The Kingdom of Loathing devs even mock their own creation.

With the release of the next generation of home consoles almost upon us, I thought that I would pose a question to the Lusipurrian community; can browser-based games compete with any of the major gaming platforms? Flash games have always had their place on Facebook and other sites dedicated to hosting them, but these are more often that not simple affairs lacking any real depth that have the same goal as many games in the mobile space; to extract as much cash as possible from people who would rather pay to get ahead than work to get the same benefits. There are other games though that, while being free, still have enough thought put into them to keep me coming back for more.

Let us look at one of the oldest first. Kingdom of Loathing is an adventure game that is unlikely to win any awards for its art. In fact, it is comprised entirely of stick figures. The real genius is found within the writing of the game. Monster descriptions, weapon attack text, adventuring, and a host of other areas all have clever references to gaming, books, movies, and much more. With ten years of development put into the game post launch, there is more to discover than could be encountered in one play through. The game is designed to be played over multiple times, as once the final boss has been defeated, the player can start again as a new class while having limited access to all the items they have collected from previous runs through the game.

Card Hunter characters are moved around a table-top board.

New content is continuously being added to the game, even revamping older material as the developers construct new tools to allow themselves to add more interesting content to the game. Even random server problems or bugs in the game have in-game story and event associated with them. Servers had to be rolled back because of an infinite money bug? New event with time portals popping up all over the Kingdom! The developers are not afraid to have these events run for short periods of time, making items from older content unobtainable now, but often these have alternatives or outright better items anyway. A yearly fan meetup keeps the community fairly tight-knit and gives the development team the confidence to keep working on the game.

Now on to something more recent. Card Hunter was released a month ago and already seems to be generating a lot of interest. The game is a mix of table-top, CCG, and loot collection that has been blended into something quite awesome. Each piece of equipment adds cards to a characters deck. Better gear has a better selection of cards and possibly some negatives, though individual cards cannot be removed from a deck. Each round characters draw two cards and and a movement card, then take it in turns to play cards until no more can be played, then a new round is started. A Dungeons and Dragons style campaign can be played, or players can pit their heroes against each other in PvP matches.

Still in early development, Project Atlas already shows a great deal of promise.

Each campaign victory awards Diablo style loot with randomised rarity and properties. Maps can be revisited to collect more items, or they can be bought for game currency in a shop. As characters level up, they gain more equipment slots, increasing the pool of cards that each character can draw from. The type of equipment dictates what type of cards are added to the pool. The whole campaign is themed like a D&D game right down to the dungeon master AI. There even seems to be a little bit of story revolving around the dungeon master and his bully of an older brother, though the dungeons themselves have very little to draw adventurers to them other than the promise of shiny new toys.

Finally, we have not so much a game, more of an engine in development. Artillery Games is constructing their new engine to allow people to play games that are graphically equivalent to StarCraft 2 using nothing more than HTML5 in a web browser. No plug-ins or downloads, just point a browser to the URL and it starts running. At the same time they are developing an RTS, Project Atlas, to run in this engine, and while they are still in the early stages, they have managed to secured veteran StarCraft 2 player Sean ‘Day[9]‘ Plott to help them rival the depth of Blizzard’s title. Early tech demos show surprisingly detailed 3D environments and models, as well as the workings of a strategy game. While the project only started last month, a beta could be ready by the end of the year.

Are there any web games that keep you busy between new traditional releases? Would you pay to play a web game that offered the depth of a console title? Let me know in the comments!

Disgaea D2 English Box Art

When Disgaea: Hour of Darkness made its appearance on western shores, it brought a with it a radical shake up of the tactical role-playing genre. The ultimate goal was not to complete the humorous story, this was just the icing on the cake. No, the aim of the game was to make the most ridiculously overpowered characters possible. Not only was this play style supported, it was actively encouraged due to maps that gave large amounts of experience for little investments of time. The post game required characters to be built up this way, otherwise the player had no hope of defeating them. While Disgaea spawned several sequels featuring Laharl as a playable character, Disgaea D2 is the first time the series has revisited his story.

Picking up ten years after the events of Disgaea, Laharl is back to causing mischief. Although he is the true overlord of the Netherworld, the population seem largely unaware of who he is. Setting out to spread word of his authority to the public, Laharl and his vassels encounter a group of demons loyal to the previous overlord. From there the plot moves to the appearance of Laharl’s long lost angel sister and an invasion of flowers from Celestia that threatens to destroy the demon filled netherworld. The story has its funny moments, but lacks the over the top feel of the previous game. There are a few in-jokes that players of the first game will understand (such as why Laharl hates busty women), but fortunately they are not presented in a way that will make new players feel left out.

Much like the rest of the game, Disgaea D2′s item world has been refined rather than expanded upon.

Gameplay is where the series has always shined, and Disgaea D2 is no exception. Many features added in later games have been removed in an effort to get back to basics. The features that have made it in have been refined rather than expanded upon. A great example of this would be the item world, a staple of every game in the series. Dark assembly bills no longer need to be passed during trips through an item, instead each item has a limited capacity for improvement that players can suggest from the item world menu. In some cases this removes the amount of luck that used to be required to build up an item effectively. Random events in the dungeon can still affect how an item grows, but these are out of the players control and just feel like a bonus when they are encountered.

Its the small changed that have the largest affect on the flow of the game. Units no longer need to reincarnate to take advantage of an improved version of the class and can instead be ‘promoted’. Mages choose an elemental affinity that decides which spells they have access to. More expensive items for the shop can only be opened up as the player progresses through the story. Another change is the way evilities are selected. Upon creation or reincarnation, a unit has a choice of three depending on their class that will change slightly how the class plays. This is true for monster classes as well, and some evilities can affect every unit on the map. This, along with the new mounting system that replaces magichange, can make monster allies surprisingly useful compared to older games in the series.

Bills can be passed in the dark assembly using Hell instead of mana as payment.

A new feature that needs pointing out is the cheat shop, a method of changing the game balance to suit the player. Mechanics like experience gained and money received from combat can be adjusted to achieve the players goals. Need more XP? Lower the amount of mana acquired from killing an by removing percentage points in the cheat shop, and instead add them to the percent of experience gained from killing an enemy. Like other features in the game, more options open as the player progresses through the chapters of the story, including maximum amount of points that can be put into any one category.

Disgaea 4 was the first game in the series to make use of full HD sprites, but was let down by the environments and effects somewhat. Disgaea D2 has gone some ways to address this, but some effect animations still zoom in on sprites enough to make them look pixelated against the otherwise clean animations. The sounds and effects contain a lot of reused material from older games, but still can be quite catchy at times. Not all the actors used to voice the original could be brought back this time around, and much like the PSP version of the game, new voice actors were sourced that sounded as much like the originals as possible.

Fans of the series will find that Disgaea D2 has tried to encourage players to play through the story at least once before making all-powerful by slowing down the rate at which power can be gained early on in the game. Methods for character progression are more similar to the original than the more recent offerings in the series. Newcomers to the series may feel some of the story and jokes fly over their heads without knowledge of the first game, but anyone who played the original will enjoy this outing.

Mobile has overtaken PC as the platform of choice in China.

For the last thirteen years, China has had a ban in place preventing foreign-funded companies to sell game systems within the country. The ban on video game consoles went into effect in 2000 as a government response to public outcry from parents, who claimed that such forms of entertainment would rot their kids’ brains. Spectacularly failing to work the way it was intended, the move simply redirected the intense interest in gaming among Chinese consumers to the realms of PC and mobile, as well as to the so-called ‘grey market’, where import hardware and software continued to be available. This is perhaps due in no small part to the fact that consoles created by the big three are all manufactured on the Chinese mainland.

The ban has also lead to the rise of casual gaming in China. Many mobile users own more than one phone, and dedicate one to gaming. Last year video game revenue rose by a whopping 35.1% to an estimated $9.24billion. In the US the market was worth $14.8billion with the influence of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Considering that the population of China is roughly four times that of the US, a huge amount of untapped potential is waiting for whoever can dominate the market first. Such a large consumer base could also significantly alter the types of games that we see coming to market. Many are already influenced by Japanese culture, but soon games will be written for the billion-plus Chinese market that may eventually see a Western release.

Video game consoles are perhaps the biggest victim of shameless yet hilarious clones in China, next to RayBan sunglasses and watches. Without the ability to legitimately purchase a console from one of the known companies, many have been turning to the booming fakes market to provide them with something suitably entertaining. Who could forget the PolyStation, the PopStation Portable, or the Chintendo Vii? There is even a knock-off of the PSVita called the iReadyGo Much 3G, an android-based device that could actually be more successful that the the original due to the amount of games available for it.

Fakery is rampant in China, and this Chintendo Vii is no exception.

The reason foreign consoles will soon be allowed into China is due to the creation of a new free trade zone in Shanghai. Under the rules, foreign companies in the trade zone can sell game consoles domestically upon receiving approval from China’s Ministry of Culture. Microsoft may already be preparing to sell its Xbox system to Chinese gamers as earlier this week, the company said it had formed a joint venture with a local Internet TV company in the Shanghai free trade zone. A Shanghai stock exchange filing said the joint venture would focus on developing game-related hardware and software.

It is not currently known if any consoles released in China will be subject to the monitoring system employed to restrict the amount of time that teenagers can spend playing MMOGs. Under current rules, Chinese internet gaming companies must install a program that requires users to enter their ID card numbers. After three hours, players under 18 are prompted to stop and ‘do suitable physical exercise’. If they continue, the software slashes by half any experience points earned in the game and continues to deal out increasingly harsher punishments until players log out. While there are not many MMOs available on the current generation of hardware, there would be nothing stopping the Chinese government from requiring an ID card to be attached to any Chinese accounts. In a worst case scenario, the rules could be expanded to include any game with an online component.

To sum everything up, this new market could potentially be a lucrative source of income for any console manufacturer that can crack through the wall of fake goods that flood the streets, but could require a great deal of investment to change up the way their online services work should the Chinese government decide that teenagers need to play less console games as well. If the big three should succeed, we may soon see odd titles out of China getting a release the way we do from Japan today.

Are you excited to see a new market for video games? Which company would you like to see be successful? Should the government impose restrictions on the consoles (who would be left to play Call of Duty and its ilk)? Let me know in the comments!

The map can be completely changed to suit the player.

Ten months ago, 22Cans launched a kickstarter for their next game entitled ‘Project GODUS’. As the brainchild of Peter Molyneux, there was an expectation that he would make many promises on what fans could expect on the upcoming game, though for the most part he attempted to restrain himself this time. That came to a stop with the end of 22Cans first game, Curiosity, where Peter revealed the prize that the winner had obtained and how it was relevant to Godus.

