We all have games that we love, and some online FPS titles or MMOs will create such a time sink that players could sink over a hundred or so hours into one title without batting an eyelash, but this on the other hand is just ludicrous. It appears that one Japanese gamer has played Level 5’s White Knight Chronicles II so much that he may as well have lived in that game.
This player has racked in a massive 8,701 hours playing White Knight Chronicles II which breaks down to 362 24-hour days playing this PlayStation 3 exclusive. He is ranked at the highest level 85 and is the highest guild rank 40, also apparently has no life whatsoever. Bravo Japanese gamer, bravo…. someone get this guy another video game.
Many gamers may have heard of a Flash web game that was known as Shift which was widely popular in Flash game circles. Fishing Cactus took this flash title and expanded upon it, creating the puzzling platformer Shifting World which is going to be released on the Nintendo 3DS as a full retail title courtesy of Aksys Games.
Shifting world takes advantage of a number of new advanced features such as a new black and white art style, a level editor, 3D functionality of a level generator that makes use of the 3DS’ camera to act as a barcode scanner and over 60 levels to be played. The game will be a sidescrolling platformer where the player must solve puzzles by changing the world from black to white and move obstacles around. Expect to see the title sometime in 2012.
If one thing is for sure, it’s that The Sims world is always expanding. EA Games have today announced the latest expansion pack in the Sims 3 series – The Sims 3 Showtime, Sims are now able to live out their dreams as singers, acrobats, magicians and DJs in the entertainment industry.
Along with the all new gameplay features and items that players can expect from a Sims expansion pack. A brand new feature called SimPort will be included. SimPort is a new social feature that provides in-game news feeds and live updates from other player’s game and also allows players to send their Sims into another friend’s game to perform in their world.
The Sims 3 Showtime is set to be released in March 2012 for PC and Mac
Dungeon Hunter Alliance Platform: Mac (Reviewed) Studio: Gameloft Publisher: Gameloft Release Date: 11/11/2011 Available via iTunes($15.99)
Overview
Dungeon Hunter has been a huge success for Gameloft, and it’s not hard to see why. After bringing that classic addictive dungeon crawling action to iOS devices, PlayStation Portable and more, Dungeon Hunter Alliance now comes to the Mac app store with full brutal force, complete with a very smooth and strong online multiplayer community and endless treasures to loot. While Dungeon Hunter Alliance is far from perfect, it sure is a lot of damn fun with plenty to do. An easy recommendation to all Mac gamers, especially if you like dungeon crawling.
Story
Have you ever woken up dead before? Well your about to! Dungeon Hunter Alliance grabs your attention straight away with a unique and interesting plot point-your character is a dead king, brought back from beyond the grave to undo his past wrongs and stop his evil ex-wife from doing evil Queen stuff. Unfortunately after this the storyline is all downhill from here, as everything is basically forgettable and you only ever meet one other person that isn’t an enemy that matters. Oh yeah and that character is so poorly developed that you really couldn’t care for her existence at all. With a story you’ll want to skip through, boring cut scenes and practically no character development, you’d think this would be a problem. Thankfully however, the story is not important as it’s all about the gameplay. While an engaging storyline could’ve made the game more captivating and enjoyable, this title puts you straight into the action and it works. Why? Cause telling stories is for little girls! Now grow a pair and kill some trolls!
Gameplay
To be blunt, Dungeon Hunter Alliance is really just your standard top-down, hack-and-slash dungeon crawling RPG and isn’t all that ambitious, but it’s made so well you shouldn’t care at all and it’s really easy to have fun with. You’ll begin your quest with a whole bunch of options-choose from one of three classes (Warrior, Rouge or Mage), figure out if you want to play via point-and-click style or begin raiding dungeons with your keyboard and then eventually you’ll need to decide how you’d like to transmute your items. What makes Dungeon Hunter Alliance so easily accessible to the casual market is that transmuting loot for cash and equipping weaponry can be automatically done for you. It’s a huge time saver and a neat inclusion, but the option to not do so is also present for the hardcore gamer who likes to observe the stats of every item he comes across. Hot keys are also nicely implemented but what makes the gameplay so addictive and fun is that the upgrade system encourages the player to constantly want to improve, so you develop a need to push forth in the storyline as the enemies do get harder as you go along. Levelling up can more and more time consuming as you advance, and as a result grinding starts to feel more rewarding. Each time your character gains a level they are also given points that can be assigned to their stats as well as skill points to be assigned to which magical spell they’d like to learn or improve so you can easily see your results in real time.
The most fun you’ll have however is sharing the experience in the online multiplayer with up to 3 allies. The game runs smoothly for the most part and it’s really fun to develop teamwork, although admittedly you don’t really have to as every problem can mostly be solved via hack n’ slash. Sometimes a particular section in multiplayer mode may be hard to take on alone, so these situations can easily be worked around by simply hosting a new multiplayer game online and brining in some allies to help you out. There’s almost always somebody online and connecting a game is never hard. The main challenge however is finding someone who’s advanced as far as you in the story, as you can’t connect to quests you haven’t unlocked yet. Strangely no online voice chat has been included which is a shame, as it’s something the game really could’ve benefited from. There is a chat box for typing, but it’s seldom used and occasionally can be buggy so it’s a bit of a let down as well. Regardless, multiplayer still is a blast to play.
