Tag Archive for damage

Brink dev reveals new PC shooter

30/11/2012

The next project from Brink and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars developer Splash Damage has been revealed. This morning, the company announced PC shooter Dirty Bomb. The game’s teaser trailer suggests the game will be set in a modern day London, England and feature lots of shooting.


The Dirty Bomb website encourages gamers to reserve a player name by registering at publishing partner Warchest’s website. Additionally, Dirty Bomb’s online services are powered by FireTeam, a company that specializes in matchmaking, transmedia connectivity, and more.

No release date or pricing information was announced for Dirty Bomb.

Dirty Bomb is the first game from London-based Splash Damage since 2011′s Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC game Brink, which sold 2.5 million copies. For more on that game, check out GameSpot’s review.

Article source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/brink-dev-reveals-new-pc-shooter-6400766

"Second Wave" of Options Make XCOM: Enemy Unknown Even Tougher

23/10/2012


XCOM: Enemy Unknown is kicking my ass right now, and I imagine it’s doing the same to many of you. But just in case it isn’t, there’s a whole new set of hardcore options called Second Wave that modders have unleashed to make saving the world from the alien menace tougher than ever.

The “Second Wave” options were originally planned by Firaxis, but scrapped for launch. Lingering code remained, and it was discovered on the Nexus modding forums, eventually resulting in a full-on mod that unlocks the hyper-difficult options for just about anyone. Curious as to what they are? Well here ya go:

  • Damage Roulette: Weapons have a much wider range of damage.
  • New Economy: The funding offered by individual council members is randomized.
  • Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.
  • Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, their stats will increase randomly.
  • Red Fog: Any wounds taken in combat will degrade a soldier’s stats for that mission.
  • Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot will guarantee a critical hit.
  • The Greater Good: The secret of psionics can only be learned by interrogating a psionic alien.
  • Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
  • Results Driven: A country will offer less funding as it’s panic level increases.
  • High Stakes: The rewards granted for stopping alien abductions are randomized.
  • Diminishing Returns: The cost of satellites increases with every one that is built.
  • The Blitz: The aliens will target a larger number of cities every time they launch an abduction attack.
  • More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.

According to Community Manager Greg Laabs on the 2K forums, Second Wave could also still get the official stamp of approval. The options are “something the dev team at Firaxis is still interested in going back to and working on.”

Check out the XCOM: Enemy Unknown Second Wave mod at Nexus.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/7bR9-beE-Co/1226467p1.html

War of the Roses Launches Today

03/10/2012

Be careful where you swing that great sword. That’s my advice to those of you who plan to don your armor and go to medieval melee multiplayer battle in War of the Roses today. Having hacked my way through a number of fights in the beta, I can tell you first hand that you’re just as likely to take damage from wild sword-swinging teammates as you are from enemies. Heed my words, give your fellow knights a wide berth, and you’ll live much longer. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

There’s definitely a learning curve in War of the Roses, but if you get through the initial frustration and get a hang of the combat mechanics, it’s a fun melee fighter. I just hope the launch won’t be as buggy as Paradox’s other recent releases.

Will you be joining the houses of Lancaster or York today for War of the Roses?

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/Wt1eI9mcQJ8/1226258p1.html

Huge Mass Effect 3 Patch Incoming

03/10/2012


For a game whose finale caused so much ire around the internet, Mass Effect 3 sure doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon. As announced on the Bioware forums, a huge patch for the space RPG will be dropping sometime this week, fixing everything from Singularity to disconnection problems in multiplayer to weapon damage.

So gameplay fixes are all well and good, but the most interesting part of all of this comes via a tweet from series producer Michael Gamble. He said that the patch “also sets us up for future…things.” Now, as to what those things are, we can only guess, but I’d be willing to go out on a limb and say that it’ll likely be something fairly big to need such extensive changes.

Get the full patch notes on the Mass Effect 3 forum.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/rP8ehrIw90o/1226265p1.html

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition Review

01/10/2012

It’s certainly novel for a game’s subtitle to boast of your impending slaughter, but Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is unusual in most respects. Its combat is abnormally precise, its narrative is largely embedded within optional NPC interactions, and its multiplayer features are unconventional and initially largely hidden. While the PC version is a shabby port, there is simply no other action RPG out there like Dark Souls, which is so good that it adversely affected my opinion of how all previous RPGs handled combat.

However, we must start out with a warning: the PC port is a disappointing wasted opportunity to technically improve on the console version of Dark Souls, and it lacks many features you probably expect as standard. The resolution is locked at 1280×720 (aka 720p), the framerate is locked at 30fps, and there are no high resolution textures. There’s a mouse keyboard control option, but control is so bad that it’s not practical, so you’ll definitely want a gamepad to play. Fortunately, there’s a must-have unofficial patch available that improves the rendering resolution. With it, everything looks much crisper, although you’re stuck with low-resolution textures. A framerate uncapper is also in the works, but it’s currently too buggy to recommend.

Roll Up Your Sleeves

That said, Dark Souls is still an amazing game. There’s no hand-holding — to succeed, you need to invest time diligently exploring, learning the combat system, and developing your skills to overcome challenges. The open-world design makes it likely that you’ll wander into high-level areas that’ll mercilessly slap some perspective into your character. It’s a tough, but fair experience. Deaths aren’t cheap, but success needs to be well earned.


It’s easy to prematurely conclude that you lack the reflexes or experience to tackle challenges, but the combat system is incredibly precise and severely punishes button mashing. Most of my character deaths were caused by impatience, not an inability to quickly respond. You’ll improve through the traditional RPG route of leveling up and finding and improving equipment, but also by observing enemy movement and attack patterns and learning appropriate responses. Once I started taking more time to acquire familiarity with the capabilities of enemies and my own weaponry, battles that once seemed insurmountable became rote.

Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like an Armor-Plated Bee

While ranged-combat skills can make some encounters more manageable, fighting is largely oriented around melee. The brilliance of the melee combat system is that it accommodates whatever style you find most natural or interesting — it’s tremendously deep and well balanced, which gives you lots of tactical choices and forces tradeoffs. There are over a dozen weapon classes, and each has its own attack patterns — many individual weapons within classes have their own unique attacks, too. For instance, while the strong two-handed attack for most straight swords is a charging slash, the Drake Sword pounds the ground and creates an impressive shockwave that also damages the sword. Weapons have normal and strong attacks, which are different when used one-handed or two-handed, as well as alternate attacks when used after rolling, back-stepping, or pressing a directional key. I naturally developed favorite weapons and relied more heavily on certain attacks, but the variety of weapons and attack methods provides a tremendous number of effective tools to overcome obstacles, and ample opportunity for rewarding experimentation.


There are no respecs, so your character-development choices have lasting impact, but there also are no fixed classes or restrictions, so you can fully customize your character to suit your preferences. One of the system’s best traits is that while certain character builds will make some challenges easier, almost any build is viable with the right preparation. For instance, it’s not necessary to eventually graduate to larger weapons or heavy armor — wearing light equipment enables you to prance around the battlefield and easily dodge enemies, which is just as viable as slowly bludgeoning opponents by blocking or absorbing attacks with heavy equipment and then retaliating. You can even be both speedy and heavily armored, but you’ll have to sacrifice equipment slots and be less able to enhance your spell-casting abilities or other attributes.

Time For a Different Approach

Equipment choices can have more than one impact — heavy armor not only blocks more damage than lighter equipment, it also makes your character less likely to be thrown off balance when hit. Large shields have great stability, which allows your blocks to use less stamina (a crucial combat resource), but light shields allow you to better land devastating ripostes. Some weapons inflict damage dependent upon attributes such as Strength. If you’ve neglected the attributes that modify weapon damage, you can instead use elemental weapons that don’t rely upon attribute modifiers, or chaos weapons that scale with consumable Humanity points. If you find it difficult to get parry timing down, ignore it and use heavy shields for blocking or rely more upon rolling. I found that against many dangerous opponents, the additional range of a halberd more than compensated for its slow attack speed. Instead of hammering through shielded opponents, I began kick their shields away. Enemies and items don’t scale in strength as you level, so if you become skilled enough at combat you can complete the storyline and grab the most powerful equipment as a very low-level character.


Dark Souls takes a great, unconventional approach to multiplayer and online content, although unfortunately via the cumbersome
Games of Windows Live system. Unless you create an offline GFWL account, you’ll always play online, allowing other players to join your game as a hostile or helpful phantom in certain circumstances. It also gives you some insight into what other players are doing at the same location within their games. You can touch blood spots to see ghostly replays of how other players died, or read notes left by other players (which could warn you of the location of an upcoming enemy or deliberately mislead you into walking off a cliff), and there are a few synergistic advantages whenever other players use spells or kindle bonfires near the same location in their own games. So even when playing on your own, being online enriches your game with additional content derived from what other players are concurrently doing in their own games.

Hollow Men

The conditions under which your game can be joined are somewhat complicated. Your character can be in either human or “hollow” form, and a character in human form who dies respawns in hollow form. The only way to return to human form is to use rare, but farmable, Humanity items. Being in human form has two advantages: it allows you to kindle and permanently improve bonfires (precious checkpoint locations), which gives you additional healing flasks, and it allows you summon other players or befriended NPCs as backup phantoms. Summoning aid can make boss fights much easier, especially since you can summon up to three friendly phantoms, who can be a mix of human players and NPCs. Joining someone else’s game as a friendly phantom is a great opportunity to gain some riches without risking your own character’s life, as you’ll just return to your own game if your phantom is killed. Several NPCs offer the opportunity to join covenants, some of which offer additional rewards for helping, or killing, other players.


The downside of being in human form is that your game can be invaded by hostile phantoms, who are largely other players but can also be NPCs. Invasions add excitement, and the different covenants that you can join offer a variety of ways to fight other players. Join the Dark Wraiths and you can invade the games of other players who have characters in human form, while joining the Forest Hunters gives you a ring that summons you to the games of players fighting in the forest.

The Phantom Menace

Unfortunately, there are a lot of multiplayer griefers. Some may have hacked characters, but generally these jerks deliberately avoid leveling while they grab powerful equipment, making them radically overpowered when they invade characters playing normally. That means every time you adopt human form, you risk your game being invaded by someone who will quickly kill you in an unfair fight. That’s pretty annoying, since it makes it harder to summon help when you need it.


The good news is that because the PC version is new, there are still plenty of normal players to encounter, and multiplayer combat on level footing is great fun. The developers also made some modifications from the console version that make a larger variety of character builds effective in PvP combat, including reducing the effectiveness of backstabbing and the godly, backflip-enabling Dark Wood Grain Ring. There’s also a new arena specifically for PvP combat, but you have to first reach the new content to unlock it (which will take most players over 20 hours) and then hope there are enough similarly leveled players in queue to get a timely match. Right now it’s difficult to get a match in most game types — that may improve as Dark Souls ages and more players both access the area and focus on multiplayer matches, but it’s currently more of a novelty than a significant addition.

