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Gold Slam - Beta ReviewCategory: Beta Review Posted on 2008-07-30 09:44:16 Add to Bookmark |
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 "Quick question, does anyone here actually like Tennis?"  For everyone offended by the question above, don't be. I wasn't making a joke at the expense of you're unnatural enjoyment for boring sports, I was asking in complete legitimacy, as in order for me to start playing Gold Slam again, I'm going to need to ask you a few questions. Actually, thinking on it more I don't even know if that would do any good. The reality is that even if you were a Tennis junky, and you did know the difference between a Slice, Splice, Volley, Backhand Lob, and mid air loop-de-loop you would undoubtedly still have a rough time getting the hang of Gold Slam. The reason for this boils down to two things, the Tutorial and the Controls. Now I've been told recently that my long-winded intro's can be a bit much to handle, so lets do things differently for a change and jump right into it. Half-Asian, Non-English speaking Tennis Coach says what? Put simply, the Tutorial in Gold Slam is a nightmare. The layout is very simple, your Tennis Coach will give you 5 simple tasks, and once you've completed them you'll be ready to take on the world at the Tennis Championships. The catch is that you're co |
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| 609 Views 3 Comments | Read More | |
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Conquer Online 2.0 - Game ReviewCategory: Game Review Posted on 2008-07-22 06:52:06 Add to Bookmark |
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 "I know graphics don't make the game…but give me a break!"  Calm down, take a deep breath and count to ten. There, isn't that better? Now I know that Graphics shouldn't have anything to do with how enjoyable a game is to play and all that, but in this case I think they do. Now don't get angry again - just listen for a moment, and maybe I can show you a different perspective. As a developer you have the ability to choose whichever graphics scheme you would like. Some developers try to push the envelope and use cutting edge graphics to provide incredible eye-candy… and to secretly draw you away from how horrible the gameplay is (NeoSteam springs to mind here). Others deliberately use drawn or cartoon style graphics to lower the system requirements (Think World of Warcraft, or Bots). Then, you have the large variety of games like Ultima Online, Ragnarok Online and Runescape that deliberately use a dated graphics style, and subsequently make a hugely successful game by implementing fantastic gameplay. My focus here is on the latter, as I firmly believe that it is time we moved on. Take Ragnarok for example, these graphics were hugely dated… even when the |
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| 56739 Views 6 Comments | Read More | |
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Atlantica - Beta ReviewCategory: Beta Review Posted on 2008-07-20 02:51:46 Add to Bookmark |
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 "The lost city of Atlantis is still lost - will you be the one to find it?"  Turn based battle – my favourite style of battle, has been on the decline for a few years now. In reality it hasn't really been the popular choice since the days of the SNES, but some games still employed the system and in most cases successfully. Take the juggernaught Final Fantasy Series, who until recently have always used an imaginative turn-based battle system, and thanks to it has retained a loyal fan base for over 20 years. This was up until FFXII (Final Fantasy 12); in FFXII they decided to change the fighting system from turn based to a new kind of action system. For some, this was a refreshing new look at a perhaps dated system, for others like myself this prevented them from playing the game for much more than a few days. At the time I was devastated, I never expected the FF series to change from turn-based battles, in every addition to the series they changed characters, magic's, worlds, styles and systems, but they never changed the from turn based battles. Why now? Well, eventually I found that a proper turn-based system just wasn't good enough anymore and they wanted somethi |
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| 14195 Views 23 Comments | Read More | |
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Wizard 101 - Beta ReviewCategory: Beta Review Posted on 2008-07-15 11:49:36 Add to Bookmark |
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 “Wingardiam Levio….wait a second…this isn’t Harry Potter!”  Anyone who has read the Harry Potter books, seen the movies or played the games should get my little funny in the top line there, and anyone who hasn’t shouldn’t be reading this, they should be reading or watching Harry Potter! For those of you who have experienced the phenomenon that is Harry Potter, you are about to have one of two very different feelings, you will either squeal like a school girl as you realise that Harry Potter Online is finally here (I‘ve always had a rather girly voice…), or you are going to be furious that someone has ripped of the brilliant works of J.K Rowling in hopes to leech some of her profits. Originally, I was the latter, because KingsIsle Entertainment really have gone out of their way to make Wizard 101 as similar to Harry Potter as legally possible. You start out as a child Wizard who has recently been accepted into Ravenwood School of Magic, and you begin the game by learning how to duel like a Wizard. Soon after you are introduced to your various teachers and settled into the school. This is exactly how I would expect Harry Potter O |
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| 2598 Views 4 Comments | Read More | |
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Online or Off? - A Writer Club PresentationCategory: Article Posted on 2008-07-07 05:12:33 Add to Bookmark |
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Online or Off? - A Writer Club Presentation Does anyone here remember Mario Kart 64? If you do, then like me you’ll probably have a special section of your brain dedicated solely to some of the awesome memories you had playing it multiplayer with 3 of your mates. You may also have another section dedicated to the dead arms What about Counter Strike at your local LAN café? I still remember the sound of 24 players buying their weapons and switching to their knife booming across the hollow room, followed soon after by someone yelling "Orping is for losers you camping f$%&!" It wasn’t the prettiest sound in the world but it definitely had some memorial properties to it. Then there is the library of other games that you may have played in a darkened room with your mates too, like the Tekken series, 007 Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Halo…and the list goes on. So where am I going with this? Well, you may not have noticed but this style of gaming is basically obliterated, and replaced by the monster that is |
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| 683 Views 7 Comments | Read More | |
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Requiem: Bloodymare - Game ReviewCategory: Game Review Posted on 2008-07-03 05:25:47 Add to Bookmark |
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 “Where’s the screaming? There’s supposed to be screaming!”  I don’t usually like to start a review off on a bad note, it sets the wrong mood and promotes negative thinking. When I write a review I want you to read it and be neutral, I want you to get exited about the good aspects, and annoyed about the bad, but I don’t want you to carry a negative beginning throughout the entire read just because that’s the vibe you had when you started. With Requiem, I’m going to be making an exception. I’m going to start on a negative note because this particular note, changes the entire game: This is not a Survival Horror MMO. It’s not even a Horror MMO, or any variation at all. Yes, there are some gory animations, the Havok engine provides some nice Floppy Doll animations and blood splatter, there’s even a few mildly scary locations and features, but none of them come even close to making this game Horror. Let me explain this a little better, the key to unlocking a good Horror game comes down to one thing: scaring your audience silly, and from my experience the best way to accomplish this is through good storytelling. You need to s |
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| 4418 Views 14 Comments | Read More | |
