Minecraft: How to Make a Nether Portal Without a Diamond Pickaxe

My latest Minecraft video on how to make a Nether portal without a diamond pick.

Metal Assault Review

Metal Assault is an anime-inspired 2d run-and-gun game by Aeria Games that offers gameplay different from most free MMOs on the market. Players choose from four classes that specialize in different styles of gameplay, and leap right into battle. There's a huge selection of weapons of all kinds - assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, and pistols, and a wide variety of customization options are available to make your character unique.

Pros: Challenging despite cartoony graphics, balanced weapons, rewarding co-op modes

Cons: Gender-specific classes

One of the great things about Metal Assault is that its weapons are well balanced. Having any particular weapon does not give someone a decisive advantage over someone else. Instead, players buy weapons that better fit their style. Instead of higher-level weapons being better, they are made to better fit certain play-styles. For example, while the low-level assault rifles don't vary much, the high-level ones are more unique, like guns with incredibly high damage per second, but dismal accuracy and range, or spray-and-pray rifles with an extremely high rate of fire but low damage output.

So many guns!!!!11!one

In addition to different weapons for different play-styles, players can also modify and upgrade their weapons to add unique features. Players can add a sniper scope to an assault rifle, so instead of throwing a grenade with a right click, they can look down their scope to target enemies much farther away. Silencers, red dot sights, and laser sights can also be added, although their effects are more superficial.

My custom DMR-ish assault rifle

Metal Assault features two co-op modes, a zombie mode and another campaign-like mode. These modes reward players with experience and currency just like the pvp modes, so they are a great say for new players to get money and items.


In all the game modes, players accumulate points by killing and being killed, and once a certain amount of points are collected, players can use special "things" (for lack of a better word), like artillery strikes and a powerup comparable to a legitimate speed-hack.

Another significant feature in Metal Assault are its vehicles. In the larger PvP maps, and in some co-op maps, teams fight over several control points. These control points, depending on their type, do things such as refill ammo and health, and spawn powerful vehicles such as tanks, mechs, helicopters, and artillery that up to four teammates can enter to cause chaos all over the battlefield. These vehicles add great variety to the game; you never know if it'll be a single player around the corner, or four of them in a tank. In larger maps, you have to be constantly mobile, or else you'll be shelled into oblivion by enemy artillery.

Score: 9/10

Metal Assault is a breath of fresh air in a free MMO industry where nearly everything is the same cookie-cutter game. A huge selection of weapons make for incredible variety while none of them cause an imbalance, and customization of both your character and your weapons is easy and rewarding. Despite the cartoony graphics, Metal Assault is challenging and extremely fun.

Call of the Community Charity Event

Hi everyone,

A lot of stuff's been going on in the strange world of YouTube recently, much of it pretty much the same as everything else. I'm referring to the gaming community in particular here - it seems respect is rather hard to come by these days. But something kind of interesting is coming up soon - there's a charity event coming up this weekend called Call of the Community. The goal of this event is to bring together YouTube's gaming community, grow some respect, and most importantly, make it worthwhile on a global scale, raising money for three charities:

- Thirst Relief International: Aims to give clean water and sources thereof to developing, third-world countries.

- Gamers for Giving: Gives cancer victims Xboxes and PS3s to pass the time during Chemo.

- anthonynolan.org: Funds cancer research and supports the families of cancer victims.

Anyways, it's a great event, and I'm really excited for it. Visit the website to watch the live stream and/or to donate at 9 pm EST on Friday, July 15, 2011 for team-making, and 3 pm EST on Sunday, July 17 for the main event. Call of Duty MLG rules, all that awesome stuff.

http://callofthecommunity.com/

You can also donate right here:

Flash Game Review: Steambirds Survival

Steambirds: Survival is a flash game that sort of falls into the turn-based strategy genre, but makes a few innovations to the formula. Based on the original Steambirds, it uses the same basic gameplay, like how you move and attack and use special abilities, but you only control one airplane, and you can buy new ones with the in-game cash that you earn from playing, or with the game's microtransactions system. Players are to survive as many waves as possible before being shot down.

There's something of a plot, but nothing too deep. As you defeat more and more waves, text in the background informs you of the lives you've saved and communities you've evacuated.


Steambirds: Survival, along with the rest of the Steambirds series, is a highly tactical game. Before you end each turn, you really have to think of what'll happen to you afterwards. You're only in control of one unit, so that one unit is infinitely important. Unlockable airplanes make for brilliant and unconventional strategies, like rushing an enemy, and pulling back at the last minute while dropping a deadly barrage of bombs.

