Monthly Archives: February 2014

Albion Online Video Shows Simultaneous Cross Platform Play In Real-Time

Albion Online

Sandbox Interactive today unveiled a new video for their upcoming cross-platform Sandbox MMO, Albion Online.  The video shows the game being played in real-time across five different gaming devices including iOS, Android, PC, Mac and Linux.

Yasmin, the Community Manager at Sandbox Interactive, walks players through the way each platform plays Albion Online, beginning with tablet gaming on an iPad  From there, players can see for the first time side-by-side, the game being played on an iOS, Android, Mac, PC, and Linux device simultaneously!

All platforms will have the same gaming experience, with both PVE and PVP action, which the video shows off in real-time across all five platforms to give players a deeper understanding of how the singular game experience is captured across multiple devices all at the same time!

Darkfall: Unholy Wars – New February Promo Available

Darkfall

Aventurine is hosting a new promotion for all new and old Darkfall players this month.

Existing Players will be able to purchase a 6 Month Subscription Package 45% off the regular price.
Past Player will be able to return to Darkfall Unholy Wars, free for one week through February 13th.
And new players will be able to purchase the game for 75% off through February 13th.

For more information on these offers, visit http://www.darkfallonline.com/news/february-promotion-feb-5-feb-13

World Tour Fishing Open Beta Review

By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor)

 

Over a month ago I went on a special journey. Together with my fishing rod, I sought out the biggest fish on record.

WorldTourFishing3

 Needless to say, the hunt wasn’t all so successful.

Back then World Tour Fishing was still heavily in development and only a small number of players had even embarked from port, but since it released into open beta and time has passed, more updates have arrived to polish out the rough edges. So now I set up to one-up my greatest catch on a special max level fisher.

WorldTourFishingEndgame2

For anyone that had read my initial preview of the game, you’d know that fishing isn’t the most enjoyable thing in the world for me. But the game itself did leave a nice impression with its heavy focus on realism without feeling tedious and repetitive. For people who aren’t really familiar with the gameplay, or fishing in real life, let me talk you through the challenge of catching a fish real quick. In World Fishing Tour you obviously use a fishing rod and some bait and throw it as far from your dock or boat as you possibly can. After this wide arcing mouse sweep across your desk, the waiting game begins. In this period of time the same thing happens as most fishers do in real life, you wait patiently (or pensively) for the fish to bite.

World Tour Fishing Endgame 5

When the fish bites, you will engage into ‘fishing combat.’ It is perhaps a bit confusing to call it fishing combat, but I guess it’s the best way to explain catching fish in World Fishing Tour. It really feels like you are fighting with the fish so you can in the end catch it and perhaps even use it to make bait, or make it swim in your aquarium or fishing tank. When the fish bite, you will see a meter on top showing you how close you are to reeling your fish in. By using your rod, you can counter fish attacks by leaning the rod with or against tension to tire its stamina out. All the while you play a dangerous game of mouse button pushes to control your reel and slowly bring the fish closer (or tactically let it run). Just like in real life, if there is too much pressure on the line it might snap, so offering the fish a bit of freedom early on is necessary to bring in some of the bigger hauls. During this whole engagement, you will see your fishing rod do ‘damage’ to the fish as it nears the catchable range.

World Tour Fishing Endgame 1

The better the rod and its gear, the more leeway a player has to make errors without losing their fish. I was given a high level character by the team behind World Fishing Tour, letting me easily tackle fish I never dreamed of prior. As opposed to my sardine sized fish my bearded fisherman caught on the regular, the great sea offered up some real catches to my new avatar one could feed a full family with. Besides the high leveled character, I was also given a million gold. Feeling like a millionaire, I bought out the gear shop to prep the ultimate equipment to tackle the monsters lurking in the depths. I also bought a small boat and sped out to as far from the shoreline as possible.

World Tour Fishing Endgame 3

While the mechanics of the game remain the same at end-game, the fish combat went from simple battles to all out war. Even with the most overpowered equipment, my slim avatar was forced to fight some of these fish for minutes at a time before the bad boys eventually gave in. The intensity of each battle is enough to leave you hesitant before casting your rod in again, since these fish can be a real arm strain. Thrashing your mouse in all directions while frantically pushing buttons at strategic times, it’s the closest thing you’ll find to a workout on a PC setting. And when you do bring the big one in, the feeling of accomplishment built by the difficulty can make the entire experience shine.

