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The Saboteur is an action game from Electronic Arts (EA), set during World War II in German-occupied France.

The game’s protagonist, Sean Devlin, is a hard drinking Irish racecar mechanic, a regular among the racing groups of Paris. After being cheated out of a win in the 1940 Saarbrücken Grand Prix by Kurt Dierker, a Nazi colonel, Sean and his best friend Jules Rousseau seek revenge and sabotage his prized racecar. However, they were being captured during the process; Dierker executes Jules during interrogation under the belief they are really British agents sent to spy on him, but Sean escapes.

The rest of the storyline chronicles Sean‘s fight to kill Dierker. He is recruited by the French Resistance and British SOE, who help him throughout the story. The story takes place during World War II and the German occupation of France, but the war itself is used as a backdrop to the main story, which is about Sean‘s fight to avenge Jules‘s murder and kill Dierker, which is where the story comes to its conclusion.

Throughout the gameplay, players get to upgrade their character by achieving certain “challenges” such as killing a certain amount of Nazis, evading high alarm levels, sniping targets, and stuffs like that. All these upgrades will improve accuracy, ammo counts, damage and more.

Players also has the ability to scale buildings and even reaching rooftops; where sometimes loot of some kind can be found or get a good sniper’s view of the ground beneath. A garage can save vehicles and also repair damaged ones. The player also can engage in fist-fights or use a more stealthy approach, by sneaking around and even changing into a disguise.

Overall, it’s fun! I’m playing it now too, just installed the game today and playing prologue now!

Definitely worth playing! Cheers~

Tags: Game Reviews, General by Wen Bin
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Recently, action movies are coming up and many people are gaining interests in Martial Arts. And thus led to the release of a new Facebook game, MMA Pro Fighter, created by PlayFish (created many successful Facebook game, which consists of EA Sports Fifa Superstars & Restaurant City).

My fighter is definitely not as good of most others’, but I’m quite sure that I’m coming up soon. Those whom have been following my blog would know that I’m someone who like to share, especially when it comes to Facebook game which allows me to spend/waste time rather than stoning in office. All right, let’s talk about some of the stuffs that I have discovered during the past few days playing the game.

First, the attribute points that you gained from leveling up which allows you to improve your fighter’s stats, I’d suggest putting most of them into your Cardio attribute, which allows you to fight more efficiently. Put minority of them into your Health attribute so as to survive longer, as for Stamina, it’s not that essential since 10 points are generated every one minute. Well, what’s the point of being a fighter with high stamina to do training, but can’t survive/win a fight??

Regarding the training sessions that your fighter can take up (they are like jobs in Mafia Wars), the theory stays the same; finish them up to the maximum level (level 3). The more you train, the more tough your fighter will become, not forgetting that by mastering each level, it gives you extra bonus experience and cash as well.

Trainings give you those extra bits of experience and keep your fighter at the highest condition possible. Unlike in other games, it shouldn’t be really wise to train as much as possible since training only gives you experience and levels you up very fast. However, you need money to learn new techniques (and you can get money via fighting only or purchase them for real cash), so a high level doesn’t really mean that you’re a lot better. Only use the training when needed and don’t overdo it!

Start out by focusing your attention on one particular martial art skill tree, as it will make your fighter grow stronger faster, compared to learning a little bit of all skills from different skill tree (Judo, Wrestling, Kick-boxing, etc…). As a beginner, you won’t have enough money to buy all the skills, so choose wisely.

In this game, there are boss fights as well. Try to get your fighter to around 5 levels higher than the boss before fighting it, so that you could have a good chance of winning the fight once and for all without losing.

Try to fight battles with other players who are 2 levels higher than your fighter so as to gain good experience points. Also, do check their constitution as well; those with “Mighty” would usually give you some hell before winning/losing to you. Try to find those who are “weak” or “fat” for some easy win

It’s really difficult to gain money in this game and money is essential for improving your fighting and also getting some boosts, plus that you need some extra money to be able to train.

Most of the money will be won by winning fights, so you should make sure you fight as often as possible and win as much as possible. This will be your main source of income and it’s better to fight for lower rewards  than trying to fight against better players and losing, since you’ll have to wait a lot for your health to replenish.

