Tag: Multiplayer

Colony is destructive in Halo Wars 2

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Colony is the newest leader in Halo Wars 2. First of all Colony looks cool. He is a hunter but a hunter in charge. His voice is like one of the coolest voices ever. He speaks simple short sentences but that voice just make us wish we could have it as the new default voice for announcements, answer machines etc. It’s so cool. Now as usual when a new character comes out everyone does nothing but just play that character. X35 Earthwalker yesterday did a livestream where he only uses Colony and in every match there was a Colony. Colony on Colony violence.

Colony stands out greatly from other Banished leaders, not just from how he’s designed but from his units and leader powers. He actually brings some new units into the battlefield. Now when Kinsano came out, We never cared to get her at all. She seemed not that fun to use still seemed similar to the other leaders is many ways. Can’t really blame her since the UNSC are humans meaning they will be similar in units but Colony takes things to the next level.

Colony seems to excel most at being at the front of the battle. Colony has the Goliath infantry units which are giant sized hunters that behave like gorillas. They are all about melee. Goliaths are strong against buildings, alright against infantry, weak against vehicles (for some reason) and can’t hurt air. I know they need to balance out the units in the game but how comes a big strong creature (twice the size of a hunter who are 12 feet tall) are weak against vehicles. Those things could smash them apart but whatever… balancing and all that. Goliaths are no joke. They are literally the best units against buildings. Just two of them do some serious damage against enemy bases. Goliaths also have the ability to ram which is great for dealing with annoying vehicles as it is fast and travels quite the distance.

Colony also brings skitterers which are small little mech bots that scuttle along the ground and fire lasers. These mechs are easy to build and come with the ability we have been waiting for. They can attach themselves to another unit becoming invincible and attacking enemies that come near the attached unit. So you could attach skitterers to Goliaths meaning Goliaths can now defend themselves against air units. You could attach them to hunters so they can defend against air as well. It’s up to you gamers to figure out some crazy combinations. You can attach two skitterers to units by the way.

Colony’s leader powers are very different cool. They really have the ability to mix things up. You immediately have access to living barrier and skitterers. We all know about skitterers but living barrier is something X35 Earthwalker underestimated at first but later saw how good it is. Living barrier let’s you drop down Lekgolo caltrops in a line that completely blocks infantry and vehicles. The enemy has to fight and destroy these barriers to get through. So while they are fighting the barrier you can target the enemy. It’s good for distractions, cutting of the enemy while fleeing, blocking movements, extra eyes around the map and more. It’s only for the strategic.

Engineer swarms calls in many engineers to start healing any units or buildings in range. They stay for quite a while and can really help turn the tide of a battle. Upgrade this ability to make killing your army near impossible. Combat repair makes all your units and buildings slowly heal over time, even in battle. This encourages strikes and retreats, keeping your units alive and building their veterancy since they heal by themselves. Colony drop calls in two level 2 veterancy Goliaths meaning they hit harder and themselves are harder to kill. Vehicle symbiotes allows you to buff selected vehicles and buildings with increased range and armour. So good for turrets on defense and off course your vehicles like locusts. Hunters brand allows you to fire 3 glassing beams that quickly converges in the middle. It’s actually very strong and doesn’t take too long to recharge but when it’s level 2 or 3 it is devastating. Lastly Devastating host lets you drop in multiple different vehicles like wraiths, locusts etc but get a instant buff from a vehicle symbiotes. This is powerful indeed. As you can see Colony is something powerful.

His leader unit, The hunter captain, is a very useful leader. It is a giant hunter, pretty much the same size as the goliath units. This hunter instead comes with shields and can actually fire his cannon at air units (wow). As he does damage he siphon some health back. He’s great against vehicles and infantry, alright against air and buildings. Once upgraded his cannon beam has area of effect so he can damage groups and does more damage overall. He can be upgraded to get the taunt ability which forces nearby enemy units to target the hunter captain instead. This is good since he can take lots of hits and siphon health meaning he won’t die easy. Combine him with Combat repair and Engineer swarm and he’ll never die. His main weakness is that he is so slow. Completely slow. The slowest thing ever and because of this he slows down the whole speed of your army so it takes you forever to cross the map and attack or help out an team mate. That’s the only negative thing.

During the livestream X35 Earthwalker won all his matches with Colony except the match where he was teamed up with a rank 7 and he had to go against level 32 and 41 (round about) and the level 7 team mate left the match. Through practise we have seen just how useful Colony is. He is very powerful and when used correctly can be devastating against everything. He is a lot of fun to use and it’s so satisfying when you beat another player who is using Colony as well. He is worth getting. Whether you try out Colony or not… you can always try the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below: 

Radian games Crossfire 2. Awesome and underrated

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Radian games ‘Crossfire 2’ is one of those games that are awesome and made excellently but never got the love it deserved. I believe the name of the game got changed to ‘Super Crossfire 2’. X35 Earthwalker played this game way back on his Xbox 360. It’s such a shame that not as many gamers as you think had this game.

Straight from the title screen, you just know that this game has got some tunes. The beat is there and it gives the impression that the game has got some action to it. Thankfully it does. Seriously, you have to listen to that music. This game isn’t that deep and complex. It’s actually quite simple with a few game modes: Conquest, Conquest plus and Score attack. Conquest is the main story where you take on 60 waves across 3 different planets. There is a check point every 10 waves but you can heal and upgrade every two waves. Score attack is where you take on 30 repeated levels but they get increasingly harder and you can heal and upgrade every ten levels. Conquest plus is where things get real crazy. Here you will go through the same as Conquest except harder. Much harder.

