Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Consecutive Beta Weekend, Part 1: Path of Exile

A week ago I took part for the Guild Wars 2's Last Beta Weekend, the last of the two race: Sylvari and Asura is finally playable, I took a time exploring their homeworld and their starting area (risking spoiler, I know), Mesmer's gameplay is still engaging, my sylvari's chosen story still feel quite unappealing though, so I'll switch back to charr for the release. The game itself still need smoothing around the edges, and I love the new feature: vista, unlockable stereoscopic vision of an area in a map, they're quite fun to find and reach to (usually involving some jumping puzzle) and it cures some of my past traumas about jumping puzzles (not gonna tell you about it) :P

And last week i decided to suppress my Guild Wars 2 withdrawal with taking on Path of Exile public stress test and City of Steam public alpha stage, I already followed Path of Exile for a while, it's an action MMORPG in a fixed 3d environment just like Diablo 2, created by Grinding Gear Games (GGG) an independent game studio, it'll be free to play when it came out with 'ethical' cash shop

Path of Exile
Path of Exile tells a story of an exile in the world of Wraeclast , a land filled with the worst of nature and sorcery, undeads, mutated kiwis (yep, the developer are New Zealanders :P), there are six class: Marauder (strength-centric melee class), Ranger (ranged), Witch (Intelligence), Duelist (hybrid strength and dexterity), Templar (hybrid strength and intelligence), and Shadow (dexterity and intelligence), although you have your premade setup you can still mix and match every class to your playstyle, your character can wear any weapon and armor if your stats meet the requirements just like Diablo.

Above: Diablo
The original mechanic is somewhat cool, for example: there's no money in Path of Exile because an undead carrying 1 gold coin is absurd and the story implied that money is worthless in Wraeclast, in return you have two scroll, scrolls of wisdom (identify in Diablo) and scroll of portal (yep, town portal) as a currency, when you sell that yellow rare rugged looking breastplate that somehow dropped from a cthullu-looking boss into an NPC you'll get a piece of scrap that can be combined (10 of them) into one scroll of wisdom, you can also getting an orb piece, that can be combined into an orb which present the second awesome mechanism in Path of Exile:

An orb can be used to level up an item, turn plain items into magic ones, add a magic attribute, reforge their quality, randomized some their properties, reset their slot, add a slot, change slot color, or even REMOVE the entire customization you put into the item. It sound complicated but after spending half an hour experimenting with them it was FUN: take a plain saber, turn it into a magic item, toy around with the properties and slots, and equipped it to meet some crazy miniboss, the result is satisfying (a.k.a exploding corpse)

And exploding floortiles
The character skills are also unique, you're not learning your skill from a spellbook or anything, you got them from skill gem (which dropped from chests and sometimes mobs), gems are then slotted into your equipments, and are placed in your hotkey bars, gems come in three colors, red (str), green (dex), and blue (int), you can slot any gem you want and they'll level up in battles, as they level up so does your skill, there's also attribute gem, a gem that can be linked into a linked slot next to your skill gem (if they;re linked) and add an attribute to the skill ex: fire damage linked with cleave = awesome burning foes, you can swap gems in the fly, bringing you lots of skill combinations and attributes, but the rate of level gems also determined by your build, if your stat doesn't have enough int yet then the blue gems probably won't level, this is where the passive skill tree came up


Everytime you leveled up you gain skill points to be invested into the Passive Skill Tree: A skill tree that looks like a Final Fantasy X sphere grid, here you build your character's stat, if you choose Marauder for example: only one tree is unlocked, the strength skill tree but it breaks down into specialization of weapons such as dual wield, single wield, two handed, shield defense, axe, sword, mace, etc. If you choose duelist two skill tree is unlocked: The strength and the dexterity which governs bows, daggers, dual wield, attack speed, evasion, and so on. Yep I drooled when I first see it, imagine what you can build into those characters with so much to choose

With so much customisation and so much properties, gems, and everything else curiously I don't feel stuck, repulsed, or baffled by it. There's some game with complex custom things that repulse me a lot before, but Path of Exile did just right for the customisation (which is still ABUNDANT), I'm having fun playing it, there's also some things to be smoothed though, like the unclear drop rates for gems, also the public party system that doesn't list an instance reset time (let's kill a boss, OMG he's already dead, who killed it? --silence--) but overall trekking through the land filled with undead, demons, goatmans, and mutated kiwis (yay) into an inland unknown feels so.... good (with a lots of 'o'), as usual for the guaranteed beta access and some cash shop coins you can also prepurchase here, I'll admit Path of Exile is a good game and worth your pennies, for investors there are also a diamond pack worth $1000 there, I think I'll stick with the starter pack though :)

Big pool with bloods and human parts? count me in :D

I'll cover up City of Steam on my next post, and for the meanwhile, let's stare at this picture again:

Cute

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Amazing Ultimate Unlimited Review: The Amazing Spiderman

I should've get an achievement called "I finally get my lazy bum to the nearest Theater and watch The Amazing Spiderman (in 3D)", it also creates the hardest review I ever wrote... so the short words would probably: "I'm awesome":))

So let's get to the The Big Question first: Is this Spiderman BETTER than the rest of them? I can honestly answer no, it's not, but it's still a good movie though, you see the real problem with reboot is you always compared them with their predecessor, and in this case: with Sam Raimi's spiderman, you will start comparing the casts, the story, the director, the special effects (if there was).

