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Global Agenda: Release Date, Preorder, Beta

trolr — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:14:35 +0000

In the most recent Global Agenda newsletter details have been released about the release date, pre-order bonuses and the start of beta.

About Global Agenda
Release Date
Pre-order Bonuses
System Requirements
Gameplay Videos
Screenshots

About Global Agenda

Story:

2155. From the ashes of the devastating Third Great War rose the Commonwealth, an oppressive world government determined to control the entire planet. The few remaining independent factions retaliate the only way they can, with elite teams of special operatives trained in advanced warfare tactics and equipped with high-tech weaponry. The future of humanity is their battleground, where knowledge is power, technology is a race, and everyone has a Global Agenda.

Features:

Create your agent – Create, customize, and develop multiple agent characters, complementing your FPS skills with accessible RPG-style progression. Unlock weaponry and cutting edge devices including jetpacks, grenade launchers, mines, deployable turrets, stealth suits, holographic decoys, robotic droids and HUNDREDS of others.
Co-Op with friends online – Four players share the same online mission experience – working as a team, communicating via built-in text and voice chat, infiltrating facilities, defeating end bosses, and earning technology upgrades.
Compete in fast-paced, multiplayer matches – Teamwork and tactics are paramount within objective-based game types designed from the ground up to support intense and balanced player vs. player combat.

Release Date

First, the most important news: Global Agenda will be released on February 1, 2010. I certainly hope Hi-Rez Studios knows what they’re doing: if you’re been paying attention you should notice Star Trek Online is scheduled for release only a day after. While these two games don’t have much in common, it’s not always a wise idea to release two MMORPG’s in such a short timespan. Warhammer Online for example was released just a couple of months before Wrath of the Lich King, and it definitely hurt their subscriber numbers. I might be wrong and this may not have a huge impact on these two upcoming games, but if I have to choose (and I do), I definitely choose Star Trek.

Pre-Order Bonuses

You can pre-purchase Global Agenda from Steam (digital download) or from Amazon (special limited edition box). Customers who pre-purchase the game will receive the following benefits:

Access to GA Beta – it will be available in January, but the exact dates are yet to be revealed
Exclusive in-game head flair – special in-game helmet captured from the Commonwealth and exclusive Elf head flair
Reserve Your Player Name and Agency Name – prior to the release you will be able to log in and make sure nobody uses your favorite character and Agency name
Pre-download of the game
Free 1 month Conquest subscription – all players who prepurchase will receive a one month worth of Conquest subscription (normal price $13)

If you ask me the benefits are hardly worth it unless you’re absolutely sure you will love this game. Not that you get much more by pre-ordering other games, but still you don’t get anything spectacular. Still, if you want to pre-order here’s the link again.

The game requires a one-time purchase but if you want to experience the full … experience, you probably will want to subscribe. It’s called a Conquest subscription and gives you access to Alliance vs. Alliance (AvA) world domination gameplay, mail system, crafting and new areas. Basically, you need to dish out $12,99 / €10,99 each month, otherwise you’ll be missing out on quite a few gameplay elements.

System Requirements

Minimum System Requirements:

OS: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 (32 or 64 bit)
Processor: 2.4+ GHZ Single Core
RAM: 2 GB (XP), 3GB (Vista, Windows 7)
Video Card: 256mb video ram or better with Shader Model 3.0+ (GeForce 8 series or higher/Radeon HD3000 series or higher)
Hard Drive: 15 GB free space
High bandwidth internet connection (DSL, Cable)

Recommended System Requirements:

OS: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7 (32 or 64 bit)
Processor: 2.4+ GHZ Dual Core
RAM: 3 GB (XP), 4GB (Vista, Windows 7)
Video Card: 512mb video ram or better with Shader Model 3.0+
Hard Drive: 20 GB free space
High bandwidth internet connection (DSL, Cable)

Gameplay Videos

Fan-made gameplay vid:

Official Gameplay Trailer:

Screenshots

League of Legends (P)review

trolr — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:28:38 +0000

League of Legends is yet another game based on the ultra popular Defense of the Ancient (DotA) map for Warcraft III. If you want to find out more about the basics of LoL or DotA I suggest you check my Heroes of Newerth Preview post. I haven’t been able to try Heroes of Newerth yet, however in my opinion it captured the spirit and gameplay of the original DotA better than LoL did.

