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• 12Mar 12

  It's been a while fellas + Gaming Update + Greatest game of all time

  Hello there guys...it's been what? 1 year & a half since my last blog post about StarCraft 2 (I'll be back to it soon)....
  
  Well...I might be back more regularly. This is my last semester in university and my load is lighter than previous semesters...so we'll see.

  Gaming Update

  I played plenty of games in the past year, top notch games:

  The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

  An absolute epic on an RPG games with story-telling that I have yet to see in any other RPG. Improved combat over the first Witcher game and Visuals that I'd cla.ssify as top 3 in any PC games..and I played PLENTY of PC games. Rating: 9.4

  Batman: Arkham City

  Being a fan of the first Batman, this game was a priority. Long story short, this game is all I wanted from a Batman sequal and maybe more. Rating: 9.3

  Vanquish

  A purely action-packed game that is completely focused on having a blast rather than having a satisfying storyline or multiplayer. Recommended for rental, espeically for those looking to having a blast. Rating: 8.9

  Fifa 12

  EA sports never disappoint me with their FIFA games; every year they find means to outdo themselves. Fifa 12 is by far the greatest FIFA game to date, if not best sport game. Rating: 9.5

  Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams

  I had some reservations when I started this game although I was a big, big fan of the first game. After finishing the game, I couldn't for the life of me remember why I had those reservations. One thing however, Rapture doesn't have the same creepy, moody feel it had in the first Bioshock. Rating: 9.1

  Zelda: Skyward Sword

  The metacrtic of this game was quite outstanding. Revieving a 10/10 from EdgeMagazineis no small feet. I did not finish the game yet (studies got in the way ) but I am absolutely loving the game. The dungeons feel different from before, in a good way. The new visual ****Nintedo used this time breathes life into a game that is 25 years old, and the controls are just as I imagined a Wii-Zelda game to be. However, the dowsing ability & the constant notifications when receiving items do hinder the pace of the game a bit, which is unfortunate as this game quite a marvelous creation. Rating: --

  
  

  Greatest game of all time

  I am not claiming that this game in better than SMG2, Zelda: OoT, Mass Effect or whatever. I am saying, however, that this game is my favorite game ever and I do not see that changing ANYtime soon.

  The game is StarCraft 2.

  My last blog was about this game and how the multiplayer aspect of the game is so great. It's not just great, it is absolutely the BEST. Now I see what an ESPORT means. Being an avid fan of football (soccer) I have an idea of how professional sports play out in terms of tactics and challenge, and I say it with full confidence that StarCraft 2 is a SPORT!

  

  Never before did a game (other than SC: Brood War of course) have this amount of depth in it. The amount of different strategies & factors that play into the game is just out of this world. Two years into the game and it is going stronger than ever with multiple patches from Blizzard in attempt to make the game balanced, and they have done a great job at that...oh and an expansion is coming out sometime soon as well. The game is so fun & deep that I started following professional players play at a regular basis; kind of like I'm doing with Football (Soccer). Every month or so a new tournament starts and pro players from all around the world go there to participate, the best coming from Korean as some of you might know. With top-notch commentators & casters, the game is now is the highlight of ESPORTS and deservedly so. And with constant support from Blizzard, Intel, ASUS & countless other International orgainzations, this fact will hold for a long time.

  

  

  Myself, I play on ladder frequently though not too much as to overdo it. The ladder system provides an amazing way for any player to have a blast with the game while learning the games steadily thanks to Battlenet's league system. The leagues are clas.sified as Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters & Grandmasters. Never was there a moment where I felt like I belonged to the wrong league. Right now I'm in the Diamond league (EU server) which is considered to be good, and getting there wasn't easy I went through a lot to get here, and it was well worth it.

  Bottomline, this game deserves the attention of everyone & I am sure most people will enjoy this game in ways they never though possible, whether by playing the game directly, or by watching the pro games or by both (like me).

