Supreme Commander (Plus Forged Alliance) Review

This game is a classic example of how an excellent product can be marred because there isn't much explanation and an introduction to the mechanics. When I played the demo, I thought, which was reinforced, by the tutorial, that this game is just like all the other RTS games, where you build, group and coordinate an attack to decimate your enemy. So, naturally it didn't make sense when an injured unit would come near an engineer and it wouldn't heal. But then I happened on a video primer on IGN, where I was introduced to the wonderful mechanics of Assistance. This simple, yet wonderful, mechanics makes this game a strategist delight! It's perhaps the only game (out of those that come to my mind anyways) that makes you plan your actions in this game, and that includes the building part too. Once you get hold of this mechanic this is a pretty wonderful game, and suddenly the high scores of Gamespot starts to make sense. I haven't played Total Annihilation, but if it was half as good as this one, then it sure does earn it's place in the RTS Hall of Fame.

The mechanic is simple, you order other units to assist by right-clicking on the one you wish to assist(the plus cursor). Once that's done, depending on the unit that is being assisted, and which is assisting the work changes. For example, if it a combat unit is assisting an engineer, then it will follow it and protect it from enemies, while an engineer assisting a combat unit might increase it's efficiency or rate of fire and heal it when required. Then engineers can assist each others, which results in a tremendous boost to the working rate of the primary engineers. It also keeps units manageable, as controlling the main assisted engineer makes the other assisting engineer follow it around. And there's no limit to the number of unit that can assist. So, as long as you have enough mass and energy to go around, you can make 100s of units assist one engineer, which suddenly makes the building time of 40 mins seem reasonable. And this assistance also extends to buildings, where production buildings will share load, and defensive buildings will gain bonus.

This brings me to the next point of economy in Supreme Commander. It's not the run-of-the mill economy, that is to say, the more unit you have on one resource the quickly you can gather it. You have to build a sustainable economy that remains in the green profit margin and doesn't become more consumption than production, at which point the building will go on, albeit at a slower rate. It's not as if you aren't producing, it's that whatever is being produced, is being used up, and not getting stored. Plus, many of the buildings and even units take up energy, mostly the shielded ones, to operate, whose shield will fail if there isn't a sufficient energy reserve. So, you have to pay attention to the economy too, otherwise your entire army, no matter how powerful can easily fall apart.

Which also reminds me about the army. Unlike other games, where you can spam a single type of unit and hit your opponent until he is overrun, this game puts more stress on the type of unit you bring into play while going against your opponent. Think your hulking giant can make mince meat of anything in it's path, with it's land based Oblivion Cannon? Well, think again, as the hulking giant will be quickly transformed into assimilate-able scrap metal when the opponent brings in it's air-force. So, not only you have to keep a good mix, but also have to keep an eye on the opponent's weakspot, from whence you can stab him and stab him good! It's because of this strongly set mechanic that sets it apart.

All of this strategy talk, can't be done if you don't mention the Tactical view. Out of all the RTS games that I've played till now, there was only Empire Earth that had given me the ability to carry out precision strike and plan my attacks with my Units. CnC has a basic form of it. But this game has that mechanic tightly integrated into the game. Not only can you set a waypoint, but also you can merge 2 waypoints as well as carry out coordinated attacks, wherein your bombers can fly in and bomb high value targets while your tanks move in as soon as your bombers are done, like the real-world battlefield, only you don't have to be a quick shot for this to be precise. Coming back to tactical view, it is a strategist's gold-mine, to put it in simple words! Not only can you do everything from here, but also plan and execute complex tactics, like marking out high value target or identifying the weak points of your enemies as well as your own base. Plus you can see how far your defenses cover and which area needs reinforcing more.

As for the graphics department, the game has quite good graphics and effects, which, if your machine can handle, is pretty nice. Some of the behemoth units crashing down, like the Aeon Assault bot, falling on her knees and then crashing or the shot down planes spinning out of control and then crashing and making a long crash line on the ground, really makes you feel you're in the heat of the battle, not to mention the smaller units that simple gets blown to smithereens when a heavy unit's done with them! Add to that the animations of the units that feel like real mechanical units, with the giant robots stomping onward or the tanks starting off slow and then accelerating in a straight line, or the subs surfacing with one side pushed up first, or even the less maneuverable bombers taking a huge diameter to turn around, makes this game one of the most immersive games on the market. And all these effects are made to come to life, with the excellent sound effects. The creaking of the ships, the floating of the saucers, the sounds of the lasers and missiles going off, or even the muffled artillery shelling that's going on at a distances and the subsequent screen-shaking makes you feel like a commander that's duking it all out on the battlefield, and keeps you glued on for that one more attack, that can easily result into 2+ hours battle which very nicely complements the humongous maps this game has.

As for the campaigns, they are one of the most well designed campaigns. They start off small but gradually eases you onto the humongous maps so that you don't feel lost. The scripted events are great, and the difficulty challenging enough to keep your grey matters humming all through out the campaign till you see the operation complete dialog box, because the defensive line that you thought was impenetrable, will eventually fall. Special commendations for the last missions of the campaign which really makes you feel like the last hope of your respective race, of the main game, and all of the campaigns of the Expansion, which really makes you feel you like backed into a corner.

Apart from all these good sides, there are a few quirks. For one, the game is a Major resource hog, specially the CPU. Unless you have a top of the line CPU, this game will bring it down. Good thing the game does natively support multi-core CPU. Apart from that there's the bug part. The game's buggy as hell. The game starts off fine, with everything smooth and clean, but 2 hours into the game, and the videos start to lag. Completely shut it down and start it off again and it's back to normal! Also, this doesn't qualify as a bug but still a flaw nonetheless, every building you build in this game adds to the unit count! That means even if you put up immovable walls, it will be counted as your unit! What the hell is that supposed to mean! And to add to it, there isn't an unit counter! Although the later part is solved in the expansion, which got a complete facelift.

