Contents:
Battlefield 4 Vs. COD: Ghosts Review
RED 2 Movie Review
Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire Movie Review
Kim’s Magic Tips – BRAND NEW SERIES or Magic 2014 Tips and Hints.
Borderlands 2 Game Revew.
Announced Game Releases for January and February
The Gamer Gazette: Welcome back…hopefully…to another edition of The Gamer Gazette! In this our second edition, we will be concentrating reviews for some of the games and movies, which many of you will most probably have received over Christmas. We will also be taking a brief look at some of the games we have to look forward to during 2014 and more specifically the next couple of months. If you are a first time reader, then…Welcome, for the rest of you I hope that this second edition can live up to our very popular first issue. If you have any feedback at all please go to the website (www.tazercg.com) and feel free to leave your comments on the Community Page Chat or Shout Boxes. Enjoy!
OUT NOW! Available to Buy on your Kindle from Amazon!
Call of Duty: Ghosts By Nathan Scullard Well, what can I say about COD: Ghosts? Asking me what I think is a bit like asking me how my latest batch for ‘Spinach-Flavour Jelly’ tasted...it really wasn’t good. I remember when Black Ops 2 first came out and there was a massive chunk of gamers who just refused to play it. A lot of my friends still don’t. But as I was at the time a competitive Call of Duty player with a 30 strong clan to lead, I had little choice but to stay up to day with the leagues. But despite that, I do think that Black Ops 2 was a terrible game and well deserved its nickname of “Lag-Ops 2”. I mean seriously, they may as well have called it “COD: Migrating Host” it was so damn bad. But not to be deterred by one slight ‘blip’ I decided against my initial feelings that I would
buy Call of Duty: Ghosts, after all, Modern Warfare 3 was an epic game and still to this day is my favorite COD. Whoa! Hold your horses before you all write in and complain, I know there will be lots of hardcore fans out there saying “NOOOOOO! COD 4 was the best.” While that may be true, I only really started playing COD on MW2, so while I may be wrong about the best COD game I can only go on my own experiences. But back to the point I was trying to make. MW3 is by far my favorite of the franchise and due to it being made by Infinity Ward and so is COD: Ghosts, I thought it only fair to give them another bash at impressing me. Well, at least you can’t say I gave you a fair chance Mr ‘Head of Infinity Ward’. I will start off with the good points about the game.......ok, now that is done with we can go onto the bad bits! PMSL! Sorry, I couldn’t resist slipping that in. Nah, I have to be fair there are a few goods points to it. The Campaign for
example, I really enjoyed. Admittedly, I have never played a COD campaign the whole way through so I have nothing to compare it to, but I got really engrossed in the story and the plethora of ‘pace-changing’ missions. Ok so some of the missions were a bit stupid, like the whole space shooting bits and the underwater mission, but it was fun and that is what matters. I did find it a little laughable that a game called COD: Ghosts which is supposed to be about an elite Ninja-like unit which complete missions under cover of darkness, are about as subtle as throwing a brick through someone’s window with your name, address and telephone number stuck to it and then sticking around to jump up and down and shout, “It was me! It was me!” The dog was a bit of a joke too, you use it for a couple of missions and then you don’t get to use it again, which is a shame. I would have paid anything to see the dog trying to attack people underwater or in space. Even funnier would have been a Dog against Shark showdown, especially when you can’t even kill them with bullets. Honestly, I tried several times to see if it was possible to kill the sharks, but it simply isn’t. Even if the is a good twenty plus meters between you and its jaws, you’ll be dead before you fire the second bullet! No fun! (SULK) The ending was a bit strange though, not having seen a COD campaign to the end before I’m unsure if they usually end on a ‘cliff-hanger’ but I doubt it. I can only assume that they are planning on doing a Ghosts 2 (heaven forbid) or
they are going to release it as DLC so you can spend a few more of your hard-earned pennies finger painting with their excrement. But all in all I cannot fault the campaign too much, it was a fun filled adrenaline-pumping joyride that includes; underwater, space, a runaway train and a city being flooded experiences that I really enjoyed. Before I get onto Multiplayer I want to say a few things about Extinction, even though I have never really seen the point of an army-based FPS having zombies and aliens etc. in them. Surely if the gameplay is good enough, you shouldn’t need to put gimmicky extra bits into the game. But apparently there are one or two people that occasionally accidently press ‘Extinction’ when they are on the main menu instead of ‘Multiplayer’. I cannot use that excuse myself, instead I will just say that I endured it for you guys...I hope you appreciate it. Extinction is Infinity Ward’s version of zombies...except that they used aliens. As with all these bits that they put into the game, it resembles many many basic tower defense games I have played on my mobile phone except that it has been turned into an FPS. Extinction is no different, and you quickly set about working as a team...wait no sorry must have got that mixed up with what you are supposed to do...you quickly set about running around like headless chickens trying to drill alien starfish off of everything in sight while trying to
