Tag: Multiplayer

Skyforge. It’s biggest problem

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Skyforge is a MMORPG that we have talked about before here on the G-Blog page. Skyforge was developed by ‘Allods Team‘ and published by ‘My.Games‘. Now we have played Skyforge, enjoyed Skyforge and have a lot of good things to say about Skyforge. Now we are going to talk about Skyforge concerning the end game area. Where you end up after playing it for a very long time. Whether it’s fun here or not. Let’s take a look.

Skyforge has a number of negatives but probably the biggest one is the end game. You see, when you first play Skyforge, you have multiple locations to explore like the regions and levels to fight monsters using your immortal godly powers. It does feel good. You unlock abilities and gain equipment but eventually will reach the endgame. This is where things are different.

We will say this right away. The end game is boring. We have reached a good prestige level, unlocked multiple classes like Berserker, Kinetic, Gunner, Archer, Necromancer, completed all the stories, each campaign area, region areas etc, everything to do with the main game. Right after that, you literally have nothing to do but grind forever to try and increase your prestige to be strong enough to handle the end game stuff. Your prestige is related to your power. The higher the prestige, the more power you have. 

Unless you increase your prestige you will never complete the distortion missions, beat any of the great gods avatars or unlock cooler rewards, tackle the missions on Anthea and tera. Those are all big stuff. X35 Earthwalker has been playing this game for a long time and we still aren’t at that level yet. Currently prestige rank 188 (168 + 20 bonus prestige). By the way what does the bonus prestige rank do? Yes you assume it just makes you stronger but the game makes a clear distinction between main rank and bonus rank when you try to enter certain levels or let’s call them dungeons.

Seriously, if your main prestige rank isn’t high enough you can’t even enter dungeons like Hespilon Temple on nightmare and challenge difficulty, meaning you can’t get the better awards. You do warm-up difficulty but get lame prizes that you already have, nothing new. Levelling up your prestige takes a long time though. The developers did do an update that gives additional prizes for completing that specific mission to help newer players level up faster. The rewards are related to things that help boost your prestige like bastions that grant resources to level up your stronghold, items that level up your tower of knowledge and other stuff like credits. This stuff does help you level up but when you get to a certain level, the amount of stuff you get to help you level up are drastically reduced. Things are real slow and X35 is main rank 168. That’s not much of a boost as there are players running around with a prestige level of 210+ (get a job). No but seriously how many hours and days have those people put into Skyforge to get to that level when playing for nearly a whole day even with less rewards can get you at most maybe three prestige levels up.

This slow pace means you can’t do anything but grind. Serious grinding. Well until you do, you can’t attempt the Tol-Monter avatar battle level or distortions. You can off course spend real money and get argent which can be used to get most in game currencies. Purchase powerful weapons and equipments. Basically money is a huge advantage in Skyforge, it’s the faster way to unlock characters classes too which is also a major grind. This is where everything gets boring. X35 Earthwalker has completed the same missions like 50 times over, probably more. That’s not fun.  Grinding is never fun. We even attempted those long adept events where you gather and use ‘Intelligence data’ to get pries. We got a mechanical dragon like mount thing which looks cool at least but that doesn’t help level us up faster. Speaking of Tol-Monter we dared to even enter that place at our current level and we can literally show you what happened. Just watch the quick clip down below.

As you can see X35 Earthwalker didn’t stand a chance and he’s been playing this game for a long time. Now another way to get items and goods faster is to be a part of a pantheon, basically a clan. This in fact punishes solo players. It’s like you’re being forced to join a pantheon and if not, you were at a disadvantage. That’s not fair. So when you aren’t using real money and part of a pantheon then you are in the worst possible position for Skyforge. You don’t know how bored we are with the game right now. We don’t want to play the same levels over and over again, get little rewards hope the adepts get enough faith for us to use our divine form as you practically need it for every mission now or they will take a long time. It’s a boring cycle and we have had enough. This end game of Skyforge actually brought back our interest in Tera as we have recently found more to do in Tera. Yes we compared the two and declared Skyforge overall as the winner in terms of the better MMORPG but what we didn’t use as the main factor is the end game, because it takes a while to get to the end game. The end game completely tips the scales in Tera’s favour easily. 

Overall, Skyforge is still a fun game but when you get to the end game it’s all down hill from there. We literally aren’t enjoying Skyforge anymore. We can’t do distortions which are these super big bosses with huge amounts of health, which you basically need a team for and we don’t see matchmaking for it so basically pantheon only and we can’t do great gods avatar missions like nihaz and Tol-Monter. Without beating them you can’t get an avatar trophy which you need to upgrade and gain new abilities and boosts for your divine form, which is needed for more difficult missions to get better rewards. YOU ARE STUCK! How is this fair?! So yes, we had enough and may play Skyforge a little from time to time but right now we are having some good times with Tera. We aren’t saying, don’t get the game

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Tanky Tanks. We have waited for this

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Tanky Tanks is a new tank action shooter game developed and published by ‘EpiXR Games‘. It came out the 8th of November 2019 on the Xbox One and not the PS4 or Nintendo Switch. It is already out on Mac and PC. There is very few games like this. We just had to check this out. Let’s take a look.

