Rise of the Argonauts for PC

My new review is about a game that  it supposed to have a plot based on the Greek mythology. Rise of the Argonauts is a game that releashed the previous year (2008) and it is a third person action adventure game developed by Liquid Entertainment and published by Codemasters for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game's plot supposed to be based on the myth of Jason and his Argonauts as he searches for the Golden Fleece. I say it supposed to be because the plot has nothing to do with Greek mythology. There are some known Greek hero names from the story of the Argonauts and from other Greek stories but they have nothing to do with the original ones.  You will see Jason, Achilles, Hercules, Nessus, Atalanta etc but their history is completely different from the famous journey of the Argonauts. I mean that i can not accept this Achilles is the gamous Trojan hero...
In Rise of the Argonauts you control Jason, who is a King of Iolkoss. Jason is about ot get married with Alceme but she is assassinated and Jason avenges her by killing the assassins after that he learns that there is only one way to bring her wife back to life, thegolden fleece. Traveling to Delphi, Jason learns from the Oracle that the only way to learn where the fleece is kept is to find three people that of the bloodlines of Ares, Hermes and Athena.

Jason start his adventure with Hercules by his side and during the game meets and take with hime Achilles, Atalanta and Pan . Its of his companion has his own abilities and helps Jason during the battles. While you play the game you will visit Iolkos, Delphi, Saria, Kythra, Mycanae and Tartarus. Ok, i did not liked the story of the game because i wanted the original one. Except of that fact i did not liked the Xena wat that the developers sees the Greek mythology. The famous ship Argo is fully automated, with mechanical parts, Daedalus is black and is a Rastafarian , Achilles acts like a parody of Brad Pit's acting at Troy and has a double spear that i am sure that is based on Darth Maul's lightsaber, titans (like Prometheus) and some other characters are designed like they are copied from Xena or Hercules (crap) tv series. And i have to mention that the developers do non know history, the present Ionians as a non Greek tribe, unacceptable. The only part that i liked about the game plot was the story about imagined about the creation of mankind and the golden fleece. It is a fission of the history of Prometheus and other greeek mythological events and i really liked it. Ok, i will let the story and the characters behind and i will stay into the game features.

The Graphics of the game are good but not so good for a game of 2008. It has a little better graphics than God of War 2 for ps2. The levels are well designed. especially the palace of Iolkos, Tartarus and Kythra. The sound of the game is really good and the voices of the characters even better. Really there is no lack on these features. The game-play is fun even if it gets boring in some places, most of the time you will want to see what is going on later on the game. The battles are too easy to beat, Jason has always three weapons with him a spear, a sward and a mace that you can combine to perform combos. Except of these you have skills to use that you can improve by completing quests and gaininf god favor points. So Jason get abilities like turning the enemies into stone etc. As i said Jason has companion to help him during the battle during the most time of the game you will have another  one or two hero(s) at your side.
I thing that an experienced player wil need about 15 hours to finish the game and an average player about 20 hours. I do not thing that you will sit and play the game again after you finish it one time. I will rate the Rise of the Argonauts  with a 5/10. you will have some fun during the gameplay but the low-end graphics, the short time to finish the game and the fact that this story and chaacters will be liked only by those you like the Xena tv series bring the game really down. It is really sad becouse with these characters and some ideas about the battles that exist in this game it could be a really hit
I have uploaded some videos of the game

