Magical Beat Review

Developer Arc System Works is best known for its fighting games, which include favorites like BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, and Persona 4 Arena. But the company is much more than a fighting game factory; it also creates and publishes numerous smaller games of varied genres. Magical Beat is an initially intriguing puzzle game with a striking retro visual style and a musical hook to its color-matching gameplay. This challenging and enjoyable Vita exclusive has all of the fundamental qualities of a sleeper hit--but ultimately hits a bit of a flat note.

Magical Beat is a falling-block game with a rhythm-based twist. While this description probably brings to mind the beloved puzzler Lumines, Magical Beat is quite distinct from that game in several ways. For starters, gameplay is always done in versus format, pitting you against either a human or a CPU-controlled foe. The object is to match up chains of three or more colored, anthropomorphic blocks called "beatons" in any combination of vertical or horizontal directions to send attacks over to your foe. Unlike most puzzlers of this sort, the blocks don't fall on their own: you rotate and move them above the field to your liking before pressing a button to drop them directly into the field.

You think you're bad? Buddy, I OWN this town.

It's that part about dropping them of your own volition that helps set Magical Beat apart from the pack. As you play, a meter with a small bar inside of it sits alongside the field, and the bar shifts up and down in tandem with the stage's soundtrack. To successfully drop your pieces onto the field, you must press the button when the bar is within the blue area at the meter's center. Do this, and your pieces successfully drop; fail, and the beaton pieces break apart and fall in random places. Watching the meter itself is something of a hindrance, however. Instead, you should pay careful attention to the beats of the song, dropping your pieces when you hear the appropriate sound cues.

To beat your opponents, you need to be aggressive, creating combos and giant chains of same-colored beatons. There's a delay, as in Lumines, before the same-colored blocks you match up actually disappear from the playfield, allowing you a few precious seconds of time to set up a few more three-or-more chains of beatons before they all vanish. Unlike in Lumines, however, there's no visual cue for when the pieces will vanish from the field, meaning you need to pay extra attention to the music to get a sense of how long you have to create chains. The more chains you make--and the larger the clusters of eliminated beatons are--before they vanish, the more field-obstructing crud drops on your foe's side of the screen. If said junk piles up beyond the top of the arena, you win.

Mom always said to never trust alpacas.

The drop restrictions and the hard time limit for combos combine to create a challenging--but fun--puzzle game that requires you to not only be quick with pattern identification and decision-making, but also have a keen ear for timing. You also can't go straight into panic mode when you notice one column of beatons growing dangerously high, lest you drop offbeat and wind up making your problems even worse.

While the game feels great once you get the hang of it, the learning curve is unforgiving; the tutorial is limited, and the difficulty of opponents ramps up quickly. One of the game's scant few options allows you to turn off the beaton-breaking penalty for dropping a piece offbeat, and though it does make the game considerably easier, it robs it of a quality that helps make it unique, turning it into just another fairly standard puzzle game.

There are a few familiar looking faces, too. Where do I know this guy from?

You can't have a music-heavy game without a solid soundtrack, and fortunately, Magical Beat delivers on this front. There's a good variety of music offered of varying speeds and styles, and the speed of a stage's backing track can have a noticeable effect on gameplay. Many of the songs share a common trait: the use of Vocaloid synthesized vocals, the same technology behind Hatsune Miku. (In fact, if you're familiar with Miku's distinct "voice," you'll immediately recognize her in some of the tracks.) The songs are charming and catchy, and combined with the cute sprite graphics, they help create an upbeat, cheery atmosphere for fierce puzzle fighting. But even if the initial soundtrack isn't up your alley, beating the game once lets you play on stages featuring hard-rock tracks from Arc System Works' popular fighting games BlazBlue and Guilty Gear.

Unfortunately, that's about the full extent of interesting extra content in Magical Beat. The game features three single-player modes of ascending difficulty, each featuring a typical arcade-style progression of foes until you reach and beat the final enemy. There's no story or dialogue to speak of, just a parade of cute-looking characters whose fields you valiantly attempt to fill with junk. A fourth single-player mode allows you to pick your desired music and opponent difficulty for a single match. That's basically all there is for the solo experience; you can play as every character in normal to earn some bronze trophies, but even that isn't a terribly interesting incentive to stick with Magical Beat. A dedicated, non-versus single-player mode could have been a great addition to the package, but unfortunately, you won't find it here.

