Month: November 2019

Titanfall for Xbox

Leaving the Military Game

Don’t get me wrong, Call of Duty and Battlefield are great games. I’ve enjoyed many years of service with those games. When I started playing Titanfall to write a Titanfall review, however, I remembered the good old days with extreme physics, crazy weapons, and cool, futuristic battlegrounds. For so long I had been confined to a military-based games with weapons based on real weapons, battlegrounds straight from Iraq or eastern Europe, and actual physics. As soon as I started I started jumping high and throwing grenades 100 yards, I thought to myself, “Oh yeah, video games don’t have to be real. They’re actually really great when I can do things that I can’t do in the real world.

Weapons, Weapons, Weapons

Once you break out of the military standard for a arena-based shooter, I found when play for the purpose of writing a Titanfall review, I loved the machines and the weapons you get to play with. Just having a larger gun and big mechanical suits that the game makers balance very well. Having a Titan load and dropping down into the battle is great fun and flows seamlessly during gameplay.

Nothing’s Perfect

There are a few things that Titanfall doesn’t have that were large reasons why I enjoy some other games like Call of Duty or Battlefield like branching objectives, evolving maps or destructible scenery. The game play is great and fluid but even a few more maps would have been nice.

Overall, however, Titanfall was a joy to play. It made me step back and appreciate a first-person shooter that wasn’t based in my reality. I got to play in a new, although not interactive, maps and pilot large machines that flowed nicely from player-to-machine gameplay. All-in-all, Titanfall is a must have for any fan of arena-based gaming. What it may lack in features like interactive maps, game modes, and objectives it makes up for in shear fun and entertainment.


About Gauntlet

Menu is quite simple, for the first time you play the game it helps you jump in tutorial directly and it teaches you about basics and heroes. There are 4 heroes, the Warrior Thor, the Elf Questor, the Wizard Merlin and the Valkyrie Thyra. All heroes have 4 abilities, left click for regular attack, right click for heavy attack, shift for a fast movement ability and space for main skill. Right click is pretty useful for all heroes, it needs time to focus but it one shots most of the time. You can spam shift ability to dodge attacks or jump in the middle of the action, it is up to you how to use this fast movement skill. Space is the best skill and we need to wait to use it again. Yes, cooldown thing!

Warrior dishes out a good amount of damage but I can’t say he is defensive, you just need to swing your axe carefully. While you focus and attack some enemies, other enemies may hit you from other sides damaging you heavily and breaking your combo chain. Whirlwind (space) ability helps a lot. Rush (shift) is good to get out of trouble or break enemy lines before attacking them.

Elf is an archer with a nice snipe skill (right click). He is very fragile so you need to use your Dash ability (shift) carefully, you can spam it but be noted that you can be attacked while you are dashing as well. Throwing bomb (space) is good to damage lots of enemies once.

Valkyrie is a strong defensive hero, she can raise her shield to avoid serious damage, she can damage several enemies throwing her shield, she is very fast. If you find it hard to play with other heroes I definitely suggest you to play with Valkyrie. she is definitely the best for beginners.

Wizard is the hardest to play among all these heroes, I could not even figure it out, you just press some buttons to change your skill set and then you use them. Wizard has more skills than other heroes but he is harder to control, you need to combine your skills carefully.

There are 5 levels and different difficulties, you are awarded if you play harder difficulties. You get more gold and you get better looking items! I played at normal difficulty and this was just for me. Of course I tried hard difficulty but it is a bit ehmm… hard…


Chess Cheating Online

He uses a wide opening repertoire

Every game, the computer chooses a random opening. If you challenge your opponent game after game, you will see that he is a great theoretician. A chess engine won’t wait for the middle of the game to take an advantage; it will outplay you right in the beginning. The time of thinking is short because the engine doesn’t calculate until it is out of the book.

