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From: www.gamesradar.com

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt monster killing in 8 easy steps

Added: 28.01.2015 22:00 | 9 views | 0 comments


Witchers are born and bred to do one thing: kill all those nasty monsters that are waiting to chew the faces off unsuspecting peasants and disembowel cocky soldiers. The cat-eyed sword masters are basically super-exterminators, and in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, taking down horrific beasts is good business. As Geralt of Rivia, you'll run into plenty of locals with problems only a witcher can solve, but going out and battling a Gryphon or Noonwraith is no Sunday afternoon cup of tea. You're going to have to put in work if you want to get paid.

I've hunted a few of these scourges in The Witcher 3, and let me tell you, the Witcher series approaches monster hunting like no other game. Hunting and killing a vicious animal or spectral creature is no easy task. There's a process for uncovering the weaknesses of your prey and confronting it in battle. Let me teach you the ways of the hunter, so that when you finally get a chance to jump back into Geralt's boots, you don't accidentally become some hungry creature's next meal.

The first step in getting paid to kill things is finding a person willing to pay you to kill things. When you walk into a town, you can go door to door searching for townsfolk with monster problems, or simply find a job posted on the town's notice board. Once you find your potential customer, it's time to meet them in person.

Mind you, the person asking for help isn't your basic questgiver offering gold and a new item for completing a task. These people have real motivations behind wanting a creature killed. Maybe this thing ate a family member and they want revenge, or the monster could be blocking a family's only source of water. Whatever the case may be, sometimes you can haggle for bigger rewards, depending how desperate they are. But be careful. Push too hard and they won't work with you at all.

Once you have your agreed-upon reward lined up, it's time to start the investigation. Yes, an investigation. Many times your client doesn't know the exact location of the beast or even what it is. They just know that "there's something scary out there." So, as a brave witcher, you need to find out the nature of your quarry, and you'll find many of your first clues from the local populace.

The world is filled with people, and people see things. Eyewitness accounts are your best bet in finding out what you're dealing with. In the case of my hunt for a gryphon, I spoke with a hunter who discovered a group of soldiers the creature had thoroughly gnarled on. He led me to the spot of the beast's bloody feast, which enabled me to continue my search.

Okay, we know there's a gryphon out there, but what type of gryphon is it? Is it male or female? Are there more than one? Why is it killing people now when it was perfectly peaceful before? Each hunt presents lots of different questions, and discovering the answers creates an interesting side story. Some of these answers can be found in the Wild Hunt's version of a crime scene. That squad of soldiers I mentioned earlier? Their brutal deaths left a bunch of clues behind.

Using your witcher senses to scan the area will reveal the events of the attack, trails to follow, and possible monster weaknesses. In the case of the gryphon, I followed the beast's tracks to for find out what it'd been doing before the attack, only to find a dead female gryphon, and a really big, burned down nest. Turns out there's a Royal Wing gryphon on the loose that's royally pissed about people killing his girlfriend and burning his house. Right, now we know exactly what we're fighting. Time to hit the books.

Yes, you're going to have to read in The Witcher 3. There are no tooltips, or compass markers showing you exactly where to get item A to use to kill a monster. You have to figure that out on your own by reading the bestiary. Sometimes Geralt will know the details of well known monsters off the top of his head, adding a bestiary entry into the menus for you to read and get acquainted with. Other times you need to seek outside help.

Books are useful items in The Witcher 3, but you may have to save up to afford them. Local merchants will sell books detailing the monster in question or occasionally, townsfolk will be able to give you a few details that will help you bring down the beast. Think of research as piecing together a boss guide. The books tell you what type of sword oil to rub on your weapons, what bombs the creature is weak against, and what potions will protect you from its abilities. But they also tell you how you should fight your prey. For example, fighting a noonwraith requires you to place a Yrden sign to force it into a physical form and toss a special bomb to stun it, then you're free to slash it with your wraith-oiled silver sword. Try the battle any other way and you're going to have some trouble.

