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Good News!

December 12th 2010 05:35
: YAY
My Wii is back from Nintendo who happily fixed my failed disc drive. I'm fairly sure it was a kid putting greasy discs into it but either way, it was under warranty and is now in full working order! I've amassed a ton of Wii Points cards over the past few months so will get these reviews coming soon!

Thanks for your patience (my couple readers).
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Posted By: OnlineWriter - Category: WiiWare
   


UWO Beta

October 22nd 2010 14:59
: UWO: I'm Sailin Awaaaaay
Uncharted Waters Online-English Version
Yes this IS the game.


If you read my other post about the Uncharted Waters: New Horizons VC game for Wii, you've already got a basic grasp of what Uncharted Waters is all about (and hopefully you picked it up).

Uncharted Waters Online is NOT a new game. It's been out in Asia for years and is very popular over there for an "alternative" MMO. The main backdrop of this game is the old trade routes in the age of sail. You have pirates, nobles and salespeople of all sorts and you pretty much do whatever you feel like every time you load it up.

The Story

UWO gives users a different story depending on what nation they choose. I chose Portugal and started as a merchant so my story revolves around a trading company based in Lisbon. I have to assume it's completely different if you start in London, Seville or another large starting area. The story progresses nicely and you aren't required to do the story missions (called events) at all. It's easy to completely forget where you were supposed to go for the story and your event log is pretty vague. It's best to leave the story at your hometown so you know where to pick it back up. Don't stop the story when you're supposed to be chasing a boat at sea. The boat will still be there but it's easy to simply forget where that location is at all.

Gameplay

This is a click game. Left click basically does everything from selecting menu items to moving your character. You can use the standard WASD controls if you want but I use the mouse so I can puff away on my USB cigarette as I play.

You have 3 professions and they are Merchant, Adventurer and "Maritime" which is battle. Merchant has skills for trading and crafting, Adventurer has skills for finding discoveries and Maritime his skills for blowing ships into smoldering piles of junk. The game doesn't limit you on these skills by class as you can mix and match them to your hearts content and its a good idea to do so.

You can learn and forget skills whenever you like which is handy as you are fine tuning what you really like to do. Right now, I have skills in fishing, livestock trading and sewing but I'm an adventurer. I make good money.

You can visit towns and wander around but the small towns pretty much have a bar and marketplace only. These are like pit stops as you're sailing your ship full of goods to another town to sell.

The economy is player based and therefore a lot of towns are borked every day. Feathers is an easy way to make money so you'll be hard pressed to find a place buying feathers for a lot of cash. Players are flooding the market with these so they sell low. It's more profitable to find your own trade route based on whatever skills you choose.

Ship battles are similar to most naval combat games. You can only fire broadside so you have to maneuver into the right position. If you have a large boat with feisty sailors you can engage the enemies in a melee battle (This works well after ramming). You can't capture enemy ships but you can sometimes steal their sailors and goods.

There IS PVP in this game but you have to be in certain areas considered "hostile waters" such as near Madiera off the coast of Africa. Generally it's going to take you a week or so to get a ship to successfully PVP. It's easy to get your butt handed to you so avoid these areas in the beginning.

The Tutorials...

Never in my life have I seen a tutorial system like the one in UWO. You have the choice to go to school (which you can skip) and register in Maritime, Merchant and Adventurer courses. These are massive tutorials with the Merchant school taking me about 4 days of casual play to complete. You do learn a lot about the three classes so it's recommended to at least do the class for your chosen profession.

Graphics

The graphics aren't spectacular. Remember this game has been out in Asia for quite a while. The in-town graphics are PS2 style but a little extra kicks in as you're sailing from port to port. The ocean looks nice and your ship looks good but I wish the waves would reflect how large they were. 2 foot waves look just like 7 foot waves. I'd probably vomit with large waves but dammit, it would be a fun sailing experience.

The Lowdown

I'm hopelessly addicted to this game and with Fallout: New Vegas on my PC it's hard to choose which one to play. This isn't an action game by any means, the land and sea battles are kind of irritating to me because I don't have the skills to make those easier. I love sailing around, doing quests and simply finding cool stuff as an adventurer. This game relaxes me and anything relaxing, especially a MMO is something special.

