Tag: single player

Dungeon Defenders 2. This sequel is lit

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Dungeon defenders 2 is great. X35 Earthwalker himself played the first Dungeon defenders with a team and it created great moments for them. Now that the sequel showed up they went in on the sequel. So far they have done what we wanted.

First of all let’s quickly talk about the story which made us stop and think about how dumb the heroes or kingdom was. The enemies showed up and smashed the eternia crystals which were containing the armies of the ‘Old ones’ within. For some strange reason the crystals were left scattered around the land instead of.. you know… gathering them and locking them up in a secure location. Literally, the enemies just rolled up to where the individual crystals were and just smashed them. Seriously so you mean to tell us that after we successfully defended the crystals and sealed away the armies in those things, we left them were we found them, vulnerable to anything that comes by? Dumb move if you ask us. Now that everyone is aware of what’s going on, they decided to gather and hide away the last remaining crystals. Too Late! Too late guys but whatever.

They brought in a bunch of new characters while keeping the original four off course. That’s right. The squire, apprentice, monk and huntress are back with their comical glory and furious might. Much to our joy they made the characters grow up. It’s been five years we believe so they are teenagers now? Yet the squire looks like the biggest muscle teenager we have ever seen but whatever, they look cool and it’s great to see them making progress. The other characters are: The Abyss Lord, Series EV3, The Gunwitch, The LavaMancer, The Mystic, The Dryad and The initiate. They all, except the Initiate, have their own defenses but all do have different abilities. Seriously the Initiate looks like a real cool character, can’t they giver her, her own defenses instead of making her a copy. Disappointed by that but happy with the cast of characters who are coming together to combat the enemies. Off course the other characters outside the original four must be unlocked. Also what’s disappointing is the fact that the Squires description sounds so unimpressive compared to the Apprentice. We encourage you to go to ‘Create character’ and read their respective descriptions and see which one sounds cooler.

In the first Dungeon Defenders game we struggled with the bonus levels as they seem to require you being an immensely high level to tackle but we have lives and things to do so couldn’t really be at that requirement in some ways. There was one in particular level that had an certain enemy which made everything not fun. It was that stupid genie which always stayed in the air and attacked your defenses, destroying them quite quickly. Worse is that he was really fast so a squire player couldn’t really hit him enough times or quick enough. He has high health so it will still take forever for Monks and Apprentices to shoot him down. There were no defenses for taking him down. In Dungeon Defenders 2 the Monk now has an anti-air defense called “Sky guard tower” which as the name implies specialises in taking down air enemies like wyverns and anything else that flies. This would have made life in Dungeon Defenders so much easier. It has nice range, honestly think they should have increased the range, good damage and the rate of fire is something we can live with. Now when we see that flying enemies are showing up, we smile and know we got something waiting for them.

Probably the coolest feature of Dungeon defenders 2 right now is the fact that you can switch between your selected character heroes. This is true. Even in the middle of combat. That’s awesome. So if you need to strike enemies from a distance then swap to the Huntress. Want to jump in the middle of the horde then swap to squire. You can build any of their defenses by switching between them. So use a Squires blockade for ultimate defense, use the Apprentices earth shatter tower for long range heavy damage, the Monks Boost aura to increase damage and the Huntress’s Blaze balloons to damage groups as they approach. Your heroes have separate ability resource meters. So you can switch between each hero just to use their abilities like the Apprentices Mana bomb, Squire’s Sword beam, Huntress’s Concussive shots and Monk’s Heroic wave. You can create some serious combos and different combinations of defense set ups. 

There are lots and lots of items and different relics and shards for you to collect, equip and upgrade to make your characters the most powerful in all the kingdom. Decide which relic bests goes with which defenses. Equip armour and weapons to suit your style and off course… pets are still here. Get eggs and hatch them unleash new creatures to aid you in your quest. The levels are nice but we do have some issues with them. We completely hate the whole portals can appear in levels thing. There were moments where we have our defences set up and ready but then a portal opens up right on top of the defenses or right behind them and they can’t defend themselves. Selling your defense isn’t the best thing to do as you never get your full money back for what you spent on it. It’s annoying. Some levels, the enemies at times stray of their path to attack a defense that isn’t in their line. This has only happened on one level though. We also feel that there isn’t enough defense space. When we reach our maximum capacity for defences, it’s like we don’t have enough and have to rely on our characters to handle the gaps. Yes we do know that different defense take up different space.

