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Just Cause 2

By Amaterasu on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 4:22 AM , 0 Comments

There's a story tying all of the craziness together, but it's about as believable as the crazy stunts you pull. As in the original Just Cause, you play as Rico, a member of a US agency called, appropriately enough, The Agency. The story is all silly fluff, standing out more for its so-excruciating-it's-almost-good voice acting and broad ethnic caricatures than for any intricate plot developments. (Don't bother looking: There aren't any.) You'll probably have more fun trying to figure out where different characters are from based on their insane accents than you will working out what exactly is going on or why you should care, but the tale still works well in light of the game's screwy attitude. Contradictory updates from the government-run news agency will have you giggling precisely because they're so crazy; Rico offhandedly dismisses the insane, supernatural events that occur after an eventful flight into a Bermuda Triangle-type region. Most importantly, the tale provides oh-so-implausible excuses to blow up gas stations, radar installations, and offshore oil platforms.

That's a very good thing because you'll be blowing up a lot of stuff. Causing explosions leads to chaos, which functions as a type of currency in Just Cause 2. To unlock new story missions and other goodies, you need to wreak as much havoc as you can, and you get lots of different, preposterous ways to do it. If you see a grouping of fuel tanks, you could just run in and shoot them with a machine gun, but that is one of the less dramatic ways to do it and will use up ammo besides. (And early on, the game is a bit too stingy with ammo, given the focus on making things go boom.) But why approach things in such a pedestrian manner? Instead, you could hijack a passenger jet, put it on a destructive path, and jump out at the last minute. Or you could steal a hulking tank, drive it to a central location, and unleash its cannon on everything that looks like it might erupt in a ball of flames. The dramatic approach can take a bit more time, but it usually leads to a good deal of entertainment. Yet, even if you do things the easy way and use a dinky pistol, the explosions are perfectly loud, big, bright, and obnoxious.

Just Cause 2 is ridiculous in the best possible way. In the space of a few moments, you can grapple to a hovering helicopter; beat up the pilot and hijack the chopper; blow up a cluster of fuel tanks; put the chopper on a collision course with an enormous antenna; jump out at the last moment; and watch the resulting explosion as you parachute to the ground below. But in the life of Rico Rodriguez, such events are just another day at the office, though in this case, the office is the gigantic island nation of Panau, where three gangs vie to wrestle control from a corrupt government. This is a big game that gives you a lot to do and a lot of crazy ways to do it. When Just Cause 2 gives you the freedom to do the things you want in the way you want, it shines in all its preposterousness and good humor. When missions and challenges shoehorn you into specific actions, however, the same loose mechanics that make the open-world exploration such a joy become a frustrating burden. Nevertheless, this open-world action game surmounts its conspicuous issues with liberal doses of ludicrousness; well, that, and the ability to attach corrupted cops to a buggy with your grappling hook and drag them around.

Panau is an impressive place to explore. Tall snow-covered mountains cradle ski resorts and military based between them. Beachside shacks dot the ocean shores. The capital city shows off a beautiful nighttime skyline. Should you plummet below the ocean waves, you'll admire the striking underwater views, which feature tropical fish and colorful coral reefs. Just Cause 2 is an attractive game and provides an excellent variety of vistas to marvel at, and the draw distance lets you take in a lot at once. If you look more closely, you'll notice seams between texture maps, and the lack of lip movement when characters talk outside of the pixelated cutscenes, but it still makes a good visual impression. The audio doesn't meet the same standard, but it does what it needs to do, with lots of energy if not much nuance. The booms of shotguns always have a lot of reverb as if you are shooting them in a tunnel, even when you aren't in one. An American friend speaks with a big yee-haw accent and gang leaders deliver their banal lines in a weird, halting manner and with unidentifiable inflections. Explosions look big and sound loud. It's all about broad strokes and big noise, and while not every aspect of the audio makes a good impression, the overall effect is fitting given Just Cause 2's over-the-top inclinations.

