Star of Heroes is a free-to-play 2D browser MMORPG developed by Loygame where players can command an army of heroes and take down forces of evil! Roshan is causing a seemingly endless bout of warfare in the land, so you must join the cause for freedom as either a Sentinel or Scourge and form a squad of potential heroes. By giving your squad members new weapons and evolving them you’ll unlock their true potential, form a squad of powerful heroes, and become a true Star of Heroes by taking down Roshan!
Features:
Hero Squad: You can have over 40 heroes in your squad, but when entering battles you can only bring 5 heroes with you.
Hero Evolution: Evolve your heroes into even stronger forms of themselves so that absolutely nothing can stand in your way!
Weapons: Loot new weapons on your adventures through caves and dungeons to equip your heroes with.
Guilds: Form guilds with other players and friends so you can play together more easily, exchange helpful tips, and stay in touch.
Eternal Chaos Online is a free to play fantasy MMORPG developed by Prodigy Infinitech for PC and it can be played in a browser or via a downloaded client. In Eternal Chaos players will find themselves needing to become a Berserker, Assassin, or Mage and traveling through different time periods in order to stop the evil Demon Shadow. The Demon Shadow is causing major rifts in the timeline, resulting in you getting caught up in conflicts from different periods in time. Can you stop the Demon Shadow, foil his plans, and return to your own time safe from harm?
Features:
Seven Time Periods: Travel through time and stop the Phantom in seven different time periods: The Robinhood Era, Age of Emperor Li ,Age of Arthur, Age of Caesar, Age of Saladin, Age of Joan, and Age of War God.
Three Classes: Become an Assassin, Berserker, or Mage and play your role throughout different points in history!
PvP Options: Fight in the Arena, 1v1 battles, 3v3 battles, 5v5 battles, or against World Bosses!
Couple System: Become a couple with another player and receive exclusive bonuses for it!
Brave Diggers is a free-to-play 2D mobile RPG mining adventure developed by Reality Squared Games for iOS and Android. Travel across the land and recruit a slew of entertaining characters to help you on your journey. Don’t think your quest is all hard work though! Your’e bound to have a chuckle or two when you see some of the pop-culture diggers that you might recognize. By mining, fighting, and crafting successfully you’ll be able to acquire the glory and riches you’ve always desired.
Features:
Entertaining Characters: You can compose your team of 25 diggers from over 200 entertaining characters full of pop-culture references.
Passive Progression: When you aren’t able to play Brave Diggers, your diggers will be hard at work earning you valuable resources, gold, and EXP for you to collect when you return.
Weapon Crafting: Craft weapons from the resources you collect, pushing your diggers’ power to new heights and granting them new skills to use in battle.
Dropzone – a MOBA RTS Hybrid Ideal for Time Strapped Gamers
MOBAs were born from modded RTS. And with nearly ever obvious faucet of the MOBA explored, it’s becoming harder and harder to stand out on the market from the existing juggernauts. Within the last year we’ve seen a rise of oldschool RTS fans trying to revive the old by infusing with the blood of the new, creating a MOBA RTS hybrid. Personally I’m a fan. But admittedly I’m also in a small minority, as so far no stab at the merged genre has gained any decent sized following. One would think it simple couldn’t be done. But Sparkypants Studios, packing some of the most legendary talent in the strategy and RTS world of gaming, aren’t willing to settle for this defeat. At E3 2016 Gameforge invited us to a private preview of their latest publishing project, Sparkypants’ Dropzone.
So let’s get straight to it, why can Dropzone succeed in this non-existent market? Well for starters, they’re leaning far more heavily into the realm of RTS than any of the others have tried. They have a set design goal of making Dropzone accessible for the uninitiated, with quick enough matches (15 minute time limit) that even the most time strapped gamer can hop in. Furthermore they are doing away with the most toxic element MOBAs have to offer, teammates. Now the whole team is under your command; your victory or defeat falls on no one’s shoulders but your own. With three characters at your command, and a team shared experience system, all the power is in your hands. Which means APM super maneuvers have arrived in the world of MOBAs, as a true mastermind will unleash their 3 pilots across the map to tackle multiple objectives at once!
Gameplay
Players queue up for head to head battles with their team of 3 pilots. The map currently in testing sets them down in the dropzone at the polar ends of the map – that is east and west. The focus here is not about killing the enemy. Experience is not rewarded for kill camping each other, meaning all you have to gain from downing an enemy is sending one of their units into a respawn countdown of length dependent on how one-sided the battle currently is. Instead it all comes down to objectives and scoring the most points.
