New Nintendo DSi XL will be the Largest DS Model yet

Nintendo is coming out with a new revamped Nintendo DS. This one is actually going to be bigger than previous DS models. It will have dual 4.25" touch screens. It comes with a thicker stylus and will come in the colors white, red and brown.

Expected release in North America is early 2010, the new DSi XL *for extra large- will probably remain priced similar to the current version of the DSi.

The older DS models were sometimes harder to read with their 3.25" screens and as games become more graphics intensive, seeing all that details requires a larger screen. It is a tradeoff for easy portability vs. quality gaming, but this time around the quality gaming has won, and although it may not fit into some spaces it did before, it is still small enough to be portable.

Giftedgamer will review the new unit once it comes out.

New Video Game Releases October 2009

New Video Games October 2009

Some new video game releases coming out soon include:

• Uncharted 2 Among Thieves is coming out October 13, 2009. Single, Multiplayer and Competitive Multiplayer modes as well as Co-op.


• Brutal Legend also coming out October 13, 2009.


• Tekken 6, Forza3 and DJ Hero are coming out October 27, 2009.


• Dragon Age Origins coming out November 3 and of course the big one:


• Modern Warfare 2 scheduled release date November 10, 2009!

Call of Duty 6 - Modern Warfare 2

Modern Warfare 2, the latest new Call of Duty game is coming out in November 2009 and is rated 17+ M. There is the basic edition which is basically the game for Xbox live. Then there is the next version called the "Hardened Edition" in a steel case with all of the previous features and more. Finally the big box contains the Prestige Edition which is the highest edition - game version.

The Prestige Edition comes with real nightvision goggles that you can use outside your own home. There is also a sculpted head stand that you can use to store and display the night vision goggles.

The gameplay looks like it has elements of Russians and even Brazilians with many new perks and features. MW2 will be the new acronym November 10, 2009 for Xbox and PS3. Will be in the store getting one of the first copies off of the truck!

Giftedgamer

Call of Duty World at War missions

Found this Call of Duty World at War mission attack. There are many funny videos on Youtube where for example, someone is sniping one way while someone else is quietly standing behind them and has plenty of time for a headshot.

Some of these videos (like the one we linked to in this article) have since been removed from Youtube due to violation of Youtube terms. Turns out, they don't like copywritten video game footage on Youtube. Of course they are being uploaded just as fast as they are coming down, but it makes it hard to tell a story and show you all a great link when they remove them. So for this post, you just have to use your imagination: "the guy sneaks up behind the other guy and has alot of time to make the kill" - not quite as funny as watching it happen, that kind of sucks....

Gifted Gamer

Ratchet and Clank Size Matters-GiftedGamer Review

Ratchet and Clank Size Matters Review

This game unlike the others in the series, is actually a ported PSP game which I played on the PS2.

The game begins with Ratchet tanning on the beach when some little technomite girl Luna comes up to him and pretends to be taking pictures of him for a school project. She fakes getting kidnapped and then you have to go find her and “help” her although when you end up finding her she just knocks out Ratchet and teleports Clank to another planet.

Fast forward to the main gameplay, this game is made up of many small mini games and short levels such as Dreamtime and the Shrink-into-Clank-brains level. There is also a lot of Hoverboard racing that you do to get bolts, armor and tools that are required for the game as in the Polaritizer and the Shrinkray. You can level all of your guns up and tools so that they transform for example the Mootator turns people into cows. If you level it up enough it turns into the ArMooGeden which turns people into bulls.

If you get certain sets of armor like the Crystal armor, you have a special ability, for example the Crystal Armor special ability is when you do a jump and hit the Square button, crystals spawn at where your wrench hit and blow up any enemies standing in it.

There are also 2 Clank arenas where you battle for bolts, necessary tools and armor. These games include a handball, controlling bots to get to the finish line and bumpercars.
There is also Giant Clank battle in space where you fly around and blow things up with your turrets.

For the last boss, three very important items I found were the Agents of Dread (evolved from the Agents of Doom) the killer bee hive (evolved from bee hive) and the static charger. You will need to damage the final boss’ bubble before you damage him. Once you get him to roughly half, you can start damaging him directly without worrying about the bubble. The bubble will respawn if you damage him and wait long enough before he gets to half HP. Before this you also fight him again as Giant Clank, although that one is fairly simple and I just shot him a few times and hit him with a triple square repetitively.

