The Trailer of God of War 11- Vengeance. “Chaos will rise again” as Kratos say in this new trailer for God of War III. Let’s see how much chaos is there this time. This long awaited sequel will be released by Sony Computer Entertainment’s, Santa Monica Studios on March 16th for the PlayStation 3. Check the Trailer here-

Making a  game based on a movie is not new these days.The latest entry, Avatar from Ubisoft, brings Cameron’s world of Pandora to consoles and PCs far and wide with its game take on the fictional world of Pandora.

Avatar-The game, does not follow the same story as the movie. The game sets long before the events that take place in the movie. The mining corporation is beginning to turn Pandora into a mining colony. You can decide  whether to align yourself with the big blue tree-huggers or the rainforest-burning capitalists. Skills are pretty similar between the two sides, though taking the latter side looks much cooler here to me.

The stuff looks quite impressive as of now and the level of detail of the jungle and the creature animations are of extremely high standard. Ubisoft has even got a stereoscopic version of the game which if you have the 3D compatible gadgets, it enhances the gameplay experience.

You can customise more than sixty weapons available in the game, and choose your own unique skills for each clan. A suite of pilotable vehicles and animals allow gamers to expand the battleground in single-player or online multiplayer as they fight to determine the future of Pandora. Here’s the trailer. Check the space again for the full game review soon.

So I finally got my hands on the latest in the NFS franchise, NFS Shift. I haven’t been a big fan of the series off-late and I have been playing Burnout series more. But I need to say that Shift is a welcome change to the series. No more story lines- it was fun once, twice but then on it started feeling sloppy.

I like the sun – It’s hot out there now go melt the tracks with some hot driving.

Camera – Before I got the game, I swore I’ll drive only in the first person view. Why? Because it feels just like a first person shooter. Every time you crash everything turns blurry much like it happens when someone drops a smoke bomb in many FPS titles. But after trying it, I realised it’s not for me, may be I’ll go back to in-car camera after I get used to the cars and tracks a bit.

The AI is not as easy as in previous titles, of course, I had to try it out in a race to realise it. I only managed to finish 7th out of a lineup of 10 as I skid out of track once. In a race which spans two laps that’s unforgivable.

Here are a few screens. Longer preview, and a full-blown review in a weeks time

All okay in there?

Just past the first curve of the race =) Didn’t crash **grin**

It looks like Electronic Arts has a plan when it comes to developing games for the Wii. When Console and PC gamers will be getting Shift, Wii gamers will be getting Need for Speed Nitro which will have the kind of gaming we have grown familiar to in games like Carbon and hot pursuit. Sweet!  Need for Speed NITRO is expected to deliver the fun and exhilaration of high-speed racing, combining the franchise’s trademark attitude and car culture with deep and thrilling gameplay over the two Nintendo platforms (It is available for Nintendo DS too).

Whether it’s with the Wii remote, nunchuck, racing wheel, the classic controller or the Gamecube controller, Need for Speed NITRO will let gamers race it their way. Showcased at the EA Showcase India 2009, NFS NITRO has a different look and feel in comparison to other games in the NFS series under development.

The Wii version is with 5 different zones starting in Rio, Brazil, where racers will move their way up the ranks to dominate every race from street to street, city to city ( a lot like NFS Carbon and others). With techniques such as drafting off rivals to gain speed and drifting sharp corners to gain nitro boost, players will also have to manage their heat level as cops add to the mayhem on the road with their increased intensity and aggression. As I said earlier, not too different from previous NFS games in terms of gameplay.

The Nintendo DS version will feature around 10 game modes in a variety of fresh and exciting race modes including, Elimination (last place driver is eliminated at the end of every lap), Circuit (complete 3 laps, first one wins), Smack’m’all (smash objects in a limited time), Tag the World (achieve 100% tagging score in shortest amount of time) etc etc. Now this sounds exciting to me.

All this combined with some fresh modes, tracks and exotic real world locations, doesn’t really make Need for Speed NITRO so much exciting to us here.. Still we can hope for the best.

Now this is the football game that I have been waiting for a looong time….

