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Gaming Guide Review

Castle Crashers Revives The Beat-‘Em-Up Genre On Xbox Live Arcade

The second big-name XBox Live Arcade game to come out within the past month, Castle Crashers has become a huge hit for not just the Xbox Live Arcade line but also for video games in general.

The game takes a stab at a genre that many have thought deceased in the beat-em-up category which features gamers playing alongside three buddies. The characters each look pretty similar in Castle Crashers but that is the standard way Xbox Live Arcade games are usually made as not a ton of effort is put into some of the character designs.

With game play as good as you’ll find in Castle Crashers, however, that won’t matter too much.

Castle Crashers is so popular that it was number one in terms of page views on the message boards at the popular video game site Gamefaqs.com as of Monday, September 1st as well as on the FAQ section, meaning lots of people who downloaded the game on the Xbox Live Arcade wanted to find tips for it and were knee-deep in the main campaign looking for tips on how to beat certain levels.

The first extremely popular Xbox Live Arcade game that was released this month was called Braid, a puzzle game that had a lot of interesting story elements waived in and similar lush, detailed, imaginative 2-d graphics like the ones seen on Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis systems back in the day, only much more aesthetically pleasing as a whole.

Features of Castle Crashers for the Xbox Live Arcade, which is available for download right now on the Xbox Live Marketplace, are numerous. They include a list of unlockable combo and magic attacks for the main characters as well as tag-team attacks that are executed alongside friends to make short work of the numerous enemies and giant bosses you’ll find in Castle Crashers.

An arena mode is also offered featuring epic multi-player head-on battles for a nice break from the campaign mode.

The graphics of the game is quite awesome. It feels like you are playing pkv games online. It has amazing design, styles and even gameplay. So if you are looking for a game that can give you all of these amazing features, you can try this game and so as pkv games.

Each player in Castle Crashers also has the ability to unlock more than 40 weapons for use in the game. Animal orbs are a unique special attacks system, giving you “pets” that bring with them special abilities. Pets can be found or bought at a store.

There are also tons of weapons and special abilities as well as treasure to find throughout the game.

Thus far, reviews on Castle Crashers for Xbox Live Arcade have been glowingly positive and most suggest the game is well-worth the purchase price of 1200 Microsoft Points.

As a longtime fan of the Sega Saturn hidden gem Guardian Heroes I can also say that this game is exactly what the beat-’em-up genre needed to take the next step and to be taken seriously by gamers everywhere. It’s well worth the money if you’re a fan of old-school multi-player games that you can play alongside friends.

Guide

“Portal 2” Review

The Newest released member of the Portal family, Portal 2 does not disappoint. This game has everything a person could possibly ask for in a platform physics-based puzzle game. In this review, I will discuss why this game is a must-play. If you are a fan of BandarQQ then you will find this game really appealing as well considering the fact that there are loads of similarities between the two games. 

Portal 2 begins abruptly. You awake from a cryogenic sleep only to be tossed into an endless length of scientific mazes. There is a giant robot in control that goes by the name GlaDOS and wishes nothing more than for you to continually best tested until you die. In order for the testing to properly begin, you must find a Portal device that is basically a gun that can create portals from one location to another. You start out only capable of creating a single portal and the second portal being stationary but later on, you can create the entry and exit portals. This allows for a multitude of ways to solve these puzzles.

The physics of this game are impeccable. If you have enough momentum built up and enter a portal you will fly out of the second portal at the same speed you were traveling when you entered the first. There are times where you must use the portals to move different types of liquids throughout the game. There are three types of liquids in this game. The blue liquid is extremely bouncy and provides an extra high jump from effect. Orange liquid provides a boost of speed while in direct contact with it. Finally, the White liquid is my favorite and basically covers other surfaces so that you can create portals on the newly covered material. Not every surface can have portals placed on it, but you coat it with the white liquid then you can.

The voice acting is superb throughout this title. The actors give such a great sense of action and emotion to what is happening in-game. The majority of the game you are only speaking with robots but these actors doing the robot voices still give you a sense of sarcasm and vengeance. The music throughout the game is also amazing. It is a slight mix of techno sound with classical. In fact, The final score of the game is an original production of a song called “Want you gone” created by Jonathan Coulton and absolutely brings a flood of emotions to you as you complete the game.

Overall, This game is a must-play. I personally dislike 90% of FPS games out there and I found this game to be absolutely amazing. There is nothing I could found bad about this game. I only wish the campaign was longer. This game’s graphics, story, physics, and originality will make this game an instant classic.

