Magicka Receives Massive Engine Overhaul

** Originally posted on levelsave.com **

 Paradox Interactive have recently announced that Magicka, their spell-slinging action-adventure title, will be receiving a massive tech update. This free, downloadable patch will eradicate several off-putting annoyances as well as improve how the game actually plays.

“Full details for what is featured in the game engine update:

• Fairy familiar added, revives characters after death occurs in solo campaign
• Checkpoints now save progress even if game is quit
• Chapter select added to replay previously played chapters
• Several improvements to the server browser
• Physics and collision detection improved – less falling through the floor
• Frame rate stuttering – should be less noticeable for some users
• Extended particle system with particle lights
• Improved light performance
• Several minor bug fixes, game balance, and tweaks “

-Paradox Interactive

As can be seen, the improvements range from dramatic, (being able to resurrect yourself in the middle of a level,) to very minute, (tiny tweaks which I would never have noticed in my adventures.) All in all, this is going to be the largest update since the game’s release, and it couldn’t come sooner.

BEHOLD!

This announcement come hot on the heels of a new DLC package entitled The Stars Are Left. This new DLC, satirizing both Lovecraft’s venerable Cthulhu mythos as well as Mojang’s cult beta Minecraft, is something I have been waiting for with bated breath.

The features of The Stars Are Left include:

• New Adventure levels with the titular theme being featured in each
• New challenge maps
• New boss battles and enemies
• New items and magick sequences

Standard fare as far as Magicka DLC goes, but they haven’t disappointed me yet, this should be amazing. Honestly, if you’re a self-professed armchair wizard and have not picked up this gem, then you are missing out.

All in a day’s work for Paradox Interactive. Thank you for such apt timing!

Website: http://www.magickagame.com/

Source:http://www.anpdm.com/newsletterweb/4546584A7043445E42764643/424A514279454B5C407949445C43

Rise of Immortals Acquires European Servers

** Originally posted on levelsave.com **

In a recently press release, Petroglyph unveiled that they are taking Rise of Immortals to a more global scale.

“In response to rising player demand in Europe, Petroglyph recently deployed new server hardware in its London data center, thereby significantly reducing server ping times to the UK, Germany, the Russian Federation, Poland, and other European regions. “

The statement goes on to say that European players will still be able to access North American servers and vice-versa, as no character is bound to any particular server. Rather, players join via an auto-connect function at the beginning of each game which selects the lowest ping time from a list of available servers. This allows for regional populations to play together, trending the likelihood that people close to their local servers will have the lowest ping time, but players will be automatically redirected when a server experiences downtime.

Petroglyph calls Rise of Immortals a Free-to-Play Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game with RPG elements, a F2P MOBARPG if you will. Free-to-Play meaning that the basic game is free of cost to everyone, but Petrogyph draws profit from a series of microtransactions that may occur in-game if the player wishes to expand their experience. MOBA is a style of Realtime Strategy gaming which draws heavily on the success of a particular Warcraft 3 map called Defence of the Ancients. The RPG elements involved include persistent experience earned towards levelling up each Immortal individually and a skill tree.

“Features of Rise of Immortals:
• Free-to-play
• 14 unique Immortals, with additional Immortals released on a regular basis
• Persistent per-Immortal level progression and skill trees 
• Persistent artifacts for stat enhancements
• Player versus Environment instances with boss encounters
• Player versus Player instances with up to 5v5 multiplayer
• Player versus Bot instances with up to three-person cooperative play
• Persistent experience and leveling in both PvP and PvE instances
• Account and Immortal statistics tracking
• Player hub instances for socialization“

Rise of Immortals can be found on PC.

Source: http://www.riseofimmortals.com/forums/topic/3657-european-servers-now-online/

Lazy Impressions: Gears of War

** Originally posted on LevelSave.com **

I’ve gotten Gears of War for the Xbox 360 recently. Not the new one, but the oldest version you can possibly buy on the free market: Gears of War 1. This is a pattern with me, I will overlook a series until it comes full circle and joins the halls of the great trilogies, then I will recognize the series as something worth checking out, and finally begin the descent into whichever universe has captured my attention. I mostly attribute this phenomenon to my general laziness.. Anyway, I’ve gotten Gears of War recently.

I’m honestly not a big fan of the genre, so please take this article with a grain of salt, but this game sticks out for me as one of the better ones. The reasons why I don’t like this kind of game are plentiful: The machismo doesn’t appeal to me; the blind, senseless killing; the facelessness or de-characterization of the enemy; the narrow range of view; the recycled, ineptly written storylines; etc, etc. There are so many ways I could pick the entire genre apart, though instead I’m going to focus on how this particular title rises above the rest.