Crossfire 2 is all about watching everything that’s happening on the screen and those reflexes. If you can’t do both then you will have a hard and time and forget about Conquest plus. You control a small ship and you must blast away the aliens, space invaders style, and stay alive. The game takes things to the next level with your special ability to jump between the top and bottom of the screen. This should be done to avoid bullets or get behind aliens to shoot them in a weak spot or other to force some aliens to direct their attention. The aliens are pretty much always firing and the different types of aliens being there all at once is where all the difficulty comes from. The orange/red pointed alien can fire in the direction it faces. The purple ones that have three segments poking out of it don’t need to face a direction as they can fire both up and down. Also if you jump then they reappear in a different spot. The almost square alien with a large central eye shows his targeting laser and then like a second later fires a dangerous beam exactly where that laser is. There are aliens that makes surrounding aliens invulnerable, others project a filed that if you are in, you can’t jump. There are aliens that explode upon death and release many dangerous projectiles which can be hard to dodge. The worse part is that there are also bigger versions of some aliens who have more health and more dangerous.

When you get to the upgrades screen you instantly get your health replenished. Here you can also spend upgrade points to improve your ship which is something that you need to do. There are upgrades that affect your: ship, shots and superfire. It’s up to you to decide what you need to focus on as you get 3 points every 2 waves so you have to decide what you need now. Prioritise. For example you may decide to increase your ships health, speed and power of your shots making you a powerful solid ship. Or you may focus on increasing fire rate, speed of bullets and spread angle to make hitting the aliens easier than ever. It’s up to you. X35 Earthwalker himself always prioritised spread angle and number of shots first over everything else. He bothers with ship health much later as he believes, if you are good then you won’t get hit that much therefore not requiring increased health yet. See what works best for you though.

There are three difficulties in Crossfire 2: Trainee, hotshot and ace. We seriously don’t believe playing the first two modes are worth it. It’s too easy. Play through Conquest on Ace as it will prepare you for Conquest plus. Conquest plus is so hard that on one play through of it. We almost lost as we had one life left and just about beat it but that’s the thing about Crossfire 2 it can easily get intense. You will sit there watching the entire screen and trying to stay alive and dodge everything while knowing when to jump and use your superfire. By the way ‘Superfire’ is a special weapon which fires like a machine gun but with the power of a minigun. No alien can stay alive for long against it. You get ammunition for it by collecting the purple mini gem like objects that comes from dead aliens. Fill the meter up and let loose when you need it. The power ups in this game are game changers. There are 3. The purple one fully filles up your superfire meter. The yellow one grants temporary invincibility. The green literally slows down time considerably for you. All the aliens move sooooooo slow. So grab these when you can.

Co-op mode is available here. X35 Earthwalker has played with others before and it’s hilarious. The friend would die quite frequently because they struggle to watch everything that’s happening and dodge in time so X35 has to always bring them back at the upgrade screen. It’s so much fun. We will be jumping around, fire non stop and that’s what’s also difficult about this game. There are projectiles pretty much everywhere so some lose track of what’s going on and even lose where their ship is and finds it but only a few moments before it dies. 

Overall Crossfire 2 is an amazing game. The graphics are great. The music is great. The sounds are very good. The game could have been bigger but it originally was like an ios game for phones and tablets so it’s acceptable by those standards. It’s a great amount of fun, even to this day. The developers ‘Radian games’ did a fantastic job with this game. Just wished more people had it. This game is still worth checking out. Whether you think this game is great or not is not as important as thinking about… doing the ‘Earth Walk!’ 

For more information check out the link below:

 

Portal Knights. Crafting our adventure soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Portal knights is a sandbox action-RPG adventure developed by ‘Keen Games’ coming out May 19th for the Xbox One and PS4 but already out on PC. Some have described this game as minecraft but more RPG and adventure. Let’s see for ourselves.

The story in this game is that the world was peaceful but something happened and tore it apart by ‘The Fracture’ which plummeted the world into darkness. No one remembers how it has been since that happened. You, the player must be the hero and unite the shattered world. Be the portal knight. That’s basically it. Nice simple and that means we will have to craft out own adventure.

Now yes, straight away you as soon as you see the game, Minecraft will pop into your head, which is a good thing. This means crafting is a feature here. You can build your own base, castle, lair, hideout, it doesn’t matter. Just build yourself a mighty and spacious fortress to call your own. Level up your character as you go through the lands to become stronger and more of a force to be taken seriously. Your character has attributes like strength, wisdom, agility and more so decide what kind of character you want, whether tanky or mobility. 

There are many lands to explore and traverse. There are caves, lakes and dungeons. As you travel, collect resources for crafting. Battle many enemies with different weapons and spells. Study your enemies and learn when to attack and when to dodge. We heard the movements have been stepped up from the initial released game. Traditionally you can pick between: Mage, Ranger and Warrior. Customise your gear, appearance and abilities while also unlocking new abilities as you level up. Collect portal stone shards to build portal stones and build the portals which allow you to reach and travel to different areas.

Give your character some character (see what we did there?) with emotes like the one which shows your portal knight charging up with fire which does look cool. There’s another emote which makes your portal knight wave and do a little jump around. If that wasn’t enough then get your portal knight a pet. That’s right. Pet’s like a cat for example are ready to be owned. There are over 100 items to craft and you can even build furniture so why not get a fine couch to get lazy on after a hard fought battle. Just saying.

The biggest threats are the portal guardians. They are said to be huge, powerful epic bosses. We have seen a ice dragon, a giant ground catepillar like thing and more. The bosses are definitely huge indeed and look interesting. This shouldn’t be a problem though as Portal Knights is all about playing with your friends. as it’s 4 player co-op. You can team up with mates and work together to destroy the portal guardians, collect resources and build fortresses and giant structures together. 

We have checked out some gameplay and from what we have seen the game looks real cool. The worlds look very big and has a lot to explore. The attention to detail is very good. There is so much stuff in each world. Even the vegetation have a lot going on. The skies could look better though as they seem a bit grainy but that’s minor. The portal knights should move faster in our opinion. They are too slow. The environments have variety and look great. The battles seem easy to control and flows quite nicely. This is one of those games that you need to check out and see gameplay for yourself. The graphics are very good and some areas look nice and colourful. The sounds of the weapons, attacks, actions and enemies are all good. 

