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I know Starcraft 2 has been released for quite some time but

I know Starcraft 2 has been released for quite some time but today seemed like a good time to write about it.

I love Starcraft. When Broodwar came out I really dug the additional units they added and tore through all the campaigns. When Starcraft 2 was announced I was ecstatic. All I really wanted was Starcraft with an upgraded interface and smooth graphics, the original formula I felt was perfect. I pre-ordered the collectors edition(as I sort of do now days) and when the game launched I raced through the single-player game.

The game is fantastic. It takes place after Broodwar and stars Jim Raynor as the leader of the human opposition to General Mengsk and the other... Read All I know Starcraft 2 has been released for quite some time but today seemed like a good time to write about it.

I love Starcraft. When Broodwar came out I really dug the additional units they added and tore through all the campaigns. When Starcraft 2 was announced I was ecstatic. All I really wanted was Starcraft with an upgraded interface and smooth graphics, the original formula I felt was perfect. I pre-ordered the collectors edition(as I sort of do now days) and when the game launched I raced through the single-player game.

The game is fantastic. It takes place after Broodwar and stars Jim Raynor as the leader of the human opposition to General Mengsk and the other bad stuff out there in the Universe. The game improves on the ol' Starcraft formula and takes it up a few notches by enhancing multi-player and your options in single player as well. The single player story is lengthy and fun. Blizzard really changed up the kinds of things you did in single player so it didn't feel boring or formulaic. Some missions you build your base, some are essentially "hero maps." Each mission allows you a main quest line but you can optionally finish the side missions if you so desire.

Unlike Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 comes with a offline single player mode after you install it. I played it on battle.net and as such experienced trophies, something I felt really added to SC2's unique spin. Each map has special trophies you can earn for doing awesome stuff, like beating it on hard mode or doing other map specific radness, like killing a bad guy only using lava in a map where you have to avoid lava yourself.

A really fun element of Starcraft 2 for me was the story. I liked Jim Raynors character and how he related to the Blizzards world. I liked how the game wove in the Protoss for a few really awesome missions in the middle of the game(I won't spoil the story, but its a fun set of missions). As per Blizzard normal, the cinematics are great.

I delved a smidge into online multi-player but I didn't really stick with it. For a few weeks I played as the Zerg and got a pretty reasonable build going that stacked up to hard bots and a few humans. Playing with friends is always fun but for whatever reason SC2 multi-player didn't stick with me. Don't get me wrong, its really really fun just not something I come back to often for whatever reason. I imagine it has to do with that I know few of my friends that have it and fewer that play it. If you want to play sometime, drop me a line id love to dust off my Zerg build.

I am very excited for Heart of the Swarm to drop and now that Blizzard has released the awesome Diablo 3 I am hoping they drop the release date for Heart of the Swarm. I love playing as the Zerg so I am doubly excited for this expansion. I wonder what fun bits await they that snag the collectors edition? The new units they add will be great as they generally are. I guess we will find out the details at some point, hopefully soon!

Travis Admin wrote on 06/06/2012 at 12:46pm

So how do all these games fit together? I know the first Starcraft 2 was Terran only, and Heart of the Swarm is Zerg. Are they separate games, or is Heart of the Swarm an expansion? Based on some pre-orders I've seen, they are both a full $60.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 06/07/2012 at 02:06am

Starcraft 2 was Terran only for single player WITH some added Protoss levels. Multiplayer allowed you to play as Terran, Zerg and Protoss fully. Heart of the Swarm is the Zerg single player with additional units to multi-player. As far as the price, I am not sure I wouldn't be surprised if it was $60.

Travis Admin wrote on 06/11/2012 at 02:22pm

Oh yeah I know multiplayer allowed you to do all three. I'm just curious if they'll all fit together as one game or if they're three separate games.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 06/11/2012 at 02:45pm

The sort continues from game to game. For instance the thing to do at the end starts up Heart of the Swarm.

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This game continues to amaze me. What follows is a somewhat

http://www.hidiablo3gold.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Diablo-III1.jpg

This game continues to amaze me. What follows is a somewhat disjointed collection of thoughts.

