Yearly Archives: 2014

Neverwinter: Rise of Tiamat Module Revealed

Neverwinter

Continuing the ongoing war between players and the Cult of the Dragon, Perfect World Entertainment Inc., a leading publisher of widely-acclaimed free-to-play MMORPGs, and Cryptic Studios announced Neverwinter: Rise of Tiamat – the newest module for the action MMORPG based on the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.

Leading to the culmination of the Season of Dragons, Rise of Tiamat follows the events of the fourth Neverwinter module – Tyranny of Dragons – and the Siege of Neverwinter event. As the Cult of the Dragon look to resurrect the five-headed draconic goddess Tiamat from the Nine Hells, adventurers must band together to prevent the catastrophic takeover of the city of Neverwinter. Neverwinter: Rise of Tiamat complements the storyline in the new tabletop adventure module from Wizards of the Coast, allowing for even more fan interaction with the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

The upcoming module also brings a new paragon path for the recently released Scourge Warlock class, bringing additional play styles in both solo and group play for the new class. High level players will also have the opportunity to gather additional pieces of artifact gear as they prepare themselves for a massive battle against one of Dungeons & Dragons most fearsome villains.

For more info, visit http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter

Runescape: Lost City of Elves now available

Runescape 3

Prifddinas, the high-level content capital of RuneScape — Jagex’s flagship MMO — has finally opened its doors to players.

The crystalline metropolis is the epic conclusion of a quest chain that players first learned about 10 years ago, and culminates with access to a host of exciting new areas to explore, each packed with fresh features for experienced characters to engage with.

Four clan-controlled districts will be available from day one, and in these players will immediately be able to tackle a selection of unique quests, puzzles and battles.

Clan Iorwerth, for example, presents the challenge of slaying 10 bosses sequentially. With each victory; however, comes hardship, as the defeated enemy drops a dark crystal that then debuffs a player in preparation for the next fight in the series.

Less perilous tasks can be found in Clan Trahaearn’s zone where the introduction of Seren Stones allows characters to work up their mining and smithing skills.

Further around the circular structure of the city you’ll encounter Clan Cadarn and its Max Guild Garden, where the dedicated can top out their skills and, ultimately, earn themselves a place on the Throne of Fame.

Last, but by no means least, Clan Crwys brings a more earthy appeal to farmers and woodcutters allowing them access to the elder tree patch, as well as unlocking a third spirit tree.

In addition to the clan zones, there’s a sizable spread of city-wide activities including: activating and adding missing pieces to the Golden Shattered Heart Statue; exploring the mysteries of the Memoriam Chamber; and racing between districts in order to receive experience and yield boosts from the Voice of Seren.

“It’s an incredible amount of content,” said Phil Mansell, vice president of RuneScape, “and the team is working around the clock to double this by the end of 2014. It’s also pleasing to reflect that if it wasn’t for the success of our Player Power initiative, the Elf City may well have not emerged into the light. This was, by far, the most desirable piece of content for our fans and we’re delighted to offer them the keys to this new kingdom today.”

The second half of the  Lost City of the Elves is scheduled to be unlocked later this year, opening up the Hefin, Meilyr, Ithell, and Amlodd clan districts, along with even more high-level content.

For more info, visit http://www.runescape.com/

Counter-Strike Nexon Zombies Now in Open Beta

Counter-Strike

Nexon Europe has the pleasure to announce the Open Beta for the highly anticipated free-to-play zombie shooter, Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies.

Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies is based on Valve’s classic action game, Counter-Strike (CS). NEXON, a worldwide leader of free-to-play games, has once again teamed up with Valve to unleash a new zombie-themed version of everyone’s favourite first person shooter (FPS) featuring new game modes, creatures, and more.

Starting today, users with a Steam account may join the Open Beta for free and play a vital part in the finalisation of the game, which features unpredictable wild zombies and new game modes. Those who join the beta will be able to help influence the game and get a jump on the competition before the game is officially released in early October.

“As always, player feedback means a great deal to us, and is reflected in our games,” said Paul Lee, Product Executive at Nexon Europe. “We want to hear about which weapons players enjoy using, which modes they found the most fun, and what they would like to see more of in Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies.”

The Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies Open Beta is completely free to take part in, and the game will remain free-to-play when it launches in early October. It is available in English, German, French, Italian, Polish, and Russian.

To play in the Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies Open Beta now, please go to its Steam store at store.steampowered.com/app/273110.

World of Tanks X360 Edition: British Royal Tanks Available

World of Tanks X360

Wargaming announced today the addition of Royal Artillery and the Operations feature for its console multiplayer game, World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition. The update, now live globally, is available as a free download for all Xbox Live Gold members, as well as a free seven-day trial for all other Xbox Live account holders.

The United Kingdom is oftentimes credited with inventing the very first tank, and this latest update for World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition sees some of its heaviest hitters rolling onto the field of battle. In total 9 new British SPGs have been introduced into the game, including the iconic Crusader, ConquerorGC, Bishop and Sexton II. Also being introduced to the game is a new stable of German medium tanks, including the Leopard PTA, Leopard 1, and the VVK 30.02 D, as well as two new maps—Redshire and Siegfried Line.

For players looking for that extra challenge, Operations will task them with unique in-game objectives. Great rewards such as experience bonuses, silver and consumables await players able to pull off each Operation’s unique requirements, but each one will also fully test their skills and prowess during the heat of battle.

For more information on the Royal Artillery and Operations update, visit: http://worldoftanksxbox360edition.com/en/news/news/royal-artillery/

Gauntlet 2014: Now available

Gauntlet

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today released Gauntlet, a fully modernized reboot of the celebrated dungeon crawler, on Steam for PC, offering full support for SteamOS and the upcoming Steam Machines shipping next year. Developed by Arrowhead Game Studios, the game is available for an M.S.R.P. of £14.99.

“This new digital version of Gauntlet innovates on past titles while staying true to the brand’s legendary four-player format,” said David Haddad, Executive Vice President, Publishing Operations, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Multiplayer gameplay is at the core of Gauntlet’s appeal and now gamers have the option to play with friends and family locally and online.”

Players select from four classic fantasy-based characters: Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie, or Elf.  Each character has its own distinctive play style and unique strengths and weaknesses.  Upon selecting a playable character, the gameplay is set within dungeons where the object is to fight through the chambers slaying evil creatures and completing challenges.  An assortment of special items can be located in each dungeon that can restore the player’s health, unlock doors, and shift the odds in the player’s favor with magical relics which can aid the player in surviving longer in the Gauntlet. The enemies are a vast assortment of fantasy-based monsters, including ghosts, grunts, demons, spiders, sorcerers and skeleton warriors.

Players can improve their heroes’ abilities and powers by unlocking achievements called “perks.” Multiple difficulty settings add to the game’s replayability.

“The Gauntlet franchise has always been a great source of inspiration to us and we’re extremely proud to work with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to bring back this classic,” said Johan Pilestedt, CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios.  “We wanted to create a Gauntlet that was true to the original, with updated visuals and a feature set that resonates with what the original game could have been, had it not been for the technical limitations at the time.”

Gauntlet consists of environments like dusty crypts, dark caves, and fiery dungeons, each with varying styles of gameplay. Some dungeon maps allow players to explore and fight their way through chambers slaying evil creatures, completing challenges and discovering hidden secrets and gold.  In other levels, Death itself chases players through an unpredictable labyrinth. There are also endurance maps where players must defeat waves of monsters to survive.

Gauntlet is rated PEGI 16 for Violence, Blood and Gore, with a setting to disable the game’s gore.

For more information on Gauntlet, please visit http://www.gauntlet.com

Albion Online: Now Greenlit Through Steam

Albion Online

Berlin-based studio Sandbox Interactive will be publishing their sandbox MMO Albion Online on Steam. A campaign to have the game Greenlit on Valve’s game distribution platform has been successfully completed.

In an effort to facilitate even easier access to their free-to-play title, Albion Online’s developers had put their MMO up to the test of public opinion on Steam Greenlight. Steam users could then vote on whether or not they’d like to see Albion Online accessible on Steam in the future. And that they did, in their droves; within a matter of days, the community had shown more than enough enthusiasm for Steam to give Albion Online the go-ahead.

