AFR-World

Watch Dogs

On 27th may 2014,Ubisoft is launching a new franchise called Watch_dogs which was going to release on,November 19,2013 but was delayed.This game has great potential viewing the event of 2013.Headline news stories such as Snowden's NSA leaks and the George Zimmerman trial, not to mention the tenth anniversary of the Eastern Seaboard blackout that inspired the game in the first place, have shown the game's themes of surveillance, vigilantism, and the increasing complexity of our urban lives to be quite relevant

At FanExpo Toronto last year, Ubisoft showed off the open-world gameplay available in Watch_Dogs. Although the game has structured missions, players can also get lost in the city of Chicago, using protagonist Aiden Pearce's skills to explore, make money, and fight crime. Our presenters began in a low-income district of the city of Chicago, where the game is set.Almost enything in the city from cellphone to drawbridges anything connected to the ctos can be hacked and used for your own purpose.

Before Aiden could do very much in the demo, he needed to gain access to the district's ctOS system. The ctOS (Central Operating System) is a fictional computer system that has been set up to make life in the city more appealing. It helps control traffic, prevent crime, and provide all citizens with access to the online world. Basically, all the city's systems have been conglomerated into the ctOS, and Aiden is a hacker who is able to infiltrate and control it.

The demonstrator showed off Aiden's stealth and combat skills as he sneaked into the district’s ctOS depot. It was heavily guarded, but Aiden could use his hacking skills to open the building's security fence, sneaking in the back way. He placed a remote detonation device behind a truck, then climbed to the top of a building, turned it on to lure a guard in its direction, and then set it off. This removed a guard but also alerted the others to a hostile presence. Aiden used his arsenal of guns to take out the others while also hacking into the building's system, raising up some barriers to use as cover.

Aiden connected to the ctOS, gaining the ability to hack into communications in the district. He was able to listen in on anybody's cell phone conversations as well as see the basic ctOS profile of any citizen he passed. One particular phone conversation triggered a “crime probability” warning in the ctOS, and Aiden decided to follow that lead and see if he wanted to intervene.

In this case, Aiden stopped a thug from beating up a citizen, then chased the perpetrator on foot and in a car and gunned him down on the freeway. Aiden received an overall positive reputation rating for intervening in this particular crime, though he lost a bit of respect for “unwarranted violence.” This reputation system influences how the public and the media view Aiden, which we were told has important implications for the game.

As a vigilante, Aiden is all over the news. A story about him popped up while our demonstrator was buying ammunition at a gun store, which caused the owner to freak out and press the alarm. This set off an extended chase scene in which our demonstrator stole several vehicles while trying to evade the police. Dodging the heat without hitting pedestrians looks challenging, as even our seasoned demonstrator clipped a couple of buildings in order to avoid vehicular manslaughter. Of course, Aiden has the option to mow down civilians, but there will be consequences for that kind of action.

In addition to simply fleeing the police, Aiden hacked their own systems to throw up roadblocks against his pursuers, a parking-garage door to hide in, and, at the end, a drawbridge, allowing him to do the classic motorcycle bridge-jump. Even with all these tools at his disposal, it was difficult for Aiden to shake the system once it had his scent. There's a definite argument for stealth and caution here.

What I like best about Watch_Dogs is that it's neither a post-apocalyptic nor a dystopian-future scenario. Its alternate contemporary setting feels quite plausible considering the direction that technology is going, and the game's action takes place in a fully living and breathing metropolis. It doesn't hurt that the city looks fantastic on the game's lead platforms (PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4). Anybody who knows Chicago will be particularly pleased with how Watch_Dogs has replicated and interpreted this great American city.

Continuing with the game's unique premise, the ctOS doesn't seem to be a secret plot by a bad guy who wants to take over the world. Instead, it's a well-meaning public works project that has generally enhanced people's lives. Just as identity thieves and government officials alike have been shown to misuse our modern, interconnected information systems, the ctOS can be abused by people on both sides of the law. Tom Clancy's The Division may show what could happen if our modern urban systems broke down, but Watch_Dogs shows something more insidious: what some people could have the power to do to these systems even when they're working as intended.

 It was nice to see Watch_Dogs in action and confirm that the experience of playing the game is aligned with the lofty themes behind its development. It asks its players to decide what they would do when armed with power over a living city, creating an experience that looks both entertaining and thought provoking. The game as I saw it was gorgeous, unique, and challenging. I believe it has the potential to be one of 2013's best titles, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to indulge my own vigilante fantasies in Chicago.

