Tag: X35

Outlast 2. This ain’t no joke

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Outlast 2 is the long awaited survival horror game sequel developed by ‘Red barrels’ coming out April 25th for Xbox One, PC and PS4. Outlast 2 is soon here. In a week in fact. Quite a few people have been talking about this game and their expectations. From what we have heard, this game isn’t a joke. 

In the world of Outlast 2 you control Blake Langermann. He is a camera man and he works with his wife, Lynn. By following clues they have come miles into the Arizona desert concerning the murder of a pregnant lady called ‘Jane Doe’. Why? Oh, that’s because Blake and Lynn are investigative journalists. Risking their lives to find the story behind the stories and uncover the truths. Basically doing stuff that no normal person would do. We are’t dissing, just saying, we aren’t going into the desert to investigate some murder but that’s the plot so let’s go with it.

Now some people have declared Outlast as the scariest game they have ever played. There are jump scares, sneaking, creep looking people, crazy people (it’s an asylum), a large humanoid monster that won’t stop following you like seriously why is it so persistent and much more. The game also centered around a cool mechanic where it’s really dark and in order to see, you will need to use your camera which has night vision. Kind of like in Doom 3 where you had to at multiple times switch between your gun and your flash light. This made the game more dreadful for some as using the camera consumes battery life. So when do you use the camera is up to you. There was one moment where a certain person was sneaking around, then stopped and decided to use his camera. He saw a threat dead right in front of him, which was a scary moment for him but a hilarious moment for us.

From what we have seen and heard concerning Outlast 2, the game looks like it going to take a darker and creepier turn. The location is dark and so not welcoming. The atmosphere seems to have been done right concerning the location. There is even a pit filled with the bodies of dead babies which must be one of the most disturbing things ever in video games. It’s obvious at this point that the fact that the murdered lady, Jane Doe, being pregnant is related to all this. In the demo you see a book, blood, a manger like thing and symbols. This has to be the work of a religious cult that apparently believes in killing babies and stuff. The whole evil religious cult theme has been done a lot over the years so let’s see if Outlast 2 gets it right as some have been too predictable or didn’t go big enough with it but a pit of dead bodies is considered a start for some. 

The game has more details than before as sounds have been carefully placed in like stepping on certain bodies produces a squishy fleshy noise which will disturb some weak stomach gamers. This game is literally out to scare people as they even have the instant look behind you button because we need a nice mug shot of whatever will be chasing us. Nice feature though, we actually like it. It’s always better to give options to gamers. We are interested to know more about that scythe wielding humanoid lady who has no problems ripping of a certain part of the main character in the demo (seriously go watch it for yourself). Here’s the thing though. X35 Earthwalker is one of those people who doesn’t get scared from these games. Whether it’s slender man, five nights at freddy’s and even dead space. It just doesn’t seem to work but he is looking forward to seeing what this game has in store.

Just to let you all know, also on the 25th of April ‘Outlast trinity’ will be coming out which is basically a physical collection of the Outlast series: Outlast, the Whistleblower DLC and Outlast II. Take note of this as when Outlast 2 comes out, it will come out digitally for the Xbox One, PC and PS4. So decide what type of copy you want.

Overall Outlast 2 looks great. They emphasise the importance of using cover effectively. The graphics are improved and look good. The sounds have been stepped up. The atmosphere in out opinion is very good indeed. If you want a survival horror game that will keep you focused, double checking corners and eventually scared to the point where you have to pause the game then this might be for you. The developers ‘Red barrels’ did a great job with this game. Keep it up guys. We at X35 Earthwalker are keeping an eye out to see what this game can do. This game is worth checking out. Whether you get scared or not, never be scared… to do the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Sensible gaming

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

X35 Earthwalker has been a gamer for many years now. Matter of fact he has been gaming since primary school. He still has memories of playing Halo for the first time after hearing so much about it from his friends. What we want to talk about today is sensible gaming. Video and computer games at the end of the day are for entertainment. Yet some gamers take it much further and too far. We have gamers today who spend far too much time playing games and less time on other important things. There are even some who have died because they sit still and play for hours instead of getting exercise. We aren’t saying all gamers are like this because we certainly aren’t. The point is games are fictional, they aren’t real life.

