Apple approved War 3100 1.2 today and it is now available on the App Store.

If you are a current owner, download the update today.  I you haven't bought it yet, now is a great time!

The following updates have been made to War 3100 and the version is in review by Apple now awaiting release to the App Store.

- Music On / Off Toggle in options

- Speed up move square selection

- Default name set to NoName from <Player Name>

- Remove spaces from Player names so high scores can be uploaded

- Fix mini-map bug in map editor

- Introduce "Quick Path" option in options to ignore valid path checking

- Added more info to leaderboard upload and display out of game

- Faster path finding!

- Units will not be able to attack if there is nothing near to attack

- Shrinking the two owner panels so they do not get in the visual way (touch to shrink or expand)

- Units cost twice as much to build

- Bombers have a shorter attack range but do more damage

- AA Jeeps do more damage

- Units try to drop on roads first so they don't drop into a field unless there is no room

- Bombers can't shoot other planes

- You can't see the mini-map or mission description for a mission you haven't completed yet

- You can push through other units when moving!

- Help message box appears more quickly

- UI elements slide into place more quickly

- Units target and fire more quickly

- New turn graphics appears more quickly

War 3100 for the iPhone continues to be on sale at only $1.99.  Pick up this 24 mission packed game when you get the chance.

War 3100 for the iPhone is on sale this weekend for $1.99, down from the normal price of $2.99.  Get it while it's hot!

Exisled Box Art

Exisled for the XBox 360 Indie Games Channel has gone on sale from a list price of 400 points to a sale price of 240 points.  Pick it up today!

Demigod Giants Fighting

Rating:

Review by Gamer Outfit

I picked up Demigod today and thought I'd give it a try.  I always like playing RTS games in co-op mode with a friend of mine and Demigod seemed to be worth looking at.  I bought it through Stardock, the online distribution system similar to Steam and Direct2Drive.  The one difference with Stardock is that they do not use digital rights management, yay!  This means no nasty rootkits or strange restrictions on how many PC's I can install the game on.  Considering I personally have over 6 machines this is a good thing.  I have a laptop that rarely moves, one that travels with me, another for travel that is non-work, two desktops (that I actively use), and a slew of other machines.  As you can guess, having a limit on how many machines I can install a game on is a pain in the rear.  Anyways, I digress….

I downloaded and installed Demigod and had to do the usual Visual changes to crank everything up to 1920×1200 with max settings to accommodate my Radeon 4950 card along with my quad core machine and 4GB of RAM.  I don't have a "killer" rig by any means but I can play all modern games in HD.  I was greeted with a typical menu, selected Multiplayer, and then Internet to play with my friend.  Here's where the only real trouble started.  It wouldn't accept my Stardock username/password.  My friend went to three different websites, entering in my email address and hitting the "lost credentials" button, while I was busy trying different logins in the game.  Well, lo and behold, after the third website it sent me the right credentials via email.  The humorous part here is that the game sent me three different usernames from three different websites.  Stardock now uses a tool called Impulse for their launcher and it has it's own website.  Stardock has it's own website, and even Demigod has it's own website.  While Stardock is great on customer service they could use some technology help to coordinate their user databases a bit better. 

My buddy started up a multiplayer game, with a password, and I joined it rather seamlessly.  He has a great machine and Internet setup so we had no problems connecting.  He does have some hardware firewalls though (not routers) but these didn't cause any problems.  Kudos to Gas Powered Games, who makes Demigod, for that!  There are two sides in the battle, Dark versus Light.  You play the game arena style but with unit control that is akin to Warhammer 40,000.  The game actually reminded me a lot of Warhammer 40,000 in that you don't build a base or defenses per se but rather spend points to upgrade exisitng structures throughout the game.

For the entire game you control one unit and one unit only and that is your giant Demigod.  Some of them suck really bad while others appear to not suck as bad, at first anyway.  I'm sure they are all great in their own right but after playing the poison ivy lady for about one minute I asked for a game restart.  She died in two seconds and did almost nothing damage wise.  Anyways, you move your Demigod around the map and spend you time capturing flags, killing little minions from the other side, fighting other Demigods, and destroying their defensive towers along the way.  Did I mention that you have a constant stream of minions pour out from your base to attack the other side as well?  Yeah, you do.  During the whole game you have minions that spawn at your warp gates (in your base and around the map) that go about doing their own thing in their quest to destroy the other side.  It's pretty cool in that you don't have to control them, but it is a far departure from "normal" RTS games where you control everything.

