The tale revolves around your own designed hero (I know, you’ve heard that, and seen it before- many times before, but not like this…), this time you get to design almost everything, comes from clothing, to strategy of combat, and tactics – in real time engine.

This game has six stories to offer, in which you’d get to move your hero around, and while you’d play a hero, the rest of the heroes would still be active, and play as well… you’d get to join or fight against them, and its all depends solely on you, feeling lucky? I’ve got even better news…

Remember how every time you’ve played an RPG game, the NPCs were the same no matter how you talked to them? remember how you could hang around everywhere natural to everything, without any consequences? well this is gonna change too… as soon as you pick your hero’s race, you’d pick a side, and the game would react to your decisions within it.

you can also pick if your character comes from rich or poor environment and the tale would also change to fit it, starter locations would change as well, etc.

The stories are built on stories written by an author called George R. R. Martin, so you should expect a good tale (no, i’m not about to ruin your experience, so I’ve decided to let you find out the story for yourself, just make sure to have a nice cup of coffee around, cause you’re gonna play this for a long time).

Oh and one more thing, this game is rated 18+, cause well… there are too many unexpected combats, and when it comes to dirty fights, you’d never expect it when it comes… hope I’ve got your appetite up.

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

Gearbox (the devs. of brother in arms series) has made a great RPS game – This game was particularly made for the lovers of all Diablo games, with a Sci-Fi storyline, “open tale” (much like Diablo, you get to decide what you want to do next… Kinda fun in a way, but I’ll get to that), in a RPG structure, and it even has a comics side…

The game takes place in a star called Pandora, where the local civilization failed, leaving behind all sort of technology, homeless people (and aliens), and in short – fallout with alot more freaks.

Into the story comes the hero – which you can choose how he may or may not interact with the world, you can pick his type out of four possible types (Berserker, Siren, Soldier and a Sniper), and while each one has its own pros and cons, the story depends on the player alone.

This Pandora world is so huge it took me few good hours to cross it, which makes it difficult for people who are short in time (like myself) to enjoy the game in the small brakes of the week, and in it, the things changes based on your luck as a gamer when you create your character (the main tale’s building stays the same place, but most of the world comes random – kinda freaks me out with all the walkthroughs…)

The game takes alot of other things from Diablo as well, there is a limitless amount of items you can acquire – with a small improvement – you pick the way they combine into your ultimate weapon… (anyone has a deja vu from FF series?)

Within the RPS system of the game there is the level system, not really unique, kinda reminds MMORPGs of sorts – it allows you to choose a skill of your liking, or improve stats, pretty much the basics.

And to add to the stolen idea’s list – there are many buggy like vehicles – of the sort you might encounter in HALO, to assist the player to move around the hugeass map.

Another side of the game is the multiplayer mode – this allows you to help a friend in his missions, to operate as a squad, or just go ruin his game (PvP anyone?), you can hop into his car and blast some aliens away, or steal his car and go amok, its all up to the how you wanna play.

In short, this game is absolutely worth your money, and rated Super in my scale, kinda gonna start playing it till i die after the army period!

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

Modern Warfare 2 is a first person shooter set in the actions that followed those in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. As someone who doesn’t respond to overhype, threats or Activision very well, I was somewhat reluctant to playing this – given the chance that I might actually buy into all of the shit that’s on the Internet right now. Alas, I didn’t listen to myself and the game to be quite entertaining.

Let’s discuss some of the specifics of the game, shall we? This is a review, after all.

Modern Warfare 2 follows the story of multiple characters, ranging from an American infiltrator within a Russian terrorist cell to a highly ranked Scottish ex-SAS. I know that it may sound like a cluster fuck, but it’s all very nicely wrapped up. The story is somewhat up its on ass in messages from time to time, but the scope of it all is very interesting, even though it was probably Infinity Ward’s way of giving the entire world the finger. Don’t get me wrong, even though it’s all very pretentious (especially the middle of the game) the game presents itself in an extremely polished and structured way, switching between characters more frequently than Ron Jeremy changes his underwear.

Basically the story is about the US screwing the pooch in the first game, only to have it thrown back in their faces – like a circus clown getting a pie in their face. If the pie is a Nuke, and the face is their face AND balls. The setup of the story is doing a great job at making the pacing smooth, streamlining everything to near perfection with very few things interrupting the flow.

Now for the gameplay – it’s an FPS. You point the business end at whatever you want to make not breathe anymore and then you pull the trigger. Done deal.

