Resident Evil 6

Manufacturer: Capcom

My Rating: 

FREE DOWNLOAD LINK: https://kickass.to/resident-evil-6-black-box-t7229120.html#main

System Requirements

CPU:	Intel® CoreTM 2 Quad 2.7 Ghz or better, AMD PhenomTM II X4 3 Ghz or better
RAM:	4 GB RAM
VGA:	NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560 or better
DX:	9.0c or greater
OS:	Windows Vista®/XP, Windows 7, Windows 8
HDD:	16 GB free hard drive space
Sound:	Standard audio device

THE REVIEW

Resident Evil’s enemies have evolved in parallel to the series’ pacing: They started off slow, shambling, and scary with the first three before breaking into an all-out run by the fourth and fifth. Resident Evil 6 typical enemies, called J’avo, grow tentacle arms, claw hands, and massive moth wings mid-battle as their limbs are blown off. They’re annoying and remarkable--and yes, that’s about as good an analogy for Resident Evil 6 as you’re going to get.

Resident Evil 6 shuns the series’ standard narrative path in favor of containing three different, consecutive cooperative campaigns following a viral threat on a global scale. Leon Kennedy teams up with agent Helena Harper to deal with the G-virus as it breaks out in a small American town in one campaign, Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans fight Bio Organic Weapons as they spread through China in another, and Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin attempt to escape mercenaries and mutants in Eastern Europe in the third. There’s also a fourth--following Ada Wong--that is unlocked after the other three are completed, though the first trio can be handled in any order the player wishes.

Though all of the campaigns feel similar in terms of their basic components and pacing, they all have their own styles and idiosyncrasies. To put it in the plainest terms possible, Leon’s plays like an action-heavy Resident Evil, Chris’s plays like a Resident Evil military shooter, and Jake’s plays like a more cinematic, Uncharted-inspired Resident Evil. None play all that much like a traditional Resident Evil, or even an RE4/5 era game--they’re much faster and more explosive, trading fear for gunfire without actually addressing the fact that it’s no longer a survival horror game

The split campaign works well for the most part, and does a great job of creating a massive, epic story without making each character feel like a super soldier. Capcom did a fantastic job of keeping each segment separate while still including instances that help flesh out the plot of the other campaigns and add context to situations. Instead of feeling like different chapters of the same story, Resident Evil 6’s campaigns feel like stand-alone experiences complemented by the existence of other, related moments. That said, it can also create a somewhat uneven game when played straight through, as you’ll be met with four introductions, four climaxes, and four conclusions, as well as a fair share of repeated plot points and gameplay mechanics. Some things, like the new skill and experience system, transfer between, but otherwise they're their own beasts.

Fans of shorter single-player stories will undoubtedly enjoy the ability to blow through any of the campaigns in five to seven hours, whereas those who prefer longer narratives will still be greeted with a single tale that lasts around 25 hours. That’s over two-dozen hours without digging into The Mercenaries, a score-grind mode; Agent Hunt, a feature that lets you jump into the body of an enemy in a stranger’s game; or attempting to go back through cooperatively or to hunt down all of the hidden Serpent emblems.

Better yet, the campaigns occasionally cross over into the others as the different plotlines converge and diverge, creating some of the most memorable moments the series has seen in years. These aren’t just cutscenes, either--when you play as Leon you’ll run into a section where you’ll fight side-by-side with Chris, prompting the game to search for players currently playing Chris’s campaign to pull into your game (after a brief, skippable waiting period). Intertwining stories can mean brief, fleeting segments of four-player co-op interspersed throughout, making RE6’s already grand, overarching story feel more impressive. It also means, however, that some battles or moments are repeated in later campaigns, which can be an issue if the segment wasn’t all that good in the first place.

Repetition is common during RE6’s many boss battles, where stories overlap the most--and the encounters only become more tedious every time you replay them. It’s not because of the actual mechanics of the gameplay, though--those are stronger in RE6 than they have been in any of the past games. Resident Evil 6 sports the largest upgrades to the Resident Evil style since RE4. An emphasis is placed on fluidity and movement--a huge departure from the tank-like controls of previous games. The welcome ability to move and shoot is joined by sliding, crawling, upgraded melee, and a cover system that never seems to work right (but, thankfully, is never really necessary). There are still some moments of slowly plodding through moody corridors, waiting for enemies to leap out and scream, but they’re weaved between cinematic moments and large-scale shootouts.

