Monthly Archives: November 2014

Blitzkrieg 3

Blitzkrieg 3 is an innovative real-time strategy game, blending single-player and multiplayer modes to breathe new life into the RTS genre. It continues the successful Blitzkrieg series, which has won over forty awards, including numerous “Game of the Year” and “Editor’s Choice” accolades.

Features:

Persistent Base: Players will have a persistent base that can be built up and used between missions to research technology, recruit units, and otherwise enhance armies. This is a new feature for the Blitzkrieg series.

Hectic RTS Gameplay: True to its name, Blitzkrieg 3 is a game that rewards aggressive, brutal strategies and decisive advances. The game is rife with explosions, violence, and dangerous battles. Casualties and catastrophes can happen in the blink of an eye, with combat being largely unforgiving and challenging.

Asynchronus Multiplayer: Players build up their bases, defenses, and units in rel-time. However, if players are not present to defend their base, the defenses are automated by AI, while the attacking player still controls his or her units. This allows players to interact with each other’s forces whether or not they’re present and online.

EVE Online: New changes allow opportunities in player-controlled space

EVE Online

CCP Games, a leading independent developer of massively multiplayer games, today has rocked the notorious player-controlled metagame of EVE Online with changes to force projection while delivering dozens of other features and improvements to the game in the “Phoebe” release.  Bringing some of the boldest developments in more than 11 years to EVE’s massive sci-fi universe, Phoebe echoes the developer’s new mantra of challenging long-held assumptions while staying true to EVE’s often-praised sandbox game design.

In Phoebe, major changes have come to force projection – the way EVE players use jump portals to move their massive spaceships across gaming’s largest universe. The introduction of a new jump fatigue mechanic means players and their corporations, alliances and coalitions now have to make even more strategic decisions as they set up supply lines, commit themselves to a battle far away from their home solar systems, or jump into a fleet fight as a third party. These changes are paired with the new ability of capital ships to use stargates provided they don’t lead to high security space and for Titans to use their terrifyingly powerful doomsday devices in low security space. Changes to medical clone installation, sovereignty structures and station service durability are sure to inspire new paradigms for player-driven conflicts.

For some time all the major coalitions and alliances in EVE Online have been preparing for the changes politically, diplomatically and militarily with a flurry of activity and diplomacy in player-owned space at levels not seen in years. Many regions have already changed hands in advance of Phoebe and some have been effectively evacuated, awaiting ambitious new occupants to stake their claims.

For more info, visit http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/tag/phoebe/?utm_source=ccp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20141104_pr_phoebe&utm_content=blogs

Guild Wars 2: Echoes of Past update now available

GW2

ArenaNet™, publisher and developer of the acclaimed Guild Wars franchise, is releasing “Echoes of the Past” for Guild Wars 2’s Living World today. The episode brings back Living World Season 2, picking up from a cliff-hanger ending that had the world of Tyria fighting the rise of the Elder Dragon Mordremoth. The dragon’s growing forces have Tyria on the brink. In the cliffhanger ending, an ambush on Tyrian leaders at their World Summit was thwarted by players, but not before Mordremoth’s lieutenant wounded the sacred Pale Tree. The attack has spurred the world’s leaders into action and hardened their resolve. With players and the heroes of Tyria behind them, they’re preparing to take the war to Mordremoth.

In addition to continuing the Living World saga, “Echoes of the Past” will deliver new game play, a new area and new rewards in what promises to be the beginning of an epic journey to the season finale.

Staging for War

The Pact has set up a staging area in the Silverwastes, a new area in the Maguuma Wastes nearer to Mordremoth’s domain. Players must be on guard when reporting to Camp Resolve to observe Pact efforts as they will be in enemy territory. Mysterious ruins in the area will provide key battleground locations in the ongoing war against Mordremoth’s expanding armies. Players will fight to hold strategic locations, call in Pact allies for aid and take a stand against the growing threat.

Silverwastes Treasures

While players fight against the Mordrem hordes in the Silverwastes, they will accumulate new Bandit Crests, which can be traded into Pact Vendors for Sinister gear recipes, crafting materials, and more – including pieces of the brand-new Carapace armor set.

Bioluminescence

ArenaNet is introducing a brand-new set of armor for each weight class exclusively through the Living World and Silverwastes content. Beginning with shoulder armor in episode five, players will be able to collect new pieces of the Carapace armor set in every episode. Not only will players be able to complete the set over time, but as they prove their mastery over the Silverwastes, they’ll find ways to upgrade Carapace armor into the new Luminescent set.

To learn more about “Echoes of the Past,” check out ArenaNet’s blog posts detailing each feature and upgrade at www.guildwars2.com

Last Year: 5v1 Multiplayer Surivival Horror Game Revealed

Last Year

Game industry veteran James Matthew Wearing has recently revealed that he is working on a 5 vs 1 Multiplayer Survival Horror game called “Last Year”, where five players play a group of stereotypical high school teenagers against one player that’s controlling the Killer.