X-Men Origins: Wolverine for PC

After the ds version of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine i rent and played the pc version. X-Men Origins: Wolverine for PC is a fun action game with influences from games like devil may cry and prince of Persia. The game plot is based on the movie but it is not exactly the same. The story describes Wolverine's life when he was a soldier and sent to Africa to find adamantium and after he has gotten the adamanium into his bones. The most characteristic part of the game is the over the top violence. Wolverine fights with his claws so every strike leaves blood on your screen and human body parts on the floor. The most notable ability of Wolverine is the fast heeling process and this ability is really embraced in this game. Wolverine will bleed and heal every time it get a hit. You will see him covered with his blood, you will see him with holes in his body, you will see even his bones and some seconds later Wolverine will be fine. The game has a decent gameplay and satisfies the gamer.You will fight in the african jungles, in Canadian mountains, scientific labs and other places and you will be against soldiers, African natives, mutants and robots. The big bosses of the game are well designed but since you have the healing power every battle is easy to win. OK you have Wolverine so the game had to be an easy one. The bosses that you will fight are Gambit, Blob, Sabretooth, Sentinel, Dead Pool and some minor mutants that are designed for the game. As you play the game you will gain new abilities, upgrades and combos, The way you fight reminded my Devil May Cry and i liked it , most of the time you will be surrounded by a number of enemies and you will be jumbling on them, throwing them onto sharp objects and you will be kill them extremely violently. Since in every battle there will be different enemies combined you will have you se different combos and strategies to go against them and you will not be bored of the fights. During the game you do not do any save, there are plenty checkpoints during the missions and when you die you just play from the last one. The graphics of the game are good but not something that you have never seen before, the cut scenes are well designed but some of them (like the ending when wolverine looses his memory) should be better.It took my about 12 hours to finish the game at normal mode and after that i wanted to play it and at hard. I really enjoyed that game even if it is easy and small i recommend it. Every fan of Marvel, Wolverine and x-men will like ti. I rate this game with a 8.5

X-Men Origins: Wolverine DS

The X-Men Origins: Wolverine for DS is a loosly movie based hack n slash game. The story grabs some elements from the movie that came out some months ago and puts the player on Wolverine's  steps.The Marvel's fans will already knows the plot for the others this game provides some basic knowledge about Wolverine's background and starts with Wolverine trying to escape from the Alkali Lake facility. The problem with the story is that the text that provides the game between levels is so horrible that do nt tgives the proper information about the hole thing. But this is not the only problem with the DS version of the game. This version is a completely 2D game with 3D graphics and adapts nothing from the PC, X-BOX, PS3, PSP and Wii versions. Logan has to move from one stage to the other and slash everything that stands on his way.The annoying with this is the enemies. I can not understand how is it possible to face so many enemies that can handle a slash from Wolverine's adamantium claws with just shields. I mean you have to control one of the most powerful mutants of Marvel universe and his claws can nut anything it is annowing to see that a guy with a shield can block you. Anyway somehow this hole hack n slash thing is enjoyable and when you do it for some time Wolverine can go to rage mode and then you can kill everyone in the room by moving the DS touch screen pen to different directions. The second annoying thing about this game is the low rat of Wolverine's regeneration power. it is soooo short rate that it is almost useless during the battle and make the game at hard mode too difficult.
The Graphics of the game are not good too. The enemies are not designed well, the mutants are horrible, the sentinels looks like babies and Wolverine's claws has the half size Wolverine's body. The only good designed are the rooms of the game and some enemies and bosses like Sabertooth and Gambit. The comic characters at cut-scenes are not well designed either and gives you the sense that this game is designed too fast just to make something for the DS.
I will rate this game 3/10. The hack and slash with Wolverine's claws is fun but the whole attempt to make a game with the minimum effort without respect to the characters and to customer's money is not something that i like. This money does not deserves it's money. If you want to play it either rent it from a video club or wait some months to decrease its price.

New Super Mario Bros DS

I still remember the day that my parents bought me a NES with Super Mario Bros about 19 years ago. I really loved the game and i was a big fan of Super Mario and platform games these days. The last week a friend of mine made me a present, the New Super Mario Bros for DS a game that really brought me memories. New Super Mario Bros DS is a 2d game with 3d graphics that follows the game play of the games before Mario 64. This game has exactly the same game-play as Super Mario 1,2,3,World have. The story is simple as before King Kupa junior kidnaps prince Toadstool and Mario has to track him in 8 different worlds to take her back. You have to play only 6 of these worlds but since the game is so great and the levels are fantastic i do not thing that anybody wants to play less than 8 worlds.

