Atlantica Online Review

Atlantica Online is a unique MMORPG in many ways. First of all, Atlantica Online is a turn-based RPG much like Final Fantasy or any other RPG like Final Fantasy. You do choose one character for yourself but each class is based on the weapon and not on the particular spells or abilities you want. In fact, you could probably play through the whole game without using spells if you leveled up enough and had strong enough weapons. In any case, you choose from 9 different classes which are Sword, Spear, Staff, Gun, Bow, Cannon, Instrument, Axe, and Power Saw. To choose the Power Saw you must have a different character at or above level 100 and the maximum level you can have is 130. The characters are very customizable with lots of different hairstyles and five different faces.

Each weapon has different ways that you can attack. For example, the spear can attack the first row and one enemy behind that first enemy, and the cannon attacks in a cross pattern in any of the rows but cannot attack flying units, and so on. What is also unique about Atlantica Online is that the character that you choose is not the only one that you control and is not so overpowered that it can handle anything by yourself. That is why they made the mercenary system where you can fill out your party with mercenaries. These mercenaries involve many of the same weapons that your main character can have and they all complement each other and have their own levels.

So far I have only talked about the solo part of Atlantic Online but it is still called an MMO because if you so choose you can be very much involved with the Atlantica Online community. There are apprenticeships that give rewards to the apprentice and the master for the master helping the apprentice. It is a player driven economy so most of the items that you can buy are from other players. Also, there is a large crafting system that I haven’t even begun to explore yet that opens up a completely new realm to explore within this game. Now, as with most MMORPGs there are guilds and PvP options as well. I have not explored these yet but much like the crafting system, these are massive and needs months of playing time to even understand it partially.

The beginning of the game brings you to a dream world where you meet the three goddesses of Atlantica. These three take you through the tutorial of the basic gameplay. However, this tutorial only BARELY scratches the surface. The quests are easy to complete because they have an auto-walk feature although this is very good that they do because otherwise I would have been floundering around not really sure what to do for the first 10 levels and by that time I would have just been fed up with the game and quit. The beginning quests finish off teaching you about the basic gameplay but the rest of the quests start to teach you the more advanced feature of the game including enchanting, crafting, and dungeons.

Overall: 7

I do enjoy this game and have spent a good amount of time just sitting and playing the game. There is a sharp learning curve that is made easier by the quest line that is followed at the beginning of the game. Compared to Atlantica Online, World of Warcraft is child’s play as far as the complexity of the different parts of the game. This could be a turn-off for some people because they just want to play a simple game that is fun and easy to get into. However, this game is very rewarding because in the end you know that if you make it through then you have done something that not everyone can do.

Gameplay:  7

The game plays quite well in my opinion. The auto-walk feature lets you get to your quest destination with relative ease and gets you straight into the action. Once you get into battle, you have to know exactly what you want to do within a short amount of time because when it is your team’s turn to attack, you only get 20-30 seconds for your entire team to attack. This has never been an issue for me, though, because it doesn’t take long to figure out who you can and cannot attack and who is best to attack. The difficulty comes from outside of battle and in fact, may actually deter many people from playing. The most difficult part of the game is the menus. The menus are very difficult to navigate and the search feature doesn’t really search that well, if at all. I haven’t figured out how to navigate the menus very well but I know that once I do I will have a much better time playing the game.

Storyline: 7

The storyline in MMORPGs aren’t necessarily the biggest deal since you are the story. However, the main background is that you are a descendant of Atlantis. Atlantis was destroyed by their own doing because they lost control of the power that was derived from Oriharukon. This substance was very powerful and did not all get destroyed along with Atlantis. Now your job as a descendant of Atlantis is to find these remnants of Oriharukon that is destroying the known world and mutating the creatures. Eventually, you will find the lost city of Atlantis and the secrets therein. At least, that’s what the lore on the website says. This is told within the game through the quests and not many people read the quests. Also, the text within the quest logs are not that easy to read so it is easiest to skip through dialogue and just continue playing. Therefore, I think that the story itself isn’t bad but they need to do a better job of actually telling you why you are doing what you are doing whether by doing better quest logs or possibly adding cut-scenes.

Graphics: 6

The graphics aren’t that impressive. There aren’t that many options to change the graphics either. The battle mechanics and art is detailed but seems a little muddy. Also, in the battle the default option is to zoom in on the character as they attack almost every time. This doesn’t stop the clock so there are times that you have to rush the attacks just to get them in. They do have a lot of different monsters and monster types, though which is a plus.

One thing in their favor is that overall, the game’s download is around only 1 gb of space. However, with all of the patches it comes to be a little under 13 gb. The download is so small because the initial download is considered a “lite” version of the game in that it has just enough files to let you play it as soon as possible. The rest of the files are then downloaded in the background as you are playing.

