MildTech blog

I thought the first Mass Effect was one of the best sci-fi games I have ever played but Mass Effect 2 has proved me wrong in almost every way possible. BIOWARE has streamlined ME2 in every way that it is difficult to hold back talking to people about this epic journey of Commander Sheperd.

Before you go out and buy Mass Effect 2, I would tell you to purchase the original game and complete the quest before importing it to ME2. The character progression brought over from ME1 is probably the best thing I have seen in a game yet. The decisions you make or made in ME1 will be laid out in some story plots in ME2, so be careful.

Storyline (9.5)

The story in ME2 is much more interesting than in ME1. Commander Sheperd has been sent on a mission in geth territory but there is something else on the horizon: a collector ship with a sinister plan involving kidnapping of human colonies. Sheperd’s Normandy is attacked and your character is killed but you are awakened by a lazarus project funded by Cerberus, an organization bent on advancing the human race run by the mysterious Illusive Man. After you are recovered, you can create a new character from your imported mass effect 1 save file and also change your looks.

Gameplay (9.7)

Mass Effect 2 is a combat oriented roleplaying game with more emphasis on the combat part which has been improved from the original and the roleplaying part has been reduced and streamlined which is the only part of the game that is a minus for me and also waiting for Mass Effect 3. This second act is all about recruiting people for your suicide mission, gaining loyalty from crew members and upgrading. Each memeber you recruit has a side quest which after completion gains loyalty for that particular member. Loyalty is important as it will affect the ending part of the game.

There are 2 minigames which I spent a lot of time playing which is hacking terminals for credits and scanning planets for minerals so I can upgrade my team and my new Normandy. Scanning for minerals is very slow and should have been better but it is still better than the Mako in ME1 and you dont have to land on the planets to mine resources. Lifts in buildings have been scrapped and go around is easier in this version

The loot system in ME1 has been removed for a more streamlined inventory system. You get specific weapons and while going out on quest and exploring, loots that you find are used with various resources to upgrade weapons. Some upgrades affect just crew members only which is very helpful. In my gameplay I recruited everybody and gain their loyalty before attempting the suicide mission and my Sheperd survived, but you can choose to play differently. Before going out for the suicide mission make sure you upgrade normandy with the following:
- Heavy Armor
- Multi-core shielding
- Thanix
else people start dying.

Leveling up has been simplified to just 4 squad points. For example if you have incendiary power, you can auto level up from 1 to 4 or you can purchase 1 squad point, 2 point, etc. The final (4) squat points evolves your powers to either benefit you only or the entire crew which is neat. Every power has an evolution, so think carefully and remember that you are on a suicide mission. Squat members also level up with you as you go along.

The shooting mechanics as mentioned earlier has been improved drastically from the first game so it feels like a shooting game and the cover system and sending commands to your squad mates have also been improved. When in combat mode, you can also mod your weapon on the fly by pressing the left-shift key and clicking on Cryo mod or inferno mod.

There are more dialogues in ME2 with an interesting interrupt system that shows a renegade left mouse click on the lower left corner of the screen and a paragon dialogue interrupt right mouse click on the lower right corner of the screen which makes the whole experience unpredictable.

Jumping from an action sequence to a cut-scene is fluid and very good and does not take you out of the experience that much and there are less loading times on my system this time around which gives Mass Effect 2 an overall polish.

PRESENTATION AND SOUND (9.7)
Character animation is the best I have seen in years. You can differentiate every character in this game and BIOWARE’s attention to detail is phenomenal. The side quest in ME1 felt like a copy and paste but in ME2, it has been overhauled and you can find lush environs. The size and scope is obvious with beautiful graphics and sound to blow your mind. The level design is artistic rather than technical and you cannot get it by just reading this article unless you buy and play.Sci-fi sound is essential in a game like this and BIOWARE nailed it. If you really want to enjoy this game then a 5.1 surround will be the sweet spot. Period.

Mass Effect 2 is an experience and will be a contender for game of the year and it also sets a very high standard for other games in the future and the competition might not be from other games but with Mass Effect 3 which is a downside because I have to wait for it. Oh men !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate waiting

Dragon Age: Origins is a Dragon of a game crafted by BIOWARE. It is huge and very long game with different origin storylines to keep you playing till you drop, literally.

