Premise:

You are a squirrel and you have to collect acorns in a speedy manner to fill you family’s home with food for the seasons.

Presentation:

The animations are very cartoonish, but that’s not a bad thing. They were pretty well detailed. It also allows you to do some customisation with your squirrel. Complete the challenges and you get new costume pieces.

The song is just a simple tune on loop and the sound effects are cartoonish as well. It does request on the main screen, however, that you “Use headphones for full funky effect.” They effects are indeed funky.

Gameplay:

It’s a very simple game. You get put on a map 2D map with a time limit and you have to collect all the acorns before the door will open. Easy enough. The tricky part comes in when you are going for the bonuses. There are the five fruit that show up after the acorns that you can always collect, the little squirrel children to rescue and speed run. They are all separate challenges that give you a little badge on the level tab showing your accomplishment, as well as an acorn bonus to your overall score.

They also throw in some extra challenges to heighten the difficulty. The other animals that are roaming about will slow you down if you touch them. There are water traps too that kill you if you fall in. You also have to learn to use your grappling hook on the special grab points to get you through the game speedily.

Value:

I would pay for the game. It is pretty addictive once you get into it and the time spent over your iPhone will be enough to pay for this relatively cheap game.

Final Thoughts:

This is a very easy and pretty addictive game to play. If nothing else, it is an excellent time killer.

+  Fun.
+  Easy.
+  Cheap.

- Autumn GP Schedule Announcement
- Star City Games Open: Charlotte Legacy and Standard Results
- Deck of the Week #11
- New Judge Foils
- New Comic Book Promos
- Grand Prix Kobe and Lincoln Results

With that out of the way let’s begin this week’s edition of the round up.

So i hear you like Judge Promos hmm, well this particular set of Judge promos will have you swooning of course over them, check out the two promos in question, Sword of Light and Shadow and Karmic Guide

Is that a old bordered sword and foil Karmic Guide i see, yes it is, the judges for Pro Tour: Dark Ascension got their hands on these and were given to them for doing their job at the event of course, we all know Karmic Guide though goes for $100 foil and well the sword is just another nice piece to add to any collector’s binder, it’s so nice to see these two particular cards get brand new promos.

Speaking of promotion cards, earlier last week we learned of 2 new comic book promotion cards, Issue 3 and Issue 4′s promo cards were revealed to be Electrolyze and Feast of Blood, let’s check out the first mentioned, issue 3′s promo Electrolyze

Now if that doesn’t get your attention, check out issue 4′s promotion card as well, Feast of Blood.

I have seen issue 1, but not in physical form as of yet since comic shops around here aren’t carrying this particular comic, when they do i will try to get my hands on it so i can get that promo Treasure Hunt

For full information on the comic book, please see the arcana below.

http://wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/906

Another piece of news that was missed last week was the announcement of the final leg of the 2012 tournament schedule which also gives us information on the 3rd and final pro tour of the year, let’s take a look and see where there are going to be events this year during the autumn season.

San Jose Costa Rica September 15-16, 2012
Moscow Russian Federation September 15-16, 2012
Charleston USA September 15-16, 2012
San Francisco USA October 13-14, 2012
Philadelphia USA October 27-28, 2012
Lyon France November 3-4, 2012
Auckland New Zealand November 3-4, 2012
Chicago USA November 10-11, 2012
Bochum Germany November 17-18, 2012
Taipei Taiwan November 24-25, 2012
San Antonio USA November 24-25, 2012
Lisbon Portugal December 1-2, 2012
Toronto Canada December 8-9, 2012
Nagoya Japan December 8-9, 2012

That right there is some schedule, is that another toronto event too, oh boy this is going to be good, right in my home town as expected, we got a lot of events in the United States as well, but where’s the last pro tour going to be let’s find out.

To help kick off “Hook” block this fall, the Pro Tour returns to the birthplace of Magic for the first time since 2004. Seattle’s Pro Tour will be held October 19-21, 2012 and the format will be Modern / Booster Draft with a Modern Top 8. The Standard-format Pro Tour Qualifier season for Seattle begins in April with in-person and Magic Online events.

Oh, going back to where magic started, Seattle, Washington and it’s going to be another Modern event too, meaning we will see Hook drafted as well as a modern event being played here, not bad for the final pro tour of 2012, just remember it begins October 19th, 2012 of which i am sure there will be full coverage of the event like there was for Pro Tour: Dark Ascension, for the full listing of all GP’s and Pro Tours for the year of 2012 visit the link below

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/021012a

As per usual it was yet another weekend Star City Games Open Series event, this time in Charlotte, North Carolina where Legacy and Standard both dawned a new day after the recent pro tour/weekend of awesomeness that happened, of course we start as per usual with standard which saw the usual state of affairs happen and a big congratulations goes out to Mitchell Anderson and his Mono Red deck which took first place this weekend in standard, here are your top 16 standard decklists for the weekend.

