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Yearly Archives: 2013
Forced Official Launch Trailer
BladeHaven
BladeHaven is a free-to-play, first-person swordfighting “minigame” from Artix Entertainment. Play as a young squire, bound by duty to save the kingdom. Use sword, shield, and spell to make short work of enemies across the realm. Play across multiple maps, become a knight, and earn extra rewards for other games from Artix Entertainment.
ConquerX2
ConquerX2 is a sci-fi strategy web game, challenging you to broaden your borders into deep space through production, research, and war. With ten types of AI in addition to your human opponents, you must build from humble beginnings and expand through multiple resources, warp gates, alliances, occupation, and pillaging to dominate the wide expanse of space.
Nano Interactive
Nano Interactive
Hello Hero: Interview with Sean Lee
Questions by: Isaac Sagoe III (Afromania)
Answers by: Sean Lee, Head of Business Development for Fincon
NYC’s Comic Con brings the geek out of everyone, and this year’s convention topped the last with panels, costumes, and announcements that pushed to outdo each other. The team at FINCON decided to hold their premiere off-site this year to give gamers and comic book enthusiasts a chance to sample their new game, Hello Hero, without the distractions of the convention floor. This new game gives players the power to control some quirky ‘heroes’ in a turn-based RPG. I had the chance to talk to the Head of Business Development, Sean Lee, about Hello Hero and its upcoming debut in the States.
Afromania: So talk to us about how Hello Hero came to be?
Sean: We actually were originally an MMORPG developer in South Korea where we later on wanted to bring the MMORPG experience to mobile devices. As a result, we were not only able to create a game that can be played on the mobile phones, but can also be played on the social networks like Facebook.
Afromania: That’s really interesting. So can you tell me what players will experience in Hello Hero?
Sean: Players will have the choice of over 200 heroes to choose from with a ton of game modes that include player-vs-player (PvP) and boss raid modes, along with a ranking system that can be seen on both mobile and social outlets.
Afromania: Wow! 200 heroes for launch date? That’s a lot of heroes.
Sean: Well we’re not going to be launching all 200 heroes off the bat. Players will see around 160 heroes at launch in the United States where we will be adding new characters down the road. We already have released the game in South Korea and Japan where they currently have 220 characters to choose from.

Afromania: So tell us a little bit more about the gameplay.
Sean: Hello Hero is a turn-based online RPG. In terms of gameplay, players select the heroes they’d like to send into battle. In battle, each of the heroes has their own set of special attacks, which the player can select. The player can also have the heroes “Auto” attack, though this is a little less strategic and doesn’t guarantee a win.
Afromania: I noticed that you mentioned a ranking mode. Will this mode serve as a level cap for players with different types of level experiences in PvP mode?
Sean: No, not at all. Players will get rewarded through the game modes such as Boss Raids and among others. Players will be rewarded on the damage they inflict on the Bosses in these game mode types. The more damage they gain, the more karats they will receive that will add to their ranking.

Afromania: Tell me a little bit about the story of Hello Hero and why all these zany characters have come together?
Sean: The heroes have gathered on the planet Armon where they have an energy source called Hardnium. They are chosen to fight enemies of the dark forces that are trying to steal the energy source. Players can choose heroes from all over the galaxy; From past, present, and future to stop the evil threat.
Afromania: And this game will be free to play?
Sean: That is correct!
Afromania: So I want to talk a little bit more about the game’s available operations systems such as iOS and Android, and social media sites like Facebook. Will all these versions of the game be cross compatible?
Sean: Yes. This is a server based game where you can login on ether on your smart phone or internet browser.
Afromania: So are there other devices other than mobile or browser that people can play Hello Hero on?
Sean: We are currently testing this game on Google TV and it runs pretty well. So for any devices that have a visual aspect to it, we believe we can bring a really good gaming experience to those devices.

Afromania: And that’s great that you mention that, because that leads us into another question: With the future generation of consoles coming out next month, both Microsoft and Sony have been very open about having free-to-play games on their marketplace. Do you think we will see Hello Hero make the jump onto next-generation consoles?
