Now one element of Lego Star Wars games, and to have a broader picture, all Lego Games, that never fails to disappoint is the cut scenes. The developers always seem to be able to bring out a humorous action in every single cut scene in the game no matter what it’s about. This is what I’ve began to associate Lego Games with and they certainly do it very well. This game is no exception, you’ll be laughing from the beginning until the end, and in some missions you need to be because they get so frustrating! 10/10 for the comedy involved with the game, they couldn’t have done a better job.

Now one of the new features to this game, and in my opinion the biggest let down, is the Ground Assaults. These large scale ground battles are mission will play out in real time. The battlefield is littered with both republic clones and droid, and you must defeat the other teams’ structures to win. Now in writing it doesn’t seem to bad, but personally I dislike these battles very much. A funny thing is that although these are supposed to be “special missions” they actually occur very regularly – especially at the beginning. Unless you love wide open spaces you will get bored of these missions very quickly, and unfortunately that nearly ruins the rest of the game. Certain parts of the battle can offer no challenge at all – where you can have platoons of droids simply walking past ignoring you, or they can be really challenging where it seems every single droid is trying to kill you! This is a new feature so there is bound to be a few problems but I really think the developers need to redesign this feature if they were to use it in other Lego Games.

However they do say what goes wrong in one area can be redeemed in another. And another new feature certainly does this! Space Combat is completely new to the Lego Series and its rather great. It’s another large scale battle – but this time in space, you’ve got the freedom to fly anyway (within reason) and you often use landing pads to land at your target and follow out the rest of the mission. It reminds me a little bit of Star Wars Battlefront II actually – although obviously not as good. But the question is why? That was 6 years ago and yet the developers still can’t improve upon it. The space battles in this game are good but certainly not good enough to counteract the poor display for the ground assault battles.

Apart from that though the game scores well in other areas – the motion of the game runs really well. Weapon combat has been improved with a huge number of extras. You’ve got basic melee weapons, basic blasters, explosive weapons, rapid-fire weapons, sniper rifles and of course lightsabers. You know get more options with all of these weapons such as the ability to throw your lightsaber more easily and so forth.

Now the story of the game is split into three stages. When you complete the first mission you’ll have the option to pick which story to follow. Pretty much like the previous games this game is only partly linear. You have an option of which story to start from and you can interchange between stories at will, but you can only start a later section of a story by doing the previous mission beforehand. The three storylines are Count Dooku, General Grevious, and Asajj Ventress. And then of course once you’ve completed all three you’ll have a final special mission to complete before ending the game.

Like all Lego Star Wars games though, the game isn’t completely finished when you finish the story. You also have the option to play each mission in “Free Play” mode. Here you can select which characters to play as which let you find all of the minikits (there are 10 in each level). Most minikits can only be found with a special type of a person (such as a small character, or bounty hunter etc) a walkthrough for each level will be posted as soon as possible on this site.

So overall then, Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is a welcome addition to the Lego Star Wars series but despite many new great features it gets let down by other bad areas of the game making it one of the worst in the series – however it is still a good game nonetheless with a rating of 78/100.

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

As I’ve never played Final Fantasy XII I can’t say but what I can say is that it’s one of the better RPG’s available at the moment. First of all Final Fantasy is not an open sandbox game. There are sometimes multiple directions to get to a checkpoint but this is nothing like Oblivion. If you like wide open places like Fallout 3 then don’t expect to see any here. Don’t take this as a negative however. Although it isn’t a sandbox style game there is still a large area to explore in each chapter of the game. There are pickups scattered around the game which encourages you to divert from the main path to find them.

The game has many new features and updates compared to the previous titles such as the fast paced action combat machine. Whenever you find an enemy combat will be initiated and you can choose to either select which moves to use to attack your enemy or use the very handy “Auto-Battle” button. What this does is chooses the best possible move(s) to use on the enemy. Although you may think using this decreases the fun of the game you’d be far from wrong, especially when during the early stages of the game you only have one type of move to use … either press the same button 3 times or press Auto-Battle, I sure know which one I’d choose. It’s important to also note that although you can have up to two other combatants join you in battle you cannot control their actions directly. More on how you can indirectly later. You also finish with full health after the battle has ended.

New to this series is the Crystarium. In previous titles in the series you levelled up after you got a set number of experience points from defeating enemies. In this game however you could go as far to say there is no levelling up. Basically you spend your hard earned experience points in the Crystarium. In this you gain new abilities for certain roles. For example an ability in the Commando Role is Blitz which lets you attack more than one enemy at once. There are 6 different types of roles: Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Medic, Synergist and Saboteur. Each of your playable characters can advance in some of these roles and you using the Crystarium will decide will role(s) to advance in.

