Xbox One. Big update

Posted on April 3, 2017 by X35 Earthwalker

The big update for the Xbox One is here. There have been been some big changes and straight up we can say that we are happy with it. If you are an Xbox gamer then you just have to check this out.

The first thing you’ll notice with this big update is your Xbox will let you know that the ‘Xbox button’ now functions differently. Remember when you wanted to snap an app to your screen so you could do two things at once but then sometimes your double tap doesn’t go through and is counted as a single tap? Well that won’t happen anymore. This big update fixed all that. Now just by pressing the button once you bring up the newly enhanced Guide as an overlay on the left hand side of your screen. Then with one more button you can bring up Game DVR in an instant to record your best moments. This makes things so much easier. X35 Earthwalker has had moments when during a match something happened and he needs to quickly record the last 30 seconds but double taps and instead gets taken to the home page and then has to go back in and maybe get killed trying to record that. That will never happen again thanks to this. Also Game DVR no longer snaps to the right hand side of your screen reducing the screen of your game. It records in the back ground like it should. Great decision Xbox. We love it!

Next obvious change you’ll notice, because of the big update, is how the home page and UI looks. It’s a different design. It first of all allows you to see your background much better. It looks more neat we would say and there are additional features to the guide on the left handside like an achievement tracker to make getting those achievements easier since you’ll know how much more you have to do or how many enemies you got left or a reminder of what the achievement was while gaming. There is also an easier access to the achievement leaderboard for those who are in competition with their friends over who can get the gain the most gamer score points and who reigns over their friends. It’s a nice feature as at the end of the day you should always aim to make things easier to do. Nothing is more annoying than knowing you can do something cool but it’s complex or requires too many steps. Make it simple which is what Xbox has done.

If you checked everything in the guide then you would have noticed another large change thanks to the big update. That’s right. It’s Beam. Have you ever wanted to stream? Wanted your friends and others to watch you live in action kicking butt and making your opponents rage quit? Well now you can and best of all, it’s simple and easy to do. Just select Beam and then if you agree you can do the simple settings for your stream like where your camera (if you have one) would go, where your chat feed would go whether you want microphone enabled etc. Select your name for that stream or keep the default one and then select ‘Start broadcast’ to begin. It’s that simple. Straight away this is an excellent feature to have. Even if you don’t want to use it, you at least have the option which is almost always a good thing. Now there are some more stuff like ‘Screen time limits’ which would allow yourself or parents to set how long you or your child can be on the Xbox for. It’s about responsibility. Don’t be one of those people who sit in front of the Xbox for 12 hours and do nothing else. That’s sad. There’s ‘blue-ray bitstream passthrough’ which basically allows your receiver to decode audio natively. All the formats for bitstream are supported, including newer ones like DTS:X and Dolby Atmos. These are the main changes in the big update.

Overall we at X35 Earthwalker are happy with this big update. It adds some cool new stuff to the Xbox making it a more powerful and useful console for sure. The best part is that quite a lot of things have been made more simple now like streaming and using game DVR. The team at Xbox did a fantastic job and it must be said. Thank you for all your hard work Xbox. This is worth checking out but whether you are happy with the big update or not… be happy with the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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Halo wars 2 big update

Posted on March 22, 2017 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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Halo 5 Monitor’s bounty update

Posted on December 12, 2016February 17, 2017 by X35 Earthwalker

The halo 5 ‘Monitor’s bounty’ came out on the 8th of December 2016. The big update on halo 5 is so far excellent. ‘343 Industries’ has done a lot of things right with this one indeed. Let’s start with the Warzone updates. The fact that they finally added difficulty modes that we can choose for Warzone firefight makes a big difference. There is now ‘heroic’, ‘legendary’ and the terrifying ‘mythic’ firefight modes. ‘Heroic’ is much easier and allows for casual games in your fight against both covenant and Prometheans alike. ‘Legandary’ is the mode we all know and love. Mythic is the mode that spartans have learnt to fear. It’s basically legendary but they have added some skulls from campaign mode into this, which makes all the difference here. In round one of firefight the skull tough luck is activated which means that all enemies will continually dodge grenades and don’t run away. Round two has tough luck and black eye which means that your shields never recharge until you melee an enemy (good luck doing that on legendary). Round three has tough luck, black eye and thunderstorm which means that all enemies have been upgraded. For example casual blue elites get promoted to red or above elites which have more shields and at times better weapons. Round four has the previous skulls plus catch which means that the enemies are now grenade happy, constantly using grenades. Round 5 has all the previous skulls plus mythic which increases the health of all the enemies, including the bosses!

We must say though that mythic firefight is really hard and creates a good challenge. Two team mates and I had tanks (one of them was a Hannibal scorpion) and were hitting the grunt mech boss hard and it was doing very little. Most likely because of the mythic skull. X35 Earthwalkers first attempt at this was a fail.

We was also very glad to see the grenade launcher from halo reach show up to warzone. This weapon makes handling those vehicles easier as when you hold the trigger and then let go, it becomes an emp grenade disabling all vehicles it hits. This weapon is also great for harassing enemy bases as you can bounce shots around corners to hit hiding Spartans who think they can recharge their shields. Not gonna happen. The second tier grenade launcher aka ‘Pro pipe’ is really cool and it adds more skill to the weapon. It has an enhanced bounce trajectory. Basically the grenade bounces towards enemies after hitting a wall or the ground. The sentinel beam from halo 3 is something I wanted for a long time in Warzone and it’s finally here, dishing out laser burns and death. I hope they bring a level 2 and 3 tier sentinel beam as the current one just makes enemies panic (as it should).

There is now also the Oni and Hannibal wasps (tier 2 & 3 wasp vehicles) which so far the most popular things that I see in the skies of Warzone matches. They aren’t too tough and just add more variety to the game. The designs look very nice, easy to identify them and there upgraded weapons look deadly enough. We like them, especially destroying them. We haven’t tried the anti-air wraith yet but seen it in action a bit. I hope the fuel rod shots home in on air. It looks vicious though and truly hope that it can clear the skies.

The update also brought in character voices like the monitor, grunt and buck from halo Odst. Basically when you have spartan Palmer doing announcements like a base has been captured or a boss appear, you can unlock and choose what voice you want. It’s a nice addition and idea (personally I just want the monitor voice).

They split up the game modes in arena into two groups: social and ranked. This makes things better, especially for newer players. Both have different types of game modes. So go take a look.

I must say though that even with all these added features and improvements they forgot to make the one thing that is truly needed. A feature that allows us to sell multiple req cards at once instead of one by one which gets annoying as it is long. Please can this get changed.

Overall we are happy with this big update and want to see more in time. Keep up the good work 343 Industries, you are doing a great job. For more information check out the link below:

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