Archive for the ‘Gaming’ Category

MMO Review – League of Legends

League of Legends isn’t a new game – It was released at the end of 2009, but it is new to me. Rubi from Massively kept talking about it so I took the plunge and downloaded. It is Free to Play! I’ve played for several days now so I thought I would share my thoughts.

What is League of Legends? It is a PvP action RTS. Not like Starcraft where you command many units. You control one champion who works with others to win a match. It is just like Defense of the Ancients from Warcraft 3, which I have never played. Two even number teams, up to 5 vs 5, fighting their way to the other side through computer generated minions and turrets, defeating them, chipping away at the opposing teams defenses, to try and take control of the field by destroying the opposing team’s nexus.
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MMO Review – Dragon Nest

Dragon Nest is the newest Free to Play MMO from Nexon. It was to come out of beta in August but it still remains in beta…i think. It’s hard to judge as the main page doesn’t tell you this, but the news mentions nothing about it actually officially releasing. Open beta started at the end of July 2011. It was released first in Korea in March 2010.

What is Dragon Nest? It reminds me a bit of Vindictus but its not quite as action oriented as it uses a hot bar to activate moves, but it still has an action feel to it as you dont target specific mobs…it’s all in your aim. The characters are cutesy and gender locked. You can be a Warrior or Cleric (male) – Archer or Sorceress (female). It is heavily instanced with portals leading to more portals which give you choices of areas to quest in. They are all linear. I did tend to get tired of all the zoning portals…which take from 10 to 30 seconds to load but are a bit quicker once inside a specific instance.
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MMO Review – Hellgate Global

Back in 2007 – a bunch of people from Blizzard started a company to make Hellgate: London. An Action Roleplaying game that you could play as single player or Multiplayer mode. It was very much like Diablo…but in a post-apocalyptic setting. I found it to be a nice change from the MMOs I was playing at the time and bought a copy for my son and I. We had fun with it for a month or two but lost interest to….something else. It was very fun though.

The game didn’t last all that long though due to the lack of players and the company (Flagship Studios) going bankrupt. It was sold and a company in Korea picked it up and released it as an MMO. Finally this year it was re-translated back to English and released in the US as free-to-play. It has changed slightly from its original design and expanded with more areas, quests, a cash shop and marketplace.
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Reminiscing: Ultima Online

Come along with me in the Way Back Machine and remember your good times playing – – – Ultima Online!

Ultima Online was my first Graphical MMO. I played MUDs and other games on bulletin boards but this was the first with graphics! Before all this, I played just about every Ultima game that came out, upgrading my computer just to play the next version.

Ultima Online was released back at the end of 1997.  I wanted to play it sooo badly, but I only had dial-up service, good ole AOL. I can’t quite remember if I did take the plunge and get it while I still had dial-up or if I got a more permanent connection, but in spring 2000, I bought it! WOOT! I joined with a friend that I played online spades with. We linked up with Net Meeting and ran through the tutorials. It was so cool!
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Have you MINECRAFTED yet?

By now, most people have heard someone mention Minecraft or own it! If you haven’t looked at it by now….what are you waiting for?!?!

At first glance you will think – Wow, thats ugly…why would I want to play a game that looks like it was made 10 years ago? Which is kinda what I thought too. I like decent graphics in a game. But after your first hour or so in the game, the graphics don’t matter. (You can upgrade them to look better)
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