Diablo 3 - Stats/Damage General Information

With the recent release of Diablo 3, thousands of fans - both new and old - have been running through Sanctuary, trying to push back the darkness. It was very surprising to me that many of my friends that have been logging hours into Diablo 3 still didn't know much about the basic mechanics of the game.

It's pretty easy to get through the Normal difficulty mode without knowing a thing about how stats work and what "DPS" means, but once you hit the higher difficulties it becomes quite a challenge if you have no idea what you're doing. So, here I am to help with some general information about how some pretty basic game mechanics work.

Before I get into stats, two very important things you should do first (if you haven't already) are:

1. Turn on elective mode. It's in the gameplay options somewhere, and it allows you to put any skill in any skill slot. You can make a pretty average build without doing this, but if you want to be as effective as possible, you'll definitely want to map any skill to any key.

2. Turn on advanced tooltips. I honestly don't know why this is off in the first place. With this turned on, if you hover over your skills it will tell you how much damage is does (For example, it will say "This skill does 110% of your weapon damage"), and without this it will simply tell you what the skill looks like. Also, it tells you some extra information about weapons, like if it gives you more damage or not. In other words, it tells you information you need to know, and I don't understand why it's an option to have these tooltips off anyways.

After having those two options enabled, you will probably already find yourself better able to kill the demons around you. However, there are still some more pretty important tips that the average gamer should know:

Stats

Diablo 3 has 4 main stats: Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and Intelligence.

Each class has a primary stat. Raising your classes primary stat is the most important way to increase your damage, because for each point of the primary stat you have, you get 1% more damage.

Strength- This stat is the primary stat for Barbarians. So, if you are playing a Barbarian, 1 Strength = 1% more damage. This stat also increases your armor, so for every 1 point in strength that you have (regardless of your class), you gain exactly 1 armor.

Dexterity- This stat is the primary stat for Demon Hunters and Monks. So, if you are playing either of those classes, each point in Dexterity will give you 1% more damage. This stat also increases your percent chance to block (Again, regardless of your class), and the amount of block percent that you gain is based on how much dexterity you have (I will find a small chart and link it here if possible, but I believe from 1-100 dexterity you get 0.1% block, 100-500 you get 0.025% block, and it keeps decreasing in this way).

Vitality- This stat is not the primary stat for any class, however it is still extremely important and invaluable. Every 1 point of dexterity is equal to 10 points of health. This seems like it's not a big deal, but later in the game you find armor and weapons with +500 or more of each stat, and 5000 health is nothing to laugh at. Especially because in the hardest difficulty, Inferno mode, you will get 1- or 2-shotted regardless of how many thousands of health points you have.

Intelligence- This stat is the primary stat for Wizards and Witch Doctors. Again, for these classes, 1 Intelligence = 1% more damage. This stat also increases all resistances by 0.1 for each point in Intelligence that you have (regardless of your class). There is a formula for how armor and resistance affects your damage reduction %, but to put it easily: 1 armor provides the same damage reduction that 0.1 in all resistances provides. 

So, at the end of the day, all stats are very important for any class. The classes primary stat will want to be your focus for most of the game, with Vitality second, but it's important to not forget about the other two stats that will definitely increase your chances of survival.

Damage

Maximizing damage is very important to survival in Sanctuary. Monsters hurt you, so it's natural that you want to hurt them back. The most important thing to remember when trying to maximize your damage is balance. In order to get the most out of your gear, you'll need to make sure your damage per second (DPS) and primary stat are being balanced. 

If you have very low DPS (Lets say, 10), but you have 1000 of your primary stat, your damage is 10 * 1000%, which is only 100 damage total. If you have a more balanced build though, with say 50 DPS and 500 of your primary stat, your damage is 50 * 500%, which is 250 damage.

I will post some slightly more advanced tips soon, so look out for that coming up in the next few days. I feel that these tips are very basic things that even casual gamers should know, in order to save yourself a lot of frustration and so you can feel super OP while you're bashing demons on normal mode*.

 

*You'll have to trust me though when I say you won't feel OP for long - Normal mode makes the game look too easy, but as soon as you hit later Nightmare mode and especially once you get into Hell mode, you will die a lot.

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Recent Gaming News

DCU Online: Licensing Console Games?

DC Universe Online, the popular new MMORPG published by Sony Online Entertainment, is much different from other console games you own. What's the difference? In order to play it, you need to license the game, much like one does with the purchase of certain PC titles, limiting the number of people that can own or play it.

