Short Friday News #7

If you’re hoping to get Titanfall up and running on a your SSD you’re probably going to want to start packing up some of your files and boxes and shipping them out to the recycling bin.

In response to a fan question on Twitter, Respawn founder Vince Zampella revealed that the final version of Titanfall will be a hefty 48 gigabyte once installed…

The PC version will be a 21GB download, but once unpacked is when it becomes a true titan, taking up a sizeable chunk of space with its whopping 48GB install. While traditional hard drives have never been cheaper, those hoping to squeeze the latest and greatest of multiplayer shooters onto their SSDs for lightning-fast performance may find themselves in a tricky situation.

The actual version downloaded from the Origin digital store will ‘only’ be a 21GB download, thanks to being highly compressed. As we’ve noted recently game sizes are certainly on the rise and it look like it would be increasingly bigger. Only a matter of weeks ago we found out that The Elder Scrolls Online would be a staggering 60GB at launch. How big it will be after a couple years worth of updates and expansion packs in anybody’s guess.

Be sure to check out our system requirements for a more detailed look at what you’re going to need to run Titanfall when it launches on March 13th.

How big is too big for a game?

Are you ready for the growing trend of growing games?

Be sure to let me know below!

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes Price Dropped After Fan Outraged

After the widespread furore over Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes alarmingly short length, Konami has taken the decision to reduce the price of the Playstation 4 and Xbox One version in line with the last-gen copies.

Solid Snake fans were understandably a little bit miffed when a preview of Ground Zeroes revealed that the main campaign of the pseudo-sequel is less than two hours long, despite a recommended retail price of £39.99 in the UK…


The Playstation 4 and Xbox One versions have since had their recommended retail price reduced from £39.99 to £29.99, bringing them in line with the pricing of both the digital versions and the previous-gen versions.

"With the new pricing set for Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, Konami aims to provide as many people as possible an opportunity to experience Kojima Productions' new Fox Engine and the first instalment in the two-part Metal Gear Solid 5 experience," Konami said. "Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, the second and final part to the Metal Gear Solid 5 experience, will launch on both current and next-gen systems at a later date."

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes acts as a small prequel to the main sequel in the MGS story arc, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Despite being many times smaller than MGS 5, Ground Zeroes was still set to retail as a full-priced game. Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima defended this by saying that "Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes includes the main mission alongside five Side Ops. All missions include elements such as 'Trial Records,' where players can compete against each other online. This is not a linear game like the past. GZ offers freedom of approach & play style, which we hope players will enjoy over and over again without boring [them]."

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is due to arrive on March 20th in Europe and March 18th in the US, for Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360.

Do you think the reduction in price is enough to make Ground Zeroes a worthwhile purchase?

Let me know!

Thief 2014 Review

Hello there,I'm Accel and this is my review on Thief 2014.This is a stealth video game developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix.It is a revival of the cult classic Thief series of stealth games, of which it is the fourth game.This game is released across all platform including last-gen consoles on February 2014.

Game link:http://www.thiefgame.com/agegate?locale=us
Steam link:http://store.steampowered.com/app/239160/


Thief, the grandfather of the modern stealth genre and a classic series originally crafted by Looking Glass Studios in 1998 (yes, GR has been around for that long), just might be the most audacious video game for Eidos Montreal to reboot. It carries the lofty weight of expectation from retro gamers and critics who recall the innovation Thief brought to action adventures, as well as the accepted weight of today's triple-A standards in game production and design. Somewhere in its secret hideaway, Eidos Montreal concocted a workable mixture of the two, making compromises where it could and sacrifices where it couldn't. The result should moderately satisfy both old-school and new-school gamers, but suffers from lackluster presentation and several mechanical mishaps.

Thief is a reboot, but it once again puts us in control of the aforementioned Garrett, a master thief who for some inexplicable reason feels the need to steal every little trinket he sees instead of merely focusing on the prize at hand. As you might expect from a game about thievery, it's a stealth game played out from the first-person perspective. You'll take on all manner of jobs around The City—one part medieval-era slum, one part Industrial Revolution-era factory town.

This time you have amnesia, of all things (video game trope #1: check). After a job gone wrong, you awake to find you've forgotten the last year. What were you doing the whole time? Why is the entire city ravaged by a plague known as The Gloom? And who the hell did the people of this city call on to do their interminable, inane fetch quests while you were gone?

As you might suspect, the stealth system focuses on light and shadow as indicated by the ever-present light gem, situated in the bottom-left corner of the screen. It feels strange to have guards walk four feet in front of you and pass you by without making so much as a blink if you're in the dark, but at least it contributes to that "hide in shadows" fantasy. Other times, the point is to avoid eye contact with guards at all costs. Taken together, it's all about shooting torches with water arrows, swooping from shadow to shadow, throwing bottles as distractions, avoiding birds and hounds, dragging bodies into places where the City Watch won't notice, and climbing ropes when they're looking away.

