LEGO Batman 2 PC Review

LEGO games are cute, funny and easy to jump into, but they've also been around since 2005. Whenever someone wandered by my desk and spied me playing LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, he or she would undoubtedly say "Yup, it's another LEGO game" before wandering off. Trouble is, LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes isn't just another LEGO game. It does away with hard-to-judge platforming, its puzzles make sense, and it adds a couple of big things that are sure to become staples for the LEGO franchise moving forward.

The changes come with growing pains, but there's no denying that LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes is a great video game.

Like the previous game, LEGO Batman 2 spins an original yarn, but this time it's engaging and really interesting. Lex Luthor is running for president, teaming with the Joker and using kryptonite to stuff the ballot box. With foulness afoot, Batman, Robin, Superman and eventually the entire Justice League step in to stop the plot.

This plays out via traditional LEGO game controls. You jump, punch and switch between characters with button presses and keystrokes. A local friend can drop in and out for co-op in a jiff. The game's as simple to understand as ever, but adds new suits for Batman and Robin along with powers for specific characters. Black Canary has her sonic blast, Cyborg is magnetized, and Wonder Woman can lasso hard to reach handles.

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That's what LEGO games are all about -- exploring and collecting -- and LEGO Batman does that better than any iteration that's come before.

It's a focused story that's entertaining from start to finish, and part of that is thanks to voice acting. For the first time in LEGO history, LEGO Batman 2 packs a full voice cast to tell its tale. While the silent LEGO games have always been funny, LEGO Batman 2 is able to move beyond shrugs and grins. Robin fanboying out over Superman, Vicki Vale's newscasts, and Lex trying to convince Joker that killing Batman is a good idea -- these are brilliant moments we would've lost without the excellent actors. Among these actors is Superman: The Animated Series' Clancy Brown reprising his role as Lex Luthor. Fresh voices are used for most of the other characters, but the new takes are welcome.

Of course, the story is just a tiny sliver of any LEGO game. You'll run through the 15-chapter story of LEGO Batman 2 in about nine hours (probably a lot less if you don't methodically smash everything like I did and get distracted by side stuff), but then you'll replay levels for more studs (in-game currency) and to find collectables such as mini-kit parts.

That's what LEGO games are all about -- exploring and collecting -- and LEGO Batman does that better than any iteration that's come before. See, LEGO Batman 2 has another first for the series: an open world. While LEGO games always have a HUB world, they're usually a bit limited. LEGO Batman 2 gives you all of Gotham City to explore. Arkham Asylum, Ace Chemicals, GCPD -- it's an entire town and it's packed with stuff to collect, save and explore.

Hit the gas, Dark Knight.

Red bricks are tucked around corners and unlock cheats, new characters appear on rooftops, and bosses are around to fight and add to your playable roster. There are vehicles to purchase and then drive, people to save and so many studs to collect. Still, it's the Gold Bricks that stand out.

There are 250 Golden Bricks. While you'll get them for completing objectives in story missions, the majority are hidden around Gotham and only accessible via certain characters. Plenty of times I'd be flying around as Superman (the John Williams theme plays any time Kal-El is airborne), spot a Gold Brick, and have to work my way from the goal to the beginning of the challenge so that Robin in his acrobat suit or Batman in his electricity suit could go through the Mousetrap-like obstacle course to unlock the brick the appropriate way. The Gold Bricks are these little challenges inside the greater world that keep you on your toes and have you trying out the more than 50-character roster that includes the Flash, Hush, Martian Manhunter and more.

Of course, bringing in all of this new stuff creates a few new – albeit minor -- problems. While the map will show you where bosses and unlockables are, you can't zoom in to really orient where you should be looking so there's a lot of moving a few feet, pausing and reevaluating.

Again, developer Traveller's Tales has nailed the gameplay issues that have plagued the franchise for years, but now, the designers have to take some notes on how modern open worlds work. (Although Red Bricks do eventually label unlockables on the screen.)

Greg is the executive editor of IGN PlayStation, cohost of Podcast Beyond and host of Up at Noon. Follow IGN on Twitter, and keep track of Greg's shenanigans on IGN and Twitter. Beyond!

Source : ign[dot]com

What To Do If You’ve Been Hacked in Diablo 3

As someone who's been hacked in an online game (World of Warcraft) and lost all my stuff, I know it can be distressing. It feels like a violation, as if someone forcibly taken something you deeply care about.  But it's important to remember that it's reversible, especially if you follow this advice.

