What? Another Wasteland? Another Vault you say? Sweet another Fallout! Oh wait whats that, its not another Fallout game? What the heck is it then?
Ahhh Borderlands Its only been out for a short while but in the end I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. This game is an Action RPG. What makes this game an Action RPG? Well in this game when you shoot something little numbers pop up when you do damage to a creature. The part that makes it an action game is that the controls are all based on how you would play a shooter.
If you’ve ever seen me broadcast any FPS games you’d get a nice visual of me stumbling around lost. I love to run into things, get stuck on things and back myself into walls. But because I suck at shooter does not make me shy away from them. Actually In Battlefield Heroes I think I’m quite good.
Borderlands is pretty tough, I’ve seen people run
out of bullets in the first battle only to die and I had to revive them. The toughest part about the game is managing your loot. If your weapons and shields are not up to par with where your at in the game, things are gonna get really tough.Yes I said that I was fighting with other players. This is a Multi player game which you can play co-op with up to 4 people. With the 2 or 3 games that I played in co-op mode I can tell you that the action gets pretty crazy when you hit more than 2 people. I was playing solo and went into an area and it was pretty calm. But the same area with multi player was tough with some crazy monsters I had never seen before.
You can drive vehicles with this game and each vehicle can hold up to 2 people, one driver and one gunner. It can be pretty fun with 2 vehicles going around slaughtering monsters. I especially love to drive over them, who doesn’t like roadkill?
I can’t emphasize enough about how much I love the loot system. I see one of the red cases that I know has guns in it and I get all tinglie inside. It does help that when you find a case of weapons your character talks.I’ve been having a blast with this game and suggest it to everyone who asks me about it.
So grab a gun, jump on the bus to Pandora and get ready to duke it out with some ugly skags.
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In the red corner we have the defending Champion, tried and true, a fan favorite and even celebrities advertise for it! Woooorrrrrld of Warcraft! In the blue corner we have our challenger, winner of 2006's E3 MMORPG "Best Graphics", stated to have great character creation and recently awarded PAX's "Best MMO" Award! Aiiiiiiooonnnnn!
I stated last week that I have been opening myself up to games that I previously played and re-exploring them. This happened to open me back up to playing WoW. On the other hand I have been broadcasting Aion when ever I play it. One of the questions I get from every person that happens to walk in on my broadcast is "How is Aion Compared to WoW?".
This it seems is the perfect opportunity for me to compare the two since I have been playing both.
I've been playing WoW since beta and honestly when playing during that period there was a lot of controversy about WoW's graphics. I constantly heard complaint's about how cartoonish it was. Quickly those shackles were forgotten and the game has taken leaps and bounds making it "The Game to Beat".
WoW's selling points are constant content, great Arena and Battlegrounds PVP and the fact that if your in a room of about 20 people there's at least 2 other people in the room that have likely played the game as well. Some might not consider "Lots of people play it" as a selling point but most people will if all of their friends are playing it likely break down and give the game a go.
As far as how I rate World of Warcraft? Well I was not one of those people who thought the graphics were bad in WoW, in fact I was amazed on how smooth it was running on my old PC to even notice the graphics. I do have to say that I started as a night elf and like the way the graphics really match and flow with the game. I like the combat system in WoW and I like how Blizzard constantly tries to make the classes evenly powered. When the developers listen to its players and make those hard decisions to make changes, it really shows the quality of the people behind the game.
One of the major flaws in most games out today is the immense dialog that they will force you to read before you accept a quest. Seriously how many people do you talk to for the first time that tell you their life story in a day? Most real conversations when someone wants you to do something go like, "So you know Jacob? Yeah, he sent you over here? Great this is what I need." Not too hard to do but most games rely on the dialog to tell the story of the game. So its a tough decision for any game developer, I honestly think you should have to work for the person a couple times then after you've done some quest's your rewarded with the story as well as your money and experience. One of the really smart things that blizzard did do in this situation is separate out the quest requirements from the dialog, so bully for them.
I've been playing Aion since beta 3, when they started letting people who preordered jump into the game. As far as Aion's graphics, they are what pulled me into the game and have been getting constant praises. Aion's selling points are the Amazing graphics, Midair Combat, an Open world Faction PvP that affects hunting areas and an immersive storyline that puts your character at the forefront of the story. I find the cinematic scenes both help me better understand what needs to be done in the quest as well as pulls me into actually wanting to read the dialog.
I have not been to the PVP area yet in Aion but am excited to get into it. I can't sate enough how much I love the graphics in Aion often I'll just pan around with the mouse to look at the beautiful environments. Speaking of the environments, there are amazing little animations that your character does automatically when ever you are in certain area's. Standing on the beach? Your character will constantly brush themselves off. The hot Desert? Your character fans them self off. My favorite of them all though is when your character is in the water. Its really fun to watch them play with the water.
Combat is really intuitive and allows you some different combo's that really makes the game fun. You'll be doing the same combo's over and over but in what game do you not use the skills available to you over and over? At least these chain together and the best part is you don't need to set the chain of skills on your skill bar. When the next available chain skill is ready to be used you just press the skill that activated the chain again as it changes automatically to the next skill in the chain. I found healing to be a lot like WoW's healing. There's different types of heals, condition removals as well as heal over time spells.
I was talking about dialog earlier and Aion does not hold back on it. The problem I find is that I tend to skim through the dialog rather than read it. The problem with that though is when it comes to requirements for some quest's is if you skip through the dialog when you see the little quest requirements tracker you will sometimes be sitting there scratching your head wondering what you are looking for. Specially when they want you to find some sort of plant then then in the next quest tell you they want you to get some berries and your stuck looking for berries on a tree when they are in a barrel's on a little farm. As I said earlier though most of the main quest's have a little cinematic movie that tells you what to do making those really easy. My suggestion? Make it clearer in the quest tracker what you need to do. I know most of its my bad because I'm too lazy to read the text but I bet I'm not the only one.
Aion's flight system. The Dev's explain it as if your a baby bird and just learning how to fly and as you age you learn how to fly longer and faster. The best part is that they tell you which quest's to take to get more flight time and bonuses to your skills while flying right on the front page of the website.
My experience with flight is limited but I have died more than a few times by jumping and pressing space bar twice on accident and canceling my glide only to plunge to certain death. Aion limits where you can fly to only certain area's which makes sense but makes you feel a bit boxed in. On the other hand Aion does not limit you to where you can glide. Gliding is faster than running and really fun, often I find myself going to certain hunting areas just because there's a quick glide back to town. When you start flying you have a 1 minute time limit but as you level up you can do quest's for better wings etc. I would like to see in the future a whole system for strengthening your wings to increase flight time as well as speed.
Comparison between WoW and Aion:
Graphically Aion wins when it comes to the visual aspect between the two games.
In terms of music Aion stunned me with its beautiful music as well as the drum beats for when you go into combat.
I find I like to group up with people in Aion more so than with people in WoW. WoW groups are pretty much for instances it seems. One good thing going for both of the games is that you can choose to play the game solo and fight the regular mobs or you can group up and fight Elites. The good part is how both games separate the two making it easy to play solo if you want to.
I'd have to say that I am having a lot more fun playing Aion than I have ever had with playing WoW. There's just something about how the skills just chain together and flow together that makes the game really fun to play.
Who Win's? I'd have to say that as far as the games go I prefer Aion but in WoW I know so many people that play it that I'm likely to keep both subscriptions. Its really hard to compare such a tried and true game like WoW to Aion. WoW certainly has a lot more content but it's been out for quite a while so its hard to compare. Don't mistake my review for saying that WoW is not fun to play because I've have some good times with WoW. I especially like when you get to fight huge mobs.
Take this review as you will but for the time being, I'll be in both games kicking ass and taking names.
WoW:
I play as Seriene on the server Korgath.
Aion:
I play as Paulina on the server Triniel.
