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The Summoner's Guidebook: Avoiding LoL's wombo combos
If you've played League of Legends for while, you've probably been on both ends of a wombo combo. This amusing term describes what happens when two characters combine their simultaneous murdering efforts. You know you've hit with a wombo combo if your opponent dies to your combined assault without ever getting a chance to do anything except die. In LoL, wombo combos require quite a bit of setup. All participants need to be within striking distance of the enemy, or one of the attackers needs to pull the victim into his friends. Because of the limitations on positioning, most wombo combos are avoidable.
Yulgang 2 glides to launch in late 2013
A new free-to-play MMO is on the horizon, and chances are that you've never heard of it. The game is Yulgang 2, a martial arts title that boasts a couple of interesting features. Yulgang 2 has an air sprint system that allows players to do multiple jumps, glide, and stick a landing as long as a key combo is pulled off successfully. Speaking of combos, the game also features non-targeting combat that utilizes skill combos for devastating effect. Yulgang 2 is scheduled for a Q4 2013 launch in Southeast Asia, but no IP block means anyone can play on the upcoming English server. You can check out its teaser site or take a gander at its official trailer after the jump. [Source: Cubizone press release]
The Summoner's Guidebook: Quick League of Legends advice
I can't play League of Legends right now. In the most dire of circumstances, I had to send my gaming laptop back to the manufacturer to be repaired. While I frustratingly pined over not being able to play, I looked over the shoulder of my roommate while he played. He's usually pretty good; he's a better mid player than I am, and he sometimes makes genius plays. On the other hand, he makes lots of little mistakes and is not very good at certain things. While I sat around backseat driving, I made a lot of little advice points, most of which he just whined about sucking at. He came back to me later claiming he was getting better, and of course, like the wise mentor I am, I told him that he wasn't actually trying to improve at any of the things he was performing poorly at. "You have to make an effort to improve," I said. "You can't just play and get better; you have to focus on getting better."
The Art of Wushu: Offense is the best defense
Previously in The Art of Wushu, we discussed the basic combat mechanics in Age of Wushu. If you have played the game for more than a week or so, you are likely familiar with most of it. A basic RPS mechanic is the simplest type of combat design, and many other games, especially those with "robust" melee combat, tend to have some RPS as the basis of its complexity. However, Age of Wushu focuses a lot on uneven risk and reward. It is not enough to simply have RPS elements. A combat design built around mixups should also have many different options between these mixups that create an inter-RPS. Let me explain broadly: Some rocks beat other rocks, but the other rocks provide better rewards when used against scissors. Some rocks might even provide benefits when used against paper! The series of mindgames interwoven into your attack choice are the focus for this week.
Daily iPhone App: Combo Crew does beat-em-up on a touchscreen
Combo Crew is an interesting experiment that just showed up this week on iOS. Beat-em-ups and fighting games are great on consoles, where you've got plenty of buttons and d-pads to pull off various moves with. But while they've appeared on iOS a few times (Capcom's Street Fighter IV has done fairly well on the App Store), usually these games on a touchscreen tend to just fall back on virtual buttons, which are generally way more clunky and less precise than physical moving parts. Combo Crew, however, is an attempt to make a beat-em-up redesigned from scratch for the iOS touchscreen. It's a game made by the Game Bakers, a really excellent team based in France that's done a great job with the Squids turn-based combat series. Combo Crew has everything you'd want a beat-em-up game to have, including multiple characters, combination-based and counter attacks, and lots of cool super moves and punches. But the difference here is in the controls. Instead of pressing buttons, you swipe across the screen to perform your moves in sequence: Swipe once to attack, swipe and hold to charge up, swipe two fingers for a combo attack or tap the screen for a counter. It works -- mostly. Just like a traditional beat-em-up game, Combo Crew's moveset gets more complicated over time, so that once mastered, you're able to keep combos going for a long time, scoring tons of points and taking down the bad guys with ease. Unfortunately, the biggest issue is that you're swiping right across the screen you're playing on, so sometimes it can be hard to see where you need to go. Thus, precision isn't always exactly where you want it to be. If you swipe the screen, you will do an attack, but there's no way to move around the screen independently, and as a result, you don't always attack the exact enemy you want, which can be a problem at higher levels. Combo Crew is still a lot of fun, however, and The Game Bakers deserve a lot of credit for taking on such a tough genre to do on a touchscreen in such a creative way. There's even a co-op mode, and an endless-scoring game with plenty of various progression items to unlock and earn. If you like beat-em-ups and want something to enjoy on your iPhone, this one is a must-play for sure, just to see how it all works. The game is currently just $1.99, too, so if you're interested at all, give this one a download.
