TIMESHIFT

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Saber Interactive

Publisher : Sierra Entertainment

Engine : Saber3D Engine , Havok 4.5 For The Physics

Genre : Sci-Fi First-Person Shooter

Release Date : October 30 , 2007

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon 64 3800+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 256 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 7600 Series
ATI : Radeon X1650 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 8 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Scientists from the near future have begun work on creating a viable time machine. The project results in the creation of two devices, the Alpha Suit, a less advanced prototype jump suit, and the Beta Suit, a more advanced, so-called military grade model with features the Alpha Suit lacks such as combat-related timeshifting abilities and an integrated artificial intelligence to prevent the creation of temporal paradoxes. The director of the project, Dr. Aiden Krone, takes the Alpha Suit and travels into the past. Once there he alters the timeline, placing himself as the ruler of the Krone Magistrate that controls a dystopic world. The protagonist, a fellow scientist whose name is never spoken (never mentioned in the game or manual), then takes the Beta Suit and follows Dr. Krone back to the year 1939 (in an alternate timestream) to a place called Alpha District. He then proceeds to assist the Occupant Rebellion against Dr. Krone. He is confronted eventually by Krone in giant war-machine which nearly destroys the Occupant Rebellion, but succeeds in destroying it. As an incapacitated Krone emerges from the wreckage, the protagonist walks up to him and kills him. He is thanked by the Occupant commander and returns to the beginning of the game to save his girlfriend who had been killed by the explosion Krone had caused. He shuts down the bomb and walks up to his girlfriend, who begins to wake up and reaches out to him but does not know who he is. As he begins to remove his mask the AI in the suit cries out the alert that a paradox is imminent, and transports him away. If you're feeling like humiliating him before you kill him, you can steal his weapon, restart time, and watch as he wonders where the heck it went, and then make him dead with a barrage of bullets. It's even possible to regenerate health by seeking cover and pausing time. You can't rewind time and prevent your own death, but if you're quick you can reverse it and unstick a grenade from yourself. You only have a limited amount of time you can manipulate before the suit's energy runs out, but it regenerates quickly. The game promises all sorts of other "exciting" uses for altering the flow of time, but it never really capitalizes on the potential of the mechanic. There are a few scenarios where you ride around on an ATV and some others where you man a turret on an airship, but most of the time you'll be moving from checkpoint to checkpoint on foot, taking out wave after wave of unintelligent foes. It's good, then, that the gunplay is entertaining. This is mostly due to the game's powerful weapons that are so much fun to shoot.

There are other cool weapons too, like the automatic gun that looks like it shoots bullets, but these bullets cause the target to burst into flames when they hit, and then the dude screams like a little girl as he fries. Even the basic machine gun is powerful and useful all the way through the game. There's always plenty of ammo to be found, so you never have to be conservative with your bullets. You can hide, watch their dot on the radar get closer, and then shoot them as soon as they come around the corner. There are a few instances where you'll have no choice but to seek shelter behind destructible cover, but those situations are rare, and there's usually someplace safe you can scramble to once you've been flushed out. TimeShift offers a full-featured multiplayer component. A modified version of the single-player game's time-shifting ability is found here, too. You can slow, pause, or rewind time by throwing one of three different chrono grenades. Everyone within the blast radius of an explosion is affected. It's a neat idea, but one that people seem all too keen to rely on--they just throw them like crazy when they see another person. You can play ranked and unranked matches in a wide variety of game types. There's deathmatch and team deathmatch, one-on-one, capture the flag, and a few unique modes. King of time has you try to gain control of the time sphere, which makes the person who holds it impervious to time effects, allowing them to rack up kills with ease. Another is called meltdown madness. This is a team mode where you try to prevent the other team's machine from counting down by throwing chrono grenades at it. You can also create your own fun by using the multiplayer modifiers. The rain effects in the first level are good, too, though they feel overdone, as if the developer were showing off how hard it had worked on making the game look better. The quality of the rest of the game's visuals depend on what system you're using to play the game. An interesting time-shifting mechanic and fun-to-shoot weapons can't make up for the rest of TimeShift's run-of-the-mill first-person shooter gameplay.

GAME REVIEW :-

6.5/10

TimeShift Trailer :-

THE CLUB

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Bizarre Creations

Publisher : Sega And Tectoy

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Modern Third-Person Shooter

Release Date : February 19 , 2008

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon 3200+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 256 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 6800 Series
ATI : Radeon X800 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 2.2 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The Club is an old-school shooter. It emphasises single-player action over multiplayer competition and encourages near-endless replaying to beat that elusive high score, but while it's good enough to keep you coming back, it is far from perfect. The game's premise is a simple one. The eponymous Club is a powerful collection of super-rich, morally bankrupt individuals who have decided to run their own personal worldwide blood sport à la Running Man. Eight contestants are forced to compete against one another in various locations. You play as any one of them and must try to win the most events in each locale. There are six characters available at the start, plus a seventh unlocked after four tournaments and another after you beat them all. While these characters have distinct looks, they play only slightly differently; some can take more punishment and others move slightly faster. Points are awarded for kills, with distribution based on the accuracy of your shooting, the toughness of the enemy in question, and the weapons being used by both you and your mark. To spice things up a bit, every kill causes your score multiplier to tick up by one, but if you wait too long between kills, this multiplier starts to fade away. You also get bonus points for style: shooting someone as you roll to dodge fire or as you burst through doors, or shooting from long range. You can also boost your multiplier--and refresh the timer--by shooting wall-mounted skulls, which are placed in various locations around the level. There are five event types, and each location features up to seven different events. Three event types involve more-traditional running, while two are static. The simplest of these is sprint, in which you need to get from one end of a set course to another while scoring as many points as possible. The static modes--survivor and siege--force you to stay in a set area as enemies pour in from all angles, and the goal is simply to survive until the timer runs out. The only difference between survivor and siege is that in siege you find yourself in an exposed position where enemies try to pick you off from range, while in survivor you will end up fighting in much closer quarters. The levels, with names such as Gondola in 60 Seconds, Diagnosis Girder, and The Crate Escape, are varied, despite the fact that courses in each zone often share elements. The tournament locations are fairly varied visually and include such environments as a ruined steel mill, a decaying cruise liner, and an abandoned English manor that doubles as a home for the criminally insane. Despite the significant superficial differences, the environments are just combinations of rooms and corridors with few open spaces, and they demand no real variations in play style.

The Venice siege level features the most impressive piece of destructible environment in the game--assuming you have the accuracy to shoot a rocket out of the air--and the Manor House survivor level is likely to give even the most hardened shooter fan something of an adrenaline kick. There are 15 weapons available, including two pistols, shotguns, machine guns, a sniper rifle, a rocket launcher, and a minigun. Regardless of what is to hand, you are likely to find yourself using the machine guns wherever you can and feeling frustrated when none are available; their power and rate of fire make them unbeatable when it comes to racking up headshots. Melee combat is an option if you're backed into a tight corner, but it simply involves lashing out at random with the butt of your weapon. This is particularly odd considering the game's emphasis on killing with style and the fact that a number of the characters have useful melee weapons slung about their person--one has an ice axe, another a machete, and a third a truncheon. The levels feel too large, the weapons feel unbalanced, and the frustration of being able to shoot someone repeatedly in the face and see that person walk away as you collapse is unspeakable. The return of four-player split-screen offline play is welcome, but again, the game itself means even this touch fails to fulfill its potential. The audio quality is inconsistent, however. Your enemies will shout at you and at each other, and these shouts vary with locale--the various English accents from the Manor House zone are a highlight--but the weapon fire sounds universally poor and lifeless. As a whole, The Club's single-player content just about works as an old-fashioned shooter that isn't shy about its old-school roots, but it suffers from a lack of variation in its level, weapon, and character design. It's still good enough to keep you coming back to try to beat that last high score in a manner that may not be familiar to anyone under the age of about 25, and for that the game deserves praise despite its multiplayer shortcomings.

