Velvet Assassin

Not the way to win World War II.

Although the mountain of games, which are produced by seemingly every week, you believe otherwise, the Second World War was not entirely on massive battles between armies, Hitler's halt search occult objects or by sending a One-man Wrecking Crew win the war alone. It was a lot of secret agents, resistance fighters and soldiers, have contributed to lowering the Third Reich. Consider, for example, Violette Szabo, a British secret agent's decorated service during the war. Replay Studios and SouthPeak Games, inspired by her story, created Velvet Assassin is a stealth action title that places players deep behind enemy lines to cause havoc in the German army. Unfortunately, the weak story and a very inconsistent stealth elements seriously hamper the game.

Velvet Assassin is a story told from the perspective of retrospective and introduces players to Violette Summer, a British secret agent, which is often sent behind enemy lines. Unfortunately for her, the game begins with the tragic turn of events: Violette was seriously injured and is trying to restore the remote French hospital. As she lies in a coma, remembers many of his previous missions, which could be sent to the destruction of key facilities or assassinate German officers. For the most part, the story sequences are scruffy - briefings on the mission are shown through several photos, which explains how to animate, what must be done. But these are very short, lasting about thirty seconds each. There is very little information about why it's in the hospital, or why it believes it is necessary to explain or tell her adventure. It's only in the last mission will be completed on certain elements of the backstory, but this is too little too late. As a result, the story does not really make any sense, and that would be told, usually without flashbacks, moving from one mission to another. Even if the mechanic to change the morphine (which I will receive later), it would be much more meaningful than the crowded story, as it currently exists.

Story potholes Party, the main objective of this game is about a stealth attempt to infiltrate into the enemy bases and installations. To assist you in achieving this goal, colored silhouette is located at the bottom left of the screen. If the silhouette is shown in purple, Violet is completely obscured from view, which enables the movement quietly from place to place and prepare to strike with inconspicuous cover the attack of the shadow. As Violette sneaks for the intended target screen slowly turns red, giving you an indication of when is best time to strike. If you manage to pull off the move without you saw someone, and killing blow animation will play in response, so you can see the division of a neck, slicing a tendon or repeatedly plunging the blade into her enemies, including brutal strikes.

It is clear that leaving the body lying around will alert any guard that comes across his way, even if it can be used as a tactic to isolate and eliminate the other soldiers. Violette can also perform several other stealthy maneuvers to confusion, such as breaking fuse boxes on the part of the area, in the dark, or whistling to get someone's attention. You will have to be careful, of course, because the enemy will try their best to detect any of the ordinary, such as shattered glass on the corridor floor. They'll also search the groups and, consequently, the flashlights to peer into the shadows. Totally blow your cover, and you'll have to either fight or flee as the guards call for backup and shoot at each other. This often means disappear into the shadows and standing still hiding in lockers or cabinets, or leaving the area to record the position of the drops.

You will be expected with such a high focus on the hidden maneuvers that sneaking mechanics would be very strong. However, stealth is completely at odds with performance. When it works, it's nice, but when it fails, it fails on a large scale. This is reflected in many issues. The first is that the game often requires you to be exactly in a position to start the kill animation. Management down to the tiniest part of a soldier by the hair and you will not only fail attempt to get a burst of gunfire but for your efforts. A second question arises in that the shadows are not always conceal you. During one mission, I turned all the lights in the room and sat quietly in the corner and waiting to see who could walk before me. A guard, which was probably fifteen feet looked in the dark (no flashlight, mind you) and raised the alarm. I reloaded the control and magically, he worked in the shadows the way they were it. This was not an isolated incident, in fact, it happened more often than not and forced me to reload several times, as I worked in every mission. A third question, which might some consider a minor, is that the stealth action is very linear, which may reduce some of the exploration and creativity, how to get through each of these areas. Unlike other stealth games, where you can potentially penetrate the area for more ways that you have some flexibility in how you advance, there is only one route to Violet. Taking no-violent approach, or even sneaking past a guard without enemies is not really an option because you will often find that doors are locked and the key guard on their bodies, forcing you to give up on stealth killing guards. This can be somewhat frustrating, because at the beginning of each mission, Violet often leaving everything behind except the knife, forcing you to procure weapons on the ground. Instead of picking up weapons from fallen enemies, you can only get a pistol, rifle and shotgun from the box of weapons that are conservatively scattered throughout the map, which have limited ammo. Although it is not primarily armor-plated, many of these guards will take at least two or three bullets into the body, than go down, which can quickly exhaust your supply and get attributed to the serious danger in the firefights. Getting Headshot is crucial, but it's not nearly as simple as it seems, if you are close.

The only guaranteed way to eliminate rivals in the fight is on your morphine power, which provocatively places Violette her negligee, and she is running around while enemies are stunned, and slows down, allowing it to kill enemies before it regardless of the damage. In addition, clear admission on the supposed retrospective premise for the story, there is no explanation as to why Violette used morphine in addition to mild titillation, which is shaky at best. This is particularly true because after the killing starts in animatic shows Violette independently, is in "normal time" instead of the drug haze of morphine. In addition, there is a ton of morphine needles lying around the sections, so it is possible to run through the fields and slaughter of guards, then run away, to get more corrections, and do it again. Moreover, if there is a need game bullet time, it could have been carried out according to number of stealth kills Violette undertakes to place drugs she shoots you in the heart because it sticks like a sore thumb.

Another problem is that Violette is extremely slow in terms of its insidious. In many ways, this lifts the balancing system, which is a game that allows you to increase your statistics collection items that are scattered around, as well as the fulfillment of the secret objectives. Every thousand points, you will obtain permits to expand your statistics, which will increase the length of your shots of morphine, increase the amount of damage you take before dying, or increase your speed when you are sneaking around. However, even with the support of some significant speed Violette guards will just go faster than the creep, so some stealthy takedowns very difficult. At one point it was actually running better, regardless of the noise of the Violette, because I could close the distance between me and my aim, and pound on the kill button still the removal of guards. The success rate was about the same as before, and yet I could move much faster with this method.

Finally, how quickly a party, what is happening in fact destroys the purpose of disguising themselves? At various places in the game, players have the opportunity to dress as SS officer, which will allow you to pass between the guards without immediately attracts attention, or how to shoot. There are two problems with the mask, however. The first is that you are not able to sneak around because you wear shoes that noise. The second is that if you run into random near the cover, or do anything from your current cover is blown. After a while you begin to realize that it's sometimes easier to try to close the guard with your standard methods than walking between them, because at least this way you will be able to move quietly, if you need.

