Its all about gaming.its my pleasure to meet the gamers and put the ideas about various games and gaming consoles.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Halo reach
Before the discovery and destruction of an ancient alien ringworld, before a teeming parasitic enemy threatened Earth, before a soldier called John-117 made a new name for himself, humanity fought to defend the planet Reach. And though Halo: Reach is a prequel to all the Halo games that have come before, it represents the evolutionary pinnacle of the series. From the expertly tuned combat to the expansive level design and from the innovative online integration to the robust creation tools, all the pillars of Halo's success are in top form here, tied together seamlessly by an elegant and intuitive menu system. While the core mechanics remain very familiar, invigorating new elements and extensive customization options make it so there are more ways to enjoy yourself than ever. Halo: Reach is one of the most fully featured games on consoles today, and it's also one of the best.
One of the first things you notice about Halo: Reach is the refined menu system. In addition to presenting the main gameplay modes, the main menu displays the status of your friends who are playing Reach and allows you to peruse their service records and invite them to your party with ease. Entering a mode, tweaking options, and starting up a match is an effortless process, and your party members can come with you almost everywhere you go. The interface allows you to easily explore game types, customization tools, and user-created content without getting swamped or overwhelmed. It's remarkable that everything is this easily accessible, because Halo: Reach is absolutely packed with great content.
Halo campaigns have traditionally had epic aspirations, and Halo: Reach is no different. Whether you play solo or cooperatively with up to four players, you play as the newest member of Noble team. Your first mission is to investigate a distress signal in a rural mountainous area, and it's no surprise when the source of the distress turns out to be the Covenant. Small skirmishes and reconnaissance missions soon escalate to all-out war as humanity tries to repel the alien invaders. Anyone familiar with the Halo canon knows how that one ends, but it's thrilling to be a part of Noble team's efforts. You undertake missions of increasingly crucial strategic importance, and this urgency is conveyed without any reliance on previous Halo knowledge. Instead, the characters you interact with help set the tone, and your squadmates have unique personalities that go a long way toward keeping you emotionally invested in the action. There are some cliches and a few cheap moments, but the story successfully channels the forthright heroism of soldiers who are committed to their cause. This earnest appeal makes Halo: Reach's campaign one of the most satisfying in the series.
The campaign also benefits from great pacing and a cohesive sense of place. The slow burn of the early levels explodes into frenetic large-scale conflict, and some good dramatic turns and an engrossing musical score keep the pace from fizzling out as the game builds toward a climactic ending. Your missions take you through a rich array of environments, from rural farming communities to high-country military outposts and from dry, rocky steppes to battered city streets. Throughout these diverse locations, the mountainous geography of Reach remains a constant presence that helps you connect with the land you are fighting to defend. Levels are often expansive, offering stunning views and allowing for some nice gameplay diversity. In addition to a number of classic vehicles that still handle marvelously, there are a few new rides that provide some kicks of their own. There's also a space-faring first for the series, and though this sequence is a bit shallow, it doesn't overstay its welcome and features some gorgeous orbital vistas.
The campaign provides excitement aplenty, and adding some friends to the mix makes it even more enjoyable. Picking your own routes through the battlefield is more exciting when you know your buddies are doing it too, and it leads to some great moments of teamwork, both planned and unexpected. Though the friendly AI is generally harmless, it has trouble when it comes to driving, so you're better off driving yourself or trusting a friend behind the wheel. If you want to spice things up a bit, you can keep score individually or as a team, using skulls (now found in an options screen rather than hidden in levels) to modify battlefield conditions and boost your scoring potential. And if you don't have any friends available to join you, the online campaign matchmaking can easily set you up with squadmates. These options, along with the stellar core action, the excellent level design, and the well-balanced difficulty levels, make this great campaign supremely replayable.
Back after a very successful debut in Halo 3: ODST, the Firefight mode once again offers up to four players an arena to take on increasingly difficult waves of Covenant enemies. This is largely the same addictively entertaining experience, though it now boasts full online matchmaking support. Frantically fighting off hordes of enemies is as exciting and satisfying as ever, and the new maps and gameplay variants offer many different ways to enjoy this mode. You can take on a tougher challenge by choosing to defend generators in addition to killing Covenant or add a bit of levity by fighting hordes of grunts that fling confetti into the air when you shoot them in the head. You can even have some players play as Elites and try to thwart the remaining Spartans. If you want to tweak one of the built-in variants or create something entirely different, the extensive game options let you customize the makeup and toughness of each enemy wave, the weapons and shields available to you, the strength of gravity, and a lot more. It's a lot of fun to mess around with these options and see what you can come up with, and if you're not the tailoring type, you can easily download user-created variants by browsing popular variants or searching for keywords.
