Heroes of the Storm: A First Look

At the time of this writing, Valve has raised over $7 million to be paid out as prize money for one single eSports tournament, the DOTA 2 International Championships 2014. It has also been a $21 million payday for Valve for minimal work. They have done so by selling the "Compendium", a digital companion book to the tournament. If a player buys it, they can make predictions for the tournament for prizes, vote on two all-star teams, and get in-game items and boosts. This is in addition to the warm and fuzzy feeling you get every time you contribute to eSports. It costs $10, 25% of which goes to the tournament prize pool and 75% goes into Valve's pocket. Furthermore, it's only been out for a couple weeks now and will continue to sell until the end of July, when the tournament ends. Marketing level: Genius. (Sidenote: Did I buy one? Absolutely!)

In an attempt to start getting in on those MOBA/Hero Brawler dollars, Blizzard has finally released a Technical Alpha of their entry to the genre: Heroes of the Storm. (Note: I posted a trailer of it back when it was still called Blizzard All-Stars, literally two years ago. see new trailer here.) By Technical Alpha, they mean the game is playable but there are still lots and lots of changes coming, large and small. Also, you can already give them your real money to unlock characters and items that will later be re-locked (and your money refunded). Heaven forbid they don't get that feature in ASAP.

Anyway, I've played it. I like it! My favorite things about it so far are the things that really make it different from other MOBAs. I like that the games are short. I like that the maps are varied. And I like that the heroes are recognizable to me. However, there are shortcomings, too. Lots of those.

Game Length: If I sit down to play a game of Starcraft, we're looking at a possibility of a 45-minute game. Probably only 15 to 25, sure, but it really could go as long as three-quarter of an hour. Or even an entire hour. A game of DOTA 2? Forty-five minutes, EASY. You have to plan on that before you start a match. It could run as long as an hour, maybe longer, but probably not. I have never had a game of Heroes of the Storm take 25 minutes. Boom. Quick and easy. I love that.

On the flipside, however, each victory or defeat feels very insignificant. But my instincts aren't telling me it's because of the time commitment; it's just a matter of scale. A game of Heroes of the Storm does not feel grand or epic. It just feels like a quick little game. Maybe that's because it's a lot easier to tell if you're ahead or behind in HotS than it is in Starcraft or DOTA. But there's something going on there. And it's ruining it for me a bit.

Maps: So far there are four (maybe five) different arenas (chosen randomly when you queue up), each with a different layout and a major map-specific mechanic in addition to your standard MOBA creeps/towers/lanes. The mechanics all revolve around either collecting something or trying to hold a location, resulting in a nice boost of some kind over your opponent (see in-text image). This kind of activity encourages more frequent teamfights, forcing the players to get up in each other's faces. If you try to ignore the mechanic, your team will undoubtedly lose, so there's even more encouragement. Additionally, these maps are much smaller than your DOTA or LoL maps. This also encourages teamfights, but not in an exciting way. It's in more of a you simply can't go anywhere without bumping into someone else kind of way. Not fun.

Heroes: When I play a game of DOTA, I think in these terms: "Oh! This character is based on [so and so] from Warcraft" (see here). Many, many characters are like this. It's understandable given the game's history, but it's still always in the back on my mind. In Heroes of the Storm, I get to play as the ACTUAL characters! It is extremely satisfying. The selection is currently rather low. And it isn't helping that Blizzard has decided to go the LoL monetization route (pay to unlock heroes) rather than the amazingly-awesome-community-contribution-driven way of DOTA (all heroes unlocked, pay for community-made customizable cosmetics). That means you can't even play as whoever you like at any given time (although you can try all heroes once before you have to buy them) with the exception of a rotating "Free Heroes of the Week" deal. So, that kind of sucks. But that could always change with time. I hope it does.

All in all, I'm very glad I get to be in the Alpha and be part of the process. I am very optimistic, but Blizzard has a long way to go to get this game up to a caliber that will compete with League of Legends or DOTA. I'm going to keep an eye on it and keep playing when there's a new update, but in the meantime I'm sticking with DOTA 2 when I have a MOBA itch to scratch.

