Month: May 2017

Deathtrap’s Marksman. Good or bad?

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

World of van helsing Deathtrap is an excellent example of an action tower defense game. This game focuses heavily on strategy. You get to pick from 3 characters who are very different in skills, strong points and difficulty. This time we will look at the Marksman.

The Marksman is considered the hardest to use of the 3 characters. Forget considered! He is without a doubt the hardest to use. He has been even called the worst of the 3. Again we understand completely but why? The Marksman has the second smallest amount of health. Just 100 hit points more than the Sorceress. So we know that he can’t take a hit. His main attack skill ‘Shoot’ literally tickles the enemies. Simple enemies like the ‘Kobold Wartfiend’ take too long to defeat for such a weak enemy. His other skill that does more damage is ‘Poison streak’ which also poisons the enemies and pierce through them but it’s damage is also very low and it’s focus cost is high enough to only allow two shots at a time. So not only can the Marksman not take a hit but he can’t give one either. The worst thing about him is his, let’s call it ‘ability system’. The Mercenary and the Sorceress regenerate (rage/mana respectively) when not being hit and from basic attacks. The Sorceress even has ‘Arcane retaliation’ which grants her mana whenever she is hurt but the Marksman is so different. He never regenerates Focus unless he is cloaked. He can only be cloaked when a certain distance from an enemy for a certain period of time. Even then it recharges slowly. This sucks, as you can fire two poison streaks, then run away to prevent death and wait an extra while to get some Focus back, all the while, the enemies are making their way to the gates. Most players struggle to even get 3 stars on their first few missions because there is no way of stopping the horde with a limited use of special skills, very little damage and can’t even use your body as a shield to defend the gates.

So the Marksman is garbage right? X35 Earthwalker had a theory and yes you could call it a game theory. He said that the Marksman has to be one of those characters that suck at the start but are very good later tier. It turns out that was true. Marksman is literally for the most strategic gamers and those willing to endure some tough matches. Tier 1 skills for the Marksman isn’t great and we are being nice about this. Tier 2 has two useful skills ‘Scattershot’ and ‘Trap boost’. Scatter shot is perfect for taking down giants and armoured enemies and should not be wasted on horde and normal type enemies. Trap boost is simple. Just select a trap to make it do more damage. Tier 3 is where the good stuff are at. Here you get access to the HIGH damaging skills ‘Grappler bolt’ and ‘Shock bolt’. Grappler bolt does the higher damage of the 2 and pulls nearby enemies to the original target together and slows them down. Shock bolt costs no focus at all and still does really high damage. You also get the trap skill ‘Overdrive Sphere’ which reduces the time it takes for a trap to reset for a period of time within 10 meters of your character. and world skill ‘Overdrive’ which reduces the time it takes for a trap to reset for a period of time. These can be deadly. Don’t waste time with ‘Incendiary Barrage’ as it costs far too much focus to the point where you can use it once and then need to get more Focus. We are sure it becomes immensely powerful once upgraded but when you are at the point of unlocking tier 2 skills and stuff you have to prioritise over things to survive and actually win in some levels. Right now it’s all about: Shoot, Scattershot, Grappler Bolt, Shock Bolt, Overdrive Sphere and Overdrive.

What’s the strategy then with the Marksman? Well it’s to keep firing at all times from a distance and know when to go cloaked to regenerate your Focus. Always start a wave near the gates of where the enemies come from. Always fight near a teleport pad so you can move to where you need to be quickly in case of emergencies or anything else. Whenever Shock bolt is available just use it. It’s powerful enough kill many enemies outright and therefore saving you time. It recharges in 3 seconds but if you are like X35 Earthwalker and always play in times 2 speed then it’s really 1.5 seconds. Plus it doesn’t require Focus so literally use it as soon as it is available. Sort of the same with Grappler bolt but watch your Focus as it uses a little bit of it. Use it on horde and groups as a higher priority but regardless, just use it. It’s stronger the Shock bolt. Scatter shot must be used on giant and armoured as it destroyes them quickly and doesn’t cost too much. Invest points to allow it to pierce through enemies for total destruction. Max out ‘Concentration’ and ‘Ambush stance’ so you have maximum amount of Focus to use your skills and get cloaked faster and regenerate Focus faster while cloaked. This makes a big difference. Max out the ‘Shoot’ skills ‘Splintering’ Bolt skill to make it have area of effect which makes shoot actually not bad anymore and can hold it’s own against horde enemies. Overdrive and Overdrive Sphere are best used with ‘Gun Sentry’ traps as it turns your guns into machine guns but combine both skills and your machine gun becomes a mini gun. Make sure your guns have area of effect and increased damage and they shread everything. Trust us. That’s the game plan here with the Marksman. Once you know what to do and have the tools he actually becomes very powerful.