The issue, though, is with conflicted gameplay; more specifically, scarcity of ammo and an annoying inventory system. Resident Evil 6 doesn’t blend horror and explosive action, it simply sits awkwardly between them, leaving you with facing too many enemies with too few bullets. Needing to mix herbs and pick and choose which items to collect might have made sense in the past, but now it feels somewhat redundant, held back even more by inventory management that doesn't fit. You’ll often face situations that seem bred specifically to trick you into wasting ammo (and time), such as near-immortal enemies that need a cutscene to trigger before they can be harmed. These segments aren’t well telegraphed, and it’s often hard to know if the foe you’re wasting precious ammo on can be hurt at all, or if the game is simply biding its time until a quick-time event is triggered.

Quick-time events aren’t new to the series, but they were used much more sparingly in the past than they are in RE6. Now everything from opening a door to punching an enemy has the potential to trigger an event that’ll have you slamming random buttons or smacking the analog stick back and forth. Sometimes they’re simply annoying, and other times they’re overly difficult. Never, though, are they enjoyable, and it's a shame to see interesting moments that might have served better as cutscenes or fully interactive segments be chained to QTEs.

So much of Resident Evil 6 is wonderful. The story is intense and ambitious, and the separate campaigns--and the way they interact with each other--is an achievement in interactive storytelling. Even the changes to the gameplay are strong, and you’ll likely spend a majority of the game enjoying the weird, unexpected ride that it takes you on. When you do run into issues, though, they’ll be related to the half measures taken in other areas of the gameplay, proving that flat-out abandoning some tropes while clinging on to others doesn’t always make for great sequels. Though rough around the edges, Resident Evil 6 is still a remarkable creature, and like the J’avo, it’s an interesting transformation, even if it’s not necessarily the prettiest one.

Watch Dogs

Manufacturer:  Ubisoft
Our Rating: 

FREE DOWNLOAD LINK: https://kickass.to/watch-dogs-pc-full-game-nosteam-t9147818.html#main

PC System RequirementsMinimum:

OS: Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1) or Windows 8 (Please note that we only support 64 bit OSs.)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66Ghz or AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.0Ghz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 11 graphics card with 1 GB Video RAM - Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5770
DirectX: Version 11
Hard Drive: 14 GB available space 

THE REVIEW:

Watch Dogs is exactly what you think it is. It’s Assassin’s Creed 4 meets GTA 5 meets Batman Arkham City… but--despite the pedigree of its influencers--it narrowly fails to better any of them. Don’t misunderstand: it’s a great game that combines some smart ideas with an innovative setting, but it’s also one that arrives exhausted from its cross-generational birth. There are some wonderful moments and features in Watch Dogs; but also plenty of tired tropes and trappings that should’ve been left firmly in the past.

The plot focuses on the high-tech exploits of Aiden Pearce, hacker and self-styled vigilante. He’s a bit of a dullard, really, and prone to occasional bouts of hypocritical self-reflection (in between shooting men in the face, and running down hobos). Before the action starts we learn that Pearce and his partner Damien get involved in a risky hack job at a hotel, a mission that goes hideously wrong and ends up with an unknown villain retaliating against Aiden. His niece, Lena, dies in the crossfire and so begins a classic tale of one man’s quest for answers / revenge. For all the game’s reliance on tech, it’s the basest of human emotions that drives the story forward, which is either a clever nod from the developers or a lucky coincidence. Ubisoft Montreal, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt on this one!

Story-wise, the game is mostly dud. All the characters are unimaginative stereotypes, with thin motivations and forgettable personalities. Hacker chick with piercings? Check. Sinister, elderly villain? Check. Gang leader with a stupid name? Check. The plot itself is a mixture of predictable twists, dressed up with strange leaps of logic and enough technobabble to make Bill Gates soil his beige chinos with delight.

