Yearly Archives: 2017

Dead Cells Early Access Preview

by Jason Parker (Ragachak)

Dead Cells Preview 1 - Time to Die

Welcome to die.

Roguelikes are some of the most unforgiving, punishing games that exist. You know, on the level when you dare to compare something to . . . Dark Souls. Roguelites however are a little easier. You don’t lose everything every single time you die, which is good. You spend a lot of time in these style of games dying. Combine that with the exploration and item/power-up finding of a Metroidvania, and you have Dead Cells. I have to say, I love the concept of Dead Cells quite a lot. You start off dead, and a sludge-type spirit inhabits a body. So you and your new body will explore this land and die. A lot. For the most part, everything you gain will vanish when you die, like your Gold, Cells, and Equipment. You can purchase perks (using Cells) to keep Gold and sort of keep Equipment, but Cells are what you use to upgrade, and they’re always gone at death. Your goal is to explore this world, do battle with the (for now) pair of bosses, explore ~10 biomes, each with their own challenges, obstacles, and enemies to do battle with.

Dead Cells Preview 2 - Jukes I got em

Always be on your toes.

You start off just with your frail body, 100 hp, a point in three styles of damage and a rusty piece-of-junk sword. As you leave the cells you start in, you’ll see a scrap of wood, and a bow and arrow. It’s up to you to pick which you prefer, but I started with the bow. I didn’t really care for the shield myself. The stages are procedurally generated, but each biome will feel fairly similar every time you go in. This is both a pro and a con because it can be a sort of slog to do the same style of stage over and over. Once you’ve unlocked some of the permanent abilities (the ability to create a vine over those green sludge piles, teleport crypt, et cetera) the other stages begin to open up. You’ll find yourself running the same ones over and over until you get better and can go farther. That’s the point of games like this, getting better. Each enemy has its own behavior, patterns, and post-death shenanigans. They don’t all do something annoying at death, but some definitely do. There’s a creature in the Toxic Sewers for example, that explodes into eggs that explode again. So when you come across that stronger creature, that throws lightning through walls, explodes into eggs, or dashes and stuns you, you’ll figure out ways around it and to kill them more efficiently.

Dead Cells Preview 3 - Boss Time

As of this review, I still haven’t beat him, either.

There are only a few bosses in the game right now, but they are insanely, incredibly challenging. I’ve only fought one, and I’ve gotten him to half health at the absolute best. As of this writing, running into bosses is more trouble than its worth, because I’m just going to lose all the Cells I’ve accrued. There are handy items that can bring you back to life once, for when you come across those pesky elites or Bosses that are ready to slap you into your place.

So let’s talk about the exploration and items a bit. You’ll probably notice your Skills and Weapons all have a color or colors attached to them. This is tied to the Scrolls you come across in your travels. When you discover them, you’ll be given a choice, for one of these three (sometimes two) colors, each offering a particular bonus and stat boost. Brutality (Red – Increased Damage after a kill, +25% damage for Red Weapons, 7% Health), Tactics (Purple = -20% CDR for Active Skills, +25% damage for Purple Weapons, 7% health) and Survival (Green = After you parry with a shield, your weapons deal 150 dmg/s, +25% damage to Green Weapons, 20% health). All do useful things, so it becomes a delicate balancing act. The Green, for example, gives 20% HP to your overall max, and there are times I consider getting that, even if I have no Green/Half-Green weapons. Because losses are crippling and frustrating, no matter how far you get.

Dead Cells Preview 4 - Skills adn Weapons

Everything in this menu is very clear and concise.

Speaking of weapons, each weapon has stats randomly assigned to it, which might give abilities like adding poison damage or a line of fire. I found a sword that shot an arrow every time I took a swing, grenades that deal bonus damage to enemies who are poisoned, and so many other insane things. You really have to pay attention to what works well together, because in addition to your two weapons, there are also skills you can acquire, like an Ice Grenade, a Bear Trap, or (my personal favorite) an Auto-Turret that fires anytime enemies are near you, once you’ve activated it. These have a cooldown, which can be lowered, but they’re invaluable and either found in store or hidden away in passages. There are tons of secret passages, hidden items, healing consumables stashed in walls like Castlevania and more. Even if you play the same zone three or four times in a row, there’s going to be something you didn’t see, didn’t do, or did not encounter.

Dead Cells Preview 5 - Timed Doors

Run! Get that money!