defend yourselves and the drill from an endless onslaught of attackers. This of course all goes tits up when someone nips off for a sandwich or just decides frantically masturbate over their controller as the word “Drill” gave them a raging hard on. As you can tell I am not a fan of Extinction and I don’t ever see me being one either. I felt the same about zombies too and tend to stick to the Multiplayer. So because of
that we will move swiftly on, stopping only to say that if you want to play a decent alien game don’t buy COD get Dead Space, and if you want to play a good zombie game go buy Resident Evil 5 and play it over and over because you won’t ever get bored of that. So, Multiplayer! Well I hate to say it but if you were waiting till the end to see if the review was going to get a bit more cheery and I was going to reveal some really epic stuff towards the end, all I can say is, “Take it up with Infinity Ward.” I had heard that there was going to be loads of improvement made to the multiplayer because of all the problems that Lag Ops 2 had. But the only change that I can see is that they have completely done away with theatre mode! What the hell?! Do the guys who make these games actually play them or do they simply think of ways to really annoy their customers, because if they did play them and had even the slightest clue what their customers actually want, they would realize that taking theatre mode out really screws anyone who is a
YouTuber over. I myself have done several montages on YouTube and always relied on being able to save my clips when they happened and then go back and edit them later. Well, now if I want to record my good clips, I have to record 24/7 using my HD PVR 2 to make sure I do not miss a good clip. Because if I pull off a 720 across map no scope or take on 20 guys and win and I wasn’t recording with my PVR, then tough luck, that clip is gone never to be seen again. I have done some digging, as I seriously cannot understand why they took this out, and apparently it was affecting the latency in game and causing all the lag...errr...MW3 had theatre? I think, Call of Duty, it is about time you admitted that it is not the theatre’s fault there is lag because honestly, the lag is still there. I will admit that it is not as bad a Black Ops 2, but it’s still not great. Maybe it is just time you considered other options...such as, dedicated servers? I can’t even remember the last time I had lag issues on Battlefield 3, I have not played Battlefield 4 yet, so I cannot comment on it, I know Kim has and he said there were a few issues, but from what I can gather they aren’t major issues. Check out his review of Battlefield 4 to see what he says. As for the maps and features on the Multiplayer, there are some good points, but as with most aspects of the COD franchise, the good is outweighed by the bad, and Ghosts is no exception.
Maps for example, there are always good and bad maps on any FPS, these all come down really to how the player plays the game and how he/she moves around the map. But I strongly feel that this year the bad maps completely overshadow the good ones. I counted about five out of the standard fifteen or so that they give you that were actually fun to play. And before you guys start thinking I am just complaining because I am terrible at the game, although I would not portray myself as the next ‘Nadeshot’ I do have a 1.45kdr over some 500 games so far, so I am no noob. The ‘Dynamic’ parts of the map were hardly worth mentioning in the review, but seeing as Infinity Ward saw fit to use them as a unique selling point to the game, I saw fit to laugh heartily in their faces. I played the game for a good couple of hours before I even noticed the dynamic bits of the maps. On one maps it is a few logs that tumble into a river, on another it is a crack appearing in the ground, and another had an elevator which you can make drop by breaking the cables with explosives, but it was in such a remote part of the map which no one ever goes it took me ages to even find it. The most impressive one is on the map “Strikezone” when
someone gets a Kem Strike it works like a MOAB used to except that it changes the entire map into a nuked wasted land mid game, which I have to admit is cool, but it’s a shame that they
only did it for one map, all the other maps are just ‘nuke-proof’. Overall, I was very disappointed in this game, I expected so much more from Infinity Ward after MW3, I really thought they were going to rub it in Treyarch’s face and show just how much better their games are, but to be honest I just think they thought that Black Ops 2 was so bad that they didn’t have to try and put any effort in because whatever they brought out people would buy it. Well I for one will be looking into COD alternatives, and for now would recommend to you guys Battlefield 4, but keep an eye out for the ‘game-changers’ “Destiny” and “Titanfall”. I am pre-ordering Destiny which is a joint project of Activision (Call of Duty) and Bugle (Halo), at present I don’t think a PC release date has been announced, but I have been hearing along the grapevine that there will be one so look out for it. Thank you for bearing with this very long rant/review of mine, but I really felt that it needed to be said. Activision, Treyarch and Infinity Ward need to realize that this is not good enough. The amount of money people pay into these games every year, there should be at least some effort into stuff that the fans actually want, like dedicated servers, and not just what the producers deem fit for us to have. It is a community game, and without the community behind it, these games would be worth absolutely nothing, so don’t let them treat you like idiots. Happy Gaming People from me and all the guys at TaZeR PC Gaming Community!
