Far Cry 3

                Far Cry 3 came out in 2012 and was the third installment in the Far Cry series. Far Cry is a first person shooter based on a fictional island. Even though they are in the same series, Far Cry 3 has nothing to do with Far Cry 1 or 2. There are none of the same characters and it doesn’t take place in the same setting. Far Cry 2 takes place somewhere in Africa while Far Cry 3 takes place on an island. There is also a Far Cry 4 which takes place somewhere in the Himalayas and also has nothing to do with the previous games.

                In Far Cry 3 you play as a young adult named Jason who is trying to save his friends that got kidnapped by a group of pirates. Jason gets help from the native people who have him follow the “path of the warrior” which gives him the strength and knowledge to get his friends back. They gave him a tattoo that he can add on to later. As the player you get to choose which part of the tattoo to add onto and each part gives you a different skill or a different upgrade. This provides a pretty cool customization feature for your character and lets you play in whatever style you want.

                Other than just running around shooting people there are many other things that you can spend your time doing in this game. One of the big ones is you can go hunt animals. Much of the area you play in is forest and so there are many different animals that you can hunt. You can use the skin of the animals to make or improve your items. These items can help a lot when you play by letting you carry more grenades or more health packs or other things along that line.

                One of my favorite things to do in this game was clearing out all the outposts. There are over thirty different outposts and each of them has 6-10 enemies in it. This may seem like a lot but every outpost is different and clearing them out was fun every time. You can choose any strategy you want to clear them out. You can drive up to it in a car, snipe from a distance, or try and stealth kill everyone. This method is my personal favorite. I always think it’s really fun to try and take out every enemy without alerting the rest of them. It is also really hard sometimes and can take me many different tries before I end up giving up and just killing them all normally. However I think that it is really cool that the game lets you play in whatever style that you want. There are different skills that you can choose for each of the different ways you can play.

                Another one of my favorite things to do in this game is all the different challenges. There are challenges that you can do that have nothing to do with the story and just give you a score and keeps a leaderboard that keeps track of the best score. There are many different kinds of challenges. There is a sniping challenge, a challenge where you can only use handguns, and a challenge where you can only use explosives. My favorite challenge was one where every time you got a kill the gun that you use switches. The challenges each have a certain time limit but you can extend that time by destroying blue barrels.

(Word Choice: 594)

Clash of Clans

                Clash of Clans is a free game that anyone can download onto their phones as long as they have smart phone. This game was released in 2012 and was developed by a game company from Finland called Supercell.

                In Clash of Clans players build a town. You then upgrade the different structures in your town to help defend against attacks. You can also build troops to go attack other players and steal their gold and elixir. The gold and elixir can also be harvested by collectors which can also be upgraded. Gold and elixir are used to upgrade the different buildings in your town. Gold is primarily used for increasing your town’s defenses and for upgrading walls. Elixir is used to build troops and to upgrade them. There is also a third type of resource called dark elixir but it isn’t unlocked until you reach a high enough level. Dark elixir is used to create new types of troops and to build and upgrade heroes.

                Aside from just attacking other players you can also join in a clan with other players. A clan can consist of as many as 50 different players. Members of clans can give each other troops and also talk to each other in a special clan chat. Clans can also face one another in a clan war. A clan was lasts two days. The first day is a preparation day where members can get their towns ready and give each other troops for the war. The next day is when you can actually attack each other. Each member gets to launch two attacks against members of the other teams. Each attack gets judged by how much destruction is caused and given up to three stars.  The team that gets the most amount of stars wins the war.

                Clash of Clans isn’t a completely free game. There is also another resource called gems that you can buy using real world money. Gems are used to speed up every part of the game. They can also be used to buy more of the other resources. Gems can also be collected by completing quests or randomly given out when clearing obstacles. However you don’t really get a lot and the easiest way to get them is by buying them. Many of the newer free games have an aspect of the game that you have to spend real money on. Many people don’t like this because they are all advertised as free games even though you have to spend money to get good at the game. Also in a game like Clash of Clans it can give players an unfair advantage. Many people think that games should be fair and they think that spending money to get an advantage is unfair and shouldn’t be allowed.

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Supreme Commander 2

                Supreme Commander 2 is a game that was released it 2010. This used to be a game that I played all the time. This game was developed by Gas Powered Games and was released by Square Enix. This game was first released to Steam and then later came out for Xbox.

                Supreme Commander 2 is a real-time strategy game. You don’t play as a certain character you just control all the different units on the field. You start out with a lone Command Unit which you can use to build buildings which produce resources. The two resources that all building use are energy and mass. Your Command Unit can also build factories which produce units that you use to fight. You can build three types of factories; land, air, and sea. Each of these factories build different units but all of them can build engineers. Engineers can also build buildings. All three of the factories can be upgraded which unlocks more units. The highest level of engineer can create experimental units which are the most powerful units but take a very long time to build and requires an excess amount of resources. The main goal of the game is to destroy the opponents Command Unit.

                Supreme Commander 2 also has a single player mode where you join one of the three armies and go through missions where each mission you unlock more units but the enemy also gets harder to defeat. I never really liked the campaign in this game however. I don’t really think that this is the type of game that needs to have a single player mode. However I did really like playing the skirmish mode. This is basically a mode where you get to decide every aspect of a battle. You get to decide the map, how many players, and what you have to do to win. You can play against the computer or play against other real players.

                I have always really enjoyed this game. However there is a very steep learning curve. When you first start out you will have no idea what you’re doing. The campaign is very good at teaching you how to play but it can get boring just playing with the very basics. There are also tutorial videos that you can watch but you can’t skip through them and watching all of them takes a very long time. Once you figure out how to play the game gets very fun. Only play this game if you have a lot of patience however. Most games that you play will take over an hour and some will take a lot longer. Building really powerful units can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes if not longer.  You don’t have to play a game all in one sitting if you are playing the computer however. You can save a game and then continue playing later on.

(Word Choice: 485)