Oh right, I suppose I have to elaborate somewhat… Right, what I really like about the gameplay is the fact that the variation from the last game has been ramped up, as with almost everything else. There are very limited vehicle sections breaking up the otherwise pretty exciting gunplay, small parts where you break out of character only to smear butter in your eyes and pleasure you in ways you didn’t think was possible.

Seeing as the developer, Infinity Ward, are very keen on keeping a solid framerate of 60 FPS up at all times, the gunplay is great. There is always something happening – explosions, flanking enemies and epic video game moments that will be remembered for years to come. Also, the smooth framerate really allows the controls to shine, the quick responsiveness going hand-in-hand with the overall quality of the game. It’s pickup and play at the get-go and I applaud it for that.

The online experience is not as fluid, though. The PC version is, as many of you might know, severely flawed and the peer-to-peer based server hosting is shit – so much for 60 FPS when you’re lagging like Michael J. Fox during an earthquake.

Now for the most important part of the review! The graphics!!!

They’re good.

Right, so there it is. Modern Warfare 2 is a great game, but I have a couple of problems with it…

First of all, the balance is off from time to time – the enemies are ridiculously good shots when playing on Hardened. Like silly good.

Secondly, I don’t know what to feel about the whole deal with breaking up the gameplay only to introduce a scripted event pushing the story forward. It’s good and all, but don’t you also think that it’s a bit frequent? It almost seems like they’re just improving upon the first one by just touching it up and making it happen more often. I don’t see anything groundbreaking about this, but it sure is pretty.

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

Top 5 things troubling Nintendo

• Microsoft and Sony getting their own motion controllers

With 2010 just around the corner, so is the new inventions of competitors Sony and Microsoft. Seeing that motion controlling is Nintendo’s only real “hook” to their console. That and Mario. And when two consoles with real HD graphics comes along and offers the same (basically) ways of controlling the games through people’s motions – why stay with the Wii? Sure, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the impending Zelda game, none of which are likely to boast any new gameplay features.

• Lack of software – losing hardcore gamers attention
  
  As I was saying – Nintendo haven’t really performed for a long time, have they? I mean what have they released in 2009 that is of any real significance?
  
  MadWorld – Commercial failure
  Punch-Out – Does anybody still remember this game?
  The Conduit – The Killzone 2 of the Wii… without the critical acclaim, sales and amazing graphics.
• Novelty wearing off
  
  Does anybody above the age of 12 still care about the Wii? I mean… really?
• Not enough kids in the world
  
  With the PS3 sales topping the Wii sales worldwide, it is evident that there just aren’t enough kids in the world. Joking aside (not joking, though) the sales of the Wii going down could very well be because some sort of saturation in the market – people are just tired of the Wii. They’ve tried it and it was fun for the while it lasted. How many games of tennis can you actually play before you just don’t want to anymore?
• Poor performances at recent Game expos
  
  Even though you might not have too much to show, you can still make a grand show about it! It’s all about lasers, you see. Lasers and semi naked chicks. Did you see this year’s E3? How about GDC? TGS? Yeah, I thought so – It’s like they’re not even trying.

Top 3 things troubling Sony

• Keeping up with current boost
  
  Sony have had an AMAZING year so far and it’s only going to get better, the only question is – how long can they keep this up? The steady stream of terrific games has truly spoiled us gamers, especially us who have stood by the PS3 since launch. I just hope that Sony keeps this wave going and it looks like they might pull it off, seeing as 2010 is looking VERY promising with titles like Gran Turismo 5, God of War 3, Heavy Rain and FFvXIII on the development line, with even more unannounced!
• Securing exclusives
  
  Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, Devil May Cry and many others are extremely popular franchises that have served Sony very well in the past only to go multiplatform and leave Sony with an, often, inferior version. I understand that securing exclusives is EXPENSIVE and that Sony are very noble to not pay off developers to make games for their system but this is a WAR, gentlemen. Now pony up that cash if you want to emerge as the victor.
• Price? How about old franchises.
  
  Enough about the damn price, already. It’s $299 for a blu-ray player, gaming device, media streamer, barbeque grill (if pics are to be trusted) with lots of HDD space, free online, built-in Wi-Fi and loads of other nifty features. What do I think that Sony really needs to push the PS3?Old franchises. There are about 125 million PS2s sold in the world and they probably love the machine. Why wouldn’t they? It’s reliable, accessible and with a HUGE library of games. Many of these games are franchises that are owned by Sony, some of these that need to be continued and put on the PS3 post haste. Who wouldn’t want to play the next installment of Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Sly Raccoon, Syphon Filter, etc… on the Playstation 3? I know I that I would.