OS X 10.7.3 causing CUI errors for some, Combo Update recommended
It's not a good thing when a simple point release of Apple's desktop OS causes a flurry of error reports with a central theme of "I just installed the 10.7.3 version of Lion and now nothing works." Last night and this morning, threads began popping up on Apple's support forum and elsewhere indicating that a flaw in the 10.7.3 delta updater is resulting in app crashes with a characteristic "CUI CUI CUI" overlay on some interface elements. While it should be noted that there are plenty of reports of users updating with no issues whatsoever, there's no denying that for those affected this is a painful and unfortunate bug. It's especially awkward for users who don't have a bootable backup or another machine to help the recovery process, because it leaves your Mac pretty much unusable. The good news (mostly) is that it should not be necessary to resort to Time Machine or other data restores to get back into working condition. Tipsters on the Apple boards and a helpful walkthrough at OS X Daily recommend using the OS X 10.7.3 Combo Updater to resolve the problem. (If that link comes up 404, it's a Safari quirk; just reload.) If you can boot your Mac into Safe Mode -- just hold down Shift during startup until the desktop or login window appears -- then you should be able to download and install the Combo Updater and proceed normally. If you can't get running in Safe Mode, you have a few options; with a second Mac running Lion or a visit to the Genius Bar, you can mount your machine in Target Disk Mode and install the combo update directly. You also can take advantage of Lion's Recovery Partition, which should be present on any machine where 10.7 was installed by the conventional process. Holding down the R key at startup will boot you into Recovery, where you can then reinstall Lion. The 10.7.3 combo update should be downloaded and installed normally as part of the recovery cycle. Do not erase your drive or restore from Time Machine, it is not necessary. The only thing that you should need is a fresh install of the OS X system, which will not impact your data or applications. While Lion is a lot more 'recoverable' than past versions of OS X thanks to the Recovery Partition and the ease of retrieving purchased apps from the Mac App Store, a self-inflicted foulup like this one reminds us all that Apple makes mistakes (sometimes really bad ones -- remember the iTunes version on Windows that ate music files?) and that the only sane pre-upgrade policy is to have solid, tested backups. The other point that bears repeating is sometimes harder for us to internalize, but it's equally valid. If your livelihood depends on your Mac (or your iPhone, or iPad, or PC) working as expected, installing any updates in the first day of availability is just plain dumb. Production machines need to be boring, predictable and unsurprising -- so leave them alone for days, weeks or months if necessary to make sure that any patches and 'improvements' you want to make don't leave you twisting in the wind on a deadline, or tearing your hair out over data loss. Thanks to Matthew and everyone who sent this in.
Guild Wars 2 devs name their nine favorite skill combos
We've heard plenty about Guild Wars 2's dynamic content, branching storylines, and lack of a holy trinity, but one feature that hasn't seen a lot of coverage is the game's combo system. The combo system is really exactly what it sounds like: It allows a player (or multiple players) to meld different abilities into one powerful gestalt of an attack. A new article over on IGN gives players some insight into the ArenaNet devs' favorite skill combinations, such as the mixture of a Necromancer's Well of Darkness and an Elementalist's Churning Earth. Used separately, the Well of Darkness blinds players within its area of effect, while Churning Earth causes large amounts of AoE damage. When cast together, though, the addition of Well of Darkness adds another powerful AoE attack to ensure that anyone standing in the area of effect has a really bad day. To get a look at the other eight favorite developer skill combos, just click on through the link below.
VIA offers $89 processor and motherboard combo for custom HTPCs
If you're looking to craft a small form factor HTPC to an equally small budget, then VIA's own-brand internals deserve some serious consideration. The company's 1.4GHz dual-core Nano X2 CPU was recently put to good effect in Zotac's ZBOX Nano VD01 and is now available as part of a DIY combo called the VE-900, which puts the processor on a compact mini-ITX motherboard alongside a VX900 dedicated media accelerator for smooth video handling up to 1080p. The board has a single PCI slot, room for up to 8GB of DDR3, two SATA pin headers and four USB 2.0 ports. The rear panel adds to this with HDMI and VGA video outs, three analog audio jacks, Gigabit LAN, four more USB 2.0 ports and other standard fare -- but alas, it seems that the $89 price tag won't fetch you digital audio outs or USB 3.0. You'll find a full PR and promo video after the break, plus some Nano X2 benchmarks at the More Coverage link.