While Violette animates relatively well as she moves and sneaks around, not much to the fluidity of movement. In fact, most natural movement of the character model exhibits seems to be running in the cutscenes. Nazi soldiers that they also tend to move rather robotically. At least the PC version manages to inject some variety to face soldiers with at least four different faces of the soldiers to kill Violette. That certainly helps considering how anemic selection was for 360 version. Then again, that game does not feature fourteenth individual resolution settings, as well as four separate settings for the texture, shadow, anti-aliasing and shader quality. This will help you select a range of information that should not be seen, as well as possible to make some of your environment as a pop sneak through the levels. I will throw to include a warning if: Your mileage may vary as fine-tune these settings, and you may be somewhat surprised, you have to do to get a stable running environment. With an Intel Core 2 Quad processor running at 2.4GHz, 4 concerts RAM and Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX, turn everything on high or very high causing the game to stutter and browse only on every step that he took Violette. These specifications are recommended over multi-core settings, so that was surprising.

However, even fine-tune the settings, you are still running at more than a slowdown on the console, especially when you swing the camera around to check what's around you, as well as sequences during cutscenes. The screen tearing and some of that teleporting before it happened, is not nearly as widespread, but still you can see here and there as you travel the game. The same can be said of the soldiers get stuck to the environment. Violette also encounter some items, and the camera itself will have some difficulty tracking where you are. For example, there are times when the camera goes off Wednesday, if you have the secret objective, which is a little difficult to see where your target is in motion. At least the sound is good, and Violette, together with a German accent spoken in the game sounds pretty decent. Although the question of some words used by the Nazis to speak (the lad actually say or bum bum? This seems to be more British than German), it seems that just as there are good supply lines. Additional increases of music during the detection experiments and the key moments also works well.

Closing Comments
Velvet Assassin could be an interesting take on World War II, which focuses on the aspect of the conflict, it is rarely covered by the play. Although it into a secret agent angle, but also brings to the story, that's fine and completely unsupported. Worse, Assassin malfunction stealth action elements that can ruin the game when they go awry, and just point to the random nature of the drive, if you work well. If you need a stealth action experience, you may wish to look elsewhere.

© 2009-05-07, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved

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Free Realms

A very enjoyable and varied experience, although lacking the depth some other children's MMOs have.

Sony Online Entertainment quietly launched its free children's play MMORPG Free Realms last week. World is colorfully populated with fairies, humans and various bizarre creatures. It is a mix of RPG combat, mini-games fashioned after the popular casual games on the market, trading card game and various other tasks that require the player to explore and apply analytical thinking to solve. There is also a car racing and demolition derby style jobs available.

There is enough to at any given time in the game, but players who want to focus on one aspect of the game strongly, but quickly find themselves worn thin on what is available. It is very easy to level to 20 in one job and one maxed out, grinding out other than for activities that have a player there, there is what to do. However, for those who want to carry out all the activities, the game can offer, there is a lot of fun to be had.

Tutorial doing their job, which means that it will introduce players to the fundamentals of combat, mini-games and interaction with the gaming world. Interaction itself is simplified. Everything can be controlled using the mouse, but movement and keys are mapped to the keyboard as well. There are still a few quirks with the interface, such as opening up jobs and facilities will not allow players to move the menu on the other hand, work as a menu page includes over selectors. Open only offers jobs with J address. The same is true in the collections of quests as well, there's no way to display multiple pages on screen collections, and we were unable to find a solution for this.

There are fifteen current jobs at stake, but it's quite clear SOE plans to add more in the future. Current work includes the fight against six working positions, three tradeskill job, two car job, and four other jobs as adventurer (players receiving first class) Pet Trainer, Postman and Duelist Cards. Four of the fight employment are a member, which means players must pay 5 dollars a month for the membership subscription (which also allows access to various other content in the game). These two free classes, brawler and Ninja will fight to keep people looking RPG in the game pretty busy, but four members of class are definitely fun. They are a guide (our favorite), archer, warrior, and medic. Combat jobs are pretty self explanatory.

Combat itself forward. Click on the monster hit or made an initial step in Hotkey. New moves are learned, as players level up and can be activated by clicking on the road or a combination of press-related. These movements are cool timer, so must be used strategically. Medical students to learn how to heal, wizards are more powerful magic and melee combat martial classes get moves that will do more damage or more damage to enemies.

The combat is totally instanced and voluntary. This is the danger of the game, but it also allows casual players to enjoy the majority of Free Realms in their spare time. There are relatively few 'pit' style, and some areas are very large and more fun to complete the group. However, the association is not really necessary, although some cases will surely need a higher level of combat to complete the work if done alone. The cases are different from land combat zone handful crowds full of underground caves and dungeons with dozens of crowds. There are often multiple goals in the pit, which will earn bonuses, including any search tasks received outside. It's a lot of fun to try to complete all objectives, although after finishing them once, especially in larger cellars, getting a little boring to repeat. A repetition is often required to complement the various quests.

Two of the three tradeskill positions are available non-customers if they are to cook and miners. United with the miners' members-only blacksmith profession. These jobs take the form of casual mini-games. Harvest is part of the kitchen and mini-games for this, together with mining, sorting mail for the postman game archeology dig and play three matches style. Players match up to some baubles in order to remove the plates. Each style of game has its own unique twist. When harvesting the game, which aims to collect varieties produce corresponding to production and gathering enough to create a full barrel. The mining industry is to get ores and gems at the bottom of the plate to go, the corresponding bubbles below them. Although there is good variety to the game, if players are not a fan of match three style casual game, it will quickly wear thin. Cooking and smithery involve a different type of casual game like Cooking Mama. Players have to complete certain objectives with the use of basic skills, such as smashing, casting and moving the mouse quickly. For example, to turn the ore into bars, the first player to break the ore into bits, then pour the liquid into the jug, then use the bottle to get the fire really hot, then pour the melted ore into a form. Once again, for fans of this type of game, it will give hours and hours of fun, new recipes as you can learn or buy. However, cooking or smithery game quickly gets boring for people who want more variety to their play.

The balancing aspect of this game is very simple. Players earn Stardust aspects of completing a work search. Stardust level to work and any active combat earns sappiness in the fight against any player will work in. balancing is also often reward players with new items, or knowledge. Chef recipes and learn most of the classes of clothing and equipment rewards. It's exciting to get a new hat or shirt and see how it looks. In fact, the clothing aspect of Free Realms from the salaries of clothing for clothing, which can be bought with coins from the manufacturers or from the market, it is very pleasant for anyone who likes to mix and match clothes.

There are many quests in the game that have nothing to do with the specific task, so you will not be granted Stardust, but instead will have other rewards, especially coins (which can be used to purchase goods from sellers) and treasure tickets, which can be used in the Cave bridge at Sanctuary (center of the region on the map). Purchase these tickets will have players random items on a specific level range. It is a fun little activity, and tickets are easily earned.