Also, you’re awarded quite well for completing challenges, so make sure you visit that page often and claim your rewards.

That’s all I got for now, please feel free to post your comments on this page!

Cheerios.

Tags: Facebook, Game Reviews, General by Wen Bin
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Probably due to the FIFA World Cup 2010, many soccer-related Facebook applications were being created. One of the most successful among all is the EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars, which is a combined effort of EA (Created many successful sports/soccer video game series) and PlayFish (created many successful Facebook game such as Pet Society & Restaurant City).

Although my Superstars team is not the best team out there, , but I’m quite sure that I’m going up quickly, and being someone who like to share, I’m going to post about some of the stuffs that I have discovered during the past few days playing the game.

First of all, if you log onto the game and realise that you have some match credits available, go to the “League Matches” and play, even if you know you would lose the match (e.g. your team rating 51, opponent team rating 83)! This is by far the best way to get money, due to the fact that regardless of whether you win, lose, or draw with your opponent, you get a fair amount of coins.

Also, by playing “Friendly matches” with your friends who also have the game installed on their account, it can allows you to not only earn money, it also allows you to earn more experience which could allows you to level up. By having a higher level allows you to get better players (e.g. you need to be level 10 to buy the gold package of players)

Don’t forget to save up your coins as well, don’t just randomly buy players from the Bronze package like what I did when I just started playing the game! The players you get from there are terribly low quality; well, it depends on your luck actually. Nonetheless, you would have a much better chance of getting good players by saving up and buy a silver or gold package, so why take the risk?

Something very important yet troublesome about this game is the training; it works as something like the morale of your Superstars team; the higher it goes, the higher your team rating will be. Thus, a team with a very high “Talent” would not be strong if they has a very low “Training”, understand what I meant?

Last but not least, just like most of the games in Facebook, it would always be a big bonus if you have many friends who also plays EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars. The reason being, these friends can send you daily gifts that will definitely help your team grow.

Right now, the EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars gifts include coins, match credits, and some random players. It would be great to get players from it, imagine you are lacking of a good goalkeeper and every time you buy a players package, they spams midfielders and defenders to you, but no goalkeeper at all; suddenly you received this decent goalkeeper from your friend… you’ll be damn happy right?? :p

However, do remember that good players don’t come easily, you got to be patient with that! The gifts would normally give you a small amount of coins, which could definitely help you, don’t worry!

Another approach you could go for is to join all the EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars Fans page (be it official or non-official, just join), you can definitely make friends with existing players who are so enthusiastic about the game just like you! Go and share tips with each other and probably play the game together, you guys could send each other daily gifts as well!

Well, that’s all I have for now, if any of you want to share your personal tips and guides on regarding the EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars, please feel free to post them as comments under this post; I’ll definitely go and approve them

Do also read the following review on the game:

Review on EA + Playfish: EA Sports FIFA Superstars [FACEBOOK]

Cheerios!

Tags: Facebook, Game Reviews, General by Wen Bin
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Firstly, I’d like to say that Dragon Age: Origins is a game with an incredibly great storyline, detailed and great characters (each with unique story/sidequest behind them), and also, many exciting battles as you play through the game.

On top of that, there are amazing dialogue & voice acting on the main story/quest, which makes the game more exciting and bring the characters to life. The “world” that you’re going to play in rather huge (with many sub maps), which makes it a rich fantasy world filled with interesting & unique cities designed in detail.

With Dragon Age’s plot in the land of Ferelden, its residents are under threat from the impending invasion of a horde of demonic creatures from the south, called the “Darkspawn“. Your short-term mission is to join the ranks of “The Grey Wardens“; whom are basically the ‘Interpol’ of Ferelden, tasked with defending the regions of the land from this ancient threat.

Ferelden is a colorful and fascinating kingdom that takes enough cues from well-known fantasy tropes to be familiar, but bends enough conventions to feel original. Dragon Age features dwarves, but their caste-based society and the social paragons that rise above it twist the norms enough to keep you intrigued. Mages remain under the constant watch of templars, a restriction that doesn’t sit well with those who view such policing as virtual slavery. The role of religion among human is of particular note. Chantries provide refuge to those worshiping the all-powerful Maker, and chanters recite the holy word near their houses of prayer.