However, while the overarching narrative is forgettable, there are some delightful set-pieces and micro-plots to discover. These more than make up for predictable story-beats. One mission has you searching for a secret bunker on an abandoned island, close to the city centre. The stirring Vangelis-style music mixes with a glorious in-game sunset to make it feel as if you’re genuinely uncovering a secret new world, right in the heart of the urban sprawl. Another neat little moment has you searching for a rival hacker in a nightclub. No spoilers here, but he turns the hacking system back on you, and changes the info you see when you scan other club-goers. It’s a wonderful role reversal, making you feel powerless, and forcing you to question Aiden’s motives much more than any downbeat monologue ever could. So you’ll enjoy Watch Dogs’ narrative in piecemeal, rather than as a whole.

At first glance, the game’s setting appears as shallow as its inhabitants. Chicago is a lively mixture of skyscrapers, slums, and the token ‘countryside’ bit--sadly inferior next to the wonderfully colourful, sun-drenched San Andreas of GTA 5. Look closer, though, and the city’s true beauty becomes apparent. It’s densely packed with details, hidey-holes, and some utterly dark secrets--many of which you only start to discover once you start poking around side-missions and optional quests. Perhaps my favourite moment in the whole game happens when I cause a mighty car crash, and see a couple of ghoulish pedestrians taking videos of the carnage on their phones. It really brought the game alive for me. The only real reservation I have about Watch Dogs’ Chicago is that--during the majority of my 40+ hour playthrough--it was either dark or dull. In rare moments of sunshine the game looks beautiful, really showing off its new-generation credentials.

It was vital to pack so much into Chicago itself, because the city is intrinsically linked to how this game plays. Unless you’ve been living under a hermit, who has been living under a rock, for the past three years, you know that Aiden’s phone can hack various things within the environment. This is what separates Watch Dogs from other open-world games, and it isn’t just a gimmick: it’s integral to everything you do.

Hacking cameras, for example, lets you probe and explore every inch of the city. There are cameras EVERYWHERE, and you can--if you want--traverse huge in-game distances by hopping from one hackable device to the next. It’s hugely liberating, and provides loads of strategic gameplay options. One sweet example happens when another player invades my game to try and hack my phone for secrets and cash. Instead of rushing after my attacker, revealing my position, I hack the cameras and jump between them until I’ve profiled him. I then quickly, quietly flank his hiding place before terminating his intrusion with a shotgun shell to the brain. Good night, and a truly unique Watch Dogs moment.

A quick note on gunplay, then. It’s satisfying and robust enough to be a genuine option for most scenarios (some missions ask you to avoid detection, so er, easy on the shotgun blasts, yeah?), even if hacking and stealth are often the more obvious scenarios. Yeah, it’s fun to shoot someone in the head, but it’s even more satisfying to hack an enemy’s grenade while it’s still hanging from his waist… Boom. Towards the end of the game you’ll be savvy enough to combine bullets with hacks, decimating rooms filled with grunts--it’s a great feeling when you really bring it all together.

Aiden’s delightful phone (which never seems to need recharging, oddly) can also digitally steal cash and secrets from anyone in the city. It can overload power-junctions, move forklift trucks, and even vent clouds of gas from Chicago’s pipe network into the sky. While the act of using it is as simple as holding a single button, its functions are myriad. It’s admirably simple to use, even if sometimes you’ll end up raising a barrier instead of opening a door. Generally the context-sensitive commands work extremely well, though.

Sadly, the phone is all-too-often used as a solution to classic, open-world problems instead of driving innovation. This is largely down to the mission design, which is inconsistent. While there are enjoyable, innovative moments (like where you guide friendly characters to safety by jumping between security cameras, or when you remotely hack your way through a prison level to reach a target), there are also plenty of tedious chase / tailing missions, and ‘go here, kill this guy, escape the police’ style levels. And while I’m on the subject of escaping the police…

Vehicle handling is very heavy in the game, and unless you hop on a bike or high-end sports car, most rides feel the same. That’s no bad thing, as you’re less likely to fishtail out of control when you’re fleeing the fuzz. It’s also a little less twitchy than other open-world games to make on-the-road hacking easier to do--a welcome trade-off. There’s an immense joy in zipping through traffic lights, hacking them, and watching your pursuer smash into the confused drivers behind you. It’s so satisfying, that the game even cuts to a crash-cam when you’ve timed it to perfection.

Good job, really, because you’ll spend a lot of time in the car as Watch Dogs reaches its conclusion. Linear ‘do something, get chased’ missions become more frequent in the closing hours of the game, and instead of trying anything truly new to test the player’s skills, these stages simply ramp up the difficulty to patience-killing heights. Top tip to avoid putting your controller through your TV: unlock the perk that disables the police helicopter ASAP. There are loads of abilities to unlock as you progress, all of which expand your skillset, but I recommend maxing out your hacking as soon as you can.