Overall this is definitely a good game and many gamers have good things to say about the original PC release. It looks fun and you can’t get mad at co-op. More games need this. Very glad that it’s now going to be available to console gamers, this means we can actually try the game ourselves. The developers ‘Keen Games’ did a very good job with this game. Portal Knights is worth checking out. Whether you like to craft or not… just make sure you do the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Halo Wars 2. Leader powers strategies

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is home to some big and powerful wars. Players meet on the battlefield and explosions take are happening everywhere. If you plan to get in a match you must come with strategies. Don’t just build anything and everything. Like we said before, pretty much one of the big things that makes all the difference in a match is the character leaders. Character leaders have leader powers. The leader powers can flip the match in your favour. Leader powers can also just seal your opponents fate in that match.

X35 Earthwalker has played and defeated many with all the leaders. He has his favourite and least favourite leaders but knows how to use them all. He will share some of what he knows so take a look and enjoy.

“Atriox at first I wasn’t sure how to use him. His strength does lie in expansion but his bigger strength is in his leader powers to make his armies invulnerable. This is a game changer for sure. As you build your armies you must have ‘Atriox’s bulwark’ and ‘Unbreakable’. These two will guarantee you victory any battle and possibly the match. When your army collides with the enemies fight them for a while and stay as close as possible. Then when some units are weak or about to lose some, activate Unbreakable. Your opponent will normally retreat, so chase them and keep up the damage with no fear as you can’t take damage. After they have lost many units get ready for them to use a leader power to counter. If it’s anything but Forge’s scatter bomb, then activate Atriox’s bulwark to heal your weak units and negate all damage from that leader ability. I have made opponents resign after seeing this knowing that my army is still strong, blocked everything they sent at me while still dishing out damage. Give this a try.”

“Captain Cutter should be straight forward that his strength lies in his orbital leader powers. No infantry is stronger that Odsts. This means you have to get as much as possible. Do this by using ‘ODST drop’ which gives you 3 squads of ODSTs. The ‘Cyclops Drop’ is powerful as it drops in a high veterancy Cyclops meaning it’s health and damage is off the charts. Keep dropping those guys in. The last orbital leader power and the strongest is ‘ODST Assault group’. This calls in a wolverine, some ODSTs and even a scorpion tank. Before you battle the enemy make sure to have these leader powers ready for use. This way you can replace all destroyed units making it like you never lost anything in the first place and better, you replace them with stronger units of high veterancy. This discourages the enemy. Lastly notice that any enemy unit that has a ODST droped on them, get stunned. Use that to your advantage.”

“Decimus is terrifying when used correctly. With Decimus your units will always have the advantage. ‘Vortex lightning’ should be used at the start of a battle. This way your enemies units will be taking damage, have reduced defense making them easier to kill and get stunned, making them a sitting duck. So now you have the initial advantage. Also use ‘Siphon’ (upgrade it) on the units at the front of the battle so that they become harder to kill and last longer. Now they gain health as they damage the enemy. Combine this with the two passive leader powers: ‘Boundless Siphon’ and ‘Boundless Rage’ and the match is pretty much yours. They grant your units permanent siphon and increased damage and speed. It’s like super siphoning. My armies like this have taken down a army, then a scarab, then the base in one match before. In another match I have taken on two armies at the same time with my own. It was a hard battle though. Decimus is not to be messed with. Weaken your enemies then buff your own.”

“Isabel is at first what I considered very weak. After some training I learnt a few things. She ain’t so weak after all. Her MAC Blast is amazing. What sets it apart from the others is that her’s is almost instant. They shouldn’t bother show the cross-hair on the ground for the enemy as you can never evade it in time. It’s that fast. It’s fast and yet so strong. A upgraded Mac Blast will destroy everything. I once got hit by a max level MAC Blast and had to do a 180 and retreat… Then later came back and destroyed them (well they started it). Spend some time in the match countering your opponents infantry. They will then give up infantry and go vehicles and air, which is what you want. Wait until they are quite near their base. Push up and fight. Wait for their army to group up and then hit them with ‘Ghost in a machine’, which grants you temporary control over their mechanical units. Use their units to directly attack the base and leave the turrets alive to damage units you have controlled. Your army supports the controlled army and that base will go boom. With Isabel, timing is everything.”

“Anders probably one of, if not, the most difficult to handle because her leader powers make things at times unfair. We won’t talk about the ‘Protector Sentinels’ as i’m sure we all know about them. Get some kodiaks and have them spread out a bit around the map on your side for defense. Combine this with ‘Sentinel beacon’ which means every shot from the kodiaks and siege turret produces aggressor sentinels which attack everything. This makes infantry useless against you. Literally a few kodiaks on guard duty with this leader power can be unfair. Drop ‘Sentinel Network’ right at their base to keep causing damage to everything they build and their base as well. It stays for a very long time making it pretty much the best harass tool. The ‘Retriever Sentinel’ is best used to throw your enemy of. Force your enemy to focus on countering your infantry and vehicle, then when they have many things that don’t do so well against air just drop your Retriever Sentinel in and let it have it’s way with the enemy troops. It’s too strong for them to start effectively counter. With Anders you can make your enemies afraid to do certain things.

“Ship Master is almost a troll with his leader powers. Basically you can control the map and mess with your enemy. Plant as many scout mines as you can throughout the match. Scout mines provide you with sight where that bomb is. It’s like many eyes around the map. Also Scout mines do a ton of damage, so no one will want to stand on them. Plant them near power nodes. Use ‘Spirit Support’rt’ to fill your army with high veterancy hunters, elite rangers and engineers. You should also call it in during a battle to replace your dead units and get extra damage as the spirit stays around to fire at the enemy for a while. Once you have a large army use ‘Tactical gateway’. Tactical gateway is one of those leader powers that is pure strategy. Create one gate right behind an enemy base and lead your army through the other to get there and when you need to leave hop right through. Be aware though that your enemy can go through your gate. Use Displacement properly. Many don’t know how to use this leader power. Most use it to send enemy units away just for them to soon come back. Use it instead to send enemy units to you. More than once I have sent a large group of enemy air units straight to my group of reavers who tore them apart. When you are destroying the enemies army and tries to escape, use Displacement to bring them back, so you can finish them of. Ship master requires a lot of skill to use as he has very little direct damage abilities.”

