Leveling System

In War Games and Spartan Ops, you receive experience after completing each game. This experience is used to level up your Spartan IV character. As you level up, you unlock new equipment (such as weapons, armor abilities, and perks) and new armor. Each level requires more experience to unlock, so you will level up quickly at first and slowly later on. After you reach level 20, you will have unlocked all equipment, and any levels past that will have little effect on your gameplay.

There are 3 ways to gain experience. The primary way is to complete games in either War Games or Spartan Ops. After each game, you will be rewarded a fixed completion bonus and a much smaller bonus based on your success during that game. In general, you will receive around 2500 experience from shorter games (slayer, oddball, etc.) and 3000 experience from longer games (Spartan Ops, Big Team Battle, CTF). The second way to gain experience is by completing challenges. There are an assortment of War Games, Campaign, and Spartan Ops challenges that you can complete to gain extra experience, with rewards ranging from 1000 to 20,000 experience depending on the difficulty of the challenge. Challenges come in many variations, such as killing a certain number of enemies in a certain way, winning a certain number of games, or completing a certain campaign mission on a certain difficulty. New Challenges are added periodically. Finally, you can gain experience by completing commendations. Commendations are similar to challenges, but they have no time limit and new ones are never added. There is a large assortment of over 100 commendations, each with between 5 to 7 stages of completion. Every time you complete a new stage of a commendation, you receive a certain amount of experience. You can also gain new armor and weapon skins by completing the highest stage of certain commendations.

After you reach level 50, you can choose from 8 different Spartan specializations. Each specialization requires 10 levels to complete, and you unlock new armor with each level. After completing the final level of a specialization, you unlock a new perk. While these new perks only have a minor effect on gameplay, they do offer useful bonuses such as more experience per game, faster assassinations, or longer overheat times on vehicles. Once you complete all 8 specializations and reach level 130, you have completed the leveling progression and will no longer level up.

Throughout the leveling process, you will unlock numerous pieces of armor, all of which can be accessed from the “back” menu. This allows you to customize the way your Spartan IV looks in both Spartan Ops and War Games, but has absolutely no effect on gameplay. You unlock new armor by reaching new levels, completing commendations, and completing armor-specific challenges.

Loadout

Unlike in the previous Halo games, you can create your own loadout in Halo 4. Each loadout consists of a primary weapon, a secondary weapon, an armor ability, a grenade type, and two perks. You can have 5 different loadouts at one time, allowing you to develop different combinations for each situation. These 5 loadouts are used in both Spartan Ops and War Games, so I suggest that set allocate 2 loadouts for Spartan Ops and 3 for War Games.

Below, I discuss which equipment to use in your War Games loadouts. However, these are only my opinions; you should develop a loadout that fits your play style the best.
Primary Weapon: I highly suggest that you use a headshot weapon as your primary weapon, as headshot weapons have a much longer range and kill enemies faster than any of the assault weapons. I suggest that you use either the DMR, Battle Rifle, or Light Rifle. Of these Options, the DMR is the most accurate, the Battle Rifle deals the most damage when not zoomed in, and the Light Rifle deals the most damage when zoomed in.

Secondary Weapon: You should always use the Plasma Pistol as your secondary weapon, no matter the situation. Although the Plasma Pistol and headshot trick does not work very well against human players, you can still use the Plasma Pistol to stun and jack vehicles and to remove peoples shields and melee them. The Magnum is inferior in damage and accuracy to the headshot rifles, and the bolt shot does not deal enough damage to be worthwhile.

Grenade Type: I suggest that you use the Frag grenade as your grenade type. You can bounce Frag grenades around corners or up gravity lifts, allowing you to kill players that are out of your line of sight. When used in combination with Promethean Vision, this can be a very effective tactic. However, if you are very good at sticking your opponents, you may wish to use the Plasma grenade.

Armor Ability: In my opinion, Active Camouflage and Promethean Vision are the two best armor abilities for War Games. Promethean Vision allows you to see your opponents before they see you, allowing you to get the first shot and the element of surprise. It also allows you to easily see players using Active Camouflage. Active Camouflage allows you to stay hidden while snipping or sneak up on enemies, which is especially useful when using shotguns.

Perks: There are a large assortment of perks that provide minor bonuses. You should choose whichever perks complementing your play style the best. Some of my personal favorites include extra ammo, more frequent ordinance drops, and faster armor ability regeneration.

