After 6 years since the last movie, EA games have decided to bring out yet another LOTR game. We have already seen a huge array of these LOTR games. So will this one be different?Sadly no. This game has terrible graphics and in my opinion game play and originality. I’ve been playing the PC version and it looks like the game has just been scraped off a PS2 game and shoved onto the PC.
The button bash style game play is more suited to a console, however these style games can be made well if done properly, however sadly this game hasn’t.
There’s no doubt that Lord of the Rings: Conquest has been designed with multiplayer in mind; the fact that the online option appears above the solo-player campaign in the main menu is proof enough. You would then expect to see support for a large number of players in online mode, however there is only 16! This is hardly the huge battles you see in the movie! There is the traditional ‘Capture the Flag’ online setting and also a co-operative mode in which you and up to 3 friends can battle through single player together.
There is a narrow set of mission objectives during single player, from capturing strategic points on a map, to defending them for a set amount of time, or just surviving in an area without being overrun. Such objectives form the bulk of gameplay in Lord of the Rings: Conquest, although there is the some variety: with the quest to hunt and kill Frodo at the start of the ‘evil’ campaign, or killing a set number of orcs to resurrect the Witch-king, are just two examples. Boss battles against Saruman and the Mouth of Sauron are other examples of when the gameplay is broken up, but none really detract from what is a repetitive and unimpressive campaign.
Conclusion:
The game has been put together badly and the graphics are very poor. To me this looks like an attempt of EA games to get the last few pennies from the LOTR contract. This game will only really appeal to the die hard Lord of the Rings fans.
At first look, World of Goo may look like another cheap boring puzzle game, but this physics-based puzzle game is actually surprisingly good! And addictive at that!
The object of the game is to build structures with ‘Goo’ across terrains and obstacles, leading them to a pipe where the remaining goo balls are sucked up! Each level requires you to ‘save’ a set number of goo balls in order to progress to the next level. So you really need to think about when to use each ball to get the best possible score. Use too little and it may see your goo ball tower fall to the ground making you have to retry the level or press as I like to call them a ‘time bug’ which takes you back the move you just did. However you do not have an unlimited supply of these and sometimes you don’t get them at all! The final score is based on the amount of goo balls collected and also the time it took to collect them.
The suction pipes are often quite a way from the starting point so you need to take in your surroundings first before starting to build a large wobbly tower or dipping bridge. This is often the case that your structure is wobbling about everywhere and you never know when it could fall. This adds to the excitement and tension of the game.
As you move through the game you encounter different types of goo which have different abilities such as the black goo is rigid and can’t be moved after being placed, while when using the green goo you can restructure. There are lots of other types like balloon goo, water goo, flammable goo and more.
As you are introduced new goo as you progress each task seems fresh and new even though you are in effect doing the same task over and over… building structures with goo!
There are some flaws with the game such as the time bugs fly awfully close to your structure which makes hitting one by mistake very easy. Also when using the green restructurable goo it’s easy to pull part of the structure down instead of one of the unused goo. But I guess they are minor gripes. Conclusion:
This game in general is a great little game that can keep you entertained without the need to be shooting people or zombies! It’s more of a chill out and think game. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone being a non-gamer or a pro-gamer
Firstly let me say that this game is not a normal FPS game. It is like a FPS with RPG rolled into one with more RPG than FPS in my opinion. There was a lot of hype about this game so I decided to take a peek at it. Largely I was disappointed, I had never played any of the other ‘Fallout’ games so I didn’t know what to expect at all.
You start out as a baby, were you make your first steps and have a little background with regards to the story of the game. You’re then quickly flashed forward to your 10th birthday and then again flashed forward to when your 16 if I remember rightly, where you find your father has left the ‘vault’ without you knowing why or where he has gone. Obviously you decide to follow him! and this is when the game starts properly. You stumble across a town called Megaton where you ask people about your dad. The bar owner knows the info! And tries to get cash out of you. I just knifed him and got the info that way! Much more fun.
As you play the game you pickup weapons and equipment and get to fight against ghouls and rebels. Now when it comes to FPS it’s all about aim and skill but in fallout 3 there is a system called V.A.T.S which is basically a slow motion system which allows you to pick the place on a target and it gives you a percentage of the chance you’re going to hit that target. Now as you play the game you get XP and you can attribute XP to certain skills so your chances of hitting the targets will therefore go up or you can make it so you’re better at hacking computer or talking your way out of a tight situation.
I tried playing the game without the V.A.T.S system and it is extremely difficult, so you become reliant on this slow motion chance, roll the dice crap. In my view this isn’t fun and I know people who are into RPGs this is..
The V.A.T.S system isn’t my only gripe with the game either, there’s also the changing of weapons, in which you have to sort of stop the game go to a menu and select your weapon, which is a major pain in the ass.
However these points aside I believe Fallout 3 to be good, well designed and well made game, but it is not for the FPS gamer who most likes FPS ! You really need to like RPG also to get the fun from this game.
