Cosplays have been around since a very long time and there’s nothing better to compliment fictional characters than having real people take up their avatars in the real world.

We’ve compiled an interesting list of videogame cosplays which truly look identical to their fictional counterparts and compliment them. These awesome cosplayers have managed to capture the essence of these popular videogame characters while donning their avatars.

Without any more talk, sit back and enjoy the show.

Morrigan Cosplay (Marvel Vs Capcom)

Elizabeth Cosplay (Bioshock Infinite)

Duke Nukem (Duke Nukem Forever)

Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid 4)

Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)

Next Page – Five More Awesome Cosplays

]]> http://www.gamersmint.com/10-awesome-identical-videogame-cosplays/feed 0 http://www.gamersmint.com/10-amazing-looking-videogame-paintings http://www.gamersmint.com/10-amazing-looking-videogame-paintings#comments Mon, 29 Aug 2011 06:55:37 +0000 Cyborg http://www.gamersmint.com/?p=25908

One of the most argued topics in entertainment is whether or not videogames can be considered as an art form. Although, there’s no particular answer to that question, there’s one thing we can say for sure. These portraits of popular videogame characters certainly are.

We present to you some amazing paintings made by fans of their favorite videogame heroes. Sit back and enjoy these masterstrokes.

Big_Boss (Metal Gear Solid)

Ezio Portrait (Assassin’s Creed)

Solid Snake MS Paint (Metal Gear Solid)

Swift Elegance ( Sonic and Friends)

Here Comes the Sun (Sonic)

Donkey Kong Stage ( Donkey Kong)

Kirby Painting (Kirby)

Giant Mario (Super Mario Bros)

Tenpenny Babe (Fallout 3)

Link and Princess (The Legend of Zelda)

Liked them? Hated them? Let us know your thoughts below.

Trine Studios have revealed the first in-game screenshot of their upcoming superhero movie to videogame adaptation R.A One.  The in-game screenshot shows the game’s protagonist G.ONE posing for the cameras (perhaps?). That isn’t suprising since he’s being played by popular Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan in the game. There’s a artwork from the game aswell, and it looks pretty cool. You can view them both below:

R.A One: The Games is scheduled to released by the end of September this year exclusive to PS3, as a PSN title.

Everyone that plays video games nowadays has heard of a little something called Pokemon. When the series made its debut in 1998 on the Nintendo GameBoy, it took the world by storm. Suddenly, it was impossible to go anywhere without hearing their names being called or seeing their faces posted on ads across streets, throughout stores, and on commercial breaks between your television shows. It was a global phenomenon, made stronger only by game-board and trading-card mogules Wizards of the Coast and continuous reinventions that continue to refresh the series and prevent it from ever going stale. Pokemon truly appears to be an immortal title.

Having been around now for over a decade, Pokemon has seen quite a few remakes and revisions in its time. For most, playing Pokemon was as simple as entering a battle, defeating the opponent, and walking away with a handful of experience points and coin. It was a system many RPG-goers were familiar with. In order to level-up a Pokemon, it needed to earn experience points. Whenever the Pokemon leveled, it would grow stronger in stats, and most even evolve at certain stages, accessing new powers.

In Generation III, a new system was implemented that would completely revolutionize the way Pokemon was played forever. The system is known as the Effort Value system (EV), and it adds a level of customization to the game that appeals to min-maxing RPG buffs that may have originally been turned off by Pokemon’s simplicity and childishness. The intent of the system is not to be kept within solo play, though it can. Indeed, the Effort Value system allows players to take make full use of competitive play. It allows players to custom design their Pokemon down to its stats — How much HP should it have? How much Speed does it need? Does it need Defense or Attack power? — letting them decide how each Pokemon will contribute to their team.

It’s true, each Pokemon has its own strengths and weaknesses. Part of the competitive play is learning which Pokemon are good at performing what function on the team. Some are better than others at taking damage, dealing damage, getting quick hits in, or simply have a wide enough range of moves that they are able to fulfill a multitude of roles. Not every Pokemon can be a rampaging bulldozer like Tyranitar is, or a thick-skinned wall like Blissey is, but that doesn’t mean those are the only Pokemon for the job. With different passive abilities, type sets, and over 640 Pokemon to choose from, there is plenty of room for personality.

