Watch Dogs Gets New Four Minute Welcome To Chicago trailer

Ubisoft has unveiled their latest trailer for Watch Dogs, whose May release date is creeping up on us alarmingly quickly.

The trailer is called “Welcome to Chicago” and shows off Watch Dogs’ city environment, giving details of both the city and the people living within it...

There is still a lot to talk circulating about graphical downgrades since the game’s initial reveal. We’re willing to consider it as a possibility; perhaps Aiden does not look quite as slick as he did in that 2013 reveal footage. That being said, the game still looks pretty damn glossy in terms of visuals, so we will leave it down to you to decide whether and to what degree the graphics have been downgraded.

According to the trailer, the people of Chicago won’t just be your run-of-the-mill AI drones, but will “react intelligently” to their environments. In Watch Dogs, everyone is a potential victim or villain, anyone could be a potential bounty hunter, and anyone can be hacked, spied on (even in their own homes) or interacted with, at the player’s whim. If all these promises do indeed come to fruition, this could be some very impressive AI and will have a big impact on the depth and enjoyability of the game. Check the whole trailer out for yourself below.

There’s one hell of a lot of information in this trailer, especially in the montage of clips towards the end. If you’re interested, I definitely spotted a giant robotic spider at 3:36-7, perched on top of a skyscraper. We’re not sure what this could be, but since it looks a little intriguing we’re putting it to a GD vote.

Watch Dogs will arrive on May 27 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC. The Wii U version will follow at a later date. What do you think of the latest trailer and talk of graphical downgrading? What's with the giant mech spider?

Dead Space free on Origin as the first title in EA's "On The House" promotion

Electronic Arts today made Visceral Games' 2008 horror-action game Dead Space free to download on Origin as part of its newly launched free game promotion called "On The House."

As part of the program, EA will offer up DLC and full games for free. It doesn't sound like EA is going to publish a schedule for when new games and content will be available, as the publisher said these deals can "appear and disappear at any time."



Once you've claimed your free game, it's yours to keep forever, EA said. Why is EA doing this? "We're gamers, too. We appreciate you making Origin your gaming home...and besides, who doesn't like free stuff?" the company said.

The most recent entry in the Dead Space series was 2013's Dead Space 3. After that game underperformed, it was reported that EA had killed off the series, but this later turned out to not be the case. Visceral Games is now working on an unannounced title in the Star Wars franchise.

Respawn Locks Titanfall Cheaters Into Cheater-Only Servers

Respawn has thought of a novel way to sort out its cheating problem in Titanfall.

Rather than kicking them out of Titanfall permanently, they just get lumped together in cheating servers, in what Respawn calls the “Wimbledon of aimbot contests”...

Users hit with Respawn’s mighty banhammer of justice will have a ‘FairFight Cheat detected” message pop on their lobby screen, letting them know that they’ve been banned from the usual servers.



The FairFight detection technology has been busy eyeing up the cheaters since launch, before EA offically began enforcing it a couple of days ago. For those curious to exactly what happens when justice has been served, Respawn make it pretty clear: “Great news: you get to keep playing Titanfall! Less-great news: you only get to play with other cheaters. You can play with other banned players in something that will resemble the Wimbledon of aimbot contests. Hopefully the aimbot cheat you paid for really is the best, or these all-cheater matches could be frustrating for you. Good luck.”

The thought of running around having a shootout with other aimbot users sounds thoroughly depressingly, and as such sounds like a fantastic way to deal with the little blighters. Hurrah, hip-hip and all that.

Don’t worry about being guilty by association either - Respawn has said that while partied up with a cheater you’ll be banned from the normal servers but you won’t be permanently ‘tainted’, free to join the normal folk once you leave the group.

Like Respawn’s tactic for dealing with gaming’s dark underbelly?

Have you been subject to the cheat servers yet?

Aim your bot at the comments section below!

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z review

Hello there,I'm Accel and this is my review on Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z.Bearing about as much resemblance to Ninja Gaiden as a Lada does to a Rolls-Royce, Yaiba is so poor, so ill-thought out and implemented, that it falls flat almost as soon as you've sat down with it.Taking its cue from the Grindhouse craze that stopped being relevant or interesting shortly before it had even started, Ninja Gaiden Z jettisons Ryu Hayabusa as the lead in favour of pitting the eponymous Yaiba against hordes of undead.

Game link: :http://www.yaibangz.com/
Steam link :http://store.steampowered.com/app/252230/



At its very core, there are a few decent ideas that I hope drove Yaiba’s development in the first place. Ryu Hayabusa is about as dry as leads get, so an outspoken foil is the natural reaction. Ninja Gaiden’s realistic visuals aren’t artistically expressive, so a comic-inspired design makes sense. From those tenets, it’s easy to see that they’d extend the outrageousness to the combat, cramming more enemies with crazier moves and weird elemental effects into the fray. Unfortunately, all of those experiments end in disappointment.

Carrying out executions is key to success in Yaiba. Once you've smacked a zombie hard enough he'll pop out an icon signifying his preparedness to be executed, at which point you hit the left trigger to carry out a gory kill cutscene. These icons are fairly forgiving in their lifespan, barely challenging the reaction times of even novice players, and appearing frequently enough that your health bar, which these executions regenerate, will stay reliably topped up.

Difficulty spikes hugely when special zombies appear, but combat options are shallow enough, with no parrying or clever skill-based timed attacks to speak of, that tactics devolve into button-mashing and running away. The by-the-numbers fighting is broken up by the ability to wrench arms and other parts from the defeated corpses of these enemies, briefly granting you their abilities. Hardly game-carrying stuff though.

After taking in the crisp-looking combat in the likes of DmC: Devil May Cry and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the stylistic departure Yaiba makes is not a welcome one. The cartoony visuals really don’t lend themselves to a hack-and-slasher, and we were reminded of this constantly. On the slightly less-offensive side of the spectrum are awful effects, like near-opaque smoke or chunky sprays of water. Far more detrimental are the two measly camera options that either make indoor navigation a chore or keep you so far from the action that you’re likely to get confused during chaotic battles.

