Game review: Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013

Hello there my followers and readers! Today I'll be writing about something kind of new. Something that I've never wrote about. A card game!

Yep, that's right! I'll be reviewing Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013. I know It's kind of weird for me to jump from FPS games and RPG games to card games, but what can I say? If i get a chance to review, I'll do so!

A bit about the game and developers.
MGT:Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is actually a game based on a real life strategy card game called, yes you've guessed it, Magic The Gathering. It was made by Stainless Games but It's being published by Wizards of the Coast. They are the original owner of MTG card game, and of Dungeon and Dragons board game. So yea, they are pretty famous.

About Gameplay. 

MTG: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is a card game in which you have to beat certain campaign enemies to unlock new decks. You can always pay with real money, but I think that beating campaign bosses is always much more fun! Gameplay of this game is pretty simple - pick a card you want and woala, you do it until you lose or win the game. And therefore, I'll talk a bit more about game's features and explain the game a bit more for those who do not know it.

So, MTG is based on 5 colors which are called mana. Blue, Green, Red, Black and White. All of them have their own strengths and weakness. Everyone should pick a mana that would go with their play style the best. My girl, for example, chose blue and white combination because she loves strong creatures and great defense, while i chose green and black because i love numerous, big creatures and dark spells that allow me to re-summon my fallen creatures. So you chose the play style you want!

In MTG:DotP 2013 you can't build your own deck which is good on one hand, and bad on the other. Good - everyone is the same. Bad - it, in my opinion, gets very boring after a while. You can always get more expansions (DLC's) to get more decks as I have, but once again, it still gets kind of boring after a while.

To unlock a deck you first need to beat campaigns. That can be a bit tricky because some bosses are very tough to beat and you need to have a lot of luck in your cards and you gotta think of a good strategy at the same moment. Once you unlock a deck, you need to use it often to be able to unlock all cards in it. Each deck starts with 60 cards, but you can unlock 30 more by beating either campaigns with it, or playing online with friends.

Multiplayer has three different game modes. Two-headed giant, Free for All and Planeschase. In Two-headed giant you team up with your friend (girlfriend in my case) and you battle against other two players or two bots. You and your teammate share an amount of 30 HP in stead of normal 20. The same goes for your opponents. This mode is very fun to play.
Free for all is a game mode in which you go 1 vs 1 with the other player.
Planeschase is a very confusing multiplayer game mode. Even I am still not fully sure how it works. There's a pack of cards in the middle of the table. There are 4 people at one game, everyone for themselves. You pick up one card (Planeswalk) and it may either give you a boost to your current turn, it might take your hp or creatures away, or it will simply do nothing. It's all about luck in the little dice that each of the players has to toss.

MTG has five main phases. Upkeep, in which you untap all creatures and mana that you've used in the earlier turn, main phase in which you cast enchants, powerful spells and summon stealthy rogues or gigantic wolves. After main phase there is a combat phase in which you chose with which creatures do you want to attack your opponent. Your opponent can then chose if he wants to block your creatures or not. If he wants to, he has to point which creature of his will block which creature that you control. After attack-block phase, there is another main phase in which you can also summon any spells or creatures that you weren't able to, or didn't want to in the first main phase. And then there's the end phase, in which you actually do nothing. In all of this phases, you or your opponent can press "stop timer", which will then stop the current phase and allow you to cast any instant spells that you wanted to.

I can't really teach you how to play MTG over a review, but luckily the tutorial in this game is so good that you will learn everything from it.

Graphic and Audio
Now I can't really say much about graphic since its a card game. Everything you see are cards. But visuals on them are beautiful and that's one of a lot of reasons why i just love Magic The Gathering in general. Songs on the other hand, in this game, is great! Some of the audio might get a bit boring, but most of it is just wonderful and I love to listen to it while i play.

Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Unique gameplay.
- Beautiful visuals on the cards.
- Very helpful tutorials for those who have yet to learn.
- Various decks to chose from.
- Fun multiplayer gameplay.
- In some games you can see foil cards which add a nice flashing effect to the game.