Luckily, there’s plenty to fiddle with outside the main story, and it’s here where Watch Dogs really shines. There are 100 HotSpots dotted around the city, and checking into each one allows you to collect rewards (like money), and leave gifts for other players. Each HotSpot has a mayor--4Square style--and some hand out special badges. It’s a wonderfully creative way to approach collectables. Elsewhere, the investigation side-stories highlight the more interesting aspects of Watch Dogs’ world. One has you tracking a serial killer, while another tasks you with busting a human trafficking ring. Silly mini-games like Chess, Coin Run, and Poker? Yeah, they’re all here and they’re all perfectly OK. Juuust fine.

Then there’s the multiplayer, which is incredibly well implemented. Most features are integrated into the single player, and you get a pop-up message allowing you to accept or deny invites. Nice touch--sometimes you just want to be left alone. If accepted, other players enter your game to play one-on-one hacking games, races, or police chases (via the companion app). While multiplayer activities are slightly different to solo missions, they feel well connected to the overall experience. I mean this in the best way possible: it’s as if you’re not really playing online. There’s no disconnect, no server hassle… just the tension of playing cat-and-mouse with a real human opponent.

It’s these state-of-the-art thrills, combined with a genuine desire to investigate and fiddle with every inch of Chicago, that’ll push you to play until the bitter end; until the game has spilled all its secrets. The story is unlikely to keep you logged in, and the missions will often feel annoyingly familiar, but if you connect with and really explore this high-tech world, there are plenty of virtual--and emotional--rewards to harvest.

Fifa 14

Manufacturer: EA

Our Rating: 

FREE DOWNLOAD LINK: https://kickass.to/fifa-14-ultimiate-edition-sc-t7900663.html#main


System Requirements:

✔ Operating system: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 
✔ Processor: 2ghz dual core CPU 
✔ Memory: 2 GB 
✔ Video card: ATI Radeon ™ HD 3600, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT + 256 MB + vram 
✔ DirectX: DirectX ® 9.0 
✔ Free hard drive space: 7 GB 


THE REVIEW

Here’s a slice of real football 101 that the FIFA series knows all too well. Some parts of a soccer team are more interchangeable than others. For instance, wingers can be switched at will, right-backs can deputise as slightly wonky left-backs, even a lumbering center-half can be pushed up front in times of need.  But on the other hand you don't go shoving Lionel Messi into defensive midfield or Ronaldo in goal. You can fiddle around with the extremities all you like, but the spine of the team is sacred. FIFA takes this football lesson to heart, and 14 builds on the same solid base as before, with only minimal changes to the lineup. Like that aforementioned wonky, wrong-footed left-back, though, some changes here are not always for the best.

Such resistance to change is understandable. You get the sense the series peaked artistically with FIFA 12, and now EA Canada is left to play the role of tinkerman, fiddling around with individual components in an attempt to stay fresh and relevant.

The trend for football games this year is capturing the sport’s unpredictability. PES 2014 achieves this through its 'heart' mechanic, where players having a bad game grow ever-more skittish and liable to make mistakes. In response FIFA has taken a different path, hoping to capture unpredictability through physics rather than psychology. This isn’t necessarily the direction FIFA should be going in. Last year's 'First Touch' feature, which saw the ball cannon off world class footballers' feet, was as divisive amongst fans as a Xavi pass. This year it works in tandem with a rebuilt animation system, which makes for a slower, more methodical game that can frustrate as often as it delights.

This Frankenstein's monster of a feature is called 'Precision Movement', and the idea is that the more intricate animations make for a deeper game where every step counts. This is true to an extent, but the effect it has on the game's enjoyability depends on where on the pitch you happen to be. It's the midfield battles that suffer the most; leggy animations affect player stride and their ability to change directions smoothly, and give games a stop-start kind of flow.

Precision Movement was designed in part to allow for greater playmaking from midfield but in practice the opposite is true, creating treacle-like, congested battles of attrition, where you're often forced to play the ball out wide to avoid the mass of humanity standing between yourself and the goal. With First Touch as unpredictable as ever, there are moments where you don't feel as in control of proceedings as perhaps you should.