I should note also that these games now have their own genre, MOBA: multiplayer online battle arena.

I’ll keep this review rather short since, simply put, I don’t have much to say about League of Legends.

Before entering the game you’re required to summon your summoner (hero, champion). There are enough to choose from, whether too many or too little I’m not sure.

You can filter them with several categories such as farmer, fighter, healer or melee. For a beginner I suggest finding some ranger or mage or healing/support hero: melee heroes usually take a bit more skill and can easily die if you don’t keep attention (although ranged champions will die even faster, but at least you see it coming).

Once in game, which by the way takes way too long for a number of reasons, you’ll notice the rather standard interface and minimap. It’s nothing fancy and overall I have no objections, except for the spell buttons: I’d rather keybind them to 1-2-3-4 than Q-W-E-R, but that’s probably a matter of personal preference. There’s a nice minimap feature which enables you to see your summoner’s pathing once you send him to a more distant location. Oh and yes, you can’t zoom out any further: sometimes it just looks a bit too zoomed in my opinion.

You develop your character just as in any other MOBA game, by killing creeps for gold and experience, destroying enemy towers and annihilating enemy heroes. By gaining experience your hero has better stats and can improve his spells, and with gold you can buy all sorts of items:

The items are thankfully nicely categorized so you can easily pick ones which fit your champion and playstyle. There’s also the recommended items section, which probably needs to be improved but it will do for a beginner.

Overall, I think you’ll get used to the interface and gameplay pretty soon, even sooner if you had previous DotA experience.

The biggest positive thing about LoL is that you also gain experience by playing more and more games (so called account-level progression) which has several advantages. You get to use new additional spells which are really useful, and you can pick more runes.

You can choose two of these spells before the game starts, and depending on your summoner choice some are more or less useful.

Runes are basically out-of-game improvements which you can apply to your champions. They add a small number of stats like damage or critical strike, but it adds up once you’re high enough level. There are also several tiers of runes, so you get to upgrade your champions constantly. I should note that adding runes affects any champion you select.

There are four kinds of runes your summoner can use:

Glyphs – magical ability runes
Marks – offensive runes
Seals – defensive runes
Quintessence – powerful all-purpose runes

You also have three different rune configurations for a quick pick. The video below will probably explain the rune system better than I can:

In addition to spells and runes, you also have masteries, which is basically a fancy name for talent trees we’ve all seen and heard before. With masteries you can focus your champions on offense, defense or utility:

As you can see there are plenty of ways to improve your summoners, and having a good summoner profile where you can see and set up all these things is definitely one of the coolest features.

The biggest complaint I have about League of Legends is the gameplay: it’s simply not as addictive as DotA. There’s also the summoners which look like they are stripped straight from some comic book:

It’s all just a bit too anime styled and too colorful for my taste, especially spells. When there are more summoners and creeps on the battlefield I often lose track of where my summoner actually is in all that mess. It would also be nice to be able to zoom out a bit more but unfortunately it’s not.

I’ve played maybe half a dozen games so far which is hardly enough to judge a game, but those are just my thoughts from what I’ve seen. There’s a lot of cool features in League of Legends and I’m sure it will have a big player base (unless Heroes of Newerth turns out to be much better). I’ll probably fire it up every once in awhile when I have nothing better to play, but I’m afraid that’s all. It just doesn’t have that thing which makes an outstanding game.

–

P.S. I have 5 invites for LoL beta, if you want one just post a comment below (be sure to type in the correct email, duh!).

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League of Legends (P)review is a post from Trolr.com

Heroes of Newerth Preview

trolr — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:48:38 +0000

Heroes of Newerth is new game currently in closed beta. It’s inspired by the popular Warcraft III map DotA, and according to the first previews it looks like it might be just as popular.

