• 28Apr 10

  Links LS 99

  Links LS 99 was released in 1998. The foundation for this game were already established in Links LS 1998 edition, which i reviewed in one of my previous blog posts.

  There are however some new features. The game contains 1 old course and 3 new courses. The courses are intricatelly detailed with trees, bushes, sand traps, concrete fields and even buildings. Better than in 1998. One welcome feature is also the crowd. Hitting an impossible shot gives you a lot more satisfaction when a crowd claps and cheers you on. There are also more camera views to make you preview your shot more. To make your shot better. The game also appears to be easier and more smooth on the eye. The terrain seems to affect the curve of the ball less, which is especially visible in putter mode.

  The game also contains 30 game mods, which make this game more diverse and fun to play. Team play, solo play, playing for money and so on.

  The bottom line is that this game contains all the features from the 1998 edition plus some extra additions. But the satisfaction is the same so I am giving this game a 9.0 rating.

  • Posted Apr 28, 2010 3:16 pm GMT
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• 11Apr 10

  Starcraft

  If you are looking for an excelent real time strategy game, with a great storyline and playability that will keep you going at it for hours, Blizzard is always the way to go. Since putting games like Warcraft 3, Frozen throne and World of Warcraft in stores, Blizzard has gained almost a legendary status in the gaming world. These guys just have talent for making games, but most importantly the talent to create new worlds with their imagination. I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE STARCRAFT CAME OUT IN 1998. This game is so good that if it came out today (with advanced graphics) people would go crazy over it.
  The game is divided into 3 sections, each containing 10 missions with a different race. Each race has it's own units, buildings, upgrades and even a way of functioning. That's what makes this game so versatile. You learn the story as you go on, mostly from the briefing screen, just before you start a mission, while there are a couple of movies thrown in along the way and of course one movie at the end of each racial campaign.
  First off you start the Terran (human) campaign, which contains quite a variety of units - soldiers, flamethrowers, armed vehicles, tanks (which can fortify themselves and do massive damage), goliaths, ghosts (which are assasin tipe units that can cloak themselves and assign a nuclear missile target), aircrafts, battlecruisers and science vessels (which can do stuff like EMP shock). The special human ability is that CSV's can repair buildings and mechanical units. Although it is OK, this campaign is nothing special in my opinion.
  Secondly comes the Zerg campaign and this is where the full extent of the game hits you. It's something you have never seen before. Zerg are not your tipical aliens. They come in such gruesome forms that you will amazed how much imagination was put into this game. Even the buildings are alive and are "breathing" all the time. I was really freaked out at the begining. And it's all based on the fact that all Zerg are one and come from "the Overmind" which is a body of tissue, that is getting bigger while consuming everything in it's path. He is all Zerg and if a Zerg dies he forms back into the tissue of the Overmind and it revives him back into another unit. While in human campaign unit's where made at different buildings, Zerg units all come from the Lair's (main building) leeches (or whatever they're called) which transform into a chosen unit. It is a welcome change after 10 missions of human campaign. I like the fact that it's not just human campaign with different skins, but is actually a whole new campaign and you have to adjust your tactical style accordingly. While in human campaign ghost is supposed to be a special unit, in Zerg campaign a scorpion-like creature has this role here - he can spray units in an area and all of them drop their health down to 1. Considering the fact it can burrow, making it impossible to see or attack, it is a powerfull weapon. I was really anoyed when computer kept burrowing them right in front of my base and just sprayed my units when they went pass him :@ Zerg's special ability is health regeneration of all units, including buildings.
  The third campaign is Protoss. They are a kind of human-like aliens infused with spiritual robotic abilities (lol). They also are a completely newly invented race and a welcome sight. A special unit here is "arbiter", which is a small aircraft that is capable of making units around him invisible (only seen by detector units) and can also freeze units so that they can't attack or be attacked. This is very usefull against large amounts of enemies. Also a templar can make psionyc storms which destroy almost everything in an area, unless a unit moves quickly. So protoss have 2 special units I think. Protoss special ability is the plasma shield-each protoss (including buildings) has it's health and plasma shield. Mostly the health can only be decreased when the plasma shields are destroyed and while health doesn't regenerate, plasma shields do. So if your unit has 1 health left, you can wait for plasma shield to fully regenerate and you still have a powerfull unit. All the sides are well balanced and each has it's ups and downs. Terran have bunkers, ghost units with nuclear missiles, strong tanks and all mechanical units can be repaired, while their mobility is weak and they are expensive to make. Zerg are cheap and fast to make, have great mobility, scorpions, health regeneration, but are killed quicker. Protoss are the most expensive to make, but have got plasma shields, strong units, arbiters, templars, while their mobility is medium. Also a working drone is working on a building in Terran campaign, used up in Zerg campaign, while in Protoss campaign a drone only assigns the making of a building while it builds itself. This is a small but important part. If you want to make 10 buildings you will have to use 10 drones in Terran campaign and after they are done, you can use them again, on Zerg building you will lose 10 drones, while in Protoss campaign you will only assign 10 buildings with one drone and then assign him to go back to foraging and the buildings will build themselves.
  Heroes are also a welcome feature, since they are stronger, but they mustn't die, which is quite hard and annoying sometimes.
  All these things and a great storyline make this game awesome to play.
  The only bad aspect of this game is the imobility of units(except in Zerg). If you have to move a large force and have a narrow corridor you will have huge troubles, since they keep bumping into each other and when they do that they try to find an alternate route, which is sometimes all over the place. So you have to keep resending them to a certain spot. It can get really anoying. I know that blizzard wanted to make the structure of the field to make a factor like in close combat, with all the narrow pathways and upper and down corridors, but units that go all over the place just because there was someone in front of them,who would've moved in 1 second anyway, just isn't realistic. Also a small glitch is when an arbiter freezes you, you lose all group structure of the frozen units, which is annoying as hell, since you just can't be bothered to group them all over again (and this also happens sometimes when you transport units with a carrier). That's all the negatives I can say about this game.
  Despite it's 12 year old beard, this game is still a gaming jewel. And I was only taking about the single player, while multiplayer brings you even more fun. Even today there are 100 of thousands people still playing multiplayer starcraft mode and are eagerly awaiting the soon to be released Starcraft 2. I am giving this game a 9.5 rating.
  
