Gone Home - Mysterious Interaction At Its Best

Gone Home is truly a masterpiece that contains suspense, mystery, and probably the best narrative and interactive experience 2013 has given us, all created by The FullBright Company. In Gone Home you get to re-experience the 90's all over again in an Oregon Mansion once owned by a deceased psycho uncle. You play as Kaitlin Greenbriar, Katie for short, who has to uncover the clues about what happened to her sister, Samantha.

When you are first introduced to the game, Katie is flying back home from her trip all around Europe.The first sign you will get is a letter on the door that reads your sister is gone and to not snoop around the house and find out what happened and where she went. You are now surrounded by the empty mansion, 20+ rooms, and the ambiance of the storm that has come over the Oregon town of Arbor Hill.

As an Interactive sort of game, Gone Home has very minimal gameplay with the only controls being the ability to move freely, clicking and examination of most objects, crouching, and the use of the menu. The minimal controls make for a better structure to add to the dynamic and rich story telling that creates the perfect warming sensation all the way until the end. You will read notes of your family, read excerpts from the books your dad wrote about the JFK assassination, 90's punk rock cassettes, and hear small journals that your sister Samantha left you as you progress until reaching the conclusion.

Gone Home is definitely a must play game for anyone that has roughly an hour to waste and should be played and finished before being properly judged, as most games these days are revolved around gameplay, something that Gone Home does so well without. The soundtrack itself is warm, loud, and rough. The atmosphere is creepy, dark, and all mysterious as it keeps you wondering on the edge of your seat.

Pokemon X/Y Review [11/20/13]

TL;DR - Only buy if you are want to get into the competitive scene of the Pokemon games. Barely any end-game, non-memorable characters or story. Easier than any other Pokemon game.

Why? There are no end-game objectives. At the end of the Elite 4, you are going to spend most of your end game probably catching up on your Kalos (the region) Pokedex, only to achieve a ribbon that makes the amount of eggs you would receive from the Daycare more frequent. There is probably only one real end-game thing you could do and that's the Battle Maison. Like the Pokemon Tower from previous games (Gen 2,3,4, etc), you are pitted into a 3v3 endurance test against the AI, who get significantly stronger as you progress.

What about the competitive scene of Pokemon now? Well if you're new to it, let me sum it up as a thorough as I can. There are secret values a Pokemon can have that you can give to it that can make it stronger than ones that don't have those values. We call them EV's and IV's. You can easily give EV's to your Pokemon through the Super Training app on the touch pad, which is much faster than older generations where you had to find a specific Pokemon to get that value from and the minimum of that would be 1. With Super Training , minimum is 4. The max EV in one stat can only be 252. IV's are different. These are more hidden, however can be viewed by a guy in the last town you visit after you defeat the Elite 4. Not only did Gamefreak add an easier way to see them, but also to obtain them. If you give a Pokemon in the Daycare a specific item, it will pass down it's IV's to the child Pokemon. There are two of these items in the game, so you can easily pass down a perfect 6 IV Pokemon in probably less than 12 hours if you're lucky with the RNG (Random Number Generator).

Why is this important? EV's and IV's can pretty much give your Pokemon 64+ additional stats in the stat you want your EV's in. If you are facing a Pokemon without EV's or IV's then you are a significant advantage.

What else is there to do? Friend Safari? Why yes, Friend Safari. Friend Safari is like your own practical Safari Zone that you mooch off your friends that share your Friend Code. Each Friend Safari is based on the person's Friend Code and that defines what Type of Pokemon you get in the Safari, as long as three significant Pokemon. However, the third Pokemon can only be seen if both you and your friend have been online at least once at the same time.

Right, now onto the less important stuff, but however, still important overall. The story and actual pre-Elite 4 gameplay.

Trying to not to spoil the entire story or ending, you are helping a Professor to complete the Pokedex just like in all the other games. You receive your new regional starter and you're off onto your adventure! But wait, there's more!

If you picked up your game recently (I don't know exactly when the event ends or if it has ended), then if you go to Mystery Gift then you receive a special Speed Boost abilitied Torchic. If you missed the event, then you're in luck with even more surprises!