Godus got a Steam early access release on September 13th. The game is advertised as currently being 40% complete, and it looks like it is mostly finished mechanically and only needs additional content. What there is to try right now seems to live up to the prototype video that was used in the kickstarter, though the game is single-player unless a player chooses to engage an opponent in a multiplayer battle.

The game begins on an island with two followers who begin building a hut. The player cannot control any of the population in the game, merely the terrain around them. There is no tutorial in Godus, though it quickly becomes obvious how the game works. A flag rises from the solitary hut signalling that a new follower has been born there and is ready to serve the player. A click on the hut will thrust him into the world where he will attempt to build another dwelling an increase the population further. A few more houses later, and the available land is consumed. This is where terrain manipulation come into play.

The scrapbook is where all collected cards are stored.

There is a sand bar under the sea that like the starting island to another. By clicking and dragging the edge of the island, a path can be formed that links the two islands together, increasing the space for new development. This is what a player will spend the majority of the time doing. New land must be raised up out of the sea, hills must be flattened, and the ground must be made level so that the ever increasing population can expand to new housing. A players ability to manipulate the world is limited by the amount of faith they have. This resource is generated by their population in the form of purple spheres above houses. Early houses generate faith little and often, but larger dwellings generate it slower and in greater quantities.

Eventually, the player will encounter an area of land that is beyond their ability to control. The land inside a players sphere of influence is brightly coloured, but outside it is dull and white. Followers need to find and convert shrines to increase the amount of land that a player has to work in. When converted, these shrines will award players a land card and open up a new area to work in. Cards are the primary way through which a player earns anything in the game. Achieving a population goal will often give the player a new society or science card. By themselves, these cards do little, but scattered throughout the world are chests that contain resources cards necessary to activate the growth cards. When enough growth cards are activated, the civilisation is advanced into a new age.

Godus has come a long way in ten months.

Early on, there is a giant shrine to be found. This event shrine opens some quirky AI characters to battle against and show how multiplayer games work. Another of the giant shrines need to be found to play against other human opponents. Battles send the player to a new map with a clear goal. This could be mining the most resources, building the largest population, or just decimating the opponent in a limited amount of time. Winning these awards the player more cards, including resources, and helps advance the game.

The world is quite large, though like Populous, only a small section can be viewed at a given time. Zooming out is an option, though it does not increase the amount of viewable space. The graphics are unlikely to tax older computers. As a civilisation advances, the appearance of new houses changes to match the society. There are some graphical issues with panning the camera too close to the edge of the map.

So far it is not obvious how the God of Godus will interact with other players in the game, or how his decisions will shape it. There are many other issues for the team to work on yet before the game is complete, first of which should be the faith system. Tying a players ability to shape the world to the amount of followers they have is all well and good, but having to stop work on a major project every few minutes to gather more faith is frustrating. Anyone thinking of purchasing this game should be aware that it is possible that progress could be lost while the beta is ongoing.

The Vale has been corrupted by the actions of Garrosh Hellscream.

Yes, it is that time again. World of Warcraft has received its final content patch of the current expansion, and it is chock-full of goodies for raiders and casuals alike. Blizzard have added a fair amount of content with each patch in the Mists of Pandaria expansion, yet they still managed to squeeze out even more for this one. This is great, as we now face a long wait for the next expansion and need as much as possible to keep us busy. Let me break down and look at all the new content.

Changes to the World

Last patch we saw the forces of Vol’jin’s Darkspear Rebellion working with adventurers to disrupt Garrosh Hellscream’s supply chain in the Barrens. Well, now that the Rebels and the Alliance have begun the siege of Orgrimmar, all the Rebel forces in the zone have been removed. Even the quartermaster is gone, yet the pet he sold is still obtainable by killing enemies in one of the four Kor’kron camps that are in the zone. The titles and achievement that came with participating in the events of patch 5.3 are no longer obtainable either.

As anyone who watched the trailer for patch 5.4 would know, the Warchief has corrupted the Vale of Eternal Blossoms and his excavations there have unleashed a new Sha upon Pandaria. This excavation serves as the entrance to the new raid, and is conveniently sat between the shrines the serve as the bases of the horde and Alliance in Pandaria. The corruption have taken its toll on the grand pagoda where the Golden Lotus once set heroes to task. A few daily quests can still be found elsewhere in the zone, but the story and the achievement for completing it are no longer available.

The Timeless Isle contain the bulk of the new content for the patch.

New Zone: Timeless Isle

Like the Isle of Thunder in patch 5.2, this is where players will find the majority of the non-raid content. Pieces of item level 496 gear can be created from drops that are easily obtainable from quests, chests, and monsters all over the isle. More importantly, these items are are account bound meaning it has never been easier to gear alts. With the exception of trinkets, all the new ‘timeless’ gear can be upgraded to item level 535 with another rare item, the Burden of Eternity, also found on the isle. There is no vendor to purchase gear for Valor this tier, but the Voidbinder Ethereal is still around to upgrade all the new gear that players will obtain the patch.

The Isle is home to final part of the legendary quest chain. For players that are up to date with their quest, there is no need to spend weeks collecting drops from the new raid. Wrathion simply wants a small amount of Timeless Coins (a new currency used on the isle) and for players to have defeated each of the four celestials (the new bosses that drop tier loot) to be reward them with a legendary cloak. Having this cloak allow a player to fight the fifth world boss in the area, Ordos, who drops the best gear in the game outside of Heroic raids. Finishing off the island is the celestial tournament, a new scenario that allows players to fight some of the toughest pet battles yet. The rewards? More pets! These cannot be bought from other players either. With four pets on offer, players will need to spend ten weeks to collect them all.

The story of Garrosh Hellscream has seen him rise from nobody to become Warchief of the horde.

New Raid: The Siege of Orgrimmar

The final raid of the Mists completes the story that has been building up over the expansion. It even finishes the story of Garrosh that was begun in Burning Crusade so long ago. This patch introduces Flexible raiding, a new tier of raiding between Raid Finder and Normal. Groups of anywhere from ten to twenty-five can queue up in the same way Raid Finder works now, only the bosses health and damage will scale to match the group size. The first quarter opened on day one and a further quarter each week, whereas Raid Finder starts a week later. A new type of coin can be bought for extra loot rolls each week, and any legendary drops that players need can be found off bosses in the raid.

Having entered this raid with a few pieces of heroic gear each, my raid group managed to tear through seven of the fourteen bosses in two nights. Only a couple of us had studied tactics, though we managed to boil each fight down to a couple of important mechanics. The uses of instant death mechanics are fewer than the previous raid, the Throne of Thunder, and for that the fights seems a lot easier. It is strange fighting though Orgrimmar. The second quarter of the raid is fought inside the city itself, using the huge space available to fill the room with all sorts of effects. The eighth boss is the first to give us any sort of trouble, though I am looking forward to progressing further next week.

Do you play World of Warcraft? Does a new raid interest you? Would you be interested in hearing more tales of raiding? Let me know in the comments!

Skullgirls was made available on Steam in August.

Skullgirls is a 2-D fighting game developed by Reverge Labs that saw its release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in April of last year. Legal issues that their publisher had with an unrelated game prevented the studio from working on the game further, and ultimately saw the development team laid-off. Fortunately, the team formed their own studio, Lab Zero Games, and received the publishers blessing to continue work on the game. While a PC version was in the works, a highly successful Indiegogo project saw the team collect enough money (despite a setback caused by PayPal) to fund four additional characters as DLC. The completion of the first timed nicely with release of the game on Steam, and is the version of the game that will be reviewed here.

As with most fighting games, there is just enough story on offer to explain why each combatant is fighting through a series of battles. Ultimately, each character is trying to obtain the Skull Heart, an artifact that will grant a single wish to any woman who obtains it. The only drawback is that if the woman is not pure of heart, her wish will be corrupted and she will be turned into the Skullgirl. Each character has their own motivation as to why the want to reach the Skull Heart, which is revealed by playing through the story mode.

Story mode consists of six one-round fights culminating in a boss fight. While each fight is relatively easy, even on normal and using a keyboard, the boss can be quite tough due to the fact it cannot be staggered by the players attacks. This means that, even while the boss is taking blows from the player, she can still perform moves herself. This often leaves the player finding one or two moves that can be spammed to hit the boss while avoiding her attacks, resulting in a rather boring and repetitive fight. Thankfully, the short story that is presented to the player is well crafted and makes full use of the hand-drawn art.

The Skullgirls have all been drawn by hand using 1300 frames of animation each.

Yes, all the art in Skullgirls is drawn by hand on paper, then scanned, cleaned up, colored and shaded. Each character has at least 1300 frames of animation and the results are gorgeous. These people really worked their fingers to the bone and it shows by how fluid the movements are. It also explain why each new character added to the game costs a quarter of a million dollars. It has created a diverse range of characters that each have their own unique designs and fighting style. For example, look at Valentine, a ninja nurse who can apply three different kinds of poison to her opponent. There is also Ms. Fortune, a cat girl who can detach her head and use it as a weapon. Though the roster is small, each character plays so differently that this is never a problem. The crowd funding also means that each new character is free to download for a limited time.

Skullgirls features a tutorial that will soon have novices picking up the basics of the genre. It also has enough depth to teach veterans how to play the game effectively. The tutorial goes as far as to show the player how each character functions, though outside of this there is no moves list for the player to consult. A dedicated website would need to be visited properly learn each move. Nor is there any way to set the condition of the dummy, as it can never block or jump, limiting the ability of an advanced player to test new combos. Online games can be ranked or unranked, and take advantage of a match-making system to find players of equal skill. This can take a few fights to find the right level of play, but will result in some good fights.

More beautiful art during combat.

Outside of the story mode, the player can choose up to three fighters to use in combat. Choosing fewer combatants results in the each member have more health and dealing a greater amount of damage, though a solo fighter is unable to call upon the assistance of other team mates during a fight. The game plays much like Marvel vs Capcom, though is slightly less hectic. There is the potential to make an infinite combo by stringing the right moves together over and over again, but the game has a way of breaking out of these. When the game detects the same move used multiple times in a combo, the recipient simply needs to press a single button to break out of it. This not only prevents infinite combos from being used, it also encourages players to use a greater variety of moves in their combos.

The music of Skullgirls is quite jazzy and fits in well with the art style. For all the suffering that fighting the boss causes a player, it all seems worthwhile when the music rolls with the credits. Notably, the soundtrack was worked on by Michiru Yamane, known for her work on the more recent Castlevania games and marks the first time a Japanese composer has scored a Western-developed game.