But once started, the story is actually fairly compelling in that summer blockbuster way we've all come to expect from AAA games. It's an amalgam of a bunch of game tropes—for instance, game trope #2: level taking place in a mental institute, and game trope #3: vital information conveyed through notes conveniently scattered around the level—but it's all pieced together with enough intrigue and tragedy that it held my attention through at least the back half of a solid 20+ hour experience.

Thief plays a lot like a Dishonored prototype. Like Dishonored, except you're not quite as agile, and you suck at combat. In other words, like Dishonored before Arkane really figured out what would set Dishonored apart. And, as a result, I spent most of my time with Thief wishing I could just replay Dishonored.

Thief feels torn between tradition and modernity. It wants so badly to feel like original Thief, but it also wants to feel approachable like Dishonored. As a result, it's something of an unholy abomination of the two. Thief even has a pseudo-teleport: An action the game labels "swooping," which allows you to run rapidly across a brightly lit area without being seen, as if the guards are too dumb to see the man clearly sprinting across the light in front of them.

For Thief, slow and steady wins the race, and careful exploration is rewarded with extra collectibles and will have Garrett not be caught off-guard by traps. Most levels, though usually linear as a whole, have one or two paths off the beaten path, like a secret set of stairs inside a greenhouse or a brothel with a boiler room that can be used to knock out all of its inhabitants. Using focus vision for just a brief second helps too, since it reveals important objects in the area just like Detective Mode in the Batman: Arkham series.

Polishing is the most noticeable issue with Thief, particularly the quality of the graphics and audio. Thief isn't the first title to copy and paste character models throughout the world, but sometimes more than several models can be seen populating the same tavern, though with just different outfits. The lip-syncing and the facial animations feel stiff, and the textures don't have the highest resolution. NPC dialogue repeats itself often, sometimes in immediate succession, and its volume tends to be high no matter whether Garrett dashes in a busy street, crouches in a vent, or hides in an enclosed room with shuttered windows that need a crowbar to open. Consequently, the audio can get disorienting.So in the end I would like to give this game a score 7 out of 10.So what do you guys think. Let me know.

WRC Powerslide review

Hello there,I'm Accel and this is my review on WRC Powerslide.This game is developed by Milestone and published by Black Bean Studios.Milestone’s WRC series and I have a long history. I’ve played each of the four games. The series has evolved from TV presentation to arcade presentation. It’s tried to be rally sim and tried to be a WRC-licensed Dirt game. Every time it makes a change, they take two steps forward and at least one step back.

Game link: http://www.wrcpowerslide.com/
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/256350/

this is not WRC Powerslide footage

With WRC Powerslide, Milestone has completely gotten away from proper rallying. Instead, Powerslide is a WRC karting game. While I’ve been looking for the proper WRC series to embrace being a proper rally sim, Powerslide proves that you don’t actually know what you want from gaming until you get it.

While WRC proper has you racing your rally car by yourself on a stage to set the fastest cumulative time over a series of special stages in a rally, WRC Powerslide has four cars racing the same special stage at the same time to be the first across the line.

You don’t have to play this as a karting game, though. There’s an option to turn off collisions and powerups which effectively makes it four ghost cars racing to be the first to the line. Unfortunately, Milestone combined activation of collisions and powerups to one line. It would have been nice to turn off just powerups to make Powerslide a WRC rally cross game.

In my experience, that option is necessary because the computer always seems to get you in the final tenth of a stage. It’s inevitable that you’ll get hit with a lightning bolt or hail storm while on the point with the finish in sight and have nothing to answer back with. Maybe I just have bad luck but the AI tend to lead only first 10% and last 10% of any race thanks to the powerups.

One good thing about Powerslide is that the game has some fantastic catchup logic (at least, in the single player mode). No matter how far behind or ahead you are at any point of the race (barring the very end), everyone is bunched up within a couple of seconds at the finish line. It makes for some exciting racing and a few stages where I’ve won with a recorded margin of victory of 0.00 and 0.01 seconds.

There’s only really two game modes in WRC Powerslide. There’s multiplayer which is just online multiplayer. And there’s single player which involves winning races in each category to unlock races and cars. However, you must win the specific race to unlock the next race. For example, if the requirement to unlock the next race is to win the preceding stage in a Class 3 car, winning in a WRC car doesn’t work. That unlocks a car but not the event. It’s a great game for completionists but progression is a massive pain if you just want to race. Considering that there’s only one event open when you first boot up the game and you have to win with that one specific class, the progression system is almost demoralizing.

Its not all positives for Powerslide. The worst problem, by a wide margin, is the camera. The camera is positioned at a high angle behind you car but isn’t fixed directly behind the car. It’s a little off the side but isn’t at a set angle. It moves about slightly as you navigate the stages almost like a camera on a chasing helicopter. While it’s still better than the helicopter camera in Real World Racing, it’s very disorienting at first though it does get slightly better as you get used to it. You can’t get used to having your view obstructed by the environment as a result of the camera. I can only assume this is done in a way to limit what the game has to render to ease the hardware load on the engine considering four cars are on screen at all times.