Unless I'm short on time, of course.



See the show below!

Humble Bundle Acquisitions: Hammerwatch

Hammerfall? Hammerfell? Hammertime? Hammerwatch! Okay, I'm just going to level with you here. I don't feel like I played this game to really make a good judgement. It's a multiplayer Diablo-style game except that all gear and leveling has been reduced down to coin gathering and spending. I was enjoying it for the most part, and then I realized that it was time to end the show after what felt like five minutes. One of THOSE kinds of games.

It's definitely worth checking out. And it's super cheap. Win-win!

See show below!

Humble Bundle Acquisitions: The Lord of the Rings Online

If you're not already super burnt out on WoW, or maybe just looking for a little free MMO time, Lord of the Rings Online, or "Lotro", is a solid game that is worth your attention. 

See the show below!

Humble Bundle Acquisitions: Monaco

Trying to play some catchup with a new schedule. Monaco wasn't very fun at all for me. It looks like it's best played with a group of 4 that are either in the same room or on Skype. That would have been way more fun. Also, the game doesn't even bother teaching you how to play. Boo.

See terrible playthrough below!

Introducing Humble Bundle Acquisitions: Live!

This weekend my wife and I were talking about The Future. Long story short, I'm going to start a regularly scheduled show on my stream! This show will be Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 8pm to 10pm (Mountain time. That's 7pm to 9pm Pacific). The format of the show will be as follows.

Tuesday: I will pick a game that I received through a Humble Bundle and start playing it on my stream. I will have made an effort to go into it as blind as I can without any prior knowledge or opinions about the game. I'll provide as much charming commentary and observation as possible. Audience participation is greatly encouraged.

Wednesday: I'll do my homework about the game. Who made it? How was it received critically? Did it win any awards? Were there any scandals in production or afterward?

Thursday: We'll dive into the game for another two hours, this time armed with all kinds of context. I will again provide as much charming commentary and observation as possible. Audience participation will again be greatly encouraged.

Friday/Saturday: I'll write up an analysis/review of the game and put it here on the site.

Fun, right!? I'm very excited to get started, and Humble Indie Bundle 11 was released this morning. We're going live with Antichamber tonight! See you then! :D

DOTA 2 Giveaway results!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Tyler and Justin both won a copy of DOTA 2! Congrats to them and I hope they have a great time playing. Hopefully Steam (or anyone else who may feel generous) will keep sending things my way so we can do more giveaways.

Last day for DOTA 2

Hey. Today's the last day to register for the DOTA 2 giveaway. You MUST have signed up using the widget to qualify. Click anywhere on this first paragraph for details. 

Secondly, I casted my first two pro Starcraft 2 games. There is definitely room for improvement. But I'll keep it up. You can check them out on my YouTube channel. Feel free to comment if you had any constructive feedback.

Thirdly, remember when I was all like, "I'm making a video game plan and I'm sticking to it!" That's been going pretty well so far. Granted, I decided to switch back to Zerg this morning because it's just better. But other than that things have been going pretty smoothly.

Changing Gears

I'm giving away two copies of DOTA 2! Click this link for details!

Want to know how big of a dork I am? So big that I'm constantly planning out my gaming time and intentions. Today you'll get to be part of that planning.

The main goal here is that I want to play more Starcraft because I really want to get good at it and have a better understanding of the game so I can contribute more to the community. However, there's about a billion other fun games to play. I've gotten way into Dungeon Defenders in the past week and I've hardly played anything else at all. Guild Wars 2 just had it's first major patch with a ton of Halloween content. There's this new game called FireFall that I don't know anything about but is getting hyped out the yang that I might want to try. Plus there was that whole Panda thing that just happened....

And then, of course, there's my real life. Taking my wonderful wife on extravagant dates. Classes. Finding a full time, benefited, job so that we don't have to live just over the poverty line. Keeping new content on the site. Remembering to take the trash to the curb on Mondays. I'm a busy guy.