Overall the Marksman is still the worst character in our opinion overall due to the sheer difficulty of using him initially. Sure he is actually very powerful late tier but many give up on him before even getting there. Late tier he may be the most powerful. We’ll find out. We say hold and and don’t give up. Plus his voice and look is pretty cool though, you have to admit. Imagine your school teacher sounded like him. So give the Marksman a try and master him for yourself. Watch X35 Earthwalker himself play it on his livestream. Follow us on twitter and Beam to know when he will be doing it. Let us know of any strategies you come up with. Regardless of what you come up with it can never be better… than the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

The surge. Bringing cybernetic action to us soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

The Surge is a new action RPG game developed by ‘Deck13’ and is coming out May 19th for the Xbox One, PC and PS4. There are many games that have come out and some are soon to come and yet we haven’t even gotten a lot of them. We need a game that really makes us want to play. Straight away this game has got our attention but is it what we’ve been waiting for?

We don’t know much about who we play as. Maybe that because we get to customise and create our own character. We do know that we have cybernetic implants and equipped with the ‘Exo-suit’ which isn’t the flashiest name but it works. We also have super human strength. Our enemy is the CREO complex, a mega corporation, who makes it their mission to save the world. We bet the corporation is evil and corrupt. So your character starts their first day at work but something went wrong and kcocked you out, then you wake up with the exo-suit in a section of the complex. Now everything is your enemy. There’s a rogue AI, hostile robots and your co-workers who have augmentations of their own so expect a fight. A real fight.

The Surge places heavy emphasis on combat an it’s what this game is mainly about. You shouldn’t just charge in and rush everything as even the weakest enemies can be a big threat. You need to watch them and study them to know what they are all about. Discover their attack patterns and more importantly their weaknesses. The Surge has a serious targeting system which allows you to target specific parts of their body (limbs). Even better, you can loot to craft the attachment that you cut off. Finally! A game has this feature. There are times where you kill and enemy and you want to take their weapon but you can’t. Now we can in a way. So are you going to straight up kill your enemies or do they have something that you need to become more powerful. The attacks are vertical and horizontal. Time when to step in or out and pick your moments well to attack. Then finish them of with some healthy violent style. So you could end up building loading weapons and security staffs and much more.

Your exo-suit does have a limit though so you need to make a decisions concerning your power requirements. As you progress through the game and slay enemies you will collect tech scrap. Basically experience points. You use these points to upgrade your exo-suit which increases it’s power output which allows you to use stronger implants and more implants in total making you a incredibly powerful. On top of that, the more you use your weapons the greater your efficiency with them. Eventually you will deal increased damage. More damage means easier fights.

The CREO complex is massive and their are many areas for you to explore.  That sounds like fun but there is one problem. Each area has people who use to work in those places. They with their exo-suits and industrial equipment will pose a massive threat. You have been warned. Make sure to search the executive levels, mechanical areas and toxic underground passages to fight enemies, collect parts, find loot and learn what happened at the CREO complex. So watch out for audio messages, dialogues from survivors and any other clues that you find through the game.

The most interesting part of the game is definitely the combat. It’s brutal and can go either way for both you and the enemies. Some say that this game is basically dark souls but sci-fi. Not exactly. We have checked out some gameplay and whatever and agreed that this game is a higher level than dark souls from what we can see and from some of the game features that we learnt about. The Surge is said to be very difficult and the battles can be very punishing so your mistakes will cost you a lot. To make things worst, remember the tech scrap we mentioned? Well if you die it all drops where you died. If you want it back then you have to go back there and collect it or you will lose it all forever. So what if you got completely owned by a way more powerful enemy and your tech scrap is left there? Well either get it back or it’s gone. So think carefully and know what you are getting yourself into.

Overall the game looks very good indeed. The graphics are excellent. The environments are excellent as well. We can tell some gamers will spend a bit of time just looking around and taking in the sights when on the outside of the complex. Sounds work very well. You can see that a lot of work went into this game. The developers ‘Deck13’ did an excellent job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker know that many gamers are going to love this game as long as the developers don’t screw it up. This game is definitely worth checking out. Now you may or may not have what it takes to play this game, whether you do is not as important as… doing the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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Colony is destructive in Halo Wars 2

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Colony is the newest leader in Halo Wars 2. First of all Colony looks cool. He is a hunter but a hunter in charge. His voice is like one of the coolest voices ever. He speaks simple short sentences but that voice just make us wish we could have it as the new default voice for announcements, answer machines etc. It’s so cool. Now as usual when a new character comes out everyone does nothing but just play that character. X35 Earthwalker yesterday did a livestream where he only uses Colony and in every match there was a Colony. Colony on Colony violence.

Colony stands out greatly from other Banished leaders, not just from how he’s designed but from his units and leader powers. He actually brings some new units into the battlefield. Now when Kinsano came out, We never cared to get her at all. She seemed not that fun to use still seemed similar to the other leaders is many ways. Can’t really blame her since the UNSC are humans meaning they will be similar in units but Colony takes things to the next level.

Colony seems to excel most at being at the front of the battle. Colony has the Goliath infantry units which are giant sized hunters that behave like gorillas. They are all about melee. Goliaths are strong against buildings, alright against infantry, weak against vehicles (for some reason) and can’t hurt air. I know they need to balance out the units in the game but how comes a big strong creature (twice the size of a hunter who are 12 feet tall) are weak against vehicles. Those things could smash them apart but whatever… balancing and all that. Goliaths are no joke. They are literally the best units against buildings. Just two of them do some serious damage against enemy bases. Goliaths also have the ability to ram which is great for dealing with annoying vehicles as it is fast and travels quite the distance.

