How to survive your first First Person Shooter experience

Hey everyone,

If your like me, you're probably not too great at shooter games. You're not awful, of course. Sure, when you play quick game of Star Wars Battlefront or Transformers: War for Cybertron you whoop some ass. But when the games get too realistic, when your reflexes have to be fine-tuned just to make it across the map, you find yourself in way over your head. That's where we come in. Godsend Gaming Reviews is taking the liberty of improving your shooter experience. Simply.

Phase I: Staying alive

Before you become the next Master Chief on the battlefield, you need to learn how to protect yourself from the trails of war:

- Know your character: Most shooters now-a-days don't lock you into one character option. More often than not you will have a say in who you bring onto the battlefield. Make sure that you know what each weapon does, the ammunition and weapons they come with, and any special ability that is unique to them.

- Keep a low profile: Without going overboard, don't be excessive. If you're reading this post, your biggest problem is that you're getting too much face time with enemy bullets. Therefore, you're not doing yourself any favors shooting your rocket launcher hoping for a kill. Stay low. Crouch where there's cover, move out of open, well-lit areas as quickly as possible. Do whatever you need to do to make killing you a chore.

-Listen: Games like Halo, BlackHawk Tango Down or War Hawk invest time in the things that the players hear. Music and gunfire especially. The last tip is a great segue into this one because keeping your head down will help you keep tabs on your opponents and can give you the upper hand.

- Don't be a hero: The definition of "hero" official Gamespy gaming dictionary is as follows: "A player who enters a firefight, combat zone, or battle of any kind against impossible odds. The player hopes to eliminate all opposing players by himself, usually (but not always) without any additional weapons other than the ones he is given upon respawn." No, the "Official Gamespy gaming dictionary" doesn't exist, but in video game lingo, the word hero is more aptly defines as "sacrifice". Whatever you do, don't ever run into a fight trying to be the team savior. It never happens. Even if you get close, you'll hardly ever kill everyone, and that puts you even further from victory. If anything, fight from long range. This way, you can offer support without putting yourself in too much danger.

- Look Around: If you remember nothing else than this, you will improve your game tremendously. As I'll mention later in the post, the element of surprise is the most powerful weapon on any map, and it doesn't run out of ammo.  The final score of any deathmatch of any kind is essentially a tally of how many times red team players got the jump on the blue team, or vise-versa. Whenever you think about it, take a quick survey of where you are and what's around. Just taking stock of the environment in the 180 degrees in front of you can alert you to ammunition, new guns or a good hiding place. More importantly, a good player will always go for a silent, inconspicuous kill. Always. Checking your rear every so often can gives you a fighting chance for your survival. Or a chance to run. However you split it, looking around improves your chances of survival and augment your lethality.

To quickly summarize, the best way to earn more kills than deaths is to be neither seen nor heard. Let your less informed teammates lob grenades and rockets at everything that moves. Let them walk head on into a escalating gunfight. Utilizing these skills puts you ahead of the curve, and moves you up the food chain.


Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

I'm not done yet!

Hey Guys,

I know It's been almost three weeks since last I posted. I've just been bogged down with school. I have two tests this week, but after they are done, I should be free for the most part for the weekend. See you soon!

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

Blog post of note

Hey guys, take a look at a blog I just read on one of my favorite television shows of all time; Avatar, the last Air bender

http://savetherobot.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/the-world-of-recurring-characters/#comment-3273

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

I am Ironman

Hey guys,

A game I dug out of the bottom of the bag, the invincible Iron man is up for review. Tell me what you think.

Overview:

Iron Man is a T rated game developed by Secret Level, published by Sega and released by the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 systems. Iron Man is rated T for it's mild violence and slight use of bad language. While playing Iron Man I found some things that I like, but a lot of things that could have used some work. Iron Man captures the player with a series of vast levels, powerful enemies, and unique boss battles. The game takes a player through a movie storyline, changed and twisted by the developers for a more home-made feel. This YouTube clip shows the opening cinematics of the game. This obviously does not account for the difficulty of the game, but does a good job showing off real-game graphics as well as giving you a firm grasp of Iron Man's limits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX-Fe_2iyF8&feature=related. Interspersed between Tony Starks' escape from one of the games' antagonists, the Ten Rings terrorist organization, lies challenges such as saving Russians from a nuclear explosion, or Manhattanites from deadly helicopters and killer drones. In a word, Iron Man was modest.

