Before The Fall
#The first major update since I started playing FFXIV is imminent, and Square Enix has put up videos on their YouTube channel in English, French, German and Japanese (English one below)
Steam Holiday Sale
#Steam have been running a sale with different games discounted every day. Current collection includes the original Final Fantasy VII. A classic game, although now showing its graphical age (this was during the time of the original PS1/PSOne/PSX console, and I played that game to death on my original brick/fat/phat PS2 – which I still have, mind you.) So take a look if you want.
Link to news article here.
Link to game page here.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
#Experimenting with video game capture, and here’s my capturing of the pre-game movie. This is referred to by Square Enix as the “Prologue” video. For those (like me) who joined the game late, this short movie connects the first version of the game (Final Fantasy XIV) with the second version of the game (Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn). The end of the first game showed the first part of this movie (up until where the heroes get teleported), and it cliff-hanged there. With the release of the new version, they released this updated version of the movie, which added the ending to the movie.
GTA fan dialled 999 to report death of video game character
#I might be a gamer myself, but I might get pissed off when my character dies, but calling the police just because your game character died? That’s a sad state of affairs.
Final Fantasy
#Grrr. So I uploaded some Final Fantasy videos over the weekend using my mobile phone to speed things up, and one of them got hit immediately by Square Enix. They were only opening videos….
Internet Speeds
#And this is why people are now using their mobiles phones' 4G connection above home broadband…
On the top my home broadband (Sky). On the bottom, Three’s 4G connection. Guess which one I use most? And the interesting thing? Even whilst downloading Final Fantasy XIII via Steam, my connection on Three still registered in excess of 50Mb/s. No wonder my Sky connection was graded F. That’s F for fail, Sky.
Dust vs Gaius
#My first attempt at in-game footage capture.
This resignation letter in a video-game could be the greatest ever
#
Dust
#I finished my first Steam-based game today, and it was Dust. Going to replay the final scenes again, but this time, try to catch the fight on video.
Steam
#With my new laptop up and running, I am happily playing several Steam-based games:
Dust (I am pretty impressed by this. It is a platformer, side-scrolling game with really nice visuals, voice-acting and insane combo options) Dungeon Defenders (yet to start this under Steam, but played it extensively under Android) Dota (downloading) Wakfu (played on my old 32-bit box, but Steam refuses to start the game if you are running 32-bit arch. With a 64-bit arch, it will start)
I also have some extra games that I’m not playing or stopped playing: Bastion (tried it and it is interesting, but I’m finding it really difficult to get into Dungeon Hearts (slow and laggy) Ravensword: Shadowlands (an interesting 3D, but very little customisation options) Toribash (Appeal wore off very quickly)
I am also playing two non-Steam-based games
World of Warcraft League of Legends
Although, I have them tied into the Steam framework so I can start them up via Steam and grab screenshots, etc.
I have also looked at Fraps and Kazam – two screen recorders (Fraps for Windows, Kazam for Linux) and both perform pretty well. Fraps performs great, I got smooth high-quality video out of WoW. Kazam, I am tweaking settings. It also generates good-quality video, but I need to play with the framerate and encoding settings. Look out for some uploads at some point in the future.
Dungeon Defenders II hands-on preview – free-to-play done right?
#I was fortunate enough to play Dungeon Defenders I on Android via both Google Play (before Trendy took it down) and Humble Bundle, and loved it. I’m itching to try DDII when it becomes available. With my new higher-spec laptop currently happily playing both League of Legends and World of Warcraft, I’ve become more active on Steam, and found that DDII is now available as an Early Access on there. So if you’re keen for your DD fix, take a look there. Currently Windows-only, though. :(
Can Daigo do the full parry again? vs. Justin Wong *2014 - YouTube
#Deja Vu (this link)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nC2D6sOrbg
via Can Daigo do the full parry again? vs. Justin Wong *2014 - YouTube.
Legion of Heroes
#It can get pretty busy on the field during a battle….
Legion of Heroes
#
Gotten into a new freemium game called Legion of Heroes. It’s a cross between a 3D MMORPG with a Final Fantasy Tactics style battle. There’s gorgeous graphics, decent cutscenes, and voice-acting that isn’t too cringe-worthy. Yes, it is freemium, and it does push selling items at you repeatedly, which is damn frustrating, but my only gripe so far.
It is a demanding game, and it shows by its lack of compatibility with older devices. Both my asus Transformer TF101 and my HTC Sensation Std are not compatible with this game,
You can have several heroes on your team, with one your main character. I picked the magic user, because I have a thing for magic users and Elves, and she was both. Surprising, it was a good choice - she’s a decent damage dealer, and doubles up as a healer, with her healing also giving a ATK+ bonus). Unfortunately, we can be either a damage dealer or a healer, and not both, as her mode is dictated by the weapon she wields (staff for damage, or tome for healing - she was wielding a staff in the picture below). Fortunately, as I progressed into the story, I met two healers (both on the back row of my team). One heals an entire row by a certain amount, and the other heals only one, but gives a regeneration bonus on that person so they auto-heal for two turns.