Gaming Guide Kids

Battling Video Game Addiction In Children

I used to be the odd Mom out – never letting my kids watch anything other than Veggie Tales and Signing Time. As they’ve grown, so has our DVD library, and for about six weeks we subscribed to cable. My oldest son has always been willing to watch TV for hours, so I always watched how much time I allowed him to sit in front of it. Now he’s getting bigger and my boys shared a V-Smile until it broke. We have a few preschool computer games that the boys enjoy using as well. I still have to be extremely cautious with how much time my boys play their games – especially my oldest son. My younger son gets bored with them and has a more natural tendency to want to play outside.

Still, watching both of them sitting in front of the TV screen with the joystick in hand and the latest Pkv games or whatever you call it is a sight that gets on my nerves as they would become homesick and with no physical activity, I fear they would become lazy and lethargic.

As if the battle wasn’t hard enough, their dad has started letting them watch him play, and even occasionally play along with some of his games. I am thankful he is cautious about content, but unfortunately the camaraderie they are sharing is not helping my oldest son learn to limit his time using electronic entertainment. Yesterday the battle was unbelievable – my oldest son left my youngest son out of the game he was playing with their building blocks, so their dad left the oldest one out while letting the youngest one watch him play a game.

I got to listen to the wailing of my oldest son, and I was annoyed by the sound, the situation, and my heart hurt just a little bit as I watched the whole thing unfold. Determining to not allow this video game session to ruin my son’s afternoon, I encouraged him to join me in the schoolroom. He stared at me like I was crazy as I got our giant floor coloring book down. For some reason we are still coloring in a Halloween Monsters and Goblins coloring book – but my boys don’t seem to mind. For a minute he acted like he was mad and couldn’t believe I would try to make him color when he was so upset, but when he realized I was going to color with him, he happily got busy coloring me a multi-colored snake.

Despite the battle yesterday, I felt like a huge revelation happened for me. To battle this potential addiction, my son needs my time. He doesn’t need me to distract him with other things to do, or at least not all of the time, he needs me to lie down on the floor and color with him. Or read with him, or go for a walk, or jump on the trampoline. He needs interaction. Yes, his time in front of the games should be limited – he’s only 5 after all, but someday I won’t be there to limit his time for him. He needs to have the life skills to do it for himself, he needs to know and appreciate the value of interacting with other people so that he can seek that out more than he seeks out the next video game for his entertainment.

Gaming

Piggly: Christmas Edition Puts Fun Back into Platforming

InterAction Studios may have made waves throughout gaming’s virtual galaxy with Chicken Invaders, but their true shining moment of creativity comes in the form of Piggly: Christmas Edition. This is an endearing platform title that offers players a little bit more than the standard point-to-point platforming paradigm for which most side-scrollers are known. If you are new to all this and want to learn what Piggly is all about and what it offers then you can click on http://109.199.126.245/

The game has a rather simple story, not that it needed anything more than a simple story, but players are in charge of helping a homemaker make apple pies. Players bounce around as Mrs. Piggly to gather up apples and return them home. Now if only the game was as simple as the description sounds.

This colorful animal adventure starts off easily enough with a group of tutorial levels to help ease players into the game’s bustling array of fun platforming antics, while latter stages toss in quite a bit of strategy and challenge. Stomping on worms heads help clear a path for rolling the physics-based apples around, while timing the appearance of hungry rabbits keep players from being too hasty. That’s just a few of the many trials and traps that await players during their platforming journey.

Now some readers may think this petty, but there’s a huge flaw in the game’s logic of “getting home.” Mainly because at the end of every stage Piggly must return the apples to her house even though she travels from one stage to the next. It means that Mrs. Piggly either has a traveling house, or she and the kids build a new house at the end of each stage. Again, it’s a flaw in the logic of returning “home” but it’s not like it detracts anything from the game.

As some gamers know, the most important part of any platform game is the controls: how well do they respond and how tight are the movements in accordance with the button pressing. In this case, I can definitely vouch for Piggly: Christmas Edition maintaining a steady response system for the controls. My only complaint is that — much like Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet — Piggly has a very floaty feel for the character movements, which can sometimes result in over-compensating for some jumping segments. This is especially present when trying to scale over rocks and getting the heroine up hills and slopes. Otherwise, the free-feeling controls work quite well for this game.

A plus-side to the aforementioned floaty controls is that it melds almost perfectly with the milky-smooth framerate. The meager system requirements keep the game flowing as if it’s sliding on butter, so even casual gamers who are still hanging on to an old PIII system can find solace in Piggly: Christmas Edition’s visual performance. I think what makes this so noteworthy is that the game actually looks superb; high-resolution sprites and a fine array of special effects round off the game’s visual aesthetic with the startling appeal. Honestly, this game actually looks a lot better than most games that appear on the Nintendo Wii.