Colony also brings skitterers which are small little mech bots that scuttle along the ground and fire lasers. These mechs are easy to build and come with the ability we have been waiting for. They can attach themselves to another unit becoming invincible and attacking enemies that come near the attached unit. So you could attach skitterers to Goliaths meaning Goliaths can now defend themselves against air units. You could attach them to hunters so they can defend against air as well. It’s up to you gamers to figure out some crazy combinations. You can attach two skitterers to units by the way.

Colony’s leader powers are very different cool. They really have the ability to mix things up. You immediately have access to living barrier and skitterers. We all know about skitterers but living barrier is something X35 Earthwalker underestimated at first but later saw how good it is. Living barrier let’s you drop down Lekgolo caltrops in a line that completely blocks infantry and vehicles. The enemy has to fight and destroy these barriers to get through. So while they are fighting the barrier you can target the enemy. It’s good for distractions, cutting of the enemy while fleeing, blocking movements, extra eyes around the map and more. It’s only for the strategic.

Engineer swarms calls in many engineers to start healing any units or buildings in range. They stay for quite a while and can really help turn the tide of a battle. Upgrade this ability to make killing your army near impossible. Combat repair makes all your units and buildings slowly heal over time, even in battle. This encourages strikes and retreats, keeping your units alive and building their veterancy since they heal by themselves. Colony drop calls in two level 2 veterancy Goliaths meaning they hit harder and themselves are harder to kill. Vehicle symbiotes allows you to buff selected vehicles and buildings with increased range and armour. So good for turrets on defense and off course your vehicles like locusts. Hunters brand allows you to fire 3 glassing beams that quickly converges in the middle. It’s actually very strong and doesn’t take too long to recharge but when it’s level 2 or 3 it is devastating. Lastly Devastating host lets you drop in multiple different vehicles like wraiths, locusts etc but get a instant buff from a vehicle symbiotes. This is powerful indeed. As you can see Colony is something powerful.

His leader unit, The hunter captain, is a very useful leader. It is a giant hunter, pretty much the same size as the goliath units. This hunter instead comes with shields and can actually fire his cannon at air units (wow). As he does damage he siphon some health back. He’s great against vehicles and infantry, alright against air and buildings. Once upgraded his cannon beam has area of effect so he can damage groups and does more damage overall. He can be upgraded to get the taunt ability which forces nearby enemy units to target the hunter captain instead. This is good since he can take lots of hits and siphon health meaning he won’t die easy. Combine him with Combat repair and Engineer swarm and he’ll never die. His main weakness is that he is so slow. Completely slow. The slowest thing ever and because of this he slows down the whole speed of your army so it takes you forever to cross the map and attack or help out an team mate. That’s the only negative thing.

During the livestream X35 Earthwalker won all his matches with Colony except the match where he was teamed up with a rank 7 and he had to go against level 32 and 41 (round about) and the level 7 team mate left the match. Through practise we have seen just how useful Colony is. He is very powerful and when used correctly can be devastating against everything. He is a lot of fun to use and it’s so satisfying when you beat another player who is using Colony as well. He is worth getting. Whether you try out Colony or not… you can always try the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below: 

Valkyria Revolution. The action is soon here

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Valkyria Revolution is part of the Valkyria series but considered a spin off. Valkyria Revolution was developed by ‘Media.Vision’ and is coming out June 27th (America) and June 30th (Europe) for the Xbox One, PS4 and PS Vita.

Now honestly we don’t know much about this game. We haven’t even heard of it but we have checked it out and so far it looks real good and interesting. In the trailer you see a big battle going on, people in armour with guns, then a giant mech like machine shows up and stands laying down some serious fire. Then a confident looking lady with a giant scythe stands there. She looks confident, bit cocky and had a serious entrance to the battle which means she’s powerful (in the fictional world). The two leaders on the other armies side prepares to take her on. From that trailer alone, you can pick up many things about Valkyria Revolution.

Valkyria Revolution is an RPG game with some focus on action (off course) and strategy. It won’t be turn based so stay on your guard. Amleth is the commanding officer of Jutland’s elite anti-Valkyria unit and is the character players control in Valkyria Revolution. There are more main characters like Brynhildr who is a Valkyria and is on the side of the Ruzhien Empire and Jutland’s princess Ophelia. Sorry guys but when we see the name ‘Brynhildr’ we think of the Eidolon from Final Fantasy 13, who was awesome by the way.

The action seems flow very well in Valkyria Revolution. You can switch between your characters with a click of the button to mix things up. Select and use side-arms and Ragnites during combat to dominate the field. In the trailer saw a smoke grenade like side arm which really smokes the place out. The graphics are very good in this game. The sounds are good. From what we have seen this looks very cool indeed. We hope to learn more about this game. Check it out for yourself to learn more.

Overall Valkyria Revolution has got our attention. The developers ‘Media.Vision’ did a great job. This game might be worth checking out. Whether you do or not just make sure… to do the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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