In the world of Tanky Tanks, players control tanks. What a surprise? You control tanks and fight other tanks in fast paced action. Well it can slow down depending on what’s going on and how you and your opponents play. There isn’t a story or anything as it isn’t adventure. Just turn on the game, control tanks and blow the others up. 

The controls are simple, you control the aiming and moving of the tank differently so like a twin shooter basically. You have shots that do come back on like a cool down. If you rapid fire of all your shots you must wait a while before you can fire again, promoting more accurate firing and not panic. Your shots can rebound of the walls. So you can hit things around cover if you are accurate enough. Walls will get in the way and Walls and structures can get in the way and block your view of missiles or tanks behind them so be careful. You also get mines which you can plant to block of paths or blow up a target. Mines can be shot though and they will explode.

Now when you see gameplay of Tanky Tanks some gamers will get flash backs or remember another tank game. Ever played or heard of Wii Tanks? X35 Earthwalker does and he loved it. It was so much fun. Wii Tanks made players go through 100 levels of enemy tanks trying to take you out. The levels where different in design and some with a certain combination of types of tanks caused some real problems. There were tanks that couldn’t move at all but just fire when it was possible to hit you in some way. Other tanks were more aggressive and really knew how to use the rebounds. We hope that Tanky Tanks takes what was good about Wii Tanks and make something even better.

Tanky Tanks seems have to the same style in terms of gameplay mechanics. Tanky Tanks has multiple game modes like normal which is normal, invisible mode where enemies are invisible, bomb mode where you can only use bombs, speed mode where everything is twice as fast and there’s a few more. The types of tanks seem to be the same types too. (Update) We have played the game recently and it does remind us of Wii Tanks very much and in the good way. Tanky Tanks is definitely challenging and has some key differences. 

We haven’t played solo mode yet but we did co-op normal mode and we beat all 50 levels on our first try. It wasn’t easy though. X35 Earthwalker and Diamondz L45 had the advantage because they are veteran tank players from Nintendo Wii Tanks. The tanks so far are in less variety, dumber but stronger. Nintendo Wii Tanks had brown tanks that couldn’t move, grey tanks that move and had single fire, green tanks with faster missiles, light green with multiple rebounding missiles and even more tanks like red, yellow, purple, white and black. In Tanky Tanks the tanks all look similar which is a downgrade. Tanky Tanks have tanks that are dumber, you can trick them into shooting a wall they are right next to to bounce the missile back into them. They are also slower to shoot in most cases. Tanky Tank have stronger tanks though as some tanks are bigger and take multiple shots to destroy. Some tanks have regular missiles while others have slower but bigger, stronger missiles while others have smaller high speed missiles that looks like a laser from Super Man. Overall we wish there was more variety in the tanks and come colour.

We not only checked out some Tanky Tanks but played it too. It’s still a lot of fun and co-op mode can get scary at times especially when your partner is dead and it’s all on you to get the victory. The game got intense multiple times and that’s a good thing, you should be slightly afraid of these tanks but get enough courage with your skills to get out there, dodge missiles and take them on. Tanky Tanks does force players to multi task. You must manage your tanks movements, control your aiming, keep your aim cursor on the screen (as it can go off), see where bullets are coming from etc. You have to focus! Another thing that Tank Tanks has that Wii Tanks don’t have is stage hazards. That’s right in Tank Tanks you can expect some levels to have natural obstacles. For example in some levels we saw basically pendulums or swinging axes. They block your missiles but will destroy whatever it hits, so don’t touch it. We also saw spikes on the ground that will destroy your tanks. Talk about mixing things up.,

Overall Tank Tanks is definitely a good game, we just hope that more work is done and added into it. Overall we still prefer Wii Tanks but Tank Tanks has their own thing going on in terms of multiple game modes, cooler mines, tanks with health and even a big boss looking tank is all great stuff. The graphics are very good indeed but the lack of music is strange. Eventually all you here is your tank moving then when you stop it’s dead silent. That’s not good. The developers ‘EpiXR Games’ have done a good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker are looking forward to what more Tank Tanks has to offer. Now Tanky Tanks may have strong tanks but those things don’t stand a chance against… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Munchkin: Quacked quest. Wait what?