This game cannot compare to other Ratchet and Clank PS2 games but it was good for what it was. Overall I give this game a 6.5
GiftedGamer

Ratchet and Clank Future Review - Tools of Destruction

Ratchet and Clank Future - Tools of Destruction Review

This is the first Ratchet and Clank game for the PS3. I was anxious to see how the game evolved for the more powerful PS3 console. Would the graphics be much better? Would the game play be better? Here is my review.

For the most part the graphics were better than previous versions of Ratchet and Clank and I enjoyed the scenery of the various maps and levels. For some reason I enjoyed the graphics of Ratchet better in the older games. This game is as good gameplay as if not better than previous versions. Unlike the other games, when you are stopping some bad guy, trying to take over the galaxy or being imprisoned and having to fight back, in this game you are looking through Ratchets Lombax origin. His origin demonstrates new guns and tools that were made by the greatest minds to ever roam any galaxy.

This game features a single one of these inventions, The Dimensionator. This is a hat item that can open portals to teleport things through space. There is an alien tyrant who tries to get the Dimensionator to end the Lombax race once and for all and bring back his race, the Cragmites.

This game uses weapons as found in previous versions of the game although slightly modified, and completely new weapons for your arsenal in the Combat Devices. A good part of the game has to do with space pirates which end up surrendering to you, although when you go back into another level, they still attack you. There are new gadgets in this game as well such as the Leechbomb, which drains the enemies life and adds to yours. There is also the Groovinator which causes all of the nearby enemies to burst out and dance!

This game also puts Clank back in the action, which I was really happy about. And it even gave him some new modifications such as the Glider. In this game, you can also trade Leviathan souls which are gathered from large and dangerous creatures, for lots of bolts. Bolts are the currency of the game to buy weapon upgrades, ammo and more. Raritanium can be used to upgrade your weapon as well. You find raritanium in crates.

During your missions, you also find Cronk and Zephyr, two old battle bots as well as Talwyn who end up helping you throughout the game.

For fighting the last boss, I didn't find the Rhino that important, although it still helped alot. Here are the locations of all of the pieces of the Rhino holo-plan.

Kortog
northern-most corner, break these boxes and you will have the Holo-plan for this planet.

Mukow
Take the ferris wheel up to the right side and when you are about halfway up, jump and then glide to the right. See a bunch of crates, a holo plan is hidden within them.

Nundac Astreroid Ring
on Delta right beside a box by a green launch pads, the one furthest away from the teleporter.

Ardolis
Use helipod by a door to the right of you, go to right. There is a chest of raritanium, smash the crates and you will get a Holo-plan.
note that you must get the Holo-plan before taking the elevator, or you will have to backtrack

Rykan V
Go to the town area where your ship is. At one edge of town there is a river of lava flowing out from under big structures. Jump up and cross the river. In the farthest corner of the platform, there is a "box" containing a forcefield on one edge and a platform with HeliPod target on it. Jump into the box , then use your Heli-Pod to raise it high enough to get to the next platform. Break boxes and you should find the next holo-plan.

Sargasso
Once you get about halfway up the Troglosaur's spine, you can jump over to the building. or use RoboWings

Viceron
Instead of taking the taxi, turn around on the platform and the Holo-Plan is in some boxes directly opposite the taxi.

Jasindu (Kerchu City)
Take the above ground path from where you land, kill the little bug eyed guys until you get to a pirate in an open area before you go under a bridge. Look directly to your right, there is a ledge about a double jump high in the face of the rock of the right wall of the open area. Up there is a raritanium chest with a holo- plan in it.

Ublik(Slags Fleet)
After you take the first ship across, fight your way to an area with a bolt crank. To your right is a grav ramp that will take you around behind the building. You'll find some raritanium chests, etc., and a path that leads to a ship. Don't follow the path yet, just walk around the area until you find the plan.

Reepor
There are two gun-control turrets that Cronk and Zephyr use to annialate the force field. There is a platform in front of the control room to your right that you have to jump across open space to get to. You can see it pretty easily because it has a cluster of eight crates on it. Smash them and get your plan.

Igliak (Meridian)
There is a big room about halfway through the level with a trench in the middle that you can fall through the city if you fall in. In the right hand corner from where you enter it,right before the trench and up on a ledge, there are a group of boxes. They have the holo-plan.

Return to Fastoon
To get this Holo-plan, you have to delay the fight between Tachyon, and do this before Ratchet and Talwyn open the final chamber. When you use the Decrypter to get into the area just outside the final battle, stay to the right wall, smashing crates and other breakable objects as you go. It is actually very easy to find if you stay along that wall. Talk to the smuggler when you have all of these pieces to get the Rhino.

And of course as in all the other great Ratchet and Clank games, this game also has rail grinding. The last boss Emperor Tachyon, I found one of the best difficult end game bosses of all the Ratchet and Clank games.

