Nintendo 3DS - PICROSS E2

Wait. If we’re following standard nomenclature, shouldn’t this be Picric 2e? As in, Picross5.43656... he, little math joke for yak there. I figure if you can’t make a joke about the number e in the context of Picric, a hardcore celebration of logic that results in pictures, then where can you? It’s a bit high-grade for Donkey Kong Junior Math, I grant yak that.
But if you’re wondering why there’s even more Picric on the back of Picric e - and I mean, these two releases were spaced just over a month apart – it’s because there’s always more Picric to be had. And this one actually brings an innovation to the table! Along with, know, more puzzles to attempt to satisfy your addiction. (As if a Picric addiction could ever be satisfied, though.)So, aside from five particular puzzles, the concept is much the same as it’s ever been:

Use the data provided along the top and left of this grid to determine which squares get filled and which remain blank, and then uses THAT data to inform even more determinations, ultimately culminating in a hairbrush or something. That much we know that much we’re familiar with. That much hasn’t really changed since Mario’s Picric, and certainly not sincePicross E1. But remember those five puzzles I mentioned earlier?

Well, they’re a bit bigger, kind of. E2 introduces a new set of challenges named ‘Micros,’ where a huge80x80 masterpiece is created by first solving an 8x8 puzzle for the rough outline, and then diving into each of those squares to provide more detail. So it’s not really an 80x80puzzle, which would have so much ambiguity it’d probably take a month and a half to finish – it’s really just up to 64 nested 10x10 puzzles, which come together and Bermuda Vinci, in Picric form.

And you thought you were just going to get a Pikachu or somethin’.Sure, some of these smaller puzzles might be brain-numbingly easy around the edges, but there’s some decent challenge to be had, with a more abstract form rather than something you could potentially guess at. So if we extrapolate out the math, that’s 64 sub-puzzles times five Micros puzzles, plus the usual Easy and Normal and Free modes that carry over from the first version, with about sixty puzzles each... aright, I’m tired of the math already.

Point is, you probably already know if you’re going to buy this, and that’s largely determined by whether or not you’re obsessed with obtaining all the Picric you can. (And that’s got to be fair chunk of the 3DS-owning population, else why would they be publishing these so frequently?)

Picric e offered almost no innovation, it just did Picric cleanly and pleasantly, and it worked. Now Picric e2 offers a bit of something new (even if said new part is steeped in twang harpsichord music), along with the same simple-and-clean interpretation of Nintendo’s pet puzzle format. Does this mean we’ll see yet another of these in another month and a half? My wallet wants - no, NEEDS - to know.


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Fifa 14 Career Mode

I know it is still too early to release my personal review on the upcoming Fifa 14 video since the game has not really come out yet but I guess I have my basis since I personally was able to test the game after being selected from EA forums to become one of the game testers. Now my review will be more focused on the feature of the game which is called Career Mode. It has been present for the couple of titles already in the Fifa game series by EA but this time with Fifa 14 I found this particular mode to be outstanding and stands out compared to the rest of the game modes within that new title.

This particular mode in the game has been under pubic scrutiny and thus a lot of gamers are expecting it to be something that they want after so many years of wanting the game to be really within their likings and standard. I guess this year EA and its developers have come to a conclusion that in order for them to reach the number of sales they want, they have to abide by which the fans and the gamers want as far as career mode is concern.

The game designers were brilliant enough or putting up a more realistic approach with its feedback sensitivity and getting a feature to work with the Fifa 14 game called A.I based intelligent match making scheme. This quality addition would actually be revolutionary to not only FIFA 14 game, but I guess this is the start of putting up a feature like this in the upcoming titles in the series.

An additional great attribute that was put into the FIFA 14 Career Mode is the rendering of the graphics making it more realistic than ever before. I would say this is the best ever looking game I have ever seen in ages. Of course, this can not be realized without the new graphics engine of the game and also gamers have to keep in mind that the settings of the game should be put on the highest level on order to achieve the game’s best visual effects. The gamers deals with were also improved with EA really making use of unique software application to catch the players confronts with the finest details.

Now more gamers on the game actually looked like they perform in real life with the closest to realism as possible. So they had their entire team’s images taken so that all the players looked as real as they could. Pre-order Fifa 14 now, I am sure this will blow your mind when you get to play it.