In my case though rather than just comparing This Spiderman with the original Tobey Maguire's I also started to compare it with an old cartoon series from Saban: called Spider-man Unlimited, it aired during the late 99, here's a synopsis from it:

"While covering the launch of John Jameson's one man mission to Counter-Earth (another Earth located on the far side of the Sun), Spider-Man attempts to stop his two symbiote adversaries Venom and Carnage from boarding the shuttlecraft. Blamed for Jameson losing contact with our Earth, Spider-Man becomes a target of persecution by the media and the public. Believed to be dead after saving a person's life in a fire, Peter Parker uses the ruse to embark on a mission to retrieve John Jameson on Counter-Earth, using nanotechnology borrowed from Reed Richards to design a new suit that incorporates stealth technology and sonic weaponry. Making his way to the planet, Spider-Man learns that Jameson has fallen in with a band of freedom fighters opposed to the High Evolutionary whose Beastials, hybrids of animal and humanoid attributes, are the dominant species whilst humans are the second-class minority" (Wikipedia)

I love the series, Of course I was still in high school at that time and can't dedicate much to watch it, but it was the first time I watch Spiderman in all time badassery, Peter Parker is cool in and out of his suit, and that blue-black-red nanobot suit is badass, the war theme is badass, even Jameson.Jr is badass, of course it's a short lived series but I still can't shake the image, when I first saw Raimi's Spider-Man I always think Tobey Maguire portrayed a rather timid Peter Parker but it fits perfectly with other character especially J.J Jameson, but the ting of badassery resurface again in The Amazing Spiderman, Andrew Garfield portrayed a high schooler Spiderman, true to it's comic theme, complete with it's all teen angst, he's also portrayed a genius, capable to solve complex equations and (again: stay true to the comic) invent his own web-shooter, in other words: This Spiderman is a vigilante punk.

The story is a soap opera, yes, it's a love story between Parker and Stacy without any secrets between them, just a nice flowing sometimes agitated first love, the same captivating theme as in Eureka Seven series without any major shouting dramas, but the problem of the movie is the villain, The Lizard is probably the most forgettable person in the movie despite him being the major villain, it's because the protagonist build a good theme surrounding Parker. the movie is reek of goodness of Parker, if the Tobey-Spidey is the most unknown person in his Parker persona, trying to make ends meet and college on-offing in the harsh uncaring city of New York while being unknown superhero that roams the night, Andrew-Spidey is a shining persona in his friend and family, he's also sometimes portrayed without masks on some occasions (the same reason why Spiderman 2 is the best movie from the previous franchise), the movie humanizes Spiderman and merge him and Peter parker together that you'll start to see they're the same person, known to some people and unknown but still a human to other.

The future of the franchise is also intriguing, you know who's the first Spiderman franchise's most memorable character? Yep,the Green Goblin a.k.a Norman Osborn, the character portrayed by Willem Defoe is so strong it's overshadow Spidey in the first movie, the character is never shown in Amazing Spiderman but always hinted strongly that he'll be the major villain on the next movie. It'll be interesting who's gonna portray him next, I personally like Defoe's Goblin and want to see if the sequel suffers from sequel syndrome. Also this Spiderman is more fit to join the Avengers rather than Tobey-Spidey, everyone will always need a punk running around among the superiority-complex men =))

Overall: Good movie, fresh reboot, heartwarming drama, 7.9/10

I'm just gonna post it here, image from Link


Friday, July 13, 2012

Guild Wars 2 Last Beta Key (CLOSED)

So, it's that time again huh?

1. Guild Wars 2 Guru has a 5 day contest for you
2. Alienware has batches of keys left, grab it in the designated hours
3. As usual Boon and Condition has some interesting contest
4. SteelSeries giveaway
5. Tyrian Order, just put your favorite race there
6. I know it's kinda misleading name but Diablo3x has some beta key left
5. Twitter contest from Kill Ten Rats
6. Gamersbook has several too
7. GW2WvsW, made your own weapon and grab a key!!
8. Caption contest from Chronicles Of Tyria
9. Dragon Season
10. Hello PCGAMER
11. No Beta Key, No Problem, The Pale Tree got several
12. Exitializ Guild got some too
13. GuildWars 2 Journal joined the squad
14. GuildMag
15. You can follow GuildWars2live for some key too
16. Nvidia joined the list
17. Guild Wars 2 Guru replaced GW2WvsW in weapon making contest (EDIT: this is a part of their 5 days giveaway)
18.  Fragcast has some of them left, grab it while you can!
19. An intriguing contest from The Border House

As usual, always see the giveaway/contest closing time, rules, and where to go if you got your key, anyway those sites have respectable rep, I won something from Gamersbook the other day =D

Gamebreaker.TV take a few step forward, rather than beta keys they're giving away one Guild Wars 2 Collector Edition, too bad it's open for US Citizen only, but as I checked out the latest entries it counts 21 thousand entries!! well if you want to test your luck, it's the ultimate challenge =)).

UPDATE: All contest has ended, see you in tyria :)

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

It's Finally Here: Guild Wars 2 release date

I know, I know, I'm a few days late but Guild Wars 2 finally have a release date: August 28, 2012!!! After so many years jumping from one MMO to another finally me and my fellow guildies will be together again on Darkhaven (which probably will be the fullest server) =))


Love the Asura jumping :)