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Munchkin: Quacked Quest is a new action role playing game developed and published by ‘Asmodee Digital‘. Munchkin: Quacked Quest is said to be coming out the 19th of November 2019 on the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC. Now we have never heard of this game. So let’s take a look.

In the world of Munchkin: Quacked Quest, everything is silly and meant to be a joke. Even their websites keep mentioning laughing. There isn’t a story as far as we know. It just seems to be all multiplayer chaotic fun action. You and the other players will be facing numerous enemies and trying to grab… ducks? Wait… ducks? Yes, ducks. 

Yes the whole Munchkin: Quacked Quest seems to be about ducks. Players must capture ducks and this is what players betray each other for… ducks. Players must capture ducks. It’s all about the ducks.

The dungeons are randomly generated so expect different things each time. Also expect the challenges to not be normal either. They are said to be different and crazy.

Now there is character customisation. There are four races to choose from and there’s four classes to choose from too. You can mix and match though so you could create an orc wizard, dwarf priest and much more.  

A big theme in Munchkin: Quacked Quest is betrayal. Yes you are working together with others but at the end of the day it’s all about the ducks. Every player is out for the ducks but you need to make sure it’s you who gets them so remove and take out whoever stands in your way. This means you can throw your friends into pits, no regrets.

There’s treasures that you need to get to first, there are legendary weapons that will give you the definite advantage. One legendary weapon is called the “Rat-on-a-Stick”. No comment. So make sure to smash all the objects in the room in a hopes to find loot.

We checked out some Munchkin: Quacked Quest gameplay and it’s sort of what we expected but slower than we thought. The gameplay is silly, the universe is sort of wacky. Nothing special, nothing stands out but at the end of the day it’s another multiplayer game. It’s a local multiplayer game with big bosses like a dragon. So bring your friends and ruin some friendships.

Overall Munchkin: Quacked Quest just seems like an alright game for gamers who want something fun and silly. Nothing serious, nothing super competitive but just to have a few laughs. The developers ‘Asmodee Digital’ have done an alright job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to hear what Munchkin: Quacked Quest gets up to in the future. Now Munchkin: Quacked Quest may be about the ducks but what’s way bigger is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Super Monkey Ball: Banna Blitz HD. Yay!

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD is a new action remake of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, developed and published by Sega. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD is said to be coming out October 29th 2019 on the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PS4. The monkeys are back. Let’s take a look.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD is definitely a game that will get the attention X35 Earthwalker as he has some history with Super Monkey Ball. All the way back to the first Super Monkey Ball game on the Nintendo Gamecube. That game was awesome. Experiencing it for the first, the characters and the fact that there wasn’t another game like it at the time, that we know off. Well in case you didn’t know Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD is a remake of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz.

So yes expect Aiai, Gongon, Meemee and Baby as that’s the original crew. There’s also Yanyan and Doctor. We honestly don’t like Doctor as he looks stupid and weird but hey, it’s a character right. The story is basically the typical one that the famous monkeys have many awesome bananas but they get stolen and this time the thief is not doctor badboon but a alien space pirate king called… Captain Crabuchin. Who is he? We don’t know but he’s clearly the bad guy. Remember this rule, “anyone who steals bananas is a bad guy”. 

There’s over 100 stages which means that there’s already a big challenge. From past experience we know that the levels heavily vary in difficulty. There are 10 party games that have been called the “Fan-favourite”. We liked monkey shot, monkey billiard, monkey target, monkey bowling, monkey fight and monkey golf from Super Monkey Ball 2. Great family games that can get competitive but good fun. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD also has Time Attack for you speedsters. There’s also a endurance run called Decathlon which has been described as “grueling”.

We checked out some Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD gameplay and it’s what we expected. It’s Monkey Ball. You roll around in a ball to get through levels. Avoid falling off, dodge bouncers and get to the goal. The mini games are cool too. We do like that you have the ability to jump which changes things for sure. There’s bosses and they look silly and not dangerous at all but remember kids play this game too. This does look great from the music to the level designs. Psssst, come closer. Lean in. Rumour has it that even a certain blue hedgehog has been spotted in that monkey filled world. Some say it’s Sonic the hedgehog. As if.

Overall, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD seems like a great game. We’ve seen a bit of the level designs and it does give some hope. What was very good about Super Monkey Balls 2 was the really creative level designs. Some levels had holes, poles, platforms, bouncy rings and more, creating a real obstacle course. Those were real cool. We hope Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz has creative design too. The developers ‘Sega’ have done a good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will keep an eye out for this. Now Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD may have gotten remastered but one things that doesn’t need remastering is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Code Vein. Seeing blood soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Code Vein is a new action role playing game (RPG) developed and published by ‘Bandai Namco‘. Code Vein is said to be coming out the 27th of September 2019 on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Code Vein is out here trying to be a good vampire game. Vampire games tend to not do well. Will this be any different? Let’s take a look.

