Games don’t have to be brand new for you to want to play them, and neither should they only be reviewed if they’re less than 6 months beyond the’r release date. Having had This one bought for me as a present from my brother in law i’ve just got around to playing it and finished it this morning. Number two is making a stir at the mo, so, in the first of what I intend to be Out-Of-The-Blue-Reviews. Mirrors Edge.
Spurred on by the suspected Killing slash possible kidnapping of your sister you, Faith, have decided to put an end to the outrageous free-running message carrying business and use your skills to find and uncover your sisters where-abouts whilst inevitably getting accidently on purpose in far too deep with bent coppers, over funded security firms and construction companies.
Mirrors Edge is a first person occasional-shooter that utilised the idea’s and moves of parkour to dish out the action an make some policeman’s wives widows. And doe’s it superbly me thinks.
Faith, after completing a delivery to fellow Runner Celeste, learns from Merc that her sister Kate may be in trouble at Pope’s office. When she arrives, she finds Kate standing over the body of Pope, insisting she has been framed for murder and requesting Faith to discover the cause. Faith finds a piece of paper with the name “Icarus” on it in Pope’s hand. Kate remains at Pope’s office to provide distraction for Faith’s escape. From a former Runner, Jacknife, Faith learns that Pope’s head of security, a former wrestler named Ropeburn, may be connected to Pope’s murder. Faith meets Lt. Miller, at Kate’s behest, narrowly avoiding arrest. At Ropeburn’s office, she overhears him setting up a meeting at a new place downtown. At the meeting, Ropeburn discovers Faith’s presence and attacks her, but Faith gains the upper hand and throws him off the roof (super-hard and over far too quickly boss fight BTW). As he is hanging above a long drop, she tries to interrogate Ropeburn, but before he can reveal anything he is killed by an unknown assassin, whom you spend half the game chasing. Some more madness ensues and there are a few juicy twists toward the end, which i’m sad to say, I did see coming. But all in all, Mirrors Edge ticked lots of boxes for me and I will be playing the next one.
Quite complex to start with and very trial end error for the most part. Mirrors Edge should be given patience at the difficult parts and be respected whenever you get suck, im sure you will, because the solutions and the end products are sublime. The game has a good way of making sure you start to forget the obvious, twinned with always just one too many goons to combat with, which is the right amount, it has a nice balance of fighting, gun-slinging and puzzle solving. Just before you start to feel any sort of repetativity or boredom the game manages to shift to another phase, climbing, running from a helicopter that sort of thing, and is just the right length to make sure its not a chore. Good story. Fluid gaming. Simple buttons. Refreshingly, a good idea done well for once.
So far the next generation of motion capture gaming has been nothing more than a sort of high-octain iToy and we’d not really had anything we haven’t seen before, kinectimals looked cute but didn’t really have any staying power unless you were a five year old girl. Now that the world has collectively got over the fact that its not just under 14′s that play computer games for a good few years now, we want more from our crazy 3d technology efforts that consoles are trying to put it. Some Integrity.
The epic adventure of an undead puppet cowboy is by far the best motion control idea we’ve heard so far. Twisted Pixel’s next game, The Gunstringer, is just that, and its announcement came in trailer form.
The story is as intriguing as the ambitious controller-free game-play – you’re a zombie puppet, who also happens to be a cowboy, and your goal is to take revenge against the evil puppets that killed you in the first place.
Looks cool, right? But what if you really hate Kinect because you have to stand up and exert energy? Good news! The game was developed specifically so players would be able to play it while sitting down. Which is how it should be, how else are you gonna scoff junk food while you play? Exercise… psh.
A tad childish looking by today’s Gears Of Waring standards, but it has a certain old school platform charm and a tonne of game-play that newer game tend to lack.
Too many thing nowadays seem to be re-makes, and most of them I think the inter-webs will agree are bad.
The re-hash of The Italian Job, the countless reboots of The Hulk. Video games thank god seem to be good at staying away from this and if they ever do get a re-release it is an actual re-release, not a remake by some douche who has too much money and none of the heart that the original developer had. But rarely does a remake of a video actually have the gaming community excitedly waiting for it release: Enter Shogun Total War. Well, Total War: Shogun Two anyway.
Set during the Sengoku (or Warring States) period in Japan, Shogun 2’s singleplayer campaign will put you in the role of a clan leader. It’ll be up to you to use a combination of brute force, political maneuvering, and devious stratagems to expand your area of control, uniting the fractured country.
As an RTS, Shogun 2’s battles feel much more methodical and realistic than your average RTS in terms of pacing, Something that the Total War franchise has always done well. Although you can adjust the game’s speed to your liking, it’s less about actions-per-minute and build orders – and more about the positioning your troops properly, using the terrain to your advantage, flanking, and making good use of each unit’s special abilities.
When attempting to siege an enemy castle, for example, charging head first towards the castle gate with all your forces is sure to result in a loss. Rows of archers can easily burn down your army from behind the castle walls while your forces bottleneck at the gate. And troops are expensive to train!
Better to spread your forces out when positioning them before the battle begins. That way, you can lure enemy squads to the castle’s main gate while clearing the walls at the opposite end of the fortress. With your troops inside the walls of the castle, the defender’s forces will be forced to spread out even further, allowing to tip the scales of war in your favor. It’s the kind of tactic that Shogun 2’s AI would use on you, which speaks to the level of complexity behind every click.