After winning around 25 international gaming awards with FIFA 09, EA has continued to work on the game and I need to say they met the expectations from gamers, at least mine to certain extant.

Responding to consumer feedback from gamers, FIFA 10 refines an already brilliant game engine,  to continue to set the benchmark as the most complete simulation of football. Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) finally has a rival, a game which can stand up to the quality PES to known to possess, a game which might further shift the balance in favour of EA. If Konami doesn’t do anything extraordinary in with their next PES game, they might be asking for trouble

One major point my co-author Balu didn’t liked about Fifa 09 was that players couldn’t run diagonally (EDIT: Was referring to PC version). EA comes up with a solutions to this with 360° dribbling. They claim it to be the first-ever true 360° dribbling system in a football game providing finer dribbling control, enabling players to find spaces between defenders that previously were not possible.

This feature is awesome to say the least, sometimes this makes passing and dribbling very easy and real-life like. But not too easy either. You have to get the strength of the shot right or stand a chance of losing possession of the ball.

Speaking of graphics, they look slightly better than last year, but to me they still look robotic. The ambience and the stadiums too have been slightly improved upon from last year. In short graphic-whores have no reason to complain (I’m one step beyond them I suppose).

The game also has undergone core gameplay refinements based on responsiveness and intelligence, plus a completely overhauled of the ‘Manager Mode’ that includes more than 50 major improvements.

Ball control like I mentioned earlier has been improved upon, not drastically as EA would claim, but just enough for everything to feel right. The physics of the ball too has been improved, the ball doesn’t feel feather-weight anymore as it did in the last installment.

Besides this, more than 50 major improvements were made to create an authentic experience to mimic the real-world game in this version. Player transfers are determined by multiple decision points, including club finance and prestige, and competition from AI-controlled clubs.

Player development is more realistic with true-to-life growth curves. This year even the Russian League is included in the squad. So more Arshavin’s transferring to your teams now.

The Bad

The version which was made available looked like an alpha build of sorts. There were a few problems with AI, but nothing hat can’t be sorted out in a few builds. Because of the same reason I am saving nit-picking and game bashing for later on, when the game releases

The game was previewed at EA India Showcase 2009

Launch date: October 2

Available for: PS3, PS2, X box360, PC, Wii, Nintendo DS, PSP, iPhone, iPod Touch, N-Gage (phew!)

At EA India Showcase 2009, I got my hands on one of the most awaited games of the year Brütal Legend, a 3^rd person action game rich in combat, imagery and storytelling that delivers lighter-flicking fun sure to melt your face clean off.

Brütal Legend tells the story of Eddie Riggs, the ultimate roadie, based on Jack Black. The “roadie’s roadie”, Eddie is the 1^st person anyone calls when they need guitars tuned or stages rigged. With a love for hot rods and a photographic memory for every Heavy Metal album cover, and the lyrics those albums contained, Eddie has always felt out of place. He felt he should have been born earlier, when the music was real.

Brütal Legend’s core gameplay is classic action. You can give close quarter blows using  his axe (err.. guitar), and also attack people from a long distance using his demon-slaying guitar — Clementine. He can also use his vehicules to attack thus delivers deep, rewarding, fun combat that will have you throwing your “devil horns” in the air.

Now you may be wondering why a musician is going around attacking people… Well, it all starts with a stage accident, which knocks Eddie unconscious. With his blood dripping into the belt buckle he wears, a gift from his father, his blood quenches an ancient thirst that sucks him into a world that looks very strange yet oddly familiar, a world where every Heavy Metal album cover and lyric Eddie knows has come to life, a world where the evil emperor Doviculus and his demon army, The Tainted Coil, have enslaved the last remaining humans.
If you thought that was creepy, I need to tell you that it doesn’t end there. Led by Lars Halford alongside his sister Lita and the mysterious Ophelia, the human resistance is far from helpless. However, what they lack is someone to bring them all together; someone who can organise them and lead them into battle, what they need is a roadie. Under Eddie’s command, this barbaric force of hot-rods, Marshall stacks, leather, and chrome will bring this ancient world into the age of Metal.