Cons:
- Some decks can only be gained by buying DLC's.
- Sometimes timer is just too fast, while the other times it's too slow.

Overall grade: 9/10

Extra Info: As a long term Magic the Gathering fan, I suggest you to get this game! If you want to play Magic the gathering, but don't want to spend fortune on Magic Online, or on MTG in real life, then this game is for you. It's very fun and great, and i deeply recommend it!

Wolfie



 Also, there's one great shop which offers a lot of collectable cards and items for Magic The Gathering, and for other things! I really like it and I hope that you'll also check it out!

A small update about TSW review

Hello guys!
I just found out that my TSW account IS NOT trial, and therefore i will do another TSW review in about a month or so, after decent amount of time put into it!

Thank you a lot Funcom!
Wolfie

Game review: The Secret World

My dear readers, today I'll be writing about something slightly different. First of all, it's a MMORPG... Second, it's a modern time MMORPG! Yes, that's right, it's The Secret World!

A bit about the game and developers.

The Secret World has been developed and published by a very known company called Funcom. Funcom is a company behind a few very known games such as Age of Conan, Bloodline Champions, Anarchy Online and few others.
The Secret World is a pretty new game and it used to require monthly fee but that has been removed. This is more like a puzzle MMORPG in modern times. You got this kind of special power and a faction chooses you to fight for them, do missions and so on and on.

About Gameplay. 
As said earlier The Secret World is a MMORPG. But in this game there are no levels. Instead of that, you need to fulfill xp bar at the bottom of your screen to get Ability Points (AP) and Skill Points (SP). Getting them is actually very, very easy, but using them might be a bit tricky for a beginner like me. SP is used to make your weapons stronger or to allow you to wear better talismans (equipment). AP is used to obtain new skills or spells., depending on the weapons that you use. Yea, that's right, this game doesn't have any classes. You can combine two weapons and just use them as you please. I started off as dual-handed pistol user, and as soon as i "leveled up" i chose to also be able to use assault rifles. Bear in mind that you can't use weapon without using at least 1 point on it's skill tree first.

Therefore, it's a bit tricky, but once you decide what you want it becomes easy. I totally failed at it. I started off with dual pistols and assault rifle, then I decided to use shotgun instead of assault rifle, but then I decided to use sword instead! So yea, I wasted a big amount of ability points, hehe. Skill points are a lot harder to gain than AP, and you need to use them very, very wisely. You get 1 SP per full xp bar, and you need a lot of SP to rank up what you need. For example, you rank your pistol damage by 1, and to rank it up till 2 you need to use 2 SP instead of just 1! Then to rank it to 3 you need to use 3 SP. And so on and on. So you better think five times before choosing! At least I was smart enough to always keep 3+ of SP unused in case i get something that I want to wear but don't have good enough SP for it.

There is also just a certain amount of skills / spells and passive abilities that you can use at the same time. You have 7 usable skills slots, and 7 passive skill slots. So you have to chose what do you want in your skills wisely, because trust me, in combat you don't have any time to change it. You can't just right-click enemies in this game. You need to keep spamming your skill buttons to make your character attack the creature (or player). Also, running around is crucial part of this game. You need to dodge a lot of attacks and you need to run away non-stop because there is usually always more than just 1 opponent that is trying to get you. There are usually four to five zombies or something. It's hard but once you learn it, it's no big deal.

Bad thing about TSW is that you can only have five quests at the same moment, and therefore you need to run around a lot. You can have 1 main mission and four side missions. You aren't required to do any side missions but they are sometimes fun. While other times they are so annoying and hard that you (well, I) just abandon them.

