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.

Dragon Age: Origins developed by Bioware (the same fine folks who brought us Mass Effect) have taken the next evolutionary step in interactive story telling in both intensity, depth, and fantasy. Moving back to their Baulder’s Gate style roots and away from the sci-fi they recently gained fame for, Dragon Age: Origins has you starting out in one of six origin stories (as a noble human, peasant human, wood elf, city elf, noble dwarf, or casteless dwarf) but have you essentially fighting to save all races and creeds against the Archdemon and the Blight. However the story begins, it provides insight and a background to where you came from, how you became a Grey Warden (a group of soldiers whom can sense evil and are tasked with defeating the Blight) and sends you off on your merry adventure where you meet dozens of characters who with a little finesse can become invaluable allies in your battle (letting you control up to four characters at one time) or… with a little fast clicking can have you killing them on the spot (trust me, I’ve killed at least two potential allies so far).

He's right behind me... Isn't he?

The game is all about choices, much like other Bioware favourites, but for this one, they go deep in morality it goes beyond just deciding if you want to be greedy, evil, good, or psychotic. For example, a simple choice in the game is whether you want to call down a massively strong dragon to fight against you or just sneak by… easy enough. How about choosing a side between two equally capable and equally evil dwarfs to take the throne as dwarf king? How do you know you’re making the right choice, how will the story evolve if you make one decision over another? So far the hardest choice I made in Origins beyond deciding how to level up my characters was to kill a young innocent boy harbouring a demon inside him, or find a way to exorcise the demon and save the boy… unfortunately for the boy, I have been on a tight deadline to write this review… so he died. Speaking of tight deadlines, since getting my grubby little paws on this title I’ve pretty much done nothing but play, and with well over 24 hours under my belt, I still feel like I’m barely scratching the surface of this massive game, which touts over 80 hours of gameplay.

Aside from decision making, gameplay within Origins can be utilized in two different ways. Players have the option of setting a basic set of guidelines their AI companions can follow much like the Gambit system in Final Fantasy 12. As your characters get stronger, more rules can be set for them (such as if an ally has 50% less health, use health potion on them), while the player controls the main character from an over the shoulder view in a more action type manner. Alternatively, players can change the view to a top down approach (like Baulder’s Gate), pause the game at any time and assign actions to all characters, unpause and watch the mayhem. Combinations of spells as well as elements also provide a deeper sense of customization (throw grease on a bad guy, then cast a fire spell and see what happens).

Graphically, Dragon Age: Origins uses a new engine called Eclipse, and while I’m not sure exactly what it does better than other engines, I do know this… it makes Origins pretty. With plenty of characters on the screen at once, all doing god knows what in the form of attacks, spells, and other abilities, I was amazed that the detail and effects that would be shown on screen without a lick of slowdown. As well, I was intrigued by the blood system. There is A LOT of blood in this game, and often after a battle, that blood will be left on you and your party until either your wardog cleans it up, or after a good rest. The character and location designs are all extremely unique from the DarkSpawn, to demons, to the dragons themselves; they’re all just as varied and detailed as the forests, cities, and caverns you visit along the way. The only instance where I felt a little cheated was in the Dwarven city that looked a heck of a lot like the Dwarven city in World of Warcraft.

I think my favourite thing about Dragon Age: Origins has to be the voice acting. With tons of dialogue between characters, and multiple decisions about what to respond with I was amazed with the amount of voice acting to be found in this game. Aside from your main character (most of the time) every peice of dialogue in the game is voice acted. Consider for a moment how long this game is, over 80 hours long, and with very busy cities and many people to talk to, the amount of voice acting is at such a high number that I cannot even wager a guess to how much hours of speech are included in the game. Music, slicing, and grunts are all included and play well within the game, however I find that the musical change right before battle takes away from the surprise element of it.

Equal rights.

In terms of lasting appeal, while Origins has no multiplayer, the game itself is ridiculously long, and addictive! In a time where I have Borderlands, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, and Left 4 Dead 2 sitting on my shelf; I find myself playing this title more than all four of those combined. That being said even if you do complete the story and all side quests, Bioware has guaranteed over 2 years of post launch content. They even tout that they will be providing more post-launch content than all other Bioware titles combined.

So overall, do I think Dragon Age: Origins is worth it? You bet I do! Especially now with gaming sales coming every which way, chances are you may be able to find this title for $40 in the very near future.

Gameplay:      4.5/5

Graphics:        4.5/5

Sound:             5.0/5

Replay:            4.0/5

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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.