Sean: Unfortunately at the moment , we only have plans to release Hello Hero on mobile and browsers sites as well as devices like Google TV.
Afromania: So when will people be able to get their hands on Hello Hero?
Sean: We’re hoping that it will be by the end of this month. Hello Hero is ready to go for both the Apple and Android marketplace. We also have it set up for Google Play and we are waiting to get the green light from Apple to start our launch.
Our thanks go to Sean Lee for answering our questions! Hello Hero has officially launched today on iOS and Android devices, and will be coming soon to Facebook.
Shotgun News 10/24: EVE, Divine Souls, and Alteil Horizons
EVE: The Second Decade Collector’s Edition Now on Sale
CCP has made the Second Decade Collector’s Edition of EVE available today. It’s a limited edition box containing unique items to commemorate the first 10 years. Inside includes a “Rifter” USB Hub, 190 page hardback book, a board game, CD of EVE’s soundtrack, One Plex, and more. The Collector’s Edition box is $149.99/€149.99.
Divine Souls Launching Tomorrow
The Action RPG/MOBA Divine Souls is launching tomorrow, Friday, October 25th. Developed by Game Prix, Divine Souls will be launched through gamengame.com. It is free to play and has a cash shop, but it is said that all items in the shop will be $1 or less. And until November 7th Divine Souls will be hosting special promotions, so keep an eye on the Facebook account and official website for more on that.
Alteil Horizons Kickstarter Canceled
The Kickstarter campaign for Alteil Horizons has come to an abrupt halt as Apocoplay cancels it. They have plans to bring it back on October 30th with a lower goal and thanks to feedback from supporters new reward tiers.
Aura Kingdom DevBlog 3: The Ultimate Choice
Welcome back, future Envoys!
To go along with our latest class reveals, today we’d like to go into the wide world of skill customization! As we’ve already discussed in the past, versatility is hugely important in Aura Kingdom. Last week we addressed versatility between classes, and this week we’re going a step further with the skill choices within each class.
As you level up and explore the world of Terra, you’ll unlock “Ultimate Skills” in your skill menu. Ultimate Skills are split up into several tiers, each one augmenting your character in a different way. Some provide passive effects that increase the stat of your choice, while others provide chances on attacks to afflict the enemy with useful debuffs.
Our favorite Ultimate Skills, however, are the ones that actively modify your existing abilities to have completely new effects. For example, the Wizard’s first Ultimate Skill tier gives you three options: augment your basic fire spell with either a short stun or knockback effect, or add a damage-over-time component to your ice spell. All of these are potent choices, but their relative advantages are situational.
Another interesting example comes with one of the Bard’s choices. You could opt to add a damage increase buff to your heal-over-time song which would strengthen your party’s DPS, or make it a defense buff when going up against a particularly heavy-hitting boss. Alternatively, you can choose to boost the direct healing output of your AoE heal song instead for more efficient output.
The great thing about Ultimate Skills is that you can freely swap between any of the options in a given tier whenever you’re out of combat, making it incredibly simple to tailor your character’s abilities to better handle any challenge that you face. Combined with the freedom to change your role with secondary weapons, this allows for almost any group of adventurers to take on any situation!
Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peeled next week for the wrap-up on our class reveals!
Path of Exile Launch Review: Perfect Example of an Amazing Indie
By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF)
Path of Exile is an Action RPG brought to us by Grinding Gear Games. It offers a style of gameplay made popular by the Diablo series of games, but with quite a few twist to make their take on the genre quite unique. With its massive talent trees, immersive world, and fantastic gameplay, it’s easy to realize just why it has such a big following. And for those that like to have a challenge or are competitive, there is hardcore mode and plenty of race leagues for you to take part in. Now that the game is ready for its official launch, it’s time we take a closer look at the game with a more critical eye.
Customization
Path of Exile has a lot of customization when it comes to your characters stats, abilities, and skills. From its item socketing to the massive skill/talent tree, there’s a lot of choices for you to make. Character creation is pretty simple, with you choosing from one of seven classes, ranging from melee to spell casters. You don’t get any say in how your character looks, and are thrown straight into the game as soon as you pick your class. You can customize your looks to an extent, as what armor or weapon you are using shows on your character in the game. There are cosmetic skins and pets that can be bought in the micro-transaction shop to make yourself stand out a bit more, though the elusive kiwi birds are now a relic from long ago.
