Fallen Sword: A Quick Review

So to continue on with my latest trip, browser based MMO’s, I’m doing a quick review of the Browser based MMO Fallen Sword. I’ve played only for a little over a week, but the game is highly addictive. I’m only level 17 so there is still a lot of game I would like to see.


For a casual RPG game, I would rate this game 5 out of 5 stars.
Here is a very quick recap of what I liked about the game.


What I like

• The Game is easy, there is a somewhat clear path of quest to gain items
  
• It is easy to level up
  
• PvP is kept at +- 5 levels
  
• The graphic artistry is very good
  
• Like the items and the powers they provide
  
• Guild system is awesome
  

What Could Be Improved

• The map is kind of small, could be ajaxed
  
• Don’t like the Guild Text alerts.
  
• Group combat could be improved, obvious add in
  
• If you belong to powerful guild and are a low level character, things are too easy in combat
  
• Combat grind can be tedious
  
• Skill/Spell tree could be expanded
  
• Broken items are kind of a nag
  
• Could offer a live chat for guild
  
• There was kind of a gap where you had to grind through slowly at around level 8 and level 14 which might cause some players to drop (actually this gap is experienced a few latter on too, where you are to powerful for the monsters of your level but your are too low a level to do the next batch of quest).
  

What is Unique/Interesting

• No classes
  
• Can cast “skills” on other characters

For more info, go to fallensword.com

Flash 3D

I don't know HOW these guys did it, but they did. Here is a real time 3D Flash Engine. Yes...3D...in Flash, not Director, Flash.

http://www.electricoyster.com/

[Update]

Here might be what these guys are using for their 3D Engine-

http://www.flashsandy.org/

Age Of Conan: First Impressions

So I started playing Age of Conan with my wife (yes, she is a gamer...eat your heart out). So far I'm having a blast. If you are a hard core gamer I would recommend picking up the Age of Conan, but be warned, you need a pretty beefy box to run it on. My laptop, which is a dual core proc with a 256 meg dedicated graphics card gets only about 6-22 fps on the LOW settings in Conan. The game is still playable, but I wouldn't attempt playing it with anything less then a gaming rig that is a year or two old.

I'm running a 12th level Priest of Mitra on the Shadowbane shard called Lotharum. If you play say hi. I'm still poking around the city running minor quest. I figure I'll play 2 or 3 nights a week, so I don't expect to rise through the ranks all that quickly.

Game Tap

My fiance just got me a subscription to Game Tap for my birthday. For the price of one video game and change, you get access to a library of over a thousand games for a year. In my opinion GameTap is a must have for gamers. I thought the games would be older, and there is a lot of older games there, but there are newer ones, like CIV IV and some newer FPS.

Don't take my word for it, check it out yourself. www.gametap.com

Awesome List of Free and Free Trial Online RPG's

Check out this list of completely free and free trial rpg's.

The list is [HERE].

Dark Tower Online

Remember good old Dark Tower? I still lament the demise of my tower. It stopped working about 10 years ago, but I still have all the game pieces and parts so one day the tower can fixed and the glory of Dark Tower the board game can return.

Until then, you can get your Dark Tower fix by going [HERE].

Thanks Wakefield family, whoever you are!

D & D Fourth Edition Announced

I'd say that from about 6th grade to 12th grade I played role playing games on average of about 20 hours a week. Then in college I realized that playing D & D, Space Master, Gamma World, Car Wars, etc... weren't really helping myself meet members of the opposite sex, so I curtailed my RPG'ing somewhat. But I still love to play when I can.

So, it was interesting to me that AD & D lives on, and there is a new 4rth edition coming out.

Here is a video teaser of what to expect.




And here is a slashdot'ed blog post with a little more info on likely and rumored rule changes. Check that out [HERE]

One of the things that D & D has been plagued by is the argument that D & D in particular and RPG's in general promote occultism and pagan world views. I sometimes struggle with that. Most of the arguments I hear are B.S., but this article brings up a few good points. I think RPG's, along with music, tv, new age philosophies, have all had a huge and I hate to admit generally negative impact on our culture.

But you decide, read Chick's take [HERE].

Remember Talisman?

Talisman was a cool fantasy board game that I played quiet a few times. If you used all the expansion sets it got a little tedious (average game could go on for most of the day) yet the artwork and game concept were awesome.

In going through my favorites archive I found a link that has the scoop about Talisman from the game's original author. I thought some of you retro gamers might enjoy this.

So [HERE] is the link.

Old School: Wing Commander Animated Show

I was having a trip down memory lane today, so on a whim I looked up wing command on wikipedia.org. Wing Command was one of the best game franchises IMHO that was ever created. So I browsed, and low and behold there apparently was an animated series based on Wing Commander! I knew about the movie (which kinda blew...sorry to say) but I had never heard of the cartoon. Better yet, the wikipedia article referenced www.wcnews.com, where you can download episodes!


I haven't watched any yet, so I can't vouch for em, but you can access them [HERE].