Grifter Online and Console Games Hints,Tips,Reviews and In-game Footages.

April 28, 2008 - Never double-cross Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. This is the lesson the criminal underworld is set to learn in 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand . A sequel to 2005's Bulletproof, Blood on the Sand puts 50 in a very different hood. Mr. Cent and his G-Unit crew have traveled to an unnamed "war-torn" desert country to put on a show. Fitty is paid with a high-priced jewel, but that gem is stolen by some thugs. Bad move. Described as a cross between Three Kings and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Blood on the Sand is a tongue-in-cheek fast-paced shooter. Though 50 Cent is always on the scene with gun cocked, he is joined by one member of G-Unit controlled either by a friend online or by the AI. Before the start of each mission, you choose your sidekick to be Tony Yayo, Lloyd Banks or DJ Whoo Kid. Each has his own bag of quips and a unique weapon. The action is fairly constant as players shoot their way through more than 20 missions. You can play a straigh...

April 28, 2008 - Shoot-'em-ups are all about action, and Sierra's Assault Heroes was packed full of it. A throwback to the top-down scrolling action shooters of old, the slick 2006 release set a new standard for the genre on Xbox Live Arcade. The development studio behind the first title, Wanako Games, is working on a sequel to Assault Heroes, and we had an opportunity to play a bit of it at Sierra's recent Gamer's Day event in San Francisco. We're happy to report that Assault Heroes 2 appears to have even more action, wrapped in the same glossy package that made its predecessor so easy on the eyes. We've covered the basics of Assault Heroes 2 already, so we won't re-hash it all here. Essentially, all the things you loved about the first game are back (co-op, vehicles, boss battles, power-ups, etc.) but some new twists are on the way.In our hands-on with Assault Heroes 2, we noticed that vehicles re-spawn a lot faster than they did in the last game. If you...

We've already announced new modes, the rating, pricing, and some of the music in the game. So what could be left? For those of you not familiar with the original game, there were actually no difficulty settings. Granted, the arm's unique control scheme made the game harder than most, but certainly an "Easy" option would have helped. Or would it? For those how do know the original, you probably remember that the enemies and bosses themselves were not that hard. It was literally all about the swinging (area 11, anyone?). When updating the game for Rearmed we didn't want to go with the standard, "lazy" approach to difficulty tweaking -- i.e., we didn't want to make the game artificially more difficult by just giving the enemies a longer life bar and the ability to do more damage. Additionally, rather than making the game harder, we needed to find a way to make it easier without totally redesigning the classic level design that fans would demand. Fortun...

Not too much to review here as "Renewal" serves to mostly recap Death Note 's major plot points so that it can move into its third and final act. We start on L's case files, every clue that has lead him to believe that Light Yagami is "Kira". It also serves as a reminder that we as an audience have just lost arguably the best character on the show. When the case file ends, we catch a glimpse of Light salting our wounds and deleting the data. Worse, the investigation force appoints Light as the new L. In just a short time, Light moves in with Misa, becomes the new L, and tells Ryuk he will now create the brave new world he promised to. We are then treated to a very cool montage that spans five years. Light kills off every member of the Yotsuba group, L's American allies, and countless criminals. He's entered the police force and risen to power. Entire nations have declared themselves in support of Kira. Light has won the battle… for now. The final min...

April 16, 2008 - Most gamers out there would probably agree that the world of role-playing games has been stuck in a specific rut for quite a while. We're not talking down on games like Fire Emblem and Advance Wars on DS (RPG-like tactical games), or the still-remarkable Final Fantasy series, but rather the hundreds upon hundreds of RPGs out there that don't dare to be different. We can understand a few "period piece" role-playing games, but does every story-heavy adventure out there need to revolve around swords, bows, magic, castles, and hoards of monsters emerging from some sort of ultimate evil? It's fine in moderation – and when done extremely well, games go beyond any preconceptions – but the RPG world could use a little kick in the pants to get it moving, and that's exactly what The World Ends With You is. Square Enix – more specifically Team Jupiter, the creators of Kingdom Hearts – has challenged every facet of the RPG genre, and the result is one o...

April 22, 2008 - The Mystery Dungeon series is a franchise that's been going on since the days of the Super NES – just recently Sega released a remake of one of the original Mystery Dungeon games: Shiren the Wanderer. The latest version in the series is the second one Chunsoft has made for Nintendo, titled Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness . The team created two versions of the same game, and more doesn't necessarily mean better. This sequel isn't much of a step up from the first game in the series, which wasn't all that great to begin with. Mystery Dungeon features a distinct gaming style: it's all about randomly generated dungeons in a turn-based, real-time RPG hybrid design. The whole idea of Mystery Dungeon revolves around working your way through a series of multi-level dungeons, with each floor being generated on the fly when you get there. What this means is, potentially, you'll never see the sa...

April 18, 2008 - The Metal Gear experience has always been a solitary experience. It's been great and we've embraced it for the awesome single-player gameplay that it has brought to the table, but there comes a point in a series' lifespan when it's time to expand. Time to break the former boundaries of one's youth, spread those wings and fly into the world of online gaming. Beta keys are currently making their way into some lucky gamers' hands, but at this year's New York Comic-Con Metal Gear Online was on display for anyone to come up and play for themselves. The setup was simple. Eight LCD screens, four facing one side, four on the other. It was red vs. blue in a classic team deathmatch scenario on Blood Bath, one of the five maps that will ship with the game. The introduction to the game was very simple. Being someone that has never played Metal Gear Solid 4's single-player game, I had absolutely no problems jumping in, setting up my primary, secondar...

April 18, 2008 - Since July, we've been breaking arms, shooting foes in the chest and running around embassies in the Bourne Conspiracy, but in those nine months, we've never had a chance to really sit down and play the game until our eyes bled. Or at least we hadn't until Sierra rolled into San Francisco last week. Our time with High Moon Studios, the folks who brought us Darkwatch and are in the middle of bringing us Bourne, was twofold. To begin with, we got to sit in on an Xbox 360 demo of a handful of new levels -- Bourne vs. an APC, Bourne vs. some European cops, Bourne vs. the Professor in a burning barn, Bourne vs. every inanimate object in a European library -- but when the developers were done beating on foreigners, they handed us a PlayStation 3 preview build of the game's first four missions. Our hands-on time actually covered a few parts we've seen in previous previews, but that only helped showcase the changes High Moon has made and gave us context to...

Australia, March 16, 2008 - Cam: So Naz, in the last 24 hours we've done some pretty freaky stuff. We've bounced from gigantic mushroom to gigantic mushroom, we've bumped down a mogul run, we've launched ourselves up mountains and we've fired red shells at those who oppose us. Yes, we've finally gone hands-on with Mario Kart for the Wii. What did you think? Naz: I've got to say I was far happier with the graphics than I expected to be. I think the whole package sparkled with that trademark Nintendo polish. Each track had a completely different flavour. From the gently swaying trees and difficult to dodge cows in the meadow course to the conveyor belts and crane-carried platforms in the Toad's factory course, each track brought back a fond new memory of a Nintendo title from yesteryear but presented them with fresh style. With twelve racers on track there was also always constant chaos erupting with turtle shells, bananas and other insane weapons lob...

April 11, 2008 - Ah, Dragon Ball Z. One of the most influential and commercially successful anime franchises ever created. Frenetic action scenes, likable characters, and great humor – a great formula for shonen franchise success. Everyone knows the good side of DBZ; the merits of the franchise are discussed in many areas. But not everyone seriously talks about the faults of the franchise, and the bad habits that it has encouraged in both the industry and the fan base. We're not really interested in bashing DBZ just for the sake of bashing DBZ. That would be pointless – and honestly you can go to any anime forum and find plenty of that already. No, what we'd like to do here is something a bit more…academic. One of the interesting things about the DBZ series is that for every DBZ lovin' fanatic you'll find an equally passionate DBZ hater that feels the series ruined anime for them completely. Unfortunately there is very little intelligent debate between the two factions...

April 8, 2008 - Despite enormous commercial success on consoles, developer Ubisoft didn't completely slack off when it came to developing the PC version of their highly successful third-person action game, Assassin's Creed. This is a real concern for PC gamers. Many developers seem to almost forget they're even bringing their console-focused titles to mouse and keyboard aficionados, sometimes neglecting to remove console interface layouts ( The Club ), omitting adequate video or control configurations ( Resident Evil 4 ), or just otherwise displaying obvious disregard for functionality and ease of use ( Phantasy Star Universe ). Assassin's Creed, on the other hand, has all the features you'd expect in a PC game. Customizable controls, various graphical settings to scale performance, the choice of DX 9 and DX 10 modes for gamers with more high-end hardware, and all the proper UI icons mean PC gamers won't have to wince in pain at the sight of a giant green ...

April 10, 2008 - War, as the intro to Fallout 3 tells us, never changes. And for much of the last year, the information that we had on Fallout 3 itself hadn't changed, as Bethesda Softworks kept a low profile as it worked on what is easily one of the most anticipated games of the year. But now Bethesda is looking to break radio silence, and we jumped at the chance to see the latest progress on this epic single-player role-playing game set in a memorable post-apocalyptic world. So buckle up, and we'll describe what we saw at a demonstration of the game this week. We learned last year that character creation was tied into your character's birth in Vault 101, but we finally got to see what Bethesda was talking about. You'll literally emerge from your mother's womb and open your eyes to see a doctor and your father (voiced by Liam Neeson) looking down on you. Don't worry: Bethesda doesn't get graphic in this sequence; all you see in blackness before your eyes ...