Probably about 20 minutes into the game, you get an item called Exp. Share. If you remember from
previous games, the Exp. Share gave the Pokemon that held the item extra Experience even if it wasn't in battle. This time it's different. Exp. Share is now a Key Item that can be turned on or off to your liking, however if it is kept on, the Pokemon in your party will now gain the same amount of Experience as the Pokemon that had battled would have gained Experience. Exciting. Not really. Let's call it easy.

Want more? Okay, well when you reach the main city, you receive a new Pokemon. A Generation One Pokemon. Yes, like Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Charmander. Isn't this fun?? Now without going further to which ones you get, there are also two more Pokemon you receive. For free. As in freedom or something like that. The game goes by just so fast when you have 3-4 Pokemon you didn't even have to waste a Pokeball on and get free Experience. In fact, so fast that you will probably not even remember the story, the gym leaders, or even the fact that the new legendaries aren't even that great as you sit and moan about how long, tedious, and boring the story can get because you have Pokemon that can one-shot every opponent the game throws at you granted you have the Type-advantage, which at this point you should. You have 3-4 Pokemon that are given for free that basically cover each others weaknesses.

You just want to defeat the Elite 4, catch all the Pokemon, and retire as a Pokemon Master, but all this damn story is getting in the way and you'll get tired of it. Sure, the gyms are different and nicely designed, but really, the gyms are lackluster. The Elite 4 is lackluster. The champion of the Elite 4 is lackluster. What are you really gaining out of this? Really, what are you gaining? The achievement of knowing you beat one of the least memorable and possibly worst Pokemon game Gamefreak has put out? There are only 69 new Pokemon in this Generation. Only a few are worth mentioning that don't look horrendous or atrocious in design.

Let me point out a new feature also that ties in with the story. Mega Evolutions. If you Pokemon is holding a specific item in battle, you get the chance to Mega Evolve it. Not all Pokemon get this, just some, mostly Generation 1 Pokemon, even then is about 10-15 overall. Some Mega Evolutions give better abilities, base stats and even change their Typings. Let's take Gyrados for example. Gyrados is Water/Flying. When he Mega Evolves, he now becomes Water/Dark. This removes his 4x Electric weakness into a 2x Electric Weakness. Not really useful, but the bonus stats could prove useful later. But geez Gamefreak. The designs. The god damn designs you made. If it wasn't the fact that you eventually become used to their awful design, then I would have never picked it up again after I finished it.

What's left to talk about? Let's go back to end-game. If you are going into competitive Pokemon, you will be sitting your ass off for 6-12 hours a day, granted you have that much time, to fully EV, to get a 5/6 IV, to train a level 50 or level 100 Pokemon. Most likely one or two a day. It's boring and tiring and sometimes I think it's not even worth it only to be put into a 3v3 battle on the GTS. Where's my 6v6? Oh yeah, you can only 6v6 your friends via Friend Codes. Maybe I should have put it in earlier, but when you go to the Homescreen of your 3DS to input a Friend Code and back onto Pokemon X/Y, you will be disconnected from the internet. Rude, I know. Tedious, I know. I'll say it again, sometimes I think it's not even worth doing anything at the end of the day.

[PC] Tropico 4 Review

Tropico 4 is an “island-building simulator”, as I would like to call it, developed by Hemimont Games. In Tropico, you play as “El Presidente” as you control an island in the Caribbean Sea during the Cold War. Tropico 4 features a memorable soundtrack, addicting gameplay that might persuade you that you are really “El Presidente” when you are finished, and yes, achievements.

            As soon as you start the game, you are welcomed by what seems to be a Caribbean style of music that creates a blend of an acoustic guitar and bass levels that just says, “Damn, this is great already”.
  
            When you’re asked to play, you get to come to a screen that asks you what you want your “El Presidente” to look like and what he or she is like. I myself chose the pirate-looking mate who was installed by the KBG and praises the USSR like it’s his actual mother. You can also choose traits on how your people or other countries see you. You could become an ugly, alcoholic, gambler, but hey, those people need love too.   

            There are 20 missions in the Tropico 4 campaign that spread out onto 20 different islands. Most of the missions are intense as they test your management skills. Some missions you cannot build certain buildings or farms because your advisor lost the blueprints. It seems like as you progress, you’re asked to deal with one simple task that might take you at least an hour to complete. Then there are tasks that seem more like a tutorial, like building your island full of tourist attractions or a stable mining island.

