The online store run by Valve corporation, Steam, now has some Free to play games. The 3 games launched on release are 'Global Agenda: Free Agent', 'Champions Online: Free for All' and 'Spiral Knights'. All these games have been classified as MMOs and RPGs.
According to Steam 'Spiral Knights' is the most popular so far and 'Global Agenda: Free Agent' is the least popular. I would have to say, by looking at the system requirements, it is because you need a really strong computer/ laptop to run Global Agenda. I have also read, from ign.com, there is another Free to Play game that was released in America called Alliance of Valiant Arms. Unfortunately it isn't available in Australia at this time so I have no information about it. Head over to Steam to check out the game. Sorry I can't do a full review/ preview on the games, I'm a bit busy with other things at the moment. You can however, expect a review of 'Spiral Knights' when I've played it for a bit.
* Update: I read an article on Steam saying there will be 5 games released starting with today (Wednesday) and going until Sunday. So that means regions that don't currently have certain Free to play games will get them within the week. The 5th game will be 'Forsaken Worlds'
That's all, Happy Gaming.
Posts are in the topic links. the latest post is showed on the homepage: Image I used for title: http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-07/art/mlpit-mario-baby-hammer.jpg
Showing posts with label PC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PC. Show all posts
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Friday, 3 June 2011
Terraria- Not a 2D Minecraft
Platform: PC
Rating: PG, E10+
Release Date: Out now
What is Terraria? Terraria is a 2D, side-scrolling, indie game developed by Re-Logic. The game is described as an action/adventure RPG. There are several people who have watched the trailer and played the game who say it is just a 2D version of Minecraft. There are others who will argue that it isn’t. Well let me tell you, it isn’t. Yes, there are some features that appear in both games, like a day/night cycle, mining and gathering resources, fighting monsters (but doesn’t every game have that these days?) and building things. When I say building things I mean building a house so you have a safe area. These features that seem to appear in both games don’t make them the same. It’s like saying every FPS copied Catacomb 3-D because it is played in a first person perspective and you can shoot stuff.
Now that I have cleared up the Minecraft comparison let’s get to some gameplay. The first thing you do in Terraria before you go into your first randomly generated world is create your character. You can customise his hair style, hair colour, skin tone, shirt colour, pants colour and colour of the shoes. After that you name your character and are ready to go. The good thing about these characters is when you play a new world your character doesn’t lose any of his items you find in other worlds. In other words, let’s say I made a light saber (well it isn’t called a light saber but it acts like one) in my single player world, I could take it with me to another single player world or to my friend’s multiplayer world. This concept is very cool and I think more games should have it. I don’t think there is a limit to the amount of characters you can make too.
When starting out with a new character you are given a pickaxe and a hatchet/axe. Weapons never run out in Terraria so the only reason you have to craft stronger weapons is if you want to mine certain things that require a stronger weapon. The first thing you do in a new world is search for trees. With trees you can get wood (the foundation for most things in Terraria). Before you even start to create something the next thing you need is dirt. Why dirt you ask? Well even though the game is 2D, monsters can still get in your house/ safe area if you don’t have any walls. To create the walls you must open your inventory and scroll down the handy list on the side of the screen which shows you what you can create with the items you have in your inventory. After making a large amount of dirt wall you place it in one of your ten hand spots and left click to place it on the wall. Resources are very abundant in Terraria. The reason why this is is because you need so many resources to craft items. For example, you need 3 iron ore to craft an iron bar and you need about 7 iron bars to craft an iron sword. That means you need about 21 iron ore to craft the iron sword. So when you think about it, everything evens out in the end when it comes to resource collection to creation.
You can collect coins from monsters and jars you find underground. You use these coins to buy items and health when NPCs come to live in your house. To have an NPC stay with you they need their own room. This room must include a door, bed, table and chair. The NPCs I have met are; a nurse, a demolitions man, a merchant and an arms dealer. There is also a guide who automatically spawns at the start of the game. Right clicking on the guide gives you some hints and tips about survival in the game. All NPCs (except the guide) can be killed by monsters that lurk in the world of Terraria. But don’t worry; they spawn again after a few minutes anyway.
Terraria plays a little bit like the old Mario games. You can’t jump up through most objects in Terraria. But you can craft wooden platforms and place them on walls etc. The platforms act a little like the big mushrooms that you can jump on in Super Mario Bros. These are the only objects you can jump through. These prove very useful when trying to get up from caves that you have dug (or you could just go deeper and kill skeleton to get a hook to create a grappling hook). Another thing you could say it has in common with Mario is that mushrooms keep you alive; well they don’t work the same but still. In Terraria you start with 5 hearts which each equal 20 health. Meaning you start with 100 health. You can find giant hearts in caves that increase the maximum number of hearts you can have.