Game play:

This game is a stunner when you first start to play, and has you hooked as the player finds the uses of all of the different techniques Iron Man has. After the third level, however, the game starts to loose the zest it once had. Shooting and dodging missiles and gun fire quickly grows boring, and this being the primary way you interact with the games' enemies, the whole game suffers. The upgrading system offered me some solace; particularly because one of the upgrades, the chest upgrade, allows me to use countermeasures that changed my game play. These augments gave me energy shields, missile decoys and more, and made dodging missiles a little more bearable. A little. Greg Miller of IGN wrote this in his May 5th, 2008 entry:

"... Secret Level and SEGA have made sure that most people will never enjoy their time as Iron Man. Let's go over the formula that every level follows: there's a terrible looking and sounding cutscene, it's followed by a short intro to the oncoming battle, orange objectives pop up on the screen, Tony goes after the orange objectives, Tony destroys the orange objectives, more orange objectives pop up, Tony beats those objectives, and this process continues until the level is over."

While I agree with Greg on the fact that the game follows a very routine process, I don't think that he gives the game all of the credit it's due. The game focused on a particular quirk that has always interested me; A one man army against hordes of baddies, the time-worn tale of a single devastating force fighting an uphill battle and having to use his environment and his quick-thinking to defeat his opponents, and look fly while doing it. The only problem was that I couldn't win an uphill battle because I wasn't powerful enough. Iron Man was a ridiculously hard game, even on easy mode. After level five the game unexpectedly and drastically ramps up the strength of the bad guys and flings more missiles into the air than monkeys throw poo. Some levels ask the player to save citizens from rockets, or calling on you to take down sky behemoths. None of this can be done though, because the dozens of missiles and tanks that show you you're space on the food chain never take a break. I found myself running my hands through my number one fade and seething in frustration as I died once more and had to start the level from the beginning. Again. With no checkpoints or anyway to get anymore lives, the player finds him or herself picking themselves up off the floor. I couldn't take it after a while, and had to find something else to do while thinking of another hare-brained strategy. The difficultly in the latter half of the game made my think about lending it away, if it didn't cost me $60.

I started the game thinking that I would fly into battle, shedding missiles and other attacks while I shot into a sea of evil, and soon realized that my only options were dodging or dying. What I think Iron Man really needed were new weapons and features instead of the upgrades that just gave me more defense or speed. I would much rather an EMP (Electric Magnetic Pulse) to knock missiles and planes out of the sky, or the ability to call air support. Surprisingly to me, the United States did not care in the least that a flying machine was blowing things up in New York. Rah Rah America. All jokes aside, the gameplay was good, but could use some work.

Graphics:

Iron Man displays a very beautiful setting for every level. From the details on the buildings to birds flying in a V, the game has some very acute details. Unfortunately, the player has no time

Iron Man's suit is presented in surprising detail, but the rest of the game wasn't so lucky

to enjoy them. Granted that as you fly over populated towns the player can see the terraces and patios of buildings, there is little time to enjoy them while evading gunfire. Your own gunfire; the repulsor, missiles, and uni-beam were nothing special, though the details on Iron Man's suit is nice, as well as the small shifts and jiggles of the armor as it takes on fire. While the landscape was beautiful, the skies were not. I'm not talking strictly the sky,

Shooting missiles and gunning down foot soldiers is fun at first, but quickly
looses its appeal after you've done it a million times...

but more of the horizon. While flying away from enemies to regain your health, the player finds themselves looking at a very dismal screen. A cloud passes by, a mountain spire catches fills your periphery before you swing back into action. As you can see in the photo above; Iron Man looks stunning, yet his missiles and the explosions they produce as not as captivating. Though it is not necessarily part of the graphic, I need to mention the voice-overs used in the game. To be blunt, they were poorly done. Word seemed to come out of thin air as the characters failed to speak fast enough, or even mouth the right words. According to Chris Watters from game spot, only Robert Downy Jr. and Terrence Howard were used, and that they did an "adequate job". While I disagree with the last part, I think that the cinematics were disappointing

Grade:

Iron Man was a decent game, but its many pitfalls destroyed the potential it had.

