Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1588https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5276This week the new free-to-play champion rotation included a champion I’ve had my eye on for a while but decided against purchasing as he’s fairly expensive. Brand, The Burning Vengeance, is a ranged mage type character who is able to burn the map up, and then some! His passive ability Blaze sets the target on fire, dealing damage over time for 4 seconds. His “Q” ability Sear shoots a fireball at the target, dealing magic damage. What makes Brand so cool is that each of his abilities has a different secondary effect in addition to the primary effect if the target is affected by his passive ability, Blaze. The secondary effect of Sear is a stun that lasts 2 seconds. His “W” ability is Pillar of Flame. This ability does area of effect damage to several targets at a time. If the target is set ablaze, Pillar of Flame will deal 25% additional damage. I like dropping this ability in front of running enemies if possible—it’s a sure kill if they are low on health and aren’t smart enough to flash away from it! His “E” ability Conflagration instantly deals magic damage to the target and sets them ablaze. If the target has been previously set ablaze, Conflagration will have an AoE effect and spread the Blaze passive effect as well. His ultimate ability, “Q,” is called Pyroclasm. This is basically a huge fireball that does a lot of damage to the target, and bounces from target to target up to four times. This ability is absolutely amazing in a situation where you are fighting several champions at once because it will nuke all of them via bouncing! This is where you begin to notice his amazing AoE damage. When you combine Pillar of Flame, Conflagration, and a Pyroclasm together it’s extremely hard for someone to survive. Today was my first time playing as Brand, but I must say, I loved it. I am seriously considering purchasing him now, even though my first game could have been against unskilled opponents or I had beginners luck. Either way, I can now see the potential that Brand has and the insane damage he can dish out quickly. In the game I played, I wasn’t even able to make it to level 18 before the opposing team surrendered, so I wasn’t fully built by any means. Seeing the damage I was putting out mid-game, I can’t even imagine what a monster Brand is late game, but I intend to find out!Fri, 07 Dec 2012 13:26:27 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5276&iddiary=9731https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5428The newly released Halo 4 from 343 Industries came out on November 6th of this year; however, I haven’t played a Halo title since Halo 2 came out with online capabilities via Xbox Live. As everyone was making such a big deal about it for different reasons, I decided that I’d take my girlfriends little brother to the midnight release thinking that others would share my level of indifference towards the series. I couldn’t have been more wrong—we got to GameStop about an hour early and there were already over one hundred people in line. Needless to say, I regretted my decision about this midnight release adventure. After several hours of shooting through hordes of aliens and online players, I felt slightly better, though. From what I remember about the series years ago, there were grunts, elites, and a few others monsters including bosses to kill. In Halo 4, 343 Industries has introduced several new types of enemies including the dog-like crawlers, which are aligned with the Forerunners (the aliens that want to kill you in this game). As always, the player still runs and guns through the eyes of Master Chief, but this time the heads up display literally has you looking out of his eyes—you can see the edges of his glass face plate while playing. In Halo 4 they also changed up the controls a little bit. They are now more like the infamous Call of Duty series, which I actually liked. I felt used to the controls already because they took after another widely played FPS that came before it, so I had no difficulty adjusting. The online mode didn’t seem terribly different than before, with the exceptions being new maps, better graphics, and one of the best new features, in my opinion, the loadout selection. I’ve read both positive and negative feedback on this feature, but I like it. Sure, it makes Halo 4 all that much more similar to Call of Duty, but that aside, it gives players much more diversity and more options when playing online. Customizability is everything nowadays, so if you’re given the option to change something about your character for the better, why not? I haven’t beaten the game yet, but I hear the campaign is very satisfying as well. I’ve gotten through several hours of it, so I can agree so far. Again, it doesn’t feel like an entirely different formula in comparison to the Halo I knew years ago, but it’s enough to keep me plowing through both the online and offline content. Shoot a LOT to kill stuff, jump REALLY high, and talk SUPER dramatically to Cortana—yep, still Halo, but definitely better than before.Fri, 07 Dec 2012 13:25:29 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5428&iddiary=9730https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5414Recently I got the chance to play the newest