Moody Gamer

As a gamer I had a great time playing video games this year. Maybe its not the best gaming year but it  certainly was impressive. During this year we saw the return of  fighting games with Street Fighter IV, Sony Playstaion 3 awaking from its long sleep, Financial crisis casting its shadows on a number of game development studios like Pandemic and GRIN. We also witnessed the appearance of a new contender in the gaming war, the iPhone. But most importantly, lots of great video games titles were released this year on all the platforms. To sum everything up, Here is a list of the best games of 2009:

Demon’s Soul (PS3)

From Software brings an action RPG game unlike any other you have played before. Demon’s Soul is the game that will make you weep with it’s unforgiving difficulty. If you can overcome that then you are about to face a game with deep tactical combat and customization along with the amazing level designs. The game also offers some excellent and unique online features.

Street Fighter IV (PC-Xbox360-PS3)

Capcom was able to return to the roots of the series with the release of Street Fighter IV. The game offers deep gameplay and competitive online multiplayer. Whether you are a fighting game expert, a newbie, or even if you aren’t into fighting games, Street Fighter IV is worth checking out.

inFamous (PS3)

One of the best new IPs in 2009, inFamous gives  you the freedom of movement and awesome electrical powers that make you feel like a true super-hero. The combat is fast and fun. I also liked the karma system and the upgrades they were both outstanding. The fate of the city is in your hands as you can either be a real hero and save it or just be evil and destroy everything that comes in your way.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)

Playing The first Super Mario Bros. in co-op was every gamers dream. Nintendo finally made that happen with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Nintendo reminds everyone in this game that they are the masters of 2D platforming. The game offers magnificent platforming and brilliant level design. The multiplayer is fun and hilarious. the game is also very challenging unlike the previous DS version. But most importantly, the game has a nostalgic feel to it that is just amazing and will make you shed a tear easily.

Forza Motorsport 3 (XBox360)

Its a beautiful racing game with an entertaining Career Mode and an excellent online multiplayer, not to mention the selection of hundreds of cars and the varied tracks. The game also balances between simulation and arcade style to make the game playable by anyone. All of this make Forza Motorsport 3 the racing game of this generation, for now at least.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC-Xbox360-PS3)

This is how a Batman game should be. Batman: Arkham Asylum gives you Fun stealth gameplay with a strong story that is loyal to the comics and over the top voice acting. Its simply the best comic book game ever made.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (Nintendo DS)

Be prepared to have a hilarious time with the third and best installment in the series. Its a fun Mario RPG game with varied gameplay and hilarious dialogues .. inside Bowser.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PC-Xbox360-PS3)

It is the newest phenomenon in the gaming industry. Modern Warfare 2 gives the best online multiplayer experience out there. The game also offers a short yet great single player campaign and a well made co-op mode.

Assassin’s Creed II (PC-Xbox360-PS3)

Nothing beats jumping over the artistic buildings of 15th century Italy. Unlike its predecessor, Assassin’s Creed II is an incredibly polished game with improved gameplay mechanics and a decent story. Ubisoft learned from their mistakes in the first try and gave us a masterpiece. Oh and who is a better side-kick than Leonardo Da Vinci himself.

Dragon Age: Origins (PC-Xbox360-PS3)

With its incredible story and character development, Bioware has made another great western RPG title. Dragon Age: Origins is easily the best RPG of the year

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo DS)

The sequel to Phantom hourglass proves to be an even better game than its predecessor. Join link in an adventure through brilliantly-designed dungeons, new items, innovative boss fights. The game will also take you through challenging puzzles and you will solve them with the help of princess Zelda.

Killzone 2 (PS3)

It’s the game that took everyone by surprise when it came out. Nobody thought Guerrilla would be able to match their game with the famous E3 trailer back in 2006. Killzone 2 is a great FPS shooter game that offers an action-packed campaign mode combined with stunning visuals and sound effects. It also has a remarkable online multiplayer that will keep you hooked.

Halo 3: ODST (Xbox360)

Halo is back but this time its more like an expansion than a sequel. Halo3 : ODST offers a great and unique campaign mode even though its a bit short. It also introduces a splendid new Firefight mood. This game is a must for all Halo fans.

Uncharted 2 (PS3)

Most critics and gamers agree that Uncharted 2 is the game of the year. Naughty Dog were able to turn their weak points in the previous Uncharted into powerful ones. This is a blockbuster game and an adventure you will never forget. Uncharted 2 offers brilliant combat system, remarkable voice acting, great story, incredible script, stunning graphics and smashing online multiplayer. All of this makes a thrill-ride that you will be remembering for the rest of your life.

