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 !

I was debating whether to write something or not, but since I have a lot of things to write, I decided to keep on going. As I promised from the previous post, here are my impressions and thoughts about the new Prince of Persia.

First thing anyone would notice from the Prince of Persia (2008) is that the Prince doesn’t sound like a prince from Persia, but rather a western dude. That aside, this new Prince of Persia game is pretty good.

It uses the same engine that powers Assassins Creed but with added Cel Shading effect to give the game its new distinctive and magical look. The animation department is pretty good as expected from a Ubisoft game, especially a Prince of Persia game.

Unlike the last Trilogy, the new Prince uses the aid of princess Elyka in this adventure. So no more messing with time element here, this is all gone since this is a different re-imagining to Prince of Persia story, so it has nothing to do with the previous Trilogy.

Story wise, the game is ok and has a very predictable story so nothing really impressive in that department.

What really is cool about the Prince of Persia, is the platforming element, which is taken to the next level, Ceiling walking anyone? Also, a departure from the last Trilogy is the more focused one-on-one fights. No more the Prince going against a dozen guards. With that, there is now more complexity to the fight and more depth to it, or so I thought. As soon as you learn the controls, all the fights are really the same, from the first mob to the last boss. There are some encounters that have some small gimmick changes to make them less repetitive which helps a bit. Also, Elyka adds some depth to those encounters. It almost transforms to some sort of reduced Soul Calibur fighting game.

Also, the game doesn’t have any kind of loading, it is one seamless world and it is very very beautifully designed. Just going through them is enjoyment on its own.

The game is moderately lengthy, you can expect 15 hours of gameplay if you aim to reach the end, or you could go and collect every sphere there is to add more length, but that is merely a small thing to keep you doing that.

All in all, this is Prince of Persia as you would expect it. Is it better than the last Trilogy? Story wise it isn’t, that is for sure. Gameplay? It can go to preference, I would say they are both great and give you different yet similar experiences.

Yes, I finally managed to get around and complete the single player portion of Command & Conquer Red Alert 3. All I can say is that it is a well done campaign with lots of variety in it. Each side boosts nine missions each can take you from as little as 20 minutes and as long as one and half hour, depending on both how you play and the mission it self.

The variety is quite nice as well, even though you have your destroy the other side in between the lines, it has been designed in a way that it really isn’t at the fore front and not direct at all. The units are also introduced quite nicely as you play along the missions and the variety is quite big that I often end up not using some of them. Not because they are useless, but rather because you can pretty much use any kind of combination of units. The secondary modes for each make the decisions even broader and less restricted.

The cut scenes are not bad, but I honestly expected alot more from a Red Alert franchise. I also hate the fact that CG cutscenes are very few. Bring back the win and lose CG cutscenes from the original Red Alert and C&C games (During Westwood days). Those made me want to win and lose each mission just to watch them.

Anyway, the game is still sitting on my desktop just because I still want to explore the MP side of the game which I really see some great fun to be had there, thanks to the very different factions and the fun units you control. Add in the fact that combat can be on land, air or sea makes it even more engaging.

On another Note, I started playing the new Prince of Persia and until now, I am liking it. I managed to manually configure my Rumblepad 2 on it but still can’t manage to get vibrations to work. That was lousy work from Ubisoft to be honest. More impressions to come soon.

Wow, it has been about 2-3 months since I last written a post in here. As usual, I have been busy with life and the same stuff I mention before are keeping me from blogging.

Anyway, so lets kick off from where I stopped. Games wise, I managed to finish the epic gory/thriller game Dead Space and I must say, if you can get your hand on it, do so. The game is full of amazing scares and horrors that are just well done. It has also a nice ending chapter with an epic finale. The game will take you around 10+ hours to complete and even though it is repetitive at some places, such situations are far and few. The graphics are both great and have a nice tone to it and includes some nice space-sort of effects when it comes to going in and out of the space ship. It also runs very well and so you can probably crank the graphics fidelity all the way to the max with hardly any performance drop. One annoying aspect is lack of proper Anti-Aliasing support but with the dark environment, sometimes it is hard to notice except on the main character’s armor suit which, to be honest, is cool but blocky. It also gets uglier as you upgrade it. The monsters themselves are the stars of the show since they behave as such and can cause you a lot of pain. The variety is nice if not extensive but the way the come to you on each encounter is fresh. What you will really love about the game is “oh no, am in trouble” situations that you get in that usually end with your character becoming food for someone else and hence you need to be swift with using your weapons and movement AND you need to be sure you be conservative with some of the more powerful weapons since ammo for those aren’t that abundant. In the end, you will feel that you have really gone into that messed up space station and got involved with lots of scary horrors and end up trying to get out of it by doing lots of missions that involve you going into the scariest parts of the station to fix, get, replace items that will help you in leaving such place.