So here's my gaming plan:

• At the end of next month, I'm going to let my WoW subscription die so I wont have to pay that anymore. I'll go back for major updates, but other than that, I've got too much to play. I've got some triple experience refer a friend bonus stuff doing on until then, so I'll try to get my priest and my monk up to 80 to take full advantage of that. Done. 
• I'm going to stop playing Dungeon Defenders like a freak.
• I'm going to check out Guild Wars when there's a major update and whenever I get that MMO itch.
• I'm going to play more Starcraft. I'm actually going to start putting it into my weekly schedule.
• I will start to actually follow my weekly schedule. I'm an adult. It shouldn't be that hard. Right? ...Right?

And here now is my structured Starcraft plan:

• I am going to be playing exclusively Protoss in 1v1 (and usually streaming it).
• I'm going to be focusing on what I feel like I am "sucking at."
• First, I will be choosing one build order to improve. 
• I will be following the ORCA method. 
• When I'm feeling really good with the one, I'll move on to one for each match up.
• From there, I'll address specific things and change my play to incorporate them more.
• For instance, I never use air as Protoss, so I'll use an air-heavy build.
• I will do this until I reach Master league.
• I will then buy another copy of the game and start the same process for another race. 
• I realize those last two are very ambitious. I might stop at diamond.
• I will start casting one pro game a week to help myself get more familiar with players, builds, and maps.

And that, my friends, is a gaming plan.

Holy cow! We can have a giveaway!

Ok. Get this:

I just got two free copies of a DOTA 2 and I want to do a giveaway on the blog. Only...I don't really know how to make that work for my website. Do I make people subscribe or repost on Facebook or give me their email or what? Comment here if you know anything about this or have a good resource.

Book Review: Ultimate History of Video Games

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World, by Steven L. Kent, is more than just a book with a really long name. It's still the best book I've ever read about video games.

This fantastic book covers video games from its inception until the release of the Playstation II. Kent shows his extensive research with very detailed accounts and descriptions of all major (and minor) events in the industry during this time, generally with direct quotes from the people who took part in the them. The more modern part of this history (late 90's and beyond) begins to feel a bit rushed, but this is 100% worth to read to see how our favorite addiction began to be. Despite being nonfiction, which I admit I sometimes struggle with, Kent's work is not only readable, but enjoyable to read.

My favorite anecdote from The Ultimate History is about one of the guys who would pull the coins out of Atari arcade games each week. One of his stops was in a bar at a college campus. Once the game really took off and he was pulling hundreds of dollars of quarters of the machine, he started started to panic that one night he would get mugged. So he decided to bringing his wife along, who would carry a baseball bat just in case.

It was here that I learned about the very first video game, why video games suddenly had ratings, and that the people at Atari were a very colorful bunch. Whether you think you know everything about video games or not even one thing, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of this wonderful book and get to know an industry that has changed the world!

I give The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World a very solid 5 stars out of 5 for being the book to which I compare all other books about video games.



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Mists of Pandaria: Haters Gonna Hate

Just my luck to devote a blog to Starcraft just as a WoW expansion comes out.

If someone's really all that curious about Mists, there's about a million sites and videos they could watch, so I'm going to make this a pretty simple review.

1. The new continent has a great sense of presence for the player and the environments and music are all fantastic.The Pandaren and other new races all look great and fit right in with the game.

2. The Monk is good. I've been leveling up a tanking monk and it feels fresh and fun. Thumbs up to the Monk.

3. Questing is better than ever. There are several driving story lines that I promise are not "juvenile" or whatever it is that people are so worried about since there are giant pandas. There was one quest line in involving some raccoons that was particularly good.

3.5. The factions are all pretty cool so far and give awesome mounts when you hit exalted. And they're even going to buff reputation gains for alts soon. That's going to be pretty great. Unless of course your enjoyment of the game depends on things taking a long time so you can gloat that you have it and other people don't. Then you'll hate that. And pretty much everything else in life as well.