Wolf Run Ramp – 3
Esper Spirits – 3
Esper Delver – 1
W/U Humans – 2
B/w Tokens – 1
Mono Black Aggro – 1
Mono Red – 1
B/U Zombies – 1
Heartless Rites – 1
Mono Green – 1
Faithless Reanimator – 1

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=1&start_date=2012-02-19&end_date=2012-02-19&event_ID=19

Legacy also happened as well and believe it or not, it was a nice refreshing course to see considering how diverse the format is these days, but a big congratulations goes out to Andrew Schneider and his U/R Delver deck that took first place this weekend, as per usual here are the top 16 decks for the weekend.

U/R Delver – 1
High Tide – 1
Shot in the Dark – 1
Enchantress – 1
Ad Nauseam – 1
Maverick – 3
Show and Tell – 1
Painted Stone – 1
RUG Delver – 2
Rug Threshold – 1
Charbelcher – 1
U/W Stoneblade – 1
Affinity – 1

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&start_date=2012-02-19&end_date=2012-02-19&event_ID=20

Grand Prix wise it was two GP’s this weekend with Grand Prix: Kobe and Grand Prix: Lincoln so let’s start with the first one, GP Kobe which saw Innistrad Booster Draft/Sealed, but the overall winner of the event was Masahiro Hiraga whom won the entire event, giving him a cool 3,500 US dollar prize overall for his Blue/White concoction in the finals of the event, for coverage of GP Kobe, go to the link below

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpkob12/welcome

Meanwhile in Lincoln it was all about Modern there, with the first major modern event since the bannings of both Wild Nacatl and Punishing Fire with decks like Splinter Twin, Zoo and even Jund making the appearances for the event, but there could only be one and that one was Bronson Magnan and his Life from the Loam deck which shook things up like a storm deck and won the entire event, for full event coverage of the event please go to the link below.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gplin12/welcome#7

Last but most certainly not least this week, it’s time for yet another edition of Deck of the Week, this week’s deck of choice is as always a rogue deck which i find to be unique, Mono Blue Control anyone, this particular little legacy deck was featured in the star city games open series event and obtained 14th place last week with a impressive list of blue control spells which blew my mind, here is the list

Eric Rill’s Mono Blue Control

Lands
18 Island
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn

Spells
1 Chimeric Mass
1 Pithing Needle
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Back to Basics
4 Counterbalance
4 Energy Field
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
2 Echoing Truth
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Snare

Creatures
4 Trinket Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

Sideboard
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Meekstone
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Dispel
1 Flusterstorm
1 Reins of Power
2 Spell Pierce
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Vendilion Clique

Congrats on making the deck of the week, anyways with that as always it’s end the of another edition of the round up for now, stay tuned next when we cover more Star City Games events, more magic news around the world and of course so so much more, until next time though this is vergil signing off.

https://twitter.com/#!/ZeroMH

First let’s take a look at the current 5 hot decks which made a splash since the arrival of Dark Ascension.

5. Black/White Tokens – This deck was seen at the pro tour, though it did do well, it’s one of the new meta decks to beat honestly, featuring the ever present Sorin, Lord of Innistrad as the go to walker for the deck while additions like Vault of the Archangel and Gather the Townsfolk made it a complete deck, this particular archetype had difficulty even being a deck till Dark Ascension hit shelves, here’s the list that was played by Rob Dougherty at Pro Tour: Dark Ascension.

Rob Dougherty’s Black/White Tokens

Creatures
4 Doomed Traveler
4 Champion of the Parish

Spells
4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Lingering Souls
4 Midnight Haunting
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Sword of War and Peace
1 Elspeth Tirel
2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Lands
4 Isolated Chapel
1 Shimmering Grotto
13 Plains
3 Swamp
3 Vault of the Archangel

Sideboard
3 Angelic Destiny
1 Divine Offering
1 Doom Blade
4 Hero of Bladehold
1 Go for the Throat
2 Revoke Existence
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Timely Reinforcements

4. Tempered Steel – A somewhat familar face of course, we all know this deck loves to dump it’s opening hand on turn 1, going off earliest by turn 3 and swinging for the win as fast as possible with stuff like Memnite, Etched Champion and of course Glint Hawk while still being able to drop a turn 2 Tempered Steel, here’s the list played by one Francesco Biscardi at Pro Tour: Dark Ascension.

