Rise Of Prussia is the latest historical RTS to hit the PC. Allowing you to recreate famous campaigns from the European Seven Years’ War, which was fought between 1756-1763. The game gives you ten Scenarios to play through, a huge map divided into over 1,000 regions and a great in depth command system. One hundred new leaders appear with the ability to use 300 units, so does this RTS manage to make you a part of history, or does it fall short?

In all there are ten campaigns to sink your teeth into, three tutorials (which you must complete without feeling totally lost), the invasion of Saxony year 1756 and the remaining seven are year long campaigns. Like all good RTS games you have to manage to meet certain criteria to enable victory on your part. The depth to this game is staggering, in fact at times you can feel overwhelmed with all the options open to you. The game allows you to take control of the Soldier King, Frederick II, saving Prussia. Alternatively you can opt to destroy Prussia by taking control of the coalition forces of Austria, changing the course of history forever.

Graphically the game is nothing spectacular, it is well presented with a top down map showing all the regions. Units are displayed with either plates showing a portrait of the commanding General or as 3D models with octagonal base. The top of the screen has a panel showing weather condition, the state of roads, terrain, which faction the region is controlled by and finally your detection rating. The detection rating shows you what chance there is of the enemy detecting your forces, when entering the area. Next to this panel are icons indicating national morale, engagement points, money, conscripts and war supplies. At the bottom of the screen you have the mini map allowing for quick glances to the enemies and your units locations. Next door to this you have the unit panel which shows relevant information with regards to the selected units. Even though you find yourself in battle, you never see the actual fight, instead after the skirmish you’ll be able to read the detailed battle report after each round.

The rest is pretty much your bog standard RTS fair with a few new tweaks thrown in for good measure. There’s a new way for recruiting new military units as well as a new Hierarchy structure, giving you advantages and disadvantages in battles. All of these systems can take a while to get used to but thankfully by hovering the cursor over the item, a small description appears giving you an idea of what you achieve with the option.

Movement of units is completed fairly simply, via drag and drop. Orders can be issued via a panel next to the mini map. You can group units together under one general, as long as they have the required command points, then group these further under one general marshal (again the general in question has to have the required command points). This is where the game can get a little confusing, to be able to issue certain orders your army needs to have the relevant command points. If they don’t this can then lead to a disadvantage with certain orders out of reach and other negative points.

The controls themselves work really well, offering easy navigation and a whole host of short cuts to remember. The short cuts make sense though and prove useful to remember. The music adds atmosphere to the game, although can get annoying as it seems to repeat the same tunes over and over.

Fighting in this game like many wars is not always the best option, you can be quite sneaky throughout the game by simply outmanoeuvring the opponent. You can deny your opponents food by making deals with neighbouring countries, or you can simply capture their key resources. Reducing their morale and will to continue fighting. This adds a hidden depth to the game which proves quite interesting as you try different methods to outwit them without committing your units to battle.

Rise of Prussia proves to be quite an in depth strategy game, a game that veterans of the genre will enjoy immensely. If you are new to the genre though this game can prove quite frustrating at times trying to take in all of the information at hand, persevere though and it can prove to be quite the delight.

GoDVD is an app for all DVD collectors out there. Designed to make it easy for you to buy DVD’s, whilst on the move GoDVD provides a nice clean interface, with plenty of choice for the movie enthusiast.

When you first start up GoDVD you are presented with the featured list. Showing the hottest new titles launched from blockbuster movies to the latest keep fit DVD’s, the featured list begins your tour of a massive choice of quality titles. All of the titles have a description, along with actors list , the name of the director plus a thumbnail of the cover. One of the best things about this app is the information provided relating to each title held in the database.

The simple to use interface is your general iPhone app, at the bottom you have the featured category, browse, search, favourites and about icons. By clicking on one of the icons it takes you straight to that part of the app.

You can browse titles by genre which is also subdivided into various categories for instance you choose the category TV, you then get some more choices including Classic TV, Comedy and British Television. Once you find a title you like you can then view more information by simply tapping on the picture or title, this then brings you to another screen with all the relevant details pertaining to this title. You can then buy it straight from Amazon or email the title to a friend.

You can also search the app for titles with keywords such as title, name of your favourite actor or director. The search is simple, yet very fast at bringing back the results on screen. The best thing about this app though has to be the choice, you can pretty much search for anything on here from Thundercats to The Twilight Saga. Popular TV shows, self help titles all can be found on this little app for you to research and buy. Another plus is the apps linking straight to Amazon for purchases, you know straight away that the price is reasonable and you are going to get a fast quality service.

