Fallout 4 & Fallout Shelter
I watched Bethesda's E3 Showcase last night to see whether or not I would want to be interested in Fallout 4. I will happily admit that I have never been…
I watched Bethesda's E3 Showcase last night to see whether or not I would want to be interested in Fallout 4. I will happily admit that I have never been…
I'm playing a lot of mobile games these days now that I have an iPhone 6 Plus. Playing on the iPhone 6 Plus screen is way more fun than the…
Albion Online is a F2P sandbox MMO currently in alpha. Â We received keys to participate in the alpha test that began this evening which ended up being so much fun that I had to jump on here and share my thoughts. Â I would have had this post up yesterday evening shortly after playing, but my poor little laptop BSOD’d and I lost the whole thing. 🙁
Think of Ultima Online + a little bit of action RPG and you’ll start to form the foundation of Albion Online. Â Played from an isometric perspective, Albion Online offers a completely sandbox experience on any device. Â I was shocked to see that you can play cross-platform on iOS, Android devices, PC, etc.
Building
Players in Albion are able to build structures out in the world. Â From what I can tell, there appear to be pre-designated spots close to the main city. Â I haven’t explored far (the world is pretty dang big) enough to see if it opens up to more of a ‘place anywhere’ mechanic. Â You can place storage buildings to help you store all of your heavy resources (there is a carry capacity), crafting stations, buildings to decorate, etc. Â Like UO, you are safe in your building unless you built in the guild warfare areas.
Gathering and Skills
From the moment I started playing I realized how much time I could lose to this game. Â The very first thing I had to do was gather wood, stone, and hides to craft myself some basic tools and armor. Â I recommend making a shield and adding the Shield Wall spell — great survivability! Â After crafting my tools I realized that everything in-game seems to be driven by the skill menu. Â This skill menu is MASSIVE and makes Path of Exile look tame. (more…)
I had an interesting conversation at work the other day. A few of us are really into video games so we occasionally slip into casual conversation about which console is our favorite or what old video games we wish we could play again. Â I don’t know how we started, but the conversation turned to Pokemon and then to handheld gaming.
One of my co-workers, who is very open about not being knowledgeable at all about video games, asked, “Is the Gameboy still around?”  I gave him a 30 second history lesson on the evolution of Nintendo’s handheld systems — how Sega’s Gamegear  didn’t last, The Gameboy became the DS, etc.  He then asked, “Do people still buy handheld gaming consoles today?”  A question like that comes as a bit of a surprise because those us who game know that it’s still a huge market, albeit a struggling huge market in the last few years.
We then got talking about the iPhone (iOS 7 just came out) and the following statement was made:
“I don’t need a gaming console. Â I would never buy one. Â I have an iPhone.” Â Â (more…)
Admittedly I didn’t know a whole lot about the game going in. I saw a trailer and skimmed over the Kickstarter page along with a few other articles. What I thought was going to be a deep and satisfyingly was instead shallow and broken. I honestly can’t believe I chocolate-rabbit’d myself so soon after writing that. I suppose I have to take partial blame for expecting too much. Wait… No, no I really don’t. They essentially promised as much in their Kickstarter campaign. Anybody who sunk any substantial money into Star Command must be fighting waves of nausea.
Visually, the game is great. They did a fantastic job with the pixel art and the aliens and ships are fascinating to look at. They obviously went for a Star Trek feel and I think for the most part they nailed it. Unfortunately it just all goes downhill from here. The combat, ship, crew, and diplomacy (or lack thereof) mechanics are all bad. They really are. I probably shouldn’t make sweeping statements like that but I honestly can’t think of a single redeeming feature among them.
The entire game is based around tokens. Win a battle, get tokens, spend tokens on upgrades or crew. Good luck being able to afford anything, though, when you have to constantly replace your crew. Parts of your ship also use different types of tokens to dodge attacks and fire special weapons. The problem is that you not only need to wait for the rooms to charge up, but then you need to spend a token. Unfortunately you can only hold 2 tokens of each type at a time. After that you have to generate tokens, introducing an additional timer into the mix. The same is true for shield regenerators, etc. It’s a completely stupid and broken system. I just don’t understand why they created, essentially, 2 different usage timers. It would have been great if they just let you buy and stock ammo, but there’s none of that. Read on. (more…)
We love all things Skylanders! Skylanders: Giants came out recently, and already there are more games in the works.  Activision released Skylanders: Cloud Patrol earlier this year, and we found…
I've been inundated with time-waster "games" lately. They come in all shapes and sizes, on all platforms, from all settings, for children and adults alike. The iOS and mobile device…
A new Skylanders game released for the iOS today called Skylanders Cloud Patrol. We absolutely love all things Skylanders, so it was an easy decision for us to drop $0.99…
From the creators of Dead Space for iOS comes Mass Effect: Infiltrator, a third person action shooter loosely set in the familiar Mass Effect universe. You play as a Cerberus…
I've been playing Hero Academy for over a week now. Let's analyze that statement. I'm playing an iOS game for a week! I normally play around with a game on…