Hello there guys...it's been what? 1 year & a half since my last blog post about StarCraft 2 (I'll be back to it soon)....

Well...I might be back more regularly. This is my last semester in university and my load is lighter than previous semesters...so we'll see.

Gaming Update

I played plenty of games in the past year, top notch games:

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

An absolute epic on an RPG games with story-telling that I have yet to see in any other RPG. Improved combat over the first Witcher game and Visuals that I'd cla.ssify as top 3 in any PC games..and I played PLENTY of PC games. Rating: 9.4

Batman: Arkham City

Being a fan of the first Batman, this game was a priority. Long story short, this game is all I wanted from a Batman sequal and maybe more. Rating: 9.3

Vanquish

A purely action-packed game that is completely focused on having a blast rather than having a satisfying storyline or multiplayer. Recommended for rental, espeically for those looking to having a blast. Rating: 8.9

Fifa 12

EA sports never disappoint me with their FIFA games; every year they find means to outdo themselves. Fifa 12 is by far the greatest FIFA game to date, if not best sport game. Rating: 9.5

Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams

I had some reservations when I started this game although I was a big, big fan of the first game. After finishing the game, I couldn't for the life of me remember why I had those reservations. One thing however, Rapture doesn't have the same creepy, moody feel it had in the first Bioshock. Rating: 9.1

Zelda: Skyward Sword

The metacrtic of this game was quite outstanding. Revieving a 10/10 from EdgeMagazineis no small feet. I did not finish the game yet (studies got in the way :( ) but I am absolutely loving the game. The dungeons feel different from before, in a good way. The new visual ****Nintedo used this time breathes life into a game that is 25 years old, and the controls are just as I imagined a Wii-Zelda game to be. However, the dowsing ability & the constant notifications when receiving items do hinder the pace of the game a bit, which is unfortunate as this game quite a marvelous creation. Rating: --

Greatest game of all time

I am not claiming that this game in better than SMG2, Zelda: OoT, Mass Effect or whatever. I am saying, however, that this game is my favorite game ever and I do not see that changing ANYtime soon.

The game is StarCraft 2.

My last blog was about this game and how the multiplayer aspect of the game is so great. It's not just great, it is absolutely the BEST. Now I see what an ESPORT means. Being an avid fan of football (soccer) I have an idea of how professional sports play out in terms of tactics and challenge, and I say it with full confidence that StarCraft 2 is a SPORT!

Never before did a game (other than SC: Brood War of course) have this amount of depth in it. The amount of different strategies & factors that play into the game is just out of this world. Two years into the game and it is going stronger than ever with multiple patches from Blizzard in attempt to make the game balanced, and they have done a great job at that...oh and an expansion is coming out sometime soon as well. The game is so fun & deep that I started following professional players play at a regular basis; kind of like I'm doing with Football (Soccer). Every month or so a new tournament starts and pro players from all around the world go there to participate, the best coming from Korean as some of you might know. With top-notch commentators & casters, the game is now is the highlight of ESPORTS and deservedly so. And with constant support from Blizzard, Intel, ASUS & countless other International orgainzations, this fact will hold for a long time.

Myself, I play on ladder frequently though not too much as to overdo it. The ladder system provides an amazing way for any player to have a blast with the game while learning the games steadily thanks to Battlenet's league system. The leagues are clas.sified as Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Masters & Grandmasters. Never was there a moment where I felt like I belonged to the wrong league. Right now I'm in the Diamond league (EU server) which is considered to be good, and getting there wasn't easy :( I went through a lot to get here, and it was well worth it.

Bottomline, this game deserves the attention of everyone & I am sure most people will enjoy this game in ways they never though possible, whether by playing the game directly, or by watching the pro games or by both (like me).

