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Assassin's Creed: Revelations Review

Ezio and Altair make graceful exits in Assassin's Creed: Revelations, another great historical adventure.

Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC Games)

Star Wars: The Old Republic isn't the next step in online role-playing games. Instead, it's a highly entertaining refinement of what has come before it.

Armageddon asquadron

this is one of the best polarbit game that a s60v5 phone can have enjoy this game its an accleratometer game so a little tricky in bigining but will get use throug soon.

Smart Movie v4.15

this is completely signed, just install the sis file and your ready to go.

Ski Challenge 12 Version: 1.0

With Ski Challenge 12 you can take part in exciting, virtual skiing races, in which you can test yourself directly against fellow gamers.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 PlayStation3

Final Fantasy XIII-2 doesn't capture Lightning in a bottle, but it's still a fun and heartfelt role-playing adventure.

23 December 2011

FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction Review

The Good

  • Intense, high-speed demolition racing  
  • Numerous play modes  
  • Large selection of crazy vehicles to unlock.   

The Bad

  • Steep difficulty and aggressive AI hampers early races  
  • Main racing mode gets off to a rough start  
  • Cars are too easily sent out of control during collision. 




Larger races breed chaos and pileups.
Larger races breed chaos and pileups.
There's something infinitely satisfying about causing a 15-car pileup at 80mph that produces fiery explosions, sends twisted scrap metal rocketing in all directions, and flings drivers through the air like rag dolls. The FlatOut series has never been much for realism and instead has favored physics-heavy vehicular carnage at high speeds. And that's exactly what you find in FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction--only it's amped up to the third degree. True to its name, this arcade-style demolition racer is over the top in every way. Slamming into rival cars and smashing through the scenery en route to the finish line is packed with adrenaline-pumping thrills, yet all the chaotic fun unravels when it starts to get in the way of achieving the staunch precision that's needed to win races and progress. 



Without any kind of campaign or story to speak of, FlatOut 3's main racing mode seems the most obvious choice for diving into the gameplay. What's mind boggling is it's the least accessible place to start. Here, you're meant to work your way through small groupings of tracks, unlocking new courses and cars as you progress from one location to the next. It's all very straightforward. But the meager selection of cars available from the get-go is wildly unbalanced, and none of them are a good fit for the surprisingly demanding first few courses available. You're either able to steer well but are prone to exploding at the slightest touch or built like a tank but about as maneuverable as an aircraft carrier.
Tuning up the cars doesn't help much either. There's nothing in between "flimsy toy car" and "clunky tank" at first, and it makes muscling through the early stretches of the main racing mode an exercise in sheer aggravation. It can take an awfully long period of teeth-clenching frustration to make it through the first small track only to discover you have to start over because you didn't rank in first place out of the 15 psychotic drivers. After spending time in the game's other play modes--which range in difficulty from being equally unforgiving to downright easy--unlocking new vehicles with better handling makes returning to the main game a lot more reasonable, but that's not the end of FlatOut 3's woes.
A big issue is the large number of racers on the track at a given time and their asinine level of aggressiveness. FlatOut 3's demolition aspect is great fun when you're in the mood to smash things up. It's not so hot when you're trying to win a race. Even the better rides have a floaty feel to them, and the slightest bump from a nearby car at any speed can send you spinning out of control or flying end over end into the scenery. If you don't explode outright and get forced to restart the course, recovery is still slow enough that it botches your chances of getting back into the race most of the time. On their least-aggressive setting, AI opponents seem more interested in slamming into you or one another than actually racing. On their highest setting, it's nearly impossible to stay on the road. This produces spectacular wipeouts and ridiculous pileups that are awesome to watch unfold but are frustrating because they tend to ruin the race.
The tracks are nicely varied, elaborately designed, and beautifully depicted at times, yet they too seem custom crafted for maximum frustration. You can plow through explosive barrels, debris, fences, and many other obstacles with destructive ease, but tiny saplings will stop you like a brick wall. Some courses throw other impassible hazards at you as well, placing them in the worst, most unavoidable spots to spur maximum vehicular annihilation. Adding that to the questionable driving skills and apparent road rage of your opponents yields a combination that makes it tough to enjoy the fast-paced racing action because you spend more time stuck on the scenery or upside down on fire than burning rubber the normal way. The unavoidable, constant crashing and restarting gets old quick. 



Expect to see this sight often early on.


If you dial back the number of racers to a more manageable number, trim down the number of laps, and adjust the aggressiveness to a lighter setting, FlatOut 3 becomes more playable. Beyond the main racing gameplay, there are numerous other modes to explore, though they vary in quality. Some options, like a linear Challenge mode, a tougher night-racing mode featuring limited visibility and inclement weather, and a fun-but-short series of open off-road maps, aren't that entertaining beyond the first few tries. Other modes, like new monster truck courses and the returning Stuntman mode that has you smashing your car to rag doll your driver through the air at a target, have more staying power. And when you can find a match, playing multiplayer against other folks online in arena battles and demolition derbies is a great way to blow off steam.
FlatOut 3's attention to destructive detail is commendable, but it overshadows the racing aspect to the point that it threatens to derail the gameplay altogether. Loose and explosive wins out over tight and controlled throughout many facets of the game design, and the chaos it creates doesn't always make for an enjoyable experience. It's not that the game doesn't have nuggets of fun hidden in its debris-strewn tracks; you just have to work way too hard to find them.

22 December 2011

How To Install Software on Android Devices



 Here is a step by step guide on installing apps

1. Download the app.
2. Transfer the app to your phone and place in a folder you will remember placing it in on your SD Card (Skip this step if using you Android to download).
3. Go to the Market (on your Android) and search for Astro. ( information about Astro below )
4. Download Astro File Manager (its free).
5. Once installed open Astro.
6. Go to the folder you put the application in (if you downloaded from you Android it will be the folder call "download" or "downloads").
7. Click the app once (a Pop Up should appear) and choose open app manager (or words to that effect).
8. Click install once (you may get a Pop Up saying its blocked from installing just go to the settings and check the "Unknown Applications").

If you get a file with the app name and a extension that's like app name here.txt just use Astro and rename it to app name here.apk and do steps 7 and 8.

ASTRO File Manager v2.5.2 

 Features: File Manager, Backup, Image and text viewers, Networking, SMB, Bluetooth, SFTP, Zip Tar, downloader, thumbnails, search files, application manager, task manager, attachments

More Info:

Download Instructions: Use pro key for ads free
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Pro Key :
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Attached Files Attached Files

 

21 December 2011

Batman: Arkham City Review

Batman: Arkham City's irresistible world, joyous movement, rewarding combat, and varied side quests make it an exceptional adventure game.


The Good

  • Atmospheric, fascinating world rich with details and secrets  
  • Satisfying, varied, hard-hitting combat  
  • Grappling and soaring around the city is thrilling  
  • Great assortment of involving side quests  
  • Makes terrific use of a host of Batman characters.

The Bad

  • Boss fights are too easy.
Gotham City. This crime-infested metropolis has been famously imagined and reimagined in comic books, cartoons, and films. Now, we have a new vision of Gotham, and it stands not just as one of the most unforgettable incarnations ever of the city that Batman is devoted to protecting, but as one of the most richly detailed and exciting environments ever seen in a game. Building on 2009's outstanding Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City sets you free in the intoxicating neighborhood of North Gotham, now a sealed-off superprison for the city's worst criminals. As the Caped Crusader, you struggle to bring some semblance of order to the chaotic streets, foiling the plots of supervillains and protecting the victims of those who prey on the innocent. With its atmospheric setting, thrilling movement, immensely satisfying combat, and tremendous assortment of secrets to discover, side quests to complete, and other attractions, Arkham City is a fantastic adventure game. 

Welcome to Arkham City.