When I started playing this game I was expecting some sort of twisted shooter. I was surprised to see that the game was a Sandbox game, like GTA or the superhero games that have been coming out.
The game starts out with you running through the streets ultra decked out with a ton of skills and running from the police. After a short while after you do a devastating move and pretty much slaughter everything around you. This is when the game breaks away and starts telling the story.
You are Alex Mercer and you wake up in a morgue with no idea who you are or why your being chased. One of the first things that you learn is that you have the ability to transform into any person that you consume. Along with absorbing the person you gain their memory's.
With this game driving cars is really not an option unless its a tank. Thankfully the "Lock on" targeting system makes the game pretty easy to keep track of your enemy. Traveling in this game is I have to say quite fun. It reminds me of Aion's glide system, which is pretty much run jump off of a really high place and glide. You can also do a Super Jump sort of like the hulk. There are other things like an air dash where you can reset your glide so you can travel further.
A lot of the game is geared towards fighting. There are all sorts of different ways to destroy baddies. I have to say my Favorite way has to be by "Consuming" your enemies. You do on the other hand have to weaken most of the bigger enemies first before you can consume them. There are a few choice weapons that I really like to use for a quick way to beat the monsters down. One of my favorite weapons has to be with the claws. You can transform your hands into claws and slice monsters up into bits (Quite literally). There's also a great move with the claws where you stuff your hand into the dirt and cause huge spikes to come out from underneath your target.
Of of the great things about the story though is that through a lot of it you need to find just regular humans and consume them to grab their memories. This adds their memory to what the game calls the "Web of Intrigue". Pretty much the web is just a linking of all the the memories that you have consumed. Pretty much just a way to play back any of the memories you have received.One fun thing is to play the mini games. They are pretty standard mini games like racing, see how many enemies you can destroy in the alloted time and also an infected vs cops one where you need to keep the cops alive. I found them fun and engaging.
I've been a pretty big fan of sandbox games for a while so I got a bit addicted to the game rather quickly. After around a week and a half I completed the game by playing a few hours here and there. I have to admit I spent a lot of my time not even messing with the main storyline and just causing havoc around the city (Standard Sandbox fun). There's just something fun about running up to a citizen and just kicking them to see them fly across the screen, much like team rocket from Pokemon. (Yeah I went there)
I have to say that this is a pretty good game and I enjoyed playing it. If you like any of the Super hero type sandbox games you'll love this one too.
Saw this on WoW's front page and thought it was worth passing on. Either way you gotta love Mr T.
Well its been a while but I dusted off the cobwebs from my PSP case and decided to go ahead and give Dissidia Final Fantasy a good try. I didn't really bother reading up on the game, in fact I didn't even watch the whole cinematic trailer until I actually got to it in the game. On the other hand I did watch a few youtube video's and was pretty shocked right off the bat. A Final Fantasy Fighting game?!?! I had to rush to the store right away to grab it.
I really have to say that I love the pace of the game. At first I was just randomly choosing characters in the arcade mode and just going to town. As I got a handle on the games tactics I started to jump into the story mode. The first day, after a good 4 hours on the game I decided that I should put it down. Thats when I realized it happened, something that has not happened to me in a long time. I realized that I had controller thumb. I have to admit having that sore thumb from a fighting game was a big reminder of when I was younger thrashing on my brother and his little chump buddies in Street Fighter 2.
Besides the nice graphics they designed a calender system that pulls you back in every day. One of the first things the game has you do is pick a day of the week that you play games the most. On the day of the week that you choose they give you a bonus to everything from money, weapons and experience. Apart from Experience are AP and PP. AP allows you to equip better skills while PP allows you to unlock all kinds of different options like an alternate outfit for each character.
It seems that every few minutes there's something new that is unlocked. There's so much unlockable content it seems that every few battles the little chocobo pops up and lets you know that something new is in the shop. One of the great things about the items is that you don't need to get new items for every character, the items are shared between all characters, even summons.
One of the things that I really enjoy is how you can equip your character and level it up. You do this by fighting battles in the Quick Battles or by participating in the main Story. Experience is gained by when ever you do damage to an opponent. Like most final fantasy games there's the basic things you can upgrade, like summons, weapons, shields, armor and also helms. As far as I can tell though your equipment does not change your appearance as you equip new armor types. The selection of characters is great as you can play a ton of hero's as well as villains from most of the Final Fantasy games. Want to play and level up Sephiroth and just own everything? Well you can. I'll leave a link at the bottom of the page so you can check out the selection of characters from the main site.
Sepiroth in his awesomeness.
I have to say the gameplay in this game is great. Most of your time is spent trying to find your opponents weakness and exploiting it. Fighting is a game of cat and mouse as you and your enemy go through a series of attacks, while blocking and dodging. At first it seems a little intimidating but as you get better at it, it becomes second nature. Each of the characters has a limit break where you can do a ton of damage to your opponent. Each character has Bravery and health. Bravery is how much damage you do per HP attack. Once you hit with a HP attack your bravery drops down to 0 and needs to charge back up. There are also bravery attacks where you can assault your opponents bravery while raising your own. Each fighter has a bravery meeter which when it goes all the way down breaks and gives you or your opponent a ton of bravery where they or you can do a devastating attack on their next HP attack. Sometimes it can be tough to actually connect though as you only have a limited amount of time.
As I started earlier there are Quick battles. In this area you can choose your conditions such as your opponent, the area, the difficulty and your opponents level. I thought this was a great option so you don't have to play the story if you don't like that type of way to advance.
The one bad thing about the game is that it has a ton of inappropriate pauses with the voice acting. Its like someone was using a misplaced comma every other sentence. Usually SquareEnix is pretty good in this area which is why I even mentioned it. I'm just not sure if they were rushing, or if its the power of the PSP showing its limits. Either way I love the story and am looking forward to finishing the game.
I have not had a chance to play against anyone head to head. I've heard that it works really well but can get a little sluggish when there's too many particles.
As you can see there can be a lot of particles on the screen.
Overall despite the Voice acting mishap, the game is fun and was a really great way to pull me back into the Fighting game genre. Good luck gamers this ones a must have.
Website: Dissidia Final Fantasy
In the mid 90's is when I first started playing online games, I played a game called Gemstone III. The game was kind of like Zork where there's nothing but words and you have to type commands like "climb stairs" or type in "north" to move north. These were called MUD's or Multi User Dungeons. Gemstone III happened to be one of the more advanced games and you can still play it, but it's upgraded to Gemstone IV.
I bring this game up because it really reminds me of the game I've been playing for the last two almost 3 weeks. The game I'm talking about is called Slavehack.
The concept for this game is pretty simple, you are a hacker and your job is to set out and and slave PC's aka put viruses on them so they make you money. In this case money is in the form of Euros. Now the interface for the game is pretty nice, literally it sets you up with a desktop with little icon's that you can double click to open.
You can move the icon's to where you want.
I really love how the interface looks like your on a mac.
The Icon's that you will use most are Logs, Internet, Slaves, Software and Processes. Some of the not so used but are still useful to know about are the My Computer, Hardware, Forums, Finances and the Rules Icon's. Each of these icon's opens up a window where you can interact somehow with the game.
I'll go over in general what each one of these do.
The Logs icon is the Log File for your PC everything you do shows up here, its good to keep it clear so that no one knows what you've done or where you've been.
Much of everything you do takes "real" time in seconds minutes and hours.
The Internet icon is the way you access other People's PC's and or NPC Computers.
The Slaves icon is a list of computers that you have cracked the password for and have active or inactive viruses on.
NPC PC's reset so you have to collect your cash often.
The Software page shows you all of the programs that you currently have on your PC as well as your way to access your external hard drive. You get new programs from accessing other computers and downloading them from those PC's in the Internet window.