Borderlands (PC-Xbox360-PS3)

One of the hit titles of 2009, Borderlands is a game that came out strong & unexpectedly. The FPS/RPG game offers a crazy amount of customized guns and an interesting art style. It can be crazy fun when other players join the party co-op style. And it can become a bit boring and lonely when played by a single player.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Nintendo DS – PSP)

The handheld version of the GTA franchise is certainly up to its name. The incredible work that has been put in the game, like the great story and the varied missions along with all the new features, make this a must experience for all handheld gamers.

Left 4 Dead 2 (PC-Xbox360)

Fans went mad when Valve first announced the sequel to Left 4 Dead in such a short period instead of releasing it as downloadable content. But Left 4 Dead 2 proved them wrong and turned out to be a true sequel with its  marvelous campaigns and the new modes as well as the improved gameplay. Left 4 Dead 2 is the best co-op multiplayer experience since the first installment.

I guess that sums it up. It was truly a wonderful year. I know there are other awesome titles that I didnt include  but this is the cream of the crop.  2010 is coming up and its look like its going to be an even better year for gamers than this one.  Our poor pockets are gonna get a hard beating as well !

Crytek, the developers of the very much hyped yet great game: Crysis will soon be releasing the Standalone expansion of the game named Crysis Warhead. The game story is the same as the first one except this time you get to play as Psycho instead of Nomad. The single player levels will be more action packed than before with a lot of improvements almost everywhere. The multiplayer has been also tweaked and also the big question answered: Will it run better? YES IT WILL. The first two reviews that went online already are giving great scores for the game. IGN gave it 9.4 while Eurogamer (which was harsh on MGS4) gave it 9/10. The reviews already say that it can run at high resolutions on Enthusiast (Very High) setting pretty well on a 8800 GTS card. Ofcourse no mention of Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic Filtering being used. Still, the talk about performance optimizations are pretty evident in the reviews which is always good.

After Crysis was released, Crytek wasn’t happy on how the sales went and blamed it on piracy. So they already announced that they will stop releasing PC exclusives and might consider console releases. Though with the near release of Crysis Warhead (25th September 2008), in a surprise move, Crytek announced that both Crysis and Crysis Warhead are available on Steam! For those who don’t know, Steam is an application you can install on your PC and through it buy and download games. You can quickly learn more about Steam at store.steampowered.com/about. This marks the first EA game being released on Steam and questions are already floating on whether more games will follow (Red Alert 3!).

The reason for Crytek releasing both games on Steam is because it proved to be a very effective way to sell games with lesser risk of piracy and hence better sales which might help Crytek reconsider their PC exclusives direction, though I doubt.

Lastly, I went ahead and pre-ordered Crysis Warhead of Steam (it is released there on 16th of September) which is the first time I use it, lets see how it goes oh and keep an eye for MEGamers review.

There are numerous FPS games out there. Many which are very similar in terms of experience. Below I list the ones that I believe give the player very distinct and unique experiences. Do note that they are not ordered by any sort of rank, the numbering is just a count:

1 – Aliens vs Predator 2

This game allows you to play as a marine, a predator and an alien, each with their distinct play styles. The marine is your normal human with rifles, machine guns and a motion sensor. The predator has stealth, multiple vision modes and fun weapons which appeared in the movies. The alien has only his claws, tail whip and bite. The alien also can crawl around almost anywhere in the level. Add some nice use of scripted events, story and spooks and you got one incredible package to experience.

2 – Call of Duty 4

I had to choose between this and Half Life and even though HL was a great single player experience, CoD4 was a more engaging one. CoD4 has a modern warfare setting, so you get to see and use lots of current age weapons and gadgets in the hope of stopping a madman from using nuclear missiles. The game is the best cinematic war FPS game you can ever find, even one of the best single player experiences to date, lots of action, variety in the missions and twists. Add to that great AI who are very aggressive in using cover and flushing you from cover. They are so good that one might show up from behind you without noticing. To even enhance the experience you get music composed by Harry Gregson-Williams. If you ever played a Metal Gear Solid game, you will know how the music can make the game more thrilling and cinematic.

3 – Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Based on Vin Deisel’s movie but with a different story and setting, you are caught and in a maximum security prison. The game has an incredible feel to it since the environment and setting is very unique and you get Vin Deisel playing as himself (Character model and voice that is). You can interact with the NPCs around you, great stealth elements, impressive fist fights and more as you try to fight your way for freedom. The game sports a nice graphics engine that looks very similar to the Doom 3 engine.

