Moody Gamer

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.

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.

Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath is the expansion pack for the successful Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. This is the first foray into 3D for the Tiberium Universe of the C&C series which started the RTS genre as we know it. Kane’s Wrath adds more units, sub factions, more multiplayer maps, a global conquest mode and 13 new single player missions to the core Tiberium Wars game.

The single player portion of the expansion focuses entirely on the NOD faction and Kane’s survival after the second Tiberium war, what led to the third Tiberium war and what happened next at the end. So through all the 13 new missions, you play as NOD only. The cut scenes do answer some questions about what happened between the second and third Tiberium wars from NODs perspective and explains some of the events happened during the third war in addition to the end. You will feel some disjoint sometimes if you aren’t familiar with the Tiberium universe story. The missions themselves are nothing special yet are fun for one or two days play, since they are easy and pretty much require destruction of your enemy’s base. Nothing ground breaking there.

The new global conquest mode is nothing new as well. It is very similar to the Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth 2 War of the Ring mode. The idea is you have the whole map at display and you get to try taking as much territory to win or either by achieving curtain goals for each faction. The game plays in a turn based way. You make your moves and go for the next turn. Conflicts then can be resolved either by real time game play or via auto resolve which lets the computer determine who will win by comparing the two forces’ strengths. Personally, the global conquest mode doesn’t feel right and you really need to be good to win since making one or two mistakes can end the game easily.

Kane’s Wrath adds a lot of cool new units that change the balance of each faction yet still enhance the overall balance during conflicts. In addition, each faction has it’s own Epic unit. These are huge and powerful units that can seriously turn the tide of battle if properly used. Though they are left at the very end of the tech tree and are seriously expensive to build.

The new units are either shared or split throughout the six sub factions, two from each main faction. These sub factions are a more specialized version of their parent faction in a certain area. For example, the Black Hand NOD sub faction focuses on infantry and flame and has no stealth or air technology. The factions are marginally much more balanced when compare to C&C Generals Zero Hour sub factions.

Kane’s Wrath main feature is really the multiplayer section of the game. The layout is still the same of Tiberium Wars multiplayer where you can either ask for an auto match or go check the lobbies for matches that you want to participate in. With all these new units, maps and sub factions, Kane’s Wrath is really a lot of fun online. Add to that the dedication EA is giving to the C&C series, that new patches are more and more common these days with balance changes which are always important when dealing with online exploits. This is no Starcraft polish, but it is good enough to have a fair and fun online experience.

Nothing spectacular in terms of the graphics since it is really the old SAGE engine used in C&C General’s years ago with more shaders. So the game is smooth and will run on a wide selection of PC configurations. The music is mostly untouched and is the same from Tiberium Wars bar one track which is a remixed version of the NOD faction from the previous Tiberium game.

Kane’s Wrath is more of a fans’ expansion pack than for the general audience, yet if you are into online multiplayer RTS games, I strongly recommend you try this since it is fast and fun to play.

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.

I don’t think there is a game recently out there that can give you a good laugh like Sam & Max.If you want a game like that and is a point and click type of game, then you are in for a treat.

The story is about a detective dog in a suit named Sam and his sidekick, a rabbit with an over sized head and mouth and dots for eyes, named Max. They are the freelance police. Naturally, they get to solve cases but not in a traditional way. Instead, they do it in a wacky and seriously funny way.

An old two dimensional version of the game was released in the 90s which I missed. Then Telltale (the developer) announced they will make a new Sam & Max game using 3D graphics with the same old, and loved, point and click system. That game got scrapped and then reintroduced as episodic releases. Currently, Seasons 1 and 2 are out each containing five episodes. Each episode is worth about 1-3 hours of gameplay (depending on how good you are in solving problems in weird and stupid ways). I won’t be talking about Season 1 but most of what is talked about here applies to the first season. It is a good idea to pick up Season 1 before delving in to Season 2 but not necessary. The season’s episodes have their own story (case) which are connected together to form the season story, so playing in sequence is prefered.

The game is played, as stated earlier, in a point and click fashion. You mouse over an object and will get a tool tip about it. Click it and either Sam or Max will comment on it, in a funny way, or will interact with it. The inventory system used is so simple and basic even a young kid can understand it (kids these days understand even more complex games!). The idea is to connect the objects to the right elements, be it a person, a machine or whatever that makes sense (or doesn’t) to get a solution. There a lot of times you will get stuck wondering what to do or how to move forward. Honestly, I myself rushed to look into walkthroughs which can save you the time but no recommended. Especially when you figure out that the answer was so close if you had a little patience to look around more.

The requirements for the game are very forgiving almost all current and last generation (even two generations) of PC hardware can run it at maximum settings. What is nice about the graphics is the art style which maintains a very cartoony element. The animation is also nice and it is this combination of art and animation that makes you feel connected to the plot and the game world overall.

Sam and Max themselves are great characters in addition to the other characters you will interact with in this helarious world. From start to finish of each episode you will continue smiling and will throw in a lot of laughs until the season ends in which you get hinted to a third season coming soon. I must say when that point is reached, you will want Season 3 sooner than later.

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.