Moody Gamer

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.

Yes people it is official, Grand Theft Auto is finally coming to the PC as many anticipated. With a North American release date of November 18th and a European release date on the 21st of the same month, PC gamers will finally get to experience the best GTA game to date.

Rockstar Games, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. , is proud to announce that Grand Theft Auto IV will be arriving on the PC on November 18th and 21st in North America and Europe, respectively.

Expect the Middle East region to get it around the same time in November.

For more information regarding the announcement, head over to VE3D.

Lost Planet Colonies is actually Lost Planet game from Capcom with additional maps for multiplayer. The game was released on the XBox 360 and PS3 first then later on PC. Few months later Capcom released the Colonies Edition which didn’t change the single player element but rather only settled with updating the multiplayer portion with new maps and items.

The story is about humans trying to colonize a snow covered planet that host huge bugs called the Akrid. These Akrid also have an energy source which is their weak point as well. Humans had to develop Vital Suits (VS) to help them battle the Akrid more evenly. So the plan is to rid the planet from all the Akrid for humans to live happy, very original huh!

Story aside, you control a guy named Wayne. The controls are very similar to a first person shooter game except you play it from a third person view. He gets to use normal sort of weapons and grenades. You are required to get Thermal Energy to sustain your health. TE can be obtained from any heat source and mainly from your enemies. You can also get TE from checkpoint like posts. If you get hit, your health goes down but is quickly replenished from your TE but one fierce attack can kill you instantly since it takes time to replenish health from TE. That is where VS suits come to play. They control similar to Wayne when he is on foot but are heavier with armor and better weapons. VS also provide faster movement, jump and even limited flying abilities. Lost Planet contains various VS suits that have different abilities. In addition, the weapons mounted can be replaced easily.

The game is fun and mostly revolves about getting a good VS suit and getting through most of the obstacles to the end boss. The obstacles come in the form of Akrid which themselves come in huge variety and sizes to other humans that are either mounted in a VS suit or on foot. Really one of the best parts of the single player part of the game is the end level bosses. They make the other Akrid puny in comparison and are tough until you figure out the way to beat them but even then it is still fun and challenging.

The game graphics are nice and uses directx9/10 very well. You get cool snow and blizzard effects when you are traversing an outdoor area. In addition, the explosions create a distortion effect and I must emphasize that there are plenty of explosions in Lost Planet. Nothing special about the music or the sound effect though.

The performance is a bit unstable. You get areas with very smooth frame rates and other that jitter a lot. Even the cut scenes aren’t smooth for unknown reasons when there is nothing obvious that can indicate that the performance should get affect, something like huge explosions or heavy weather effects. Still, none of these performance issues had any affect on the game play. They were more of an annoyance rather than a hindrance.

Capcom are really putting some serious efforts into porting games to the PC which are indicated in Lost Planet, especially noticeable when you compare it to the previous port from them. They are even did an awesome job when they ported Devil May Cry 4 to the PC. Stay tuned for that review.

Codemasters are very well known for developing racing games that lean to simulation instead of arcadey gameplay. Known for their Collin McRae Rally games and the TOCA series. If you have ever tried any of these games, you will know how hard for a casual player to get into them. That is why Race Driver GRID, or simply GRID, was made.

Recently, the Need for Speed series was taking control of the arcade racer segment and the latest offering was a huge let down in the form of Need for Speed: Prostreet. It is very obvious that people will be looking for alternatives and the best one there is was GRID, which is by far a more superior experience that Prostreet.

The game allows you to race in real world circuits around the world categorized as USA, Europe and Japan. The cars themselves are categorized the same way. The career mode offers three parallel race tiers. By racing you get reputation which allows you to gain licenses (also categorized by USA, Europe and Japan) which opens up the next tier. Gain enough reputation and you open up the Global license which opens up races that have mixed cars and tracks from the three categories.

GRID offers a lot of variety in terms of race types. You can race in F1, Touring, GT, Drift and even Demolition Derby with other race types as well. You get a set number of cars to select per race type and the car range from Touring to LeMans Prototypes. There are no can performance customizations which personally I think is a good thing. Reason is that GRID really is focusing on the driver and the actual race instead of the car since most of the fun about racing games is in the race itself. Something NFS series need to learn.

Now the graphics is really on a level of it’s own. You got realistic lighting and reflections coupled with some great use of motion blur (though I know a lot of players hate this feature) and the best part is, it runs very smooth even with AntiAliasing used. Of course the PC version offers higher frame rates and resolutions and I had no problem running this at Ultra settings on my 8800 GT card.

Another thing that was refreshing was the music. No more hiphop or rap tunes. You get nice movie like scores here and it specially makes the replays fun to watch.

There is alot about this game that I can talk to lengths about such as the best damage physics in a racing game, very fun and humurous online experience (thanks to the previous feature), AI racers that are competitive and make mistakes too and the flash back feature which allows you to replay a portion of the race if you ever crashed and redo it again. These are some of the highlights that really add up to a thrilling racing experience that is by far the best on the PC. There are even comparisons being done with GT5 on the PS3. Can’t say which is better and I think it ends up to preference.

Update: Check out my full and extended review of GRID at MEGamers.

What you get when you slap Prince of Persia gameplay with Grand Theft Auto freedom, historical setting and DirectX9/10 graphics? You end up with Ubisoft’s new and ambitious game Assassin’s Creed.

