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Game Informations : Developer: BioWare Publishers: Electronic Arts Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PS4, Xbox One Initial release date: March 21, 2017 Seeking out new life and new civilizations to shoot and have sex with, Mass Effect: Andromedacreatively sidesteps the limitations of Mass Effect 3’s ending by launching a group of pioneers into a whole new galaxy. What they find there is a vast and sometimes exciting action role-playing game that kept me engaged, but after the outstanding trilogy that created this universe, Andromeda is a disappointing follow up with some significant technical issues on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.From the opening moments, there’s an immediate sense of mystery and peril as the human colony ship encounters a massive, world-ruining space anomaly that throws their plans into disarray, and a new hostile alien race led by a threatening villain attacks on sight. The quest to find a habitable and safe new home for tens of thousands of frozen colonists and form a functioning independent government along with colonists from the krogan, salarian, turian, and asari ships is an interesting struggle that sets this Mass Effect apart from the establishments of previous games. At the same time, Andromeda just can’t stop itself from retreading some major plot ideas from the original trilogy, including another long-dead civilization that’s left advanced technology lying around. What’s bizarre is that BioWare went to the trouble of shipping us 2.5 million light years away to introduce only two new alien races (plus some robots) over more than 50 hours of campaign and major side missions, and only one local joins your crew. Given that the original games have multiple background races like elcor, drell, vorcha, batarians, and more to add diversity and the sense that we were living in a universe full of different peoples, the Andromeda galaxy seems practically barren of intelligent life by comparison. Our new customizable protagonist, Ryder, quickly finds himself thrust into the leadership role of Pathfinder and placed in command of a ship, the Tempest. (As with Shepard, Ryder can be either a man or a woman, but because my first playthrough was as a guy named Biff with a large ginger afro and a scar that looked as though he’d been hit in the face with a hot waffle iron, I’m going to refer to him as male in this review.) On the whole, Ryder is a likable and well-acted character who can carry the story, and the idea of having the alternate-gender version of your character play a role in the story as a twin sibling is a novel idea and used to good effect. It can also be ridiculous if you choose to use the character creator to make the twins appear as completely different races – or just freakishly deformed, tattooed, and scarred. Most of the early dialogue choices we have to shape our version of Ryder are about how we want him to cope with this harrowing situation, and the options are usually either cocky overconfidence or self-doubt and pity without a lot in between. But eventually it evens out, and we get to choose between idealistic Ryder and pragmatic Ryder as we resolve conflicts throughout the region. The choices are rarely as high-contrast as the original trilogy’s Paragon/Renegade moments, and they’re more about deciding whether you want him to be an all-business logical type or a goofball with a self-deprecating sense of humor and cheesy jokes. Your crew, meanwhile, is a fairly generic band made up almost entirely of existing Mass Effect humans and aliens, which despite their fairly deep and enjoyable backstories, always gave me feelings of deja vu. After all, how many times can we be introduced to a gruff new krogan warrior or an eyepiece-wearing turian? There’s nothing really wrong with them, but none struck me as memorable stars like Garrus, Tali, or Mordin. Peebee is probably the best of the cast thanks to her quirky humor and tendency to bicker with her fellow asari, Lexi. But the rest seem too comfortable with each other to be all that interesting in the way we saw with Wrex threatening to tear the team apart in the original Mass Effect. Everyone getting along, for the most part, is a little boring, regardless of how flirty and naked they get. And my stars, do they ever get naked. I’m not just talking about Liam’s apparent allergy to shirts, here. You have plenty of romance options for either gender, including same-sex and interspecies, and when you’ve gone out of your way to talk to them and run errands for them (which often involve blowing up robots or killing outlaws) to kindle the flames of your budding relationship, you’re treated to a full-on R-rated sex scene the likes of which the Mass Effect series has never seen before. My wife’s reaction as I sealed the deal with human biotic commando Cora was to state, matter-of-factly, that, “This is porn. And it looks weird.” She’s not wrong on either count – especially since male Ryder appears to have painstakingly removed every hair on his body below the neck – but I’d call it tasteful porn thanks to the context of the conversations leading up to it. Voice acting is almost universally strong enough that I quickly stopped noticing the generally sub-par human facial animations. Could they be better? Absolutely – a lot of games, such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, have done significantly better in that department and in giving characters hair that doesn’t look like solid plastic. But some weird expressions didn’t ruin Mass Effect: Andromeda for me any more than they did virtually every RPG for the past three decades. I’m much more distracted by the texture pop-in that happens during conversations, where a character’s face will go from looking like a blurry mess to having visible pores midway through a sentence. On that note, Mass Effect: Andromeda is more than a little rough in the technical sense. On PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (I’ve yet to spend significant time with the PC version), it’s prone to major frame rate drops and hitches regardless of what’s happening on screen. I’ve seen it drop to slideshow levels when simply walking around the Nexus (the Citadel-like seat of government), driving through a flat wasteland, and fighting in a dense jungle. Animation glitches seem more common than in previous games. And, though some bugs are to be expected in a game of this scale, between myself and a few other players at IGN we’ve seen a fair share of broken quests. (BioWare has been aggressively issuing patches in response to our reports and claims to have resolved at least some of the problems already.) Overall, though, the inconsistent writing is what makes this Mass Effect a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Occasionally, we’re confronted with excellent morally gray questions where both options have compelling logic and terrible consequences, where you’re forced to pick between, for instance, a long-term greater good or saving lives. Those are some of the best moments in all of Mass Effect: Andromeda and they’re right up there with the toughest head-scratchers of the original trilogy. I’d have loved to have seen more of them. There are also some respectable quests, such as discovering the truth behind the first murder in Andromeda using your Batman-style scanner on your wrist-mounted Omnitool and then deciding what to do with the results of your investigation. Having finished the campaign, however, very few of these no-win choices have come back to haunt me in the ways I’d hoped for. In between those decisions are a large number of filler fetch and kill quests set up by stilted conversations, and those can become tedious as you try to fill up the viability percentages of the planets you visit. Plus, flying around in the Tempest and scanning uninhabited planets for resources is as dull a task as it’s been in any of the original trilogy games – and that’s saying a lot. But at least this time they’re over quickly; extracting resources is a two-button job, and if there’s nothing to be found you’ll know right away, without needing to waste time searching. Because of the semi-open structure of the campaign, it’s more or less up to us to do different things in order to keep things fresh. When you do land on a planet, the major worlds you can explore are almost all huge and visually distinct from each other. There’s your standard Tatooine-style desert and your Hoth-style frozen wasteland, but also a low-gravity world and a jungle that’s too dense to use your vehicle. Most have some kind of quirk to make them at least slightly mechanically different from each other, not counting the life support-draining factors like extreme cold or heat or radiation that all function in the exact same way by effectively putting a time limit on how long you can explore without returning to a safe area. Of course, given that these are sparsely inhabited worlds, the majority of each planetary map is empty space, and the most frequent things you’ll encounter there are repetitive enemy camps. But covering that ground is at least somewhat entertaining thanks to the Nomad, Andromeda’s version of the Mako landing vehicle. This bouncy car is equipped with jump jets to launch it over small obstacles, a gear shift to make climbing up extreme hills more interesting than simply holding down the gas, and (I’m guessing) magic to prevent it from ever rolling over. It has no guns, but using it to plow over groups of enemy soldiers before hopping out to mop up the survivors is a good way to get some use out of it. Another thing you’ll find a lot of is alien monoliths which must be activated in order to make a planet hospitable to colonists, and whenever you see one you know there’s going to be some puzzlin’. These puzzle vaults don’t force you to think outside the box; in contrast to classics like Portal, Braid, or the new Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mass Effect: Andromeda doesn’t introduce any kind of clever tools or mechanic, and instead relies on standbys like Sudoku and number sequences that can be drawn out on paper. That said, I happen to enjoy Sudoku, and doing a few of those was a nice break from the action. I could do without the simplistic jumping puzzles found in those vaults, but I’m glad that they’re possible. Unlike Shepard, who could barely step over an ankle-high obstacle, Ryder is fantastically mobile, with a supremely satisfying jump-jet that vaults you over nearly anything. Combined with the jet-dash move, it’s easy to get comfortable running out to flank enemies, giving combat a much more energetic pace compared to the cover-focused combat of previous Mass Effects. You can even pull moves like launching into the air and aiming down the sights of your gun, letting you hover in place for a few seconds while you pick off an enemy who thought his cover would protect him. (It also leaves you exposed, so it’s not something you want to use all the time.) I’m still not entirely comfortable with Andromeda’s automatic cover system, though: while I like how I was never locked into a spot when I wanted to jump or move out of it, I also never felt certain that I’d be able to safely hook into a safe spot if something wasn’t quite tall enough, nor was I confident that I wouldn’t get sucked into cover when I didn’t want to be. Most aggravating of all is that even though Ryder will automatically jump into cover, you have to manually control whether you’re oriented on the right or left side of the screen. There is no situation when I’d want to be on the left edge of a piece of cover and facing right – I want to lean out on the left side and shoot around it. Your combat powers are, as usual, unlocked through dumping points into a skill tree, but this radically different class system is almost ridiculously flexible compared to previous Mass Effects and most other RPGs. You no longer select a class at the outset, but can choose from nearly any of several dozen diverse skills across three specialties: biotics, tech, and combat. There are some spectacular ones, including a great flamethrower effect and a handy combat drone that follows you around to both dish out damage and absorb some hits – I found that one almost indispensable. You’re limited to equipping three active powers at any time, but you can swap out your configuration and even your class profile right in the middle of a fight (with a cooldown penalty). You can even respec all of your ability points on your ship at any time between missions. That makes swapping saved loadouts feel more like working around a UI limitation than a meaningful character development decision, and it seems strange that you can swap out your powers at will but not the guns you’re carrying in your inventory. ust like Mass Effect 3, power combos are an important part of dealing high damage and add some depth to combat. You can prime a target by softening them up with a biotic singularity and then detonate that target with a follow-up like biotic lance. And that’s why your companion characters are a bit disappointing in combat. It’s not that they’re incompetent - in fact they’re effective to the point where on normal difficulty I’ve been able to just about sit out entire fights and watch them take care of business, and they rarely get themselves downed. The problem is your control over them is limited to two commands: Stand in a place or attack a thing. And you can’t even pause the action to place them tactically. That’s just not enough control to reliably coordinate ability combos with them when you want to, so you’re pretty much on your own when it comes to both priming and detonating. They feel like AI stand-ins for co-op players, as though they’re intended to be more useful but can’t hear you shouting at them to cast a certain ability when you need it. You can’t equip companions with gear, either, and that takes some of the fun out of the crafting system. Instead, you just swap out characters when you want different abilities backing you up, such as the melee-heavy krogan Dreck or the backstabbing Jaal versus the heavy-gunning Vetra and Cora the biotics expert. I understand the desire to cut down on micromanagement, but it’s a bummer that any tricked-out gun or armor you’re not using yourself anymore might as well be melted down for scrap. Crafting is therefore fairly ignorable – on normal difficulty you’d easily be able to get by just fine using guns and armor you find or buy – but I did get a kick out of applying augmentations to my crafted weapons to give them seeking plasma projectiles or cause my shields to recharge whenever I emptied the magazine of a small-capacity shotgun. There’s a respectable variety of enemies thrown at you, including everything from different types of basic foot soldiers to large stompy mechs and huge alien beasts, and the three major factions fight distinctly enough to keep battles from becoming too stale. They do tend to be on the bullet-spongy side especially in the late game, though, and there’s a miniboss fight that happens a couple of times too often. And the ending? In non-spoilery terms, I can say that there are definitely some surprises in store; the final battle is appropriately climactic and Andromeda’s villain has some good moments, even if his boss battle was hardly the most difficult in the campaign. That said, it felt like the only impact my actions leading up to it had was which characters showed up in cutscenes to help fight and whether a certain type of miniboss enemy was present. If colonizing and improving the viability of the worlds I’d visited made a difference, it’s unclear what that might’ve been. And there’s no major choice at the end that might make your ending significantly different from mine. Maybe that’s BioWare having learned a lesson about making the next game more difficult than it needed to be, but it means there’s no “Do you let the council die?” moment here. After that, you can either return to cleaning up the new galaxy (I finished the campaign with just over 50% completion) or switch over to the wave-based co-op multiplayer mode that plays a lot like Mass Effect 3’s, except with the new mobility speeding things up. You and three teammates can make much better use of the power combos to take down enemies and reach objectives quickly than the AI companions can. As in the last game, this mode is more entertaining than you’d expect, and the rewards it doles out in random card packs keep things interesting by making you make the most of the gear you have available. The peer-to-peer networking led me into some laggy matches, but it’s been mostly good during EA’s access launch. I’ve enjoyed putting the combat skills I learned in single-player to good use, and having to pick a specific character class with a specific set of abilities gave me the defined role I was looking for in the campaign. It feels a little uncomfortable that you need to buy near-essential items like health packs and self-resurrection items with a very limited in-game currency and are prompted to buy more with real money, but so far I haven’t run into a situation where I didn’t have enough to buy what I needed. I've now put a few more hours into the PC version, and can say that the performance on my GeForce GTX 1080 is, as you would expect, considerably better than the console counterparts. 1080p is no problem, but I've had to turn a few things down to get a steady 60fps at 2560x1440 resolution. That's within reason for a game with textures and effects as detailed as Mass Effect. Running off of an SSD, the load times have been speedy, to the point where the transition movies (such as the tram pod that moves you around the Nexus) probably make you wait longer than is needed. I've seen no widespread reports of notably poor performance on lesser hardware, so you're likely going to be safe if you're somewhere between the required and recommended specs. The UI and controls are workable, though little work has been done to adapt it to mouse and keyboard. Navigating the inventory and crafting screens, for instance, has a lot of buttons you'd want to click on one after the other that are on the opposite sides of the screen. That's a fairly standard inconvenience for a cross-platform game, and I'm having no trouble getting around. Everything has been easily remappable on the keyboard, too. Verdict: Mass Effect: Andromeda is an expansive action role-playing game with a few great moments that recapture the high points of the landmark trilogy that came before it, and energetic combat and fantastic sound effects contribute to a potent sci-fi atmosphere. Without consistently strong writing or a breakout star in its cast to carry it through the long hours and empty spaces, however, disappointments like a lack of new races, no companion customization, and major performance problems and bugs take their toll. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5 3570 or AMD FX-6350 MEMORY: 8 GB RAM VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB, AMD Radeon 7850 2GB HARD DRIVE: At least 55 GB of free space DIRECTX: DirectX 11 Recommended: OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 PROCESSOR: Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD FX-8350 MEMORY: 16 GB RAM VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 1060 3GB, AMD RX 480 4GB HARD DRIVE: At least 55 GB of free space DIRECTX: DirectX 11