Extensive customization options are also available in competitive multiplayer. In the Custom Game mode, you can tweak the conditions of any game type beyond recognition or use subtle changes to spice things up. As in previous Halo games, the possibilities here are vast, and the intuitive interface makes them all easily accessible. Competitive matchmaking is once again a standout in Halo: Reach. Before you jump in, you can tweak a few variables in your psych profile to indicate that you prefer team players to lone wolves or want to avoid chatty teammates. It was hard to gauge the effectiveness of this system at the time of review, but just having such a system in a prominent location bodes well for being able to find an agreeable crowd with which to play.
Though there are just six competitive multiplayer lobbies, a revamped voting system lets you choose from a few different maps or variants, potentially turning your Team Slayer game into Team SWAT. This built-in variation may irk some purists who don't want their Slayer game to turn into a Mongoose race, but it's a great way to build in some variety without spreading the player base between too many lobbies. There's also a ranked arena that functions as a competitive league, assigning players a ranking based on their performance while cycling through discrete blocks of time called seasons. And, there's a new objective-based mode called Invasion that pits Spartans against Elites, challenging one team to capture a series of positions and abscond with a valuable item. The progressive structure is a nice change of pace, though ultimately, it's just another way to enjoy the best part of the game: combat.
Halo: Reach continues the series' tradition of superlative combat and movement mechanics. This consistency isn't likely to excite those who have disliked Halo in the past, but those who have enjoyed it before have a new twist to contend with in the form of armor abilities. These special abilities operate on a cooldown timer and grant players a specific power that can give them an edge in combat. Whether it's a quick burst of speed to close the distance between you and an enemy or a jetpack that grants you the power of limited flight, these abilities add an intriguing new tactical element. Active camouflage aids in stealthy maneuvers, while armor lock can help you survive a grenade explosion that is too close to evade. And while the advantages of being able to create a running decoy of yourself may seem obvious, deploying the decoy effectively is another matter.
When these abilities are in play, they change the every-soldier-is-equal dynamic that has long defined Halo multiplayer, but they do it in a very specific and knowable way. Once you see your opponent tumble laterally in an evade maneuver, you know exactly what kind of ability you are dealing with (at least, you do until he respawns). Rather than creating an imbalance in the battlefield, these armor abilities enrich combat and offer even seasoned Halo veterans new ways to flex their strategic muscle. They also go hand in hand with the concept of loadouts. Rather than always spawning every player with identical equipment, Halo: Reach often lets players choose which guns and armor ability they want to equip, sometimes offering new loadouts as the match progresses. The ability to change loadouts can cause strategic shifts in the battlefield, forcing players to reevaluate their combat options, and figuring out the many tactical possibilities of each armor ability is an engaging challenge. These invigorating new elements inject a new energy into one of the traditional strengths of the series, making Halo: Reach's competitive multiplayer better than ever.
Doing well in online multiplayer, the offline campaign, and most other gameplay modes earns you credits that can be used to buy new, strictly cosmetic armor pieces for your Spartan. It can also earn you progress toward commendations and daily or weekly challenges, which in turn earn you more credits, a higher ranking, and of course bragging rights. Your service record displays your Halo stats and accomplishments to anyone who cares to look, and the Theater lets you capture a screenshot or video clip of any moment that you care to show off. Halo: Reach automatically saves your recent matches regardless of what mode you play, and watching replays is a lot of fun even if you don't care to preserve them for posterity. Recording clips, taking screens, recommending them to your friends, and uploading them to your file share is as easy as ever, and the only real drawback to the Theater is that you can't bring any party members along with you.
You can, however, bring friends with you into Forge, the amazing editing sandbox that gives you astonishing creation powers. There are nine Forge-able maps, including the massive Forge World, and they are all at your mercy. From building a brand new level structure to tailoring an existing one to fit your unique game variants and from stacking absurd quantities of objects on top of each other to engaging in all-out vehicular mayhem, Forge ranks among the most impressive and versatile creation studios available on consoles today. And even if your interest in Forge is limited to spelling your name in the sky with traffic cones, you can't help but be excited by the possibilities. Since its introduction in Halo 3, the Forge community has generated a lot of clever, exciting, and downright fun content, and Halo: Reach promises to continue this trend into the foreseeable future.
