GTA4 – The essential playlist

Grand Theft Auto has always been the best game series for custom soundtracks and while PC users cannot use their MP3s in the game there is still the option to use another device to play music while playing on your console to add your own soundtrack to the newest game. Be it in GTA4 or in a previous GTA title what do you consider the ultimate tracks for driving around the city murdering and breaking all the laws?

Here are a few of this journalists favorites organised by whats going on in the game at the time:
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Kojima will sign MSG4 covers (only) in London.

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 This has to be one of the most odd ideas for a signing on the planet.
Hideo Kojima, the man behind the Metal Gear game franchise with
MGS4 out soon will be in London. Only it won’t be for a quick tour
instead he will be at chain store HMV’s Oxford Street store in London
on (my birthday btw) June 2nd.
Continue reading “Kojima will sign MSG4 covers (only) in London.”

Metal Gear Solid 4 – 90 Minute long cutscenes!

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It shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the
popular long running game franchise. The cutscenes in Metal Gear
Solid 4 are going to be the longest yet even beating previous editions
in the series with single cutscenes running at up to 90 minutes a time.

Continue reading “Metal Gear Solid 4 – 90 Minute long cutscenes!”

Matt Damon – Give peace a chance

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Major movie star Matt Damon was approached to voice
and provide his likeness to the new Sierra Bourne game.
Apparently though he saw the games violence and pulled
out. For a man who makes his money showing people how
to kill other people it appears as though it’s a “do as I say,
not as I do” attitude coming from Hollywood’s new Mr Gritty Action.

Snake’s Back!

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Mark the date, June 12th. That’s when Konami will release the final chapter in the Solid Snake saga.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is a story-driven game, with seasoned hero Solid Snake drafted for one final mission. Set across stages including the Middle East and South America, the now aged Snake has been asked to assassinate his old adversary, Liquid Ocelot.

To do this, however, he must make his way through a series of battlefields, using his legendary stealth abilities and all-new OctoCamo suit to avoid detection and to reach his target.

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Crysis – Review

Crysis

Click to see our Crysis DVD

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If you haven’t heard of it from all the hype from the last few months, Crysis is a first person shooter published by EA. In Crysis you play a solider in a futuristic (Nano) suit who is sent to a remote island on a mission to find more than he expected.

The storyline in Crysis for the most part cannot be said as it would ruin the game, but it does go into a lot of detail and fleshes out the events surrounding you. Crysis is easy to control in terms of gameplay controls with the mouse and keyboard presenting no issues. For those of you who have seen all of the trailers over the months and played the demo you will find the game is exactly as advertised; a large number of gameplay areas all vast in size and varied in type. While FPS games do well just for being an FPS the biggest draw is the idea of replaying the game using the various different possible ways that the levels can be completed such as doing it once while invisible without killing then going through just like Van-Damme would punching everyone and then finally like Sly would with full-on guns in the jungle just like in Rambo.

While people might have been reporting issues with graphics settings in the demo versions, the full game is extremely easy to use and can scale to any system to give a perfect frame rate. No matter your system’s capabilities, one option that is a must in the graphics settings is Physics quality. The higher quality physics settings control effects such as buildings being able to come crashing down. Lets be fair that’s half of the appeal for the game so having it on high is a must!

There are some issues though that are hard to ignore. After spending up to the last 6 months hearing nothing about how much we are going to love this game, getting a single player campaign that only takes 10 hours to complete on a PC only title is a pretty disappointing. You end up wishing for the game to have been longer since you have been hearing about it for so long, it’s kind of anticlimactic. Some enemies get stuck in walls if you shoot them in close proximity to them which is a serious game play issue. There is also an escort mission, which is rather dull.

With a solid multilayer map set and an ending that leaves it open to a sequel, we can only hope that Crysis 2 fixes the issues with this game. While Crysis is fantastic to play, the excitement of blowing trees drys up pretty quickly and it only actually effects enemy characters directly in the rarest of cases.

Crysis also features a level editor called The Sandbox2. It doesn’t add that much value to the game as it’s way too technical for a novice to use. The program is hidden away in a directory on the install CD with only a single acknowledgment in the readme file and no directions on how to find it on the CD’s autorun let alone use it. The editor also isn’t mentioned at all in the instruction manual in the box.

Verdict: +

Ted Stokes

Proof of full version review before retail release.

We have had some comments on digg that some users doubt that this is a review of the full version. As is usual it is a review of a press unit and above are screenshots taken by myself to prove it is from the full version using the popular fraps screenshot program. Since promo shots are a single one or two from a level it was decided to give a number of non-action shots as to try and not ruin the game or at least the level. At the top of the review are the new exclusive screenshots. Look for the Stuffwelike name on the save screen in screenshot 3.

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