Archive - 2010

As a clumsy technophile, sure to drop his iPhone 4 within the first few weeks of ownership, I searched high and low for the most protective suits of armor for my phone. During my search, I happened across an article for Otterbox’s then-upcoming iPhone 4 Defender Series Case. What caught my eye first was that, for such touted protection, it appeared to be very stylish and not overly-clunky like a few other models out there. Otterbox has, since that read, released their new Defender case and we got our very own to play with.

Too many cases out there are simply a sleeve of rubber to encase your phone in. Otterbox’s Defender is actually a multi-layered protection system, starting with the internal skeleton giving the whole setup its strength. The internal skeleton is a hard plastic complete with inner felt lining so as to not scratch your phone from any banging around that may occur while encased by it. This has proven to be somewhat unnecessary as there is not much room for the phone to move around inside this skeleton, however it is a nice feature nevertheless.

One really nice thing about the internal skeleton is that it has a built-in screen protector. I hate having to constantly purchase those little stick-em screen protector packs for my devices and having one built-in is a blessing. I wish more phone/device cases had this feature.

After placing your iPhone 4 inside this inner skeleton, the entire thing is encased in the outer silicone layer. The silicone skin tightly wraps around the internal skeleton, and after installation you have to set it in place by pressing the edges into the internal skeleton’s ‘grooves’, nooks, and crannies.

The silicone layer has numerous flaps which allow the user access to the more vital iPhone 4 interfaces, such as the big sync/power/IO port on the bottom of the unit as well as the mute toggle on the side of the phone. Since this outer layer is silicone, it will stretch quite a ways before tearing or ‘stretching out’. This will ensure you are able to install and uninstall the phone from the Defender as many times as you like without the case getting worn out.

The only negative aspect to this case assembly is the over-sized belt clip. Unlike the iPhone 3GS Defender case, this model has a very robust clip. It is made of a hard plastic and covers the entire side of the phone and then some. It is cumbersome to say the least and I think the system would have been far better served to have a sheathe-style belt clip seen on the iPhone 3GS Defender model.

Overall, the iPhone 4 Defender Series Case from Otterbox is a must-buy if you are an iPhone 4 user. It provides maximum protection with minimum fuss.

Stay-tuned when we release our review of the Otterbox iPad Defender Series Case in just a few day’s time!

New Dev Diary for The Secret World Delves into Starter Experience

2010/08/29

Funcom may have taken some inital flak over the initial lack of high-end content in their MMO, Age of Conan. One thing they undeniably know how to do, however, is make a starter experience. AoC features a VERY well-thought out first twenty levels. It looks like they are bringing that same starter experience ingenuity over to their upcoming The Secret World, which features a world divided by secret societies and factions with supernatural abilities.

Review of Worms: Reloaded (PC)

2010/08/26

Ripper71

Just about anyone who was gaming in the 90’s heard of Worms even if they weren’t playing it. It is the Monty Python of gaming, allowing you to fire a full arsenal of weapons such as explosive sheep, the Holy Hand Grenade (Hallelujah!) and the good old fashion prod while also letting you fly jet packs and shoot the infamous Ninja Rope. The Ninja Rope has become a strong contention in gaming over the years, some people have become addicted to it while others shudder at the sight of it launching. No matter how you feel about the rope though, Worms: Reloaded is a fun game with silly hats.

Atmosphere:
The atmosphere is silly and fun, just as you would expect from a Worms game. There is a general background fitting the level’s theme such as a blurry bulldozer behind a construction site you are battling over. Silly hats are abundant and lots of customization between styles of voice and phrases all make sure you know that though this is a battle game it is not meant to be taken seriously.

