Monthly Archives: September 2015

Cosplay of the Week: Fifth Element, The Lord of the Rings, & More

It’s time for our weekly round-up of cosplay! As always, make sure to visit the cosplayers directly to offer your support.

Alien Queen Armour Cosplay by Giulietta Zawadzki (Beau Peep Cosplay)Alien Queen Armour Cosplay by Giulietta Zawadzki (Beau Peep Cosplay)

 

Leeloo Cosplay by Courtney Leigh CreationsLeeloo Cosplay by Courtney Leigh Creations

 

Silk V - The Amazing Spiderman - Marvel Comics by Clint and Jillian CosplaySilk V – The Amazing Spiderman – Marvel Comics by Clint and Jillian Cosplay

 

Maximum Thranduil by Serg Loki Mirage CosplayMaximum Thranduil by Serg Loki Mirage Cosplay

 

Fate/Apocrypha - Jack the Ripper cosplay by DisharmonicaFate/Apocrypha – Jack the Ripper cosplay by Disharmonica

 

Bonus Round: Geek Art of the Week

 Kindred by RinRinDaishi Kindred by RinRinDaishi

Fangold

Fangold is a free to play fantasy TCG being developed by Potato Killer Studios that is set in the same world as the MMORPG Land of Britain. In Fangold you will be able to build up your own deck of 40 cards with defensive, offensive, counter-attack, and other types of cards. Crafting materials can be earned in-game so you can craft new, exciting cards that will make your deck flourish. With your deck of cards you will wage battles against opponents, trying to outsmart them at every turn. Regular tournaments can even be entered so you can test your skills against other players and prove that you’re one of the best strategists in Fangold!

Features:

Dungeon Raids: Participating in dungeon raids will be one of the main ways you earn your crafting materials.

Support Land of Britain: Not only will you be able to get an introduction to the world of Land of Britain, but you’ll also be supporting its development by playing the game!

Tournaments: Regular tournaments will also be hosted, giving players the chance to prove themselves and earn some shiny new rewards.

GalaCollider: 4x Strategy Card Game Preview

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

GalaCollider: 4x Strategy Card Game Preview image

Yes, GalaCollider is a 4x strategy card game. This is a pretty unique game that I was supposed to take a peek at during Pax Prime. It is one of only two appointments I missed, but they were gracious enough to let me get a look at it on my own time by playing a demo game against one of the developers. You can also watch that gameplay in the video below, which will do it more justice than I could simply by talking about it. I definitely feel like it needs to be seen to be understood, as the game is both simple and complex all at once. There are two factions in game, and there are multiple ways to win, using the 4x style of gameplay from other titles like Civilization. The developers aren’t nobodies, either – from the developers of Magic: the Gathering and Shadow Era, comes GalaCollider! Players take their turns simultaneously, and deck building is just as important as the rest of the game. You seed your deck each game so you can pick and choose what you think you will need or what you think is important. This can be very interesting against players whom you play with frequently. You will have to adjust and adapt if you want to conquer the stars!

This isn’t a card game where you’re going to need to buy billions of packs, nor will you need to do trading. The featured cards in each set will be well-known, giving nobody a clear advantage unless they know how to use the cards better. That’s important in a card game I feel, equality. But it’s so much more than playing cards. GalaCollider takes place out in space, and your cards that are space ships are deployed onto planets you control. You explore a set space, and gain points for controlling, destroying, and exploring. The larger the territory you are working on, the more points required. There’s also talk of having more than just one on one! There’s talk of huge multiplayer matches where players all take their turns at once (like normal), creating lots of havoc, politics, and chaos! And you know me; I’m a big fan of insanity and explosions. It’s akin to rock-paper-scissors plus card game strategy, and that’s kind of awesome to me. You really have to consider each move, each planet you colonize, explore, and defensive positions you take.

GalaCollider: 4x Strategy Card Game Preview screenshot

Bottom Tier has also aired a live stream where we interview two of the people from the GalaCollider team while doing something (potentially) new and interesting! We’ve invited them onto our stream to have a chat about their game, while doing what we do best: playing something irrelevant and fun. Check out the Bottom Tier stream of Castle Crashers, featuring two members of the GalaCollider team! We get in depth with their title while beating the absolute bollocks off of some baddies made by The Behemoth team! It was a fun time, and so is GalaCollider! If you love strategy, card games, and having a fair chance at winning, this is right up your alley!

Gigantic Beta Key Giveaway

OnRPG has partnered with Motiga to share an extremely limited number of Gigantic beta keys!

