Heroes of Newerth - The new DotA?

So i was randomly browsin 4chan's /v/ and came across a reference to "Heroes of Newerth" in a Warcraft 3 topic. What i found out surprised me a lot:

The site does not contain much info at all, but a lot can be deduced, such as:

• This is a remake of DotA on a new engine (easily assumed to be the Starcraft 2 engine), and the interface has been setup specifically for DotA.
• The Hero models and even spells were made specifically for this map/game.
  

Blizzard knows that DotA is what kept their sales of warcraft 3 going to this day, and is by far the most popular WC3 map ever. As to why, i have no fucking clue, it's boring as fuck and slow paced.

However, the existence of this game leads me to believe that Blizzard worked closely with the team that made DotA to make this. I have to admit it looks visually impressive, but when i think it's just DotA, the urge to yawn rises inside me. It's still impressive to me that such a project could happen, I've never heard of anything like it.

I really wish they had done all this work for something that was a lil more... u know, fun?

Sir Little Turd

Brave Fencer Musashi is a game I picked up on a whim, and somewhat due to a nice review in an old gaming rag I used to read. If anyone had to explain it briefly, saying "it's kinda like Zelda" is a good way to put it. But that sorta belittles the game, so I try to avoid doing it(even though it is sorta like what might've came to be if Nintendo decided to keep Zelda traditional instead of going in the direction they did with OoT).

I was surprised to find myself totally falling in love with this little gem(WARNING: I'm about to make this game sound way better than it probably really is), thanks mostly in part to it's pint-sized protagonist. Musashi is tough, somewhat bratty, an asshole, and an unlikely hero all at once. Well, unlikely is sort of a strong word, considering the little guy picks up steam-powered mechs and tosses them like they were made of paper. Musashi pretty much disrespects everyone from the get-go, making it no secret that he's not happy about being contractually obligated to save Alucaneet Kingdom from the Thirstquencher Empire. He adopts a blatently apparent "let's just get this over with" attitude towards pretty much everything he's asked to do, usually confirming his orders and punctuating them with a "Whatever". But over time, Musashi grows attatched to the people he meets, but in his own "I'm still a disrespectful jerk" way. I really love the little guy.

Been a long while since I drew him. It's mostly due to the fact I'm never really happy with how they turn out, or can never think of what he should be doing, etc. You know, the usual hang-ups I get nowadays.

Abysmal mood

Stuck in mid rage/depression/frustration/disappointment mood. It's not even because of TF2.

Air Ride or Die

Kirby Air Ride was originally a game meant to be released on the N64, but due to numerous pushbacks and delays, it was never released, until 2003, on the Gamecube.

Basically, Kirby Air Ride is like Mario Kart, except with Kirby. Actually, if you compare it to Mario Kart, it looks pretty bare-boned and abyssmal by comparison. I'd heard things about it in reviews, and when it was first released, I'd have to agree that I wouldn't recommend buying it after renting it for a few days. It's fun, but it's not really a must-have. But nowadays you could probably find it used for a good price. It's a nice way to kill time.

The game differs from other racers by offering essentially three different modes. Air Ride is the "main" mode, but unlike Mario Kart or other mascot-lead kart racers, there isn't any sort of Grand Prix to do. It's straight up Versus racing. The game plays on Kirby's copy ability in place of random item boxes, but for the most part, they're actually not that useful. Top Ride is a top-down race on very small tracks, just like this old arcade game that's name escapes me right now. It's somewhat more akin to Mario Kart in that random items will appear and they're effective in annoying other racers.

But this little guide here(yes, this IS supposed to be a guide) will be focusing on the City Trial mode, mostly because it's my personal favorite, it's more robust than the other modes, and it's the mode I know the most about. City Trial sticks you in this hub world for a set amount of time. When that time expires, everyone is challenged in a random "stadium" mini-game, using the Ride Machine they "built" to compete. What do I mean by built? I'll explain that more thoroughly some other time. ^^

Valve used to be a good company

But now they're a bunch of hypocrites that just hurt their fans.



Won't b playing anytime soon. Thx Valve for sucking hard.

Game review: Trine

As far as i can tell, Trine is fairly unknown. I heard about it from Yahtzee from Zero punctuation in a 2.5D review. The concept of Trine intrigued me, so i gave it a try.

Story

To b honest, the story feels like an obvious excuse to explain the gameplay system, but still, it has nice artwork so I'll tell it:

The story sets the mood for the game and begins as a fairy tale. Long ago, there was a peaceful kingdom, and all was good until the King died. Then a huge struggle to succeed him began and new kings would take the throne just to lose it the next day.

Meanwhile...


For unknown reasons, the dead began to rise and terrorize the kingdom. and... that's about it. I confess I'm going by memory here, but the artwork is so fucking nice.

