Johnny English Reborn: Born again or born to fail? (again)

Following the massive success of the first Johny English film, the second installment with Rowan Atkinson reprising his role as the trouble prone spy Johnny English has come to the Box Office.

English is recalled by MI7 from years of exile after a mission in Mozambique, to undertake a mission which MI7 believe he can only do. This mission takes English on a captivating and interesting set of locations, from the Kowloon to the Alps with the usual mishaps and mistakes a long the way and with the usual array of gadgets at his disposal.

I rate it 4/5 stars and in my opinion it is better than the first one.

Thanks for reading this review of Johnny English Reborn and I hope to update you soon on any media news and reviews
Strudders

FIFA 12 review

The day that all football fans and gamers have been waiting for has arrived. FIFA 12 came out on friday and I am here to tell you the good and the bad about the game.

FIFA 12 is a big step forward for the FIFA franchise with the new player impact engine, new defensive controls and a whole new online mode called Support Your Club.


One of the notable changes in FIFA 12 is the new quick throw system. Basically instead of having a cut scene how how the ball went out of play, now you can take the throw straight away if you players are ready. This adds to the realism because having a cut scene is really just wasting playing time.


The graphics in FIFA 12 are also brilliant. The players and the stadium look stunning and it really does feel like you are a part of the action on the pitch.


As always FIFA 12 is full of game modes such as Kick Off, Tournament mode and Several Manager modes as well as the Be A Pro mode. As always in the FIFA games the modes are very slick with very good looking and easy to use menus.    


The new precision dribbling means that you have even more control over the ball and adds to the total realism of the game.

  

The new tactical defending controls mean that you have off the ball control of players. If the player holds R1 for PS3 and RB for Xbox 360 then another player comes and also helps pressure the opposing player that you are trying to tackle. The advantages of this are that you can hold R1 or RB for a team mate to  tackle the opposing player while you run into a good position. However it can mean that you let the opponent through on goal because it called the last man in the defence.

Now for the most important new feature of FIFA 12. The Player Impact Engine. This has been in development for 2 years by EA and this is how EA aim to make FIFA 12 the most realistic football simulator on the market. And im glad to say that the 2 years have payed off big time. It has made it a whole more realistic and it feels like you really are in control of a player on the pitch. It also makes the injuries that the players suffer a lot more realistic. However it will take a bit of time to get used to the new physics of the game but then that is always the case with a new game with big changes. 

And now for the online part of FIFA 12. The newest edition to the online is Support Your Club. This is a mode which you can influence while you are playing both online and offline. First of all you have to choose which club you want to represent. There is an XP system where you earn XP while playing offline or online for whatever club which goes towards the club you have chosen to support XP count. 
The leagues last for a week and the club with the highest average XP which each individual has contributed to their club wins the league and teams get promoted and relegated like normal football leagues.


So just to clear up. For example say that someone chooses to support Liverpool in Support Your Club. Everything tht player does on FIFA 12 is contributing to Liverpool's total XP online in the league that they are in.




All in all FIFA 12 is an excellent game and, in my opinion is the best football is simulator out there.


Thanks for reading this review of FIFA 12 and I hope to update you soon on media news and reviews
Strudders 


(All pictures are accredited to EA Sports)

Amazon reveals Kindle Fire tablet and new Kindles on US website

There are many companies out there who have entered the fray of competing to produce the best tablet around and rival the biggest one of all, the iPad 2. Now the biggest online retail company in the world, Amazon has joined the fray.


Pre-orders are now available on the US Amazon website from and first things first its cheap at $199 which is a very competitive price. The battery life has been said as 8 hours if you are reading continuously and 7.5 hours of video play back.
Its memory is 8 GB which is decent but I think Amazon will have to release models with higher memory like 16GB to be able compete with the likes of the iPad 2. It's weight is 14.6 ounces which is 413 grams. The screen size is 7" and is made of Gorilla glass. This is a great thing because it means that a Kindle Fire screen will not be scratched by objects like keys. It also has a 3.5mm headphone jack which is standard on tablets these days. It connectivity is Wifi and it also has USB 2.0.

Amazon have also released the details of their new increasingly popular Kindle range, with 3 new models.


The first is the new version of the Kindle. It is 30% lighter than the 1st generation Kindle and has an 18% smaller body but still keeps the 6" screen size and also retains the turn page buttons. It is also at a very decent price to pre order at $79 with a special offer.