There are some issues that keep it from being among the best karting games you’ll play but that $10 price point means that you’re assured bang for your buck. If Codemasters ever makes F1 Race Stars 2, they need to take some notes from WRC Powerslide. This is easily the best WRC game to come out for the last five years..I would give this game a score 7 out of 10.

Short News Friday #6

Call of Duty: Ghosts might have got a fair bit of flak when it released back in November, but Activision’s shooter is still the leading military might in the world of multiplayer shooters.



If you haven’t hopped on board yet and you like all things free, then count yourself lucky, because the multiplayer component of Infinity Ward’s outing is entirely free to play until Monday. That is, if you haven’t found yourself spoiled rotten by Titanfall already…

In time, you will come to hate this map as much as I do
Steam users will be able to download the game entirely free of charge from right now, allowing them to put the shooter through its paces. Unfortunately the multiplayer component doesn’t capitalise on the legendary fish AII, so you’ll have to just make do with an unnervingly robotic AI dog at your beck and call.

Call of Duty: Ghosts reviewed rather favourably in my review, but I felt the multiplayer component needed a bit of work. It seems since launch Infinity Ward has been fixing the spawn issues and other faults that were causing a bit of an upset, so now might well be the perfect time to hop in.

Will you be giving CoD: Ghosts a chance this weekend?

Has Activision’s franchise overstayed its welcome?

Bioshock Developer Irrational Games To Shut Down

Bioshock developer Irrational Games is being buried at sea, after it was revealed in a letter from president Ken Levine that the hugely successful studio will be closing its doors for good once the final piece of Bioshock Infinite DLC is released.

This well may well spell the end of the Bioshock franchise as we know it, as the SWAT 4 and System Shock 2 developer looks to wind down and lay-off all but fifteen of the studio’s members in the immediate future..



Irrational Games' President Ken Levine
In a letter on their official website, Levine said "I am winding down Irrational Games as you know it. I'll be starting a smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor at Take-Two. That is going to mean parting ways with all but about fifteen members of the Irrational team. There's no great way to lay people off, and our first concern is to make sure that the people who are leaving have as much support as we can give them during this transition."

He continued; "Seventeen years is a long time to do any job, even the best one. And working with the incredible team at Irrational Games is indeed the best job I’ve ever had. While I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together, my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done before. To meet the challenge ahead, I need to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers. In many ways, it will be a return to how we started: a small team making games for the core gaming audience."

Levine co-founded Irrational Games way back in 1997 along with Jon Chey and Rob Fermier, immediately producing the rapturously received System Shock 2, the precursor to Bioshock as we know it. From there on the team continued with moderate success thanks to games such as Freedom Force, Tribes: Vengeance and SWAT 4, before striking gold with Bioshock.

Levine is now keen to make inroads into the digital market, focusing on highly-replayable narrative driven games. He’ll still be working under the umbrella of Take Two but with a vastly smaller development team making games for the core audience.

It’s not all doom and gloom for Bioshock fans though, as Take-Two may well continue the series using another developer, with the franchise now in 2K’s hands. For now, the final project for the Irrational dev team is the Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea Episode 2 DLC, which is scheduled for release on March 25.

Do you think this is the end of Bioshock as we know it?What sort of games do you hope Levine and his team will work on next?Post your commiserations below...

The Lego Movie Videogame review

Hello there I'm Accel and this is my review on Lego The Movie-Videogame. This is an adventure-action games developed by TT Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.It was released alongside with the movie across all the next-Gen, the last gen-consoles and also released on Microsoft Wnidows.This game released world-wide on February 2014 except Australia on 3 April 2014.

Game link: http://videogames.lego.com/en-us/lego-movie/about/videos
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/267530/



Never mind the video game, what I would definitely recommend to everyone is to go out and see The Lego Movie. A bizarre mixture of Toy Story, Idiocracy, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, the film is as funny as it is scathing in its anti-authoritarian, non-conformist rhetoric. And all this while essentially being a two-hour advert for some very expensive toys. It shouldn’t have worked, but like the chimeric brick creations featured throughout it absolutely does.

This most recent offering from TT gives pretty much everything we have come to expect from Lego titles. Brick-smashing, object collecting, simple puzzle solving and platforming with a solid and enjoyable co-op experience built in. Something, however, is not quite right. The issue with The Lego Movie Videogame is, ironically, the fact that it so clearly a movie Videogame. Sure, the Lego games are all movie/ book tie-ins in some way. Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Star Wars; all of them drew heavily on their related films for inspiration. The key difference, however, is that they were inspired by those films; the plots were recreated, but they were recreated in a way that playfully parodied serious moments by rendering them in, well, Lego. There is something about having originally dark and sombre moments enacted by plastic figurines that is funny regardless of your age.

Lego the Movie plays upon your own addictive nature of looting and collecting everything in sight by allowing almost everything in the game to be destructible. This in-turn is changed into pieces of Lego which you rank up as points. Since the environments are naturally scattered with them plus the fact you can take in more by destroying objects, expect to be pacing back and forth in your own addictive enjoyment as you wreck “n” collect.

