A Viewpoint

Although Dragon age 2 (DA 2) had some glaring flaws but it was also a step forward in some ways----like the exciting combat & the story which was more intricate than origins' typical 'build an army, defeat the big bad evil & save the world' type. The biggest strength of the Dragon age series is it's world & the people who populate it. After the events of DA2, some of the questions like what is going to be the solution to the mages & templars situation, weather the Qunari will plan another invasion & above all, what is Morrigan up to clouds my mind (probably yours, too). There's so many ways Bioware can expand the story and refine the gameplay further. We already know that the next game in the series will not contain the flaws that DA2 did like the copy-paste environments, choices that only give an illusion of choice & limited customizations to the party members. Now as an ardent fan of this epic dark fantasy series, here's s...

Games are all about ideas & their execution. Different ideas from different aspects of games like gameplay ideas, narrative ideas, presentation ideas all come together to create a single game and behind every successful game there is one or several ideas that have worked it's magic. Some ideas work, some do not, some are promising but because of poor execution are forgotten quickly and while some ideas are intriguing in the time of their debut, loses their value in the long haul. But there are very few ideas that not only worked when they debuted, they created a vision for other developers to expand further and helped push the boundaries of videogames. In some cases, these timeless ideas even helped create new genres of videogames. Below are the ideas that in my opinion, created the foundation, the lifeblood of the present gaming industry with their innovation & ingenuity. These ideas have been used & abused from the time of their inception & the deb...

Sure, Videogames are amazing, but the general consensus about games are not so positive, in fact quite the opposite. Many point their fingers at videogames as a real factor in criminal behavior, violence or any other social evil they can come up with. What's worse ,gaming is associated in the minds of the many as just another "unproductive" way of killing time. It's really disappointing how people are so quick to pass judgement or blame something which they do not understand. Sure games use violence & generally involves killing people, but that violence is always used within a context to depict something of a greater value. Really, can anyone say after completing a game that it was nothing more than a simulation of manslaughter? The games mentioned in this list are all the reasons to prove those wrong who have such hatred or negative beliefs towards gaming without ever knowing how it feels to play even a single game. So the next time you see one of...

Comparing something as mystifying such as Life with a genre of videogame may seem downright silly & vague at first. But there are indeed some striking similarities between the character development mechanics of a Role-Playing-Game (RPG) & that of Life. In an RPG, you have to create a character first. You can choose race, gender & class. Classes determine the playing style of a character. There are mainly 3 types of classes. One is the Warrior who prefers an head on attack, the Rogue , who likes to sneak on enemies & hit 'em real hard and the Mage --who stays at a distance & controls the battlefield. Now Life is not limited to only 3 classes, there are multitudes of them & each person, whoever they are, belongs to a certain class. In real life, we can indulge ourselves in any activity we want & the more time we spend, we gain experience on that activity. This is remarkably similar to the basic mechanics of an RPG. Take Skyrim, you can cho...

It was 2009 when I bought Crysis, because my hardware was not capable enough to run the game when it came out in 2007. After 5 minutes of starting the game, I knew I had made the right choice. Crysis was an amazing experience unlike any other fps I had played and I'm not just talking about the ultra realistic graphics. After the initial tutorial when the game told me to disable a jammer in the huge & lush environments of the Lingshan island, giving me ample freedom to do it as I see fit, I knew I was in for a treat. I loved every second of the campaign. I have played many great fps's over the years but Crysis was the only one I replayed almost a dozen times, and got the same amount of fun every single time. The lush open environments, the sandbox gameplay, the brilliant & sometimes downright cunning A.I and the versatile suit functions created an "emergent" element that was both unpredictable & fresh. The realism offered by Cryengine 2, I...