He takes the same amount of time to play a move

When there is contact between pieces, we normally enter the calculation stage which is time-consuming. Sometimes there is a position when the move is evident or simply we should play intuitively; in this case, we don’t take much time. The chess engine doesn’t respect this pattern. It literally uses the same amount of time for every type of position.

Its statics is weird

You can easily find a cheater by looking at his statics. If we see an abnormal curve like a drop of 150 points in a couple of days then there is something wrong. Fortunately, the majority of sites give you access to the history of your opponent. You can investigate your opponent’s progression and draw a conclusion about the use of an engine.

His moves are tactically flawless

A chess engine calculates very accurately, even in the mega-complex position. At this point, the chess engine is far beyond human capabilities. How can you be sure that your opponent precisely plays every move? It’s very simple; just analyze the game with a chess engine. It will evaluate every move. If you find a perfect play you can ask your opponent which chess engine he is currently using.


Space Rangers

Hybrid theory

But before I get caught up in my own drinking anecdotes, terribly amusing though they may be, I’d better get on with it. I am after all in the business of assigning words and eventually numbers to subjective experiences such as this particular piece of entertainment, and it’s not often that I get to rant about a game quite like this one. You know all those times you imagined yourself as a game designer, thinking “why doesn’t anyone combine many genres into one immersive, omnipotent package?”

Well, mostly because games of this type tend to become awfully bland, because none of the elements really work. Rockstar might have achieved something like it with their GTA franchise, but even though that may be free-form gaming at its finest, GTA is not nearly as much of a hybrid experience as Space Rangers way back then. It’s like the design philosophy of the Russian guys at Elemental Games involved ignoring all the warning signs, and then happily driving right off the old cliff. You’d think this would result in an awful lot of crashing and burning, but it really doesn’t. Space Rangers is a charming, deep game, and what it doesn’t do right, it makes up for in sheer charisma.

Choose your destiny

Right, that’s an awful lot of words without even scratching the surface of the game itself. I hope you’re with me thus far, but Space Rangers really is the kind of game that you just cannot describe within a few paragraphs. Conversely, it’s also the kind of game that you can spoil by writing too much, so I’m walking a fine line here.

You see, like Elite, this is a game of owning your own space ship, and taking it for a spin round the Galaxy, in search of fame, fortune and sheer adventure. You play as a so-called space ranger, who travels among the stars. The setting has five different races, and you can choose to play as either one of them at the onset of your career. It’s up to you to maintain good relations with the different factions, and you can do so by performing missions for the local governments, by being a peaceful trader, or by defending transports against evil space pirates.

But those are only a few of the choices available to you. As a space ranger, you’re part of a force that keeps the Galaxy safe, but it’s entirely up to you how you want to do it. You can even ditch your responsibilities and make a fortune trading drugs, alcohol and weaponry, or you can play as a marauder, attacking innocent ships and stealing their money, or simply blast them to bits and sell… well, the bits.

You can’t take the sky from me

As a rookie space ranger, you will take of from your home planet, which was Earth in my case, since I played as a human. The game is turn-based, with each turn taking one day, and this is the first thing you learn once you take off. You can choose a few helpful tutorial missions, or you can dive headfirst into the universe, in search of fame, money and adventure. But you’re likely to get overwhelmed at first, because of the wealth of destinations available to you.

Each of the numerous star systems on your map has several planets, and most of them are usually colonised. Every planet has a government that you can talk to and get jobs from, a trading station, a shop with parts for your ship, a galactic information centre that gives you news about interesting events from all over the place, and a hangar where you can refuel your ship and repair any damage to the hull. Usually, once you touch down on a planet, you will check the trade centre and see if the current prices are higher than what you paid for your goods. There are hefty profits to be made from trading, and you should always carry something to sell.

The information centre will sometimes tell you where goods are needed, and you can then go there and make a bundle. Some races ban different substances such as drugs or weapons, so selling these commodities can make you a wanted criminal in different systems, but a wealthy hero in others. It’s all up to your sense of morality, and your need for cash. The Galaxy is a hard place to survive in, and everyone must do whatever it takes to make a living. In this regard, Space Rangers bears an uncanny resemblance to the TV series Firefly, if anyone is familiar with it.

