Wednesday 16 May 2012

Diablo 3 Barbarian Tank Build



Hey Diablo 3 fans. Here is another build for the Barbarian, this time it's a tank / melee build.

Thanks to Hipicleas for this build. If you have a build you would like to submit, please post a comment below.

I love looking at different builds (for the classes I like) and I love to discuss them as well. I attempted to post my build on the forums but we all know how useful the forums for Diablo are. I will post a link and my reasoning for each skill choice.

My main purpose is to tank with friends and to have a lot of fun and grab all of the mobs attention while my friends do all of the damage.

Mouse Abilities:


Cleave: Gathering Storm
I want to use Cleave obviously because it is a great aoe move and works well with a sword and board. Gathering Storm is to help with some crowd control and keep good enemy containment. unsecured loans

Whirlwind: Blood Funnel
I didn't have any fury spenders so I wanted to add something in to this build. I added in Whirlwind because my main in D2 was a whirly barb and I love it and with Blood Funnel I get some extra health.

Ignore Pain: Mob Rule
This is a pretty obvious choice. I want a nice panic button in case I get too many mobs and I added Mob Rule because I will be playing this build with friends and it helps them out with DR.

Leap: Iron Impact
I really like Leap as an ability while romping through dungeons and also as a jump in on the enemies and wreck some !@#$. Iron Impact I feel is really awesome because the extra armor just gives me that much more durability. bad credit loans

Threatening Shout: Demoralize
With Demoralize this becomes a great AoE taunt and with Inspiring Presence I double the duration of the taunt.

Revenge: Provocation
Revenge I feel is so awesome for tanking, especially large groups. With Provocation it will proc more which is something I want.

Passives:

Superstition:
Originally I had Nerves of Steel but swapped it for Superstition because I wanted nice defense against Ranged mobs and the added fury generation is nice as well.

Tough as Nails:
Again more armor and I feel that this and Revenge mesh really well together.

Inspiring Presence:
I really like this because it not only increases the duration of War Cry but also gives me a really nice heal over time.

Monday 30 April 2012

Black Ops 2 Quadrotor Confirmed


A prototype Quadrotor with machine gun attachment that had been featured in a video by YouTube sensation FPSRussia, and sponsored by Activision. Today that blurry picture has unsecured loans been declassified (embedded below) revealing that it is indeed the same piece of kit featured in the video. Not only has the full picture been revealed but it also links bad credit loans directly to FPSRussia’s video.


The question still remains; even though it’s confirmed to be in the game, will the Quadrotor be one of the killstreaks in Black Ops 2′s multiplayer or just something you get to play about with in the campaign? We guess – and hope – that it’s the former.

Friday 27 April 2012

Age of Empires Online gold guide


In this Age of Empires Online gold guide, I will be outlining the fastest way to outfit your army with the best equipment and your civilization with the best advisors and buildings.
There are two parts of this guide: how to get gold in Age of Empires Online and where the best places to spend it are.

Age of Empires Online Gold Guide – How to Get It



The easiest way to get gold in Age of Empires Online is to do quests to collect Empire Points and then use those Empire Points on Lucky Tickets. Allow me to explain:
In your capital city, you will find a small shop with a crown-shaped icon floating over it. This is called the Empire Store (not the premium store – that has a treasure chest floating over it).
Inside the Empire Store, you will find that you can spend your “Empire Points” on various items. There is one particular item of interest: the Lucky Ticket.
The Lucky Ticket costs just 10 empire points and has a treasure chest icon. When you open the chest, you get a random quality ticket: Common, Uncommon, Rare, or Epic. You then sell these tickets to any shop (all shops pay the same price for these tickets).
Common tickets are only worth 1-10 coins, uncommon ones are typically worth 50-100 coins, but rare tickets will sell for 500-1000 and epic tickets will sell for 5,000-10,000 gold! Note that you usually get the small denominator; for example most rare tickets will be worth 500 coins but rarely you will find one that sells for 1,000 gold.
Most quests pay out less than 100 coins a piece, as do most loot pieces. When you consider that these same quests often give you enough Empire Points to buy several lucky tickets, you will realize that the Lucky Ticket is your key to wealth in Age of Empires Online.