GAME REVIEW :-

7/10

The Club Trailer :-

SUPREME COMMANDER

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Gas Powered Games

Publisher : THQ

Engine : MOHO

Genre : Sci-Fi Real-Time Strategy

Release Date : February 20 , 2007

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon 64 3200+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 256 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 7600 Series
ATI : Radeon X850 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 8 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Supreme Commander is set in the distant future, and humanity has split into three competing factions. The United Earth Federation represents order and empire, the cybernetic Cybran fight for independence, while the alien-enlightened Aeon seek to liberate the universe. The single-player campaign is divided into three smaller campaigns, letting you battle from the perspective of each of the factions. Unlike those in most other RTS games, where all three campaigns would usually be tied together in a linear fashion to tell a bigger story, the campaigns in Supreme Commander all stand alone. Each faction fights for what it believes in, and hence, no side is really "evil." It's a nice touch, because that mentality captures the essence of war. This also means that you need to be wary of enemy attempts to slip around your defensive points. But that's the nature of war. The entire sense of scale is exciting because you can finally experiment with tactics. Meanwhile, real-world concepts such as reconnaissance become even more important. Thankfully, Supreme Commander makes such tasks easy with the ability to queue up commands for all sorts of units. Scout planes can be ordered to patrol the periphery of the maps, engineers can be given build commands to keep them busy for a long time, and armies can be sent on a zigzag path deep into enemy territory, all with a few clicks. Often during the campaign, you'll achieve a set of objectives only to watch the map then double in size, and then double again after you've achieved the next set of objectives. Each time the map grows, it unlocks more room to maneuver and more strategy. Size translates into open-ended depth in this game. You might find a weak spot in the defenses and send bombers through it, then target antiaircraft positions to open the way for further air assaults. If you're building nuclear missiles, you might build artillery positions to take out any strategic missile defenses, and once those are out, unleash nuclear missiles. There are three "tech levels" that feature different units, buildings, and vehicles, and at the lowest level you'll have basic units such as light and medium tanks, fighter interceptors, submarines, and bombers. At higher levels, you'll gain access to naval destroyers that can sprout legs and walk on land, siege assault bots, ballistic-missile submarines, and much more. In Supreme Commander, there is only energy and mass. Both are critical to building a strong economy to churn out hundreds of units. While energy can be obtained through various generators and power plants, mass is restricted to a handful of points on the map where you can build mass extractors that mine the planet's core. The geographic distribution of these mass-extraction points will result in desperate battles to capture and hold large amounts of territory. The game can often come down to an artillery duel, as both sides attempt to knock out the other through the application of sheer firepower. However, that's what experimental units are for. Experimental units are hugely expensive and time consuming to build, but they're potential game changers.

The single-player campaign and the skirmish modes serve as a lengthy tutorial to the concepts of the game, and you'll really have to apply all the lessons and tactics that you learn to compete in multiplayer, which is fun, brutal, and dynamic. Supreme Commander's gameplay lends itself well to the multiplayer realm because it's so wide open. For every move that you can come up with, the enemy can develop a counter. At the highest detail levels, Supreme Commander is incredible to look at. Seeing dozens, if not hundreds, of air, land, and naval units battling onscreen is amazing, and large battles are littered with smoke trailers, particle effects, and explosions. Meanwhile, watching a nuclear detonation slowly expand, with the shock wave destroying everything in its path and setting off a chain reaction, is bliss. Supreme Commander's audio seems a bit muted, though that's probably because you're always watching the action from a considerable distance. The units make all the futuristic whirs and machine noises that you'd expect, though the highlight of the game's audio is the martial music that changes tempo whenever something dramatic happens onscreen. Supreme Commander is one of the most impressive real-time strategy games in recent years. This is a game that dares to be big, and it succeeds because it understands what strategy is about. Strategy is more than overwhelming the other side with sheer numbers. Strategy is about maneuvering, it's about applying the right weapon at the right place at the right time, and it's about rewarding creative thinking, and that's what Supreme Commander does.

GAME REVIEW :-

8.5/10

Supreme Commander Trailer :-

STILL LIFE

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Microids

Publisher : MC 2 And The Adventure Company

Engine : Virtools

Genre : Adventure

Release Date : May 4 , 2005

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 64 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce FX 5500 Series
ATI : Radeon 9500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.2 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

FBI Special Agent Victoria McPherson is investigating a series of brutal murders in 2004 Chicago. While visiting her father for Christmas she discovers an old notebook that belonged to her grandfather, private investigator Gustav McPherson. Victoria is surprised to learn that Gus had been involved with investigating a very similar series of murders in 1920s Prague. The player alternates between these two characters as they work to hunt down what seems to be the same serial killer more than 70 years apart. In both cases the murderer targets sex trade workers: street prostitutes in Prague, and employees of an exclusive Chicago massage parlor and S&M club called the Red Lantern. The killer or killers are disguised in a dark cloak, top hat, and silver mask. Gus eventually identifies the man responsible for the Prague murders, but the killer escapes justice and relocates to America. Near the end of the game Victoria discovers that similar murders occurred in 1931 Chicago and later in 1956 Los Angeles. The identity of the 2004 Chicago killer is never revealed. Victoria encounters him several times, but never sees behind his mask. She does not believe he is the same person as the Prague killer, but rather a younger person who has been influenced by the Prague killer in some way. At the climax of the game Victoria manages to shoot the Chicago killer, but the body falls into the Chicago river. As the game ends, the Chicago police are still dredging the river for the killer's body. Victoria plans to travel to Los Angeles to learn more about the 1956 killings. The mysterious serial killer's identity will apparently be revealed in the sequel. Still Life revolves around the brutal, serial murders of prostitutes in two different cities during different eras. The game cuts back and forth between the two stories, treating the murders in both eras with the same grim professionalism of a forensic procedural like CSI, though with less flash and thicker atmosphere. The biting cold of Chicago in the winter is nearly palpable, and it is reinforced by the sagging structures of abandoned buildings and empty municipal offices.

All of the dialogue is spoken, usually with detectable traces of Canadian mannerisms. It's not too bad during the parts of the story set in Chicago, but when you're chatting up Turkish beat cops who sound like they grew up in Ottawa, it's distracting and breaks the mood. But, aside from the occasionally mismatched accents and some odd inflections, the voice acting is competent. Nice background music further complements the game's mood, and it ranges from a jarringly schizophrenic industrial theme to a more low-key noir vibe. The puzzles are usually spelled out pretty clearly, cutting out some of the frustration brought on by the deliberate vagueness that passes for challenge in so many adventure games. This isn't to say there won't be times in Still Life where you'll find yourself wandering around three or four rooms, unsure of what it is you're not seeing, but a dash of perseverance is all you need to solve even the game's most challenging puzzles. It's a pretty brief experience that doesn't lend itself to multiple plays. Adventure game fans will be more willing to forgive the game's technical shortcomings than anyone else, but it's hard to believe that anyone who is still devoted to this style of gaming will find a lot in Still Life that they haven't experienced already.