But still barring all the problems, I would still recommend it to players who like their strategy part in RTS, and not just mindless unit spamming. It's a wonderful game, with a wonderful plot and backdrop as well as wonderful and awesome units (some of the Experimentals are just too awesome!). Kudos to Chris Taylor (whose Dungeon Siege brought me into RPGs ) for such a wonderful and true RTS game. Just that the tutorials needs a lot of work, and leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall: 9.7
Gameplay: 9.8
Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 9.9

Here's some screenshots from my playtime:

Welcome to the N.H.K Review

Being a fan of Anime, I thought I should start sharing my impressions of the various Anime that I watch. So, beginning with this post, I have decided to add Anime Reviews too, to my Blog. As for the first Anime, I would like to share one of my all-time favourite, Welcome to the N.H.K.

Welcome to the NHK is a great anime that tells the story of Tatsuhiro Sato, a social recluse. The story not only tells of his present predicament, but also why he became a recluse in the first place, as well as why he couldn’t accept the society around him. But the story just doesn’t stop there. It goes on into how a girl, about whom he didn’t know anything comes to him and offers to help him for nothing in return, and how he meets an old junior schoolmate, who also impacts on his life. Along with these, the story shows the different traps of society that’s just lying outside to snare people, and how Tatsuhiro manages to fall into almost each and every one of them and then be saved by his 2 friends.
Welcome to the NHK is not an anime which you can classify as a single genre. There are multiple types of anime, all rolled into one. The first and foremost would be the comedy. This anime has soon very good laughing moments that will force your funny bone. Sure the amount isn’t as much as other dedicated comedy, but there are enough to keep the sailing smooth and keep you interested in the story.

Then there’s the second type that showcases the various social traps and the vices of society that we can see people falling into regularly like pyramid schemes, online gaming addictions and suicide. Not only does Sato manage to get involved into all of these, but he also manages to experience them from the perspective of the addicts, that is why they do what they do. It really makes us think, having a perspective that is common with the society and the perspective that is of the people that are involved.

The third type of story that goes on in this anime is obviously the story of Sato. The anime develops his character very nicely, with his motivations of becoming a recluse, why he suddenly believes that the mysterious girl can help him, or why he can’t really bring himself up to lie to his mother easily. The story also deals with his view of the world, how it was influenced and how he manages to relate his senpai’s notion that the world really is a conspiracy to be true and everybody in this world is part of that conspiracy plotting behind his back, or how the society feeds off recluses like him and how they have measures ready to keep him a recluse. At the end his conclusion that he really is alone in this world seems to be perfectly right.

Lastly, there’s the story of the human nature. Like it was said in the anime, the human nature makes us think we are better than others. So, as a result, when we can’t accept something we blame it on others to make ourselves superior. In this case, Sato influenced by his Senpai, the conspiracy to keep Sato a Hikikomori. So, in a way Sato being a Hikikomori is actually following his human instincts of being superior. Since he was always afraid of what the people are thinking about him, he decides to cut him off from the society and think himself to be alone in the world, and thus automatically make himself superior.

Apart from the story, the animation is great. The characters animations are quite believable. The animation where Sato comes at Misaki with his fist raised and anger on his face, and how Misaki, like the little girl embraces herself and pleas, was great. The anger showed how angry Sato was, and Misaki reflex does show how really afraid she was at that point, even though spending all those time with Sato and thinking she had reached out to him.
In the sound department, the starting theme is good, while the first ending theme wasn’t to my liking, but that might be because I’m not into rock music. That being said, the second ending theme is very nice. The voice acting is also quite good, with Sato’s character having that reserved tone that really brings out his character. The other characters are also voiced just as good. But the special mention in this segment is definitely the background score that plays during the anime. This anime has one of the best and the most spot-on background score. The guitar riffs really sets up the mood for the different emotional scenes throughout the anime.

All in all, this is a great watch, for anyone that wants something serious. The characters develops properly, the story moves on at a great pace, and at the end of it, you have a great story that stays on your mind for quite a long time. Overall it is a fine example of an anime. As was said by the person that recommended me this, this anime really did manage to leave a mark on me!

Flipkart.com Review

The Internet is a wonderful thing, a boon if I may say so. Not only is it a treasure trove of virtually everything you could want, or hope, be it knowledge, keeping in contact with distant relative or even business. Speaking of which, there are many entrepreneurs who have made quite a mark on the economic scene, using the Internet. The best part of these is that they don't need huge investment, only a bright idea, and some way to attract customer.

Such was the story of Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, two IIT graduates, who, along with a workforce of five people, started Flipkart.com, an online book-store in India back in 2007. And within 4 years, they are now selling Mobiles, Movies, Music, Games, Cameras, Computers, along with Books. Such an achievement makes one wonder how they accomplished so much?

