DAEMON X MACHINA

Giant fighting robots against giant-er fighting robots?

Because a piece of the moon fell down robotic machinery has started becoming sentient and that's no good so various competing and sometimes allied corporations make use of mercenaries to do the hard work in evil robot land. You play as one of the said mercenaries, a mute newbie, who gets to meet, fight along side, and fight against the pretty large cast of characters in the game.

Light sabers come in mecha sizes too!

While you can upgrade your mech and its weaponry, it will always be of the Japanese fighting mecha category which can fly around and carry obscenely huge guns, or even better, swords. Because naturally a huge sword would do more damage than a rocket launcher or lazer right? Also your mech is subject to stamina that depletes if you run or fly fast, which is a bit odd since I've not seen many tired robots before this.

The game play itself is quite fast, simple and fun though later enemies become HP sponges and hard to target. Also almost every single mission, despite the initial description, becomes kill x enemies. That coupled with a strange story puts this in the not recommended section for me.

Feb-Report: Aldnoah Master

Hey all! How is your February going? For those of you who enjoyed the Darklands of Arkania, I have good news: the story will continue soon - after I put up a couple more reviews. Thank you to those who helped out Louie too. I always wanted to try setup a Gofundme page, but that was definitely not one of the reasons I had in mind.

Just finished watching a series called Aldnoah Zero and I've gotta say it's a very nice mecha anime, complete with good music and well thought out bad guys because the bad guys have all the awesome mechs and the good guys are basically using crap. The first season is especially well done, not sure what happened to the plot in the second. While it still is entertaining I can't help but feel it would have been better had they gone a different way. Still recommended with three out of five Versian counts, and one I'd watch again.

Thanks to that I've also been finding some cool youtube artists that do English versions of anime songs. This parody one in particular for the opening of Aldnoah Zero is one you should listen to. :)

Gaming wise, Neverwinter continues plodding along though the devs are doing a good job of getting players from both XBOX and PC riled up into rebellion, particularly about the game turning into pay-to-win and edging closer to share the same fate as its predecessor. I've personally felt it's always been pay to win, and imagine I'm one of the few who have never spent any money on it in the first place to be that upset.

Still, the grind is monotonous so I break it up with Helldiving among other things. Last night, I soloed the Cyborg Master (the easiest boss) and much like the Versian Kataphrakts (Mechs) in Aldnoah, it was all about finding his weakness and exploiting it.

It was cool. :)

ZMR: Zombies Monsters Robots (F2P)

In this Free to Play FPS game, players are mercenaries who go on various missions against all sorts of bad guys. Yes, there are zombies, monsters and robots (some of which you can ride) but there are also spirits and valkyries and dinosaurs that shoot rockets! As you can imagine it is pretty crazy, and possibly why there always seems to be more PvE activity rather than PvP, which is awesome for me. As your character ranks up or when you complete quests you are also rewarded with better gear (later on, just a chance for better gear) but if you are impatient you can head over to the cash shop to spend real money or in-game gold for upgrades, most of which are "rented" and expire after 7 - 30 days depending on how much you pay.

There are a good number of maps each with unlockable difficulty levels (which I usually hate but its forgivable here), and you can also drop into a game midway which is great, but remember that your bonus loot comes from your position ranking at the end of the match. If you get downed and are unable to be saved by a team mate you will need to spend a revive token to respawn. When you join any map you have 3 for free (doesn't stack, and you don't get to keep them) which for the normal difficulty is plenty. On harder modes you might need to start spending the extra ones you gain as rewards because the bad guys start doing some serious damage.

Bullets and lasers everywhere!

Most missions fall into one of three categories: survive waves of enemies (more waves per difficulty), defend a portal to prevent enemy waves from escaping, and assaulting a location which doubles as story mode complete with high adrenaline boss fights, decent tunes and questionable voice acting. Despite the number of maps it doesn't take long to feel the grindiness but it is still a pretty fun shooter regardless. Also, because PvE is cooperative there's less of a balance issue with pay to win guys as you are all on the same team. I also find it pretty cool that you can pick up the weapons of your enemies, which is another way to gain those high powered guns, albeit temporarily.

All up I give ZMR three and a half sexy, sword swinging valkyrie dinosaur pirate spirits out of five and is an easy title to recommend to FPS fans - especially those who are more interested in cooperative play. You can find it on steam and as I said at the start, it costs you nothing to try it out!

