L.A. Noire

A game that took ages to make but totally changes the image Rockstar games has created with GTA and Red Dead Redemption.

It will draw you in and keep you in its grip till you finish the game.

Starting off with as a low level cop and making your way up the ranks with a number of good busts L.A. Noire gives you the impression that decisions you make affect the world. Well in all honesty they just affect how the chief reacts at the end of a case. Your actions have no real impact on the outcome of the game.

It provides about 10-12 hours of good game play with case after case becoming longer and more complex.

The motion capture used to give the characters life is amazing and keeps you on your feet in order to determine if the person you are interviewing is telling the truth or just playing you for a fool.

The story of the game creates a sense of mystery like a movie would keeping you at the edge of your seat wondering what happens next.

The hunt for clues can sometime be frustrating as they play music in the back ground if there are clues to be found and the controller vibrates when you can interact with objects from the environment and examine them for clues. The story of L.A. Noire gives an insight into the dark side of L.A. life in the 40's.

With some stunning visuals and a decent sized city to explore with street crimes to stop and cars to unlock the game provides enough to keep you busy for a while even after you have burnt through the story.

There are times when it can get annoying as you can jump over some objects and not over others which may be the same size or smaller. Also the controls can be a little picky about reacting to certain actions. You have to position yourself just right in order to examine clues and even slight deviations will result in you running around the object getting a bit annoyed.

There are a few action sequences but like i said few and far apart. You also have the option to skip them completely and just move on with the very intriguing story.

I give the game a 9/10 it lost that 1 point coz of the controls and the annoying objects that you cant jump over but should be able to...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Probably the BIGGEST release this year Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a direct sequel to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare. The advertising that was done for this game created such a media hype and had gamers sitting at the edge of their seats biting their nails awaiting the release of the game.

Activision threw a release party on Nov 9, 2009 at Union Square, NYC where fans could come in and play the game with developes giving out autographs. Followed up by a midnight release of the game at 4200+ gamestops across USA.

After the bitter taste Call of Duty: World at War left in our mouths the expectations from Modern Warfare 2 sky rocketed. The great part Modern Warfare 2 actually meets all these expectations and goes above and beyond to provide an amazingly immersive gameplay experience that draws the played in and makes them feel everything around them.

Once you start playing this title you dont want to stop. The story line is great, weapon choices many, little bit of choice making like kill or sneak past and some major badass multiplayer. You have the option to play through the single player campaign, multiplayer game modes and also a set of custom missions that you can either do alone or with a friend. With so much to do this title will keep you busy for a while.

The AI is smart but there is a great deal of linear gameplay. Enemy troops will always appear in the same place making it static to a great extent. The multiplayer component covers up for this with a variety of gameplay modes and maps. Custom classes with abilities that help you style of gameplay as well as the challenges to level up and unlock new weapons and attachments will keep you busy for a long time....

For all the work thats gone into the game and the final result i give this a 9/10. (Static AI -1 *sigh* perfect 10 if only...)

Screenshots:

Wolfenstein 2009

OLD NAME NEW GAME.

If you have grown up playing games then Wolfenstein is definitely one of the game that you will have played. This version of the game is set in world war II with the Nazis performing experiments on their prisoners and citizens of the town.

B.J. Blaskowitz an agent for the allies comes across a medallion that give him special abilities. Its kind of like the crysis suite. These abilities can be upgraded and used rather effectively along with an element from the good old days when we could carry many different weapons. Its a very uncommon feature in the games these days where realism is the focus.

The gameplay is rather engrossing inspite of it being fairly linear since you dont have much choice of where to go and sometime how to get there. You will however, have a lot of gun fights and the many weapons with tons of upgrade opportunities combined with the many abilities allow you to play the game in your own way giving it a slight personalization. Choose to be a silent sniper taking out your enemies from far away or charge in with a shield and take them all out real quick and loud.

There are pieces of gold and intelligence scattered through out the game. These are the key to getting upgrades for the weapons. Totems are pieces of ancient technology that are also scattered but always hidden in the wall behind a breakable plate. collect these to unlock upgrades for you abilities.

The game play time isnt too large but on completing the game you are given access to the cheats menu. The pumpkin head cheat adds a new element of fun to it almost making you want to play the game over just to see them pumpkins explode.

The physics and graphics of the game are kind of a let down but the game is still a lot of fun.
I give it a 7.5/10.

FUEL

There isnt much to say about this games. It gives u the options of using various off road vehicles for races on varying tracks. Has the largest map on a game world ever.

Allows upgrades, custom paint jobs & custom suits for the drivers like most other racing games. You can play the races by selecting them from a safe house or go into free roam and just cruise around.

However, apart from the huge map this game is just another racer. Personally i preferred PURE as that had a major fun element with the mid air trick. This is like play an off road Need for speed : undercover. Its a been there done that kinda things. Not really original now is it.

For the scenic beauty and vast expanse I give it a 4/10 coz its nothing special.

Batman Arkham Asylum

Well Its been a while since i posted a review but now im back its that time of the year again when games come out in batches and parents have to sadly deny the pleasure of playing every games that releases to both themselves and their children.

