Silent Hill Book of Memories Review!

Story

The story in Silent Hill: Book of Memories revolves around a character that receives a Mysterious Book for his birthday sent from Silent Hill delivered by an uncanny Mail Man, he soon finds out that everything he’s done so far in life can be found written in the book. As he starts trying to write down in it to try and change things, he begins to have nightmares in which he is placed inside a puzzle that he must solve in order to survive. Book of Memories’ story is a bit confusing and to actually understand it all you must collect all Broadcasts and Notes which contain bits and pieces of the Story. The game is not related to any of the previous Silent Hill games.

Gameplay

Silent Hill: Book of Memories’ gameplay is your classic Dungeon-crawler and it is Addictively Fun. The game has a basic levelling system with simple STR, DEX, VIT, AGI, MND and INT stats to increase as you level up, accessories may also be purchased from the in-game shop. In Silent Hill: Book of Memories you play though ‘Zones’ that are small mazes that you fight your way through to find all the puzzle parts in order to proceed to the next zone and progress through the story. The Game has over 100 zones that will give over 50 Hours of Gameplay. Initially you are given a Flash light to explore and find all the loot and treasures hidden within the world; the flashlight set-up, however, sort of throws off the scary feel to it.

Design

The game does not have set characters, and it allows players to design their own. However the game does not contain much character personalisation capabilities as it only offers 5 different options within each category. The game has a large verity of weapons going anywhere from knives and baseball bats to chainsaws and burning swords. The game doesn’t really take much advantage of the PS Vita’s Features however.

The Multiplayer is where the real fun comes in. Multiplayer in SH:BoM is similar to the single-player campaign with one little twist, you take zones on in groups of 4 players and dead characters respawn at the start of the map; unlike the story mode where you have to restart the whole zone

Presentation

Silent Hill: Book of Memories surpasses other Vita games by having a very nice lighting effect. Characters and monster Models look pretty nice, the game’s texturing and animation works are also done pretty well, the environment visuals a very nicely done. The thing that puts the game down in presentation is the background music; it gets very repetitive.

Overall

Despite the lack of story and “oh my god I almost pissed myself” moments, Silent Hill: Book of Memories is an addictive dungeon-crawler that will have you on the edge of your seat for many hours and features some great multiplayer action.

If you’re a player that ignores story for good gameplay, then Silent Hill: Book of Memories is one game you definitely have to play.

 

Score: 7.5

Reviewed by: Sora Yahya

Games12 day one!

Games12 is definitely an event worth checking out. the atmosphere here is great; hyped gamers, the best of the upcoming games in 32''+ HD screens with insane surround sound, accompanied by ear-blasting music that will make your father's feet tremble from a mile away, awesome dancers and last but not least, babes, babes everywhere.

Babes aside, this event is honestly full of surprises; for one, the sheer size of the tent the vent is being held in is impressive. this place has room for plenty of hyped up gamers as well of plenty of loud bass.  another thing that surprised me is the fact that this place couldn't fit a single soul in after 5pm. they had to lock people out while the place evacuated because there were just too many gamers. i had no idea the UAE held such big gaming community! Seeing over 100 people jump up out of pure excitement when Microsoft hinted to an Xbox raffle they were holding at the end of the night was real fun to watch.

Anyway, legs are hurting and feet sting, but the party continues strong into the night as the music gets louder, more dancers keep showing up, and somehow, the ladies get better looking.
Really hoping that day two raises the bar, to give even more people a reason to come down on Saturday for the cosplay competition!

Be sure to drop by, the event is great and the vibe lives up to it. remember! you only have until the 22nd to come in before the event comes to an end, and then.. You'll have to wait a whole year!

Logitech G600 Review.

 Righty, i got my hands on the G600 MMO mouse by Logitech!

This has to be, by far, the mouse with the most buttons I've ever laid hands on. And despite the 20 buttons it has, it is quite the comfortable piece of equipment. It may not be the best looking mouse in the market, but it does its job very well, along a comfortable grip that fits just right for MMO games.

Specs are as follows:

• 200-8200 DPI
• 11.25 Megapixels/sec
• Max Speed of 160"/sec
• 1000/sec report rate
• 16 bits/axis with a 30G of max acceleration.

I've been playing with the G600 for around 2 weeks now, and I've got to say that this mouse is a great example of the "Don't judge a book by its cover" saying. The mouse doesn't exactly look very appealing, it has a very bulky look to it. HOWEVER, this mouse is pretty deceiving, the G600 is a comfortable mouse and is not very heavy, it slides well on the pads and responds nicely in tight situations.

A thing that makes this mouse interesting, aside from the fact that it has 20 buttons,  is the ability to have different DPI Shifts saved to the mouse, which can then quickly be accessed by holding down whichever keys are assigned to them. It allows you to lower the mouse sensitivity instantly in order to take dead accurate headshots, along with allowing you to increase it accordingly to be able to pan your camera quickly when you're in a PvP fight.

