Showing posts with label blizzard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blizzard. Show all posts

Diablo 2 Expansion: Lord of Destruction Review

Diablo 2 Expansion: Lord of Destruction
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Diablo 2 Expansion: Lord of Destruction ReviewMany people complain about the high price of the Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction (LOD) Expansion set. To do so, I think, is to miss the point. You buy the game to play it, and its playability is what matters. People tend to think that an "expansion" merely adds a "10% more" to a game - but the fact is, LOD adds so much to the original game that you will probably never look back.Why would you give up a doubled stash? The 800x600 resolution pestered for way back in 2000 when D2 Classic was released? Instant switching between two sets of weapon/shield? New class-specific items, new uniques, greatly improved set items (gain bonuses as you collect each item, instead of having to complete them), elite items, runes (and runeword items), crafted items (i.e. make your own rares)? Two new classes (a druid who can summon creatures, cast elemental spells and shapeshift; an assassin who practises martial arts, lays traps and hones shadow disciplines), and an entire new act set in a wintry landscape (bunnies included)? Afraid to play alone? Don't worry, now your hirelings survive more than their first hit, and can be equiped with weapons and armour - they can even teleport when you walk too far! And some even have paladin auras! And they can be resurrected!How about little little details like: you can now reset the gambling screen at will; gambling prices scale with your level; a repair-all-equiped items button; blue items now get the most powerful prefixes/suffixes, giving them renewed value; click an item on the Horadric Cube to place it inside (you have to do it to realise the convenience); Act 2 Desert Warrior hirelings cast paladin auras; Act 5 Barbarian hirelings use Stun and Bash; town NPCs now sell more items; Act-end bosses can now be repeatedly killed for chance to find top items (in D2 Classic, great stuff only drops once); you can walk through your hirelings/minions (no more traffic jams in the Maggot Lair)... and the list goes on.Let's be honest though - everyone knows that the game code is not perfect; it has its bugs. Few games (especially of this scale) can claim to be bug-free. But despite this, the game is totally playable. I myself have not stopped playing D2 since June 30, 2000. The important thing to savour is the fact that the developers, Blizzard, are keen on resolving technical problems and gamneplay issues: think about it - Blizzard has released NINE patches to date. This may seem to suggest that the game is wrought full of bugs, but change your perspective - what it ultimately says is that its developer is conscientious enough to keep working at it. How many software developers can claim this level of diligence?Ultimately, the game is super-fun. As I suggested in my review of Diablo 2 (Classic), the game rewards all kinds of players, from the undiscerning clicker to the meticulous strategist - that is one of Blizzard's secret ingredients: allowing every style of player to find something that suits them in the game, and yet never fully satisfying them. I suppose that's why, after countless games, my wife is still trying to perfect her (deceptively simple?) mace-stunner barbarian...Diablo 2 Expansion: Lord of Destruction OverviewNew Characters:Assassin -- The Order of Mage Slayers was formed after the Vizjerei survived the tragedy brought on by Bartuc and Horazon. Their purpose was to watch for rogue magi that may become corrupted by the forces of Evil. To be effective at this task they were trained in abilities that were not conducive to Demonic corruption. Living as rumor and myth to the general population, even other magi knew very little about this mysterious order. Their reputation was shrouded in mystery and t

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Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Review