Francesco Biscardi’s Tempered Steel

Creatures
4 Glint Hawk
4 Memnite
4 Etched Champion
4 Signal Pest
4 Vault Skirge

Spells
4 Dispatch
4 Glint Hawk Idol
4 Tempered Steel
4 Mox Opal
4 Origin Spellbomb

Lands
3 Gavony Township
4 Inkmoth Nexus
9 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket

Sideboard
2 Dismember
4 Hero of Bladehold
2 Mental Misstep
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Ray of Revelation
4 Shrine of Loyal Legions

3. Birthing Pod – With the obvious meta game shift, there is one deck that hasn’t died much in the last while, Birthing Pod, with the fact that it has so many good targets for it when it drops means there are so many good pod decks out there, let’s check out Lukas Blohon’s Pod deck which made Day 2 rather easily, but the deck itself never saw the top 8 as expected.

Lukas Blohon’s Birthing Pod

Creatures
1 Acidic Slime
3 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Blade Splicer
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Geist-Honored Monk
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Inferno Titan
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Strangleroot Geist
1 Viridian Emissary
1 Wurmcoil Engine

Spells
4 Birthing Pod
2 Mortarpod
2 Oblivion Ring

Lands
4 Copperline Gorge
6 Forest
3 Gavony Township
1 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Rootbound Crag
3 Sunpetal Grove

Sideboard
1 Acidic Slime
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Autmun’s Veil
2 Hero of Bladehold
3 Mental Misstep
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Tormentor Exarch

2. U/W Delver Spirits – About 33% of the field was playing this deck honestly at Pro Tour: Dark Ascension and this was the new deck to beat besides a improved Wolf Run Ramp deck which did win the whole thing, stuff like Drogskol Captain, Delver of Secrets and of course spells like Lingering Souls saw a home in this list, here’s the list played mostly

Jon Finkel’s U/W Delver

Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Drogskol Captain
3 Phantasmal Image
2 Dungeon Geists
4 Snapcaster Mage

Spells
1 Divine Offfering
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Mana Leak
1 Gut Shot
4 Lingering Souls
4 Ponder
1 Revoke Existence
4 Vapor Snag

Lands
4 Darkslick Shores
2 Evolving Wilds
3 Glacial Fortress
5 Island
2 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Swamp

Sideboard
1 Celestial Purge
1 Demystify
1 Dismember
1 Dissipate
1 Divine Offering
2 Dungeon Geists
2 Gut Shot
1 Mana Leak
1 Negate
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Revoke Existence
2 Surgical Extraction

1. Wolf Run Ramp – It was kind of expected this deck make the top of this list this week with the fact of the matter it won the entire pro tour, along with being the deck of choice to beat with the new inclusion Huntmaster of the Fells/Ravager of the Fells, it’s basically get to 6 lands as fast as possible, drop a titan and go wild, with this deck either Primeval Titan or of course Inferno Titan is required here, here’s Kibler’s list from the event which won the whole thing.

Brian Kibler’s Wolf Run Ramp

Creatures
1 Acidic Slime
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Inferno Titan
4 Primeval Titan
3 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Spells
4 Galvanic Blast
2 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Rampant Growth
1 Whipflare
4 Slagstorm
4 Sphere of the Suns

Lands
4 Copperline Gorge
5 Forest
4 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Kessig Wolf Run
6 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag

Sideboard
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Autumn’s Veil
2 Beast Within
2 Combust
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Karn Liberated
2 Naturalize
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Whipflare

That’s what’s hot this week standard wise in magic, it’s time to take a look at what’s not now, starting with our 5th least popular deck of the week.

5. Blue/White Humans – With any pro tour deck, there are sure to be flops and this is no exception, sure it has tons of aggressive creatures like Mirran Crusader and Hero of Bladehold in it’s creature base but when they all die to something like 2 whipflare’s at the same time it can really be harmful to this deck, considering there are much better decks out there, let’s take a look at one of the 4 decks which made the pro tour, but only got as far as Day 2.

Christian Calcano’s Blue/White Humans

Creatures
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Doomed Traveler
2 Fiend Hunter
3 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Grand Abolisher
4 Hero of Bladehold
3 Leonin Relic Warder
3 Mirran Crusader
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Spells
4 Honor of the Pure
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Sword of War and Peace

Lands
4 Glacial Fortress
1 Island
3 Moorland Haunt
12 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast

Sideboard
1 Angelic Destiny
2 Dismember
2 Divine Offering
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
2 Mana Leak
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Sword of Feast and Famine

4. White/Red Aggro Control – Another lack luster deck which made day 2 but didn’t really do much after making day 2, sure it got as far as Day 2 of the pro tour event but that’s it, with stuff like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Wurmcoil Engine as it’s big guns it’s a wonder it survived a much faster meta at all, here’s Caleb Durward’s List from the event

Caleb Durward’s White/Red Aggro Control

Creatures
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Razor Hippogriff
2 Wurmcoil Engine

