3 Games You Should Be Playing

[Kenneth]

3 Games You Should Be Playing

If you're like me and think gaming is on a dry spell right now than look no further than this article. When you go deep enough into the gaming world you can actually find some great gems that are free to play or cheap to buy. In this article I will not only tell you which games I have found in my endeavors but also explain the basics of the game & how you can play it yourself. Without further ado lets begin.

Devilian
Let me start by saying that this game is amazing and only came out LAST WEEK. But what is Devilian you ask? Well to break it down into a genre it is an Action RPG like Diablo 3 and Path of Exile but it also has a MMO aspect to it. This game is not a traditional Action RPG like Diablo 3 and PoE. In those games you can create your own instances and parties where you go off and do quests, end game maps, and even rifting. This seems to be the extent of the multiplayer experience in the traditional Action RPG. Not Devilian though.

Devilian has a meta game very similar to an MMO like World of Warcraft. Instead of playing through campaigns in multiple difficulties you are doing MMO style questing in open world areas which can be home to many other players at the same time. So as you are doing these quest lines you are seeing other players in this world whether they are in your party or not just like an MMORPG. The best way to explain it would be World of Warcraft but control your character like its Diablo 3. The questing is not where it ends though. Devilian offers dungeons, raids, pvp, and the very typical large city where you can stand around, socialize, trade, and basically just chill on your mount with other players on your server. It's these MMO aspects that make the game feel much more alive than your standard top down Action RPG. Also Devilian offers 4 main classes right now with a 5th coming some time down the road (we know this because it was added into the original Asian version). These classes are Berserker, Shadowhunter, Cannoneer, Evoker, and the upcoming one is called Kyran. All of these classes are set to one character/gender depending on which you choose but they are fully customizable.


Lets also talk loot. The loot in Devilian is what you would expect to see in a typical MMO. This set drops from this dungeon, that set from that dungeon, all with preset stats. These items also have your randomized stats as well just like a typical Action RPG. So you have 3 of the same set helm but not all 3 will be alike. This means the gear variety is vast and in a nice middle ground between more random than a typical MMO and not as random as a typical Action RPG.

So how do you play?
Well actually its very simple. Go to this website and sign right up. It's free to play and as of now the shop has no pay 2 pwn features in it and seems to be purely cosmetic. This should hold true throughout the games lifetime simply because this game has been out for years in Asia and the shop is apparently purely cosmetic over there as well.

Counter Strike Global Offensive
Okay I get that this is not the most out of the box suggestion but it definitely holds water. Counter Strike has always been the ultimate fallback game and I don't think it is just a coincidence that when WoW lost a lot of players CS:GO started gaining a lot of players. But just in case you are not educated on the veteran game let me run by you what it is all about.

CS:GO is a team-based FPS that is still rocking the less is more mentality. Unlike these new Call of Duty's and other new titles with their jet packs and futuristic scenery over and over, CS:GO is still rocking old school rifles, no vehicles, and one main game type. This game type is just referred to as classic casual or classic competitive depending if you are playing ranked or not. It is a 5v5 best-of-30 match using the standard rules of Terrorist side is offense and Counter Terrorist side is defense. The Terrorists have 2 minutes to plant a bomb or kill the entire defending team or they lose that round and the Counter Terrorists have to kill all the Terrorists, keep them from planting a bomb, or defuse the bomb after it is planted. This simplicity and its low price tag (which I will mention at the end) has led CS:GO to being one of the biggest FPS's if not the biggest of all time and right now it is only getting bigger. This former mod for Half-Life has went from 2 million unique players in 2013 to 9 million just last month and the e-sport scene is one of the most fun to watch and it shows being #1 or #2 on Twitch at almost any given time.

So how do you get it?
Got a steam account? If not make one here. From this point just go into the Store section and CS:GO should be about $15.00 USD. Also if you wait about a week from now the Steam Winter Sale should be starting up any time now and when these giant yearly sales go on CS:GO can drop to as low as $5 USD.

