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.

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.

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.