I, too, was intrigued by such a question and so decided to have a peek at the website. I was also in need of two books and a game. (Here, I would like to mention, that I have dealt with both online retailers like NextWorld.in, as well as over the phone ordering from directly the publishers. Since my first online purchase, I was hooked to it, so now I prefer online purchase over everything else. Not only does it save some amount of cost, but also saves a lot of time and guess work.) As soon as I opened some of the deals, I knew, this would be the site that I'll be shopping the most from in the future. Not only are the discount out-of-this-universe, but the variety of items available are staggering. For example, this is the only online site in India that I have seen so far that stocks Manga! Plus there are some books that are not readily available in the Indian market, like works of writers like Drew Karpashyn, Mel Odom etc. And best of all, this site offers free shipping anywhere in India, on purchase of, drum rolls please, Rs. 100 or above! That's virtually free shipping for all of the item you can buy. Add to these, the option of Cash On Delivery on almost all the items, no matter where you are located, and you have an absolutely irresistible online shopping site.
But all these things can't make a business shine, if their customer support or after sales isn't upto the mark. And this is one of Flipkart's strongest point. They have a customer care helpline 24X7 in addition to the now standard e-mail care. Writing to them about a query, I got a prompt reply within the next day, with each and every question answered individually. I don't like spamming, so if I have multiple question, I generally write them down in a single mail in a list. But most of the CC used to answer just one of the question, and I have to follow up with my other question individually. But Flipkart's different, they answered every single question of mine, separated into different paragraphs.
Apart from these they have a Facebook page, a standard, an active Blog and Twitter feed too. I mention these because, for a business that employs technology, I think it is essential, they know the technology and use it properly. These active Blog and twitter, indicates how much aware they are. The style of blog is very friendly, it's not that they are looking down at you, they are beside you, inviting the customers to help improve them. These friendly gestures are even more evident in the Careers section. There's even a video of them during there office time.

But I've talked too much about them, so let's see how is there service. Like I said before, I was looking for two books and a game. I found that both of the books were listed as available and to be delivered in 3 days, along with a good discount. The same was for the game too, Tom Clancy's HAWX 2, but with a delivery of 5 days. Being an online seller, we need an account, which is one of the most simplest account creation I've seem so far, fill up only 3 fields and you're good to go. After the sign-up you can optionally go into the accounts settings, and create multiple address, as well as fill up some of your personal details. As for the purchase, you just need to sign-in (if you haven't already done so), select the items and add them to your cart, pretty standard fare. After you're done, you can proceed to checkout, which is a really pretty interface with side-tab navigation. From here you can choose a delivery address, along with a delivery update phone number. After which the address will show up on your right side of the page. After this, you need to
chose your payment option, after which you just need to fill up the necessary details and voila, you're done! They'll even send you an SMS and an e-mail regarding your orders. Plus your account will be updated with the order details, along with the expected delivery dates.
The very next day after I placed my order, my first book arrived, with the rest of my order following the next day. The order that was supposed to reach me after 3 days, was shipped in just 2 days! The packaging of the orders were great too. Instead of a box, which all the other sellers use, they put the items in Folder like piece of carton, with packing tapes generously applied. Many might not agree with me, but I find this arrangement better than the Carton Box. Instead of yanking out the item, I can gently lift it up. The item itself is packed in a layer of plastic, like those covering new books, and beneath the item, you'll find a receipt. This is the only online seller that I have found sends the Invoice along with the order. The books also had a bookmark with clever quotes, a thoughtful addition that could easily be skipped, with all those discount and the free shipping. The DVD that came to me was wrapped in a sheet of bubble-wrap with lots of tape inside the standard Carton sheet. All of the items were in excellent condition as if freshly off-the-store-shelf.
Over all, it was pleasure to shop at Flipkart.com, and I will absolutely recommend to anyone whose looking for an online shop with good option, as well as to those who are looking for their first online purchase.

The Witcher's discount, practically giveaway

I always love a good bargain on the games that I buy. And so Steam sales are one of my favourite times of the year. I even save up just for those times of the year. But yesterday I came across a deal so awesome, that I just had to let everyone know. As you would know, the wonderful game site/store that is GoG.com is a sister site for CD Projeckt the developer who made the wonderful RPG The Witcher. Now the thing is, in celebration of the release of The Witcher 2, Assassins of Kings, GoG is bringing in The Witcher into their catalog for only $9.99 from May 10 onwards (a full $10 less than Steam's list price), with extra exclusive content. And being GoG, the good news just doesn't end their, they are putting a cherry on the icing in the form of a discount of 50% on The Witcher from May 10-24, thus bringing it's price down to $4.99, with all the exclusive deals! Now if that doesn't make you happy, nothing ever will! So be sure to save up your $5 before May 10 and grab the game, I know I will.

Good Old Games that is gog.com

There are times when we feel extremely nostalgic for a game that gave us countless hours of entertainment. You go up to your attic(or down to your basement) and after rummaging through your proud old game’s collection, find your copy and after dusting it off install it on your spanking new high-end computer, expectantly, only to find that it doesn’t run. Or perhaps you find out that a certain someone sold off your cherished games CD along with your other stuff. So, now you’re all stranded without anything to satisfy your nostalgia. Fear not, because this is the age of Internet, and there’s a solution for everything out there.
So, say hello to Good Old Games (Gog.com)! Just like the name, someone came up with the bright idea that people would like to be able to play their old favourites. So, came up the site, which not only sells old games at low price and with extra goodies, but these games also comes prepared to run on modern Windows OSes. No extra software and tweaks needed to run these. Plus most of the games here aren’t really pixilated class DOS era games. Some of the games included are Guilty Gear, Pain Killer and many more games being added. Sure you won’t find Crysis and the latest games, the some of the games of yore were equal to the fun you can have with the present games.
Also, this site happens to be the sister site of CD Projeckt. So you can pre-order/pre-load the DRM free version of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings at a discount of 10% from here. Plus if you sign up with the site, you’ll get 4 complementary free games, just to show their appreciation!

Subho Noboborsho!