Overall we are loving Dungeon Defenders 2 right now. The levels have variety, the locations make sense for the story and where it is going. The graphics and sounds have improved. It has a lot of what we wanted the sequel to have. It’s so much fun with a team and everyone is running around to get to where they are needed. This game is free by the way so make sure to support the developers. Maybe a get a new skin for your characters. By the way the skins you can get are very cool, very creative and worth getting if you have the cash. This game is worth trying out. You know what else is worth a try?… The ‘Earth Walk!’

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Aven Colony. Sci-fi city building coming soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Aven Colony is a new sci-fi city-building strategy game developed by ‘Mothership Entertainment LLC’. Aven Colony is coming out 25th of July for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. This game looks interesting.

The story is very simple in Aven Colony. The player must build a new home for humanity. Where are we? We believe the world is called Aven prime. This world is a super dangerous hazard place as it has: shard storms, low oxygen atmosphere, dust devils, toxic gas eruptions and extreme electrical storms and apparently this isn’t everything. Sounds very suitable for humanity to stay. This entire world has different biomes as well. There are arctic areas, wetlands and deserts as well. The Sandy Gulch is actually a snowy arctic area. This does make sense as an area that gets very little rain or snow with grounds that can’t grow plants is a desert. Vanaar which does look like a nice jungle-y green area which we wouldn’t mind taking a holiday to but the weather in Aven prime is fatal.  So exploration is definitely a huge part of this game.

In the world of Aven Colony you are the new colony governor and you must supervise your colonists. If you do very well, you will move up in rank (even though you are in charge). You can reach the rank of Expedition president. This can be done by providing your colonists with health care, police order, entertainment, good food and creating nice jobs. You can hold elections, that’s if you feel confident that the colonists still want you in charge. Players can even set social policies to influence the behavior of the colony.

Aven Prime have many secrets, we heard. The single player campaign will reveal some of the many secrets. Some, not all. This means that players must “split up and look for clues” and do some hunting for secrets. Whats also great is that there is a sandbox mode where you can customise any mission. So have fun with that. If you haven’t figured it out yet, building is the main thing of this game. For humanity to survive you will need to build structure for growing food, manage air quality, convert resources, houses for people, store resources, mine ores, research house your colonists, grow food, store resources, manage air quality, mine ore, convert resources, perform research and manufacturing and much more. You can upgrade all your infrastructures.

Also, humanity isn’t alone here. Apparently you guys have neighbours. There are aliens here. Notice that we said aliens and not alien. There are several alien life forms here. Like deadly plague spores and giant sand worms. Don’t we all love giant sand worms? There is something worse though. Apparently there is a vicious fungal infection known as “The Creep”. The creep sounds very interesting though, like is it intelligent also and plotting the downfall of humanity trying to live here?

We checked out some gameplay and we can straight up say that this looks like a well done game. The graphics are great, no info concerning the sounds though. The designs of the buildings, vents etc all look good. The environments look fantastic. They certainly look alive, especially the jungle looking area. The weather changes as the days go on so adjusting and surviving is crucial. The wildlife looks great. We saw some very cool bird creatures and their flying animation is done very well, moving almost like real birds. Oh and the sand worm looks real intimidating. Imagine seeing that outside your window.

Overall this looks like an impressive game. Those who like building simulations and management then this will be for you. It’s quite deep and looks great. The aliens are a nice twist. The developers ‘Mothership Entertainment LLC’ did an excellent job with this game. This game is worth checking out. We really like what they did with this game but what we like even more is… The ‘Earth Walk!’

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Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China. Awesome

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China is awesome. It’s one of those games that we at X35 Earthwalker call a master piece. Very few games are master pieces by the way. All the effort and work that went into this game and it most definitely shows.

Assassin’s Creed: China (for short) is a 2.5D action adventure developed by ‘Climax Studios’. Assassin’s Creed: China is set in well… China… but in 1526 as the Ming dynasty starts to crumble. Players control Shao Jun who by the way is such a cool character. She is the last surviving assassin of the Chinese brotherhood. She has returned home and has come back with one serious desire for revenge. If you are wondering how skilled she is, well she was trained by Ezio Auditore who is legend among the creed. 