When you're through on goal however, you'll see the system in a new light. The step-based system meshes well with new ball physics and opens the door for some spectacular goals--dipping half-volleys, curled lace shots, and everything in-between. As a result, goals feel more organic and varied here than they have in a FIFA game for years. When the perfect shot comes off and nestles into the top corner, it feels magical rather than contrived.

The players feel heavier than those in last year’s FIFA and it's easier to muscle nippy forwards off the ball – a rebalance that's superbly counterpunched by the Protect The Ball feature (mapped to LT), which sees the player shield the ball, buying valuable seconds for the cavalry to arrive during breaks.

The result is a game that at first feels less cohesive than FIFAs past, but gingerly eases into a slow-paced cerebral affair, where dourness is punctuated by fleeting moments of inspiration and genius. FIFA 14's thirst for realism is a noble cause, and one that will find a sizeable audience. But the real reasons to plump for EA's offering, as ever, are ones that are shallow and valid in equal measure. EA's financial muscle affords FIFA the kind of glitz and glamour that is forever out of the reach of PES. Throw in the stunning TV presentation and the convenience of ready-built leagues, players, and stadia, and there's really only one choice for the casual fan.

FIFA 14's a great game--of course it is--but the series seems too big and bloated now to make any substantial changes. FIFA 14 requires more patience than most of its predecessors, and even when your patience is rewarded, it often feels like it's flattering to deceive. Slow and stodgy in midfield but dynamic and physical at either end of the pitch, it's possible that some might think this the best FIFA ever--but you'd be splitting hairs, not defences.

Dark Souls 2

Dark Souls 2 review

Manufacturer: From Software,

Our Rating: 

System Requirements: 
✔ Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7/8

✔ Processor: AMD ® Phenom II ™ X2 555 3.2Ghz or Intel ® Pentium Core ™ 2 Duo E8500 3.17Ghz

✔ RAM: 2 GB

✔ Video Card: NVIDIA ® GeForce ® 9600GT, ATI Radeon ™ HD 5870

✔ Free Space on the Hard Disk: 14 GB

✔ it's important : Before installing disable Anti-Virus and Firewall

Free Download: https://kickass.to/dark-souls-2-z10yded-t9035252.html#main

The Review

During my 54 hours with Dark Souls 2, I died 226 times. I know this courtesy of a worldwide death counter. But every time I took an axe to the face, or got murdered by somersaulting zombies, or mistakenly cartwheeled off a cliff, I learned something of value: that patience, as always, yields the greatest rewards. That bipedal hippos are really fucking deadly. That circle-strafing is not a one-size-fits-all tactic. But most importantly, that death is a great teacher.

   
As a newly branded undead in the kingdom of Drangleic, your goal is simple: gather as many souls as possible in the hopes of breaking your curse. In practice, this means exploring every bit of the vast world and fighting its many enemies and bosses. This process is a battle of inches, as enemy encounters are frequent and difficult, and the setting itself is no less threatening. Learning the attack patterns of foes, the locations of cleverly hidden traps, whether or not that gaping hole in the ground leads to treasure or will simply kill you should you step in it--all of this is accomplished through trial and error.

This difficult-by-necessity methodology, which rewards players for patience and internalizing lessons learned from past mistakes, is the crux of Dark Souls 2. It's a game that has no interest in hand-holding, instead opting to push you into the wild with little more than a butter knife and tasking you with figuring things out for yourself. Your heart will pound once you've stockpiled thousands of precious souls, a crucial form of currency, knowing that if you can just get a little bit further, you might find a temporary zone of safety. Or maybe you'll die and lose everything you've worked so hard to get--but next time, you'll know better. The adrenaline rush and sense of elation and empowerment you get from overcoming a particularly difficult enemy or obstacle is something no other series has replicated to this degree.

Dark Souls 2's world is an extremely dangerous place, one that forces you to be aware of your surroundings at all times. Because the environment plays an incredibly active role, it feels eerily real, like a character all its own. It pushes back in an attempt to halt your progress time and time again with thin pathways and other tricky obstacles. Some Dark Souls vets might feel put off by the fact that Drangleic is more of a central hub with many intricate, branching dead-end paths than it is a sprawling interconnected world, but each of these pathways offer tons of environmental variety, challenge, and self-contained secrets.

