Aliens: Colonial Marines

Hey peoples. Today I'm blogging once again about Aliens: Colonial Marines. Here it goes.



Okay people, yes I know I have already done a blog on this but now I actually have the game! So when the game came out two days before valentines day the reviews were bad. Upon hearing this I was pretty sad. Knowing me if I had heard the reviews beforehand I would of bought the game anyway but I'm still sad that they couldn't make the game better than this after ten years. Some of the problems I have had so far is the fact that most of the time the Aliens run on all fours, playing split screen can be very disorienting, and it looks like the story might have a few bugs too but I am still not very far into it.



The story starts off with Dwayne Hicks sending a video to the marines before they left with him still in his bandaged eye and forehead from the end of Aliens saying that all marines should report to LV-426 for cleanup. You are a marine with the last name of Winter. For some strange reason the Sulaco is back over LV-426 and you are investigating it because you lost contact with the first party that went there. The game does address that it is strange why it is there but so far it does not say why or say why the nuke at the end of Aliens did not fully destroy Hadley's Hope as Bishop said it would. On the Sulaco you meet up and form a small band of marines to fight Aliens and Weyland Yutani mercenaries that were on the ship firing at you because you weren't supposed to find out there presence.



The controls are pretty nice for this first person shooter. You hit the L2 button to bring up your motion tracker and you can't shoot while holding it. However if an enemy is dangerously close it will start beeping whether you are holding it or not. The L1 button brings your gun up close to your face so you can look down the sight of the gun. R1 is shoot and R2 is the secondary fire like the grenade launcher on the bottom of the pulse rifle. Triangle let's you manage and switch your weapons, square lets you interact with doors as well as pick things up like ammo and armour, O exits out of menus, and X is jump or select in a menu. The directional pad can bring up your grenades, sidearm, or your flashlight. The joysticks are for moving and looking around. The combat is a lot like situations from Aliens, such as gauntlet runs where you get from one point to another as fast as possible while fighting enemies or last stand moments where you can weld doors shut and set up sentry guns to defend your position. Often I find myself surrounded by unlimited amounts of aliens and facehuggers jumping out everywhere and I know I'm gone. The multiplayer modes are fun too.



So there's some more on Aliens: Colonial Marines. For me I am happily scared while playing this game. I would look at reviews before buying but I am certainly happy and it's gonna be hard to find the willpower to play other games! Bye.

A really cool picture from a old newspaper talking about possibilities for "Alien 2" before Aliens came out.


By Ashton

A day in the life of Ashton

Hey peoples. Today I'm blogging about a day in my life. Here it goes.

So I start out any normal school weekday waking up in drool at 5:50 in the morning. I then take a shower and meditate on thoughts about the universe. (don't we all in the shower?). Next I warm up a microwave breakfast and walk to the bus stop. Finally I arrive at school at 7:10. First I have Social studies and math before strings class. (cello class)

Often my teacher Mr Newberger, Snicker, snicker, quotes " Why are you still playing the Jaws theme song? This is Beethoven!". Afterwards I have reading class and eventually lunch. Lunch is like the break you would hate having to do while having fun but in the middle of school is like a minute of heaven saying "your halfway there!". Luckily since the cooks never fill up the lunch tray I get salad from the salad bar every day. It's unfortunate when I smell burnt food from the long line and I know that they burnt the salad again.

Next is English and Art. Art class is pretty fun and it's nice to draw in my sketchbook whatever I want. Finally seventh period comes with science and I can barely form written sentences on the worksheets full of grammar errors my teacher prints off the Internet. After school I get to my house from the bus at around 3:15, eat an apple, and take a short fifteen minute iPad break. Next I do either laundry or the dishes before going to the gym with my Dad. We are back home at around 6:30 for Moms dinner and after dinner chores. At eight my brother goes to bed and me and my sister retire to the back rooms to read for a hour before bed.

That's a weekday in the life of Ashton. Bye!


By Ashton

HeroClix

Hey peoples. Today I’m blogging on another game my family is getting back into. Here it goes.