After the exposition, we're introduced to the present time, where the thief is about to attempt stealing a powerful artifact. when she gets to it, she's stuck on it. soon after, the wizard awakens, and finds the thief, touches the artifact, and is stuck on it, and a bit later, you guessed it, the knight finds them and gets stuck too.

The artifact then fuses them all into a single entity, sort of, and they can switch between each other and talk to each other. They quest for a way to separate themselves. The wizard recalls that there are 2 more artifacts, so they go and look for them.

Gameplay/Characters

This is very much like "Sonic heroes" in the sense that you can switch character and each character has their own ability and skills. but i believe it's more like "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse" because you only have 1 character on the screen at all times.

This is a pretty interesting plat former because it's physics based. you can move stuff around, throw it, hit it to make it swing, etc. maybe for that reason, some of the puzzles aren't as hard as intended because you can do it multiple ways.

the gameplay depends on the character really:


The Thief:

I honestly thought they would play the sex appeal card with her, but i don't think they did. you cant really tell how attractive she is and nothing is that exposed. You get the feeling she's hot, but she doesn't show too much skin so you can't confirm.

Early game most people might find the thief hard to play, but she's agile and quick, and can just save you a lot of platforming and hassle if used right. later on in the game she can b effectively used to battle enemies too.

Her skills involve a grappling hook and shooting arrows.

The Wizard:

Aka the guy who breaks the game. Early game you might find yourself milking this guy for all he's worth when you have to platform, but switching back when it comes to monsters, cause you see, he's the only one who can't attack monsters.

I felt he had an unexpected role in the game, i don't tend to find as wizards are the best things to platform with in a game. But his skills are based on creating boxes, ramps, floating platforms and also he has the ability to move stuff around.

Later on, when you dunno how to get passed something, you may found yourself picking this guy and creating 8 objects on top of each other to cheese it.

The Knight:

I think this guy is supposed to b the comic relief of the game. Early game, by far the best way to fight enemies, since that's all his abilities do really, he attacks and defends with his shield.

Later on he can pick up crates or stones to throw them, but that's incredibly useless since the wizard can move stuff around anyway. Although you can use the thief late game to fight enemies, since those will start having more and more armor, the knight is still the best choice against enemies.

You'll value him on the last level, believe me.

Graphics/Level design

This game is really really nice looking...


The levels have some fucked up platforms, it only tries so have to make the obstacles look natural, but still, wouldn't b a challenge if it didn't include difficult platforms such as those ones that rotate on an axis.

As Yahtzee mentioned on ZP, sometimes to get through an area and looks back at a tons of platforms and objects and wonder if you were supposed to used those, cause it's not that hard to skip stuff. But i guess that it makes you feel smart when you do it really.


The game has an intresting experience system: Potions. for each 50 green potions you get, you get a level, as you get a level, you can get or upgrade skills (triple arrow shot is how you make the thief decent against enemies)

Bosses you say? there aren't any as far as I'm concerned. sure there's a giant skeleton that pops up 2 or 3 times, and some sort of ogre thing, but they're so terribly easy to defeat that i don't thing they were meant as huge threats.

I really liked that the levels didn't ever make me backtrack, but there's an exception with the 2nd to last level, but it's not too hard. You cna easily get to the last level without getting a game over, but the last level is drastically different and will catch you by surprise.


As the pic might imply, the lava is flooding the place, and you're gonna race against it. but that's not all, a specter will spawn (much like the wizard does) objects in your path to fuck up your progress. and your will die, a lot. This is the closest the game has to a boss fight.

Thoughts

the skeletons are all you fight in the entire game, i'm not counting bats cause they're too easy. When into 1/3rd of the game, i started to hate the god dammed fights. not cause they're hard, but cause they're actually boring and slow the pace of the game.

But the thing is, a skeleton spawns, you kill it, and have to wait like 2-3 secs for the next one to spawn, and you don't wanna get the the delicate platforming with skeletons harassing you, so you wait for all of them to spawn, and maybe 5-6 will spawn. that's like an entire minute there waiting for the damn things.

Also, skeleton archers are dicks.

Verdict

I beat the game fairly quickly, it's 15 levels and i think you can beat it all easily in a day. The game is nice looking though.

I think of this game as an enjoyable experience, but with not much of a replay value. If you get a chance to borrow it from a friend i recommend it, just not sure it's worth paying for it to just have it sit on a shelf when you beat it.

I'm rating it "Sort of want".

Nyeh, lil djinn celebration soon

As espected, Tof's bday was vastly ignored by everyone, no big surprise, it's always the same and i dont mind that much.

"But master, I has never dun dis b4..."

But less than a week after Tof's bday, is Debbie's anniversary.

Unlike her master, Debbie has a lot of people who claim to like her, she's also the unofficial mascot of the blog until one of us actually comes up with something (which we probably wont).


I'm curious to see if anyone will doodle anything this time, if so, i'm so calling them a bunch of sexist bastards XD

Oh, btw, the doodle up there is obviously by Zach.

A composition of vnartist

Interesting... http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html