Many Secrets

I don’t recommend going in unguided, though, as you’ll probably never even find the new areas without the help of a Dark Souls walkthrough wiki. You need to first kill a boss, then leave the area and return or reload, then kill a freshly spawned creature and don’t accidentally annoy a related NPC, then clear out several entirely different locations until you unlock the final set of campaign areas, then go to one of those unlocked areas and kill a new creature there to pick up an object with no clear purpose, and finally return to the original cleared out area and wander to an uninhabited corner that you’d likely ignore. Yep, not likely.

But Dark Souls has always had content that you were unlikely to find without assistance, such as the Great Hollow, a treasure trove for rare crafting materials. The lore is treated similarly, as NPC dialog is generally cryptic, easily missed, and never quite gels into a coherent narrative. I’ve found that uncovering and debating the setting’s lore is one of Dark Souls’ many optional but rewarding time-sinks.

About three quarters of the original locations are extremely well designed, but the last few levels are simpler and just force you through an uninspired and tedious gauntlet of enemies. One detail I particularly appreciate in Dark Souls’ world design is that buildings are realistically scaled to your character, instead of being dwarf-scale models as in Skyrim and most other RPGs. On a good PC, I found none of the irksome slowdowns that blight (in particular) Blighttown in the console versions.

The Undiscovered Country

The Prepare to Die Edition also adds three new areas that provide some new insight into the setting’s history: a crumbling cityscape, a forest, and an area of the Abyss that’s haunted by Humanity ghosts. The cityscape is the only one that impresses, as the others feel too redundant next to the original content, but the new enemies make them worth playing, including some misshapen humanoids with headstalks that can be seen in darkness and some tough stone guardians who slam their hammer so viciously into the ground that yanking them out causes an explosion of turf.


The new bosses include the fallen Knight Artorias, a key figure in the lore, and a ferocious Dragon which is so tough that he’s an optional fight. All of the new bosses are frenetic and extremely aggressive combatants, making them at least as tough as those in the original areas. One of those original bosses also makes a very welcome reappearance, in a manner that both fits well with established lore and gives a different tone (and some new dialog) to the original encounter.

Content with the Content

Getting all of the items and clearing out the tough creatures that don’t respawn, like the deadly blowdart-wielding runts in Blighttown, is how you mark your progress through a location (since normal creatures respawn every time you rest at a bonfire). The new territories somewhat lose that satisfying feel by being more static, since they don’t have enemies you can permanently kill, and most items are just lying around and easily accessible. Still, they fit in well, and add six to eight hours of gameplay (on top of the original areas, which took me more than 40 hours to get through), not counting the new multiplayer options. The campaign resets at a higher difficulty level if you complete it, and you’d need to get through almost three full playthroughs to get all of the items and achievements.

While this port isn’t the significant enhancement that we’d all hoped for (to put it kindly), Prepare to Die Edition is still clearly the definitive version of Dark Souls. It plays smoother, multiplayer is improved, mods have enhanced the resolution and promise further improvements, and there’s content not currently available on the consoles. PC gamers have had to wait a while, but we now have the best version of Dark Souls anywhere, and it’s almost-unique type of challenging and rewarding gameplay has made it one of my all-time favorite games.

Man, would it have killed Namco to put a little extra TLC into this game? It’s obviously a winner, but I have a hard time giving $40 to a company that can’t be bothered to provide the most basic of PC features. What do you think? Is this a gameplay-trumps-all situation, or is this a line you won’t cross?

For more info on the PC options and limitations, see our Port Authority feature on the next page.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/RsCpZGR49so/1225854p1.html

Mists of Pandaria: Review in Progress, Day 4

29/09/2012

Here’s a confession: I’ve never understood the hostility towards Mists of Pandaria’s new Pokemon-style pet battles. It’s not like they take the place of raiding or standard player-versus-player combat, and in fact, I’ve gone three days now without feeling the need to train it myself or even seeing anyone else battle. It’s like holding a spiteful vendetta against Cataclysm’s archaeology profession, even though it’s an entirely secondary activity that in no way affects the people who aren’t taking it in. New interactive features in an MMORPG should always be applauded, I believe, particularly when they’re as surprisingly fun and deep as the pet battles turned out to be.


But it’s true, if you’ve played Pokemon, you’ve played World of Warcraft’s pet battles. They’re so similar, in fact, that I wonder if Blizzard had some under-the-table agreement with Nintendo to avoid copyright infringements. In a nutshell, you use your non-combat pets (that have always been in World of Warcraft but have rarely done much beside look cute) to battle with other players, either by clicking on them and requesting a duel or — I love this — queuing up in a group finder that lets you duel with members of the opposite faction. It’s generally restricted to non-human pets — so you can’t battle with your Argent Squire like I was told in my October 2011 preview — although you can battle with Winter’s Little Helper, the gnome in a Santa suit from the winter festival. It’s probably a good thing, then, that pets don’t stay dead after a battle — you can heal all of them at a Stable Master at any time for a tiny fee, or you can simply click a button in the pet journal that revives them every 8 minutes. You can also switch out among three pets during the battle itself, and each pet has six skills that they can learn as they level to the cap of 25. As with Pokemon, you can only use three skills at a time, though, and Blizzard gave the majority of them their own abilities so you often don’t know what to expect when you go into a battle.