In the world of Code Vein you control a Revenant. A Revenant is basically a vampire. So you are a Vampire in a ruined world. It’s been described as “gone”.  In the center of all this is a group, or should we say society of Revenants called ‘Vein’. These Revenants fight for survival. They do this by trading their memories for gifts of power. Doesn’t sound like a good trade to us but when it comes to survival it’s up to you. Not only do they get power but they also get an increased thirst for blood. A Revenant who gives into the bloodlust fully risks becoming one of the ‘Lost’. A lost is a “fiendish ghoul devoid of any remaining humanity who wander aimlessly in search of blood.” So yeah, avoid that. 

In Code Vein players must team up to survive this journey… a journey to some dangerous and dark places which some describe as hell. You must find a way out of the mess the Revenants find themselves in. You must work with a partner: A.I or a real player and work together to survive. You will go through dungeons as this whole game is about the dungeons. Facing many enemies. Some are tto powerful for you in a straight up fight while others wait for the right moment to strike you unprepared and unawares. Watch out. 

Now off course your Revenants can be customised. Character customisation is always a good thing. You can change their accessories, face paint, make up, eye brows, hair, mask frame. purifier mask and clothing off course. It doesn’t end there. You can also customise concerning combat and weapons. So what do you want? Spears, bayonets, axes and more. You can finish of enemies with your blood veil. A blood veil is a blood draining tool and each one has their own attack style and looks different. Your blood veil will open up the means to new strategies concerning combat.  

Remember when we mentioned gifts of power? Well Code Vein takes that seriously. You can enhance your characters abilities with blood code enhancements. Each blood code enhancement has their own various gifts, that you use to weaken enemies, gain super powerful attacks, increase your strength and even utilize new weapon abilities.

We checked out some Code Vein gameplay and there’s quite a lot going on. There’s quests for players to face together. Mechanics in combat like dodge and parry which off course require timing. The A.I characters have their own plot and fighting style. Like Final Fantasy 13 (the story so far) you can switch up your build at any time (oh so they claim). There’s difficult bosses and hordes of Lost. The graphics and visuals is very good. The action in combat is nothing special. The range of enemies is very good. The sounds are good. Some players may feel like it’s some combination of Final Fantasy and Dark Souls when it comes to combat.

Overall Code Vein seems like a good action Role playing game. There’s constant action, nice environments to look at. A range of enemies with different designs, multiple combat styles and strategies and options concerning character design. The developers ‘Bandai Namco’ have done a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker look forward to seeing what Code Vein has to offer. Now Code Vein may have blood lust but something as simple as that can be cured by… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Rebound Dodgeball Evolved. Incoming

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Rebound Dodgeball Evolved is a new twin-stick sci-fi dodgeball game developed and published by ‘Hexterion‘. Rebound Dodgeball Evolved is said to be coming out the 20th of September 2019 on the Xbox One and PC. Who likes dodgeball? We do but what about other gamers. Is the game a hit or a miss. Let’s take a look.

Rebound Dodgeball Evolved is basically dodgeball but crazier. So since we all pretty much know what dodgeball is, it’s safe to say that we should know what to expect from this game. If you have the ball then throw it hard and fast to smack someone else with it. If someone else has the ball then run away and dodge that ball which is coming straight for you. Simply right? Hit and don’t get hit. So what else does this game have to offer? 

Now Rebound Dodgeball Evolved is top down camera angle, so hiding from your opponents isn’t possible. This means there’s no stealth, it’s all action. Twin stick is quite simple controls so players should get the hang of it real quick. It’s fast paced so expect things to get quite intense at times. We hope there are intense moments. Now Rebound Dodgeball Evolved is clearly a multiplayer game but it’s both off line and online which is always better. We hate online only multiplayer.  

Now there are mutators in Rebound Dodgeball Evolved. Think of them like the skulls from Halo. Basically mutators can change the very rules of the game. This is done by either effecting how the dodgeballs behave or special abilities. For example there’s a Time glitch ball that sends people “back in time to where they were shortly before”. So basically players need to remember where they were a few moments ago when this ball hits the deck or you’ll get destroyed in the past. There’s also a nitro ball which has reversed momentum. Everytime the ball collides with something it speeds up making things crazy and scary. 

We checked out some Rebound Dodgeball Evolved gameplay and it’s what we expected basically. It’s fast paced and can get quite competitive. Catch the ball, dodge the ball, throw the ball and mix things up with game modes, mutators and 15 different maps. Some of these maps come with hazards so things can really get shaked up in this game. The graphics are great for what it is and the details in the shapes and level designs are also very good. Expect to get smacked with a ball for sure. Besides the different mutators the game doesn’t look that much different or varied in gameplay. It just seems like moving around and throwing the ball and doing a little jitter for dodging and faking out the enemy. We probably need to see more.

