Month: June 2017

Chess ultra. The ultimate chess action

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Chess ultra is a brand new chess simulation game, developed by ‘Ripstone’ and coming out the 23rd of June for Xbox One but earlier for PS4, PC, Oculus, Vive and playstation VR on June 21st.

Now we are sure that everyone knows Chess. It’s been around for years and we have all pretty much played it on the computer at school or wherever; however not everyone has heard of Chess Ultra. Chess Ultra is supposed to be the ultimate chess action. This games biggest point as of right now is it’s visuals. Some have described it as breath taking. It’s 4k visuals and boy does the game look good.

This won’t exactly be chess as you know it. There is Marathon, Blitz and classical mode. Multiple difficulty modes. Make your way from novice to grandmaster. If you have the intellectual might. There are 10 grandmaster approved AI levels. So Chess Ultra shouldn’t be a walk in the park at all. 

Do not worry if you haven’t had much chess experience or don’t think you got the moves for it because Chess Ultra is said to have in depth tutorials which will teach you everything about the world of Chess. Play chess in multiple environments and surroundings. You can play with different chess piece designs. There is a nicely carved set of wood chess pieces, then there’s ones that look like glass or marble. Finally we have see ones that look like angels and monsters like they were carved from emerald or precious stones. It does look cool.

 

Yes Chess Ultra does have online multiplayer so now players can prove there skills to the world. Who is the best at chess? Things get more crazy though. Remember how Chess Ultra has full Oculus Rift, VR and HTC Vive support? Well those with virtual reality gear can not only use their hands to move the pieces themselves but they get the chance to take on the ultimate challenge. Something so terrifying that even we think twice about talking about it. They can take on the Grim Reaper in the pits of Gomorrah! That’s right. The Grim Reaper himself awaits the best of the best (like us).

Overall from what we have seen Chess Ultra is looking real awesome right now in terms of visuals and very good in terms of what it offers players. Hopefully the music will be mostly ambiance to suit the concentration mood. Some cool music will be great as well. The developers, ‘Ripstone’ did an amazing job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will actually look forward to seeing what a chess game has to offer. Is chess boring? That’s a question but the real question is.., what is the ‘Earth Walk?!’

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Shadow of War. It’s war indeed

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Shadow of war is a new action RPG developed by ‘Monolith Productions’ coming out October 10th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. If you was a fan of Shadow of Mordor then Shadow of war should be for you. 

Honestly we never heard of Shadow of war or Shadow of Mordor until recently so we checked out some game play and liking what we saw. You must take on fortresses in really big battles with your own army of Orcs. Your goal is to dominate Mordor. The combat system instantly reminds us of Batman arkham as in you dash from enemy to enemy striking them and waiting for that indication that an enemy is attacking, for you to block or parry. You see your combo count and can do some cool looking executions like knocking them on the floor and then face punching them just like in Gears of war 3 & 4 but much faster (it’s called fury). The combat isn’t that fast. The enemies kind of just stand by and wait for their turn to attack you, like in the movies. The good thing about this means you will have an easier time in combat.

Shadow of War has an army screen is real cool. Your army is made up of different Orcs with different strengths and weaknesses. Like the beast master is larger and more powerful than the ‘Warmonger Marksman’ but he is heavily damaged by ranged attacks so he will need support when attacking places that have lots of archers and ranged attacks etc. Some Orcs have masks like the Mystic destroyer while we saw another bigger Orc with antlers. The mystic destroyer gets dazed by Caragors and is weak against poison so players must take these things into account. Ogg the Elder is a powerful legendary Warmonger assassin but even it has some weaknesses like being terrified of Morgai flies. The Orcs are so different and interesting that it just adds much more to the game than what any previous ones have. 

When attacking strongholds and fortresses in Shadow of War, you have the opportunity to upgrade and make certain units have abilities to help you dominate the stronghold. Like more defensive soldiers to help capture points faster or have more hunters who are more effective against beasts. Will your siege beats launch fire or poison? Think about it. It literally gets real deep. You can be supported with a swarm of spiders that poison and attack, or have a drake which flies around and rains down fire or have a giant war Graug who can fling boulders and help cause immense destruction.

A whole lot of work went into this game and it shows. You can save yourself from some executions with quick time events in the middle of a battle and they look flashy. We saw a giant olaf kill the player and then break their sword; however if you find that same creature and kill it then you get your sword back but upgraded and more powerful. There are a lot of powers, abilities, upgrades and moves in Shadow of war like ‘unstoppable’ which increases your critical strike chance significantly as you keep your hit streak over 30. You have options though as you could choose ‘Elven Precision’ increases your chances of critical hits if you time your button press with landed strikes. Scale the sides of walls to reach certain enemies like archers. Throw knives in the middle of combos, flip over enemies or even back hand some.

We think the ‘Wraith shield’ will seriously come in handy because it allows a wraith to counter enemies who try to interrupt you completing a ground execution. Use drain to steal health from enemies and even when upgraded, brand enemies to make them on your side. Turn them against each other. The ground execution upgrade allows you to drain enemies you knocked down in the middle of combat.

