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…)

Torchlight Review

Torchlight is an awesome dungeon based RPG with a fun, familiar and enjoyable combat system. Plus the plethora of items that you receive in the game are just magnificent!!

What’s hot:

• Very well done action-RPG formula
• Engaging and atmospheric dungeons
• Great bunch of monsters to bash up
• Great Soundtrack and musical score
• Rewarding loot drops

What’s Warm:

• No multiplayer
• Does nothing new

What’s Cold:

• Nothing!

The first thing you’ll notice about this game is how close it is to Diablo 1 and 2. Infact most of the keys are still mapped from Diablo 1 and 2. And after a few hours of playing…you’ll realize that you don’t need to wait for Diablo III! (but we still are)… Fans of action-oriented role-playing can get a first-rate fix of hacking and slashing right now in Torchlight, a great dungeon crawl from the designers of the first two Diablo games and the cult hit Fate. Runic Games has forged a letter-perfect copy of the action role-playing formula with fast-paced combat and cartoonish graphics that will keep you clicking away!!

Also once it begins you’ll realize  how light, fast and undemanding this game is on your system. It even has a netbook mode!!  Although we’ve never tried it…it seems like it will run on low powered systems just fine. If you have been  a fan of the Fate games, then  don’t expect any surprises. Torchlight is an evident  successor, boasting the same attitude, art style, and lighthearted personality that make that series a breezier play than the gothic Diablo games.  The story lets you chose between 3 classes, a dual-wielding Destroyer, the fast ranged action Vanquisher and  the Ember-channeling Alchemist, you’ll soon be clicking and bashing away at stuff.  The story starts off telling you about your quest in Torchlight, a mining town built alongside a mountain loaded with deposits of the magic-enabling Ember mineral. A formerly good-guy adventurer named Alric has gone over to the dark side due to the corrupting influence of tainted Ember, so you sign on to help his former companion track him into the many dungeons that cut through the underworld beneath the town. The fun part is the technological mixing - Battleaxes coexist with rifles, and a robot bard who sends you on assassination runs. The art is centered on a more cartoonish look. Heroes have square Disney jaws and great big eyes. Monsters are more outlandish than creepy, with comic-book proportions and exaggerated attack movements. But the plot and quests revolve around familiar dungeon expeditions to kill monsters, fetch various items, and score lots of loot. So even if the game looks and feels a bit different, it remains a stock-standard action role-playing game at heart.

Torchlight PC screen

But it’s a formula that is used very, very well. Torchlight hits all the highs of the action RPG genre and avoids virtually all of the lows. The only serious issue that some will have with the gameplay is the absence of a multiplayer mode. Being able to kill monsters with a pal or three is a core part of the Diablo experience, so some players will find this omission hard to live with. Still, the solo campaign is reasonably lengthy (and is boosted by some bonuses after its conclusion) and well designed. Levels move along smartly, so you get into a perfect clicking groove. On normal difficulty, only the biggest beasties take more than a few clicks to kill if you’re collecting loot and upgrading weapons regularly. This helps the game’s pace, because nothing slows down a hackfest RPG faster than monsters that take forever to kill. Killing causes creatures to explode in fountains of blood, too. Level corridors tend to look like slaughterhouses after you’ve passed by, adding a sick sense of satisfaction to your exploits. Many monsters have weird names, like varkolyn or shambler, and some look strange, perhaps most notably some of the pygmy variations. Bigger boss-type foes scattered throughout levels even come with ludicrous names, like Ghoulrider the Merciless and Foolfighter the Reviled. But they all still attack like traditional fantasy orcs, zombies, giant spiders, and the like.

Great graphics, spells, loots and more!