The first thing to do is stay calm.  If you've been hacked, accept the situation and get to work reporting it.  If you can, log into your Battle.net account and change your password, as this will stop the hackers coming back and interfering with the restoration process or, even worse, accessing your billing details.

Occasionally, you won't be able to do this straight away.  You'll try to log in after being hacked and be greeted by the news that an authenticator has been placed on your account.  It's a despicable thing to do, but many hackers activate authenticators as they get to work so they can redistribute your stuff undisturbed.

“If you're especially impatient, you can phone customer support, but be prepared to have identification to hand.

If this is the case, contact Blizzard.  As we reported earlier, there's apparently been a spate of hackings recently which may mean it takes a while to sort your issue.  But it will be sorted.  If you're especially impatient, you can phone customer support, but be prepared to have identification to hand.  I had to scan in a copy of my passport and email it to them to prove it was me, but after that I had my WoW character and gear back within the hour.

As a caveat, while your character may be restored, there's no guarantee it'll be in quite the state you left it.  Often a 'rollback' is performed, returning your character to the state it was in a short while ago, and this can result in a loss of progress and items.

Once you've got your account and possessions back, you need to make sure you don't get hacked again.  One of the best things you can do is add your own authenticator, which can be downloaded free for iPhones or Android or bought in physical form from Blizzard.  It's pretty much a given that you will at some stage be the recipient of phishing emails from dubious characters purporting to be Blizzard needing your password; delete them, and always go to Battle.net to log in manually and check all is well.

Finally, it may seem like overkill, but some people recommend using Firefox to browse the web with the 'NoScript' add-on running.  A few years ago an advert embedded in a popular Warcraft database site contained a keylogger virus that was downloaded when vulnerable players moused over it.  It hasn't happened since, but if you've been hacked you're probably willing to go to extremes for a bit to make sure it doesn't happen again.

It’s not pleasant to be hacked, but if you know what to do, it shouldn’t inconvenience you for too long. Keep an eye on Blizzard’s forums to see how the Diablo situation develops.

Source : http://www.ign.com

Diablo 3 Beginner Guide - Welcome To Sanctuary Ads By Google » Blog Tags Today's Most Popular Videos »

This Diablo 3 Beginners Guide will help anyone who's either new to the Diablo series or even someone who's just a bit rusty jump right in to all of the epic action that Sanctuary has to offer. In this guide, we'll go over things like the classes in the game, how to control your character, the health and resource system, the skill rune system, followers, crafting and artisans, and the auction house. It's a lot to get through, so let's get started.

What is Diablo 3?

Diablo 3 is an action role playing game from Blizzard Entertainment. You can expect a lot of challenging quests, monster hunting, and fast paced action that will keep you entertained for hours and hours on end. The game picks up twenty years after the events of Diablo 2 when Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal have been defeated. Unfortunately, the Worldstone that shielded the people of Sancutuary from the forces of Heaven and Hell was destroyed in the effort, so our heroes have to pick up their weapons once again in order to save Sanctuary from these new threats.

How Do I Play Diablo 3?

Right off the bat, you're going to have to choose one of five classes to play as. You can only play as one class at a time, but you can create one of each to test them out and see which your favorite is. They are the Barbarian, Monk, Wizard, Demon Hunter, and Witch Doctor.

Here's a quick description of each class:

Barbarian: They're a tough melee class who have been shaped to be "as strong and unyielding as stone." As they're the only class to carry over from the previous games, their story has evolved from where we last left them. Twenty years after the events in Diablo 2 devastated their culture, Barbarians are now a nomadic people who wander around Sanctuary looking for battles in order to forget about their broken homeland.

Monk: These sacred warriors can channel the divine power of the Sahptev faith and use healing waves, mantras of protection, and attacks empowered with holy might. Through their training, Monks learn, "skills that allow them to master both unarmed combat and a diverse array of weapons."

Wizard: Officially, Wizards are renegade spell casters who "use their bodies as vessels for arcane energy, forsaking the more careful path favored by other magic users." They don't care about the caution and safety that mages and sorcerers learn in the academies throughout Sanctuary. Instead, they use arcane power to disintegrate, burn, and freeze their foes while also having the ability to manipulate light and time to teleport, create illusions, and deflect oncoming attacks.