Finding the weaknesses of a monster will often set you on a search for specific bomb and potion recipes, and getting all those details correct will definitely help you kill the beast. But then there are cases in which the creature can't be killed, like say, when you're hunting a noonwraith (because it's already dead). What do you do then?

These quest-specific situations bring additional branches to the questline. In the case of the noonwraith, I had to find an item that the ghost was attached to - a necklace a murdered woman wore at the time of her brutal death and the reason why she decided to hang out in spirit form. This involved searching an old, abandoned town, jumping down a well, and recovering a rotten corpse. Not the most glamorous of jobs, but at least the wraith won't return when I lay her necklace and body to rest (after I kick her ass).

We're almost there. It's nearly time for the final confrontation. But before you jump into the deep end and bring silver sword to flesh, bone, or ectoplasm, there are preparations to be made. Everything comes into play when you're facing a dangerous beast. Before a fight, witchers drink potions to increase their strength and build immunities. I mean, it would make things easier if you were unaffected by the poison a monster spits in your face, right? Potions let you do that.

Once you have your bombs lined up, potions gulped, and swords oiled, there are even more options to use. Traps can give you a huge advantage in battle. You just need to set them up before you summon your prey and the fight begins. Even the time of day can play into a battle. Noonwraiths are called noonwraiths for a reason. They are strongest around lunch time, so it's better to face them at night. Once again, it pays to read that bestiary.

All of our time and effort culminate in this one battle. You've read about its weaknesses, you have the tools to exploit them, and you and Geralt are jacked up Mountain Dew and potions, respectively. Place your lures and the battle is on. Be careful though. You might have the knowledge, but you still need the skills to win the fight.

Even with all of the advantages of the bestiary and preparation, each monster battle is still a challenge. It doesn't take many slashes from a gryphon claw to gut a witcher. Time your attacks carefully, use your sign magic, and don't forget about your traps, and you just might survive.

You killed it! Time to reap the rewards of your long and arduous hunt. Not only do you get a hefty payout for ridding a town of a menace, witchers know how to chop up monsters and make use of their helpful bits. First you get trophies, which make nice decorations and give you a stats boost, then there's all those extra entrails you can use in armor crafting and potions. Mmmm. Delish.

I bet you weren't expecting the side quests in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to be so intricate, huh? That's right, monster hunts usually aren't part of the main story! Impressed? Let me know your thoughts about hunting monsters in the Wild Hunt or just in games in general by leaving a comment below.

Want even more on the Witcher 3? Check out our

Sierra Nevada Track Revealed in Ride Video

Added: 26.01.2015 20:33 | 4 views | 0 comments


The Sierra Nevada is home to some of the most distinctive and beloved mountain passes in the United States

From: www.gamershell.com

Review: Train of Afterlife | Rely on Horror

Added: 26.01.2015 13:10 | 4 views | 0 comments


If you are interested in a psychological mystery drama that has bits of horror sprinkled on it, then Train of Afterlife is one of the finest visual novels currently available on Steam and comes wholeheartedly recommended.

Tags: Steve, Trade, Reef
From: n4g.com

Something about Gears of Wars will be revealed today?

Added: 26.01.2015 11:10 | 11 views | 0 comments


Lester Speight, Cole Train in Gears of War series, teases a "a HUGE announcement on Monday 26th". Could be something linked to the Microsoft series?

From: n4g.com

Final Fantasy XV Features an Open World You Can Explore via Car, Train or Foot

Added: 23.01.2015 14:10 | 6 views | 0 comments


Crave Online: "Final Fantasy XV looks set to be a truly huge game, as Square Enix has now revealed that it will be set on one gigantic land mass, meaning that all areas in the game you can explore will be connected."

From: n4g.com

Uncharted Levels Reborn on LittleBigPlanet 3

Added: 21.01.2015 23:10 | 8 views | 0 comments


With Uncharted 4 A Thiefs End on the horizon players can still enjoy adventures with Nathan Drake on LittleBigPlanet 3 as on TheJamster1992 Youtube Channel The Cargo Plane Chapter of Uncharted 3 has been recreated by Osvaldo_Sniper, even recognised by Naughty Dog on their twitter account. This is not only the only recreation to feature on his channel as well as The Tibetan Mountain Train Section in Uncharted 2 has been crafted into a neat little platformer by The-LBP-Curator. Since LittleBigPlanet 3s launch fans have enjoyed 1000s of new creations and a whooping 9 million levels from the previous two entrys. For more LittleBigPlanet 3 Levels be sure to check out and subscribe to his channel which has over 1500 so far!!! With limitless possibilities what would you create in LBP 3 let us know in the comments?

