Game Review: Space Engineers

By Nydia Tungsten

First thing I would like to do is to thank Kit, one of my friends and readers, for buying this game for me to review. That being said, let me tell you about it.

Space Engineers, or SE as we have come to call, it is a very addictive game. I was on it for several hours into the night on my first try. I was pleased to find out it is a multiplayer game so Kit played into the night with me while I was streaming it on my Twitch account (www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten) and getting comments from some of my regular viewers.

Now, once you see this game, it is one of those you have to try it so, the next thing I knew, I was joined by quite a few of my angels. We have been rebuilding the starter base and built another one right next to it to grind up all the little yellow starter ships. These ship are the ones everyone was spawning in every time they joined the game until we found out that if we built “med bays,” we would spawn there and not litter the area with “Cheddars,” a nickname my mousie started calling them because of their color, and it stuck with the group. The second base we built was to help with disposing of them. A HUGE grinder was built to grind up a ship whole, breaking them down into their components. We would drag the “cheddar” over to the grinder to “cut the cheese” ( rim shot here ). We even put one of the largest ships to spawn in the game through the grinder.

http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/c/4278353

http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/c/4278369

Those are the two grinding shots I have for now.

Grinding and mining are just two of the ways you get your resources. You can also capture random ships just by going and getting them. Well, you could until this last update where now they shoot at you, so if you want what they have … you have to fight them for it, which brings in a whole new element. Now you have to build fighters with missiles and machine guns to even hope to have a chance, which gives it a bit more of a challenge. We are playing in “safe,” which means no random asteroid to come crashing through your base but now we have to fight harder to survive.

The biggest con about this game isn’t the fact that your “server” is only up when you’re playing. This means a shared world is only shared IF you are on and in the game to share it and not wanting to let your crew down by not having it available to them. The worst is the fact that it has a MAJOR memory leak. After 2 hours of playing, everyone that is on has to empty their inventory so they don’t lose anything and then the host has to totally exit the game to let the cache clear. I have 16 gigs of ram, a 1 gig video card and a 8 core 3.7 CPU so you wouldn’t think I would have any problems, but you would be wrong. This game takes my ram all the way up to the max and if I don’t restart it soon after, it will either crash the game or my system. It sometimes kills my video drivers so I have nothing on my screen, it is like I powered my system down except it is still running, I just have no video.

The only reason we put up with it is because it is a fun game and it IS so addicting (Yeah we’re hooked) The game is still in Beta and still costs $20 USD. On Steam, which if you look at it compared to the games that are $50 to $60, this one is a bargain, if you can overlook the occasional crash and memory leakage.

Now here is the BIG question, would I recommend it?

YES! I have even helped a few to get it.

Like I said at the beginning of this, I THANK Kit for introducing me to it and buying it for me. So I have to give it a thumbs up and a recommendation and bare with it as they fix the bugs.

So until next time Good hunting and good gaming to you and if YOU would like to see a game reviewed let me know and it will be GAME ON!

Nydia Tungsten

Editor's Note: For players whom aren't sure what to do other than help out their friends, and need a little encouragement to figure things out, I would recommend the "Crashed Red Ship" scenario, in which the player has to fix up a large busted ship. Since you don't start out with a refinery, assembler, or cargo hold, you'll need to make those. To make the first two, you'll need to use parts of your ship to make them (without the benefit of "cheddars"). Keep an eye on your energy level, and don't be afraid to fly to another asteroid if you can't find a ore at the one nearby. Before you build the assembler, make sure you have both gold and silicon on hand (you'll figure out why when you get there). Once you have those and a cargo hold, you can began rebuilding what you took apart (one thing you'll have to rebuild immediately before making the hold), and otherwise modify the ship to your hearts content, such as a mother ship for smaller vessels, or rebuild it into a space station.  

It took me a while to figure many things out, but it is a great game, especially when playing with friends.

Game Review: Wildstar's Open Beta

By Nydia Tungsten

I was able to start playing "Wildstar" a few months ago, but stopped since it had so many quest glitches in it. It was in beta and I understood that, but they did have a few too many for me to enjoy it at that time so I stopped playing for a while. Just this past weekend, they had the open beta before release like "Elder Scrolls Online" did BUT, unlike ESO, Wildstar had fixed all the quest glitches that still plagued ESO when they were about to release.

As the main story line goes, you are trying to either take the planet from a bunch of rabble or defend your home from the evil empire, depending on which side you chose. It is kind of like another game where you have two sides vying for control of a world and I am sure most of you have played one (WOW or SWTOR for example) but the characters are more animated “Cutesy” if you will, not that it’s a bad thing, I LIKE the way my character looks, but I saw a few comments about them being too “Cartoonish” so it is all in personal taste.

