I checked out Socom 4: U.S. Navy Seals a little while back at a Sony event, but got my hands on it and decided to spend a little more quality time with it. The game has some great hits and some minor misses. Check the below for the details.
Likes:
In-Game Gun Customization
After missions, the game allows you to make customizations to weapons you have earned. This way, you can get to know your weapon more…intimately. This also helps taking out the enemy easier. In many shooters, I don’t really get the ability to customize until you get online so this is a welcome characteristic
Always Knowing Where to Go
So there is this diamond that is always onscreen. Its main purpose is to point you to areas of interest. Since the game is pretty linear, you end up following it to the end of the mission. Stay sharp though because it doesn’t alert you to ambushes.
In Depth Team Commands
As a guy who likes to play war-strategy games on the pc, I really liked the ability to command your fellow comrads. Socom 4: U.S. Navy Seals takes it a little further by giving you a little more than many other games in the same genre. You can delay attacks to coordinate kills as well as set way points so you can be a little bit more strategic with the way you play the game. Two thumbs up for tactics!
Dislikes:
Too Linear
As I mentioned before, the game is linear, and this can get to be a little annoying at times. You find yourself in one of two situations. Either being lulled into a pattern of game-play then someone suddenly shoots you or you being frustrated by not getting to explore and finish the level in your own way. It’s not very “sandboxy” so you pretty much have to do what the designers had in mind.
Environment Interaction Very Low
very little environment interaction. I took away from being brought into the Socom universe. The shrubbery doesn’t move when you’re hiding in it. You kind of phase right through the leaves. It’s small, but I thought that was a detail that adds to the ambiance of the the game as a whole. Also, you don’t seem to get burned by fire when its smoldering on the ground, and you can’t do a ton of exploring even though you can do some. Also on one of the early stealth missions, silent kills weren’t so stealthy but none of the guards seemed to notice the guy yelling or the splattered blood on the ground. Again, not a huge deal, but it detracts from the believability of the game scenarios.
Controls can be complicated
This is something that most will probably get over with trial and error. But if your new to the franchise get ready for a big learning curve. zooming in to kill the enemy literally takes three button presses and keeping track of your gear is simple but time consuming when in battle. Switching between first and third person views can be disconcerting as well. It’s doable ofcourse but very tough at first.
Wrapup:
Very good, but I’ve played better. Got to say that the command system was one of the best I’ve played with so far. I’m a big fan of war strategy games and this power is definitely for those who like to control the action at a micro level. However, so many controls felt cumbersome at times especially when in the middle of a large fire fight. Oftentimes I had to die a couple times just trying to get my controls down. That said, it was quite enjoyable taking baddies down with precision and control and it’s definitely worth checking out and adding to the collection if you like shooters.
We tagged along with some folks from Sony to see some of their upcoming titles and gear, and we were not disappointed. They have a great line-up coming down the pipe and they are really putting some muscle behind 3D Technology. To be honest, I’m not sold on 3D just yet, but last night was definitely an eyeopener. I got to demo Virtua Tennis 4, Kill Zone 3, along with U.S. Navy Seals all in 3 D and they all looked fantastic.
Kill Zone 3:
This game is awesome! Not only were the graphics visually stunning, gameplay was relatively smooth and intuitive. I got to play with the Sony Move Sharpshooter apparatus which gives you the ability to play the game standing up and pointing a gun towards the screen. It has shooting options such as automatic, and semi-automatic, and you can reload by striking the bottom of the apparatus as if you are actually changing a clip. Very cool.
Virtua Tennis 4: It looked great in 3D and can definitely become a good work-out with the playstion Move Controller, especially if you play against anyone good! They have completely revamped the Virtua Tennis world and you can now look at a map of events which makes it feel RPG-ish. Your character suffers from fatigue as times goes along as well. There are also a bunch of mini games to sharpen your skills.
U.S. Navy Seals: I was most impressed with their use of 3D with this game. There are images on the screen that represent where your team is and enemies as well as ammo etc that seemingly float above the action. So your most important information is right on the screen with you, but not in the way. The shrubs and other objects in the game really pop out at you and I enjoyed sneaking up on enemies and executing a well thought out plan with my computer teammates!
