MotoGP 4

Namco Bandai Games certainly isn't setting any speed records in releasing MotoGP 4 in the United States. The game was released more than a year ago in Japan and Europe, but race fans in North America have been kept waiting. The reward for that patience is added support for eight-player online racing, which is certainly an important and appreciated feature. However, the game does show its age in other areas, like the out-of-date roster and somewhat bland presentation. More importantly though, the racing is as enjoyable as ever, and with a respectable offering of features and options, MotoGP 4 is a good choice for race fans who are ready for a few more laps around a very familiar track.

The single-player MotoGP 4 experience is divided into several different modes. There's the requisite arcade mode and time-trial mode found in every other racing game, as well as a challenge mode, legends mode, and season play. There are three different classes to choose from in the arcade, time trial, and season race modes: 125cc, 250cc, and MotoGP. As the displacement of the engines increases, the bikes get heavier and more powerful, making them more difficult to control. As a result, the 125cc and 250cc classes not only add a bit of variety, but they also make good training grounds for the MotoGP circuit. The bikes in each class handle very differently. The 125cc bikes are nimble and fairly easy to ride, while the MotoGP bikes require much more precise braking and control to keep on the tarmac.

Season mode returns with more courses and riders than in the previous MotoGP games. After you choose your difficulty, lap count, and other settings, you can choose a rider or create your own and participate in a 16-race season. Before each race you can run practice laps and qualifying laps, which are helpful for memorizing each and every turn of a track. You earn points based on how you place in the actual race, and those points are tallied over the course of the season, and the rider with the most points at the end of the season is the champion. You'll get a message from your mechanic every couple of races telling you that he wants you to try out some new parts that the team has been working on. At this point you can attempt a parts test, and if you pass you get to keep the upgraded parts. The tests are all straightforward, requiring you to reach a certain speed in a short distance, come to a stop within a specified zone, complete a slalom course as quickly as possible, and so on. If you fail the test, you don't get the parts. But don't worry, because you'll get a chance at several tests throughout each season, and while the upgraded parts are helpful, they aren't absolutely necessary. Even though you can earn new parts, the actual tuning of the bikes in career mode is limited to adjusting a handful of sliders for general attributes like braking and acceleration.

The challenges return in MotoGP 4. There are 125 challenges in all, and while some are self-contained events that require you to meet certain objectives as quickly as possible, others are related to your performance in other game modes. When you complete a challenge you're awarded a bronze, silver, or gold medal depending on your performance. You might have to take first on a certain track, beat one of the top-ranked riders, or win a championship in each of the three classes. The specific focus of each challenge makes it a bit more interesting than your average race, and if nothing else, they add plenty of replay value to the game, since it will take you a lot of time and skill to collect each of the three medals for all of the challenges. Doing so will earn you GP points, which can be spent to unlock new riders, bikes, and tracks

The different modes offer a few different ways to play the game, but for further flexibility you can fully customize the controls and handling characteristics of the motorcycles. Not only can you assign commands as you see fit, but you can also toggle settings that drastically change the way the motorcycles handle on the track. You can turn on brake assist, which will automatically slow you down to keep you on the track. You can essentially hold the accelerator down the entire time when you use this feature, and as long as you turn at the right time you'll never crash or even leave the track. It isn't quite as useful as it sounds, because the brake assist tends to play it very safe, which means that in most races you'll have a hard time taking first using brake assist. Conversely, you can turn on sim mode, which puts everything in your control and makes for a much more difficult, but finely tuned racing experience. Sim mode requires you to use your brakes individually, shift your weight appropriately, and use a feather-touch on the throttle. These control features make it a very customizable game that you can play as a simple arcade-style racer or a very technical motorcycle racing sim. The choice is yours.

While the motorcycle controls are flexible, the artificial intelligence in the game is anything but. Computer-controlled characters aren't very forgiving, and they provide a decent challenge even on the easiest difficulty setting. If you race poorly, your opponents won't slow down to let you catch up, which means that if you make even a slight mistake, you'll have to fight hard to regain your position. But even though the AI provides a challenge, it just feels very rigid, as your opponents keep the same line throughout the entire race. You'll rarely see an opponent stray from that line, even if it means riding right into your rear tire. When you do make contact with another rider, you'll usually just bounce off like a bumper car.