A very nicely made app for DVD and Blu-Ray collectors out there, looking to research their next buy whilst on the move. Very clean easy to use and the best bit it’s free. Hopefully we might see more features as time passes. Perhaps trailers to watch if we like the look of a title, or even perhaps they could build their own review base for users of the apps, allowing you to see what others think of the titles, before you buy.

80%

When I heard the name HellKid, I was expecting yet another God of War clone, that seem to be populating the online world as of late. It makes sense really, with God of War III coming up, the first thing we were likely to see were mini carbon copies of the game.

The thing is, a GoW clone on the iPhone would be doomed for fail … this one isn’t … because it isn’t a God of War clone. But the name suggests it! Anyway, nom this isn’t a God of War clone, it’s actually a neat little platformer.

The idea is to run along collecting goodies like souls and stuff, along with avoiding obstacles by jumping over the pesky little things. It’s quite fun and offers some very quirky entertainment.

Not only that, but the game tends to offer something new with each level which is nice, but probably not enough – we’ll look at that a little later. Now this may sound like a cool little game, but the best is yet to come.

Visually, I love this game. This is another case of make-the-best-of-what-you-have. The iPhone is very limited when it comes to power for games, so it’s no secret that App developers need to make simplistic graphics to accompany their Apps. This goes beyond simplistic somehow, and allows colour to burst from your iPhone.

As you can imagine, the game is set in hell, so a red colour scheme is used. To be more specific, a lava type red colour, inducing multiple shades of lush colour as the background, with complimenting foreground visuals. Sorry for going into salesperson mode, but graphically, this game is the sex.

It does have its downsides though. One thing I mentioned above was the introduction of something new every level. If this weren’t included the game would get old quick. Even with this feature, the game gets old, but not as quick.

After a while, you’ll begin to get that dreaded repetitive feeling in your stomach that no gamer likes. It’ll soon be a case of same old, same old. There’s nobody to blame here unfortunately, the developer made a gameplay element that worked well, but didn’t work long term. It’s like a little pimple that you can’t get rid of, and it sort of spoils the game after a while.

For the time being though, along with an amazingly competitive price and a simply stunning visual element, I honestly can’t tell you not to pick up this addictive little App.

81%

Back many moons ago, a new board game dawned on us here mortals. It was known as Hive, a relaxing, somewhat challenging and an extremely addictive game. For years, families have played this game together in its physical form, but now it can be known as iHive, as it has officially come to the iPhone.

Hive is very intellectual, which is a major decided point for many people. You don’t see many intellectual Apps, so this one is a nice change. I love nice changes, and it turns out that this App is full of them.

One word that I tend to identify with Apps is “polished”. It basically defines Apple, the iPhone and the App Store and content. Hive is a perfect example. Polished is the perfect work here.

The game stems from a board game, but has a polished, clean and somewhat futuristic feel to it, but still managing to stick with the original roots the game has – which is nice.

The big question here is can all theses nice touches compliment the most important thing here, the gameplay? I would say yes … after about two hours. Why would I say two hours? Because this game has a shockingly steep learning curve.

You’ll spend literally hours trying to grab the idea of the App if you’re a newbie and the helpless tutorials give some light instructions on how to play it which, evidently, doesn’t amount to much.

Once you get over this however, you’ll realise you’ve battled your way into what can only be described as an addicting turn based strategy game. You’ll find yourself playing this on the bus, in a waiting room; I even played it walking down the street a few days ago.

Another downside however is the AI. The game, even on its harder difficulty, is pretty easy. This probably helps with the learning period, but if that’s why they made it so easy, then they made a vital mistake – they left out the core element of any type of game ever: competitiveness.

Without any challenge, who would want this? But don’t worry, it isn’t easy either, I just feel it could be a little more challenging.

Overall I think it’s a very good game, the only things that take away from it is the steep learning curve and the easy AI after you get through the learning process. Other than that, I can’t fault this as it’s addictive fun, and after playing it, you can boast to your friends your “intellectual”.

77%

Making an FPS game for the iPhone is a risky thing to do, especially when you’re porting over a well-known and respected game such as Rise of the Triad. I was genuinely worried about playing this game because I honestly thought it would be terrible. Well, was it? No, it wasn’t terrible, but it isn’t God’s gift to man either.

Well we may as well do things backwards and start off on a good ole’ positive. The game is long. It stretches to over thirty levels, which is impressive in comparison to some of the shameful Apps populating Apple’s store.

The quantity is clearly there, but I’m afraid the quality is absent. The game touts a number of negatives that just sort ruin the game without meaning to whatsoever, and I think I know why. The developer, in my opinion anyway, went for the retro look. You know, that trend where a game looks so old it’s cool? Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out like that, and it resulted in falling under “cools” ugly sister: the “we tried to make it look cool by incorporating oldie features, but instead made it look stale and cheap” sibling.