We did get to check out the XPeria Play which is Sony’s Playstation phone. I think it looks great and it will definitely resonate with gamers who want a more serious gaming experience on their phones. It runs Android Gingerbread which is the latest Android release from Google, and also sports full directional and action button pad. It also has two analog stick touch areas which I thought was a great addition. It will be coming out for Verizon fairly soon.
The Motorola Xoom tablet is now available for online order, or you can pick one up at a best buy. It ships with Google’s new Honeycomb OS which is basically Android for Tablets. The Xoom has a lot under the hood that makes it comparable to iPad like 4G from Verizon, Flash, and a larger display (10.1 inches). It’s also got a 1GHz Tegra dual core processor and 1GB of RAM to boot. Not bad Motorolla not bad.
Notion Ink Adam
This tablet was the first of the bunch to actually go on sale. It boasts a Pixel Qi screen which allows you to turn the back light on and off enabling daylight reading. It also has a custom Android interface and will be upgrading to Honeycomb. Ad to that a 1GHz Tegra dual core processor and swiveling 3.2 MP camera and you have an inexpensive rival. The most expensive 3G + wifi version will run you only 500 bucks. Plus its got a whole slew of ports including HDMI, USB (x2) and Micros USB.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will have Honeycomb with Samsung’s “Touchflo” customization. It will be super thin at only 8.6 mm which is slightly thinner than the iPad2 which comes in at 8.8mm. It also has a dual core 1GHz processor and front and rear cameras of course.
Playbook
The Playbook is RIM’s definition of a tablet and I think its a pretty good one. The OS will be RIM’s so it’s neither Android or iOS. It’ll be a little think at 10mm in depth. It’s also smaller coming in at a more mobile 7 inches. It will also have a 1GHz processor with 1GB of RAM. Front and rear facing camera, 3 and 5MP respectively, however, the difference lies in its ability to sync with your Blackberry. We are talking contacts, calendar appointments…the works.
G Slate
The Gslate is another Honeycomb tablet that will be running on Tmobile’s 4G network which means 1GHz dual core processor, 1 GB Ram. The screen will not be as big as the other guy’s (only 8.9 in) however the display will be HD. Nothing out of the ordinary except for they sucker punch you with this little trick. It will have dual rear cameras for 3D and HD video capture. Booyah.
Have you played Batman Arkham Asylum? No? Stop reading and play it now. Once your done, this game should be out and you can buy it too. Ok, it may be too early to tell, but Asylum was so good I have high hopes for Arkahm City. Judging from the trailer, I don’t think I’ll be disappointed either.
Captain America: Super Soldier
To be honest, I was afraid of this. Captain America wasn’t my favorite character, but he wasn’t my least favorite either. Never really liked how he was the embodiment of everything “good” which really meant blond, blue eyed, and American. However, after reading the Ultimates Comics with good ole Steve Rogers re-imagined I began to gather more interest. I saw this trailer back at comic-con.to be honest, it’s not half bad. Strangely enough, the combat system sort of reminds me of Batman Arkham Asylum a bit. Very curious and can’t wait to give it a try.
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon
I love flight syms…especially really arcade-like ones. When it gets too real, it kinda takes the fun out in my opinion, but not to worry with the new Ace Combat game. It looks so much more gritty, and the flight combat system with “Steel Carnage” as they call it looks darn right awesome. You really feel like you are doing cool moves with the different camera angles and the machine gun is finally worth switching to. Judging from the trailer – this will probably be the best flight game of the year.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Metal Gear anyone? Ok, my bad, but the stealth and the heavy emphasis on tech begs the comparison. However, the stories are completely different and I am quite intrigued. The game looks like a thinking man’s game, however, thankfully, the weapons look great so you won’t be bored to death by rambling story line. I’ve never played the original, but count me on this go-round.
Mortal Kombat
Remember when you were either a Street-Fighter guy or a Mortal Combat guy? Then it seemed like Street-Fighter took the crown for a while. Well, it looks like the folks over at Warner Bros. have something to say about that. they have revamped the characters and even added new surprises. Will definitely be a great alternative to the other fighting games out there.
We happened to get our hands on Google’s new phone made by Samsung called the Nexus S. It’s running the company’s latest version of Android…Android 2.3. Check below to see what we thought!