Dropzone takes more of a moba jungling approach to experience gain, with very zerg-like creatures known as the Kavash existing around the map to battle. Killing these monsters can net you some initial experience, as well as the most important item in the battle, Kavash power cores. Each of your three pilots can pick up and carry one of these items, with the goal of dropping them in the central upload link to gain a point and serious experience rewards. As you’d expect though, dying drops the power core for anyone to pick up, and the upload process can be interrupted. Nay I should say it almost will be interrupted as the upload process is about as subtle as firing up a 1990s router at 1am without your parents knowing. Unless your foes are terribly out of position going after objectives on the fringes of the map, you can likely expect at least a decent team battle every time you push in for a score. Also while the Kavash might drop three power cores at a time, you can only upload a single core at a time. So getting ballsy and going for three at once is about as brazen as flashing your red cape at a bull. Just in this case, you know, it’s a mechanical bull, with lasers and stuff.
Now if you think those mechanics are way too much MOBA and not enough RTS for your taste – rest assured, RTS is alive and well here. See the power cores are not the only means for scoring points. Various randomly chosen objectives in the form of mini-quests are available in each battle to make the outer objectives and varying playstyles more viable. The fact that both players get the same quests and are forced to race each other to complete them adds a new layer of competition where the RTS fans with skills at micromanaging multiple units can utilize their APM madness to put MOBA players at a disadvantage. A few examples involve killing X Kavash, capturing and holding all four ward-like capture points at once, taking out the major Kavash boss first, mapping the full map, or other similar possibilities. It’s all still very much a work in progress so I wouldn’t be surprised if new elements, or different objectives on new maps are in testing.
The Pilots and Classes
Back on the MOBA side of the spectrum, Dropzone has an intriguing mix of RTS planning with MOBA personality. Keeping things nice and RTS rock, paper, scissors, there are only three primary classes you need to worry about. The Gunner (DPS), Tank (AoE damage and CC), and Mechanic (Healing and ally buffs). That said, two more classes are in testing which will bring the total to five coming by open beta. However choosing a class is only the beginning, as a variety of pilots offer unique skills and base stats to differentiate their corner of the holy trinity (currently 3 per class with plenty more on the way). As you play and unlock currency, you can then acquire parts to further modify your abilities, passives, and other interesting actives and stats for further diversity. As you’d expect in RTS fashion, knowledge is power. The more you recognize a pilot being capable of, the better you will be able to counterplay them. And that’s where the unique team-based experience system comes into the spotlight.
Your rigs at the start of a battle lack much of their potential. The gear you equip comes into play by letting you choose exactly when your trump card super moves come online, with the later stuff really bringing the pain. This leads to the possibility of building your full team around powering up a single unit with truly advanced gear for an end-game stomping. Or you could create a mid-game focused team that crushes your foes into submission in team fights, forging an unstoppable lead. Just beware as putting all your eggs in one basket can end badly should your enemy pack a hard counter against that unit’s style. And an RTS player will find ways to circumvent their foes by dividing and conquering the map rather than engaging in head-on conflicts. Sparkypants’ custom built Sparkle Engine makes all this possible with fast tab swapping hotkeys to let you quickly command your array of four abilities on three characters in the hectic team fights.
Personal Thoughts
Pacing of combat in Dropzone is much slower than the pace of most MOBAs on the market, feeling closer to RTS juggernaut units clashing. This gives you time to see the tells of your enemy, move units to react and counter, and take the time to line up skill shots without losing efficiency in battle. The maps are small enough that conflict is constant, ensuring that even the brief 15 minute time limit will still be action packed from beginning to end. The Kavash evolving in strength alongside the player’s means that no matter how far in the lead one player gets, they are always susceptible to a well timed counter-strike by the trailing team. Everything just feels so polished and ready to roll for such an early stage in alpha. It’s clear that the immense talent on the team combined with their daily employee versus matches with the full team observing and taking notes has produced solid results.
I’m still not sure if the MOBA RTS hybrid genre has a demand in the market, but if it does, Dropzone has all the elements needed to make it happen. Testing is expected to expand beyond the friends and family beta in a short number of weeks, so be sure to keep an eye out for continued coverage right here in the very near future.
Titanfall 2 goes above and beyond the original with a fully fleshed out single player campaign featuring the dynamic relationship between a titan and a human. However, the multiplayer hasn’t been left in the dust with the new solo addition. Look forward to new maps, new titans, pilot abilities, and enhanced customization options, available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows.
What does it mean to feel?: Escape from behind enemy lines with your veteran companion: a titan.
Multiplayer Mayhem: Run, gun, and completely demolish the opposition with the unstoppable, towering, husks of metal equipped with the utmost lethal of weaponry.
Quest to be the Best: Dominate the online opponents with superior mechanics and strategy.
Watch Dogs 2 showcases more hacker thriller action and intrigue, but taken to the extreme. Destroy an evil mega corporation in the land of the tech revolution, San Francisco, and surrounding areas like the preppy Silicon Valley or the dangerous Oakland, available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows.