So what old features are here? Well for one, you’re greeted with the music, which is like a tossup between retro games that were bad and an auto-playing midi track on an amateur website. Again, the developer got this blatantly wrong here, and if I can see what angle they were going for that turned sour, how come they didn’t see it?

So graphics and sound are gone, surely the gameplay element can revive this? No, not really. The core idea of moving around is as dodgy as hell. The character moves way to fast, and getting him to turn his head is a bloody challenge. There’s a nice little “X” to the right of the screen, which is the trigger for the gun in a sense.

I understand the developer, I really do. I know exactly where they wanted to take this game and the type of feel it would ultimately have, but it’s non-existent. Instead, we’re left with a heap of failures that maybe could have been avoided. Maybe some updates can save this from utter failure, but until then, I’m not at all convinced.

One of the many reasons why I adore the App Store is the sheer diversity of the many Apps. Not many other online download destinations can offer such diversity, and still uphold the quality that is present in the App Store. Apple, somehow, have managed to do just that, and the results are very pleasing.

A pleasing App indeed is the one up for review today. This little gizmo is called Calorie Tracker Pro, and upholds both the quality and diversity spoken about earlier.

So who exactly is this aimed at? At first, I honestly imagined only consciously overweight people would find this useful but I was wrong. One of the review requirements is to actually use the App for some time, and give it my verdict so I started logging my meals into the App and such thinking I’d get nothing out of it.

This is where my first concern was dismissed. Just to clear something up, I am in no way overweight – I am happy with my weight and food regime and didn’t for the life of me think this would come in useful. It did. For the first day or so, I would feverishly use the App to track how many calories I’ve consumed and such.

My second concern, however, wasn’t dismissed. Don’t take my word for this, as quite frankly since I wouldn’t go out and buy this for obvious reasons, but I found myself forgetting to use the App after a while, leading to the accuracy going out the window and ultimately I abandoned the idea of adding food.

The idea is great, and it’s executed really well, but whether it can hold onto users is another story. Overlooking this however, you have a solid, useful and easy-to-use App with some nice features (such as the ability to view how many calories you’ve gained by looking at the number over the icon) and it’s one of the better iPhone Apps.

The good chaps over at TheSixthAxis are reporting what trophies we will be slashing our way through in God of War III.

So we’re entering the third game of the series, and it’s looking really nice. The game, touting the explosive return of Kratos, is set for release next month, and since we love trophies, we thought it only fair to share with our readers what they are (well that’s obvious):

Bronze

• Mr. Hand
  Discover the secret ‘Hades Arm’ room
• Hit Man
  Perform a 1000-hit combo
• Rip One!
  Rip apart 1 Olympus Sentry
• Nice Tan
  Blind 100 enemies with the Head of Helios
• Obedience School
  Deliver 50 kicks to Hounds
• It’s getting hot in here…
  Burn 100 enemies with the Bow of Apollo
• Souled Out
  Summon every Soul with the Claws of Hades
• Bloody Hell
  Cover Kratos in 500 buckets of blood by killing the enemies
• No Guts, No Glory
  Gut 3 Centaur Generals
• Hitting Your Stride
  Upgrade any weapon to the next level

Silver

• Eye Candy
  Collect all of the Gorgon Eyes
• Feather Plucker
  Collect all of the Phoenix Feathers
• Are You Horny to Win?
  Collect all of the Minotaur Horns
• Maxed Out!
  Completely upgrade all weapons

Gold

• Vengeance Complete
  Beat the game
• Up to the Challenge
  Beat the Challenge of Olympus
• Unhuman
  Beat Titan Mode
• Priceless
  Collect all of the ‘Godly Possessions’

The list may look slightly skimpy, but there are 18 secret trophies not yet revealed, and of course the confirmed platinum trophy. This is the first game in a while that I genuinely want to get the platinum, so that has to be a good sign.

Rockstar are getting all set to release a game that is looking only too awesome. The trailer, which is entitled “The Women: Sinners, Saints and Survivors”, is looking spanking hot! Did I just call a video “spanking hot”? Anyway, here is is, in all its glory:

We all hate installing games, right? We even hate it more when the installation is a big one, right? Well for all of the Xbox 360 gamers out there who are looking to buy Final Fantasy 13 for their consoles, it comes with a very heavy price. The installation clocks up to a massively large 18.3 gigabytes of install goodness.