Battlefield 4 By Kim Gustafsson Me
and
Story Battlefield:
First of all I like to apologize to our readers. Due to a number of personal factors and due to it being Christmas when I write this, the review may be somewhat compressed compared to the normal length of my reviews, and it will just consist of a few things about the game that I think stand out the most. Most of them are negative, but I still stand by the game and saying that it's a good game. So Battlefield 4 (BF4) is a first person shooter and when I first came into contact with this game series I was playing Bad Company 2, I think. This was way back on the Playstation system if I remember right, and it was a great game. Both story and multiplayer were brilliant. It had good action and I just liked it, I was even good at it, and that's saying a lot of both the games and me if you know my history in this type of FPS's, which is not good. So when I got hold of BF4 I had high expectations. And just to make this easier I will divide this into two different topics; story mode and multiplayer.
Mode:
Gameplay:
The game runs well, never had any problems with the game lagging out or any other type of unwelcomed stops. But it's not without its problems. One of them is the collectibles, now I love these, I love running around finding all weapons and whatever else I can find along the way. But at least give me something for it, on console you will get a trophy or an achievement to show off, but on the PC and running the game through Origin, I get nothing for finding them all. Sure the weapons I can use in game but I can't brag about it to my friends, and that's what I want to be doing, I want them to know I did something they have not yet accomplished. So why can't I? Can't be that hard to put something like that in there, if the consoles have it and not the PC version of it then something is wrong. (There are a few medals, but it's too few in my opinion, I want more of them to aim for. Like one for taking out a 100 enemies with a single pack of C4, ok that's impossible, but that's what the achievements are supposed to do. To make you explore the game more and do harder stuff to get them all). And to add to that even if I have found all of the collectibles it will still tell me there are those left undiscovered when I look at my players status, seems like an easy fix for me but it remains at the writing of this, and they
don't look interested in fixing it either. Not the biggest thing, but I want my bragging rights back. This aside though the game is nice, it got a good feel to it, it's fun to run through and shoot
things down, and even pretend to be a soldier for a while. And every now and again a small tip will come across your screen, and one of them is one that I did not really understand at all; “The Bullet Drop Mechanic”. Now that sounds pretty cool, but I see no use for it at all. As far as I have seen it’s about the distance the bullet travels before its trajectory starts to fall. Now on some guns you can alter this but WHY? If I have a gun and I shoot, why would I EVER what it to have a shorter rage then its maximum? Why would I want my bullet to hit the ground prematurely, it makes no sense and I simply see this as a useless mechanic to have in the game. I want my bullets to drop after they get to the maximum range rather than to disappear into thin air. I just don't see the point in having them do so before getting to that range. No point whatsoever sorry to say. After getting over my confusion about this I soon got my first explosives and a few more dead people and I thought I was getting the hang of it. I get pinned down by a sniper, no problem I thought, I have a team. Yes you do and they will kill someone every now and then, but not at all as many as would be expected of
them. But it’s ok, I'm supposed to be the hero and after a couple of shots I'm free to move on. But my companions or my so called "team" kept getting me shot at, sure I can order them to attack a target (a cool feature), but if I don't they just seem to stand there. And if I'm pinned down I would expect the enemy A.I. to target someone else, like an easier target who is standing around not doing anything (naming no names…TEAMMATES!). But they don't, as far as they are concerned, my own A.I. aren't there. They don't seem to be directing a single shoot at them. And at first I thought this was stupid, but I kind of like the idea in the end. Not only does it leave me with more kills to make, and I don't have to run up and revive a fallen team mate because they were too slow, stupid or just did not follow the plan I had for attacking the target. It keeps the game flowing in a way it would not have done otherwise. But in other ways it slows the game down, for example when you have to wait for your team mates to open a door or to have a seemingly useless discussion about what to do next, I wish I could simply walk up between them and simply state the obvious "We will kill every single f****r that comes our way" cause that's what I want from the game. Yes I realize that it adds to the feeling and suspense to have the characters talk and I
have to listen, but at the end of the day, I just want to kill people and blow stuff up, not listen to them talk. Now I don't mind being told what
to do, but if so I would like the ability to influence the outcome of it. Here I can't, so I have no interest in listening at all. Just open the door and let me kill more people so I can say I have been there, done it and got the bloodstained t-shirt. And since they are normally not doing much (my team mates) I don't see why they are in the game at all. The enemy won’t shoot them, they only attack if I tell them to and I can't do that all the time and they keep me from getting to the next area until I have waited and listened to them talk, and they have opened the door. I got C4, just let me place it and move on. (Spoiler Alert: You have been warned!) And it all leads up to me choosing which one of them should die in the last mission. The complaining black guy, or the lying Asian women. And the game clearly states that they are both needed, the women, because of her ties to the politicians in the game, and the man because of his wife and kids. But I just wanted to off them both because of all the waiting around I had to do while waiting for them to catch up, slowing the game down for no reason! And I wonder why I'm not allowed to take on the last explosion myself? I would have liked that to be a thing as well.