Paladins
One of the many people who didn't get into Blizzards Overwatch Beta? Have no fear because Paladins is here....sorta. Paladins is Hi-Rez Studios attempt at a fantasy team based shooter just like Overwatch and honestly it is pretty darn good. The game is bright, the maps are simple but cool, and the game plays very fluid which honestly is the most important aspect of an FPS. Like Overwatch, Paladins has unique heroes with different set abilities. The big differences with Paladins is you cannot switch heroes at any point in the game and you cannot have more than 1 champion on the same team. Some people will love this or hate this as they do with Overwatch allowing hero switching and stacking. I personally wish hero stacking was allowed because once you get into a champion select it becomes a lot like league of legends where people insta-lock the champion they want to play no matter what. So essentially whoever loads into that champion select first gets the pick of the flock (and right now the flock is only 7 champions). Also Paladins has mounts to get around. This I love because one of the aspects of Overwatch I despise is running all the way back to where the fight is going on. Running back creates this dead period where you just are not even playing the game. With mounts it really minimizes that dead time and gets you back into the thick of it in no time.

But besides all this Paladins brings fun aspects to the game as well that Overwatch does not. One of these systems is a card system where as you level up in the game itself you get a choice of these cards to help enhance your abilities within the game. This system sounds great but at first it was horrid. Paladins made it so it was completely RNG which choices you get over your opponent so he could get the best card choices in the game and you could be stuck with 3 horrible choices to choose from and it led to a really unfair advantage. Also if you didn't own the card you couldn't have the opportunity to choose it in the game. This was all fixed in a recent patch and now it is a more consistent system where you and your opponent have similar if not the exact same choices.

Like Overwatch the main mode of Paladins is an escorting mission. In this case it is a siege engine which you use to break down your enemies three walls. The big difference is there is no offense or defense but rather a capture point you fight over and whichever team captures the point spawns the siege engine for their team. I like this so much better than being dedicated to offense or defense like Overwatch has it set up because it feels like a lot more is going on rather than standing on a moving point all game. Also in Paladins you escort this siege engine to your enemies base to start attacking their 3 walls. But beware your opponents will be shooting at the siege engine (it has its own health bar) and once it dies rinse and repeat. So in the end you want to capture these engines but also protect them so they can do as much damage to your enemies base in one life span as possible. Also a new feature they added was if the siege engine kills one of the 3 walls it automatically dies. This was added as a handicap measure so really good players wouldn't stomp out not so good players so fast. I am usually not a fan of this in any game but in the end if your better shooters than your opponent you're going to win, it will just take a minimum of 3 siege engines where in the past you could defend one of them for so long and have it kill all 3 walls in one life.

So how does one start playing Paladins?
Well Paladins is in a closed beta right now but I say closed very loosely because players who are in the beta get 3 keys to hand out at levels 4,7,10, & 20. These keys they give out also can get more keys at the same level thresholds so once you get a key you can just keep farming to level 4 on a new account over and over for more keys. Now if you don't know anybody in Paladins closed beta right now there are 3 ways to get in.

• Buying the Founder's Pack here

• Buying a key on G2A.com for around $3.00 USD (This is what I did)

• Or taking one of the 11 keys I am going to be giving out for free in this posts comment section

If you decide to take one of my keys I do ask you to only take one for yourself and not scoop them all to invite your whole Discord server. Grab one, play a couple games, hit level 4 & 7 and collect your keys here under the invitations tab. Use these keys to invite your friends and when they hit those same benchmarks they will get a bunch more keys themselves. So it won't take long to get all your friends keys.

Do you find gaming dry right now? What games are you playing? Do you think you will give one of these games a try?

[Kenneth]

Paladin Closed Beta Keys

1 ) PB3RP2649803C51128
2 ) PB2RP081AF0A951210
3 ) PB3RP2C33B84A51210
4 ) PB2RP0552E81351128
5 ) PB1RP6A8ADA2C51210
6 ) PB1RQ530207FD51214
7 ) PB2RQ9333172E51214
8 ) PB3RQAE27FF9A51214
9 ) PB3RRDCD306A851215
10 ) PB2RRB73BA15851215
11 ) PB1RRFF7E4EE051215

[D3Boost]

Maybe i'll try Devilian, been bored lately and wanna try something new

[sed-]

very well put list! very nice read and also ty for posting paladin keys . after reading what you wrote and watching videos i decided to give it a shot. i claimed 10 ) PB2RRB73BA15851215
as 11 is already claimed by someone.

[blueflames]

Great post,

I am an ex-wow long time player.. Like 99% of the people nowadays it seems. I was trying to find a game in the beginning of decemeber since I got laid off for the winter, having not play'd world of warcraft for a year I figured I would give it a shot again. Few days later.. no, just no. This is not the same as it used to be.

Anyways,

I gave Devilian a try, got to level 30 and yes it is a great game, diablo 3 style but to the next level. Great to play and recommend to all.