Gameplay: 2.5 - Good Ideas, just not the right plot and not enough time spent on what was given to make it excellent

Graphics: 2.5 - Not terrible by any means, but due to the game play, much of it cannot be appreciated

Overall: 2.5 - This game has some good point, but falls very short of showing the awesome power of the incredible Iron Man. I wouldn't go out and spend 40 dollars on this game.

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj




Key words: Ironman, invincible, marvel, sega, pitfalls, Tahj, Blow, Terrence, howard, secret level, disappointing, Chris, Watters, Game spot, gamespot, gamspot, Robert, downy, downey, cinematics

Blog Posts of note

Hey guys.

I just finished reading two blogs that you would to well to read yourself. Here you go:

http://www.brainygamer.com/
http://insultswordfighting.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

Are you ready to Rumble(Fighter)?

Hey guys, 

Rumble Fighter is a game one of my good friends turned me on to over the summer. When I first looked at the game, I took a furtive glance over the top of the computer to find out if any of my friends could see what I was doing. For the rest of the summer, I got real friendly with Window's minimize button. As much as animated, cartoon-y games are like black op, experimental government designed chick repellent, this PC-only download shocked me. I went from contempt to content and by the end of the summer, It was sad to have to walk away. (Just a little bit. It's not that good) 

Overview:

Rumble Fighter, or "RF" as it's known on the web, is an MMO (Mass Multiplayer Online) animated fighting platform essentially exclusive to the PC. A sequel to the game "Gem Fighter", Rumble fighter already had a relative stable fan base from the beginning. The game's plot is as typically dramatic as you would think an animated game would be. In the beginning, an dark and destructive power known as the Shadow King loomed over the world, threatening to conquer and eradicate any opposition. In a last, ditch effort to save themselves, groups of fighters attempted to battle the darkness that encroached on their lands threatening to consume them as it past over. As pure and strong as their will were, however, all those who fought back were decimated in both body and soul, becoming minions of the evil they were trying to fight. Eventually, the Shadow king was defeated by a group of fighters known as the guardians. After defeating the darkness, the guardians passed down their powers into different objects and weapons so that later generations could use them to fight back if the darkness ever re-awakened. Presently, the seals that hold the Shadow King's power at bay have either been destroyed or are eroding of their own accord. The descendants of the guardians have been battling back and forth with those who were converted to the darkness for the fate of the world. They are losing. Preparing for the worst, the guardians hold a global fighting tournament to find the best fighters they can. 

Whew, That's a mouthful! Now that the stage is set, you can probably see your role in all of this. You join the game as a young fighter hoping to be the best and fight for all of humanity. Pretty cool, huh?

Game Mechanics:

  

                                                                                                        After signing up and downloading the game, a flashy but short opening cutscene OGPlanet, the developers of Rumble Fighter should play. You will then be offered a couple of choices. Not all of the fighter in Rumble Fighter are the same. One important distinctions from player to player is the different classes you can choose from. The world of Rumble Fighter is made of Strikers, Elementalists, soulfighters and alchemists. Strikers are by far the strongest class in terms of hand to hand fighting, and are a usual choice for new players. They generally use items that boost their physical attack power at the expense of any stat, and can easily raise their damage output to 300 damage points a strike. (Yes, this is a lot)  Elementalists, on the other hand,  are essentially the mages of the game. With very high spiritual power (SP), elementalists are able to dish out tons of pain from afar. However, they are pretty pathetic in regards to their other stats make the elementalists a real wild card. Next comes the Soul Fighters, who are straight animals. Literally. Being able to call on the power of their souls to strengthen them, soul fighters have higher than average SP and incredible speed. For all you ninja fans out there, the soul fighter class fits the description of a quick hitting, death sowing arbiter better than any other class. Finally, there are the Alchemists. To me, Alchemists are OGPlanet's answer to the people who value balance over everything. The alchemist boasts high defense and low speed, average strength and  modest SP, and allows you to be more strategic when you fight. They also have some of the coolest transformations in the game. (We'll get to that later, though) After choosing your character and gender, OGPlanet throws you right into the fray, and not in a good way. While I had someone who played before to guide me, I'm not sure how user friendly the RF is to someone on their own. After a little bit of navigating the different menus and screens of the game, players should look for their avatar's personal page. You'll know you're there because you will see a small, Japanese (I think) bad ass staring you in the face while it practices it's battle stance. You should see a row of tabs which you can click to view your items. As a new player, you get a newbie pack that has a few goodies you can and should use. The most notable one will be a small symbol in one of the last tabs in the row: the exocore. The equivalent of turning into a Dragonball Z super sayin, exocores are devices that allow you dramatically augment your powers. While everyone can buy as many exocores as they'd like, some are class exclusive, and can change you from this: 

