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As you step into the world of pitch black nothingness and terror fueling your adrenaline, You must be prepared to fight hand to hand, pipe to pipe and whatever else you can get your hands on to survive.

In this sequel to Condemned: Criminal Origins brought to us by Sega and Monolith, You return to the life of Ethan Thomas and follow him through his second journey of all the worst, dirtiest, grittiest abandoned ares you can imagine brutally beating meth addicts and whoever or whatever else attacks you.

One of the colourful people Ethan's met.

Condemned 2 has definitely improved itself from its prequel, The new unarmed combat is quiet good, with the left and right triggers dedicated to Ethans' left and right fist when fighting. You have a 'quick kick' which is controlled with a push in of the right thumb stick and can be used when unarmed or armed. The left and right triggers throw jabs, but if you click in the left thumb stick then push a trigger you throw hooks and upper cuts. The array of unarmed fighting add a bit more variety and keep fist fighting not too dull.

The weapons are considerably the same as the first one with a few new additions. The fighting is more brutal, quick and violent than its predecessor. The crime scene investigation is far more in depth this time around however. You must examine and catalogue evidence at the crime scene and then guess the nature of the crime. If you guess correctly, you will receive upgrade points which can be used for upgrades such as more health and armour.

Ethans Pole.

The graphics and lighting are great. The shadows and minuscule amounts of light really give the game that extra creepy, eerie feel to it. Not to mention the minutes of silence broken by a man with a blood curdling scream running at you with a pole

The multiplayer has a variety of modes which include:

# Deathmatch – the player to reach the kill limit or the player with the most kills at the end of the time limit wins.

# Team Deathmatch – two teams of multiple players compete for the most kills.

# Bum Rush – a time based game of SCU Agents versus Influenced bums. The SCU cannot respawn but get to use guns, have a lot more health and kill with one shot or melee, and must last as long as possible against the bums.

# Crime Scenes – another gametype putting the SCU agents against the Influenced. The Influenced must hide two cases of evidence, while the SCU agents must use their equipment to find and scan the evidence before time runs out.

Condemned 2 is filled with action, horror and a lot of violence. If you enjoyed the first, You'll love the second, I recommend it.

If you're interested in the Achievements click here

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Posted By: Daniel Parslow - Category: No Category

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The Club

June 26th 2008 13:23

This is the mantra of The Club. A secret network of corrupt businessmen and sick millionaires who fund and gamble upon the world's most lethal bloodsport. Now the next victims are ready to fight. Take control of one of eight modern day gladiators and remember at all times - kill quickly because in The Club, If you stand still you're dead.

The blurb on the back of the club (as you can see above) is an inaccurate description of this game. 'Take control of one of eight modern day gladiators' is something you can do. However the rest of this I find misleading.

Trying to give the game an edge, Sega came up with this corrupt businessmen funded club which has a resemblance to Elite Hunting in the movie Hostel. This idea doesn't show in the game play and the only real hint of this being a club funded by sick millionaires is on the back of the box and in the booklet inside the case,. Making it another dull and uninteresting shooter with no real story line.

This game is fun enough to play but barely, I'd never spend a cent on it. Quite slow game play, that Sega attempted to intensify with quick kill bonuses and a time limit. The camera angles are good and the slow movement does give you better aim. Turning around would be highly annoying though Sega thought of this and by a tap of the Y button you do a near instant 180 degree spin, which comes in handy.

Renwick In Action

The graphics aren't spectacular, The lighting is decent and sound is plain bad. The Club includes over 17 guns that aren't textured or detailed well enough to distinguish the difference between them very easily. The gun sounds are even worse, somewhat comparable to electronic toy guns.

The A.I. is simply shocking, 9 out of 10 times if you get within a 5 metre radius of an enemy, they will run towards you and attempt to hit you with the butt of their gun no matter how wildly your firing an automatic weapon.

Aside from just shooting people, There are signs scattered among each level called Skullshots which by shooting boost your combo and score you extra points. The game includes 8 maps with 49 challenges spread across them.

On each map there are at least 5 modes which you can play which will vary the route and spawn point of the level. The modes are: Sprint, Siege, Survivor, Time attack and Run The Gauntlet. Each which vary slightly from the last and make no real difference to decrease repetitiveness.

