• 12Feb 08

  My Spikey Adama is better than yours!

  If you read this topic you may have wondered "what is a spikey adama?" If you are asking that question then you are not playing one of the coolest games thats come out this year, Culdcept Saga! I picked up this little gem earlier this week and I fell in love. Well love is a strong word, so maybe I will say I fell in like with this game . I had no idea this game was even coming out untill a couple weeks ago, and to my sadness, I never knew there was a game made before this that I missed! Now I will admit that I am an old school Magic the Gathering guy, yup thats me, the guy sitting with the rest of the "nerds" in highschool playing with a weird deck of cards. ahhh sweet memories, but thats not what i'm here to talk about so back on topic people! So because of my history I guess my opinion is a little biased, but hey most opinions are right?! So my quick take on this game is that it is a mixture of Magic/Pokemon/My little ponies/ whatever card game you may have played mixed with monopoly. If you have not played monopoly...then I don't know what else to compare it to so I am sorry.

  I will say it up front, the story is pretty weak...weak as in a mouse compared to a lion weak. The voice acting is acceptable I guess but I tend to skip it as it's tied into the pointless overused plot. So now that I got the bad out of the way, on to the good! The gameplay seems pretty simple at first, but trust me there is more to it then meets the eye. You start out with a basic deck of 50 cards which is filled with creatures, spells, and items that are based around the 4 elements as well as a selection of neutral creatures which have no elemental alignment. With this deck in your hands you will travel the world and battle Cepters (people who can use the power of the cards) in 1 on 1, 1 on 1 on 1, and team matches. The point of these matches is to gather a certain amount of gold. You can gather gold in a couple different ways, laying down creature cards on territories and hope someone lands on it and loses a fight, by walking around the entire board and passing a castle (go for monopoly), and some spells can give you money. The coolest way is the monster on monster battles. When you lay down a creature card on a territory it becomes yours, and if an opponent lands on the territory they can either just give you money, or duke it out and try to take the territory from you. When they summon their creature and start a fight you are given a chance to equip your creature with items that could turn the tide in your favor, that is if you have an item in your hand! The attacking creature goes first, and if it doesn't slay the enemy, then the defender will take a whack. Even if no creature dies, the defending side will win the battle and the attacking side will be forced to pay a certain amount of gold. The amount depends on how much you upgrade that territory, kinda like upgrading from a house to a hotel in monopoly.

  Whats really cool is that even if you lose a match you will walk away with some new cards that you can edit your deck with, and thats what makes you become an addict. With about 500 different cards in the game, you will feel a need to get them all "gotta catch them allllll!" ...sorry about that I slipped into 2001. But as you collect more and more cards, you will only be left with the need to keep collecting more untill you can make any kind of deck that you want be it deck with a lot of green creatures, yellow creatures, or a good mixture of all. I really only scratched the surface with this blog about how cool this game is, the only other thing I will say is that a typical match can last up to an hour so if you are not a patient person and need non stop action then maybe you should look elsewhere, but for everyone else I think this is a must play game that will let you take a break from the more intense games out there.

  • Posted Feb 12, 2008 6:26 pm GMT
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• 30Jan 08

  Advance Wars(only 2 hours in)/ Avatar the last airbender

  Hello all, I got a copy of Advance Wars: Days of ruin for the DS last night from Gamefly. I was only able to play for a couple hours because other things came up, but my first impression is that this game is a needed upgrade to the series. I played the first Advance Wars a few years back, and while I did enjoy the gameplay, I could not really connect with the story that went along with it. It's not just because it was childish, it was because the gameplay was warfare and so the tone of the game never really sat well with me.

  With Days of Ruin, the creators took the storyline to a more serious level, but threw in a hint of humor to appease fans. I think this mix works well, but im only a couple hours into the game so I can't say if the story is good all the way threw. The actual gameplay seems to be the same with the exception of the CO's, who were stripped of their "uber" power and were replaced with reasonable ones. I personally think that this was a good move on their part. Now you must rely more on your skill and not so much on your Co's abilities. I'm not going into a full review of this game, just because there are a lot out there already, but as far as my two cents go I think any fan of this genre should give it a try.

  And now for something completly different...

