Battlefield 4

Back with a completely new review. Hope you guys enjoy…

“Battlefield 4”: A first-person shooter video game developed by DICE and published by EA. A sequel to Battlefield 3, it was released in late 2013. The battlefield franchise took a wide leap in graphics from Battlefield 3. With much more stunning graphics and an amazing storyline, the game hit the market with a bang.

The HUD is much the same composed of a mini-map at the bottom left of the screen and the ammo level and health at the bottom right. Enemies, squad mates and allies can be easily detected on the map.

Blue: For allies

Red: For enemies

Green: For squad mates 

The game casts the player as Recker. The “engage” feature is really amazing where you can engage your squad mates to execute enemies which are at Recker’s line of sight. Melee attacks are also worth noticing if you are a silent killer. As a gamer, silent killing is not my cup of tea. Still, the feeling after you sneak right into an enemy and execute him with your knife is something you can only realize after you kill someone like that.

In the campaign mode, for the most part, the player must traverse in some cases using vehicles, like tanks and boats, to traverse the environment. The single-player Campaign takes place in 2020, six years after the events of its predecessor. Tensions between Russia and the United States have been running at a record high. On top of this, China is also on the brink of war, as Admiral Chang, the main antagonist, plans to overthrow China's current government. If he succeeds, Chang will have full support from the Russians, bringing China to the brink of war with the United States.

The player controls Recker, a member of a U.S. special operations squad call signed "Tombstone".  His squad mates include squad leader Dunn, second-in-command Irish, and field medic Pac. Early in the Campaign, Tombstone is joined by CIA operative Kovic and Chinese Secret Service Hannah.

From the start of the storyline with rescuing the three VIP’s including Hannah till the end where you get to choose between Hannah and Irish to save( I’ll get to that later), I’m telling you guys, there won’t be a single second where you’ll feel even a little bit bored.

One of the best part of the game that I loved was bombing the dam. You can really feel it when you play. As Recker, you get to plant the bomb and explode the whole dam…..and suddenly when you think you’re enjoying the explosion, the whole dam overflows with water taking you and your squad mates along with it. That was a hell of a scene!!

The final part of the game where Recker, Hannah and Irish volunteer to manually destroy the Chinese ship with explosives. Driving a boat to the warship's blind spot, the trio set the remote charges and use grappling guns to bring them to safety under the Suez Canal Bridge before detonating the explosives. Unfortunately, the remote detonation fails, requiring manual replacement of the charges. Hannah volunteers to set a new charge, but Irish stops her, volunteering to do it himself because China will need Hannah. That was the moment I was shocked to see that I had two options to choose…..either Irish or Hannah. I chose my friend Irish, let Hannah go down to set the explosives and let her die alongwith the ship.

The game gives you a huge adrenaline rush as you struggle your way through different missions and ultimately prove yourself a true American soldier.

So gamers……anyone out there who hasn’t played it till now, go grab your gamepads…. The battle has begun!!!

FIFA 14

The name itself creates an adrenaline rush right through your veins. For all the FIFA fans out there like me, this blog’s for you guys. 

EA Sports’ FIFA 14, as we all know is a sports association football simulation video game. Released in November 2013 in all gaming consoles and PC, it paved its way to an amazing demand in the market. As usual, I got the game form a friend of mine for my PC and am still playing my career mode.

Lionel Messi returns as the main cover star for all regions on the global cover, having been on the cover for FIFA 13 and FIFA Street.

The name FIFA is a craze among boys of our age (though not for some boys). Many even pre-order the game before its release. I didn’t get the original game so downloaded the crack from skidrow and started playing. I faced and am still facing problems in the gameplay due to the crack. Those who have played FIFA 14 using skidrow crack will understand what problems I’m talking about.

Well here are some problems that I faced:

1. .After playing around “two” or “two and a half” games, the whole screen starts shaking as if    the camera is moving to and fro every second.
2.  In career mode, there’s no yellow card. Even if you just try to contain the ball from your opponent, you might get a red card rather than just a foul or a yellow card.
3. The online gaming option isn’t there, but I guess it’s fair because if it was there, then why would someone spend so much money in buying the game when he could have all that just downloading the crack.

 The FIFA graphics took a vast leap from “FIFA 10” to “FIFA 11”, then again a bit improve in ’12 and ’13. Having played all the versions, I can say that ’13 was much better in aspects like:

1.      Graphics (as I played it in an “Alienware” laptop in 3D)

2.      Ball control (quite realistic)

3.      Improved celebrations (as the concept of celebrations started in ’11 only so it took time for improvement)

4.      Practice Arena ( as this was completely new in FIFA)

5.      Career mode (more realistic)

The above mentioned aspects were all continued in ’14. With Neymar Jr. in Barcelona ,Gareth Bale in Real Madrid and Mesut Ozil in Arsenal, the game couldn’t have been any better.

 The game starts with a really inspiring video giveing you goosebumps and a spirit to play football- “The game we love, the game we live for”. (quoting a line from that video)

The most excitement in FIFA among us is the multiplayer option. Playing tournaments with friends in the multiplayer option connecting 4 gamepads, even a one-on-one match against a friend is really hilarious. From the kick-off whistle to the 90 min whistle the excitement in you is simply amazing and this can only be felt by a true FIFA gamer. Am telling you guys, the feeling when you score either a 90 min or a 120 min goal against a friend which gets you the lead is something like you never imagined.

The game contains over sixty stadiums, including thirty-two real-world venues. New additions include La Bombonera in Buenos Aires, Goodison Park, England's first purpose-built football stadium and the Donbass Arena in the Ukraine, home of Shaktar Donetsk. Barcelona's Camp Nou, which was removed from FIFA 13 due to licensing reasons, has been included.  

The music in the background (soundtrack) while you are on the menu is a great feature by the developers. The FIFA commentators:

1.       “Clive Tyldesley” and “Andy Townsend”

2.       “Martin Tyler” and “Alan Smith”

These four add a wonderful excitement in the game by their commentating. I’ve noticed a wonderful thing about this commentating last December which I would like to share. I opened the game on 25^th of December and started playing kick-off when the commentators were like, “Hello and welcome to this exciting match on the day of Christmas”. Not just that, it happened again when I opened the kick-off on 1^st of January when they were like, “A very Happy New Year to all of you”. In both these times I actually paused the game and the word springing in my mind constantly was “How???”. Later I realized that the game is synced with the date on your computer once you save. That’s a really good thing about FIFA 14.

This was for the FIFA fans and I guess even the non-FIFA fans will also start kicking-off once they read this.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading this post. Feel free to point out any mistakes and wait for my next post.