You can choose to have an up-close view of Yaiba while fighting instead, but that makes projectile attacks nearly impossible to predict. There’s also not enough enemy variety for our liking, and the non-boss zombie variants that do exist look so similar that you might not be able to tell if the undead creature you’re whaling on in extreme-wide-view is a grenade-dropping kamikaze, a bile-spewing creature, or an electric enemy — at least, not until it’s too late and you’re inflicted with a screen-obscuring ailment.

Woeful camera direction during some encounters renders the game near-unplayable at times, as Yaiba is reduced to a few distant, obscured pixels while the camera attempts to fit the entire scene into view, while interminable and frequent load screens make death a patience-sapping chore. This is an average action game that hoped to be carried by its appealingly crass, bloody art style and audacious main character, but instead Yaiba feels strategically basic and tonally childish. The character may find redemption in the game's plot, but you'll find no such payoff as a player.

I endured hideous games in the name of playing through a fun adventure, but Yaiba is simultaneously frustrating and boring. The concept of various elemental weapons and barriers interacting and combining is interesting, but the execution is far too messy. With the rare exception of minibosses who wear their elements on their sleeve — like the fire-engulfed Holy Roaster and the electric Zombride — you’ll have a hard time figuring out which of the game’s three elements (bile is the third) work best on a given enemy without diving into the game’s far-too-wordy database. When combos do come into play, they often don’t go in your favor. Did an electric attack hit Holy Roaster? Hope you’re far away enough from the chaotic vortex that results, as it’ll engulf everything nearby.

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z seemed to have a noble, reachable goal: create an action game on par with the core Ninja Gaiden series, but with a bit more of an edge. It fails to do that, or to even be a passable form of entertainment. It’s just an ugly game in almost every respect.I think this game deserve a score 5 out of 10. So what do you guys think, share it on the comment section below

Short News Friday #10

InFamous: Second Son has received a Day One free update that adds a whopping 19 additional episodic story missions that will result in around 5 extra hours worth of gameplay, says developer Sucker Punch.

The content will form part of “Paper Trail”, a side-story involving both in-game content and web-based information to help gamers uncover the full tale of how the D.U.P occupied Seattle in the franchise...



Users will get access to new pieces of the content each week for the next 6 weeks. The 300mb update will contain backstory about the world of inFamous: Second Son. According to Sucker Punch, this will work in tandem with web content available through the website enjoyyourpower.com. The Day One update will also apply tweaks pertaining to difficulty, pedestrian and traffic density, and graphical improvements.

As well as the Paper Trail content that will be free for all users, those who pre-ordered the game will gain access to the Cole’s Legacy Content Pack for free too. This contains 4 story missions and around an hour of gameplay, and will cover events immediately following inFamous 2.

InFamous: Second Son hits stores today, and will be available exclusively on PlayStation 4. We’ll be posting our impressions of it in the next few days, so keep an eye open if you want to know what we thought of Delsin and his smoke and neon powers.

What do you think of the extra free content for inFamous: Second Son?

inFAMOUS: Second Son Review

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my review on inFAMOUS: Second Son.I've always wondered what it would be like to be a mutant. And I've played plenty of video games that tried to let me feel like one.But few do it as effectively as Sony's Infamous: Second Son. The third game in Sony's anti-hero franchise (and the first on the PlayStation 4) seems stripped right from the world of the X-Men, driven by ideas of prejudice, and Big Brother, and a world that can't accept what it doesn't understand.

Game link:http://www.suckerpunch.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=68&Itemid=126



The game starts you off with a smoke-based ability, but it doesn't take long for a wider arsenal of powers to be at your disposal. In open-world games, I normally like to clear entire regions of side activities before moving on to the story content. In this game, I recommend playing through enough of the campaign to get the three primary power sets before hunting down secret agents and audio logs through the open streets of military-occupied Seattle.

Smoke, your first ability set, is great for clearing large groups of enemies at medium range. Dissolving into a puff of ashes and flowing into a vent, only to be launched like a chimney-propelled grenade and slam back down to the streets with a shockwave-inducing slam, is visually impressive and endlessly entertaining.

The Neon powers encourage more high-precision tactics. Sniping at enemies slows down time enough for you to vaporize them with headshots or disable them by going for the legs. The lightspeed ability, meanwhile, turns Second Son into the best video game interpretation of the comic-book character Flash that i never played, letting players blink through streets and run up walls.

The game has main, story-progressing missions that you'll need to complete, but the whole city is open to you right away. Seattle is broken up into districts, and the map tells you precisely how many collectable shards, breakable cameras, graffiti spots, and other side content is available in each district. Clearing out a district triggers a "takeover" mission where you have to fight off a handful of troops. Doing this clears out random patrols of enemy soldiers and enables fast travel to that zone... but since you have to travel to a fast travel point to actually fast travel, I think I used that twice throughout the entire game.

Overall, the game has a lot of great main missions, and though the side missions and collectables are very easy to handle, the side content isn't unique at all, and simply gets duplicated across every district in the game. It's a portion of the game that doesn't overstay its welcome, and I ended up completing 100% of the game right around the time I got tired of tracking down secret agents and engaging with the very simple graffiti stenciling mechanic.

The finest moments are when you run into groups of regular people protesting against Conduits, less because they dislike your kind and more because they know nothing about your kind. Do you leave them alone or stand up for yourself? These moments feel right, even if Reggie chimes in a bit too predictably here.

One of the biggest draws of Second Son has to be its graphics. This is a fantastic-looking game, from the character models to the animation to the world itself. Delsin and the other main characters are extremely well-animated, allowing the models to convey proper, subtle emotion. The world and its lighting really goes a long way, too, especially in the opening sequences and the game's larger setpieces. Even outside of cutscenes, the characters have a level of detail to them that you don't see in a lot of other games, and the whole thing runs at a good, stable frame rate. The entire city of Seattle looks splendid, too, complete with day and night and rain and sunshine.