Farming Lucky Tickets



Now that you know that the Lucky Ticket is by far the best way to get gold in Age of Empires Online, the answer to getting more of these becomes obvious: get more Empire Points. Know that:
  • Empire Points are rewarded from quests.
  • Collecting random loot chests around the map during quests does not provide extra Empire Points
  • Higher level quests reward more Empire Points.
From this we can infer:
  • The faster we can complete quests, the more Empire Points and the more gold you will earn. This means that the short, timed repeatable quests like “Lots of Rogues” are one of the best ways to farm Empire Points, as opposed to “Defeat All Enemies” quests, unsecured loans which typically take a lot longer to complete.
  • Collecting chests around the map is a waste of time unless they are extremely easy to get. On any given map, there are 2-6 chests guarded by neutral enemies which you can take out in order to collect a random loot award. One of the biggest newbie mistakes is seeking out every single chest and trying to collect every one.
What you have to consider is that you can buy these same chests for coins from Moe’s Mystorium, and that we can get coins very easily from Lucky Tickets. As a result, unless a chest is easy to get, you will want to complete the quest quickly and do another quest for more Empire Points rather than spending an extra 15 minutes tracking down each chest around the map.
Leveling up quickly to get access to better quests will yield more empire points. This ties into the bit above; yes chests do provide some experience points, but it is paltry compared to how many points quests provide.
Completing quests fast means you will get more levels, which means you will get access to better quests, and hence better loot.

Quick Note About Selling Items To Other Players



One shocking way players waste their time is by trying to sell crummy items and Advisors for slightly more than vendor price. If you have a rare Advisor that you do not need, the last thing you want to do is take 15 minutes to find a buyer.
If the vendor is going to pay you for 300 coins, and you waste 15 minutes negotiating finding a buyer to take it for 600 coins, you just wasted an extreme amount of time that you could have used to do another quest, a quest that would have likely rewarded much more than 300 coins between the loot chests, XP, and Empire Points.
As a general rule of thumb, if you cannot get more than 1,000 gold coins for an item, do not even bother trying to sell it. Besides, most players would rather be doing missions than hawking trade chat looking for a buyer.

Age of Empires Online Gold Guide Conclusion



To sum up this Age of Empires Online Gold Guide a few bullet points:
  • Buying Lucky Tickets is the easiest and simplest way to wealth.
  • Questing for Empire Points is the best way to get said lucky tickets.
  • Look for fast repeatable quests like “Lots of Rogues”; A 5 minute of quest which rewards 30+ Empire Points is an excellent way to make money.
  • Time is money in the real world and Age of Empires: do not waste your time selling trivial items for small mark-ups over vendor price. Do quests instead and only sell your best items that are worth 1,000 coins or more.
  • Do not waste your time running out of the way looking for loot bad credit loans chests; only grab the random world chests you can grab with little extra work or time invested. Low-level chests are particularly worthless as they will never contain valuable items.

Thursday 26 April 2012

Xbox 360 union jack edition


Amazon has leaked a 25th May release date for the Xbox 360 4GB Celebration Pack. unsecured loans

It’s identical to the Xbox 360 Family Kinect Bundle that was announced back in February.

Bar for one thing: a Union Jack skin for console, Kinect and controller.

Amazon’s listing has since disappeared, but not before the website Videogamer bad credit loans could record some evidence.

Microsoft told us it had nothing to share at this point.


Tuesday 24 April 2012

Xbox 360 d pad controller




Codenamed the “Aberdeen” the new controller comes in cardboard packaging complete with the re-branded Xbox swoosh, which is much more pleasing to the eye than the graphic design of Xbox’s previous peripherals and hardware, whats more is that packaging no longer comes in that awful plastic that was tough to break into. The pack itself comes with a ‘special edition’ control pad featuring the new transformable dpad and custom colours on the buttons, as well as a play and charge kit, why then do Microsoft insist on packing in a battery casing so you can use AA batteries? Also I noted an excessive amount of instruction sheets, ok so it has a new transforming dpad, people may need instructions on how to transform it (as simple as it is). I’m sure this is something that has to be included in the pack but I doubt many gamers will actually read them, besides there is a perfect holographic sticker next to the d-pad which shows off the different stages in the dpads transformation – a nice touch.

