Writing job for a website

I have a job writing for 6aming.com you should go check it out

This means this blog will become less frequent and also more personal in posts, weather its about games, warhammer of just random stuff.

but still check out 6aming.com, i currently have 2 articles up, a GOTY comparison and an article about MOBA gogo check it

Greedy Gamers?

As gamers we expect a lot from games but why is this?

This question came to me while I and a friend were talking about what game we should play next. We have played all the worthwhile MMOs and we are already avid players of MOBA games, so what else is there for a good multiplayer co-op experience?

As we do every so often we scour the internet for games that might spark our interests and allow us to sync hour after hour into a game and feel it was time well spent. Every time we do this we come out disappointed. When we look, the same suggestions are always apparent, MOBA games, MMOs and certain shooters. Now we do enjoy a good shooter from time to time but as I used to play a lot of shooters I find it hard for one to grab my attention and make me want to keep going back and playing consistently. This is where the problem lies, I have played all the games I want to play and the releases I get really excited for are very few and far between. So back to the point why do we expect so much? I think the answer to this is that we are so spoilt with games that it’s hard for us to appreciate what is out on the market already. I also think that games such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft have become so popular when other developers make games they seem to use these games as their framework and this makes for a boring release, which is just COD or WOW re-skinned. 

Now I do understand that it isn’t easy to come up with constant new mechanics for games but I think MMOs are the worst for this, a game such as an MMO has such vast possibilities with the world, mechanics and its characters but it seems developers are too scared to venture out and try something new because it “isn’t WOW”. Now this has started to change these last couple of years with games such as Guild Wars 2 and Defiance which take the MMO formula and shake it up a little and this is what gamers want, because who doesn’t love playing with their mates in a massive open world with thousands of other players where your progression feels like it means something. 

During E3 they showed gameplay for two new MMO entries and I’m very excited for both games, they are Destiny and The Division. Destiny is being developed by Bungie (The studio that made halo) and its a Sci Fi style game very halo-esc but that’s ok because it looks awesome. When watching the game play I couldn’t help but notice it looked like borderland with talent trees, lots of loot and wide variety of events and enemies. Now this is a great thing because although it might be an FPS it still is using MMO aspects where each class has their own abilities and weapons types making them have a role in a group which is awesome. Next The Division is a Tom Clancy game based in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has shut the world down and people are forced to survive. This is your typical story but after seeing the gameplay I can see the great potential in the game, it reminds me of DayZ but with a massive budget this game could go far. In the game play you see a squad of players working together to complete a mission for some NPCs and gain some new loot and supply’s. The game is a Third person cover shooter which I think is a dynamic take on a MMO. After the mission is complete they walk outside to be confronted by another human group for some PVP, the gameplay ends there but this only makes my mind wonder and makes me this is this going to be like DayZ with open world PVP at any possible time. This would be amazing and is a game I know I would love to play and the fact it has NPC style missions as well doesn’t make it feel pointless after you have collected gear, like it does in DayZ. 

Maybe gamers aren’t greedy. Maybe its just they are seeing the same thing over and over again in games and they just want some innovation. Sometimes a rare gem comes along and blows everyone away but they are not as often as we would like. With next gen on the horizon and a slew of brand new games to play, maybe the industry will change and every game will come with its own form of innovation with makes me wants to play and not have my monthly moan about how there isn’t anything to play, we can only hope.

Injustice - Starting to learn fighting games

A couple months ago i was round a friend’s house and another friend brought injustice: Gods among us and we started playing. He had previously told me about the game but I didn’t feel i wanted to fork out £40 for the game. After playing though I loved it and wanted to get the game myself but I couldn’t afford it, but when the game dropped in price I picked it up and this has been my time sink for the last week. 