Game Play:
This has always been what Worms is famous for. The great arsenal of wacky weapons at your disposal makes it so that even when you find yourself taking damage you are laughing along with the action and looking forward to the carnage you will unleash. New weapons, hats and forts have been added to the game to once again step up the fun from the previous Worms. Time flies by as you launch Super Sheep, deploy the Holy Hand Grenade and send a bull tearing through the levels destroying all in it’s path. There is also the ever popular (or ever dreaded) Ninja Rope. If you master it you find yourself swinging across levels left and right and shooting it at every surface it will stick to. If you find you don’t have a knack for it most levels have given you enough alternative utilities to still get the job done. One of the few issues I found was some NPC worms never seem to miss. When firing weapons you have to consider your place on the map, angle and power of your weapon, terrain level and wind direction. All this has to be done while a timer runs down. Some NPCs just angle and fire using the wind perfectly every time so that a weapon will go streaking across the map and the wind will stop it just right and it will drop down perfectly on you. My first thought was that it was just on the harder modes but I saw it on lower ones as well. So to get around this I just made those NPCs my first targets then the levels played out nicely.

Single player game play modes feature Campaign which is the standard leveling setup and earns you gold after each level completed that can be saved up and used to buy extra weapons and levels, Body Count in which each time you wipe out an enemy worm a new one appears and weapons get dropped throughout the game to keep the killing spree going as long as you can and if you just want to get into a game and do some massive worm carnage, Warzone gives you a whole bunch of weapons, a whole bunch of enemies and lets you destroy everything in sight. Since the game is played through Steam there is also achievements, leadership boards and an excellent and excited online community complete with forums.

Multiplayer:
There are two main types of multiplayer modes, local and online. The online is supported by Steam and has a standard game lobby and finder system for up to four players which has it’s own achievements as well. The more interesting multiplayer game play is the local version which is a throw back to the old days of multiplay back before everyone had a computer. Hotseat is a term used to describe turn based game play where one player would have his turn at the game then give up his seat to the next player so they could take their turn in the ‘hot seat.’ Worms: Reloaded has revisited this type of play so that up to four players can play on the same account on the same computer by trading chairs, passing the laptop or handing over the gamepad. This lends itself to party gaming as well so that different people at the party can sit down and play a turn then go back to the partying.

Controls:
Worms: Reloaded can be played on the keyboard or the gamepad controller and either way keys can be customized to the player’s taste. Most of your game involves just a few keys such as directional, jumping, weapon choice and firing. All this makes getting used to the controls as easy as choosing your own style. The only control problem I noticed was the double jump doesn’t seem as responsive as one might hope. After trying to assign it different keys and testing it on both the gamepad and the keyboard I just tried to avoid using it too much. The NPC uses it constantly which can be a bit frustrating when most of the time your use of it near a fall or water will get you killed. Much like the Ninja Rope there is usually a utility that can help get around the problem.

Graphics/Audio:
The graphics are cartoony and fun, each version of the game gets better graphics while maintaining the whimsical feel. There is even a Blur option in case you miss the old fuzzy television graphics, though the graphics are now in High Definition for the first time. The hats, a great favorite of heavy fans of the game, are rendered cleanly and there are over 70 varieties to choose from! The game sounds are clean and many remind you of something you would hear on the old Saturday morning cartoons. The worms’ voices are pop culture based and can be changed as you go, so you may hear some excellent Jedi advice one moment and a British voice talking about smoking barrels the next. Level and character customization give you an ever changing experience so that you don’t have to keep listening and seeing the same graphics the whole game. You can even import your own landscapes and design your own levels!

Playtime/Cost:
Worms: Reloaded isn’t designed as a single play time experience. The Campaign can be played over and over with different weapons and extra levels being purchased each time. Warzone, Body Count and multiplayer will be different every time as well due to how you and your opponent fight. Include the personal level designing opportunities and this can be a game players go back to regularly. There is even plans to have Easter Eggs added to the game throughout the year. So with all that considered $19.99 is a great price ($17.99 pre-order includes extra hats, forts and 24 hour early access).

Last Call:
Worms: Reloaded is good old silly fun. It can be challenging and hilarious, a quick play or a long gaming session, a solo play or a party game. Worms: Reloaded lives up to it’s predecessors and takes it to the next level. So get out there and start exploding sheep!

*DISCLOSURE: A copy of this game was sent to us for the purpose of this review.

Portal 2 and new L4D DLC on GTTV

2010/08/23

A couple nights back on GameTrailers, Chet Faliszek of Valve Software dropped a huge bomb. While reporting standard information on Portal 2, he gave word of the new L4D DLC, entitled ‘The Sacrifice’.