Ambitious as the game may be, it ended with a big flaw I will address later in the review. The game is set around Jerusalem (Al Quds) and just around the third crusade war. You play as an Assassin who works his way to take out key personnel to make sure that the war is under control. Of course Ubisoft are using fictional characters and story even though the setting is historical and so are some characters (Saladin and King Richard). They did a very good job of blending such a setting with a story of their own. So whatever you will be doing in game, it really didn’t happen in reality. In addition, you are actually playing in a simulated history kind of way. The main character is put into a machine that allows you to go back into the characters past, up to whatever grand-grand father memory and few his memory. In our case, the memory goes back to the third crusade era and your great grandfather is actually an assassin. The story might seem complex but it really is simple and there are hardly any twists in it.

If you have ever played Prince of Persia (The Sands of Time Trilogy) then you will be right at home with the controls of Altair (The assassin you control). The idea is that you are give names to go and assassinate but you aren’t pointed to who or where they are. So it is your task to look around in the city for clues. They are given by other assassin’s who work with you in your Creed. A step before that is to find where they are and is done by climbing a View-Point. These are tall buildings (Marked on your map) that you can scale in a remarkable way to get a view of your surroundings. Which also allows you to see any information giver that allows you to get closer to your assassination target in addition of getting more details about how to get to them with the least trouble. The View-Points also allow you to see other “side quests” such as helping citizens, roof-top race against time, assassinating some guards. The missions span three major cities and each city is literally huge with a lot of people going about their daily lives, preachers, guards and even pigeons.

The game graphics is marvelous and so are the character animations (at least the main character). The graphics support high textures and awesome use of HDR and bloom effect. This game is one of the very few that properly implements these settings so that they really contribute to the immersion. You really just can’t believe how well a city looks with all the people in it until you see the game in motion. This brings us to the animation part of the game which is so smooth and realistic that walking in the cities is jaw dropping. Add to that some great roof top maneuvers and jumping and you can see how much fun it is to move around in the city without doing much anything.

The visual effect is combined with some great music that really fits that game and changes based on the event, whether you are being chased, stalking someone or fighting.

The biggest flaw in the game, and I am sorry to say so considering how much I praised it, is that it is very repetitive. You can argue that most games are repetitive, but Assassin’s Creed repetition is so obvious. The main mission asks you to gather information and assassinate a person, which is almost the same every time. The side quests are worse. Hardly any variety from the same scale that tower, help that citizen, get that flag (which is useless for both the PC and PS3 versions), kill that templar and so on. If you do all of these quests, you can easily clock over 50 hours of play, though you will feel that you are forcing yourself to do them rather than trying to have fun doing them.

So a great game with great ambition but plagued with hideous repetition. I still recommend this game but don’t force yourself to do all the side quests after you experienced the main ones, since it gets repetitive after that.

Since I am a big fan of Street Fighter series, I keep tracking what’s happening after the last SF, which was Street Fighter 3 Third Strike. Capcom have recently (Ok a few months ago, I was busy to write about it) announced Street Fighter 4, which is already released on arcade as of writing this article and is scheduled to be released on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

They are planning to ditch all SF3 new characters and go back to the roots of SF2. So almost all SF2 characters have made it back such as Rye, Ken, Chun-Li, E.Honda, Guile, M.Bison, Sagat, Vega, Zangief, Dhalsim, Blanka, Balrog and Akuma. in addition to new ones: Abel, C.Viper, Rufus, El Fuerte and Seth (Boss). The list is already nicely long yet rumors say that more characters will be added to the ones already available on the arcade version.

Capcom are going back to 3D with this version while maintaining the traditional 2D fighting system. As long as this isn’t another Street Fighter EX, then I won’t be worried. Though from watching some videos, it seems the art is unique and has it’s own style and the animation is fluid and at the same time fast to cope with the furious fighting.

The game is said to play more like SF2 than SF3 and parrys have already been thrown out (was introduced in SF3). After reading a few articles, it seems the move to 3D did not affect the old and yet satisfying 2D fighting system gameplay which is always a good thing. You still got your Super combos in addition to Ultra combos which, as it’s name suggests, is a more powerful version of the super combo.

In terms of Story, the game’s timeline is after the Alpha (Zero in Japan) series and before SF2. As much as I wanted something totally new, Capcom made a wise decision of where to start the story for this version of SF. Lets see how it turns out. Do note that the home versions will have cinematic cutscenes (anime) to show more of the story which is a great move and something totally new in a SF game.

The nice thing is that you can also play online with this version of SF which will make it’s lasting appeal pretty long (I hope we in Oman don’t have problems with latency by then, hopeful but doubtful).

For more in-depth details of the game, checkout www.streetfighter.com (There are some awesome must-see fight scenes using a mix of the game engine and stylish art animation). I also stumbled upon www.streetfighter.org which also has a little bit if nice information.

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.

So do you have both Xbox360 and PS3 and don’t know which version of GTA4 you want to get, well, here is the answer: PS3. Reasons: Anti Aliasing + Faster load times. Still no matter what console you own, the game is getting bombarded with 10 out of 10 reviews all over the place. Since I don’t own an Xbox360 or PS3, am hoping the PC version doesn’t take long to be released.