Final Fantasy 14 Review

Hello everyone, Final Fantasy 14 has finally gotten around to open beta and there is a lot to take in! I was lucky enough to get in on the first day and that means I have about a month to rake in those levels!
The first thing first I'd like to talk about is the leveling system. You get two different levels in Final Fantasy 14. The first is your physical level which is shared between all jobs. The second is your job level which is specific towards what weapon you have equipped and these are the levels that grant you abilities. I really enjoy the way this system works out. Instead of having subjobs like in FFXI you mix and match abilities from the different jobs you level up, all the meanwhile you still get to see you physical level go up. It is very satisfying and allows for a totally customized character, it gets a thumbs up from me!
Next I'd like to point out is the graphics. They are absolutely STUNNING. I've had times where I am running around in the world and I just stop to admire a tree or a river, the amount of detail that the developers have put into this game is astronomical. These amazing graphics come at a prize though, you are going to need a pretty beastly computer to run it properly (at least until it is released on the ps3 next year). My current system is sporting a 3.6ghz quad core, 4gb of ram, and 1ghz of Vram and I still get hiccups quite a bit (although I attribute this mainly to my cheap graphics card). I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that your not going to be able to run this game without about a $700 dollar investment if you are building from scratch.
Combat is pretty fast paced in Final Fantasy 14 and I'm really enjoying it. They have done away with the auto attack system from FFXI and you now must manually attack (which now drains a stamina bar that recharges quickly). This leads to constant interactivity to the game and adds a little more difficulty to the combat system. Weapon skills are back in Final Fantasy 14 and take Tactical Points just as FFXI did, although in Final Fantasy 14 you gain Tactical Poinits exponentially faster. Magic is similar to melee combat except that your spells cost MP which does not recharge in Final Fantasy 14. At first this seems to be a huge hindrance but spells cost next to nothing and you get a spell that does decent damage for no MP. You also get a 15 minute ability that restores MP or you can touch an Aethyrite crystal.
Finally I'd like to touch on is about the community. So far in open beta there is relatively no interactivity between players. No parties to be found, no guilds offering recruitment, even the chat channels are usually dead. I attribute this to the game being in the beta phase. People that are currently playing Final Fantasy 14 know that there characters are going to be wiped when the launch date rolls around and thus have little attachment towards their characters. Everyone is rerolling and just messing around at this point. Most people don't even know the basics of the game at the moment, let alone how to structure a party. I believe that Final Fantasy 14 will be just as social as FFXI when it is released.
All in all I'm having a GREAT time playing the beta and suggest that you play it as well. Hurry up though because you only have until the 29th to report in!