Nightmare difficulty with my Monk (Capuchin. Get it? A Capuchin MONKey?) has proven fairly easy. Jon, if you're reading this, you probably doubt me when I say that due to how many times I died when we were playing, but with a quick gear fix everything is smoother sailing. I have been reading up on builds and how to optimize things for my class, so I will probably have a powerhouse when all is said and done. I have gotten barely past the Skeleton King in act 1, and I'm at level 37. I've amused myself going back through and playing boss fights in Normal with my monk now. It's... Read All

In a bid to increase my knowledge of the fine board game

In a bid to increase my knowledge of the fine board game arts I went to Rainy Day Games and rolled the dice with some awesome people. Every other Sunday at 1pm Rainy Day Games hosts a board game event where anyone can go and you pick a game to play. I showed up a bit late because Siri pointed me to the wrong location. When I arrived there were two groups of people and I joined the group playing Days of Wonders game "Colosseum" because they had a free spot. Yay!

In Colosseum you play a total of 5 rounds and the player that puts on the best show in those five rounds wins the game. Each round nets you cash you can spend on Colosseum upgrades, better shows and other various... Read All In a bid to increase my knowledge of the fine board game arts I went to Rainy Day Games and rolled the dice with some awesome people. Every other Sunday at 1pm Rainy Day Games hosts a board game event where anyone can go and you pick a game to play. I showed up a bit late because Siri pointed me to the wrong location. When I arrived there were two groups of people and I joined the group playing Days of Wonders game "Colosseum" because they had a free spot. Yay!

In Colosseum you play a total of 5 rounds and the player that puts on the best show in those five rounds wins the game. Each round nets you cash you can spend on Colosseum upgrades, better shows and other various other stratagem to help you earn points to get the best show.

Each round has 5 phases which are:

Phase 1: Invest in your Colosseum in various ways. Expand it, add various features to it to give you extra rolls or points when you add your show score.
Phase 2: Bid on tokens with other players. You need tokens to put on shows.
Phase 3: Trade tokens with others. Similar to other trade phases in games like Settlers of Catan.
Phase 4: Put on your event. The more tokens you have the more points you get for your event.
Phase 5: Closing the round by giving up a token in your show and the player trailing the pack can steal a token from the person in the lead.

The game seemed a bit overwhelming at first but after a few rounds it clicked. I made a fatal flaw in the 3rd round by not expanding my Colosseum to support an advanced show. That mis-step caused me to end up in last place as everyone else made the stab for the 3 layer Colosseum and got an advanced show. Didn't matter too much that I came in dead last as it was a ton of fun though.

The game is made by Days of Wonder, the people that make Ticket to Ride. It has the score counting on the outside board edge similar to Ticket to Ride but isn't too similar beyond that. I really liked playing Colosseum and recommend it if you like strategy games involving trading. Our game lasted about 2.5 hours but some of that was spent explaining the rules.

It was awesome to learn Colosseum and meet people that come to play. I plan on hitting up more of these in the future and if you were on the fence about attending, I would recommend you go to one. The people are awesome and its cool to play new stuff.

Ive been trawling the internets for better builds for my

Ive been trawling the internets for better builds for my Witch Doctor in Nightmare mode and beyond. I had a pretty good pet / acid rain build that was fine but wasn't really working out too well in Nightmare mode so I changed it. This is how I play my Witch Doctor now at level 39 based on recommendations from people can can solo Inferno.

First thing is you need the best weapon you can get. This often means the best two hander you can find. This might not make sense as you might think the Witch Doctor needs a shield or the special shaman carriable shrunken head totems. All your spells, pets and skill damage per second is based off your attack so to hit the hardest with... Read All

Turns out I beat Skyrim a couple months ago! Ive been

Turns out I "beat" Skyrim a couple months ago! I've been playing side quests, and the story didn't feel like it was progressing anymore, so I googled "Skyrim Main Quest" to see where I was, I found out that it's already "over" lol. I'm still enjoying it, but kinda disappointed that that's all there is... totally looking forward to Dawnguard now! Just applied to get the Beta!

DoTA 2 will be Free to Play. Yup. Awesome. From the

http://blog.dota2.com/2012/06/introducing-the-dota-store/

DoTA 2 will be Free to Play. Yup. Awesome. From the horses mouth:

"Today we’re announcing that Dota 2 will be free to play, and contain an in-game store where you’ll be able to buy fancy gear to customize your heroes. From the forum threads we’ve read over the months since The International, it’s pretty clear that this won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone out there. There are a variety of smaller details that we’ve decided to put together a FAQ to help with, but we wanted to address the two most common concerns right away:

Dota 2 will not be a pay-to-win game. All the items in the store are cosmetic, and don’... Read All

Chowda wrote on 06/01/2012 at 03:25am

This is probably in response to how well League of Legends has done with almost the same exact model. You pay money for champ skins (cosmetic costumes basically) and can pay money (but don't have to) to unlock champs. The only difference being with Dota2 you will have access to all the champs without any payment.