4. Pet Battles = awesome. Sure it's a total Pokemon ripoff, but anyone who played Pokemon back in the day knows it was a great game and it's nice to have it incorporated into WoW. I know I'm really enjoying it.

5. And the big one: there's a ton to do once you hit level cap. There's lots of rep to get. There's two new battlegrounds coming out. There's the pet battles. There's three raids plus LFR coming soon. There's a bunch of heroics as well as scenarios (shorter, more story-driven, dungeons). There's challenge modes (special versions of dungeons for speed runs and exclusive loot). There are world bosses that drop raid loot. There's the Black Market Auction House. And Blizzard's already about to put the new patch on the Test Realm with even more new content. The future looks bright!

All in all, people who want to whine will do so. The rest of us are having a great time.

P.S. Here's my main dude. He's a stud.

Bonus pic:

Mike Likes Games: Starcraft Edition

The times are a changing!

I've decided to take this blog in a new direction. I'm still going to do (semi) regular posts about whatever I feel like. However, I've also decided to really buckle down on Starcraft 2 and start laddering more seriously as well as to start casting pro games! I'm really excited about it. Kind of nervous, yes, becuase I know my game knowledge isn't exactly Artosis level, but I've been wanting to get more involved with the Starcraft community because it is awesome. I'm feeling brave right now, so it's now or never.

If you don't know much/anything about Starcraft, just check out this video. If you think this all just sounds kind of dumb, you should totally watch this video when you have some time.

In order to be a little more clear/recognizable, I've changed (or acquired) everything related to MikeySCE, Mikey:Starcraft Edition. So I've got the Twitch.tv stream, the Twitter, the YouTube channel, mikeysce@gmail.com, and the domain! This site is now accessible through mikelikesgames.blogspot.com as well as mikeysce.com. How fancy! I don't have any sweet content to share at the moment because I've still had to go to class and do homework this week. But I'm going to pull some replays off the internets and start casting this weekend. The first few (or several) will probably be pretty rough but I'm optimistic and I think it'll be a good time! Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter to keep up with new content and don't be shy about leaving feedback at the new official email (again, mikeysce@gmail.com).

Furthermore, I'm going to see if I can spruce the design of the blog up a little. That might only mean changing the backdrop and some of the colors, but it means that there are more changes coming to the site. Tell all your friends!

Speaking of casting and your friends, let me know if you have any experience with shoutcasting or even just some pointers. I could use them.

Guild Wars 2: MMO relief!

I've done nothing for the past week except my homework and play Guild Wars 2. Mostly just Guild Wars 2 though.

"What?" you may ask. What's a total Blizzard fanboy doing spending so much time playing GW2? Isn't that Panda thing coming out next week? I'll tell you what I've been doing: enjoying it completely.

I'm just going to launch into the things I like about it. Keep in the mind the only MMOs I've played a lot of are WoW and AOE:Online.

Character creation is a lot more elaborate than other games I've played. (I know that City of Heroes apparently had the best creation ever, but I never got around to that one.)

Personalized story arch. I love this so much. For the first 30 levels, the story arch is dependent upon your character and choices you made during character creation. There are splitting paths during each possible story as well, adding even more variety. There are little cutscenes in this game too, which I think is kind of cute more than anything, but certainly effective for the narrative.

Attacks and abilities change with weapons/attunements/kits. This is one of my favorite features by far. You don't just learn moves as you level, you have a different set of moves for each possible weapon configuration (as well as another set for underwater) that can be swapped out on the fly. Add dodging and lots of positional abilities and you've got yourself a game where you actually feel like you're fighting something and not just mashing number keys.

You level for everything except mob grinding. Well, you get experience for killing mobs, but it is probably the least efficient form of leveling. Quests, crafting, PvP, and crafting are all emphasized to be something you can jump into at any moment and feel "productive" as far as character progression goes. I think this freedom is the driving factor for why the game feels so fresh and new.

Dynamic quest events add a great sense of urgency to questing. It also brings every player in your vicinity together to do something epic together, which is just a better way to play.