Your adventure has one of six different openings and can play out in a surprising number of ways. Your background determines the initial setting, your social status and the reaction certain characters will give you by default. Interesting huh? One of which opening is a Human Noble (normally people start with this as their first character, due to the easily understood opening as you start to learn the combat system & background of the story; unless you’re a RPG Veteran, then you might want to start with any of the 6 openings).

An RPG of this nature lives or dies by its subtlety in this respect, but however, while the dialogue options definitely divide Lawful Good & Chaotic Evil, there’s no cut-and-dry alignment tracking. Instead, what might appear to be the ‘good‘ lines of dialogue will sometimes lead you to certain things which you had no intention of moving to (well, I’m serious!).

The structure of this game hinges around these dialogue decisions. You really need to pay attention to subtext, due to the fact that even though this game lurk within books of lore and stories of martyrs; they burst forth during spine-tingling moments when you must choose from a selection of difficult choices that affect the storyline, and the way your associates interact with you.

Your every actions in the game also have as much impact on how your party members view you to make you double-think which quests you undertake and how that might affect the ending of the game. In short, your every actions have tangible consequences.

Dragon Age: Origins is a game that once looked set to be the best RPG of the year. It has a great story, high production values, and one of the most immersive worlds ever created in a video game. It is a very good game which provides to the user, an experience that will stick in the mind for a very long time. However, it is fitting that one of its main themes is how seemingly good choices can have bad consequences. That message is something the game’s design reinforces throughout.

To conclude my game review on Dragon Age: Origins, I’d say that you should definitely play this game if you are someone who love to play RPGs (Role-Playing Games), as highly recommended by me!

Feel free to post any comments or suggestions (just don’t spam advertisements or nonsenses), cheerios!

Tags: Game Reviews, General by Wen Bin
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Final Fantasy IV was first released in 1991 on the Super Famicom in Japan, and had been ported to the SonyPlayStation , WonderSwan Color, and Game Boy Advance and eventually, a full remake on the Nintendo DS; which is exactly what I want to review about.

The epic story of love, betrayal, and redemption is reborn better than ever in glorious 3D.

Something unique about Final Fantasy IV is that players were not given a few generic heroes and tasked to stop the evil wizard and save the world; instead, they were introduced to a wide assortment of realistic characters who struggled with complex adult issues such as love, hate, honor, duty, betrayal, and redemption.

Now, this epic saga has been entirely remade in 3D on the Nintendo DS (as compared to all other remake, which are 2D), and whether Cecil, Kain, and Rosa are new faces or old friends, this is one adventure that you shouldn’t miss.

Cecil is a man with a dilemma. Though bound by his duty as the lord captain of the Red Wings of Baron to serve his king and country, his conscience is heavy with the sins that he is committing in their name. The formerly loving and caring king who took Cecil in as a child and taught him the ways of the dark sword has become a sinister and greedy tyrant who covets the sacred crystals of the world for reasons unknown.

Upon returning from a mission to Baron’s friendly neighbor Mysidia, in which Cecil and his men were forced to steal one of the crystals like common thugs, he finally dares to question his king’s motives. For his insubordination, Cecil is stripped of his rank and sent on an errand north to the village of Mist, where his destiny is revealed to him and his journey of atonement begins.

Throughout his quest, Cecil is joined by a number of intriguing characters: Kain, his best friend and a dragoon of considerable skill; Rydia, a summoner capable of calling the legendary Eidolons to her aid, and many more. Together, they represent some of the most diverse and thoroughly fleshed-out characters in the long history of the Final Fantasy series.

Though class-specific abilities aren’t anything new, in this DS remake you now have the power to customize your characters by giving them additional abilities called augments. Augments can be found throughout the world, given to you by leaving party members, or even stolen from certain enemies, and they can do everything from passively increasing stats such as HP and MP to granting class-specific abilities like darkness or recall to normally nonqualifying characters.