GAME REVIEW :-

7/10

Still Life Trailer :-

SEGA RALLY REVO

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : SEGA Racing Studio

Publisher : Sega

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Rally / Offroad Racing

Release Date : October 9 , 2007

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon 64 3800+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 256 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 7800 Series
ATI : Radeon X1800 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The technology behind Sega Rally Revo is undeniably impressive and the driving is a good bit of arcade fun, but the game's staying power is highly questionable. When you get on a track, you'll know that this is pure arcade driving. Cars are incapable of going off track, with invisible barriers causing vehicles to bounce off everything from trees to minor shrubs. Tight, accurate, frequent powerslides are the name of the game, no matter what surface you might be driving on. And there is a wide variety of surfaces on display. From mud-bogged jungles to sandy beaches to the icy, snowy mountains, you'll encounter all manner of terrain as you drive. As drivers race around the track, they're digging up the dirt and snow and whatever else, creating big tears in the track that will actually affect your car's handling when you drive through them. This is where the game's one element of strategy comes into play. These treads are often created over the ideal driving lines. It's arguably more important to just get to know the tracks and make precise turns than it is to pay a whole lot of attention to where the torn up track is, especially if you choose the off-road setup prior to a race; the other option, "road," gives you higher speed on flat surfaces, but is ultimately less useful overall. Getting to know the tracks probably won't take you too long, as there are only 23 of them spread across five different environments, and several of those are reverse versions of existing tracks. The challenge isn't all reliant on your skill, at least not in the offline game. The computer opponents in Sega Rally Revo are a tough lot, almost irritatingly so. The main issue with the game's artificial intelligence is that it's severely rigid. AI drivers stubbornly refuse to move off their racing lines, even when you're banging into them at high speeds. And yet, on the flipside, they have no issue bopping into you and knocking you into a corner the second you try to pass them. The second they do, they move right back onto their natural line and stay put. The AI also has a tendency to just decide when it wants to win, often blazing by you at crazy speeds not long before the end of a race. Once you get good at cornering, you can start taking the AI to task, but small screw-ups usually amount to you getting hosed for the rest of the race.

Apart from the dynamic track deformation, Revo really does feel just like old-school Sega Rally, and that's both a blessing and a curse. Fans of the older games are likely to get giddy the second they start powersliding like a nutjob around crazy turns. By the same token, with so many advances in the racing genre over the last couple of years, Revo can't help but feel a bit like old hat at this point. Sega Rally Revo offers a few different modes of play. Apart from the standard quick race mode, there is a time trial mode where you can try to beat the best leaderboard times from around the world. The cool thing about this mode is that after any race, you have the option to upload your ghost car data to the online server, and in turn, you can download any players' ghost data to race against while you try to beat their time. The main mode is the championship mode. There are three championship tiers, each tied to the three car classes in the game. You start out with the premier league, which consists of standard rally rides like the Subaru WRX STi and Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, then move on to the modified league, with cars like the VW Golf GTI and Grande Punto Rally, then finally hit the masters league, and drive rally classics such as the Lancia Super Delta HF Integrale and Lancia Stratos. Each league has several unlockable cars as well, many of which are often much faster than the default rides. With there being such a limited number of tracks, you end up repeating a lot of them again and again as you progress through each championship, though with the differences in speed between car classes, each step upward often results in a somewhat different-feeling race. There is multiplayer. Two players can play head-to-head in split-screen play, and up to six can race online. The online options aren't terribly deep, with just the basic ranked and player matches available. However, when creating player matches, the host can design a custom championship of sorts, laying out an order of up to six different tracks to play through in a row. In both versions of the game, the online mode performed pretty well, with only minor bouts of lag that caused opponent cars to skip around the track a bit. Graphically, Sega Rally Revo is extremely impressive, thanks in no small part to that dynamic track deformation feature. Dirty or clean, the car models look incredible. Though there aren't a ton of cars in the game, each featured model is gorgeously detailed.

GAME REVIEW :-

7.5/10

Sega Rally Revo Trailer :-

RISE OF ARGONAUTS

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Liquid Entertainment

Publisher : Codemasters

Engine : Unreal Engine 3

Genre : Action Role-Playing And Third-Person Shooter

Release Date : December 16 , 2008

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ / Intel Core 2 Duo Processor

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 256 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 7900 Series
ATI : Radeon X1900 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 8 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

In Rise of the Argonauts, the player assumes the role of the protagonist Jason, a Greek king. Jason's wife, Alceme, is assassinated and Jason avenges her by killing the assassin. He sealed her body in the temple where they were supposed to marry. After that, Jason discovers that the only way to bring back his wife is to obtain the golden fleece. Traveling to Delphi, Jason learns from the Oracle that the only way for the road to the fleece be revealed is to find the three descendants of three of his patron gods: Hermes, Ares and Athena. The descendant of Hermes is based on Saria, Athena's on Kythra, whereas Ares' is located at Mycanae. After convincing all of them to join the Argonauts, Jason travels to the Oracle again and leanrs that the fleece is at Tartarus. When Jason travels back to Iolcus to revive Alceme he confronts Pelias, his uncle who is a traitor. During the course of the game, Jason will face Blacktongues who are behind Alceme's assassination, Ionians, mythical beasts and other characters but he will not be alone. Four more argonauts join you along the way and one witch who was a former Blacktongue but now wants to destroy them. The high point of Rise of the Argonauts is undoubtedly the combat; Jason is skilled in the use of swords, spears, and maces, and he carries one of each as well as a shield at all times. The controls are uncomplicated and responsive, and it's good that they're the same no matter which weapon you're wielding, because you're encouraged to switch between them on the fly. None of the enemies are particularly intelligent, but they're varied enough that you need to employ different weapons and strategies to get the better of them. Adding the HUD makes it much easier to know when Jason's health is low, though it's not always important because, in keeping with his mythological status, he's a tough guy to keep down. When your health drops to zero you don't die; rather, you enter a "state of grace" in which the screen blurs and you have 10 seconds or so to avoid taking any more damage before you regenerate around half of your health. You'll die if you sustain a single hit during that time, but there are very few enemies who can keep up as you frantically run and roll around.

There are a number of ways in which you become a more formidable fighter as the story progresses. You'll be joined by a handful of allies who will fight alongside you two at a time, you'll be able to add more powerful weapons and armor to your arsenal, and you'll learn new abilities by gaining favor with the gods Ares, Apollo, Athena, and Hermes. Each of the four gods has a skill tree composed of around 25 different "aspects" arranged into tiers so that more powerful ones become available only late in the game. The aspects vary a great deal and include both passive abilities and god powers that must be triggered manually in combat. Passive abilities include things like regenerating health anytime you kill an enemy, doing more damage to shields, and making your allies more powerful. God powers, which are fun but rarely needed outside of the most challenging difficulty mode, include temporary effects such as increased damage, explosions, and the ability to turn enemies into stone. Settling a dispute among two traders is unlikely to impress in the same way that lopping off the heads of 25 enemies is, for example. The second way to curry favor with a god is by selecting dialogue choices that are clearly labeled as being appreciated by them. This can make the act of choosing dialogue a mechanical one if you care more about pleasing a specific god than you do about your interaction with whomever you're talking to, but the conversations feel so unnatural anyway that this is as good a way as any to get through them quickly. It's unfortunate that so much of your time in Rise of the Argonauts is spent in conversation, because much of the dialogue is poorly written and the voice acting is even worse. It's conceivable that one is the victim of the other, but certainly neither deserves any credit for keeping the story compelling. Jason spends too much time talking and not nearly enough time fighting in this Greek mythology-inspired action-Role Playing Game. With a greater emphasis on combat and fewer technical shortcomings, Rise of the Argonauts could have been easy to recommend. As it is, though, this is a great story poorly told.

