Glory of Heracles is the fifth part of a game series in Japan and the first of that series to be released in the United States. It features a curious cast of characters and a semi-familiar story with a twist: it’s set in Ancient Greece.

Players: 1
Genre: RPG
Rating: E 10+
Publisher: Nintendo

RENT

To be honest, there really isn’t anything spectacular or horrible about this game. It’s pretty average as far as combat and graphics go, and the story gets better as time goes on. I wish I could rave about something, but there isn’t much that stands out. The characters are pretty interesting, and I’ll be talking a little about them later on. I guess I should start with what most people care about: the story.

The story is pretty nice. It’s based on Ancient Greece and the gods and goddesses of that time. You play as the legendary Heracles… but get this: he doesn’t know that he’s Heracles. You only find this out about a half hour into the game when some nymphs, that admitted to messing with people for fun, sense the power in him. Of course, Leucos, your first party member, instantly jumps on board with this. As you go on, your party fills with people that are convinced of the same thing… until you run into a very strong looking man that also claims to be Heracles. What?! I’m not going to ruin any more of the story for you, but it was about this point that I was willing to go through just about any dungeon just so I could get to the next cutscene.

Let me talk about the characters for a minute. You play as “The Hero” who you will get to name later on. Your first party member is Leucos, a young woman who insists she’s a man – and Gods help you if you call her “Her”! She gets very animated about this, and sometimes she gets a little ridiculous. Most of the characters that you meet know she’s a woman, but humor her and address her as “young man” and other terms. Later, you get Axios who is loved by mortal women and hated by mortal men. He is surprised to learn that Leucos is a woman because she is not instantly attracted to him. Oh, yeah. Both of them are immortal and have no idea why. Yeah, pretty crazy. Overall, there’s a nice variety in characters beyond these three, and you have quite a few short-term companions, like the nymphs that lead you out of the forest you start the game in.

Since we’re talking about characters, let’s move on to combat. This is another menu-driven, turn-based combat system where you decide what to do by tapping what you want, picking your targets, and then sitting back and watching. There’s a nice variety in magic, and I really liked what you get to learn later. You will get the chance to pump your spells by a variety of really mini-game type things that usually involve tapping inside a circle or moving spheres into specific furnaces.

The graphics are pretty nice for the platform. Since this game is a translation from a Japanese game, the art reflects its origins. The characters are done in a very anime-like style. Fortunately, this happens to work in its favor. This game wouldn’t be as much fun, I think, if the characters looked more realistic.

The music is actually pretty nice. There really isn’t much more to say about it other than that. This game made me actually want to keep my volume up a little to hear the music instead of keeping it on silence. It doesn’t distract you from the story or gameplay, like some other games can, and it actually helps a bit.

Overall, I’m going to say that this game is worth renting and playing. It’s not horrible, and it won’t be a waste of your time, but it’s not so amazing that you should rush out and spend your money on it. If you like turn-based fantasy RPGs, you’ll probably really enjoy this. It’s rated E 10+, so it’s good for preteens and up. If you have a budding gamer in your life, then this is a good, fun way to get them into this genre. Now if you’re like a lot of other gamers that are tired of the standard menu-driven, turn-based combat, don’t bother. Otherwise, I hope some of you out there enjoy this game and I’m actually looking forward to a second playthrough.

The review product was provided by Nintendo and does not affect the outcome of this review.

The first thing that really threw me off was, in fact, the fact that it is in first-person view. Normally this isn’t a problem because I love my first-person shooters, and Borderlands was amazing to me. The reason this is a problem is because that you need both hands just to move the camera around. The d-pad is used for movement and you can either use the XYAB buttons or the stylus and touchscreen to change where you’re looking. If you aren’t very coordinated and/or have limited skills using the stylus, you will most likely get really confused.

The next thing is the graphics. Okay, yes, there’s a lot of detail, but from the moment I loaded up the game, it seemed like a lot less than what I might expect. When I went up to people in the opening town, they were two-dimensional. You could not see a back to them, and if you stood in the right place, you’d see that they are completely flat. Now I know that games don’t always want you to focus so much on the NPCs as you do with the story, but just making them flat seems a little…weak to me.

