Welkom bij Gamer Blox

Hier geven we meer dan anderen

Grata Gamer Blox

Qui diamo più di altri

Bienvenue Pour Blox Gamer

هنا نعطي أكثر من غيرهم

Welcome To Gamer Blox

Ici, nous donnons plus que d'autres

eمرحبا بكم في بلوكس الأدب

Here we give more than others

Kamis, 23 April 2015

The Sims 4 Get To Work review

19.57    No comments




Summary

Pros

  • Scientist and Doctor careers are really strong
  • Lots of customisation options for retail stores
  • Alien world is interesting

Cons

  • Detective career is limited
  • Can become repetitive
  • Career progression can be a bit restrictive
Review Price £29.99
Compare all prices
Available on PC and Mac (reviewed)
There’s a lot riding on The Sims 4 Get To Work. The Sims 4 itself had a fairly lukewarm reception at launch and as the first full expansion pack for the game, long-time players will want to get some serious gameplay for their circa £30 investment with Get to Work.
Sims 4 Get to Work allows you to follow your Sims to work for the first time thanks to three brand new playable career paths – Doctor, Detective and Scientist. If you so choose, you can follow your Sim to their place of work (three special new otherwise inaccessible neighbourhood lots) or just let them toddle off on their own if you want to play around with your other Sims.
But of course, the main appeal is to explore these new careers, which all have ten levels and various unique features that will no doubt appeal to long-time Sims fans.
The main appeal of the Doctor career is the ability to deliver your Sim neighbours’ babies. To begin with, you’ll be just a medical assistant, but if you work hard and get your head into some medical journals you’ll quickly get promoted.

Like all the new Get to Work careers, you’ll need to work to fill up your progress bar in the top right corner in order to get the best appraisal at the end of the day. To do this, you have to complete the tasks that pop up underneath it. You can choose which ones you want to carry out, but if you want to get promoted, you’ll need to focus on those challenges.
For the Doctor track they can include diagnosing patients, studying medical journals or taking DNA samples. They tend to get more varied as your pay grade increases, making you want to work a lot harder to progress through the lower ranking job titles.
To begin with, part of your job will just be ferrying patients from the reception desk to the treatment areas. But as you progress you’ll start to work out how to treat your fellow Sims and all their weird and wonderful illnesses. As you rank up, those diagnoses will take more and more work, including getting patients’ heart rates pumping, giving them top-to-toe scans and even making house calls.
Part of the appeal of the Doctor career is discovering the comedic diseases the developers over at Maxis have created – recognising when someone has Llama flu for example.
See also: Best Games 2015

By the time you get to level 6 (which takes a few in-game weeks even if you ace every day on the job) you’ll be a General Practitioner and be able to deliver babies. Full term pregnant female (and male alien-impregnated sims too) will start waddling up to your hospital’s front desk and you’ll need to take them through to the special machine that delivers the screaming infants – Sims style.
You’ll also unlock some unique social interactions as you get higher up the Doctor rank, including the rather cheesy “Check for Fever” flirting technique, but also the ability to predict the sex of unborn children.
If we can say one thing about the Doctor track is that it probably the most jovial of the three new interactive careers. There’s plenty to keep your day so busy that we ended up working an extra hour most days just to make sure that we were getting the maximum career points – and money too.
But we have to say that the new Scientist career track is definitely our favourite of the three. Inventing, contacting aliens, using the various gadgets and gizmos as well as testing out potions and other potentially dangerous substances means there’s always something for your Scientist Sim to get involved in.

Your inventing days start as soon as you hit level 3 in the Scientist Career with the hilarious Simray – or whatever you decide to call it. A lot of your time will be spent brainstorming or interacting with the Invention Constructor, which is a friendly robot capable of helping you construct all sorts of crazy inventions.
The Simray is probably the most versatile of all the inventions you make, at least at first. Initially you’ll only be able to freeze your co-workers and other Sims outside the office. But, as you progress through the ranks you’ll be able to upgrade it to include mind-control, allowing you to force your friends to do things like clean your house for you. Yes, there’s a slight evilness to the Simray, but you can also upgrade your belongings to a better version with the transform feature too.
Your day-to-day tasks for the Science career will include creating serums that can change your Sim’s emotions, or any willing subject you choose to share your potions with. The Rose Serum, for example, will make your Sim flirty, while the Red Hot Serum will literally make your Sim see red.
See also: PS4 vs Xbox One
Get to Work
But, like the Doctor track, there is a kind of end goal with the Scientist career and that is contacting the aliens. Now, you can get in contact and even get abducted before level 9, but it all gets a little more serious when you unlock the ability to invent the ElectroFlux Wormhole Generator.
This handy little machine lets you visit Sixam, the alien world of The Sims 4. Either that or max out your Rocket Science skill and adding the Wormhole Generator to your rocket.
There’s so much to do in both the Doctor and the Scientist tracks that it’s near impossible to detail all the minutiae here, but suffice to say that you’ll be a busy bee.