You need to choose a race and path i.e. Hunter, engineer, etc., etc. and depending on your class depends on the type of solo quests you get. But most are the generic quests everyone gets i.e. kill this many such and such or rescue that many of those whatever.

But the scripting is done with a definite lean towards “cutesy” so some of the “Hard core” gamers may not like it, but over all I enjoyed my experience with it and I give it a thumbs up.

REMEMBER if you have a game you would like to see reviewed please drop us a line and let me know I would love to try it and if it is a multiplayer, maybe try it with you.

Until next time …GAME ON!

Here are a few game trailers let me know what you think.

Meet the Dominion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FhB3iYv4Ng

Meet the Exiles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn8648VGMKM

Dirty Little Secrets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs_X4AzJtK8

Nydia Tungsten

Image Credit: Gamepressure, MMORPG, Gamebreaker

Editors Note: I gave the game a try with one character of each faction: an Aurin stalker (ninjalike) settler, and a Chua engineer scientist. I ended up playing for quite a while. I also give it my thumbs up. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a single screenshot of my progress.

High Fidelity Alpha

By DrFran Babcock

Philip Rosedale is a genius and a visionary. Every day in Second Life™ is a wonder to me. Even more, there has been nothing to rival this virtual world in over ten years! I am so grateful to Second Life™, because it has brought me friends around the world, the wonder of creativity, and even the chance to do other things I love such as writing. I still marvel daily at the gift of this world of miracles, big and small. Have I gushed enough for you? If not, hold on while I tell you about my experience with High Fidelity.

What is High Fidelity?

High Fidelity, or HiFi is the newest brainchild of Philip Rosedale, and represents his plans for a new virtual world that is meant to improve upon and fix those things in SL that were problems for him, and many residents. If you go to the website (https://highfidelity.io ) the big quote on the home page is: “If it doesn’t hurt to think about it, we’re not going to try it.” Some of the things that will be addressed are latency, which relates to speed and lag. By speeding up the communications and musical interactions between avatars interactions will become more lifelike. If you have ever dealt with the pause between a performer finishing a song and your clapping in appreciation, you will like this. I remember Grace McDunnough (SL live performer) telling me how she had to wait a few beats after she finished a song before she responded to the audience, because they might still be hearing and seeing the end of the song. If the High Fidelity interface can make that response immediate, people will feel as if a true human connection has been made. 

Builders will be happy to hear that user-created content will be a feature. The unit of building is called a voxel, and it is a cube that can be scaled to any size to create a whole that will be capable of being complex and edited by others. Philip also wants avatars to be able to make facial expressions, and connect with other avatars. I know that most folks thought he was crazy when he envisioned Second Life™, so I bet he can pull this all off with his team.

My Experience in High Fidelity

I was thrilled when I found I had been accepted for the alpha opening of High Fidelity. I am not a coder, not a super content builder, and not a geek, but I told the team in my application, that they needed ordinary folks like me to assess the learning curve, and see what the new-user experience was like. I had a lot of trouble creating an account, but the team were very patient with me. I logged in finally when all of the meet-ups had concluded, and most of the content was missing. My huge “aha” moment came when I looked at the cute little robot that represented my brand new, un-customized avatar, and I smiled. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the avatar smile back at me! What I was really looking at was me, as viewed through the camera on my Mac. I hadn’t noticed that the red light on the camera was lit, and that my facial expressions were being recorded.

So, this is alpha, and it’s pretty primitive, but I am a fan, and I am in for the ride. I will take you all along with me.

Phil recently addressed the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Meetup, and demonstrated the current progress with his huge and ambitious project. Jo Yardley, of Berlin 1920s fame covered the meeting on her blog (Philip’s presentation starts at about 42 minutes into the video): (http://joyardley.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/hifiprogress/). Watch this video, because  you may be amazed.

DrFran Babcock

Game Review: Seven Days to Die

By Nydia Tungsten

First, let me say the name is deceiving. I died on the first day…. well within the first 20 minutes actually. You all know I like playing both Minecraft and Rust, and 7 Days to Die is like Minecraft with the graphics of Rust.

      Basically, you are a survivor of WWIII and other survivors have turned into Zombies due to mutations. Your job: Survive….which isn’t always easy because, unlike Minecraft, these Zombies come in different flavors like in “Left 4 dead 2”, But, unlike L4D2, to kill these zombies, it HAS to be a head shot.  But, when the sun goes down or even in a dark building, the zombies get stronger, faster, deadlier and harder to kill, so you have to be careful.