(I know that Crash and Spyro do not belong to Sony anymore, but they really should buy them back and bring it back to their former glory)

Top 3 things troubling Microsoft

• Sony.
  
  That’s right, Mr. Gates. That limping little runt of a console that seemed doomed from the start just popped some pills and they’re coming for your ass. Better watch out! Sure, you might be a couple of millions of consoles ahead of them but seeing as they are outpacing you for every month that goes, Microsoft better have something big stored for the future. And please, no Halo.
• Natal
  
  This could go both ways, really. Either it could be a huge success and sweep everybody off their feet, bringing tears to eyes of infants and the elderly alike – or it could bomb and cost Microsoft lots of money. Myself, I believe that if they’re supporting it like they are the 360 (software-wise) it could end very poorly. People really need a reason to buy it and a couple of mini-games will not suffice.
• More exclusives
  
  What true console exclusives have been released for the 360 this year?Forza 3
  Halo Wars
  Star Ocean 4 (coming for the PS3, though)

  ‘nuff said, to be honest. Microsoft – you have to show us some more love.

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

Because it happened again.

You see, for the people who usually hang around Gaming forums like GameTrailers, IGN, Gamespot etc., it has become quite a sport to dump on people for expressing their right to Free Speech.

Sure, this isn’t the case in some countries of the world but if you have the time to take a break from picking coffee beans or sorting severed chicken heads to loiter around on GameTrailers – chances are that you live in one of those countries.

To get back to my original point, though – Just because someone in the gaming media doesn’t think exactly what you or anyone else thinks, they are immediately bad people, probably serving a ten year sentence for slaughtering a village of puppies – making them a hundred times worse than the demon-spawn of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Lindsay Lohan combined.

Why is it that people are so incredibly protective about what people have to say about a game that they haven’t even fucking played yet, if not for the Multi-player Beta.

Still don’t know what game I’m talking about? (Psst, it’s Uncharted 2!)

That’s right, GameTrailers gave Uncharted 2 a 9.3.

9.3!!!

Apparently, the “Metacritic” of Uncharted 2 is 96 out of a 100 – Which is amazing. But why isn’t 9.3 just as amazing? Because Halo 3 got a better score.

That’s right… a 360 exclusive got a better score than a PS3 exclusive.

BIG FUCKING DEAL.

Sorry if I’m going off on abit of a rant here, but 9.3 is the highest score that GameTrailers have given out in 2009 – Shouldn’t that mean something?

Yeah, the reviewer said that the controls were clunky – a complete opposite of what people from IGN and G4 have said. But what does this even mean? That someone has a subjective opinion about a game – Something which he probably gets paid for to express? Come on, guys…

I always found it kind of funny that someone with a PS3 would STILL be pissed off because someone “trashed” their console and their exclusive software… What’s that, is it 2007 already?!

The last two years of the PS3

• Metal Gear Solid 4
• LittleBigPlanet
• Killzone 2
• Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
• Resistance 1 & 2
• Uncharted 1 & 2
• Demon Soul’s
• MLB 09: The Show
• inFamous
• Ratchet and Clank: ToD and ACiT
• WipeOut HD and Fury
• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
• Valkyria Chronicles
• Ninja Gaiden Sigma I & II
• MAG

The coming YEAR of the PS3

• God of War III
• Gran Turismo 5
• Agent
• Final Fantasy Versus XIII (not holding my breath, though)
• Heavy Rain
• and more…

See where I’m coming from here? You really have nothing to get pissed off about.  Just get a fucking life, already. Uncharted 2 will be fantastic despite of what GameTrailers says – Which is what they actually said, by the way…

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

The basic story of the game is that the character Desmond Miles was kidnapped by a company to use him as a test subject in the “Animus”,  a fictional device who can recall ancestral memories. With this device, Desmond gets to live out his ancient ancestor Altair Ibn La-Ahad in the so called Assassin Clan during  1191 in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade. He gets to relive all the events that happened to Altair and his allies.

Assassin’s Creed is a Action-Adventure game which the main goal of the game is to carry out different assassinations by his superior. He will carry out this by traveling to different parts of the world to reach one of the cities, and then find the Safe House where the player can start a mission. Despite being in the Safe House, the player needs more information of the assassination target, and has to carry out different missions, such as assassinations of different targets, pickpocketing, eavesdropping and also interrogation.

Side quests exists in forms of exploring and saving citizens from guards who harass them, and also killing different type of Templars and collecting flags. These side quests does not advance the story and are there for the fun (I loved these side quests myself)

Assassin’s Creeds main weakness is the combat system. It’s quite advanced and requires a lot of skill and patience (The normal button mashing technique doesn’t work as well here).