“Forge is all about the vehicles. He can’t do much with infantry so air and vehicles is how he rolls. You need to have grizzlies. Very strong tanks that do great damage. When in a battle wait for when you know you will lose some units. Then use ‘Combat salvage’ to easily get back the units you lose (the first 8). This allows him to keep the vehicles coming. Vehicles, even against their counters still are pretty strong so just because they have some cyclops doesn’t mean they will get destroyed just like that, especially not grizzlies. Use ‘Grizzly Battalion’ to replace fallen units with more grizzlies. Do not rely on ‘Scatter Bomb’ as how you would rely on eradication. It does low damage and is so easy to evade. Only use it to scare away your enemies to create breathing space or if the enemy is trapped behind a base and you have them cornered as that’s when the full might of Scatter Bomb takes place.”

“Kinsano is who I know least about as I don’t have her. From what I have seen though her leader powers come back really quickly and ‘Inferno’ is incredibly dangerous. Just launch that on a base and everything get real weak. Launch that on a enemy army and watch them melt away really fast. Her inferno is her trump card. ‘Hell Charge’ should be used after you mingled your army with the enemies so that when yours die they explode damaging as many of theirs as possible. Have multiple bases and mini bases around to make ‘Red line’ effective. All newly spawned units of yours will be boosted. So have units come out from all of them to overwhelm your opponents with boosted units constantly. That’s all I will say concerning her.”

That’s a lot to take in. Go into skirmish and try out some of these strategies or tune them to your style. Either make sure to do the ‘Earth Walk!’ 

Spelunky. An amazing platform game

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Spelunky is just one of those game that you have to know about and try for yourself. It’s that unique and interesting. It’s an amazing game. Spelunky is a open source platform game developed by ‘Derek Yu, Mossmouth, LLC’, that was originally on the PC in 2008 but moved to consoles in 2012. In the world of spelunky you control a spelunker (character) who discovers a mine which holds great treasure but man secrets and mystical properties. The question is can you survive and come out with riches or die in the many different ways available in this game. This game has so much that we may have to do another post on it.

When you start up on the game you are greeted with a cutscene of the min spelunker character walking towards the entrance of the mines with three changing dialogue texts. Everytime you watch the cutscene the text changes. Pick the character that you want and hop straight in. You find a journal which belongs to Yang who found this place before you and has ventured of to make it to the end and discover the great riches and treasures. Through the journal you learn that there are many strange things about this place. Firstly, deeper in the mines you will come to a lush jungle like area. Secondly, that everytime you die in this place you wake up at the main entrance to this mines. Thirdly that everytime you do die and re-enter, the layout of the mines and every further area changes. It’s never the same. The tutorial does a great job of showing the basics and what you need to know to at least make it somewhere in this game. It introduces you to attacking, avoiding big dangers, using bombs, using ropes, collecting treasure and purchasing items from the shop. This amazing game has a great tutorial. Now you should be ready to play the main part of the game. 

An amazing game needs items right? Thank goodness Spelunky has a lot of them. Permanent items like climbing gloves, compass, spring shoes, Kapala, paste and much more. Not permanent items like bombs, ropes, machete, shotgun and much more all depends on when you choose to use them. Climbing gloves lets you cling to any surface meaning you can climb anything. Compass always show you the direction of the exit to the level. spring shoes let’s you jump higher. Kapala is a special item that will grant you health if enough blood from enemies hit you. Paste turns your bombs into sticky bombs. Bombs are… well… bombs and you use them blow up destructible things like walls, floor and even enemies. Ropes get thrown up allowing you to reach higher places. machete is a weapon that you hold in your hands and does twice the damage of the standard whip. The shotgun is basically real fire power. That allows the take down of many enemies. There are lots more items out there. Some are destructively powerful. There is even a item that can kill any enemy in one hit and it permanently replaces your whip. 

There are naturally four areas in Spelunky: Mines, Jungle, Ice caves and temple. Each area is dangerous and capable of killing you in different ways. All have enemies and traps. Now the mines are first but that doesn’t mean it’s easy, because it isn’t. The enemies here spiders which wait on ceilings and if you pass under, they drop down to attack you. Bats which wait for you to be move to a lower level than them and then fly to attack. Giant spiders which are just a more powerful and dangerous version of regular spiders and more enemies. There are traps like spikes which grant instant death if you land on it. Explosive powder box which is very sensitive. Arrow traps which fire an arrow at whatever crosses it’s line of sight once. The jungle has Tiki men who wield and throw boomerangs at you once you cross their line of sight. Mantraps which grant instant death if you land on top of them. Piranhas which make swimming a bit risky. The unique traps here are tiki trap waits for anything to come near it so that it can stab it. The ice caves has yetis which if you get too close will throw you away. Mammoths which have an icy cold breath that will freeze anything it hits. Yeti king which can roar to cause ice blocks to break and fall down harming things below. UFO which slowly flies around and fires at whatever is directly below them. The unique traps here are mines so don’t step on them. The temple has hawk man who runs and jumps when he sees you. Croc man who teleports when harmed. Mummies who release locusts from his mouth in your direction. The unique traps are crush traps which zoom in your direction upon site to crush you. Ceiling trap is just like indian jones. The ceiling comes down with spikes once triggered. As you can see there are lots of stuff to watch out for. The best part is that We haven’t mentioned everything. Not even half of it.

The game is known for being very difficult. For some people, getting to the end to the end of the game is a rare event. Some haven’t completed it at all. This is sort of what makes Spelunky an amazing game. You just want to keep trying and trying and trying. It doesn’t help that there is a quick restart button to get you right back into the action. The difficulty comes from firstly being forced to know what’s going on around you. You have to decide what you do carefully but also quickly. The other bigger factor that makes this hard is that you are never safe. You can have all the items in the world and still die in one move. You can have 20 health and still get one shotted. Each level is filled with monsters and traps. They don’t go easy on you. You might come to the jungle and have to cross a spike pit layered with spikes at the bottom with monkeys chilling on the vines and a tiki man waiting on the other side with his boomerang ready. The damsel that you go to rescue may be unfortunate enough to spawn in between powder keg boxes so you can’t reach the damsel without them dying. You might get a level where there’s hardly any money at all. What’s even worse is that everything is random all the time. You never get the same levels twice. Never!  Trust us, we have played a lot. So you may get frustrated but it’s the good type of gaming frustration where you want to try again and still have a good time.