Showing Off

Take my current setup. Of the 85 non-combat pets I’ve amassed over the years, I’m mainly playing with some of my rare favorites, including my Kirin Tor Familiar, my Murkablo from last year’s BlizzCon, and my beloved Magical Crawdad, which I usually kept out before the expansion anyway. I’m sure it’s not the best setup, but you’ll have to forgive that because I like showing off from time to time. Each is currently at level 8, so I’ve only unlocked three abilities on each of them, but the variety of abilities available already testified to the wide range of skills available. My Kirin Tor Familiar, for instance, can let loose an arcane explosion that not only affects the opposing pet in play but the two on the sidelines as well, and my Murkablo can toss out a Curse of Agony that deals damage over two rounds. My Magical Crawdad has a weak healing ability, and he can also summon a whirlpool under opponents that roots them in place and does damage over two turns. I’ve encountered other pets that can dodge my abilities or dish out far more damage than I’m able to, so the system has a lot of depth.


I was also pleased to learn that (just like Pokemon), you can battle pets out in the wild as well and possibly capture them if they’re below 30% health. Most of these pets are the “critters” with almost no HP that have always scampered about in Azeroth, although many of them have been given new level assignments for Pandaria. That’s because battling these critters is the chief way to level your pets, and you jump from zone to zone fighting them to earn more skill points. It’s a slow but oddly satisfying grind, complete with extra critters that sometimes jump into help whatever pet you’re attacking, so you can expect to spend a lot of time out in the world’s various zones if you want to level a lot of pets. You also don’t get any personal experience from the battles themselves, although you do get level-specific quest rewards for fighting various NPC pet battle masters scattered throughout Azeroth, including XP, gold, and a bag of goodies with treats that provide bandages and other goodies for your pets.

I Choose You, Onyxian Whelpling

I’ve learned that these visits to NPC masters are the best places to find other players who want to duel, particularly since they’re likely to be at the same pet level as you since you’re both there for the same quest. It’s fun to play with real players because it adds the hefty dose of real strategy that’s not always present in the NPC battles, and of course it’s fun to see which pets they have at their disposal. Even better, I’ve found that most of the players who participate in battles are clearly in it for a good time, since every single one of the 20 or so player duels I’ve fought in ends with congratulations if I win or friendly ribbing if I lose, usually with expressions of admiration for a particular pet’s abilities. That doesn’t happen in the random duels, but I like how you can enter those at any time if you’re feeling bored.


And that’s the point. Pet battles are meant to be fun, and they are. Battling companion pets is yet another activity that breathes life into WoW apart from the usual killing and fetching, and I know we’ll be happy to have it when we’re stuck waiting for members outside raid instances in the future. It provides a purpose for companion pets before mere aesthetics (although the Michael Vick jokes thrown about in chat admittedly hit a nerve), and it carries with it an entire extra set of achievements to complete. Again, I think any extra feature in an MMO can only be a good thing, particularly when the experience is as rich as this. And the best part? You don’t even have to buy Mists of Pandaria to partake in them.

Great, as if playing World of Warcraft wasn’t already addicting enough, now we have a full-fledged Pokemon experience. At least now I have some sort of use for all of those damn pets I’ve collected over the years. I have yet to try it out myself, but what do you think of the Pet Battle system? Is it something that interests you?

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/DIwhwDvfnFQ/1226204p1.html

Kha’Zix Guide: How to Kill League of Legends’ New Champ

25/09/2012


Know your enemy, says legendary military tactician Sun Tzu. But with over 100 champions already in League of Legends, and a new one joining the ranks every two weeks, it’s getting increasingly tough to do. In our LoL hazing series we break down the newest threat, revealing weaknesses that you can exploit to secure victory against this flavor-of-the-week champ.


According to lore, there’s only one champion that Kha’Zix considers his equal: Rengar, that hunting cat-man from a few weeks back. That actually makes sense, because they’re incredibly similar champions: Kha’Zix the Voidreaver is a big bug that leaps, cuts, and can choose between different evolutionary paths as he gets stronger. Here’s how you can be ready for anything he throws at you.

Kha’Zix Scouting Report
For a full, detailed list of Kha’Zix’s abilities, see Riot’s official Kha’Zix reveal.

    Role: AD melee assassin jungler with moderate ranged and healing
    Resource: Mana
    Arsenal: Leaps into or out of battle, stabs with huge spikes, hurls small spikes that explode like grenades, and loves to slip into bushes or stealth to prey on isolated targets.
    Surprises: Every time Kha’Zix levels his ultimate, he can permanently “evolve” one of his other abilities to boost its effectiveness.


Rule 1: Watch for the Signs

Which abilities Kha’Zix chooses to evolve first tells you a lot about how he’s planning to play — and that’s easy to spot, because each stage of evolution has a distinct visual representation. Knowing what they mean for you and your team will deprive the enemy of the element of surprise. These screens show one of the many orders players could choose to evolve his abilities.


    Evolution 1 (Q): Boosts melee burst damage, especially against wounded targets.
    Indicates: Going for champion kills; expect ganks.
    Evolution 2 (W): Significant boost to ranged attack, self-heals, and AoE damage.
    Indicates: Jungling or lane-pushing; expect conservative play.


    Evolution 3 (E): Long-range leap and the cooldown refreshes on kill or assist.
    Indicates: Ganking and escaping. Not as all-in as a Q upgrade. Expect risky ganks + escape attempts.
    Evolution 4 (R): Jump into stealth three times in a row for damage reduction and DPS boost.
    Indicates: Desire for teamfights; expect popping in and out for small bursts of damage.

Rule 2: He Preys on the Weak

You are Little Red Riding Hood and Kha’Zix is the Big Bad Wolf bug — don’t go wandering into the forest alone. The Voidreaver has two unique damage boosts that proc when he ambushes you by yourself. His passive gives him a buff every time he’s outside of enemy line-of-sight which deals damage and slows on his next attack. He also passively marks “isolated” enemies near him with a debuff that boosts his first attack against them. Combined, you could easily find yourself near half health before you realize what’s happening.