The processes icon allows you to see all of the processes you have going at the moment. There are two different types of processes your Internet downloads or uploads or the processes that your computers processor are handling.
The My Computer icon allows you to see your player rank, how much spam mail you have sent out, your IP address, your PC's password, where you can do an IP reset and see all of the running program versions that you have active. That really sounds like a lot of information but you don't use it as often as you would think.
With the Hardware icon you can upgrade the hardware of your PC. You can upgrade 4 different parts of your PC the Processor, your Internet speed, your hard drive space and your external hard drive.
I often visit the Forums page and like to read what people say there. There is a lot of good advice there but when I first started the forums it looked like people were speaking a bunch of gibberish. As you play a bit more you start to understand what people are talking about.
With the Finances icon it gives you access to your bank account and allows you to reset your banks password and lets you see your account(s) balance. When you check this and there's no money when there "should" be money in there, you know your accounts been hacked. Likely someone saw you make a transfer, saw you log into the bank or saw your account on your log.
The last of the important icons is the Rules. This is the place to go when you don't know if you are following the rules or not. The rules are pretty simple get to know them.
The remaining icon's are pretty self explanatory. Email is a type of message system which I don't really suggest getting. Its just another way for people to get your IP. Highscores, Options, Support and Logout are as self explanatory as it gets. Either way you should at least check them out so you know what they do.
I would say that the game is really fun but as you get further in it feels like you sort of become a hermit and just try to hoard as many slaves as you can get for as long as you can keep them. Fortunately you can perhaps after you've already got millions of Euros stored up and decided to take a risk you can go ahead and start DDoSing PC's. This requires you put a DDoS virus on multiple machine's then set those machine's to attack a certain IP. This hurts the PC's software and hardware and makes it so they have to purchase hardware again as well as find the software again. There's even a place in the forums that people can Brag about who they DDoS'd.
As of right now I currently have the best software (That I'm aware of) out there. So I've been spamming viruses on multiple machine's and making some cash. I have a friend who plays the game with me and we are working on getting a GS or Group Server where we can backup our big files so we have access to them when we need them.
Here's an example of the Internet window when you open it.
I really suggest not trusting many people in game as some of them are there to steal from you through "Social Engineering" (Tricking you into giving them something). The funny thing about the social engineering is that its part of the game. I suggest just going with your instincts and if it sounds too good to be true it likely is.
All and all I rate this as one of my favorite games to play when there's nothing else really going on. I do admit I can get stuck on the game for hours at a time doing nothing but installing viruses and trying to not get caught.
I hope to see you in SH! Look for me on the Forums as Serene.
Game Website: Slavehack
I bring this game up because it really reminds me of the game I've been playing for the last two almost 3 weeks. The game I'm talking about is called Slavehack.
The concept for this game is pretty simple, you are a hacker and your job is to set out and and slave PC's aka put viruses on them so they make you money. In this case money is in the form of Euros. Now the interface for the game is pretty nice, literally it sets you up with a desktop with little icon's that you can double click to open.
You can move the icon's to where you want.
I really love how the interface looks like your on a mac.
The Icon's that you will use most are Logs, Internet, Slaves, Software and Processes. Some of the not so used but are still useful to know about are the My Computer, Hardware, Forums, Finances and the Rules Icon's. Each of these icon's opens up a window where you can interact somehow with the game.
I'll go over in general what each one of these do.
The Logs icon is the Log File for your PC everything you do shows up here, its good to keep it clear so that no one knows what you've done or where you've been.
Much of everything you do takes "real" time in seconds minutes and hours.
The Internet icon is the way you access other People's PC's and or NPC Computers.
The Slaves icon is a list of computers that you have cracked the password for and have active or inactive viruses on.
NPC PC's reset so you have to collect your cash often.
The Software page shows you all of the programs that you currently have on your PC as well as your way to access your external hard drive. You get new programs from accessing other computers and downloading them from those PC's in the Internet window.
The processes icon allows you to see all of the processes you have going at the moment. There are two different types of processes your Internet downloads or uploads or the processes that your computers processor are handling.
The My Computer icon allows you to see your player rank, how much spam mail you have sent out, your IP address, your PC's password, where you can do an IP reset and see all of the running program versions that you have active. That really sounds like a lot of information but you don't use it as often as you would think.
With the Hardware icon you can upgrade the hardware of your PC. You can upgrade 4 different parts of your PC the Processor, your Internet speed, your hard drive space and your external hard drive.
I often visit the Forums page and like to read what people say there. There is a lot of good advice there but when I first started the forums it looked like people were speaking a bunch of gibberish. As you play a bit more you start to understand what people are talking about.
With the Finances icon it gives you access to your bank account and allows you to reset your banks password and lets you see your account(s) balance. When you check this and there's no money when there "should" be money in there, you know your accounts been hacked. Likely someone saw you make a transfer, saw you log into the bank or saw your account on your log.
The last of the important icons is the Rules. This is the place to go when you don't know if you are following the rules or not. The rules are pretty simple get to know them.
The remaining icon's are pretty self explanatory. Email is a type of message system which I don't really suggest getting. Its just another way for people to get your IP. Highscores, Options, Support and Logout are as self explanatory as it gets. Either way you should at least check them out so you know what they do.
I would say that the game is really fun but as you get further in it feels like you sort of become a hermit and just try to hoard as many slaves as you can get for as long as you can keep them. Fortunately you can perhaps after you've already got millions of Euros stored up and decided to take a risk you can go ahead and start DDoSing PC's. This requires you put a DDoS virus on multiple machine's then set those machine's to attack a certain IP. This hurts the PC's software and hardware and makes it so they have to purchase hardware again as well as find the software again. There's even a place in the forums that people can Brag about who they DDoS'd.
As of right now I currently have the best software (That I'm aware of) out there. So I've been spamming viruses on multiple machine's and making some cash. I have a friend who plays the game with me and we are working on getting a GS or Group Server where we can backup our big files so we have access to them when we need them.
Here's an example of the Internet window when you open it.
I really suggest not trusting many people in game as some of them are there to steal from you through "Social Engineering" (Tricking you into giving them something). The funny thing about the social engineering is that its part of the game. I suggest just going with your instincts and if it sounds too good to be true it likely is.
All and all I rate this as one of my favorite games to play when there's nothing else really going on. I do admit I can get stuck on the game for hours at a time doing nothing but installing viruses and trying to not get caught.
I hope to see you in SH! Look for me on the Forums as Serene.
Game Website: Slavehack
This week I'm going to be reposting an older review I did. This ones from the game Mabinogi.
March 2008
So I've been playing this game for the better part of a week. The very first day I played I was hooked.
There's was only one problem with the game and that was that the camera kept forcing me to look north. Fortunately there was an easy fix for this problem which was simply pressing the Z key.
I was really hesitant on posting about this game until I was completely sure about it. Now that I have been able to play the game for a while I'm sure It needs a post here.
The game starts with a Character generation like most MMO games. One of the first things I noticed was that you could choose your age. The scale here was that the younger you picked the more difficult the game is to play. So I automatically picked the youngest age I could. Call me daring but I like living on the edge sometimes.
When you finish Character creation you are taken to what looks like a platform in the middle of white nothingness. A beautiful woman comes floating down and starts to talk to you.
She then proceeds to transport you to the beautiful world of Erinn.
Starting out you are asked to help out the villagers around you. They then throw a few quests at you. One of the most unique things about this game is they sometimes just throw random quest's at you. From what I can tell as you do Part time work for the people in the town your status in the town increases and they give you new quest's to meet everyone in the town.
The first quest that you get from an NPC is to kill some foxes.
This is fun and easy but the best part is holding the control button to target the fox nearest to you. After you are taught a skill the NPC gives you a card for a beginner dungeon.
The beginning combat system is like a big game of Roshambo Or more commonly known as Rock, Paper, Scissors. You have 3-4 skills that you can use that you need to anticipate the monsters move. You do have a skill which tells you what move your opponent is making so its not tough to figure out.