EFFORT VALUES

Each Pokemon has six stats which affect its performance in battles:

• HP is how much health it has.
• Attack is used to determine how much physical damage it does.
• Special Attack is used to determine how much special damage it does.
• Defense is used to determine how much physical damage it resists.
• Special Defense is used to determine how much special damage it resists.
• Speed is a measure of how fast a Pokemon can act

Likewise, there are six corresponding effort points, which when invested determine a Pokemon’s effort values.

Each Pokemon is allowed a maximum of 510 total effort points, with each individual stat allowed only a maximum investment of 255. A Pokemon earns effort points by defeating other Pokemon in battle. Once your Pokemon defeats an opponent Pokemon, it is immediately awarded effort points which are instantly applied to that Pokemon’s stats. Each Pokemon is worth a different type and amount of effort points, a list of which can be viewed here. Every 4 effort points will increase the effort value by 1. Effort values are added directly to the corresponding stat.

Effort Points are not to be confused with Experience Points, which are used to level up Pokemon. When a Pokemon levels, a window appears on the screen detailing its stat growth. Stat growth is affected by three things: effort values, individual values (IVs), and nature.

Here is an example to help solidify all of this information, as it can be a lot to digest all at once.

Let’s say you have a Squirtle and it defeats a Bulbasaur. We can see by the chart linked above that Bulbasaur yields 1 Special Attack effort point. With just one effort point, Squirtle’s Special Attack won’t change, but if it defeats another three Bulbasaurs, it now has an EV of 4 Special Attack. Divide that number by 4, and we see that Squirtle has earned +1 to his Special Attack stat. Good job, Squirtle!

Though it may seem tedious at first, your troubles won’t go unrewarded. Because the stats between Pokemon can literally come down to ones and twos, carefully planning your Pokemon’s EVs can …

The last thing you should keep in mind before continuing is that 255 is not divisible by 4 — however, 252 is. Don’t forget this while training your Pokemon, otherwise you will have 3 wasted effort points that could have been better spent in something else. (If you put 252 EV into one stat, and 252 into another, and 4 into the last stat, you will only be wasting 2 EV — which is the best you can hope for if trying to maximize to stats.)

EARNING EFFORT POINTS

There are a couple things that can speed up the EV-training process. First, there are several items that will boost effort point yields after each battle.

• Power Weight adds 4 HP EVs after each battle.
• Power Bracer adds 4 Attack EVs after each battle.
• Power Lens adds 4 Special Attack EVs after each battle.
• Power Belt adds 4 Defense EVs after each battle.
• Power Band adds 4 Special Defense EVs after each battle.
• Power Anklet adds 4 Speed EVs after each battle.

The points added by these items are in addition to what a Pokemon would normally earn from the battle.

So, to use the example of Bulbasaur again, were your Squirtle wearing a Power Weight, instead of gaining just 1 Special Attack EV, Squirtle would also earn 4 HP EVs.

Another thing that can help you during the training process is the Pokerus — or Pokemon virus. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt your Pokemon. In fact, a Pokemon infected with the virus earns double the amount of effort points it would otherwise. That means your Squirtle up there would be gaining 2 Special Attack and 8 HP EVs.

The Pokerus is quite rare and it’s likely you won’t see it for a long time — if at all. However, once a Pokemon becomes infected, it’s easy to spread: it will spread the virus to any Pokemon next to it in the main party after battle. After a certain amount of days (which is not quite set in stone as it changes from strain to strain), the Pokemon’s immune system will kick in and fight off the Pokerus. Once this happens, the Pokemon cannot be infected again, or continue to spread the virus. In order to keep the virus alive so you can use it later for new Pokemon trainees, sticking an infected Pokemon into the PC or in Daycare will prevent its immune system from ruining your plans.

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We all love Gaming and some of us have been at it for years. Although the fun we have had playing all those awesome videogames is second to none, we do think that the experience could have been much much better if it were not for some annoying as fuck cliches which has made its way into a lot more games than any of us would have wanted them to.