The massive talent tree is both beautiful and overwhelming to look at. I’ve spent a lot of time just exploring the tree – or should I say forest – trying to find the best path for my character to take. Everything on the tree is passive, as all abilities are gained via skill gems, which gain exp from use and level up to increase their effectiveness. Each item has a set of sockets of differing colors which you can put gems into, granting your character abilities or special effects such as lifesteal or shielding for your HP. A lot of the fun to be gained from Path of Exile is from trying to build the best character possible by using a combination of the talent tree, items, and gems.
Graphics
Path of Exile is a surprisingly beautiful game. It’s not the highest quality, but the developers have done a great job creating an incredibly atmospheric game that you can’t help but be immersed in. The art style chosen truly fits with the story, giving you a sense of the harsh reality one would feel being abandoned on an island of horrific creatures and cut throat politics. It all blends together quite well when viewed from the isometric perspective the game is played in too. I can’t say anything negative about the graphics as the love and care that the Grinding Gear art team put into their work is immediately apparent.
The UI in Path of Exile is something I would expect to see in a game from the early 90’s. It gives a retro feeling that actually fits well with the game. There are a few odd things with the UI that I didn’t like much, however. For example, when opening a window, the resolution of the “play” area is changed, giving a squished effect that I can’t really see a point to. Opening a window and suddenly finding that the “center” of the screen has been changed can be a bit confusing at first.
Controls
Path of Exile uses a combination of mouse and keyboard controls. The mouse is used for movement (by holding or clicking the right mouse button) and basic attacks, as well as picking up items dropped by fallen enemies. The keyboard is used to activate abilities and consume potions. I found myself picking up on the controls almost immediately, as they are easy to get used to because they made sense. Everything was smooth, as well. I didn’t notice anything negative concerning the controls.
Community
I generally find the community in most games (or the Internet in general) to be quite vile. Path of Exile seems to have a bit of a mixed community. There are a lot of “bad apples” around, but there are a lot of nice and helpful people. While viewing the games global chat, it seemed as though a majority of what goes on is trading and trash talking. However, a visit to the forum allows you to get a better idea of the community, and where you can become exposed to the better parts of it.
There’s also a large competitive side to the community. Participating in the many racing leagues is the best way to show off your knowledge of the game. Due to Path of Exile’s large community (that is continuing to grow), there will be no shortage of competitors in the near future. Races are plentiful and diverse so players should find something that appeals to them. The random nature of maps add bonus challenge as players will have to memorize and learn tons of varieties and how to identify them in order to ensure the best time trial runs for races. Beyond just theming, you can find varying time limits, restrictions, and winning conditions tagged on to change up basic formulas on these challenges. If you’re a competitive person, you’ll feel right at home in this part of the community.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Path of Exile is pretty simple once you get used to it, but is hard to master. If you’ve ever played an action RPG before, you’ll be used to the setup. It’s essentially a mission running game, where you have hub towns that everyone visits to get quests, trade items, stash their loot, and all that other good stuff. Each hub town is surrounded with adventuring areas that are instanced on a solo or group basis. You won’t be running into a random person while you’re out questing, so you don’t have to worry about some guy you don’t know taking your loot.
Similar to Diablo, the game takes part in a series of “Acts”, which are basically major turning points in the on-going story in the game. Most missions/quests can be completed in a variety of difficulties. Enemies you kill will drop loot, and there are chests to open and barrels to break as well. A big part of the game is collecting loot, so if you find yourself to be a loot hoarder, you’ll fit right in. I was quite pleased with how well done the narrative of the game is, and how deep the story can go.
