Guild Wars 2 First Beta Weekend Recap

Guild Wars 2’s first open beta weekend was great, and I’m pretty sure everyone who had a chance play through it without getting disconnected every two minutes would agree to that. I played for well over 30 hours and I didn’t really feel them, there’s just so much to see and do. I think all of us walked in not really knowing what we’d stepped into, I mean, yeah we saw the closed beta gameplay videos and knew the dynamic events were going to be something to look forward to, but I don’t think any of us really knew how much fun it would turn out to be.

Let’s start off with the magnitude of the map. The game is HUGE. It’s not so much a drag to run around though, as once you discover areas you discover way points that you can teleport to, but there’s always something new to see and explore in Guild Wars 2. The cities are what really caught my eye, I’ve never really seen that much work put into the structural sense of any game; the buildings are so detailed it’s unreal, they actually made it look like the cities different races took years to develop, rather than something that was pieced together to look cool but not really give you a plausible scenario to how people could live there for long.

The dynamic events are something to remember, there is no real linear leveling path in Guild Wars 2; you can level purely through PvP without ever having to set foot in the PvE side of the game or level purely through the dynamic events that happen throughout the world as you explore it. This allows players to develop their own story in-game, and really develop a character however they feel like it, rather than going from area to area doing the same exact quests all the other players did and all the other characters you have did. Dynamic events are events that are, well.. Dynamic, they’re events that happen at random as you go through the world, depending on where you are and what is happening around you, for example, a certain fort is about to send a carriage to a fort which is located north of there, and they need escorts to defend it on its journey.

The community in Guild Wars 2 is amazing; it’s not like in World of Warcraft where most players are complete dicks who go around spamming chats and insulting anyone who screws up in dungeons. The community in your world, in Guild Wars 2, is connected. The main reason, I think, is because you can’t really do much in-game without the help of other people…Aside from hunting down birds and killing small things, most of the game is emphasized on the community.

Character wise the game holds up strong, when I first created a character I actually felt as if I was playing the Sims for the first time, the character creation is very similar. Which is good, don’t get me wrong; it allows for some awesome and unique characters to develop. The armor dyes are another awesome thing; it gives you the opportunity to customize its colors, which I think is kickass.

-And apparently people thought my character was a walking Christmas tree- just felt like sharing that fail with y’all.

Probably the highlights of the weekend were: One- when we found the jumping bug there was when you tried jumping while you were lying down, sitting, or crying, and half a server gathered to jump together and form lines, I believe there were a couple of videos taken by Peterman and are somewhere on Youtube. Any who, the big highlight of it all had to be the weekend finale, an event that ArenaNet randomly announced yesterday on the forums, where they wanted us to head over to the Norn’s Island at 10am Dubai time today, and we spent like 3 hours running around killing elite monsters, along with a bunny who people said looked like the Monty Python rabbit. It took us, I swear to god, like half an hour to kill with over 100 people bashing their skulls against that poor thing.

Anyway, enough said for the first weekend, it was a great experience. And I have to agree with Lore who said he hoped the next beta weekend started tomorrow, I’m very sad that the servers got shut down, I wanted to shoot more things! Aside from the load of bugs and things that went wrong, it was great, I honestly cannot wait till full release, it will be insane. In the mean time, I want the next beta weekend ASAP!!

Blades of Time Review!

Blades of Time

Blades of Time is a hack and slash game developed by Gaijin Entertainment and published by Konami for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. This game released on March 6^th 2012 for the consoles, and on April 21^st for the PC, with a Mac OS X release yet to be thrown out.

Gameplay

Blades of Time is a game that is packed with sword slashing action much like God of War and Devil May Cry, with the addition of some big guns, and I mean big stuff. You play as a woman by the name of Ayumi –a blonde that looks exactly like the girl from Sucker Punch- and you fight your way into the Dragon Temple in order to find a way to get out of the planet you’re trapped in.

I love the action in the game to be honest, it’s the type of game where you can jump in, slash and shoot the hell out of things without any queuing or strategy, you pretty much just jump in, face-roll buttons and receive blood. Gameplay wise I’m really happy with the work they put into Blades of Time, the ability to switch between rifles/machine guns/ rocket launchers and dual wielded swords that dish out magic is great. The puzzles in the game kind of give you a break from all the action, but don’t hold you back by being insanely hard. One of the things I don’t like is the lack of monsters, there isn’t much to see when it comes to monsters slapping you back, and that makes the game repetitive from time to time. And the other thing that I didn’t like was the sensitivity of the mouse for it, I had to drop it to the minimum so it wouldn’t go off doing twenty 360° turns in one swipe.  Other than that, the gameplay experience is worth it, it is action packed, you will shoot things, they will shoot you, you will slash things, and they will slash you. I can guarantee you that.