I don't Riot has released their profits but from other numbers in 2010 they (Business Insider) estimated they net'd about 26m. LoL has only gotten much larger since then...

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 06/01/2012 at 03:33am

Its a great model that seems to work well. I didn't know League of Legends was free to play. Somehow that totally escaped me. Will install it for sure.

hardeyez wrote on 06/04/2012 at 12:53am

Game Developer has Riot Games (the LoL guys) listed in the Top 30 Developers list for this year. My favorite quote "Most developers don't get included in a Top 30 list for a game they released almost three years ago. Then again, most developers don't grow their competitive community to the point where a tournament has a $50,000 grand prize or 1.69 million unique viewers, either." Also, apparently LoL had 11.5 million unique active monthly players at the end of 2011. So it will be fun to see what happens with a second player in this space.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 06/04/2012 at 01:06am

Agreed. Just downloaded LoL and it was pretty fun.

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Its as if someone heard that I like soundtracks in

http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/SF25.jpg

Its as if someone heard that I like soundtracks in collectors editions and decided that the optimal number of collectors editions soundtracks was 11. Because if 11 soundtracks for a collectors edition is your magic number then HELLO Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collectors Edition!

Which includes:

Street Fighter X Tekken (including all character and Swap Costume DLC), Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (with all costume DLC), Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition. PLUS a documentary BluRay, Street Fighter II The animated movie, all episodes of the Street Fighter animated series. A Light-up Ryu statue & art book... Read All

I always wait a few years before checking out a sports game,

I always wait a few years before checking out a sports game, because they're generally the same year to year, but I'm looking forward to this one, to see the new changes.

Supposedly, the sound is going to be dramatically improved, from the commentators, to the crowd noises, to the quarterback audibles. The passing game has been refined with better ball placement of your throw, different throwing styles (a new shovel pass should be interesteing) and over 430 catching animations. There should also be better and truer AI. Defensive players will react to the ball if they're looking in that direction, but won't psychically know where to run to.

For all the known updates check... Read All

Best Bundle Ever Ill save you the suspense of loading the

Best Bundle Ever

https://www.humblebundle.com/

I'll save you the suspense of loading the page.. Here are the games:
•Bastion
•Limbo
•Psychonauts
•Amnesia:Dark Descent
•Swords and Sorcery EP

Seriously, get this now if for no other reason than Psychonauts, though each of these games are probably worth over $10 alone.

Travis Admin wrote on 05/31/2012 at 06:46pm

I am all over this one. I already own Bastion and Psychonauts, but it's worth it for Amnesia alone.

Timogorgon Member wrote on 05/31/2012 at 10:21pm

I already own Limbo but it's worth it for all those other games. I will be buying this when I get home today! The pack said it includes the sound tracks for all those games as well. That's awesome!

jdodson Admin wrote on 06/01/2012 at 02:16am

I am going to pick it up in a few days after things shake out so as the average of what people gives goes up a bit I pay over the average.

I wanted to get the Swords and Sworcery EP soundtrack and now it will be offered up with the rest in MP3 or FLAC which is really interesting to me. Plus, I played Limbo on the PS3 and id like to play more of it.

I agree with Tungsten, best bundle yet.

jdodson Admin wrote on 06/07/2012 at 05:30pm

Humble Bundle adds Braid, Super Meat Boy and Lone Survivor if you are over the average! Woot!

Timogorgon Member wrote on 06/07/2012 at 08:57pm

That is too awesome. I have heard good things about Braid too! Glad I payed over the average :D

jdodson Admin wrote on 06/08/2012 at 01:19am

Getting it soon! WOOT!

Travis Admin wrote on 06/11/2012 at 02:22pm

This is the best bundle yet.

jdodson Admin wrote on 06/11/2012 at 02:45pm

Yes, it is.

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When I saw the news today that iD will be releasing Doom 3

When I saw the news today that iD will be releasing "Doom 3 BFG Edition" I was extremely excited. Few games get the "HD/re-release" treatment and I just didn't figure Doom 3 would be one of the lucky few games that get it. Add in the Doom 3 expansion, the original Doom and Doom 2 and new content and my mind was blown.

But enough of my hyperventilating nerdery, here are some words from the masters of doom themselves:

"A number of companies have done these 'retro projects,'" says Willits, using the company's code name for Doom BFG, "but we're trying to do something with new content. We have all the games. We tried to make the offering the best we can."

Doom 3 BFG Edition... Read All