Replayability: 8

This has a pretty good replayability factor because of the various classes that can be played, including the power saw which can only be played on accounts that have a level 100 character on them. One downside is that there only 3 characters that can be made per server. Fortunately there are enough servers that you could have all nine classes if you so choose. Also, after the Prologue is complete, you can choose between 4 different places that all lead to the Forest of Spirits. Each place has the same quest lines but they all have different scenery along the way.

As I said before, I plan on playing this game some more and I plan on trying to get to level 100 so that I can try out that power saw. The game is not the best in the world but it is completely free. There is a store for the game but it is separate from the game and is not necessary at all to be able to play the game and play it well. I would recommend this to anyone who has liked Final Fantasy but doesn’t want to pay for an online game. Even if you just like turn-based battles this would be a good game for you.

Kick-Ass Review

Kick-Ass seems like your normal super hero movie where the geek in high school gets some sort of super power and starts fighting crime all over the city, and in the end the super hero gets the girl and saves everyone. However, this movie just isn't that kind of movie. In fact, the main character doesn't fight much crime at all. Instead the other two heroes, Big Daddy and Hit Girl, are the ones that actually get things taken care of.

The movie starts off innocently enough. The main character, Dave Lezewski, is narrating and talking about how he wonders why out of all of the super hero movies, comics, and stories, there aren't more people that try and be one of these masked crusaders. It then shows his life before he becomes Kick-Ass. He is a normal boy with a normal life and as he puts it, his only super power is "being invisible to girls." This wouldn't make a very good story though if there was just a normal boy in a normal life. We deal with that every day. Instead, Dave ends up coming with the idea of becoming a masked hero when he is out with his friends. He gets a costume, a rag-tag mismatch of material that ends up looking pretty good, and then begins to fight crime. Throughout the course of the movie, there are twists and turns in the plot that keep leaving the viewer guessing as to who will live and who will die. Except for the bad guy. The bad guy always loses.

Overall rating: 8

I found the movie to be quite enjoyable with enough fight scenes to keep the action going but enough plot to make it intellectually pleasing as well. However, it is definitely not the best that could have been done. It also does not have the same history as other comic book movies like Batman, or Spiderman simply because it is not affiliated with DC or Marvel.

Plot: 9

There were definitely some parts that were predictable but there were many parts that were actually quite surprising. This may be from my lack of background in comic books but no matter what, the writing was enjoyable. The characters are written with the usual archetypes. The main character is the geek turned hero, the antagonist is a mob boss, and the girl is pretty and popular. However, there are other twists to their characters that add extra depth to the characters.

Visuals: 10

Throughout the movie there are vibrant colors. As a comic book movie, I would expect a lot of bright colors. These colors come from the costumes and the backgrounds. The sets for the movie are rather detailed as well. Dave/Kick-Ass's bedroom is really well-done. It has typical high school student's paraphernalia. Even the places that aren't visited a lot have a lot of detail added in as well. The fight scenes were also quite well done. For the most part the camera didn't jump around too much so I was able to follow all of the fights, blood (which they had a lot of) and all.

Sound: 8

The sound they had were mostly well-placed. The music that was chosen was questionable at times though I can understand why they put that kind of music in there. Other times, the music choice was just absolutely perfect for the scene.

Actors: 7

I'm not sure what kind of budget the producers of Kick-Ass had but in my opinion they could have used some better actors. Don't get me wrong, the actors were good but that's all they were. None of them blew me away or even made me feel like that actor may have the potential for something good. The only one that I feel has some potential was the little girl who played Hit Girl. Her name is Chloë Grace Moretz. She had some moments that were really good and the others can only improve. The overall choice of actors could have been better but they definitely did good with what they had.

Conclusion:

I would recommend this movie to anyone who loves comic books, comic book movies, or just action movies in general. It has enough action sequences to keep people on their toes but enough storyline to actually keep the movie going without explosions every two seconds. In fact, I believe that there are only 2 major explosions and one of them is REALLY awesome.

Perhaps when you see it you will have a different opinion and that's okay. No matter what your opinion is, you can let me know what you think in the comments below or you can email me at oanta93@gmail.com

League of Legends Review

I will begin my game review with one of my favorite computer games: League of Legends. League of Legends is an MMO that pits you against a team of players, but do not fear, for there are other players that are teamed up with you. This can be good in that there are other people that can help you learn how to play the game. However, it can be bad because other people can be mean-spirited, or just outright jerks. Before you stop reading for fear of being accosted by a jerk from League of Legends, you should know that there are ways to stop them from calling you names, namely, the ignore feature.