Quality of life improvements for the economically minded. Crafting materials taking up all the bag space? Just press a button to send them to your account-wide collectibles bank. Seriously. Why isn't this feature in every game? I love it. Need to check the Auction House (or in this case, the Trading Post) just press the "O" button on your keyboard and you can buy and post away. No need to head to town.

Speaking on heading to town. For a small fee you can Fast Travel like a demon in this game. And you're even rewarded for finding the Waypoints. If there's somewhere you want to go, you just go there. No travel time.

It's new. And by that I mean that everyone is still figuring it out to some degree and there aren't many elitists yet. As someone who plays a lot of WoW, I find that extremely refreshing. Sure, the game's got a billion bugs, but if someone pops into the area chat and says "Good grief, why can't I find X" or "This game seems hard, can I get some pointers?" people actually help them instead of just calling them a noob and telling them to go to a website. With the exception of last Friday night when a very strange (and uninformed) political debate broke out in the zone I was questing, the chat has stayed 100% relevant to the game and is almost always positive.

No subscription fee! Just buy it already! I'm on the Dragonbrand realm.

P.S. I should probably mention things I dislike too. I didn't really think of that. If I have to pick something I do not like, I would say it's that you don't get your first 5-man dungeon experience until level 30 and it's fairly difficult. Dungeons are my favorite thing about WoW, so having to wait so long for each class stinks.

P.P.S. There's 10 professions (or classes) but only 5 character slots. What's up with that?

AOEO F2P!?

It happened: I've found a free to play game that I not only enjoy, but am constantly tempted to throw money at. This game is Age of Empires Online and I'm totally into it right now.

I played the original Age of Empires a ton as a kid. I wasn't very good at it, to be sure, but I liked the historical theme and the music. And I really liked hunting down and harvesting meat from elephants. Seriously, by the end of any game the elephants would be long gone. I think I even almost convinced my parents it was educational.

Fast forward to 2011, when Age of Empires Online first came out. It was free to try with two civilizations with many locked features and $20 for a license of the game, which included a premium civilization with those before-mentioned features unlocked. I heard it was pretty fun from a podcast but I didn't really get into it.

The gameplay is a mix between an RTS and an MMO. You have a capital city that is your central quest hub including inventory buildings, stores, crafting, and even dailies. After you accept a quest, you carry it out by going into an RTS game and playing as you would a normal Age of Empires game. But instead of just going from one game map to the next like the older games, you go back to your capital city for rewards and exp and such, and then choose what you want yo do next. Lots of these missions can also be done co-op with your friends! You also end up making alliances with other cities (you can travel to these for more quests/dailies) and there are neutral areas like Sparta (this is where you queue up for a game against another player) and another one who's name I can't remember which is where you can do skirmishes against the computer (also possible with a friend).

Now, it's truly Free to Play with a premium currency (Empire Points) that you can buy (charged through Steam) or earn very slowly in game to unlock things. More importantly, it's also on Steam now, which means awesome deals from time to time. That's what got me back into it. There is currently a 1st anniversary deal that includes a premium race (the Celts), the PvE skirmish "booster" (booster is their word for non-civilization specific content), expanded inventory space, and some other cosmetic stuff for only $10. Anyway, it was a good deal, and playing as a non-premium race isn't actually that fun because you can't equip any of the particularly good items. (Note, you can also get a Greek premium race on Amazon for like $4 right now.)

All told, it's a really fun new way to play an RTS and I'm having a great time with it. I really like the "level up" approach and the more social feeling of the game. There's also a new, cartoony, art style that is kind of fun (but not amazing...except for some of the animals, they have awesome animations) but will probably help it to not look so dated in coming years. Let me know if you play and we can do some co-op.

P.S. If they made a Starcraft game like this, I'm pretty sure it would be the last and only game I ever played.

We Are Live!

