• All 5 character classes – Barbarian, Witch Doctor, Wizard, Monk, Demon Hunter
• Tristram Cathedral – Everyone remembers Skeleton King Leoric right? I think he even made an appearance in DotA.
• Followers – Only some of them, but still helpful if you have no friends.
• Randomization – They listed this as a feature, but I suspect it’d be harder NOT to randomize just for the Beta.
• Items – Gems, Charms, and Runestones included.

I’ve been going crazy over every released preview of this game, so if you haven’t looked at gameplay trailers, check them out. In addition, Blizzard shed some light on the new Auction House that would be available in the third iteration:

• Just what it sounds like – Kind of works like the one in World of Warcraft.
• Search functionality – Sorting by multiple columns and the ability to search for multiple characters on the same account. Both of these features sound awesome.
• Pay with or make cold, hard cash – You can also pay or sell for real money. There is a transaction fee involved for the seller, but they can have the proceeds directly deposited into a “third-party payment service”.
• The Old Fashioned Way – You can still do direct character to character transfers. The way me and my friends did it: Drop mountains of stuff into piles and let an unspecified deity sort it out.
• Blizzard is not evil – Blizzard isn’t going to mess with supply and demand. This will be a player-driven economy.
• Sell from your account – That means you can sell from any of your characters on the same account or from the shared stash without having to log out, which is annoying and also affords you an opportunity to stop playing the game.

Personally, I won’t be paying real life money for items, but the Auction House sounds like a much better way to get a Stone of Jordan. And since both the real and fake money Auction Houses are completely optional, I can even forget the Auction House exists and play it like Diablo II, which is still an awesome thing. Now for the hardest decision of all: Which class should I play first?

The gameplay is really simple: Try to get a certain number or combination of food items on a square-based board without running into the monsters or letting the monsters eat too many of the food items. The game is turn based, and for every step you take, the monsters move in the exact opposite direction. That’s all the mechanics of the game, aside from the special items you can get that throw some twists into the mix. For example, there are chili peppers that can eliminate a monster, or a watch that lets you take an extra turn. Though these seem beneficial at first, the special items actually add difficulty to the puzzle as a move in the wrong direction, even if it’s a free move, can mean you end up in an unsolvable state.

Leggo my apples!

Add the fact that there is a perfect score you can obtain in each stage – and there are 100 stages – and puzzle perfectionists should be occupied for hours. Admittedly, the game was too easy at first. I had a perfect score in 100% of the earlier levels, but as special items are introduced, it became much harder to keep track of everything on the board and I had to give up on getting the perfect score for every level. Luckily, the game lends itself to trial and error if you do get stuck, and Turbo mode is a convenient feature to help the play move along a little faster.

What’s even better about Munchies is that “the story of Munchies’ Lunch was inspired by a real family’s journey from their home caught up in civil war. Even though the game is about collecting fruit for the Munchie kids and avoiding monsters, ultimately it’s about love.”  Whose real life story is this? None other than Footloose Games’ President, Vlado Jokic. His family escaped the civil war in Yugoslavia and eventually inspired this game. The short vignettes in between the levels illustrate a journey in which the father always somehow manages to get captured or separated, leaving the brave mother to face monsters in order to obtain food for her children. Though the art style and animation are done in a cartoony fashion, something about the expressions and art direction added a hint of darkness and seriousness to the whole thing. It wasn’t exactly what kept me playing, but I certainly did want to see more of the story and wished it had even more cutscenes.

The sound and musical score in the game is well done and fairly catchy, as expected from games in this genre. The art and animation, though good, doesn’t quite live up to games like Critter Crunch, but you certainly won’t be complaining either. If monsters are threatening you from two squares away, they will be menacing, and when the monsters eat a jalapeno pepper, they will get burnt in an amusing fashion.

The journey takes the family through a variety of environments.

Perhaps the most (and only) disappointing thing about Munchies is that it’s not on a mobile platform. The game seems to be primed for it with its turn based style and the ease and speed with which a player can hop in and finish a few puzzles at any time. Footloose tells us they are in the midst of porting it for Mac and iPad, so hopefully portable ports won’t be far behind!

Munchies’ Lunch may not be a Triple A blockbuster hit, but it certainly shows that good game design can come in small packages.

Video games based on movies often times get a bad rap.  They tend to be nothing more than a cash grab that release alongside its movie counterpart and are marked at full price, making them very difficult to swallow.  There have been exceptions of course, such as Toy Story 3: the Game and Peter Jackson’s King Kong.  But what about games based on movies that are more than a decade old?  TellTale Games, creators of the Sam and Max series, challenges the negative stigma attached to movie based games with Back to the Future: the Game.

If you’ve ever played a TellTale title before, you know that they are big fans of episodic content.  What this means is that instead of buying the game and playing through it all in one go, they break it down into smaller pieces.  For example, I paid $25 for Back to the Future: the Game on Steam, and I am given access to all of the episodes as they are released.  Episode 3 is the latest instalment that you can play through, and it’s imperative that you start right from the beginning with Episode 1 to get the full enjoyment out of the game.  This review is for Episode 2: Get Tannen! specifically.

Since Back to the Future: the Game is an adventure story-based game (much like the adventure games of yesteryear, such as King’s Quest and Space Quest), it’s difficult to go into specifics without spoiling much of the story.  You take control of Marty in the year 1986 and solve puzzles to progress.  You frequently interact with other characters like Einstein the dog and Emett Brown, who aid you along the way.  If there’s one thing that I absolutely love in an adventure game, it’s a skull cracking puzzle that stumps me for days.  I love the satisfying feeling of solving something difficult, and unfortunately Back to the Future: the Game never provided me with this experience.  Not once.  In fact, I rarely ever had to consult the hint menu in Episode 2.  None of the episodes are very long in length and will take you anywhere from two to four hours to complete them.  Episode 1 took me exactly 3 hours from start to finish, which may leave some players miffed.

All of the voice acting is top notch and nothing feels out of place.  Doc Brown is voiced by Christopher Lloyd and  while they couldn’t get  Michael J. Fox to return as Marty McFly, A.J. Locascio does an amazing job.  Many familiar characters from the movies pop in throughout the story, including the obnoxious Biff Tannen who once again makes trouble for Marty.  All of the environments and characters have a bit of a cartoony feel to them, but it never feels juvenile.  On the contrary, you’re put in some life threatening situations along the way that involve explosives, guns and other nasty business.  Sadly, you can’t actually die in the game, unlike the King’s Quest series from the early 80s.  I think this is a detriment because it removes some of the challenge from the game, but I can understand the reasons behind this decision.  The game is very forgiving if you need a while to figure something out and doesn’t rush you along.

In any case, the challenge just isn’t here.  It’s a very entertaining story with nice visuals and a superb voice cast, but if you want an adventure game that you can really sink your teeth into, try Kaptain Brawe: a Brawe New World.  However, Back to the Future: the Game is definitely worth your money and time, especially if you are a fan of the movies.  TellTale Games does a terrific job of pushing the “all movie games suck” to the side and lets players just enjoy living in the past (literally) for a little while.  I eagerly anticipate the arrival of Episode 4: Double Visions and TellTale Game’s next trip down memory lane with Jurassic Park: the Game this fall.

There are actually significant improvements to the gameplay, depending on what kind of games you like to play. The combat is much more of an action style game, especially for console, where you have to button mash normal attacks. Characters never just walk up to their targets to attack. They will jump, charge, roll, or do something else equally dramatic and the end result is that the combat feels very cool and dynamic. However, it still plays like MMOs such as World of Warcraft, RIFT, or DC Universe Online, except that you can pause the combat and take control of different characters in order to get more strategic control. On PC, you can move your character using the WSAD keys, or by pointing and clicking, or by holding both mouse buttons down, which is the way I’m used to navigating in WoW. Removed from this game is the bird’s eye camera that would truly give you a strategic sense of the battlefield, but I didn’t miss it too much.

Questing was made much simpler with quest markers. People with quests will have an exclamation mark above their heads while people or things relevant to a quest in your Journal will have some arrows pointing to it. This new “feature”, so prominent in other games, is actually an unwelcome change. Sure, it’s great that the game is easier to play, and I’ve always been a big believer in making things easier to play, but I found myself just mindlessly following the markers instead of taking the time to know my environments and talk to every NPC in the city. Instead of picking the quests I felt were urgent, I would just go to the areas with the most quests to complete. It’s not that exploration isn’t rewarded, but it is to a lesser extent than the first game. The first game was more immersive simply because it forced you to figure out things on your own, and I prefer immersion in my single player RPGs.

The Tactics system, borrowed from Final Fantasy XII, remains intact. This is usually a boon and for most of the game you just let your NPCs do their thing, but there are occasionally hard battles where you must turn these off and control things on your own. There’s no easy way to disable all the Tactics, but that’s a minor complaint. I enjoy the Tactics system and how it just keeps the game flowing when you don’t need to micromanage things.

Dragon Age II keeps the Enchantment system from the last game, where you place runes that you find into weapons and armour in order to increase their effectiveness. It also introduces a crafting system, where you can find different sources of materials throughout the world and then craft potions, bombs, poisons, or runes from them. You’ll have to discover the recipes for them, too. Unlike the last game, you can’t recover the runes from your equipment, and you have to destroy them by slotting a new rune. Even though that improves the enchantment system, the crafting system feels unfinished. The crafting table just becomes another store. Discovering the materials are a way to reward you for exploring, but it’s too shallow and straightforward to be enjoyable, and not quite involved enough to be annoying. So in the end, the items are useful, but the system is like that wallflower at the high school dance: It’s just kind of there.

The skill trees are a bit more interesting this time around, with each tree being a graph of different dependencies. Once again you’ll get two specialization points to spend in two of the three specializations you can get for each class. Each of the Warrior, Rogue, and Mage classes had 6 skill trees plus 3 specializations, so you can actually get fairly diverse characters even within the same class. The spells and skills look really cool, too. Every spell is a joy to use because of the magnificent effects that happen, such as encasing someone in rock with Petrify, or spraying an arc of ice with Cone of Cold.

The Stamina and Mode systems are kept from the last game, so if you choose to turn on helpful Modes, it will reserve a portion of your Stamina or Mana that you would otherwise use on skills or spells. This is an interesting trade off and definitely affects your gear decisions and decisions about which skills to pick up.

The equipment management interface underwent an upgrade as you have the option not to show your helmet, and now things are sorted into five helpful categories: Weapons and Shields, Armour, Trinkets/Belts, Consumables, and Junk. Looting everything from a container or corpse is now bound to a hotkey, making looting a smooth experience. However, you can no longer choose what armour your party members wear. Though you have full control over your own gear, you can only choose weapons, shields, necklace, belt, and two rings for your other characters. In place of choosing what armour they wear, you are forced to find up to five upgrade slots for their armours, usually by going through their individual story quests. I don’t really understand why BioWare chose to do it this way, but it means that most of the torso armour, helmets, boots, and gloves you find are garbage to be sold as they will not be for your class. Upgrading the equipment of my party is one of the joys of playing RPGs, so in this particular aspect Dragon Age II is only a quarter of what nearly every other RPG delivers.

Perhaps the most important system of all to any BioWare game is the Friendship system. This is equivalent to the Paragon system in the Mass Effect franchise, and appeared in some form in Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, and everything significant BioWare has made dating back to Baldur’s Gate. After all, what is awesome about BioWare games are the choices you have to make and how other people will like or dislike you for them. If you become friends or rivals with different party members in Dragon Age II, they will gain an extra skill. For example, if you are friends with Aveline, the protective warrior, she will start taking a portion of your damage in your stead. Being friends or rivals will also have massive implications at certain points in the game, but I can’t discuss it too much without spoiling the story.

