I Love the Nite Life

     The review a lot of you have been waiting for is finally here. The game Fortnite, it is not out yet , but I am one of the game testers before it hits stores. Believe it or not I am currently under a non-disclosure agreement with this game, so once it has been read, it shall be placed under a private status until the game is finally released. There isn't much I'm going to reveal and keep in mind that updates and changes are constantly being made to this game so anything I could possibly say that might be a spoiler alert, could no longer be relevant at the initial release. So the game starts off as you are one of 4 survivor classes, either a soldier, constructor, ninja or outlander. You battle your way through the zombie horde known as husks. Your mission is simple, to survive. Destroy the city around you to gather 3 important materials, wood, brick or metal. Metal obviously being the stronger one, you use the materials to build a base of operations to protect yourself and your goal from barrage of threats, setting traps and simple architecture to outsmart your enemy. This game is so much fun and a complete addiction. It's somewhat open world and you can do almost anything and of course there are always hidden dangers along with hidden rewards. The level of difficulty for this game is all up to you. You can either play alone or play in a group and work together to defeat the oncoming army of mutants. There are tons of weapons and a lot of unique ways to set up traps for enemies to fall prey to. I rate this game an 8 out of 10, and again remember that this is just my initial review, there have been some updates to this game that causes this rating to fluctuate, but so far I definitely see good things coming from this game. So far Epic Games has announced that this game is going to be only available for PC but they may consider a console release later in the future.

 NOTE: I was lucky enough to score a few game keys for this game, I've already given out a few, but I do have some left, first come, first serve.

The Clash

     Lest we not forget, mobile games have come really far into the serious gamer industry. What started off as simple blocky numbers games such as Tetris or Snake from old flip phones to high quality, high definition games such as Plants VS Zombies or Clash of Clans. Now, Clash of Clans is a perfect example of a game that can cause quite a controversy. Within my own social circle, I've lost friends over this game. Clash of Clans is a strategy based game where you are the chief and you command a village of barbarians, giants or archers to attack other villages in favor of loot such as gold or elixir. You can defend yourself by teaming up and joining a clan with a bunch of your friends, co-workers or just a random group of people from all over the world. You go head to head with a somewhat equally ranked group in what is known as a clan war and each player gets 2 chances to attack another player's village from the rival clan. Which ever team scores the most damage or stars to the enemy team, wins. This game is totally based on strategy and team work...and this is the part where I lost friends. In a game such as this, it's easy to lose yourself in the game of too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Sure enough, I had a couple of buddies who were totally invested in this game and thought they both had equally superior ideas on where the clan was supposed to be headed to advance our attacks in war. So much so that arguments got heated and they started splitting the clan in 2. From one clan we became 2 and both long time friends refused to speak to each other. Everyone has since patched things up and I had to be the one reminding everybody "It's just a game!" It can happen. We still play Clash of Clans, but now we have only one leader and no one tells anyone how to play and so far we've had no problems. I know mobile games get a bad reputation for micro transactions and pay to win and in all honesty, Clash of Clans is no different. You can purchase gems, gold or elixir and it can definitely aid you in advancing your village more but understand that the more you advance your village, the more advanced enemies you will face as well. Taking all of this into account, Clash of Clans is still a force to be reckoned with and totally fun. It was ranked as one of the top 5 downloads of 2013 and has made it's founding company millions of dollars. I rank this mobile app a 7 out of 10. Some army camps may be a little bit too overpowered and it does feel that although a player may be at my rank, their defenses were more than likely bought making any attack on them impossible. So aside from a few balancing issues, Clash of Clans is a game that always keeps updating and there is no sign of it stopping from progressing into a legendary game. This game is available for Android and iOS devices.

The Battle of a Lifetime

     Battlefield 2...the game that made me late to work, late to school and late to life. Friends would invite me out to dinner or any type of social gathering, I was always the last one there. Sure, I would lie. I'd say "I was feeling sick" or "I was busy with homework." After a while you can only use so many excuses until people start getting sick of it and just stop asking. This game wasn't an addiction, it was an experience. Admittedly, I played this game so much that I was really good and was ranked as one of the top players on many servers. So much so that some players would leave a server, because they knew I would dominate. The story and game play were simple. It was a first person shooter set in World War 3 between The U.S., P.L.A. (People's Liberation Army of China), M.E.C. (Middle-Eastern Coalition), the European Union and Russia. This was the first multiplayer game I ever played and thank goodness for that, because it also turned out to be one of the best games I ever played. In 2005 and 2006 it was named best multiplayer game of the year by many game critics. This was before Call of Duty was ever the game it is now. Even to this day it has a huge cult following by fans who wish to resurrect everything that was perfect with this game. There are currently more modern adaptations of Battlefield with better graphics and design but by no means as good as the original. The maps they add to the modern version of the game are just taken from this game purely because they were just that good. I may be biased, because I do have fond memories of this game, but they weren't all good. BF2 did suffer from it's share of connection issues, glitches and hackers that made my playing life, hell. When all is said and done, this game forced you to play as a team or else suffer the consequences of a loss. I rate it a 9 out of 10 due to problematic design features. This game is only available on PC.