The most interesting aspect of these secrets are the Timed Doors. If you don’t explore the stages and just move from left to right without looking around, you might miss these. They’re special glowing doors that have a timer on them, always off the beaten path. They have very short timers, so if you need gold/Cells, you’ll want to rush to every nook and cranny, jumping down every hole you can find. If you fail to get there in time, you can’t get in it ever. Well, until you die, or enter a new map with its own Timed Door. They always have fantastic amounts of gold, and a container with Cells in it. Stages also have convenient teleporters everywhere (sort of like the ones in Castlevania: SOTN, except you control where you go), and you can see the whole map you’ve uncovered when you do this. It will also show items you’ve left behind (because you can only have two weapons/two skills at once). I keep talking about “Cells” though. What are these Cells for, anyway?

Dead Cells Preview 6 - Elites

Oh and most Elites can teleport to you once you’ve started a fight.

You start the game with a Health Potion that can be upgraded. In fact, after you complete a map, you’ll go back to an area that has a large entity with a glass tube on his back. If you have Cells, you cannot leave his room. Use them wisely, since you can’t get them back.There are a variety of things you can upgrade here. You can make your potion have more charges, you can keep gold after death, you can use Cells to complete recipes you find in the stages. There are some incredible things here, but they cost a lot of Cells, so you’ll have to plan, invest, and sometimes just go in blind and see what happens. For example, there’s an upgrade that will make your starter bow a random Bow that you’ve unlocked, same with your shield choice. There are rare recipes to find for this creature, so every dungeon delve can unlock something wonderful, or something dangerous. From there you’ll refill the potion flask and move on to a new biome/map. These recipes are different from the Runes you find, which give permanent bonuses/effects to make your exploration just a bit faster.

Dead Cells Preview 7 - Skyline

It’s really quite striking.

Combat’s quite easy too. You have two attack buttons, a dodge, and a jump. Then you have the two buttons for your Traps/Gadgets/Whatever you want to call them, and a button for the Potion Flask. Each enemy as I said, has a pattern. They’re all very easy to learn, and there is always a way around it or a way to counter it. A fun fact you can take advantage of though, if you jump, and swing your sword or shoot your bow, you’ll stop in mid-air, fire/swing, and then resume the fall. You can use this to ping away at a creature that might be too strong, that can’t chase you, or to use it as an initiation, dropping from a platform to strike from the darkness. However, be careful; if you drop too far, you’ll be stunned (but you can stomp and avoid that plus deal damage), and some of these monsters are very, very aggressive.The potion does not prevent enemies from hitting you either, so don’t use it unless you’re safe. Opening chests/scrolls will, however, stop things from hurting you, so don’t be afraid to go for it if you see them. But you really have to judge carefully what items you take with you. Sometimes it might seem worth it to abandon a Triple Jump item for something that will resurrect you once… but is it? Is it worth losing that potential escape mechanic? The worst you can do is try it and die! There are things in the combat that really genuinely frustrate me. There are no invincibility frames at all (except in the roll I believe), so you can get pinned between an elite and its minions and have no way to dodge, jump or get free from a stun-lock. And if you’re climbing down a chain/pipe to encounter enemies, if you aren’t aware that you can stomp on the way down, you’ll probably take damage that you cannot afford to take.

 

Dead Cells 8 - You're back

Well, well, well. You’re back again, I see.

Death is Temporary; Glory is Forever:

This game is a love letter to Castlevania and Metroid from the beautiful 16-bit graphics, down to the immeasurable difficulty, but the game gets easier as you get better. The sounds, sights and secrets all make this worth a try. This is still in Early Access, so there’s still updates, content and fixes coming, as people explore and wander through each area. It will feel frustrating many times you die, if you feel like there’s nothing you could’ve done, but there was. There’s always something you can do. Maybe you had the wrong items, maybe you didn’t know what the pattern-change is, or maybe you were just like me, and constantly got bashed by a shield-wielder because you weren’t smart enough to jump over and strike their back. This game has crazy replayability though! There’s always a new thing to try, new items to pair, always something you haven’t tried quite yet. Not to mention they are working on more content for it, so the dungeons are getting deeper.

Dead Cells is a game I did not know I needed in my life until I picked it up. The controls are tight and sharp, the sounds are fitting, and the challenge is just right. If someone’s crying that it’s too hard, they just aren’t learning anything from their deaths. Metroidvanias are my favorite style of platformer, and Dead Cells has absolutely everything I was looking for. There are of course bugs, frustrating encounters, and disappointing deaths, but the vast majority of these were in my control. Dead Cells is 100% worth a play in Early Access. It’s a game of learning, and there’s a lot of items and things I have not yet covered. The fun is discovering it all.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Joins the SEGA Forever Collection

Sonic 2 - SEGA Forever News

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the best SEGA Genesis game of all time. That’s an indelible fact. 25 years ago today, it was released to Japan on the Mega Drive/Genesis. To celebrate that, SEGA is declaring November 21st “Sonic 2sday”, and releasing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for free onto the SEGA Forever collection. Sonic The Hedgehog 2  is the second main entry in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It was developed as a  combined effort by both Sonic Team and SEGA Technical Institute, with a soundtrack composed by Masato Nakamura.  As all the games on SEGA Forever, it’s free to play but you can disable the adds with a one-time 1.99 purchase. It’s available for both Android and iOS devices.