We love the fact that being a Scientist, or at least having one in your family is the only way to get to Sixam. If that’s not a huge reason to choose the Scientist track, we don’t know what is.
However, in the Science Lab it can be a little tricky to work out which items you are supposed to interact with. At one point we were asked to work on the rocket for 10 minutes, but at that stage the rocket was in pieces in boxes. There was no indication as to where the rocket was hidden. We also advise that the microscope doesn’t look at all like a microscope. In fact it looks much more like a massive gun, so be prepared for that.
In comparison, the Detective Career track is definitely the most limited of the three interactive jobs. It lacks a real goal to work towards or long-term appeal aside from it being like you’re in an American cop drama.
As much as we adore CSI, the Detective career is just far too repetitive. For the first five or so levels, once you’ve worked out how to get a case, build a crime map and investigate a scene it all gets a little too monotonous. All the crime scenes bear so much resemblance to each other with their gnome theme, broken appliances and sad looking victims you wonder why you bothered.
It does get a little more interesting when you get the ability to unearth hidden clues at a crimescene, but it’s still a very similar process. Our highlight was learning how to interrogate suspects once we’d actually arrested them – working out when to play good cop and when to go in hard.
See also: Best monitors 2015
Get to Work
What we will say is that it benefits you to be thorough with your crime map. Gathering only a few basic details on your suspect will mean you can’t make an arrest properly and arresting the wrong person will seriously impact your performance.
The final strand to the Get to Work is the retail businesses. If you don’t fancy one of the new careers, your Sims can now create their own shop, selling whatever their hearts desire. We started our own little bakery thanks to the new Baking skill tree introduced with Get to Work. With a few days spent reading baking books and experimenting with icing, we soon had the talent that we felt would hold up to selling a cupcake or two.

If you want to buy one of the new Magnolia Promenade custom built lots you’ll need at least 40,000 simoleans. This is no place for a startup, or for those who don’t like to use the many Sims 4 cheats (cheats were actually disabled in our review build so we had to earn money the old-fashioned way).
You can of course free build your own store so that it looks exactly how you want it.
Retail units require you to be very on the ball. If you don’t interact with a customer you’ll lose that potential sale. Do this too many times and you’ll soon be in the red.
We haven’t spent quite as much time on the retail side of Get to Work as we would like, so look out for an update to this review in a few days.
Verdict
Although we feel the Detective path is the weakest point of the new careers, there’s still plenty to do in Get to Work that may justify that £29.99 investment. We love the fact we can follow our Sim to work now and explore the professional side of a life simulator – or as much as The Sims allows anyway. The retail businesses are an interesting addition, but we feel they won’t prove as popular as the career paths.

Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/the-sims-4-get-to-work-review#AXBvvGlBfu8HEzjO.99

Read More

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious review

19.52    No comments

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious review

By 
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious

Summary


Pros

  • Reminds you of how good Forza Horizon 2 is
  • Includes the iconic cars from Fast & Furious 7
  • Provides new fodder for obsessive Achievement-hunters

