Thursday, March 29, 2012

Sly Cooper 2 band of Thieves



Set two years after the defeat of Clockwerk in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, the game begins as Sly and the gang attempt to steal the Clockwerk parts from a Natural History Museum in Cairo, Egypt. It turns out, however, that the parts have been already stolen, and Carmelita Fox along with her new partner Constable Neyla turn up at the scene instead. Constable Neyla purposefully hints that the parts could have been stolen by a group of outlaws known as The Klaww Gang, each member using a Clockwerk body part to aid his or her own personal conquest. Sly and the gang set out to find the missing parts, and destroy them.
The trio first travel to Paris and steal the Clockwerk Tail Feathers back from Dimitri, a club owner and "underworld celebrity" who was using the feathers as a printing press for forged money due their unique alloy being unaffected to wear. After putting the forger behind bars, the gang headed off to India where they steal back the Clockwerk Wings back from Rajan, a tiger who controls the Klaww Gang's illegal spice operations and uses the wings to earn prestige. After pursuing Rajan into the jungle, the trio manage to steal back the Clockwerk Heart. Unfortunately, the gang are betrayed by Neyla who throws them (along with a framed Carmelita) into the care of the Contessa, a high ranking prison warden whose mastery of hypnosis to "re-educate" criminals has earned her a reputation amongst Interpol.
Being the only one not to be captured, Bentley travels to Prague to help bust Sly and Murray from the Contessa's prison. In the process, he learns that she too is a Klaww Gang member, using the illegal spice as part of her hypnosis techniques so that the thieves in her care confess where they have hidden all of their wealth. Though the Contesssa initially escapes, the gang track her down and steal the Clockwerk Eyes from the Contessa, freeing Carmelita in the process. The prison warden is brough to trial for the crimes she commited and Carmelita reluctantly takes Sly's help in an escape (still being a framed cop). The gang then track down Jean Bison, another member of the Klaww Gang who is a shipping baron who owns half the traines in Canada, and steal back the Clockwerk Talons, Stomach and Lungs from him (he was using the talons to clear-cut the forests and the lungs and stomach as bellows that would never wear out in his trains). However, Bison captures the 3 of them in their 2nd adventure on his turf, and then sells all of their hard-earned Clockwerk parts to another Klaww Gang member. The three defeat him and then sneak aboard a battery as part of a Trojan-Horse-type plan which takes them to the buyer's airship. Tragically, they have to leave the van behind, much to Murray's dismay.
The gang's journey eventually culminates in a confrontation with the gang's leader, Arpeggio, on his blimp as well as his protege who is revealed to be Neyla; both have managed to gather all of the parts together to create the Clockwerk Frame. The Klaww Gang leader reveals that he plans to use the parts to become super strong and eventually use the power of hatred Clockwerk used to live for hundreds of years to become immortal. Dimitri is revealed to have gotten all of Paris to consume spice he aqquired from Rajan (who shipped it through Jean Bison) and using the theory of the Contessa's mastery of hypnosis, Arpeggio plans to use the Northen Lights as a giant "Hypno-Light" to fill the people below with hatred. This would render him immortal.
Suddenly, Neyla double-crosses him and bonds with the Clockwerk parts herself. She kills Arpeggio with her beak and proclaims that "Clock-La" is born before flying away. Knowing they need to act fast, the gang disable the blimp's engines to stop Clock-La from drawing energy, After some help from Carmelita, the mechanical hybrid is beaten and crashes down just outside of Paris. After the battle, Clock-La begins to scream at Sly, shouting that his life will never be the safe as long as she is alive, a hint that Clockwerk's real mind is starting to take control.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 olympic games



The cross-over rivalry that no one ever thought would happen is happening for a fourth time. They first met up and competed against one another in 2007's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. After that they fought it out on the battlefields of 2008's Super Smash Bros. Brawl, then hit the slopes for 2009's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. Now Nintendo and Sega's heaviest hitters are once again going head-to-head on Wii -- and this cross-over's feeling a little weary.

The novelty factor of seeing Mario and Sonic in the same game has certainly worn off by this point. This gives Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games a bit less momentum to build on than four years ago, when these characters had not yet met. Even more unfortunately, the Olympics side of this equation is waning too. We've come full circle and returned to the Summer games again, meaning almost all of the sporting events featured in this release are the same ones we first saw in Mario and Sonic's first meeting. It's all feeling a little too familiar here.

So where does that leave us? London.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Super Smash Bros Melee



Classic Mode
Classic Mode is the game mode in which you face some characters in battle. Unlike the original Super Smash Bros., the characters you face are now randomly selected. On the other game, you faced them in an specific order. Also, another improvement on this mode we can find is the fact that now the Team Battles are also randomly generated: Not only that, but they appear at different times. Before, they appeared on a specific order. The characters in team battles you faced were always the same ones and only your allies changed. Now, you have new opponents and allies.

Adventure Mode
This mode is new on Melee. The Concept of this mode is to follow an storyline that is only graphic based, no text-based. On this mode, you will find yourself in a side-scrolling mode, and while you advance, you will find challengers. Depending on how you do certain stuff on this mode, the challengers may change. For example, if you finish the first level with the seconds marker ending in 2, you will face Luigi instead of Mario on the next face. You can play this mode as many times as you want to see all the secrets it has to offer.

All-Star Mode
The All-Star mode is another new mode introduced in Melee. Keep some things in mind: You have to unlock this mode, and to do that, you have to unlock all the playable characters in the game. In this mode, you face absolutely all the playable characters, so unlikely the other modes, there are no bosses to fight on this one, only the characters. Also, you are limited to use 3 Heart Containers to restore your health across the whole mode, they are your only healing items, so use them wisely.

Event Mode
The event mode is another new mode introduced in Melee, and no doubt it has had a lot of success. This Mode is based on 51 "events". On each event, you fight with different characters with specific rules. You start off with a few events, and you must unlock the rest by beating the first ones, and some of them require you to have specific characters or stages on the game itself. Note that you can also unlock certain things on the events. For more on Event Mode, check out the Event Match page.

Target Test Mode
This mode was originally introduced in the original Super Smash Bros.. The concept is very simple: You have to break all the targets with the characters. You can try to beat all your time records or simply beat it with all the characters. Unlike Brawl, in this and SSB N64 each character has a unique Target Test and it is unlocked simply by unlocking the corresponding character.

Training Mode
The training mode is yet another mode who was introduced in the past game. Here you can practice with your characters, by making your opponent stay steady, move jump, attack you, or have somebody else with a controller train with you. You can also set the speed of the characters, make appear items, and many other things. This method is not only good to practice, but it is also good to have some fun.

Melee
This is the mode to play in multi-player or with the computers, setting them the level you want and many other rules, like time limit or stock limit, the items you want to deactivate, and many other rules.
In Melee Mode, you can play on other modes as well.

Tournament Mode
This mode is like a normal Melee battle, except you can play with more people (up to 64 people, sharing controllers), and you can also set the rules you want to be valid. You don't get anything at the end of the tournament, but it is good to have fun with many other people.

Fixed Camera Mode
In this mode, the camera doesn't move around the stage like it normally does. Instead, it is "fixed" to stay on one place. This mode is fun if you do it with more people, but otherwise it can get annoying.

Giant Melee
The name says it all. In this mode, all the characters here are bigger than normal. Let me give you a quick tip to have more fun: Why don't you play this mode, setting all the items off except the Super Mushrooms? Your characters will be even bigger, and the stage will be smaller... Oh, you should really try to do that. As an aside, it is interesting to do this with 4 Marios. Have everyone grab a Super Mushroom and taunt.

Invisible Melee
Invisible Melee, you read that, and you ask yourself a question: What's this? It is nothing more and nothing less than a game mode in which all the characters will have the Cloaking Device item on all the time. if you play this mode with other people, it is fun, but otherwise it can be annoying to face the computer players while they are with this.

Lightning Melee
In this mode, the characters are faster than normal. This mode is really fun to play with either the computer or another players.

Single-Button
This mode is very interesting for those who are new to the Super Smash Bros. Games, but if you are a veteran, you may want to skip this method, as it can get really boring because you can only use the A Button, Z Button, and the Control Stick. Every other button is disabled. If you are used to jump with the X and Y Buttons, you will have to use the Control Stick on this one

Slow-Mo Melee
The opposite to the Lightning Mode. The title should be self-explanatory.

Super Sudden Death
For those who liked to have Sudden Death on the N64 game, you can now play it whenever you want. For those who are new to the concept, Sudden Death happens when the players tie in a match which was common in Time mode, where a player only had to get the same number of kills as his opponents, but rare in Stock, where everyone had to lose at exactly the same time. This causes them to play another match, with only one life, and starting with 300% of damage. Before, you could only do this when having a tie in a match. Now, you can select it in he Special Melee menu, and set your own rules to it too. It should be noted that it is extremely easy to kill and/or be killed in this mode. One strong hit is all it takes.

Tiny Melee
The opposite to Giant Melee. While playing this you will be reduced to the smallest size possible while fighting. it will be harder to do damage, K.O enemies, and harder to recover. But it will be eaiser to jump.

Stamina Melee
In Stamina Mode, players have 150 HP instead of the normal "percentage" damage meter. This is played like normal Smash, except you can also die by running out of health (the falling-out-of-boundaries death still counts.) This is a fun mode that nobody really plays.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Street Figheter X Tekken



Street Fighter X Tekken combines some of the best elements from each franchise. While the focus is obviously shifted towards Street Fighter for this entry, (there is a planned Tekken X Street Fighter game in development at Namco Bandai which will conversely focus more on Tekken's style of gameplay), the tag system and manual throws are pulled from the Tekken franchise. The resulting experience feels fresh, not owing too much to either side of its parentage.

The roster in Street Fighter X Tekken is an even mix of the two franchises. You'll find the familiar favorites from the Street Fighter universe as well as some choice warriors from the Tekken franchise like Yoshimitsu, Heihachi, Jin, Kazuya, King, and Julia. Each character has their own distinct counterpart which will result in unique pre and post-fight dialogue and new story possibilities in the game's Arcade mode. The PS3 version features even more characters, including mascots Mega Man and Pac-Man from Capcom and Namco, respectively, and Cole from inFamous representing Sony.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Sonic Unleashed



The story begins with Sonic and Dr. Eggman in battle aboard his spaceship, after transforming into Super Sonic, Eggman is able to make a grab for him and drains him of his chaos energy. With the absorbed energy, Eggman releases a Dark Gaia, a monster that was in the centre of the planet and, in the process, splits the worlds continents apart from the planets surface. Eggman then ejects Sonic into space.
When Sonic returns back on the Earth he encounters a friendly creature who is suffering from amnesia whom Sonic decides to name Chip. Sonic also realises that the ray used by Eggman to extract the chaos energy from his body has had the unusual effect of causing him to transform into a Werehog at night. Sonic and Chip then set off to repair the planet, restore Chip's memory and cure Sonic of his werehog ability.