Straight away we loved Shao Jun. Her mobility has to be the best of all the assassins we have seen so far. Her shuffling, climbing, moving in and out of bushes, doors and cover is so graceful and clean looking. Her attitude and thoughts reveal her character. She is calm, thinks things through and quite honourable. Even when she feels like she messed up, we don’t blame her. She is strong, smart and does everything with style but comes from a hard beginning. 

The game its self is beautiful. Just take a look. The art style is definitely unique. It’s a fusion of the essence of Chinese 16th century traditional brush strokes with more contemporary, impressionistic styles. We have played through so much of the game and each level looks amazing. The graphics are excellent. The environments makes it clear that you are not in the UK or America. The buildings, the waters, the greenery and even the fog and clouds in the sky all look realistic and awesome. This game is setting some real standards right here. Don’t get us started on the music. The music is so authentic. When you hear it and instruments, it makes things quite peaceful and creates an experience for you as you play through the game. The music certainly ain’t no copy and paste from the internet. So visually and audibly Assassin’s Creed: China is outstanding.

The gameplay is also excellent, the controls are easy to understand and work very well. There are no problems controlling Shao Jun. You can hide behind pillars, hid in bushes and bushes, hide in doors and hide in hay (cause why not). The traditional ‘Leap of faith’ is here as well. Get to a high point and leap of, like in the original Assassin’s Creed, and land from an incredibly high height, safely in a small amount of hay. Don’t you just love physics in video games. You can assassinate your enemies, straight up brawl with them or sneak past them. The game rates your performance by three categories. Shadow. Assassin and brawler. Brawler is where you straight up fight the enemies you see in combat with heavy and light slashes and multiple techniques but this way is worth the least amount of points. Assassin is when you sneak around but assassinate your enemies, this is worth the second most points. Shadow is when you get through the areas without being detected and no killing at all; this awards the most points. We have a problem with this. The game is called assassins’s creed and assassinating enemies is what these character do yet the assassin’s don’t give the most points. Yeah we know that sneaking around without killing is harder to do but assassins assassinate. Whatever…

The game also gives you a map of the level. This map reveals where you are, special chests, anima shards (collectibles and objectives and more. The map is quite detailed and straight away displays what you need to know. You can hide the bodies of enemies you kill because if another enemy spots the body, they will call for reinforcements and be aware of you. Assassin’s Creed: China is very realistic in how the soldiers and guards operate and react to certain things. They will investigate noises and sounds. The only unrealistic feature is that when two guards are talking, they do not notice anything you are doing nearby. You can literally stand right next to them and they don’t notice. Still fun though. It must be the best conversation ever. Shao Jun is also armed with quite the equipment. She has throwing knives which can be used to cut ropes and even attack enemies. She has small fire crackers which stun enemies allowing you to assassinate or stun them for a while. Shao also got some sound knives which when thrown emit a noise where it landed which causes enemies to go towards it to check it out. Lastly Shao can whistle to distract enemies and get their attention. Your equipment can be used in different ways to accomplish what you need for all three styles: Shadow assassin and brawler.

There are many factors in this game: Dogs will bark if you come near, giving away your location to enemies, Birds in cages which will give away your position if you run past them, Bells which will ring very loudly if you knock into them and water which makes noise as you move through it. The enemies are different as well. Some enemies just have a sword. Others have a Bisento like weapon so knowing when to block changes. Some have throwing knives so watch out. Others carry crossbows for long range shots. Some have shields to block frontal attacks. Some carry lanterns, meaning they can see into dark areas and pull out whoever tries to hide there. Many guards tend to patrol around but have patterns so watch them for a while to know what’s up. Some guards peep over edges and out of windows so watch where you are climbing and hanging as you may still get caught. This isn’t everything. As you can see, there are so many factors in this game which when they all combine and work together create some very puzzling areas where thinking becomes a necessity. It is all great fun though. The cutscenes are done very well and works with the style of the game. You can see the paint and artwork in this.

Overall we have had so much fun with Assassins Creed Chronicles: China. So much awesome work has gone into this game. This is definitely worth playing.

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Moon Hunter. Yep, it’s about the moon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Moon Hunters is an adventure RPG, developed by ‘Kitfox Games’ and is already out on PC and PS4 but will be released on Xbox One July 19th. We have never heard of this game until recently but finding information on Moon Hunters is actually easy. This is another great example of how to display information for gamers in a easy way.

