We finally cleared Naxx last night.  This was about a 5 week affair.  We started, as told in a previous post of the alternate measures we took to get into Naxx from the start.  We have streamlined our groups, and have really maximized our progression crew.  We are currently using secondary groups, composed of 5-7 vets and the 3-5 newer folks.  We use this crew to farm  earlier bosses for gear and to speed up the rest of the run for the harder final bosses.

Bosses we farm:
Instructor Razuvious

Gothik the Harvester (my personal favorite fight)

Noth the Plaguebringer

Patchwerk

and if group makeup is right entire Arachnid Quarter and maybe Heigan the Unclean.

The Saph fight, pictured about, took us about 12 tries.  It is amazing to watch the progression of this fight, it goes from pure chaos to a beautiful dance.  We went from strategies of everyone on one side to lines of people.  We finally settled on 2 sides, one on the left, one on the right, collapse to the middle during flight phase, then get back out.  One big thing to note is in 3.0.8 they reduced his aggro range dramatically, in fact I have to run up to him and spit in his face before he notices me.  The nice part about this is it helps with the cleave problems.  It took us 8.45 minutes.  We were so excited and happy, this was 3 weeks of trying, meddling and tweaking.  I know this is hard to understand, we sometimes have problems moving, hell out first 3 wins against Heigan left the same three standing for the fight (which took 20 minutes one time and 30 in another).  Due to this fact we do require almost everyone to have 2 pieces of frost resist gear.  Needless to say we went on to Kel’Thuzad.

After three attempts he was down, we celebrated, distributed loot and moved on to kick the dragons butts in OS.  Our victory against Kel was a bit unique.  We lost a few people during the fight, at the beginning, we lost our enhanced shaman, who’s rez was on cool down.  Our Boomkin got him back up once rebirth was off cooldown from the first attempt.  When we hit the final stretch we lost out tank healer to a ice block.  I am the main pally tank, I tried getting a FoL off, but after one push back then another, I knew he was dead.  He was out of reach of our priest and our OT healer (ret pally) missed him by a second.  We then continued to beat on him as best we could….then….BAM! iceblock on our priest…he then took a dirt nap.  Well our OT healer came in, our boomkin shifted to heal and  needless to say we did it.  So with our two main healers laying on the ground, we celebrated a great victory then went and did OS, then hit up the Vault, it was a great night.

Next up is the Eye, wish us luck, I am sure something unorthodox will happen and we will try to skate by on skin of our teeth, however this is the way of this rag tag group of bad news bears on Shandris.

We then started some more clearing of the Spiders we now have the big old spider down a little bit better, we still wipe, but we use two tanks to make it a little easier.  We taunt after the enrage web wrap to help make life easier.  As our DPS gets stronger, that last 30% burn will go much quicker.

Our key to Patchwerk was two Pally healers, we had the bacon on the MT and the hateful strike eater, which was me.  That kept us topped off almost the entire fight, our first attempt we had about 25 seconds to spare before the enrage, now we can handle it with minutes to spare.

The ultimate point to this post is you can do somethings while short handed or different then the standard write ups on most Naxx advice guides.  You can find alternate ways to progress when short handed or have an odd class make up.  In fact, I am very proud of this, it added a new level to the game that was not there before.   One or two people in the raid were privately messaging other folks in the raid that this was going to be a disaster.  I was told about this after the fact and I smiled.  Needless to say those individuals are no longer in the guild and have moved on.  Guides on the internet are mere guides, they take some thought and insight to adjust them to your group makeup.  You will surprise yourself in some of the many ways you can accomplish your goal.

If you have any questions on Naxx or would like to know what other things we had to adjust for Naxx, please drop me a line and I will help you out as best I can.

Yup, this is the typical experience when first firing up Madden. It is simple straight forward and designed to customize the game just for you. The Madden IQ score helps you in game by setting the difficulty for your season and Franchise experience. This is both a blessing and a curse. I excelled at the running portion, so much so that I am a All-Pro, the rest put me in the middle of the tier. I liked this, passing defense has always been a weakness in my ability to play the game. Also, reading defenses when passing has also been a problem. This helps adjust the play to your ability. The problem though, is I ran so good during the test phase, I can barely rush for more then 50 yards in one game. Now I am not a Madden expert, I love football, played football, and wished it was where I ended up somewhere after High School, so I do have the understanding of the game, but passing and passing defense have mystified me in the newer versions of Madden.