            As you proceed to build your island, feed your people, and possibly commit Communism, your people are bound to get unhappy. Maybe rebels are attacking and you have no army at all, or you have no religious buildings and your people are calling you a heretic. Tropico 4 kinda throws it all at you pretty fast. First, you need to start a steady income of exports, which is usually a farm or mine, then you just build away to suit either your needs or your population’s needs. Sometimes you’ll see the Reverend asking you to build a church or the religious nerds won’t vote for you in the upcoming election and you’ll lose the mission. Perhaps the tree-hugging lady doesn’t like you to have logging stations, cutting down their precious trees. More importantly, the way these situations are thrown at you, you feel obligated to do them or you have a huge risk of losing the mission via being thrown out of office. 

Your island and the HUD

Becoming top dog of your island isn’t quite easy. You have many factions to deal with, such as the Capitalists, the Communists, the Intellectuals, the Religious, the Militarists, the Environmentalists, the Nationalists, and the Loyalists. Of course, you can’t please them all, so you’re always busy with what faction you want to support you the most. If the Militarists don’t think the size of your army is suitable, they could cause protests or even join the rebel forces. 

            A fun feature I noticed that seemed to be more of a mid-game or a late-game action, are edicts. Edicts act as a purchasable perk for your people or your island. You can raise the rate of education across your island, train the poor into your army, praise the USSR and protect yourself from any US dogs coming to attack your island if your US relationship plummets. 

A fully functional island.

             Besides the Campaign mode, there is a tutorial, extra missions, which is like DLC, challenges, and a Sandbox mode. In Sandbox mode, you can create your own island if you’d like, customizing how large you want it, the amount of resources the island contains, and the elevation. However, in between everything, there are loading screens that consist of quotes from people you have likely never heard of before, albeit pretty neat, as most of them seem political, and you are pretty much supposed to become this badass “El Presidente”, so why not? Also in Sandbox mode is the option of turning rebels off, no immigrants, or keep the pesky tourists out. There’s also a God Mode option that turns everything negative off and gives you $500.000 for free, but also disables achievements. Speaking of achievements, there are 50 achievements for you to unlock through your course as an island-owner.  

Overall, Tropico 4 is just a Caribbean political island-building simulator. It’s highly fun as it creates many opportunities to mess around with what you want to become like with the character creator, political stance, national stance, and the Sandbox mode, which adds to the replay value. There are some problems with the game of course, such as sometimes the cursor goes too far when I’m trying to find a certain building and that there’s no option to change mouse sensitivity in-game. I wish there was a windowed-screen option in the options, but sadly there isn’t. There is Social Media connectivity though, so you can tell all your friends that you’re playing some awesome game that they have never heard of before and brag about all of your achievements via Facebook or Twitter. Some more issues are that the game really does seem it like it throws a lot at you if you don’t build stuff right away. You’ll probably be pestered to death all game long by the Reverend to build that church or cathedral, and you’ll end up feeling bad about it, so it’s either waste $20,000 on a cathedral or lose the game as the pesky Religious faction refuses to vote for you, or they just become rebels. It’s the same for the other factions as well.

 If I had to score Tropico 4, I’d say it deserves an 8/10. Some option issues and tedious decision making shouldn’t stop you from playing the addicting Fidel Castro Simulator 4. Just kidding with that last part.  

[PC] Endless Space In-Depth Review.

    (Please note that I couldn't take screenshots of this game myself so I needed to use different sources)

Endless Space is a Sci-Fi 4x Turn-Based Strategy game for the PC developed and created by Amplitude studios. For those not familiar with 4x games, 4x means explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. If you are fimiliar with the Civilization and Master of Orion series, then Endless Space will make you feel right at home with like-mechanics.
    Endless Space comes with many things, like Multiplayer, the ability to use Mods with a Mod option, customizable Factions, randomly generated maps, and replayability for, well, a very long time.

        NEW GAME
    You can jump right in the game when you click New Game. I'll describe how this screen acts. On the left side, it shows Galaxy. You can pick what kind of map you want under Shape and you can change how many Stars are in the galaxy by changing the Size option. Empires is how many people you want to play against. Age is how old or young you want the Stars in the galaxy to be.
   