The most important new addition to the MotoGP series this year is online play, which allows for eight-player races on any of the tracks in any of the three classes. Finding a game is relatively easy, as you're just plunked down in a lobby where you can browse available sessions and choose one to your liking. Unfortunately there's no matchmaking features, which makes choosing a match something of a crap shoot. If you want to play it safe you can create your own session and set the track, number of laps, bike class, collisions, bots, and whether or not you want to allow tuned bikes. In our experience the online play was smooth and lag-free, and the greatest shortcoming of what is otherwise a very welcome addition to the series is the fact that races are limited to eight riders. Racing against seven riders just doesn't quite measure up when you're used to going up against a pack of 20 in a season race.

MotoGP 4 is a late entry into a very crowded field of racing games for the PlayStation 2. The core gameplay is still as fun and flexible as ever, and the addition of online play is a welcome, if very tardy, one. Despite being slightly out-of-date, MotoGP 4 is still a good way to get your racing fix.

Source :---- gamespot !!!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl has always been an overly ambitious game, which is probably why it has arrived several years later than originally expected. The game's goal is to create a virtual world with an ecology all its own and then place you in the middle of it. That's something that's rarely been attempted, particularly in a first-person game. However, to the credit of THQ and Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is an impressive accomplishment. This first-person survival game is at times amazing and engrossing and on par with such classics as Deus Ex and System Shock.

This is another first-person game that features a silent and mysterious protagonist, much like Half-Life's Gordon Freeman. You play as the Marked One, a heavily armed scavenger suffering from amnesia and stuck inside the exclusion zone surrounding the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine. Yes, the same nuclear plant that exploded in 1986 and, in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s fiction, again in 1989, creating a radioactive hotspot brimming with mutants, heavily armed rival factions, and all sorts of weird, paranormal activity. Your task: Figure out who you are and what's going on at the core of the zone.

At its heart, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a first-person survival game that blends action with role-playing. This isn't a linear game, like Half-Life or Call of Duty, where you basically are restricted to a straight path and are taken for a tightly controlled and scripted ride. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s huge environments and open-ended gameplay make it more like a role-playing game, as you can go where you want and do what you want if you're willing to live with the consequences. However, you don't have to worry about traditional role-playing attributes such as strength or intelligence, or accumulating skills and abilities. Instead, all you have to worry about is your skill with a rifle and scavenging enough weapons, ammunition, and med kits from fallen enemies to keep going.
Slowly but steadily, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. introduces you to the bizarre world of the zone, a place where the fabric of reality is being ripped apart. Strange energy anomalies are everywhere, and wander into one at your own hazard. These anomalies produce rare and valuable artifacts that can be collected and traded, or even equipped, as they can confer special abilities. Perhaps the most useful ones enhance your endurance, letting you run for far longer than normal, which is a particularly valuable ability to have when traversing the huge area of the zone. And, of course, danger lurks everywhere in the form of enemies that are both human and not-quite human, as well as from animals.

The audio in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. also does an excellent job of immersing you in this world. When you're outside in the zone, the rustling of the wind in the grass, the cry of animals in the distance, and the ominous tick of your Geiger counter are ever present. When you're inside, there's nothing like the howl of a nearby mutant to raise your hackles. Weapon and mechanical sounds are also spot-on, and the crack of assault rifles in the distance lets you know that trouble's ahead. The voice acting is a bit hard to understand, but since the game is set in the Ukraine, that's to be expected. Even the game's broken English (both spoken and written) is a bit charming in this regard.
In spite of its small quirks and bugs, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is definitely a game that deserves to be played. For first-person shooter fans looking for the next big thing in the genre, it's difficult not to be impressed by the game's unique and evolving world. Meanwhile, fans of role-playing games will appreciate the open-ended nature of the gameplay and being able to explore different paths through the zone. This is a bleak game, but in a good way, as it captures its postapocalyptic setting perfectly. It's also an excellent combination of combat, horror, and exploration.

