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You have to hand it to those guys over at Bioware. Whether its intentional or not on their part, the times at which a player is presented a particularly dicey scene right after jumping into one of the developer’s games at the very first chance they get can either be highly arousing or terribly underwhelming until enough hours have sunken. For me, it was pretty amusing right from the get go when I chose to play it safe as a Male Warrior. While walking into a kitchen where my soon-to-be-possessed pup was found stirring up a bit of conflict with the local Nanny, a gang of rats had ambushed us in the pantry. Rats! You can’t imagine how underpowered we were for this battle, even if it was a mere 1/10th of an entire nanosecond. Regardless, we took those grimfaced bastards back to the Maker. One of my party members takes the time to reflect on the situation through a dialogue tree, while looking absolutely smeared in rats blood. Clearly, this was no ordinary encounter. This was goddamn war.
Right, so maybe it wasn’t completely intentional on their parts, but I couldn’t help laugh. For all the grandiose I’ve witnessed through their trailers of epic tease and those previews of journalistic gloat, it was clear that Dragon Age: Origins (a role-playing game that’s been in the making for some time) had some hefty +2 DEX boots to fill in. Returning to their roots, Bioware once again proves that it knows how to work the fantasy realm, and that some fancy-schmancy Dungeons & Dragons ruleset wasn’t going to make or break it for anyone’s who come to love the Baldur’s Gate series. But how does such an experience fair on the mighty world of console gaming?
It was a cold winter in New York and I was one of the unlucky few that had to go to work. It had been snowing all morning, and by 2 PM, we had 12 inches of snow. Business was done, and my co-worker and I were sent home. Getting home was not a problem for me since I lived a few blocks away, but my buddy Andrei was totally screwed. So as a gesture of concern I invited the guy over for a cup of coffee. By the evening, the roads had cleared and buses resumed service. Andrei went home but forgot his goodie bag, and out of no fault of my own, I was compelled to open the plastic bag only to come upon something which would change me forever. Andrei had forgotten his very new and very precious copy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I popped that bad boy in and that was it, my first sandbox-style Action-Adventure.
Being a true metal-head and a gamer, I always felt that video games need more metal, which is probably why I loved Quake II – one of my favorite tracks till this day is “Quad Machine” by Sonic Mayhem. Although Vice City did have ‘V-Rock’ and those splendid tracks by Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth, it kinda left me craving for more. “Couldn’t they have more Metal,” I would ask myself. And then after all that time, here is Brütal Legend!
We, at The ANGRY Pixel, never really get tired of lamenting about how Mumbai gets most of the gaming goodness and this one only adds to the already long list. Come August 26th and some more salt will be added to the raw wounds of us Bangloreans when Electronic Arts will showcase their upcoming releases to a fortunate crowd at The Trident in Mumbai.
On show will be some of the highly anticipated releases of this year, with the likes of Brutal Legend, Dante’s Inferno, Need for Speed Shift and Saboteur making to the show-floor. Those wanting to get down and dirty will be rewarded by getting their grubby paws on FIFA 10, Dragon Age, Need For Speed Shift and Brutal Legend, much before any one of us does. To top it all, Christopher Ng, General Manager for Electronic Arts Asia Pacific Pvt Ltd, would be there as well to showcase EA’s offering.
Those who can make it should be marking the date on their calenders. We, as usual, will be content with burning up with envy for the time being.
I have nowhere else to go. Two days of clawing and scratching at the seeming underbelly of The City has led me all the way here, to this point of no return. “Live a little”, he says, “You can’t stay on the edge forever. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to jump!” The irony is clear enough from where I’m standing, the center of my gravity poised precariously at the edge of a thousand foot glass citadel. Straight down below, cars and people hurry about their business as if everything is normal – tiny flecks scurrying about without realizing that their mundane existence has already changed, thanks to me. I know what needs to be done. Already I see a way from where I stand to where I need to be, synapses in my brain firing – measuring, calculating and plotting my course as my body breaks out into a full sprint. Feet don’t fail me now!