4 – Dues Ex

This is a game that isn’t affected by time. You play as a nano augmented super agent who gets involved in a mysterious conspiracy that involves a plague. One of the best use of RPG elements in the game since you can increase your characters stats. The game also allows you freedom of choice in tackling a problem, be it stealth, brute force or even negotiation. The story itself is great and deep and is shrouded with mystery and conspiracy with multiple factions that can be your enemy or ally. No matter how old this game, I strongly recommend it if you never tried it before.

5 – Crysis

Was going for Far Cry since it was a close call, thought aliens beat mutant trigens anytime for me. Oh and a nano suit is always a plus, but it is a close call really. You are on an island; you get an objective, choose your path, choose your approach and get it going. Crysis though sports the most cutting edge graphics and physics to date, it brings a lot of PCs to their knees. You first face off against the North Koreans and later the Aliens. A strange artifact was found on an island that got the North Koreans interested and curious. Your job is to get to it before they do by any means necessary. Really the main points about the game are its sandbox style gameplay and some of the action stages, coupled with impressive graphics, huge environment and fun vehicle sequences.

6 – Hexen 2

Another old game that deserves attention since it is one of the unique experiences. The game has a medieval setting and you control one of the multiple character classes: Assassin, Paladin, Crusader and Necromancer. Playing the game with each class is a new experience since they are very diverse. They gain levels and with that improve their skills. You get to fight Imps, Golems, Hydras and more. The game has a nice amount of stages with some nice puzzle elements thrown with background music that fits the setting very well.

7 – Serious Sam 2

If you ever liked mindless action, then the best you can get is offered by Serious Sam 2. You fight against hordes, literally, of enemies from the start of a level to the end. No time to breathe since you are always on the move. The levels are vast and sport different environments. Each setting also has a boss level which generally gives a new meaning to big or huge.

8 – Tron 2.0

Who said games based on movies always fail? This is another one that is based on the movie Tron, a game that has a very unique level setting like no other. You are in a computer world, as in inside the computer. Levels span the internet, network, graphics cards, processor, memory…etc. You get to use the famous disk and ride on those bikes on a grid. Throughout the game you fight viruses and increase your chances of survival via upgrades. One of the best worlds re-imagined from a movie to a game. Another strong recommendation if you never tried it before.

9 – FEAR

From the same people who brought you Aliens vs Predator. The game is about a squad name First Encounter Assault Recon (FEAR) who investigates about a general who has gone rogue in a mysterious way. This game is more about spooks and creative use of blood effects to create a thriller game. The character you control has a special ability that allows him to have super reactions, in other words, the world around him slows down to an extent of seeing bullets in air, which is a great effect. Add to that some of the best AI enemies who communicate with each other, flank and use squad tactics to flush you out. Wrap that up with a mysterious story about a little girl who goes killing people in even a more mysterious way.

10 – Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie

This is the other best adaptation of a movie in a game after Riddick. You play as Jack in First Person view and get to explore the island which has all sorts of creatures. The design is great and controlling Jack is thrilling as you have no HUD (Head up Display) to tell you about his health or ammo. Instead Jack talks if he is low on ammo or you see the screen become disoriented if he is low on health. Such touches really add up to the experience. There are portions of the game where you control Kong himself in a Prince of Persia style of platform jumping and wall climbing plus the occasional boss fights.

11 – Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

You investigate a cult who worships a sea creature in a mysterious and isolated town. The game is another thriller but focuses on emotion rather than action. Your main character view gets disoriented, shaken and whatnot while he tries to survive from being killed by a mysterious group and to uncover this mystery. Some puzzle elements are thrown in with a lot of notes to read that deepens your involvement in the story.

12 – Condemned: Criminal Origins

A setting with psychos and serial killers, this is your common cop who is chasing a psycho serial killer and in the process gets framed for killing a cop. The game staple highlights are melee combat and the reactions that come with the hit. Just seeing how an enemy staggers from a pipe swung in his face is painfully realistic. Again another thriller who focuses on psychological manipulation and some creepy criminals that are so twisted when you meet them. Imagine the panic when you are alone in a dark building where suddenly someone pops up blabbering weird sentences and is so close to you swinging a steel pipe.

13 – Call of Juarez

An FPS game based around the western theme, you play as Billy Candle where you mainly go stealth and use your whip to navigate through the levels. In the other half of the levels you play as Reverend Ray, an ex-outlaw who became religious. His portion of the game is very action oriented. The game also has a lot of duels that are implemented in a satisfying way. The story revolves around these two as the rush to find Juarez legendary gold goes on. Hardly any western themes games out there and this is the best one out there yet.

