Newfoundland Gamer
The community for all Gamers
Sci fi on the rock – booth cancelled
31 month ago
by Steph
in Uncategorized
Hey guys, typing on my iPad here at the office.
Due to some unforeseen circumstances we are canceling our booth at the Sci Fi onthe Rock convention this weekend. We hope you all understand.
Cheap @#$ Gaming #2
01 month ago
by bbatten
in Cheap Gaming
Last week, I introduced cheap gaming with kickstarter and papercraft wargaming. This week, I would like to elaborate on the papercraft by directing you to something I have been reading In The Grim Cheapness of the Future. This site run by fellow blogger, Virtual Stranger, has many cheap and innovative ways to modify, create, and customize things to create a great Warhammer 40K army. When I found his blog, I read back through every post and I must say he makes papercraft tanks that look so close to the original it is uncanny.
last week I mentioned Kickstarter, this week I have found a couple of projects which really stand out to me. The first of which is Roll20, a virtual tabletop game which I think any tabletop gamer would love to have. I know it can be an issue sometimes to get together with your friends or gaming club to play a game so the fact that it is online makes it much more accessible. This is especially true for gamers who may live in an area where the gaming community is small (if one even exists).
League of Legends: Still going strong?
01 month ago
by Jermexmachina
in Uncategorized
Most of you should be familiar with League of Legends (LoL for short), a free to play game of the MOBA genre. (MOBA being a PVP, RTS, RPG blend)
If you aren’t, then head over to the website and check it out.
Over the past 2 years, League of Legends has been a bounding boulder of success. It isn’t perfect, by any standard, but it is certainly an entertaining way to pass some time playing with some pals. It could be a point of contention, but I believe LoL is current champion of it’s Genre.
It’s greatest competitor to the point has been Heroes of Newerth (HoN). Both games offer different experiences, HoN being known as the more “hardcore” of the two. The primary differences are in the graphics and the “denying” mechanic.
The art of LoL is colourful and cartoon-like. HoN has a dark gritty edge in it’s graphics.
Denying is the act of killing your own people before the enemy can get the chance (thus denying them the gold reward). This mechanic seems counter-intuitive to me, and therefore LoL is my choice between the two.
However, A new/old challenger approaches
Join us next weekend!
01 month ago
by Steph
in Uncategorized
Hello devoted NL Gamer bloggers and followers.
For those who may not know we have a table at Sci-Fi On The Rock, It’s the local Sci Fi Convention. 
We are offering a draw for 5 people to win codes for King Arthur’s Gold! All you do to enter is drop by our booth, Take a card or a cup cake (Yes, I’m providing cup cakes!) and fill out a ballot. We will draw the prize at the end of the convention.
The wonderful crew at SFOTR have been great with organizing everything this year, there will be a ton of events, workshops, booths, vendors, and even breakfast with Vader! You can check out the events HERE.
The Workshop schedule you can find HERE.
Cheap @#$ Gaming
01 month ago
by bbatten
in Cheap Gaming
This is going to be the start of a weekly article I will write with cheap and free games and related items. I am a fairly frugal person, and as such I am constantly looking for a deal especially when it comes to my hobbies. With the release of the post about the deal at Telltale games i just did here, I realized others like me may benefit from a weekly article listing a couple things I have found. If you want to view all these articles together as they progress just check category Cheap Gaming.
First thing I want to mention is Kickstarter, this is a great site with a lot of projects on it. The projects range through most of what one could think of, with a large selection of games. The idea is, you donate money to help someone “kick start” a project . The awesome thing about this is that most games on there (I personally have backed a few recently) will give you a digital copy of the game for around $15. There is also a lot of war-gaming and board game stuff there so it allows you to get advanced copies of things, for a good price as well as help the project out. I highly suggest heading on over there with the above link and seeing what peaks your interest.
The next thing is papercraft gaming. I am a fan of tabletop games but as we all know it is an expensive hobby to get into. Well, not if your into papercraft. There are several websites out there which either sell or give away templates that you can print out to use with your tabletop games. These templates range from generic models to duplicates of your favorite game models and even includes terrain. This means you can get a nice tabletop game on the go for free or just really cheap. I will put a few links below for different sites I have used and even purchased from and I would like to note that one is Fat Dragon Games who if you find this earlier post actually have created their own Mech style tabletop and the full game sells for just $10.
Also if you have any suggestions or a site you would like me to mention please comment below or email bbatten@nlgamer.ca
Costume Quest!
01 month ago
by Steph
in Uncategorized
So it may seem lately that we’ve been blogging about only Double Fine games. Maybe it’s just by fluke? Or Maybe it’s because they’ve put out a lot of great games that we at NL Gamer have been discovering lately. 
I found myself bored the other night, so I decided to scroll through the downloadable demos on the ol’ 360. I downloaded a few Kinect demos for our 5 year old to play, and after getting a few of those, I found this cute little game that looked like it might be interesting. It was called Costume Quest.
