gadget news and reviews

Killzone: Liberation (PSP) 1

Developer: Guerrilla | Genre: 3rd Person Shooter | Release Date: 10-31-06

Sequel to the title for the PS2, Killzone Liberation fails to impress. Set in a gritty version of the not too distant future, Liberation pits the player against both man and machine in mortal combat. The game has potential, but the controls need to be re-done from scratch to cooperate with the unusual 3rd person view. Aiming and maneuvering while firing are unnecessarily difficult and tedious. Considering how much of the game has to do with killing (“Killzone”), the poorly designed controls definitely places a significant damper on game play.

After testing out the multiplayer option, we soon discovered that most battles seemed invariably to occur around the health dispensers. Weird huh? As one person would shoot the other, the injured can easily go fill up his/(or her) health and continue to fight. Guerrilla should have installed a method similar to that of Half Life, temporarily disabling health canisters after each use. A little choppy and very repetitive, the Ad-Hoc didn’t seem to add much to game’s “fun level” as we had hoped. Read More

Simulation Gaming, ‘06 Style 6

2006 is a year full of high expectations from gamers. What with Xbox 360, Revolution, and PS3 all making their formal debuts, expectations have turned into demands. While taking a look at some games that would be released later this year, one of them in particular caught my eye: Spore. The game is made by the one and only Will Wright, the renowned creator of The Sims and Sim City. Spore is a new style of simulator game that lets you play “God” in more depth than ever conceived.

In Spore, you begin the game in a universe as a single cell. After swimming around and eating bits of food, your creature lays an egg. At this point you will be allowed to modify the creature that will be born by giving it new traits, abilities, and body parts. As the creature eventually starts to evolve, it leaves its area and enters a large ocean and eventually reaches land. As you may already see, this game has many stages making it nearly endless. The best feature in Spore is the variety of the creatures you will encounter. This is because the majority of the game is made by players just like you. Your Spore community will soon turn into full civilizations with technology starting. Even though these may have started out with primitive tools, some of these “Spore civilizations” may even end up surpassing those of today. Read More