Although Shogun 2’s battles can be brutally difficult at times, the game is liberal when it comes to saving your progress. So sometimes just mindlessly sending all your units charging towards the enemy is worthwhile just for the spectacle of seeing hundreds of individually animated troops crash against each other. After all, you can always call a mulligan and load up an old save for an earnest attempt at winning.
And as an extra added bonus, its just so nice too look at…….
Some more specific units, rather than terrain for example, perform differently at night time……
PC Gamer is now available as a digital edition. Digital magazine champions Zinio have used their cyber-magic to digitise each issue, bringing the world’s best PC gaming news, reviews and features straight to your screen. You can subscribe now and save 36% off the cover price. Read on for details.
The Zinio interface will let you zoom in on and interact with each issue, and every page is rendered in super high resolution, so you’ll be able to get even closer to our exclusive previews. Head here for a sample of the February issue.
Digital editions of PC Gamer are now available to buy for just £2.49 each. Once you’ve purchased an issue you’ll be able to read it on any display, whether it’s on your PC monitor, Mac screen, or your iPad. Of course, you can always save even more money by subscribing. A yearly subscription will net you 13 issues for just £20.82, and every issue will be delivered straight to your computer as soon as the issue hits the shops. Winner.
If you’d rather have a more palpable, strokable copy of PC Gamer to hold close, then you can subscribe to the mag and receive your copy of PC Gamer before it arrives in shops.
Here’s a Bionic Commando: Rearmed 2 trailer that does a nice job on pulling on the old nostalgia strings.
The good news is if you like what you can see, you can nip on the PS Store or Xbox Live Arcade and grab it right now.
The new game is more of the same spruced-up 2D gameplay we got from the first game, only the Bionic man can JUMP.
Here’s the debate – does the ability to simply bound from one platform to another ruin the essence of the game, which has always been about managing the unique swinging mechanic?
Luckily, purist have the option to put the game into ‘Retro mode’, not dis-similar from the recent Monkey Island remakes, which takes back your jumping legs and restrict you to swinging, the way it should be.
It’s the same premise as the Android and iPhone smash hit: you use a slingshot to vault animals across a stage so they break stuff, only instead of pigs, you’re now smashing vases and china.
There’s a corny heavy guitar soundtrack, genitalia presented at the conclusion of every level and it feels and plays fine for what it is. I liked it!
Bullistic was developed by small Australian studio Millipede, who make a living crafting apps with a nice sense of humour, some games for travellers, others built for learning, all of them with awesome names.
The Bunny has decided that its not being inappropriate enough, so just for the bored chaps and chapettes at work, here are some super deals not to miss out on on steam this week so far. Ideal for enjoying at work, lunch-breaks only of course.
For those that down’t know what steam is yet, im sure there are none of you, steam is an application/gaming network service. Free to join, steam give you the capability to play some fun old-school fun-ings like Age Of Empire along side the outrageous high octain efforts that stretch your PC like Crisis.
The Sims Ultimate Bundle. Basically Simss 3, but it comes with all expansions with it including Sims 3: Fast Lane Stuff, Sims 3: High-End Loft Stuff, Sims 3 Late Night, Sims 3 World Adventures and Sims 3 Ambitions. Originally all price at £114.94, reduced %50. You Pay £57.47
Poker Night At The Inventory. A cell-shaded plush looking intelligent amalgam of Penny Arcade characters, crazy and inventive item and ensuing madness. Straight into your steam account for just £3.25.
Age of Conan is set to grow with a series of new solo-questlines designed to add extra instances for players who prefer to adventure alone. New dungeons and solo boss encounters are set to be added to the exotic realm of Khitai added by last year’s Rise of the Godslayer expansion. Read on for details.
Some of the new quests will be tied into the game’s faction system. Friends of the Scarlet Circle and the Last Legion will have access to new quests at level 80 in the scarred lands of Kara Korum, while more quests are set to be added to the level 40 zone at the Gateway to Khitai. These quests will scale in difficulty depending on your level and offer up rare trophies as a reward.
For more information on the changes, check out FunCom Game Director Silirron’s post on the Age of Conan forums. If you’re interested in having a look at Age of Conan, there’s a big free trial that lets you quest for as long as you like on the starting island of Tortage. You can sign up for the trial on the Age of Conan free trial page. For more on the game, check out the official Age of Conan site and check the content page.
Hats off to the guy for making the sword, it looks just right and is about the right size by the looks of it. And Kudos for his earlier efforts at swinging the thing. But maybe including all that stuff about how your doctor said you couldn’t carry it wasn’t the greatest idea, if you listen hard enough you can hear him tell his wife he’s slipped another disk! It doesn’t really make for a good action video.
Then his muscle bound buddy shows up and….. it skill looks lame, barely cutting the wood.
The problem is is that he didn’t have the right materia me thinks. But still one of the best fan-boy creations we’ve seen, right up there with the gears of war rifle’s we feel.
Nintendo revealed the existence of a new Wii game, Pandora’s Tower, in its third quarter report. The game is slated for release this Spring, and… well, that’s about all we know. Nintendo fan-boys have the feeling that this could well plug the gap between now and the release of “Skyward Sword”
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in the report, “This game is nearing completion and will be released in the first half of the year. Because we’re still planning marketing, please wait for more details.”
The game’s C CERO rating (the ESRB equivalent would be ‘Teen’) is listed below, along with text that reads, “Coming spring 2011.”
There are no details yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Famitsu has an exclusive preview in the works. There is something of a teaser site up at the moment, but Nintendo tends to announce its more mature titles, like the upcoming Xenoblade, in the monthly magazine.