GAME REVIEW :-

6/10

Rise Of Argonauts Trailer :-

POSTAL 2

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Running With Scissors

Publisher : Whiptail Interactive

Engine : Unreal Engine 2.0

Genre : Modern First-Person Shooter

Release Date : April 14 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 128 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.1 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 2 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.2 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The player takes on the role of 'The Postal Dude' (all evidence given in-game indicates that the character's full legal name actually is "The Postal Dude, Jr.": his father's tombstone reads "T. Dude Sr."; characters constantly call him "Mr. The Dude" and a package for him is addressed to "P. Dude"), a tall thin man with a goatee sunglasses, a blue alien t-shirt, and a long black leather coat. The Postal Dude also wears a Happy Smiley pin on his right lapel and a cross pin on his left one. 'The Postal Dude' lives in a trailer park with his nagging wife (only identified in the credits as 'Postal Dude's Bitch') in the town of Paradise , Arizona (there was, in fact, a real-life Arizona mining town called Paradise, which failed in the early 20th century, but there's no indication in the game of any intentional connection). The game levels are split into days of the week starting Monday and finishing Friday. At the beginning of each day, Dude is given several tasks to accomplish, such as 'Get milk', 'Confess sins', and other seemingly mundane tasks. The purpose of the game is to finish all of the tasks throughout the week, and the player can accomplish these tasks in any way he wishes, be it as civilly or as chaotically as possible (it is possible, if occasionally difficult, to complete most tasks without engaging in battle, or, at least, killing other people). The daily tasks can be accomplished in any order, and the game includes one task that is only activated on a certain day if Dude performs a certain action. Dude must put up with being flipped the bird mugged, attacked by protesters, put upon by an obnoxious convenience store owner/terrorist and his patrons who cut before Dude in the "money-line", plus a marching band a murderous toy mascot named Krotchy, the police and SWAT team, the ATF and the National Guard, a religious cult, savage butchers, psycho Taliban terrorists and Gary Coleman among many other things.

Postal 2's gameplay never manages to do any better than the game's clever initial concept, either. Though you can explore the rest of the city between missions, there isn't much reason to do so. The entire single-player game can be finished in about 10 hours. Once you've finished that you'll probably be done with the game. Unlike Grand Theft Auto III, Postal 2 has no cars to drive, though decorative cars are scattered around the city and create fairly large explosions when destroyed, much like the exploding barrels found in other first-person shooters. Postal 2 supports a locational damage system, but it's spotty at best. A bullet to the head rarely appears to do more damage than a shot to the leg. Your computer-controlled enemies don't exhibit much grace under fire--they'll generally shoot at you from a fixed position or run right for you, though they'll occasionally flee in terror. The insides of buildings feature lots of empty space, little decoration, simple geometry, and ugly, repetitive textures. Against the trend set by other recent games, the gore in Postal 2 is surprisingly subdued. You can decapitate people, but, for better or worse, there's nothing that compares to Soldier of Fortune 2's level of graphic gore. Postal 2 strings together a bunch of violent novelties without ever constructing a compelling game for them to support.

GAME REVIEW :-

5/10

Postal 2 Trailer :-

DARK HORIZON

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Quazar Studio

Publisher : Paradox Interactive

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Futuristic Jet Sim

Release Date : October 13 , 2008

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon 3000+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 64 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce FX 5700 Series
ATI : Radeon X1600 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 2.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Dark Horizon is an improvement on its Tarr Chronicles predecessor, but that isn't saying much. The setting is still the far future, and the galaxy is still under assault by a matter-corrupting black cloud of something or other called the Mirk. Things aren't looking good for the survival of humanity, so you must help hold off this galactic scourge by signing on as a fighter pilot for the Mirk-influenced race of Guardians protecting the Vattar Ama'Dan space fortress. This tortured tale plays out in 20-plus solo missions (there are no multiplayer or skirmish modes of play). You fly a spaceship from either a cockpit view or a trailing-camera angle and use mouse and keyboard controls to blow up every Mirk-infected alien stupid enough to cross your path. Both the in-game dialogue and the in-game encyclopedia available in your cabin between missions are peppered with unexplained concepts, such as the "psychomatrix," the "anti-being," and Mirk "spawn," which are just about impossible to follow. Your character never speaks, making the game even more distant and enigmatic. During dogfights, the story is developed solely through inscrutable conversations between your wingmen. The only thing that keeps your head from spinning is the fine work of the voice actors, who somehow manage to spout this gobbledygook without cracking up. Every mission is loaded up with nonstop dogfights, so you whirl, twirl, and shoot through incessant waves of enemy assaults. It's all guaranteed to numb your brain in short order, as well as turn your mouse wrist into a throbbing mass of gristle because of the constant spinning and turning needed to stay on the tail of bad guys. For starters, mission objectives are often mysterious to the point of being unfathomable. While sorties always give you some kind of basic purpose at the outset, like checking out a scanner signal, wiping out a flight of enemy fighters, or targeting shield generators on a capital ship, they tend to become drawn-out, multipart affairs, and you'll eventually need to rely on those impossible-to-understand wingmen to tell you what's next. You can get three or four objectives deep into a mission and then suddenly realize you don't have a clue what to do because your buddies are either making no sense whatsoever or have clammed up completely. Expect to restart a few times every time this happens, until you finally clue in to what you need to do. The automated save system exacerbates this whole problem too, because it stores your progress only every half-dozen or so dogfights, which leaves you frequently stuck replaying lengthy swaths of the game.

Combat itself is more than a bit screwy. There are some interesting concepts here at least, in that you can configure your ship with different armor and weapon loadouts before missions, as well as switch between three different battle modes during dogfights. Being able to change from the neutral, jack of all trades default ship setting to the offense-first Corter mode to the defensive Shadow cloak isn't all that useful when all you're ever doing is engaging in arcadey battles. About the only benefit you see here is from the odd use of Shadow mode to duck out of intense battles and hide until your shields recharge. Everything seems to be backlit, which obscures fairly well detailed ships and sufficiently bombastic explosions behind walls of shadows. So unless you want to tweak the gamma settings in Windows (which seems to do little but wash everything out anyway), you're stuck with a gloomy game that makes it almost impossible to see where enemy ships are. Collisions are tough to avoid during dogfights, because it's all too easy to spin around and plow into an enemy you're shadowing. These fender-benders do a lot of damage on the default difficulty setting, too, so you have to avoid them at all costs. This forces you to choose between wading into the demolition-derby dogfighting at full speed and sitting back to lob missiles from long range. If you pick the former, chances are good that you'll get blown up real good, real fast. If you pick the latter, you'll increase the odds of survival but risk falling asleep from sheer boredom. Dark Horizon is an undeniably subpar effort, although so few space dogfighting games are made for the PC today that it might still appear passable to anyone seeking to relive the Wing Commander/X-Wing/TIE Fighter era. But don't be fooled. Even with so few choices available in this genre today, this isn't a good game.