Some are immensely perilous (to the same degree as the infamous Blighttown), but none feel frustratingly cheap. The layout of each feels meticulous and logical; I often cursed traps and enemies, but never blamed level design for my deaths. Even Drangleic's dark underground areas are enjoyable to explore thanks to the inclusion of torches, a surprisingly great addition that provides a mobile source of light. Using these produces a great deal of tension; yes, equipping one in your off-hand means you can be sure of your footing, but--as it turns out--it's rather difficult to block incoming attacks with a stick.

You'll get a great sense of discovery as you piece together the layout of each new zone, and having the ability to warp between the checkpoint-like bonfires right from the start is a godsend. You'll still fear overcommitting to exploration and losing your hard-earned souls, but you don't have to slog through 30 minutes of territory you've already memorized just to press on should you die.

There's a much bigger emphasis on environmental interaction, too, which again adds to Drangleic's appeal. Sometimes you can kick down tree trunks to form bridges, or manipulate elements of the world that have a surprising effect on certain boss fights. For instance: I'm struggling with a boss whose arena is practically pitch black. Because I can hardly see her, she kills me in about five seconds flat. So I backtrack and explore the area just outside her den, and stumble upon some obscured oil gutters, which I proceed to catch on fire with a torch. BAM--now I can see that jerk plain as day. Every one of these interactions feels like finding an answer to your prayers, and they make Drangleic feel less like a decorative tapestry and more like a physical place.

One of the Souls' series most defining features is its intimidating boss encounters, of which Dark Souls 2 has many. Going toe-to-toe with these powerful foes provides a familiar rush of adrenaline, and beating them often results in an overwhelming sense of achievement. There are some on par with Dark Souls' more iconic foes, such as Ornstein & Smough, or Sif, the Great Grey Wolf (soon we'll be mentioning The Last Giant and The Rotten in the same breath), but a handful are just tall-ish dudes in bulky armor. These more underwhelming encounters are mechanically challenging, but lack scale or eccentricity.

Most fights--including encounters with basic enemies--do a great job of forcing you out of old habits. Is your default strategy in Dark Souls to run up to enemies and strafe around them in circles to sidestep attacks? That works for the first few hours of Dark Souls 2, but you'll quickly realize that enemies and bosses have more variation in their movesets. Large, sweeping attacks are frequent, meaning you have to adapt and branch out into the game's other systems: parrying, roll dodging, etc. Not only does this further increase your skill, but you'll gain a deeper appreciation of all the mechanics at play once you're forced to explore them.

Dark Souls 2 also features some great quality of life changes that make the experience far more approachable. Should you figure out 50 hours into the game that you did a poor job of building your character, you can use a special item to respec instead of having to start the game over from scratch. These are limited in number to prevent players from abusing the system, but their inclusion means you can experiment with new builds without wasting days of your life on grinding. Other changes, such as a streamlined messaging system that makes communicating with other players a much quicker process, are just as welcome. None of these additions make Dark Souls 2 an easier game, but they do make it a far more convenient one.

That's really what Dark Souls 2 is about--it takes everything that made the original so great, but expands on them in its own unique ways. Sure, not every single boss fight will impress, and you might be resistant to the world's hub-like structure, but these are minor notes in an otherwise phenomenal journey. Dark Souls 2 is an incredible game, one that demands alert play and rewards perseverance. You will die many times in many ways, but push on and you'll find this to be an excellent sequel that not only captures the essence of the original, but is a memorable experience in its own right.

Need for Speed: Rivals

Need for Speed: Rivals review

Manufacturer: EA

Our Rating: 

System Requirements

• Minimum
• Recommended

CPU:	Intel 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, AMD 2.6 GHz Athlon X2

CPU Speed:	Info

RAM:	4 GB

OS:	Windows XP, Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7

Video Card:	AMD Radeon HD 3870 512Mb or better, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 Mb or better, Intel HD 4000 integrated 512Mb or better

Sound Card:	Yes

Free Disk Space:	30 GB

Free Download Link:  http://www.torrentdownloads.me/torrent/1658147117/Need+For+Speed+Rivals__PC

The Review

Need for Speed is what I like to call EA’s most well known “hot-potato” franchise. Every few years it jumps to a new developer--from EA’s own Black Box, to former Burnout developer Criterion Games, to a short stint with Slightly Mad Studios. Ghost Games, the latest inheritors of the NFS series, may not have reinvented the wheel while making this year’s white-knuckle racer, but it has equipped Need for Speed: Rivals with all the right parts to make it a serviceable--and enjoyable--game.

