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Fight Night Round 4 gets new DLC

EA has announced that their boxing simulator Fight Night Round 4 will be getting a new DLC pack this December. The DLC will include two new game modes and three new fighters, which are none other than Sonny Liston, Evander Holyfield, and Bernard Hopkins. Among the new modes is Ring Rivalries, which tries to recreate historic boxing matches. The DLC will retail for 800 MS points, or $10.

DIRT 2 PC dated for December 4

Codemasters have announced that December 4 will be the date when PC gamers will be able to play one of the best rally games currently available (read our Dirt 2 review). The game will be the first one to support DirectX 11, and will have support for Shader Model 5 and hardware tessellation, among other things, making it one of the prettier games out there.

NBA Live 2010 review

The last few season, the NBA Live series has been in serious decline, and EA has worked hard towards getting out of that slump with NBA Live 2010, finally giving some competition for the rival NBA 2K10, which we reviewed yesterday.

You’ll notice right away that NBA Live 2010 does improve on a few things quite drastically, like the presentation. The visuals have received an overhaul, everything from the animations to the crowd and the stadiums look great, the player models however, while improved over last year’s edition, still lack behind in detail and realism compared to NBA 2K10, but overall, it’s still a pretty game. Gameplay wise, the action is definitely more fluid, and while some animations can seem out of place, it’s still better than last year. However, it’s not about being better than last year, where NBA Live 09 was virtually the low point of the series the past few years. Instead, it’s about how the gameplay compares to the rival NBA 2K10. The Live counterpart does have a more fluid play, but the 2K version seems far more immersive, mainly due to the realistic look and feel of it. However, NBA Live 2010 does feature a lot simpler gameplay, a lot easier to get a hold of, and you’re only using one button to shoot, regardless whether it’s a dunk or layout, jump shot or hook shot. However, this too has its flaws, as your player will often do something else than you intended. If you’re looking for a short jumper, the player on screen might take a hook shot if the defender is too close to him, and thereby take a much tougher shot when a simple one would have done the job. More »

NBA 2K10 review

The NBA 2K series have pretty much been kicking NBA Live’s behind for the last few seasons, and rightfully so. The gameplay has always been better on the 2K series, the presentation and depth have likewise left NBA Live in the dust. But for the 2010 versions of the respective games, the stakes are higher, with both NBA 2K10 and NBA Live 10 having upped the ante. Today, we look at one of those, NBA 2K10, and without spoiling too much of the review, we can safely say that fans of the series will not be disappointed.

When booting up a game of 2K10, you’ll immediately notice that the gameplay has received a notch upwards, and that there are now a slew of new animations, all contributing to life-like, realistic players on the court. The player models themselves are the best the series has ever seen, as everything from clothes to skin, to facial animations have been rendered almost perfectly, besides one thing; the jerseys the players are wearing. Usually, they seem to “pop up”, as if resting on an invisible cushion on the player, giving them a very odd look. But overall, those are minor details. More »

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Review

The original Operation Flashpoint was hailed for its realistic combat in an age of almost arcade shooter dominance, and the true sequel, not considering ArmA and ArmA 2, continues down that path.  If you’re into pick-up-and-play shooters, you’ll need to look elsewhere, because Dragon Rising is gonna take a while to learn; lots of time and dying before you complete it.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising takes place in a fictional Russian island that has been invaded by the Chinese, and the single-player campaign follows you and your squad as you fight your way through the island, re-taking it. The 11 missions are well made and thought out, but they’re fairly tough, so don’t expect to beat every level on the first try, even on the lowest difficulty setting. The missions are also rather lengthy, and will take you anywhere between 30 mins to a whole hour to complete, depending on your skills. More »

Forza Motorsport 3 review

Forza 2 has been the go-to racing game for the Xbox 360, and a serious contender to Gran Turismo for the title as best racing sim. With Forza 3, developer Turn 10 does everything Forza 2 did, and makes it even better. It’s not only the best racing game on the Xbox 360, it’s the best racing game currently available, and possibly the best ever made.

Forza 3 offers 400 cars and 100 tracks, all built from scratch with a brand new game engine. Remember Forza 2, how the cars all had “jagged edges” because of no anti aliasing? Well that’s gone, as the cars are beautifully rendered (Turn 10 claims 10 times more polygons than Forza 2 per car, with full damage modeling as well) and the game runs at a constant 60 frames per second. technically, things are certainly looking good. The gameplay however, is where Forza 3 really shines. More »

Top 10 multiplayer FPS games of all time

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While some indulge themselves in MMORPGs, at the other side of the spectrum of multiplayer games, first person shooters have had players battling in fast paced action for a far longer time — no quest reading or storytelling here, it’s guns blazing and the laws of headshots. Here’s our top 10 pick of the greatest multiplayer first person shooters of all time.

