Marina Del Rey, California – May 16, 2012 – Gravity Interactive, a publisher of exciting massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), launched today the latest content patch for their wildly popular anchor title, Ragnarok Online. Enter Port Malaya to discover new quests, added dungeons, the best equipment yet, and an expanded MVP monster cast; there’s so much new content it will be hard to decide what to try first! Players can rush over to the official site and receive complimentary suntan lotion for their coastal visit at http://www.playragnarok.com/news/updatedetail.aspx?id=204&p=1

Welcome to the Port Town of Malaya, where the water’s always warm and the monsters are always dangerous. Enjoy dozens of new quests, including an entire suite of daily tasks to perform aimed at level 100+ characters. Join up with fellow adventurers to plumb new dungeons, testing the strongest characters and honing their boss hunting skills to a fine edge.

Delve deep into these raids to discover the hidden story of Malaya. Acquire powerful new equipment, including the new Tattoos, which will grant your character new permanent buffs! Use these newfound powers to tackle the most challenging enemies yet, including rare MVP Monsters, which will challenge veteran players to rise to a new level.

“Port Malaya is the largest town expansion update, both in sheer size and in features, providing both high level activities and challenges and is deservedly the most talked about expansion town update Ragnarok has ever had!“ Said Jason “Heimdallr” Koerperich,
Ragnarok Online Producer at Gravity Interactive. “ We are happy to provide this update so far ahead of our community‘s expectations as a wonderful surprise to our loyal players!”

1000 years of peace have reigned, and the world has forgotten the horrors of the age of myth; as in all things, peace can never last forever, and evil waits patiently. Once friendly monsters turned aggressive; soon after followed demons attacking, and the dead rising from their graves. Heroes appeared to beat back the invasions until the fateful day that Satan Morocc destroyed the peaceful town of Morroc, his freedom granted by the insane and corrupt humans of Midgard. The heroes re-gathered themselves and pushed back with everything they had but only a stalemate was possible. The delicate seals that protect the world from spilling into complete chaos weaken and break; only the knowledge and power from the age of myth can save Midgard from certain doom. Can you and your allies push back the threat of total annihilation and protect Midgard from the final Ragnarok? Join now at https://www.warpportal.com/landing/ragnarokrenewal.aspx?ad=4063

These screens show off new gear, pets, costumes, and of course some of the new areas and monsters that will be available as soon as the latest content update goes live. Take some time to take these in as they are spectacular!

Getting Started

SD Gundam Capsule Fighter is probably one of the faster starting games you will play. The game, once logged in, asks you for a player name and drops you directly into the games tutorial. While the tutorial is very informative, it can be a bit annoying if you are not really looking to run through a tutorial when you first start out. Yes there is no way to get out of the tutorial. So you will have several teachers giving you basic instructions on everything from moving your fighter to firing your weapons and understanding the power of your special attacks.

Gameplay

Once you have completed the tutorial the game drops you as the players into the capsule system where you will be awarded your first fighter of your own. This is random and you will be awarded one of a few different starting fighters. It is certainly nice to see that not all fighters are the same so all the newbie players are not running around with the same fighters.

The game keeps new players away from PvP until they reach a higher rank, so your first missions will be PVE only, either solo or with a group of 4. Each of these missions reward players with exp, and points that can be used to purchase other capsules and gain new fighters to put in your stable of fighters. The game boasts over 300 different fighters, so earning them all will be quite the task.

Over time you will find that there is a fighter that you will enjoy playing more than others, additionally there are different fighters that are well suited for different situations. So you will spend time with a few different ones and as you do so, you will be able to customize these units to your own liking.

In time you will earn the ability to jump into the PvP and Clan battles. This is where the real fun begins. While fighting computer opponents can be fun, there is nothing that replaces combat against other real players. Either way, combat in the game is fun and fluid for the most part, there are some minor aiming issues and melee combat can produce some stun lock situations that can be annoying. These are part of the game, and as a player it doesn’t take long to learn how to deal with these situations with a minor adjustment to your gameplay.

Graphics, Sounds, and UI

Graphically speaking the games graphics suit and follow the anime look and feel well, there are a few minor graphic glitches that seem to pop up from time to time, but nothing that will ruin the gaming experience.