Summoners War Swag Pack Giveaway

We’ve partnered with com2us to celebrate this weekend’s Summoners War World Arena Championship with the giveaway of an epic Summoners War swag pack!

Summoners War is the flagship mobile RPG developed by Com2us. Launched globally in 2014, the game has ranked #1 grossing in RPG games in 108 countries (App Store) and in 96 countries (Google Play). Summoners War features over 1,000 unique characters and provides a premium mobile RPG experience gamers are able to enjoy anytime and anywhere.

Fans can stream the epic conclusion of the Summoners War World Arena Championship on the Com2us Twitch channel: https://go.twitch.tv/com2ususa. Free tickets are available at https://event.withhive.com/ci/smon/evt_arena_championship_final/us

Summoners War Giveaway

The pack includes an eSports jersey, two Summoners War action figures, and a collectible game scroll!

To Enter the Giveaway:

  • Visit the official entry thread. If you don’t have one, you will need to sign up for a forum account to post.
  • Post a reply to the thread telling us your favorite thing about Summoners War.
  • One lucky winner will be announced on Friday, November 24. The prize will be mailed directly from com2us!
  • Please see official rules and conditions below.

Rules and Conditions:

  • The sweepstakes will take place between Monday, November 20, 2017 and Friday, November 24, 2017.
  • No purchase necessary.
  • One (1) entry per eligible person will be accepted through a post made in the OnRPG/MMOHuts forum in the appropriate forum thread.
  • You must be over the age of 18 and live in North America to win.
  • Winners will be selected by random chance from the list of valid entrants using random.org.
  • Winner will be posted in the forum thread, as well as contacted via forum private message (PM) in order to obtain a valid mailing address. This mailing address will only be shared with com2us in order to ship the prize package, and not used for any other purpose.
  • In the case of the drawn winner being determined as ineligible, a new winner will be drawn immediately upon discovery.
  • In the case of the drawn winner not responding to messages within one week (by December 1, 2017), a new winner will be drawn and announced.
  • This contest is sponsored by com2us.

Skyrim Switch Review – Pretty and Portable

Skyrim Review Switch - 2

All that the light touches … shall be yours.

by Jason Parker (Ragachak)

Here be Dargons — Jarl of Windhelm

There are many people that feel that Skyrim is the best RPG ever made. I am not counted among those, however. Please don’t blast me for it, but I do enjoy Skyrim, but it’s not in my top five or even ten. The story did not really capture me because it felt sort of shallow. But you know what I love? The power to be and do whatever I feel like. I do have a pretty bad case of Decision Paralysis, but when that starts acting up and I clamp up, I find a quest chain to do and work on that instead. It really takes the edge off. I suppose it was only a matter of time before Skyrim hit the Switch; even before it was announced, I had a feeling it would hit the portable console. It’s a fantastic test to see just what this console can handle if it’s really a powerful machine. As it turns out, the console is just fine, and it runs Skyrim beautifully. Don’t get me wrong, though: I enjoy Skyrim quite a lot. It’s just not (in my eyes) the best game of all time. This one lies around the quality of Skyrim: Special Edition in my estimation, and visually, looks leaps and bounds better than XB360/PS3 versions of the game. But it is one of the most celebrated and acclaimed RPGs in this or any generation and for good reason.

Skyrim Review Switch - 1

I was amazed at how pretty this version can be.

The story, as I said, is very simple. At least on the outset. You’re the legendary Dovahkin, the Dragonborn. It’s your job to put right all of these asshole dragons flying around causing a ruckus. Well, there’s only one at first, but once you’ve pressed into the story just a little bit, you won’t be able to swing a dead skeever without a dragon flying down to harass you. I actually didn’t know that the first time I played this game, because once I was told, “Hey, you have to go fight this legendary, incredibly powerful dragon with a handful of troops”, I decided I didn’t really want to do that. Instead, my Dunmer (Dark Elf) wandered into the countryside, leaving those people to their fate for the time being. After all, they’ll wait. Instead, I wandered the land, becoming a deadly assassin and then a trainee at the magic college. I pummeled bandits into submission, kept their loot for myself, grew immeasurably powerful. I collected many of the “Shout” keywords, even though I couldn’t use them yet. The time would come when I could though. That’s what I do love about this game, being able to just wander the land and find an adventure. Not to mention when it’s docked, it’s 1080, and when portable, it’s still 720p.