     When I first spawned in, I discovered I had a radar map and green dots on it. Green always means good, right?   Right?   Don’t you believed it…… it turns out the green dots were the Zombies that hadn’t noticed me yet. My going in search of the green dots made them notice me, making the dots go from green to yellow to red.  “Yellow” means you have been sensed and “Red” means you have been noticed and have active aggression. THAT was my first lesson.

   First thing you need to do is scavenge and scavenge everything: bodies, cars, garbage piles and cans, drawers, cabinets, sinks, stoves …. anything that lets you. That’s the only way you can get anything to craft what you need. Next step is to find and reinforce some type of base to work out of. Zombies can break through walls so you don’t want to draw their attention at night. But if you do you need to kill them before they damage your base, then in the morning, try and clear your base of the few Zombies that have come around or are left.

    Like in Minecraft, you can dig holes and collect ore and farm as well as hunt for food to add to what you find scrounging through towns (you will start out doing a lot of that). But when you get an area under your control, you can start cultivate it.

This IS an Alpha game so constant updates are being put out, some good, some…well, not so much. The latest update broke some textures for railing, but I am sure such an obvious “bork” will get fixed quickly. At the time of this writing, I have learned to make a forge, crossbow and a few other tricks.

   Another great feature is you can open your games to your friends. I started a solo game then opened it to three of my friends; Bix, Jenn and Pagan. It took a bit of tweaking with the “port forwarding” on my router, but my experience with Minecraft servers helped me out so it was quick and easy. If you have never done port forwarding, I would recommend looking it up on Youtube to see how it is done.

  If your starting ANY game that you haven’t really played before, and would like some help, I recommend looking it up on Youtube. You can decide how much help you want, just watch a quick play through, a detailed how-to video or even just a little help to get past a road block in a specific spot of the game. That’s what I do. I look it over, try it myself and if I get stuck, I go to Youtube. (Gaming tip of the day)

   There ARE zombie hordes roaming everywhere, I saw one moving in the daylight. There were about 15 in one and I decided to go around them, bad choice. That night, they found my base and made life….interesting for a while. I ran out of multiple types of ammo and here is a clip of what happened: http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/c/4005173 . You will also see one of the bee’s that roams the lands as well shortly after the hoard.

    Here are some highlights I have put together for you to look at and make up your own mind.

Setting up and spawning in: http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/c/4002443
The first night: http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/c/4002480
Claiming your first base: http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/c/4002553
The whole 4 hours of the first play: http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/b/516568421

I had a lot of fun playing this and give it a thumbs up. Let us know if you decide to get it or not based on what you see here.

I always welcome feedback and as always…GOOD GAMING TO YOU!!

Nydia Tungsten

Edited by Brandi Streusel Tungsten

Scenes From The InWorldz Fifth Anniversary

By Bixyl Shuftan

On Sunday March 16th, InWorldz began one of it's biggest events this year, it's fifth anniversary celebration. A few dozen sims had been set up to be the location for some celebratory builds for this milestone in the virtual world's history, as well as some events. I went there to take a look at what the IW5 as it's come to be called had to offer.

  There was a shopping hunt for those wanting to search for quality freebies.

Several sims were all water for boating activities. And there were some dock areas, including this sailing ship area with one anyone could take for a ride.

One had to take some care, otherwise you might end up beached.

 Not far from this dock were some pirate caves.

 There were a number of caverns to explore.

I think there was also a treasure hunt game, but I passed it by and moved on.

At the Welcome Center, there was a box with a few freebies.

Nearby on a landing pad was a helicopter ride anyone could board and fly, with a notecard providing a few instructions.

One couldn't just release the controls and let the chopper hover. After this shot was taken, the craft began to fall back to earth, with a few more keyboard presses stopping the descent.

The official InWorldz Fifth Anniversary T-shirt, worn over my normal green one.

 On March 23rd, I came across a small party not too far from the Welcome Center, with Cataplexia Numbers spinning some tunes for those there. With a nautical theme, she was playing songs like "Airship Pirates," and "The Ship."

There was also a couple cannon and a boat rezzer, one that was damage-enabled. This was for a demo battle. When a boat's hitpoints reached zero, the thing went up into a cloud of smoke and sunk. "Let them know were over here having a ball blowing up ships!" one lady told me, "Hope you all don't try and blow up my pretty pink ship if I sail it. Heh heh!"