It's winter in Gotham City, but the streets of the part of town now known as Arkham seem particularly cold. Snow falls on the criminals who roam this place, making the asphalt shimmer with reflections of the neon signs advertising shuttered shops that once upon a time bustled with business. Gotham faced a prison crisis in the wake of the events of Arkham Asylum, and certain unscrupulous characters took advantage of the situation by acquiring the run-down neighborhood of North Gotham, walling it off from the rest of the city, and tossing the criminals in there to fend for themselves. It's an inhumane and immoral operation; food and warmth are scarce, and some inmates are people whose only crime was voicing a negative opinion of Arkham City and those who run it. 

But their misfortune is your gain. The area of several city blocks that makes up the superprison isn't especially vast as open worlds go, but what it lacks in scale, it more than makes up for in atmospheric detail. Arkham City is home to an old courthouse, a former police headquarters, a musty museum, a disused subway terminal, and other fascinating places. These structures, with their faded portraits, old billboards, and plentiful other features, convey a sense of history. The exceptional art design draws on 1930s art deco and makes Gotham seem like a once elegant and shining city that has fallen into darkness. It's clearly a work of imagination, but as you explore it, its richness pulls you in, and it becomes a world you can't help but believe in. 

Batman has no choice but to explore the alleyways and underground tunnels of North Gotham. Within the prison's walls, Joker is dying, and the villain's schemes force the Dark Knight to help him find a cure. That quest brings Batman into contact with the Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and numerous other members of Batman's rogues' gallery. Each character is represented terrifically, with plenty of nods to their histories as established in the comics, and part of the fun of progressing through the story lies in seeing what character might make an appearance next. The excellent Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprise their roles as Batman and the Joker, heading up an ensemble of voice actors who never miss a beat. 

That smile can't hide the fact that clownface is about to be in a world of hurt.

Also returning from Arkham Asylum is that game's accessible and satisfying combat system. At its core, it's quite simple: one button performs your attacks, while another counters enemy attacks. The combat rewards good timing, and when you get into the rhythm of battle, chaining your attacks together and turning your enemies' attacks against them, it's deeply absorbing. It's also as graceful as it is brutal, making it a joy to behold. The varied attack animations make most tussles look as if they might work as choreographed fight sequences in a movie. In response to your inputs, Batman might simultaneously counter two attackers with a single impressive move, or take advantage of a convenient surface and slam a thug's head against it. As you progress, you encounter enemies equipped with things that make taking them down more complicated. Guards with stun batons can be attacked only from behind; enemies with shields require the use of an aerial attack; and foes with body armor can be injured only with a rapid-fire punch attack called the beat down. It's especially satisfying to defeat large, diverse groups of enemies against whom you must use a variety of techniques. Zoomed-in camera angles that give you a close look at moves that finish off a battle add impact to your attacks and make your triumphs all the more rewarding. 

Batman's assortment of gadgets plays a bigger role in combat than it did before. In Arkham Asylum, you could throw batarangs and keep your combo going; here, you can quickly fire off many of your wonderful toys in the heat of battle. A blast from your remote electric charge device can make an enemy involuntarily swing his hammer at surrounding thugs, and a quick placement and detonation of explosive gel can knock nearby foes off their feet. The variety of "quickfire" gadget options and other special moves that Batman has at his disposal can actually be overwhelming, and you may occasionally find yourself pressing the button combination for one gadget when you want to use another. But the game does an excellent job of easing you into the finer points of the combat system, displaying button prompts when you have a good opportunity to use a particular technique. And if you don't quite grasp a move the first time, you can go into your upgrade menu and re-enable its tutorial for a refresher. The addition of quickfire gadgets gives you a number of new options, and skilled players can benefit a great deal from the smart use of these techniques, but you never need to rely on these abilities. If you prefer to keep things simple, you can certainly get by relying primarily on your fists. 

Detective mode shows you which thugs made the mistake of bringing guns to a batfight.

Of course, thugs with shields, blades, and body armor are one thing; enemies with guns are something else entirely. Batman is tough, but far from invulnerable, and when faced with such firepower, it's time for him to rely on stealth. As in Arkham Asylum, you sometimes find yourself needing to take out rooms of gun-wielding enemies, and all of Batman's techniques from that game are still every bit as fun to use. Sneak up on an enemy from behind and you can take him down silently. By hanging from a gargoyle, you can ensnare an unsuspecting enemy below with an inverted takedown. Your detective vision gives you an edge, letting you see the positions of enemies patrolling the room through walls and floors. And Batman has a few new tricks up his sleeve. When spotted, you can toss a smoke pellet, aiding your escape and possibly leading confused enemies to accidentally attack each other. And you eventually acquire a new gadget that's great fun in these situations: the disruptor, which lets you can remotely disable a thug's gun. It's especially satisfying to do so, then jump down in front of him and watch as he attempts to shoot you, and then knock his lights out. The disruptor's use is limited, so you can't overdo it, but it's a great new addition to Batman's arsenal. The excellent sound design adds tension to these stealthy standoffs, with bad guys becoming increasingly frightened as you pick off their buddies one by one. 

As you win battles, you earn experience points and periodically level up, which lets you upgrade your suit, gadgets, and combat skills. These upgrades have a real impact on gameplay and create a rewarding sense of growth as you advance through the game. Purchasing the batclaw disarm move, for instance, lets you yank weapons from enemies' hands, while the critical strikes upgrade rewards precise timing in battle with more powerful attacks that let you build up to special combo moves more rapidly. There are an impressive number of upgrade options to choose from, and you'll probably still be leveling up and unlocking upgrades well after finishing the main story. 

It's not all about combat in Arkham City, though. Far from it. One of the greatest joys of the game is the act of moving around its open world. The grapnel gun made getting around enjoyable in Arkham Asylum, but Arkham City, with its numerous buildings to grapple onto and soar off of, is a veritable playground. You can zip up to ledges and rooftops with the push of a button, and you can leap off these surfaces as well, using your cape to glide through the air. Once you get the hang of generating momentum with your dive-bomb move, you can soar through the city, diving and climbing like a roller coaster. It's an exhilarating way to travel. And if, as you're flying high above the streets, you spot a group of thugs and fancy a fight, it's easy to plummet straight down and plant your boot in a goon's face.


Ah, the old 'remote control batarang to the back' trick.

Arkham City also acknowledges that Batman's brains are at least on par with his brawn. Occasional clever environmental puzzles, such as a situation involving a pool of water covered in thin ice, frozen cops who need to be saved, and a giant, deadly shark, require you to make smart use of your gadgets. More significantly, the Riddler returns to torment Batman, and he has stepped up his game considerably. As in Arkham Asylum, Riddler trophies have been placed throughout Arkham City. Some of these collectibles have been hidden in the city's nooks and crannies, and if you locate them, you can simply pick them up. However, in many cases, the trick is not locating them, but figuring out how to get them. There are Riddler trophies in plain view all over Arkham City, but they're enclosed in cages, and to retrieve one of these, you must figure out how the mechanism for that particular cage works. There might be a series of switches on a nearby wall that need to be triggered in a particular order. Or it may be a test of agility, with a switch that opens a gate some distance away that you have only a short time to reach before it closes. Some of these puzzles are surprisingly tricky, but there's always a discernible logic that makes working out the solutions rewarding. And in a nice touch, you can mark the location of trophies on your map so that if you can't figure out how to get one at the time, you can easily come back to it later.

In addition to his trophies, the Riddler has a new set of environmental riddles for you to solve. Some of these take the form of questions or statements, such as "Do you have Strange thoughts? Maybe you should seek help?" and "I am an actor who can transform a film with the final cut. Who am I?" Answering these requires you to locate the sign, storefront, or other environmental detail that contains the answer. The richness of the world already makes exploring it a pleasure; tracking down these solutions makes doing so even more engaging. Each of these that you solve unlocks an Arkham City story, which offers some textual background on the people associated with that particular riddle, deepening the neighborhood's sense of history. The Riddler's perspective puzzles also make a comeback. These are question marks painted in the environment that need to be viewed from just the right place to appear correctly. Working out the proper vantage point from which to solve these puzzles is as enjoyable as ever.