Normally, ISPs like Rogers use an aggressive deep packet inspection (DPI) based throttling system to track and throttle peer-to-peer traffic, which is used by services such as BitTorrent. However, the system Rogers uses incorrectly identifies WoW as P2P, thus throttling it “accidentally,” according to Rogers.

An excerpt from Teresa Murphy’s complaint details the issue, as she writes:

Rogers’ filters are picking up several very low bandwidth-intensive games incorrectly as P2P activity. Provided these games are fully patched, they can play on a dialup connection with minimal issues, and uses approximately 100-200MB of your monthly cap (as stated by a game manufacturer employee, on the game’s public forums). It’s really not that much considering a single Netflix video in HD is 4GB. These games are time-sensitive applications (such as VOIP is), and like any time-sensitive application will lose connection if throttled, which is why they aren’t supposed to be throttled…

I don’t use P2P at ALL, and yet I’m still affected by this issue because Rogers sees my gaming traffic incorrectly as P2P… Personally, I wouldn’t even care about P2P being throttled, except for the fact that Rogers’ filters are so shoddy they’re lumping non-P2P in with P2P, making many applications completely unusable. Please continue to look into this. It’s not fair that Rogers customers are paying for a service they can’t even use.

When the CRTC forwarded the complaint to Rogers, Rogers admitted they know there is a problem, but that it won’t be a quick fix, saying it may be June until a fix can be made.  However, Rogers stands firm in that the game is only throttled if a person concurrently runs P2P software, and recommends “turning off the peer-to-peer setting in the World of Warcraft game and ensuring that no peer-to-peer applications are running on any connected computer.”

It makes me wonder if other MMOs have similar problems with Rogers, or if it is isolated to WoW.  Any of you have Rogers who have had issues playing MMOs?

[Source: Ars Technica]

The game centers primarily around space-pirate Grayson Hunt and his brother-in-arms Ishi, as they attempt to escape from the ruined paradise resort world of Stygia. After warping out of deep space and coming upon the flagship of the General that betrayed them, The Ulysses, Grayson makes a drunken kamikaze attack on the ship, essentially punching the most advanced Warbird in the galaxy in the face. While his ship is nearly destroyed and goes plummeting onto the surface of a strange alien world, the Ulysses is also wrecked, and both ships crash a few miles apart. Grayson then attempts to not only exact his revenge on the general, but get himself and Ishi off the world as well.

The gameplay consists of lots of standard shooter fare with a ton of added kicks in the form of “skillshots”. These skillshots range from something as simple as a headshot (25 points) to something zanier, like kicking someone into electric cables (50 points) or shooting them in the groin, then blowing their head off as they writhe in pain (gleefully named “Mercy” and rewarding 100 points). There are a litany of over 100 skillshots, and every new weapon added into your arsenal further increases the number of creative ways you can destroy and maim those around you. A “leash”, which you discover fairly quickly in the game, is a module that attaches to your hand and displays both skillshot information and your ammo. It ties in with the various dead-drops you discover in the game. These dead-drops are where you cash in the points you make with your kills to unlock new weapons and ammo. In the context of the story, these were left here by a previous military campaign, and (in a delightfully Darwinian twist) were designed specifically so only the good soldiers would receive more ammo or better weapons.

There are a large number of set encounters: Big, crazy scripted battles where you are up against an unusual enemy or have a super powered weapon for a short amount of time. The game plays out nicely, moving at a breakneck pace from caves to trains to cliffs to villages to cities, propelling you through an amazing number of creative, vibrant, and stunning levels. This is one of the things I enjoyed the most as this is a departure from other shooters. Each level looks beautifully detailed, from the massive vistas near a gigantic dam, to the beautiful sci-fi skyscrapers, and crazy, The Fifth Element-headbutts-Bioshock design, to many of the more civilized parts of the city. The natural flora and fauna of Stygia are just as wide ranging and vivid, from electro-flies to huge man-eating Venus fly traps, and hilarious pods called Noms that, when kicked at an enemy, latch onto their heads and start chewing headcrab-style. That’s only a taste of the enemies you encounter on this murder paradise.

The game controls are tight and easy to pick up, and they at least use the matching buttons when giving you quick time events, such as shoot when you need to shoot in the sequence. One button activates the leash, and holding it down fires a “thumper” that launches all enemies caught in the area into the air, making them easy pickings. The artificial intelligence (AI) of your allies is competent enough, and invincible to the point where you usually don’t have to worry about them. The enemy AI is akin to Left 4 Dead, in which melee enemies swarm you, and regular shooter fare by using cover to advance into a confetti of bullets raining down on them.

The game is accompanied by a suitable soundtrack of loud, action movie fanfare, and squishy, gooey, gorey sounds whenever you land a good kill. The weapons have a great, loud kick to them and the charge shots that come with each weapon sound devastating and brutal. The dialogue is ridiculous and offensive, and delightfully colourful. The visuals mix perfectly with the audio, providing graphically sound and satisfying character models, level design, and effects. Explosions in particular look bright and powerful, streaming off like fireworks from their origin.

The multiplayer and “echo” segments, both of which involves replaying single player levels or edited maps, have some enjoyable times to be had, and it’ll keep your interest for a while as you attempt to get three stars on various challenges. But aside from that, it’s a straightforward multiplayer component, with the cooperative “Horde” mode (like swarm or wave cooperative modes in other shooters) adding a more diverse element.

Bulletstorm is raw and distilled fun for a mature audience. If you love cheesy sci-fi pulp and over-the-top machismo, mixed in with a vibrant, straightforward shooter, this is a game to add to your collection.

Due to the sheer volume of customers Blizzard has, submitting an in-game ticket could sometimes take up to a week before a satisfying result would come around.  This was not pleasant, but I thought, “well… maybe something good could come out of this.”  I would at least be able to see how Trion’s customer service would stack up against Blizzard’s behemoth.  Having worked in customer service for over ten years, I know all too well how much it can ruin your day to get an overly hostile customer.  No matter how frustrated I get, I never treat customer service representatives like crap and neither should you.

My first thought was to contact Zann, who is in charge of RIFT’s official Twitter account.  In the past Zann has always been friendly and very responsive, so if you don’t already have a Twitter account but you do play RIFT, I would highly suggest making an account if only to contact them in the future.

There were a few weird things about my problem.  For one thing, not all of my money was taken.  I was left with 82 gold and I still had some crafting gems left on my character.  No self-respecting gold farmer hacks an account and leaves gems and money behind.  This seemed a little too fishy to me, but I still went to change my password just in case. The only problem was that I had never seen the presented security question in my life.  I never would have picked this question as my security question in a million years, so it was time to call Trion!

In my past experience with customer support, it has never been possible to change my security question easily.  Most of the time they’d like you to fax in some information about yourself, such a driver’s license, to prove that you are who you say you are.  This is a great way to keep people from stealing your account but the downside is that it could also turn out to be a hassle.

It took a little bit of digging around on the Trion website, but I found the support phone numbers easily enough.  When I called, I was greeted by the standard “thank you for calling!” automated message and was instructed to pick my language and what type of department I was looking to contact.  Once I had selected account and billing, I was told I would be on hold for two minutes.  Two minutes?  At first I thought they said two hours, because that’s what I’m used to.  I’m used to sitting there with a phone on my ear while I surfed the net for a bit, so two minutes sounded better than excellent – it was absolutely fabulous!

Unfortunately while I was one minute into the queue, support hung up on me.  I immediately called back and jumped back into the queue.  This time they said I would be on hold for three minutes.  No big deal.  As time went on, I was told five minutes, then six.  After the two minute mark had passed, I was hung up on again.  Feeling a little frustrated by this point I called for a third time – and you know what they say: The third time’s the charm.  I was finally greeted by a very pleasant man, but I could barely understand him.  Flashbacks of calling Dell tech support in college began to creep through my mind as I attempted to explain my problem to him.  He was very nice. So nice that he sounded extremely apologetic and weary, as though I had just kicked him in the face nine times.

He assured me that my account was okay and was definitely not compromised.  Phew.  But how does that explain the weird security question?  He then asked me what the answer to the security question was.  I explained to him again that I didn’t know, because that wasn’t the security question I had set up.  He then asked me to please wait while he asked his supervisor what to do.  Thank you, thank you Trion for not blasting music from the game while I was on hold.  I really do not like sitting there with music constantly looping over and over. I really got sick of the Grizzly Hills music from World of Warcraft, and I used to love that music!

I was on hold for about seven minutes and when the customer service representative returned, he had more questions for me.  I answered all of them and had to repeat most answers two or three times due to the language problems, which is par for the course if you’re used to calling tech support.  At the end I couldn’t really understand him very well but he told me that he’d ask someone to switch the security question for me.  I didn’t have to fax in a driver’s license or any additional information about myself, and it was that plain and simple.

Note that while this sounds all very clean and easy, it was not.  This phone call lasted around thirty to forty minutes, explaining and re-explaining the problem over and over.  He couldn’t really understand me and I couldn’t understand him.  Phone support is a little tricky when there is a language issue so while I was glad I didn’t have to wait very long to speak with someone, I wasn’t confident my issue would be fixed because the customer service representative was very vague over the phone.  When we hung up, I was sent an automated e-mail thanking me for calling and if I had any other issues to please contact them again.  While on the support page, I located an area for submitting a question.  Since I got my account supposedly taken care of, I would try to get my in-game nakedness fixed too.

There’s a place to submit a question on the Trion support page, so that’s what I did.  I asked if my problem was a bug and if I was eligible for a character restore.  That was the way to get your stuff back in World of Warcraft, so I figured this was the way it would work in RIFT, too.

Since I had planned on writing this article, I decided after thirty minutes to call Trion back to confirm that my security question was going to be fixed (because by this point, it hadn’t and I was getting worried he didn’t understand me).  I was only in the queue for a mere twenty seconds or so before another customer service representative answered the phone. To my dismay, he was even more difficult to understand than the first one.  I slowly explained the problem I was having, told him how I contacted them earlier but wasn’t sure if my issue would be resolved.  He re-confirmed that no, this was not an account compromise but an in-game issue.  That’s a pretty important thing to know.

It was frustrating to say something then have the representative on the other line go, “what?” and then ask him to repeat everything he said because I couldn’t understand him either.  This whole ordeal felt like pulling teeth but both of us remained very polite to one another despite the fact that we sounded like two elderly folks who couldn’t hear one another.

Quite a while later, the rep and I finally came to an understanding and my issue was resolved.  Relieved, I thanked him and hung up.  Now it was time to see about contacting a GM in game.  Here’s a tip:  If you asked a question via the little form they have you fill out on the Trion support page, do not submit a ticket.  Conversely, if you have opened a ticket in game, then don’t fill out that form on the support page.  Sadly, I filled out both and when I finally had a GM answer my ticket in game, they told me I already had “multiple tickets open.”  I had no idea what they were talking about since this was the only in game ticket I had filled out.  Enter more confusion.

Apparently the question you fill out on the support page counts as a ticket and they will only respond to one.  I checked my e-mail and apparently they had asked me in the e-mail if I would like a character restore.  The problem was, I couldn’t reply back to this e-mail.  I went back into the game and used the other ticket I already had open and just typed out “yes please,  I would like a restore” in the text box.  Within a couple minutes I was knocked out of the game by an administrator and received my character restore.  All of my money, items and gear were back and my character was back in the spot where I last left her.