Playing video games doesn’t get you the grades in school, don’t get you a job (unless it’s a game tester but even then you do’t get that from sitting around) and don’t advance your life. Make sure you have balance to your life. Set time aside to focus on your career and any projects you have going on. Set time aside for exercise and activities, set time aside for meaningful things for family, friends (not online friends) and yourself. Set time for your gaming as well. We have to be sensible about this. Sensible gaming will make you better of.

X35 Earthwalker himself balances handling his business, personal life, activities and projects and ministry. He doesn’t get stressed and makes appropriate time for these things. Being organised and diligent is not just wise, but also what God told us to do. Even Moses asked God to teach us how to number our days (Psalm 90:12) which means how to be organised and plan our days. 

There are also some gamers who get too into games and when things go wrong, lose, or too difficult they rage and we mean they literally rage. They throw their controllers, they break their keyboards, knock over their chairs, smash their headphones, which by the way all costs quite a lot of money. Seriously it’s painful to watch. Don’t waste money like that. Those people need to know how to behave themselves. Such people even get racist and proper aggressive with others. I dare those same people to come and try that stuff with certain people on the streets and see what happens to them. That stuff is not sensible gaming. If you lose, it’s just a game. If you get wrecked or owned online well guess what? Everyone, even the best players (cough X35 Earthwalker cough) has had matches where everything went wrong. Just laugh at yourself and if you can’t put the game down for a while. Simple.

Don’t get us wrong. We are gamers we have spent hours playing games. We play all sorts of games. X35 Earthwalker himself has completed every Halo game solo in Legendary and every Gears of war game in insane as well. He has a high gamer score and has gotten insane moments like getting the quad and quinn in gears of war and even the unfriggenbelievable and killionaire in Halo. We aren’t dissing gamers at all. Sensible gaming is where you use your days smartly, where you don’t alienate yourself from your family, you don’t turn into a monster, you have fun and where you draw the line between fictional worlds and reality. This message is for gamers from us at X35 Earthwalker with love. 

So have fun and don’t forget to do the ‘Earth Walk!’

Wonder boy: The dragon’s trap. On it’s way

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap is a new action adventure game developed by ‘Lizardcube’ is coming out April 18th for the Xbox One, PC Nintendo switch and PS4. The Wonder boy series continues. We personally have never heard of Wonder boy but this game ‘The Dragon’s trap’ has one game feature that instantly gets our attention.

In this game the main character (Hu-man) has been cursed by the Meka-Dragon. The curse made him into a half human, half lizard person-thing. Off course he isn’t happy like this so sets off to find a cure. You learn that the only way to turn back normal human is to find the ‘Salamander Cross’. The strange thing in Dragon’s trap is that this curse gets worse with every dragon the main character kills. He transforms into different animals each time.  

The locations in this game are said to be large and interconnected. Each location is filled filled with many monsters and dragons. If you don’t want Hu-man then you can play as Hu-girl. Eventually your character will transform into a: Mouse-man, Lion-man, Hawk-man, Lizard-man and Piranha-man. Each form has their own unique abilities which are needed to traverse and explore. So far we like Lizard-man the most.

The most interesting and coolest thing about this game is the feature allowing the player to switch between modern graphics and sound to 8-but graphics and sound whenever you want, this includes gameplay. This isn’t the first game to do this. Halo CE anniversary did this and it’s a awesome feature to have. With one click of the button you can see you could see how halo looked back then and then click again to see it with the modern high graphics. Same with this game. Check out Dragon’s trap trailers to see this for yourself. It’s very good and this alone makes Dragon’s trap stand out from other games.

We have checked out some gameplay and from what we have seen, it looks fun. The Mouse-man can cling to surfaces ad fun along them as if it was the ground. This game even has an cloud enemy. A cloud that wears sunglasses! It even tries to act cool. We are liking it the game already. There is a cyclops, skeletons and other weird looking enemies. The game works and flows very well. The graphics are good for it’s style and looks real friendly. The music is very well done and the sounds are good as well. The developers ‘Lizardcube’ have done well with this game. This might be worth checking out.

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Shiness: The lightning kingdom. Dynamic RPG

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Shiness: The lightning kingdom is a new RPG game developed by ‘Enigami’ coming out April 18th for the Xbox One, PC and PS4.  This game has already gotten awards concerning the ‘Games connection Europe 2014’ and more. You can see those and more on the steam page.