Fighting game fans are encouraged to give this game a go, especially those who enjoy the tagging aspects of the genre. Purchasing soon will also allow players to pick up the first and all future DLC characters for free. It is recommended that people play this game with a controller, but it can equally be enjoyed without one.

Inafune was working on a couple of Mega Man 3 projects when he departed Capcom to found his own independent games studio, Comcept.

This week Keiji Inafune announced a Kickstarter for his new project. For those that do not know who Inafune is, he joined Capcom in 1987 as a graphic designer on Street Fighter. He was then given a new project to work on, Mega Man. Inafune developed all the art and design for the characters. Due to the small task force, he also constructed the characters into pixel form, as well as the games logo, package design, and instruction booklet. This is why that, although he did not create the Mega Man character, he is known as the father of Mega Man.

His time at Capcom saw Inafune work on many other titles including the Resident Evil, Onimusha, and Dead Rising series. His departure from Capcom sparked the cancellation of a number of future titles as well. Despite leaving to found his own independent company, Inafune offered to make a contract so that he could finish work on the projects he started with Capcom, including Mega Man Legends 3. Sadly, his offer was turned down and Inafune went quiet while his new company, Comcept, worked on their first project.

Concept Art shows how Beck can reconfigure his body to overcome challenges.

So, what is this new IP that Comcept plans on bringing us? Mighty No. 9 is the title of the game, staring Beck. Beck is the ninth in a line of powerful robots, as suggested by the games title, and is the only one who has not succumbed to a mysterious computer virus. The other eight robots will show up as bosses whose abilities can be used by Beck when they have been defeated. Beck is able to reconfigure his body to use the powers he acquires, potentially allowing him to turn his limbs into magnets so he can walk up walls. Maybe he can have spring loaded hands that can be used as a grappling hook. Ideas are still being bandied about while the game is still in its design phase.

Yes, Inafune has taken basics of Mega Man and built his own vision around it. The internet had a minor meltdown when people realised just how similar his project is to those that he is famous for. It was pointed out to him that there have been occasions in the past where similar products from ex-staff of major companies have been challenged, yet Inafune has made it clear during an interview with USGamer that he will not let that stop him from making his own game:

Concerns have been raised over similarities with the Mega Man franchise.

Mega Man is Mega Man because it’s my style. It’s my artistic style that created that character. Beck, in Mighty No. 9, is also a character that I’ve created. If the idea is that I should try to stop creating characters via my style and try to create a different style that totally doesn’t fit with me, that doesn’t seem to make a lot of logical sense. Certainly I’m not going to do that just to make Capcom happy. I am who I am. My artistic style is what it is. We’re all going to naturally gravitate toward what fits us naturally as an artist or a creator or a designer or whatever. That’s all I’m doing in this case as well.

Inafune has admitted he did not spend much time thinking about the legal side so that he can focus on making a game that the fans will want. This is reflected in the kickstarter, as higher tiers of funding allow backers to put their own creativity into the project in the form of achievements and designing enemy characters. There will not be a monetary hurdle to provide though, as the team plans on talking to the community through dedicated forums as well. Inafune hopes that polling the community in this way will help fans engage with new characters, such as by helping to chose the design of Beck’s partner, Call (yes, Beck & Call).

On Monday the Kickstarter achieved its goal of $900,000 after being active for just three days. Today (Tuesday) the first stretch goal of $1.2million was attained, promising fans that all eight haywire Mighty Numbers will receive their own unique levels, rather than the six that were initially planned. If the project can reach the lofty final goal of $2.5million, then the title will see release on all the seventh generation consoles. A pledge of $20 or more pays for the game, but it is not expected until April 2015.

Would you buy Mighty No. 9 when it is released? Do you plan on supporting the Kickstarter? What are you thoughts on companies turning to Kickstarter for for multi-million dollar projects? Let me know in the comments!

Malthael can steal the souls of those around him.

This past week at Gamescom Blizzard announced an upcoming expansion for Diablo 3 titled Reaper of Souls. This long awaited expansion adds additional story and a host of new features to keep players entertained for many more hours. Here is what fans can expect from Blizzard:

Story
Diablo 3 had a couple of plot points left unresolved at the conclusion of the game. This expansion focuses on what happened to the black soul stone that still contained the essence of Diablo, and the reappearance of the angle Malthael. Malthael was formerly the Aspect of Wisdom (a position now held by Tyrael), but disappeared with the destruction of the worldstone in the Lord of Destruction expansion for Diablo 2. While attempting to hide the black soul stone from human and angel alike, Tyrael is found by Malthael (now the Aspect of Death), who then proceeds to steal the stone despite the best efforts of Tyrael. It is once again up to the player to set things right, forming the basis for the fifth act of the game.

New class and level cap
Reaper of Souls introduces one new class to the game, the Crusader. This is a reworking of the Paladin from Diablo 2, and shares some feature with class, such as passive abilities that affect the party. While Blizzard have not yet announced how the class is built, it is likely to be a strength user who focuses on melee attacks. A new level cap of 70 will prevent players who have already attained max level from blasting through the new content. These extra ten levels will be filled with extra goodies, as Blizzard have promised new skills, runes, and passive abilities for each class.

Increasing the level cap made some question what would happen to paragon levels that had already been earned. Blizzard was quick to address this by showing off their new paragon system. For each paragon level achieved, a point is awarded to the player which can be spent improving abilities. These are either core stats (such as intelligence), offensive, defensive or utility. What exactly can be improved in the latter three categories is unknown at this point, but as the core abilities can only be improved so far, players will need to put points somewhere else eventually. Blizzard have also removed the ceiling from the paragon levels, so as long as players continue to play, they will never stop improving their characters. The final improvement to the paragon system is that the feature is now account wide. As long as a player has one character at max level, all their characters will benefit from the bonuses.

A preview of the new paragon system was shown during the Blizzard panel at Gamescom.

Loot 2.0
Blizzard have tweaked the loot system to give better drops to the player. While less items overall will be found, the likelihood of a legendary dropping has increased. Rare items and better now have smart drops. This gives a chance that the item will have stats that suit the character it dropped for. Legendary items will change the way a player builds their character,an example of this would be a Wizard’s wand that could allow the player to summon extra hydras. Transmogrification, a successful feature from World of Warcraft, has been brought over to Diablo 3 as well. This allows the player change the appearance of their gear, without sacrificing its stats. This task is performed by an new artisan – the Mystic – who also also has the enchanting skill, allowing players to change an affix on a piece of gear.

Loot runs are being introduced that will give the player short dungeons that last fifteen to twenty minutes. These multi-tiered dungeons can be set in almost any of the environments in the game, and make full use the random room generation. The enemies will also be randomly chosen, as will a boss at the end of the dungeon that the player will need to defeat should they want to escape with all their new loot.

Conclusion
Not only have blizzard given players more content to experience, they have gone some ways to addressing the problems that come with the addition of the auction house. Smart drops will not stop players from posting gear, but hopefully most will choose to wear it especially if they get good rolls from the Mystic. Transmogrification has proved to be a successful feature in World of Warcraft and should continue to be so here. My favourite feature is that the paragon system is now account wide, so when I start a new crusader it will be easier to play though the game with him. We do not yet know when the expansion will launch, but hopefully we will know more at Blizzcon. Who knows, maybe they will even offer it for free to Warcraft subscribers like they did with Diablo 3 two years ago?

Do you own Diablo 3? Would the expansion make you buy the game? What is you favourite feature? Let me know in the comments!

The decision to take Diablo 3 online meant that hardcore characters could no longer be backed up to escape permanent death.

The internet has been in an uproar during the last few weeks over the announcement that Breath of Fire 6 will be an online-only game for PC, tablets, and smartphones. I was not shocked to hear that this iteration of the franchise will be a mobile game as Capcom have produced other Breath of Fire spin-off titles for the mobile phone market in the last ten years, though none of them have reached Western shores. No, my amazement comes from the fact that this will only be playable online and seems to be part of a shift that the industry is taking towards requiring permanent connections to play games.

Games produced in this way for the mobile market are often stripped down to the bare basics. Look at Book of Heroes, a fine game for iOS and Android that takes the addictive nature of gearing up from World of Warcraft and removes everything that does not support the player in earning currency to purchase, enhance, or upgrade their gear. Not being tied to any other IP, players picking up Book of Heroes for the first time will have no expectations other than what others have told them about the game, even then, players will enter into it knowing it for what it is. This is not the case for Breath of Fire 6, as players have certain expectations from a mainline entry of the twenty year old franchise.

Other developers have tried to take their game franchises online with varying degrees of success. Blizzard have been taking their franchises online with each new release. Fans cried out when Diablo 3 was announced to be online-only due to the real money auction house. The former lead designer later admitted that the auction house hurt the game as players that wanted to be equipped to deal with monsters on higher difficulties and spent more time farming currency to buy their ideal weapon rather than waiting for one to drop. Later patches to the game made the blacksmith easier to use, and while it still is not as effective as buying a gear from the auction house, it certainly is a lot cheaper and makes the game considerably more fun.

I cannot even imagine how long it takes to get to this stage in Anno Online.

Square Enix took their franchise down a completely different path when they chose to make Final Fantasy XI an MMO. Although it was awkward to setup and required a fair amount of grinding, the game was praised for its large amount of content. Releasing the game on consoles gave gamers without a computer a way to play an MMO and quickly became one of the most played games on Xbox Live. Releasing a second Final Fantasy MMO, Square Enix should not have had much trouble giving their fans more of the same, but the release of Final Fantasy XIV was anything but smooth. The company had to issue two formal apologies to customers, recognising the poor quality of the game. The game was even free-to-play for over a year while in order to allow players to experience a reshuffled development teams updates before committing to the game.

There are many other franchises heading into the online space, though none are huge names or well advertised. The Settlers, Stronghold, Age of Empires, and Anno have all had an online make-over. These game are all free to play and supported by micro transactions. Having played Anno 2070 recently, I decided to give Anno Online a go to see how it compares. The Anno series have never been a fast-paced games, but this browser offering takes the snails pace to a new extreme. Resources come in very slowly, and as the settlement grows, extra infrastructure must be placed to keep up with the demands of the citizens. The fun part of Anno was managing the interactions between islands to secure materials to grow further, but after two days this is still nowhere in sight. In fact, I still cannot use the entirety of my starting island!

So, as long as developers see larger profits from online games, we will continue to see other franchises go free-to-play with micro transactions to keep the money rolling in for years. The only way we can combat this is by not touching these games. If we chose to play Breath of Fire 6 should it get released in the West, then who knows what will come next? What about a Mega Man game where one could challenge Dr. Wily at any time, but the robot master levels must be bought? No thanks!