On the Moon Hunter official website it says, “Moon Hunters is a myth-weaving adventure for 1-4 players, solving ancient mysteries and building mythologies. Explore a hand-painted pixel art world that’s randomly generated yet rich with legends, non-linear stories, and secrets. How will you be remembered?” This sounds like ancient, fantasy world filled with mythological things and creatures. In the world of Moon Hunter, the moon is the source of all magic and spiritual power. Except one evening the moon doesn’t rise. Wait is this why we are hunting the moon? It’s up to you to solve the mystery of why the moon didn’t rise and return things back to normal. You can either go on this adventure alone or with other chosen children of the moon.

So what does it matter that the moon doesn’t rise? Well monsters show up and chaos increases across the lands. Lands like oceans and mountains. The world is dangerous and constantly changing which is why you must think carefully about what you do and how you use your weapons. You can craft in Moon Hunters as well. It’s about survival. The game does emphasise that your character has personalities. 

The journey in this game is random generated. There is said to be over a hundred different locations. The journey is centered around myths. The landmarks and different territories may contain myths. These are needed to advance your world and character. Your decisions will effect how different factions see you. There are new powers waiting to be unlocked. There are different myths, creatures and items. The story of Moon Hunter is not linear at all. It comes down to your decisions and responses to certain situations. For example, if a villager did you wrong, how would you deal with it? Will you let it go, get the truth out of them or kill them? So what kind of mythology will your character have? Best of all, this game has co-op action so you can play with your family and friends in the strange world of Moon Hunter.

Overall we think this is a good game indeed. We checked out some gameplay and we saw the art style, the different characters in the game, the different constellation that your character could have, some combat and more. The graphics for it’s style is okay, the environments though look cool. The music is nice. Fantasy worlds are just always exciting to explore and play simply because anything could be in it. There is no limit so we hope to see the bigger stuff of Moon Hunter in the future. The developers ‘Kitfox Games’ did a great job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will wait to see more of this game first but we like what we see. This game is worth checking out. We don’t care about constellations but… we do care about the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. Stealth much?

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a new hardcore tactical stealth game, developed by ‘Mimimi Productions’ and coming out August 1st for Xbox One, PS4, PC also Linux, Apple, Steam.

Shadow Tactics is set around the Edo period in Japan. That’s interesting and specific. We aren’t 100% certain of the games story but we do know quite a bit concerning the game. The player controls a team of ‘deadly specialists’. Assassins. This game is all about stealth and deciding what to do, how to do it and when to do it.

Firstly the group that you control is filled with very different individuals indeed but they must work together which initially looks impossible. The good thing though is that the game shows interest in the characters. More will be revealed about them including their own personal demons. So yes friendship and trust is important. There is Hayato who is an agile ninja who makes his way through his enemies silently wielding shuriken and sword. Aiko is all about camouflage and a master at it; she also can distract enemies disguised as a geisha. Yuki is all about traps and decoys. Already we can see the strategies already. Takuma is the markmans armed with a sniper rifle. Mugen is a samurai who rather takes the enemy on and is powerful enough to do so.

In Shadow of tactics, players must think carefully about how to approach the missions which are said to be challenging. So players must take into account how the characters will work together as a team. You will face snowy mountain monasteries, castles and even hidden forest camps. So how will you deal with the enemy? Complete stealth as in no one even knew you was there. Lure enemies into traps with decoys or how about a little bit of poison. 

There will be three difficulty levels so this game does have some mercy. There are multiple ways to take out your enemies so be creative and get experimental. You can move from roof to roof and even climb buildings for that elevation advantage over your enemies. Yes, we are all thinking it. Takuma should always be placed up on buildings for that nice clean shot.

We checked out some gameplay and we are definitely happy about this. The stealth mechanics here are more realistic as in you can’t kill someone standing right next to another enemy and no one notice. The environment can be used to your advantage like having Yuki cause a boulder to fall and cruch enemies below. In shadow mode you can set one action for each character. Then hit execute to have everything happen at once. If the enemy spot a dead body, they will actually do something realistic like alert all other guards and even call for reinforcements. You can hide in bushes and see a line of sight, just like in ‘Assassins creed Chronicles China’, meaning you can see where the enemies can see and what they are looking at. This game has got nothing but positive feedback and really high ratings across the board.

