This is a Community article by Shaun Smith.

Call of Duty 4 is South Africa’s most competitive PC game, both, online and offline. It was released in November of 2007 and since then it has become a very modified game with additions such as: “Pro-Mod” which hones your skills by playing more tactically and increases your reaction time to be more efficient in combat situations; The Rise of The Undead; Gun Game; Paintball; Starwars – Galactic Warfare; Frontlines – Reloaded; and Prop Mod — the funny one.

However, despite all these modifications, nothing really stands out to be South African. But now’s our chance: the start of a small modding community which could offer maps that show what our country has to offer — from malls, to theme-parks and even prisons.

Perhaps these changes might even follow through to the new versions for PC and Console play.

Map 1: Canal Walker – Based on Canal Walk Shopping Centre

• Description Of Map: One of the leading shopping centre’s in the country, bound to attract the most shoppers–and killers–from the extensive portion of the Western Cape.
• Why It’s Suitable: Canal Walker would be kind to all sorts of players. It offers close quarters combat, sniping from long distances, as well as sneak and worm maneuvers through gutters and ceilings.
• Map Features: Close quarter combat, choke points, shortcuts, super sniping roosts and easy access to various hot-spots. Climbable surfaces would be available: for example ropes, pillars, poles, vents (prone vents included).
• Map Size: Large
• Suggested Players: 16-32

• Description Of Map: One of the “lekkerest” local theme parks around the country; filled with excitement, attractions and casino’s. Bet your life by fighting in the Casino, or just have a blast at the attractions.
• Why It’s Suitable: Loads of unique features such as rides, attractions, and the casino venue. There’s a vast landscape to explore, and it will be graphically appealing.
• Map Features: Two major areas: the Theme Park and Casino. Both of these areas consist of open fighting for close quarter battles, sniping points, easy access points, and shortcuts to get around. There will be mountable and climbable surfaces, where if the game engine permits — maybe you’ll even be able to ride rides and gamble in the casino.
• Maps Size: Large
• Suggested Players: 16-32

Images from: Wikipedia (Canal Walk)

– Shaun Smith [Community Articles: Have Your Say On Our Site]

This is a Community Review by Chad Thesen.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is a PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 title made for fans and it is loosely based on the six Scott pilgrim graphic novels already released.

If you haven’t read the graphic novels (or at least watched the movie) then I don’t recommend a buy for the storyline itself.

As far as the storyline is concerned, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was created by Bryan Lee O’Malley and it’s the story of Scott Pilgrim, a 23 year old Canadian slacker and bass player, who falls for a girl by the name of Ramona Flowers. But, before Scott is able to date Ramona he must first defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends.

At first I played it with a friend, but he was confused and always asking questions. So, on stage two I turned it off, gave him the graphic novels and told him to return the next day. The game is a lot better if you are familiar with the franchise as there are confusing parts which you might not understand.

For example, one level shows “Clash at Demonhead” arrive as a group, but at the end of the level it shows Envy and Lynette fighting. Fans will know it’s cause Lynette slept with Envy’s boyfriend Todd, whereas players with no background knowledge will be wondering what all the commotion is about.

Name: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game
Genre: Beat ‘Em Up
Players: 1-4
Multiplayer: Co-Op
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360
Developers: Ubisoft
Publishers: Universal Studios
Release Date: 25 August 2010
Price: R90/800 Microsoft points

Gameplay-wise, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is a Beat ‘Em Up, which is great. Fans of old-school arcade Beat ‘Em Up’s like Streets of Rage, River City Ransom, Final Fight and Double Dragon are going to love the game for the gameplay alone.

The game allows you to choose from four of the graphic novel’s main protagonists, namely: Scott Pilgrim, Stephen Stills, Kim Pine and Ramona Flowers — there’s no Wallace.

Each character offers something different to the game. Scott is all around awesome, with punches, kicks, and slide-kicks to downed enemies; he’s a favourite. Stephen Stills is more of a rough and tough brawler. Expect light punches, heavy punches, the ability to punch downed enemies, and headbutt! x13. Ramona’s feature includes the ability to summon a random weapon out of her subspace handbag, for a minor cost of Gut Points. Kim is the only character in the game who can heal herself by spending Guts Points, instead of buying an item to heal with.

When you start the game you have a set amount of everything. You buy items, and each item offers you something unique. Some items will offer an increase in stats, others will offer Guts Points or Health. Guts Points allows you to perform special moves or summon Knives Chau, a character who can help out at will.

If you die, you lose a life and come back with full health and full guts.

You can play with up to three friends, and this makes the entire screen way more chaotic and way more fun. Throw an object at an enemy, watch it bounce, fly past you, hit your friend in the face, bounce off him, and whack you in the back of the head before landing on the floor.