If you are interested, then these 2 websites are what you should be visiting to really enjoy the game:

www.gomtv.net -- GOMTV host the biggest SC2 tournament in the world, which basically means the biggest ESPORT tournament in the world. Epic stuff here, simply epic.

www.teamliquid.net -- Majority of the community are here. The site serves mutliple purposes, it provides the latest news related to the game, has an up-to-date encyclopedia about the game & acts as one of the biggest non-korean teams.

If anyone on the EU server has the game already, please feel free to add me. Here's a link to my profile:http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/850327/1/Khiari/

Ever knew what it felt like to wait for game for 12 years? Ever knew what it felt like to keep hearing news about this game being delayed countless times until you lose patience? Was there ever a game that you thought was too good to be true to actually play it?

The answer for me is Yes.

StarCraft 2 is the sequel to StarCraft that was released back in 1998. StarCraft was the game that many people refer to as the game that set the RTS genre on fire and revolutionized it as whole. Many people (including myself) see StarCraft as the best RTS game every created. While those statements are debatable, they're not very far away from the truth.

As a kid, I was only into platformers: Mario, Sonic and DK were the games that got me into gaming. Half-life then emerged and introduced me into the FPS genre and made me a big fan. At that time, whenever I saw an RTS game I got disgusted and never imagined myself playing one...not until the day my neighbor insisted that he lends me StarCraft (with the expansion). I never bothered to try it, but my brother did and I could tell that he was getting into it. As I watched him play the game, I knew that this game had something unique...something I'll love...I then declared myself as a fan of the genre.

Ten years later, StarCraft 2: Wings of Libery is released. My God I never imagine this day would ever game after the countless delays it went through. So the first question to strike a person's mind is: is it worth the f***ing 12 years worth the damn wait? The answer is: F*** Ya!!

SC2: WoL is the first episode of a trilogy that is on the way, and its campaign focuses on the Terran race. People got pissed when they heard these news; I personally didn't give a sh*t, because I knew at the end the game will boil down to its multiplayer, which included all three races (Terran, Protoss and Zerg).

That said, lets talk about the campaign. The story of SC was a very fascinating one, yet somewhat long but SC2 does a good job at letting you wary of the necessary details. The story in this game is actually surprisingly good, yet not to an extent to 'wow' you. It does take some time to get into the story though, but when it does it gets pretty damn interesting.

The best thing about the campaign though is the missions. 26 extremely fun and varied missions is really the high-point of the campaign. Every mission is different from the other; some mission you need to defend for a period of time, some you need to somewhat hi-jack a couple of trains, some you need to lead several convoys to a location safely and the list goes on. In addition to this, you can purshace very nice and useful upgrades and research awesome techs to improve your base defences and army. All in all, the campaign is very worth playing and is just a whole lot of fun.

Next, the presentation and graphics. The menus in SC2 are very slick and easy to use and stuff like rankings andachievmets are handeled pretty damn well. The graphics in the game are amazing honestly yet you'll need a powerful machine to run the game on extreme settings. My laptop is somewhat oldand I run the game on medium with no complaints and I still enjoy looking at the visuals. In other words, no complaints here whatsoever.

Next, and most importantly, the gameplay. Many people expected the game to be as revolutionary as the first one. I'm gonna say that the game is not revolutionary and uses the core gameplay mechanics of the first SC. Thats not the end of it though, the game DOES add pretty noteworthy and nice new gameplay tweaks that are good enough to revive a formula that was so successful 12 years ago. One of these additions is the ability to climb above cliffs for some units (reaper and collosus). Yet the idea seems so simple, you'll be surprised by how much depth it adds to the game. Another addition is the ability to warp some units to any power-field location in the map for the protoss. These plus several new tweaks really add a new dimension to the gameplay that makes for some seriously bada** encounters.

The coregameplay the game got fromitsprequel is as simple asan RTS game can get, which is one of the game's strong points. Thereal challenge is to master each race and use their abilities accordingly. The game can be learnt in30 mins, but mastering it could take ages...and to master it you'll have to go through pretty bad beatings (I've went through them...:( )...but in the end you WILL learn.