Sound wise, you can expect the basics, nothing more and nothing less. There are good sound effects during combat.

UI is sleek and simple. One of the things the game does extremely well, most of the time the UI will be completely out of the way and won’t even be noticed, one sign of a very good UI.

The Final Word

SD Gundam Capsule Fighter is a fun game and can be enjoyed a wide range of players seeing that the game has very low system requirements. The large number of possibilities when it comes to the available fighters is amazing. Each fighter is also unique and the fact that a player can customize their fighter just adds to the fun. The game has a large variety of missions as well that will keep players engaged and enjoying the fast paced action that comes with the games unique style of gameplay. There are times when a player can wonder what they are suppose to be doing, but that is mostly because the game keeps things simple. Overall there is a fun game at the core of SD Gundam Capsule Fighter that gamers will enjoy, whether they are a fan of the series or not.

Getting Started

Making the dive into a fantasy world based in the tiny town of Quahog, RI is not only simple, but also massively entertaining. Your character will be built around a basic build that follows one of the main characters of the show, Stewie, Peter, Lois, or Meg/Chris, Brian is locked at this time. Each of these characters have specific skills and attributes that are very nicely tied into their TV personas.

Once you have selected a character type, you will then have the ability to customize your character to your liking, changing out things like hair, face, lips, shoes, hats, etc. The customization system is very expansive and really makes for creating your own unique character in the game. At first when we logged in there were not many players running around, but after a short period of time we began to see quite an influx of gamers logging into the starting area. It was fun to see the different types of characters that people created and this really showcased the customization system that the game has available.

Gameplay

Once your a logged into the game, you will get some basic instructions from Major West. Your first task will be to talk to Stewie and get your first actual quest. Questing in the game is very simple and the minimap will lead you around to all the places you need to go. Using an arrow on the map to direct you to the task currently at hand. Your starting quests will also get you acclimated to the various game mechanics.

Soon you will notice that as you are running around and completely various quests that you are getting cut scenes that tie into the quests you are completing, something that is not only entertaining, but a great break from the usual stuff you see, as these cut scenes are like watching small clips from the TV show. Providing the same high level of entertainment and humor that the show provides.

After running around for a bit you will notice that the game has a fun little achievement system that players can use to gauge their progress in certain events. The first few achievements come with ease, but there are later achievements that will take some major effort.

Graphics, Sounds, and UI

Graphically the game really gives the player the feel that they are in the TV show. Every last little detail from the show was paid close attention to and replicated in the game. Players of course are not going to play a game like Family Guy Online for realistic game graphics, which is why the games graphics excel. Having a graphical style that matches the TV show is exactly what should be expected and the game certainly delivers.

Voice acting is at the core of the sounds for the game. While the music is also well done, the voice acting not only during quests or at random times during your adventures in Quahog, but also during the cut scenes that were created just for the game is excellent. It is small touches like this that make a game like Family Guy Online please players who are true fans of the franchise.

The games UI is simple and easy to use. Nothing out of the ordinary from other MMOs and even more streamlined as the game really doesn’t need a lot of the normal UI pieces that many other games require.

The Final Word

Overall Family Guy Online is one of those games that is there to give players a humorous and entertaining option in their video game experiences. In the short period of time that we played the game it was great to see building and scenes from specific episodes of the TV show and the additional cut scenes were a very nice touch that any fan will enjoy. Game play may be a bit simplistic for some gamers, and there is not a ton of combat, and no PvP. Though these things may turn some players off, those gamers who are looking for a third person joy ride through the TV World they have come to love over the past 10+ years will enjoy what Family Guy Online has to offer.

Getting Started

As soon as you log in you will start out creating your first character from one of three unique races, the Gold Kirin, the Lunar Fox, or the Maned Dragon, each of these have two class selections and all classes are open to both male and female, but the two classes are specific to that race. Classes are broken down into a few different categories, which more MMORPG players will recognize, DPS, Tank, and Healing. Each of these have nicely detailed descriptions as well as a simple outline as to the play style of the class.