Halo: Reach is not only brimming with excellent content, but it's also bursting with possibilities. The exciting campaign, addictive Firefight mode, and dynamic competitive multiplayer make it one of the best shooters around. The extensive customization options, powerful Theater tools, and staggering Forge capabilities make it one of the most malleable and socially engaging games on consoles. And the slick menu system brings it all together with remarkable simplicity. Though its deep roots may not win over those who haven't enjoyed previous games in the series, Halo: Reach is a towering achievement that delivers an enormous amount of engaging content that players will no doubt be enjoying for years to come.
Monday, January 10, 2011
TGS 2010 (Tokyo Game Show) has begun, and while nothing interesting made an appearance there was a show of Capcom where they showed a trailer to one of their most popular franchises the “Devil May Cry” Series, So far the trailer shows a new “Dante” but he is very different than the previous Devil May Cry games it could be that 5 would be a prequel to all the other showing a younger version of Dante, though it looks like he has a modified version of his sword of choice the “rebellion” there are some new tricks the sword can do which in terms are very similar to Dante’s Scythe from Dante’s Inferno (the part where he grabs the car).
Judging that he looks thinner, and a little shorter compared to the other games I am 99% sure that this game will give us a larger insight into the Demon Hunters past, since Devil May Cry 1 the story of Dante and his father Sparda has been told by side characters such as Trish. But maybe fans wanted to see first hand what Dante’s past would have looked like? It is possible that we MIGHT see the legendary Sparda in this game and how Dante chose his path as a Demon Hunter?
Though the last Devil May Cry games were a bit of a disappointment I am hoping that this game will come out as a one hit wonder, The story of Devil May Cry is one of the most unique story lines I have ever heard though it lacks a bit of proper story structure here and there the game play and boss fights are always well imagined and are worth the game time.
Read more: http://wccftech.com/2010/09/16/devil-cry-5-trailer/#ixzz1Ahy4OjIb
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Tekkan 6
Despite the dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of moves available per pugilist, intricate juggle combos, complex counters, and esoteric gameplay quirks that have evolved through five prequels, Tekken 6 is an altogether welcoming fighting game. For veterans, the game offers the most comprehensive roster in the history of the series, a new way to extend damaging combos, and enough change to--whilst not exactly feeling brand new--make it feel exciting to play Tekken again. For newcomers, the game's comprehensive training modes and expansive single-player beat-'em-up campaign serve as an enticing gateway into the world of the King of Iron Fist Tournament. For everyone else, Tekken 6 features the same outstanding qualities that have made the series a fighting favorite on consoles: deep yet accessible mechanics, as well as excellent extra features not seen in arcades. Whether you're a complete stranger to the series, an occasional masher, or someone who can pull off 10-hit combos without dislocating a finger, the superb Tekken 6 has plenty to offer you.That abundance begins with Tekken 6's roster, which is a beefy lineup that features 41 fighters, including old stalwarts, such as Kazuya, Lei, Paul, Nina, Jin, and others. It also includes more recent additions from Dark Resurrection, such as Lili and the emo-Nazi look-a-like Dragunov. Even series veterans may find Tekken 6's jam-packed character selection screen a little overwhelming because it's initially tough to identify characters from their small portraits alone. But once you've found your favorites, experienced Tekken players will see that the tweaks and changes made to the move sets of returning characters are, for the most part, minor. Most characters get a new attack or two, some stances have been modified, and it seems the damage dealt by some of the more powerful combos in the past have been slightly toned down. Despite this, all of the returning characters feel completely familiar, so you'll never feel like you have to relearn your favorite fighter from scratch.
It's not all veterans, of course, with six new characters making their home console debut in Tekken 6. These include: Bob, a rotund American fighter who is deceptively speedy for his size; Leo, an androgynous German martial arts specialist; Miguel, a Spanish brawler who seems to rely more on power than speed; Zafina, a member of a mysterious secret order who sports some creepy and unusual stances; Alisa, a seemingly naive young girl who's actually a jetpack-and-chainsaw-wielding android; and Lars, who has some relation to the sprawling Mishima bloodline (hence his move set similarity to Jin and Kazuya). Of the new recruits, Zafina feels the most unique, thanks to her distinctive-looking moves that incorporate stance-based attacks, such as the off-putting tarantula, which sees her get down on all fours to creep low along the ground. Alisa is just sheer fun to play as given her frankly bizarre move list, which includes using her own head as an explosive and a whole series of attacks based on her chainsaw appendages.