Overall I really enjoyed this game and I give it an 8.5

GiftedGamer

Ratchet Deadlocked Review

Ratchet Deadlocked Review

Ratchet Deadlocked is a gladiator game for the PS2 featuring Ratchet but not clank. In this game, it will start out with Ratchet on the ship, the Phoenix, as seen in Ratchet and Clank 3. Invaders will take Ratchet from the ship and put him in an area of space called the shadow sector. In the shadow sector, Ratchet as well as a lot of other gladiator heroes, will be fighting to the death in set deadlock courses.

In this game, vehicles such as the land stalker, the hoverbike and the hovership are all available for use throughout the story mode and some deadlock challenges.
During this game, you will get badges and deadlock points that will activate new worlds for you to gladiate in.
For the story mode part, you will unlock almost all of the maps although in order to fight Ace Hardlight, Vox and beat the Ghost Station area after you kill Hard Light, you will need to do some mini game challenges from pretty much all of the levels.
There are 2 announcers that like insulting you and causing rude / unnecessary comments such as “ if Ratchet was a tough cookie, what kind of cookie would he be, I’m thinking Snickerdoodle….”, snickerdoodle? Really ?

This game apparently has online action although I could never see any other players online. In this game, you have 2 helper Bots who will fight and help you complete challenges. To buy weapons, there will be a vendor near a blimp that transports you from arena to arena. In Al’s workshop (from the previous games) you can upgrade your battle Bots. Across the wing is Clank. Unfortunately all he does is appear in cutscenes and talks randomly. You cannot use him as a hove pack, control him or use him as a glide.
Ratchet and Clank is better with Clank.

This game is fairly easy and took me one day to beat. There is no special information for the last boss, Vox as he is extremely easy and all you need to do is not get hit by his weaponery as well as hit him with your hardest weapons.
This is the weakest of the previous Ratchet and Clank games.

Overall I would rate this game a 6, Rent it before you buy it!
GiftedGamer

PS3 fixed

Btw, after talking to Sony Canada it seemed I could either mail the broken PS3 back and have them fix it ($150) or try something on my own. After holding down the start button for a hard reset (you can hear beeps and it resets the output to analog from HDMI) so I had to find the old analog rca cables that came with the PS3 to see if there was a signal, but it was completely dead.
I took that opportunity to get a 250G hard drive and replaced the smaller drive by simply opening the HD bay, sliding the bad harddrive out and to the left, removing the 4 screws (2 on each side) that hold the hard drive to the carrier, replaced drive with same drive type (but bigger capacity), screwed the 4 screws back in and when I went to start it up, it asked if I want to format the drive and now PS3 works again and I have more memory. Although I lost my PS2 game saves for some of the recent games I was reviewing, the system works fine again so will be reviewing more PS2 and PS3 games again shortly.
Meanwhile have put a trailer for the new Sonic Winter Olympics game on the website, http:www.giftedgamer.com
GiftedGamer

PS2 is Coming Back!

Hi All. Can you believe the PS2 is actually experiencing a boom in sales?
Despite the "outdated graphics" of the PS2 mainly because of the lower memory capacity of the games and the system which requires smaller file sizes to run, the PS2 is enjoying a recent boost in popularity because of recent price drops.

The best selling systems are still the Ninendo DS and DSI as well as the Wii. Trailing the field is the PSP with the worst sales. PS3 is not doing so great either but still offers great quality games and is close to XBox 360 in sales. The PS3 will also most likely get a price drop in early June when it is expected to be announced at E3 and that may fuel PS3 sales along with a slowly improving economy.

So we will continue to rank, rate and review our large collection of PS2 games as they become more popular once again. Many PS2 games do offer great gameplay despite some limits on graphics relative to the PS3, and even having a PS3 there are still many times a PS2 game will find it's way into the drive bay. Check out some of the PS2 reviews and enjoy the newer low prices on the gaming systems.
GiftedGamer.com

Ratchet and Clank - Up Your Arsenal - Gifted Gamer Review

Ratchet and Clank - Up Your Arsenal Review

This third game in the Ratchet and Clank series is markedly different than the first two. Captain Quark starts off as someone who lost his mind in the jungle and turns into your team leader and doesn't try to kill you. Half of the game you are helping the Galactic Rangers fight off an alien space menace known as the Tyranoids. The Tyranoids were created by a robot called Dr. Nefarious. You are back at Gadgetron again.

Your home base is called the Starship Phoenix. You get a lot of missions from there. You can buy armor and weapons. You can train in a special training facility and you have your own room which you can play Captain Quark video games at.