To this: 

After setting up your exocores, you should be ready to fight. In RF there are tons of items that can help you out that you can buy with carats, in-game currency. Unfortunately, for every item you can buy with carat, there is an equal or better thing you can buy with astros, currency you have to pay actual money for. With lax level requirements, players who should be on your level end up mopping the floor with your ass because they've out bought you, or they got their hands on an item that can be spammed. On the subject of money, your gold stash will seem to take forever to pile up. You earn money by how well you fight. But when the most you can make off of a single fight is 150 carats, and the items that can really help you cost upwards of 7000 carats, you'll be fighting for a long time.

Graphics:

For a downloadable computer game, the graphics that Rumble Fighter totes are pretty lame. While there are some highlights, notably the expression on your character's face as they take damage and the vibrant color and diversity of the stages, I was expecting a little more of a show when I started playing. Not only are the graphics mediocre when you're playing, they can get even worse when your game freezes during lag. The levels you play on are the only show of designing insight, too. Even in the picture above, outside of the stage, the background is pretty bland. Even something weird like a dolphin with sunglasses on or something would be better than what you'll see. OGPlanet just needs to add more motion to their stages, so that they feel more alive.

Final Review:


Overview - 2.5/5: The story of Rumble fighter is interesting, but you wouldn't know about it unless you looked it up on Wikipedia. Not only that, but you can't even do anything about the "fate of the world". The only things there are to do outside of fighting other players online are two "quests" that are completely unrelated to the story, and don't really help you out anyway.  Nice try, but I think that I can speak for everyone when I say the average gamers gonna need something more.

Game Mechanics - 3/5: The game play for Rumble Fighter was pretty smooth. For the most part. Unless you have near excellent Internet connection, you might find yourself moving erratically across the stage, the computer unable to time your punches and kicks to your keystrokes. And in a game like this, timing is everything. Secondly, Rumble fighter has a lot of glitches that have yet to be worked out. One of them is a glitch known in-game as God Mode. If two players attack each other at the same time, either one of them has a chance to render the attacks of their opponents useless. Another is the awful trading system the OGP has left in Rumble Fighter. Instead of being able to directly trade from one player to another, you must first spend your money and "gift" and other player. Then, if you're lucky, the recipient of the gift will send something back to you. Unfortunately, it is so easy to be scammed of all your cash that everyone is wary of everyone else, and gifting has become almost like a delicacy; rare and infrequent. Still, if you can get over those not-so-minor details, you could find yourself sitting in front of the computer screen for hours on end.

Graphics - 2.5: For all the work that might have gone into making sure the game played well, I guess the developers took a break when it came time to make the real meat of the game. I don't care how good a game is, if you have to worry about bruising your eyes every time you look at it, it's going to be a flop. My main critique with the environment in the game is that it seems really dead. There's no movement in the background at all; just 2-8 players running around beating the snot out of each other. If there was something alive out there; a dog that chases after players, birds flying over head, looking for an unperturbed part of the stage to rest and strut around, even shadows from the clouds, I'd be happy. Unfortunately, we are all going to have to deal with trying to make our enemies as dead as the environment.

Final Review - 2.5: As much as I hate to don a score so low on a game I liked a lot, I think there are definitely some better games out there for you to play. There are just too many glitches, bugs, pitfalls and letdowns for me to give this game anything higher than what I have. If OGP starts putting some heart into the games they make, there's a lot of room to turn this game into a masterpiece.