From: n4g.com

Saints Row IV: Gat out of Hell Review

Added: 20.01.2015 22:26 | 5 views | 0 comments


Saints Row developer Volition loves Johnny Gat. Saints Row fans, in general, like Johnny, but Volition loves that psychopath, and it's been trying to share the love for three games now, only to have him overshadowed by the gang of puckish rogues we know today. In that way, Gat Out of Hell was almost a foregone conclusion. Johnny was always going to get his time in the solo spotlight and all Volition needed was a good excuse to get that band of rogues we've come to love so well over the last three Saints Row games out of the way so it could happen.

The irony is that when Gat Out Of Hell succeeds, it succeeds around Johnny, not because of him. He is more of a cipher than the player-created Boss. That's not because he's a bad character--he is slightly one-note here, and the storyline isn't doing the heavy lifting it does in the main game--but because Volition's obvious focus on world-building in Gat Out Of Hell is so strong. Virtually everything else small and character-based suffers as a result. This isn't necessarily the add-on you buy because you're looking for some sense of finality from these characters--How The Saints Saved Christmas actually managed to do more of that than anyone could have expected. You buy it because you're looking for one last jolt of wild, unhinged chaos from Saints Row in a brand spanking new playground, as the series as we know it moves onward and upward. Gat Out Of Hell delivers that, but it could have delivered so much more.

The angel of death will come from the sky...

When the game starts, The Boss (who can be imported from your Saints Row IV saves) is kidnapped by Satan himself for an arranged marriage to his demonic Disney princess daughter, Jezebel. Without even thinking twice, Johnny and Kinzie jump through a gateway to Hell to come to The Boss' rescue. Hell, in the Saints Row universe, feels like the unholy marriage of the nuclear, wind-blasted hellscape of the Keanu Reeves Constantine flick, and Biff Tannen's gaudy sleaze palace in Back to the Future II. It's about half the size of Steelport, but built entirely from scratch, and vastly more imaginative in its design. The humor is still persistent, with mean little passive aggressive jabs at its denizens on every street (a common billboard from Hell's ad bureau simply says "If we're being honest, this is all your fault."), but the city succeeds at bringing a broken, high-rising verticality to the mix, where floating platforms, impractical architecture, and arcane artifacts jut out of every corner. With the added details granted by next-gen horsepower, it's possibly the most memorable town Volition's ever plopped us in.

You get every opportunity to enjoy that architecture, as the flight controls no longer have you gliding through the air like a gun-toting flying squirrel, but with full-on angel wings. It's got a lot in common with the Arkham titles in its approach to flight, with a right combination of dives, daredevil stunts, and split second timing needed to dart through the air above, around, and through gaps in buildings like, well, a boss. It's far more forgiving of mistakes, though, and you're able to get up to some breakneck, insane speeds in the process.

...and claim up your soul when the time comes to die.

Much of Johnny and Kinzie's combat repertoire is copy-pasted straight from Saints Row IV, although Johnny does get his own special animations for some seriously brutal melee combos. Superpowers make their way back, with a few minor tweaks (Stomp now has a vacuum variant, Telekinesis gets swapped out for the ability to summon monsters to your aid, Blast can drain life instead of setting things, redundantly, on fire). There are no costume options for characters or guns this time around, but the guns are all insane enough to make up for the lack of customization, especially the seven hidden weapons based on the deadly sins. Everything has its own hellish twist, though the variety has taken a minor hit.

