Assasin's Creed : Black flag review

GamePlay :

The game will feature three main cities; Havana, Kingston, and Nassau, which reside under Spanish, English and pirate influence, respectively.The game will also feature 50 locations to explore, with a 60/40 balance between land and naval exploration. Assassin's Creed IV will have a more open world feel, with missions similar to those found in Assassin's Creed, as well as fewer restrictions for the player. The world opens up sooner in the game, as opposed to Assassin's Creed III, which had very scripted missions and did not give players freedom to explore until the game was well into its first act. The player will encounter jungles, forts, ruins and small villages and the world is being built to allow players much more freedom, such as allowing players to engage, board, and capture passing ships and swimming to nearby beaches in a seamless fashion.In addition, the hunting system has been retained from Assassin's Creed III, allowing the player to hunt on land, and harpoon in the water.
A new aspect in the game is the ship the player will captain, Jackdaw. The Jackdaw will be upgradeable throughout the game, as well as having easy access to the ship when needed. In addition, a new underwater component is being added.The player will also have access to a spyglass, allowing the examination of distant ships, along with their cargo and strength. It can also help determine if an island still has animals to hunt, treasures to find or high points to reach for synchronization.An updated form of the recruit system introduced in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood will also return.
Multiplayer has been confirmed to return, with new settings and game modes, though it will only be land-based.

Characters :

The main character of the game will be Edward Kenway, a British pirate and member of the Assassin Order; father of Haytham Kenway, and grandfather of Ratonhnhaké:ton (Connor), the two playable characters of Assassin's Creed III. Real-life individuals that will be encountered include the pirates Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, Benjamin Hornigold, Anne Bonny, Jack Rackham and Charles Vane.

Plot:

As is the case in previous games in the Assassin's Creed series, the story is divided into two intertwined halves, with one in the present day, one in a historical setting, and the events of each influencing the other. Although the present-day story had previously established that an Animus was required to view one's ancestors memories, the ending of Assassin's Creed III implies that Desmond's genetic memories have now been uploaded on to 'the cloud'^.As such, the player's character is hired by Abstergo Entertainment — a subsidiary of Abstergo Industries — to investigate a pivotal movement in Desmond's ancestry; the Assassin Edward Kenway.A notorious pirate and privateer operating during the Golden Age of Piracy, Kenway's story is set in the Caribbean, and mixes open-ended ship-based exploration with combat and land-based adventures on a number of Caribbean islands

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Ride To Hell : Retribution review

Ride to Hell is a rock and roll action-adventure title set in the 1960's. Players will take on the role of Jake Conway, a man out for revenge against the brutal biker gang, The Devil's Hand, using any means necessary. Get ready to experience Two Fists, Two Wheels, and No Rules this June. The game is like GTA series . You can ride vehicles. Matured contents are added in the game ( 16+ ).

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2013 pc games release dates ( complete list )

 



 

 
 














January
Anarchy Reigns – January 8
DmC: Devil May Cry – January 15
The Cave – January 22
Naughty Bear: Double Trouble – January 22
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch – January 22
Hitman Trilogy – January 29
February




Fire Emblem: Awakening – February 4
Dead Space 3 – February 5
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time – February 5
Brain Age: Concentration Training – February 10
Aliens: Colonial Marines – February 12
Omerta: City of Gangsters – February 12
Crysis 3 – February 19
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance  – February 19
Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan – February 26
March
South Park: The Stick of Truth – March 5 (DELAYED)
Major League Baseball 2K13 – March 5
MLB 13 The Show – March 5
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 – March 5
Tomb Raider – March 5
SimCity – March 5
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate – March 5
God of War: Ascension – March 12
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm – March 12
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 – March 12
Gears of War: Judgment – March 19
Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel – March 26
BioShock Infinite – March 26
April
Injustice: Gods Among Us – April 16
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Soul Hackers – April 16
Pandora's Tower  – April 16

LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins – April 21
Dead Island Riptide – April 23
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen  – April 23
Star Trek  – April 23
Black Rock Shooter  – April 23
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition – April 30
Deadly Premonition The Director's Cut – April 30
Soul Sacrifice – April 30
May
Metro: Last Light – May 14
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger - May 21
Fast & Furious Showdown – May 21
Resident Evil Revelations  – May 21
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D   – May 24
Sniper Elite V2   – May 24
Fuse – May 28
Grid 2  – May 28
June
Remember Me  – June 4
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Legendary Edition) - June 4
Animal Crossing: New Leaf – June 9
The Last of Us – June 14
Game and Wario – June 23
Company of Heroes 2 – June 25
Deadpool – June 25
Project X Zone  –  June 25
Muramasa Rebirth –  June 25
July
Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection – July 9
NCAA Football 14 –July 9
Dynasty Warriors 8 – July 16
Shin Megami Tensei IV – July 16
August
Pikmin 3 – August 4
Dragon's Crown – August 6
Tales of Xillia  – August 6
Mario and Luigi Dream Team – August 11
Disney Infinity – August 18
Saints Row IV – August 20
Splinter Cell Blacklist – August 20
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified – August 20
New Super Luigi U (Standalone) – August 25
Killer is Dead – August 27
Lost Planet 3 –  August 27
Madden NFL 25 – August 27
September
Rayman Legends – September 3
Total War: Rome II - September 3
Killzone Mercenary - September 10
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix - September 10
NHL 14 – September 10
The Wonderful 101 – September 15
Grand Theft Auto V – September 17 
October
NBA 2K14 – October 1
Beyond: Two Souls - October 8
Tearaway - October 22
Batman: Arkham Origins - October 25
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag – October 29
WWE 2K14 – October 29
November
Call of Duty: Ghosts – November 5
Watch Dogs – November 19

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Metro: Last Light (PC review)

There’s a moment in Metro: Last Light when you get a car – a bodged-together, fortified jalopy – and you immediately think of Half-Life 2’s driving sections. Ah, the open road!
The difference is that Last Light’s car runs on train tracks. There’s something about seeing your future snake off with rigid inevitability that makes it a particularly easy metaphor for Last Light’s frustrations: sometimes it feels like an on-rails shooter in every sense.
Those are just lulls, however. Elsewhere it’s a game of gratifyingly kinetic gunplay, intense stealth sequences and a stunning, bleak vision that rivals the imagination of even BioShock Infinite. Its stage-managed linearity cuts both ways, too, enabling Last Light to draw a world of incredible detail, carefully framing sights and scenes of postapocalyptic tragedy and chaos. It describes humanity with a degree of success that few games of any genre achieve, much less shooters.

“It describes humanity with a degree of success that few games of any genre achieve.”

Set in the nuclear-shielded Moscow subway system following a devastating global war, Last Light’s story picks up where Metro 2033’s ended. You once again play Artyom, now a newly minted member of the Order – a sort of subterranean Night’s Watch, formed from ex-Spetsnaz soldiers. Two important things have happened: with Artyom’s help the Order has located and taken control of D6, an experimental weapons facility likely to become the envy of the Metro’s other warring factions. Secondly, Artyom has just used the missiles within D6 to commit genocide, obliterating a race of benign mutants who had the poor luck of being 12-foot-tall wormy-mouthed psychic ape-monsters whose mere presence causes men to die in terror and pain. Because of the stigma attached to being a telepathic death beast, not everyone is convinced of their benevolence, and when one is discovered to have survived the holocaust, you’re dispatched to kill it.

What then follows is a nightmare version of Mornington Crescent, taking Artyom on a circuitous round-trip through the desolate tunnels of the Moscow subway system, along underground rivers, into military bunkers and other even darker places. Human existence here is precarious, and even a short trip between pockets of civilisation feels suitably dangerous: dereliction and nuclear destruction have left the tunnels in a bit of a shabby state, while gruesome mutants stalk the black halls and the sad, shattered city above is haunted by things even weirder and more worrisome still.