installment of the Call of Duty series, Black Ops II. To me, Call of Duty has always been satisfying, but almost every time I bring it up amongst friends I get dirty looks and laughs. After reading a couple articles and reviews by others, I’ve come to a few conclusions that I’ll include in my own review below. Black Ops II is the umpteenth game in the Call of Duty series. Over the past couple years players have been picking up on static gameplay ideas and argue that each game is the same game that came out the year before, but with a new coat of paint laid on. After playing, I can validate this—but at the same time isn’t that kind of the point? You can’t hate a dog for being a dog. I’ve been playing Call of Duty since Modern Warfare 2 was released, so I suppose I’m not a veteran of the series quite yet; however, when I log on to play CoD I get exactly what I am looking for—mindless run and gun action! If I wanted a deep story or some emotional attachments to an in-game character I wouldn’t play CoD. Call me shallow, but the subtle changes in gameplay/guns/skins are just enough to keep me interested and get my sixty dollars each year. Honestly, I picked up Guild Wars 2 this August as well and haven’t had the time to play it because I can easily sink three to four hours of time into a single sitting of it. I can’t afford to do that during school semesters so I simply don’t play often because I know I don’t have the time to get hooked on the story/characters/gameplay like I want to. That alone leads me to other games with generally shorter play sessions. While on the topic, League of Legends is one of the most popular games in the world and is extremely repetitious. They do a good job of masking it through frequent character releases and little DLC, but it’s essentially Team Deathmatch on a smaller scale with magic and swords instead of guns. As for Black Ops II, I obviously like it. It handles a bit differently than its predecessor Modern Warfare 3, but that is to be expected as Treyarch and Infinity Ward shift each year putting out Call of Duty. The multiplayer is fundamentally the same as it always is with the usual game modes, but again, that is the formula they became successful for in the first place. Recently I have been trying to set up some customizable classes to get used to. Originally, I was disappointed to find that there is little to no recoil in Black Ops II. After playing around with some gun/loadout combinations, I realized that there IS recoil, it’s just poorly reflected through the crosshairs. This makes it difficult when running and gunning and confronting an enemy that is slightly out of the close range combat zone. A good player will retreat and draw the enemy to them, assuming they aren’t quicker than you and just shoot you in the back. That is about my only gripe with Black Ops II, other than the fact that I always get used to my old loadouts and killstreaks and need to adjust, but that is expected. Other than that it’s the same Call of Duty you’ve always loved (or hated). Guns, explosions, killing stuff—fun.Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:07:52 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5414&iddiary=9708https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5369Cut the Rope is a touch based iOS game in which the objective is to get a piece of candy into the mouth of an adorable little alien, animal thing. Seems easy enough right? Wrong! Similar to Angry Birds, Cut the Rope uses a 3-star rating system. The difference is that the player needs to collect the three stars within the level in Cut the Rope. You only need to collect one to advance to the next level, but I usually try for three unless I am truly stumped. The more stars you collect within the level, the higher your score will be at the end. There are also achievements to be had for certain things as well. One thing I really enjoy in Cut the Rope is the amount of thought and creativity put into each “box,” or theme that contains sets of levels. Each of these different themed boxes contains levels with specific mechanics, beginning with the simplest mechanic—cut the rope! As you progress through levels and boxes, you will find things like magic hats that teleport pieces of candy from one hat to another, objects that blow the candy in certain directions, and even bubbles that will cause the candy to float upwards. When you combine all of these together, it can make for quite a difficult puzzle. Currently, I am playing through levels in the “toy box.” The mechanic introduced in the toy box is bouncing via bounce pads. This basically lets you swing the candy from a rope into the pad in order to bounce it into another object. I’m not particularly fond of these; however, they can be quite useful in some levels and are amusing to watch when the candy can bounce freely between several of them. I picked this game up over a year or so ago, beat all the levels they had developed, and put it down. Just recently I picked it back up and found myself playing through all the new content—I’ll enjoy it just as I did before and can’t wait for even more levels!Sat, 24 Nov 2012 11:39:17 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5369&iddiary=9661https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5276This week on League of Legends I decided to revisit