The Gaming Winter Starts

Hi Folks,

 

here in South Germany winter is slowly coming, and with it some very cool games are out there which will keep us warm throuhgout nights of interactive entertainment. As you might know, I'm a passionate video gamer since I was a little boy. After years of only fighting through Azeroth, and ignoring all the other fantastic games out there, I quit it after it became Kung-Fu Panda.

 

After regaining my game freedom, I reactivated my old Steam account and started playing all these video game jewels out there. Here are my current favorites.

 

DOTA 2:

Originally a fan mod for Blizzards RTS WarCraft 3, its successor then became a full game developed by Steam-owners of Valve. The original mod author is now the lead designer of DOTA 2 at Valve (Interesting how things sometimes evolve).

 

DOTA2 is a a so called MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game, which features fighting in teams of 5 heroes against another team of 5 heroes. At the moment DOTA2 features over 100 different heros, all with their unique abilities, pros and cons. Every hero has some others he can easily dominate, while some others are his pure nemesis. There is also a bunch of items you can buy in a match while you fight. The mixture of 5 heroes, each with at least 4 abilities, and an inventory for about 6 items, makes every match a unique experiencet, because every game and its strategy is totally different. This is enough stuff for a whole Wiki to fill, see http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Dota_2_Wiki

Valve also did a very good job at integrating many social features, like player profiles, guilds, teams, leagues, replays etc. It also features hero customization through items obtained randomly while playing DOTA2, or buying them in the ingame store. They are pure cosmetic and do not affect gameplay in any way. So no Pay-2-Win, and that's a good thing.
 

Matches can range from 20 to 80 minutes (my longest game was 78 minutes ;) ), but the typical public random game is over after 30 to 45 minutes. So some matches per evening are no problem. Only downside to this, there is no surrender option like in LoL, only in team games you can call 'gg' to end your misery ;) (gg stands for good game, and is normally the sign that you surrender).

 

After playing it for a few weeks I won't call myself a noob anymore, but sometimes I get screwed heavily. Yesterday my friends and me started our first team league matches, the first we lost, but we won the second the same we lost our first game: horribly :D Here is the screen from the match results (and again another f**king rubiline chest -.- )

 

Synopsis: Free-2-Play MOBA Game, very balanced, easy to learn but hard to master. Supports full competitive play. One of the biggest competitive scenes in the world. 

 

 

 

Team Fortress 2:

I've got this game for about 4 years now (proud owner of the orange box version) and never really played it. TF2 is a First Person Team Shooter game with various game modes and nine distinct classes, ranging from bazooka-wearing soldiers, over sentry-gun-constructing engineers to cloaking and backstabbing spies.

 

The social features like ingame items, with crafting, trading and store is also integrated like in DOTA2. In TF2 the items actual do impact gameplay very direct, because they can change a class' stats or the way their weapons work. But every item comes with a downside too, so balance is preserved. And also you can gain every item by only playing, no need to throw your hard earned bucks in. Look at the example. This Item changes the normal soldiers bazooka to do more damage at direct hits, but with 70% less splash damage. Fair trade I think.

 

Matches are typically in the 20-40min range, so fast-paced shooting action is served here. Although it's a team fighting game, there is no real need for a complete team from your friendlist. It's easy to join and fight with randoms, often with hilarious results :D It's a very funny game which can also be played competively.

 

Synopsis: Free-2-Play FP Team Shooter, easy to learn, hard to master. Full competitive play.

 

 

Beside these two, I play a variety of games, including:

- XCOM - Enemy Unkown

- Duke3D Megaton Edition

- Shadow Warrior Classic Redux

- Penny Arcade's On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness Quadrology

- Orcs must die 1+2

- Borderlands 1+2

- Left for Dead 2

- Torchlight 2

- The Monkey Island series

- Doom 3 BFG Edition

- Half-Life 2 series

- Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

 

 

Yesterday Steam announced the release of the next incredible Free-2-Play game: Path of Exile. The press critics all say that this game is the true successor to famous Diablo 2. I never played beta cause auf lack of time, but now I will definitly try it out. It looks very promising, with the deepest item and skill system in every Hack&Slay I've seen to the day.

 

Also I finally got my Beta-Invite for Blizzards next game: Hearthstone.

This will feature an online card playing game set in the lore of WarCraft, featuring the World of WarCraft classes. Installation is complete and I'm looking forward to this game, because every Blizzard game rocks (except for WOW after Cataclysm ;) )

 

And tomorrow is the next HumbleBundle weekly sale, let's see what this will feature. I hope for the worst ;)

 

All summed up, this looks like a very promising gaming winter (if I only had the time ;) ) and we will not get cold feet while playing.

Next post will be something related to game development.

 

Cheers!

return 0;

 

P.S. Here is a first impression of saturdays death metal inferno at Path of Death Festival featuring our dutch friends from Bodyfarm. Stay tuned for more to come