There's the Smash skill which is good Against the Defense skill. The defense skill is good against a normal attack. Then there's the counter attack skill which is good against a normal attack and the smash skill. Fortunately you can see which skill the monster is prepping.
There's also magic but this early into the game its not a main function. From what I've seen it can be really powerful though.
Every dungeon you go into is completely unique. The best part is you drop an item and that takes you and your party into the dungeon. Now random people who drop the same item can also join your dungeon as well. This adds a really nice dynamic to the game.
The beginner dungeon is pretty much a solo thing this time around though. The dungeons reminded me of an easier version of Zelda dungeons. You fight some monsters and they drop a key so that you can advance to the next part of the dungeon. This dungeon was pretty small but I imagine that as you advance they get more complex. I did notice as you enter it said I was on level 1 of the dungeon. Which means they can be multi level.
At the end of each dungeon you have a boss. In this dungeon it had a Giant Spider.
After Defeating the spider you are allowed to go to the treasure room grab the loot and teleport back out to the dungeons entrance. Altogether it was a great dungeon experience. What was very nice were the little traps and such throughout its interior. As an example there were some rooms where there's a bunch of poles and you need to pick the right one or monsters spawn.
After the dungeon I noticed my stamina started getting a little bit black and the max stamina was going down. What I didn't realize was that you need to eat to keep your stamina up! What was actually even more amazing than that was that the food that you eat makes you fatter or skinnier in the game. This is a concept that most games don't go into. Your character actually changing by something that you do in game. (Besides armor and equipment which by the way changes as well when you put it on in this game.)
Another nifty little thing I learned is that your character ages. So I don't have to be a little shrimp forever hehe. Also learned that as you age you get more AP or ability points to get new skills.
I also noticed that my health was starting to get blacken out and my total health was lower. As you adventure a bit more they teach you the rest skill. Turns out that you can't adventure forever. You need to sit down take a rest and let that puppy restore so you have full health again.
The best part about resting It gives you time to setup a campfire and interact with people. One of the more unique things about the game is that people can compose their own music on the games website and bring it to the game and play it for people. Its really funny to hear Linkin Park played on a Lute. It really sets an atmosphere for the game. It also lets you notice the little graphic easter egg's in the game like when people laugh their mouth changes.
Building a campfire also lets everyone resting share food. It's only about half as filling as normal but everyone can share and everyone benefits. Plus while resting near a fire your health restores faster.
Now that I conquered a dungeon, met a few people and learned to setup a campfire I decided to try out a few part time jobs.
When you go to a part time job you need to be prepared to do what the task entails. Any prep work you can do is a bonus. Some jobs are simple delivery's. Some of the other jobs require you harvest crops and make some flower which is a bit more complicated. You can on the other hand take a look at what they want you to do before you accept the job. It helps but you have to be careful though because they only hand out so many jobs to people per day. Plus there's a time limit which you have to get the job done.
Day's go by pretty fast in the game so don't worry too much if you mess up.
My first attempt at a part time job was helping out by sheering some wool from some sheep. You equip a gathering knife (which was really inexpensive at the blacksmith's shop) and sheer the wool from a few sheep. It was pretty simple task, just click on the sheep and it starts gathering the wool. When you return with the wool requested, you are rewarded with a couple choices. Most rewards consist of Experience and money but some choices have more money than experience and vice versa. Sometimes they also offer items and experience.
Another unique thing is that the more you talk to the NPC's and do work for them the more they start to like you. If you constantly go to NPC's and fail to complete your part time jobs their opinion of you changes more to the negative side.
For your work you are rewarded ultimately with a title. Though you have to do a lot of work for them before getting the title. The titles actually give you bonuses to some attributes as well as to health stamina and mana.
There are skills for just about anything you want to do in the game from Fishing to making clothes and even cooking your own meals. There's also modifying weapons and armor which I haven't even gotten into yet.
My experience in Mabinogi I must say has been an amazing experience.
I'm currently playing on the Mari Server You can find me there as Seriene.
Game Website: Mabinogi
March 2008
So I've been playing this game for the better part of a week. The very first day I played I was hooked.
There's was only one problem with the game and that was that the camera kept forcing me to look north. Fortunately there was an easy fix for this problem which was simply pressing the Z key.
I was really hesitant on posting about this game until I was completely sure about it. Now that I have been able to play the game for a while I'm sure It needs a post here.
The game starts with a Character generation like most MMO games. One of the first things I noticed was that you could choose your age. The scale here was that the younger you picked the more difficult the game is to play. So I automatically picked the youngest age I could. Call me daring but I like living on the edge sometimes.
When you finish Character creation you are taken to what looks like a platform in the middle of white nothingness. A beautiful woman comes floating down and starts to talk to you.
She then proceeds to transport you to the beautiful world of Erinn.
Starting out you are asked to help out the villagers around you. They then throw a few quests at you. One of the most unique things about this game is they sometimes just throw random quest's at you. From what I can tell as you do Part time work for the people in the town your status in the town increases and they give you new quest's to meet everyone in the town.
The first quest that you get from an NPC is to kill some foxes.
This is fun and easy but the best part is holding the control button to target the fox nearest to you. After you are taught a skill the NPC gives you a card for a beginner dungeon.
The beginning combat system is like a big game of Roshambo Or more commonly known as Rock, Paper, Scissors. You have 3-4 skills that you can use that you need to anticipate the monsters move. You do have a skill which tells you what move your opponent is making so its not tough to figure out.
There's the Smash skill which is good Against the Defense skill. The defense skill is good against a normal attack. Then there's the counter attack skill which is good against a normal attack and the smash skill. Fortunately you can see which skill the monster is prepping.
There's also magic but this early into the game its not a main function. From what I've seen it can be really powerful though.
Every dungeon you go into is completely unique. The best part is you drop an item and that takes you and your party into the dungeon. Now random people who drop the same item can also join your dungeon as well. This adds a really nice dynamic to the game.
The beginner dungeon is pretty much a solo thing this time around though. The dungeons reminded me of an easier version of Zelda dungeons. You fight some monsters and they drop a key so that you can advance to the next part of the dungeon. This dungeon was pretty small but I imagine that as you advance they get more complex. I did notice as you enter it said I was on level 1 of the dungeon. Which means they can be multi level.
At the end of each dungeon you have a boss. In this dungeon it had a Giant Spider.
After Defeating the spider you are allowed to go to the treasure room grab the loot and teleport back out to the dungeons entrance. Altogether it was a great dungeon experience. What was very nice were the little traps and such throughout its interior. As an example there were some rooms where there's a bunch of poles and you need to pick the right one or monsters spawn.
After the dungeon I noticed my stamina started getting a little bit black and the max stamina was going down. What I didn't realize was that you need to eat to keep your stamina up! What was actually even more amazing than that was that the food that you eat makes you fatter or skinnier in the game. This is a concept that most games don't go into. Your character actually changing by something that you do in game. (Besides armor and equipment which by the way changes as well when you put it on in this game.)
Another nifty little thing I learned is that your character ages. So I don't have to be a little shrimp forever hehe. Also learned that as you age you get more AP or ability points to get new skills.
I also noticed that my health was starting to get blacken out and my total health was lower. As you adventure a bit more they teach you the rest skill. Turns out that you can't adventure forever. You need to sit down take a rest and let that puppy restore so you have full health again.
The best part about resting It gives you time to setup a campfire and interact with people. One of the more unique things about the game is that people can compose their own music on the games website and bring it to the game and play it for people. Its really funny to hear Linkin Park played on a Lute. It really sets an atmosphere for the game. It also lets you notice the little graphic easter egg's in the game like when people laugh their mouth changes.