Which brings us to the other very unique, sometimes good and other times bad part of this game. As i said earlier, this MMO is a puzzle game. Which means that when you get a mission, you get no help. For example NPC tells you "There is a camp on a road." and a short quest description is "find a camp"... So yea.. What road? What camp? Where? Who? Why me and not the other player? So I couldn't help myself but to open up google on my browser and search for walkthroughs of some quests. Some of them are so easy that you'd never guess what you have to do. Which also makes this game very fun to play, and very enjoyable.

I would talk about PVP but sadly I have never managed to enter battleground, and you can't just pvp between factions. In fact, I have seen Illuminati that were in party with Templars. So yea, sadly I can't tell you anything about that. I also can't tell you much about worlds, because I was sure I'd die if i leave the place I currently am, but as much as I've seen by my play time.. The world should be pretty big!




Graphic and Audio
I was very surprised when it comes to graphic and audio of this game. Songs are very quiet, relaxing but "modern" and I love them. Especially the intro screen one. I once just  opened the game up, turned my speakers up and wrote to June while I was listening to the The Secret World song in the background!
Graphic is very beautiful and effects are very nice and sometimes stunning. I really enjoyed watching this game. And the HUD is awesome! It's very small and simple so you can have whole game screen for watching, and no big mini-map or chat window to bother you.

Story -- EPIC SPOILERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! --
Okay so The Secret World is one of those MMO's which is mainly based on story than PvP in my opinion. There are a lot of different main missions in TSW and I sadly didn't finish even first one. They are long and hard, but extremely fun! And cinematic of the game are amazing as well.
Your first main mission is to clear one town from a fog that turns innocent people into zombies and some other very weird creatures. You have to do a lot of puzzles to get where you want to and this is one more good, unique experience. I won't be telling you anything about the story since it would reveal way too much spoilers :P

Pros, cons and final grade.
Pros:
- Unique puzzle quests.
- No leveling system, which is also sort-of unique.
- You can use any weapon at almost any time.
- Amazing graphic and audio.
- Awesome HUD.
- Great storyline!
- Great community.
- Decent customization

Cons:
- Didn't manage to see any PvP in a week of gameplay.
- SP is hard to get on beginning of the game, and is very, very needed.
- Some Puzzles may be slightly too hard for some people (like me :P )
- No armors, just "style" clothing.

Total gade: 8/10

Extra Info: TSW is very fun and unique MMORPG and If you're searching for something challenging and new, this is surely a game for you! I'd keep on playing this MMO but sadly I just got 30 day pass to the game so I don't want to get overly attached to it yet! Anyway, I recommend this game to anyone who wants something different.
P.S. Yes I did make my char look a bit like me :P

Wolfie

Blog experiments

Heya readers!

As you may have seen I've changed my background and some other stuff about my blogs look. That will keep happening from today and will change for few days. I want it to get a new, fresh, "cyber" look. But since I am no artist, i can't make it myself. I always loved honeycombs and therefore I would love to have a "cyber" looking honeycomb as a background, but I can't just steal someone's artwork. So yea, I'm sorry if the blog changes it's look few times a day, but I'd like to experiment until it looks.... "Pro", if you know what I mean!

Thank you all for bearing with me!
Wolfie

Game Review: Forge

Hello my dear fans! I'm back from Czech Republic and I'm here to review Forge!

A bit about the game and developers.
Forge has been developed and published by a studio called Dark Vale games. For some reason I'm very sure that I've rode somewhere that they developed more games, but I can't seem to find that, and therefore I have no idea if they developed more games than just Forge.
Forge is a PvP oriented game in which you pick your champion and fight other players. It reminds me of Smite, but this game is more unique.

About Gameplay. 

