Contents:
20 Places to Take Your Girlfriend this Valentine's Day... on GTA 5! GTA 5 Online Review The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Movie Review Thor 2: The Dark World (CANCELLED) Resident Evil 6 - Game Review Kim's Magic Tips - Magic 2014 Tips #2 Announced Game Releases for Feb and March
Quad-Core Editions: In April our first "Quad-Core Edition" of The Gamer Gazette will be released. This will be a special edition of the gazette, which consists of the first 4 issues for 2014, with some extra reviews and stuff including an exclusive competition for gazette readers. These editions will be released in April, August and December. New Reviewer: This month we welcomed a new reviewer to the team...James Clayton. He will be writing reviews on classic and retro games from the last decade that he considers are worthy of a revisit.
TaZeR News:
Entertainment Central: This month we introduced a new entertainment page to replace "Live-Stream World". This includes our favourite YouTube Channels, Web-Based Series, Our New SNAP! Movie Reviews, GameZone, Website Exclusive Content and soon to be our New Podcast! Discount System: We have scraped the Friday discount system in favour of a constant updating discount system. Google Ranking: We recently ran a search on Google to check our status and were surprised and pleased to find that when we search for "PC Gaming Community" on Google.co.uk, we came up as the 12th option on the first page. A good sign that we are starting to get noticed.
Above: Coming Soon...Quad-Core Editions of The Gamer Gazette!
20 Places to Take Your Girlfriend this Valentine's Day...on GTA 5! The Casino... Los Santos boasts two of any gambler’s favourite pastimes side by side...a horse racing track and a casino. Just lookout for ‘rigged’ games or you could lose the shirt right off your back.
A Gentle Bike Ride... Take advantage of Blaine County’s many wonderful trails and tracks and impress your girlfriend with a display of power and stamina...just remember to look where you’re going!
Impress Her with a Fast Car... Girls love fast cars! And girls love guys with fast cars! But what girls don’t like is being featured on the Local News as the girl dating “That guy who got caught and shit his pants when he was tasered.”
The Fun Fair... Definitely a good place to show off your manly skills by winning her lots of stuffed animals to take home, just be careful you don't overdo it or there may not be enough room for all of you in the small Ferris Wheel's bucket seats.
A Romantic Camping Trip... Alone... Together... In the Woods! Not many better ways to get close and personal with a girl then when she is scared and you have to comfort her. But for pity's sake, don't forget to put the handbrake on your RV!
Deep Sea Diving... A great way to impress, rent a boat and pretend it's yours. Take her somewhere really far out and suggest skinny-dipping! Tee Hee! Oh, and don't forget to leave it an hour before getting in the water after eating.
An Expensive Shopping Spree... Sure to impress any girl with only one major drawback...it's expensive! Got no money? Not too much of an issue in Grand Theft Auto!
A Helicopter Ride... Take a scenic tour of Los Santos, Blaine County and San Andreas, there's plenty to see. Wind Farms, Towering Skyscrapers and OMG WTF is that!?
Extreme Off-Roading... A unique and thrilling day out for anyone and a real chance to show off! All any man needs is a girl and something powerful between his legs to really go for it...although in most cases he probably shouldn't.
A Simple Meal at a Restaurant... One of the best ways to impress your girl, after all what girl doesn't like to be wined and dined? Unfortunately, due to the lack of actual food outlets in GTA 5, you will have to resort to other means of finding food. I think the term is 'skipping'.
Rent a Speed Boat... Expensive but impressive, most girls will just assume that you own it and we all know what that means...it means you weren't looking while her face was in your lap and didn't spot those pesky rocks! Warning! A sudden impact may result in your date biting down...HARD!
Sky-Diving... Only for the most adventurous of couples, but for the love of god if your girlfriend is blonde don't let her pack your parachute!
A Round of Golf... Relaxing and practical with the added bonus of being able to stand behind your girlfriend and help her swing. So in theory a very good choice for a stress free date. But it's a well known fact that golf is so boring, you may have to find ways of keeping yourselves entertained.
Visit the Movie Studios... One of the most interesting places in Los Santos to visit you will see many weird and wonderful things here. Just don't overreact if you suddenly come face to face with a six foot alien!
Trainspotting... A date with a difference! Different in the way that you're a trainspotter and so you will most certainly be going home alone...or with an ambulance crew because you were too busy pulling a 'selfy' with a moving train to notice that it may be a little too close...
Atomic Blimp Ride... Most guys go on dates with the hope of ending it with a satisfying explosion. Well, if your plans are to ride the Atomic Blimp then that is pretty much guaranteed!
To a Night Club... A few drinks and a dance is a really great fun way to end the night...and if your girlfriend catches you dancing with the stripper the night will end much quicker than you think!
A Hiking Trip... The best way to see the sites is by helicopter, but as we have already established there are strange unholy things in the sky, so one alternative is to walk to the top of a mountain to view it from there, but when your girlfriend suddenly announces that she is really "in the mood" after all that walking, be careful you don't get too excited and lose your balance.