  So if you did not get that reference then you should go watch some monty python movies. Anywho! I recently downloaded an episode of Avatar the last airbender from X-box live. I've heard so much about it over the past couple years, both from younger people and friends my own age, and the general talk was that it was a great series. I have passed the DVD sets a few times at best buy and each time I think "should I?.....naw I'll wait." And I've said that for the past few months. I decided that I could try the series out by downloading an episode, so I did. Now 1 and a half seasons into it, I still can't stop. The show is really good, which kinda shocked me. I could say that it appeals to the kid in me but its more than that. The story has been well written and the characters are all very well done. On top of that, it has a very cool artistic stlye that seems to blend anime, and western cartoons into one style. the animation is beautiful and there are rarely any "filler" parts, you know like when you watch an anime the characters will charge someone, and all the flashing color is in the backround for like 10 seconds? Yea this doesn't have that. Also the characters won't really go on and on and on when they meet. They will talk for a second, then get down to buisness with the bending, and maybe say a few words while fighting. My only problem with the series so far is that there are a couple filler episodes, but only 2-3 i think so far. The filler episodes are not bad really, but you kinda get the feeling like "this really wasn't needed." Overall its a great series, and i'm curious how the live action movies are going to turn out...i'm leaning to awful, but who knows maybe Shalayman (sp?) can pull it off. So go check out Advance Wars, and don't pass up Avatar.

  • Posted Jan 30, 2008 9:36 am GMT
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• 27Dec 07

  Multiplayer Madness! And Budweiser Commercials?

  Last month, and including most of this month I have played a lot of games that are focused on a single player story, like Mass Effect, Assassin Creed, Ogre Battle, and psychonauts ( yea it took me a while to find this gem)so recently I got back on a huge multiplayer kick with a classic Warcraft 3, and the X-box Call of Duty 4.

  Warcraft 3 has been coming up and going away for me since it came out way back in 2002. Every once and a while I get back into the multiplayer aspect just because its a great game. There hasn't been an RTS that has come out since that can hold my attention, and trust me i've tried with games lik Rise of Nations, Command and Conquer, World in Conflict, Supreme Commander, just to name the big ones i've played this year. To me Warcraft 3 takes true skill to micro your army just right to tear through your enemies. The units in each of the 4 races compliment each other so well, and everything is so balanced that the game is near perfect. Now of course there are strategies out there that people use over and over and over and over.....and over that are cheap, but I don't consider them to be true players. For the most part though the Warcraft community is now full of good people, who can bring a challenge to a man like myself who is an RTS fantatic. If you havn't played it yet and have a PC that is as old as 2003 or newer then I think you should check this game out, it may not be for everyone because of its hero system, but overall its an awesome game.

  My other game that I can't get enough of is Call of Duty 4 on Xbox! The multiplayer is just so fun! All of the guns you can unlock and with the add ons you can get for them make for a great time. If you feel like run and gun, grab a SMG and let lose, or if you like getting close, grab a shotgun and smile as you turn a corner, blast a dude in the face and keep going. If you like to pick a spotand snipe people, then grab one of the 6(i think) sniper rifles and wam away at your enemies. The LMG's are really awesome as they can just spray so many bullets into the enemy lines, and with the right perks you can shoot through walls and get thoes campers on the other side! With flash, stun, and normal grenades available to everyone you always have to listen for that TINK sound of a grenade landing by you and hopefully run away in time. I can keep going on and on, but I won't simply because i've talked about this game in 3 blogs now? and Ialso have a review of it.

  I want to get some games on with the gamespot community! If anyone plays these two games on multiplayer and want to hook up and play some games, shoot me a message, leave a comment, add my Xbox tag to your friends, or however else you want to contact me, and lets have some mutliplayer madness!

  As a side note, the term Multiplayer madness reminds me of crazy clearance commerials you see on T.V or hear on the radio, like ITS A 5.00 BLOWOUT SALE! ITS ABOSOLUTE MADNESS! I think thoes can be funny at times, so think about mutiplayer madness being said by one of thoes crazy super excited people. MULTIPLAYER MADNESS!!!! ONE DAY ONLY! It's kind of funny

  As a side side note to the previous note, Budweiser Commercials, the ones about the real american hero, or real american genius, are freakin funny as hell. The things they come up with are gold sometimes, and I think people should check them out. If you havn't heard one i'm sure you can find one on youtube.

  • Posted Dec 27, 2007 5:44 am GMT
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