Forge is a game in which you chose your champion and you battle other players. I'd say its something like SMITE because of it's third person camera, skills and so on and on, but in my opinion this game is better. You can jump from wall to wall like you're some kind of ninja, you can run over walls, run around and ambush your enemies!
The maps are rather huge, therefore, your options are huge too. There are three types of games for now, but more will come later. For now there are only Capture the Relic, Arena and Team Deathmatch  game types.
In Team Deathmatch your objective is to kill 40 enemies within 15 minutes. I have never played Capture the Relic due to lack of players, but as much as I've seen from running around maps (all by myself :P ) I'm guessing that it's just a normal capture the flag game. It seems fun, I wish i had the chance to play it!
I also never managed to play Arena either. Name of this game mode makes me think that this is 1v1 arena or something, but seeing that 16 people can join on each side made me very confused. Therefore, I really can't tell you much from this game mode.

As i said, there are various champions in this game. There is an Assassin, Pathfinder, Pyromancer, Shaman and Warden. Each of this heroes has his own bonuses and drawbacks.
Assassin is class which can go into darkness and ambush enemies, as well as drag one person with him to the "ghost arena" in which no one is except those two. That's a great bonus to Assassin since good assassin is deadly on 1v1!
Pathfinder is a ranger, who uses various traps and various arrows to stun / poison / slow down enemies. I mostly played this character because it seems the most fun to play. Though, it's kind of hard to aim at moving targets hehe.

Pyromancer is, in my opinion, overpowered class. You expect that Mage should have powerful
attack but should lack defence. Well not in this game. Every hero is kind of weak in this game, and therefore Mage is freakin hard to kill. He deals massive damage and if you get closer, he pushes you away. VERY far away.
Shaman is a healer class. If played well, he's great. If played by a noob such as myself, it's useless and terrible class.
Warden is the tank class. Her (its a woman. With boobies and everything.) hp is huge, and so is her defense, but her attacks are in my opinion useless. Her charge is great if you time it well, but she is very weak.
This game is very new and it requires a lot of fixes and boosts which, I am sure, will come with the next new patches!

The more you play, the more experience you gain to use them on any champion you want. That's how you level him up. The higher level your champion is, the more damage you do, the faster you are and more health you get. Also, very often I've heard that this game has customization. And that is true, but it is not look customization. It's customization of your speed, hp and so on and on. You upgrade it as you advance. I am pretty sure they might add some look customization as well.

Maps are very huge but there's only three of them that I've seen so far. As i said earlier, you can jump from wall to wall to get a higher altitude. You can run all over rooftops. Now, main drawback to this game is.. There are no players. I've put only 2 hours into the game because I could never find any server. And when ever i find a server, It's always with the same people.

Graphic and Audio
Now a thing that surprised me a lot. First of all, I wanna start by saying that i thought this game will not have any songs except in menu or what ever. I was wrong. There is a quiet background song that plays non-stop in game, and I love it. It doesn't annoy you, in stead it makes you calm but still fired up. It's very nice.
Graphic is stunning. I was also playing a bit with it, and the graphic is beautiful in both medium and high, so don't worry about that! The only bad thing is that it lacks resolutions. It's very limited. I don't have the one i need (1680x1050)... If you're curious if the game supports your window size, write bellow and I'll let you know!

 Pros, cons and final grade.

 Pros:

- Beautiful graphic and audio.
- Ability to jump from wall to wall.
- Large maps on which you play.
- All champions have their own unique abilities
- Unique leveling system.

Cons:
- Lack of players.
- Lack of resolutions.

Overall grade: 7/10

Extra info: You can buy this awesome game by pressing THIS link. Come on, show some love to this new developers! They are very friendly. And as i said, this game is extremely fun to play! I just wish i had more people to play it with.

Wolfie


Giveaway:
Thanks to our great Dark Vale studios, I got three copies of Forge to give away! All those from group go here: Forge giveaways
Thank you a lot Dark Vale!

Happy New Year!

Hello everybody!

As you all know, I'm currently in Czech with my dear June. I do not have any time to write a review of a game, but I will do it as soon as I get home. June and I have been playing a lot of Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 so expect a nice review of it!

Thank you all for taking your time to visit my blog even though i do not write :)
Happy New Year to all of you and we (June and I) wish you everything best in the upcoming year :)

Wolfie