As a bonus surprise, if the enemy Kha’Zix boosts his Q, his isolated buff will deal proportionally more damage the lower your health is. So watch out for those Olaf-like last-second comebacks in duels.

Rule 3: There’s Not Always Safety in Numbers

Clearly you don’t want to be caught alone against Kha’Zix, but having minions in front of you isn’t as safe as it is against most skill-shot champs. Most skill-shot abilities like Ezreal’s energy bolt will hit a minion in front of you and fizzle out — the little guy gives his life for yours. Kha’Zix’s ranged shot, on the other hand, explodes on impact, dealing damage to everyone nearby. It’s a fairly small range, but you’ll want to stand a safe distance behind the minion line to avoid taking splash damage.

Rule 4: He’s Not Very Good at Hiding

Kha’Zix loves to hide, and his ult lets him pop invisibility, but it only lasts for one second. He can re-cast it a second or third time afterwards (if he’s evolved that ability), but there’s a delay in between casts and that’s still a max of three seconds stealthed. If he leaps into a fight, he’s going to rely on his stealth to let him escape — and we can exploit that. Don’t let your team suddenly forget him when he stealths. He’ll be back very, very soon and one stun is enough to keep him from stealthing again. Simply run in the direction you suspect he’s going and be ready to bop him when he reappears.


Rule 5: Get Ready For a Showdown

Riot likes to build hidden passives into their champs, most of which are based on lore and do little things like give an extra gold if they kill their rival or do a special animation when a certain thing happens. Kha’Zix and Rengar — rival hunters in the lore — spit on those pathetic perks. There’s been a lot of debate and speculation about how their passives work on the test server (and Riot could always change it down the line), but here’s how it stands at last count:

When Kha’Zix hits level 16, if there’s an enemy Rengar on the other team all players get a buff called “The Hunt is on!” At this point, all that matters is getting your Rengar or Kha’Zix to kill his rival on the other team. If Rengar kills Kha’Zix, his bonetooth necklace is replaced with the Head of Kha’Zix item that grants the maximum power of a fully-charged bonetooth necklace and cannot be diminished by deaths. If Kha’Zix kills Rengar, he gets a fourth evolution point to upgrade another of his abilities. Both of those are huge boosts to power and should be considered top priority for your entire team.


Josh Augustine has enjoyed League of Legends since closed beta. His favorite champion is Talon, he’s never enjoyed a Teemo, and he will always go for the kill, even when he knows he shouldn’t. He’s written about MMOs and MOBAs like LoL for years and currently works at Sony Online Entertainment as a content designer on EverQuest. You can talk with him on Twitter @jaugustine.

At least this evolving bug turned out better than those goofy weirdos I made in Spore. What do you think of the crazy hidden passive Riot made for Kha’Zix? And do you pay attention to the lore in MOBAs, or are you just in it for the kills?

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/PkKqzoZrI4o/1226193p1.html

What Classes We’re Playing First in Torchlight 2

20/09/2012


Prepare your mouse clicking fingers: Torchlight 2 is finally ready to deliver your next kill-loot-level-repeat fix. Runic’s sequel to the 2010 isometric action RPG will be ready for downloading at roughly 10am PST (1pm EST) tomorrow, leaving launch-day players with less than 24 hours to decide which class they’ll be playing as first. So what will it be? The Berserker, the Embermage, the Engineer, or the Outlander? Perhaps we can help. Find out which Torchlight 2 characters GameSpy’s treacherous trio are rolling first — and why — below.


Mike Sharkey — Embermage



Two words: Prismatic Bolt. Cast this spell and the Embermage will unleash five heat-seeking magical orbs that contain fire, ice, electrical, and poison damage. It’s like an elemental potpourri that will leave monsters burning, frozen, shocked, and sick, all in one blast. Brilliant. Then there’s Blazing Pillar — think of it as the Embermage’s own personal orbital-satellite laser. Cast this bad boy and four raging columns of fire come blasting down from the heavens, incinerating anything in their path.

Now, I’m typically not one to go the glass-cannon route, but I love the Embermage’s spellbook (she’s also got some fantastic offensive and defensive teleportation spells), and Runic gives players the flexibility to apply attribute points as they see fit. Forget about that whole “glass” thing — I’m planning to make my Embermage a double-bladed-axe-wielding, spell-casting badass.

I’m psyched to take on Torchlight 2 with the Embermage first. Are you?


Mike Nelson — Berserker



Playing a melee based class is like comfort food for me. Barbarian was my first pick with Diablo 3 (and Diablo 2, for that matter) so I’m going to stick with what I know in Torchlight 2, even if he doesn’t appear to be as purely tank-like as I’m accustomed to.

Skills like Howl, which causes fear damage, and being able to summon a spectral wolf with Shadow Burst, make him pretty unique — almost Druid-like. But the real captivating thing for me is that the Berserker starts off with some badass spiked knuckles, allowing for some up-close and personal combat. That, and the animation for how runs through the world reminds me of Wolverine. I think I’ll name him Logan.


Dan Stapleton — Outlander



The Outlander’s bringing guns to a swords and sorcery fight, which is very much in line with my style. I’m a little ahead of the curve here thanks to my review playthrough (almost done with that, btw!) and so far I don’t regret my choice. Almost immediately I unlocked the Rapid Fire skill, which gives most guns an almost assault rifle-like rate of fire for a modest mana cost. Later, I dumped points into Rune Vault, which keeps his squishy body out of danger by leaping backward just before the troll’s hammer lands, and Burning Leap, which launches him forward and sets everything in front of him in fire. Oh, and one more essential skill: without the healing aura of Stone Pact, I’d be deader than Ordrak.