    In the middle, it shows Empire. This is your faction. You can change your faction by clicking on your factions picture. There are 9 pre-loaded factions to first play as and against, including a random option. On the right you can see the option "Add". This allows you to create your own Faction, with a number of added traits! I will get into the Faction creator later though.
   

   
    Back to the New Game screen, next to your Faction is a number of Traits that you get in-game. If you hover of them you can see what each trait does whether beneficial or detrimental .You can also choose what color you want to be represented as.
   
    On the right, it shows Settings. You can select the difficulty of the AI and change how fast or slow you want the game to be.There are also Advanced Settings which can turn the various Victories on or off, as well as if you want generate a Seed. A Seed is a unique variation of numbers and letters that define a certain map. Say you want to play on the Seed "A1". If you want to play that map another time all you have to do is put A1 in the Seed name.
   

   
    Now before we being, I'll tell of the mechanics. There are 4 things that you need to have a productive Galaxy. The game tells it as FIDS. This means Food, Industry, Dust, and Science. Food. Food makes population, Industry makes things get done faster, Dust increases your income per turn, higher Science means it will take less to research things.   
         
GAMEPLAY
    When you first start the game you will start with a lovely introduction of your faction. Next you might be hit by the Tutorial screen. This can help you understand a lot on what is happening. I found that the Tutorial didn't really help that much, it just tells what everything does. It's not really going to help you when you first start. You'll most likely get more of a hang of the game by your 3rd or 4th gameplay.
   
    You can see a ship next to your System. When you first start you get a Colony ship and a Scouting ship. A Colony ship can provide you a new Colony on a different System granted you have the Technology researched to colonize there (we'll talk about that later in). The Scouting ship can travel farther than a Colony ship and can scout out other Systems and players.
   
Now, let's talk about the HUD of the Galaxy screen. On the top left corner, you'll see various buttons:
   
    The first one, probably grayed out, lets you return to the Galaxy screen if you're on a different button. If you hover over it, it shows all of the Player's scores.    
   
    The second one, is your Empire. You can see how much Dust (the currency used in Endless Space) you get per turn, the taxes you are being payed, your Empire Factors; which are based on the planets and Systems, Strategic and Luxary resources, and how star Systems. If you find you have a lot of Systems to manage you can set an AI to automatically build stuff for you depending on what you prefer for that System to do. You'll see the drop-down menu under AI next to Hanger on the Star Systems menu.
   
    The third one, is your Technology. On the first turn, you get to pick a Technology to research and advance to. Let's look at the Tech Tree. Okay, that's a pretty huge Tech Tree. I'll break down the various paths that you can take:
The upper tree is towards Galactic Warfare. Researching these can give you many weapons and defense options to use in the Military screen (we'll get there too).
The left tree is towards Diplomacy and Trading. If you get this you can open options with the other players. You want an Alliance with a player? Well, let's just say you might be waiting a lot of turns to research that.

  

    The bottom tree is towards Exploration and Expansion. Most of these are key for getting a wealthy empire. You can't just colonize on lava planets or on asteroids, you have to research it first! These also help in keeping your colonies satisfied.
The right tree is towards Applied Sciences, which can help find more Strategic resources and help towards your ships stats, even adding more options in battle.
Well that's all of the Tech Tree. The Tech Tree is run on by Science. The more Science you have on colonies then the more faster things can be researched.
   
    Back to the HUD now. The next button is the Military button. Here you can see your active fleets of ships and where they are traveling to. On the right side you can three ships there now and also an Add option. This will allow you to customize how you want your future ships to be like. You want them to be attackers? Put more kenetics under the Weapons Module. Want to defend a planet? Put deflecters on a ship! It's really simple until you get to late game, where your enemy can use lasers and you can't defend that well until you shields. Don't forget to name your ship or you can't actually make it!
   

  

    The next button is the Diplomacy screen. When you first start it will only have yourself in it until you meet other players. When you meet other players you can go back and trade with them. Until you get the certain Diplomacy and Trade techs researched you can pretty much only Declare War and that's not what you really want to do at this point unless you want an early defeat.
   
    The button after the Diplomacy button is the Academy menu. You can hire Heroes which can command Systems or Fleets. You start with 3 Heroes and you gain more over the course of 50 turns, however you can only keep a maximum or 3. Heroes have an upkeep as well and it increases as they level up. Heroes can also get injured in battle and when they do you need to heal them for a cost of Dust.
   