After that, I managed to get Red Alert 3 (normal edition) and started with the Campaign. Finished the Soviet side story and am going through the Allies side. What can I say, corny story, cheesy dialogue and accents and the shortage of clothes on the females during a world war era. Then again, Red Alert 3 was never meant to be serious. The missions themselves are fun as long as you crank the difficulty to Hard since medium with a Co-Commander is quite easy. Switching to hard makes it even hard for your Co-Commander as well (Human or AI). Oh and if you have been wondering what i mean by Co-Commander, it is the other team that is helping you get through the campaign. It can be a human player or the AI based on what you select before you start the mission.

The main Red Alert 3 game is fun both in single player and multiplayer modes. Though the recently released expansion, Red Alert 3 Uprising, is lacking at best since it only includes single player missions and nothing new added to the multiplayer. Based on various reviews, I decided to skip it.

I think I have written enough for now but be sure that I will be do more follow ups more frequently so stay tuned.

Well, for a while there wasn’t. Been so busy with lots of stuff; study, work, family, leave, WoW!… and other stuff that pop up when you least expect them.
Well, lets kick off with some news related to WoW. Patch 3.0.8 has kicked in with lots of bugs and issues. An emergency maintenance has been made and hope to sort things out.

As for other games, well, I still have to finish Dead Space which is until now the scariest game I ever played. I suggest you try it out too. It is available on PC, Xbox360 and PS3. Hanging on the shelve are Fall Out 3, Prince of Persia (4!), Far Cry 2 and GTA4. I still need to go out and grab Red Alert 3 (An expansion has been announced already!). They are all not only great games, but very very good ones that will get you hooked. Though with so many great games coming out very soon, you can’t imagine but ask yourself how will you find the time to play them all.

Oh and regarding the cable cut, it seems it has been restored to about 80% of its previous performance. Expect full recovery with time. Some of you won’t notice it and will start saying that it has fully recovered, which it didn’t.

Last but not least, I picked up some nice post and articles for your enjoyment:

• PC 2009 Preview: What can we expect in 2009. Weird that there is no mention of Duke Nukem Forever!
• 4870 X2 Price Cut: Yay! Though I am still skeptical about to GPUs running on one board in some sort of SLi/Xfire mode.
• Street Fighter 4 Hands On: The fighting game that the world is waiting for.
• Weak Economy = Cheap Games? Read on and see if it is possible.

Well folks, I am on leave and thought to put something for you to read on until it is over. Will try to update more frequently whenever I can.

If you have been having slow or no internet since 19th December and are frustrated with your ISP because they still didn’t fix the problem, then you might want to know that they are not to blame. It seems someone/something has cut undersea cables between Egypt and Italy which caused huge reduction in internet performance around the region and especially to Middle East and Asia.
It seems this will take a long time to get fixed and an estimated Dec. 31st has been announced for a full recovery.

Be happy that it wasn’t a total black out!

BBC News has the full story.

Oh and that also means NO WoW!!!

You might be wondering about what is special about this. It is just a mount, but as many WoW players know, this is THE mount that rules them all. It is almost impossible to get and only a mere fraction of players have it. Though it is your chance (and mine) to get one. Blizzcore is a new WoW site and they are starting it with a bang by offer people a chance to win the mount simply by making a comment on their website regarding this topic.

So what are you waiting for, go go go.

Note: As of writing, 1500+ comments have been made and this is running for 2 weeks but still, 0.0001% of a chance is good than 0%.

Yep, I couldn’t help it. WoW is great fun and even though many hate it for being an addictive game, for whatever reason, it is just that good that I went back. Lots have changed since I left back in March 2008 which is when patch 2.4 was released with new content on the Island of Qual’Thalas that brought the Scryers and Aldor together against the forces of Kael’Thas who is planning to bring Kil’Jaeden back in the new and tough raid instance: The Sunwell. In addition of lots of new dailies (almost all daily quests are on that island) and badge gear, lots to keep people busy. Oh and lets not forget the cool new 5 man instance: The magisters Terrace.

Now that I am back, post patch 3.0.2, lots have changed and have been added since 2.4. Mainly in preparation of the second expansion pack: Wrath of the Lich king. Talents have been changed a lot, lots of class changes, the new inscription profession, the cool achievements system and huge raid encounter nerfs (Reported by many as 30% reduction from mobs to bosses) are just some of the main highlights of the patch. You can check the patch notes for further details. Also because of WotLK release date is nearing, you will find Argent Dawn officers around the cities asking for help to kill the undead showing up because of the Scourge invasion. There are cool rewards that you can find there so easily that can compete against Tier 5 items but as of writing, the invasion has stopped and only the vendors are still around.

The best thing is, everywhere you go in Azeroth or Outland, you will find huge amounts of activity going on. Mainly because people are trying to earn achievements or leveling their alts. I also started to level two new alts as well on separate accounts and using dual boxing to level them. Dual boxing is simply controlling two or more WoW characters at the same time on one or more machines. For me am using the same PC but having two windows open. The idea is that both characters level at the same time and help each other quickly to finish quests.

As for my main who is a Warlock, he is trying to finish any remaining quests in Outland and get exalted with remaining factions before the expansion arrives.