Spells
3 Day of Judgment
1 Devil’s Play
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Glint Hawk Idol
1 Mortarpod
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Origin Spellbomb
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of War and Peace
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Whipflare

Lands
3 Buried Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Clifftop Retreat
3 Inkmoth Nexus
6 Mountain
9 Plains

Sideboard
2 Divine Offering
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Hero of Bladehold
1 Karn Liberated
2 Koth of the Hammer
3 Revoke Existence
1 Sun Titan
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of War and Peace

3. Blue/White Blade Control – A deck that has a lot of 2 and 1 drops honestly, with the only three drops of the deck being Sword of War and Peace and Geist of Saint Traft, it’s a wonder this didn’t make the top 8 of the pro tour, however it seemed like it was going against a lot of other really better decks in Wolf Run Ramp and of course Blue/White Delver Spirits, here’s the list run by Jason Ford.

Jason Ford’s Blue/White Blade Control

Creatures
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Invisible Stalker
4 Snapcaster Mage

Spells
1 Dismember
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Gut Shot
4 Mana Leak
4 Ponder
1 Runechanter’s Pike
3 Sword of War and Peace
2 Thought Scour
4 Vapor Snag

Lands
4 Glacial Fortress
9 Island
3 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast

Sideboard
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Day of Judgment
1 Dismember
2 Dissipate
1 Divine Offering
1 Mutagenic Growth
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Revoke Existence
3 Timely Reinforcements

2. Black/Blue Control – A deck this powerful should have made day 2 of the event, with stuff like Curse of Death’s Hold and Black Sun’s Zenith to back up a already powerful Ratchet Bomb/Tragic Slip removal package, it’s a surprise to see this deck make the list, here’s the list as played by Lukas Jaklovsky

Lukas Jaklovsky’s Blue/Black Control

Creatures
2 Consecrated Sphinx
3 Snapcaster Mage

Spells
3 Black Sun’s Zenith
1 Blue Sun’s Zenith
2 Curse of Death’s Hold
2 Dissipate
2 Doom Blade
3 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Mana Leak
1 Ratchet Bomb
4 Think Twice
4 Tragic Slip
2 Tribute to Hunger

Lands
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Ghost Quarter
8 Island
2 Nephalia Drownyard
7 Swamp

Sideboard
2 Batterskull
2 Bloodline Keeper
1 Dissipate
2 Flashfreeze
1 Negate
2 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Steel Sabotage
1 Surgical Extraction

1. Mono Black Aggro – My worst deck of the event is, Mono Black Aggro which runs nothing but basic lands due to the Lashwrithe in the deck and the fact it’s one of the newest aggro creations made specifically for the event, it needs serious work before it makes the top 5 hot list, here’s the list played by Jasper Johnston Epstein

Jasper Johnston-Epstein’s Mono Black Aggro

Creatures
1 Bloodline Keeper
4 Diregraf Ghoul
3 Fume Spitter
4 Geralf’s Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
3 Porcelain Legionnaire
1 Skinrender
4 Skirsdag High Priest

Spells
4 Geth’s Verdict
1 Lashwrithe
3 Mortarpod
4 Tragic Slip

Lands
24 Swamp

Sideboard
2 Black Sun’s Zenith
3 Distress
2 Mental Misstep
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Phyrexian Obliterator
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Sword of War and Peace

Well that’s it for this first edition of the top 5 hot and not list deck wise, featuring all decks from Pro Tour Dark Ascension, next week i’ll be taking a look at the regular schedule of decks from the latest Grand Prix and Star City Games Open Series events so you know what to play and what not to play at your local FNM each week, until next time this is vergil signing off.

There’s a few things I need to address about this podcast.

One, if you haven’t noticed by now, this is Adrian posting all of these. I flop between talking in first and third person in all podcast posts, so there’s that. Sorry if there’s any confusion going on in your cranium.

Two, if Arvind is reading this, HAHAHAHAH! I GOT YOU! During the recording of the podcast, I tried to make Arvind look at a video of a guy making awkward faces. He refused to look at it. Something about being too scared. Well the podcast art this week is the face that he didn’t want to look at. So I hope you’re reading this, because I win! <3

Three, THIS WEEK ON THE BROFORCE PODCAST: We talk about space, eggs, Jeremy Lin, Bill Nye, and a very lengthy discussion on Nintendo's future.

Four, we use a couple things we need to give credit for:

• The end song is a song from Bill Nye the Science Guy called: “Water Cycle Jump.” You can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BayExatv8lE
• The song used while Goodie was away from Earth is called: Drone 1: Darkside of the Drone. I bought this a few years ago and it’s the most haunting piece of dark ambient music to listen to while sleeping. I had my most horrific nightmare while listening to it. Maybe I’ll talk about it on a future podcast if this gets brought up! Here’s a link to it on Amazon, I highly recommend it! http://www.amazon.com/Drone-1-Darkside/dp/B002LMZL0O

Okay, so if you want to contact us and get a word in to our podcast email us at broforce@finalsmash.com! You can find us on Twitter as well @BroforcePodcast.