Wishing you all a very prosperous Bengali New Year! It is one of my favourite time of the year, a time when our relatives and friends get together and celebrate the arrival of a new year, of new hope and of summer. This is the festival that marks the official arrival of Summer. Not only do we get to meet with our friends and family, there's also food of various kind, celebrating the spirit of Bengal.

Now if, you'll excuse me, I have some sumptuous food and friends and family waiting for me :P

The Sims 3 Review

There are very few games that I’ve played that reeled me in. And there are even fewer games that made me miss both my dinner and my favourite TV show. Yes, The Sims 3 made me miss both of those things on my first day of playing it. And even after missing them, I wasn’t mad, but still continued to play it! I heard, or rather read, about The Sims in a magazine, the idea of which enthralled me. And when I got the game, I fell in love with the series. So naturally when EA announced The Sims 3, I was pretty much excited. And after having played this game for about 3 days, I feel my investment was not a total waste. The game was touted as an evolution of the Sims franchise, allowing for even more freedom and a lived in and a believable society. New features like following your Sims everywhere, customizing everything and assignments of traits to create truly unique individuals were also touted.

For the uninitiated, The Sims series is, like its fore-father, the SimCity Series, a Strategy or God playing hybrid but with a lot more focus. It’s a people simulator. But don’t let the small scale fool you, as it happens managing people can be quite bit challenging than managing a city. Like all of us, these tiny computer people, or Sims, have varying needs, habits and traits. They need to regularly clean themselves, have proper food and avoid over-eating, go to the bathroom as and when needed, hunt for jobs and maintain a social standing. And like the real world, if the Sim has a family depending on it looks after them, like paying proper attention to the wife/husband and children and fulfills their wishes. Not only that, new parents need to even wake up in the middle of the night to change Junior’s diapers! Add to that a finite lifetime, in which they can even meet untimely death, and a lot more things, and you have a quite complex and engrossing, and not to mention unique game genre. You can choose to be as generous and make a model sim, or simply play the devil and reduce your sim to a hapless loser! But beware, if you can’t manage the variable properly, both you and your sim would be ripping your hair off!
That said, the Sims 2 was the first 3D game in the series and was a huge success, spawning many expansion packs and a loyal fan-following. So, The Sims 3 had to be something better than that. Let’s see if it succeeds.

First Impressions:

The first thing you notice about The Sims 3 (TS3) is the almost, if not complete, lack of loading screens. Save for the game loading screen and the save game loading screens, there is absolutely no loading screen interruptions. Maybe the lack of loading screen has become a style, as most games tout such a feature anyway. And I for one am grateful that TS3 team decided to go in with the flow in this field. The lack of loading screen really keeps the game flowing smoothly. While the predecessor had a loading screen for almost every task that involved leaving your lot’s compound, this game is seamless. Whether you want to just go Downtown to grab some grub or go for a little grocery shopping, there isn’t a single loading screen in between. You Sim just hails in a cab and you can follow the cab as it travels through the neighborhood! And if you can afford it, your Sims can drive themselves given that they have transportation medium, which ranges from Cars to even Bi-Cycles and a Sims 3 Exclusive Scooter too!

The next thing that you notice is how much cleaner the interface has become. It’s as if the game guides you in the right direction and instills a sense that you can’t go wrong. The launcher, which also doubles as a content manager auto-logs-in if you are connected. There is a big blue play symbol that starts the main game. For new games you choose a neighborhood and click the check-mark. After which you can choose to create a sim or move in into a pre-made lot. Selecting the family tells you the necessary information as well the level of difficulty. And if you already have a game saved, then the start-up interface changes to a list of the saved lots. From here you select the game you want to move in and on clicking the check mark, loads the selected game. No need for getting into the neighborhood every time and clicking on the house to load your game. And all the while, in TS3, you have these helpful pop-ups that prompts you and displays the relative Lessons, which in itself is quite vast and is kind of an in-game manual, detailing almost every aspect of the game.

Create A Sim

This change seems to have crept into every nook and corner of the game. Right after you drop into Create a Sim, you’ll notice that the interface has been completely redesigned. The slider controls for the advanced tweaking like fine-tuning the sims has been condensed into an advanced setting, with the default view being a multitude of pre-made body shapes a components that you can choose. You can always opt-for a random part too, if you’re not feeling like customizing. And if you peek into the advance settings, you can see that, that too has been redesigned. The sliders are grouped into different region of the face, which can be accessed by clicking the specific dots on the face, shown under the advanced settings.

Similarly, the clothing sections have been redesigned to include Tops, Bottoms and Sets for each category, with additional accessories too. After you’ve set the cloths, but think that the shoe doesn’t exactly match, you can fire up the Create-A-Style mode, another touted feature of the game. Through this, you can absolutely mix and match any style to create that perfect blend. Want your Sims to wear a Brick patterned shirt? Why not! (No matter how weird it looks!) Just get a shirt and enter Create-A-Style and select the Brick pattern. And it doesn’t stop there; you can customize each of the style, drag it onto different object (perhaps to create that perfect camouflage) and even save them and share them on the sim community! The style itself can have multiple patterns associated and each can be differently colored, by specifying the tone and the color of it. Also for those extreme enthusiasts, there’s even the option for viewing and entering in RGB numbers too. The associated Lesson does a pretty good job in teaching the basics about it. And the best part, you can use this tool absolutely anywhere in the game, be it your furniture or even the walls. Everything can be customized.