I have been watching as many streams on Twitch.tv as I could and I got really interested in the game and it made me want to really hunker down with the game and start learning how the game works and how people react when playing. As I have sank many hours into MOBA games such as Heroes of Newerth and Dota 2, I love the idea of learning a game and then improving to the point where you can just destroy your opponent. So I got the game and I looked through the roster of heroes and decided I would go with Green Arrow as the character I was going to learn. I chose this guy as I watched the Arrow TV series and really loved it, so I was already on a green arrow hype and I also wanted to play a character that not that many people play. Green Arrow was the perfect candidate for this as all the tournaments I watched, I never saw him. Last night I watched a training tournament, they do these weekly tournaments and a player called ChrisG attended, this guy is amazing at all fighting games not just Injustice. This guy chose Green Arrow and he played the character like a dream against characters who are top tier like Black Adam and Cyborg. 

So back to the Point I started practicing, spending hours on hours in the training mode learning all Green Arrows moves and also some basic combos as this is the first time I have seriously played a fighting game. So I practiced hard and started playing online and I got my ass beat hard by everyone, to this point I’ve probably played about 100 games and won about 10. Now that a bad ratio but I have noticed with every game I am improving and as every player uses different characters I am learning how to block each characters moves and also how to react. I’m enjoying the  experience and trying to watch as many fighting game streams as possible so I can learn and also see how the pros react to each other and I find its working as when watching ChrisG play Green Arrow I learning new combos and ways to use my characters. 

I’m loving the learning curve and this brings me to my next problem, I’m not sure if I should buy an Arcade stick. I’ve looked all over the internet and most people say they are for preference. I’m thinking I want to get one as at the moment mad cats have the street fighter 4 Tournament Edition sticks on sale for £80 which is a pretty good deal as far as I can see on the net. I think an arcade stick would be more of an advance in other fighting games and I’m planning on picking up Ultimate Marvel 3 and working on that when I feel I’m playing well enough in Injustice.

EVO is coming up this weekend the Grand Slam of fighting game Tourneys and I’m extremely excited to watch the fights but as I’m going to be on holiday i will be missing the tournament so I will have to catch up on YouTube.

I will be missing my post next week as I’m away, So don’t worry I’ll be back but while I’m away buy all the games on Steam GO GO

Spartacus Legends - Improvment Thoughts

So I have put quite a few hours into Spartacus over the last week and I am still loving the game, but as I’ve played more and more I have started to see where this game could have been a true gem if it had got a full scale release.  Let’s start with the combat system, at the moment it’s a one on one fighter. This gameplay style works but I was thinking, imagine if it was more of a third person fighter, think God of War. This would open up the game so much and let it be possible to have more than one gladiator in the area at once, allowing for team battles or just a free for all. I think this would have been amazing; also anther thing I think they missed out on with the game is environmental interaction. In the Spartacus TV series the gladiators sometimes use the environment to their advantage, whether its jump off it for a sword stab or just smashing your opponent into the wall, I just think this could have made the battles more interesting. 

Now as I explained in my review I think the ludas management this game has is awesome but with some work and a little more expansion it could be a game on its own. Maybe they could add gladiator trading, with other ludas’s and maybe the fame system would mean more than unlocking more fights, maybe it would mean other lanista’s would take notice of you and send assassins to kill your gladiators to spit your or stunt the growth of your ludas and other things of this nature. This would mean economy in the game would be more important deciding whether to spend your gold on more gladiators or better training or maybe spending it to accommodate a person of high favour in your villa to gain more favour in the games. I really think the gladiator management game could have been way more intense and also adding in other ludas owners would have been a great way to spice things up rather than fighting generic gladiator 1 or 2. Also a story mode could have been added it would have been so easy to be done maybe just convert the series into a game or even you make your own gladiator and follow his way through gladiator school set in the Spartacus world or follow Spartacus through the rebellion, I really think there is so many possibilities.

As this game was just F2P these thoughts are just wishes that I will most likely never see fulfilled and my heart will yearn to get a gladiator game that will never exist.

