One of my favourite computer games is World of Warcraft. Before I tried it, I heard its name mentioned a lot but was somewhat put off by the title as I'm not a fan of "war" games. However, during a bored moment when I probably should have been revising or something, I decided to at least look it up and see what all the fuss was about.
I was pleasantly surprised that, instead of all the dingy, boring tanks and soldiers I was expecting from the title, it was colourful and full of elves and orcs, wizards and druids and all manner of fantasy creatures. I love reading fantasy books, so it really grabbed my attention.
My first character was a Human Paladin. I can't remember why I chose that combo, but it must have sounded good at the time! I really didn't get on with it and barely got beyond the first few levels, getting severely bored with dying all the time. Needless to say I thought it would be a good idea to try something different and picked a Night Elf Rogue. I got on rather well with that and Shadefoot is still my main character now, although I have a few other mid-level characters too.
Unfortunately, I don't have as much time to play as I'd like and it's fairly unpredictable as to when I can get on. That means I've hardly done any of the instances as I'm just not on long enough or at the right time unless it's around Christmas or Easter. Still, I've seen people that do have the time in worse gear!
I like the fact that the game is equally playable whether you play solo or with friends. Sure you get the best gear in raids and PUG raids are possible, but I seem to always have been somewhat unlucky with PUGs, so I just have to be content with the guild letting me along when they need a space filled. It's also nice that it's reasonably free-roaming. There's always going to be some quests that are designed to lead you to a new area, but otherwise you're pretty much free to choose where and how you progress.
All in all, a game I love playing for all its surprising little humourous quirks and general playability. You don't have to have super-fast reactions to keep in the game, but there are still things that challenge and make you think.
Fight Klub is a new card game made by Decipher. It's designed around a totally unique system of both play style and how easy it is to obtain cards. It has also been designed so that "fights" are short, meaning it can be played quickly either as a game itself or as a filler while waiting to play matches at other games.
It's a relatively easy game to pick up and start playing, which makes a change. I've seen a lot of TCGs over the years but never really got into any of them because the learning curve to play was so steep and also half the decent cards were in obsolete sets. However, that doesn't mean that Fight Klub is "easy". It may be easy to get going, but there's still a fair amount of challenge with constructing a good deck, especially as opponents are so varied.
In a move to try and design a game that is accessible to many more people, Decipher came up with a unique system of card distribution. In any deck there can be only one copy of any rare, three of any uncommon and three of any common. Rares, commons and uncommons are distributed proportionally but randomly throughout packs, but in such a way that you can theoretically obtain an entire set of all the cards of a playset in just three packs. It obviously doesn't guarantee you'll get everything you want out of three packs, but you will get most of what you want and you can easily trade any duplicates for the ones you haven't got.
Packs are called "kilos" and a kilo is the only format that cards come in - no boosters. This does mean that Fight Klub is slightly more expensive to start than some games but, as you can get all cards in a set through only 3 packs, it is massively cheaper in the long run than most other popular TCGs.
There's a heavy emphasis on player influence as to what characters appear in the game. On the front page of the website there's a voting pane so that you can say whether or not you'd like a particular character in an upcoming expansion. The whole aim of the game is to bring in more heroes and villains so that eventually you can create the fights you've always wondered about. How would John McClane fare against Indiana Jones? How about Batman vs Spiderman? Judge Dredd vs Terminator? Go and vote, YOU influence who goes in next!
The website is free to join, though they do require verification to post on the forums, however all other content is accessible. You can join up using someone's handle, which automatically makes them your "mentor". They will answer any questions you have about the game or else point you in the direction of someone who can if they're unsure. There are also "gangs" to join (after a delay of 30 days to decide which you like the look of) although this isn't necessary. However it does give a good sense of being in a group/team with others.
Go on and have a look, tell them Starblade sent you!
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