Would you consider playing Breath of Fire 6? Would you play an MMO on a console if it was free-to-play? Let me know in the comments!

Namco Bandai felt their fans should know just how large the breasts of each character in Soul Calibur are.

Since the dawn of the video games industry, the majority of players have been male. So great was the male demographic that many developers would not even consider women while making their games. Perhaps this is how today we still see games that try to appeal to base male instincts to sell games.

My first encounter with overt sexuality in a game was Dead or Alive on the PlayStation in 1998. I was 16 and although it was not the first time I had seen women in skimpy outfits jumping around the screen, this particular game tried to (poorly) simulate the momentum of the female characters breasts as they moved. This lead to an amusing afternoon where I would practice moves only to see each breast bounce off in a different direction. Little did I know that this would become a selling point of the series in later iterations as for the second game Tecmo went so far as to create a physics engine dedicated entirely to the animation of the female characters breasts.

Ivy could hurt an opponent by turning around rather quickly.

A later spin-off title would take this one step further. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball caused a certain amount of controversy following the announcement and subsequent release of the game. It was criticized for laying a thin veneer of respectability and legitimate gameplay over simply watching lusty, scantily-clad women with large, bouncing breasts jog, roll around in the sand, scoot across tree trunks, and other suggestive activities, pandering to the lowest common denominator. Reviewers were split because the volleyball section was actually half decent. A later sequel dropped the volleyball from the title, suggesting the focus was aimed more at the ladies than the games that accompanied them.

Dead or Alive is not the only series guilty of exploiting its female cast in this way. The women of Soul Calibur also have breasts that defy the laws of physics, most notably the character Taki, whose body seems to have borrowed its motions from the original DoA. Then there is Ivy who, despite being an adult, seems to have grown in cup size in each iteration of the game. This also happened to Lara Croft before a Tomb Raider reboot bought her down to a more ‘manageable’ size.

Jessica Nigri routinely cosplays in revealing outfits.

Today there are even more games that try to sell sex to men, but these character designs are not all bad news though. For each revealing outfit, there is a woman who will tailor a toned-down version of the outfit for themselves to cosplay as their favourite characters. Compared to films and books, games have only recently been able to show characters in enough detail for people to make accurate costumes (excluding concept art), and while there have been female leads in the past, they have been few and far between. I am no expert on feminism, but I have to admire the number of women who attempt to pull off the more outrageous outfits, even if they do not have the body type to suit them. As the industry has grown and found more female gamers, so too has the number of strong female leads increased also. This is likely because there are more women involved in development now than ever before.

There are still far too many male gamers who are obsessed with knowing the intimate details of the anatomy of female characters they play. Perhaps this is why industry journalist Jenn Frank decided to create an event called ‘Boob Jam’, the purpose of which is to have videogame creators make a game that deals with an aspect of female breasts other than the fact that they are sexy and fun to look at. While I hope this will find its way into the mainstream and catch the attention of women who do not currently play games, I am quite doubtful that there will be anything particularly good to play at the event. I believe that either too much attention will be paid to visuals, or that the games will not live up to the task and just provide teenagers with something to stare at. Maybe it is not just the men who enjoy breasts.

How do you feel about the portrayal of women in games? Do you think that we need special physics engines to make sure boobs bounce correctly? Let me know in the comments!

The alternative religions in 2011. Jediism is the seventh largest religion in the UK.

Let me start by saying that I am not a religions man myself, but it seems to me that there are many games today that use themes of religion to tell a story to the player. This will either take the form of a real religion like Christianity in Dante’s Inferno or something based on the lore of the world in which the game is set, such as the Church of the Children of Atom in Fallout 3. While conversing with Confessor Crowley in this game, he is more than happy to share details of his faith with a player. When a game creates a new religion in this way, it is entirely possible for it to move someone enough to adopt it in the real world.

There is precedent for this happening in cinema before. A census is taken every ten years in the United Kingdom. There is a fine for putting false information in this document, except in the section about religion as many people do not feel comfortable revealing their faith. This section was added in for the 2001 census, and because many did not feel it belonged in a government document a grassroots movement began to get people to mark ‘Jedi’ as their religion. In this census 0.8% of England and Wales claimed to be of the Jedi religion. In the next census in 2011 no actions were taken to convince people to place a ‘joke’ religion, and while the number of Jedi fell by half, they still outnumbered the Atheists six to one.

So it is entirely possible for a religion to make the move from a game to the real world, but there are few that could do so. People are unlikely to worship an atomic bomb and would equally avoid many of the devil-worshiping cults that appear in many horror games. While it would be interesting to find oneself raised into godhood such as in Black & White, it would be quite difficult to try and convince anyone to worship a deity that could command them to have sex for a living. If a religion cannot be transposed into the real world, then maybe a new religion could be formed around a personality already in our industry?

People flock to Gabe each summer as he turns money that could buy one game into enough to buy many.

Gabe Newell is already practically worshiped by some people. Many a silent prayer has been said in the hopes that a certain game will appear on a Steam daily deal. If each Steam account represented a follower of Gabe, he would have a flock of 50million worldwide. This would place his worshipers as the seventh or eighth largest religion in the world. For a very recent group, Newellism has already had its second coming and people eagerly await a much talked about third coming. Some have such devotion that they will spend hours trying to prove that such a thing exists. The best religions have conspiracy theorists and this one would not disappoint.

To carry on the analogy into the realm of console manufacturers, there are already a number of people whose devotion to a system defies all logic. Despite the failings of the Xbox One, people were ready to pre-order it as soon as it was announced despite it being inferior to what the PlayStation 4 offered. These people may have been indoctrinated at early age after being told that the 360 was the best for first-person shooters. Years later they convince themselves that this is still the way to go as Sony had not shown them the games they are passionate about.

If people did go about worshiping manufacturers, would games shops become the equivalent of a church? A holy ground where one would say a prayer before sitting down in front of a screen to watch game trailers? Maybe they would hand out demos or some free DLC as everyone leaves. Of course, this would mean that there would have to be shops dedicated to only one system lest a fight break out over which system is superior. If this was the case, Sony and Microsoft would have the seventh and eighth largest religions, with Steam as ninth. The Ouya would still be outnumbered by Jediism.

If you could bring a religion from a game to the real world, which would it be? Do you believe people can be as passionate about games as others are of religion? Let me know in the comments!

A printed circuit board within an N64 Cartridge.

Each generation of console hardware has come with either a proprietary storage media with a larger capacity than the previous generation, or an established industry format that has not been used in a console before. As we head into the eighth generation of hardware it would seem that Blu-ray discs will continue to be the standard media of the generation despite both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One supporting 4K resolution output for video. The size of a 4K movie could be upwards of 100GB, yet even a dual layer Blu-ray disc can only hold 50GB. An announcement has been made of a possible future storage media, but before we look into it, lets see how far we have come.

Early Home Computers

For some early home computers like the Sinclair ZX81 (released in 1981) and the ZX Spectrum (released in 1982), programs were stored on audio cassette tapes and loaded into the computers memory via an ordinary cassette recorder. The advantage of using audio tapes to distribute game software was chiefly related to cost and availability. Floppy discs were more reliable, but also more expensive. Eventually the floppy disc became the preferred method of distributing games for home computers once the three and a half inch variety most of us remember became the industry standard. The format would continue into the mid 90s until the falling price of optical media and its increased storage capacity became the medium of choice.

The Cartridge

The first generation of games consoles had little use for cartridges. The Magnavox Odyssey could play different games by flipping switches within the machine as it had no CPU. The cartridges for this machine served only to flip the correct switches for the desired game to be played. The Fairchild Video Entertainment System (VES) was the first console to employ cartridges as we know them today, as a printed circuit board mounted within plastic case. As compact disc technology came to be used widely for data storage, most hardware companies moved from cartridges to CD-based game systems. Nintendo remained the lone hold-out, using cartridges for their Nintendo 64 system; the company did not transition to optical media until the production of the GameCube.

ROM cartridges could not only carry software, but additional hardware expansion as well. An example would be the Super FX coprocessor chip in some Super Nintendo games. Micro Machines 2 on the Sega Megadrive used a custom ‘J-Cart’ design by Codemasters which incorporated two additional gamepad ports. This allowed players to have up to four gamepads connected to the console without the need for an additional third-party adaptor. The ROM cartridge slot principle continues to this day in the portable Nintendo systems.

Every time I buy a whole new set of discs on a new media type, I want to smash my old collection.

Optical Media

Because proprietary cartridge designs were expensive to produce, the industry adopted an established form of media in the CD-ROM. The fifth generation marked a turning point for optical-based storage media. As games grew more complex in content, sound, and graphics, the CD proved more than capable of providing enough space for the extra data. The cartridge format, however, was pushed beyond the limits of its storage capacity. Consequently, many game developers shifted their support away from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation. Sony and Microsoft stuck with standard formats in the sixth generation, opting to use DVDs. Sega and Nintendo used their own storage media and suffered for being unable to play DVD movies.

Entering the seventh generation, Nintendo opted to continue using their proprietary optical media, though now it could at least hold as much information as a DVD. Sony and Microsoft however, decided to support two different high-definition formats. The decision by Sony to include a Blu-ray player in the PlayStation 3 was a major factor is securing the format as the media that would succeed DVDs. The PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One are both set to use Blu-ray as their storage media.

The Future

The next generation of home consoles will not have a new storage media at launch, though they could possibly use a peripheral to play movies released on a new standard. Sony and Panasonic this week announced they have signed a ‘basic agreement’ to jointly develop a standard for professional-use next-generation optical discs. While Sony and Panasonic say their next-generation optical discs will target businesses looking to preserve their data, this doesn’t mean they won’t evolve to become a storage medium for the consumer market. The firms are targeting the development of an optical disc with recording capacity of at least 300GB by the end of 2015.

Are you looking forward to re-buying your movie collection again, or do you only buy movie digitally? Do you think the new media will find its way into the next console generation? Let me know in the comments!

Humble beginnings.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out is a freemium game for iOS and android. The game was developed and published by EA Mobile and launched on both devices over the course of February 2012. The game is supported by EA’s Origin which acts as a social bridge to where players log in to their Origin accounts and visit friends towns to collect cash once a day. The connection to Origin servers was not without problems after launch, and coupled with serious bugs left many gamers unable to play the game.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out is a city-building game at heart. Iconic buildings from the TV show are placed as the player chooses to create their own vision of how Springfield should look. Each building generates cash and residents can be given tasks that also reward money which is used to buy additional pieces for the town. Generic building are also available to buy to speed up the process. XP is given at the same time as cash, and most items that can be purchased are locked behind a level or quest barrier. Quest come often and will usually only give a little extra rewards, though there is an overarching story that unlocks extra characters for the town. Some residents can only purchased with premium currency, which in this case is doughnuts. Doughnuts can also be used to speed up construction and buy decorative items.