I seen this game getting hyped up on tv with several competitions to win a copy of the game plus a PS3 to play it on, so I thought maybe its worth playing if they are actually willing to spend money on promoting it. But what I found was pretty much the same as I found with the movie, some cool bullet curving and nothing much else. Which is something of gimmick and you know sooner or later you’re gonna to get bored of it. Which is what happened to me pretty fast when playing.
For the most part of the game you play as Wesley (the main character in the movie) and once of twice as his father Cross during flash backs. The plot revolves around rival branches of The Fraternity and Wesley’s mysterious mother. But really like in the film the story isn’t very interesting.
The bullet curve requires adrenaline and you guessed it you get it from killing enemies normally. When bullet curving it shows your bullet’s trajectory and whether your shot will connect or not. Line it up correctly, and you’ll either hit the guy and force him to stumble out of cover in pain, or you take him out in one shot. You can also use your Adrenaline for bullet time, slowing down the action to let you move from one cover point to another.
The game gets repetitive quickly and consists mostly of duck, shoot, curve, and duck, curve shoot. You also get to play with a whole 2 weapons!!!! WOW a pistol or a fast pistol firing up to 5 bullets when curving! The animation sequences when bullet curving don’t seem to change at all just simply change camera angle. Its cool at first but to see the same thing over and over is just annoying. Even the boss fights are boring with the same repetition needed to defeat them.
I wouldn’t really recommend buying this game, maybe just rent it or wait for it to go to bargain bucket.!
Appologises for taking a while to announce the winner of the competition! It took a while to tally up all the entries! The Winner has now been selected at random and an email has been sent out to them to confirm which prize they want!
Hopefully we might get a picture from the winner with their prize!
I would like to thank everyone who entered the competition! Hopefully there will be more competitions in the future so I look forward to everyone getting involved again next time!
Role playing games and strategy games are normally not my type of game and I never really enjoy them that much but with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II I really did enjoy it and it made me look at these types of games differently. Now I haven’t played the previous Warhammer games so I can’t say about the difference from the previous games.
Lets first talk about graphics. I think the graphics are pretty standard for these types of games and really similar to the recent C&C games. However the animations of fighting are really good you actually see the blood pouring out of the enemy when you hit them with your chain-saw style sword!
You start the campaign as a newly promoted general in charge of up to 3 other units on each mission. This is what makes the game different to most other strategy games like C&C. You don’t just build a base then build up a million tanks and then go attack another base. You have to use different units at different specific times for example you may need to kill a enemy in a building so by using the unit who has grenades will be the quickest way to do this. The objective on most missions are either to kill a boss or to defend a certain point for a certain amount of time. As you play the game each unit earns XP and levels up after a certain amount of XP. On a level up you get to choose which attributes you want to increase on the unit either ranged attacks, melee attacks or health. You may also get a new item on a level up such as a new sword or new power armor. Each unit also can gain special abilities. For example the sniper squad has the ability to heal himself and teammates around him.
You can only ever control 4 units in a mission so you have up to 2 other neglected squads who will gain minimal XP on each mission. This is where the game gets tactical you have to choose which squads to use on each mission. You may play the mission and fail then decide that it’s better suited for long range attacks rather than close combat so you’ll use your sniper squad instead of jumpjet marines!
The multiplayer differs from the single player because instead of leveling up all your squads, you select a commander unit that has a special set of war gear and upgrades for specific play styles. The multiplayer focuses on claiming territory as its main objective. Base building is limited to a single structure that produces all of your units; each unit in turn has its own set of purchasable upgrades and abilities.
Conclusion:
As I am not normally into RTS games and more of a FPS gamer, before reviewing the game I really thought I wasn’t going to enjoy Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II but I really did and was really impressed by the tactics involved and the incredible animations. I would recommend this game to any gamer newbie or experienced.
The first game was a huge success, and I think MW2 is set to be as much as a success or better! So far we have seen people play the demo on single player which looks a lot like the old game with a few cool things added such a snow mobil and heart beat sensor. However we don’t know much about the changes to the multiplayer. I am hoping for a co-operative mode as I believe this could work well like it did in Left 4 Dead.
I’m really looking forward to the release and will be pre-ordering my copy from amazon soon! only £29.99!
“We’re pleased to announce that the 2009 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament is nearly here. Starting next week (February 17, 2009), players will be able to sign up to compete in this year’s exciting competition. The tournament will feature an online qualifier played on our special tournament realms. Top teams will proceed to their respective regional finals and compete for a chance to reach the global world championship – with cash prizes totaling over $200,000.
These realms have been outfitted with level 80 character templates and the latest epic gear from Wrath of the Lich King. As an added bonus, we have included exclusive rewards that players can earn by participating in the tournament, including an Armored Murloc in-game pet. Top teams will also contend for a chance to achieve the “Vanquisher” title for their live characters.
If you would like to demonstrate your arena prowess, or simply want a chance to earn the exclusive loot, please check back next week for more details and register!”