Overall this looks like an outstanding game. We would honestly prefer the game to be a bit more zoomed, like have everything bigger but it’s still great. The graphics are excellent and the environments have proof of work put into them. The sounds are what you would expect from a game set in this time and location and works very well. The developers ‘Mimimi Productions’ did an excellent job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker are looking forward to more media and information concerning Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. Samurais are very popular but… not as popular as the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Halo Wars 2. Arbiter and Jerome

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is at it again. We must say though that the developers are doing an awesome job so far in bringing us new content, which is actually good and charging us at reasonable prices. Great Job 343 Industries and Creative Assembly. The newest character leaders are The Arbiter and Spartan Jerome.

So many gamers where looking forward to these two leaders and boy do they deliver. Both of these new Halo Wars 2 leader function very differently from all the others, which isn’t an easy to do while keeping everything balanced. 

The Arbiter is definitely more focused on his stasis leader powers. He has regular stasis and also mass stasis which is just stasis but on a larger scale. Basically if you use stasis on enemies their units can’t move or attack but cannot be harmed. So it buys you time. Time to escape or time to attack turrets first or destroy a base and they have no choice but to watch. If you use stasis on your own units then they can’t move or attack either but also become invincible. Use this to survive an eradication power from Atriox or keep your army alive until your team mates can show up etc. The Arbiter also has stasis mines which function like regular but also slow down units that trigger them. A mine is still a mine at the end of the day. What is most dangerous about his leader powers is Conduit of rage. This is because it causes any units or buildings near to heal and get a brief boost to damage and speed when near a leader power. So if you use plasma bolt to hit some enemies and your army is near the point of contact then they are instantly buffed. Rage of conduit can be upgraded to make the buff stronger and last longer. Combine this with Power surge and the match is pretty much as good as won. Power surge reduces the cost and cooldown time of all your leader abilities. So imagine upgrading that as well to reduce cooldown even more. You will be dropping mines so frequently, firing plasma bolts and buffing your troops more frequently for complete destruction. Arbiter requires planning and timing. You must be strategic. As a hero unit on the field he is really fast, probably the fastest unit in the game and does great melee damage. When he enters rage though he does more damage and once upgraded gains health from attacks and can even buff his allies while raging.

Commander Jerome is heavily focused on inspiring units. Inspired units have increased damage, armour (defense) and speed. Jerome has to keep his soldiers inspired at all times. Jerome’s leader powers in some way centers around inspiration. Firstly ‘Time for heroes’ naturally gives all your units a buff in terms of speed, armour and damage as long as your unit count is 40 or below. This is useful for the early game. Enduring Salvo let’s you drop debris from the ship ‘Enduring conviction’ to damage anything it lands on but it also grants inspiration to any of your units that are near where you used the leader power. Victory turret functions like any other turret but this turret also inspires any nearby units. Victory mine is like other mines but when it explodes it inspires nearby units. Field promotion is very powerful. It lets you instantly turn units you selected to level 1 veterancy. This sounds simple but can really change the tide of a battle. The most favoured leader power of Jerome is ‘Omega Team’ which drops in three spartans: one carrying a plasma turret, one carrying a railgun and one carrying a beam sword. When used properly they are destructive. Jerome as a hero unit uses a hydra mini missile launcher and functions like any other spartan but comes with a aura circle around him which inspires units within. Jerome can call down his own mantis which fires lasers. Jerome can enter the mantis and grant it more fire power. Once upgraded the mantis can call in a laser strike as well.

Lastly in Halo Wars 2, both leaders bring in a whole new type of unit to the game. The arbiter has the Phantom ships while Jerome has the Mastodon. What’s special about them? Both are tough units that have the ability to carry infantry units. For example, you can place a sniper and and some marines in the Mastodon and they can fire from the mastodon while being protected. This especially looks cool when you have hunters with the beam upgrade in a phantom because you see the hunters beams coming from the ship attacking enemies. Very cool indeed. We won’t give away our personal strategies but the rest is up to you.

Overall these two new leader for Halo Wars 2 are an awesome addition to the game. They are worth buying and worth checking out. X35 Earthwalker himself has tried both and he loves them. If you love them, that’s great but make sure… to love the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Serial Cleaner. Available to clean soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Serial Cleaner is a new fast paced stealth action game, developed by ‘iFun4all S.A.’ and coming out July 14th for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. This game looks like a little 2D game for quick fun but let’s see what’s really going on here in Serial Cleaner.