What’s even better about the game is that it’s multiplayer so not only can you play with your friends, your friends can get you killed or be the one to save your life. It’s co-op for the main adventure. You would think that having 3 more spelunkers would make things easier but most of the time it makes things harder. You all must share a screen and work together. Your whips and attacks can also hit each other. When playing with Diamondz L45 and N63 Prodigy, X35 Earthwalker got hit by a rock that a team mate threw, which knocked him of the edge and landed straight onto the spikes at the bottom. Was it an accident or a betrayal? If team work isn’t your thing then you can go into death match where it’s a battle to the death. You can start of with bombs or just your whip. Break open crates that drop in to get weapons to help you win. It’s pure mayhem and lots of fun. Trust us on that as well. 

X35 Earthwalker said, “I remember a certain Spelunky player who had the jet packs, paste, spring and shoes and spike shoes, 7 health and a good amount of bombs. He got to the Ice waves and attacked a UFO which then exploded, which sent a mine flying at him which exploded and killed him. I once had all the items you could possibly need: jet pack, climbing gloves, spring and spike shoes, paste, compass, spectacles etc and even was on my way to a special location when I was checking an area to see whether I should go in but a lava ball came out from the tub of lava and knocked me into it and when your’re hit, you are stunned for a while so I couldn’t use the jetpack. I had one salty moment but able to laugh at myself and still have a great time.” This just shows how crazy and unpredictable Spelunky is. An amazing game indeed. We will probably do another post on this game.

Overall this is one game that’s very difficult, constantly changing so it’s new all the time, lots to discover and do in each run so you aren’t done just because you got to the end and multiplayer action makes this game something else. Spelunky is in X35’s top 3 best platform games ever. The developers ‘Derek Yu, Mossmouth, LLC’ did an outstanding job on this game. This game is worth checking out. It doesn’t matter if you have beat this game or not. What does matter though… is that you do the ‘Earth Walk!’ 

For more information check out the link below:

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Playerunknown’s battleground. Battle royale

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Playerunknown’s battlegrounds is a battle royale last-man-standing shooter game, developed by ‘Bluehole, Inc’ and is currently on PC. They have said that it will be released on console later. We will have to wait and see if that happens.

Battle royale games are at times the most intense games simply because your death could happen at almost anytime. Made your way up to higher ground and then get shot because you are easier to see. Found a nice spot in a building taking shots but then someone sneaks up behind you with a shotgun. In a nice position behind a large rock where no one can see you, except that guy in the distance with a sniper. This stuff can all happen to you and more in battle royale games. This battle royale game takes place on a massive 8×8 km island. The whole island looks good though. Some good level of attention to detail.

In Playerunknown’s battlegrounds the action starts with everyone in a plane which flies around the island. You can eject out at anytime. This means you can sort of decide where you start. So remembering the map and knowing good locations will give you an advantage. As you fall pull your parachute for a soft landing. Then find some weapons and equipment. Then survive to the end while everyone else is doing the same thing. You might find a police body vest, you might find a good rifle, or even a shotgun. Other items like bandages are important. The main thing about this battle royale is survival. Do you grab a vehicle and keep zooming around looking for easy prey? Do you get nice items and hide it out in a building? Do you play aggressive and actively hunt down other players? Honestly they are all correct answers. It’s about survival. Do what you have to do.

The developers have made some big improvements to the game ever since the testing and closed beta. Now you can set mouse sensitivities for all views, and added hotkeys for healing items and boost. They have also increased the number of graphic and sound settings you can change. There are new locations like a swamp, shooting range river, underground bunker, lake, logging area, a flooded town, power plant, quarry and ruined castle. If you get shot down into a revive state then you can crawl (like the dog you are), hopefully towards a team mate. Also wooden doors can be destroyed, which is a very good decision if you ask us. No longer will hiding behind a simple wooden fence protect you from a shotgun blast. Same goes for some of the fences as well. The max number of players in a match now is 96 which is a large number. Imagine being in a battle royale and you are fighting for survival while 95 other players are doing the same thing. 

Players must pay attention to the map as overtime, to make sure the match does eventually end and to keep the action from getting stale, the area where players can play in the match gets smaller by a electricity field which no one can survive in. So grab items, kill whoever crosses your path and stay with the safe circle of the map. We were wondering if there will be any additional factors that pose a threat to the players in the match. For example random selected air strikes which will be marked on the map or a group of well armed mercenaries on a vehicle that passes into the map and then leaves but attacks anyone they come across. That would be cool if that happened. There is an air drop though. During the match at times a plane will fly over and drop of some stuff that falls by parachute. So the decision that needs to be made is whether to go for the drop or not. What if someone gets there before? Why not stay by the landing of the dropped goods and wait for other players to come by and get easy kills. In a battle royale you have to use your head gamers. 

For how big and everything that’s going on. Playerunknown’s battlegrounds has great graphics. Sounds are okay but the visuals are definitely the better here. The improved lighting helps out a lot with what you can see. We do think there needs to be some more tall grass in some areas for cover and hiding spots. 

Overall this looks like a fun game. We do believe that it will be the newest go to game for battle royale action. King of the kill will be replaced. This looks fun, it is fun and will create some tense moments. especially for those who are among the last standing players left. The developers ‘Bluehole, Inc’ did a great job with this game. This game is worth checking out. Now some will survive but whether you survive or not… make sure you do the ‘Earth Walk!’.

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Trove. One cool and blocky adventure

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Trove is a sandbox multiplayer online role-playing game developed, by ‘Trion Worlds’, and is on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. This game is very large and has numerous players all roaming the lands and having their own adventures. 

