Even though im not a fan of games like this my brother asked me if I wanted to play and I said sure!
First off I did not play story mode just online, it seems like this game is played more online then the campaign is. I also played for Xbox360
My first thoughts were I was not used to the controls or the style of playing. I did manage to get used to after a couple of rounds, but I was being harassed by the players through the microphone! The players were just crazy, they all sounded 12 and were cursing like truck drivers.
I did manage to finally get into the style and story even though I was not very good im happy I played it. My favorite was the team deathmatch style games. I did kept getting "camped" because they must have seen I was not a great player but all was good. So I tried hiding up in a building with some snipers and thought that was fun, but the controls were sitll hard and were inverted.
All in all this is something I would never play again but im glad I did. I found a video of some sniper play too:
SO... I got Uncharted 3 for PS3 and have to talk about how amazing it is. There is something as I play the game that reminds me of a movie. Its so visually appealing it makes my eyes tear. At some points I feel like I am controlling a movie then playing a video game.
The game, the third in its series, follows Drake through his adventure to find a lost city. Its considered one of the most critically acclaimed games of the year scoring above 95% on most review sites.
I fell in love with it and have played through the story mode which is no easy feat. The game as visually stunning as it is, is also pretty difficult. The creators mixed the two elements perfectly. Another thing that makes the game so great is the online multiplayer feature.
I love multiplayer games, I much rather be playing with people then by myself. From co-op mode to deathmatchs it keep my adrenaline pumping. This is one game that will be one of my favorites for a while... That is till I can get my hands on Skyrim!
So unfortunately for this post I do not have an embarrassing video of me playing it.
But Just Dance 3 was recently released for the Wii, and I have to say its great. I love the Just Dance games because of the group play. Getting a whole bunch of people together and dancing like a bunch if idiots is just so much fun for me. The Wii version in my opinion is much better then the Kinect. I did a post about a dancing game for the Kinect and how disappointed I was with it, but Just Dance 3 proves to me that not all dancing simulations are bad.
The game introduces a new style of dances that I love. In the old games if you were playing with 4 people you usually were all doing the same moves. But for this game certain songs you have to dance according to your character. Almost like a big choreographed routine. Its so much fun and I love playing it and im going to try to bring it in for one of our game days.
My favorite song so far is Dynamite by Taio Cruz here is what the screen look likes when you play
There is something about holding two controllers and dancing like a fool that makes me so happy. I hope the Just Dance games continue to make great songs and routines like this.
So as we all know Im a HUGE Harry Potter nerd. I love everything about the books and when Quidditch became an actual sport I went CRAZY.
Let me tell you a little bit about how Quidditch a game played on flying booms in a book came to life.
So there are three circular goals are placed on either side of the “pitch”. All players are required to carry a broom between their legs at all times. A volleyball serves as the quaffle, and dodgeballs serve as the bludgers.
While the Snitch is a magical object within Harry Potter, in “Muggle” ( non-magical folk) Quidditch the Snitch is simply a tennis ball contained in a sock tucked in the waistband of the snitch runner. The snitch runner is a neutral player affiliated with neither team dressed in all gold or yellow, sometimes adorned with wings. After release, the snitch runner (and thereby the snitch itself) is allowed to roam an area beyond the playing field.
The game begins with the quaffle and bludgers placed in the center of the field and all players in line with their respective goalposts. After the snitch has been set off, the referee yells 'brooms up!' to start the action.
The positions are as follows in Muggle Quidditch
Chasersare responsible for passing the Quaffle and scoring points by throwing the Quaffle through one of the opponent's goals. Three chasers from a team may be in play at one time. When a Bludger hits a Chaser in possession of the Quaffle, he or she must drop the Quaffle and run back to his or her own goalpost to simulate recovery time.
Keepersare the goal protectors and must try to block attempts to score by the opposing team's Chasers. One keeper from a team may be in play at a time.
Beatersattempt to hit the opposing team's players with Bludgers and attempt to block the Bludgers from hitting their team's players. Two Beaters on a team may be in play at a time. – When a player gets hit by a bludger ( the dodge ball he or she must stop and run back and touch their goalpoasts)
Seekersattempt to catch the Golden Snitch set into play during the game. Seekers are able to search for the snitch the entire game, often throughout the college campus.