** Source -- http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/stalker/review.html?sid=6167650&page=1 **

Call Of Duty-2

When the original Call of Duty was released a few years ago, it made an impact both on critics and on consumers, even in the already-crowded WWII shooter genre. Call of Duty's visceral action struck a chord with PC shooter fans, thanks to a well-designed campaign, enjoyable multiplayer, and outstanding sound effects. If you liked those aspects of the original, then you're sure to enjoy the sequel, which stays true to the strengths of its predecessor, while enhancing the sense that you're just one soldier in the midst of a massive war machine. It doesn't really break any new ground, but the game nails the core aspects of first-person-shooter gameplay so well that it doesn't need to.
As in the first game, Call of Duty 2's campaign will put you in the shoes of a few different soldiers fighting for different Allied factions. You start off as a private in the Russian army, visciously fighting off the invading Germans in Moscow and Stalingrad. The British campaign is unlocked after beating the first Russian mission. For most of these missions you'll be fighting in the sand-swept deserts of North Africa alongside the Desert Rats against Field Marshal Rommel's troops. The final mission in the British campaign sends you to the bombed-out houses and hedgerows of Caen, France. After you're done with that, you'll play as an American corporal in Europe. Yes, you will be doing a D-Day landing, but not on Omaha Beach or Utah Beach, which you've probably played several times before. Instead, you'll be scaling the sheer cliffs of Pointe du Hoc as artillery with the Army Rangers. If you already thought rock climbing was an "extreme" sport, try doing it with artillery and machine-gun fire raining down on you.
Each of the game's 10 missions is broken up into a few different stages. If you play the game on regular difficulty, you could blow through it in about 10 hours. Ratcheting up the difficulty a notch makes the game much harder and more tactical (this is probably the experience the designers intended). Since you'll be creeping and peeking more carefully through all the encounters, you'll lengthen the campaign significantly, and enjoy it more.
Breaking up the campaign into several different narrative vignettes arguably weakens the impact of the plot as a whole, although that was never the strength of Call of Duty in the first place. What this does is allow the designers to put you in a lot of different, interesting situations. One memorable moment in the Russian campaign has you crawling through a raised pipeline to sneak behind German lines and into a fortified factory building. As you make your way through the pipeline, you'll spot and snipe small pockets of German infantry through holes in the pipe. When they fire back up at you, you'll notice bullets tearing through the rusted pipe, ripping open holes for shafts of light to poke through. It's a thrilling effect. You'll also get quite a rush from both participating in and defending against all-out infantry charges across open city squares in Stalingrad. But just as the novelty of these wears off, you're shunted over to the British campaign in North Africa, where you'll do things like participate in night raids of small Tunisian towns, climb up to the top of spires to call in artillery on enemy tanks, and even drive a tank yourself. The American campaign has its own memorable moments, like scaling the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, or sniping at German mortar crews from the top of a grain silo. The game paces itself so that you're always on your toes, and you'll find yourself switching back and forth almost constantly from an offensive position to making a defensive stand against counterattacks on the objective you've just captured. Yes, at the end of the day you're still just shooting a lot of Nazis, but the constantly varying contexts of how and why you're doing it keep the game compelling from start to finish.

Call of Duty 2 is just about everything you would hope for and expect from the sequel to one of the most successful World War II shooters of all time. Its varied campaign, excellent sound and gameplay design, and generally good AI make it a worthy successor to the original. At the same time, though, it's still a World War II shooter, and if you've grown weary of them, then Call of Duty 2's lack of new material might turn you away. It can also be murderous on your computer if you have modest hardware. What Call of Duty 2 does do well is nail down just about all aspects that define an ideal first-person shooter. If you liked the original and have been thirsting for more, Call of Duty 2 will definitely deliver that.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic

The Might and Magic universe dates all the way back to 1986. In those 20 years, we've seen plenty of different games on plenty of different platforms, but most of them have fallen squarely into the turn-based strategy or role-playing sectors. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, from Ubisoft and Arkane Studios, doesn't really fall into either of those categories. Like Arkane's previous game, Arx Fatalis, this is a first-person game. But Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is extremely light on the role-playing, instead focusing its energy on sword-swinging, magic-fireball-shooting action. Unfortunately, the action gets repetitive quickly, and the game's often-transparent storyline doesn't pick up any of the slack.
Dark Messiah puts you in the boots of a guy named Sareth. Sareth's an orphan that's been working as an apprentice under a wizard named Phenrig, and the game opens with a tutorial, where the wizard tells you how to get around as you attempt to grab a large crystal with magical properties. After learning the fine arts of sword fighting, rope climbing, and crate kicking, the wizard sends you out into the world to bring the crystal to another wizard, who has some big plans for it. But you don't go alone. Before you leave, the boss sticks you with a lady named Xana, who is some kind of guardian creature who lives inside your head. This lets her act as the game's Cortana, speaking to you frequently and acting as the game's "what should I do next?" device. The difference between Xana and Cortana, though, is that Xana's quips are too frequent and immediately annoying. The storyline unfolds almost immediately thanks to some specific details that are revealed in the manual and opening pre-rendered video sequence about the prophecy that drives the entire story. It's odd that a game could slip what amount to spoilers into the first 45 minutes of gameplay, but it's really quite transparent, and it's very easy to see where this roughly 15-hour adventure is going. You're given a couple of different choices later on in the game that will dictate which ending you'll see, but they're all disappointingly unsatisfying.
At its core, Dark Messiah is an action game. There are enemies to deal with, and you can take them out with a few different weapon types. Swords do the most damage, though daggers can be powerful if you can sneak up behind enemies and backstab them. The staff isn't as powerful or as fast as the sword, but it knocks enemies over, making it well suited for crowds, in theory. When using a sword, you can also equip a shield, which lets you block arrows. If you want to reach out and kill someone, the game has bows for your use, as well. You can also learn magic spells over the course of the game, starting with the basics like telekinesis and flame arrow, which is a fire spell that does very little damage. The later spells are more damaging and useful, but they don't scale, so that useless flame arrow spell is always useless.
You learn spells and other skills by spending skill points, which are earned by completing objectives. Skill points can be spent in three different categories, and some skills branch off of other skills, so you'll have to increase your endurance before you can increase your attack power. There aren't very many choices for character customization here, but you can try to specialize in magic, stealth, strength, or some combination of the three. Considering that most of the spells in the game aren't all that useful (heal is easily your best bet for most-used spell) and that stealth is never a requirement, spending points to make your physical attacks stronger, while also spending points to increase your mana reserves for frequent healing, feels like the best way to go. The game tosses so many health and mana-restoring items at you that you probably don't have to go all out in that direction, either.

Aside from its technical issues, there's nothing extremely wrong with Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. But beyond it being a fantasy-themed first-person action game (which is something of a rarity these days), the game doesn't really do much to make its campaign stand out. You could certainly do worse than Dark Messiah, but you could probably do a lot better, also.

Have a look at the video....................