Cons

  • Makes only the most cursory of nods towards Fast & Furious 7
  • Tries to get you to spend £44.99 on what is now a £25 game
  • Very short, with little replay value
  • Smells like a cynical marketing exercise
Review 
Available on Xbox One (reviewed) and Xbox 360
Many of the most heinous crimes in the history of games development have been perpetrated in the name of tie-ups with films. Over the decades, games-of-films have become synonymous with hopelessly rushed development periods and a general lack of any reason to exist other than as box-ticking exercises for film company marketing departments with too much cash to burn. So it’s refreshing, at least, to see Microsoft and Universal trying something different with the clunkily titled Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious.
At least it avoids the most obvious movie tie-up trap, since it is based on the thoroughly excellent Forza Horizon 2, rather than being cobbled together from scratch with the backdrop of an impossibly tight deadline. At launch, at least (until April 10), it is a free download, and there’s nothing gamers love more than free things. Since, essentially, it’s an item of downloadable content for Forza Horizon 2but, unusually, is designed to operate even if you don’t own the original game. And it will never cost more than a few quid. And it’s perfectly good fun to play. What, then, could possibly go against it?
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious 3
Well, it’s another movie-game crossover whose raison d’etre is distinctly questionable. As you will find out when you finish playing through it, it’s a sort of Trojan Horse designed to suck you in with its Fast & Furious branding, show you the charms of Forza Horizon 2 and then sell you that game, like some sort of very elaborate advert.
Unforgivably, when you finish Fast & Furious, you’re invited to click through to Microsoft’s store and buy a digital download of Forza Horizon 2, the cheapest version of which is on offer for £44.99. Whereas the most cursory trawl around the web will show you that a physical copy of Forza Horizon 2 can easily be obtained for less than £25.
FH2 Presents Fast & Furious doesn’t even have a vast amount to offer those who have just watched Fast & Furious 7 at the cinema. It kicks off with a montage from that film, showing a bunch of things that we’d love to be able to do in a driving game, such as being at the controls of cars parachuted to Earth, or jumping from one Dubai skyscraper to another. But none of that sort of action is on offer. It merely plonks you in Nice – where the original game kicked off – and tells you via voiceover that you need to acquire ten cars by winning races in the vicinity.
See also: PS4 vs Xbox One
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious 5
Those cars, naturally, are the ones featured in the film, and they do include some highly desirable sheet metal (none of which is front-wheel drive, happily). There’s a bias towards souped-up classic American muscle cars, including a customised Dodge Charger R/T and Plymouth Road Runner, plus the likes of a Bugatti Veyron and McLaren P1, as well as the armoured Jeep Wrangler from the film.
In order to get those cars, you generally have to finish in the top three in races (both on the streets and cross-country). At least Fast & Furious shows the diversity of Forza Horizon 2, by mixing things up with time-trials and challenges that, for example, encourage you to string together style-moves like burnouts and drifts. There’s one challenge which involves smashing a certain amount of advertising boards within a time-limit, which brings back memories of Codemasters’ Dirt games.
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious 7
There are also five “Bucket List” cars to acquire, a “Barn Find” which involves a modicum of detective work followed by another timed challenge, and 20 hoardings dotted around Nice for you to smash. But that’s it: it’s entirely possible to complete everything within Fast & Furious in less time than it takes to watch the film. You can replay all the missions and challenges to your heart’s content, but getting stuck into the full game would represent a much more rewarding use of your time.
There’s only one thing that Fast & Furious offers those who already possess Forza Horizon 2: some new Achievements, which can all be harvested very quickly. As for its target audience – those who have seen Fast & Furious 7 – it does constitute a very effective advert for Forza Horizon 2 which, if anything, has tightened up its cars’ handling since launch (even if you’re at the helm of a beast of a Yank-tank with 800bhp being directed through the rear wheels) and looks as magnificent as ever.
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious
But if they are expecting an experience that feels like being dropped into the middle of the film itself, they will end up feeling short-changed, and the way in which Fast & Furious tries to sell gamers an overpriced digital copy of Forza Horizon 2 after its completion is nothing short of criminal.
Verdict
It seems churlish to visit a barrage of negativity on a free game, but one sincerely hopes that Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious isn’t the harbinger of a new trend in the games industry.
Fun though it may be to play – while it lasts – it eventually reveals its true colours as an utterly cynical marketing exercise, designed to generate a sales spike for an ageing game by cashing in on the popularity of one of the most enduring of movie franchises.
What really rankles is the lack of any visible effort, beyond recreating the cars from the film, to make it truly Fast & Furious 7-specific. Hopefully, if any similar game-movie crossovers crop up in the future, whatever their ulterior motives, they will at least make more effort to emulate the movie franchise on which they are piggy-backing.

