#3 GAME REVIEW- BAT

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If you love making money, having a team to vote for trophies, achievement with your name splashing across the server, this might just be the game for you.

Be A Tycoon or BAT is growing in number of players. Other than the Mafia War game found in Face book, BAT is one of the more popular games where people get together to make money and gain achievements.

To play this game, you need a create a Face book account. Then key in this address http://apps.facebook.com/beatycoon/ and enter the game and you reach the start up screen.


















Start Up Screen

You may click on Welcome! Quick Start and FAQ at the start up screen to learn this game. Occasionally i receive free surprise item from the creator of BAT. As shown above, i just have to click "Open Gift Box Now" to receive this mysterious gift. It will be stored in the "priceless" tab and would not counted as a slot used.

The main objective of this game is to get rich. You will be competing with many players all around the world and many of them started earlier than you. If you click on "my empire", you can see tycoon since (date) and you will know how long he has played BAT. Click on the link below to see a quick start of BAT.




We start BAT as a Millionaire with 1 million dollar to spend. Sound like a lot of money but the fact is everyone start this game with 1 million dollar. Now what do we do with 1 million dollar? We invest in items and make profit! I will show you how to make quick money.

















Click "buy" tab to invest your money


TIMER

Every 20 minutes, prices of items will be updated. You can see the timer on the top right side of the page (Price Update In). Under the Consumer tab, you will see gourmet restaurant and chopper shop. The price fluctuate between 1 million and 2 million. For example, gourmet restaurant is at 1 million now. Click "Buy" and click 1 as you can only buy 1 gourmet restaurant. with 1 million dollar. After you are done, wait for next update.

Notice that your net worth increases from 1 million to 2 million? This is because the value of your gourmet restaurant increases from 1 million to 2 million. Click on My Empire tab and sell your gourmet restaurant. Now click "Buy" to buy Chopper shop. This time you can buy 2 Chopper shop at 1 million each. Therefore by next update you should have 4 million net worth! Sound easy?

At this rate, you will earn millions or billions soon i.e 1 become 2 -> 4 -> 8 -> 16 -> 32 -> 64 -> 128 -> 256 -> 512 and so on. Wishful thinking. BAT only allows us to buy 5 items of the same kind and we have a maximum of 60 slots to fill our items. Plan your purchase carefully. Do not overflow your slots with rares (we cover that later) and in the end you have not many slots to buy items to make real decent profit!

Sooner or later, you have to explore other items to make profit. You will get hungrier to earn more money every update. Your rank (we cover that below later) will increase as you earn more money. 2 items that are similar with gourmet restaurant and chopper shop are found in Exotic tab - bugatti veyron and race horse.
















Tycoon Tracker

Tycoon Tracker is a very powerful and useful tool which BAT players use to assist them make the correct decision in buying or shorting - http://apps.facebook.com/tycoontracker . This application found in face book tells you what to buy or what to short. Short is just the opposite of buy - you will earn money when the item fall in price. Short option is only be available when you reach Oligarchs ranking.

Remember the top example? Now you can buy the item at 1 million while you short the other item at 2 million. At the next update, you will earn money from both side! However, Tycoon Tracker still has some bugs, thus it is better to seek mentors which i will cover below and learn from them.


TYCOON RANK

Tycoon ranking are updated every 4 hour. The ranking net worth are indicated below.
1. Millionaire ( 1,000,000 - 99,000,000)
2. Centurians ( 100,000,000 - 999,000,000)
3. Billionaires ( 1,000,000,000 - 49,999,000,000)
4. Oligarchs ( 50,000,000,000 - 999,999,000,000)
5. Trillionaires (1,000,000,000,000 - 49,999,999,000,000)
6. Titans ( 50,000,000,000,000 - 499,999,999,000,000)
7. Colossus (500,000,000,000,000 - 999,999,999,000,000)

-> About 40 Collossus at the moment

8. Quadrillionaire

-> 5 Quadrillionaire in the game only

9. Magnate

-> None at the moment

MENTOR / CARTEL

To play this game successfully and learn a lot quicker, i would recommend you to search for experience players and seek their advises. You may do so by joining a cartel.

A cartel is a group of parties, factions, or nations united in a common cause, mainly for communication and cornering markets to win cartel trophies (i will cover cornering markets later) .


















