Monthly Archives: September 2014

Knights N Squires Review: We May Have a Gem

By Ojogo

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I have little faith and lesser expectations when something is marketed as revolutionizing a genre, particularly if its from an app developer that’s not that well-known. Plus, it’s also classified as an RPG.

 

Usually, unless the game itself needs to be paid for, it doesn’t even begin to satisfy as an RPG. Free-to-play “RPGs” tend to only feature various usable units for play with varying stats to give the impression of a field and variation, but have little to offer in terms of varying tactics and strategy in usage.

 

Truth be told, I even thought I would automatically just lambast the title. But on reviewing another game by Com2Us and seeing how great Summoners War: Sky Arena was, I decided to give Knights N Squires a shot.

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Gameplay

Knights N Squires is an action RPG that combines various aspects of monster collection, endless running, and maybe a little bit of a rock-paper-scissors system. The premise is that your kingdom has been under attack, and your princess has been kidnapped – and it’s up to you, the lead knight, to gather troops to storm countless waves of enemies, rescue the princess, and ultimately save the day.

 

The basic gameplay is that your character runs continuously down a stage, not being able to stop, and you have to hack and slash your way through until the end of each level where you have to kill a boss.There are three main commands available to you. One is your basic attack which lets you whack whatever is directly in front of you. Another is your basic guarding, which is mainly your only form of defense since you’re recklessly and brazenly just storming through everything. Lastly your third command is throwing your shield, which allows you to attack airborne enemies ahead Captain America-style, but leaves you unable to guard until the shield zips back to you.

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There is no jumping, evading, crouching, or stopping. Getting hit by enemy attacks may act like speed bumps, but otherwise your character just runs ahead hacking his way through the fog. Sounds like a typical mindless brawler, but this game requires some serious focus and strategy.

 

Monster Killing Panache

When you have ten enemies bearing down on you and you need to throw your shield because someone decided to be a high-flying hipster instead of just being a ground mob like everyone else, things become a lot more complicated. Blocking, throwing, and using special abilities become quite a tactical affair. Also, as you continually hit and your combo increases, you get bonuses like an increase in attack speed that further enhances your genocidal capabilities.

 

But wait, there’s more. The RPG aspect of things comes into perspective when you start having some allies tag along. You can bring a maximum of three units with you and each available unit has his or her own unique set of stats and abilities. They all have auto-attack, but you can select when to activate their special skills, which range from projectiles to powerful dash attacks to healing and rejuvenation. And as it is a running game, each stage has a set timer and you have to kill everything in your path and reach the end of the level before that clocks out.

 

Since Knights N Squires is part monster collection, the player has to deal with varying rarities for either optimizing their party or just for collection’s sake. Your character and your allies level up as you progress and you can upgrade them by the usual sacrificial fusion of other less desirable allies as materials.

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Loot galore

The game has lots of items to use and sell. Swords have elemental attributes, shields and armors can increase HP, reduce cool-down times for skills, and do others things we know and love, RPG style. Unlike the many games and apps out there where the RPG elements feel unnecessary, gearing up is essential in this game. If you don’t upgrade your allies, or level them up, or sometimes even bringing the right ones for the job, then you aren’t going to get far.

 

Aesthetics and functionality

Aesthetically speaking, the character arts are simple no-shade cutesy chibi vectors, which puts a little bit of dark humor to it, as you are finding massive feats of running carnage adorable. Looking at it for the first time may make you think it’s a little too simplistic, but it works when there are a lot of things going on in the screen. It also makes collecting the many different units worthwhile, as though most of them don’t really perform anything that sets them considerably apart from the others (and you’re better off just searching for high starred units for efficiency), each unit has seemingly its own character that you just can’t help but put a little bit more effort into collecting them.

 

There’s a stamina system that’s ever-present in most mobile apps. There’s no escaping the free-mium mechanics that comes with free-to-play games, I guess.

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The good thing about it here though is that there is no invasive aggression for players to make in-game purchases, which include upgrading item slots, buying new main characters, and easing up on the energy system. Though, you are not required too, some of these purchases are quite tempting. Your default main character is purely just an attacking character. The other two alternate characters have better skills, one having a larger attack range and the other being able to guard even while throwing her shield.

 

As grinding is necessary and levels get progressively more difficult, either of these two alternate characters can make life easier and is apparently essential to reach the top rankings.

 

Conclusion

I’m completely fine with the basic character since just focusing harder on your tactics and reflexes will still get you by, which is nice, but I would like to be able to guard while I take out the bajillion enemies hurdling at me from both ground and sky. My only other real complaint would be that it disconnects a lot. It’s not even an internet problem. Sometimes you just load a different screen then it goes kaput. I really hope they fix that as it’s the only real thing ruining the experience.

 

All in all, Knights N Squires is worth the download. It’s a great, complex action game with a cute look and high speed gameplay. Shelling out some cash for some much needed upgrades isn’t too bad, but it does cheapen the experience a bit. Otherwise, running out of in-game stamina is the only reason that makes me put the game down.