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
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Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty ReviewThis new iteration of Starcraft is very good.
This is the collectors edition. Its about thirty dollars more than the base version. While that may seem like a lot being one third more cost, you do get a ton of really cool extras. I will put a + next to the ones I think are good. Whats different in this version vs the other version. For your thirty dollars you get:
..>> A nice art book with paintings, character models, sketches for behind the scenes look into the art of the game.
+ >> A making of DVD with behind the scenes movie of how the game was made.
..>> A CD of the music from the game.
+ >> A 2GB Flash drive shaped like Raynor's dog tag. In the drive there is the original Starcraft plus the Broodwar Expansion. You can use this drive for anything its still a 2GB drive in the end.
..>> A Starcraft comic book
+ >> A different icon for your character on Battlenet.
+ >> Special Icons and logos for your units in the game
+ >> Special collectors edition of the Terran Thor.
+ >> MY favorite a MiniThor pet for WoW that is for all characters on your Battlenet account. Just like the Pandaren monk or Mountain Dew promotional pet.
Its alot for only a few dollars more. I spent that much on 3 WoW pets, so if your into unique items this may be the upgrade for you. I have too many books now as it is so the extras are not IMHO worth it all that much. That being said the DVD has a nice production value to it and the other pieces are well made so if you are into that aspect you may enjoy it more.
The review of the game:
Blizzard has taken this game into the modern time with a new look, 3D engine and new strategies. You do not have to have played the original Starcraft to understand what is going on here. Blizzard has made this game to be completely stand alone and to train you as the player from the ground up. This means that if you may be new to the story then you will be brought up to speed quickly. If you are a veteran you will appreciate the new and exciting look and feel plus the new units.
3D:
+ For the first time you can swing down and check out your units and see what they can see with regard to the terrain.
+ Beautiful 3D terrain and environment. You really feel immersed in the fantastic vistas and look of the game.
+ Smooth performance even with low end graphics cards. I played this on my PC which has a GTX 470 and of course it was beautiful. I then tried it out on my wife's Macbook Pro (with old ATI card) and while not as rich looking it was very playable and smooth. Which means Blizzard cares enough about their fan base to let older slower computers play this game.
Sound:
+ Zerg squishy noises are awesome and make me nauseous to hear them. The clink of the space marines are so fitting and the phased sounds of the Protoss are spot on. Great sounds that add to the immersion.
+ Voice acting is some of the best I have heard in a game. It has a cinematic feel to it as you play.
Single Player:
+ The single player mode is fun and it is what I have played most sofar. It is challenging and without using any cheats (I am sure they are there but not released as of yet), it means I really have to watch my resources and units well.
+ Units are easily queued and respond with amazing AI. Give them a general order and they follow it and can think on their own better than any other RTS I have ever played, thats saying alot because I have played probably most of the RTS games even back to the original Civilization ( yes I am dating myself here).
Online play:
+ Games are quick to get into and feature a nice interface that makes the waiting time pass.
+ The ranking system thus far seems very fair and well thought out. I am sure it will change in the future but for now is very good.
Summary:
This is more than an update of the original. It is more like a movie playing homage to an old classic. What you get here is a brand new game with a history behind it as being one of the best video games of all time. Don't believe me ask one of the professional SC1 players. This game will grow over time and by the time the last iteration comes out it will be so polished that it may surpass SC1 as the seminal RTS game.
In closing:
I am not an employee of Blizzard nor am I a Fanboy. I merely purchased a game, enjoyed it wrote a review here on Amazon. Nothing more nothing less. I am passing on this information to you the consumer in hopes you will find this to be the case for you too.
It is great RTS game, get it.
UPDATE: August 1 2010
Ok Multiplayer just rocks. I spent 10 hours today playing head to head with my friends and against others. Its really good. From time to time people may crash and then the game gives you the win after 45 seconds. The chat is great, you can talk to your allies, your team mate and the opponents by just hitting tab. The achievements are great and really fun. I am still doing the unranked challenges, you get 50 total then you are ranked. By then you should know what your doing. You can create your own custom games, maps and setup. Very customizable.
Overall this is fantastic and really engaging. I haven't sat this long in one sitting since raid nights on WoW. I still don't get where people say you cannot chat with the other team, your team or whatever? I think its a ton of misinformation that is spreading. Oh well I am enjoying the heck out of this.
Get this game and get in the battle!
Thank you for reading my review.Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty OverviewStarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the sequel to Blizzard Entertainment's 1998 hit StarCraft, which has been hailed by players and critics worldwide as one of the top real-time strategy games of all time. StarCraft II will once again center on the clash between the protoss, terrans, and zerg, with each side deploying favorite units from the original StarCraft, along with numerous upgraded and brand-new units and abilities that allow for fresh tactics and strategies. The game's new 3D-graphics engine maintains the speed and responsive control of its predecessor while rendering hundreds of units onscreen for massive battles.StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty's solo campaign will continue the epic saga where it left off in StarCraft: Brood War. The storyline chronicles the exploits of marshal-turned-rebel-leader Jim Raynor and features both familiar faces and new heroes. Players will be able to tailor the experience, choosing their own mission path and selecting technology and research upgrades to suit their playing style throughout the 29-mission campaign. Several challenge-mode mini-games will also be included, with focused goals designed to ease players into the basics of multiplayer strategies. In addition, dozens of multiplayer maps will be available for competitive play through the new version of Battle.net, which is launching alongside StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. This new version of the service has been built from the ground up to offer an unparalleled online play experience, with new features such as voice communication, character profiles and achievements, stat-tracking, ladders and leagues, cloud file storage, and more. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Collector's Edition Features:

The Art of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, a 176-page book featuring artwork from the game
An exclusive 2GB USB flash drive replica of Jim Raynor's dog tag, which comes preloaded with the original StarCraft and the StarCraft: Brood War expansion set
A behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, cinematics with director's commentary, and more
The official StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty soundtrack CD, containing 14 epic tracks from the game along with exclusive bonus tracks
StarCraft comic book issue #0, a prequel to the comic series
A World of Warcraft mini Thor in-game pet that can be applied to all World of Warcraft characters on a single Battle.net account
Exclusive Battle.net downloadable content, including special portraits for your Battle.net profile, decals to customize your units in-game, and a visually unique version of the terran Thor unit


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World Of Warcraft Expansion: Burning Crusade Review

World Of Warcraft Expansion: Burning Crusade
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World Of Warcraft Expansion: Burning Crusade ReviewThis expansion pack introduces the new continent of Outland. This continent can only be accessed with a character that is at least level 58. If you're either just starting to play World of Warcraft, or you have no characters even close to level 58, you may just want to wait to buy the expansion at a later time.
However, the expansion also grants you access to two new races, the Draenei (Alliance) and the Blood Elves (Horde). You won't be able to create characters of either of these races if you don't have the expansion. So, if you want to play one of them you'll need to get it. If you're a new player who's just trying out the game, I'd suggest just getting the basic version and playing one of the original races, rather than spending the extra $40 before you even know whether you like the game.
You should also be warned that if you're upgrading from the original version of the game, even if your copy is already fully patched, you'll have to install the patches again after installing Burning Crusade. This is because they printed the CDs with version 2.0 of the client you use to play the game, but they've issued patches after that which you need to log into the server (up to version 2.05 as of this writing). If you look in the Patches sub-folder of your World of Warcraft folder on your computer, you should already have some of the patches present and be able to simply double click them to install. If you were to try to log in before doing that, you'll have to redownload the patch before it installs instead, which will naturally take more time.
Some people have complained about lag, crashes, and lines to log into the more popular servers. These are all short term problems. A lot of people are very excited about the expansion, and so there are far more players than usual logged in at once, which is straining the servers. Give it a week or two after release and it should begin to settle down.
For the basic version of WoW, the level cap is 60. If you install the expansion, the cap is increased to 70. If you have a level 60 character and want to continue to advance, you MUST upgrade your account with the expansion pack.
Additional level brackets for the Battlegrounds (Player vs Player areas) have been added to accomodate the new higher levels in the game. Also, a new battleground called Eye of the Storm has been made available for characters of level 61 and above. Additionally, around the zones of the new Outland continent, there are PvP tasks you can perform such as taking over control of towers, with the faction that controls all of the towers in a zone gaining a small bonus such as a 5% increase to damage anywhere in that zone.
They've also added a number of new instances/dungeons. The new ones have two settings, allowing you to go through them at either 'normal' difficulty, or 'heroic' difficulty. The heroic setting makes the enemies tougher, and provides increased treasure rewards. This keeps the instances useful for advancement over a larger span of levels than would normally be the case.
Most players will find that, as they do quests in Outland, they quickly begin to get armor that's superior to what they've previously been using. The monetary rewards in the new areas are also increased. Additionally, professions have been expanded to cover the additional levels in the game and tailoring has been expanded to include specialties similar to the way blacksmithing and leatherworking work.