Pet Trainers train animals to do tricks. There is more than teaching Spot, how to sit down and talk, though. Pets must be cared for. There are mini-games for the cleaning of the animal, which requires, shampoo, conditioner and brush to be purchased in-game. It must be fed, which requires bowls, food and vitamins, all purchased in-game. Once aspect of care is taken, then the coaches can 'play' with their pets in teaching them all sorts of tricks. This is another kind of mini-games, pet tricks gestures, as each trick is connected with the movement of the mouse on the screen. The faster and more precise movement is, the better will teach pet trick. Players may only pet tricks to learn in specific areas for training. PET coach work could be completed without ever buying a pet through the test of domestic animals (pets borrowed from the teachers for short periods), but most people will want to own your own animal. Pets can be purchased from the market by means of Cash Station, ranging from 250 points to 400 points. A pet is not with the membership, either way, if players want to name and have their own pets to monitor the surroundings in the game, they will have to fork out any additional money. Not really, but whereas each point of the same coin, as well as the most pet gets only $ 4 a player it forever. Pets are limited at this time for cats and dogs, but we have time for more types of pets may be added to the game.

Jobs, we found that most have been pleasant and Postman Card Duelist employment. The Postman, it seems silly on the surface of the work, but we actually thought it was one of the most well thought out aspects of the game. For some reason finding the right address and throwing mail into mailboxes in different cities was incredibly convenient. Of course, some are not so simple as the other and knocked the stupid dog was annoying and made the task more fun. One player even turned repel dogs go bad guys! It's very nice.

Card Duelist is nice for a completely different reason. Supporters Magic The Gathering, Pokmon, or any other type of business card games will be like. After the card Duelist set of jobs will earn a lot of players from the card and a decent set can be compiled without ever purchasing any package. You can be on-line to play against other players. Packing fees are game, though, and, of course, will allow players to seek a greater diversity of decks, so have a value for those who have online TCGs. If Free Realms not in any field, it's where a Toontown Online Guide 101 succeed, and that is depth. Although all three of these games target kids, Toontown, and guides to the level of depth that keeps adults interested in the game long after the novelty wears off. However, in free Realms, what you see is what you get. Reach a level of 20 in each job will take a very long time, even though there is plenty of activities to participate in outside jobs, in the case of longevity in the game may come from, but we hope that you will find more depth to employment in the near future.

Another complaint we have, it seems that some unnecessary grinding. Often, we encounter a business trip and said, we need to get to level 10 or 15 and have no other tasks before us to help us get there. It is true that the fight with less work, because there are many activities in the gaming world, which we will ask you to engage in a fight and we will do to raise the level of those in employment but tradeskill and postman job, this is not the case. Once we hit those places where we have a certain level to the next trip to business trip, you must return to the old, and churn out, regardless of the level of remaining there. Usually, this involves only the level but it is annoying and we would have liked to have seen SOE make sure that they were enough activities in the way of employment (or other activities by NPC to ask us to do), so we really feel that we were just doing the task to get level.

The last thing we would like to see in the future relates to tower defense and Chess and Checkers games. We would like to recall more goals for playing these games. Right now there is a few quests in the game where the NPC to send players to beat several levels of the tower defense game, or beat an NPC in chess or checkers, but it's the extent of interaction with these games. Advanced Tower Defense games are just a membership, so you will have plans for down the track. We sure hope so, as a variety (penguin and Bixio only name a few) of these styles of games are completely fine.

Closing Comments
With a nearly flawless run under their belts and several updates have made games for the repair of minor bugs with the game, Free Realms behind really solid start. Even with its shortcomings, it's a lot of fun and so is the fact that even if one of balancing the current ceiling of 20 may not take a long time, balancing all of them and goes through all the finding in the content world, as well as enjoying a trading card game tower defense games, the many dozens of hours playing. It's worth checking for any fan of casual games, RPG games, trading card games, tower defense games (yes these games are so good that fans of the genre should look to it!) Or five training games, whether you are 5 or 50 .

© 2009-05-06, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved

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Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason

A chilling take on the first-person shooter that ultimately leaves us frozen.

For all the strategy games I've been reviewing since the beginning of the year, I was excited to dig into Aspyr and 1C to Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. Despite the absolutely ridiculous title, I was excited by the idea of taking on this horror-themed shooter for themselves. And the impression the game is very tense atmosphere of concern and the health of the drive, but eventually lost to the superficial story-telling, re-level, and for me at least one game-destroying bug that stopped us in our tracks about two thirds - of the way in.

It is a fine balance to be in media res approach to storytelling and Cryostasis misses the mark on the ambiguity of holding too long. We played the game for several hours and still can not really tell what it's all. We know, however, that the player starts on the massive Russian icebreaker, which struck an iceberg and was stranded for a long time. There are flashbacks of dogsled accident right at the beginning, and eventually you have to start re-experience events from the ship's past. There is no friction in the chain of command, flooding disaster, the spread of disease and infestation by certain types of ice mutants. Opening suited to the Russian fairy tale about a little strain, which disappeared in the woods, and was transformed to something.

First is the unpredictable nature of the story, including story-telling, is a charming and encouraging players to dig deeper into the mystery and start putting pieces together. The problem is that things are really coming together quickly to maintain the secrecy of interest. Even after playing for several hours, no more, we note what is happening. We heard that the final solution to manage the majority of elements linked together in neat little package, but because we hit a massive no-clip error-about two thirds of the way, whether it is a great end, or not, is kind of a moot point. In any case, it is necessary to have the game to solve at least some of the mysteries than we gave up on it.

The only thing that manages to keep you is that many of the flashbacks are interactive and provide support to the disaster, and even give a chance to rescue crew members from their terrible fate, or at least postpone it. Distributed throughout the ship, whose crew are dead red, pulsating heart suggests the possibility to intervene in the past and save their lives. Just enable these bodies to be taken back in time to stop floods, ship repair systems or kill mutants. In all cases, you will need to succeed in these last moments of life, in order to progress to the next area of the ship. The puzzles are not difficult, but if you fail, you will need to repeat until you get it right.

Horror games extremely rely on their atmosphere and Cryostasis manage to get several major achievements in this field. First, it's terrible sense of loneliness as you explore the ship is destroyed and a lot of chances to play detective as you try to compile past events, depending on the current state of its surroundings. There is also a huge visual style with lots of moody lighting and cramped industrial areas. Unfortunately, the sense of isolation is spoiled a bit on a possible onslaught of mutants welders, Beetle-winged guys in parks and ax-swinging ice creature. Worse still, some of your enemies spawn from thin air, which feels more than a little artificial. Environments tend to be a bit repetitive as well, given the endless series of frozen gray halls and cramped quarters. The overall level design is very linear, but all the rooms look so much alike that it is easy to get confused when you are forced to return.