A majority of the bosses require very specific strategies to defeat, and the uninformed will likely perish several times in these encounters before they grasp how to claim victory. Even if you’re a seasoned veteran who knows all of the tricks, don’t expect things to be simple; some bosses have changed just enough to throw you off of your game, and all of them are a lot tougher than you remember.

Besides the radical addition of the ability to customize your party, several other minor gameplay tweaks have been made. The characters in your party now share their thoughts with you on the menu screen, offering personal anecdotes and potentially helpful advice about the current situation.

Final Fantasy IV is easily among the best-looking 3D games on the Nintendo DS. The heavily stylized characters are impressively expressive, from the manner in which Cecil broods as he reflects on his guilt to the way that Rydia hops up and down and waves her hands to get your attention at a shop when you find something that she can equip.

Now that dungeons are rendered in three dimensions, there is a vast sense of size and depth (particularly in the final dungeon) that wasn’t previously there, and it makes your journey seem that much more awe-inspiring and epic.

Although it has been rereleased several times throughout the years, this full remake of one of the most celebrated stories in video game history is in many ways more poignant and impressive than it was all those years ago, despite minor irks with the voice acting.

With a cast of memorable characters and villains, a more accurate and authentic translation, a new skill – customization system, and a few important new story elements that help to better explain key plot points, this is the definitive version of Final Fantasy IV that everyone should experience.

—-

Info/images source: GameSpot, Google, Wikipedia

Tags: Game Reviews, General by Wen Bin
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The common complaint when it comes to videogame cut scenes is that they’re not really part of the game at all, but rather protracted breaks where control is wrested from the player. It certainly doesn’t help when the stuff that happens in these sequences is way cooler than the action that goes down when the player is calling the shots.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy, a new brawler for the PSP due Aug. 25, is an admirable attempt to reconcile the gap between the far-out fights that unspool during Final Fantasy cut scenes and the deeds that players prompt with button and joystick. Unfortunately, the fisticuffs come off more clumsy than they ought to — especially when the role-playing structure beneath is executed with the utmost precision.

The game’s premise is promising, as it pits a who’s who of Final Fantasy heroes against a similarly diverse supergroup of villains, including beloved Final Fantasy VII antagonist Sephiroth.

Dissidia’s best moments happen when fights between the members of this all-star cast go slightly nuts. A well-placed punch can send an opponent flying heavenward. With a single button-press, the aggressor can leap after the victims and whack them again.

But let’s face it: Action has never been Square Enix’s stong suit. The gamemakers have spent decades refining the nuts and bolts of stat-based role-playing games. In Dissidia: Final Fantasy, they apply this prowess with great imagination and achieve some good results.

A general disregard for the laws of physics seems to be the rule in Dissidia. Subtle yellow arrows all around the landscape mark areas where players can press another button and do the impossible. Some send heroes spiraling skyward. Others allow them to cling to walls and run up the length of pillars.

Difficulty settings don’t just determine how hard fights will be, they dramatically change the way the game plays by simplifying or complicating the tactical maps that players navigate to get from battle to battle. Experience points are doled out generously, even when your PSP is tucked away in a drawer. And once a bit of the story has been conquered by hacking and slashing, players can opt to tackle the game in the traditional turn-based fashion, selecting their moves in advance rather than mashing them out in real time.

With this empowerment, however, comes a few hassles. Because the PSP has only one analog stick, there’s no way to manually control where the game’s camera points. Players can track enemies and other items by squeezing one of the shoulder buttons, but the camera remains unruly — especially when fighters transition between terra firma and perpendicular walls.

Still, with experience points flowing like wine, there are plenty of opportunities to strengthen characters, customize their look and their combat styles, and tweak their performance. All the hooks are in place to make Dissidia: Final Fantasy a compelling role-playing experience. If only the fights and the reason for fighting them were as inspiring.

Plot here is paper-thin. An eternal war between good and evil has taken a turn for the worse. Heroes from multiple Final Fantasy dimensions have been called to a sparse purgatory to carry on the fight, but first the warriors must each seek and find — you guessed it — a crystal to aid them in their quest.