    The last button is just the Options button. You can save or load a game, change options or exit the game or exit to desktop.
  
    On the bottom right of the screen is the End Turn button which ends your turn and lets the other players move. As you progress in turns and upgrades, notifications on what is completed appear above the End Turn button.

    Soon you will meet a Pirate Fleet or an Enemy Fleet. They will want to battle you. This is the cool thing about this game. You can select Auto for a dice roll based on the percentage shown on both Fleets or you can go to Manual.
    The manual option brings you to a cool game of pretty much Rocks, Paper, Scissors, although most of the time for me it isn't like that. You select 3 turns, Long Range, Short Range, and Melee. Click on one of the "?" on the left side and you'll see cards. These can be used to for countering or just straight out attacking. However, depending on the number of ships compared to the other team, you might die or win on the first turn! I played a game the night before writing this and I countered all of the other player's cards and still lost and didn't even damage one ship! The animations are pretty sick too. Definitely a plus compared to the Civilization series.

        Faction Creator
    You can edit your Faction name, change your Affinity, set your Author name, and edit a description. The next things you'll be able to do is edit your traits. You can add as many traits as you want but they have to add up to 65. You can make it all positive if you want, but if you want more positive stuff than you'd have to have negative traits as well to balance it all out. If you feel comfortable with playing and know some of these traits then you might want to try it. Want to be heavily on early game attacking? Head to Space Battle. Want a stable early planet advantage? Head to Anomaly or Economy!


    FAQ
Now, you might have some questions on some things. I did too when I first started.
    "I can't go to this certain System. Is this a bug??" If you notice, there might be a wavy line to and from that System. This means that there is a Wormhole there. In order to go into it, you need to research the tech. The tech is found under the Exploration and Expansion tech, titled Applied Casimir Effect.
    "My Fleet/Ship on my System isn't moving!" It should be in the Hanger still. Go to the Hanger on your System and and select the ship you want and select Create. You can then select the Fleet and move it somewhere.
    "My population isn't growing!" They are probably unhappy there and refuse to populate. I haven't found a guaranteed way of fixing this but the less happy your colony is, the less productive they will be and the more turns it will take to get anything done. Try adding more Food production to the colony.
    "How do I increase my Fleet size??" I'm pretty sure it's the C3, C4, and C5 techs in the Diplomacy and Trading tree. 

    Okay, now that I spent a damn well time writing this, now I'll give the scores on what I thought this game deserves!

Graphics: Amazing graphics, amazing cutscene at the beginning of the game and amazing Battle animations and animations in general. 10/10
Sounds: The music is pretty alright. The sound is good too. Not too high. 6/10
Gameplay: As the title says, Endless Space, meaning it's pretty well Endless. With customizable Factions and a Seed generator, you're going to be playing this game for a while. Most 4-Player matches can last at least 6 hours and you can spend most of your day playing this.
However, there is one thing and I'm not sure if it's my computer or not, but as the turns accumulate my game starts lagging like crazy. I try not to base my score on my computer based on lag but that was just a problem I had. 9/10

Overall: 9/10
As stated as above, you'll be playing this game for a long time. If you want a game like Civilzation but in space, buy this. It is only $30 on Steam too!

[PC] Towns review.

 
  Towns is an Indie game created by SMP. As quoted on their website, Townsgame.com, "Towns brings a fresh new take on the citybuilding/management genre by introducing many RPG features. Drawing inspiration from games such as Diablo, Dungeon Keeper and Dwarf Fortress, the game has you managing a settlement on top of an active dungeon. Instead of playing the hero who delves deep into the dungeon, how about playing the town that houses and caters to the hero's needs?" If you are familiar with Rougelike games, such as Dwarf Fortress, then you will find many similiarities to Town.
  
     There are eight tutorials to play with to let you get acquainted within the game. You pretty much control a small population of citizens and you make your own city based on the resources around you. You have to start small, such as cut trees for wood and farm/harvast food around you. There are enemies in which you can kill if you ever progress with a military.
  
     When you first start, you should cut down some trees and set up a Carpentry zone and then build a Carpenter's Bench This will allow you to make a ladder. When that is done, go find some stone and have your citizens dig down. Place a ladder down and you are now in the underground. You can mine it out and collect stone or mud or even some rarer minerals. Eventually, you will get some settlers who will join your citizens and your city!
  

