Unturned - Speed Review of the DayZ / Minecraft game.

I played Unturned for the first time last night, and I have to say, for a game that comprises of the most basic of graphics, it is an excellent and fun game. Taking elements of DayZ, where you start with nothing and have to scrounge everything to survive against the zombie hordes and remain 'unturned', and elements from Minecraft - the styling and crafting, it is a very interesting and rather intense game, at times. The impact and effectiveness of the game was immediate, and it was very simple to play, and better than it's appearance conveys.

Here is how my first few lives went:
My first life I walked into a town, and was promptly zombified in the back of a shop when it turned out that not only can these zombies run indoors, they are also a little faster than you and miss a LOT less than in DayZ... They also hit a LOT harder.

My second life lasted a little longer. I even got a rifle. I ended up being flanked by an un noticed zombie whilst hunting a deer, and was hit from behind for my last 10% health.

My third life seen me accrue a good inventory of weapons, start using the crafting system and the built in XP sytem to upgrade my attributes to better survive and combat the undead hordes. I then went ahead and assaulted the local military base, mowing down zombies left and right with a stolen car, gearing up, grabbing a Hum-Vee and spiriting away into the sunset.

FUN!
I have thus far only played single player. It is a tough little game, but is very thrilling... and gore filled! Let's just say a shotgunned zombie will paint the internal walls of a building liberally.

The game includes a few systems that work well, including crafting (Hang onto that last bullet because you will want to refill the clip using the crafting system!), and experience points. Feel like going on a Katana wielding zombie Murder spree? Go for it - you will get XP to spend on swinging that bad boy better! Whilst lives tend to be somewhat atomicised - when you die you lose everything, you still regain some of your skills that you have invested, and your corpse will litter the landscape somewhere to recover some of your equipment.

Recommended!
My suggestion: Get your asses on Steam and get this game downloaded and try it out. It is Free to Play (At least at the moment) -- I will be commencing a short series let's play shortly to see how well I do in this game before I look to hitting up a server with other players.

The Elder Scrolls Online - How Factions and PVP will work

Hey folks,

I stumbled upon this merry little >article< over on the Elder Scrolls Online page. Interesting. Very interesting.

I have been thinking for a while - well, when I say me I mean we, and by we I mean my wife and I... I digress. We have been thinking for a while about how TESO will work with regards to factions. My thoughts lay in the friction between the Aldmeri Dominion and The Empire, since there is a running theme across TES games.

I am 1/3 to a half right... I decided to chase this up.

Conveniently, since I last looked around for such information - there is a wiki page for it >here<. As you can see, Tamriel has been split into 3 factions, with Cyrodil behaving as a neutral party. The Dagerfall Covenant that will comprise of Breton's Orc's and Redguard, the Ebonheart Pact that will consist of the Argonians, Dunmer and Nords and the Aldmeri Domiion that will consist of the rest of the elves and some kittycats. (Altme, Bosmer and Khajit.)

If there is a particular race you wish to play, it appears you need to go pick a faction. I predict a bias weighted towards the Ebonheart Pact considering the success of Skyrim, but I digress.

The Imperials are not playable, although I suspect that will be something for an expansion to focus on (cunning!) but they are likely to act as quest givers and peace keepers for the most part.

Anyway, read the article linked to the TESO page - I wont go over all the points here, but I will say this: Siege engines, Castle Sieges and Stealth... Oh my!

Courtesy of Pixelvault.Tk

Reminds me of an old Elder Scrolls Joke I came up with... Mer-Kin... Elf folk... Merkins (Not safe for work)... Pubic wigs... Hahahahaha.

Dragon City - Another Velk Review

Dragon City is another freemium game that is available to play on Facebook. It came out in May, and at the time of writing has just under 11 Million players. That is more than World Of Warcraft!

At its core it is a city/pet management game, with a hint of Pokemon/Final Fantasy in its collectibles and combat system.
You build 'Habitats' to house dragons and generate Gold, and you make farms for food. There are a variety of other buildings that can be made that provide functionality and boosts that help you do more, including the Hatchery where you hatch eggs you buy or breed, and a Breeding mountain where you can breed the dragons.

My city

In order to get new dragons, you initially need to buy or be gifted elemental dragon eggs (earth, fire, wind, air, ice, etc.) which you can then cross breed with other dragons to create hybrid dragons which will have multiple abilities, and then further down the line, the rare hybrids, legendary or pure dragons. It is very Pokemon-esque and incites quite a 'gotta catch em all' mentality. A full list of the eggs and dragons can be found here: >Linky< - be warned - you may find youself returning time and time again to see what type of dragon you managed to breed, and to take your new pets for a spin in the arena to find out what works best for you and kick some dragon-rumps.

A Platiunum and Legendary dragon duel

There is a ranked battle system (PVP and PVE, but they are all against AI - the PVP system is against the dragons that other people have selected to be their fight-team) in the game where you take the dragons you have bred and trained into combat against other dragons groups. Each dragon has a number of abilities and they can affect other dragons to varying degrees, e.g using a water spell from a water dragon on a fire dragon would do a critical hit and likely kill it in one shot, whereas using a meteor attack from an earth dragon on a fire dragon might result in a 'weak' or 'innefecctive' hit that does little or no damage. The system has many intricacies, at least up until your touting an army of legendary dragons that need to be understood to have success in these arena battles.

PVP arena (You play against the teams, not actual players.)

I found this game to be quite addictive, and indeed at the time of writing I am around level 28 and my main battle trio is 3 different legendary dragons (Which admittedly feels cheap.) and I am trying to breed Pure dragons.

Naturally, as a freemium game there are elements to the game that introduce an in game currency, in this case, gems, but much akin to Tiny Tower - it is so easy to gather them through levelling and arena battles, that there is little need to spend unless you have the extra money to do so, or only have short play periods, as the majority of the gem spends are on time boosts (food, breeding, hatching, building and later on, island expansions, most of which take time, and if you want you can skip the wait at the cost of 1 gem per hour.) This game has actually proven to be one of the best facebook games for someone like myself who is too cheap to spend money on freemium games, as the balance of required currencty to available means that at most, I have to play a few days of arena matches to get a pile of gems for things I want to treat myself to. In any case, Facebook/google adverts are all screened and safe so if you are like me, just click on any adverts that interest you and give them some ad revenue ;-).

Verdict:

Graphics: 4/5 (tis good, but could be better)
Sound: 5/5 (The music is very relaxing and I would say is the best I have heard in a facebook game. 99% of the time I have the music off...)
Gameplay: 5/5 (Basic, but with an excellent element in addictive battles and breeding.)
Balance: 5/5 (You never need to spend a penny, nor a lot of time, but you don't feel ripped off if you do spend money, and you can actually sit in game for a long time playing around, replanning your city, etc etc.)

Overall: 5/5 - (about 95% to be more accurate)

If you have not played it, try it out!

-V