Ordinance Drops

In order to obtain non-loadout weapons in War Games, you will need to rely on Ordinance Drops. Ordinance Drops are a new game mechanic implemented in Halo 4, replacing the previous system of weapon spawns. Weapon crates are dropped onto the battlefield from above, and can contain either a weapon, a power-up, or two grenades. There are two types of Ordinance Drops, and they are as follows:

Map Ordinance Drops appear throughout the map at the start of the game, and redeploy after a certain amount of time. These drops usually contain a tier 2 (Shotgun, Saw, etc.) or a tier 3 (Rocket Launcher, Binary Rifle, etc.) weapon, though they can also contain grenades or power ups. Any player can access a Map Ordinance Drop simply by walking up to the weapons crate and pressing x, just like swapping with a weapon on the ground. When you are near Ordinance, it will show up as an icon on your HUD. This icon displays your distance from the drop and what equipment is in the drop, so it is a useful tool for judging if it is worth taking the Ordinance. Drops of higher value take longer to redeploy.

Personal Ordinance Drops are rewards given to players after they score a certain number of points in a game. These drops are somewhat similar to “Kill Streaks” in the Call of Duty games. After you score a certain number of points (from kills, assists, objective completions, etc.), an option to call in Ordinance will appear at the top of your HUD. You will always have 3 options, which you can choose by pressing the corresponding direction on the D-pad. The middle option will offer a power up, the left option will offer a grenade or weapon, and the right option will offer a weapon. On larger maps, you are more likely to receive tier 3 or “power” weapon options. After you call in your Personal Ordinance, you will begin working towards your next one, though each subsequent drop requires more points. There is no limit to the number of drops you can receive in a single game, though realistically, you will usually receive between 1 – 3 drops in a typical game. After you call in a Personal Ordinance Drop, you can obtain your equipment by walking up to the weapons crate and pressing x. If you ever try to “steal” an enemy’s Personal Ordinance, you will need to hold down x for approximately 3 seconds.

Ordinance Drops also introduce power ups to War Games. Each power up provides you with some type of advantage for a set period of time or until you die. The Speed Boost power up allows you to move, throw grenades, reload, and punch twice as fast. It lasts for a long time and is very useful for carrying the flag in CTF or reaching objectives in other objective-driven game types. Damage Boost doubles all forms of damage that you deal (weapon, grenade, and melee) for a short period of time. This means that you can easily kill an enemy with a single melee, or kill them with two body shots and a headshot with a headshot weapon. When combined with more powerful weapons like the Saw, Beam Rifle, or Fuel Rod, you will become nearly unstoppable. Over Shields provides you with triple shield capacity, displayed as a second green bar covering your blue shield bar. This extra level of shields will not regenerate, and it will drain slowly over time.

If you’re unaware, Microsoft announced at E3 a bundle of Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3 and even Halo 4 all on one disc. There were also some big promises regarding upgrades to these classic titles, like 60 frames-per-second on all four titles, 1080p resolution and every single multiplayer map ever made for all four games. It’s hard to say this is just another rehashed and reused remix.

The first thing you’ll likely notice (once you get past the understandably sizable install) is the menus can be intimidating. With four full games on the disc and a variety of options for each, including all sorts of controller schemes, multiplayer avatar customization, campaign options, etc.; it’s like a Halo Swiss Army Knife.

All games run beautifully, and with the game running at 60 FPS, the games feel outstanding. Halo 4 for instance, feels like it could fit right into the Xbox One library, the game still looks incredible. Even Halo 3 looks better than it has any right to; the Spartan Laser splashing into an enemy Wraith tank will give your eyes euphoria.

What is new besides the technical bump is Halo 2’s complete re-master. Just like 2011’s Halo: Combat Evolved remaster, 343 Industries gave everything in Halo 2 a modern day graphical bump. The environments look gorgeous and the enemies look that much more aggressive. At times I noticed a slight framerate drop but the game would always quickly bump back up to 60 FPS. Also similar to Halo: Combat Evolved, with a quick press of the view button the graphics can be changed back and forth between the new visuals and what they looked like originally. It’s a great feature and it shows how far the games have come, it’s also completely seamless.

Another new feature in Halo 2 is the completely revamped cutscenes. Even in 2004 Halo 2’s cinematic scenes looked terrible. The overuse of the bump-mapping technique made everything pop in and out. This time around 343 Industries hired the company Blur to make the cinematics. Despite Halo 2’s admittedly shoddy storytelling, Blur somehow makes the game’s storyline more compelling, with better angles, facial features and other improvements to help immerse you into the game. Gravemind used to look like a laughable poop-monster/plant hybrid. Now he looks like a truly frightening adversary.