GAME REVIEW :-

4.5/10

Dark Horizon Trailer :-

DARK SECTOR

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Digital Extremes And Noviy Disk

Publisher : D3 Publisher Of America , Aspyr Media And Noviy Disk

Engine : Evolution Engine ( Prorietary )

Genre : Sci-Fi Shooter , Horror And Action

Release Date : March 24 , 2009

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon 3200+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 256 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 6800 Series
ATI : Radeon X1300 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 6.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Dark Sector is a stylish action game in which you assume the role of Hayden Tenno, an elite black-ops agent with an infection that mutates his right hand into a lethal glaive. The boomerang-like glaive is an incredibly versatile weapon and, in conjunction with a decent selection of firearms, serviceable cover mechanics, and intelligent enemies, it keeps the single-player game entertaining from start to finish. The story is a mess, and sadly there's no online support for multiplayer in the PC version, but come here looking for 10 to 12 hours of satisfying combat and you won't be disappointed. The single-player game starts off promisingly with a moody black-and-white prologue mission set some 20 years before the events of the other nine levels. Getting comfortable with the controls used for gunplay and for getting in and out of cover should take you no time at all, and it won't take you long to realize that the enemies you're facing are smart enough to employ a lot of the same tactics that you do in the interest of self-preservation. The story gets underway with a bang as well--a few bangs, actually--but as you progress through the game, the story rarely feels like it's moving along with you. Characters come and go without giving you any reason to care about them, you travel between locations killing everything that moves without really knowing why, and new abilities are frequently added to your formidable arsenal without explanation. Dark Sector's lack of good storytelling shouldn't hamper your enjoyment of the game too much because cutscenes are infrequent and brief. Nonetheless, it's unfortunate that a protagonist as fun to play as Hayden doesn't have a great narrative to back him up. The skills with conventional firearms that you learn in the prologue mission stay with you for the entire game, but even as increasingly powerful weapons become available to you, you'll find that you spend far less time using them. That's because throwing the glaive that grows from his right hand early on is a more elegant, powerful, and satisfying way to dispatch foes than any gun.

The glaive isn't just an awesomely powerful weapon; it's a veritable Swiss Army knife that can be used to unlock doors, open ammo crates, and pick up items that would otherwise be out of reach. The uses for Dark Sector's answer to Link's boomerang don't end there, though, because with a little help from the elements your glaive can be used to light torches, create columns of ice, and even put out fires. By hitting specific items scattered throughout the world, it's possible to imbue your glaive with electricity, ice, or fire for a short time, at which point using it to kill enemies becomes more satisfying than ever. But that's rarely the reason why you're afforded access to an element; more often than not, the elements are needed to overcome environmental obstacles or to solve simplistic puzzles. Money can be used to buy new weapons on the black market, which is conveniently located under every manhole you come across. It's important to buy and upgrade both a pistol and either a rifle or shotgun at some point, because weapons that you pick up from slain enemies function only for a short time before they're automatically disabled. There are several boss battles in Dark Sector, and all of them are very different. Variety comes courtesy not only of bosses that differ wildly in shape and size, but also of the weapons and abilities that you'll need to defeat them. None of the bosses are overly challenging if you take your time with them because, with only a few exceptions, their attacks just aren't powerful enough to kill you with a single blow. It's a little jarring in such a realistic-looking world that your glaive frequently travels through walls on its way back to you, but then this is a game that really tests your ability to suspend disbelief at every opportunity, given the nature of its puzzles and the lack of storyline. The game's audio is also worthy of note, thanks to an original score that does a great job of letting you know when danger is present or past. Likewise, some really satisfying sound effects make the weapons feel powerful, the environments feel creepy and abandoned, and some of the enemies far more intimidating than they deserve.

There are only two multiplayer modes, but both of them will afford you the opportunity to play as Hayden at some point, complete with all of the skills that he has at the end of the single-player game. Both of the multiplayer games, titled Epidemic and Infection, were originally designed for only 10 players on consoles but now support up to 32 on five maps that are no longer big enough. Epidemic pits two teams, each led by a Hayden, against one another in a battle to see which team can kill the other's leader first. Infection challenges one player, as Hayden, to kill as many of the other players as possible before they manage to bring him down. When you're not playing as Hayden, you assume the role of a garden-variety soldier armed only with a firearm, explosives, and the ability to move in and out of cover. One Hayden versus everybody else might not sound like a fair fight, but when used in conjunction with shield and stealth abilities, Hayden's glaive-and-firearm combo gives him a significant edge over the competition. A straight-up deathmatch option in which everyone has Hayden's abilities would probably be chaotic, but this seems like a missed opportunity regardless, as does the vehicle that you commandeer for a time in the single-player game but which is nowhere to be found in multiplayer. The PC version of Dark Sector should have been an opportunity for the underappreciated multiplayer modes from the console games to finally find an audience, but as it stands this is an inferior game that's fun only for as long as it takes you to reach and defeat the final boss in the single-player mode. This third-person action game lacks the compelling storyline that it alludes to early on, but offers plenty of enjoyable combat nonetheless.

GAME REVIEW :-

7/10

Dark Sector Trailer :-

ALONE IN THE DARK

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Eden Games And Hydravision Entertainment

Publisher : Atari

Engine : Twilight 2

Genre : Survival Horror And Action Adventure

Release Date : June 23 , 2008

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ / Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 256 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 7800 Series
ATI : Radeon X1650 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 8.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The game begins with Edward, the protagonist, being taken to the roof of the building he is in to be killed. The guard is killed by an unseen force, allowing Edward to escape. He soon discovers that he has amnesia. As he wanders the building looking for a way out, he witnesses several people being killed or possessed by "demonic" forces. During his search for an exit, he meets Sarah Flores, an art dealer (city planner in the Wii version). Together, they make their way to the parking garage, where they find Theophile Paddington, an old man who claims to know what’s going on. He says that the chaos in the building was caused by a stone that, until recently, was held by Edward. It had been taken from Edward by a man named Crowley, who released its power. Theophile has the stone now, and finally states that in order to end the chaos, Edward must follow the “Path of Light,” before it is too late. The three of them take a car from the garage and head out into the city, finding it in the same kind of chaos as the building they just left. They crash the car in Central Park. There, Theophile claims that he lacks the strength to continue. He hands the stone over to Edward and asks him and Sarah to meet him at the museum, then kills himself. On the way to the museum, Edward finds out that his last name is Carnby. He tells his name to a doctor that he meets who tends to his wounds. As the doctor checks Edward’s medical history, he informs Edward that the only Edward Carnby in his records disappeared in 1938. At the museum, the ghost of Theophile explains more about the stone. It contained Lucifer after he was cast out of heaven, until Crowley released him. Lucifer now wants to use the stone to bring about the end of the world. Theophile tells Edward that there is a secret in Central Park that will allow Edward to stop Lucifer. As Edward makes his way back to Central Park, Sarah remains at the museum, e-mailing excerpts from Theophile’s diary that she believes will help Edward. Once at Central Park, Edward meets Hermes, who holds a stone similar to the one that Edward has. Edward and Hermes return to the museum to find Crowley holding Sarah at gunpoint, demanding Edward’s stone. Edward shoots Crowley in the head, then Hermes opens a cavern in the museum that leads to Lucifer’s gateway to reality. Hermes combines his stone with Edward’s then tells Edward that Lucifer will soon be reincarnated. As Lucifer begins to take Edward’s body, Sarah grabs the stone to prevent Edward from being possessed. At this point, the player is presented a choice to shoot Sarah to prevent her from being possessed, or do nothing. If the player chooses to shoot Sarah, Edward becomes possessed by Lucifer. Otherwise, Edward and Sarah say goodbye as Sarah is taken over.