Overall Rebound Dodgeball Evolved seems like a interesting quick game to play with friends. It does exactly what it says on the tin. This has potential for big fun with friends and can get quite competitive. The developers ‘Hexterion’ did a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker think this game will hit a good number of players once released correctly but miss other groups of gamers. Now Rebound Dodgeball Evolved may be fast paced but nothing moves faster than… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Contra: Rogue Corps. It’s back… sort of

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Contra: Rogue Corps is the new twin stick third-person action game developed and published by ‘Konami‘. Contra: Rogue Corps is said to be coming out the 24th of September on the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC. Contra is a famous game that many enjoyed in the past. It’s back but with some changed. Let’s take a look. 

Now the action that you see in Contra: Rogue Corps takes place several years after the alien wars. Contra: Rogue Corps is all about a military… well former military group who makes their living and survival through being bounty hunters and finding treasure. They are located in what’s called the ‘damned city’. Now in a place like this survival ain’t an easy thing. 

You need fast reactions confirmed for Contra: Rogue Corps. If you take 12 years to turn around or your one of those adults who still can’t tell their left from their right then you’ll be dead. Now since this is Contra you already know it’s all about many weapons, funky ways of firing and bullets everywhere. Enemies are in abundance and they don’t stop coming. 

There is online multiplayer in Contra: Rogue Corps so bring in your friends and mow down all your enemies. Kill everything you see with the different characters. There’s Headcase who can turn his hand into a giant drill, Cultured who  looks like a alien with cybernetic augmentation. Killer who fused with an alien and now destroys without mercy. Cuddly who was a scientist but now a bear with guns. Don’t forget the ace pilot… Life-line from Apex Legends. Just joking but seriously Aero Pilot looks like a young Life-Line, before she joined the Apex Games.

Some people complain that Contra: Rogue Corps isn’t like the original Contra. The thing is people need to stop complaining. How about no Contra game at all. It’s still all about running, firing, destruction and numerous bullets. You can even jump on a missile and drive it yourself into a group of enemies and destroy everything. It doesn’t have to be a 2D game with the same type of enemies. There are different areas and fights going on in the Contra world. Things are different in different parts of the world. So yes, Contra is back, sort of but it’s still a contra game, get over it. There is some 2D action moments as well. Games need to change and try out new things to see what works.

We checked out some Contra: Rogue Corps gameplay and it’s basically what we expected from a Contra game. It’s crazy, over the top and there’s giant bosses too. Aliens are always crazy anyway. Just seems like simple fun, nothing deep or serious. Just blasting enemies for pleasure and fun. We aren’t a big fan of the graphics though. That needs to be improved. Other from that we think things look fine for now but we do need more information concerning the game.

Overall. Contra: Rogue Corps seems like a good game. It’s good for what it’s trying to do. We hope there is good gameplay depth to it and not just run around blasting stuff. The developers ‘Konami’ did a good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker don’t see a problem with it. Now Contra: Rogue Corps may have made some changed but one thing that doesn’t need changes is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Anthem is getting good. New stuff

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Anthem is the online multiplayer action role-playing game that had a good start but things started to go down hill due to a number of problems and expectations. Many voiced their opinions on the game and most gave negative feedback which is fair as some things needed to change. Now we at X35 Earthwalker do not listen to people like Angry Joe who at times don’t know what they are talking about and give bad reviews. No. We check things out and see for ourselves instead of jumping on the hate and hype train for views. Some new stuff has been added to Anthem and we are going to talk about them for a bit. Let’s take a look. 

The reason X35 Earthwalker stopped playing Anthem much was because there was nothing else really left to do and it became not fun anymore. This changed for us. There are new story based missions now. If you look up at the sky you will notice a large cataclysm. The big boss behind this one is Vara. She’s the sister of the Monitor and she’s also dangerous (the monitor is way better though). You will need the right gear and help to get into the cataclysm and therefore require help from allies and maybe even foes to get it done. You’ll encounter characters who you knew of but couldn’t interact with like Grandmaster Adam (he doesn’t deserve to be called a grandmaster) and even Dr Harken. It’s not clear what we will find in the cataclysm but we know Vara will be there. She won’t go down easy. 

Now there is a whole new game mode. Cataclysm: Echoes of Reality. In this mode players must zoom to the different cataclysm locations and destroy the crystals set up there to end the dangerous activities. The ways to open up the crystal for a clear shot is different for each one. For example one of them is just straight up co bat as in you must defeat the numerous enemies coming out of gates and then face a Fury guardian to get a key. In another you must interact and shut down 7 parts of a large mechanism to take down the field protecting the crystal. While the others are more puzzle based we will discuss this a bit later. When you want, you can go face Vara herself. So far this mode is fun.