Game Informations : Developer: BioWare, Straight Right Publishers: Electronic Arts Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U Initial release date: March 6, 2012 Few games come with the amount of hype Mass Effect 3 has swirling around it. As the culmination of BioWare's epic sci-fi RPG trilogy, Mass Effect 3 hasn't garnered this groundswell in an artificial way. Rather, anticipation steadily sits at a fever pitch because the previous installments -- Mass Effect, and especially Mass Effect 2 -- rate amongst the best games ever made. And in many ways, Mass Effect 3 has set the bar even higher as the worthy conclusion to one of the finest stories ever told in gaming history, even if it's still admittedly imperfect. Mass Effect 3 throws you back into the role of Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre that has, at this point in the story, gone above and beyond proving his (or her) commitment to galactic order. After reluctantly working for the xenophobic human-first organization Cerberus and jumping through the Omega-4 Mass Relay to fight the Collectors at the center of the Milky Way in Mass Effect 2, Shepard's greatest challenge still lies ahead. Once considered the stuff of lore, the Reapers rear their heads in our own backyard. Having returned to the galaxy after a 50,000 year hiatus, the Reapers conduct an all-out assault on the galaxy's organic life. Earth itself suffers heavy bombardment as Mass Effect 3 begins, with millions suffering and dying daily. Your task: fight back, not only for Earth and humanity, but for all galactic races that find themselves simultaneously under siege. Shepard and his allies aren't nearly strong enough to combat the Reapers' planet-sacking death squads on their own. The earlier Mass Effect games focused on exploring the galaxy as you complete quests, building up your reputation and ultimately careening headlong into the endgame. Mass Effect 3 has all of that too, and it's all conducted through the lens of truly consequential, wide-ranging decision-making. This brings yet again an exceptionally plot-heavy slant to a series already deeply reliant on amazing story-telling. The Reapers pose an existential threat to life in the galaxy, forcing Shepard to navigate through tricky territory wrought with age-old grudges, conflicts and old-fashioned hatred in order to get all affected parties to work together. The Krogans hate the Salarians and Turians because of the Genophage, while the Quarians have waged war with their rogue machines, the Geth, for hundreds of years. Conflicts like this exist everywhere. The challenge before Shepard lies in his ability to get all of these races -- and many others -- allied in order to fight the Reapers as one united front. This represents the galaxy's only hope in defeating their overwhelmingly powerful adversaries. Accomplishing such feats of diplomacy resides at the heart of Mass Effect 3. Gone are the loyalty quests of Mass Effect 2; things aren't quite as personal this time around. Shepard must still make a staggering number of choices in conversation, and how he treats those around him heavily affects the game's outcome. He'll still make friends and enemies, have personal conversations and learn a great deal more about those he encounters. And the more time you spend speaking to others and exploring everyone's stories, the more you'll extract from the game. But now, the galaxy's problems are greater, and Shepard must think bigger. By helping out individuals, militaries, governments and entire races, Shepard will collect War Assets and form a higher and higher level of Galactic Readiness. These will become integral to the success or failure of Mass Effect 3's endgame, and bring an entirely new slant to the series, one that's both welcome and fresh. On an individual character level, Paragons and Renegades still rule the day. There's little room for grey area, making Mass Effect 3-- like its franchise predecessors -- worth playing at least twice. Better yet, characters can be imported from Mass Effect 2 (which in turn could be imported from the original Mass Effect on Xbox 360 and PC), giving you an even larger range of consequence, impressively widening the paradigm in which choices you made in the original two games come to bear upon the trilogy's finale. For those new to Mass Effect, the game will prompt you to make a character fresh if you don't import a save from Mass Effect 2, and will even ask you to make some important choices that will affect the game's outcome. But without understanding the full gravity of these choices by having played the original two games, Mass Effect 3 will certainly be a shallower, less fulfilling and more confusing endeavor. Consequently, playing Mass Effect 1 and 2 before playing Mass Effect 3 comes highly recommended. With an imported character or a freshly-rolled one, veterans of the Mass Effect franchise will find a game much more in-line with Mass Effect 2 than the original. While Mass Effect 2 radically changed the series in many important ways, Mass Effect 3 only mildly iterates on what made Mass Effect 2 so great. Some of this tinkering works well; scanning planets for minerals, for instance, has been almost entirely removed, much to the chagrin of nobody. Now, while all planets in known systems can be visited and studied, only some of the planets have something truly interesting to offer you. In other words, BioWare has done a nice job in not wasting your time beyond sucking you in to read the fictional write-ups of the planets in every known system. (And speaking of fiction, get ready for the irresistible rip curl of Mass Effect's amazing codex, which fleshes-out the series' lore in an unimaginably deep way.) But some changes aren't as positive. Mass Effect 3 totes a far looser side quest system that's less compelling and interesting than its predecessors'. It's easy to earn a bunch of side quests only by overhearing conversations in certain locations, with no real context as to what you're supposed to do. While the main quest is heavy on story and action and certainly fulfills in its own right, Mass Effect 3's slant on side quests feels wanting, making the 30 to 40 hours it takes to complete everything in the game just a little more arduous. BioWare has somewhat dumbed-down the RPG-centric nature of the series, but thankfully this down-scaling is totally optional. Mass Effect 3 still very much acts the part of action-RPG, but players will be given options to lessen the role-playing if you want to jump only into the action or story. Then again, BioWare has made Mass Effect 3 deeper in some ways, too, with features like enhanced weapon customization. So not all is lost. Mass Effect 2's third-person action returns with some minor changes and upgrades. Characters can still launch into a number of classes that rely on conventional weaponry, tech, biotics or any combination therein. Likewise, the squad members you meet -- some old, others new -- will fit into one or more of those categories. With a level cap of 60, it'll be hard for you to fully upgrade your character in Mass Effect 3 in one go, especially if you don't import from Mass Effect 2. But Mass Effect 3 does support a New Game+ mode once beaten that will let you beef-up your character to loftier heights. In combat, minor changes are almost immediately evident. Shepard can now jump when prompted, roll around on the battlefield and perform other feats of pseudo-platforming that give Mass Effect 3 a somewhat different feel than Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 3 also feels more vertical than its predecessors. Various maps will have more staircases and ladders than ever, giving you several levels from which to fight, forcing you to employ different strategies to survive against enemy onslaughts. Cover-based, run-and-gun action is still the name of the game, and overall, this setup works great. Weapons can be toggled through and powers selected with trigger-controlled radials, while AI controls your squad mates almost entirely, save issuing supplemental manual commands. And speaking of AI, enemies also fight smart for the most part. Foes appear to work together, employ flanking and cover tactics and care about self-preservation. This doesn't always prove to be true, of course -- nailing enemy AI behavior is often an imperfect art in game design -- but BioWare has done a nice job in holding your feet to the fire in any case. Few battles can be won without employing some tactical acumen of your own. For the very first time in a Mass Effect game, a multiplayer component has been concocted to complement the single-player experience. While Mass Effect 3 is still very much a single-player affair, an optional multiplayer suite -- one most closely aligned to Gears of War 3's Horde Mode, though not as good -- will give the game even more replay value. Purists need not worry; multiplayer isn't necessary to play in order to complete the single-player campaign. However, the two do interconnect should players want to explore that particular angle. And Achievement and Trophy hunters will find multiplayer necessary to play in order to get all of their virtual goodies. Multiplayer itself proves to be quite fun, although it's held back somewhat by Mass Effect 3's more rigid and at times unforgiving mechanics. But even with only one mode consisting of six stages (pulled from the single-player game's N7 missions) and three enemy groups (pulled from the single-player game's primary antagonists), leveling up your characters, purchasing upgrades and generally playing around with up to three other people certainly satisfies. Mass Effect 3's multiplayer may not have been even remotely necessary, but it doesn't diminish the overall product. Quite the opposite, in fact. Aesthetically, Mass Effect 3 pleases with a mild graphical enhancement over Mass Effect 2, obvious enhancements that shine especially when compared to the original. Voice acting still sounds great for virtually all characters, and Mass Effect 3's soundtrack makes for great sonic accompaniment through both tender conversations and hectic battles alike. Expect to find some texture loading problems, framerate hitches and off lip-syncing from time to time, but these issues don't mar the experience too severely. It's worth noting, however, that on PS3 our Shepard fell through the map and got caught in the environment a couple of times, forcing us to restart. This didn't happen on our concurrent Xbox 360 playthroughs. Mass Effect 3 with Kinect feels innocuous enough, which means it works well. Adding the ability to fire off hands-free commands to your team, the mechanic offers responsive functionality without requiring you to shout at your television. Simply speak a command, and Kinect executes generally well, though occasionally stringing three power commands together yields mixed results. Take a common combo used against Shielded enemies for instance: combine Garrus' Concussive Shot to knock out shields, Liara's Stasis to freeze a foe, and Shepard's Biotic Charge to rush and melee. Done properly, this can eliminate armor and take down buffed out Centurions, Marauders, even Phantoms. When it works, you'll smile goofily, noticing the gameplay speed up handily without the need to camp in the power wheel. Verdict: All told, Mass Effect 3 is an absolutely amazing game, one that successfully puts a bow on the Mass Effect trilogy while still leaving us hungry for even more. It looks and plays great, but Mass Effect 3's true strength lies in its ability to tell a deeply-woven story. Better yet, the sheer ambition shown by BioWare in announcing an intersecting trilogy complete with save importation becomes fully realized in Mass Effect 3. BioWare deserves applause for not only having the courage to attempt something like the Mass Effect trilogy, but for pulling it off with such exceptional poise and skill. Mass Effect 3 isn't the best game ever made. But it'll certainly be in the conversation for a very long time to come. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: CPU: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (equivalent AMD CPU) CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 1GB for XP / 2GB RAM for Vista/Win 7 OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista SP1, Win 7 VIDEO CARD: 256 MB with Pixel Shader 3.0 support. (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 or better; ATI Radeon X1800 or better. Please note that NVIDIA GeForce 9300, 8500, 8400, and 8300 are below minimum system requirements, as are AMD/ATI Radeon HD 3200, HD 3300, and HD 4350.) PIXEL SHADER: 3.0 VERTEX SHADER: 3.0 SOUND CARD: Yes FREE DISK SPACE: 2.5 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 256 MB Recommended: CPU: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (equivalent AMD CPU) CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 2 GB for XP / 4 GB RAM for Vista/Win 7 OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista SP1, Win 7 VIDEO CARD: AMD/ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB or greater, NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 512 MB or greater PIXEL SHADER: 3.0 VERTEX SHADER: 3.0 SOUND CARD: Yes FREE DISK SPACE: 2.5 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 512 MB

Game Informations : Developer: DICE, DICE Los Angeles Publishers: Electronic Arts Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One Initial release date: Oct 29,2013 Battlefield 4 is a greatest hits album of DICE’s multiplayer first-person shooter legacy. It retains the defining DNA of Battlefield 1942, re-adopts Battlefield 2’s brilliant Commander mode, and exaggerates the destruction of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, all while embracing the realism, class reorganization, and gorgeous graphics of Battlefield 3. Most of the time, Battlefield’s unpredictable, vehicular-based competitive combat is predictably excellent. What I didn’t anticipate was DICE getting in its own way.What we've never seen before in a Battlefield game is the drastic, and often inconsistent way Battlefield 4 forces its two massive 32-player teams to adjust to evolving environmental conditions. A dam bursts, crushing everything below with metric tonnes of rubble and floods. Half a hotel disintegrates, exposing a control point and depriving snipers of a valuable perch. Large-scale destruction like this changes the fundamental layout of an area, forcing combatants to react intelligently and change their strategies and loadouts on the fly. Even after the magic and surprise is gone, teams always need to be prepared for how they’ll react when a crumbled tower keeps their tanks out of enemy territory. Coming out on top because your new strategy adapts to and harnesses the new level design is even more satisfying than the XP and armory unlocks you earn along the way. That said, not every instance of awe-inspiring devastation is as excellent as these. Often, triggering the event takes minutes of work, and the result is sometimes superfluous, feeling more like DICE’s obligation to include it in every map rather than something that achieves anything of value. A smashed satellite at the center of a map becomes a minor inconvenience for vehicles, for example. A toppled tower actually makes it irritating to navigate an underground area, and manually detonating underground explosives from a terminal takes you away from the action in one of the biggest maps. Most offensive of all, a flooding town’s rising water levels significantly inhibits mobility – and is especially frustrating if you’re in a fierce tug-of-war for a base-busting bomb in the terrific new Obliteration mode. If you're smart about it, you can take advantage of most maps’ effects, though – including some of the less magnificent, more subtle things. Diminished visibility as a typhoon assaults an island might mean changing your favorite red-dot sight for something that sees in the dark. Hunting bomb carriers as the sun rises means they’re increasingly vulnerable as the match goes on – the faster they arm control points early on, the easier their lives will be later. In addition to those major destruction events, DICE has rediscovered a major factor that defines Battlefield’s greatness among other modern military shooters: finally, for the first time since Bad Company 2, teams can tear down most simple structures. Knocking out supports to topple houses and collapse roads isn’t quite as exciting as a skyscraper sinking into a bay, but it’s great for keeping enemies out of troublesome spots or creating a crawl space to hide in. One of my favorite maps – Golmud Railway, where DICE’s designers take expert advantage of its enormous scale, several scattered control points, and aerial warfare – has a mobile control point in the form of a train. Fighting for control is an entertaining, mobile struggle. More than anything, and despite its new features, Battlefield 4 most closely resembles Battlefield 3, if only for the similar feel of its physical, scary weapons. Accounting for bullet drop as a sniper – which involves more mental math now thanks to adjustable zero-targeting ranges – remains one of the most fulfilling things about Battlefield’s skill-based gunplay. Elsewhere, one of the smallest departures is the most significant, at least for knife-fighters. Stealth attacks from behind, as usual, guarantee a new set of dog tags for your knife-kill collection. Stabbing at someone from the front, however, gives them a brief opportunity to reverse the attack. Counter-kills are an incredibly satisfying way to put down someone who wasn’t careful enough to wait for you to turn your back, and an interesting new tactical layer to what used to be a panic button. Where Battlefield 4 most brilliantly distances Battlefield 3 is in its map design. The best Battlefield maps are challenging and satisfying, demanding you take advantage of everything at your disposal, and Battlefield 4 does this extremely well. Screaming across the terrain in the bouncy new off-road buggy is a blast, but its vulnerability may lead you to choose a tank instead. But even its rear is vulnerable to infantry rockets. Battlefield’s interesting relationship between infantry and vehicles goes deeper here, with additional means to take down enemies, whether you’re immobilizing vehicles or filling them with a team to attack in force. The soldiers in that ride will likely have a more varied array of gear than ever, too, because character classes and vehicles have more extensive customization options in Battlefield 4. Recon is no longer limited to the sniper/shotgunner role, allowing him to equip a mid-range DMR to do some actual recon. Classes are defined by gadgets rather than guns, and it permits a more aggressive play style for unit types previously restricted by their loadout options. Much like Battlefield 4’s gameplay, its customization is more liberated than ever. Terrific level design is responsible for a lot of what makes this work well, and I’d wager that a good chunk of Battlefield 4’s maps will live as classics. Everything is, as always, engineered around Battlefield’s territory-control Conquest mode. Hainan Resort, with its destructible hotel centerpiece and terrific mix of air/ground/sea combat options, is Wake Island-levels of outstanding. Awesome opportunities exist for every class, every pilot, every aggressive paratrooper to pull off an unbelievable kill or anxiety-inducing control point capture. It's not the only excellent one. The Rogue Transmission map gives planes plenty of breathing room, and ATVs can avoid aerial vehicles using underground passageways. It’s a map that demands a sense of spatial awareness and having a reliable, coordinated squad. It’s also one of Battlefield’s best-in-class vehicular balancing acts – vulnerable four-wheelers can still escape tanks, which in turn have a great, unobstructed view for clearing the air of choppers and jets. Not every map works great with every mode, though. The thrill of punching through enemy lines, destroying control points, and proceeding to the next seems less strategic than ever in some Rush maps. Paracel Storm, for example, funnels attackers into punishing bottlenecks dominated by defenders. In others, predatory offense can feel like desperate brute force, particularly in matches with lots of players. Obliteration maps with water are the most troublesome – the mode’s bomb resets if it ends up in the drink, leading to chaotic confusion and frustrating losses. Domination is a fast and focused Conquest variant with scaled-down maps and infantry-only fighting, which is a nice change of pace from the contemplative exploration of the open-ended Battlefield maps. In that sense, it’s closer to Call of Duty than Battlefield, for better or worse. Likewise, Defuse mode is a shameless Counter-Strike clone with a Battlefield twist. Planting a bomb behind enemy lines without respawning is even scarier when someone punches a hole through a wall with a rocket. Explosives and exposure don’t break it, mercifully, since the complex maps have so many routes to escape or flank foes. Operation Locker, a tight-quarters prison with winding hallways and plenty of places to flank enemies, always has me looking over my shoulder, and will find a dedicated Domination/Defuse audience, no doubt. Commander Mode brings out the best in Battlefield 4. When one player on each team steps away from their guns to issue orders from a top-down tactical screen to 31 teammates, amazing things can happen. It's hard to believe that participating war in a hands-off capacity can be this satisfying! Coordinated Commanders who work well with their squads will find themselves steamrolling enemies who can’t. The symbiotic relationship between soldier and Commander creates cyclical reward that enables new strategies in Conquest, Rush, and Obliteration, if you choose to use it. Commanders who send reinforcements to a suppressed squad, or send enemy-spotting UAVs overhead of hotspots, will earn the trust of a team. Squads who capture specialized control points earn additional attack options for their leader to deploy, such as a missile strike. Like in Battlefield 2, Commander Mode will change the way serious players play a Battlefield game. It is, more so than the sometimes-awesome evolution of landscapes, a reliably interesting feature that DICE should never let go of again. Also difficult to fathom is how Battlefield 4’s campaign uses so much to accomplish so little. You might've seen the first 17-minute video that DICE released of Battlefield 4 gameplay, featuring a run through the first story mission: a frantic escape sequence in Azerbaijan. It’s a spectacular showcase of Frostbite 3 engine’s incredible technical capabilities, DICE’s skillful ability to build tension, and Battlefield’s prowess as a flexible sandbox shooter. It is also emblematic of Battlefield 4’s complete inability to restrain itself. Its campaign is an obnoxious assault of explosions, blood, profanity, and anger wrapped in an apparent parody of a first-person shooter. In five hours, Battlefield 4 hits on almost every predictable cliché expected: Tank mission, boat mission, stealth mission, jailbreak, sewers, sudden but inevitable betrayal, dastardly Russians, defying orders, and, of course, a torture sequence. Retreading thoroughly charted territory isn’t exciting here, and Battlefield 4 regularly squanders or underutilizes its fragmented strengths in designing those levels. Meanwhile, the plot has too many moving parts and not enough time to give them each due credit. It’s unsure whether to focus on the suffering of your squad or the geopolitical gibberish. Writing is not Battlefield 4’s strong suit. Sometimes it fails to explain narrative progression clearly. Other times it’s awkward, out of place, and embarrassing. One of its most confusing story surprises is addressed with nonsensical blasé: “Things were f***ed. Then they were unf***ed.” When a secondary character doesn’t make it to the next scene, a squadmate pointlessly notes that the “dude is dead.” My personal favorite: “If you’ve survived a nuclear explosion like I have” is the actual start to a sentence someone says. Honestly, it feels like something is missing here. A gaping “Two Days Later” hole introduces sudden changes in character behavior and an out-of-nowhere new setting and to-do list. It’s as if half a campaign and the whole of its humanity got lost along the way. Verdict: Battlefield 4 is an excellent multiplayer game that makes the most of its ambitions, proving once again that destruction is a valuable strategic addition to competitive combat, which reaches its full potential with two killer Commanders are bringing out the best in their squads. On the other hand, its single-player campaign is a disappointing, but a functioning and familiar game with overwhelming action and remarkable spectacle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz, AMD Athlon X2 2.8 GHz or better CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 4 GB OS: Windows Vista SP2 32-Bit (with KB971512 System Update) VIDEO CARD: 512 MB AMD Radeon HD 3870 / NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT or better PIXEL SHADER: 4.0 VERTEX SHADER: 4.0 FREE DISK SPACE: 30 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 512 MB Recommended: CPU: AMD Six-core CPU, Intel quad-core CPU or better CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 8 GB OS: Windows 8 64-Bit VIDEO CARD: 3 GB AMD Radeon HD 7870 / NVIDIA Geforce GTX 660 or better PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 FREE DISK SPACE: 30 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 3 GB