One thing about this game is that at the higher levels you get hit harder and die faster. One level for example, is impossible without the Shield Charger. There is no way to destroy all of the enemies without being destroyed. Therefore you must run through it and have the Shield Charger up to make sure you make it through. Something that is mandatory for the last boss would be the Bouncer. It did half of the overall damage during the boss fight.

The enemies take a lot of hits later on in the game. This game is better than the first two games in the series, other than the lack of save spots in some places and how high the enemies can do damage.

Overall I rate this game an 8 (but I really hated that one part that requires the Shield Charger to get through).

GiftedGamer.com

Ratchet and Clank Going Commando - Giftedgamer Review

Ratchet and Clank Going Commando - Giftedgamer Review

This game is pretty much like the original Ratchet and Clank version 1 with a few minor differences. The first difference is the story line which has a small blue ferocious pet sweep over the galaxy as a deadly experiment. Another thing is Megacorp has taken over for Gadgetron. If you played Ratchet and Clank 1 and beat it, then at the planet Barlow there is a Gadgetron Vendor which will give you free weapons from your last game. The RYNO unfortunately is not included in that cache therefore you need to pay the 1,000,000 bolts to get it although it is not necessary to have it in order to beat the game.

There are many new weapons in this game as well as the fact you can upgrade a weapon you bought by frequently using it. In the final battle which is the one where you face a giant Furball that Quark has created.

The weapons and items I have used were the Heavy Bouncer, which was is the upgraded version of the Bouncer; Megaturret which is the upgraded version of Mini-Turret; Synthenoids and a Charger Shield. By the time I was out of ammo with my Bouncer, Mini-Turret and Synthenoids, the mutation would be dead. The Charger Shield is important because the Giant Mutation Thing can do high damage.

There is also a Hover Bike in this game which is supposed to be the upgraded version of the Hover Board. In this game you also play as Clank alot more.

Some parts can get quite annoying in this game because it takes long to kill some of the levels, needed a Megacorp machine or takes too long with no intermediary save points which can get unnecessarily frustrating. I would recommend this game for ages: 6+

Overall I rate this game a 7.

GiftedGamer.com

Ratchet and Clank - Gifted Gamer Review

Ratchet and Clank Review:

This classic PS2 game is the first in a series and still stands the test of time when playing it again.

I first played this several years ago and I still enjoy it.

The game revolves around Ratchet who finds a small robot named Clank that crashes into his world. Clank helps Ratchet get his ship up and running and Ratchet must take him on an adventure to many planets.

This game has many diffent weapons and tools like Swingshots, Blasters, Drones and of course Ratchet's Wrench. You go through the levels and collect bolts which is the local currency. You can then buy ammo and weapons from Gadgetron vendors stationed throughout the maps. There is also a person who sells the R.Y.N.O. That is a powerful missile launcher that shoots 9 deadly missiles at once with autolock which really helps in the last level when you return to Ratchet's home planet. You can also buy health upgrades from planet Orxon nanotech vendor.

The main bad guy in this game is Drek although Captain Qwark is annoying as well. The levels feature many adversaries such as robots, frogs, flying ships and other space enemies to beat as you make your way through each level.

This game is great for all ages. There are also ship battles in the sky where you have to shoot things down and you also have to go to two teleporters in the game, one is the teleporter right before the last boss and the other turns you into Giant Clank. The other one has a ring nearby which spawns giant robots. If you kill these continuously, then jump off into the abyss and keep doing it over and over, then you will eventually have enough bolts for the coveted RYNO and the Nanotechs. This is the fastest way in the game to collect bolts as you get over 1500 bolts every time Giant Clank battles the robots in this circle.

My only critisism is that the last level could have used a few more checkpoints so you do not have to start all the way at the beginning of the relatively hard level. The RYNO could have also been a bit cheaper!

Overall for a PS2 game, I rate this game an 8.5.

GiftedGamer

PS3 broke

Well I never thought it would happen this soon. Granted I have used my PS3 quite alot and have owned it since launch, but today it broke. It started with just showing the background screen without any of the menus (seems like a HD problem). I did the hard reset by holding the power button down on restart and waiting for the second beep and then letting go. This should have set it back to the normal AV outputs (as I had it hooked up via HDMI), but now the screen was black.