The dpad itself protrudes a lot more than previous d-pads on the Xbox controllers (a good 3-4 mm in height) it’s also in the metallic silver that the newer controllers opted for in the look of the guide button. The dpad transforms into a protruding disc by rotating in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction. It is easy to get it to transform to a disc, the diagram shows you that you hold the pad with one hand and use your finger and thumb of the other to make that transformation. I found it easier to use my finger and thumb of both hands and rotate the dpad in either direction. To get the dpad back again a further rotation is required but this time there is little to grip so you need to use your nails to get a hold of the dpad which still protrudes a tiny bit when in disc form.


Although fiddly at first, the transformation process is a very firm and satisfying motion. Whether using it as a dpad or disc, it doesn’t feel flimsy in any way. Previously, I’ve always found that the dpad has felt like its attached loosely onto the pad which seemed to make it less responsive when making movements. The new dpad feels like your movements are more commanding and it actually made me want to consider using the dpad rather than the left stick.

The disc mode of the pad feels a lot more like using the left stick but without the loose movement that sticks can suffer from. Microsoft mentions on the packaging that it’s a more sweeping movement which can certainly be used to make more slight adjustments and movements, like tweaks to a drift in a racing game or pulling off the straight punch in Fight Night Champion (if only you had the option to be able to actually use the dpad for this ingame!). This would certainly benefit games other than the streetfighters or arcade style games, something that the dpad has been stereotyped as being used for.

The dpad mode is a traditional dpad, a more assertive movement is achievable in the X and Y axis directions and although it wont help you spam fireballs faster, pull off moves that you couldn’t achieve before or gain an advantage over someone not using a new pad, it does mentally help your brain gauge and map those directional combination’s. Often the left stick can be rotated just that little bit too far and combat moves are messed up, with the new dpad these movements are more definite and almost ‘click’ into position as your thumb dances over the dpad.



The pad comes in a really nice matt silver finish and the X,Y,B and A buttons are all in differing tints and tones of silver. The dpad and the guide button are in the metallic silver finish that has begun to find its way into the more recent peripherals and hardware of Xbox. I really love the look of the new controller, ok so your not going to rush out and buy one just because it looks really smart unsecured loans (ok well some people will) but it certainly helps. The whole look is smooth and somewhat understated with silver highlighting the key points of the pad and the all important heart of the Xbox, the logo and guide button.



The sticks have also seen a slight redesign. Using a harder plastic and doing away with the nubs on top, the new sticks almost look like those of a much older worn down controller. They are however slightly more springy when you push against them and feel less loose in comparison to my latest controller which came with the Xbox 360 S. There is more of a recess in the top that your thumbs sit into rather than rest and I can’t say that I particularly liked this new look and feel of the sticks underneath my thumbs, although I really liked the new resistance feel when moving them.

I’m actually quite taken with the new look pad, being dubbed as a special edition I’m not sure how long these pads will remain in circulation in the shops or whether the special edition part refers to the transforming dpad or the custom colours. Whatever the answer I now own one of these pads and I can actually see myself sticking with and using the new dpad over the left stick, particularly for shooters, something I never dreamt I would have said before. The only problem bad credit loans with this statement is that games now seem to reserve the dpad for minor actions like nightvision or perk activation which brings me to the question “is it too late for the dpad to re-enter gaming as a main control option?” If so then the effort gone into the transforming capabilities of the dpad is a bit demeaning leaving it stuck in stereotypes and reserved for fighting and arcade games, a real shame because I really like the new pad and its abilities.

I love the aesthetic look of the new pad and coming bundled with a Play and Charge Kit it makes it great value for money at £44.99 (Previously these packs were £42.99) although I would have thought most gamers would have already purchased a Play and Charge Kit by now.

Monday 23 April 2012

Xbox 720 rumor


The past few weeks have been a circle jerk of next-gen rumors and now we have a new one from Xbox World Magazine that the next Xbox, code named Durango is currently in developers hands and is a bit of a beast.
Devkits for Microsoft’s next generation console are already in the wild, and were shipped to developers in March. The first devkits reached a select number of developers after Microsoft’s hush-hush developer’s conference in London on February 28, 2012. The purpose of the conference was to brief European representatives on the new hardware, which is codenamed Durango – the meeting was subsequently confirmed by a senior technical artist at Crytek, who tweeted unsecured loans that he was “enjoying the Durango developers summit in London. So far, great swag and interesting talks.” Further meetings were held for American developers at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco, with Durango devkits shipping “shortly afterwards.”