Release Date:27 May,2014

Platforms: PS3,PS4,PC,Xbox-360 and maybe on Xbox-one.

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THE GOOD

+Fantastic sense of discovery

+Lots of tweaks to the Dark Souls formula that make exploration and combat consistently rewarding

+Online features make the adventure even more unpredictable

+Tons of cool, creepy, challenging bosses

+Gives you minimal guidance and trusts you to triumph on your own terms

No one can doubt the ambition of Total War: Rome II. Not only is it the long-awaited sequel to a beloved game, but also it's the biggest and boldest Total War to date.

Ambition is a double-edged sword, though. While Total War fans will get their fix in Rome II, it's hard not to notice that the game feels rushed in some ways, as though the creators tried to cram in more material than they had time to polish. The folks at Creative Assembly promise regular patches and updates, so one is inclined to cut them a little slack--but Rome II isn't a great game as it exists right now. It's merely a very good game that needs a fair amount of work.

If you've never played a Total War game before, you'll quickly learn that the franchise is not for weekend warriors. These games have an intricate web of gameplay systems--most prominently, they combine turn-based faction-building with real-time battles. In other words, you have to build a civilization, organize its cities, keep the people happy, raise armies, and then lead those armies as they fight battles. On top of that, there are RPG elements--your units and armies gain experience and skills over time, and you progress along tech trees. There's even some of the family-based political intrigue you'd find in a Paradox Interactive game.

Basically, if you just want to lay siege to a few enemy territories and watch the blood fly, this isn't the game for you. This is a game for people who are willing to deal with minutiae on a regular basis while preparing for the epic moments. Some basic historical knowledge also helps to give the game context--and if you want to learn more about events as they unfold in the game, there's an encyclopedia that can fill you in on how everything happened in real life.

To be fair, Rome II does make room for people who don't want to handle all of this at once. If you prefer turn-based gameplay, you can auto-resolve the battles instead of fighting them out by hand. And if battle is really your thing, you can create custom matches or skirmish against human opponents online, and skip all the fiddly Civilization-style bits. But if you want to truly experience the various faction campaigns that Rome II has to offer, you need to do everything, from setting tax rates to changing units' formations in the middle of battle.

All of this is laid out in a prologue that takes several hours to complete. Playing as Rome in the third century B.C., you command troops as they defend their allies--and proceed to raise more armies, defend yourself, and attack rivals. By the time it's over, newcomers will have a halfway workable grasp of this game's mechanics, though everyone, newcomers and vets alike, will also have a whole lot to learn.

Speaking of vets, they’ll immediately see that Rome II doesn't reinvent the wheel. If you've played other, recent Total War titles (such as Shogun 2), you'll feel right at home. But the game has also evolved in a variety of ways, many of them for the better.

One of the best additions is a "tactical view," a simple screen on which you can see an entire battle at once without the distraction of realistic graphics. Creative Assembly has also improved water warfare--units now move seamlessly from water to land. A "true line-of-sight" mechanic makes it easier to create ambushes without being seen. There are even economic and cultural routes to victory, for those who think that strategy games are too action-fueled and exciting, I guess.

Other elements have been streamlined to keep the gameplay from becoming boring or repetitive. Regions have been grouped into "provinces" of several regions apiece, so you can manage a large area rather than micromanage each region within it. And now there are limits to the number of buildings and armies you can create--which does tamp down on the series' notorious monotony, but will also irritate players who don't appreciate artificial constraints.

After the prologue, there are nine different faction campaigns to choose from--and those who pre-order or buy the Greek States DLC have three more (though these are more difficult). Each experience is a bit different; there are varying stories, starting territories, historical personalities, tech trees, and even battle units. The Barbarians, for example, have poor agricultural skills but high battle morale.

These campaigns are incredibly impressive. Creative Assembly has woven an elaborate history together with delicately balanced gameplay. The more you play, the more complex your understanding of the game becomes. But the game also suffers from a number of serious issues, most of them technical.

The biggest problem I noticed was slowdown during the real-time battles, even when I had the graphics settings turned way down. This game looks terrific with its new graphics engine--but frankly, I'd rather have simpler visuals and a consistent framerate. It's incredibly distracting to watch the entire screen transition from fluid motion to awkward stuttering, especially when it happens as often as it does here.

I noticed smaller things as well. At one point in the prologue, I won a battle, only to have the computer make me fight it twice more; I had to start over to get past it. And glitches are rampant--most are insignificant, but if you take a close look around any battle scene, you'll probably see some very strange things, and sometimes there can be problems with selecting and de-selecting the units you're trying to command.