The game gives you plenty of reasons to visit all of these varied locations. The many villages dotting the geography harbor rewards like gas tanks to blow up and weapon and vehicle parts to collect. Those parts can be used to enhance the effectiveness of your guns and rides--you just need to call up the black market dealer and choose how you want to apply them. You can also call the dealer if you want him to drop off a weapon or vehicle or to quickly travel to a location you've already visited. The implementation of this mechanic could have used some tweaking. For example, you can't order up more than one item at a time (if you want both a shotgun and a chopper, you need to make two calls). But considering how easy it is to find weapons and how much fun it is to parachute around, you won't need the black market contact all that frequently. Even if you aren't apt to collect the scattered treasures, there's intrinsic joy in seeking out and blowing up propaganda stations and demolishing the statues of island dictator Baby Panay. Maybe that's because you can grapple one of those statues to a fire truck, hop behind the wheel, and pull the false idol down.

Amid all this free-form gameplay are loads of faction missions to perform for the three gangs you work with, as well as some longer agency missions that progress the story. Some of these missions are fun and varied, such as one in which you must defuse a series of bombs by stunt jumping from one vehicle to another. Most of them combine Just Cause 2's various mechanics in interesting ways, having you fly an aircraft, infiltrate guarded fortresses, and destroy specific objects in the course of a single assignment. But even when flaunting this kind of variety, some missions aren't very enjoyable because they magnify the small issues that barely register during your free-form travels. For example, the waypoint arrow gets confused with high altitudes, which is rarely an issue when you are just traveling to your chosen destination, but it's a bigger annoyance when a time limit is pushing you to find an exact spot. Heavily scripted escort missions saddle you with AI companions who think nothing of wandering into fire. And stronghold takeovers get monotonous because they play out more or less the same way every time. The game's loose mechanics make for freewheeling fun when you choose your own actions, but they can sometimes lead to irritations when the game pushes you down a specific path.

These aren't game-breaking flaws, however; certainly not in light of the huge world Just Cause 2 places at your fingertips. Even the glitches you encounter--Rico's limbs getting stuck in place, physics-related oddities like towers bending themselves back into position--aren't likely to be too bothersome. But Just Cause 2 stands out more for its joys than its blemishes. After all, you can grapple to a gas canister, shoot it, and fly into the air like a rocket. And if that sounds like fun to you, it's time for a vacation to the island paradise of Panau.

Just for additional information for gamer who wnat to play the game on your PC This game can run good with system requirement Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz HT or higher, 2 Gb of RAM, graphic card such as Nvidia Geforce 8600GT or higher or Ati Radeon 9800Pro, Windows XP SP2 or higher or Vista ultimate edition or Windows 7, DirectX version 9.0c or higher compatible, what are waiting for go buy the DVD game install on your PC and play it.....!!!


Alice In Wonderland

By Amaterasu on Friday, March 26, 2010 7:10 PM , 0 Comments

In the game, Alice has lost her mind due to a traumatizing childhood experience. To reclaim her sanity, she must fight for it through the perverse Wonderland of her imagination. In this way, the game basically has the same plot as in games such as Sanitarium, as well as this year's disappointing Earthworm Jim 3D - but in Alice, of course, you play as a girl instead of a worm.

Powered by id Software's impressive Quake III Arena engine, the game's fully 3D depiction of Wonderland is definitely its best feature. Many of the levels, especially in the game's first half, are remarkably well rendered. Though the art direction relies less on anything very shocking and a little too much on depicting what's essentially a dimly lit version of the conventional surrealism found in most platform games, the results are undeniably slick. A few of the levels - most notably the White Queen's black-and-white kingdom and an environment that features a realistic, normal-looking house perched atop a hellish mountain of lava and rock - are great looking and very original. However, some of the other scenarios, like a sequence of giant, rotating gear levels, settle for just being great looking. It seems that the designers' inspiration dissipated a little by the later levels, as many of these are mostly made up of traditional castle corridors that are simply tricked out with the occasional cockeyed door frame.

It isn't a huge secret that Lewis Carroll's Wonderland books, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, have a dark subtext of insanity and violence. Since 1907, the year the copyright lapsed, various artists have freely retold Carroll's fable while elaborating on the story's intrinsic darkness. Now, thanks to Rogue Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and lead designer American McGee, gaming has its very own entry in this time-honored practice that suggests, "Alice in Wonderland is actually kind of creepy!" The resulting game is polished and often looks really great, but American McGee's Alice is undermined by straightforward, uninspired gameplay sequences that detract from its overall appeal.

