S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Review

Overview: The best S.T.A.L.K.E.R game to date - Stable, compelling and atmospheric like you wouldn’t believe!

The Good Stuff:

Very well done ambiance, new enemies, very very stable

The Bad Stuff:

Slow plot, exploration is more fun than the actual storyline

The Druid’s View:

In the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series’ third installment, you play as Ukrainian security agent Alexander Degtyarev. A number of military helicopters have crashed in the region devastated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster–known as The Zone–and you’re sent to investigate. Call of Pripyat tries a bit harder than its predecessors in the storytelling department; the camera pans around your character in cutscenes, the writing is more straightforward, and the climax ties back to Shadow of Chernobyl, the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game. The plot gets a bit interesting in the final few hours as you find out more about what’s going on in Pripyat, the abandoned city closest to the nuclear plant. Unfortunately, there’s little to get you invested before that, and the awkward scripted scenes don’t communicate a sense of drama as much as they highlight the aging visuals. A few characters, such as an alcoholic technician who will upgrade your weapons only after you give him enough vodka, are interesting or entertaining enough to make you care about their fates. But for the most part, you’ll care only about surviving–and thriving–in such bleak, lawless environment.

And what stunning environments they are! Shacks dot the grassy landscapes, cracks open in the earth’s crust, and the famed Pripyat Ferris wheel looms beyond a barbed-wire fence. Storms rage across the skies, and frightening radioactive emissions spread across The Zone, threatening the small pockets of human life that populate it. You encounter groups of bandits fending off mutant attacks or huddled around a fire, camped near a radioactive anomaly. This is a tense, unpredictable, and sometimes scary place where the next step could invite danger or bring respite. You get some forewarning of some attacks, such as the frenzied barking of mutated dogs before a pack of them descend upon you. But other times, the darkness hides a shocking surprise, like a new enemy to the series called the burer. These misshapen dwarves are like mutant poltergeists, flinging objects at you and even telekinetically yanking your weapon out of your hands. A sinister encounter with one of these creatures in the center of Pripyat near the end of the game is one of several nail-biting highlights.

Another highlight is a nighttime ambush of another newly introduced beast called the chimera. Night is wholly black in Call of Pripyat, not the dim facsimile that so many other games provide. Not knowing when this terrible beast might bear down upon you in this blackness makes this just one of many petrifying sequences, though even most mundane encounters will have you sweating bullets. Call of Pripyat is not an easy game, so you need to aim well, know your weapons’ strengths and weaknesses, and conserve ammo. Human opponents put up a tough fight, so running in guns blazing is a quick ticket to the afterlife. There are times when the AI’s ultraproficiency seems a little too obvious. Human enemies facing away from you have the uncanny ability to notice when you peek out a window behind them and are remarkably good shots in the dead of night, even without night vision scopes equipped. But despite a bit of cheating, Call of Pripyat rarely feels unfair. It features none of Clear Sky’s lame choke points and mission design issues, and the economy and weapon upgrade systems have been tweaked in sensible ways. So while you’ll still make use of the quicksave and quickload keys, you never feel like the game devolves into frustrating save-game attrition.

These aren’t the only improvements Call of Pripyat makes over its precursors. This is by far the most stable S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game out of the box; we not a single crash or corrupted save file, and the graphics engine performs better than ever (if not quite perfectly), even when you turn on the new DirectX 11-specific options. This update doesn’t thrust the game into the forefront of cutting-edge visuals, but while low-resolution textures and clumsy animations may betray the engine’s age, carefully crafted environments and all sorts of atmospheric touches make this a case in which art trumps technology. Other welcome improvements include flexible hotkeys,along with important gameplay additions, from preventative medications to the ability to roam The Zone freely once you’ve finished the story.

Outside of the main story, there are plenty of side quests to pursue. You’ll eliminate bloodsucker nests, search for a fabled corner of paradise, and, as before, hunt for incredibly valuable artifacts hidden in the midst of various anomalies. Gathering artifacts is as tense and exciting as it ever was, requiring you to venture into a deadly anomaly that may pick you up into the air and throw you around, burn your skin to a crisp, or zap you with jolts of electricity. All the while, you must follow your detector’s signal to pinpoint the artifact’s location. The search is frantic, and the risk is high, which makes success oh-so-sweet. All these tasks are wrapped into a free-form package, allowing you to explore The Zone under your own terms. In fact, the vague instructions you receive from some mission providers require you to thoroughly explore every nook and cranny, from abandoned schoolhouses to derelict fuel stations. Don’t expect a specific mission waypoint with every job you undertake. This is frustrating if you let it be, but it’s an authentic part of Call of Pripyat’s bleakness. The Zone does not allow you to tame it without a struggle.