Set phasers to maximum

But trading is not everything; you will need to get jobs from the various governments to make money and gain experience and ranking. Experience can be used to improve any of your six ranger skills, which range from leadership to skill in battle, and your ranger ranking signifies how well you stack up to the fifty or so other rangers that roam the Galaxy. The jobs can be anything from simple fetch and deliver quests to escorting ships, and fighting 3D real-time strategy battles using different robots that you can construct in the game’s simple, but functional ground battle engine.

It’s not the next Command & Conquer, that’s for sure, but for a minor part of the game, it’s surprisingly well done, and it looks the part too. You can even take control of one of your robots and fire its weapons yourself. The strategy is limited to building lots of robots and then assaulting the enemy more or less head-on, but frankly, that’s more or less what every RTS is about in my mind anyway. I don’t like the genre in general, but the sweet thing here is that it’s only one of many possible activities, and that it’s entirely optional if you want to play it or not.

And if this wasn’t enough, some jobs require you to complete planet-based text adventures, which can be fairly extensive, and are certainly fun, if you can decipher the poor spelling and grammar which plague the game a bit. But have a look inside the manual. Here, it’s explained that the game uses “Future-Speak,” because English from a thousand years in the future sounds a bit odd to us now. It’s the lamest excuse I ever heard. It’s also the most charming one.

When you’re not trading, doing jobs, or looking for good floating in space, you can choose to pick fights with anyone you don’t like, such as pirates. Fighting is also a turn-based affair, where you select your weapons and your enemy, and then go at it. You can speak with any ships in the vicinity and request help. And help you’ll need, because taking other ships down on your own is quite hard, especially in the beginning of the game. They also have a nasty tendency to land on planets and repair themselves, just when you thought you had won. What happened to old-fashioned duels to the death?

We are the Borg… Err… Dominators

Okay, let’s rewind time a bit. I had just left Earth as a rookie ranger, I had learned the ropes, made some money and my ship now had some decent equipment and weaponry. I’d been in a few skirmishes and lived to tell the tale, I’d seen planetary battle and I’d even ventured into a black hole and seen the Beyond. In short, I felt pretty good about myself and my abilities. I knew that the high-tech cyborg Dominator race was on the loose in the Galaxy, and that is was my job as a Ranger to stop them from assimilating everything. So I ventured to a Dominator system to see what I could do. To my surprise, I found that I could do absolutely nothing. After two days, the Dominator ships had reduced my vessel to space dust, and my life was over. From beyond the grave, I felt awfully unheroic.

See, this is my only real gripe with Space Rangers, it’s not fair. Sometimes it just turns on you and kills you. The odds can be stacked against you in ways that will make you tear your hair out, such as when you’re running close to a deadline on a really sweet delivery deal and the Dominators suddenly invade the system you need to jump through to get to your destination, or when some pirate and his friends show up and demand all of your money or he will blow you away.

But speaking of the Dominators, they’re what the game is really about. We’re talking a race of cybernetic organisms that are hell-bent on taking over the entire Galaxy. And you can’t stop them alone. Apart from the different planets, you also come across different space bases, that offer various means of help against your enemies. On some bases you can do research on the Dominators, and on others you can acquire modules for taking them down. And lots of other things. Lots and lots of other things.

By now, It’s becoming apparent that no matter how many words I use, I cannot describe this game fully, and yet in essence, it really is so simple. Just you and your ship going around the Galaxy doing whatever pleases you. There is no need to go into detail with the 15 types of weapons, the unknown ships, the black holes, the 250+ planets across 60+ star systems, the way the AI ships communicate among themselves, the research probes for unexplored planets, the asteroids, the special equipment, the joint assaults and the way the world is persistent in such away that you can follow specific ships all the way across the Galaxy and monitor their individual actions. No, you should explore it all for yourself. That’s what this is all about.