Among those there was Ilianor Illios, whom offered to show me her builds in the Fantasy area. She told me one had won the contest for best build there, "This is my work. It's a fairy wagon with the royal fairy family. I have added all techniques, tortured prims, sculpts, and mesh. ... In the contest, I liked all the builds. It has been a surprise to win."

The build next to it wouldn't show up on my viewer, the official InWorldz viewer for the Mac (I was using my older computer to travel to InWorldz), but another Ilianor took me to did, "this sun is double faced, on the other side is sunset and here sunrise.

Ilianor told me she had made many builds for InWorldz. Besides her build for the contest, she also had others for the adult sim and the Gallery. From Italy in real life, she had come to InWorldz from Second Life as part of a mostly American virtual community which moved all at once in 2009, "When they came to InWorldz, I moved too." She had a different name in the larger virtual world.

As it turns out, Ilianor is also a harp player. She will perform today March 31st in InWorldz from 1 to 2PM SL and IW time at "Gypsies of InWorldz."

The IW5 will be going on for a few more days, so there's still more to see. If you want to see more pictures, Daniel Voyager has a few more on his Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielvoyager/

Ilianor had more to show me, her store and her "City of Light." But that is another story.

Bixyl Shuftan

Game Review: The Elder Scrolls Online

By Nydia Tungsten

I have been waiting for several months to be able to write about this game, for those of you that love Skyrim, this is completely different but with the same races. Yeah, I know that’s sounds crazy, but let me explain it this way. Yes, the races are there same and some of the cities are the same but that’s about where it ends.

 I will be comparing this game to other MMO’s I have played to help explain it, so get a drink and snack as this could take you on an adventure.

The character creation screen is one of the best I have EVER seen, they made it easy to create a character that is totally unique and your own. The graphics are done very well with fantastic depth and color. The story line is very easy to get caught up in, no matter which race or faction, and it flows smoothly….for the most part.

But I have to admit, this last beta experience was one of the worst beta experiences I have ever had. Granted, the other times I was caught up with at least fifty to sixty other players all trying to do the same quest, but in a beta, that is to be expected, After a few hours, we would string out because of all the side quests that are available, but being this close to the release, they still have some problems popping up. For example, it has three broken quest lines that weren’t broken before. You would think that when you have 63 people standing in one area waiting for a boss mob to spawn generating many reports, they would fix it. The other quest lines people found broken, by this time, were just written off the quest.

But the one thing I found THE most aggravating and frustrating is grouping. Bixyl and I tried to group and to our surprise he was invisible to me. So we both tried to relog, then I tried on another character I had created earlier and we could see each other, for about three minutes. Then he was invisible again so we tried other fixes and none worked.

Okay let’s get into the cost of the game. If you want to play as an Imperial, you have to preorder the game or you can’t play that line. Here is what they said about their prices from their web site:

What does The Elders Scrolls Online cost? Players can pre-purchase digital versions through The Elder Scrolls Online Store  (https://store.elderscrollsonline.com). The digital Standard Edition is priced at $59.99 (€54.99 / £49.99) while the digital Imperial Edition is priced at $79.99 (€79.99 / £69.99). Players can also pre-order physical editions through participating retailers worldwide. The physical Standard Edition for PC/Mac will cost $59.99 (€54.99 / £49.99) and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions are priced at $59.99 (€69.99 / £59.99). The physical Imperial Edition will retail for $99.99 (€99.99 / £89.99) on all platforms. For a full list of what each version includes, players can visit our preorder page  (http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en/preorder). Once players purchase the game, they will have unlimited access for the first 30 days and can continue beyond that with a subscription of $14.99/30 days (€12.99 / £8.99). The first 30 days begin at or after the official launch of the game when players select their preferred subscription plan. Subscription fees will only be charged after the first 30 days.

So if you wait and don’t preorder it, you can’t have the digital goody bag. So, it is $20.00 cheaper, only $60.00 total, and you get the game and the first thirty days, which IS a step above World of Warcraft. I remember when buying WOW for the first time and how excited I was to get it home to try it out, only to find out I had to make ANOTHER trip to town to buy a game card! So, it had to wait a few days more, but in Blizzards defense, WOW was only $25.00 and I never had any broken quests in it. There are a lot of plus and minuses to this game. While I did have fun playing it, the frustration level was way up more than the other times I have played.

So unless they have another test before it goes live so I can see for myself it has been fixed, I cannot recommend this game. It seems to me they are trying to rush it out before everything is ready, and I have seen what that leads to, nothing good. But if you do want to play it, wait a while for them to fix the many bugs left in it and for the price to come down to a reasonable level.