Apart from that there is nothing bad about the game really, but I wouldn’t rate it as the best game ever done. There are a few things that can be fixed till Assassin’s Creed 2, such as the combat system. But overall I would give the game a 4/5, being one of the best games for any system.

Can’t wait for Assassin’s Creed 2. Props to Ubisoft for making a game that beats out their awesome Prince of Persia series (Love those games too).

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

On the last few years, soccer fans have been very disappointed by the PES titles. Starting with the little glitches of the game and ending up with the awful in game menu,  Pro Evolution Soccer lost it’s king of football title, leaving the crown to be taken by the FIFA series developed by EA.  Fortunately for us, Konami decided to listen to what the gaming community has to say, and after gathering a lot of resources from different forums, they finally managed once more to create a master piece.

The first thing that strikes you from the moment you start the game is the user friendly interface (which now is actually friendly). Although the old black and pink color scheme remains,  menus are better organized,  also giving the player more control over the team’s tactics or line up formation.

Once you start the game, if you do not really look for small aspects that really matter you will get the feeling that this is just an ordinary soccer game. But it’s always the details that make the difference. Thanks to the remodeled graphics engine, the players, the pitch and everything else looks more realistic than ever before. Animations are more lifelike, and the players resemblance  is astonishing. Also, some work on the interaction with the ball has been done, adding even more on the scale of realism.  One more noticeable thing is that the in game character do not only look like the football players in real life, but they also have the same attributes like them (shooting,speed etc)

One thing that could have been improved ages ago in PES is the free kick system. Sometimes it feels like you have no control on them what so ever. I don’t say that the targeting  in the old FIFA versions was good (aim a circle and shoot the ball exactly in that direction), but Konami could have come up by now with a brilliant idea on how to improve it, especially that many players have complained about this. Also the penalty shots have been changed a little, it’s just a minor change between the camera angles when the player executes it,the view now  being normal( from above/side ). I don’t really know if this affects the game in any way but as long as it’s something different from the other versions, in a game like this it’s a good thing.  Speaking of penalty shots, I was quite surprised to see that the AI players do miss A LOT.  Let’s face it, it’s not acceptable  to miss like 2-3 penalties in a game,  thing that happens here quite often even when playing against well known team. What’s more, is that the opponent players just rush to you when you have the ball. Well that’s the idea you may say.True, but they rush in high numbers, sometimes 4-5 players grouping near one man,and simply acting like a wall, stopping the opposition. (speaking of men.. I really want to see a PES version with women) .Maybe a little more tweaking on the AI would have helped a little. Some minor adjustments could have been made on the commentators as well. They seem to be argued with one another as they never engage in dialogues, one of them does not even speak so much, making the presentation rather boring sometimes. One thing that was funny to encounter during playing was players simulating faults (did not see it in previous versions).  Of course that the referee does not leave that act unpunished so if the AI players try to get away with it, they will be booked. Looking forward for a version where they will kick you in the chest with the head.

That’s about all that can be said about PES 2010. I only presented the things that are less/more different than the other versions, I am not going to talk about the principles of a football-sim game because everyone has played or seen on TV a football match.

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

A few years back, Nintendo promised something great – Games with motion control, letting the player BE the game. Letting the player navigate great, epic worlds by merely using their hands and bodies… Wonderful, is it not?

Then reality came crashing down and countless of worthless gimmicky games later, here we are.

The Wii Motion Plus. (Yeah, Mario and Zelda were brilliant. I thought that Metroid Prime 3 was somewhat overhyped but, then again I never was a fan of the series)

What pisses me off about the Wii Motion Plus is that it’s three years fucking LATE. That’s what Nintendo promised in the first case, seamless 1-to-1 controllers with enough precision to make a fruit fly ejaculate.

And now what? Now the Wii Motion Plus has arrived in all of its overpriced glory and for what? Which brings me to the next contestant!

Sony’s Magic Wand… thingy.

Originally, I had nothing but good things to say about this. Even though I haven’t tried it in any way, it’s still a pretty interesting concept, if not a very new one at that.

Basically, it’s a Wii-mote BUT – it’s got teh CELL proces0rz… In all honesty, though, I believe that Sony’s Magic Wand will be big. (teehee!)

Why, you ask?