Flying mounts are available on the continent of Outland for those who purchase them. However, these are not available to be used in the two original continents. This is because those areas were designed with the intention that they would only be accessed from the ground and a lot of work would have been required to make all of the quests and visuals work as intended if characters were permitted to fly around freely.
Be cautious about buying this item used. Each copy of the expansion includes a key code that is required to upgrade your account to allow access to the new content. If you buy a used copy of the software where the seller has already used that key to upgrade his account, you'll still be able to install the software upgrade, but the lack of an unused key will mean that you won't be able to apply the upgrade to your account that's required to actually access the new content.
If you install the expansion on a computer where more than one account is used (for example, if you and your spouse each has your own account) then you can only use the key to upgrade one of those accounts. The other account will continue to work, but it will not be given access to the expansion pack content. Therefore, you need to obtain one expansion pack for each account you or your household has if you want to access the new content on all of them.
Edit: As of January 22, 2007 Blizzard has announced on their forums that they're working on allowing players who already upgraded using the basic expansion to then also upgrade using the collector's edition in order to get the limited edition pet. You'll have to call Blizzard's billing service line with the unused collector's edition expansion key, so it's slightly more work than upgrading directly with the CE, but it can now be done.World Of Warcraft Expansion: Burning Crusade OverviewBlizzard Entertainment took online role playing by storm with their hit title, World of Warcraft. With mind-boggling improvements in graphics, gameplay networking, and interface -- really every category -- this game became the crown prince of the genre. World of Warcraft players will be excited by the approaching release of the new expansion pack: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. This pack expands the already massive, award-winning multiplayer online role-playing game by tremendous bounds, adding new races, lands, battlegrounds, professions and items, and much, much more. Although no release date has been set, here is sample of what you can expect from The Burning Crusade.
The expansion pack features an increase in the level cap to 70. There are two new playable races, including the magical Blood Elves that you can read more about below. The other race has not yet been released by Blizzard. There will be new starting zones in Quel'Thalas and beyond. Another eye-opening addition is the entirely new, unexplored continent of Outland that is reachable through the Dark Portal. Plus, you'll find many new high-level dungeons to explore in Azeroth, Outland, and elsewhere that will substantially boost gameplay. There are new flying mounts in Outland; tons of new and dangerous monsters (including epic world bosses); hundreds of new quests and items; and even a new profession: Jewelcrafting. Of course this isn't the end of the list -- this is just a glimpse of what Blizzard has planned for their unreleased expansion pack.

The New Story, the Rumors, and More Several years have passed since the Burning Legion's defeat at Mount Hyjal and the races of Azeroth have continued to rebuild their once shattered lives. With renewed strength, the heroes of the Horde and Alliance have begun to explore new lands, and have broken through the Dark Portal to investigate the realms beyond the known world. In this expansion pack, The Burning Crusade refers to the Burning Legion's ongoing efforts to destroy life on Azeroth. To date, the Burning Legion's exploits have been documented in Warcraft III and in the War of the Ancients novel trilogy. As part of the expansion pack, players will now be able to travel through the Dark Portal to confront the Legion on otherworldly battlefields.

Although only one race has been revealed, Blizzard has announced plans to unveil details about possible additional races at a later date. On the other hand, many details have been released about the new continent, Outland. Players last visited Outland in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, alongside Illidan as he conquered the Pit Lord Magtheridon's domain. Players will also gain access to Quel'Thalas, the region to the northeast of the Forsaken lands, where the Blood Elves reside. Blizzard says that this expansion pack holds even more new areas that are ripe for player exploration -- additional details will be revealed in the months ahead.