Combat gets intense when enemies decide to gang up.

Multiplayer is where Magical Beat would theoretically shine brightest, and gameplay certainly does get quite fevered playing against a human opponent, provided you're OK with a limited set of match-creation options. On top of that, you can only fight local opponents; there's no online functionality built into the game. This makes finding competition significantly more challenging, and makes the already bare-bones versus mode look even more anemic. Yes, you can use a workaround like AdHoc Party to get past this limitation, but it seems ridiculous to need to do that for a competitive game in this day and age.

Magical Beat, while cleverly designed and audiovisually charming, feels stripped down. The game lacks the sorts of options and modes that help elevate a standard puzzle game to the level of cherished time-killer and competitive classic. Though a handful of nifty unlockables make for fun fan service, they don't add much to the threadbare single- and multiplayer modes. It's a real shame that this cute concert feels like it's over before it has barely started.

View the original article here

Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark Review

When I was a kid, Optimus Prime seemed to me like everything a leader should be: intelligent, compassionate, and, of course, capable of turning into a truck. It's been frustrating in recent years to see the Transformers become defined in this generation not by the charm and personality of the original cartoon but by the cacophonous stupidity and visual chaos of the Michael Bay films. I always hope that video games might be the one area where the Transformers can be redeemed. Alas, Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark is not the game that redeems them.

Though it's developed by Edge of Reality, Rise of the Dark Spark's action is closely modeled on developer High Moon's games War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron. Narratively, however, where this game falls is completely unclear. In some ways, it seems to exist in the same universe as the cartoons, but on the other hand, the robot designs sometimes resemble those from the films, and there are plot details that refer to Michael Bay's latest opus, Transformers: Age of Extinction. The result is an incoherent story that feels like it was cobbled together from the spare parts of other stories.

The gameplay doesn't fare much better. High Moon's Cybertron games were mostly enjoyable shooting galleries, and there are times when Rise of the Dark Spark seems like it might manage to be the same. Playing as a variety of Autobots and Decepticons over the course of the game, you unleash hot robot death on countless enemy grunts. At its best moments, Rise of the Dark Spark is fun in the generic and familiar way that so many blandly competent shooters are fun--a pleasant enough way to pass the time if you have nothing else to do. There are a good variety of weapons for you to use, and although you rarely have much incentive to transform, it's nice to have the freedom to drive or fly away from enemies when the action heats up.

Unfortunately, although you move around with a feeling of appropriate heft for a sentient being constructed of strong and heavy metals, when you get swarmed by enemies, you go down so fast that you might as well be made of aluminum cans. It drains all the joy from being Optimus Prime to see him crumple almost immediately in response to enemy fire, and these poorly designed combat encounters make victory not a matter of playing defensively and using smart tactics but of just trying again and again and hoping this time it works out for you. Some sections go on for much too long, keeping you stuck in one spot fighting off waves of identical enemies when all you want to do is advance, and the game's maddening checkpoints regularly require you to replay lengthy sections of frustrating action when you fall in battle.

Nobody told Cliffjumper that he's supposed to fall over when his health meter runs out.

In fact, Rise of the Dark Spark's entire campaign goes on for too long. By the time you come to the end of its 14 chapters, you'll have had enough of shooting robots to last you at least until the next three Transformers movies have been released. It doesn't help that the game is so unpleasant to look at and to listen to. The urban environments on Earth are so drab and simple that they look like the miniature set of a low-budget monster movie rather than a real city, and the sound design may drive you insane. In one level, I heard the Decepticons shout the line "Let's see what we got!" so many times that I decided it had to be part of a psychological warfare campaign meant to undermine the Autobots' morale.

Your progress is also hindered by the occasional bug, and I don't mean those pesky Insecticons. During one boss battle, I fully depleted my foe's health bar, but nothing happened. I had to let him kill me and restart the fight to advance. During another boss fight, I became completely stuck on the geometry and was helpless to defend myself against my enemy's attacks.

