Category: Reviews (Page 16 of 24)

      New champ on the block: Urgot, the abomination from hell

      August 18, 2010 /

      Urgot.

      There’s a new champion terrorizing the test realm as I write this, a champion that is far and away the creepiest thing in League of Legends. His name is Urgot, and he appears to be some sort of nightmare tank character with a swap ability DotA players should recognize from Vengeful Spirit.

      His current ability list is as follows:
      Acid Hunter – Urgot fires a missile toward the target that deals physical damage. Missile lock can be achieved by holding the cursor over a target afflicted by Noxian Corrosive Charge.

      Terror Capacitor – Urgot charges up his terror capacitor to gain a shield that absorbs damage for 7 seconds. While the shield is active, Urgot’s attacks and missiles slow the target by 27 percent.

      Noxian Corrosive Charge – Urgot launches a corrosive charge at a target location. Enemies hit by the charge have reduced armor and take magic damage over four seconds.

      Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser – Urgot gains high magic resistance and armor (130 at level 3) for 5 seconds. His target is stunned for one second before swapping positions with Urgot. After the swap the target is slowed by 40 percent for 3 seconds.

      This guy has a crazy ability list. I don’t like that Acid Hunter is physical damage, while both Terror Capacitor and Noxian Corrosive Charge scale with AP. That his shield is seven seconds long is definitely a good thing and the slow component should be interesting. His ultimate sounds like a blast. I loved Vengeful Spirit (a character from DotA with a long range swap skill) and I have feeling Urgot could be a lot of fun as a support/tank character. I’m guessing he’ll blow Galio out of the water.

      I also like that he has a dramatically different look from the other characters in the game. Though the cartoon vibe can be cool, I like that this guy is just downright creepy. I’m looking forward to Riot’s official leak posts about him.

      Reviews

      Xbox LIVE Summer of Arcade Review: Monday Night Combat

      August 10, 2010 /

      monday_night_combat-title

      I didn’t have very high hopes for “Monday Night Combat” when Microsoft first announced this year’s Summer of Arcade line-up, nor was I immediately taken with it after playing a few rounds. (Though that likely had more to do with the fact that the tutorial isn’t very helpful in explaining how to play the game.) But while it’s certainly not the best-looking title of the bunch, “Monday Night Combat” eventually wins you over with its incredibly addictive gameplay. At its core, the game is a class-based, third-person shooter à la “Team Fortress 2,” but it also implements the tower defense genre into basic strategy, and is set in the middle of a “Smash TV”-like game show complete with a sex-neutral mascot named Bullseye who pops up throughout the course of matches to taunt the players. Better yet, when you shoot him, he drops coins, which is the lifeblood of the game. Coins can be spent on upgrading your Pro’s abilities, building and upgrading turrets, or even unlocking jump pads that allow you to reach higher areas on the map.

      There are really only two game modes to choose from: Blitz and Overkill. The former tasks you and up to three other players with protecting your moneyball (a New Year’s Eve-sized piñata filled with coins) from an onslaught of enemy bots, while the latter is a 6-on-6 Deathmatch-style battle to see which team can breach and destroy the other team’s moneyball first. Though Blitz is a great place to start because it gives players a good opportunity to try out all six classes (Assault, Tank, Support, Assassin, Gunner and Sniper, each with their own unique weapons and abilities), Overkill is where you’re going to have the most fun. Not only must you figure out how to strike the perfect balance between upgrading your Pros and turrets, but you also have to decide what’s more important: killing enemies or escorting bots to the other team’s base. Only bots can take down the shield protecting the moneyball, but you need coins in order to purchase them. It’s a simplistic yet necessary give-and-take system that forces players to work as a team, and it’s one of the main reasons why “Monday Night Combat” succeeds as a great multiplayer game of the once-you-pop-you-just-can’t-stop variety.

      Want more Summer of Arcade? Be sure to come back every Wednesday through August 18th for a first-hand look at Microsoft’s newest XBLA exclusives. Next week: Grab your tomb raiding gear and join Lara Croft in her search for the “Guardian of Light.”

      Reviews

      Patch Day 08/10 – We can stop banning Soraka now

      August 10, 2010 /

      Enchanted Galio.

      Today’s patch brings a new champion in the form of Galio, the great blue gargoyle. Aside from the new champion, the game hasn’t changed a ton. A few characters received some significant attention, but things remained largely the same.