As you progress through the game, you face a relatively narrow range of enemies, some of which can be quite intimidating for the right circumstances. But knowledge breeds contempt, as they say, and ultimately insane welders and flying mutants are just an excuse to take in a little target practice. Munice Cryostasis is somewhat limited but still a lot of bullets for each enemy we encountered. Award for the biggest gun is ridiculous-toss the flare gun and scoped rifle. The former has no shame and neither seem to disperse your enemies, while the other is completely useless, in such a cramped environment where enemies are never more than on the other side of the room. The real enemy in Cryostasis is cold, and it is a concept that leads to one of the most creative game conceits. Where most games you are wandering around picking up health kits, Cryostasis you like trying out a heat source. The environment itself slowly saps your heat and when it's gone, you die. Before that happens, you will need to find a cooler, torch, or even light a lamp to help stave off a cold. Different sources have different limits on the amount of heat to the right, which helps to propel you from room to room in search of warmth.

The only part of the system that violates the rules of proportionality is that the enemy attacks also damaged by heat. So you may find yourself smacked in the head with the ax, and turning to a campfire as a therapeutic agent. It sounds a little silly, but most players will be willing to suspend their disbelief enough to still enjoy the creativity. Of course, once you realize that you can become virtually immortal when standing next to the fan hot enough, things start to seem a little less believable.

Cryostasis has several visualization, which is really impressive to bring home the feeling of cold in many subtle ways. Yes, the dead sailors are blue, but there are also ice crystals on the walls and the snow drifting through the halls. You can even see your character in the breath in more extreme areas. Few outside the sequences are indeed blizzards, completely in the driving snow and whiteouts. You can play this game, and not feeling cold. Enemies and environments are well designed and highly detailed, with complex equipment in the machinist trade and plenty of sophisticated details on the clothes of your enemies. (Seamen, for the most part, it seems that lost their shirts.) There are a few downsides to the visual presentation, however, as the game is running poorly and suffer from some tears and trimming in the environment.

Sounds are as effective as in creating attractions chilling atmosphere. The slightest sound of ice cracking and tinkling in the next room is enough to cause you to time and the sounds of your enemies will have you play with light. The voice is surprisingly good for the game translated, which is added to the treatment.

Finally, it's a bug that stopped us in our giant track. Only after the prisoners returned from the outside, I realized I was already constrained by the laws of gravity or a collision. Free fly through the air and very counter to the ship, I found myself unable to root back in the real world of physics, even after trying several reloaded. I tried to play this way for several minutes, but it was too frustrating to continue. Forums for the game indicate that this is a common problem, but then again there were quite a few other bugs have been discussed, that we have not been found.

Closing Comments
Cryostasis benefits from the development of creative projects and has some very interesting elements. The setting is spooky, time-travel bits are attractive, and the overall atmosphere of big scores in the traditional part of the horror. On the other hand, does not solve the mystery quickly enough to the players and the overall course of the game is restrictively linear. Quibbles about the relative temperature of incandescent lamps and campfires party, the heat element of the game is very creative idea, which adds tension and tone of the game.

© 2009-04-24, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved

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Demigod

There's a great multiplayer game here... when it works

There is a dilemma when reviewing PC games that will appear broken for some reason or another. Yes, it would be nice to give the publisher and developer time to rectify the matter. But on the other hand, consumers are asked to be their hard-earned money now, and our job is to inform them. This is what makes demigod so unbearable. If you have not heard, this latest game from Stardock and Gas Powered Games sent earlier this week in essence broken multiplayer, which is particularly worrying problem, as it's multiplayer-oriented real-time strategy games. Stardock and Gas Powered have been working nonstop to repair these issues, and within a few days to implement key repair, as well as set up more servers. Say that we can say that it's pretty darn good game in the demigod, but ongoing problems in the network means that the tests that can often be excruciating and frustrating.

Demigod, is part of a new breed of RTS games. It is not a traditional real-time strategy games like StarCraft or Command & Conquer. Instead, the inspiration of Defense older, popular Warcraft III mod, which is essentially equivalent to RTS Counter-Strike. Demigod is a multiplayer arena combat game, there is a single-player campaign or story. On the contrary, it's all about selecting one of eight different characters (demigods) and the team does battle on one of the eight tactically different arenas. What little story the game is mentioned in the introductory film, and written back stories for the demigods. In essence, this place in the upper pantheon gods appeared, and demigods (which are smaller gods) must battle each other to determine who gets a big promotion. There is little in the way of presentation, but it's a game that does not need it.


Now, if you are the type of RTS player who is convinced that this is not real-time strategy game, where to campaign, or story, the demigod of course is not for you. The game has a single-player component that allows you to dogfight against surprisingly challenging artificial intelligence, as well as participation in the single-player of the tournament against the same AI. It is ideal for picking up the basics and practice for the online realm. It is also the closest thing to instructions for this game. This does not mean that a single-player is a good tutorial. You just have to start playing and all this for themselves. Fortunately, the basics are simple, with the right mouse button is used to issuing orders to move and attack, and most of the game there. However, you will need to play two or three games before you start to gain a sense of the overall game mechanics, and even then some of the finer nuances remain a mystery, if you dig into the manual. As someone who feels bored out of my mind most RTS tutorials (covering the most mundane things, and usually assume that you barbarian who never seen a computer before), I admire the decision demigod, but should be more transparent matter. In my war is the top ranking, I have no idea why it did so. Some explanation of the text, or even tool tips would be helpful.

Eight demigods are basically divided into two camps: the killers, and generals. The former are excellent fighters, while the latter are capable of summoning minions and head on the battlefield. Generals can dish out damage, but in a one-on-one against the assassin, that would be a problem. There is no mistaking demigods from each other, either. Each of them is significantly different in both appearance and ability to cover a wide range of styles to play. If you want to treat demigod rather an action game, then select a murderer and level up combat capabilities. If you are the type of player who likes to play a supporting role, then select one of the generals and let heal units in the battle or summon creatures to the fray.

Now it's considered a real-time strategy game, although there is no base building or military proceedings. This is because beauty is a demigod, that your time is the most important resource. How would you spend your time can determine victory. If your demigod damaging, you retreat back to your health to heal the crystal? Could you in the fight for a while, especially if you play as one of the slow, noisy tower as demigods. If you capture a particular flag to get a special bonus, or fall back into the fortress to upgrade to? The most important is that you can not be in two places at once, so you have to decide which parts of the battlefield can make the most difference. There are dozens of options that in the game that could turn the tide of victory, the battle defeat.

There is also an incredible amount of depth, especially with the level and item systems. As you play you gain experience points that level up your demigod upgrading certain skills and abilities. This is how we specialize in the battlefield. I liked to play as Oak, general demigod some amazing capabilities. Favorites are those who plant the special characters on the battlefield that resurrect fallen minions as ghosts to battle him, as well as other skills that distributes to all affected sites close allies for each kill, he does. However, I could go another way and make it more powerful support character that can provide temporary immunity to a different unit. Whatever you choose, of course, your demigods become extremely powerful as the game continues, escalating the fight. You can also expand your demigod buying potions and items in shops on the map, some of which should be to capture the flag adjacent to the shop. n the thick of battle, demigod feel action game with a lot of strategy in it, especially if you are against other people. There is a drain-and-flow in the fighting, with the possibility to create stalemates that forces both sides to try breaking the deadlock when he came with a new tactic, or entering a critical upgrade. You can also play elegantly. Charging headfirst into the crowd, it seems fine, but if you die you are only helping the enemy, that their demigods gain valuable experience points and gold, which they and their faction level up. Yet there is also Respawn timer, so you'll have to wait 15 or 20 seconds before you Respawn and when they returned to the match you are back to their fortress, which means that it is necessary to return to the first line. Such a long absence could give the enemy enough time to destroy or capture the structure of the critical key flag.