On "your" Private Jet... Private Jets are out of the question for dates unless you are a billionaire, but GTA being GTA this is not much of a problem, there are tons of them just 'lying' around which probably don't belong to anyone. However, if the one you choose does happen to have an owner, who also happens to have the number to Merryweather Security this may create one or two issues for your perfect date.
The Final Step - Take her Home... So if you have followed all of our wonderful advice and managed to get this far with your girlfriend, then there is only one thing left to do...Take her home, make sure you have a Bong, Whiskey, Wine and some weird green goo in a glass and just get Freaky!
(Special Thanks to Alex Dardani and James Clayton for their help with getting the pictures needed for this article.)
GTA 5 - GTA Online Review By Nathan Scullard Well let's start with...it's fantastic! There you go review done! No seriously! I have never really given much thought to an online version of GTA, probably because I was too busy picking up prostitutes and mowing down random pedestrians to care. But what a great idea! I had tried the online section of GTA 4 very briefly but wasn't all that impressed to be
honest. GTA 5 too isn't without its faults. First of which is the really really really...really long tutorial! It doesn't help at all either. When I finished it I was bored, pissed off and still had no clue what I was doing. Admission Time! I have to admit that I have been playing this on the Xbox 360 as I'm sure a lot of you know we PC gamers have to wait even longer to play it as its not yet been released! Which I think is totally unfair. So I apologise if anything mentioned in the review isn't in the PC version, but I would have thought they would be pretty similar. Let's just hope that they have a GTA Online or I'm gonna look REALLY stupid! But the reason I mention this now is because if it wasn't for my friends on Xbox I think I would still be driving around Los Santos without a clue what to do because the tutorial was pants. Thankfully if you have some friends and manage to get the hang of what to do, it's so much fun! You can do practically anything you can do in the normal campaign (which btw is also fantastic and it's worth buying the game for the campaign alone- Trevor is Awesome!) including visiting the cinema, playing Golf and Tennis, having street races, robbing convenience stores, hijacking armoured cars full of cash and loads more. I'm also go go out on a limb and say that they have big plans for the future too. All around Los Santos, Blaine County and San Andreas there are signs on buildings like Casinos and Horse Tracks that say "Coming Soon" or "Opening Soon" and although it's not confirmed, I believe that these will be coming into play as updates during the next couple of years. Rockstar have already confirmed that they will be implementing 'Heists' into the online mode, which will allow you and your crew...yes I did say crew, can plan and carry out heists. If you wish to start a crew you will need to register yourself on Rockstar's Social Club website and get all your friends to do the same, then create and invite them into a crew. This however has created one major drawback! I have always known GTA to be a fun do anything you like kind of game where the rules didn't apply. Killing prostitutes to get your money back was acceptable and stealing a bus full of school kids just to drive it off a cliff was laughed about. But now, because of the missions, races and other game type, which I will go over in more detail in a minute, it has attracted the attention of competitive gamers. I have nothing against competitive gamers, I used to be one myself and probably will be again when Destiny comes out, but GTA being full of competitive gamers is a bit of a buzzkill. I just want to play GTA and have a laugh, I don't want people
sending me abusive messages because midway through an online mission I got distracted by rabbit that I just had to get a photo of or decided that breaking into the prison was way more fun than the mission I was in. Thankfully they have addressed this issue by letting you create private servers which you can just play in with your mates. Now as I mentioned, in GTA 5 they have put things for you to do, which is always nice, but one of the biggest additions is the street races, missions and team-based games. I'm in two minds about these though, I like the missions that you can play together and work on completing an objective, but I don't really like the team deathmatch type things or last man standing, and that is simply because I still think that the shooting on the game is still too clunky. It has vastly improved over the years, in fact, I played GTA 3 on steam the other day and OMG the shooting was bad! There is no shooting mechanics as such, you just lock onto someone wherever they are and spam the shoot button. But it still isn't quite there yet. The driving on GTA has always been good and GTA 5 is no exception making the street races a great addition to the online missions. My only problem with them in fact is that it seems they are the only ways to level up you character online, you do get points for escaping cops, doing stunt jumps and a few other things but you don't get anywhere near the experience points you get on the missions, which is a shame because the mission are ok, but they aren't what I bought GTA to do. Although having played the campaign through and have a good idea of what to expect from the new 'Heist' missions I am in fact looking forward to them. Making money in GTA has never been easier...well if you're a cheating mofo who prints his own cash anyway. GTA 5 have recently been clamping down on all the cheaters who have been creating their own money, so it may be something as a PC gamer you may wish to look out for. If you were expecting to go onto GTA to just that, be aware that Rockstar are ready for you, they have been very successful so far in routing out the trouble makers. But if you are like me and went into a lobby and got gifted like 100 Billion without asking for it, you may have your cash taken off of you eventually but my advice is in the meantime...Spend, Spend, Spend! Rockstar will take illegal funds from people who had the cash gifted to them, but if you have bought items or property with it then you get to keep it as it wasn't you fault in the first place! Top tip there!