Combat, at first, is really fun and looks spectacular. However, I found my wrist starting to hurt after a while due to how repetitive it can be. In the later levels of the game, it seems like a lot of your tactics will revolve around one or two moves while spamming flasks for HP and mana regeneration. This, added with the fact that you’ll probably find yourself repeating a lot of the same content, can give the game an over-all repetitive feeling after you’ve played for a couple of weeks. But it’ll be a fun couple of weeks, at the least. And for those that enjoy the gameplay, there’s a thriving community for you to be a part of.
Flasks in Path of Exile are a neat concept. Rather than having to stock-up on potions each time you go to town, your flasks will automatically regenerate over time. Flasks range from HP regen, to mana regen, to speed boost. The usual tactic is to have a few HP, a few mana, and one speed boost available. In the harder maps, you’ll find yourself relying on your flasks constantly, so finding great flasks is important. You’re limited to how many total flasks you can bring and various upgrades exist as loot when you progress, offering a new progression system not often utilized in the MMO sphere.
I liked the item socketing system a great deal. Trying to find the perfect gear, with the correct sockets for the gems you want, was a large part of the driving force behind my enjoyment of the game. I’m not sure if everyone will feel the same, but I know a lot of people do. It’s evident that the system works well based on how popular the game is becoming. It’s nice that you don’t have to worry about spending precious skill points and ruining your character, either. If you don’t like the skills you have, simply take out the gems and replace them with something else.
End Game will consist of two things. Races (often referred to as Leagues) and maps. Races, as the name suggests, are when you race against other players and the goal is to reach the highest level possible within a set time limit to win prizes. Maps, on the other-hand, are special items that come in varying rarities. Using a map will, as the name suggest, gain you access to a special map that will allow you to gain access to the best items in the game. The challenge of races and the randomness of maps are what keep most people hooked on Path of Exile for an extended period of time, but at the same time they’re what make some people feel the game gets too repetitive.
Conclusion
Path of Exile has turned out to be quite an amazing experience. A phenomenon in its own right. It has a rapidly growing community, many of whom feel that the game provides what Diablo 3 should have. With its many unique features, it brings something fun and new to the Action RPG genre that we can all appreciate. The game seems to have something for everyone – the competitive players, the casual gamers, the loot hoarders… If you like to game, you will probably find something you like in Path of Exile and that’s what makes it such a fantastic game to play, in my opinion. I would highly suggest you try this game out and take part in the fun while it’s still a big deal and in the early stages of its life.
Features: 4/5 – Almost everything you could want from an A-RPG and more.
Customization: 4/5 – More visual customization would be nice, but the gameplay impacting customization more than makes up for it.
Graphics: 4/5 – Not amazing, but definitely beautiful.
Controls: 5/5 – No complaints for this area.
Community: 3/5 – It’s got good and bad bits.
Overall: 4/5 – A fantastic experience that should be tried. It’s free, so why not?
SMITE Offers Comprehensive Patch with WuKong Rework
Today HiRez unleashed the beginning of their organized competitive play along with heavy balance changes across the board for their fast growing third person perspective MOBA, SMITE.
In addition to the return of WuKong with a fresh look and complete kit overhaul, details of the League system have been revealed and stand in stark contrast to the origination of the system as seen in League of Legends. Rather than year long seasons, SMITE will utilize monthly seasons with an uncomplicated system of bumping the top 20% of players up while the bottom 20% are demoted. Bronze will stand as the base pool of players (you can’t fall below bronze) with silver, gold, platinum, and diamond standing above it. Various rewards await players that climb the ladder, though they remain unannounced thus far. League will be offered for the two most popular modes, Conquest and Arena.
The Ranking system has also received a serious rework with rank 1 for a given god only requiring fifty worshipers rather than the one hundred previously needed. This will tie into the League system to give players incentive to participate by offering larger worshiper pay outs for playing.
Various items have also been balanced and given a secondary tier three option to bring them up to par and make them viable in more situations. Of particular note, items that provide crowd control reduction now stack but have been nerfed in anticipation for said stacking. A variety of bugs introduced with the inclusion of the jumping animation are also being stomped out.
The patch notes are vast and cover everything from spectator improvements to improved camera rotation during specific skills. Be sure to catch all the details on the official post.