You will fight in underground, undersea, icy, desert levels facing new and familiar enemies like Luckity (you can take his Cloud this time), turtles etc. Everything are designed  perfectly and reminds the old games transferred to the new age. This game provides even a multiplayer mode where players can link through wireless network to play as Mario and Luigi simultaneously. The only parts of the game that it lacks are the power ups and the game length. The power ups that exists in the games are: the famous mushroom that transforms Mario into Super Mario, the flower that gives you the power to throw fireballs, a new small mushroom that transform Mario into tiny Mario that can go to places that he could not go at the original size, a giant mushroom that makes Mario a giant that can smash everything on his way, a star that makes Mario invulnerable for short time and a turtle shell that Mario can hide inside and slide like an empty shell. The new power ups are good but are not great. I really think that they should place more power ups like Super Mario 3 had. The length of the game is short, you can finish every level in 3-4 days because the worlds are not so big as in the previous games and they are not so difficult to beat. The game is clearly designed to remind the old ones and this goes into the music too.

The old music and sound effects remixed makes you really think the past games and why not, the music theme is very good and gives extra points to the overall good sense of the game. This game will really make the older gamers to think about their childhood but i thing that i will be loved by the younger ones too. Mario has an incredible good and simple game-play that can be adapted buy everything. So New Super Mario Ds is a new class Mario game that deserves to be bought. I will rate it with a 9/10

Resident Evil 5 PC

The PC game that i played this month is Resident Evil 5 from Capcom. The new sequel from the from the well known survival horror series contains a very interesting plot with some of the classic characters  involved in it and goes the genre one step forward. What is new and remarkable about this game;
For the first time in the game series there is co-op action and you can play it in multilayer mode. I have played any Resident Evil have been produced for PC and i was very familiar with the characters and the plot but since the first Resident Evil created 13 years earlier programmers/designers have inserted logs about the game history for the new gamers.and provide a briefing about the past. and the characters  So if you are new gamer you will get a pretty good idea about what is going on.
You control Chris Redfield one of the protagonist characters of the Arklay Mansion case from the first Resident Evil. In this lifetime Chris has joined a worldwide military group known as the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance that fights against terrorists that spread biological weapons. After the Raccoon city incident (Resident Evil 2,3) the Umbrella corporation has been shut down but viruses has gone to the hands of terrorists and are spreading to Africa. So Chris is sent to a fictional African Region to investigate what is going on. Chris is not alone in this case, at the beggining of the mission you meet yout new partner Sheva Alomar. During the game you will meet faces from the past like Albert Wesker and you will go against a threat that you have never met before. All these in 6 chapters. that takes about 20 hours to finish The game follows a cinematographic style of view, something that is obvious through the game cuteness that are full of "Matrix" effects :-).

As i said this game is played in co-op mode. In single player mode you control Chris and computer controls Sheva. There are two different inventories with nine slots at each one that you must store weapons, bullets, medicines, Because of the fact of the two characters and the co-op mode you have to deride witch staff goes to Chris and which to your partner. You have to take care of enemies that are about to kill your partner etc. And off course your partner will help you during the battle and when monsters are over you. The perspective of the game is the same with Resident Evil 4, camera is behind Chris 's b ack and follows him all the time. You control Chris with the mouse to turn around and with the keys "w","a","s","d "to move forward,left,back and right. When you press shift Chris runs. By pressing the "t" key Chris make a slash with his knife, space aims with the knife, right mouse button aims with the gun and left mouse button is the fire.