So what does this mean for gamers? Well it means they’ll need a serious amount of free space on their drive to begin with. My main concern here is how much of the 360 market the developer is cutting off here. They’re basically blocking out all Arcade owners. After all, who is gonna install one game, worth 18.3GB on a hard drive with a factory capacity of 20GB. It’s insane!

[Thanks, Ve3tro]

Well, Naughty Dog Studios, developers of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, won the 2009 WGA award for Best Videogame Writing. For a non-gamer, this would be a news post that would be filled with fluff about how gaming is so mainstream these days, blah blah blah.

But let’s consider the competition: Assassin’s Creed II, Modern Warfare 2, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. One movie tie-in game, and two sequels to a successful franchise. And one of them has a story that can be summarized in about ten minutes, the other one’s Assassin’s Creed II.

Now, this could be because WGA requires that the game’s writer be a member of the Guild, and that’s what I’m remarking upon. More and more game writers join the WGA, pointing to the Hollywood productions that video games have become.

It went from “BUT YOUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE” to “Objectivism and agendas!”

Heavy Rain is Quantic Dreams stab at a new genre in video gaming, the “Interactive Drama”. It’s a murder mystery with plenty of twists to capture the player, a sublime cast of characters, and a whole cinematic approach to everything. With more mature themes and moral choices to make in a normal everyday world where normal things happen. Asking the question “How far would you go to save someone you love.” But does it work? Oh hell yeah!

The story follows four main characters, developing their background stories, whilst investigating a series of serial murders committed by the “Origami Killer”. The story sees you following the four in overlapping stories, investigating crime scenes and questioning suspects. There are fights, love scenes, car chases and more unusual trials to complete, before uncovering the identity of the “Origami Killer”.

The main characters throughout the story are:

Scott Shelby: A forty five year old retired cop turned private investigator. Investigating the killings on behalf of the victim’s families, searching for the truth and justice.

Madison Paige: Sexy strong willed photographer who becomes embroiled in the investigation through a chance meeting.

Ethan Mars: Architect and dedicated father, who is suffering after the death of his eldest son. Looking for redemption Ethan soon becomes an integral part of the “Origami Killers” proceedings.

Norman Jayden: FBI profiler sent to investigate the murders, dedicated and thorough Jayden has the benefit of using a new technology called ARI. ARI stands for “Added Reality Interface”. Comprising a pair of glasses and a special glove, this new technology allows Jayden to investigate crime scenes more thoroughly, picking up evidence normally missed by normal human eyes, including blood trails and pollen trails. This technology however does come at a price.

All four characters look great; the facial expressions are amazing to watch with the voice acting being the icing on the cake. Throughout the game you get to know each character intimately, which buttons push them, the background story of each character evolves along with the story. This all adds and helps propel the story along, getting you more involved, wanting to uncover more about them. The only weak link is Jayden, who in comparison to the others doesn’t quite grab as much attention from you as the other players in this fine story.
The locations are wonderfully drawn and brought to life, shadows, shades; it’s a graphical behemoth wanting to suck you in. The atmosphere created is wonderful and Quantic Dreams have managed to capture the whole “Noir” setting wonderfully.
All of the characters be you encounter through out the game ooze personality, thanks to the wonderful rendering and voice acting. You can see the whole thing has been created with great effort and a love for the whole package. As they talk and emotions become apparent the facial expressions are out of this world. You end up believing in these characters and questioning their motives just as you would a live film.

The atmospheric soundtrack complements the game well, helping to build the tension as you try to talk yourself, or fight your way out of a situation. At other times it helps tug on your emotions with a nice sad tune playing as characters cry or something even more dramatic takes place.
The controls are very different to other games and at first can get some getting used to. To walk the character you hold down the R2 button, using the left analogue stick to change direction. A bit like driving on the opposite side of the road this soon becomes second nature. When looking around icons will appear showing actions you can make, the icons will indicate either the button to be pressed or the motion needed on the right analogue stick. For instance to open the fridge an icon will appear showing the right stick being moved in a quarter of a circle. Do this movement and the the character will open the fridge door, you can also control the speed of the animation by making the gesture on the pad slower or faster. This is critical to get used to as in parts of the game you are required to make the movements very gently and slowly. You can also learn more about the characters by listening to their inner thoughts by pressing the L1 button. A very nice touches and really allows you get to know the characters.