Solving these conundrums doesn't just reward you with a job well done. This time around, the Riddler has kidnapped hostages and placed them in riddle rooms throughout Arkham City, and the only way to get the locations of these rooms is by completing enough of the Riddler's challenges. And this is just one of the numerous side quests you have the option of pursuing or ignoring during your time in Arkham City. You'll almost certainly want to complete many of these, though. These engrossing quests often make great use of villains from the Batman comics who don't play a role in the main quest, and they have their own story arcs that are worth seeing through. They're also fun to play. There are strings of murders to investigate that have you analyzing crime scenes, following bullet trajectories and trails of blood. There's a madman who forces you to race across town to answer ringing pay phones before time runs out and he kills a hostage. There are innocent political prisoners who need your help. And much more.


Many Riddler trophies are easy to locate, but not so easy to collect.

If you buy the game new, you receive a code that gives you access to Catwoman. (If you don't have the code, you can purchase one in the game's online store.) If you have this content loaded onto your console, the story will occasionally switch to Catwoman. The paths of the two characters occasionally intersect, and if you have the Catwoman content, her occasional interludes offer some illumination on how she gets into the situations in which you encounter her as Batman. Playing as Catwoman is enjoyable; she has just enough abilities that are unique to her to make her feel distinct from Batman, while controlling similarly enough to feel immediately familiar. She can cling to certain ceilings and use her claws to scale walls, and her caltrops and bolas can be used in combat to trip and immobilize enemies. You spend only a short time playing as her during the main story, but once that's complete, you can switch between Batman and Catwoman at any time, and she has her own objectives and challenges to complete, and her own set of Riddler trophies to collect.

Once you complete the main story, you unlock the new game plus option, which lets you carry over your upgrades but also makes your life more difficult; you have to do without the helpful lines that appear in combat informing you that an enemy is about to strike. But once you've spent that much time with the game, you'll likely be ready for this challenge. And, as in Arkham Asylum, there are a host of challenge rooms that test your skills both in all-out combat and in stealth situations. Some challenges take the form of small campaigns that alternate between combat and stealth scenarios. Each campaign assigns you an assortment of modifiers and requires you to use each of them once. One modifier might benefit you, perhaps giving you regenerating health, while another might benefit your enemies, perhaps giving one a protective aura that prevents him from taking damage. These modifiers, and the tactical process of applying the detrimental ones to the easier scenarios and the beneficial ones to those scenarios you might have a tougher time with, make these campaigns feel distinctly different from the encounters you have during the story.


Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched?

But more than anything else, it's your adventures and explorations in the city of Arkham itself that make this game extraordinary. The game's boss fights look dangerous and spectacular, but they're disappointingly easy, and on occasion, context-sensitive actions may thwart your efforts. You might intend to evade an enemy attack, for instance, but instead your button press makes Batman slowly disable some device as bullets are shredding your health. But these criticisms are nitpicks in a game that does so much so well. From the speedy exhilaration of soaring high above the streets to the atmospheric thrill of discovering long-forgotten secrets in the tunnels below Gotham, this is an unforgettable adventure that will keep you coming back to the cape and cowl long after you've seen the credits roll.

10 December 2011

Trine 2 Review

Trine 2 is a charming fantasy platformer with dazzling good looks and fun physics puzzles.


The Good

  • Gorgeous visuals  
  • Fun, open-ended physics puzzles  
  • Smooth, accessible platforming  
  • Fun co-op, online and off. 

The Bad

  • Unremarkable story. 
 With the wholesome appeal of a fairy tale, Trine 2 is unapologetically packed with comfortable tropes. Like the first game, it stars a trio of classic fantasy heroes: a merry knight, a sly thief, and a nervy wizard. Their adventure bustles them through ye olde tale of rescue the princess--via enchanted forest and murky cavern, wherein they thrash goblins and giant spiders. But out of that conventional premise, the game conjures a gorgeous and gratifying platform puzzler. 


Trine 2's environments could have been lifted off the screen of a latter-day Fantasia or from the pages of a particularly lovely storybook. Deep, richly detailed levels pop with lively, luminous color. The forest is home to luscious glowing foliage and glistening colossal snails. Gloomier levels house oversized spiders, animated with skin-crawling authenticity. One level, taking in sunset on a tropical beach, is stop-and-stare beautiful.
Each hero has a simple, distinct set of powers. The knight has a sword and shield for fighting, as well as a warhammer for smashing obstacles; the thief has a grappling hook, along with a bow and arrow; and the wizard can levitate items and summon boxes or planks from thin air. In single-player mode, only one hero appears onscreen, but you can instantly flip between them to access the powers demanded by the task at hand.
The wizard's conjuring powers make him the best suited for solving a puzzle on your own. Though the basic platforming is smooth and accessible, with combat that is brisk and straightforward, the heart of the action is physics-based puzzling. At its simplest, this means constructing a ramp from crates, while more complex challenges have you reroute steam jets by hovering segments of pipe into place. In others, you channel water onto the roots of plants that shoot up, magic beanstalk-like, to create leafy new platforms on which to hop. New elements such as movable portals, waterwheels, and lava streams come thick and fast, in addition to memorable one-offs, such as a house-sized frog that lassoes giant fruit with its tongue



Toasty!

Though many of the puzzles suggest single, efficient solutions right off the bat, some of the best fun is to be had experimenting with the physics and looking for less-obvious solutions. Trine 2's physics engine is robust and fine tuned, and noodling about with it is engrossing in its own right. The game is generously rigged to allow for the guilty pleasure of fudging a solution when the elegant answer is out of reach; teetering structures of magic planks can be used to bypass clever gate mechanisms altogether or the same planks can be jammed gracelessly into the gears.
Trine 2 prefers to keep you moving briskly along to holding you up with a real brainteaser. There's even an optional hint system that kicks in after a few minutes of head scratching. It amounts to a friendly game but not an overly easy one; there are much trickier secrets to be found and collectable experience orbs in hard-to-reach spots, with the latter feeding into a simple set of talent trees. For instance, as you level up, the thief can upgrade to fire or ice arrows, the knight can upgrade to a charging shield bash, and the wizard can learn to materialize more boxes at once.
In local multiplayer, or in the online multiplayer that's new to this sequel, your two co-op companions play the other two characters. This lets you combine powers rather than flit between them, although hero swapping on the fly is also permitted. Combining powers opens up new avenues of sandbox tinkering; the wizard can float other party members on a conjured plank platform or hang a goblin harmlessly in midair for the thief to skewer with arrows. For maximum sandbox tomfoolery, there's also an unlimited mode, in which any combination of hero characters is allowed. 


Seaside questing.

The storybook-style narration is genteel, and the heroes are amiably voiced. The music is rousing, too. Here, as with story and setting, Trine 2 cleaves comfortably to the genre, with all of the cheery piping of a high-class Renaissance fair. If you bypass secrets and ignore experience orbs, you can breeze through a single-player campaign in six hours or so. Although Trine 2 wouldn't outstay its welcome at twice that length, it's no raw deal, given the modest pricing ($15 or £12). This Trine follow-up is a more complete, refined work than its predecessor, and those who didn't catch the original are in for a real treat.

25 November 2011

The King of Fighters XIII Review

From the ashes of its predecessor, The King of Fighters XIII rises to restore the series to its rightful place in the fighting genre spotlight.


The Good

  • Fluid and flexible fighting mechanics  
  • Impressive visuals and smooth animations  
  • Stable online play with replay support  
  • Numerous offline offerings  
  • Character color customization.

