VSK Gaming Servers – High Quality Game Server Rentals

Enter The Hyborian Age With “Age of Conan: Unchained”

Its official: anyone can now fire up and play the critically-acclaimed MMO “Age of Conan: Unchained” without having to input their credit card info to pay regular fees. The low-fantasy, sword-and-sorcery multiplayer experience by Funcom is now set to bring Robert Howard’s famous Conan the Barbarian character into a new online game for everyone to indulge their desire to “crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.”

The game is being re-introduced to the market with a new hybrid business model, allowing anyone to get into the game and play for free, without any subscription costs. Instead, the game merely limits what features are accessible to those who do not pay for a premium subscription. The payment is something that the company says is completely optional and the core of the content will be accessible to free users.

Rather than having access to all twelve Hyborian classes the game offers, free users can only choose from a distinct group of four: Cymmerian, Aquilonian, Stygian or Khitan – all based on locations or peoples from Howard’s original works. Each choice assigns a distinctive look to the player, also based on the descriptions from the original work and corresponding, loosely, to ethnicities. Free players will also experience restrictions on their chat and mail privileges, having infinite capacity for private communication, but only to those who are their friends. It is primarily a way to discourage spammers, which are an increasingly prevalent problem in most MMO titles.

The game takes place in the same Hyborian continent that was developed and outlined in the written works of Robert E. Howard, the father of the “sword and sorcery” fantasy subgenre. A premium subscriber will get access to all of the classes available, ranging from the fairly obvious Barbarian to the Demonologist, a mild reference to Conan villain Thulsa Doom. After that, the standard MMO system of sending players out into the world to explore areas and kill monsters takes over.

Even with a free-to-play version, Funcom appears to know what it needs to do. The company has worked hard to improve the graphical presentation, giving Howard’s vision of Hyboria a new life. At the moment, the game has experienced 12 upgrades since it first hit the Internet in 2008. The content currently covers a wide range of challenging raids, assaults and sieges and action that would do Conan the Cymmerian proud. However, as noted, much of the content is locked away behind a subscription fee.

Never has Howard’s Hyboria been so enticing a world to explore and never has the notion of picking up a sword and letting loose been so enticing – or so economical.

The release of the upgraded Crysis 2 1.9 patch for the PC certainly took time, and developer Crytek came armed with three years’ worth of “valid” reasons.

First, the game developer is saying that since Crysis 2 is their first venture at multi-platform games, they wanted to make sure that they delivered successfully on all supported formats (PC, Xbox 360, PS3). For this reason, they couldn’t focus solely on upgrading the PC version to DX11. They would rather give their R&D think-tanks enough time to develop everything. At least, they say, they won’t have to suffer the consequence of releasing all versions half-baked.

Crytek reps are also saying that the DX11 Tessellation and High-Res Texture Pack is worth the wait, especially since it comes as a free visual upgrade that will also benefit older DX9 users. However, naysayers think this should have been done much earlier. In fact, most gamers believe all the graphic improvements and performance optimization promised by DX11 should have been a default with the initial release in the first place.

After all is said and done, it’s still a welcome change for PC gamers. Free is free, and the upgrade seems to be really worth all the buzz. Take, for example, the depth brought by real-time local reflections and contact shadows. It adds kick-ass depth of field that makes the entire experience even more immersive. As if it can’t get any deeper than it already is.

The update is noticeable in the urban levels of the game

The developer would do well to brag about the tessellation that goes with the DX11 upgrade. It enables smoother curves to bring the gameworld closer to life. This means more lifelike characters and more lucid details. Lighting is more realistic. Water effects are clearer. All these will be apparent, that is, if the player makes an effort to really see the difference. So don’t expect anything dramatic when it comes to mind-blowing eyecandy. The total immersive experience should take care of that. Plus, the upgrade requires a 64-bit OS and 1GB memory card – now, that’s a way to manage expectations from the start.

Did Crytek deliver something that should have come with the original package in the first place? Is the hero too late? Others who have tried it are certainly not raving about it. Perhaps a little more time would give this mother of all PC games graphics an idea if they’re forgiven for the delay. In the meantime, DX11 could still give some kick-in-the-nuts gameplay if only because Crysis 2 publisher EA says the upgrade is a “gift”.

If you’ve looked into a bit of American history this 4th of July, you may or may not remember the name ‘Jamestown.’ Well, one look at “Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony” might have you think this is some kind of simulator-style god game, letting you take control of colonists trying to survive the harsh conditions of the New World. It’d be almost like “Oregon Trail” in a way, but hopefully less sadistic. Sadly, that isn’t what this game is about. No, this is about a British colonial who’s managed to royally piss off the British Crown and whose only hope for salvation is solving a great historical mystery: what happened to the legendary lost colony Roanoke?

Did we mention “Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony” is set on Mars and the year is 1619?

Yeah, this is going to be one of those games.

At its core, this title from indie developer Final Form Games, is a top-down shooter. That it’s loaded with style and has solid gameplay helps to make up for – or support – the fairly ridiculous concept behind it.

Players get to start with one ship, with three others up for unlocking. Each ship has two modes of fire that can come in handy in a variety of situations. Apart from the starting ship, the others can get very complex in how they function and what they’re best used for. For example, the bomb ship is not the kind of thing you want to fly solo, but is an excellent tool when there are other ships available to lend support. This lends it uniqueness to the typical setup of shooters in this genre, which leave the player’s lone ship or character all alone amidst a seemingly never-ending swarm of targets.

The gameplay is classic top-down shooter, though a bit less forgiving at times. The difficulty gradually builds up from the start, which is a nice bonus. However, those who are seeking to test their skills can jump into the fourth difficulty setting right away. The hardest one needs to be unlocked and compares somewhat favorably to the ‘bullet hell’ style of top-down shooter in terms of the number of close calls the player is likely to get into. The curve of the difficulty is actually quite good, because it slowly builds skills in players so they’re not completely off-guard with how obscenely tough the later stages can be.

The graphics are great pixel art – something that older gamers will appreciate. There’s plenty of old school style that coats the high-tension substance of the game. Some folks might find the gameplay reminiscent of the coin-munching “Metal Slug” franchise in top-down (rather than side-scrolling) form, which is very high praise for a game in this genre. While the premise is odd (why would the lost Roanoke colony be on Mars and how would the British Empire in 1619 even get to Mars anyway?), the game is a clear example that 2D is not dead and the top-down shooter still has a place in the gaming world.