Well imagine it. We get true 1-to-1 controlling AND amazing graphics to boot. Haven’t you always secretly despised the Wii graphics? Sure, the controllers are great in many cases, but the graphics are out-dated. I’m not a graphics whore by any means, I happen to believe that story-driven gameplay goes before everything, but when you know that you can have something much better, why stay with Nintendo? I just hope that Sony realise the potential of their invention and don’t make the same mistake they did with the deceased EyeToy…

What they need to do? Get third party support! Capcom are already making Resident Evil 5 with the new motion control, getting more support would make many people seriously consider for which platform they decide to purchase a game. Just incorporating small things using the motion controller in a game could be well-worth the purchase. It could be something major like aiming, like RE5 and Dead Space or perhaps building entire games around it? According to sources, there will be an invasion of Wii titles on the PS3 coming along as soon as the Magic Wand ‘drops’ Spring 2010…

Speaking of third party support, I believe that I have forgotten someone…

Project Natal…

Oh dear… Okay, let’s tally up some facts?

I’m not going to go very in-depth into this, but here’s what I know and believe.

1. Microsoft does not have as many first-party developers as Sony.
2. Microsoft has interesting technology, but how much will it cost?
3. Project Natal is basically a glorified version of the EyeToy, in many ways. There’s no real link between the Player and the game.

I’ll explain it abit, I suppose.

Microsoft have shown that their Project Natal uses 3D tracking in order to send information to the 360 where it gets calculated etc… But my question is: How the hell is this going to work in gameplay?

As far as I know, Microsoft have shown only a handful of games for Natal, one of them being some sort of mini-game where you try to ricochet balls through a corridor and make them hit boxes in order to score. Fine, that could be fun when you’re drunk or if you’re eight. The other real GAME that I saw was not actually a full game, a copy of Burnout Paradise that had been altered to work using Natal.*

Which is awesome – sort of.

You see, you sit in your chair and keep your arms out like you’re holding a steering wheel and it looked to be very accurate, which is good! And then they showed how you accelerate – by pushing your foot slightly forward. OK…

My only question would be – Is this how every Natal game is going to work? Are they going to try to make hardcore FPS games with this control scheme? Running forward by pushing your foot forward and holding your arms up at all times, as if you’re holding a gun? Are you supposed to run in place to make Marcus Fenix move his overcompensating arse to that chest-high wall that just magically appeared between him and a slew of aliens? They can’t make us hold the 360 controller while running in place and acting like an idiot, that’s for sure.

I’m not saying that Natal will fail, but I am saying that it will take more than a little bit of thinking in order to get that idea to work properly. I don’t see Modern Warfare 3 being made for Natal, do you?

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.

Enough with the criticism (more to come soon), it is time to get down to the things that really stand out in this game. Like the other games in the series, Dragon Rising amazes with the degree of realism. You do not have to be hit by a full round of bullets to bite the dust. Some hits to just make you bleed while some can end your life instantaneously.  The graphics also help when it comes to realism, although I am not a keen fan of all this HDR stuff I must say that the visual elements here are quite well done.  Just like in reality, the bullets change their altitude, tending to fall towards the earth once they are fired, so you must take some variables into consideration before starting an attack.  Having a draw range of up to 35 kilometers, you may often find yourself admiring the landscape, forgetting  about the enemies that are closing  in. Of course, the player will get back to reality once a gun is shot, as the sound of the weapons are very accurately made (quite loud). You have total freedom over how exactly you accomplish  your objective, you choose where you are approaching the target from and how you deal with it. Your team mates also influence the mission is being carried out. Being a tactical shooter, you can tell your troops where to go what exactly to do. And here you have a quite a lot of options available: from establishing the way of engagement to hiding spots and attack formations.  This is quite good for a game like this, but it has a downside as well. Team mates’ AI is pretty bad (not that the enemies are some kind of geniuses). If you do not tell them where to go or what to do,  they just stay in a spot, even if they under enemy fire. I would have expected them to flank alone or to find some cover if the commander is not able to hand out orders, but it seems it is not like that.

But of course, that can be solved in an easy matter: the multiplayer co-op. There, the Ai squad members are replaced with real people, that making the task easier . The two other multiplayer game modes are Annihilation (team deathmatch) and Infiltration (destroy/defend different objectives), but it seems that others may appear some time soon.   One other thing that should be mentioned about the game would be the map editor, a really useful tool that allows players to create their own missions.

Many fans say that this is not the actual sequel to the old Flashpoint game, mainly because the Bohemia interactive (the real developers of the old series) have split up with Codemasters, and they also  came out with their own game (Arma II), but all in all, Dragon Rising is a game that deserves some attention  and time .

©2012 Noob Talk Gaming Community. All Rights Reserved.