Dark Meadow preview and a chance to win a Transformer Prime!

Early this week I got a message from NVIDIA asking me to review their next flagship game for TegraZone. I’m a huge gaming fan, so I jumped at the opportunity to check out their latest title. To my surprise, I got an early copy of Dark Meadow: The Pact from Phosphor Game Studio. Read on for the full details and a chance to win an ASUS Transformer Prime.

I was asked to do a full review of Dark Meadow, but I’ve only had the game for 24 hours so consider this more of a preview. Having said that, Dark Meadow has started off as the best Android game I have ever played.

Dark Meadow begins when you wake up in an abandoned hospital. Very little details about the story are provided at the start, and the chronicle slowly unfolds as you begin to explore and pick up clues. I don’t want to give away the adventure, but you soon realize that you are trapped in a nightmare and you must escape the hospital to wake up.

Gameplay is a mix of exploring, mystery, and combat that features swipe gestures. Players are rewarded for closely examining every detail as they collect coins to upgrade their weapons and find clues that tell the story.

When a battle occurs, players start with a cross bow for long-range combat and switch to a sword as melee attacks as the enemy draws near. If you face an enemy and lose all your life, you awaken in the maternity ward of the hospital.

Check out the video above for a more detailed walkthrough of the game. As an experiment, I recorded my preview video using the Tegra 3-powered HTC One X, which is one of the devices that can play this game. For some reason the video abruptly cuts off, but I thought it was a good cliffhanger that would lead you to wanting more.

Overall, Dark Meadow has been a joy to play and I can’t find any faults with it yet. It has the potential to score a perfect review when I’m finished playing it. I joked in the video that Dark Meadow is like a good book that you don’t want to put down, and now I’m finding myself wanting to go play more after I get this post up.

Initially, Dark Meadow: The Pact for Android is exclusive to Tegra 3 devices. The game was previously released on iOS, but Phosphor Games has made a number of improvements for the Tegra version.

Dark Meadow Tegra 3 Enhancements include:

Dynamic particles – All the scenes come alive, with rendering power to draw more particle systems.Dynamic foliage- Scenes have foliage that moves and swaysDynamic textures – Extra visual fidelity like animating environmental textures like puddles and drips.More detailed world – More polygons on screen

To celebrate the release of Dark Meadow, NVIDIA and Android and Me are giving away one ASUS Transformer Prime tablet and dock.

How to enter: Join Android and Me and start a discussion about any topic in our Threads. All Thread creators in the next 48 hours will be automatically entered to win. (Learn more about Threads)Who is eligible: This contest is open to residents of the United States and CanadaWinner: Coming soon! We will announce the lucky winner this weekend.

Right now Threads can only be created by users with 100+ points, but we are working to remove that restriction soon so that more people can enter.

Dark Meadow: The Covenant now available for Tegra 3 devices and it is amazing

Admit it. Part of the reason why that you purchased a motorized Android Tegra 3 device is by the game. We ' re all friends here and I ' ll be the first to get up and say that I get in some games on my first processor. He ' s easy to do when the Tegra optimized games kick enough ass to fill a wheelbarrow and here ' s it. I ' m talk about new games phosphorus title Dark Meadow: the Covenant and it ' probably the best s game Unreal Engine 3 ever made.

These are big words, especially with a little something called Infinity Blade on iOS. But Android has a secret weapon - NVIDIA ' s Tegra 3 and their special relationship with the promoters of the TegraZone. When combined with the great history, acts acting and random with excellent voice of humour that phosphorus brings to the table you have the bindings of a real winner. Dark surroundings: the Covenant provides.

You wake up in an abandoned hospital. Immediately you ' ll notice textures beautiful game, with smooth animations, frequency of images high and Earls poly is a feeling of being in the world of the game. Plays it in the dark with a helmet and you ' re in for a not just mobile experience ' t seen yet. Especially the great graphical game, you ' re hear a tale of your old benefactor, showing you how to go on your escape. Attention to him and between his moments of wisdom and folly periods you ' ll hear some hilarious dialog. Spoiler alert: he loves bacon bits. He ' on the top in a way that corresponds to a decrepit old man trapped in a lunatic asylum. It ' ll warn you of the creatures that stand in your way, that you ' ll soon meet. They ' re incredibly detailed and grotesquely beautiful in their own right.

Of course you ' ll have to fight your way through them, which leads us to the game mechanics. He ' s a card style open, means that you can see where you are so that everywhere where you need to explore and character movement is child's play. Operate a light ring and you move it, and you can look around a full 360 degrees for Treasury, secret compartments and scraps of documents that will help you on your way. He ' s perfectly adapted for the game touch-based, as is the combat system.

Of the degraded servants will appear in a puff of black smoke, and your trusty crossbow appears in your hands. By folding the string, you get to see the arc the bolt will fly and use it to cover. It manoeuvre so that it crosses paths with your enemy and let go. Once the creatures to approach your jet weapon is replaced with a melee weapon, and you have a tap and hold the function of blocking or an attack slide function. All of the time that you ' re capable of tuck and dodge left or right by an on-screen arrow. There is no confusion of controls to learn and you ' ll be competent in a few minutes, leaving more time to take advantage of the exceptional aspect and the depth of the game. You progress you ' ll level and assign points in skills, as well as gold to trade to the store for the best elements. You ' ll needs of the two, because "the witch" do not deceive. You have been warned.

This is mobile gaming how was supposed to be. If you have a device powered by Tegra 3, he ' s simply a must-see game. Hit the break for some gameplay images and screen shots, as well as the very important download link.

More: NVIDIA; Games of phosphorus

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About those mobile graphics predictions - games like The Dark Meadow can't come soon enough

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Earlier, Phil talked a bit about the way mobile graphics are inching their way up towards full-blown console performance. NVIDIA, who is entrenched in gaming and graphic performance on all fronts, at their a little shin-dig in Seattle really wanted to wow us with numbers and slides and predictions. That's all well and good, but if you're like me, the talking only makes you want to see the product and evaluate it against all the hype.

I'll let others hash out the strengths and weaknesses of mobile gaming in relation to PC and console gaming. I'm that guy who bought Skyrim for the PC, but never had a chance to install it and play it yet. I also won't have time to fool with the Diablo III open beta this weekend. But I do have time to play games on my tablet, and I don't want to waste it playing crappy ones. Make it better, do it as fast as you can, and keep folks like me, who would rather play great games on a small screen while kicked back in a La-Z-Boy, all happy inside. That's why the thing I found most exciting about yesterday's little get together was the mention of two new Tegra Games -- Bounty Arms by Kerosene Games and The Dark Meadow from Phosphor studios. Seeing new titles optimized for the Tegra 3 gets me a little tingly, so I poked around the Internet a bit and found that Bounty Arms comes from the same developers who brought us BladeSlinger (which kicks a serious amount of ass), and a short preview of the THD optimized version of The Dark Meadow. These can't come soon enough. Hit the break to see the trailer and I think you'll agree.

Source: NVIDIA; The TegraZone

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