Once you have chosen which race and class selection suits your gameplay desires, you will be off to customize your character. Most anime inspired free MMORPGs have very limited options when it comes to character customization, not Spirit Tales. Spirit Tales has many slider bars and options that will insure that no character looks exactly like another once you are in the game, of course the usual random options is available as well, and can produce some interesting results that may or may not come from the normal tinkering of the slider bars on your own.

You will also notice a second character behind your main characters. This is your Spirit Power avatar, and will be what your character will transform into once you have completed the quest for your Spirit Power. This is a form that your character will take and increase your fighting ability thus allowing you to take down much more powerful monsters much more quickly. This quest becomes available at level 10 and should be completed as soon as possible as the Spirit Power comes in very handy for questing and taking out mini-boss mobs that you will run into during questing.

Gameplay

As soon as you are dropping into that game and the starting area of Autumal Grove you will find that you are immediately presented with a quest line that does an excellent job of moving your character around this starting area and progressively increasing the monsters that you will fight as you achieve your first several levels. Like most MMORPGs these days, the first bunch of quests are very linear, and not under you get a few levels under your belt will the game start to add a few quests to your quest log at a time. All of the quests types any player will recognize, and come in the standard variety.

One nice feature about the quests you will complete and something we touched on when talking about the Spirit Power. There are quite a few quests that not only unlock certain powers, but also new pets, crafting, weapon enhancing, and much more. Spirit Tales excels at creating a desire to quest over just mindlessly grinding as there are rewards at every turn for players willing to put in the time to complete quests regularly. Completing quests also allows your character to move up the levels much more quickly and any player who doesn’t want that is out of their mind. With the auto-run feature making completion even that much more simple, so what we are saying is, “DO THE QUESTS!” LMAO

The games combat system is another excellent example of what can be done when trying to merge fast paced action oriented gameplay with the usual button mashing of MMORPG. Allowing a player to assign to skills to each of the button clicks makes combat simple and fast. Quickly in and out of combat in many cases before you ever mash a number key skill. Each of these skills have outstanding visuals as well, with each skill getting its own animation. Since the game has a very deep skill tree for each class, a player can expect to see a large number of different animations as they progress through the levels and discover new skills. Something that can always keep a player excited and wanting more!

Graphics, Sounds, and UI

As stated the games visual animations are very well done. These are only a small piece of the overall look and feel of the games graphics though, but they are a great representation of what a player can expect overall. Visually the game is stunning when it comes to the visuals, and yet keeps the system requirements to a lower level to allow a much larger playerbase. Monsters look amazing and have nice detail to them. The environments are done in a way that makes it easy for a player to feel as though they are truly in the landscape they are walking through.

Music and sound effects can always be there in any game to add just that little extra to the ambiance or create that final attack on the senses that will allow a player to feel full immersion. Spirit Tales uses its audio to exactly this purpose. Changing with the situation and creating a cute but deadly atmosphere.

The games User Interface is nothing ground breaking, but wisely copycats many other MMORPGs where it should, and breaks the mold in a few places where it can.

The Final Word

Is Spirit Tales going to revolutionize the free MMORPG Genre? Unfortunately it will not be doing this, but it does have enough unique features to make for a great game and fans of the anime MMORPG genre have a new title on their hands that I expect most will be adding to their hard drives. Some of the copy cat features may turn off some players, but for others that enjoy these features it may be just what they are longing for.

ATLANTA. May 11, 2012. Hi-Rez Studios, independent developer of AAA free-to-play online games, today announced the Summer of Tribes tournament series. Between May and August 2012, Tribes: Ascend tournaments will award over $30,000 in cash and prizing, with each event being broadcast live over the internet with supporting game commentary.

Tribes: Ascend, billed as the World’s Fastest Shooter, will be featured by leagues and tournament providers including North American Star League (NASL), Electronic Sports League (ESL), Cyber Sports Network (CSN), European Game Series (EGS), Curse Networks and FPS General.

The finals for the first event are this Saturday, May 12th with CSN and over $2,500 in prizing.

http://cyber-sports.net/event/2500-tribesascend-launch-cup

The top prize for the summer will be $10,000 prize pool for NASL Season 3. The NASL Tribes: Ascend semi-finals will be broadcast from E3 and the grand-finals will be a live LAN event in Toronto, Canada.

http://nasl.tv/News/Article/20120504nasl-launches-tribes-ascend-tournament

“Given that we just released Tribes: Ascend mid April, we’re pleased with how quickly the e-Sports community is growing,” says Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios COO. “Our team believes that Tribes can be a premier spectator event and we’re thrilled to have partners who share this vision and support the community with great broadcast content as well as prizing.”