GTA 5 allows you to buy properties too, but now we come onto the only major problem I really have with this game. If you buy a property like a house or a garage then you cannot buy another without selling the one you have! If I have the cash, I want to be able to buy whatever I want! I bought an expensive penthouse apartment with a 10 car garage, and as soon as I filled the garage I thought, "No Prob, I'll buy a separate 10 car garage somewhere else." Oh no! You can't do that says GTA, you have to sell your house with the garage to buy this garage...WHY!? One other thing, if you buy an apartment with a 10 car garage and then your friend buys one, but not the same one, not even in the same block or street, they will look exactly the same inside! I hate that, they should all be different in my book. I don't want a carbon copy of my friend's house I want it to be mine! At least let me have some customizable options like carpet colour or different furniture or something! (Breath...) Rant over... But to be totally honest that is the only bit that annoys me about this online section of the game. As an open world online experience it's second to none. There is nothing better than piling all your friends in a car and driving around terrorising people, or inviting them all up to your flat, calling some strippers and getting steaming drunk or offyour-face-stoned with the complimentary bong supplied in every 10 car garage apartment. There are things it could do better, but you never know, those things may already be in the pipeline to be implemented in later updates (I hope so). If not, then my character will starve to death due to the lack of food outlets, which I was very surprised to see had gone. You can see them when you drive around but you can't go inside...no more making your character hurl after too many cheeseburgers... (Sad Face). I could talk about all the features for hours, but honestly there are so many, it's better you just buy the game when it comes out and see for yourself, you won't be disappointed it is a great game.
My Rating: 9.5/10 (If they improve some things with updates then 10/10)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug By Nathan Scullard I have to admit that I am not a fan of The Lord of the Rings. I never have been. Even the books I found a little dry in context and the story just dragged on and on.
Indeed, the first book I wrote as a child was a medieval fantasy called “The Master of Tempests” and the similarities were quite obvious to anyone who read it. So when I heard that they were making a Hobbit film I was torn. I had loved the book, but I really had not been keen on the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings on film, and I knew that they would be similar. But the first film had surprised me and surpassed my expectations by delivering a wonderfully accurate version of the book. And when I realised that they weren’t going to try and squeeze the whole book into one film I was even happier, because I still think that that is where they went wrong with The Lord of the Rings, which in book format is much longer then The Hobbit.
I don’t know how many of you know this, but J.R.R Tolkien originally created the wondrous world of Middle Earth as a bedtime story for his children, and what a story! Even though I will happily admit that it is not my personal favourite, even I can see its merit and why people would fall in love with the shear concept of a fantasy world. And if my parents had created stories such as the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for my bedtime stories, I imagine my dreams would flow with the tales of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and all the other amazing characters.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story of The Hobbit, I will briefly go over it. The story follows a Hobbit called Bilbo Baggins who gets unexpectedly dragged into helping a band of Dwarves break into their ancestor’s hidden kingdom under the lonely mountain, which was taken over by a vicious dragon named Smaug, who wiped out the dwarves who lived there and claimed all their gold for himself. And there he has remained ever since. But there is a prophecy that the true King will return and claim the kingdom once again for all dwarf-kind.
But although The Lord of the Rings didn’t strike a chord with me, The Hobbit will always have a special place in my heart. I read it as a 12 year old child and it literally had me captivated throughout. I may even go as far as to say that it was the very first spark of inspiration that sparked my love for writing.
This is where Bilbo comes into it. He is recommended by Gandalf, a wise wizard, as an excellent thief for the quest as Hobbits are small and if they need to be can be very quiet. At first Bilbo flat out refuses, and to be honest he doesn’t stop refusing, but no one really pays it much attention he is quickly whisked away with the others.
We pick up the story in the second film as the group are trying to avoid a pursuing band of Orcs who are trying to stop them from reaching the mountain. Their journey leads them to many places, but one of the first places they visit is an enchanted wood which they end up losing their way in and get captured by giant spiders. But with a little help from Bilbo and the magic ring, they manage to escape, only to be captured by wood elves and imprisoned. Here we see a young Legolas. The dwarves manage a daring escape by hiding in some barrels and riding them downstream over white-water rapids at the same time as being attacked by the group of Orcs who had tracked them to the wood elves’ kingdom. They then manage to transport to Esgaroth, lake-town from a man who was waiting to barrels downstream.
bargain for a struggling named Bard collect the
Once they reach Esgaroth, they are a mere stone’s throw away from the lonely mountain, and waste no time in getting there. Once there they encounter Smaug still guarding the treasure and attempt to kill him, but Smaug is smart and decides to attack Esgaroth, knowing that it will make Thorin, the dwarve’s leader and the prophesized ‘true’ King under the Mountain feel personally responsible for all the lives he takes. And this is where the second instalment ends. It doesn’t really sound like much happens in the movie when you write it like that.