Building a campfire also lets everyone resting share food. It's only about half as filling as normal but everyone can share and everyone benefits. Plus while resting near a fire your health restores faster.
Now that I conquered a dungeon, met a few people and learned to setup a campfire I decided to try out a few part time jobs.
When you go to a part time job you need to be prepared to do what the task entails. Any prep work you can do is a bonus. Some jobs are simple delivery's. Some of the other jobs require you harvest crops and make some flower which is a bit more complicated. You can on the other hand take a look at what they want you to do before you accept the job. It helps but you have to be careful though because they only hand out so many jobs to people per day. Plus there's a time limit which you have to get the job done.
Day's go by pretty fast in the game so don't worry too much if you mess up.
My first attempt at a part time job was helping out by sheering some wool from some sheep. You equip a gathering knife (which was really inexpensive at the blacksmith's shop) and sheer the wool from a few sheep. It was pretty simple task, just click on the sheep and it starts gathering the wool. When you return with the wool requested, you are rewarded with a couple choices. Most rewards consist of Experience and money but some choices have more money than experience and vice versa. Sometimes they also offer items and experience.
Another unique thing is that the more you talk to the NPC's and do work for them the more they start to like you. If you constantly go to NPC's and fail to complete your part time jobs their opinion of you changes more to the negative side.
For your work you are rewarded ultimately with a title. Though you have to do a lot of work for them before getting the title. The titles actually give you bonuses to some attributes as well as to health stamina and mana.
There are skills for just about anything you want to do in the game from Fishing to making clothes and even cooking your own meals. There's also modifying weapons and armor which I haven't even gotten into yet.
My experience in Mabinogi I must say has been an amazing experience.
I'm currently playing on the Mari Server You can find me there as Seriene.
Game Website: Mabinogi
betI've been playing the beta for this game for about 3 weekends. I wanted to give you some of my first impressions of the game and how the game in general works.
One of the most prominent things about this game is how beautiful the environment graphics are. When you log into the game you are met with a scenic view that simply dwarfs any game I have ever played. I am running the game on a Laptop about 2-3 years old on medium graphics and the game runs great. So if you have a half way decent machine you can run the game really well. It seemed that the game sped up quite a bit the lower I set the graphics. So I see no reason to have to get a new PC just for this game. Though the game does scale up immensely as it is running on the same engine that Farcry was made on.
The Closer I got the more detail I would see.
Lets jump right in. The Planet is shaped sort of like an Apple Core where they live on the inside portion of the planet instead of the outside. The middle is where the Tower Of Eternity used to be, it's now the Abyss. The Asmodian are on the upper half of the planet where everything is Dark and the Elyos are on the bottom half where the sun is almost always shining. One of the most amazing things about the game is looking up into the sky. You look out and up and you see the other half of the world. Which is where the opposite faction of players are.
There are three different Factions in the game, the Elyos, Asmodian and Balaur. As a player you can only play 2 of the factions, the Elyos and the Asmodian.
The first character I created was an Elyos. You start out in this beautiful landscape away from the main city. You can just look around and the world seems alive and vibrant. The trees plants and animals are all high quality that just make you want to stare at them all day. From what I have heard the developers decided that instead of making the game all Lighting effects and bloom (Which slows down your PC) they just put in amazing artwork. One thing I did get to see was someone show off the amazing White wings while I was there. I started out as Elyos but I didn't get past the starter area before I made a Asmodian.
The Asmodian are very beautiful in a rustic sort of way. The characters that you create have instead of smoothed out hands and feet they have Talons, Claw's and a Tail. Don't be worried though, the character creation is the same for both factions although there are likely slight differences for each. The Asmodian starter area is a lot rougher edged than the Elyos side. I did however go much further with the Asmodian side of things. I worked my way up to level 22 almost 23. I was able to experience grouping with others, which I had good teams and bad teams. I'll go a bit more into the leveling and groups little later.
What I do want to get into is the scenery in the Asmodian area. What I was expecting was a really drab area which had no sunlight. I was wrong in this case but I do admit that the Asmodian side is a bit darker with more grey than anything. There's grass and some Drop dead gorgeous scenery which I did get some pictures of. There's a lot of ice in the upper half of the world as well as some crazy dark forest's. I do have to say that in both the upper and lower halves of the world, Lakes have to be the most beautiful and "Alive" parts of the world.
The Balaur are the 3rd Faction which throws the PVP for a loop while in the Abyss. The PVP style in this game is a lot like Alliance Battles in Guild wars. There are certain objectives that need to be taken to take control of the abyss. You are going to want to keep control of the abyss, because as you control the abyss you control the best area's for PVE with the best loot and leveling in the game.
Flight. At first flight seemed a bit aquard but after you set your keys up the way you want them (I prefer having E have my character fly up and C to make her fly down.) it was just another part of the game that made everything even more beautiful. Flight itself is not one of the most prominent things in the start of the game. Gliding on the other hand I use all the time and am extremely addicted to. There is a bit of a difference between the two. You can glide what seems a bit longer than how long you can fly. Gliding is where you run off a cliff hit the space bar while in mid air and your wings poof out as you drift around slowly (still faster than running) where it allows you to just take in the scenery. In the abyss you can fly almost infinitely. This brings up a concern of mine that I had which was answered. My concern was that flight was just going to be another way to travel. It turns out that there is in-flight combat as well as the ability to set your character up for either working better while in flight or on the ground. The Abyss is a vast open space where there is a ton of flight involved and its the major area for PVP so I bet you can guess which way I'm going for.
I died a horrible death for this picture.
I want to talk about combat a little bit and talk a little about each Class and their secondary classes.
The Warrior is a standard sword, shield and spear wielding type of character. The first sub group they split off into is The Gladiator. This class is more of a just all out damage dealing and stuns type of class. It can help by being able to tank when there's no Templar around but if you want a tank the Templar is the way to go.
The Templar is a tank through and though. On the PVE side I would take a Templar over a Gladiator any day. As for PVP I'm sure I'd like a Gladiator by my side instead though. Though I have not really experienced much PVP the Templar might be able to hold its own in PVP I just don't know yet.
The Scout is more of a mixed bag for the first 10 levels then you get to pick from two sub groups. The Assassin is one of those two groups. From what I've seen they have quick and precise damage with some nice stuns.
The other class that the Scout splits up into is The Ranger which I have not grouped up with. I did hear a lot of people saying that the Ranger seems under powered compared to something like an Assassin. Then again I talked to others who said that those people just don't know how to play a Ranger. It looked like there was a lot of running while you keep away from the monsters while soloing. Then again there was what seemed like a lot of pin-down effects which they had which could be good for keeping an enemy stationary. A Ranger I might take as a substitute for a Sorcerer because of the pin-down or slow down skills they have for a group.
The Mage is just what it sounds like a magic casting class. It splits up into The Sorcerer which seemed like a really useful class where it has a "sleep" skill which it gets early and is a good way to keep one mob asleep while the rest of the group kicks the butt of another. They also do massive amounts of damage which makes them all the more useful.
The Spiritmaster is the second half of the Mage duo. This class reminded me most of the Summoner from Final Fantasy games. They summon one of the 4 elements to help them in battle. Earth is supposed to be a form of a tank while the others all have their own uses. I did hear that having a spirit master can help a party with getting better loot. I had a chance to group with a Spiritmaster and I didn't really see much damage or anything that really made it stand out other than it having a pet that also did damage. I took a Spiritmaster instead of a Sorcerer and really missed the sleep skill from the Sorc. I say instead of bringing a gladiator I would prefer a Spiritmaster instead for a group.
The Priest is obviously a healing class which splits into the Cleric and the Chanter. The Chanter has from what I saw 3 buff's that apply to the whole team which raise important attributes for increasing damage output and the like. They can also be a very useful secondary healing class.