Tried many combinations of cables, inputs, restarts, but it seems the HD died. Next step is that I will try to put in another HD and see if I can get it to format. (So this ends up being an opportunity to upgrade the drive from the original 80G to a larger laptop hard drive). I really did not want to lose all of my saves though (including the current game I was playing, Suikoden Tactics which is actually a PS2 game played on my PS3).
Will update this post as I go through the self-repair options with sending it in to Sony at $150 as my last resort.
GiftedGamer

Pirates- Legend of the Black Kat- Gifted Gamer Review

PIRATES- LEGEND OF THE BLACK KAT –
Gifted Gamer Review

This classic PS2 game was one of the first games that I ever played on PS2 and the first time playing it, I spent over a month on the game as there are so many islands to visit and many chests to open and puzzles to solve. This game is not a game that you would rent, because of the long game play. It is a pretty basic storyline with your objective to visit the five different isles. Getting all of the pieces of the chart to unlock the final place where Hawk waits.

During the game you can level up your ship and collect different weapons in addition to the loot from the treasure chests. This is an exploration/roll playing game and you can immerse yourself in the experience for days. The bosses in this game are somewhat challenging with my favorite being either the last boss the Volcano guy or the Voodoo Master. Save your game at the parrot whenever you get the chance. Refill on grog to restore health. There are a variety of cheats posted on the net to make this game easier to get through without having to constantly restart levels. So if you find you are stuck, it is not too hard to find an online walkthrough that will help get you going again.

Overall this game is a classic exploration game with pirate chart of islands that you can freely roam around and explore. Considering this game is almost ten years old, when it came out it was one of the best graphic games but since then of course graphics have improved significantly, nevertheless it is a true pirate exploration game and for PS2 and Xbox players I rate this game a 7.5 because I am gauging this more toward todays game play rather than 8 years ago when I would have given this game a 9.
GiftedGamer
www.giftedgamer.com

SLY COOPER 3, SLY3 Honor Among Thieves - Gifted Gamer Review

SLY 3- Honor Among Thieves – Gifted Gamer Review

Sly 3 is the third game of the series and this one has better graphics than the first two. In this game, not only can Sly pickpocket, Murray can mug people, Bentley can use technology and Sly does it the old fashioned way. How the game compares to the first two is, that it is more difficult and therefore sometimes more frustrating. My least favorite part of this game is the Bloodbath Bay section and getting into the vault. Once you are in the vault though, it is fun and you get to learn about some of Sly Cooper’s ancestors.

The final battle can be annoying but if you time it right, and dodge Dr. M’s attacks, then you should not have a problem with this. This is the first game of the three that did not have to do with Clockwerk. In this game, you start out on the last level and then have a flashback and have to go through the game. In the flashback your objective was to recruit a team of legendary thieves. Your recruits are Murray, Bentley starts off with you, Guru, Panda King, Dimitri and Penelope. This game is shorter than Sly2.

In this game you get to use vehicles such as planes and boats. The boat levels took too long for me as I had to sail to different corners of the map.

There is also multiplayer. There are four games for multiplayer, one is where you chase Sly as Carmelita and if you are Sly you have to get some jewels/valuables. Another one is a dog fight, ship battle and hacking thing.

This game also has 3D glasses which I chose not to use. You can play as Panda King with his fireworks, Inspector Fox, The Guru and other recruits during special missions.
You can only play with Sly, Bentley and Murray if you are just wandering around.

If you have never played a Sly Cooper game, I suggest you start with the first one in the series, then move to the second. If you like those, then you can try this one. If you have low patience level and are not the best gamer, then I suggest you do not play past General Tsao. At the end of this game, it basically says that Sly’s gang will be no more, although it hints a chance at Sly4 coming out. I think it is possible for Sly 4 to be made for PS3 and Xbox, because in Sly 2, Bentley got trashed up and it did not look like he would continue in the game, but he was back in a wheelchair.

Overall I rate this game a 7.
Gifted Gamer
www.giftedgamer.com

Sly 2 - Band of Thieves - Gifted Gamer Review

SLY 2 – BAND OF THIEVES- GIFTED GAMER REVIEW

Sly 2 is the sequel to the classic Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus. I cannot say if this game is better than the original or not because it is so different. The original game I found more an urge to play, but when I finished it, I had an urge to play Sly 2. Just like now I have an urge to play Sly3. This sequel is really exciting and at the end of each game, leaves you wanting more. In this game, they took an interesting risk with letting Bentley and The Murray play as main characters. There are missions for Bentley, Sly and Murray.

Sly Cooper can pickpocket in this game and sell his loot on the ThiefNet. He can also buy upgrades to special attacks on the ThiefNet. This game has 8 stages. Some of the stages repeat the same boss. The bosses are: Dimitri, Rajan, Contessa, Jean-Bison and Clock-la.
There are interesting heists and plans all in an effort to collect all of the Clockwerk parts and hopefully destroy them.

