Dark Souls Review

Dark Souls' forerunner Demon's Souls was symbolic of all of them. Where most games do their most excellent to be something else – to tell a story like a narrative, to make an impression with cinematic techniques like a film – Demon's Souls is pure game, a complete and darkly fascinating vision that makes no concessions to the modern conception of how games should be. Instead, it was an exploration of how games could be; how bleak, how twisted, how focused and – most famously – how challenging. Most developers take pains to protect you from failure. FROM Software turns it into an artform.

Dark Souls is the next step along that path. Like Demon's Souls, it is a brutal and demanding third-person action-RPG set in a world full of monstrous, disturbing things that are trying their hardest to end your life as quickly as possible. Using whatever weapons and armor you can scavenge, buy or forge, the challenge is to inch your way through this damned and deadly place, now and then coming across gigantic bosses that take especial valor and tenacity to kill. The eventual aim is to make it out alive, but there are about 50-60 hours of creative cruelty between you and that goal.

You will die, a lot. You will die on the end of a sword, on the edge of an axe, crushed by a boulder, impaled on fangs; you will be poisoned, eaten, stabbed, assassinated and pushed off cliffs. Death is everything in Dark Souls. It's education, it's progress, it's the recurring stylistic and thematic motif that runs through all of its spectacularly varied, decaying and depraved environments. The first thing that you have to understand about this game is that survival is in itself a tremendous accomplishment. It can be punishing, cruel, sadistic and uncompromising. It can also be the purest, most thrilling adrenaline rush in gaming – it can take over your life and reward you like nothing else can. Exactly because your chances of success are so slim, each victory feels monumental.

Thanks : http://ps3.ign.com/

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Review

The region of Skyrim might be frosty, but the role-playing game that takes place within it burns with a fire few games possess. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you take up arms against dragons, and your encounters with them are invariably exciting--yet depending on where your adventure takes you, such battles may not even represent the pinnacle of your experience. A side quest that starts as a momentary distraction may turn into a full-fledged tale that could form the entirety of a less ambitious game. 

Yes, Skyrim is another enormous fantasy RPG from a developer that specializes in them, and it could suck up hundreds of hours of your time as you inspect each nook and crevasse for the secrets to be found within. If you know Bethesda Softworks' previous games, you might be unsurprised that Skyrim is not a land without blemish, but rather harbors any number of technical glitches and frustrating idiosyncrasies that tear open the icy veil that blankets the land. Many of them are ones Elder Scrolls fans will probably see coming, but they're ultimately a low price to pay for the wonders of a game this sprawling and enthralling. Prepare for many sleepless nights to come. 

Those nights traversing these lands are ones well spent. The game returns you to the continent of Tamriel, where you explore the northern realm called Skyrim, home to the Nord race. In these northern regions, snow flurries cloud your view, and platforms of ice float on the chilled waters. Nighttime often brings Tamriel's version of the aurora borealis, with its gorgeous blue and green ribbons stretching across the heavens. Skyrim's predecessor, Oblivion, featured prototypical fantasy environments--pretty but not quite evocative of the lore's darker undercurrents. Skyrim embraces its darker elements. You might feel an eerie chill as you glimpse a half-sunken ship through the mist, or watch as a dragon comes to life before your very eyes under the swirling firmament. Skyrim's atmospheric tone harks back to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, only the hazy dust storms of the earlier game have been replaced by glimmering snowfall and opaque fog. 

These lovely vistas are best seen from a distance.

 Closer inspection reveals hard edges, plain painted-on textures, and other visual flaws that are conspicuous should you seek them out. But like many enormous games, Skyrim makes a fantastic impression not because its individual elements are sharply honed, but because they contribute to a grander whole. There's so much to do that your quest log becomes an embarrassment of pleasures, offering dozens of choices at any given time, each one as enticing as the next. You could follow the story, of course, which weaves a compelling tale that casts you as a dragonborn; that is, the soul of a dragon emanates from within you. As such, you are the key to discovering why dragons have returned to the land, terrorizing cities and potentially ending the known world.