 

World Tour Fishing Endgame 6

Conclusion: Great

Overall I found World Fishing Tour has improved much with the content added since beta. Fisherman now have goals to strive for and build towards as if it was your standard MMORPG with end-game. The difficulty of building your way to a wealthy and experienced fisher is quite rewarding, and once you get there you’ll appreciate the luxury the better equipment offers when tackling the game’s ultimate fish.

World Tour Fishing Endgame 4

Now that’s a fish!

Cruising around in your boat is also a blast, and I can’t wait to see what the upcoming release of full sized yachts is like. All these elements come together as you can display your greatest catches in proper grandeur in grand fishing tanks decorated with colorful rocks, plants, and even tiny fish houses. Utilizing my press account, I even managed to set a new world record. So get out there would-be fishermen and prove you have the twitch skills to match up to my experienced fishing lineage.

Lost Saga (EU) beta key registration begins

Lost Saga EU

Nexon Europe is has just announced that beta key registration is now available to the public for the online multiplayer brawler Lost Saga.

Lost Saga has opened its virtual doors to the community as Nexon Europe welcome yearning players to sign up for a beta key, which will allow access to the closed beta test from 27th February. Over 3000 people had previously joined the Lost Saga community and can now once again get their eager hands on a precious beta key, as online multiplayer battles await.

Along with sign up for a beta key, pre-client download will open on 25th February and the participants can start to play the game right away when Closed Beta starts.

For more info, visit lostsaga.nexoneu.com

Heva Clonia Episode 2 Pack Giveaway

To celebrate the launch of Heva Clonia Online: Episode 2, we’re giving away a FREE EPISODE 2 PRIZE PACK to assist you in your epic adventure!

The new new majestic region of Pirke has various new quests to engage in. Three new dungeons and challenges include battles against new monsters and bosses such as Caligo, Contractor of Darkness. There’s also new class promotions where players can unlock all new skills for their character at LV50. To top things off, with the recently added PvP system, Players can also now take part in 5 vs 5 team battles.

The Episode 2 Pack Includes:
EXP Scroll to give you 50% additional experience for every monster you defeat
Fortune Box which could contain a wide variety of items such as weapons, armor and more!
Sleepy Sea Urchin to help protect you during battle. As cute as he may look, we strongly suggest you refrain from hugging him.

 
To Redeem your Key:

    • Sign Up for an OGPlanet account and Download the OGPlanet Game Launcher
    • After installing the OGPlanet Game Launcher, Follow the prompts in the Launcher to download/install Heva Clonia Online
    • Once Heva Clonia Online is installed, login to the game and create your character
    • Go to our Redemption Page and enter your coupon code
    • Check your in-game ‘Inbox’ to receive your items!

Notes: You must have a Heva Clonia character to redeem items. Items can take up to 48 hours to arrive.

Echo Prime (PC) Review – Super Sized Sci-Fi

By Michael Sagoe (mikedot)

 

Robot Entertainment has been known for bringing bright and color action and strategy game to both the iOS and PC platform. Echo Prime was one of their most recent iOS titles featuring sci-fi action, intuitive touch controls, customizable equipment/abilities and huge boss battles all wrapped up in a cybernetic package. Now the development team has ported Echo Prime right onto the PC platform with improved visuals, new content and more. But how much of a jump does this bite sized iOS game make to the PC?

Echo Prime 1

Controls

Right off the bat, the first thing that needs to be said about the game is the control scheme, as Echo Prime primarily uses the mouse for many different actions. Players can move their soldier around the field by point & click, as well as attack enemies by clicking on them with LMB. Depending on your character’s distance from each enemy, attacking from long or medium range will perform ranged attacks while attacking in close range will allow you to attack with your sword. Players can also guard attacks using RMB, and when pressed at the right time, players can deflect projectiles and perfect block against melee attacks.

While the control scheme sounds like it should work well enough, it’s far too sensitive in the most crucial of moments. Biggest example: Players can double tap in any direction in order to dodge attacks at any time, as well as pull their mouse towards an enemy before clicking on them to perform a lunging sword attack. When the enemies start to surround the player, it’s far too easy to end up dodging or attacking other enemies at the worst possible moment, which will cause to you take hits for all the wrong reasons.

