Nerf also took the time during this statement to announce their newest Nerf product: The NerfZooka BS-90. The lastest Nerf gun fires foam Aqua Noodles. Retail pricing is set at 130$ but to ease the cost the BS-90 will fire any Aqua Noodle pool toy.

The Image below is of the NerfZooka at Nerf’s firing range.

Image courtesy of Nerf

Lightsoft was developing what many gamers were calling “The coolest game ever seen.” Lightsoft was without a publisher and was hoping to gain one by the end of this year. In a phone interview David had this to say about the tragedy.

“It’s a huge loss. Not one of those oops we lost a few hours of work kind of losses, we’re talking about two and a half years of hard work ruined by a single stray nerf dart. I mean what are the chances of a nerf dart hitting the massive red ‘irreversible format drive button.’”

When questioned about the massive red drive formatting button David had no comment. However David did say he wouldn’t give up and his team returns to work on Monday saying, “This will be the best Hamtaru DS game ever.”

Marines suck now. Nids are crazy overpowered, Eldar banshees are retarded, and orks… well, they’re alright.

I kind of like the new scouts, but they just aren’t effective enough. They are billed as a Marine’s player best and only defense against the crazy amount of Close Combat units in this game now, but they just can’t cope. A single unit of Banshees, Gaunts, or Boyz can just make any Teir 1 Marine unit evaporate. The new Scout Shotgun ability does help when a CC unit is running at you, but it only knocks the charging unit back for a second before they are back on their feet and in your face with maybe 1 or 2 shots each with the shotgun. This *maybe* gets the charging unit down to half strength, if you’re lucky. But this is still enough to destroy your squads.

And what the hell did they do to the Force Commander? I had a level 5 Commander with Thunder Hammer an a fully charged Iron Halo run into a level 1 unit of nobs capping our victory point and he almost instantly died. 1 hit from each of the nobs took down the shield, and another hit or so each killed him. What the hell.

Generators also die WAAAAAAY to quickly. If a single unit of anything makes it past your lines and onto your power, it’s impossible to get something there in time to stop them from taking out all 3 generators. At least in 1.3 you could run a unit there and save 1 or 2 generators… but no longer. This makes a marine player sad as we rely on power sooo much and to effectively defend a power station you need to dedicate at least 2 units. Which really hurts your offense.

The Upgraded Predator is pretty awesome though, if you can make it to Tier 3… (which I only did in 2 of my 5 games last night)

So in the end, I have to say, Relic is taking a step in the right direction but then they fell down and shat themselves. Maybe they can get a change of pants, get up, and release another patch to even things out a bit more. Or maybe I’ll just start playing Nids. Haha!

Because maybe you only want the hard data and don’t want to listen to all of the little fluff pieces that make up this 35 minute podcast.

Anyone who’s spent any sort of meaningful time with DoW II will agree that the balance is buggered to hell and back.  And if you disagree, that probably means you play Tyranids and you need to GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN.  I’m not going to go into all of the balance problems here; you’re aware of them if you’ve played the game, and if you’ve been holding off buying it then the only thing you’re really interested in is whether things are going in the right direction.  You latter types should probably just skip down to the conclusion.

Relic has been…struggling?  Trying really hard?  I don’t know, they’ve been doing something for months now trying to get their game back on track.  They must have eventually come to the conclusion that the very fundamentals are flawed and beyond tweaking, because the upcoming patch, 1.4, otherwise known as the There is Only War Update(because you see in the 41st millennium, there is only war), promises to completely revamp the core game.  So far we know from the random info dumps and battle reports that most units are having their roles rethought, with others moving up or down the tech tree, and at least one unit being stricken almost completely from the game.  It’s crazy man, it’s like totally insane.

