Saturday, September 27, 2014

Pokemon TCG Online Soft launches in Canada (Update: Launched worldwide)

Update#2: Some iPad impressions  from Reddit.

Update#1: The game is now launched worldwide. The people over at the forum thread link below are reporting that the game constantly download card art assets and uses up a lot of storage space on the device. I did notice constant downloading of card art assets on the computer version too so I guess it is part of the design. The space issue where card art assets steadily grow can be a problem if your iPads do not have much space left. Overall, I don't think the response in the forum were overly positive about the game. You can check out tips I compiled while trying out the Computer version here.

iOS App Store link

You'll need a Canada App Store account but I'll probably just wait for the official release. However, The game is only playable on an iPad with Retina display so I'll be unable to play with my iPad2. There is a forum thread over at Touch Arcade so you'll be able to read some early impressions over there.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal World Duel Carnival English version (US region) is out now on the 3DS eShop

It costs about US$20 and if you didn't know yet, it has a lot of content cut from the Japan region version. The 3DS eShop do have discounts once in a while so if you can wait for it to get discounted before buying.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Pokemon TCG Online: Issues I encountered (Update to Day 5 bonus issue)

The game does carry the "beta" tag so hopefully these issues get ironed out by the time it releases for iPad because I think a lot more players will start playing the game due to the popularity of the iTune Store. You can submit the problems you encountered to the Pokemon Support Center.

- No Theme Decks for selection at the Trainer Challenge. I bought Dark Hammer and it wasn't shown either.

- I had an occasion where the Day 5 Daily Bonus of a booster pack got skipped and it went to a new Day 1 Daily Bonus. Might be a good idea to screenshot your Day 4 Daily Bonus with your system Date and Time as proof in case it happens. Update: I reported the issue and was awarded a Furious Fists booster pack. The Pokemon Support Team acknowledge that it was an issue and is currently being fixed.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Hearthstone: Shaman totem facts (Added one more fact)

I have been watching some streams and sometimes, I read comments stating that Shaman should use their hero power to get a totem first. I search around and found some interesting facts about totems.

From IHEARTHU.com's 30 Bizarre Hearthstone Rules:

"18. End of turn minion abilities activate in the order you summon them. For instance, if you play an Imp Master, and then create a Healing Totem that turn, the Imp Master will damage itself and then heal back to 5 HP. If you summon them in the reverse order, the Healing Totem will activate first, and you’ll only have a 4 HP Imp Master."

The above is a specific situation where you want to totem after the Imp Master.

"22. Shaman’s hero power can only create a totem if none of that type are on the board. If you have 3 totems out, you will get the 4th totem you don’t have with 100% probability. If you have 4 totems out, you’ll get an error when you try to use your ability."

I didn't know about the above fact. More on that is elaborated in the IGN's Shaman Guide:

"The Shaman can summon four different kinds of totems through his Hero Power. Each totem has an equal chance of being summoned and only one can be on the field of each kind at a time. Summoning a second totem will yield a 33.3% chance to summon a specific one; with a 50% chance to summon one of the remaining on the third summon in play. Attempting to summon a fifth totem will not result in another summon."

So in general, why should you hero power a totem first if you have the mana? I think the main reason is you want to try getting the Wrath of Air Totem to boost spell power before casting your damage spells for that turn. Secondly, like with card drawing, you want to do it first to re-assess the situation and see if you will play your cards out differently. *New* Thirdly, you can use the fact of unique totems to get out totems that you want before sacrificing away one of it.

Hearthstone: Why your opponent concedes immediately at the start

PC Gamer's Interview with a Hearthstone botter (It is 2 pages long)

The answer to the question in title is in page 2 of the article; you were most likely facing a bot. The most interesting part was the use of bot in arena matches. It still requires human intervention in the initial draft so the botters aren't using a program that auto selects base on the popular tier lists, etc. The article also stats that bots are popular in the region's night-time.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Hearthstone Balance Changes for 9/22

Official Forum Sticky thread

Summary
- Leeroy Jenkins cost up from 4 to 5.
- Starving Buzzard cost up from 2 to 5 and has 3 Attack 2 Health (previously 2 Attack and 1 Health)

I think the change to Leeroy is reasonable and he will still find use in decks but the changes to Buzzard is too extreme. Ignoring the card-draw ability, the attack/health stats simply do not justify the casting cost that it most probably will not find a place in Hunter decks anymore. On the other hand, you can still combo Unleash the Hounds with Scavenging Hyena at turn 5 and get a huge beast; something to look out for against hunter if you think you are safe from flooding the board after the changes...

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Metal Slug Defense ver 1.6.0

It's out with 10 more missions and more units and as well as stages. As part of the celebration for 10 million downloads, a Unit character "Issenman Tarou" was given when you start the game. He is a character created specially for this game and looks just like a POW. In fact, according to that wikia, he is an edited Hyakutaro sprite. I won't be covering the game anymore as I got bored of it. Good luck to all players!

Friday, September 5, 2014

Hearthstone: "Hotfixes" the Paladin and Warrior Challenge

Blizzard's HofFixes Forum post

You can refer to the above link for and fixes to the game but the most interesting one was the changes to the Warrior and Paladin's Naxxramas Class Challenges. Here's a reddit post that summarises some of the changes for Paladin.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Try out Pokemon Trading Card Game Online on PC/Mac first before it arrives on iPad

Official Download link

I didn't know there was a PC/Mac client so this is definitely worth checking out! Edit: I just tried it out and the interface is simple and clean so it should look good on the iPad. You can try it out in a guest account before deciding if you want to create an account for the game.