In Last Year, you’ll experience the nightmare together as you and 5 friends struggle to survive against one player that’s playing as the Killer. Explore familiar territory based on classic horror movie locations including Camp Silver Lake and East Side High. You’ll play the roles of 5 stereotypical High School characters while co-operating to complete objectives and survive.

When playing as the Killer you’ll utilize game-changing Predator mechanics to help you hunt down and eliminate your victims before they have a chance to escape. Players will sneak and slash their way through a suspenseful atmosphere that keeps them on the edge of their seat as they compete to be the top Killer or best Survivors.

The Kickstarter campaign is currently going on now with 44 days to go.

For more info, visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lastyear/last-year-5-vs-1-multiplayer-survival-horror

Terra Battle Review: Cards Against Monstrosities

By Jaime Skelton (MissyS), Senior Editor

 

As reviewers, we have a habit of calling games ‘different.’ We’ve used the word so much it’s become meaningless. After all, different has no intrinsic positive or negative value, no quantifiable measurement – it’s a word we can use to quickly gloss over a game’s unique aspects. Yet when sitting down to write this review, the first words that came to mind were “Terra Battle is different.”

Of course it’s different. It’s Mistwalker’s first free-to-play mobile title, and for many mobile gamers, the first introduction to the development studio run by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. It’s a bit like Puzzles and Dragons and many other card-based mobile titles: you collect heroes, level them up, take them into battle, rinse and repeat as you get progressively stronger. Except, the battle system isn’t the same, the upgrade system isn’t the same, the gameplay isn’t the same; there’s far more differences here than Mistwalker’s artistic style. To really appreciate what ‘different’ means for Terra Battle, you have to dig deep, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Terra Battle is, for once, not your average mobile game.

Terra Battle Start Screen

Setting the Stage

Terra Battle’s gameplay is separated into chapters and stages, each telling a small part of the overall game story. Each of these story segments isn’t particularly large: most are only a sentence to set the scene for the battle that will take place. The words are impactful, and sometimes chilling, but always too brief. This is, perhaps, Terra Battle’s greatest fault: despite the studio and presentation, the game’s story is incredibly thin.

Terra Battle Story

Thankfully, the game’s rich combat system is the complete opposite: robust and intense. Each stage offers a series of linked battles on a 48-square grid (six wide by eight tall). Your units will begin at the bottom of the grid, and one unit can be moved each turn to any available square on the grid. In order to attack, two of your units must flank (think “sandwich”) an enemy unit. Additional abilities can be enabled by having additional characters linked to the attacking units either horizontally or vertically (a line will be shown on screen when units are linked).

Terra Battle Chain Attack

Combat uses a RPS format, where sword beats bow, bow beats spear, and spear beats sword. Magic is a fourth available unit type, and acts as a neutralizer, with weaker units that have more powerful and unique skills than the other three. Elemental affinities also play a part to add a secondary set of rock-paper-scissors combat to the existing weapon trinity. When one battle is complete, the next will begin, with new units appearing on the board while your units remain in their current position. All of that sounds simple enough, but that’s just the basics.

 

The Art of War

I’ll speak from experience: amateur strategy players will struggle with this title. The game’s difficulty ramps up quickly, especially in boss battles. The core difficulty that has to be overcome is the turn system. Each enemy unit will display a number at the top of its card, which represents how many turns until it will make a move. However, while you may always only pick up and manually move one unit per turn, each enemy unit that can act will take a turn simultaneously. This means that for every one move on your turn, your enemies may get half a dozen.

Terra Battle Attack

To combat this disadvantage, you are given the ability to bump your own units by crossing over them with your actively moved unit. The bumped unit will move in the direction you bumped it from; for example, an active unit moving right to left over another friendly unit will shift it one step left. Puzzle and Dragons veterans will be familiar with this mechanic, but it is far more necessary in Terra Battle in order to clear stages. Real mastery of the battle system means planning and quick fingers that will let you shift several pieces multiple times before placing the active unit in its final destination – because you’re also on a time limit. Thankfully, you have infinite time to plan before you start moving a unit on the battlefield.

Terra Battle Boss Attack

Just be warned. While you can only move your own units, some enemies (particularly bosses, which take up more space on the battlefield) can bump, push, toss, and scatter your characters around on the battlefield. Like I said, battles aren’t for amateurs.

 

Goodbye, Fusion. We Won’t Miss You.

There are two horrible mechanics in mobile games that should be taken out back and shot. The first is the limited energy system, which you unfortunately won’t escape in Terra Battle. The second, a fusion system, is blissfully missing. For those unfamiliar, the fusion system requires you to sacrifice cards in order to level up units, often with such a steep experience curve that you may spend weeks grinding to max out a single unit.

Terra Battle Result

But Terra Battle’s characters progress more akin to a standard RPG. Characters gain experience in battle, based on their actions and successful combos. This experience will allow the character to gain levels, thereby also earning stat increases and new abilities. Some characters also have multiple jobs, another familiar RPG system. These jobs can be gained by paying items and gold, both of which are earned at the end of a battle. Jobs offer characters new art, skills, and better stats. The key takeaway, here, is that while grinding will certainly be necessary, it isn’t necessary at the rate of ridiculousness that the fusion system requires. Plus you at least get the satisfaction that your cards earned their power, rather than just having a card sitting on the sidelines getting fat off the rest of your deck’s hard work.

