilization V, like previous games in the series, is about leading a nation through the eras of history, starting with a single city and expanding across the map. At the outset of any given game, you select a leader (in this case, one of 18, or 19 if you purchased the special edition from Steam), each of whom possesses a particular benefit that disposes his or her civilization to a particular style of play. Americans get a range of sight bonus; the Siamese get diplomatic bonuses with miniature nations new to the series called city-states; the English get naval perks; and so forth. From here, you collect resources; make deals with other civilizations; manage your economy; and go to war and attack the cities of your enemies when the time is right. There are four main ways to win a typically lengthy game of Civilization V. You could dominate through military means and defeat every civilization's capital city. You could be the first to gun through the technology tree and build the parts necessary for a spaceship that whisks you away to Alpha Centauri. You could ally with nations and city-states across the globe and win a diplomatic victory via a vote at the United Nations. Or you might become the cultural envy of the world by developing a large number of government policies and researching a mysterious undertaking known as the Utopia Project. There is also a fifth victory condition: possess the highest score when the turn limit has been reached.
Whether Civ is new to you or not, it's easy to appreciate the newest game's user-friendly interface, which makes figuring out what to do next a breeze, meaning more of your time is spent strategizing and less of it is spent fumbling around. The organized nested menus are intuitive and easy to get used to, and Civ V does a good job of only displaying vital information on the screen while making other information easily available with just a few clicks. A single action button leads you through every aspect of your turn. If a unit is waiting for orders, the button says so, and clicking it takes you to the unit in question. If it's time to research a new technology, you click the button and it opens the research menu. There are a few aspects of the interface that could have been cleaned up. Switching between a city's production menu and the production queue is needlessly clunky, and the diplomatic overview doesn't label the tiny icons indicating what luxury resources other civilizations are producing. But most of the time, you always have the information you need when you need it, and neophytes should never feel in the dark.
A few of Civilization IV's features have been eliminated--most notably, religion and espionage--though many players aren't likely to miss them. However, longtime aspects of the series have returned. Your advisors are there if you need a bit of direction, though unit automation and little icons representing each advisor's suggestion in the production menus mean you won't often need to pay them a visit. The exhaustive Civilopedia is only a click away and offers a wealth of information on every aspect of every feature. You still build wonders like the Egyptian pyramids, the hanging gardens, and the Great Wall, which generate the culture resource and provide other tangible benefits, without coming with the turn-by-turn maintenance cost of standard structures. The culture you gain is spent on social policies, which have replaced the governments of Civilization IV. Each time you reach the cultural resource benchmark, you select from the policy list, which is split into multiple policy types, each of which has its own sub-tree. The benefits you reap are cumulative, and while there are certain balancing restrictions in place, you still get a lot of freedom in how you want to progress. The mid- and late-game flexibility make it an excellent addition to the franchise. The first change you'll notice, however, has even more impact on Civilization V: The map is divided into hexagons rather than squares.
The move to hexagons sets the stage for Civilization V's tactical combat. In the past, you could stack units into one army of doom (or a few armies) that rolled across the map. Now, with the exception of special units (the great general, for example) and workers, units cannot occupy the same space. As a result, you must be extremely conscious of each unit's weaknesses and strengths; a unit's position in regards to both its enemies and other friendly units; and whether or not any terrain bonuses apply. There is a rock-paper-scissors relationship among units that further deepens as units level up and you progress through the eras. When units level up, you choose one of several upgrades for them, such as an attack bonus when attacking from flat terrain. As they level up further, the possibilities expand, which means healing bonuses for the unit, as well as neighboring units, or greater degrees of the same enhancements. Helpfully, you can also choose to fully heal the unit when it levels at the expense of choosing another bonus, which is a mighty handy ability that can save a veteran unit from the jaws of defeat. This excellent new system layers tactical combat onto the strategic map, making battles much tenser--and much less abstract. It also encourages you to keep your veteran units alive. And while it costs you a bit of gold, you can also upgrade units into more powerful iterations (a trebuchet into a cannon, for example) when your research path allows it.
Source from gamespot.