Eight arenas offer their own rich tactical tasks. Some are small and centralized in order to obtain demigods in action against each other quickly. Others are huge and maze-like, which means that more strategy is needed because demigods are spread. Each map is full of defensive structures, which must be knocked down, as well as symptoms that can be captured. Each flag has its own special bonus associated with it, so it is very important for the acquisition and possession of the flag or controls portal spits of soldiers, which floods the battlefield. There are different victory objectives, which also affect the flow of the game. In one, you must destroy the enemy's fortress to win, which means slugging it to the heart of the enemy base. In another, you need to put together 10 kills demigod first, which is suddenly playing more conservatively.

This action also comes to life thanks to strong visuals. As Gas Powered older game Supreme Commander, there is a nice level of zoom, which lets you download and look at the entire level, and then zoom down very close to seeing the carnage coming. At high graphic settings the game is very playable with the 8800GTX, and it looks fantastic. There is something almost awe inspiring to see the giant tower wade into battle, arrows and boulders raining down from the tower and shot Trebuchet on his head and shoulders. Audio exists but it's really hard to recall any of the music. On the contrary, a significant proportion of the sound, which protrudes, is the result of the Unreal Tournament-as well as the anchorman who utters phrases like "First Blood" to the first decline demigod. It looks like Christopher Lee and it's quite dramatic.

When it works, demigod is a fantastic online games, and to dig. During the last week, we've tried repeatedly and often to connect to multiplayer games and skirmishes own Pantheon, which is a persistent online tournament. Almost every time we are stymied by netcode issues. The onetime pre-patch, that we were able to connect to a game was almost a miracle, and it was an exciting two-on-one match (I'm getting AI teammate). Post patch, it is possible to connect their own game, which has a password, but there are still considerable problems trying to connect to a random game or the Pantheon. On the same day-and-age where seamless multiplayer matchmaking is reflected in the game like Left 4 Dead or services such as Xbox Live, the online experience of the demigod, is a nightmare.

The game is to rely on peer-to-peer networking solutions, instead of the classic client-server, the settings used in most games. Stardock says it is necessary for the game as a demigod, but also bring considerable complexity, because each player has to connect to all other players, and if only one person has a problem connecting to one other person, then everyone else is trouble. The patch now allows anyone who opened the game with kick player connection problems, but there are still problems.

Closing Comments
Now it's said that Stardock and Gas Powered eventually get a handle on all these issues plaguing the network game. However, in its current state to demigod netcode is almost like shooting dice at a time if you know people who play and can set your own game with them, you will have good luck to play multiplayer. We need to review the game in its current state, and we've given Gas Powered and Stardock time to implement some improvements. And if there are any corrections, there is also much more that needs to be done, you play to an acceptable level multiplayer. This is a pity, because a great multiplayer experience, which are located in the demigod, if it works. So if you are a glutton for punishment, that you wait for the best, while for developers to get things working before you dive into the demigod.

© 2009-04-17, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved

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Elven Legacy

Try to avert a magical disaster, one turn at a time.

Turn-based strategy games often work hexes on the map, factions in the neighborhood and attack enemies with overwhelming force and a healthy dose of the base and capture the city. But they require a much more successful with the whole experience. Paradox Interactive and 1C: ino-Co tried to put a different spin on the strategy with the format Elven Legacy is a fantasy based strategy game filled with elves, Orcs and other magical beings. Although the game quite well, is the difficulty of challenging games, along with some minor balancing issues and some technical issues, it's a good game that will probably appeal only to hardcore strategy fan.

A precondition for Elven Legacy is based around the dangers of magic in Illis. A human sorcerer breaks the evil fortress and learn forbidden magic locked away for thousands of years, which could destroy the entire world. Worse, it avoids capture and disappear into the wilderness, which would give it ability to learn magic for the other dangerous, which is also wreaking havoc. The elves, because they fear that the threat has been unleashed in the world is once again sending two of their biggest heroes follow the rogue before the magician can enjoy its power. However, their search to them through land held by people, Dwarfs, Orcs and other creatures, immediately sparking a war that could be dangerous as well as magic itself.

Initially, you choose the mission of the campaign map, and after receiving training and selection of one of the three difficulty levels, you can deploy your forces in the area. Each map has a special department of the CAP, and you'll be able to field up to the maximum number of soldiers, you can add that calling an external force or the discovery of magic with the troops that are loyal to your cause. Each unit has a limited range of motion and one attack that can perform per turn, and you try to move their forces from your current location within the area marked on the map to your destination. However, it's easier said than done, you will have to fight your way groups of enemies that stand in the way. Of course, that your units have different types of attacks available to them based on their unit type: Mages archers and ranged units and a strike from a greater distance (about two or more hexes away), while melee fighters to stand next to enemy units and airmen attack from above.

Like most strategy games, Elven Legacy takes several factors in calculating the effectiveness of success of attacks, such as terrain bonuses. However, it is possible to choose different skills that will enable the units to maximize their effectiveness in specific areas, which is even more deadly. For example, some units get more defense bonuses, when you are in the woods, while others earn extra attacking power whenever they're within the city walls. Since you'll be able to specialize, each one with its own abilities, no two units will have to be at the same level, and you can create a unique combatants. What's more, most of your basic units, it is also possible to upgrade to a new class, acquire new capabilities, while maintaining all the capabilities of their previous occupation.

It is clear that you want to track their soldiers to determine when the best time to upgrade, but you also need to pay attention to their health to see when they need to retreat from the front lines. Each unit (except the hero) has a set number of troops, which inevitably take damage from attacks and fending of strikes. Depending on how strong the enemy is that your unit may get injured or even lose their team members. While you can always recover wounded soldiers in the field, is the only way to replace the fallen soldiers and units to restore its full strength, it is closer to the nearby cities that you have captured and recruit new soldiers (assuming you have enough money in your treasury to pay for other forces). This is very important because if your units killed (except for heroes, again) that they are lost forever - there is no chance to resurrect these soldiers, so you will need to be careful to make sure you do not have is the damage to the way a weakened state. A significant part is just the essential elements of a fighting game, and to a much greater depth in the game, which is a big plus in terms of replayability. In fact, when it managed to complete the Elven campaign will also be in the field of human ORC and the campaign is waiting for you, you totally different take on the battle raging around Illis. In addition, players can get bonus missions, as well as magical artifacts to complete the mission to victory gold rating, one of the three standards that are assessed on your game based on how quickly you achieve your goals. If you do not like the way you have completed the mission, you can always replay the mission to start a single game or play against people multiplayer via LAN, Internet or the Hot Seat play on one computer to build your skills. If you're looking for multiplayer route may be appropriate for the collection of some friends and play on your own computer, because nobody seems to be playing this title on the Internet.