The environment is nice enough, though. You can really tell that there’s a lot of detail. It’s a little distracting in some dungeons when you’re trying to figure out where you’re going. The monsters in these dungeons aren’t animated that great, either. It looks a little choppy and not really fun to watch. Not that you want to watch yourself get beaten up by some random monster, but still. I was also bothered by the fact that you’re running around with your weapon out. It distracted me because all I could watch was this little piece of metal lead my way.

Personally, I’d rather have a game that features good characters and not overdone environment. This game really disappointed me on the graphics front, and not just because I was playing through Final Fantasy XIII before I really spent some time with this game.

The menus left something to be desired, too. They were pretty clean and easy to navigate. The normal screen on the touchscreen had your set spells and items on it with your active weapon at the top. You can just tap the space and use whatever item is in that bubble. When you look at something, there will be a little place in the center that you have to touch in order to interact with it. Unfortunately, that’s the only way you can interact with your environment, may it be a door, a save point, a store, or whatever.

Occasionally you will find a locked treasure chest that will tempt you. Be warned, however, that these lock picking mini games makes Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion look like a cakewalk. They’re possible, but you have to work quickly if you want to try and get through it.

All in all, I’m going to be honest and say not to bother with this game. That’s my opinion, and someone with a little bit of patience might find this more entertaining. The story was interesting, but I really couldn’t look past the graphics, the difficulty of some simple things, and the other faults to dive into it as much as I would have liked. The game is rated T for Teen, so don’t give this to a child no matter how much you think they might like it. The likelihood is that they’ll get bored of it within a few hours anyway.

With the new expansion, Magic and gaming fans worldwide can play with new decks, experience never-before-seen challenges, and battle new adversaries. The new DLC will allow players to battle the ancient vampire Sorin Markov and boasts these other updates:

- 3 new playable decks, including Nicol Bolas’ “Eons of Evil” planeswalker deck
- 3 new unlockable cards for each of the 8 original decks AND the 3 decks from the first expansion
- 5 new puzzling challenge levels
- 3 new achievements
- host migration for multiplayer
- avatar attire awards

On top of this, players can also put their spell-slinging skills to the test to defeat the new single-player campaign which will unlock Rhys the Redeemed’s and Chandra Nalaar’s new planeswalker decks. For those of you that may want an extra challenge, check out Frag Doll Friday this week (May 14) from 6-8 PM Pacific and try your luck against these awesome ladies as they test out the new expansion themselves.

The last bit of good news? This piece of Magic heaven is going for a cheap 400 Microsoft points. Anyone that hasn’t played this game already and want to learn a bit about the game, the original game and the first expansion are available for download. I might be wrong, but you can get both expansions and the original game for 2000 Microsoft points.

GamingAngels (GA): Do you find that being featured in video games has increased your star power in any way?

Hadouken: We’re definitely starting to hear about more and more fans having discovered us through hearing our tracks on video games which is awesome, any way we can reach out to new fans is great news for us.

GA: Do you dream of doing the full soundtrack for any specific game? If so, what would that game be?

Hadouken: I don’t think there’s any specific game we’ve set out sights on at the moment, there’s so many quality titles coming out all the time it seems like a really exciting time for the gaming world so we’re open to anything.

GA: If you had the option to create a game specific to your band, what would that video game be like?

Hadouken: Our music is pretty energetic and aggressive so anything like that with lots of driving and shooting would probably work pretty well.

GA: What does signing with EA Trax represent for you? Is it a step forward? Do you feel like this is finally “making” it?

Hadouken: It’s awesome, we’re really excited about it. There are so many awesome EA games out there and we’re really looking forward to being involved in a few of their future titles.

GA: You have a very loyal fanbase. Have you gotten feedback from your fans on signing with EA Trax?

Hadouken: Yeah a lot of our fans are big into their gaming and they’re really pleased about it, they’re always telling us how they put our album on whilst they’re playing certain games so hopefully now they wont have to if it’s on the soundtrack already!

GA: As gamers, there has to be one game’s music that’s affected each of you the most. What is that game, and what makes its music so special?

Hadouken: I think we all have a lot of love for the games that we played when we were kids, obviously Street Fighter but also Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, the early Mario/Sonic titles etc etc Digging out those old games every now and then is massively nostalgic but the gameplay is also so awesome they’re still enjoyable in spite of the huge leaps that technology has taken since they came out.

