Thanks Again to Blizzard Entertainment

With all the success of Puzzle Quest, you had to believe a sequel was in the works. Rumors spewed out slowly that the makers of the game D3Publisher and Infinite Interactive were working on a sequel to the game, and then a short time later, rumors rang that they were working on a separate entity as well that would be space sci fi themed. Fans were excited but wanted an official announcement.

For the announcement with details, pics, and my thoughts, read after the jump.

On February 25, the fans got an official announcement from D3Publisher about the upcoming Puzzle Quest sequel. The sequel will indeed be the new sci fi approach to the series and be entitled Puzzle Quest: Galactix. It will be release in the Fall on the Nintendo DS, PC, and 360 Live Arcade. They even posted a synopsis of the storyline of the game which I have pasted below for all of you to read.

“In Puzzle Quest: Galactrix a horrifying scientific accident has provoked another race to attempt extermination of humankind; players will create a persistent pilot who gains skills, crafts items, maneuvers among the universe’s political factions, and upgrades the ultimate space fleet as they attempt to end the genocide. An innovative hexagonal puzzle board allows for a wide range of strategic depth as it heeds to gravity according to a player’s location in the game universe. A rich and detailed storyline and fresh gameplay elements make the world of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix a captivating new adventure to explore and conquer.”

What’s the difference going to be aside from the storyline and look of the game? Well the puzzle board is changing to a honeycomb like feel but seems to operate the same way as the original Puzzle Quest. My thoughts are that the game will be exactly the same as the original when it comes to gameplay but what does that matter honestly? It’s a great game and as long as it has some great storyline aspects to draw me back in, I’ll be hooked again. If I could do anything to improve the original, it would be to get some voice acting into the game instead of having to read everything.

Overall, a lot of people are excited for this game and I promise to review the game as soon as it is released.

Credit: Xbox 360 Fanboy

New prices and my views on why this all went down, after the jump.

The regular 360 console is going from $399 to $349. The Black elite 360 console with 120gb drive and hdmi out is going from $499 to $449, and the silly Arcade 360 console is going from a silly $299 to a silly $279.

The reason for this cut? In my eyes, it was bound to happen after Sony won the format war with their Blu-Ray discs. People will be looking to finally buy a next generation movie player and the PS3 is that and a gaming system. 360 is a gaming system that can play old news dvd and dead hd-dvd. Those who don’t know will likely go for PS3 with the much talked about winner of the war, blu-ray unless the pricepoint for the 360 is more attractive.

Is this the only reason? Probably not, remember, the Canadian dollar is pretty much on par with the american dollar now and Canadians have always paid more for their gaming hardware and software when compared to the us. Now with even dollars, the pricing is going to level out which means lower prices for us.

No matter what the reason, be happy, $50 off is pretty good and the Xbox360 is one great gaming system.

Credit: Reuters

Preview of Spore after the jump.

Spore is a game where you control a species through 5 linked, but different phases of evolution.

1st phase: Cell
In this 2D phase of the game, you start off as a cell, trying to survive around other cells. As you survive, you get to add things to your creature like a mouth or fins. The things you add to your creature have a profound impact not only on how your creature acts and survives but also impact the rest of the evolution of your species, through all 5 phases. If you choose a mouth for your creature, you can start eating smaller creatures around you. If you choose to add a tail, you swim faster. You continue through this phase until you’re big enough to reach the next phase.

2nd phase: Creature
In the creature phase, you’re pretty much doing the same type of gameplay but it’s in 3D and there’s more to do. In the creature phase, you start off scavenging for food until you’re large enough to hunt for yourself. You can also find a mate and try mating with it. Once you have mated and created offspring, you get to add more to your creature. Other things you can do is find other creatures of your own species and travel in packs.