There are a few merciful moments of reprieve from the standard action, like one sequence in which, as Jetfire, you must fly your way out of a structure before a weapon goes off, and another in which you play as the massive dinobot Grimlock, who can unleash a constant stream of flame from his robotic jaws. This power trip feels like a reward for slogging through so much tedious and frustrating action, but it's too little, too late.

No game with robot dinosaurs in it can be all bad, but Rise of the Dark Spark comes close.

There's also Escalation, a cooperative multiplayer mode in which you and up to three other players fight off waves of invading enemies, but one wave feels very much like another. There isn't enough variety to it to keep it interesting for long. The game tries to keep you hooked by doling out a constant stream of rewards for your progress in the form of weapon upgrades, experience point boosts, and other doodads, but the action is too shallow to make any of these rewards meaningful. The Transformers are a great property, one that seems like it should lend itself to the creation of great games, but Rise of the Dark Spark is so sloppy and incoherent that it feels more like a cheap knockoff than a proper Transformers game. Optimus Prime deserves better, and so do you.

View the original article here

Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack Review

When it arrived for the Vita in 2012, Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack offered a challenging and sometimes puzzling romp through around 30 levels of sci-fi mayhem. A move to consoles two years later hasn't changed much about the source material. The blob still responds beautifully to your commands, and the design still feels fresh, but there are some disappointing new issues too.

This is in many respects a straight port, with necessary adjustments to bring it to a larger viewing surface and some tweaks to puzzles where they make sense. The game still begins as you, represented by a little blob of jelly with attitude (note the spikes), escape a cage and begin terrorizing a scientific research building. During the platforming stages that follow, the unnamed goop slides, hops, and even flies through mostly sterile environments populated by lab equipment, security systems, picnicking astronauts, whales, and tasty civilians. The whole time, it consumes anything smaller than itself, until eventually there's not much left that qualifies. As in the PlayStation 2 classic Katamari Damacy, backtracking to old obstacles and adding them to your own mass feels joyful.

Mutant Blobs Attack boasts an attractive art style that wouldn't have been out of place in magazine and billboard ads during the '50s. There's a washed-out look to a lot of it, with little splashes of color that mostly center around the antihero you control and the food he can consume. On the Vita's screen, the aesthetic was especially lovely, and it looks terrific now even on a substantially larger display. The kooky soundtrack works as nicely coming from television speakers as it does a handheld unit, and the cutscenes between stages remain adorable.

Unfortunately, the game's control scheme didn't translate as well as its audiovisual components. The blob itself performs admirably, and he possesses abilities that allow you to also manipulate the environment to solve puzzles. Not much precision is required in the early going, and there aren't major penalties if you make a mistake (especially since the developers were smart and placed frequent checkpoints throughout every stage so that you never have to tackle more than one challenge at a time), but the puzzle design in later stages grows more devious, and it's easy to get fatally fried by a laser even when you know what you're expected to do to survive.

Backtracking to old obstacles and adding them to your own mass feels joyful.

In one case, for instance, you need to cross a wide area with laser beams serving as its base. The way to accomplish that task is to manipulate a series of four floating, C-shaped platforms. You can press shoulder buttons to toggle which one you are trying to manipulate, and moving the right analog stick then allows you to direct the architecture's movement via telekinesis. Unfortunately, it's all too easy to start moving the wrong piece at the wrong time, and that's fatal for the ball of goop in your charge.

Other situations might find you rotating giant wheels while the blob works through them. On the Vita, this was again handled with finger slides and felt natural. With a controller's analog stick, environmental responses to your commands are often jerky. Gears and turrets either barely adjust or move with such gusto that you accidentally squash your otherwise resilient character. Nearly effortless precision is a thing of the past. It was easy to take for granted, and now it's gone.

Click above for more images.

Bonus stages also provide less of a thrill, now that you interact with them by way of a new control scheme. The stages take place from a top-down perspective. Previously, you would tilt the Vita to direct the path the slime followed as it slid through the environment, scarfing down objects and quickly gaining mass. Sometimes you also had to swipe along the screen to manipulate barriers. Here, all you have to do is tilt the analog stick and the barriers are absent. The challenge is gone too, and with it much of the satisfaction that came from surviving another minigame interlude.

Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack was and still is an enjoyable platformer, regardless of the device on which you play it, but it's difficult to recommend this new release to anyone who already has access to the superior Vita rendition. The attractive aesthetic and the light puzzle elements that made the original release worthwhile have returned mostly unscathed, but the control limitations this time around hurt the experience, and that's a shame. Hopefully, vengeful slimes everywhere will forgive the developers the infraction.

View the original article here

Blood of the Werewolf Review

It has been some time since werewolf Selena first set off on her adventure. Hers was a journey of vengeance as she sought revenge on Dr. Frankenstein and his movie monster cohorts for the murder of her husband and the kidnapping of her son. Blood of the Werewolf was a wildly entertaining 2D action platformer, as beautiful as it was punishing. A few gameplay foibles, however, kept it from reaching greatness. But time can mend most wounds. Nearly eight months have passed since it hit the PC, and the game has made it onto the Xbox 360 in spectacular fashion--smoother and tighter than ever.

Most notably, Blood of the Werewolf's difficulty curve has been smoothed out. The occasional difficulty jumps--notably with the timing of the ruthless smashers early in the game--have been ironed out, making the rise in challenge feel more organic. But though the difficulty has been tuned up, don't believe for a second that the game has been defanged. This is still Blood of the Werewolf, after all, and it is maliciously designed to toss you into the mouth of death any chance it gets.

Bad moon rising.

Ten stages stand between Selena and her confrontation with Dr. Frankenstein. Contained within are jagged spikes, whirling saw blades, fireball-spewing lava, and supernatural beasts such as vampires, ghouls, and skeleton archers. The game keeps you on your toes: platforms crumble at your feet as bats zip toward you, threatening to knock you out of the air and into the abyss below. Countless times I watched my life get snatched away just as I neared a room's exit. And more than once I had to momentarily stop playing to collect myself by yelling various profanities at the ceiling.

But while the game is difficult, it is not completely unforgiving. There is no set life count, and checkpoints are located throughout each level, many of which lie just beyond a deadly trap. Respawning at checkpoints replenishes your health and ability meters, removing some of death's sting. Scattered throughout the stages are also sigils, which increase your health after enough are collected, giving you a better chance of staying alive long enough to reach the next checkpoint. The platforming mechanics are fantastic, and in fact, the game feels better than it did before. In my initial run with Blood of the Werewolf, I lamented the times when Selena would drop off a platform if she landed on the edge. I didn't encounter this phenomenon even once as I played the game on the console. Every time I died, it was due to my own inability to complete a room, and not from faulty mechanics.

The occasional difficulty jumps--notably with the timing of the ruthless smashers early in the game--have been ironed out, making the rise in challenge feel more organic.

Blood of the Werewolf separates itself from many other platformers by offering two different ways to play its story. Selena is a lycanthrope of folklore, able to shape-shift into a massive werewolf when blessed by the moon's power. She remains in human form so long as she has a roof overhead, using a crossbow to tackle mythical monsters as well as activate various switches and levers. In her more powerful werewolf form, Selena uses her teeth to tear enemies such as harpies to shreds, while benefitting from her enhanced agility to double jump across gaping chasms.

The abilities of each of her two forms are bolstered with special power-ups you collect along the way. Selena's crossbow gets upgraded to shoot arrows that split, causing extra damage, or arrows ignited by fire, which work wonders against shuffling zombies. Powers she collects in her werewolf form include a rush attack and an ability to fire off charged energy, great for blasting foes from a distance. She may also howl at the moon to regain some health, a vital power that saved my wolf hide in many white-knuckled boss fights.

If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because man, they're gone.

Throughout the game, you fight boss monsters straight out of classic Hollywood horror films. You tangle with the likes of Mr. Hyde and later dodge snaking waves of purple energy while trading blows with Dracula. Most battles have you shift between Selena's two different forms, forcing you to switch up your play style. The boss fights are challenging, and the key to winning is your ability to watch and learn each enemy's unique patterns and then strike when his or her guard is down. It can take multiple tries and a load of patience, but that only makes the eventual victory all the sweeter.

Once you finish with the story, you can try out the game's extra content. Score Rush includes 10 stages where you must collect as many point as possible while keeping the clock from running down. If you're feeling especially masochistic, you can try Endless Challenge, which pits you against room after room of vile beasts, burning jets of fire, and instant-kill spike walls. Finally, you can check out the bestiary, which provides the history behind the many monsters that haunt the game, as well as the myths that inspired their creation.