Skyrim Review Switch - 4

Some herbs, coins and a soul gem. Thanks, Wario.

So the game’s still very pretty. I was genuinely shocked at how gorgeous it looked on my screen, both portable and otherwise. You have a few ways to play as well. You can use the controller, you can hold the screen with the joycons, or you could just use a joycon and wield power in an all-new way, using motion controls. However, I’m not wild about motion controls, never have been. It works great, but the best part is using your joycons to pick locks. I’m so bad at that, but it’s so awesome to do. It makes you feel like an actual brigand, picking locks to steal peoples’ stuff. So there are definitely options. Speaking of new stuff, one of the really cool things about this version, is that it has Amiibo support. Have any Zelda Amiibos? I don’t, sadly, but I know enough people that do! I needed an excuse to buy Zelda Amiibos anyway … You can use the “Amiibo” spell in game once a day. What the end result is a Treasure Chest falls from the sky, which has a random assortment of stuff in it, from weapons, armor, to just herbs and spices. The Zelda Amiibos have a better chance for the Hylian Shield, Master Sword and Champions Tunic, and from what I understand they can also be improved with in-game smithing/etc. You can only do it once a day though, so use it wisely.

Fus-Roh-Huh? 4/5

Skyrim Review Switch - 3

Rocks for dinner, again? Being a peasant sucks.

The only major downside is for fans of modding. I know more than one person who have Skyrim files that contain 100+GB of mods. It changes the game in unreal ways, making the bad parts of the game (spells) work gloriously, and in some cases, changes the entire landscape. You can do amazing things with some code and time, but not on this version. There are no plans to add mods at this point, according to Bethesda, but never say never. I think that it would be a strain on the hard drive of the Switch, personally, but I could see it working somehow. It does have all three DLC packs with it, but nope, no mods. This is, what I have dubbed, the purest version of Skyrim. It’s pretty to look at, the things that work still work, and the things that weren’t as fun are definitely still not as fun. If you travel a lot, and want an epic game with 100s of hours of content, or simply want to play it again (or for the first time, Hell, I’m not judging), you’ll get a lot out of this. While Skyrim’s not my favorite RPG of all time (That goes to EarthBound), I do enjoy it, and this version of it immensely. I get bogged down by all that modding stuff, to be honest. This is the version for me without a doubt.

Delta Wars

Delta Wars is a free-to-play browser-based RTS game developed by Studio Hoppe GmbH. In Delta Wars players can build up their industry and army to fight for the limited resources left on the Earth. The world isn’t in ruins yet, but harsh times are certainly coming. With resources running out everyone is scrambling to stake their claim and strengthen their armies. How will you fare once the going gets tough?

Features:

Persistent Worlds: Worlds in Delta Wars are persistent in nature, meaning if you log out then your base stays as it is and ripe for assaults by enemies. You’re going to need to prepare yourself for the events you plan to cause when you’re online, as well as for the events that might happen while you’re offline.

Alliances: There are going to be plenty of Alliances in the world when there is too much chaos for one person to handle alone. Join up with other like-minded players to take over the world’s resources together.

World Rules: There are currently three different game worlds to play the game in: DW2, DW4, and DW5. Worlds DW2 and DW4 pit players against each other in real-time to battle for remaining resources and to nurture the strongest army possible. World DW5 functions in a similar way, but has a revised ruleset for players looking for an even greater challenge with faster gameplay.

Armor Age: Tank Wars

Armor Age: Tank Wars is a free-to-play RTS game developed by HEROCRAFT for iOS set in the world of 20th-century tank battles. Take command of a platoon of different tanks and lead it through a whole row of battle operations with different objectives. With different platoon commanders emerging and fighting for their own causes you’ll need to be prepared for anything at any moment. Customize your own platoon of battle-ready tanks, complete strategic operations, and take down other players in Armor Age: Tank Wars!

Features:

Realistic Units: Your platoon can be made up of six different tanks modeled after real-world combat vehicles. This means like their real world counterparts they too have varying roles on the battlefield, whether it be laying down massive firepower from afar or leading the charge against your enemies.

Campaign Battles: Play through campaign operations to strengthen your tanks and find blueprints for new kinds of tanks to add to your platoon.

PvP Matches: Take to PvP matches with other eager platoon commanders looking to prove their worth. Your experience in carrying out operations will surely come of use here when you come face-to-face with other able commanders ready to rip your platoon to shreds.