The performances from the voice cast really come through in the visuals and the main characters are very well-performed, even if it occasionally feels like Sucker Punch went out and hired the most common and frequently used voice actors they could find..

By far I personally think that this is the best game that I played for this year. (although the year just start and I've not completed it yet) I would give this game a score 8.5 out of 10.I would highly recommend for those who had the PS4 to buy it right now. So what dou you guys think. Let me know in the comment section down below

New Nintendo eShop releases: Pokemon Battle Trozei, Yumi's Odd Odyssey

This week's headline new release is Pokemon Battle Trozei, a game that mixes the series' trademark critter-battling with one of gaming's most prolific genres, the match-3 puzzler. If you've caught 'em all in Pokemon X/Y, you can get reacquainted with every known Pokemon in Battle Trozei - at last count, there were 7,543,207 known species of Pokemon. So it might take you a while.



Moving on, games are always finding new ways to enliven the art of fishing, and Yumi's Odd Odyssey tries it by mixing the pastime with platforming. Yumi breaks all kinds of fishing etiquette in the 3DS game, from using her line to swing and catapult over gaps to beating up all kinds of piscine enemies. She's a fishing renegade, that Yumi.

There are a few new sales and offers to close things out: Renegade Kid has a 30 percent sale on select 3DS games including Mutant Mudds, ATV Wild Ride 3D and Bomb Monkey, while Nordic Games is discounting some of its Wii U games including Jeapordy and Wheel of Fortune. Finally, Nintendo is offering free access to all of Wii Sports Club between March 21 9AM PT and midnight PT on March 23.

As ever,I got this week's full list of new releases after the break.

Wii U
Volleyball (Nintendo, 2 players simultaneous, $5)
Hello Kitty Kruisers (Bergsala Lightweight LLC, up to 4 players, available March 21, $20)
Pure Chess (Ripstone, 2 players alternating, $8)


3DS
Pokemon Battle Trozei (Nintendo, 1 player, $8)
Pure Chess (Ripstone, 2 players alternating, $8)
Yumi's Odd Odyssey (Natsume, 1 player, $30)

Plauge Inc. Evolved Early Review

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my early review on Plague Inc. Evolved. This game started its life as a mobile game, the developer who from what I’ve read created it in his free time attempted to use as accurate modelling as possible whilst making the game fun, it’s now coming to PC and is currently an Early Access title on Steam. 

Game link: http://www.ndemiccreations.com/en/25-plague-inc-evolved

Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/246620/

The game itself is a little grim in its nature, the player controls the genetic makeup of a disease, altering the traits of the disease according to need. Progression occurs as the player unlocks new types of disease; bacteria, virus, fungus and so on. An interesting tid-bit of information is the fact that the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) took an interest in the game when it was still on the mobile platform and hosted the developer at their headquarters where they talked with him about the game, how the spreading algorithms and such worked and even gave some feedback on improving the title. When a game focussed on disease spreading is picked up on by the CDC there’s certainly some interest to be shown,

The main screen of Plague Inc. is a world map which is broken down into the various nations on the planet, each of which have different properties which alter how they respond to infection. This information is all available in an info screen and it is wise to take note of the information provided. Wealth, climate, population, population density and level of development are all measured and will alter the uptake of your disease. These nations are interconnected via land routes but also by sea and airports, each of which can be shut down or limited, requiring different genetic adaptations. 

The disease itself can be modified initially with genetic boosters which are unlockable through completing elements of the game and will give an initial stat bonus to your disease. Then during the game the disease has modifiable transmission traits, symptoms and abilities. These are unlocked with the DNA resource and follow a tech-tree style unlock style. The three different trees are not mutually exclusive and changes in one will combine with changes in another, for example certain symptoms can make transmission far more likely especially when combined with certain transmission traits or abilities. 

Progression occurs through the unlockable differing disease types and this goes some way to breaking up some of the repetition involved as the disease types essentially create different game modes and require differing strategies. The bacteria for example is fairly easy to control and can be dispersed quietly before becoming lethal however other later unlocks have time sensitive natures or progress out of control and need differing strategies.

The modelling is really quite well done, what with the variables I mentioned above combined with symptomatic variables arising on an individual victim scale whilst having a significant effect. It is possible to include neurological effects in the disease which depending on how many points are sunk into it will produce anything from insomnia to paranoia to a complete degeneration of cognitive functions. These in turn alter how the those with the disease respond, whether they go to see a doctor or not etc. 

This leads neatly onto the opposition to your onslaught, the human anti-epidemic response and search for a cure. If you disease becomes seemingly threatening enough it will be noticed by disease researchers in one place or another, they will in turn begin funding research into finding a cure. As you become more threatening the funding and cure progress will likely increase, and if the cure is completed and distributed before humanity is eliminated you are eradicated and lose. This is one of the key factors that determine how you develop your disease, as maintaining a relatively low status until a reasonable spread has been attained is necessary. 

It is this factor that makes some of the later disease types more challenging as you are either forced to do things such as race an already in development cure or attempt to spread faster than your disease can become lethal. A variety of methods are available for slowing down cure development, the above neurological symptoms can go a long way especially with a high infection percentage, but there are also abilities that can make the disease more drug resistant or introduce various genetically different strains which will stretch research budgets. This is really where the strategy in the game comes in to play with a surprising depth as more challenging disease types are unlocked although I still find myself playing it windowed in addition to something else.