Combining special character abilities with weapons and tools specific to that character, the player unlocks more characters as he or she progresses through the game, all starring in the movie those of which are also free to play as, outside of the main story. The controls for each of these characters remain for the most part the same. While the game doesn’t establish any specific classes that hold each character in specific groups, which I’m very thankful for by the way, it does assign specific character traits in order to overcome certain objectives and a benefit in defeating certain enemy types.

Instead puzzle-solving and exploration is pushed more to the fore, although again the puzzles are less complicated than many of the more recent games. For understandable reasons The Lego Movie seems to be aimed at a younger audience than titles like Lego Marvel and Lego Lord Of The Rings, but only in terms of gameplay.

I noted in its review that Lego Marvel’s script seemed to be pitched several years younger than usual, despite the gameplay being more involved than the average. The Lego Movie is the opposite, as although most of its best gags are from the film the new dialogue is almost equally funny, and will be appreciated most by an older audience. Especially the portrayal of Batman as a self-centred braggart and the knowing sarcasm of Lord Business and Wyldstyle.

Co-op has always been one of the best parts of Lego games, and this remains firmly intact in this title. I'm not a huge fan of the "spinning split screen" (where the split screen divide rotates dependant on your position on the map) that has been implemented in recent games and continues here, but other than that, co-op play is definitely a highlight. Levels that are longer and a little more tedious alone are brightened up with a friend. The different abilities afforded to certain party members helps make the game - like its predecessors - feel truly designed around the co-op experience. Female characters have to be used to achieve certain things, whilst Morgan-Freeman-voiced Vetruvius comes in handy with a staff that doubles as an acrobatic pole, allowing you to swing between ledges. It's light hearted and fun; brightened up by diverse minigames that break the repetitiveness of fighting and brick breaking.

I played the Xbox 360 version of The Lego Movie Videogame, and I have to say that I was a little surprised by the performance of the game on last-gen console. Image stuttering and low frame rate occurred with irritating regularity, and whilst they didn’t overly impact gameplay they were serious enough to be a visual irritation and make the game feel that little bit less polished. Worse were the fairly frequent glitches; not being able to interact with an object I was standing right next to, or having to enter a command numerous times before the game seemed to register it occurred on numerous occasions. Whilst playing as Wyldstyle, I once found myself stuck behind an invisible wall next to a box I’d just pushed across the screen to use as a ledge. The only way to get out of this was to enter co-op mode with a second PS3 controller, select “drop out” with Wyldstyle and then switch back to her once she respawned elsewhere on the map; not the most efficient gameplay experience. The game's theme tune might be "Everything is Awesome", but playing the game, "Everything" feels, well, a little more mediocre...

The Lego Movie Videogame also suffered from the same loading screen wait times as Lego City Undercover, where the size of the open world sections of play lead to regular loading times of a minute or more. Whilst it is great to see large worlds (although the environments in this game cannot compete with 2013’s Lego City Undercover) the problem with these load screens is there sheer frequency at some points in the game. Later, more self-contained levels are better for this, but when you are playing in the City, expect to wait 45-90 seconds a pop every time you enter a new building or area, which you will need to do every few minutes.So in the end ,I would give this game a score of 6 out of 10.It has a potential in it but it need some more polishing and it would be perfect. So what do you guys think .Let me know in the comment section down below.

PlayStation 3 Has At Least Another 2 Years Of Life Left Says Sony

For anyone worried about the fact they can’t currently afford to spend $400 upgrading their old PlayStation 3 to a shiny new PS4, Sony has good news for you.

 

The technology giant stated this week that it believes its current-gen console has at least two years of support remaining for it, perhaps even more...

Dragon Age: Inquisition Is Just One Of A Number Of AAA Games Coming To PS3 This Year

Speaking at Sony Santa Monica a few days ago marketing executive John Coller told press that the older console is still far from being on its last legs.

“We believe that the platform has a lot of life left in it,” he said. “Two, three, four years; we think there’s time left in the platform. It depends on the content. We have a good lineup this year and it looks like a good lineup next year. We need to keep fueling that.

“We really have to keep PS3 alive. And so to do that, we have to further the content. I think there will be a good story for the PS3 over the next year to two years.”

For 2014 at least those of us yet to invest in next-gen have little to worry about, especially if we have a decent PC rig to accompany our consoles. Dark Souls II, Thief, South Park: The Stick Of Truth, Watch Dogs, Child Of Light and Dragon Age: Inquisition are just a few of the big titles releasing on PlayStation 3 over the coming months.

What do you think of Sony’s decision to keep supporting the PlayStation 3? Is it a mark of respect for those who can’t yet upgrade, or just a waste of resources that could be used to support next-gen development?

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment.

Short News Friday #5

The iconic Mario Kart has always been a staple part of the first party line-up for any Nintendo console, so it was surprising to say the least when the Japanese technology giant waited over a year after the release of its Wii U console to confirm a release for the newest iteration of the classic racer.