Twitter:
-Arvind (@CakeLake)
-Nic (@ObamaCat)
-Goodie (@ItsAllGoodie)
-Adrian (@Adreun)

Howdy errybody!

This episode of Around the Campfire (even though my co-hosts have deserted me) I’m joined by Alex from Dark Harvest and Adam from Tribe Twelve. I guess you can call this a triple A podcast, eh? HAHAHAHA! (Thank you Vain for that joke).

We talk about fans, phones, computers, fake birthdays, the Tribe Twelve live stream, My Little Pony, inspirations, a Tribe Twelve DVD, Marble Hornets season 2, tips for people who want to make a Slender Man series, copy cats, and games.

If you want to contact us to either ask some questions, suggest a guest, or maybe tell us a story about how you were almost killed by your ex on Valentines Day, email us at aroundthecampfire@finalsmash or tweet us @CampfirePodcast!

Twitter:
-Adrian (@Adreun)
-Adam (@TheNimbusCore)
-Alex (@GameSlave2)

Links:
-Adam’s Tumblr: http://thenimbus.tumblr.com
-Tribe Twelve: http://youtube.com/user/tribetwelve
-Dark Harvest00: http://youtube.com/user/darkharvest00
-MLAndersen0: http://youtube.com/user/MLAndersen0
-Marble Hornets: http://youtube.com/user/MarbleHornets

Gameplay: When I say hyper-realism, I mean it. This is no Call of Duty. You can’t go around the map gunning people down with ease and ‘drop-shotting’ or ‘quick-scoping’ this game focuses on raw tactics and pacing yourself well. Being a class based shooter, Red Orchestra 2 has multiple play styles depending on what class you’re playing as, although when you’re playing on the campaign, you don’t get to choose which class you wish to play as since the class is automatically chosen for you, which is a major dis-benefit to the single player campaign. This is no run and gun, lone wolf sort of game, it involves a multitude of tactical variations in combat as well as fine tuning your squad-mates positioning so you can finely penetrate the enemy’s secured locations. Here’s an example of how hyper realistic this game is, in most shooters your gun shoots however far the developer sets its range; in RO2, you’re expected to adjust the range of your weapon depending on how far the enemy is. That’s pretty dang realistic.

Vehicular combat plays an important role in this game, some missions expect you to navigate around in a tank and navigate in a tank. By that I mean, you’ll be switching your position in the tank numerous times to succeed which does feel incredibly tedious at times but you get used to it after a while. One thing I really wanted to see while driving the tank was destructible environments, Battlefield has caused me to want to see this in almost every first person shooter with a vehicular component.

Graphics: The graphics of this game works in synergy with the gameplay to offer a realistic experience. Environments and weapon models look fantastic in this game which runs on the Unreal engine, there’s no noticeable texture pop-ins which you usually find in most Unreal engine games. It’s probably the best running Unreal engine game I’ve ever played on my PC, it runs that well. There’s not much to say about the art style since it’s a realistic game.

Sound: Most of the sounds you’ll hear in this game will be onomatopoeic words since it’s a first person shooter, the sounds are very authentic. Like most FPS’ there is dialogue between soldiers while in battle but it’s not something you notice since you’ll be concentrating on not trying to die (because dying isn’t very good). Before you enter the field of combat, you receive a briefing of your objectives, explaining the step by step procedure to capturing the objectives and completing the overall objective. These briefings have voice over which is supposed to be in a Germanic accent, but it’s fairly obvious that it is an American attempting a German accent.

+Lots of WW2 authenticity                                              

+Hyper realism makes it a breath of fresh air from most FPS’ on the market                                                                      

+Offers different approaches to combat

-Not being able to choose your class when you next spawn                                                                                                  

-Ridiculous melee deaths that will make you want to tear your hair out

Overall, Red Orchestra 2 is a great game for fans of the WW2 sub-genre which has received a lot less attention over the years. Currently the most authentic WW2 game on offer with great gameplay to back up its hyper-realism approach. Although there are a few times that you’ll become very frustrated with the game, you’ll be a fool to miss out on this game. Red Orchestra 2 gets a B+.

With the first big event of the season over and done with, it is time for what i feel are the top card rarities of each different rarity starting with the commons of Dark Ascension i will list them in order and of course explain my reasons for each one of them, without further ado let’s get straight into the commons of this set.