Recently my mom has finished my dad’s office in the new part of our house. Or what he would call it, the comic sanctuary. With this new addition to space and room for the geeky memorabilia he has started to play a game called HeroClix again. HeroClix is a game involving miniatures usually based off of Marvel or DC comics. The game is about as old as I am and my Mom and Dad have been playing it for that long until I had to take over Dad’s comic room. When they could play they went to tournaments. Dad so that when they won they could get exclusive figures and mom because she was the reason they won.


One of the reasons I like HeroClix is the simplicity. In other miniatures games you have to buy the fifty dollar figure, figure out that you need another rare hundred dollar rulebook just to find the stats, spend forty-eight hours painting and assembling the thing only to have the tiny little arm snap off, and then make your own play area out of toothpicks and styrofoam peanuts. With heroClix you buy maybe twenty dollars worth of figures, go home and find a rulebook and play map inside the box and all you need is some spare time, a flat surface, and a willing friend.



You assemble a team first with a set point value. So if the point limit is two hundred and you have four fifty point characters then you are good to go. You each start out with your characters on opposite sides of the map. The goal is usually to defeat all of the opposing characters team. As each of your characters take damage the dial in the base turns showing what new stats or super powers your character may have. The powers card that comes with the figures tells you what the powers mean, so if you have a character with dark blue on his speed then you go to the powers card and find out that that’s called bind and the character next to you can’t move away. However I’m not going to bore you with rules and regulations the whole time. Right now Katie me and Alex are beating Dad’s but as the heroes of Gotham City.



There is the wrap on HeroClix. HeroClix is made and developed by Wizkids. Bye!



By Ashton



Fish alien

Minecraft: Pocket Edition

Hey peoples. Today I'm blogging on a iOS game. Here it goes!

The game I'm blogging about is Minecraft: Pocket Edition. Minecraft is a block based building survival game. Minecraft is a game made by Mojang originally for the computer. Due to the enormous popularity of it, bigger and bigger things were added to the game until now with Minecraft for iOS. First you enter a name for your world in Minecraft and a seed. A seed is just any random name or numbers that decides what the blocky terrain in your world is going to look like. Then you decide whether you want to play survival mode or creative mode. Survival mode has night and day, limited health, animals, monsters, and you have to mine, farm, or scavenge for resources in order to build. In creative mode there is flying, and unlimited resources. Then you start the game. In creative mode you can just fly around and build whatever you want from a simple little house to towering statues. Survival is much harder.

In survival you first spawn in you're spawn area which is the block you will spawn on top of if you die. You start out with no resources and the best thing to do is go around punching tree trunks until they break. When one block breaks a miniature block shoots out and lands on the ground. If you go near it it goes in your inventory and you now have one wooden log. After you have at least 3 blocks go out and find a good place for your first house. From your inventory menu hit craft and the option to make wooden planks from your logs should pop up. Make as many as you can and you can now make a crafting table. A crafting table is a block the size of any other but when you touch it shows you a list of all the blocks in the game and what you need to make them. Clicking on the object with the correct resources will make it and add it to your inventory. The craft tab in your inventory only makes you a few things.

Next you need to make a shelter before the monsters come out at night. Just make a three block high wall around you and your crafting table with however much space you think you need. Then make sure they are no blocks outside your house a monster can use as a stepping stone to get over the wall. A monster can only jump one block high though so if there is one block in front of your three block high wall then your fine. You will have to wait out the night before going out so with some of your wood make a door and put it in one of your walls. This way you don't have to destroy the wall every time you need to go out. After night is over most of the monsters die in darkness but beware, two of four can survive the light and dark places all of them can linger. Next make a stick with planks. With the stick and wooden planks you can make a wooden pickax and mine some stone from a nearby mountain. After a while you should have enough stone to make a stone pickax. Now you can mine. Simply make a one by two high indent which is the space your character takes up and go down one block at a time underground. After you reach the edge of your world simply turn around and go the other direction.

