In his latest movie, The Woman In Black, Dan traded his Hogwarts uniform for a totally new role as a Dad.
Natalia brings you the latest news on Adele’s interview with Anderson Cooper, Kristen Bell’s interview on Ellen is auto tuned, Ladyhawke’s latest music video and much more!
Natalia discusses what’s new with Pharrell Williams and her thoughts on Karl Lagerfeld’s mean comments towards Adele’s weight. She also shows a roster of animals behaving like humans and, wait until you see the new size of coffee available at Starbucks!
Natalia dishes the latest news on the Juno Awards nominees, the upcoming Spiderman 3D film starring Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield and is Katy Perry hooking up with Tim Tebow? Watch today’s episode to find out.
When The Kooks are in the studio they’re focused and most importantly, sober. Watch Hugh and Luke explain their reasoning below.
The Kooks released a new album called “Junk of the Heart,” and you would think Hugh and Luke would be very excited about it. Well, they seemed rather indifferent to be honest. We spoke about that and why they don’t care about critics.
Natalia dishes the latest in entertainment news on Joan Rivers, Lana Del Rey and a brand new trailer for the movie Hunger Games.
Natalia talks about how Snooki might be pregnant, Nicolas Cage’s Cage Rage, Elisabetta Canalis is dating Steve-O and more for Feb 1, 2012.
Natalia dishes the news on Miley Cyrus breaking her tailbone, a 100 year old woman who plays the Nintendo DS to stay young and Houston, Texas contemplating a statute of Beyonce.
David Beckham debuts a new line of underwear, the worst dressed celebrity – Shy’m and Matthew Broderick is back as Ferris Bueller with a brand new commercial airing during the Super Bowl on Feb 5th 2012.
Daniel Radcliffe is back with his new movie The Woman In Black. It’s a bone chilling remake of a film from the ’80s. Ironically, Daniel actually scares very easily but he’s not afraid of ghosts. In this interview he tells us what really gives him the creeps.
Next time you’re struggling to make conversation, try asking this question: “If you could invite anyone (living or dead) to the perfect house party, who would it be?”
Graffiti6 is starting to make their North American invasion, and they are hitting up the Tonight Show. Does this sound familiar? Well the Beatles made the exact same journey over 40 years ago. Naturally, @jordans_life had to make some comparisons.
Nick plays World of Warcraft. Not only that, he’s the head of his guild, demonstrating that it IS possible to juggle being a hardcore gamer with being a top-selling recording artist.
During a LIVE interview on andPOP.com Nick Carter gave out a number and took phone calls from his fans. These were real phone calls from real fans who we gave exclusive access to one of the biggest recording artists of our generation.
There were great questions about music, fitness, the backstreet boys but the most popular question, however, was about his underwear. In this clip Nick talks about his his ‘Haynes’ and covering his fans with glow in the dark paint.
When releasing new music today, half the battle is online promotion. However, contests, signed merch and giveaways aren’t always the best solutions. When working on their latest album, Hedley came up with a brilliant idea, they decided to make trailers.
It’s hard to prepare for an interview with Hedley. So in this interview, we threw caution to the wind, got a 24 of beer and broadcast the interview live on our USTREAM (andPOP.tv). Eventually Jacob, Dave and @jordans_life ended up talking about hairy legs, their newest music video and more.
Diamandis from Marina and The Diamonds talks to us about her very serious disease. It’s called synaesthetic. And we lied, it’s not a disease. More like a cool condition. Diamandis explains further.
Would you be embarrassed if someone scrolled through your iPod? We sit down with Spee and Brendan to talk about the diverse music on their playlist.
Like blood? No… I mean, do you REALLY like blood?
If you answered yes, and also have a fancy for dragons, fantasy, compelling story, in depth character evolution, complete voice acting, and a really really long story that I believe Bioware’s Edmonton office has created the perfect game for you. (more…)
As a pseudo-sequel to 2007’s Battlestations: Midway, Eidos Hungary has managed to deliver a larger game this time around, but still trip itself over annoying landmines that plagued the original and hamper the overall feel of Pacific.
In contrast to Midway, Pacific offers you two choices of campaigns – you can play as either the American or the Japanese forces. While at first this seems like a great option, being able to see the conflict from both sides of the battle, Pacific is less a simulation as it is an arcade-style game mixed with strategic elements. In the end, both sides feel the same, forcing the player to deal with cheesy voice acting and predictable missions at every turn. (more…)
SPORE: Galactic Adventures is an expansion that will kill a few hours at a time, whenever you feel like it. I think that’s an important distinction to make – the difference between your immersion in a truly epic game that you have to really pull yourself away from, and a game that is easy to break away from, but is still fun to play for hours at a time. Through it’s simple interface for play and very in-depth character(creature) creation process, it can be a pleasant diversion whether you’re more into the gaming itself, or (like me) you enjoy playing around with how bizarre a creature you can make, or how human you can evolve it. (more…)
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a 10-year-old girl and an amateur figure skater? To do single or even double axels in front of a crowd of dozens of people at your local arena? How great it would be to compete at the regional level. Well wonder no more thanks to THQ’s newest addition to the American Girl series, American Girl: Mia Goes for Great, which lets you fulfil all of your craziest 10-year-old-girl-figure-skating inspired fantasies.