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

Blog post of note

Hey guys. Just read a post on the blog "Playing games older than me" and saw a post that I though was cool. Check it out:

http://gamesolderthanme.blogspot.com/2010/09/ninja-gaiden-1988.html?showComment=1285355294509_AIe9_BHNB_rwUHaTKush2G4ryse6IIXvqcYnnK--z3-5Kv-qRs6s1UNlL2P3W5XvYLJ35htm4e-tlIjM61__dE8jBtdI3t3ur0150BWFIexCfdq3xLFDExPBPRVQpCux1dJ0JDy52qulEmq3wBM8NksRKOTo8yIL_m_yRrrFMMW2GrPlaKAQ5FvpwAWNGfiCMOvcDOkZoCi3I7iyvlP4Xjo2qtibWlLI01Is7rimPaktJvITUZ6k0fdRfwQu0KHc9xgq1yI-xJpon0ldEg3hHeTj5uS9Wtn2jYYYXj9MiZnK4lx7ZRuRV7349NytYqKQv5Hq3hYOjnu_ddIPPkQU-DYBWY0k76DTplmpIas3z5cFImO4ZpYKFyhIX-Lns8iEolWLSl1TaaAMXvZM8MGIVCJesok2m-jQVfmE84HujCqTV_aQ_qhxD7nBQAw4PEbYU_TenkgQLrynhdd4yAPf5p7jVoI7Qhqfobth1ldEmXQ_ld66UClwmhCEhKuP-vBhgd1qMvmm9OGs#c1830697961392901899

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

Midnight Club Los Angeles Review

Hey guys. Here's another post for you on a very consistent series, Midnight club Los Angeles.



Midnight Club: Los Angeles

Overview:

Midnight Club is a Rockstar developed game released on the Playstation 3. The game is rated T for mild language. One of the first things a gamer can see when they turn on their Playstations are the beautifully sculpted graphics. From the reflection off of the hood to the expressions of the people, Midnight Club delivers well. The game takes you through the life of Tony, a New York man who travels to Los Angeles to race cars. As you progress, Tony builds tentative relations with the different racers of LA, his reputation and cars speaking louder than his words. Soon you find yourself face to face with some of the best racers in Hollywood, and looking at a shot at a racing legend. While this is not not the most in-depth storyline, looking fly in a Lamborghini can make anything interesting as you can see in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIT3j7T4crA.

Game Mechanics:

The obvious focus of Midnight Club is cars, and Rockstar games fulfilled that. Soon after Tony, the main character in the story, wins his first race in Hollywood he is invited to a garage by a gruff, rugged man named Karol, who hooks you up with different cars. In Karol's garages (He owns two on either side of town) the player can customize their cars down to the color of the dashboard. Gamers can add neon lighting, tints, rims, and even change their chassis. Races are easily accessible and bountiful. As soon as you're done with one race, three more will be waiting for you. The game does a great job of keeping you attached to the road, as IGN reports. At almost all times Tony will be in the car. Even after you win a race, a tiny window will pop up and stop everything while you read. As soon as your done, you're back on the road, looking for more suckers to pummel. The game also offers a player four general types of races; high-speed highway races that vary in intensity, ordered races that take you 'round the city at a wicked fast pace, time trials, and red-light races. This is a unique time of racing that challenges the racer to beat their opponent to a land mark in the city any way possible. Rockstar does a decent job of giving characters flare, but it is obviously geared for racing. Cut scenes are not necessary to the story, and you could skip every speech in the game and still know what to do. Midnight Club does a good job of keeping your racing options easily accessible with a task-list that displays the 15 most recent objectives.


Even among the dark nights Los Angeles looks gorgeous

Radar and your full screen map displayed the city beautifully, giving players access to normally hard to find back roads and off track shortcuts. RockStar does not press the player to do any of the races though. Players can accrue money and boost your rep by racing contenders outside of the story before they race again. Chris Roper of IGN had this to say on Midnight Club:

"The game has a whole lot going for it, and racing fans would do well to check it out. However, it's not perfect, with a few bumps in the road here and there that keep it from being the undisputed king of the streets. Contender though? Most certainly"


Midnight Club is a hard game, no questions asked. Early in the game players will realize that they cannot laze through courses and expect to win. Opponent cars will continue to upgrade to match the speed of your cars, so even if you manage to make enough money to buy that brand new tuner, your opponents will have their corvettes and mustangs waiting for you. Even older cars can be seen blasting off of the line, leaving you and your Ducatti eating dust.