Being done with the main sim, it’s now time for setting the characteristics of Sims. And this is where one of TS3’s main attractions comes into play: Traits. Each Sims can have up to 5 traits assigned to them from a huge pool of 63 traits. So, you can virtually make the most well natured, world-leading, Utopia-founding sim or if you’re feeling that devilish, then you can even make an Evil mad scientist! These traits cover almost all of the traits that you might think of, from Kleptomaniacs to even plain unlucky sims. These traits are not for just the cosmetics purposes, each of those traits have effect on how the sim interacts or how the game reacts. Like for example, ambitious Sims will be able to get promotions faster, being ambitious, while loner sims can stay at home and doesn’t need to socialize as often as others, and thus even work from home. After you’ve chosen your desired traits, you get a selection of career tracks’ Lifetime wish (more on this later). Next you choose your favorite music and food and color and you’re done with your sim.

Live & Buy Mode:

After you’re done creating your sims, you now need to choose a house, or a lot, if you want to build a custom one. Buying a house will give you 2 options, furnished, costing a bit more and unfurnished, costing less, but coming with only the basics, in the form of the bathroom plumbing and the kitchen. But according to the manual, an unfurnished house might contain special surprises.

Going into Buy mode, will reveal a significant change, which has become one of my favourite. Although the older buy by category is present, going into Room-wise sorting will result into the puck being changed into a mini-display of a room, with a pictorial representation of the entire related thing that room might have arranged in an aesthetic way. This way it not only makes it easier to figure the required object, but also gives an idea of what should be where and helps with the aesthetics. After figuring out the basic amenities, it is off to Live Mode.

At first glance, the Live Mode interface doesn’t seem to have changed much. There is still the similar control puck, with the household sims displayed in a skewer along the left side. But inspect closely and you’ll see how much the game has changed. The first and foremost, is the complete absence of Aspirations. Aspirations in this game have been replaced by Wishes. And unlike fears or the negative aspirations, there are no negative wishes. You can click the wishes to promise them to your sims, that is move them into one of the four slots, and thus freeze it till you accomplish it, unlike the locking of Aspirations which allowed for just one constant Aspirations. It doesn’t really affect the mood meter, but does spawn a positive moodlet, that has an effect on the mood meter. Completing promises or wishes, grants you Lifetime Happiness points, which can be used to purchase various rewards like a never having to pee, or discovering sims’ traits or even a teleporter, from the tab of the same name. Unlike the aspirations, these doesn't always ramp up in difficulty, but it's simple wishes like baking some cookies or even going fishing! So, fulfilling these wishes doesn't take up much away from enjoying the game, and thus makes the game a little more easier.

Gameplay:

As mentioned above, there is now a new game mechanic, which has been dubbed as moodlets. Every action as well as surroundings spawns a positive, neutral or negative moodlet that affects the mood meter. In plain RPG speak, these are modifiers of the mood meter. So, your mood meter doesn't bottoms out if one or more of your need variables fall low. Instead, that spawns a neutral moodlet that has a time limit. If you can solve it within that time, your mood meter goes back to normal. This new mechanic not only makes the game play a tad more easier, but also rewards you for doing small things like brushing your teeth and even going out on your holidays, thus in a way this mechanic simultaneously allows and motivates you to explore the world of Sims more.

The next thing you’ll notice is the weeding out of unnecessary details. For example, when you start off with your sim, you don’t have access to all the skills. They are revealed as and when required. That is if you are planning on a scientific career, and never play any musical instrument, then you won’t have the related skill showing up. Also, the ones that do show up have a skill journal associated with it. This journal, details the various nitty-gritty that you’ve gone through to acquire that level. Plus, it also includes the pointers for the mastery levels of its own Opportunity.

This brings me to a major upgrade of the game. Everything in TS3 is so detailed, and I’m not talking about the graphics. For example, in The Sims 2, when you searched for a job, a pop-up would come, and if you didn’t like it, you’d need to search again, till you get the one you want. But in TS3, you just get a single dialog box, with conveniently placed arrow keys, that lets you choose whichever job you want, from that single dialog box. And it spreads to all over the game. Then there’s the social interaction. Every time you enter into an interaction, an icon shows up with a bar that starts off in the middle and increases to the right if the other sim approves your action or left if your actions are disapproving. This, quite literally, takes out the guess work out of the game. Switching to the career tab, it also details what is needed the most for your job performance and your next promotion. It’s no longer only white boxes around the skill levels and the number of friends and the mood in which you reach your job. It’s about your performance. Max it out and you get a promotion, a slack and your meter drops and when it bottoms out, you are demoted or even fired. Wherever you look there’s this helpful upgrade in-built. From time until which you’ll sleep to even the time until which you’re going to complete a task, all are represented by a progress bar in the icon.

Plus there are these little additions to the standard Sims life. You can now tinker around the household to upgrade the various machinery to become fire-proof or even self-cleaning. And if you have a computer, you can hack, which brings in cash, and even over clock it! Every sim now carries a cell phone, so no need for an extra phone. This phone comes equipped for checking real-estate, calling services and the likes. And oh, yeah you can take pictures with it and even set it’s ring tone!

Speaking of jobs, jobs are no longer the standard fare. While some jobs have a different path, like the law enforcement, all the jobs can be done in various ways. If you sim left with low energy, you can ask your sim to slack off. Want to build up relationship with co-workers, ask your sim to spend some time with their co-workers. You can even impress the boss by helping the boss or even plain work hard. Each of the way has different effect on your sim. So, you have to choose the one accordingly. This does make the job part of the game a lot less cosmetic and a little more interactive.