Another high point for this game is the sound effects and musical score. While many independent titles fall victim to a cheesy sound scheme and sometimes inappropriate music, it’s safe to say that Piggly sticks to an auricular palette that suits the game’s atmosphere and themes. Holiday music fills up each stage in a tranquil way, while environmental and stage effects are kept mostly to a minimum.

When it comes to replay, InterAction ensures that players who are eager to appropriate high scores must tackle most of the stages at least twice. This alone adds plenty of reason to go back and play the game over again, yet this is not to say that the game is short of levels because it certainly has plenty of them. All-in-all gamers get quite a bit out of this cartoony side-scroller that’s suited for the entire family. Putting aside the minor issue with the floaty-controls, gamers will find that Piggly: Christmas Edition might be a good addition to their gaming library.

Gaming

Visiting Washington Casinos

Visiting Washington Casinos is a mixed or some would say the double blessing. Wanting to attract high rollers, the casinos in any state, including Washington, often try to duplicate the kinds of gaming venues and attractions that play well in the casino capital, Las Vegas. This means that in a state like Washington, owners of casinos sometimes seek out some of the popular slots and floor games and try to draw in some big-name entertainment while maintaining their own smaller scale budget. At the same time, Washington is proud of its tradition as a state proud of its reputation as a scenic state and as one that is striving to stay green. Visiting Washington casinos then may mean having some exciting casino fun while also finding spectacular scenery near at hand. Although, now there are online casinos like qq39.bet that you can try so that you do not have to miss out on traveling as you visit Washington with your friends. These are as fun as physical casinos where you ger a real-time casino experience. 

Skagit Valley Casino Resort, Bow Washington. One might select the Skagit as their Washington casino of choice for the simple reason that it combines great gaming options and wonderfully scenic surroundings. The Skagit Valley Resort Casino may seem small to out of state gaming enthusiasts. The number of slot machines is under a thousand, a number which for some is defining. Slot machines number 675, but what the Skagit Valley Casino lacks in sheer size it does seem to somewhat make up for in a variety of table games. At the Skagit Valley Casino, you can find Black Jack, Roulette, Craps and Pai Gow Poker. There’s also Texas Hold ‘Em and a Keno Lounge.

When your gaming is done you can make use of that reserved room on-site and find yourself in one of more than 125 rooms or suites in a hotel that includes the expected amenities as well as a few extras like the indoor heated pool and fitness center or the continental breakfast. Like many Vegas resort casinos, Skagit Valley offers a hearty buffet or for those who want a little bit less an on-site grill room and a deli-style eatery.

This is not Las Vegas. It won’t necessarily give you a Vegas rush, but the surrounding attractions will definitely lift your spirits. Skagit Valley Casino Resort is located in northwestern Washington State. Your accommodations are located between the peaks of the Cascade Mountains and the beauty of Puget Sound. From Skagit Valley you can venture out to enjoy all manner of great outdoor activities from whale watching to hiking, canoeing or golfing. Enjoying Skagit Valley Casino does not tie you down to a one-dimensional experience. You can pretend you are in Vegas or enjoy the fact that you are in Washington. And you can switch back and forth as the spirit moves you, which is definitely one of the pleasures of visiting casinos in the state of Washington.

The Quinault Beach Resort and Casino. No matter how much the gaming may seem the same at Quinault Beach Resort and Casino as it is in any major casino in the U. S. the rest of the operation here is decidedly different.

The Quinault Beach Resort and Casino property are beautifully located on the coast of the state of Washington. How can a visit here be even vaguely reminiscent of Vegas when here you are surrounded, not be dozens of other casinos, but instead by the rolling waves of the pacific ocean and some 200 acres of wetlands and sand dunes. Even the entryway says “different” and the view from every window says “spectacular. “There is something to be said for looking out from one of the 150 plus rooms at the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino and seeing a magnificently peaceful and serene setting instead of seeing towering bright lights and buildings. If you chose the former then consider also what the Quinault Beach Resort and Casino have to offer for gaming.

Blackjack, Keno, Craps, Roulette and lots of electronic games are available for your play in the resort casino. The scale here is even smaller than at Skagit Valley Casino Resort. According to the Quinault website at http://www.quinaultbchresort.com, the casino is limited to just 350 machines and 15 tables. While there is just as much opportunity to win or lose, the gaming excitement level is obviously several degrees less than at a high stakes casino. But the thing is, you have other things to do at Quinault. For example, you can sample the action on the beach, visit nearby Olympic National Park, put some time in fishing or boating.

The joy of visiting Washington casinos is that you can come to Quinault Beach Resort just for the gaming, but why would you when there is so much else at your doorstep.