When you die in Terraria there isn’t much penalty. You will lose some coins that you are carrying but other than that all your items you are carrying are safe. You can decide whether that is good or bad when it comes to the difficulty. There is only one level of difficulty in Terraria too.
Where Terraria goes a stray from Minecraft (besides everything I mentioned before) is that you are more focused on digging for resources to create weapons and items to help you kill all the monsters in Terraria. The amount of monsters in Terraria is amazing. From zombies to flying eye balls to killer worms, this game has them all. There are even boss fights (which are hell with just one person)!
The controls are very basic. You use the Arrow keys to move left, right and down. You use space to jump and ESC opens the inventory; although I recommend changing that to E. You can scroll through your hand inventory using the mouse wheel or you can choose the slot with the number keys. Left mouse click performs most actions in Terraria and unlike Minecraft you must be holding a weapon to attack. For example, when holding a torch you can’t attack enemies, you can only place them.
The music in Terraria fits the scene perfectly. At times when nothing is happening there is peaceful music that makes you feel like you are safe. The further underground you get the more the music becomes dramatic. During the boss fight me and my friend encountered the music was really fast moving, it made the scene feel ‘epic’. When mining ores you here a sound of metal hitting metal (what you would expect to here). Even the laser sword sounds like a light saber should. It may not seem important to some people but music and sounds in a game can sometimes make or break it.
Final Comments:
Terraria is a fun cheap game that can provide hours of entertainment in single player and multiplayer. Most computers are fast enough to run this game so I recommend you jump on Steam and purchase it. The resource collection to creation is evened out fairly well and Re-Logic are constantly putting out updates for it.
Rating: 8/10
Rating: PG, E10+
Release Date: Out now
What is Terraria? Terraria is a 2D, side-scrolling, indie game developed by Re-Logic. The game is described as an action/adventure RPG. There are several people who have watched the trailer and played the game who say it is just a 2D version of Minecraft. There are others who will argue that it isn’t. Well let me tell you, it isn’t. Yes, there are some features that appear in both games, like a day/night cycle, mining and gathering resources, fighting monsters (but doesn’t every game have that these days?) and building things. When I say building things I mean building a house so you have a safe area. These features that seem to appear in both games don’t make them the same. It’s like saying every FPS copied Catacomb 3-D because it is played in a first person perspective and you can shoot stuff.
Now that I have cleared up the Minecraft comparison let’s get to some gameplay. The first thing you do in Terraria before you go into your first randomly generated world is create your character. You can customise his hair style, hair colour, skin tone, shirt colour, pants colour and colour of the shoes. After that you name your character and are ready to go. The good thing about these characters is when you play a new world your character doesn’t lose any of his items you find in other worlds. In other words, let’s say I made a light saber (well it isn’t called a light saber but it acts like one) in my single player world, I could take it with me to another single player world or to my friend’s multiplayer world. This concept is very cool and I think more games should have it. I don’t think there is a limit to the amount of characters you can make too.
When starting out with a new character you are given a pickaxe and a hatchet/axe. Weapons never run out in Terraria so the only reason you have to craft stronger weapons is if you want to mine certain things that require a stronger weapon. The first thing you do in a new world is search for trees. With trees you can get wood (the foundation for most things in Terraria). Before you even start to create something the next thing you need is dirt. Why dirt you ask? Well even though the game is 2D, monsters can still get in your house/ safe area if you don’t have any walls. To create the walls you must open your inventory and scroll down the handy list on the side of the screen which shows you what you can create with the items you have in your inventory. After making a large amount of dirt wall you place it in one of your ten hand spots and left click to place it on the wall. Resources are very abundant in Terraria. The reason why this is is because you need so many resources to craft items. For example, you need 3 iron ore to craft an iron bar and you need about 7 iron bars to craft an iron sword. That means you need about 21 iron ore to craft the iron sword. So when you think about it, everything evens out in the end when it comes to resource collection to creation.
You can collect coins from monsters and jars you find underground. You use these coins to buy items and health when NPCs come to live in your house. To have an NPC stay with you they need their own room. This room must include a door, bed, table and chair. The NPCs I have met are; a nurse, a demolitions man, a merchant and an arms dealer. There is also a guide who automatically spawns at the start of the game. Right clicking on the guide gives you some hints and tips about survival in the game. All NPCs (except the guide) can be killed by monsters that lurk in the world of Terraria. But don’t worry; they spawn again after a few minutes anyway.