What, I’m last? Not cool, guys, not cool. I guess that leaves me with the Engineer, but you know what? That suits me just fine. He’s probably more tank than the Berserker is — he speaks softly, carries a heavy wrench to bash monsters with, and summons robots. Your turn — which class will it be?

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/qqr7L-2hj2w/1226138p1.html

10 Awesome Things You Can Do in Tribes: Ascend Right Now That You Couldn’t Do a Month Ago

18/09/2012

Tribes: Ascend remains one of our favorite free-to-play shooters, in part because of the fast-and-furious pace that Hi-Rez is making tweaks and adding new stuff. The last two updates (August 22nd and September 12th) made major changes that have jolted players out of their comfort zones with disruptive new gear and modes, giving us a ton of new tactics to make use of and counter. Here are some of the best game-changing things I’ve seen and done in Tribes that just weren’t possible before.


1:Capture the Flag Blitz Mode

Blitz mode isn’t complex on the surface: every time your flag is captured by the enemy team, it respawns at a new location — often times one that’s easier to defend (and consequently harder for enemies to grab). This simple mechanic changes nearly every tactic, from where to place a defensive turret to the routes you take to get speed for a quick flag grab. On the Drydock map, one flag location is set up in the middle of the main bunker, or as I call it, the meat grinder. This bottleneck funnels enemy flag carriers into a tight spot which is perfect for my sadistic need for spamming Juggernaut mortar shells and Brute fractal grenades. I racked up a ton of explosive kills quickly while my team turned a zero-to-four score into an exciting five-to-four comeback.


2: Repair Kits

Playing the Technician can feel like you’re juggling 10 things at once. You have to defend the generator, repair base turrets, replace your own deployable turrets as they’re destroyed, repair the base radar dish, all while avoiding and killing every piece of enemy shazbot flying your way. The new repair kit — a belt item that will automatically repair any base structure near where it’s deployed — allows me to be in two places at once. I plop down the little machine next to a turret and attend to other repairs or the defense of our generator while it does the busywork. Likewise, I’ve found that placing a repair kit next to my deployable light turret helps give it a little extra time to put the hurt on the enemy — it won’t save the turret from a direct Spinfusor hit, but every little bit helps.


3: EXR Turret

An alternative to the deployable light turret, the new EXR rocket turret is a great mechanism of destruction for the second or third Technician on the battlefield. The advantage of an EXR becomes obvious in the halls of a generator room when combined with other Tech’s light turrets. Tight corridors make the rockets’ splash damage more effective, and each rocket has enough knockback to disorient unprepared invaders. I try and place these turrets in tight corners that are harder for the enemy to quickly check on their way to the generator. They may not be terribly lethal on their own, but a few rockets to the backside will give you and the light turrets some extra time to frag the intruder.


4: TC24

This is by far my favorite primary Technician weapon: the TC24 fires short-ranged explosive rounds, and carries four shots per magazine. The damage is lighter than the fan-favorite Thumper, but the high fire rate (due to a lack of reloading after every shot) makes it an excellent choice when I’m stuck in a tight spot against jerks trying to blow up my generator. The TC24 has great splash damage, and the sheer size of the projectile size makes it easier to score Air Mail accolades against those annoying players hovering in the sky, and those hits give just enough knockback to keep the enemy on their toes while trying to return fire. The best aspect of this weapon is that it allows you to use the air to your advantage, much like the TCN4 SMG does. My favorite position is directly above the enemy, raining down one explosive clip after another.


5: Old-School Maps

Yes, Permafrost and Dangerous Crossing are old maps to the Tribes universe, but now you can play them in Tribes: Ascend quick-play rotation. Dangerous Crossing is my new (old) favorite — steep rolling hills make it easy for heavy and light classes to move quickly to the enemy base, which is quite possibly the simplest base design in any Tribes: Ascend map. The base only allows for side-to-side flag capture routes, there is no generator, and only a solitary base turret. This means more people are defending an already easy-to-defend flag, and the result is a spectacular game of CTF.


6. SAP 20 Sniper Rifle

Sentinel was my favorite class early on — I loved the power of sniping down attempted enemy flag carriers just before they could get their hands on my precious piece of cloth. Unfortunately, my micro-aiming skills aren’t the best, so I need a gun that makes every hit count. This is where the new SAP20 sniper rifle comes in handy: it’s a modified version of the older Phase Rifle that uses more energy per shot and has a smaller clip size, but the tradeoff is a whopping 575 maximum damage per shot — if you connect, they’ll really feel it. The only real downside to this beauty was the constant whining of players I shot right out of the sky.


7. Accurized Shotgun

When the enemies get close, nothing helps defend your favorite camping spot better than a powerful shotgun. The aptly named Accurized Shotgun is a satisfying alternative to the Sentinel’s Nova Pistols and Falcon SMG. It has better accuracy than any other shotgun, still and packs a nice punch. I love using this gun on bulkier, easier-to-hit heavy classes after I weaken them down with my SAP20 — a well placed shot can land a total of 560 damage, just enough to put some doubt into anyone looking for a revenge kill.


8. Motion Mine

The Motion Mine, the Sentinel’s new belt item, is a sweet marriage between deception and 360 degrees of carnage. The mine explodes in a circle, covering a greater area than claymore mines, but it will only detonate if an enemy passes by traveling at least 120kph. The speed requirement severely limits the range of effective uses for this mine, however its benefits outweigh the lack of versatility. The Motion Mines’ copper coloring and circular shape help it blend with the environment more efficiently, making it a deceptive pain in the rear for players not paying attention. My favorite location is right at the base of the flag — it’s incredibly difficult to see, and can catch even seasoned players off guard.