Today, Gamersmint looks back at such annoying/irritating/retarded gaming cliches which has…at some point of time made most of us go mad.

These cliches are not present in one or two games but games in general. Yes, your all-time fav game might have had them or the last game you played might have had them aswell. They are truly infectious!  We have had enough of these and would wish that they fade out into oblivion, making our gaming experience much more delightful in the process.

Let’s put one hand close to our hearts and venture through these annoying gaming cliches (Sorry, if it brings back memories of frustration)

We wish all heroes could swim like that!

1. Heroes can Never Swim

Ever wondered why the main character of a game who eats monsters like Dragons or Elite Soldiers for breakfast, has amazing super human abilities to boot and can kill a Giant with his bare hands, dies instantly if he falls into a river or heck even a sewer for that matter? So have we. We have seen uncountable games which features a badass main protagonist who can do everything but swim. I mean seriously, a guy capable of saving the universe and kicking more ass than we can count, can’t swim? Also, if your hero can’t swim than why include water in the gameworld in the first place? Why not ignore it altogether? Atleast, unsuspecting gamers like us, won’t jump to our deaths trying to have a quick swim in the river that way.

We wish this cliche drowns itself never to appear in another videogame ever again.

This guy won’t go down no matter what you threw at him

2. Bullet Sponge Enemies

We get that it’s a videogame and heroes can take a helluva lot of damage before you are introduced to the “game over” screen but when it takes 10 times more bullets to bring down an opponent, you know there’s something terribly wrong. We have played various games (mostly FPS) which have enemies which can take an entire inventory worth of weapon damage and still be happily jumping around. And that’s not all, these enemies will be changing their form and powers accordingly, just when you shoot that rocket into their thick skin and think it’s over, that dude will just morph into something bigger and worse. We know shooting enemies is fun but this is ridiculous.

We hope enemies won’t take this sort of effort in future games and want to do away with this retarded cliche for good.

If only they were as clever as the enemy A.I

3. Retarded A.I Companions

We have been accompanied by A.I companions in videogames since time immortal and although it’s great to have someone or a lot of people by our side when confronting the enemy, there are games where these dumbwits just add to our woes. While some games have great A.I buddies to help us out, unfortunately a large number of them feature absolutely terrible ones who can do anything but help you. The best they will do is run out like Rambo towards the enemies and meet with a quick and painful death and the worse is that they will think they are a fucking door and try to replace one in the vicinity, blocking your way in the process.

The sad part is if we kill these dumbwits than the mission fails and we can only pray that these amazing creations of technology won’t block our progress or give our position away. We have only one thing to say to the devs of those games, if you can’t make good A.I stuff, just don’t do it and spare us this torture.

Why can’t I reach my home??

4. Invisible Walls

Most games claim to feature a “big” gameworld for you to explore but don’t blindly believe every dev which states so. From the oldest of games to the newest ones, there will come a time when a poor innocent gamer like us will try to explore a portion of the game but wouldn’t be allowed to do so. These poor guys (we included) will then think it’s a glitch or there PC that’s preventing them from doing so before finally realizing that the devs had decided to conveniently  put in place an invisible wall in order to make the game look like vast but save time.

How many times have we seen some great landmark in the background but were blocked off while trying to run towards it? Or when was the last time that you wanted to jump off a cliff realizing that the game you’re playing completely sucks but couldn’t do so coz a good ol invisible wall was blocking you off? We hear you and wish that the devs of these games will stop resorting to such mean tactics.

What’s worse, even most of the newer games (cough…MOH…cough) features it.

Look behind, I am carrying a mythical sword!

5. Strange Items Drops in RPGS

Boy, this must be as important a question as the meaning of life itself. I mean, how often have you seen a wolf drop a fire ring and 100 gold or a Zombie drop Holy water or a fucking Imp drop that mythical sword that was foretold to be somewhere throughout the game? I mean, why on earth would these creatures be carrying such items and even if they do, I would like to know what use are those to them? I know collecting items are fun in RPGs but the devs must atleast try and put some thought to it when it comes to item drops. Killing an wolf for fur and meat, a man like me can understand but 1000 gold and a Sword. Give me a break guys.

We would wish that future RPGs do away with this moronic trend please.

