Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Hearthstone is a computerized card game developed by the folks at Blizzard Entertainment. From my research into this game, it's based off the actually physical World of Warcraft card game. When Blizzard discontinued the physical WoW card game, they made Hearthstone as a replacement. It's a very fun and addicting game. There are multiple classes to choose from which include my favorites: Warrior, Priest, and Hunter. Hearthstone reminds me a lot of Magic The Gathering. You start out with thirty life, you summon minions and attack your opponent.

How The Game Is Played

You start off by picking your hero/class. Which I will explain later on what the heroes and classes are. Your hero has 30 defense and this is your life points. Generally Heroes can't be played as minions unless you have a special ability or card. You start the game with four cards, the person who starts second usually gains a coin which allows you to gain an extra mana for that turn. You use mana to summon minions or perform magic. Does this almost sound like Magic The Gathering? Almost, but not quite like MTG.

Format is similar to Magic The Gathering

The Heroes of Warcraft

There are nine Heroes of Warcraft, each with it's different class. Let's begin with Malfurion Stormrage. As Malfurion you are a Druid and with this class you have a special ability called Shapeshift which allows you to gain a +1 Attack for the turn and +1 Armor. Meaning that you can use Malfurion to attack enemy minions as well as gain some defense.

Rexxar is the Hunter. As the Hunter your special ability is called Steady Shot, which allows the hero to deal two damage to enemy hero. Let's say that the opponent has a minion that has taunt (meaning your minions have to attack that specific minion) you can bypass that with this ability. It's very handy in those situations when the enemy minion with taunt has higher defenses than your minions attacks. Gives you the ability to damage the enemy hero and not lose any of your minions.

Jaina Proudmoore is the Mage. As a Mage your ability is called Fireblast which deals one damage to either enemy minions or hero. You get to chose who to damage with this ability. This is helpful at the begin of the game. Lets say you start out with a terrible hand, and you don't have enough mana to summon a minion. You can use Fireblast to attack minions or hero.

Uther Lightbringer is the Paladin. As a Paladin your ability is called Reinforce, which allows the hero to summon a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit. This allows you to summon more minions on to the battlefield, and can overwhelm an opponent. The more minions, the more damage you can do to an enemy hero.

Anduin Wrynn is the Priest. As a Priest your ability is called Lesser Heal which restores two health. If I remember correctly you can give your minions or hero two health. You can choose who gains that health. Which is helpful in so many ways, especially if your hero is losing health. I found this rather annoying when I first went against a player who was a Priest. That made me want to play as a Priest, which I win most games it seems with Anduin.

Valeera Sanguinar is the Rogue. As a Rogue your ability is called Dagger Mastery which equips a 1/2 Dagger to your hero. This allows your hero to attack enemy minions or hero. Which can be helpful to you and perhaps overwhelming for your opponent. Let's say you have five minions out, and then you equip the dagger to your hero. You have six capable creatures to attack your opponent. Depending on how many minions your opponent has, this move can be devastating to him or her.

Thrall is the Shaman. As a Shaman your ability is called Totemic Call which summons a random Totem. By Totem they mean a totem-type minion which is exclusively available for the Shaman class. Most totem-type minions can only be summoned by the Totemic Call ability. Which the totem-type minions generally don't have very good attacks. They are mostly used for defense. For example, the Stoneclaw Totem is a 0/2 minion with taunt. The Vitality Totem is a 0/5 minion which has an ability to restore four health to your hero at the end of your turn. This class can be very helpful, however the Totemic Call is random. So you could summon a totem that's very helpful or not so helpful. Just depends on the situation.

Gul'dan is the Warlock. As a Warlock your ability is called Life Tap, which allows you to draw a card with a catch . . . you take two damage. I feel that this ability is rather dumb, but I know some players enjoy this class. I can see why someone would like this class, being that your ability allows you to draw a card. Lets say you have a bad hand, your take the risk of losing two life to draw another card. More likely, that you ran out of cards in your hand so you take two life to draw another card that you could possibly play that turn.

Finally, Garrosh Hellscream is the Warrior. As a Warrior your ability is called Armor Up which allows your hero to gain two armor.This can be helpful to you because on top of your thirty life, you can gain armor to your hero. I've seen matches where a person playing as Garrosh getting ten armor and thirty life, which basically equates to forty life.