The second is the Kindle Touch. As the name suggests Amazon has again got rid of the keyboard and now it has a 6" touch screen. It also has Wifi and there is another version called the Kindle Touch 3G which, as you have probably guessed, has 3G.







Thanks for reading and I hope I can help you update you on media news soon.




All photos credited to amazon.com

Modern Warfare 3: Spec Ops survival mode trailer

Since Modern Wafare 2's release on the 10th November 2009 it is still as popular now as it has ever been. Now a year and a half later Infinity Ward are realeasing trailers for the massively awaited sequel Modern Warfare 3


The latest trailer to be realeased is of gameplay of the SpecOps: Survival mode which is basically Infintiy Ward's version of Nazi Zombies.
I am here to analyse the trailer and give you my opinion on how it is shaping up to be.


The trailer starts off describing what Survivial mode is and how it will work and that it will have its own seperate leaderboard online:

 Something that caught my eye in the following gameplay was in the bottom left corner. There are these progress bars which say Kill streak and Headshot above them. I think that these are challenges that when you complete you get money and the amount of money that you get is to the right of the progress bars. These challenges seem to change as the trailer goes on to 'Quad Kill, Knife Kill, Assists, Rampage' which means that you will have different challenges throughout the game which will present challenges and keep you playing in many different ways.

A very important piece of information is said over the radio in the trailer in the video and this is that survival mode only has 2 players in it.
Personally I'm not sure about Infinity Ward's and Sledgehammer Games decision on this because while having 4 player co-op like in Nazi Zombies is fun and some fans will be unhappy about having only 2 player co-op, this means more action for the 2 players involved.
Let me know in the comments below what you think of this.


Also there is an indication of some of the perks you will be able to purchase and unlock with 3 perks - Extreme Conditioning, Sitrep and Steady Aim which gives an indication of some the perks in the multiplayer as well.


Now of course survival mode would be pretty difficult without thee player being able to get new weapons and weapons attachments. Infinity Ward and Sledgehmmer Games have red glowing outlines of 3 things - a pistol, a grenade and a jet. These 3 outlines are around care packages around the maps. This seems to be how a player will be able to purchase new weapons and equipment and air support like buying guns and equipment of the walls in Nazi Zombies. These packages will make the player have to think about their tactics because the player will need to be constantly upgrading weapons and getting re-supplies.  
































Also guns and equipment are confirmed to be returning by this video.
These are:



Guns: (pistol outline)


USAS 12
M16A4
AK-47
ACR6.8

Equipment:  (grenade outline)
Flashbangs
Frag grenades
C4
Auto turret (sentury gun)

Last Stand




One very interesting part of the trailer was when 'air drop support armoury' was shown.
 This seems to be where you can purchase things like Predator Missiles and Air strikes. 
You can also purchase a 'Delta squad which I reckon is a squad of men which help you survive the waves of enemies. However I am slightly sceptical of this because these Delta squads may just kill all the enemies during a wave and leave the player standing there with nothing to do.
However I shall  withhold my final judgement until the game comes out.
However one thing that I do like the look of is the riot shields squad. I think that this will be a very useful and that they will be a great tool for cover during the combat
Let me know in the comments below what you think of the ideas of the Delta squad and the riot shield squads

One very interesting concept showed in the trailer was attack dogs with explosives. I think that this will be awesome in Spec ops because it means that the attack dogs have even more power.
However I really hope that this is not a kill streak in the multiplayer because I think that it would be too overpowered.
Let me know your views below on this.






And right at the end of the trailer when you think it is all over there is an easter egg and this is a snippet of multiplayer gameplay!!


There are several important revels here.
The first is the Juggernaut POINT STREAK reward. Now this suggests that in Modern Warfare 3 players will gaining point streaks for playing objectives likes capping flags and planting bombs. I believe this is a great idea because some gamers out there are not able to build up good kill streaks but now with the introduction of point streaks people will be rewarded more for playing the objective.
The device used to gain this pint streak by the player seems to be a modern type of Bouncing Betty which we saw in World at War because you can see a small part of it fly up into the air and explode.
Let me know what you think of this new type of equipment in the comments below 


The next thing is the very detailed mini map in the top left corner of the screen. Now in previous Call Of Duty games the mini map has been outlines of buildings and areas. But now with the great detail on the mini map players will be able to move around more tactically and use the detail on the mini map.


The weapon that the player seems to be holding is a machine pistol so this seems to suggest that Infinity Ward is bringing back Shotguns and Machine pistols as secondary weapons which is different to Black Ops.