In the meantime, I had received a couple direct messages via Twitter from Zann, who wanted to make sure that my problem was taken care of.  Now that’s service!  I checked the forums and saw a few people complaining about the customer service – specifically, the outsourced customer service representatives and how frustrating it was to get anything accomplished.  In the end, not everyone’s customer service experience is going to be a good one.  There will be some people who have their issues fixed within minutes and for others, days.

Now let’s break the customer service down a bit…

Trion Customer Service Report Card

Phone service: C

I didn’t have to wait very long at all for service.  The most I had to wait was about three to five minutes, which is great but I was also hung up on twice in a row, which is not so great.  Once on the phone, the representatives had difficulty understanding me and vice versa.  This hurts the service because I can see many short tempered people either yelling at the representatives or giving up completely. Having someone tell me that it would be fixed and finding out that it wasn’t was bad. Very bad.

In-game service: B+

I waited a long, long time with that ticket open and for a while there I was thinking I wasn’t going to receive help.  While it would have been nice to actually speak to someone in real time (like in World of Warcraft) instead of through the actual ticket itself, my issue was ultimately resolved.

Web service: C

I’m giving the web service a C because it isn’t the easiest to navigate.  It’s not overly difficult, but nothing is really out there in plain view.  You’re going to have a dig a little bit to get a phone number and it wasn’t very clear that if I submitted a question via the “submit a question” form it would count as an in-game ticket.

Twitter service: A+

Zann is also quick, helpful and takes the job seriously.  Doing a quick inquiry with @Riftgame is always the first place I go when I have a question or in need of some minor assistance.

Overall score: B

There are a couple of areas that could be improved, but in the end my problem was fixed within the same day and in only a matter of about two hours.  If you aren’t used to using customer service for an MMORPG, this may seem like a long time, but compared to NCSoft’s (Aion, Guild Wars) customer service, this was a dream come true.  As I mentioned before: Not everyone’s customer service experience will be the same and I’m not even sure if the support will remain this responsive.  Considering the game was only officially launched on the first, I’d say this was an above-average experience.

The thing that worries me the most is just how easy it was to get the security question changed.  While on the phone with rep #2, he asked me a series of questions that could have been easily found under my account settings.  If someone did hack my account, they’d be able to see that my account was a standard edition game and the last four digits of the credit card used for the subscription.  While it’s great that I personally didn’t have to jump through any hoops to get it changed, it makes me a little leery that the support might be on the weak side.  Only time will tell, I guess.

Now, if only that bug didn’t exist in the first place.

I hope you didn’t hang your hat on this one, though, because it would be on the floor, dirty, and trampled by visitors or eaten by a dog. In some ways, M:tGT is everything you’d expect. It’s a turn-based tactics game where you move your avatar and other creatures around the square-based board. The goal is to destroy the other Planeswalker (in other words, a wizard) and their army before they destroy you. This is accomplished through building a spellbook made of various creatures that can be summoned or spells that can be cast. Spells vary from direct attack spells, such as Lightning Bolt, to things that may boost your creatures. The mechanics of the gameplay are quite simple: Each round your maximum mana goes up by one, and the colour of the mana is determined by the composition of your deck. So for example, if your deck has 80% red cards, then you have an 80% chance of getting one extra red mana each round. Your mana fills up to the maximum in each colour every round, so at least that is a clever way around the “mana screw” problem that frustrates all Magic players. Then, in a turn order determined by the initiative of the creatures, you get to use their abilities and move or move and attack. Moving, whether it ends in an attack or not, will always end the current piece’s turn. When it’s a Planeswalker’s turn, they can cast a spell that they have available (you start with five and you get one new one from your spellbook every round) and have mana for, and then move/attack. As with many tactics type games, flanking will deal bonus damage and there are random critical hits. If a creature hasn’t died from being attacked, it will perform a full counter attack.

I believe I ordered the large djinn.

That is it. Everything else is covered by the statistics of the creatures, such as movement or attack strength, or the abilities on the cards. There is a decent variety of abilities, but it still ends up feeling like there is not a lot of choice in the colours you’re playing. You’re given a very basic two colour deck to start with, and you can go through the tutorial section and the first campaign, which consists of five missions, for free. After that, each of the four extra five mission campaigns costs $5 USD, which is actually not terrible value in terms of length even if the gameplay never gets more interesting. The plot of the campaigns is very bland. The narrator does an okay job but the plot might as well not be there. What is interesting though is that you get experience for each mission and eventually when you get enough levels, you get some talent points to spend on talent trees. For example, a talent that made my creatures stronger when the enemy Planeswalker was below 50% health influenced how aggressive I would be with my creatures and who they would target. Completing a campaign will also unlock the Daily missions for that campaign, each of which reward you 2 gold and some paltry experience.

You can use gold to buy into tournaments, so it seems like you can play this game for free and forever. Technically, you don’t have to spend a single penny. You can just do the Daily mission from the free campaign every day, and then every fifteen days or so you can enter a single tournament. You’ll probably be bored to tears way before you can get into your first tournament at that rate though, so you’ll likely have to plop down at least the $20 USD for the campaigns and then a bucket load of time every day in order to earn enough gold to free ride your way through. If you place in the prize positions in the tournament then you may luck out and get a card worth selling on the Auction House for some more gold to fuel more tournaments. There are Open Tournaments that players can enter that are always happening. You play all the games you can during the period, and if you meet the requirements when the tournament period ends, then you get a small prize. When I looked at the prizes, everything awarded to people finishing belwow second place was dismal, so it seems like a whole lot of work for not a lot of reward if you can’t play enough to win. There are Constructed Tournaments where you bring the spellbook you put together to compete, and there’s also the very popular “Draft” format, where you have to purchase booster packs for $4 USD each and then each person takes turns picking cards from the packs until all the cards are gone.

And of course you can always play single matches against opponents for the heck of it, which would be cool if the gameplay was deep. However, there really isn’t all that much to do other than position for flanks and attack, and the interactions between creatures and spells are simplistic and direct for the most part. The fight for positioning is straightforward. The spellbook building side of things is also surprisingly restrictive. In addition to the usual Magic limit of 4 copies of each spell, you are limited to a maximum of 12 different creatures and 12 different spells. Why this is the case is beyond me, but if you wanted to play only one of every creature in your colour, too bad! I found that sometimes I had to make the inconvenient decision not to play a better creature just because I had 4 copies of a weaker creature, I needed 40 spells to fill out the spellbook, and I had to maintain the balance between spells and creatures.

You'll find iconic cards such as Reya Dawnbringer in Tactics

Even if the game had deeper gameplay, though, it would still be mired in a variety of technical issues that seem to plague every Wizards of the Coast electronic product. In my time playing it I suffered glitches that ranged from infuriating to hilarious, such as a frame rate plummet (to 1 frame per second) after multitasking away from the game window or the game chat doubling in the multiplayer room. One of my friends said it crashed on him after every mission. One particularly frustrating glitch was that in the midst of a long mission, the computer AI actually could not decide what to do and ended up being stuck there, forcing a restart. In tournaments, if you crash or you disconnect due to some Internet problem, reconnecting will not put you back into the game – you simply forfeit. In a tournament I played, I ended up forfeiting two games this way, and in the third game my opponent was away from the keyboard, thus defaulting a win to me.

The tournament design is a bit of a tragedy in itself, as you have to stay until the end to wait for the prizes, even if you’re done your games and you know where you will place. It doesn’t even boot you out of the tournament after the end, and I only found out it ended because people received their prizes. The tournament chat lobby is also not segregated among tournaments or even tournament types as far as I could tell and it became a confusing mess of conversations.

Even the Auction House has an pitiful interface, which seems unacceptable after having so many examples of good ones around. For example, there is no search feature. You can only filter by Rarity, Colour, and Type, and you can’t sort the list by any of the columns. And the default sorting is a complete mystery. Interface issues aren’t restricted to the Auction House though, as various other baffling choices litter the game. For example, you can’t look at your talents without leaving the tournament you’re in. During the actual match, if you have more than 7 spells that you can cast that turn, the spell bar doesn’t expand and you need to click these tiny up and down arrows to look at all your spells.

The graphics in the game are kind of bland but acceptable. Some of the animations are fun to watch but an option to speed them up or skip them all together would be nice as I only need to see them so many times. But it’s a nice touch to see my Thieving Magpie get pounded to the floor when it takes a hit. The sounds and music are just kind of there and forgettable.

Much like Duels of the Planeswalkers, this game could have been so much more. It combined one of my favourite genres with one of my favourite brands, and yet it came up so short that it only aggravated my need for a good tactics game. Being a game that you can play for as long and as often as you would like to, Tactics could actually offer a lot of value if you enjoy it. Personally, I’ll just keep playing Duels and the actual card game with my friends.

The answer is… it depends. When I said this mouse is a beast, I meant that quite literally – it is quite large, especially when compared to the small and sleek Xai. It’s not nearly as big as the Razer Boomslang or the original Xbox controllers, but it is big. When I opened it, I joked about needing a diagram to figure out how to hold it. So that is definitely one factor when deciding whether to get this mouse. My fingers and hand are completely used to it now, but it did take about a week to get used to. Oddly enough, I do find it more comfortable now than the Xai.

Another difference between the Xai and the Cataclysm Mouse is that the Xai has better software. There are more configuration settings on the Xai, and the settings themselves are more granular, allowing for greater control over how your mouse moves and functions. The Cataclysm mouse is supposed to have a neat profile thing going for it in the configuration screen where you can set one of your WoW characters to each of your profiles, but at the moment it’s not functioning so I can’t tell you what it’s supposed to do. One neat thing about the Cataclysm Mouse software is that you can control the illumination, including the rate of the pulse and the colour.

The specifications on the mice are basically the same, with the exception of the whopping fourteen buttons that come with the Cataclysm Mouse, compared to the pitiful eight that comes with the Xai. Through some kind of magic, World of Warcraft actually supports all the buttons, but I have yet to find any other game or application that does. As with the Xai, you can macro any sequence of buttons to the extra buttons that most applications and games don’t support, and with ten profiles you can really use the buttons with any game. The button placement on the Cataclysm Mouse are mostly convenient, with two (one on the outside of each of the left and right buttons) that are slightly inconvenient. Which turned out to be okay, because I just used them to bring up my world map and my quest log, both of which I do frequently but I don’t want to accidentally press in combat.

My favourite new buttons by far are the two that flank the mousewheel. I’m using these two lifesaving buttons to… well, save lives. On every character I have these bound to survival skills, such as Vanish. When I get into trouble, it’s a mere 3 millimeter slide of my middle finger in order to throw down my ninja smoke bombs and escape. It takes some work, but eventually you can train yourself to use all the new buttons (I’m still not using one of them after using this mouse for over a month), so if you have a need to keybind all your skills like I do, then this mouse is a must.

The mouse looks great, too. It doesn’t factor much into this review, but I thought I should mention it. It just looks good on my desk, which I appreciate.

I really have no complaints about this mouse whatsoever. But you have lower grained control over it than the Xai and it’s $10 more, so it’s hard to recommend this over the Xai unless you play World of Warcraft or another fairly involved MMOs (as in one that has a lot of abilities). If you are a regular raider or Arena artist though, then go ahead and get this mouse. You won’t be disappointed.

The wizards of Magicka weave their spells by combining the following eight elements: Water, Life, Shield, Ice, Lighting, Arcane, Earth, and Fire. Each of these elements are assigned a key on the keyboard, but some additional elements can be created by combining multiple base elements. Pressing an element key will store the respective element in your wizard’s spell queue, which can hold up to five elements simultaneously. Mixing elements together and then releasing them will create a spell, and hopefully, the desired result. Things start to get a little tricky when wizards realize that they can release their spells in one of four different ways: Projectile, Area of Effect, Self, and Weapon. Each type of spell will result in a different effect, even if they used the same elements. For instance, mixing the Fire and Shield elements and then releasing the spell as a projectile will create a wall of fire between you and your enemies, while releasing it on yourself will make you resistant to fire for a short period of time.