Especially when you think that this movie is about 2 hours and 40 minutes long. But there are a few other sub-plots which I have not mentioned as I don’t want to ruin it for you if you haven’t yet seen it, which let’s face it, if your reading a review on it then you probably haven’t seen it yet. The film was very good and as I have already mentioned I’m a huge fan, but even I noticed a few problems. The first of which being one I had not expected to have an issue with. I know that this is a single book made into three films, and it is not the first time I have seen this either. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for example was the first to my knowledge that made a single book into multiple films (probably totally wrong, but I did say “to my knowledge” lol). Now, I don’t usually have a problem with this, but this time it just felt like they had gone out, bought a copy of The Hobbit and opened it on a random page and used a pair or ‘ArtScissors’; those ones which cut in jagged lines, to cut the book into three sections to make their films. And while all the good juicy content of the book is still there, it just feels...messy. As a result I felt that instead of this feeling like a second film in a trilogy, it really felt like the middle of something without a beginning and an end. I know some of you will be going, “What is this idiot talking about? It IS the
middle, so why wouldn’t it feel like the middle?” Well, we I was at school and was learning about writing stories, I was always told that a good strong story is only as good as the strong opening and the even stronger finish, and although this is the middle part of a book that has both of those things, when you cut it up to make a stand-alone film you have to create a sort of beginning and end to make it feel complete and have substance, and it was just lacking. The only other issue I had with it was, and I could be wrong here as I have not read The Hobbit for years, but when I read it I don’t remember Legolas being in it at all? Not necessarily a bad thing that they have tried to link the films, but I don’t think it worked this time. It was obvious that they had tried to make Orlando Bloom look younger, but I think they had only succeeded in making him look older and ever so slightly like a drag-queen.
But overall when you slide this into place with the first film, it is a very good film, not quite as good as the first but still important in its own right. And despite its downfalls I am still eagerly awaiting the final part.
My Rating: 7/10
cases until you play the very last part, and its locked until you have done the other three, and after playing it I can see why.
By Kim Gustafsson So resident evil is a new passion of mine! The first film made me get resident Evil 5 and from then on I was hooked, be it the movies or games. I spent so many hours in that game that I think I had double SS or triple SSS ranking on every mission and Mercenary level at the end, and thanks to a good friend the same went for the split screen Mercenaries'. I can't even begin to tell you how many hours went into that game, and maybe that's a good thing come to think of it. And when they released Resident Evil 6 I had high hopes, not just to see what they would do with the game, like new game mechanics and so on, but also about the story. I'm the type of person that needs to know EVERYTHING in a game. Every little bit of story that can be found, every readable scrap of paper that can be collected needs to be made mine. Anyway, I'm rambling on a bit, let's get to the game shall we. So Resident Evil 6 is now divided into four different campaigns that in one way or another ties into each other, and to understand the game and all of the story, one really needs to play all of them in order to get what's going on. It's even set out in such a way that you are still in the dark in some
So I thought I would simply talk about them in the order I played them, and hopefully not give away any spoilers as best I can about the story's end. But before I do that there is a few other things that will cover all of the campaigns. And the first thing I noticed was that I could now move AND shoot, which would alter the game entirely from Res5 (Res5 is Resident Evil 5 for the duration of this article) where you had to make the choice of one of them. Another thing I noticed right away is the "that body is dead but not really and will try to kill you when you get close" mechanic. In Res5 you could shoot the bodies before going past them, in Resident Evil 6 your bullets will simply pass through the body and you have to go past it, take some damage, before you can kill it. And that's another thing I was not so happy with, if something grabs you, let's say a "dead body" you will instantly lose life and you can't do anything to avoid it, that I hate. Now there are perks in the game (I will talk more about them later) that will make you lose less life, or to make it easier to get out of the enemies grip. But why aren't I simply supposed to shoot first and walk past later. Its slows the game down all the time for no reason for the bodies to reanimate just as you walk past to grab you. This aside, it did not slow the game down to the point that I did not play the game, but it was annoying interruptions that I feel could have been avoided in my mind. Then they had the interface, that I have to say I kind of liked. It even alters between characters, the base is the same but coloured edges and well most of the design alters, I love that and a big thumbs up. It gives the characters a certain individuality that Res5 did not have. You also have a bigger inventory in this game, but I still find that I fill it up way too fast for my liking, and not so long into the game I stopped picking up grenades and remote charges, as they took up a lot of space
and I never really used them that much, there was just no need to as the guns where just better. Maybe in harder game modes I will use more of them, but in Normal, I had no need of them. The space was of better use for extra ammo and anything that would refill my health. And there's another thing that I found to my liking, the health system is now divided up in an x number of cubes shown on your HUD, normally 5 of them. Lose all of them and you die, well you fall to the ground and need your partner to come by and help you get back up again. If they fail you will die. You still have the health spray that will refill all of the lost health cubes, or pills (I call them tic tacs!) that replace just one of the cubes at a time. Not only can you carry up to 16 of these pills at a time without them taking up any place in your inventory making them highly useful, they are also fairly easy to come by, and after getting to know the weapons I rarely needed to use the sprays. Once I had finished playing through the game from start to end four times, I realised I had only used two life sprays, the rest was just as well healed with the tic tacs (pills just don't sound so positive, don't you think). Not only are they so many of them, I can use them without having to go into the menu, making them not only inventory space free, but also faster than getting the spray. Oh and one final pointer before going into the campaigns, snipers are horrible. They do a lot of damage sure, but a sniper is a long range weapon right? Well not in this game, here it's more like a midrange weapon. There is so much weapon sway that its useless, and there is not a "hold your breath" button to aim better anywhere in game. I used snipers as someone else would have used a shotgun, in small alleyways instead of on longer ranges. And it has the damage output to justify it, instead of 3-4 shoots with the shotgun, I take one shot with the sniper and moves on. The sniper needs to be better at long range in my opinion. Oh and one more thing about aiming, when aiming you get the standard crosshair with a red dot in it (that you can alter colour of by the way)