Serial Cleaner has the 1970s theme and aesthetics going on. Gamers play the main character who’s job is to literally clean. He cleans murder scenes. So the typical stuff like getting rid of blood stains, disposing of evidence, which includes murder weapons and off course… getting rid of the bodies. The developers mentioned that the key words for this game are: Experimenting, fast paced decision (even though that’s three words) and exploring. These words actually say quite a lot about the game. You must watch out for nosy bystanders and itchy-fingered police officers. Getting caught is an absolute no-no.

Here’s an interesting fact. Serial Cleaner uses Real-World Data to modify gameplay according to the time of day in player’s location. The levels take inspiration from actual 1970s murder scenes. The atmosphere and humor is said to be inspired by the Pulp Fiction movie and Fargo series. The game awards exploration. We checked out some gameplay and it’s safe to say that we were right. It’s a simple game meant for quick fun action. That’s it. Nothing to take seriously but something to give a go and have a laugh. Even the theme and style screams this at you. The mechanics are well done and work well so it is a good game but it really comes down to the gamers as to whether it’s their taste or not.

Overall the game has nice graphics for it’s style, the music is good and the inspiration behind the game gave Serial Cleaner and a nice boost. The developers ‘iFun4all S.A.’ did a good job with this game. Serial Cleaner may be worth checking out. Who here likes cleaning? Well we do like… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Diablo 3: Rise of the Necromancer. Rises Tomorrow

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Diablo 3: Rise of the Necromancer is the newest pack, developed by ‘Blizzard Entertainment’. It’s coming to Xbox One, PS4 and PC July 27th. This is a purchasable content pack.

We don’t know much about any of the Diablo games but we did learn some stuff about Diablo 3: rise of the Necromancer. The website says “Comprised of controlled, calculating individuals, the Priests of Rathma have long known the true stakes at the heart of the Eternal Conflict. Known to uneducated outsiders as Necromancers, these masters of blood, bone, and the dark arts are often misunderstood. Driven to protect the Balance at all costs, those dedicated to walking this path see neither good nor evil in their actions; simply obedience to the cycle of being.” Now we don’t care how you want to word things, a necromancer is a necromancer, simple as that.

The rise of the Necromancer pack grants full access to the Necromancer class in both campaign and adventure modes. Included also are non-combat pet, two additional stash tabs, pennant, necromancer portrait, two additional character slots and a pair of cosmetic wings. That sounds like quite the bunch. Even so, we believe that the most interesting thing here is the fact that as a necromancer you can use and control an army of the dead which is always cool in games. An army of skeletons or skeleton archers or whatever. This is one of those things were gamers will have to take a look at the pack and make a judgement for themselves. 

Overall we aren’t impressed with the pack at all and it doesn’t make us want to buy but it will be the exact opposite for fans of Diablo 3 and the other packs as it’s always great to have more content. This might be worth checking out. We don’t like Necromancers… but we do like the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Halo Wars 2 – Banished vs UNSC Unbalanced

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is absolutely amazing. The graphics, sounds and whole gaming mechanics are top notch. Even the matches can be intense and take up some time. Halo Wars 2 is even more strategic than the prequel. More leader characters that brings more flavour and options to the matches. Even so, there are some big issues concerning balancing.

Straight up we are going to say it. The Banished have a big advantage over UNSC and it’s big enough that it makes a difference in every match. Seriously. The biggest advantage is the fact that Banished bases get the chance to place shields in the turret sections. These shields are powerful and soak up all kinds of damage. Why is that so bad? Didn’t Halo Wars 1 have shields. Well yes but their shields occupied a slot for building like energy generators, and supply pads. So if you wanted to stack two shields then that’s two less slots for you. The shields in Halo Wars 2 are more powerful because if the shield was dropped due to too much damage but another shield gets built, instantly the shield goes up regardless of whether the base is taking damage or not. The if another shield is built in time then it’s a double layer straight away. Also any Banished (or allies of the banished) withing the shields are protected and take significantly less damage until the shield drops. The problem is that an UNSC army would spend a hard time fighting the enemy army and lose because the shields protect the enemy army but if through leader powers and other means beat the army then you still have the shields which lasts long but skilled banished players leave a slot at the back ready for when they get attacked just to build another shield for instant shield regeneration. It’s so unfair. Don’t listen to stupid who say it isn’t an issue when it clearly is.