The beauty and horror of this system is that the game leaves it up to you to use common sense when mixing and casting spells. Mixing Earth and Fire and then releasing it on yourself will weave the arcane magicks of the universe in a manner that would result in a flaming boulder being summoned into existence above your head, and the rest is up to gravity. However, creative self-termination is an essential part of the experimentation process, and death is part of the game, remember?

Once you develop an understanding of how it all works, casting spells becomes very simple and intuitive, but doing it in combat is another story entirely. Navigating your character around the playing field involves pressing and holding the left mouse button on your desired destination, while the elements are mapped to the familiar WASD region of the keyboard, and the different spell types are executed with the remaining mouse buttons and the Shift key. Trying to cast Haste on yourself while you flee from a pair of cave trolls and dodge arrows fired by a distant group of goblins can often be disastrous. Take your eyes off the screen to correctly input your elements and you’ll likely end up on the wrong end of a giant club. Input the elements too quickly and carelessly and you could light yourself on fire, much to the amusement of the cave trolls. Accidents like this would frustrate me in most games, leading to criticisms of convoluted or complicated controls, but Magicka is different. The button layout is great, and I don’t think I could find one that works better, but more importantly, these accidents are part of what makes Magicka so fun to play. The action is very chaotic and overwhelming, often requiring you to deal with large swarms of enemies, and knowing that you’re one mistake away from a horrible fiery death can be exhilarating. Keeping a cool head and successfully casting your favourite spells in combat is very rewarding.

The action gets even more hectic when you add more players. Magicka features a host of spell combinations that result in greater damage. Shooting lighting at someone is more effective if you’ve sprayed them with water first, and launching a boulder at an enemy can be more devastating if they’re encased in ice. Using these combos can be the most efficient way of dealing with a powerful enemy, but coordinating them with other players can often lead to hilarious mishaps. Blue Wizard announces that he’s going to soak an oncoming troll with water, so Green Wizard prepares to summon a bolt of lighting from the sky. Blue Wizard accidentally casts the water spell as an area of effect, soaking Green Wizard as the lighting bolt strikes from the Heavens. Green Wizard needs food badly.

The action in Magicka unfolds across two game modes, Adventure and Challenge, both of which can be played cooperatively over the Internet or via a local network. The Adventure mode is a light-hearted, story-driven campaign that sees players travel across twelve expansive levels on their way to saving the world. Throughout the campaign, players can collect new wands and weapons that grant them new active and passive abilities, find spell books that contain new and powerful spells, and assist the lowly folk with side quests and other diversions. The adventure mode lasts anywhere from eight to ten hours, but may warrant additional playthroughs in order to collect and accomplish everything. For the more experienced wizards, Challenge mode presents players with a series of arena challenges in which they are forced to overcome waves of enemies in an enclosed space. Challenge mode can be very difficult, and should offer most players plenty of reason to come back.

As wonderful as the gameplay is, the graphical presentation is somewhat lacking by today’s standards. Some of the monsters look nice, if not a little generic, but there is very little variety in the types of monsters that you’ll face throughout the game. The environments suffer from a similar fate by offering a few interesting and colourful set pieces, but generally falling victim to an abundance of reused assets. It’s the spell effects that disappoint me the most, though. They’re not bad by any means, but they’re far from being fantastic, which is what they deserve to be. A few more particle effects and some more dynamic lighting would have gone a long way toward making each spell look truly remarkable. In the end, however, the graphics certainly get the job done, and you probably won’t have much time to sit around and admire the effects of your spells anyway. Unless one of them causes your friends a great deal of misery, because that can be fun to watch.

The sound design is also pretty generic, but is often used to humorous effect. Characters speak with a dialect that sounds like a cross between Simlish from The Sims and the Swedish Chef, with a few specific words sounding just familiar enough to get a laugh. The music is standard fantasy game fare, filled with lyres, lutes, and classical guitars, and while it doesn’t distract from the gameplay at all, it’s also hardly memorable. The grunts, groans, roars, and explosions are all suitable and believable, but like the music, don’t particularly stand out. It’s clear that most of the focus went into developing the fun and challenging gameplay, and it’s hard to fault Paradox Interactive for that.

Magicka is a charming game that takes classic action-adventure gameplay and gives it a unique twist. The spell-casting mechanic is very deep, yet remains intuitive, and gives players a chance to discover their own favourite spells and the strategies in which to employ them. The action is both intense and exciting, and being able to share the experience with friends is fantastic. You will die a lot in Magicka at the hands of enemies, comrades, and sometimes even yourself, but each death will be a story to laugh about later, and in the end: It’s just part of the game.

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Upon inspection, RIFT: Planes of Telara seemed like just another MMORPG releasing in 2011.  It slipped quietly under my radar because I had Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic in my crosshairs.  I just don’t get excited about every single MMORPG release anymore because I had been burned one too many times before, so I definitely wasn’t going to pre-order another unknown game just to acquire beta access.

Somehow though, that’s precisely what I did.

The premise of the game is fairly simple and straightforward, but with a twist.  You have two factions to pick from: The saintly Guardians who died on the battlefield but were raised by the Gods, or the faithless Defiants, a group of technology lovers who believe the Gods were the reason the Rifts started appearing in the first place.

Once I pre-ordered my game I received Beta access within about twenty minutes.  Within less than an hour I was already playing in Beta event #4 and so I had to pick which race and class I wanted to start with.  RIFT does things a little bit differently than the standard MMO.  You pick your base class and then once you’re in the game you collect things called souls which unlock different abilities.  With these abilities you can essentially create your own class, which is something that intrigued me.  I chose a High Elf Rogue for my first character, despite the Dwarven females being very cute (cute Dwarves in an MMO? Hell hath frozen over).

Character customization is more detailed than World of Warcraft but isn’t nearly as complex as Aion.  You can choose skin color, hair color, facial markings and tweak facial details such as nose size.  Hair styles were limited, but you can choose a highlight color and base color which made things a little more interesting.  For those of you who can’t stand overly complex character customization because no matter what you do your character always ends up looking like Swamp Thing, you’ll enjoy this.  For those of you who absolutely need endless character customization in your game, this may not be your cup of tea.  I’m hoping that we’ll see some more customization options before release, but I’m not holding my breath.

Not all Rifts look exactly the same.

The moment I logged into the game I could feel the urgency around me.  As tempting as it was to just run off and start playing, I immediately opened up my video settings and started tweaking things.  The game is very pretty; it runs on the same engine as Warhammer Online, but I wasn’t overly impressed by the visuals in that game.  I’ll just come out and say it: I think RIFT does it better.  I spoke with the quest giver, a large angel-like creature,  who gave me a bread crumb quest to speak with someone downstairs.  After a short series of “go speak with so and so” quests I was outside and already receiving my first soul.

It was time to choose my first combat ability and I went with the Bard soul, so I could tear monsters apart with the sound of my lovely music.  Off I went, jamming on my guitar and killing foes with ease.  I stopped for a few moments to take it all in – the softly glowing fire on the rooftops in the village below me, and the screaming people who were fleeing for their lives.  I soon realized that stopping to check things out was not the best idea because a large fireball from the sky came plummeting down and hit me.  It didn’t do much damage, but that’s when I realized that I was in a dynamic and interactive environment.  The fireballs being launched in the sky weren’t just there for aesthetics, they could actually hurt you.  I went into this Beta completely blind because I had heard so many good things from people I trust, so I really had no idea what to expect.

Along the way I picked up another soul and this time I picked Ranger.  The Ranger class is similar to those found in others MMOs – you use a bow as your primary weapon and make use of pets for damage.  You’re automatically given a Razorboar as your first pet and while it’s not something I would have chosen for myself, it gets the job done.  The story itself wasn’t bad, but for the duration of my time in the starting zone, which lasted from levels one through seven, I felt rushed and wasn’t fully absorbing all the information given to me.

One of the developers popped onto the screen via large text to announce that because of the large influx of players, they were going to be opening two new servers and teased everyone by stating, “you know what that means!”  For the following five minutes players sat in general chat whining and moaning about how long the developer was taking to finish his/her sentence.  Large text popped up on the screen again, this time saying: “…It means we’re taking all the servers down in ten minutes!”

As if on cue, players expressed their disappointment in general chat and the developer quipped back with:

“Oh come on now. Not ALL announcements can be fun.  Just to remind you all, in five minutes we’re bringing down the server!  And don’t worry, we can count to five much better than we can to thirty… unlike what happened last night.”

Everyone in general chat giggled over this and it became apparent that the people behind the curtain have a very good sense of humour indeed.

A sense of humor is required to play RIFT.

I’m not a big nitpicker when it comes to games but one thing that had always bothered me in other MMOs was when you’d mount up on a horse or something else and your character’s hands would be suspended in mid-air, holding onto nothing.  This isn’t a big deal and was never detrimental to those other games, but when my High Elf sat atop her horse actually holding the reins, I took notice.  I also enjoyed the way she moved naturally while on horseback instead of sitting like a piece of wood.  While running around if I scrolled in very closely to my elf, I could actually hear her breathing heavily.  Again, this isn’t something that is going to actually affect the gameplay but it was still nice to see bits of realism sprinkled here and there.

At the end of the starting zone I encountered my very first Rift, a giant anomaly that tears through the veil and unleashes powerful monsters that require the help of others to bring down.  Though I only reached level ten in this Beta event, it wasn’t the last Rift I saw either.  There is a tutorial in place that seems unremarkable, especially if you’re a veteran MMO player, but I regretted skipping through some parts of it, especially when it explained how Rifts worked.  I encourage everyone to read through the tutorial at least once even if you think you don’t need to.  Trust me, it’s helpful.

My first Rift encounter was a vital part of the storyline so I won’t give anything away, but I will say that it was impressive.  I had the aid of powerful NPCs with me for this one so it didn’t require working with a group of players (though that would have been fun) and once we took down the boss I was treated to a brief cut scene that explained more of the story.  By this time I also had my third soul – I chose Riftstalker – and was well on my way in Telara.

I heard people say that post starting zone the game gets much, much better and I’m inclined to agree with them.  I was barely at the starter camp for two seconds when I saw text fly on my screen: “Smoke permeates the air.”  Within ten seconds the sky began to turn red with fire and when I looked down at general chat, people were already spamming it with “raid invite please!”  Everyone else knew what was going on, but I was pretty lost.  I saw a bunch of people running in one direction and even though I was only level seven I decided to dash off after them.

While running towards the new threat with the rest of the group I spotted two large tree-like monsters going at it.  When I clicked on one of them I noticed immediately he was an elite just from the trimming around his portrait so I decided not to go any closer to them.  That’s one thing I actually loved about RIFT - it was familiar.  Once in the game I didn’t have to fuss over learning a new set up.  I appreciated being able to take one look at a monster’s portrait and just know that I did not want to engage them alone.  While the forest around them burned these tree monsters fought and a large group of elite fairies circled around them.  While I was interested in what they were doing, there was a greater threat I needed to tend to.

Not all fairies in RIFT are as cute and cuddly as this one.

Goblins were apparently attacking and even though I wasn’t in the raid with the rest of the players I was automatically given the quest to defeat them.  The second the event started, objectives positioned themselves onto my quest tracker.  I looked at the levels of the other players engaging the goblins and noticed that some were level twenty.  I was worried I was under leveled for the event and was ready to wander back to the camp to continue my questing alone.  That’s when I noticed that I was getting experience and my objectives were slowly being completed even though I was hanging out in the corner timidly.  Yes, you CAN get involved in the raids even if you’re level seven and you are welcome to have a good time with everyone else and gain experience.