And speaking of things I don't get along with really, is it me or does it always seem to be the
same bad guys in games. The Germans, Russians, Chinese or "Terrorists". Is there no other plausible enemy to destroy the world anymore? Game developers don't seem to be able to leave these alone without going to aliens or mutants of some kind. Why not the Mexicans, Swedes or any other unexpected place? Why do they always have to follow the stereotypes? It's a game, it's not a documentary, someone please pass that on to any and all game developers they happen to run across. The gun play feels good, but it gets interrupted with having to listen to my team about stuff they can keep to themselves for all I give a damn. And in games with no options as far as dialogue for instance, I don't really have any interest in listening to them. I can't do anything about it anyway so why should I. And sure there are some places where the game tries and fails to throw a curve ball at you. You will already know what is coming, and you can see where it's going clear as day. And just when it gets good and you feel like ok now we are moving forward in a better pace, the game ends. It's just 7 missions and they are fairly short all of them. It's a common pattern with this type of game, losing the story and putting it all on the multiplayer. But then why have it at all, why not
just have the multiplayer? And speaking of...
Multiplayer: This is going to be a short segment, simply cause its good. You get rid of all the things I don't like with the story mode. No stupid A.I., no "talking" that keeps me from moving forward. There's nothing majorly wrong with it. It's the basic leveling up system as you would expect same with the guns and weapon upgrades, just like you would expect from any FPS multiplayer…well…plus the vehicles that is. And even they are good. Sure I'm not the best
me is really nervy for me, and I love it so much. The multiplayer is really good. It's better than most other FPS's I have played and it feels really smooth. That's it for this game at this point. I will most likely feel compelled to go back to it at a later date to make a more elaborate one and talk about the stuff that I have missed. I apologize again for my own shortcomings and hope that this will keep you satisfied until I get around to making a better one.
Happy Gaming People!
COD: Ghosts Vs. Battlefield 4 Our Summary: player but I like it. The dynamic buildings that can fall apart, the tanks, helicopters I love it all and it adds a great feel to the game running next to a tank towards the enemy lines guns blazing. The only thing bad is some connection issues, but I'm not sure if that's from the game or from Origin, so not going to lay it on the game. But once I'm in the game it’s fantastic, buildings crumbling down, that one tank that was about to kill you but got blown up by a jetfighter just before he pulled the trigger. The game gives an awesome feeling of reality. And no I have never been in a war in person and I hope I never will, but hiding in a building knowing that I'm not alone and trying to find them before they find
To summarize, we think both games were a bit of a letdown this year, they both had good bits and bad bits about them, I liked COD’s campaign and Kim liked BF4’s multiplayer. COD need to realize that to keep its existing fans it is going to need to step up to the mark and try something different, and Battlefield need to remember that 7 missions for a campaign is not enough. But if we had to choose one to buy over the other, I think we are both agreed that it would be…Battlefield. At least they made and effort with this year’s game and they are definitely the ones to beat.
Arthritis causes him to drop the bazooka he was holding. I mean there is funny, and then there is cringing!
RED 2 By Nathan Scullard Retired
and Extremely Dangerous...AKA: ‘RED’. Not something I would use to describe anyone in the cast of this film. More like; “Retired and Extremely Likely to Shit their Pants!”
This installment is mainly about the group being named as participants in a secret operation codenamed ‘Nightshade’. The operation is supposed to have been carried out in the cold war when they smuggled a super weapon into Russia piece by piece to avoid detection and then assembled and hid it somewhere. The group are classed as terrorists and hunted by the government as well as by several professionals including Victoria, Frank and Marvin’s companion from the first film.