a champion who I tried playing when he was released, but delayed purchasing until just recently. Darius, the Hand of Noxus, is a melee/fighter champion who I now wish I’d bought long ago. Darius’ abilities are based upon attack damage. Something that I believe makes Darius extremely valuable, among other things, is his passive ability—Hemorrhage. Hemorrhage is a damage over time ability applied via all offensive attacks which can be stacked up to 5 times. As if that weren’t good enough, it can also be modified/buffed by purchasing attack damage items to increase the amount of damage it does per tick! His second ability (Q key) is Decimate, which is an area of effect attack that hits all opponents within several units of himself. This does a good amount of damage and applies Hemorrhage. His second ability (W key) is Crippling Strike—this attack damages whoever Darius uses it on and slows them down by a percentage based on how many stacks of Hemorrhage the target has stacked on them. His third ability Apprehend (E key) passively grants him 5% armor penetration per stack, and when activated pulls an enemy several units away back to Darius. Finally, his ultimate attack is a devastating attack called Noxian Guillotine (R key)—this attack is generally used to finish a fight as it does an extreme amount of damage and can be used back to back as long as it kills the champion target. If it doesn’t kill the champion, you must wait for the cool down on the ability to refresh. While Darius is simply a wonderful killing machine, he also has several utility skills that make him extremely valuable in different situations across the battlefield. The only fault I can find with Darius is that none of his abilities passively slow the target in addition to whatever they primarily do, which isn’t really a fault as he has the ability to snatch running targets back to him anyways. I usually remedy this minor issue by purchasing a Phage which gives me the chance to slow targets when I attack. Another thing that adds to Darius’ usefulness is his general “tankiness.” Usually when a champion is able to dish out such a large amount of damage in a bursty fashion as he does, they are more frail. This is not the case with Darius as I build him with armor and health/health regeneration at the start of the game which allows me to power through early game fights, earn myself money, and ultimately get ahead of others in terms of level/money/item builds. I’m somewhat selective when it comes to melee champions as they take more concentration and precision to play because you’re consistently in the fray and up close to other champions. Using Darius, I am less worried about jumping into the middle of a fight because he’s tough enough to take damage while he’s dishing it out. At first, I thought it was beginner’s luck. Ten games later I discovered that playing as Darius just came naturally and that he’s one of my new favorite champions! I’m glad that I purchased him and I’ll definitely use him every chance that I get when I feel like decapitating other champions on the field (which is all the time)!Sun, 18 Nov 2012 19:55:08 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5276&iddiary=9642https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5276On a weekly basis, League of Legends rotates which champions are free to play. While I usually try out two or three that I haven’t played before, I’d like to use this GameLog to review my thoughts on a champion that I purchased a while ago as I’ve logged more playtime using him than newly released free to play champions. The champion I am referring to is named Twitch. He is a “Plague Rat” who runs around with a crossbow and thrives on the mechanic of shooting poisoned bolts from it. In fact, that is his passive ability—shooting poisoned projectiles that apply a damage over time effect to the enemy—it’s called Deadly Venom. His second ability is called Ambush, which makes Twitch temporarily invisible to enemies and increases his movement speed while it’s active. Upon exiting stealth, he gains increased attack speed. I find this ability very useful while both opening a fight, or while chasing someone down. His third ability, Venom Cask, allows Twitch to hurl a cask at the enemy that decreases their movement speed, and applies two stacks of poison (six stacks of poison max) to them. This is also great for enemies that decide to run away in the middle of a fight. His fourth ability, Expunge, is great for finishing a fight because it takes all the stacks of Deadly Venom and causes them to explode, essentially nuking the target for a good portion of their health. His last and ultimate ability is called Spray and Pray. This ability does a couple different things. Firstly, it lets each bolt you shoot go through targets, dealing damage to each it passes through. Secondly, and more importantly (in my opinion), it increases your attack range by three hundred I believe. This becomes insanely useful in the sense that you can both attack the enemy from a range that leaves you untouchable, but it also allows you to take down enemies who run away without actually pursuing them—instead you can just sit tight and shoot from a distance you otherwise couldn’t hit them from. Now, I find Twitch’s poison to be an extremely useful asset as it scales slightly with level and it can potentially kill an enemy who has gotten out of your reach. Unfortunately, his poison is not affected by any ability power items so you cannot increase the damage over time that is does per tick. Because of this, I simply build him with attack speed and attack power so I can stack his poison quickly while at the same time doing tons of damage per hit. Also, the faster I attack with him, the faster I can Expunge if I need to. Twitch seems to be an underrated champion based on the amount I see him played by others. In comparison to a similar champion, Teemo, this may be true; however, I still find him to be both incredibly fun and amazingly powerful if played/built correctly.Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:34:57 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5276&iddiary=9634https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5292One of my favorite new Skylanders from the Skylanders: Giants series is named Pop Fizz. In fact, I thought he was so cool that I bought a color variant of him who is referred to as “Punch” Pop Fizz! Normally I wouldn’t buy any variants for collecting purposes, but because I found none of the other Skylanders as interesting as Pop Fizz, I decided to do it for this one figure. Firstly, Pop Fizz is a Skylanders character who is referred to as a “thrower.” This is a basic mechanic that allows Pop Fizz and other “throwers” to simply lob character specific items at enemies in order to deal damage. In Pop Fizz’s case, he throws potions. At level one you are given the ability to throw a single yellow potion, which acts as his main source of damage (the way I play him). As you level up, you learn how to create two additional types of potions—a green potion that breaks upon landing and creates a damaging AoE pool effect, and a purple potion which does not break but instead sprouts legs as it lands and fires liquid shots at enemies. The purple potions are AI controlled but actually do a decent job whittling down enemies’ health points. Now, the reason I like Pop Fizz so much (aside from his crazy looks) is because he can play the role of a “thrower” as I mentioned earlier, but also has the ability to become a kind of “berserker” or melee DPS type of character if you build him as such. In Skylanders, you begin with a few basic abilities which can be mildly upgraded. As you progress you can choose a single path that lets you specialize in one of the basic abilities, making them much stronger. As I now have two Pop Fizz figures, I can build each Pop Fizz differently and play them two totally different ways. The mild character progression system in Skylanders is very easy to follow—it should be as it’s almost a kid version of Diablo, but I think that is definitely one of its strengths.Mon, 05 Nov 2012 08:27:05 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5292&iddiary=9604https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5292Skylanders Giants is the sequel to Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure which came out last year around this time. It is published by Activision and developed by a company called Toys for Bob for every platform available, plus PC. It became so popular that there was even a web version and an iOS version developed. For those who don’t know, each game is based on the concept of collecting small figures which are then placed on something called the portal of power. Placing them on this portal literally brings them to life on your T.V. screen and allows you to control them as you play through the game. Why throw all your money at Skylanders? Well, you theoretically could just buy the game, the portal, and one or two Skylanders, but you’d be limiting yourself in a big way. First of all, if you die in-game your Skylander will need to rest until you finish the level or purchase an item with currency you collect in-game to instantly revive him so you can continue to play that particular character. If you only have one or two and both die, you’re out of luck and must restart the level. Secondly, having only a couple characters means you’ll never get 100% completion status as some areas require a different element Skylander to unlock them. For example, if I’m running through a level with a Magic element Skylander and I come across a Fire portion in that level where there may be some treasure or loot, I would have to switch to a Fire element character to unlock that area and go inside. So, let’s be serious, who doesn’t like loot?! Skylanders Giants isn’t terribly different from its predecessor, but the changes that it did make certainly have the game running smoother and builds upon the first game. The HUD has been tweaked in a way that makes it easier for the player to know when they are about to level up, and the max level has been increased to fifteen from ten. This was a great improvement, because one of my only problems with Skylanders was that it lacks content—not in a qualitative kind of way, there’s simply just not enough levels in my opinion for dropping over one hundred dollars on all these shiny figures! Also, all the figures that were collected for the first game can now be brought into the second game and leveled to fifteen as well, so your money hasn’t gone to waste. As for the giant figures they’ve introduced, their mechanics have added several