     There are many things to make like a tavern, animal farms, a hospital, arena's and even forges for your weapons and armour! There is a high skill level to this game and like Dwarf Fortress. requires a lot of trial and error, but remember, have FUN! (I hope I don't get sued for that, Dwarf Fortress reference) Speaking of Dwarf Fortress references, I believe there is one. There is a monster called Froggy. The Dwarf Fortress programmer is known as Toady.
  
       If you go into the programs file you can see that there are configuration settings which can allow you to mod the way the game looks by changing the graphics of the game.

Final scores:

Graphics: 6/10 It reminds me of a classic game you'd find on Puzzle Pirates or something. Outdated, but it's better than Dwarf Fortress'  ASCII art. It's a 6 because you can also mod the way they look.

Music: 1/10. It's the same midi stuck on repeat. Kind of gets annoying after a while.

Gameplay: 6/10 Gameplay can be deep if you can get into it, not as many features as in Dwarf Fortress, but this game is still in Alpha.

Overall: 5/10

    Even though there are better games like Dwarf Fortress, I like what these guys are doing. And that is to make this genre feel bigger and making their own program and to spread word that these type of games exist, it's like minecraft, but with more people and more possibilities.

[PC] Guild Wars 2 Beta Review: Written by Onesimus

 This was sent to me by a member of the Gameface101 forum named Onesimus. I enjoyed it very much.

Guild Wars BETA Review 

With the first official Guild Wars 2 BETA weekend over, I believe it would be a great time to sum up what the game makes of itself, met expectations (or not) and some of the outstanding aspects of this game. When playing through this BETA I personally felt extremely engaged, doing an extensive range of quests and task for the NPC’s of the varying races that I was able to play during the event. The most promising thing about this MMO is that it is FREE TO PLAY, and requires no monthly fee, and for a game of this calibre that is truly amazing. 

Character Creation 

ArenaNet certainly did a great job of the character creation. The amount of detail you can go into is outstanding. I found a variety of ‘feature sliders’ that all seemed to make you character unique and visibly appealing, even though you will be staring at the back of his/her helmet for the majority of the game. The part of character creation that stood out the most is the personal story attributes that you are able to pick, for the Charr this included what legion do you want to be a part of, and who is you sparring partner as well as other options. Most interesting is the option available for a human character: What was your biggest regret? One of the options being ‘not joining the circus.’ 

After you have picked you character’s name, attributes and personality the game will show you a fabulous semi-animated cut scene with concept art featuring your character and a voice over describing the choices you made earlier in a narrative like fashion, that traditionally end with a ‘this is my story.’ 

 Gameplay 

The gameplay in GW2 is very nice to say the least… it certainly gives a wow factor. When playing the game you feel like you’re in control, you are able to jump and evade giving a whole new level to the combat system, about that later. Apart from that, there are plenty of quest were you are required to collect certain items for NPC’s, or fend off an enemy from their ranch. What is outstanding from other MMO’s is that if the NPC says that the bears are attacking their bee hives, you see the bears assault the poor farmer’s source of profit and then run away, loot in paw. 

 

Dynamic Events are something new that has been introduced into Guild Wars 2. Dynamic events are a questing system in which events take place in real time and are not triggered be the player specifically. Also with this comes a chain of events: say you walked into a town and a dynamic event happened, you would be prompted to defend the town, if you succeeded you would then be prompted to drive back the intruders, however if you failed you would then attempt to re-claim the town. In these sorts of events each player is rewarded according to their participation, bronze, silver and gold, each rewarding you with various amounts of coin and experience. 

PS. During the BETA I was unable to try out the crafting mechanic of the game however I am sure there are plenty of other reviews that will cover that aspect in detail. 

Combat 

The combat system in Guild Wars 2 is truly unique; it is no longer a matter of rocking up to the fight with the bigger sword and better equipment. In this game you HAVE to dodge effectively use you heal, switch between weapon sets. Starters and finishers are another interesting mechanic in this game; in short there are certain AoE attacks that can be combined with the attacks of other players to form new attacks. The most evident example to this is the firewall the elementalist can put down, when a projectile is shot through it, the projectile then deals the fire damage on top of its own. Personally I found the combat extremely engaging. 