“Publishing on Steam gives us another way of allowing players to jump into the world of Albion Online,” said Stefan Wiezorek, founder and CEO of developer Sandbox Interactive. “The social and community-focused functionality of Steam really speaks to the importance we place on player interactions in Albion Online.” Players who don’t use Steam need not worry; they’ll be able to access the many client versions of the cross-platform MMO through the official website as before.

For more info, visit http://albiononline.com/

Knights N Squires

Knights N Squires is an online mobile Action RPG created by Com2uS USA. Arm yourself with powerful equipment and brave Allies and defeat the enemies to save our princess.

Features:

A perfect balance of action and RPG!: Earn super powerful equipment from battles and Power-up your Hero!

Over 100 unique allies!: Collect all the Allies to form the strongest team! Level up and Evolve your Allies to maximize their strength!

Defeat hordes of monsters: Brief description of feature.

Vibrant 2D animation: Experience maps, monsters, and allies in high quality graphics! Change up your characters’ looks with different equipment to battle in style!

Brave Frontier Mobile Review: Nostalgic RPG Overload

By: Ojogo

Brave Frontier Review title

Going Back in Time with Brave Frontier

Everyone appreciates a good RPG. Especially the old console-types and the JRPG ones like the Final Fantasy and Suikoden franchises. The genre of turn-based strategic play has become a classic “comfort food” type of title that gamers over the age of 12 tend to latch onto from time to time out of an uncontrollable urge to feel nostalgia.

That being said, it’s such a shame that we don’t see a lot of these types of games anymore. Sure, there have been a few note-worthy RPGs here and there, but the genre itself doesn’t seem very prevalent with the current fast-paced generation.

This is why certain companies have tried to revive it, to try and milk the want and need for it. There have been a lot of attempts, but few seem to hit that sweet spot old time RPG gamers crave. One worthy of mention of that sweet spot hitter would be Brave Frontier.

I admit I didn’t really think much of Brave Frontier at first. I thought it would be the Farmville of the mobile app world, in the sense that it would be overplayed because of hype, but wouldn’t really satisfy in the long run.

 

Brave Frontier Review Battle

Gameplay

Brave Frontier is a classic turn-based strategy game with the elements of monster card-collecting thrown into the mix. You play the role of a summoner capable of calling various beings to gather and aid you in your strange and not quite clear quest.

Brave Frontier Review map

In campaign mode, you travel from land to land, battling monster spawns for experience, resources and the chance to recruit the monsters you encounter. In each quest, you are allowed five units, plus one helper sent by another player to take on multiple waves of enemies.

At the end of a set number of waves, you get to fight a big bad boss. The basic point of the game is to gather, fuse and level up summon units and form them into unique battle teams.

 

Brave Frontier Review squad

The Units

All units follow an elemental system which determines attack and defense advantage against another.  Affinities include Fire, Water, Thunder, Earth, Light and Dark – the first four following the rock-paper-scissors rectangle while the last two trump each other.

Exploiting elemental weakness is key in successful combat, as it helps you net that extra damage in battle, as well as helping you decide which units to bring to a particular fight.

Units can be leveled through monster fusion, meaning you feed less desirable lower-leveled units to beef up favorites, and each can be evolved to attain a more powerful state of being.

Brave Frontier Review levelup

As usual rarity plays a big part in this whole monster collection business. The higher the rarity, the more powerful your summon would be.

There’s also the part where you can play around with your squad formation. Assigning the lead summon can activate a special ability (if your leader has it) which can grant your squad stat bonuses like increase in strength or defense against certain elements. As for the other positions in the squad positions, they seem to be purely aesthetical in purpose on the surface. Melee based monsters’ time to attack delay can be impacted by their position in the squad, but I’ll explain more about the combat first to show how this has any consequence.

 

Brave Frontier Review skill

Combat

Combat is turn-based but you don’t really have much choice in what you do save for attacking. Your team always attacks first, so all you need to do is tap on a target, then tap on any one of your units to strike.

Everyone can attack simultaneously in your turn, but there is something to be said about timing. Lower level units tend to have one to a few hits in their attacks but higher level and better units perform longer flashier combos.

