Monthly Archives: September 2014

Candy Blast Mania

In Candy Blast Mania, players align candy in rows to create matching lines. Clearing the stage earns the player points, with more points earned for creating large matches. The objective of the game is to reach the end with the highest score possible.

Features:

Facebook Competition: Candy Blast Mania has full social network support. In real-time, you can compete with your Facebook friends to see who can get the highest score on various levels of the game.

Battle Mode: Battle the tyrannical Gummy Bear King in the exciting Battle Mode. Stun the evil King with big matches before he clogs up the candy field and impedes progress.

Over 100 Levels: The game features over 100 level sof content, allowing players to stock up on various candies and power-ups. Special tiles are made through making large matches and forming sweet spots.

Deer Hunter 2014

Deer Hunter 2014 is a free to play first-person adventure in the world of sport hunting. Travel from North America to Africa in search of exotic animals.

Features:

Club Hunts: Join with friends in global co-op challenges to complete objectives and earn rewards.

Weapon Customization: Upgrade magazines, scopes, stocks, barrels, and more.

Trophies: Earn achievements and places on the leaderboard as you bag the biggest animals in your hunts.

Aion Celebrates its 5th Anniversary

Aion 5th Logo

NCSOFT®, the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), announced ongoing plans to celebrate Aion’s 5th Anniversary in North America. Throughout the celebration, players will experience added buffs, increased item drop rates, interaction with GMs, special armor and plenty of chances to win prizes through social media contests and giveaways.

Players familiar with Daeva’s Day, the annual Aion in-game celebration designed to commemorate Aion’s yearly anniversary, will welcome back fun activities designed to bring to life the anniversary in-game, allowing players to celebrate the milestone as well. During the course of the event, players will be treated to giant cakes providing special buffs that increase drop rate by 10%, double global item drop rates (which stackes with the cake buff), and on September 22, the actual date of the Anniversary, GMs will be available in-game providing more buffs and general merriment.

5th_Daevanion

But come dressed to impress. Aion players will be able to do just that with the introduction of the Dazzling Daevanion armor, a special set of armor with some unique stats. Donning the Dazzling Daevanion armor, equippable at level 10, provides level 50-60 stats and set bonuses! Players level 10 can participate in this special deal once per account during the anniversary celebration for the promotional price of 1 NCOIN.

NCSoft is also running daily contests on their social media pages (Twitter and Facebook), and has released a 5th anniversary video that hints not only of the past, but the future.

Skyforge PvP Press Preview

By Blair Nishkian (Tagspeech)

 

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Another day, another MMORPG, another press event.  It’s getting hard to keep track of the sheer volume of games coming out these days, but we’re on top of it!  Skyforge is one such game, and it comes straight out of the creative efforts of Obsidian Entertainment – you know the guys.  They’re the ones who have pretty darn good writers and do generally well-received work on single-player MMORPGs.  I was surprised to hear about their involvement in Skyforge, but as the press event went on, I could see that their influence on the game was a positive one.

 

Skyforge is intended to be a full-featured MMORPG, with PVE, PVP, crafting, exploring, etc.  Everything you could possibly want.  It’s going to have ground-targeting combat that’s frenetic and active compared to the lethargy of old-school titles like WoW.  Think Wildstar, but without the bright disco ball effects on the ground constantly.  What sets Skyforge apart, however, is the games concept.  You play as an ascendant god.  You manage followers and your own faith.  You can also swap classes at any time out of combat, and even better, you get to have a God Form, which can be used as a sort of ultimate ability at certain strategic moments.  It is not just some piddly little cooldown ability – you will wreck everyone and everything in God form.

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Naturally, these sorts of features make PVP interesting.  Don’t worry too much about the class swapping – while everyone can do it, you still have to invest your progression points into specific classes to fully flesh them out.  But the class swapping makes it so that, with investment, players can be quite versatile without the tedium of alt-making or alt-swapping.  And this is a small detail, but I found the sci-fi nature of the setting especially compelling.  These aren’t historic gods you’re playing as, these are far-future, highly evolved humans becoming gods through a merging with technology and the mysteries of the cosmos.  At least, that’s what the art leads me to believe.  If it’s true, then thumbs-up from me.