Overall this game is looking real cool right now. The smooth flowing combat with multiple options. The army screen is just great to have. The details of the Orcs like items and strengths all just adds to level of design. The graphics look great right now. The sounds are great as well. The developers ‘Monolith Productions’ did a really good job so far with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker think Shadow of War is worth checking out. Some like Orcs while others don’t regardless of what you like, just make sure to like… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Gears of war 4 Campaign. Insane difficulty

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Gears of war 4 decided to continue the campaign tradition by making sure that it isn’t easy to beat. Seriously, Gears of war 4’s campaign is very ridiculously hard. Many have found it too difficult. Some are still stuck near the start because of those stupid DR-1 robots that continuously walk towards you with the overkill. That’s right it’s that hard but a good challenge and certainly not impossible. X35 Earthwalker himself will provide some advice here as well.

The start of the campaign has been considered as one of the hardest parts of the game, especially because of that one level where a ship drops of DR-1’s and shepherds and you have limited space to run and take cover. Now normally this would’t be too much of a problem but since it’s insane difficulty expect to die a lot. Let’s explain just how hard Gears of war 4 campaign is on insane difficulty. One burst of the hammerburst will bring you almost half dead. One shot from the boltok will bring you near full red. The lancer can kill you within 2 seconds. One shot from the sniper rifle kills you. That’s right, it doesn’t matter where it hits you. If that sniper round hits your foot, well you still are dead. Now you can see where the problem is. A normal swarm drone can literally can kill you within one second. So when those DR-1’s with there abundance of health keep advancing towards you, constantly shooting the overkill (which is stronger than the gnasher) and Shepherds sort of staying back and spraying their enforcer smgs at you, all of a sudden the level near the start becomes incredibly difficult.

It gets much worse and frustrating. The enemies in Gears of war 4, specifically those stupid swarm grenadiers, are far more aggressive than the enemies from the other Gears of war games. Some enemies are actually fearless. For example during X35 Earthwalker’s livestream in a certain level on the way to the hive, there was a certain swarm grenadier that always rushes towards X35’s location in attempt to try and unload a shotgun round into his face. Well why doesn’t he just shot it before it comes near? It’s insane difficulty meaning you do much less damage than normal, also enemies are never alone there are three drones nearby who keep shooting at you and don’t forget how quickly an enemy can kill you and it’s worse when there is a swarm sniper in the back watching you closely. It gets even better. With our low amounts of health, the gnasher shotgun (over powered since Gears of war 2) kills you real quick. Also one melee hit from a drone sized enemy instantly kills you. You need to truly rely on cover, aim and timing.

If only we could leave it as that. Well we can’t. Anyone who knows Gears of war know that the humanoid enemies are technically the easy ones to deal with. It’s the not so humanoid ones that really shake things up. Imagine being in cover with your bots and firing at a group of swarm drones. Then all of a sudden a small group of Juvies start rushing towards you. Now it’s horrible. Juvies are the worst on insane difficulty as they only need to slap you twice to kill you. They can dodge your bullets and even mantle kick you which stuns you and pretty much guarantees your death. You may have to wait until your health recovers as you took some damage from being shot. It forces you to make a choice, kill the Juvies quick before they get close while staying in cover, or run away from Juvies and dodge bullets. Both can end in death. Pouncers make things real complex as they force you to take cover, but if any juvies show up then you have to run, but Pouncers fling things at you which do heavy damage.

So as long as you stay alive all will be well. Wrong! Your bots actually matter in this game. They don’t stay alive forever anymore. When that pouncer jumped on Del, X35 thought he would be fine but nope. Del died and back to checkpoint. If your bot is downed and no one saves that bot then they die and back to checkpoint. So keep your bots alive, especially when it comes to Snatchers. One of the best advice we can give any gamers for Gears of War 4 campaign is that you must try and keep a sniper or similar weapon around at all times as much as possible for handle some areas in the game. A sniper, torque bow, embar, boltok really do help out. They do heavy damage per bullet and all capable of head shotting and killing enemies easily. Especially when they are so far away and sticking your head out for more than 2 seconds can be real risky at times. The up side is that your bots have quite a bit of health and can be useful at times so don’t ever feel guilty about letting your bots take some of the heat for you; however please note that enemies will always target you first, even if your allies are nearby. We have seen Juvies run past all the bots just to get at the player and kill them.

Another thing to take into account is knowing when to use heavy weapons like the buzzkill and muncher. Normally those weapons will destroy everything but in insane difficulty those heavy weapons will get you killed. This is because it takes a little bit of time for you to drop back into cover with your heavy weapon and enemies can still hit you during that time. Pick your moments. If it’s a horde of juries then a buzzkill will tear through the whole of them but if it’s standard drones then that might just be a big mistake. 

So let’s summarise some stuff here. Always stick to cover. Use your bots to your advantage. Take snipers and explosive weapon wielding enemies seriously. Always try to keep a sniper type weapon with you. Know when to revive your bots. Never let any enemy come close. Be careful with heavy weapons. Most importantly just have fun, don’t let it get to you. Don’t be one of those foolish people who break their controllers. If you die, which you will (a lot), then laugh at yourself. Follow X35 Earthwalker on Mixer and twitter to know when he will continue his insane difficulty livestream. Whether you are good at campaign or not, it doesn’t matter but what does matter is that you do the ‘Earth Walk!’

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