All of the randomly generated dungeons come in many themes and with dramatically different art. Bleak stony mines coexist with mossy labyrinths and roaring waterfalls. You’re unlikely to get bored with what you’re looking at. Quests never involve assignments that could be considered innovative, although they are mixed up enough in length and objective that you don’t feel like you’re constantly grinding. Some of the side quests, such as grabbing samples of the various types of Ember for a mage and collecting magical doodads for a cowardly researcher, serve as quick breaks from the more involved main story missions. Loot drops are extremely well handled. You get loads of generic stuff, but just the right amount of killer hardware and item sets to keep you picking everything up. And the whole adventure is further pulled together with one of the best soundtracks to ever grace an action RPG. Diablo composer Matt Uelman has put together haunting, hummable themes that flow along behind the ceaseless combat, keeping you engaged while not blowing up into an annoying clash of horns, which so often mars RPGs. The tunes range from Pink Floyd airiness to Renaissance fair string-plucking to a sparse, spooky piano.

Stunning combat environment

Well if you ask me, this is one of the best RPGs to hit the PC in many years…and for just $20…or Rs. 1000…you can’t go wrong with this!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Review - Xbox 360

Coming right off 2006’s smash hit (mmm…’smash hit’ - wonder why no one uses that word anymore); Marvel Ultilmate Alliance 2 is a must have for any comic book fan! Even if you’re not :)…it’s packed with heroes and villains culled from the Marvel Universe, brims with button-tapping glee, and suffers from occasional and annoying technical idiosyncrasies. Its improvements to the formula can’t be ignored, however. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is easier to look at and features an intriguing character dialogue component. It also ties the heroic crew together with a much more intriguing story based on the Marvel Civil War miniseries, though comic fans should note that it takes more than a few liberties with that narrative. This isn’t a groundbreaking game, but it’s an enjoyable and replayable one.

From an isometric camera view, you lead a team of four Marvel stars through hordes of expendable henchmen and glowering robots, occasionally taking detours to solve simple puzzles and bash on the villains standing between you and fist-pumping victory. You lead one hero at a time, while the AI and/or other players, online or off, control the other three. Regardless of which heroes and antiheroes from the roster of about two dozen you choose to take along, they can all string two types of melee attacks into combos, grab various objects and enemies to throw around, and perform four superpowers limited only by a quick-recharging power meter. While each controls more or less the same, there’s a good amount of variety among the heroes. Storm can fly and knock down multiple foes at a time with a gust of wind; Venom’s tongue can lash about, doing damage to any nearby enemies; and Iceman can call forth an eruption of ice to impale villains from underneath. Whether you’re on your own or with buddies, the action is good, laid-back fun.

However, not all the characters are created equal. They’re all fairly balanced, but that doesn’t make them all correspondingly fun to play. The Invisible Woman’s debuffs can be helpful, but she’s not as viscerally appealing as Wolverine, with his dramatic clawing, or Deadpool, whose well-rounded powerset and self-referential one-liners make him consistently satisfying to use. However, ceaseless button mashing can make even the best characters tiresome, especially once you’ve discovered effective patterns that you can keep spamming again and again. Fortunately, you can change easily to another character not controlled by another player and switch unlocked heroes in and out of your active crew on the fly. If you’re on your own, you’ll be pleased to know that the AI often does a good enough job of taking care of the characters not in your control, using powers frequently and choosing enemies wisely. That isn’t always the case, though. Every so often, you’ll glimpse AI-driven heroes wandering about but contributing nothing to the chaos, and as in the first game, they might get stuck on objects or stutter about in an animation loop until they break free.

The most notable additions to the action are fusion powers. As you damage enemies, you fill up a fusion meter, and once it’s charged up, you can initiate a two-hero fusion attack. There are several types of attacks, depending on the two heroes involved in the fusion. Guided attacks, like the fire-and-ice beam created by Iceman and the Human Torch, let you maneuver the pair about the screen, zapping any foes unlucky enough to get caught in their elemental stream. Clearing attacks, appropriately, clear the immediate area of baddies, such as the laser deflection that Iron Man and Captain America perform. Different fusions come in handy at different times, but many of them are absolutely fantastic to watch, like any of those featuring Storm’s whirlwind. Various combinations of heroes don’t all make for singular fusions, however. Storm-plus-Gambit is essentially the same fusion as Storm-plus-Spiderman–one throws cards into the cyclone, while one spews webbing into it. The repetition among fusions is disappointing, especially if you tend to stick to the same one or two characters, but fusions are probably the best part of the game: most look fantastic and colorful, they do a lot of damage, and you don’t have to be stingy with them.