Currently, the top cartel is **Inspiration**. Their total networth is 16,756,000,595,000,000 with 91 members thus making them an average of 181,131,874,000,000 (Titan rank).
Remember when i mention there are 5 Quadrillionaire?
2 of them are in **Inspiration**!


















Currently there are 2 baby **Inspiration** Cartel, namely **Inspiration #2 **and ** Inspiration #3 **.

The objectives for these 2 baby cartel is to guide players who are clueless about this game and share with them tips and strategy to gain money fast. Once they reach to a certain networth, they can apply to join **Inspiration**.


















You are a celebrity for joining a cartel


















Tips from guru. You will never walk alone.


















Someone commented in the cartel forum

Each cartel has its own forum. Player can use this forum to communicate and share their tips and thoughts. Alternatively, you may wish to visit the lounge to communicate with everyone in the game. If a player post a comment after you have posted, you will receive a notification on the bottom right hand side. The owner of the cartel has the greatest access and he/she can give admin access to active players who will help him/her to manage the cartel. Members can post their questions in the forum and experience players can help them out. I have receive many tips such as the one above and i just follow them to make more money.

Notice a forum post call CTM? It stands for Cornering The Market. This event is one of the main attraction for BAT as it allows members to work together and achieve trophies and make more money.


TT / HRT /ST

















One day your name might flash above for everyone to see

Another attraction for this game is player has the opportunity to have their name flash across the globe and everyone playing can see it. This can be done when you hit either Top Tycoon, or
High Risk Tycoon or Super Tycoon.

To do this successfully, you need CEO points. BAT has just upgraded its application to a newer version. You can either earn 5 CEO points every few hours by visiting your empire, or you can receive gifts from players earn CEO points.


Gifts

















Gifts available to send to friends

You can click "Send Gifts" to give your friends surprise present. There are 3 main categories of gifts to choose from - tycoon money, shareholders or ceo points. If you do not know what your friends want, just send them the best CEO gift.


















Some of the gifts i receive from friends

There is a limit of 5 gifts that you can open each day. Choose the gifts which you need and open them. After opening 5 gifts, you need to wait for 24 hour before you can open another 5 more.


Rare / VIP items

















Are the rares really rare?

Personally, i do not collect rare as i find it waste of slots (only 60 slots max). However there are many collectors out there who would purchase rare at high price. Click "Rare Auctions" to purchase some rares if you like.


















So many VIP items to choose from

VIP items are one of my favorite. It gives you the flexibility to earn money (interests) while you are away for a holiday or when you are unable to play BAT often. To buy a VIP item, you need to obtain the required number of shareholders. Shareholders can be earn through gifts and you can receive gifts from other players.


Cornering The Market (CTM)

One of the important reason why i join a cartel is to vote and corner items and win more money. Every 40 hours, this team effort event will reset and everyone start with 20 votes. Every 4 hours, you need to log in to receive 10 votes. The maximum amount of votes 1 player can collect is 110. Grab as much votes as you can to corner the item successfully.



















Your CTM leader will assign you where to place your vote. Other cartel may vote on the same item as you. If your cartel total votes is more than what the other cartel voted, you will corner the item and win its bounty and trophy (if your cartel met the requirement below).

Bronze - Corner the item 1 time successfully.
Silver - Corner the item 10 times successfully.
Gold - Corner the item 50 times successfully.


Example of recent CTM result:

You earned $75,348,000,000 for Cornering XXX
You earned $85,461,000,000 for Cornering XXX
You earned $101,384,000,000 for Cornering XXX
You earned $96,037,000,000 for Cornering XXX
You earned $43,602,000,000 for Cornering XXX
You earned $115,283,000,000 for Cornering XXX
You earned $81,739,000,000 for Cornering XXX
You earned $76,155,000,000 for Cornering XXX
You earned $91,198,000,000 for Cornering XXX

That is $766,207,000,000 profit in 40 hours!