All of this is literally in aid of one thing: destroying everything. Where the freedom to wreak havoc was mostly just implied in previous games, Johnny and Kinzie's entire mission in this game is to get Satan's attention, and nothing gets Big Red to take notice more than murder, mayhem, and chaos. A lot has been brought over from Saints Rows past--Mayhem and Survival and variants on those two themes are a mainstay--but once again, Volition did take the time to make some improvements. Insurance Fraud, in particular, had started to become a slog, but the activity is now Torment Fraud, which now involves accelerating the pain and suffering of a poor derelict soul in order to get him out of Hell and back into the Almighty's good graces again ahead of schedule, all while Jane Austen narrates his hilarious life story. The Trail Blazing races now take full advantage of the flight ability, involving some ridiculously fun rides through claustrophobic caverns, alcoves, buildings, and 90-degree vertical climbs.

Can you truthfully say with your dying breath...

Earning new abilities is now done by activating a hidden glyph with your powers, and fending off waves of powerful enemies with nothing but that ability and your guns. Opening up gateways to teleport around Hell is done by activating glyphs in dark chasms scattered throughout Hell, fending off numerous high-powered demons before a Legionnaire mini-boss demon shows up. The best new mini-game involves trying to prevent falling souls from getting into Satan's hands before they hit hellish ground, so Johnny/Kinzie have to snatch them up in midair. It feels like a side mission from a Superman game we never got, and plays better than any Superman game ever did.

Aside from a repetitive new King of the Hill activity, all the activities are still as fun as ever. The issue is, well, that's it. While normally there are campaign missions guiding the madness in a particular direction, with the side missions there to speed up ability development, here, it's the entirety of the game, other than an occasional side mission to rescue some of Hell's famous inhabitants along the way. Therein lies the biggest problem with Gat Out of Hell: Those inhabitants--namely William Shakespeare, Vlad The Impaler, Blackbeard, and the DeWynter Twins from --are set up as major helper characters whose assistance you'll need to cause the most ruin during your time in hell. What you'll get are a few nifty bits of historical fan fiction--in which Shakespeare became Satan's spymaster general and Vlad The Impaler's castle in Hell ends up being turned into Hell's official frat house--and then being sent on, you guessed it, more side quests. Each figure has Loyalty Quests, and you keep waiting for the character-specific material that made Saints Row IV's Loyalty Quests absolutely imperative, but they never come. If the missions weren't as fun as they were, it'd be far more of an annoyance. The reality is that it just makes the expansion feel a little more watered down than its premise and its best ideas deserved. The DeWynters running a security company in Hell, and Shakespeare being beloved by Satan's daughter as a private tutor are absolutely ripe with ideas, and it’s disappointing to watch nothing come of them.

...that you're ready to meet the angel of death?

Sadly, this problem extends to the main storyline, where Johnny is trying to rescue The Boss from Satan's clutches. While the much ballyhooed musical sequence is a highlight, the game never capitalizes. Once Johnny and Kinzie have done enough to invoke Satan's Wrath (which literally, has a little meter in the menu screen), a cutscene triggers, allowing the story to continue, and all the best parts happen without your input. When Johnny finally gets to crash the fateful wedding, the best parts of it (a demon shootout, culminating in a certain tag-team move that's going to make many a wrestling fan grin ear to ear) happen during the cutscene, leaving only the final, irksome boss fight, leading to six short, amusing, but ultimately somewhat anticlimactic endings. The best part of the main story is Johnny and Kinzie being led by the nose by Dane Vogel, Ultor's dead CEO voiced by Jay Mohr, who gets to play a lot looser (and a lot more alcoholic) than in Saints Row 2. The expansion's best lines come from him, and he makes the tutorials a blast to live through; when the game finally shifts focus to the impending marriage at hand, his presence is missed. That's something that can be said much less about Johnny and Kinzie. Both are fun to hang out with in their own rights, but the expansion's truncated nature means we don't get nearly as much out of them as we want and need. It makes the expansion feel like a brief afternoon visit with old friends, as opposed to an epic send off, which wouldn't be expected of an expansion, but a premise this great warrants more than what we got.