The story that gives context to all this action is based on two Marvel storylines: author Mark Millar’s Civil War comics event and Brian Michael Bendis’ Secret War. The narrative doesn’t closely follow those plot outlines, but Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2’s version is intriguing, and its tale of superheroes divided over the US government’s attempt to force heroes into legally registering has provocative political and social undertones. It also forces you into an eventual decision that doesn’t just divide your hero roster, but divides the entire game into two separate story experiences before bringing them back together again. It’s a clever method of storytelling that gives you a reason to replay the game again once you’ve finished the first time, just to see how it plays out if you make the other choice.

Your involvement with the story isn’t limited to making a single decision, however. Throughout the game, you’ll engage in dialogue with various characters and choose one of three different responses to their statements: aggressive, defensive, and diplomatic. Consistent responses lead to in-game rewards like team medals (more on these to come), though their contribution to the story is disappointingly negligible. The response options often don’t fit their category; sometimes, each choice seems equally smarmy (every option might seems like it should have been categorized as “passive-aggressive”). And because the dialogue is based on the situation and not necessarily tailored to the character you’re controlling, your choices may not seem completely appropriate. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself thinking, “Come on–Venom would never say that!”

As you hack and slash your way through Latveria, the Negative Zone, and other locales, you’ll level up and earn team medals, so there are several ways to customize your roster. Customization is a bit more streamlined in the sequel than in the original. For example, you no longer find and equip gear as you did in the original, and you’re limited to equipping team-wide medals that may add cold damage to your melee attacks or increase the number of experience orbs you earn. It’s disappointing to see the role-playing elements of the original stripped down in such a way; after all, finding more loot is an addictive part of similar games, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 doesn’t seem to benefit in any way from this change. As before, you can let the game handle all the leveling for you and never worry about spending experience orbs and skill points if you don’t want to. Sadly, if you prefer to micromanage your heroes, you might get exasperated with a glitch that constantly resets the autoleveling option back to on, even after you turn it off. Other elements of the game have been smoothed out for the better. The menus are easier to navigate, and the addition of a navigation arrow means you’ll rarely lose your way. And in the most convenient and slick addition of all, should an online buddy wish to upgrade his hero, he can do so without pausing the game for everyone: the AI will simply take over for him until he returns.

The visuals have also been noticeably smoothed out. Environments are attractive and you’ll traverse a nicer variety of locations than in the first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. There are still too many sterile interiors, but outdoor regions look terrific and colorful. Power effects are snazzy, filling the screen with bolts of electricity and bursts of fire. Character models also look better and, in most cases, seem true to their familiar comic book design. However, both the visuals and the sound design are still exasperatingly uneven. In the character select screen, the heroes look great; during conversations, they look stiff and occasionally bizarre, and the camera might give you a view of their internal geometry. The frame rate can’t always handle the excess of particles and explosions; it takes noticeable dips here and there, especially when you’re playing online. The inconsistency holds true for the voice acting as well, which is at times right on point (Deadpool was apparently a developer favorite; be sure to listen closely to the closing credits) and at other times laughably campy. The soundtrack and audio effects are rousing and boisterous, qualities perfectly consistent with the subject matter.

There’s a lot of game packed onto this disc. Not only will the campaign last you around 15 hours or so, but the branching story gives you a good reason to return. Furthermore, there are additional stand-alone missions to take on, most of which are designed well and are enjoyable to tackle; a trivia game that will test your Marvel comics knowledge; and lots of costumes, audio discs, and dossiers to collect. So while Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 may not take the series in a big and bold new direction, or benefit from the kind of refinement you would look for in a sequel, it does deliver the button-mashing, power-flinging, over-the-top action fans of the original would expect. And it’s just good fun.

Wet - PS3 Review

Don’t go by the name,its not some 2 cent porn game. In fact this raucous bloodbath is fun, has intuitive and exciting acrobatic combat and a great soundtrack making it very entertaining!