When the event was over, I made my way back to camp.  While killing wasps for what felt like forever I was interrupted by the sound of a large crack nearby.  Several bolts of lightning flew down around me and when I looked straight above my head, a strange plant-like Rift had formed above me.  Panicked, I started running around like a headless chicken while a very powerful Satyr-like monster attacked me.  Almost immediately, three other people rushed to my aid and the four of us took down the invasion within only a couple of minutes.  Once the last monster was killed, the Rift recoiled and dissipated.

Trust me, you don't want to be sitting directly underneath one of these when it appears.

If you’re a solitary quester who hates being interrupted, RIFT might not be for you.  If you relish the idea of something random happening to you while you’re out leveling, then check this game out.  I personally loved the dynamic environments and the feeling that something exciting could happen at any given moment.  I also loved that the game encourages teamwork, even if only for a few minutes.  I reached the next questing hub/village and it was already under attack by large ogre-like monsters who were pounding at its walls.  Things in this game happen and they happen frequently.  Achievement addicts will also be happy to know that there are plenty of achievements to obtain in RIFT. I love achievements in MMORPGs so this was an instant turn-on for me.

The game also supports several different server rule sets, so if you want to hang out on an roleplaying (RP) server you can.  For the Beta I made my character on an RP server.  I loved being able to create my own class but at the same time it also looks like a recipe for many imbalances in PvP, but only time will tell if this will be a major problem or not.  The biggest bit of criticism I have seen towards RIFT so far has been that it isn’t innovative enough and instead they are just re-inventing the wheel.  While the game isn’t a breath of fresh air, it was fun and I don’t really crave innovation.  TRION Worlds has pleasantly surprised me with their flagship title and I can’t wait until the next Beta event on January 25th.  I’m glad that I’m not alone in this and that there are so many people who are excited about the upcoming release of this MMORPG and just in my few hours of play time it has shown much promise.RIFT: Planes of Telara is set to release on March 1st, 2011.  Head start begins February 24th for those who pre-ordered the game.

This is part 1 of the interview. In transcribing the interview I realized what a mammoth this thing is, but we touch on a lot of interesting subjects including the prospects of playing through The Killing Joke, guild housing and Final Fantasy XIV so I definitely want to share all of that with our readers. In this part we talk about the general atmosphere and goals of the game, and Daubert’s experience from working on Galaxies.

GameNorth (GN): Tell us a bit about DC Universe Online.

Michael Daubert (MD):  The biggest goal is that we want you to look and feel like the hero or villain that you want to be. The nice thing is that when you’re carrying all your loot you can change the way you look every time you log in. [Daubert swaps out an item's appearance] I can swap out [the look of] my helmet and I’m still wearing my epic helmet and getting all the rewards but I can have the character look any way I want.

GN: Yeah, I really like that part.

MD: Have you gotten into Gotham and Metropolis both or?

GN: You know, I accidentally went into Gotham once. I rallied back to HQ and I had never been there so I took the wrong portal and was very confused. [laugh]

MD: That’s the nice part about it – it lets you jump back and forth between Gotham and Metropolis.

GN: Yeah, now that I understand it, it’s pretty cool.

MD: Well, that’s the nice thing too. We don’t have it like other MMOs where this is a villain held city or this is a hero held city. It’s an open environment – PvP and PvE – that lets you explored whatever city you want to be in. One thing we did too is that Gotham is always in the night time and Metropolis is always during the day, so we don’t have the day/night cycle. We did that on purpose. We wanted to capture the feel of what Gotham always is. One thing we learned early on is that Gotham during the day just isn’t fun – you want to have that at night time. A lot of times in comics too, whenever they portray Metropolis it’s always the bright golden daylight of the midmorning or mid-night type, so it always has the glamourous City of Tomorrow type feel to it.

GN: That’s interesting, actually. I hadn’t realized that, but now that you mention it – yeah, it was always day. Speaking of the day/night cycle, are there weather effects?

MD: Oh yeah, it already rains. If you go to the Mr. Freeze area it’ll snow in there. The Scarecrow area has a toxic mist through the air. It’s all about the atmosphere and the atmospheric effects.

GN: I’ve done all the tour missions -

MD: With Booster Gold?

GN: Yeah, with Booster Gold. But only in Metropolis. I wanted to play in Gotham actually, since I’ve just finished Arkham Asylum.

MD: What you said there – Batman: Arkham Asylum is an amazing game, I loved it too and played it twice through. That is Batman’s story. This is all about you creating your story. You’re the next legend of the DC Universe and [it's all about] you writing your legend into the universe itself. It’s funny you bring up Arkham Asylum because the game ended – you’re at the end and you’re like: “Oh I want more! I want more!” and that’s what we’re trying to do here, is to keep that action going and keep that progression. And you’re getting to that level of Batman but it’s no longer Batman’s story; it’s your story in the DC Universe. You start playing games like Batman and people want to see a Green Arrow game like that and so we try to combine the best of the DC Universe in one open world environment. So you almost have all these different games mashed into one. You have your Batman, your Superman plus the villain side. I’m sure when you’re playing through [Arkham Asylum], you’re thinking “how cool would it be to play as the Joker?” You’ll hit that peak at level 30 [in DCUO] and we want you to go, “oh I wonder what the villain side is,” because it’s a whole different storyline and getting to the end. Plus, “I’ve played as a flyer/ice guy – I wonder what it would be like to be the Flash with super speed and I’m going to add fire, nature, or ice to that character.” So it really comes down to living the legend – you being the next legend.

GN: So Alerts are the dungeons, what are the Duos?

MD: The Duos will be the two-person dungeons. Two-people raids type.

GN: The success that World of Warcraft has is partly due to the endgame content of the raids to keep people playing, and arenas too. Is there a raid you can show me?

[Daubert attempts to find a raid, but he does not have them unlocked on his character]

GN: No problem. So how have you guys designed raids or raid rewards? What have you guys learned from doing Everquest to improve the endgame content?

The variety of costumes is one of the best things about DCUO

MD: That’s something I would have the Creative Director walk through. I can’t get too deep into the raiding side of it. Myself, I’ve been with Sony for three years and it was my first time on an MMO [on SW:G]. So of course the very first thing they say is “go play World of Warcraft.” And once you have a level 80 character, go learn what an MMO is all about. Being in the industry for over 17 years and working on every game console you can think of and jumping into an MMO is the biggest thing you can ever work on. This is something so epic that you can’t even wrap your head around. What we’re really trying to do here is to take the best of the MMO side and the best of the action side and merge it together. We want to get the console players who are jumping in here, who are maybe kind of gunshy when you say MMO – [the kind that goes] “Oh, I don’t have 100 hours to go through there and I don’t want to have to mine gold or knit weavings into a cape” and it’s almost like a training. It’s to teach them what the best parts of an MMO are but to keep up the action of the console side of the game. We do know from the past experiences is that the number one thing in an MMO is your endgame. There has to be an endgame when you hit level 30 there has to be something there that was worth your time getting there. Geoff Johns [Superman, Flash] and Marv Wolfman [Blade, The New Teen Titans], who are some of the most prolific comic book writers in history. I mean, they reinvented the way we look at comic books today and they wrote the back story, both the villains’ side and the heroes’ side, to make sure that it’s an epic journey and when you get there, that the end story is there for you. [There are also] the larger PvP raids [and] larger arenas. And you know, in WoW you play as a tank and the next thing you want to do is [you want to] play as a healer. We let you swap out your powers as you’re going along to let you switch those roles as you go through it. Up until level 15 where you really set your role. What we want you to do is it’s not just what role you you’re going to play, but what power you’re going to have – what movement type, what hero or villain you can create – to run those same events and how does that change affect it.

GN: Comparing the two projects [Star Wars: Galaxies and DCUO], which one did you enjoy more?

MD: SW:G still has a large fan base and it’s one of those games where Sony took on a big chunk of creating the first Star Wars MMO – with that experience, we’ve learned a lot. Moving forward, we took that into what the DC Universe was about. I think the number one thing we learned from SW:G is there is nothing more important to our game than the fans. It’s got to be the fans. We spent the first three years making the game that we wanted, and for the last two years it’s about making the game that the fans want. Let’s see how they feel and if it’s what they’re looking for. On top of that, throwing the DC license on there – these fans are die hards, and they will nitpick every single thing you put into this game. “Sorry, in Batman 215 that wouldn’t have happened.” And they’d be absolutely right. We have 70 years of comic books that we have to stay true to so what we really want to do is focus on what the fun part of an MMO action game is, and what is also fun about being a superhero. So what we tried to do when we mixed those two together is to take the best of both worlds and stay true to the license and stay true to the fans of the MMO side.

Look for the next part in the series, which contains some topics related to DC comic books.

Listed below are the games that will be affected by the shutdown (* denotes a game with online achievements):

• FIFA 07
• FIFA 08 *
• FIFA 09 *
• FIFA Street 3 *
• Fight Night Round 3
• Madden NFL 09
• NBA LIVE 08
• NBA LIVE 09 *
• NCAA March Madness 08 *
• NCAA Basketball 09 *
• NCAA Football 07
• NCAA Football 08 *
• NCAA Football 09 *
• NFL Head Coach 09 *
• NHL 08 *
• NHL 09 *
• Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 *
• UEFA EURO 2008 *

For those of you who are gamer score enthusiasts, this is essentially a last call for these games and their online achievements.

It’s only been a month since World of Warcraft released Cataclysm, but if you’re already thinking about taking a break and searching for the next big thing you might be interested in RIFT.  Trion Worlds’ new MMORPG has been in closed beta for a little while now and has been receiving many mixed responses so far, which isn’t a big surprise (it is an MMO, after all).  If you’re willing to put down $49.99 for the regular edition, you can do so on Steam, Amazon.com, Gamestop, EB Games and Direct 2 Drive.

There is a Collector’s Edition available for $59.99 and includes a Collector’s Satchel, which increases your bag size by 24 slots, an Ancient Tartagon mount and a Bogling Wastrel.  No matter which version you decide to pre-order you will be given the opportunity to sign up for a limited-time discounted subscription pricing plan.  You’ll also receive a Shrouded Sourcestone Rune, companion pet, Beta access, early access to the game before it goes live and thirty free days of play time.

RIFT is a fantasy MMORPG where players work together to save a threatened world from being torn apart by magical rifts.  The game will feature two factions, six different races and many different classes to choose from.

In addition, SteelSeries has added these new Scope glasses to their store (also available at Best Buy). They look cool and my vision does need enhancing, but I’m not quite sure about this one. Has anyone tried these or something similar? Are they really all that much better than your natural ogling devices for gaming?

Another cool thing is that you can customize your character to look any way you want despite the equipment that you’re actually wearing. “The biggest goal is that we want you to look and feel like the hero or villain that you want to be,” said Michael Daubert, Studio Art Director [Star Wars: Galaxies]. “The cool thing about that is that you can change how you look every time you log in.” How it works is that there is a Style menu, and you can customize all the different things that affect the look of your character on that screen. I rocked the military beret when I picked it up, but now I’m back to the old school spandex hood. You can pick up items that unlock different styles, so that you have more freedom as you progress.

I think this guy chose Fire.