Game Informations : Developer: DICE Los Angeles Publishers: Electronic Arts Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PS3, Xbox 360 Initial release date: Oct 5, 2012 Unlike the macho military shooters that inspired it, Medal of Honor Warfighter wants you to consider the effects of violence on those responsible for it. Such appeals to a player’s humanity are bold but risky moves in a military shooter, where countless corpses of faceless terrorists pile up at your feet.Warfighter strives for this by giving you a genuine impression of what it’s like to live as a Tier 1 operator, the elite operatives at the center of the modernized Medal of Honor series. It’s clear from the first cutscene all the way to the end credits that developer Danger Close has the utmost respect for the extraordinary skills and bravery of these soldiers. If Medal of Honor extended the same level of respect to its players, Warfighter might have accomplished more than its numerous significant failures and lack of player agency has allowed. The landscape of the first-person shooter is not the same as it once was. The 2010 series reboot was a competent mimicry of what had worked previously, and its sequel continues to ignore innovation. For the entirety of its brief five-hour campaign, Warfighter spotlights one tired design idea after the other. Each linear action sequence boils down to whack-a-mole with firearms: AI enemies mindlessly pop out from the same cover spots or stand out in the open just waiting to die. When they’ve all been killed, your squad kicks down a door, kills a handful of evil terrorists in slow motion, and moves onto the next section of the predictable pattern. Warfighter leaves little room for strategic thinking, too, since it funnels your team down narrow paths by blocking alternative routes with rocks, bushes, or invisible walls. Much of Medal of Honor is out of your hands, stripping you of the satisfaction that comes with making a difference or any impact on the world in a meaningful way. Many doors don’t open until allies let you through. Suspects you chase on foot conveniently wait when you fall behind. Choppers fly in to finish the job you couldn’t, airstrikes level buildings in your way, and an entire two-minute mission consists of taking a single shot you can’t miss. Hey, at least the weapons feel terrific, with bullets biting through enemies at an almost uncomfortable level of efficiency. Great firefights are par for the course in Frostbite Engine-powered games, and Medal of Honor feels as good as it looks. Warfighter’s incredible attention to atmospheric environmental detail gives Battlefield 3 a run for its money, and establishes a sense of place where the level design can't. The bare-bones mission design of Warfighter is entirely in service of its mantra, not its players. That is, Medal of Honor’s campaign wants to throw you into situations “ripped from the headlines” – and it’s devastating to whatever story Warfighter fails to tell. The primary objective is buried by disjointed jumps from one character or country to the next – as it has been in Battlefield and Call of Duty as well. It’s hard to keep the dots connected, too, because the timeline follows no discernible order and features flashbacks within flashbacks. The narrative of Warfighter’s core revolves around the dissolution and rebuilding of an operator’s family, but the characters and in-game events compromise pathos. How can anyone empathize with a broken man who spends the next few hours plunging a hatchet into hearts, snapping necks, and generally slaughtering hundreds of other people? There’s a massive disconnect between the story Danger Close wants to to tell and the game it’s made, and both suffer because of each other. All of this leaves Warfighter as uninteresting as it is disengaged, and none of its promises pay off. This is equally true in the hollow multiplayer. Abysmal map design cripples the already uninspired objective-based modes, creating obstacles cutting off paths to a bomb site or a flag return point. Shrubbery and impassable rubble obscure routes, creating a dense clutter even in the biggest maps, while spawn camping is an intensely frustrating problem in nearly all modes. A few variables on existing formulas make those multiplayer game types different from its contemporaries, but not in a substantial enough way to stand out above them. Hotspot constantly changes bomb-planting locations and Home Run forbids respawns during Capture the Flag – interesting twists, but other shooters, including Medal of Honor’s sister series, Battlefield, have explored similar conventions better. Even Warfighter’s class system is outdone by better multiplayer games. Each specialty has its own unique skills, such as the heavy’s armor boost or the scout’s ability to see through walls, but the customization of those characters is limited to their weapons. Streak bonuses unlock as you score points, giving you the choice between aggressive/defensive tactical devices, such as chopper support or smokescreens. The constant calling of support items adds an unpredictable flair to each match, but the moment-to-moment gunplay simply isn’t on the same level of the campaign. That brief moment of tremendous satisfaction when you score a headshot flat-out does not exist online. The lower lethality of weapons on the adversarial side contradicts the “authenticity” EA and Danger Close have been so vocal about – lethal shots to your foes’ heads and hearts often don’t drop them dead, utterly ruining the pace of an already wounded multiplayer experience. Medal of Honor Warfighter’s core design is deeply problematic, and technical issues only cut into it deeper. In both the campaign and online modes, character models vanish from existence, sound drops in and out, the frame rate tanks, and textures sometimes look washed-out and low-res on consoles, even after applying a 2GB HD update in the Xbox 360 version. This is the first time we’ve seen a Frostbite Engine game failing to function at a basic level, and it’s a real shame. Verdict: Gorgeous visuals and high production values can only carry a poor experience so far. Expect to spend a lot of time waiting, watching, and wondering why you’re bothering to play at all during Medal of Honor Warfighter’s disappointing, confusing campaign. At its core, Warfighter is a functional shooter built on trite design ideas, but significant technical problems knock it below the realm of mediocrity. This isn’t just an upsetting sequel or me-too military shooter – Warfighter is disrespectful of your time and unwilling or unable to adapt to what’s been done better elsewhere. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ System Requirements Minimum: OS: Win Vista 32 Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 2.0GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 3800 series or NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS System Memory: 2 GB RAM Storage: 20 GB Hard drive space DirectX 10 Compatible Graphics Card Recommended: OS: Win 7 64 Processor: Intel Core i5-670 3.46GHz / AMD APU A6-3650 Quad Core Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6950 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 System Memory: 4 GB RAM Storage: 20 GB Hard drive space

Game Informations : Developer: Telltale Games Publishers: Telltale Games, Skybound Games, Howyaknow. LLC, WB Interactive Entertainment Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Andriod, IOS, MAC, PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 Initial release date: December 20, 2016 For two seasons of Telltale Games' venture into the apocalyptic wastelands of The Walking Dead, we have experienced the life of survivor Clementine as she has dealt with unimaginable loss and strife in a world overrun by walkers. Whether together with others or alone on the road, Clem (and, in turn, us as players) have kept alive through sharp intellect, honed instincts, and wise tutelage. But for Season 3 of The Walking Dead: A Telltale Game Series, everything is changing. Here, you find a new family of survivors, and a new playable protagonist named Javier. Here, you will be tested to make choices that will affect not just people you know and trust, but those bonded by blood. Here, you will discover A New Frontier. And here, no one can be sure to get through what awaits and come out alive... Both a continuation of the last two seasons and, as its name suggests, a fresh chapter in Telltale’s ongoing saga, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series - A New Frontier kicks off with a tightly paced, engaging premiere episode that has me excited for what lies ahead this season. “Ties That Bind Part I” is not a complete departure from what made previous seasons work, but it does feel like an attempt to correct some of the series’ wrongs; and so far, it’s succeeding. Episode 1 starts off with on just the right note by introducing a new playable protagonist, Javi, in one of the series’ best-directed sequences. Set during the initial zombie outbreak, the opening sequence plays out like a tense, well-shot indie horror film, with stylish editing and directing that delivers substance (in the form of Javi’s family) to match. A New Frontier doesn’t want to do away with what a longtime player like myself loved from the last two seasons — namely, Clementine’s continued character development — but the premiere smartly establishes Javi’s band of survivors before returning to the familiar baseball hat-wearing protagonist. Skipping years ahead, Javi is working to keep the remnants of his family together, alongside his brother’s ex-wife Kate and two kids. The idea of family as one born out of circumstance has certainly been part of Telltale’s corner of The Walking Dead universe since its inception, but Javi’s situation differs greatly from that of Lee and Clem’s in season 1 and then Clementine’s options in season 2. I found myself invested in building out Javi and Kate’s relationship, even knowing the troubled past it likely comes saddled with, while also molding Javi into a source of light in this dark world, and this episode allowed me to shape him that way. He is unfortunately saddled with a clichéd whiny teenager, but for the most part my desire to make Javi a beacon of hope, particularly when it came to his interactions with Kate and Mariana, the daughter of Javi’s brother, had me being just as thoughtful about my dialogue choices as I ever have been in a Telltale game. Naturally, trouble finds Javi and his family very quickly, and Clementine’s unexpected and amusing introduction not only offers some semblance of comfort after the family’s search for supplies falls apart but also further opens up this new pocket of the walker-infested world. As Clementine introduces Javi to a new group of survivors in a safe haven, I appreciated seeing the choices I made in Clem’s earlier years defining the woman she’s growing into now. Telltale has implemented a system to allow you to import saves from previous seasons, recreate choices, or start as if you don’t have a clue who Clementine is when launching A New Frontier. Aside from the appreciated ease of the recreation system — a short questionnaire about key moments from seasons 1 and 2 — it’s gratifying to see a matured version of the Clementine I helped establish in one playthrough while noticing the slight changes to her interactions in another. “Ties That Bind - Part I” doesn’t handle her backstory as deftly as Javi’s, however, with a flashback scene that feels unnecessary other than as a symbol of more Clementine revelations to come in further flashbacks. But Clementine’s return, as well as the way she brings Javi into a wider world of survivors, is very much a welcome one. And as its title suggests, the season premiere is very much the first half of a whole, leaving things on a powerfully affecting cliffhanger that actually left me shouting out a cry of “No!” as it concluded. Episodes land on shocking twists all the time, yes, but the premiere is very much about shaping Javi from the man we first meet to the fearless leader, compassionate family man, bitter survivor, or whoever each of us chooses to make him (within Telltale’s bounds). Without spoiling a thing, Part II forces Javi to reckon with the premiere’s events and us as the player to decide what matters to our take on Javi. An immediate follow-up to episode 1, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series - A New Frontier Episode 2: "Ties That Bind Part II” takes Part I’s solid start and runs with it much faster than a walker ever could. The episode feels more tied to both the familiar trappings of Walking Dead and Telltale Games' plot structures. Yet by building on the foundation of the last episode and the two seasons before it, the conclusion of this two-part opener sets up an intriguing rest of the season — one that makes me feel like my choices actually matter (even if that’s likely an illusion). Picking up from Part I’s dramatic final moments, “Ties That Bind’s” second half forces Javi to learn the true cost of surviving in this world for the first time since his introductory flashback in the season premiere. It’s easy to see how many dialogue choices and actions only matter in the moment, but I continued to care deeply about how Javi reacted to every blow to his family and his world. I fought to keep Javi’s hope and determination alive, even as the world around him actively worked to shake him of that resilience. And some of those choices paid off within the episode itself as it deepened our understanding of Javi’s relationships. Picking up an item in the environment leads to a kind gesture later in the episode, and the long-term work Javi puts in with Kate and the kids over these two episodes feels important, even if it isn’t drastically altering the plot just yet. Without spoiling anything, however, I was excited to begin to notice how choices I made during Javi’s flashbacks are helping to define relationships in the present The same can be said of Clementine, whose flashback in Part II feels much more important than in the premiere. The episode thankfully gives us some more details about the title of the season’s meaning (other than its obvious metaphorical idea), and the New Frontier’s role in things is surprisingly malleable. They have an impact on Clementine’s backstory, but it seems that we have some welcome input on that very impact, which imbues some of the moments in the present-day story with some nice additional emotional heft. And reaching even further back into Clementine’s history, choices made with her and even Lee in previous seasons will shift the tone of some side interactions with her. How they will continue to impact the season remains to be seen — I’m not prepared to say just how much the overarching story will actually change this season because of those choices, because based on Telltale’s history it’s unlikely that a season’s plot would branch in a significant way this early on — but this far into the series it's reassuring to see my influence actually carrying some narrative weight. Outside of those choices, however, Part II offers some sadly familiar events. After a tense standoff early in the episode, the remaining survivors head off to a supposed safe haven for medical attention, only to predictably find trouble along the way. Any Walking Dead fan will certainly find something repetitive in that idea, and the fun appearance of a familiar franchise character didn’t make the overused plot ideas any less disappointing. But I was kept engaged by the continued strong character work, even if Part II lacks some of the cinematic flourishes that felt so special in Part I. And even when the episode's scenes fell into recognizable territory, the quicktime event action scenes were often executed with tense, well-paced scenarios. Telltale Games’ third season of The Walking Dead continues the trend of the two-part season premiere, exploring its themes of family through the strong lens of its new protagonist, Javi. And though A New Frontier continues to do right by its lead, the narrative problems of the two-part premiere persist in this good but not quite great mid-season episode. After making such a sympathetic protagonist in Clementine for two seasons, A New Frontier continues to find unique ways of making Javi equally likeable. “Above the Law” kicks off with yet another look at Javi’s life in the early days of the outbreak. Watching Javi take charge of his brother David’s family feels as vital to his story as anything in the present-day storyline. These flashbacks are some of the series’ quieter moments, sure, but they can offer greater impact than any of the franchise’s most bombastic scenes. The full picture Telltale continues to paint of Javi throughout the season is A New Frontier’s greatest triumph. His plight remains one I’ve genuinely cared about since the season began, never once making me doubt Telltale’s decision to switch protagonists for this entry. “Above the Law’s” flashback in particular, while not quite as cinematic as those in the two-part premiere, serve as a strong launching pad for the Javi I am creating through my dialogue and action choices. Though Telltale finds intriguing ways to flesh out Javi’s story, the flashbacks for Clementine’s story often fail. Melissa Hutchinson’s performance continues to sell the hard road she’s traveled, but I find Clementine’s actions and conversations in the present to be much more engrossing than in her flashbacks. “Above the Law’s” flashback was the most engaging of the three. I’m all for showing over telling, but the way Telltale shows Clementine’s past isn’t interesting enough yet to merit actually playing through it. Both the past in present, episode 3 finally offers a deeper look at the titular New Frontier. It’s relatively par for the course when it comes to The Walking Dead civilizations structurally — fortified buildings co-opted to be whatever this community needs. What’s meant to set this Richmond hideout apart is the batch of new characters “Above the Law” introduces. Most of them, unfortunately, come across more as caricatures than as fully drawn personalities. That would be fine if the series decides to spend more time with them in the future, but the lack of any real connection to them makes the episode-ending plot points far less impactful. I found myself still caring about Javi and the people he holds dear in the episode’s final moments, but the twists and turns they find themselves in aren’t all that shocking. As its name suggests, The Walking Dead: A New Frontier’s fourth episode, “Thicker Than Water,” confronts Javi with the ideas of whether the bonds of blood or friendship are more important to him. Unfortunately, the path getting to those decisions before the strong ending is far less enjoyable than much of this season has been so far. “Thicker Than Water” hurtles forward with the mistaken idea that Joan, the villain introduced in episode 3, is a force to be reckoned with. She remains so undeveloped that her big moments at the start and end of the episode paint her as little more than the standard Walking Dead caricature of a villain. She essentially exists as a plot device to reflect some of Javi’s choices in the last few episodes. Considering the back and forth of Javi’s antagonistic relationship with his brother David, Joan’s instant rise to prominence in the plot feels much less natural in its incorporation. Another area in which this episode fell short of my expectations was in how we’re allowed to shape and develop Javi’s close relationships. A New Frontier has been successful with its depiction until now, especially with David. But the bonds that have mattered most to me, both of blood and of water, are the least emphasized in episode 4. Javi and Kate get great moments together, building off of three episodes of romantic buildup between the two, but she’s practically nonexistent for two-thirds of “Thicker Than Water.” At one point a character has to go to another room to call her in, and I almost laughed at the realization that she’d been absent for such a mundane stretch. The same goes for Javi and Clementine’s bond. The two share comparably so little screentime in the episode, with Clem’s flashback once again being one of the most superfluous moments of any given episode. I love their dynamic, but with an episode light on tense sequences, their main interaction in “Thicker Than Water” doesn’t quite live up to the bond that’s been built in the last three episodes. Some of that disappointment stems from the episode’s poor pacing. “Thicker Than Water” starts on another strong Javi flashback, this one giving some dimension to his and his brother David’s combative relationship before the walker apocalypse set in. I now understand their tempers, and though I wish the present-day story offered more interaction between the two beyond an early scene, I’m glad to finally have a deeper knowledge of such a key piece of Javi’s life. The episode largely dips from there, though, kicking off with a boring environmental puzzle and only briefly touching upon the more interesting characters in Javi’s life, like Kate and Clem. Instead, “Thicker Than Water” spends much more time than necessary on the continually unlikeable Gabe. While I’ve cared about Javi in his role as surrogate parent, I’ve consistently found Gabe to fit snugly in the annoying teen stereotype found on nearly every TV drama. Unfortunately, an extended period with him and Javi only exacerbates the problem of his presence. The episode also gives time over to Ava, Tripp, and Eleanor, who, while fine secondary characters in their own right, feel more like diversions from what’s really working this season rather than complementary aspects. Every time I was in a scene with them I wished it could have been used to better explore Javi and Clem’s partnership, or Javi and Kate’s roles as parents. Luckily, the episode’s bombastic last third brings everything to a head, ramping up the tension and stress that much of the episode preceding it lacks. Richmond descends into chaos not because of walkers, but because of the people there. (Though a walker horde suddenly appearing outside the city’s walls is another element to the episode shoved in to make the plot move along properly.) That chaos is thrilling to navigate as destruction rains down upon Richmond and Javi’s life. A good season finale needs to satisfy everything the season preceding it has set up while laying groundwork of its own for the road ahead. “From the Gallows,” the fifth episode in The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series — A New Frontier, succeeds in doing both, keeping the spotlight on Javi, Clementine, and the characters around them that matter for the vast majority of an emotionally resonant, stirring ending. A New Frontier’s strengths lie in how it approaches the idea of family through the dual lenses of Javi and Clem. Ultimately, the choices I make as Javi, and to a lesser extent as Clem, have defined not just the family I’ve assembled by episode 5, but ultimately how much I have grown to care about them. A New Frontier impressed me in the premiere episode by introducing Javi and making him empathetic to the point that I deeply cared about the choices I made as him to protect Kate, Gabe, and the others I met along the way. Sure, I’m coloring within the lines of Telltale’s story, but “From the Gallows” does an excellent job of capitalizing on the choices made all season long, even as episodes 3 and 4 strayed from that stellar start. n fact, “Gallows” in many ways exemplifies the shift in the great work in the season’s first half and the struggles in the second. That success comes in feeling some authorship over Javi’s journey. I set out to create a man who, in the face of the apocalypse, refused to give up on the good in the people around him. The series oftentimes gave me chances to let Javi succumb to his weakness, to play his role as a brother, father, and friend more selfishly. But I resisted those temptations and ultimately found he could continue being the guiding light who defended and supported those he cared for. “From the Gallows” allowed me to double down on that character building, leading to affecting moments with Kate, Clem, and even Gabe, who has, for much of the season felt like the annoying teenager trope pushed to its limits. Javi’s struggle to remain strong in a world ravaged by the undead is far less engaging when the spotlight shifts away from his family and onto his relationships with the characters of Richmond. Episodes 3 and 4 never really found interesting ground there, and certainly when any of them are the focus of “Gallows,” the episode suffers for the same reasons. Citizens of this safe haven occasionally dip in and out of “Gallows” as little more than plot devices. And that plot — Richmond has succumb to a walker infestation, and Javi has to decide what role to play in saving both it and the people he cares for — feels secondary to the strong emotional resolutions with the supporting cast. The episode’s biggest, or best, moments have little to do with bringing the struggles of the last few episodes to a head, largely in part because the episode hasn’t found a cohesive story focus. I was actually surprised at how little action came into play throughout “Gallows.” But there are plenty of climatic personal moments with Javi’s family that bring the series’ most important ongoing threads to powerful conclusions that I’ve continued to think about in the days since playing. "From the Gallows" has one of the most moving scenes in a Telltale series.“ Thankfully, the focus rarely shifts away from Javi’s core family. A confrontation between Javi and David, surrounded by a few other key characters, encapsulates what I’ve enjoyed most about this season’s exploration of family, both by blood and choice. Without spoiling how it plays out or what my choices were, the scene allowed me to ensure Javi stayed true to the caring personality I had established for him in the premiere. It’s one of the most moving scenes I’ve experienced in a Telltale series, and it carried such weight because, for the most part, A New Frontier has continually done right by honoring my character choices. The episode’s plot also largely served the characters I care about most well — and finally, we are spared another pointless Clementine flashback. Instead, several great scenes showcase just how much she’s matured since season 1 as a fighter and person. A New Frontier has certainly been Javi’s story more so than Clem’s — evidenced by yet another strong opening flashback for Javi to kick off “Gallows.” But my decisions as Javi have affected her in ways that evoke the character I started caring for years ago, making me excited to continue watching both of their journeys progress. Much of that excitement comes from the quieter moments between Javi and the other members of my season finale group. Like the David scene mentioned before, Javi shares touching conversations with every main player that mattered to me. Secondary characters cameo now and then, but just as the villains first introduced in episode 3 came off as caricatures, the citizens of Richmond who come into “Gallows” story feel thinly written. “Gallows” is consistently more engaging when the episode focuses on the interpersonal connections of Javi’s family and Clem, both in the more active and quieter moments. Richmond only remained of interest to me in how saving it or abandoning it could alter the relationships in Javi’s makeshift family. I never felt the need to reclaim the town for the sake of its nameless or named-but-forgettable faces, which makes much of the plot leading into this final episode relatively inessential to what has otherwise succeeded in A New Frontier.Luckily, Javi’s makeshift family, the family I’ve formed, and the way those bonds play out, offers a series of satisfying, affecting character notes that make the sporadic plot pacing of the last couple of episodes, and the brief examples of them in this episode, worth pushing through. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ System Requirements Minimum: CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz CPU SPEED: Info OS: Windows 7 64Bit Service Pack 1 VIDEO CARD: Nvidia GTS 450+ with 1024MB+ VRAM (excluding GT) - LATEST DRIVERS REQUIRED PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1024 MB