In shiness: the lightning kingdom you play as Chado and his crew in a universe that is said to be ‘doomed to destruction ever since the fragmentation of the planet Mahera’. So a dying world. There appears to be a war between different kingdoms where Chado and his companions (Poky, Kayenne, Askel and Rosalya) have landed. The first aim is to solve the problem. Possibly create peace between the kingdoms or maybe right the wrongs that one kingdom has done to another. Each of the five characters have different powers and you must know when to use each one to traverse the large world in this game. One character will have immense strength, another has telekenetic abilities. Yep ill be some magic and some straight up physical combat in Shiness the lightning kingdom.

The developers have said that Shiness the lighting kingdom offers players a great amount of freedom. Freedom in both combat and exploring. That is something that developers must take into consideration when making large games, RPG and also open world games. Some gamers like to just follow the story all the way through while others want to do things their ow way. Making sure their is a way to do both will always gain way more approval than disappointments. The elements that we all know: earth, fire, air, water etc are called ‘Shi elements’. So the fire Shi element character will use fire in some attacks but also will use it in more subtle ways like light a torch. The lightning kingdom being large also has objects and equipment for the player to find and use to increase your character stats. There are also parchments that contain new skills and abilities. This means that exploration should be included in your schedule while gaming. If we know RPG’s, and we think we do, there will be some large and powerful bosses that will be a real problem without a good amount of stat increases and abilities. Apparently some of the Shi elements can be combined for example air plus fire equals thunder. How interesting.

The developers have made it so that you can complete quests in more than one way. This is interesting as that has to mean that the different ways produce different outcomes which we at X35 Earthwalker believer will effect the story. We were correct as it has been confirmed that the decisions you make and the characters in your group will impact the rewards you will get and the main storyline. Remember this when you go out to take on the quests. There are a number of different locations in this game that needs to be explored. There is ‘Gendys’ which has plains, ‘Gromiz has caves, ‘Mantara’ has a flying city and more locations which are very different from each other. When we think of a flying city we think of that planet from Metroid prime 3 corruption. 

The fight system is like final fantasy  13 lightning returns except no paradigm shifts. It’s similar as in you can attack whenever but so can your enemy. It’s up to reflexes and timing. Know when to attack and knowing when to be defensive. You can call on your team mates to replace the lead fighter at anytime. We hope this means that there are Shi element match ups. For example a water user would have the advantage over fire users. So the player would have to switch it up against certain enemies. Well we hope that system is also included as it adds another layer to combat. There are abilities which will heal you and while there are others which will temporarily boost your stats during the battle. All the more reasons to find those parchments as those attacks, physical and magical, come from them. The more you find, the more powerful you potentially can become. There is also special parchments called hyper parchments which allow you to learn ultimate attacks. Very cool indeed.

What’s probably most interesting is that this game was originally a manga. The little secret is that within the manga contains some hidden quests that you must read to find. So get reading if you want to get everything out of the game. Also just in case it wasn’t obvious to you the manga also contains extra information about the story, the characters, the Shiness universe and more. Shiness: the lightning kingdom is quite the world indeed.

The graphics are nice and the environments are well designed and the music was excellently composed (of what we have heard). Overall It’s clear that a lot of work has gone into this game and it does look like a very large one at that. Fun? We believe so. The developers ‘Enigami’ have done a excellent job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will keep an eye on this game and see what becomes of it with the gaming community. Whether you think about this game or not is not as important as thinking about whether… you have done the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Halo Wars 2. Leader powers strategies

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Halo Wars 2 is home to some big and powerful wars. Players meet on the battlefield and explosions take are happening everywhere. If you plan to get in a match you must come with strategies. Don’t just build anything and everything. Like we said before, pretty much one of the big things that makes all the difference in a match is the character leaders. Character leaders have leader powers. The leader powers can flip the match in your favour. Leader powers can also just seal your opponents fate in that match.

X35 Earthwalker has played and defeated many with all the leaders. He has his favourite and least favourite leaders but knows how to use them all. He will share some of what he knows so take a look and enjoy.

“Atriox at first I wasn’t sure how to use him. His strength does lie in expansion but his bigger strength is in his leader powers to make his armies invulnerable. This is a game changer for sure. As you build your armies you must have ‘Atriox’s bulwark’ and ‘Unbreakable’. These two will guarantee you victory any battle and possibly the match. When your army collides with the enemies fight them for a while and stay as close as possible. Then when some units are weak or about to lose some, activate Unbreakable. Your opponent will normally retreat, so chase them and keep up the damage with no fear as you can’t take damage. After they have lost many units get ready for them to use a leader power to counter. If it’s anything but Forge’s scatter bomb, then activate Atriox’s bulwark to heal your weak units and negate all damage from that leader ability. I have made opponents resign after seeing this knowing that my army is still strong, blocked everything they sent at me while still dishing out damage. Give this a try.”