1337 H4ck3r: Manipulate and take over all things connected.
Stay Frosty: Complete the mission through any means necessary, including using deadly weaponry if a stealth operation goes south.
The Good Guys: Eliminate ctOS, an operating system designed to spy on and control the masses.
Attack on Titan – The Perfect Replica of the Ultimate Anime Action Suspense Drama
Since the dawn of the weeaboo, gaming companies have long sought the answer to shill out half assed low quality games to suck the money from their wallets. And it worked, for an embarrassingly long time. But then games like Dragon Ball Xenoverse and Naruto Shippuden came along with the proverbial gauntlet, and the masses reached an enlightenment the publishers had long feared. Gamers didn’t have to choose either games that were fun or Anime licensed games that sucked. They could be fun, licensed, and still profitable? Of course this realization happened roughly a year ago, leaving us smack in the middle of the gold rush where every mainstream anime has already had its time to shine in the sun, potentially getting a sunburn in the case of Naruto having one too many jaunts in the spotlight. This is the time for a true gem to arise, one based on a slightly less mainstream title – a title that isn’t a straight up beat ’em up and requires more innovation on the side of the developers to capture the essence of the anime. Let me tell you, Attack on Titan 2016 IS the game that will chomp down on this gold rush. If you’re a fan that’s tired of being burned in the past by Anime games, put aside your butthurt pride and join me on a journey to an adrenaline junky high skill player’s wet dream.
Attack on Titan 2016 nails the following key points to build a proper package. Visually it looks like a 3D rendition of the anime. Characters, titans, animations, environment, lighting/color scheme, sound effects, and special effects all match the show in such painstaking detail that I found myself getting choked up by the emotional story all over again. In Attack on Titan you will follow the crew of survivors, and not so much survivors, as you hone your skills for real in preparation for facing the titan threat head on.
Controls are the next key element that make this game a winner. Using an omni-directional maneuver gear is a pita. It works, and once I had about an hour behind the controls I might have even seemed somewhat competent with them, but that’s entirely the point. Everyone in the show dies because the difference between a Levi and a Armin is night and day, and as I looked around the Koei Tecmo demo room, I realized the same was true with the game. Thirty minutes in and there were still others literally face planting the dirt because the multi-tasking nature of gameplay just wasn’t clicking in their brains. Strafing, lock-ons, power boosting, sword slicing, and the physics of swing timing dependent on your actual surrounding environments (not invisible New York cloud hooks like so many Spiderman games) combine to put your gamer brain through a triathlon. As such even the simple task of swinging through trees to target stationary wooden cut outs of Titans (also beautifully pulled and narrated to feel straight out of the show) was enough of a challenge to send half the gaming press present packing to pick rocks and root plants to support the King. They simply weren’t cut out for titan slaying. But I was different.
Adrenaline. Perhaps the hardest part of the controls isn’t training your brain to triathlon through the variety of options. No, its something far more primal. Something carebear gamers might like, while online PvP players know all too well. The key to success in Attack on Titan is knowing when to shut off your geometrically calculating mind to flip into a fight or flight rage mode. If you can’t deal with spinning around wooden cutouts, I can tell you the real titans in this game are fucking scary. Stick your omni-gear into their neck, and they’ll turn and stare you down with those unfeeling dead eyes, daring you to try reeling in. If you think about it too hard, you will lose your cool, hesitate, and find yourself broadsided by a backhand the size of your entire body. Face meeting pavement is not so forgiving when there is two or three titans in the alleyway who aren’t too pleased you were sent to murder them! But once your bloodlust is on point, you will fearless fly in, slice them down, and flip out to safety. This is just as hard, if not harder, for as soon as you land the killing strike, you need to immediately flip back into your physics mindset to find the safest route out. Turns out this is not so easy to do, and upon reviewing my footage I realized just how close I obliviously came to death, only skating through with beginner’s luck.
Solid narrated and animated story? Check. Hard to master but rewarding controls? Yup. Challenging and punishing gameplay? Oh yea. But all these things combined does not a great Attack on Titans experience make. At its core, Attack on Titan is about emotional heart rending choices, and the horrifying repercussions of your actions. Somehow the evil minds behind this game knew how to shoot a cannon right into my feels, perhaps even more so than the show itself when I was invested smack in the middle of the horror. Knowing the lives of my comrades was on my head.
Watching a variety of players test the game would likely provide some interesting looks into the values and decision making of each player. Let’s use the finale of the scenario offered as an example. Say you have distress calls from two corners of the city and a primary mission to stop an extraordinarily large titan from destroying the supply base in the central of Trost district. You’ve got skills. I mean you survived to this point of the demo (honestly, most people here didn’t book enough time to get gud and get this far) and you are playing as Mikasa who apparently packs higher stats in all areas than most characters, not to mention a special passive that lets her multi-berserk strike a Titan’s neck when in range. So you know you have the potential to make a serious difference. But… what is more important?