Before I continue, I ask that anyone reading this that actually has 10-year-old-girl-figure-skating inspired fantasies stop immediately and seek professional help. It’s weird and not socially acceptable. That having been said, my introduction was clearly sarcasm and an attempt to point out the fact that it is a poor concept for a video game that no one in their right mind would want to play.
And I know what you’re thinking, I get it all the time, the game is not targeted towards me and hence my opinion is biased and as a result I fail to grasp all the subtle genius which this game provides. You couldn’t be more wrong.
While it’s true that I am not the game’s target demographic, that I probably double if not triple the game’s intended audience, such children’s games aren’t really marketed at children at all. Ultimately, these video games are targeted towards the parents whose final stamp of approval is on every single piece of detritus that makes it into a child’s hand. And I would not want this game in the hands of my child. Maybe not the best argument considering I don’t have children, but hear me out anyways.
Mia St. Clair is a 10-year-old girl from a lower-middle class family growing up in up-state New York and aspires to be a figure skater. Mia has three brothers, Perry, Rick and Skip (generic enough?), all of which play hockey. Mia overcomes all the obstacles she encounters with cunning and wit and manages to turn an enemy into a friend in the process. She makes it all the way to regionals (along with everyone else she originally competes against) and wins the competition, at which point the game ends and tries to entice you into playing again. Total play time, two and a half hours.
The worst part about the story is that the player is constantly reminded of how little money this family has and structures the entire game around this fact (which is ironic considering that American Girl dolls retail for around $90 USD each. Maybe rich kids want to know what it’s like to not have a lot of money?).
Every major obstacle that Mia encounters is money related and is resolved by people giving her free stuff in exchange for the completion of some meaningless task or answering some trivia question.
All Mia wants to do is figure skate, but in order to do so she has do what feels like dozens of fetch quests just to get on the ice to practice.
My least favourite time spent with Mia was her gig working as a sewing store mascot in order to get material for her costume. I was required to tell at least 10 people of a holiday special and sing a tune which is not very pleasant.
Once you’ve done all the require tasks which include picking your costume (which you don’t actually get to do), pick your music (again, not up to you), and fix your skates (answer some figure skating trivia), you’re finally ready to design your routine. This is where the fun begins… kidding, there is no fun to be found in this game.
Designing your routine consists of dragging possible manoeuvres into numbered slots indicating the order of your tricks. The only freedom you have is choosing the order in which your tricks will appear in your routine, as there are rules that dictate what has to be included. Once all the required tricks have been added you’re ready to begin practice, which brings us to the next big problem with the game. The figure skating.
In order to perform the tricks which you have chosen for your routine, you simply hit one of the directional buttons within the time limit and the trick is performed right in front of your eyes… Are you serious? I am supposed to feel like a figure skater by pressing a key within an allotted amount of time? The challenge level is zero. The most difficult trick requires the player to press the direction key twice in the same direction or once in opposite directions. That’s really all there is to say about that. That is the closest the game gets to any form of action. What’s worse is that when you win the first competition, you get to do the exact same tasks that you had to do before, with a few boring additions.
Mia uses Blizzard’s Diablo style of movement and really doesn’t add anything to the mix. Players simply point and click on the screen or use directional buttons to navigate the quietest, most desolate town ever depicted in a video game. The single map includes a library, garage, pizza place, your house, an arena, and sewing store. The town has a population of 12 characters who you can only interact with by talking if you have something to say to them or need. No shooting the shit with these characters.
As for graphics, there’s really not much to say. Nothing in the town moves, come to think of it, nothing in the entire game moves other than yourself and maybe the occasional blinking of an eye or moving of the head by one of the NPC’s. The game uses a mix of animated and real life graphics which fails to captivate the details of a real person and the exaggerated features of an animated character and the result is the most vanilla looking character models I have ever seen.
Dialogue trees are bland and really cheesy. A snooze fest all around. I do however appreciate that the writers didn’t subject me too many bad puns or jokes.
With that as evidence, I rest my case your honour. American Girl: Mia Goes for Great is another attempt by publishers to cash in on a popular franchise without delivering a quality product. A game this linear, where players are given absolutely no freedom other than that of choosing which order tasks are completed, is a waste of time and money. Even the low price point seems too steep to purchase this game which is good for nothing more than to serve as a coaster. Buy them some candy, or put the money in their education fund, but don’t waste it on this game. If your children are really interested in learning about figure skating, read them a book, or sit them in front of a Wikipedia entry, they will have more fun, I promise.