If you go down, a friend can run and revive you as long as they are not interrupted before the timer runs out. Whenever you have all four characters playing at once, simultaneously press and hold taunt to bust out the team attack move.

As you play through the game your character levels up and learns an arsenal of new moves, but doesn’t increase in stats. Stats are manually increased by consuming or purchasing certain items. Thing is, you’re never told what item does what. But this is one of the fun aspects of buying almost everything, to see what it does.

The graphics are pixelated, and it was made to look like an old school Beat ‘Em Up. However, the bright colours make it apparent that it’s a modern game trying to look retro. And it works.

Control-wise, the game is very smooth and enjoyable. You will only be annoyed when trying to run because you have the choice of double tap, or a fast press to the left analog stick to activate this. If you move up or down while running you begin to walk. It takes a little getting used to, but after a while you get the hang of it. Unfortunately, there is no auto-run feature for those who find walking tedious.

The game provides a nice atmosphere of retro 8-bit music which meshes perfectly with the gameplay and makes it feel like an old school arcade game you’d blow a pocket full of tokens on.

It’s a linear game with an easy path to follow. If you get lost, you’ve done the impossible. To be found, just keep travelling to the right and you ‘re going in the right direction. Simple, and fun.

The stages are unique and non-puzzle. There seven stages and each has a boss fight and great theme based expectations of things to use as beating sticks and enemies. Some stages link to the graphic novels, while others represent the bosses themselves.

Do not expect the game to be very accurate, because like I said, it’s loosely based. You will however see a lot from the novels, but not everything will be shared.

Trophies and Achievements are all offline. You don’t need an internet connection to get 100% trophies/achievements. There are only three or so trophies/achievements achieved from playing through the entire game. Most of the trophies come from certain actions in the game.

There is currently one DLC pack which adds Knives Chau as a playable character; Player-Vs-Player Arena mode; Boss Rush mode; Survival Horror mode; a Dodge ball mini-game, and 3 additional trophies.

– Chad Thesen [Community Articles: Have Your Say On Our Site]

This weekend past saw the second installment in PolarfluKe’s Starcraft 2 (SC2) tournaments, with PolarfluKe: Heaven’s Devils coming to a close on Sunday evening. The final was a close fought affair, with Travis ‘Asifimtrying’ Weedon, aka Bvd`Shase, winning the first two games before losing the next three to some cunning play by Richard ‘AngryAfrican’ West, both from KZN. The 3rd/4th playoffs had Port Elizabeth-based Ruaan ‘Bakchiadai’ Nel, going down using some unconventional tactics 3-1 to tournament newcomer Daniel ‘Spinks’ Viller from Gauteng, who managed a surprise win over the tournaments third seed earlier in the day. The final four players consisted of 3 Protoss and AngryAfrican’s Terran, with another Protoss, two Zerg and a player who willingly chose to Random his race making up the quarters.

There was a bit of controversy as Bakchiadai actually lost in the quarterfinals to WarlordZim, who had also caused an upset earlier by knocking out AngryAfrican’s brother, Dreamer, the fourth seed. However WarlordZim caused considerable spikes in his games against Bakchiadai, and the administrators decided to overturn their result following WarlordZim’s continued connectivity issues in the following match.

The tournament showed that there is no stopping true talent as it came out that newcomer Spinks has only been playing SC2 since late August, and managed to upset quite a few players, while Bakchiadai has been playing since the game came out in late July. Both Shase and AngryAfrican have SC2 Beta experience, and the most experience in any South African SC2 finals as well, having met at least twice previously, and once before in last month’s Polarfluke tournament, where AngryAfrican also won.

The tournament was extremely well run throughout the weekend, starting on Saturday 04 September at 3pm, with 16 groups of 5 players each managing to finish all their round-robin games by Saturday evening. Sunday’s play started at 3pm with the Round of 32, and was a straight knock-out style tournament ending at 10pm. First place took home R700, while second place took R300. This prizepurse was generously sponsored by MyGaming. There was commentating provided by two “shoutcasters”, observers in the game who set up an audio stream for those not blessed with vision of the in-game action.

It was an online tournament, hosted on the European Battlenet server available to South Africa SC2 players.

– By: TheEconomist

Images of the newest addition to the Sony PSP Go have been released by Qore and on Playstation Lifestyle

Specifications:

• Offical Name – PSP Go

• 3.8″ LCD Screen

• 43% Lighter then PSP-3000

• 16GB Flash Memory

• Memory Stick Micro Support

• BlueTooth Support – HeadSet and Cellphone Support

• All Digital Content (No UMD)

• Slide Out Controls

• Remote Play Support (just like PSP-3000)

So what do you think of Sony’s new baby?

Far Cry 2 is the successor of the well known game from Ubi-Soft; Far Cry which at the time of its release was in a league of its own because of its amazing graphics and, its realistic physics engine named Cry Engine 2.

Story

The game is set in the middle of Africa in an unnamed country, during its civil war. Your objective is to kill the Jackal, who is a notorious arms dealer who has sold weapons to both sides. You begin the game riding in the backseat of a Jeep talking to your driver on the way to the main City, Pala. On the way there you are informed about the war between the Factions, the APR (Alliance for Popular Resistance) and the UFLL (United Front for Liberation and Labour). On the way your screen turns yellow around the edges, things go blurry and you go unconscious. When you wake up you are lying on a bed in an hotel room and there is a man reading your mission briefing out loud and he talks to and throws a machete into the wall above your head and a pistol onto the table next to your bed and slip back into unconsciousness. When you wake up again you find all hell has broken loose and you hear lots of gunfire you get up take the weapons and then once you have escaped the hotel and went unconscious again the tutorial starts.

Graphics

The graphical quality in this game is one of pure beauty the realistic flames, the amazing explosions and character models, they are of such a high standard its amazing. The graphics in this game are amazing and they make the game just that much more realistic.

Sound

The sounds that are made as you run, drive, or glide your way around the jungles and desserts are very good. The gun sounds and noises made while reloading or unjamming the gun are realistic and very good.

Gameplay

The gameplay and story elements of the game are very good but the only problem I have is the fact that the missions you do for the weapon vendor are quite pointless as the convoy just keeps riding around in circles just waiting for you to blow them up. Otherwise it is fun and immersive.

Controls

The controls are good and basically what you would expect from any FPS these days except for the fact that you can slide to cover by holding down the crouch button while sprinting.

Overall

Overall this is an awesome game with really good graphics, music, and controls with good gameplay and story. You will be missing out if you don’t play this.

Story  7.5/10

Graphics 9/10

Sound 8/10

Gameplay 7.5/10

Controls 8/10

Overall 8/10

By Ace Fire6

Mario the plumber is back and this time he takes to the stars to save Princess Peach from the evil Bowser and his son Bowser Jr.

You start the game in the Mushroom Kingdom on the night of the star festival after receiving a letter of invitation from Princess Peach, which tells you to meet her at the castle. On the way there you learn how to collect star-bits, little colourful stars, which are found throughout the game and can be used to stun smaller enemies. You then eventually get to a point where all hell breaks loose and the people of the Mushroom Kingdom are frozen. When you get to the castle you initiate a cut scene in which we see Bowsers airships along with alien spaceships, which take away the whole castle and its foundations with Princess Peach in it. A witch then casts a spell on you which sends you flying across the galaxy only to land on a small planet. This is the start of your great space adventure.

The game uses a system where to go from level to level you go into an “observation dome” and they shoot you (Mario) through space to the galaxy you have chosen. To complete that galaxy one power star must be found. After you have gotten a certain amount of power stars you can fight the boss for each observation dome, which unlocks the next observation dome. All in all you must collect 241 powers stars to fully complete the game.

Overall the game is beautiful, the graphics are amazing and really show what the Wii can do, the sound track blends in wonderfully with each of the settings, and the controls are easy to learn. If you don’t have this game already you must get it, it is a must have for any Wii owner.

Thank you to www.ign.com and www.megatonnews.com for images.

~ Ace Fire6

The long awaited wait has a arrived, after playing the first F.E.A.R defiantly left me wanting more and now it has arrived, now that the sequel F.E.A.R. continues the suspense/horror story of a powerful psychic named Alma, whose rage against those who wronged her caused her to begin an escalating paranormal crisis that threatens to devour and replace reality with her own.

Players will encounter Alma as they explore the city that was annihilated by the cataclysmic explosion of the previous game.

Instead of playing as the Point Man, the game’s protagonist is Michael Becket, a Delta Force operator whose squad is sent in to arrest Genevieve Aristide, approximately thirty minutes before the ending of F.E.A.R.

Game Play

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin is a FPS horror title. It has many elements of both typical FPS titles and action titles.
The game play in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin maintains many of the same elements from the original, including slow-mo combat and enhanced AI.

The AI from the original F.E.A.R. was known for its exploitation of the environments, taking cover behind pillars and knocking down tables. The AI in F.E.A.R. 2 is supposedly set to out-do what was achieved in the first, with even more intelligent AI that is far more challenging and aggressive.

Here is a link, a small sneak peak I found to what you can expect from the sensational game.

It basically shows you the game play/picture quality from the game.

Release dates can be expected from 14 February 2009.