Pressing the L2 button can change the camera angles. This is the second and final bug, in an otherwise perfect scenario. The camera angles at times can feel disjointed, placing you behind items unable to see everything clearly.
With combat situations or action segments the controls will appear as above but you will have a set time to complete the movement. Missing it means the character gets hit, or if climbing loses their grip. You then have to start again. With other parts of the game there will be a sequence, which you have to follow, holding the desired buttons at the same time as beginning to press others. This can sometimes feel like playing twister, as you already have one finger on the X, L2, R2 and then it asks you to begin holding down the O button.
However once you have gotten used to these controls it does become second nature and feels a lot more natural than originally thought. It does however leave you sometimes wondering how much control you actually have over the character and whether or not you can actually change the story. Thankfully these moments prove very few and between, so don’t end up spoiling the game as much as it could have.

The main focus here though is the story, it’s the story that drag you in, keeps moving you forward. It’s a story filled with twists, shocks and awe, you will sit there and think, “What the hell just happened? I can’t believe it”. It’s this and the little moments such as tucking the kids in and preparing dinner that makes this an experience to enjoy, an emotional roller coaster. The whole package comes together to make a remarkable playing experience; a new genre has been created. I’d rather call it an “Interactive noir thriller” rather than a drama. With a more mature theme than normal games, the story delves into us and you do begin to ask whether you would do the same as the characters, bringing moral choices I never thought I’d ask myself to the forefront begging to be questioned.
The whole package comes together, creating a wonderful original gaming experience worthy of your attention. Sure some people wont like it, they will see this as a big cut scene, however it is something that needs to be played at least once, to see what Quantic have attempted and for the most part achieved. A joy to behold.

However is it another Dragons Lair? I know a lot of people have compared the general game play style to this game, people who worried whether it would look and sound great but play terrible. The answer is a very simple no. Quantic Dreams have managed to make the game a lot more interactive than Dragons Lair ever was, and taken everything that tried to be and improved it tenfold.
Will you play it more than once? I think the answer is yes, there are several different endings to enjoy, parts of the game you do sit up and wonder whether you did the right thing, should I have gone with option A rather than B. You will want to see which path the story takes by going through the other routes.
Quantic dreams have come up with an original, novel new way of telling a story through gaming, bringing the barriers between movies and gaming down a little more. Now all we have to do is wait and see whether other developers sit up and take note finding their own, new ways of bringing an “Interactive Drama” to our consoles.

This review was by Paul Everitt. Check out more of this stuff here.

Now we don’t usually post videos from people, mainly because they’re usually low quality and bad, but I feel this needs to be spread. Basically, The Pro, who is a moderator on Xbox Live clearly can’t take a joke, and will ban anyone who even tries to talk to him on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Don’t take my word for it, check out this video below:

Did we violate the terms of use by posting this?

Kotaku has posted some photos of the new Metal Gear Arcade cabinet that’s surfaced at a game expo in Japan. It seems as though it’s 3D, uses headtracking, gun peripheral, and stimulates the small bones in your ear for Codec sequences.

Ok, unfortunately that part isn’t true yet. But it seems as though Konami went full-on to present a top-notch Metal Gear presentation into arcades. But it emphasizes the gameplay of the most recent MGS titles, it seems, instead of stealth, it emphasizes action combat. From the gameplay videos available on YouTube, it’s a run-and-gun title.

If it comes to the States, it’ll definitely cost 5 bucks to play, and there’s probably 15 minutes of backstory to get through before the gameplay begins, at which point another 5 will need to be inserted, and it’ll just be a mess.Well done, Konami, you single-handedly solved our economic woes.

/sarcasm

The Pixel Junk series is one of the fastest growing series’ on the PSN, touting games such as Pixel Junk Eden and Pixel Junk Shooter, but many forget the first game in the series, which goes by the name of Pixel Junk Racers. Definitely underrated and it’s unfortunate because this game is was brilliant. Q-Games seem to be going for the gold again, making a remake of their racing game.

The latest ESRB listing update included a rating for “Pixel Junk Racers 2nd Lap.” The game, which will be published by Sony Computer Entertainment America, got an E (for Everyone) rating for Mild Cartoon Violence. Sounds good to me, and if it follows in the footsteps of the first one, it’ll be a great game indeed.

There are some games that transcend all genres, and all gamer tastes. Atari Adventure, Chrono Trigger, Halo – these games are the games that most people will remember the rest of their lives, and subsequently force their children to play at the age of gamering.

Perfect Dark is a great game,but NOT one of those games. One of the first console FPSes to have really big douchebaggedry (Poison Knives in a corpse = fun!), Perfect Dark was Rare’s big effort to improve upon the Goldeneye N64 engine, and they do improve upon it in so many ways. Well, the remake is coming to Xbox Live. Weeks and weeks we have waited for the release date, and here it is – March 17th.

Fire up your Farsights, and get ready to gank some bitches with no FPS jumping – old school style. This game will be a definite purchase for me, so expect some Twitter-based bitching.