Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Requiem: Bloodymare




Requiem: Bloodymare is the goriest MMORPG that I have ever played. It has a ton of blood and gore, a lot more than any other MMORPG out there, to my knowledge at least. To start it off, every hit on a monster makes them spray out a burst of blood, and to top it off, the blood that sprays out does not just disappear in the air, but it stains your character's clothing. When you kill a monster it's almost always execution style, meaning that their head is chopped off or you cut their body up into pieces that fly all over the place. The game also has rag-doll physics which contribute to your in-game death. When you die, your corpse usually flies around (depending on the force of the final impact) and gets tossed around like a rag-doll would. At the end of every battle, there will always be a bloody mess and a decapitated corpse. If you want to see a small sample of this gore, watch the video above.

The gameplay is just like any other MMORPG: hack and slash. It does seem like a typical grinding game(grinding = killing monsters to level up your character) with a list of quests thrown in it to supplement your acquisition of experience, skills, items, and Lant(The currency in the game, i.e. gold, cash, coins). The quests are pretty simple and include slaying monsters, delivering items, and searching for people. They are important because some of them allow you to obtain jobs in the game. For example, I chose to be the human race and at level 10 they can chose a job between being a Defender(Melee type class) and a Templar(Magic type class), but before you were able to become it you had to complete a few quests that led up to a quest where you had to go and summon a monster and slay it to prove your worth. What I'm saying is, if you want to progress in the game, just do the quests and try not to pile them all up because chances are you won't know what to do to progress so you'll run around town like an idiot asking silly questions, like me.

The user interface looks confusing as hell at first, but just like any other game you'll get used to it and some of the hot keys. I really wish every game would have the same hot keys; it would make game play so much easier, but that's not the case, so you better get to learning these new ones. To move, you have to use the WASD keys on your keyboard for basic movements and the Q & R keys are used to strife left and right, respectively. Space is used to jump, and the only use for jumping is so you can parkour in town or anywhere because jumping during a battle to confuse the enemy or do aerial attacks doesn't do shit. Unfortunately, you cannot use the mouse to move your character which is a big let down. The mouse is mainly used for attacking, talking to people, changing camera angles, basically everything but movement. In order to attack a monster you have to be next to it and facing it, other wise you will just stand there all day wondering why you're not attacking. The number strip on your keyboard is used for skills, potions, and other shortcuts.

The graphics are not the best thing out there, but compared to World of Warcraft, they are great. I was just focused on playing the game and not really on the graphics so I didn't bother checking if I could improve them, but I'm sure just like most MMORPGs they were set on medium detail or something. Remember high detail equals great graphics but slow game play(unless your computer is built for gaming) and low detail equals horrible graphics but fast game play. The choice is yours, do you want to see more realistic gory body parts flying around or do you want to play the game with less lag?

Overall, this is a great game and I only played it up until my character reached level 10, which is when you can get your first job. The game play is great and there's a ton of stuff to do besides killing monsters, for example: parkour. The graphics are decent, but not optimal. The controls are worthwhile, but if you're too lazy to use your keyboard to move around, then this game isn't for you. I give this game an 8/10 because the graphics could use some work and the fact that I can't use the mouse to move around just pisses me off.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Halo 3 - New Rank System & Achievements



Okay, so with this update we have a change to the ranking system and a set of new achievements released that allow you to earn up to an extra 750 gamer points, totaling your maximum Halo 3 gamerscore to 1750. Although many of the new achievements are easy to obtain and give you a nice 25-50 points per piece, you cannot obtain them if you do not have the Legendary Map Pack. And no, Bungie has already announced that they will not be releasing the Legendary Map Pack for free, but they have reduced its price from 800 MS Points to 600 MS Points, but you still need to buy an 800 MS Point card, so it doesn't really do much unless you have something to buy that's worth the spare 200 MS Points.

At the moment, assuming you have the Legendary Maps, you can earn a total of 250 Gamerscore Points with the achievements that were released. I myself, have already raked up these points. Most of the achievements are fairly easy to obtain, and many people are willing to "boost"(Players will willfully help you obtain them with the notion that you will do the same for them, a "You scratch my back, I'll scratch your back" kind of thing.) them in the DLC game types. Here's a list of what you can unlock, how to do it, and what playlist is most suitable for unlocking them. All achievements must be completed on Legendary maps and can be done in either ranked or social matches.