This then brings me to the already mentioned Opportunities. This one, very much like the moodlets, is another new mechanic. These will pop-up from time to time given by your co-workers, known contacts or even by checking the happenings through reading newspapers and using the internet. To simple put in simple words, these can be termed as side-quests. The reward varies as well the missions. Some will have certain variables to it, while others are plain simple. You have 3 kinds of Opportunities, which can be accessed through your Opportunities tab. The puck automatically tracks your Opportunities and informs you what you need to do, without opening the tab. A simple right-click also allows you to step-down from the Opportunity and thus makes room for another. I could go on and on about the list of improvements that this game has made. But that would be too long.

Graphics:

As for the graphics, TS3 has a slightly higher requirement than its predecessor. But considering the default hardware available in the market, any system can run this game pretty smooth. Also, the game does make use of the new extra resources more. The graphics are crisper, the environments are lively and looks lived in and little effects like trees swaying in the breeze and various other effects abound. Even the objects have higher quality textures. You can now make out small details on the food as well as other items in the game world. In addition to this, you can see pretty clearly the TV shows and the games being played on the computer. Not only that, the game has many nifty improvements too. Your sims shows some really cute animations and sometime even pleasantly surprises you. For example, you sims now sings songs while bathing, or hums a tune while gardening. And if you buy them a bath-tub, they’ll sometime take a dip in the water, while bathing, blowing bubbles and then coming up and start giggling. These little things form the basis of the Sims charms. Everything from the small animations of your sims jumping up and down in joy, to shaking their little fists at you, to the humorous quotes of loading screen like “Unloading Loading Screens” and even the witty descriptions of the objects, will bring a smile on your face. And before you know it, you’ll fall in love with the game.

But with all these things going on, the game does a pretty good job of keeping a steady frame-rate. The transition from the house-level to the map level, for example, is seamless and without a frame-rate hitch. Even following your sim around in through the city is smooth. And if for some reason, you still aren’t able to get decent frame-rates, you can turn off some of the details from the highly detailed options screen. From here you can even turn off things like Story progression, sim aging, placement grid etc. The story progression means that the other sim will also age like normal, get married, have children and eventually die off. The sim aging, which could be controlled in the earlier game only through a certain aspiration reward, is now directly controlled from the options. You can adjust the time it takes the sim to age, essentially determining your game’s length and difficulty, or you can simply turn off aging for a pseudo-sand-box feel. The grid placement allows the objects to snap to a grid, while on, and while off, gives you complete free-will to where you place them. In addition to this, you can now place any object diagonally by default while rotating too.

Sound:

The sound of TS3, however, requires a special mention. Like always, yours Sims speaks in a gibberish known as Simlish and the voice actor does a pretty good job of delivering it with charm. Even your Sim now has a voice option, in which you can choose how your sim will sound and along with the pitch of the voice. The environment also sounds great, with there being different sounds present for all the environments, from the crashing waves at the beach to the birds chirping in the park, every sound detail are covered. Not only that, the music playing on the radio are pretty good. You might even recognize some of the songs as being the simlish version of real-world songs. Along with that you have the option to listening to your songs too. The general background tracks, like its predecessors, are very catchy. While you might recognize some of the tracks from the older games, you will definitely notice the new ones. The recycling of these tracks doesn’t make this game loose its charm in any way, rather adds to it. And before you know it, you’ll be humming the tunes yourself!

Conclusion:

With all these improvements, one might ask the question: What about the expansions from the previous games? Are they included? The answer to that, is a no, and a small yes. While the most obvious expansions like Pets or Seasons are missing, there are some lingering shadows of the previous expansions. For example, you can try out your entrepreneur skills, but are only limited to real-estate. You can start off with a partnership and go onto buy the entire business. You can then upgrade it, collect rent every Monday morning and even fire employees. Similarly, other inclusions of mini-games are shadows of previous expansion packs. Like the cooking skill. It’s no-longer a wide variety of cooking options. You have to learn the recipes as well as buy some, to be able to make them. Also, you just cannot order your shopping over the phone anymore. You need to go down to grocery store and shop for the ingredients for the recipes. As you improve in cooking skill, as well as prepare a food more often, you get better at that. The result of which is that although you might have to stomach burnt food at first, you get better at it, so much so that the diner’s food start to taste bad. And if you can use good quality ingredients, the quality of the food automatically increase, just like in real life. And for the Farmville fans out there, here’s a good news, Gardening features more prominently, with the ability to grow produce of varying quality and even selling them off. It’s no longer a cosmetic feature of weeding plants, full-blown gardening from tending to fertilizing to even harvesting of plants. But with these additions, there are still some glaring holes that can be felt to have been left deliberately for future expansions.
In conclusion, we come back to the main question: Does the game succeed. To that, I would like to say this: This game is what the original game should’ve been. It’s not just a sequel; it’s essentially a reboot of the franchise. With a more accessible game play, a believable society, powerful editing and creation tools, the ability to create individually unique sims, and the additions of mini-games like gardening, cooking and real-estate, the possibilities seems to be endless. Add to that the games’ habit of pleasantly surprising you now and then, and you have one perfect Sims game. So, yeah, I would recommend any Sims fans out there to go grab a copy and play this game, as well as those unsure new-comers to go ahead. But, if you are looking for immediate gratification with this game, then The Sims are not for you.

Scores:

Game play – 9.5
Graphics – 9.5
Performance – 9.9
Overall – 9.7

Plus, for those who register the game, they not only get community access and tech support for free, but also $10 worth of SimPoints (the online Sims Store currency) for free, in addition to a whole new town. Not only that, but you can download user-created content as well as free stuff from the store, like the Renault Concept car. All this can be done from the launcher, and after updating the game, you get an in-game browser, which entitles you special free contents too, from the official Sims team.

