A Green Mushroom

Hero Academy is the game I've been longing for .  I didn't know how much I needed a game like this, but now I'm playing it more than anything else.  I've been in the mood for a nice tactical game without twitch elements, and Hero Academy fills that role perfectly. The premise of Hero Academy is simple.  On your turn you get five actions to spend how you will.  The game plays out asynchronously over multiple turns.  If you destroy your opponent's crystals or kill all of their units you emerge the victor. These five actions can be to move a unit, attack with a unit, or bring an object into play from your current available "hand" at the bottom of the screen.  The objects you'll bring into play are more units, equipment for existing units, and spells that you cast on the battlefield.  At the end of every turn your current hand of objects refills up to six. Those are the basic mechanics of the game,...

I really like the Free to Play business model.  I have no problem paying for game content in chunks.  It gives me the freedom to spend the amount of money I want on the parts of the game that appeal to me and that's awesome. In the past few months I've spent money on content for Tribes Ascend and Hero Academy.  In Tribes I unlocked some classes and in Hero Academy I unlocked different teams to play with.  In total I spent maybe $20 between the two games and it was money well spent.  I unlocked some content and got to support good developers in the process. I'm planning on spending a little more money on both Mech Warrior Online and Mech Warrior Tactics when they come out this summer.  Depending on what's available in the Guild Wars 2 store I may spend some there too. The coolest part of F2P games is that I don't have  to spend money.  These games are all designed so they can be played and enjoyed for free.  But, once I pla...

I finally wrapped up my time with Final Fantasy II.  It feels good to get another game done on my quest to complete all the main (numbered) Final Fantasy games.  FFII provided me with around 25 hours of play divided mostly into 5 to 10 minute chunks.  It was great for killing a little time here and there, even if playing it that way made the game take months to complete. I've already posted some thoughts as I was going along, but what do I think about FFII overall?  Well, it's an improvement over the first game.  I can tell that the designers were stretching themselves and trying new ideas which is always worthy of praise. There is an actual story this time, something that Final Fantasy I failed at.  FFI had the general knowledge that bad things were in the world and needed to be destroyed.  Final Fantasy II, on the other hand, had 3 main characters that get caught up in a rebellion against an oppressive empire (I already see precursors to F...

As part of the newbie blogger initiative  all of the sponsor bloggers are writing posts this month with advice about blogging.  Definitely check the forum for links to a lot of helpful people. My biggest tip for you is to just start writing .  Starting to type is the hardest part of blogging.  The empty page is more intimidating than most people think.  The sooner I can get a sentence written out the better off I am.  If you can take a first pass at your post and get everything down on the page you're in a really good position.  It doesn't have to be gold, it just has to be on the page. Which leads me to the fact that you can, and should, revise what you write .  When I first started blogging I wouldn't always re-read or revise after I had gotten words on the page.  That was a mistake.  Now, I make sure to do at least one revision pass on everything I write.  Sometimes I barely change anything, but other times...

Start writing!  This month Syp is organizing a Newbie Blogger Initiative and all are welcome to be a part.  This is your chance to start a blog and get a ton of support from the blogging community.  If you've ever thought about seriously starting a blog or just trying it out to see if you would like it then this is the perfect month to start. There's a forum set up here that will have helpful information as the month goes along.  It seems like there's going to be a lot of support, so don't be shy, ask for some advice or help on the forum.  A lot of the bloggers pitching in are from the gaming community, but any blog is welcome. If you want to get started blogging I would recommend using Blogger or Wordpress .  Both of them have free versions and are fairly painless to set up.  Blogger is a little easier to use if you're new to having a web site while Wordpress has a ton of extra plugins and customization options that you can use farther down ...