Batman Arkham Asylum was a release that everyone was waiting for since the 1st teasers released. Arkham Island is host to the psychopaths that Gotham city managed to lock away. However, the Joker was up to his old tricks plotting while in captivity in the correctional facility. His single motive to unmask and kill his arch enemy BATMAN.

Obviously you take on the role of Bruce Wayne as Batman as he has just brought The Joker in who managed to escape with some inside help. Once the Joker lures Batman into the lower levels of Arkham Asylum he springs his trap with the help of some friends on the inside.

The versatility of moves and choice of vantage points helps keep the game interesting allowing you to play either as a shadow in the night or hack away. The good part you dont have to stick to one. The combos are fairly simple to execute and do sometimes seem monotonous however, with upgrades you can change them up to keep things interesting.


For all the stealth loving gamers out there the gargoyle hanging and silent kills will add to the fun of creating terror in the Joker's goons.

The AI does get rather predictable and there is a great deal of linear game play. But with the large number of trophies that you can collect it can take a while before u clear out an area completely.

The Detective vision that has been introduced into this game makes for some very interesting observations giving you vulnerabilities in the environment, character stats, identifying enemy vitals even marking out armed enemies from unarmed ones.

There are a lot of different ways to play this game and the visual effect are pretty high up. For all the action/adventure and entertainment this game is absolute value for money. I give it a 9.5/10.

SCREEN SHOTS:


Silet Takedowns can get you out of some pretty tight situations.


One of the silent kill cut scenes.


Get a good view of the area.


Use detective mode to see what ur up against.


Choose a target and find out their vitals.


Just taking in the view.


Grapple to a vantage point then...


...Swoop down on ur unsuspecting enemies.



Hang from the gargoyle and wait...


...Watch him walk into ur trap...


...Pick em up...


...and let em hang :D

Mirror's Edge

This is a game that u could call a very good counter for the Prince of Persia that came out recently. The whole free runners thing that they have come up with is actually more realistic than the running that is done in PoP. The shacky camera while running actually give a very good effect on the whole. If u want to really enjoy this game u must have excellent reaction time as u have to jump run slide and dodge ur way through a lot of stuff. there are almost always alternate routes available incase u dont wanna go melee on guys with guns or u could disarm one of them and go guns a blazing. The choice is urs and its a lot of fun.

The Melee fighting in 1st person takes a little getting used to but its nothing someone who has played Condemned: Criminal origins cant master. The bots get progressive tougher and depending on the uniform u no if ur gonna knock them out easy or they are gonna really put up a fight.

The whole concept of this game and the way it has been implemented is simply amazing and results in some amazing gameplay. It has been very well executed however the character response in the game could have been slightly better there are instances where the response time is delayed by 1ms and can lead to some very tight situations.

There are certain area where the textures and layout seem to repeat themselves but thats ok since it is a city and there will be similarities among areas in a city.


If u like Prince of persia this game will certainly give u new hope considering the failure of the last release. For some stunning views and motion blur combined with great level design and game play this game get a 7/10 since it only provides about 6-7 hours of game play time. However, its a real fun 6-7 hours.


Some Screen Shots:

Prince of Persia (PC-2008)

I really dont thing that this game could have been any worse. I never thought i would say this but the original Dos based Prince of Persia game that i played 15 odd years ago was more exciting and fun. How could they mess up so bad I have no idea. They took one of the best series of games and turned it into a failure talk about doing a 180 the wrong way and landing flat on ur face.

The previous saga consisting of The Sands of time, Two thrones and Warrior Within had made the PoP series one of the most addictive and entertaining. Thus the new release had a bar to match up to and lets just say the bar was tooooooooo far out of reach. Where to begin with the terrors....

Lets start with the character models...
There is a black outline around the characters...How and y would u want that... there is no way to change the graphic settings so good luck there... While playing the game u feel like u are in some photoshop version of a very cheap animated movie. This totally sux even the old engine would have been good.

The fighting style... The free form fighting style where an action lead to many different opportunities and options was an amazing way to play the game making it unique to the played and leaving them to option to hack and slash in a way they felt was fun. The new combo fighting system seems fun initially but it has too many limitations and is too simple for veteran PoP players. Not Fun at all and highly monotonous after a point.

You will spend maybe an hour running around collecting orbs of magic for ur companion that is trying to rebuild the sacred land and get rid of the darkness that is spreading. This also again get boring since it is the same thing over and over again. The puzzle solving has been made slightly annoying now and is going towards the tomb raider complexity which is not a good thing at all. PoP is not a Puzzle game its an action/adventure game why would u want to make it a puzzle game. Moving on u have spent an hour running up walls and swinging off ledges and stuff and u have finally come to an enemy and ur like aite lets kick some ass. You start ur combo and co-incidentally after 3 hits u have reached the end of the platform that u are fighting on and boom it goes into a cutscene where ur combo is broken the enemy who may have been in the air courtesy of ur combo is standing on the ground in front of u and u stab him. So all the fun has been squeezed out of the game.

There are no hoards of enemies to fight and multiple attacks to chose from its all running around trying to heal the land. I mean WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! This latest installment of PoP is so Bad that i dont think it even deserves a rating but since thats what im here to do I give it a 3/10 for Scenic Beauty. The gameplay is crap and the game is no fun at all.