It’s an oversight that was rectified at last night’s Nintendo Direct, however, when Mario Kart 8 got both an official release date and a brand new trailer…

The Nintendo broadcast gave a May 30th release date for Mario Kart 8, which will be a Wii U exclusive.

There’s a host of new characters revving up to the start line in this edition, with Bowser’s Koopalings Iggy, Larry, Ludwig, Morton, Roy and Wendy joining previously revealed characters including Rosalina from the Mario Galaxy games. You can check them all flying around, blowing each other up and generally having a marvellous time in the trailer below.

Is Mario Kart 8 likely to help sales of the Wii U at all, or is it a little too late for that now? Will you be playing Mario Kart 8?

Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) 2014

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my reviews on Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) 2014.This is the latest game of this football series developed by PES productions and distributed by Konami.It has been released world-wide on September 2014 across all platform including PS2 except the New-Gen consoles.

Game link : https://pes.konami.com/
Steam link : http://store.steampowered.com/app/250870/



Another year, another brand new instalment in everyone’s favourite football game from Konami: Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) 2014.

The current gen has not been very kind to PES, with the FIFA series increasing its lead over PES both commercially and critically. By combining the mega-budget power of EA with a multitude of football league licenses, FIFA’s produced a level of polish and authenticity that PES just can’t match. This year PES has even less licenses, so once again players are forced to edit their data files manually or strain their brains trying to figure out that West Midlands Village is actually Aston Villa.

But the strength of the series has always been the gameplay. More realistic than FIFA’s faster paced and more arcade-like style, the joy of PES has always been mastering its deep and intricate control system so that when you finally manage to produce that delicious six-move interplay of passes culminating in a sumptuous finish, the resulting sense of satisfaction is tremendous.

PES2014 is based on the constant movement of players on-and-off the ball and switching positions, which mirrors the approach to modern-day football. The game sticks to its DNA, pulls it off again in terms of on-field gameplay mechanics, built closely upon its previous iteration. Short passing remains swift and crisp while lofted balls can be put to much greater effect. It truly captures the essence of passing and movement and slotting the ball into space never felt so real. The gameplay requires genuine soccer sense and vision, apart from a mere combination of a well timed button press. Thus, making the game purely skill based.

The new 'True ball tech'  makes everything physics-driven as it centers everything around the ball, giving players total control when determining their body angle to receive the pass. It means, that the ball can be chested or flicked passed an opponent, nodded into space or on to a team-mate.  It also allows closer control and dribbling appears to be much tighter than before. The ability to nod the ball ahead while sprinting is a really cool mechanic when taking on players, specially in one-on-one situations.

In theory, the new Advanced controls are very powerful- you can even place a curved through ball by manipulating your crosshairs around and behind the defenders- but in practice it can get very fiddly controlling your player on the move while also trying to aim the ball behind the defensive line. If you muck it up you produce a very flaccid ball, and being a long-time PES (or should I say Winning Eleven) player, I found myself very frustrated at times when I couldn’t direct a snap pass on command, and found myself pining for the old system. Fortunately, PES allows you to toggle between the two systems, so old PES veterans can revert back to the old pass/shoot control system if they so choose.

With my first few games, I found myself having considerable difficulty maintaining possession and getting into a passing rhythm- and that brought a smile to my face. That’s the joy most staunch PES players get from the game, the challenge of mastering and bending to your will what seemed so difficult at first.

The control system is so complex: for example you can pass the ball and at the same time manipulate the passer to run off in a certain direction allowing you to create intricate off-the-ball triangles, and all this takes considerable time to learn. You can’t just sit down and immediately pull off advanced (or should I say, effective) maneuvers or ball movement without investing a good chunk of time into the game, and this is where the game either hooks you into it, or turns you off completely with what I will admit is a fairly unintuitive and overly complicated control system.

Even with the new engine, the game suffers from a lot of serious bugs and glitches. There’s a lot of choppiness and stuttering during gameplay or cut scenes, especially when a shot blazes wide of the goalpost. You have players dribbling around aimlessly while the game waits for a player to throw the ball in after an out-of-bounds. There’s the very prominent “catch-up” bug where lead-footed defenders magically surge forward to barge your forward off the ball even after you’ve placed a great ball through. The defensive line AI can also be shambolic at times, and in general it seems entirely too easy to dispossess players by simply physically barging into them. This coupled with a lack of fouls and the CPU tendency to stay on their feet while tackling can result in some frustrating matches.

Nonetheless, online features aren't as alluring as FIFA, apart from Master League Online, PES2014 doesn't enjoy the privileges of game modes its rival has at its disposal. It lacks in terms of gameplay options off the field, with most of the modes largely unchanged offering minor improvements.

Unrivaled in its pursuit of soccer gaming excellence, PES has made a return to being more of a deep simulation of football, contrary to being a high-tempo game, with plethora of online gameplay options, something you can just jump into with your folks and have a kick about. There's still so much Konami needs to address to make this an irresistible alternative.In the end I would give this game a score 8 out of 10.I recommend this game if you have a machine capable of running this(of course it can).It was wonderfully built game. So what do you guys think, why don't you share your thoughts in the comment section down below.