Customization wise, this mouse has one upside and one downside. The good side of it, is that this mouse allows you to fully customize what you want to do with each and every button, allowing you to have 3 different settings saved in the mouse at any one time. The bad side to it, which is simply miscellaneous, to be completely honest; is that you're only able to change the colors of the thumb buttons and can only set one color for all 15 keys.











This is a really nice mouse. It does lack on looks BUT the G600 is definitely a mouse you want to get your hands on if you enjoy having all your macros close to your hands and like having quick access to different DPI level options. It is comfortable and looks very durable.

Score: 4✰

SteelSeries Sensei Fnatic review.

A mouse that has 16.8 million different LED colors for 3 different parts, has its own minicomputer that allows you to carry your preferences on-the-go and allows you to upload custom bitamps to customize it even more?  That’s the SteelSeries Sensei Fnatic mouse for you.

This mouse is great. It does have a rather dull shape, but that’s because it’s a well balanced ambidextrous mouse that gives you the exact same access to the same buttons regardless of whether you’re a righty, or of the rare kind; a lefty.

The Sensei has 7 buttons (with an 8^th to access the on-board computer and screen) and specs as follows.

·                    -DPI of up to 5,700 with room for 2xDPI of 11,400.

·                   -12,000 FPS

·                   -150+ IPS

·                   -30G acceleration

·                   -16 bit true Sensor data path

·                    -Lift distance of 1-5mm

 

The Sensei is a neat piece of technology. The features that really make this mouse shine are the SteelSeries Exactlift, SteelSeries Exactaccel, SteelSeries Exactaim and the SteelSeries Freemove adjustments that can be played with to customize everything from the DPI with the Exactlens, how high you are able to lift the mouse off of the pad before it stops moving the cursor on the screen (Exactlift), as well as the amount of path correction or angle snapping of the mouse. Oh and did I forget to mention? As if all that wasn’t enough, it allows you to adjust the accelerometers in the mouse to give you more accuracy by lowering the mouse sensitivity as you decrease the movement speed, and allows the mouse to move faster as you accelerate the speed of the movement. (Nice help when you’re trying to get those long distance headshots just right, or pan the camera quickly while in a tricky HC raid.)

The SteelSeries Engine is really neat too. It gives you a very comprehensible look at what everything in the mouse does and what it’s for. –perfect for people who don’t know the entire tech -talk we now have. The program even comes with its own ‘Statistics’ section, to allow people to measure their APM!

I’ll be honest, I’m delighted with this Sensei mouse, it’s held up well so far –been bashing it for quite a while now, and it’s holding up just right. The colors are simply splendid, and the feeling you get from knowing how unique this mouse can get because of all customization it allows you to do is great.

Score:      5☆

Few thoughts about RaiderZ (Closed Beta)

So, i was given a key to the closed beta test of the upcoming MMORPG Game by Perfect World, RaiderZ, and i thought i'd write up my thoughts on the game so far, based on what i've seen in the closed beta.

RaiderZ is a fun game to play, the game's been holding up well in the beta. The game currently has 4 classes, and i'm unsure on whether more will be available in the future. -Anyway, it has your classic Tank-DPS-Caster-Healer choices available, which gives you plenty to play around with. Current level cap is 30 and the game seems to have a decent leveling rate so far, (Mind you i've only reached level 15, I don't know if there are any EXP jumps later on that will make it unbearably long, but so far, it seems like the perfect pace.) The open world experience that many similar MMOs with no auto attack lack is one of the features that really caught my eye about this game. It gives you a sense of proportion with the world, it allows you to freely explore things at your own pace, and really feel the environment changing; Rather than having to jump from a city filled with flowers and trees, to a dungeon filled with monsters and not a single plant and be left to wonder how you ended up there.
The User Interface in the game is well designed, and i really enjoy how you're able to move it around to  your liking.

RaiderZ has one major problem, though. The fact that using AoE abilities such as the Cleric's heal, where you have to target the location you want the heal to land on is VERY hard to place right while you and your party are jumping back and forth in a fight with a boss that moves around a lot (Alpha Wolf being the perfect example of this). It makes healing your allies very very hard, because you'll miss the AoE circle most of the time.

But, overall, RaiderZ is holding up well. It's a game that's easy to get used to if you've played MMOs before. I'm happy with the graphics so far, and the overall gameplay. Hopefully some of the annoying bugs will be fixed soon, but then again, it's beta! So, we must suck them up!!

Inversion review!

 

Nothing speaks awesome like a third person action packed shooter in which popping alien heads and gravity control is pretty much an everyday thing. That’s exactly what Inversion delivers to your console/PC.

Inversion delivers a great deal of action, bullets, and blood, among with many other things very well. The game has a nice immersive story, in which you, playing as David Russel, a 28-year-old rather hot-headed cop and your partner Leo Delgado will embark through as an alien invasion from an unknown enemy called the Lutadores takes place on earth.

The downfall this game has is that it does have quite a few flaws. The game itself could allow for a lot more; Inversion lacks in the visuals that follow up the scripts. Voice acting in the game are rather stiff and could perhaps be done better along with the visuals. The game doesn’t allow for much customization, as you can only carry two weapons at any one time.. and there isn’t much of an arsenal to select from to be honest.