Blizzard also has plans to add new dungeons and battlegrounds with the expansion, though the exact number has not yet been determined. One upcoming dungeon that has players excited is Karazhan, which is located within Medivh's tower. Because Medivh has played such a central role in Warcraft lore, Blizzard is convinced that longtime players will be especially interested in seeing what Karazhan contains. As for battlegrounds, Blizzard has released very little information. However, they have announced plans to make some of the battles from the past accessible through the Caverns of Time.

Blood Elves: The New Race Thousands of years ago, the exiled Highborne landed on the shores of Lordaeron and founded the enchanted kingdom of Quel'Thas. These high elves, as they called themselves, created a fountain of vast, magical energies within the heart of their land -- the Sunwell. Over time, they grew dependant on the Sunwell's unstable energies, regardless of the bitter lessons they'd learned in ages past.

During the Third War, the villainous Prince Arthas invaded Quel'Thalas and reduced the once-mighty realm to rubble and ashes. His undead army decimated nearly all of the high elven population. In addition, he used the Sunwell's energies to resurrect a powerful undead Lich, Kel'thuzad, thereby fouling the Sunwell's mystical waters. The few elven survivors, realizing that they had been cut off from the source of their arcane power, grew increasingly volatile and desperate.

In the midst of the elves' darkest hour came Kael'thas Sunstrider, the last of Quel'Thalas' royal bloodline. Kael, as he was commonly known, knew that the remnant of his people would not long survive without the nourishing magic that once empowered them. Renaming his people "blood elves" in honor of their fallen countrymen, Kael taught the survivors how to tap into ambient mystical energies -- even demonic energies -- in order to sate their terrible thirst for magic. In search of a new destiny for his people, Kael'thas ventured to the remote world of Outland where he encountered the fallen night elf, Illidan. Under Illidan's watchful eye, Kael and his blood elves regained much of their former power.

Unfortunately, the blood elves practice of embracing demonic energies caused their former comrades in the Alliance to shun them. Thus, the remaining blood elves on Azeroth look desperately to the Horde to help them reach Outland where they can reunite with Kael'thas and achieve the golden destiny he has promised them.

Outland: The New Continent Once the beautiful homeworld of the orcs, all that remains of Draenor is the scattered wastes of Outland. Following the Second War, the Alliance invaded Draenor by crossing through the Dark Portal. To their horror, they discovered that Ner'zhul -- the dark warlord of Horde -- had constructed a series of new gateways that could lead the beaten Horde to newer, unspoiled worlds. As the Alliance forces closed in around him, Ner'zhul opened his gateways as a means of escape. However, his plan backfired and the gateway's clashing energies resulted in a massive catastrophic explosion that ultimately ripped the world of Draenor to pieces.

Nearly thirteen years later -- towards the end of the Third War -- the fallen night elf, Illidan, discovered that huge chunks of Draenor still existed, floating upon the astral winds of the Twisting Nether. After his defeat at the hands of the evil Prince Arthas, Illidan fled to the remnants of Draenor and dubbed them "Outland." He quickly seized control of the chaotic region and sealed the last of Ner'zhul's gateways.

Though he is the undisputed ruler of the ravaged land, Illidan lives in fear that he will be discovered by his powerful enemies -- most notably Arthas, the new Lich King, and the remaining Lords of the Burning Legion. For now, Outland is home to a number of scattered draenei tribes, primitive orcs, and powerful, arcane creatures of the Nether itself. Agents of the Burning Legion have also targeted the region as a vital strategic location in their unending Burning Crusade to scour all life from the universe.

What else can expected? Blizzard has tantalized Warcraft players with the brief glimpse into The Burning Crusade's storyline. Will these heroes find friends or foes? What dangers and rewards lie in wait beyond the Dark Portal? And what will they do when they discover that the demons they thought were vanquished have returned to renew their terrible Burning Crusade? These and other questions will remain unanswered until the gameplay can be explored by role-playing Warcrafters.




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