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Rohan - Beta ReviewCategory: Beta Review Posted on 2008-05-29 06:36:09 Add to Bookmark |
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<-- Like it? Digg it! “Lineage 2 meets World of Warcraft”  Everyone has their favourite games, the ones that you play for months at a time. When your playing them, you rarely want to play anything else. They have the best memories, the best groups, the best weapons, and you tell all of your friends to come and play with you because they clearly don’t know what their missing out on. For me, these games were Lineage 2, and World of Warcraft. Discovering shortly after logging into Rohan that it was the perfect mix of both of these games, I started to feel that favourite game urge rising once again. Logging into Rohan for the first time was an interesting experience, mainly due to it’s massive popularity the servers crashed seconds after opening. With hundreds of thousands of people trying to log in at once it was a very difficult start. Fortunately it wasn’t long until the admins had added a new sever and most of us were able to log in successfully. There were some lag issues, and the servers crashed occasionally, but a few hours later everything had stabilised and it was time to play. Naturally, the first thing to do was to choose a class, thankfully Roh |
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| 7396 Views 17 Comments | Read More | |
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Richman Online - Beta ReviewCategory: Beta Review Posted on 2008-05-23 12:50:38 Add to Bookmark |
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 "Move over Monopoly, Richman Online is here!"  Yes, the first thing you will undoubtedly notice when you start playing Richman Online is that it is incredibly similar to Monopoly, well; it would be if Monopoly had landmines and nuclear warfare. After logging in and listening to some of the catchiest tunes in any MMO to date, you'll first be asked to complete the tutorial. Fortunately its brilliant, covering a vast majority of the game without boring you to tears. They've taken the 'learn by doing' approach, setting up a game with the rules specific to what they were trying to teach you, and then letting you battle it out with an NPC under those conditions. By the end of it you always have a full understanding of what they were trying to teach. After completing the tutorial you should be level 4, and able to join the main room, allowing you to play against other people. I found that after  sitting in the lobby for only a few seconds I was invited to my first game…it didn't go so well. I honestly had no idea of the rules outside of the tutorial, so naturally when my first turn came along and I saw 3 other players all neatly lined up next to each other I went with |
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| 1347 Views 2 Comments | Read More | |
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NeoSteam - Beta ReviewCategory: Beta Review Posted on 2008-05-20 04:16:01 Add to Bookmark |
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  I've mentioned previously that I find it hard to beat the feeling of logging into a new game. There's an uncertainty in the air, most of the time I don't really know too much about what I'm going to be playing, and I'm a sucker for suspense. If I had to list out all of possible things that can happen in that first minute, a cinematic opening would be right at the top. So after lighting that 'new game ciggie', leaning back in my favorite chair and logging into NeoSteam for the first time, finding a beautiful cinematic waiting for me was so much more than a pleasant surprise, it was pure magic. Having had such a pleasant first few minutes in NeoSteam, it saddens me greatly to say that before I had even finished that cigarette, I encountered several massive disappointments. The first of which is language translation; from my experience every game seems to have their own level of translation ranging somewhere from  perfect English, to Engrish. From this point forward 'NeoSteam' is now the new lowest rank on the translation ladder, Engrish would almost be pleasant compared to most of the text here, and although for many people this isn't really a big issue for someone like mysel |
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| 3841 Views 11 Comments | Read More | |
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Must have's of the 90's - A SNES RPG CompilationCategory: Article Posted on 2008-05-18 01:00:51 Add to Bookmark |
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 For me the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) was the beginning. It was where it all started. I'd played video games before it; I had the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, NES, SEGA Master System, and the SEGA Mega Drive. I loved them all greatly, and always will, they had so many new and unique games that I honestly don't think I can think of a time when I was bored even once during my childhood. But the SNES gave me something I hadn't really experienced before; it gave me the RPG. RPG's existed well before the SNES, it's predecessor the NES has several good ones that although great games, unfortunately didn't grab my attention when I was that young. No, the RPG's on the SNES were something else entirely. Not only did they look much better, they also added so many new gameplay elements, involving storylines and gigantic worlds to explore. It's safe to say the SNES games made me what I am today, they left a lasting impression on me, one that now more than ever in a time when new games are produced more easily than a new pair of shoes, I am glad I still have. I've written this article for three separate reasons. First, so that the younger generation that missed such a great |
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| 4787 Views 8 Comments | Read More | |
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Contest - Warrior Epic Closed Beta Account Giveaway!Category: Promotion Posted on 2008-05-15 03:30:25 Add to Bookmark |
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 Yep that's right, the guys over at Possibility Space have just announced that they are giving 200 lucky gamers the chance to test their new and totally rad MMO Warrior Epic! Just click here and simply post the funniest, stupidest most uncanny phrase you can think of for your chance to win your very own Closed Beta Test Account and join the fun! See you in-game soon! |