Game Informations : Developer: ‎IO Interactive‎, Nixxes Software, Feral Interactive Publishers: ‎IO Interactive‎, Feral Interactive, Square Enix Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PS3, Xbox 360, Mac OS Initial release date: Nov 20, 2012 For a game built upon the concept of slipping by unnoticed, Hitman: Absolution is certainly doing the opposite. It’s standing conspicuously amongst today’s fad-driven modern shooters and me-too multiplayer hopefuls, middle fingers extended. A slow-paced, single-player focused sneak ’em up, Absolution looms in stark opposition to many of the most pervading trends in gaming today. It cares not for the overly delicate, their minds rendered dull and flabby after years of being prodded through corridors blasting anything that breathes. Absolution delights in letting players skulk through it expending few bullets at all. It’s a game that wants to let you think for yourself.A game that wants to remind you that trial and error done right equals satisfaction, not frustration. For those of you counting at home it’s been 2368 days since Hitman: Blood Money was released, give or take. That’s a long time between drinks. It’s nearly six-and-a-half years. In video game terms that’s somewhere in the Cretaceous Period. In actual fact the besuited Agent 47 and his barcoded dome have spent the vast bulk of this generation on the sideline. Hitman: Absolution has been a long time coming, a fact fans are acutely aware of. The pressure to deliver, then, is high. Blood Money may be a dinosaur in some respects but it remains a cult favourite adored by its faithful fans. Six-and-a-half years on the team at Io Interactive must ship a successor to it worthy of the wait. The good news is, they have. Above everything, Absolution is a game that wants you to experiment with it. It refuses to be rushed through, rewarding brains over brawn. It wants you to spend time inside it, methodically picking your way around and discovering morbid new ways to snuff out your unfortunate marks. Like Blood Money before it, your targets here can be executed in a host of ever-so-slightly sickeningly different ways. Returning Hitman fans won’t settle for a simple bullet to the back of the head; they’ll immediately be on the lookout for the tell-tale signs of a classic Hitman kill opportunity. Some of them are more subtle than others but, like Blood Money, they’re all there, waiting to be discovered. A couple of the game’s kills are more tightly choreographed for dramatic effect, complete with a brief cutscene of your deserved victim sucking in their last breaths, but most of the game’s kills – two dozen of them at least – are traditional Hitman fare. How you take them out is in your hands. This is a slow-paced, measured experience. This is not Medal of Duty: Modern Warfighter Ops. Impatient action junkies need not apply. The way Absolution itself plays is very much a refined version of what Io attempted with its previous effort, but gone are most of the quirks Hitman diehards were happy to overlook in Blood Money. 47 feels far more connected to the environment rather than skating about on it, and successfully sneaking up on a target from behind with your signature fibre wire is no longer quite as fickle an exercise. It’s all a lot more organic and a lot less stiff. Furthermore Absolution adds a host of additional abilities for 47. 47’s limited use sedatives, for instance, are no longer necessary because of his close-quarters combat skills. Sneak up on an enemy or NPC unawares and you can grab them and either subdue or kill them with your bare hands. It’s just like Blood Money, where you could simply take people as a human shield and then knock them cold with the butt of your pistol when your syringes ran dry, only without all that rigmarole (although, of course, you can still do that too). There’s a cover system that allows you to properly exchange fire with enemies when things go pear-shaped, rather than being stuck out in the open desperately strafing left and right. When you’re playing as you should, stealthily and patiently, the cover system is even more useful, allowing you to spring from behind it as enemies pass by to quietly choke them out, or snap their necks. You can also fake surrender too, disarming your would-be captor and taking him hostage. There have been tweaks to the shooting system too. Point Shooting, which is a slo-mo power-up that functions not unlike a similar power-up in Splinter Cell Conviction, works fine but Hitman veterans will almost certainly never use it outside the couple of instances it’s required throughout the game. Rabid Hitman fans simply won’t be doing the levels of indiscriminate killing that would warrant the use of Point Shooting. You can’t get Silent Assassin ratings by mowing down scores of henchmen in slow-motion. Better is Precision Shot, which allows you to gently squeeze the trigger to steady your aim before actually firing. It feels very natural; it’s a hugely better solution than the normal “click-here-to-hold-your-breath” malarkey. Then there’s Instinct Mode, which is basically 47’s intuition represented visually. Instinct Mode remains a true bone of contention for some but at its most fundamental level this replaces the previous, god-like minimap. 47 can sense nearby enemies and you can note where they are in relation to him. How you use it beyond that is really up to you. New Hitman players can use it as a crutch, noting enemy patrol paths or objects of interest. Veterans can simply refer to it sparingly or dial it down entirely. On the higher of the game’s five difficulty settings it’s automatically neutered anyway. On the topic of difficulty settings, there are five – and they cover the whole spectrum. Easy is exceedingly so, and Purist is insane. The sweet spot for a first play through is probably Normal or Hard. Enemy reaction times are quite forgiving in Normal and the game will tolerate some sloppiness on your part at the expense of realism, but it’s a good setting to build up an understanding of the levels. Hard ramps things up. It’s interesting to note that enemy NPCs aren’t just sharper on higher difficulties; there are also more of them. Depending on your approach you may well find your undetected route through a level on Normal completely thwarted by an added patrol on Hard. When things do go sour the adjustments to how enemies react to your presence is also welcome. If you’re spotted and you can contain the situation by subduing or killing all nearby witnesses before they inform others an alert won’t be raised. This is a refreshing change from Blood Money, where one foul up would dispatch every enemy on the map against you like heat-seeking missiles. Absolution looks good. There’s arguably a bit too much lighting bloom, particularly when harsh light begins to glint off 47’s cue ball bonce, but it’s not going to be something that’ll have you dropkicking the disc down your driveway in disgust. It’s darker and grittier than Hitman titles past but the visuals shouldn’t raise many complaints. It looks its best at its busiest; when you’re threading your way through the game’s thick crowds. It’s these moments when you’re keenly aware you’re playing something a little different. The levels are nicely dressed and the cutscenes are well-produced; it’s a solid effort all around. It sounds great too. The dynamic score which picks up as the action mounts is well implemented, and there are quite a few moments where the audio design really pops. Approaching and opening a closed door to a loud, bustling bar, for instance, sees the sound launch from a subtle hum of chatter and muffled music to a roar of raised voices and bass. It’s well crafted. Hitman games are all about atmosphere, and Absolution gets it right. There are 20 levels but many are broken up into a series of stages. The key difference between this and Blood Money is the levels are segmented. Instead of one big level, say, like the Heaven and Hell Club, levels in Absolution are often completed in discrete chunks. For instance, there may be one or more areas that need to be stealthily navigated and passed through before you can reach the area where your target is. Some levels have several targets spread over multiple stages. The Attack of the Saints level, for instance, has you slowly taking out all seven leather-clad nun assassins over the course of three distinct areas. The controversial trailer released featuring 47 taking them out in a tightly-compressed flurry of moves cribbed from several viewings of The Bourne Identity really did this level a disservice. They're nothing alike. Overall Absolution is a success, although not universally so. The change to the disguise system, for instance, is a good idea not fully-formed. It makes sense that NPCs wearing the same type of clothing are able to recognise you as an imposter; it means you can’t just don a disguise and stroll through the game's levels. It’d be too easy. The system should scale, however. It’s logical a small group of janitors would recognise a stranger in their midst; less so that every Chicago policeman knows the faces of every one of his thousands of fellow officers so well that he can always spot an intruder. Both the cover system and the Blend system, where 47 casually dips his head and obscures his face as he passes threats, are Io’s answers to these. On normal difficulty it does create a certain degree of absurdity when simply ducking down behind a parked car and breaking line of sight or surreptitiously covering your face with your hand can allay suspicion, but a balance does have to be struck between credibility and playability. If you’re finding things too easy I’d advise you to progress to the game’s incredibly unforgiving Expert and Purist modes, where enemies react far faster. The nature of Absolution’s story-mode, which features 47 on the run and, for several very early levels, without even his signature Silverballers, is also quite different from Blood Money. It may leave some fans a little wanting considering you no longer select your preferred equipment before missions and such, but Contracts mode is there to fill that gap. Contracts mode is Absolution’s true sandbox, where you can create your own custom hits within the game’s levels with its clever play to create system, choosing whatever NPCs, weapons or disguises you want. Better still, you can challenge your friends to complete your contracts faster and more efficiently than you. Pausing a level in story mode will also present you with an opportunity to play a user-created Contract instead. Contracts mode will be the lifeblood of Absolution once you’ve clocked the story mode, but that’s not to say Io hasn’t been experimenting with ways of hooking players in hard. Absolution may be steadfastly single-player focused, but Io has embraced the 2012 trend of connectivity. Upon completion of a level Absolution will award you with a score, and that score will be instantly compared to both your friends playing Absolution, the rest of your country, and the rest of the world. You can see how far above or below your score is tracking in relation to your friend average, your country average and the world average. The score system takes some working out, but basically signature and accident kills for your designated target net you big bonuses. Being spotted and killing civilians and non-targets see significant penalties. You can subdue people for a small score penalty, but you can scrub that penalty by hiding their unconscious bodies. You’ll get an idea for different solutions for levels via the awards at their completion. They’ll give you hints of traps you perhaps didn’t spring, or items, weapons or disguises you didn’t find. Verdict: Like Dishonored before it, it’s actually a true pleasure to play a game that lets you tackle it from multiple angles. After several years of increasingly totalitarian games where you’re very much following a pre-determined path, it’s nice to have a game that doesn’t just encourage improvisation; it requires it. More please. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ System Requirements Minimum: OS: Win Vista 32 Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core E2140 1.60GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 2900 GT or NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB System Memory: 2 GB RAM Storage: 10 GB Hard drive space DirectX 10 Compatible Graphics Card Recommended: OS: Win 7 64 Processor: Intel Core i5-680 3.6GHz / AMD Athlon II X4 620 Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 5770 1024MB or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 System Memory: 4 GB RAM Storage: 10 GB Hard drive space

