Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Titan Quest: Immortal Throne

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

When this role playing game, Titan Quest, was released in the beginning of this year, it allowed all the gamers to plunge into the mythological past. Gamers in this role playing game creates a warrior of the ancient world and traveled all over the Mediterranean and the Far East to battle all sorts of mystical enemies.

The action of this game is very similar to that of Diablo. Gamers are required in Titan Quest to hack-and-slash across a detailed and beautiful virtual world by using magic and also by using weapons to slay the enemies.

The developer of Titan Quest is Iron Lore Entertainment. They are busy working on Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, which is an expansion that will continue the adventures in the past by introducing a series of new locales and features. Immortal Throne will be launching early next year.

Elveon First Impressions

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

When you begin this game, you get an option of choosing a combat philosophy based on how you want to fight. You can opt to focus all your skills in a single weapon, or else you may go the jack-of-all-blades route. There are 4 weapon classes in this game i.e. daggers that do the least amount of damage but at the same time it is lightweight and can be dual-wielded.

The second is bows that are the only ranged weapons in the game. Next are spears that have a long reach and work well for taking out multiple enemies and the last but not the least are a two-handed broadswords that can inflict heavy damage but at the same time are slow and heavy. You can bring up to 3 different weapons into the battle, and each one will let you perform unique attacks and combos. Once you are in the battle then you can swap weapons on the fly to take advantage of the strengths of each fighting style.

The fighting seams somewhat to be realistic in that you become fatigued as you fight. If you keep performing one strong attack after another then you will get worn out and will not be able to move for couple of moments.

EverQuest Review

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

EverQuest at a first glance looks to be good if we compare its graphics to any other first-person RPG. It is colorful with 3D-accelerated visuals instead rank with first-person shooters in terms of quality and detail. Though in all the fairness, they don’t rank very highly because the quality is not consistent.

Certain player of the game classes, monsters, and areas of the world look spectacular. It is picturesque and realistic. Yes, again, other parts of the game look silly or you can say it to be downright bad.

There is not also lot of varieties in the way of customizing your character’s appearance, and nighttime tends to be oppressively dark although if you have a good lantern. But of course you will be constantly be amazed at how huge the world seems, and since it includes practically every type of landscape you can imagine you will soon find a setting that feels comfortable.

City of Villains

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

It is sometimes said that it’s good to be evil. Even this is the lesson that NCsoft and Cryptic Studios hope that everybody will learn later this year, when the City of Villains will get launched. This is a in fact a follow-up to last year’s online role-playing game City of Heroes. It will twist things around a bit. Instead of creating a unique and powerful superhero this time and saving the world from destruction, gamers will create a dastardly supervillain that is looking forward to become rich, powerful, and also at the same time infamous. Gamers will not only battle computer-controlled opponents, but you’ll also get into scruffs with other villains, not to mention of those meddling superheroes. City of Villains is presently undergoing its beta test for the launch.

This game, City of Villains features a host of new locales to explore. These locales also includes the Rogue Isles and the city of Port Oaks. According to the creative director of City of Villains’, Jack Emmert, they already know the background for the Rogue Islands.

But about the Port Oaks he said that it is one of the islands that makes up the Rogue Isles chain. Much like the other islands, Port Oaks’ gothic architecture reveals signs of French colonization. It is dominated by a large fortress at one end, Fort Hades.

DeathKeep

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Like the storyline of the game, DeathKeep’s playability leaves gamers much to be desired. It is simply going to the inventory screen and equipping the character that you choose with weaponry will, be it a trial for first-time players. Even Role Playing Games veterans may find that it takes some time to master the fine art of placing an item in any of the useable slot. The character interface is not only poor, but the game movement and animation are disastrously choppy too, even if you play on a Pentium 90.

The graphics used in DeathKeep are dull and antiquated. The walls are jagged, lanterns seems as if floating in midair, and the creatures become pixelated in the close combat. And all of this together is made worse by the fact that you can’t even see the weapon that you are carrying, even when you are frantically chopping a foe into paste.

Keeping aside the interface and graphics, the main problem with DeathKeep is that it lack character generation. You must play only one of those 3 characters, namely a fighter, a mage, or a fighter-mage. By eliminating the option of creating an alter-ego, SSI has removed one of the most satisfactory qualities of a RPG. It is hard to feel much empathy for a canned character.