Achievement Name (Gamerscore Points) - Unlock Condition [Most Suitable Playlist(s)]
1. Came… From… Behind (50 G) - Get 3 Assassination Kills [DLC FFA/DLC Big Team]
2. Double Double (25 G) - Get 2 Double Kills [DLC FFA/DLC Big Team]
3. Defend This (50 G) - Get 1 Flag Melee Kill [DLC Big Team]
4. Road Rage (25 G) - Get 5 Warthog Chaingun Kills [DLC Big Team]
5. Look Both Ways (50 G) - Get 1 Splatter Spree [DLC FFA/DLC Big Team]
6. Flag Dropped (25 G) - Get 2 Flag Carrier Kills [DLC Big Team]
7. Alas, Poor Yorick (50 G) - Get 3 Oddball Melee Kills [DLC FFA]

And here's the list of Achievements that aren't worth any Gamerscore Points. Rumor has it if you collect all of these, Bungie will reward you with something special. There are some theories that you will get Recon Armor, but that is highly unlikely.

Achievement Name - Unlock Condition
1. Vidmaster Challenge: Annual - After 9/25/08, completed Halo on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and everyone in Ghosts.
2. Vidmaster Challenge: Lightswitch - Get to the rank of Lieutenant in any playlist in the new EXP progression system.
3. Vidmaster Challenge: 7 on 7 - Enter into any ranked or social playlist with 7 EXP on the 7th of the month.

There are more achievements that were released, but they cannot be unlocked yet because they are for the new and unreleased Mythic Map Pack. Hmmmm, why are all these achievements only for Map Packs that cost money? It's a pretty good marketing scheme, they only released achievements for Map Packs that you have to buy. People will now actually have a bigger motif for buying the Map Packs: they can unlock new achievements rather than just get some new maps to play on. And hey, everyone on Xbox Live knows that the bigger your Gamerscore is, the bigger your penis is. And for girls, well, I guess they have bigger boobies depending on their Gamerscore.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Halo 3 Music Video - Viva La Vida

This video is truly a masterpiece. The designer's 3-D graphic abilities are pretty amazing. Now sit back and enjoy the video to the tune of Cold Play's song, Viva La Vida.


How to Play Call of Duty 4 for FREE on PC


Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a fairly older game. It's not really old, but it did come out last year, but that doesn't mean that it's not worthwhile at all. In fact, it's one of the top first person shooters for the Xbox 360 gaming console right now. I don't know the exact number, but I believe it was something like forty million copies that were sold of the game since it was first released. Anyway, I'm not going to be talking about Xbox 360 here, but about CoD4(Call of Duty 4) on the PC(Personal Computer).

So I've had CoD4 for the Xbox 360 almost ever since it was first released, but over the last week or so, I've been hitting up internet cafes and playing CoD4 on the PC with a few friends, so I figured I might as well get it for PC since most of them don't have an Xbox 360. Of course since I already have a version of CoD4 for Xbox 360, there's no way I'm spending another sixty bucks so I can play it on my PC. What better way to get something so great and expensive for free other than torrents. If you don't know what torrents are, damn you've been missing out on some great opportunities.

Anyway, since I'm sure almost everyone has played CoD4 at least once I'm not going to get into detail about what the game's about and its mechanics. I'm just going to be comparing the Xbox 360 version with the PC version. If you've never played CoD4, well you better get your ass to the nearest game shop and buy it. No money? Then get the PC Version and download it from a torrent. To save you some time looking for the torrent, follow this link and get it from there. There are a lot of people seeding it, but a lot more leechers too, but it's probably the best one out there and depending on your speed and the number of seeds, you should get it down in a day or so. It took me about twenty-two hours to fully download, but for a game its size, that's a pretty good time.