Graphics

This game doesn’t have the best graphics out there, but it doesn’t really need them, the detail on the spells holds up tight and you’ll spend 99% of your time worrying about what’s hitting you, rather than how detailed your fur boots are or how your swords don’t shine enough. This game will run you on pretty much any decent laptop/desktop, so no need to worry about having a monster computer if you want to play it.

Sound

Now.. For sound.. Sound is the one thing that threw me off in this game. The dubbing for Ayumi’s voice and the dragon’s is horrible, I hated it. I don’t mean to hate or anything, but I think they could’ve picked better voice actors to do the English voices for it. Another thing that I didn’t like about the audio was how repetitive it was, there’s barely any music in the game, so I think it would be better just muting the game overall and playing your own music to keep you company instead; you won’t really miss much. However the environment noises held up alright, so it’s not at all too bad. It isn’t TERRIBLE, it’s bad, but like I said for graphics, you’ll be too busy worrying about what’s hitting you to have time to really pay attention to the audio.

Overall, I have to say yes to Blades of Time. The game is definitely worth getting, it’s not very long, but its online feature is sure to keep you playing for a while. It’s a great game worth buying, and you can check out the demo for free on Steam if you’re still unsure of it.

Now, having read this, go out there and get this game, if you depend on your parents to buy it for you, beg them, because you’re missing out on a great game.

Overall Score: 9.2

Sniper Elite V2 review

Sniper Elite V2

This review is based on the demo, NOT the full game.

“Sniper Elite V2 is an upcoming 2012 tactical shooter video game by Rebellion Developments for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is a remake of Rebellion's 2005 game Sniper Elite. The game takes place in the same timeframe and location - the Battle of Berlin in April 1945 - but now the main character, an American Office of Strategic Services officer, must either kill or capture scientists involved in the German V-2 rocket programme. It was named by IGN as one of the 'biggest shooters' of the year” –Wikipedia.

I really don’t know about this one, there are a couple of things in the game I didn’t really enjoy. Read on to find out.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise the game is really nice, it’s pretty obvious  that in development the aspect that they most focused on was the game while looking at it through the sniper’s scope and not so much being out of the aimed down sight. However, the game in 3^rd person is one of the things I didn’t like, it doesn’t feel quite right –not on pc at least- it’s rather stiff, and moving out of cover is a bit stiff as well, imagine the Gears of War moving and taking cover mechanics but without the rolls and less natural.

Another thing I found it lacked was a basic tutorial on how to switch between the guns and the mines/rocks. If it wasn’t because a friend of mine asked me what the rock with the symbol beside the ammo bar I would’ve probably not noticed that at all.

On the other hand though, while you’re scoped it’s really well done. The movement of the rifle with the breath is well synchronized. I’m no real life shooter, but I think the gravity and wind aspects that affect bullet trajectory seem pretty legitimate, it makes It really hard to shoot people in the head –which I like, I mean I never liked picking up a gun in a game and magically shooting people 100s of meters away without having to think the shot through-

The ‘Bullet Cam’ is sexy as hell; it reminds me of 50 Cent Bulletproof, except with better graphics and the x-ray view of the damage done by the bullet as it rams through your victim.

Graphics

Graphic wise it didn’t really impress me, it’s got really nice graphics and all, but it lacks. I mean, for a game designed to release on 2012 I would expect it to look more like a Battlefield/MW type rather than a game with the graphics of a PS2 Medal of Honor. The faces lack expression and emotion, they’re pretty blank. The lighting through the scope isn’t affected by the sun for example.

On the good side, the graphics aren’t horrible. It’s got enough to make it look good and the Bullet Cam excitement that runs through you when you achieve them is very rewarding; I guess gameplay makes up for graphics.

 -----

I won’t bother writing about sound under a heading because there isn’t much to it other than the dramatic music that plays while you’re in danger. Other than that I’m pleased with the environment sounds and other things, they play really well.

 -----

Overall I think Sniper Elite V2 is a game worth buying, it’s not the best game ever but it’s still fun to play, and if you like mastering hard games I recommend buying it, it will definitely give you hours of you sitting own trying to figure out the best way to get through scenarios and killing people as well as figuring out the best ways to deal with gravity and wind.

Hopefully with the full game a lot of these things will get worked on and improved, I'm just giving you guys my opinion on what i saw from the game demo.

Overall score: 8.8

World of Warcraft Review!