The next big Banished advantage are the Banshees. The banshees are practically the strongest units in the game. Surely X35 Earthwalker is exaggerating though. No we aren’t. We have seen a group of banshees beat wolverines and reavers of same group size. We aren’t joking. X35 Earthwalker himself has had his banshees beat anti-vehicle units many times even when there were more of them and vice versa he had his anti-air vehicles lose to banshees. How does that work? How do air units beat anti-air units? Sure air has a advantage over vehicles but anti-air is ANTI-AIR, full stop. Now in recent matches pretty much every Banished character user is always using banshees in great numbers. Either full population of banshees with engineers or half locusts (or something) mixed with them. It gets boring and predictable. It’s too strong. Banshees are suppose to be main air vehicles, in other words basic air units but their strength is much higher. Thanks to their own anti-air upgrade, they can take on two groups at the same time. The anti-air lets them attack nightingales and hornets while their fuel rod cannons and main plasma guns can fire at tanks, wolverines and whatever. That doesn’t sound fair at all.

Lastly, many, almost all, banished players are copying and using the chopper rush and then get engineers as fast as possible. It just makes matches boring now and predictable. X35 Earthwalker himself likes discovering and trying new strategies to accomplish different things. Some work and some don’t. This is how he ended up discovering a big secret. Choppers are vehicles. They are stronger than jack rabbits. They counter marines very well. They counter hellbringers. The way to beat them is to rely on your marines and turrets but that strategy is defensive, meaning while you stay near your base, the banished players can grab power nodes, mini bases and control the map. If you go out there then your marines will get caught by the choppers who can also ram for maximised damage. If you get the grenade throw ability for your marines then you can destroy some but you would have spent so much energy that the banished players will reach tier 2 way before the UNSC do. It’s not fair either way you look at it. 

So basically Banished have the advantage in defense, early game and mid game. This stuff has put some of us off the game for a while because unless we also play as banished, mainly Atriox, Decimus and Colony, you will have a real hard time. Until this is fixed we won’t be playing this game as frequently as before. Either way, this is what we and many others have experienced. If you are a banished player then aren’t you happy but if not, you could always do… The ‘Earth Walk!’ 

DeadCore. Soon alive at it’s core

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

DeadCore is a platformer FPS, developed by ‘5 Bits Games’. This game was already out on PC but will be coming to Xbox One and PS4 July 14th. 

Now this is another game that we at X35 Earthwalker never heard of at all. In DeadCore you wake up to see a incredibly large tower standing in the middle of the void. Basically you fell through magnetic storms. So we survived the fall? As with these weird worlds with voids and different worlds, we have no idea knowledge of who we are or where we are. Somehow we know that we must climb the tower and for some reason… Do it fast. So as we climb this tower we will get answers and clues concerning the mystery that is this weird world.

You probably guessed this but climbing the tower will not be something simple. As you go up you will encounter robots who guard the tower. There are also puzzles as in tricky platforming like where to jump, activate switches and lifts while in the air and timing. So how about platform puzzles and robots together, well DeadCore has got that too. The main character is equipped with the ‘Switch Gun’. It’s basically a cool gun which can activate or deactivate most of the towers elements like switches, lifts other mechanisms and robots, temporarily of course.

Now this game doesn’t leave you as you are. There are power ups for you to find which will change how you play levels. For example if you find ‘Dash’, you can do a brief dash through the air allowing you reach new places and move faster. We also like the fact that there are collectibles that when collected unlocks new maps, new music tracks and narrative logs. There is a speedrun mode with dedicated maps but they must be unlocked by finding sparks in the story levels. Each leveis said to have at least 2 main paths but they also have secret paths to find and use to get the best time since DeadCore is about speed running primarily.

We checked out some gameplay and we think it looks real cool. The main problem we have with it is that our character jumps like they are on the moon so some players have easily used this to jump past rooms, gaps and go around areas which they are supposed to go through. This was intentional but it means that somethings, if you know them, are easy and pointless. Either way we like the style and what is going on.

Overall, the graphics are very nice, the environment, like the clouds and everything, look wonderful and the sounds are great. The developers ‘5 Bits Games’ did a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will wait to hear what others have to say about it. This game may be worth checking out. Are you trying to get to the top of the tower? That’s fine as long as you try to do the ‘Earth Walk!’

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