Gigantic is a MOBA-style team action game where heroes battle alongside a massive guardian in a fight for supremacy. Developed by Motiga, an independent game studio in Bellevue, WA, players can immerse themselves into a visually pleasing world where skill and wits will be the factor between victory or defeat.

 

 

To Redeem your Key:

  • Enter your code on the official redemption page here.
  • Log into your Motiga account or make an account when prompted.
  • Codes are good for both Xbox One and PC (Windows 10)
  • Enjoy the beta test this weekend! Test lasts until Sunday at 10pm PT!

Gigantic – Closed Beta Impressions

By Michael Sagoe (mikedot)

As the MOBA genre continues to expand and evolve, more games are blurring the lines, turning the outer fringes of what it means to be a MOBA into a murky undefined zone. Now we have an upcoming F2P title by Motiga that plans to blur the realms of MOBA, FPS and Platforming into the unified monstrosity that is Gigantic.

Branded as a “Shooter MOBA,” Gigantic focuses less on dealing with units, creeps and other complexities that turn AoS-style MOBAs into mini-games. Instead Gigantic focuses on fast-paced action and accessible combat for fans of just about every competitive genre out there. Two teams of five players will battle against each other to power up a giant creature known as a “guardian” in order to attack and defeat the enemy team’s guardian to win. It sounds simple at first, but in practice, there’s so much more to Gigantic than meets the eye.

So when players first start the game up, they are given the chance to play through a tutorial which will teach them the basics, and it does a fairly decent job with every detail of a single match. They’ll learn how to summon creatures, upgrade creatures, steal power from enemy guardians and more, and overall the tutorial only takes a few minutes to complete.

After that, players are shown a simple main menu were they can select what creatures they can bring to battle and start a match through a matchmaking system. At the moment, the options are very barebones, but what’s currently available is more than enough to enjoy the game for hours on end, or at least I would find myself playing for hours on end, due to how fun and frantic the gameplay is, but more on that later.

Before jumping into a match, players can choose which guardian team they want to play on (House Aurion with the giant Griffon or House Devaerda with the giant Naga), then select which heroes they want to play as. There’s currently 15 heroes available and the variety between each of them is impressive.

One of the more interesting aspects with Gigantic’s hero roster is that each hero is not only designed to fit different playstyles, but to appeal to different game genres, as well.

  • Enjoy playing as a tank in MMORPGs? Then go with The Margrave.
  • Love pestering enemies as a sniper in FPS games? Then Imani might be your girl.
  • How about pet classes in MMORPGs? Give Aisling a try.
  • Fond of Hack & Slash or Beat Em’ Ups? Then pick Tyto the Swift or Lord Knossos.

Out of all the heroes in the roster, my personal favorite has to be Wu, the martial artist. He’s one of the more difficult melee-focused characters to pick up, but with very skillful play, he can be one of the deadliest duelists heroes, as all of his attacks can be chained into one huge combo. As the developers at Motiga have stated, Wu was designed to appeal to gamers who enjoy fighting games. While this game doesn’t have players pulling off complex attack inputs, they still nailed the concepts down incredible well without full on demolishing what it means to be a MOBA.

Not only is the current hero roster filled with variety, the design of the heroes themselves are colorful and diverse, with crazy monster summoning grannies, clunky robots, a hybrid fox/wolf/deer creature who’s constantly grumpy, an adorable goblin wizard that look like a cross between an oversized green cat and Orko from He-Man, and so much more.

They’re incredibly well designed, attractive and break common tropes of just having human only or human-like characters. Tyto the Swift, in particular, has a design I appreciated the most; you see for the longest time I had NO idea that Tyto had only one arm, mostly due to the long cape that covers his left side, along with how fast the character moves and attacks. It was only until a recent developer livestream by Motiga that I finally started to notice the missing left arm.

For the record: I have never been fond of the MOBA genre, mostly due to the genre’s roots stemming from RTS games. While I do enjoy playing RTS games with single player campaigns, multiplayer is a whole different beast, with so much micromanagement to deal with while keeping with teammates and opponents, and the MOBA genre retains the concepts of micromanagement with gold and equipment upgrades rather than micromanagement of player units and buildings; it can feel like I’m playing two different kinds of games at once.

Gigantic, on the other hand, focuses less on micromanagement and makes stat upgrading a lot more accessible. By limiting skill upgrades with two tiers for active skills (with two path choices) and four passives, it doesn’t seem like much at first, but Gigantic gives just enough options for any player to create a skillset that suits their playstyle. Plus with more accessible choices, players can spend more time on what matters: The combat.