“Captain Cutter should be straight forward that his strength lies in his orbital leader powers. No infantry is stronger that Odsts. This means you have to get as much as possible. Do this by using ‘ODST drop’ which gives you 3 squads of ODSTs. The ‘Cyclops Drop’ is powerful as it drops in a high veterancy Cyclops meaning it’s health and damage is off the charts. Keep dropping those guys in. The last orbital leader power and the strongest is ‘ODST Assault group’. This calls in a wolverine, some ODSTs and even a scorpion tank. Before you battle the enemy make sure to have these leader powers ready for use. This way you can replace all destroyed units making it like you never lost anything in the first place and better, you replace them with stronger units of high veterancy. This discourages the enemy. Lastly notice that any enemy unit that has a ODST droped on them, get stunned. Use that to your advantage.”

“Decimus is terrifying when used correctly. With Decimus your units will always have the advantage. ‘Vortex lightning’ should be used at the start of a battle. This way your enemies units will be taking damage, have reduced defense making them easier to kill and get stunned, making them a sitting duck. So now you have the initial advantage. Also use ‘Siphon’ (upgrade it) on the units at the front of the battle so that they become harder to kill and last longer. Now they gain health as they damage the enemy. Combine this with the two passive leader powers: ‘Boundless Siphon’ and ‘Boundless Rage’ and the match is pretty much yours. They grant your units permanent siphon and increased damage and speed. It’s like super siphoning. My armies like this have taken down a army, then a scarab, then the base in one match before. In another match I have taken on two armies at the same time with my own. It was a hard battle though. Decimus is not to be messed with. Weaken your enemies then buff your own.”

“Isabel is at first what I considered very weak. After some training I learnt a few things. She ain’t so weak after all. Her MAC Blast is amazing. What sets it apart from the others is that her’s is almost instant. They shouldn’t bother show the cross-hair on the ground for the enemy as you can never evade it in time. It’s that fast. It’s fast and yet so strong. A upgraded Mac Blast will destroy everything. I once got hit by a max level MAC Blast and had to do a 180 and retreat… Then later came back and destroyed them (well they started it). Spend some time in the match countering your opponents infantry. They will then give up infantry and go vehicles and air, which is what you want. Wait until they are quite near their base. Push up and fight. Wait for their army to group up and then hit them with ‘Ghost in a machine’, which grants you temporary control over their mechanical units. Use their units to directly attack the base and leave the turrets alive to damage units you have controlled. Your army supports the controlled army and that base will go boom. With Isabel, timing is everything.”

“Anders probably one of, if not, the most difficult to handle because her leader powers make things at times unfair. We won’t talk about the ‘Protector Sentinels’ as i’m sure we all know about them. Get some kodiaks and have them spread out a bit around the map on your side for defense. Combine this with ‘Sentinel beacon’ which means every shot from the kodiaks and siege turret produces aggressor sentinels which attack everything. This makes infantry useless against you. Literally a few kodiaks on guard duty with this leader power can be unfair. Drop ‘Sentinel Network’ right at their base to keep causing damage to everything they build and their base as well. It stays for a very long time making it pretty much the best harass tool. The ‘Retriever Sentinel’ is best used to throw your enemy of. Force your enemy to focus on countering your infantry and vehicle, then when they have many things that don’t do so well against air just drop your Retriever Sentinel in and let it have it’s way with the enemy troops. It’s too strong for them to start effectively counter. With Anders you can make your enemies afraid to do certain things.