Saints Row IV’s current gen spit shine is enough of a cause for celebration, so the fact that Volition decided to throw in a new expansion to boot feels like an embarrassment of riches on principle alone. It's an expansion that leaves a lot to be desired, only because there’s enough fertile ground to support a full blown game. It's the kind of expansion that gets you imagining what else this world and these characters are capable of, which is the best kind of disappointment you can have.

From: www.gamespot.com

Saints Row IV: Gat out of Hell Review

Added: 20.01.2015 22:26 | 15 views | 0 comments


Saints Row developer Volition loves Johnny Gat. Saints Row fans, in general, like Johnny, but Volition loves that psychopath, and it's been trying to share the love for three games now, only to have him overshadowed by the gang of puckish rogues we know today. In that way, Gat Out of Hell was almost a foregone conclusion. Johnny was always going to get his time in the solo spotlight and all Volition needed was a good excuse to get that band of rogues we've come to love so well over the last three Saints Row games out of the way so it could happen.

The irony is that when Gat Out Of Hell succeeds, it succeeds around Johnny, not because of him. He is more of a cipher than the player-created Boss. That's not because he's a bad character--he is slightly one-note here, and the storyline isn't doing the heavy lifting it does in the main game--but because Volition's obvious focus on world-building in Gat Out Of Hell is so strong. Virtually everything else small and character-based suffers as a result. This isn't necessarily the add-on you buy because you're looking for some sense of finality from these characters--How The Saints Saved Christmas actually managed to do more of that than anyone could have expected. You buy it because you're looking for one last jolt of wild, unhinged chaos from Saints Row in a brand spanking new playground, as the series as we know it moves onward and upward. Gat Out Of Hell delivers that, but it could have delivered so much more.

The angel of death will come from the sky...

When the game starts, The Boss (who can be imported from your Saints Row IV saves) is kidnapped by Satan himself for an arranged marriage to his demonic Disney princess daughter, Jezebel. Without even thinking twice, Johnny and Kinzie jump through a gateway to Hell to come to The Boss' rescue. Hell, in the Saints Row universe, feels like the unholy marriage of the nuclear, wind-blasted hellscape of the Keanu Reeves Constantine flick, and Biff Tannen's gaudy sleaze palace in Back to the Future II. It's about half the size of Steelport, but built entirely from scratch, and vastly more imaginative in its design. The humor is still persistent, with mean little passive aggressive jabs at its denizens on every street (a common billboard from Hell's ad bureau simply says "If we're being honest, this is all your fault."), but the city succeeds at bringing a broken, high-rising verticality to the mix, where floating platforms, impractical architecture, and arcane artifacts jut out of every corner. With the added details granted by next-gen horsepower, it's possibly the most memorable town Volition's ever plopped us in.

You get every opportunity to enjoy that architecture, as the flight controls no longer have you gliding through the air like a gun-toting flying squirrel, but with full-on angel wings. It's got a lot in common with the Arkham titles in its approach to flight, with a right combination of dives, daredevil stunts, and split second timing needed to dart through the air above, around, and through gaps in buildings like, well, a boss. It's far more forgiving of mistakes, though, and you're able to get up to some breakneck, insane speeds in the process.

...and claim up your soul when the time comes to die.

Much of Johnny and Kinzie's combat repertoire is copy-pasted straight from Saints Row IV, although Johnny does get his own special animations for some seriously brutal melee combos. Superpowers make their way back, with a few minor tweaks (Stomp now has a vacuum variant, Telekinesis gets swapped out for the ability to summon monsters to your aid, Blast can drain life instead of setting things, redundantly, on fire). There are no costume options for characters or guns this time around, but the guns are all insane enough to make up for the lack of customization, especially the seven hidden weapons based on the deadly sins. Everything has its own hellish twist, though the variety has taken a minor hit.

All of this is literally in aid of one thing: destroying everything. Where the freedom to wreak havoc was mostly just implied in previous games, Johnny and Kinzie's entire mission in this game is to get Satan's attention, and nothing gets Big Red to take notice more than murder, mayhem, and chaos. A lot has been brought over from Saints Rows past--Mayhem and Survival and variants on those two themes are a mainstay--but once again, Volition did take the time to make some improvements. Insurance Fraud, in particular, had started to become a slog, but the activity is now Torment Fraud, which now involves accelerating the pain and suffering of a poor derelict soul in order to get him out of Hell and back into the Almighty's good graces again ahead of schedule, all while Jane Austen narrates his hilarious life story. The Trail Blazing races now take full advantage of the flight ability, involving some ridiculously fun rides through claustrophobic caverns, alcoves, buildings, and 90-degree vertical climbs.