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Some tips
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1.) Use http://apps.facebook.com/tycoontracker/
2.) Join a cartel
3.) Find mentors
4.) Buy / Short items you are sure
5.) Send and receive gifts daily
6.) Use profit doubler when your items earn you decent reward
7.) You do not have to buy Loss Leveler if you buy the right items from the start
8.) Do not buy empire slots and tycoon vaults as they are a waste of money


Good:
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• Easy to play and great satisfaction
  
• Sense of achievement - Obtaining TT,HRT,ST and cornering the market
  
• Lounge and cartel forum for communication
  
• Playing with people around the world
  
• Have a feeling of what is stocks and shares
• You can play this as long you can get online and have a internet browser (Personally i saw people using IPhone to play too)
  
• Most players are helpful to help a newbie
  

Bad:
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• No sound effect
  
• No animation
  
• No story line
  
• Creators giving rares out too often
  
• Tycoon Tracker not 100% certain
  

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In Summary
(None, Bad, poor, average, good, excellent)

Graphic: Average (only pictures)
Sound: None
Storyline: None
Animation: None
User Control: Good
Entertainment level: Good

#2 Game Review

What is DOTA?

For those gamers out there, you would not find this 4 letters word - "DOTA" unfamiliar. In fact, i believe you have seen others play or even tried playing this game. What does DOTA mean?

















DOTA stands for "Defence Of The Ancients". You will need Warcraft 3 (Frozen Throne) installed first before you can play it.

The objective of DOTA is to destroy your opponent Ancient first. Ancients are located at both Sentinel (bottom left corner) and Scourge (top right corner). However, before you can do so, you need to level up and buy items and thus make your hero stronger. If you like interactive, RPG, short time span game, this is the game for you. An example of startup screen is shown above.


































There are 3 types of heroes to choose from - Strength, Agility and Intelligence. Personally i prefer agility hero, followed by Strength. Once you select your hero, you will appear at your base. Alternately, you may type - random if you want the computer to select a hero randomly for you.
You may wish to type -ma to see what hero your opponent chooses.

Sentinel Town and Ancient

Scourge Town and Ancient

To move your hero, simply click on the spot where you want to move. Usually, i press Control 1 so that my hero is blinded to key 1. I just need to press 1 and the screen will bring me back to my hero. Do take note of the short cut skill key so that you can use your skill quicker.

Now to spend some gold. During this grinding stage, it is better to have higher health point (HP) or items which can regenerate your HP faster. If your HP becomes 0, you will die and a resurrection timer will start. The higher your level is, the longer the resurrection timer is.

You may choose to buy some health ring or strength items to survive. If your hero has a skill which can absorb enemy's life, you may wish to buy some mana ring. You will lose gold and time if you die and this will hinder your leveling progress. Note that you have 1 skill point to spend. I will spend on either damaging skill or survival skill. Damaging skill is required so that you can last hit the enemy and claim the bounty. Your nickname will be splashed across the screen whenever you kill an opponent. Survival is the opposite. It allows you not to be killed by your opponent that easily and thus you will get experience and reach your first Ulti level 6 faster.

The sound of the horn indicates the start of the game. There are mainly 3 lanes to go - Top, Middle, Bottom. Players tend to use short form like Mid and Bot to represent Middle and Bottom respectively. It does not matter much which lane to choose from as long you do not charge in and die unnecessarily.

















You spot your first tower. To grind successfully requires you to last hit the creep so that you can get a random gold reward between 20-59 gold. More gold = more items. I will buy some speed movement boost item so that i can either escape or chase after a target. You may wish to type -ms to see your current speed movement.

Congratulations! You advance to level 2. For every level you increase, you will have an extra skill point to spend. The maximum level which you can attain is level 25. Do spend each skill point wisely and go for the kill if you can. When any player dies first, the person that last hit it will receive extra bonus and "First Blood" will be announced.

















You are on killing Spree and just destroyed your first tower!

Once you are at level 6, you have an option to choose the level 6 ultimate skill (we call it Ulti for short). You may choose to learn the Ulti at level 6, 11 and 16. In general, level 11 Ulti is stronger than level 6 while level 16 is the strongest among them. However, not all Ulti is useful from the start. If you find the Ulti useful, learn it and get to level 16 as fast as you can.

Occasionally, you may go into the forest to hunt for low-level neutral creeps or even stroll along the river and look for rune boost like regeneration, haste, double damage. When you are strong enough, you may even attempt to kill higher level neutral creeps at the mountain or even solo Roshan.


















Once you are strong enough, you can attempt to destroy your enemy's last tower.



















You over run your enemy and try to destroy their Ancient




















Ancient Destroy and you win




















Final score updates.



Click on the video below to see how pro plays.







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Some tips
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1.) Learn the art of backstabbing. Take them out by surprise
2.) Grab river rune bonus at all time.
3.) Do not solo a group of players - do not be a Rambo
4.) Carry a scroll of teleport. It may save your life or transport back to buy items faster.
5.) Always know where your enemies are- beware of their backstab.