The game is a full contact sport sort of like rugby. Anything goes.
So the world cup this year took place on Randells Island. It was the largest one yet. 100 teams from 5 different countries with an estimated 30,000 people. It was AMAZING. There were 9 games going on at one time over the course of two days November 12-13. One of the main reasons I went was to support my friend who plays for Hofstra. They managed to go 3-1 and were knocked out in the semi finals by a horrible call.
Here is a short teaser video made by the IQA - International Quidditch Association
Ok. I have another slight addiction. I LOVE Monopoly! I could play this game every day for hours and hours. Its so fun!
Well over the summer I also got all of my friends addicted to it, we would play whenever we could and it sounds so dorky but it was alot of fun.
Monopoly is the game of Monopolies. "When it's your turn in MONOPOLY, you click the "Roll" button to roll the dice and move your MONOPOLY piece the number of spaces indicated on your roll. What happens next depends on the space you land on..."
The basic premise of the game is to buy properties you land on and get each one in that color code. When you have all two or three properties of the same color you can build houses and hotels on them, gaining or loosing more money as the game goes on.
Monopoly has expanded so much to different themed games. One of my favorites is Nintendo Monopoly. The board and pieces are so cool.
Well, when everyone went away to school we decided to take the game online, and we found a website that has an online Monopoly.
Pogo.com offers Monopoly World letting up to 4 people play the game at once. If you dont have 4 players you can play with the computer. The game is great and I have played for hours online. Its a great way to still play a game I love with my friends who are away at school.
When I was thinking of posts to do and what video games I play the most it didnt strike me that Monopoly could be something I could talk about. But its a virtual game in a sense an MMO and its great!
Here is a creepy video I found with a person playing it on youtube.
So me and my brother decided to play World of Warcraft... yes I renewed my account GOODBYE LIFE. Hopefully I can keep my gametime under control. ANYWAY WOW has this feature called Recruit A Friend where a player with a paying account can "recruit a friend" (RAF) to join the game. It has some cool features when your accounts get linked. You level much faster, MUCH MUCH MUCH faster you can summon eachother places if your not near eachother and some other cool things.
Well we made Blood Elves which are on the Horde side (see last blog post). He made a Hunter and I made a Paladin.
I decided since its his first time playing to ask him about his game experience for the hour that we played. (1hr 10 levels then I had to shut off the computer!)
"Umm... The graphics are very detailed which makes the game feel more intriguing to play. Umm... The style of gamplay like the different classes are cool because I can build and level my own guy and custom make it to how I want to play. I like being able to play with a bunch of different people at once and be playing in the same world on two different screens with someone in my house. I like how the network is set up and how I can interact with people across the world. I really like MMO's" - Spoken from my 15yr old brother Dom.
The only problem now is he is not going to stop bugging me to keep playing the game... This is either a good or bad thing. Guess I should cancel my weekend plans!
*Like my last blog was not able to record due to running the game and the program made it extremely slow*
Im actually worried about writing this blog because I know its going to turn into something entirely to long. So im going to just post an intro to the game and maybe go more in depth next week.
Ah so my wonderful addiction World Of Warcraft! So im going to talk about the game as a beginner would see it, and how they would create and choose a character. But first here is an AMAZING Cinematic Trailer to the game that will want you to create an account RIGHT NOW!
Wasnt that just AMAZING!? I know, I know it should win awards just for that.
Well when your first download the game ( huge file + patches so if your downloading it for the first time be prepared!) you will be brought to this character customization screen:
From here you choose between Alliance (good) or Horde (bad). Each has its pros and cons, I always chose Alliance because im used to their gameplay and love their "zones" and major cities. One thing to note is you cannot communicate with the other faction. If you are Alliance your play with only Alliance not Horde.
So after you make that decision you choose the Race and Class. World of Warcraft has 8 original races ( Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, Gnome, Orc, Troll, Undead and Tauren) After its first expansion Burning Crusade they added in two new races (Dranei and Blood Elf) seen here:
And after its third expansion Cataclysm they added in two more races ( Worgen and Goblin )
After choosing what race you want you can choose what Class you want to play. You can pick from these 10 classes.