 

The inclusion of a God Form in Skyfroge necessarily makes what would be classic PVP matches rather unusual.  Small matches, like capture the flag (which is 12v12) or anything else (which is 8v8) are made intriguing by the coordination of teams not just in terms of everday tactics or movements, but also in the overall strategy regarding the use of God Form, which I was lead to believe can only be utilized once per player per match.  Will everyone shift all at once and crush the enemy in the first round?  Or will players use their form more judiciously and defensively?  Blitzkrieg, or wait and see?  It’s up to individuals and teams to decide.

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The design philosophy behind the game, despite these interesting features, is fairly traditional.  The developers are confident that they can balance fun factor between PVP and PVE.  They’re designing a matchmaking system that lines players up according to their gear and progression level, so that individuals are automatically squaring off against those of a similar level and time investment into the game.  Gear is being addressed.  Balance is a big deal.  But what of the concern that PVP balancing concerns necessarily neuter the excitement of PVE?

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Purely PVE games, after all, are able to have far more dramatic, impactful, and generally epic abilities in combat because of the lack of PVP balancing concerns.  Bigger percentages can be used.  ‘Breaking the game’ is still a concern, but less so, because NPC mobs don’t burn down the forums in rage or quit the game when they’re anticlimactically slaughtered.  The devs of Skyforge believe that they, like The Old Republic, like World of Warcraft, like so many others before them, can still make the game fun and balanced for both features.  Personally I think a game wherein you play as a nascent god requires a little oomph and insanity in the combat, so much so that PVP would necessarily be swift, brutal, and at times unfair – but I’m not a game designer.  Maybe it will work out great.

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What I can say for certain is that the developers of Skyforge display a noticable professionalism and acumen when it comes to their craft.  They take the game quite seriously, and have clearly thought-out all possible issues, scenarios, and challenges facing them in this highly competitive, highly fickle online gaming market.  The theme alone sets their game apart from other full-featured MMORPGs, and it will be interesting to see how things develop once the game enters into its beta phase.  That beta is still a ways off, and has yet to be announced.  Stay tuned for more on Skyforge in the near future.

Gaijin Entertainment & Kubinka Tank Museum announce T-44 Restoration

War Thunder T-44

Award-winning developer and publisher Gaijin Entertainment and the Central Museum of Armored Vehicles in Kubinka, have announced a dual partnership to fully restore a World War 2 era Soviet T-44 tank.

The project will see the museums depot stock T-44 tank usually used for spare parts fully restored to full working order, complete with full interior and exterior overhaul to bring it back to its original WW2 battle ready appearance. The restoration will involve hundreds of person-hours in order to transform the tank from its current badly damaged state into a show stopping fully restored museum display and exhibition piece.

The T-44 was a medium tank introduced by the Soviet Union towards the end of World War 2 and was the successor to the T-34 tank. The T-44 held several improvements over the mass-produced T-34 tank, including stronger armor and an increased ammunition capacity whilst retaining the same maneuverability characteristics of its T-34 counterpart.

Gaijin Restoration T44-2

The T-44 was the Soviet Union’s first step in developing an advanced post war tank and was succeeded by the T-54 and T-55 variants which saw enhancements to main gun firepower, tank speed and armor protection.

“This is a rare opportunity to bring a piece of military history back to life for our players and tank enthusiasts,” said Creative Director Krill Yudintsev. “The T-44 was one of the first tanks in War Thunder and we are excited to restore one of the last surviving examples of this with the help of the Kubinka museum. This is a rare opportunity to bring a piece of military history back to life for our players and tank enthusiasts”.

Upon finalization of the lengthy restoration, the T-44 will take pride of place in the Kubinka tank museum and will play a central part in historic reconstruction festivals and other museum events and exhibitions.