But while the game is large amounts of depth and replayability is also comes with some important issues. For one thing, the time the mission structure is too rigid for strategy titles. If you are not able to meet your goals before the end of the Bronze rating window, you do not move to the point where you are able to earn extra money, goods or other bonuses. Instead, the mission will end in failure, which means that you have to make sure that every step, every attack and every decision which orders to your destination. This means that not necessarily go your way you try to view a map, because you get so far as to put the focus on destroying its enemies. However, because they can not earn money from fallen enemies (as it is only thanks to capturing the city), you may find that the amount of reinforcements, which they call on your side can fall precipitously during the pitched battle.

Speaking of battles, balance of power, which will face off against radically skewed in favor computer. Not only that it is possible to stumble into groups of three or more enemies that are hidden in the fog of war, you will often find that your soldiers are outnumbered at least 2:1 odds on the map. If you are trying to make a path to the goal (which has a limited number of rounds before the failure of the mission), but you'll have to wade through hordes of soldiers and hope that your forces are successful in the fight to give you another chance to complete on time, you have quite unbalanced title. The worst example that I was once a play session at the end of one campaign, and I spent more than three hours playing a turn of the mission. Neither the mission, mind you - one round. I found myself stuck in a situation where virtually every step, which would result in most of my army to get destroyed, or how to kill the key units that would reset the entire operation. Needless to say, the newcomers and casual players will not be welcome here. Even some hardcore fans will be somewhat frustrated after a while, because while the job is here, it will definitely wear them.

This may be surprising, given the nature of visually accessible title. Animate the model rather well, thanks to the ability to quickly zoom in from the top down to the ground, players can immediately check the details about armor, weapons and other items. It is also very pleasant to touch, see the camera zoom in to show some instinctively attacks enemies, so you do not always have the feeling that you just watch the results pop of hidden dice rolls. There are also many nice particle effects you've noticed, some of the magic in the game, and you will definitely want to up your resolution and image quality as high as presets to be used for work and textural details in the game. Although not any performance hits, which turned up with the visuals, Elven Legacy, however, are relatively frequent accidents, regardless of the settings on the machines I played on. While the beginning of a few speed automatically for the player to immediately jump back into the game when it is again, it's somewhat annoying to constantly reload, because some unstable code. You'll also notice that some organic objects such as trees in the forests and structures, rather suddenly pop into view as you scroll the camera with them, which is rather distracting.

Sound in the Elven Legacy is in order. Music is exactly what you expect from a fantasy title Battle sound effects and pretty good. Indeed, it is rather strong as you hear the arrows strike armor or swords clash in the middle of the battle. However, the voice is not nearly so great. Shipping lines feel stilted or blandly read, so will not be impressed by the actors in this game. Worse, many of the lines seem to jump over each other during certain moments, which is impossible to understand what was said. There are also segments of the tutorial missions, which take place only in the original Russian. If there is provided a translation, that we can not understand what is the intention of the developers during those sections.

Closing Comments
Elven Legacy is one of those titles, which takes place under the hardest of the hardcore strategy fan: the depth and replayability of the game, is striking, and you find that the modernization of your soldiers, trying to unlock bonus levels and you can use any map you busy for a very long period. However, the time limit for each mission, the vast numbers that you face, and technical issues will have a majority of people, unless they completely gone.

© 2009-04-15, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved

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Wheelman

Why, Vin? Why?

I do not think that my expectations were too high for the cyclist. As someone who has the occasional lousy action movie, I came into biker expect Vin Diesel cheesy dialogue, unbelievable story and a lot of explosions. What I have been a whole lot more - and it was not too good. Sure, there's a lot of cheesy dialogue and Vin Diesel fiery moments, but also a complete lack of story of the mentally disabled enemies, repeating the city and some lame missions.

In a nutshell, is to Quickly interactive and The Furious. This saddens me.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty details on this game, I feel I should point out why this review is late at IGN PC. You know, we have a game where the intervention of store shelves, but kept crashing the computer here in the office. We tried to run on two Alienwares (Core 2 Quad, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia 8800GTX, Vista 32-bit, and all the fixins), and either freeze up during installation or a blue screen when the game started. Fortunately Ocampo finally got a new rig (Core I7 920, 6 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 4850 and Vista 64-bit) and this could actually play the game. We checked the message boards and other people with similar problems.

Cyclist, it is clear spy mission in Barcelona, the main role of Vin Diesel. I say "apparent" because the story is pretty much never explained except for a short cutscene at the beginning of the game. Vin meets just some dude from the agency, which hands him the info and ill-states world-end, as in Spain. From that you Vin Undercover Milo persona, no-nonsense driver for all kinds of bad people. Throughout the game, you'll tear through the streets of Barcelona chasing paper in a tube, a man named Felipe, and more, but you have no idea why the hell are you doing this thanks to non-existent story of this game packages.

Seriously - I am a secret agent, but I have no idea what I was working with the group. I understand the profiles of the characters RAI between missions, but I said caused some dude I worked for the CIA at one point. Who am I really working? Who knows! Why would the CIA came to Barcelona? Who cares! All I know is that there are three fractions of poor people in the city, and I need to work with them all to find a great thing. That's it. These are large enough narrative shortcomings.

On the basis of this sense of detachment even worse is the fact that a botched take on open-world environment. See you can get through the so-called biker story about eight hours, but it is designed to be a sandbox world of Grand Theft Auto. OK, this is a lie, it seems like this game is designed for a direct knockoff of GTA. When you pull on the world map in your PDA, you'll see a green icon of story-based missions and then a series of colored icons for the seven categories of side missions - such as driving people to certain places in a taxi, having regard to your opponents in the rampage, and escape your pursuers in the Fugitive.

What is this feeling disconnected, is the fact that these things just pop without any reason or rhyme. If you decide to do the taxi driver mission, simply teleport to the car, which already has a passenger. Why are you smashing into other cars? Just because you want to, I think. Yeah, that mission you can upgrade and such, but how it makes sense in this world? There is no in-game economy, so you're not earning money for these tasks, you just do to them and get the best location. You do not have the feeling that you are part of the city. It's just a few random instances of Sundays Spanish-bathed city.