The game is presented in a very slick interface. In fact, it looks like they stole…err…borrowed from a competitor for one of their feature. Players on various teams have special abilities or roles, for instance, Brian Urlacher is a “Smart Player”, which is identified underneath him with a lightbulb icon. This seems to be taken from 2K’s All-Pro Football 2K8, except these players are identified on the field, on both sides of the ball all the time. This is nice for those who follow their team but not the league. The pre-snap configuration features includes a nice drop-down list on the left hand side of the screen that shows what audibles can be called and what all of the buttons do. This is a wonderful addition as I was almost always confused as to what button does what pre-snap, post-snap, etc. This concept is taken even further, by using the Madden IQ system, it will put icons over players heads when in situations you might need help in, say for instance, pass coverage, this will help remind you what button to hit to knock down a pass, or dive for the INT. I really like this feature it is not obtrusive and really helps me play better. As you get better the icons start going away. It is a really nice adaptive system (as long as you don’t over excel during testing.)

The have a wonderful replay system at half-time that helps high-light 5 key plays to the half, albeit cheesy, it is nice to see the feature used. Along with the replay feature offers one of the coolest innovations in this genre, Rewind. Now time manipulation is nothing new to gaming, but I do feel it is something new to sports. With this option, I have the opportunity to rewind a play and do it over. In my case I only seem to get one of these a game, depending on your level of skill I bet this is adjusted. This can turn a barely incomplete pass into a touch down, or expose a open receiver for that game breaking first down. In my case, it turned a botched field-goal into a game winner. This is a great feature that adds a lot more to the game. I cannot believe it had not been attempted before (it may have been, but I am unaware of it).

Now onto my major beef with the game, I have two of them. First, commentary. This is at least an upgrade over the last few years and does seem to be getting a bit more adaptive. However it still seems out of place and a bit robotic at times. Organic commentary is still a ways off. My biggest complaint here is the stupid announcement, in what seems like once EVERY set of downs is “Remember, this game was brought to you by EA”. Duh, I bought it, unwrapped it, saw the logo. I know this and do not needed it pounded into my head. I guess this is the EA corporate machine at work. Speaking of that machine, problem 2, odd in place adds. My half-time reporting is brought to me by Sprint and my on-screen stats, by Snickers. These seem out of place and I do not like them. I spent 60 bucks on a game and you are going to bombard me with advertising. I understand this is part of the game machine now a days with budgets approaching 20 million plus on some titles, however this is so in your face and obsessive it turns me off to it. There are ads in the game I will review next, “Mercenaries 2: World in Flames”, but the are not in your face. I was running around and saw an ad for some movie, and said, thats kinda neat, on a billboard, out of the way. That is how it should be done. I know that are reaching for more gains per game and ads help capitalize on that, make them stadium ads, not TV presentation. I guess with the medium growing closer to that, we will have to deal with more products going to the TV presentation style. If this becomes adaptive with “updates” including ad upgrades, I will begin to get even more frustrated. Lower the price of games or ditch ads, your choice.

I will get off my soap box and get back to Madden. If you have taken a break from the series or are an every other year guy, you will want to give this one a look. They took a lot of things and polished them. They really seemed to grow the product a lot. The need to fix the commentary, but aside from that it is neat. There are a whole slew of features I have not even touched including Fantasy football score tracking, sports tickers, etc.

All in all if you like football and are looking for a game to keep you entertained, this might just do it. From what I hear, Midway may have a diamond in the rough for the casual football fan in Blitz: The League II, so keep an eye out for a review of that.

Since this is a demo with many features crippled, I will leave some judgment for the release version. Loading times on menus, subtitles always on, things of that nature just seem to frustrate. The demo offers two small scenarios, a Force Grip Lesson and what feel like 1/4, it better be at least that or smaller, of a level. The voice acting is great, the controls, albeit clunky at first begin to shine after a while. I found myself fumbling along trying to pick something up, charge it and toss it in a timely manner. Towards the end it really started to come along.