The character design in Alice is even better than its environments. From the effectively flat-looking card guards (whom Alice can rend into two bloody halves with her trusty dagger) to the ugly, baby-tossing Duchess and the giant monster you'll face at the end of the game, every character in Alice is unreal; yet, thanks to the incredibly fluid animation, every single one is believable. The skilled animators who created the characters even managed to bring chess pieces to life. Alice herself doesn't even look much like you'd expect her to. She's a sullen, doe-eyed, realistically proportioned teenage girl. It can be fun watching this relatively plain-looking character running through the game's strange environments. Since you'll be staring at her throughout the entire game, you'll be glad to know that she's as fluidly animated as the rest of the characters.The visuals are excellent, but whatever disturbing ambience Alice manages to create is due largely to the soundtrack by former Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna. Among other things, it's a mixture of a toy piano, bells, and a girl's choir. It effectively punctuates - and often is all that keeps you reminded of - the atmosphere of dread the game strives for. The voice acting is also generally good, particularly that of the emaciated Cheshire Cat, who delivers his lines in the manner of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs.

Just for additional information for gamer who wnat to play the game on your PC there are several system requirement that must meet with your PC such as Intel Dual Core E5300 @2.6 Ghz or higher, 1 Gb of RAM (2 Gb Recomended), Graphic card such as Nvidia Geforce 8600GT or higher or ATI Radeon 9800PRO, Win XP SP2 or higher or Vista Ultimate Edition. Quickly double fast to go buy the DVD game install on your PC play it and enjoy.....

Metro 2033

By Amaterasu on Thursday, March 25, 2010 8:12 PM , 0 Comments

Beneath a frozen city ruined long ago by its own weapons of destruction, humankind clings to survival. In dirty overcrowded stations, women haggle for scraps at the market as old men mourn the world they lost and children run underfoot, knowing no life beyond their meager subterranean existence. The hardier souls stand at the gates, vigilant against the beastly offspring of Armageddon, while the bravest venture out into the tunnels to trade, scavenge, and scout the dark reaches of the man-made underground wilderness. This is the world of Metro 2033, where the oppressive atmosphere fills every corner and is so well cultivated that the relentless gloom can begin to wear you down. Yet your journey is a lengthy and intriguing one, full of dramatic moments and tense action. Particularly hectic encounters can stress the game's performance, but the richness of the environments more than makes up for any small hitches. The immersive world of Metro 2033 is not for the faint of heart, but those whose brave it will find a fresh and entertaining new adventure into the postapocalyptic future.

Though much of your adventure plays out in the subway, don't expect to see the same tunnels over and over again. Human outposts are cobbled together from scrap and salvage, but there's a big difference between a bandit settlement and an entrenched military outpost. Some areas you traverse belong to the beasts, as evidenced by chewed corpses and ominously narrow dirt tunnels. Still others belong to neither men nor mutants, and the eerie silence will make you wonder what has kept them away. And just when the endless tubes are becoming too oppressive, you strap on a gasmask and venture out onto the surface to pick your way through the frigid skeleton of Moscow. Thoughtful details make exploration tempting, as does the prospect of stumbling across a dead adventurer or ammo cache ripe for the looting. Metro 2033 rewards you for paying attention to the little things, not just with precious ammunition, but with thoughtful touches that make this dilapidated world truly come alive.

And make no mistake, this future is bleak. The aforementioned station-villages are dreary, but you'll come to regard them as welcome beacons of light in the pervasive darkness of the tunnels. As you venture away from the comforting firelight and busy soundscape of the crowded stations, you enter tunnels that echo with the howls of murderous beasts, where the only illumination is provided by glowing radioactive fungi or your own headlamp. Light, or lack thereof, plays a huge role in creating Metro 2033's engaging atmosphere. Passing through a dark, foggy tunnel can be harrowing, and entering the warm glow of an electric lamp can relieve the palpable tension, until you look down and see a freshly mutilated body at your feet. Grim scenes, inescapable shadows, and an omnipresent sense of desperation help create a powerful sense of gloom and doom. Though this world is not without hope, it is a dark one, and it can be overbearing at times. Soldiering on can be difficult, but sometimes all it takes is a worn out record player to lighten your spirits. Darkness can also be your ally, providing you have some night-vision goggles handy, allowing you to sneak past foes or position yourself for a silent kill. Lightscape is just as important as landscape in Metro 2033, because not only do they combine to create the rich subterranean atmosphere, but each is an important tactical consideration.