From second you type in that license key, the value of your copy of DCUO instantly plummets, rendering it virtually useless to any other gamer. In addition to affecting consumer resale, this requirement means DCUO is essentially un-rentable by major services like GameFly.

Of course, the game itself is unaffected, but a word of warning to anybody who wishes to purchase it: Don't bother purchasing this title if you only wanted to play it for a few weeks and then planned on selling it.

EA's CEO talks about Dead Space 3 and Battlefield 3

EA's CEO, John Riccitiello, recently discussed the success of Dead Space 2 which shipped over 2 million units the first month, comparing its success to the success of the original Dead Space. Riccitiello claims Dead Space 2 sold double the number of copies Dead Space did in the same number of weeks. Regarding the cause of these burgeoning sales, Riccitiello says “It's an example of how we can take a key intellectual property, put it in the marketplace, and then build on it. Games with 2s, 3s, and 4s behind them almost always sell better than the original launch edition."

EA publishes many popular game franchises, such as Madden, FIFA, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, and Dragon Age, all of which could be strategically expanded on. But how far would EA go when it comes to reproducing a series iteration and sticking a new number after it?

Lets face it, Battlefield 3 could just be Battlefield 2 with better graphics and with the Bad Company 2 Frostbyte engine, and it would still make a ton of money. Hopefully, EA is better than that. The company is good at what it does, and it seems unlikely that EA will fall into this trap at any point in time in the near future. My recommendation? If you enjoy EA’s franchises, don’t be hesitant to support them until the end product shows the same level of milking as Activision’s Call of Duty series..

Sony's S1 tablet?

Last month Sony announced Playstation Suite, a new program that will be introduced to Android devices. Along with making a program that will run Playstation 1 games on your Android, Sony is developing a tablet, code-named the S1, running a custom version of the Android Honeycomb. The device will have a 9.4” screen, with a 1240 x 800 pixel display, and will rival Apple's iPad.

The S1 device will be compatible with the Playstation Suite program, and will allegedly come preloaded with some Playstation 1 titles, and will have some Remote Play connectivity with the PS3. The S1 will also have a USB port, unlike the iPad, and will be initially priced at $599. Not much else is known about the S1, but from the information that is available, it seems like it will be the perfect iPad rival. If I had the money, I would definitely buy one of these because Sony is known for its high quality products.

Steam controls the PC Market

Almost every single gamer, PC or console, knows what Steam is. The reason is because Steam owns 50-70% of the PC gaming market. Last October, Valve predicted its year-over-year growth to be 200%.

Steam is so popular for many reasons, mostly because Steam is extremely mod-friendly. One of the motivations to be a PC gamer is that you have the ability to edit the game itself, which you aren't able to do (or at least, aren't able to do easily) with console games. Not only is Steam amazing for the PC gamers, but also for the game developers. On Steam, publishers get 70% gross margin, while if they retailed the game, they would only get 30%.

Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, claims his company, per employee, is more profitable than Apple or Google. For PC gamers, this means you are sure to be getting your moneys worth if you buy games from the Steam Marketplace. So many games are offered through Steam, and Steam boasts an easy-to-use interface. Even Indie game fans will find tons of titles they will enjoy on the Steam Market. Steam also sells many games for a low price, and offer discounts all the time.

Games that are years old, such as Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike: Source still receive updates extremely frequently, and that proves Valve's dedication to the gaming community. My advice is to support Steam games and their developers, and Steam will continue to dominate the PC gaming market, and soon will even tap even more into the console gaming market. Steam has been and will continue to dominate the PC gaming community, and it's a great thing.

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Black Ops Commentator: WhiteBoy7thst

WhiteBoy7thst

Who is he?

WhiteBoy7thst is a YouTube commentator for Call of Duty: Black Ops. Not only does he commentate his Black Ops gameplays, he also vlogs daily and listens to his subscribers requests, which is quite rare in the YouTube community. Many of the Call of Duty commentators on YouTube are the same, and just talk about how amazing they are at the game and how epic their 39-1 gameplay is. WhiteBoy, however, is different.

Why is WhiteBoy interesting?

