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Zeriyah spills the beans on Hearthstone's Arena
If you weren't around last week to catch the livestream of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft's latest feature -- The Arena -- fear not. Not only is the livestream recording embedded above for your viewing pleasure, but Blizzard Community Manager Zeriyah has written a lengthy blog piece on just exactly what the Arena feature entails for Blizzard's Online Collectible Card Game. To sum up Zeriyah's post, which can be found after the break it all its glory, the Arena is a place where you can build a pre-made deck, based around a choice of three of the nine available heroes. You'll then be given 30 sets of 3 cards, and pick one from each, making up a 30-card deck. There's no need to have any of the cards already, it could be anything. Winning rewards you with a key, and every time you win your key gets better, up to three losses. After three losses, that deck is done, and you start again. So if you win nine times, and then lose three times, you'll get the best possible rewards from your key. This is a paid access area, so you have to pay to get in there with either real-world money or in-game gold, but as Zeriyah clarifies, if you win enough to get a Diamond key, you'll be back in for nothing. And yes, it used to be called the Forge! Hit the break for Zeriyah's full post.
Aurora Feint announces two new iPhone games
Stick with us here: first, there was the free Aurora Feint: The Beginning, which has recieved some pretty rave reviews as one of the first iPhone games. Then there was Aurora Feint II: The Arena, which added multiplayer and some much-awaited MMO features. And now the folks behind it all have announced two more Aurora Feint games: there's Aurora Feint II: The Beginning, which features the gameplay of the first game with new graphics and the extra MMO features included, and Aurora Feint II: The Tower Puzzles, which contains more of the gameplay seen in the "Tower" location in the full game. Got all that? The Arena and The Beginning are not compatible -- The Arena offers multiplayer, while The Beginning is all singleplayer. And the second version (II) of The Beginning is still singleplayer, but offers the MMO features introduced in The Arena along with the singleplayer gameplay. And The Tower Puzzles is more puzzles based on the "Tower" mode, and according to the iTunes description, does not include the MMO features. Whew. Complicated, no? The good news is that it's all cheap -- for now, anyway. The very first game is still free. The Beginning (version II) and The Tower Puzzles are both 99 cents right now as an introductory price, to go up to $2.99 and $1.99 respectively in January. And The Arena is $7.99 -- pricey, but it's the only place you can dive into multiplayer (and it's also not compatible with both versions of The Beginning). All are available in the App Store right now, and even if you don't want any of them, feel free to scan your eyeballs over the pretty pictures below. %Gallery-40068%
Aurora Feint II: The Arena adds asynchronous multiplayer, in-game messaging
Our good friends at Massively got an opportunity that turned us green with envy -- they got to sit down with the devs of Aurora Feint, one of our favorite iPhone games, and see how its fulfilling the "MMO" promise they've been offering up since it first debuted on the App Store. The new game is called Aurora Feint II: The Arena, and while it doesn't exactly offer real-time MMO gameplay, it does let players compete with ghosts -- the game will record what you or your friend plays, and then offer up that re-play as an opponent. There's also a new "Tavern" feature which will let players leave messages to each other from right in the game.And the goals don't stop there -- they're working on a third version of the game, which will eventually feature an offline MMO mode, as well as a very, very deep experience for a fairly casual iPhone game. "Warcraft on the iPhone" -- it's not a phrase I'd use to describe Aurora Feint yet, but it's one the creators will happily use for the future.The early MMO features are in the App Store right now -- the app will normally be priced at $9.99, but it's currently in there for $7.99 during the holidays (the free, non-MMO version is still there as well). Pretty amazing -- this was one of the games that jumped to the forefront in terms of presentation and quality right when the App Store opened, and it doesn't look like the creators have any plans to slow it down. Gallery: Aurora Feint 2 - The Arena