The game is currently Windows only and I haven’t seen any indication of other platforms being supported, but maybe we can hope. Performance-wise this is a mobile port so i wouldn’t worry too much about not being able to run it, if something can run reasonably on a mid-range ARM chip then even a reasonably elderly PC should be able to run it, Intel iGPU users rejoice. Pricing is… difficult; at £11.99 (approx $20.00) it’s rather pricey even if it does do away with those nasty in-app microtransactions. Evolved has everything unlocked and that price will net you the entire game, so it already feels better than the mobile version. If the game sounds like your kind of thing then I’d say it was worthwhile picking up now for that price, however if not then I’d wait until it’s out of Early Access and maybe watch some videos of the final product. I personally have had fun with it and will continue playing at after this review.I'd like to give this game a score 8 out of 10.

It Will Take 100 Hours To See And Do Everything In Watch Dogs

Pack heavy, your stay in Chicago could be a lengthy one, according to Watch Dogs creative director Jonathan Morin.

Looking to follow the Assassin’s Creed template of ‘more is better’, Watch Dogs will reportedly take forty hours for those ploughing through the story missions. Those who want to see and do everything in Watch Dogs though, will be at it for a staggering one hundred hours…



While we’ve yet to get any extensive information on how the single-player campaign in Watch Dogs unfolds, initial previews seem to indicate that it will be an Assassin’s Creed-like experience. Hacking terminals can unveil the landmarks around you, while there’s set to be countless distractions, mini-games and missions designed to suck you into its world.

So, Watch Dogs is looking to be a pretty hefty game, and that’s without taking into account the Dark Souls-esque invasion multiplayer, which also includes open-world meandering for up to eight players in any one city.

Alongside this news Australia Classification Board (ACB) has also confirmed that there is new content in Watch Dogs, introduced since the initially classified version pre-delay.

“The entire development team has been working hard to polish and fine tune Watch Dogs in order to deliver a truly memorable open world game. In parallel, the extra time also allowed the team to include a bit of additional content,” said Ubisoft in a statement.

“As per Australian classification guidelines, Ubisoft resubmitted the updated version with the added content to the Australian Classification Board. The decision to amend the rating of the game from MA15+ to R18+ was made by the ACB.”

No word just yet on exactly what the new content is, but the ACB report mentions scenes of sexual violence, in missions which deal with human trafficking.

What’s your thoughts on the length of Watch Dogs?Do you think Watch Dogs will be a distinct enough experience from Assassin’s Creed to stand apart?

Head on down to the comments section below and let me know your thoughts!

Short News Friday #9

InFamous: Second Son comes exclusively to PlayStation 4 this time next week, but if you can’t wait that long to get your fix of wanton, mindless violence and destruction, never fear! Sucker Punch has released an official 8 minutes of play-through showing the “Evil Karma” path players opt for as the control protagonist Delsin…

The trailer also shows the influence Delsin Rowe can exert over the young conduit Fetch, who joins in to assist the protagonist in this section of inFamous: Second Son gameplay...

In the gameplay footage, Department of Unified Protection troops, anti-conduit activists and innocent passers by feel the wrath of Fetch and Delsin’s powers. The footage shows some of the range of Delsin’s combat ability, which ranges from blasting cars and people with fireballs, earthquake-like range attacks to flaming headlocks and a good old-fashioned kick in the head.

There's also plenty of free-running around the city, where Delsin can suck neon from lit signs to boost his own powers.inFamous: Second Son comes to PlayStation 4 on the 21st March, meaning you can get hold of a copy of the game from next Friday?

Are you itching to try inFamous: Second Son? Will you be opting to play for good karma or evil karma?Let me know what you think in the comment area.

Microsoft Says Official Xbox One Controller Support Will Come To PC Before End Of Year

Since the launch of the Xbox One back in November, there have been few noises from Microsoft regarding PC compatibility with the Xbox One controller: as of yet, there are no drivers that enable easy use of the next-gen controller with PC.



Now, according to product planning director for Microsoft Albert Penello, it seems Microsoft are planning to release drivers that enable PC gamers to use Xbox One controllers on their home desktops before the end of the year...“The plan is this year,” Penello said earlier this week. “When the update comes out and we have more details, I can explain the holdup.”

He went on to say that once updates are released, the Xbox One controller should work in wired mode with no additional hardware required for compatibility. Wireless mode seems at present to be a matter a little more up for discussion. Whilst Penello underlined that Microsoft is looking at options for wireless compatibility, “First order is getting the wired controller working.”

He also was quick to deny that those who already own an Xbox One controller would need to buy a new, separate one to use on PC once they are compatible.“There is no plan to do a new, separate controller that only works on Windows. It will be the same as it is on Xbox 360 - the Xbox One controller you have today will work.”

Of course, if you can’t wait until the official drivers come out, there are more complicated ways of getting next-gen controllers to work by fooling your PC into thinking they’re Xbox 360 controllers. Modded drivers could also arrive within months. However, it looks like we still might have a little bit longer to wait for an official way of getting around the issue.

Are you keen to get hold of an Xbox One controller that’s compatible with your PC, or is it rather low on your gaming priorities? What do you think support for Xbox One controllers will bring to the gaming table?

Let me know what you think.

Strider 2014 review

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my review on Strider 2014. Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden and Strider,Augmented ninjas seem to be a theme in the first quarter of 2014,there’s no shortage of cyber assassins who favor the direct approach over stealth.These are also two games that represent the recent trend of development collaborations with Western studios on Japanese game properties. It’s been a hit-or-miss as with most gaming trends: for every remarkable Metroid Prime you have a forgettable Front Mission Evolved. In fact, the latter was developed by Double Helix, the same studio that’s collaborating with Capcom on Strider. So naturally, my reaction to the game’s announcement was met with skepticism. This made playing the final version all the more satisfying since, as it turns out, this reimagining of Strider is the second best installment in the series, behind the seminal 1989 arcade co-op game.

Game link: http://www.doublehelixgames.com/
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/235210/



First impressions paint Double Helix's new Strider with a decidedly arcade-styled brush. Main character Hiryu practically gallops across the world, climbing walls and ceilings. His jumps can be shifted mid-air, with the series' trademark cartwheel in place. There's an action-oriented bent toward the controls.