The game allows you only as many items as you can fit in your belt and jacket pockets; and, in a move that visually subverts the convention of the vast yet unseen inventory, you literally open up your jacket and look down to see what you've got. While it's never quite groundbreaking, this subversion does appear in myriad ways throughout the game, and creates the feeling that there is something novel about Alone in the Dark. You've got a slow-burning Molotov cocktail perfect for blowing up the hive that your spidery foe is returning to. Tape a box of bullets to the bottle, chuck it at a cluster of enemies, and shoot it midair to unleash a decidedly nasty explosion. The explosive power of a plastic bottle filled with flammable liquid is obvious, but what if you wrap it in double-sided tape, stuff a bandage in it, light it, and stick it to an enemy. There are multifarious possible item combinations, and while you'll generally stick to a select few for killing enemies (flaming bullets, midair explodables, spray-can flamethrower), the game makes you flesh out your repertoire by demanding specific actions to solve certain puzzles. The few non-combat-related puzzles are clustered early and late in the game. Some of these creative platforming sequences are part of larger, dramatic set pieces, such as your escape from a burning, collapsing building. It's generally pretty clear what path you need to take, but figuring out the necessary actions and carrying them out is still entertaining. Puzzles in which you set fire to things are particularly fun, because the fire looks gorgeous and spreads realistically while the textures on the burning wood change accordingly. Maneuvering issues become particularly frustrating when you are trying to hop into a car. Actually driving cars is less neat, since the things handle like motorboats and will sometimes launch into the air when driving over the smallest curb. They do take damage, but they do so in such an unpredictable way that sometimes your car won't react much to bouncing off multiple trees, but the next impact will cause the hood, doors, and entire roof structure to explode off the car like a Mythbusters experiment, leaving you with a bizarro convertible. In addition to the vast and varied Central Park, you'll also adventure through a number of well-detailed indoor environments. These are all well done, and are at their best when integrated with one of the many dramatic set pieces throughout the game. During these events the camera will often pull out to a wider angle, giving you a greater sense of scope and harking back to the fixed-camera roots of previous Alone in the Dark games. There are definitely some missteps here as well, and the dynamic lighting can sometimes turn an immersive environment into a something's-not-quite-right environment. Alone in the Dark is an ambitious game that features a lot of cool gameplay and bucks a lot of gaming conventions. Unfortunately, the technical execution does not match this ambition, and the resulting roughness will prove too high a cost of entry for many gamers. Still, if you are craving a game that tries new things with a reasonable degree of success, you'll definitely be able to get some enjoyment out of Alone in the Dark.

GAME REVIEW :-

6.5/10

Alone In The Dark Trailer :-

4x4 EVO 2

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Terminal Reality

Publisher : Gathering Of Developers

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Rally / Off-Road Racing

Release Date : October 30 , 2001

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon Classic K75 / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 8.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 2 MX Series
ATI : Radeon 7200 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.5

GAME FEATURES :-

4x4 EVO 2 features a healthy selection of game modes and a greater emphasis on the single-player experience than its predecessor. First, there's time attack mode, where you try to set record laps. Then, there's the obligatory quick race, which lets you jump right into the action without any fuss (other than awkward, ugly menus). You can choose from 30 courses, and you can race at midday or dusk and drive under clear conditions or various levels of fog and rain. After each race, you can watch replays with a VCR-style control panel. Surprisingly, there aren't any difficulty levels or options, and the default settings might be pretty tough for racing novices. You can race between one and 20 laps against up to seven computer-controlled opponents or compete online via a somewhat convoluted and buggy server browser. 4x4 Evolution's ability to let you race against those with console versions of the game is gone in the sequel. The manual touts a two-player versus mode, though this was inaccessible, despite having the required two controllers installed. If you play against the computer, prepare for both excitement and frustration. To find those shortcuts, you can play in the free roam mode, where there's no pressure and no competition. You just drive to your heart's content, enjoying the scenery or smashing into it as you see fit. As with the quick race mode, free roam lets you choose any course, the time of day, and the weather conditions. Of course, you can't do death-defying, acrobatic stunts in a 4x4 EVO 2, so once the novelty of the environments wears off, the free roam mode can get pretty dull in a hurry. The quick race, time attack, and free roam modes let you choose vehicles from three classes, beginning with stock vehicles and progressing to ones heavily modified for off-road racing. All three classes feature real-world trucks and SUVs from GMC, Mitsubishi, Chevrolet, Lexus, Toyota, Dodge, Jeep, Nissan, and Infiniti. The game boasts 120 models in all, including variants of the Dodge Durango, Mitsubishi Montero, Nissan Xterra, Toyota Tacoma, and other well-known models. In practical game terms, many of the different models perform quite similarly, so while the game technically has 120 vehicles, in practice it feels like far fewer. With money that you win in various racing series, you can purchase new vehicles, as well as licensed parts from Goodridge, K&N, IPF, Rancho, and others. These range from high-performance air filters and snorkels for river fording to things as mundane as a sun visor.

4x4 EVO 2's audio has its faults, too. The soundtrack falls prey to the music malady suffered by so many racing games these days: acute techno disorder. Monotonous, disposable electronic beats hammer away at you from the moment you start up the game. Some of the tunes are just forgettable, while some are so in-your-face bad that you'll be blissfully thankful you can mute the music. The sound effects fare much better. The engines sound convincingly throaty, and the sounds of jouncing suspension and slipping tires draw you into the action. The physics in 4x4 EVO 2 are relaxed from reality, making a compromise between an arcade racer and a realistic sim, with the emphasis on the former. You'll get a great sense of speed as you hurtle down hills in the fog, with your truck rocking every which way as you bang over the rough terrain. Unfortunately, the game's physics are beset with frustrating oddities that can really detract from your enjoyment of the game. Trucks seem to stick to each other as if they had giant Velcro sheets glued to their sides. If you barely touch another truck, you'll slow dramatically. When you're roaring around a track and trying to dodge vicious competitors, it can be extremely hard to guess in an instant what that upcoming something-or-other in the road might do to you. Driving off a mountain or landing on top of a truck after leaping off a sand dune should at least put a dent in your vehicle. The force feedback setup options only allow you to change the raw force and spring strength, so if you want to fine-tune the feedback, you'll need to exit the program and handle it through your controller software. Either way, the force feedback effects are strong but only give you a generic sense of riding over rough terrain instead of a better read on any subtle forces acting on your truck. 4x4 EVO 2 features a single handling slider that lets you easily select more of either one. No matter how you tweak your truck, though, this is not a subtle game--you can pretty much mash the accelerator to the floor most of the race, and that will serve you well enough. If you can put up with some frustrating inconsistencies and technical problems, 4x4 EVO 2 offers some thrilling off-road racing.