Here are some screenies:

Star Craft II: WIngs of Liberty Review

I was introduced to this game, by an old Starcraft Fan, who is a proud owner of the original Battle Chest back when it was just released. At first I was upset with the pricing announcement and the various server limitations that Blizzard has imposed on the game. But after having played the game, I can honestly say that I forgive Blizzard for all those, in lieu of the great game that we get to play.
Just so that I can compare, I played through the original game, not only to get a feel about why the original was such a hit, but also get to know the story, which is continued in this game. Even though that game was made in DX5, I was quite amazed with what the devs of that game achieved with that game at that time, and suddenly the fact that a game can go strong for 10+ years, seemed very true to me.

And true to Blizzards style, this game is solid in gameplay, with ample single-player content to keep you satisfied for a good long time. Add to that the story line throws in choices too, that can result in different units to characters leaving, you have a good replay value. Sure it's not RPG-grade choice-making, but it just adds to the innovations that Blizzard has got just right with their game. Also, after you're done with the single-player, if you are feeling a bit cagey to go online, like me (because you don't want to get you butt whipped the moment you crank out your first SCV), Blizzard has, quite thoughtfully, included some challenges, that teaches you the nitty-gritty of online competitive play, and how to respond to different types of zerg or protoss rush, and even manage your army at full efficiency. These, along with the standard skirmish mode and also lots of achievements, in both the Campaign and the Challenge, will keep you motivated to come back to the game and give it another go.

The game-play is the same the as the original, with the different races providing completely different type of gameplay. The Terran are still SCV dependent for building the bases and defenses, and being the only race to be able to repair. The Zerg are still the creep-loving-creeps that they used to be with native healing for all their units and the early rush capabilities. The one thing that you'll immeadiately notice is that the building gives off some units when destroyed. And finally, the Protoss, the high-tech morale-bound alien. They still have their shields and the touch-and-get-back-to-work Warping technology. The major attraction of the Protoss is that you can change your Gateway to Warp Portals, which allow you to teleport in Gateway units, directly onto the field within the radius of a Pylon, faster than conventional training, albeit with a few seconds cooldown on all the units for that respective gateway. Blizzard even thoughtfully, since this technique would result in multiple gateways, added a shortcut key to select all your gateways at once!

The interface remains the same for all the races, which is ok, since why should one try to fix something that isn't broken (unlike a certain RTS with Cs in the name)? You still issue orders from the right-hand command card, while the middle portion represent the health of the unit(s) using different colours and the Left part is the mini-map. But you do find small innovations here and there, which aren't exactly as revolutionary, but would make new-comers to SC universe feel at home. For example, it is now possible to upgrade your SCVs to allow multiple SVCs to work on a single building.

Now, the main focus of the game, is the continuation of the story, and I must say that Blizzard did an exceptionally good job in this front. The traditional conference based mission objective is gone. You now control, almost, Jim Raynor and interact with not only different people, that you get to recruit in the course of the game, but also with various part of your flag-ship, the Hyperion. These include a TV, that keeps you updated on the results and the portrayal of your actions and sometimes some plain silly commercials, just like the real-world counterpart, only you can't change the channel. You can also check out the new, select few, units that you acquire during the game (The spider-mines animation is real cute). Along with this there's a mission archive computer, from where you can check and replay any cinematic or missions, in case you missed something, and also see your collected alien specimens grow. In short, you do have a lot of things, if you are interested in the story of these things. They don't get in your way, but do make the game feel more alive and give a sense of interaction. Plus, if you click Raynor, you can hear him grumble some funny lines too. Apart from that, the main story is very well-told. It answers a lot of questions and follows up on the previous story very closely. The character are well fleshed out and develop quite nicely. Again, it isn't forced onto you, but if you want, you can talk to them and find out the story. You meet with some old friends, while you make and recruit new helps. The voice acting is great, with quite good emotions given in. The ending of the campaign left me wanting for more and gave me a feeling of emotional attachment with the game. The events felt real, like the last stand really made you feel like you were making your last stand, with your comrades and friends coming in to aid you with everything they've got, but still falling one by one to your unending enemies. Over all the story is a big plus point of this game, and Blizzard has managed to deliver on that. Also, you get to see many of the classic units as well as some new units come in the campaign, which, otherwise you don't have access to in the main game. The campaign structure is very lenient. You have to choose a planet to launch a mission from the Starmap, from the Hyperion's Bridge. Each mission has a back-ground story that is told by the respective character, along with a specific unit unlock, which will help in the that particular mission. In other words the missions are designed around that specific unit. So, in a way, you can choose which units to unlock first and take with you on your future mission. Plus, if you are feeling adventurous, you can attempt the bonus side missions that rewards you with different research samples, that you can exchange, in your lab, for different powerful upgrades. But you can choose only one type, so you might want to replay to check out the other upgrades.

As for the graphics, if you have a good enough system to meet it's requirements, it is one of the most beautiful game in the RTS genre.The best visual treat is perhaps the forest covered map. But even in the lower end, with textures set to medium, it looks pretty, kind of like Warcraft III's. It uses the Havok engine for it's Physics rendering so ATi owners can also enjoy Physics. The animations are great, you can also zoom in for better details too. But the one thing that I really liked about this game's technical aspect, is that, all throughout the game that I played, on a 1GB RAM, HD3200 IGP with XP, this game didn't crash even once. Though the loading times were long, but once it's loaded, the gameplay was smooth. And if, while playing, the game runs out of resources, or starts to lags, it displays a dismissible dialog that tells that the game is running slow and that I should lower the settings or that I have run out of paged pool memory and adjusts itself on the fly and lets me continue to play the game! Unlike other games, which would crash in such scenarios and would force me to hard restart the machine, or just exit to desktop. It was really thoughtful of Blizzard to put in guard codes and let people with lower speced machines enjoy the game, rather than making them feel guilty for having such a low speced PC.