Commons
5. Black Cat

Black cat starts this list off at the no 5 common slot due to it’s sole usage in Zombies, plus it being the first ever zombie cat of magic as far as i can remember gives it a unique flavor to it.

4. Divination

A good reprint for the set of Dark Ascension and is perhaps i feel the best blue card of the set common wise, with a lot of good stuff to talk about let’s move on.

3. Faithless Looting

You know red has one of the most powerful red spells in the game when it costs 1 red mana to cast originally and makes itself a promo card as it’s reveal for the set, bloody impressive this is.

2. Gather The Townsfolk

What do i need to say about this particular card, 2 mana token generator, gives you pretty much all the incentive to run a token deck as is and much much more, this is why it gets the #2 slot of this list.

1. Tragic Slip

Let’s see what makes this claim the #1 spot common wise here, it’s morbid ability makes it perhaps the best common removal to date, even better then Doom Blade, it has one of the best flavor texts of any card period, “Linger on Death’s door and risk being invited in” if that doesn’t convince you, look at the mana cost for the spell, must be the best common for this set hands down.

With the commons out of the way, let’s look at the uncommons of the set now, which are probably my favorite.

Uncommons
5. Lingering Souls

When you see a card hit almost every white deck at the latest pro tour, you know it is good, this is why #5 belongs to Lingering Souls quite handily too.

4. Strangleroot Geist

Probably the best uncommon undying creature in the set, makes itself known by being in a event deck, is a game day promo card and already set itself up for a good deck, not bad i say.

3. Tracker’s Instincts

Putting a creature into your hand isn’t good enough, it’s gotta show it can put flashback targets into the bin too, or even Unburial Rites targets as well for reanimator decks, this is the perfect new card for the set to do just that as well.

2. Diregraf Captain

Zombie lord of the set, it’s abilites are perhaps the second best lord ability in Dark Ascension, with my next card proving what makes it #1 of the set uncommon wise.

1. Drogskol Captain

If there was any debate on what the best uncommon was from Dark Ascension, this is it, Hexproof, +1/+1 and flying, yeah plus when you target this via a Phantasmal Image nothing targeted can hit your team, or even when a second one is out makes it just as effective, but even one of these can do some serious damage, making it the #1 card uncommon wise of Dark Ascension.

We move now to the rares of the set, which are kind of tough for me to pick since there are so many good ones, but there are also so many crap ones in this set, meaning i had a hard time choosing the top 5 rares.

Rares
5. Feed the Pack

What more do i need to say about this particular card, it’s got a lot of potential usage in it and makes a ton of tokens if it is done right, excellent start to the rares of the set.

4. Increasing Confusion

When you can basically make mill a viable option in standard these days with a card like this you know it is good honestly, but the kicker is the flashback effect when done right, making it a decent idea to start with.

3. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

For #3 on this particular rarity she does quite a lot, makes control a difficult option and a more creature heavy deck easier to play, has first strike and is a 2/1 2 drop and believe me even if she is legendary she still kicks some serious butt here.

2. Geralf’s Messenger

1 key card of zombies and perhaps the best black creature of the set, besides a zombie which claimed the #1 spot due to the fact it’s just stupidly good.

1. Gravecrawler

Honestly when you can cast this out of the graveyard as much as you want, you know your the best card of the set and bar none the best rare of the set to boot.

Now onto the mythic rares of Dark Ascension, this list was very easy to make up, considering how few choices there are for cards in this set, let’s begin.

Mythic Rares

5. Moonveil Dragon

When you can give your entire team Firebreathing for a mere 1 red mana, you know it’s good and it also has a nice even mana cost at 6 mana.

4. Vorapede

The reason Vorapede is so low on the list is, it turns out to be one of the most under used mythics of the set, even though the hype around the card was so high, even though this is a perfect Birthing Pod target we’ve yet to see in any Pod list to date.

3. Havengul Lich

When you can cast any creature out of any graveyard for a mere 1 mana plus it’s casting cost, you know your good and when it has that ability until end of turn, well consider this a very good card in the mythic category of this set.

2. Huntmaster of the Fells/Ravager of the Fells

The only Double Faced Card on this list and was the star attraction of the latest pro tour, taking the champ to victory off it’s abilites, showing why it’s the best DFC to date.

1. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

Sorin being the #1 spot on this list should come as no surprise here, for what it does and what archetype it fuels overall, makes it perhaps the #1 card in Dark Ascension as all planeswalkers do normally.

Well that’s it for this top 5 edition of Dark Ascension, i do so hope you enjoyed and remember if you have any questions what so ever about this article and the choices i made for each list, feel free to check the old twitter of mine, until next time this is vergil signing off.

https://twitter.com/#!/ZeroMH

- Pro Tour Dark Ascension Results
- Changes to Release Parties
- Star City Games Open Cincinnati Legacy and Standard Opens
- Deck of the Week #10
- Avacyn Restored Prerelease and Buy a Box Promo Names
- New Prerelease Kit for Avacyn Restored
- Dark Ascension Event Decks Revealed

With that in mind let’s “Delve” right into the week’s worth of news, starting with something rather simple.