A fully decorated area of town.

Some voice acting is used whenever a resident of the town is selected or instructed to perform a task. This is a short video when the game first begins that explains why the player needs to rebuild Springfield. It is amusing that in this video, Homer complains about exactly the type of game that EA has created. Enabling push notifications on iOS will have Homer announce when tasks are complete with an appropriate piece of voice acting for whatever has been completed.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out launched with a great deal of excitement. The game was highly polished, featured recognisable characters and was backed by high profile names on social media sites. Each town can be associated with an Origin account, and those with a connected account can visit their friends towns. Regardless of whether a twon is connected or not, the game needs to connect to the Origin servers to be played. In what would eventually become a trend with EA’s online games, the servers could not cope and produced some serious bugs for those who were “lucky” enough to be able to play the game.

Players were often greeted by this screen multiple times while trying to access their towns.

Most players were not able to access their cities while the servers were under considerable stress and had to play during off peak hours. Those that were able to get into the game often found it was not as they left it. Decorative items had randomly moved to another location, hours of progress lost because information was not passed to the server, or in some cases even a full reset back to the beginning. I was not unaffected by the bugs, and found that although my town had not changed much, the game had “forgotten” I had completed the quest that allowed me to moved objects around. When my decorations started moving around, this left me unable to fix my town!

EA pulled the game from app stores while they took the time to fix the issues with the servers. It was three months before they manged to resolve the server issues and make the game available again. For those that had little or no problems, their games were credited with sixty doughnuts. For everyone else, their games were reset to a custom state based on their level and any doughnuts they had spent were refunded to them. These people were ultimately told that they would need to rebuild their town the way they wanted it.

So how far has The Simpsons: Tapped Out come in the last year? Well, there have been several updates to the game adding seasonal content. The most resent update even allows the player to expand onto the sea. Limited time content is periodically made available to coincide with the TV show, such as the Fruit Bat Man signal from the episode “Dark Knight Court”. The majority of players have hit the level cap (currently thirty one) and are waiting for a future update to allow them to progress further. Sadly, the server issues were never fully resolved. Android users have been having trouble connecting to the servers for the last three months and some users on iOS have found other peoples towns when logging into their own Origin account!

Have you played The Simpsons: Tapped Out in the last year? Were you there during the server problems at launch? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

How many faces look familiar to a Western audience?

It is unusual for a game like Project X Zone to see a release in the West. Developed by Monolith Soft and featuring characters from Namco Bandi, Sega and Capcom, this strategy role-playing game contains faces that are largely unknown outside of Japan. It is even more remarkable considering Namco X Capcom, the titles spiritual predecessor, was not released in the West either. With the region lock in full force on the 3DS, many thought we would never be able to even play this game. Some may have even prayed that it would never arrive after the calamity that was Cross Edge. Somehow though, Project X Zone made its way overseas, but was it worth it?

The plot begins by introducing two original characters, a tutor and student pair named Kogoro and Mii, who find themselves under assault from thugs of an organisation known as Oros Phlox. Given that half the cast will be unfamiliar to a Western audience, it can take a while before it becomes obvious that the story revolves around these two. It is unhelpful that a third of the battles in the game serve to explain how various characters from a variety of alternate pasts and futures have managed to run into one another. Portals connecting the worlds together pull the host of characters between locations as the group attempt to prevent Oros Phlox from achieving their goals.

The story takes a long time to progress as each new addition to the team is introduced and then must be protected in the upcoming battle. Highlights come from the interactions between the characters. For example, Frank West of Dead Rising fame will take photos of the scantily clad female characters in the same way he could in his own game. This highlights how individual personalities shine through if a player is familiar with the game the characters are from, though this is let down by fact that Westerners will be unfamiliar with some of the games that feature characters in Project X Zone.

Project X Zone uses standard TRPG maps and movement.

Combat in Project X Zone uses a familiar overhead map found in many tactical RPGs. The unique twist to this games begins when a player engages an opponent in a fight. Each unit on the map is actually a pair of fighters, often from the same series, who will land combos on the enemy as directed to by the player. Simply holding a direction and/or just pressing the ‘A’ button will perform a basic attack. Solo units can be grouped up with a pair so that they may be summoned during battle. A nearby pair can also execute a support attack to further damage an enemy. Players are limited to the number of basic attacks that can be performed during a fight, but as a unit levels up, they gain different combos and the ability to perform more attacks each fight.

As a unit lands hits on an enemy, or when they are attacked themselves, they build up an XP meter. This should not be confused with EXP which represents a characters progress towards its next level. XP is spent on using skills, and a full meter can be drained to either attack all enemies around the unit or to execute a special attack during a fight. Special attacks represent the signature moves of each pair, such and Ken using a spinning vertical flaming Shoryuken before passing an enemy off to Ryu who hits them with a Shinkuu Hadouken. Fights usually boil down to juggling an opponent in the air to prevent them from guarding against attacks while building up the XP meter.

Hitting an enemy with support units will hold them in place while you beat upon them.

A single map can take up to an hour to clear, as many require each enemy to be defeated. No easy task when a player is outnumbered three or four to one. Some reprieve is gained when the goal is to kill a named enemy unit, but as there is no way to grind levels, clearing all additional enemies is the only way to earn extra experience. This is not required however, as the game is fairly easy. Enough healing items and skills are at the players disposal to prevent the game from getting anywhere near challenging.

During dialogue scenes characters are represented by still images, though battles have fully animated 2D pixel art. It can get a little hectic when five characters are bouncing around the screen, but the is a certain enjoyment that can only be attained by watching Mega Man, Kite and Ulala attack an enemy at the same time. When executing a special attack the game uses some gorgeous visuals to show each character preparing their move, though for the ‘well endowed’ women this is little more than fan service. Enemy sprites are constantly reused throughout the game and given that thousands of enemies will the killed during a playthrough, the lack of variety will get old fast.

Each friendly unit on the map is represented by only one of the pair in the group, and their theme music will accompany them during their turn. For Chun Li and Morrigan, this will be the BGM of the China stage from Street Fighter II. This is carried over throughout the game with each world using a piece of music from its own game. Project X Zone Has a fair bit of voice acting – all in Japanese. Not surprising considering some of the characters never had any English voice actors.

Project X Zone is a fun mashup of many different games that will interest fans of the tactical RPG genre, providing they recognise a few of the playable characters. Battles are a slog at times and will clock the game in at over sixty hours, but compared to other recent crossover titles, this is far more enjoyable.

How I feel when Warcraft will not hold my attention. This happens more often these days.

Some days it can be hard to sit down and choose a game to play. With the abundance of new releases nowadays, the temptation is always there to purchase a new game on day one. Who does not like the smell of a new instruction manual? Half played games fall to the wayside for exciting new encounters, and so a backlog of unfinished games starts to build up. Is this then why, when faced with a whole day to play games, some of us end up spending more time choosing what to play than actually playing something?

My story starts early on my day off. My usual go to game is World of Warcraft, but as it is the day before raid lockouts reset, I have already progressed as much as I can on my character for the week. I do have a second account to play with Lusipurr on the American servers, though any progress I make their will mean there is less that he and I can do together when he has time to sit down and play. This leaves me with a difficult choice; what game should I play instead of Warcraft?

There are a few games that I will play for a few minutes here and there, flash-based browser games and iPhone titles. Each of these can be played for hours on end, but do not give a sense of fulfillment that some larger titles give. Maybe it is because I am unable to gain achievements in these games that I give them less weight than other titles, or maybe it is because few of my friends will ever play them. I spend most of my gaming time playing by myself, even in online games, though I can always hop on Ventrillo or Skype and chat to friends who play the same games as me. Playing something different to everyone else means they mostly get an explanation of the game I am playing, though if we are all playing the same game we can share stories of our adventures and little details instantly recognisable.

Book of Heroes is good for half an hour of time wasting, but it will not fill a day of gaming.

So, this left me looking for something a little more ‘meatier’ to play. I lost progress in many of PlayStation collection last year when my PS3 broke, including Skyrim and Final Fantasy XIII-2. By now most of the plot of these games have been spoiled for me, but I have always wanted to experience them for myself. The trouble is, when faced with huge worlds like these, it can be hard to muster the effort required to play them through until the end. Knowing that I have to go back to the usual (but enjoyable) grind in Warcraft the next day, I try to avoid anything that would take me longer than a couple of days to play. This rules out the majority of my PS3 collection, and any game I would want to play there.

This leaves me with my handheld systems. I have had a project in the works for a while to collect as many pokémon as I can and put them into one cartridge. This is a goal I can spend most of the day doing, then leave it until I have another day free to pick up again. With a new generation of the Pokémon franchise out in three months, I should be preparing to transfer my 500+ pokémon over to one of the new titles. A quick scan of my collection shows that most of my collection either requires hours of grinding to obtain evolutions, or starting games from scratch to collect rare pokémon. Again, this task gets left until I have the enthusiasm to spend time playing through another whole game.

So, what did I learn from my day of not playing games? First, I should put off buying more games until I finish the ones I have. Secondly, I should get out of the house when I am off work, maybe that would encourage me to play my handhelds more often. Lastly, MMOs are not quite as addictive as one might think. Well, the school holidays are right around the corner, and my days off will be filled with needs of my children, so this will not be a problem for much longer.

What about you readers? Do you suffer from having too many games to play? Are you plagued by indecision? Let me know in the comments!

Cards have been available to collect since May 15th.

A week ago today, Steam trading cards were officially released after a very short beta of a month and a half. Starting with only six participating titles, forty-three currently have cards associated with them. So, what are these cards for and why would anyone want to collect them? First we need to rewind a little and look at what else this update has bought us.

Each Steam user now has a brand new profile that will show off what games the user has been playing, any badges they may own and any group they belong to, as well as a few other minor bits of information to anyone who cares to look.Something new here though, is the level of the user. Yes, people can earn experience to level up their Steam profile. How does one earn experience points? Remember all those badges that steam gave to people that participated in summer and winter sales? No? That is okay, because even a new user can earn a badge by participating in the community. Each badge a player owns is worth a number of experience points, and every hundred points grants a level.