Before you start the game there are 3 main races you can create and play in dragon age. Human, Elf and Dwarves and 3 Main classes you can choose from which is Warrior, Mage and Rogue.

STORY
The Grey Wardens (Order of Guardians) are looking for new recruits to fight an ancient evil called the Blight. You will be part of this recruitment no matter what storyline you play and eventually slay the archdemon once and for all. This is a story driven game all the way to the end.

There are 6 origin stories which means you can literally go back and start a new game with another character and another world will open to you. Human noble, mage; Dwarve Noble; etc all have different storylines with all stories merging when you are recruited as a grey warden to figth the Blight.


GAMEPLAY
Right from the origin storyline, the character you choose affects the gameplay and there are also moral choices in the game. In a nutshell you can choose to be nice, bad and sometimes in between. This is a real-time pause/play tactical system which means you can pause the game while in combat and issue commands to your companions. Point and click on an ally or an enemy.

During the campaign, you will come across all kinds of characters who you will have to force to join your group and some willingly asking to join. The thing is these characters are not just there for you to use them as you see fit. Some have emotions and some are downright rude. Moral choices come into play here which is executed in a spetacular way. Moral choices are tricky in the sense that some will like you if you do good deeds and some will hate you for also doing a good deed, so balancing it out is essential as these greatly affect some plots in the game. Througout the campaign, you can only choose 3 more companions to join your fight so choose wisely.

Micromanaging this game is fun and can be daunting at first but which you can get use to eventually. What I mean is this: You can issue a command to a mage to heal you or any companion if health is less than 50% and it works well if the mage is not interrupted by an enemy or worse, killed. There are so many spells you can use during micromanagement. Micromanagement can be accessed ingame using the tactics bar on the screen. There is also the quick item bar which allows you to accessed spells, potions, specializations, etc. Old school all the way. You can also pull the camera to a top down view which is cool.

Looting is one of many guilty pleasures and the loots are abundant and varied. You can enchant your tools with the deadliest poisons, runes and so on for effective slashing of foe. Combat mechanics is strong and life-like. There are so many lores in the game and thankfully you can read them as soon as the pop up in game which is a LOT.

There are different clans in the game which will take so many hours to complete the main clan quest and side quest. I wish this game was an open world because although the game is long, you are still restricted to certain pathways which is not problem at all. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was a huge open world game and they told us to go NUTS and I went NUTS

PRESENTATION AND SOUND
The art style is something to stop and look at when running looking for a Blight to kill. According to several respectable websites, this game looks better on the PC with high resolution textures and I agree. Spells cast by mages come to life with clarity and spectacular image quality. Corridors and caves look superb and the ancient landmarks look outstanding with enough lore to blow your mind.
This game needs a beefy system with a good quad core but can also run on low end specs as well as it is a direct X 9 game to boot. With my quadcore AMD system, I get 100 frames per second indoors sometimes which is awesome. For system requirements check it out here at BIOWARE




The following was used to run the game:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 @ 3.2 Ghz
4 Gigs DDR3
AMD HD 5850

I would recommend playing this game with a 5.1 speaker system and this game makes good use of surround sound. Sound is dynamic in the sense that different enemies have different sounds and different towns have different tunes to them.

Overall, Dragon Age Origins is a monster game having spent 80 hours and only scratching 34% of the game, I feel it was money well spent and recommended for anyone regardless of the platform be it PC, XBox360, PS3 and MAC. This will blow your mind period and there are downloadable contents on the way.

Borderlands is a fine shooter made by Gearbox software (Brothers in Arms Series). Shooters are changing or merging with other genres and borderlands is evidence of a mix of an RPG and shooter game combined.

GAMEPLAY AND STORY
There are four character classes namely Berserker, Siren, Hunter and Soldier. Each of these classes have background stories and why they have come to Pandora. Pandora is a wasteland filled with thugs, aliens and a lot of loot. You can play with any character you think best fits your gameplay.

Colonists came to mine Pandora looking for mineral resources but they soon realised that the planet has little to offer so they let loose the criminals they employed as forced labour and other colonist were also left behind. The settlers seek to get rich by discovering alien technology while others try to survive and mark their territory.