You tangle with the likes of Mr. Hyde and later dodge snaking waves of purple energy while trading blows with Dracula.

When I wrote the initial review of Blood of the Werewolf, I mentioned my disappointment with the ending. I noted that it "emits more of a whimper than a howl," but not just because I was writing about werewolves and wanted to sound clever. The game's ending rang hollow and bittersweet considering the hours of abuse that paved the road to get there. Thankfully, better gameplay wasn't all the developer focused on with the game's second release. Blood of the Werewolf has received an expanded ending, which provides a better summary while hinting upon surprising revelations in Selena's future. With the fixes and gameplay mechanics, what remains is Blood of the Werewolf in its finest form: enjoyable, challenging, and, at long last, satisfying to the very end. Dreadful traps and Hollywood's most famous monsters stand in your way. How long will you last against the forces of darkness?

View the original article here

[Other Take] The Elder Scrolls Online Review - Familiar World, Strange Territory

Our Other Takes present alternative opinions on games from unique perspectives. Click here to read our Featured Review!

After pouring hundreds of hours into the Elder Scrolls franchise over the years, Shaun McInnis used The Elder Scrolls Online as an opportunity to finally take a shot at the MMO genre. With his Nord Dragonknight, Shaun made it to level 22 before beginning this review.

As a fan of role-playing games and open-world sandboxes, I've long held a special place in my heart for the Elder Scrolls franchise. Since I was first introduced to the series with Morrowind back in 2002, I've spent countless hours exploring Bethesda's immense fantasy worlds in search of loot, adventure, and gorgeous views of the surrounding landscapes. It's that love for the series that inspired me to spend time with The Elder Scrolls Online despite one very embarrassing shortcoming in my gaming career: I had never played a massively multiplayer online game before, or at least not for any significant length of time.

I honestly couldn't tell you why that was. There's nothing about MMO games that I necessarily dislike; I just tend to prefer the freedom of solo adventuring over group raids and guild life. But I'm happy that I gave the genre a shot, because after 40 or so hours in The Elder Scrolls Online, I rather liked--though not exactly loved--my time with the game.

Much of that appreciation stems from the overall feel of the world. The Elder Scrolls Online does a great job of capturing the joy of existing within Tamriel, all those sights and sounds that make up a vibrant fantasy setting. My journey began on the bustling medieval streets of Daggerfall, though I quickly found myself exploring the windswept sand dunes of Stros M'Kai, the eerie swampland of the Glenumbra Moors, and the picturesque coastline of Stormhaven. And those are just some of the early-level areas. Even as I proceeded across the world map toward more challenging sections of Tamriel, I always felt like there was some fresh chunk of terrain to explore or some beautiful vista to take in.

The Elder Scrolls Online goes out of its way to immerse you in its world. It's not just the geographical diversity, either. A lush soundtrack provides a stirring backdrop to your adventuring, and a fully voiced collection of non-player characters bring each city and backwater hamlet to life. Sure, there are echoes of Oblivion in the repetition of voice actors, and the dialogue can feel a bit wooden at times, but the overall presentation goes a long way toward delivering a world full of characters rather than quest-giving cardboard cutouts.

The Elder Scrolls Online does a great job of capturing the joy of existing within Tamriel, all those sights and sounds that make up a vibrant fantasy setting.

And yet, throughout all my travels, I always felt a vague longing for the serendipitous discoveries of earlier Elder Scrolls games. Enemies always respawn in the same place, and there are no hidden cabins full of clutter to rummage through, no armor waiting to be discovered at the bottom of some lake--this just isn't a game that gives you much of a reason to wander off the beaten path.

That's something that took a while for me to come to terms with. The unpredictable exploration of Elder Scrolls games has always been one of my favorite trademarks of the series. The Elder Scrolls Online does give you plenty of interesting enemies to tangle with and the occasional treasure chest to happen upon, but compared to a game like Skyrim with all its environmental storytelling and unpredictable encounters, the world feels static. It's a beautiful place, but a sterile one.