With an impressive list of multiplayer features, 343 Industries really hoped to bring the Xbox fan base away from Call of Duty and other shooters and back into Halo, the series that really propelled the original Xbox consoles sales. Since the Master Chief Collection has all four main Halo games packaged into one, it seems like that should be an easy feat. When it’s working they way it should, this collection is the premiere game on the Xbox One console right now.

There’s the rub though. Since launch, Halo Master Chief Collection mulitplayer component has been an absolute disaster. With hour long waiting periods to get into matches, random team placement and an overall terrible structure, the online component (arguably the real reason to buy this collection) is completely broken. That first week during the game’s launch, it was near impossible to find a game. I often felt adrift in a void while searching for opponents.

Since the release, 343 Industries has been hard at work implementing multiple patches to the online infrastructure, but it’s a band aid for a gaping wound. Unfortunately, now a month after launch, the Master Chief Collection still has continuing issues when trying to find a match. A shame since more time in the oven, or possibly an open beta test, and these issues could likely have been avoided altogether.

That being said, if you are one of the lucky ones to find a match, Halo’s multiplayer still ranks among the best in gaming regardless of which Halo title you’re playing on the disc. It’s great to finally be able to replay Halo 2’s stellar combat again, and with the addition of all of the maps released for all four games, it’s easy to get lost in the fan service.

The only other multiplayer issue I had with the game was that at launch it didn’t offer a Halo: Combat Evolved playlist. The only way to play the first Halo’s multiplayer is either through a Custom Match setting, or to get lucky enough to have people vote for a Halo: Combat Evolved map before the match starts.

First is Axton, our Commando, who like Roland utilizes Turrets. A former Dahl Sergeant, dishonorably discharged for his personal glory seeking ways and sentenced to death by firing squad. His former wife/commanding officer recommends he not try to escape to one of the many places beyond Dahl’s reach, which he does, then makes his way to Pandora after hearing one of Handsome Jack’s ads. Depending on which tree you utilize your turret can heal you, set off nuclear explosions or even spawn a second Turret.

Salvador, the Gunzerker, in my eyes, is this game’s Brick, using two guns instead of his fists. Born and raised on Pandora, he has a love of violence (and steroids, causing his 5’4″ stature), but aimed it towards bandits and other outlaws. None the less, before the events of Borderlands he too is set to die for his actions, but before he does, Hyperion attempts to seize his town. After defeating the invaders, Salvador becomes interested in the vault, after interrogating (torturing) the last survivor.

Like I said previously, Salvador’s ability is gunzerking, meaning firing two guns at once, so weapon placement for him is key. A good method is keeping a slag weapon in each rotation. His skill trees range between gun and damage boosting, extending gunzerking times, ammo regen and healing.

Zer0 is the game’s Assassin, kinda like Mordecai’s hunter with his sniper rifle proficiency, but no bloodwing. An assassin for hire, dealing with common hits as well as political ones, he becomes disillusioned when his victim won’t fight back, even after Zer0 demands it. A bartender tells Zer0 of Pandora after he laments about his lack of interest lately.

There’s not much known about Zer0, even his gender maybe a lie. He gets his name from the zero displayed on his face plate. There’s also a lot of debate on if Zer0 is even human or not, given his body type and lack of fingers. I’d like to think he was possibly a R.A.T, or genetically modified in some way, though it’s speculated that Tanis knows his origins.

Zer0’s ability is decepti0n, creating a hologram of himself to distract enemies. His skill trees involve strengthening his sniper rifle usage and critical damage, strengthening the decepti0n ability and combat and strengthening his melee attacks. Quite useful since his melee weapon is a sword.

Maya is one of the 6 Sirens, like Lilith, though her ability is to phaselock, locking an enemy in a bubble and damaging them. She was given to The Order of the Impending Storm when she was identified as a Siren when she was still an infant. She was trained in secret until she was revealed as a goddess to the orders followers. She later found out she was actually being used to extort money from the followers. Maya kills the monks who raised her, and decides to go to Pandora, to learn more about Sirens, and to finally explore.

Maya’s ability can be great for co-op, playing the role of a healer. With her ability to phaselock a teammate back from fight for your life, heal them by shooting them and heal everyone by phaselocking an enemy. Like the other Sirens, she can also cause elemental damage, even creating some out of nothing.

After the game’s release we were given two DLC characters, Gaige and Krieg. Both completely new and unique to the game. Here’s their rundown.

Gaige is a high school student, who for her science fair made an anti bullying robot. While making the robot she cut her arm rather deeply, so instead of healing it, she sliced it off and made a cybernetic one to digistruct her robot, at that point named DT. She later finds out the school bully found her blueprints for DT and sold them to the local police force. Enraged she finalizes DT, with digistructed claws and lasers and renamed him Deathtrap.