The Locust are your enemy. They are alien and faceless, but they are interesting. They’ve come from under the ground and don’t fit into any of the archetypes you find in literature about aliens. I suppose they’re not really aliens at all, but they are very, very strange. Seemingly made up partly of clay, mechanical parts, and human bits with an exoskeletal casing. They seem to stagger under their own weight and the weight of their enormous guns. This last point is simply part of the universe though, since the human Gears also look genetically engineered to be able to lift buses.

The universe in Gears is gritty. Not slick, nor shiny like a few FPS I could name, everything seems crafted for war, even the people. The Locust and the Gears are pock-marked, scarred, seeming to belong to one another, though their conflict is one fuelled by blind hatred and genocide. I can only imagine the heartbreak on Emergence Day (the day that the Locust first sprang from the ground,) when Seran civilization fell. The survivors on this world adapting from life-as-we-know-it to military rule as a means to see another sunrise. Gears of War seems to successfully capture the visceral feel of an invasion of a once beautiful planet.

The environments are beautiful. The crumbling, Roman-esque architecture of Sera, dotted with future detail and symbology, is a pretty playground for the Locust. The levels run through piazzas and overgrown courtyards that naturally compliment the strategy of the Locust. That is until Delta Team goes underground and your environment becomes a drab, grey-brown experience in which the Locust stick out like sore thumbs. The Gears seem to belong more to the underground environment than the Locust do. Up to that point it’s a very attractive looking game.

This kind of game always lends itself well to multiplay, and Gears is no exception. While I don’t play much competitive, firefight-style games, I’m always down for co-op campaign gaming. The co-op campaign is exactly the same as the single-player campaign. Your characters are always in the story, interacting in the same ways even if Dom (read: P2) is controlled by the second player. The fear and panic that two people feel as they come up against insurmountable odds is binding and I wouldn’t change that about Gears. I’m happy that they kept that 2-player format throughout the series, rather than increasing the amount of player characters that can be busting heads at once. This is going to be a bit of fun.

So, having ripped the genre, and putting Gears of War on a pedestal amidst the detritus, I feel it deserves a play-through. If I, a self-professed critic of macho firefight gaming, can get so much enjoyment from this franchise, then I think it should be on everyone’s radar. I hope that Epic Games releases more titles in the franchise and expands on the existing storyline in the future.

DC Universe Online Now Free To Play

** Originally posted on Levelsave.com **

On November 2011, after a short 11 month stint of a strict subscription-based business model, Sony Online Entertainment has eagerly adopted a tiered free-to-play system for their fierce physics-based MMORPG, DC Universe Online. Executive Producer Lorin Jameson stated, on the SOE Gamer podcast, that this change "...will allow everyone an opportunity to figure out where they want to be, and how they want to pay for it." When asked why he thought the change was necessary, Lorin added that he wanted players to be able to get involved in the game without commitment, to test the waters.

Following a trend of subscription-based MMOs going F2P, including such ongoing games such as Lord of the Rings Online and Anarchy Online, DCUO joins the ranks of good games which simply cannot compete against Blizzard's beast, World of Warcraft. Subscription can still be bought in various packages, but SOE is also adding two new tiers of commitment for people who are not willing to put up the monthly fee. There is a limited free-to-play format which will give you 2 character slots, a limited inventory, and access to all of the core areas not included in the DLC packages. There is also a Premium tier, which sits comfortably between the subscription and F2P levels, and includes more inventory and character slots, as well as access to other varied in-game privileges. After spending $5 on the game, players are automatically upgraded from Free to Premium. This includes players who have once been subscribed and have let their subscription lapse into dormancy.

Microtransactions have arisen in the game. A player can access the in-game store and buy items, equipment, character slots, inventory slots, and even DLC with credit purchased with real-life currency. The online store is also available for this purpose, and can take various payment options which does not include turning your hard-earned cash into DC credits.

There is some contention around whether this trend of subscription-based MMORPGs going F2P is actually a good thing or not. Personally, I am glad of the conversion, because through it I have found a good game that I wouldn't have been likely to pay for. I'm not a DC fan, not a comic book fan, nor an action-MMO fan, but the experience flying high above Gotham City and having shootouts with goody-goody heroes is definitely worth my time.

Download this game on PC and PS3 for free. Large content download required.

Primer of Magic: The Gathering for Parents of School-Aged Children

Overview:

Magic: The Gathering is a multiplayer, fantasy-themed collectible card game. Players take on the roles of "Planeswalkers," powerful magicians who have gained the ability to summon creatures, use magical artifacts, and cast enchantments. Each card represents a spell that the player can cast to help himself or to hinder and lower the "life points" of the other players. Every card is beautifully illustrated with an appropriate, unique, original fantasy painting displayed on the card's face.

