There are very few collectible trading card games for mobile platforms and even fewer that are good. Order & Chaos Duels is a great game but does throw up the In-App Purchase wall very quickly.
This game is fun and easy to learn compared to other mobile TCGs. If you have a background with Magic: The Gathering or any TCG, you’re at an advantage but it’s not necessary since the tutorial does a decent job of explaining how things work.
The goal is simple: Bring the opposing hero to zero health. In a very basic explanation, you have two main phases; your casting phase and your attacking phase. Your casting phase is where you place your minions, cast spells or discard a card to increase your mana pool. Then you have the attack phase where minions either attack the adjacent minion or the opposing hero.
Before you even get into a match, you’ll pick the race and profession of your hero. Unfortunately all you can read is a very basic synopsis of how the hero works. You can’t read the hero’s ability until you get into a match. Also if you accidentally click the hero twice you’ll select the hero and there is no going back. You can’t delete a hero.
To progress in any TCG, you want better cards. In O&C Duels, you gain new cards by playing through the campaign or spending gold or runes. Other than the campaign cards, which seem to fit in your deck, the ones you buy are always random and may or may not help you. It’s a shame that Gameloft doesn’t allow players to pick what type of card they want to buy, even if that means getting a really bad card. It’s better to get a terrible card that syncs with your deck than feel like you wasted gold or runes on a card you can’t use.
The campaign in Order & Chaos Duels is fun but eventually you’ll hit what I like to call ‘the new card wall’; you just can’t beat the next NPC until you get better cards. So the game forces you to pillage other players or go head-to-head in an online multiplayer match to earn gold and runes. Or what Gameloft really wants you to do: Buy runes from the store. If you don’t go the purchase route, you’re in for a really long grind. If you do decide to buy some runes, get ready to fork over some serious cash: $100 for 10,050 runes which equals to 50 new rare or epic cards and 150 common cards. Enough to keep you competitive for a long time if you’re lucky those cards sync with your deck, but are you willing to dish out a hundred bucks on a mobile game?
Order & Chaos Duels sets the standard for mobile TCGs with a great campaign and awesome visual effects for each card ability, but Gameloft makes the grind for new cards really long and asks too much money to buy them. In the end, after about a month of grinding O&C Duels sits on my phone untouched.
Got to give credit where credit is due; Nintendo’s PR department putting real Miis out in the real world is simply awesome!
First the Miis where caught running around Toronto, now they’re back for a snow day at Whistler Blackcomb. I must say it’s pretty cool public relations tactic to have the Miis out and about mingling with all us normal-sized heads.
Posted on January 8th, 2013 under Games
Tags: Raptr
If you haven’t heard about it, Raptr allows you to track all your video gaming escapades; from achievements to time played. You can have some real fun with this website!
Other than beating out your friends for top-spot in a video game, another fun part of the website is customizing the message that shares the game you just started playing.
To do this, log into Raptr.com. Once you’re inside, hover over your username on the top right to see the drop-down menu. Click Settings from the list, then Sharing & Privacy from the left side. Change the text where it says, “When I start playing a game, share this status text”. Keep in mind “%g” will change to the game you start playing.
Let’s see if you can come up with some more clever messages than these:
Are bugs and glitches common place in today’s games?
First I must say that Black Ops II is a great Call of Duty game. It changes things up enough to make it feel like a new experience than the original Black Ops. The story is great (or at least to the part I got to, more on that later). It’s well written and, although the graphics look more cartoony than Modern Warfare, the voice acting is well done too. It’s also great to see Michael Rooker play a good guy after three seasons of playing the evil Merle Dixion on The Walking Dead.
To understand the problem we must realize that many developers — including Treyarch and Infinity Ward — are stuck to a strict deadline by their publishers. The publishers are the ones that have the big pocketbooks, so they make the rules. In this case both of the Call of Duty developers have two years to create a new spin on the franchise. Modern Warfare 3 was an unbelievable failure; it was the same game as the previous Modern Warfare 2. But Treyarch saw the future of technology and gave us futuristic weapons and gadgets; something that makes the game feel… new.
Now the problem with having a deadline to push out a game, other than limited time to come up with a new idea on an already played out franchise, is not every bug gets addressed. There is just no time.
During a recent mission in the campaign my gun went invisible so I had to run around hip-firing, which is difficult but doable. After completing the mission, I watched the next cut-scene and was ready to get back into it — with a gun — when the game went green:
Green Ops 2?
So I haven’t been able to go any further in an otherwise enjoyable story. Shame. There is always multiplayer though. Unfortunately there are some glitches there too.
I usually play split-screen with my brother (I know, damn those split-screeners!) who has his own Xbox Live account. Nine times out of 10 I’m first player and he’s second. Now I wouldn’t think this would make any difference but for some reason it does; he can’t see any new emblems or calling cards. All he can see are the ones I unlock even though he hasn’t for his account. Weird, right? It’s annoying to see “New” plastered all over the emblems and calling card screen and you can’t get rid of them unless given first player.
That’s not all. Another small glitch is the ‘helicopter blade’; the nickname we’ve given the bug where, what looks like a helicopter blade flashes on the screen distracting you from the action. We’ve been able to tune it out after multiple games but it’s still annoying.
So, I ask it again: Is bug and glitches acceptable in today’s games? Have we just come to terms that we spend $60 on a game that isn’t complete? Are we OK with update after update to fix said bugs?
Have you ever thought about the poor families of those mushroom-looking creatures before you stomp on them as Mario?
Think about it. The Goombas are minding their own business when this red-capped plumber shows up stomping on all of their friends and relatives! He even threatens to kill your King!
This video shows just how much of a tyrant Mario is and the sad life of a Goomba.
So before you go stompin’ those Goombas in your next adventure in Mushroom Kingdom, think about the poor families!
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