At the science fair her bully’s father has bribed the judges, giving Gaige third place. Her bully begins to gloat and shove Gaige, prompting Deathtrap to protect Gaige with his digistruct claws. When struck by the claws, the bully, for lack of a better word, exploded. Gaige was sent to the principal’s office, where her worst fears are confirmed, she’s going to be expelled and arrested. Her father creates a distraction, with a golf cart and lots of gasoline, and Gaige escapes to a ship heading for Pandora. There she hopes her intelligence can be appreciated.

Gaige utilizes Death Trap, her partner robot who can attack with claws, lasers, and explosions, he can also regenerate your and your teammates shields. That doesn’t mean Gaige herself can just shoot, she has many unique and fun abilities. Depending on which tree you use you can trade accuracy for damage, have ricocheting bullets, and cause electrical and burn damage.

Our final character is Krieg, the Psycho, basically one of the bad guys became a vault hunter. Not much is known about Krieg’s past other than he’s deemed Hyperion property, though you can see small glimpses of the man he was before with his inner voice. Before the events of Borderlands 2 he wandered the wastelands looking for bandits and other combatants to date his bloodlust. He tries to avoid the non-fighters/innocents, since his inner voice threatens to kill him if he does.

He meets Maya, his inner voice thinks she can help him, so he attempts to call out to her, but instead yells about poop trains. Maya, thinking he’s a regular psycho, and engages him in combat, and doesn’t see the R.A.T.S creeping up behind her. Krieg’s inner voice finally is able to yell out a warning to Maya, before decimating her attackers. At the end of his introduction video you can see him on the side of the train heading to Windshear Waste, explaining how he got there.

His ability is The Buzz Ax Rampage, your melee damage goes up 500%, you completely heal with every kill, speed increases 33% and you gain the ability to throw your buzz ax. Depending on your tree you choose you can pad your melee abilities even when your not rampaging, add explosive damage, and cause elemental damage. Krieg’s abilities also alter fight for your life, where he can drop a grenade and gain double experience for the kills, or throw dynamite at enemies to try to regain health.

Story

Our game begins when the train carrying you and your fellow Vault hunters is discovered to actually be a trap by our games main villain, Handsome Jack. You’re found by claptrap, from Borderlands one, who decides you’ll be his ticket out of his frozen wasteland prison. You travel through Windshear Waste, where you meet some new additions to the Borderlands badie team, Bullymongs, and have your first boss fight with Knuckledragger.

Claptrap later leads you to Liar’s Berg, where you meet one of the new characters, Sir Hammerlock, where, after doing a few more missions, you finally get to sanctuary, where you get to meet several characters from Borderlands. The old vault hunters are back, and more fleshed out with some great personalities.

Compared to its predecessor, Borderlands 2 has definitely stepped up. From character customization, Borderlands you got to choose the hair, shirt and pant color, while in 2 you get tons of color schemes to play with and head customizations. You can get these customizations buy doing certain missions, enemy drops and ammo machines.

The weapons have greatly improved as well, they’re more accurate, vividly colored and stronger. The launchers in one were weak, and did more more damage to you than for you, here… well, if you blast yourself it’ll still take a huge chunk of your health, but it could be a one hit kill in your favor too. Sadly the Atlas gun company is gone, but we get the elemental Maliwan instead (perfect for Maya). The rarity levels are still the same as well (white (most common), green, blue, (uncommons) purple (rare), orange (legendary) and light blue (pearlescent/mega legendary).

The main story is so immersive, and you really get attached to these characters. There were several parts that did make me actually tear up. There are so many twists, turns and surprises it always keeps you guessing, even if it’s your first, second (True Vault Hunter Mode) or third (Ultimate Vault Hunter mode). Another fun bonus is they brought back the Catch-A-Rides, and of course Scooter. You get your basic two seater runner, with a ton more color options, and a new edition, the Bandit Technical, which could carry up to for players, has a turret and you can use your normal weapons on it as well, this too has lots of customizable colors.

Co-Op

The co-op mode is great, there’s no tether (unless your teammate has the menu open), You can complete separate missions and both get the rewards. The upside (or down if you don’t like a lot of difficulty) is with the more teammates (only two per system, four in your party all together) the stronger the enemies, and rarer the loot. A personal recommendation us if your co-oping, have a Siren on your team, especially if your doing a slaughter dome challenge, even if she gets taken out she can still snipe and phaselock you back to health from the sidelines.