Every enemy you kill gets you points. Every crystal you destroy gets you points. Concerning the stability let us explain. The moment you leave the starting area, you’ll notice the storm and your javelin will lose Stability. Staying in this storm will cause you to lose all Stability and you’ll die. There are safe bubbly areas throughout the map, as well as little blue orbs or items to pick up that increase Stability, but during an event the safe area will suddenly vanish. When that happens look for the yellow sphere normally in the air above the area, and shoot it. Once it explodes the safe zone comes back. Fighting in the unstable fields increase your score multiplier but being in the unstable fields for too long will cause great damage to your javelin. You have fixed inversions that change pretty much every week (more like 5 days). They are basically bonuses that work to your advantage like marksman rifles do more damage or when you have low health you do more damage and killing an enemy gives you shields etc. If you beat Vara your final score is doubled.

There is also new weapons and stuff for your javelin. Are you tired of receiving the same weapons as loot? Well we certainly are. There all new weapons now for players to get. They are literally all new as they don’t fire like any other weapon before it. The shard storm as shown above is a big blade slinger. It fires one big shot that travels through all enemies and hits enemies multiple times for big damage which is great against the scar enemies with big shields. The Bad Omen is a pulse accelerator that charges to fire a burst of energy projectiles. The Flashfire is a volt caster that fires a lightning attack that jumps from enemy to enemy. Jarra’s wrath is also a vol caster but fires a short range lighting arc. Razorwing is a blade slinger that launches a big blade that bounces between targets. Riza’a ripper is also a blade slinger that fires a barbed blade that once a target is it inflicts ongoing shrapnel damage. Also new are melee weapons. The javelins can now equip different melee weapons which have different effects. For example the colossus javelin can equip the Earthshaker which isoseismic glove that smashes into the ground to cause damage in a large area around you and releases a shockwave to hit enemies in front. The other weapon is the Meteor smash which is a flaming love that burns enemies around you in a large area that does very big burn damage.

Lastly that’s new is that you can now earn new in game currency called major and minor crystals which you can spend at the seasonal store to get cool new items, weapons, materials, animations, decal, wraps and stuff. You can also convert your minor crystals into major crystals and vice versa so this is useful depending on what you want to buy. The store changes pretty much every 6 days or something like that. So new stuff is constantly showing up. This does mean weekly updates are happening in Anthem. We’ve gotten awesome new weapons, looks, materials and customisations through this. If you are playing Anthem then you have to use this store. 

That’s pretty much all the new things that Anthem has. One big criticism we do have is that during the Echoes of Reality new players will have no idea where to go and what to do unless they are with some players who already know what to do. This happened to us at first. Unlike in the main story missions there isn’t an indicator that directs and shows players where to go until they are already near it. This means players could wander about or sit around waiting for a direction or confused. We figured out later that we can just use the map but that means your flying blind for a moment and certainly can’t use the map during combat. Even the areas that you are in doesn’t tell much at all on how to get to the crystal. You have to figure out the puzzles yourself. We didn’t know you needed the nodes to grant access to the node underwater and then two nodes outside to disable a field and then carry out all the nodes to then get to the stations outside while being attacked by enemies. More information and guidance is needed. Once you know though, it’s all easy.

Overall we are enjoying the new stuff that Anthem has going on and we are glad to see that the developers are getting a move on to make this game the big awesome game it has the potential to be. Fighting Vara is a fair and enjoyable battle. Her health isn’t too ridiculous and the battle is easy to understand. If you wanted to try Anthem then this is a much better time to actually do that. We hope the developers keep this up. We need more stuff like this. We are seeing a lot more players in the game and the community is as friendly as ever. Now Anthem might be doing better but it’s never going to be as good as… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Gears 5. Tech Test thoughts

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Gears 5 is the latest instalment in Gears of War franchise. Gears had a Tech Test earlier and many gamers got to try it giving us a taste of what it to come. Now X35 Earthwalker himself tried it and off course has his own thoughts and opinions of the game. Now remember that the Tech Test isn’t the final release at all and more work will be done. It’s all in development still so keep that in mind. Let’s take a look.

The first thing we experienced in the Gears 5 Tech Test was the bootcamp which was the tutorial for the game which teaches players about aiming, shooting, handling grenades, roadie running, cover etc, all the gears of war stuff. The tutorial was done very well. It goes over the main mechanics and what you need to know in order to play and survive through the game. There’s some character based humour as we all know Baird is very sarcastic and got some jokes which works well with Del who can also be sarcastic, have jokes and like Baird likes and is good with technology. It’s good to see the relationships, connections and interactions between characters. Makes things relatable.  