The 1-6 keys can also be used to activate various abilities, some of which have extra commands tied to them, such as having to draw a line on the screen to create a trail of fire on the ground, or clicking a spot on the ground to drop an explosive barrel. These abilities can also be activated by clicking them in the corner of the screen, so it’s quite possible to play the entire game only using the mouse. However, due to the fast paced nature of the gameplay, playing only using the mouse is not recommended.

As the game progresses, it becomes more increasingly clear how much of a direct port this game is from its iOS counterpart. Strangely enough, players can also use the WASD keys in order to perform dodges in every direction, which begs to question why they simply could not dedicate the movement and dodging actions to the WASD keys altogether.

 

Gameplay

While it may seem like a dungeon crawler, similar to the likes of Diablo or Torchlight, the gameplay is a lot more comparable to that of a classic beat ‘em up. The basic premise for a mission is to travel to the end of the map, defeating any enemies that appear on screen, pick up a power-up or two, fight more enemies on screen and finally defeat a sub-boss to complete a single room. Rinse and repeat about two to four more times in order to complete a single level. There’s no exploration, no alternative paths or anything special when playing a mission.

It’s straight forward and the weariness of repetition will set in quickly. Echo Prime attempts to break up the repetition by including other mission types such as surviving waves of enemies within a time limit, defending an objective within a time limit, weakening enemies in order to capture them, or defeating a massive boss enemy. The basic premise of defeating everything (or almost everything) on screen is still the same, and these slight deviations do very little to make these missions any more enjoyable in the long run.

Echo Prime 2

The repetitiveness of missions is far too great to play Echo Prime in long sessions, which isn’t too surprising since this was originally an iOS game, on a platform mainly tailored for casual gaming. It may be enjoyable to play in small doses, but Echo Prime will make most seasoned PC players wish they were playing a more legit dungeon crawler or beat ‘em up. It also doesn’t help that the major challenge of Echo Prime’s gameplay is just a challenge of patience, as players will have to learn to not be greedy with their attacks against mobs of enemies while dealing with the touchy controls, as well as grind through many optional missions in order to earn strong enough equipment to progress in later missions.

 

Customization

Another boasted feature for Echo Prime is the “Echoes” system, where players can earn active and passive abilities from different alien life-forms from all over the galaxy. Up to five abilities can be used in a mission, which includes a random ability selected by a random online player, and they range from extra damage, snares, knockbacks, buffs and more. Players can also share these echoes with friends, which gives the game somewhat of a card collection element, but chances are that most players will find a particular set of echoes that they’re most comfortable with early on and stick with them throughout the rest of their playing experience.

Echo Prime 3

Visuals and Presentation

The visual design for Echo Prime comes off as a generic take on sci-fi, with familiar concepts such as laser swords, plasma guns, chrome studded armor and zerg / protoss-like aliens. Since this is a direct port of an iOS game, the graphical detail for Echo Prime is certainly not pushing any boundaries, as character models have fairly low polygon counts and moderately detailed environments. The musical score is also fairly generic with mystifying sounds of deep space and plain techno / electronica music that’s anything but memorable. Overall, the entire presentation for Echo Prime just comes off as weak and uninspired.

Echo Prime 4

 

Overall: Fair

Echo Prime for the PC stands as a fairly mediocre title that may be enjoyable to play in small doses, but does not have much lasting appeal compared to other similar titles. For me, it serves as a small example that some gaming experiences are simply more acceptable on certain gaming platforms and may not translate well on others.

Shroud of the Avatar

Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is a computer role playing game created by Lord British (a.k.a Richard Garriott), creator of the genre defining Ultima series of computer games, and Starr Long, director of Ultima Online. It combines the rich story of the single player Ultimas with the deep multiplayer experiences of Ultima Online.

Features:

Selective Gameplay: Play options will include solo offline, solo online, friends only online, or open multiplayer online. For players who play in the default open multiplayer, Shroud of the Avatar will feel very much like a traditional MMO.

Housing and plots: Players will stake their claim to in-game lots and build dwellings ranging from humble cottages to towering island castles.

Sigils and Circles: Players will adventure in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them.

Robust Home Decoration: Players will make their virtual properties truly unique with a brand new decorating system that brilliantly marries simplicity of use with unlimited attention to detail.