Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

First things first I'm a huge Dawn of War fan and have loved all of the games up to Dawn of War 2 , Super excited when first details emerged from the game with the updated graphics and was also looking forward to the small yet more tactial battles that are similar to the style of play in Company of heroes and stays true to the tabletop relation of the game.

I have to admit I was a little apprehensive at the change Relic and Jonny Ebbert made to the existing and successful formula that was Dawn of war with a growing fan base that loved the straetgy in the game , the feel of the maps , large amounts of units on screen and generally the epicness that was happening.
With such a rich universe for game deveoplers to dive into the game had many different races all with their own unique story and background

Although the mechanics of the game have changed and no longer are there huge battles between dozens of squads of space marines and Orkz with tanks, aircrafts and large squads. The battles are scaled down but from playing the game espically in multiplayer I feel the game hasnt lost its epicness when it comes to battles , As its much more tactical on the multiplayer front with keeping units alive could be the tipping balance on winning or losing a game and the game still feels great with all the races having their each indivdual play styles such as eldar being the speedy stealthy type and you have huge towering space marines who are few in number but pack a hell of a punch and also the melee experts of the Orkz and Tyranids ,so everyones play style can be catered for in the game.

I wish the single player was as good as the multiplayer however as the single player doesnt seem to have a huge variety to it with reptitive missions that all seem the same and dont require as much tactical awareness and cunning as you need in the multiplayer. With the same objectivies of capture this or that building and kill the boss at the end of the mission which gets very boring very quickly even with the choice to choose which planets you visit.

Although the single player is lacking the multiplayer really does it for me with more gorgeous maps coming out every few months and more variety such as new game modes, new customizable limits on time and victory points the game is becoming a hot competitive game and with epic 6 player battles which with two equal teams can be awesome and tense and either win or lose you usually have a great game.
1v1 maps are just as tactical and tense as 3v3 and 2v2 maps as there is no base building all the action is orientated on creating and looking after units as well as upgrading them, so keeping your squads alive is in this Dawn of war is just as important as capturing victory points or annihilating the enemy headquarters depending on which game mode choose.

With continued support on the game expected with new maps and game modes on the way the game hasn’t run out of steam yet. With expansions expected as Relic have done in the past with the Dow series and in their other games , Dawn of War 2 is expected to go on being fun for a long time yet especially with the potential of the Warhammer 40,000 universe for Relic and other developers to dive into.

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Grand Theft Auto : IV

I'm a big GTA fan and I've played most of the GTA's with my first being GTA : London which was just my favourite game for a long time being its in London and the UK , even if you couldnt tell it was in the UK due to the graphics being well not the best.

Grand Theft 2 Auto was released soon after GTA: London in October 1999 and with improved graphics and the location returned back to the USA and was my favourite game once again from a GTA game.
Fast fowarding to October 2001 when for me the series really hit its breakthrough status for the series with GTA : III when the series moved from a top down view to a 3rd person view and the graphics were amazing at the time and the eventual release of Vice city a year later also boosted respect from crtics , gamers and average people alike on how far the series has come and how it continues to improve on each and every new GTA that is released.

The series continued to improve with GTA : San Andreas adding a great new character and the challenges he faces and the series continued to amaze people , and now we arrive to the latest GTA , GTA:IV which arrived on 29 April 2008.
I'm usually a huge GTA fan but I was so occupied with some great games in 2008 and had a little bit of media blackout while playing Team Fortress 2.I was also carrying on with some of my other top 10 games like DOW:Dark Crusade and with 2009 I had Uncharted 2 on the ps3. I tried to keep up to date with  MW2 news as well , and of course my favourite RTS game the total war series specficily  Empire : Total War.
But I eventually picked up the game for my PC at the end of 2009 , but while I was reading about the PC version of the game I noticed how people were having lots of problems with trying to get it to run efficiently and trying to get through all the garbage of Games for windows live and Rockstar Social club.
After a very long installation I loaded up the game , started a new game but the game was recieving errors here there and everywhere but after extensive tweaking the game finally worked.

First things first the game looks absoultley amazing on the PC version if you get it to work that is and on full settings as even on strong system there is some frame issues in certain parts.

(Take in mind this screen isnt on max settingson my computer)

There is another cool character on the block this time around called Niko Bellic who is a Ex-solider from a war (Bosninan war) in Europe and comes in search of the American dream off a ship.
Following his cousin Roman who persuaded Niko to leave Europe for the promise and opportunity of America , but realises its not all what Roman said it was chopped up to be.
While settling in Niko meets some of Roman's "friends" who he gets involved with in order to save Roman from any harm and this is the beginning of Niko falling into crime , gangs and violence.
The guns in the game are pretty similar to the San Andreas and Vice City with some refinements and a new cover system in place to add a new straetgy to the game and so you dont get shot to pieces as quickly as you would in San Andreas if you were surrounded by cops or thugs or possibly both.

Like all GTA's the story and character of the game are top class with Michael Hollick voicing Niko Bellic and rightfully winning Best Male Voice Actor at the 2009 Video Game Awards.
The games main story focus is Niko looking for a ex-soldier like himself from the Bosnian war who betrayed his friends and squad whom all of which were killed in the set up.
He follows one of them to Liberty City only to find there are actually 2 of them in Liberty City , revealing any more may spoil the story for some , So I will stop there.

The multiplayer is actually good fun as a maximum of 32 players can cause havoc in the city blowing up every and anything and a large 15 game modes to play around with , also persistent ranks can be earned through earning cash and changes to traffic , police presence , weapons and may more.
For a game like GTA which is mainly concentrated on the single player aspect the multiplayer is really good fun with a large range of modes and 32 players its chaos but amazingly fun chaos!

The story overall is very gripping and is a fresh change from the standard characters who were mostly locals and knew a lot of the surrounding people where as Niko has none of that except his cousin , once again Rockstar have made another great GTA but still were able to keep it fresh and still managed to create a new awesome character and also those characters around him , I also like the choices you have to make in the game for some of the characters "should I kill this guy or not hmmm?" it changes how the game plays out which is great for playing the game through again.

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