GAME REVIEW :-

8/10

4x4 Evo 2 Trailer :-

EAST INDIA COMPANY

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Nitro Games

Publisher : Paradox Interactive

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Real Time Strategy

Release Date : July 28 , 2009

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon XP 2100+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 512 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 128 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce FX 5800 Series
ATI : Radeon X800 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

East India Company gives players the chance to lead their own maritime mercantile empire in the 17th century trade wars that European powers fought in Africa and India. You'll plan trade routes, make war and peace with your European rivals, capture ports, and manage ships and crews. If you're really adventurous, you can even take charge of your fleets in real time 3D battles on the high seas. While that's more than enough quality content for many gamers, there are some shortcuts and missing features that keep East India Company from being all that it ought to have been. There are a number of limited campaign options here, but I wanted to enjoy all the game had to offer, so I opted for the grand campaign, which begins in 1600 and runs through the whole time period represented in the game. With a bit of cash and the smallest merchant fleet around, you'll set off to trade in the commodities of Africa and India, always following the golden rule, "buy low, sell high." Your home port in Europe has goods to sell to the natives, so first you'll stock up on tools and steel. Pick the one city you'd like a particular fleet to trade in and they'll sail off, buy up that port's main trade item, whatever else they can fit in the hold (and the budget) and then head home to sell it off and stock up on whatever goods are most in demand abroad. Ships have a limited range, so they'll need to stop in at friendly ports along the way, and can use these stopovers to buy and sell at better prices than are sometimes found in the cities at either end of the trade route. In the grand campaign, however, your stockholders will require you to move thousands of tons of individual commodities, so you begin to care less about price and more about moving product in a way that's safe and doesn't require a lot of extra work. So while automatic routes might seem less profitable than micromanaged routes, the game tends to push you towards these "set it and forget it" type routes. Throw in the five-ship limit in each fleet and you'll soon discover that diversifying is something you can't really afford until you've got enough cash to create self-contained trade fleets that can operate on their own.

There's no political maneuvering in Europe, no colonial frictions in Africa, and no exploiting the locals in India. As far as the game is concerned, the world is made up solely of ports and profits. While that may be an accurate commentary on the philosophical outlook of these companies, it seems a bit superficial in terms of the overall simulation and doesn't allow for the full range of influences that these companies historically had. The port upgrades are limited to garrisons, warehouses and shipyards, so there's no real sense of creating industry or additional profit potential within the empire you're creating. In fact, owning more ports seems to be a bigger drain on your economy than anything, which makes it particularly troubling to win the game by conquering the entire subcontinent. And while the game opens up new ship types to you throughout the course of play, there's no sense of technological or practical progress. There are options for all the requisite sea battle elements -- line formations, shot types, sail state, etc. and players can even dump their precious cargo to pick up a bit of speed if they're trying to flee. The trading model is straightforward and the presentation makes it easy to manage all the details of the empire. Then again, managing all the details is pretty easy when there aren't that many to begin with. There's no sense of interaction with the world outside of your balance sheet, which is a disservice to the subject matter. The tactical battles are enjoyable but also seem a bit too streamlined. Players who are interested in the concept or the period will definitely find a worthwhile game here but the appeal wears thin long before it should have.

GAME REVIEW :-

7/10

East India Company Trailer :-

WARHAMMER 40,000: DAWN OF WAR II

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Relic Entertainment

Publisher : THQ

Engine : Essence Engine 2.0

Genre : Sci-Fi Real-Time Strategy

Release Date : February 18 , 2009

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ / Intel Core 2 Duo Processor

Memory (RAM) : 1.5 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 256 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 7600 Series
ATI : Radeon X1800 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 5.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II is a fun and fascinating game with a bit of an identity crisis. In one corner you have an explosively intense multiplayer real-time strategy experience, brimming with savagely satisfying competition. In the other, you have an odd and somewhat enjoyable single-player campaign that plays more like an action role-playing game than an Real-Time Strategy. You won't be building a base or churning out units, but rather maneuvering your few commander-led squads around the map and beating up the beasties that stand between you and your mission objectives. Your goals may entail capturing a particular structure, recovering a stolen object, or even defeating an end-level boss. The game isn't going to dissuade you from that approach; the elements of a role-playing game are all accounted for. You will level up your squads and earn new abilities and bonuses, collect items and loot on the battlefield, and spend time between battles equipping your commanders with the various armor sets and weapons that you earn. Dawn of War II's single-player campaign isn't really strategic at all, but you will make tactical decisions that move beyond simple mouse clicking. In a mechanic pulled from the developer's own Company of Heroes, some squads can lay down suppressive fire, which slows your targets and hinders them from a quick escape. Units can be garrisoned or take cover behind certain objects, a mechanic easy to implement thanks to a slick interface and simple but effective visual feedback. However, the most important facet of a successful battle is your familiarity with each commander's unique abilities. Whether it is one's rally cry or another's jump-pack-powered stomp, effective use of skills is not only your key to victory, but also a visual and sonic delight. Seeing a dreadnought squash a ripper swarm, or a lictor alpha yank a powerless assault marine with its lethal flesh hooks, is enjoyably violent and makes battles fun to watch. Dawn of War II provides no co-op matchmaking option, so you'll need to know the Windows Live ID of your prospective companion to explore that possibility. Also bear in mind that though the game's host will reap the persistent experience and loot rewards, the guest will leave everything behind when returning to his or her own campaign. It's fun to play with a friend, though. You split command duties with your partner, so the moment-to-moment gameplay requires less micromanagement but gives you more leeway to play around with tactical options.

Dawn of War II's multiplayer component couldn't be more different from its single-player campaign. It's also more strategic, as is obvious from the moment you enter the multiplayer menus. You have four races to choose from: Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, and Tyranid. Once you've selected a race, you choose from one of three commanders, each with a particular role to play in battle. A Tyranid ravener alpha can dig tunnels, granting your units quick travel when you most need it; an Eldar warlock will embolden the front lines with its powerful spells. Not only does each race come with its own strengths and weaknesses, but your choice of commander will further determine the appropriate play style. You'll still queue up your units at a home structure, but resource gathering is inextricably tied to the action, given that you must capture control nodes scattered around the map to generate power and requisition. Actually, you might say that there are three resources: to activate certain global powers, you must fill a gauge by slaying enemy units. Eldar enthusiasts may want to off the enemy with a few fire prisms before attempting capture. Throw in equippable skills and items for your commander and squads, and you've got a recipe for intense action spread across the entire map. Indeed, Dawn of War II's multiplayer matches are insanely fun even when you're on the losing side because you're constantly engaged with every facet of gameplay at any given moment. Explosions, warp blasts, and other special effects not only look great, but also sound absolutely phenomenal. A barrage of intense battle sounds will burst from your speakers, but individual touches such as the way Orks call out "dakka dakka dakka" as they fire their weapons emerge with clarity. Assisted by a cinematic orchestral soundtrack that swells with drama without overreaching, the sound design provides a constant stream of audio feedback that puts you in the thick of the action without crossing the lines of good taste. Extraordinary online play makes it easy to overlook this strategy sequel's less-impressive single-player campaign.