A fembot with chainsaws for hands may seem overpowered in a fighting game, but Tekken 6 manages the tough task of presenting a well-balanced brawler despite the abundance of characters. For novices, Tekken's fight mechanics--each limb assigned to a button on the controller, with special moves usually performed via button combos and directional stabs on the D pad or control stick--are just as easy to get into as they have been in the past. Most of the hundreds of moves in the game are a cinch to perform individually, which means you'll be able to pull off some flashy moves from the get-go. Stringing them together into increasingly damaging combos, however, will take some practice, which is where the game gets deliciously deep. Juggle combos--where you launch your opponent into the air and try to keep him or her there--are still integral to the Tekken experience for expert players. Other important moves include throw counters, wall juggles, roll evasions, and various in-depth strategies. For those already comfortable with their various 10-hit combos, Tekken 6 introduces a new way to deal extended damage. The bound system essentially allows you to extend combos by slamming an airborne opponent into the ground, leaving him or her momentarily vulnerable for further strikes. Just as with juggles, each of the characters has his or her own bound launcher, and it's a great new addition for Tekken fanatics to explore.
While those with only moderate Tekken experience probably won't be performing too many juggle or bound strings, everyone will be able to make use of Tekken 6's other biggest gameplay addition: rage. Rage kicks in when your character's health drops to about 10 percent, bathing him or her in a red aura and significantly increasing the damage he or she dishes out. It's pretty exciting when you're able to pull off a miraculous win, thanks to your rage-fuelled strikes, but the rage system is one that's unlikely to change the course of most matches because by the time it kicks in, you're usually only one hit away from oblivion.
Tekken 6 packs in plenty of gameplay, which starts with an Arcade mode. As in Tekken 5, Arcade allows you to gain ranks for each individual character you decide to try out. If you're an utter recluse or just don't have access to the Internet, the game also tries to emulate the experience of playing against real people by having your AI opponents appear with their own individual gamer names, win/loss ratios, and ranks. The AI here is strong--there are five difficulty levels to choose from, ranging from ridiculously easy to frustratingly tough, so there's a good chance you'll find a fit for your own experience level. If Arcade mode isn't your bag, then you can take on a virtually endless lineup of opponents in Ghost Battle, which is a mode that pits you against the ghost data of real players downloaded online. There are also the stock-standard fighter modes of Survival and Time Attack, as well as two dedicated two-player modes--VS Battle and Team Battle, the latter of which allows you and a friend to choose up to eight characters to fight in consecutive battles.
If you find yourself getting pummeled too often by your friends or the AI, Tekken 6 features a comprehensive Practice mode that allows you to polish your moves. Practice won't take you through the very basics (such as movement, blocking, throw counters, and more), but newcomers will still get plenty from this mode, thanks to the helpful way the game demonstrates every move. This includes showing you the specific timing required for each button and direction press. Practice can also help you shore up your defense, with a dedicated mode that lets you set an AI opponent's attack so you can better identify each move and counter it in a real match.While previous Tekken home releases featured several extra modes outside of the one-on-one fighting core, Tekken 6 only has one extra: the beat-'em-up mode dubbed the Scenario Campaign. Unlike previous Tekken bashers, such as Tekken Force or Devil Within, this is no short-lived distraction. The Scenario Campaign is a surprisingly addictive multihour marathon that takes place over a wide variety of environments. It's also a must-play if you're at all interested in the story of Tekken 6, since it follows the adventures of two new characters--Lars and Alisa. During their adventures, they try to unravel the global-war-raging machinations of the Jin-controlled Mishima Zaibatsu, find out what part the Kazuya-controlled G Corporation plays, and discover just how the game's end boss (the Egyptian godlike Azazel) fits into the whole story. The Scenario Campaign is also the only place you'll see each character's full video ending, which is another highlight of previous Tekken games and definitely a winner for Tekken 6. After completing the first few levels of the Scenario Campaign, an Arena mode becomes unlocked. Acting like a truncated Arcade mode, Arena allows you to play through the storyline for all of the characters. It starts with captioned still images that outline their involvement in the latest King of Iron Fist Tournament and culminates in their ending movie. Unlike Arcade mode, however, you won't have all of the characters unlocked immediately--you'll have to unlock them by playing through the Scenario Campaign and defeating them when they appear as boss characters at the end of each level.