Page 2: Cont’d

]]> http://www.gamersmint.com/10-most-annoying-videogame-cliches/feed 23 http://www.gamersmint.com/if-only-these-were-made-awesome-videogame-movie-posters http://www.gamersmint.com/if-only-these-were-made-awesome-videogame-movie-posters#comments Sun, 14 Nov 2010 17:43:44 +0000 Cyborg http://www.gamersmint.com/?p=12177 Okay dear gamers, how about a Half Life movie? Good? What about  one made in the world of Rapture? Fantastic? Okay, what’s your take on a movie following the adventures of a certain Sam Fisher? Awesome. Brillaint, you’ve come to the right place then, because this week’s Sunday special features some of the most brilliantly made videogame movie posters that you will ever lay your eyes upon.

Too bad none of them are real but we seriously wish that someone would pick up the torch and actually create movies based upon these games. We mean, there’s so much to gain from doing so but the only catch is that the director’s got to know what he’s doing!

That might not be happening anytime soon but we have collected some brilliant pieces of art for our dear readers to enjoy and for a fleeting moment assume that these are actual projects waiting to be made!

Enjoy

Alan Wake Movie Poster by Rafael Aveiro

Bioshock Movie Poster by Mehdi Zadnane

Half Life Movie Poster by Anonymous

Star Wars Episode 3 Movie by Magical Samurai

Red Dead Redemption Movie Poster by FlithyMonkey

Next Page: Even more Amazing Videogame Movie Posters awaits!

]]> http://www.gamersmint.com/if-only-these-were-made-awesome-videogame-movie-posters/feed 17 http://www.gamersmint.com/christopher-nolan-wants-to-make-a-inception-videogame http://www.gamersmint.com/christopher-nolan-wants-to-make-a-inception-videogame#comments Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:03:14 +0000 Cyborg http://www.gamersmint.com/?p=9313

Turns out Nolan loves videogames, so much that he wants to do a videogame spin-off of his blockbuster movie Inception

He disclosed his desire to do a videogame spinoff during an interview with Variety at his film’s launch in Italy.

As for “Inception” spinoffs, Nolan said “one thing we are looking at doing is developing a video game based on the world of the film, which has all kinds of ideas that you can’t fit into a feature film.”

“That’s something we’ve been talking about and are looking at doing long-term, in a couple of years.”

A videogame based on this won’t be half bad we must say.

Thanks Variety

EA has announced its latest Harry Potter title, The Deathly Hollows will be compatible with  Microsoft’s Kinect, allowing you to cast offensive and defensive spells without the need for a controller. The Xbox 360 version of the game will offer exclusive challenges, for either single player or two player co-op, playing as Harry, Ron or Hermione.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 is non-stop action with Harry defending himself against a host of menacing enemies,” said Jonathan Bunney, Vice President and Head of Production at EA Bright Light Studios. “Our Kinect challenges allow players to literally cast magic from the palm of their hand, completely controller free, to enhance and deepen the overall play experience; and, even better, we have enabled a special co-op mode with Kinect allowing two people to fight Death Eaters side-by-side for the first time in any Harry Potter game.”

It will be interesting to see how well the game will implement Kinect. It will serve as a true demo for whats ahead. The game will be releasing alongside the movie, this November. View some Kinect specific screens and below, along with its official boxart.

Today, EA’s Bright Light Studio announced Create, a family game which rewards players for being creative. Create presents the player with challenges with a wide number of solutions. The more creative you get, the greater the reward.

“Create uses families’ imaginations to develop new ways to play together that are both fun and challenging,” said Harvey Elliott, VP and General Manager at EA Bright Light. “We wanted to design a game where the entire family can explore, decorate and solve challenges where no solution is wrong and the only limit is your imagination.”

The game also provides the player with all the tools required to design their own environments. Create is scheduled to be release this November for the PC, Xbox 360,PS3, Wii and MAC. The game will also support the PlayStation Move and Microsoft’s Kinect.  Players can upload their creations and share it with the community where friends can download and remix solutions and set challenges for other players to download and complete. However, Wii owners will not be able enjoy this feature. Stay tuned for more info.