Something I didn’t realize until Daubert brought it up was that the day/night cycles that is common in MMOs was omitted in this game, and it was a design choice: “Gotham is always at night time, [and] Metropolis is during the day. We did that on purpose because we wanted to capture the feel of what Gotham always is. And Gotham during the day just isn’t fun. You want to have it at night time. A lot of times in the comics, when they portray Metropolis, it’s always the bright golden daylight… the City of Tomorrow feel.” He added, “seeing Batman during the day – it just didn’t feel right.”

Weather effects are still intact though, and in fact there are some nice little touches. For example, Mr. Freeze’s area will start to snow instead of rain and Scarecrow’s area has a pervasive mist from the fear toxins. The Unreal Engine shines in this respect, and helps the game look great overall. Metropolis feels like Freedom Force and Gotham feels entirely different.

The character creation in the game allows you to select a movement type (Flying/Acrobatic/Super Speed), a main power type such as fire and ice (this is basically your class), and a mentor (gadgetry/super powers/magic) that determines the faction you start with and the gear you buy from the vendors, as well as your starting city. The customization of your appearance is not as in depth as some other offerings, but you can choose your body size as well as your starting costume.

As with any new MMO, getting oriented can be quite difficult. In order to help players explore and to give background on the many areas of the game, DCUO provides a chain of quests, narrated by the silly Booster Gold, that basically ask you to tour the cities, and even the headquarters. In addition, there are these neat little timed races that help you get oriented with your movement mode, and eventually master it. They are different depending on your movement type and are meant as something to do while you wait for an Alert (dungeon) or Player versus Player (PvP) battle to pop, but I enjoyed them so much that I’ve just been racing through them (pun optional) to get the Platinum rating on each one.

The variety of costumes is one of the best things about DCUO

The game is tailored to the console players, and SOE confirms that the PS3 is their primary target. Since the game only has one build that works both on the PS3 and PC, there are several design choices that are clearly influenced by the players who will be using controllers as opposed to keyboards. “We want to get the console players who are jumping in here who may be a little gun shy when they hear about an MMO… it’s almost like training. It’s teaching them what the best parts of an MMO are but still keeping that fast paced action,” explains Daubert. To that end, you won’t find any tradeskills or crafting in the game. In addition, you can only have 6 active powers on your action bar at once. This is probably due to the controller having limited buttons and is something I disliked about Guild Wars, but you can try to build your skills around it a little bit in order to avoid having too many active skills that aren’t being used.

Not all the console influence is bad, however. There are these information hotspots littered throughout the cities and if you collect all the ones in an area, you get a reward. The whole thing feels a lot more like something you’d see from Batman: Arkham Asylum than World of Warcraft.

On the PvP side, there are two different options: Play as your own character, or play as one of the Legends, such as Batman or Harley Quinn. The one map I played on was a Team Fortress 2 style mode, where each team tries to control different points on the map in order to score points. More maps are unlocked as you level. The co-operative Player versus Environment (PvE) involves Alerts and end game Raids, which involve such iconic locations as the Batcave. I am not high enough level to access the Raids, but the Alerts that I’ve done seem a bit chaotic. Whereas World of Warcraft groups are fairly co-ordinated affairs, DCUO allows your team to split up and still do okay.

The game has been fun enough so far that I can definitely recommend a trial – especially for those curious about MMOs but are afraid that they will become highly addictive. DC Universe is very friendly to casual play and doesn’t involve farming for materials of any kind. Plus, the gameplay resembles your average action game more than World of Warcraft. PSN Plus members can download this Beta for free right now from the PSN Store, and PC players can pre-order a copy in order to get into the Beta. Have you tried DCUO? Show us your character in the comments or let us know what you think of it! Also, keep an eye out for our interview with Michael Daubert later this week.

Every year, the denizens of Middle Earth celebrate something called the Yule Festival, which is taking place right now.  This year is a bit different and there is now an entire new zone just for the holiday called Frostbluff.  Within Frostbluff is a town called Winter-Home.  To get to Winter-Home you must speak to a stable master in any of the major cities/hub areas, such as Bree.  Getting to and from Winter-Home is easy and the quests are intended for those level 10 and higher.  Once you arrive at Winter-Home, you will be prompted to speak to the mayor, Winston Goodnough.

Welcome to Frostbluff, the happiest place in Middle Earth.

The mayor will then tell you to speak to his wife, who is standing right next to him.  She will then give you a spiel about the festivities, and then send you along to Cecil Voller in the snowball field.  If you pull up your map, the snowball field is very easy to spot and you should have no trouble finding it.  If this seems a little bit on the boring side, that’s because it is.  With the exception of the theatre, there is nothing especially remarkable about the Winter-Home quests; you’ll be looting things and running from one end of town to the other, which doesn’t make for a very exciting experience but does yield some pretty interesting rewards.

Once you’ve spoken to Cecil, she’ll tell you to go speak to “someone.”  Kind of vague, huh?  The person you’re looking for is standing very close to where the mayor is, and she is a servant.  You’ll soon realize that talking to the servant was a complete waste of time because she gives you absolutely no information and sends you off to speak with Guard Kember, who is standing right near the stable master at the entrance to Winter-Home.  He’ll send you off to speak with the hobbit announcer, who is standing right in front of the theatre.  The hobbit then sends you off to speak with Ona Kay, the eating-contest announcer.

The new snowball field in Frostbluff, where you can pelt your friends.

After you’ve spoken to Ona, you notice that there’s a beggar standing not too far away from where you are.  Speaking to him unravels a bit of the story here in Winter-Home and continues the quest chain.  Apparently the mayor is a jerk and is all about keeping up appearances even at the expense of his own people.  You learn that the beggars in town aren’t pleased with the mayor and the Yule Festival isn’t the sugary-sweet pleasant festival that he’ll have you believe.  Once you’re done talking to the beggar (who will rudely shoo you off anyway), it’s time to re-visit the mayor to end the quest chain.

You’re now free to explore Winter’s Home and do the quests in any order you please to collect Frostbluff coins.  These coins are a new form of currency that are spent on goods in Winter-Home.  You can trade your coins with Jefferey Bloomer, who is standing in the same area as the mayor (and is most likely the guy who has the crowd of people standing around him).  The rewards are nothing to get too excited about, as all of the gear available are cosmetic only.  However, if you are hoping for more household items and decorations, then you’re in luck.  There’s a batch of all new snowmen to adorn your front lawns with.

Elf to snowman size comparison.

These rewards are excellent for roleplayers who want to update their winter wardrobe:

Snow-Dusted Travelling Set – 12 coins a piece

Yule hoodless cloak – 12 coins

Yule Tunic and Pants – 12 coins

Yule hooded cloak – 12 coins

Yule Scarf – 12 coins

Yule Stocking Cap – 12 coins

Unhappy Snowman – 10 coins

Brown-Capped Snowman – 10 coins

Snowman with mittens – 10 coins

Snowman with a Staff – 10 coins

Top Hat Snowman – 10 coins

Wizard’s Hat Snowman – 10 coins

Bald Snowman – 10 coins

Yule Flag – 10 coins

Yule Banner – 10 coins

Perfect snowballs (3) – 1 coin

The Biggest Stomach of Them All!

Starting point: Ona Kay (south of the mayor)

Repeatable:  Yes, every six minutes

Rewards: 13 Frostbluff coins (after completing all five parts)

Winter-Home, a true winter wonderland.

The object of the game is to eat the most food.  Personally, I don’t think hobbits should be allowed to enter as this would cause serious balance issues to the contest, but maybe you’re an elf with a bottomless stomach and feel as though you can take them on.  Good luck with that.

This quest chain is broken down into five parts.  During part one you are not on a timer, so don’t worry about out-eating anyone just yet.  Save that gusto for part two.  The food on the table includes eggs, berries, pies, breads and mushrooms.  It’s in your best interests to stick to only eating eggs, berries and mushrooms as they won’t give you a speed decrease like the pies and bread will.  Not being slowed down during an eating contest is the key to success here, so choose your food carefully.  Occasionally, a suspicious drink will spawn on the table.  If you’re feeling lucky, drink it.  But be warned: The drink has a chance of causing you a 60% speed decrease for 20 seconds.  The drink can also remove all current speed debuffs.

The eating contest is the quest chain that yields the most Frostbluff coins during the festival, so go for it even if you’re like me and loathe timers.

Unwilling Firewood

Starting point:  Mabel Mitford

Repeatable:  Yes

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Now, if you were to come to me and complain that every single time you tried to chop some firewood, the tree punched you in the face, I would tell you a couple things:

1) You’re insane.

2) Stop trying to chop down Ents.  They don’t appreciate it.

Really, lady?!  You live in Middle Earth!  When a tree is punching you in the face and causing you bodily harm, that’s a clear sign that you aren’t hacking away at a tree at all but a sentient being.  The mayor wants the best wood-burning firewood available and he isn’t about to settle for anything less, but the “trees” are fighting back.  They aren’t trees at all, but rather tree-trolls and so Mabel Mitford wants you to go collect it for her.  The tree-trolls are located in the north-east region on your map and are easy to find lumbering about (haha, a pun!).

The tree-trolls are marked as “grouchy trees” (go figure, they’re walking around and people still think they’re trees).  Collect 10 pieces of firewood and head back to Mabel Mitford in Winter-Home for your reward.

What do you mean this isn't a tree?

Tidying Up

Starting point: Basil Wyndham

Repeatable:  Yes

Rewards:  4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Basil is extremely lazy.  He didn’t deliver the kegs he was supposed to, and now he’s refusing to clean up the dirty dishes and garbage.  This guy obviously doesn’t like money or want a job.  The mayor doesn’t want the garbage to be seen by the festival patrons, so Basil decides he’s going to make you do it.  This confuses me because um, hello?  I’m a festival patron, too!  I didn’t come here to clean up after everyone else!  Fortunately this task is easy, quick, and yields coins.  Time to roll up those sleeves and get a little dirty.

The piles of garbage, spills and leftover food can be found scattered about on tables in Winter-Home and are relatively easy to spot.

Empty Keg Emergency

Starting point: Basil Wyndham

Repeatable:  Yes

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Basil is drunk and passed out, so he didn’t deliver the kegs he was supposed to.  The town is going dry and that just won’t do during a festival, so it’s up to you to save the day.  Pick up fresh kegs near the servant’s oven in Winter-Home and take them to the festival square, but watch out for the town guards!  You don’t want them to see you, even though you’re doing everyone a favor and doing Basil’s job.  It doesn’t make much sense, but it’s an entertaining quest.

Moving Them Off

Starting point: Guard Kember

Repeatable: Yes

The mayor dislikes the beggars hanging around the streets in Winter-Home and Guard Kember wants you to shoo them away.  Your task is to find each beggar in Winter-Home and tell him he has to go somewhere else in order to obtain four coins.  Is depriving these people of warmth and shelter really worth it?  Each of the beggars are easy to find, but sometimes you’ll have to wait a few seconds for them to respawn if someone has already recently visited them.  They will appear on your mini-map as little golden rings, which makes them easy to find.

A Charitable Spirit

Starting point:  Daley Utteridge

Rewards: -10 Frostbluff coins and a feeling of satisfaction (or remorse)

Repeatable: Yes, but why would you want to do this more than once?

If you felt bad for kicking the beggars off the streets earlier, you’ll be given a redemption quest from Daley Utteridge.  Feel free to give up 10 of your Frostbluff coins to those you shooed away.  It may make you feel better, but you won’t gain anything from it and wouldn’t you rather spend your coins on cool snowmen decorations instead?  I’m apparently a bad person.