The Bootcamp did show of the excellent graphics that Gears 5 is going to have. The whole area looked real good, the materials, lights and even the flying bot known as Dave looked detailed too. You can already tell that a lot of work is going into Gears 5. Even when you look at all the formations and environment in the distance it’s all detailed and does make you want to go over there and explore them, even if there aren’t any collectibles, just to take a look. The tutorial is too long though. There was a few combat instances that weren’t needed. Minor but still something.

Now the main meat is off course the multiplayer. The new things was revealed two weapons, a game mode and a few in game mechanics like kill cam replay mainly. The two new weapons in the Gears 5 Tech Test are the Talon auto pistol and Breaker Mace. The Talon auto pistol is basically a discount gorgon pistol. Yep. The talon has unbearably bad recoil and control. It’s damage is good though but what good is it if you can’t even control the thing when firing. This is coming from some who is a master with rifles including the heavy recoil retro lancer of Gears of War 3.

The breaker mace is a cool new melee weapon. Think of it like the energy sword from Halo in terms of you rush enemies or hide around corners and then hit them. If you land the hit then it’s normally a one shot kill. Like the beam sword you also sort of track the enemy when you start your swing if within range.  Even though there are multiple counters to this weapon and melee isn’t encourage at all in Gears of War nor is it successful, it still feels super good to get a kill with this weapon. The Breaker Mace execution is so far the best in the game. More on this later.

The new mode is arcade mode which is basically a regular team deathmatch except each player must select a character and each character has their own starting load outs, kill perk and weapons to unlock. As you kill you gain personal points which you can then spend to get weapons. For example Kait moves faster than everyone else on the Cog team and if she has 6 points then she can purchase a torque bow. 2 points for a Bolton and 4 for incendiary grenades. So everyone is trying to get kills to purchase the weapons they need for the fight. Sort of reminds us of ordinance drops in Halo 4.  

The new mechanics do actually change some things about the gameplay. For starters the melee is no longer a generic swing at your opponent with the current holding weapon. It’s now a swing with a knife which finally gives those knives the gears carried around a use. So whether it’s a lancer or Gnasher you will swing a knife with one button. Gears 5 finally has kill cam replays. Remember when someone killed you but you don’t know how or thought that shot missed? Well now you can watch and see for yourself what happened according to the game. Lastly rifles and some other weapons like the Snub pistol can now headshot enemies! It took the developers long enough to do this. So if the enemy has received enough damage and you then land some shots on the head, they die instantly like a headshot. This makes rifles more lethal.  

Now we can easily tell that Gears 5 has had a lot of work put into it. The graphics are very good for what we have seen so far and that’s an excellent sign. The environment like the kids, water and lands around the training grounds are look so cool. Sounds are very good but some of the guns like the Lancer sound more on the weak side. Arcade mode is definitely going to be a hit with the players and many will have fun and great moments in them. These new mechanics show that new things are being tried and areas are being explored. Things do need be taken further though. Off course the weapons we mentioned much earlier isn’t all the new guns in Gears 5. We are just sticking to the Tech Test.

Now for the negatives of Gears 5. We have a lot. For starters Gears 5 is taking up after the multiplayer gameplay style of Gears of War 4. This is a mistake the Gears of war that had the best multiplayer gameplay was Gears of War 3. Even to this day there’s a good number of players who are still playing Gears of War 3. We even know of a mother of three children who tried Gears of war 4 multiplayer but instead went back to 3. The developers want a faster paced, quick everything multiplayer which isn’t the best for a Gears of War game. Gears of War is about taking cover, not dashing everywhere. Even the golden rule of the Cog is “take cover or die”. This highlights the other major issue of the game. Gears 5 based of the Tech Test has no actual counters to the Gnasher shotgun. That weapon has ruined the game for many players. It’s still the dominate weapon in the game. In Gears of War 3 even new players could play the multiplayer and stand a chance because there were weapons they can use to give them a fighting chance against a crazy wall bouncing Gnasher shotgun user. In Gears of War 4 we have seen new players try and then leave because they had no fun being completely destroyed every single match. We remember one player who stayed for four matches (Gears of War 4) in a row and tried their best only to get a heavy negative result in each match and until finally leaving. We know for a fact they aren’t coming back.