Demigod Skill Tree

As you go about your merry way, destroying all in your path, you also gain gold and experience points.  You eventually level up and can select new skills or attributes to go along with your newfound levels.  This is where Demigod customization comes into play as you pick the path you want to follow as you level up your Demigod.  If you play the giant castly thingy (the Rook,) for example, you can choose to start with the ability to raise lightning towers out of the ground.  Or, you could start with a giant hammer attack.  Or, you could start with the ability to suck the life force out of enemy buildings.  All three choices greatly affect how you play the Demigod and help make the game exciting.  Of course this also means that the wrong choices can slow things down for you and be a pretty big bummer, but live and learn I always say.  You also earn Favor, which I haven't quite figured out yet, that lets you buy amulets and other special abilities for your Demigod.

The gold you collect in the game is used to buy upgrades for your Cathedral (or base) back home.  With the upgrades you can purchase more minions to spawn (warriors, priests that heal, creatures that catapult rocks, etc.)  You can also buy armor, weapon, health, and other upgrades that help out your army along the way.  The only slightly annoying thing here is that you have to go back to your base to upgrade it.  If your Demigod dies, which will happen quite often against Hard computer opponents, you have a free chance to upgrade the place while you are there but if you are kicking along and don't die, you will find that you need to make a trip back home just to update the place.  I found it somewhat annoying but not a deal breaker.

There are heal spots around on different maps and flags you capture that give army health bonuses, bonuses to defense, etc.  I also forgot to mention that you can't just spam the special powers of your Demigod.  They are all on cool-down timers aka World of Warcraft and other games so you have to time when and where to use certain abilities.

The computer is fairly fun to play against.  It does not adjust it's AI though between Easy, Medium, and Hard.  All it does is increase how much money it has and how many hit points it gives to hit's Demigods.  That's actually kind of lame in my playbook and a bit of a cop-out on the developer's part but I can see how they probably devoted few resources to a smart computer opponent.  At least they don't cheat too blatantly (Empire Earth, I'm looking at you!)  There are plenty of arenas to choose from and the graphics are gorgeous all around.  I usually talk about the graphics sooner but when it comes to RTS games I must say that I don't care all that much personally.  I just want a fun game.  In the end Demigod delivers very well in the graphics and sound arena (although my Rook is VERY loud when walking around.)

If you are looking for something different to play in the RTS genre then Demigod is worth checking it.  It's not OMGROFLCOPTER fun, but it is a fun game.

War3100 ($2.99 USD) has made it's way to the the App Store and is a premiere turn based strategy games available on the iPhone and iPod Touch.  The game has been in development for close to a year and the first version of it is now available to the public.

War 3100 is the sci-fi turn-based strategy game that pits you against the computer in 24 action packed missions.  You discover new and exciting military units to use in your quest to colonize the planet and defeat the Vargu as you progress through the missions.

A Scorpion Tank is Called Down From Orbit

Use more than a dozen unit types you discover to fight on land, sea, and in the air and call on special powers such as shield generators and bomb-bots to destroy the enemy.

Play each mission on three different difficulty levels to ease your way into the game and even use the built-in map editor to create your own maps.  If you are very successful at the game your stories of conquest will be shared with others on the Global Leaderboard that is accessible in-game.

War3100 stands apart from the others with the unique features of the units and it's siege system.  Download War3100 and start playing today!

Some features of War 3100

• 24 Missions
• 17 Unit types
• 3 AI difficulty levels
• Built in map editor
• Global leaderboard
• Skirmish mode to play on your own maps
• Shields, bombs, and repair commands
• Terrain bonuses for combat and movement
• Vehicle, Naval, and Air armor and weapon types
• Siege system to capture drop pads
• Local play versus another human
• Website with play manual and community forums

We started development on War3100 close to a year ago and plan to keep adding to it well into the future now that the first version has been released.  Please join us on our forums at www.War3100.com and let us know what you would like to see in the next release.

You can also find the complete game manual on the forums as well as information on any issues users find with the game that we will address in future releases.

Pick it up today!