The torrent comes with a No-CD crack for single player mode, and also with a Key Code Generator for multiplayer play. The only downside is, all of those keys are being used. You won't imagine how many people are playing CoD4 as you read this blog, but they are there, using those CD Keys, not allowing you to play. Hey, you are getting the game for free, so don't get your panties in a twist about not being able to play. Thankfully, there's a solution: Private/Cracked Servers. Here is a list of private servers that you can play on, Private-Servers. And this is how you log on to the servers. First you open up your CoD4 multiplayer client, press " ` " on your keyboard, of course don't press the quotes, those are there to show you what you need to press, which is the key located directly to the left side of the "1" on your keyboard. After you've done so, an input box comes up. Type in, without quotes, "connect 87.106.210.231:28960" It'll connect to the game if your ping is low enough. If your ping is too high, get a better connection. If the server is full, go get a new one from the list. Anyway, that's how you get onto CoD4 on your PC for free.

Anyway, getting back to the point, CoD4 is pretty much the same on PC as it is on the Xbox 360. There are a few differences though. One of the first is, well you get to use your keyboard and mouse to play the game. If you've never used your keyboard other than to type up an essay, well you're screwed. The keys are fairly simple to use, and once you get used to them you'll do just fine. You can change the key up if you want as well, but for me I just left most of them as they were. You can use any mouse, but if you want to make things easier on yourself, you can get a gaming mouse. I use a Logitech G5 and with it I have a few more buttons on my mouse to make combat easier for myself. If you really want to, you can use a controller, but if you want to experience a new way to play, just use your keyboard(or if you're used to a keyboard & mouse, use your controller).

I've only played the PC Version for a few days, and I'm already level twenty-three. I don't remember the title rank, but it's around that number. Gaining levels is easy, especially if you do the challenges. I've heard things about the game messing up and resetting your ranks though, so watch out. From what I've seen, your rank info is stored on your hard drive, so it seems that your account details, ranks, and weapons are client-side, which means if you had the tools to do it, you could probably modify it all, but I really don't care for it so I haven't bothered looking up how to do it for this game. Movement is a little different on the PC as well. You can move forward, backward, left, and right like always, but unlike on the console you can strafe left and right a lot easier and the PC version also allows you to lean left and right to take a peak from the side of a wall or window unlike the console version where you would have to move your whole body to take a peak. I have noticed that running and jumping in the game is a little buggy because your character won't always run when you hit the run key and there seems to be a delay on jumping as you are running as well.

Well so far that's all I've noticed from just a few days of playing it on the PC, perhaps there are a lot more differences between the console and computer, but I have yet to discover them. If this article helped you out, please take the time to say thanks or something in the comments. Thanks.

World of Warcraft - 7 Day Trial Experience


I've always wanted to play World of Warcraft so I can see what all the fuss was about, but I never really wanted to because it costs money to play and because I heard it was extremely addictive. The other day I saw an ad somewhere that was advertising a World of Warcraft(WoW) ten day free trial. So, I figured, what the heck, let's give it a try, it's only ten days and chances I won't far enough in the game to want to buy the full thing.

After finally setting up my account, and filling in fake personal info in all those fields they make you fill out, I was ready to kick some ass. On a side note, I really have no idea why the hell they need your state, address, phone number, and all that other personal info. Are they going to track you down if you mess around on the game? Who knows. Getting back on track, WoW was a whole milestone from what I've heard of it. I've heard things like the graphics are bad, and game play sucks. Honestly, it was nothing like that when I played, so I have no idea what people are talking about. This is how I would sum up my feelings about how great this game really is, "WoW, this game sucks! It's possibly the shittiest game that I have ever laid eyes upon. Seriously, I would rather play Runescape than Wow, and if that doesn't tell you something, you must be mentally retarded."

Let's start with the graphics. I've heard things about how crappy the graphics are, but actually seeing them for myself in-game was just unimaginable. I loved being able to change my character's appearance from looking like crap, to looking like a putrid pile of shit. I even traveled to a semi-populated town where I found some higher level characters. They had higher level equipment, but it still looked like some kind of crap made out of clay or something. This one guy had a sword that was on fire, it was an improvement in graphics, but still not good enough. Sorry, but Blizzard you seriously need to improve WoW's graphics a lot. It's not the year 2000 anymore guys, get on your asses and start rendering up a more realistic world.