Ok, so I guess it is pretty obvious from my opening comment what I thought of this film. I did see the first one too and was equally unimpressed. I just don’t see the point of them. You’re getting old, and it’s about time you started doing some more serious acting that doesn’t involve so much psychical work like jumping on cars, jumping out of buildings zip wires or seducing sexy women. I understand the actors ‘wanting’ to continue doing all that stuff, but from a viewer’s perspective, there is a reason why you stop it at a certain point...because no one wants to see ‘Mr Magoo’ chatting up some sexy blonde or attempting to talk tough while his
They decide that the only way to prove their innocence is to find the weapon and keep it from falling into the wrong hands, and hope that somehow in doing this they will find a way to clear their names.
After gaining information from a man named “The Frog, they learn that the only man who knows the location of the weapon is a man named Dr Edward Bailey (Played by Antony Hopkins, whose performance I did actually enjoy) who created it. Unfortunately for them, Bailey is residing in an asylum in London for the criminally insane, and has been there for 32 years!
to stop Bailey from detonating the bomb and clearing their names. This is just my opinion, and yours may differ, but I really don’t like the RED films, they just feel like a mid-life crisis gone wild. The stories are predictable and not very interesting. They are also completely stereotyped... Russians...again...really? I spoke to someone recently about this film and she asked what I thought of it, and when I told her my opinion she was like “Are you mad? They are great films!” So each to their own, but I personally did not like it.
My Rating: 4/10 They break him out regardless, and manage to piece together his ramblings and discover that the bomb is hidden in the Kremlin in Moscow. They recover it and find out soon after from Victoria, who has decided not to kill them that Bailey was locked up because he wanted to detonate the bomb just to see it go off. They turn to be held at gunpoint by Bailey as he makes his get away with the weapon.
Now it’s a race against time. They have to avoid being killed by the following hitmen and government agents at the same time as trying
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire By Nathan Scullard I had never heard of The Hunger Games before the first film, it was only after I watched it that I heard there were a series of books, not that I read them to be honest, I knew that a sequel was coming out and I did not want to ruin the story by reading the books. Especially as when I start a book series, if I get into it, I will not stop till I have read the lot, so I couldn’t have even just read the first one and stopped. So when the sequel movie came out I was really excited as I had really enjoyed the first film, even if I thought the whole thing was a bit weird. Kind of a cross between Battle Royale and Memoirs of a Geisha (which by the way is a good film, but an epic book – really got a thing about books atm...It’s a movie review Nathan, get back on track!). I had to admit that I was wondering if the sequel was going to be any good though as having not read the books, I didn’t know where they were going to go with the story. Most of the characters that you get to know in the first movie end up dead because they are competing alongside Katniss Everdeen, the main character from the first one. And as
mentioned in the first film, once you win the Hunger Games, you cannot be picked for it again, so I wondered what kind of story they would have, they can’t use the main character again and there will be totally new people??? But after I saw the front cover and watched the trailer it was pretty obvious that they could use the main character, because the very definition of the people who run the Hunger Games is that they can do whatever they want to suit their own needs. So with that in mind I will talk a little about the plot, I don’t want to delve to deep into it like I usually do as it is a popular movie that many of you will probably want to go and see or buy at a later date, and like me will not want to know all the surprises before you see it. With tensions building in the districts after the last Hunger Games, President Snow is not happy and focuses most of his anger towards Katniss and Peeta Mellark the loved up winners of the
games. Their defiance against the rules in refusing to kill each other, but actually choosing to eat poisonous together to avoid having to be without each other, forced the President to allow them both to live. But it appears now that Katniss’ heart belongs to her boyfriend from before the games and President Snow knows it, he forces her and Peeta to tour the districts and show their “support” for the government in the hope that it will ease the tension between local residents and the so-called “Peacekeepers” who
are really vicious thugs who beat or shoot first and then ask questions later. His attempt is unsuccessful and the tension still begins to rise and once again he blames Katniss, but he knows he can’t just kill her or there will defiantly be riots, so he and his new Head Gamesmaker, Plutarch Heavensbee come up with a cunning plan. They decide to mark the 75th Annual Hunger Games with a special event. This year they will pick the tributes from pool of surviving winners, a girl and a boy from each district. District 12 has only one female winner...Katniss Everdeen. And that is as far as I will tell you guys, like I said I don’t want to ruin it for you. But I will give you my opinion on both the good bits and the bad bits, and its final score. I actually really liked this movie; in fact I think I liked it better then the first one. With the first one you were just kind of thrown into this weird world and although it was well put together and well thought out, I loved how dark this instalment was, I really got a sense of how powerful the government is and how underhand they can be to get what they want. Nothing is more important to them then control, so important that they will go to any lengths to keep it. But there are also a few incidents when they lose control of situations and you’ll be sat screaming at the screen and cheering on the rebels.