Sojourn at Entropia: A Test of Piloting

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

Decided to look around at Fort Argus briefly.

Apparently the bank here gives out loans.

Not sure how many other MMOs have player run banks that do that!

Also learned that you can earn PED, ISK (Eve Online), and Linden (Second Life) just by registering and listening to a radio station? You gain .01 PED and 10 RP (radio points) every 10-17 minutes, with 100 RP being converted into more PED once a month when they pay it out. The only rules are that you click something every hour to prove you are still there and that you do not mute the channel.

From my experience there are lots of advertisements here too, repetitive ones and you get maybe two  after each song. Possibly the same one twice. The music itself is trance/dance techno which can get irritating after awhile. Especially since the station only seemed to play stuff from Bassnectar, The Prodigy and Benni Bennasi. So not a lot of variation there.

Anyway since most of my tasks were at Fort Troy I did decide to teleport back there and buy fuel on the market. 100 cans for 4 PED.

At least my VTOL is useable again!

Anna, camped a bit outside Fort Troy has a few tasks for me to do, in and around the robot infested volcano.

Fortunately they are pretty straight forward tasks for people that can fly.

Just gotta be careful of the lava. And the robots.

And the forest canopy!

Sojourn at Entropia: An Awesome Rescue

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

With no other recourse of escape from the mecha prison platform I decided to ask for advice from the Rookie Channel. Paying for a taxi was mentioned pretty quick, but after waiting a few minutes I got a private message from Sara Serenity of the Glory Hound Irregulars.

She told me to look up.

And just like that, she airlifted me out of the hostile zone.

See you later, you robot bastards!

Not only did she rescue me, she decided to act as tour guide to unlock more telepads. Below us in this picture was some player housing.

I'm sure she has a nice face behind that mask.

Sojourn at Entropia: The Flame

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

Desperate to see what the light is, what those robot scum are guarding - I take my Sleipnir VTOL which is almost out of fuel right into the core.

Fueling my flight through pure will power.

I make it onto the strange platform and learn this place is Hadeshiem Crater.

It also happens to be the evil mechas base. CRAP.

With no other options I decide to try take on the ridiculously leveled bots.

No surprise, I don't last long and end up back here.

This turns out to be a form of prison, as escaping on foot is near impossible with the mecha swarm. I did get farther with the VTOL but when it burned the last of its fuel it crashed into the desert. I folded it up into my pocket but still got killed by a spider bot which sent me right back to the platform. Damn, it's a trap!

Sojourn at Entropia: The Moth

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

Decided to explore around Half Moon Cove as there were interesting looking spots on the map.

First stop turned out to be a player airbase.

Too bad my VTOL is almost out of juice!

Then I saw it, a heavy beam of light in the distance.

As I get closer it becomes clear that the robots seem to be guarding it.

Too close, as one of the spiderbots blasts me and destroys more of my armor. :(

I respawn at this little platform, surrounded by evil mechas - but closer to the light than before. I just had to get there!

Sojourn at Entropia: Pushing the Limit

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

My next few way points would take me into a volcanic jungle region.

I decided it was flying time again.

One Problem: See the power gauge on the bottom left?

Almost out of fuel!

In an effort to conserve gas, it was back to hiking for a bit.

I did require one final jump though, risking a crash landing.

Look at the radar. All of those are level 60s.

Finally made it to Fort Troy only to find more evil mechas! :O

Sojourn at Entropia: The Swim

[Part of my Sojourn at Entropia story.]

I figure the safest way to travel without a ride into dangerous territory is to simply swim. Most MMO's I've played throw their enemy groups bunched up on land but neglect the water parts since it is "harder" for AI to fight three dimensionally. That's the theory anyway.

Boy I wouldn't mind one of those right now.

The swim takes a long while to my first way point.

Good thing there's an auto-move forward button!

Eventually I reach Zychion and finish my task there.

The ruined city is surrounded by level 91+ evil mecha.

I carefully sneak back to the water and after another swim segment make it to my next stop, the Limnadian District. This was actually a feat, since enemies aggro range grows exponentially with their level!

It didn't matter though because my gambit had paid off. The water ways were clear of hostiles!