10: Team Fortress 2 (2007)

Valve’s successor to Team Fortress not only received a complete visual overhaul, it also became one of the most stylized multiplayer shooters of today, complete with its own sense of humor. The continuous (free) updates from Valve have kept players involved for a long time, with new weapons and maps added frequently.

9: Battlefield 1942 (2002)

Swedish developer DICE broke on to the gaming scene with Battlefield 1942, which would go on to become one of the most popular online shooters for the next few years. For the first time, gamers could participate in large scale, 64 player matches with big assortment of classes, tanks, planes, jeeps, battling over huge maps — it was warfare like never seen before, and it took the FPS scene by storm.

8: Halo 3 (2007)

Microsoft’s first Halo game on the Xbox 360 was received with one of the biggest launches in gaming history, and the polished multiplayer, which offered a ton of modes, detailed rankings, achievements and maps, have secured the game a top spot in the most played Xbox 360 games ever since. On top of that, the new The Forge mode made it possible to edit the maps as well, adding a new layer of gameplay.

7: Quake 2 (1997)

Quake 2 is widely considered the game that popularized the multiplayer shooter on the PC, and was one of the first to offer custom created content, such as maps, to be shared among fans and modders. It was also one of the first games to be officially selected in the Cyberathlete Professional League, a testament to its legacy.

6: GoldenEye 007 (1997)

While Quake opened the eyes of the general gaming crowd to the PC multiplayer first person shooters, GoldenEye 007 did it for the console crowd. It wasn’t the first console FPS game to offer multiplayer, but it was by far the first hit and a major breakthrough. Released in 1997 on the N64, the multiplayer part wasn’t originally a part of the game, and developer Rare assigned the job to a single programmer, Steve Ellis, who created the multiplayer version virtually by himself from the single player mode.

5: Unreal Tournament 2004 (2004)

Following the release of UT 2003, which received a mixed reception from the fans, Epic Games almost started from scratch and created what would become the most popular UT game ever, especially among modders, who were given the tools not only to create new maps, but completely different games, like Red Orchestra and Frag-Ops.

4: Tribes (1998)

In terms of multiplayer shooters, Tribes was a huge success, and was a game that pioneered some multiplayer FPS aspects that exist to this day. The game had a ton of exciting modes, revolutionary gameplay, not to mention 40 maps, some of which were huge, even by today’s standards.

3: Quake 3 Arena (1999)

Quake 3 Arena is perhaps one of the most fast paced multiplayer shooters ever made, and is generally considered the “founding father” of all the frag fests. It was the first Quake game that was exclusively multiplayer-oriented, and was minimalist in eye candy and aesthetics, only focusing on what really matters: gameplay.

2: Battlefield 2 (2005)

DICE brought the chaos and large scale warfare of WW2 into a modern day scenario, and Battlefield 2 became and instant classic, perfectly balancing the line between realism and accessibility — far better than any other military multiplayer shooter had done before. Or since. And despite being considerably buggier than competing games, the sheer quality of the gameplay — not to mention the detailed statistics and awards system — has meant that the game is still one of the most popular online shooters, despite being 4 1/2 years old.

1: Counter-Strike (1999)

Originally released as a mod to Half-Life, Counter-Strike immediately took the world by storm and has since consistently been the most played multiplayer shooter in the world. And with the update coming with Half-Life 2, CS: Source, the new visuals have kept it at the top spot. A proper sequel, Counter-Strike 2, is expected to be released with HL2: Episode 3 next year, and will most definitely continue the reign on the online multiplayer FPS scene.

FIFA 10 review

EA has dominated the soccer game scene for almost two decades now, and considering that FIFA 10 has already become the fastest selling sports game, according to EA, at least, one has great anticipation for a series that has seen little evolution over the past few years. Is FIFA 10 the one that’s gonna make the difference? That’s gonna reinvent the series? Short answer: yes. Longer answer, yes, definitely. Basically, it’s FIFA, and for once, it’s noticeably better than it’s predecessor.