I also liked how this movie was the same...but yet different. Like in real life you have a World Cup and then another World Cup, but they are both really different in their own way, sometimes that can be lost in stories. People try so hard to create these little worlds that they forget a key element of making it real is change, worlds don’t stay rigidly the same, bits will change and it was done very well in this movie. I have to admit I’m not so keen on the boyfriend back in District 12, I just think his storyline is a bit weak and it would be fine without that character in it altogether. I kind of understand why he is there, but I just think they could have got the same effect without the boyfriend and just having Katniss as the rebel’s figurehead. The new tributes in this movie are really interesting characters though, and I loved how they interacted with each other. In the last film, the characters had to impress sponsors who would send them stuff they need during the games. This time because they had all won before, they all knew what to expect, and it was much more important for them to work out alliances with other tributes to help them survive longer. But who can they trust? I loved the idea of that because you really were looking for enemies everywhere.
Anyway, go see this film, and if you haven’t seen they first one...well...why not? (Anyone who does not have the excuse “I have been living in an igloo”...shame on you!)
My Rating: Honestly, I highly recommend this movie. I myself am really looking forward to the next instalment, and although I will not tell you too much about the end, I will just say... “Cliffhanger!” This movie is due to come out on DVD and BluRay around March-April 2014, so it would make a great Easter present for any film-fanatic like me...no that was not a hint to buy me a copy...well unless you want to buy me a copy? ;) LOL
10/10 (Only the second film I have given this to.)
(BELOW) I saw this picture on Google while looking for pictures for this review and had to give it a mention. It’s the Arena used in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, but someone has made it in Minecraft. (Huge Thumbs Up for whoever did this!)
So for those of you that do not know Magic 2014 is a card based game that's kind of addictive. I originally planned to just make a simple article about the game and some cards that are good to know about, but there are so many, and even more tactics to use I have decided to talk about the decks in another fashion, making a small series about the game talking about one deck in each episode. That way I can (hopefully) stay on topic. So if you get the basic game then your starter deck will be Firewave so we will start with that. It’s a red deck with a bunch of creatures as well as spells, and I will go through some of them and talk just a bit about them. I will not talk about them for pages but hopefully it will help improve your game and avoid some pitfalls. Or at least the same ones I had to climb my way out of. First card is Disintegrate, it's a strong card with a damage equal to the amount of ‘Land’ you control. It can deal massive damage to a creature, and not only that it will also exile the creature if it would die. Meaning no regeneration, no flashback, no nothing, it's gone. It's a great card and does definitely come in handy when you need it most. When your opponent casts out that 12/12, you tap 12 lands and it's a goner. Easy as that.
Next up is a creature called Crimson Mage, just going its power it's not great. But for one cost in ‘Land’ it can give one of your creatures haste. This is great. No summoning sickness to worry about. You have that one card in your hand that can kill or put the final nail in the coffin of your opponent. But with summoning sickness he/she will have one turn to counter your move. So you put haste on it, and there's no defense other then what was already on the table. Small and seemingly useless card, but for this it goes a long way. But keep in mind, it has only got 1 point in health, you need to be careful and keep it alive if this is your plan. Kiln Fiend is a special one but kind of good and kind of not. It looks weak but does have advantages. If you cast a spell that damages your opponent, this creature will get a +3/+0 until the rest of the turn. And now it's not so feeble anymore. It's not the best card in the deck, but every once and a while it will cause you to get some extra damage on your side, just remember to do the best you can with it.