9. Spare Spinfusor

The poster child of Tribes is the elegant Spinfusor, and the only thing better than one Spinfusor is two. The Spare Spinfusor occupies the secondary weapon slot of the Soldier class, adding some extra flexibility to dueling enemies in the midfield or at the base. I added this weapon to my loadout with the Twinfusor (a Spinfusor that shoots twice before reload) and the quickdraw perk which allows for quick switching between weapons. This setup let me shoot three spinfusor disks very quickly, which, for any opponent who’d been counting my shots and waiting for a his moment to strike, came as a nasty surprise. The Spare Spinfusor doesn’t deliver as much direct damage as other Spinfusors in Tribes, but it’s better than a mop for cleaning up any smidgen of hitpoints the enemy has left.


10. Blinksfusor

The Blinksfusor weapon is an interesting take on the Pathfinder’s Light Spinfusor — it inherits 100% of the player’s velocity, giving the disk projectile some astonishing speeds. After spending so much time getting used to the normal Spinfusor disk speed, this “perk” initially made the Blinkfusor one of my least favorite new weapons, because judging when to fire was variable — the projectile behaves differently while dueling at a base than when flying across the map.

Then it hit me: the Blinksfusor is the perfect weapon for defensive Pathfinders, because that inherited velocity makes it easier to shoot down enemy flag carriers as you chase them. I’d be traveling at 240kph and my Blinksfusor shot would add that speed to it’s own, chasing down the target like a ferocious cheetah launched from a race car.

With all of these new additions, Tribes is pretty much a completely different game today than it was a couple of months ago. What tactics have worked best for you, and what features do you want to see Hi-Rez add next?

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/4nKV-OHCj2s/1226110p1.html

Borderlands 2 Review

18/09/2012


The promise and potential of RPG looter-shooter Borderlands was always there, with the Mad Max-meets-Diablo mix of driving, shooting, and RPG looting in the comic-book-come-to-life world. The first game didn’t quite realize all of it, with a notable lack of depth and a storyline that ended with a thud. Right around Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot DLC adventure, however, Gearbox appeared to find its Borderlands groove, embracing the over-the-top comic adventure and tapping into what it truly meant to be a Vault Hunter on Pandora. The band doesn’t just continue playing that groove in Borderlands 2, it embraces its inner Nigel Tufnel and cranks the volume up to 11.

Everything is bigger and better: the size, color, and character of Pandora (particularly with PhysX effects enabled); the truly amazing variety of detailed weapons and equipment; the laugh-out-loud dialog; a monster manual full of enemies (human, animal, and robotic alike); RPG and customization options; a lengthy and gratifying storyline; and a diverse cast of characters new and old. The driving… well, that’s still as shallow as before, but cruising across Pandora is still a way to experience the lush and detailed environments.

A Kid, Some Bombs, and a Train

I’ve enjoyed many exploits in Borderlands 2 that convey the experience it offers, but I’ll share just one of my favorites: Roughly a quarter of the way through my battle against Hyperion Corp. and Handsome Jack, I was sent on a train-robbery mission. Playing as the new Assassin class, Zero, I hooked up with Borderlands 1′s Hunter, Mordecai, who’s now a quest-giving NPC. He put me in contact with the local explosives expert, Tiny Tina, aka The World’s Deadliest 10-Year-Old. After playing a gruesome game of Pop Goes the Bandit with the murderous grade-schooler, Tina told me her train-blowing explosives (rockets strapped to stuffed animals) were stolen by the local gang, so in order to blow the train I’d first have to get Tina’s bombs back. That’s the setup. Here’s how it unfolded:

I hit the sizable, guard-filled badguy camp from an elevated position with my fire elemental sniper rifle — perfect for toasting bandits. The moment I opened fire, Mordecai — from an in-game mile away — also began lighting up the camp with Slag rounds, which deal their own elemental damage that makes affected enemies more vulnerable to any other type of elemental damage. Hooray for teamwork! My first target was a massive bandit Goliath who, instead of going down when I scored a perfect headshot, transformed into a powerful and appropriately named Rampaging Goliath. That would have been bad for me if I was up close; fortunately I was at distant sniper range, grinning with satisfaction as the enraged, headless Goliath went berserk on whoever was closest — in this case, his bandit friends. As my fire rounds and Mordecai’s Slag tore targets apart and the Rampaging Goliath pummeled his bewildered bandit buddies with his massive fists, Tiny Tina broadcast over the camp comms, shouting, “Nobody steals Mushy Snugglebites!” The besieged bandits screamed their own confused reply: “Who the hell is Mushy Snugglebites?” Ah, good, ridiculous times.

Sniping Hero, Melee Zero

While I love that particular mission and embraced Zero’s ranged tactics, I also felt locked into sniping with the Assassin class. If you’ve seen any of the previews, you’ll likely have noticed the lightsaber-meets-katana sword Zero wields in all the previews. True story: I was more than five hours into Borderlands 2, searching high and low for the blazing blue sword (or any other edged melee weapon) before I discovered Zero starts with it as his default melee attack. D’oh.