The environment in  Inversion is all too familiar, cities in ruins, cars on fire, dead bodies everywhere;it's nothing new -and neither are the gun, they're your basic machine-guns and rifles with a superficial makeover to give them a different look, but no different feel.

Graphics wise and gameplay speaking, Inversion does hold up, though; the destroyed city does look rather well planned out, the aliens are cool nonetheless and the anti-gravity abilities do make it stand out a bit. Gameplay from a campaign point of view does play through rather well -putting bullets in aliens heads never really gets old- so I will say that despite the lack of weapon choices and ways to play with the scenery to kill Lutadores, it still holds up like a 3^rd Person Shooter that is worth buying and playing.

 This game is fun to play -despite its bunch of flaws and lack of uniqueness- However it is missing a lot to make it stand out from among the horde of other shooters out there; the game has room for a lot more improvement, in all its aspects.

Score: 6/10

Quantum Conundrum Review

Quantum Conundrum is a first-person puzzle video game by Airtight Games and published by Square Enix. Designed by Kim Swift who formerly worked at Valve as a lead designer on the critically acclaimed Portal. The game was released on Windows via Steam on June 21, 2012, and is scheduled for release on July 10, 2012 on PS3 and July 11, 2012 on Xbox360.

Gameplay:

This game can be easily compared to Portal. it resembles it in pretty much everything, from the feel of the puzzles to the gameplay where you walk into every room to find yourself in a different puzzle to scratch your head at trying to solve. the big difference between Portal and Quantum Conundrum is that instead of portals, you use dimensions to manipulate gravity and solve puzzles accordingly. 

This game is a more casual puzzle game than Portal was. But don't get me wrong, there will be puzzles that will take a while to figure out; but the don't expect puzzles that will make you sit for hours smashing your face against your keyboard in sheer frustration. It's a more.. joyful version of Portal, with a twist if you may.

 The game holds up well, it's pretty balanced, and isn't very repetitive. However, the one thing that i don't like about it is that at times it seems to drag on forever (specially when you play for hours straight) since there is no way to know how far into the game you are, nor how far you still have to go to finish it.

Sound and Graphics 

Quantum Conundrum has a very cartoonish feel to it due to it's cartoon type graphics. So much, that if it wasn't because some puzzles in the game are god damn tricky i'd be fooled into thinking it was a game intended for children. -then again, I might just be a complete derp when it comes to puzzle games, who knows.- 

Cutest thing ever.

 The voice actor (John De Lancie) who does the voice of Professor Fitz Quadwrangle (the scientist who guides you through the game) did a very good job, so props to him, because up to where i played, he was pretty much the only human being to be heard.(your character does not say a word. At All. And the game mansion seems like the loneliest place on earth)

Overall

 Quantum Conundrum is a good game that will burn hours of your spare time. The puzzles are well designed and creatively thought out. This game is worth buying, it definitely gets a yes from me if you're a casual gamer who likes to think. If you're into 3D puzzle games that won't make you shit yourself while beating them *cough* Amnesia *cough* you will enjoy Quantum Conundrum. Go buy it. 

Score: 8.5/10

 

LIMBO Review

LIMBO

Limbo is a 2D side-scroller puzzle-platform game by Danish game developer Playdead. The game released exclusively to Xbox Live Arcade on July 2010, and a year later re-released for PSN and Windows, with a Mac OS X version releasing in December 2011

                         

Gameplay

Limbo is a great puzzle game, there isn’t much to say other than it’s a one of a kind game. You play as a nameless boy who wakes up in a forest and is on the look for his sister. It’s got no voices and no dialogue; it’s only your footsteps and the environment sounds. The game isn’t very long; it’s a game that will probably take you 5 hours or so to beat. There is no tutorial, and you only need 3 buttons.. And well, patience and brains. I can’t really say I came across something I didn’t like, I’m very happy with it overall. The one thing that threw me off a bit was the fact that there is barely any story to the game. It’s like a Mario without the trouble of going through 50 castles to find Peach if you may.

                                     

Sound

This game has amazing sound. Probably the thing I liked the most about it aside from the graphics, which I will talk about below. The environment sounds in this game are one of a kind, the footsteps are spot on, tree branches breaking sound real, glass cracking hurts your ears, going underwater makes the sounds change completely and things getting hurt sound awesome.

Sound is spot on in Limbo, It takes environment sounds on 2D scrollers to a whole other level.

Graphics

Limbo’s graphics are awesome. The game being in monochromatic black and white is probably what makes it stand out from all other games. The movements of the character and everything else in the environment are very smooth and realistic. It probably has the best graphics in any 2D scroller game I’ve ever come across, and movement speaking, probably the most natural movement of any game I’ve ever played.

 

Overall

I have to say Limbo is one of those games that’s worth the money, it’s not very long, but it will entertain you heaps while you push through it. The puzzles are great, the sound is great, and the gameplay is great. Buy more than one and give it to all your friends and have a race to see who gets through it faster!

Overall Score:  9.0