Starcraft II Reviews on Amazon: Not very promising

Wow, I didn't know a game could cause such a buzz. I admit, Starcraft is one of the first real time strategy games I got hooked to. I played similar games such as Warcraft but I don't know, there's something about Starcraft's charm maybe that's why after 12 years, it's still one of the most popular real time strategy games.

Anyways, when I heard that Starcraft II wings of liberty will be coming out, I'm very tempted to buy one. But like any smart buyer, I immediately looked for reviews online. I was disappointed that my favorite game review site, gamespot.com doesn't have one yet but it's a good thing that Amazon.com has customer reviews.

Well, the initial reviews doesn't look promising. Two stars only and 12 out of 19 customer reviews marked it as a one. The big turn off for me is according to most of the reviews, it requires internet connection even if you only want to play the single player game. It's really a bummer. I mean, sure, most of us in the US have a broadband connection but come on, what if my internet connection is down? Whatever happened to just popping in the CD to play the game? And what if you have internet connection but it's slow? How will that affect the game?

I'm sure Starcraft II is a great game with great graphics and for those who have T1 internet connections, I'm sure they'll have no problems but for simpletons like me who just wants single player games without having to connect to the internet, maybe we'll just wait until Blizzard patches it to allow to play the game without having to connect to the internet---or maybe some clever hacker will do that in the near future even before Blizzard does.

Pocket Empires: MMORPG game comes to Android

If you've just purchased a new Android phone, there's no need to be envious of the 100,000 apps that the Apple iPhone is boasting about. Android is coming close, 50,000 apps and counting...plus, most of them are free. One of these free apps is Pocket Empires. 

Pocket Empires is like a mobile version of a typical MMORPG. You build cities, recruit armies, attack monsters, conquer them to join your team, and defend yourself against other attackers. Sounds exciting? Well, yeah, at first but building cities and upgrading them takes hours. Conquering monsters also takes hours because you need around 50 health to do that and you're only given 100 health. So how do you exactly conquer monsters in Pocket Empires? It's kinda numbers game. In the game's help section under spying, you're given an idea of an estimate of the number of monsters under the description, "few", "several", "pack", "zounds", "overwhelming", etc. Now although you don't know how powerful these monsters are, the best way is to start with a "few" monsters and then attack with more than 50 of your recruits. It's trial and error. 

I admit, its kinda addicting but although the game is free, it could be expensive if you don't have unlimited data plan. Pocket Empires won't work if it can't detect network access, either via GPRS/3G or WiFi. 

If you've already tried all the free games in the Android market, Pocket Empires is worth a look. 

How to Get Money Laundering Collection Mafia Wars

If you're an avid Mafia Wars gamer like me, you might have noticed the dirty bra under your wish list if your wish list has been empty. And when you go to your collections and vault tab, you'll notice that there's a new collection called the "money laundering collection" and items listed include: Money Iron, Dirty laundry, Dryer sheets, Money Line, Roll of Quarters, Death by Detergent, and Dirty Bra.

So how do you get the Money Laundering Collection items? Well, according to Mafia Wars Blog:

"Money Laundering is a new feature whereby when you are doing a job, there's a chance of hitting a bigger payday than usual. When this happens, if you can get your friends to help you launder this big payday, you can keep the cash and gain additional experience points. Your friends in turn will also benefit by getting a cut of your stash and a special collection item."

One of my Mafia wars friends happened to publish this money laundering feature. The text on the published post reads:

"____ hit the jackpot, but needs helps laundering their money! The Feds are watching! _____ is offering a cut to all their friends who help!"

I clicked on the link and I got a $5,000,000 cut but unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to get a money laundering collection item. One of his friends got it though one of them received a "money line" and another received "roll of quarters".

So basically, you need to have a lot of friends in order to complete the money laundering collection. Since you won't get it on your own. Sounds hard. According to Mafia wars wiki, vault bonus includes 10% more money laundered.

Cheap PS3 Games

I LOVE the PS3. Honestly, I think it's the best gaming console out there. The only downside is that PS3 games don't come cheap. You can find cheap PS3 games on your local retailers but they're not really that good. However, if you're an avid gamer and you want to buy the latest PS3 games at a discount, here's a tip: Coupons. Never underestimate the power of coupons. I got some pretty good deals shopping online with the use of coupons. Anyways, the cheapest place you can find PS3 games are bestbuy and gamestop.

