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Game Review : Combat Mission - Shock Force

Combat Mission, titles which are known for their line of top WWII strategy games, has not only produced a title with a new engine, but has turned the clock forward into modern-day warfare. The story takes place in the winter of 2008 where terrorists from all nationalities started making their move into different countries well before any talk of heightened security. Once they were in place they kept quiet and waited for their call. Soon tips were pouring in about suspect baggage and before long there were terror alerts. Now, with the sleeper cells already in place, security was nearly pointless.

You will be able to fight with tons of units comprised of machine guns, anti-tank personnel, mortars, tanks and other vehicles. You will also have the ability to call in valuable air strikes to soften up targets. The damage modeling is where the game really excels. Units can take different damage depending on where they are hit, which adversely effects what the unit will be able to do. For example, if a tank track gets damaged that unit will have a tough time moving around the battlefield.

Battlefields are mostly desert landscapes dotted with vegetation and structures. These, too, will affect line-of-sight and other target-finding abilities. In short, there are a lot of factors that determine outcomes on the battlefield. This is not a free-for-all where the most tanks win. Strategy fans will surely appreciate this attention to detail.

My personal favorite feature was the ability to play as a turn-based or real-time game. This made learning a difficult game a bit easier. A tutorial is much needed for new fans. Veterans will surely pick this up in no time despite some new changes. Visually the game looked damn fine for this style of game. Games of this genre usually lack the eye candy most titles require to sell copies. Strategy games have usually fallen short here, but I am happy to report that this game looks good. The sound effects, however, could use a little work but were realistic enough to immerse you in the game. I liked the voiceovers and the music.

Regardless of story and setting this is still a typical warfare strategy title. Sure it has its differences but we have seen many games like this before. It’s a blast to play and there is a ton of different attributes that will keep any strategy buff happy. I would have liked to have seen a better Multiplayer option than what is found in the current release. I said it before, multiplay is the life and death of a game … literally.

Gameplay: 7.0
I found that actually playing the game was a bit tough at first. Sure it gets easier but a tutorial sure would have been a nice plus. There is a ton of options that can be overwhelming, but gets easier with time.

Graphics: 8.0
For this type of genre the graphics looked great. It is no FPS game, by any means, in terms of jaw dropping graphics, but games like these usually look pretty dull. When you zoom in on the battlefield, you can see a ton of detail.

Sound: 8.0
Sound effects were hit and miss but the voices and musical score were as great.

Difficulty: Hard
This one is tough.

Concept: 7.0
Nothing really new here. Yes, it may be a change from a company that usually produces WWII games, but I’ve seen plenty of modern warfare games where terrorists are the main enemy. I did like the ability to either play turn-based or real-time

Multiplayer: N/A
More than two-player capability is talked about for future modules but currently only email turn-based play is available at time of review.

Overall: 8.0
Hardcore strategy fans will surely love this new title. Map creating abilities will add shelf life.

Movie Review : The Simpsons

Homer Simpson, the oafish paterfamilias of America’s favourite dysfunctional family, emerges from his big-screen debut a bona fide Hollywood action hero.

At the start of The Simpsons Movie Homer’s dreams of glory are limited to helping his new pet pig to walk upside down on the ceiling while singing “Spiderpig, Spiderpig” to the Spider-Man theme song.But when the adopted swine gets him into bigger trouble than even this celebrated screw-up has ever experienced before, he falls under the influence of a chesty Native American woman he calls “Boob Lady” and undergoes an uncharacteristic epiphany that galvanizes him into action for the good of his by-now estranged clan.

By the time the witty final credits roll, Homer outshines even Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been elected president and ordered great harm done to Homer’s home town.

The Hollywood action theme helps the hit cartoon series, after 18 seasons on television, to land its death-defying leap to the big screen with panache. The result is a postmodern parable about an environmental scare that is at the same time hilarious and horrifyingly poignant. But thanks to an unexpected glimpse of Bart’s genitalia, this is a postmodern parable with a “pickle shot”.

The film boasts the same sly cultural references and flashes of brilliance that have earned the television series a following that ranges from tots to comparative literature PhDs. Despite its clownishness and childish graphics, it still offers searing insights into the pathetic human condition.

When the residents of Springfield learn that they are confronting catastrophe, for instance, the panicked occupants of the bar and the next-door church pour out into the street and change places — the drinkers taking solace in religion and the religious finding comfort in drink.

But the movie will be equally satisfying to those who just find it funny that Homer wants to kiss his pet pig — or laugh at Marge pondering the (literally) weighty issue of the pig’s “leavings”, or excrement.

Early on The Simpsons team shows their nerve by making Homer wonder out loud why anyone would pay to buy a cinema ticket to watch what they could see on TV free — the underlying question of the whole big-screen adaptation. In Homer’s view, anyone who pays for cinema tickets to watch a TV show is a sucker. Jabbing his finger at the audience, he declares: “Particularly you!”

What you get for your money is the Simpsons on an epic scale. The familiar, if geographically indeterminate, territory of Springfield is suddenly transformed into a cross between The Truman Show and Escape from New York, with a Big Brother government conspiring to keep all its unruly residents in line until it can be bombed into a “new Grand Canyon” tourist attraction.

The middle section, set in Alaska, lags because of the absence of the familiar props of the Simpsons’ home town. I found myself longing for Homer and his tribe to return to wreak more havoc on their neighbours, particularly the long-suffering Flanders.

But the film ends with a tense second-by-second countdown that fully exploits the bathos of that schlump Homer becoming an action star able save the world, or at least his little part of it. The conventions of the “disaster flick” allow The Simpsons’ left-leaning creator, Matt Groening, to indulge his politics with wry warnings of environmental doom without boring us out of our mustard-yellow skin.

Lisa, Homer and Marge’s swotty daughter, has become an ardent environmentalist who makes an Al Gore-style presentation entitled “An Irritating Truth” to the local populace.

In the same spirit, this film could have been subtitled: “An Inconvenient Cartoon”.

Game : 4X4 Race it out...

Game : Sonic is Here !!!

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