So while I struggled to create my own adventures, The Elder Scrolls Online had plenty of its own exciting tales to tell. Rarely do its quests feel like tedious fluff; quite often, you're asked to navigate labyrinthine stories of backstabbing and political intrigue, fantastical creatures and bloodthirsty cultists, or cursed souls and tormented dreamworlds. What makes these quests interesting is that they're often complex, multipart sagas. You might take on the task of rescuing a kidnapped duke only to find yourself embarking on a murder mystery involving scheming werewolves, supernatural rituals, and the ripple effects of time travel.

The main storyline is a bit of a mess, but it provides some lovely backdrops.

The best quests are the ones that use just enough of the series' established lore to paint a vivid picture of the task at hand, though there are some--like the messy and ultimately forgettable main storyline--that tend to resemble overzealous fan fiction. But such missteps are infrequent and easy to forgive; for the most part, The Elder Scrolls Online delivers a broad and engaging collection of tales that mesh nicely with its fantasy landscape.

If only they meshed better with the game's fundamental structure. I lost track of how many times I was called upon to perform the esoteric tasks necessary to unseal some long-forgotten chamber, only to discover a parade of player-controlled characters already running about within. These are moments when the quest design and multiplayer nature of the game butt heads, taking any sense of immersion the game might have established and hurling it out the window.

It's a shame, because there are some good group quests available in The Elder Scrolls Online--they're just more the exception than the rule. Some of the most fun I had in the game was teaming up with a group of strangers to make it through the harrowing gauntlet known as Spindleclutch, a creepy dungeon with a relentless assault of arachnid enemies and one very imposing boss fight. But it's rare that The Elder Scrolls Online takes full advantage of its multiplayer structure. Most of my interactions with other players were simply running by them out in the wild, like two ships passing in the night who might occasionally team up to kill a trio of bandits.

There are some lovely sights to behold out in the wild.

There is a guild system, of course, but in my experience it felt more useful as an economic tool than a means for players to come together as a team. With no auction house, guilds are what allow you to trade items with one another. As a result, you tend to see a lot of guilds that players have forgotten about once their barter is complete--making it tough to find the truly active ones.

It's rare that The Elder Scrolls Online takes full advantage of its multiplayer structure.

And so, without much of a meaningful connection to the player population around me, I often found myself defaulting to my old Elder Scrolls ways of wandering alone like some wayward ronin. But don't pity me too much. I was perfectly happy to keep plugging away, leveling up my dragonknight one quest at a time. The Elder Scrolls Online gives you a deep and flexible progression system, one that allows you to tinker around with different builds without ever feeling like you've completely pigeonholed yourself. After beginning the game as a brutish damage-sponge of a tank, I found myself gravitating toward more of a hybrid role where I balanced my sword-and-shield tactics with elemental spells and defensive powers. With a broad selection of active and passive abilities--the former of which can evolve in interesting ways as you level them up--there's a lot of room to mess around with your chosen style.

Those abilities go a long way toward enhancing the combat, which at its core is nothing remarkable. Sure, I enjoyed using my shield bash to stun an enemy mid-cast so that I could knock him to the ground with a powerful heavy attack. But most melee strikes feel limp and sluggish. Layer in those abilities, though, and battles feel a little more lively. I never tired of seeing flaming spikes burst from my character's back as I triggered my razor armor ability, then closing the gap on a distant foe by dashing toward him with a quick and devastating shield charge. Factor in the game's propensity for generous and meaningful loot drops, and I rarely skipped the chance to take on some new group of enemies.

Fully voiced NPCs add a lot of immersion, even if you tend to hear the same people over and over.

So most of my enjoyment with The Elder Scrolls Online came not from its MMO structure, but from its decent approximation of the games that came before it--that sense of wayward adventure, of gazing out at beautiful landscapes as you explore a lively fantasy world. But for as much as it struggles to reconcile its single-player heritage and multiplayer ambitions, there is one area that makes an awfully convincing argument for its status as an MMO game, and that's player-versus-player combat.

Having never spent any significant amount of time with an MMO before, I went into The Elder Scrolls Online's PvP expecting some form of arena combat--perhaps a matchmaking system that pitted a handful of players from the Daggerfall Covenant against another handful from the Ebonheart Pact. What I found was something much more complex and fascinating.