What it has in common with its brethren, God of War, is the following:

• Baddies when you kill them drop orbs.
• There are stylized combos that are rated.
• Bigger guys, like an AT-ST are taken down with the cut-scene follow the flashing button twitch puzzle.
• There seem to be a level up system, however that was not fully explained in the demo.
• And, It Looks just as Awesome!

That is really it, when it comes to comparison. What I did play, I loved. It felt like a StarWars game. It sounded like a StarWars game. You do really feel like you control the force and are all powerful. Even though it is more or less the same canned animation, there is something gratifying about force pushing open a door.

I saw a video of the level a few days prior to the release and I was getting gravely concerned for the title, it almost executed one of my number one flaws in many games, endless streams of enemies that are scripted events (Stranglehold Review). As it turns out, the part in question was just a poor player. The room in question is actually a bit of a sandbox to play with your force powers. You can fight your way through and leave the room at any time. My biggest complaint is I only felt in peril twice. Now the demo might just provide a health boost or reduction in damage, however, I took a lot of shots and my health bar barely dropped.

The game seems like it should be great, this little sample, though short, shows the potential this game has. Now lets just hope it is long enough, has a good story, and there are no whiny children or gungans in it. Looks like they might just salvage parts of the franchise just yet.

Also included in the demo is a tutorial intended to teach players how to use their Force Grip power.

An entirely new chapter in the Star Wars Saga, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed casts players as Darth Vader’s “Secret Apprentice” and promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The game’s expansive story is set during the largely unexplored era between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. In it, players will assist Vader in his quest to rid the universe of Jedi - and face decisions that could change the course of their destiny.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is the first next-generation game developed internally at LucasArts, and will be available on the Xbox®360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system.

As its name implies, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed completely re-imagines the scope and scale of the Force by taking full advantage of newly developed technologies that will be seen and experienced for the first time together: Digital Molecular Matter, by Pixelux Entertainment, and euphoria by NaturalMotion Ltd.

More information about the game can be found at the official website, www.theforceunleashed.com.

Becomes…

So here it is in all of it’s hi-def glory. A game I have waited a long time to see remade, or at the very least re released in some classic manner. Looks like Grin and Capcom may have done a very nice job. I only downloaded it this morning and was saddened that I had to come to work. The game looks gorgeous, sounds great and offers all the good old fashioned swinging we are used to.

There are a few minor issues with the title, perhaps it comes from it’s size. Load times seem a bit on the long side for a downloadable title. On my system, on the first map, there seemed to be a weird sync line that ran down the screen horizontally as the map began to shift as I covered ground. This was not visible on the second map. I am hoping it is just an anomaly on the first map and does not pop up anymore. Honestly those are my only two complaints. I am sure minor quibbles may pop up here and there as I play through it, but as of right now, it seems spot on.

The story narrative is done with some stylized comic book flair which breathe some life into the dull overview map. These are done with panels and dialog bubbles. They are short, simple and can be skipped/accelerated through, which is always a big bonus.

I cannot wait to get home and play a little more. I am very curious to see how well the game continues to translate. The one thing I did notice, but it may pop up later is the lack of the inventory screen. Granted you start with the stock equipment, that was how you would load out specific gear for each mission.

The music is a awesome remix of the original soundtrack. It fits so well. The one problem is, right as it starts to pump about and drive you into battle, it shifts when you enter a building. No biggie, I made the choice, but it seems a bit abrupt.

Anyway, I am extremely happy with it, hopefully it will tide me over till “The Force Unleashed”

It is available today on XBLA and tomorrow on PSN, and digital download, including Steam, Direct2Drive and Gamergate.

The keynotes at E3 really showed a lot about the respective positions of all the companies. This Penny-Arcade.com comic clear summarizes all the presentations.

Here is the Microsoft Key note, some is fluff, some is great. All in all, it looks like they are listening and taking the console forward.

My big problem with what is shown here is the blade system being phased out of the main stream. I spent money on themes and icons and now they may be phased out? I do not like the sound of that. However, the rest is a pretty big push towards innovation. If things go as planned, being able to play games (XBLA) with friends over Live and only one of you needs to own a copy is great. Adding NetFlix to it is a huge deal, I not longer have to stream from my media center machine if I do not want to. All in all, looks like this E3 Round goes to MS.