This brings us on to another new feature Paradigms. This is where you can indirectly affect how your fellow combatants attack the enemy. You see with each role there are different abilities. The Medic role focuses on healing party members whereas the Saboteur will focus on attacking the enemy. So if you control which role your party members are you can get them to use only certain abilities. Your paradigm deck is a list of created (and sometimes default) paradigms that are available to you, and the great thing is you can switch between paradigms in battle! Perhaps you need to heal a member of your party but you don’t want to waste an item healing them. Simply switch paradigms to one where one of your party members is a healer and watch as they heal your team. Paradigms are the key in this game to defeating those tougher enemies. Some enemies are much stronger and healthier then you’d believe so patience is the key switching between a paradigm which directs team mates to attack the enemy and then switching to a defensive paradigm which heals your team when your health gets a bit low.

Another feature of the game is the huge list of equipment which you can find in the game. To start off with each character gets one weapons slot and one equip-able item slot. However as the game progresses you can unlock abilities in the Crystarium which allow characters to have more than one equip-able item. There are hundreds of different items, some raise your health, some your magic, some give you protection against certain elements etc. A nice feature in the game is that you can use items to upgrade current weapons and other accessories. You might pick up some Murky Ooze and think it’s a complete waste when actually you could find out it could be very useful.

To sum up the graphics on this game are absolutely stunning, just take a look at the picture above and whether you’re a regular to the Final Fantasy Series or you haven’t played a single game Final Fantasy XII is a good place to start. I would give it a rating of 9.2/10

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 makes this game so great compared to the others? Well I think the main thing has to be that it’s so unique. When LEGO Star Wars first came out it was brilliant because the concept of going around a venue blowing things up and collecting studs was new. However as the years progressed the concept gradually became duller until many people found it simply aggravating. Not much had been done to improve this feature in previous games which is why many people including me found games such as LEGO Indiana Jones boring, up to the point where when LEGO Batman came out I couldn’t even face purchasing it. Of course a huge factor is whether you like what the game is based on. I could play LEGO Star Wars for a long time as I like it whereas some people who don’t like Star Wars wouldn’t be able to play it.

The Harry Potter series however is one of the most successful and highly rated series of the decade. But if the game is just about blowing lego up again then surely it couldn’t be very interesting could it? Well actually it could! You see what Traveller’s Tales have done is continue the series from a new angle. Yes you have to blow up lego pieces to be a “True Wizard” but the number of different ways you can choose to blow them up is large.

Lego Studs are unsurprisingly a massive part of the game and return in the usual silver, gold, blue and purple colours. You can collect studs by blowing objects up with your wand by using different spells. This is where things get interesting. There are a huge amount of spells in the game such as Wingardium Leviosa, Expelliarmus, Stupefy and even Avada Kedavra. You see much like how not all objects could be destroyed using the force in LEGO Star Wars (Shiny objects) not all can be in LEGO Harry Potter by using the standard spell. Some must be targeting them and using Wingardium Leviosa while some such as plants can be removed by simply shining Lumos as them! The game may be a lot more technical than previous ones in the series but for this it is a lot more fun.

Making a new addition to the series out Hogwarts Crests: just as Hogwarts School is split into four houses (Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin) there are four crest pieces to be collected in each level. But unlike Minikits in previous games which you could just find laying around these crests are much harder to find, most crests can only be found in free play mode. Another new feature to the series are the “Students in Peril”. You’ll find a student in “peril” in every level and if you manage to save them you are rewarded with a gold brick.

As with previous games gold bricks are used to unlock rewards and bonus content with a total of 120 possible gold brick to be found throughout the game. Red bricks can also be found throughout the game but are much tougher to get. Not only do you have to find a red brick you then have to post it using the nearest owl post. This can be of a certain benefit however because if you see an owl post on your travels you can take a well educated guess that there is a red brick somewhere to be found.

Unlike the other games in the series this game is not just made up of chapters for you to play in. In fact a large proportion of the game is spent in the Hogwarts grounds themselves. Between chapters you participate in lessons. Although these may seem pointless at first they are infect very significant as in these lessons you learn new spells and magical abilities which without you wouldn’t be able to progress throughout the game. For example remember the scene in the second film with all of the pixies? Perfect time to learn the new spell Immobulus wouldn’t you agree?

Diagon Alley also plays an important role in the game. Think of it as the Cantina in LEGO Star Wars or as the University in LEGO Indiana Jones. It basically contains all of the shops you need to purchase new spells, costumes, characters and even the opportunity to build your own level. You may remember the lego builder from LEGO Indiana Jones 2, its great fun for a while but it’s puzzling why the developers are still including this feature without any option to upload them to a server and to download other players’ creations.

One final thing that should be mentioned is the lego building capacity of the game. No longer do you need to use your hands to build lego bricks where you can instead use magic. That’s not all though. There are a few puzzles where you have to actually move lego bricks around and stack them to be able to reach higher levels. These puzzles are both challenging and fun which makes the game that much more different.

Overall although the amount of spells can be a bit alarming once you get used to it you’ve got a heck of a game in your hands! I would give it a rating of 85%.

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%!