Read More

F1 2015 PREVIEW

19.47    No comments


F1 2015

SuF1 2015 preview

Available on Xbox One, PS4 and PC
F1 2015 release date: June 12 2015
Now I must admit, I do love watching the F1, hearing the sounds of the cars squeal past and settling in for that Sunday session. But I’ve never really gotten into F1 games, and suddenly I feel like I’ve been missing out.
Codemasters announced F1 2015, the first Formula One game available for PS4 and Xbox One (also for PC), in late March and surprisingly we only have to wait until June to get our hands on the full version of this F1 racer.
For this first new-gen F1 game, Codemasters is changing things up a bit. There’s a brand-new EGO engine that the dev believes will deliver the ultimate Formula One videogame experience.
Although in my brief preview session with publisher Namco Bandai, I only got to race around the Singapore F1 track in a heavy rainstorm, it already feels like there’s a marked difference between this year’s game and F1 2014. That game that received a very lukewarm reception when it was released last year, thanks to it being little more than a car pack update to the feature-packed F1 2013.
F1 2015
This different feel is partly down to the fact that F1 2015’s new engine delivers enhancements to vehicle areas such as the engine, transmission, aerodynamics, force feedback and, in particular, a brand-new tyre physics model.
On my first time around the track I accidentally tried racing with all the assists off – and as a relative noob to the F1 game series, this was a serious mistake, especially in very wet conditions.
My peers laughed as I hurtled around the tracks, spinning out at every corner and watching my foes lap me repeatedly.
See also: PS4 vs Xbox One
F1 2015 3
But the second time around I made some adjustments to the assists so that I could achieve what I would class as the perfect balance between amateur and pro handling.
Instantly, I felt far more connected with the car. I could feel the change in grip as the tyres aquaplaned a little on the wet track, feel the change in surfaces as I hit the rumble strips on a missed racing line, and even the crunch of the car as I crashed headfirst into the barriers on that first assist-free race. I also started to understand the car’s limits in these extreme conditions.
And I began to realise that I’d lost all concept of speed in F1 2015, as the cars hurtled along the straights at over 100mph. I started to realise that this is part of the F1 experience. With F1 cars capable of speeds up to 220mph, I often watch races and forget that they’re doing at least 70mph around tight corners. You can’t possibly forget that with F1 2015.
Suddenly playing F1 games made a whole lot of sense. And I could understand why Codemasters had chosen to show off the first playable session of F1 2015 with a few laps of Singapore in heavy rain conditions.
F1 2015 5
As I raced around the track the fat raindrops pelted my helmet visor, impairing my visibility. But that didn’t prevent me clocking some of the Singapore skyline highlights, like the Singapore Flyer or the highrise bank buildings of the Downtown Core that I recognised from my time there. Everything is rendered in almost photographic realism in F1 2015, even on the Xbox One.
Switching out to a behind-car view mid-race was the true test of this realism, though, and where I feel the game truly shines. You will get a sense of it in the driver’s seat, but when you get to play, just take a moment to get outside the car for a race or two.
You can see the tread on the tires as you slow into the corners, watch the spray fly up from your wheels, and marvel at the bodywork on these powerful vehicles.
It’s almost at a point where I can’t describe how impressive the visuals are in F1 2015, because it would be doing the game a disservice. Looking at the screenshots interspersed in this preview gives you an idea of how realistic the locations and cars are in this game. But it really has to be played to be believed.
First Impressions
This is shaping up to be the definitive Formula One racer. F1 2015’s ultra-realistic handling, vehicles and tracks will please even the tamest F1 enthusiasts, while the ability to experience a hardcore Season Pro mode will get fanatics right behind their racing wheels this June.

Read More

Guitar Hero Live release date: Autumn 2015

19.44    No comments


Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U and "select mobile devices"

It’s late-March, and TrustedReviews is in central London to see a mysterious new Activision game. Some clues as to the identity of the game are obtainable from the choice of venue: we’re at the Scotch of St. James, which was where Jimi Hendrix played his first ever UK gig, and where the Beatles and the Rolling Stones once held their own tables. As the roaring 60s and 70s came to a close, the club was closed for 25 years, until it was restored to its former glory in 2012. Since then, Jack White, Mark Ronson and John Legend have all played there, while Harry Styles, Rita Ora and Mark Ronson regularly party here.
Obviously, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Activision is more likely to announce the new Guitar Hero rather than the new Call of Duty here today, but it’s a very appropriate venue for a game that also had its heyday in the past, has laid dormant for a period, and is now ready to make its return. That return is in the form of Guitar Hero Live: a new game, with a new guitar peripheral, from a new development studio, for a new set of devices.