Trove Rolling From Alpha to Closed Beta

Trove Splash

Attention Trove fans! Trion Worlds is bringing Trove’s alpha down at 10pm PDT tonight, and closed beta is on the very near horizon.

Closed beta will start on Thursday, September 25. Trion promises new worlds to explore. Alpha content will be wiped, but closed beta characters (and beyond) are for keeps! The new Neon Ninja class is also soon on its way.

Blizzard Cancels Project Titan

Blizzard Irvine Office

It’s been on the rumor mill for years – Blizzard’s ultra-secret project Titan, a massively multiplayer game that was going to launch a new IP to break away from Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft. We’ve had our ears open for any whisper of information that would reveal more about the mystery game in Blizzard’s back pocket.

So it was a bit of a surprise to discover, today, that Blizzard’s officially cancelled Titan.

Polygon reported that Mike Morhaime, Blizzard’s CEO, confirmed in an interview that their ambition was strong, but they were unable to find the “fun” and “passion” in the game. After a re-evaluation period, the company made the difficult decision to cancel the project, which had never been officially announced.

Instead, the studio will refocus its efforts on its current brands and products, and be a little braver in taking risks on the games they feel strongly about instead of just trying to produce “blockbuster” titles. So don’t fret – from what we hear, Blizzard isn’t struggling; it’s simply working harder on the games players know, love, and want.

Triad Wars: New game set in the Sleeping Dogs Universe revealed

Triad Wars

Recently revealed by United Games, a new kind of online-focused action game has just been announced called “Triad Wars”, which is an open-world action game set in Hong Kong and the Sleeping Dogs Universe. In this title, plays will dive deep into the underground crime world of China while building their own underground corporations and empires.

Players will also be to compete for zones, engage in all kinds of illegal operations and more.

The game is currently accepting sign ups for closed beta and a release date has yet to be announced. For more information, visit https://triadwars.com/

Erebus2 Open Beta Begins

Erebus2 OBt

Zemi Interactive, Inc., Korea’s leading MMORPG developer and service provider of famous free to play MMO “4Story” and “Erebus” has announced the beginning of the Open Beta Erebus2 Global. Open Beta will last until October 15th,. The level cap for Open Beta is set for 40 at the moment but it is planned to be increased in the next Open Beta update.

Currently Erebus2 is undergoing several Open Beta events. Amongst the players who reach level 40, the first 5 will receive 2000 gold (worth $20) and 5 more will be nominated to receive another 2000 gold. This is a joint event with 4Story where all 4Story players who reach level 40 will receive 500 gold.

Big Clowns will be roaming the maps to give various potions. One such item will be 1000 capacity HP pack where the potion can be used continuously until the capacity runs out. Others will be exp and ability increase potions. But it won’t be easy to hunt at first because the level is set for 40.

Jackpot event, where the monster has the chance of hitting jackpot of tons of Tra (in-game currency), will also be run.

More information can be found at www.erebus2.com .

Project Blackout’s International Championship Coming 9/27

PBIC Tournament

International publisher and developer, Zepetto who is responsible for the popular online FPS, Project Blackout (known as Point Blank outside of North America), announced today it will host the fourth annual Point Blank International championship, along with Nfinity Games from September 27-28, 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey.  Eleven national teams from 10 different countries will be competing for a cash prize of $50,000 USD in the ultimate FPS tournament.   For complete details visit http://us.fps-pb.com/

The Point Blank International Championship (aka PBIC) is an international in-person tournament launched in 2011 by Zepetto, developer of the popular free-to-play FPS.  PBIC is the only FPS international championship tournament in the world hosted by the game’s own developer!  Project Blackout (Point Blank) is internationally revered in 70 countries with 11 publishers across the globe.  Teams from all over the world compete in Project Blackout (Point Blank) online, and finally the top national teams all over the world come to Istanbul for a chance to become the champion of all champions!

Teams from South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Latin America, Malaysia, Singapore, North America and the Philippines will all compete in full leagues of two groups moving on from semifinal tournament style to the finals and, finally, the ultimate cash prize.

Dawn of the Immortals Mobile Launch Review

By Ojogo

 

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Yet another typical MMO with Dawn of Immortals

If you’re in the mood for some generic, glitchy MMO gaming for your mobile devices, have we got the title for you.  The name of the game is Dawn of the Immortals, and like all titles that try to sound epically cheesy or cheesily epic, it comes off as a lackluster clone of something that was famous then, but failed to replicate its success.

 

In this case, it’s a copy of the many browser-based MMO games porting over from China lately. It’s certainly not a good base to start out with. It was merely reskinned for obligatory copyright purposes and served as a mobile port for downloaders that will try and bite.

 

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Gameplay

Dawn of Immortals is a 3D mobile MMORPG. The player chooses a character from the start from an array of three stereotypical RPG job classes – a melee type, a ranged magic type, and a support type – each available in both genders. The game is set to explore a world that’s inspired by both steampunk and fantasy designs.