Paladins, It's ok for about 20 hours and then its the same thing, but very great game to try and thanks for the beta key's to get some more peeps trying it out! Closest thing to overwatch.

Another game id like to recommend which is the game ive been playing for a few weeks now and is blowing me away.

Final Fantasy XIV. Great game that is not on the list but is the one to play.

[CreativeXtent]

i play paladin a lot, i love it!

[IChangedMyUsername]

Claimed PB3RP2C33B84A51210... #3, thank you!

[DiamondStarFall]

nice game reco!

[jimmyamd]

used PB2RQ9333172E51214 THANK YOU

[zycamzip]

I have been playing Devilian for about a week now, level 33 Berserker. Thus far, it's a decent play when doing dungeons. The AH is overpriced. I have about 55 gold now, and armor pieces can go for about 3g to 500g each at this level, for better then questing gears. Questing is actually quite boring, a constant grind. There is an Auto Travel feature, which makes the game easier to navigate, but boring overall. There is no exploration, which is sad because it looks like there could be some interesting content. I have yet to find anything game breaking in the game as far as exploits go. It seems possible that a simple visual click to move bot could be made for grinding. Game hacking? eh... it's the same people who made Rift.

CSGO is VERY popular (except here), there are plenty of cheats available for it. I have yet to try it.

Paladin? Eh, I still play Rift. The 20k different possible skill trees, has me mesmerized.

Also play Armored Warfare... surprisingly better then World of Tanks...

[Mortox]

Agree with all 3 games OP.

I've been playing Paladins for about a month now, almost have a level 30 account (max) and have already unlocked all the cards - bought the Founders Pack ($20) and that's it. Great game, very similar to Overwatch but a little deeper with the ability to change your character builds as you level each up within each match. Although it definitely feels like a "real" beta and not just some final-release tagged as a beta, the game lacks playable characters but there are a few more already slated for release. It would be nice if they added additional maps, even just re-textured existing maps would be good enough just to have different scenery when you're spamming dozens upon dozens of games consecutively. They actively take community suggestions and balance the game every single week (including Christmas week!) and are clearly working at making this a competitive and hopefully relevant game in the genre. They're also putting up $100,000 USD towards a Founders Tournament, obviously part of their advertising budget and I assume they hope to get a lot of publicity and Twitch attention as a result, hopefully it works out for them as I feel they'll end up being in direct competition with Overwatch when the dust settles.

Devilian is another game I just started a few days ago, already around level 35 (Evoker) and having a blast. The game reminds me of a console-RPG, MMO, Diablo hybrid. The game seems overwhelming when you first log-on but they do a great job of teaching you all of the mechanics and features and within a couple hours you're comfortable with pretty much everything. Traveling within the game is fairly painless, there's an auto-walk feature that takes you to quest destinations, and you get a mount fairly early in the game (around level 12) that increases your movespeed and reduces the aggro you take while walking past monsters, and as far as I can tell you can't be knocked off your mount so you can just keep running to where you need to go.

I've heard the end-game is a bit grindy, but I'm not there yet, probably similar to WoW dungeon/raid grinding to try and get all your epic end-game gear and whatnot, and there are a few other grinds within the game (enchanting, talismans, typical stuff you'd expect in most MMOs) and I've heard the PvP is pretty fun, but again haven't tried it yet. I haven't played an MMO in about 5 years, and the only ARPG I've played has been Diablo 3, but this game definitely has promise and my first impression is that it'll provide a good bit of entertainment for the next couple months, at the least.

The only thing that does confuse me is their business model, they have it as a Free-to-Play, but then a whole bunch of pay options, an ingame store with a lot of quality-of-life upgrades like increased backpack/bank storage space, utility pets (let you sell while out of town, pick up nearby loot, give you a healing buff if your health drops too low) as well as a few seemingly pay-to-accelerate type features like XP% and Gold% boosts. Then on top of all that they have an OPTIONAL subscription feature where you pay a monthly fee and get a bunch of bonuses from XP/Gold% boosts to extra daily login rewards and various other minor tokens. So far it seems it's still possible to have an enjoyable experience on a totally free account and as long as you don't mind taking a little longer to accomplish the same things that a Paying Player does, it shouldn't be too bad. I can see the worst scenario being if you're playing with friends and you aren't both on the same play model (ie: one of you pays, one of you does not) and it would create imbalance in your respective progress. Overall though seems to be a game worth checking out!

[pinkswan]

Counter Strike is my number 1, followed by Star Craft and the rest are Clash of Clans and Minecraft. Do you guys also play COC and MC?