One of the few non-technical issues I noticed is that the campaigns’ pacing can be hit-or-miss. Even with the steps that have been taken to streamline the gameplay, it's not uncommon to spend a lot of time micromanaging things you don't really care about. Of course, with Total War, micromanagement is kind of the point--it just sometimes feels like things could be sped along a bit.

As I mentioned earlier, there's a good chance that a lot of this will be fixed soon. Creative Assembly has promised regular updates, including not just bug squashing, but also free and paid DLC. The company has a reputation to uphold, and I'm inclined to think these problems will be addressed, even if it looks unprofessional for them to be present at the game's release.

RATING:

7.5

                                                               Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

Taking the Assassin creed Idea and applying it to the Golden-era of pirates.Assassin's Creed IV put you in the shoes of a pirate trained by the Assassins Edward kenway father of Haytham kenway and Grandfather of Connor kenway(Ratonhnhaké:ton) and his ship The Jackdaw.

"He's a fearsome dog that feeds off trouble and turmoil... I've seen him clear the deck of a Spanish galleon like it were nothing. Fighting like a devil, dressed as a man."

―Blackbeard speaking of Edward Kenway

Edward joined the British Royal Navy early in his life and, once accepted, found himself stationed in the West Indies. However, a quick end to the war and the promise of gold, glory and fame eventually seduced him into a life of piracy; it was during this quest that Edward first encountered the Assassin Order, and became embroiled in their struggle.

This time the naval battle are amplified,how you ask?.Well you can let go off the wheel anywhere inthe middle of the sea jump where ever you want go where ever you want.Find treasures,hunt sharks or plunder ships for rums and many valuables.And the new under water treasure hunt experience will be very wonderful and you can also make your own fleet by plundering ships you have a choices to make like take the crew members of this ship or send this ship to your fleet.

Black Flag doesn’t have a single landmass, however: it has an archipelago, and rather than swinging through foliage or galloping on horseback, this is a place you explore from behind a ship’s wheel. The Jackdaw, Edward’s vessel, lies at the very heart of Black Flag, and you’ll use her to voyage around the 50-something unique locations that make up Ubisoft’s Caribbean.“It’ll be the most different Assassin’s Creed game in terms of world structure,” says creative director Jean Guesden. “We’re not dealing with a few large maps, but with one gigantic hub. You can go wherever you want with your ship and explore these locations.” He goes on to promise a sprawling list of environments: “There’s our cities: Havana, Kingston, Nassau. There’s fresh settings, like the fisherman’s villages; there’s plantations obviously, they were a reality of that time. There’s hidden coves with treasure, jungles, Mayan ruins, and obviously a lot of tropical islands – we’re in the Caribbean.”

Don’t expect to sail around the West Indies unaccosted, however, like some pensioner on a cruise. Rival pirates, not to mention the British, French and Spanish navies, will be patrolling the waters. These serve as organic barriers to your exploration of the islands: the plunder you take from defeated foes can be used to upgrade the Jackdaw and enable you to take on tougher opponents. “This big loop… this is how we want players to see the world and progress through it,” says game designer Ashraf Ismail.

Assassin’s Creed III’s naval battle system managed to convey a surprising amount of weight and drama despite its relatively simple mechanics. Black Flag will add all sorts of rigging to that fine vessel. “Game progression is something we’ve worked on a lot,” says Ashraf. “Traditionally in Assassin’s Creed the enemies were human, and so it’s actually very hard to give challenging progression. But because ships are inanimate, we can always have more cannons, more hull for defence, new abilities.

“Plunder you take from defeated foes can be used to upgrade the Jackdaw"

One of the many feature added by ubisoft is Free aim system rather than automatically AI selected targets now,you can use free aim to hit you enemy directly on the head or incapacitate them by shooting them on the leg or disarm them by shooting on the arm.and if you are a cowardl\ily one you can use free aim to shoot you enemy from the safety from your ship.

And as most of the Assassin's creed series this game will also be based on the historical facts about the pirates and the Caribbean.

RELEASE:

19,November,2013

   Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Ultimate Edition

Three years ago Mercurysteam surprised many people with the realease of Castlevania:Lord of shadows.It borrowed many aspects of the popular video games like Shadow of colossus and devil may cry bundled with fascinating charachter and intruguing storyline, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow almost became the best action-adventure game of 2010.Previously a console exclusive,konami dicided to launch it on pc and in august,2013 it was released  wnder the supervision of climax studio.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow tells the tale of Gabriel Belmont and how far he will go to resurrect Marie, his love and life. Gabriel’s tale is told with a heavy emphasis on the battle between good and evil. He faces off against the three Lords of Shadow as he fights to obtain a mythical mask through which he can bring back his deceased wife.On your journey you will meet several other characters that will either help Gabriel or manipulate him into doing something heinous. The plot is one of the most influential factors in giving impetus to the gameplay and it makes sure that the player will remain engrossed for the fifteen hours or so that the game lasts.

