First Digital Expansion for Star Wars : The Old Republic
The bottle rocket known as Star Wars: The Old Republic had recently has undergone changes including a free-to-play model and an expansion. Thats right, Bioware and LucasArts announced that a new expansion will be released in the Spring 2013 for Star Wars: The Old Republic. The first expansion is Rise of the Hutt Cartel, which reveals is a new threat in the universe. Subscribers can pre-order the digital expansion for $9.99, which is 50% off of the regular price. Free-to-Play players can also purchase the expansion for $19.99.
As a bonus all players who pre-order before January 7,2013 will receive five days of Early Access to the content. Pre-Orders can be made at www.swtor.com/buy.
The expansion sends players to Makeb, where the battle with the Hutt Cartel has begun. There are new allies and new enemies. There is also a new level cap which has been risen 55. Players can play Free-to-play now up to level 50 without having to pay a monthly fee.
New League Play for Call of Duty
Now the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has a new feature which allows similarly skilled opponents to compete against one another. Players can play solo or as a league team. The league is divided up into individual series and at the start of each series placement matches will determine which league the player would go in.
Each game the player wins will earn ladder points and each game loss will result in lost ladder points. The objective is to be ranked highest in your league. In addition to the ladder points there is a weekly bonus pool. There are series, each one has different rulesets and game types.
Champions Series
A mix of objective game modes that use competitive rules.
Format: 4v4
Ranks: Team and Solo
Special Rules: 3rd person spectating disabled. No Care Package. No Tactical Insertions. No SMAW, RPG or Grenade Launcher Attachments.
Moshpit Series
A mix of objective game modes that use standard rules.
Format: 6v6
Ranks: Solo
Team Deathmatch Series
Team Deathmatch using standard rules.
Format: 6v6
Ranks: Solo
Finally the leagues are divided into six divisions which includes Masters, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Bronze. There are two bronze groups which takes up the bottom 40% of the active population.
Halo 4: New Crimson Map Pack
Recently the 5th episode for Spartan Ops was released for Halo 4. Now, the first of three Halo 4 Map Packs expected was released December 10, 2012. The Crimson Map Pack is the first pack, and it retails for $10 or 800 Microsoft Points. It includes eight new achievements and three all-new maps: Wreckage, Shatter and Harvest. An extraction mode is also available in matchmaking too.
Free Game for Mega Man’s 25th Anniversary
Capcom will be celebrating Mega Man‘s 25th Anniversary by releasing a free PC game : Street Fighters X Mega Man. The game is not a fighting game that we are familiar with in the Street Fighter’s franchise. Instead the game is a Mega Man game where the six bosses are popular Street Fighter characters. As each boss is defeated, Mega Man will earn Street Fighter moves such as Ryu’s Hadouken and Chun-Li’s Hyakuretsu Kyaku.
The game will be released on December 17th, 2012 and will be free to download from the Capcom Unity website. Before the release, on December 11, Capcom did a video stream where you can view the game play. This is available at their TwitchTV page.
Worldwide Halo Tournament
This popular first person shooter franchise, Halo, has helped put Microsoft on the map for the console game market. Since the release of Halo 4 back in November 2012 the game has sold over 4 million units. Microsoft announced that they will celebrate by hosting a Halo 4: Infinity Challenge worldwide tournament which will begin on December 17, 2012.
Word Hero ~ Keeping Your Mind Thinking
Have you ever played a game called Boggle? It’s a board that has a bunch of letters and you see how many words you can find with those letters in a selected amount of time. The game Word Hero is no different except that you compete with people from around the world and there are different leagues you can be in.
This is actually a very entertaining game that gets you thinking, and if you play with a few friends it gets everyone thinking outside the box. You have a board that is four blocks by four blocks with random letters throughout. You search through the letters and create words that have at least three letters, throughout the board. The letters must be next to each other and you scroll your finger over each letter as you create a word. When you lift your finger up it will submit the word and let you know how many points you got for the word.
On the top left hand corner it will let you know how many words you’ve found and how many more possibilities there are. Surprisingly there are so many words I’ve never heard of on that 
list. Each round is 2:21 secs long, that is if you start at the begining the round. If you don’t then you will have less time and would be joining int he middle of a round.
After the round is complete you given points and finally the world ranking. That is the fun part. The highest I’ve been ranked was 7 out of 200 people so that made me proud. If you need something to just exercise your brain and kill some time, try downloading Word Hero. It’s free on android.
Android Game: Cupcake Stand
The game is free to play, and is a nice game to just casually play when you have nothing else to do. It has a addicting side to it where you try to go as far as you can in the endless mode. When you open the game you have to unlock the 3rd and 4th mode of the game. That is done by passing the first two. Here are the modes:
Park Dash ~ Easy
Paris Dash ~ Medium
Candyland Dash ~ Hard
Cake Frenzy ~ Continuous
In Cake Frenzy, it’s not like Tetris or Diner Dash, where it is endless but you continue the level until the day is over. The goal is to earn enough money to continue to the next stage.
How to play?
The concept of the game is simple. Look at what your customer wants, then choose the corresponding cupcake, then choose the frosting then finally the toppings. When you have completed the order, click on the customer to give them what they want.
One thing I found out is that once you apply toppings, you can’t put add any frosting. Topping can go on in any order. If by any chance you make a mistake, you can dump out the cupcake. To be honest, you have better luck and save on time by just giving the customer the wrong cupcake. They will pay you less, but you will have the time to go onto another customer.
There are reaction chains that can be done, resulting in getting several cupcakes in a row correct, and in a timely manner. Each customer starts off with three hearts on top of their head, if you can keep three hearts semi filled then you’re golden. A tricky part is the android guy. He comes with a platter, and ask you to make several cupcakes. Choose a corner and start from there.
Final thoughts
This is a well worth casual game. Some of the players who’ve commented on the game only reference the first two levels, and well of course they are going disappointed be they didn’t complete them. Like any casual game the endless mode is what makes the game worth it.
Preowned games at Target
A habit of mine has been to scour the gaming section of any store I travel to. The reason is simple : to find good deals on games. You never know when you will find a copy of a timeless classic for a killer price or even a brand new that has been marked down for some ungodly reason. This is how I found Starcraft II for $39.99 a month after it was released. Almost immediately, I had texted a picture over to a few friends who asked me to purchase the game for them.
My travels today took me to Target. I just needed to pick up some bath salts, a tripod and shampoo. The long walk to the electronics department left me in awe as I stared at the new Pre Owned Games section next to the $19.99 Classic Games. The games didn’t look at thing like any game that you would pick up at GameStop or even Games N Go. They were lined up neatly, with flawless looking cases they were wrapped up in tight plastic. Had it not been for the label on them saying they were pre-owened, I wouldn’t have known. There were older titles including Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that was available for the Xbox 360 and the Wii. According to an article on joystiq, Target plans on adding a pre-owned game section to 850 stores by year’s end.
This is interesting because now the competition for pre-owned games has become more and more fierce. It used to the be the big retailer for used games was GameStop and since then Best Buy and Walmart has jumped onto the wagon. Is this really a market that they need to join into? I highly doubt it. Something to consider is that even so the packaging looks nicer and even have that nice plastic covering you might be paying for something much expensive than it really needs to be.
Who Wins? The Last Structure Standing
An example of a base race where you fight as hard and as fast as you can to take down all of your opponent’s bases. So even if you don’t have the BIG BAD ARMY you can still win the game just work it.
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