This game can run good with system requirement Intel Dual core E5300, 2 Gb of RAM, graphic card such as Nvidia Geforce 8600GT or higher or Ati Radeon 9800Pro, Windows XP SP2 or higher or Vista ultimate edition or Windows 7, DirectX version 9.0c or higher compatible, what are waiting for go buy the DVD game install on your PC and play it.....!!!

Pro Evolution Soccer 2010

By Amaterasu on Sunday, March 21, 2010 5:15 AM , 0 Comments

While Konami's PES team may not have addressed the animation adequately this year, one area that has clearly been focussed on is graphics. Without a doubt, the biggest improvement in PES 2010 comes in the form of its character models, which even better FIFA 10's on some occasions (Messi and Torres are certainly looking good) even though you'll still get the occasional 'Who the hell is he supposed to be!' player. It's an area where game critics and fans alike have been yearning for improvement over the past few years, so we've got to applaud Seabass and the team for delivering as promised this year.

In most cases with these Cards, you'll be asking yourself why you'd actually want to turn off these abilities in the first place. Unsurprisingly, we weren't particularly interested in stopping our star striker from being able to perform Marseille Roulettes, or our midfield workhorse from having both strong attack and defence abilities. However, there are some occasions when the Card system does make sense, such as turning off a winger's tendency to cut inside. This would obviously be undesirable if you're trying to play a wide game, and so the Card system does have its applications in parts, although we'll bet that most users will set the vast majority of them to 'on' nonetheless.

It's FIFA's huge strides forward over the last two years that has exposed PES' lack of answers. There's now nowhere to hide for the rusty AI, which operates in and around the box in a way that would make PE teachers shout, "Stop Bunching!" FIFA's forte over the past two games (player animation) also points out huge deficiencies on the PES side, with jarring animation that not only affects the visual appeal of the game, but the sense of control you have over a player as well. All too often, a simple change in direction results in a sluggish and jittery movement, while first touches are a lottery that doesn't appear to rely on your skill or the player's stats at all.

You'll also find a couple of curious additions to the basic player controls, such as the ability to take control of goalkeepers by pressing in the right thumbstick and left bumper button simultaneously. Controlling the keeper isn't exactly new to football games, although PES 2010 arguably offers the widest scope of control that we've seen yet by allowing players to switch to the keeper continuously while off the ball, move him around at will, and then prompt saves where necessary. Konami has also tinkered with the penalty controls this year, although the less said about that, the better. We're still trying to figure out the system, although we will say that the difference between shooting wide and on target does seem to be overly fine on the directional and power controls.

There aren't really any standout new modes in PES 2010 per se. The Master League has been spruced up with more managerial options and a Europa League license as well, although the Europa League isn't playable separately in the same way that the Champions League mode allows. This Champions League mode is largely the same as last year in that the tournament's official logo and video sequences have been dealt out lavishly, although the actual mode still lacks all the official club licenses and is limited to the regular array of unlicensed teams in the game (i.e. only Man Utd and Liverpool in the Premiership, although the rest of the European leagues do have considerably more licensed sides).

PES' Become a Legend mode - which surfaced last year and is essentially Konami's take on FIFA's Be a Pro mode - also remains largely the same as last year's effort. As with all things PES, it lacks the production values of its FIFA equivalent, but the more worrying absence is functionality that connects your player to other modes in the game. EA Canada managed this with the Virtual Pro features in FIFA 10, which tie your avatar's progression into every mode in the game (both on and offline) with impressive depth to match, although Konami's lack of innovation in this area means that the only outlet for your Legend is the 4 player online co-op once again.

As far as the new '360-Degree Control' for dribbling is concerned, we really haven't noticed any difference over last year's system. In fact, we'd say that both FIFA and PES have fallen short of the sort of fidelity boasted by their apparent 360 degree dribbling schemes, although at least FIFA 10 offers more subtle dribbling movement than last year with its new controls. Apart from the Konami marketing spiel we've received that promotes this feature in PES 2010, we'd be hard pressed to say that it even exists at all.

A final note on the sound: While the commentary duo of Jon Champion and Mark Lawrenson offers up the same level of punditry and analysis that we've come to expect over the last couple of PES games, the musical score is a huge improvement this year. Fully licensed tracks (most of which you will probably have heard before) are played throughout PES' various menus and, while some tracks are a touch outdated (e.g. Andrew WK's 'Party Hard'), there's no ignoring the significant improvement all-round.