There’s some interesting character work at play. Watching former foes and allies reconnect tickles certain nostalgic nerves, and when heroes from different worlds team up, things get truly interesting. But in this abstract setting, one of the major motivators of the RPG is totally lost. There’s no sense of exploration or discovery. The hybrid gameplay, in an attempt to offer the best of both worlds, ultimately fails to satisfy either as an RPG or an action game.

Unlike The World Ends With You, the under-appreciated Square Enix RPG for the Nintendo DS, Dissidia: Final Fantasy is unsuccessful in its attempt to fuse action and role-playing experimentation in a meaningful way. The pieces are all there, but the glue is too thin.

There’s got to be a potion that’ll fix that.

Tags: Game Reviews, General by Wen Bin
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Dragonica is quite a nice game. Well, how should I put it? It is known as a merge of the features in World of Warcraft (WOW) and Maple Story.

Note that this “merging” description is something I read on newspaper, not something I said myself.

Dragonica is a 3D action side-scrolling MMORPG by Barunson Interactive. It is a free to play game with cash shop.

Well, to put it more simple, it is a side scrolling game just like Maple Story, but not really just “left & right”, it also have “up & down”, allowed your characters to move to different lanes. This makes the combat style somewhat similar to Grandchase, you guys know what I mean if you guys have played it before.

The skill tree is similar to what WOW has, and the comprehensive market and feature is also similar to WOW. It even have feature which allow people to “Find Date” and also “Blind Date”. haahaha. Of course, not something I will use! :p

As for job classes, well, still the same old 4 basic kinds of classes every MMORPG games would have – Warrior, Magician, Archer, Thief. However, for next job advancement, they provided 2 options for each classes, like for example, a Thief can choose to be an Assasin or Jester. Note that 1st job change is lvl 20, which is consider quite fast compare to other MMORPG games, which normally require players to play until lvl 30 for the job change.

It has a cool PVP system which can support up to 5v5(thanks ArticFir3 for the correction) and it works in a way similar to Grandchase, again. Users join room, press on the “READY” button, then wait until the host click on “start game” to start PVP.

One thing to point out is that they uses cute graphics just like maple story, just that in Dragonica, everything is more cute in the sense that they are 3D graphics and of course, the graphics is so so so much better (well, we could see that the developing company put in effort) than any other side scrolling game!

The quests system is like, there is this main storyline to follow (trust me, the story is quite cute :p) and also other sub storyline which is known as optional quests I must say. Dragonica also has a Medal features which acts like an achievement page which allow users to know of their progress and such, for example, if you killed a boss (for example, Vega) for 10 times, it award you with a medal called “Vega Veteran”; if you kill it for 20 times, you are awarded with a medal called “Vega Expert” and so on.

(Above screenshot: random shot in town (this is not my character))

If YOU are looking for a free MMORPG game to play and like the features which I mentioned above, come on, Dragonica is the game you are looking for!

Oh man, why am I doing free advertisement for Dragonica? Well, because I started playing it 2 days ago, and I like it very much. I’m a level 23 Assasin now. I don’t play frequently though, so if you guys are playing it and want to add me, feel free to leave a comment & I will add you in game

Feel free to add the note stating “Please delete this comment after reading” and I will delete it off after I add you in game, this is to ensure that your IGN will only be seen by me, and not any annoymous people.

Cheerios!

Tags: Game Reviews, General, MMORPG by Wen Bin
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Final Fantasy Dissidia will be the very first PSP-exclusive (and original, Crisis Core is a prequel) Final Fantasy title. On the outside, the game features characters from different Final Fantasy games participating in one-on-one battles. On the inside, it’s a game that feels looks and feels like a Kingdom Hearts portable. Dissidia: Final Fantasy will be a 3D action fighting hybrid although Square Enix describes the game to fall under the unique genre of dramatic progressive action. Updated with more information on the game.

And NO, it’s not just a fighting game with all the characters and has no storyline! Final Fantasy Dissidia HAS a storyline, and a good one!

Cosmos, the goddess of harmony. Chaos, the god of discord. Reigning from distant realms, the two gods had gathered warriors from all lands to lead them in savage war.