So a card to look out for is Final Fortune, it can be good, but more often than not I find myself losing the game. The card gives you an extra turn, an awesome ability, BUT if you don't win the game in that round, you will LOSE the game then and there. Don't matter how much health you have, but you will lose in that moment. And needless to say, when you play this card, your opponent will do everything to keep you from winning. Cause if he does, you will lose. There's no reason for him to hold back after you played this card. I don't take it out of my deck, but I can count on one hand how many times I have used the card. It's not the best card in the world in my opinion. It's a make or break card. Sulfuric Vortex is next on the list. It's simple and straight forward, it will deal 2 damage to each opponents at the start of their turn. This includes you as well so keep that in mind. It's a nice way to get around your opponents creatures as long as you have more life left then they have. Flame Break is very useful for those decks that pump out a plethora of low strength creatures and clear the board. It deals 3 damage to all non-flying creatures. Simple and good. Furnace of Wrath is a really good card in my mind. It doubles the damage dealt for every spell, every creature, for everything. The point is, it works for your opponent too. But I love it, making my weak creatures super strong, and my strong ones a lethal weapon. I love this card, it's worth
you putting it on the table, especially if you have a spell at hand. Fire Servant is a good strong creature in its own way. But it also doubles the damage for your spells. Now this is great on its own, but if you add this to the Furnace of Wrath, you are looking at doing a whole lot of damage. The only problem with this is that you can't see your opponent’s eyes in total dismay when you pull this combo off. (LOL) Stalking Vengeance, now this only works when one of your creatures dies, it deals damage to your opponent that equals its power. So if it has a power of 3, then your opponent takes 3 damage, it's awesome. And yes you will lose creatures, but you will do that anyways, might as well take full advantage of it. So there it is, some of the cards that I feel you should know about in this game, but keep in mind there are hundreds of cards and I can't go through all of them, the combinations are endless. Keep playing the game! It’s fun to unlock more cards and it's just great overall, and if you like it there are extra decks for you as well. So that's it for this deck, it's called Firewave remember it and love it. And keep an eye out for more of these articles in the coming issues of The Gamer Gazette.
Borderlands 2 By Kim Gustafsson Me and Borderlands 2: So for me the second installment of the game was the first one I played. It was a good friend of mine that convinced me to get it, and the first platform I played it on was on the Xbox 360. But in time it moved to the PC and so did I. But it was a bit of a gamble. I wasn’t sure I liked the texture and the graphic style the game ran with, and to be fair it gave me a headache the first time I played it. But I wanted a game that I could play with others and needed a good co-up game. That's how it all started.
Story
and
Characters:
There is a lot of both here so let's start with the ones you have as playable characters. In the basic game you have the "Gunzerker" or “Salvador”, a gun wielding midget that can dualwield weapons. "Zero" the assassin-styled character with an emphasis on stealth, snipers and melee combat. A commando named "Axton" with his very handy gun turret. And a "Siren" named Maya. So to explain a bit about the character and the story: You are one of the above, here for reasons you will have to discover yourself (not
going to give away too much on that) and where "here" is, well "here" is the planet of Pandora, a planet of untold riches, douchbags and guns, the last two are considered natural recourses. But before we go into the story I want to explain some more about the characters. You see most of them have one overall skill, for the Commando it's his turret and for the Gunzerker his ability to dual-wield for example. And then a bunch of I think 30 skills to augment this or other parts of your character. Making your weapons do more damage, healing others or whatever else the creators came up with, and I have to say, they have all but the kitchen sink in this. There are a hundred and one builds for our characters and add to that the billion different guns that are in the game, well actually the game cover says, "A Bazillion weapons just got Bazilliondier". And after playing the game, I believe them! There are a lot of guns! BUT I will not talk in length of the characters and what they can do in detail, mostly for two reasons, 1 I have not played all of them so it would be a bit unfair to do so, so most of it will be out of my perspective, and 2 cause of a bit of poor planning....again (if you read the BF4 report I did first). This is going in for correction the same day as it’s supposed to be put in the Gazette so I hope to make it easier on our residential spelling doctor (wink wink, nudge nudge). (Spelling Doctor Note: “Thanks Kim!”)
But I will post a few pictures on them as they are introduced in the game instead. But I have to say this game did not start for me until I got the first DLC and got hold of the Mecromancer character, a small girl named Paige and her killer machine of awesomeness named “Deathtrap”. Now I love all types of pet classes almost exclusively and that's what I go for in games. And She was the first real good one in this game, and it just lifted the game up so much that it’s crazy, at least in my opinion. I finally had a character that I loved playing as. But to be fair I don't think that the other characters are in any way bad, it's just that her ability and skills suited my play style perfectly and it was love at the first Deathtrap kill. So, moving on from me raving on and on…and on about her, there is also one more playable character called “Krieg” and he's a nut case, no seriously he is! His class is called Psycho and he has a habit of setting himself on fire at odd moments. Them being done, there are more characters in the game, so many in fact I'm not going to try to get them all in here, but will just take up a few of them as I go along. And keep in mind that I will be playing as the Mecromancer as I go, as some of the experience with different characters may vary slightly from character to character, but they all have a good voice all but one in my mind, Mordecai. I just don't like the character at all. He's nice in the game, but I just don't like the voice, the acting or the lines he has, it's just bad in my opinion. Other than that,