Last monday, the 6th of this month we learned of the following change to release parties starting with Avacyn Restored which are going to be the following as of now.

Starting with Avacyn Restored, the name of “Launch Party” will be phased out— but we will still encourage stores to run a variety of events for you, including drafts! At the same time, the League will still kick off the Friday of the release. Lastly, the foil participation cards previously distributed during the Launch Party event will be made available to you at the Friday Night Magic on release day.

What this means is there are officially the term is phased out and the promos for these events would be distributed at the first Friday Night Magic of the new set, which is basically launch day for new sets, it also means we will be seeing some new sort of thing at the local game store which you may or may not go to, ok but for the full information on these changes please see the link below.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/181a

In other Avacyn Restored news, we also learned of the Prerelease and Buy-A-Box promotion cards which are as follows

Prerelease: Moonsilver Spear
Buy-A-Box: Silverblade Paladin

Best guesses for these two cards is it’s a creature for the Buy-A-Box promo and the prerelease feels like a Equipment which is not common for a prerelease promo to be, but speaking of the prerelease there are a few changes to that as well.

This photo actually shows a lot of information, including what to expect changes wise, something called the Helavault Prerelease Kit will be delivered to stores round the world and will contain all the essentials for the prerelease this time around, however there is also a change since the Core stores may now run 3 main events and Advanced stores can now run 6, big change there. With this set however since it is a large set, expect to draft 6 Avacyn Restored boosters instead of the 2 previous similar to Rise of the Eldrazi when it first hit the scene, but these prerelease kits won’t be used everywhere however since wizards will list the stores that these will be shipped out to in advance of the event.

Pro Tour: Dark Ascension was this weekend and instead of the 1 day of coverage we got a full 3 days of coverage, wow, yes from the 1st round to the top 8 finals we got all coverage for the event, i believe this is the first time magic has ever done this where we got full live coverage of a Pro Tour in the history of Magic, excellent i must add but onto the weekend at hand. We got to see Dark Ascension’s first big tournament with it arriving a week ago on store shelves and we also got a taste of Dark Ascension/Innistrad Booster draft as well during 6 rounds of the event, so without further ado let’s see who won the whole thing.

During the course of the event we saw pros like Luis Scott Vargas, Patrick Chapin and so many more battle it out for the top prize of 40,000 dollars, but there can be only one and that man was Brian Kibler and his Wolf Run Ramp deck which beat Paulo Vitor Dama Da Rosa and his Wolf Run Ramp deck in a epic 5 game clash in the finals, congrats to you man.

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptdka12/welcome

As per usual as is every weekend normally now, the Star City Games invitational series happened this weekend in Cincinnati with both the usual Standard and Legacy fare happening once again to prove the best of the best this week anyways, for standard we saw blistering decks like Wolf Run Ramp, Tempered Steel and of course U/W Delver, but there could only be one winner in standard and it was Nolan Lauren and his U/W Delver deck which took the finish of the event rather handily here are your top 16 lists for the event as per the norm.

U/W Delver – 6
U/W Humans – 1
U/B Heartless Control – 1
Wolf Run Ramp – 3
Solar Flare – 1
Mono Green – 1
Zombies – 1
Humans – 1
Tempered Steel – 1

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&start_date=2012-02-12&end_date=2012-02-12&event_ID=19

On the legacy side of things though it was all about the usual standard fare of excellence, Reanimator, R/U/G Delver, the works when it comes to this event and this week’s legacy winner was Adam Prosak and his Dredge deck which took the top spot this week in the legacy event, as per usual top 16 decklists will be posted below

U/W Stoneblade – 5
RUG Delver – 4
Elves – 1
Dredge – 1
Burn – 1
Sneak and Tell – 1
Esper Stoneblade – 1
Burn – 1
Show and Tell – 1
Mono Blue Control – 1

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&start_date=2012-02-05&end_date=2012-02-12&event_ID=20&city=Cincinnati

For our 10th deck of the week it’s a bit of a new deck courtesy of the star city games open series with the 9th place Zombies list run by Steve Walsh

Steve Walsh’s Brains

Lands
23 Swamp

Spells
1 Lashwrithe
2 Mortarpod
1 Lillana of the Veil
3 Altar’s Reap
4 Tragic Slip
2 Victim of Night

Creatures
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Fume Spitter
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Geralf’s Messenger
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
3 Hightborn Ghoul
4 Gravecrawler