Oldschool presentation

Apart from the quite nicely rendered (and poorly voiced) introductory CGI sequence and the 3D planetary battles, this is 2D goodness all the way. But in spite of its oldschool sensibilities, Space Rangers both looks and sounds remarkably good.in a very nice retro way. All the 2D sprites are expertly done, and the galactic background looks quite astonishing.

As you move, planets revolve around the suns, other ships fly back and forth, and meteor showers and asteroids flourish. The sprites move in different planes from the background, in the fashion I believe was once referred to as parallax. But no matter what the word is, it looks surprisingly much better in action than it does on sceenshots. Planetary 2D graphics are also well done, and remind me of Master of Orion II and Galactic Civilizations, which is not a bad thing, actually.

And as for the music, I’m pretty much in heaven… we get synthesised music that bring the Amiga days to mind – catchy little tunes with that rare musical flair that games such as Lotus II and Turrican II had. There’s not that much of it, mind, and my opinion is definitely biased by nostalgia, but it does fit the game very well indeed. Sound effects, although a little sparse, do their job, and luckily, the only voice-over I heard was found in the intro. As a whole, the game comes across as a very cohesive and fresh package, in spite of the many retro elements and genres involved.

There are problems, though. The interface can get awfully clunky at times, and locating your enemies in relation to your own position gets a little fiddly. Furthermore, every time you wish to jump from a system, you have to watch many days pass before you get to the jump point on the outskirts of the system. I can see why this must be so, because what if something happened on the way to the jump point? But still, it gets a little old.

Battle is also a little cumbersome, and often takes an awful amount of turns. You can set your ship to auto-battle, but this doesn’t always work. The first time I tried, my ship actually flew into the sun and burned up. I was not impressed. And lastly, the balance does get a little odd, and you can die very suddenly if you’re not aware of what’s happening. And sometimes you won’t be. The game’s manual is very thin, and although there is an extensive in-game manual, that too doesn’t seem to explain everything in detail. A bit like this review. Only much more so.

But if you’re ready to forgive a somewhat steep learning curve and some curious mutilations of the English language (for instance, when you’re quitting, the prompt asks you if you care to “Finish the game?” But yeah, I guess I do want to finish the game at some point… ), this game has a lot to offer. It’s a huge space-based sandbox with a lot of charm, you can pick it up fairly cheap, and it will last for ages. What’s not to like?

Oh, and just to clarify one thing: the release we get over here is actually Space Rangers 2: Dominators. The package also contains the original in its entirety. It’s basically a simpler version of this, and you get to battle a race known as the Klissans. But it’s added value to an already hugely valuable package. It might not be for everyone, but if anything in this review has piqued your interest, go pick it up. It really is quite refreshing to see something like this in a world of fast-paced fancy shooters with huge hardware demands and indecipherable online RPGs. And furthermore, it runs well even on low-end systems.


eSports for New Players

There are lots of eSports games out there to enjoy, but there are a few that have been particularly popular amongst players in recent years due to their high quality graphics and fantastic game play! Some of the big names that you are likely to come across when searching for eSports games to play are Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm which is a strategy game from Blizzard, Super Smash Bros Melee from Warner from Nintendo, Injustice: Gods Among Us from Warner Brothers, Killer Instinct from Microsoft, and finally from Activision comes we would say the most popular all of these games and that is Call of Duty: Ghosts.

Unless you have seen one of these games in action, then it can be quite difficult to describe what is so impressive about them. When playing an eSports game the main aim of the game is to usually kill or defeat the other player and these games are extremely fast which can make them quite difficult to keep up with.