When a character performs a special move, such as healing, or casting a spell, you get a short cut like this. It is possible, when in auto-battle, to have several characters perform special moves one after the other. It’s quite amusing to watch four specials all targetted at one boss.
Specials are paid for by Fury, which is gathered during attacks by your characters, and by being attacked by opponent monsters. So it is possible to throw many specials during the course of a battle. Some moves are low-cost such as the single-person heal. Others, such as my main character’s special costs more, because it deals damage to more enemies.
Parrying
#This moment when Daigo parried Chun Li’s super and countered with an ultimate combo cancelled into his own super, turning around the entire match and defeating his opponent in the process. This went down in history as one of, if not, the ultimate tournament comeback.
EDIT: He pulled it off AGAIN! And in mid-battle! He still lost the match, though :-(
How difficult is it to do that parry-and-counter combination? Pretty difficult if this is anything to go by…
Rainbowmon
#After a lot of fighting, I got my first Rainbowmon loot. This monster is unique in that it is not designed to be used to fight with, it is meant to be sacrificed to give EXP to other monsters. Find these monsters, and you can fast-track the levels on your team.
Summoner's War
#I’ve been introduced to a new Android game. Summoner’s War. It’s a free-to-play game, with optional IAP. Freemium, I guess.
You are a summoner and you take monsters into battle, following a storyline, with rare monsters available if you hunt for them. It’s a generally good time-waster.
Yes, you can pay money for speeding up the levelling, but you don’t have to, and there’s little push for it. You can have many monsters on your team, and include some from your friends.
There is also an Arena (this is the core of the game) where you can battle other players in PvP - but the players are not “live”. The players setup a defending team and when you battle them, that is the team that you face.
I’ve also just discovered the dungeons feature, where you can search for parts to Awaken monsters, where you upgrade your monster, causing it to change appearance and name, and gain better stats and a new skill. Another feature is Evolving monsters, where you increase your monster’s number of stars, resetting them to level 1 and return them to base stats, but their base stats are more powerful that the previous star level. I haven’t evolved any of my characters yet, although I do now have one eligible for it (my Vagabond, at L15) - not in any of these pictures. Evolution requires several monsters of the same star level to be sacrified. So, for example, my Vagabond is 2 stars, so I need 2x 2 star monsters. A three star monster need 3x 3 star monsters instead.
Related articles
USF4 Ultras w/o Cinematic Camera
#Ultras from USF4 with no cinematic cuts.
Heavenly Sword Movie - The Official Movie Trailer - YouTube
#Another movie spawned from a game. Will be interesting to see how this one lands.
Related articles
Injustice
#It looks like having Injustice on my phone causes my phone to become VERY unstable. Apps start misbehaving and being terminated by the Android OS as it attempts to free-up memory, even when Injustice is not running. I’ve had to remove it off my phone just to get it to behave properly, so now I’m playing it on my tablet instead. I lost around 1 day’s worth of play, but that’s tolerable since I’ve just started it.
Progress is slow, since I can only use the app when I’m at home. But still, I’ve managed to gain some more levels and characters. I’ve even promoted Nightwing and Catwoman.
Injustice
#I found out how to get my game state back, and got all my characters back, plus had Green Lantern added to it, albeit later than normal (GL is meant to have been unlocked when you register for a WBID)
Related articles
Injustice
#A colleague at work has introduced me to Injustice: Gods Among Us. I’ve spent a couple of days playing it on my tablet, but it seems a little buggy on there (not sure whether it’s my ROM or the app, or both). It’s taken me a couple of attempts, but I’ve got it running on my phone. Unfortunately, even if you have a WBID, your progress does not seem to carry across devices, so I had most of my characters at Level 10 on my tablet, but when I start on my phone, they are all Level 1. I had Nightwing, Sinestro and Lex Luthor on my tablet as starting characters. This time, I have Green Arrow, Harley Quinn and Sinestro, with Green Lantern as my (immediate) first unlock.
‘Gather the Gems!’, Made with Blender, is Free for 3 days | BlenderNation
#Endre Barath is a Blender artist who works for the independent game studio Alpha-Tauri Interactive in Hungary (see some of Endre’s work here on BlenderNation). They use Blender for all their game assets, and for the next three days they’re offering their top game ‘Gather the Gems!’ for free. The offer is valid through March 30.
‘Gather the Gems!’, Made with Blender, is Free for 3 days | BlenderNation.
Updated: ZR2 Google Music FAQ
#Just made some updates to my Zombies, Run 2 Google Music FAQ.
Updated: ZR2 Google Music FAQ
#Just made some updates to my Zombies, Run 2 Google Music FAQ.