 Graphics 

I apologise for enlarging the tittle of this segment however the GRAPHICS in this game are absolutely amazing for an open world game. When set to the highest possible graphics (not too hard to run) Guild Wars 2 looks like a movie, in the best possible way. There are features like ‘depth of field’ that makes everything in the distance look a bit like it’s in book, sort of. I guess words cannot describe the shier amazingness of the graphics in the game. 

Overview 

In a nutshell Guild Wars 2 is an outstanding MMO with a new look on how the genre should be played, and many strongly agree to that outlook. The game focuses on storytelling and has definitely succeeded in that, however in doing so not forgetting about gameplay and the many things that gamers find frustrating in MMO,s have all been fixed. I think that my expectations have defiantly been made from, the gameplay to the voice acting and storytelling this game is defiantly in my opinion going over through World of War craft as the number one game when it comes to MMO’s. I know personally that this game will be my MMO of choice for the next several years and I strongly recommend that you try it out.

Tribes: Ascend Open Beta

Tribes: Ascend is a new free-to-play multiplayer-only first-person shooter that is a part of the Tribes series. Tribes: Ascend is being developed by Hi-Rez Studios. You can register and download the open beta straight on their website (https://account.hirezstudios.com/tribesascend/)

You can play with me any time. My In game Name is MotionM.

Partnership with Gameface101

I would like to announce that I am now in Partnership (advertising for them :P) with Gameface101.playogame.com

Gameface101 is an underground gaming forum that specializes in RPG Maker programs with Scripts and Resources.

Gameface101 has about 700+ members but currently  only about 10 active members.
There are being events and tournaments held, such as League Of Legend tournaments and RPG Maker XP Game In A Week

Gameface101 (Site owner) is currently working on a few games using his XPLAT feature which can make an RPG Maker game turn into a side-scroller Platformer. He is also working on the Forum Battle-system called the Thunderdome which can be used for battling on the forums to keep us occupied. I have been apart of the Gameface forums for just about two years now.


This is a userbar that I made for the site in Photoshop.

[PC] Angry Birds: Space review

Whether you like gaming on your phone or gaming on your computer, the new expansion of Angry Birds: Space is a must have for any Angry Birds fan. Angry Birds is one of the biggest casual-arcade games to come out as an application for a phone, like the iPhone or Android. Angry Birds is a physic-based game where you have to shoot the “birds” out of a slingshot in order to kill the pigs that inhabit the land.

Angry Birds: Space takes you into the new levels which are based around space. This brings a whole new challenging aspect of the genre. The new space expansion brings you six new birds to use: The Original, The Three-Shot, the Boomerang, the Bomb, The Freezer, and the Big Crush (these are my original names for them). What makes this all difficult is the gravitational pull which can alter how your bird moves.

The gravitation pull

The circular bubble around the planet is the gravitational pull, which can make the birds go around the planet. This can make some things very interesting or very difficult.

The many birds as listed above can do many things and can help on many tasks. The Original bird is the same old red bird that we know from the original series. The Three-Shot bird, when clicked on while after launch, can split into 3 smaller birds. The Boomerang can be homed at place you click after launch. The Bomb can blow stuff up when you click on him. The Freezer can freeze an area and make it very easy to break through objects. The Big Crush can move through a lot of objects easily.

The Birds. From Right to Left; Three-Shot, Bomb, Original, Boomerang, Big Crush, The Freezer.

There are four areas (one is also labeled: Coming Soon), each with about 30 levels and one boss fight at the end. The fourth area is actually a minigame area, with two minigames. One is Asteroids, where you send The Bomb to blow up the ship with Asteroids blocking your path.

The other is kind of like Mario, I want to say. You have two birds, The Original and The Three-Shot. You have to find the pig in one of the blocks and then send The Three-Shot to kill the pig as it moves across the board.

Asteroids!

The Mario-like game!

With about 90 levels, this game is a great way to waste time and to have fun. Angry Birds: Space is a great game put out by Ravio. There is also a Satellite in the sky in between Area 1 and Area 2 which asks you if you want to learn more about Space and NASA which is really neat.

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The Scores:

Sound/Audio: 3/10. I can barely hear the audio and sounds. It’s nothing great anyways.