In Gears of War 3 you could use hammerburst, sawed off and the retro to counter and force Gnasher shotgun players to change their strategy. In Gears of War 4 Gnasher worshipping players kept complaining until their daddy (the developers) hushed them down bu removing retro lancers and making hammerbursts a power weapon. This is going to be the problem in Gears 5 and we can feel it. The developers need to learn from Gears of War Judgement which easily had the best weapon balancing of all the games. The rifles dominated at mid range AS THEY SHOULD! How is a shotgun beating rifles at mid range in Gears of War 3 and 4? HOW?! Halo understands… at mid range the shotgun pretty much does nothing and that’s a shotgun from the year 2557… the future. The Talon machine pistol is a discount gorgon pistol and it’s crazy recoil doesn’t help to stop the Gnasher. The enforcer feels better and seems more effective but doesn’t compare to the retro but just you wait, the Gnasher worshippers will complain about the enforcer and cry for nerfs. We have so much to say about this but we have to try and keep this short. Lastly Arcade mode suffers from players abusing the weapon system. X35 Earthwalker once entered late into a match that was horrible. The enemy team were all camping up in a high place on the Training grounds map. One player had a sniper and never moved from his spot. The other tea mates watched the entrances to his location. X35 did what he could and even destroyed half the team but couldn’t reach the sniper. X35’s team were clearly new at the game and kept going into cover and then standing up taking their time trying to aim at the sniper who would snipe all their heads off, getting multiple kills and continuously purchase snipers to keep going. Eventually three of the players had snipers and the whole team camped in their spot. Talk about lame. X35 Earthwalker left the match… Something needs to be done.

Overall we found Gears 5 multiplayer to be disappointing. It it stays the same or is like Gears of War 4 then we know it’s not going to be great. Changes are needed and the developers need to take into account that different experienced, skill and style players will be trying the game. From what we can see so far we are looking forward to Campaign, horde, Escape (new) and Map builder (new). Trust us when we say we are big Gears of War fans. We played every Gears of War game, beat every single one in insane difficulty concerning the campaign and found every collectible. We have made Gears of war videos on Bitchute and Youtube and even streamed the games but sadly we aren’t excited for this game. We are looking forward to it but not excited. When it comes out is when it comes out. The multiplayer we already know what time it is (how it’s going to go down). Don’t get us wrong, Gears 5 is a very good game. Looks great, works well, responsive controls, the mechanics work, the voices are good, new weapons modes and you can Cleary see that a whole lot of work went into developing this game. So overall it is a very good game. We are just disappointed with the multiplayer especially when we compare it to Gears of war which we enjoyed s much that us and many others are still playing after all these years. We even had more fun playing Gears of War judgement multiplayer over the Gears 5 tech test. Honest feedback is honest feedback. If you want to know more about what we think concerning Gears of War 3 then check out our previous blog post here and over here. So we do like the game and looking forward to it but not the multiplayer. 

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Some Epic Gears of War action

Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game is a new card strategy game developed by ‘Fantasy Flight Interactive‘ and published by ‘Asmodee Digital‘. It is said that Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game is coming out the 8th of August 2019 on the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC. There was already an PC early access but we don’t care. Let’s take a look.

Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game is set off course in the world of Lord of the Rings. This game is straight forward and not much to explain except the details. It’s a hard strategy game so gamers should know what to expect. Collect cards, hopefully some powerful ones and build a deck. Use that deck to battle destroy your enemies and progress through the world. 

So basically the dark forces of Sauron are here and causing all kinds of trouble. Darkness and their evil is spreading. Off course heroes are needed. Players will also control and lead three heroes who are off course who are famous and the Lord of the Ring fans should know. Make your way through the campaigns but that won’t be easy. Expect Spiders, Orcs, Battle Uruks and much more. If you know the Lord of Rings universe then you should know what enemies and monsters to expect.  

Now from what we know, there’s quite a lot of strategy to this game. There’s off course lots of abilities and hero powers but there’s also your heroes will power, a fate pool, sphere of influence and more. All these must be taken into account when developing strategies and coming up with different ways to take down your enemies. So this isn’t straight forward simple steam roll gameplay. The situation and enemies must be taken into account, including the circumstances. 

We checked out some gameplay and it’s mainly what we though it would be. We like that features of the game and how the cards work is explained well. The arrows could have been better at pointing to things though. Remember that each hero has one o four spheres of influence: spirit, tactics, leadership and lore. They allow specific reinforcement cards in-game. Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game is constantly being compared to Hearthstone with similar style in design and combat but that isn’t an issue for us here and as many games have similar styles but off course different games. Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game is looking like a real story so far.

Overall, Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game is looking good so far. The graphics are good for what it’s about. The sounds and voices are very good. Again, instructions are gone well and this game does become straight forward to play. Heroes and units can be equipped and strengthened. The variety of enemies is big enough from what we can see. We just hope they get more creative and add more. The story gives the impression that you’re on a real adventure. The developers ‘Fantasy Flight Interactive’ have done a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will keep an ear open for Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game and see what it’s got. Now Lord of the Rings: Adventure card game may have a big adventure but nothings bigger than the ‘Earth Walk!’

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