Batman Arkham Origins: Blackgate Could Be Making The Leap To Consoles And PC

Batman Arkham Origins: Blackgate, the Arkham Origins spinoff that hit 3DS and Playstation Vita late last year, is apparently arriving on other platforms imminently.

The Xbox Games Store provided a new listing for a Blackgate Deluxe Edition, confirming that a version is indeed arriving for the 360’s Xbox Live Arcade, although there’s no official word yet on whether it will also land on PC and Playstation 3…



Batman Arkham Origins: Blackgate was originally developed by Armature Studios, an outfit composed of ex-members of Metroid Prime developer Retro Studios. The listing describes Blackgate - Deluxe edition as “amplifying the 2.5-D game” with a bunch of new maps, difficulty settings, enemy encounters, more batsuits and, crucially, enhanced visuals.

Designed as a companion game to Warner Bros Montreal’s Batman: Arkham Origins, Blackgate continues the storyline seen in the PC and console version, giving players a greater insight into Batman’s history and erm... origins. Blending the classic 3D Batman gameplay with 2D movement, Blackgate features the free-flowing combat and stealth gameplay that is a staple of the series. The listing says that it will feature “Batman's famed arsenal of gadgets, the genuine Arkham experience is reproduced in a deep, action packed side-scrolling adventure.”

Do you think Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate will make it over to Playstation 3 and PC?Are you interested in a port of a handheld title?

Insurgency Review

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my reviews on Insurgency. This is a FPS game powered by the Source Engine and its purely multi-player game, just in case if some of you thinking to get a pirate copy of this game.Anyone remember the days of games like SOCOM and Counterstrike (1.6, not this newfangled Global Offensive)? You know, questionable visuals slapped over intense, one-and-done gunfights across vague Middle Eastern locations while using incredibly strict gunplay? For those of you whose mouths just started proverbially watering at that description, Insurgency is for you–the game captures the magic of those short, tense bouts, complete with that sort of unpolished charm that seems to permeate these hardcore shooters.

Game link: http://www.playinsurgency.com/
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/222880/

this is not Insurgency screenshot

The First Person Shooter genre is probably the most popular genre of video games in current times. Of course, you don’t need me to tell you that, as you are likely aware of that already. The FPS genre dominates sales charts and the big names (Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc) command high numbers upon their releases. What can be said, though, is that the genre is slowly drifting into stagnation. The aforementioned big names rarely bring much new to the table on their yearly release schedule, and most other developers making FPS games tend to make clones of these franchises. It’s popular, it sells, why change?

Many modern FPS games also do not rely much on tactical combat or skill. Other than the “spinning jump-shot across-the-map no-scope” guys who brag about their ability, matches in these games usually come down to sprinting wildly across a map firing at whatever moves until you die, only to respawn seconds later and do it all over again. No tactics nor skill required.

Insurgency is an attempt at changing that trend. Originally released as a Half-Life 2 mod and met with critical praise, Insurgency was released as a full stand-alone game on January 22nd, 2014. The game is marketed as an FPS that absolutely relies on tactics and teamwork in order to not only win, but just to survive.

Insurgency is a strictly multiplayer/co-op game, with only a training mode available in singleplayer. This mode is not too bad for teaching you the basics, although I did hit a wall…literally…with the part about throwing grenades. I tried and tried, but could not get a flash-bang through the tiny hole and into the dumpster which would trigger the next part. After about 15 minutes of pure frustration, I gave up and just jumped into the game with the idea that I’d figure it all out on the fly. Curiously, I’m not sure I’ve neither thrown nor seen thrown a grenade in all my time playing the game proper.

The primary divider when it comes to Insurgency is going to be the hardcore aesthetic. Put shortly, if you’re used to all the frills and perks of more modern shooters like Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty Ghosts, then this game’s minimalist approach will jar you. There’s not much of a UI to speak of–you don’t even get an ammo counter or crosshairs (thankfully, most modes will give you indicators of some kind as to who is friend and foe.) You instead have to rely on quick reflexes and careful, teamwork-minded movement throughout the various maps, and you have to pay much closer attention to the action. You rarely survive more than one or two direct hits, and in what is perhaps a step too far into this attempt at immersion, there’s also no indicator for when you’ve killed another player, either.

There are some genuinely cool design decisions that really push this emphasis on methodical team tactics–for example, joining a server means you’re offered any one of the empty roles on your team’s squads, but only the empty ones, i.e., you won’t be seeing more than one Support or Designated Marksman per squad, or more than two per team. This means you don’t have an entire squad of snipers camping one side of the map while the other team swarms the objectives willy-nilly, and forces players into more cooperative, coordinated mindsets.

Insurgency is all about the gameplay, and it’s clear that New World Interactive put their heart into it. The game is purely online multiplayer, so you will not be able to play it without an internet connection (although since it’s distributed on Steam, that shouldn’t be a problem for most players).