FIFA 10 brings a slew of additions to the series, including a brand new “360 degree” player control feature, which means you can move your player in any direction, not just 8 as before, which astonishingly stuck with the franchise from before the analog sticks were introduced, which is now more than ten years ago. Finally, you can use the analog stick to move the player in any 360-degree direction. This means that the actions and movements of players are a lot more fluid and realistic, a huge leap over FIFA 09 (imagine how players used to zig-zag across the scree before?). Coupled with updated and increased amount of animations, it looks even better, almost as if you were watching a real match, if it wasn’t for the commentators and a few other nitpicks. More »

Konami looking for motion sensing input for PES

Konami has pretty much offered the only viable contender to EA’s FIFA series, the PES, or Pro Evolution Soccer series, which has been a torn in EA’s eye for almost a decade. Developer and publisher Konami has revealed that they’re looking to add motion controller input to the series, as PES producer Shingo Takatsuka mentioned to IGN, saying that the company is “aggressively” looking into both Project Natal of Xbox 360 and the PS3 motion controller as well. However, the most obvious choice for motion controllers, the Wii, wasn’t mentioned.

Gran Turismo 5 confirmed for March 2010

Finally. After years of speculation, Sony has announced that Gran Turismo will find its way to the PlayStation 3 in March 2010, a good six months from now. However, while this is great news that a date has finally been set, it is the Japanese date nevertheless. The release dates for Europe and North America have yet to be announced, but we don’t expect any major differences from the Japanese launch date (fingers crossed).

Need For Speed Shift Review

The past few games in the Need For Speed franchise haven’t impressed fans and critics alike, and EA is looking to make up for it with NFS Shift. This time, it’s a rather competent racing developer that’s “behind the wheel”, so to say; they were the ones behind the very competent racers GTR 2 and GT Legends, so it’s no surprise they were given the task of rebooting one of the longest running racing franchises in gaming.

Need For Speed Shift is the 13th Need For Speed game, and it appears that this time, the developers were looking to just get it right, not re-invent the wheel (pardon the pun). The career mode begins by throwing you on a track alone in a BMW, in order to test your skills (the game adapts the difficulty when you complete the track). While that’s a great idea, it’s frightful when you’re driving the first time, the controls are all over the place and you feel like quitting before even completing the first lap. Suffice to say, the first impression is rather bad. After fiddling with the setting and learning to proper handle the cars, it gets better, but we would have expected a better learning curve from such experienced racing developers. More »

Top 10 games to look forward to this holiday season

It’s almost that time of the year; the period of a two month interval where tons of highly anticipated video games are released. And even though lots of games this year have been pushed to early 2010 because it was simply too crowded, there’s still a ton of great, quality AAA titles which will be released in the upcoming months. Here are our ten picks:

10: Avatar (November 15)

James Cameron’s upcoming sci-fi epic Avatar has been in production for years and sci-fi fans around the world are looking forward to its December premiere. The game adaptation, developed by Ubisoft, uses the same technology as the film, and will be in 3D as well.Very little is known about the game, mostly because it follows the movie closely, which itself has been a tightly kept secret.

9: NBA 2K10/NBA Live 10 (October 6)

The rivalry between NBA basketball series NBA 2K and NBA Live has been ongoing for several years, and for the 2010 versions of the respective games — which will be released on the same day — the stakes are even higher. 2K Games and EA have added a ton of new features to their games, which will make this years line up even more compelling to basketball fans around the world.

8: Aion: The Tower of Eternity (September 22)

Korean developer/publisher NCsoft is known for creating lots of MMOs, from Lineage, to Guild Wars, to the failed Auto Assault. Aion is their latest creation, and unlike many other MMOs, the main attraction here is that combat will, for the most part be airborne. Unfortunately however, unlike Guild Wars, Aion will be subscription based, and will cost $15 a month to be a part of.

7: Halo 3: ODST (September 22)

Halo 3 ODST (”Orbital Drop Shock Troopers”), doesn’t follow the main protagonist Master Chief, instead, it centers around an unknown soldier, “The Rookie”, who crash lands on a hostile planet and must find his teammates. While it’s not a true sequel, rather something in between Halo 3 and the upcoming Halo Reach, it’ll most certainly satisfy hard core Halo fans this holiday season.
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IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey review

The Sturmovik games have been a pillar of WW2 air combat ever since the first game was released back in 2001. Against all odds and countless games building on the same concept, the series has been very successful for Russian developer Maddox Games (”Sturmovik” is the name of the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 fighter plane). Birds of Prey is the series first appearance on consoles, and it does a great job at delivering a solid WW2 combat simulator. However, the transition hasn’t been flawless, as a few issues prevent the game from being a top-notch sim.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey continues building on the successful formula, with plenty of new additions and updates, most noticeably the visuals. The worlds beneath you are now a lot more detailed, the dogfights are more intense, and following the trend of modern games, there are tons of unlocks to be had as well. The controls — arguably the toughest part to port from PC to consoles when you talk about flying games — have been done quite well, and the different control options and layouts are going to satisfy a wide variety of players, from the newbies to the pros. The difficulty level follows as well, from an arcade style to pure simulation, there’s something for everyone.