The Bad

  • Online spectating isn't an option  
  • Lacks replay sharing. 


When we last left The King of Fighters, things weren't looking good. The King of Fighters XII, which was released in 2009, looked beautiful and had a solid fighting system, but its dearth of single-player content and busted online functionally killed it for many players. Now, The King of Fighters XIII is here, and it addresses all of the issues the previous installment faced. XIII is an immensely robust game that adds a lot a new content to XII's solid mechanics, and it easily earns this series the right to stand alongside other fighting giants in the genre's spotlight.

This gameplay montage gives you a taste of the fireworks show that is KOF XIII.

As with its predecessors, The King of Fighters XIII features one-on-one fighting between two three-person teams. When one fighter goes down, the next is subbed in--after a brief but frequent loading screen--until one side's team is exhausted. In the ring, gameplay feels similar to Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition. Though quicker than Third Strike, XIII shares the same fundamentals of smart positioning and timing. Positioning comes from proficiency with the game's movement options. With four types of jumps and a roll that can pass through anything but throws, it takes practice to navigate the battlefield quickly and efficiently.
When used well, these movement techniques make you feel nimble and keep the action focused on offense. You always want to be building momentum with fancy footwork and calculated strikes. But even at its most chaotic, the game still allows you time to think. There's a satisfying tension in planning your next strike or in deciding how to break the enemy's stride. XIII has its own rules of engagement, and understanding these rules--and when to break them--lets the game's personality shine. As with any strong fighter, the ebb and flow of advanced play is as much about strategy as it is about execution.

There are three main gauges to manage in the game: power, hyperdrive, and guard. In broad strokes, the power gauge focuses on offense; it is used for enhancing special attacks and desperation moves. Next, the hyperdrive gauge is for being stylish. You can burn this meter to cancel certain special attacks into others or activate hyperdrive mode. In this mode, your character can link together moves and build combos that aren't otherwise possible. Finally, the guard gauge depletes as you block attacks. If you let it run out, your character enters a vulnerable crumple state--so be careful.


No tagging or assist attacks here; just a good old-fashioned ninja-on-child beatdown.

The entire system feels very flexible. Each character has the tools for building devastating combos and quickly navigating the field. This uniform character design also carries over to vitality. Unlike in many fighting games, characters in XIII have the same amount of health, which means an attack will deal the same amount of damage no matter whom it hits. Each character's health gauge is broken down into sections for additional clarity. Once you learn how many sections a certain combo shaves off, it's easy to see when to cash it in and finish the match.

You can test your skills in Story mode, though if you're not familiar with Elisabeth Blanctorche, Ash Crimson, or why that one guy from Fatal Fury is here, then you're going to feel a little lost. This mode lasts only a few hours, but it has multiple routes and endings. Once "completed," a massive storyboard becomes available. From there, you can revisit different points in the tale and select alternate routes through it. There's also an Arcade mode that's heavier on the action and is where you can unlock the game's two secret characters.

For new players, the game has various teaching tools designed to introduce the basics. The tutorial and mission modes do a fine job of this, but they don't explain why these moves are important. Knowing the tactical merits of a hop versus a hyperjump is just as vital as their execution. This problem not only exists in XIII, but also in fighting games in general. For combo training, XIII's combo trials are well implemented. They display their inputs clearly, as well as feature demonstrations to aid execution and timing. In addition, characters have their own Time Trial and Survival modes to further hone your skills.

All of this preparation would be for naught if it didn't support a solid online offering. Thankfully, XIII does not repeat XII's mistakes. It offers an online experience that's smooth and stable, provided you find an opponent in the three-to-four green-bar range. If you fall below that, you'll encounter noticeable (though not unplayable) performance dips. When you finish, you can choose to save that match's replay for future viewing. While it's a nice touch, there is not a system in place for sharing or viewing other's replays. Sadly, Spectator mode is also absent in online play, which leads to a lot of bored players during group games.


After countless trials, Leona has successfully weaponized the high five.

Whether you're online or off, the game's presentation is simply gorgeous. The 2D character sprites fill up the screen with astonishing detail, such as the way their clothing flutters. The numerous stages are equally impressive--and infinitely more detailed--featuring hordes of overly excited spectators or a pack of elephants encircling the ring. There's even a color edit mode where you can alter your fighter's color scheme to your liking. All of these features, combined with the tightly balanced fighting mechanics, make The King of Fighters XIII a fantastic game that can easily go toe-to-toe with the heavy hitters in the fighting game genre.


24 November 2011

L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition Review

L.A. Noire's absorbing investigations and intoxicating sense of style make it an unforgettable journey through the seamy side of the City of Angels.


The Good

  • Authentic and outstanding 1940's style and atmosphere  
  • Solid performances and good use of motion capture  
  • Compelling investigation and interrogation mechanics  
  • Memorable noir story  
  • Some great shoot-outs and action sequences that make use of real LA locations.

The Bad

  • Early investigations are very limited  
  • Disconnection between cases leads to jarring moments  
  • Some restrictions during pursuits and shoot-outs feel artificial. 

What awaits Cole Phelps at the next crime scene? Will it be a couple of hopheads who overdosed on morphine and are now on the midnight train to nowhere? Or maybe a young lady whose dreams of Hollywood stardom were chewed up and spit out by the studios and who now lies naked in a park, the victim of a brutal murder? L.A. Noire confronts you with these sad situations and many more. Inspired by film noir classics and hardboiled crime fiction, this tale of a complicated and troubled cop in postwar Los Angeles makes the business of detective work absorbing and rewarding, and it's drenched in so much authentic late-'40s style that you'll practically be able to smell the acrid mix of glamour and corruption in the air. This PC release comes complete with the five cases that were released as downloadable content on consoles, making it the best version of L.A. Noire you can buy. 


Billboards and neon signs are just a few of the details that help create L.A. Noire's authentic period atmosphere.

The City of Angels is one of the stars of L.A. Noire, and it gets the red-carpet treatment here. The game re-creates a vast swath of the city circa 1947; though it's by no means accurate down to the tiniest detail, those who know Los Angeles will appreciate the tremendous amount of research that clearly went into designing this version of it. (You expect to see the historic Egyptian Theatre in its proper place on Hollywood Boulevard, for instance, but seeing the Pig 'N Whistle right next to it, which has been there since 1927, is impressive.) Your journey takes you from filthy flophouses and hobo camps to elegant mansions and the sleek, modern offices of a company that's shaping the development of postwar Los Angeles. The architecture, which includes cookie-cutter housing developments that are springing up in droves to capitalize on the return of soldiers from the war, as well as jazz clubs where cops and gangsters alike relax after night falls, is authentic and makes this Los Angeles an absorbing and immersive place.
And it's not just these big things that the game gets right. As a detective, your work investigating crime scenes is often about the smallest details, and the richness of these details in L.A. Noire makes rummaging around grisly crime scenes and perusing the personal effects of victims a compelling process. The homes of murder victims feel lived in as a result of pictures on the walls, notes pinned on refrigerators, and clothing tossed on the floor and forgotten. Pick up an official document while rummaging through some files and you'll see that it looks genuine right down to the fine print. This attention to detail makes the often unsavory business of being a detective deeply absorbing. On top of this, the period fashions, actual automobiles, and music of the era--along with a score that evokes the style of some of the great composers of film noir--weave an intoxicating spell that's sure to stir the heart of anyone with a fondness for 1940's style. The art direction that pervades every aspect of L.A. Noire is simply outstanding, and it's a huge part of what makes this game such a memorable experience. And if you want the game to look more like Out of the Past than Chinatown, there's an option to play in crystal-clear black and white. 


In a moment, that criminal's blood will be painting the pillar behind him.
 