  Over and out! and remember : A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.
  • Posted Apr 11, 2010 1:12 pm GMT
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• 29Mar 10

  Close combat 2 : A bridge too far

  Close combat 2 is a 1997 sequel to the first close combat game. It is indeed an old game, no doubt surpassed by grandeur of many today's modern days. But don't be fooled - A bridge too far is a must play for any gamer, who thinks himself as a wise tactical commander. Straight away you have a choice to play a single battle, an operation (string of battles) or the Grand Campaign, which puts it all together into a logical completion, adding some extra video storyline. You can either fight on the Ally side (British, American, Pollish) or on the German side. When I started on the Ally side, I was doing OK. I was winning my first battles and I was getting the hand of things, but then suddenly I was starting to lose, and by the time I was on 50% of the campaign (you have a measure of progress, which I think is awesome) I didn't have any support, while my opponents have gathered huge armies on all fronts. There was no way out, I just simply ended all battles as quick as i could and was relieved when it was over. At this stage I thought this game was either too hard or just too stupid, but then I applied the tricks I have learnt onto the German campaign and I was winning spectacularly. Later I realized it wasn't just about winning battles. The true depth of this game lies somewhere else. Once you master all the little tricks, which takes you quite a few hours, you can really start to enjoy the game.
  The game teaches you to be rational - coserve your forces, retreat when you see you have lost, make them pay a high price for every soldier they kill.
  At the start of each battle you have a certain amount of points and with these points you buy different unit tipes - light infantry, bazooka, mortar team,....each team has different soldiers in it, with various weapons and skills. Evertime a soldier or a tank survives or mainly wins a battle he gets promoted and thus more skilled in battle. Before you start fighting you need to check the terrain which plays a huge part in this game. You will be difficult to see in a crop field, difficult to hit in a building, easier to ambush on a road, and so on. Then you position your troops and hit begin. There are usually five or six victory locations on the battlefield, and the more you have, the more ground you started of with and in a better position you are. If you win the battle, you automatically gain all victory locations and on some maps when the enemy counterattacks the other day, they have to attack from the side of the map, because they were pushed from it the previous day. But you can also win one location over from the enemy then fortify it and try to agree with them to cease-fire and will then start the next battle on this map with one more victory location. You can either conquer fast and then defend or you can do it slowly while waiting for reinforcements. The variety here is genious. I did also learn that it's not just about winning. I was losing so much with the Ally side, because I was meant to lose. It was just the way it happened in the past. Allies had few reinforcements, so on some fronts they were forced to retreat. But if you have killed more of their man than they have killed yours, you may have lost the battle, but you are winning on the long run. Each day has it's own movie, which contains real war footage and makes it look simply amazing. Battles really are fun and you get into that warfare gaming vibe, especially if you are pushing through on all fronts. You have a wide variety of tanks, infantry, mortars, etc., making it fun to test out all of them.
  The game is quite exciting when you get a proper hang of thins, but after a while it gets really boring. I think if you play this game an hour a day you will get the full satisfaction, but if you play it more, things will become bothersome to do. Positioning your troops over and over gets really old really fast. The fact that there are some glitches in the movement of your units, makes you even more frustrated. When ordering an infantry unit to go somewhere, you of course make sure they are not in any enemy line of sight and they wouldn't be if they went on in a straight line. But for some reason, they thinks its best to scramble all over the place and get shot from everywhere. Tanks will often get stuck in buildings and when ordered to go forward they go back, a bit around and only then forward. Lines of fire are sometimes suspicious since, you can shoot at a certain area over the wall, but when a enemy unit comes there, all of a sudden you can't.
  Also the tanks are REALLY unbalanced. German tanks are so overpowered in this game it's laughable. When I was an ally, I think my record with tanks was somewhere around 3-15. Most of the times I would click begin battle and my tanks were already destroyed. This was my mistake since I didn't hide them properly, but when I was playing on German side, I didn't need to hide them. I could plant them on the middle of the road and they would still kick ally ass. One time I easily destroyed 6 tanks with one of my tanks. Not to mention the Germans having the best unit in the game - Tiger tank, which is just all around awesome. The bottom line is - Ally tanks were worth like 1 soldier, while German tanks were worth like 20. Oh yeah, and antitank capabilities were strongly on German side, since almost every infantry unit had some form of antitank weapon. I destroyed lots and lots of tanks, while with Ally infantry I didn't destroy a single one (!). "Are you crazy, we can't hurt that" was what everyone kept saying when I ordered them to attack a tank. I don't know maybe this was intentionally done to be more historically correct, because I think the Germans really did have better tanks. Either way it didn't affect the gameplay so much (unless you were playing ally that is ).
  All and all Close combat 2 : A bridge too far was released back in 1997 and for a 13-year old, this is one spectacular game. The only real problem is that there aren't enough twists or developments to make it more appealing over time. You do get bored quite easily if you play it too much.
  
  Rating: 8.5
  
  Over and out! and remember: All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.
  • Posted Mar 29, 2010 1:00 pm GMT
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