The gameplay wasn't any better, so that didn't win my heart to play either. I can't stand a game with bad graphics, but if the controls are a mess, there's no point in trying to continue the game. It's pretty nice using your keyboard to move, but why the hell can't I use my mouse and click on a spot where I want to move to? Is it so hard to put that into the game? Attacking is similar to a lot of other MMORPGs, the classic hack-and-slash, but WoW has a certain change that really annoyed the hell out of me. In order to start the hack-and-slash sequence after clicking your mouse to attack, you have to be facing the monster you want to attack and you also have to be in range. What the fuck? Why can't I just click my mouse so my character can automatically get in to position and initiate the hack-and-slash sequence of attacks where I can then use whatever skills or spells that I want while my character is doing its part? This game's a joke, thank god I only used a trial version to play and didn't waste my own hard earned cash on this crap.

The game did have something I liked though, so don't think I hated everything about it. When you would die, you would become a ghost and you would have to look for your corspe in order to come back to life. I found that feature interesting, but everything else was horrible.

If you're thinking about starting to play WoW for the first time, please just get the ten day trial and save yourself from wasting any money on this pile of putrid roadside skunk shit.

Exteel


The name of the game is Exteel(Official Site Here), it's from NC Soft, it's a massively multiplayer online third person shooter, and best of all, it's free. It's based on some kind of war between machines or something. I've never bothered to read up on the story behind it so I can't tell you what it's about. It does remind me a lot of Gundam, and that's why my call name in game is ZakuIIS.

The controls are simple, WASD to move, space to jump, double-tap a movement key to do a dash, R to change between your two weapon sets, the mouse to change the camera angles and view, and the left and right mouse buttons to shoot/slash/block depending on what kind of equipment you're using. Nice and simple controls, I wish every game would be like that. There are levels and ranks in the game. I'm guessing the military rank is just for show, and your level lets you upgrade some stats like health, speed, armor, aim, and other abilities. You start with a basic unit, or mobile suit as I like to imagine them, and can either buy new separate parts such as head, arms, legs, etc. or if you save up enough credits you can buy a full set of armor for your whole body. Then come the equipment which includes pistols, sub machine guns, rifles, long range rocket/grenade launchers, swords, shields, healing guns, under-arm blades, and these things that look like those jousting pikes. After the weapons you get the extras which are just different paint jobs, faster respawn charges, and repair kits.

After I stopped playing about a month or two ago, and coming back just yesterday, the game hasn't improved that much, but there are some new things that they've added. A few new weapons and paint jobs were added, and a lot of the equipment that you had to use NCCoins(the game's micro payment option to enhance your gaming experience) to buy has been released so you can purchase it with credit you gain in the game. A new game mode, Capture the Flag, has also been added and after a few rounds of playing it myself I think they worked it out well.

All in all, if you like Gundam and fast paced Third Person Shooters, you should definitely check out Exteel. If I had to rate this, I would give it an 8.5/10, only because I think they should have added some more armor types and weapons to the game.

Infinity Online (Gameplay)


Infinity Online is an action style Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, or MMORPG for short. If you take some time to look at the video you'll get to see how bad ass this game looks. The minute I saw this I just wanted to download, install, and start tearing this shit up, so I did. The only problem is, common with a lot of other kick-ass MMORPG's out there, the game is not available to North America. What kind of bullshit is that? I really don't get it, why do they have to block us from playing it? If I really wanted to I could probably change my IP and use a tunneling service to play it, but I'm too lazy to do that and playing with that tends to lag up the game a lot.

The minute it hits North America, my ass in on that game so I can soon come to the realization that they totally fucked us over and gave us the first version of the game which sucks balls while everyone else gets the newest bad ass version to play. This happened with a game I thought was great, just like this game. It was called Cabal Online. The videos looked oh-so-awesome, but when it finally came to America, half the stuff shown in the videos was missing. It's a load of bullshit, but I guess that's what happens when a game is free and foreign. Well that's all I have to say, have fun and enjoy the video because that's probably the closest we'll ever get to playing that Infinity Online.