The campaign missions are fairly well thought out, however, it becomes rather tiresome after you’ve flown a few raids, since there is very little variety among them. The 20 missions span from Italy, to Britain, to Germany and to Russia, however, all of them have two objectives: bombing runs and dogfights. And while the dog fights are exciting and thrilling, it too gets tiresome after a few missions. It helps with the different theaters of war, but we would have wished for more variety in the mission structures.  There’s also a large verity of authentic planes — as expected — and they’re all very nicely detailed and feature a ton of encyclopedia information, in case that interest you.
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Tropico 3 coming to Xbox 360 this fall

Kalypso Media has recently announced that they will be bringing their Xbox 360 debut title, Tropico 3 to the console in fall of this year. The Tropico series has been around since early 2001 on the PC hasn’t seen a console release until now.

In Tropico 3, players will take control of El Presidente as they shape a tropical community into whatever they desire. Of course, tons of gameplay mechanics are in place that will keep the player guessing what will happen next.

Again, Tropico 3 will hit store shelves for the Xbox 360 after the PC version is released sometime this fall.

Velvet Assassin review — WW2 stealth action

WW2 games are a plenty of, ever since Medal of Honor took the FPS world by storm (and Call of Duty following in its footsteps), there has been no shortage of games set in World War 2. However, there are only few stealth games in that setting, and one of them is Velvet Assassin.

You play as Violet Summer, a british spy/assassin sent behind enemy lines for Queen and country. But not so fast. You start by waking up at a hospital after a mission went wrong. You’re woozy from the morphine and have nightmares of the past missions, which serve to tell some of the backstory.

The gameplay is your usual stealth action; you sneak around, way behind enemy lines and complete missions, which vary from blowing up important buildings (like fuel depots) to straight out assassinating Nazi leaders. The gameplay is very intuitive and the sneaking works great. To some extent. What Velvet Assassin does great — the sneaking — is countered by what it does bad; the enemy AI. You can sneak behind enemies, but those enemies are rather dumb, actually, they’re plain stupid. They walk through pre-determined waypoints, and will often ignore when they see you or when you do obvious stuff, like cut the lights. This takes away a lot of the rush from sneaking, because you know that you’re sneaking behind morons. Also, the stealth action is somewhat linear; there’s usually only one way of getting to your objective. This means that there is very little replay value in the game, as there is no multiplayer either.

The combat is mostly comprised of you sneaking up and surprising the bad guys by slitting their throats etc. However, there are other ways of killing your foes, like setting electricity through a water pit once a guard steps on it, or pull a valve that releases toxic gas, thereby killing your foes. In addition to this, there is the usual way: shooting them. However, the shooting mechanics are poorly implemented, and it’s best avoided. But at a few places in the game, you are required to shoot several enemies, which can become quite frustrating. Also, the amount of ammunition is quite limited, so you’re best off fighting your enemies in another fashion.

Another thing that the game does well, is the atmosphere it creates. It’s by no means a “light” game. It’s very dark, both technically and artistically, as you frequently come across atrocities of war committed by the Nazis, like mass graves of executed prisoners and resistance fighters. There’s a great sense of realism to the game, from the grim visuals, to the soundtrack, which create great sense of realism and danger.

Technically, the game looks great, especially the dark parts and shadows. The lighting is done very well and serves as a way of immersing the player into the game (and helps greatly with the sneaking). The sounds and voice acting are on par with what’s expected — not perfect, but not bad either. The soundtrack is especially moody and creates a feel of suspense. However, the game does stutter occasionally with low FPS, and there are a few bugs which should’ve been ironed out.

In all, Velvet Assassin can be recommended for the fans of WW2 games and especially stealth action games. However, there isn’t much of a challenge because of the horrible AI and lack of polish,. Furthermore, there is little replay value and no multiplayer feature.

The Good:
Great atmosphere
Harsh realism
Decent stealth action

The Bad:
Lacks polish
Very linear
No multiplayer
Occasional bugs

Overall score: 6/10