DLC

Something you may want to invest in is the game of the year edition, or all of the DLC, not just Gaige and Krieg. In the GOTY set you get both characters, and four expansion games, all taking place after the main story, so if it’s your first play through, save them for last. The GOTY’s expansions are: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate’s Booty, Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt and Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. I know there are more DLC, but I only have experience with these four. After completing each DLC you’ll get an exclusive head and skin.

Captain Scarlet and her Pirate’s Booty has you searching for Captain Blade’s lost treasure. You meet Captain Scarlet just after you arrive in the strange town of Oasis, where she asks you to join her in her search of the lost treasure.

The second DLC, Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage, introduces Mr. Torgue, of Torgue’s guns. He’s found the next vault, so to decide who gets to open it, he hosts a brutal fight to the death tournament. In this DLC you get a ton of Torgue equipment, along with certain heads and skins.

The third campaign is Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunting. It wasn’t as well received as the other DLC, and I can see why. It starts off as a hunting trip with Hammerlock, which turns into dealing with a Handsome Jack cult. Sadly the story seems a bit lacking, with some parts being needlessly difficult, and others laughably easy. I honestly just played it for the sake of completion.

The fourth was Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep, my personal favorite. While our current Vault Hunters are interrogating a Hyperion spy, the originals are playing a game of Bunkers and Badasses to pass the time. The story is such a wild fantasy, and I never felt like it was dragging on, it manages to include most of the characters. Since its from Tiny Tina’s mind you know its wild, entertaining and you never know what anyone will say.

Super Punch-Out is an impressive boxing game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It features great graphics, cool music, tight control, and excellent replay value. This game should be considered one of the greatest boxing games in video game history. The characters are full of personality and are unique and fun to fight. The game takes advantage of the SNES graphics chip capabilities and really pushes the envelope as far as graphics are concerned.

Playing this game is very enjoyable, as it is fun to play as a newbie or as an experienced veteran. Beating the opposition takes time and learning their patterns and moves really is a must. Super Punch-Out still rates up there as one of my favorite video games of all time. Beating the special hidden circuit definitely takes skills, and that is what I love about the game.

Gameplay

The action is fast, and the response times are lightning quick. Each opponent forces you to re-think your manuevering, as they all have their own unique styles and patterns. The controls are simple enough, with a left and right punch, as well as a super punch. Dodging and blocking become key components in this game if you are to be successful.

The game play is very tight and responsive and pulling off super punches is easy. The game is easy enough for anybody to pick up and learn, and it is fun enough for everyone who wants to. Your boxer controls flawlessly and avoiding your opponent’s attacks will timing and skill.

The Storyline

You must take over the role of an underdog boxer attempting to win the Minor, Major, World, and Special Circuit Championships. Old arcade favorites like Bear Hugger, Piston Hurricane, and Bald Bull are here, as well as NES favorites like Mr. Sandman, and Super Macho Man. You are attempting to battle your way to the top of these circuits, which contain four boxers in each circuit, and the fourth opponent is the reigning champion. Overall the story is very simple but it works.

Graphics & Sound

Super Punch-Out is well animated and features beautiful cartoon like graphics that gives each fighter their own personality. The graphics are colorful and the characters are well animated. I love the opponents, Narcis Prince and Bear Hugger both are very different from one another but are so beautifully drawn that they just make my jaw drop wide open. The ring mat changes from circuit to circuit, but you only have the choice of using the one boxer.

He does not appear to be Little Mac from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out but rather is a different character all together. The graphics are so bright and colorful that it is hard not to appreciate them. The opponents all have special facial and body expressions when they are about to pull off a new move or when they get decked themselves. It is comical to watch your opponent go sprawling into the corner after a knockdown punch.

It seems that each character is bigger than the last, and they all are so well done that each one is either very likable or easy to despise. The boxers feature their own theme songs and the sound effects from the punches are excellent. The sounds of the boxers are great as they each have their own voice samples, and the sound of your boxer after winning a match is great too. He will either exclaim that the match was, “A piece of cake,” or, “Too close”… your opponents laugh and pose when they win the match, which is incentive enough to get back in there and take them on once again.

The Games Re-playability

This game is very fun and the replay value is so high until you finish every circuit. The game has great graphics and sound, and the control is very precise and tight. Playing this game over and over can be easy to do because of all the entertainment value it possesses.

Attempting to beat your old best scores can be another incentive to play this game again. Tweaking your skills and becoming a master takes lots of time and practice, but putting a lot of effort into a game like this is easy just because it is so well done.

Final Thoughts

This game is a must have for Super NES owners. The cartoon like quality of the graphics makes this game humorous and addicting, and the music and sound effects are all right on with the game atmosphere. Missing out on Super Punch-Out would be a tragedy as this is the best boxing game Nintendo has ever made.

