Plague Inc. Evolved Review

Calling all gamers! Today I will be reviewing Plague Inc., made by +James Vaughan, which has recently mutated onto PC. The game looks bigger and badder than ever with its spectacular graphics, 3d models of each disease type, and the gameplay that made it known by all strategy game fans. Let's take a look!

Gameplay: 10/10

Modifying the genetic code.

Evolve Symptoms to change what your disease gives people.

The gameplay for this game is amazing and very complex. It is the best strategy game I have ever played. For those of you that have never seen the game before, here's the scoop. You control a disease that you can evolve to control where it goes. To make it stronger, you evolve Transmissions, Symptoms, and Abilities using DNA points. DNA points are earned by infecting or killing people. Humanity will do everything in its power to make sure that it does not get overrun, and will start researching a cure, shutting down public buildings, and anything else it can to reduce the spread of the disease. You win the game when every human on Earth is dead. Before the game starts, you can select genes to insert into the organism's genetic code to give it certain traits, as pictured. Your disease can be transmitted to other countries by land borders, planes, or boats. The special plague types, the Neurax Worm and Necroa Virus, both have special abilities that let them manually spread the infection with Trojan Planes and Zombie Horde, respectively.

Oh, poor India.

Graphics: 9/10 

The graphics for the game are very good. They show how capable Ndemic Creations is by doing exceptionally well in both the gameplay and visuals aspects of their games. The graphics have been completely redesigned from the mobile version, and look fantastic with all of the cloud animations and better detail. 

New Features: 10/10 

I cannot express enough how excited I am for +James Vaughan to add the planned content in the near future. Currently planned content is multiplayer, where you can team up with other players online and fight the cure, or work to destroy the world in the classic gameplay. Another major feature that is coming is the laboratory, where you can make your own custom disease types, scenarios, and worlds and share them with your friends on the steam workshop. You can read more about the planned updates in the page below:

http://www.ndemiccreations.com/en/29-plague-inc-evolved-faq

Overall: 9/10

+Plague Inc.  Evolved is a very solid strategy game that clearly shows a great game developer in its creativity, graphics, and excellent gameplay. It is a game that is truly unique in every aspect and challenging enough to keep you coming back. If you have not checked it out, go and buy it! When future content is released, I will review it on this page. Although lacking in features at the moment, I am confident that it will receive some shortly. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Mobile Version Pros: Mobile, cheaper than PC, scenarios
PC Version Pros: Better graphics, (probably) more future updates

Kingdom Rush: Frontiers for Apple, Android, and Amazon Review

Hey guys! I have decided to do app reviews on my blog, this being my second. Today the subject is Kingdom Rush: Frontiers, a work of art and awesomeness from +Ironhide Game Studio. The game is one of my favorite tower defense games ever, along with Bloons Tower Defense 5, one that I will be reviewing soon. So first, let's discuss the first subject that makes this game great.

Gameplay: The game is, I think, very unique in terms of enemies, bosses, tower upgrades, and hero abilities. If you have played other tower defense games before, you should definitely try out this one, as the base mechanics are largely the same. The main difference is there are set plots of land on each level that you have to build towers on for defense. Almost everything about the game is balanced well, like the mage does lots of damage against armored enemies, the bomb tower does powerful area damage with its bombs, and the archer is effective against aerial foes. On some levels, there are enemies that cut a new path through the ground to form another attack route. The enemies are quite various, like a shaman that can protect its tribal allies from magic, a massive bird that shoots arrows rapidly, or even a giant gorilla! There are also environmental hazards, like the carnivorous plants in the picture below, which eat whatever gets near them, be it friend or foe.

Graphics: The graphics are truly unique, since they are in cartoon style. The game also has words that appear on screen when a certain weapon is used, like "sok!" when a soldier hits an enemy with a sword, as you can see in the picture, for example. This makes the game a joy to play as it is cool to see all the creativity that Ironhide Game Studio put into it.

Upgrades: I personally like the upgrade system a lot. When you finish a level, depending on the number of lives that you have left, you receive 1, 2, or 3 stars. You can then use those stars for upgrades for all of your towers, your reinforcements, or the meteor power. The final upgrade for each tower is super cool, like the archer, where it gets a chance to shoot two arrows at the same time! In-game, the final 4th upgrades are really powerful, like the fully upgraded mage, which can create up to 3 magical bolts at once when not in combat, and launch them all at one enemy when they get within range, not to mention a roughly 30% increase in base attack power from its previous upgrade.

Price: Kingdom Rush: Frontiers is super cheap, going for $0.99 on all Android phones and tablets. On the iPod touch, iPhone, and Kindle Fire I think it costs $2.99, and for iPad it is $4.99. This is not a huge price to pay, so if you haven't already checked this game out, give it a try!

Be sure to stay tuned for my review of the legendary Bloons Tower Defense 5 in a couple of days!

