exaVolt 3 CTB First Impressions

I had my first chance to catch an exaVolt tournament yesterday, and was fully impressed. exaVolt is a series of tournaments for Microvolts, and yesterdays match-ups featured some of the top teams in the game.

In the Stream I followed I managed to see Shank (21st seed) upset 2 teams, and nearly upset a third, only for them to invite an extra player into observer mode which got them disqualified. This was quite a shame as they did well in their second game. The first one they were 4-1 down, and Death Valley (12) seemed to just give up, then 2 of them left the server almost thinking they had won. This gave Shank the chance to grab a cap back, and after that they just steamrolled. In the second match, we saw them playing Crazy Toys (5). The match was played on PVC Factory, and was extremely evenly matched throughout the course of the game, with Shank surprisingly managing to pull off yet another upset.

Match 3 was Exordium (1) vs Nordic (8), and was certainly one of the most entertaining matches I have seen in eSports for a long time. Both teams were very evenly matched, and the game went back an forth for ages. In the final few minutes of the game Nordic were one capture up, and no matter how hard Exordium pushed they just couldn't manage to capture. They had 2 pulls in the last minute, with the final one getting within a few feet of the flag, only to be stopped as the timer ticked down to about 3 seconds to go. Nordic managed to hold on to the lead, but sadly lost out to inHarmony (4) in the next match.

inHarmony originally lost to Shank, but they were allowed to advance through as this was the game that Shank got disqualified. The game seemed to be in inHarmonys favor all game however every time they seemed to go anywhere AngryDay would step-up and make a seriously clutch play. Out of all the players, he impressed me the most as some of his kills were incredible and really kept his team in it. As we moved onto the Semi-Finals where inHarmony knocked out Nordic, we saw Forbidden (2) vs BlackBox (3). This was meant to be a grudge match since the two teams appear to be rivals. However the map it was played on (Neighborhood) is far to big for 4v4 and the majority of the game teams we just sat back in their base. There was very little action so overall it was a disappointing match.

The final took place on PVC Factory, and was between Blackbox and inHarmony. The game was over far faster than expected, with Blackbox picking up some quick captures and ending the game fairly quickly. Forbidden managed to defeat Nordic in the 3rd place match-up which was played off stream.

The commentating was fairly good as well, and was from a player known as Chipz. He was fairly new to the commentating game, as you could tell sometimes he wasn't sure what to say. However his energy when something big happened was incredible and was certainly entertaining to listen to which the matches were being played. With a few more weeks practice he will defiantly be a great caster to watch, and will offer a lot to the games being played.

Overall I was really impressed by the quality of matches being played, and the stream was fairly good quality. It was slightly lagging frame rate wise at times, but certainly watchable. The community was also hanging out on IRC, and I learnt quite a bit from them during the evening. I would like to also put a thanks out to Bacon, who is a Mod over on the MV site, for sticking behind after the tournament and explaining quite a bit more of what goes on within the scene. It was interesting to learn about it, and for such a small community there is a lot going on!

Microvolts round-up now online

Just a quick update to let everyone know, the Microvolts round-up video is now online. Next week I will be planning a couple of shows that I will be streaming during the week, stay tuned for more information.

Microvolts and Microtransactions

As part of this weekends series on Microvolts, I will be starting by discussing the market and it's transactions. I will be uploading a first impressions game play later on this evening, so I will use todays blog to discuss the customization available.

As is the norm with free to play games, you can purchase items for varying duration's. If you choose to purchase an item for an unlimited duration you can then use a third currency in game to upgrade the item. You have a chance when killing someone in game for them to drop energy which is used to upgrade. So far I haven't found any set pattern as to when you receive this, so I can't recommend easy ways to farm it. Each weapon has 5 available upgrades for it.

In terms of real money purchasing, the game is fairly cheap to play. If you choose to purchase a weapon with real funds it will cost you just short of $10. The power increase on weapons between free and real money is around 3-5% increase, so these aren't required. Purchasing armor however has quite a bigger increase available on it. The bonuses from armor, either health or run speed and on the accessories extra ammo, is usually double. The increases on health for example are 20 on free, and 40 on the purchased items. If you purchase a full kit for 90 days (The maximum duration), it will set you back around $15, which works out at $5 a month. Not bad at all when you think the game is free to download, cheaper than any MMO going.

As I stated, later on tonight I will be having a video go live, and I am currently trying to get a stream going as well. Just a note to the Nexiuz fans reading this, don't worry I haven't forgotten about the game I am just waiting on the PC release before I go really in depth into it.

If No Cliché made a third person shooter

The original Dreamcast cover.

The title will most likely bewilder most of my readers, and certainly most of todays gamers. No Cliché  was a developer for the Dreamcast, and sadly only ever had the chance to make two games, one of which was a cheap game for the purpose of people testing out DreamArena their online service. The game I am speaking about is non other than Toy Commander.

Toy Commander is now regarded as some what of a cult classic. With the Dreamcast not doing so well in sales, it never got much coverage, especially with the idea that you were just essentially playing with toys. However beyond the toy skin lay one of the most entertaining gaming experiences I have ever had. The story behind it was how Guthy (Called Andy in the US version) had received new toys for Christmas and he neglected his old toys. Because of this his older toys decided to rebel.

Now I know this sounds like a crazy story-line, however it worked really well. You played in 8 different levels, all based on a room in his house, and upon completing a room you unlocked the next. You played as different vehicles which split up into three categories, ground, air and helicopter. Where Toy Commander shone though was it's game play. The levels and missions were vast and different, most of them required you to do varying objectives and the only mission that seemed to be a recurring theme was how each room had a race mission. Unlike how you might imagine, the game was actually fairly difficult and to beat the final boss you needed to defeat every other boss in the game to stand a chance. When you beat a boss you unlocked the ability to use it in the final battle, something you really needed to be able to do.

This ties us in nicely to the game I am playing this week, Microvolts. Like Toy Commander you are again playing as the role of toys in varying domestic environments, however this time it's a third person shooter. So far I've spent a few hours on the game, but the first impressions are solid. The graphic style is fantastic and the game play is unique for todays market as it features a variety of weapons available on spawn. These weapons are more like what you would find in an arena shooter however, with this such as gattling guns, rocket launchers and grenade launchers being the flavor of the day. You can purchase new weapons with typical free to play style, but the real money weapons seem to have higher stats. They don't seem like a giant increase from what I have seen, usually around 2-5% damage increase which I doubt will break the game. You can also dress your character cosmetically, with each item having either extra HP or movement speed.

Splash art for Microvolts.

The game is available at www.microvolts.com and I will be playing it over the weekend with the ingame name of Nood1e. I certainly recommend every to try this as the game is a huge amount of fun and I plan on doing a lot more content for it. There should, sound codecs permitting, be a first impressions video for it going online tomorrow evening with more written and video content over the weekend.