GA: You’ve mentioned The Prodigy and Rage Against the Machine as influences. Both of those bands have a pretty distinct sound, and don’t necessarily have an overlapping fanbase. What other musicians/bands do you think have influenced you that might not be as apparent to listeners?

Hadouken: It’s hard to say exactly what bands actually directly influence the music but across the five of us we’re all into all sorts of music people might not expect, James is a big grunge/alternative rock fan and loves bands like Smashing Pumpkins for example, I’m sure everything we listen to rubs off in some way or other.

Pokemon fans who earn enough Watts from walking with a pokemon on that route have the chance of finding a Munchlax that knows selfdestruct, useful items like the Focus Sash and Choice Band, and/or a Magikarp that will learn bounce when it evolves into Gyarados! All pokemon captured in the pokewalker hold useful items that are hard to attain during normal gameplay.

So for any of you with these nifty devices, find your nearest wifi point and get the route! You get it through mystery gift on your game card’s title page. If you select “receive from wifi”, you will have it and be able to pick it up at any pokemart in the game just like you can with other gifts.

I’ll admit that I’m no expert when it comes to all of the new rules, sets, and fancy things with the new Pokemon, but back in the day of the original sets, I was really into it. So today I’d like to just talk a little about figuring out what types you want to use in your deck. Nothing fancy, but there’s a few different options and methods of going about this. First, let’s go about what types are available for you to choose from!

First, you have Leaf or Green energy which relates to bug, grass, and poison type pokemon in the game. Pokemon in this type tend to have more status effect attacks. Common ones are Poisonpowder, Stun Spore, and Hypnosis, among others. Most of these require you to flip a coin to see if the opponent’s pokemon will fall to the status effect.

Then there’s Fire or Red energy which covers the fire types in the game. These pokemon have the ability to burn your opponent’s pokemon as well as abilities that allow you to discard a fire energy in order to use a strong attack in order to deal the most damage.

Up next is fire’s natural enemy, Water or Blue energy. These are your water or ice types. Some have abilities like smokescreen in order to nullify your opponent’s next attack, or things like fury swipes where you flip coins in order to do multiple “attacks” and more damage.

After water, there’s Lightning or Yellow energy, the electric types of the bunch. Thunder wave and other paralyzing mechanics are common here. Lightning pokemon can deal a lot of damage really quick, and most have a lot of HP. Anyway, who wouldn’t love to use many different copies of Pikachu in their deck? I know I have at least 5 different ones, so there are a lot of variations with just that one card name. Though that’s true of at least a couple pokemon of each energy (like Psyduck for water or geodude for fighting).

That leads us to Psychic or Purple energy. Psychic types and ghosts live here. They can confuse you, put your pokemon to sleep, and just be really mean if used properly. There aren’t too many of this type, but those that exist can be a lot of fun.

Fighting or Brown/Orange is next, and these are your fighting, rock, or ground types in the game. These guys have low HP in the basic forms, but they quickly gain experience as they evolve. They hit heavy, and it can be hard to get through their defenses unless you have some choice grass-types, which most fighting types are susceptible to.

Darkness/Black types and Metal/Silver types were introduced later in the game’s presence with Gold and Silver. They cover the dark and steel types introduced in the game. Metal types are a lot like fighting types in that they have high HP and big attacks. Dark types are just plain mean, kind of like psychic types if you want to compare them.

Last but not least, we have the Colorless/White type of energy, which is all of your normal, flying, or dragon type pokemon from the game. These guys are pretty versatile in that they can go with any deck because they can use any type of energy to attack. They can also do many different things and are just fun. They’re like they are in the game: good at a lot of things, but not great at any one thing in particular.

Now that we know a little more about the types we have available in the game, we can get down to deciding which ones we want to use in our decks. There’s three ways I consider approaching this when I sit down to deck build for fun.

1. What types do you have the most of: This is the easiest and most obvious method. What cards do you have the most of? What energy types do you have a lot of? This involves just sitting down to a hopefully well-organized collection and seeing what stacks are the biggest. The more cards you have of any given type, the more likely you are to have some really great things and good support within that type. Remember that you can mix types, and Normal types become useful in any situation.