And the links to download:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ironhidegames.android.kingdomrushfrontiers

for the iPhone and iPod touch:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kingdom-rush-frontiers/id598581396?mt=8

The iPad:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kingdom-rush-frontiers-hd/id598581619?mt=8

Kindle Fire:

http://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Frontiers-Kindle-Tablet-Edition/dp/B00G4PX1MO

Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies for Android and Apple Review

Call of Duty has been one of the most famed first person shooters in gaming history, but just recently has it taken an exciting step and jumped onto mobile devices! Here I will review the highly anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies app for the App Store and Google Play. This blog will have a link to the game's page on both stores at the bottom, in case you are interested.

Price: 5/10 
The game is extremely pricey, weighing in at a huge $6.99. When it is on sale, it costs $0.99. I bought it on my galaxy tab 3 for a dollar. For what you get, this app is incredibly expensive.

Maps: 7/10
Black Ops Zombies only has two maps, the famous Kino Der Toten for Black Ops veterans, and Ascension, which is only available on a DLC pack for consoles. I think that the game takes a huge hit in this section, because the maps do get quite boring after a while. If you played Black Ops before on the Xbox, PC, or PlayStation, you will find everything on Kino Der Toten, including the pack a punch, in the same place.

Dead Ops Arcade: 10/10 The game just wouldn't be the same without Dead Ops Arcade! This game does include the retro-style overhead view zombie shooter that was tons of fun in the first game. To unlock it, you have to find four pieces of a token that are found in various places throughout the game. Even though I can't remember where they are, it is pretty easy to find them.

Controls: 6/10 I found the controls to be pretty crappy, especially the double joysticks to move around. I found that I was constantly pressing the ADS button when I wanted to reload, and had to reach all the way up to the top of the screen just to shoot. Luckily, there is a tilt option that lets you move with the left joystick and tilt the device to aim and look around. I liked this a lot better.

Graphics: 8/10 The graphics are scaled down for the mobile version, but nevertheless are good for a tiny little phone. The lighting is okay, and all of the gun animations, zombies, and everything else look and sound the same as on your Xbox.

Overall: 7/10 Black Ops Zombies is a good port of the famous game mode for consoles and PC's, but the lack of maps, terrible controls, and huge price tag hold it back from what otherwise could have been legendary in the history of mobile gaming.

Here are links for you guys, and thank you so much for viewing!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/call-of-duty-black-ops-zombies/id471063940?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atv.blackops

Halo 4 Review

Hey all you Halo lovers! This blog will be my review of Halo 4, the FPS Game Of The Year of 2012. In this post, I will go into detail about the pros and cons of this game, and hopefully it will contain enough info for you to decide! So this brings us to the first topic:

1. Cost: 9/10
Halo 4 is suprisingly cheap to pick up these days, going for around $15 for the standard edition. I saw it at GameStop for $12. The Game Of The Year edition, however, goes for a much bigger $40 price tag. If you are into DLC and those kinds of things, you should go for the GOTY edition. As far as games go, this one is pretty cheap, especially compared to Call of Duty Black Ops II, which is still $45 for the regular edition!

2.  New Features: 8/10
-Spartan Ops: This game mode is a nice breath of fresh air for the Halo series, because it plays out  like the "Special Ops" game type in MW2. One cool thing is that you can use your loadouts in multiplayer in Spartan Ops. Although it is lots of fun, I found that this particular addition to the game was getting quite repetitive after a while, and requires xbox live gold even to play single player.
-Promethians: The new alien types in Halo 4 are quite creative, including one that flies and protects others with force fields and catches grenades, and one that can crawl along the ground, walls, and ceilings. The new Promethian guns are pretty awesome and use beams of light to do damage. The new weapons include the Binary Rifle, a sniper rifle, a LightRifle, which is a carbine type gun, the Suppressor, an assault rifle, and the Boltshot, a pistol.
-Other New MP Elements: The UNSC and Covenant had all of their classic gun sounds thrown out by 343i and made from scratch. I think that this was a smart thing to do, because now all of the guns feel a great degree more realistic. The Covenant plasma repeater from Halo Reach was scrapped and replaced with the storm rifle, which I personally don't like as much. There aren't any new vehicles for the Covenant or Promethians, but the UNSC did get a beast (if not a little overpowered) new walker called a Mantis, which is equipped with a heavy duty machine gun on one hand and a missile launcher on the other. The credit system that we only saw in Halo Reach is gone. Instead of traditional military rank names, all of the ranks are called Spartan Rank (SR), and then governed by a number, like SR: 21 or SR: 57. Every time a player ranks up, they receive one Spartan Point, unlock new loadouts and can create a class, editing their strike packages (specialties for the class), primary weapons, secondary weapons, grenades, and armor abilities. Everything that you can use in a loadout costs Spartan Points, varying in cost. The graphic engine has been completely redesigned for much better visuals than Halo Reach. The game has more armor abilities, like one that lets you create an automated robot that shoots at passing enemies, an energy shield (not a bubble shield), and several more. Another addition to the game is the ordnance, which is like a killstreak in COD. When a player gets enough kills (not in one life like a killstreak), they get to choose between three different drops, each consisting of either a grenade resupply or a gun. Drops also occur randomly around the battlefield which are not player induced, location depending on the map.
-Forge: Forge mode is a mode where players can make their own maps by adding items and changing landscapes to fit their liking. Everything is the same as Halo Reach and Halo 3, except that you now have to have an xbox live gold membership to use it.
-Game Modes: Halo 4 has a wide assortment of game modes, most of which are typical for first person shooters. Some of them are Infinity Slayer (Team Deathmatch in COD), Free for All, and King of the Hill. The Flood game mode returns from Halo Reach, same as always. 343 Industries is constantly adding new temporary game modes to the game, like a football type game mode when the super bowl happens, for example.