GAME REVIEW :-

8.5/10

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II Trailer :-

MIDNIGHT CLUB II

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Rockstar San Diego

Publisher : Rockstar Games

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : GT / Street Racing

Release Date : June 30 , 2003

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000

CPU : AMD Athlon Thunderbird C-Models / Intel Pentium III Processor

Memory (RAM) : 256 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 64 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 3 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 8500 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.6 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Midnight Club II is about giving the player access to a gigantic citylike environment, complete with back alleys, monuments, and plenty of intricate shortcuts. The game's main mode is its career mode. At first, you're set loose in the city in search of adventure. This adventure comes in the form of hookmen, who are racers that patrol certain sections of the city. You challenge these racers by rolling up behind them and hitting your high beams. You then have to stay on their tail until you've proven yourself worthy. Once you've done so, you're thrown into one checkpoint race after another, challenging various hookmen and winning their cars as you defeat them. You start out on the streets of Los Angeles, but you'll eventually move on to Paris and Tokyo. The large cities are extremely cruise-worthy, and it's obvious that a lot of work went into putting the environments together, but you'll want to cruise in the game's arcade mode, as you're almost constantly harassed by annoying radio chatter when cruising around in the game's career mode. The arcade mode lets you cruise aimlessly, race a number of laps on a variety of predetermined circuits, replay any of the checkpoint races you've completed in the career mode, and enter eight-player battle races, which let you play in either a standard sort of capture the flag game or a bomb-oriented variant called detonate, where players race to pick up a detonator and drive it to a scoring spot on the map to earn points. The game also has a race editor mode that allows you to place your own checkpoints and configure your own races. These custom races can then be saved and taken online. The game's online support features a good number of options, but it's a little sparse in spots. Just about anything you can do in the game's arcade mode is available here, though instead of being limited to playing against the game's AI or a second player, you can play against a total of seven other human opponents. The front-end options that tie the online game together are a little lacking. A ranking system would have helped make individual races more meaningful, and some sort of wagering system would have helped raise the stakes. The game also locks your car choices once a race or series of races has begun online, which means you'll have to quit and find a new game to change cars. When you first start the career mode, you'll be driving a standard car, but eventually you'll unlock various abilities that help you race and maneuver more effectively. You'll be able to control your car in midair, burn out to gain speed off the line, earn nitrous boosts, earn extra turbo boosts by filling a drafting turbo meter, and pop up onto two wheels at will.

The game gives you a Crazy Taxi-like arrow that points in the direction of the next checkpoint, but given the game's numerous, winding paths to victory, this arrow is totally useless. The game also makes use of rubber-band AI to keep races close, so you'll definitely notice that the AI racers are always on your tail when you're doing well and will rarely pull so far ahead that they become untouchable, provided you're taking a viable route to the finish line. Midnight Club II's cars and motorcycles aren't licensed, though you'll notice that some of the cars in the game definitely look similar to some popular makes and models. The only thing you can customize is a car's color. Each car is rated in four areas: speed, acceleration, handling, and number of available turbo boosts. The sound used throughout Midnight Club II is pretty standard. The engine noises, the sound of your tires on different surfaces, and the whooshing explosion of a nitrous boost are all present. The music is targeted at fitting the style of the cities more than the racing action itself, and it rarely meshes well with the game's high-adrenaline style and gameplay. The other major sound component is the radio chatter from the game's hookmen in the career mode. The Latino racer calls you "ese," the British racer ends most of his quips with "ya mug," and the Australian racer has a vocabulary that sounds like someone sat down with a VHS copy of Crocodile Dundee and a menu from Outback Steakhouse and threw in as much "local" flavor as possible. Despite its flaws, Midnight Club II should appeal to fans of arcade-style racing games because it's pretty solid in most respects.

GAME REVIEW :-

7.5/10

Midnight Club II Trailer :-

SILENT HUNTER III

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : Ubisoft Romania

Publisher : Ubisoft

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Submarine Sim

Release Date : March 15 , 2005

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows 2000 / Windows XP

CPU : AMD Athlon XP 2100+ / Intel Pentium 4 Processor

Memory (RAM) : 512 MB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 64 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce 4 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon X600 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 1.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

Silent Hunter III sets a new standard both for this particular type of sim and for the genre as a whole. It hearkens back to the days of Aces of the Pacific, Red Storm Rising, and Red Baron II, where the focus was on simulating what it was like to be a pilot or nuclear sub captain instead of on meticulously re-creating every piece of hardware down to the last rivet at the expense of overall gameplay. That's not to say that Silent Hunter III skimps on the hardware modeling--the attention to detail is fantastic--but it lets you concentrate on the exciting parts of being a sub captain instead of saddling you with loads of tedious duties in the name of "realism." Up to eight players can play out missions cooperatively in multiplayer mode, which we'll talk about later, but the real meat of the game is in the single-player missions and dynamic campaign. From the very first tutorial mission, which involves navigating the sub into open waters, you know your work is cut out for you. Most of the U-boats in the game are slow, unwieldy, and undergunned compared to the surface ships that hunt them, and it's immediately understood that you sit uncomfortably in the middle of the food chain. At the top are the destroyers, aircraft, and other fast and powerful predators that are out to kill you, and at the bottom are the fat, slow transports laden with troops and cargo that you can send to the bottom of the ocean on a whim. The campaign lets you select from various time periods, ranging from the earliest forays in 1939 to the bitter end in 1944. U-boats that are available depend on the time period and the fleet you choose, and there are some huge tradeoffs here. Early on, the Type II U-boats are little more than rickety tubs that carry only a few torpedoes, but their job is eased by Allied forces that aren't quite prepared to deal with the threat. Finding large convoys during the early years is very rare, and many merchant ships travel without escorts and are therefore easy pickings. Destroyers and aircraft early in the war are poorly equipped, relatively untrained, and not all that aggressive, which also helps even the odds. In the middle years of the war, the subs improve with Type VII and Type IX models, but escort ships abound and they are much better at their jobs. By 1943 your job becomes nearly impossible, as escorts and aircraft have the equipment they need to find you, the weapons they need to kill you, and the will to hunt you down mercilessly. There are women throwing flowers, other sailors chatting it up, and usually even a band belting out the German national anthem as you head out to sea. Ports are modeled like their real-life counterparts, so while it's possible to head straight out from a place like St. Nazaire, navigating into open waters from a place like Lorient requires a lot of tricky maneuvering. Contacts are marked on the map and fade over time if they are not stalked. It also is possible to radio the position of contacts and convoys back to headquarters, and occasionally planes or another sub may be dispatched to deal with it.

Destroyers are practically suicidal, and several of our patrols have ended with a maniacal destroyer captain smashing into the side of our U-boat at 30-plus knots. This makes fighting large convoys tricky, as you have to decide whether or not to take the escorts out first, which requires using up torpedoes that are invaluable when destroying high-tonnage ships like tankers, troop transports, and passenger liners. Deck-gun attacks are an option in the early part of the war, before the Allies get their act together, but by the time the advanced Type XXI sub is available in 1944, it doesn't even have a deck gun, because fighting on the surface is futile. Good as the ship graphics, maps, and lighting are, nothing compares to the fantastic water special effects. Waves look very convincing, ranging from glassy ripples to frothy monsters that are tall enough to swallow the conning tower. It is impossible to man the deck guns or flak guns in choppy seas, which poses tactical problems in the early years of the campaign when deck-gun attacks are feasible, but big waves also work in your favor by helping to hide the sub's periscope. Water realistically interacts with the periscope, turning viewfinder images into shimmering watercolors whenever waves lap across the lens, and it never fails to thrill when the lens clears and the blurry mirage you were looking at resolves into a menacing warship or a juicy target. The sound also deserves special mention for being so well done. Explosions, gunshots, and special effects, like the sound of shells hitting the water and sonar pings, provide everything you'd expect from a riveting war movie. The crew chimes in when contacts are spotted, damage is taken, or other vital information is available, and in a nice touch they all speak in whispers when the ship is rigged for silent running. This is an outstanding WWII submarine simulation in every regard.

GAME REVIEW :-

9/10

Silent Hunter III Trailer :-