2. What types work well together: Some types, like grass and fighting, just work really well together. I ran a really nice “Earth” deck where I took my best grass and best fighting types to make something awesome. With the status effects in grass and big hits in fighting, it was nice to find some synergy there. Other combinations, like fire and electric or psychic and grass, come with some great combos that are nice to work with and pretty easy to get. This is a harder method to work with as it requires a lot of thinking and strategy before you even put the deck on the field.

3. What do you like: This is the method I use the most, to be honest. I love fire-types, always have, so I like trying to work with those. Since my collection is a lot smaller than it was 10 years ago, I don’t have as many to work with, so I apply the first method afterward. If you’re lucky, you might have a large amount of the type(s) you like and can work with just those. If not, then find something you like less (like grass for me) and see how that might work with what you already have.

Remember that once you have the pokemon you want, you still need to add in trainer cards and supporter cards. Think of these as your items and support in the game, like instants/enchantments/sorceries in Magic: the Gathering. The cards you add here should compliment your chosen pokemon’s strengths and prevent the weaknesses. If your pokemon have high retreat costs, you might want to consider using things like Double Gust, which allows you to switch out the pokemon in play. Gambler and Professor Oak are great if you want to make sure you have plenty of cards. If your pokemon are strong, why not make them stronger with PlusPower? Energy Search is a great standard for any deck as it allows you to search for energy cards you need. Of course, all of this could very well be the topic of my next Deck-building 101 lesson; you never know with me.

There you have it: a little bit about all the types and a few methods you can use to decide what types you want to use. Hopefully this will have helped some of you get started or given you more things to write about. If you have any comments, feel free to leave them below. I read all of them, and I do reply to them. Remember: it’s never too late to get into a trading card game, and once you do, you’re certain to have fun.

Happy gaming, everyone, and until next time!

Both players put everything they had into their final match which came down to the wire, something not uncommon in professional tournaments. Cheering fans, friends, and family members watched the intense battle. In the end, Jones’ Quickdraw Dandywarrior deck won over Lainez’s Gadget deck.

Jones and his peers took home prize packages including the Dark End Dragon prize card, an event-exclusive game mat, a 64 GB music player (complete with docking station and speakers), a netbook, and other things. Can we say I’m jealous? On top of all that, Jones received a complimentary subscription to the popular Shonen Jump magazine and will be doing an interview for feature on shonenjump.com. He also gets a paid trip to the National Championship this year, courtesy of Konami.

Duelists can now turn to the upcoming Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series (the new name for the Shonen Jump Championship) at the Dulles Expo and Conference Center in Northern Virgina on May 15-16. Good luck to all new players, and congratulations again to Jones for his victory.

Once the download is done, you’ll find a very nice welcoming screen. You’ll get the chance to customize your armor, change the colors, play with your emblem and call sign. I always liked this part of the Halo series mostly because I really like making my Spartan look awesome. One big glitch right now as day one ends is the fact that sometimes when you load up, your character won’t load properly. You’ll have a reset call sign and a basic default armor. This means you won’t be able to gain experience and stuff, so the best thing to do is to dashboard and then reload the game.

From the very first menu, you can see all of your friends and party members that are playing and where they are within the game stages. It’ll show you who’s in a game and who’s in the lobby. If you use your left stick and go toward the list of names, the screen will shift so you can scroll down your list of friends and see their character, how many games played/won, and get the option to join their games. It’s a really quick way to be able to jump into a game with your friends, clanmates, or random people you keep on your friends list for no reason whatsoever.

One big change in the matchmaking scene from Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST is that you don’t get just one map and gametype to either veto or accept. You get three choices and then a “none of the above” choice, so you really aren’t stuck with one or the other. Of course majority rules, so even if you decide on one, if more people vote for another, then that’ll still go through.

The control scheme has changed a lot, too. There a few different schemes for you to chose from based on what your preference is, so you aren’t constricted to just one thing. Reloading is on a new button by default, as is switching weapons and grenade types. Melee is defaulted to the right bumper, and the left bumper now controls your class ability.