Terra Battle Recruit

Hero characters are divided into different rarities, from SS down through B. The game will give you two characters on the draw right away, and most serious players recommend redrawing and restarting your game to get at least one rare character to start. You can recruit heroes through the tavern at any point in the game, using either coin or energy (the cash shop currency) to test your luck and see who joins you. Though typically you either need to throw down some cash or wait for events to accumulate bonus energy as coin recruited units don’t bring much to the table. This is thankfully a common occurrence as energy flows into your account on the regular. Enemies can also drop on the battlefield, but are usually ranked much lower.

All of these units can then be combined into squads, a set group of six characters of your choice. While you can only bring one squad into a stage, you can create multiple squads and choose between them at the start of the stage to adapt to the enemies you’ll face.

 

The Hunt For More

Terra Battle is a fresh game at the time of this review, not quite a month old. Despite over one million downloads, Terra Battle’s own story is just beginning. Outside of standard chapters and scenes, there are only two other areas to explore – the Hunting Zone (which allows you to farm for items or gold, but not experience) and the Metal Zone (a high experience area with no drops). Both of these zones become available at different times and days, but give solid alternatives to the story mode for building characters, as well as burning your stamina out in a hurry when you have less time to play and want maximum returns.

Terra Battle Special Zones

However, Terra Battle is also working on multiplayer battle modes, both co-op and versus. These are both “stretch goals” that have been unlocked through a special event based on the number of downloads the game has received. At the end of this event (ongoing at the time of this review) lies a console version of Terra Battle. What the future holds for these modes and bonuses, we can only currently speculate – but we’d guess that you can expect the same remarkable excellence that the game already has provided.

Terra Battle Launch Art

Final Verdict: Great

Yes, Terra Battle is doing something different. Although it hasn’t colored outside all of the lines of mobile gaming, it’s certainly making a step in the right direction, combining quality production with a deeply strategic gameplay. The cash shop, too, is fair: it offers the chance to replenish your stamina if you can’t wait for more, lets you continue a battle if you wipe, and lets you recruit rarer heroes in the tavern. It is too early to say how that last purchase will affect game balancing, as multiplayer modes are not yet implemented, but I suspect that with the amount of free cash shop currency the game throws at you, it won’t be an issue.

The ultimate point is, if you love strategy and haven’t downloaded Terra Battle yet, you’re making a mistake.  Beautiful art, resonating music, skill-based gameplay, and less punishing progression mechanics make this new title one of the most exciting downloads on mobile in a long time.

C9: Glenheim Redemption Update Now Available

C9

WEBZEN, a global developer and publisher of free-to-play games, announced today C9: Glenheim Redemption – the newest content update for the dungeon-based MORPG, CONTINENT OF THE NINTH SEAL (C9).

After a scheduled maintenance on 4th November two event dungeons, new stage mode “Nightmare” and revamped balance patch are unleashed for C9 actionists.

Along with this update, players will be able to get an entry ticket from a special NPC -Raleigh in reward for completing the event quest. Players who collect the ticket should then speak to Armoni who will grant them access to the two event dungeons: Dimensional Fissure and Bang Turmoil, where skill books, Vacant Artisan Crystals and a range of rare items will be dropped from boss monsters.

Additionally, new “Nightmare” stage mode has been added to the 1st and 6th continents’ dungeons creating the most difficult mode available to players. A total of 5 modes will now be accessible in-game including Normal, Hard, Expert, Master, and Nightmare modes on 1st and 6th continents. Those who manage to hunt the hellish boss monster with tactical skill combos in the Nightmare mode will have a chance to acquire a variety of rare items and brand-new equipment.

The new update also brings balance revamp which will make stages difficulty in the 4th to 6th continents’ dungeons much easier. Thanks to higher EXP gain and reduced requirements to accomplish the quest, players will be able to level up faster, having also higher chance of receiving magic/rare items.

More information and patch notes are available on the official website: http://c9.webzen.com/.

Terra Battle

Terra Battle pits players in an uncertain distopia world destined for destruction with a simple mission. Find out why. Why have the creators abandoned their creations? As you search for this, you will make friends, battle foes, and recruit ever more powerful soldiers to overwhelm your enemies in intense tactical battles that will test your finger drag dexterity.

Features:

Download Starter: The more downloads Terra Battle gets, the more content that gets added. Expect constant events, updates, and freebies.

Fight to Level: Enough mobile games push the concept of card sacrifice to level characters already. In Terra Battle, your units must fight their own battles if you want them to progress.

Detailed Art and Stories: Each character offers high quality art, backstory, unique skills, and hero units (B rank through SS rank) can be upgraded through item collection to continue their story.

Intense Rock-Paper-Scissors Combat: Drag and push your units against aggressive foes with the clock ticking ever at your back. Avoid traps, outsmart your opponents, and outflank their attack patterns to seek victory!