Now Playing: Fallout 3 (PC)
4 years in the making, Fallout 3 is another installment from the Fallout series created by one of my favorite developers Bethesda Softworks, the makes of the Elder Scrolls series. Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion was easily one of the vast and exciting rpg games till date. Its open world concept is just amazing to get the player involved into the game environment. The characters come to life as you start feeling you are part of that era. The same feeling is transformed into the Fallout 3 game where you play in the ruins of Washington D.C. I still remember the first time you come out of the Vault and see the ruins of Washington for the first time. Wow, you see the D.C tower and the white house far far away still standing tall and rest of all the worlds in ruins. What an thrilling event it is. It is easily one of my most captivated moments in gaming. Well I continue to play this game daily and hope to drive the new Karma gameplay element on seeing how it works. This game is supposed to be even bigger than the last Elder Scrolls game. So expect long gaming hours with this game.

Check trailer below:

Point, Aim, Shoot! That's fun isn't it?
Well...if it is the Call of Duty series, then it is fun and exciting! Thats the story behind its latest part World At War. Well it may be difficult to think how a continuos event like point, click and aim can make a fps game so exciting and not so repititive. Well repititive kept aside, games such as these always set the player up in real war like situations where survival and shooting skills keep you thrilled and going on to be victorious. Thats pretty much the summary of this game where you play 2 roles, one as a russian soldier and the other as the US marine. It is really fun to play both those leads as you always have a central character as your commanding officer leading the way and canvasing the story in front of you. Probably one of the most exciting endings I have played in this game which was hoisting the flag at the german parliament. The world was so detailed and magnificient and it felt so real to be engrossed in that era. All in all a truely masterpiece and this game makes you believe what gamers expect with next gen kicking in. I watched the gameplay footage of Killzone 2 a couple of days ago and boy how good it looked. Probably reasons are accumulating to buy the PS3 finally! Killzone 2 and God of War 3... Wow!

Movin Maze 3D for Iphone & Ipod's goes live on AppStore!

Check out below the gameplay videos and trailers of this game.

Movin Maze 3D Trailer video


Movin Maze 3D Gameplay video



This game is available on Apple AppStore right now!

Suikoden RPG series coming to DS!

I remember playing Suikoden IV for the PS2, a really good Japanese RPG. I really loved the character intensive story driven rpg style of this game.



Something very unique to this game is the number of characters which you will encounter in the storyline. It surely boasts a huge number of unique characters which many rpg games would envy of. It was a really good fun to level up all those characters and play through the storyline. I hope they get the same experience to the handheld. I'm really looking forward to playing this on the DS. I really hope this releases by early next year (something to look up to early next year!), but no release date on this yet :(

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
Highlights of Production: 4 years into Production (2002-2006), released on Mar 21 2006, one of the rare great work relationship between 2K (publisher) and Bethesda (developer), Radiant AI (Bethesda's proprietary AI system), used the Havok engine for physics and Gamebryo for rendering, one of the first games to introduce HDR (High Dynamic Range lighting), used procedural terrain generation techniques, great sound design (the title music composition got the creator a BAFTA award), received RPG of the year award by most game critic websites including Gamespot and IGN.

Well to just judge the production quality that this game has achieved you have gotta play the game in length. When I started playing this game just last month, it struck me what I had missed in the last couple of years (my years of abandoning the PC!), what a great RPG game in the making. Hats of to the team at Bethesda who made this possible. This game got me so involved (still involved, still not completed the game) that it has raised my expectations of what to expect from the upcoming RPG games (DIABLO, anybody listening!).

I have to confess, one of my best game moments came when I first saw the Oblivion Gate at Kvatch. What a visual treat. The sky grew in red color, the sound was threatening me with something evil to come. The moment I was near the gate, I could feel the force the gate was throwing at me. What a great moment it was. Few games could achieve to bring gamers to feel like this.



Well my final review shall come after I finish this game (it is such a huge game). This game has definitely got me excited. This game has one of the best game beginnings I've seen yet. Watch the intro video below. Till then signing out, Ciao.

Have today's strategy games become BIG, HUGE and BULKY?
I was playing Supreme Commander (PC)(Launched in Feb 2007), one of the big sci-fi RTS of recent times, it is then that I realized how big the scope of today's strategy games have become. This game is created by Gas Powered Games, one of my favorite game companies who got us the Dungeon Seige series. I remember when I had played Dungeon Seige (Part 1), I used to love playing this game and used to enjoy the vast landscapes and adventure this game brought to gamers like me. Imagine a vast topography of unexplored land, WOW! that sounded so exciting back then. These guys were used to create large games, games with vast topography and huge content which kept the gamers busy for long hours.

Not that these guys are the only ones making large scope games which take more than 40 hours to complete. You have Bethesda who gave us the Oblivion series, what a great RPG series!

This makes me think, games have come of age and are expected to give more and more large and imemrsive games for us to play. Comparing the games just 3 years back, today's games have lots more to give and lots more to show to gamers like us. When you check out Supreme Commander just look at the amount of strategy content available. We are talking about huge 80km x 80km maps, the smallest being 8km x 8km. These are huge maps to play any game in todays world. Just the sheer size of armies which are under your control would make you nervous but at the same time powerful. Just imagine what kind of army would you create to attack your opponent via Land, Air and Sea. All these types of armies under one keyboard and mouse control, isn't is maddening?? Well it is thouroughly enjoyable, let me tell you that!

So what would BIG, HUGE and BULKY mean to today's games? BIG would definately mean scope, the amount of content which goes into these games is huge. HUGE would mean what kind of power is available at the players disposal. For example, have you had so many options to kill your enemy? Have you had such great intelligence with which your enemy would pounce back? That is HUGE. BULKY would definately mean sheer game size and hardware requirements. Just look at the hardware requirements of Supreme Commander.....it would bring down and good machine to its knees...( no need to discuss Crysis??). Some of these games take more than 6 GB of memory (including of virtual memory). Now that is BULKY!

But at the end of the day these games thouroughly entertains us as gamers. What else do you need when you have so much power to control and ready at your disposal :) I cannot immagine what could games achieve even one year from now! Well we would have to live, play and watch!

Now Playing: Final Fantasy 4 (Nintendo DS)
This is my latest craze nowadays. It is probably one the the best games with a very high production quality. Rarely does the producer's vision goes the down route which most games go nowadays. Look at Assasin's Creed on the DS, a shameful execution in the name of brand realization by Gameloft. But Square Enix is in its league of its own. Always maintaining the highest production quality in their titles. I remember my first PS2 game was Final Fantasy. It left such an everlasting impression upon me. I used to think whether such high production values would be achieved in handhelds? Well this game has just proved me correct and only Square Enix (apart from Nintendo themselves) can achieve such high production vales in their own IP's. Square Enix makes all its profit only from its Final Fantasy series. So does Nintendo from its own first party titles. Such is the power of creating original IP's. Everyone should notice the strengths in creating such original IP's and must not shy away from taking risks. I'm not saying go bankrupt chasing the original IP route, but at least allocate some portion of your effort in trying to create one. I'm sure companies like Nintendo and Square Enix would have stumbled many a times and then succeeded in creating true brand IP power.

Well coming back to the game itself. I'm still just a few hours into playing this game. Died a many times, upgraded the levels of my party, conquered dungeons and killed lots of enemy foes, loved every bit of this fantasy rpg. I shall review this game as soon as I finish it. Till then you can watch the trailer of the game below (this is the opening trailer of the game, so enjoy it):

Mortal Kombat Online Multiplayer is so much fun!!

Playing "Ultimate Mortal Kombat" for the DS is so much fun, especially the online mode. I love playing the online mode and kicking everyone's ass on the internet. It is just so much fun. Well the true story.....I get my ass kicked more from other players online!! But no regrets. The online mode of this DS version is the best I've seen so far from this series. There has never been a more satisfying online multiplayer experience on the DS thank this MK game. It perfectly sets you up with other players online who are just waiting to show of their moves. I have always been a huge fan of the multiplayer online version games available on the DS and this game proves to be on top of my list.

Watch the online Wifi multiplayer experience below:


Well coming back to the experience part, so how does it work? Well simple, you just switch on the game, chose multiplayer option and BANG! you are thrown into the MK world where your opponent is randomly selected. Then comes the player selection screen where you select your favorite player, and then you are into the game! The matches are configured as a normal MK game, 2 rounds = 1 match. After every match your rank is updated online. So in real-time you can track what is your ranking among other players around the world who are playing MK. I'm rated 1988.

The single player campaign is your regular MK 3 title format where you have an option to choose any of the 3 choices, easy, normal and hard category and then fight! The sound effects are top quality, no compromises here. The visual quality though is a little let down considering this is an actual port of the original MK 3 game. No visual improvements here. But no regrets, every downfall in visual is made up by seeing so much BLOOD! The blood effects are in full flow!

After you complete the single player campaign, you have an option to play the Puzzle mode which I'm not a big fan of. I liked to dive into the online mode more often than to play any of the other modes.

Sop if you are an MK fan and want to have a great fighting game on your DS, this game scores on all your requirements. If you want to play a online fighting game on the DS, then this game is a must buy. So keep fighting....FATALITY!

Real-time Ocean Rendering using FFT
Ever wondered how do games render those beautiful oceans in real-time? Well a quick answer would be Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT). These are magic words which allow you to compute some of the best looking water rendering bodies. Have a look at the video below where a ocean was computed using FFT:


FFT is a tricky subject and involves some deep math to understand its concepts. The below article discusses some of the nuances of ocean computation and rendering using FFT.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3036/deep_water_animation_and_rendering.php

The below video shows another example of how FFT is used for ocean rendering:

Finally Finished Manager mode in FIFA 08 (DS) - 5/5 stars!
I finally finished 5 seasons in the manager mode of fifa 08for the ds. This means I finally have achieved 5 out of 5 stars for this feat as a manager! Man I'm thrilled! It has been a very very long 5th season playing as Chelsea but finally I as a manager managed to come second in the EPL charts as well as win the Champions league! So considering there are 38 matches to be played a season and then playing the FA cup, champions trophy every season, the tournament can be very long. A season would cover a average of 50 matches. A normal football match would last for 20 minutes. This means 1000 minutes for an entire season! Which would mean 5000 minutes for 5 seasons....man this was long! But all this was well worth it. I used to play this game while I was traveling to work in the train. It is interesting that I finished 5 seasons playing this game in the train! Thats the power of handheld gaming! I love my DS!

So what do I do next? Well first would stop playing this game as I've exhausted its worth. I want to move on to play a solid RPG game, one of my favorite genres. I have started playing this new rpg game called "The World Ends With You" by Square Enix, the gods of rpg brand makers. So FIFA 08, bye for now!

Nanostray 2 (Nintendo DS)
Why I clocked 20 hrs, got killed more than 100 times, unlocked only 4 planets, and still want to play this game?



OK, at first glance it seems I really cannot play old-school games with mechanics only pros could master. It would also seem that I really should probably quit playing this game and move on to another. But I disagree to both these conclusions. Nanostray 2 is my first game in this series. I enjoyed this game for all the hours that I've clocked in this game. Absolutely love the boss fights so far. But the main problem why I just cannot proceed to explore the game further is the problem of Game Saves. I have read a lot of complaints about the game saving in this game. It could have been a little more structured and easy for the current generation of gamers to pick up and play this game. Rather the developers stuck to making it very hard and not giving any worthy save game features in this game. I agree that this game is probably for the old-school kind type gamers but hey giving good save options would not have harmed it in any ways!

Well moving from my crib about the game's saving mechanism, one thing I must admit about this game - It is damn addictive! I just cannot stop playing this game. The ego really hurts when I'm playing this game. Why the hell I cannot win this level without losing any lives???

This game gives the player 5 lives + 3 Continues option which makes the total lives in the game to be 15 ( 5 lives x 3 continues). And then add the 1Ups which you might get if you are really good. So this game expects that with 15 lives at stake you should complete the 8 odd planets in this game. Piece of Cake huh? Well not easy as it may sound. The game is designed to be old-school which means get ready for tough gameplay mechanism. Screw up even once the game will really punish you and take away your precious life.



The game's 3D graphics is a stunner. The developers of this game have really done a great job of getting constant 30fps rendering in full 3D with all the crazy effects in this game. Not once does it stutter while playing the levels. The 3D boss fights are really cool considering the gameplay mechanisms for all enemies (including the bosses) is still 2 dimensional.

A special mention should be given to the games sound effects. It is clean, fast and really delivers the chaos very well. I was really drawn into the chaos with all the enemies shooting at me from all directions, thanks to the excellent sound composition.

The game does support 2 player mode over local Wifi but NO online multiplayer. I would have really liked to play this game online. But hey they do have online rankings where you can upload your score. This scoring chart really motivates to not keep down this game. Thats a great plus point for today's online games.

I like the D-pad input mechanism in this game. Probably it may also be the reason why I struggle to play this game. The D-pad controls does get a little sluggish at times. This is where this game scores by have 3 different control schemes which includes the touch screen controls. I'm not a fan of the touch screen controls as it really gets tough while you play the games for long hours. Another problem with the touch screen controls for this game is that it obstructs your view of the game which might cost you a lot of lives! But nonetheless with these small short comings the gameplay experience is not hampered much.

The cut-scenes in this game are really done well. Full in-game 3D cut-scenes really gets you into the game. This really conveys the little planet background really well. Also the introduction to the bosses really pumps you up to kill those mean machines.

Some Level design facts. It seems the levels for this game was completely designed in Maya in full 3D using a level editor toll called ComplexEd. You can ready about the level design tool at the below link:
http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?publicUserId=5900765&bId=8527057




So why do I still crib and at the same time want to finish this game? Well I'm a great fan of the online ranking system. I love to get my number up there at the top considering the whole world is a level playing field for ultra egos to act. So Keikan here I come!

Watch the trailer of the game below:

Why I clocked more than 90 hours of FIFA 08 on my DS?
Well for the stat enthusiast I have clocked more than 90 hours of this game on my DS!! My day starts with me getting up, getting ready, I get out my building to goto work. This is when I get out my DS and start playing FIFA 08. I spend 15 minutes playing this game in the auto rickshaw (the famous Indian transport!). After that I reach the railway station and continue to play through the train journey (about 30 minutes). This is just one way! I play for the same mount of time while I return from work too!

I have completed playing full 3 seasons in the manager mode (38 matches per season + 2 extra tournaments per season which has about 15 matches). I just love playing the manager mode in FIFA 08. I have about 3000 points scored so far and my start rating is 3/5. Isn't that cool! OK, thats enough of boasting, lets get down to the facts about why I play it so much? Is the game actually fun and engaging the player for such a long time? Well the answer is definite yes! The game play mechanic is non stressful and offers so much in variety. I have never felt bored playing so much of football. Every match I play feels unique. My main motivation comes from the manager mode. I just love to be at the top and get to the 5 star rating. I have earned 3 star rating so far in my manager mode journey. To get to 5 starts I need to play at least 3 times more the time I have clocked so far in this game. So a very long time to go, but I'm determined!

How is the AI you think? Well it gives the player what I call variety and excitement. The AI is not that brilliant and it has its own share of issues but hey who cares. It still entertains me every time. I think the main excitement during the game play is its tendency to shift balance of game play smartly whenever it recognizes that I'm winning or losing. Also if a player hits a bad shot at the target, 8 out of 10 times it will hit the cross bar rather than hitting the crowd. This really gives the wow feeling when you mistime the shot.

So the time I reach the 5 star rating I shall announce again! Till then lets kick some ass to get to that rating! Common Chelsea! Move it!

Hardware acceleration Vs Software rendering on mobile
At a recent show floor, the world got to see what hardware accelerated chipsets can do against CPU based software rendering counterparts. They showed off a simple example showing of the hardware accelerated N95 versus the software rendering on N81. It seems the FPS on N81 (s/w rendering) was 2 whereas on the N95 (h/w accelerated) it was 60! Look for yourself at the below video:

Microsoft Excel's 3D Engine???
Thats right! I recently read a article on gamasutra that excel has a powerful 3d engine build within its software. It is capable of doing fast matrix calculations too! Read the full article at the below link:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3563/microsoft_excel_revolutionary_3d_.php

Look at the video below:

Want Realtime Radiosity Lighting in your game?
The answer is Geomerics Enlighten technology. It is a lighting library which easily integrates with your game and gives the artist or the creative director the power of lighting for your game. It is one of the kind of lighting systems available for your game. Watch the amazing video demonstration below:

APX 2500: Nvidia's latest offering for the mobile platform
Their newest offering for the mobile platform, the APX 2500 chipset. It boasts of a 720p output video streaming. The video demo shown of the platform. It also contains the "Siege" demo showing of its 3D capabilities. The same demo was used to show off their 4500 and 5500 chipsets. Watch the video demo below:

Video tutorials for learning Opengl programming
I found a great site which has free video tutorials to learn Opengl programming. Check this site for these great tutorials.
Link: http://www.videotutorialsrock.com/index.php

How would you like Starcraft for DS?

I would love to play Starcraft on the DS. Bu the real question is "Is Blizzard working on a DS port?". Well if not Blizzard the homebrew community has started working on this. I just saw a recent video showcasing footage from the game playable on the DS. Though I would love to see Blizzard making an official one for the DS, but hey I would not mind a homebrew one! Go on guys, make homebrew proud!

Assasin's Creed Deja Vu Prince Of Persia?
Yes Indeed. You can easily be mistaken for Assasin's Creed to actually be Prince Of Persia. Perhaps more closer to the darker prince like the one in Warrior Within. The game play in this game makes you feel like you are in one of the the POP games. I have enjoyed playing the Prince of Persia series on the PS2 and I tell you this game on the DS is as much fun as the one on the PS2. Only for the name of the game which is actually Assasin's Creed. Sorry to be repeating myself so much about the similarity between the two games, but I really can't help it!
Anyways, the graphics quality of the game could have been better compared to the quality of the other games on the DS. But I liked the ambiance it created with the awesome sound effects. The sound in this game is really well adapted to the game play of this game.
There is no online play on this game. The game is a very short single player campaign game. It lasted for about 6 to 8 hours of game play time. Which is not all that bad compared to a handheld game. I did enjoy the puzzles in the game. But definately not the combat. The combat is so repetitive and boring. All you have to do is press X and Y repeatedly to win the battles. The combat is the biggest disappointment of this game. I really wished if they could do a better job with the combat for this game.
All in all a very dull and average package. It just looked as if they just had to release a Assasin's port onto the DS and hence they just ported a cheap imitation of a POP style game onto the DS. I really hoped for this game to be better but I feel sad it is just another victim of the famous launch date and milking the brand extension on a different platform.

Now playing: Assasin's Creed (Nintendo DS)
I'm currently playing this wonderful game, a DS port of last years 360 game by Ubisoft. This game is made by the same team which gave you Brother's in Arms for the DS last year. The technology used in this game looks impressive. They have used the same engine which was used to render Brother's in Arms. I shall give my play experience after I finish this game. Till then watch the IGN's review (IGN rating: 7.0 out of 10) of this game below:

Is playing an RPG game fun?

Well if you ask me a simple straight forward answer, it would be a definitive YES. So what makes a RPG game fun? Well to me the main element of an RPG game is its character building system. A lot of games allows the gamer to experience playing the role of the protagonist, but only a RPG game would allow you to build up the character step by step and living the growth. This is what makes the entire experience fun. Another very important aspect of a good RPG game is its story telling capability. It really gets you involved into the whole mood of the story which is being portrayed to immerse the player into the game's environment. No other game genre does it better than a RPG game. I've always enjoyed playing a lot of good RPG games and all the games did have both the character building system and a very strong storyline.

My recently last RPG game which I played was "Children Of Mana" for the Nintendo DS. I really loved the game! When I think back to wonder, what made the game fun, the first thing that comes to my mind would be building the different characters and spirits in the game. It was really a lot of fun to choose different spirits and team up to go on a journey together. The story was very simple yet exciting to live to story. The game received not very good reviews because of its very loose character building system, but I did feel the system was not bad either. I really enjoyed it.

I still remember my first RPG game, Final Fantasy for the PS2. What a game that was. It was my first shot at attempting to playing a rpg game. I really loved the complex character building system. Remember the sphere character building system the game had. man was it complex! The Final Fantasy series has always been known for its fantasy story telling. I guess that what made the series so enjoyable and it is still going strong.

A lot of gamers have taken up playing Online RPG's. So what is the fun element playing a online RPG game one might ask? Well in the online persistent world you get to meet a lot of different characters just like you who are part of this wonder full RPG world. Also the aspect of making groups and then going through the journey of the story of the game also makes it very interesting. The other main point would also be the unpredictable outcomes of an online RPG game. So many different characters can change the way the persistent world might behave. This itself fascinates me to play the game!

So give it a shot, play a good RPG game which suites your style of play. I'm sure there is something for everyone to experience in playing a RPG game.

Is Software dying? Are web-based tools the new revolution?
Did you realize that we are using more and more web-based tools for all our daily needs of software dose? We are using messenger service for chatting, google's office tools which includes word and excel software, Apple's Itunes, and more!. Interestingly today's web browsers act like a complete Operating system. It provides all the facilities like graphics, sound capabilities, web based software, which in today's world which commands desktop software.

So if you ask yourself, are you ready to be totally online? Well the answer would not be a total yes. People have not taken to the online experience of doing work completely. Though the rate is increasing and a lot of people are working on online based tools, it is still far away than it the realty seems. It could still be a couple of years before the desktop would drown to its origin. To back this theory, according to NPD group, it seems the sales of Office 2007 was double than that of Office 2003. The success of Office 2007 can stand as a testimony to todays Microsoft's dominance in the desktop software space.

The big guys have taken notice to the users who prefer working online. Microsoft has never encouraged developing online versions of their office tools. Instead they have gone ahead and embraced the online experience via its "Live" service. The Live feature is incorporated in its Office tools to give benefits of working in the online space. Microsoft has also launched its Silverlight technology (vector based tool similar to adobe flash). Adobe has gone ahead and build online version of its software like "Premier". Though very limited, it still provides enough features for people to use it.

Even the mobile space is not left far behind. Though not comparable to the power of web browser tools, the mobile software still allows the users to blog, download videos and audio, edit office documents, skype, etc. When you compare the speed of a mobile and a desktop work station, both cannot be compared as the difference is pretty huge (comparing CPU speed and RAM capacity). The convergence of mobile and desktop will happen and it is only a matter of time when the average user will have just a single device for all the needs.

So is software dead? Well the desktop still has a couple of years to ring in its death knell, but it will just transform itself into a new avatar to take on the users expectations.

Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword (Nintendo DS)
This is one of the most awaited DS games for 2008. It is releasing in the month of March 08. The game is been developed by "Team Ninja" the same team which gave you the Ninja Gaiden series on the XBOX. Ninja Gaiden series is known for its fast slick action packed gameplay mechanism. Seeing glimses of the gameplay videos which I have seen, there is no doubt in my mind that this game is going to rock! Watch the gameplay in action in the video below:

Manager mode Fifa...Here I come...
What a amazing mode!! I'm thoroughly enjoying playing the manager mode on Fifa 08 for the DS. I'm ranked 6th (well fell to 8th today :( ) in the local rankings. What keeps me going in this mode is the complete "Prestige" points system. It is so well done. They reward you for everything you do in the game. Be it hitting the goal post, coming back from the back to winning the game, winning continuous 3 games in a row, doing counter-attack well, etc. Just think of a reward and they throw it at you. Thats what keeps me going. All these prestige points allows you to increase the rank of your club. There are 5 stars which you can earn, you start with 0 stars. You need to earn 100 prestige points to earn 1 star. So it really pushes you to play well and play the entire season a couple of times to get your ranking start up. I still haven't finished one season and I still have to earn 50 more points to get my first star. I'm really enjoying clocking a lot of my time playing this mode. I do hope to win the season by finishing at least in the top 5. Time will tell!

Rag Doll Physics

Ever wondered what are the various types of implementation methods for Rag Doll physics. Have a look at the below video demonstration!



To know more about Rag Doll techniques, read the wiki article below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragdoll_physics

PES 2008 (Nintendo DS)

Just checked out some info on the upcoming PES (for all those noobs, PES means Pro Evolution Soccer :0 )game for the DS. I was very disappointed with the earlier version of the PES DS game. I hope the latest version makes up for all the short comings of the earlier versions. I'm really enjoying player EA's FIFA 2008 on my DS. It would really take up some work to shake me up to leave FIFA and play PES on my DS. Will review the PES game as soon as I get my hands on it. Till then watch the gameplay footage of PES 2008 for the DS below:

MMORPG on Nintendo DS?

Surprised? Not really. I always thought the Nintendo DS could be a perfect platform to embrace MMOG (Massively Online Multiplayer Games). It can wirelesly connect to the internet and voila! you can be gaming in a MMOG persistent world! The PC is the only platform which has successfully embraced the MMOG culture. Others are trying to get into the act. Mobiles have already started to get into this space, and so have the consoles. So why not the DS? It has taken the DS platform 4 long years to get its first MMORPG game. The game is an adaptation of the popular free PC 2D MMORPG game called "Maple Story".


Well still old news, this was announced in E3 2006. The game is been developed by a Korean company and will be released in September 2008. Can't wait to play this game! Considering the official DS Lite launch in Korea is going to happen on the 18th of Jan 08, this game is going to shake up the Korean gaming space. Koreans have already made this game a big hit on the PC. This game is supposed to have a very huge subscriber base.



In a recent interview, Stephen Lee (CEO of Nexen, publisher for the game on DS) said that the game will not be a MMORPG game. It is more focused on a single player campaign with a local multiplayer focus. The game will have though a multiplayer component but the details of those were not discussed. Speculation is that the game could extend itself into the online space to allow complete persistent world capabilities.



Also it seems Ragnorok, another popular MMORPG game, is releasing around the same time as Maple Story. So it is going to be exciting to play both these games considering the rich multiplayer history behind these games.

So when can we expect this game to release outside Korea? Well the Korean developer has said that it has plans to release this game outside Korea, but there are no definite dates against these claims. So we'll have to wait and watch.

Fifa 08 (Nintendo DS)

By far the best football game on the DS. I've played Pro Evo on the DS and I must say it is a very big dissapointment. This latest game from EA comes loaded with online multiplayer! Now how cool is that! I play regularly online with my DS and this game definately is going to keep me engaged for a long time. The latency is very minimal(almost negligible) and I must say the experience is very good. If you are a football fan out there, go play Fifa 08 online on the DS immediately!

This game though suffers from graphics polishing. They could have pushed the technology a little bit more considering what other games on the DS are able to pull off. But I must say the gameplay makes up for all of this. The gameplay is very good which makes the game even more interesting when played online. The controls ia very simple (no touch screen controls for movement though :( ). But hey I'm enjoying playing this game using the D-pad. The replay mode is very cool. It packs in all the functionality of its console counterparts. I could see my goal hitting skills from any direction in the replay mode.

The camera is also set very nicely which covers almost 40% of the ground at any point of time which is very good. This aspect is very important in a football game as you need to know where your other players are on the field.
The sound is a special mention as they have packed in quite a bit of commentary in this game. Also the sountracks are very cool. The ball hitting effects are very well done too.

The penalty shoot-outs are my favorite as all the controls are on the touchscreen. I was playing this game online where I went into penalty shoot-outs and I must say that because of the the touch screen controls I could save the game! This implementation of the penalty shoot-outs is the best ever for any football game. The controls makes it very intuitive.

A special mention should go to the AI. The AI in this game is very good. I started this game with very low expectations, but this game has proved me wrong. With great AI and online multiplayer, this game is a must play for all footbal crazy fans.

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Dementium: The Ward (Nintendo DS)

This game is easily one of the sharpest and best looking game on the DS. The others who can join this list would be Metroid Prime Hunters and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. All these games on the DS are stunning!

The graphics power behind these games are awesome. Dementium won IGN's "Best Graphics Technology" award for the DS platform. That clearly states what kind of game this is. The flashlight rendering in this game is amazing and is one of the best tricks one could pull out on the DS.

I have also played other games like Brother's in arms and Call of Duty for the DS, but they do not seem to push the technology like the way this game does. The closest competitor to this game would be Metroid Prime. But do remember the team behind Metroid Prime, Nintendo Technology Group, a internal developer for Nintendo. Hats of to the team behind Dementium for pulling such a graphically stunning looking game on the DS. It is easily my technology favorite for the DS.

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