Introduction to Dungeon Fighter Online

Dungeon Fighter Online is an MMORPG arcade-style PC game developed by Neople in Korea. In South Korea, it is released as Dungeon & Fighter and in Japan, as Arad Senki. Dungeon Fighter Online is extremely popular in Asia because of the PvP aspect of the game. Dungeon Fighter Online PvP Leagues have been televised in Korea and is still being televised. It was also featured in World Cyber Games 2009. Although there are various versions of Dungeon Fighter Online, in this article, we'll be focusing on Dungeon Fighter Online published by Nexon in North America.
Dungeon Fighter Online has six different classes and each of those classes has 4 subclasses each (except for Priests, which has 3 subclasses). The six classes are: Slayer, Fighter, Male Gunner, Female Gunner, Mage, and Priest. You can find more in-depth information about them on the DFOPlanet wiki, so I'll just give a brief introduction to each of the classes. Slayers are melee attackers that usually use swords. They are very balanced class overall since they have good attack damage, defense, and speed. They have a lot of intricate combos that they can perform very easily. Fighters are very close-range melee attackers. They use short-ranged weapons like tonfas, boxing gloves, gauntlets, etc. Although they lack range in their attacks, they compensate that with their extremely high attack damage.
Male Gunners are like the "archers" of MMORPGs. They can attack their enemies from far away with their guns. They are agile, but they lack defense, which means that they can be killed with a few combos. Players that should play male gunners must be able to evade attacks well. Female Gunners are just like male gunners except that female gunners are just faster and have less HP. Most of their skills are similar to the male counterparts, but there are a couple of differences. The major difference is that female gunners are extremely slow when throwing the G14-Grenade skill, which makes them a lot more vulnerable in PvP. So most female gunners tend to be offensive rather than defensive like the male gunners because female gunners lack defensive skills.
Mages are extremely small female casters. Because of their small stature, they rely on magic to attack their opponents. Although they lack physical attack strength, their magic attack strength is the highest out of all classes. Another thing these mages lack is defense. Their defense is very low, which makes them extremely fragile. However, Dungeon Fighter Online has decided to give mages a chance to win in fighters by giving them a skill called Mana Shield. Mana Shield absorbs certain percentage of the damage taken and reduces the mage's mana points instead of health points. Priests are muscular melee class fighters. They are the largest class in terms of stature (but not the tallest) and they wield weapons like scythes, crosses, and totems, which are almost as big as the priests themselves. Because they're so large, their speed is a bit slower than most of the other classes, but they compensate for this through their high health points, which allows them to tank through many hits to go in for the kill.
Now that I've described the classes, I want to discuss the gameplay of Dungeon Fighter Online. There are two different aspects to the game, much like other MMORPGs. The two aspects are Player vs Environment and Player vs Player, more commonly known as PvE and PvP. Let me explain PvE of the game first since it is what you'll be doing until you're high enough level to PvP. One diffe rent thing about Dungeon Fighter Online compared to other MMORPGs is that Dungeon Fighter Online has a system called Fatigue Points. All players in Dungeon Fighter Online have 156 Fatigue Points and the player consumes one each time he goes into 1 room of a dungeon. After using all the Fatigue Points, players can no longer dungeon. And dungeons are where players can gain EXP to level up. Each dungeon has monsters, a boss, and specific quests that players can fulfill for extra EXP. In these dungeons, players can party with other players (with maximum of 4 players in one party) to defeat bosses of higher levels.
When a player has used up all of his Fatigue Points, he will usually turn to PvP. PvP aspect of Dungeon Fighter Online is what makes this game so popular in Asia. PvP is extremely addicting and many players love to PvP on hours end. Anyone interested in Dungeon Fighter Online PvP should go visit the DFO Planet Wiki or a DFO Planet Forum to learn more about it because PvP is extremely difficult to master. To be able to PvP well, the player must have a well-thought out PvP build, learn all skill timings, learn all skill timings of other classes' skills, have extremely efficient combos, and have fluid movements.
Well, I hope you found the article to be helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask questions on DFO Planet Forum. And don't forget to visit DFO Planet. It's a great resource for new players and veteran PvPers alike.

Kinect Reviews Show Positive Results

If you're a game fan who hasn't heard of the Kinect yet, you must be living under a rock. This system from Microsoft is hot and it's considered to be some of the most advanced video game technology to hit the market. Since its announcement, the industry has seen a slew of Kinect reviews as everyone wants to form their own opinion of the technology. As a whole, it's seeing positive results and gamers want to know the when and where of how they can get their hands on one for themselves.
Your first step should be to learn a little more about the Kinect and this is exactly what reviews are meant to do. Here are some examples of what these reviews can teach you.
Nintendo Wii vs. Xbox Kinect
Many of the Kinect reviews focus on comparing it with the Nintendo Wii. Xbox connects wirelessly to your computer if you are running Windows operating system and have a broadband connection. This opens a lot of awesome doors for the Xbox owner. For example, you can watch movies on the TV that the Xbox is connected to. But the Kinect brings you a whole new way to play and it's the ultimate in technology.
The Kinect is much like the Wii but with some great new features that the Wii just doesn't have and some very updated graphics. The hard drive storage is superior as well which makes it easier to use your Kinect as a multi-media device. Since there is no need for controllers, you don't have to worry about the cost of them or the batteries and chargers to keep them going. Anyone with a Wii knows how those controllers and accessories can really add up in price.
Learn about Games
In addition to Kinect reviews, Kinect game reviews will also tell you a great deal about the games that you can play with this system. You can experience everything from Kinect racing games, to sports games and even Kinect Fitness games which are much like the famous Wii Fit products. You can read these reviews to tell you more about the games that are available for the Kinect and to keep updated and informed on new games that come out so you can always play the best that Kinect and Xbox have to offer.