The Cleric on the other hand is what I played the most. You get two buff's with the Cleric and Chanter that increase health and defense. Most of the time while In a group I would spam my health over time spells as well as tossing a lesser heal here and there and a greater heal when there's massive damage being taken. Surprisingly mana seems pretty easy to keep up as at level 19 you get a skill that allows you to convert health into mana. You have to be careful because if you use it while in battle having low health can be a bad thing. The other thing I noticed is that Clerics can do some pretty good damage so helping with damage while healing can help quite a bit.
Did I mention Clerics have lightning?!
I did get to mess with the crafting part of the game a bit and from what I saw it was pretty expensive to do. Just like in WoW when your crafting rank gets to a certain point you have to increase the skills level. That in itself looked expensive and that's not counting the time it takes to gather the required items for crafting.
There's a couple options to sell loot. There's a Player store where you can pretty much just plop down and set prices for your items and sell them. There's also the option to sell them at an Auction house type of system. They both have a really easy interface where I didn't have any problems finding a weapon or armor at a low price with good stats. If you don't feel like using those systems you can just sell your loot to the vendor.
Leveling up was very easy and there was almost no grinding. The quest system is really easy to use as well as there's a share quest option. As you move forward while questing when you come back to turn them in there is always another quest to do. If there's a new area to explore there is likely a quest to move on to the next area at the end of that quest chain. There is also a couple map options. Pressing M opens a big map where it shows everything. Pressing N on the other hand brings up and overlaying map that shows everything but is transparent. Each quest comes with a couple of links where you can click them and they will tell you where you need to go by showing a purple X on the map which pops up instantly.
Here is the in game HUD.
There were some faults that I found with the game, one of which is there is no way to work off your death penalty. You HAVE to pay for it via a vendor which happens to be VERY expensive. This maybe different as you level up perhaps later you can have it removed by other players or some other option, but as of level 22 you have to pay the vendor to get back the experience lost. The other thing that happens a lot to me is while gliding if you accidentally hit the space bar twice you have to wait 10 seconds to glide or fly again which is more than enough time to go splat into the fast approaching ground.
Once you get past those two things you can't help but love the game. I do have to say that the game is not easy, but after you get to know whats what and how everything works you really don't want to stop playing.
Game Website: Aion
One of the most prominent things about this game is how beautiful the environment graphics are. When you log into the game you are met with a scenic view that simply dwarfs any game I have ever played. I am running the game on a Laptop about 2-3 years old on medium graphics and the game runs great. So if you have a half way decent machine you can run the game really well. It seemed that the game sped up quite a bit the lower I set the graphics. So I see no reason to have to get a new PC just for this game. Though the game does scale up immensely as it is running on the same engine that Farcry was made on.
The Closer I got the more detail I would see.Lets jump right in. The Planet is shaped sort of like an Apple Core where they live on the inside portion of the planet instead of the outside. The middle is where the Tower Of Eternity used to be, it's now the Abyss. The Asmodian are on the upper half of the planet where everything is Dark and the Elyos are on the bottom half where the sun is almost always shining. One of the most amazing things about the game is looking up into the sky. You look out and up and you see the other half of the world. Which is where the opposite faction of players are.
There are three different Factions in the game, the Elyos, Asmodian and Balaur. As a player you can only play 2 of the factions, the Elyos and the Asmodian.
The first character I created was an Elyos. You start out in this beautiful landscape away from the main city. You can just look around and the world seems alive and vibrant. The trees plants and animals are all high quality that just make you want to stare at them all day. From what I have heard the developers decided that instead of making the game all Lighting effects and bloom (Which slows down your PC) they just put in amazing artwork. One thing I did get to see was someone show off the amazing White wings while I was there. I started out as Elyos but I didn't get past the starter area before I made a Asmodian.
The Asmodian are very beautiful in a rustic sort of way. The characters that you create have instead of smoothed out hands and feet they have Talons, Claw's and a Tail. Don't be worried though, the character creation is the same for both factions although there are likely slight differences for each. The Asmodian starter area is a lot rougher edged than the Elyos side. I did however go much further with the Asmodian side of things. I worked my way up to level 22 almost 23. I was able to experience grouping with others, which I had good teams and bad teams. I'll go a bit more into the leveling and groups little later.
What I do want to get into is the scenery in the Asmodian area. What I was expecting was a really drab area which had no sunlight. I was wrong in this case but I do admit that the Asmodian side is a bit darker with more grey than anything. There's grass and some Drop dead gorgeous scenery which I did get some pictures of. There's a lot of ice in the upper half of the world as well as some crazy dark forest's. I do have to say that in both the upper and lower halves of the world, Lakes have to be the most beautiful and "Alive" parts of the world.
The Balaur are the 3rd Faction which throws the PVP for a loop while in the Abyss. The PVP style in this game is a lot like Alliance Battles in Guild wars. There are certain objectives that need to be taken to take control of the abyss. You are going to want to keep control of the abyss, because as you control the abyss you control the best area's for PVE with the best loot and leveling in the game.
Flight. At first flight seemed a bit aquard but after you set your keys up the way you want them (I prefer having E have my character fly up and C to make her fly down.) it was just another part of the game that made everything even more beautiful. Flight itself is not one of the most prominent things in the start of the game. Gliding on the other hand I use all the time and am extremely addicted to. There is a bit of a difference between the two. You can glide what seems a bit longer than how long you can fly. Gliding is where you run off a cliff hit the space bar while in mid air and your wings poof out as you drift around slowly (still faster than running) where it allows you to just take in the scenery. In the abyss you can fly almost infinitely. This brings up a concern of mine that I had which was answered. My concern was that flight was just going to be another way to travel. It turns out that there is in-flight combat as well as the ability to set your character up for either working better while in flight or on the ground. The Abyss is a vast open space where there is a ton of flight involved and its the major area for PVP so I bet you can guess which way I'm going for.
I died a horrible death for this picture.I want to talk about combat a little bit and talk a little about each Class and their secondary classes.
The Warrior is a standard sword, shield and spear wielding type of character. The first sub group they split off into is The Gladiator. This class is more of a just all out damage dealing and stuns type of class. It can help by being able to tank when there's no Templar around but if you want a tank the Templar is the way to go.
The Templar is a tank through and though. On the PVE side I would take a Templar over a Gladiator any day. As for PVP I'm sure I'd like a Gladiator by my side instead though. Though I have not really experienced much PVP the Templar might be able to hold its own in PVP I just don't know yet.
The Scout is more of a mixed bag for the first 10 levels then you get to pick from two sub groups. The Assassin is one of those two groups. From what I've seen they have quick and precise damage with some nice stuns.
The other class that the Scout splits up into is The Ranger which I have not grouped up with. I did hear a lot of people saying that the Ranger seems under powered compared to something like an Assassin. Then again I talked to others who said that those people just don't know how to play a Ranger. It looked like there was a lot of running while you keep away from the monsters while soloing. Then again there was what seemed like a lot of pin-down effects which they had which could be good for keeping an enemy stationary. A Ranger I might take as a substitute for a Sorcerer because of the pin-down or slow down skills they have for a group.
The Mage is just what it sounds like a magic casting class. It splits up into The Sorcerer which seemed like a really useful class where it has a "sleep" skill which it gets early and is a good way to keep one mob asleep while the rest of the group kicks the butt of another. They also do massive amounts of damage which makes them all the more useful.
The Spiritmaster is the second half of the Mage duo. This class reminded me most of the Summoner from Final Fantasy games. They summon one of the 4 elements to help them in battle. Earth is supposed to be a form of a tank while the others all have their own uses. I did hear that having a spirit master can help a party with getting better loot. I had a chance to group with a Spiritmaster and I didn't really see much damage or anything that really made it stand out other than it having a pet that also did damage. I took a Spiritmaster instead of a Sorcerer and really missed the sleep skill from the Sorc. I say instead of bringing a gladiator I would prefer a Spiritmaster instead for a group.
