Month: March 2017

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!’.

For more information check out the link below:

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FlintHook. Coming with pirate treasure action

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Flinthook is a new action adventure game, developed by ‘Tribute Games Inc’, coming out on the 18th of April for Xbox One, PC and PS4. Straight up we just have to say that this game does look cool. When we saw the name of the game… well… we weren’t impressed but we always give games a chance. We are glad again that we did.

In the world of Flinthook, you play a pirate called ‘Flinthook’ who loves treasure (who doesn’t?) and he zips into action because a certain treasure hunter “hatches a sinister plan to unleash an ancient evil to threaten the cosmos itself” according to their website. This character Flinthook is armed with his hookshot to zip around rooms and for that mobility advantage, his blasma pistol by the way that’s not a typo it’s actually Blasma pistol, is for blasting and taking the enemies out and his Chrono-belt once charged can slow down time making combat and evading projectiles much easier. This is a nice set of equipment. Offensive, mobility and atmospheric. Nice.

Now how the game looks and especially, how you travel from room to room, reminds us of Metroid. That’s a good thing as Metroid is an excellent game. This does have it’s own style though and does well by it. The levels which are pirate ships are randomly generated which is always nice to have in these types of games. The rooms contain different treasures and thanks to the randomness, you won’t know what you will get. The skills required for this game is once again reflexes and the ability to watch the whole screen. You will be zipping around to move and dodge attacks while shooting in any direction you want as it’s 360 degrees. 

Flinthook seems to be going after and hunting down the ‘Cluster clan’, which by the way have tough bosses. We don’t know much about the bosses but we heard that they aren’t supposed to be easy. Let’s hope that they do in fact pose a threat. There are also powerful perk cards and rare relics. You can unlock new equippable perks as you level up, get lore pages (lore about what though?) and buy permanent upgrades in the Black Market. There seems to be quite a few things to do in this game. 

We have checked out some gameplay of Flinthook and we like what we see. It’s fast paced, requires reflexes and flows nicely. It looks nice. The graphics for it’s style, looks good. The music is nice for what is going on. 

Overall Flinthook looks like a good fun game. It seems simple enough even though it will require some gamers to get practice. The developers ‘Tribute Games Inc’ did a good job with this game and we at X35 Earthwalker are looking forward to what this game brings. This game is worth checking out. Whether Flinthook is your thing or not… what is your thing is though is the the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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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!’

For more information check out the link below:

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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!’

For more information check out the link below:

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Deathtrap’s Mercenary and Sorceress

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

X35 Earthwalker has been playing World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap  for a good while now and has been using all three character classes which are: Mercenary, Sorceress and Marksman. For now we are going to focus on the Mercenary and Sorceress only. Both classes are powerful in their own way and have different combat styles to consider.

The Mercenary is a the big strong, durable guy. He is simple to understand and simple to use. He has lots of health, able to stand up to the hordes and brawl it out by himself. No player has any excuse for dying as a Mercenary. With that much health, there is no excuse. In terms of armour, accessories and weapons the best thing to do is aim for increasing his resistance to damages and how much physical damage he can give as much as possible. Don’t worry too much about traps as the real monster in the game is the Mercenary. Traps are there just to slow down and soften the horde up for you. X35 Earthwalkers Mercenary has such high health and resistance that some enemies are just incapable of killing him. There was this Quag devourer champion which kept hitting X35 but it did so little damage that his regeneration kept healing him faster. X35 ended up just standing there for a while laughing at the fact that this creature would never kill him, even in an hours time. Having extremely high physical damage + the Bash ability = the strongest move in the game. X35 Earthwalkers Bash ability currently does 15563 damage per hit, which is absurd. Champions and even bosses die quick in his presence. The mercenary isn’t weak against horde enemies at all. Hordes are countered mainly by two abilities: Frost ring and Fire strike. Frost ring is the ultimate ability that every Mercenary player should have. It creates a powerful ice ring around you that hits everything around you rapidly at a generous range and even a chance of freezing them. Fire strike sends a trail of fire that passes through anything in it’s path dealing heavy fire damage. Both abilities can wipe out hordes with one use. The mercenary isn’t a joke.