Things between apostrophes are paraphrases, things in parentheses are my thoughts on their comments.  Let’s jump in:

~2:15-The general philosophy behind the changes seems to be: give units more nuance and synergy (which I can get behind.  They say that a big problem was that people were fast teching and units were becoming obsolete.  Which is funny to me, because the first tier is basically where all of the bullshit was, and the bullshit didn’t become obsolete upon upgrading.  But their heart is in the right place, so, I’ll save the befuddlement)

New faux-tier, 1.5, comprised of t1 units that require energy.  Power costs seem to have been increased across the board, and it’s been mentioned that upgrading to t2 is now way more expensive.  (The idea being, I guess, to provide a more ambiguous choice in whether or not to tech to t2 or stay in t1)

Banshees specifically mentioned as ‘not having been good in their role’

~4:00 relic shamefully admits that they spent hours on end playing their own game for ‘testing’ purposes.  One can only assume spirits and jazz cigarettes were also involved

‘Originally going to make more conservative patches, this update was originally planned for the fall but then we realized that the prospect of 3v3 teams comprised entirely of Ravener Alphas wasn’t…entirely favorable’

~5:00 ‘This update…be for the community, yo’

‘Rippers: Oh god we are sorry.  We’re really sorry about that, guys’

~7:00 Upgrading to T2 costs 300 req, 125 power, 70 second research time

Banshees are now considered ‘t1′ units, they only cost req.  Platforms and Rangers are considered t 1.5, they have power costs

‘Suppression weapons weren’t as useful in retail because people didn’t make very many squads before jumping to t2, now there will be more squads, and thus more of an opportunity for platforms’.
(I’m not really sure that a dearth of targets was ever the problem with platforms, but I guess we’ll see how that settles.   Most decent anti platform strategies start in t1 anyway, so they’re going to need to either make it easier to protect them, or make them beefier)

~9:00 ‘Jump troops way more expenseive’

‘Public Beta coming…soonish.  General feedback appreciated’

~12:00 FAN QUESTIONS!

Are there any hero or hero abilities that have been changed in the update?

‘A lot of the wargear has changed cost, some abilities changed a lot’

The Ravener gear has been nerfed to fairness(about.fracking.time.)

Kommando’s gear buffed.  Techmarine gear generally buffed

~14:00 War gear less expensive in general

How does the concede option in multiplayer work?

In team games, teams need to unanimously vote to concede.  Individuals can only vote to concede once

~16:00 Any changes to rangers/eldar in general?

Rangers less expensive.  ‘Eldar have received a lot of attention’.  Brightlances, and once again Banshees are mentioned.  (Again, they mention vehicles as a reason units become obsolete.  Who is this mystery race that suddenly only has vehicles in t2 such that all specifically anti-infantry units are useless?  Really now, Relic)

“Not necessarily any new (Eldar) abilities”

Banshee wail is in t1.  Wraithlord Shuriken cannon “much better now”.  Warp-spiders mentioned.  Eldar now “working as intended”

Meltas and Haywire bugs fixed(thank you jesus)

‘Brightlance fires twice as fast, but not at patch 1.3 damage’

Do we have to use brightlances?

‘Seriously guys, brightlances are more effective now.  Stop thinking about them as they are in 1.3′

‘Banshees fully upgraded can fight the t2 canifex 1v1 and are “maybe” able to take it down(subject to the normal deviations present in any fight, I guess.  Which means that defending platforms is a much more viable option.  It’s mentioned later on, but Banshees are now particularly good against things like ASMs and other units that may try interrupting the platforms)

~20:05 Ethereal Slash has not been modified.

Do Tyranid Warrior Broods still have all the synapses?

‘Synapse has changed quite significantly.  Gaunts are now 300 req.’  They are a bit unclear here, but I think they are saying that hormas, once upgraded, go faster and can leap attack at enemies, whereas they need to be synapsed to leap over cover.

‘Warriors have their own support role now instead of only providing synapse’

Warriors only have one synapse now

Gaunts can work now without warrior backup

~23:00 What do Tyranids get at t3 other than the ranged carnifex?

A supposedly very buffed lictor.  Zoanthrope changed,’is now basically anti-infantry and artillery.  Also has vehicle stun ability, but neither the ability nor their regular attack does damage against vehicles now’

New tyranid unit, venom brood, is a t2 tyranid warrior squad, comes with 3 venom cannons, and is strictly A-V, costs 400 req.  Adrenal gland is a t2 upgrade for the vanilla warriors.  ‘more expensive, turns them into melee beasts’.

‘t3 lictor way more of a lone hunter, more scary, can cloak without energy drain with upgrade’

~26:00 spore mines can now either explode and stun units instantly, or build up to an explosive detonation over a period of seconds for massive damage (but can you actually shoot them now?)