The Priest is obviously a healing class which splits into the Cleric and the Chanter. The Chanter has from what I saw 3 buff's that apply to the whole team which raise important attributes for increasing damage output and the like. They can also be a very useful secondary healing class.
The Cleric on the other hand is what I played the most. You get two buff's with the Cleric and Chanter that increase health and defense. Most of the time while In a group I would spam my health over time spells as well as tossing a lesser heal here and there and a greater heal when there's massive damage being taken. Surprisingly mana seems pretty easy to keep up as at level 19 you get a skill that allows you to convert health into mana. You have to be careful because if you use it while in battle having low health can be a bad thing. The other thing I noticed is that Clerics can do some pretty good damage so helping with damage while healing can help quite a bit.
Did I mention Clerics have lightning?!I did get to mess with the crafting part of the game a bit and from what I saw it was pretty expensive to do. Just like in WoW when your crafting rank gets to a certain point you have to increase the skills level. That in itself looked expensive and that's not counting the time it takes to gather the required items for crafting.
There's a couple options to sell loot. There's a Player store where you can pretty much just plop down and set prices for your items and sell them. There's also the option to sell them at an Auction house type of system. They both have a really easy interface where I didn't have any problems finding a weapon or armor at a low price with good stats. If you don't feel like using those systems you can just sell your loot to the vendor.
Leveling up was very easy and there was almost no grinding. The quest system is really easy to use as well as there's a share quest option. As you move forward while questing when you come back to turn them in there is always another quest to do. If there's a new area to explore there is likely a quest to move on to the next area at the end of that quest chain. There is also a couple map options. Pressing M opens a big map where it shows everything. Pressing N on the other hand brings up and overlaying map that shows everything but is transparent. Each quest comes with a couple of links where you can click them and they will tell you where you need to go by showing a purple X on the map which pops up instantly.
Here is the in game HUD.There were some faults that I found with the game, one of which is there is no way to work off your death penalty. You HAVE to pay for it via a vendor which happens to be VERY expensive. This maybe different as you level up perhaps later you can have it removed by other players or some other option, but as of level 22 you have to pay the vendor to get back the experience lost. The other thing that happens a lot to me is while gliding if you accidentally hit the space bar twice you have to wait 10 seconds to glide or fly again which is more than enough time to go splat into the fast approaching ground.
Once you get past those two things you can't help but love the game. I do have to say that the game is not easy, but after you get to know whats what and how everything works you really don't want to stop playing.
Game Website: Aion
I wanted to do a quick review of the Battlefield Heroes beta and what I got from it. Turns out that I got a bit more addicted to the game than I first realized. Most of us in our group have played BFH and it seems a lot of you are all starting to play a little more. So I wanted to give some tactics advice and maybe a couple tips on a few of the maps. But first I want to get into a little bit of detail on the classes that you can play.
Leveling up is pretty standard the better you do the more experience you get. In this field kills don't help you as much as capping flags or just doing massive amounts of damage to people. I find myself doing a ton of damage but not getting the kills because someone else happens to get that last shot. I'm Ok with that because I just got the experience from all of the damage I just did. Though they get the fame of having the kill, at least I'm advancing. You get a HP (Hero Point its not extra health) every other level. These points you can use towards your skills to improve them. Another good thing about HP is you can distribute them as you like and if you messed up you can just click the redistribute button so you can fix it. As you level up more and more items become available in Store as well.
During battle you get points Called VP or Valor Points. You can use them buy weapons and different clothing. Weapons and Clothing purchases with VP can only be rented for either 7 days or a month. Battlefunds on the other hand you can use to permanently buy clothing and rent out bonuses to VP and Experience.
There's 3 Different Classes.
Soldier:
The Soldier is my favorite class to play mainly because, if you know me at all you know I love to heal in games. So this class fits me quite well. I have a couple of setups that I like to run with, but one of them only works really well with others with the same build.
That build is the Grenade Spam build. With this build I put as many points as I can into Grenade Spam, while still putting 1 point into the 6th sense ability and at least 2-3 points in healing. This build is a good build with at least 1-2 other Grenade Spam builds with it. The goal of this team is to pretty much spam the heck out of the Grenade Spam Ability while using 6th sense to see the enemies around corners. Its pretty much unstoppable.
The problem is this is more of a solo game most of the time. I have a build just for that as well, which is the Burning Bullets build. With this one I tend to put at least 2-3 points into burning bullets at least 3 into first aid and if i have the extra points i toss in 1 in 6th sense. With this build just like the one above you use 6th sense to look around corners time your use of Burning Bullets and strafe a lot and there's a lot of toasty enemies on the ground waiting to re-spawn.
When I play this class I really like to play the Second one best. I love to keep close to the gunners and keep them healed while they blast away at all of the enemies while I lite them all on fire!
Healing Troops
Commando:
With the commando there's a few different play styles that most people use and that I use myself. There's the normal sniper, stick back behind your troops and snipe the enemies from a distance using any cover you can. With this type of build I like the take the Elixir skill which allows you to dash away while most people are too busy trying to see past the dust cloud to even shoot you. Also its nice to take a heavy gun for long distance shooting with the Piercing Shot skill to boost damage while sniping. I often see people with Mark Target with this build as well to randomly mark key places where most people stand in Stealth.
The second one I tend to see is the short range sniper. These guys stick really close to the soldiers and the Gunners throwing out a barrage of sniper shots. A lot of the people who play this style also love the up close and personal approach and take the Poison Blade ability so they can do extra damage over time with their Knife. With this build its important to put a lot of points into the stealth ability. Its also nice to grab the Troop Trap ability and set up traps behind you so when you need to flee people chasing you get a little surprise while chasing you.
Of the two I prefer the second build thats more up and in the enemy's face type of play. There's nothing like sending out a ton of fast sniper shots right into the face of the enemy.
Troop Trap, Tank coming at full speed. Yeah I'm about to get owned.
Gunner:
This class has to be my least favorite class of the three. With the gunner there's a few weapons that seem pretty useless. As an example I would not suggest the really fast rate of fire gun. It seems to do a minute amount of damage and can't seem to keep up with the Soldiers damage. The advantage of being the Gunner seems to be its survivability. A good gunner can do some amazing damage with a well placed Explosive Keg while spamming the Leg It ability to out maneuver their opponent. The advantage to having a Gunner surrounded with Soldiers or other Gunners on the same team is the Leg It ability gives an AOE bonus so everyone around can suddenly go amazingly fast for quite a long period of time.
Often times You'll notice that even though you have your gun right on the enemy that the mini-guns tend to have such a bad spred that you miss a lot. The Frenzy Fire ability seems to help in this but it does not seem to help enough. Hero Shield is very important and is what helps gunners really out last the enemy. Having a gunner around with I Eats Grenades is a really good defense to the Grenade Spam team but unless they have a couple Gunners with this skill the other team is likely to still get mobbed by grenades.
When I do use the Gunner, I tend to be the more up close and personal type and take a lot in Hero Shield, as well as Leg It with I Eats Grenades ability. Nothing like ruining a soldiers day while gobbling up all of his grenades.
4 vs Me. Seeing a pattern here? (Look out for the "Smooth Criminal" Look-Alikes!)
There are 4 Different maps for Battlefield Heroes. Though it seems that most Servers only have Coastal Clash and Buccaneer Bay going as they are the most popular. My official favorite has to be Victory Village.
Victory Village is a very up close and personal map something that I really like. Its very good for close and long range sniping, if you know the village well enough. Its really handy to have 6th sense equiped to duck around a buildings and see where the enemy are coming from. This place is an intricate village of buildings. It has a couple area's that are really high volume of players like to hang out where Grenade Spam works wonders.