Your character is called upon to seek out the vault that contains riches, alien technology, etc and it is up to you to decide what character you want to play with. Unfortunately, the storyline is not that great and sometimes you will forget that there is a main quest because of all the sidequest. There are more than 100 sidequest to keep you wandering the wasteland for hours.The main attraction of this game are guns. GUNS, GUNS and GUNS and more guns. I guarantee that the main reason why you would otherwise go looking for a sidequest or go into an arena is because of loot and also leveling up. Enemies also level up too so when going out, make sure to check your levels.

The RPG elements work quite well and is not as indepth like in other hardcore roleplaying games which is understandable. It is simple and straigthforward. Your character levels up while killing animals and shooting bandits. If you use a particular weapon like a shotgun more often then you will expect the shotgun to gain higher levels making your shots more accurate, effective and deadly. You can find loot almost anywhere and the next time you come back to the same spot, there will be more loot. You can also buy guns and med kits at vending machines across Pandora.

There are vehicles in the game which can be easily accessed at stations in different maps and it would be crazy to walk around all of Pandora. You can also teleport to various locations later in the game after opening up new maps. Maps are varied but almost the same colour and there are a lot of litter around maps and it looks good.

I completed the questing or most of it around level 36 and I started playthrough 2 which is from level 36 to 50 while retaining all my loot and cash.

Multiplayer is the best part of this game which allows you play the campaign with friends and people unknown who will eventually kick you out.

PRESENTATION AND SOUND

The art style of this game is awesome although running on DX9 on the PC. It is refreshing to see such beautiful scences, creatures, alien structures done in a different way with a sense of humor. Character animation is done pretty well and Gearbox pays attention to details. Sound is the one of the best parts of this game which is immersive but unfortunaye A.I is the sore part of this game which is pretty dumb. friendly A.I. just stand around doing nothing and boss battles while beautiful to look at are easy.

Overall I enjoyed Pandora alone and online which is the way to go. This game is not perfect but its strengths overcome some few weakness which can be overlooked.

Windows 7 Version 7600 is finally out and I have a tip on how to create an ISO file if you downloaded the student price version from digital river.

Do a fresh install if you are going from 32-bit to 64-bit using my tip.

*If you have 4 Gigabyte of RAM or more installed and plan on using it or you just want to future proof your computer then by all means go 64-bit but make sure that you check with your device manufacturer for updated software to avoid compatibility problems

After your download is complete from digitalriver, run the file and you will see the following inside any folder you specified the download be saved to

expandedSetup
setup1.box
setup2.box
Wind7-HP-Retail-en-us-x64.exe (this was my version)

save the expandedSetup folder on the desktop

download oscdimg.exe from the internet and save in c:\windows\system32\

Go to start menu

type in “cmd” in the search area

right click on “cmd.exe”

click on Run as Administrator

Once the command prompt comes on, you will see

c:\windows\system32>

insert this command after “>”

oscdimg -bC:\Users\LOGIN NAME\Desktop\expandedSetup\boot\etfsboot.com -h -u2 -m -lWIN_EN_DVD C:\Users\LOGIN NAME\Desktop\expandedSetup\ C:\7.iso

once the 7.iso has been created as c:\7.iso,

download a free burning software and burn the file to an empty DVD Disc. Then reboot windows, go to BIOS and switch from Hard disk boot to DVD/CD boot and follow the custom installation.

ENJOY !!! I KNOW I AM

Windows 7 Student price webpage

Batman Arkham Asylum is the best superhero game ever made. Way back when I saw just pictures of the game, I thought it was another mess waiting to happen. Other developers are going to wake up to this spectacular game with other superhero games.

Story (9.5):
Considering the monumental storyline the movie gave us, I consider this game to be a sort of unofficial sequel to the movie where joker is captured at the end. The joker has been captured in this game by Batman and is being sent to prison for the criminally insane but the thing is joker is plotting to kill Batman when he is inside the asylum allying himself with criminally insane friends like killer croc, the riddler, scarecrow, poison ivy, etc. I have played through the storyline and I must say this is a knockout plain and simple.