PvP in The Elder Scrolls Online turns the whole of Cyrodiil into one great big board game, a giant web full of keeps and strongholds that you are constantly fighting for control over. There are resources to consider, siege weapons to employ, and all manner of strategic possibilities. It's a great showcase for the game's combat, which becomes much more exciting when you're pairing complementary abilities together as a team.

Dark Anchor events are a neat concept for drawing players together, but it's far too easy for players to steamroll each wave of enemies.

But there is one flaw to the scope of the PvP, which is that the map is too big for its own good. Combat was exciting when I could get to it, but I found myself spending the vast majority of my time simply getting from one place to another. I can handle and even enjoy riding around on horseback for 10 straight minutes while questing, but when I'm doing it over and over again each time I die in a pitched multiplayer battle, it becomes tedious.

And that's The Elder Scrolls Online right there: a game that does a lot of things well, but stumbles to get the most out of them. In the end, I was happy to spend time in this version of Tamriel, but it just wasn't the gateway into the MMO genre that I hoped it would be.

View the original article here

EA Sports UFC Review

If you based quality strictly on appearance, EA Sports UFC could be a lock for the top spot, because EA Canada's first crack at a mixed martial arts project captures the atmosphere of a real event. Hard liver shots mirror a pebble being thrown into a still pond, the impact causing skin to ripple across the body. Bruises and cuts form and worsen over the course of a fight, and veins bulge as fighters desperately work to break out of tight guillotine chokes.

It's beautiful violence, but once you grab a controller, the wonder of the gorgeous character models and stomach-churning thuds of punches and kicks quickly wears off. That's because one of the most essential elements of the sport is almost nonexistent inside this virtual Octagon: tension. Where THQ's UFC series allowed each moment of a fight to seem equally dangerous for both combatants, EA Sports UFC's poor balancing makes the moment-to-moment action feel too safe, too often. Vicious knees that would send even the most granite-chinned veteran tumbling to the canvas often land without much effect, and while a fully mounted position on the ground tends to result in either a stoppage or easily won round in real MMA, single-button escapes cause dominant positions to feel flimsy.

You don't have to make the fighter you create look stupid--but it sure does add entertainment value.

Each fight in EA Sports UFC starts on the feet, and for the most part, that's where they stay. The stand-up game--despite its preference for flash over finishing power--is the best way to play. Jumping off the cage and landing flush with a flying knee is devilishly satisfying, while parrying a jab and answering with a devastating overhand-right is enough to get you out of your seat. It can take quite a bit of work to end a fight, but individual animations, whether you're throwing bombs standing up or transitioning on the ground, look natural. If all you want to do is meet in the center of the Octagon, bite down on your mouthpiece, and swing until someone's lights go out, you're at least rewarded with proper hit detection and satisfying contact.

Frankly, it's just about the only way the AI and most online players care to engage. That's because there's no venom in a strong wrestling-based attack. A real fighter rarely flips his opponent over while pinned on his back to land into a prevailing mount, but it happens frequently in EA Sports UFC. Reversing someone who just worked hard to drag you to the mat and trap you in a bad spot shouldn't come from a few swift rotations of the right stick, and while I'd love to be able to move into side control and dig a few well-placed knees in the midsection of another fighter, it's often too difficult to hold anyone down long enough to produce any significant offense.

It was love at first clench.

The grappling game is muted for the most part, but submissions can be a viable option. If you can reach and maintain a dominant position, grabbing a limb or your opponent's neck leads to a minigame that determines the success of a technique. A giant octagon appears on the screen as the defending fighter looks to push one of the four corners far enough to break the hold, while the jiu-jitsu practitioner fights to hyperextend the limb to force a tap. Stamina, along with the individual fighter's skill with a particular move, determines each scramble's success, and if you can actually stay on the ground long enough to find an opening, submissions are a valuable weapon.

Baffling design decisions aren't exclusive to the offensive side of the game, either. Players can slip and parry punches, but when it comes to blocking strikes, holding a single button stops high, middle, and low blows. Fighters can't regain stamina when in a defensive stance, making it unwise to continually hold your hands up to defend your noggin. Yet the lack of multiple levels of blocking reduces the effectiveness of intelligent combinations. Throwing a flurry of low kicks, digging into the body, and then surprising your foe with a fight-ending head kick is a strategy that often works in both real MMA and THQ's Undisputed series, but unless your dance partner decides to let go of the block button, all of these strikes in UFC are too easily blocked.

