A Viewpoint

    Recently I got around to playing Batman: Arkham Origins which, according to the general consensus, is sort of an underrated gem in the Arkham series of games, which is rightfully acclaimed as one of the greatest modern videogame series of all time. And after having my fair share of time with the game, I certainly see why it received the responses it did and more importantly, why it's perhaps not as fondly remembered as the rest of the games in the series.   First off, there are lots of things that WB Montreal absolutely nailed in Origins and the freeflow combat is one of them. I get why many players detest the inclusion of the Shock Gloves but I for one, consider it one of the most exciting and satisfying additions in the game, honestly beating up the Armored thugs and other Boss-level foes to a pulp with this overpowered gauntlet never gets old. No matter what the game throws at you, the Shock Gloves serve as the ultimate equalizer. Also it kind of makes sense for a younger ve

    More than a week ago, Rolling Stone Magazine had released their coveted ‘250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time’ list, which you may have already heard or read. As per as being a compilation that honours the most eloquent and influential musicians to ever pick up the Guitar, this list is a definite improvement over their last ‘100 Greatest Guitar Players’ list, which felt like it only toyed around it’s theme and barely even scratched the surface, consequently leaving out many greats who more than deserved to be featured. On the other hand, the new list is far more diverse and includes a lot more players who have genuinely made their mark in playing the instrument that simply can’t be ignored by anyone, and it’s a real treat seeing so many virtuoso players featured alongside other musical innovators who’ve explored whole new sonic territories on the Electric Guitar. But still, the new list can’t completely avoid the pitfalls of being part of the forefront media outlet of a c

  One of the main reasons for revisiting this game after so many years was to find a completely new way to play a 2 handed Warrior and to basically make the mightiest heavy hitter that I possibly could, something I had always wanted to do since the game first came out (but never quite managed, until now). So after a lot of playing and micromanaging, I finally got to experience the most powerful version of the Warrior class that I have ever played in Dragon Age 2, and this guide will show you how you can too.   And I do know that writing a guide for a game that’s well over a decade old doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but here it is. And as I had already written a Mage guide and a Rogue guide for Dragon Age 2 before (albeit a long time ago), a Warrior guide now just brings it all to a full circle.   Ever since I first saw the Warrior class in action in the ‘Pre-story-Prologue’ in DA2, it instantly became my favourite class to play, although I could never create a build that woul

    The name ‘Crysis’ gets largely associated as a glorified tech marvel, a showcase for the most expensive and extravagant graphics hardware of the 2007-2015 era, but what often gets overlooked is that the Crysis series of games also stand out as some of the most innovative and genre-redefining experiences in the history of First Person Shooters. In fact Crysis, a game that was released waay back in 2007, is still unsurpassed when it comes to the sheer interactivity and gameplay possibilities that you can get out of an FPS, sounds unbelievable but true. Even in the age of full Path Tracing and all the other technological breakthroughs of today, Videogames haven’t really evolved as much as the corporate-industry-juggernaut would have us believe, especially in terms of pure gameplay. The Crysis sequels succeeded in bringing the core gameplay theme to a much more smaller and tighter scale, while still retaining a significant chunk of the gameplay variety. And this is how they did

      For the most part of my Gaming Life, I had been immensely fascinated (to put it mildly) with Videogame graphics. Back in my school days, I used to visit one of the only cyber cafes in my town which had a proper internet connection (that was around 2005) and spending an hour (which cost about 20 bucks) reading, no, devouring everything related to the latest and greatest in Videogame graphics on the internet. From shiny new upcoming graphics cards to the latest games promising to push the graphical boundaries farther than ever before, from the myriads of benchmarks regarding the graphics card I had back then to the tantalizing images of the latest 3D Mark, my Love affair with videogame graphics (and videogames in general) knew no bounds.    And back then, there were mainly 3 titles that delivered a truly ahead-of-their-time visual experience which was Doom 3 (for realtime dynamic lighting and shadowing), Half Life 2 (for it’s complex shaders and physics) and Far Cry (for pretty

      The Mass Effect Trilogy is rightly hailed as one of gaming’s greatest accomplishments that represents pretty much everything that’s phenomenal about Videogames as a medium—fully interactive storytelling that shapes itself based on the choices the player makes, a sprawling and interconnected narrative full of characters you genuinely care about and tops it all off with an all-around satisfying set of rich action-RPG gameplay experience. All of these elements have cemented the trilogy as one of the most memorable and emotionally engaging experience to ever come out of gaming. And while Mass Effect Andromeda didn’t quite reach the astronomical (literally) standards that was the hallmark of the original trilogy, it did improve or should I say, evolved some of the core gameplay elements from the original trilogy like a revamped movement system and increased maneuverability that made combat feel far more fluid and dynamic than anything we'd seen before. While Mass Effect 3 ha

      The Dragon Age games hold a special place in my gaming heart/library—Dragon Age Origins was a transcendental (and I don’t use that word very often) game that not only pushed the envelope of my pre-existing notions of what a Role Playing Game can be but it’s also the very first game where I felt myself emotionally involved in it’s rich story, world and characters in ways that very few games have managed to made me do. And I did enjoy Dragon Age 2 a lot, too, despite it’s many flaws (most of which stem from it’s short development time). Although it was a far cry from it’s predecessor in terms of world design and scale, the newly added flourishes to it’s combat did balance out things for me. In the end I felt DA2’s gameplay was an evolved version of it’s predecessor and a step in the right direction.   Sadly, I couldn’t get to play Dragon Age: Inquisition cause EA decided not to release the game in my country (India) but after watching tons of gameplay videos and story related cont

    Spoiler Warning: This article contains huge spoilers for the Mass Effect trilogy, so if you haven't experienced these games yet, I strongly recommend you to skip this. All true forms of Art are essentially imitations of Life, in their own uniquely creative ways. And this applies to Videogames too, or at least to those rare, few ones that truly transcend the limitations of it’s medium to deliver an experience that’s as deeply memorable and evokes enough emotionally affecting responses to be called as indeed something of an Art form. But like all forms of Art that’s ever been crafted, they all have the same thing in common—they all imitate one or multiple facets of Life itself, in ways that are unique, memorable and worth revisiting multiple times. And for videogames that focus on specific aspects of Life such as character developments or character driven storytelling, in all of my years of Gaming, I have never found an experience that’s nearly as memorable and engaging as

      This article starts by stating the obvious, and what you already know by now. It’s a universally known fact that Devil May Cry 5 is an all-round amazing action game and one of the greatest showcases of the hack-n-slash genre. It’s right up there with the very best in the series and is a colossal improvement over it’s predecessor DMC 4 is every single way. It’s also far more modular and layered in ways that make it both accessible for newcomers and challenging for players who are well familiar with the signature playstyle of the series, which is a great feat by itself. Overall, DMC 5 is as great as a sequel can possibly be, and simply a must-play for anyone who loves the genre. But that’s not what this article is about, rather it will focus on a far more subjective aspect of the game, and something that I had felt way back when the early gameplay demos and trailers had hit the Internet. Although it wasn’t until several years that I actually got around playing the game in it’