The original L4D is coming back, with an all-new DLC featuring the original four survivors. ‘The Sacrifice’ weaves the story of the death of a comrade, but who dies is left up to the players themselves. A 150-page comic will be released in four digital portions as well, giving backstory to what happened to Bill before the events of the most recent L4D2 DLC, ‘The Passing’. Another fun thing is that this DLC will encompass both games. Yep, ‘The Sacrifice’ comes to L4D2 as well, and will bring all four original survivors, and even the No Mercy campaign.

Read more on this story, After the Break!
(cont.) Portal 2 was also reported on in the episode of GTTV, displaying the power of the Source engine, as well as the story to the game’s co-op mode. There’s a story completely independent of the single-player story, but it does take place in the same universe. More information will arrive when PAX rolls around.

The episode of GTTV featuring information on both games can be found here.

Logitech G700 Gaming Mouse – A Review (Hardware)

2010/08/16

Logitech has always been a friend of the PC gamer – releasing several iterations of PC gaming peripherals over the last twenty years or so. Its latest ‘G-series’ of gaming peripherals offers their most robust array of features yet. The gaming mouse component of this new series is the G700 Gaming Mouse. Looking like something from their more business-oriented MX series, the G700 offers an impressive array of features.

Looking like something from their MX series of business/personal use mice, the G700 features an all-black, heavy plastic body with a chrome-clad mouse wheel. A very impressive mouse in the looks department, the G700 does not have a ton of lights blinging out from every direction. It is, in fact, a very classy-looking gaming mouse.

The black plastic around the main mouse buttons is smooth and features a small silver Logitech logo. The side plastic parts of the mouse body are have been ruggedized with a very effective friction-generating texture. This means you will not lose your grip on the unit while playing. From a ‘feel’ standpoint, the G700 is exceptional.

The mouse comes packed with a USB extender cable, a USB power/interface cable, and Logitech’s small, Nano-Receiver which will allow you to use the G700 in its wireless mode. Installing the mouse is very simple – just plug either the Nano-Receiver or the USB cable (mouse connected) into the PC and watch it go. If you want to unlock the full feature-set of the unit, you will need to install the SetPoint software package. These extra features are well worth the installation, as the G700 has 13 programmable buttons lining its body, as well as three programmable sensitivity presets which can be accessed on-the-fly.

After we got everything installed and setup, we began running the mouse through games of Left 4 Dead 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and World of Warcraft. The G700 performed very well, with two quirks worth mentioning. First is that, while the thumb buttons on the G700 are very useful for assigning functions to, they are far too low on the mouse body to avoid being accidentally clicked by a larger thumb. I found myself accidentally depressing the two bottom thumb buttons of the four button-array several times over the course of the more frantic action found in the two FPS titles that were used in testing.

In World of Warcraft, we did not experience this issue at all.Eventually, I just disabled the thumb buttons when playing the shooter titles to avoid the problem. The G700 seems more ideally-suited for MMORPG usage, where its comfort and smooth glide will keep you gaming for hours, comfortably.

The second quirk of the G700 is its sensor alignment. Being a clutch mouse-user (that is, resting my palm on the mouse body), moving the unit on the yaw axis of my wrist should yield a horizontal cursor-sweep. On the G700, a yaw movement yields a diagonal cursor sweep. This is because the unit’s laser sensor (at least on our review unit) is slightly off center when held in a clutch fashion. It should be noted, that claw-usage (palm off the mouse body) is not possible on the G700 due to the exposed thumb buttons and recessed thumb rest for comfort. While not a deal-breaker, this second quirk definitely takes some getting used too.

Ending on a positive note, gamers will experience some of the smoothest glide-action they have ever felt in a gaming mouse before with the G700. It has much larger Teflon-coated pads on its bottom than most gaming mouse sport, and this is very apparent when gaming. Also of benefit to gamers is that while on wireless mode, the G700 runs off of one replaceable, included, and rechargeable AA battery.

The Logitech G700 gaming mouse hosts a very impressive array of features. While its $99.99 dollar price point may not be cheap, its closest competitor is thirty dollars more expensive. While not perfect, Logitech has made a very solid gaming mouse (especially got MMORPG players) that, so long as you heed the quirks we have mentioned, should serve you well for years to come.