So you may have noticed new little box on the top right of the page. That's a link to my new stream! I've been trying to get a video aspect to the blog going and I've finally gotten some of the software to work out for me. The link for the stream is www.twitch.tv/mikeyh907. You can watch it by just clicking on the video on the top right.

If I'm not currently streaming you can click on the link below the box and it will take you to the stream page where you can see recordings of previous streams and such. There's only one there now, which I'll include at the bottom of this post, wherein I try to get all the sound and video stuff worked out and end up playing some Tribes very poorly for about 15ish minutes. It's not actually very exciting yet, but I'm planning on using it to supplement written posts as well as to try out new games. The current video and sound quality is less than HD because I'm still using free software. I'll upgrade when I get the spare cash (feel free to hit that donate button if high quality video feeds are important to you).

So, here's the first video. Excuse the hair.

Also, you can follow me on the Twitters (@mikeyh907) to get notices when I'm going to be streaming.

Thank Goodness

It's finally over.

Few things excite and scare me as much as the Summer and Winter Steam Sales. It was a relief to power up my laptop this morning and see that the old gray format was back. I made a solemn oath to my wife Aubrey that I might go a little crazy during the sale but that I wouldn't buy any more games until Christmas (WoW Pandas excepted). Also, I would plan a fancy date. She thought this was a pretty good deal.

To preface, some of these are premium purchases for free to play or other games that try to nickle and dime you. I figured if I was going to try them out, I might as well do it while I can get some cheap bonuses.

So, I present to you the list of games that I got this past week:

Portal 2 - $11.50 for two copies plus a copy of the original Portal. Gotta do that co-op!

Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb expansion - $0.75. I've already talked about how I like BoI. Expansion for less thank a buck? Yes, please!

Dragon Age 2 - $6. Six dollars. Seriously. I've been dancing around getting this game for a really long time but was kind of waiting around for the right deal. DONE. Also, this was through Impulse since EA pulled it from Steam. That's right, EA, I still bought this from a third party.

Stacking - $3.75. This is a game about Russian nesting dolls that was featured in Game Developer Magazine before it game out. Never really wanted to drop $15 for something I'd never heard of outside a magazine...and I didn't have to!

Trine 2 - $3.75. I've written about Trine as well. This is one of the games I had my eye on specifically for this sale. Looks even better than the first and still a lot of fun. Haven't had a chance to try out the co-op yet.

Dungeon Defenders - $3.75. I've seen a lot of hype for this game so I figured I ought to pick it up while it was cheap. I might should have done for the complete set. But whatever. Let me know if you want to play!

Age of Empires Online - $3.50 for bonus swags. I played a ton of the first AoE back in the day. Seems like a cool direction of an RTS.

Tribes: Ascend - $10. I missed the flash sale where this was only $5, but it was still totally worth it. This is a fun shooter. I shouldn't have waited so long to try it out.

Lord of the Rings Online - $25 for two promotional deals, one of Steam and one on Impulse. Okay, sue me this doesn't sound very cheap. A friend of mine is really into this game and while it is free to play, they really, really try to get money out of you in game. Anyway, he assured me these were good deals when I asked, so I figured what the heck? An MMO for $25 and no subscription isn't bad at all.

Fallout New Vegas w/ all the DLC - $10. I haven't played any of the games in this series, so this seemed like it was a great place to start.

Torchlight - $3.75. Lots of people were talking about this one while they were waiting for Diablo 3 to come out. Now that I've already been kind of tired of D3 for a while now, I thought I might try out a different take.

Bioshock & Bioshock 2 - $10. I probably could have skipped this one, but it's one of those games that I never really got around to that people talk about a lot. I'm so glad I got it though! I got a little way into the first Bioshock and it's creepy and awesome! Worth it.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell "Elite Echelon Edition" (What a name!) - $12.50. This consists of four Splinter Cell games: the original, Chaos Theory, Double Agent, and Conviction. I was pretty into the first two when they came out, so this seemed like a great way to get back into the series. Plus I'm pretty sure Aubrey will like them because you spend so much time sneaking up on and ganking people.