The Gunstringer will be $40, comes with Fruit Ninja Kinect and free DLC, this September
When Twisted Pixel announced that its Kinect-based, undead western marionette shooter would gallop past Xbox Live Arcade and ride right into Retailville, we wrote, "Twisted Pixel isn't talking price right now, but considering most Kinect games go for $50, we'd say that's a safe bet." Well ... we were wrong. And we're sorry. And we hope you didn't bet any actual money. Microsoft just announced that The Gunstringer will be hitting shelves on September 13 in North America, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, and September 16 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Oh, you wanted to know the price? How does $40 sound to you? Oh ... well, how about $40 and a free code for Fruit Ninja Kinect, itself valued at $10? Still not enough? You drive a hard bargain, friend! How about some free launch DLC titled "The Wavy Tube Man Chronicles" in which you battle "the time-traveling son of Wavy Tube Man." Here, we'll use Microsoft's description: In this add-on, Wavy Tube Man Jr. steals a time machine to prevent his father's death at the hands of "The Gunstringer," and it's up to players to battle classic western cowboys and futuristic warriors to save the world from destruction. Wait a second ... you're still not satisfied? Can you not be sated? Is there nothing that can match your appetite for deals? Fine, if you pre-order the game from "select US and European retailers [...] you'll receive two tokens for a free Avatar Prop from the game." There, that's it. That's all you're getting. We're exhausted.
Super Street Fighter IV: The Legend of Chun-Li's 149-hit combo
Without a thorough understanding of the mechanics, meta-mechanics and super secret meta-meta-mechanics of Super Street Fighter IV, this video clip might not seem like a big deal. Trust us, though -- this guy's 149-hit Chun-Li barrage might just be the most impressive combo we've ever seen.
The Road to Mordor: Shopping for your skirmish soldier
Every Friday, The Road to Mordor brings you the latest in Lord of the Rings Online news, guides and analysis. Breaking up, as the song goes, is hard to do -- but sometimes very, very necessary. I'll admit that I have recently settled into a bit of a skirmish funk, firing up a session here and there merely for the XP and the privilege of filling my bags with 576 different types of marks (seriously, Turbine, couldn't we switch from this confusing British-like currency to something more streamlined, like the Euro?). When I couldn't find a partner for a skirmish, the sessions seemed like a drag, and even though I dutifully stabbed my way through them, I grew to resent their length and my death-prone Herbalist soldier. It wasn't until the other day that a friend challenged my choice of soldier, and in so doing, freed me up for a more enjoyable skirmish experience. "Why are you sticking with the Herbalist?" he asked. I shrugged -- I thought that's what you picked when you were DPS-y and lacked a lot of self-heals. After doing a bit of research on the forums, I made the switch from the decaf healbot to 100% caffeinated Archer goodness, and I couldn't be happier. Pew pew, stab stab, win win. The choice of a soldier companion for skirmishes may be the tipping point between a painful slog and a joyful battle, as it was in my case. If you're still trying to figure out which soldier might work best with your class, then hit the jump and see what other players recommend you try.
AddOn Spotlight: Warrior, rogue, druid, hunter addons
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. We'll look at everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your interface folder will never be the same! This week, the actual answer is always Power Auras, but for the sake of talking about Power Auras later, here are some other addons. At last, we come to the final chapter in the first edition of class addons here at the AddOn Spotlight. The only classes that remain are the warrior, druid, hunter and the rogue. Behind the jump is the answer many of you awaiting, my opinion on addons for these four wonderful classes. What are you waiting for? Pull back the curtain!
Universal's back with more DVD / Blu-ray flip discs later this month
We're still not sure if those Jason Bourne DVD / Blu-ray combo discs went over well, but Universal is already gearing up its second go round of "flipper" combos with Out of Africa 25th Anniversary Edition, Traffic and The Jackal all set to arrive April 27. With $27 MSRP and sub-$20 pricing on Amazon there's not a huge price premium on these catalog releases, but unless they're personal favorites we're leaning towards waiting for their inevitable appearance in a bargain bin. Are there any among us who just have to have a little old and a little new all in one?
