FFIV DS and iPhone round-up...

Final Fantasy IV:

Just a short one for FF as I'm sure all of you have at some point played one. Quite simply, everything you'd expect from FF with some moderately 'nice' graphics and pretty cutscenes with full voice acting. If you're dying to play an RPG then for £15, brand new, you cannot really go wrong. 

Score :: 8.0

iPhone Round-Up.

As someone who has only recently discovered the App Store, due to a bit of iPhone hackerey-naughtiness, I am loving the games that are being pumped out of the developers playground.

So...

Moto-Chaser

You are tasked with catching people...on a motorbike, hence the name. A good idea is let down by some easy to fix problems, which include: lack of online play, dreadful graphics at some points and boring levels.

Pros: Fun use of iPhone accelerometer. Easy to pick up and play.

Cons: Poor floor graphics. Bland, and thus a little tedious. No multiplayer.

Score :: 5.5

Price - £0.59

Enigmo

Given the amount of puzzlers on the App Store at the moment it is hard to decide which one to buy, but Enigmo is definately a stand-out choice. The aim of the game is to guide drops of water to a particular pot using only a few tools that are given to you.

Pros: Awesome and challenging puzzles to solve. Downloadable content...for free.

Cons: You won't want to play it for more than 20 minutes.

Score :: 7.5

Price - £0.59

Tap Tap Revenge 2

Wow. Tap Tap 2 builds on the already stunning Tap Tap in the form of beautiful new visuals, improved gameplay physics, enhanced multiplayer and a greater volume of DLC. An absolute must-have game for everyone.

Pros: Ridiculously addictive gameplay. Free DLC. Two-player mode rules. Online mode is rivaled by none.

Cons: No 'big name' music available for people that don't like rock music.

Score :: 9.7

Price - FREE!

iDracula

Who'd of known that combining Geometry Wars controls with Castlevania's style and adding admirable 2.5D graphics, a sweet array of uber weapons and some seriously competitive and enslaving leaderboards would have made a truly brilliant game. Who'd of known eh?

Pros: Killer gameplay and control system. Commendable perk integration. Funky music.

Cons: One map only, however more free DLC is on the way.

Score :: 9.1

Price - £0.59

Line Rider iRide

It's the line rider we all know and love. For the people who don't know and love it, damn you people, Line Rider is an objectiveless game where you merely draw lines using your finger. Then, you hit play and a small man, named Bosh, drops onto your lines and rides them. With the added bonuses of being able to draw background scenary, online track-sharing and gravity effects, Line Rider should be the purchase of choice for Bosh veterans and Rider n00bs alike.

Pros: Drawing with your finger works great. Multiple save ability allows for many tracks on the go.

Cons: Extremely time consuming, therefore you cannot really pick up and play.

Score :: 8.1

Price - £1.79

JellyCar

Level solving, car flipping, monster truck turning, iPhone tilting, jelly mashing pandemonium. That is what JellyCar is. You simply have to get from start to end, by touching either side of the screen to go in a direction, tilting the device to spin the automobile and touching the car itself to tranform into a huge truck. The controls for JellyCar are deceptively simple on paper, as the execution of such actions proves to be far more challenging.

Pros: Immense controls. They mastered the difficulty.

Cons: Very rarely the jelly physics glitch.

Score :: 7.9

Price - FREE!

Real Football 2009

RF 09 really is the pinnacle of sport simulations on the iPhone. It flaunts unbelievable visuals, similar to that of a slightly-better-than-average PS1 game, solid control system, masses of game modes and teams and a multiplayer mode. You control your player via an onscreen D-Pad and an A and B button. With few touchings of any other part of the screen, besides for a few tricks, and the accelerometer only used for throw-ins, the game is nearly entirely played through the few buttons. For all football fans, you will not see better than Real Football for a very long time.

Pros: Saveable league, cup and tournament modes. A wealth of match variables. Gameplay solid enough to keep you entertained for hours.

Cons: You can't buy and sell players in league mode. Absence of online play, although they have announced they will update soon with internet play.

Score :: 9.0

Price - £3.59

Pocket God

Not so much a game, more a toy, but I deemed it good enough to mention on here. In Pocket God you play God of a small island and its inhabitants. Whilst there are only a handful of things to do, each thing is done to the highest of standards. As God you can: flick your islanders, crack coconuts on their heads, add new islanders, feed them to sharks, zap them with lightning, throw a boulder at them and much more. As well as this, probably the best feature the game has is its dev team behind it who are pumping out one new 'thing to do' every week.

Pros: Weekly updates. Charming graphics. It is fun to let out anger on small defenseless people.