In the first scene of Wet, you slide down a long table in slow motion, smashing through towers of champagne glasses and a giant cake as you gun down thugs who are trying to kill you. Then you leap off the table to fly over a dragon-shaped ice sculpture as you pump bullets into even more goons. After you whip out your sword to finish the last one off, you’ll have killed a dozen enemies in a bloody display of stylish, slow-motion savagery within a few short moments. Wet’s gleefully bloody combat is a combination of high-flying acrobatics and brutal gunplay that is consistently entertaining, despite some rough movement mechanics. And while the seedy plot and cuss-happy characters aren’t anything to write home about, the story is very well paced and propelled by a fiery soundtrack that perfectly suits the over-the-top action. Wet is a high-speed thrill ride that barrels over its own speed bumps and potholes at such a rollicking good pace that you can’t help but have a riotously good time.

You play Rubi Malone. When things go afoul on a job she’s hired to do, she wants payback, and she’s got the skills to get it.  Rubi’s substantial move set is introducded at a measured pace, giving you just enough time to get comfortable with each ability before you unlock a new one. You start out jumping and sliding, but you’ll work your way up to pole swinging, wall jumping, and a host of other acrobatic maneuvers. You’ll use your abilities to traverse a variety of gritty environments as your work your way through the underworld to get at the guys who wronged you. For the most part, navigating is straightforward and fairly easy, though the loose controls ensure that you’ll make your fair share of missteps. If you get stuck, you can hold a button to highlight areas that Rubi can grab onto or run to, which will generally get you on your way. However, some jumps are incongruously tough, and a few sections make your next step frustratingly unclear.

Rubi can run and gun fairly well, but it is much more entertaining and rewarding to gun while doing something besides running. If you start shooting while doing anything remotely acrobatic, time will slow down and the real fun begins. Rubi is a dual-wielding kind of gal, and when you enter the slow-motion shooting mode, one of the guns automatically targets a nearby enemy. You can then aim the other gun freely, which allows you to take down multiple enemies without breaking a sweat. This pairing of auto-targeting with free aiming is intuitive and uncomplicated, and Rubi’s flexibility allows you to cover a wide degree of firing angles. The shooting mechanics and slow-motion effect combine to imbue every enemy encounter with cinematic potential. To take out a cluster of enemies, for example, you could leap toward your enemies and use your pistols to stop the charging swordsmen. Then you can land in a slide, switch to your semiautomatic guns, and spin your torso around in a full circle, spraying hot death in every direction. The slow motion not only makes this massacre possible, but it also allows you to revel in your deliciously deadly abilities.

The only other places you’ll encounter awkwardness are in the cutscenes and character dialogue. The character models aren’t particularly sharp, and there’s a good amount of graphical clipping and lip-syncing clumsiness. The plot is a serviceably violent romp through the underworld and takes you to a variety of detailed locations that, while not exactly beautiful, have a number of nice flourishes. The voice acting is solid but not great, and some of Rubi’s quips wear out their welcome pretty quickly (”Say goodnight, Gracie!”). The whole game is overlaid with a grainy filter (which you can turn off) that echoes Wet’s grind house inspiration, but the best part of the presentation is the soundtrack, which boasts a robust number of grimy surf rock tracks. These chime in at timely intervals, punching up the action and psyching you up to do some more killing.

When you’re done with the story, you can replay each level to try to beat a target point score or take on the obstacle-course challenges, though the latter tends to expose some of the game’s weaker elements. Wet isn’t a particularly pretty game, and a lingering awkwardness can interrupt the acrobatic platforming from time to time. Fortunately, you’ll usually be too busy enjoying the action to notice. The combination of auto-target, free aim, and slow motion makes combat relentlessly entertaining, and the vigorous soundtrack and great pacing give the game a satisfying sense of momentum. Though there is a certain roughness to the action, Wet is still a raucously entertaining adventure.

Quick Facts:

Compnay: Bethesda Softworks and A2M

Genre: Action

Release: Sep 15, 2009

ESRB: Mature

Here’s the trailer for it:

Dead Space Extraction - Wii Exclusive

only gets worse for the USG Ishimura in the upcoming Wii-exclusive Dead Space Extraction from EA’s Visceral Games development studio. This platform-exclusive survival horror game functions as both a prequel and side story to the acclaimed Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 original.

Check out the Gamespot Exclusive video for this: