GAMERS

year 3 / issue 24 / april 2013

REVIEW

First look

INJUSTUCE: GODS AMONG US NARUTO ULTIMATE NINJA STORM 3

INFINITE CRISIS

editorial

Jose L. Sanchez Sanchez Director at Loading @jlssanchezpr

With each day passing by our younglings get more aggresive and definetly more violent. It is increasing at such alarming speed that it has invaded our social net-work. Even in this private place we see uploads of videos containing scences in wish our kids are experiencing vi-olence each day.

Instead of tryiing to find a solucion, each time they try to blame something new. At first they blame the t.v., then they blamed the movies and now...they attack our precious videos games. But if we think about it, none of the latter mencioned has nothing to do with the increase of violence in our kids.

In mi opinion we can’t blame none of those. ¿Why? Ratings. It is so sad when you see a mother buying all type of games for her kids even though this has been RATED for a reason. My old mas used to say “ If you don’t teach and look out for your own, someone else will”. We have to pay close attention to what our children are seeing, playing and learning. Our kids develpments its essential and when this are shattered along the children mental develpment it can crate blanks spot. And like in a canvas with blank spot they can filled it with things he sees in movies, t.v and video game. We can’t keep avoiding this situation. If you are going to blame someone look in the mirror. You are the one to blame when you let him stayed in the room, watch a mov-ie or play a video game wish was meant for and adult.

¿Blaming the video games?

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REVIEW

CLASH OF THE TITANS

It’s exactly the kind of glorious fight you expect from the DC Universe’s mightiest, and Injustice: Gods Among Us makes it almost as fun and rewarding to watch as it is to play. NetherRealm’s follow-up to Mortal Kombat is both a very good brawler and a big old sloppy love letter to fans. And while it buckles just a bit under the weight of all it tries to do, Injustice definitely earns its spot on the shelf of fighting aficionados, whether they dig comics or not.

For its first trick, Injustice does something that few fighting games ever even attempt to do: tell an interesting story. What if Superman lost faith in humanity and, with his near-infinite power, decided it was time to stop protecting and start ruling? Without ruining anything, you’ve rarely seen Supes quite like this before. We’ve seen him “retire” in Kingdom Come, and watched him wreck shop whilst being mind controlled a few billion times, but this is a far darker spin than all that. This isn’t about a mopey alien who just

wants somewhere to belong, its about a god who’s decided his subjects no longer deserve free will.

As heavy as it sounds, Injustice still finds time for the same kind of action, adventure, and humor that made the Justice League animated series such a treat. In fact,much of the original JL voice cast is in action here, including the inimitable Kevin Conroy as the Dark Knight himself and George Newbern as Superman. The story mode’s primary fault is that its reach exceeds Injustice’s graphical grasp. Closeups on main characters look good, but when the in-engine cut scenes attempt to depict clashing armies or sweeping cityscapes, bland textures and shoddily modeled buildings erode the visual impact a bit.

It’s only because the in-fight graphics usually have such a sheen to them that this dip in visual quality seems so stark. aDC’s finest.

The cast is varied, interesting, and thankfully de-void of ninja lookalikes – more than I can say for Mortal Kombat 9 at its launch. NetherRealm took 24 characters, many of whom have never been seen in a video game, and translated their abil-ities and personas over beautifully. Even more so than the impressive whiz-bang effects, this is Injustice’s greatest feat. There’s reverence for the DC Universe in each menu screen and every match up-specific line of dialogue.

As for the over-the-top stage changes, I have mixed feelings. Sure, it’s badass when Dooms-day backhands Superman clean through a pair of skyscrapers in downtown Metropolis... But when mere mortal heroes like Batman or Green Arrow do the same exact thing, it just looks plain silly. I’m not trying to go nerd police here, but such moments undermine all the effort that clearly went into making these characters move and play like you’d imagine they should. Between that, and animations that look great one moment and jerky the next, the illusion of two superheroes clashing can crumble at times. It never keeps the fighting from being fun, but Injustice is so effective when it maintains that spell that I hate to see it broken.

So Injustice mostly stays faithful enough to its comic book roots, but how true does it stay to its

Mortal Kombat ones? The short answer is: only as much as it needed too. All the best things about MK are present in spades. Beefy, high-im-pact hits that sound as brutal as they look, and long, satisfying juggle combos still abound, but so much more has changed for the better. Tradi-tional direction-based blocking replaces the block button, making actual cross-ups possible. Throws are no longer a pure 50/50 mix-up like they are in MK9, thanks to a universal tech input. Combo breakers (renamed “clashes”) are only possible once per match now, and are part of a wider variety of useful ways to spend meter that make the decision to save it for an emergency a more meaningful one. This broadens the tactical possi-bilities for players at every level.

Two other new systems help further differenti-ate Injustice from its ancestor. The subtler of the two is the character-power system. Each fighter possesses a unique mechanic based on their super-power that truly makes their style distinct. Solomon Grundy, for instance, gets a series of chain throws, each of which buffs a different attribute of his for the remainder of the match. The Flash, on the other hand, can call upon the Speed Force to effectively slow opponents to a crawl.

NetherRealm got pretty creative with these, and learning how to leverage them properly adds an-other level of technical nuance and variety.

Also new, but potentially more troublesome, are the interactive environments. Each setting is jam-packed with heavy objects to pick up and throw, or bounce your opponent off of, and landing certain attacks at the right spots triggers a stage change, sending your enemy careening spectac-ularly through a series of obstacles. Now, I’d be lying if I said all the wanton destruction wasn’t great fun, because it totally is. I just don’t know how balanced it’ll prove to be. Environmental attacks are completely unblockable, and either shear off sizable chunks of life or leave you open to eat a full combo - and sometimes both. I’ve already seen people execute 100% combos on certain stages, and that’s potentially game break-ing for high-level players. NetherRealm appears to be concerned about them as well, since it’s included the option to turn them off. Regardless, I’d rather not have to.Finally, I’d be doing Injustice an injustice if I didn’t mention just how much content is included. Neth-erRealm has once again spoiled us with things to do and a mountain of costumes, art, and music

to unlock. STAR Labs is the new challenge tow-er, offering hundreds of fights to complete under special conditions. If you just feel like jumping into a series of matches, you can unlock and fight in a number of battle ladders, each with different stipulations like heroes only (no villains) or sur-viving on one health bar. Training mode has been significantly beefed up too, with frame data and detailed move descriptions built right in. Online lobbies have also improved, with the ability to bet XP on who will win the next match – and even is-sue challenges for how they’ll win it. It helps keep lobbies fun and interactive, even when you’re last in line to fight.

Injustice: Gods Among Us has an exciting, unique-feeling fighter at the beginner level, and a deep-er at the advanced level.

Story mode is good, but the real reason to play is to see them kneel when they feel the power of your favorite comic hero.

8.58.5

REVIEW

For the most part, this is the same Ninja Storm com-bat as before – just a bit faster. Ultimate Ninja Storm 3’s feels as if the control has gotten tighter and more responsive, which was appreciated as I ran, dodged, and teleported my way around each 3D battleground trying to gain a positional advantage over my oppo-nent. Some mechanics introduced in earlier install-ments have been tweaked, too, like the fact that you can now enter your character’s “Awakened” state without waiting until their health bar has been deplet-ed to the edge of death.

Things are a bit easier, too. UNS3’s difficulty settings seem muted, as few fights will offer a true challenge to anyone who’s bested any of the earlier games. The most elite players will have to seek out high-level opponents online, because the AI won’t keep up with you.

At some points during the story, UNS3 offers some confusing decisions about which of two paths you want to follow. They’re presented as a choice between the “Legend” path or the “Hero” path, but aren’t both of those good things? I suppose being a “Legend” is

more epic than just being a plain old “Hero,” but it’s odd phrasing – and it’s made even more perplexing because you earn either Legend Points or Hero Points for picking one over the other, and the distinction be-tween those is never adequately explained.

Experimenting with picking different story paths does open up unique cutscenes and fights not previously seen on the cartoon, though, so the confusion is worth enduring. In the opening clash against the Nine-Tailed Fox, for instance, you get to witness Choza Akimichi grow to Godzilla-like proportions and body slam the 20-story beast. So it’s worth experimenting with, at least.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 speeds up combat with more responsive controls, and the visual spectacle of it all is more stunning than ever. Just as importantly, maintaining critical emotional connections to the story, even amidst all the chaos and explosions, overrides my concerns about non-canon story choices and lets us have fun with “what if” scenarios. Ultimate Ninja Storm’s reputation as Naruto’s most consistently enjoyable game series is safe.

8.9

STORM GETS BIGGER

8.9“NUNS3” IS THE BEST NARUTO GAME

¡FAN ART!by - Joey San

First Look

DC’s Infinite Crisis is a new step into a new genre of game called MOBA (Multi-player Online Battle Arena). For those of you how played when its started as Dota wish has evolved to Dota 2 and League of Legends you’ll fit right in.

For those of you who doesn’t know what a MOBA its let me explain briefly. It is a sub-genre of the real-time strategy (RTS) genre, in which often two teams of players compete with each other in discrete games, with each player controlling a single character through an RTS-style interface. It differs from traditional RTS games in that there is no unit construction and players control just one character. In this sense, it is a fusion of action games and real-time strategy games. The genre emphasizes cooperative team-play; players se-lect and control one “hero”, a powerful unit with various abilities and advantages to form a team’s overall strategy. The objective is to destroy the opponents’ main structure with the assistance of periodically spawned computer-controlled units that march towards the enemy’s main structure via paths referred to as “lanes”.

So the goal is simple, pick a champion, level up survive some team fight and destroy the enemy.

With this genre starting to get the attention of the world (currently more than 20 millions people play it) surely DC made his move. And thats when INFINITE CRISIS steps in.

We are very excited and eager for this game and for now there is very limited game play available to see if it will try to bring new modes or it will play it safe and copy the existing mobas. Either way we all agree that been able to feel like the Justices League with four of your buddies will be pretty awesome.

If you like to learn more about this game head up to their site infinitecrisis.com/eu wish it has some amazing videos, and wallpapers.

WHEN WORLD COLIDE THE BATTLE BEGINS

by - Joey San