Yes, you read that right. Classes. You have the choices between four different things: a scout class, an assassin class, a jetpacking class, and a guard class. Each one has it’s own unique ability, may it be an invisible form or just running really fast, and can change the outcome of a game pretty quick. None of them are exceptionally better or worse than the other, but hopefully more will be added to them all when it comes time for the game’s release in the Fall.

The big issue today is that there’s a lot of downtime. Bungie has been updating the servers a lot since there’s been at least 200,000+ people on all day since the game’s initial release. I don’t even want to think about how many people were downloading the beta the moment it was released! Sometimes you won’t be able to get into the matchmaking, and the system will tell you that it can’t connect. Just be patient or go play something else for a little. It’s been sorting itself out pretty quick all day, so there’s no problem with that. Whatever it is that’s going on, Bungie’s right on top of it. I bet they’re preparing for the insane amount of people that will be playing this weekend!

So if you want in on this rare opportunity to play a huge multiplayer beta, glitches and issues and epicness and all, you better get on it. The beta will only be open until May 19th and then it’s gone until the game’s release a few months from now. Hope to see you on! Happy gaming.

The lead game designer Jay Laird said, “We want to enable players to play games their way, and we want to teach players new games that they may have never tried. We also want to bring back the real-life socializing aspect of social gaming by bringing people together around a single device.”

Laird also added that the company currently plans frequent releases for new boards, pieces, and rules sets. He said that the company has received requests from board game fans, and that they are happy to find the games in the works are games that are wanted. The next release of GameRoom will contain a Go board and rule set as well as an update and expansion to the Custom game mode. The GameRoom newsfeed that can be found on the application’s main menu will notify players as soon as new games are available.

This spring and summer, thousands of trainers from around the world will battle with their prized pokemon for a chance to claim victory. There will be some new regulations for the most anticipated Pokemon video game event of the year. The complete schedule has also been released, and it will be posted below.

The new Legendary Rule I mentioned earlier means that Legendary Pokemon, for the first time, can be used in competition. Normally they couldn’t because they are some of the most powerful and hard-to-find Pokemon in any game.

In the United States, Qualifier tournaments begin Saturday, May 8, in Seattle and will extend as far as Hawaii, the site of the 2010 Pokemon World Championships. While the U.S. competitions are going on, regional tournaments will be held in Japan and Europe. The schedule is as follows:

U.S. Schedule:

May 8, Seattle, WA-Seattle Center Exhibition Hall

May15, San Francisco, CA-San Mateo County Event Center

May 22, Phoenix, AZ-Phoenix Convention Center

May 29, Dallas, TX-Arlington Convention Center

June 5, Atlanta, GA-Gwinnett Center

June 12, New York, NY-Meadowlands Exposition Center

June 25, Indianapolis, IN *-Indianapolis Convention Center

*Last Chance Qualifier for Nationals

European schedule:

May 29, Birmingham, United Kingdom-National Exhibition Center

June 5, Cologne, Germany-Pullman Hotel

June 12, Lyon, France-Cité Centre de Congrès

June 19, Madrid, Spain-IFEMA Feria de Madrid

World Championship:

August 13, Kona, HI**-Hilton Waikoloa Village

** Last Chance Qualifier for World Championship

At each regional tournament, players from two different age groups (born in 1998 or later and born in 1997 or earlier) will be selected on a first come, first served basis from those in attendance. The top 16 players from each regional tournament will receive an invitation to play at the Pokemon Video Game National Championships in Indianapolis on June 26 and 27. The U.S. National Championships will fill 32 spots to compete at World Championship in Kona, Hawaii on August 13-15. There will also be 66 international players from Japan and Europe. Top finishers will be awarded internatinall travel packages, trophies, and special Pokemon prizes.

U.S. competitors will be required to play with the North American English version of the games. European events may only use the European versions of the games, which have been out since March 14th. The tournament will use Flat Battle and GS Cup rules set. All pokemon will be set to level 50 for the duration of the battle, which will allow players to use their Legendary pokemon in battle.

Like last year, all attendees who bring their copy of HeartGold or SoulSilver can walk away with a character distribution. This year, the pokemon distribution is a rarely seen Shiny Eevee that will be a different color than it normally appears in game play. So even if you don’t want to participate, go out and support your fellow players and you’ll walk away with something awesome!