But all that attention to detail wouldn't amount to much if it weren't in the service of a game that was worthy of it. Thankfully, L.A. Noire is worthy. You play as Cole Phelps, a young veteran of World War II who enlists in the L.A.P.D. in 1947. Phelps is played by Aaron Staton, best known for his role on Mad Men, and thanks to L.A. Noire's use of an impressive motion capture technology, his performance goes far beyond voice acting. Phelps' face is Staton's face, and while motion scanning doesn't quite capture all the soul of an actor's performance, it nonetheless allows for a great deal of the subtlety of that performance to come through. It may take a bit of adjustment, seeing almost-but-not-quite-real faces on these characters, and there's sometimes a bit of a blurriness around the lips that can be distracting. But for the most part, it's very effective, allowing for rich and nuanced performances that seem to fully inhabit the world of the game. And this isn't just for show. The story of L.A. Noire hits harder because its characters look and sound so believable. Phelps' commanding officer Captain Donnelly has a passion for swift, merciless justice and a preacher's gift for oratory, while the weathered face of Herschel Biggs, one of many partners you have throughout the game, speaks volumes about his years on the force. The performances have a concrete impact on gameplay, too. When you're interrogating a suspect or questioning a witness, it's the facial expressions of a real person that you're reading when determining what approach to take.
You start out playing Phelps as a newly recruited uniformed officer. When a call comes in over the radio that a few homicide detectives need some assistance, you make your way to the crime scene and get your first crack at investigation. While investigating, you move Phelps around the environment and look for clues. Of course, not everything in any given location is going to be relevant to your investigation, and at first, the process can feel a bit silly. You might pick up empty beer bottles, hairbrushes, rolling pins, and other meaningless stuff, making Phelps move them around in his hand as if they might conceal vast significance while he mutters to himself (and to you) that these particular items have no bearing on the case. But as you progress, you develop a sharper eye for what things in an environment might be relevant. By default, the game indicates that you're near something you can examine with chimes (and controller vibration, if you're using a gamepad), but with this option turned on, investigations often boil down to just walking Phelps over every inch of an area, waiting for those indicators to go off. Turning these off makes investigation far more involving and encourages you to carefully study the environment looking for anything that might give you insight into the case. You still know when you've found everything important in a given location because the investigation music fades out, though if you like, you can also turn this indicator off.
Phelps goes above and beyond the call of duty to close this first case himself, but it's not out of a selfless wish to protect and serve. He has a cold ambition to rise up the ranks in the department, and it's not long before his drive pays off politically. This determination also isolates him from his fellow cops and makes him a bit hard to root for initially, but this only makes him a better noir protagonist. He's a deeply flawed hero, and as the game progresses, you learn more about the experiences that turned him into the man he is today, and he develops in some fascinating ways as the narrative approaches its powerful conclusion. It takes quite a while for the story to build up steam, but the excitement of the later chapters makes the more deliberate pace of what came before well worth it. And you don't need to be a fan of film noir and hardboiled crime fiction to appreciate this tale, but if you are, you may take particular pleasure in the inspiration L.A. Noire takes from many terrific sources. (James Ellroy's bloody epic L.A. Confidential is a particularly clear influence.) 


Another poor sap meets a violent end in the City of Angels.


As Phelps makes a name for himself in the department, he's called upon to start heading investigations himself, and that means questioning witnesses and interrogating suspects. During interrogations, you select something to question the witness or suspect about from a list in your notebook. (This is partly why thorough investigation of a crime scene is important; if you miss an important clue, you won't be able to ask people about it, which may prevent you from getting vital information.) Once the person responds to your question, you have three choices. If you believe the person is being honest and forthright with you, you can select Truth, which results in Phelps responding positively to the witness or suspect and coaxing more information out of him or her. If you think a person is being less than entirely honest, you can select Doubt, which often translates into "press the witness or suspect harder," and if your instincts are correct, this generally results in the suspect giving up something useful. But if your instincts are wrong and the person was cooperating, this approach results in him or her reacting negatively, which gives you nothing. Finally, if you think the person is lying to you and you have a piece of evidence that proves it, you can select Lie. In this case, you have to back up what you're saying with evidence. For instance, if you ask a suspect what shoe size he wears and he tells you he wears a size 9, you can use the size 8 work boots you found in his home to prove that he's lying. 

In the early cases, the game holds your hand through these processes, and as a result, they can feel narrow and artificial. For instance, at one point, you need to get a confession from a suspect. If you botch the interrogation, the suspect will dismiss you, at which point your commanding officer will tell you to get back in there and get a confession out of the suspect, starting the whole thing over. It's also typically very obvious early on when a suspect or witness is not being entirely honest, as he or she makes an exaggerated show of looking nervous or shifty eyed. But once the training wheels come off, the process gets a lot more interesting. It becomes entirely possible to miss vital clues at crime scenes or fail to get important information from a witness and to progress through a case, and suspects behave more naturally, which makes them tougher to read. 

Would the guy who played Ted's dad in the Bill & Ted movies lie to you?

When you're stumped about the right approach to take, you can spend a point of intuition, which bears unmistakable similarities to the lifelines on the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Intuition can be used either to remove one of the incorrect approaches--eliminating Lie, for instance, and leaving you to choose between Truth and Doubt--or to see what approach other players took at that particular moment in the interrogation. Intuition can also be used to highlight the location of every important piece of evidence while investigating a crime scene. You don't earn intuition points very quickly so they must be spent sparingly, and they serve as a bit of help without taking all the detective work out of your hands. There's only one save file that the game updates automatically, so you can't just restart when an interrogation goes badly, but this is for the best. It's far more interesting to just rely on your instincts and finish the case to see how things play out, at which point you can restart the case and try for a better outcome if you like. Cases can definitely take some very different turns depending on your actions, which makes replaying them worthwhile. In one case, for instance, you might end up shooting a potentially innocent man and earning the scorn of Captain Donnelly, or you might put away a social menace, at which point Donnelly takes you and your partner out for a celebratory drink. 

Regardless of whom you put away, you may come away from some cases with the troubling feeling that you didn't get the right man. That may sound unsatisfying, and in a way it is, but it's a good kind of unsatisfying. Noir isn't about tidy resolutions and happy endings. It's often about the cases where the truth is elusive--the cases that keep cops up at night. And L.A. Noire rewards your patience. A story strand left unresolved in one case may come up again a few cases later, and something you thought would be left unclear may finally come into focus. Less satisfying is the way that the resolution of one story case doesn't have any bearing on the next. For instance, even if you completely botch the aforementioned case and Donnelly rains fire and brimstone down on you and your partner, the next case begins with him showering you with praise. L.A. Noire has an overarching story to tell, and it's a good one, but the inelegant way in which it keeps that story on track can be jarring. 

The beautiful L.A. River features in The Consul's Car, a case that was previously exclusive to the PS3.

L.A. still had streetcars in 1947, but it was a city quickly becoming dominated by the automobile, and that's the only way to travel in L.A. Noire. Thankfully, driving is fun. Whether you steer them with a gamepad or the keyboard, cars are responsive and swift, which is particularly important during the game's many car chases. Still, it's not so enjoyable that you'll always relish the thought of driving from one end of the game's large map to the other; thankfully, you can usually opt to have your partner drive, which functions as a fast-travel option for getting to your selected destination. The cars are also nicely detailed, and you can admire any vehicle you've driven in the game's vehicle showroom. 

The gunplay is very easy to pick up. You can hide behind cover, and pop out to squeeze off shots. Aim assist options are available, and if you're playing with a gamepad, you may want them on, but the precision afforded by mouse control makes them unnecessary. The shooting itself feels fine, but it's the context and the atmosphere that make some firefights stand out. A pursuit through catacombs, a gunfight in a historic movie theater, and the tumultuous climactic shoot-out are just a few of the moments throughout L.A. Noire that have a cinematic sense of place and style. Although the objectives often describe your goal as subduing suspects, once the bullets start flying, the only way out for the criminals is in the coroner's wagon. Shooting suspects in the legs a few times proves to be as fatal as popping them in the head once. The grim brand of justice that Phelps doles out in these situations is certainly in keeping with the game's somber tone, but it's disappointing that you can't try to keep these criminals alive so that they can face a trial. 