The outfit in charge of reinventing the series is UK-based developer Freestyle Games. They’re new to the Guitar Hero franchise, but they have good form in the music genre, having created DJ Hero and DJ Hero 2 for Activision, coincidentally just as the Guitar Hero franchise was winding down. Creative Director Jamie Jackson has worked on both franchises, but where he once wore a dance music-friendly branded t-shirt and cropped beard, he now sports the rock ‘n’ roll checked shirt and long beard. The beard is actually being sported by the majority of the studio; apparently it’s a Freestyle tradition where they grow out their facial hair and shave it off once they get the game out.
“Guitar Hero Live is about making you feel like a rock star,” Jackson told TrustedReviews at the game’s unveiling. “[At the studio] all our anecdotes were about being a rock star. Our focus was “let’s make the best guitar game we can”.” That means this version of Guitar Hero is all about the axe, and all other instruments are out. Not only that, but it’s a brand new guitar made by Freestyle and RedOctane. Whereas previous guitars had five coloured fret buttons, the new guitar features two rows of three buttons. This means that you don’t have to use your little finger to master songs at the hardest difficulty anymore; dexterity is now tested by how quickly you can move your fingers between and across the two rows.
See also: PS4 vs Xbox One

It’s easy to be sceptical about Activision requiring a whole new guitar for its latest Guitar Hero game. After all, you probably bought enough of these lumps of plastic and contributed to Activision’s enormous profit margins on the game last time around. And there is something cynical about it, especially in how similar it is to the old guitar aside from the new fret board. The strumming board and whammy bar feel exactly the same; the only other notable change is that “Hero” mode is activated using a button by the strumming board, rather than tilting the guitar. Longtime fans of the series are likely to be even more galled by the fact that their previously-purchased tracks won’t work in the new game.
However, there is some method in Freestyle’s madness: within a minute of playing, you can appreciate how the new fret button layout has the potential to feel better, more nuanced, more natural. Rather than five coloured notes flying at you on screen, three Black and White notes appear instead. If they’re White, you need to hold down the corresponding button on the top row. If they’re black, you do the same on the bottom row. It helps beginners that the shape of the notes point up or down in relation to the corresponding row on the controller. That’s all there is to it at medium difficulty; on harder levels, you also sometimes need to strum without pressing any buttons, or hold both rows of buttons down at the same time.

According to Freestyle games, the new layout is intended to make the game more accessible to the vast number of “medium difficulty” players who were happy on Guitar Hero’s default level, but lacked the dexterity in their pinky finger to go up to higher levels. “The six button combo also allows us a lot more combinations--you can do chord shapes,” explains Jackson. “There becomes a lot more depth to it, you have to learn this new physical way of playing,” he claims.
We only played through the two songs in the demo twice, but we did enjoy the new button layout. We managed to put together 100-note streaks during our first go on Fall Out Boy’s “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)” on medium difficulty, and 80-note streaks on the more difficult Black Keys’ “Gold On The Ceiling” on the same difficulty. The harder levels were much more problematic -- we barely managed to land a few notes before messing up, but it seemed to be more within our reach than before, especially on songs we were more familiar with.
See also: PS4 vs PS3

While the success of the controller redesign is something that can only be judged after extended play (especially for those who play at the harder difficulties), we can be much more confident about the quality of the visual redesign. Whereas previous games in the series had a colourful, cartoon-like aesthetic, Guitar Hero Live is much more realistic. It’s all based around the experience of what it’s like to play live: the pre-show nerves, the interaction with the rest of the band, the response from the audience. To that end, everything is presented in video form, from a first-person perspective. As you play, you look around to see your band and the audience: if you’re playing well, they react positively; if you’re not, they give you a “WTF” face or hurl bottles at your head.
The result was a huge improvement in atmosphere when playing the game. When you’re walking out from the dressing room to the stage, you get to see your bandmates wanting to hurl or psyching themselves up, a cute groupie telling you to have a good set, or a roadie leading you up to the stage. The footage has all been filmed at real life-venues from small clubs to massive arenas, and looking out onto a Glastonbury-sized crowd is genuinely nerve-wracking. However, once you’ve seen these preambles once you’ll probably want to skip them, and when you’re actually playing the game, you block out the peripheral distractions and focus on the notes in the centre of the screen.
See also: Best Games 2015