Breathtaking... Simply breathtaking

Midnight club also requires the player to drive seamlessly in order to win. One or two wrecks can cost you the race. Furthermore, some races require you to race a series, or more than one race to win. This means that reckless drivers cannot get away with a kiss from lady luck. However, because you earn reputation and money for losing as well as winning, you can beef up your vehicle for the next race, making winning much more obtainable. Many reviewers claim that Midnight Club is much too hard, reviewers like Aaron Thomas of Game Spot: "...Because of the amazing skill level of the CPU, even one minor error on your part can--and typically will--cost you the race. This means that you'll end up doing a lot of grinding (finding races that aren't insanely tough and repeatedly doing them over) to raise your respect level. It's tedious and doesn't make for a great time."


As you can see, the side skirts of this picture blur as your attention shifts to the car threatening to overtake you.

I do not find this to be completely accurate. While I found myself cursing at the almost invisible parked cars, the SUV's that blindsided me at intersections and the corners that seemed unavoidable, I also found myself enjoying the fact that I had made a vicious turn around a building or running my opponents' vehicles off of the highway. Although Midnight Club demands skill and practice, the difficultly of the game is fair enough to keep players coming back for more.
Graphics:

This game offers a very nice presentation of Hollywood, while not making the driving field too big or intricate.
Cars are beautifully designed and even the road looks nice. Even blazing over 150 miles an hour, small details make the game great. While tearing up the tracks players can see litter and leaves as they zoom past

As you can see, Tony is stunting like his daddy here

competitors, rain patters against your windshield as they cut through Beverly Hills, and an airplane leaving port as you burn highway racers. Founder of Consoleupdates.com commented: "Whether driving by the beach or beating the competition by cutting through a parking garage at 200 mph, Midnight Club: Los Angeles provides a seamless, breath taking environment for everyone who loves to compete..." As you move through the race, the sides of the street almost melt away as you focus on that car right in front of you, that very next corner, or drifting right into the spot you need without crashing. The realism of the game sometimes affects the game play, however. Gamers driving on a dark road at breakneck speeds will easily get confused with cars on the road as they wiggle around the highway as the running of head lights colors can throw you in to a dizzying crash. All in all, however, these flaws in the game are minor by in large.



Final Review:

Game play: In a word, Midnight Club's game play is superb. The handling is great, each car has a slightly different feel to it, and even though racing can have it's downturns, Midnight Club Los Angeles is just fun - 3.5

Graphics: Midnight Club chauffeurs a very well polished view of the West Coast. You would do well to see it. - 4.0

Overall: Midnight Club Los Angeles scores a 3.5. While there are no outstanding flaws that should push anyone away from this great game, the small pitfalls do add up. Especially when you fall into them more than once.

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

Post formatting change

Hey guys. I just wanted to let you all know that I will be modifying the structure of my posts. Instead of a random assortment of thoughts, posts will be the following from here on out:

Overview

As the name suggests, this section will be devoted to outling the story and purpose of the game.

Game Mechanics

The "game mechanics" section will deal with the nuts and bolts of the game. This can range fro
how well the game actually plays to cheats and glitches

Graphics

One of the shorter sections of the post, the graphics segment will give you a good sense of the quality of the graphics, or lack there of, as well as being supplemented by pictures.

Final Review

The final review section is the culmination of all the sections, and is the place where I'll give my final review of the game. This section will also have ratings for all of the preceding sections. I look forward to starting off this new posting.