The Heroes of Warcraft and Their Classes

Card Powers

There are many cards within the Hearthstone realm with many special abilities to them. I won't be going through all of them, but will cover the card powers you'll see a lot of the time while playing. Starting with Taunt, which is an ability that forces the opposing player to direct any combat damage to the minion with said ability. An example card is Sen'jin Shieldmasta which is a 3/5 minion with taunt. Bring these beast onto the battlefield and your opponent's minions have to attack Shieldmasta.

Another common card ability is Charge. This allows your minion to attack the same turn it was summoned. Just like Magic The Gathering, when you summon a creature or minion they suffer from summoning sickness which makes them unable to attack the same turn as they were summoned. However, which Charge it is different. An example card is Stonetusk Boar - a 1/1 minion with charge. Bring these guy out and you will be able to attack same turn as it was summoned. Helpful because you're able to do damage right away with it. The Stonetusk Boar only needs one mana crystal to summon which is why it has such a low attack. If you can get him on the field first turn, you can start attacking enemy hero.

Windfurry is a very helpful card power. Minions that have windfurry are able to attack twice per turn. An example of this is Thrallmar Farseer which is a 2/3 minion with windfurry. If you can attack the enemy hero with Farseer, you can cause four damage to them. Especially helpful when opponent has a low defense minion with taunt. You can eliminate that minion with taunt with Farseer and then attack the hero afterward with the same minion.

The last card ability I'll share with you is called Transform. Any minion or card with this ability is able to transform any minion into something else. Usually it transform minions into lower power minions. For exmaple, Hex is a card that transforms a minion into a 0/1 frog with taunt. Polymorph is another card that transforms a minion into a 1/1 sheep. However there are some cards that allow you to transform one of your minions into something more powerful. With Druid of the Flame (a 2/2 minion) you can choose either transform said card into a 5/2 minion or another minion into a 2/5 minion.

Weapons

Some cards are able to give your hero weapons. Such as the Rogue hero power - Dagger Mastery. Weapons can be very helpful because they give you hero the ability to attach enemy minions or hero. Some examples of weapon cards are Light's Justice (gives hero 1 attack and 4 defense) or Fiery War Axe (gives hero 3 attack and 2 defense).

Some weapons have special ability like minion card have. Such as Truesilver Champion is a weapon that gives your hero a 4 attack and 2 defense and whenever your hero attacks it restores two health. There is also Coghammer, which is a weapon that gives your minion 2 attack and 3 defense as well as a Battlecry - allowing you to give a random friendly minion Divine Shield and Taunt.

The Acidic Swamp Ooze minion has the ability to destroy enemy weapons. There are also other minions that gives your weapon higher attack such as with Spiteful Smith, giving your weapon a +2 attack. So there is all sorts of things you can do to get your hero into the fight with weapons and special powers.

An example of a card. Arcane Missiles.

Overview

Hearthstone is a fun and addictive game from Blizzard. There is a large number of classes and heroes to choose from. As well as an ever expanding collection of cards to choose and put into your decks. Hearthstone is available on PC for free with Battlenet and can be found on the App Store for iPads. Hearthstone is a free-to-play game, however there is microtransactions where you can buy more cards to put into your decks. However if you don't want to pay any money to get more cards there is another way. It's a rather slow process, but it works. If you do the daily quests which usually entail winning three matches with a certain class, you are able to gain coins. With these coins you can buy more cards. At least there is two ways of getting more cards.

I would recommend this game to anybody who enjoy playing card games like Magic The Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh. If you're a fan of Blizzard games, you'll probably want to give this game a try. I do realize that Hearthstone has been out for awhile, but I hope people that are still considering to get this game has gotten a good look into what this game has to offer after reading this post. I wish you well on your journey into the world of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

Bring Back To Life

It's been many years since I last posted on this blog. I'm going to work harder to get this blog alive again. Hopefully I'll start playing more video games again soon. Just have been going through a lot within the last few years and haven't played many games. Expect reviews on games that have been out for years as well as movies. This blog will be focused on movies and video games. I have another blog over at wordpress that I have for deep stuff. If you are interested, visit mathewclemens.wordpress.com.

Thank you,
Mathew

Titanfall

Titanfall is a highly anticipated game being developed by Respawn. It will be available for Xbox One and PC on March 11th with a Xbox 360 version being released later in the year.  If you haven't heard of Titanfall yet, then where have you been.  It's an online based video game, made by the same group of people who made some of the Call of Duty games.  Essentially you play as a pilot, and you have these giant mechs called Titans. You have the option of either fighting Call of Duty style "run-and-gun" or you can call in a Titanfall and battle with your mech.  I managed to play a bit of Titanfall during the open beta on PC, and I was impressed.