If the fat titan destroys the base, your entire squadron will die a slow death of hide and seek as supplies run out. But said titan is well defended by lesser titans, and isn’t looking like it will go down without a battle. You don’t particularly care for the assholes calling in for aid in the corners of town, but you respect their skills. Having those extra NPCs backing you up against the fat titan might make victory possible. So you shoot off towards one of the distress signals. Halfway across the district, a third distress signal from potato girl Sasha pops up, flat on the opposite side of town from you. And unlike Jean, she’s in dire straights! But you’re almost at Jean’s position. Could she hold off long enough? Should you immediately reverse course, having wasted all that time traveling? What about your gasoline supply, a real element of the game that you find yourself limited on. And all the while the fat titan is crashing the walls down on the supply depot. As you flip in circles through the air in indecision, reports of dying members of the scouts begin flooding your radar from all over the city. New titans start flooding in through the hole in the wall, adding to the chaos. What do you do? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO? As you ponder your next move, a smaller titan hidden from radar goes for a failed grab that knocks you into a nearby roof, flipping and splintering your flesh across it as half your hp bar is gone in an instant.
Do you think you have the nerves to steel yourself in that scenario? This gameplay certainly isn’t for everyone. But I know someone out there is reading this with starry eyes. You know what’s up. This is the game you’ve been waiting for. And come Fall of this year, you’ll have it on PS4 or PC (Steam) to find out just what you would do in that situation. Good luck out there.
Ready to see Attack on Titan in action? Check out our full video with commentary in the link below!
So, I’m starting a new experiment. I’m going to do what I call “Ragachak’s Adventure Log” . The name might still change, I’m not completely sold on that. But, it’s a work in progress, really. What I intend to do over the course of the week, is spend my spare time sitting down and playing a single RPG. It might go a few weeks, depending on spare time vs. need to really go into detail. My end goal is to analyze the game, good or bad, and give my thoughts, favorite moments, whatever is necessary. For my first game I’m using the PSP version of “Final Fantasy IV”, since it’s basically the best version of the game to be released. Spoilers will no doubt exist beyond this point but it IS over 20 years old by now. I don’t really think I can spoil something that old. Regardless, there IS a warning, so here we go!
Act I, Final Fantasy IV:
I separate Final Fantasy IV into acts, because it genuinely feels like a play. I first encountered the game in Nintendo Power [before I owned an SNES] and again the next year when my Uncle rented a Super Nintendo for the weekend for me. Yeah, back then we could rent consoles. This was a game I didn’t really grasp as a kid. It’s a game of emotions. We have Cecil Harvey, the main character who is a Dark Knight. A character class usually reserved for villains, criminals, or other disturbed persons. Yet, he questions his actions, his position, and is banished for it, set on a mission with parameters he didn’t understand. We meet his love interest, his best friend. We see him commit one more atrocity that he did not want to take part in.
. . . And just like that, he’s alone. Him and a little girl, whose mother he just killed, alone in the desert. He finds his love again, meets new friends, and ONCE AGAIN he feels the pang of loss, even if it is not his. Another friend leaves, and two more friends join him. His love, Rosa and a martial artist, Yang, who he saves on the mountain summit. We go to the Yang’s kingdom, and have to mount a hopeless defense. We try, and try, and another blow to the Dark Knight. Betrayal? The one person he expected to stand by him is now his bitter foe, and the puppet master is revealed: Golbez, a man cloaked in darkness and filled with power. But is he really the mastermind? Or is he too, on someone elses’ strings? And we set sail again, this time on actual water! And what happens? Cecil’s feeling hope again, after his beloved is kidnapped and he was betrayed? The boat is accosted by Leviathan, Lord of the Seas. Now, not only are Rosa and Kain gone, his friends are all dead!
Cecil is now at the front of the town he sieged and stole from at the very beginning of the game. But he’s convinced he can do so much more than this. His Dark Sword cannot save anyone, all it can do is kill. With two adorable mages at his side, he presses on to Mount Ordeals. If he is worthy, he will become a Paladin. Everything is against him. None in Mysidia trusts him, Scarmiglione, Devil of Earth lurks in the shadows, and undead and spirits haunt the impossibly large mountain. However, Tellah, the Saga waits in the wings.
Next time we’ll enter the next act of this epic game. It captured me early as a child; it is basically a fantasy book with graphics. It has potential character development, lives that you can become vested in, and in a way, I felt like it gave me hope, when I was in a situation that was essentially hopeless. If Cecil Harvey can overcome, so can I. What do you think? Any fond memories of this game? Has it spurred you to go try it out if you haven’t? Are there titles you’d like to see me sit down with, whether here or on stream? Feel free to leave a comment below!