3rd phase: Tribal
My guess, is once you successfully travel in packs with like creatures, you enter the Tribal Phase. In this phase, you are not one creature anymore, you now manage a whole tribe of your species in a real time strategy Sims type of game. You compete with other tribes to gain ground in the area. You also have to keep your tribe fed and make weapons to defend yourself. This phase seems to be a nice transition from the 3rd person survival creature mode to the 4th phase, the civilization phase.

4th phase: Civilization
Once your tribe is advanced enough, you go into full on real time strategy mode. Basically a lot like Sim City meets Command & Conquer. You expand your city, continue to make weapons, deploy troops, and you can even be peaceful and gain alliances with other civilizations. The great thing is, when you build buildings and such, everything is based off of previous decisions in your evolutionary growth. If your species has 3 legs, your buildings may have 3 columns for support or your vehicles could travel on 3 wheels. You’re not stuck with default game interpreted buildings and vehicles either, everything is customizable.

5th phase: Space
Planetary exploration and/or domination is what this phase is all about. Once you beat the civilization phase, you earn the production of a space ship which you can again customize based on previous choices in evolution you have made. You’re ship can be used to go out exploring other creatures, collecting them to add to your creature library. You can terraform planets to make them hospitable. If you visit a world, you can have different experiences based upon the evolutionary phase the species is at that you’re interacting with. For example, you can play god to tribal phase creatures, or if you’re at the same space phase, you can battle each other.

Spore is THE revolutionary evolutionary game. There is so much to this game that can cater to different types of gamers. One of the biggest draws and most fun aspects of the game is the creator/editor that you use through all 5 phases of the game. Maxis knows this and are so confident about it that they plan to release the “Creature-Editor” (the editor in the 2nd phase of the game) early as a stand alone sku for people to enjoy and play with. You should be able to input the creatures you make in this, into the actual full Spore game once released.

Maxis is going all out with this game, even including direct Youtube integration to show off your gameplay and creatures if you choose to do so. Not only that but EA is releasing different variations of the game for Nintendo Ds and Mobile Phones. The DS version of Spore will be entitled “Spore Creatures”, a uniquely animated story driven game where the gameplay is based on the creature phase of Spore for the PC. The mobile version, still titled “Spore”, will feature the cell phase of Spore for the PC. It will be interesting to see if Maxis/EA will have a way to transfer creatures from one platform to another.

What’s mutiplayer like on the PC? Well, there seems to be no multiplayer but instead, you will be able to add friends, and then you may come across their created creatures through-out your gameplay experience. So no direct online play but a round about collaboration of created content instead.

Why has it taken 4 years for Spore to finally be ready for release? Will Wright (the brain behind this game) has been asked this question in an interview. His response was there was always something they wanted to add or incorporate into the game and EA gave them (Maxis), the green light to work on Spore as long as it took so that they could make it perfect. It’s been a long journey for Maxis but I think they will have quite an overwhelming outcome once Spore is finally released.

There’s so much more to talk about when it comes to Spore but I will leave it for another day. It’s just a matter of time before the name Spore is just as common as the words Halo, Sims, or even Mario.

What is Spore? In-depth preview coming soon to Nerdyblog.com!

Enjoy!

Just wanted to take a moment of your time to let you know that the SSBB has posted a great video showing online play from Tokyo to Kyoto, this is a great video to check out if your considering picking up brawl on its March release in Canada.

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/

This is just a post to invite any of my readers and fellow gamers out to join me in my all new Ventrilo server, and Counter-Strike server. The following information is posted for everyone to enjoy, and anyone who ruins it will be kicked or banned accordingly. Please respect the resources I am providing everyone because should there be any abuse, I will cancel it all!

That being said, here’s the Ventrilo information

Server Address: vent4.gameservers.com
Port: 4320

Also, AccelServers.com has graciously provided us with a 24 man Counter-Strike server located in Houston Texas. A central location for everyone to enjoy!

That’s all for now! Enjoy all these awesome gifts from NerdyBlog.com

For game server admin, please e-mail me Andrew [at] NerdyBlog [dot] com