GamePlay (9.2):
The game play starts slowly and picks up very quickly with you hunting down the joker but he will not allow you to get to him just yet. Instead he sends his henchmen to hunt you down and this is where the combat system shines through and through. First of all the combat is simple with some button mashing and later on escalates to deadly skills while keeping it balanced instead of complicated and there are puzzles to solve courtesy of the riddler who thinks he is smarter than Batman. The island changes dynamically because you will always come back to some parts so in order to keep it interesting the developers incorporated something substantial which I am not going to reveal but worth it. Batman glides, rappels, hangs upside down, uses batarangs and is very muscular, flexible and jumps around easily, beating foes to pulp.

Batman is nothing without his toys and also being in detective mode. Detective mode is very addictive in the sense that you can see everything in light blue. You can see through weak walls and enemy skeletons which is awesome and very tempting to play through everything in detective mode. The Batmobile makes an appearance and a cool BatJet and other toys like an exploding gel for breaking weak walls. Level design could have been a setback but this game really pulls you into arkham asylum and introduces you to its inmates with mind blowing details and realism. Boss battles are one of the best I have seen with scarecrow messing with your mind sometimes. I really got scared. Once you are done with the single player you can go through the challenges by either taking down a number of henchmen by beating them up or hurting them silently all while earning experience points and opening up new toys that enables you take down foes effectively.

Presentation (9.3):
Batman, Joker, Commissioner Gordon, Warden Sharp, Harley Quinn, etc all look phenomenal including the asylum and its other inmates. The unreal engine really shines and there is nothing more I can say but rather that you should pick up this game and play it. Character voicing is top notch and Batman and Joker are played by the same folks that voiced the characters in the animated series. This game will be a contender for game of the year on many websites and I have to say is one of the best games this year on my list period.

At the end, this game lets you be BATMAN even for a short period of time

Score: 7 out of 10

Mobile Phones are becoming smarter with every single release, much more powerful than computers made 8 to 10 years ago and the Nokia N5800 XpressMusic proves my point with neat features and a very good rendering hardware to match.

The N5800 XpressMusic is a media phone right from the get go and with full touch screen and touch pen. It also comes with accelerometer for display rotation which is neat when you’re watching videos.
3.2” widescreen is quite small compared to the iphone’s screen but I do not think it matters so much. A 3.2 megapixel camera that will display resolutions of up to 2048 by 1536 pixels on your monitor and you can set the resolution you want.

The media bar is the main attraction on the phone which is a direct link to all your entertainment needs with just one touch. This includes music, images and videos, sharing, video features and the web. I think one of the features of Music is when it displays the album art while playing your favourite song which is a plus to me and you can decide to find the song in the music store at the same time. Oh and did I mention that it comes with stereo speakers that produce good enough sound quality and are very loud.

Another part of Music that I find very intriguing is podcasting and I know this is not new with smart phones but having a phone without internet to download music or podcast online is just like having a computer in the 90s without internet connection which is very boring. I quickly registered to my favourite podcast shows like tekzilla and this week in tech with Leo laporte. The phone also includes the BBC iplayer for your BBC video needs which is a plus.
N5800 comes with 8GB of Micro SD memory which can be upgraded to 16GB which is the limit and an internal memory of 81MB. With so much music out there, this memory will be full unless you select your best songs to save space and I have 26GB of music.
Connectivity wise the 5800 comes with 3.5mm AV connector, bluethooth version 2.0, micro USB and USB 2.0 high speed, and TV out with Nokia Video-Out cable. There is high speed internet access with TCP/IP connectivity which allows me to connect through a wireless router.
There is also GPS on the phone which I am not very impressed with right now because it is slow but the quality of the map is OK if you can withstand the sluggishness.
Changing themes is very limited which is where the app store comes in. Smarts phones are nothing without their respective app stores and nokia’s app store is quite limited and not like apple’s app store. You can download new themes or music or videos and other applications that you need using Nokia’s OVI store which can be installed using the mini DVD that came with the phone or by downloading it online. Synchronization with your PC or Laptop is made easy using Nokia’s own software on the mini DVD. You can copy contact, music, pics, videos to and from your PC
Battery life is quite weak but I did not expect anything less and this should not put you off one bit. The only way to experience this phone is to get one and play with it and I can truly say that it may not be a blackberry or an iPhone but at the price point which is so much cheaper than the 2 phones mentioned, I am impressed and would recommend this to anyone on a low budget.