“Human factions tussle over the scant resources, or vie for Metro-wide domination”

Worst of all, other human factions tussle over the scant resources, or vie for Metro-wide domination. Nazis and Communists have carved out portions of the railway system for themselves, one establishing a Fourth Reich bent on eradicating mutation, and the other the Red Line: a literal line of track that bisects the entire subway system.
It’s an incredibly well-fleshed fiction, and Last Light’s most tremendous success is the way that it communicates this world, visually and narratively. The overall arc of Artyom’s story is, oddly, the least thrilling thing about it – the plot beats are predictable and Artyom himself is a bit of an empty shell. You do get a sidekick every now and again who is worth his weight in dialogue, but even these characters are lightly sketched. However, if nothing else, this story is a conduit for delivering the intoxicating, forbidding Metro itself – and that’s worth the price of admission. The echoing warren of tunnels creates a powerful and oppressive feeling of enclosure and decay: lights sputter and surge, concrete walls crumble or run with water. Groans, mutters, creaks, clanks and drips ripple up and down the long black tunnels. The austere militarism of a nuclear bunker segues into the grimly functional tube network and the art deco opulence of the stations – all now rotting or reclaimed by nature.

Death is everywhere – I can only imagine that the developers, 4A Games, have an entire department dedicated to corpses. There are so many, animal and human, and in so many varied states of exquisitely studied decomposition. It starts to lose its shock: death becomes an all-pervading force, a simple, grim inevitability. Metro is, I found, rarely as scary as it is sad.

“Metro is, I found, rarely as scary as it is sad.”

Things aren’t much cheerier above ground. The toppled skyline of Moscow has a grim sort of majesty to it, but it’s colonised by a bloodthirsty ecosystem that harries your every step, ripped at by winds, whipped by rain and crumbled into pools of irradiated slurry. It all feels rather like you aren’t meant to be there – which is entirely the point.
The only places where mankind still thrives are the underground stations, each its own semiautonomous city-state. It’s here that 4A go to town on the scripting. Each station looks incredible, but they are essentially galleries, and each cluster of people in them a separate exhibit, triggered one after the other as you follow the prescribed route. An elderly man makes shadow puppets to entertain a gang of kids, but none recognise the pre-apocalypse animals he’s describing. A soldier strums a guitar while a pair of civilians bicker with an officious guard. Dancing girls with improbable breast physics do their thing and hoodlums scour the docks, shaking down whoever they can. Not all the voice-work does it justice – the children, in particular, are dreadful – and the ludicrous, non- Newtonian mammaries really stick out (ha) in a game otherwise drawn with such consistency. All the same, the hubbub of personal stories is so captivating that you almost forget that your consumption of it is essentially passive.
Almost.

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Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon ( Pc review )

Through my scope, I watch a neon-lit dinosaur shoot laser beams from its face in a fierce battle with evil robots. When it’s done roasting our mutual enemies, I blow the beast up with sniper-rockets. Suddenly, there's a 16-bit style sex montage. Nobody in their right mind would create something as wonderfully absurd as Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon – so I’m glad someone in charge at Ubisoft is at least a little nuts.
Don't go in expecting a traditional Far Cry game. Blood Dragon is philosophically, tonally, and mechanically the fundamental opposite of its straight-faced predecessors. It's like entering the imagination of a nine-year-old boy. Or my mind at age 25, honestly: These are action figures and super-powers come to life for an action-packed six-hours of open-world first-person shooting.
The hero, cyborg commando Rex Power Colt, has no limits. He doesn’t get tired from running at inhuman speeds, he doesn’t need air to breathe, he can survive any fall, and he rattles off more one-liners than a Paul Verhoeven anthology – all to the tune of a groovy synth soundtrack. Knowingly awful writing, rich with eye-rolling puns and delightfully inappropriate profanity, is a reminder that the dopey dialogue of ‘80s action movies is still a special sort of hilarious. These silly mission objectives, which reference everything from Die Hard and D20s to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Aliens, are a rare delight in first-person shooters

Mark IV Style, Mr. Falcon.

→ April 30, 2013 Through my scope, I watch a neon-lit dinosaur shoot laser beams from its face in a fierce battle with evil robots. When it’s done roasting our mutual enemies, I blow the beast up with sniper-rockets. Suddenly, there's a 16-bit style sex montage. Nobody in their right mind would create something as wonderfully absurd as Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon – so I’m glad someone in charge at Ubisoft is at least a little nuts.
Don't go in expecting a traditional Far Cry game. Blood Dragon is philosophically, tonally, and mechanically the fundamental opposite of its straight-faced predecessors. It's like entering the imagination of a nine-year-old boy. Or my mind at age 25, honestly: These are action figures and super-powers come to life for an action-packed six-hours of open-world first-person shooting.
The hero, cyborg commando Rex Power Colt, has no limits. He doesn’t get tired from running at inhuman speeds, he doesn’t need air to breathe, he can survive any fall, and he rattles off more one-liners than a Paul Verhoeven anthology – all to the tune of a groovy synth soundtrack. Knowingly awful writing, rich with eye-rolling puns and delightfully inappropriate profanity, is a reminder that the dopey dialogue of ‘80s action movies is still a special sort of hilarious. These silly mission objectives, which reference everything from Die Hard and D20s to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Aliens, are a rare delight in first-person shooters.
It isn't able to keep the A-material jokes coming the whole time, though. Certain gags get reused more often than would be ideal, which can stall the comedic momentum. But

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

May 1, 2013

Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon lets players get the girl, kill the bad guys and save the world in a VHS-era vision of the future.

what occasionally brings Blood Dragon's pace to a halt most is its cutscenes – the 16-bit story scenes have a habit of overstaying their welcome.

This gun? Pretty good.

“

...Die Hard, D20s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Aliens.

Of course, things get back on track the moment the action begins again, because this overpowered badass is so entertaining to play. Rex starts out so strong, in fact, that his upgrade tree (a linear, simplified version of Far Cry 3's) isn't terribly rewarding. Earned XP unlocks different melee takedowns, but you're very well equipped from the start. Instead of meaningful progression, Rex’s guns and their upgrades define his style. An exaggerated sense of empowerment comes with carrying more grenades than is reasonable, laser machine-guns, quad-barrel shotguns with flaming shells, and some seriously devastating, hysterical tools you couldn’t pay me to spoil.
It’s the blood dragons themselves, however, that create the most memorable and comical moments. The laser-breathing reptiles are easily baited into attacking enemy outposts. On the default difficulty, letting a dragon do your dirty work for you makes combat far too easy for experienced players. When the difficulty gets cranked up to hard, it's an essential and rewarding tool.

What's missing from Blood Dragon is something for Far Cry 3's stealthier players. The trademark bow returns, so you can still kill without sounding the alarm, but nothing has been added to change or improve the silent gameplay in the same way the guns-blazing approach has been supercharged.
That exaggerated absurdity of the action is what Blood Dragon is all about, though, and is more than entertaining enough to make it a great experience. Players without an established love for Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Carpenter, arcades, CRTs, and VHS tapes might miss the point of what Blood Dragon’s going for, but even they can appreciate the wacky sandbox world just waiting for mayhem. Although there’s less room for freeform play styles in the linear missions, the open world has plenty to discover, and presents plenty of exciting enemy encounters -- even if you’ve already mastered Far Cry 3’s enemy behavior.

Weapons

Skills

The Verdict

Blood Dragon’s playful focus on humor, nostalgia, and self-aware absurdity allows it to delve into a subject far more important than African arms races or tropical sociopaths: Video games are really, really fun. This comical, explosive shooter takes everything that makes Far Cry 3's gunplay great and dresses it in the kind of wit and over-the-top fun that Duke Nukem Forever is so desperately missing. Blood Dragon is a different beast – and it’s something you shouldn’t miss.
.

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NFS RIVALS PC GAMEPLAY

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GRID 2 (preview)

The souped-up motors of Grid 2 are about to take their starting positions. The long-awaited title is finally set for release this May, almost a half-decade to the day since its much-lauded predecessor was rolled out. The maxim for this sequel is one of “total race day immersion”, an ambitious effort to recreate the tension, glamour, and sparking rivalry of any authentic competitive driving event. From our hands-on with the game’s re-imagined multiplayer modes, that sense of competition has filtered right through to the development team – Grid 2’s multiplayer is set to stand alone from that pesky career.
“We’ve decided to make it a completely distinct experience from the single player, because of the fiction we’ve created in the career – we didn’t want that impinging on the multiplayer at all,” says Senior Game Designer Ross Gowing, with a grin. Essentially, this separation means there are two dedicated games under Grid 2’s hood, with victories in solo and multiplayer modes resulting in rewards unique to each. “Online has its own progression system of XP and cash, and all the vehicles that you might have acquired throughout the career, you have will have to earn to use in multiplayer,” Gowing explains.