Not everyone you pursue ends up dead, though. You regularly find yourself pursuing suspects on foot, and these chases don't always end with someone headed to the morgue. Pursuing suspects is easy. You just try to keep Phelps headed straight for his target; he handles all the climbing over fences and leaping between rooftops automatically. In some cases, you have the option of trying to bring the suspect to a halt by firing a warning shot. To do this, you must keep your reticle fixed on the fleeing suspect for a few seconds as a meter fills up. But strangely, there are many chases in which you're not given this option. (When you can attempt it, you'll know because Phelps will have his gun in his hand.) It's clear that the game doesn't want you to stop suspects before you've experienced the thrilling chase through a crumbling movie set that awaits you or whatever else it may have in store, but this restriction nonetheless feels artificial and limiting. 

I'm not sure 1947 Los Angeles is ready for that tie, Cole.

Gunfights, foot chases, car chases, and the occasional simple brawl don't just spring up during cases. They're also a regular part of the street crimes that are reported over the radio, which you can choose to respond to or ignore. There are 40 street crimes in all, spread across each of the desks that Cole occupies--traffic, homicide and so on. They're typically brief; you report to the scene of the crime and a car chase, shoot-out, or other action sequence ensues. These aren't as interesting as the action sequences that occur during cases, where you have a deeper personal investment in the action and the stakes are higher. But they make this Los Angeles feel more alive and troubled, and they're a good way to earn experience, which scores you intuition points and occasionally a spiffy new suit. 

For all of its attention to detail, L.A. Noire hits the occasional false note. For instance, the way people you pass on the street constantly comment loudly to nobody in particular about having seen you in the papers or indicate that you could use a bath is awkward, and it sticks out like a sore thumb in a world that tries so hard to be believable. But this is a minor nitpick with a game that gets under your skin the way few games do. L.A. Noire's length can vary significantly, depending on how many street crimes you respond to and how much of your own driving you do, but in any case, the 26 story cases (up from 21 in the original console release) make for a complete and satisfying experience. You come into contact with the seamy side of the movie industry and with major players in the gambling racket; you meet working stiffs and powerful businessmen; you encounter low-ranking mob thugs and Mickey Cohen, one of the most powerful gangsters in Los Angeles at the time. L.A. Noire is a unique game with a terrific sense of period atmosphere, absorbing investigation mechanics, and a haunting tale with plenty of moments that would be right at home in a classic film noir. Those smoky nights spent listening to jazz at the Blue Room, and the price you paid for them, will stay with you long after you've retired your badge and gun.

21 November 2011

NavifirmEx v1.6.1 (Nokia Firmware Downloader)

Nokia Firmware Downloader


 NaviFirmEx is the tool for downloading Nokia firmware images, obtaining lists of product codes, and finding the right product code for your phone. All these images is straight from Nokia's servers so you don't have to wait for people to post data packages and lists of product codes.

NaviFirmEx is useful for just about anyone:

End users: Find product codes to use with NSS/NSU/

Developers/DIYERs: Download ROM images for extracting files

Care Suite/Phoenix/box users: Download ROM images to flash

Advantages
Download Manager supports
As you can see, while downloading firmwares, you can pause, delete, and continue to download from the last time you pause(Most of the time you closed NaviFirmEx).

Multithread supports
You don't need to wait one task to finish and start another, just done all the tasks at the same time!

Multi-language supports
If you are a English guy, just use English; German? Make your own language that's fine!

Products searching supports
If you only want to download the KNOWN code images, you don't need to wait to get all the products list, just enter the code you want!

Keywords filter supports

Don't find products/variants yourself, let NaviFirmEx do it! Type the keyword in the filter, only showo the wanted list!

Proxy server supports

From version 1.6.1, NaviFirmEx supports proxy!
Attached Files Attached Files

18 November 2011

Need for Speed: The Run Review

It comes to a halt too frequently, but when it's speeding along, Need for Speed: The Run makes cross-country racing a joy.

The Good

  • Diverse assortment of cars that handle well  
  • Gorgeous, varied courses modeled on real locations  
  • A good number of race types keeps events enjoyable.

The Bad

  • Lengthy load times sap sense of momentum  
  • Quick-time events and mob chases aren't enjoyable  
  • Frustrating limitations on returning to the cross-country race.
There's a whole lot of America between San Francisco and New York City. Need for Speed: The Run's greatest achievement is the way it sometimes captures the thrill of hitting the open road and experiencing the varied beauty of the American landscape, from the mountains and the prairies to the small towns and skyscrapers. Unfortunately, issues arise that sap some of the momentum from your cross-country trek, but The Run spends enough time doing what it does best to remain an enjoyable journey.

Yosemite is gorgeous. Too bad you don't have time for a hike.

You play as Jack Rourke, a racer who has gotten in way over his head with the mob. His friend Sam promises an end to his problems if he can win a cross-country street race and the huge payout that comes with victory. Sadly, The Run's attempts to make you care about Jack's plight fall flat. The talents of actors Sean Faris and Christina Hendricks as Jack and Sam are wasted; their voices emanate from character models with mouths that move oddly and faces that express no emotion. What's more, the story doesn't even make sense. Certain rivals whom you pass early in the race show up again when you're in the home stretch. Thankfully, after an early cutscene that sets up the premise, the game wastes little time with its flimsy storytelling and lets you focus on driving.

The cars in The Run feel good to drive. The wide range of vehicles on offer includes sports cars that respond tightly to your every command and muscle cars that are tough to tame, but regardless of what you're driving, racing in The Run is about balancing speed with control. Sure, you've got highways on which you can gun the throttle and cruise at top speed, but more often than not, you're on stretches of road with some tricky turns. Using your brakes effectively, maintaining a smart racing line, and speedily exiting the turns is crucial to maintaining a good time, and it feels great to put these powerful cars through their paces.

Unfortunately, you may sometimes find yourself in the wrong car for the job. With a few story-related exceptions, Jack can only change cars at gas stations, and in some stretches, these are few and far between. As a result, you may get into a muscle car to power through a stretch of highway, only to wind up facing a particularly twisty road that the muscle car is not ideal for in the next event. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there's no easy way to return to an earlier event that offered a gas station and choose a different car. If there's no gas station in your current event, you're stuck, and must make do with what you're driving.


Dust storms in Death Valley are among the environmental hazards you encounter.

Jack's got to make the entire drive from San Francisco to New York, but of course, you're only responsible for driving a few hundred miles of that journey. The Run keeps the pressure on in each event by requiring you to meet one of a few objectives. On some stretches of road, you need to pass a certain number of other racers before reaching the finish line. In other events--called battle races--you also need to pass opponents, but here, you need to face them one at a time, getting ahead of one before a timer reaches zero and then moving on to the next. And some events are checkpoint races; just you against the clock. Many events are challenging tests of your driving talents, and it's a thrill to pass a checkpoint in the nick of time or slingshot past an opponent in the final stretch of a race.

It's not just the cars themselves that make driving in The Run enjoyable. It's also the places you go. Starting in San Francisco, your path takes you through Yosemite National Park, the Rocky Mountains, downtown Chicago, and plenty of other locations. The roads in The Run aren't entirely faithful to the real roads that inspired them, but they admirably evoke the beauty one might witness on a scenic trip across the United States. From driving in the Las Vegas dusk to speeding across the rolling Nebraska plains, the varied surroundings for your travels convey the feeling that you're covering a lot of ground, and part of the fun lies in seeing what richly detailed natural or urban landscape you'll be driving in next.