But figuring out the convoluted plot of Tekken 6 isn't the only reason to play through the excellent Scenario Campaign. This mode could almost be a full game on its own, taking five or six hours to complete and having plenty of replay value, thanks to its compelling item-drop system. While the Scenario Campaign tells the story of Lars and Alisa, you can play the mode as any character you've unlocked, although all of the major cutscenes will still feature the two main protagonists. In terms of gameplay, the Scenario Campaign isn't too taxing on the old synapses--you and your AI-controlled partner Alisa will have to fight through waves of enemies. And while the controls are initially fiddly to come to terms with, you'll quickly get used to them. You can move freely anywhere on the screen using the left thumbstick, and when enemies are within view, you can use the D pad to pull off your character's moves and the right bumper to switch targets. It's a lot of fun, if a little repetitive, although it's a mystery why two-player offline co-op play wasn't included in this mode.
As opposed to Tekken's previous attempts at a beat-'em-up, the Scenario Campaign mode actually features a decent number of different enemy types and environments. And while it's easy for most of its duration, the difficulty ramps up considerably in its final few stages. But what makes it most worth playing are the items that certain enemies drop when defeated. These items are pieces of clothing for every Tekken 6 character, and there are literally hundreds to collect. These items include new shirts, pants, shoes, headgear, accessories, weapons, and more, with each item having its own unique properties that confer special bonuses when worn. You can find clothing that will increase your health; increase defense; add elemental properties, such as fire or ice, to your attacks; improve the value of items dropped, and much more. It's an almost role-playing-game-like loot system, giving plenty of incentive to keep playing Scenario to get better gear for each of the game's 41 characters.
But even if you don't play Scenario, you can still buy any of the hundreds of different costume items for each character using money earned in almost every other mode in Tekken 6. There's a ton of customization available here: Ever want to know what Panda looks like wearing a pink bikini? Don't like the particular shade of Lei's shirt? Think Eddie looks better wearing a baseball cap? Or would you prefer your Ganryu with angel wings? You can mix and match to your heart's content; thus, with some truly wacky costume options, it'll be easy to come up with a unique look for your favorite fighter.
You can show off your uniquely costumed character in Tekken 6's online modes, although any bonuses that piece of clothing may have in the Scenario Campaign won't carry over into proper bouts. The game has both ranked matches for battle points and friendly bouts where you can set up lobbies with up to three other people. The matches we played since the servers went live this week globally have been mostly stable with very few dropouts, but lag seems to be an issue with most matches. With slower connections, you'll notice a definite gap between your controller input and what's happening on screen, and there seems to be a very slight lag with even the fastest links. It's not unplayable, and if you're just after a few fun games against players online it plays well as long as you're on a decent connection. But anyone serious about their Tekken will recoil in horror at the input lag present.
A much more interesting online option is the ability to download ghost data from players all over the world. You can download up to 100 different "real" personalities, which you can then play in the offline game to help improve your skills against the top players in the world (your own ghost data becomes uploaded automatically). These ghost players do act noticeably different to the game's AI, and they're often a better option than trying to find stable connections to play online when you're hankering for some real competition. You can also download replays of people's matches, which is another great training tool if you want to see how the best go about their brutal business.
Tekken 6 looks impressive, but it's not the prettiest fighter out there. There are definitely some impressive details to be found on each character model, and the whole game runs smoothly at 60 frames per second, but some of the game's textures look rather bland. Skin, for example, looks pretty waxy, giving near-nude characters like Ganryu a mannequin-like look. There's also some noticeable aliasing to be found on the game's various stages, from which both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions suffer. The game's stages, in fact, can be a little too distracting. There's plenty going on in each level, such as helicopters crashing, jets flying by, and even livestock milling around, but some of these aren't rendered in impressive ways. Seeing a poorly animated sheep or pig bounce away as you accidentally hit it, for example, just serves to draw your attention away from the solid fighting. Thankfully, the sound is quite impressive, with solid and bone-crunching effects adding a great deal of believability to your every strike. But perhaps Tekken 6's most apparent technical downside has to do with its load times. They're not so long as to break the game, but there are noticeable lags when matches load and character models appear on selection screens. Installing is practically a prerequisite on the PS3 version to get it on par with the Xbox 360, which features shorter load times from the get-go.
While a bouncing pig may be a slight distraction and the online can be disappointing, it's nowhere near enough to dull the outstanding qualities that Tekken 6 has to offer. For fans, Tekken 6 is the most complete Tekken experience so far. It features a large roster, strong customization options, and tight mechanics, and it's sure to be a time sink as you enjoy battle after battle and strive to perfect your skills. If you're a newcomer, the game is as welcoming as ever, and there's plenty here to keep you occupied until you're ready to start busting out your own combos. If you're a fighting fan or are just curious to dip a tentative fist into the genre, then Tekken 6 is the game for you.
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