Clash of Clans (IOS)

Lately I have been playing this great game called Clash of Clans. It's a real time strategy game and I just can't put it down, I am addicted!

Available in the Iphone App store for FREE!
Rating: 10/10!

 The goal of the game is to collect as many trophies as possible. Above you can see the overview of your land. When you first start out it is pretty basic, with a town hall and a few resource collectors. I am currently at level 44 and have a trophy count of 1158 (top left). In the top middle of the screen are your workers and your shield. You start out with 2 workers to build up your base. Shield are activated after you have been attacked to prevent someone from targeting the same place consecutively. On the top right are the amount of resources you have, gold and elixir. There are also gems. Gems are available to purchase in game, or can be collected randomly when clearing debris from your land.

There are a variety of building you can create to improve your base. At the beginning only certain building are available  As you progress, you will upgrade your town hall and be able to build better and strong buildings

Here are the basics:

Town Hall: Main building, used to upgrade your town. If lost during battle it will be automatic defeat.
Gold Mine: Used to collect gold resource. Gold is used to upgrade weapons and build walls and upgrade elixir storage and collectors.
Elixir Collector: Used to collect elixir. Elixir is spent to create troops, upgrade some building as well as upgrade gold storage and gold mines.
Barracks: Used to create various troops, archers, giants, barbarians etc. Each type has its own stats and benefits as you can see below, I have not unlocked all of them yet.

When attacking, you can only send as many troops as your base can hold. Currently I can hold 135. But you also have to take in to consideration that some troops such as the giant, take up 5 spaces per 1 giant. So plan your battles carefully! You can also upgrade the amount of troops you can have with the army camp.

This is your attack screen ^. You can either "find a match" which will send you to another online players base to attack OR you can attack the pre-made goblin bases. When attacked I personally try to take out the weapons first, but everyone has their own strategy. 

There is an option to join a clan. In order to join a clan you must first build a Clan Castle. A bonus to this is the ability to send and receive extra troops that you can use in battle. Highly recommended! There is a clan chat, as well as a global chat. There are also clan rankings within the clan and overall clan rankings within the entire game. 

Clan Members and their trophy counts as well as overall clan trophies ^

Achievements are also a great thing in this game. They give you exp upon completion as well as gems (bonus!). I find you complete these without really even trying. 

Overall I love this game. I feel like it is balanced in terms of who you can attack based on your trophies as well as the troops and skills that you can use, The only downside is as the more you progress the longer you have to wait for upgrades, ie: my town hall took 6 days to upgrade 1 level. But if you have the cash to spend on gems, you can use those to speed it up!

Diablo 3 (PC)

Probably the most anticipated game for PC in years, yes that's right, Diablo3. Now , if you were a fan of Diablo2 (which I was) then you couldn't wait for this release. It was released this year on May 15, and I was one of those first day die hard fan players. Though the first few weeks after release were glitchy and full of updates and patches, they seem to have it under control.

Console: PC
Cost : $60.00 USD
(Collectors Edition $100.00 USD)
Genre: Action RPG / Dungeon Crawler
Rating: 9/10


There are 5 character classes to choose from. Barbarian, Monk, Witch Doctor, Demon Hunter and Wizard. Level from 1-60 as you progress through the game. If you have never played Diablo before than you may not be familiar with the game style. There are 4 Acts (each act has it's own significant bosses and quests to complete) and each level of game-play has the 4 Acts to complete before you can move on. You start off in "Normal" mode (the easiest) and progress through until you complete them all. Game-play levels include Normal, Nightmare, Hell and now Inferno (which was never in D2).
There is also the option to create a "Hardcore"character. In this mode, your death means the end of your character and all items on that character are gone when you die (not for the faint of heart)

Wizard 

Some great features of the game include chat channels for players in hardcore mode or players looking to sell items. There is also a friends list on the right side where you can see all your online friends as well as recent players you have played with in public games.

Act 3

Game play is of the "click to move" style, no arrow keys or w,a,s,d. They have the use of hot-bars (as seen above) to activate spells and other items. You can also customize your keys in the options menu, as you can see I use the space bar to activate my potions. 

Auction House

The auction house is a neat place to buy and sell gear as well as other items. It is very useful for low level gear i find. There is also the option for trading items and gear for real US dollars. Though I have never  used this feature myself, my friends have made some money selling items.

There is also a PVP element to the game, though it has not been released as of yet, I am sure it will be entertaining.

My overall impression of this game was excellent! I love this game and have spent countless hours on it. I know that no game will be perfect but I must say there isn't much to complain about about this one. If you haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to!

Hatchi (IOS - Iphone)

If any of you every had a tamagotchi, then you will love Hatchi! Its a virtual pet for your iphone!
You start off with an egg you have to hatch and ta-da, your new friend is born!
Gender is random and you also get to name it.