After the less than lukewarm response to Need for Speed: Carbon and the unmitigated disaster that was Need for Speed: ProStreet, EA and Black Box were pretty sure that they finally had a winner in their hands in form of Need for Speed: Undercover. More so when you take into consideration how long time fans of the series have been clamouring for more of NFS dipped in the same goodness that made Most Wanted so enjoyable. So, having nothing better to do than to appease the moneybags fans and gain back some of the lost ground that the series had to concede to other stellar racing titles this year, Black Box decided to throw the cops into the mix again, introduce a new “Heroic Driving Engine” (HDE) and pray to every conceivable god and set fire to little effigies and hope that this is the winning formula that will get the gamers flocking back to them again.
Whether it actually manages to do that is a pretty difficult question to answer considering how easy it is to brush off the game as another one in the succession of disasters that have rolled out of the Need for Speed camp over the last few years. The NFS series, in its later years and newer avatars, has all but stereotyped the half-breed Simulation/Arcade racing genre, completely dominating the casual and pro race-game circuits across India. Mirroring what’s in style every particular year, NFS hit on the tuner culture with Underground and its sequel, re-inventing itself with flashy cars, night-time racing across neon lit stretches blurring past the windshield at 200+ mph and the adrenaline rush that kicked into our bloodstreams every time the car got a shot of nitrous. Taking a page out of The Fast and The Furious plus clones, Most Wanted went one step further with its open world, frantic police chases, cheesy yet entertaining cut-scenes, all gelling together to make for one of the most fun games in the franchise this side of Porsche Unleashed. Undercover, in typical EA / NFS fashion is a Frankenstein created by salvaging all the best elements from the previous successful iterations, which technically, should make it the best in the series.
After being royally ignored countless number of times, Bangalore finally got its first and much deserved gaming expo in a long time. After wowing the gamers in Mumbai, the PlayStation Experience (PSE) in Mumbai, it moved down south to Bangalore, much to the delight of us gamers here. Held at the Kormangala Indoor Stadium, PSE boasted of an impressive set up that allowed the general public access to a lot of PS3, PS2 and PSP titles, some already out in the market and some just waiting to hit the shelves. The show floor was divided into different zones showcasing different genres of video games from the PS3’s roster.
All you gamers in Delhi eager to check out Need For Speed Undercover at the Playstation Experience event coming your way next week, here is another chance to play the game before it hits the shelves.
EA India is inviting all Indian fans of Need For Speed series to try out the game at All Sports Bar, Connaught Place on 19th November, which is tomorrow. Be there by 12 p.m. if you don’t want to be stuck in a queue waiting for your turn.
Click on the picture to view the complete ad.
In a time when games are being hyped through the roof, it indeed comes as a welcome surprise when some of them do manage to live up to all the hype that they have generated. That’s the case here with EA Canada when it comes to the latest game in their long running FIFA series. EA was quick to announce that this iteration has more than 250 tweaks to it that will change the look and the feel of the game. True to their word, EA Canada has managed to pull of this impressive feat and this year’s FIFA does look and feel like a new game all together. The beautiful game has never been this beautiful before.
Was browsing through the PC game section at Landmark, Forum Mall today when I stumbled upon this nice little offer from EA. If you are planning to pick up a copy of the latest Sims wannabe Spore, then you can pick it up at INR 999 and get a Sims 2 copy bundled along with it. A pretty neat offer if you ask us, considering the two games combined can give your hours upon hours of fun like trapping your sims inside a house with no windows and doors and watch them go insane.
Thanks to Kris Acharya’s Flickr photostream for the pictures.
Just a quick reminder for all those who have been waiting to grab your own copies of the EA’s FIFA ‘09. The game is in town and just waiting to be picked up. Take your pick from the wide selection of platforms.
Xbox 360: INR 1999
PS3: INR 2499
PC: INR 999
PS2: INR 1599
PSP: INR 999
See you online in 10 vs. 10!