If you're like me, you're playing just about anything you can get your hands on these day. I bought Penny-Arcade's on the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 today for $4.99…
When Age of Empires Online first opened its doors for beta testing, we were there. When it launched, we were there.  But it didn't take long before we were done…
With so many new entrants to what is now being called the “MOBA” genre, I was happy to find one that finally stands out as something a little bit different, yet so familiar. League of Legends and DOTA2 are both great games, and I appreciate what both do to be different; However, they’re very much the same when you compare them to a game like Smite. Smite, a free-to-play MOBA currently in closed beta, is being made by the same devs who made Global Agenda and brought back the Tribes franchise.
Imagine League of Legends gameplay, but from a MMO perspetive. Third person, behind your character, hotbars with abilities that instant cast (most are skill-shot), and controls with WASD and mouse look. That’s the best way I can describe Smite to someone for the first time. At times it feels to me like I’m playing in a WoW BG or something like Warhammer: Wrath of Heroes because the focus is very much on how I’m controlling my character.
More Smite thoughts after the jump. (more…)
This week's Adventure Log is surprisingly Dragon-centric. Both of us worked hard to finish up games with open worlds and freedom. Graev: Dragon's Dogma I beat Dragon's Dogma yesterday, and…
We Like…
Skill Runes
You can use a skill one way for a long time, but then you use a rune and suddenly the skill can change completely. For example, the Witch Doctor’s fire bats start as a cone with limited range but with the first rune you send out one big bat that does considerable damage and flies a bit further. Upgrading the poison dart turns it into a 3 shot burst. We like the added, and much needed, diversity.
Global Stash
Your stash (treasure chest in town) is the same for all of your characters. Transfer items to other characters you play easily and stay organized. This is a simple but great change from the way Diablo 2 kept characters on the same account very separate.
Crafting (so far)
It’s nice to have an alternative to selling all the magic items you can’t use. Salvaging magic items yields materials used to craft upgrades with random stats. In a way, it’s like gambling. Crafting is also a money sink. We have no idea how well the crafted items will scale through difficulties, but if they remain very competitive with drops it’s a nice addition to the game.
Individual Loot
This has been a real joy. There isn’t a rush to pick up items when they drop. There isn’t this nagging fear that you might miss something. If something drops, it’s yours and you don’t have to worry about being too greedy or thinking about others. Sounds totally selfish, but it works for Diablo 3. It’s also mandatory given the RMT system — can you imagine the drama if something worth $20 dropped and it was a race to see who picked it up?
Convenience and Improvements to Ease of Use
There’s a minimap so you don’t have a map open all the time in your face. Joining friends is really straight forward and quick via the friends list. The Banner system lets you instantly join friends by teleporting right to them. That annoying stamina bar is gone. Taking up inventory space with a book of town portals and identify is gone, and it’s harder to quickly escape via TP. Putting points into stats has been eliminated — let’s face it, there was really only one best way to do it. These are conveniences that don’t hurt the integrity of the game and, in our opinion, allow for more enjoyment.
Starhawk released today exclusively for the Playstation 3! Starhawk is a third-person shooter with a setting that reminds us of Firefly — that wild west in space vibe. It’s the future, and Humans have colonized other planets. The game takes place in a colony aptly named ‘Frontier’ where miners have been affected by a powerful substance known as rift energy. This energy has transformed some of the miners into mutants who are protective of the rift energy, and the natural conflict for game is established.
Unlike its predecessor Warhawk, Starhawk has a single-player campaign. We’ll update this with our impressions once we’ve finished the campaign, 
but for now we’ll say that the single-player feels very similar to multiplayer in that the player is given multiple ways to tackle a problem.
Multiplayer is the heart and soul of Starhawk. Players can compete in 16v16 matches of CTF, zone control, and other common multiplayer modes. These maps are ginormous to accommodate Hawks, the mechwarrior/transformer/Warhawk machines that define the gameplay in Starhawk. The gameplay hasn’t changed much from the Warhawk days; Players fly around in highly maneuverable Hawks, on the ground in tanks and vehicles, or on foot with a very familiar multiplayer shooter feel.
Build & Battle is what makes Starhawk unique.  As you play you earn rift energy that you can spend like currency to call in drops from the radial Build & Battle menu. You can call in walls, turrets, supply depots, vehicle bays, and change the course of battle through strategically utilizing rift energy to give you and your team the advantage.