But this new Strider isn't linear. Instead, Hiryu's new adventure takes place across a massive world of interconnected zones, similarly to the series' NES debut. At first, that world seems seductively open. Strider begins with considerably more player agency and ability than other exploration-based games, and the speed and finesse on display made it a joy to just ... sort of ... run around.

Before long, however, you’ll find power-ups that deepen the combat in satisfying ways: a slide kick for avoiding foes, a charge strike for smashing through enemy shields, kunai for ranged attacks, robotic-animal assault drones, four types of plasma energy to augment your blows (including one that deflects enemy shots), and more. The frantic combat evolves into a stylish display of chaotic fun that succeeds in large part due to the responsive controls.

Additionally, each new power-up works like a key that lets you access new areas of the map, and Strider’s dystopian world simply begs to be explored. As you journey from the outskirts of Kazakh City to deep underground and high into the sky, you’ll often encounter creative (yet familiar) environments and bosses. You’ll climb ornate Russian architecture, fight a giant mechanical gorilla, battle it out in reverse gravity, and invade the enormous flying battleship Balrog, often to catchy remixes of classic Strider tunes. (Too bad the all-new music is fairly forgettable.) There are even some intense platforming sections that combine deadly obstacles, tricky aerial maneuvering, and creative use of Hiryu's abilities to bring back old-school levels of challenge.

Despite the initial reports of Strider’s ‘Metroidvania’ inspired design, the game doesn’t get quite that ambitious. Yes, it has its share of backtracking and incentives to explore, but you can’t help but feel that the overall map could have benefitted from a couple more rounds of revisions. Some of the areas are especially—and impressively—expansive. If you break a grate with a downward attack, don’t be surprised if you break through multiple floors.

 Even when you focus on the objective marker, many levels tease you with alternate paths and locked doors, so make sure to make a mental note to check those areas out later. Sometimes, the next platform you should jump to is off-screen, forcing you to make a leap of faith in the hopes that you land on something, anything. And these levels can be quite large as well. The second area alone takes longer to clear than the original arcade game.

Strider forced me to constantly re-evaluate my combat strategy. Upon entering a new area, you might find enemies who are functionally immune to your current arsenal, necessitating flight instead of engagement. In this way, enemies can be as gated as sections of the map — making it all the sweeter when I came back more than ready to smash everyone who stood in my way.

This creates an overlapping set of incentives to revisit and explore old areas. With new tools, you're less fragile, and have more access. And as you explore, you can find additional enhancements to new abilities in addition to the health and energy power-ups that I found so vital to my survival later on. There are even alternate costumes to find, each of which tells the story of a fallen Strider comrade.

Unfortunately, as enjoyable as navigating the world generally is, it can get confusing at times, especially near the end if you’re trying to find missed collectibles. A few other problems — an abundance of dark foregrounds that detract from the graphics, and the inexcusable decision to use only a single save slot — also prevent the game from being as good as it could be. These are minor complaints, however, about a predominantly excellent title that’s a worthy successor to the Strider name. I would give this game a score 8 out of 10.Believe me you will have a lot of fun with this game.

PlayStation-exclusive Infamous series originally began as an Animal Crossing-style game

The origins of the PlayStation-exclusive Infamous series probably aren't what you expect. Sucker Punch Productions cofounder Chris Zimmerman told GameSpot that after moving on from the Sly Cooper games, the studio's idea for what would become Infamous had a lot in common with Nintendo's Animal Crossing series.



"The original idea for Infamous, believe it or not, was that it was kind of Animal Crossing, but you were a super hero," Zimmerman said. The Animal Crossing franchise is known for its deep social features, and similar elements were planned for the original vision of Infamous.

"All kinds of crazy stuff like that," Zimmerman said. "We worked on that for about a year in that direction. So much more stylized, much more cartoony than what you end up seeing. We worked hard to see if we could make that work."

Zimmerman explained that Sucker Punch did a lot of interesting experimentation with this version of Infamous and even created multiple prototypes.

One of the game's original pitches had players fighting a gang of purple gorillas who were stealing balloons. However, "it really wasn't coming together" and Sucker Punch instead shifted focus to the version Infamous as we know it today.

Unfortunately, I don't have any images of this very early version of Infamous to share.

The next installment in the Infamous series is this month's Infamous: Second Son, which launches March 21 exclusively for the PlayStation 4. For more on Infamous: Second Son, check out GameSpot's just-published coverage from our trip to their studio in Bellevue, Washington.

South Park:The Stick Of Truth review

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my review on South Park:The Stick Of Truth.It’s no secret that video games based on movies and television programmes suck.Or, to borrow a phrase from Eric Cartman, the Grand High Wizard of the KKK, they “suck b****”.They are half-assed, rushed, and generic. And, are usually a cynical attempt to wring a few dollars out of loyal fans who know they are probably going to be let down but just can’t help reaching for their wallet.

Game link:http://southpark.ubi.com/stickoftruth/en-gb/home/index.aspx
Steam link:http://store.steampowered.com/app/213670/




So, if I said I was pleasantly surprised with the much delayed South Park: The Stick of Truth, it would be a massive understatement.In the game you are the new kid in town. You move in next door to Butters and are immediately drawn into the battle between the Grand High Wizard’s human forces and the Drow Elf King’s dark elf army.


You bounce around the town, fast travelling with the help of Timmy, searching houses, garages, and businesses. Completing story and side missions. And fighting giant rats, aliens, zombies, and dire bears.

The battle mechanic involves you and one little buddy, in the beginning it’s Butters but eventually you can choose from six characters, facing off against single or multiple enemies.When it’s your turn you can take a health or buff potion then summon help, use a special or magical attack, or resort to a simple ranged or melee attack. It’s standard stuff, that is thankfully kept fresh by how imaginative, and disgusting, the attacks are.