You can fight Titans by foot with an Anti-Titan Weapon.

You start out the game by going through a series of training excersies which help you learn the controls and get you fimiliar with the Titanfall universe.  You'll start off by learning the basic looking up and down, and walking around.  It gradually gets more advanced, all the way to the end where you learn how to run the Titan.  The Titans are really impressive.  They are big and bad with badass weaponry.  The really cool thing about the Titans is that you have the option of either operating the mech or letting the automation take over.  It was amazing to run around as the pilot, shooting down enemies while the titan did the same thing.

Be cautious though because pilots on the ground have Anti-Titan Weapons which are specialized weapons that are for destroying Titans.  If you are not paying attention with shields down, then your titan will not last long.  Some Titans can deflect bullets and send them back to the assalant.  Which can be really effective.  While the Titan is reloading, using the deflection move will help from getting damaged.  However Titans cannot deflect Anti-Titan ammunition.

The Titan is absolutely fun to operate!

When playing on the PC, it ran smoothly on the Radeon HD 7770.  Running at smooth 60 frames per second.  Would highly recommend getting this game on launch day if you have an Xbox One or PC.  That is if you either enjoy shooter games or want to experience a cool mech game.  From the experience of the open beta, it ran smoothly and was fun.  Rating from playing the beta: 8/10.

Do Video Games Cause Violence

"Incoming!” “Take cover!” “Flank!" are just some of the words that could be heard while playing war games such as Call of Duty or Medal of Honor.  When someone thinks of video games they tend to think of war games.  The media has put a lot of negative feedback toward video games.  Opponents who are against gaming state such things as video games cause people to become violent, that they become anti-social and that gaming is overall a waste of time.  The negativities toward interactive entertainment are not all bad.  In fact, there are a lot of perks in playing video games.  Video games do not make people violent or anti-social and it helps improve valuable real life skills such as hand-eye coordination, memory, decision making, and judgment.

The biggest question that is being asked by non-gamers is: Do violent video game make people more violent?  There are many people out there that would argue that, yes; violent video games do make people violent.  Ever since the invention of video games, there have been parents who argue that video games are too violent and that their children are becoming aggressive because of the computerized entertainment.  The gaming industry complied with the parents and formed the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) which gives video games the simple letter-rating that can be seen on all of the video game case covers. The ratings are there to inform parents as well as gamers which age group a particular game is toward.  The letter “E” is for everyone from any age group.  The letter “T” is for teens from thirteen to seventeen.  The letter “M” is for mature from eighteen or older.  Then you have the rare rating of “AO” which stands for adults only, which is basically a sex game.  To this day, some parents neglect the ESRB rating, allowing their children to play such games as Call of Duty which is rated M.  Often when there is a shooting at a school some people will instantly blame video games, believing that by playing a violent video game such as Halo or Resident Evil, that the player themselves become violent.  A psychologist from New York by the name of Dr. John Ryder would argue that video games do not make people violent. “‘Usually violence begets violence, not watching it on TV or play-acting in a video game. There is no reason to assume that doing that will make someone more violent. That is just ridiculous.’” says Dr. Ryder (Kotecha).  Psychologists like Dr. Ryder point out that violent behavior can often develop with children who are raised in an aggressive surrounding.  Let’s say that a child is growing up in a family where the father is abusive to the mother or both parents disrespect their child.  Theoretically speaking, the child would most likely become aggressive because of viewing his or her father being abusive or by being abused themselves.  So it’s safe to say that video games do not make people more violent.

The next biggest issue that non-gamers argue about is that video games cause people who play them to be antisocial.  With today’s technology, that statement is most likely the opposite.  With the ability to play games online with other gamers with such thing as Xbox Live or PlayStation Network they are socializing.  There is a class of games known as massive multiplayer online (MMO) such as EVE Online, World of Warcraft, and Star Wars The Old Republic where gamers often times have to perform “active teamwork and high-level project management” (Steinburg) to be able to do well in some in-game missions. Even before games became capable of being played on the worldwide web, gamers often times met during game releases.  While standing in long lines to get their hands on the next big thing in gaming, gamers often times communicate about topics such as gaming, comics, and life.  Today’s technology allows gamers to become more social than ever.