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| 322 Views 0 Comments | Read More | |
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Attack of the Clones - A Writer Club ExclusiveCategory: Article Posted on 2008-05-13 08:37:26 Add to Bookmark |
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 [Why toasters? Well, I was eating toast....] Slim, very slim. That's because over time so many different companies started making the same thing with the smallest of changes that once enough time had passed, it simply wasn't an issue anymore. Or maybe they sold the patent, I really don't know. The point is, that there are thousands of different toast |
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| 697 Views 7 Comments | Read More | |
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T-Crew - Beta ReviewCategory: Beta Review Posted on 2008-05-12 08:54:11 Add to Bookmark |
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 "T-Crew, A world where teamwork and competition co-exist together peacefully"  I make myself laugh sometimes. Teamwork and Competition working together? That will be the day! It may look like it's working...for a while, but it doesn't take very long until you realise that this 'Teamwork' thing is really a facade, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Sure, at the beginning when you're still learning how to play, you don't mind when the bigger guys take all of the loot, you just want to learn the ropes. But before long that feeling of kindness and indifference disappears, and greed consumes you.See?! See what it's done to me?! It's making me sinister....sarcastic....almost evil! I haven't felt this way since....Gauntlet. Do you remember Gauntlet? The original Gauntlet? You spent the first hour of playing that game trying to get the hang of the system, working together with a friend or three, trying to find the invisible potion (It doesn't exist!!!) than all of a sudden, you notice the score on the side of the screen. "Was that there before?" I remember asking myself. Very sneakily, and not telling my 'teammates' I would begin to focus more and more on my score. |
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| 566 Views 4 Comments | Read More | |
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SAGA - Game ReviewCategory: Game Review Posted on 2008-05-09 12:33:01 Add to Bookmark |
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  "Patience is a virtue."When the first thing I saw upon logging into SAGA was my Town Hall and Barracks, I knew that I was going to enjoy this game. As a lover of the RTS scene since I first inserted Starcraft into my N64, once thing that I'm always relieved to see when I start playing a new one is that they've stuck with the familiar base layout that I've come to know and love. But after a short tutorial and some practice quests I quickly realised that SAGA wasn't your run-of-the-mill RTS, it was much, much more. After logging in I was first asked to create my Nation. In SAGA, your nation is equivalent to the 'class' that you'll be playing the game with. Similar to games like World of Warcraft, the nation that you select has a pre-designated faction. Selecting the nation of Light, Nature or Machines (Humans, Elves, Dwarfs and Giants) will have you as a member of The Order, the 'good guys'. Whereas if you selected Magic or War (Dark Elves and Orcs), you would find yourself in The Brotherhood, the 'baddies'. For me, it was Nature, and after selecting my banner style and base layout, I was ready to play.   I have to admit that I wasn't overly impressed w |
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| 713 Views 4 Comments | Read More | |
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Where's the Polish?Category: Article Posted on 2008-05-05 07:34:12 Add to Bookmark |
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Where's the Polish?Polish. The arch-nemesis of the MMORPG industry. In my personal opinion, polish is the most important part of video games in general. I just think it shows, or doesn't show, a lot more in an MMORPG. But what exactly is polish? And how does it affect the games we play? Let's take a look.  Polish is the difference between a successful game, and a failure. It's that overall feeling you get while your playing, the difference between a game that was rushed, and one that was loved. How developers don't see this is one of the greatest mysteries in the multi-verse. One of the most obvious polish failures I seem to notice more and more, is the Interface.Every new MMORPG that I play lately, especially the F2P and Betas, have terrible Interfaces. Opening your quest log to look at your quest objectives is like stepping on a rusty nail, it hurts, and it's just not fun. Many of them can be messy, cluttered, and in lack of a better word, an eyesore.   [Shaiya - Is your room this messy?] [Lineage 2 - Simple and clean.]In the above two pictures you can see both Shaiya and Lineage 2. These games are amazingly similar in almost eve |
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| 694 Views 5 Comments | Read More | |
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Aeronauts - Beta ReviewCategory: Beta Review Posted on 2008-05-04 06:46:36 Add to Bookmark |
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| 783 Views 6 Comments | Read More | |
I've been playing random MMO Beta's on the internets for years now. In fact, I played so many in the last few years that I think I've got testing them down to a finer art; I do it in an hour. I download the game (30 mins), Install and Update (20 Mins), Log in and make a character (5 mins), then play and uninstall (5 mins). It's becoming increasingly addictive, and it helps to distract me from how truly horrible whatever game I have just downloaded really is. (You know the games I'm talking about...they just wont uninstall fast enough!)The reason I mention this is because Aeronauts is one of the very few that caught me by surprise. It is the proverbial 'rose amongst the thorns' in every sense of the phrase. That's not to say that it's without faults, it just has far fewer than most other games I've played in a while. 