Last, but not least, Plants Vs. Zombies - $2.50. We got this for my Mother-in-Law. She freaking loves it. 

So there you have it, 19 games and one expansion for $106.75. Yeesh, that's more than I thought I had spent. Still, they were awesome deals and that really should last me for quite some time. The worst part is I had just decided to stick with one race in Starcraft 2 and get out of Silver league. So much for that. I've got a date to plan.

What you get?

P.S. Impulse is still doing a big sale on RPGs including Mass Effect 3 until the beginning of August. Might want to check that out.

P.P.S. The normal cost for all those games would be $346.

Delays

Hey all. Sorry to keep you in anticipation. I've been experimenting a bit with screen capturing and streaming and whatnot to change things up a bit. It's going okay, but slowly. Jamestown is more or less scrapped for now as I needed to do another take but I didn't actually enjoy the game the first time so I had no desire to do it over again.

However, I'm trying to get things set up so I can record myself playing with commentary (and hopefully do it for free). I just got some old Might & Magic games on gog.com that I'm pretty excited to play for the blog, so I shouldn't be much longer. Feel free to post in the comments if you have any ideas/experience in this kind of thing.

LawLS. Or LoL. Or League of Legends.

As the big mess about DOTA 2 and Blizzard Dota goes on, my only memories of playing the original DOTA in Warcraft 3 was playing a few times against bots and being told that if I played online people would be super rude and probably kick me out of the game. That wasn't very encouraging. So while I wait for the new versions to come out, I decided to check out League of Legends. It's free, so there's nothing to lose.

If you're unfamiliar with the gameplay, it's a hero-based RTS wherein your team of heroes (or champions) tries to kill the opposing team's buildings while they try to do the same to you. If you understood the jargon there, it's really not any more complicated than that. The "free"-ness only extends so far, however, as they obviously want to get some money out of you. But you can play almost comfortably with just the free currency you earn by playing and winning matches. Otherwise, you can buy points to get more playable characters, runes, etc.

Anyway, I'm having a pretty good time with it. There's some good tutorials in place and you can play against bots (for points) to practice up and try out new champions before going against real people. I've heard some horror stories about the community, but so far I've not had any problems at all (except for people with "Penis" in their nickname. What's up with that?). There's also a refer a friend program too, so if you want to try it out you should click on the link on my sidebar to join up! My nickname is MikeyH, friend me!

So yeah, I'm still not sure if I'll be picking sides with the whole Blizzard Dota/DOTA2 debate. Blizzard Dota will be free, so that's awesome, but it'll probably have less support and added features later on as well. DOTA 2 will be out sooner with more support and will probably be taken much more seriously in the esports community overall, but I hate how they stole a lot their character models right from Warcraft 3. That's kind of cheap. Either way, I'm sure they'll both be lots of fun. Here are some videos for them too:

I may have already posted this trailer here, but I love it so.

I wasn't able to find a trailer that had real gameplay in it, so here's a short gameplay clip of DOTA 2.

The Verdict: Reckoning

Last time I talked about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, but mostly about the hype I heard about leading up to the the release and my buying/installing experience. (Yes, I do now have Steam, Impluse, and Origin on my laptop. And yes, Origin does have pop-ups. And yes, I do hate it.)

Anyway, Reckoning. It's awesome. There world is huge, there's a ton to do, and lots of weapons to master. The leveling/skill/class system is intuitive and fun. There's some serious Elder Scrolls vibe going on in the story and quest direction, but the combat is indeed much more exciting. I think the closest game I've played with similar combat is Devil May Cry. Just with less demons and a lot more obese bears, unfriendly elves, and boggarts (but not like the ones in Harry Potter, these ones are kind of charming).  

If you like fantasy games, RPGs, or opportunities to be extremely violent without too much blood, you need to pick this game up. Also, when I said "extremely violent" back there, I was referring to the finishing moves in "Reckoning Mode" wherein you pretty much obliterate a bad guy with excessive force. Sometimes these are in slow motion and very awesome. I've stopped to yell and point at the screen with excitement more than once because of these. But like I said, not much blood. I guess that could please or disappoint, but I'm kind of glad. 