A real fighter rarely flips his opponent over while pinned on his back to land into a prevailing mount, but it happens constantly in EA Sports UFC.

The AI isn't exactly defense-minded, so standing and banging is an almost surefire method for success. I managed to capture the lightweight title by knocking out each contender in the first round while playing through the game's career mode, which throws your customized character into the Ultimate Fighter reality series and follows him to the end of his career. Without fail, I walked to the center of the cage, blocked incoming strikes, threw heavy leather whenever there was an opening, and ended the fight without the need for judges. I never lost a single fight, and this was all on the game's hard mode.

Starting as an untested prospect and fighting your way to the top might sound like an appealing single-player offering, but unfortunately, climbing the ladder is a slog. Training camps between individual fights are padded with dull training exercises and awkward video clips from real-life fighters. Current stars of the UFC patting you on the back in between fights comes off as both gimmicky and unnecessary, and while it can be fun to improve both your stats and your stockpile of techniques, the tutorial-esque drilling sessions are an uninspired chore.

Click above for more images of EA Sports UFC.

Online play is your best bet for competitive, interesting matches. I experienced only brief periods of lag over the course of more than 30 fights, and while I still rarely saw opposition shoot in for a takedown, there was at least a bit more diversity inside the cage. The career and online modes are the meat and potatoes of the experience, and it's not exactly a filling dish.

The graphical foundation is in place, but there are too many flawed combat systems to call this a strong debut for what's sure to be an annualized series. EA Sports UFC manages to make only certain aspects of MMA both fun and functional, forcing most fights to play out in a familiar, brawling fashion. Even if you do enjoy swinging for the fences, there's just not enough content here to justify the full retail price. It might look the part of a world champion, but EA Sports UFC will need a great deal of fine-tuning before it's up to snuff.

View the original article here

Call Of Duty Ghosts full rip Free Download

Call of Duty: Ghosts delivers a riveting all-new gameplay experience built on an entirely new story, setting and cast of characters, all powered by a new, next generation Call of Duty engine that redefines the series for the next generation.
For the first time in Call of Duty, gamers play as the underdog, fighting as part of a single squad against an enemy that has superior numbers and firepower. Call of Duty: Ghosts’ genre-defining multiplayer delivers gameplay innovations throughout, including dynamic map events and character customization.
Minimum System Requirements

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Full Game Free Download

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a 2013 historical action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U in October 2013 and for the PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One in November 2013.

Call Of Duty Black Ops Full Ripped Free Download

Black Ops is a first-person shooter, retaining the same gameplay mechanics as previous Call of Duty titles. The player assumes the role of a foot soldier who can wield various firearms (only two of which can be carried at once), throw grenades and other explosives, and use other equipment as weapons. A player close enough to an enemy can kill with one knife blow. A character can take three stances: standing, crouching or prone. Each affects rate of movement, accuracy, and stealth. The player can drop to the prone stance from the standing stance while running, and can momentarily sprint before having to stop. The screen glows red to indicate damage to a player's health, which regenerates over time. When the character is within the blast radius of a live grenade, an on-screen marker indicates where it is in relation to the player, helping the player to move away or to throw it back. Among the weapons new to the series in Black Ops are crossbows with bolts and explosive ammunition, Dragon's Breath rounds and ballistic knives.

Call Of Duty 1 Full Game Free Download

Call of Duty (also commonly referred to as Call of Duty 1) is a 2003 first-person shooter video game developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision.[2] The game simulates the infantry and combined arms warfare of World War II. The game is based on the Quake III: Team Arena engine. It was accompanied in September 2004 by an expansion pack, Call of Duty: United Offensive, which was produced by Activision, and developed by Gray Matter Interactive, with contributions from Pi Studios. Call of Duty is similar in theme and gameplay to Medal of Honor, as it is made out of single-player campaigns and missions. However, unlike Medal of Honor, the war is seen not just from the viewpoint of an American soldier but also from the viewpoint of British, Canadian, and Soviet soldiers.