Likes:
We loved the overall sleekness of the design. I’m a simple man and I was totally impressed with the form factor. It’s all black and unassuming, yet when you look at it, you know there is something special about it. The buttons capacitive buttons light up only when the device is on so when it’s asleep it’s just a dark black device in your hand. When you turn it off, it kinda flickers off in the same way your old CRT TV used to which we thought was a nice touch. There is also a really cool burst of orange (wish you could change the color) that happens when you get to the top or bottom of a long list…i.e the bottom of your contact list. It’s those little things that let us know that the folks over there at Google are doing good work.
The phone is really thin and light weight. This can go either way, but I don’t mind light devices if they work though the phone did almost slip a few times with simple gesturing. The call quality is nothing special, but the speaker phone was a little better than I was expecting. It’s by no means the best speaker phone we’ve ever heard but it held it’s own which was surprising. These light-weight devices usually have terrible speakerphones.
The camera was ok – I really liked the HD2’s camera to be honest, but this one will do. Still 5 MPs with single LED flash. Some devices have dual LEDs which is nice, but I didn’t find myself missing the second LED.I found the shutter a little slow but I can’t really complain too much because its a phone however, some mobile devices are getting better at this. I also liked the front facing camera, though it may not be of much use if you don’t know anyone with compatible software.
The Operating System is great. It was quite zippy and I had no problems scrolling through long lists. As you may know, Android offers near seamless integration with your Google life. It picks up all of your Google Contacts, Calendar Appointments etc… This pure Android experience also offers wireless tethering to other devices via wifi or a hard connection. I wish there was a quick shortcut to the tethering functionality like the palm devices on Verizon, but a hotspot is a hotspot and I’m not complaining. We didn’t get to try out its NFC powers, but we knew it was there. We think this will be big in the near future, though it’s not very prevalent in other devices just yet. However, it may be something you wish to think about when making your next phone purchase.
Dislikes:
Data speed. I have a G2 and though it’s only coming in at 800 MHz while the Nexus S has a 1 GHz processor yet many times the G2 felt faster because I spend a lot of time downloading information on the web. Because the G2 takes advantage of Tmobile’s 3G+ network, I was bringing up pages and downloading apps much faster on my G2. This is the one jinx in the armor so-to-speak for the Nexus S. I also didn’t like the plastic feel of the back cover. It makes the device quite light in comparison with other smart phones in the same size range, but it makes the phone feel a little cheaper than it should. Also, Samsung – please stop putting the lock button on the right side! I ended up going into the Android boot-up sequence by pushing the power button and the down volume button at the same time! I also kept changing my sound settings accidentally because of this.
Lastly, my 3G conked out towards the end of use. Not sure if this was because the phone was a trial phone or what, but after a while, I was unable to reach 3G speeds at all on the device.
Overall:
Overall, the device is solid and would love to have it for the front-facing camera, sleek look and feel, along with the pure Google experience. Other than a few hang-ups like network speed, I found this phone to be quite useful and a pleasure to use. Not sure about that 3G issue though. That may be a major issue if it is widespread. However, if it’s isolated – then I’d just replace the phone for a new one as I found very little to be disappointed with.
I love this game so much that even though it came out earlier in the year, I still had to put it on the list. This game has the original voice actors from the series of the Joker, Batman, Harley, and more which ads to the overall feel of the game. The gritty textures, and dark scenery paint the perfect picture of an insane asylum that you get to explore while picking up clues following trails. My favorite part of the game is the fight system. You can literally, if your nice enough with the timing, chain an infinite combo on Joker’s henchmen.
4. Mafia II
You play as Vitto, a WWII vet with apparently nothing better to do than be a thieving bum. The story line is pretty compelling, but the game really shines in its overall free-roaming feel and ambiance. The music is great and the graphics are awesome. You can drive around town in fancy cars and carry out Mafia jobs. The fight system could use a little work, but it does the job. Overall a very great game to play if you have a summer to waste.
3. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
This game could easily have made the top two picks if not for one fatal flaw…the absence of race replay. It wouldn’t be such a big deal of the game play wasn’t so blasted good. After you beat your lap record, you will really want to replay all the close calls and impressive driving skills you displayed while tearing up the track and you simply can’t. Frustrating is an understatement here.
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops
You get to kill people in really cool ways. Nuff said. Naw, but really – don’t let the whole “Black Ops” title fool you. You aren’t Solid Snake. There might be some sneaking for like 2 minutes tops…but the rest of the game is a fast paced frenzied race to the end. Story line is quite intriguing as well. Couple that with awesome graphics and you get a great game that only Activision could produce.