Three races might not seem like a big number. But what to take into account here is the striking balance between each of them. Everyrace have their own unique features that it is extremely difficult to declare one race as superior to the others.

Regarding the online multplayer, Blizzard did a good job at making it accessible to skill levels. Every player has to go through 5 placement matches against random opponents, and according to his/her performance they'll be put in their apporpriate leagues. Leagues are of 5 levels: Bronze, Silver, Golden, Platinum and Diamond. Of course you can advance through the leagues by winning a certian amount of matches and gaining a certian amount of points. These really feels like a well-thought system and so far it's working really well for me.

The level of the competition is pretty high I gotta say. There are lot of aggressive players out there that would do absolutely anything to claim victory, whether it's constantly killing you're workers and supplies or whether its a full-mass attack. No player has an advantage over the guys; there are no heroes like in WarCraft 3 that could destroy a whole base solo (not a criticism) or any sort of overpowerd figure that can single-handedly killa whole army. What you have is your wits and you experience...

So...

Is this the game we've waiting for? Hell ya it is. This game is a dream come true for me.The game has only been released for a month and a half and I played the game more than a game that would last for 2 years. Mark my words, this game will last for the next 10 years, and with the expansions on the way, it'll probably last even longer.

As some random user wrote in his review: "You know you're a successful developer whenuse a 12-year old formula and make it even better".

Like Tychus Findley (a character in the game) said: "Hell, it's about Time!!"

My Rating of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty:

9.5

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Thank for reading.

As the title suggests, I finished Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Took me ~12 hours to finish the game on hard difficulty. I gotta say the single-player experience was one of the best experiences I had as a gamer, especially the chapter(s) where you play on a moving train; thrilling to say the least.

Expect a blog review on this masterpiece soon.

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Until 4 days ago, I owned a copy of Demon's Souls and DC vs. MK Universe. DC vs. MK wasn't great so I swapped for inFamous. Demon's Souls was incredibly difficult and if I want to finish the game I'd have to spent countless hours and get frustrated so much that the PS3 might be at risk of breaking :P So I swapped it for Super Street Fighter 4.

Both good choices I gotta say. It's been so long since I've played a fighting game (other than Super smash) and SSF4 nicely fits in. The combos look great and are so much fun to perform. I still suck in the game (last SF game I played was about 10 years ago) but with time I'll master it.

The other game, inFamous, is a game that intruiged me for quite some time. I have to say I had my doubts on whether to get it or not but I got it to see if it really is something special. So far (6 hours in) the game really IS special when it comes to roaming around and its combat..so yeah I'm glad I got it. The graphics though, although good, could've been better IMO. After all I'm just Uncharted 2 which is easily the best looking game I ever played, so maybe my expectations are on the high side.

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For me, this has been the most aniticpated game since it was announced (okay maybe brawl was more anticipated) and I dreamed of the day I'd play the game since I played the first about 10 years ago. If it lives up to my expectations, it will certianly be one of the best games of this generation.

If you're wondering about what I'm talking about, I'm talking about Star Craft II. The first and only star craft game was released 12 years ago...so you can see why I'm so excited about the game. Star Craft II was announced 5-6 years ago and it cost blizzard 100 million dollars to make...another reason why the game is so damn hyped.

The game will released on the 27th July, less than 3 days from now...guess all I have to do know is wait...which I've been doing the past 5 years.

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Thank you for your time

El-Hebri

Since I'm somewhat free at the moment, I'll give a brief update of the interesting games I've been playing recently:

1) Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

A sequel to one of history's greatest games ever turned out to be a better game. How is that possible? Two words: Nintendo and Miyamoto. I would've never though in a million years that the legendary Miyamoto could surpass himself to this extent. Full marks for you my man, again.

