Author Archives: Azzura

TERA – Beta week 2

Week 2 of TERA’s closed beta has come and gone. I didn’t notice much difference this time around. They added hi-res textures to the game but I already thought it looked good…the only thing that might have changed with the new textures is I noticed some lag this time around now and then.

TERA – Beta week 1

Feb 10, 2012 was the first closed beta event for TERA. A new Action Combat MMO coming out on May 1, 2012. I’ve been waiting a while for this one because of the difference in combat styles from most AAA MMO titles out there that use tab targeting, hotbars and crappy AI mob packs. Now remember this is BETA – so things will change so please don’t judge the game from my first thoughts. Prepare for a long post and lots of pictures!

Gaming Update

Just a recap of the past few months and my opinions now of the games that I reviewed.

I’m still playing League Of Legends just about every day. For playing the same map over and over, its still loads of fun. I have since gotten into actually PvPing with some people. PvP is much easier to handle if you are talking to a partner (usually my son) or your whole team is on skype. They have since increased the variety of bots that you can fight against and improved their AI which was a great thing, you are now matched against 5 random champions from a pool of 40 instead of 12. Also – people are under the impression that LOL is a PVP game only. This is far from the truth…you can play LOL purely against the computer with friends or strangers and have tons of fun without them calling you a noob. Its great to pop in and out of without trying to find someone your level or travel 20 minutes to meet up with them like other games.

MMO Review – Star Wars: The Old Republic

Time to voice my opinion on the newest MMO – Star Wars: The Old Republic. I was not one of the people excited about this title. I’ve never been one to go nuts over anything Star Wars…so I was not part of the hype train for this game, but others in my gaming circle were, so I bought it a few days before the release. My current high character is a 38 Commando Trooper and I have a level 28 Shadow Consular and I have played all 8 classes to at least 10.

All in all, it is just another RPG MMO with leveling and killing stuff for quests. What makes it special is that every quest has full two-sided voice conversations, which adds something special. You see each other’s faces while talking and the characters have emotional facial expression and body movement for what they are saying and how they react to your answers. Each time you are required to respond, you pick from 3 answers, very similar to Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Some answers are funny, some serious, some mean…. The answer for most quests will not effect what quest you get or what you have to do but those answers will change how your companion feels towards you. Now and then there will be answers which effect your light or darkside reputation and some really will change the direction of the quest and your path through the game. I am enjoying being a blunt good guy…watch video below.

Game Review – Skyrim

Last week I took a week vacation to the land of Skyrim. I put in about 140 hours of game play over 9 days so if that doesn’t tell you it’s a good game, I will elaborate for you.

Quick rundown: The graphics are a bit better than Oblivion – very realistic. The framerate is great on the high setting but I do get hit with nasty lag after an hour to 3 hours of play. Not sure what triggers it but you need to restart the game to fix. I’m sure there will be a patch for this soon. The sounds are awesome, the music fits perfect, the world is HUGE, and the voice acting isn’t bad.