The other big new innovation is Guitar Hero TV--a set of TV-like channels that play music videos 24/7 that you can play along to. We didn’t get to experience this mode for ourselves, but we saw a video of it in action. The music videos of recent hits from Ed Sheeran and Of Monsters and Men replaced the first-person view in the career mode, and on the left of the screen, you could see your score being ranked live against other players from around the world as you played. Jamie likened GHTV to the game’s arcade mode, and the good news is that Activision says it will be free, rather than subscription-based.
The new game will support “current-gen and old-gen” according to Activision, and while no individual platforms were named, we can safely assume that means the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, and Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Interestingly, the same Guitar Hero Live experience is also coming to mobiles and tablets. Again, no individual platforms were confirmed, but Activision compared the experience to the tablet release of Skylanders: Trap Team. For that reason, we can safely assume iOS and hopefully Android versions of the game are coming, with a Bluetooth guitar specifically made for mobiles. Jamie also boasted of being able to plug your mobile device into a TV and have the full Guitar Hero experience just as you would from a console.
First Impressions
Guitar Hero Live is due out in Autumn 2015, which is relatively soon. We’ve been promised more information at E3 2015 in June, and that those announcements won’t be about further peripherals--this will remain a pure guitar-based experience. We’ll wait to see how it looks in a few months time, but for now, we were left wanting to play more of the game, which is promising given how recently we thought we were over the franchise.

Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/guitar-hero-live-review#6RgsxJElIZkm1XO1.99

Read More

NARUTO SHIPPUDEN ULTIMATE NINJA STORM 4 PREVIEW

19.38    No comments



Available on PS4 (tested), Xbox One and PC
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 release date: Autumn 2015
I’m in the middle of a heated battle, the climax of the Fourth Shinobi World War. While I take control of a huge toad wielding a Katana, who effortlessly sweeps through a sea of enemies with stomps, slashes and ninjutsu moves to make any kung fu master weep, I can't help but think how completely over the top yet amazing this experience is. This is Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4.
Of course this little snippet of gameplay that I was lucky enough to get my hands on, is much slower than the frenetic ninja fighting that most Naruto fans will be familiar with. But in an attempt to bring the scale of this climactic battle onto the video game screen, its not only a great change of pace but it works extremely well.
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 1
Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke have called upon their summons (Gamakichi, the toad with whom I have destroyed many a foe, Katsuyu the slug and Aoda the snake) to decimate a vast army of Ten Tails Clones. Sakura and Sasuke however are resigned to the bench, only stepping in for short bursts should you ask for some assistance. But while this is definitely Naruto through and through, fans of the Dynasty Warriors series will notice some leaves taken from their book.
That feeling of being in the middle or even key to a historical and monumental battle is further heightened by the ‘Defeated Meter’, which racks up the enemies you've slain and the blood on your webbed hands as you march forward to tackle the ten tails beast.
While this linear sequence isn't necessarily the most imaginative in terms of direction, essentially hopping from one of tunnel to another, the sheer variety of moves my ass kicking toad has at his disposal is immense. Not content with being able to hurl Shurikens, Gamakichi can take slashes of health from enemies with Katana swipes, dash forward to unleash a barrage of ninjutsu moves as well as stomping the ground and a few more moves to boot. This is one flexible amphibian, making it easy for you to work your way through thousands of enemies like nothing more than a packet of Malltesers and it’s great fun.
See also: PS4 vs Xbox One
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 2
This is the first Naruto title to hit next-gen consoles. While Dragon Ball Xenoverse really raised the bar with authenticity and generally great treatment of an IP crossing platforms, Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is already looking set to push that bar even higher, offering visuals that are stunning and really represent the source material fans adore so much.
It’s perfectly acceptable and enjoyable to simple walk through the waves of enemies in front, as if they were in fact that of nothing more than a gentle sea, occasionally button mashing to finish of the bigger foes, but keeping an eye on your Ki bar offers some great spectacles. Holding triangle (or Y) to charge it up, you’ll be able to unleash some devastating attacks, something worth remembering once you meet the boss of this demo, the Ten Tails Beast.
Once the fight begins, you’ll be treated to a lengthy dynamic quick time event sequence. But before you roll your eyes and assume this cutscene with button prompts is merely a cop out, you may want to think again. For a QTE sequence this is quite interesting, as it neatly and perfectly blended into the game's extremely distinctive art style.
See also: PS4 vs PS3
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 4
Able to leap freely from one humongous tentacle to another, Gamakichi slides down the tendrils like Tony Hawk on a banister, with Sakura and Sasuke eventually doing the same for some insanely cool moments. These moments won't be ruined by any missed button mashes either, instead they simply result in a slight change of course - keeping you focused and stops the inevitable rage quitting that follows from handfuls of instant failures and the loading screens that you’d expect to follow.
Ninja Storm 4 is full of manic and frenzied action something that fans will no doubt adore while those not so familiar with the series will still have a blast with. Although, for those players, understanding what's going on might be somewhat of a challenge.
It looks fantastic though, with everything soaked in rich colours, flashy visuals and an artistic flair that captures the heart of the show and manga, as well as showcasing the power of new generation consoles.
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 4
Gamakichi wont be alone in his battles, with a huge stable of characters set to make an appearance along with the return of some integral systems that include wall running and awakening, to Ultimate Jutsu and Drive type systems. New combination Ultimate Jutsus make an appearance as well, inlcuding the ‘Hyuga Clan Ultimate Jutsu', featuring Neji, Hinata, Hanabi and Hiashi.
First Impressions
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is shaping up to be a perfect end to the series and a strong outing on new generation consoles. Just how deep and rewarding the combat system will be for hardcore fighting fans isn't clear from the short demo I played but there's easily enough fan service to please any of the series die-hard followers and enough grandiose sights and sounds to keep newcomers gripped.
Team 7 are back

Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/naruto-shippuden-ultimate-ninja-storm-4-review#x0dtWTprtROBICaa.99

Read More

Mortal Kom bat X review

19.36    No comments


Pros

  • Stunning graphics
  • Brilliant popcorn-munching, bone-crunching story mode
  • Crammed with long-term hooks, online and offline
  • Great character roster with cool variations

Cons

  • Fighting can feel oddly staccato
  • Have to pay extra for specific MK stars
Review Price £39.99
Compare all prices
Available on Xbox One (version tested), PS4, PC
And so the Mortal Kombat renaissance continues. If 2011’s reboot put the series back on the map, Mortal Kombat X puts it right back in the pantheon of triple A fighters. While it could have got away with a heady mixture of gore, neck-snapping violence and cheesy ‘Get over here’ one liners, the team at NeverRealm has been more ambitious. Forget any low expectations. Mortal Kombat X actually wants to move the fighting game forwards.
Sure, it’s standing on groundwork laid down by the reboot and 2013’s Injustice: Gods Among Us, but we’re struggling to think of another beat-em-up that puts so much work not just into the core mechanics, but into the way its one-on-one bouts are structured. Mortal Kombat X is all about giving players reason to keep coming back, and whether you want to play single-player, online or versus against friends, it’s extremely compelling. All too often fighting games are a flash in the pan, where you spend a weekend working through the solo modes then rely on versus and multiplayer for long-term depth. Mortal Kombat X keeps you coming back across all modes; it’s as much fun to dip in and out of on your own as it is to play winner stays on in a room full of mates.

Let’s kick off with the story campaign. Like Mortal Kombat, Injustice and Team Ninja’s Dead or Alive 5, Mortal Kombat X eschews the traditional opening cut-scene, series of bouts, climactic fight, end cut-scene effort in favour of a richer, multi-layered plot that gives you a chance to get to grips with multiple characters in a range of different locations. The plot is preposterous, following the continuing wars within and between the EarthRealm, NetherRealm and Outworld, but its preposterous in a lovably Mortal Kombat way. It’s melodramatic, soapy and ridiculous, creating a world where everything from civil unrest to inter-dimensional conflicts to failed family relationships can be settled through one-on-one fisticuffs, but it’s a lot of fun.
What’s more, it’s seamless. Cut-scenes keep the action moving between bouts without a loading screen to spoil the immersion, and NetherRealm has chosen to make some of these interactive through quick-time events. Personally, I pretty much hate QTEs, yet Mortal Kombat X gets away with them by making the consequences entertaining but not particularly crucial. A character might get hurt or not, or executed painfully, or not, but it doesn’t really matter either way.
See also: PS4 vs Xbox One
Mortal Kombat X
We love the way the story focuses not just on the major goodies, but on some of the more interesting baddies you’ll encounter along the way. We also love its use of cheesy flashback sequences to extend a wafer-thin plot that little bit further. This is the craziest, smartest, more engaging single player mode we’ve ever played in a fighting game.
And it’s not alone. First, NeverRealm throws in Towers; a more traditional set of solo mini-campaigns where you pick a character and tackle a series of enemies of escalating difficulty. Then it throws in the Krypt, effectively a bonus-collecting store dressed up as a basic but enjoyable 3D dungeon crawler. Smartest of all, it ties all the solo and online content into a Factions meta-game. Here you choose a side and all your efforts across all game modes contribute to your faction’s fight for dominance of the three realms.
To support this, Mortal Kombat X has extra content, including special Factions Towers, Factions boss battles and special Factions online bouts. What’s more, new content will continue to be dripped in through Living Towers, featuring different line-ups and different conditions on a daily, hourly or weekly basis.
See also: PS4 vs PS3