2) Fifa 10 (PS3)

I've had this game since I bought the PS3 5 months ago and I quite literally play it every single day. The ultimate soccer game, EA Sports does it again. Can't imagine how Fifa 11 will turn out to be...:0

3) Demon's Souls (PS3)

This game is not any game. This game is....unique. This game is....fun. This game is....innovative. This game is....F***ING DIFFICULT!!

Boy this gameis absolutely merciless, one mistake and you're dead. And when you die,youstart from the beginning of the dungeon. When thathappens, you go through all the sh*t you went through before, with nolootand with all of your souls gone (you can get them back though).

I mean I understand why the game is challenging; toforce to master the game. But tomaster the game, you'll have to repeatareas over50 times and when you finally reach the boss hekills and repeat the whole crap again!

Ilove RPGs, especially if they're as innovative as this one. But I don't have all the time(and patience) to finish this game...and that's whyI'm thinking about swapping it for another game (not sure what game though).

4) Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

My latestgame to my PS3 collection, and easily the best of them.

Now I've heard a lot ofgood things about the game from a lot of sources and thecriticscore is just incredible (9.6). Logically, I got the game.

The game basically has it all:Thrillingaction, interesting plot, entertaining puzzles and platforming (not so challenging though), amazing cutscenes witha very witty and entertaining dialogue, fantastic multiplaterand the very best visuals you'll will witness until Crysis 2 or Uncharted 3 comes out.

I'm almost done with thecampaign, and I have to say that Nathan Drake will become one of my favorite characters.Thank you Naughty Dog. If Uncharted 3 surpasses this game, then I'll consider you as one of my favorite developers.

Before I start I want to emphazise that this is my first ever playthrough of a Final Fantasy game, so I don't really know what to expect from such a title. So I'm going to give my impressions from a JRPG point of you, not FF point of view.

So the main complaint from people was the linearity of the game. They also said the game takes time to get pumped up. I already played roughly 10 to 11 hours, and I can say they're right. The first 2 of the game were kinda boring, honestly speaking. All you did was walk through a road, meet some enemies and fight them using 1 or 2 moves only nothing else. However, the game gets more and more interesting as you go on. I'm towards the end of chapter 3 and I can say things are getting more interesting slowly and slowly.

The second issue was the battle system. The complaints were that you can only one character during the fight, unlike previous FF titles where you control every character's action. From my point of view, I think the battle system is fantastic. As mentioned earlier, the first couple of hours there's nothing much to do in the battles; 1 or 2 moves and thats all. But once the different "paradigms" get introduced and you learn more moves, have access to upgrades and fight boss battles, you'll see that the battle system is excellent. It's designed for you to be both tactical AND keep the battle fast-paced so that you think properly before you take an action.

Next we go to the part where nobody should or will complain; the presentation. The cutscene visuals are out of this world, quite literally one of the most beautiful games to date. Even the in-game visuals are incredible, exactly what to expect from the ps3. The voice acting is very good, the dialogue is good for the most part (sometimes you'll encounter some cheesy dialogue). The soundtracks are exactly what to expect from a JRPG, so memorable and exciting.

So what I concluded from my first 10 hours is this: If you think you can be patient for a while, then then defenitely get the game.

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On another note, I might write a blog review for Mass Effect 2 sometime soon.

Thanks for reading

Ya, I'm back and you better believe it....or am I? :PAnyhoo I just wanted to blog after having such a loooong day....as a matter of fact I just finished a take-home quiz on Data Communications...so yaaa.

Anyways, I have a LOT of gaming-related news to share but I'll just give away the most important one....I got a PS3 slim about 3 weeks ago...and it rocks! Not saying it's better than a Wii or anything, but I would say that owned a ps3 could be a better experience due to the numerous high-quality games, both multiplatform (Fifa, Assassins creed 2, FFXIII,...) and exclusives (Uncharted 2, God of war III, MGS4,...).