Clash Of The Titans – A Review (X360)

2010/08/16

STORY:
We start out our journey on the island of Paxos, home to our hero Perseus and his family. The island worships the gods and the soldiers of Argos have set fit to destroy their belief’s. Without going into the story too much this is where things kind of fall flat. Any good lover of film or video game adaptations knows that taking too much creative license with the source material is not necessarily a good thing. While taking a slightly new twist to the original story can work in some occasions, Clash often hits a lot of roadblocks that leaves players scratching their heads. What really throws things off is that the characters are really hard to follow.

GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay in Clash is somewhat of the saving grace of an otherwise flat movie to video game adaptation. You play as Perseus and set out on several quests using normal quest ‘hubs’. Taking from traditional action RPGs, the quest givers have a symbol over their heads and are easy to find.

The controls in Clash are almost identical to other action RPG titles. The left control stick move Perseus while the right one rotates the camera. As this is a third-person game, it is not shocking at all that the camera becomes more of an enemy rather than a friend in battle. The button commands are your attacks with one giving a light swing and the other a heavy. You also have a secondary attack which uses the shoulder button.

Once you get a quest you need to make your to a designated location on your mini-map. This loads up an instance-like encounter for your given quest. This was almost like entering a dungeon each time and the associated gameplay got old with waves of baddies continuously spawning until the boss mob showed up. This was very repetitive and just did not make for a fun gaming experience. It felt like you were doing the same set of attacks over and over again until the level ended. Coupled with the lack of story direction, there was just no real reason to be doing what you are doing. One other problem I found with the combat was how easy the enemies were to defeat in battle.

There was a certain mission where you end up fighting a blue dragon whelp and all it took to kill the monster was the spamming of an attack button. This also felt like the old school ‘Blanka cheating’ I hated so much in Street Fighter II. With that being said the good part of the fights were the tons different type of monsters that were thrown at the player.

The light at the end of the tunnel with the gameplay is the great amount of upgrades for your weapons. As you kill monsters, they drop weapons or items used to upgrade your arsenal. You can also combo-break your enemies to steal their weapons to add to your collection. These weapons can be added to your secondary attack selection and are close to instant kills in the game. As you collect more drops you can upgrade your weapons in the game to add additional attacks. This kept the otherwise stale gameplay fresh as you can pull off some pretty nifty-looking combos with the secondary weapons. The downside to this is that there was no real use to use them as you could just as easily use your standard sword over and over again.

SOUND AND GRAPHICS:
The graphics in Clash were a bit sub-par for the Xbox 360. While the environments are rich and beautiful, the character models are simply horrendous. Almost all the NPC models looked exactly alike and the main characters looked nothing like those found in the movie. The one exception was Hades but I have a sneaking suspicion they just used a Rob Zombie model. Throughout the game I found several tears in the graphics and glitches with the models. The FPS really bogged down during some of the more intense fight scenes.

The sound in Clash was average at best. The ambient background sounds helped make the world come alive and the sound effects were pretty spot-on. The big problem with the sound was the lack of the voice actors from the film. If you are going to port over a movie, using the original actors is a must. Without them it just leads the player away from the story and doesn’t hook them in. If this is not possible then spend some extra cash to get quality voice actors and not cheesy impersonators.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Clash of The Titans was a disappointment. I am a big fan of the original movie and love stories about the Greek gods – this just did not live up. If you plan on playing this game then I would suggest a rental. Anything more then that you are better off buying the God of War series.

Crysis 2 Gets A Release Date

2010/08/14

Crytek and Electronic Arts have formally-announced the release date for the highly-anticipated Crysis 2. The game will ship out across North America on March 22nd, 2011 for Windows PCs, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3 platforms. European markets can expect the game three days later.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution First Gameplay Trailer Released

2010/08/13

boothby

Eidos Montreal and Square Enix have released the first gameplay trailer for their upcoming and highly-anticipated Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Due out in February of 2011, Human Revolution is a prequel to the original, and also highly-acclaimed Deus Ex.

Razor2: Hidden Skies – A Review (PC)

2010/08/11