  If you are interested, then these 2 websites are what you should be visiting to really enjoy the game:

  www.gomtv.net -- GOMTV host the biggest SC2 tournament in the world, which basically means the biggest ESPORT tournament in the world. Epic stuff here, simply epic.

  www.teamliquid.net -- Majority of the community are here. The site serves mutliple purposes, it provides the latest news related to the game, has an up-to-date encyclopedia about the game & acts as one of the biggest non-korean teams.

  If anyone on the EU server has the game already, please feel free to add me. Here's a link to my profile:http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/850327/1/Khiari/

  • Posted Mar 12, 2012 9:18 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 18Sep 10

  StarCraft 2 : Wings of Libery Blog Review

  Ever knew what it felt like to wait for game for 12 years? Ever knew what it felt like to keep hearing news about this game being delayed countless times until you lose patience? Was there ever a game that you thought was too good to be true to actually play it?

  The answer for me is Yes.

  StarCraft 2 is the sequel to StarCraft that was released back in 1998. StarCraft was the game that many people refer to as the game that set the RTS genre on fire and revolutionized it as whole. Many people (including myself) see StarCraft as the best RTS game every created. While those statements are debatable, they're not very far away from the truth.

  

  As a kid, I was only into platformers: Mario, Sonic and DK were the games that got me into gaming. Half-life then emerged and introduced me into the FPS genre and made me a big fan. At that time, whenever I saw an RTS game I got disgusted and never imagined myself playing one...not until the day my neighbor insisted that he lends me StarCraft (with the expansion). I never bothered to try it, but my brother did and I could tell that he was getting into it. As I watched him play the game, I knew that this game had something unique...something I'll love...I then declared myself as a fan of the genre.

  Ten years later, StarCraft 2: Wings of Libery is released. My God I never imagine this day would ever game after the countless delays it went through. So the first question to strike a person's mind is: is it worth the f***ing 12 years worth the damn wait? The answer is: F*** Ya!!

  SC2: WoL is the first episode of a trilogy that is on the way, and its campaign focuses on the Terran race. People got pissed when they heard these news; I personally didn't give a sh*t, because I knew at the end the game will boil down to its multiplayer, which included all three races (Terran, Protoss and Zerg).

  That said, lets talk about the campaign. The story of SC was a very fascinating one, yet somewhat long but SC2 does a good job at letting you wary of the necessary details. The story in this game is actually surprisingly good, yet not to an extent to 'wow' you. It does take some time to get into the story though, but when it does it gets pretty damn interesting.

  The best thing about the campaign though is the missions. 26 extremely fun and varied missions is really the high-point of the campaign. Every mission is different from the other; some mission you need to defend for a period of time, some you need to somewhat hi-jack a couple of trains, some you need to lead several convoys to a location safely and the list goes on. In addition to this, you can purshace very nice and useful upgrades and research awesome techs to improve your base defences and army. All in all, the campaign is very worth playing and is just a whole lot of fun.

  Next, the presentation and graphics. The menus in SC2 are very slick and easy to use and stuff like rankings andachievmets are handeled pretty damn well. The graphics in the game are amazing honestly yet you'll need a powerful machine to run the game on extreme settings. My laptop is somewhat oldand I run the game on medium with no complaints and I still enjoy looking at the visuals. In other words, no complaints here whatsoever.

  

  Next, and most importantly, the gameplay. Many people expected the game to be as revolutionary as the first one. I'm gonna say that the game is not revolutionary and uses the core gameplay mechanics of the first SC. Thats not the end of it though, the game DOES add pretty noteworthy and nice new gameplay tweaks that are good enough to revive a formula that was so successful 12 years ago. One of these additions is the ability to climb above cliffs for some units (reaper and collosus). Yet the idea seems so simple, you'll be surprised by how much depth it adds to the game. Another addition is the ability to warp some units to any power-field location in the map for the protoss. These plus several new tweaks really add a new dimension to the gameplay that makes for some seriously bada** encounters.