You won’t find ample engine customizations screens here, but you will get to enjoy some slick, easy-to-pick-up controls and one of the most populated environments you’ll ever see in a racing game--a good thing, considering it feaw, Rivals has dozens of events, races, and rivals (Need for Speed’s name for other lawless racers) scattered across its stunning landscape. This all works to its advantage; I enjoyed always having something different to see and do each time I got behind the wheel.

The simple act of driving around is a blast. You’ll drift around bends with a pull of the e-brake, careen off half-hidden jumps, fly through speed traps, and ultimately enjoy every minutia of the overloaded landscape. Need for Speed fans: Redview could potentially be your Skyrim. It’s a world stuck in a constant state of change with events popping up where you least expect them, and the returning Autolog feature making it hard to call it quits when there's just one more challenge to attempt. Just don’t hit pause. A world this full of interwoven events slows down for no one--even those who need a bathroom break.

Thanks to EA’s powerful Frostbite 3 engine, ever-changing weather and lighting patterns help make each race feel different, even ones that reside in areas of the world you've already explored. But don’t think weather will always work in your favor. A rainstorm may mean the difference between first and last in a race, and a harsh bit of sunlight may make you wreck where you otherwise wouldn’t. This touch of real-life racing may irritate some, but I found it to be one of Rivals more endearing surprises.

When it comes to stellar collision detection, however, Rivals doesn't deliver. Where Burnout made the rush of speed and crunching impacts between cars feel like cartoonish fun, Rivals’ inconsistent crashes will undoubtedly infuriate you, especially during pursuits. What I thought to be a debilitating blow to an opposing car, the game considered nothing more than a paint scratch. It’s wonderful when it occurs in reverse and you send a racer reeling into the guardrail with a small tap, but it quickly becomes irritating when it doesn't work in your favor.

Like its predecessors Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted, Rivals is divided into two equally lengthy campaigns: cops and racers. Becoming one of Redview’s most wanted is pretty standard fare and feels mostly like an open-world version of Hot Pursuit. You’re given assignments that range from winning gold in a race to taking down other racers in a chase, and while these are a great way to familiarize players with everything in Rivals' spacious world, they do little to keep the game feeling fresh after a few hours.

As it turns out, speeding after criminals through Redview's streets as a cop hardly feels any different. Sure, there are plenty of paths for taking down countless unnamed racers, and busting bad guys is a blast for a while, but it all starts to feel a bit stale as the hours roll by. Win a gold medal in a pursuit, place second or better in a Rapid Response mission--the objectives of Redview's RCPD hardly differ from that of the city's illegal racers (save for the whole arresting thing), which feels like a missed opportunity for something more interesting.

Regardless of which faction you choose to play, completing the various assignments nets you massive amounts of Speed Points, a form of spendable currency that can be put towards cars and upgrades. The tension created by the risk of missing out on or losing that currency adds excitement to each assignment, even when the various options become overly familiar.

As a racer, your points are always on the line--if you get busted by the cops before you cash-in at one of the many safe houses scattered across Redview, you’ll lose everything you’ve (illegally) earned. And remember: Pursuits can happen anytime, anywhere. If you’re not ready, Redview’s RCPD will get the best of you. While playing as the police, you won't have to worry about losing points you've already gained--but miss that big bust, and your income will take a hit. It's just a shame speed points aren't quite as valuable as they initially seem, though, as I rarely felt the need to upgrade to a new car when I could just as easily achieve gold ratings by using an upgraded version of the introductory auto.

Still, that disappointment won't sully your experience for long. With an impressive open world that's a blast to explore, and some enjoyable--if not repetitive--missions, Need for Speed Rivals sets the bar for what next-gen racing games. It's fast, it's fun, and while its paintjob is marred by a few scuff marks, it's a worthwhile offering for would-be street racers. Let’s just hope developer Ghost Games decides to keep the potato for a little while.tures an expansive open world. Taking place in the California Coast-inspired county of Redvie