Many gameplay modes are offered, most being some variation on a “take and hold  an area” kind of gameplay, with a few unique modes sprinkled throughout. The gameplay modes are divided into three categories. The first, “Tactical Operations,” only gives players one life. In Insurgency, it doesn’t take much to lose that life, as one or two good shots is enough to take a player out of the game. The only way to rejoin after death is if another member of your team completes an objective. The “Sustained Combat” category is slightly more lenient, giving each team a limited number of respawns to use, dependent on specific mode. The third category is “Co-operative,” where players must work together to secure and defend territories in one mode, and destroying an AI’s weapon cache in another mode.

There are about a dozen maps designed in the mold of CounterStrike; none of them are terribly large, but each has its share of multiple paths and choke points which have their own unique risks and challenges. They also are all pretty similar in tone and look: grubby, war-torn environments. The lack of visual variety is not necessarily a problem, but I can’t help but wonder if it would kill developers to show off a little bit of level diversity.

I spent most of my time jumping into a variety of game modes and interacting with strangers. For the most part, I found the community to be small but polite. There wasn’t a whole lot of communication going on, but, on the other hand, there wasn’t a lot of abuse either. It’s refreshing to play a competitive online game in which people don’t lose their minds about winning and losing, so here’s hoping that continues as the game becomes more popular.So in The end I will give this game a score 8.5 out of 10. So what about you guys, ready to play a FPS game without a crosshairs. Why don't you guys share it on the comment section below.

Short(not so short) News Friday #4

Last week a listing emerged for Nvidia’s rumoured first Maxwell-based range of graphics cards. Now we know that the opening salvo of GPUs from Nvidia will be limited to the GeForce GTX 750 and the GeForce GTX 750 Ti, paving the way for more GPUs using the Maxwell architecture.

Both of the upcoming graphics cards from Nvidia will be mid-range GPUs using the upcoming GM107 GPU score. For now the key difference will be a dramatic drop in power draw in comparison to the GeForce GTX 650 and the GeForce GTX 650 Ti, with both cards running exclusively off of power from the PCI express slot…



When the Maxwell architecture has been previously rumoured it was assumed that Nvidia would be moving to a new 20nm process but, for now at least, the chip giant is sticking with the tried and trusted 28nm architecture.

Specs-wise these cards are both stacking up as direct replacements to their counterparts in the GeForce GTX 600 series. The GeForce GTX 750 will come packing 768 CUDA cores, 64 TMUs and 16 ROPs, as well as 1GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit memory bus interface. In comparison its more powerful sibling will be armed with 960 CUDA cores, 80 TMUs and 16 ROPs, as well as 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit memory bus interface. Both cards come clocked at 1085MHz stock, with a boost mode up 1163MHz.

Keplver vs Maxwell

                  GK107-450         GK106-400         GM107-300            GM107-400
GPU          28nm                    28nm                     28nm                       28nm
Die Size       118mm²                221mm²                 156mm²                   156mm²
CUDAs         384                        960                        768                         960
TMUs             32                          80                           64                          80
ROPs              16                          24                           16                          16
Memory Bus 128-bit                192-bit                  128-bit                    128-bit
TDP               65w                      140w                     <75w                      <75w


The use of a 128-bit interface looks like it could prove a significant bottleneck when it comes to performance, but these cards are very much aimed at the mid to low-end price range. As mentioned earlier though, one crucial difference with these cards is that they won’t require any external power from your PSU, running instead directly off the motherboard. A PCIe bus is only capable of outputting a maximum of 75w of power, so these cards represent a step up in terms of efficiency.

The Maxwell GM107 GPU is a hybrid between the GK106 and the GK107, combining the memory bus of the former with the CUDA count of the later. In terms of power this isn’t looking like it’s going to be up to much but as an exercise in proving the renewed efficiency of the Maxwell architecture it could bode well. to see this in practice the GK107, in comparison to the GM107, has twice as manner CUDA cores on only a marginally bigger die for around the same total power draw.

It’s assumed that the 20nm Maxwell process will be reserved for later in the year when Nvidia launches its inevitable GeForce 800 series.The Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 and the GeForce GTX 750 Ti are expected to be release on 18th February.What does this increase in power efficiency mean for the Maxwell architecture?

Do you see a niche for this pair of new cards or do you think it’s worth waiting until the big boys in the 800 series arrive?Let me know…

Metal Gears Solid: Ground Zero News

Information has emerged from a Game Informer preview of Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, revealing that the prequel retail release to the main Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain campaign can be finished in less than two hours.

This figure doesn’t include any of the side missions of extra modes but it does highlight the brevity of Konami’s $40 release, containing just a single main mission to work through ahead of the proper sequel’s release…




Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima said earlier this month that the prequel game serves as a tutorial of sorts of the main game and is relatively tiny in comparison, with the main game promised to be “hundreds of times larger.” The size of this mission sounds very similar to Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty’s opening boat segment, that was given away free as a demo for those who picked up a copy of Zone of Enders.

Game Informer said "Judged just by the core story mission, Ground Zeroes is short, we completed it in just less than two hours. We had four hours of exclusive hands-on time with Ground Zeroes, which we used to play through the main mission and experiment with extra modes.” This means that for those purchasing boxed copies for either the Xbox One or Playstation 4 will be forking out $20 for every hour of the main mission's gameplay.