First, here is a quick primer for newcomers. Civilization V, like previous games in the series, is about leading a nation through the eras of history, starting with a single city and expanding across the map. At the outset of any given game, you select a leader (in this case, one of 18, or 19 if you purchased the special edition from Steam), each of whom possesses a particular benefit that disposes his or her civilization to a particular style of play. Americans get a range of sight bonus; the Siamese get diplomatic bonuses with miniature nations new to the series called city-states; the English get naval perks; and so forth. From here, you collect resources; make deals with other civilizations; manage your economy; and go to war and attack the cities of your enemies when the time is right. There are four main ways to win a typically lengthy game of Civilization V. You could dominate through military means and defeat every civilization's capital city. You could be the first to gun through the technology tree and build the parts necessary for a spaceship that whisks you away to Alpha Centauri. You could ally with nations and city-states across the globe and win a diplomatic victory via a vote at the United Nations. Or you might become the cultural envy of the world by developing a large number of government policies and researching a mysterious undertaking known as the Utopia Project. There is also a fifth victory condition: possess the highest score when the turn limit has been reached.
Whether Civ is new to you or not, it's easy to appreciate the newest game's user-friendly interface, which makes figuring out what to do next a breeze, meaning more of your time is spent strategizing and less of it is spent fumbling around. The organized nested menus are intuitive and easy to get used to, and Civ V does a good job of only displaying vital information on the screen while making other information easily available with just a few clicks. A single action button leads you through every aspect of your turn. If a unit is waiting for orders, the button says so, and clicking it takes you to the unit in question. If it's time to research a new technology, you click the button and it opens the research menu. There are a few aspects of the interface that could have been cleaned up. Switching between a city's production menu and the production queue is needlessly clunky, and the diplomatic overview doesn't label the tiny icons indicating what luxury resources other civilizations are producing. But most of the time, you always have the information you need when you need it, and neophytes should never feel in the dark.
A few of Civilization IV's features have been eliminated--most notably, religion and espionage--though many players aren't likely to miss them. However, longtime aspects of the series have returned. Your advisors are there if you need a bit of direction, though unit automation and little icons representing each advisor's suggestion in the production menus mean you won't often need to pay them a visit. The exhaustive Civilopedia is only a click away and offers a wealth of information on every aspect of every feature. You still build wonders like the Egyptian pyramids, the hanging gardens, and the Great Wall, which generate the culture resource and provide other tangible benefits, without coming with the turn-by-turn maintenance cost of standard structures. The culture you gain is spent on social policies, which have replaced the governments of Civilization IV. Each time you reach the cultural resource benchmark, you select from the policy list, which is split into multiple policy types, each of which has its own sub-tree. The benefits you reap are cumulative, and while there are certain balancing restrictions in place, you still get a lot of freedom in how you want to progress. The mid- and late-game flexibility make it an excellent addition to the franchise. The first change you'll notice, however, has even more impact on Civilization V: The map is divided into hexagons rather than squares.
The move to hexagons sets the stage for Civilization V's tactical combat. In the past, you could stack units into one army of doom (or a few armies) that rolled across the map. Now, with the exception of special units (the great general, for example) and workers, units cannot occupy the same space. As a result, you must be extremely conscious of each unit's weaknesses and strengths; a unit's position in regards to both its enemies and other friendly units; and whether or not any terrain bonuses apply. There is a rock-paper-scissors relationship among units that further deepens as units level up and you progress through the eras. When units level up, you choose one of several upgrades for them, such as an attack bonus when attacking from flat terrain. As they level up further, the possibilities expand, which means healing bonuses for the unit, as well as neighboring units, or greater degrees of the same enhancements. Helpfully, you can also choose to fully heal the unit when it levels at the expense of choosing another bonus, which is a mighty handy ability that can save a veteran unit from the jaws of defeat. This excellent new system layers tactical combat onto the strategic map, making battles much tenser--and much less abstract. It also encourages you to keep your veteran units alive. And while it costs you a bit of gold, you can also upgrade units into more powerful iterations (a trebuchet into a cannon, for example) when your research path allows it.
Source from gamespot.
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