Ziggy is a casual gamer who has become obsessed with Microsoft's Xbox 360 Kinect. He is trying to compile the best Kinect reviews on the web to help spread the word about Kinect and Kinect games.

Top Ten PlayStation 3 Games

1. Grand Theft Auto IV Grand Theft Auto IV introduces several major developments. Graphics engines and physical game, which were often criticized in GTA, have been fully reviewed, which allows a much more lively city than in the past.

2. Metal Gear Solid 4 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (MGS4) is a new concept qu'Hideo Kojima introduced the slogan No Place To Hide.

3. Assassin's Creed Mixture of an edgy science fiction adventure and a medieval based on historical facts.

4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare The gameplay is deep enough, the game offers the player a whole arsenal of weapons ranging from pistols to shotgun through the sniper rifles, assault rifles, light machine guns and submachine guns.

5. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas The beginning takes place first in a Mexican city, and most of the game took place in Las Vegas. During the game we travel by helicopter from one mission to another.

6. Tomb Raider Underworld For the first time in a Tomb Raider, most movements of Lara were created by motion capture to give it more weight. Only a few movements, less realistic, have been recreated artificially.

7. Resistance: Fall Of Man Resistance: Fall of Man offers a solo mode of fifteen hours of gameplay (which is considered quite difficult), a cooperative mode and a multiplayer mode online and offline,to which 40 players can participate simultaneously.

8. God of War 3 The general gameplay is improved from earlier versions while remaining essentially the same: as Kratos confronts the gods, he retrieves legendary weapons, with which he can use magic spells, now associated with weapons. If the player changes his weapon, Kratos journeys will be different.

9. Final Fantasy XIII Weapons and accessories are improving with materials acquired during the adventure, as in Final Fantasy VIII.

10. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion As in most of Elder Scrolls, the player begins the story as a simple prisoner, who escaped the Emperor entrusted the mission to find his heir and close the gates of Oblivion, a world run by Mehrunes Dagon, Daedric Prince, and populated by Daedra.

Final Fantasy 14 Conjurer Review

So ever since closed beta I've been playing Conjurer as my main discipline. It is the closest thing I could get to Blm/Whm that I so loved in Final Fantasy 11. Some things are a hit and some are a miss but overall it is an extremely fun class and I'm enjoying every minute of playing him.
When I first started off as a Conjurer leveling felt a little clunky. I had low HP, MP, and low armor. I also started out in Gridania where poison is a common occurrence, and dying from it is just as common. I was frustrated at first but once I reached Conjurer rank four I got cure. This spell changed the entire class around for me. I was now able to beat enemies down with the use of spirit dart (a spell that does lower damage but costs no MP) and then heal up with Cure and continue on my way.
Conjurer is a Disciple of Magic and thus uses MP. Final Fantasy 14 is different this time around as there is no way to regen MP naturally. At first during low levels it is a bit frustrating running out of MP and needing to run back to the nearest Aetheryte crystal to regen your MP. This is pretty much solved once you reach rank 10 and get an ability called "Radiance". This is a weapon skill that uses Tactical Points, it gives back MP proportionate to the amount of damage it does. At level 10 this was giving me back about 60-70 MP every time, it pretty much makes running out of MP a thing of the past.
In Final Fantasy14 they have made the combat system very fast paced, this includes the magic system as well. In Final Fantasy 11 you had to cast a long spell that would be interrupted with just 1 hit from the enemy, in Final Fantasy 14, however, the spells are much shorter and it is much more difficult to get interrupted. Just like attacking with a weapon or using Spirit Dart, magic uses stamina too, although in much greater quantities.
After level 10 Conjurer becomes a power house of pwnage, I easily and quickly destroyed anything in my level range. In the beginning they are a little slow to level but they soon start leveling just as quick or possibly faster than the other classes. The only downside is that if you are playing as a healer in a group setting you will get less skill ups than anyone else.The Conjurer all together is an awesome class, and definitely the one that I will be be playing come release day.