It sounds remarkably like Konami have split off a completed portion of Metal Gear Solid V in order to charge nearly twice as much as the full experience normally would have. I remember a single cutscene in Metal Gear Solid 4 approaching close to two hours by itself, so in MGS terms this is looking to be a very short experience.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is scheduled to arrive for PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 on March 18th.

Do you think that two hours is too short for a full retail game?

Is this just a shallow tactic for Konami to sell the same game twice?

Let us know below!

PS Plus Subscription Triple As PS4 Continues to Outsell Xbox One

UK Sony boss Fergal Gara has reported that subscriptions for PS Plus have tripled since the PlayStation 4 launched back in November.




The news accompanied suggestions that the PS4 is outselling its rival Xbox One by around 50%, showing a bright future for Sony as their consoles continue to increase their overall market share...

The huge rise in subscriptions is no doubt in part due to the fact that a PS + subscription is necessary to play PS4 games online, probably skewing the figures more than is strictly representative.

In addition, there’s been some pretty big name games on offer for subscribers the last few months. February deals include Outlast, Bioshock Infinite, and Metro: Last Light; no doubt a strong pull for many who didn’t have the chance to try those titles in 2013.

In a revelation that most likely shocked absolutely no-one but the most devoted Xbox fanboys, it was also revealed yesterday that, in the UK at least, PlayStation 4 is currently outselling its Microsoft rival by around 50%, offloading 1.5 consoles for every 1 Xbox One sold. It’s pretty much a direct role reversal from the last generation of consoles, where the Xbox 360 sold (and continues to sell) significantly more units than PlayStation 3, but it also helps to explain the big rise in PS+ subscriptions, suggesting some gamers may be switching allegiances.

Whatever the cause, the big rise in monthly subs can only indicate big financial returns for Sony, rounding off what has been an undoubtedly successful few months since the launch of their next-gen console.

Have you signed up to PS Plus since the PS4 launch? How do you think Microsoft’s console will fare in the long run?Let me know what you think in the comment section

Next Car Game early reviews

Hello there, I'm Accel and  this is my early reviews on Next Car Game.Next Car Game is from the creators of FlatOut. That much is obvious the minute you boot it up. The original FlatOut games were often-overlooked odes to vehicular destruction on a scale not seen anywhere else.

Developer Bugbear has taken that concept and ran with it for Next Car Game. The second you load up the Early Access you’ll have one thing on your mind, and one thing only. Demolition derby…

The Next Car Game Early Access is still pretty bare bones, offering a selection of just two tracks and a destruction derby arena. You’ll race a bit, and you’ll smash into cars a hell of a lot. If smashing cars is your idea of fun, you’re in the right place.

Game link: http://nextcargame.com/
Steam link:http://store.steampowered.com/app/228380/



The controls are extremely basic, limited to arrow keys for accelerating, braking and turning, as well as a handbrake for those I like to deem ‘professionals.’ The vehicles feel extremely heavy and pack a good dose of momentum, one wrong move and you’ll hurtling off the track before you know it. The chaos that ensues is enough to bring a tear to your eye. Cars flip, roll, hurtle, crunch, wallop, smash and crash with gleeful abandon. The 24 car races are how you secretly wish Formula 1 was, the first corner always providing scenes of carnage and devastation that puts Michael Bay to shame.

Cars splinter and tear, littering the track with toxic debris, ready to send your car careening off the track without a moment’s notice. Every crumple and bend of the cars feels weighty and satisfying. It’s a rare sight in today’s simulator littered world, where Lamborghini are too afraid for you to put a dent in one of their precious virtual cars. By the time you're cruising round for your second lap the track is looking like a battlefield. It's not only the cars that limited to the destruction either, as nearly all of the environments can be deconstructed to your hearts content. Barriers crumble beneath you, tires burst forth onto the track and fenceposts snap like toothpicks.


 It’s not all perfect though, there’s still a lot of work to do. While the cosmetics are a joy to behold, sometimes its impact on gameplay is not. In my first demolition derby bout I lost pretty much the entire front half of my car, including one of the wheels. It had an impact on my driving, I think, but it was negligible in the grand scheme of things. I was too all intents and purposes a dead car driving.

It’s still a mighty fun experience though, and one made all the better by the game’s crazy AI. After being spoon-fed racing line AI in Forza and Gran Turismo, it’s refreshing to see AI willing to act like total nutcases. Every corner you’ll see a car or two take it wrong, smashing into the sideboards. And, like any adrenaline-fuelled player, if any opportunity comes to wipe you out they’ll gladly take it, before coming round the next lap for desserts.

As a game there’s no doubt that Next Car Game is  currently extremely limited. There’s not much here to keep you hanging round for much more than a casual play session. What it does do though is show that the concept works, and once they manage to drape an actual game over this framework they should have one of the best and most hilarious demolition derby games in recent memory.So what do you guys think,Why don't youn share it on the comment section below