To run this game properly on your PC there are several minimum requirement that must meet with your PC such as Processor Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz HT or higher, 1 Gb System memory , graphic card such as Nvidia Geforce 8600GT or higher or Ati Radeon 9800Pro, DirectX version 9.0c compliant, Windows XP sp2 or higher, and 6 Gb free space. if your PC has meet with the minimum requirement, what are waiting for? come on quickly buy the DVD game and install on your PC play it, enjoy it...!!!

Aliens VS Predator

By Amaterasu 4:43 AM , 0 Comments

The Alien, on the other hand, is a completely original experience. Armed with only a dagger-like tail and claws, it views the world through a very nifty fisheye perspective patterned after the POV shots in Alien 3. Having no ranged weapons, it must get right on top of its prey to be effective. Luckily, the Alien moves like a rocket car, can fall from any height without taking damage, and climbs fly-like across walls and ceilings, making navigating levels a dizzying, and at first disorienting, business somewhat akin to Descent. Once mastered, the incredible sense of speed and freedom the Alien provides is exhilarating. Rebellion has taken full advantage of the surface-clinging play mechanic in its level design. The game's environments are loaded with twisty passages running off at all angles, forcing the Alien player to crawl everywhere and making wall climbing a central strategy rather than the underused gimmick it could have been.

Aliens versus Predator includes all the standard multiplayer options, plus several unique variations. The game advertises co-op play, but, rather than being the hoped-for cooperative romp through the single-player levels, it's actually a bastardized form of deathmatch, with the computer controlling wave after wave of kamikaze Aliens. The whole endeavor is rather pointless and quickly becomes tiresome. The designers have inexplicably eschewed the current trend of including a built-in Internet game finder, and have tragically relied on the baroque contraption that is Mplayer for match-ups. The best that can be said for this choice is that it affords the player plenty of time to spend in the Mplayer lobby discovering the many different ways to misspell "predator." The game also supports specific IP connections and, a feature missing from many modern action games, direct modem hookups. Once set up, the multiplayer game is both stable and relatively diverting. You won't be throwing out Starsiege: Tribes or the Quake 3: Arena demo just yet, but, as an addition to the package, it's a fun bonus, though locating a game can be unreasonably arduous.

Each of the game's three characters - the titular Predator and Alien, and the hapless human Marine - has his own plot, composed of six levels (five in the case of the Alien). The story portion of these campaigns, though, is virtually missing; the levels have little continuity between them, except for a vague sense that you are traveling from one connected place to another, and equipment acquired on one level does not carry over to the next. Luckily, a lack of coherent plot is not as much of a liability for Aliens versus Predator as it would be for almost any other game, because the history and motivation of each main character are understood implicitly, as they are simply part of the pop-culture landscape. The entire game is essentially a series of set pieces designed to evoke a mood of anxiety and lurking terror. And this Aliens versus Predator does very, very well. Emerging from a cramped hallway into total darkness, scattering a few flares around to discover that you've entered a five-story hangar containing a huge alien ship, then hearing your motion detector scream to life as something starts to move in the pitch blackness is an experience in horror unrivaled in gaming.

On the surface, Aliens versus Predator is a 3D action shooter of the old (pre-Half Life) school: Armed with a variety of weapons you doggedly, repeatedly move from point A to point B, killing anything in your way, riding on elevators, and flipping lots of switches. Where the game deviates from the norm, and succeeds beyond expectations, is in its rendering of three distinct viewpoints and its effective re-creation of the film series' unrelieved sense of dread.

f you're a typical game player, you already know the story and concept behind Aliens versus Predator. You've seen the movies, read the comic books, played with the toys, and maybe even helped Jesse Ventura become governor of Minnesota. In 1994, Rebellion software created what is generally considered to be one of the ill-fated Atari Jaguar's best games and the definitive use of the license to date, Alien versus Predator. Five years later, the company has remade the game for the PC, bringing half a decade of technology and gameplay advancements to bear on its previous effort, and the result is excellent.

Allthough to run this game properly on your PC there are several minimum requirement that must meet with your PC such as Processor Intel Dual Core E5300, 2 Gb of Ram, graphic card such as Nvidia Geforce 8600GT or higher or Ati Radeon 9800Pro, DirectX version 9.0c compliant, Windows XP sp1 or higher, and 8 Gb free space. if your PC has meet with the minimum requirement, what are waiting for? come on quickly buy the DVD game and install on your PC play it, enjoy it...!!!

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