I think most of the acting and scripts in the game are solid. I like the voices, some more than others, but more about that later. As you go into the game there will be a lot of memorable characters in the story and even more in the DLC's. Many of them will be bosses or just people that will aid you and give you missions or side missions one way or the other in the game, and let’s not forget the main villain in all of this. A man named Handsome Jack. A genuine douchbag that you will absolutely love to hate, I mean how many villains have the hero on speed dial? His voice will pop up every now and again, sometimes to make you rage, sometimes to make you laugh and sometimes for you to just go…wtf!? I love him for what he is. Not only have they spent considerable time in making the characters worth your time, but they have also added some time to make sure that they have some way of interacting as well. Unfortunately it’s mostly in the DLC you get to see most of the story about that, and how they deal with the different situations that are created while you played through the original story mode. And speaking of story mode, you traveled to this planet for reasons of your own, BUT you’re also there for the riches and adventure. And here is a story rich on both, and did I mention there were awesome guns in this too didn’t I? You will be taken to a myriad of different locations with even more locations in those locations, sounds a bit strange but you will understand it once you
get into the game. The story is also pretty long not accounting for the DLC and I felt good at the end of it. Not only is it long but it also takes you to a bunch of crazy places, sure they will reuse some of the enemies, making them stronger versions of the ones you saw earlier, but they also add a few new ones as you go along. Overall it's a great game, you will fight, laugh and cry or maybe go into a berserker rage, (or maybe a gunzerker rage if you know what I mean?) it all depends on what type of person you are. It's a nice story with lots of crazy stuff going on. It's not going to make any dramatic 360’s that I could not tell were going to happen in advance, but there's so much that happens along the way that it still manages to keep you going. It's just fun. If you like that type of game you will love Borderlands 2, for both its amazing story, its fun voice acting, and very memorable characters.
Gameplay: The game has a deliberate cartoony style, and at first it made me carsick or motion sick as I played it. It takes some getting used to but I liked the game and cursed them for doing it in that style. But as I played, it got better and I realized why it was like that, or at least I think I realized...at a guess, I would say it’s because it does not freeze! Don't know how many hours I have put down on this game both on the PC and the Xbox and it has never frozen on me, not once. How many of you have played open world games with graphics like Fallout 3 or
New Vegas and had it freeze-up on you? For me, the answer is a lot, but not with this. Whether it’s the style that saves the processor a lot of work or some other unknown magic, I don’t know, but it just doesn't stop working. It's in my opinion a good trade off for Fallout (I still don't want the next Fallout to look like Borderlands though, just saying, both games have their charms. Oh, and by the way next Fallout is going to be set in Massachusetts according to rumors', a bit of inside info for you all there, it’s just a rumor though.....or is it?). And the more I think about it the more I love the idea of it. So knowing the game runs smoothly and for what it is, it looks great and has some very cool special effects in it. It also did not need 5 million patches to make it run properly after release and that, to me, makes it a very fine game. That's mostly all I need to say about it, I never had a drift stop in the game, there have been times when my characters have been lost and found again, but I blame that on Microsoft for losing my account temporarily on the Xbox. But nothing major on the games side. And I said at the beginning that I wanted the game to play co-op right, and the game does that really well. And to be fair there are times where you want some friends with you to take down the most epic bosses in the game. And even with up to the maximum of 4 players I still see no signs of the game crashing on me. It did lag a bit when one of our team mates had some internet issues but other than that it all worked
smoothly. And it was a great fun, just wish I had my own friends to play with, instead of the three random blokes I just happened to meet on the net. But it was still a great fun time. The game just seems to work. So I don't really have much to say here, which is kind of strange, but kind of good too I guess for the game. As a last word though‌get the DLC, get the Mecromancer, and get Assault on Dragon’s Keep, it's the best DLC they ever made and is a mix of the Borderlands craziness with your classic dungeons and dragon fantasy game. And if you happen to find yourself without someone to play with, give me a shout and we will see If we can't get a game in at some point. Happy Gaming People!
Secrets of RĂŚtikon PC
Moebius PC
Adventure Broken Rules January 7, 2014
Adventure Pinkerton Road January 2014
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance PC
Life Goes On PC
Action Konami January 9, 2014
Platformer Independent January 2014
Assassin's Creed Liberation HD PC
Thief PC
Action Ubisoft January 15. 2014
Adventure , Adventure Square Enix February 28, 2013
Spellforce 2: Demons Of The Past PC
The Wolf Among Us: Episode 5 -- Cry Wolf PC
RPG Nordic Games Publishing January 16, 2014
Broken Age PC Adventure Not Available January 2014
Shadowrun: Dragonfall PC RPG Harebrained Schemes January 2014
Legends of Persia PC Action Sourena Game Studio January 2014
Adventure Telltale Games February 2014
Divinity: Original Sin PC RPG Not Available February 2014