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

New Pictures

I accredit these pictures to the following websites:

jpghttp://www.usposttoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/red-dead-redemption-treasure-locations.jpg
http://blastmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Transformers-War-for-Cybertron.jpg
http://www.analoghype.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/NBA_2K10__15_01.jpg

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/dj-hero-wallpaper-jay-z-eminem.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2009/10/06/dj-hero-2-development-has-already-started.htm&usg=__MOi_PJjgiWEJYEX3xIRTqtTMPAk=&h=441&w=620&sz=106&hl=en&start=0&sig2=V7y3wZ8cY9aFOie-P5nAig&zoom=1&tbnid=yPlDCZGTc85orM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=144&ei=96uaTJbiNMT6lwfZofnhCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddj%2Bhero%2B2%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D972%26bih%3D626%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=418&vpy=333&dur=1398&hovh=189&hovw=266&tx=138&ty=111&oei=96uaTJbiNMT6lwfZofnhCQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

New vids, new searches

Hey guys. I just added the four new channels to the video section of the blog, as well as submitted this website to the top twenty search engines on the web. I need to post this link to their website on this post however (Damn freeloaders). Here it is:

http://www.addme.com/submission/free-submission-start.php">Search Engine Submission

Check it out if you get a chance. If you want to share this blog with your friends, family and loved ones (and I know you do), tell them to type www.godsendgamingreviews.blogspot.com into their web browser. Also, I've updated my profile. I just have yet to find a decent picture of myself. My profile description will show you a little bit about me, and should give you an email to contact me on. Feel free to send email or comment on posts.

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

Video channel updates and a child services announcement

Hey guys. Just got out of school a half hour ago. While it's hardly gaming news, I found two hysterical YouTube channels I thought you guys would like. In addition to adding the G4 and IGN channel, I'm adding "Flufee talks" and "Gradual Report". And for our Child services announcement, check out these new videos AFTER you ready the latest posts. These posts are my brain children, and who are you to neglect small defenseless kids?

Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj

New Beginnings

Hey everybody,

This post marks day one of my new blogging site. For those of you who visited my previous site, Pro-games review.blogspot.com, I was forced to discontinue posts because I lost my password. In any case, this will be my new base of operations, and I wanted to kick off my first post with a quick post on one of my favorite on-the-go phone apps; Paper toss.

Overview:


A game out of Backflip studio, Paper toss has a simple enough concept. Where ever you are, be it your office a back alley in Manhattan, you fill your idle moments tossing crumpled sheets of paper in whatever trash can you can find. As for the actual game mechanics, you have to throw your boss's memo or whatever other piece of paper you can crumple against the wind coming from your own personal fan, forcing you to angle your throws to sink your shot. After each toss, the strength and direction of the wind change to keep you on your toes. And while you might be a champion playing in the office, you'll find yourself sucking your teeth as you venture further and further away from work; your trashcan gets as far as the opposite side of an alley. As far as free apps go, this one's a keeper. After a couple of tries, you get the hang of the distance of the can, and just how far you can flick the ball. Play long enough, and you'll be calling the shot before the phone does.

Game Mechanics:


The raw simplicity of the game was what really attached me to paper toss. Once I started listening to music, flicking a crumpled up piece of paper into a trash can got me really mellow. As far as the game handles, Paper toss is going to give you a real smooth ride. There's not much on the screen at any given time, so you'll never have to worry about some lag messing up your throws. After each throw, hit or miss, the game will randomly switch the fan from one side of the level to another, as well as fiddle with the wind resistance. The only thing that got on my nerves was how hard it was to judge a throw when there wasn't a lot of resistance. Then again, when you start playing the game that hard it looses a lot of it's appeal. It's really meant to be an idle-time-wasting game

Graphics:

As far as graphics go Paper toss isn't anything special. Then again, it wasn't trying to be. For a game as simple and low key as this one, don't come in looking for anything fancy.  As you can see, the coloring is bright and stands out. As far as detail, Backflip studio does a good job in painting you a good picture of the surroundings. The office stage, for example, has a few books slumped over each other, a potted plant soaking up some florescent rays, and a Windows that actually has a "start" button in the bottom left hand of the screen. To be honest though, the graphics are not the strong point of the game by a long shot. I never took the time to really look around the place when I played, and I don't think you'll find much reason to do it either. Backflip gets an A for effort, but there just isn't too much to see or remember

Final Review:


All in all, I'm giving Paper Toss for the Iphone a 3 out of 5. Simple controls and story add a lot more than you'd think, especially because you don't have to focus on much. I think Backflip studios earned their three with decent graphics and smooth, clean gameplay


Picture 1: http://interracialscentral.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/paper-toss.jpg
Picture 2: http://appmodo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Paper-Toss-World-Tour-010.png 




Thanks for reading. Check back often for new posts, videos and information. - Tahj