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
AFliXTioN GAming
Friday, 9 August 2013
Thursday, 25 July 2013
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.
Labels:
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Thursday, 11 July 2013
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
Thursday, 4 July 2013
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.
Labels:
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game,
games,
gladiators,
review,
spartacus legends,
thoughts,
Tv series,
xbox 360
Friday, 28 June 2013
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.
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