Gameplay/Story: 6/10. The Gameplay is casual, but fun. It comes with a story as well, when you beat the bosses at the end of an Area a comic will appear.

Graphics/Scenery: 5/10. Nothing fancy for graphics. Some of the levels are great and are hard though.

Overall: 7/10. I don’t really fancy games like these, but it was fun to play.

What's been going on.

Sorry i haven't done the Mass Effect 3 review, it's been two weeks since I posted about it. Just a bunch of personal stuff; feeling a bit unmotivated. I'll try my best to keep motivated though.

On Gameface101.playogame.com I was entered in a 4-man Starcraft 2 tournament for the prize of $10 Riot Points for use for League of Legends. The tournament was last weekend but I never got to play because my opponent never showed up so we're going to reschedule our match for this weekend hopefully. The other two people went though and I've been honored with the chance to do commentary on the replays. So look out for those.

As I said, just personal stuff in my life has kept me from wanting to write anything lately. I'm slowly wanting this blog to be big and mean something to me in my future, whether a future internship or major partnership. I graduate in two months from High School and moving in with my grandparents in New York and I'll have a lot of free time then until I can find a job and stuff so hopefully I'll have more time.

Thanks guys.

[PC: Flash] Gemcraft: Lost Chapter Labyrinth

     Gemcraft Lost Chapter: Labyrinth is a Tower Defense Flash game created by Gameinabottle.com and published by Armor Games. You are a wizard who took up studies in a town only to find that monsters are attacking the town and you must follow a labyrinth and use Gems to defeat them. You start on a 13x13 map, each with different levels.
  
  

Gemcraft Map select

      When you start the first map, it acts like a tutorial. You are given a certain number of certain gems, each with different abilities. You have to make gems and insert them into the towers. The gems attack the monster waves. You must stop the waves from attacking your Orb. After a certain number of attacks on the pearl then you lose and have to start the level all over.

Gemcraft HUD

     Here is the HUD. I'll explain everything here to you.
1. Mana. The amount of mana you have is what you use to build towers, use abilities, create gems and 'banish' monsters.
2. Created Gems. These are the gems you have created. You can make certain level of gems depending on how much mana you have. You need 2 of the same or 2 different level of gem to combine them into a higher level gem.
3. Gems you can create: These are the gems that are allowed on the level.
4. Abilities. These cost mana. You can create walls to add to strategy, create shrines, gem bombs (cost no mana), build more towers, combine gems, create traps, create amplifiers, which power other towers, or expand your mana regeneration.
5. Tower: This is where you can put the gems.
6. Entrance: This is where the monsters come from.
7. Wave Count: Tells how many more waves are left.
8. Speed counter: Lets you pause, resume or speed up the current map.
9. Battle Amulets/Stats: Shows your stats on the current map. Battle Amulets are like achievements that you can get overall.
10. The Orb: This is what you are trying to stop the monsters from getting.
After the tutorial, you get XP to level up as. When you choose a map, you can choose the wave options and skill points to use when you level up.

Battle Settings

Skills when you level up.

    There are 8 Gems you can use or make and are as followed:
Chain Hit: Allows a chance for hits to chain on to another monster.
Create Poisonous Gas: Allows the gem to poison a monster over a period of time.
Create Shocking Gem: Has a chance to shock an enemy. They have a stacking shocking immunity per time hit.
Create Multiple Damage Gem: Has a chance to hit multiple targets.
Slowing Gem: Each hit slows the target for a short period of time.
Mana Gathering Gem: Each hit extracts mana from a monster.
Bloodhound Gem: Every kill this gem gets increases its power.
Armor Tearing Gem: Each hit reduces the armor of the monster.

     You can build traps and insert a gem too. Traps have reduced damage but increased effects.

The Score:
This game is good and addicting, as are all Flash games.

Sound/Audio: 5/10. It's generic for a grim-dark setting.
Graphics/Scenery: 8/10. The maps are good. The menus and everything else are great.
Gameplay/Story: 9/10. It's addicting and lets you do more stuff as you level up, like go back to older maps and increase the number of waves, their health, and even the enemies that appear on the map. It's full of replayability.
Overall: 8/10.
Find a way to download the .swf and get Adobe Flash Projector so you can play it whenever you want. It's a great way to pass time.