DotA has been around for years and features many interesting aspects and addictive gameplay. However, over the years the limits of W3 cought up with it and it looks like it’s finally time for someone to build a worthy sequel. I played DotA for a few months usually via Hamachi with a few friends and it was extremely fun. The games usually last about 30-40 minutes, there’s more than plenty of heroes (main unit you control) to choose from and the fun never ends. Or so I thought.

After a few months it got really repetitive and boring and I honestly don’t see how thousands and thousands of players can still play this after a few years. The “game” is good and entertaining, but it simply stopped being fun.

I am looking forward to Heroes of Newerth however. Even though I don’t expect to play it for long, from what I’ve seen it does look like it has what it takes to bring DotA to another level and offer several months of fun and bloodbath.

The graphics are clearly much, much better than in W3, which I’m sure will bring in new players to the genre. The original simple gameplay and complex strategies are still present, many heroes from DotA are still here in addition to several new ones, and it’s all packed in a new engine with a few long-awaited crucial features (reconnecting, stat tracking).

In case you got no idea what DotA or HoN is about, here’s a short list of the main elements:

Hero: The main unit controlled by the player and the other players.
Creep: A creep is an AI controlled unit. “Lane” creeps are creeps that patrol down one of the three lanes while “Neutral” creeps are those you will find scattered in the forests.
Lane: There are 3 lanes in a map – the Top, Middle and Bottom. There should never really be more than two heroes in a single lane unless one team is ‘ganking’ or ‘pushing’. There are three Towers per lane.
Ganking: The act of ambushing an opposing player.
Pushing: The act of attempting to destroy enemy towers.
Defensive Towers: Usually just called Towers. Killing the enemies’ towers gives your team a large gold bonus and gets you closer to their throne.
Throne: If this building dies, you win!… or lose, depending on which one just bit the dirt. It’s a large structure, flanked by two Towers and located right in front of the Healing Fountain.
Healing Fountain: This is the place where you start out at the beginning of the game. You will heal rapidly while standing in the waters.
Shop: It’s where you buy items. There is one located right next to your healing fountain and another four ‘hidden’ shops around the map. You will see them as white squares on your minimap. Certain items can only be purchased from these shops.
Barracks: There are two types of Barracks – Ranged Barracks and Melee Barracks. You will see one set of them at the end of each lane. If you destroy your enemy’s ranged barracks, more powerful ranged creeps will spawn. Likewise, if you destroy the melee barracks, more powerful melee creeps will spawn.

The game starts with you choosing a hero, with which you’re supposed to outsmart and kill your opponents and destroy the throne in the middle of their base. On your way are constantly spawning screeps, several towers and obviously players of the other team who will do everything to stop you. It’s a simple concept but as I mentioned already, highly addictive and entertaining.

The image to the right is what the map looks like: sorry but I can’t find a better or bigger one. Suffice to say it’s simple and you’ll get to know it after a few matches.

Here’s a short vid of one of the best and most popular heroes from the original DotA, the Pudge/Devourer.

Compared to W3 the effects here are really impressive, and I’m sure that’s the case with other heroes as well.

The official HoN website is pretty much blank, but there’s plenty of other sites you can google to find more information, including the official Facebook page. Beta keys for HoN are not hard to come by so keep checking the facebook page for more info.

HoN will cost $30 once it’s out and surprisingly there’s no monthly subscription so it’s not a huge investment. The game takes a bit of practice and you’ll get owned a lot during the first few days, but give it some time and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

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Heroes of Newerth Preview is a post from Trolr.com

Champions Online Video Preview

trolr — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:02:30 +0000

This preview of Champions Online, an upcoming MMO scheduled to be released on September 1st is a great way to find out what this game is about. The game is being developed by Cryptic Studios, the same folks who are working on Star Trek Online.

The video is brought to you by the folks over at Giantbomb.com and is over 30 minutes long: enough to see if Champions Online is the game for you.

Even though I’m not interested in Champions Online, I’m thinking of preordering it and paying for a lifetime subscription: seems to be the only way for me to gain access to Star Trek Online beta. What do you think, is it worth it?