That big shiny thing is about to be plunged bloodlessly into that guy.

There's not really much else I can think of to say. You should buy this game. It's awesome. Also, be prepared to get a TON of crap if you went out of your way to do the demo and get as much pre-order swag like I did. I'd actually recommend the demo first because it sets you up with a sweet weapon and a nice armor set. The fate-touched weapons pack and the armor sets from Gamestop were almost immediately replaceable (the compass thing and the twist of fate card are legit though). 

My one immediate complaint about this game is the weird durability stat on gear. I know a lot of games do this, but in Reckoning it doesn't really seem to serve a purpose. Also, if you have a rare or unique weapon or armor the repair costs will be disproportionately HUGE. However, you can avoid paying up by just using a repair kit (which you can buy for a fraction of the cost, usually from a vendor close to the repair guy), so it's not the end of the world. Also, so many weapons drop as you adventure that you probably won't use a particular weapon that long unless it's for sentimental attachment. That all said, why go through the effort to create such an unreasonable pricing scheme and yet make it so easily avoidable? It seems almost like a money sink for noobs who aren't paying attention. What's the point? Patch that out!

In conclusion, I give Reckoning 5 fate cards out of 5 for a fresh, immersive, RPG experience where killing the bad guys is a whole lot more fun than usual. Below is some footage of Reckoning kills. 

The Overly-Long Title Reckoning is at Hand! [Updated! x 2]

If you're into videogames then you've probably heard some buzz about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning which comes out tomorrow. I've seen some adds, read a gripe that it was too long, and heard an interview* with the studio founder (and baseball hall of famer), Curt Shilling. These caused me to check out the demo, which sold me completely.

The easiest way to describe Reckoning is by saying that it's a lot like Skyrim, but less bleak and with much, much more interesting combat. Granted, it will take a lot to top the feeling I got the first time a dragon swept over the roofs of a small village and landed in front of me, queuing up that awesome music, but I'm more than willing to give it a chance. 

Being that the game isn't out yet, when I bought it earlier today it technically qualified as a "Pre-Order." Since I don't usually buy games at full price, this is the first time I've been in the position to choose between the various pre-order swag offers that have become so popular. At first I was just going to get the game off Steam, but all it came with was some  items for Team Fortress 2, which I don't really play. I had heard on a podcast that there were some bigger offers out there, so I Googled it and found this to really be the case. 

There were individual offers from Origin, Walmart, and BestBuy, plus even more stuff if you bought from Gamestop or Amazon. Nothing for Steam. Normally I dont think this would have bothered me so much, but the in-game items do look cool! In the end, I decided I would go with a digital copy from Gamestop because it gave the most (and most interesting) stuff. Turns out Gamestop also has a Steam ripoff called Impluse. So at this very moment I'm downloading Reckoning on Impulse. With some luck, maybe I'll be able to play it at midnight eastern time, meaning I can sneak in a few minutes at 10pm. 

I don't trust Gamestop for crap, so I made sure my login info was unique and didn't save my credit card number. We'll see how it goes having another platform just for one game. Hopefully I don't regret it. 

*That link takes you to the podcast page, which has a various options for listening. The interview is the last 28 minutes of the cast, starting at the 67 minute mark. 

*****UPDATE!*****
So, I got the game all downloaded and installed and what pops up? A prompt to download and install Origin, that's what! I guess I knew this would happen one day, but it made me wonder what would have happened if I had bought it on Steam. I'm never really heard of buying a game on Steam and then needing to install Origin. Anyway, I appear to be partway through installing the game again in Origin. I really hope I'm doing this right.... More updates to follow.

*****UPDATE! x 2*****
The game is installed and ready to go! I'm pretty sure I've got two copies installed, but I think I'll be able to erase one of them after an initial activation or something. However, in good news, Origin or whatever tells me that I can fire the game up Monday, February 6th 2012  at 22:00. Woot.