Terraria plays a little bit like the old Mario games. You can’t jump up through most objects in Terraria. But you can craft wooden platforms and place them on walls etc. The platforms act a little like the big mushrooms that you can jump on in Super Mario Bros. These are the only objects you can jump through. These prove very useful when trying to get up from caves that you have dug (or you could just go deeper and kill skeleton to get a hook to create a grappling hook). Another thing you could say it has in common with Mario is that mushrooms keep you alive; well they don’t work the same but still. In Terraria you start with 5 hearts which each equal 20 health. Meaning you start with 100 health. You can find giant hearts in caves that increase the maximum number of hearts you can have.
When you die in Terraria there isn’t much penalty. You will lose some coins that you are carrying but other than that all your items you are carrying are safe. You can decide whether that is good or bad when it comes to the difficulty. There is only one level of difficulty in Terraria too.
Where Terraria goes a stray from Minecraft (besides everything I mentioned before) is that you are more focused on digging for resources to create weapons and items to help you kill all the monsters in Terraria. The amount of monsters in Terraria is amazing. From zombies to flying eye balls to killer worms, this game has them all. There are even boss fights (which are hell with just one person)!
The controls are very basic. You use the Arrow keys to move left, right and down. You use space to jump and ESC opens the inventory; although I recommend changing that to E. You can scroll through your hand inventory using the mouse wheel or you can choose the slot with the number keys. Left mouse click performs most actions in Terraria and unlike Minecraft you must be holding a weapon to attack. For example, when holding a torch you can’t attack enemies, you can only place them.
The music in Terraria fits the scene perfectly. At times when nothing is happening there is peaceful music that makes you feel like you are safe. The further underground you get the more the music becomes dramatic. During the boss fight me and my friend encountered the music was really fast moving, it made the scene feel ‘epic’. When mining ores you here a sound of metal hitting metal (what you would expect to here). Even the laser sword sounds like a light saber should. It may not seem important to some people but music and sounds in a game can sometimes make or break it.
Final Comments:
Terraria is a fun cheap game that can provide hours of entertainment in single player and multiplayer. Most computers are fast enough to run this game so I recommend you jump on Steam and purchase it. The resource collection to creation is evened out fairly well and Re-Logic are constantly putting out updates for it.
Rating: 8/10
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
Quick Update 24-5-11
Over the next couple of weeks a few articles will be posted. I am currently writing a Terraria review and compiling my list of far shot E3 predictions. You can expect more stuff on MW3 over the next few weeks. And then a rap up of stuff from E3.
On to other news. Modern Warfare 3 has been officially announced and there is now a reveal trailer up on http://www.callofduty.com/mw3. There is no mention of RavenSoft doing anything with the game. So we can assume the multiplayer is to be done by either InfinityWard or Sledgehammer Games. MW3 will be released on 8th November this year. I haven't played any of the MW campaign but it seems that the game will be set in several different countries including America, England, France and Germany. Be sure to check the gaming website you use to get more info on the game as it emerges. The game hasn't been rated and it is unsure what consoles the game will come out on but you can expect X-box 360, PS3, pc and probably Wii are all set in stone.
On other news I have a Youtube channel now. I will be putting up some Terraria videos and maybe some other stuff. The channel is BlazeFury000. Make sure you subscribe.
That's all for today. Happy Gaming.
On to other news. Modern Warfare 3 has been officially announced and there is now a reveal trailer up on http://www.callofduty.com/mw3. There is no mention of RavenSoft doing anything with the game. So we can assume the multiplayer is to be done by either InfinityWard or Sledgehammer Games. MW3 will be released on 8th November this year. I haven't played any of the MW campaign but it seems that the game will be set in several different countries including America, England, France and Germany. Be sure to check the gaming website you use to get more info on the game as it emerges. The game hasn't been rated and it is unsure what consoles the game will come out on but you can expect X-box 360, PS3, pc and probably Wii are all set in stone.
On other news I have a Youtube channel now. I will be putting up some Terraria videos and maybe some other stuff. The channel is BlazeFury000. Make sure you subscribe.
