Archive for the ‘Specials’ Category

+Arabic, Specials

Findings of a British gamer in Dubai – Part 2 اكتشافات لاعب بريطاني في دبي – الجزء الثاني

There is a big difference in the cost of games, and unfortunately for us, it’s more expensive to buy games here. Every time I want to buy a new game, I have to hand over more cash that I would in the UK, where the standard cost for a game is 40 GBP, and that includes to 17.5% tax the Government forces us to pay. 40 GBP is a fair bit of money, but I don’t often pay it for a new game. Many game shops sell the games for less than the RRP through some discount. Also, games lose a lot of value over time; a 5 month old game could have as much as 20% discount! But in this region, it’s a different story, one that doesn’t agree with my wallet. Shops here sell the game for the RRP set in the UK, converted to Dirhams which includes that extra bit of tax. Surely it’s not very fair that we should be paying the UK 17.5% tax, and it should be removed before we part with the money?

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+Arabic, Specials

Findings of a British gamer in Dubai – Part 1 إكتشافات لاعب بريطاني في دبي – الجزء الأول

As an experienced British gamer, I have found that there are huge differences between gaming in the UK and the UAE. Everything, including the games played, console played on, and the legislation is different from what I’m used to. Over two articles, I will talk about the diverse gaming culture in these two countries and how it affects the life of a gamer.

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+Arabic, News, PC, Specials

Oh Ubisoft, please reconsider شركة يوبيسوفت العزيزة: أرجوكم أن تعيدوا النظر

Granted, developing a decent AAA video game costs loads of money, and piracy hurts both the gamer and the developer. However, DRM measures should be implemented to stop piracy, never to antagonize gamers who go down the legitimate road to own their games. Recently, we’ve tested the PC preview copy of Ubisoft’s Silent Hunter 5, which required us to subscribe with Ubi.com website, and to maintain an internet connection each time we played the preview copy.

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+Arabic, PSN, Playstation 3, Specials

Interview with May El-Husseiny, Sony Gulf Marketing Manager مقابلة مع مي الحسيني، مديرة التسويق في سوني الخليج

May El Husseiny is the Marketing Manager at PlayStation division, Sony Gulf FZE (pictured right). The PS division responsible for the distribution, marketing and sales of PS3, PS2, PSP, and PSN software and hardware across the GCC, Levant and North African markets.

May joined Sony Gulf late 2007, and since then has been hard at work to make the PlayStation logo be recognized in every household!

Q. Must have been a busy week for you with FIWC event just finished. What’s your overall impression about the tournament?
Yes, it was most certainly a busy week for us, but thoroughly enjoyable. We saw people fly in from various part of the region as well as crowds come in directly to register. The tournament is the largest football gaming tournament and every year it becomes more popular and competitive.
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+Arabic, PC, PSN, Playstation 3, Specials

Of Frozenbyte and Trine, an interview مقابلة عن لعبة ترين وشركة فروزن بايت

Lauri Hyvärinen

Last month we enjoyed reviewing Trine, a charming side-scrolling platformer. We loved the game and we’ve been lucky enough to interview the lead designer of Trine and CEO of Frozenbyte, Lauri Hyvärinen and ask him a few questions about Trine and what’s next for Frozenbyte. We would also like to thank Joel for making this happen!

Q1: What inspired you to come up with Trine?
Trine started off as a small project, an oldschool platformer game with a medieval theme. The project was lead by one of our lead programmers and it was his project through and through in the beginning. Later on in 2008, development on one of our other projects was halted and we moved our full team to work on what would eventually become Trine, and the game was basically redesigned and given a lot more graphical polish. So Trine has been a very iterative process, it evolved from a simple concept to a much more robust and modern game.

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+Arabic, News, Specials

A look back at 1999 عودة الى الألعاب الصادرة في عام

Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

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+Arabic, News, Playstation 3, Specials

Two contenders and a Nissan متنافسان ونيسان

Ten finalists from the Gulf region were chosen to compete in Dubai, UAE, on the evening of Saturday Dec. 5, 2010, at Virgin Mega Store, to win a shiny new Nissan 370Z. The challenge was to achieve the fastest lap times possible on a certain track on Codemasters’s DiRT 2 rally racing game, played on the Sony PS3. The competition toured various Arabian countries, and only the best were summoned to Dubai to compete for one of the biggest of such tournaments trophies, in terms of value and price.

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