~28:00 Hey let’s talk about Space Marines

‘Space marines seen as a good all around race, so not as many changes have been made.’

’shotguns streamlined, no longer randomly knockdown but have a triggerable knockdown ability’

~29:00 Let’s talk about Orkz!

What sort of a creature is Ork?  What is Orky?  Do the red ones really go faster?

‘Stikkbommaz never intended to instagib generators.’  Squad size increased to 4.  Can lob up to 8 grenades.  Are now ‘long range disruption unit/artillery unit’

‘deff dreds now cost half as much as the dred, about half as effective’

‘Lootas can hide when they set up their weapon’

‘Kommandos much more exciting in t3′

~32:00 LET’S TALK AGAIN ABOUT SPACE MARINES

Many SM units now have heavy infantry armor(resistant to ranged weaponry, weak against power weapons{ie banshees})

‘Tac blobs a little bit overpowered but not really over powered.  But don’t try to blob too much because things like D-Cannons or Plasma Devs will wreck you with your new weak against power weaponry armor’

‘Flamer much more devastating weapon, so now you can try to keep opponents in t1 with it instead of holding out for rockets/plasma to deal with t2 threats’

‘Terminator cost tweaked, it can hit the field a lot more often now.  Predator now has armor upgrades( but does it still suck?)’

EXCITING CONCLUSIONS:  Relic has at least addressed every single major issue from OP things like Ravener Alphas (or at least their wargear) to Stikkbommaz to tac blobs.  They’ve also taken good looks at UP stuff like Banshees and Brightlances and Platforms and…Eldar in general.  It’s still hard to say at this point whether or not 1.4 will ‘fix’ the game, but these are all very much steps in the right direction.

What’s most important is that it’s got a lot of people excited about playing again, and if you are reading this and considering whether or not to play the beta DO IT BRAH.  I don’t want the community to be reduced to former Ravener Alphas

She talked into her ear,”Merc what am I doing?” and Merc said “Faith you are a Runner and you Run around and jump and you can also do other parkour(sp?) things.”

And so Faith smiled a little and then she started Running!  She leaped got into a good, decent run and then jumped.  It was pretty easy to do, and with a little practice she was running so good.  Sumtimes though she would try to jump up but could not and sometimes she was trying to grab onto a pipe but the GAME WORLD would not let her and she kept falling down!  She said,”What is UP with that PIPE?” and Merc replied dryly,”Pipe down Faith your are making my ears ring ha ha!”  ‘At least this doesn’t happen that often’ Faith thought at herself.

Just then when Faith was running her best friend Cel ran up to her and said,”Faith your sister is in trouble you have to go rescue her!”

And so Faith climbed up to a building and then started running again.  She jumped over a box and then she jumped over a crate and then she saw that there was a ledge with a difficult jump.  ‘I had better use my runner vision!’ and so she used her runners vision and time went real slow so that she could make her jump better.  Good thing she had run a lot to charge her vision up!

Finally she made it to her sister Kate Connor who had been FRAMED for doing something really bad!  It was up to Faith to set everything right!  She hugged her sister and said I love you Kate Connor and then she had to run because the police were there, or the blues as she liked to call them!  But Faith wasn’t afraid to run OR fight!  She stood before the cop and got close and he went to butt her with his rifle, but if she reacted at the right time she could grab it and disarm him!  ‘Too bad it is his gun and not his arm that I am disarming’ Faith chuckled to herself.  Once she had a gun, she could shoot the other people, but she could not run as good and it was hard to aim some of them.  She could also jump and kick and slide and kick at them, and follow it up with a punch ‘martial art’ combo.  She was really the Feminine Fatal!  But if she faced lots of guards she would have to try again and again because she could not take many bullets!  Thankfully she always woke up near where she fell asleep so that she could try again!  Try, try again Faith!

Finally Faith caught up with the badguy!  The baddie used to know Faith but she didn’t like him now.  ‘Something about him really grinds my gears’ Faith said, rolling her eyes at him.

‘Ha ha Faith, it has truly been five hours of real time, hasn’t it.’

Wait, you cannot break the forth wall!

‘Who are you??’