Hi-Rez announced intent to stream selected tournament games within the Tribes: Ascend game client itself. The next digital update to Tribes: Ascend will integrate live viewing of featured games powered by TwitchTV.

Todd Harris continues, “The community is already using TwitchTV to stream Tribes: Ascend game activity. With the next update we’ll feature certain streams as viewable within the game itself so those become broadcast events.”

“We enjoy working with developers like Hi-Rez Studios who harness live video to support their game community,” says Kevin Lin, TwitchTV Chief Operating Officer. “At Twitch we’ve seen a phenomenal rise in eSports, and it is exciting to see the growing popularity of a fast-action FPS like Tribes: Ascend.”

Thursday 10th May 2012, Cambridge, UK – Jagex, the UK’s largest independent games studio, today announced a series of exciting new content updates to War of Legends; adding a host of new mechanics to the game to challenge all players in their quest for supremacy.

The Mammoth May update, which is the largest War of Legends expansion this year, includes a number of new features, such as a raised level cap for legends, a innovative item marketplace, and new battlegrounds, troops and mounts, all of which will provide an even more compelling experience for players old and new alike.

The headline feature of this update sees a rise of the level cap for each player’s main character. From today, every player’s main legend will now be able to exceed the current level cap by 20 levels, to firmly place these legends as the most powerful in game.

As an added incentive for players to level up, this update also allows users to put their spoils of war to good use! With the introduction of a new item marketplace, players will be able trade their item drops and legends for WolCash, the War of Legends in-game currency, with others for the first time.
In addition, the Mammoth May update sees the introduction of four new locations for player to visit and do battle. Plus the chance to receive even greater rewards, build stronger armies with the addition of new mounts for the Legends, and make your empire shine brighter with increased level caps for buildings. If that wasn’t enough, there will also be a series of smaller updates including more in-game titles, new troop types and new legends with increased ability, meaning that whatever your level, there will something for everyone in this epic expansion.

“We’re extremely excited to bring a host of new features for our loyal player base to enjoy,” said Daniel Green, War of Legends Associate Producer. “By raising the stakes, our players will now have the opportunity to join the race to unlock the full potential of their legends and seek even more powerful status as they lead their armies to battle. As we develop the game, we are always looking for new ways to enhance the player experience and we are confident that these updates have just what it takes to satisfy the appetites of our most experienced users as well as offering new players some great features to help them as they begin their journey through the game.”

War of Legends is a flash-based RTS game based on ancient Chinese mythology, which immerses players in a world where they can build vast empires, appoint legendary leaders and form multi-player alliances to reach eternal glory. This rich back-story is a drastic contrast to traditional RTS games that typically have very fragmented or non-existent storylines. The development quality far exceeds that of similar titles currently in the market, and parallels Jagex’s high standard for game excellence, depth of content, graphics and community support.

War of Legends is available to play for free by visiting

Sunnyvale, Calif. – (May 10, 2012) – KoramGame Ltd., a leading developer and publisher of free-to-play online games, today announced that open beta for Spirit Tales, a cute 3D fantasy MMORPG, is now live. Players can now experience never before seen features like Guild Islands and Sigil Stones, and take part in a number of fun community events and giveaways surrounding the launch of open beta.

Spirit Tales open beta is now live and includes the following key features:

• Guild Islands – Construct a private zone specifically for your guild and enjoy exclusive access to special buffs and content.
• Sweetheart System – Commit to a relationship with another in-game character of the same or opposite sex and unlock special abilities.
• Sigil Stones – Acquire these magical stones and equip them in your armor to receive special ability bonuses.
• Enhanced Pet System – Capture, train, and evolve almost any of the Spirit Tales creatures, including bosses! Fight alongside your trusty sidekick, or merge with it to strengthen your own abilities.
• Character Customization – With over 40 million unique fashion combinations for your character, the possibilities are endless!
• Legendary Gear – Obtain these newly added weapons and armor to reap their extraordinary benefits.
• New Instance Dungeons – Set off into unexplored dungeons to battle fierce creatures and collect rare items, recipes, and pets.
• Level 45 Cap – Reach the top and gain access to exclusive new content available only to high level characters.