Resident Evil 5 as the previous on has left behind any adventure elements that existing in the the first three titles. The game is based almost 100% on action and fighting. Except an extremely easy part with mirrors  you will keep on shooting and shooting monsters. This is not bad but i miss the essence of the first one. Probably this is the only thing that i did not like on Resident Evil 5 (and 4). Something else that RE 5 kept from the 4 is the zombies. These zombies are not stupid, they have weapons like rifles, shotguns or even and rocket lancers. Now they have even bullet proof armor. You will face many different  enemies in the game like mutated dogs, incests, giants and you need to follow specific combat strategies to take care each of them.

In this game there is not the known save system with the ink ribbons, there are just checkpoints with auto save. When you implement some part of your mission without any user action the game is just saved.

During the missions you collect coins,jewels etc. and after any chapter or dieing you can sell them to buy or upgrade weapons and medicines. You can buy and find many weapons during the game like handguns, Kalashnikov Ak-47, magnum, rocket lancer etc. Like the previous game there are bosses that you can wipe out only with one rocket.

As you can see from the images the graphics are amazing and the cut-scenes even better. I have played the game on a Inter core 2 quad 2.8Ghz with 4GB of ram and the nvidia 9800Gt with everything on full and the game runs smoothly. I do not know the exactly system requirements of the game but if you have a system like mine you will not have any problems. The sound is not something special but is good and gives the proper atmosphere to the game.

I am thinking about to start giving a rank to every game that i reviw so for Resident evil i will give a 9/10

The game is fun, the graphics are very good, plot is well written the only thing that i did not like is that there are no adventure elements. Probably it could be a little bit bigger.

SEGA Shinobi for mobile phones

Sega have released a new Shinobi game for mobile phones. The game has been designed for mobile phones with 240x320 screen resolution and it is implemented with the J2ME platform for S60 series. Although it plays at any mobile that supports MIDP 2.0 profile.The game is released only in Japan and China for now but it can be found on the web...


I thing that it is a really cool action game, one of the best i have seen on J2ME and as i read from other web sites it has earned the attention of many gamers. Shinobi seems that still attracts gamers even if they already know the game series from the past or not. I am not surprise about that, every action gamer likes ninjas, surikens, swords and magic. Shinobi games has all of these combined with good graphics and the new mobile version continues the great job.

Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword for Nintendo DS

The last days i have spent some hours to finish the Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword. I can say for sure that this is one of the best games published for Nintendo DS. A truly outstanding hack n slash game for handheld platforms with unique control , amazing graphics and game-play. I assure you that this game is the the most adaptive game to Nintendo DS capabilities. 

The plot of the game is simple, your character is Ryu Hyabusa a master ninja that need to give battles against evil ninjas, fiends and dragon to rescue his young female apprentice.

The impressive about the game is the way you keep and control the DS. You have to flip the DS sideways and use the stylus to make any movement that you want

In the left screen of DS there is allways a map and at the right there are the characters and you give directions to your hero. For example by pointing on empty areas  you move the character and with simple clicks on non-empty/enemy containing areas you make range attacks like throwing arrows and shurikens. Every move except blocks are activated by stylush movements on the touch screen.

You are (double) jumping with (double) slide up, quick landing with slide down, tapple with sliding while holding block, horizontal slash with horizontal slide, verical slash with slide down etc. There and a super move that is performed by continues diagonal left right sliding of the stylus. There will be times that you will need to use even the microphone to go further into the game story. Yes that's right you will need to make noises to wake up someone :-)

The graphics of the game are very well designed and the cut-scenes combined with the side-view of the console provide you with a feeling that you are reading a comic novel that make the game even more interesting.

The only thing that i would like to had different in this game is the difficulty challenge.  The enemies even the final bosses are easy to be overcome and with the plethora of save points make the mission to accomplish this game an easy job. Off course after you finish the game for one time you can play it again in harder modes.

Your hero fights with a sword (the dragon sword), with range weapons (shuriken and arrows) and with nimpo magic spells. You will gain abilities to throw fireballs, lighting, dark magic, tornadoes,shards of ice and heal yourself.