It’s a 2D (Ish.. Its almost like 2.5D) RPG where you choose to be the girl character or the boy. (I choose the girl) Your mother puts you in charge of watching your twin on Halloween (Why young children are going trick or treating alone in this day and age I have no idea, But that’s another matter).
You dawn your costumes and hit the mean streets! You go to a few houses, Get some candy, But then at the second house, What shall happen but a monster pops out (who looks a lot like a monster I’ve seen before.. I just can’t place it.. )and steals your brother (or sister depending on who you pick) and throws them over this gate to never be seen again!
Sweet Deal from Telltale Games
01 month ago
So you can now preorder Telltale Games new adventure series The walking Dead based on the book series. As if its not cool enough that you can buy that game for $22 but if you add another $20 you get all the following games:
Sam and Max Season 1-3
Back to the Future
Jurassic Park
Hector
Puzzle Agent 1&2
Strong Bad’s Cool game for attractive people
Law and Order
This pack is normally $90 by itself, so it’s an awesome deal. Also, if that isn’t cool enough for you, there is also a contest which could allow you to become a game character!
check it all out here
Stacking! another Double Fine Game
21 month ago
So if you are anything like myself, when you first saw this game you thought “WTF!? a game about those little stacking things at your grandmother’s house?” I will admit that was my first impression, but after sitting down the other night with Jermex and playing through the first couple chapters, I am pleasantly surprised at the quality and just how fun the game is.
First off, the style of the game and the art are amazing. In all honesty I am not a huge fan of 3D adventure games, I really like the classic 2D style but this game looks really nice and the controls are not bad (a little bit weird to get used to but once you run around a bit it grows on you quick). Next is the way stacking works which i think is awesome, you are a small stack and when you stack into larger characters each one gives you a different action. This action could be anything from a punch, to a seductive booty shake, to a fart, or even the ability to willingly “toss your cookies”.
Some of these actions seem like they are just for fun but many are used to solve puzzles which brings me to the second highlight of the game. The puzzles are great and always have multiple ways to resolve them, meaning you can find the easiest route to solve the puzzle but you can always go back and solve it another way or all other ways. For me, this was great because it allowed different gameplay styles, if you wanted to just go through and get the story you can solve each puzzle once or you can solve each puzzle with all possible solutions. This would also mean that each person who plays through the game can have a slightly different experience as the puzzle resolutions may not be the same. Also there are little side missions some of which are simply to reunite a group or family by finding and stacking them together, and others just come from using your stacked actions in different situations to gain a little extra playtime and a lot of fun.
To conclude I just think it’s really awesome to have a game which allows you to play through quickly or give in to your obsessive compulsive tendencies and collect all characters, and solve each puzzle each way.
“God Hates Game Designers”
01 month ago
by Azrael
in Uncategorized
When I came across this pic today, I was honestly very confused. I mean, what is wrong with these people? Then I did a little reading. This scene took place at a Game Developers Conference, in San Francisco last week. The protesters were arguably over the top with the whole “God Hates Game Designers” thing. However, from a social and artistic perspective I can understand their point. Part of what he is arguing is that gaming has become more about making money than providing an entertaining, and artistic form of human expression. What interested me most was this statement:
If you reduce fun to a set of mechanisms reminiscent of a rat in a cage hitting a lever to get a pellet, I think that reduces something rich and vital about the human experience. (Quote from Ars Technica)
I think what they are getting at here is “the grind”. After personally (or at least virtually) running around completing quests, and killing so many of this or that creature in WoW, I kind of see the point. This stuff does keep us playing. However, is this time well spent or just a colossal waste of time? Maybe something we should ask ourselves next time someone asks us to slay 50 giant spiders or whatever.
Brutal Legend is Double Fine
02 months ago
Ok so with the excitement of Tim Schafer making a new game, Double Fine Adventure, which had 87,142 people pledge $3,336,371 to fund its development on Kickstarter, I decided to purchase a game I had yet to finish by the same great game developer. That game is Brutal Legend, which i picked up from a friendly local game shop for only $10. If this is a game you have never played I really suggest you get out there and pick up a copy. The gameplay has so many different genre aspects rolled into one awesomely fun adventure, and the fact that I find Tim’s sense of humor awesome totally helps.
First off a little explanation of the game, which is probably best described by EA
Jack Black stars as Eddie Riggs, a roadie who’s sucked into a mythical Age of Rock to fight evil, liberate an army of headbangers from a life of oppression, find love, and discover his life’s purpose. Heavy stuff until one realizes the universe of Brütal Legend has sprung up from the mind of legendary game director Tim Schafer.
Enter the world of Heavy Metal where mountains are made of amplifiers, killer spiders spin guitar strings, druids want to kill you, and Rock Legends roam the landscape.
