Reached 21 and lots more to go .

F.E.A.R Extraction Point : The expansion to the game that won the multiple “game of the year ” awards is soon to be released and by the looks of the demo it promises to bring more of action , more of blood , more of adrenalin , more ALMA and finally more of FEAR . If you have already played “FEAR” then you dont need any persuasion but if you havent , do download and play this masterpiece .

The expansion starts from where the original ended .There is the recap of the chopper ride and the explosion , the chopper crashes but you survive . Then there is ALMA who is still alive in the spirit form and she controls and she controls all the physic soldiers . Graphics wise there aint much diffrence from the original but in the gameplay point of view it rocks . You get a chance to try out some weapons including Shotgun , pistol , Rifle , rocket launcher,grenades , mines but my favourite is the “mini-gun” . Use this on the enemy in the bullet time mode and you can actually see him being shred to pieces . The game physics are as cool as ever . Throw a grenade near by and you can watch all the objects flying around , even the enemies . Even the fire effects looks damn cool .

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Well EA Sports is once again back with there much awaited demo of FIFA 07 . The demo is of around 568 MB in size and after playing it for a couple of days i can say that it is much better than its previous versions .

The demo contains 6 teams from around the world like Manchester United , Barcelona , Werder Bremen , Lyon , AC Milan and one from the Mexican division . The demo doesnt let you modify any of the graphics setting or let you know in which difficulty level are you playing and features 4 minutes of good gameplay . The demo features a single stadium only and which is none other than the new “Emirates Stadium” of Arsenal .

Gameplay : Gameplay is much more improved than the previous version . You can pass the ball around , do some wonderful tricks with players such as Ronaldo or Ronaldinho etc . Scoring is also not that much easy here , though experianced players will find it easy , the keeper is much more realistic , they tend to punch a lot when crosses come in, and sometimes miss, dont get enough purchase on the ball etc… . The new physics on the ball are also cool, it bounces up awkwardly on occasions making it difficult to control, especially as the opposition applies the pressure on you. Handball is still in the game, and you can now earn (or giveaway) silly freekicks when jostling for the ball when its in the air. Some nice animations when this occurs as well, you can see the players actually leaning back, etc. EA have also focused on skill moves this time . The animation is top drawn and much more fluid .

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Well the past few weeks have been quite hectic for me . College is going well but the workload has increased a lot plus with additional preparations for GRE and other placement activities I hardly get time to do other things which I enjoy . As you may noticed , I have again updated my theme with a revised version of TechnoBlue by John . The latest version is much easier to edit for newbie like me and it is much more ads friendly .
FIFA 07 demo is finally out and I am downloading it right now . Expect a review in the next couple of days . Lets hope EA can give me something to cheer about this time .
Am also playing Half Life 2 Episode 1 these days. The game continues from where the previous game left . It doesn’t appear to be much in length like the previous but since I don’t get much time for it I think i might finish it in 10 days. Expect a review of it too.
Been also watching quite some movies lately . Some of them are

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I am absolutely crazy about Football games . Hardly i day goes by when i dont play them . Now whenever we think of any soccer games , there are only two games that come to our mind and that is “FIFA” by EA Sports and “Pro Evolution Soccer or Winning Eleven” by Konami . Ofcouse i am not mentioning “Football Manager” or “Fifa Manager” as they are more management oriented . Here i will discuss the various features of the games …..the thoughts expressed are my opinion only .

My tryst started with soccer games when i first got hold of FIFA 2001 . I was very much impressed by thr gameplay and the graphics which was very well considering that time . The game was followed by FIFA 02 , 03 , 04 , 05 etc . Each game proved to be much better than its predecessor in terms of Gameplay , graphics , commentary and i spent hours playing each one of them . But at that time i hadnt heard of Konami Pro Evo SOccer as at that time it was mainly available for the consoles and even the gaming industry was almost entirely monopolized by FIFA . But around 2 years back , i got a chance to try out the demo of PRO EVO SOCCER 4 and beleive me i forgot FIFA from that day . The gameplay which PRO EVo SOCCER offered was way much better than that of FIFA . The player’s movement were damn realistic ,the flexibility in the game play , graphics which i found better than FIFA etc got me hooked . The game improved with Pro Evo Soccer 5 whereas i found that EA didnt give much attention to FIFA as there recent releases FIFA 06 and FIFA WOrld CUP 06 …..even FIFA 05 was lot better than them . Now Lets take a look at some comparsion points between the two .

THE BATTLE

1-> Graphics wise FIFA seemed to be doing well with each release until they released FIFA World Cup 06 ….the graphics of latest installment is damn bad compared to the level of graphics we have in the Games of today . Pro Evolution Soccer on the other hand offers much realistic modeled characters which are as equivalent to there real life counter parts . Even the Stadiums are beautifully rendered .

2-> FIFA wins by a large margin when it comes to Licensed teams and tournaments . They got license for almost all the teams in the World and you can even play in all the major leagues in the World . PES 5 lacks in this respect but i think that will change when there next installement comes out .

3 ->The League system of FIFA is also lot better than that of PES 5 . You got a carrear mode which is just great and you have little bit of management involved in it too , you can even buy and sell players just like real life managers do , you have to meet the expectations of the board othewise you can be sacked . PES occurs a Master League Mode where some amount of trading and training is involved but i dont think that it can match FIFA as of now .

4-> Commetary wise i cant say much but i find FIFA to be much better .

5 ->But the most important thing is the gameplay and in this regard PES is much better than FIFA . In Fifa the game play is quite good but it tends to get boring after a while as you score almost the same type of goal every time and you can even make a player run all the way from your half and score a goal . But such is not the case with PES . The gameplay is much more realistic than FIFA , even the goal scoring ways are so much diffrent everytime you score . The controls of PES are also amazing and offers you to do a variety of things with the ball ( harder to master ).

Overall i find PES much better than FIFA , there are a lot of people who find FIFA better but i think many of them havent given PES a try , do try it and beleive me you will get hooked .

Now you can also share the goals scored in FIFA and PES with other users worldwide , read about it here .

The year 2007 is fast approaching and it promises to be an amazing year for the hardcore gamers . The release of Vista is not far now and along with it comes DirectX 10 , the next big step in gaming . With all its advanced capabilities , it promises to take gaming to a new level but not without burning a hole in our pockes . And we also have some big games lined up for release simaltaneously . Lets take a look at some of the most eagerly awaited games .

CRYSIS

WELL who can forget the “FarCry ” , the game took the market by storm when it was released in 2004 due its stunning visualizations , awesome gameplay , beautiful surroundings , great AI and a wonderful story . Crytek developed a new engine called “Cry Engine” for this game . The game became so popular that a movie is currently being made on it .

But now the German studios Crytek are back with there latest offering called “Crysis” . The game features a much more advanced form of the CryEngine called “CryEngine 2″ and it will be the first to use the Direct 3D 10 capabilities of Windows Vista . Some of its engine features include

• Volumetric Clouds
• Motion Blur
• Dynamic Soft Shadows
• Fully Interactive and Destructible environment
• Full Day Night Cycle with sunrise and sunset effects

The game will also use Shader model 4.0 along with 2 and 3 and its performance will be best in a hyperthreaded machine due to its Multi threaded engine . The Trailers of the game looks amazing with the beautifully rendered environment and i cant wait for its release .

Recently an admin posted the game’s requirement on the Crysis forum . Though it is not official but i dont think there will be much diffrence . Here they are (more…)