Good:

• Only need keyboard (skills short cut key) and mouse (movement and direction) to play this game.
• Sense of achievement (Kill the enemy first, highest kills amount and win the game)
  
• Communication by typing instructions to your team mates.
  
• You can choose to play online using Garena program or battlenet.
• Allows you to play with your friends or players around the world online.
• You can play with AI to improve your skill.
  
• Many Heroes to choose from which allows you to try different ways of playing.
• Good sound effect
  

Bad:

• For beginner, other human players tend to call you noob.
  
• Simple animation
  
• Character unbalanced. Some character are way too strong.
  
• You need a good computer and graphics card to run this game smoothly
  
• Might get addicted and hook for hours.
  

What is NOOB? NOOB is "New, inexperienced person".

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In Summary
(Bad, poor, average, good, excellent)

Graphic: Good
Sound: Excellent
Storyline: Bad (None)
Animation: Good
User Control: Good
Entertainment level: Excellent (You can get addicted !!!)

#1 Game Review

Because of my age, the games i started playing were mainly PC games. At that time, console and hand held game did not even exist. The popular card games played at that time were Blackjack and "Catch The Red Fish". And for board games, the popular one should be Monopoly and till now, it is still the popular board game which is considered "all time favourite" game during family gatherings.

Of course, as i grow older, my taste and requirements for games have also upgraded. Still, i shall post one of my favourite games of all times: "Bandit King of Ancient China"


An illustration of Bandit King of Ancient China

The word "Ancient" tells you how old this game is and thus can indicate my age. This game is a strategy, war and turn based game. It has a little bit of RPG involvement as you can choose to play a hero character of your choice.


At the Startup of the game

There are mainly 4 scenarios and 5 level of difficulties to choose from. Your task is to help Emperor Hui Zhong to execute the Evil Ministy Gao Qiu (located at province 23 at the start of the game). You cannot do this alone. Throughout you journey, you have to gather more heroes, increase your soldiers size, gain popularity and land.


4 Scenarios to choose from

The heroes number of land and generals are different in each of the scenarios . The goal remains the same although i find scenario 4 is faster to complete.



Some heroes you can choose

Different hero has different highest attribute. There are 4 main attributes to consider- body, strength, dexterity and wisdom.



Configuring attributes of your hero

Beside each attribute, you can see a randomly counter (something like a jackpot). To stop the counter from moving, you have to press space bar. Unfortunately, we cannot manually set all the attributes to its maximum amount (100). My suggestion is press space bar and hold it. After you stop the 4th counter, you will see a confirmation option.



Is this all right Yes / No?

The good news is you can select No and reroll the attributes again. Personally i have tried to select Body and Strength at 100 and Dexterity at 70 plus. As you can see, he is a strength hero and thus his dexterity and wisdom are lower. What are these attributes for?

Body- The more the merrier. Allows your hero to do more job and not get exhausted too fast. Your hero might refuse to do any job if his body gets too low.

Strength- This is important during War as the higher your strength, the more damage you can inflict to your enemy troops. If your strength is 100 and your troops skills and arms are at 100 too, then you can defeat any enemy 1v1.

Dexterity- This allows you to shoot arrows at your enemy in 2 hex distance. If your Dexterity is above 60, you can shoot arrows. If your Dexterity is above 80, you have a chance to inflict damage to your enemy's body. If your enemy body gets less than 10, he cannot do anything but to rest for that turn.

Wisdom- One of my favourite attribute. It allows hero to cast fire at the enemy (Above 60) or cast dragon magic (Above 80) which can damage the enemy body and soldiers. If you are lucky enough, your dragon can hit all the enemy and cause massive damage to them in a single turn.



Hero Lu Zhi Shen at province 6 (green)

If you decide to play Lu Zhi Shen, he is one of the few heroes who can have 100 body and 100 strength at the start of the game. You will control province 6 (green colour) and you have to administrate your province and grow your army. Remember that your task is to kill the evil Gao Qiu located at province 23 and win the game. However, you might need to conquer some of his red army first !

There are 4 seasons and 12 months per year. Each turn cost 1 month so choose your move wisely. During winter, the snow might block some land. If you are in that land, you cannot attack your enemy, neither can your enemy attack you. And of course you land will be damage unless your flood control is high enough to prevent it.

