The Garden of Eternal

Once again I find myself breaking my sacred vow of Aeria Abstinence; returning as a result of a not so closed Closed Beta invitation; the better half of me wanted to ignore it, however I’m a critic first, a gamer second, and a last and probably least, a man who picks favorites…So I headed back once again ready to give yet another Aeria game a stare down-

-But wait a minute, what is this? Eden Eternal is actually GOOD? And I don’t mean like DOMO where it’s good but with a lot of flaws , but I mean it’s really REALLY good. EE is probably the BEST thing I’ve seen come out of Aeria Games.

In Eden Eternal you play the role of a human, and once open beta comes around one of the many inhabitance of the world. Before humans came to the world it was inhabited by numerous Best-folk like races. However the differences of these races were too vast and the result was a massive war. It was only after humans arrived that peace was established, a very welcomed alternative to the "humans are responsible for all the worlds troubles" rpgs. In this game humans are the direct dissidence of the gods and are born from crystals like something out of final fantasy. The armor in this game doesn’t change how your character actually looks. You have preset outfits in each class, every 20 or so levels you get new outfits, though you can choose which one you prefer. Also all the outfits are completely color customizable using dyes you get from quests, npcs, and the item mall (real money mall); so while this game has hardly any customization, it’s still difficult to find two people who look the exact same.

Speaking of levels, they’re split between your character level and your class level. Unlike with DOMO were you only have 1 level and it resets with every class. Your character level never goes down and effects mainly your stats while your class level effects mostly what skills you can use, however character level also has its own skills and classes do alter your stats a bit.

While this game has no PvP short of a duel button that is so untouched it's practically gathering cobwebs, you do spend more time fighting npc versions of the other races then the few actual monsters in the world. There are also lots of dungeons and instances that require lots of teamwork, which can quickly make this game feel like an anime version of DnDO. If I truly hate anything about this game its that the quests are tedious, they're not time consuming grind quests, however the item drop rate could be a bit better, and you'd think when harvesting items from plants and such instead of killing for them that the drop ratio would be 1:1, but it's actually more like 1:7 which I think makes no since at all...

Anyway Eden Eternal scores a 8 out of 10 possibly one of the best scores I have ever (and will ever) give a game from Aeria Games so I hope it’s proud of itself.

A Microscopic Adventure

Micro Volts is the latest third person shooter to be released. Well technically that’s a lie; it’s actually be in closed beta for quite a while. Not as long as Get Amped 2 but still a LOOOONG time. In Micro Volt you are an action figure brought to life with the power of a special battery. However “resources” are scarce in the Micro world so you find yourself having to kill other dolls in order to keep yourself powered up and ultimatly animated.

Anyway, there’s only one way to describe Micro Volts and that’s this: If you can afford to buy Team Fortress 2 from Steam then do so, if not download this game cause it’s the EXACT same. The biggest difference is that Micro Volts doesn’t have classes, any character can use any weapon at any time, ranging from the Heavy’s “Heavy Machine Gun,” the Sniper’s “Sniper Rifle” and the Demoman’s…well you get the idea. The other biggest difference is Micro Volts has girls, and with those girls comes panties. The anime girl has a stereotypical mini-skirt that’s a little too “mini” and the gothic doll doesn’t wear any bottoms at all. They make for great distractions while you get yourself 1 hit killed by a sniper round, or a rocket, a grenade, ect.

Micro Volts sniper matches are usually “do or die” showdowns. This wouldn’t be a problem if only a few players had sniper rifles, but anyone can pull one out and put a bullet right between your eyes. There’s no denying that Micro Volts takes a ridiculous amount of skill no matter what style map you are playing. So needless to say it made me feel really good inside to maintain a positive Kill to Death Ratio the entire time I was playing. Because normally in shooters my KTD is like my sex life; so bad it’s non-existent.

Micro Volts in a nutshell, is a fun game, a hard game, and a COPIED game. However if you’re willing to forgive how painfully obvious of a rip off this game is, then look it up.

Team Fortress 2, oh wait I’m sorry MICRO VOLTS, gets a 5 out of 10

Get Owned 2

I was excited to hear that Get Amped 2 had finally been put back out to the public again after its apparent placement in suspended animation. I loved that game in the Beta and I was sad to hear that the game was going to close, I was even more depressed, and even a little flabbergasted when I heard that it wasn’t going to come out again for years.

But now its back and boy are there changes. Unfortunately they are NOT changes for the better.

In Get Amped 2 you play the role of one of one of the multitudes of people from all across the stars who has come to take part in a (seemingly endless) fighting tournament. Apparently the entire universe is not only the planets in our galaxy, but also includes several parallel dimensions; I’ll explain the meaning of that statement in just a second. There are many ways to fight your opponents; player or otherwise. There are also many different maps each of which are quite stylish. However due to the multitudes of weapons, tools, and maps at your disposal this game quickly lost its balance. Returning to my previous comment the outfits your character wears are 100% cosmetic. You can even customize your own outfit and pay 2,000 in game coins to wear that custom skin in the battle field. As awesome as this idea is, I was shocked at the vast amount of people that actually DIDN’T have original outfits.

Almost everyone was dressed as a character from either a Game or an Anime; I even saw the entire cast of Soul Eater at one point. No one in that game seems to have the least bit sense of creativity which quickly ruins the point of having a fully customizable outfit in the first place.

While weapons are involved with this game, the abilities your character has are based off of your “accessory.” These range from claws to staffs to swords and everything in between. Sadly there are items in this game that are clearly superior to others, there’s no sence of balance present in this game at all. The 100k weapons are the tools of gods and will allow you to slaughter everyone in your path, while the 5k weapons are so horribly underpowered they have no earthly business being in the game in the first place.

Although the looks are cosmetic there are a number of classes like in Rumble Fighter. Just like the weapons some are clearly superior while others are left for the slaughter. The “beginner friendly” balanced character’s stats are so low that he’s nothing more than a punching bag, while the spy can’t be touched and the knight can’t be killed without an entire army due to his ridiculous defense.

I cannot believe one of my personally favorite games has died so quickly. On top of that, I can’t believe how bad the game is, considering it was closed for development for what – 3 years? If you’re gonna take a game off the market that long for the sake of testing, you might want to, oh I don’t know…TEST IT.

Get Amped 2 gets a 2 out of 10, It’s really hard for me to talk down a game I used to love so much, but the GA2 I loved is long dead.