The Bunni and PandaPoet are my favourite two airplanes to fly, primarily because you can blow up half a wave of enemies without a singlle shot fired.

You're almost always at a disadvantage when it comes to raw firepower. To aid you in overcoming this disadvantage, the game includes several different powerups that you can acquire and use over the course of the game. Each airplane starts off with a few of them, and others can be picked up from downed enemies. They offer an expanded variety of possible tactics, like letting loose poison gas that damages enemies and jams their guns, so that on your next turn you can do a u-turn and blast them to pieces while their defenceless.

Steambirds: Survival is,  as far as anyone can tell, unwinnable. All you can do is shoot down unending waves of increasingly difficult and numerous enemies until you die. Then you're taken to the page where you can buy new planes with your newly earned points, and restart. The inspiring messages they show you each wave must have some end though, so perhaps you can "win".

All in all, Steambirds: Survival is a great game. It's alternate-history steampunk atmosphere is perfect, and it always keeps you thinking. They're making a multiplayer Steambirds game soon, so stay tuned for details. This is definitely a series to keep a close eye on.

Score: 9.5/10


Screenshots:

Battlefield 3 "Thunder Run" Tank Gameplay Demo

This is the tank gameplay of a demo called "Thunder Run" from the upcoming game Battlefield 3, revealed at a demo at E3.

Warfare 1944

Warfare 1944 is one of my favourite flash games. It's a real-time-strategy World War II game. Enjoy!


Free Online Games brought to you by Armor Games

Facebook App Review: Battle Pirates

Battle Pirates is a real-time strategy Facebook App with the rather unique setting of modern (or a bit steampunk) pirates. Like most Facebook games, it relies on the interaction of its players. Players are in command of their HQ, or outpost, and build and upgrade structures and fleets with the intention of gaining more power and control over their area. They control each fleet of five ships separately, and move them around the world map, giving them orders to explore, mine, salvage or attack the world around them.

Pros: Relatively deep strategy, high level of ship customization, friendly playerbase

Cons: Restricted by politeness (you attack someone, everyone else in the world attacks you)


The world of Battle Pirates is a constant struggle between players for power and resources. You build ships, give them the weapons and armour you want, and put them to the ultimate test - the battlefield. After launching them from your dock, they'll be thrust out into the wide open, daunting sea, where you assign them missions such as mining for resources, attacking enemy fleets, and even taking down an outpost. There's a lot to be done in the big, wide world.

The world of Battle Pirates can be intimidating at times.

There's so much to do, it can get rather intimidating. So many people have such bigger ships, but don't worry - for the most part they'll leave you alone.

The way the game works is that you gather resources, either from the buildings at your HQ or from resource mines. Resource mines give you resources a lot quicker, but you need to manually send a fleet out to mine and you need to attack to gain possession of it and defend it from enemy players and Draconians, the game's NPCs. Because they have such a high resource production rate compared to your home base, they can be in very intense contention, especially the higher-level ones. Draconian fleets will attack player-owned resources every few hours.

When you attack an enemy, or when an enemy attacks you, a separate battle sequence starts. Each of your five ships can be ordered to attack any given enemy or go to any given spot on the battlefield. Smaller ships generally move faster than larger ones, allowing for flanking and other tactics.

Always try to enter battle with a decisive advantage.

The ships themselves are highly customizable, too. New hulls are unlocked in the Naval Lab. You can choose weapons and armour, too, which are unlocked in the Weapons lab and Naval lab. The different items have different weights, and each ship has a weight limit. Fleets have a total weight limit too, but it can be raised by upgrading the dock.

Battle Pirates Ship Customization

It's also nice that they've implemented NPCs, because without them the game would depend completely on PvP like in Combat Zone. The problem with Combat Zone, and to a lesser extent, Battle Pirates, is that politeness makes PvP difficult. Whenever someone attacks someone else without provocation, eveyone on chat is talking about it and gangs up on the aggressor. It's not so bad when fighting over resources, but attacking someone's base can start quite an episode.

This is what tends to happen when somebody gets cocky.

Score: 9/10

Battle Pirates is a relatively deep game (considering it's a Facebook app). The setting is very original, and the ship customization really complements its gameplay. This Facebook app has been one of the most entertaining ones I've played in quite a while, and it's well worth taking five minutes to check it out.