Graphics: 0.5 / 5.0
Gameplay 0 / 5.0
Sound 1 / 5.0
Replay value 0 / 5.0
Crysis is a game based on an alien invasion and conflict with an advanced North Korean military in the year 2020. You are sent to an exotic island with a Delta Force squad to find a missing science team involved in a mysterious archeological dig. The island is over-run with North Korean forces but don’t worry, you aren?t going in alone or ill equipped. You are armed with the latest weaponry and a super hi-tech nano-suit which gives you added powers.
Game Play
Crysis immerses you in huge environments indoor and outdoor where you can see for miles and miles. You have almost unlimited freedom to go anywhere you wish.
You may go into the levels and tackle your challenges all guns blazing or choose to sneak around stealthily or perhaps you wish to create a diversion to temporarily get the enemies attention.
The game-play is amazing, you can take different paths to accomplish your mission and go exploring for different weapons and ammo along the way. Everything is interactive in Crysis, you can pick up and throw any object from crabs and sea turtles to all sorts of weapons. You may even shoot down the trees with your bullets and watch them fall and roll. The physics are incredible and extremely realistic.
There are many ways to travel in Crysis. Try hiding in the ocean and literally swimming around enemy forces or better yet, why not take one of their fancy boats? It has a nice machine gun. If you find a truck in the area, try taking it for a spin. The Hummer with the mounted machine gun is also available. Try a free test drive and take it near an area of enemies then switch to the turret position and start blasting away.
There are a good variety of weapons which are customizable. Try and mount different attachments and tactical enhancements to your weapons such as laser pointers, scopes and reflex sights. As you progress you find some other nice treats like a laser guided rocket launcher and alien energy weaponry.
Your advanced nano-suit will aid you in you traveling. Turn on speed mode to walk and run real fast and dodge enemy fire. Strength mode allows you to pick up very large objects and throw them and will give you a super jump to make those hard to reach places a piece of cake. Armor mode will help you take some serious damage from enemy fire by absorbing the impact. Cloak mode is the most fun. You can sneak around enemies and take them out one by one using your silencer attachment. Watch them scramble all confused as they attempt to locate you. You can perform other tactics in cloak mode such sneaking up and igniting gasoline drums or gas tanks which create some very awesome explosions to divert the enemy?s attention.
Artificial intelligence is really well done. Controlling enemies and squads as they attempt to surround and flank you making an interesting survival experience. I personally recommend playing the game on a hard difficulty setting to intensify the realism. It makes the experience more enjoyable and the single player story last much longer.
Later levels get more intense throughout the game. As you roar through a raging tank battle you see an alien structure emerging high up in a mountain as boulders and debris tumble down to the landscape.
Eventually you find yourself going through the alien structure in zero G’s navigating and fighting alien species, which really twists the game play around.
Graphics
The graphics will not disappoint you as everything in the world is detailed to the extreme. You can see leafs on the trees to each individual blade of grass. Shadows are also produced very well from plants and vegetation. All the textures are detailed and you can see nicks and cracks in almost every object of the game. Walking right up to most objects at close range shows no distortion of texture quality.
Some surreal environments like the alien space craft look like something straight out of the movie Aliens or some kind of high budget hollywood movie. At times you really wonder if this is a movie or a video game. This game is an absolute technical masterpiece which can only be experienced on a high-end PC.
Multi-Player
Multi player mode is one of the more unique experiences in Crysis especially with a mode called power struggle. Here you will play on a team of 16 players against another group of16. In order to destroy the enemy’s base, you must construct exotic weaponry, which requires you to hold specific key power plants on the map. You can also capture other buildings such as factories to manufacture vehicles. Capture a bunker and you can spawn in different positions throughout the map. Take counter strike and a bit of battlefield then factor in the nano-suit and you have Crysis multiplayer.
Hardware
If you want to run the game at full blast, forget it! Running this game with a GeForce 8800 Ultra on a Core 2 Duo E6700 with 4Gigs of good OCZ memory will not run the game smoothly at extreme resolutions with Anti-Aliasing. Turn down the settings and the game will play fine and besides, it still looks much better then any other game out there.
This game is a truly a next generation game almost ahead of its time. Crytek claims that you will be able to unlock more graphical features for the next generation of video cards to follow. Hopefully there will be some moderate improvements with the current generation of video cards through game patches and driver updates.
Conclusion
This is simply the best first person shooter made to date. If you can afford the recommend hardware and want to push its capabilities to the max, Crysis is your game. Crysis has raised the bar for all new FPS games to follow.
Graphics: 5.0 / 5.0
Gameplay 5.0 / 5.0
Sound 5.0 / 5.0
Replay value 4.5 / 5.0