Game Informations : Developer: IO Interactive Publishers: Eidos Interactive Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PS2 Initial release date: May 26, 2006 IO Interactive made its mark on the videogame world with the first Hitman game in 2000 and planted a flag with Freedom Fighters in 2003. The world, especially Europe, loved Hitman, and rightly so. IO has designed a stealth game that, while suffering from some easy-to-notice flaws here and there, boasts some of the most distinguished and well-honed level design in any game of its kind. Perhaps equally important, IO gave birth to a long-lasting, brooding iconic antihero with Agent 47. With the third game in the series, Hitman: Contracts, IO hit a lull, as the team was simultaneously working on Blood Money and creating the newly fangled engine on which this new game was built. Contracts looked good enough and explored a dark, devious theme that hadn't been done before, but it played like all the others. This fourth game does several things to improve the series, both from a presentation and a playability perspective. The results are solid -- the new notoriety system functions smartly, the upgraded currency system encourages players to be pennywise, and the text-sensitive controls and up-close fighting systems make this often very un-accessible stealth game more forgiving. The newly added features don't, however, alter the fundamental experience much beyond Contracts. So while fans of the series will notice all the new features in subtle ways, the gameplay is essentially like playing any of the previous games in the series. In other words, IO built a lot of good features around the core play, which was tinkered with and enhanced a little, but it basically left the 47's fundamental game alone. What we're left with is a good, familiar game of Hitman. It's more accessible, looks better -- significantly so on Xbox 360 and PC, anyway -- and is worth your hard earned money if you're a patient and obsessive stealth gamer. IO's new game is an endeavor based on many little things that work comprehensively. The story is more intriguing, because it finds Agent 47, the ultimate assassin clone, being hunted down by a rival organization and hitman, while following a narrative that traces Agent 47's work via a reporter and an inside man bent on tracking him down. You'll want to see all the cutscenes since they reveal crucial information on yours truly, and they exhaustively -- and in a real-world manner -- explore the political and global issues around cloning. The CG dialog is refreshing and intelligent and doesn't just paint a nice pastiche. Similarly, the series has always relied on CG cutscenes, which have looked drastically different than the actual gameplay up until now. IO's rebuilt game engine features better lighting techniques and character models and the work shows up well on all systems, especially the PC and Xbox 360 versions, which appear unhindered by technical limitations. The most dramatic changes in Blood Money, however, don't revolve around the story, but Hitman's actions and the systems around those actions. First, the training level is up-to-date. The first level is essentially a training level, which narrates your actions through a real-world level. Many other games have done this before, and now Hitman does it and does it well. The next things you'll notice are contact-sensitive controls, more kinds of control, and added Agent 47 nimbleness. Using a three-button system appearing on-screen, you'll find that doorknobs, items, secret stashes in drawers, and guns all are contact-sensitive. Run by an object that's useable and the right button is lit in the corner of your screen. This technique is done well and thankfully it makes controlling Hitman a little more natural without being too obvious. The only area that's a little wonky is climbing out windows (it's a little sticky and can be confusing in a quick situation). The additional accessibility from better controls works on different levels. There are always situations in which Agent 47 must do things in a hurry. The more accessible control system makes performing simple acts -- like opening a door or picking up a briefcase -- less painful. The game still fundamentally functions like it did before, but the smarter interface works more intuitively most of the time. Opening a garbage can or a garbage truck, for instance, to dispose of an unclothed dead man, is not only new to Blood Money, but it's an action that can be handled relatively quickly and efficiently. Believe it or not, throwing a coin was one of the harder things we had to figure out, as was handling multiple items simultaneously. It's all do-able, of course, and this Hitman makes these simple things easier to do. But IO hasn't abandoned its former self, so if you've played Hitman before, you'll instantly feel comfortable with this. If you have never handled Hitman before, you might take a chance with this one. IO worked on a lot of systems that revolve around your actions to tie the game into a more cohesive whole. Weapons carry over from one level to the next now, but they have a series of upgrades, some with as many as 11-12 different kinds. They range from bigger, more powerful bullets that can blast through doors (which is new), to silenced modifications to bridges and expanded clips. You'll handle rifles, sniper rifles (the Dragunov), handguns (SilverBallers), automatic rifles, shotguns, and more. The weapons function exactly like they did in the past, by pressing and holding a button to check inventory and by pressing the same button to unholster or holster a weapon. While Hitman always has been known for its stealth techniques and level design, it's been a frustrating action game. This is generally true of true stealth games, but IO has generated a few interesting additions that infuse new action into the series. This is a good thing because it partially solves issues from past titles. Using contact-sensitive techniques Agent 47 is a little more agile in hand-to-hand combat. By pressing the weapon button with nothing in your hands, you'll punch, head butt, or shove enemies around. Only a few hits will render them unconscious. Compared to the previous three games, this comes as a relief. Agent 47 can now climb more surfaces -- up gutters, trellises, and waist-high objects like boxes and garbage cans -- and he can perform jumps, from one skyscraper porch to another with the press of a button. These actions offer players a slightly more platform-style game, which lends greater variety to Agent 47's previously narrow set of actions. They don't significantly alter the chess-like stealth-logic built into the game's heart, but they do tweak it enough to make you notice. All of your actions now funnel into the new cash economy, which again, works on a subtle level. In previous Hitman games, you could recklessly kill, slaughter, or maim your way through a level without major consequences. You could literally blast through some levels and run to your escape. Your rating would be crap, and you might be almost running on fumes, but you could do it. Now, all of your actions affect cash income, assassin rating (which is the same as before, including Killer, Silent Assassin, Thug, etc.), and Notoriety. Cash income is significant because it affects your ability to upgrade weapons, buy intelligence, and control notoriety. IO has made it easy enough on the Rookie and Normal difficulty settings to still play pretty recklessly with some afterthought about money. On Hard and Pro levels, however, not only is the AI more aggressive but you'll really need that money to keep up with the AI. You'll want to buy better upgrades for the obvious reasons -- silencers, wall-piercing bullets, etc. And you'll want to pay off officials, be they civilians who've seen you (for less than 15 points and $50,000, the chief of police for 40 points, $100,000, or to acquire a new identity for 100 points, $200,000). For the Xbox 360 version, you'll earn Achievements. These rewards revolve around beating levels, completing the game on increasing difficulty levels, and fully upgrading weapons, among other things. Other Achievements focus on using only one weapon or minimizing kills, for instance. You'll be rated on more of your actions than before. Mission performance includes the noise you make, the level of violence you execute, mission completion time, and as aforementioned, notoriety. The account balance is tied into the performance, tallying primary and secondary objectives, the amount of damage control required by the agency to clean up after your mess (large or small), suit retrieval, custom weapon retrieval, and finally, your mission earnings and total account balance. For those folks who love to earn higher rankings, special weapons and upgrades and, on Xbox 360 more valuable achievements, money plays a significant role in each level. If you've played the previous games, the artificial intelligence should be familiar. All significant body guards, police, and higher-level enemies notice you right away. They track you, but they don't do anything, at least in the beginning. You have two meters, a health meter on the far left and detection meter just right of it. When the health meter is empty, you're dead. When the detection meter is low and green, you're being a good, stealthy assassin. When it's in the middle and yellow, beware, and when it's red and filled to the top, you're in trouble. But while the NPC AI function very much like they have in previous games, their actions are more consistent and logical. For instance, when you go to a door guarded by two security cops they'll warn you away, instead of just whipping out guns and shooting you down. The AI gives you more chances to test boundaries without instantly chopping your head off. This gives the player more breathing room and is more encouraging to both noobs and experienced players to try new things. The notoriety system comes into play here, too. If you've earned a high notoriety ranking and people are familiar with your face, you're more likely to be spotted by general civilians, perhaps cramping your style and certainly leaving you fewer options. There are occasions when the AI doesn't react on a global level, however, and this is where the game feels weak on Normal difficulty level. For instance, if you're at a party with multiple floors and if you've killed several people and you go hide, only the local, nearby guards in that level will come to investigate. There isn't a massive search party that coordinates around your actions. The local police or guards come by, check out the situation and call for a coroner to haul away the body. If nobody saw you, then you can walk away pretty easily. The game still plays very much on the same level as it always has, instead of using more sophisticated levels of ranked AI, and this causes it to play very much the same as in previous games in the series. Later in the game, however, enemy hitmen -- or at least what I thought were enemy hit-women -- come into play. On a later level, I walked into a room with a prostitute with whom I, to my surprise, engaged in a cutscene where she proceeded to inject me with a needle and kill me. When I replayed the level to see what the hell happened, the cutscene ensued again, but I was able to spring free from her trap and shoot her dead. She was either sent to kill me or to kill the same target. There weren't too many situations like this, so it wasn't a completely random thing, but this kind of element created a far more intriguing level of depth. Finally, the voice work done for Agent 47 and a few other high-level characters is excellent, while the mid- to lower-level voice work is a mixture of hilarious caricatures or silly one-offs. The music is, as per usual, very well done, as Jesper Kyd and the IO team have created some intriguing orchestral pieces that react to the game's pace and more significantly, the level of danger you get in. Verdict: Visually, IO Interactive has re-built its engine from scratch to show off new lighting, shadows, and higher-res textures, and on the Xbox 360 and PC you will really notice the difference. Character models are far more detailed with bump and normal mapping in effect. On the PS2 version, you'll see shimmering and anti-aliasing issues, but the PS2 and the Xbox versions do well for what they're capable of, despite not matching up to the more powerful systems. From a gameplay stance, there are enough changes, enhancements, and additions to Blood Money to warrant a try from fence-sitters. There is a little more accessibility on all fronts, controls, AI behavior, and combat. The level design is consistently good, and each new level requires a smart, logical approach to beat it. Plus, the replay value is high, given the numerous ways each level can be beat. Character control is still a little stiff and you'll always find that in order to beat each level, trial and error methods are the order of the day. The additions, however, don't fundamentally alter the core experience, which still plays on a very good, but very familiar level. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: CPU: Pentium 4/Athlon XP or better CPU SPEED: 1.5 GHz RAM: 512 MB OS: Windows 2000/XP VIDEO CARD: 64 MB Direct3D DirectX 9.0 compliant video card supporting pixel shader 2.0 (NVIDIA GeForce FX+ / ATI Radeon 9500+) TOTAL VIDEO RAM: 64 MB 3D: Yes HARDWARE T&L: Yes PIXEL SHADER: 2.0 VERTEX SHADER: 2.0 SOUND CARD: Yes FREE DISK SPACE: 5 GB DVD-ROM: Yes Recommended: CPU: Pentium 4 or Athlon XP/64 or better CPU SPEED: 2.4 GHz RAM: 1 GB OS: Windows 2000/XP VIDEO CARD: 256 MB Direct3D DirectX 9.0 compliant video card supporting pixel shader 2.0 (NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or better) TOTAL VIDEO RAM: 256 MB 3D: Yes HARDWARE T&L: Yes PIXEL SHADER: 2.0 VERTEX SHADER: 2.0 SOUND CARD: Yes FREE DISK SPACE: 5 GB DVD-ROM: Yes

Game Informations : Developer: Capcom Publishers: Capcom, Capcom U.S.A inc Platforms: PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch Initial release date: Oct 2, 2012 Undone by its ambitious attempt to pack four game experiences into one, Resident Evil 6 suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. At times it very much embraces its old school heritage, pitting its heroes against horrific creatures in the darkest, filthiest locales imaginable. Tension is palpable thanks to production values that reach new heights for the franchise. Yet it simultaneously attempts to be the largest, most action-packed entry in its history, betraying the aforementioned strengths. Lengthy firefights, driving sequences and other ill-conceived ideas grind the game's incredible moments to a halt. The result is something erratic and never sure of itself, delivering brilliance one moment and something far less interesting the next. At the heart of Resident Evil 6 are the game’s four campaigns and seven lead characters. Rather than weaving these characters and stories along a singular campaign, Capcom diffuses them across four individual threads, each with its own beginning and end. This singular choice defines everything about this game, highlighting both its greatest accomplishments and remarkable shortcomings. Resident Evil 6’s over-the-top world is built piece-by-piece through its four storylines, which cleverly integrate with each other. Questions aren’t necessarily answered until the entire plot emerges through different perspectives, and the realization that the game’s designers deliberately held something back to unleash it during a later campaign makes the effort of pushing through four individual campaigns worth it. It’s remarkable to enter a scene, realize its place in the larger timeline, and get a payoff for something that was merely hinted at during an entirely different character arc. There’s a cumulative narrative effect that occurs here, one that wouldn’t be possible if Capcom chose a different path. Resident Evil 6’s over-the-top world is fundamentally built through its many storylines, which cleverly integrate with each other. Every storyline in this game, through a combination of great environments, great enemies and a carefully cultivated sense of wide-eyed, B-movie horror, has situations so memorable that they’ll be seared into your brain. It’s hard to forget the first time you’re crushed by the relentless, beastly Ustanak, or watch a creature spew out C-virus gas in a crowded area, turning dozens of trapped human survivors into flesh-eating zombies. These moments come frequently, often serving as vivid, gory reminders of the game’s tense storytelling prowess. Yet the layered narrative sometimes works against the gameplay. As the campaigns cross paths, the game forces players to replay sequences - including some lengthy encounters that really ought to be played once and only once. There is nothing gained from this repetition, as the only story revelations come from cutscenes and dialogue - not in-game action. A game that thrives on the stacked benefit of multiple perspectives manages to forget how that negatively impacts the actual experience of playing through encounters repeatedly. That notion of repetition shines light on the most basic element of Resident Evil 6’s biggest shortcomings – it’s actually too big. Each campaign in this game contains moments of sheer excellence, but these are dragged down by the poor design of others. Chris’s spectacular confrontation with a massive snake in a shabby Chinese apartment is preceded and interrupted by lengthy, monotonous gunfights on rooftops and a rather uninteresting fight against a helicopter. Jake and Sherry escape and engage threats by riding motorcycles and snow mobiles, making their thrilling, futile attempts to stop the Nemesis-like Ustanak significantly less rewarding. This mix of highs and lows is not only confusing, it’s downright frustrating. Each campaign in this game contains moments of sheer excellence, but these are dragged down by the poor design of others. Early on, different types of gameplay and tones of horror are established for each campaign. When the game’s design works within these core competencies, it is absolutely a great experience. The elimination of Chris’s team by an overwhelming, reptilian threat. Jake and Sherry repeatedly fleeing from the Ustanak. Leon and Helena surviving the ravaged Tall Oaks or uncovering the twisted secrets of an underground laboratory. Ada attempting to solve elaborate, convoluted puzzles in the belly of a submarine. These experiences stand apart from each other while remaining true to the beating heart of the Resident Evil franchise in their own unique way. Capcom would have done itself a world of good by simply understanding these individual storylines do not exist in a vacuum and don’t need to be the same in terms of volume or length. Rather than trying to force diversity into each campaign through blatantly protracted action sequences, the development teams should have understood the campaigns feel freshest if they maintain a sense of purpose. This is not the first title in the franchise to attempt “non-traditional experiences,” like taking the helm of a vehicle, but by virtue of its scope, it becomes the most excessive offender. Over the past 15 years, Resident Evil has created its fear through one central tenant - you have guns and possibly allies, but the creatures you face are so powerful that none of these odd-eveners matter. The mutant and militant J’avo creatures more or less throw that out the window. Suddenly you’re engaging in firefights with soldiers that have machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers - plus helicopters and tanks. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen some of these in a Resident Evil game, but it’s never been so pervasive. The implementation of a cover system and move-and-shoot controls add to this overall shift for the franchise, making it less about its core principles and more about trying to be something it’s not. This time, your ally will actually be useful, assisting you when necessary and not taking your resources. The game does offer vast improvements in terms of cooperative experience - online or off. Resident Evil 5 was notorious for its vacuous AI partner system. This time, your ally will actually be useful, assisting you when necessary and not taking your resources. That’s not to say the system is perfect. It’s not uncommon for you to issue an order only to have it ignored, or to stand waiting at a door for what feels like an eternity while your partner is seemingly missing in action. Playing with a friend, who can now drop in and out of your game at any time, will solve some of this, but once again exposes the weaknesses of Capcom’s buddy-focused direction for the Resident Evil franchise. Tense or terrifying moments give way to a feeling of safety with the added company. It’s hard to worry about a threat when your buddy is just around the corner to save you. Other online additions feel superficial, particularly compared to the vast scope of the core campaign. Mercenaries Mode returns, allowing ‘skill points’ earned in its time- and score-based gameplay to be applied to its own unique upgrades, or to the core campaign’s. Tying the two experiences together will certainly provide some incentive to some. Agent Hunt Mode, meanwhile, allows you to take on the role of an enemy in a random online player’s game, but the implementation of enemy combat and camera control is so haphazard there’s little point in indulging. Some of Capcom’s greatest successes are more immediately noticeable thanks to some incredibly strong world, lighting, and creature design. Outside of the return of the franchise’s iconic zombies, which are a bit faster and more capable than in past iterations, Resident Evil 6 features an all-new roster of monsters. This was a bold move, one that adds a much-needed element of unpredictability to the campaigns. In fact, some of these creations - like the zombie-spawning Lepotitsa, or relentless Rasklapanje - rank among some of the best designs and concepts in the history of the franchise - no small feat for a series famous for the quality of its enemies. Atmosphere is the essence of the Resident Evil series. A powerful environment, full of detail and depth, pulls you in, creating a sense of history and life while also amplifying the emotional reaction. There’s a reason settings like the Spencer Mansion from the first Resident Evil or Rapture from Bioshock prove so memorable. Those games wouldn’t be nearly as powerful without those locales. In fact much of their experience relies upon them. Resident Evil 6 has no shortage of these types of great set pieces, ranging from cities under siege to dark, vast catacombs to cramped, cluttered high-rises. These aesthetics mostly succeed thanks to an emphasis on strong lighting effects. Serving as a stark contrast to Resident Evil 5’s sun-soaked locales, this sequel often opts for much darker scenery, pushing the overall visual fidelity through an increased emphasis on shadows and moody illumination. The result is an experience that has an immediate impact on the player, but the increased lighting design does have some unfortunate consequences. Background objects, textures and NPCs often take a noticeable dip in quality, sometimes to the point of distraction. Yet as a whole, Resident Evil has rarely felt so alive. Verdict: Evolution and ambition are only natural for a franchise as old as Resident Evil, as is the need to respect a long-lasting legacy and the fans that have come to appreciate it. But in trying to serve all masters, Resident Evil 6 loses focus and fails to accurately assess which of its elements are truly worthy of being included. When this game is at its height, it sets new standards for the series in every way. Unfortunately, there are no shortage of lows either, taking what could have been an excellent experience and making it something considerably lesser. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ System Requirements Minimum: OS: Windows Vista/XP, Windows 7, Windows 8. Processor: Intel CoreTM2 Duo 2.4 Ghz or better, AMD AthlonTM X2 2.8 Ghz or better. Memory: 2 GB RAM. Hard Disk Space: 16 GB free hard drive space. Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS or better. DirectX: 9.0c or greater. Sound: Standard audio device. Recommended: OS: Windows Vista/XP, Windows 7, Windows 8. Processor: Intel CoreTM 2 Quad 2.7 Ghz or better, AMD PhenomTM II X4 3 Ghz or better. Memory: 4 GB RAM. Hard Disk Space: 16 GB free hard drive space. Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 or better. DirectX: 9.0c or greater. Sound: Standard audio device.

