GeekwithEnvy

Games

Featured App: Smart Aliens

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Smart Aliens is a social hangman-like game that you can play with your friends via Facebook, or 3 random people from all over in real-time. At first you may think..”oh, hangman, okay whatever”, but this game is actually way better than I expected.

You first pick your alien avatar, then you choose to play the arena mode, or duel mode. In arena, you will be asked to make your bet amount, Rookie Arena-5 gold, Gamblers Arena-10 gold, and Psychopath Arena-15 gold. Inside you are joined with 3 other actual players, no CPU. The game will give you a category and letters to choose. You must choose carefully, once you lose all your lives you lose your bet twice! The game’s gold coins are used in the shop to buy bots, different avatars, traps and medikits. These things will help while in the arena with other players to make sure you win, by taking lives away from them, or refilling your lives.

ArenaMultiplayer SmartAliens
Arena Multiplayer, SmartAliens

 

The avatars are cute and funny looking, some come at a high price, and there is one that you must have the paid version to get. Although you don’t have to buy the app (since there is a free version) the paid version gives you some perks, like extra gold. I wanted a certain alien, but she was very expensive and the winnings for each round, really don’t add up very fast, so I feel like they know you will definitely buy the full version and more gold to get what you want, otherwise, you would be playing for a pretty long time before you got it. That is the only con that I believe this game has. Overall at $1.99, I think it was a good buy.

Available at the App Store and coming soon to Google Play. You can also check out their website at www.smartaliens.com

Features include:

DUEL mode: Challenge your friends in a turn-by-turn game.
ARENA mode: WARNING! ADDICTIVE GAME! Play against 3 other aliens in real-time!
FACEBOOK: Connect with Facebook, invite and challenge your friends.
TRAPS: Assured victory by trapping your opponents with the lightning, the psycho keyboard or the kidnapping.
SUPER POWERS: Upgrade your alien to reveal letters at the beginning of a round, block lightning or resurrect from death.

 

 

Featured App: Happy Street

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Every once in awhile you stumble upon an app that is, at first okay, but then after getting into it, ends up being so addicting you can’t put it down. Happy Street is that addicting game and it’s free. You start off with Billy the adventurer, and Pepin the merchant. They will guide you though the tutorial and have you building your first houses, stores and mini games. Every time you build a house you gain a new resident who stays in your village and buys things from the stores and stands you create, which earns you in-game coins so you can keep growing your village.

Happy Street ScreenShot

 You can go to the forest and mountain to gather resources such as fish, rocks, flowers, wood and more to create things like wood planks, which yes, have a timer on them. The buildings and resources eventually get timers that will go up to 24 hours till they are finished, but this game is so fun, I really don’t mind. The time element keeps the game interesting. Other characters will also give quests continuously throughout playing, which will earn you coins and flooz. Flooz is the special currency in the game that is harder to come by and they do give you the option to buy more, just like most apps now. Starting at 99 cents you get 9 and it goes all the way up to $99.99 for 1500. This is just an option and I have had no pressure to buy more, and I have not done so. As long as you keep doing the quests you will earn just what you need.

The game also is linked with GameCenter so you can earn achievements and add your friends. Having friends is a good thing, you can ask them for some resources you may need and they could have it so you don’t have to wait 8 hours for it to be made. So if you are into cute little animals asking you to make them anvils and cider so you can upgrade your medieval house, this awesome crazy addicting game is just for you.

Available in the App Store and Google Play!

Features:

– Meet Billy, Zoe, Pepin and other unique characters.
– Customize your characters.
– Discover 3 unique environments and more to come.
– Trade and visit your friends.

All-TIME 100 greatest video games

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C’mon, you know we all love lists of things and what better list to have then the All-TIME 100 greatest video games? TIME has posted a list of what they consider to be the best of the best. Starting back in the 1970’s with Pong and Asteroids, all the way up to Mass Effect 3.

While I feel that the positions of some games in the list may need a bit of tweaking, I think they did a pretty good job. There are however MANY games that didn’t make the cut that probably should have. What’s nice is that you have the ability to cast your vote on whether or not you think a game should be included in the list.

What do you think about the list? Head over here to check it out.

Starcraft II Heart of The Swarm Available For Pre-Purchase

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Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm Logo

It’s official, StarCraft® II: Heart of the Swarm™ will be released to the masses on March 12, 2013, but you don’t have to wait to buy it. You can pre-purchase the new Starcraft expansion now by logging into battle.net. The expansion will cost $39.99.

Heart of the Swarm is the first expansion set to Blizzard Entertainment’s sci-fi real-time strategy game StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™. Heart of the Swarm continues the epic story from Wings of Liberty with an all-new campaign that focuses on Kerrigan, the former Queen of Blades. This expansion will feature 20 new campaign missions, new gameplay mechanics, new multiplayer maps, new units, and new pre-rendered cinematics.

