Mirror’s Edge Review
Mirror’s Edge is a first person free-runner/shooter game available for the PS3, Xbox 360, and the PC. The game takes place in a city where a totalitarian government constantly monitors its citizens to reduce the crime rate. An upcoming mayoral election brings about a new favored candidate named Robert Pope. Robert promises to bring change to the city’s domineering ways. In this game, you play Faith, a young lady who is trained in parkour to deliver messages between the two opposing groups. One day, Faith receives a message from her sister, Kate, telling her to meet her immediately at Robert Pope’s office. Upon reaching Kate, Faith sees that Robert Pope has been assassinated at his desk and Kate has been framed as the one who did it. Faith must find who is behind this and clear her sister’s name.
Mirror’s Edge has taken a new approach to first person gaming. It combines free-running along with shooting, all in a first-person veiw. Because of this view, playing the game makes you feel as if you are Faith. With every jump Faith makes, you are tempted to jump. With every wall- run Faith executes, you find yourself turning your head sideways to match Faith’s perspective. Mirror’s Edge is so unnaturally realistic, it’s like virtual reality.
One of the greatest aspects of this game is the audio. This includes Faith’s panting, footsteps, the background music, the gunshots, and every other sound-related figure in this game. Never play this game without the sound enabled. The sound comprises about 50% of this game’s enjoyment.
Another notable thing about Mirror’s Edge is the graphics – they are gorgeous. Even if you’re playing Mirror’s Edge on an inferior PC on the lowest quality settings, this game still looks amazing. The animations and textures obviously took a lot of work to perfect.
If you are using a computer to play Mirror’s Edge, you will notice that you do not need a powerhouse PC to play it. The system requirements for Mirror’s Edge are considerably low. Most people are astonished when they hear the requirements for Mirror’s Edge. They believe that a game with such beautiful graphics could never run on their $300 laptop.
The only negative thing to say about this game is the extremely predictable and short storyline. From the start, you know who the bad guys and the good guys are, and the ending is no shocker. The storyline could use some work. The game’s developers could have done so much more with the plot. Additionally, Mirror’s Edge is a short game. Once you become familiar with the necessary movements, you can beat the game in about 7 hours. Afterwards, there is really nothing else to do but play the same boards over and over again. This becomes boring and repetitive.
Still, Mirror’s Edge is a visually stunning game, and its only shortcoming is the rushed plotline. Overall, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. Even those who don’t usually play video games will find themselves immersed in Mirror’s Edge.
4 ½ stars!
Get Mirror’s Edge now from Amazon.com: Mirror’s Edge for Xbox 360
Or from Amazon.co.uk: for Xbox 360
Call of Duty: World At War Review
Call of Duty: World at War is a first-person shooter game available for the PC, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, and the PS3. Developed by Treyarch and published by Activision, this action-packed video game takes place in World War 2 and focuses on the most famous battles of its time. The game has pretty much the same game play as Call of Duty 4, just a different setting.
Call of Duty: World at War has taken its franchise’s realism to a whole new level. The graphics look better than ever. Hence, when you play it you are totally engulfed by the game. You feel as if you really are a soldier in the middle of nowhere, fighting for your life in decayed environments.
Call of Duty: World at War has definitely adopted a more mature theme than its previous game. This game builds on the grittiness and darkness of war. There is plenty of violence and blood for those demented people who enjoy this sort of game.
Zombie Levels
Once the campaign version of this game ends and the credits finish running, you will be eligible to play the zombie levels. In these levels, you must battle monstrous zombies in a building until your death. Killing the zombies will gain you access to new weapons in the location. However, the zombies will not surrender easily. They will continuously break boarded entrances to try to reach and kill you. You have the option to rebuild the entrances to keep the zombies out the building as much as possible.
Nazi Zombies: If you wait for the game credits to end after you have completed the campaign, you get the opportunity to behave like a zombie hunter. The Nazi Zombie level is a mini-game set in a map called Nacht der Untoten, which is German for “night of the undead”. You play as a soldier stuck in a deteriorated house. Your goal is to survive waves of bloodthirsty zombies for as long as you can. Defeating these hideous creatures will gain you access to more weapons in the area.
Japanese Zombies: The Japanese zombie level is a vigorous one. It takes place on a map named Shi No Numa (Japanese for Death Swamp) and the name of this map suits it well. You will be able to play this map once you have completed the Nazi zombies map.
Call of Duty: World at War for the PC
If you are trying to play Call of Duty: World at War on your PC, it probably will not be able to run. Call of Duty is one of the most demanding games performance-wise. You will need a highly sophisticated PC to play this game.
Overall
There is nothing negative to say about this game. It has wondrous graphics, a great storyline, and action-packed game play. What more could the ultimate gaming geek ask for? The Call of Duty franchise has been a favorite for many, and the game’s developers will continue to create these fantastic games. These games are truly epic.
5 out of 5 stars!
Get it now from Amazon.com
Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360)
Call of Duty: World at War (PS3)
Call of Duty: World at War (Wii game + 2 Zapper Guns)
Call of Duty: World at War (PC)
Or Amazon.co.uk
Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360)
Call of Duty: World at War (PS3)
Call of Duty: World at War (PC)
Call of Duty: World at War (Nintendo DS)
Call of Duty: World at War (Wii)
Street Fighter 4 Review
March 9, 2009 by Kepher
Filed under Featured Games, Reviews
Without any doubt Street Fighter 4 is the biggest new fighting game release in a long time, and in many ways it does manage to live up to it’s billing.
The Street Fighter series was a classic even when I was a kid around a decade and a half ago, and the great old characters that I grew up with are still there: Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Blanka, E. Honda, Zangief, Guile, Dhalsim, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison are all back with enough continuity to make them feel familiar, and enough new moves and featues to keep it interesting, and they are joined by 6 brand new fighters including an MMA (mixed martial arts) grappler which brings the martial arts bang up to date.
There are no weak characters, which is a welcome rarity and means you can really compete with all of them. The best new feature, in my opinion, is the way you can come out of the big special moves and into another strike without having to let the whole animation run through, which allows for bigger and more powerful combos. It isn’t easy to do, but it really raises the bar on thetop skill level that you can reach.
The only real minus from my perspective is the problems you get when trying to play multiplayer, namely the difficulty of playing online when not everyone always has a fast enough connection to keep up with the gameplay, and the lack of a tournament mode. But you can still have good multiplayer games, and in single player mode it is the best fighting game I’ve ever played (which is exactly what I was expecting from it).
Overall its easy enough to pick up when you first start playing, with plenty to keep you going so you won’t get bored with it too soon and you’ll get descent value for money (I know it makes me sound a bit tight but as I have limited money to spend on games this is important to me), and the graphics are truly awesome.
The widgets below contain links to buy the game for any platform if you are interested, along with my pick of the best special editions and accessories available from Amazon. The first one is for USA, the second one UK:
