You play through the game as Hawke over a massive time frame of ten years! Of course these 10 years are not completely played through: rather you play some missions and then the game skips a year and so forth. The landscape of the game has also changed considerably. You only spend a fraction of the game in Ferelden (the area you played in during Dragon Age: Origins). However don’t expect the huge variety of different areas in this game as there was in its prequel.

The main focus of the game is built on the great city of Kirkwall, here you will spend most of your time in the game so it can’t get a little repetitive as the city does not change. This seems to be the best it gets however because aside from some unique places outside the city everywhere else is pretty much the same. Some caves for example that you will encounter are exactly the same. Although the enemy spawning points and treasures may be randomly generated the actual size of the cave, the layout of the cave, even the looks of the cave are the same. As you can imagine this gets a little repetitive after a while, it is a shame the developers didn’t create more randomised caves like we can see in The Elder Scrolls. Although it is fair to say that only a small minority of the game is spent in caves it would be nice not to have to repeat the same caves over and over again.

Now for some good news: The combat system has been completely upgraded! Whilst playing Dragon Age: Origins I often felt that the combat was a bit …. static – this is especially true if you were playing as a mage or as a rogue archer. You were often left standing on the outside of the battle firing arrows or spells from afar which, let’s be honest, isn’t very exciting. The mechanics in this game however put you into the heart of battle regardless of whether you’re a warrior, mage or rogue. Each battle is different and everyone is exciting which is what you really need in a great RPG.

The graphics of the game have also vastly improved. Although the facial features of each person can never match to the truly great graphics of Mass Effect 2 the scenery of the place surpasses this. It does take a while to get into the graphics of the game if you’ve come from playing a high end graphics game, I thought that the game itself was a little cartoony with the people (the scenery of course though was superb) but after a while you warm up to the graphics and realise they’re actually rather good. Don’t dismiss the game so quickly.

The dialogue of the game has been completely replaced with a dialogue wheel similar to that of the Mass Effect series. Although there are no paragon or renegade points for particular options each option has a specific icon telling you whether the player will lie, be flirty, be sarcastic, be aggressive etc. There will be a total of 6 options maximum for you to pick at any one time. It should also be noted that in this game all characters are fully voiced including you. This brings a great update to the previous game where you selected options and nothing was said.

Talents in the game have also progressed to allow greater flexibility to the user. A common problem with the previous game was that to get to the good talents that you wanted you often had to use valuable points to receive talents you will never use first – it was a very linear progression. However in this game think more like a web of talents. It’s slightly circular in appearance which means you don’t have to follow one set path to get to a talent; there is more than one way often so you can choose the best path that suits you.

Be prepared also for the wave of junk that will hit you in the game. Like in Oblivion a hefty proportion of the games items that you find in caves etc. are junk – they are completely worthless. However the game actually sorts these for you and automatically places them in your junk part of your inventory. Now this may please some people because they can all be sold without the fear that they may be needed, however it takes the fun out of the game really. The developers have taken away our choice to sort through this junk and decide ourselves whether or not it is worthless.

Overall this is a great improvement on Dragon Age: Origins and should be rated 92/100.

Mass Effect 2 is an action shooter rpg game which revolves around you, Commander Shephard, and the decisions you make throughout the game. Want to play as the ultimate baddie? Or would you prefer to be a hero that everyone looks up to? Or maybe even a bit of both! The possibilities in this game are endless and even the smallest decisions you make can effect what will happen later in the game.

No I’m sure if you’re an rpg fan your already excited about what your hearing, but what if you’re not? Do you prefer just to go on a shooting rampage? Well fear not because this game also lets you do that! The words are in the genre “Action Shooter” if you want to play the game by just leaping into the enemies and gunning them all down then go for it! When you start the game there are 6 character types you can play as.

The first class is the Solider. Now if you want to spend the game shooting people down without worrying about using technical or biotic powers this is the class for you! You’re trained in all weapons and you start the game with more health than any of the other classes. This is a great class to play as if you’re new to the Mass Effect world. Next up is the Engineer. This class specialises in tech so you’ll be excellent at hacking into computers and even having your own combat drones to fight for you! Another class is the Adept. This is solely about biotic powers which mean you can hurt and destroy enemies without having to fire a shot. Then from these 3 base classes come e more mixed ones. The Infiltrator is a mix between the Engineer and Soldier; the Vanguard is a mix between the Solider and Adept; whilst the Sentinel is a mix between the Adept and the Engineer.

The plot of the game is brilliant. Without giving too much away it involves recruiting a team of the best specialists in the galaxy to help you take down a major enemy species known as the “Reapers” This has you travelling around to different planets searching for clues on how to find and beat them before it becomes too late. The more companions you find the higher your chance of victory becomes – so it’s pretty essential to get all of them if you can.

If you’ve played Mass Effect before then there are a number of improvements you will notice whilst playing the games. Ammo for example is much more valuable. In the previous game ammo was pretty much unlimited, the only problem was your weapon could overheat so you couldn’t fire continuously for a long period of time. In Mass Effect 2 this doesn’t happen but the ammo you can carry and collect is lowered dramatically. This means you need to be careful with your ammo, shoot only when you need to shoot, otherwise you might find yourself out of ammo when you need it the most! Some enemies drop ammo when they are killed and you can find ammo packs lying around on most areas.

Also in the previous game it didn’t matter where you shot them because it killed them regardless. This game is much more strategic. If you shoot there head you’ll inflict more damage than usual; whereas if you shoot them in the leg you may cripple them to make an easier target. The health system has also been modified, if you get shot but get out of the way of enemies for a while then your health and shields will regenerate over time.

One more thing that should be mentioned is the cover system which has been revamped. Cover I feel is one of the most important features of a shooter game, and this game has one of the best cover systems I’ve seen. You can only enter cover by manually running or moving it towards it and cover is your best friend in this game! Choose not to use it and you will die. The great thing is that the enemy also use cover which makes the game that much more realistic and difficult.

Well overall then this game Is quite brilliant. Whether you’re a fan of a shooter or rpg’s this game should be great for you! 9.3/10

We’ll begin with the story, or single player mode as it is otherwise known. Having played through all seven of the main games in the series I have no trouble saying this is the best storyline to date, it is however also one of the darkest. Based around the Vietnam War, starting with the assassination of Fidel Castro, stealth is your greatest asset in this game. During the course of the campaign you are submitted to many unique features that have not been seen before in the series: Piloting an aircraft whilst maintaining control of the weapons for example is one rather enjoyable feature. New to the game are the Valkyrie Rockets. Think of them like a predator missile but in three dimensions. You can go up, down, left, right and even choose when to detonate.

Another new feature in the story mode is the Nova 6 Gas. The majority of the campaign is based around this deadly gas which can kill you in seconds. Therefore as you’d expect in one mission you are subjected to it. In a normal mission when you get hit by a bullet you can simply hide and wait for yourself to “regenerate” as it were. This however is not possible in a certain mission. You’re required to wear a full hazard suit complete with mask and so every time you get shot a little part of the your mask cracks: Get hit too much and its game over which encourages you to perform a much more stealth approach rather than the basic run and gun.

Next we move on to a game mode which in comparison is much better than Modern Warfare 2’s poor effort Spec Ops. Zombies, which was originally a fun unlockable in World at War, has become one of the most successful extras of the game. So much in fact that Treyarch have included it again in Black Ops, but this time with three new maps! If you thought that the first four maps were difficult then wait until you play these ones: The Zombie AI has been upgraded to make them much smarter. Remember how you could keep a zombie at a window by repairing the boards next to it? Not anymore! Now the zombies will reach out towards you from the other side even if you not directly in front of it. The new maps also include other unique zombie types as well as the odd zombie boss as well.

Now we come to Multiplayer mode. All the other additions are good but let’s face it, when it comes to an online FPS the multiplayer mode is what makes or breaks the game, and this Is where it gets difficult to say how good the game is. All the blocks are there to make multiplayer a brilliant mode, but it’s not quite complete yet. Some of the new features online are absolutely brilliant. Customising your weapon has really been taken to the max with the opportunity to add your emblem, clan tag as well as other exciting additions.

One thing that has been drastically changed is a bit like Marmite. You’re either going to love it or hate it. This game features an in-game currency system where you receive cash based on how well you do in games. What can you spend this cash on you ask? Well just about anything and everything. Killstreaks, weapons, attachments, cameo, you name it, it cost’s money. This adds a new perspective to things in the multiplayer mode. Don’t think that this means everything is available at the start. You unlock certain guns at certain times like usual but basically this time you have to pay for it before you can use it.

This also brings about the new gameplay mode online known as … the Wager match. There are four types of wager matches and each of them involves 6 players. As you can expect from the name you “wager” your hard earned cash with the chance of making more money or losing it all. One of the games is known as “One in the Chamber”. In this game you get a pistol and one bullet to start off with. Every time you kill someone you get your bullet back. However miss and … well you get the idea. This is a rather amusing game because you often see two people running around trying to knife each other as they have both missed with their pistols!

Now for the bad news, the matchmaking sucks. It’s difficult to play a couple of games without the game ending due to a failed attempt of host migration. Sometimes the game runs perfectly sometimes every single game you play ends due to bad connection. Of course we have to remember that the game has only been out for a couple of weeks and this is quite a common issue with a new game (Modern Warfare 2 anyone?).

Overall a brilliant game, but with a couple of rather large problems with online mode at the moment. As soon as these are fixed possibly the best game in the series so far. 9.5/10

Fallout 3 takes place in the not so distant future (the year 2277), 200 years previously a mass nuclear apocalypse devastated the entire world and throughout your travels of “the wasteland” you’ll find that practically everything is radioactive. How are you alive you ask? Well you start the game in an underground vault and as you may have guessed you leave the vault and start exploring the United States of America.

Much like Oblivion you start by making your character and choosing your statistics such as Strength, Perception and Charisma. You then go onto to choosing skills for your character. Now unlike Oblivion where your skills went up as you used them (your athletics skill went up as you ran around) your skills in Fallout 3 only increase when you add points to that category (and by collecting little bobbleheads – but we’ll get to that later). You then have another sub category in the skills section called perks. Think of these as similar to spells in Oblivion except instead of paying for them in Gold you pay for them in points you receive when you level up. You can only choose one perk per level. These perks can be specially designed to your type of play: Do you like using rifles to kill your enemies? Perhaps you want the Commando Perk; do you go sneaking around and melee your enemy from behind? Maybe the Ninja perk is for you. There are over 50 perks available through your gameplay (and many perks can be used again for increased benefits).

One thing that has a very significant effect on NPC’s interactions with you is Karma. With RPG’s there are 3 main ways to go: Be a “good” character – kill slaves, performing “good” actions etc; Be a neutral character – if you can’t really decide if you want to be good or bad the best advice is to be both! Or you have the alternative of being “Evil” – if you just love to kill everything in sight whether it’s innocent NPC’s or if stealing’s your thing then you’re probably going to end up with bad Karma and as such people are going to behave negatively towards you, you might even get some of the “Very good” NPC’s attacking you for being “Evil”. All 3 ways have their benefits and drawbacks of course and at the end of the day just play how you want to.

If you haven’t guessed by now I should mention that the majority of weapons in the game are guns. You get the occasion melee weapon and it’s true that you may never have to use a gun in the game … although it’s pretty pointless if that’s how you’re going to be playing. The number of weapons available is huge but ammo for most guns (especially the big ones) is very limited so you must always conserve ammo and use it only when necessary. As for the types of guns you can get there are: Big Guns – in here you get flame throwers, missile launchers etc; Energy Weapons – as expected you can get laser pistols and plasma rifles; Melee Weapons – such as Baseball Bats, Combat Knifes and Shock Batons; and finally Small Weapons – which basically consist of everything else such as Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles etc.

A new addition to the series is the V.A.T.S Mode (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System). This brilliant device lets you pause gameplay in the middle of a battle and target specific parts of your enemy. As you can see in the image above the targeting system shows you the probability of hitting a target in the head, leg, arm etc. This handy device can really save you alot of trouble in the more difficult battles and is crucial if you like playing around with a sniper from far away. As expected there are certain perks you can get which increase your V.A.T.S accuracy. You can’t of course use it all the time. You can only use it if you have the required amount of Action Points. These points which refill overtime allow you to use the Advanced Targeting Mode so make sure that when you use it you use it correctly!

The game consists of the main quest and many other miscellaneous side quests. The gameplay is very non-linear, what I mean by that is that it has a very open style. You can go anywhere at any time and do any side quests at any time (within reason of course). You can still of course play the game in a more linear way by doing side quests one at a time and choosing not to explore the place. One of the major disadvantages of this game in my opinion is the huge amount of exploring to do.

Unlike in Oblivion you see where you could fast travel to the major towns straight away in Fallout 3 you can only fast travel to places you’ve visited which means at the beginning you can fast travel to nowhere. Some places require you to walk for hours of game time just to get to them and that isn’t even the worst of it. When you start exploring Washington DC as you’d expect there is a lot of rubble everywhere. This means that if you don’t know how to use the map properly to look for entrance points you going to have a very difficult time finding your destination. There is nothing more annoying in this game to follow your compass towards your destination and find out there is a huge rubble pile blocking your way just metres from where you need to get too. Sometimes you literally have to backtrack your whole way back or circle all of the way round the area until you find an entrance point. It’s a shame that they don’t highlight these “no-entry” points on your map more thoroughly as they can really ruin your gameplay if you find yourself continuously lost.

When asked to compare this game to Oblivion there are many differences and similarities that I can spot. They both follow the same “Sandbox style” rules and both have a main quest followed by many side quests. Fallout 3 tends to have the idea that every item you pick up in the game has a use (where as in Oblivion things like Quills and bones). The main difference though has to be the gear and setting. Oblivion has a medieval like theme with swords while Fallout 3 has a post-apocalyptic theme with guns. Which do you prefer? I much rather like swords than guns which is why I think Oblivion is that little bit better than Fallout 3.

A very important thing I should say without giving too much away is that if you buy the game without the “Broken Steel” add on make sure you’ve done everything before you get to the last stage in the main quest. I won’t say too much but if you finish the main quest without the Broken Steel add on you do not get a chance to do any side quests etc after the main quest has finished. A huge let down for most people and another reason why I think Oblivion is that slightly bit better than Fallout 3. I would game this game a ranking of 9.1/10.

So what’s new with this game then? Well starting off one of the most annoying things in Assassin’s Creed was that whenever you jumped into some water you drowned. This seemed a bit pathetic for an unstoppable assassin who can kill loads of people and then to die by falling in some water. Well in this game you can swim! The graphics of the game has also been completely revamped so it looks absolutely brilliant.

If you remember in the first game there were two parts to it. You as the assassin and you as Desmond in real life. Unfortunately as Desmond you were practically useless. You couldn’t kick, punch or anything. You just went to bed and woke up, probably the most boring part of the game. However straight from the start you killing people and escaping the evil Templars headquarters.

In my opinion one of the basic necessities for an assassin’s game is the weapons. Now in the previous game you didn’t have a lot of choice. You just got a large sword, a small sword and some other weapons. In this game however there are loads of different types of weapons. For example if we start with the hidden blade you can now have a double hidden blade, a poison blade and even a pistol! If we move onto medium weapons you can start from a measly common sword all the way up to a Condottiero War Hammer. These weapons of course are unlocked once you pay for them so there is a point in looting people for money. You can also change your armour and dye your clothes different colours by going to tailors.

This game really involves loads of different objects. There are not only loads of weapons but also different types of enemies now as well. In the previous game it was there were about 4 different enemies. In this game there are agiles, brutes, seekers and archers amongst others. One thing I found too easy with the previous game is that as soon as you got in a hiding spot you could relax. However the seeker’s job is, as you might have guessed, to seek for you. They often carry an extremely long pike which they will use to prod haystacks and wells which will force you out of the hiding spot. Also if you happen to be on a bench between two citizens the seeker will ask them to stand up fooling your cover again.

Another thing that has been improved is the morale of the enemy. You might remember in the last game where you might occasionally get a straggler who runs away from you. However this seemed to be a random event rather than something you did to scare him (not including of course killing everyone else). In this game certain things you do can increase or decrease enemies morale. For example, if you kill a brute every enemy around you will have a decrease of their morale by -30 points. If you assassinate an enemy with a pistol they will have a decrease of -20 points. However if you get injured they will have an increase of +10 morale, and if you enter critical state it will be +25. If an enemy is going to flee you will first see them freeze
briefly to the spot. They will then drop their weapon and run away from you as fast as they can.

The best of the game though has to be the brilliant storyline laid out before you. There are over 14 sequences for you to explore which have you assassinating important historical figures, to hiring thieves for you, to trying to find hidden glyphs. There really is a lot to keep you entertained for a long time, so if you decide to buy the game you won’t be disappointed.

I would give this game a rating of 93/100.

The game was released in November last year on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. If any of you have played “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion” it is quite easy to relate this game with it. Both games are in the role-playing category and they both are brilliant. Dragon Age: Origins main plot is you becoming a Grey Warden, who are the “protectors” of Ferelden. You then engage the main enemies of the game “The Darkspawn” which is the name suggests are hideous creatures.

The game begins with you choosing your character. You can pick which class you want, which race you want, which gender you want, which origin story you want and of course you can customise nearly every detail of you from your hair to your eyes. Starting with classes you have three choices, Warrior; Mage or Rogue. The three races which you can pick are: Human; Elf or a Dwarf. Each of these choices has an effect on the origin story you can pick. There are 6 origin stories in total. If you are an elf you have a choice of two stories. if you are a dwarf you have a choice of 2 stories whereas if you are a human you get a choice of 1 story. However there is one story solely for a mage regardless which race you picked.

Basically the origin story acts as a mini tutorial for you, so you can learn the ropes of the game. After this all stories are linked to the main game where you start battling the Darkspawn. Much like “Oblivion” this game focuses a lot on attributes and skills. You choose how strong you are, how easy it is for you to block incoming hits etc. There are a few skills which you can learn such as Survival, Combat Training, Herbalism, Trap-Making and Poison- Making.

However unlike “Oblivion” the game also focuses on talents which your character can learn. These depend on the class you picked. So for example if you picked the Warrior class you can learn a talent called “Taunt” which increases the hostility of enemies around you. If you’re a Mage you can learn a talent called “Lightning” which speaks for itself, whereas if you’re a Rogue you could learn a talent “Stealth” etc. Each class also has 4 specialisations. These specialisations can be very beneficial if you decide to use them. You can learn 1 specialisation when you are level 8 and another when you are level 12. For a Warrior the specialisations are: Champion, Templar, Berserker and Reaver. If you are a Mage there is a choice of Arcane Warrior, Blood Mage, Shapeshifter and Spirit Healer. If you picked a Dwarf as your class you have a choice of Assassin, Bard, Duelist and Ranger.

Another important feature in this game is the buddy system. As you progress in the game you meet new people who join you in your quest. Each companion has their own personal quest if you get to know them an you can equip party members with weapons and armour which suits them. You can also select tactics for each party member. Do you hate it when archers and killing you? Well simply set a tactic for one of your companions to automatically target an enemy who is in attacking you with a ranged attack.

When comparing this game to Oblivion it would seem that whereas both games are very good Dragon Age: Origins is a bit more complicated. For example Oblivion has far less talents and attributes settings and when you attack in Oblivion you can only do one or two type of attacks. In Dragon Age: Origins however there are loads of talents and skills and you can do loads of attacks from flurries, to death blows etc.

The game can be complicated but by the time you’ve finished the origin story you should have a greater understanding of the game/. I would give this game 95%.

If I start by talking about the campaign mode I have to say that it has to be the best so far. There are 18 missions (well actually 19 but I’ll leave you to find out the last one!) split into 3 different acts. Each mission is fun, challenging and is a great option to play first if you are new to the Call of Duty franchise. The first mission’s even a tutorial which helps you learn the basics; it also features a time-trail exercise which at the end suggests to you which difficulty section you should have on the game regarding how well you did in the trail. I won’t give too much away but the ending is absolutely brilliant, in-fact saying that all of the missions are brilliant. In previous games there is usually one mission that stands out for me as being annoying, but in this game there are none. Although I must mention that mission 4 is very controversial and you may have heard a lot of bad press about it. As far as I’m concerned Infinity Ward has done everything they can to warn you off this. There is even an option to skip the mission if you want to.

New to the series is “Spec-Ops” Missions. There are a total of 23 co-op missions (although you can play them alone) which are quite a nice add-on to the game. The missions have three levels of difficulty and you really need good teamwork to complete the missions on veteran difficulty. The death cards in the previous game which seemed to serve no real purpose except in online co-op mode have been replaced by enemy Intel. Although this again serves no purpose (except for receiving a trophy/achievement) it actually makes sense that there is enemy Intel to collect.

Now we move onto the best part of the game … multiplayer mode. Currently there are 16 maps to choose from (although there will probably be more soon) which are all unique to each other. Some maps are in Brazil, some in Afghan and some somewhere else. Each map has its advantages and disadvantages. Some maybe better than others but I feel that each map is great in its own right.

The weapon list has been completely redone as well with over 40 different guns. One major advantage this game has is that the shotgun category has been moved down to secondary weapons. So now you can have an SMG, LMG or assault rifle as well as a shotgun. The attachments for the weapons are plentiful as well. In World at War there were only a couple of attachments but in this game you get the whole package. Heartbeat sensors, akimbo (the ability to wield dual weapons), thermal scopes, rapid fire and silencers just to name a few. This makes the games much more interesting. And of course where would any good shooting game be without perks. There are new perks introduced in this game such as: Bling (which lets you have two weapon attachments), Hardline (where killstreaks require 1 less kill), Last Stand and One Man Army just to name a couple. Also new to the game are deathstreaks. If you happen to be doing really bad in a game then once you have been say killed 4 times in a row you get a little bonus to help you get a comeback. There are only 4 deathstreaks in the game and one of them is the ever favourite Martyrdom.

One of the biggest expanses in the game has to be the killstreaks. In World at War there were simply 3 killstreaks. Radar, Artillery and Dogs. In this game there are 15 different kinds! Starting from a simple UAV when you get 3 kills, to user controlled predator missiles when you get 5 kills to an end of game tactical nuke if you manage to achieve 25 kills. Nothing is more satisfying than achieving a triple kill after sending a missile from an AC130 into a group of enemies.

One more thing that should be mentioned is the wide range of equipment available. Instead of just frag and sticky grenades you now also get throwing knives! These knives are absolutely awesome and can save your life if you master them. Just imagine your reloading when an enemy appears a distance off in front of you. A grenade wouldn’t kill him because by the time you’ve thrown it he would have killed you. So simply throw a knife at him and it saves your life!

Well I think that goes over the basics of the game and why you should buy it! I would rate it 97%!

Now the fourth Harry Potter game was completely rubbish. It was a totally different gameplay to the other games and the age rating (7+) probably should have been more like 7, because it seemed like the game was made for seven year olds. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the other hand is a lot better. It’s a 7+ again but in this game it doesn’t matter what age you are, you will still enjoy … unless of course you utterly despise Harry Potter but why would you be reading this if you did?

The style of the game is what people call a “sandbox”. Just like games such as GTA it basically means you can go pretty much anyone and do things in your own order, within a certain boundary. An example of this in the game is when you have to collect all of the members of Dumbledore’s Army. The game doesn’t tell you what order you must collect them, so you can go in any order you wish. Another brilliant thing in this game which we have just seen recently in the Sims 3 is that there are no loading screens. The whole of the Hogwarts School and grounds are loaded all the time. You don’t even get a slight pause as you go from one area to the next, it runs very smoothly.

One of the main features of this game is the spells. Owners of a Wii will have more fun casting spells in the game as they simply swish the wii remote in a certain direction to cast that spell. However don’t think if you own a Playstation 3 you are missing out on much, because you also do it on the PS3. You have two options … you can either cast spells by using the right analog stick or you can enable the motion sensitivity function and move the whole Playstation 3 controller to cast the spell. So really with the Playstation 3 version you are getting better graphics than the Wii and also the same motion control. If you’re lucky enough to own both the Wii and Playstation 3 you’ll probably better buying on the PS3.

As you walk around the grounds you will notice that there are quite a few things not quite right: such as paintings on the floor and statues covered up by curtains. You can use your spells on these objects and earn discovery points which in turn make your spells stronger. Another thing in the game is the portraits. As with the film and book versions all portraits need passwords and you need to find out what they are. It’s no use searching for them on the internet because you can’t type them in. The portraits give you clues as to what they are … some even just tell you the password straight away.

One of the unfortunate disadvantages of this game is that is quite short. Although saying that if you don’t rush through it you will find it will take quite a while to get 100% on the game. Many people say they complete this game within an hour. I can tell you that it is completely impossible to do that even if you’re on the easiest difficulty. If you’re on normal difficulty and play it at a steady pace this game should last you at least for over 10 hours … and that for a game is actually quite reasonable.

I think overall this game is very good … although non Harry Potter fans wouldn’t think it was as good as I’m saying. In conclusion buy this game only if you’re either a Harry Potter fan or you like a good RPG game because it is very good. I would rate it 88%

Compare prices for Harry Potter PS3 Games at Twenga

Well things didn’t start off brilliantly. After buying the game I found out that it was unbelievably slow to play so I had to spend £40 on some new RAM for my computer. Not so good so far. Although the new look of the game is that you can play outside your house now it means you need a really good computer. Basically if you haven’t bought a new computer in the last year the chances are you’re going to have to do something to upgrade it. I think that it’s a shame that EA thinks we all have top-notch computers we in fact most people don’t.

However that is one of the few bad points about the game. Once you get the game working it is pretty good! Having changed quite a bit from the Sims 2 the annoying needs of comfort and environment have been removed (hurray!). This means that you no longer have to litter your walls with thousands of pictures to make your Sims happy. There is also now a new thing called traits. There are a total of 63 different traits however there are also a couple of secret ones which I will go into in more detail later.

Traits are very important in your Sims life. How many traits you choose depends on the age of your sim. 2 for a baby, 3 for a child, 4 for a teenager and 5 for everything else. If you are a baby, child or teenager then when it becomes time for you to go into the next age group you get two options: If the sim is unhappy a random (most likely to be negative) trait will be selected for him/her. However if they are happy you get to select the trait! Some traits included in the game are Genius, Brave, Loser, Neat and Handy to name a few. For a full list of traits I’ll post a blog soon.

With traits also come Lifetime Wishes. These are affected by your traits. There are over 30 wishes and the game selects a possible 5 for you sim based on your traits. The lifetime wish you select will be your Sims overall goal in life. There are many wishes such as Rock Star, Become a Master Thief and Celebrated Five-Star Chef.

Anyway the main highlight of the game is the fact you can openly explore outside your home. You can watch your kids on the school bus to school, you can even get them their yourself either by bike or car. There are no limits (except for staying in the boundaries). Of course that means that the create-a-neighbourhood option is no more and you’re stuck with one town. But you can download new ones of the Sims 3 store.

The create-a-sim mode has also been updated and improved with new clothes, new designs and more. You can create your own designs on clothes etc. You can customise your Sims anyway you want … you can even change their eye colour. Perfect for someone wanting to create an evil sim with red eyes!

If you are unsure on whether your computer can withstand playing the Sims 3 then I would recommend going to this website:
http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest. However make sure you also check the results yourself. Sometimes although it may say you pass you could fail.

Overall I think the Sims 3 is a very good game to play it’s just unfortunate that many people will be disappointed when they realise they won’t be able to play it on their computer. I would give it 91%.

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This year this has been dropped which makes the matches a bit fairer and certainly more challenging which is a good thing, unless your rubbish at it! Instead of the diving this has been replaced by the staggering option which to be honest isn’t that good either. Basically your person just hits the ball with the racquet and then staggers for what seems like eternity. During that time all the other person has to do is hit the ball the other side and there will be a small chance you will hit it – if you do you will simply stagger again and then the match will probably be over. Although it may be a bit better than the diving option it is still horrible. Maybe if there was a little stagger that would be fine but it lasts for so long that as soon as you’ve done it you already know you’ve lost.

Anyway now for some positive points about the game! This game involves the new world tour and online ranking system. Which is good, quite an improvement over the last game. What happens is that you start ranked 100 in the amateur league and you have to work your way up by winning tournaments. Quite simple enough and also as you play people with a lower rank their skill is increased so you’ll eventually face tougher opponents. You can also go online and vs other people which can be fun, especially if you win!

The game features over 20 of the worlds top players including three legends. As well as that there are some new minigames as well as some of the previous ones from Virtua Tennis 3. There are many new courts and you have more control over how your player looks.

I think this game is mainly for tennis fans and quite obviously people who don’t like tennis are not going to be very interested. Also if you get the Wii version you can play it with the new Wii MotionPlus which gives you more control over your swings.

A good game overall although one that will only appeal to tennis fans. I would give it a ranking of 8.4

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