Posts Tagged ‘Reviews’
Mafia 2 review
Illusion has taken seven years to develop this game. It started life being coded for the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2, before being transplanted into a completely new engine. That’s a development cycle from another era, one of patience and money rivers. So, what were you expecting?
Fans of the first game, were you expecting a new story of an innocent, drawn reluctantly into the world of organised crime? Mafia 2 isn’t such a kind creature. Sandbox fans, perhaps you were thinking that seven years in development would lead to an evolution of the first game, building on the original’s linear structure to make a free-roaming speakeasy? Nope – there’s no evolution there, either.
Check our our Mafia 2 gallery here:
Mafia 2 is a faithful sequel. It’s an extremely linear driver and shooter. Does that description lack ambition? Haven’t our expectations been stretched beyond their elastic limit by a decade of "living, breathing cities"? Or can Mafia II be described as the driver genre’s Modern Warfare 2, in terms of outstanding linear set-pieces?
Mafia 2: Background
The game starts with Vito, the lead character, after short-lived adventure of robbing jewellery shops in Empire Bay- a habit that gets Vito arrested and shipped off to fight in World War Two. Dispatched to his homeland of Sicily, he learns how to vault, crouch and throw grenades, and also gets his first taste of the power of the Mafia. Witnessing Don Calo’s persuasive power over the troops, Vito isn’t consumed with ambition – he just seems suitably impressed.
Originally posted on CVG: Mafia 2 review
Vito is a very different person to the first game’s Tommy Angelo. While Tommy was a taxi driver, drawn reluctantly into the Family, with scenes set aside for personal crises, Vito feels like he was born to this life. When asked if he can kill without question or reason, there’s no hesitation. When his early missions catch up with him, he takes to a spell in jail like an angry duck to bloody water. The problem is, Vito never takes any real pleasure out of his actions, either.
Mafia 2: Location
Empire Bay isn’t a big town, but over the opening chapters set in a ’40s winter, and the later episodes set in a leafy ’50s summer, you feel like you’re driving around two different towns. There’s a single mission thread that carries you through the story, and unfolds the areas in their own time. In fact, if you explore too much and you’ll ruin the story’s own unfurling of the city. There are collectibles, in the form of Playboy covers. When you pick one up, these covers flash up immediately, it’s an odd decision to make these ladies, in the middle of missions.
Mafia 2: Missions
The missions you take part in are a mixed bag – Mafia 2 is a fairly short game, so there’s little repetition within the 15 chapters, but it’s all familiar stuff. Tailing cars without getting too close, intercepting a car, and escaping cops – it’s all driving game staples. The driving conversations are good. Occasionally they’re great, but frequently, they’re just, plain good. Joe’s list of chat-up lines is a poor cousin to those of Niko Bellic’s cousin, yet later on, as the game reaches a peak, you finally warm to the amoral bastards you’re working with.
Combat lets you try stealth occasionally, without demanding it of you. When you fight in a group, your colleagues have the slightly imbalancing knack of being both good fighters and nigh invincible.
The weapons, meanwhile, are superbly tactile and effective. The basic pistol and revolver; the precision and power of the Magnum; the knock back and drop down of the shotgun and the inefficient spray of the Tommy gun. Rarely for a game like this, each one became a favourite in its own way.
At times, Mafia 2 all comes together perfectly, and these moments that stick with you. Shooting up a greaser bar in a revenge attack. Dealing with your drunken, vomiting friends in the car when you realise there’s urgent and unsavoury unfinished business in the trunk. Then driving home with them singing hopelessly out of key. These moments have genuine comedy and warmth, and they carry you through the less warm aspects of the game’s characterisation.
Mafia 2: Driving
Driving, as you’d expect from the former Illusion Software, is great. Our preference was to flip between gamepad for driving and mouse and keys for combat, but whatever you use, you’ll find the cars zippier than the first game. They take a while to get to full speed, but once they’re there, you’re almost guaranteed to die when you finally hit something. And thanks to a slightly unforgiving checkpoint system, this could easily throw you back to a point before your last combat mission. So plan your driving trips sensibly, or use the speed limiter. This will also prevent the police from sniffing around your exhaust pipe.
In fact, with guns and ammo being so easy to come by, this is really all you’ve got to spend your money on – tuning up the car, fixing the damage, and adding a filthy number plate. But this isn’t a game about accruing a personal fortune – it’s a game about the unstable fortunes of a risk-taking criminal. Spend it as you get it.
Mafia 2: Music
In an extremely welcome touch, songs are debuted at scripted moments, and then add to the playlist of the three radio stations. The song list isn’t massive, but it’s an outstanding collection: hearing the Andrews Sisters talking about "working for the Yankee dollar", getting told to Straighten Up & Fly Right by the King Cole Trio, or simply listening to the oppressive no-means-yes fantasy of Baby It’s Cold Outside – the music adds more character to the city than the scripted arguments and serenades going on in the back streets.
Mafia 2: Conclusion
For a game that trades so strongly on its people, there are perhaps too many to truly care about, there isn’t a single truly branching event in the game, and only one ending – mean that you resent, more than experience, your betrayals.
2K Czech clearly has a story it wants to tell, so this power is used instead in a number of subtle and throwaway moments. For all their triviality, they’re instantly appealing. For instance, when your drunken passenger says he’s going to be sick, do you stop to let him out? When you report back on your mission which took you through an abattoir and a sewer, will you stop off to buy a change of clothes? Details like this distinguish Mafia 2 as a game that you could actually love, rather than play, but with seven years in the pipeline, there should have been more.
Mafia 2 is 10 hours of driving, story, and extremely competent gun action. Running at top specs, it looks stunning, and if there was a soundtrack album, we’d buy it, but it would’ve been more satisfying to have felt like part of the story more…
Available now for xBox, PS3, PC and DC
Posted by Jon Blyth
BlackBerry App World 2.0 review
The humble BlackBerry was a little late to the apps game, with BlackBerry App World launching last year to offer extra smartphone apps.
That marketplace has grown slowly, still offering far, far less than the 200,000-plus apps of the Apple App Store. But with App World 2.0, RIM hopes to make the whole app-buying process a little easier.
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More on Blackberry:
Blackberry Curve 3G review
Blackberry Pearl 3G review
Blackberry Bold 9700 review
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One of the major gripes with the original platform was the clumsy navigation – the top 25 paid and free apps were in separate places, downloading took up all the device’s processing power and the updates were hard to install.
RIM has made a few tweaks to the UI, but not enough to satisfy: there are now only four tabs (categories, top 25 apps, search and My World) and moving between them is much faster, but the same multiple levels of clicking to simply buy an app still exist.
The biggest improvement comes in the infrastructure surrounding the App World, and here RIM is finally rivalling the iPhone’s App Store.
When first using App World, users are asked to create a BlackBerry ID, which is synchronised with a PayPal account or credit/debit card. From then on, users only need to type in the password to buy a new app, rather than having to log in, then log into PayPal before the download can finally begin.
App updates, sadly, haven’t improved. While there’s an option to see how much internal storage you have left (which is handy) you still need to open every app manually to initiate the update, which is laborious and means most people won’t do it. We would have loved to see an ‘update all’ icon like in the iPhone App Store, or just a more user friendly interface like in the Android Market.
Barcode scanning is also included here, and works pretty well – users can see a 2D barcode (QR code), the phone’s camera is fired up and the BlackBerry deciphers the code and heads to a dedicated website or app in the App World.
Our BlackBerry Bold 9700 could recognise most QR codes with ease, and it will certainly make app advertising easier in the future.
The new BlackBerry App World is a step in the right direction, with a cleaner interface, easier layout and reduction in the amount of steps needed to buy each application. However, the average price of the apps is still a little steep and the selection rather woeful – hopefully with the new BlackBerry 6 OS developers might feel more inclined to create on the BB platform too.
Posted by Gareth Beavis
Best weather apps: The top five
Met Office app
Being the UK’s national meteorological society, you can expect the weather news from them to be about as accurate as you can get, providing the top media organisations with the latest forecasts. Now on iPhone this handy free app unleashes the full knowledge of the Met Office into your palm allowing you to see 5-day forecasts, daily regional and national weather maps, and full radar and satellite imagery. One hefty package considering it’s completely free.
T3 app chart I Best iPhone apps I Download Met Office for iPhone
Weather Bug
Available in different incarnations on Android, BlackBerry and Bada, Weather Bug essentially offers the same features across all the operating systems. Agreed it’s not considered the prettiest of apps but what it lacks in looks it makes up for through sheer data volume. It takes its information from over 8,000 weather stations and 1,000 cameras, compiling one of the most accurate weather readouts you can get displaying the temperature, humidity, wind strength and direction.
T3 app chart I BlackBerry Weather Bug review I Android Weather Bug review I Bada Weather Bug review
Accu Weather
Using your Nokia’s GPS this weather app will find your location and give you a 10-day and night forecast then put it into a graph showing the days weather hour-by-hour. It’s impressive stuff, and despite the long load times it’s a hugely in-depth app that will even show you rain and snowfall predictions plus sky conditions, so for those more active individuals it’s ideal.
T3 app chart I Best Nokia Ovi apps I Accu Weather review
Weather Pro
If you find the standard weather app on your iPhone lacking in that little bit extra oomph then this reasonably priced weather app is for you. Locking onto your location through GPS, Weather Pro then shows you three-hourly updates. What sets this app apart from the others is its level of detail, it’ll give you the wind speed and direction then also the humidity. This again, like the Accu Weather app makes it ideal for outdoor enthusiasts who maybe enjoy the odd bit of sailing, hiking etc.
T3 app chart I Best iPhone apps I Weather Pro review
Accu Weather iPad
Of course we couldn’t forget Apple’s iPad and this is Accu Weather’s stab at giving the tablet a weather app. Straight off, it’s a powerhouse of an application, displaying an impressive two weeks forecasts including: temp, wind, humidity and rainfall. Add to that a full world map showing radar and cloud cover, then a ‘lifestyle’ feature which rates different activities depending on the weather e.g. Dog Walking, Sailing. For £0.59 you’ll be hard pressed to find a better weather app.
Posted by Thomas Tamblyn
Canon IXUS 1000 HS review – hands on video
Celebrating 10-years of its IXUS series, Canon has announced the new 10-megapixel, 10x optical zoom touting Canon IXUS 1000 HS, the world’s smallest camera to host such hefty zoom capabilities at just 22.3mm thick.
Check out the exclusive Canon IXUS 1000 HS review video to the right
Additionally, the top-of-the-line Canon IXUS 1000 HS packs the company’s high-sensitivity HS system, which enables high-end photographs to be captured in low and challenging light conditions.
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Related Links:
- Canon IXUS 1000 and S95 launch
- Canon IXUS 1000 HS pictures
- Canon PowerShot S95 pictures
- Canon EOS 550D review
- Canon PowerShot S90 review
- Canon IXUS 300 HS review: Hands-on pictures
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The IXUS 1000 HS also features super slow motion video recording, as well as the usual run-of-the-mill full HD, 24fps, 1080p video recording capabilities.
Available to buy next month, the pocket camera will set wannabe owners back £349.
Canon has put together a celebratory YouTube video in honour of the occasion – check it out…
Posted by Mark Mayne
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