Cosmos and Chaos were of equal strength. It was believed the conflict would last forever. However, the balance is now broken.

Those who answered Chaos’s call created an inexhaustible force. And under vicious attack without relent, the warriors fighting for Cosmos started to fall one by one. The conflict that has continued for eons is now about to end in Chaos’s favor.

The world has been torn asunder, sinking into a vortex of disorder. As for the few surviving warriors … their fates have yet to be determined.

Are you not interested? Let’s look at its features.

— Legacy: Experience the high-quality world and gameplay mechanics of FINAL FANTASY presented in an action-packed environment where players can glide through the air and dash along walls.

— All-new battle system: Action-based battle system combines all-out brawling alongside RPG-based character development in an original system developed by the creators of the KINGDOM HEARTS series.

— Ultimate cast of characters: Fan-favorite heroes and villains from the entire FINAL FANTASY series come together in one game for the first time in a remarkable new tale with fully-voiced CG movies and real-time events.

— Fantasy match: Players select their favorite FINAL FANTASY characters, sided with either Cosmos or Chaos, to set the stage for their fantasy match.

— Series staple battle features: Accessible through “EX Burst”, players can experience gameplay faithful to the originals through memorable battle features such as “Limit Break” and “Overdrive”. In addition, longtime fans of the series can enjoy the ability to summon Aeons and options such as the “command battle” system.

— Community: Continue the experience by trading Friend Cards, creating items and sharing AI characters with other players and even engage in virtual AI battles made possible by the PSP system ad hoc mode

What are you waiting for? Let’s go grab it now!

P.S. - Currently only Japanese version is available.

Tags: Game Reviews, General by Wen Bin
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Tags: Game Reviews, MMORPG by Wen Bin
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And guess what happens.

As extracted from – this link – , at 2pm, which is the launching time, it wasn’t launched yet. Instead, they update this notice:

Dear Cabalists,

Please take note that due to technical issues, CABAL Open Beta Opening Time on 3rd March 2008 will be delayed. The game service will open at 1430HRS (+8 GMT) today.

We seek for your kind understanding and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

*The game service opening time has been delayed till further timing. We will update on the opening time in this notice once the game service is opened.

- CabalSEA Administrator

Delay half an hour. Still alright. But guess what again.

The current time is 10:56 pm as I type this statement, and it is STILL NOT LAUNCHED YET.
Still delaying. In addition, there isn’t any updates on the game notices.

Just type “Cabal SEA” or “Cabal Online SEA” or even “Cabal Online”, you will see forums and stuffs. Click on them and take a look man…

You will see every post/threads, at least 80% of them, are insulting, criticising, scolding, cursing Asiasoft for giving empty promises and make everyone who wanted to play the game to stay home and wait happily at 2pm and angrily until now.

“no comments on cabalsea..they’ll say the open beta will start on the 3rd. But look at the time. Just a few hours left it will be 4th.So unprofessional.You don’t have to state that the open beta will be on the 3rd if you can’t keep your deadlines!”, quoted by one of the users who commented on the message board of http://cabal.mmosite.com/ site.

Well, this is not the first time. Asiasoft been doing this to people who plays other game – Audition, Maple Story, Grandchase and stuffs. Why I’m so sure? Because I got play this 3 games by Asiasoft! LOL. -_-

Although now only Audition is installed in my computer. ;x

I want to play Cabal Online! Looks really cool. I’m trying to decide which character to create! All got their own’s good points!

You know, I installed Fiesta yesterday and uninstall it today, not because it’s not fun, it’s because I don’t want to start playing multiple MMORPG at one time, I will go crazy. :p

Plus the fact that now everyday got training, won’t have the time to chiong the games ):

Well, let’s just see how things goes.

Today’s wss training was quite time wasting, but what to do. Recap… Aww. BEWARE! NYP block N level 5 is full of monsters! To be more exact, there are 3 lecturers, 23 monsters and 1 poor civilian (that’s me) being trapped there! Avoid that area! You will stress to hell if you step into that lab -___-

Tags: Game Reviews, General, MMORPG by Wen Bin
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Tags: Game Reviews, General by Wen Bin
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