Multiplayer with your friends is fun, Allowing 4 people to play at once. Prepare to have your blood boiled with the frustration of those with good camping spots though as grenades aren't that effective.

4 Player

The Club's repetitive single player is its let down although if you have nice big HDTV it would be worth renting and playing some multiplayer against your friends.

If you're interested in the Achievements click here

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Posted By: Daniel Parslow - Category: No Category

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Race Driver: Grid

June 20th 2008 03:55

Codemasters have brought a brand new game to us and after playing it, I feel like my life is dull compared to the sleek turbo powered game play of Grid.

Red line revs, V8 roars and all the like are included in this new racing game as you travel between Europe, America and Japan not to mention the rest. Each country holding its own type of race. Europe hosts track events, Where you'll weave and wind and always fear of spinning out on the grass. America's home to street racing, where you the only thing you have to worry about are the concrete strength barriers and Japan is all about going sideways. I'm sure you guessed it, Drifting is Japans home racing sport.

When setting up your driver profile, You do the usual: First name, Last name and Country. However the next bit is what I liked! You select your audio name, From Aaron to Zachary and Abigail to Victoria. If first names aren't your thing, or yours isn't in there, Then you can select from a variety of Nicknames also, E.g. 'Hello Ace'.

After selecting your event, You are shown the 'Race options' where you can set the difficulty from basic to extreme. Next is Pro Mode where you cannot restart the race from the pause menu. Then locked to head camera (In front of the wheel, my favourite) and then Driver Assists where you can turn on and off your Traction control, Transmission, Braking assist and Stability control. The more things you turn off or on (whatever makes the game harder) will result in you securing yourself more rep points, which builds you a bigger reputation.

The game play is a blur of top speed sliding and intense power especially from the Head Cam where the windscreen can crack from a crash, adding that extra bit of difficulty. The realistic car damage makes you pick your spots and take corners properly as to keep your car in better condition resulting in fasting acceleration and quicker cornering as compared to Gran Turismo 5 Prologue where bumper to bumper and scraping along the walls will help you.

Totaling your car is possible as I found out when I pulled the hand brake going 200 km/h in my immaculate condition Ford Mustang GT-R concept. Needless to say, It wasn't any more than a crushed piece of metal after that. In the start menu though, There is 'Instant Replay' which is about 15 seconds worth of footage that I use to watch my tail slide out as I go around corners, but it has a useful tool as well. Rewind the replay to somewhere before impact and press the X button and it well return to you that point in time. These are called Flash backs and you get a certain amount every race depending on difficulty.

Superb graphics, presentation, good textures and lighting but you won't notice them after a while any way as you shift through gears and overtake opponents. Sounds are well done as well, Nothing like hearing the sound of your turbo spooling before you get that kick of speed.

With over 40 cars in Grid there is a lot of variety, however there is no upgrading which people may frown upon but Codemasters is trying something here. They are trying to get rid of so much detail away from the driving and focus on the cars, the tracks and you having fun in this intense racer.

The Xbox Live is good and the lobby is well done and easy to select races against your overseas counterparts. It also features full car damage, Meaning I will try and make you wreck your car on the 80 circuits there are to race on.

I am definitely into racing games, But I also grow bored of them quite quickly. I can't see this happening with Grid. So if you're into racing games too, I definitely recommend buying this.

If you're interested in the achievements click here

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Call Of Duty 4

May 27th 2008 13:38

Call Of Duty 4 has won over 40 E3 awards and is one of my personal favourites of all time

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Army Of Two

May 26th 2008 14:11

Many gamers have always been into the action/shooting genres of games, And with Army Of Two brought to you by EA this falls right into that category.

You star as one of 2 private military contractors or PMC's named Rios and Salem and your a near indestructible team battling all the dirty jobs the government doesn't want to handle

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Grand Theft Auto 4

May 23rd 2008 06:10

Let me start this off by saying, If you don't enjoy animated violence and running rife through a world that suspiciously looks like a replica of New York City then this isn't the game for you. However, if that sounds like your cup of tea, your in heaven

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July 2008

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