Demon Hunter: Demon Hunters are a group of fanatical warriors who have but one purpose: to avenge their friends and families who were butchered by demons and hellspawn. Every arrow that a Demon Hunter launches is, "dipped in spite" and "delivered with hatred." This fuels them to keep hunting, as every demon who falls to their deadly attacks makes the world that much safer.

Witch Doctor: Also known as spiritual warriors, Witch Doctors of the Umbaru Tribe are are new to the Diablo universe. According to the lore, only a few select men and women among the tribe can ascend to the role as they must possess the talent for communicating with spirits.

How Do I Control My Diablo 3 Character?

Now that you've picked your class, it's time to play the game! If you've never played an action RPG before, to move you left click your mouse where you want to go and your character will run to that location. You'll also use left click to open things, loot items, attack enemies, and click just about everything.

Additionally, you can use right click to assign to your first skill and other skills will automatically go on the number keys 1 - 6 as you level up. When you want to use one, just click the corresponding number and it will activate the ability. As you level up and earn more abilities you can assign them to the number keys however you want.

What Are Health And Resources?

The big glowing red orb is called the life orb and it represents your health. When it empties completely, you'll die, so make sure to carry health potions with you to replenish your health whenever it gets low.

Each class has its own resource in Diablo 3, represented by the second globe. Barbarians use Fury, Demon Hunters use Hatred and Discipline, Monks use Spirit, Witch Doctors use Mana and Wizard uses Arcane Power. Each class generates and spends their resources differently, so be sure to check out our in-depth class guides on how to use it effectively for your character.

What Are Skill Runes?

Skill runes are a way to customize your character's abilities. They generally make your character's abilities more powerful and a few alter them completely. Each character can equip a maximum of five Skill Runes, and they're unlocked as you level up. The runes can be swapped out at any time, so you can mix and match them to see what suits your playstyle best.

What Are Followers?

Followers are characters who will fight with you throughout your journey on Sanctuary. Think of them as your personal party members. Each followers has 12 skills to buff their skills and you can pick four of them at a time for them to use. They can also equip armor and give you passive benefits.

What's The Auction House?

The auction house allows you to put all of your unwanted items on sale for real word money or in-game gold. You can also purchase items for your characters at the auction house for real world money or in-game gold.

What Are Artisans?

Artisans are the merchants who buy, sell, and craft items and weapons for your characters. As you train them throughout the game, they'll begin to craft stronger items and their wagons will improve aesthetically. There are two types of Artisans in Diablo 3:

Blacksmith: He can craft weapons, armor, and add sockets to items. He can also repair your gear.

Jeweler: He can create gems, which add bonuses to items when they're placed in sockets, as well as amulets and rings. He can also un-socket gems or combine them.

Now that you're equipped with all the knowledge you need to know to get you started on your adventure, itís time to let you loose out into the glorious Hellbeast-ridden world of Sanctuary. Good luck out there, and be sure to check back to G4TV.com for more Diablo 3 coverage.

Source : http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/723793/diablo-3-beginner-guide-welcome-to-sanctuary/

A Valley Without Wind Review

As someone who cut his gaming teeth on 2D platformers like Manic Miner and Adventure Island in the 1980s, I was looking forward to losing myself in A Valley Without Wind. On paper, at least, there's a lot to love here. Nostalgia-laden platformer mechanics rub shoulders with "procedurally generated worlds" in Arcen Games' new creation, and a dizzying array of craftable spells trade nervous glances with playable characters that permanently die. It's a fantastic concept that screams of the flashes of indie genius we've come to enjoy in recent years, but in execution it plays like a rough draft that's unable to wiggle out from under the weight of its own ambition.

There's not much of a story in A Valley Without Wind aside from a block of text that boasts a variation of the usual post-apocalyptic babble, partly because each game begins with a randomly generated world in the spirit of Minecraft and Terraria. That might be nice for players wishing to experience new and unfamiliar landscapes with each playthrough, but it also means that the almost nonexistent narrative limits itself to vague references to evil overlords out of necessity. As a "glyphbearer," it's your job to scrounge around the shattered husk of the world for resources and the occasional survivor to build up settlements, and once you've finally done all that and beaten the bad guy, you do it all again on another continent. Let's admit it: when the world around you is called "Environ," story's probably not going to be a major selling point.