  The coregameplay the game got fromitsprequel is as simple asan RTS game can get, which is one of the game's strong points. Thereal challenge is to master each race and use their abilities accordingly. The game can be learnt in30 mins, but mastering it could take ages...and to master it you'll have to go through pretty bad beatings (I've went through them... )...but in the end you WILL learn.

  Three races might not seem like a big number. But what to take into account here is the striking balance between each of them. Everyrace have their own unique features that it is extremely difficult to declare one race as superior to the others.

  

  Regarding the online multplayer, Blizzard did a good job at making it accessible to skill levels. Every player has to go through 5 placement matches against random opponents, and according to his/her performance they'll be put in their apporpriate leagues. Leagues are of 5 levels: Bronze, Silver, Golden, Platinum and Diamond. Of course you can advance through the leagues by winning a certian amount of matches and gaining a certian amount of points. These really feels like a well-thought system and so far it's working really well for me.

  The level of the competition is pretty high I gotta say. There are lot of aggressive players out there that would do absolutely anything to claim victory, whether it's constantly killing you're workers and supplies or whether its a full-mass attack. No player has an advantage over the guys; there are no heroes like in WarCraft 3 that could destroy a whole base solo (not a criticism) or any sort of overpowerd figure that can single-handedly killa whole army. What you have is your wits and you experience...

  So...

  Is this the game we've waiting for? Hell ya it is. This game is a dream come true for me.The game has only been released for a month and a half and I played the game more than a game that would last for 2 years. Mark my words, this game will last for the next 10 years, and with the expansions on the way, it'll probably last even longer.

  As some random user wrote in his review: "You know you're a successful developer whenuse a 12-year old formula and make it even better".

  Like Tychus Findley (a character in the game) said: "Hell, it's about Time!!"

  My Rating of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty:

  9.5

  ---

  Thank for reading.

  • Posted Sep 18, 2010 6:45 pm GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 24Jul 10

  Uncharted 2: Done + Swapped 2 games + The long wait is almost over!!

  As the title suggests, I finished Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Took me ~12 hours to finish the game on hard difficulty. I gotta say the single-player experience was one of the best experiences I had as a gamer, especially the chapter(s) where you play on a moving train; thrilling to say the least.

  Expect a blog review on this masterpiece soon.

  ---

  Until 4 days ago, I owned a copy of Demon's Souls and DC vs. MK Universe. DC vs. MK wasn't great so I swapped for inFamous. Demon's Souls was incredibly difficult and if I want to finish the game I'd have to spent countless hours and get frustrated so much that the PS3 might be at risk of breaking So I swapped it for Super Street Fighter 4.

  Both good choices I gotta say. It's been so long since I've played a fighting game (other than Super smash) and SSF4 nicely fits in. The combos look great and are so much fun to perform. I still suck in the game (last SF game I played was about 10 years ago) but with time I'll master it.

  The other game, inFamous, is a game that intruiged me for quite some time. I have to say I had my doubts on whether to get it or not but I got it to see if it really is something special. So far (6 hours in) the game really IS special when it comes to roaming around and its combat..so yeah I'm glad I got it. The graphics though, although good, could've been better IMO. After all I'm just Uncharted 2 which is easily the best looking game I ever played, so maybe my expectations are on the high side.

  

  ---

  For me, this has been the most aniticpated game since it was announced (okay maybe brawl was more anticipated) and I dreamed of the day I'd play the game since I played the first about 10 years ago. If it lives up to my expectations, it will certianly be one of the best games of this generation.

  If you're wondering about what I'm talking about, I'm talking about Star Craft II. The first and only star craft game was released 12 years ago...so you can see why I'm so excited about the game. Star Craft II was announced 5-6 years ago and it cost blizzard 100 million dollars to make...another reason why the game is so damn hyped.

  The game will released on the 27th July, less than 3 days from now...guess all I have to do know is wait...which I've been doing the past 5 years.

  ---

  Thank you for your time

  El-Hebri

  • Posted Jul 24, 2010 9:04 am GMT
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