Four years after the release of World of Warcraft comes the second expansion Wrath of the Lich King. The game has followed a steady evolutionary process to what it is today with the expansions bringing an injection of new content which brings new players into the game and makes old players return. Wrath of the Lich King did just that with the first few weeks on popular servers resulting in queues. The game itself brings with it an epic feel of new adventure that the end game raiders of TBC had been waiting for. It is also worth mentioning that this expansion brings little for new players until they reach level 68 and can start on the new content that WOTLK brings.
It started for me waiting on the top of a new zeppelin tower just outside Undercity, I was filled with excitement as the boat finally arrived after what felt like an eternity of waiting, and before I knew it I was in Howling Fjord. The first town you land in is fairly impressive with grand buildings and a totally new layout to the standard towns we have become accustomed to. In this first town you can pick up most of the professions at Grand master level. Then you go on to pick up all the quests, the starting zone was a bit disappointing it felt like more of the same and the feeling of your epic adventure slowly disappears. However it does return a short while later. The game has an increased feel of speed to it through howling fjord, you just seem to jump from 1 quest hub to the next rather than being stuck in 1 place for a long period of time. As you progress through the game you get to see more and more lore, and it’s not how it used to be. Now when the lore comes along, with it comes a cut scene or even just NPC’s talking, no more reading the text you can actually sit back and enjoy what is happening. Quests that lead to pieces of lore like this pop up all over the place and add a nice piece of variety to the game. Also adding to the variety are the increasing number of quests that don’t just involve go here collect this or go here kill him or her, obviously these quests are still there but they are mixed up a bit with some different quests that might involve you controlling something like a siege vehicle going down a hill and blowing up whatever you find to complete the quest. You can see that Blizzard have made a huge effort to bring in these kind of quests where ever possible and it does make a huge difference when levelling up, it brings back the feel of the epic adventure you were expecting as you don’t get bored doing repetitive quests over and over. There is one downside to the new content which is the lack of challenge in the quests, 2, 3 and even 5 man quests are doable 1 man, this is not the case with all of them but with most it is. Levelling up is still more fun than ever with brilliant scenery, more variety in quests and more skills with most classes making it overall less repetitive and more adventure like.
When you hit 80 you will probably start off doing heroics which are fun and can be very challenging while your gear is not very good, after gearing up from heroics people who want to raid will move onto the likes of 10 man Naxxramas or Malygos. Your first trip to these places will be enjoyable revisiting some older content and learning some new twists, but overall it is too easy even when stepped up to 25 man the difficulty does not really increase much. Still Blizzard have made some really enjoyable boss encounters in 5, 10 and 25 man situations but at the moment they have really lacked to add a real challenge in terms of end game content. Some will disagree with this as the new achievement system does have some difficult trials such as killing a boss in a certain time or completing the whole instance without anyone dying on a boss encounter. The rewards for doing such achievements can be things such as mount, tabards or even a title. As the rewards from this don’t really give anything new they just give your character some variety like a different coloured mount or a title not many people have, I think there will always be a lot of people who don’t want to bother to get the achievement as its not worth the effort until you get a new item or something that actually improves your character rather than differentiates it from others.
Overall Wrath of the Lich King is a fantastic game that recaptures the adventure in World of Warcraft the new zones are beautiful and diverse with a huge scale, the questing is more fun than ever with so much variation, the professions have stayed the same in what you can do with (as in blacksmiths still make armour and weapons and leatherworkers still make leather items etc) them but have been balanced so each crafting profession gets something useful such as jewel crafters getting stronger gems and blacksmiths getting extra gem slot, similar additions are available for every crafting profession. The lack of challenge is nothing to worry about either as Blizzard has new content planned for the not so distant future which promises to be more challenging.
This expansion does World of Warcraft justice and is a pleasure to play. I would recommend this game to anyone, mmorpg fan or not.
At first look, World of Goo may look like another cheap boring puzzle game, but this physics-based puzzle game is actually surprisingly good! And addictive at that!
Firstly let me say that this game is not a normal FPS game. It is like a FPS with RPG rolled into one with more RPG than FPS in my opinion. There was a lot of hype about this game so I decided to take a peek at it. Largely I was disappointed, I had never played any of the other ‘Fallout’ games so I didn’t know what to expect at all.
I seen this game getting hyped up on tv with several competitions to win a copy of the game plus a PS3 to play it on, so I thought maybe its worth playing if they are actually willing to spend money on promoting it. But what I found was pretty much the same as I found with the movie, some cool bullet curving and nothing much else. Which is something of gimmick and you know sooner or later you’re gonna to get bored of it. Which is what happened to me pretty fast when playing.
Appologises for taking a while to announce the winner of the competition! It took a while to tally up all the entries! The Winner has now been selected at random and an email has been sent out to them to confirm which prize they want!
<
Four years after the release of World of Warcraft comes the second expansion Wrath of the Lich King. The game has followed a steady evolutionary process to what it is today with the expansions bringing an injection of new content which brings new players into the game and makes old players return. Wrath of the Lich King did just that with the first few weeks on popular servers resulting in queues. The game itself brings with it an epic feel of new adventure that the end game raiders of TBC had been waiting for. It is also worth mentioning that this expansion brings little for new players until they reach level 68 and can start on the new content that WOTLK brings.