nothing unusual there right. Well here's the kicker, when you start to fire your guns your little dot moves around in the crosshair, from being centred it jumps around inside it throwing your aim off as the recoil would have done. Kind of nice in a way, but the bad part is that you have to wait a little while before the coloured dot becomes visible again, at close range it's not that much of a big deal, but at range, it's a pain in the butt. And to make it worse, if you want to reset the dot, you have to lower your weapon and get it back up again, it's a fast move, but sometimes there are times when you simply can't or don't want to for the fear of getting eaten horribly by some monster. So NOW I can move on :D
Leon and Helena: After getting into this I noticed that it was more of a horror story this one, and I have to be honest, I did not like it. It just moved too slow for me. The story and acting is good, but there was just so many inconsistencies from the Res5 game that I had come to know and love so much. And yes I know that Leon was in the series before game 5 but I had a really hard time trying to warm to the character as much as I would have liked to. But then again I was never that keen on the horror genre, and even though I see that that's what they tried to do here, they failed in my opinion. It's a fun campaign but as a horror story just know that it's bad. But it soon gets better as the story goes on and you get a bit more speed in your steps, and in my opinion the thing that turned the game was more guns. When you finally gets to get out of the puny peashooter you start with, the game all of a sudden became really good and I had a
hard time seeing why they simply had not given me the guns right of the start. It's hard not to say too much and still leave the bigger picture untouched for you guys as I don't wish to divulge too much of the plot, but as far as I can tell you it's a good campaign even though it starts really slow and it is still the one I look forward to playing the least. And since I have not played anything before Res5, I did not really know this character, and the game does a piss poor job to introduce you to him I think, the best information I got on him was from collecting the special emblems that unlock some info files that can be read later, but in the game I just don't think they did a good job. But maybe that is part of the characters story from before, I don't know, anyways next time I play it I will play as Helena, which seemed more interesting, even though it was stupid, incredibly naive and slow to explain regarding her sister and the past events. I'd still go with her before I'd play as Leon again. All in all its a nice campaign, but for me it's not the way I want to play the game, and I found it slow and clumsy, and there were several times when I yelled at the screen as once again Leon went along with something that there was no point in going along with, that then eventually led to even more problems. And all of the mystery could have been avoided if his companion Helena, had taken her head out of her ass and told the truth to begin with. But as I sad, once it got rolling properly I enjoyed it enough to keep going instead of giving up on the game.
Chris and Piers: Chris I know from before, but was a bit surprised about his newly found drinking problem, I had not seen him as that type of character in the previous game, but I guess everyone needs something to believe in.
Then along comes Piers, a young soldier in the BSAA telling him it's time to face your ghosts as the world needs his services once more. He tells Chris about the recent developments and makes him give up the bottle but not his problems as he joins the BSAA once again as the Point Man of Alfa team with Piers as his second. This campaign was more to my liking, (I did not need to stop every three steps to stumble over something that I could not walk around). I simply liked the military strategy more then I liked the previous attempt of horror. Again I don't want to say too much about the story, even though this is a review I still feel that I want you to see this for yourself, as I think they did a great job with it, and it needs to be experienced, and not told to you by an amateur review man. During the story you also get to see what happened to Chris to send him to the bar where he apparently stayed until Piers came along. And during their fight you also get to see some very good acting between them, as more and more of Chris' past unfolds and he falls further and further away from his objective as part of the BSAA and relies on Piers to keep him in line. Over all this is by far the best one of the campaigns in my mind, and that could because its simply the most straight forward one, very little puzzle solving or stealth, its more run and gun, and that was perfect for me. There was this one time while fighting a giant BOW that I did not know what to do, but after a good night of sleep, I figured it out the day after, so I'm going to blame being tired as hell and not figuring it out right away. It was not even a puzzle, I just failed to see what my team was doing. And it was a lot faster passed then Leon's and Helena's one as well, another reason why I liked it, and it made me very excited to start on the next ones to see if they would be as good. Over all it was a lovely
campaign, not just for the shooting but also for the characters
Jake and Sherry: This one is a bit special in yet another way from the other two. Here you play as Jake (well I did) who as it turns out is Albert Weskers son, and as such also carries the genetic DNA that allowed Wesker some control over the Cvirus. Jake is a mercenary, and we meet him for the first time just after he gets a dose of the C-virus proving that he has antibodies for the virus. Here we also meet Sherry who says she is working for the government and wants Jake's help to develop an antidote. Just as that is said you have to fight for your life against the same mercenaries that Jake a minute ago trusted his life with, and I have to say, he takes it really good. His only concern being that the BSAA keeps firing on him as well as his former comrades. Jake is a cold hearted mercenary, and I like this character a lot, even when asked to help the world he still comes up with a price that has to be met or he will simply walk out letting the world fend for itself. But as you might have imagined, it gets more complicated, and gaining a simple blood sample lead's to a whole world of shooting, fighting and running. And incidentally that sums this campaign up pretty nicely. You spend some of the time feeling like a god, killing zombies and being an overall badass, and the other running away like a little girl from a particularly tough BOW that seems to have its mind set on Jake. While you either go on like a battering ram or run like a school girl Jake finds a friend in Sherry, and for the first time he makes a connection with another human being since he lost his mother some years back. And maybe I let my own feelings for the characters get the best of me here (I love Jake and I always had a soft spot for Sherry too). I thought that they were hitting it