I am Kyle and I am writing this story ha ha!

‘But you are breaking the forth wall to Kyle!’

HA HA YOUR RIGHT OKAY I will be quiet ^_^

and then Faith kicked the bad guy and he fell really far away from the building.  ‘Kate I have rescued you and saved you from the bade guy.’  And Kate said ‘yes’ and they hugged like sisters because they were sisters.

But Faith new that it wasn’t over yet.  Not until she had run to the biggest bad guy there was, the city itself.  And so she went to the tall building and started to run.  She would always run and she was STILL ALIVE.

R&R!  I am currently working on Mirror’s Edge Part II and hope to release it soon!  I liked writing this one a lot and I am sorry if my story was short and didn’t make a lot of since, I am still pretty new at this writing thing!  Okay I have to go now, bye!

And so here we are, at 1.01.1039.  Details of the patch can be found here.  But you don’t need to go there.  In fact, I’d rather you wouldn’t.  Don’t leave me for their honeyed words and empty promises.  You need me.  You need me to tell you whether or not it works.

It does!  It works pretty well, and playing the game is significantly easier now than it was in the past few weeks.  Fewer people dropping randomly, fewer people needing to bog down their connection by force proxying their connections.  All and all an improved experience.  Now that connection issues have largely been fixed, a more standard tweak and content adding patch should drop before the end of the month.  Hopefully it will take care of the minor balance issues, but with details scarce we’re going to have to wait and see.  At the least, the replay system they are working on could help in giving players an idea of why they lose, an absolutely critical element in retaining new ones and keeping interest up amongst the more advanced players.  Because losing without having any clear idea why is never any fun.

Also, a demo isn’t too far off.  Hopefully a multiplayer one so people can know in advance whether or not they’re in for a headache.  I’ll keep you posted.

Now, that having been said, if this game’s name coupled with its art style don’t immediately grab you, perhaps this isn’t for you. If it’s gore, swords, bullets and polygons you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong place. PopCap’s classic cutesy, bright colored sprites are in full effect, and PVZ is relentlessly adorable. Keeping things stoic and straight-laced is not PVZ’s strong point, either: the plants sport names like Cabbage-pult and Repeater (it shoots two peas at once, gyahuck) while the zombies range from the Zomboni and the Ducky Tube Zombie (for aquatic brain-eating). However, if you can make it past the bubbly, cutesy nature of the game (or, like me, revel in it) then you’ll find yourself surprised at just how quickly this game grows on you.

Gameplay is simple enough; the screen is broken up into a lawn broken up into a grid. On the left is your house and presumably you and all of your juicy, juicy brains. On the right, zombies slowly lurch from off-screen, making their way across the grass to get to you. Little bits of sun drift down from above and are gathered with a simple click of the mouse; these suns are stored up and used to “purchase” any of a variety of plants, each with its own use and specialty, that are placed on the lawn. It seems simple and it is; the first few levels are spent getting accustomed to the gameplay. As the levels progress, the zombies become tougher and meatier, with sneakier tactics and attack styles. When you see a zombie stalwartly bound over your line of defense and casually stroll over to your house, you will feel a panic a game so brightly colored should never induce in a person.

Luckily, as the zombies evolve so do your plants, and it becomes a manic race to use the newest plants made available to fend off the newest form of zombie. Problem with a vaulting zombie? Build a Tall-nut (giant cousin to the Wall-nut, of course). Armored zombies busting through your vegetation? A Magnet-Shroom will yoink its armor right off. Its just when these questions begin to grow repetitive that the game throws you a curveball; what will you do when the zombies attack at night, when the sun’s not out? What about in the backyard, where your swimming pool allows innertube-wearing zombies easy access to your back porch? I won’t reveal too much here, but trust me when I say that just when you think you’ve got your Anti-Zombie Attack Plan down pat, the game flips things on you to keep you on your toes.

Throw into the mix a bevy of mini-games, complete with spoofs on PopCap’s own Insaniquarium and Bejeweled, and this game has a respectable amount of replay value simply unseen in most of today’s full-priced games. On top of this, a zen-garden is unlocked where plant maintenance and gentle green-thumbery reward the player with big cash payouts, used to buy plant upgrades and the like. Even after completing the story progression, I found myself playing this game for weeks on end, trying to beat every mini-game and unlock every new garden. I came into work late many a time simply because I needed to shoot more zombies with vegetation. Sometimes you gotta.