I am sorry to say, I have to give this game a thumbs down at this time. If they do more testing and the bugs are fixed, I will let you know and reassess my rating.

So, until then, GAME ON!

Game play recording: http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/b/507169351

Nydia Tungsten

Edited by Brandi Streusel Tungsten

First image credit: Massively.com

Game Review: Left 4 Dead 2

By Nydia Tungsten
Edited by: Brandi Tungsten

As the opening credits play, you see the first four survivors run through some of the levels you have to take them through, ending up with them climbing the stairs to get to the rescue chopper….that isn’t there for them.
So they have to fight their way to the Evac center, which of course is empty. Along the way, you will find there are stashes of ammo and weapons to help you keep armed for your journey, but they move from play to play, so it keeps you on your toes.

As you watch the video, you will see there are a lot of weapons to choose from, anything from a cricket bat all the way up to a grenade launcher and everything in between.

This is not a typical “Zombie apocalypse” game, this one has several “special” Zombies that can REALLY hurt as Bix and I have found out.

“Spitter” hawks a toxic loogey at you and burns you with its acid.

“Jockey”, this little back humper, jumps on the back of your hide and proceeds to ride your staggering form away from help.

“Charger”, okay this guy has one HUGE arm…( I will refrain from the obvious MJ jokes), he plows through you and picks you up and slams you into whatever is behind you then starts slamming you into the ground.

“Tank”, name saying it all, this bugger is HUGE and can rip up chunks of concrete to throw at you or just toss you around like a rag doll.

“Hunter”, now THIS little sneaky bugger likes to keep out of sight until he can pounce like 400lb fanboy at a comic con meeting sailor moon for the first time, but can be killed easily if you see him in time or your group is close by, but he hits hard so be warned.

“Boomer”, this big boy looks like he weighs as much as a Buick. His real threat is he will puke on you and/or your companions, which will drive every other Zombie into a frenzy and attack whatever it lands on, which is how bile bombs can come in handy.

“Witch”, don’t be fooled by her slight build and pale skin. This little girl is worse than a certain Vixen PMS’ing. You will hear her before you see her. She will be crying softly, but if you get too close or shoot her, you will “startle” her and have to deal with her. But be careful, she can take you down with just one hit.
The best way to deal with her is at a distance. Don’t just shoot her, thinking she will go down easy. You better have a full clip and use it all on her because if she gets too close, it’s all over.

Left 4 Dead 2 features a new cast of human Survivors, which include:


Coach (voiced by Chad Coleman), a portly high-school football coach with a bad knee (although it does not affect gameplay)

 Nick (voiced by Hugh Dillon), a rude and cynical gambler and con artist

 Rochelle (voiced by Rochelle Aytes), a low-level production assistant reporting on the evacuation for a local television station

 Ellis (voiced by Eric Ladin), a friendly (and rather talkative) mechanic who often talks about his friend Keith and their many misadventures.

In addition to the four playable characters, Left 4 Dead 2 also features a supporting character in the form of Virgil (voiced by Randall Newsome), a Cajun boat captain, who appears (voice only) in the game's final three campaigns.

I looked this one up on the Wikki ( Google is my friend ) and found something surprising; this game was originally banned in at least two countries, Australia Germany for its violent and graphic “deaths” of the undead, but hey…here in the U.S., that’s the average movie night at home.

There are many ways to play this game as well, alone, with a friend or in teams on the internet where you take turns being the survivors or the infected. I have tried the team play……let’s just say it didn’t go well, and I think I embarrassed my gaming partner, Dchan, at that time. He, on the other hand….was doing pretty well.

In this video, you will see Bixyl and I duking it out with some real hard core baddies, but we come out on top, and you will notice my character is not the normal one. This game is so popular there have been skins made for it and I am using “Krystal”, There are also a LOT of other skins you can get and use with a little looking. I like playing with Bix because I know when we die, I will be PUNished by Bixyl’s “puns” and humor.

I give this game a “Thumbs Up” and recommend it to those who enjoy FPS’s and don’t mind a little carnage.

Here is the play through we did, hope you enjoy it: http://www.twitch.tv/nydia_tungsten/b/505544524

If you get the game, let us know and tell us what YOU think. And, as always, if you want to see me review a game, drop us a line and I will get on it. But in the meantime, “Good Hunting to you!”

Editor's Note: Forget the stereotype of slow, lumbering, undead. Between occasional lone walking corpses, You'll have to shoot your way through wave after wave of freakin' zombie banzai charges. This game is intense.

Nydia Tungsten