But throughout all the inventory management, special skill upgrading, vomit, blood, and excrement, the game stays completely faithful to the television show.This means that, like the show, the game will say and show ANYTHING


If Parker and Stone think it’s funny to throw poo at something (metaphorically or not), or even funnier to get a video game character to do the throwing for them, then they will.Which leads nicely, or rather unpleasantly, into the game’s rating. The Stick of Truth is an R16 title, and deservedly so.The language is full on, there are no television bleeps here.


But, beyond that, if you take the time to play through the game you’ll see things that you’ve never seen in a video game before (even though you’ll spend the rest of the year praying you could un-see them).As mentioned already there’s poo throwing. There’s a lot of farting, epic tea-bagging, a touch of paedophilia, and dildo fighting - if you’re into that kind of thing.Also, if you’ve been paying attention to recent gaming news, you’ll know there’s, worst of all, alien anal probing! Even if it has been censored.


You can max out your character at level 15 well within eight hours.

Also, I found that the sound fell out of sync with the pictures, sometimes so badly it skipped dialogue to catch up.

On top of this there’s no multiplayer, nothing to do online, and only four classes to choose from. Unfortunately, you can’t switch classes within the story so if you want to see all their abilities you’ll have to start four new games.

There are also the usual complaints associated with turn based RPGs. If you’re not into the whole RPG thing the battles get a bit repetitive.Although you can’t call it grinding because the game isn’t long enough for it to be an issue.

Despite the game’s limitations, developers’ Obsidian Entertainment has, with a lot of input from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, produced a very enjoyable game. It looks fantastic, bold and bright, just like the television show.The voice acting is perfect. You meet and interact with more than a hundred South Park characters. And did I mention it’s laugh out loud funny?


It’s impossible to give examples without spoiling the jokes.

Usually in a game review I’d mention a few awesome high level abilities, describe the odd set piece, and quote a few one-liners to give an idea of what you can expect from the game.

But, the jokes are such a big part of the game’s fun I’d hate to give anything away.So in the end,i will give this game a score 8 out of 10.

IGNORE THIS...... EMILLLL

Short Friday News #8

Amid the excitement of yesterday’s Watch Dogs release date announcement some news slipped out about the PC version, and most importantly how it’ll be running on some rigs.

First things first, Watch Dogs began development on PC, so Ubisoft Montreal believes that it should look fantastic on PC. Despite also releasing on the previous-gen consoles though, if you’re hoping to get away with running it on an older rig, you’d probably best think again…


The Watch Dogs PC version scales based on the sort of computer you're running it on, though the team made the decision "not too scale down too much," according to Watch Dogs' senior producer Dominic Guay. "I mean you can always say we support a 10-year-old PC and then it's barely playable, but that's ugly. It's not really what people want to play. We didn't do that. We didn't go there. We said, ‘OK, we advertise that at the recommended setting it's going to be a good experience. It's going to look good, it's not going to look like a 10-year-old game.' So we're not going to support very old PCs.”

For those of you who’ve spent some big bucks on your gaming PC though, well, you’re in luck. “If you have very powerful PCs, then it'll scale up, and it scale up to even higher resolution, obviously, than you can have on PS4 or Xbox One,” Guay continued. "So you can have, in theory, a version that will look spectacular if you have that big screen, that high resolution capability. The game looks great on PC."

When development began on Watch Dogs it was before Ubisoft had got wind of the next-gen consoles. They knew they were coming but they didn’t what they when or when they’d arrive. To compensate for this Ubisoft Montreal developed it for PC first, knowing they could upscale it or downscale it as necessary for whichever platforms it would release on. "When we started developing, the PS3 existed, the Xbox 360 existed, and we kind of suspected, maybe, there might be other platforms eventually," Guay said. "So, because we thought that would happen we chose the PC as our first target to have when we started developing Watch Dogs so that we have the flexibility to adapt to a different platform. So PC has always been around for us. Sometimes it's a last-minute port of sorts. For us, it's been around since we started."

Good news for PC gamers, but also a tacit admission perhaps that many PC ports are rushed out the door quickly…

The Watch Dogs release date was officially unveiled yesterday. Watch Dogs will release worldwide on May 27th for PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360. A Wii U version is expected some time later.Do you think the final Watch Dogs system requirements will be as high as the specs leaked all those months ago?

What do you make of the admission that sometimes the PC version of games is “a last-minute port of sorts”? Share it on the comment section down below.

Asus Reportedly Developing Monstrous Dual R9-290X

Asus is a lot like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory at the moment. The gates are closed but we can clearly see the smoke rising out of the chimneys. We know their Oompa Loompas are hard at work.

Luckily though, you don’t need a golden ticket to find out what’s really going on inside, as Asus HQ has sprung a leak. Rumours are abound that they are working on an incredibly powerful dual-Hawaii GPU, the Radeon R9-290X-X2…


The new dual-GPU monster is expected to be the continuation of its high-end ARES series, namely the ARES III. The specs of the card are enough to make to make your eyes water and your wallet take a long walk off a short pier. As it is already the Radeon R9 290X runs hot enough to heat a small housing project, so it comes equipped with Asus’ own AIO liquid loop system to stop it overheating. The radiator mounts onto the card and in theory keeps it cool and quiet.

Specs-wise the Asus ARES III R9-290X-X2 (truly rolls off the tongue) comes locked and loaded with 2816 stream processors on each of its two Hawaii XT cores, for a combined total of 5632. Along with is it’s packing 176 texture mapping units, 64 ROPs and 8 gigs of VRAM, running on a 512-bit memory bus. This should be capable of maxing out pretty much any game under the Sun, and would certainly make a good choice for those brave souls attempting to join the 4K revolution.

The price point of this beast is expected to be in the region of $1500, so this is most definitely a high-end product and we don’t expect a great number to be made. It’s not just the cost of the card to take into account either, as the ASUS ROG ARES III R9-290X-X2 requires 3 PCI express connectors and pulls a whopping 500w TDP. This is equal to around £130/$218 running costs per year in the UK.Asus is thought to be planning to release the ARES 3, codenamed Vesuvius, sometime in Q2 2014.