Campaign: 9/10 I found the story to be quite good compared to most of the Call of Duty games. Luckily, 343 Industries knows that making the story revolve around the Master Chief, even if he is totally awesome, would not be very interesting. Instead, the storyline focuses on Cortana, the master chief's AI companion, and her rampancy (I think when an AI overthinks and burns themselves out). The special effects in the campaign are incredible, like when a spaceship explodes in a satisfying purple cloud , or even simply when a grenade blows up!

Conclusion: Halo 4 is an amazing game with excellent gameplay, breathtaking graphics, and a good multiplayer unlock system (yes, we're talking to you, Halo Reach!). The game is totally awesome, so if you are reading this and you own an xbox 360, then go out and buy it!

The link for Halo 4 Standard Edition:
http://www.amazon.com/Halo-4-Xbox-360-Standard-Game/dp/B0050SYX8W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393191105&sr=8-1&keywords=halo+4

And for Game Of The Year:
http://www.amazon.com/Halo-4-Game-Edition-Xbox-360/dp/B00FKV8AK6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393191210&sr=8-1&keywords=halo+4+game+of+the+year+edition

Call of Duty vs Halo: Ultimate Game Battle!

Hey guys, this blog is going to be about a topic that is still pretty big. Do you like Halo or Call of Duty better? This is a pretty widespread question that people constantly ask. Personally, I like halo because of the storyline and all the awesome vehicles, compared with cod, which has no vehicles in MP and has a somewhat unappealing story (just an opinion).

From what I have read so far, cod has got far more sales, but Halo is still older, and since Halo was the first game to get on the original Xbox, Call of Duty probably owes its very existence on consoles to halo. Without halo, I am positive that everybody would still be playing cod on pc.

For Halo 4, a very important point is that it made $220,000,000 in the first day of launch just on Xbox 360, while Black Ops 2 needed PC, Xbox 360, Wii U, and PlayStation 3 to get $500,000,000 on launch day.

Halo 4 was, in fact, selected as game of the year, with there being a "Game of the Year" edition for sale, unlike Black Ops 2.
     

So what do you think? If you like, post your opinion in the comments.

http://hothardware.com/News/Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops-II-Outguns-Halo-4-in-Launch-Day-Sales-500M-in-24-Hours/
#callofduty #halo #games

XCOM Enemy Unknown does not support iPod 4g, but should

Hey guys, this blog is going to be about something different. It is going to be a complaint. You know XCOM Enemy unknown on the apple app store? Well, I installed it and it turns out that it is not compatible with the iPod touch 4g. I am really annoyed that 2k and Firaxis decided to totally single out people that refuse to buy a $500(Cha-ching!) shiny new iPad or an iPhone 5. It is quite disappointing, because there are a lot of people that cannot afford to buy a device for hundreds of dollars just to play this game.

My feeling is that apple and 2k/Firaxis are in cahoots, and because apple wants people to buy the latest devices so that they can play XCOM on mobile. I feel that this is so unfair for people that have a grain of sense and do not want to do this, like me, especially being a fan of so many 2k games including all 3 BioShocks, XCOM Enemy unknown and within on PC and Xbox 360, and Civilization IV and V.

So who's with me on this??? Post what you think in the comments, and maybe if this gets enough attention, 2k will decide to support older iPod touches! Bye for now ;)

Kane's Main Quote in C&C 3 Kane's Wrath

My brothers, the departed, are surely looking down on me in contempt. After millenia, their ultimate vision of my fate has been realised. I have been rendered impotent, a sham, a failure, my very existance a mockery of all that I know to be right and true. Once a prophet, the messiah for this world, now imprisoned. As I lie here, trapped in these tubes, in this twisted, ruined shell of a body, the Brotherhood of Nod has been torn asunder by the infighting and heresy of those who presume to speak in my stead. Is it any wonder my followers have scattered to the four winds? I think not. So, has it come to this, that all that I fought for, all that I have sacrificed, is as dust? This cannot be ... ... I must heal, I must survive, I must claw myself up from this pit ... ... and then, truly, shall this pitiful world - and my dear departed brothers - know my wrath.