14 – S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

You are an artifact hunter who searches for artifact around the Chernobyl power plant. The place is filled with radioactivity, anomalies, mutants, mercenaries, thieves and soldiers. You lost your memory and only have a picture of someone you must kill. The game has a huge world with a lot of side quests that are linked to time. A truly dynamic world since NPCs and enemies fight each other and take territories whether you are around or not. The developers have truly managed to bring their vision of the area around and in Chernobyl in this amazing FPS game.

15 – Portal

Wielding just a gun that opens two portals in which you enter one and end up popping out from the other, in addition as acting as a physics manipulation gun. Hardly any story but rather you are faces with levels. Each level increases the puzzle difficulty a notch. It is up to you to think how to use what you have in your disposal in addition to the portal controls to get through. Simple idea but playing through this will want to crave for more since it is so much fun and challenging at the same time.

I am sure there are more FPS games the offer unique experiences but I had to limit myself to 15 games that I think are the best ones in offering that distinct experience. You think I missed something important? Or don’t agree with what I selected? Then let us know.

Infinity Ward (the developers) just can’t stop surpising us with their war FPS games. Just when you think that this genre has been done to death with the hundreds of WW2 and/or modern war variants, they come and prove that there is still lots of room for improvement and excitement. After missing on Call of Duty 3, which landed only on the consoles, Infinity ward comes back with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

The new sequel is based, from it’s subtitle, on modern age war. Using everything you ever know about current weapons and tactics. The game uses an updated version of the graphics engine used in previous Call of Duty games. Simply put, it is brought to current age graphics with up to date shaders and effects. Simple reason, and good one too, of updating from a previous engine is that you get access to a wider configurations of PCs when focusing on that market only. Optimized graphics engines that don’t have to be cutting edge is always a plus (Take a hint Crytek). Graphics can keep the wow factor for an hour or so, gameplay can keep it as long as the game lasts. Which brings me to probably the only annoyance in CoD4, it’s length which is about 4-6 hours long for it’s single player campaign, that is if you are slow. Other than that, you are in for a heck of a ride.

I never played a realistic FPS war game that is so engaging. As soon as you start a level, you get the feeling of really being part of a team that are storming, ambushing, defending and whatever other means of actions you get to do in the different levels of the game. The enemies also put you on your edge and going guns blazing rambo style won’t work here, and it never worked in real life too. Taking cover and being non static is the way forward. Stick too long behind a single cover and the enemies will swarm on you or will flush you with grenades. The missions themselves have interesting variety in them, from one of the best sniping missions to spectacular base assaulting missions. You also have to always check your flank, the enemy is so good at this that you can easily get carried away by focusing on the ones infront of you and then suddenly get killed be someone from behind. The thing is, when you are going through the single player campaign, you get that cinematic feeling that you might find in a Metal Gear Solid game which is of course nice to have a little of. Maybe because the music is composed by the same composer that did the music for MGS series, Harry Gregson-Williams.

One small thing I noticed is that rag-doll physics are absent almost throughout all Call of Duty series. The physics when it debut, was of course silly and funny but current implementations are far more realistic that before so it might have been a good time to have it implemented. It isn’t a big issue but rather a slight note that won’t affect your experience in this amazing game.

Now from all the three versions: PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, getting the PC version is best if you have a good setup simply because of the keyboard+mouse control which is almost always better than the controllers used in consoles for FPS games. Still, whichever version you get, you will be sure that you will have a blast playing this game.

Recently I went to look for a game that is different. A Game that isn’t backed by a massive company like EA or Activision, isn’t developed by a big number of developers and yet it is fun as a AAA game (Big games such as GTA4 or Crysis for example). So it happens that I first stumbled upon this gem which was first released as a free game with impressive engine. It was called just Penumbra. Later on, the developers went ahead to make the game commercial. Why not! Since the game has the spooks that are as good or even better than Doom 3, uses physics as good as Half-Life 2 and an impressive graphics engine that beats a lot of commercially released games!