The game isn’t always so open ended, and some story missions funnel you through a few extended, linear sequences, though Call of Pripyat falters slightly here. The game spends a lot of time setting up Pripyat as home to unspeakable dangers, and a protracted journey through a long, dark series of tunnels is so nerve-racking that the reward for the effort–the city of Pripyat–is a bit of a letdown. There are fewer opportunities for boundless exploration here, fewer surprises to discover–and no typical vendors, which might lead to some unavoidable travel back to the game’s two other major regions. Thankfully, this is when the story missions start to get more interesting, moving from mundane to there’s-something-freaky-going-on-here territory.

Call of Pripyat’s multiplayer options, just like those of its predecessors, are routine and slightly clumsy, because the game’s shooting mechanics don’t work so beautifully when isolated from the context that makes them successful. But it’s the chilly ambience and lifelike ecology that should lure you to the newest S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, not the ordinary online play. Well-constructed environments and superb sound design make The Zone as cheerless and ominous as ever. But it’s also rich with resources, begging you to cultivate its secrets and withstand the hostilities. Series fans and newcomers alike should don their protective gear and journey forth.

The Ultimate HTPC graphics card - ATI Radeon 5450

Want a graphics card that delivers pure media acceleration without giving 2 cents to gaming? Then you’re prayers have been answered thanks to the ATI Radeon 5450. Here’s the low down:

For $50 (~INR 2500) - You get a DX 11 card, with Eyefinity, UVD2 and HDMI support! To add to it… It’s built on a 40nm die, with a core clock speed of 650MHz and only 80 stream processors. What does this mean? It’s a tiny card, passive cooled, media powerhouse. It has just 12 gigs of memory bandwidth, but 104 GFLOPS of compute performance! Most of the latest onboard graphics cards rate at 40 to 50 GFLOPS - do the math.

Here are the specs:

Here’s what the card looks like:

Here’s a little snippet from the Legit Reviews guys:

Adding the Radeon HD 5450 to the test system (AMD X2) added about 7W to the idle numbers, but actually saved 14W of power during movie playback since it didn’t use as much of the CPU during Blu-ray playback.

The bottom Line:

The ATI Radeon HD 5450 might be the best HTPC graphics card ever made. For less then $60 - you get flawless blu-ray playback with DTS-HD Master Audio bitstreaming!

Dragon Age Origins Preview

Dragon Age: Origins is that kind of game, so rich and involving that you are powerless to resist its wiles and whims, so touching and triumphant that your mind and heart will be moved.Incredible storytelling, great characters, and exciting battles are just a few of the things that make this fantasy role-playing game so extraordinary.

Stay tuned for the full review soon.

(more…)

Thor, Captain America games coming in 2011

The wait for Sega’s Captain America and Thor games has been seemingly interminable. Originally announced in April of 2007, the two games will arrive alongside their movie counterparts in the summer blockbuster season of 2011, according to Marvel’s latest quarterly financial report.

Thor will debut in May 2011, giving the golden-haired god of thunder his first starring game role. The film will be directed by Kenneth Brannagh (Hamlet, Frankenstein), with Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs, Nixon) as Odin and Chris Hemsworth (Captain Kirk’s father in this year’s Star Trek) in the title role.

Captain America will follow his fellow Avenger into theaters and onto game shelves in July 2011. A cast for the film–currently titled The First Avenger: Captain America–has not yet been announced. While Thor will be starring in his own game and movie for the first time, the star-spangled supersoldier has been there before, albeit not for decades. The much-reviled 1990 film Captain America was released direct-to-video in the United States, while the following year’s arcade game Captain America and the Avengers fared much better, spawning ports for the NES, Genesis, and GameBoy, among others.

Source: Gamespot

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – Ultimate Sith Edition Review - PC

Summary:
You’re obviously a PC gamer who’s reading this and you also realize how painful the wait has been since Star Wars: The Force Unleashed released last  year for the Xbox 360 and PS3. Now it makes its presence felt on the PC will all the DLCs - the Jedi Academy, Tatooine and Hoth levels. But now that’s it here, does it measure up?
Good:

• Amazing story line, the best of any Star Wars stories so far
• Awesome level design
• Super cool moves, you can actually FEEL the force
• Nice costumes, skins, saber options

Bad

• Frustrating targeting
• Loads of glitches
• Some game sequences are really ridiculous.

Ugly

• WTF system requirements!
• Poor game engine

The Story:
You play StarKiller, Darth Vader’s very handpicked secret apprentice.  In the years between Episodes III and IV, Darth Vader trains your and puts you to work. You mission:  mopping up the few remaining Jedi.