Bentley’s levels are generally harder than most of the others. You use an RC chopper and his hacking in most of his levels which is rather difficult. Parts of this game were exceedingly easy, although other parts took me a few times and became frustrating. I foresaw Neyla and Contessa becoming traitors and think Bentley did not deserve being crippled. (although this really helps in the next game for better gameplay). In this game I found it funny that Murray could perform a move that Sly could. (the one where you creep up against the wall with the cool guitar lick in the background…)

Overall, this games was pretty fun and made me want to play the next one. I give this game a 7.5.
GiftedGamer

SLY COOPER AND THE THIEVIUS RACCOONUS

SLY COOPER AND THE THIEVIUS RACCOONUS
–GIFTED GAMER REVIEW more reviews at http:www.giftedgamer.com

This game brings you to China, Utah, Wales Triangle, Haydes, Russia, and Paris, France. Your character is a master thief raccoon who steals from thieves and villains. In this game you are accompanied by your friends Bentley the Brain and Murray the not so smart but brawny teammate that can drive a car as well.

In each area, you need to collect 7 treasure keys to activate each boss other than Clockwerk. Generally, you need one key to enter the place, three keys to expand into the next area, and seven keys total to go to the boss. I find that the order of difficulty from easiest to hardest is Raleigh the Frog, the Panda King, Mz. Ruby, Mugshot (who appears in the third game as well as Panda King), and Clockwerk. Clockwerk is a difficult fight (not even saying the hard part before it with your vehicle smashing the lava slugs and blowing up a path into the mountain… the Bentley hacking part is fairly difficult too) Clockwerk has 2 flying forms which the first one he sends purple missiles the second he sends lightning rings you must stay inside of not to be electrocuted. After that you dismount from the jet pack you were using and must clear a path using your legendary thieving opportunities you will eventually (after possibly triggering the alarms) be able to smash his skull and grab his part. There are vaults scattered over some of the levels and you need to find bottled up clues to get the code. When you have enough and you get to the vault Bentley will tell you the combination.

The vaults mainly contain sections of the Thievius Raccoonus but some of the vaults contain information for the area where other clues or valuables are and one has an interesting thing that shows what the name of the type of guard you see is and its hobbies.

One of the hardest levels for me was the racing one in Mugshot’s place. You start off in 5th place and have to pass the other cars in 3 laps time. It is requiring both skill and luck. The nitros really help you there. After you beat a level you can do the time trial on it (even though for most of them I didn’t do the time trial for I did not have enough time…). In order to pull off a master thief move there will be a glowing blue aura and you must either jump and hit the circle button or just hit and hold the circle button. After you beat the game the first time around Bentley tells you that you have not collected all of the pages of the Thievius Raccoonus. It is not possible to get all of them until after you defeat Clockwerk. There s also a great Japanese video you get after the credits roll for the first time around.

This game has been great for many years and it continues to be a classic. I rate this game a 9.
Gifted Gamer
www.giftedgamer.com

SUIKODEN IV - Gifted Gamer Review

SUIKODEN IV
In this classic game, you name your character and then all of the communication to you is by your name. In the beginning you can choose your teammates. I chose Kenneth and Jewel. That way later in the game you will have a healer (Jewel-water Rune) and someone that can do great damage with his Rune (Kenneth-lightning Rune). A lot of strategy is involved with how you set up yourself and your teammates for turn-based battle. This game has a whole story instead of some shorter-attention span type shooter games. So like a good book, if you want to get into a whole story and help it evolve, this game will keep you entertained for hours as you try to rank up your character along with your teammates.

You and your crew board your ship and can go explore all of the different islands. (having the island map handy is helpful in finding them). As you travel the seas, you constantly run into various foes; fish, seaweed creatures… and you get to battle them to rank up and improve your skills.

I thought this game had a really great story line. The music is interesting and I find the character recruiting across the different islands entertaining. Some characters come with runes, some come with no runes but still attack and some are merchants and some are just there to play games. Some games you play are spinning tops, card games, blocks, dice and fishing. (you can cook the fish you catch and go for records). The standard money in this game is called Potch. You can level your sword skills and buy better armor.

One of the things that can make your character really strong are runes. For example, Water Runes are generally healing, fire runes are generally multiple target damage. Lightning is generally a strong attack toward one person. Earth is generally buffing your characters. Wind is healing, putting the other opponenets to sleep and damage. You can do combined attacks in this game. (for example hero and Snowe’s friendship attack. Lightning and Fire runes at the max. level if you put them on two separate characters can make a flame array. ). Some fights are easier than they should be and some are harder. It is interesting to mix and match characters and see which combinations you like best. There are also one on one duels where the enemy will say things like: “I’ll finish you in one blow”, “come at me!”, and “here I come”. They will be either Special>Attack>Guard. Guard beats special.