How does gaming improve hand-eye coordination?  Researchers at the University of Rochester in New York have conducted studies that suggest that video games actually “boost visual skills” (Roach).  Gamers are focused on their surroundings as they drive a vehicle through a war torn residential street or walking through a lush forest full of adventure. "‘It is certainly good training for people in situations where they need to detect things in their visual environment at any time in any location, like ground troops going through uncharted territory,’" (Roach) said brain and cognitive sciences Professor Daphne Bavelier.  Through the research at the University of Rochester in New York, researchers discovered that avid gamers have increased attention abilities.  Also researchers from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk have actually designed some video games that help children with attention deficit disorders, which help instruct them to control their brainwave patterns.  Tests have been conducted between gamers and non-gamers as well.  The first test had a small circular object on a screen that would flash for 1/160 of a second. Gamers noticed the split second object more than the non-gamers.  The second test showed one to twelve small objects on a screen simultaneously and the participants had to type how many objects they had seen.  Gamers tend to be correct on the number of seen objects compared to non-gamers.  The final test would flash black letters on a screen quickly and one letter would be white.  Gamers would pick out the white letter and be able to identify what letter it was more often than non-gamers. Why is this important?  Because gamers have a good eye for detail, these skills could be beneficial in the workforce. Lets say that an avid gamer is fully employed as a police officer.  The skills he has developed from video games could very well enhance his observational skill while on the job.  He could notice a slight mound within a criminal’s jacket without much effort, or even identify a weapon concealed within the criminal’s clothing.

Memory is an important human ability. How do video games help improve memory?  Some games require a gamer to memorize certain sequences or sounds to be able to complete a certain mission. Video games such as Alpha Protocol and Splinter Cell require gamers to remember passwords to get past highly secured doorways.  Sometimes a gamer has to memorize a certain password throughout the whole game, and other times only having to remember it for a few minutes.  This helps gamers memorize better in real life as well.  With this enhanced memory, gamers can remember phone number more effectively or important dates of the year.

Can games really improve decision making and judgment?  There are some games out there that have an emphasis on the skills of decision making and judgment such as The Walking Dead and Mass Effect.  While playing these games there are times in-game where the player has a short period of time to decide from several choices and each decision has a huge impact to the game’s storyline. For example, in Mass Effect, you have a huge decision to sacrifice one of your team members in order to successfully complete a certain mission. Each team member is highly skilled in a certain trade which makes them important in-game, but the gamer still has to make that emotional decision to sacrifice a team member.  The Walking Dead does an impressive job of testing a gamers judgment.  The gamer has to decide to either save a child or an elderly person from certain death within a very short period of time.  A video games fast-paced atmosphere helps gamers with their real life decision making. Let’s say that there is a maintenance professional, who is an avid gamer, encounters a boiler with no water in the gage glass.  A boiler with no water is no good.  In fact any maintenance professional will know that by adding water to a boiler with no water will cause an explosion.  This gaming maintenance professional will be able to make the smart decision to immediately shut down the boiler without any hesitation.

In all, video games are not a waste of time.  In fact, gaming helps enhance a person’s hand-eye coordination, memory, decision making, and judgment.  Also releasing some built up stress or anger from the busy workweek. Video games do not make people more violent or anti-social. So go to your local game store and give video games a try.

Limbo

Ever wondered what it be like to go through purgatory? The developers at Playdead do a very impressive job at making an eerie black-and-white visual design of what purgatory may very well be like. You play as a young boy, and what a very courageous little boy he is. With absolutely no way to defend yourself within this dreamland-like world, you face many opponents that are there to kill you. With smarts and courage, that little boy can get away without one single scratch. You’ll face hostile natives, an assortment of traps and other deadly creatures.

The developers really suck you into this game. Between the gorgeous 2D side-scrolling black-and-white action, the sound effects, and an amazing sounding musical score, you just can’t put down the game. There are a lot of puzzles, which will also get you real involved in the game. Some puzzles are really simple, but then later in the game you’ll encounter harder and more complex puzzles. Some puzzles you can take your time on, but other are timed and everything must be done perfectly or you’ll have to face the consequences.

Limbo is a well-designed, visually astounding game with amazing sound and a down right impressive musical score. But sadly, however, as you get real into the game, it abruptly ends and all you can say is “I want more!” So hopefully the developers at Playdead hear our plea for another installment for this awesome and involving game.