Despite so many highlights, there are numerous flaws within the game. First of all, the AI is terrible. Enemies will try and run through walls rather than around them to get to you, enemies will get stuck they’ll know where you are before your even in sight, etc. While it doesn’t really matter as the gameplay is simply ‘bad guy runs at you so you slash at him and he dies’, it’s slightly sad when your able to base a lot of your tactics on how stupid your opponent is. Also levels can get really repetitive and things can feel like fetch quests, but thankfully the stage variety and upgrade system is enough fun to motivate you through them. Puzzles are introduced to spice up the gameplay, but they are designed so effortlessly that they are more chores rather than puzzles as they are simply just ‘pick this vase up, put it on this pressure pad to open the gate’ while oddly standing on the pressure pad doesn’t work. There are also numerous bugs throughout the game. However despite all of these issues, none of them are game breaking and none of these should ruin your experience with the game itself, and in the end that’s all that really matters!
Audio/Visual
Graphically speaking Dungeon Hunter Alliance isn’t going to win any awards for best graphics this year. Character models look ok but never outstanding and character design plays it safe although that’s not a terrible thing. Magic looks nice as well with bright colours that catch your eye and backgrounds are interesting and contain a lot of variation. Sound effects are decent but it’s a real shame that the the main characters have no voice acting. Occasionally you may hear one or two lines but it would’ve been nice to hear more and read less for the Mac version of the game. Tunes are pleasant to listen to but nothing is spectacular.
Overall
Dungeon Hunter Alliance is blast to play. While it does play it almost a little too safe at times, it’s a strong reminder of how fun dungeon crawling can be. With an upgrade system that motivates you to push onwards, an entertaining multiplayer and addictive gameplay for only $15.99, Dungeon Hunter Alliance is hours and hours of grinding fun and a great value for money. If you own a Mac and enjoy a good dungeon crawl, this is hands down a must buy game.
Marvel Pinball for PS3 and Pinball FX2 on Xbox 360 are each going to receive a new DLC pack soon. On December 13th, the God of Thunder will be coming to PS3. The next day, Thor Odinson will be arriving on the Xbox 360. Each consoles DLC will cost $10. In addition to Thor, Moon Night and Ghost Rider will also be included in this collection of pinball tables, entitled “Vengeance and Virtue.”
Zen Studios and Marvel describe the experience that Thor will bring to the classic arcade game:
“Venturing throughout the Nine Realms, Thor must defend Asgard against his mischievous half-brother Loki and the ferocious power of the Destroyer armor, as well as the evils of the fire demon Surtur, and Ymir, ruler of the Frost Giants. Thor unleashes strikes of brilliant lightning and hurls his powerful hammer Mjolnir on this visually striking table that boasts more animations than any other to date in the critically acclaimed Marvel Pinball series.”
It seems that GameStop should be the official announcer of most companies video game news rather than the companies themselves. GameStop has updated a listing in the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations DLC to actually include something that wasn’t a character package. The DLC is called The Mediterranean Traveler Map Pack and is expected to be released on January 24th 2012.
The pack will add a large amount of maps to the multiplayer aspect Siena, Jerusalem, Dyers, San Donato, Firenze and the Imperial District of Constantinople. Those who remember Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood should recognize a few of these maps and if the listing is anything to be believed, players can expect a $9.99 price tag for the DLC when it is released. Though, Ubisoft themselves have yet to actually make an official announcement, but this seems pretty cut and dry.
Rockstar Games have finally announced a release date for the Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition which was announced back in October. If you’ve got an iOS or Android mobile device you can get your hands on this classic game on December 15th for $4.99. Currently supported mobile devices are:
Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Dell Streak 7, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive
No word yet on if anymore devices will be supported in the future, but for now GTA fans will be able to pick up and play the game that revolutionised the sandbox genre in the palm of their hands next week for only $4.99.
Perhaps one of the most popular and simple games on the iOS marketplace, even more so than Angry Birds is Fruit Ninja. That little mobile title was developed by the company known as Halfbrick and have even expanded beyond the mobile game and created a Kinect version of the title on the Xbox 360 for those who want to chop fruit with their own hands.
Fans of the game can now even have their own little sliced watermelon or even the game’s Sensei in plush form. To be more exact, Halfbrick has created their own online store and are selling the Sensei plush for $15.99 and a sliced Watermelon that can be stuck together with velcro for $14.99. Currently only the Sensei plush is available but if you keep an eye out I’m sure the watermelon will be available soon.
Nintendo has come out and revealed that at the moment there is a game ending glitch many hours into The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. To be more specific, a certain quest called the “Song of the Hero” can cause a glitch that will completely lock out the rest of the quest and halt all progress in the title forever unless the player has an earlier save.
Nintendo revealed this fact to Zelda Informer and even went about explaining exactly how the glitch could occur and how to avoid it. If the player completes the quest’s desert leg first and speak to a certain Goron not once, but twice, the game locks out completion entirely and halts the game. This can be avoided by not talking to the Goron more than once, or simply perform the desert part of the quest last.
After much touting, marketing and other hollerin’, the expected Xbox Live update that was supposed to happen early this morning was delayed. Now it is evening time in the United States and it appears that Microsoft is now able to release the anticipated update. According to Major Nelson’s Twitter, certain users of Xbox Live should be able to update their consoles now, or in the next couple of hours. The update will be become available to the rest of us sooner rather than later. If you have the update, what is your favorite feature so far?