Another great thing about this is the on ship Naval battles. You can control a couple of ships and fight against other ships. If u hit from the front or back they can not counter. If you hit from the side it depends which Runeshell cannon you fired. Fire>Wind>Earth>Lightning>Water>Fire. You can also board ships for an on deck battle.

There are many great cut-scenes in this story. Overall I give this game a 9.5.
GiftedGamer

Jak and Daxter - the Precursor Legacy

JAK and DAXTER
The precursor legacy

This is one of the great games that stands the test of time. It made it into my top 10 PS2 games in my long-term collection. I played this game a few years ago and decided I had to play it again. I find this time around the story line has faded. But it is still a great game. At the beginning, Daxter got knocked into dark Eco which turned him into a small fuzzy thing. In the game, the objective is to collect all of the power cells. You do not need the full amount to get the first or second ending. You need 100 for the second ending and about 80 for the first ending. In this game there are powers that are activated by eco. Green Eco heals your character. Blue Eco allows you to reach certain places and allows you to run faster. Red Eco gives your person extra power. (but not strong enough to blow open metal crates). Yellow Eco gives you the ability to shoot fire bolts which can destroy boulders, do strong and consistent damage and can open metal boxes.

Throughout this game, there are precursor orbs which are used as a common source of payment. You can trade orbs for power cells. You can also find all 7 scout flies in each area. When you find all 7, a power cell emerges from the last box. There are side quests which also get you power cells and you can find them in the wild. For it’s time, this game had great exploration graphics and environments. Sometimes the music got a bit annoying, like when I was trying to beat a boss, but some of the music is good to listen to and somewhat relaxing too.

I think this is the best game in the Jak and Daxter series as the second game seems to lose all plot and third game evolves into a racer game. (the fourth Jak game is a full out racer game). I give this game an 8.
Gifted Gamer

Call of Duty 5 Trailer - Game Info

This trailer shows latest version of Call of Duty. World at War has a great online section. Another one to buy instead of rent.
Call of Duty 5 World at War Trailer - The best bloopers are here

Super Rub-a-Dub - Gifted Gamer Review

Super Rub-a-Dub (the duck game available on the Playstation store)

This game is not something hardcore gamers would normally play. When I had some younger friends over, I wasn’t able to play gory shooter games, so I decided to play this.
There are three stages in this game. Easy, Normal and Hard. Each have about 20 levels that I have played. The interesting thing about this game is that you can actually be competitive online with people and see how you rank against others online.

Tilting the controller is how you control the duck. This is annoying because sometimes you over tilt and fall off the side, or narrowly miss another duck and messing up your time. The sharks are annoying as well, but you can knock them over the edge by quickly tilting the controller. (this also makes your duck jump).

After you do certain things/achievements, you unlock new Ducks. For some reason, that motivates me to continue and unlock more. There are some ducks such as gold ducks, alien ducks, devil ducks and space ducks. The person who made this game was obviously “creative”. I would not say this is a game for older players, but it does provide a competitive gaming experience for early gamers, and also provides some downtime for older gamers in between their other games for a change of pace.

The music in this game is very relaxing and even sleepy, sure a great unwind in between blasting games.

I rate this game (for younger gamers) an 8.
-giftedgamer.com

PAINTBALL 2009

NPPL CHAMPIONSHIP PAINBALL 2009

This is a paintball game that shows how the game is professionally played.
One good thing about this game, is that unlike real paintball, you don’t get welts.
On the other hand you don’t get to cause welts on others, so there is that side of it too…
In this game, you can customize your hopper, marker, outfit, helmet, gun and a few other add-ons that makeup your character. In online mode, you can use the same gear that you use in career mode.

There are two types of paintball: woodsball and speedball. In each paintball field you play in, there are bunkers and obstacles for you to hide behind. You can choose to use the bunkers as cover or you can ignore them and blitz your opponent. When it is 7 on 7 single player, I generally blitz because I will get a few of them at least, and then I can switch to another unshot player on my team to finish them off. At first it is fun because these are single paintball matches. But later on they become tournaments. I find that the tournaments take too much time and if your skill can already beat the final level, you should be able to choose to advance further and not have to repeat the same fights over and over again.