off a couple of times during the story, but in a way I did not have to stop and think, "oh that's so cheesy" so I'm kind of curious about what they will make them do in any future games. But unfortunately I don't like all of the running away parts, since it simply slows the game down to a crawl. And they often give you an instant death should you fail, not a fan. But I found them to be kind of easy so they are not that bad and don't slow you down for too long. Now even though I like the campaign, there are two very bad things with this campaign. The first one is Jake's hand to hand combat, he is described as very good at it, but the hand to hand system does not justify that at all. It's just too stale, and has only three different moves to it, so there's not that much versatility in it (not that those three attacks are the ones used while having Jakes Hand to hand "weapon" equipped, and not the standard attacks that all characters can make). Sure they do some damage, but its faster and just better to shoot them instead of risking getting too close just to try them out. The second thing that's really bad here is the driving you get to do is horrible. The first one was a snowmobile or a "Scooter" as I would say considering I'm from Sweden. But the handling of the thing is utterly horrible. You have a throttle and a break/reverse and that's it. And while driving down from a mountain that's coming down over you, you have to jump between cliffs, go left and right between trees and so on. Unfortunately your snowmobile is as nimble as an oil tanker sent down the same hill sideways, with a small man called Bob to steer it down using a toy car steering wheel. It simply will not move the way you want it to and should you, god forbid, have to turn at some point, you can simply end up going down sideways, and with
only a throttle and a break, you have no way of getting back up again. "But you can use the sticks to steer" (was playing this part with a controller) you say, well yes in a way, left stick controls the scooter, or so it claims, it just tries, that's it, while the right one controls the camera, and can actually make you go sideways again. Needless to say, it was bad. And after a few more missions you have to drive a bike, now this was still bad and I thought boring, but it was far better than the previous attempt at driving. And it was enjoyable even though I did not like it. But I still felt a bit cheated as I thought I would be able to use some nice hand to hand combat moves, but the system just was not there. And to make matters worse, at one point you are forced to use it as your weapons have been taken away, and it does nothing to help you like the system, shooting is fine, and the normal hand to hand system is fine, but not the actual hand to hand that's supposed to be good (a lot of hands there) and it was a big disappointment. But it still makes up for it with the nice gameplay and you don't need to use anything but guns in all but one mission. And again they have made good work of how the characters intermingle and talk, all but in one place. There is a level where I have to hide from a set of what I can only describe as bloat flies, who are trying to track me, and I can jump into a container to hide from them. But when I do my companion Sherry, does not, she simply stands there and nothing happens to her, I wonder why, if it's a bug, or if the flies simply only react to Jake, or the character you are currently using, other than that it went on with no more problems, and in the end I liked the story.
Double
Doors:
Now there is another campaign, and I will get to that in a minute, but first I have to talk about the biggest ghost in Resident Evil 5-6. The Dual-Controller-and-Lock-Out-System
that seems to be pestering the game. Everywhere, no matter where you are, who built it, or in what country you are in, be it Chinese, or Indian culture, if you are going to open a door, you have to pull two different levers at two different places at the same time. Who the fuck makes this system and still thinks it's a good thing? It slows the game down terribly as you have to wait for your partner (this is playing with an A.I) to kill all the monsters before getting to the door, while you simply wanted to open it and be done with it. Admittedly I can see its uses when playing with a human player, as it forces a way of interacting with your companion as having to watch each other's back and so forth, but in single player, it's simply a bad idea I think. This being said, let's go to the last of the campaigns.
Ada
Wong:
So this campaign is a bit different from the others in the sense that you are alone as a player, but I have to say you are encountering so many other characters that it kind of feels like you have them tagging along with you anyways. And it also solves the problem with the DualDoor-System as she is alone it would stop the game, so instead they gave her a nifty gun with a rope and a hook in it, awesome! Not only does it feel more fluent as you swing yourself across the levels instead of waiting by a door for your partner, it also added a nice new mechanic, sure you simply press one button, but still it's new. And I have to say it allows you to move in a way that feels free even though its horribly scripted. And to add to it you get the awesome crossbow, I'm not sure how much damage it does, but I just liked it, it's just a shame how few arrows you can carry before it starts to fill up your
inventory (again, I threw away all the grenades and took more arrows). As you started the first campaign, in my case Leon's, you notice a lot of inconsistencies, and keep thinking, wtf? And they just add up until you get the last one, Ada Wong is your answer, I was so glad that they did not simply let it hang in the air, and simply took you through what happened, but it only makes sense after you have played that last campaign. Unfortunately I found it to be very short, but as it tied in all the things that I had had a problem with so far, I still found it to my liking and I did not find any real thing to complain about either. Its short, simple, but it answered my questions, and maybe even more importantly, I did not have to drive a single thing, that made me even more happy. I still would have used the crossbow a bit more though, were it not for the lack of arrows.