Dungeons and Dragons and the Ouija Board Opens You Up to Real Demon Possession

The game Dungeons and Dragons has been around for many decades and seems like an innocent enough board game, just like the Ouija Board that you can use to communicate with spirits from the other side.
Most people who play Dungeons and Dragons secretly want to believe in the world of spirit and do not believe playing a board game can in any way harm their soul. Yet this is not the case. In this game, spells are cast and demons are conjured, all in the name of acquiring more power and victory over your gaming opponent. What the majority of people who play this game do not know is whenever they cast spells or conjure up demons they are giving the "green light" for demon spirits to enter their soul.
In the following quote from Dr. Shakuntala Modi's book, "Remarkable Healings" who has healed many patients from spiritual demon possession, we see how dangerous it is to "play with the devil". Dr. Modi: "Sometimes patients reported being possessed by human or demon entities while playing with a Ouija Board, channeling, doing automatic writing, or sitting in a séance. Playing with conjuring games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Demons can also open people up for possession. Dave, a fifteen year old male, had a demon entity who claimed to come in when he was playing Dungeons and Dragons."
You may dismiss this believing only a small number of people are possessed by demons. Yet this is not the case either. The vast majority of souls on earth have been infiltrated by earthbound or demon spirits due to holes in their aura and a fragmented soul caused by emotional, mental or physical trauma over the course of their many lives on earth.
Our recommendation is that if you do not wish to be possessed by demon spirits that you stay well clear of the Ouija Board or any game that requires you to cast spells and conjure demons. As the old saying goes, when you play with fire you will get burnt. These dark spirits are waiting patiently for the right opportunity to join with new human hosts, and they do this subtly, using a method called "partial possession". This means the demon spirit can gain entry into your soul undetected, and give you the impression that it is a part of your normal fear-based human ego that is already negative in nature. How will you know the difference? You can't, and that is the point. These dark entities do not wish to be detected within you, which give them time to silently work on your soul over a long period of time, causing you to make more and more poor choices, stealing your light and your ability to love and receive love.
To purify your soul of existing demon entities and protect yourself from future possession, we encourage you to read the information on the below mentioned website. Please note that the angels of Light offering spiritual protection, cannot protect you if you are using your free will to actively cast spells and conjure demon spirits.

Dungeons and Dragons - How To Create A Single, One Time Adventure

You may play a game adventure module, or even be running quite close to the end of a long running campaign you have running over several adventure modules, but what if you have no other modules or new campaigns when you finish? Is another option that you can choose to use?
Yes there is a simple solution. Enter the quick adventure. The quick adventure is an adventure for your players to run with, yet it may be completed within 2-6 hours and it is mostly run on the fly by you, the dungeon master. Yet with a few ground rules to help keep things on track, your adventuring party are in for a great one single event of play.
What do you need? Players, yes, dungeon master, check, food and beverages, yes got those as well. A few interesting bits and pieces to help keep it all running, your entire campaign for this one single afternoon or evening can be mapped out on a single sheet of paper.
Let's go through simple and straight forward steps to help with setting up your quick adventure.
Step 1 - Theme - decide on an event or main task for your players to complete. Delve into a deep, dark dungeon, slay the monsters & grab the treasure. Or will the play be more like a save the damsel, or stop a thieves guild from stealing a priceless object, or save a princess from an assassination attempt.
Step 2 - Location - decide on a location, a dungeon, a township, a city, a vast and dank castle, a stifling hot desert, lush and green forest or other location of your choosing
Step 3 - Timings - try and keep your players on track, if they linger too long around an area, or a non player character conversation is taking to much time, or they cannot find a secret door they know is there, help them along.
Step 4 - Keep on track - have your party of adventurers hit the different key areas in your mini campaign. If they are a little behind, skip a beat, if they are ahead and are at chapter twenty when they should be at chapter twelve, slow them up.
Step 5 - Provide the unusual - throw in something unique for that one day of game play, previously weak creatures, the ones that are easily killed, are now as strong as your adventurers; spells of third level fail to work, your party members must attack anyone wearing a red sash.
Don't forget to make it fun, this may make for an interactive process stimulating much more focus on role play. Since as you play for the one sole event for 2-6 hours, there's no real time for mapping, heavy investigation in an area or lengthy non player and character conversations. The pace must flow, and be constant and continual like a quick drum beat.