The first thing I noticed was that the controls seemed a bit off. The dragon I was controlling seemed a little bit floaty- then again, it is a dragon, right? You also have the ability to play on the Xbox One’s new Kinect sensor bar if you choose but according to a Microsoft representative they wanted to give the consumer both options. Every time I asked a question I was greeted with the standard “It’s a work in progress but everything is improving.” This game was still very fun to play.

The E3 demo starts with you racing out of a lava-filled cave on your dragon. There’s plenty to shoot at with your scaly friend, like the fiery, floating jellyfish- like creatures that I unleashed my beast on. While holding down the right trigger you can lock onto enemies on the screen and once you let go of the trigger you release the energy at the baddies. There was also a lightning based attack that I didn’t really bother with since it seemed a little bit undeveloped.

If you’re familiar with the Panzer Dragoon titles, then you know that they’re on-rail shooters. You don’t really have to worry about where you’re going forward- the game does it for you; you just have to be able to dodge numerous projectiles and things in the environment. There were stalagmites hanging down from the cave ceiling that my character automatically clipped through without suffering any damage. I found it entertaining to see my horrifying dragon phasing through the rocks. Again, this game has a ways to go in development.

The Microsoft representative told me that this game is all about scoring against your friends. This will no doubt have a leaderboard online where you can track your best times and scores with other people across Xbox Live. This game also has cooperative multiplayer as well, just in case you and your dragon get lonely blasting by yourselves.

Another cool feature is that you can evolve your dragon. He will change visually and will obviously become more powerful. I mean, the dragons already look more intimidating than the ones found in Skyrim; we’ll see how crazy they’ll get once you hit max level with them. This is the feature that really has me excited to try this when it’s released.

While I played the demo, I eventually got to a mini-boss. It looked like a huge fire dragon creature that surfaced from the lava. The main way to beat him is to dodge his incoming fire projectiles with the left and right bumper; that way you can swirl and twirl around his blasts. He was easy enough and we were off again. The final boss of the demo came swooping down and was incredibly gorgeous. The lighting seemed to shine off his white scales and teeth. To defeat this foe, I generally used the same tactics I used with the mini-boss but I took a significant amount of damage. Once beaten, the demo ends and shows an even bigger dragon eating this one.

This game was originally set to appear on the Xbox 360 but they changed gears and decided to just upgrade the game during development into an Xbox One title. You can more or less see that it was an Xbox 360 game. The graphical power of the Xbox One wasn’t really shown; some of the textures in the lava looked a little bit bland. I was told they’re going to take advantage of the new hardware and add many more enemies on screen than the original Xbox 360 version could have included.

“Duplicate Bridge” by Alfred Sheinwold, Dover Publication, New York, NY, 1971, originally published in 1954, 158 pages, Library of Congress Number: 75-156814, Reprints ISBN: 0-486-22741-3.

In this book you will learn about seating assignments, shuffling the deck, bidding, and how to play the cards. You’ll also you learn strategies and about traveling score slips, entering the score and moving to the next round. Match points are counted differently and just totaling the points is not enough when figuring out the private scorecard to get to your total score. Chapter 2 of this book is excellent talking about the general principles of tournament play.

In duplicate bridge safety is not enough, and it pays to play for the advantage. But don’t forget there are ethics and etiquette involved in play of this type. In this book you will learn who your true opponents are and all about fail numbers and hair-trigger doubles. Do Bill Gates and Warren Buffett play this style? Perhaps not, or perhaps they do, I am uncertain but it is quite competitive. There are standard principles of bidding, offensive bidding in duplicate, and competitive bidding during the same. You may not know this but there are special bidding conventions also. In this book it gets all into that as well.

If you are bridge player you need to learn how to play bridge different ways, that’s what makes it so intriguing, and one of the best card games sports there is. Some people think that bridge is only for old people, trust me when I tell you that isn’t true. After you read this book you’ll see why. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

Time is passing, and every decision you make has a future consequence. Your assistant, Dr. Wright, can help you make the right decisions. Just ask! Surprise catastrophes also threaten your growing city like fire, earthquakes, airplane crashes, even a giant Koopa who has a nose for industrial pollution!

Will you build the ideal city? Or will disgruntled citizens leave you with a ghost town?

SimCity was released for the Super Nintendo in 1991, being one of the first games released, right after the initial three (Mario World, F-Zero and Pilotwings). There really is not a whole lot to say about the story; You have been elected mayor of a barren land form (Plus some water) and your goal is to turn it into a Megalopolis of 500,000 citizens. Sound easy? It’s not.