Game Informations : Developer: Rebellion Developments Publishers: Rebellion Developments, 505 Games Platforms: PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch Initial release date: June 27, 2014 Sniper Elite III is a celebration of extravagant carnage - and, less significantly, a big improvement over 2012's Sniper Elite V2. Its predecessor's stiff, linear gameplay has been swapped out for a more open-ended, creativity-enabling approach to stealth-shooting. But the big draw – the real draw – is the same pornographically violent X-ray-vision carnage that erupts whenever your bullets meet their targets.These slow-motion, long-range kills are what keep Sniper Elite III from being just another generic-looking World War II shooter. Every effort was made to milk them for dramatic tension. When aiming, you can hold your breath, slowing time so you can watch that red dot shrink in on your target. Tight close-ups of the bullet in flight are accompanied by a steadily swelling roar, giving your shot a sense of impending destiny. Provided your reaction to the resulting gore is a sick thrill and not actual sickness, this is so immensely satisfying that it renders every other weapon at your disposal anticlimactic by comparison. The kill-cam moments never got old enough for me to opt to skip them, but they might have if the rest of Sniper Elite III weren't so competently designed. Centering on Karl, a gravel-voiced American sniper, who seems to almost singlehandedly dismantle the German Afrika Korps, you are taken to a lot of interesting settings in a theater of the war that's rarely explored in games, and given semi-free rein to explore and murder Nazi occupiers in whatever way you deem fit. That’s what gives Sniper Elite III its edge - and not its story, which is awash in clichés and occasionally laughable dialogue. The campaign consists of just eight stages, but they’re a blast to creep through. Each one is enormous and has multiple objectives meant to give you a clear progression through the map, but how you reach and tackle those objectives is up to you. And when you factor in handfuls of enjoyable optional tasks, like blowing up a German motor pool or stealing top-secret plans, and the many deaths you're likely to die, finishing a single level can take as long as a couple of hours. With a guard AI that’ll usually spot you if you run or even poke your head up above cover, Sniper Elite III encourages you to take it slow and stealthy, spotting and tagging guards with your binoculars. And should you decide to take a shot with anything but your silenced pistol – like, say, your sniper rifle – it's a good idea to either be near some noisy machinery that'll cover up the sound, or immediately move somewhere else after you take your shot. This push to relocate gives Sniper Elite III a fun, furtive cat-and-mouse feel, although like most stealth games, it doesn't always make sense; all you need to do is sneak or run a prescribed distance away from the guards until they forget you ever existed. But remember, there's no penalty for breaking stealth – and because you mainly earn experience through kills, there's no real reason not to clutter the horizon with bodies if you can get away with it. Dropping guards in quick succession always left me feeling like an efficient badass, even when it was due more to their uneven combat AI than my own skill. Sniper Elite III's multiplayer maps are huge and filled with hiding places, and they're built to emphasize distance and sneakiness. In fact, two of the standout modes are Distance King and No Cross, which respectively reward teams based on the range of their kills, and separate them with impassable barriers meant to force them to snipe. These modes are enjoyable, but they're not fundamentally different from what you'd find in any other online shooter. Co-op, on the other hand, is much more rewarding. Not only can you tackle the entire campaign with a buddy, but you can also pair up in the waves-of-Nazis Survival mode and the engrossing Overwatch, which hands binoculars to one player and a rifle to the other, forcing you to work together as a sniper-spotter team. Verdict: Sniper Elite III's open level designs and objectives pack in more than enough variety and stealthy tension to counterbalance its thin story and shaky enemy intelligence, and experimenting with its explosive traps is almost as fun as popping skulls with a sniper rifle. The skeleton-shattering, long-distance kills are still its riveting centerpiece, of course, but even without the element of dumb fun they offer, Sniper Elite III would still be a smart, unexpectedly memorable experience. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: OS: Win Vista 32 Processor: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 3870 or NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 VRAM: 512MB System Memory: 2 GB RAM Storage: 18 GB Hard drive space DirectX 11 Compatible Graphics Card Recommended: OS: Win 7 64 Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66GHz / AMD Athlon II X3 455 Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6790 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti VRAM: 35MB System Memory: 4 GB RAM Storage: 18 GB Hard drive space

Game Informations : Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publishers: Ubisoft Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows Initial release date: March 29, 2019 Alot has happened to the Assassin’s Creed series in the seven years since Assassin's Creed 3 first came out. It was quickly overshadowed in 2013 by the follow-up, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which remains one of my all-time favorites – but that’s in part because of how well AC4 built upon the naval combat concepts introduced by its Colonial predecessor. Since then, our expectations for the series have been changed yet again by the RPG-influenced Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey, which revamped combat control in a way that’s hard to go back from. So while I'm glad to say Assassin's Creed 3 Remastered does do a great job bringing the appearance of this 18th-century world and its characters of this 2012 game up to 2019 standards, there's a lot of creakiness to it that even the gameplay tweaks it makes can’t entirely smooth out.The whole package includes all the DLC (including the Tyranny of King George trilogy about an evil George Washington), as well as Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation HD (originally for the Vita) and extra behind-the-scenes content. It’s a nice touch by Ubisoft that everyone who bought the season pass for the excellent Assassin's Creed Odyssey gets AC3 Remastered for free. The first and most obvious upgrade comes by way of the graphics. Assassin's Creed 3 and Liberation are both available in 4K, provided you have an Xbox One X or PS4 Pro, though only at 30fps. On PC, with an EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB FTW and Intel i7-7700K Gaming CPU, I was able to crank all the settings to Ultra and run in 1440p at a steady 60fps (where it appears Ubisoft has locked it), and wow: What a difference it makes. Everything that’s not alive in Assassin's Creed 3 now looks incredibly realistic. Everything that’s not alive in Assassin's Creed 3 now looks incredibly realistic (except for corpses, I suppose, which occasionally rag doll hilariously). The brick buildings and cobblestone streets of Boston are absolutely amazing in their new fidelity. Wooden shingles on the roofs of houses and other landmarks in the cities look like they were individually hewn from cedar and the bricks making up much of the city look fantastic. Windows, while not actually transparent as they should be, have a frosted look that reflects the light and absolutely nails the imperfect window glass of the period. Wooden buildings, too, look magnificently lifelike thanks to grain and wear like you would expect to see on a stained, Colonial-style home. Outside the cities, the wilderness, too, has a new life about it. The forests in the spring and summer are teeming with plant life, and the snow in the winter sparkles like its real-life counterpart. The frontier isn't nearly as breathtaking as the one Rockstar crafted for Red Dead Redemption 2, but it's almost on par with Ubisoft’s two most recent Far Cry games. (Liberation, too, looks good with a new coat of paint, but I didn't find the effect isn't as dramatic. The version included here is a port of the HD version, which already was an enormous upgrade from the Vita onto the 360 and PS3, but running in higher resolution can only do so much. It's also Liberation, which is a mediocre AC game at best.) The graphics on the living and moving creatures of Assassin's Creed 3 don't fare as well in the remaster. That's not to say they look bad; far from it. Clothing, skin, and hair all benefit from better textures and improved animations. However, they're all still hung on the skeletons of the best animation 2012 Ubisoft could deliver, and when people and animals are in motion it’s hard to miss the fact that this game was clearly built for the previous generation. To a degree I’m no longer accustomed to, clothing clips through bodies and horses, facial animations and gestures have an unnatural stiffness to them, and the eyes are glassy and lifeless as a doll's. Lips almost never match the words, which plagued the original game to a much greater degree. It's not just the animations that belie this remaster's age; there are also some minor sound-sync issues. During a sequence outside the Animus, Desmond (remember Desmond?) breaks a glass case and the sound of shattering happens a split second after he strikes it. Lips almost never match the words, which is an annoying phenomenon that plagued the original game to a much greater degree. While it has been greatly improved, it hasn't been entirely fixed. Another place where AC3 shows its age is mission structure. If you just blast through the main sequences and ignore the multitude of side missions, a staggering percentage of your time is spent watching cutscenes and then walking slowly along with another character while they rattle off expositional dialogue, only to get to your destination and trigger another cutscene. When you get down to business the missions themselves are pretty repetitive and the few times you have to play as Desmond are some of the worst parts. The final sequence, which I won't spoil even after all these years, remains unchanged, and if you beat the game last gen, you know that's not a compliment. There are some quality-of-life updates that make quite a difference between playing the remaster and popping your Xbox 360 copy into your Xbox One X, however. One of the most welcome is a small but tremendous improvement to the minimap that changes the nondescript red dots showing enemy locations into icons that now let you know, at a glance, which direction an enemy is looking and what type they are. For example, rooftop guards show up as teardrop-shaped red icons with crosshairs on them. It makes for a much better, less frustrating experience when you're trying to be stealthy. There are plenty of other improvements, like the ability to craft weapons that were previously only available for sale and increased opportunities for stealth kills. It seems like an Assassin's Creed staple now, but hiding in the bushes and whistling to attract the attention of guards wasn't in the original game. And the silent hidden blade is now the default stealth-assassination weapon, so you don't need to worry about blowing your cover. These aren’t game-changing but I wouldn’t choose to give any of them up. Verdict : With Assassin’s Creed 3 Remastered, Ubisoft does everything in its power to bring one of the weaker games in the series up to modern standards, and it’s full of sights worth seeing. The main improvement is graphical, and the scenery of 18th-century Colonial America looks fantastic. There are even some meaningful tweaks made to stealth mechanics to make it feel a little more up to date and less aggravating. Where this remaster falters are places where AC3 can't be changed without fundamentally remaking the entire game from the ground up, namely a stiff animation style, repetitive mission structure, and that goddamn final sequence --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: OS: Win 7 64 Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 3.1GHz / AMD FX-6350 Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 270X or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 System Memory: 8 GB RAM Storage: 30 GB Hard drive space DirectX 11 Compatible Graphics Card Recommended: OS: Win 10 64 Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K 4-Core 3.5GHz / AMD FX-8350 Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 290X or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB System Memory: 8 GB RAM Storage: 30 GB Hard drive space

Game Informations : Developer: ‎Ubisoft Montreal Publishers: Ubisoft, Ubisoft Milan Platforms: PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows Initial release date: November 15, 2011 Assassin's Creed Revelations marks the end of two eras as it explores the final adventures of Ezio Auditore and Altair Ibn-La'Ahad. Ubisoft's ambitious conclusion to a four game narrative manages to be the best chapter in the Assassin's Creed franchise despite suffering from some familiar problems. Witnessing Ezio and Altair come to grips with the lives they've lived is a remarkable sight, easily worth one more trip to a world we've experienced for several years. Ubisoft's ambitious undertaking with Revelations, which spanned a half dozen studios across the globe, follows no less than three lead characters, which would be downright catastrophic in the hands of lesser developers. The game's story not only involves Ezio's quest to uncover the secrets of his order, but his budding romance and entanglement in a complex political situation as well. Add in flashbacks to key moments in Altair's life and brief, optional excursions to Desmond's mind in the Animus and this plot is packed to the limit. Somehow it all works. The most compelling material by far involves Ezio, as his storyline is the most complicated. His quest to discover more information about Altair ties itself to the political and social turmoil in Constantinople. That in turn makes its way to Sophia, who quickly becomes a romantic interest despite the fact that Ezio pardons himself every five seconds to stab someone in the chest. The sequences between Sophia and Ezio flourish emotionally despite their brevity. You believe these two characters are slowly falling in love despite the chaos around them. It's impressive how convincing these moments can be. Ubisoft's overall storytelling has reached new heights. Previous games seemed to get some cinematic sequences exactly right while others completely missed the mark. Those awkward, jolting moments are completely gone, replaced instead by very real, fully developed characters in strongly-scripted scenes. That leap alone helps elevate Revelations above some of its predecessors. The game's visuals have likewise taken a step up, with characters and their expressions looking better than ever. Voice acting is fantastic and the soundtrack is incredibly solid. All of these improvements, combined with a franchise-best city design, add to the larger narrative experience of the game. On a basic level, Revelations functions much like the Assassin's Creed games that came before. You're still accepting various missions that task you with chasing, stalking, meeting or killing certain targets. The curse of the franchise has always been that it seems to fill your time with missions that are completely irrelevant to the larger story. Ubisoft more or less avoids that trap this time, mostly because its plot has so many layers. Still, expect a handful of quests that feel a bit too superfluous or are poorly constructed. The game's introduction suffers particularly from some very awkward parameters, setting an odd tone for its opening hours. The most thrilling moments of the game come when Ezio discovers clues about the keys to Altair's library. It's here where the series' infamous "dungeon" sequences come into play. Much like the Lairs of Romulus or Assassin's Tombs, these epic excavations take you on wild rides that would feel perfectly at home in Uncharted. At times a journey through damp caves and at other times epic chases alongside rivers, each of these segments are simply fantastic, and are the highlights of the entire game. Almost equal to finding Altair's keys are the chapters that feature Altair himself. Each major portion of the game includes a segment with Ubisoft's original assassin, and players will relive specific moments throughout his life, ranging from a very young age to much older. Some of these missions feel very similar to Ezio's, while others are decidedly different. The variety helps keep things fresh, as does the fact that they're very story-driven and help bring a certain amount of meaning and weight to what Ezio is doing. By the end of the game, you'll see similarities between the two men - as well as differences - which help form one of the key emotional cores of the entire experience. Ubisoft made a number of additions to Revelations in terms of control, weaponry and gameplay. The most critical alteration is simply a button layout change. Players will now directly access a secondary weapon (throwing knives, a concealed gun, bombs) in addition to a primary one (hidden blade, sword, axe). This helps give players more options, allowing for quick reactions for stealth missions as well as challenging combat scenarios. This alteration affects combat mechanics the most because it changes how you're able to operate within hostile situations. Bombs serve as an extension of your more flexible combat options. Throughout Ezio's time in Constantinople, he'll acquire a wide range of ingredients that can be assembled into three different categories of bombs. The functionality proves diverse as you'll make everything from a standard smoke bomb to something that shoots out coins to lure dozens of peasants. Whether you distract your opponents or outright kill them, the choice is yours. Generally I didn't find bombs to drastically change my approach to a situation. Countering and chaining kills, combined with summoning my brotherhood for remote attacks, is still by far the most effective way to dispatch foes. Revelations suffers for that inability to break away from its own mold, and as a result, this game continues to feel very similar to its predecessors. Though missions and core combat mechanics remain very familiar, Ubisoft did add a new dynamic to the territorial control element of Revelations. In previous games, Ezio would not only buy shops around a city, he'd take control of enemy camps by assassinating their leaders. Now the enemies will attempt to take these headquarters back through somewhat-optional Den Defense segments, which are basically a fancy version of a typical Tower Defense game. Den Defense adds little to Revelations. In fact, it actually detracts from the experience. As Ezio stands on the rooftops near his headquarters, enemy troops march down a street to damage the building enough to take it over. Players must install, through a menu and cursor system, various types of assassins along the rooftops to fend off that attack. Controlling the deployment is rather clunky, as is the way the mode meshes with the overall direction of the game. Assassin's Creed focuses on direct combat, not real-time strategy. Straying too far from that feels like a distraction, a nuisance that undoes your progress just for the sake of doing so. Frequently the game throws overwhelming odds against you, making the entire affair an irritating, extraneous mess. Even more irritating - if you lose, you can immediately climb a wall and assassinate the enemy leader again, rendering your previous 10-minute chore almost pointless. I'd rather see Den Defense completely disappear, but if returns, it needs drastic revision. The other major addition to Revelations deals with Desmond. Ubisoft chose to make the modern day assassin's sequences completely optional this time, almost anticipating a sharply divided reception to the bold departure in game design. Desmond, who is comatose and attempting to reclaim his mind within primitive Animus architecture, must navigate Tron-like worlds in first person perspective. He maneuvers through these abstract oddities by using two shapes of blocks that he can create and place in the world. The shocking concept is immediately jarring, yet somehow it works, largely because its puzzle-like nature actually plays well and ties to the overall story. Unlike Den Defense, which feels more like an awkward and deliberate attempt to harass you, these Desmond moments are a curious respite from Ezio and Altair's more intense, combat-driven missions. It seems obvious that not everyone will love this concept, but despite their simplicity, the sequences are well done and thought-provoking.Multiplayer is augmented again this time around, with various new modes, a wealth of customization options, a better interface and even a story mode that will allow players to learn more about the modern day Templars as they progress (or "train") in the Abstergo facility. Ubisoft is creating a fine counterpart to what is typically considered a very single-player centric series. The decision to weave more of the franchise's lore into these modes was simply genius. Most remarkable is the mode's ability to create a variety of unique gameplay experiences through different match types. Wanted and Deathmatch recreate the more calm and collected idea of stalking prey while something like Artifact Assault is far more breakneck and frantic. The fact that all of this experience builds towards an ultimate goal will certainly reward those accustomed to focusing on the core storyline. Verdict: Despite adding a number of features, Assassin's Creed Revelations is very similar to its predecessors, and that's both its biggest strength and weakness. There's nothing wrong with Assassin's Creed. It's a great franchise with unique, compelling and well-designed gameplay. The catch is that we've effectively been doing similar things for the last several years now. Incremental upgrades are more than welcome, but at some point players need a new experience. That said, Revelations serves its lead characters well and is a very effective bookend. The improvements in graphics and storytelling, combined with already-great voice acting and music, help make this a memorable finale for some of the most interesting video game characters we've seen in this generation. Not even the weak new Den Defense mechanic or Desmond’s insane side mission system can change that fact. And multiplayer will certainly reward those looking for a break from first-person shooting. The gameplay there continues to improve on an already-addicting formula, and learning more about the Templars proves rather fascinating. This is the best Assassin's Creed yet, even if that victory is claimed by an inch and not a mile. If you've been following the lives of Altair and Ezio this long, you owe it to yourself to see their last adventure. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: CPU: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 or 2.4 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 1.5 GB Windows XP / 2 GB Windows Vista, 7 OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (only) VIDEO CARD: 256 MB DirectX® 9.0c-compliant video card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (ATI Radeon HD 2000 / HD 3000 / HD 4000 / HD 5000 / HD 6000 series or NVIDIA GeForce 8 / 9 / GT 200 / GT 400 / GT 500 series) PIXEL SHADER: 3.0 VERTEX SHADER: 3.0 SOUND CARD: Yes FREE DISK SPACE: 12 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 256 MB Recommended: CPU: 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 or 3.0 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ or better CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 2 GB Windows XP / 4 GB Windows Vista, 7 OS: Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 (only) VIDEO CARD: 512 MB DirectX® 9.0c-compliant video card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (ATI Radeon HD 2000 / HD 3000 / HD 4000 / HD 5000 / HD 6000 series or NVIDIA GeForce 8 / 9 / GT 200 / GT 400 / GT 500 series) PIXEL SHADER: 3.0 VERTEX SHADER: 3.0 SOUND CARD: Yes FREE DISK SPACE: 12 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 512 MB

Game Informations : Developer: BlackMill Games , M2H Publishers: BlackMill Games , M2H Platforms: Microsoft Windows · OS X · Linux · PlayStation 4 · Xbox One Initial release date: April 28, 2015 The Battle of Verdun began in February 1916, and lasted ten months. It was the lengthiest battle during World War I, claiming around 700,000 dead, wounded, or missing soldiers. The multiplayer first-person shooter Verdun revisits this tragic time, bringing to life the fear and thrill, as well as the boredom, of trench warfare. Verdun takes a risk; it is a rare shooter set in a time period more frequently visited by strategy games. It gets close to capturing the essence of battle, despite being stymied by the realities of the often slow pace of the Great War, and all the while stumbling on its own obstacles. Most of your time in Verdun is spent in its Frontlines mode. Here, two teams take turns crossing no man's land in an attempt to take their opponents' trench. It's a game of momentum. When you're on the offensive, the game allows you to charge onto the battlefield as your opponents line up in defense. Taking an enemy trench requires that you survive long enough to reach and occupy it, driving out combatants. Like in Battlefield, the more allies you have, the faster the trench is taken, and the faster you gain a point. But taking the trench won't be easy. Enemies have the advantage when you're on offense, and if your team is kept away until the end of a timer, momentum transfers to the opposing team, and soon it's their turn to charge, putting you on defense. The more you capture, the deeper the battle moves in the map toward enemy headquarters--the final goal of Frontlines. Battles switch constantly from offense to defense throughout the match, and winning outright doesn't come easy. Of all the games I played, nearly half ended in a draw. There is also a rifles-only team Deathmatch mode to consider, but the po[CENSORED]tion of competing players is considerably lower than Frontlines'. Keeping you in the World War I tug-of-war fantasy, the game introduces a "dead zone" that surrounds each of the enormous maps, and keeps you out of the field between trench lines during defense. If your team fails to capture an enemy trench, you're given a countdown timer and forced to retreat to your own line; otherwise, you are executed. You're not allowed to put even one toe past these lines, even if they lie mere inches in front of your own trench. Stepping over causes the colors to fade, and a countdown emerges, pulling you from the experience with the subtlety of a cracking whip. It can get frustrating to deal with, as you're sometimes unable to gain a better viewing angle without your own soldier barking a line about deserters getting shot the moment you move too far. It's especially irritating when you pass over the line while moving through dug-out trenches or clearly defined pathways on the battlefield. Frontlines mode focuses on squad-based combat. Loading into a match, you get placed into a squad and fill a specific role. Some squads focus on recon, while others are attack squads that include positions for riflemen and grenadiers. Depending on the squad type, the squad leader--a non-commissioned officer, or NCO--can call in special commands such as artillery support, airplane recon, or gas assaults. Playing in a squad is highly encouraged--not only is it just short of impossible to take out a trench on your own, but it makes the game a lot more engaging. I struggled during the first several hours, grumbling every time I got killed off in some ditch or another, but Verdun opened up once I learned how to work with my squad. Communicating when and where to attack made the charging offense not only more realistic, but also made it feel like a managed, well-oiled machine. Over time, your squad levels up, unlocking bonuses such as new uniforms and status buffs. Collecting experience points happens naturally as you play, but you gain a lot more by playing with a squad. It's a much faster way to earn levels and career points, the latter of which allows you to open up new weapon tiers for your chosen class. Over time, you gain access to new and more powerful rifles, pistols, and mounted machine guns. There is one reality of the Great War that Verdun can't escape: tedium. There are moments of boredom while desperately waiting for something to get you out of the trench. It can be a pervasive burden that may cause you, as it did me, to sprint from one end of the trench to the other in the hope that action eventually presents itself. The feeling is magnified by the respawn times, which can force you to cool your heels for twenty seconds at a time or longer--and respawning doesn't always play into your favor. There were many instances where I returned to the battlefield with a relieved sigh, only for a vigilant sniper to send me immediately back to the death screen with another twenty-plus-second wait. When most games run from fifteen to thirty minutes, expect a lot of dead air between the chaos of charges and sweeping out enemy trenches. A lack of variety is another hindrance. Many of the maps are expectedly ugly, pockmarked with craters and devoid of much vegetation. Some fronts, however, are lusher than others, introducing trees to stack up against, along with swaying grass and bushes that add a welcome palette of color. But for the most part, the differing shades of brown with the intermittent splash of green is not a blessing to the eyes. And yes, of course I realize the battlefields of World War I were never attractive, but the aesthetic gets tiring. Beyond the art, Frontlines mode itself rarely deviates from its design, which begins to drag after many hours. However, Verdun does deliver rare moments of inspiration when bursts of excitement and terror shatter the monotony. A bullet fired from an unseen enemy rips through the air, striking a fellow soldier just to your side. In your peripheral vision you see him collapse limply into the mud. You drop down and your mind races. Will you move locations and pop back up to scan the horizon for the killer? Are you meant to avenge your lost comrade, or join him? Back inside the trench, there is often barely enough room for two soldiers to pass by, sometimes resulting in both getting momentarily stuck as they attempt to move to another section in need of defense, all while bullets fly inches overhead, and more bodies drop. It can be scary and terribly claustrophobic at times. When enemy commanders drop choking clouds of poisonous gas upon the trench, you're forced to put on a mask that obscures most of your vision, which is already hampered by the billowing yellow cloud. Coupled with the cracks of nearby rifles you're no longer certain are friendly, that feeling of claustrophobia rapidly crumbles away to panic. Suddenly you hear the command to charge and overrun enemy fortifications, and you leap over the edge and into the heart of no man's land. You traverse the war-torn earth by hiding behind hills, trees, or in bombed-out craters. You watch as enemies scramble over hills in a desperate attempt to reach the security of their own trench--most getting cut down before earning that safety. Crouching or lying prone helps you avoid getting taken out by enemy combatants, as you wait for a CPO to call in mortars or gas to soften the hardened enemy defense. You methodically move from one point to the next, taking time to line up your rifle and pick off enemy soldiers who carelessly expose their heads. Without question, the pace is slow and deliberate; Verdun is the antithesis of many modern shooters, yet more exciting than many of its peers for brief periods. But even when the game is at its finest, you must still grapple with some problems. There is frequent lag, causing enemy soldiers to abandon their running animations to teleport across the field. Worse, however, are the times when your gun appears to fire through an enemy without doing any damage. This scenario happens all too often: You line up your shot, fire, and… nothing happens. You line up again, more carefully this time, fire… nothing. I have lost fights at point-blank range due to this "phantom bullet" occurrence. It seems impossible to finish more than two games without it happening, and when you drop into a twenty-second respawn after being killed by someone you know you couldn't have missed, it becomes infuriating. There are also issues with the matchmaking. Team balancing is constantly at odds, and the game provides no quick solutions other than to ask if a person or two would "please" switch sides. Steep holes and trenches can stop you in your tracks, and for some reason, barbed wire can kill you, holding you in place and then killing you if you don't move. Verdict : Verdun is powered by the Unity engine, and, despite some pop-in with details at a distance, it sports some decent visuals. However, those looks are paired with low performance. Fiddling with the graphics options helps, but it never completely solves the issue. Motion blur can be turned off and anti-aliasing lowered, but your machine may still struggle to reach a smooth sixty frames. And it must be said: Losing color from your vision every time you take damage is a feature of too many shooters these days. For a game like Verdun that strives for a certain authenticity, this is a distracting element that it could have done without. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: CPU: Intel Core2 Duo 2.4Ghz or Higher / AMD 3Ghz or Higher CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 3 GB OS: Windows Vista/7/8 VIDEO CARD: Geforce GTX 960M / Radeon HD 7750 or higher, 1GB video card memory PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 FREE DISK SPACE: 12 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 1 GB Recommended: CPU: Intel Core2 Duo 2.4Ghz or Higher / AMD 3Ghz or Higher CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 4 GB OS: Windows Vista/7/8 VIDEO CARD: Geforce GTX 960M / Radeon HD 7750 or higher, 2GB video card memory PIXEL SHADER: 5.0 VERTEX SHADER: 5.0 FREE DISK SPACE: 12 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 2 GB

Game Informations : Developer: CI Games Publishers : CI Games Platforms: Microsoft Windows , PS3 , Xbox 360 Initial release date: March 12, 2013 If sniping in real life – outside of the whole morality issue – was as easy as it is in Sniper Ghost Warrior 2, then a few soldiers probably could save the world. Unless you’re playing on the hardest mode, bullet-drop indicators and omniscient AI teammates make sure you know exactly who to shoot and when, taking almost all the tension out of pulling the trigger. Ghost Warrior 2 ultimately does exactly what I feared the most when I started: it takes one of the highest forms of shooting skill and makes it repetitive and uninteresting. Almost every level in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2’s brief four-or-so-hour campaign boils down to the same thing. You arrive on one of these pretty, CryEngine 3-rendered jungle scenes either alone or with a partner, and then move from position to position, killing everyone as quietly as possible. If you screw up, enemies will rush you with reckless abandon and you’ll probably die, so if you’re playing on Easy or Normal, you’d best kill people in the explicit order you’re told to. Not that that’s particularly difficult, since you seem to always know exactly where enemies are at all times. You’ll need to do sniper-y things, like hold your breath to slow down time (pretty sure snipers can't actually do that, but it represents concentration), or manage your stance to reduce the sway of your barrel, but all in all every stage starts to feel like a series of target shoots with little variation in terms of goals or setting. Especially so during the canned portions where you set up a rifle and can’t move until you’ve hit the targets you’re ordered to kill. Shooting in Ghost Warrior 2 becomes less an art and more of a mundane task. Playing on the hardest difficulty helps a little. Here you don't have big marks over every person's head, so you have to actually hunt for targets. You also don’t have the bullet-drop indicators, meaning that you have to pay attention to the wind and distance to your target, adjusting your aim accordingly. The stripping of these features make some shots a bit more tense, since it really does take time to learn the feel of the weapon, and you might have missed a potential target during your initial scouting. You can’t just do a bit of math (well, mere mortals can't) and figure out exactly where to aim for shots in this mode, you just have to understand how wind speeds and distance will affect your bullet drop. There's a lot of shooting, missing, and then readjusting your aim – trial and error. That’s often not a problem, because in situations where missing a shot might cause a game-over state, Ghost Warrior 2 generally dumbs down the AI enough to give you plenty of time to fire again and score a kill. The enemies might react, but they’ll do so so slowly (not to mention no others seem to hear the percussive bang of your giant, unsilenced rifle) that you have ample time to pick them off. It's a blessing because it helps you get through the story faster, but a curse in that it breaks the illusion that these are human beings with, you know, a desire to live. Very occasional moments in the campaign try to mix things up, but they feel so trite that they did little more than induce heavy sighs. For instance, at one point in Ghost Warrior 2’s story you lose your rifle and have to retrieve it, sneaking around enemies or killing them quietly with a knife or your pistol. The problem is that after you kill the first enemy you can’t just pick up his weapon. Instead, you're forced to play exactly how the designers intended, obvious course of action be damned. Like a good little soldier, you’re playing by someone else’s rules. It's made all the more clear how bad an idea that is when contrasted with the best parts of the campaign: when you’re given an area to clear out or get past, and the freedom to do it however you want. You could alert the enemy troops and deal with them head-on, shoot an enemy grenade to blow them up, or just snipe them quietly. Heck, sometimes you can even just sneak past them altogether. Those parts make me feel more like a thinking, elite soldier, but they alone aren’t enough to add more than a bit of flavoring to largely one-note level design. And remember: even if the entire game had this freeform design, it'd still only be four hours long. Ghost Warrior 2’s multiplayer doesn’t exactly add a lot of diversity to the experience, either. True, lying completely still watching the area in front of you for movement or the glare off another sniper’s scope, or waiting for the sound of a rifle, does create a few moments of high tension. More often, though, it means I'm sitting around for minutes at a time, never seeing anyone or anything, except maybe one of the flickering shadows or other annoying minor glitches that cropped up as I played (on two different PCs). Whole rounds often pass where I’ve fired maybe two shots, and I died many times without ever having a chance to retaliate. The campers among you may find it entertaining, but outside of the very rare intense sniper battle, it quickly became tiresome – especially considering there are only two maps at the time of this review. Verdict Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 isn’t bereft of good ideas or mechanics, it’s just that they’re all trapped in a short series of levels that rarely give you anything all that interesting to do with them. Combine that with some graphical glitches and the slow and ultimately forgettable multiplayer, and you have a mediocre game that all but the hardest of the hardcore sniper-wannabes should pass on. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo at 2Ghz, or AMD Athlon 64 x2 2Ghz, or better CPU SPEED: Info RAM: 2 GB OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, with the latest Service Pack VIDEO CARD: NVidia 8800GT with 512Mb RAM or better PIXEL SHADER: 3.0 VERTEX SHADER: 3.0 SOUND CARD: Yes FREE DISK SPACE: 9 GB DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 512 MB Recommended: OS: Win 7 64 Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6400 2.13GHz / AMD Athlon II X4 6400e Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7750 1GB GDDR5 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 1GB System Memory: 4 GB RAM Storage: 9 GB Hard drive space DirectX 9 Compatible Graphics Card

Game Informations : Developer: Donkey Crew Publishers : Donkey Crew Platforms: Microsoft Windows Initial release date: 26 March 2020 Just when I thought I was done with survival games for good, a new one ropes me back in The Earth has stopped turning and now a single day lasts a whole year. One side of the planet is an unlivable wasteland baked by permanent sunlight, while the other side is a frozen hell trapped in permanent darkness. What's left of humanity lives in between these two extremes, forced to constantly move between loosely scattered oases. You chase the slowly shifting habitable zone, or you die. That's the fascinating premise of Last Oasis, but it's not just some neat lore draped over another derivative Early Access survival game. It's the root of all of Last Oasis' cool new ideas, like massive walking landships and an exploration system that forces you to be constantly on the move. Some survival tropes never change, though—in the first hour of Last Oasis I did still have to punch a lot of trees. What makes Last Oasis different isn't immediately evident, but its worth sticking through the tutorial since it doesn't last long anyway. I awoke in a shaded canyon, where a mysterious, detached voice gave instruction on how to complete some early quests and explained a bit of who I was. It's an unusually polished intro for an Early Access survival game—they're typically so full of jank and bugs that only a community-made guide can save you. I really appreciate how much work has gone into making Lost Oasis' UI both functional and a pleasure to use. Mousing over menu options, for example, plays different musical notes, turning my interactions with the crafting system into a little, improvised song. The tutorial, thankfully, doesn't last much longer than an hour. After getting to know the basics, my next task was to build one of Last Oasis' defining features: A wooden landship (called a Walker) that races across the dunes on spidery legs. And suddenly, Last Oasis began to feel like a very different kind of game. It's hard to convey just how Freaking cool Last Oasis' Walkers are. Though mine is the most basic model, a Firefly, groups of players can work together to build Walkers that resemble dreadnoughts—except these ships are made of intricately connected wood and billowing sails. Last Oasis' Walkers are so alien—so unlike anything else I've seen in a videogame—that even my little Firefly feels awe-inspiring. And the freedom it gives me as a player is just as cool.With my Firefly built, I'm able to take off running across the vast desert surrounding this oasis. The sensation is somewhat similar to other pirate-themed MMOs and survival games, like Atlas, but far more interesting because the canyons, hills, and mesas of these oases are challenging to navigate. It's the subtle genius of making what's effectively a pirate MMO but with land instead of sea; a vast, empty ocean just isn't that excitingBy comparison, Last Oasis has a lot to find but still maintains the atmosphere of being lost in a hostile desert. Because Walkers can traverse land so quickly, sprawling zones are dotted with big landmarks to help guide my path. Walker wrecks reward powerful loot and items necessary to unlock new crafting recipes in my skill tree, while tribes of barbaric ape-men called Rupu will attack if I slow down. I haven't gotten into a proper PVP battle, but Last Oasis' combat system has me excited for when the moment finally comes. Attacking and defending is reminiscent of Mordhau and Mount and Blade, where quick flicks of the mouse determine which direction I swing my club, forcing my opponent to block in the same direction.In practice against one of the club-wielding Rupu, combat feels like a huge improvement over both survival games and most MMOs I've played. It's a little floaty, but even low-level Rupu put up a decent challenge as they block my incoming swings and counter with their own. It's great to play a survival game that doesn't expect me to just mindlessly click on things until they die. It's the subtle genius of making what's effectively a pirate MMO but with land instead of sea; a vast, empty ocean just isn't that exciting. Unlike typical survival games, where everyone plays on one persistent map, Last Oasis reinforces its wasteland premise by pushing players to stay on the move. Each zone I inhabit is an oasis filled with treasure, NPCs, and other players, but it only exists for a day or two before it's consumed by the scorching heat of the sun. At the same time, new oases constantly spawn to replace old ones, simulating the slow crawl of the habitable zone across the planet's surface. To survive, players have to venture into these zones and plunder them for resources needed to survive the long stretches of desert between them and the next oases. That alone upends one of the survival genre's long-standing (and more tedious) traditions. Instead of hunkering down and building a big base for you and your friends, Last Oasis forces you to move forward. Because everyone is in a constant state of movement, I suspect a lot of those survival game annoyances—like having a server dominated by one major group of players—won't be nearly as prevalent. Without a place to set up a permanent residence, my Walker has become my base. It's not much to brag about right now, just a cook stove on its aft section that I keep lit with chopped wood so I can harvest fresh water from cactus flesh. Much bigger Walkers are essentially moving fortresses for entire guilds of players to live out of. Instead of hunkering down and building a big base for you and your friends, Last Oasis forces you to move forward. If I do choose to settle down in one area (though I'm not sure why I would), it is still possible to build a more traditional-looking survival game base. But what's cool is that if I decide to pick up sticks, the whole thing can be packed up onto my Walker instead of being left behind. The idea, I guess, is that groups of players will move to a new oasis, set up shop for a day or two to pick it clean, and then pack everything up and move on. That all feels a long way off to me right now, but I can't wait to get there. After the disastrous launch of Atlas, the pirate-themed followup to Ark, I felt completely burnt out on survival games. But Last Oasis is brimming with new ideas and creative solutions to tired survival tropes. The few hours I've played today have given me a glimpse at a world that feels massive, alien, and brimming with adventure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- System Requirements Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64bit versions only) Processor: Intel Core i5-2400 Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 770, AMD Radeon HD 7870 DirectX: Version 11 Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 60 GB available space Recommended: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 (64bit versions only) Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 Memory: 16 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1070, AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 DirectX: Version 11 Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 60 GB available space