There are also many International tournaments available to play too. Some of the tournaments that you may have heard of are from the game publisher Vale, who run The International Tournament which only features one of its own games Dota 2. To get this tournament venture started, the company used crowdfunding to create a huge prize pool of a whopping $10 million! Other companies also run their own tournaments including Blizzard and their tournaments include eSports games such as Starcraft. Finally, one of the biggest tournaments that you will see within the eSports industry is the League of Legends Championship Series which is run by Riot Games. This tournament is so exciting that it even sold out the famous Staples Centre in just 1 hour!


Psychological Advantages of Playing Online Games

Stress Relief

According to research studies, if you play online card games, you can enjoy a lot of psychological benefits. For example, regular players of these games reported a reduction in their stress levels. Aside from this, card games also help you relax and stay free of worries.

Skill Development

Playing card games with your family and friends can help you improve your analytical skills, concentration, and memory skills. The reason is that many games include strategy and money, which require attentiveness and concentration.

Actually, card games involve interpersonal and cognitive skills that can help you keep your brain active and fit.

Staying Engaged

Although online games rely on your short term memory, playing the games can improve your important skills as well as long term memory. If you follow the same routine always, you may suffer from boredom and mental stagnation. By playing games online, you can fill up this gap and keep yourself occupied.

Although there is a lack of social interaction and conversation, playing these games can help you improve your focus and concentration.

Interaction

Today we know that teamwork and communication are quite important in every field of business. Online games provide players with an incentive to communicate with each other during a game. And this improves their interaction with each other. This is good news for introverts and allows them to get in touch with each other through these simple games.

Entertainment

These games are a great source of convenience and entertainment. You can play these games anytime, anywhere and using any of the various internet-enabled devices such as mobile phones and tablet PCs. You can choose from a lot of games based on your needs and preferences.


Find Free Games Online

There are many different modes of play; some are played solo, some against a computer, and some against other players online. You choice depend on your personality. Some like the challenge of playing against other players or a computer player. Others would rather relax in solo play with no competition except with themselves. Choose whichever relaxes you the most. You may even change your preference from time to time.

There are different types of games as well. There are role-playing ones, action ones, those that are laid back and easy to play, and ones that involve word play or puzzles. Action ones include car races, flight simulation, war simulation, and bike games. Role-playing ones include the ever-popular zombie role playing. Puzzle ones include such things as Sudoku, Scrabble, and other word challenges.

With the advent of Wi-Fi and state-of-the-art computers and software, graphics and sound effects are so realistic it is almost as if the player was on-site. People actually look like people, and cars like cars. And the Zombies, wow! They actually look like the real thing. This makes playing free online games so much more exciting.

There are some pros and cons to playing online. One of the cons is that it can be time-consuming and quite addicting. Many hours can quickly go by before the player realizes it. For the younger player, who may have less will-power (or maybe not), homework may suffer. Spouses can even get perturbed with each other. Sometimes families even compete for computer time. When more than one family member plays online, there can be some fierce competition for playing time.

One of the pros is the enjoyment, of course. But, that is not all. There is the opportunity for social interactions, especially if playing with other players. Even for solo games, however, there are forums and chat rooms dedicated to followers. This allows those who are passionate about a particular one to share with others who also love the same one.

Whether the free online games are action ones, like bike games, role-playing like zombie ones, or puzzles like Sudoku that challenge the mind, they are excellent ways to relax.


Call of Duty Ghosts

This game begins years after an attack on America where the player takes the character of unusual service fighters known as Ghosts. Ten years after the original attack a different force attacks the seemingly weak nation and almost crumbles its military. However, the remnants of different operational forces join together to create a single force called Ghosts. This is a group of soldiers with a deep conviction to save their nation and deliver it from the hands of the external forces. They are willing to do whatever it takes not only to save but protect all that is left of their nation. Unlike other video games the thrilling factor added to this game is a dog soldier which the forces are using to their advantage. The dog identifies any explosives that are invisible to the soldiers. Although this canine proves to be of great help to the soldiers, it poses another responsibility to the soldiers. Besides being in war and fighting with a more superior enemy, the soldiers have to take care of their canine friend.