The Graphics do fit within the game well and by themselves they are genuinely above average. The music is just simply great as the game play fits perfectly within the game structure. Making it all blend together very nicely, making this very enjoyable to play.

This game was not a showcase for the SNES’s graphic capabilities, nor was it meant to be. Nonetheless, there were some pretty cool effects here like when the seasons change every three months, thus changing the color of the forests from green to brown to white. The ”zones” do not look as they would in real life, especially when they are first built.

Airports and Seaports look pretty nice. It is also fairly easy to tell what is going on, which is always a plus for example when a zone needs Power, you will see a lightning bolt flash on and off it. Some structures are also animated, the Industrial Zones in particular.

To be honest, until you get to Metropolis (100,000 citizens), the music is really kind of annoying but before that, the Disaster theme will be one of the best you will hear. The music does seem to fit whatever stage of development your city is in. Of course, when the music does get annoying, it really does not help.

Sound effects wise, there’s a really slim selection, besides the clicking of icons and the placement of zones. Sometimes you get a rail car starting up, or a Plane taking off (Or crashing down, right before that cool disaster music). Other than that, there is not really a whole lot to the sound effects through out the game.

While it is true that the game would really benefit from a mouse device, this game predated the SNES mouse by a year or so, so that was not an option. In spite of this, the game controls really well, and there’s quite a bit to do, even in the light of this game’s sequels, Simcity 2000 and 3000. You can set game speed, wreak disasters on your city at will (Though you can not invoke the almighty Nuclear Meltdown… ), or go to Dr. Wright for some advice.

Of course, in order to accomplish your goal, you will have to listen to your citizens, and give them what they want. The Icon interface allows you to access this info whenever you need it. As far as building your city goes, it’s really simple: Just click on the structure you want to build, find a place for it, push a button, and “BAM” there is your structure.

While it’s not really a story, the basic premise was very original for its time. You are the mayor of a city that you have to guide to Megalopolisdom. Keep in mind that Story was not a very important part of video games in 1991, not that the premise would have been any different. But let’s face it, it is not the story that will keep you playing this game.

Quite honestly, I’m of the belief that pulling off a Megalopolis the right way is the single toughest feat in all of video gaming. And the Big Money Code you probably already know about does not really make it any easier. As with any game of its kind, you have to go slow and build up a solid financial base before you can build at any sort of decent pace (As such, you spend a lot of time with the Game Speed set to Fast, just waiting around). The Big Money code can make this faster, but not any easier trust me.

Admittedly, there is not a lot to do after you beat this game. Of course you probably never will beat the game, in the Megalopolis sense. If you get bored, you can challenge one of 6 scenarios, in which you are given a city with a problem ranging from the mundane (Traffic, Crime) to the near catastrophic (Nuclear Meltdown). You have a set period of time 5 or 10 years to make the situation right.

It is quite a challenge to stay within your budget for this amount of time, given that you will probably lose several hundred dollars a year, besides having to improve the city. Before you beat them, it’s fun to play the game a lot, but afterward you really get kind of sick of it.

This was really the first Sim game that spawn all the others, and it is still one of the best. The functional graphics, ”Unique” soundtrack, great control, and of course, the disasters, make this a game you will want in your collection if you are a fan of the Simulation genre.

Are you fed up with endless in-game purchases that lead you nowhere but purchasing even more?

Did you remember paying lots of money for that weapon to be able to fight harder monsters and bosses?

Or alternatively, you had to grind for gold coins for almost a week to be able to get that weapon, how did it feel?

Did you miss the old games you paid once to own the game? There were nothing like “pay to win” then…

A lot of free games are as you know, pay to win; you simply install the game and play until you are stuck at a hard level or boss fight. Here you either need to grind for hours for required items to pass the level or you need to spend real money to buy items to give you an edge!

Some games are paid and they still offer you advantageous in-game items in exchange for your money!

Or you know some of the free games give you in-game coins if you watch their advertisements, very clever, isn’t it?

Shape or Color is a paid game for Android on Google Play store. There are no in-game offers. You just pay once and you play the game forever, just like in the old days.

Gameplay is pretty clear:

There are 3 shapes in the game; circle, square and triangle.

There are 3 colors in the game; purple, red and yellow.

Dropping gems are randomized with one of these shapes with one of these colors.

You need to focus and collect the right gem.

But be careful because your gem is regularly randomized as well!

To collect the right gem, you need to focus on 2 indicators;

One of the indicators shows if you need to collect same shaped or same colored gems as your gem.

Sometimes you need to collect same colored gem while sometimes you need to collect same shaped gem.