Graphics:
The graphics are nothing short of mind blowing. From the opening sequence where you play as Darth Vader and face off against the wookies to the stunning levels of Hoth, it’s a Star Wars visual treat! If you played it on the Xbox 360 or PS3, you’ll know just how awesome it was! However, since it’s in for the PC, you’d expect some sort of change, better graphics, better physics etc. but nope, you receive pretty much what you saw on the console…and trust me, it’s a bad port. We tested it on our lowly dual core machine with a 4850 and it ran like sucked nuts. Make sure you have a Core2Quad at least with a 9800gt+ card or better.

Controls:
The controls are… well, annoying at times. The Keyboard mouse combo is easier than playing with the game pad, but the overall experience wasn’t great. Blame it on poor camera angles and frustrating targeting mechanisms.

Gameplay:
I’m inclined to say such great things here, but I can’t. To be very honest, it does some things very well and bombs on a few others. For those of you who’ve played Star Wars: Jedi Academy, you’d think this was the same game on steroids, but it’s just a scaled down version of its game play. The biggest surprise and let down,  is that there are only four main force powers: Push, Grip, Repulse and Lightning - they’re upgradable though and can be used in devastating combination. But really…just 4 is a let down.

But whatever little they give you, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed doles out your powers at a leisurely pace over nine missions, from the gorgeous fungal terrain of Felucia to the vivid metallic graveyard of Raxus Prime, but the coolest are available right from the start. Using Force Grip and Force Push, you can pick up and throw or just knock around parts of the environment, from enemies who reach out in mid-air for a handhold to exploding barrels and scrap metal. Lobbing debris around is fun and deviously entertaining as  you send crowds of stormtroopers hurtling through glass and chuck exploding orbs into passing Tie Fighters, you can almost forgive the piss poor targeting system.
Then there is my favorite - Force Lightning and heaving your lightsaber around like a boomerang, but I found that Force Grip and Force Push made the most entertaining use of the clutter in the early missions. One fault I found with Grip and Push, however, was that larger objects like AT-ST laser turrets take a lot of force to lift. That makes sense logistically but standing still in the middle of a laser spray to mentally heft a huge piece of  debris leaves you like a sitting duck waiting ready to have its goose cooked!

In terms of the additional content, what you’re getting here is an extension of the base game, something that simply adds more content to the experience but doesn’t actually change (or even fix) anything. At very start you’ll notice that the three additional levels are standalone options, so you don’t need to play through the game in order to get to them.  The downside to this is that none of your powers or anything else carries over, nor does anything that you earn carry back into the main game. However, that largely doesn’t matter as you start almost fully powered-up for each of these levels anyway. What the DLCs are like, I’ll leave it to you to discover, but I’ll talk a little about the Hoth level, which again is the only exclusive bit to the Ultimate Sith Edition. Now it isn’t quite as exciting as either the Jedi Academy or Tatooine levels as the Hoth base is essentially just a series of square rooms and corridors connecting them. It looks great, mind you, and is pretty much dead-on with what you see in Empire, but it doesn’t really make for the most interesting level to fight through.

After slicing and dicing for a while, you’ll face off with Luke Skywalker. The battle with him is much tougher than the fight against either Boba Fett or Obi-Wan, but that’s because he can be pretty cheap. He has attacks that are very frustrating, and there can be guys out of the area that you’re in that constantly shoot at you. It’s not a terrible fight, but it’s not nearly as fun as I had hoped it could be…or it should have been.

Sound/Music/Score:
Its Star Wars god damn it!! What more do you need?? But yea, I had a lot of sound issues, it might be just me, it seems soft and almost lifeless.  I really needed to crank up the volume during the game and turn it down during the FMVs.

Overall:
Now whether you should pick up this game or not, I’ll leave it to you. But if you’ve never played this game, yes, pick it up. If you are not a Star Wars fan, you’ll still find it enjoyable, but might be a little frustrating. If you already own the game on one of the consoles, this is not worth picking up. Just download the DLCs and you’re not missing anything. Overall a good game with a flawed experience, but an awesome story line which will keep you engaged right through out. I would easily rate this one of the better Star Wars games…but not enough to make it the best.If you wondered why I’ve not reviewed this on other consoles. To be honest. Its the same. So you’re not reading anything entirely different that’s gonna happen on the Xbox 360 and the PS3

Release Info:
Available on:  Xbox 360, PS3, Mac and PC
Genre: Action
Release date: November 3rd 2009.
Published by: Aspyr
Developed by: LucasArts

System Requirements for PC
Our recommendation for the full experience:

• Core2Duo Extreme or Core2Quad
• 4870 or better
• 4gigs of ram
• Creative X-Fi series sound card

For the casual gamer:

• Core2Duo 2.8 GHz or better
• 4 gigs of ram
• 9600gt or better