The Sorceress is the soft, gentle but seriously powerful lady. She is sort of difficult to use but still easy to understand. She has little health. So there is no reason why your Sorceress should be receiving hugs from the horde. She has to stay at mid to long range obliterating everything. Her ice bolt is your main means of annoying the horde. It does nice damage but also freezes horde and normal enemies but slows down horde and giant enemies. Spam the ice out of that move! Lightning is your horde control. It deals heavy damage to everything it hits as it passes through enemies and stuns them for a very short time. The best type of armour and accessories for her are health and damage. Extra health will at least help her survive longer in the field, especially when dealing with ranged enemies while the damage is pretty obvious. She hits hard already but when you increase that (like lightning damage) her attacks can end up one shot-ing lots of enemies. She is the best map controller as she has abilities that stay active on the field for a while such as: Spectral serpent and Spool of fire. Spectral serpent creates a snake that sits there and fires poison damage at enemies that come by. Spool of fire creates a fire pillar from above that tracks enemies and deals continuous fire damage. Plant a spectral serpent and spool of fire on one lane while you go and focus down another lane. Both abilities combined will give the horde lots of trouble. One of her most versatile abilities is Teleport. This can be used to make her travel much faster around the map as it’s faster than running. It can also allow you to jump from lane to lane instead of following the path, saving you travel time. Also once upgraded you can travel seriously far, heal per teleport and inflict damage on the enemy. The Sorceress is pretty… pretty dangerous if you ask us!

So who is better at what? The Mercenary has much higher health and has the highest damaging move in the game. The Sorceress is faster and has greater mobility thanks to Teleport. The Sorceress can freeze enemies with Ice bolt but so can the Mercenary with Frost ring. The Sorceress can  jump between lanes and cross big gaps in an instant thanks to Teleport once again while the Mercenary must always take the long way. The Mercenary has more versatile skills. For example he has Bash for heavy damage, Frost ring for hordes, Chain snare to pull enemies away from the gate and straight into your fist and Battle roar to make all allied creatures crazily powerful. There isn’t a situation that a Mercenary is bad at. He can even use himself to block enemies from reaching the gate due to his high health. Lastly he has two great passive abilities that increase the health and damage of all allied creatures. The Sorceress has better map control thanks to Spool of fire and Spectral serpent allowing her to be handling multiple lanes at once. Her long range attacks also means she can attack across lanes and her Teleport means she can be anywhere very fast while healing herself. Lastly she has many passive abilities for increasing the damage that traps deal meaning she brings high pain from everywhere and once combined with a high level Icy wind, can attack every enemy everywhere.

Overall X35 Earthwalker himself prefers the Mercenary as he is the more obviously powerful one who can stand up to any monster with tools to handle any situation making him the better class but that doesn’t mean the Sorceress is inferior as she has more amazing and cool looking abilities making her exciting to use. A sorceress backing up a Mercenary is just scary. Whether you agree or not… just know that it’s all 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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Bulletstorm: Full clip edition. What’s new?

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Bulletstorm:Full clip edition is the remastered version of Bulletstorm which came out in 2011. Full clip edition was developed by ‘People Can Fly’, the ones who worked on gears of war Judgment. It’s coming out April the 7th for Xbox One, PC and PS4.

We believe the fans of bulletstorm are excited for this one but is full clip edition a remaster worth getting? The main difference about this game is the improvements to the sounds and graphics. The game is said to have increased polygon counts, smoother frame rates, sterling audio and hi-res textures all running in up to 4K resolution. To the average person that doesn’t mean anything but to gamers that’s a sweet thing to know about this game. From what we have seen, the graphics are definitely improved and the whole flow of the game is smooth and flows nicely.