Can you truthfully say with your dying breath...

Earning new abilities is now done by activating a hidden glyph with your powers, and fending off waves of powerful enemies with nothing but that ability and your guns. Opening up gateways to teleport around Hell is done by activating glyphs in dark chasms scattered throughout Hell, fending off numerous high-powered demons before a Legionnaire mini-boss demon shows up. The best new mini-game involves trying to prevent falling souls from getting into Satan's hands before they hit hellish ground, so Johnny/Kinzie have to snatch them up in midair. It feels like a side mission from a Superman game we never got, and plays better than any Superman game ever did.

Aside from a repetitive new King of the Hill activity, all the activities are still as fun as ever. The issue is, well, that's it. While normally there are campaign missions guiding the madness in a particular direction, with the side missions there to speed up ability development, here, it's the entirety of the game, other than an occasional side mission to rescue some of Hell's famous inhabitants along the way. Therein lies the biggest problem with Gat Out of Hell: Those inhabitants--namely William Shakespeare, Vlad The Impaler, Blackbeard, and the DeWynter Twins from --are set up as major helper characters whose assistance you'll need to cause the most ruin during your time in hell. What you'll get are a few nifty bits of historical fan fiction--in which Shakespeare became Satan's spymaster general and Vlad The Impaler's castle in Hell ends up being turned into Hell's official frat house--and then being sent on, you guessed it, more side quests. Each figure has Loyalty Quests, and you keep waiting for the character-specific material that made Saints Row IV's Loyalty Quests absolutely imperative, but they never come. If the missions weren't as fun as they were, it'd be far more of an annoyance. The reality is that it just makes the expansion feel a little more watered down than its premise and its best ideas deserved. The DeWynters running a security company in Hell, and Shakespeare being beloved by Satan's daughter as a private tutor are absolutely ripe with ideas, and it’s disappointing to watch nothing come of them.

...that you're ready to meet the angel of death?

Sadly, this problem extends to the main storyline, where Johnny is trying to rescue The Boss from Satan's clutches. While the much ballyhooed musical sequence is a highlight, the game never capitalizes. Once Johnny and Kinzie have done enough to invoke Satan's Wrath (which literally, has a little meter in the menu screen), a cutscene triggers, allowing the story to continue, and all the best parts happen without your input. When Johnny finally gets to crash the fateful wedding, the best parts of it (a demon shootout, culminating in a certain tag-team move that's going to make many a wrestling fan grin ear to ear) happen during the cutscene, leaving only the final, irksome boss fight, leading to six short, amusing, but ultimately somewhat anticlimactic endings. The best part of the main story is Johnny and Kinzie being led by the nose by Dane Vogel, Ultor's dead CEO voiced by Jay Mohr, who gets to play a lot looser (and a lot more alcoholic) than in Saints Row 2. The expansion's best lines come from him, and he makes the tutorials a blast to live through; when the game finally shifts focus to the impending marriage at hand, his presence is missed. That's something that can be said much less about Johnny and Kinzie. Both are fun to hang out with in their own rights, but the expansion's truncated nature means we don't get nearly as much out of them as we want and need. It makes the expansion feel like a brief afternoon visit with old friends, as opposed to an epic send off, which wouldn't be expected of an expansion, but a premise this great warrants more than what we got.

Saints Row IV’s current gen spit shine is enough of a cause for celebration, so the fact that Volition decided to throw in a new expansion to boot feels like an embarrassment of riches on principle alone. It's an expansion that leaves a lot to be desired, only because there’s enough fertile ground to support a full blown game. It's the kind of expansion that gets you imagining what else this world and these characters are capable of, which is the best kind of disappointment you can have.

From: www.gamespot.com


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