Sideboard
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Sword of War and Peace
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Lillana of the Veil
2 Black Sun’s Zenith
3 Distress

Congrats to you man on your 9th place finish at Cincinatti’s open series event, good work also on making the deck of the week. Anyways with that last bit of information, it’s the end of yet another week of the round up, until next time as always this is vergil signing off.

https://twitter.com/#!/ZeroMH

Premise: The Resident Evil franchise has a somewhat turbulent recent past with hardcore fans of the series for gearing more towards action and away from its survival horror roots. However, I can safely say that Capcom is taking the series a step in the right directing again with its new title for the Nintendo 3DS, Resident Evil: Revelations. It’s a full-blown console game crammed onto a portable cartridge which harkens back to its survival horror days while mixing in action scenes from the more recent entries in the series.

Gameplay: Anyone who has already played Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D should know what to expect when testing out the controls – it’s still a tank-like system, while pulling the right trigger aims your weapon, while the Y button shoots the weapon. Reloading, picking up items and use of the secondary weapon are used by the other three buttons, while selection of the different weapons and your supply scanner, called the Genesis, are used with the D-pad, and moving is done with the circle pad. The controls are pretty tight – however, aiming is automatically in 1^st person, and many people (myself included) would rather have it be in 3^rd person like the previous games. Luckily, there’s the option to switch it to whatever you see fit.

A majority of the game takes place on the Queen Zenobia, an abandoned luxury ship adrift at sea. You initially play as series favorite Jill Valentine, and are partnered with newcomer Parker Luciani; as you progress, you’ll occasionally visit other areas and play as different characters, including Chris Redfield, another series favorite. Mowing down tons of enemies is the main focus of these alternate areas, while the scarier parts of the game usually take place on the ship.  The environment of the Queen Zenobia is definitely creepy, and it gives the player a sense of claustrophobia and panic when roaming the ship. The amount of ammo supplied during the ship portions of game is much lighter than previous games as well, making every bullet count. One item you have is the Genesis, which scans your environment for hidden items. This can be very helpful, but I’ve found that constantly scanning every room you enter takes away from the overall experience. The difficulty is more than fair – the enemies put up a strong fight, but I never felt completely overwhelmed to the point of quitting; just enough to get the player to panic. Checkpoints are spaced fairly as well, usually popping up right before a place where the player might run into some trouble. The game runs smoothly with the exception of some checkpoints and during some level loading times, where it chugs to a crawl for a few seconds; however, these brief moments only occur in stagnant areas such as elevators, which doesn’t take anything away from gameplay.

Presentation: Simply put, this is the most beautiful looking game on the 3DS. The character detail is the same level of quality you’d expect from the console versions, and the environments and incredibly dark and creepy. The amount of detail put into enemies is great as well – they’re oozing puss, disfigured, and horrifying, and look rightfully disgusting. While they do have a good amount of detail, the variety of enemy types doesn’t offer much. There are only a few different variations of the main type of enemy, with a few additional types here and there. One big improvement over The Mercenaries 3D is the exclusion of the frame rate dropping when enemies are far away – is was the only graphic problem with the previous Resident Evil 3DS title, and fixing that one problem makes this game graphically perfect. As for the audio, it does wonders for mentally placing you in the game and adds to the atmosphere. The voice work is well done, will the exception of one or two annoying characters (which tends to happen with every Resident Evil game).

Value: I tend to search every room for items and enjoy the scenery, so Revelations clocked in for me at almost 12 hours, which is more than enough for a portable game of this caliber. After beating the main story, you’ll unlock New Game + which adds to the replayability. Raid Mode is a fine co-op addition as well – it’s similar to mercenaries, except you have to get from Point A to Point B while defeating every enemy along the way, instead of simply fighting enemies until you die. The online play in Raid Mode it tons of fun, and I didn’t encounter any hiccups. For both the story and Raid Mode, there are extra “Missions,” which are similar to achievements which reward you with items and weapons for completing certain tasks. The additional StreetPass features are a nice touch as well, unlocking more content with each person encountered. This is quite a hefty amount of content for a 3DS game – more than anything currently on the market.

Final Thoughts: Resident Evil: Revelations is an amazing game filled with plenty of action and scares. Fans of the Resident Evil franchise should be greatly pleased, and other 3DS owners looking for a solid shooter should pick this up as soon as possible. The campaign is fun and engaging, and the co-op is an addictive addition which lengthens the gameplay a healthy amount. Despite its very minor setbacks, Revelations defines what developers should strive to work for when making games for the 3DS. I give Resident Evil: Revelations an A.

+ Full console experience on a handheld system

+ Great atmosphere and graphics

+ Solid gameplay

- 3DS battery life kills playing for more than about 2 episodes at a time