What do you make of this monster of a new card? Share it on the comment section below.

Rambo The Video Game

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my review on Rambo The Video Game. This is a Rambo game simulator developed by Teyon and published by Reef Entertainment. This game is released on 21 February 2014 on Microsoft Windows, PS3 and Xbox 360. Here the surprise,it was a bad game.

Game link: http://www.rambothevideogame.com/
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/274130/ (If you're that hardcore)



Rambo: The Video Game is one of those first-person, rail-shooting, points-accumulating games and is based on, you guessed it, the Rambo series of movies. As mentioned above, it’s only based on the first three: First Blood (1982), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and Rambo III (1988) - there is no sign of the poorly received 2008 endeavour, which is almost definitely a good thing. So, essentially what we have is a game based on a film franchise over a quarter of a century old, depicted by a genre of gaming which hasn’t been bettered since Time Crisis 2 found its way into video arcades back in 1998.

Your goal is simple: move the reticule across the screen until you’re over an enemy. On-rails shooters aren’t ever really more than passable without a light gun, and there are too many imperfections here to fully enjoy anything. Firstly, there’s a wonky sort of auto-aim that can instantly throw your aim off by an entire screen, and secondly there’s a weird speed compensation that means that you never quite get used to using your analogue stick. You end up not being able to move quickly, and having your shot second-guessed by the computer when you get there anyway.

This quickly becomes a big problem. One of the opening levels has you shooting cops, but you’re not supposed to actually kill them, as this makes you lose points. Instead, you shoot the weapon or arms and disarm them. Problematically, there’s almost no control over where you can aim, and not very much in the way of differentiation between shooting in the legs and shooting in the head; you have to hit the scalp for it to count as a headshot. It’s a major issue, but one that the developers didn’t seem to mind too much, as it built two or three early levels around this mechanic.

Rambo is no looker, but the PC build managed to shatter our low expectations by being visually acceptable for a low-budget title at maximum settings. It's clear that optimisation was left to the very last minute, since gameplay is vastly superior to every trailer I've seen, especially in terms of texture quality. Gameplay is also infinitely more handsome than the cutscenes, which as mentioned, were clearly recorded from the shonkiest of early production builds at the lowest possible bitrate. I can't speak for the quality of the PS3 and Xbox 360 ports, and the enemy hordes ought to have more than two faces between them, yet I was pleasantly surprised by the PC version without being blown away.

QTEs present yet another issue. Unless played on the easiest setting, the game’s QTEs are at times unrelenting and often so clunky that button mashing trumps finesse. In an almost premonitory move, the game itself provides an unlockable skill which renders the player invincible to QTEs - the only downside being that in turn they are provided with less skill points used to unlock other perks. Certain missions attempt to utilize QTEs in stealth mode as Rambo stalks enemies armed with just a blade, however, again, the game-on-rails infliction dilutes any sort of atmosphere or tension.

If nothing else convinces you not to buy this game, this should be the last straw: sometimes you’ll shoot something and it’ll go straight through the enemy. In the final mission, you’re given a grenade launcher, and a decent amount of the time there’ll be an explosion miles behind whatever you’re aiming at. This probably contributes towards the huge difficulty spike in the last few stages.I played on the medium setting, but with only five lives allowed and uneven checkpointing, I found it next to impossible to actually clear the last level.

Thankfully, it wouldn’t have stayed impossible, as there’s a levelling and perk system that allows you to upgrade and boost attributes. Extra health and damage makes things easier, and allows you to replay for as long as you need to. This is all good and well, but it seems to have affected the actual difficulty. The balance is off if you need to level in a very specific way.

Much like the movies, Rambo: The Video Game may not be taking itself entirely seriously throughout its two to three hour duration, but nonetheless it is hard not get frustrated at its lack of depth in so many areas. A co-op mode can be activated if you have access to a PC-friendly Xbox controller, however even this mode feels like it’s been done better elsewhere in the past - not least in SNK’s 1986 Rambo-a-like, Ikari Warriors.

I’d love to think that there was somebody out there that was desperate to play an on-rails version of the first three Rambo films, and that there’s a reason for this game to exist. Sadly, I suspect that that may just be wishful thinking. It’s more likely, then, that the developers thought that a popular name and a cheap budget would turn a profit – and with a boxed product and the promise of DLC on the way.I would give this game a score 3 out of 10. So what about you, did you have the balls to play this game. Share on the comment section below.

Nintendo Investor Suggests Including In-game Purchases

Shortly after I came aross about the European Commission cracking down on the marketing of “free-to-play” games with in app purchases, I came across this gem,

A key shareholder at Nintendo has written to company president Satoru Iwata asking him to consider in-app purchases for future first-party Nintendo games...



“Just think of paying 99 cents just to get Mario to jump a little higher,” hedge fund manager Seth Fischer said in a letter to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. Trust us, Seth, we’ve thought about it long and hard. It made us shudder a little.

Hear that, guys? It doesn’t matter that we’ve been managing to navigate generations of Super Mario Bros with a perfectly regular, unenhanced jumps. We now get to make a fun and challenging game MINDLESS and EASY for the bargain price of $0.99.

“We believe Nintendo can create very profitable games based on in-game revenue models with the right development team,” Fischer went on. “The same people who spent hours playing Super Mario, Donkey Kong, and Legend of Zelda as children are now a demographic whose engagement on the smartphone is valued by the market at well over $100 billion.”

Nintendo is a great company that have done a hell of a lot for the progression of game development over the years, and it’s sad to see it struggling with console sales for the last 18 months or so. Suggestions like this will do little to curb claims of mismanagement and botched marketing at Nintendo, and no doubt is indicative of wider shareholder fears about Nintendo’s financials.