You need to contend with more than just your aggressive fellow racers as you travel through these beautiful settings. In some events, police try to stop you by doing brake checks and setting up roadblocks. You can hear their chatter, though, and see upcoming roadblocks on your minimap, so while it's fun to trade paint with these officers, they don't pose much of a threat. Then there are environmental hazards, such as an avalanche that occurs as you're heading down a mountain. Like the cops, these events aren't likely to cause you much trouble, but they make for an impressive spectacle.

San Francisco is just the beginning.

Unfortunately, as exciting as the racing can be, it's too often interrupted. When you wreck or go too far off the road, you're automatically reset to the last checkpoint you passed, and these resets can take several seconds. It's especially frustrating when these interruptions occur after your car goes ever so slightly off the asphalt. In some places, you can go off road without penalty; in others, even a slight deviation from the course immediately triggers a reset. These interruptions, coupled with the long load times that occur before races and for resets, sap some of the speed from a game that's all about forward momentum.

Other interruptions come in the form of The Run's much-publicized on-foot sequences. These extended quick-time events make up a small part of the game, which is good because they're not much fun. There are also a few sections of The Run where you need to worry more about avoiding gunfire from mafia cars and helicopters than racing effectively. These attempts to bring some Hollywood excitement to The Run backfire; it's just not enjoyable to constantly swerve to avoid the attacks of your mob pursuers.

Your total clocked, competitive time driving coast to coast will probably be a little more than two hours, though that doesn't factor in checkpoint resets and events you fail and need to redo. The Autolog system tries to fuel the fires of competition by constantly showing you how you're stacking up against your friends. But unfortunately, the game doesn't make returning to the cross-country race a welcoming experience. You can't jump to individual events; rather, you need to replay entire stages, which are collections of anywhere from four to seven events. This means you also need to replay any on-foot sequences and rewatch any cutscenes that occur in that stage. It's enough to make the prospect of hitting the road again a lot less attractive. You can also put your skills to the test by trying to earn medals in a series of single-player challenges that you unlock as you make your way across the country, and success here can unlock new cars for you to use on the cross-country run itself.


Famous buildings and other landmarks make the environments feel authentic.

Racing online against human opponents is more exciting than revisiting the single-player experience. Online races are divided into playlists that are centered on things like urban-street racing and muscle-car battles, so you can easily jump right into the kind of action you want, though you're locked out of a few playlists until you complete a certain number of multiplayer objectives on other playlists. These objectives include things like completing three passes using nitrous and placing fifth or better in three races, and it doesn't take long to open up all of the playlists. Flaws do mar the experience--your opponents' cars sometimes teleport around the road a bit or appear to fly through the air unrealistically--but it's nonetheless satisfying to leave human players in your dust.

It's frustrating, though, that whether you're playing solo or multiplayer, distracting text constantly appears onscreen to inform you that you just earned 30 experience points for drifting or 50 XPs for cleanly passing an opponent. Early on, you unlock driver abilities like nitrous and drafting with XPs, but once that's out of the way, most of the rewards you earn are just new icons and backgrounds for your Autolog profile. This makes the XP system seem entirely unnecessary, nothing more than a hollow way for the game to try to keep you playing.


Don't worry; the on-foot sequences make up a very small percentage of the game.

It's a shame that The Run doesn't deliver more fully on the potential of its premise. It's bogged down by unnecessary quick-time events and annoying mob chases, a halfhearted attempt to tell a story, and frustrating interruptions to your racing. In spite of these burdens, the game frequently makes you feel like you're tearing across the varied terrain of this vast and majestic country. There are enough of these good moments--moments when you put the pedal to the metal on a desert straightaway or nail a hairpin turn on a twisty mountain road--to make this a road trip worth taking.


17 November 2011

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is the big, bold, and beautiful sequel you hoped for and is sure to bewitch you for countless hours.

The Good

  • Immense world stuffed with varied tasks to perform  
  • Dragon battles are a blast  
  • Lovely art design capped by some beautiful, atmospheric touches  
  • Enjoyable battles that you can approach in a variety of ways  
  • Lots of compelling, self-contained stories to experience in addition to the main one.

The Bad

  • Bugs and performance issues frequently disrupt the immersion  
  • Friendly AI is often more of a hindrance than a help.
The province of Skyrim might be frigid, but the role-playing game that takes place within it burns with a fire few games possess. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you take up arms against dragons, and your encounters with them are invariably exciting--yet depending on where your adventure takes you, such battles may not even represent the pinnacle of your experience. A side quest that starts as a momentary distraction may turn into a full-fledged tale that could form the entirety of a less ambitious game. Yes, Skyrim is another enormous fantasy RPG from a developer that specializes in them, and it could suck up hundreds of hours of your time as you inspect each nook and crevasse for the secrets to be found within. If you know Bethesda Softworks' previous games, you might be unsurprised that Skyrim is not a land without blemish, but rather harbors any number of technical glitches and frustrating idiosyncrasies that tear open the icy veil that blankets the land. Many of them are ones Elder Scrolls fans will probably see coming, but they're ultimately a low price to pay for the wonders of a game this sprawling and enthralling. Prepare for many sleepless nights to come.

Don't let your guard down around spriggans--they regenerate health when they approach death.

Those nights traversing these lands are ones well spent. The game returns you to the continent of Tamriel, where you explore the northern realm called Skyrim, home to the Nord race. In these northern regions, snow flurries cloud your view, and platforms of ice float on the chilled waters. Nighttime often brings Tamriel's version of the aurora borealis, with its gorgeous blue and green ribbons stretching across the heavens. Skyrim's predecessor, Oblivion, featured prototypical fantasy environments--pretty but not quite evocative of the lore's darker undercurrents. Skyrim embraces its darker elements. You might feel an eerie chill as you glimpse a half-sunken ship through the mist, or watch as a dragon comes to life before your very eyes under the swirling firmament. Skyrim's atmospheric tone harks back to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, only the hazy dust storms of the earlier game have been replaced by glimmering snowfall and opaque fog.

These lovely vistas are best seen from a distance. Closer inspection reveals plenty of ugly painted-on textures, and the PS3 version suffers from a general blurriness that diminishes the overall visual impact. But like many enormous games, Skyrim makes a great impression not because its individual elements are sharply honed, but because they contribute to a grander whole. There's so much to do that your quest log becomes an embarrassment of pleasures, offering dozens of choices at any given time, each one as enticing as the next. You could follow the story, of course, which weaves a compelling tale that casts you as a dragonborn; that is, the soul of a dragon emanates from within you. As such, you are the key to discovering why dragons have returned to the land, terrorizing cities and potentially ending the known world. The tale has you facing dragons, of course, but also crashing fancy dress parties and scouring sewers in search of a key figure long assumed dead. It's a well-crafted tale that makes good use of those fearsome flying creatures that horrify the masses with roaring gusts of fire and ice.


Time heals all wounds. But healing spells do it faster.

Even when you aren't pursuing story quests, though, the core narrative dogs you as you trot across the land on foot or on horseback. You might travel to a quaint hamlet only to discover that it's under siege by a hovering beast. The townspeople join you, aiming their arrows and fireballs upward, and not all of them may survive the encounter. These battles impress upon you the terror in which the populace lives, and thus give you a reason to be a hero to them. But plenty of narrative delights have nothing to do with dragons, and some of them could have formed the main story of a lesser RPG. Following an early lead takes you to a lonely house occupied by a single child with a disturbing request. The story that unravels has you acting as a predator and eavesdropping from an unimaginably sinister hiding place. Other story threads embrace the element of choice. You can take sides in the ongoing conflict between Imperial forces and the rebellious Stormcloaks, and then assault enemy camps and rescue prisoners jailed by the enemy. And in one memorable if minor quest line, you can kill a creepy cannibal--or join her and her cohorts at the table.

