Jan
19
Zero Punctuation: Cataclysm review
Me thinks he likes Warcraft a bit more than he cares to admit. Quite a funny review.
Jan
17
Druids suck
We’re levelling a couple of alts, level 30 at the moment, but I just can not get used to the druid class. I’m a druid tank, Kate’s a druid healer, and neither of us particularly like it.
Druid tanking… lame. Yes I know it should get better on the way to what’s now level 85, but come on, at level 30 it should at least be fun already.
But the damage sucks, holding aggro sucks, the amount of moves per form are very limited (bear form = uberlame), cat form is moderately fun. The normal form (in my case Worgen) moves are extremely limited, hardly make a dps dent (Faerie Fire, wtf?) and the heals are epic fail. Regrowth is too weak at level 30 and Healing Touch takes forever to cast.
Maybe it’s because a set amount of spells are spread out over too many different forms, but this is not for me. Unfortunately I have to stick with it as this alt’s main purpose is so we have our own enchanter on the server. Unless I move my old main over… I have more fun with my warlock.
(p.s. note the new sweet mouseovers on the links, thanks Wowhead)
(p.p.s. as much as I dislike the druid class, I’m digging the worgen race, maybe more on that in another post)
Dec
26
World of Warcraft – Cataclysm
… women.
So, a few months ago my better half decided to stop playing WoW because she was annoyed with all the twats playing online, and because she felt she should quit to focus on her studies.
After that, as I was wondering about quitting myself to focus on more productive things, my credit card expired and I didn’t bother to update my Battle.net account with the new card details. So after a bit of twitching we were both off the hook.
Much to my surprise, today out of the blue she suggested getting Cataclysm and starting on a new RP-only server to avoid the morons.
I think we all know where this is going…
Dec
20
Freemium games
how I hate thee.
Either something is free or it’s not.
Either a game is free, or it’s not. I can approve of ad-sponsored games being free as they offer us, the users, to either put up with the ads or buy the ad free version. But the gameplay is identical.
This new freemium model is a different beast altogether though. Basically you get the game for free, no ads, and it’s fully featured. But the catch is that if you really want to play the game to it’s fullest potential you need to spend money in game.
This started out on Facebook games. Say you play the game, you earn money to buy items in game, but it’s not going quite as fast as you like. Then you can spend real money to buy game money to level faster. So far so good, although we’re already sliding into muddy waters. The muddy waters start becoming black however when there are several kinds of in game currency.
There’s the kind of in-game currency you can earn, and then there’s the in game kind of currency you can only buy with real money.
And now we’re sliding further into pitch black territory when you get to the games where the best content can exclusively be bought with the latter kind of in game currency. In other words, if you want to be any good at the game you HAVE to spend real money to buy game money. And keep spending real money of course as the game progresses.
It was annoying enough to see this kind of business model creep into more and more Facebook games, but now it’s inevitably crossed over into the mobile market, with iPhone games starting to come out supporting the freemium model as well. Capcom is currently by far in the lead with the Smurfs and Lil’ Pirates, but more and more other game companies are starting to follow.
Oh, and if you’re a parent, keep an eye on what your kids are up to before you suddenly see a credit card charge for 80 euros for Smurf berries.
Dec
19
Game of Life for iPhone
Electronic Arts games are currently on a big sale, with most of them currently available for only €0.79, so I decided to pick several up, including the Game of Life.
If you’re totally clueless about the game, it’s basically a board game where you have to roll and land on spaces, some offer you money, progress your career, or life points because of certain events like getting kids or visiting places. Other spaces cost you money and set you back, like getting fired from your job, paying taxes or getting sued by other players. The winner of the game is the one who has the most money at the end. Capitalism at its finest.
I always loved playing this as a kid, so it seemed fun to be able to play it again, especially the multiplayer version. And it is fun, except for a few little quirks here and there that seem to haunt most EA games. When you play against the computer it keeps using long term investments, which means whenever someone rolls that number the player gets money. Nice, except as a human player you can’t seem to place any yourself.
Next there’s the cards you can use in-game to either make someone cough up half your fee or to make them give you half their profit, along with a third card to block the first two. In single player they work just fine, but in multiplayer if the active player uses a card, the computer automatically uses the non-active players cards for them instead of giving them the choice. That’s just sloppy.
Still, overall it’s a fun little game, but if I’d bought it full price I’d be annoyed. Of course an update could fix these bugs, but given how long this game has been out… don’t hold your breath.
Dec
11
iAmiga, an Amiga emulator for the iPhone
It was bound to happen sooner or later, an Amiga emulator based on UAE is heading to the iPhone, with licensed games included.
Check out the demo which features Defender of the Crown, Battle Squadron, International Karate +, R-Type, Speedball, Stunt Car Racer, Beast, Virus and Xenon 2 Megablast. Made by the same guy who’s made the C64 emulator for the iPhone, let’s hope this takes off and he gets lots of licensed games to add. I’ll have Speedball 2, Supercars 1 & 2 and Turrican 2 please!
And let’s hope the games will be somewhat reasonably priced.
Nov
13
Transformers MMO coming
Sweet, I just stumbled across this, looks like there’s a Transformers based MMO coming.
Please please please make it G1! I wonder how this would be gameplay wise. Big battles of course, but the other mechanics, build your own bot from an array of parts?
Nov
13
UFO: Alien Invasion
If you remember the old X-com games, like the awesome UFO: Enemy Unknown, you might want to check out UFO: Alien Invasion, which is a free Open Source remake/sequel to those games. I still have to try it out myself but it looks promising.
http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/News
The original is available on Steam these days (as UFO defense, the American title), maybe I should take that for a spin as well for only 5 euros, I played the Amiga version a lot.
Nov
06
Play old Sierra adventures for free online
Play ye olde Sierra adventure game classics like King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest from the comforts of your web browser, hop on over to http://sarien.net.
Thoughts of Imbalanced Mind