1. NBA 2k11
Michael Jordan. He’s in the game. That’s it. If you are a sports fan and haven’t purchased this game then shame on you. The living roster is great, it gives you updates on real games and the game play is superb. You get the player’s nuances and even their tendencies throughout the season! You also get access to all of Jordan’s old classic games and you get to play them out! I think this is the number 1 game of 2010.
So I know a lot of you use Tango to video chat with that significant other. I’ve used it and it’s not bad. The program allows you to use your phone’s camera to video chat with another person. Its fairly new and I can’t wait for more updates to get the kinks smoothed out, but its got real potential. Actually, there’s really little downside to the app as it can be downloaded on both the Android and iPhone OSes. You can use it on the new iPod touch, iPhones, and Android phones along with Android tabs like Samsung’s Galaxy Tablet. Not only that, but you can talk across platforms as well. You don’t even need a front facing camera on your device as it can use the back facing camera to stream images to the other side. Sounds pretty good right? Well it doesn’t stop there. The app also works over 3G, 4G, and WiFi allowing it to function over virtually all networks.
The application has gathered a large amount of downloads, me being one of them, and I have been made privy to a new promotion they will have going on for Valentine’s day. It will be called “Tango Hearts”. Word has it that if you double tap the screen on Valentine’s day, little hearts will appear as you chat. It’s a neat little trick that may impress your lady friend. If your girl is like mine however, that definitely won’t replace the standard fare. Don’t be cheap and chuck the chocolates guys! I’m just saying!
Someone out there finally got their Adam Tablet. Care to guess who? Yup Rohan the CEO of NotionInk himself, and he posted pictures as well. If your frothing at the mouth for one you’ll have to wait for the next batch of Pixel Qi screens to come in. However, word on the street is that more tablets will be available to order before the end of the month. Take a look at the Notion Ink Blog for more pics!
The wonderful people over at womworld.com sent us a unit and below are my thoughts. The N8 is definitely a powerful device, and I was quite curious about what my experience with it would be like. So lets get to it!
Hardware:
Its a solid piece of hardware – that’s for sure. Once before, someone demoing the unit did a key-scratch test and it did nothing to the unit. Needless to say, I didn’t do that with my unit, but I have no problems believing that if it was accidentally scratched the phone would be ok. Its fully encased in an aluminum shell. The shape is a bit odd to me, but I ended up liking it. It feels really nice in my hand and had a nice weight to it. Not unbelievably light, but not too heavy either. It really was just right. For its thickness, I wondered if they would have had problems adding a keyboard, but I guess that’s what the E7 is for. It had plenty of buttons and protrusions. Dedicated camera button, screen-lock slider, and volume rocker all on the right side. Power button and HDMI port and 3.5 mm headphone jack on the top. Then there was the menu button on the bottom left and the 12 mp Camera with xenon flash, which was quite handy.
Software:
Symbian 3. It’s been re-worked and I think it does well in many areas. For example, you have three home screens which is nice, and the ability to add widgets. They are quite useful like an RSS Feeder, or time and date, Instant Messaging clients, email clients, music, etc…. Transitions are quite smooth and you can find a lot of pertinent information at a glance. Your menu button takes you into the menu of whichever application you happen to be in which is nice, and the camera button allows you to quickly jump out of an application for a quick snap when the mood hits you. If you hold down the menu, a very well done task manager appears where you can manage your applications. It shows you a preview of any application that is still open and you can ‘x’ out of any one. I found this extremely helpful and will now be looking for something similar in my next device. The OS was polished, but straightforward. Very simple.
What I Liked:
I liked the ability to customize to a level that many other devices don’t allow. Loved being able to customize my sound profiles and schedule them! Loved the email widget. I could get a quick snapshot of my last few emails and figure out if I wanted to get in and reply or check in another few hours. Quick access to my music with the music widget, and I could change the images that would appear once I locked the screen and how long that transition would take. I could have the ringer use the voice program to literally “say” the name of the person who was calling me if they were in my phone book which was awesome! My phone would suddenly say the name of the person calling – thought those were great geeky moments.
One of my favorite applications was the social app. You could link it to your facebook or twitter account and get a stream of updates. It actually got me more involved in my twitter and facebook life because I can’t stand a long process of logging on just to say a few comments and logging back off. This app provided quick updates. I could say what I had to say – upload a pic and be done.