World of Warcraft

 I know, I know, World of Warcraft is a game everyone’s heard of and pretty much played once or twice in their gaming lives, but I still get questions from people asking me if the game is worth trying, what made it so big, and what not. So why not toss in a review of a game I’m very familiar with to start my reviews off with?

World of Warcraft is an MMORPG developed by Blizzard Entertainment released on November 23, 2004. It’s the 4^th installment (and only MMORPG) of the ‘Warcraft universe’ which was first introduced in 1994 with the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. World of Warcraft was released on the 10^th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

Anyway, introduction and background aside, here’s what you came for. The review.

Gameplay

 WoW’s gameplay is rather unique, not because it has a hell load of spells per class, but because –and I’m writing this review from the point of view of an ex-hardcore raider who rarely ever PvP’ed- of its end-game content. To be honest, that was the only reason WoW only appealed to me. 

The game, when this review was written, has 12 playable races (Draenei, Dwarf, Gnome, Human, Night Elf, Worgen, Blood Elf, Orc, Undead, Goblin, Tauren and Troll) and 10 classes (Death Knights, Druids, Hunters, Mages, Paladins, Priests, Rogues, Shamans, Warlocks and Warriors). So that gives you a rather wide variety of things to try out and kill things with. Not only that, but each of the classes has 3 talent trees, that allow the classes to either; DPS, Tank or Heal.

As you level through you’ll be able to do a wide range of things, other than sitting in a city and socializing with people that is, you’ll be able to learn different skills such as Leatherworking, First Aid, Blacksmithing and so on, you’ll be able to queue for PvP and plenty of dungeons , you’ll be able to learn riding skills to ride mounts in land, water and air, yes you’ve got the freedom to fly wherever/whenever once you get your license.

End game (meaning once you’ve reached the max character level) you’ll be able to do two major things, you will be able to do PvE content, aka Raiding, and/or you will be able to PvP.

Raiding is probably the best experience I’ve ever had with any MMORPGs, and was the reason I began playing WoW. Raiding is very similar to going through dungeons, but you do it with 10 or 25 people, in either normal mode or hard mode. The biggest difference, aside from the group size, between dungeons and raids is the difficulty of the encounters, and I’ve got to say, if you like fighting monsters in fights that aren’t killed as simply as “stand there, and shoot that thing until it stops moving” then you will love Raiding. Now, I’m not saying all bosses in the raids are holyshit hard to kill, but it will take several tries before you get to kill a boss without being on the edge of your seat every time.

PvP wise I can’t really say much, because like I said earlier, I’ve never really done PvP to the point where I can sit here and talk about it for hours. I can tell you for sure though, that PvP in World of Warcraft is serious business as well, I think it might even have a bigger player base compared to raiding, and I can tell you that it’s fun, and takes a lot of brains as well just like raiding does.

Graphics

I’ve got to say that I really like the graphics in WoW, the environment detail it goes into is spectacular. The game gives you a wide array of customization when it comes to the graphic settings, it allows you to set the graphics to look like your average game in order to run smoothly on your everyday computer – I had to run my game on the lowest graphic settings to be able to raid on my laptop and the game still looked amazing- as well as allowing you to set them on a high detail setting to run on those monster computers y’all game in these days, and believe me, the game on low graphics looks nothing like it does on Ultra, the detail in the shadows, the water, the armor, everything, goes beyond any game you’ve played before.

User Interface wise nothing compares to WoW. World of Warcraft allows you to install 3^rd party add-ons to the game that allow you to change the look of things, and the freedom to play around with your Action Bars, mini maps, scrolling text, health bars, etc. is unbelievable.

Sound

Now, I’ve never worried too much about the sounds in a game because at some point in time I always end up muting it and play my own music, but WoW’s soundtracks are very nice, the orchestra sounds very very impressive. Whoever it was that wrote the music for it deserves a medal. Now, for some reason I never knew the game had background music until I decided to scan through the game settings to see what it allowed me to play around with and I ran into the tick box to enable background music , so be sure to check your audio settings in-game to have the music play.

Overall and score.

All in all, I have to say that World of Warcraft is one of a kind, it’s a game that you’ve got to seriously sit down and try sometime, there is really no way to put the game in words for you, you have to get it and experience it first hand to understand what it is that makes the game so bloody addictive. I say YES, get World of Warcraft.

And I will be more than happy to give World of Warcraft a rating of  9.6/10.

Extras

Thought I'd add a couple of links to show PvP, and Raids

Raids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh7kQkQkLik

PvP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFrrR2me-Dk

I do NOT own either of the videos.