Thanks: http://asia.gamespot.com

Star Wars: The Old Republic

The opening cinematic, where the Sith come into view out of nowhere and get back Korriban, introduces you to the conflict between the Empire and the Republic. Then you decide which faction you're going to play for, and another cinematic sets the tone of your alignment. For Empire players, the focus is on power, control, and anger. The Republic cinematic portrays a need to take back what's lost through planning and tenacity. The cinematics are spectacularly compelling and make me wish Blur, the creators, were contracted to do a feature-length film.

Then you're kicked back to a menu screen to create your character. The creator is quite flexible, with a wide range of customization options unique to each race, but you're limited only to strictly humanoid races and a few rather similar body sizes (males at least get a "fat" option – female characters don't even get that). For a universe with a vast number of established intelligent races of all shapes and sizes, this feels limited. You can't, for example, play as a Jawa or a droid. In the grand scheme of things, it's a minor annoyance though.

The classic scrolling yellow text of the films begins immediately after you've created your character, accompanied by the Star Wars theme. There is, in my mind, no better way BioWare could have kicked off your adventure. The text briefly explains who you are and in what context you're entering the galaxy. It's unique to each class and, along with the cinematic that follows, sets you on your way to making a name for yourself. This is where inexperienced players will hit a figurative force-field.

The Old Republic has no structured tutorial. Rather, there's a tip system that offers help about an aspect of gameplay whenever the context calls for it. In any other MMO, that would probably suffice, but the moment you set foot in The Old Republic you are faced with quest-givers, future quest-givers with grey quest icons, class-specific story areas that you can't enter, vendors, dialogue trees, half a dozen abilities and hostile NPCs who will attack on sight. That's a whole lot to take in within the span of about five minutes, and while many of the systems that The Old Republic uses are familiar to MMO players, I can't help but think how overwhelmed I was by my first MMO, and just how much more The Old Republic throws at the you from the get-go.

Thanks : http://pc.ign.com

Chinese New Year Celebration

India's Kite Festival - Ahmedabad

On Jan 10 2012, French kite flyer Petter Washe displays gigantic puppet to the kite lovers at the international kite festival in Ahmedabad.

Conjoined Twins: Maria Jose Died

Maria Paz and Maria Jose Paredes Nacarrete are the conjoined twins who were admitted in the LuisCalvo Mackenna hospital in Santiage at Chile on 13^th December 2011, for their surgery. Chilean doctors took too mush efforts to separate the 10-months-old conjoined twins. The twins were joined at the thorax, stomach and pelvis and their surgery is taken for 20 hour to complete.

After surgery, the conjoined twins were alive. On 18^th December Maria Jose died due to her organ failure. Chilean Doctor Artaza said the surgery affected all of the deceased girl’s organs, while “recognizing the delicate state of Maria Paz, we are hopeful.”

“We are conscious that we made every effort, “Artaza said. “It’s a moment of deep pain, of deep grieving.”

The conjoined twins, Maria Paz and Maria Jose Paredes Nacarrete were born in the town of Loncoche at Santiago, who spent their entire life in hospital care.

Nicholas Coke, a baby who born without a brain

In Pueblo at Colorado, a baby boy born without a brain whose name was Nicholas Coke and he celebrated his first birthday this week.

He was born with a deficiency called Anencephaly, a genetic disease in which all or part of the brain is absent. In his case, he came out of the womb without a brain, only with a rudimentary brain stem functions such as heart beat, blood pressure (BP) and breathing.

Nicholas Coke was not able to see, hear and not even suck too. He was unable to sit and crawl on the floor, said by his mother Sheena Coke.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke said, Anencephaly occurs in 1 out of 10,000 babies, but the exact number cannot be determined because most of these pregnancies lead to a miscarriage.

Mostly a baby who born with defects likes Anencephaly will not be able to survive and will die within an hour, but Nicholas defeated this and was able to survive up to several months.

Sheena Coke was surprised and says, Nicholas Coke is a miracle and he has changed so many lives.