Beyond this, we get conventional versus options and comprehensive online modes, covering not just single one-on-one bouts, with effective matchmaking and the option for an instant rematch, but lobbys with matchmaking, team-based-games and a King of the Hill winner-stays-on mode. Get a good connection and the action is so fluid that you could both be in the same room. Get a bad one and you’ll encounter occasional drop-outs or delays, or pretty painful lag. Mortal Kombat’s netcode seems good, but still needs a little TLC.
None of this would matter were the fighting no good, but it’s actually better than it was in Mortal Kombat and Injustice. The action isn’t as fluid as it is in, say, Dead or Alive or Tekken, but once you get used to the staccato feel it’s very fast, responsive and demanding, pushing you to think carefully about the timing of each move, learn your specials and combos and dish them out when you’re in a good position, not when you’re getting pummelled. And while it has a less sophisticated block and counter game than rivals, there’s a lot of skill and strategy in dealing with incoming attacks through evasion and disruption, so that your opponent can’t build up too much momentum.
Mortal Kombat X
At the heart of Mortal Kombat X lies the X-Ray super moves, where building up your power gauge allows you to unleash a literally bone-crushing sequence of attacks, with a side-order of organ-slicing, eye-jabbing, acid-vomitting action, all rendered in a spectacularly gruesome X-Ray style. However, Mortal Kombat X also goes big on environmental moves, where tapping the right bumper in certain positions will bring elements of the scenery into play, so that you can either wallop your enemy with a barrel, brazier or seemingly harmless old lady, or do a cool backwards leap off a wall or column and hit them hard from a new direction. And at the end, there’s still the chance to pull off an outrageous Fatality or Brutality, finishing the fight with a hideously gory send-off.
Combine all this with a fantastic cast of characters, and Mortal Kombat X is on to a winner. Old favourites like Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, Sonya, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Kung Lao, Kano and Reptile are all in place, and they’re joined by a host of new stars. Some, like Takashi Takeda, Jacqueline Briggs and Cassie Cage, are direct descendants of established MK heroes, and effectively deliver a similar combat style with a twist.
Others, like beefy emperor, Kotal Kahn, the weird, talon-forming, insect-spewing D’Vorah and brute/urchin tag-team, Ferra and Tor, are all new, with brilliant special moves and distinctive play styles.

The beauty of Mortal Kombat X’s approach, which owes as much to Soul Calibur as it does to Tekken, is that there’s no shortage of variety when it comes to fighting. In fact, as each character has multiple variants with different move-sets, you could keep on exploring it for months. Some fans are complaining that key characters like Goro are being held back as DLC, but there’s more than enough here to be getting on with without shelling out.
The icing on the cake is the stunning presentation. If you’ve been waiting for a fighting game that can show off the chops of your next-gen console, this is it. The characters are beautifully modelled, lavishly textured and impressively detailed, with Kotal Kahn, Ermac, Ferra & Tor and D’Vorah showcasing some truly fantastic design.
The stages are just as dazzling, some featuring amazing water effects, some cramming in so much background activity that you simply can’t take it in while you’re fighting. Throughout, the lighting and post-processing effects are gob-smacking, and the only sour note is a curious inability to render believable hair. Tanya, Sonya and – particularly – Johnny Cage have some of the least convincing coiffures in recent video games. In a game of this visual quality, that really stands out.

Still, can a few dodgy barnets damn a game this good? Nope. If you pushed us, we’d still say that the fighting feels a little slicker and more precise in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 or Streetfighter IV, but Mortal Kombat X is catching up fast. Meanwhile, on every other level – visuals, solo play, online meta-game and bonus game modes – it’s actually leading the pack.
Verdict
Against all odds, Mortal Kombat X can take on the best of Capcom and Namco and hold its corner. While the core fighting isn’t quite as fluid, it’s smart, inventive and a lot of fun, while the brilliant story mode, Factions meta-game and additional game modes should keep you coming back for months to come. Easily the best Mortal Kombat yet, it’s the first that can go toe-to-toe with Tekken and Streetfighter without going down.


Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/mortal-kombat-x-review#uRgHLfH6AC1fBCYT.99

Read More