Game Informations : Developer: Crytek Publishers : Crytek , Koch Media Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows Initial release date: Feb 22, 2018 Hunt: Showdown wants you to feel panic. There’s the panic that ensues when the echoes of your gunshots ring out in the forest around you, potentially attracting monsters and players. Then there’s the panic of trying to franticly escape a level with a prize before other players track you down. And finally, the panic and frustration of losing one of your hunter characters who’d amassed a hefty stash of gear over multiple successful hunts, all because you were careless around a pack of zombie dogs. It’s an addictive type of panic that, when everything clicks, is wholly unique and exhilarating in a way that no other game can be.Hunt is an Early Access first-person shooter from Crytek with a more nuanced premise than most: You (and your partner, if you bring one) are thrown into a swamp-spattered jungle with minimal supplies and the goal of hunting down and killing a twisted, demonic monster somewhere on a map full of smaller but similarly angry monsters. But it’s not that simple. Not only do you need to kill a monster, you then need to escape while evading other players. It has a very Lovecraftian-meets-Van Helsing setting, which does an excellent job of amping up the tension with some of the most realistic uses of actual darkness I’ve seen in recent memory. Instead of just being a vague, blurry, blueish filter over the screen, nighttime feels like an actual absence of light. With a quality pair of headphones, Hunt delivers the spine-tingling sounds some of the creatures make as they stalk you, and quickly becomes one of the most unnerving games out there. A round of Hunt consists of searching for clues, locating and killing your target, then escaping with your prize – but it’s a lot easier said than done. In its Early Access stage, the only two targets are a giant spider and a lumbering butcher who likes to set things on fire. I’ll never forget the first time I faced the butcher: I was carelessly rounding a corner in the basement of an old farmhouse and got absolutely demolished by his giant, hammer-like weapon in just a couple of smashes.We had to kite the behemoth to take him down, running away and taking quick pot shots whenever possible. The monsters offer up a decent challenge and are fun when when all of the elements work in tandem against you. But, as they stand, the boss monsters’ AI needs a lot of work. The butcher, for example, refuses to walk through doorways, so it’s extremely easy to exploit this by running outside and blasting him in the back as he walks away. Of course, this does then run the risk of exposing you to other players waiting for you to exit the building after this trick. But before you can fight a monster, you’ve got to track them down using your Dark Vision ability, which blacks out the world around you to illuminate a trail that leads to the nearest clue. (Naturally, with so many threats lurking, it’s extremely risky to leave this on longer than you absolutely have to.) Disappointingly, all of the clues are just blackish-blue pits that you hover your hands over for a few seconds before getting the trail for the next clue – effectively a simple pickup. In a sense, the word “clue” is a bit of an overstatement, but each one you find does narrow down the potential location of the monster. Once you locate the target, you have some important decisions to make. You can go in guns blazing if there aren’t too many enemies nearby or if you’ve got enough explosives and ammo to not care. Otherwise you’ll have to use stealth to stay hidden and carefully plan your approach to each encounter. This is where having a partner to help cover you really comes in handy. Few games offer the same sense of exhilaration and panic as a match nears its finale in Hunt. When you’ve finally downed one of the named beasts in a partially glitchy battle, you have to banish it to Hell, a ritual which takes time and notifies everyone on the map exactly where you are. Initiating the ritual will shift other players’ tracking senses to focus on your trail instead of the monster’s, and marks your location with a map marker. It’s a clever mechanic that completely flips around the hunting dynamic. You can no longer hide and you no longer have a target to hunt as you enter full-on escape mode, which totally changes the way you play. Few games offer the same sense of exhilaration and panic as a match nears its finale in Hunt. Whether you’re the hunter or the hunted, teamwork is crucial for covering each others’ backs. That makes playing solo incredibly difficult, to the point where Hunt is one of the few games that I actually preferred playing with a random (and often silent) partner to just going it alone. Loneliness makes Huntmore difficult, but it’s also boring since it can end up feeling like a shallow game of hide and sneak. With a partner, you’re at least emboldened to act more aggressively and decisively. The competitive side comes from the fact that you’re constantly racing against up to 11 other hunters (with a max total of 12 in a game) to find and kill the target. But it’s more than a deathmatch -- the temptation to shoot first and ask questions later is certainly there, but it can be more beneficial to stalk other players and let them do the dirty work of thinning out enemies themselves (and take some hits in the process) before you swoop in to finish off whoever wins. By mixing cooperative and competitive elements together, Hunt creates a frantic “kill or be killed” atmosphere that leads to some truly palpable moments of tension. My first encounter with another player was about as tense as you’d expect. My partner and I were crouched down in waist-deep swamp waters, peering at our enemy as he slowly crept around the backside of a barn. We snuck up behind him and I blasted him in the back of the head with my shotgun, killing him instantly – but we’d neglected to check our surroundings first, or we’d have noticed that the farm was full of horrifying zombie-dog creatures. Though that fight didn’t end well, I didn’t regret a single second of the overall experience. Matches typically only last for about 20 minutes, which is good because they can get boring if there is a shortage of action. You’ll spend the first five or so minutes sneaking around trying to make as little noise as possible, but that part of it just isn’t as engaging as it is in dedicated stealth games. There aren’t any specific mechanics or features that play to the stealth action -- it’s literally just large spaces with mostly oblivious AI wandering around. The introductory stealth environment felt like artificial padding to the lengthen matches where, in reality, getting straight to the action is where the game is most entertaining. Hunt is full of highs and lows without much in between. Eventually, every round in Hunt turns into a mad dash for the boss and the exit at the very end. Hunt is full of highs and lows without much in between. Part of that is due to the fact that even though it’s thematically consistent with the post-apocalyptic wasteland setting, the single map feels empty thanks to a lack of landmarks and interesting buildings. There’s barely any loot to find during matches other than ammo, which limits the desire to explore and scavenge, and the limited player count decreases the sense of mass desperation. In fact, you could play several games without ever seeing another player. Hunt does a lot of things that add much-needed terror to the genre, but it could stand to include more mechanics to funnel players together more regularly, too. Hunt’s setting may be a wasteland, but its environment and battle dynamics can frequently feel like one, too. Some bigger problems still need solutions, too. Chief among them: there’s nothing stopping players from skipping the hunt phase entirely and camping the extraction points -- which are always in the same location-- and waiting for someone else to kill the monster and try to escape with it. Or, more ambitiously, they can simply follow other players, let them kill the monster, and then pick them off while they’re weak to steal the reward for themselves. Getting the flow of those battles right is going to be a tricky balance to strike, and Crytek hasn’t quite found it yet. It’s simply too easy to get away with this kind of profitable murder. There are more delicate balancing issues at play. Unlike many other games of this nature, Hunt has real, tangible consequences for each death. The named hunter you were using, the guns you bought, the tools you equipped, all of his upgrades/perks, and all of his gear are lost when you die. (It’s sort of like if Escape From Tarkov and Evolve had a twisted, brutal little baby.) The only things that, mercifully, carry over are your experience points and profile level, which Hunt conveys with a bloodline system (suggesting that all of your hunters are from some sort of deranged monster-killing family). As your bloodline level increases, you unlock new tiers of gear -- like better guns, but those guns still cost money to acquire each time, and you also lose a bit of money when you die, so it all feeds back into itself. Getting the flow of those battles right is going to be a tricky balance to strike, and Crytek hasn’t quite found it yet. Thankfully, your persistent account accrues in-game money over the course of playing games and completing contracts that you can use to spend on recruiting new hunters, buying new gear, and purchasing incremental upgrades. Having more than one hunter at a time can be advantageous because it allows you to keep more than one geared up so that you don’t lose all of your progress – kind of like multiple save slots. Hunters are also assigned randomized traits when you recruit them, which could make them bandage faster (with the Physician trait) or sprint at full speed for longer (with the Greyhound trait), adding some variety to each playthrough. You’re never completely screwed: If you’re totally tapped out and can’t afford to recruit a new hunter, you can fall back on a zero-cost stand-in that you can use to try to gain back some funds. It’s a minor, but appreciated failsafe that ensures you won’t hit a brick wall of failure. That said, the first few matches for a new player in Hunt are so difficult, they can feel like a barbed-wire fence of failure. But considering how hard it is to come by new upgrades, it would be nice to have some way to try before you buy. Blowing a bunch of money on a gun only to realize you don’t even like it, or buying a gun and getting killed before you even get a shot off is immensely frustrating. Hunt has real, tangible consequences for each death. All things considered, Hunt is in a good place for an Early Access game, but there are a fair amount of caveats that go along with opting to play it at this stage. Crytek needs to do a lot of optimization work to get it running smoothly (I’ve got a GTX 980Ti, a beefy CPU, and plenty of RAM, but it still chugs and dropped frames at times) and to resolve incessant crashing issues. Matchmaking is hit or miss right now as well, as it sometimes takes upwards of five minutes to even be placed in a match. The controls are also surprisingly unintuitive. This is (for now) a PC-exclusive shooter, so I expected to shoot my gun with the left mouse button and aim down the sights with the right. Instead, by default, left mouse is a melee attack with your equipped weapon. To hip fire (meaning just a minor zoom with the on-screen reticle) you hold the right mouse; to aim down the sights you’ve got to also hold shift. You can tweak these key bindings in the settings to get it closer to the standard scheme, but it’s still a wonky setup to wrestle with at first. Verdict Hunt: Showdown’s clever competitive-cooperative twist makes it a distinctive and promising Early Access game. Between hunting down deadly monsters, creeping through dense forests, and trying not to be killed by rival hunters along the way, winning a match in Hunt feels like a legitimate accomplishment. Losing all of your gear upon death is a harsh consequence, but it’s a system that rewards dedication. Crytek’s managed to craft a palpably tense and terrifying shooter that’s equal parts survival and competition, but it still needs to solve the problems of players exploiting the system by camping on escape routes, an unreliable AI, and other, basic performance issues.

Game Informations : Developer: Hello games Publishers : Hello Games , Sony interactive Entertainment Platforms: PS4 , Xbox One , Microsoft Windows Initial release date: 2016 In 2019, No Man’s Sky is the water fight of games. When your water balloons are stacked high and your water gun is full it’s an absolute blast. But inevitably, you run out of liquid ammunition and have to pause for several minutes, soaking wet and shivering, while you operate a hose and refill your stores for the next round of fun. While the recent Beyond represents another significant step in the right direction for No Man’s Sky that improves itself in almost every area, the uninteresting harvesting and survival mechanics that underlie it all remain incredibly grindy and frequently mind-numbingly tedious. It often feels like it’s been made by two teams with opposing views on game design, who are each tugging at either side of it until eventually agreeing to meet in the middle or tear it in half.At its best, No Man’s Sky plays like an increasingly elaborate interstellar Animal Crossing. You travel the stars and visit strange, procedurally generated planets in a never-ending quest for loot and money to spend on upgrades for your survival suit and weapon, ships to pilot, rovers to drive, and bases to build. Every time you think you’ll log off for the night, another notification pops up that reminds you about that one last thing you really wanted to do, and before you can say “I need an intervention,” it’s 5 AM and you’re redecorating your fifth base on some remote world or taming a bizarre creature that looks like the lovechild of Big Bird and an octopus. it’s easy to appreciate the improvements and additions included in the Beyond update because they’re apparent as soon as you boot it up. Improved graphics highlight things like detail on your ships and a revamped tutorial and mission guidance system makes it much more clear what you should be working toward at any given time. Unlocking new technologies has been reimagined as skill trees that are easy to understand. And these are just a few of the highlights on the massive laundry list of things in the Beyond update that make No Man’s Sky vastly more interesting than it's ever been With Beyond, No Man’s Sky is vastly more interesting than it's ever been. but the same things that make playing No Man’s Sky a wonderful, habit-forming odyssey that would make Tom Nook proud often work against you -- like when you find yourself repeatedly grinding the same materials and crafting the same parts over and over again in an ongoing effort to fuel the numerous engines of interstellar life. You’ll spend tedious hours mining rocks to craft metal plates that you need to make starship engine fuel just so you can take off in your ship and see the still-impressive, completely seamless transition from ground to outer space and back again. And even though No Man’s Sky’s carrying limitations have been even further loosened with the Beyond update your inventory still fills up almost constantly, ensuring that the grind will never be defeated. With few ways to automate resource gathering, exploring the cosmos often takes a back seat to waiting for your mining laser to melt a tree into resources for minutes at a time. And, considering how central exploration is to No Man’s Sky’s appeal, it’s staggering just how many mechanics still seem dead set on preventing you from doing just that. Why are your sprint and jetpack capabilities meters so limited, and why does using them draw from your life support meter? Why does every language have to be learned one word at a time, meaning that even after dozens of hours of playing you still can’t really understand any of the alien races you encounter? Why, for the love of God, does every planet in the universe have violent weather events every couple of minutes that require you to shut yourself indoors or hide in a cave and wait out to survive? Time and time again, No Man Sky begs you to explore it but then (quite literally) forces you walk, not run. It’s odd that No Man’s Sky still has so many irritating elements, because it’s also very clearly aware that they exist and tries to smooth over the issues rather than simply fixing them. For example, combat remains as dull and repetitive as ever, so the appearance of hostile lifeforms and robotic sentinel space police has been reduced instead of trying to make fighting them more entertaining. Space dogfights also remain monotonous and overly simplistic in Beyond, and while controls seem to have improved and encounters don’t drag on as long, fighting off pirates is never more than an annoying interruption to your travels. Beyond brings NMS dangerously close to what we all thought it was when it was first revealed. And yet, there’s something truly special about No Man’s Sky after the Beyond update that brings it dangerously close to being what we all thought it was when it was first revealed years ago. Getting lost among the stars, seeing strange and unique creatures, and claiming a piece of the nigh-limitless galaxy for yourself by building a home are all rewarding and all but completely unique to No Man’s Sky. It’s hard not to fall in love with it in the brief pockets of time where it isn’t forcing you to beat your head against a wall for an hour while you search for a deposit of copper but the stupid Dr. Seuss planet you’re on has is uranium. In the course of my travels, I found myself stranded on a massive water planet filled with aggressive jellyfish, stared in awe at some bizarre life forms that were made up of levitating crystals, and explored the murky caves on an atmosphere-free moon. Of course, regardless of how they look every planet still has an identical loop of gathering materials, hiding from inevitable and frustrating storms of heat or ice or toxins, and maybe building a base or riding an animal or two along the way. But still there’s an undeniable rush of excitement in discovering and exploring a planet for the first time that doesn’t go away even after hours of play. Beyond also alters and consolidates No Man’s Sky’s three main storylines into a more cohesive set of quests that intertwine, and they are much more accessible for it. One of the best-kept secrets of No Man’s Sky is that the story is actually fairly complex, with twists and turns that even go so far as to explain the reason behind the universe’s existence. But frankly, the vehicle by which the story is told – an endless chain of fetch quests and vague conversations with generic NPCs – makes the whole thing not at all worth the effort. Your time is better spent doing the things that are entertaining to you, finding your way to the end of the main quest lines only if you manage to find joy in doing so. (Or, y’know, YouTube exists.) Multiplayer features have been drastically improved with Beyond, though it still falls far short of today’s standards in many ways – especially where organization is concerned. The Anomaly space station is now a social hub that allows you to encounter other players organically rather than by invite or chance (though doing so is still quite rare), and together you can undertake short group missions via The Nexus or even visit one another’s bases by stepping through a massive teleporter. The number of players in a single instance has been bumped up from four to eight on consoles and up to 32 on PC, but actually organizing activities together can be a bit of a nightmare. For starters, you’re given very few tools to find one another in the expansive galaxy, and unless everyone is communicating and staying together it’s easy to get lost or left behind with no easy way to rejoin your friends. If you find yourself without the required materials to launch or pilot your ship when everybody else takes off, for example, you’ll either get left behind by your friends or will hold up the group while you go shoot a laser at some plants for a few minutes. Sharing resources with one another is still, sadly and inexplicably, not an option. Correction: you can share resources. Most of the major and strange multiplayer glitches from last year’s NEXT update (in hindsight, a very funny name now that it’s the previous one) have been ironed out, though you’ll probably still encounter the odd bug now and again. I had incidents where my partner couldn’t see the enemies attacking me, or animation issues making it unclear when one of us was firing our mining laser. Playing with others makes the grind of No Man’s Sky much more bearable, but oftentimes because having someone to share in your pain can be really cathartic. Verdict No Man’s Sky, now in its third year, has vastly improved in virtually every way, from the number and scale of things you can build alone or with friends to the story and progression. But in its heart still beats a vicious grind and painful monotony that’s difficult to swallow even with all the new content and quality-of-life improvements. Even so, it’s easy to be drawn to its addictive ecosystem of upgrades and exploration, and with functional multiplayer and VR capabilities in play there’s a lot to love about this space-faring exploration adventure.

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