Each class has its pros and cons. Some can be Tanks - take alot of damage but dont put out much damage. Healers- Heal players, Damage - Offer high amounts of damage usually cant take much of a beating. There are also Hybrid classes where you can do all three. Here is a chart to better explain the roles of each class:
After choosing your race/class you can choose a Unique name that will be available to you as long as no one else on the server has it.
Then you can enter the World! This game is great but very addictive! Next week Ill talk about its intro gameplay and a sort of beginners guide! Hope you go and sign up!
Let me start this off by saying I can not really appreciate a new MMO after playing one for so long and loving it. Everything else I criticize to much even though World Of Warcraft was not perfect.
The MMO I first chose to do was Everquest but I was having trouble with it and found out City of Heroes was a FREE download! This excited me because I actually wanted to test this out for the longest time but never had the chance to play or buy it. Instead of going into great length of the MMO which I did in my paper Ill offer an "at a glance" review of it. Since the game was so large I was not able to run a screen record at the same time so ill be putting in videos and pictures instead from the internet.
First off City of Heroes is an MMO where you can fully customize the player of your choice.
(I Dont recommend watching the full video skip around)
So basically in this came I can customize EVERYTHING about the character. The height/weight, body style colors of everything, which I thought was insanely cool! You can ever customize the colors of the spells and moves.
After creating your character you are launched into the "world" and this is where you begin with some tutorial missions.
This is where I began to hate the game. Normally my computer does not "lag" at all on games even when play WoW. So I was surprised to find how slow the game was running and I was getting extremely frustrated.
After finally being able to move around and get used to the controls, another thing I did not like, I made a few friends in the starting area and we ran around completing the missions.
The missions were fairly simple but getting over the lag on the server was the hardest part. After completing the tutorial missions you are thrown into an MMO area in which you are in a group and have to defeat this monster type thing.
The group playing was a bit too easy and confusing since I did not know much about the different types of playing abilities. I myself was a Ranged casting DPS and the moves were cool but also confusing. I did not like the setup of the screen and you could not customize it.
After you defeat the monster you are brought back to the starting area where you have a "MORAL" choice. You can help a NPC or kill the NPC. Doing so causes you to be a "Hero" or "Villain". I wanted to test out the Villain aspect of the game so I chose to kill.
After you are brought to a terribly confusing land of villains where you must complete objectives.
After playing for over an hour in this territory I had to stop. I did not understand the missions and the game was filled with glitches and bugs.
Maybe it was just my experience but I disliked the game ALOT. The only saving point was the character customization.
SO I was at my friends house and he had Kinect. I have never played it and decided to try it out.
BEFORE I post a video of me embarrassing myself let me review it.
Shotty controls make for an awkward game play, and even in dance mode its hard to follow the screen and be read since there is a slight delay. I was doing one move the screen was doing another I was still getting perfects, but it had nothing to do with me being a crappy white boy dancer.
The Kinect in general is not worth it in my opinion, there are not many games to choose from and you cant play with more then one person in the screen? I think thats its biggest problem. If I want to make a fool of myself I want to do it with someone I know standing next me. Plus bringing duel player makes it more fun. This is a system thats meant to be more fun then serious... I hope.
So here is a video of me "Pushing It" and embarrassing myself!
So naturally I picked Pottermore for my first blog post.
Pottermore was just released to Beta users who stayed up all night looking for clues on how to get in. Sadly yes that was me at 5am haha.
Well I have included a video of me just giving you an overview of what the site looks like and one of my favorite moments of it so far. Hope you enjoy it!
(Video is small click through to youtube to watch it bigger)
I hope you enjoyed my video of Pottermore! Now I just want to tell you some of my thoughts on it.
First when it was being released and no one knew what it was, alot of people were assuming it was going to be an MMORPG. When I found this out I was almost in hysterics because I was so excited. When I first logged on and found it wasn't, I was kind of disappointed and unclear really what Pottemore was all about.
After running through the Beta I can say I amextemely pleased and excited to see what is to come from this site. I can not wait to read more backstories and discover more things.
Only JK Rowling would continue a series she finished by going back and filling in pieces her fans were wondering about, she truly loves her fans.
I can not wait for more of Pottermore to be released, they have me holding on to the little they have showed us and we are thrilled! Hope you liked my glimpse at Pottermore and some of my interesting thoughts!