It is fun to play online WHEN there are players, but this is a scarcely visited online room, so hard to get any real matches going. (unlike Call of Duty where you can get over 100,000 at a time online just on the PS3 servers). The biggest paintball match online I have played is 3 on 3, so hard to get a full room when everyone’s attention is on different games.

There is no real story line to this, all you are doing is repeating levels with slightly different fields. Sometimes though, this is fun to just play around, sprint down the field, grab the flag and outrun all the flying paintballs the opponents shoot at you. There is no team killing in this game. You can be prone, crouched or standing. You can switch if your character is right or left-handed by pressing the square button. Also some of the tunes are pretty catchy. So worth a rental.

This game is played in first person view. Overall I would say you should rent this game before you buy it. I give it a 6/10.

My cousin's dog vs. Pooh

Dog vs. Pooh-

If you are in the mood for a barking dog, check out my cousin's Lab at Christmas attacking Pooh.
At least he slobbers on the viewer at the end of the clip. Not much to do with gaming this post, but thought I would share Astro the Pooh-attacking Black Lab.

Best Selling Video Games

Best Sellers:

I have noticed that adults love to make lists -
Especially top ten lists. Take game rating lists, for instance. I have noticed that my favourite games appear on some lists but not others, depending on which site you check. Why can’t everyone agree?

If you look at the fine print, you will see what rules they used to make the lists. Some sites have top ten games by gaming system, some by games sold – regardless of how many versions there are. Some lists are just for Canada or the U.S., and some are for worldwide sales. The time period can also make a difference – sales for one month, one year, or since the game was released.

Ratings can also be for most sold, most played, most rented or highest rated by gamers. The ranking can even be by usage – how many minutes spent on each system or game. I can’t figure out how they can be so sure of that one. Last time I checked, no one was standing behind me with a stopwatch.

Just because a game makes a top 10 list doesn’t mean you will like it. I have bought some because of the hype, but didn’t play them more than a couple of times. So top for others doesn’t mean it will be top of your favourite games pile.

Apparently, WII Sports is now the number one selling game with over 45 million units sold. Hello – it came with the WII console! I don’t think it would be number one if it didn’t. The Super Mario Brothers games are now second most sold – worldwide. After that, the top gets iffy, depending on which site you check.

Well, I am going to start making my own lists. I think kids need their own rules to judge games. Stick with me & get the facts you need to be your own judge. Add your own comments and ratings to our message board, so you can let others know what you think as well. Hey – we are the ones doing the playing. Let us be the judges.
GiftedGamer.com

GIFTED GAMER - CALL OF DUTY 4

Happy New Year 2009!
Going to review my fairly large video game collection and get new games as they come out (everyone gave me video games for Xmas). Currently spending a lot of time on Warcraft - Lich King.

Call of Duty 4 overall is a decent game. It brings us to modern day warfare in the Middle East and demonstrates new weapons with authentically recorded audio of each different gun type and new maps. The online experience offers games such as Team Deathmatch, Domination, Search and Destroy, Headquarters and other new games. Unlike the other Call of Duty video games, the storyline is not about World War II and the weapons are all modern style weapons instead of the original World War II weapons. I think they should have released Call of Duty – World at War before Call of Duty- Modern Day Warfare. This way, the chronological story of World War II would have been leading up to the modern warfare.

Some Differences to older versions of Call Of Duty
With a lot of new perks, gun attachments but no vehicles on multiplayer, this game requires some but not all of the same tactics as Call of Duty 3 but in a much better graphic environment. You need to slightly adjust your skillz in order to play this game well if you were good at COD3.

Another difference is that in this game, instead of using your guns and fists for melee close range attack, you use a knife. In single player, if the dogs pounce on you (like Carnival) you will be forced to time your knife attacks on them. One problem with single player mode in this game is that there should be a few more checkpoints as it is frustrating to restart an entire level so far back. .

GIFTED GAMER RECOMMENDATION
This game is rated M, but other than a little language in the single player mode (and certainly more than your share of frustrated online gamers in multiplayer) it really should be like E10+ since people are shooting each other, and 5 year olds should not try this at home. But there are a decent amount of tweens/teens online and some are better than the adults trying to play this game. There are a fair share of adults online as well. Overall I think this game is fun and the online version stands the test of time. This is not the type of game to rent, you will want to own it for constant access to the online multiplayer version. I rate this game 8.5 out of 10.

You can buy the latest Call of Duty World at War for Ps3 and other consoles used to save some cash here:.



For advanced players, here is a link to some advanced hiding places in the maps:

Call Of Duty 4 Hiding Places Part 2 (Watch In High Quality) - Funny videos are here