Now, up to that point, I’d been slotting all of my experience points into my gun and critical-hit Sniping skill tree. When I realized the sword that should allow me to carve up enemies like Sho Kosugi was just a melee button away, I reconfigured my skills (courtesy of one of the numerous handy vending machines) and threw all of my Sniping points into my Melee skill tree in an effort to get the full, visceral, and up-close fighting experience. (Zero’s third skill tree is focused on improving shields, armor, and reload and weapon swap speed). I only succeeded in doubling my disappointment: Zero only does one basic sword slash, and even when he’s using his melee enhanced abilities, it’s not nearly as gratifying or effective as sniping.

There are four classes to play as — the Assassin, the Gunzerker, the Siren, and the Commando — but since I only had a week for this review, I couldn’t thoroughly sample all three skill trees of each. That, by design, will take many weeks of play. Trust me, it took me 40-plus hours to hit level 30 and fill out one skill tree with Zero. I can say that Gearbox did a great job in adding a wider variety of skills and creating some needed character diversity relative to Borderlands 1; I can’t say if all three skill trees in each class offer real, worthwhile gameplay options. For the Assassin, at least, there’s one that came off as a loser.

A Standard of Excellence

Another area Borderlands 2 improves upon the original is overall variety. The main factor that bored me with the original Borderlands is the lack of diversity or difficulty in enemies, not to mention no big, bad Darth Vader character to hunt down. The devilish Handsome Jack, a sociopath hellbent on unlocking an alien artifact on Pandora, plays the role of the latter to a T. His dialog is written with brilliant black humor, and delivered convincingly by voice actor Dameon Clarke.


It’s not just Jack — that excellent standard is the norm for characters in Borderlands 2. The original cast of Vault Hunters that help players along as NPCs, along with other carryovers like Claptrap, Dr. Zed, Scooter, and the many enemies who hurl insults and bullets your way are all well done, and as a result Borderlands 2 is brimming with terrific, unique, and funny characters and dialog. I still get a chuckle out of the lowly Hyperion security guard who, in his death throes, laments the fact he just finished paying off his mortgage.

Jack’s Legions

As for the enemies, Gearbox has done a stellar job of creating bandits, soldiers, creatures, and robots galore. The robotic Hyperion troops in particular are terrific to fight — from basic machine-gun toting bots to advanced ones that transform into jets and attack you from the air, Handsome Jack’s android army provides some formidable foes, and you’ll face them in droves. Just about every main-quest mission throws wave after wave of enemies at you. While the AI is only a slight improvement on the bullet-sponges of the original (they’ll actually take cover and occasionally try to flank you this time around), Gearbox makes up for a lack of smarts with numbers. I was absolutely stunned at the sheer volume of enemies I faced in mission after mission, making every inch of advancement a tough, fun battle.


One piece of advice, though: make sure you complete a mission before quitting. Your progress is saved automatically at various stages in a mission, but you can’t create your own saves wherever, whenever you like. Quitting mid-mission and reloading will rudely zap you back to the very beginning of your mission.

Elements of Co-op

That volume and diversity of foes makes Borderlands 2 a great co-op shooter (made much more enjoyable with Steamworks this time around). Not only is each character class designed to take on a specific, helpful role thanks to their unique skills, there’s a terrific rock-paper-scissors element created by enemy types and the various elemental abilities of weapons. For example, shielded enemies can be countered with Shock elemental weapons, armored enemies with Corrosive, and everyone takes more elemental damage when first hit with Slag. Because Gearbox ups the difficulty (and the loot drops) in co-op, I had to outfit myself with the right weapon for the right foe and work in tandem to do the most damage, particularly when it comes to fighting in Borderlands 2′s much tougher boss battles.


Correction: most boss battles are much tougher. No longer one-trick ponies, almost all of the boss characters forced me to stay on my toes to avoid the variety of ranged, melee, and area-of-effect attacks they threw at me. In particular, the Hyperion robot Wilhelm is one tough droid. He not only attacks you in every way possible, he’s got an insane amount of health, healing bots that regularly fly in to replenish him, and a legion of other attacking bots who make it impossible to focus in on Wilhelm.

But as I said, there are exceptions to that rule. I faced a handful of bosses at key moments in the campaign whose weaknesses were far too easy to exploit. Most notably and disappointingly, I hardly even took any hits in my very first battle with Borderlands 2′s final boss. How? I immediately discovered a spot on the map where I was nearly untouchable — and it’s not a glitch or tough to find. Borderlands, it seems, still hasn’t beaten the final boss curse — it was a lengthy letdown of hunkering down in one spot and simply unloading from cover.

Gearbox Rises

Immediately after that, however, came the last surprise gift from Gearbox: completing Borderlands 2, in many ways, is just beginning. A host of all new quests and enemies (not to mention any quests we may have missed the first time through) open up when the campaign ends, giving us a ton more to do. Add in the complementary Bad Ass leveling system, which allows players to add attributes to their characters for infinity, and it will be a looong time before I’m finished adventuring on Pandora.

It feels funny to say this about a 13-year-old developer with a portfolio of work that includes Half-Life and Counter-Strike expansions, stellar squad-based WWII shooter franchise Brothers in Arms, and the original Borderlands, but with Borderlands 2, Gearbox has arrived as a real blockbuster studio. Right from the toe-tapping “Short Change Hero” opening cinematic, Borderlands 2 stands out as Gearbox’s magnum opus, and one of the most memorable and fun gaming rides I’ve ever been on.

Alright, sign me up. Dibs on the Commando! The Longbow turret deployment is totally my style. What class do you have your eye on? FYI, I’m glad Borderlands 2 uses Steamworks for multiplayer instead of my evil (and now completely unaffiliated) twin, GameSpy Tech, too — it just works better.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/fFCjT3s5WrY/1226112p1.html

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