Gamestop.com sells some PS3 games cheaper than Bestbuy. Their Call of Duty IV retails for $49.99 compared to BestBuy's $59.99 price. Also, with gamestop, you can even save $5 more since they have an online coupon which let's you slash $5 off an PS3 games worth $49.99 or more as per couponchief. CouponChief has pretty reliable coupons and over the years, I've managed to save a few bucks, thanks to coupon websites like CouponChief. They have other retailer coupons too, not just gamestop. If you happen to want to buy other stuff from bestbuy, CouponChief also has some Bestbuy coupons.

So I guess Gamestop.com's a good place to shop for cheap PS3 games. Of course, there's always eBay. If anybody of you knows cheaper places to buy PS3 games, please let me know via comment. Thanks.

I'm addicted to Flash Games

Okay, so I know that I've steered clear of any social networking sites since I got addicted to Friendster a few years ago but then I keep hearing about Facebook and all my friends have been pestering me to join the website.

Honestly, I’ve held off joining Facebook because I felt that it’s like another Friendster. I’m tired of getting testimonials and stuff, so what does Facebook have that could entice me to it? Well, the answer came when I saw my sister playing a flash game in Facebook: Barn Buddies.

Barn Buddies is like a Harvest moon type mini game and you have to grow plants and stuff. The beauty of this game is that you can steal plants from your other friends and then ruin their crops by planting weeds and putting bugs on their plants. So when my best friend told me about this other flash game in Facebook, a typing game, I readily signed up.

Well, to make a long story short, I got addicted to typing mania. No really, I spent the next five hours trying to get into the top 100 and I think I may already have developed carpel tunnel syndrome.

Fortunately—or unfortunately for me, Typing Mania currently does not seem to be loading on my PC. So being the addict that I am, I tried searching for similar online games. I went over to gamevance, hoping they have a similar game, and if they do, maybe I could win cash prizes at the same time since I’m TOTALLY awesome at typing games. No such luck.

Oh well, I guess I just have to content with Professor I.Q. I hope gamevance would add some typing games in the near future. Those games are really addictive. Yahoo games has a similar paid game called typing shark though I don’t know if that’s available on their online games repository.

I have yet to compete on gamevance, I’m not yet that good on Professor I.Q, well if I’m addicted enough, I might be able to compete soon.

Video Games May Improve Your Eyesight?

So there are a lot of studies claiming that video games is bad for your health and seldom do we encounter one that studies the benefits of video games. Well, according to Yahoo News, playing shoot em 'up games may improve your eyesight.

Though some might say shooter games may make some people violent, a study conducted by the University of Rochester say that action based video games can improve the contrast sensitivity ratio in test subjects. Contrast Sensitivity ratio affects how you see at night or how you pick up on facial expressions.

Test subjects were made to play Call of Duty 2 and Sims 2 and the results show that those who played Call of Duty 2 had an improve CSF compared to those who played Sims 2.

So the lesson? If you're going to play video games, skip the sissy games and go for shooter games.

New Game Releases Oct. 19-26

This will be busy week for gamers as we have 3 new game releases. First off is the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows from Activision. This game features a new combat system and allows you to play as red or black spider-man. This game is rated T for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, and Windows PC, and rated E10+ for the Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, and PSP. Price for the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is: $59.99 (Xbox and PS3), $49.99 (Wii), $39.99 (for the PS2 and PSP), and $29.99 (PC, and DS).

Backyard Football '09 has also been released by Atari for the Wii, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2, and PC. Backyard Football '09 has an updated roster of superstars from 32 NFL teams as kids and also features new play modes like Pro-Bowl and tournament modes which allows players to play the whole season with complete stats and standings. Backyard Football '09 is rated E and has a price range of $39.99 for the Wii, $29.99 for Nintendo DS, $19.99 for Playstation 2 and PC.

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of Dragon Scorches is also available this week. The Dawn of Dragon Scorches is the final chapter of the Legend of Spyro video game trilogy and still includes the voice of Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman. Two new game plays is introduced in Spry: the Dawn of Dragon Scorches, Spyro can now fly at any time and a co-op feature is also included which allows gamers to play either as Spyro or Cynder. The Dawn of the Dragon Scorches will be available for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, Playstation 2, and Nintendo DS.