One big change I noticed is how much the latency has improved since early this year. Currently the ping stays in the range of 200-400 ms which is damn playable compared to the disaster that was before in the ranges of 600-1000+ ms. Also, a nice graphical update has been done to the game as some cool lighting and shadow effects have been added. It would be nice if Blizzard adds more shaders to the game to make it shinier at least.

Will keep you posted on new stuff as they arrive with my progress as time goes.

Just after the release of Crysis Warhead and on the 18th of September 2008, Mythic Entertainment has released the much anticipated MMORPG game based on the popular Warhammer franchise: Warhammer Online – Age of Reckoning. You can learn more about the game and how it fared by reading MEGamers Warhammer Online Review.

Today also marks the game’s first month since release and it is going strong. With 750,000 accounts and being the smoothest MMO launch ever, Mythic are off with an impressive start. All that remains is to see how WAR will fare against the test of time. Read up more about the first month of WAR.

For me, WAR is currently the game I am playing and, until now, plan to play for maybe a couple of months. At least hit the level cap which is 40 and am currently level 24 (Rank 24). I play as a Black Orc, named Grimaxe, which is a tank class but can play as a melee dps class (damage per second class, also known as damage dealers). The game is quite enjoyable and my first impression is better than when I started WoW. You got a lot of things to do from the start and there is that sense of no need to rush to Rank 40. You can experience almost a huge portion of the game from the start and during leveling.

When I do reach the level cap, I will evaluate if it is still fun to continue or stop. Keep in mind that even though I am limited by Rank 40 (Which is harder than getting WoW level 60 btw), there is a lot to work on to reach renown rank 80 (renown is like experience for participating in RvR activities like killing players from the other faction).

I have some concerns with the graphics engine since even with 3GB of RAM, it stutters, which can only means some sort of optimization is required. The other thing is the animation, Mythic really need to work on it and get it in sync with the actions. There are some other bugs and concerns but nothing to take away the fun and/or obvious. I log in and check for an open party to join for PQs (Public Quests), do normal quests, queue for scenarios or join a warband to siege a keep.

I managed to get into some of the dungeons but still have to clear one. Being a player who farmed WoW dungeons heavily, things are different and don’t work the same way. I guess with time we will figure it out.

If you are interested to joining the WAR then you can find me on the European server “Sea of Dreams” (not to be confused with the upcoming Bioshock prequel). Keep in mind that the monthly fee for the game is 15$ and you do get a one month free trial when you purchase an account.

Feel free to ask me any questions about the game.

Since I updated. Lots happened during that time: Ramadhan, Eid, started Masters program, excessive workload and working on some new reviews at MEGamers. So on the gaming scene, a huge amount of new stuff came out and/or happened that I don’t know where to start. Maybe a good starting point is what was I doing related to gaming.

First of all, I played and finished Devil May Cry 4 on the PC. Easy recommendation for button mashing players. You get to play as both Nero and Dante with each having their own play style. The game does suffer from one of the most horrible repetition of levels and boss fights. It is also worth to mention that it runs great on the PC compared to it’s older brother DMC3, so good job Capcom.

I also managed to grab a PS3 and a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4. All I can say that it is AWESOME. I can’t remember a game having a more complicated, twisted and emotional story better than this. I must warn you that it is very much recommended that you play MGS 1 to 3, which you can play on the PS2 (MGS1 was released on the PS1 and PC, while MGS2 was released later on PC after PS2 release). Keep in mind that MGS4 is about granting the player an experience through both cinematics and gameplay which both complement each other very well. The game is quite lengthy since I managed to go through it in about 19 hours without checking many features out because I aimed for the story. Though that time can be extended thanks to the replay value MGS games have. I haven’t checked out the multiplayer part of the game but from various feedbacks, it seems to be a blast.

Going back to PC, As I told you before, I purchased Crysis Warhead from Steam. Being in Oman, I totally recommend against this. It is both slow and expensive to get the game that way. Since you will have to pay 30$ for the game and then pay for the gigabytes to download through Omantel which many of you know, is bloody expensive (1RO per GB or about 2.6$ per GB). So you will end up paying more that 60$ for the game over here. Check out the review of Crysis Warhead to know more about the game.

One thing many of you know, Warhead is quite demanding on the PC, so I went ahead and bought me a Gigabyte Radeon 4870 512MB card (Contact me if you want to know where to get one in Oman) and am happy that I did. The game is now very playable on Enthusiast setting at 1680×1050 resolution. Though I can’t enable Anti aliasing ore Anisotropic Filtering. I also got me an extra 2 GB of RAM which helps a lot since Warhead is very resource hungry. Of course I did suffer the penalty of using Windows XP 32Bit version hence my PC shows only 3.25GB instead of 4GB. I guess 64 Bit OS is the way forward, but an extra GB is still useful.

I still have a lot to write about and because of time, I have to stop here and will update another day. Feel free to let me know of your experiences about the games mentioned above.