So, maybe people wish they had participated in steam event more often to earn those badges. Well, do not worry as more badges have been made available to the community. This is where the trading cards come in, as when someone manages to gather a full set of cards they can use them to craft a badge for the game. Here is the catch though; each user is only given a limited number of card drops per game (usually half the total number available) and could potentially collect multiple of the same card.

Don’t Starve has five cards to collect, but only three drop for each person.

The handy new badges section of the updated profiles show each user which games they own cards for and whether they are entitled to any more card drops. A nice feature is that any games in a users collection that could drop cards will show up here, even if a user has not yet obtained any cards in the relevant set. Clicking on a card set will also display all the cards that are missing and if anyone on the users friends list owns one of them. For people who lack friends, there is always the Steam Trading Cards Group where people will trade community items for cards. A bit more expensive, there is also the Steam market place where one can purchase missing cards for real currency.

For the shy people who lack friends and money, there are booster packs that are handed out randomly as the community craft badges. These contain extra drops for specific games the user owns as long as they have already collected all the drops available and the chance of getting one raise with each ten levels the user obtains. Booster packs are like gold dust and can be sold on the market, though as more cards are collected and badges are crafted, so too will the number of booster packs handed out increase.

Never doubt Gabe’s ability to convince you to hand him cash.

There are a couple of other items that can be given to a user whenever a badge is crafted. Games have special emoticons for use while chatting on Steam and backgrounds to personalise a profile further. Vouchers can also drop that entitle the bearer to discounts off games on the Steam service. Of course, all of these items can be traded or sold on the Steam market place.

So, what do Valve have to gain from this other than getting players to hit games in their collection to obtain new badges? Well, each item sold on the market earns Valve 5% of the sale price and 10% goes to the games creator (an incentive for developers to include cards in their games). When a game with cards is goes on sale, it may be the deciding factor that drives a purchase. Now imagine what will happen during the Steam summer sale. A week of deals, many of which will have cards. Hundreds of cards flooding the marketplace, lowering prices and bringing many new people looking to complete their sets. Only time will tell if this is a major win for Valve, but judging by the number of new items available on the market there are no shortages of people looking to complete their collections. Did I mention that cards can come in foil versions as well?

Do you own games with trading cards? What is your Steam level? Would you buy a cheap game if it had cards available? Let me know in the comments!

Don’t Kickstart or preorder games. Wait until an informed decision can be made.

These days it has never been easier for a would be developer to find financial backing to make their dream game – providing other people can see the potential in the project. Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo exist to bring budding ideas to fruition, but has the proliferation of crowd-sourced fundraising begun to reach its limit? There are many more projects wanting cash now than when these sites first launched, but has the pool of money they draw from expanded at the same rate?

As gamers, many of the Kickstarter projects we know best are in the gaming category. Torment: Tides of Numenera, Project Eternity and Wasteland 2 are titles we have heard many times due to their success with crowd funding. Each time one of these companies dip their toes into the money pool that is Kickstarter, other projects lose out. Large projects like Torment are able to suck up over $4 million of financing because they are developed by well known teams or respected individuals. It is when titles like these draw more than four times the funding they need that smaller titles like Death Inc. are not even able to make half the amount of money the need. Our own overlord Lusipurr summed up the problem very well:

Once upon a time, the rich would donate money to the poor. Now the rich come to me and ask me to donate money to them.

When these large teams visit Kickstarter, they come equipped with all the information they would have needed to provide to investment companies to fund their games through traditional routes. So why do they not use the traditional methods to finance a game? Maybe it because, at least in the gaming section, Kickstarter has become a means of selling pre-orders directly to the consumer. Even if a project is funded, there is no guarantee that the game will arrive on time – if ever. Once a company obtains money through Kickstarter they can do what they like with it, that is why the position of the site has always been that Kickstarter is evil.

Games like Planetary Annihilation charge a premium for fan feedback.

Games like Minecraft and Prison Architect have brought in money early on by selling a playable game early on in its creation. These early alphas are charged at a low price that rises as more features are added to the game, topping out when the game is ‘complete’. These games often continue to receive updates, though the price no longer rises. When Steam introduced Early Access this trend looked to continue, as when a game got a full release its price would rise. Steam’s Early Access information does say that a game can charge more for early access, though so far only Planetary Annihilation has chosen to do so. The game followed its Kickstarter reward tiers, pricing the alpha at a whopping £67($90).

A game can be shaped by the feedback of fans, especially when a small amount feel privileged because they paid a premium to play the game in an unfinished state. Bugs will show up in these early builds, but how many of the early adopters are willing to report them if they decide that the only reason they paid extra for a game is to play it before anyone else? Maybe they do report the bugs and demand the developers listen to them because of all the money they gave to the project. A lower price point for early access makes a people want to invest in a game early before the price rises, and once they are invested they will often want to help the game mature.

As gamers we have become used to games getting released in an unfinished state while developers attempt to patch out bugs. Early Access is different as we are aware that this is what we are signing up for when we purchase a game in early development. A high cost to purchase a game prevents smaller sites (like Lusipurr.com) from providing information to its readership that could potentially bring in enough people to offset the cost of lowering the price of a game. Then again, the price is based on a Kickstarter reward tier and Kickstarter is evil.

Have you considered funding a project on Kickstarter? Would you consider buy early access to a game, and how much would you pay? Let me know in the comments!

Three times the Wright for your hard earned cash.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney started out life on the Gameboy Advance system in Japan in 2001 and since then has seen multiple sequels, re-releases, a spin-off and even a live action movie. The original game has now made its way onto iOS, complete with a graphical overhaul to make use of the high resolution screens found on the devices. The project was not without complications, as the game was originally scheduled for late last year. Fortunately, reports of another delay to the game proved to be false and Phoenix Wright has made his way into the hands of fans in this free game.

Yes, the game is free, but only the first two cases are included. The first introduces the courtroom in a tutorial involving a childhood friend of Phoenix. The second is where the game opens up and introduces the investigation segments. The remainder of the first game costs £3.99($5.99) and the second and third games cost £4.99($6.99) each. The entire collection can be bought at the reduced price of £11.99($16.99). All of the content can be bought through in-app purchases after the game has been downloaded.

The Judge displayed in all his high-res glory.

As previously mentioned, the gameplay is divided into two sections; the courtroom and investigations. In the courtroom, witnesses testify about the events surrounding the crime that Phoenix’s client has been accused of committing. Whether intentional or not, these testimonies usually contain contradictions and it is the aim of the player to present evidence to bring these contradictions to light in an effort to prove his client’s innocence. Sometimes the contradictions are not obvious and the player will need to press the witness for more information.

Unsuccessful attempts to present evidence result in a hit to the players health. If the bar should ever empty, the judge will announce the the defendant is guilty, effectively a game over screen for the player. This should force a player to pay attention to the massive amount of dialogue and not randomly present evidence, but the move to iOS has brought with it the ability to save at any time, removing the risk that comes from guessing which piece of evidence should be shown and therefore removing any challenge the game had.

In portrait mode the screen splits in two for one-handed play.

The investigation sections take Phoenix outside the courtroom in an effort to gather clues. In this fictional world, the police work for the prosecutors and are unlikely to find evidence that does not support the prosecutions theory of how the crime was committed. If Phoenix’s client has any hope of being declared innocent, it is down to the player to talk to witnesses and examine the crime scene for clues. While this section of the game seems more open, it is actually quite linear as the story does not progress unless he talks to the right people. Even when a player can guess what is going to happen, another event may need to be triggered before they put all the pieces together in the game.

This enhanced version of the game comes with high-res character art and backgrounds. The backgrounds look far superior to their previous iterations, and while the character models are also better, they do resemble fan art drawn in Paint and lack the charm of the pixel originals. A black border is used to frame the game on an iPad, and it is unable to make use of the iPhone 5 widescreen making older iPhones the best choice to run the app. The music has been ported from the originals as well. No improvements needed to be made here, as some of the tunes are quite iconic and it could have upset fans if Capcom had chosen to change them. A little more effort could have been spent on the translation, as there are still many issues with grammar throughout.

With an upcoming worldwide release of the Ace Attorney movie, interest could be generated for this game. Perhaps that is why Capcom attempted to delay the game further. Right now the app is unlikely to bring many new players into the fold, but anyone who enjoys point and click adventure games may want to at least check out the free version. Existing fans will not find anything worthwhile here unless they have yet to play all three of the games in the collection.

An example of junction for sending trains all over the map.

Welcome to my first article about games from yesteryear that have been remade for computers today. Will this be an ongoing series? Maybe, but let me at least get this one out of the way first. The game I am focusing on today is Transport Tycoon Deluxe, originally released on the PC in 1995. Today, an open source version is available completely free that duplicates the gameplay of the original while adding online connectivity and additional functions in the game.

In Transport Tycoon Deluxe a player earns revenue by picking up resources or passengers at a certain station, and delivering them to another station where there is a demand for them. Demand is determined by the area which surrounds the station; for example stations close to towns will demand passengers. The revenues will depend on the delivery time, distance, and quantity delivered. The influence of these factors on revenue varies according to the type of goods being delivered. For example, mail will rapidly fall in value, meaning that it can only be delivered profitably over short distances, or over long distances very fast. On the other hand coal loses value very slowly, so it can be transported in bulk over long distances whilst remaining profitable.

Connecting a business with the resource it requires is as simple as placing a station and laying down some track between them. This is a simple method that can be replicated over an entire map. However, it is possible to construct an advanced network the incorporates every station into a single network that runs all over the map. This is ideal for transporting coal from many stations to a single power station in a very efficient manner. When the network has become large enough, other resources can be moved also using high speed trains.

This is a game for boys who grew up with train sets but no longer have the space, time or funds to dedicate to building and maintaining a model railway. Yes, other methods of transportation are available to players, but really, why play a game like this if not to play with trains? As time progresses within the game, more train types become available to the player. In time even new forms of track (monorail and maglev) open up with even more trains.

My own attempt to build a rail network.

It is here that Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe really shines. The community can produce new mods and skins that are easily turned on and off from an ‘online content’ menu. This list represents the work of the community to bring realist train types from all over the world into a game that supports their passion. Many of these mods will work with one another allowing the player to create a business that feels global, especially with the huge map sizes that were not present in the original version.

The online component of the game uses these larger maps to great effect. A multiplayer game supports up to two hundred and fifty five people in up to fifteen companies. While standard competitive games can be found, there are also huge projects for many players to build huge rail networks across the map. These servers can also be started using community mods to add more variety to the games available. Unfortunately, some of these run versions of the client that are out of date, though all the older versions of the game are still available to download as well, including the nightly builds that are constantly released.