Gameplay is chaotic, unpredictable, and crazy polished. Flight feels amazing, gunplay is solid, and the Build & Battle system makes each map feel different because players may defend their flag differently or build up their base differently every match. There’s so much being done in Starhawk that we wish would be brought to the rest of the shooters on all platforms. (Part of me dies thinking about how awesome this would be on PC. -Keen)
Read on for more of our review! (more…)
WvW is the closest I have ever come to reliving Dark Age of Camelot RvR. I chose to lead off with that comment because WvW is the reason why I will play GW2, and the reason why many of my friends decided to even give GW2 a chance. I want to begin by giving you a narrative of the video I shot below.
The video starts off with my server fighting outside the outer wall of our Western Keep in Blue’s World. We are the invaders taking and holding Blue’s territory. Almost right away we are pushed back through our wall just to find ourselves flanked by an even larger Blue force which broke through the other gate on the wall. Keeps, Towers, and Outer Walls in GW2 have multiple gates. This makes defending much more difficult because the attackers can come at you from multiple fronts.
As we are pushed back, I dive off the cliff into the beautifully done waters of our Keep’s moat. Water combat, and water in general, are stunning and an amazing addition to the game and WvW. We battle back and forth and eventually push Blue back to their Garrison (primary keep, awesome defense). Moments later, as my guildies and I are retreating to our keep on our way to take a supply depot, GREEN server’s army flanks us out of nowhere inside the walls of our keep. I LOVE three faction PvP!!!
The video ends with the end of our attack on a Tower and a look at the Orb (DAOC Relic). We break the doors with our ram and burst through cleaning up the last of the defenders. Slaying the Tower Lord, we claim the Tower for our server and march off to take more objectives.
Read on for more WvW Impressions. (more…)
I've learned a lot, but these are some of the major points I came away with from today's testing. No Trading - Mail For Everything This is by far one…
I’ve played a few hours and I want to get my initial impressions out while they are still fresh. These are my very early impressions.
Server Issues
I’ve had a lot of bad luck getting an optimal experience in Guild Wars 2 thus far.
When I first launched the game I was getting error after error while trying to join Sorrow’s Furnace.  Others on Ventrilo with me were getting the same error. I thought to myself that I would try another server and simply delete a character that I make and choose a new home server, but my thought process was flawed because as soon as I chose a server I realized I was locked into it. Being separated from my guild, I entered my credit card into to obtain 2,000 free beta gems so that I could buy an 1,800 server transfer. After several hours of trying, that feature does not work.
Performance
GW2 does not run as well as I hoped. I immediately noticed I’m getting low FPS in many areas. Some areas speed up and the game feels smooth, but in order to get any decent performance I need to turn my shadows to low and shaders to medium. I’m still averaging about 20 FPS with a rig that runs every other game I’ve tried on the highest settings. I assume this is due to the game utilizing more CPU and less GPU, as well as a lack of optimization given the beta status.
When I get near a lot of other players the game slows down considerably. In the Human starting area the event to help the water was packed with 50 people and I was getting a lot of slow down.
Combat
I think I like it. I’ve tried a Thief and an Engineer so far. I will comment more on individual classes later, and create videos. Combat in general is fun. I really like the idea of abilities being tied to weapons. I’ve tried daggers, guns, rifles, and each of the abilities for the classes have felt unique. During an event in the Charr starting area I was able to utilize my AOE attacks with a rifle and I farmed up a lot of kills, but I also attracted aggro and died.
“Dynamic” Events
They’re not dynamic. Duh. They’re events, and that’s what I’ll call them. The events are fine. They feel more natural than WAR’s Public Quests, but they are absolutely an iteration or evolution of that system.  I wish they would remove stages and make the experience more organic. The early events in Human lands were putting out fires with buckets of water, defending against waves of bandits, and feeding cows. I’m not very impressed with the early events, but even the second stage of events are becoming more fun.
Overall Feel
I haven’t decided yet. Movement feels odd. I’m not yet used to it. PvE progression is better than the standard questing because I feel more free to go about the game in my own way. I like the level of quality in the map system (maybe my favorite part so far) and I like the overall quality. Polish is moderate, definitely not high.
I’m going to continue testing to focus my thoughts on specifics. WvW is next on the list. Video after the jump.
We got into the Ghost Recon Online Closed Beta recently. GRO will be a Free to Play FPS game, which made me extremely hesitant to even care enough to download…