“Ship Master is almost a troll with his leader powers. Basically you can control the map and mess with your enemy. Plant as many scout mines as you can throughout the match. Scout mines provide you with sight where that bomb is. It’s like many eyes around the map. Also Scout mines do a ton of damage, so no one will want to stand on them. Plant them near power nodes. Use ‘Spirit Support’rt’ to fill your army with high veterancy hunters, elite rangers and engineers. You should also call it in during a battle to replace your dead units and get extra damage as the spirit stays around to fire at the enemy for a while. Once you have a large army use ‘Tactical gateway’. Tactical gateway is one of those leader powers that is pure strategy. Create one gate right behind an enemy base and lead your army through the other to get there and when you need to leave hop right through. Be aware though that your enemy can go through your gate. Use Displacement properly. Many don’t know how to use this leader power. Most use it to send enemy units away just for them to soon come back. Use it instead to send enemy units to you. More than once I have sent a large group of enemy air units straight to my group of reavers who tore them apart. When you are destroying the enemies army and tries to escape, use Displacement to bring them back, so you can finish them of. Ship master requires a lot of skill to use as he has very little direct damage abilities.”

“Forge is all about the vehicles. He can’t do much with infantry so air and vehicles is how he rolls. You need to have grizzlies. Very strong tanks that do great damage. When in a battle wait for when you know you will lose some units. Then use ‘Combat salvage’ to easily get back the units you lose (the first 8). This allows him to keep the vehicles coming. Vehicles, even against their counters still are pretty strong so just because they have some cyclops doesn’t mean they will get destroyed just like that, especially not grizzlies. Use ‘Grizzly Battalion’ to replace fallen units with more grizzlies. Do not rely on ‘Scatter Bomb’ as how you would rely on eradication. It does low damage and is so easy to evade. Only use it to scare away your enemies to create breathing space or if the enemy is trapped behind a base and you have them cornered as that’s when the full might of Scatter Bomb takes place.”

“Kinsano is who I know least about as I don’t have her. From what I have seen though her leader powers come back really quickly and ‘Inferno’ is incredibly dangerous. Just launch that on a base and everything get real weak. Launch that on a enemy army and watch them melt away really fast. Her inferno is her trump card. ‘Hell Charge’ should be used after you mingled your army with the enemies so that when yours die they explode damaging as many of theirs as possible. Have multiple bases and mini bases around to make ‘Red line’ effective. All newly spawned units of yours will be boosted. So have units come out from all of them to overwhelm your opponents with boosted units constantly. That’s all I will say concerning her.”

That’s a lot to take in. Go into skirmish and try out some of these strategies or tune them to your style. Either make sure to do the ‘Earth Walk!’ 

Guardian of the galaxy telltales series. Soon here

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Guardian of the galaxy is the latest game in the telltale series. It’s an adventure game developed by ‘Telltale Games’ coming out the 18th of April for the Xbox One, PC and PS4. Those who already know about telltale and their games would know what to expect from this game. Our personal favourite was the batman telltale series so we wonder how Guardian of the galaxy will compare.

In Telltale games you play the story of that game like batman, walking dead etc but a mixed up version. For example in Batman some of the characters get different origin stories and some nice characters become bad guys. So you can’t predict from the start what’s going on making it very interesting as we love new things. You get to watch the story unfold but take part by deciding what your characters actions, reactions and dialogue will be. The story is heavily effected by what you decide. So will you be a nice guy, cowardly, a liar or a scum bag. It’s literally up to you. When the action starts though you have quick time events which if you fail may result in death.

Now Guardian of the galaxy focuses on the main characters of the movie and it looks like one of main bad guy of this tale is Thanos. Which incase you didn’t know is a major league bad guy considered to be too powerful by many. So you may be wondering what can those guys from guardians of the galaxy do against him. Well, we just have to wait and see. Will he lose due to something ridiculous or plot armour of protagonists? We will have to wait and find out.

There will be 5 episodes for this game and the first one comes out on the 18th of April. The games description also lets us know that a female character called the last of her kind is also involved and is the main bad guy. This has to make you wonder who this could be. What we also know is that the guardians have discovered a artifact of ‘unspeakable power’. Each one the guardians: Rocket, Gamora, Star-Lord, Groot and Drax all have their reasons for why they want the artifact. So how will this story go. Will they all initially be enemies and then team up after discovering the more worse enemies out their? 

The graphics look good in comparison to the others. From what we have seen this game aims to keep the humour that was in the movie. Overall it seems like it potentially has a lot to offer seeing as how they have a futuristic setting, aliens and different worlds at their disposal to make this a exciting game. From what we can see, it looks good but we still find batman more interesting but let’s see. Telltale fans will be ready for this one. The developers ‘Telltale’ did a good job with this game. This may be worth checking out. Whether you are a fan or not… You have to be a fan of the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Xbox One. Big update

Posted on 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!’

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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!’ 

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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!’.

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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!’

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