new features to the game which I enjoy. There are spots throughout levels where a heavy object may be blocking the way or you’ll need to break through a bit of ground to find treasure or something. Only giants have the ability to move heavy objects and break ground! This was a cool addition to the game in my opinion, and the drop-in drop-out system makes it extremely easy to simply switch characters on the fly if needed. In terms of specific characters and their separate mechanics, I will probably write an entirely different review on those!Sat, 27 Oct 2012 09:50:00 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5292&iddiary=9577https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5276With the subject of balance in mind, League of Legends does an outstanding job putting together new champions almost every week that don’t overpower previous champions. As of now, there are over 100 champions to choose from, so balancing all of them is a tremendously sensitive and difficult task. Just recently I purchased the champion Olaf, the berserker. He is a bearded barbarian who carries around 2 axes wearing a 2-horned hat. The first thing I did when I purchased Olaf, as I do with all new champions, is look at the 4 abilities assigned specifically to him. Typically, his first ability is a damaging/slowing ability, his second adds lifesteal/damage to his auto-attacks, his third is a heavy-hitting damage attack, and his ultimate gives him extra armor/magic resistance along with making him immune to stuns/immobilizes. As I began to play a few rounds with Olaf, I rather enjoyed his first three abilities but couldn’t quite understand how a damage mitigation ability fit in with the rest of his offensive abilities. I found myself not using it as much because I saw it as an “oh crap!” button for use when I’m about to die. Knowing that there must be a reason for this, I played a few more rounds to further understand Olaf’s mechanics. What I learned was that his ultimate ability, in my opinion, is most certainly not for use only in near-death situations, although it can definitely help there as well. As I became more comfortable with Olaf and his other abilities, I began using his ultimate offensively as well to counter enemy champions slowing attacks. This allowed me to power through their slow while using my own slowing attack to not only catch them, but kill them and get away safely. Overall, I enjoyed playing as Olaf and learning his mechanics. I also feel that he is balanced just as all the other champions are through his assigned offensive and defensive abilities.Sun, 21 Oct 2012 12:05:33 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5276&iddiary=9559https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5079The other day I got the chance to get back into the world of Tyria in Guild Wars 2. I decided to play my level 35 Ranger as he is my highest and fastest progressing character so far. When I logged in I decided to try out a new zone, so I ventured to a place called Harathi Hinterlands which the game recommends to characters of levels 35-45. Being at the bottom of that bracket made the quests a bit more challenging, which was certainly a nice change of pace. Something great about Guild Wars 2 is the higher level monsters you fight relative to your own level, the better chance you have of getting more rare loot. During my few hours of play in this zone, I actually got a piece of “rare” armor. A MMO veteran may scoff at this, claiming that they get rare pieces of armor from completing quests all the time; however, the rarity system in Guild Wars 2 is a bit different. In Guild Wars 2, an items’ rarity is determined by color as well as whether it is “junk,” “basic,” “fine,” “masterwork,” “rare,” “exotic,” and “legendary.” Normally, I’ll come across a good amount of masterwork items when I play for a few hours, but never have I received a rare item until yesterday when I was battling against enemies 7-9 levels my senior. What stunk was that I couldn’t even use the item that dropped! It was a pair of cloth boots, and I can only wear medium weight (leather) armor on my ranger. Other than loot, I had an amazing time the other day and definitely experienced what I felt was the most intense dynamic event I’ve been a part of so far. It involved myself and about 20 others running around a campsite that had been taken over by a Centaur tribe in an effort to take it back for Humans. Once we had killed several named commanding officers among the Centaur tribe, there was an overall leader with the power to control wind or something along those lines. He was extremely powerful and had a TON of hit points. Even with ~30 players, it took us all about 10-15 minutes to bring him down. The scale of the entire event is what really drew me in, though. I felt like I was part of something that required teamwork and coordination, not just a mass of bodies throwing themselves at another raid boss. I hadn’t even noticed that while doing all this that I had leveled 5 times! It’s rare that I don’t pay attention to leveling up, so for me this meant that the game had drawn me in to a degree I can’t remember the last time I experienced. Another great day in the world of Tyria, for sure.Sat, 13 Oct 2012 19:08:06 CSThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=5079&iddiary=9526