Available in the App store for $0.99

Sleeping Hatchi

Top Status bar shows the condition of your Hatchi, mine needs energy so of course i sent it to sleep.

The bottom 5 icons are interactions, feed, clean, play sleep and heal your hatchi! You can also visit the in-game store to buy it treats with coins you earn from mini-games. As well as a help section on the bottom right.  

The happier it is the easier it will be to take care of your Hatchi. Eventually your Hatchi will grow and bloom into a full grown adult. 

There is a Hatchi evolution tree which will show you the different stages it goes through!

Or you can adopt a Hatchi! 

I  am still waiting for my Hatchi to grow. Personally I found it fun/amusing for the first hour. I like that it has mini-games, but even those are pretty uninteresting. 

Rating: 4/10

Drakensang Online (PC)

Here is a pretty neat game I stumbled upon, and it's free to play too! Drakensang Online is an web browser based RPG game, no downloading required. It is free to play as I mentioned, but you can buy in game item and bonuses in the online shop. Released sometime in early 2011, this game seems to have gained quite a following.

Basic Gameplay:
I initially started playing this game while waiting for the release of Diablo3. If you are familiar with RPG's this game was pretty easy to get started. Of course there is an account registration and you have to choose a server and a class in order to get started. There were 3 character classes to choose from:

• Spellweaver
• Dragonknight
• Ranger

I chose ranger as my class, and started playing on Tegan Server (USA) Game starts out with a fairly easy to learn tutorial before you get into the real world. Once you finish this tutorial session you are teleported to the main realm. From there, you can choose the many NPC characters with quests and there are also many shops for gear/items. Main form of control is using the mouse to click for movement as well as hotkeys for casting spells and skills. Quests consists of killing certain monsters or bosses and gaining certain items. As you progress in the game and get higher level you also explore more of the world.

Pro's

1. PVP: I enjoyed the PVP (player vs player) aspect of the game. There is an option to battle in arena for 1 vs.  1 or team battles as well. There is also an option to be PVP flagged throughout the world if you so choose. Winning battles in the arena gives you points (Called badges of honor) towards skill upgrades that give you bonuses in pvp. Ex: Deal 15% extra damage vs other players or take 15% less damage from players. 
2. Quest: I found this to be the main goal when it comes to leveling and acquiring items. Quests are suited towards level and I find them to be fair and as well give money and exp. Progressively get harder as you level. 
3. Community: Large player base community, it seems like there is always someone to hunt with or join parties, whether you are already hunting or find a group in town.

Con's

1. Movement: I found some of the movement to be glitchy. Whether it be due to internet or the fact that it is a browser game it doesn't always run smoothly. Also the spells, some cast late or are delayed when you press a hot key, then you press it again which just makes it cast twice after the mob has already died. 
2. Specialty Items: There is an option here to combine like magic items to create 1 better magic item. I find some of these to be rather extreme as it costs "Crystals of Truth" to identify these magic items. Theses crystals are rare to find from mobs but can be bought in store with in-game currency (Called Andermant). Some items need over 600 crystals after being combine, which seems extreme to me when trying to obtain better gear. 
3. Customization: I wish there were more customization in characters. Each class looks really similar to each other and there are only 3 classes to choose from.
4. Player interaction: I couldn't trade with other players or drop unwanted items on the ground, they would automatically delete. There were times when I wanted to give things away but could not. This seems like a must in most of these games, however, non existent in this game.  

Overall I would say it was a decent game to play. I  stopped playing at around lvl 21/22 as Diablo3 had been released. It was a great game to kill time and sometimes I still pop on just to see whats new. Its lacking a few things that I enjoy like crafting and player to player interactions, but still worth a shot if you are looking for something new to play. 

Console: PC
Cost: Free
(In-game store option available)
Genre: Action RPG
Rating: 6/10
Click Here to Play Drakensang!

A Brief History...

Before you start thinking "this girl has no idea what she is talking about" I would like to give a brief history of my personal video game experience and where my love for games began.


As of presently, I am 21 years old and I can honestly say I thank my dad for buying the first ever console I played, yup the SUPER NINTENDO! Super Mario was the best game in my opinion on this one, and my dad and I played for hours. I still currently own this original console (though it is in a box in my basement) but occasionally have brought it out to reminisce on some of the great games I have played in the past. Along with this console, here is a list of other consoles that I have owned and played.


Super Nintendo
Sega genesis
Dreamcast
Gamecube
Gameboy Nintendo
N64 
DSI 
Wii 
PS1 
PS2 
PS3 
Xbox360 
PC
Iphone (if you consider this to be a gaming device)


Each console had a favorite game and hours and hours have been spent playing those games. Though currently have been spending most my game time on the Xbox and PC, I will never forget my past consoles and all the fun they have provided!