In terms of historical accuracy, you will only find it in the representation of the vehicles themselves – PT boats, cruisers, torpedo planes, destroyers, they’re all here, and look great. Control however, is a bit of an issue. Flying your planes is fantastic fun, as it has simple pick up and play control. You’ll probably still end up making accidental landings on the deck of a ship here and there, but overall, the flying mechanics are well handled. The surface ships and submarines, however, don’t fare as well. For destroyers and larger vessels, the drastic change of complete control from the dog-fighting to having to meticulously plan every approach to an enemy target and distancing yourself so that your artillery actually serves a purpose is tedious and downright frustrating. The submersibles fare even worse – control is even more lax than with surface vessels, and for the most part it feels like you have no chance to properly defend yourself before you are mercilessly pummeled by the enemy AI.

Gorgeous sunsets will distract you from your impending doom.

There’s a lot of gameplay to be found within the campaigns of each side; missions can have multiple stages, and multiple primary and secondary goals. You also have the ability to jump out of the single unit gameplay to issue orders to other units and squads elsewhere on the map. This is where the strategy element of the game comes into play, and the developers did a decent job at implementing the use of multiple units while allowing you to focus on single units to take personal control over. However, for those of us who find micro-managing to be a bit of a formidable task, the complex order and command system in place becomes an incredible bane, and you can end up spending more time deciding what units to call in from your bases to completely lose control of your mission, at which point you have no choice but to start all over again.

I found using a gamepad much more agreeable than using the keyboard-mouse setup, especially when using the planes – dog-fighting while using the mouse for a flight stick wears down on your wrist quite quickly, and you will find that resetting the mouse during hectic firefights results in more water landings than is usually acceptable.

Multiplayer is a somewhat entertaining break from the single-player campaign, in that everyone you are facing is at the same advantage and disadvantage you are. You all need to maneuver around the map, which takes some time, allowing you to try to plan out your strategy for taking out your opponents. Running head on into a fight in this game is a quick way to get your crew lost at sea. Be on the lookout for imbalances to the game however – the matchmaking is hit and miss at best. It’s not uncommon to find yourself facing off against an opponent with significant artillery and

T-Pain's got nothing on this one.

technological advances on your simple little fleet.

Need anymore proof that this game focuses mainly on eye candy?

The presentation of the game are extremely well done, with enough dedication to the small details that it feels like you’re actually watching a war movie, and not simply playing a game. The water effects are nice, even though you’re probably going to be checking out the vehicles and backdrops more often. Watching destroyers break in half before slipping beneath the surface is breathtaking, until you’ve seen the same animation played out a hundred times over. The sound effects and banter during gameplay are decent enough, making it feel like you’re actually causing some damage with your bombs and torpedoes, but the dialogue is incredibly cheesy and the voice-acting are barely more than caricatures of both Japanese and Western dialects. This sorely affects the overall presentation of what is otherwise a very well put together product.

While the game itself is engaging and entertaining, don’t be fooled – it’s not for everyone. If you have played Battlestations: Midway and found it too complex, steer clear of Pacific. You will find the exact same level of frustration. However, if you enjoyed Midway, and are getting fed up with World War II shooters, I would definitely recommend giving Battlestations: Pacific a try.

Graphics: 4 / 5

Game play: 3.5 / 5

Sound: 3 / 5

Replay value: 3 / 5

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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.

The game begins at the level of a single-celled organism, and you evolve your creature (I named my creature Lepreclops, after my two favourite mythological beasts) from an amoeba-like blob to a sentient, spacefaring species.  The funny thing is that even at the point of civilization I found that my creature still seemed animalistic to me, which bothered me a bit.  The progression of the stages goes from simple and fleeting (like the amoeba-stages) to the more engaging and complex (like spacefaring eras).

The creature creation system features some new parts not featured in the original SPORE, so maybe a million more combination of parts.  I’m not kidding, it’s that diverse. So if you’re like me, and just want a diversion for a few hours here and there, then you may want to take your time evolving your creature.

Spore in action.

One interesting feature of the Galactic Adventures expansion is that users can design their own missions.  Which means that any given planet your species lands on, may or may not have a maze of certain death awaiting them – like an intergalactic IKEA.  Of course, it could also be a happy funland rescue-the-kitten mission.  It depends on how sadistic the player is.  So,most likely a death-maze.

All in all, I found this game to be somewhat engaging but at the same time, I found it a little lackluster in almost every aspect but the creature creator.  Lucky for SPORE, the creature creator alone is pretty much worth the buy.  It’s although worth a few hours of your time, here and there.

Cheers.

Graphics: 4/5

Interface: 3/5

Gameplay: 3/5

Replay value: 5/5

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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

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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

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