Perks: I promised to talk about the perks in the game so here it is. Some enemies will drop a small piece that will look like a piece from a chessboard and will give you a certain number of points as you pick it up. This is your currency and can be used to pay for perks and upgrade them once you have unlocked them. You can only have three of them on at any given time, and I believe they did this so you would have to alter between campaigns and characters to make it work out. But on Normal Mode I found a combination of three that worked overall, good on all of them. And I have to say they are pretty good, I don't know about the damage boosts, since I can't get any number on it but for the rest I have to say I fell in love with the "Breakout" one the most. It helps you get out the grip of enemies, and the faster you get out, the less life you take as well. And it could just be me, but I think it helps with the quicklime events as well. But that could just be my own imagination playing pranks on me. The other ones I used was the
"Increased Gun Damage" (even though I could not tell how much extra damage it was doing, but felt it could not hurt all the same) and "Fast Reload" just in case anyone wanted to know. Overall I love this game, and I have not even started talking about the mercenaries mode, and all the extras in the game, and I won't, cause I want you to get the game, and once you have, you will be a happier person for doing so. If you liked Resident Evil 5 , I'm pretty sure you will like this one as well. Acting is good, voices are good I have to say, the only thing that I think is horribly broken that I have not yet talked about is the reload system. As your gun empties, I figure it should reload, but it does not. It stays empty until you pull the trigger again or press the reload button, why not just reload right away as the gun is empty? And the setting "Reload Automatically" seems to be there just to look good, as it made no difference at all whether I had it boxed in or not, it still played the same. So other than that and the other small failings of the game I still love it for what it does. It's a good game for the zombie genre that seems to be a bit over populated as it seems at the moment. I dare say, I will have many hours in front of the mercenaries screen. Until I see you all next time. Happy Gaming People!
called Auras, and I will be using that term on creatures and Enchantments on the ones that go on the board on their own.
Guardians of the Light: So I'm not going to be explaining much about the game this time since this is the second instalment in the series, but I will explain why I went for this deck in this article. The Guardians of the light was the second one I unlocked, to do that you need to first complete the first chapter on the single player mode, then you click the "Spellweaver" symbol down in the right corner and click on the deck you want to unlock. You will have to face them and should you win, you unlock that deck to be used in both single player mode and multiplayer, simple as that. That being said I will get right to the deck, as there is going to be a good number of cards on this one so keep with me. And I will not be putting up a picture for every card I talk about, as I feel it will be a bit too much, so let's get started. So this is an augment deck, and what I mean by that is that it's got a few creatures and then a whole bunch of Enchantments and Auras to make them stronger or right out indestructible. It's an awesome deck in my opinion and hopefully I can give you a few hints about what to do with this deck. Keep in mind that whenever I talk about Enchantments on creatures they are also
First card of the day is Kor Spirit Dancer. This is an amazing card, not only does it have an innate ability for every enchantment you put on it, giving it an automatic +2/+2 but you also get to draw a card, and to add on top of that you get the benefit of the Aura as well. It's just perfect and can snowball out of control really fast, so if you're playing against it, you might want to take it out early so to keep your enemy from becoming too dominant early in the game.
Next up is Daybreak Coronet. This card can only be put on another card that already has an Aura on it (so perfect on your Kor Spirit Dancer) so you might need to hold on to it for a little while, but for what it does its amazing. For only the cost of two mana, you get +3/+3, Lifelink, Vigilance and First strike! Remember though that you have to have another enchantment on it already for it to work, so it's a bit more expensive then it suggests, but when you get it out, you can turn an low level card to something that can become a big threat on the board.
Let's say you want to protect one of your creatures from the enemy. You can play Spirit Mantle and have the creature get +1/+1 and protection from creatures. This means that when you attack no creatures can block it, and if they do if forced by a spell or other, they won't do any damage to it. So the only way to get it off the board is by a spell or by some other sneaky play from your opponent, it can give any card the ability to stay and keep dealing damage to your opponent. There is another card with almost the same function as well, Unquestioned Authority does the same, but you also get to draw a card. A win win if you ask me!
Divine Favor is a very good defensive card. Not only does it give any creature a healthy +1/+3 but it also gives back 3 life to the player something you and in case you have a partner would not say "No" to.
Nomad Mythmaker is a good card to have on hand, and if you can protect it you have a very good starting point in the game. If a creature dies with an enchantment, it usually takes the Aura with it to the grave, but with this card you can bring them back to the board, think of it like a sort of recycling program for your enchantment cards. Not only that but it gives it directly to another creature of your choice instead of taking it to your hand. Saving you the mana it would cost to put it back out again.