Like I stated above, WhiteBoy is very different from the common kill-whoring commentators that take up 99% of YouTube's Call of Duty commentating community. Unlike popular names like WingsofRedemption, WhiteBoy plays the objective. He generally plays Ground War, and most of his gameplays are Domination. He still gets good scores, but obviously he doesn't post tons of flawless gameplays. His games however are enjoyable because his goal isn't to get a massive killstreak and pwn the enemy team, but to win the game, and has inspired other commentators to also post gameplays where their objective is to win. Although this isn't everybody's cuppa tea, I personally enjoy it a lot more than watching somebody camp in a building the whole game and use a chopper gunner to get 30 kills.

Not only are his Black Ops gameplays more interesting than the average commentator, but he also doesn't just talk about the game. Many commentators will just say “So yeah, as you can see here, I walked around the corner and shot the guy before he shot me, then turned around and got a 360 no scope on some noob because I'm really good” but WhiteBoy doesn't do that. This can be seen as a good or bad thing, but WhiteBoy tends to just talk about everything but the gameplay. He'll tell some story about something interesting or funny or something interesting that happened in his life recently. If, however, you do enjoy him talking about his gameplay, WhiteBoy does something extremely frequently that most commentators do very rarely:

Live Commentaries?!?

WhiteBoy is “famous” for his massive amounts of live commentaries that he posts. He has live commentaries playing Nazi Zombies, he has a Road to Commander series (for those that don't know what it is, it's a live commentary of every/almost every gameplay between level 1 and 50 for some prestige), and he posts live High Roller gameplays all the time. Not only that, but he also has a series where he plays high roller in a fucking gillie suit. Talk about epic. His live commentaries contain a ton of shit talk, all in good fun of course, because he also isn't very serious about the game and likes to pretend to rage often.

If you're interested in a commentator that not only post great gameplays that are mostly objective based, who shit talks up the wazoo, and who talks about something other than Call of Duty (and also occasionally posts non-CoD videos on his main channel, as he also has a second vlogging channel), WhiteBoy7thst is definitely somebody you should check out. A word of warning, however, is that his voice is slightly annoying, but get over it god dammit, give him a try before you decide WhiteBoys style isn't for you.

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Assassins Creed Brotherhood: Game Review

Welcome to the Brotherhood 

   I would like to start off by saying that Assassins Creed Brotherhood isn't necessarily the Assassins Creed 3 we have been waiting for. Supposedly Assassins Creed 3 won't even be coming out in the next couple of years. Secretly I'm praying nightly that it's a giant rumor and it's right around the corner, but who knows?

The Story 

   Assassins Creed Brotherhood picks up where Assassins Creed 2 left off. You're still controlling Ezio, however this time you are only in Rome and don't travel around to different places. And, since everyone loved the "town" system in AC2 where you bought and upgraded things for Monteriggioni (I spelled that right on the first try, whaddup?), you get to do the same thing, but instead you're opening shops around Rome and buying all the ancient buildings for some reason. I feel like this was kind of sloppy, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember them really giving a solid reason for having to reopen the shops and buy things like the Coliseum, besides saying "lul da bad guiz taked ov3r ur sity nd u got 2 kill dem to take it bak 4 the ppl." I feel like they just could have come up with some other reason that made more sense I guess. Why would the Borgia people close the shops in the first place and why should a random assassin have to buy them back?

   However, despite some things that seem just thrown in there to make the game similar to AC2, the gameplay is still pretty fun. The story and the things that happen make sense. Ezio has to go through these memory sequences because memory sequence 9 has something important in it. Since they can't randomly access memory sequence 9, you have to "live" through all of them I guess. The first couple are tutorial sequences basically, and get you used to using the Mercenaries, Thieves, and the Courtesans. I really, really like the Courtesans, they're definitely the best out of the three. The story is fun and refreshing because it's not the same place as AC2 was, and I didn't feel like it was boring at all. On a scale of 1 - 10, 1 being Modern AssShit 2 and 10 being The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I'd rate Assassins Creed Brotherhood at about a 6. And since Ocarina of Time was so epic, it's rare for a game to get in the 8/9/10 range, so really anything above a 4 is worth playing 40-60 dollars for.