Straight away when you look at Trove, Minecraft comes into your head. Both are blocky everywhere. Blocky worlds come off as very welcoming. That’s until you travel a little bit into Trove and meet all the dangerous creatures in that world. X35 Earthwalker and some of his gaming buddies have dived into this game to try it out. When you start Trove you can pick your class. There are many options here like mage types, fairy types, soldier types, an archer, a staff wielder, a class that’s just like link having a boomerang, bombs, sword and more classes. So take your time, read each one and jump right in. There are multiple worlds to explore. Their is the hub world where every starts. You can chill and talk here. The others where the real action is are: Novice, Adept, Elite, Master, and Uber 1-9. You will pass through Novice, adept and elite pretty quickly as they are more like introduction worlds with weak monsters and easy bosses which is good for beginners. From master and upwards things can get more interesting. Each world has a power rank recommendation so you can’t say you weren’t warned when you get killed in a dangerous world.

X35 Earthwalker selected the Dracolyte class. Dracolyte is a short-ranged Magic user from the Prime volcanic lands of Trove. He has a flame thrower, can drop bombs, command his little dragon friend (familiar) to shoot a fire blast and the Dracolyte can even turn into a dragon and rule the battle field. X35 Earthwalker says that he is difficult to use as the fireball (spit fire) that the little dragon shoots can only be used after it is charged by attacking enemies with your flamethrower. The bomb ability (burnt offering) can only explode after you hit it with your attacks, so basically you only have one real attack which is short range which is exactly where most enemies like it. Other classes have long range attacks. So mastering the Dracolyte is only for the best. 

The worlds are split into certain areas. There are: Peaceful hills, Medieval highlands, the lost isles, sea of deep regret, permafrost, cursed vale, desert frontier, fae wilds, candoria, neon city, jurassic jungle and dragonfire peaks. Each one mostly looks different from the others and have different enemies. For example Candoria is a big candy land where everything is made from cakes, jelly, candy canes and some of the enemies are lolly pop men who chase you to punch your face in, a floating cake who opens up to hit you with a boxing glove, jelly worms who can split into two smaller worms and more enemies. We hate them all as they come after you as soon as you come in range. Dragonfire peak is a giant fiery land with lava, dark skies and molten caves. Each biome has dungeons and lairs. Lairs are small builds or areas that appear on the map. Inside is a boss to defeat or quest to complete plus loot to earn. These are nice places to challenge yourself and gain experience points, working your way up through the worlds. Dungeons are much bigger versions of lairs. They are far more dangerous and harder to conquer. They have many cool forms like caverns, giant pirate ships, castles and palaces. The strongest bosses are found in Dungeons and so are the rarest equipment and gear. X35 Earthwalker discovered the hard way that dungeons are filled with minions, traps, and bosses all there to ruin your day.

Since there are many things to craft, that means there are many ingredients to find. That means, lots of mining. There is a standard mode and there is a mining mode where you shoot a laser to mine blocks and materials that you find. The rarest and best materials are found in harder worlds. For example the Formicite ore will rarely and in some can’t be found in novice and adept world but can be found in uber and master worlds. So it’s about progression. The stronger you get, the harder worlds you can enter and explore. The harder the world then the better chances of finding rarer and better ingredients and ores for crafting the better and more stronger equipment. So make sure to balance your time in this game. Exploring and running wild through the world is good meaning more Lairs and Dungeons which means more loot and experience points but also make sure to spend time mining and collecting the good stuff. Some people have crafted mounts which are different transports for your character. We all start of with a simple mule which runs slightly faster than your character but X35 Earthwalker has seen players with race cars, hover cars and iron plated horses which are all superior. That’s right, there is lots of stuff in this game. There are gems that power up your character, there are rings, there are familiars (pets) that follow you around and help you out, there are banners for you to equip. Literally there is so much items and things to equip, upgrade (using a forge) and more. You have to explore it all for your self. 

The multiplayer experience is great. You can invite many of your friends and we mean many! The whole of you can storm dungeons and Lairs together destroying everything in your path. You can go mining in swarms and strip the land bare (you monsters!). X35 Earthwalker once was adventuring with Diamondz L45 and met two other players. They saw that we were just conquering places and they joined us. One was an archer while the other was something (we don’t remember). The four of us really destroyed bosses and even turned the tables on a surprise attack from a giant purple knight monster that came out of no where and laid down the damage. It was so much fun and it’s moments like that in Trove that makes it so cool.

What’s great is that each player gets to have their own home which they can make appear in different areas with them. These homes, or bases are called ‘Cornerstones’ once again another thing inspired by the bible. These cornerstones once first placed start of as little not fully built houses. Seriously who ever was the builder ripped us off as there are holes in the roof. You can break it all down and build it how you see fight. You can make it a large tower that keeps going up and up or make it a two floor apartment, it’s up to you. This is where you will store your work benches for crafting, rejuvenation stations to refill your potions, trophies that you can hang on your wall. It’s literally your base. You do everything there. We love the fact that all you have to do is find a sign post, approach it and with the click of a button, your cornerstone appears on that patch of land. So it sort of travels with you. Sort of. X35 Earthwalker built portals in his cornerstone to the novice, adept, elite, master and uber worlds. It looks really nice as X35 Earthwalker has multiple colours like red, green, blue, purple, orange and yellow. We hope your eyes can handle it.

Here is the big problem though. X35 Earthwalker is currently in the uber world and spent a long time travelling away from the spawn point, conquering Lairs and dungeons and searching for rare ores to mine. He keeps finding the same ores which are very limited in terms of what you can build. He has built all the needed stuff already. The next world recommends a power rank of 400. It gets kind of boring after a while, sort of quickly actually. The dungeons lose their excitement after a while, except the giant pirate ship boss and the how the dungeons look. Some of the designs are wonderful and amazing to look at, we must admit. It’s like 90% of all the cool stuff are a real distance away to craft and find. The loot are called legendary but majority of them are all weaker than what X35 Earthwalker has already. Diamondz L45 and N63 prodigy are continuing there adventure through the world. Don’t get us wrong. The game is a lot of fun. It’s just the gap towards the better stuff and real progress needs something in there to make it not feel like grinding. Also making a club world is too difficult. It requires like 25,000 Flux and 200 Golden Souls. Why?! All we want to do is create a club for the friends of X35 Eartwalker but can’t unless you spend many hours grinding in this game. Why can’t everyone  justcreate a world simply. A small cost at least. This really made us not happy about the game. As how the game stands right now, we find Terraria to be more fun than this game.