With some stone make a furnace used to cook food and make pure ore from ore mixed with stone. Then make a stonecutter to makes things such as bricks and stone steps. If you have coal by now with sticks you can make torches to light up your house at night or make monster dense areas lighter. Then if you have iron yet make shears and get wool from a sheep in order to make a bed. With a bed you can sleep through night and it becomes your new spawn point so if you die you spawn safely inside your house. If you do die find where you died as quickly as possible and everything that was in your inventory will be lying on the ground like a destroyed object. You can pick it up again from the ground instead of losing it. After you have a lot of items make chests to hold extra items. Now you are ready explore the Minecraft world for there is much you have left to discover!



My farm tower built in creative mode with trees and even cactus.



My unfinished house with a plasma TV on the right. Creative mode.



Some more of it built on a land bridge.








My underground fallout home built in creative mode.



My waterpark built in creative mode.



The beach chairs with umbrellas.



The diving board. Seems safe.



The Minecraft home screen.



The clouds.



The sky at night.



Cows, Pigs, a chicken, and a sheep with gray wool.



Sheep.



The awesome terrain in my world.



I accidentally set off a bomb to close to my house that transports part of h*ll here therefore merging inside my house. This is before setting itself on fire further damaging my house. Typical Ashton fail.




My poor house with a broken window.



Inside the h*ll tower.



What's left of my rooftop patio.



My badly damaged garden.



2 kinds of monsters.



My first mine.

That's a wrap. Here's an idea; wouldn't Andrew or Issac love this game? ;) Say hello for me. Bye!


By Ashton

DC card game

Hey people's. Today I'm taking a break from the videogame reviews for a card game review. Here it goes.



The game I'm writing about is a card game made by a company called Cryptozoac that's based off of DC's new 52 characters. It is a deck building game so the goal is to get more and more powerful cards into your own personal deck. At the end of the game each card has a set amount of points attached to it. The person with the most amount of points at the end of the game wins. They are many different sorts of cards that can go into your deck, good or bad.

You start out with your main hero card. The card is a jumbo card twice they size of a regular card, it has thicker cardboard, and comes with some sort of advantage written on the card that lasts the entire game. Such as the person that has the Flash always goes first in the game and whenever a card says to draw one or more cards draw one more card. With these specific rules pertaining to your character there is often a certain theme you want to go with. Batman gets you plus one power for each equipment you play on your turn so you may want a deck filled with equipment. Each hero's power goes with their personality in the comics like superman gets plus one power for each different superpower he plays.



The Aquaman main hero card.

Along with your hero you also get seven punch cards and three vulnerabilities to start out your deck. The player that goes first is selected randomly or is the person with the flash card if the card is in the game and play continues to that persons left. First you play the cards in your hand. If I had a hand of five, I played all five cards then if three were punch cards then I would have three power so far because a punch says plus one power. If the other two were vulnerabilities I would get no more because that card gives you nothing. Then we look to the lineup in the middle of the game set up. On one end is the main deck face down that belongs to know one then five cards face up are placed side by side afterwards that are drawn in the beginning of the game from the main deck. At the other end is the super villain stack. The top card is face up and the cards underneath face down. This is the main villain fighting you at the time. Beside the villain on one end is a stack of kick cards you can buy as if they were in the five card lineup. Kick cards have no abilities they just give you plus two power and is a super power instead of a starter card like a punch. On the other side of the super villain is the weakness pile. Certain events may cause players to gain a weakness. These cards do nothing if drawn but at the end of the game take away one point that goes towards winning. Since in this example I have three power I would only be able to get a card with a cost of three or less from the lineup or a kick card which will always cost three. After I have gained as many cards as I can I take my hand and the cards I gained and put them in my discard pile. Lastly I draw a new hand and it is the next persons turn. When your deck runs out you shuffle your discard pile and it becomes your new deck, giving you a chance to draw newer more powerful cards.

These are the types of cards that can be gained from the lineup.

Hero: a card with a set amount of power and usually a ability that helps you.



Hero with defense: a card the same as a hero but may be discarded to avoid an attack from a opponents villain or from the main super villain in play.


Villain: a card the same as a hero but many times has a ability that is a bit more risky and could end up hurting you.