Instead, much of the game's charm rests on its retro visuals and audio. A Valley Without Wind looks so "Metroidvania" that you could probably swap the randomly generated avatars you choose from after each death with Simon Belmont's original model and no one would be the wiser, and most levels feature music that sounds like it came from discarded drafts for the score to Mega Man 2. In fact, the eclectic art style comes off as an homage to those golden years of platforming, with building entrances that perform like those in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link to blocky interiors that look like they were borrowed from the castle levels in Super Mario Bros.

At times, though, it's frankly jarring. Part of Valley's block of story states that a cataclysm shuffled eras of time so they exist at once in the same world, but when you jump from futuristic villages with decent textures into simplistic dungeons that look like they were transposed from 1985's Gauntlet, you could be forgiven for thinking they meant eras of video game history as well. At the very least, it makes for ugly settings; at the worst, some of the enemies almost disappear into the shoddier backgrounds.

That might have been a problem if so many of these baddies didn't look the same. There are plenty of bats and the occasional rhino lurking about Environ, but most of the time you'll be fighting goons like slender robots or floating blobs of liquid. I'm not saying floating spheres can't be scary (cue: "That's no moon!"), but when one hovers toward you with a name like "Oldsto the Warlock," it's worth wondering if some dude with a skull-capped staff and a demon sidekick wouldn't have done a better job. They're not even all that challenging once you learn a few tricks. Since one of your key abilities lets you place wooden platforms anywhere at will, you can just make one above you and fire down on the robots below. As for blobs like Oldsto? Just keep moving, avoid their ranged spells, and blast them with ranged skills of your own while you bounce around.

The good news is that you have plenty of things to blast them with. One of the big selling points of Valley is that it allows for a ridiculous number of spells. You can throw rocks if that's your thing, or you can fling fireballs and shoot lightning bolts. That's exciting in theory, but in practice you'll likely only use about three good ones most of the time and switch out when you find enemies with immunities to certain spells. At times, enemies that weren't immune before become immune for the rest of the game. Kill enough bats, for example, and all future bats become flame-immune "fire bats," which means that calling down a meteor shower on them has all the effect of using a feather to stop a freight train. If you find that you don't have the spell you need, you're expected to retreat and explore levels for rare materials that can be used to make new spells.

That exploration lies at the heart of A Valley Without Wind, and it's where you'll find the most fun--that is, if mining nodes for hours on end without much knowledge of where the right ones are sounds exciting. Unfortunately, these subterranean expeditions also showcase the shortcomings of marrying platformer gameplay with randomly generated levels. Platformers work best when there's a grand design behind them, and Valley's rambling open spaces and hodgepodge of caverns never reach the glory of carefully planned stages in games like Outland or Super Meat Boy. The very continents are random, and they unfurl on blocky maps with the titular windstorms deciding where you can travel.

There's a constant tease in play here since you can access the lair of a continent's evil overlord at any time, only to find that advancement is impossible because you don't have the proper abilities. The same holds true for most of the regular levels as well. Indeed, much of what counts as progression in Valley consists of coming back to areas you've already visited with new spells and seeing if you're ready for them, which you may not even know until you reach a crushing difficulty spike midway through a level.

You'll usually die in these cases, and the game's multiple achievements for getting yourself killed prove that this is exactly what's supposed to happen. That sounds ominous, but it's not all that bad aside from running the risk of battling the angry ghosts of the fellows you let die, which adds a extra touch of difficulty to the scenario that killed you in the first place. Your new character has all the same spells as the last one did (but not the upgrades); you'll just have a different name and different stats. More than a mere inconvenience, the design discourages you from the trial-and-error suicide runs in other platformers and forces you to look elsewhere for advancement, as in simple quests or missions against mini bosses that grant civilization points so you can nab better spells and tackle harder areas with greater ease.

The whole process gets rather tedious when you're alone, but the online multiplayer mode livens things up a bit. Here you can chat and tackle obstacles with other players (with the caveat that enemies scale according to how many players are around), although you might have a problem finding them since the infinitesimal level map used for quick travel merely gives a general idea of their location. When you finally find them, however, it plays sort of like a primitive MMORPG, right down to concerns of "ninja looting" since drops always go to the first person that picked them up.


Source : http://pc.ign.com/articles/122/1224384p1.html