Unlike other Call of Duty video games this series uses Pixar’s SubD technology so as to perk up the efficiency of graphics. The developers are promising fantastic graphics that have not been in their previous series. With the new game the soldiers are able to lie in and out of cover with untold intelligence. By creating a receptive environment like that of fish which give way when you get close to them, the developers have created a game that is near reality. There will be earthquakes, floods and explosions which lead to collapse of buildings.


Create Your Own Card Game

In those days, the cards will have been hand made and the prints would have been hand drawn. A lot of work went into the design of the cards and they were not mass-produced. People probably had to go to a public house to play their card games because they could not afford to have their own deck of cards.

Nowadays, cards are more affordable and people have their own decks. They play their card games in their own home and some people organize special nights, where people go to their house to play the game and drink, and be merry. Card games are extremely social.

Everyone knows these games. Even if someone only knows how to play one card game, they can still learn more. There are books on games and websites, which will show, people the ins and outs of the rules.

Card games are extremely popular. Even with the introduction of modern technology, the popularity of card games has not waned. Some websites will have digital versions of the games, but people will still buy the physical packs of cards. This is the case with Top Trumps; Magic the Gathering cards and even regular playing cards.

Business Idea

Therefore, making your own card game seems to be one of the best business ideas because it has proven that the interest in the games do not wane, even when times change.

However, that is not to say that you can just release any old game and not put any effort into it. People aren’t stupid; they know when games have been shoddily thrown together.

If you are thinking about inventing your own card game, then you have to have a good idea and you have to put the effort into the design. Read on for some tips on how to do this.

  • Original Idea – First of all, you have to come up with an original idea. You must not copy someone else’s idea because you will be liable to legal action against you because they will have copyrighted their idea. So, when you come up with an original idea, you have to copyright yours as well. That way you can earn money from your game and you are protected from someone else stealing your idea.
  • Rules – Next, you need to think about what rules you want for your game. The trick is to have as many rules as you want, but to not make them too complicated. If the rules are complicated then people will not want to learn them, and then they won’t want to play the game. Your game has to be engaging and it has to be fun.
  • Design – The final process will be the design of the cards. You probably have an idea about how you want the cards to look. If you don’t, then look at some similar card games and then contact a designer. Describe the game to a designer and they might be able to come up with some good ideas for the game. If you want to employ a designer, you might be better using a company that will also print the cards out for you. That way you only have to pay one company and you can keep track of all the people that you have employed.


Dress Up Games

Well now dress up games have moved into the world of technology. In the past, kids would need to have a wardrobe of different kinds of clothes if they wanted to play dress up alone or with a friend or sibling. Now, thanks to the magic of the internet, there is no special equipment required for kids who want to have a little fun using their imaginations to try on a new persona. There are many of these types of games that are on line now and creative kids can select any type of character you can imagine to play with.

Virtual Dress up games are out there for characters that will appeal to every child you can think of. When a child plays one of these games, they will be presented with the character that they have chosen and will be able to change the outfit that the character is wearing. There are dress up games for children aged from preschool all the way up into older children. Characters run the gamut from characters like Dora to Barbie to Bella from Twilight. There are also characters that will appeal to boys as well for those creative little guys who want to dress their favorite action figures in different kinds of outfits.

When a child plays one of these games, the first and probably most difficult task is to pick the character that they want to play with. These are like virtual paper dolls. In addition to the characters mentioned before, there are also games that feature real celebrities and musicians that kids love. There are characters from their favorite movies and television series in addition to the cartoon characters people would traditionally think of. These dress up games present kids with the chance to change the outfit of their character and also to add appropriate accessories or tools as well. They encourage critical thinking if a child is trying to select just the right things for a specific outing and they also encourage creative thinking. Children have no limits in these games. No adult can tell them that the outfits do not match- the child has total freedom to express themselves!