Battlefield 2142

Battlefield 2142, the fourth PC game in the best-selling action franchise. This new game attempts to follow up last year's superb Battlefield 2--and that's both a blessing and a curse, as 2142 will invite inevitable comparisons to Battlefield 2, even while it's busy trying to break new ground. Nevertheless, while a lot of the changes seem minor, there is enough new content in here to merit your attention.
The plot of 2142 could best be described as Battlefield 2 meets The Day After Tomorrow, the 2004 movie where the world is suddenly encased in a present-day ice age. When billions of people are forced to flee the frigid Northern Hemisphere for the more hospitable Southern one, tensions escalate and shooting wars erupt for the last remaining bits of habitable land. In the game, this translates to the European Union battling the Russia-centered Pan Asian Coalition as they fight to flee Europe ahead of the ice and establish themselves in North Africa. The battlefields will shift from a wintry and war-torn European landscape to the arid sands of North Africa. This also means there are only two factions in the game, though why are the current inhabitants of North Africa sitting idly by while they're being invaded? In any event, these new factions are interesting, even if they are a bit hard to distinguish from one another. The soldiers of the future are clad in the same type of high-tech body armor, though the Russian armor is a bit blacker than the European version.
If you've played Battlefield 2, then you'll feel quickly at home in Battlefield 2142. The future is a very familiar place, because the designers didn't go too exotic with the weapons and vehicles. There are no laser or beam weapons here; instead, you'll get futuristic versions of today's weapons. There's an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, a missile launcher, and a light machine gun to equip the game's four classes. That's right: There are only four classes in the game, down from the seven seen in Battlefield 2, though these new classes are a lot more flexible and customizable. The price is that you're going to have to play 2142 a lot to access most of these customization options, as this system is designed to encourage long-term play.
The designers took the idea of weapon unlocks in Battlefield 2 and put it on steroids, so you can unlock up to 40 different weapons or pieces of equipment. Not only that, but each class has two different unlock tracks, which specialize in a different direction. For instance, the recon class can become a more powerful sniper or a more effective Special Forces operator, who can sneak around and blow up enemy ground stations, thus hampering the ability of the enemy commander to call in various forms of support. However, this also means that you might be in for some frustration in the beginning, as your character won't even have grenades until you unlock them, and you'll be at a disadvantage against those players who have access to the more powerful weapons and abilities. And while the promotions and unlocks come fairly quickly early on, the pace will slow down as each new unlock requires you to accumulate more and more points. So you'll need to play quite a bit to unlock a lot of what makes Battlefield 2142 so different from its predecessors. Or, you'll find yourself playing one class a lot more than the others, since that's where most of your early unlocks will go. This entire process is a bit confusing, as it's not enough to simply unlock new items, but then you must outfit your character when you join a battle for the first time.

When you get down to it, Battlefield 2142 is a solid entry in the series, as it feels like a slightly more refined version of its popular predecessor. Aside from the new Titan mode, there's not a lot new here, though, so this doesn't feel anywhere quite like the leap that Battlefield 2 represented from its predecessors--it's more akin to what Battlefield: Vietnam was to Battlefield 1942. Still, if you're looking for more multiplayer mayhem, it's hard not to recommend Battlefield 2142.

Cool Game All in All *********

Sims 2

The Sims 2 is a great sequel and a great game in its own right, and it's recommendable to just about anyone.

If you were wondering, The Sims 2 is a great sequel and a great game in its own right, and it's recommendable to just about anyone. For some, especially the devoted fans that have enjoyed the first game's open-ended gameplay, which was all about controlling the lives of autonomous little computer people, this is all that really needs to be said. But considering that The Sims 2 is the sequel to what is reportedly the most successful computer game ever (and that's not even counting its many expansion packs), the new game almost seems like a victim of its own success. Yes, it introduces plenty of new features that enhance the gameplay that was so popular in the original game, but it doesn't drastically refresh it. It also features plenty of options to play with, but it seems like it could've used even more content. Then again, you could simply say that EA and Maxis are making sure the game has room to grow with future updates--and there's no denying that The Sims 2's additions will give dedicated fans of the series plenty of stuff to do.

You can make a highly customized family, even if all you want is a bunch of Nerds.
In the most basic terms, The Sims 2, like The Sims before it, lets you create one or more "sims"--autonomous characters with distinct personalities and needs. You then create a virtual household of one or more sims (you get to decide whether they're roommates, spouses, or parents) and move them into a house and a neighborhood that is either prebuilt or built from scratch. Your sims interact with each other and with their neighbors, children leave the house for school each day, and employed adults head out for work to earn a living in one of a number of different career paths. However, the sequel has several new options, including an enhanced neighborhood editor that lets you import custom cities from Maxis' own SimCity 4, if you have that game installed. Plus, there are expanded building options that let you build a much bigger house.

Perfect !!!!