Coastal Clash is another one of my favorites. Though I've only been playing this map a few days I'm really starting to love the duck and move tactics that the map presents you with. There's also some really nice sniper area's where people just don't notice you in time to do anything about it. I really do like going for the middle part in this map be it the upper side or the bottom side. There's an advantage to holding each of these. This one I still need to explore some more myself to get it down a bit better.
Seaside Skirmish is probably my least favorite map. This map is a really huge vehicle oriented map. I love to be a soldier and thats likely the reason though. Soldiers are pretty much worthless vs tanks and this map has a ton of tanks and planes. Though if you really like to play with vehicles this is your map. I find that the main street where the two Cap's are in the center of the map are the funest part to play around in. There's a tower on that main street where snipers like to set up troop traps that blow people off the ladder and into the deep ravine. Its a good tactic the first time, after that though most people seem to watch out for it. There's a few places where they put the anti plane gun turrets that are really useless because of so many trees in the way.
Buccaneer Bay is a mixture of everything. This is the map that has just about everything someone might want, from tanks, planes, up close combat, ranged combat and some really nice close up action in the middle of the map in the broken boat. My favorite is to see people on the many hills sniping or seeing someone come out from behind a hill path that you didn't think anyone would ever use.
Each map has its use and purpose, love them or hate them they are a great set of maps to explore and use your own tactics on the fly.
In general this game is really fun and only has more to come in its development.
Hope to see all of you in game!
~Kate
Game Website: Battlefield Heroes
Player Name: Seriene
Most Played: Earthie, Level 15, Nationals
Leveling up is pretty standard the better you do the more experience you get. In this field kills don't help you as much as capping flags or just doing massive amounts of damage to people. I find myself doing a ton of damage but not getting the kills because someone else happens to get that last shot. I'm Ok with that because I just got the experience from all of the damage I just did. Though they get the fame of having the kill, at least I'm advancing. You get a HP (Hero Point its not extra health) every other level. These points you can use towards your skills to improve them. Another good thing about HP is you can distribute them as you like and if you messed up you can just click the redistribute button so you can fix it. As you level up more and more items become available in Store as well.
During battle you get points Called VP or Valor Points. You can use them buy weapons and different clothing. Weapons and Clothing purchases with VP can only be rented for either 7 days or a month. Battlefunds on the other hand you can use to permanently buy clothing and rent out bonuses to VP and Experience.
There's 3 Different Classes.
Soldier:
The Soldier is my favorite class to play mainly because, if you know me at all you know I love to heal in games. So this class fits me quite well. I have a couple of setups that I like to run with, but one of them only works really well with others with the same build.
That build is the Grenade Spam build. With this build I put as many points as I can into Grenade Spam, while still putting 1 point into the 6th sense ability and at least 2-3 points in healing. This build is a good build with at least 1-2 other Grenade Spam builds with it. The goal of this team is to pretty much spam the heck out of the Grenade Spam Ability while using 6th sense to see the enemies around corners. Its pretty much unstoppable.
The problem is this is more of a solo game most of the time. I have a build just for that as well, which is the Burning Bullets build. With this one I tend to put at least 2-3 points into burning bullets at least 3 into first aid and if i have the extra points i toss in 1 in 6th sense. With this build just like the one above you use 6th sense to look around corners time your use of Burning Bullets and strafe a lot and there's a lot of toasty enemies on the ground waiting to re-spawn.
When I play this class I really like to play the Second one best. I love to keep close to the gunners and keep them healed while they blast away at all of the enemies while I lite them all on fire!
Healing Troops
Commando:
With the commando there's a few different play styles that most people use and that I use myself. There's the normal sniper, stick back behind your troops and snipe the enemies from a distance using any cover you can. With this type of build I like the take the Elixir skill which allows you to dash away while most people are too busy trying to see past the dust cloud to even shoot you. Also its nice to take a heavy gun for long distance shooting with the Piercing Shot skill to boost damage while sniping. I often see people with Mark Target with this build as well to randomly mark key places where most people stand in Stealth.
The second one I tend to see is the short range sniper. These guys stick really close to the soldiers and the Gunners throwing out a barrage of sniper shots. A lot of the people who play this style also love the up close and personal approach and take the Poison Blade ability so they can do extra damage over time with their Knife. With this build its important to put a lot of points into the stealth ability. Its also nice to grab the Troop Trap ability and set up traps behind you so when you need to flee people chasing you get a little surprise while chasing you.
Of the two I prefer the second build thats more up and in the enemy's face type of play. There's nothing like sending out a ton of fast sniper shots right into the face of the enemy.
Troop Trap, Tank coming at full speed. Yeah I'm about to get owned.
Gunner:
This class has to be my least favorite class of the three. With the gunner there's a few weapons that seem pretty useless. As an example I would not suggest the really fast rate of fire gun. It seems to do a minute amount of damage and can't seem to keep up with the Soldiers damage. The advantage of being the Gunner seems to be its survivability. A good gunner can do some amazing damage with a well placed Explosive Keg while spamming the Leg It ability to out maneuver their opponent. The advantage to having a Gunner surrounded with Soldiers or other Gunners on the same team is the Leg It ability gives an AOE bonus so everyone around can suddenly go amazingly fast for quite a long period of time.
Often times You'll notice that even though you have your gun right on the enemy that the mini-guns tend to have such a bad spred that you miss a lot. The Frenzy Fire ability seems to help in this but it does not seem to help enough. Hero Shield is very important and is what helps gunners really out last the enemy. Having a gunner around with I Eats Grenades is a really good defense to the Grenade Spam team but unless they have a couple Gunners with this skill the other team is likely to still get mobbed by grenades.
When I do use the Gunner, I tend to be the more up close and personal type and take a lot in Hero Shield, as well as Leg It with I Eats Grenades ability. Nothing like ruining a soldiers day while gobbling up all of his grenades.
4 vs Me. Seeing a pattern here? (Look out for the "Smooth Criminal" Look-Alikes!)
There are 4 Different maps for Battlefield Heroes. Though it seems that most Servers only have Coastal Clash and Buccaneer Bay going as they are the most popular. My official favorite has to be Victory Village.
Victory Village is a very up close and personal map something that I really like. Its very good for close and long range sniping, if you know the village well enough. Its really handy to have 6th sense equiped to duck around a buildings and see where the enemy are coming from. This place is an intricate village of buildings. It has a couple area's that are really high volume of players like to hang out where Grenade Spam works wonders.
Coastal Clash is another one of my favorites. Though I've only been playing this map a few days I'm really starting to love the duck and move tactics that the map presents you with. There's also some really nice sniper area's where people just don't notice you in time to do anything about it. I really do like going for the middle part in this map be it the upper side or the bottom side. There's an advantage to holding each of these. This one I still need to explore some more myself to get it down a bit better.
Seaside Skirmish is probably my least favorite map. This map is a really huge vehicle oriented map. I love to be a soldier and thats likely the reason though. Soldiers are pretty much worthless vs tanks and this map has a ton of tanks and planes. Though if you really like to play with vehicles this is your map. I find that the main street where the two Cap's are in the center of the map are the funest part to play around in. There's a tower on that main street where snipers like to set up troop traps that blow people off the ladder and into the deep ravine. Its a good tactic the first time, after that though most people seem to watch out for it. There's a few places where they put the anti plane gun turrets that are really useless because of so many trees in the way.
Buccaneer Bay is a mixture of everything. This is the map that has just about everything someone might want, from tanks, planes, up close combat, ranged combat and some really nice close up action in the middle of the map in the broken boat. My favorite is to see people on the many hills sniping or seeing someone come out from behind a hill path that you didn't think anyone would ever use.
Each map has its use and purpose, love them or hate them they are a great set of maps to explore and use your own tactics on the fly.
In general this game is really fun and only has more to come in its development.
Hope to see all of you in game!
~Kate
Game Website: Battlefield Heroes
Player Name: Seriene
Most Played: Earthie, Level 15, Nationals