The gameplay is easy to learn but difficult to master. Fortunately, they have multiple maps and game modes to help you learn the different champions that you can choose as well as the general gameplay of the game. For two of the maps, the goal is to destroy the enemy nexus, but first you have to destroy the towers along the way while defending your own nexus from the enemy champions. The Crystal Scar has a different goal which I will get to later.

The map that I play the majority of the time is called Summoner's Rift and has five players on each team and games usually last anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on the skill level of the players. The two other maps are the Twisted Treeline, and the Crystal Scar.

The Twisted Treeline puts three people against each other in a small map. This allows for much more player versus player (or PVP) action because it is just easier to get from one side of the map to the other so you are bound to run into another player much faster. These games last 20 to 30 minutes.

The Crystal Scar takes PVP to a whole new level. It has five people on each team but instead of trying to reach the enemy nexus you are supposed to capture five nodes that are laid out across the map. If you have more nodes than the other team then their nexus health will decrease. It is a bigger map than the Twisted Treeline but smaller than the Summoner's Rift but it is much more fast-paced than either map. All the champions gain experience and gold much faster than the other two  maps so the games are much shorter. There are also different items that you can buy which adds to the game as well. These games last 20 minutes and sometimes not even that.

To play a game the player must choose a champion. There are 10 champions that are free and they change each week. After every game the player earns IP based on the length of the game and if they won or they lost. With this IP the player can buy more champions ranging from prices of 450 to 6300. With over 60 champions there is definitely enough content to keep you playing for years and years to come. Along with the  champions, the player can also buy different skins for each champion but these cost RP which costs actual money. These skins are how Riot pays for their game and employees. With over a million players, they have no problem paying for anything, especially since they are expanding aggressively over the entire world including China, Russia, and many parts of Europe.

Overall Rating: 8
Overall, it is a very good game for being free to play. There are some glitches and problems with the interface or the client but they usually fix those kinds of things quickly.

Plot/Storyline: 10
There actually is a story that is involved with League of Legends. Each character has its own lore, or back-story that explains why they have joined the battles in the League of Legends. This lore is so well-developed that they have many different kinds of things telling the story including comics and newsletters.

Graphics: 7
The graphics aren't as good as other games but as a multiplayer game, the graphics have to be accessible to a lot of people. However, they make up for a lack of graphics with some extra art and ability designs based on the skin that the champion is wearing.

Gameplay: 9
 The gameplay is fast-paced and hard to learn if the beginner starts playing against other players right away. They do have AI bots that people can play against until they feel they are ready to play against actual players. Also, having 60+ champions means that each game is going to be different, even if you use the same champion the entire time. There is also an in-game item system that can change the way a character plays.

Replayability: 10
This game can be played again and again and again and never get old. Each game is completely different from the last one even if there are the same champions played in each game. The player base is over one million people so there are many people that you will only play with one time. However, you can add people as friends and invite them to play games with you.

I would definitely recommend playing League of Legends, especially if you like RPGs and Real-Time strategy games. There are many different aspects to this game that make it a fun time every time you log in. The best part about this MMO is that you don't need to play all day every day to be one of the better players. This is a great game and it has many hours of gameplay for anyone who wishes to continue to play it. There is much more that I can tell about this game but I will save that for a later post.

If you have comments or questions, please comment below or email me at oanta93@gmail.com

A Little Bit about Me

I am currently a student at Concordia University Saint Paul where I am working on a Psychology major. I am a decent student that gets A's and B's even though I procrastinate a lot. Part of this procrastination involves hanging out with my girlfriend, watching movies with my friends, and playing video games. Sometimes it even involves writing stories or poems.

However, my plan for this blog is not to tell you about my life. That's what diaries are for. Here I plan on telling you about my experiences in playing video games, reading books, restaurants I've visited, or pretty much any thing or place that can receive a review. I may also post some fan fiction or other works that I am writing but for the most part it will be reviews and other experiences.

That being said, I suppose I should tell you the kinds of video games that I play. I play RPGs mostly but I do enjoy action games as well. So if you have a good Action-RPG then I am all for it. I enjoy playing games on any system but I own a Playstation 2 and a Playstation 3. I also have a computer that I use to play games on but I usually only use it to play online games such as League of Legends. I did play World of Warcraft as well but it just became too expensive for me to play only a few hours a week.

If you would like to see what I have blogged for class you can do so at http://blogs.markschuler.com/muters/
These are definitely more formal and have required certain restrictions on them but are a good indication of what I have done previously.

I suppose this is as good of a start as any. If you have any questions or comments you can do so below or email me at oanta93@gmail.com. I also have a Facebook page. If you search for my email address to find it.

Can't wait to hear from you!