Cons: Can get a little repetitive.

Score :: 8.5

Price - £0.59

Oh, and another piece of news...a new editor will be uploading a Halo Wars review in the next week or so, so stay tuned.

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

F.E.A.R. Alma again.

You really should.

Does F.E.A.R. 2 deliver the horror, shock and trauma filled campaign it promises? Does the online rival the dominant XBL shooters? Does the storyline get more gruesome or does it neatly tie itself up?

Will I ever stop asking rhetorical questions? Will I? Will I?

Will I?

Where to start eh? The campaign is ostentatiously breath-taking at times, with its jaw-dropping slow-mo graphics and armored vehicle-ness, however, it is occasionally spoilt by poor, predictable level design.

As you progress through the game you will gradually pick up, and inevitably become passionately interested in, the games storyline. You are Beckett. Summary of Becket: masterchief of his world. You, and your team, have been tasked with the job of fetching some lady called Artiside, or something like that. Artiside is head of a company, Armacham Technology Corporation, or ATC for short, which attempted to speed up the evolution of humans, and, as with all fictitious human modifying experiments, it went wrong. Your main objective in the game is to destroy Alma, the ATC and the Replica are merely obstacles. As in most games now, there are small hidden collectables placed strategically to span the entire single player experience. I recommend that you don't just search for them, you achievement whores you, but actually take notice of the words written upon them as the 'intel' items heavily piece together the intricately woven storyline. The word apologue definately doesn't apply to this title, unless NOT trapping little girls in boxes underground and forcing them to reproduce is the moral that is conveyed through F.E.A.R., which I highly doubt. So, if you enjoy happy games where the worst that can happen is slipping on a banana, I suggest you stick to Mario Kart. But if you are one of those saudistic, gore-loving, blood-thirsty freaks, then this is your game.

The gameplay is rather enjoyable too. Don't get me wrong you will have seen and played it all before but F.E.A.R. somehow manages to tweak very tiny parts of your average FPS shooter and make it something...different. 

Online multiplayer is what alot of 'hardcore' gamers would say is by far the most valuable cog in a games engine. Well, the core gamers won't be dissappointed here. F.E.A.R.'s online can handle 16 players at one time and consists of 6 different game modes over 9 playable maps, 3 of which can only be played in 1 game mode. The modes are: Deathmatch - All vs All, you know the score; Team Deathmatch -  Again, obvious; Blitz - Capture the flag with a twist. There are two flags and you have a timelimit in which you must capture as many times as possible, or vice versa by stopping the enemy team scoring; Failsafe - Search and Destroy for all you CoD fans, or a bomb plant and defend mode for non-CoD lovers; Control -You know...this will be alot easier if you've played Call of Duty as this gamemode is an exact replica, no pun intended, of CoD's Domination. Basically, there are three control points on the map. The more you control the more points you get; And lastly, Armoured Front - By far the best original mode. Armoured Front has 3 of its own maps, as it needs perfectly suited designs to encorporate the modes style. In short, 5 control points across each map. You have to capture all points in sequence, either ascending or descending varying with the side you spawn on. Sounds pretty 'meh' right? Thats because the art of this mode is crafted magically into something called an Elite Powered Armour (EPA). Each team has one EPA which can be manuevered after capturing the 2nd control point in your sequence. Quite simply: EPA>Man...no matter what, literally. It takes at least several stun grenades and missiles to take down these machines. Bullets do such a ridiculously tiny amount of damage to EPA's, its like a human against a rock...and a stupid rock at that. Anyways, as the EPA cannot capture points it makes for a team-based, communication necessary, EPA pwnage, sneaky sneaky Russians, frag fest load of awesomeness.

To conclude, the campaign is stunning, only flawed once or twice. The online probably won't draw you away from Halo, Gears or CoD but will be a keeper.

Score:: 8.7 

Gears of War 2

Gears of War 2, probably the most anticipated game of the year for xbox owners.

Worth the wait: in short...kind of.

To start off, the campaign is awesome...like superb. Gears 1 had a good campaign, but because it was the first of a new game series it really focused on building the game and all its features, like the cover system. So, whilst easing players into the new gameplay most new games try not to overcomplicate the story and leave it open for a sequel.

But! As this is the sequel, and the player knows how far his grenade will go and when to shotgun and when to lancer, the story is there to be shaken up. Epic didn't just shake it up, they raped it in the face...hardcore style. The story is pwnage. As you muddle through the middle-ish part of the game you are constantly speculating about the multiple different scenarios you could be in. 