In terms of what is actually new there isn’t much to be honest. Full clip does include all the previously released add-ons for Bulletstorm. There is a new campaign mode called ‘Overkill campaign’ where you get to play a “cranked-up version of the campaign with an unrestricted arsenal of weapons and Skillshots”. What else? Well there are 6 new echo maps for echo mode. What else? There are some new challenges for gamers to take on. That’s pretty much it. The big boost to graphics is all good but we aren’t sure that this is worth the huge price. They could have done a whole lot more.

The biggest surprise about full clip is that if you preorder you get the Duke Nukem’s Bulletstorm Tour content free, which allows you to play through the whole campaign as Duke with a fully rerecorded script and brand new lines with dukes original voice. Now that’s the coolest thing for this game but the main issue is that you can only get it through pre-ordering, which means the full price. Why couldn’t it just be included with the full clip edition? 

With all this stuff included we can say that fans of the game will like full clip edition for sure, mainly because of the heavily improved graphics and sounds that it has and most likely also to play as Duke Nukem; however we at X35 Earthwalker feel that it isn’t enough and we ourselves wouldn’t get full clip edition. What is it with developers and companies that either just want to save money or don’t know how to make a great deal. There is much more they could do with this game. Throw in some goodies and some big new stuff. We understand that there is a budget but you only make cash from the gamers so give them something big if available.

Overall bulletstorm: full clip edition is nice great, truly. It looks excellent and the sounds are a higher level. Playing as Duke is very good indeed but other from the little ‘new’ stuff, we don’t get much. The developers ‘People Can Fly’ have done a good job with the game. This may be worth checking out.

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Halo wars 2. The power of leader characters.

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo wars 2 is one awesome game with lots of action and things to do. Gamers love having options so thing this game has a lot of it. If you don’t know about Halo wars 2 yet, then once again, shame on you. Go check it out. There are even none RTS (real time strategy) gamers playing the game and liking it.

Pretty much one of the main things about any multiplayer match are the leader characters. What leader character you and your opponent or opponents have makes a big difference from strategies, units to abilities. There are some leader characters that are currently considered a bigger threat than others. Leader characters are leaders based on main characters from the game, who are the head of your army. They are like the face of the army. There are currently 3 UNSC and 3 Banished leader characters. They are: Captain Cutter, Professor Anders, Isabel, Atriox, Ship master and Decimus. All three are powerful once used correctly. X35 Earthwalker himself will also be giving his words on this topic.

Captain Cutter: His leader powers are mainly orbital based and infantry seems to be his strong point. Captain Cutter has strong offensive and defensive capabilities. One of his significant abilities is ‘Battle hardened’ which is quite difficult to make effective as it should change how you handle combat. With this your aim is to keep your units alive so that the increased veterancy rate can take effort. While fighting, the unit that’s low on health you must call to the back of the army, don’t leave them there to die. This combined with ‘unsc raid’ which increases your infantry movement speed allows for easy hit and run tactics, meaning it’s also easier to keep units alive to gain veterancy. ‘Archer missiles’ and ‘close air support’ are high damaging powers that must be timed properly. Many times do people launch this as a game changer but the enemy just simply leaves the area. Be strategic with them. Maybe save it for finishing of a base as bases don’t move. You could also use them to force an enemy to get away from you, buying you some time or saving certain units alive. We will say that nothing compares to his powers that drop in units. It’s a great way of calling in reinforcements, flanking the enemy and replacing destroyed units with stronger ones. If you unlock all three drop powers and you wait for your army to get reduced a bit and then drop in odsts, a veteran cyclops, a tank, wolverine and more with high levels. This has made some enemies panic before. It’s just that good. Cutter is best to use with infantry but always be ready to mix it up when the situation calls for it.