The Multiplayer 

   Wait, ACB has multiplayer? It seems like it would be weird to have multiplayer for this kind of game, but hey, multiplayer accessibility sells and I'm sure Ubisoft knew that. They, however, didn't just make some strange wanna-be Call of Duty with assassins, they made an entirely knew multiplayer experience which is just downright fucking awesome. I don't want to talk too much about what exactly is in the multiplayer, but if you click here you can check out a YouTube video by the one and only WiNGSPANTT which is a video of one of the game modes, and he commentates and gives a lot of tips and tricks. This multiplayer is definitely one of the most fun multiplayer experiences I've ever had. I'm pretty sure I've played more ACB online then Black Ops, because this multiplayer really doesn't get boring and it's different every time. It's much more relaxed too and not as competitive, you don't have try-hard caring about things like KDR and people trying to make cool montage clips for their pathetic YouTube channel.

All in all, buy this game despite the fact that your friends may say "but wat abot black opz?", because it's totally worth it. And also, if you don't buy it you will die a slow, painful death from my slow-acting poison. 

 

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PSN Game Review: Castle Crashers

I never really got into PSN Games much until pretty recently. And since most of the games are small, the reviews will be small, but hopefully they will provide enough information for you to be able to decide whether or not you actually want to buy the game. First on the list...

CASTLE CRASHERS

   Castle Crashers is made by The Behemoth, a developer I had never heard of before. This game originally was only out on the Xbox, until August 2010. As soon as it game out for the PS3, I bought it right away, and it was $15 dollars well spent. Castle Crashers is a side-scrolling beat-em-up type game with many unlockable characters.

   The game is set in a medieval world, and you play as a knight saving some princesses stolen by some evil guys (what else is new?). Although the back story is kind of basic, simplistic, and done a million times before, that still doesn't stop the beating up of monsters from being really fun. The game features up to 4-player Co-op, and also can be played online with other people.

   This game does have replayability unlike a lot of PSN games have, because when you beat the game with one of the four starting characters, you unlock a new character depending on which starting character you used. And there's also a third 'tier' of characters to unlock by beating the game with the character you unlocked after being the game the first time. Wait what? If you're confused, just click here for a playable characters flow chart to make both of our lives easier.

   For $15, this hack and slash cartoon-y game is well worth it. The developers definitely had fun with this one, as there are quite a few funny scenes/bosses/levels that you have to go through. Trust me, you'll know what I mean when you play the game. Oh, and I'd also like to mention that it isn't the easiest game in the world. Some of the bosses can be quite difficult, especially if you play alone (Although sometimes playing with others can make boss fights more difficult... cough cough bad connections cough cough). And the game also features an Insane Mode, which is extremely difficult. But hey, you get a trophy/achievement for it, so it's great for the trophy whores such as myself. Definitely go out and buy this game now, you won't regret it.

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Black Ops: Tactics (Part 1)

Going from Casual to Hardcore - Tips to Up Your Game

Alright, everybody who plays video games knows (or should know) that there are casual players who play for fun, don't care about things like KDR or achievements, or about the game mechanics. Then, there are the players that usually are pretty good at the game- they know a lot about the game, they play it often, they have good KDRs (or at least care about what their KDR is). Also, many people want to make the jump from casual to hardcore, yet they still suck at the game. Well, I'm going to give a few tips to possibly help these people get at least slightly better at this game (And these tips will apply to games outside of Black Ops as well).

I myself am not a pro at Blops, but I still have some tips to help people out:

GUN STATS

If you really want to get good at the game- Learn the gun stats. I talked about this briefly in my other rant/review of Blops. It's very easy to find the gun stats for any of the Call of Duty games online, because people with the PC version just go into the files and search them for these gun stats. Learning the actual damage the gun does (Not what the little damage bar in-game says) and its range is a great help and will definitely improve your game. You will learn that some guns are just simply way more effective with certain attachments, for example the M16 with an ACOG scope has much less recoil than without it. After learning that, I tried it out, and sure enough, I was much better with the M16 and it was more usable with the reduced recoil.

MAP KNOWLEDGE

Learn the maps. This is a tip that is universal for any multiplayer games. It sounds like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised at the amount of people that still don't know their way around the maps after playing for a long time. Go into Combat Training, look around the map and learn it. Learn spots to snipe from, learn where you can be sniped from, find good spots for hiding, and all of that good stuff. You will be much better at the game when you know the maps better then you know the back of your own hand.

REVIEW YOUR GAMEPLAYS 

Review your theater clip matches. Did you go 20-35 last game, and wonder how you could suck so much? Go into theater mode and look it over. Did you do that poorly because of lag, or because you can't aim for shit? Did the guy who killed you find a sneaky way to flank you? Being able to see what other players do can definitely help improve your game. And also, if you're in a match where somebody had a really good game, you can check out what they did to achieve that and maybe pick up a few strategies like where to go at the start of the match. There's much to learn from watching other people play, which brings me to my last tip for now...