SPARTACUS Legends - Review

 

I read about this game a few months back and saw the trailer with its snippets of gameplay; obviously I was instantly crazed about this game and was in dire need to play it. I mean gladiators is a theme that I want more games to be made using, I loved Shadow of Rome, back on the PS2 and I also loved the part in fable where you have to compete in the area, I don’t know what it is about the setting of the arena and gladiator but I just love it.  The fact the game uses the Spartacus TV series IP is just a big 1+ for me, as I loved the TV series from begging to end and it had one of the greatest ending of a series I have ever seen, I was extremely sad to see it go.

Off the bat when loading up this game you can feel that it is using the Spartacus IP well, the sounds, the visuals and just the gritty look of the game really says, this is Spartacus. You start the game and you get one slave to train as a gladiator. My guy was a sword a shield user, at first all you have is your weapon and some dingy cloth for armour, but as you win battle you gain more coin and this allows you to buy better weapons and equipment. The setup of the game is cleaver it makes you feel like a lanista from the series owning your own set of gladiators and sending them to battle to gain glory and coin for you. You can recruit more gladiators as you gain more coin and fame, each gladiator has a different fighting style ranging from sword and shield to hard hitting hammers or even dual daggers. I found while using these different styles, that none of them are at a disadvantage to any others; the hammer guys are slow but powerful whereas the dagger guys are fast but do less damage. The main menu is a map of Capua (the city in which the game and series is set) there is different section where you can go and fight but at first many are locked because your ludas(your gladiator fighting school) must gain fame and coin to access the higher paying fights. So you start at the bottom beating the lower tier gladiators, eventually you will unlock a primus fight, which will be against a more renowned gladiator, when you win these primus fights you unlock perks for your gladiators to use that give little bonuses to sway a fight in your favour. One you gain enough fame you will unlock a boss battle and these battles use characters from the TV series as your opponent and they are extremely hard to defeat, but when you beat them you unlock them and can add them to your ludas to improve it (or so the game says).   

Now as this game is about the fights let’s talk about the game mechanics, the battles are fast a fluid and all the moves are recognisable for anybody who has watched the series from Gannicus’s jumping dual sword slash and even including my favourite move “the superman”.

 You have light attacks and heavy attacks, grabs and defensive breaks such as kicks or shield bashes. You can block and also roll and dodge. Using all these moves in combination makes for a fast paced energetic fight. At the moment I am using a dual sword user he is fast and aggressive and that how I like to play, on the constant attack, whereas if you use a sword and shield user he’s a little slower and more about jabbing your opponent and then running back. You really get the feel the developers did their research to see how the gladiators moved and used their weapons because you have to watch your opponent and take advantage of any mistakes or missteps. There is a health bar and a block bar, the block bar goes down as you use dodges or block an opponent, but when it empties you are defenceless and this is the perfect time to strike and really go to town on your opponent, but if you’re smart you can go on the assault when you bar is emptied and let it refill while your smash your opponent up.  One final thing about the fights there is a crowd metre and depending on how your gladiator looks and performs it goes up and if it full at the end of the fight you get to perform a killing blow such as severing an appendage from their body. This is where I think multiplayer would be amazing I haven’t tried it myself as I can’t seem to get a match but as the game is so heavily focused on psyching your opponent out and using their mistakes to your advantage I’m guessing it would be an amazing experience against a live opponent. 

I must touch on the big thing about this game and that is that its free 2 play, this game tackles it very well, there are two currencies in this game, gold and silver coin. Silver coins you gain in the game from winning fights and so on. Whereas you gain gold coins from only levelling your fame or buying them. The gold coins allow you to buy better weapons and equipment for your gladiators and also it allows you to get this stuff a lot earlier. So far though I have found you could play the whole game and not spend a penny. It would take a lot longer to complete all the fights as the coin values of the equipment and gladiators you need gets extremely high. I feel though that you could pick this game up play for a few hours and not play again for months. It’s just that kind of game, at its core it’s a fighting game with a sprinkling of gladiators. 

In conclusion I think Ubisoft have done a great job with this game and I think everybody should give it a try, there is near to no bugs and problems that I have found and for a free 2 play game there is nothing to moan about here. i advise everyone to play it as its free and something that shouldn’t be misses especially if you are a fan of the TV series.