Penumbra comes in two episodes. First was Penumbra Overture which is an updated version of the free released game. The story starts when the main character “Philip” receives a letter from his father which tells him not to follow him to a certain place. Of course the son decided otherwise. The game has some impressive use of physics and has a nice interaction system. For example, to open a drawer, you need to click on it then drag it same way you want to open it in reality. Same idea applies on weapons (which come in limited melee forms) in which you hold your mouse button, drag backwards or sides and then move the mouse the opposite direction to swing the weapon. The idea is nice but in reality gets frustrating. Other than that, the game is a nice fun of scares, puzzle solving and has some nice background music too to set the mood. Even better when played in the dark. The first episode has a cliffhanger ending which sets the stage for episode two: Penumbra Black Plague. The second episode concludes the story nicely and extends the logical and physical fun. It even scraps the frustrating melee combat system and reduces the number of patrolling enemies.

Overall, the experience was engaging for a budget game and easily beats a lot of AAA games out there in many areas. Just comes to show that you don’t need cutting edge technology, deep pockets or a huge number of developers to make a fun game. i clocked around 12 hours in total which isn’t bad if you consider both episodes as a single game.

So if you want a game that has nice spooks (nice isn’t the right word to use here, mind you), impressive use of logic and physics and wrapped in a story of mystery, then you want to give Penumbra a spin.

Ok, I played Crysis after the long wait and all I can say is that it is a great game, period. The graphics are the best you can ever find on any platform, there is no competition in that area for a while. The particles, lighting, textures, animation and the best motion blur effect in a game to date. Ok, after the awe part with the graphics, you will start to feel this is just Far Cry with a nano suit and a different setting, at least for the first half of the game. In that first half, you got your freedom of choice. Go sneaky or go Rambo. Of course it is far better than Far Cry when compared gameplay wise but the impression of “I have been here” is still there if you ever played Far Cry. The second half is a linear game. So straight forward that you have been there before. Again, Crysis still does it very well. Add to both parts: vehicular levels, nice weapon customizations even though they are almost the same across all the weapons and the suit.

As for the AI, am not sure. At times, they are realistic and intelligent. They know how to flank, take cover, and flush you out with grenades. At other times, they don’t do anything and take a long time staring at you while they are getting all the bullets. It is kinda same problem that was in Far Cry except it happens less frequent. Still you will have the occasional weird feeling that there is something wrong with the AI at some points. Now of course am talking about the humans, as for the aliens, they are just the same in any game. As soon as they see you, they will charge at you. They are intelligent enough though to try to dodge your aimed shots. As for the longevity of the game, it is shorter than Far Cry and slightly longer than Call of Duty 4. Though considering the time it took to make this game, you expect the game to last longer.

It was stated that Crysis will be a trilogy (milking the cow anyone!), maybe that might answer why it wasn’t that long.

I would like to go back to the graphics (biggest selling point for this game no doubt). First when we saw the first screenshots of the game, they were so realistic. Though after checking out the game at very high settings, I find it hard to compare it to the first screenshots yet. Even with high settings, the game really sits on the low frame rate figures even when run on a well equipped PC. Now when I compare Crysis (Crytek Engine) to Doom 3 or Unreal 3 engines, it is obvious that it provides superior graphics but at the cost of performance. While both Doom3 and Unreal 3 engines show good graphics with great performance even on high settings. The message is, for a normal gamer, will he be able to differentiate between Gears of War (Unreal 3 engine) and Crysis? He can tell that Crysis is better but will end up wondering why his PC can run GoW at 60 FPS at full settings while Crysis is at 20 FPS (even dipping to single figure digits at some points) at high settings only. Someone might argue that the engines have different applications. As in, unreal is for small areas while Crysis is for outdoor settings. Which might be the reason but then, Far Cry did outdoors and it is a few years old now.

The short story is, Crytek went a bit too far on the engine that it impacted the performance. Both id and Epic know that drawback when trying to go for bleeding cutting edge graphics and hence they maintain balance with their engines. I would prefer they released it later and worked on getting more content into the game while the hardware market matures enough so more people will be able to enjoy this game better.

So there you have it, Crysis is a great game but it didn’t live to the hype that was surrounding it.

Yep, that is one big surprise even to me but it is as real as it gets. Doom 4 has been announced and is being worked on by id itself. This is the first time id is working with two games at the same time: Rage and Doom 4. It seems Doom 4 is response to what the audience thought of Doom 3, as in, either to fix what was supposed to be an awesome remake or continue on what people liked about Doom 3. No clear answer is visible yet but when the time comes, we will sure know.

I myself fully enjoyed Doom 3 regardless of what has been said about the game, it was fun, dark and scary (even though with the many pop scares you get). It was all in the mood and the graphics were nice and ran pretty smoothly on current generation cards (Hint Crysis!).

For the full announcement, you can read it here at shacknews.