Demise: Rise of the Ku’Tan

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Though it has a complex storyline but the game itself is nothing more than a first-person dungeon crawl. Gamers start in the town of Dejenol and creates a party of maximum 4 characters from a combination of 9 different races and 12 different character classes. In this game only few classes are actually available to each race. Gamers then have to set forth into the dungeon to fight monsters and has to search for treasure and get the points. As gamers venture deeper into the dungeon, he or she will find the tougher monsters and better loot.

The adventuring of the game is done in a node-based first-person view reminiscent of older computer RPG games such as Wizardry and The Bard’s Tale. Gamers party will hack its way through the dungeon and loot the occasional treasure chest.

Unfortunately, the game has a numerous problems right from the beginning. The interface of the game is divided into a convoluted set of mouse-driven submenus that clutter the screen. The interface is easier to manipulate by using the game’s keyboard shortcuts. But alas these shortcuts are also not printed out on a handy quick-reference card.

Betrayal in Antara

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

It is similar to the earlier Betrayal at Krondor. It is like a sequence. This game tells the twisty tale of the ancient Antaran Empire. It has been created in the distant past with the most benevolent of intentions. The prey falls to widespread decay in the game and also a political corruption.

The players assume the roles of 4 characters that speak. Total number of characters are 50. They are caught in a web of political intrigue, racial hatred, secret societies, and yes, personal discovery also. The “novelization” of the game is appreciated by gamers in the game.

The game, also popularly known as BiA also features a good number of side quests and sub-plots that often determines whether the gamer feels empowered or railroaded where as most of the interaction is first person. The game even features third person, turn-based strategic combat, which comprises perhaps the most noticeable “break” in an otherwise admirably seamless game experience.

Gamers who are partial to magic will appreciate the game’s skill-based magic system.

Battle Mages: Sign of Darkness Preview

Friday, February 20th, 2009

This game is the upcoming expansion to the original Battle Mages. Battle Mages: Sign of Darkness is a game of role-playing strategy, which has been released only in Europe. The expansion of Battle Mages will be adding 4 new campaigns that also includes an undead campaign, an improved inventory system, new magical abilities, and new hero characters in each of the campaign. Apart from all these other new features are also there that also includes new race-dwarves.

One of the good new features of the game is that the upgraded units can now be transferred throughout the campaigns. Hence, gamers can now build them up to the ultimate units, just in time for the climactic last battle. The graphics engine of Battle Mages is now much improved. Now there will be day and night battles with the real-time changing weather conditions. New items and artifacts are also included in the game. Troops can now have inventory slots.

Each of the 16 maps is up to 3 hours long and moreover there are too many dynamic quests and optional tasks in the expansion. It is also heard that Battle Mages: Sign of Darkness will be shipping for the PC this year.

Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Review

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Pirate life is tough. We all know. This game presents an open-ended role-playing experience of he golden age of piracy combining ship-to-ship combat along with on-front exploration throughout the Caribbean Islands. The game seems to be a sequel of previous piracy games of the developer.

The game has a worrisome start with screen dense featuring different gameplay options like nation progress rates, sailing settings, encounter frequency, and simplified sea artificial intelligence. Overall there’s a difficulty but with fine level of customization right off the bat.

Age of Pirates is sometimes aimless. Simple text-based quests hardly hold interest. Character leveling keeps a gamer playing. Its more compelling. Pacing and quality of presentation is all over the place. Too much effort is lost in creating nice-looking ships, water and weather efforts. This is because the close-up sailing sequences look very pretty.

Most of the rest of the game simply look bad. The clunky interface is also unclear and for a gamer it is very hard to get used to the bombastic music. It flares up when the ship gets to fight. As a whole it makes the battle rushed. Moreover, to this the battles wind up being long and slow. The game is so bad that it seems like that it is half baked.

World of Kung Fu: Qigong Temple – Game Review

Monday, September 15th, 2008

Speaking about this game, this is a cool free MMORPG game. This is the kind of game, which most people either don’t like to quit or get back to the game as soon as they quit. In the game, Qigong Temple is the training area. To be honest, the training is very simple.

But, the way you will be trained offline and online are different. Most people choose offline. But, you don’t. This is why: If you are going to play the game online, never go for offline training mode. So, go for the proper training and enjoy the game !!!