But however tempting it might be to submit to the easy cash flow that comes with in-app purchasing, plenty of games that have come before have illustrated gamers’ dislike and mistrust of microtransactions, and this can only damage a company’s credibility in the long run. Nintendo have so far stayed out of the mobile sphere when it comes to gaming, but we imagine there are few gamers who would choose purchase-ridden 3DS games over Nintendo expanding to mobile markets...

What do you think of Fischer's suggestion? How do you think Nintendo should move forward?

Let me know what you think!

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 review

Hello there, I'm Accel and this is my review on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 review.This is an action-adventure hack & slashes game where you control Gabriel Belmont now as a vampire.This game is developed by MercurySteam and published by Konami.This game is released on 28 February 2014 on PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC.

Game link: http://www.konami-castlevania.com/castlevania-lords-of-shadow-2/
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/239250/



The last few years have seen some of Japan's biggest names attempting to resurrect tired franchises with the assistance of Western studios, not always with any great success. Still, for every Lost Planet 3, Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City and Bionic Commando, there has been the odd success, most notably Ninja Theory's DMC: Devil May Cry and Mercury Steam's Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. By combining the combat of a God of War or Devil May Cry with the vampire lore of Castlevania, then adding great monsters, creepy settings and colossal bosses, the latter became one if the surprise action hits of 2012, and laid the groundwork for what should have been a Castlevania revival.

That's should have been, because Lords of Shadow 2 isn't nearly so satisfying. It's an accomplished brawler with high production values that's genuinely great in parts, but it’s too baroque, too confused and too wildly incoherent to meet the standards set by its prequel. What's good really is very good, but there's not nearly enough of it. And the not-so-good stuff? Well, there’s far, far too much of that.

The game starts with a bang: about a thousand of them, in fact, as a gigantic war golem smashes into Dracula's castle, leading to a God of War-style opening that sets a pace the rest of the game can't match. Not that MercurySteam should necessarily have attempted non-stop bombast. But Lords of Shadow 2 is curiously flat thereafter, devolving into a series of near-automated platforming and enemy encounters that fail to stimulate and, thanks to the camera, even outright frustrate.

Combat is further fleshed out around two other weapons that you reclaim along the way: The Void Sword and the Chaos Claws. Once obtained, you can equip either one with the touch of a shoulder button. Each weapon has its own inherent ability – the Void Sword recovers your health with each connected hit and the Chaos Claws break enemy armor – and they each have their own Skills and mastery gauge. These weapons require magic though, which you can refill at altars or by performing uninterrupted combos.

The magic adds a degree of strategy to the combat, as resource management becomes important. There are items you can collect along the way that refill your health and magic, but using the Void Sword becomes an essential part of the game. The Chaos Claws are similarly vital. Switching between the various weapons and learning the different combat styles takes practice.

Sadly, enemy design and the fights themselves aren't up to much, often requiring the same tactics over and over to defeat your foes. Each seems to ascribe to one of two default modes: turtle or rush, and despite your offensive options there's not much joy in fighting them. Figuring out your opponents is the heart of any combat game, but here they're neither smart enough to pose an interesting challenge nor dumb or numerous enough to make you feel like, well, Dracula.

The whole concept bears much of the blame. Lords of Shadow was - ingeniously - an origin story, slowly revealing how the heroic Gabriel Belmont turns away from the light to become Castlevania's Dracula, so cursing his line for generations to come. Lords of Shadow 2? Well, after many hours of play I still not entirely sure what it's about. Gabriel/Dracula is struck down in a confrontation with good Christian invaders, who clearly take an exception to the presence of vampire princes in their midst, and awakens several centuries later in a skewed version of our modern world.

Players spend time in two connected worlds in CLOS2, Castlevania City and Dracula's own displaced palace. They connect at specific parts of the map and you can wander around off-path in the gameworld. The execution generally holds true to the time-honored 'Vania principles of recursive exploraion and progress: go get another power/item to get to that other place you couldn't get to before.P

But the level design all too often makes exploration a boring chore, with areas that look frustratingly similar and pathways that are obnoxiously obscured. In the latter part of the game, I fought off wave after wave of respawning enemies while trying to get at an exit obscured by a vertical pathway I'd used before. Cool, I must need to go there again, right? That's what Castlevania games are all about! Nope. The place I needed to go was behind the ladder I was climbing like an idiot for 20 minutes. Either point me at the right place or not, CLOS2; don't half-ass it and throw an endless wave of big demons at me at the same time.

Beyond this, however, things go horribly wrong. Come on, hands up, who thought stealth sequences featuring insta-kill guards were a great idea? Not only do the oversized armoured goons look like Quake 2’s Strogg, but it seems ridiculous that Gabriel can’t just rip through them when he’s sliced and battered his way through several screen-filling bosses already. Why add a mechanic where you can shift between the two worlds if you’re not going to use it to do anything interesting? It’s not like there aren’t enough great dual-world games to learn from. Why hire top-grade actors – Robert Carlyle plays Gabriel and Patrick Stewart phones in Zobek – if you’re not going to give them decent dialogue? And why pad things out with so many tedious, needlessly-protracted sections when you could have had a better game that lasted half the time?

Even visually, Lords of Shadow 2 can’t get things consistently right. For all the fine Gothic art-design in Gabriel’s costume and the castle, some of the character models are horrific in all the wrong ways, and the architecture and textures in the modern setting couldn’t be more generic or bland. If Lords of Shadow felt like the work of a small studio punching above its weight, this feels like the work of the same studio stretched to breaking point.

Lords of Shadow bought the classic vampire series back to life, but the sequel seems hell-bent on putting it back six feet under. Somewhere in here there’s a decent game with strong mechanics and a rich, Gothic art style, but it’s buried beneath an incomprehensible mess of a story, an ugly modern setting and a mass of unnecessary flab. A grave disappointment.I would give this game a dissapointing 5.5 out of 10.So what do you guys think? Be sure to let me know in the comment section down below.