Overall Trove is great. It’s a big adventure filled with many things to do but takes a while to do them. Some stuff needs to be worked out we would definitely say. The sounds are nice and the graphics are good blocky style. The developers ‘Trion Worlds’ did a very good job with this game and you can see the effort. This game is worth checking out. Whether it’s for you or not… just do the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Halo wars 2 big update

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo wars 2 has received a big update that contains many changes and some new content. This big update is so big that it’s worth checking out. We mean it. Every Halo wars 2 gamer needs to check it out before playing anymore matches.

First of all the fact that this update is here shows that the developers ‘343 industries’ and ‘Creative assembly’ do listen to their fans and gamers who play their game. That’s a good sign. There is lots to say so lets just jump right in.

Leader powers have been effected. Now Shipmaster’s Scout mines can no longer be dropped on buildings to do big damage. This is fair as it can be used to destroy buildings straight out.
The Banished Cleansing Beam speed has been slightly reduced to make escaping it easier. We agree with the speed being reduced and so don’t have a problem with it.
ODSTs cost increased from 600 to 800 and their HP has been slightly decreased. This is fine. Nothing too big here. 

Concerning Economy they have adjusted the Supply income curve to give less of a bonus income on the first few Supply Pads/Warehouses, but less limiting as player’s build additional pads. So now players who have multiple bases have a bigger advantage over those with one base.

Now concerning Sergeant Forge they have removed the discount on Supply Pads and Reactors in the “Rolling Economy” leader power. Thank goodness. We are so glad. Rolling economy made Forge the strongest leader in the game. We are so glad it’s gone. Also Accelerated Assembly has switched places with Lotus Mines. We also think that’s fair. Stronger abilities should be available later, not early.

Concerning rush and counter-infantry units
Jump Pack Brutes
have Increased HP
Increased basic DPS
Slight increase to move speed

Hellbringers
Significant increase to HP
Significant increase to fire damage dealt to basic infantry units
Slight move speed increase
Cost reduced from 80/50 to 80/40
Reduced pre-attack and post-attack cooldown to improve responsivenes
We disagree with this. Hell bringers have enough health already. We do agree with damage against infantry and movement speed but everything else not so much.

Suicide Grunts (Not Blitz Suicide Grunts)
Increased HP
Base damage decreased
Base AOE range increased
Move speed slightly increased
Charge distance increased
Charge speed decreased
Cost reduced from 100/25 to 100/20
Suicide grunts if anything should be boosted in every sense after all their job is to run at the army and make things go boom. We have never seen anyone use them in a standard match but will this update to them be enough to convince players?

Elite Rangers
Significantly increased HP
Armor type changed to be more resistant to small arms fire from Marine & Grunt squads
Faster projecticles that don’t miss as often
Cost reworked from 80/110 to 125/90
DPS increased
Finally! The Elite Rangers were absolutely useless. They lost to marines, Hellbringers… They lost to everything and did very little damage but now they should actually be worth using.

Scout units
Reduced ram reflect damage, so will now take less damage when ramming
Reduced damage versus buildings

Jackrabbit
Cost reduced from 220/15 to 200/12
Ghost
Cost reduced from 265/20 to 230/15
Chopper
Cost reduced from 280/20 to 245/15

Counter vehicle units
Hunters
Cost reduced from 150/200 to 160/160
DPS reduced
We don’t agree with this change. I mean have you not seen the hunters in every other Halo game? They blow everything up in one shot. They should be strong anti vehicles but let’s see how this turns out.

Cyclops
Cost changed from 120/150 to 120/120
DPS reduced

Tanks
Wraiths
HP significantly increased
Shields significantly increased
Build time reduced
Cost changed from 550/40 to 525/70
Plasma Cannon DPS increased
Plasma Mortar DPS increased
Plasma Mortar Fire rate increased
Y ability initial damage increased significantly
Incoming healing reduced
We are saying this for both the wraith and scorpion tanks. This is one of the best changes. The tanks need to be powerful. We felt that wraiths before got destroyed more easily and didn’t stand out much. This should now encourage players to use them a bit more. What a big update indeed.

Scorpion
HP increased
Cost changed from 650/50 to 600/90
Machinegun DPS increased
Cannon DPS increased
Cannon AOE size decreased
Canister shell DPS increased
Canister shell AOE size increased
Incoming healing reduced

Grizzly
HP increased
Machinegun DPS increased
Missile pod DPS increased
Cannon DPS increased
Missile Barrage ability damage increased
Well if the regular scorpion gets stronger then it makes sense to boost the Grizzly as well.

Core infantry
Grunts
Grunt squad build time reduced
Overall DPS increased for basic and mine-upgrade squads
Overall DPS increased for pack brother-upgrade squads
This is a good change. Grunts were laughable even when upgraded but now it looks like they should be quite equal to marines as it should be. Grunts or marines shouldn’t be clearly stronger than the other.

Marines
Grenade DPS decreased
Grenade large AOE size reduced
Marine Assault rifle DPS slightly decreased

Protector Sentinels
Move speed decreased
No longer has a huge damage bonus vs. buildings
General DPS decreased
Lockdown Bolt damage decreased significantly
We know that almost everyone has been waiting for this. It’s pretty much everything we at X35 Earthwalker asked for. Now they don’t melt bases within seconds and aren’t as fast meaning your armies can actually catch them to fight them. Finally!

Banshees
Banshee Plasma Torpedo damage significantly reduced
We never cared but do agree with this. The plasma torpedo should be an assist to fight air not count as a proper anti-air unit level of damage. So yeah, good job with this one.

Locusts
Basic DPS slightly reduced
Line of sight range reduced
Weapon range reduced
We agree with the weapon range and damage reduction. Locusts annoyed us. They should be for destroying buildings and that’s their main purpose only.

Base turrets
UNSC and Banished upgraded turrets DPS increased
Banished turrets HP increased
UNSC turrets build time reduced
Banished turret build time reduced
We also agree with this. Turrets should be able to hold their ground against enemies that come but not against armies. When you fall back to your base, you should feel safe to some extent knowing that you can make a stand there.