One of the greatest things about each of GTAs is conjunction with the city you are living in - with the knowledge, shortcuts, tight turns, or where people live. Never to the cyclist, because you can just jump into any mission you feel like. You pull out the PDA, select the mission you want, and that the warp spot. You do not have to drive there, you travel in space and time. This leads to you know, or care for the city, but honestly, there's nothing to know, or care. Barcelona is a colorful and bright, but it's completely forgettable. Every street looks like the one before are several important monuments, and some in-game advertising here (FYI: The Spirit is coming to DVD soon). Just about everything destroyable, which is a nice touch because you will be smashing through a variety of crap, but nothing that looks good. In fact, when I was tearing through a patch of dirt, mud kicked my rear tire in the square was so that I would have sworn was pulled from the PlayStation 2 game. Yeah, that PC is more accurate and more detailed than the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, but to not say, it looks great.

Nevertheless, the cyclist is not a complete failure - there are fun parts to accept when there is no story, and the city is dead. What game is going to be quite a few over-the-top unrealistic elements involving his vehicle. When Milo barreling down the street and came on the car, you can hold Airjack and watch the red arrow appears above the vehicle in front of you. When the triangle turns green, you Release the button and Milo will jump on your journey to a new car in slow motion. That is true - it is a leap forward in speed car into another vehicle, which it will be slower. Either on impact or (special), after it jumped out the window, you will see some glass shattering and Milo will be at the wheel. It's absolutely incredible, and it looks hilarious, but this is the kind of goofball crap I expect the cyclist. This is really funny.

Another absurd idea of the game but in fact employs is fine, as collision of vehicles. Here, the right joystick (or mouse or keyboard), serves as your car in the affected staff. If you are rolling down the street, you can pull the stick left, forward, or the right to check the body in this direction, it's your car wheels are turned 90 degrees and you have a driver's side. Sure, it could never happen in real life, but for the video game starring Vin Diesel, I'm behind the steps. If you wear down the car, you can get a shot when the camera will be followed by rolling a ball of fire, which is used to your enemy.

Sadly, the AI will go up against the cyclist quickly drain the fun of those nifty moves.

You see, all in Barcelona, is mentally challenged. Let us look at a simple example: I decided that I want my wishes to run up to five-star mark (yes, stole the old system and achieve the type of the GTA) and see how long it might take. When I first started my quest to get to, I would shoot the civilian as well as to get my level up (you can not kill the innocent or the police in this game) and start running when the police gave chase. My first few times, cops caught up to me and took my journey in the hail of gunfire (special is that there never Airjack the car you need to be one of those situations.).

Then I remembered that I was against the idiots and trying to get out of the car and run from them. This strategy worked for a few minutes, because every time the cops get close to me, I climb out of their cars to chase me on foot, but the animation gave me enough time to sufficiently far away that I would climb back to his car to I chase and repeat the process. Finally, I am cocky and tried backtracking and shot me. The attempt, which worked best, I went in a circle around the courtyard. That is true, I have my level I wanted to go in the same circle around the fountain Barcelona, and the game's AI can not think of a way to stop me.
This idiocy bleeding through corny on-foot combat as well. Yeah, Milo can get out of the car if he wants to and he will have done a lot to see how tons biker mission is "to drive the objectives, get out of the car, fighting dozens of poor people to obtain objective, the fight back to base." These are types of mechanics grate on my nerves. It's not that these tasks are difficult, it's that you are so damn boring. To get started in the alley entrance, crouch in a few boxes and pop up to shoot. When you have cleared all the red dots your radar, you move forward and at the same time several new dots materialize a way before you. It's your job to just mow down wave after wave of these dudes, and it is not difficult.

Health regeneration is in biker, Milo is pistol ammunition is unlimited and there are several secondary weapons, for example, can pick up a shotgun assault rifle. Comedy, Milo'll warehouse secondary weapon on your back, but there is no strap or something to hold it in place. It's just inexplicably stuck to the small back, as it has a double-sided tape back. I think that this should not surprise, because I saw Milo to make a series of flat-out amazing things in this game - he takes phone calls in his head without holding or owning a Bluetooth phone, tell him when to jump from a moving car, his head disappears over sidewalk when you see a car that you want to distance you hit the button and Milo telepathically stopped the car and the shocks are over Jack's, and he walked in the get away car and gets hit by a half bent to the point where his heels touched the back of his head .

When the bad guys get in the car, the action is not much better. Each mission is almost against my gang in the circular building and I needed to have is the leader in five minutes. However, after the leader and his cronies climbed into their vehicles, but only went in a circle around the place. It was not until five minutes were up that the bad guys were trying to leave the page. Why have the feeling that they would toy with Milo for five minutes, which could take off the outside of me, but I do not think that AI think that any of their plans in this game. Keep in mind that you will work on three different gangs of bikers, so you can ... uh ... get info on this "device", or whatever. I guess.

Incidentally, you are helping to kill a party of another gang, and then immediately turns around and helps one gang just hurts. During the cutscene where a gang leader called Milo on this fact, the cyclist brushed him that was a mere driver. Satisfied that the leader, but I am confident that this is not how it works in real life. This boss, which operates the casino, or know that I worked with other gangs - even after I had a lone attack on the casinos, which killed tens of years old boss' men. Did you think that there was another American who is running as if it were a bald trousers worn-out killing people in the streets of Barcelona?

For a lot of missions, you'll be after a car, or trying to get away from the group. This means that you are in the game with a handful of other vehicles and you'll need to clean your clock with your vehicle melee skills as well as some super-moves through your turbo meter. As you pull off moves such as "speed" and "hand turn," a track in the lower left corner becomes complete, you can use this power to strengthen or carry out two types of trick shots. The first activity slows, coats the screen in black and white, and gives you in the driver's seat, so you can shoot 180 degrees. Rings appear on enemy vehicles during these moments, so you can download some instant explosions and the results can be quite convenient.

The second thrust is doing everything I wrote about it, except that one vehicle rotates 180 degrees so that you are now face-to-face with the slow-mo enemies coming directly to you. This is great for the adoption of the bad people who have got a little lead on. Usually ends with you kick back on the front of the car and crashing into some obstacles that popped up in front of you, but can be cool ... except the time the vehicle exploded in front of my bullets even got to gas tanks.

The problem is, you do not have that many leads as the game continues. For some reason, if you enter your support, it always seems to hit their enemies as well. This means that you rarely get a chance to get way from the pack, and tackle some damage. Hell, in the final mission, you just spammed with enemies. You will be the route to the collection of these gang leaders, who are holed into one vehicle, but if you have the slightest chance of popping the boss, three fricking underlings will T-bone you or hit you your bike. It's infuriating.

Closing Comments
I do not know how I will score the game until I sit down and write a review. After reading the preceding paragraphs of this one, it's clear, I am not a cyclist. When Vin Diesel, is attached to the project - whether it is a movie, or game - you can expect that it will have to suspend your disbelief and settle in some unbelievable shenanigans. Unfortunately, the cyclist pushes the idea too far past the point of no return. Sure, sometimes hip-check of the sedan is great, but it is not no story to keep you going (why would gangs accept his bullshit?), Is a chore Fight (Oh, another swarm of poor people to block my path? Fun.) And the game does not seem that good (Cars are just general boxes.).