Get a 1,000 hit combo in God of War 3 the easy way
Are you working your way to a Platinum in God of War III? You may want to check out this video, which helps you net Hit Man, one of the more challenging Trophies in the game. To get the award, you must perform a 1000 hit combo. Should your fighting skills not be up to snuff, there are two easy (but time consuming) ways of getting the achievement. It can take upwards of 20 minutes of mindless button mashing, but it's a sure-fire way of making sure you get the Bronze Trophy. Check out the (rather cheap) strategies after the break. [Via N4G]
Bourne DVD / Blu-ray combo boxes are incredibly descriptive
Just in case you weren't sure what's inside, these boxes for the upcoming Jason Bourne Blu-ray releases -- due on Universal's new flipper DVD combo discs -- are very clear about what to expect. While they may be slightly better than our Photoshopped imagining, we suspect even more than a blazing BOTH VERSIONS ON ONE DISC header, it will be the (still unrevealed) pricetag that either pull customers in or pushes them away January 19.
Universal's BD-59 Blu-ray / DVD flip discs to debut on Bourne trilogy releases
Once upon a time Universal was the hybrid disc king, with plans to release up to 90% of its 2007 HD DVD titles on the dual sided discs, but we know how that ended. Now the company is back to its old tricks, ready to ship the first BD-59 discs with a 50GB Blu-ray / 9GB DVD configuration promising movie and all available special features in whichever format is desired. The expensive answer to a question no one was asking or the perfect way to add future proofing and extended compatibility to new movie purchases? We'll know more once a price is announced for the Jason Bourne trilogy of movies -- seeing their first individual Blu-ray releases -- due on January 19.
Samsung's new SH-B083 drive doesn't write Blu-ray, but it kin reed gud
Say hello to Samsung's first internal Blu-ray combo drive for PCs, while the SH-B083 isn't a super fast writer like some of its classmates, it does feature 8x BD-R and BD-ROM read speeds. Also a capable 40x / 16x CD / DVD burner, if all you want to do is watch movies, this should be a considerably cheaper option to the Pioneer BDR-205 12x burner or other 8x recordable drives when it hits shelves (specifically Amazon and Newegg) in November, though exact date and price remain unspecified. Plus, it has that "chic mirror front door design" we can't believe we've lived without for so long, making the 350ms access speed a mere afterthought. This could fit nicely inside that new C-200, right? Specs follow after the break.
Best Buy bringing value priced all-in-one 32-inch LCD & Blu-ray HDTV to stores "soon"
It's not that surprising to learn Best Buy will be among those delivering a 1080p LCD with Blu-ray disc player packed in under its Insignia store brand, as we've been expecting rebadged units from overseas to hit the value market for some time. Marked "coming soon" at $599, it's easily a few hundred less than a comparable model from Sharp, but buyers will have to live without some of the newer line items like 120Hz motion processing and a contrast ratio higher than 20,000:1. Though we don't expect a lot in terms of load times, audio support or other features (no specs on the Blu-ray player noted) we're sure a bedroom or dorm room somewhere will find a spot for the NS-LBD32X. Your move, Wal-mart. [Thanks, Zach]
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VUDU to debut as an embedded service on Entone IPTV boxes
After being "bombarded by inquiries" about integration the first lucky dance partner for VUDU as a service is Entone, maker of IPTV set-top boxes. Entone's CEO is a little over the top in describing the VUDU + (whatever service provider is first to offer this combo) as the first time two competing visions come together in one unified service (Amazon VOD + TiVo, Xbox 360 + Netflix, we could go on) but it would be an original twist for customers to get the box directly from their TV operator. Expected to launch this summer, it could get VUDU's HD and HDX movies into customers homes without dropping $149 on a single use additional box, but until one of Entone's 50+ telco carriers actually opts for the service it's all just a (good) idea.
Sony to boost the PS3 with game / movie combo Blu-ray discs this year
With the PS3 not quite the slam-dunk Blu-ray player choice it once was for many due to cheaper competition, Sony's new strategy to move units will include hybrid game / movie releases. Citing a significant sales bump with The Dark Knight release, director of hardware marketing John Koller told Video Business that we can expect to see as many as two or three releases here this year. Of course, we can just imagine the reaction when (insert high profile release here) packs a demo for the game tie-in instead of a lossless audio soundtrack or other extras, but otherwise we'll have to wait and see what positive effect this has for the movie or gaming crowds.