Ninja Gaiden can connect to network and submit player's skills and compared them with the skills of other players. If you want to buy a game for DS and you have not looked on this then you must. Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword is the best game that i have played on DS and i guaranty that you will love it.

Best Nintendo DS Game youtube videos

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

After the success of the X-men and the Marvel Ultimate Allicance. games all of us we were waiting for the sequel. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 has released at 15 September and the PS3 version came to my hands the previous weak so i decided to write a review. The story plot cames from the Marvel Comics  universe and the Marvel Civil War with great storytelling, nice voice work, and superb cut scenes.

There are 24 playable characters in the sequel and include Green Goblin,Venom, Hulk, Blade, Cyclops and many others.The gameplay and the controls are identical to the first Ultimate Alliance and every player that had the experience of it will be 100% familiar with sequel.

Changes come with the addition of new power combinations that you will build up combos to bit up your enemies. The AI of the game is improved and make single player mode much more interesting, with the existence of the up to four players multilayer co-op mode makes a very good game.

Co-op mode you can be plaied locally or online over the PlayStation Network.

The visuals for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 are certainly impressive in their own right.The character models design gives them a nice gloss with some very cool little details. It is pretty neat how they tried to add a realistic touch to each of these characters in the game through strong texturing and great animations.

Even if you have plaied the first part of the series even if you not if you like the Marvel Universe then  Marvel Ultimate Allicance 2 will sattisfy you for sure.

Seafight browser game

ok, after the intro to browzser games it is time to right my review about Seafight. In case that you have not read my previous article Seafight is a free MMO game that you control a pirate ship and make battles against sea monsters and other pirates

In Seafight you'll find yourself as the commander of a ship. You startup with a small ship and crew and you have to kill monsters, face pirates and complete quest to expand your crew and improve your ship. With your registration you have to choose one server from around the world that you want to play and the game starts. As every browser game you have not to download and install everything. When you login there are option that you can manage through html forms and you control your ships through a Flass applet (like the ones that i will so you how to implement). Everything seems like the RPGs of the past years. For example like 4th coming but you can play it without any extra software, from anywhere and for free so its really cool :-)

The game is not just hack n slash. You must manage your crew and your ship.That means manage your food supplies ,rum etc. You have to make good usage of your weaponry beouse it is never pleasant to run out of cannon balls when you face giant lizards or dreadfull pirates even in digital.You must be aware about the shape of your ship and buy the best gear you can.The key is to keep balance between keeping your crew happy and make the proper updates.

The graphics of the game are good but it could be better. The images are great designed the lack is on the units inside the battles.



So if you like the forgotten age of pirates and you like the idea of sailing under the Jolly Roger flag give it a try

www.seafight.com

Games that you can play from anyware

The past 8 years we have seen the evolution of a new type of gaming the browser games. Browser games are video games that can be played through a web browser like Internet explorer, Firefox, opera, Chrome etc . This difference makes these games distinct from other video games because they do not need any special client side software to play these games,except from the web browser and you can play these games from everywhere. From your home, your work (do not tell this to your boss) or even from the bus if you have a good mobile phone (like Samsung Omnia) with internet access.  There are browser games that rely entirely to client side technologies such as javascript, java applets or flash and games that employ server side technologies such as php,jsp and asp scripting. The seccond case consists mainly of massively multiplayer games and board or card games where the user uses  can find opponends to play chess, backammon etc. Client side games typicaly are single-player games.
 

Games that have gain good audience the past years are
Evony  on line
site www.evony.com
This is a medieval on line strategy game that your goal is to create cities and colonize territories to gain reputation 


seafight
site www.seafight.gr
A post-medieval time pirate game that you control a ship and fight sea monsters and other pirates 


Ogame
site www.ogame.org
One of the best browser games ever made. It is a futuristic Galaxy 
on-line strategy game that your goal is to buld a space empire