“We are thrilled to finally make Spirit Tales available to fans all over the world,” says Yann Wang, General Manager. “Since the time of our closed beta, we have worked tirelessly adding new features and improving upon existing ones. In all, this has made Spirit Tales feel much more complete. However, the launch of open beta is really only the beginning for us. With the rapid content release schedule we have planned, we will continue to add fresh content to the world of Spirit Tales, ensuring that players can have ever-increasing, enjoyable experiences with our game for a very long time.”

In celebration of the Spirit Tales open beta launch, players will have the chance to win huge prizes, including new Apple iPads and more, just for playing the game. For more information, visit:

Players who have been hungering to see exactly how their guild stacks up against others will get to experience the ultimate player versus player challenge with today’s “Guild Rumble” content update.

Every month, the guilds of Altera will be called upon to fight monsters, earn achievements, and face off against each other in the arena to prove which guild is the best. Every player will be rewarded for their efforts as well as their performance, so everyone wins. The champion guild each month however will take home exclusive costumes, mounts, and all-important bragging rights.

In addition to the Guild Rumble event kicking off today, a new PvP map is also being added to “Dragon Nest.” Spirit Garden is a new medium sized PvP map themed to the River Ruins Path dungeons. Five PvP modes are playable in Spirit Garden, including: Respawn, Rounds, Protect, Free For All, and Domination.

For more information about the Guild Rumble update visit

Getting Started

Once you are logged into Hunter Blade you are dropped quickly into the character or role creation. While the game doesn’t have the most options when it comes to character customization, it certainly doesn’t have the least either. Moving through the choices quickly, we notices there are no classes, just weapon types. So you will chose a weapon type that suits your play style. Some weapon types are locked and only come open once you reach a certain level. Others are completely hidden.

Gameplay

With your character created, the game will drop you into a quick tutorial. In this tutorial you will see that translations were done with a valiant effort, but at times came up short. Nothing that can not be deciphered, but it does make for some nice accidental comic relief. The tutorial does give a good explanation of all the controls you will need to start hunting monsters. Though right from the first monster you fight, the combat seems less flowing than it should be.

After completing the tutorial the game will drop you in the Village where you can start your adventures, gather quests that can be completed by either running to other NPCs and doing a task, or heading out into the wilderness and hunting down monsters. Either way, the quests are well worth the small amount of effort they take as you will find by doing these you will level up rather quickly. Also, the more you hunt the more items you will gather that can be turned into valuable weapons, armor, and other useful equipment.

Crafting is a huge portion of the game and the game will even track for you the items you are gathering towards a specific item you wish to create. One of the great things about the items you will create is that they are highly useful, and usually the item you will be equipping for use. So rarely do games have items at basically every level that you are going to want to use. This is one place that Hunter Blade is well done.

Graphics, Sounds, and UI

Graphically speaking, Hunter Blade looks great, especially when you are out in the wilderness and hunting down monsters. A lot of attention was given to the small details of the environments. Granted each of these are small and very instance based, so a bit different than creating an open world. Yet visually the game looks great.

The games music and sound effects do a great job of making a player feel like they are in an action packed monster hunt. So no complaints on the auditory aspect of the game.

The User Interface is a bit lacking. I always find it odd when games choose certain key mapping for games, especially when there is so much research and data that shows that gamers like things a certain way. Many of the buttons are hard to see and discern what they are suppose to represent. Highlighting over them will explain each to you, but I like my games a bit more intuitive than that.

The Final Word

Hunter Blade has some good bones, but it could really do with a bit better meat and potatoes. While the combat is fast paced, it seems to miss the mark when it comes to being as fluid as it possibly could. Quests tend to be repeats of each other, with players spending quite a lot of time grinding out the same monsters again and again for materials to craft the next best item. With that said, the crafting system is simple and well done. Always nice to see where items that come out of a crafting system are useful. Overall, if you want something that is a quick fix for your Monster Hunting, Hunter Blade may just work for you.