"The console version of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was marred by sluggish frame rates and bland textures. However, the PC version runs at a slick sixty frames per second at a glorious 1080p resolution."

The enemies in the game are quick witted and even though they follow a linear approaching in taking out our hero, they are still a worthy opponent nonetheless. However the real meat lies in the boss fights, not to mention the massive Titans you will face in the game. Anyone who has played Shadow of the Colossus will probably appreciate the uncanny resemblance but for some reason I found the Titans in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow to be much bigger in scale and scope compared to the colossi.

However taking them out is not really arduous as it involves using your combat whip for climbing on these giants, some underwhelming quick time events and smashing their weak points. You will also end up facing off against the three Lords of Shadow and even though they’re not as seemingly daunting as the Titans, they’re still formidable opponents.

The console version of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was marred by sluggish frame rates and bland textures. However, the PC version runs at a slick sixty frames per second at a glorious 1080p resolution. Couple that with high resolution textures and you have the ultimate Castlevania game that fans have yearned so long for. The voice is acting is admirable with notable performances from Robert Carlyle and Patrick Stewart voicing Gabriel and Zobek respectively. The voice of Gabriel immediately connects with the player, depicting a sense of desperation and innocence at the same time. The game also comes packed in with downloadable content packs Reverie and Resurrection and although they are underwhelming, they still manage to add a bit of back story to the twisted ending of the game.

Someone might rightfully debate whether Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is an original game in itself due to the fact that it shares so many ideas from similar games in the genre. But given that the game executes them all together in a masterful way, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is in a league of its own. It is easily one of the best action adventure games ever made and a timeless experience that you owe yourself to play.

FOR:

Immense sense of scale, Epic boss fights, Great storytelling and a long single player campaign.

AGAINST:

The DLC still feels underwhelming, lots of emphasis on quick time events.

RATING:

8.5/10

The consistent thrill of Saints Row IV is how it constantly, eagerly, happily, accommodatingly asks you “Hey, how do you want to break the game now?”. And for a game so colossal, so occasionally dumb, so often colossally sharks-with-laser-beams-on-their-heads-that-can-also-breathe-fire-and-fly-and-turn-invisible-and-you-can-even-ride-them dumb, what an incredibly smart thing to do with an open world, a franchise, and a story.Saints row IV gave us a wonderful experience playing it,The aliens,The madness of saints Row III +some ******* super powers. With the addition of powers like speed running up walls or super jumping tall buildings in a single bound (literally), Steelport becomes a concrete jungle gym for your character to explore every inch of, be it at street level or atop towering skyscrapers. It also means that new gameplay types are opened up.One of the new additions to the activity roster is a challenging climb to the top of a tower - similar to Assassin’s Creed’s viewpoints or Far Cry 3’s radio towers. While one might not immediately associate a game like Saints Row, the new powers of super-speed and (almost) flight make it a less jarring addition than you might expect. Jumping and wall-running your way to the top of these structures is not only satisfying and fun, but also helps you take over more of the city and upgrade your superpowers so you can jump higher, run faster, and nut-punch aliens further into space,well sound like Alex mercer to me. 

A staple of the Saints Row franchise has always been its deeply customizable game worlds and character creation systems. Players can craft perfect replicas of themselves, or go full-on Dr. Frankenstein and create a hideous abomination with which to terrorize the citizens of Steelport.

The customization features in Saints Row IV are no different, and introduce new options to truly let your imagination run wild. Want to wreak havoc with Han Solo’s signature blaster? Go ahead. Or maybe you’d prefer dual-wielding nail guns as you escape the cops – the choice is yours. While the weapons you can equip all have the same basic classifications (Heavy Pistol, Light SMG, etc) and upgradable stats, each weapon category comes with several different skins and variations for you to choose from (So far our favorites around the office have been Mal Reynolds’ sci-fi revolver and the Colonial Marine pulse rifle).

Unfortunately, the nature of the game demands that certain aspects of the previous customization systems be removed (we can't say too much without spoiling anything, but know that it does make sense within the game), and so players are no longer able to customize their hideouts, cribs and safe houses - which is a shame, considering it would be great fun to put stripper poles all over The White House.