Armed with a massive battle-axe, guitar, and his hot-rod, Eddie will rip the faces off of demons. As Eddie, expect to crush skulls, ravage the road in the Deuce, and unleash the power of Heavy Metal to reign down fire from the sky — all to save humanity and become a brutal legend.
Now what are the game genres you ask? First off it is very open world, you can hop in Deuce your Hot Rod and cruse around the landscape which Schafer says is almost equal to 100 KM squared. There is also a guitar hero feel to casting magic from Clementine your guitar by playing different riffs. As well the battle systems has you overseeing different units, which you can only build once you have enough fans, much like a real time strategy. Besides these cool elements there are also small puzzles you have to figure out, weather it be navigating a maze with deuce, or trying to safely pass through a cavern unnoticed.
Bottom line the game is fun as hell, and if your a fan of metal you may just find yourself roaming the countryside in deuce listening to the tracks you unlock!
First Starbound Gameplay Video has appeared!
02 months ago
Tiy, Starbound’s lead developer, released this video tonight. It demonstrates the new lighting system they just implemented.
The lighting was created by one of their fantastic coders, Kyren, who has brilliantly breathed new life into 2d.
Hit the jump for a list of fantastic features confirmed for the game. (more…)
Review: Dokapon Kingdom
32 months ago
I originally picked up this game after playing it at lunch with my friends, it looked wacky, silly and fun. My friend had it for SNES so that’s what we played it on, although it was completely in Japanese and the items were very hard to distinguish from one another. The game was very easy to pick up, using rock-paper-scissor mechanics for many of its finer gameplay elements.
You’ve probably never heard of “Dokapon Kingdom” and if you have it’s more than likely you have never played it. Originally produced in 1994, Dokapon Kingdom (Dokapon 1-2-3 in Japan), is a series of games uniquely classified as “Board game RPG” and contains elements that are familiar to players of Final Fantasy and Mario Party. There are four currently available for SNES(Japan Only), remakes on the PS2 and Wii and a unique version for the DS called “Dokapon Journey”. Although there are many slight changes from version to version (classes, items and skills, and board design tend to vary game to game) the formula is always the same, monsters are invading Dokapon Kingdom and The King of Dokapon enlists the players to go free the towns from boss monsters that increase in difficulty as you go further out into the board. Whoever gets the most money by the end of the game gets to marry the princess.
Hit the jump for the rest ^_^
Minecraft and Bukkit Team Up
02 months ago
So as most of you know I have been running a Minecraft server for a good while now (Since Alpha 0.2) and ever since Bukkit was formed at the end of 2010 I have been using it as an API as well as the source for all my mod’s. As of this past Tuesday the 28th of February Bukkit has become an official part of the Mojang team. This means that a new official API is in development and is being coded by who I think have the best server mod currently. This I think is great news as it will result in the official Minecraft server implementing everything plus more that we have come to love from Bukkit, it will also mean that this process should go smoother as the developers have already dealt with a lot of issues and can bypass them. This also means that for the time being the Mojang team will be helping make Bukkit more solid as well as allowing quicker releases of the API.
So I would like to say congratulations to both Mojang and Bukkit, and I hope the merger goes well, and I look forward to the release of their new server.
Assassin’s Creed 3: Revealed
02 months ago
Your source for all things Assassin’s Creed is back! And with big news!
Game Informer released today their cover for their April edition of their magazine, and it looks like its going to be Assassin’s Creed 3 making it’s debut on the cover.
Taken from the link above, It’s going to be set in the late 1800′s America and will have conflict between Native Americans and the Revolutionaries. Though this is the only information they have released, So it’s really all up in the air about who the new star of the game will be, and what his story is.
I can’t wait to be honest. I think that this is a nice change from the Eastern world we’ve been in with Altiar and Ezio. I’m so sad to see Ezio’s story end, But like all good things, It must happen (Maybe it’s because Ezio was such a charmer and ladies man).
The only thing doubting in my mind will be the landscapes. From what I’ve gathered from Game Informer, the new protagonist is of Native American descent (In one of the concept art shown below, (more…)
FortressCraft
32 months ago
So there is still some controversy as to whether or not FortressCraft is a Minecraft clone, but after checking out some of the features it has with the eighth free content patch the game looks pretty interesting and has taken its own direction.
In case you were unaware FortressCraft is one of several sandbox games similar in style to Minecraft which were released on XBLA (XBox Live Arcade). The game is only 240 MSP and has a great style as well as many cool features including.
Rayguns
Trampolines
Rewards for creating highly rated servers
Multiple game modes (including FreezeTag, Hunt and Spleef Arena)
Highly configurable world creation
Highly configurable detail options, including lots of fun postpro shaders
Automated machines to dig for you
Tectonic Rise
Teleporters
A crafting workshop that lets you craft your own unique blocks
Varied blocks – kiddie, futuristic, pixel creation
Now this post is a pre purchase view of the game, so check out a later view after I Own and play it for a bit.