Fans of the older games will love this one but those with ADD or short attention spans might be better off playing Vindictus (review soon!)
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Posted By: OnlineWriter - Category: Beta Heaven!
   


Beta's Are Almost Ready for Review

October 12th 2010 05:31
: Beta Beta Beta!
Vindictus: An amazing beta.
Image from MMOFRONT.



While waiting for some more PayPal money to get new Wiiware and games, I've taken some time to download a handful of up and coming PC games in the beta stage.

The ones I'm playing right now are Vindictus (it actually shut down until the 13th), Uncharted Waters Online and World of Tanks. I'll put up some reviews for these this week. So far Vindictus and UWO are great but each caters to a specific crowd and probably wouldn't overlap for everyone but I'm a rare gamer who loves all kinds of genre and niche games. WOT is installed but I haven't gotten to it yet due to UWO addiction.

Keep an eye out for these 3 reviews which will all be up this week with screenshots and extended reviews.

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Posted By: OnlineWriter - Category: Beta Heaven!
   


VC: Uncharted Waters: New Horizons!

September 16th 2010 18:29
: An ultimate time killer for lovers of adventure
If only it looked like this...
No, this isn't the game! This is the new Uncharted Waters Online. Pretty sweet looking.


I first played Uncharted Waters: New Horizons eons ago when I was just a kid and rented every new SNES game that came out just because the SNES was so damn new and cool. I remember renting this game and thinking "hmm, it kinda LOOKS like Final Fantasy but it's not....bummer." I may have given it a whopping 1 hour of playtime


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Posted By: OnlineWriter - Category: Virtual Console Games
   


Wiiware: Tales of Elastic Boy: Mission 1

September 16th 2010 01:13
: Great for little ones who are just old enough to be trusted with your Wii
Elastic Boy random screenshot courtesy of Lexis Numerique
Simple and cute. Nuff said.


I have a thing for Wiiware, I won't lie. My relatives send Wii Points cards for the kids all the time and I use them to select "cool" looking games for them and myself


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Posted By: OnlineWriter - Category: WiiWare
   


Wiiware: Sandy Beach

September 15th 2010 14:11
: WTF IS THIS CRAP!!
Image courtesy of some spawn of Hell
This game is 100% unadulterated Dookie


I have 4 kids from ages 9 down to 2. I had a few extra Wiiware points not long ago and saw "Sandy Beach" and without reading any reviews, bought it by the manufacturers description alone. It said something like "Build your sand castle and defend it from crabs" That sounded fairly cool. I loved building sand castles at the beach as a kid and my kids love doing the same with much cooler Moon Sand


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Posted By: OnlineWriter - Category: WiiWare
   


Rage of the Gladiator

September 15th 2010 00:16
: Punch Out! Goes Spartan!
Image courtesy of Ghostfire Games Media Kit
Smashing a Minotaur in the face with a hammer is fun!


Rage of the Gladiator is one of my latest Wiiware games so I figured I'd give it a review for those who've heard of it and aren't sure whether or not it's worth downloading


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Posted By: OnlineWriter - Category: WiiWare
   


Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Revisited

September 14th 2010 05:06
: This Game Rocks On The Wii
Image courtesy of Lucasarts press kit
A QTE from Force Unleashed


I bought Star Wars: The Force Unleashed the day it came out for my PS3 and thought it was awesome. The graphics were amazing, the story was better than all three prequels combined (and would have been a better movie) and I probably beat it in two days because I simply wanted to know what happened next


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Posted By: OnlineWriter - Category: Wii Games
   


Welcome to the Wii Authority

September 14th 2010 04:28
A Wii
Yep, that's a Wii.


Some of you know me as the operator of Online Writing Jobs but everyone needs a hobby and my latest hobby is my 3year old Wii that I've repossessed from the kids (they got a new one) and made my own abomination of hacks and piles of games from the local pawn shops


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