WATCH THE PROS

Watch commentators on YouTube. Just search for Black Ops gameplay, and I'm sure you will find a lot. My personal favorite is WhiteBoy7thst, but there are hundreds. Generally these guys are good at the game, and commentate about strategies they use and certain things that they did in that gameplay. I've picked up countless tips this way, and it significantly helps you get better at the game. There are also people on YouTube like zzirGrizz who have videos on map tutorials. Essentially he spends his time finding spots to throw tomahawks and shoot ballistic knifes from to hit certain flags on Domination or certain bombs in Sabotage/SnD, and watching those map tutorials can give you an extra edge. He also shows some 'secret' places, where you've probably seen people before but had no idea how to get there.

ARE YOU READY TO IMPROVE YOUR GAME?

Now it's your turn to go out and try out what you've learned. These tips have helped me greatly to become a better gamer, and things like learning the maps and watching YouTube commentators can help you with any multiplayer game. Personally I also love Assassins Creed: Brotherhood (A review for that will be coming up soon), and learning the maps helps a lot in that game although there's no bots mode to do it in. And there are plenty of YouTube commentators (Such as WiNGSPANTT) who make gameplay videos that also include tips for many games, and I'm sure there's a commentator out there who you will enjoy.

Thanks for reading this post, if you actually find them helpful please leave a comment.

Ninjalemon (http://ninjalemonreviews.blogspot.com/)

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Black Ops Review/Rant

Alright, well this blog is new, Black Ops is relatively new, so I may as well write a review about this game first.

Black Ops is by no means a bad game, it's fun to play for me. However Treyarch (aka 3arc) seems to have done a pretty sloppy job in the technical aspects of the game. Sure, the game looks nice, and the multiplayer has a whole new Wager Match mode and all of that good stuff, but the games non-visible aspects seem to be lacking.

For example, the anti-lag. The anti-lag coding has been the same ever since Call of Duty 4, and this is definitely a bad thing. Anti-lag itself is a good thing, there is some lag compensation so you don't actually have to lead a lagging target to get hit markers, but the anti-lag that this game uses is just old. I know that 3arc can do a better job with it, because they should know that there is always going to be lag and it's always going to piss people off, and it really shouldn't be too hard of a problem to fix with a patch.

Next, the gun stats. Now, most people don't care enough about games to actually learn how much damage each gun does over what range, and it's RPM and all of that. However, if you look at the stats (Found here: http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4396/weaponefja2w.png), a majority of the guns are exactly the same. Just as an example, sniper rifles. Every single sniper rifle is 70 damage, 50 with a silencer. The only differences are very small: Recoil, clip size, and damage multipliers, and possibly other subtle differences other then the way the gun looks in-game. Oh, they also have different looking scopes (However, you can only actually see this if you're outputting in HD for some reason)

Gameplay-wise, I have to say this game is still fun. Although the Call of Duty series has become very noob-friendly, they seemed to have balanced out things like grenade launchers and flamethrowers. I thought when I first bought the game that those 2 objects would still be crazy overpowered, but the "Noob Tube" has been nerfed from the Modern Warfare 2 version, and is just like the grenade launcher from World at War (And is also called the 'Pro Pipe' by some, definitely a more appropriate name). For some reason though, when I first bought Modern Warfare 2 I played it for 3 straight months every day for hours on end before I got bored of it, Black Ops however, it took me 3-4 weeks before I stopped playing it, and to be honest I haven't put the game into my PS3 since before Christmas. The only time I have played it since then is at friends houses, and I really don't know why. I have a lot of interest in the game, and I watch YouTube commentators like WhiteBoy7thst (http://www.youtube.com/user/WhiteBoy7thst) who only play Black Ops, but I just don't have the motivation to pick up the game again and play it. Maybe I will though after writing this little review/rant.

Well anyways, if anyone actually reads this thanks for reading. I should probably give Black Ops an actual review eventually, because this was more of a rant and didn't talk about the actual game very much. And, if anyone actually sees this, leave a comment and let me know if you like this type of review/rant, or if you would like more of an actual review that talks more in-depth about the game and its pros/cons.

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