“Survival Horror” ….. a fancy word I got introduced to first in late 1990s while playing Resident Evil 2 with my friend on the Playstation. Since my friend owned it, I used to drop in at his place everyday for providing some superb (and sometimes equally stupid) guidance on “item / ammo management” and “boss fight strategies”. It was a revolutionary experience back then, with the genre defining game doing everything right at the same time – ‘sudden’ horror elements, amazing full motion videos, captivating ‘T-virus’ storyline and what not! ‘RE’ and ‘Survival Horror’ became synonymous words in my gaming dictionary ……… till I crossed paths with Silent Hill!!! What was ‘love at first sight’ for RE became a ‘love triangle’ – with Silent Hill at the new-found end! After battling confusion the size of Hoover Dam over which series I liked more, I eventually stopped comparing and learnt to love both of them.

Today, we shall direct our gaming stethoscope towards ‘Silent Hill’. Why? Simple: Cyborg has been chewing me for submitting a good article, so here goes……!!

Now, its has been 10 years since Silent Hill first appeared on the video game horizon and elevated the survival horror genre to the next levels. It has been known extensively for its cinematic presentation, disturbing environments, superior soundtrack and multiple game-play based endings (including the famous UFO one!). The series has popular culture spread across following video game titles:

1. Silent Hill (released in 1999 for Playstation)
2. Silent Hill 2 (released in 2001 for Playstation 2, Xbox and PC)
3. Silent Hill 3 (released in 2003 for Playstation 2 and PC; direct sequel to the first Silent Hill)
4. Silent Hill 4: The Room (released in 2004 for Playstation 2, Xbox and PC)
5. Silent Hill: Origins (released in 2007 for Playstation Portable, 2008 for Playstation 2; a direct prequel to the first title)
6. Silent Hill: Homecoming (released in 2008 for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC)
7. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (to be released in 2010 for Wii, Playstation 2 and Playstation Portable)

In line with our I-believe-its-quite-famous ‘Like One; Get 2 Next Time!’ law of entertainment, the series sprouted popular content across novels, comics, and others like artbooks, soundtracks, games on mobile platforms and a motion picture released in 2006 under the same name. Comparisons to my other favourite Resident Evil series, have been inevitable. While both games have tasted extensive success, RE has evolved its action adventure elements beyond horror, proof being RE 4 and the recent RE 5 which managed to thrill more than scare. Silent Hill on the other hand has still retained quite a lot of its trademark environments, audio and complex storylines while evolving its game-play and story presentation elements.

However, the true litmus test for a game series comes forth when it is prepared for acceptability by mass audience through a movie adaptation. Considering the generally perceived ‘flop’ fate of such adaptations, it was surprising for many critics to acknowledge the moderate success the Silent Hill movie enjoyed and the way it managed to turn around the stereotyped impression of video game movies being a bad affair.

‘Silent Hill’ was released in 2006 and was based on the first game of the series. It starred Radha Mitchell as Rose – a desperate mother searching for her daughter Sharon in the mysterious fog-clad town of Silent Hill. She is assisted in her efforts by a female police officer Cybil Bennett while her husband Christopher (Sean Bean) searches for both of them in an alternate version of the same location. As Rose encounters horrific monsters and hellish ‘otherworld’ locations, she eventually learns that her daughter is ‘manifestation of a whatever good was left’ in the ‘monster’ version of Alessa – a young girl tortured to death by Silent Hill townsfolk, and who now wants to extract revenge by killing all of them. After Rose helps Alessa in her revenge, Alessa frees Sharon, but both Rose and Sharon are eventually seen returning home in the same ‘fog clad’ alternate reality. Christopher, waiting for them in the same house in normal reality, is unable to see or interact with them even though he can smell Rose’s perfume around him (now that sounded pretty convoluted!)

Konami Japan and Team Silent, creators of the original game, were deeply involved in the production of the movie. The script written by Roger Avary (screenwriter – Pulp Fiction, writer – Beowulf) was inspired from the ghost town of Centralia, Pennsylvania whose population reduced gradually owing to the 49 year old mine fires burning beneath the borough, leaving it a deserted ghost town.

Next Page – Silent Hill Movie Analysis…