Atriox: His leader powers are definitely more mystical. Atriox is definitely more defensive with his leader powers. His most significant ability is ‘unbreakable’ which makes all your units invincible for a period of time. This power once used correctly can easily turn the tide of a battle. We like to use it as a counter to enemies active leader powers like archer missiles if our army is grouped up. There have been times when one enemy used a glassing beam while the other used a scatter bomb and X35 Earthwalker’s units just stood in the middle of it all because they were invincible and still kept destroying the base. You do feel like a boss with that power. ‘Atriox’s bulwark’ is basically a superior ‘restoration drones’ as it not only heals your units but also grants invulnerability. Again it must be used with perfect timing like taking on another army or to survive a powerful active leader ability. This isn’t to be ignored. You can’t beat what’s invincible so keep your units in the circle or move your wounded there. ‘Dying breath’ gets ignored by some but this allows you to make some units still able to fight as normal even after losing all health for a period of time. Think about it. If you had 4 grunt squads you could still keep dishing out four grunt squads worth of damage which can give you the edge in a fight. You could even use the dead unit to hold of the enemy units while yours can get away alive. Atriox’s fortification power is essential, providing discounts on building and upgrading buildings and turrets. This will save you money, to some extent, especially near the start of a match.

Isabel: Her leader powers are very technology based. Initially we never liked her due to her powers have less use but after we dug into her a bit more we saw the use of her powers and what kind of bang they can produce. For example ‘Holographic decoy’ is actually so good. X35 Earthwalker has used these to scout enemy bases and activities and since they are decoys, you lose no units. He also use them to attract all turret fire first and then have his real units move in. It’s straight tactical here! It never hurts to have a ‘MAC Blast’ around. MAC Blasts should only be used to take out a specific enemy unit that is causing trouble, like a shroud or group of wolverines. Halo wars 2 is very strategic and so you must make strategic moves only (duh!). ‘Accelerated assembly’ is a must have for vehicle lovers. There isn’t a reason why you shouldn’t have it. It reduces build cost and time for your vehicles. This power should be combined with ‘The best offense’ which grants your scorpion tanks shields and improved canister shells. We have never lost a match with these two powers combined. After all, tanks with shields sounds scary. In the later stages of a match you must have combat salvage on standby. Throw all your vehicles at the enemy and wait for when they are near death, then activate your power to bring 8 of them back at your base when they die. Timing is key with this ability. ‘Ghost in the machine’ is only to use for extreme conditions. It allows you to take control of any enemy mechanical units you target. Send your decoys to charge an enemy army then use Ghost in the machine to take over at least half of all their machines (don’t take everything), this way you can make their army fight each other to reduce their numbers and if you have time send the last remaining straight at their base then follow with your own units. Isabel is only for the strategic.

Decimus: His powers are all about buffing his army. Straight of the bat you have access to ‘Killing frenzy’ which grants your units a damage boost when they kill. Straight away this is an advantage over your opponents. Combine this power with ‘Siphon’ which allows your units to gain health in proportion to damage to have dealth, which make things really nasty. A few grunts and other units with siphon and killing frenzy makes them too hard to kill if played right. They can just stand there healing themselves and killing. This can even allow early attacks. ‘Boundless Siphon’ is a must as it grants permanent small siphon to all your units, don’t need to say more here. Then get ‘Boundless rage’ which increases your units speed and damage permanently as well. Now let’s do some maths: Killing frenzy + siphon + boundless siphon + boundless fury = unstoppable army. Bring that to school with you. The last major power that we think you should invest in is the ‘Decimus drop’ which calls in Decimus who has a lot of health, can draw in enemies and give them the best slap ever. Decimus is that simple. Scary aggressive army which allows rushes and quick attacks. 