Skyhunter Skirmisher is not the best card on its own, but it is a flyer and it has double strike, meaning that whatever aura card you put on it, if it's a damage aura, it's going to double the damage dealt to the enemy, an awesome and dangerous play for anyone. Just keep it alive and it will deal massive damage before you know it.
Guardians Magemark is a little special. Not only can you play it as an "Instant", cause of its Flash special rule. Now the card does affect all cards with an Aura on them that you control, and gives thems +1/+1. So if you have five cards with an Aura of some kind, it will affect all of them. A simple way of increasing the damage of your army in general and not just one creature at a time.
As you imagine by now you're going to be playing a lot of Auras/Enchantments so cards like Ajanis Chosen will come in real handy. It's only a 3/3 but for every Enchantment you play, you get to add a free 2/2 cat creature token on the field, always adding to your army even if you did not play a creature, it's awesome. Make another creature stronger and get one for free. It's like buy 1 get as many as you like for FREE!
Seraph of the Sword, now this is not the only card with this ability, it just happened to be the one I picked to talk about. It's a creature but it has the rule; "Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to Seraph of the Sword" meaning if you're defending or attacking, it will not take damage from other creatures. Keep in mind though that this will not save it from spells and certain abilities you will face in the game, it will only save it from normal combat damage, nothing else. Still it's a powerful play, as your opponent might not have anything to counter such a card.
Angelic Destiny, now this is a super card, not only does it give your creature a good +4/+4 but it also grants it Flying, Fist Strike and it becomes an Angel as well. And if that was not enough should the creature die this card will be put back in your hand, it's a never ending cycle of angels at your disposal. What's not to like. Keep in mind though that some cards especially in the black decks have spells and creatures that target Angels specifically, so keep that in mind.
Indestructibility, now this is exactly what it sounds like, it makes a card indestructible, it can still be exiled, but this card is mostly going to stay on the board, simple but oh so powerful.
Armored Ascension. This is another of those cards that can win the game for you. It will give a creature +1/+1 for each plain you control, and to top it off will give it Flying as well. However considering it is based on the number of plains you have it might be better to save for the late game as you are bound to have more of them on the board. But it can also just as easily make for a nasty surprise in the early game.
Dawnstrike Paladin, this is a creature with the 2/4 on its profile. But it also has Vigilance and more importantly, it has Lifelink making it the perfect card to Enchant increasing the damage it does and increasing the life you gain from it every time it deals damage, don't underestimate the power of Lifelink.
Sigil of the Empty Throne, now this is a card you should never leave home without. It's an Enchantment that gives you an 4/4 angel, for EVERY Enchantment card you play after this one, giving you an army of angels in no time, it's one of the best cards ever.
Celestial Mantle, this card is another one of those that can win you the game in an instant, not only does it give a creature +3/+3 it also has a special rule that goes like this "Whenever Enchanted creature deals combat damage to a player, double its controlling players health total". If I had 15 health, and it does damage I will get another 15 health for a total of 30, next time I get 30 and then 60, it can cause you to become a
god. BUT your enemy will know this and might have a way to kill it before it gets to do its thing, keep that in mind.
True Conviction. This is a monster card, it's an Enchantment card that gives all your creatures double strike, doubling their damage, but it also gives them Lifelink, it's a deadly combination and in my opinion especially good in multiplayer games. But it will make you a target though, so keep that in mind.
Final Judgment, this is a last resort card in my opinion, if your creatures and tricks aren't enough to win the game, and your opponent is having board control, then this is what you play, it will Exile all creatures on the board, all of them gone, a great way to reset the board if you took a wrong turn, or if you wanted to get rid of your enemies strong killer creatures. Keep in mind though that it will remove creatures with Indestructible as well, as Exile and Destroy are not the same rule, so keep that in mind.
Now there are a lot of more cards in the deck that I would talk about but I'm not going to, these are the cards that I think are the most interesting to use in a game with this deck, and the combinations are endless. Just read the rules of the cards and see your army snowball out of control over and over again. Until I see you again, I wish you all happy gaming!
The Wolf Among Us: Episode 2 -Smoke and Mirrors PC Adventure Telltale Games February 5, 2014
Jazzpunk PC Adventure Necrophone Games February 7, 2014
The LEGO Movie Videogame PC Action , Adventure Warner Bros. Interactive February 14, 2014
Banished PC Simulation Shining Rock Software February 18, 2014
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare PC Shooter Not Available February 27, 2014
Thief PC Adventure , Adventure Square Enix February 28, 2013
Divinity: Original Sin PC RPG Not Available February 2014
South Park: The Stick of Truth PC RPG Ubisoft March 7, 2014
Titanfall PC Shooter , First-Person Electronic Arts March 14, 2014
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls PC Action , RPG Blizzard Entertainment March 25, 2014
Dark Souls II PC Action , RPG Bandai Namco Games March 2014
Revolution 60 PC Adventure , RPG Not Available March 2014