Villain with attack: a villain card that attacks the other players such as making them discard a card in their hand. A hero with a defense can be discarded to avoid the attack.


Equipment: a card that can have a set amount of power but is usually a bit less than a superpower and if they have a abilities it is usually less direct.


Equipment

Super power: a card the same as a equipment but usually is a bit more powerful. A card based on power.


Super power

Location: a card that once played stays in play and out next to your deck for the remainder of the game.


Location

Super villain: a card with a extremely high cost but with a point amount at the end of the game like five instead of the usual one. These cards are first played after the last one is gained by some player. There First Appearance attack plays and attacks all players. When this card is played by a player after having gained it the first Appearance doesn't count but they usually still have a very powerful attack against. The other players. The game ends when the super villains are all gone or the main deck is gone.


Super villain




Vulnerability




Punch

That's the wrap on this game. Bye!

Weird alien queen design. Not my work


By Ashton

inFAMOUS 2

Hey people's. Today I'm blogging on another Playstation3 game. Here it goes.



The game for today is Infamous 2 styled inFAMOUS 2. The story is set after the events of Infamous. In The first game:

The main character Cole is a mailman and some sort of Bomb he is carrying goes off in the middle of fictional Empire City. The bomb gave Cole electricity based powers but a plague runs rampant through Empire City, gangs reign loose, the city is blocked off from the outside, and other people with powers cause havoc. You must save Empire City
(spoilers)
Eventually Cole meats Keslar, a man that turns out to be Cole in the future who married his girlfriend Trish. After they are married a powerful monster called the Beast comes to Earth. Cole refused to fight it and ran away with his family. The Beast eventually found him and killed his new wife and family before moving on to destroy the world. Keslar traveled back in time and used the bomb to give Cole stronger powers. Afterwards Keslar kills Trish in a insane attempt to have Cole destroy the Beast. At the end Cole swears to destroy the beast when it comes. Empire City is now safe.
In the second game:
The Beast comes to Empire City but Cole is not yet strong enough in his battle with it. A scientist escapes with him to Santa Maria to enhance his powers but Empire city is gone. Can Cole stop the beast?



The graphics are very nice. The explosions in the distance and the cars cole throws with electricity at enemies are all very crisp and clean. The story takes place in lifelike cutscenes and frequent flashbacks using a comic book style with very good art.



A comic cutscene from infamous.

The gameplay is amazing and for mainly this reason it makes infamous 2 my favorite game so far. In Santa Maria Cole must fight ruthless militia that think that the military is the worlds hope of stopping the beast. These men trie to kill Cole, mug citizens, and kill anyone who resists. He also has to fight the Beasts minions while further enhancing his powers.


A minion of the Beasts

Cole can heal civilians, stop muggings, knockout his enemies, and help the police for good karma points. Cole can also drain citizens of their life force to heal, attack cops, and kill his enemies for bad Karma points. Depending on your choices you lightning goes from a bright bluish-white to a blackish-red. Throughout the game your powers upgrade. If you have good karma you get things such as group heal which heals everyone nearby but if you have bad Karma you get things such as draining the life force of people nearby and detonating nearby electricity sources.


In the pause menu you can upgrade your abilities as well as see a map of America. The map shows you in Santa Maria and the beast slowly coming from Empire city towards you with a path of black destruction behind. The game is a freeroamer and you can travel through the city of Santa Maria which so far is a bigger territory to explore in Arkham city. If you don't know freeroaming means you can go wherever you want.The combat system is awesome. You have a melee weapon you can upgrade too which looks like a metal baseball bat with a transformer on one end.


Coles melee weapon called the Amp.

The Amp channels your electricity at enemies when you hit them. Holding R1 makes a sight appear in the middle of the screen, letting you shoot electricity balls, static grenades, and even a shockwave. Your character is an expert in urban exploration. He can scale a building and shoot the enemies explosives supply on the next rooftop taking them all out at once.



Cole racing super fast on a electrical wire





Cole attacking enemies.

I give Infamous 2 five stars. Keep in mind though that I have not fully finished the games I post in these reviews. Bye!


By Ashton

A jumper alien concept. Not my work.