I got two controllers with it and two games, Fifa 10 and Asssassins Creed 2. Both fantastic games. Assassins Creed I was a bit dissappointing but after the very positve reviews for AC2, I decided to get. And I did not regret the choice; AC2 is a fantastic games. Repetition, the most notable flaw in the original, is 95% removed in AC2. I'm not saying 100% because the games feels a tad bit repetetive at times....rarely.

Fifa 10 on the hand = One of the best soccer games ever. Incredible realism is the game's biggest plus; the animations, the graphics, the AI, the commentating, the manager mode, the amazing skills system, the difficulty and the gameplay all add up to make one of the best soccer games to date. I might write a short blog review of the game to shed a bit more detail about this game.

Since I finished AC2, I started looking for new games to get...and guess what, FFXIII is available. This is the first time I'd play a FF games (I know, I'm messed up). The game didn't get the review people were expecting; apparently linearity got the game down several notches. But I'll be honest, was there ever a non-linear JRPG (exluding FFs because I never played them). I play Tales of symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, Baten Kaitos and several others. All were fantastic games (TOA not so great) but all were somewhat linear (Baten Kaitos less linear the other two) but all shared the same strong point that made them shine : Story and Combat. FFXIII seems to cover those two points quite impressively. I know this might sound stupid, but the games looks FANTASTIC...AMAZING...maybe its not enough reason, but story, combat and graphics will do for me.

Non-linear RPGs are the western ones; Oblivion, Fallout, Mass Effect(1/2), KOTOR(1/2), Dragon Age, etc. Since all I did was play those RPGs (I literally played all of the ones i just mentioned), I think I should give JRPGs another ride.

So....what do you think? Should I get FFXIII although I never played a FF games before?

It's been a loong time since I wrote I blog because...well because I was too lazy to:P Not this time! Something big is gonna happen tonight so I just had to write about it.I'm sure a lot of you don't know it, but I was devastated last Saturday and here's why:The Football World Cup 2010 in South Africa is nearing, and the list of the teams that are going to South Africa isn't complete...yet. The qualifiers aren't over yet, in Africa and Europe at least.Last Saturday, my country, Algeria, played against Egypt in Cairo. Before I start to say what happened, Algeria and Egypt are FIERCE rivals in soccer and I cannot emphasize enough in the "FIERCE" part. It's always been the case that Algerians and Egyptians don't like each other when it comes to soccer and last Saturday was not different. We went to the game as leaders of the group and had the advantage of scoring more goals in the previous matches. If we win, tie or even lost by a one goal difference, we would go through to the World cup. If we lost by a 2 goal difference we would play another game against them. If we lose by 3 or more goals we would be out. Suffice to say, the pressure on the players was incredible and the tension was mind-blowing. The Egyptian fans didn't make it better when they threw bricks at our players when they reached Cairo...so the tension was even greater.Lets go to the match itself...I was watching the game in a Cafe with my Algerian and Egyptian friends. Egypt scored a goal from the 2nd minute..all the Egyptians in the cafe screamed out of joy and I was terrified....but I said to myself "Its OK, it's only 1-0, if we keep this score we're still through"...so I continued watching the game....it remained 1-0 throughout the game.....not until 1 minute before the end of the game when Egypt scored a second goal.................I was destroyed....1 minute was all that was between us the world cup we miss so much (Last time we qualified was in 1986)...:(:( There was drama and excitement I've never seen before in my life...So Egypt won by a 2-goal margin, so we had to play yet ANOTHER game...which is today....actually its only 4 hours from now.....This time the team that wins will go through to the world cup, no advantage no nothing! But our team are strong mentally, they didn't let the defeat into their mind and they're confident of their abilities.
The Egyptians on the other hand are very confident, as they proved to themselves that they are capbale to do the impossible.You can't imagine how freightened I am from this game...what if we win? what if we lost? what if we lose dramatically again? I can't take these thoughts of my mind!! Is it us Algerians, or is them Egyptians!! Is it the men in Green and white (Algerians) or is the men in Red and white (Egyptians)? We'll wait..and ...see...
PS- I'm sorry for this soccer-related blog. I know very few of you are interested in soccer...but I had to write about it!