      The most notable change in my mind is Soraka, who received a string of small nerfs that should amount to a significant difference in her staying power. Her mana heal now has a longer cooldown and heals slightly less mana, and her global heal got a 20 second cooldown increase at all levels. That could be enough to bring her off some ban lists in favor of other champions (please start banning Amumu, people).

      Heimer’s turrets caught a little nerf – they no longer increase damage based on number of hits and the AP coefficient was reduced. They do have slightly higher base damage, but definitely nothing on the order of the old hit method.

      Malzahar got some nice tweaks, bumping his movement speed, increasing the range of his ult and Malefic Visions, and reducing the cooldown on Malefic Visions (which already felt very short to me).

      Ryze got a little bit of a rework as well, adding a passive cooldown reduction to his Overload skill. To compensate, Desperate Power now has a longer CD. Rune Prison now lasts longer at early ranks and deals damage in DoT form. It’s basically Morgana’s old Dark Binding, which is odd.

      Vladimir’s Sanguine Pool got a small CD nerf but his Tides of Blood now costs less HP, Blitzcrank got some CD reductions, Nunu got a Consume buff, and Garen got his attack timer reset on Decisive Strike back. Other than those small changes, there’s not a whole lot to report in the way of champions.

      For items, the newer items all got buffs. Wriggle’s Lantern now costs less, which is just what it needed. The Gunblade and Cutlass got damage buffs without a cost increase.

      Lots of little paragraphs in here, which should give you an idea of how many small changes came in this patch. I’ll have a Galio impression list up later today. Spoiler Alert: he’s underwhelming.

      Reviews

      Galio drops this week

      August 9, 2010 /

      Galio, Idol of Durand.

      At least I’m pretty sure he does. The “Champion Approaches” post is now live with an official skill list for the gargoyle of Durand. Here’s the official ability breakdown:

      Resolute Smite: Galio fires a concussive blast from his eyes, slowing and dealing damage to enemies caught near the impact point.

      Bulwark: Galio shields an ally Champion, increasing their Armor and Magic Resistance, and restoring Galio’s health each time that Champion suffers damage.

      Righteous Gust: Galio claps his wings, unleashing a gust of concussive wind that damages enemies and leaves a directional draft in its wake that increases ally movement speed.

      Idol of Durand (Ultimate): Galio assumes the form of a statue, taunting nearby enemies and storing concussive energy as they attack him. Galio then bursts from his statue shell, releasing the stored energy to damage surrounding foes.

      Runic Skin (Passive): Galio converts 50% of his total Magic Resistance into Ability Power.

      As I mentioned in the sneak peek thread, Idol of Durand is actually his ult, which makes him much less threatening. The Righteous Gust skill seems pretty cool, though – a bit like Janna’s tornado with some speed boost for you. I could see him playing very well on 3v3, where the fights happen just about as often as player ultimates are available and tend to be full on team fights.

      Reviews

      Annie in Wonderland coming soon

      August 6, 2010 /

      AnnieAccording to a recent ByronicHero post, it looks like Riot will be rounding out the Alice in Wonderland theme that got started with Mad Hatter Shaco by adding an Annie in Wonderland. Check the official post below:

      Greetings, summoners!

      A most peculiar thing happened to me today. While I was sitting in my garden indulging in a bottle of Shiraz and having a look at my copy of Don Juan, I spied a white rabbit in a waistcoat inspecting his pocket watch. Pondering this, I came to the immediate (and admittedly justified) conclusion that I must have overindulged. My suspicions were totally confirmed when the rabbit proceeded to exclaim at how late he was for a most pressing appointment.

      As my befuddled rodent friend scampered off, I devised that the only reasonable thing to do was to stay put. After all, everyone knows that following a questionable white bunny only results in falling into a deep hole or an excursion to an inner city goth club filled with hackers in leather pants. Instead I decided that the operate response would be to rouse myself from my contemplative, wine-related haze by splashing some cold water on my face. Upon doing so, I felt revived and ready to face the day… that is until I spotted the enormous bear grinning back at me through the bathroom looking glass.

      The moral of the story is that things are not always what they seem. Sometimes white rabbits are white rabbits, but oftentimes they are also giant, burning teddy bears dressed up as rabbits. There’s really no way of knowing until you happen upon one in the mirror while you’re trying to wake yourself up.

      There are really no two ways to interpret that. Tibbers is gonna look like the giant demon bunny from Donnie Darko and the pervert contingent might finally get their teenage Annie. It’s going to be an epic day when that one launches. Expect this to be legendary in cost.

      Reviews

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Fearless Gamer

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