Dawn of Discovery

Dawn of Discovery, published by Ubisoft, was released the other day and promises to delivery a multi-taskers dream according to the review at Gamespot.

I read the review and thought to myself, "Wow, this sounds like the perfect game for me!"  I love simulation games where you have to trade with others, develop a civilization, keep people happy, build a war machine, and also handle diplomacy.  It gets even better when building my civilization means researching new types of things to build, working with the constraints of the land, etc.

So, I went to the website and looked at the $49.99 USD game and thought it looked great.  The ONLY thing it was really missing was multiplayer mode.  I love playing these games co-op with my wife and this was a major bummer.  But, I figured, why not if it has everything thing else I want in a game.  So, I bought it through Steam and had it running a few hours later (had to download and install it.)

Well, the very first thing I noticed is this is really the next version of 1701 A.D., another one of my favorite simulation games of all time but from Aspyr (studio name.)  I find this interesting since 1701 A.D. was multiplayer and my wife and I loved playing it together in co-op mode.  It had some end-game problems but was and still is one of the best looking simulation games I keep on my hard-drive.  We even bought the "Gold" edition the other day but can't figure out what it offers in all reality.

So, after playing the game for a few minutes, and releazing this is really 1701 A.D. but better, I found several new features and functions.  I have to build roads to my houses now for example, something I "cheated" with and didn't have to do before.  I also have tons more things to build.  AND, the game looks freakin' amazing.  1701 A.D. was one of the best looking games I ever played and somehow, Dawn of Discovery looks even better.  They must have a team of the most talented artists and programmes around on-staff because the game is gorgeous.

I'm still playing the game and will let you know how it all turns out.  For now, it looks great and it's a new version of 1701 A.D. I'll let you know more in the future after I've had the chance to beat it at a full game.  In fact, I may go play it right now.

So, I've been waiting for what seems like forever for an update to the military simulator called Armed Assault II, for the PC.

If you ever played Armed Assault 1 you know that ArmA is not your typical "run and gun shooter."  It has bullet drop, "realistic" movement for going prone, no super HUD to show you the world, etc.  It goes so far as to even require you to use a compass to see which direction you are headed, and you can forget a mini-map unless you are playing on beginner mode.

Armed Assault I was super buggy and it took about 6 months of patching to be playable.  It's not a US game so they don't quite release on the same schedule as what we are used to in the United States.  Once you could actually play the game it was an absolute blast though.  ArmA can be modded for almost anything and there is a very active modding community to make all sorts of co-op games, pvp games, and even RTS style games from the engine.

Unfortunately, ArmA is almost full of a ton of asshats.  I don't know what their problem is but they think it's fun to join servers and make other people's lives miserable.  I can understand griefing people in an MMORPG, but in an FPS?  Come on guys, exploting servers with known hacks requires very small IQs and doesn't do anything for you anyway.

Anyways, I digress.  ArmA II just came out, on Steam I might add, and so far is a blast to play.  It has some bugs but isn't in the horrible state that ArmA 1 was in.  ArmA II also looks AMAZING.  I have a Quad Core Intel 9550, with 4 GBs of RAM, and a ATI 4890 and the game runs in full 1920×1200, with anti-aliasing, and with everything cranked up, and looks and plays very well.  I love to fly the jets around and have my view distance set at 10,000 with no problems.

Movement is much more fluid in Arma2 (A2 from here on out) than in A1 and everything just "feels" better.  A2 also supports the TrackIR system from Natural Point just like A1 does.  I have a TrackIR and I must say that it makes a huge difference in games that support it.  TrackIR lets you move your head around without moving your body.  You can do this in ArmA 1 and 2 with the ALT key, but having a head-tracking device to do it makes a huge difference.  Looking around while you are flying is just one of the advantages it offers.

In the end, Arma II looks a plays amazingly.  There are still several bugs in the missions and you will find plenty of jerks in non-password protected games, but it's a fun game.  I expect that it will be very polished and a lot more fun in another 3-6 months after people have had time to work out the bugs in the mods.  If you are looking for a group to challenge or play with, come check out Sturmgrenadier at www.sghq.com.  We have a non-cheating or griefing policy and can at least offer you a fair time.

WAR 3100
"The iPhone and iPod Turn Based Stategy game to own"