This is not purely to look cool while doing more damage. It’s also to increase the likelihood that your units would hit the enemy at the same time during their attack strings.

If your units simultaneously hit an enemy at the same time, it will perform a Spark, which is a critical hit in this game’s terms.

So mastering the timing and knowing the rhythm of your unit’s combos allows you to optimize your damage in one turn, allowing you to have a concrete yet difficult way to control and continuously produce critical hits. As such the positioning of melee units can impact your ease of rhythm by reducing the time between initiating their attack, and when they actually connect with attacks.

Any enemies left standing after your turn will return fire, then it’s your turn again and so it goes. Defeating an enemy makes them drop coins, materials for item fusion, their essences (which means they will join you after you have cleared the map), health hearts and gems that fill up your Burst meter.

These gems go to a random character in your team so there is no real way of controlling who gets to fill their meters first. Bad thing is, sometimes these gems and health hearts can still go to characters whose HP bars and Burst meters are already filled, but I guess that’s the hefty power of RNG in this game.

Brave Frontier Review skill2

Going back to the Burst meter, filling it enables you to perform that character’s Brave Burst, which is their ultimate attack. They take the form of either single or multi-target attacks, team buffs, heals, or a combination of everything. These skills also come with the flashiest animations in the game. To activate burst simply hold down on a unit and swipe through a confirmation meter.

Like normal attacks, you can also time it along the team’s attack strings to optimize damage as well.

 

Brave Frontier Review town

Nothing Else For You

Outside of that, there really isn’t much to do. You get to craft items like potions to take with you in battles, gather more materials and upgrade various resource nodes in town, fuse monsters you have to make them stronger, or summon even more monsters to join you in battle. There’s also the PVP battle where you can pit your best team against other players’, but that isn’t really a viable option until you’ve gotten some considerable playtime under your belt as match-making seems entirely randomized.

Brave Frontier Review pvp

All of this is wrapped up with a nice artistic package. The art itself isn’t much to brag about but the battle sprites have the nostalgic 2D treatment.

 

Brave Frontier Review info

Aesthetics

The character designs are great, though they become simplified in sprite form. Unlike most mobile games that take the lazy route when it comes to attack animation, Brave Frontier’s sprites are surprisingly fluid in battle animations. These look especially cool when you order your units to attack one after the other in a choreographed sequence, or even just sending them all out at the same time.

It gives you that wondrous feeling of amazement when you see heroes going for an all-out attack which can only be described as cool and badass. And it doesn’t help that the soundtrack is really reminiscent of old JRPGs, sending you back to the time before digitally downloaded games and DLC content.

A simpler time where you can enjoy a game presented for what it is. A time where the grip and grind were worth it and every single fight was a battle well fought.

 

Brave Frontier Review mapfuse

Critique

There isn’t much I can complain about in the current system Brave Frontier offers. I guess the only real complaint about is the constant free-mium problems like the energy system and the game badgering you to make in-game purchases.

Also, since it’s all just battling through tapping, grinding and fusing, it could get old real quick. But the point is, Brave Frontier is meant to be fan service for those who came to appreciate console-type RPGs. This audience grew up and gained an intense resistance to grind burn out.

That may sound really vague and irrelevant to you if you’re just here for a casual review, but the nostalgia it delivers is the main appeal of the title.

 

Brave Frontier Review Summon 2

Conclusion: Great

It wouldn’t be fair to compare it to the legendary hotshots like Final Fantasy or Suikoden, but it’s got its heart in the right place.  Brave Frontier may not be timeless, but it’s alright for its time.

WoW: Warlords of Draenor In-Game Cinematics

WoW WOD Cinematic Dark Portal 620

Blizzard Entertainment has released a series of in-game cinematics from its upcoming expansion, Warlords of Draenor. These are key cinematics in the expansion, and are spoiler-heavy, but for those who want an early look, now’s your chance.

Blizzard’s Disclaimer:
What follows are the in-game cinematics that will play at various points during the Warlords of Draenor campaign. We encourage you to play the game and experience them in-context as you progress through Draenor—but if you decide to watch them now, don’t say you haven’t been warned!