Gameplay requirements:

Each player must have a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards. A deck must have at least 60 cards in total to be deemed valid for play, though there is no upper limit to how many cards can be in a deck. Players may also want counters or dice in order to keep track of life points and various bonuses and hindrances they receive during the course of the game. A pencil and paper will also work to keep track of these changes. 60-40 card starter decks may be purchased at board and card game stores for about $5-10 each. Additional, randomized, 15-card packs cost about $3-5.

Gameplay mechanics:

Each player first constructs a deck of cards containing no less than 60 cards in total and no more than 4 of each spell-card. All players shuffle their own deck and draw a hand of 7 cards, then the game begins. Magic: The Gathering is played in turns. The first player to take a turn is often decided randomly, and then play proceeds around the table clockwise. Each turn is divided up into phases during which certain actions may be taken, such as casting spells or attacking an opponent with summoned creatures to try to reduce the opponent's life points. Spells are cast via a mystical energy called “mana” which pervades the multiverse. Spells have different mana costs, smaller spells cost less while more devastating spells cost more to play. Mana also comes in one of five different colours, the colour of the mana flavours what types of spells may and may not be used. The different colours of mana may be acquired by tapping into specific types of land, which come in the form of cards, and may be played by each player once per turn. Each player has the option of attacking or casting spells on any other player, making for some interesting social dynamics within games with more than 2 players. Each player who is reduced to 0 or fewer life points is considered to be out of the game, while the rest of the players continue to play. When one player is the only one left with any life points, they win the game.

The Magic: The Gathering setting:

The setting that Magic: The Gathering takes place in is a diverse fantasy world tinged with science-fiction. There are several different universes making up the “multiverse” through which the Planeswalkers can travel. Planeswalkers are the only ones who can travel between universes and often find themselves fundamentally at odds with what and whom they find there. This is where the card game comes in: It is a battle for supremacy between the Planeswalkers, and players will sometimes do some light role-playing around the table as they cast spells and summon creatures. A good deal of the general histories of the universes are fleshed out, leaving most of the specifics up to interpretation. There have been numerous books, mostly detailing the lives and politics of the Planeswalkers, written about the Magic:The Gathering multiverse.

Benefits of playing Magic: The Gathering:

• Increases intellectual dexterity, allowing for players to practice thinking on their feet in a dynamic environment
• Supports immediate logical strategy. In the same way that chess supports strategic maneuvering, and on a much deeper level, Magic: The Gathering often uses fairly complex measures and counter-measures to meet the victory condition
• Allows for practice of mathematic skills with additions and subtractions from several different sources complicating matters
• With guidance, 2-player games allow for practice and development of friendly competition
• Games with more players allow for alliance-building and is generally a more complex social experience
• The imaginative setting leaves much to interpretation, allowing for creative expression within the confines of the multiverse's histories

Recommended minimum age:

Wizards of the Coast, the company who publishes Magic: The Gathering, recommends their players be at least 13 years old. This is due to monstrous imagery, partial nudity, and religious themes, as well as competitive maturity in the players. Without adult-child conversation about the imagery and concepts depicted, I agree with this recommendation. If adult supervision and guidance is provided, children as young as 10 years old would benefit from this game.

Remember, you know your child best and know exactly what she can and cannot handle,

so take these recommendations as soft guidelines rather than hard rules. 

July 14:
Dueling Grounds is well and selling Munchkin, mostly. Initial burst of sale in Cthulhu Dice has cooled down.

Monthly Munchkin Wednesday ensued. Deanna and Elisa joined the fray, I won. Forgot prize support at home, will make it up to them. Deanna used black Munchkin Die, began at lvl2; Elisa used iphone Munchkin Counter app, which gives different boons at different lvls. Fun game, Deanna is incredibly nice, also moving to Ann Arbour (sp?)

Ordered a shipment from Warehouse 23 at end of June, still waiting for it to ship. Just noticed that Kill-O-Meter is still on order, which is why it hasn't shipped yet. Will re-do order without Kill-O-Meter.

Went to Dueling Grounds today, spoke to Wayne. Was busy with receiving an order but he wanted to say hi and ask what I want to run during May. Will return when I have info ready for him. He also wants to play TSAR. He suggested coming on TABS Wednesday.

Went to 401. They recently restocked Munchkin and everything is going well.

Went to Hairy T. Spoke to Leon and everything is going well. Spoke to staff member about Kaiba, it has not been released in US marketplace yet.