OpenTTD was released in 2004 and required graphics from the original game. Since version 1.0 was released in 2010, the game has its own graphics pack and is completely free, although fans can still use the old textures. Even after a decade of development new features are being added to the game, as well as bug fixes. This trend does not look likely to stop any time soon either. The has even been ported to other operating systems, including the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. Sadly the Mac client has been discontinued due to problems compiling for the new version of Snow Leopard OS X.

Did you play with trains as a child? Have you played Transport Tycoon Deluxe recently? Would you like to join an OpenTTD server? Are there any other games that have gone open source since their release? Let me know in the comments!

Hearthstone looks likely to capture Warcraft subscribers.

Over the next year collectable card games will be invading the MMO space. One could be forgiven for thinking this had taken place years ago, what with Magic: The Gathering already having an online presence. Many other third party clients also exist to play other physical card games over the internet, but today we will be looking at a new breed of games that only exist in the digital environment. These games take advantage of their game clients to bring something new to the genre, so lets look at the three that could potentially be released this year.

Hearthstone

I have previously written about Hearthstone in a post a few of months ago, but here is a quick recap. Hearthstone is basically a simplified version of the existing paper World of Warcraft card game. Gameplay will be familiar to veterans of many of other games also, but the uniqueness of this title lies in ties to a players battle.net account.

Players of Blizzard’s other games that use the same service will be able to see which of their friends are online and playing the game, and as it is free to play, millions of people will likely drop in a try a game or two in the first couple of days. While the game will initially stand by itself, possible ties in with Warcraft and other franchises could be possible down the road. Imagine killing the final boss of a raid tier and unlocking an achievement that would allow the same boss used as the players character in a Hearthstone duel. Clearing PvE content in Hearthstone to unlock avatars in Starcraft. As blizzard further integrates their games into the .net account, greater possibilities for interaction occur. Expect a beta to arrive shortly.

SolForge is just as likely to grab the Yu-Gi-Oh crowd.

SolForge

SolForge plays more like Yu-Gi-Oh than Magic. The game field is divided into five lanes, each able to hold a single creature. There are no resources used to play cards, instead up to two cards can be played as long as the timing is appropriate. Each turn a new hand of five is drawn and any left over cards are discarded. The twist with SolForge come from the leveling up mechanic of creatures. Each creature in a deck starts at level one. Playing a creature increases its level. Every four turns, a players avatar levels up and his or her discrad pile is shuffled back into their deck.

It is from repeatedly playing creatures that their power increases. Strategy come from positioning creatures into the lanes. During a players turn, they may push a shiny red button labeled ‘battle’. During battle, creatures of both players will attack. Those with opposition monsters in the same lane will attack each other, those without will deal damage directly to an opponent. Each player starts with one hundred life, but that is really not as much as it sounds.

SolForge creators StoneBlade Entertainment have partnered with industry veteran Richard Garfield (originator of Magic: The Gathering) to ensure the final product is top-notch. The kickstarter for the game ended late last year, and a beta is currently available for iPad only, though PC support will be added in later.

Hex is just happy to copy Magic: The Gathering.

Hex: Shards of Fate

Hex is currently shaping up to be the most exciting of the game, offering an MMORPG experience mixed in with Magic style battles. In fact, the play could not get any more similar to magic without using copyrighted terms. Cards are divided up into one of five ‘shards’ (colours) with artifacts and resources being neutral. Players start at twenty life each and take turns to summon creature, play spells, and battle each other in an attempt to reduce their opponents life to zero.

So, what separates this from Magic? Persistent effects. In M:TG all effects wear off at the end of the turn, or when a card dies. In Hex, an effect can persist through death. Even cards in the deck that are yet to be played could be made more powerful if a given spell affects cards in all zones. This does make seemingly innocent cards somewhat powerful if played correctly. Add to this cards that contain gem sockets allowing the player to tailor them to their own deck, and avatar equipment that could make cards in the deck more powerful and suddenly a range of new ways to play unfold. And this is all from an initial set of 300 or so cards.

The MMORPG aspect of the game comes from a dungeon crawling PvE experience in which player take on the A.I. in order to try and win loot – equipment for the players avatar. A talent and levelling system will also be included, as well as raids and PvP content other than straight card battles, though details on these are scarce right now. The creative team behind the game are Cryptozoic Entertainment, the same as those who currently run the Warcraft card game. Early alpha videos show the team has taken all their experience and created something that already looks amazing. As of writing, the kickstarter has two days left to run, but is already almost 700% funded. Backers can expect a Beta by the end of the year.

Players were encourage to write messages in the blocks.

Last year Peter Molyneux left Lionhead Studios to join a new company founded by fellow ex-Lionhead employee and CTO Tim Rance. The new studio, 22Cans, shortly produced their first game titled Curiosity for iOS devices in November of last year. The tag line explained the idea of the game – what is in the cube? Never one to keep expectations low, Molyneux promised that the lucky individual who cleared the final cubelet would be given something ‘life changing’. Well, this past weekend the final cubelet was removed and the gift was finally revealed.

Curiosity could barely even be called a game. Even 22Cans call what they produce ‘experiments’. All players could do was click on a cubelet to remove it. Each cubelet removed award players in-game currency which could be used to purchase single use items that would remove many blocks in an area. Removing blocks quickly gave a small coin bonus based on how many blocks were removed before the player went idle again. If it was not for the ability to collect something, I doubt the game would have been as popular as it was.

Yes, the game did enjoy time in the spotlight when it was released. With each layer of bricks representing a huge amount of cubelets, people soon starting using areas as a blank canvas on which to draw images or write messages. For every dozen people who wanted to create, there was one one just wanted to destroy, so it came as no surprise that many of these works in progress became the target of griefers who limited the space available for other to work in or just downright wrecked whatever other people were trying to produce.

Under each layer of bricks was a larger image waiting to be revealed.

Players steadily removed the layers of the cube, revealing pictures underneath the layers as they went. As with any MMO launch, Curiosity had server lag and players found blocks randomly disappearing as the game information was received. Game updates and a decreased interest in the game soon bought the connection issues under control, but the final update in April also brought with it a new feature – the ability to pay real money to add or remove blocks from the cube. Little wonder then, that so many new cubelets were added back to the cube, that the previous five months work was erased in a couple of days.

A mere fortnight after the release of Curiosity, 22Cans launched a Kickstarter for their next game, Project GODUS. Molyneux revisited his roots by attempting a regenesis of the god game. A video showing gameplay from a prototype created as a proof of concept was also posted to the kickstarter page. The footage showed little more than the ability to alter terrain while villages automatically populated the world. In traditional Molyneux style, promises have been made as to the content of the final game (which sounds much like Black & White). Only time will tell if Peter has learned his lesson from the promises made for, well, every other game he has made.

Early Godus footage.

Getting back to Curiosity, the final cubelet was destroyed on the 26th of May. The winner was identified as Edinburgh resident Bryan Henderson, who was given the option to either keep the contents of the cube to himself or share it with the public. Molyneux announced that Henderson opted to share the prize, and a video was later posted on YouTube explaining what had been awarded to the young Scot. Acording to the video, the contents inside of the cube included the ability to be the sole, all-powerful, digital god within 22Cans upcoming release of Godus. This power allows the owner to shape the rules of the game for all involved and to reap a small portion of all of the incoming revenue that is brought in by the game.

The reign of Henderson is not eternal however, as after a period of time has passed, players will be able to usurp his throne – and his salary. Molyneux has been keen to assure fans that their new god will only have in-game powers that are balanced. No kicking players from the world and deleting their games. A gift has even been sent to the 22Cans offices to be passed on to Henderson in an attempt to curry favour with the digital deity.

With the Kickstarter rewards promising delivery of the new game in September, it will not be long before we find out how powerful Henderson will be, and if Godus will reward another gamer with a prize for a future 22Cans game. Did you play Curiosity? Will you be trying out Godus Upon release? Let me know in the comments!

Gathering food is only half the game, though probably the most important.

Don’t Starve is an isometric survival game from Canadian indie developer Klei, who have previously worked on puzzlers and side-scrolling action games. For this outing they have turned to the community in the form of a public beta to help shape the game. This is no Tomb Raider in which Lara Croft must fight her way through thousands of deranged cultists, instead the aim here is simply to stay alive for as long as possible.

Don’t Starve has no lengthy tutorials explaining the how and why of the game, nor are there any handy guides to be bought up while in the game. This is just a lone player fight for survival in a hellish otherworldly environment. A game begins by dropping the player into a random ‘green’ area of the map. This means that the basic resources needed to survive the first night are close at hand, but to last any longer a player will eventually have to go exploring for sources of food before they starve to death.

Early tasks usually involve making basic tools, chopping enough trees to provide logs for a fire and hunting small game to fill the slowly decreasing food meter. Living hand-to-mouth can only last so long though, as soon enough a player can strip the local area of food sources. While taking trips further afield, more vicious creatures can be encountered that are happy to relieve a player of any health they may have. Eventually a time comes to attempt setting up base in a relatively safe area while trying to produce some of the more advanced items in the game. No area will offer complete safety though, and death can often be right around the corner.

Once enough food has been gathered, players can start working on building a camp.

Don’t Starve plays similarly to a roguelike. Each new map is randomly generated and quite expansive. Death is permanent and nothing is carried over into new games, save for the players increasing knowledge of how the game works. This can be frustrating at time, as the beginning is easily the least interesting part of the game. The real fun comes later on when advanced structures can provide a small amount of food, and the player can focus on unraveling the mystery of the land. This can involve considerable amount of time and effort and a small mistake could cause a player to have to start over from scratch again.

The art style is quite different from other games. Characters, objects and the environment all look like someone has drawn them with a pen and animated the results. Even at larger resolutions the game looks gorgeous. Even something relatively minor like hair growth is represented, with full, thick beards developing as players endure the horrors around them. Whenever the protagonist takes an action, the results are animated appropriately including whatever clothing may be worn at the time. Birds fly around, bunnies hop about and even herds of animals that are unafraid of the player will react to their presence.

Fire is an effective means of killing hostile creatures.

The UI has been kept to a minimum to show as much of the players surroundings as possible. If an item can be crafted, the relevant section will light up to alert the player that crafting is possible. From here it only takes two clicks to put the finished item into the players hands. The world is traversed by clicking to move, but the protagonist can ofter get in the way when trying to use or place objects in the world. Eating the last piece of bait that should have been placed in a trap can be quite irritating. Likewise, when trying to run from enemies, it is annoying when the character instead begins chopping down a tree. These gripes can be avoided with experience, but does not stop a few choice word from yelled at the computer the first time it causes a death.