 

It’s not really that expansive as the game follows a linear quest system. No side quests or optional dungeons or anything. So you can take your own sweet time grinding and exploring an area without fear of getting sidetracked or activating a scene or a boss fight you’re not ready for. But that too in itself is a bad thing as the creators only really add new content at the latest development of the “story,” so there’s no real option (or purpose for that matter) for backtracking.

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Thankfully, there is no stamina system. You are only limited by your health bar and how long you can stand repeatedly tapping on the screen. There is no mana bar as well. Your skills just follow the cool-down system, which is nice as it means you won’t really be bothered to manage a lot of resources in combat, and you have most of your moveset available to you right from the get-go.

 

Like other browser-based MMORPGS, it has a quest bar that you can click that automatically directs your character to the quest destination. So if you need to talk to someone or go somewhere or deliver something, just tap on the quest title and your character automatically dashes towards where you need to go. It’s convenient but also easily abused.

 

It also works on combat quests, meaning that if you need to kill 10 of a certain monster, you can just repeatedly tap and mash the quest, and your character will automatically hunt said creature. This is what ruins the game as you will feel that everything is on auto-pilot.

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Most of the quests are dungeon-based instances, which means you get to fight wave after wave of different enemies, and it gets dull so fast as there is little to no challenge in the fights themselves. With good equipment handed out like candy and powerful movesets available very early in the game, you will rarely need to worry about breaking a sweat to progress. Boss battles stand as the only entertaining piece of the puzzle, as simple auto-attacking won’t cut it and a few attacks need to be manually avoided to succeed. Unleashing your special attacks as soon as they come off cool-down is vital to winning these drawn out wars of attrition.

 

Like most browser-based MMORPGs, the game has a reward system based on how much time you spend in-game. Rewards are bountiful in this game, and I guess it’s what they offer as incentives for people to keep playing an otherwise monotonous routine.

 

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Pet System

One of the signature elements of PWE’s Immortals franchise has always been the pets and Dawn of the Immortals is no different. Like everyone else here, pets can be unlocked very early on in your adventure. Pets fight alongside you and can be customized, collected, and evolved. Tapping into the tried and true monster collecting and evolving aspects utilized by so many other mobile games is one of the few features that likely keeps anyone playing. Some visual alterations are also available if you want to set your pet apart from its counterpart clones.

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Unlike most mobile-based MMOs, anything you equip here actually gets displayed on your in-game avatar – weapons, headgear, shoulder armor, even certain special effects like auras and wings. There is a huge expanse of parts to collect and mix and match. This is quite notable because, boring as the game may be, the art isn’t too shabby. Character designs and in-game portraits are articulately detailed and well-done, and the 3D models are expertly rendered.

 

Another notable advancement for a mobile MMO is its support of a moveable and zoomable 3D camera. That said it’s kind of sad that this game would score more points with me as a simpler pet and fashion game than a standard MMORPG. But the game can’t even win based on aesthetics.

 

The interface is horribly cluttered. GMs and player shout outs often pop up in the middle of the screen and it gets hard to appreciate or even understand what’s going on when there are a bajillion things happening in-frame. Some text hasn’t even been fully translated as the game often displays loading info in Chinese.

 

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Critique

One last good thing I can say about Dawn of Immortals is that it at least isn’t a “pay to win” business, meaning you can go through the entire game normally without having to succumb to shelling out real cash to access most of the game content and enjoy it (if you can).

 

It’s more of a “pay to spice things up” model type of freemium, where you pay to get more costumes, more pets to collect, and such – purchases that don’t really change your own personal meta of the game. And even though it’s an MMORPG, you are not forced to interact with the online community.

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Though it doesn’t really hurt to try. Sure, the world chat box is annoying, but other aspects such as the auction house – where you get to buy and sell off your items and pets with in-game currency – are a good way to promote the online community feature of the game without having to bother you with social interaction. Because let’s face it, if you are playing an MMORPG on a mobile device, I am willing to bet this month’s salary and my left butt cheek that you’re not exactly the outgoing type. To some extent, Dawn of the Immortals can be considered as an online yet single player MMORPG, and that works well when dealing with the flexible needs of your everyday mobile gamer.

 

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Conclusion: Fair
As a game in itself, it leaves a lot to be desired, but that doesn’t mean its total trash. There are a few gems to be found while playing, though I really suggest that you pick this up if you want to get into the MMO scene but are really lazy or too casual to actually invest some hardcore effort into it.

LEGO Minifigures Updates With Element System & More

LEGO Minifigures Series 12

Funcom has kept the updates coming for players of LEGO Minifigures, introducing the Element System and preparing to launch Series 12.

The Element System gives each minifigure a specific elemental attunement as Light, Nature, Magic, Shadow, or Tech. Each epic dungeon and pocket adventure now also have attunements, meaning that some minifigures will excel in certain areas. Along with this system, Pocket Adventures have been opened to all non-Members, although they will not receive Super Chests.

The game’s next series of minifigures is also nearing its arrival in the game world. 16 new minifigures, including Wizard, Video Game Guy, Prospector, and Swashbuckler will be released in this series, and full details about each of the figures can be found here.

Finally, a free Tennis Ace Minifigure will be gifted to all players who are Members by October 1st.