Here's the 8th one:

8. First Call of duty Experience

Game: Call of Duty 2 (PC) (Yea...its not the first call of duty game:P)

2 and half years ago, I had an important exam in the afternoon. I woke up 5 hours before the exam to be ready for the exam, so I went to my PC to turn it on and then I see a new game that's installed on the PC....Call of duty 2. I tried the game out of curiousity and I chose one the existing save files....the love for the game came instantly! I've rarely had such good first impressions of a game, especially one that I never knew and expected ! The amazing explosion effects, the constant shouts of my teammates, the amazing sound effects..EVERYTHING was mind-blowing! I knew I was going to love this game...and I sure did.

From that day till now, I'm a fan of COD games and my favorite is, with no doubt, COD 4. But I'd have to thank COD 2 for being mysteriously installed on my PC for that....

Thanks for reading :)

(PS- that exam went very well :lol:)

Here's no. 9:

9) Beating the trio

Game- Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean

Baten Kaitos is known to have one of the most difficult (and challenging) boss battles in RPG games. Even in ordinary encounters you had to think steadily and not rush into the fight. In boss battles, you had to think 3 turns ahead and organize you deck according to your opponent's weak and stong points. This gave the game a whole new level of in-depthstrategy, and is one of the things that made the game so awesome.

One particular battle came into my mind, the battle against Giacomo and his two followers (I forgot their names...) on the the airship. I had to fight against 3 very powerful enemies simultaneously. I lost the first 2 times, but that was enough for me to analyse their weaknesses, so I arranged my deck accordingly and fought them again. I had one of the most exciting boss battles ever, it really felt like I deserved the win because I actually came up with a tactic. One of the the three enemies was able to play 2 consecutive turns (it was really annoying) so I decided to get rid of him first then take care of the other two...and the tactic worked perfectly:).

The feeling I got by winning this battle was awesome...especially that this battle wasn't any ordinary battle. I know a friend who actually restarted the game from the beginning because he couldn't beat them....ya, its that hard. Baten Katios does have one of the best boss battles where thinking and strategy aren't choices, they're mandatory.

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Just decided to share my list of most anticipated games (in order of most aniticpated):

- StarCraft 2 (PC) (you can't imagine how badly I want to play this game...)
- Zelda Wii (Wii)
- Metroid: Other M (Wii)
- Bioshock 2 (PC)
- Mass Effect 2 (PC)
- Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
- Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 (PC)
- New Super Mario Bros 4 (Wii)
- Crysis 2 (PC)
- Assassins Creed 2 (PC)
- Fifa 10 (PC)

Thanks for reading :)

As some of you said, making such a list is very difficult since I have to remember all the good moments I had while playing a game....but I put some time into it and I think I'm making a good progress.

So lets start with no.10:

10) New controls for Link

Game- The legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)

I have been anticipating this game for a long time and I've seen a lot of videos of it. I couldn't really see how the controls played in the game but I guessed it would be new and innovative. When the game got released, almost all the reviwers complemented the controls, stating that they work very smoothly and whatnot.

I bought the game a month after it came out and the moment I came back home I tried the game. The controls were absolutely amazing; it does make the game a bit more easier compared to previous Zelda games. Everything you do in the game is handled with light pen: walk around, shoot arrows, throw the boomerang, boms, use the sword, solve puzzles, etc. All of this made the Zelda formula fresh and new again. It lets you solve ****c Zelda puzzles in a whole newdifferent direction. Sometimes you have take notes on your map so that you press switches in a particular order, or you had to direct the boomerang in a particular way so that it hits several switches in a specific order, or you had to shoot several moving targets using the arrows swiftly.....this freshened the Zelda formula in a great and innovative way that delighted me to the fullest.

Nintendo can really step it up a notch when they have to:)

Thank you for reading :)