Strongholds
UNSC and Banished HQ HP increased to a constant, high HP amount across all tech tiers

The big update also brought some new content as well. Basically ranked matches.

Halo Wars 2 Xbox One Playlists:

Ranked 1v1 War
Ranked 2v2 War
Ranked 3v3 War
(Blitz) Standard
(Blitz) Brawl
(Blitz) Ranked Standard
(Blitz) Ranked Brawl
We agree that their should be ranked for those who want to do that. Honestly they should have had this before but whatever, we aren’t in their studios knowing what’s going on.

Halo Wars 2 Windows 10 Playlists:

Ranked 1v1 War
Ranked 2v2 War
Ranked 3v3 War
(Blitz) Standard
(Blitz) Brawl
(Blitz) Ranked Brawl 

Overall we are very happy with this big update as it addresses many big issues but also helps make things more balanced. Adjustments to Forge, sentinels and tanks were our favourites though. X35 Earthwalker himself is excited to get back on the battle field and give these changes a try. Whether you are happy with the big update or not… You must be happy about the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Gears of war 4 Locust Drones pack

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

The Locust are finally here in Gears of war 4. Earlier today the Locust Drones pack was released. We at X35 Earthwalker have been waiting all this time for the return of the Locust as they were awesome enemies and part of what made Gears of war what it is. We had nothing against the Swarm but the Locusts were much cooler and scary. Finally they brought them to us.

So whats in the Locust Drones pack? The contents that you can get from these packs are 2 locust characters and 2 enemy themed weapon skin sets. That’s it. Only 2 Locust characters. Just 2. No queen Myrrah or theron guard. That’s disappointing to be very honest. We know their strategy. It’s to bring things out bit by bit to keep gamers waiting and gaming to help keep the game alive for as long as possible. We understand it from a business point of view but it’s suppose to be about the gears of war gamers firstly.

Fine then. At least we get 2. What’s the price for 1 of the Locust Drones pack? What!!! 2000 gold coins! Now they have really crossed the line. Is it just like with the UIR pack which charged really high for a bunch of random items which didn’t guarantee anything. You could get doubles. Surely no but it is. X35 Earthwalker had enough to get two Locust Drones packs and after opening them both he got none of the Locust characters when he could have used all those coins to get well over 11 horde packs. It’s disappointing. At least each pack gives you 5 items but gamers like X35 Earthwalker have been excited and waiting for the Locusts for time now and got nothing. Now they expect players to grind their game until they get 2000, 4000, 6000 etc to open the packs. We actually don’t have the time. Once again, like with the UIR pack, we are greatly disappointed.

What’s also annoying is that the packs also gave out skins from different packs like the chillin lancer. Why is it here? Why can’t they just keep it Locust Drones stuff only? It’s not that hard to do. The other skins like the Juvie for the snub pistol and the boomer skin for the markza do have locust theme colours which is nice and how it should be. We have nothing against the contents as we were looking forward to them. It’s just how they are doing this is horrible. 

Overall we say that if you have the gold coins then get some packs and get your locusts. If you have little gold coins then wait and hope they lower the cost. If you have real money to use on games then buy some and give us half (don’t be cheap now). Otherwise we aren’t too bothered to miss this at all. We are sorry Locusts as we love you guys (even though you kill humans) but you aren’t worth that much time. So whether you buy it or not… don’t forget to do the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Yooka-Laylee teaming up soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Yooka-Laylee is a new open world platformer game, developed by ‘Playtonic Games’ that’s coming out on the 11th of April for Xbox One, PC and PS4. Straight away we had to check Yooka-Laylee out. The protagonist Yooka looks real cool and cute at the same time.  That’s a good start as the main character is very important. It at times decides whether someone will even look at the game or not.

In the world of Yooka-Laylee you control Yooka the chameleon and Laylee who are on a mission to stop and defeat “corporate creep Capital B” who basically wants to absorb all the books in the world and “convert them into pure profit”. This reminds us of another game where it’s two animal protagonists who are on an adventure to save the world from that one enemy who has an army behind them. Nothing wrong with that as it’s a good set up for a story.

3D Platformers have all the opportunities to make the game awesome. You can have large worlds, crazy environments and just straight up mysteries all around with puzzles. Flood the world with collectibles and more. We hope Yooka-Laylee has some of that at least. In Yooka-Laylee there is said to be a lot of puzzles with variety and platform challenges. The game has a large cast of characters which you will discover and meet in the different worlds including the legendary ‘Shovel knight’ who recently lost to scrooge mcduck in a death battle. There are powerful bosses for the gamers to overcome.

Yooka and Laylee work very well together. Yooka can hold onto Laylee allowing them to hover for a while. Yooka can roll along the ground while Laylee runs on top making them move like a wheel at greater speeds. There are multiple actions these two can perform. Yooka can swim (thank goodness) and defend himself by spinning with his tail. We saw Yooka create an air bubble around the two underwater while Laylee assists with sharp movements.

There is supposed to be alot of things that you can do in this game. There are minecart challenges, quiz shows, multiplayer games and arcade games. This is what we like to see. Developers putting in many things to do like extras. It means gamers will spend time on the game and there will be more options for the different types of gamers. This brings us to the next cool things about the game. You can play co-op with a friend in Yooka-Laylee. This means your brother, sister or friend can in the adventure with you. We at X35 Earthwalker respect games that allow local co-op or multiplayer play.

The environments are large and look great. We have seen a ice mountain like area, floating island like area, a jungle looking area and a place with buildings that look like ancient ruins. Once again variety always scores points. The graphics are wonderful and the sounds are nice. We can see that work went into the game.

Overall Yooka-Laylee looks like a very cool and fun game. It’s multiplayer, got extras like arcade and multiplayer games so there is more to do. The developers ‘Playtonic Games’ did a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will definitely want to see more of this game and see what becomes of it. Many will love it we know that for sure but let’s see what happens. Whether something happens or not… it’s all about doing the ‘Earth Walk!’  

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