This indicator shows you which one to collect.

And the other indicator shows how many seconds left for your gem to transform. You need to take an eye on this indicator as well.

Don’t confuse your gem with other gems.

You are a bit bigger than other gems, that is the only difference!

At Mafa games, you will find all sorts of games on their website. They range from Barbie games to ones involving our favorite cartoons. Dress up games as well as cooking games are a hit with everyone. Hey, who doesn’t love a little virtual cooking experience? The time limit and management of workplace is the perfect formula for one to enjoy a game. Sometimes these games are a little competitive, but that’s where the fun part lies. Keeping aside the above-stated games, you will also find Makeover games where you can enjoy turning the girls from rags to riches and basically get to be their fairy godmother. If you are a big fan of Elsa from Frozen, you will be delighted to know that there is a whole section arranged in particular for her games – you will find almost all of the other categories summed up in this. Make up games are also popular among the masses. So be sure to check them out sometime.

Why You Should Choose Mafa games For Gaming

1. Easy Navigation. Since all of these above-mentioned categories are grouped accordingly on Mafa games, you can easily navigate through them and find something of your choice. If you are looking to play some makeover games, you can head over to the tab and you will find that all of the makeover games are listed in order of their release dates.
2. No Need Of Signing Up. The best part is that you do not need to register on the website to play games. You can have access to all of them without the Signup process. Isn’t that great? Now play all you want without going through the hassle of signing in and out multiple times.
3. Multiple Tags. So far, we have seen Makeover, Cooking, Makeup, Dress Up, Cartoon, Barbie and Frozen. But the game tags just don’t stop there. There’s a whole new section of game tags for you to discover. All of it is arranged in order so that you will gain access to them in no time.
4. Saves Effort. Tired of having to open a game and play just to find out that it is wasn’t what you thought it to be? Don’t worry. We’ve got your back. At Mafa.games, you also have sections devoted solely for the best girl games available on the site. This means that you do not have to go around looking for that one game you’ll like. We have it done already for you so the most you have to do is make a choice.
5. Get To Know What Is Hot. In case you are done with all of the best games on the site, what next? No worries, there are always new games popping up on the site so you are never bored. You can get to know what’s hot by going over to the ‘New’ tab on the screen.

Setting Up The Play

Deal both players five cards to form their hand. Then deal 15 cards to each player, these cannot be looked at yet, set them aside as the draw pile for each player. If you want to use jokers make the draw pile 16 for each player. Make two five card stacks in the center of the table. The final two cards are set face down between the replacement piles.

How The Game Is Played

The players start the game by flipping over the two cards in the middle of the table. The goal is to play a card from your hand that is either higher or lower regardless of the suit. If, for example, one of the cards is a “9”, you can play an “8” or a “10” on it. The ace can be played on a king or two making it a continuous loop of options. There are no “turns” so as soon as those cards are flipped over players begin playing their cards in order. When you lay down a card you pick up another one from your draw pile so you always have five cards in your hand. If neither player can play, each player at the same time flips over a card from the two stacks in the center and the game resumes. The player who depletes their draw pile and runs out of cards first is the winner. If you are using jokers they are wild and you can play any card on top of a joker.

Variations of the Game

Because the game is learned through friends or family members, speed card game rules vary. It is not uncommon to encounter rules that only exist for a certain family or set of players. One such variation is the four card game, which makes it easier for players to hold a hand but is also difficult because there are fewer options to choose from. Another is “doubles”. Aside from being able to lay down a “4” or a “6” if the card is a “5”, a player can also match it with another “5”. Using jokers allows a player to choose whatever he or she wants it to be. Often, jokers are not used as one’s first option but rather as a last recourse when one has run out of cards to play on hand or as a winning card.

Versions of “Speed”

The Speed card game is one of those two player card games that become addictive. People create their own versions of it but some of the more popular are the “three and four way speed”, California Speed, Spit and Strategy. The three and four way speed is played with three and four persons respectively. California Speed is also known as Super-Speed in Wisconsin, Speed 2 in Texas, Rush in Missouri, and Speed 3 in Kentucky. Though the Spit card game follows the same basic Speed card game instructions, it is known as a more challenging and longer version of the game. Strategy refers more to the arrangement of cards at the start of the play. The game after all is called “Speed”, which takes into consideration how fast you can lay your cards down. There are card tricks that you can use to help you win a game of strategy. For example a hand with one “2”, two “3s” and two “4s” should be arranged 2, 3, 4, 3, 4 in that order instead of 2, 3, 3, 4, 4. You still have to lay one card at a time, but this will increase your chances of winning at the Speed card game.