Stuffing the Stuffed

Starting point: Mabel Mitford

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Repeatable: Yes

Does Mabel even do anything around Winter-Home, or does she just make everyone else run her errands for her?  Winter-Home is full of lazy people, with the exception of the hard-working beggars. How does that even make sense?  For this quest you’ll need to run around and collect the food that is used during the eating contest.  You’ll need to collect mushrooms, eggs, berries and bread.  The eggs are found around the chicken coops, which are northeast of Winter-Home.  The mushrooms can be gathered from the mushroom tent near the lake, to the far east outside of Winter-Home.  Berries can be picked from the bushes growing anywhere out in the wild.  Remember the servant’s oven?  That’s where you’ll need to head in order to make the bread which is located in the northwest section of Winter-Home.

The mushroom tent

The chicken coop aptly named "Cluckland"

Making Mischief

Starting point: Gareth Rust

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Repeatable: Yes

Gareth tells you that there is a pile of fireworks sitting in the festival square that are supposed to go off at a very specific time.  Tampering with the fireworks will greatly displease the mayor and earn you Gareth’s respect.  What’s more, when you set off the fireworks, the festival patrons will become distracted and you’ll be able to steal their Frostbluff coins.  Once you’ve pilfered eight coins, head back to Gareth who will spread half of the coins to the beggars and give you the rest to enjoy.

The Frostbluff Theatre

Starting point: Theatre Announcer (located just outside of the theatre)

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Repetable: Yes

This is definitely my favourite new addition to the Yule Festival quests.  You will be given the opportunity to “review” the play that is showing in the Winter-Home theatre and earn some festival coins.  I’ve never experienced anything quite like this in an MMO before;  if you are a member of the audience you will be given the chance to become a part of the show and may be randomly selected to become an actor.  If you are AFK,  you will not be chosen.  Once on stage you will be given cues on when to act.  In order to act, you can use a LOTRO-supported emote.  If you’re in the audience you can purchase rotten tomatoes and flower petals from a hobbit near the front entrance.  Throw the tomatoes and the flowers at the actors on stage to show your appreciation (or lack thereof) when a cue appears on the screen.

I played the role of Gandalf. I was typecast, since I was the only elf in the play and therefore the tallest of the bunch.

When I was chosen to perform, I played the role of the villain.  I netted myself 10 turbine points in total by the end of the show, which can be used in the LOTRO store.  I also walked away with two new titles, “Star of the Show” and “Villain.”  I suspect that other titles are available to unlock depending on which role you play and how well you perform.  This was a very fun new feature and I encourage everyone to give it a go at least once!

Once you have completed all of the Winter-Home quests, two new quests will appear.  You can only complete one of the two hidden quests and which one you choose is entirely up to you (siding with the beggars or siding with the mayor).  If the new holiday zone just isn’t your thing, fret not.  The regular Yule Festival quests are still there and yield the same rewards as last year, and if you’re pressed for time but don’t mind spending a bit of money in the shop you can buy yourself a Yule Festival horse.

Old version of the Yule Festival horse, now available in the LOTRO Store

New version of the Yule Festival horse, not available in the LOTRO store.

Do your friends look like this?

There are six episodes in total and each one will last anywhere between 30 to 45 minutes depending on how fast you are at solving the riddles.  Once you’ve selected your character you are then thrown into a story of murder and mystery all taking place in the same town.  One of the first things I noticed was that the voice actor did a hilarious job; it made the game feel campy, but not in a bad way.  The narrator is purposely over dramatic, spoofing earlier mystery movies and television shows. This isn’t a game you can take very seriously, but it doesn’t want to be.  I’m actually fairly certain that the same person did the voices for every character in the game – male and female – which just added to the absurdity.

The puzzles themselves range from being overly easy to stupidly hard, which is okay since you’re never forced to answer any of them to progress the story.  If you can’t finish one you can simply give up and the answer will then be explained to you.  Once you finish a puzzle you’ll be awarded either a bronze, silver or gold ribbon depending on how you do.  Time is a large factor in which ribbon you’ll receive at the end, and if you want the gold ribbon then you won’t be permitted to make any mistakes.  Get it wrong once, and it’s a silver ribbon for you!  Completing puzzles also fills the progress bar at the bottom of the screen, which affects your overall score at the end of the episode.  There are also short pop quizzes in between the puzzles that solely test your observation skills and how well you were paying attention to the dialogue. After solving a puzzle, the narrator will either cheer you on or jeer at you and this is honestly one of the few things I didn’t enjoy very much about the game. The narrator can be a real jerk and sometimes he just talks far too much.

Another thing that I wasn’t keen on was that at the end of Episode One I felt as though I wasn’t given enough clues as to who the murderer was.  I went purely on intuition, but fortunately the other episodes weren’t as vague with their clues.  The episodes also could have been a lot longer in length.  All of these issues are easily overlooked in light of the hysterical writing, and there were several moments where I found myself laughing out loud to myself. The art style of the game made me reminisce about the earlier days of Sierra Online, specifically the game Pepper’s Adventures in Time.  The characters are all very cartoony and have a very distinctive charm to them and while the graphics aren’t anything to write home about, they fit the light hearted mood very well.   Since it is a casual game, it won’t take you long to finish the game in its entirety and it doesn’t offer much replay value but its price point makes it a good buy if only to pass the time for a few minutes here and there.  The game is available on PSN, Amazon.com and Steam and would make a decent and inexpensive Christmas gift.

General Strategy

Most of the campaign is not very hard if you’ve played through the game on Hard already. It may take you a couple of tries as mistakes will outright kill you on this difficulty, but nothing that makes you want to throw your keyboard. In general, if you stick to infinite Marines and some Medics, or infinite Banshees and some Vikings, you’ll likely have no problem doing whatever it is you need to do to chase down Mengsk and defeat Kerrigan.

I found that I could support 4 Barracks with Reactors and pump out 6-8 Marines for every two Medics if that’s all that I’m making. On any stage where you’re fighting Zerg or Protoss, this strategy will flat out win once you have enough Marines, as long as you remember to use your Stimpak and run right up to the things you’re trying to kill. Don’t get tricked by the shiny new units they introduce on the mission; they’re not as good as M&Ms. Even if you need to get places by air, try to just get transports to carry your army of M&Ms.

On the levels where M&Ms don’t work, in other words the levels that involve siege tanks or ones that need air mobility, you’ll have to stick with Banshees and Vikings. Remember to get the Refinery upgrades in the Protoss research tree to help you with production. Usually two Starports with Tech Reactors will suffice, or if you don’t have Tech Reactors yet then get three Starports, all three with Tech Labs. You’ll have to adjust your build according to the resources available on the level of course, but you get the idea. Micromanagement with Banshees is really simple – just remember to cloak when they’re taking too much pressure.

In Utter Darkness

Here is where the men are separated from the boys. The final Protoss mission is quite a challenge. There are very few strategies that will be effective, but the one I used with was to just pump out Immortals and start getting air upgrades (armour first), and ground upgrades (weapon first). The Immortals can tank a lot of damage and the fliers that you’re given can handle the Mutalisks and Broodlords. They also absolutely melt Hybrids, but you’ll want to lift some of them up with your Phoenixes anyway so that your Immortals will focus fire them down. Once Void Rays arrive, start making Void Rays as well. Once Carriers arrive, switch to Carriers. At around 2200 kills, you’ll have no hope of keeping your base, so a strong air army is a must for this strategy. Once I cleaned up all the ground forces in my base I was at around 2400 kills, and I retreated to the bottom right corner above the ledges there to stay out of reach of the Hybrids. Stay stacked as neatly as you can on the Mothership and kill any Overseers that head your way, and you should be able to squeeze out the 2500 kills. The only trick to this method is that you need to recognize when to stop building Immortals, and that you have to keep the Interceptor count up on your Carriers. This strategy is quite good because you don’t need to make any extra buildings, but I did make a few more Probes.

My friend, who also recently completed the Brutal campaign, used an entirely different strategy. He built Colossus, Phoenixes, and Immortals and built Cannons. He said he would hit max food with this strategy and stay there, and then get overrun later. When I tried this strategy I could not get past 1600 kills, but I never hit max food either. I’ve seen other people report this strategy working though, so I’m sure I was doing something wrong.

I’ve also seen other people claim that taking the gold base works (I tried this twice and was nowhere near plausible), and that you can block off the exits with Dark Templars on hold position and aggressively kill off Overseers with your air units.

All In

I chose to eliminate the Nydus Worms for this playthrough as I eliminated air units last time. I really hope you chose the Planetary Fortress in the Protoss research tree, because I can’t foresee a fun time for you if you didn’t. Bunkers may work if you’re a faster player than I am, but I found that I could not do everything I needed to do to pass this map comfortably. In hindsight eliminating air units might have been the easier route.

First off, get another Starport and build Reactors on both. Build another Armory. Start researching air upgrades, prioritizing armour first. Get your infantry weapon upgrades as soon as you can. Start building 2 Planetary fortresses, one at each choke. Make a Tech lab at your Factory, and try to get to 3 to 4 siege tanks at each choke. Start making as many Vikings as you can, and divide them into three neat groups, with the third group being smaller than the other two. The two big groups go to each choke, the third group roams between the artifact platform and behind your mineral lines, where Broodlords like to kick your SCVs in the teeth. The Battlecruisers you start off with should help the chokes initially, but later they should just guard the artifact from things landing in there and doing too much damage. Get another Barracks and get Reactors on both Barracks. Start pumping M&Ms, but 90% Marines. Your Barracks and Starports should basically never stop producing, or you’re pretty screwed. Okay, so you got all that? Now the fun part begins.

The real danger, aside from being overrun on the ground, are Broodlords. These giganto kicks in the pants will invoke a messy Armageddon if you don’t have your Vikings positioned correctly. Planetary Fortresses will hold off the Broodlings decently, but eventually everything will fall, and you will cry salty tears. So make sure you’re checking each choke, and watch your minimap for the ones that are coming from behind.

The computer will try to convince you to use the artifact at inappropriate times. It’s a trap! You absolutely must have the artifact cooldown up when the Overlords start dropping in your base. The other time I felt that I absolutely needed to use it was the flying wave after the Class 10 Zerg, and after the Ultralisks that come after that (just before Kerrigan arrives).

Every time the Witch Queen of Char comes out (and by that I mean Kerrigan), she will hurt more than your feelings. Wait until she engages a Planetary Fortress, then Stim your Marines and run in and kill her. If she uses the area of effect attack, run out of it quickly. You should leave your Medics out of this fight as they’ll just take up valuable shooting space and Kerrigan will one shot anything she directly shoots at anyway. Try to rebuild your Planetary Fortresses quickly, using the multiple SCV build upgrade if you can. Remember to keep making SCVs and dropping M.U.L.E.s to keep that money coming in.

I found that at some points I just had to work with one Planetary at each choke as the enemy never stops coming and my SCVs cannot stay alive while building a new Planetary. Eventually, around 75%, a Class 10 (that’s military speak for holy crap that’s big) Zerg that spawns air units will come at you. Take all three groups of your Vikings to kill it, and make sure they are attacking from different angles. After this battle, your Vikings have a brief moment to get repaired by some SCVs, but also make sure to replenish with the right numbers in each control group. Then the Ultralisks come, so make sure you have some SCVs to repair the Planetary Fortresses that should be tanking them.

Around 90%, it’s time to bunker down for the long haul. And by that, I don’t mean make actual Bunkers, I mean essentially abandon the base and start protecting the artifact with your remaining resources. I built two Planetary Fortresses right beside the artifact and lifted a Factory and a Barracks to cover as much of the surface area as I could to fend off ground attacks. I sieged four tanks up on that platform and also had my Battlecruisers and mercenary Banshees hovering protectively over the artifact. All remaining M&Ms bravely tried to hold off the overwhelming swarm and buy us more time. When Kerrigan shows up for the final time at around 96%, take your Vikings and fly at her until she starts trying to kill them, and try to kite her away from the artifact. If you’ve done all this correctly, then congratulations! A winner is you!

