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Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, sorry for the extended period of inactivity in the website; It was due to the fact that I got a little preoccupied. About two weeks ago I got myself a brand new Android in the form of a Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 and it being my first smartphone and all, I fell in love with it and spent the whole two weeks customizing it.

Now that I've spent a lot of time with it the initial attraction has passed and I just look at it for what it is: A Phone. However in my two week affair with that little 3 inch beauty, I discovered something that blew me away. I'm talking about this game called: The Game Dev Story by this Japanese studio called Kairosoft that was released for the iOS and Android operating systems.


This game is just like any Sim City/Tycoon game out there, with a slight twist. Instead of a game about building cities or Roller Coasters, it's a game about game development . You, as the head of your own game company, must make games and make it big in the game industry. You might think: "So, it's a tycoon game with a game company instead of a roller coaster; Big Whoop!" That's what I thought too; I have never been more wrong about something in my life!

The game is very simple and straight-forward. You have control of a game company. You get to make games, take up contract jobs, hire and fire staff, and basically run the company, and try to make it big. Through the game you have your trusted secretary to help you in all your endeavors. There are also plenty of hints and tips offered in the game itself.

What makes this game amazing though is not the gameplay, but the way it is presented. You get to choose your genre of game, the type of game, the direction the game must focus on and assign points that affect the outcome of the game. It all comes together so damn well, that you're constantly telling yourself to play till your created game finishes selling, and once that's done, you'll say: "Maybe I'll quit after one more contract job" and then once that's over you'll go: "OK, I'll make one more game and then that's it". I even bunked college for two days just because I wanted to play this game. Kairosoft has created a game that has landed in such a sweet spot of games that it satisfies everyone; You just cannot put it down, once you start.


It's been two weeks and it's the only mobile game that I've played for this long (Generally, they only last for 2 hours with me) . It's a masterfully made game with brilliant execution, and if you have an iPhone or an android powered mobile device, then you simply HAVE TO give this a go. If you don't have the required phone though, then this game is a good enough excuse to buy one. It's just that good!
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I've played the previous iterations of the Sims, and I've always only opened the game to build my Sim up for 5 minutes and then kill him in increasingly torturous, creative and some quite disturbing ways. My personal favorite, is locking my Sim inside a room with no door, and watch him/her starve/wet himself/herself to death. There is something about the two previous iterations that brings out a torturous animal residing inside me (Something even the Resident Evil series failed to accomplish! Well done EA!)

But the latest installment of the series, Sims 3, is quite different. For the first time in my life, I actually cared about my Sims life and relationships. No matter what I did, I just could not bring myself to end my Sim's life. Sure, I tried..A LOT..But, I would always, at the last possible minute, stick a door in the wall, and let my Sim escape. I feel the reason for this is the personality that EA has infused into the game, a vital factor that brings the whole thing to life. At the start of the game you get to create a Sim, and choose for him, a list of personality traits for him, such as Hot-Headed, Bookworm, Loves Outdoors, Athletic, Artistic and so on. Then depending on the traits chosen the Sim is given a Lifetime Achievement goal that needs to be achieved during the course of the game. There is a story progression that keeps you gripped throughout the game.

The visuals impress: The beautiful town of Riverside!


Soap McMagreran was a young artistic virtuoso moving to the new town of riverside, hoping to make it big in something. Little did he know that there was a far greater force controlling his destiny: My Mouse Hand! The quaint town of riverside, is abuzz with activity, with each sim having a unique personality, making it interesting to meet, commute and socialize.

The visuals impress and the gameplay had me playing for quite a while. This game pulled off something no simulation game has been able to achieve so far: Holding my attention for more than an hour.

I would definitely recommend this game for anyone looking or some relaxation after a long day, or to pass that odd half an hour just before dinner. If you're a Sim fan, then you just have to play it; It goes without saying. EA has made quite a mark in the simulator market with this game, and it will be interesting to see how they better it!
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Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010

January 13th 2011 06:16
Electronic Arts has described the new Need for Speed game as the most connected game ever, with several open-world thrills, and some edge-of-the-seat racing excitement. And after 5 long and hateful years of possibly the worst games ever that were part of the Need for Speed series, I finally feel the need to agree with them. Being a die-hard Need for Speed follower ever since Need for Speed 2, I felt utterly disgusted when I played Pro-street and Undercover, and once Shift came out, I had lost all hope of the Need for Speed series on ever re-obtaining that top spot that Need for Speed: Most Wanted had throttled it into.But finally, with the latest installment of the series labelled Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010) it looks like Electronic Arts has woken up and learnt from its mistakes. Hot Pursuit, which is basically a remake of the 1998 classic of the same name, sees the NFS series going back to it’s roots, and while it’s not the next Most Wanted of the series, it’s definitely a big step forward.



I’ve talked to a lot of my friends about this game, and all of them have said that it resembles the Burnout series too much, because of the change of developers (Black Box to Criterion). I beg to differ. Sure there are some similar elements, but the overall experience screams traditional Need for Speed; not Burnout wannabe!

I opened this half-expecting it to be an utter destruction of what was a beaut of a title! Thankfully, I was wrong. The game oozes of the attitude that sets it apart from the other arcade racers. You get to play both as a racer and as a cop. And there is no career constraint, which means you can play one race as a street racer and immediately jump into a cop car for the next one! I found this a bit off a damper though. It’s just weird being a screw-it-all hotshot with a fancy sports car one minute and then transforming into the hand of justice the next! The game has gotten a huge makeover in both the game-play and graphics departments. Now my system carries a measly ATi HD 4670 for graphics and I must say, I was impressed by the looks of the game even on such a low end card! It looks brilliant, with none of the cheap flippy-floppy effects that Undercover had.

Good looking visuals compliment the addictive gameplay


The game sports an ‘Autolog’ system that monitors your friends times and puts it all up on a speed wall. We were constantly trying to beat each others times by ‘just a few seconds’ (Resulting in quite a few angry outbursts and some broken controllers as well). The sense of adventure that the game brings about in you is amazing. Worth mentioning here is the quality of the Artificial Intelligence in the game. They simply will do anything (and I do mean ANYTHING) to get ahead of you. They weave between cars causing confusion; Ram into traffic to cause a jam and hold up the racers behind them; One of them even tried to kill me! And when the cops come in, it gets really chaotic. Drifts are beautiful and quite easy to perform, which is good, because quite a lot of turns require a decent drift. The car handling left me just a little bit disappointed. All the cars seem to handle similarly and rather stiffly, thereby making it very difficult to coax them into turns. Another thing that put me off (but, I think that’s just me, because my friends loved it) was the fact that Street racers had to earn their nitrous by driving on the opposite lane, slipstreaming, taking shortcuts and drifting. The game also features an addition in the form of ‘equipment’. At certain races, your car get’s equipped with certain assets such as manully controllable spike strips, EMP mechanisms making it easier to catch street racers, if you’re a cop, and vice-versa.

While Electronic Arts has improved on a lot, they’ve not given the user much of an incentive to drive out in the open world, making it dull and boring after a while. But all in all, i fell that this game is an experience on it’s own and is a must for every Need for Speed fan out there. Like I said before, It may not be the best game out there, but it’s definitely a positive step towards getting there.
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