Although, the game isn't merely the campaign, the most sought-after section of the game is without a doubt the online multiplayer. 'Mmmmmm, San Die-gears, drink it in...it always goes down smooth', Ron Burgundy. Theres a party system now, good times; but its really easy to get chainsawed despite pumping a whole clip into someone, bad times. **cough** Massive exaggeration, but it takes way more bullets than number one for somebody to have to lower their bayonet, and sometimes it really feels like an injustice has been done when some n00b thinks he's awesome-o 3000 when you have been uber-pwning and then you get sawed when you shouldn't have. I mean dont get me wrong, I'm not one of those guys that is like 'the chainsaw sucks!! Get it out of the game its for gays...haha gays!! They took our jobs'. I believe its a legitimate weapon that was under-used on Gears 1 and is now slightly over-used because its a little too easy to use. But as a whole, with some superb new game modes, new weps and new scenary, the online is brilliant...only flawed by the terrible servers hosted by Epic!!

Too summarise...

Good times: The game rules. It follows from Gears 1 which was awesome too.  The party system is cool, and so are the new game modes.

Bad times: The servers actually suck dick. Chainsawing is slightly too easy. There appears to be no way to beat a grenade attatched to a wall which is around the corner from you.

SCORE:: 9.5

GTA IV

Ok... Grand Theft Auto 4, supposedly the best game ever according to most people. But I'm not like most people. In fact, I'm part of the growing minority that thinks it is the most overrated game this side of the millennium. I'll list its pros, and then its cons.

So, What's good?

Pros

• Almost real-life graphics, you'll really think your in New York

• The story line is one of the best I've seen in games, and it creates the coolest protagonist ever yet, Niko Bellic is like an evil James Bond.
  

• The Music, Script and Voice acting are top notch, the way the characters act make you forget you're not watching a movie.
  

Now whats bad...

Cons

• Besides the main missions and a couple on the side, there is nothing to do, the city feels completely empty, plus, the online is fun for all of about 4-5 hours, after that, keep playing CoD4.
  

• Graphic issues, like scenery pop-ins or some drops in frame rates... The kind you'd expect from a mediocre game.

Overall I think that, whilst this is a great game, Rockstar have taken a big step back from the progress made since GTA 3. The game lacks a special something that turns good games into legends. My advice would be buy it, your missing out otherwise, just don't expect the 10/10 everyone seems to want to rate it. My verdict is 9.4/10.

I'll argue with fanboys on the forums... Meszamil

Okami Wii!

I first recognized this game as a possible buy a few months back and have been following it ever since.



I never played the PS2 version but it got awesome reviews.



For those of you who don't know about it, it's an adventure game with puzzles, similar to Zelda.

It holds a beautiful paintbrush style for the graphics and makes you play as a wolf. I beleive the wolf is some kind of God, the God of Sun maybe.



Anyways, heres a few screenshots and check out the vids on gamespot.com or youtube.com



Enjoy!

Battlefield Heroes Class Abilities.

For some reason, I've really got caught up on this game. It just looks so good. Maybe it's because it brings back nostalgic memories of Team Fortress 2 which I really need to buy back soon!! (Mental note to self) Anyways, here's some more info I dug up about BF:H.

Soldier

+Best at determining an enemy's location

+Has a See-the-Enemy power - outlines nearby opponents even through walls. Lasts 10 seconds, 30 seconds to recharge.

+Incendiary rounds

+Health boost - Heals all allies around you

+Recharge over time

Commando

+Specializes in stealth, stab kills, sniping

+Few hit points

+Fast moving

+Slips in and out of cover

+Partial cloak

+Weapons do high damage, but not a lot of ammo

Gunner

+Well armed and armored

+Slow moving

+Uses rapid-fire machine guns, rocket launchers, possibly flamethrowers in the future

+Can throw grenades back

General Abilities Information
+Other abilities can combat each other
+Bomb Bouquet (non official name) - throw 15 grenades at a time, basically handheld artillery strike
Possibility of 15 abilities at launch and 50 in the first year

Signout: mildrenben.

New Editor.

I have appointed a close friend of mine as second editor of this blog and moderator of the forum.

His online name is meszamil.

From now on, so you can distinguish between the two authors, each post will be signed either 'mildrenben' (Me) or 'meszamil' (The newbie!)

So, to round up:

My info:

+Blog Signature: mildrenben
+Forum Name: mildrenben
+Xbox Live Gamertag: Don Mildreone
+Wii Friend Code: 6667 4194 9905 5627

N00bs info:

+Blog Signout: meszamil
+Forum Name: meszamil
+Xbox Live Gamertag: meszamil (getting bored of that lol)

+And no Wii...he's getting one in the upcoming months.

See ya, mildrenben.