October 01, 2011

BEHEMOTH I LOVE YOU

Sorry, everyone! I've been VERY busy over the past two weeks as I've been trying to find a job! I was playing Heroes of Newerth today (HoN) and I thought this was upload-worthy. Give me your feedback!

September 24, 2011

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy for http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/
If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email at zoupicmusic@gmail.com. 

At 
http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us. This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/ and how it is used. 

Log Files
Like many other Web sites, 
http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/ makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. 

Cookies and Web Beacons 
http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/ does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser. 

DoubleClick DART Cookie 
.:: Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on 
http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/.
.:: Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to 
http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/ and other sites on the Internet. 
.:: Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL - http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html 

Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include ....
Google Adsense


These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on 
http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/ send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see. 

http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/ has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers. 

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. 
http://zoupicgaming.blogspot.com/'s privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites. 

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites. 

September 21, 2011

Dark Souls killing early players

Dark Souls releases tomorrow in Japan, but the people who get access to it early are in for a big surprise.

To punish those who have the game early, From Software takes advantage of a feature that allows people to invade other people's worlds. The publisher sends an incredibly hard enemy to invade the world of an "early player" which is virtually impossible to kill and is max level with max stats. 

There is no word on whether or not the enemy will be removed after the release date. 

Dark Souls releases in North America on October 4th.

September 20, 2011

Dead Island Review

Dead Island is basically Fallout 3 with zombies. Many people are going to associate the game with Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead, but the fact of the matter is that the game is very much like a fusion of the two genres. You get the FPS style game from Left 4 Dead and you get Dead Rising's zombies, level up system and FUN. When I got past the opening cutscenes and prologue, a world of quests, weapons and the character progression system hit me in the face and I was pretty much forced to keep playing the game for hours upon hours. To put it short, Dead Island is a role-playing game with a couple rough edges, and I loved it.

The game's story isn't set-your-hair-on-fire amazing but everything else makes up for it completely. When you first sit down to play you'll choose one of four characters and you're going to wonder where three to ten hours of the day have gone. You'll realize that you loved every single bit, the dismemberment, the quests and the weapon hunting.

Dead Island doesn't shine from its gore though. At first I would kill every zombie I saw, listening to the scream of the Infected or the roars of the Thugs and shitting my pants. From that perspective, I was on the island, not my character; I felt like I was the one killing the zombies and trying to survive this apocalypse. But, by the time I got to a higher level I ignored most of the zombies (because they became hard to kill) and focused on surviving. It was mostly getting from Point A to Point B without dying. Even that is tough.

Dead Island doesn't really punish you for dying though. When you croak, you wait a couple seconds and respawn with less money, but that doesn't really make me think that I should just let the sprinting, screeching zombie behind me kill me just because I can respawn over there and kill it in a couple seconds. No. It kept my heart pounding, leaving me to think "Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit he's gonna get me!"

It's very rare to feel safe when exploring Dead Island, and that's how all zombie games should be. You face a limited stamina bar so you can't sprint and swing your weapon forever. Med kits were scarce which forces you to scavenge for energy drinks and snacks -- which have to be used at that very moment. Weapons degrade when you use them, so the reward isn't as great when you find a "legendary" weapon as opposed to find a workbench in the middle of nowhere to keep your weapons in tip-top shape.

The game made me choose my character (I chose Sam B the funniest character I have ever fucking played) and let me choose the weapons, the quests, and the path in my skill tree. If you were to join my game as the same blunt weapon expert you would expect that we are not completely the same.

Joining games is easy and there is a function that shows a pop-up telling you that a player is in the same location as you and with the click of a key, you're in that person's game playing with them. As you level, it becomes a priority to explore levels together because it's very dangerous to go alone. But the sad thing is that there is no local co-op.

As much as I loved the game, it's far from perfect. Visual bugs like hands going through doors and stiff first person melee combat may turn the game off to few people, but it's not the presentation which makes a game, it's the experience. This game is LOADED with experiences!

Overall Score: 8.5/10
Visuals: 7.5/10
Gameplay 8/10
Story: 7/10
Audio: 9/10
Replayability: 9/10

Enjoy!

September 19, 2011

Mandatory PS3 update removes right to join in a class-action lawsuit

I'm not sure if you've heard about this or not, but Sony is releasing a *MANDATORY* PS3 update which basically tells people that they have no right to complain about their hardware or software and their voices will never be heard when they want to find something or get something back from Sony. Even as a PC and Xbox 360 player it troubles me to hear this sort of news as it may spread from company to company like wildfire. I do not want this to be the future of gaming, where my voice cannot be heard by the big bully gaming companies. If you want to read the full story about the update you can do so here: http://arst.ch/qws