It's impressive enough that there's so much to do; it's even more impressive that most of it is wonderful. Not every dungeon is a joy to explore. Stone-turning puzzles occasionally bring the fun to a halt, and a few repeated cave designs could dampen your spirits. But overall, every task has an excellent sense of context, and surprises lurk around many a turn. Searching for a lost dog turns into a grander quest than you could have guessed--and witty writing and voice acting shine some light into this somber world. Even a simple "go there, kill that" bounty can be a thrill. After all, how often do you face a towering giant and a couple of woolly mammoths? It's too bad that as you approach the giant's camp, one of those mammoths might spawn 100 feet in the air and fall to its death, or land on another mammoth and ride on its back for a few seconds before sliding off.


Venture into those hills: there are secrets galore to be discovered.

So maybe not every surprise is a welcome one. But most are, and the element of the unexpected is what lures you to explore as much as you can. The reward could be a great weapon hidden in a locked chest, a gorgeous vista to ogle, or a book of lore that enhances one of your attributes. Or perhaps you'll discover words written in the dragons' tongue--an important discovery indeed. Finding those words is key to using Skyrim's most powerful spells, known as shouts. Well, they are half the key anyway: you also must defeat dragons and absorb their souls to activate those shouts. Shouts have their own cooldown timer and aren't tied to the magicka bar that governs standard spellcasting. With one shout, you can breathe fire on your attackers. With another, you can slow down time. Shouts hardly guarantee success in a difficult battle, but they can tip the scales in your favor. Besides, the dramatic visual and sound effects of both the discovery of words and the absorption of a dragon soul are a lovely bonus.

As for standard spells, they come in the usual schools of magicka: destruction (zap skeletons with sparks!), conjuration (summon a giant frost atronach!), alteration (light the way ahead!), and so on. You can even dual-wield spells, going full-on mage, with a glowing ball of fire in one hand and a summon at the ready in the other. For that matter, you can dual-wield one-handed weapons, giving you more flexibility in how you form your character. When you create your character, you choose a race from the usual Elder Scrolls standbys (Dark Elf, Breton, Argonian, and so forth), but you don't choose a class. Rather, your skill level with certain types of weapons, magicka schools, speech, and so on is governed primarily by how you play. Wear heavy armor, and taking blows gradually increases your heavy armor proficiency. Swing two-handed weapons, and you get better at using them.

That doesn't mean that you don't wield manual control over how you progress. Each time you gain a level, you choose to enhance one of your three main attributes: health, stamina, or magicka. You also earn a single point to spend on a perk, which might increase damage done with axes or let you conjure creatures at a greater distance. It's a great leveling system that forms around the way you play, but allows for tweaking so that you retain a sense of control. Even just the act of leveling up can be a pleasure due to the slick and colorful interface that imagines perks as stars in constellations. It can be a pain to navigate to certain perks; the game often has you flitting not to the star you want, but to all the ones surrounding it. But considering Oblivion's cumbersome interface, Skyrim's is a much improved beast. On console (and if you play with a controller on the PC), thumbstick navigation minimizes button presses, and you can easily move between your quest log and the main map. Additionally, you can mark weapons, spells, and items as favorites and then access them quickly during combat. Certain aspects might be fiddly, but on the whole, Skyrim's interface is a wonder, considering how much information and inventory is at your fingertips.

If you're low on health, there is no shame in letting your companion do the heavy lifting. That's what he's there for!

Regardless of how you tailor your character, the action is entertaining and varied. Trolls, undead draugrs, necromancers, bandits, witches, ratlike skeevers, and many more foes want to make your hero a zero. You occasionally feel as if you're flailing blindly rather than connecting your sharp blade with a vampire's flesh. But this is the tightest Elder Scrolls combat yet, the visual and audio cues normally providing proper feedback with your blows and zaps. Some death blows result in Fallout 3-style slow-motion kills, which retain their power because they're not overly frequent. Movement, too, has seen improvement: you can now play from a third-person view and feel like you're moving across the land instead of floating above it. What hasn't been improved is the friendly AI. It's nice to have a companion along for the adventure, and you're given one for free early in the story. But companions are morons, crowding you in tight passages, lagging behind when you need them the most, and even getting stuck in various death loops caused by spinning blade traps.

If you're the stealthy type, you can sneak about, picking pockets and breaking into homes. If you really enjoy keeping to the shadows, you may even wish to contract porphyric hemophilia--that is, vampirism. Vampires earn some benefits by way of certain spells and status effects, but also endure particular risks and must feed on unsuspecting victims as they slumber. But even if you like to wade directly into the fray, you can benefit from Skyrim's non-combat activities. Lock-picking no longer works as it did in Oblivion, but takes its cue from Fallout 3, having you rotate a lock pick and turn the lock to determine how closely you matched the correct position. As before, you can pick flowers and collect ingredients, and then create potions out of them at an alchemy table. (Forget mortars and pestles this time around.) And any adventurer can benefit from enchanting, which lets you imbue your equipment with certain status effects--though you must use soul gems to recharge their power.


With the right perk, dual casting the same spell results in significant damage.

Many of Skyrim's delights are the touches that occur outside of the action. Citizens go about their daily lives, selling their wares in shops during the day and closing down at night to hang out in the pub or head home to rest. Under some circumstances, they may comment on your rancid breath or remark on how sickly you seem to look. Children run up and down the streets; one may even ask for you to stop a bully from picking on him. Citizens move somewhat stiffly, but with more grace than in previous Elder Scrolls games. Before, conversations brought the world to a halt and focused the camera on some character's waxy face. In Skyrim, certain dialogues limit the camera and temporarily paralyze you in place, but overall, conversations feel more organic than before--a nice improvement that enhances your sense of immersion.

Skyrim also uses scattered books and references to enthrall you. You may not be a big fan of reading books in role-playing games, but even so, you should make an effort here. If you don't feel like reading up on Tamriel's rich history each time you find a volume, grab it and read it later--there are a lot of narrative tidbits that deserve to be read. Elder Scrolls fans will appreciate nods to events in prior games, and everyone can enjoy the bite-size tales contained therein, about vampires, noble heroes, and gods that bestow their blessings on their followers. Skyrim takes place hundreds of years after the events of Oblivion, and organizations you might remember have been restructured or are shadows of their former selves. But Tamriel's history is threaded throughout Skyrim's fabric, and some quests, such as one that begins with an invitation to a faraway museum, are great reminders of past misfortunes that the world has not forgotten.


This is Sven. He is dressed inappropriately for the weather.

It's a pity that Skyrim often breaks the immersion it tries so hard to create, in ways both minor and major. Some bizarre details are simply annoying. A character might initiate conversation through the ceiling. The chatter of nearby characters could drown out important story exposition. Two shopkeepers standing next to each other may be voiced by the same actor and repeat the same lines. A dragon skeleton might disappear and then later drop out of the sky in a new location. A dragon could get stuck in place, flailing about in the geometry in a mess of wings and tail. For that matter, you could get stuck in the environment, maybe just by walking into a corner, which forces you to either quick-travel to a different location (if you're lucky enough to be outdoors) or load a save game. And on the PlayStation 3, frame rate jitters and occasional pauses can disrupt the moment-to-moment flow. The question isn't whether you will experience anomalies--it's a given. The question is: which ones and how many?

If you've played previous Elder Scrolls games, glitches and oddities don't come as a surprise. Nevertheless, Skyrim comes in a year graced with multiple quality RPGs that feature tighter combat, fewer bugs, better animations, and so forth. But to be fair, none of those games are endowed with such enormity. Yet The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim doesn't rely on sheer scope to earn its stripes. It isn't just that there's a lot to do: it's that most of it is so good. Whether you're slashing a dragon's wings, raising the dead back to life, or experimenting at the alchemy table, Skyrim performs the most spectacular of enchantments: the one that causes huge chunks of time to vanish before you know it.