Review Games DIRT3

Publisher: Codemasters Developer: Codemasters Studios Genre: Racing Release Date: N Amer - 05/11/24 Platforms: PC PlayStation 3 Xbox 360   Rating Pending

 

It’s sometimes easy to dilute a racing game to its basic core. Gran Turismo and Forza can be reduced to a “gas, break, and turn” concept, for example. But making a racing title that is more than middle generics is a skill that developers have to mine and exploit. Enter Dirt 3, the latest in the franchise and a game that hopes to adequately bridge the gap between the first game and the second.
For those who don’t remember, the original Dirt was a simulation-heavy rally car racing game. The sequel pushed the game in an “XTREME” stylistic direction, and it was criticized for an overly strong arcade feel. Dirt 3 aims for a fine line between the two. With Dirt 3’s new focus on reaching a middle ground between the technicality of the first game and the rush of the second, the game feels new.

The most important addition is the element of gymkhana. A style of extreme drift racing, gymkhana is a secondary focus of the traditional rally car racing, sending specially built cars sliding left and right through specialized trick courses. It would be an understatement to say that gymkhana is only a small part of Dirt 3; rather, it’s an integral component of the game.
For example, the actual physics have been completely changed to better suit this style of driving. Rally cross has never been a racing genre known for solid grip and control, but Dirt 3 takes this drifting mechanic to the extreme. Normal races have cars flinging themselves back and forth across the course, while gymkhana has specially designed ones that can control better while drifting than they can in a straight line.

Multiplayer is a big focus of the game, and Dirt 3 has some of the most unique modes available. First and foremost, the traditional online and split-screen races will be immensely popular for rally cross aficionados. This isn’t just limited to the traditional races, taking place everywhere from snowy Finland, the downtown Los Angeles Coliseum, sunny Kenya, and all across the world.
Trailblazer sends cars down undefined racing tracks, while other races focus on custom-designed off-road trucks. There’s enough variety in the basic racing mode, with the various weather (snow is new), race types, the 100+ tracks and the multitude of cars to keep racing fans happy.

Since gymkhana is a major new addition to Dirt 3, multiplayer will heavily integrate into this mode. Firstly, a two-player competitive mode includes brightly colored pylons, Styrofoam blocks, and drifting areas that reward players for their specialized tricks. This is basically a score attack mode requiring two players to outdo each other in gymkhana tricks.
Gymkhana also makes an appearance in the more competitive multiplayer modes. At least three of these modes place up to eight players in an arena, allowing them to slip, slide, drift, spin, and smash around in a small, enclosed area. Outbreak is a mode in which the drifting arenas will have cardboard pop-ups of robots and city buildings. Up to eight players can race, knocking over robots while avoiding the buildings. It’s a fun mode, one that gets chaotic with all 8 players.

Finally, there’s Transporter, a gymkhana version of capture the flag. Four teams of two have to race around the stages to collect a flag. Once these are collected, all it takes for another player to steal the flag is to ram into you, so once eight cars are piled up in a mess, the flag will jump from player to player. If players can get the flag to a drop-off location, they earn a point.
The multiplayer experience of Dirt 3 looks solid and enjoyable. The hardcore and realistic modes have traditional racing and standard gymkhana tracks, but once you add the arena modes in multiplayer, things can go crazy. With Dirt 3 coming out May 24, it’s only a matter of time before players can make the experience their own.

 

16 dead in Malaysia orphanage landslide

The death toll from a landslide caused by heavy rains that hit a Malaysian orphanage has risen to 16, police said Sunday, announcing the search operation was over.
The incident took place at around 2:30 pm (0630 GMT) Saturday at the Children's Hidayah Madrasah Al-Taqwa orphanage in Hulu Langat, just south of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
A policeman at the scene said 16 bodies had been recovered, including a 34-year-old caretaker. The ages of the others killed ranged from eight to 19 years old.
"The search and rescue operation is over. We have completed our mission," said a police officer at the scene, who did not want to be named.
Villager Mohamad Azam, 38, said: "The last four bodies were taken out at about 5:30 am.
"I know some of the boys. They are very good boys. They recite their prayers early in the morning every day."
Ten people remain in hospital.
Landslides are regular natural disasters in Malaysia and the government has imposed strict rules with regards to hillside development.
In one of the country's worst landslips, a huge mudslide brought on by heavy rain triggered the collapse of a 12-storey residential building on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in December 1993, killing 48 people.

DIRT3 COMING 25 MAY 2011....

Coming 2011, DiRT 3 will boast more cars, more locations, more routes and more events than any other game in the series, including over 50 rally cars representing the very best from five decades of the sport. With more than double the track content of 2009’s hit, DiRT 3 will see players start at the top as a professional driver, with a top-flight career in competitive off-road racing complimented by the opportunity to express themselves in Gymkhana-style showpiece driving events.
As players race to elevate their global standing, DiRT 3 delivers mud, sweat and gears world over: from the intense weather-beaten rally stages of Europe, Africa and the US, to executing performance driving showcases and career challenges where car control is pushed to spectacular limits. DiRT 3 is now in development at Codemasters Studios for a 2011 release for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and PC Games For Windows® LIVE.

Games Review BRINK

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Developer: Splash Damage Genre: First-Person Shooter, Platformer Release Date:  05/10/17 Platforms: PC PlayStation 3 Xbox 360   Rating Pending

 

It’s a unique mash. If you were to combine the first-person parkour of Mirror’s Edge with the class-based object shooter Team Fortress 2, you would get Splash Damage’s Brink. Published by Bethesda and a few years undertow, this colorful shooter is finally ready to fall into the hands of gamers. But is it worth your top dollar?
If you’re a fan of objective-based shooters, then yes. You won’t find any traditional death match modes or control point missions. Instead Brink tasks players with taking on the roles of soldiers, medics, engineers and operatives to complete objectives. With a story entirely integrated within the multiplayer experience, the single-player and multiplayer are one and the same. Those looking for a pronounced solo experience should not turn to Brink. However, if you’re comfortable working and communicating with other players, it’s time to get excited.
But first some business. Have you ever heard the saying “Show, don’t tell?” I’m of the opinion that video games should take this a step further with the motto “Do, don’t show.” When someone boots up a game, regardless of whether or not they’ve read the manual, it should introduce the mechanics in a slow and understandable manner.
Unfortunately, Brink is all about showing gamers how to play. When you first start the game and have to pick a side (no real difference exists initially), Brink asks players if they would like to watch the training videos to explain the mechanics of the game. If you say yes, you’ll be rewarded with 1000 free experience points, but these videos each take ten minutes to watch. Who wants to do that instead of jumping into the game?

Part of the problem rests with Brink’s absent single-player campaign. Sure, players are recommended to play through the different missions on the security and the resistance sides using bots, and that’s kind of cool (although it’s much easier and more fun with other players). However, these campaigns can be played cooperatively and with real-life players joining the other side. Since the game is basically open from the get-go, the game provides very little guidance on how to play because you aren’t exposed to any training. There are no tutorial levels (other than some ignorable challenge modes). Just pick up and go.
While that makes the game sound largely negative, the whole experience changes once everything clicks and players understand the UI, the goals, and how classes work. By paying attention to the lengthy training videos, you’ll gain some insight into the four different classes and the three different weight classes.  Soldiers are the explosives masters, who set charges to blow up barriers and bridges. They can also send supplies to other players. Medics provide a healing and revival role (perfect for escort missions), and they increase the health of other players.
Engineers are the defensive class (and my favorite). Able to place mines and turrets, they improve the damage potential of their teammates and remove explosives and hack boxes set by the other team. The operatives are the spy class, who disguise themselves as enemy players and hack turrets and objective devices. With the running and gunning, each class plays exactly the same, but the different abilities makes it important to have an appropriate team of squad mates designed for a particular objective—be it hacking a box, escorting a hostage, or destroying an obstacle. It’s a balanced scheme, and as you unlock more abilities and items, the class dynamic becomes much more essential.

One of the few elements that causes players to react differently are the three weight classes. Starting out with the medium build, players unlock heavy and light builds as they level up. Besides the hundreds of clothing and facial customizations, picking a build has a major impact on the game. The medium build is standard, a middle of the road run-and-gun. The heavy can take more damage and use heavier weapons, but he’s slower and can’t vault over many walls. The light build dies after a few shots and can only hold the lighter guns; however, they can straight-up parkour around the levels.
Called the SMART system, by holding a trigger, players can enter a sprint that automatically sends them up and over obstacles. The light builds are especially fast, and they can wall run around the stages, swapping health for speed and the ability to traverse levels in a way that may seem impossible. Thankfully, challenge courses are meant to force the player to explore the extant of free-running in Brink, and are areas that many players are bound to exploit.
As mentioned, playing by yourself is a pointless exercise. The single-player missions are a replica of the multiplayer missions, and Brink has been designed from the ground up to get players to interact with each other. When it’s good, it’s really good—with players communicating their separate missions goals and trying out creative applications of the class abilities, such as masquerading as an enemy character to steal a suitcase before sprinting back to base or dropping a turret on top of the enemy’s defenses to double-team opponents while a partner takes care of the objective. When the game is bad, you usually have a team of bots and players with no idea what the hell they’re doing, and once everyone comes together, the experience can get heated. Unfortunately, since I was playing prior to launch, some connection and lag issues did come up, but a Day One patch promises to smooth over any lingering issues.

Brink has a story, but it’s barely any better than Team Fortress 2’s odd plot about competing construction companies, and the little random audio logs that players collect do little to explain matters. There’s this Ark. It’s a lovely place, all snowy white and floating about in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. While at first it’s home to scientists and wacky celebrities, by the time 2045 rolls around, the whole world has flooded due to global warming, bringing with the tide a few stragglers hoping for safety. These “guests” are now looking for a way to return to the outside world, while the founders of the Ark insist they are all that remain.
Honestly, while the plot is potentially compelling, it’s so bland and non-existent in the actual game that it can be outright ignored. The absolute lack of women in Brink is a curiosity worthy of discussion, but we’ll leave that for another time.
The bare-bones plot leads to two basic level themes: shipyard ruins and electric blue and white resort areas. In all technicality, you can only play a limited number of stages, which round out to about eight. If you play through the game on the resistance side (completing resistance-focused objectives), when you jump over to the security forces, it’s the exact same levels, only from the alternate perspective. It’s much less of a problem than you would think (this never cost a comparable game like Left 4 Dead sales), but it left me itching for more levels, especially ones that could better flesh out the world of the Ark. Hopefully the requisite DLC is substantial and not overpriced.
Besides the parkour elements, Brink has a lovely visual style reminiscent of Mirror’s Edge, which is nice to see. The character models themselves are very distorted, with long limbs and stretched faces. These are some ugly dudes, but after a while their appearance better fits the game, and players will have a great time decking them out.
Ultimately, it comes down to what players will be playing hours and hours with their friends. Like Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 before it, Brink is a multiplayer game plain and simple, and going about it solo completely defeats the purpose it was made for. Jump in, meet some people, and work hard to tear apart the mechanics and goals of the game. Brink offers an incredibly satisfying multiplayer experience. Playing any other way is not worth your time.

 

REVIEW GAMES : Operation Flashpoint: Red River

Operation Flashpoint: Red River for PC Publisher: Codemasters Developer: Codemasters Studios Genre: First-Person Shooter, Shooter Release Date:04/19/11 Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

 

The brutal new chapter in the world-renowned, multi-million selling franchise, Operation Flashpoint Red River takes the tactical military shooter to new levels of intense authenticity. On a deadly new battlefield where one bullet can kill, Operation Flashpoint Red River brings gamers closer to the experience of the US Marine Corps on campaign than ever before.
Operation Flashpoint Red River delivers a very personal experience of infantry Marines on mission in a hostile country thousands of miles from home. Dispensing with corny heroics, corridor gun-play and unrealistic set pieces, players deploy real life tactics in a range of new scenarios and against new enemies. The tension, brutality and carnage of modern warfare is intense as players feel the rush of adrenaline that comes when it’s time for Marines to ‘get some’!
Players embark on a full expeditionary campaign set in the remote yet beautiful country of Tajikistan. A fictional conflict with contemporary geopolitical themes unfold over three distinct acts, presenting unique challenges which can be experienced in both single player and co-operatively by up to four players online. Empowered with the real life freedom of fireteams to take on objectives on their own initiative, players must think on their feet and act decisively as they take on determined, adaptive and reactive enemies. From the unpredictable chaos of close-quarters insurgency warfare to holding defensive positions against the full might of the Chinese PLA, players tackle the wide-ranging threats Marines face, with the assets of one of the world’s leading super powers at their disposal. It’s as close to war as players will ever want to get. 

Credit : PCGAMEZONE

Harry Redknapp and his Tottenham Hotspur players are suitably impressed with progress at the club's new training facility, opening in 2012. 

 

Manager Redknapp, together with members of the first team and coaching staff, viewed the pitches and buildings under construction at a 71-acre plot in Bull's Cross, Enfield.

The complex will have 10 natural grass pitches and one synthetic pitch, complete with undersoil heating.

Building work on a two-storey training centre is also under way.

It will include fitness and medical facilities, a gym, swimming pool, as well as dining lounges and a media centre.

"Absolutely fantastic," Redknapp said.

"What a facility for players to come and work in every day and for young players who are thinking about coming to Spurs."

"You won’t find a better training facility than this anywhere."

"It’s got everything a player would need - top-class facilities and fantastic pitches."

"Hopefully we can create a great atmosphere around the place when we move here to match the facility."

Centre-back Michael Dawson feels the state-of-the-art training ground is set to match Tottenham's on-field improvement in recent seasons.

“It’s fantastic," Dawson said.

"It’s still a year away from being finished, but when you look at the plans and you see it already taking shape, you know it’s going to be special."

"We’re a top team and we need top facilities, and it will all be here, and the players are going to benefit from it."

Ronaldo savours scoring success

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo has paid tribute to his team-mates after breaking the La Liga goal-scoring record on Saturday. 

 

The Portugal star was on the scoresheet twice, taking his season tally to 40, as his side romped to an 8-1 thrashing of the relegated Almeria.

Ronaldo's tally bettered the 38 goals scored by Hugo Sanchez (1989/90) and Telmo Zarra (1950/51).

"The only reason I have scored so many goals is because of my team-mates and I am extremely appreciative. The Pichichi (Trophy) is for them and the fans," Ronaldo, 26, said.

"I am generous with my team-mates and they are generous with me. I wouldn't have scored 40 goals in La Liga without them."

No player has won consecutive Pichichi Trophies since Sanchez won four in a row from 1984/85 to 1987/88.

But Ronaldo did not rule out matching his feat and said he was delighted the team finished the season with such a big win.

"We are happy to end this season in this fashion. It isn't easy to score 102 goals, so hats off to my team-mates," he said.

"The coach wanted to end the season with a lot of goals in order to start the next one with ambition and we did."

"It will be hard to score this many goals again, but nothing is impossible and I will work hard to do it."

Assistant coach Aitor Karanka hailed Ronaldo for his season.

"Cristiano Ronaldo's numbers are astounding. He is talented, strong and ambitious. He broke the record because he is simply amazing," he said.

credit: Stadium astro

Racists will die a natural death

Dr Chris Anthony

I agree with PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim's  stand that the Sedition Act and the Internal Security Act should not be used against Ibrahim Ali, the leader of Malay right-wing group Perkasa, for calling for 'jihad' against the Christians, which is indeed a serious incitement that could lead to chaos in the country. Nobody should be charged under these two suppressive laws which should not be there in the first place in this modern era. There are enough civilized laws to deal with such people who incite hate among the races.There is no question that the government should take stern action against such people without fear or favor to maintain the existing peace and harmony in the country.   However what is more important is for the people to reject such people who are the real traitors to the nation, pitting one race against another. After 54 years of living together, understanding and respecting each other’s differences, we should be mature and wise enough to reject people who are out to sow the seeds of hatred in our midst. The vast majority of Malaysians of all races are indeed peace loving people who want to go about in peace together struggling to make ends meet. Why should we allow trouble makers to disrupt our harmonious living as fellow Malaysians? The government that pledges 1Malaysia must put a stop to these irresponsible people. Unfortunately it is not doing so for obvious reasons and we must reject it just as we should reject people who incite ethnic hate. As responsible and mature citizens we must reject racism in any form and anyone who may promote it regardless of their political or racial status. We must support any one and any party that vows to fight racism. Fortunately such public utterances of racial incitements of late by irresponsible politicians is in fact having a positive effect as it seems to be desensitizing the people to such racial incitements. People at large are not aroused to take up arms against fellow citizens of different ethnicity. This shows the maturity and wisdom of the people in general which are the only ‘weapons’ that we have to free our beloved nation from the grip of racist people. Anwar correctly pointed out that "Jihad does not mean the killing of Christians and Muslims", but includes acts of fighting corruption by any means. This should be the stance of true leaders who mean well for the nation and the people. They should stand firm in the defense of the people despite the odds against them. Killing others, depriving them of their rights because of the color of their skin or the faith they profess is never right in any religion. A leader who does not stand up against these basic human principles does not deserve the support of the people and should be rejected outright. Whether those who promote racism flourish or die off depends on the people. If the people support them they flourish if they reject them they will die a natural death. So let us decide whether to support or ignore them.

Something fishy in Bank Islam-Muamalat merger?

KUALA LUMPUR, May 20: Another bailout? This is the question summing up concerns by PAS vice president Salahuddin Ayub over the merger proposal between Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad and Bank Muamalat, involving tax payers’ money. “I am afraid this is another bailout that has been the unhealthy culture in our country and which continues to burden the people,” he told the media yesterday. Salahuddin (pic) argued that the merger idea might be mooted to rescue Bank Muamalat, which was rumoured to be in trouble, at the expense of Bank Islam, adding that his suspicioun was fuelled by absence of any official statements from Bank Muamalat over its woes. Salahuddin said the merger would not benefit Bank Islam as it was part of BIMB Holding Bhd with Tabung Haji as its biggest share holder at 51 percent. “What is the point of merging with Bank Muamalat? What are the benefits? Bank Islam already has 115 branches nationwide. What will it get by merging with Bank Muamalat? "If it has only few branches, one can say it is reasonable, but Bank Islam's network spreads nationwide. Ditto Tabung Haji,” stressed Salahuddin, who is also the Kubang Kerian member of parliament. Salahuddin reiterated that PAS was not 'comfortable' with the proposed merger because it smacked of a bail-out using public funds. 'Don't burden Bank Islam' Last week, DRB-HICOM, the biggest shareholder in Bank Muamalat, expressed its interest to Bank Islam on the prospect of merger with the Islamic bank, but stopped short of saying whether it would give up controlling stake of 70 percent in Bank Muamalat. The other 30 percent stake is held by Khazanah Nasional Berhad. DRB-HICOM  claimed the merger would give birth to the region's largest Islamic bank, in line with the government’s aspiration to strengthen the country’s position as an international hub for Islamic finance. Salahuddin however said the proposed merger was due to Bank Muamalat’s internal problems, and would only serve to burden Bank Islam. “Bank Mualamat should be transparent in this issue. It must issue its financial status clearly, and come clean on what happens to Bank Muamalat,” he urged. "Why use Bank Islam to take over such a troubled bank?” he asked. Salahuddin said he would bring the matter to the parliament next week, as well as send a letter to the Public Accounts Committee chairman to compel Bank Muamalat to disclose its financial statements.

 
CREDIT : Harakahdaily