LandGrab - Independant Website

Rating: 9/10

I grew up playing the Risk board game. Most of you have played this game and know what I am talking about. There are however; issues with the board game. Namely its very difficult to get enough people with the patience to play a game through.

I ended up playing two computer versions in the 1990s. Branded Risk on a friend's mac and a pc copycat whose name eludes me.

I rediscovered risk a few years ago on facebook of all places. There exists an absolutely awful facebook app called worldconquest. Do not waste your time playing this app. It sucks.

I eventually turned my nose up at worldconquest and began a search for a proper online experience. I came across several sites and I settled on LandGrab.

LandGrab offers the essential risk experience. The basic rules are essentially the same. There is a large and loyal player base.

There are hundreds of maps to choose from and they are categorized nicely by size and quality. Anyone can submit their own map for general use as well!

Game rules are highly customizable - edit the rules for cards, computer players, or what to do when somebody else stops playing.

Computer AI is predictable and easily defeated - challenge yourself to defeat 8+ computers!

The game also features trophies/accomplishments and a rich forum community.

Play up to four games simultaneously for free or unlimited games for just 2$/month or 20$/year

If you are very cheap then buy for one month and start many new games before your month ends and you'll be entertained with many lasting games while your subscription is expired. (They don't cut you off of old games when your membership expires)

Tournament play is available as well. I am not a fan of it however. The tournaments are all run by the player community and not by LandGrab staff. Its great that some people are willing to take on the tournament organizing but experiences will vary greatly from tournament to tournament. I've not been impressed as of yet.

A mobile note for those iPhone users out there. The site works reasonably well on my iPhone - Horrah!

I give LandGrab 9/10 because of its rich overall online experience. The biggest fault is the lack of properly organized tournaments. Give this game a try though its definitely worth the minimal cost.

Kingdoms of Camelot - Facebook App

Rating: 6/10

My first post was about a classic Nintendo game - Zelda - downloaded onto the wii. Now I will attack a very different animal. A Facebook game.

The concept is fairly simple. You have a city and the surrounding country side. In the City, you build things like watch towers and barracks and cottages. You pay for all this by building farms and mines and sawmills in the countryside.

Beyond this simple city building exercise is the greater world. Your city is one of thousands of cities controlled by other players - people on facebook. You can expand your city state into a half dozen or so city states.

So you build buildings, research upgrades, attack barbarian (NPC) cities for extra resources. You can also attack other players for resources - but expect retribution!

It's a typical mmo. It's highly addictive. The game is probably a cash-cow.

I have several issues with this game.

1. Its a pain in the ass to get more than 2 cities.
2. To relieve this pain, it takes real world currency to buy gems to purchase in game items
3. These gems are extremely expensive
4. The game is constantly trying to get you to spam your wall with requests (not surprising though as many many facebook games do this)
5. There appears to be no endgame... no way to "win"

I give the game a 6/10 because it is fairly addictive and has gotten more hours out of me than it should have. Once you figure out theres nothing interesting to do... the only thing that keeps you there is knowing how much time you've already invested.

Take my advice... avoid Kingdoms of Camelot and look for something better. If you want something similar but more challenging... try ogame at ogame.org (be warned it's also more stressful and can take over your life)

Cheers

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Wii Virtual Console

Rating: 8/10

I first played The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (OoT) when it first came out in 1998 on the n64. I was 13 years old, and I was able to complete the game with the assistance of a players guide. Fast forward another 12 years and I am 25 - complete with a brand new degree in statistics - but quite unemployed and with time on my hands!

The result? I downloaded OoT onto my Wii! 10$ for the classic game. I was hoping to get my  brother in law Fipfap into adventure games for the first time (he is all PS3 crazy - CoD, GT5, NHL11 etc) So we plug in the classic controller pro (black ofc) and give it a go.

Being a nintendo Newbie, Fipfap had no sense for what he was doing in a nintedo adventure game. So I gave him pretty explicit instructions of what to do, hoping that he would get the hang of it. He didn't.

There was and still is a huge problem with OoT on the Wii. The controller port. The classic controller has two joysticks while the n64 had one. The nintendo solution is to make the second joystick (on the right) equivalent to the four yellow directional buttons on the n64. OK fine... lets give it a try. It sucks. Its not a suitable replacement at all. Fipfap was constantly trying to change his point of view via CoD controls and it drove him berserk. The other issue is the B button is for No and A is for yes/OK. while on a ps3, the X (in the b spot) is for yes, and circle (in the A spot) is for no. So he was constantly mixed up, and unable to get his point of view straight. He has not expressed a desire to play again!

Fortunately I still wanted to play it. I never quite finished the gold skulluta quest nor got all the heart pieces when i was a teenager. So I played it through and enjoyed myself.

I solved the controller issues pretty much. You can substitute left and right for y and x respectively, while  down can be replaced by Zr or Zl. Its not intuitive at all, but I got used to it.

I got all 36 heart pieces, and all 100 skullutas (I was infuriated when i discovered what the final prize was for the 100th skulluta) I got all of the major items (not quite all of the upgraded items). Biggoron sword, all the fairy gifts, the ice arrows etc were all easy enough. I used zeldadungeon.net whenever I got stuck (and to methodically get spiders and hearts along the way)

The graphics and gameplay are identical to the original (with the exception of ganan barfing green instead of throwing up blood red).

The gameplay and story etc is still a 97/100. But with the new control setup I have to downgrade this game significantly to 80/100. For us nostalgic types its fine... but for somebody new the virtual console edition with the classic controller pro is completely inaccessible. Very disappointing! I am even hesitant to download more n64 games onto the wii now.