Another nice feature was the clock. While your phone is sleeping, you can set it to display a clock. Its very simple with no animation so it consumes very little battery life. While on the topic, the battery life was pretty good. I could get more than a day of full use. However, you’d have to use the phone gingerly the next day if you wanted the phone to last till you get home to charge. However, I found its battery consumption pretty impressive. You can obviously improve the performance by being diligent about your app management and display settings, but all in all the phone generally has enough juice to do what it has to do. Symbian 3 also has a battery saving mode you can switch to which makes certain tweaks to display, data consumption, etc…which will tighten your phone’s belt so-to-speak. It worked well, but I found it too restrictive so I rarely engaged it, but it was nice to know that it was there just in case you were in a jam.
I also loved the tactile feed back. Seriously – its the best I’ve ever felt on any device before. It really feels like I’ve depressed a real button when typing a message.
What I Disliked:
This part of the review is inevitable and to be honest I had a few gripes with the phone in certain areas. I’m not sure if this was the phone’s fault, but I found myself dropping calls – a lot. A lot more than usual. It was noticeable to many people I spoke to and they would end saying “Something’s wrong with your phone” or something to that effect. Once I switched back to my old phone (HD2) it was normal again.
Another issue was that I would be pressing buttons with my cheek while on a call. I didn’t know why at first because there is a light sensor which automatically turns the screen off when the phone is against the face. I think what the issue was, was the fact that the phone isn’t that large and when placed against the ear, some light may get in. Enough to confuse the sensor just enough to have the screen display for a moment and for me to press the mute icon or the hold icon. This was quite annoying.
The menu button was oddly placed in my opinion because of the slope design of the phone. On more than one occasion I almost dropped the phone because it was a stretch to press the button with my left thumb. Also, getting through the phone settings menu was a bit difficult as some things were pretty hard to find. It took me the longest time just to turn off the battery saver!
I didn’t like the fact that you can only put widgets of one size on the screen. I also didn’t like the fact that you couldn’t put shortcuts on the screen – only widgets. You could put a widget on the screen called shortcuts though, but I wanted a little bit more control here.
The keyboard was pretty nice, and as mentioned before, I really loved the tactile feed back. When horizontal, you get a full QWERTY keyboard which is great. They also give you a pretty good predictive text program. However, you really have to press to get your words out. Pretend that it’s a real button and things will go faster. However, my issue is that it’s not a real button and I don’t feel like I should have to press that hard or that long to get my letter to display. No QWERTY Keyboard while Vertical is unforgivable. Some people prefer texting with a dialer, but let us choose. Many of us no longer like typing with the number pad and decided to upgrade the phone. You can say, well they can always have the full keyboard in landscape mode. While this is true, it leads my to my last annoyance which is why is there always an extra step?
Web experience was decent, and quite fast. But nothing special. To be honest, I couldn’t really get into the web with this phone, so web surfing became a chore – mostly because of the keyboard and entry.
While using the phone, I always felt like there was an extra step to accomplish for everything. Typing a message. I had to navigate to the message app, then press it. Then press the empty field to activate the keyboard – which would lead to the text screen where I could then type. Why wasn’t the keyboard initiated once I got in the app? Why did I have to get to another screen just for the text? Same with email, and many of the other applications. I always felt like I was taking at least one more step than was necessary.
Wrap-Up:
Overall, I felt like the phone was a very nice device. I loved the looks it got from people who had never seen the N8 before. Great form-factor and it was quite functional. There were some slowdowns and dropped calls, errant button pressing, and redundancies but I still had a good feeling about the phone. It really does do a lot. Full HD to the TV! Flash support from the browser, customization. It’s all there.
If you have been following this tablet at all, then you will know the events of the past week or so. The Adam, running Android 2.2 with custom UI, just went up for pre-order. It was a disaster, and many blogs including androidpolice.com were calling NI out for what looked like scammish behavior. However, Rohan reached out to them, and they have an interview which can be found here. Strangely enough, because of their bad-mouthing, they also got exclusivity to a video of the device working in all its naked glory. I think it’s a great start, however, the lack of a marketing team, or a strong one, is pretty evident but to be truthful – I’m not getting this device because of how well it was advertised that’s for sure! The video shows off the custom UI, it’s multiple ports, web-browser, and custom email app to name a few.