Few Key Features of the game

A World Like No Other – Inspired by some of the most iconic album art and lyrics of all-time, Brütal Legend features a streaming, open world rich with detail, from mountains made of guitar amps to big block V8 engines rising from the ground, delivering a world truly unique and unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Titans of Stage and Screen – Lead by Jack Black as the voice of Eddie Riggs, the epic cast of Brütal Legend features vocal talent providing by some of Metal’s biggest names, including Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead, Lita Ford and more.

Fully Licensed Soundtrack - Brütal Legend will feature a fully licensed soundtrack that includes some of the greatest Metal and Rock and Roll songs ever assembled.

Multiplayer – Take the Metal madness online in Brütal Legend’s Multiplayer mode that combines action combat with a strategic unit-control mechanic that allows the player to direct their army in The Battle of the Bands, where the ultimate trophy is survival

The game play is good but I was still expecting some better graphics though.

Tipped to launch in October this year, this game looks like we’re going to have one hell of a game. The game is going to be available on Playstations & Xbox360 and the PC gamers have to wait for some time I think.

Mafia II has been in development for a long time now, considering that the original was made way back in 2002. It is one of my favourite sandbox style games to date primarily because of the strong story line which was found missing in many other sandbox games. From what we can see in the gameplay video below (shown at this year’s E3) Mafia II not only packs in better graphics and improvement in gameplay, but also some a cracking story line. I won’t say more, enjoy the video.

For extra info you may visit        Official site Wikipedia Impressions (by Joystiq)

Game being developed for PC, Xbox360, PS3

Do you read Windows blog? No? I suggest you do.. else you miss out on information like this. The games explorer feature which was introduced in Vista has undergone a lot of changed in Win7. So not only will Win7 work faster, it will also make it easier to manage games in our system, including their updates.

Games Explorer will deliver updates from Game Providers, including news and information regarding their own games. Updates from Game Providers appear in the right-hand Preview Pane when a Game Provider is selected. When you select the Microsoft Games Provider, you can see updates from us (see below screenshot).

Under “Options”, you can enable automatic update notifications for games, along with automatic updates to Game Provider news and information, or simply check yourself manually by right-clicking on a specific Game Provider or game and choosing “Check online for game updates”.

Another neat feature in the Windows 7 Games Explorer is the ability for you to see when an update is available for a game you have installed. I installed Flight Simulator X and Halo 2, and Games Explorer showed that an update was available for both these games.

Instead of having to launch the game and install the update through the game itself – you can now install game updates directly within Games Explorer.

Games Explorer will track statistics for the games you play. As you can see – I’ve lost one game in both Chess Titans and Internet Checkers. Statistics are tracked for the different levels for each game. In the future, expect to see many of your favorite games take advantage of this functionality.

Can we expect an Xbox Live environment in Windows PC with Win7? Hopefully we will!

I have always been a big fan of God of War series. It remains one of the most classic games ever brought out on PlayStation. The third installment which was previewed by Kotaku might change the fortunes of PlayStation 3 which has lacked a games which can make the console sell.

Not only does the game have better graphics, it also packs in new weapons for Kratos while keeping the good ol’ arm blades intact. He also has some slick new moves.

Meanwhile do check out a preview video (ehm… not in-game video – booo!) posted by Kotaku again. Might make you want to get a PS3, if you don’t have one already!

PS: India based Paprikas studio worked on the animation till now in God of War series. No idea if they did it for God of War III as well.

This is one game I was longing to play. But after trying it out at PlayStaion Experience 08’, Bangalore I need to admit – I couldn’t stomach it.

No, nothing wrong with the game, it’s just me. The extra bright visuals the first person view action and tight rope walking. Phew! Guys not for me. Give me some third person shooter, some off road racer, even LittleBigPlanet but not this.

The game is otherwise perfect, sigh if only I didn’t feel giddy playing it! The controls are really good and so are the visuals. I couldn’t follow much of the story line, thanks to the extra noisy ambience and also due to that guy who was sitting next to me and bragging about his achievements in God of War II.

The only part of the game liked was when I slid between one cop’s leg and hit him behind his back. I not only managed to disarm him but also managed to knock him unconscious