Professor Anders: Her powers are all forunner technology. This lady is all about the sentinels. ‘R & D’ which Reduces costs and build times for global infantry, vehicle, and aircraft upgrades. The best thing is that the turrets gain shields. which is a real boost to defense. It’s up to you how much points you invest in R & D. Get the ‘Protector sentinel’ as soon as possible so that you can start building them. These things are fast and melt structures. They should not be used for combat just yet. So run away (ya wuss). We never bother with ‘ark defense’ as it isn’t all that powerful and easy to avoid but once combined with other powers have it’s uses. ‘Sentinel beacon’ on the other hand is very good. Have some siege turrets at the back of your base and it will make defending so much easier as every shot releases aggressor sentinels which take no scope shots at enemy units. ‘Sentinel synergy’ makes your protector sentinels combat worthy as they now have more health and damage plus a bonus of shields. It also adds more aggressor sentinels to ark defense and sentinel beacon. The retriever sentinel power lets you summon a retriever sentinel. This unit gets treated like the other ultimate units which is a mistake. The retriever sentinel is much weaker than the scarab and condor. It can’t stand up to them nor can you send the retriever into an army and think it will win. Use it as a big support only. Anders is all about the sentinels but everyone knows this so don’t be predictable as some will see you as Anders and go straight for anti air so please mix it up.

Shipmaster: His powers are teleporters mainly. Shipmaster is X35 Earthwalkers favourite leader. At first look, shipmaster seems like he has the weakest powers. His powers directly are weak. They are heavy strategic. ‘Teleport’ has many uses from quick travel even to dodging enemy leader powers like close air support and eradication. ‘Extraction which allows you to instant transmission your slected units back to base and heals them is essential as you can attack the enemy and then when taking too much damage come straight back to base, healed and ready for another attack. We don’t bother with ‘Glassing beam’ anymore as their are other powers that are more handy than direct damage. Advanced cloaking should only be used if you will have lots of marauders and a shroud or two as it grants marauders the cloak ability and shrouds special ability gets improved. This means a cloaked army and marauders can be used for scouting. ‘Displacement’ allows you to move enemy units to another location. Many use this wrongly, they just send parts of an army away while they are getting attacked. This is bad the army will just come straight back. Timing and situation is so important. X35 Earthwalker once used it to send all the engineers who were healing a scarab far away making the scarab easy to kill. Mass cloaking is powerful as your whole army gets cloaked. It’s powerful but easy to counter as all the enemy needs is one detect unit, so knowing what your enemy has is essential before using. Tactical gateway is maybe the scariest power as you can use it to transport entire armies all the way across a map, even behind the enemy base. Beware as your enemies can use the portal too. Almost all of shipmasters abilities can be used for different strategies. That’s why scouting is important with him. Most likely the hardest leader to use.

Sergeant Forge: His powers are vehicle based. He was  the strongest leader by far because of one power, ‘Rolling economy’. This reduces costs and build times for Supply Pads, Generators, and their upgrades. The worst part is that you can access this from the start making a normal supply pad which costs 150 instead cost 100. This doesn’t sound bad but when you build 3 supply pads you save 150 supplies which is enough to buy another supply pad or 1 marine squad. So basically Forge players can build faster and have more resources than anyone else. In a RTS game, speed is everything. X35 Earthwalker tested this. If you could get to citadel base and 10 marines in 5 mins then with Forge he had way more marines in a faster time which is too big of an advantage. We are glad that it’s getting fixed. Grizzly Battalion is not needed as you can just build the grizzlies yourself. Only get when you have no other good powers left to unlock. Other from that he almost functions like Isabel. If you are going vehicles the accelerated assembly is a most. Scatter bomb isn’t that great at all either. It’s so easy to dodge. We end up escaping with all out units alive most of the time. We wonder how Forge will be affected after the patch on his rolling economy power.

All the leaders are fun to use but we definitely believe that some are better than others. If you take away Forges rolling economy then he is the weakest. If you counter Anders sentinels then she becomes quite useless as well. Cutter, shipmaster and atriox is harder to counter as they are more diverse in their powers but less obvious on how to use them. Some are more support based than solo fighters. Overall we have had victories with all of them and they are quite diverse from each other. Interested to see what the new character leader will be like. Try them out… also remember to try the ‘Earth Walk’!

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