Zerg ScreenShot1

Multiplayer Unit Rundown

Shredder

The Shredder is a new unit built from the Factory that allows the terran player to control the battlefield. In its mobile form, the Shredder has no attack — but when set to stationary mode, it channels area-effect damage to both the air and ground. If a friendly unit enters the range of the Shredder, the weapon shuts off.

Warhound

 The Warhound is a small, walking ground mech that wields an effective anti-air weapon with splash damage, much like the Thor from Wings of Liberty. The difference is that the Warhound is smaller and much more nimble, though it gives up some range on its anti-air missiles in exchange for this mobility. The Warhound also wields a small ground attack weapon that does additional damage to mechanical units, making it particularly well suited to taking out enemy Siege Tanks — though it’s not particularly effective against non-mechanical units.

Viper

The Viper is a new flying unit with three unique abilities. Blinding Cloud temporarily reduces the attack range of all ground units inside the cloud to melee range, and prevents energy-based abilities from being used. Abduct allows the Viper to physically pull a unit to the Viper’s location. Finally, the Viper has a one-time ability called Ocular Parasite, which allows it to detach its eye stalk and meld it onto any friendly, non-massive unit, turning that unit into a detector.

Swarm Host

The Swarm Host is a slow-moving ground unit that has no standard attack. When burrowed, the Swarm Host spawns a continuous stream of slow-moving melee units called Locusts that can be used to lay siege and pressure entrenched enemy positions.

Tempest

The tempest is a new capital ship that deals massive area-of-effect damage to air units. It also has a standard ground attack, but its chief role is to help gain air superiority.

Oracle

The Oracle is a psionic warship, built from a Stargate, that uses several unique abilities to raid and harass the enemy. The first is Entomb, which can temporarily block mineral fields from being harvested. Another ability, Preordain, grants vision of a targeted enemy building, allowing the protoss to see which units or technologies are being researched. Rounding out its kit is Phase Shift, which phases a target building, preventing it from being attacked, using its abilities, or granting technology. Not only can structures like missile turrets be prevented from attacking, but using this ability on a zerg Spire would block the production of Mutalisks, Corruptors, and air upgrades.

Replicant

 Replicants have one ability: to transform itself into any non-massive unit. They’re expensive, so cloning a Zergling would not be very cost effective, but transforming into a specialized unit like a Raven, Infestor, or Siege Tank could open up interesting strategic options for the protoss.

New Multiplayer Maps

SCMapWinter SCMapJungle SCMapCity

New Multiplayer Units

SwarmHost
Starcraft II Multiplayer Unit: Swarm Host
WarHound
Starcraft II Multiplayer Unit: War Hound
Viper
Starcraft II Multiplayer Unit: Viper
Tempest
Starcraft II Multiplayer Unit: Tempest
Shredder
Starcraft II Multiplayer Unit: Shredder
Replicant
Starcraft II Multiplayer Unit: Replicant
Oracle
Starcraft II Multiplayer Unit: Oracle
BattleHellion
Starcraft II Multiplayer Unit: Battle Hellion

Torchlight II Soundtrack for Free and My Rant

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To help you get in the Torchlight mood, Runic games has released the Torchlight II full soundtrack with album artwork, pretty nice right? You can download the soundtrack for free on the official Torchlight II website. The release day for Torchlight II is Thursday September 20th.Torchlight II Outlander

I don’t know if you’re into this kind of thing or not but personally I love the music from many of my favorite game titles. I think that the music in games is often overlooked, which is quite sad considering the amount of hard work and talent that goes into these compositions. I love listening to soundtracks while I work, I find that it can really put me in a creative mood.

Many gamers will just queue up their favorite play list and turn the in-game music off, which I totally get why you would want to do this after playing the game several times, but when you first play a game, try to experience the game the way the developers wanted you to experience it. I am also referring to the sound effects here too, remember that these guys are custom tailoring the audio to the in-game world around you, it adds an entire layer of depth to your experience.

What’s more interesting is that if you ask most gamers today if they enjoy classical music they would probably answer no, but in reality we are surrounded by it, whether it’s in our favorite games or movies. Now, I’m not limiting everything to just the classical stuff, there’s a lot of other good non-classical tracks out there. I often prefer the more ambient music while I work or study. There are plenty of crazy game soundtracks out there that I like, in fact there’s a ton of classic game music that has be re-done with a full orchestra and includes music from titles like Zelda, Castlevania, and even Sonic The Hedgehog. Just Youtube any of your favorite songs and you will most likely find many different versions and interpretations, there’s even a whole orchestra dedicated to game music. You can check them out here.

So I say to those who work in the game industry and create music and audio effects, your work is appreciated!