If you eliminated air units, it’s a little more straightforward but you’ll have to practice to get the execution just right. Block off the chokes with Bunkers and Planetary Fortresses or Flame Turrets. Build the Psi Emitter at each choke. Get at least four or more Siege Tanks to each choke and make as many Banshees as you can. Use the Banshees to eliminate the Nydus Worms as quickly as possible. Surrounding the artifact with buildings and kiting Kerrigan at the end still works, of course.

Phew! That was a lot of stuff. If you are having any problems with any other missions, leave a question in the comments and I’ll be happy to give some advice!

First off, if you’re doing mostly PC gaming and are looking for a PC headset, pay the extra $20 for the Siberia v2. The v2 is much more comfortable and all the material feels higher quality in general. For Xbox gaming though, the 5XB is definitely a good investment, especially if you play in a noisy room or travel to local tournaments. The first thing that surprised me about the Spectrum is that the plastic feels… well, plastic. Unlike the heaviness due to gold content in the 6g keyboard and the leather on the Siberia, the 5XB features a leather veneer filled with foam along the headband, a hard plastic frame, and cloth cushions for the earpieces. The result is more comfortable than it sounds, but still not as amazing as the Siberia.

One advantage that the 5XB has in quality over the Siberia is the braided cord, thus making it much more durable if you accidentally tug your headset cord. The sound from the headphones is actually quite good and I had no problems detecting where sounds are coming from and even the distance of the sounds while playing Gears of War 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum. The microphone in the headset retracts just like the Siberia and it does a better job of it by hiding in a nice little nook. The microphone is very clear, and in trying my different headsets, Richard enjoyed hearing me on the Spectrum the most.

This fantastic little thing is the AudioMixer

The headset hooks up to your console in two ways: Through the PC plug which uses the provided adapter for sound output, and through USB for the voice input. The result is a rather upsetting mess of extra cords, although to SteelSeries’s credit, the cords are long enough that it should never be a problem. Still, we’re being brought back a generation and turns your wireless controller into a wired one.

One fantastic feature of the headset is that it comes with an AudioMixer device that plugs into the bottom of your Xbox 360 controller. This mixer allows you to control the incoming voice and game volume right on the controller, which is absolutely great as you can adjust to different teammates’ microphone volumes as they join the game. I found myself fiddling with it all the time to get the perfect noise level for every gaming session, even while playing solo. This is a feature that has surprisingly relevant results, so applause to the SteelSeries Research and Development team!

The LiveMix feature on the AudioMixer is similarly great. It automatically adjusts the voice and the game volume on-the-fly for you. It is hard to gauge something like this but with it on I had no problems hearing all the different people on my team and the game sounds at the same time, so that there is no need to fiddle with the AudioMixer when your hands are already occupied. It wasn’t perfect 100% of the time though so you may want to just stick with the manual adjustments, but the option to use the LiveMix or the manual mode is a great feature.

As always, SteelSeries has made their product for gamers who travel. In this respect, the Spectrum features a neat 3-piece design to the headset. It’s much easier to carry 4 small pieces than one big one, and in addition you can lay the ear pieces flat in this disassembled mode. Well designed once again.

If the Spectrum 5XB was as comfortable as the Siberia v2, I would be using the Spectrum for all my gaming needs, not just the Xbox 360. But as it is, the Spectrum is a really good choice if you’re an Xbox 360 gamer, want all your sound coming through your headset (for example, in noisy environments) or if you travel with your gaming headset. The sound quality, design, and technology are all up to the usual SteelSeries standard I’ve come to expect, but unfortunately the material feels a bit cheaper even while maintaining good durability. The Spectrum 5XB is currently priced at $100 CDN at Best Buy.

“This marks the first time a digital good ‘made’ on Facebook can be transformed into a real-world item and signals an important milestone in merging the virtual and real worlds,” said Eric Hartness, Vice President and General Manager of Social Games at PlayFirst.

Chocolatier is set in San Francisco in 1882 and you have been left in charge of a chocolate factory as well as a storefront.  Your job is to manage your own “chocolate empire.”  As you progress, you’ll be able to decorate your shoppe and unlock the Baumeister’s secret family recipe.  According to the press release, “Charles Chocolates confections are made by hand in small batches using traditional, artisinal techniques, and the finest ingredients, including some of the world’s best chocolates, organic herbs, fruits and nuts as well as organic cream and butter.”

So far, there are only five flavours to choose from:  Jasmine Tea Truffle, Raspberry Heart Truffle, Milk Chocolate Peanut Butterfly, Toasted Almond Cluster, and Classic Fleur de Sel Caramel.  These are definitely not your standard Kit-Kat bars, so here’s hoping that this turns out to be a successful venture and they add more recipes in the future.  As fancy as it sounds, the chocolate seems to be affordable, starting at $20 for a box of 10 chocolates or $35 for 20.  And now I’m hungry.

The videos are broken down into two parts: part one is for the Worgen starting zone, levels 1-6, and part 2 is for the Goblin starting zone, also levels 1-6.  So sit back, get comfortable and watch me play a game!  Or don’t.  It’s really up to you.

If you liked what you saw, leave some feedback.  If you hated it, keep it to yourself.  I’m just kidding, of course!  If there is a game in the future that you would be curious to see more of, let me know in the comments!  Also if you have any questions about the videos, you may also leave me comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Click here to watch the video

Click here to watch the video

Special thanks to our own Richard Mitchell for the awesome video opening! Also thanks to Square Enix for the part of the song taken from Final Fantasy XIII for the Goblin video.

The 6G is very clean and compact

Being priced at $120 CAD at Best Buy, the 6G has to bring a lot to the table to make it worth the price. First of all, despite a very compact and efficient layout, the keyboard weighs a ton. When you’re not typing away and beating people down in StarCraft II, you can use the 6G to bludgeon some fools. Seriously, it weighs two to three times as much as my G15 despite being quite a bit smaller. The reason for the weight? In the words of a Stormtrooper: “It’s metal.” The keys are mounted on metal plates, the switches are gold-plated, and even the plastic has metal elements. The result is a super durable product that is still portable, and will give you a workout while you’re carrying it around to boot. If the LAN event doesn’t have that much room for you or your teammates, or if your backpack has limited space for your gear, the 6G fits many spaces bulkier keyboards would not. SteelSeries claims that the keys will last for 50 million key presses as opposed to the 5 for a keyboard built with the standard rubber domes.

Everything about the 6G screams quality. The most amazing thing about the 6G is that it’s the most sensitive keyboard I’ve ever typed on. There were literally times where I was unknowingly and lightly resting my finger on one of the keys and it was registering. I almost ran a virus scan before I realized it was just my pinky gently resting on the Tab key – it is that sensitive. The result of this incredible sensitivity is a boost in actions per minute (APM) or words per minute (WPM). My WPM, after using this keyboard for about a month, has gone up by 9. I tested this with a typing test found online, and I’m not surprised. When I focus on being fast, I can just lightly fly across the keyboard. And somehow, the sensitivity does not come at the cost of feeling. The tactile feedback of the keys is good due to the mechanical switches. It’s not the best I’ve felt, but it’s good enough that it doesn’t feel uncomfortable and that I am always sure when I’ve pressed a key hard enough.

These indicators are surprisingly bright and pleasant

The anti-ghosting focus of the 6G is also quite good. With the PS/2 that is included, you can press your entire keyboard simultaneously if you like. With the USB connection, due to USB limitations, the keyboard can handle 6 simultaneous keypresses in addition to modifiers such as Shift, Ctrl, and Alt. I’ve tried pressing the 8 home keys at once and sure enough, 6 characters came out. Normal keyboards only allow 2 to 4 simultaneous buttons, so raising this limit for gamers who need to hold W and D and the push-to-talk button and crouch and jump and reload all at once.

The cons of the keyboard are very few, which is one of the benefits of keeping things so tight and focusing on quality. First, the missing Windows key is a very contentious feature. Where you would expect to find the Windows key on the left side, there is a SteelSeries button. This button, in conjunction with some F keys, form your media buttons. The Windows key on the right side is still there, but it’s annoying to have to move my right hand to press the Windows key. The Logitech G15 just lets you disable the Windows key on the board and I would’ve preferred that. I probably use more Windows shortcuts than most people though, so it may not bother you. The Shift key on the right side is a little too small to my liking, but I’ve attuned to it. However, something I still haven’t acclimated to after over a month of usage is the position of the \ button. It is right beside the / button and I press it accidentally frequently. Being a software developer, this is quite annoying, but something I can live with until I’ve braid-melded to it Avatar-style.

Not the best looking keyboard out there, but who looks at their keyboard that often?

The final gripe I have with the keyboard is that the media keys don’t work with iTunes unless the application has focus. I’m not sure how Logitech works their magic, but I don’t want to have to alt-tab out of my game to skip to the next track. I’m sure this is probably more of a fault with iTunes than the keyboard, and this disadvantage is certainly not restricted to the 6G. I’ve tried other keyboards that can’t provide this functionality either. Perhaps optional drivers or software could fix this problem.

So going back to the original query: Is this keyboard worth the money? With regular, cheap keyboards going for about $7, it’s hard to say if this provides $113 more worth of value. For someone like me who plays response time heavy games such as StarCraft II and has their mouse at full sensitivity, then you will likely want a keyboard that matches that insane sensitivity. If you travel a lot with your keyboard to tournaments or to a friend’s house, then it’s also a good investment because it is compact and durable. I could even see getting this keyboard for developers in an office just to get increased productivity. The durability of the keyboard means that it is also friendlier for the environment instead of throwing away 10 keyboards during the 6G’s lifetime. I would recommend getting this keyboard over a poorer offering if your budget is at least $20. That is, this keyboard provides more value over its (long) lifetime than you could get by buying six $20 keyboards over the same period. The added durability and quality makes the 6G a real eye-opener in keyboard quality.

]]> http://gamenorth.ca/2010/11/01/review-steelseries-6gv2-keyboard/feed/ 2 http://gamenorth.ca/2010/10/31/halloween-in-mmos-world-of-warcraft-edition/ http://gamenorth.ca/2010/10/31/halloween-in-mmos-world-of-warcraft-edition/#comments Sun, 31 Oct 2010 20:50:22 +0000 Dana Russo http://gamenorth.ca/?p=6070 When I first set off to record my time trick-or-treating in Azeroth, it was just for fun and something to do. Well, we went ahead and decided to share it with the rest of you for Hallowe’en. The video was made in mind for those who may have never touched an MMO in their life and aren’t sure what’s involved with in-game holiday events. Of course, everyone is welcome to watch the video, though if you’re an avid World of Warcraft fan you’ve most likely seen this before.

I ran into a few problems, most of which were caused by patch 4.0.1, which introduced a whole slew of new talent changes, reforging and a new raid lock system. The last time I seriously sat down to play World of Warcraft was in September of 2009, so just imagine my shock when logging into my paladin and seeing that many of my spells were missing! It was an interesting experience, to say the least, and I hope it at least provided a few laughs. Since this is my first go at video editing, I ran into more than a few hiccups. It was certainly a learning experience, but one that I’d like to repeat again in December when the winter holiday events are in full swing.

Edit: I noticed some of the text in the video ended up in the wrong places.  Most of the text made it to the appropriate spots, but there are a few instances where text on the screen may not match up with the right scene.  I apologize for this, as it definitely wasn’t intentional but shouldn’t really effect the video too much!  So if you are confused, it’s not your fault.

Click here to watch the video