There is this bit in Misery, where Stephen King talks about the “gotta” factor in storytelling. It’s the art of telling a story in a way that makes your audience invest more time in it because they “gotta” know what happens next. It’s the reason you stick around commercial breaks to watch TV, it’s the reason you forget about food to finish a book, and it’s the reason why I am awake at 4 am and playing The Sims 3 instead of being fast asleep. Its strange that for a game that has no story (except what you make, I guess) The Sims 3 has the “gotta” factor nailed down better than any video game since Diablo. You know you have been playing way too long, but you just gotta develop that one more skill, fulfill one more need, get one more promotion etc. It’s the gaming equivalent of crack cocaine.

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family

The concept of the game is simple enough. You create a Sim (or more than one if you are so inclined), give them personality traits that you like, drop them in a house in the town of your choosing, and act out their lives as you see fit. The term ‘life simulator’ is thrown about quite a lot when people talk about the Sims series and The Sims 3 takes that to a whole new level. It hits particularly close to home when the computer loving, absent-minded Sim I create with the loner trait seems completely content working a crap job and staying at home playing video games all day in his free time. And it becomes uncomfortably realistic when the only girl he can get is of particularly loose morals when it comes to monogamy.

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Volition surprised many when Red Faction Guerrilla was first announced. In a departure from the first two titles in the Red Faction series, which were first-person shooters, in Guerrilla, you play from a third-person perspective, and while the previous games were more linear, this one adopts an open-world approach. So they’ve pretty much flipped the script for this latest iteration, which is a bit of a risk. But does the risk pay off?

The key selling point of Red Faction has always been the destructible environments. It did it as an FPS with the Geo Mod engine and it does it again, and even better, in its third-person shooter avatar with Geo Mod 2. But the fear was always that Guerrilla would end up as a one-trick pony, wowing everyone with the level of destructibility, but unable to match it in other aspects of the game. Unfortunately, that fear has been realised, and I’ll explain why a little later in the review.

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The sequel to one of the most highly rated games of the PS3, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, seems to be revving up for quite an impressive late 2009 release, as is evident from the mind blowing game-play footage shown at E3. However, the creative devils at Naughty Dog have blessed some of us mere mortals with a chance to get our hands on the zany adventurer a lot earlier, meaning at this very instance, in the form of the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (UC2) multiplayer beta. Hallelujah!

The beta offers a full spectrum of the various multiplayer modes offered by UC2, which include co-operative play and two competitive modes – Deathmatch and Plunder. Before reviewing each mode, it would be unfair not to mention the fact that the game looks simply spectacular. The previous iteration of Uncharted was absolutely stunning and it seems like there is no stone being left unturned to make sure that the sequel is anything but the definition of the word ‘gorgeous’. The character models are top-notch and the animations are as varied as those of the first game. The world of UC2 beta consists of colourful levels reminiscent of the by-lanes of Old Delhi and Kolkata, the latter being no surprise since the game takes place in Nepal.

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Alright fellow gamers, without spending too much time on describing the pre-release hype surrounding this game, let me get straight to the point – inFamous rocks! There. You may continue to read the rest of my (rather lengthy) review or go out and buy the game, if you haven’t already. And if you don’t have a PlayStation 3, consider getting one because you just got one more reason to buy it.

For the uninitiated, inFamous is an open-world sandbox action game from Sucker Punch Productions featuring a protagonist with super powers. Yes, it’s been done before in games like Crackdown, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and various Spider-Man games. But what separates inFamous from other similar games is its overall execution and presentation. Right off the bat, the game pulls you into its gritty urban comic book style and doesn’t let up until the final cut-scene. The atmosphere is straight out of a graphic novel on the lines of Mark Millar’s Wanted or Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. It’s the classic superhero origin and coming-of-age story but with a twist.

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Grand Theft Auto is a series that has revolutionised the action/adventure genre. Over the years we’ve seen the series grow from the first ever Grand Theft Auto game to GTA4, and the team at Rockstar have set an example in showing us how a series should develop. In the previous instalment, we saw the entry of the series into the next generation of consoles. Playing as Niko Belic, gamers were reintroduced to Liberty City. Modeled after New York, Liberty City was a living, breathing city. The sheer level of detail in the game was at times difficult to fathom.

After the success of GTA4, one would have figured that Rockstar would take a break from the series. But our prayers and their profits convinced them to work on another GTA game; this time however taking a whole new turn. Say hello to Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS. Yes, for the DS.

Chinatown Wars is the story of Huang Lee, who comes to Liberty City to avenge his father’s (a triad boss) mysterious death and deliver the symbolic family sword to his uncle. Things don’t turn out as easy as Huang had imagined. He gets ambushed, the sword gets stolen and he is left to die. The story is not very unique and could have been worked upon, but the gameplay easily makes up for the shortcomings. The developers have gone retro this time, sticking to the birds-eye perspective that we loved in GTA and GTA2. However, it is to be noted that though the perspective is above the action, everything below - buildings, objects, cars, etc. are in 3D. The camera does an awesome job of following you around and can be repositioned at any time with the press of the left trigger. The controls are crisp and the game overall looks great.

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