Don’t Starve has no real voice acting, instead all dialogue is accompanied by sounds similar to those made by adults in a Peanuts cartoon. The sound tries to be a bit creepy when it is present, but really does not do much to add to the game. This is a let down, as even the smallest action seems to have an accompanying sound effect.

Don’t Starve has few goals other than surviving, but the game is built around this sole challenge. Fans of Minecraft may have the patience to stick with this game long enough to see the rewards from surviving, but those with short attention spans should look elsewhere. It is also worth noting that as of writing this, the game is still receiving major updates. Recently added into the game are caves which include an entirely new biome to explore with its own challenges. It is worth checking back with the game regularly to see what other new features are included in the updates.

Prime World: Defenders is available on Steam from June 5th.

Prime World: Defenders was developed by Nival using assets from Prime World, another game of theirs currently in development. As the name suggests, Defenders is a top-down tower defence game in which the objective is to eliminate all the enemy forces before they reach their objective. Their objective is either entering the players base or stealing prime, a prized resource in Prime World. Defenders does little to change the fundamental way the genre works, but instead tries to blend collectable card game and RPG mechanics into the title.

The player begins with a single card, the Wooden Tower. The first few mission explain how the different types of towers work, while expanding the players selection of cards with rewards from battle. The fifth battle instructs the player to use all their knowledge to stop the first boss from stealing all their Prime. It is here that grinding, the staple of the RPG genre is introduced. Each level gets progressively harder and the player must level up their towers to remain competitive. This is done by fusing unwanted towers into one another, destroying the fusion material, but giving permanent stat increases to the fused tower.

For each story mission a player must complete, there are three randomly generated maps also on offer ranging in difficulty from easy to hard. Taking on the harder missions pits the player against stronger enemies, more waves, and fewer open spaces to place towers on the map. The upside though is that the rewards are higher. After each mission the player is shown five random cards (harder missions have a better selection). After being flipped face down and shuffled about, the player selects one to keep. More cards to be chosen, but each additional selection costs the player a progressively increasing amount of silver, the games basic currency earned from missions.

Collecting and upgrading cards brings a welcome change to clearing map after map.

After the fifth mission, the player is freed from the tutorials and the rest of the games mechanics are opened to them. First there is ‘evolution’. In the same way that fusing increase the stats of a tower, evolution does the same but requires the player have two of the same cards. The key difference here is that evolution does not increase the cards level, instead it allows the player to power up a tower during a mission but can only be used on an individual card twice.

Each tower has a base cost to place. If a player places many of a single type of tower in a mission it becomes more expensive. Powering up a tower is more efficient as the player only needs to pay the base cost to double a towers damage. If a player has evolved a card twice, a tower maybe powered up a second time for double its base cost resulting in a tower that is four times as powerful. Some locations on the field give buffs to towers placed on them, so a fully powered tower that is buffed soon becomes a force to be reckoned with.

The last mechanic opened to the player is the shop. Here a player can spend excess silver on addition basic cards, with a small chance to get a rarer card. Players can be guaranteed to receive rare cards if they purchase higher tier card packs, but these cost gold stars. Up to three Gold stars can be earned from each mission depending on how much life a player lost during it. With only the twenty-three story missions in the game awarding gold stars to a player, they become a very limited resource. Thankfully, they can rarely be found as one of the five random cards a player could receive after completing any mission.

Most maps have a single lane or a shortcut that can be opened if a player is not careful.

The dialogue in Defenders is fully voice acted, whether it is during missions or the comic book style cut scenes that accompany many of the story missions. While these are not terrible, at times it can seem like the voice actors were reading the line off a sheet of paper during their performance. It can be distracting at times, but it is nice to have plenty of dialogue througout the game.

All the visuals in Defenders Are bright and shiny. Paths that enemies will take are shown on the field. Even if there are multiple paths open to them, a player can see what route will be taken and can plan accordingly. Sadly, the only graphical option open to the player is the resolution size. Players with lower spec computers should ensure that their computers are suitable for the game. The number of maps available to random missions is limited by a players progress through the story. Early on this means there is very little variety on offer.

Prime World: Defenders is a game that will appeal to MMO fans. Many of the same mechanics are found in this single player game and can occupy attention for large periods of time without any real story progress being made. A daily reward is offered to players to keep them returning and missions take very little time to complete, so the game can be enjoyed infrequently between other titles. Prime World: Defenders is released on June 5th, but purchasing now on steam will give players access to the beta.

The Diablo series offers randomised loot to keep gamers searching for the ‘perfect’ item.

I expect most people who visit this site are well-rounded individuals who can judge for themselves what is an ‘excessive’ amount of time to play video games. Even we can still enjoy a marathon gaming session every so often, like when the latest expansion to World of Warcraft is released. Few and far between, these long periods of gaming can often be a sociable experience with a group of friends, or a charitable affair such as the annual Child’s Play event used to generate donations through sponsored twenty-four hours gaming sessions. It may come as a surprise then, that a portion of the general public would consider our normal habits as symptoms of addiction.

What some people do not realise is that our pastime will often replace other ways to spend our free time. How many families spend their afternoons gathered around the television each and every evening? How many singletons spend their free time lounging around the house on their days off? Is playing an interactive game really any worse than enjoying the latest popular comedy? In my early teens I spent a lot of time reading works of fiction, today I spend what little free time I have playing games. Literary masterpieces of previous generations are still enjoyed today, who is to say that future generations will not enjoy games for their in the same way?

Okay, so some people are unable to control their habits. A person with an addictive personality will always have trouble gauging how long they should play games for, but in this case, games could be substituted for any other hobby or substance. It is not solely the fault of video games that people are unable to put them down. Modern MMOs have mechanics that reward players for returning to the game, or deliberately randomise items given to a player. Extra time may need to be devoted to one of these games to get something useful to the player, though it may not need be done in one sitting. Even taking time to clear everything in one go does not make someone an addict. A person with an addictive personality would let their life deteriorate around them to accomplish those goals.

Occasionally a news story will surface that tells of an individual or a couple who neglect themselves or a child in their care to play games, usually an MMO. A negative light is cast on games when these stories come to light, but why should it? In my experience, a game has never rewarded me for not eating. I do not achieve anything by going without showering for the day. A person has to make these decisions, therefore it cannot be the fault of the game.

Children are at risk of developing gaming addiction if they play too much from an early age.

Some critics accuse game designers of utilizing sophisticated behavioral psychology research to keep gamers hooked. A famous study of rats and rewards offers such a model. When rats are given food every time they pull a lever, they use the lever only when they are hungry. If the food is given in an unpredictable pattern, the rats remain in such a heightened state of desire and frustration that it keeps pulling the lever until it dies of exhaustion. When applied to games, this random-reward system keeps players clicking and hoping their next click will be a winner. Here, game design is less to blame for addiction, rather it is the disease of addiction itself. Mental disorders, such as ADHD, social anxiety, or depression, make people even more susceptible. Video gaming becomes their ‘substance’ of choice.

There will always be people who have trouble in real life and turn to games as a means of escapism. Playing games for for long periods of time does not make a person an addict. An addict is someone who is unable to give up what they are doing, despite any adverse affects it may have on their health and/or life. As long as we are able to judge when it is time to stop, gaming remains an enjoyable pastime. Anyone who finds they cannot put the controller down should seek help from friends and family.

Have you been accused of being a gaming addict? Do you have first hand experience of people who have had loved ones intervene in their gaming habits? Let me know in the comments!

Dragon Fantasy

Anybody who grew up in the era when Nintendo dominated the console market will have at least seen a few of the classic RPGs. Dragon Fantasy looks like a game from yesteryear, but adds modern functionality and a good helping of humor. Scattered throughout the game are many references to pop culture and downright awful (but funny) puns. Muteki Corporation know their target audience and have done everything in their power to make this game appeal to them.

The game is divided up into four chapters. Although the first is the main quest, a player has the option of starting on any chapter they choose. The third chapter leads into the next game, while the other two are fun side quests that add to the overall story of the game. The fourth chapter is inspired by Minecraft and has unique features not found in the other three chapters. As the name implies, this is the first game in a series and the sequel is already in the works.

The story begins with a mag named Ogden. Thirty years ago he rescued Princess Becca from a dragon, and in doing so lost all his hair. Today he is her personal bodyguard, but does little more than rescue cats from trees. On the day that Becca, now a Queen, prepares to crown her son on his twenty-fifth birthday, a group of monsters show up to halt proceedings. Prince Marlon is abducted by a Dark Knight who flees through a portal, closely followed by Ogden. Appearing in the middle of nowhere with no trace of the Prince or the Dark Knight to be found, Ogden begins his quest to rescue the Prince.

Battles can be quite close matched without a little grinding.

The gameplay is what could be expected of an old-school RPG. Towns, dungeons and the overworld are all viewed from a top down perspective. Exploration outside of town leads to random encounters with enemies. The encounter rate is quite high, and healing is required after each fight but the game feels challenging rather than frustrating. Thankfully Ogden comes with plenty of healing magic to cure his wounds. There are no maps to guide players through dungeons, though each is short enough that this does not cause problems. The only real downside is a lack of a dash button to move quicker. Equipping new items is quite simple, with each piece showing the difference in attack and defense. When purchasing new items, the option is given to automatically equip the item. This is refreshing for an old-school game.

The enemy design in the game really shines through. While there are the usual palette swaps found later on, each enemy has unique combat text that will set the aside from similar sprites. This is a game that features an Obligatory Ork who is obliged to attack Ogden. Only by defeating the enemy can his compulsion be ended. Commands in battle are what would be expected of any RPG and little strategy is involved. The games does require some grinding at points which can get a little repetitive at times. Thankfully the game was patched not long after launch to increase the hit rate of attacks, as before a few rounds could go by without a player or an enemy being able to land a blow.

The PlayStation 3 version of Dragon Fantasy allows the player to switch between 8 and 16-bit styles.

As Dragon Fantasy is an enhanced version of an iOS title, it also comes with enhanced graphics and sound. The iOS version was limited to 8-bit only, whereas the PlayStation 3/Vita copy also has a 16-bit mode. While both the 8-bit and 16-bit tunes fit the title well, the bleeps and bloops that accompany them can get irritating after a while. The graphical style can be switched any time the game menu can be accessed, though unless a player has greater connection with the NES era, it would be better just to leave the 16-bit mode on.

Dragon Fantasy is a game that will appeal to old-school gamers, though it may have some trouble capturing the imagination of a younger generation who might not get the majority of the references found throughout the game. The game has a cross save option, so Vita owners will be pleased that they can play the game on the go without buying it a second time. The game takes roughly twenty hours to complete, but anybody used to playing classic RPGs will be able complete it sooner.