No game is perfect, however, and Plants Vs. Zombies is not without its downfall; a somewhat lackluster and repetitive soundtrack had me reaching for the game’s audio options early on. When a horde of hungering, slavering undead are marching to do battle upon my lawn, the last thing I want to hear is a quaint and pleasant melody. Zombie groans and pea-shooting-plant’s spittle I can deal with, but the tireless minute or so of sound left me wanting. Luckily, the problem is quickly fixed; slide Music to down on the Game Options and Alt + Tab into your music player of choice. Let the mayhem continue.

The best part is that on a sheer dollar-to-hours-played ratio, this game cannot be beat: $10 for 2-3 weeks of solid, charmingly addictive gameplay is a no-brainer to me (hayo?). Hop on over to Steam, try the demo and after your hour is up, head back into Steam and purchase the game there. The game is a full $10 cheaper there than on PopCap’s site, knocking the already impressive $20 price down to a $10 that will be better spent than any movie ticket you’ll purchase this summer.

So, shrug off the weird looks your friends will give you and ignore the impulse to run the other way when you see those saccharin-sweet sunflower smiles. You’ll find yourself more addicted to this game than you’ll ever want to admit. No worries, though; I won’t tell anybody.

At this year’s E3, Square-Enix showed off a mix of in-game and CG of it’s new jaw dropping MMORPG. As the audience sat stunned the hearts of FFXI fan’s everywhere raced with adrenaline. FFXI had it’s short comings, and to the masses it had many, but FFXIV is SE’s chance to make amends with thousands of players. In the eyes of the players who still remain and those who left but are still attached to FFXI this could be the chance to make right the many wrongs and capture back a large share of the MMO market from the MMORPG giant Blizzard.

Final Fantasy XIV is being developed on the Crystal Tools engine, the same engine FFXIII is being developed on. So we can look forward to graphics on par with, if not, better than FFXIII. This should capture a large play base that complained, “FFXI’s graphics are bogus and outdated.”

FFXIV will be released worldwide in four languages: English, Japanese, German, and French. It is said FFXIV will initially be exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and Windows PC, but Xbox 360 and other computer platforms are not out of the question as of yet.

The game takes place in a land called Eorzea on the world of Haiderin. Haiderin seems to be a world very similar to Vana’diel due to it including all five allied races native to Vana’diel: Hume, Galka, Elvaan, Mithra, and Tarutaru, yet it is noted that Eorzea is not located in the world of Vana’diel. This dismisses the possibility of the FFXIV story being related to FFXI in anyway. Eorzea is land of mighty dragons and great flying machines such as the famous airships.

Produced by Final Fantasy I, II, III and XI’s Hiromichi Tanaka. Directed by FFIX and XI’s Nobuaki Komoto. Art direction by FF Taxtics and Vagrant Story’s Akihiko Yoshida. Music done by Smile Please Co., Ltd. the production company of Square-Enix composer Nobuo Uematsu. The first complete Final Fantasy score since Final Fantasy IX.

On the very limited gameplay information side, it has been stated that unlike Final Fantasy XI, this game is geared more towards the casual player AND the hardcore, whereas FFXI was designed with the sigular hardcore audience in mind. Thus, doing away with the necessity of large team based… everything, and placing more emphasis on exploration, a theme similar to FFXII.

Concept Art

Be sure to vist the teaser site here for the video, screenshots and music.

AWESOME!!!

Quite possibly one of the biggest announcements at this year’s E3 is famed Metal Gear creator and director Hideo Kojima’s creation of a new Castlevania game. Castlevania is a game almost everyone has enjoyed and to have a brilliant director like Kojima work on a title only brings glee to my childhood heart. For the first time in years I’m excited about a sequel. And we’ve all waited for the day Kojima works on something other than Metal Gear.

View the awesome E3 trailer here.

My prediction: A PS3 remake of Metal Gear, you know the NES retro one. Yes there was a metal gear game before the PS1. Damn brush up on your game history newb!

Check out the sweet kojima productions clock here.