The publication states that current devkits will not mirror the final hardware in appearance, however, initial specifications are representative of the console set to ship in late 2013. Sources close to Xbox World magazine have revealed that Durango’s devkit features a “monster” 16-core IBM PowerPC CPU, a GPU comparable to AMD’s Radeon HD 7000-series graphics cards, and a Blu-Ray optical drive. 
“Even if you had a 16-core processor in your gaming PC there are currently no games built to use it, but games for the next Xbox could put all sixteen cores to work on day one for a level of performance far in excess of current gaming PCs. It’s a ridiculous amount of power for a games machine – too much power, even. But remember, Kinect 2 could chew up four whole cores tracking multiple players right down to their fingertips, so it’ll need a lot of power.”

Discrete sources at GDC also confirmed to the publication that developers expect Sony’s Playstation 4 to be more powerful than the next Xbox, and that various studios are aiming to unveil their next generation software at E3 2012 in June, regardless of whether “Microsoft and Sony are ready or not.”
“Regardless of whether the next Xbox makes it to E3, the arrival of those Durango devkits is the starting gun for the next generation and once again Microsoft have beaten Sony out of the gate by getting hardware into the developers’ hands first. Sony keep denying any possibility of PS4 at E3 2012 too, but if they don’t move fast  bad credit loans Microsoft could roll into June’s LA showcase with dozens of next-generation exclusives from third-parties. When Epic shows that first Unreal 4 demo they’ll only have one console platform to talk about – call it Durango, call it 720, call it what you like, but if Microsoft move fast it might be the only game in town.”

Wednesday 18 April 2012

The Film, loosely based on a game. Battleship!


After endless remakes, reboots and adaptations of every movie, novel or comic book out there, Hollywood seems to have finally ran out of ideas and are now turning to board games for inspiration. Enter Battleship, a cynical cash in on the success of the Transformers franchise that's very loosely based on the classic Hasbro board game, only with added aliens. It really should be terrible, and on some levels it is, but director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) has managed to make it a big, dumb blockbuster that's way more fun than it has any right to be.

Taylor Kitsch stars as Hopper, a loose-cannon Lieutenant on board the USS John Paul Jones, part of a fleet that becomes trapped inside a giant force field after five alien ships interrupt a Naval training exercise off the coast of Hawaii.

The aliens come from a planet in a different solar system that has a similar climate to Earth and have been alerted to our existence by an exploratory signal sent from a base in Honolulu. Their mission appears to be similar, coming only to explore but when the over-eager Navy opens fire, the extra-terrestrials become aggressive and hit back, hard.

After the alien attacks leave the John Paul Jones the only ship in the water, Hopper finds himself charged with saving the world along with his rag tag band Unsecured loans of survivors including sassy weapons specialist Raikes (pop-star Rihanna, not terrible) and Japanese captain Nagata (Tadanobu Asano, Ichi The Killer).
Meanwhile Hopper's girlfriend Sam (Brooklyn Decker) is stuck in a borderline needless subplot with a double amputee (real life Iraq vet and noticeable non-actor Gregory D Gadson) and the mandatory geeky comic relief character (Hamish Linklater), roaming around the satellite base that's been taken over by the ETs to try to phone home.

All these characters are extremely broadly drawn and there's no subtlety in their development, especially Hopper, with Berg spending the first 30-40 minutes of the film really hammering home just how useless and unreliable he is and then, lo and behold, he has to step up and be the hero.

At least the script provides ridiculous enough dialogue ("Let's see if we can buy the world another day!") and finds plenty of ludicrous scenarios to put them in. bad credit loans None less silly than the one reference to the board game, a cleverly contrived scene in which Hopper and crew have to combat the aliens by watching a grid and yelling out co-ordinates.

Somehow that scene, like most of the others in the movie, works. All the cheesy dialogue, wooden acting and ludicrous scenarios are instantly forgivable due to just how fun the film is. There's a feeling that Berg and his cast know just how stupid all of this is but are having too much fun to care.

Clearly using Michael Bay's Transformers as a template, Berg shows a sure hand with the action, mustering up some very big, very loud and often very impressive action sequences. The one problem with the action is the bland aliens who just seem to bend to whatever the script needs of them, going from peaceful to hostile or intelligent to downright stupid whenever it's convenient.

It's hard to call Battleship a good film since there's so much blatantly wrong with it but if you check your IQ at the door and let the silly action thrills wash over you, it's a fun ride and the perfect way to kick off the summer blockbuster season.