Gold- To build your army, to increase your hero loyalty, buy arms or fur
Food - Food is consume every month as maintenance of your soldiers. It is used during war too.
Metal - Used if your hero has the skill to turn metal into arms
Fur - Trading purposes. Buy low sell high to make profit or you can hunt for fur to sell.
Rate - Trading and arm purposes. The rate will determine the cost of fur and arms values.
Heroes - The number of heroes currently in your land
Men - Soldiers that you currently own. Each hero can have 100 soldiers.
Arms - The higher the arms, the more enemy soldiers you can kill.
Skill - The higher the skills, the more enemy soldiers you can kill.

Which is more important? Arms or Skills? Personally i have tried 100 skill but low arms versus enemy with 100 arms but low skill and won. However if the enemy general has 100 arms with 90 plus dexterity, he will have a very high chance to decrease your body by shooting arrow.
That can be prevented if you get into close combat and kill his soldiers fast enough. Therefore skill are more important and training is free of charge.

People - The number of heroes that are currently in your land. You can try to recruit them by visiting them downtown.
Castles - Each castle allows you to have 5 heroes per province. Minimum 2 castles each province.
Support - The loyalty of your peasants. If it gets too low, your peasants might revolt.
Flood - The defense for your land and wealth is epidemic strikes your province
Land - The amount of food collected during Jan.
Wealth - The amount of money collected during Jan.


Recruiting new generals,buying and selling in the Downtown.

A war cannot be fought alone, neither a war can last long without food and weapons. To build your empire, you need to visit downtown and recruit more generals. Certain generals require you to have a higher popularity. Popularity can be earn when you control and gain support from capture provinces. You will need a popularity of 220 to receive the imperial edict to invite Gao Qiu.



Beginning scene of the battle, you attack Wu Song from province 15

Gaining more lands and capturing more capable generals will allow you to complete this game faster. Above is an example of battle scene.




Another example of battle scene.

There are 2 castles in this enemy provinces. To win the war, you have to either capture the enemy commander or capture all the castles. Plan your strategy well and use special skills like fire or magic to win the war!



Happy Emperor

Finally, you beheaded Gao Qiu and present the gift to Emperor Hui Zhong. After you press the Enter key, you will see the final animation and the nickname of all the 108 heroes found in Bandit King of Ancient China!!!



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In conclusion

Bandit King of Ancient China gives you a fast and achievement kind of entertainment you need. There is a system whereby you start by controlling some small army and grow them to overcome the evil Gao Qiu. You can play with your friends or play against AI.

The outcome after each turn is unpredictable which gives you varieties. There are conflicts involvement (wartime) which is the main attraction of this game. You need to conquer more lands and recruit more heroes and this makes you feel like a ruler of a country. You will decide which strategies to adopt and corner your enemies to surrender.

Good:

• Only need keyboard 0-9 to play this game.
• Sense of achievement (Being a good guy to kill the evil Gao Qiu)
• You can swear brotherhood and control the new hero.
• Play and make ally with your friends.
• Turn based and not real time (You can go for toilet break and resume games.)
• File size is small, you can save the game in your thumb drive and play in any computer.

Bad:

• Only playable offline
• Poor graphics resolution
• Simple sound effect
• Simple animation
• Too easy after you know the shortcut to win the game (Can complete it in less than 1.5 hr)

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In Summary
(Bad, poor, average,good, excellent)

Graphic: Average
Sound: Poor
Storyline: Poor
Animation: Poor
User Control: Good
Entertainment level: Good

PS: This game is playable in any PC. You need to download Dosbox to play this game.

My First assignment by Simon Rozner

________________________________________________________________________
Exercise 1 - Research Blog
1. Create a blog
2. Focus on games.
 PC games
 Console games
 Hand-held games
 Card games
 Board games
3. Basic requirement.
 Create 5 reviews
 Submit to your blog by those dates: August 8, 18, 29, Sept 8, 15
 Each game is a new blog entry
 Use the vocabulary learned in class to analyze the games
 Write about what is good and what is bad about the game in your oppinion
 If possible, review games you played and know well
4. Bonuses.
 constructive feedback on classmates’ blogs
 effort & creativity
5. Suggested site
 www.blogspot.com
6. Plagiarism is will NOT be tolerated. We will check your entries.
7. Submit your blog URLs by e-mail to simon_rozner@nyp.gov.sg as soon as you have your
blog created.