As far as a live match goes, usually the first things players will have to do is focus on summoning creatures near their home base (with said base being their guardian). At the moment, the game only has four different summons, including a drake for offense, cyclops for defense, bloomer for healing and Cerberus for support/utility. Summoning creatures aren’t instant and will take considerable amounts of time depending on how far your summons are from the home base. Plus, summons are vulnerable to enemy attacks while they’re being summoned, so players will have to choose to hang back and make sure that their summoned creatures can generate enough health to stand on their own, or charge back into the fray to hit their foes’ summons while they’re still weak. These are incredibly important because summoned creatures not only give active and passive buffs to teammates, but also generate power for your guardian. Losing a summoned creature has a big cost, so they need to be your priority focus through most of the game. Thankfully the UI and mini-map combined make this much less of a chore.

Between all the summoning and team fights, once a guardian gets powered up, it will rampage across the battlefield and destroy objects and enemies in its path. Once a guardian reaches its target and knocks it down, the knocked down guardian is now vulnerable to player damage. Guardians live on three bars of health, and only a single bar can be knocked out during a each assault phase. Once more: This seems simple and straight forward, but during these phases, players will have to decide whether to defend the guardian and not, because enemy players could use their guardian’s rampage as a distraction to take out that powerful summoned creature that the enemy team worked so hard on, instead.

That’s the one thing about Gigantic that I absolutely love: The chaos in each match. Guardians rampaging across the field while reshaping the arena with destructible environments. Constant fights for control over summoning circles. Enemy players attempting to sneak past enemy lines to steal power when no one is keeping guard. Sparks and explosions everywhere. This all happens very frequently and it’s an absolute joy to see who’s still standing (and who isn’t) when the dust clears.

My overall impressions for Gigantic is that there’s a lot going for it as a quality team-based action game. It took me a few matches to understand how each match flows from start to finish, but once I figured it all out, I was hooked. The unique gameplay that each hero brings to battle, the moment to moment team fights that can shift the balance of power at any given moment, and the final turning point of the Clash truly makes every battle special.

At the moment, what’s missing from the game is a proper chat system and the option to play with friends. While I’m certain that all of these elements will be included in the near future, the only other thing Gigantic needs is some cosmetic items for players to spend and work towards. As a person who isn’t very fond of the MOBA genre, this is quite easily the best MOBA game I have ever played, and I can’t wait to see what will become of Gigantic when it goes live.

Ready to experience Gigantic for yourself? We have a limited number of keys up for grabs! Don’t miss out, first come, first serve. Check it out here!

StarCraft II Archon Mode at Red Bull Battle Grounds Grand Finals September 19th

StarCraft II Archon Mode at Red Bull Battle Grounds Grand Finals September 19th news thumb

Red Bull Battlegrounds Grand Finals for StarCraft II’s new game mode, Archon Mode is starting tomorrow Saturday, September 19th in Washington DC. Well-known casters such as “TotalBiscuit” and “ToD” will be casting the livestream tomorrow, while Kevin “RotterdaM” van der Kooi and Nathan “Nathanias” Fabrikant will host the livestream throughout the weekend.

The players during the event are:

  • Choi “Bomber” Ji Sung + Mun “MMA” Seong Won
  • Kim “viOLet” Dong Hwan + Maru “MaSa” Kim
  • Chris “HuK” Loranger + Jang “MC” Min Chul
  • Park “DongRaeGu (DRG)” Soo Ho + Yoo “True” Ki Sung

 

Watch live video from redbullesports on Twitch!

League of Angels launches new Totem System and Element Zone

League of Angels launches new Totem System and Element Zone news header

League of Angels has announced its recent release of a new Totem system feature and Element Zone in a recent update.

Totem Unite

The Second Totem will play a big role in Totem System after Totem Unite opens. The Deployed Totem has a chance to trigger a second totem when in effect and the second totem’s stats will be added to all units in battle once it’s set successfully. Trigger second totems to boost your Battle Rating now! Your opponents may already on the way.

 

Element Zone

This brand new feature will unlock when you reach lvl 55. In Element Zone you can customize different element stats for different heroes.The higher the Element Growth EXP the higher boost rate your core will receive. You can Sort, Synth or Recycle your Cores in Element Pack. Combo “buff” can also be activated to boost your element stats.

Element Zones

There are three different Zones for you to choose. Higher leveled players have access to higher level maps.

Mobs Difference

There are 3 types of Mobs, those are Fire, Ice and Electro each of them holds onto Element Cores of their type. Kill these mobs to gain powerful Cores! Please be aware that the stronger mob you challenge the more Stamina will be consumed.

Fantastic Buffs

In specific time each day, you can obtain powerful buffs by killing certain bosses, which will help you greatly in battles. Don’t miss the best chance to defeat tough Bosses!