A significant shift from the first game is the new LiveRoutes system, which is implemented in various modes and randomly creates the track ahead of the racers. “The tracks will change lap by lap, dynamically,” says Becky Crossdale, Level Designer. "They’re all in the same location but at one point you might go down a straight and on the first lap, you’ll take a left and by the time you’ve come around again you might take a right but you won’t have seen anything change; it’s very subtle.”
For those who don’t fancy putting it all online, Grid 2 also brings back local two-player split screen, where players can create custom races based on the career mode. For the gently confrontational, there’s also asynchronous online play linked through Codemasters’ Racenet – think any turn-based game on Facebook for an idea of how this will work, where you won’t have to be online at the same time to compete and challenges are delivered to friends the next time they connect.
That’s all well and good – and as we’ve previously covered, the game looks great, boasts a stunning selection of cars (from classic BMWs up to supercars that Bill Gates probably couldn’t afford), and has spent its five year absence honing every nut and bolt. The handling in particular already seemed hugely improved when we looked at the game last. But how does that hold up in match conditions?
In a word, marvellously.
Dropped into a straight-up, first-past-the-post race against a squad of Codemasters’ finest – an unfair advantage to the home team, surely? – the Subaru BRZ responds well to the slightest touch and it’s soon clear each vehicle is performing to its own standards. Interestingly, cutting a corner in a mis-timed overtake prompts a penalty, decreasing performance until the illegal benefit had been equalised. We like it, but how this approach goes down with players en masse will be interesting to see.

Endurance mode mixes it up, first by showcasing LiveRoutes in action, the streets of a bewilderingly pretty Dubai snaking off into the distance, each corner providing a new surprise, second by forcing a new approach to play. Victory goes to the driver covering the greatest distance in lengthy races – customisable up to a whopping 40 minutes, though here a couple of merciful five-minute defeats – rather than passing a finish line first. Constantly keeping up with the unpredictable track while trying to nimbly zip between rivals and avoid collisions, all to get the most miles on the wheels, proves a thrilling challenge.
The last mode tested was Checkpoint. Flipping Endurance on its head, this knocks players out of the race as the run out of time between, well, checkpoints. Nothing gamers haven’t seen before but, coupled with LiveRoutes again randomising the track progression, feels somehow fresher than comparable efforts elsewhere.

Although not shown yet, Gowing promises that Grid 2 will also have “Time Attack, which is all about setting the best time whilst all drivers are on track but not jostling for position. Face-Off and Touge –two-player focussed race modes. Drift challenge. Then the Global Challenge which adds a couple of race types to that – Power Lap, which is standing start, timed lap; Overtake, which is passing event traffic in a given time, and the Checkpoint mode”
Beneath the hood of all the multiplayer components is Codemasters’ integrated Racenet. “[It’s] technically been in beta since [DiRT Showdown] was released, so Grid 2 will signify the 1.0 release of it,” Gowing told us. “We’ve been listening to community feedback, so that’s allowed us to expand our feature set. You’ll see Racenet being a pillar of the game, driving our Global Challenge system, where nine events are presented to the world each week, and you compete against your friends or rivals to do the best cumulative performance over the week. Racenet is the main pusher and puller all of that, it’s providing all of the rosters in-game, the tracking, everything.”
Although some players may not like the sound of ‘levelling up’ through the two chains of career and multiplayer, those separate paths and the option of playing with the variable LiveRoutes routes helps make the action genuinely competitive. There’s no grinding on single player only to take the best cars online, and having ever-shifting routes means every twist and turn is down to skill, reaction and performance rather than more obsessive players memorising tracks. Another subtle tweak is in upgrades, purchased with the cash won in-game, which can nudge a cars’ performance into the next championship tier. Trick out a Nissan R34 just right, and you could be racing it out of class against the likes of the BAC Mono. In these situations more than any other, each victory has to be 100% earned.
In the five-year gap since the first Grid, the DiRT series has veered between rallying and stunt driving, while the Formula One license has been focussed on creating a precise simulation of the real-world sport. Grid 2 now has the chance to complete Codemasters’ triptych of racing offerings, delivering an experience distinct from its garage-mates – and with it shaping up to be a chrome-plated, sexed-up street racer with a fresh take on competitive multiplayer, it should do just that.

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