I was the cyclist guilty pleasure, as well as 50 Cent: Blood on the sand, but it is only guilty of that a bad game.

© 2009-04-14, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved

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The Godfather II

What have we done to them that EA should show us such disrespect?

Sonny Corleone was a hothead who shot first and never bothered to ask questions. His intentions were good, but his execution sucked. His brother, Michael, on the other hand, was a man who thought everything through and attention to detail. He has never pulled a gun, unless he needed it, and when he did, he hit what he aimed at. So Michael ended up as Godfather and Sonny ended up in a pool of blood on the New Jersey Turnpike. As Michael himself might say, "Ideas are good but the execution is everything." That brings us to the Godfather II, a game built around a very good idea that ends up being more than Sonny Michael.

The Godfather II loosely follows the story of the classic Francis Ford Coppola crime drama. Beginning in the late 1950s, the player assumes the role of Dominic, under boss of the New York branch of the Corleone crime family. The tutorial segment follows Michael and Hyman Roth's attempt to ally with the Batista government in Cuba, which is shortened by Castro's revolution. In the process, boss of the New York family is gunned down while the player as the new Don. From here it is for the player to rebuild Corleone interests in New York, Miami and eventually Cuba in an effort to put Corleone back on top of the underworld.


Story summary also outlines Godfather II's best idea - to put the player in the shoes of Don and let them run their crime families as they want. By means of a "Don's View", a sort of pseudo-strategic overview of the game's three cities players can get a complete overview of what kind of rackets, crime rings and businesses are available, who owns them, how well they are protected by guards and more. The player who Don can hire and fire guards, assign defenders from his own crew of "Made" guys to stop hostile takeovers, or send them the same guys on their own to take over the enemy's operations. This position also tracks "favors" such as contract hits, break, beat downs and the like, the player may make an application for special abilities such as calling off the COPS, or rebuild a bombed-out company. The game's narrative is mostly used as a guide for the player to build their empire.

In between managing the family business, the player spends most of their time running around on foot and in cars in the classic Grand Theft Auto style of doing things like knocking over banks, threatening shopkeepers taking over rackets, burglarizing government offices and kill a rival family members. This part of the game is once again fine in theory. There is an undeniably fun element to the first couple of New York missions when you are learning what it takes to be a Don. Hit a crime racket and uses a series of fun weapons, ranging from one, 357 Magnum with a Molotov-cocktail to kill the site's guards. Then use Black Hand mêlée combat system to scare the owner to cut you any further by finding their weak points. Some will be vulnerable to punches, rapier, threatened by tossing off the roof, or simply damage. Just after I took my first crime ring was amazing and I thought I had finally found the strategy gamers' GTA clone.

It does not take too long after the first few missions, though, to realize that there are several holes in Godfather II gameplay than there was in Sonny Corleone's body. To start, the game is just too bloody easy. The decision to give Dominic and his friends, regenerating health makes each match a simple exercise to let your friends act as meat shields while you pick off bad guys with ridiculous ease. While there is a cover system, there is never a reason to use it for anything other than single brand of oh-so-stupid enemies. The rest of the time I found myself happily around four fights gennemvædning up bullets. The development team did a good job of translating the Xbox 360 controls for mouse and keyboard, but the more precise level of control weaken the game by doing what was easy at 360 even easier on the PC. In contrast to my experience on the 360, which was rarely a situation I could not handle solo. It freed up my done guys to hit other targets, and made the game feel like it was playing itself most of the time.

Worse than the Godfather II binds one of the greatest sins of all sandbox-style games: to be a boring and ugly sandbox. From an artistic standpoint, New York, Miami and Cuba is bland, low-poly worlds filled with cookie-cutter design elements. These include the ever popular white walls, boarded-up windows, walls, the player can not climb over arbitrarily locked or undestroyable doors and windows, and areas that are just window dressing. I knew that the game was in trouble when I first decided to go around in the backyard of the Corleone compound and found myself facing an empty backyard and a wall. Where was the infamous garden where Vito Corleone died of a heart attack chasing his grandson? I understand that Grand Theft Auto IV's Liberty City is a hard act to follow when it comes to making a city visually interesting, but Godfather II's blah Burg come out to resemble the test levels devs put together using a spare engine from the PS2 era. This is even more pronounced on the PC where the maximum resolution only points blocky, jaggy nature of the world.

For a supposedly "open world" game, the game is not open. One of my most frustrating moments were to realize that many of the "fronts" the player has to take over the strings in square rooms filled with generic junk plundered from Doom Mars base with corridors to block the player's movement through a two-foot tall barrier to Dominic inexplicably can not Vault. There may be indestructible box or a magic door that is apparently immune to explosives, but can take off a bruiser's fist. The latter makes any takeover attempt an annoying game of "hunt the owner" through areas not look like mazes but. Too often I found myself fruitlessly running through the same place again and again because I had forgotten the one door that resembles any other door in an area with almost no landmarks. The fun I'd had during the first few missions was replaced by a determination to never enter another building site in this game.


Even the "strategic" part of the game comes out so well conceived but poorly executed. Owner all firms in a "crime ring" (all gun runners or brothels, diamond smugglers, drug runners and the like) gives the family a special bonus. Owner all adult entertainment and facilities for examples that will give you cheaper guards while having all CHOP stores will provide armored cars. Had it worked, this may have some sort of urgency to the gameplay. The game tells you that bombing a company will take it out of service for some time, thus eliminating the bonus of an enemy family, which may make certain attacks easier takeover and makes some companies more important than others because of how valuable the bonus. The idea seemed to be forcing Don to stretch his limited resources while protecting turf and attacking enemies while picking off weakly defended areas, or take advantage of rival families attack each other.

In practice it is all window dressing. Most of the bonuses are pointless. Armored cars to own all the stores CHOP would be nice if there was ever needed. Cheaper guards are nice but there is so much money in the world, it is really easy to keep your business fully staffed with guards. Worse, they seem to have any influence on how easy it is to kill enemies. Bullet-proof vests at the enemy families - are not. Larger ammunition clip is meaningless when every enemy seems to have unlimited ammunition. What I had hoped would let me enjoy my inner Michael Corleone was thwarted by strategic AI that runs every enemy of the family as if they were Fredo,

Ultimately, The Godfather II comes out as a project whose scope goes beyond its reach. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the game in concept, and done properly, it would easily have established it as a classic in line with the movies, where it is based. Instead, we get brilliant concepts ham-hand executed. All I could think of after game was poor Fredo standing in the house in Nevada whining, "I'm smart! Not as everyone says ... like dumb ... I'm smart and I want respect!" Respect must be earned, and The Godfather II does not even come close.

© 2009-04-09, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved

By: Allen Rausch

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