That's all for today. Happy Gaming.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Battlefield: Play4Free review
Platform: PC
Release: Out now
Players: Online only (32 players)
Rating: ESRB- T
PEGI- 16+
Minimum Hardware Requirements
Battlefield: Play4Free is an online FPS by EA games. The game is free, as the title suggests, and is currently an open beta. As many of you may have guessed, Battlefield: Play4Free’s game play is similar to that of Battlefield’s. I’m not sure how much time EA will actually put into this game because I’m sure that Battlefield 3 would be number 1 on the agenda. I’ve never played a Battlefield game but have seen it being played. The Battlefield series is one of the best war simulation games out and I think Battlefield 3 will rival CoD once it is released.
Release: Out now
Players: Online only (32 players)
Rating: ESRB- T
PEGI- 16+
Minimum Hardware Requirements
Operating system: Windows XP or Windows Vista
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz
RAM: 512 MB (1 GB on Windows Vista)
Video card: 256 MB, Pixel shader 2.0, DirectX 9.0c
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible
Hard Drive space: 1 GB
Internet connection: 256 kbit
Battlefield: Play4Free is an online FPS by EA games. The game is free, as the title suggests, and is currently an open beta. As many of you may have guessed, Battlefield: Play4Free’s game play is similar to that of Battlefield’s. I’m not sure how much time EA will actually put into this game because I’m sure that Battlefield 3 would be number 1 on the agenda. I’ve never played a Battlefield game but have seen it being played. The Battlefield series is one of the best war simulation games out and I think Battlefield 3 will rival CoD once it is released.
B:P4F’s game play doesn’t change much compared to the other Battlefield games. You create a soldier and choose what class you want him to be then join a match. The classes are; Assault, Medic, Engineer and Recon. The Assault class carries an assault rifle and has the ability to supply team mates with ammo. The medic carries a LMG and can heal team mates. The Engineer carries a RPG and submachine gun and has the ability to repair vehicles. The Recon class has a sniper rifle and uses a motion sensor to show enemy locations to their team mates. They also have claymore mines to set traps.
On the map there are various vehicles that players can operate. There are tanks, helicopters and speed boats, just to name a few. One of the maps can be a real pain if you are without a vehicle because people jump in a plane or helicopter and bomb you from above. And unless you are an Engineer with a RPG, you can’t do anything about it. I was actually surprised by the amount of vehicles on the maps. Sometimes there were about 5 tanks firing at each other. This game excels other games in war simulation and FPS mainly because of what it looks like when you are driving a vehicle. The first time I jumped in a car I was amazed. The reason I was amazed was because the view you get is the windscreen. You can move your head to look around but while driving you stay in the First Person view.
The HUD shows you which button to press for each weapon/tool you are carrying, which was a big help. There is no kill cam or even a moving camera when you die. All that happens is you get a front view of the person who killed you. It’s a shame that there is only one game type. The creators said this new game type stops campers, but it doesn’t. All you have to do in one of the maps is capture the command post and then station some snipers and a medic on the roofs. There are only 2 maps in the game as well so if you don’t like a particular map then you aren’t in luck because every second game will be on it.
Your soldier gains XP for loads of things in B:P4F. Kills, healing, repairing, assists and tracer assists are just some of the
many ways to earn XP. You even earn XP every time your bullet hits an enemy. When you level up you gain 1 training point. You use training point to upgrade skills and learn new ones, depending on what class you are. There are quite a few skills to develop and it will take you a while to unlock them all. While competing in matches you gain in game currency. You can also purchase Battle Funds with real money. As with most free online shooters, when you buy guns you only get them for a certain amount of time. With Battle Funds you can buy guns to own forever. With normal currency you can only have them for a maximum of 3 days before you have to buy it again.
The default controls for B:P4F can make your hand sore after a while. To crouch you have to hold ctrl. This gets very annoying when you are trying to walk without being seen. It would be good if they added an option that allows you to stay in crouch with just one press of the ctrl button. You use the mouse to aim down the sights and shoot, just like most other FPS. You use the numbers to select weapons and tools. The bad thing about this is that it gets difficult to melee people. When you select the knife button you don’t hold the knife, you use it straight away. This gets tricky in mid combat. This is the same with grenades. Countless times I nearly blew myself up because I forgot that pressing 6 (my grenade button) threw the grenade straight away. But other then that the controls are set out pretty good.
Final Comments:
You don’t need a fast computer to play this game. My computer is can’t play most PC games because it is only has a Celeron 1.66GHz CPU. But this game ran fairly well if I turned down the graphics. The game is fairly balanced but needs more maps and game types if it is to become successful. This is a great game to play if you want a change from CoD and Halo before Battlefield 3 comes out. The teams need to be a little more balanced though. Sometimes a team has no medics and about 7 Recon soldiers.
Rating:
7.5/10
Sources:
Nathan
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