Another great aspect of the game is it's background score. The music, in accordance to the Terran theme, is mostly Texan, but still it blends in well with the game and doesn't distract you. Rather it adds to the atmosphere of the map and lets you feel more into the game and enjoy it. The same can be said for the sound effects too. Each of the units have a distinctive queue sound, and on clicking them multiple time, like traditional Blizzard game, they'll say something funny. The units shout out for medics when they are low on health and even shout out when under heavy fire. The gunfire, laser blast and explosions, everything is spot on with perhaps the best effect, for me, is the charging of the main-gun of the Battlecruiser.

Overall, this game has been worth all those years of wait and more. It's a gem of a game, that managed to perfect the persistent unlock system and still not ruin the game. They kept most of the game the same, but did make lots of improvements within that boundary, that makes it feel like a fresh game, which I think is a great achievement. The game also has the option of saving your saves and profile online, so you can jump in from anywhere. So, would I recommend others to get the game, given the high price here in India? I would say definitely get this game, if you can afford it now. You won't be disappointed. Otherwise, you could wait for the other parts, when the main game might come down by a few bucks or get it as a gift from someone else!

As for score, I would give it something in the range of 9.6/10 That 0.2 is because of a weird mechanic, where all the units feels like bubble. I mean, if you order a tank to go in front from the back of a group of marine, it will push aside the marine and go forward, while the marines slide along the side of the tank. And the other 0.2 is because there still isn't any formation command. I mean most of the RTSes have the formation commands by default, but still, after adding so many improvements, Blizzard could've put in a formation function. Getting the marines into a definite formation, with the medics always at the back is a pain. If I command them to turn back, or even right or left, the medic will take the lead, because the medic was there in the first place. Apart from these two weird problem, I didn't see any major problem. (And that doesn't count the high price and the online restriction)

DarkSpore Beta Impressions

I haven't played Spore: Galactic Heroes, but I have a feeling that players who have will find DarkSpore quite similar to it. And I also think the name appropriate for that very reason, Darkspore = Spore with Darkness.
The gameplay reminded me of Torchlight, but I can't put my finger on it, there's something different about this one that makes it Torchlight level of exciting. But it is still enjoyable, just not that much. It can be termed as an Action-RPG with all the elements there, like levels, XP, currencies, loots and so on, but everything is in moderation, that keeps new comers from being overwhelmed.
The premise of this game is that you have these Super-Scientists going around enhancing organisms using genetic modification, and like all such stories to become full circle, these modifications became unstable and mutated and they turned on their creators, thus giving rise to Darkspores. Fast forward a thousand years, and you are one of those last remaining Super-Scientist packed up in a cryogenic sleep and kicked into orbit, with an AI babysitting you while you and also trying to figure out a way to stabilize the mutations to create a prefection in the genetic heroes that your ancestors couldn't. So, at the game's start you awaken with the analysis reaching 100% and thus giving you access to perfect genetic heroes, with which you are now tasked with clearing out the Darkspore hordes from the different galaxies.
After a quick tutorial, you are allowed to choose one extra hero from 3. There a different classes of heroes like in all action RPGs, including tanks, medics, long-range etc. Being me, I tried out one with healing and range, and I quite enjoyed it. The campaign can be played solo or co-op and there's even PVP for the moment in the Beta. You can also deck out your heroes with extra war-gears that range from defense to offense to even augmentations to increase the levels, making the game something more than just mindless hack-n-slash. And I have a feeling that EA might cash in with this point and make custom heroes put up for cash, along with gears. Although the number of in-game hero number is quite large.

Although my game ran at the lowest graphical settings, the level designs were quite good, reminding me of the worlds of Spore. Maybe, when the game reaches the final stage of release and goes out of Beta, they might tie in Spore in some way. The movement is done entirely with the mouse and special abilities with the keyboard. But I would really like to see keyboard shortcuts integrated more for movement and interface controls too. Maybe they'll do it in the final release.

I tried the co-op in the single player campaign, through the Matchmaker. The experience was quite smooth, with the matches taking only about a second to be found. The matches with 2 others, for a total of 3 players, was even more fun than the solo campaign. Not only are you able to easily take on the hordes that would otherwise overwhelm you, but you are also able to amass a greater number of loots, that help in making your genetic heroes even more powerful. The players you're matched are appropriate too, with your level, so that you don't feel out of place, and the social component works without any fuss. Plus, chaining levels becomes that much easier. You can keep track of your co-op mate through 2 extra cards on the top-left of your screen which not only tells you how much energy or health they have left, but also the genetic heroes they are playing as. I tend to stay away from multiplayer, but this is one game that made me go back to the multiplayer. The only gripe that I found with this is that the game takes way longer to load, for the first time only, when you are playing with other players. But I guess that's just because of the Beta, and it will be ironed out eventually before the final release. Though after the initial load, my second game and so on for the session took just about 5 seconds to load.

The background score is quite good, given that it's in Beta stage, and I think it will get better in the final release too, not that it really needs it. The effects were good, but some of the weapon fire sound effect were missing, which might be because of the beta.

Overall, I quite liked the Beta, and just might get the game. But for people who like Action-RPGs and multiplayer, this is a good game to try out. For the casual gamers, it could be used as nice break from the more hectic routine, and a must for Spore-fans.