Outlast Review

I remember the day I first saw Outlast on Steam and I remember adding it to my wish list, noting that I needed to pick it up after I finished with whatever game held my attention at the time. Having finally purchased it, I settled down to a marathon session in the dark, faintly aware of the fact that the “Scariest Game Ever” accolade had been bandied about in conversation several times which put me on edge even more so as I have never been a big fan of horror films or games because they always disappoint. Aside from the odd jump-scare the majority never leave horrific mental scarring for years to come like some make them out to.

Destiny Alpha Review

It has been many years since I have really, really anticipated the release of a new game, film, or book. Bungie’s announcement of Destiny changed that, and history was made when it became the first title I ever pre-ordered. Pre-ordering gives access to the Beta version of the game next month, but I was lucky enough to gain access to the Alpha, the first A-list title I’ve had the fortune of experiencing such an early version of. Bearing in mind some of the shoddy Betas I have participated in, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. What I got was a finely polished game which could quite easily stand as a demo to the full game. I still have concerns that it will not live up to the hype or my expectation, but so far my experiences show me that Destiny is very, very good.

E3 Preview

With the annual electronics trade fair juggernaut at our doorstep, I decided to take the opportunity to write a piece about what it is I’m expecting and looking forward to at the conference. So without further ado:

Fez Review

I love casually playing indie games in a windowed screen while I browse the web or procrastinate from work as much as I love putting 10 continuous hours into whatever triple-A title has just been released. A couple of the critically acclaimed indie titles passed me by for one reason or another but having played the quite frankly excellent FTL despite initially avoiding it because I thought I wouldn’t like it, I’ve put aside whatever imaginary grievances I had with each of the most popular indie titles and decided to give them all a chance. When I started playing Fez I told myself that I wasn’t going to write a review for it because it is a reasonably old game and I wanted to put my writing time into reviewing something slightly more current. Halfway through the game I continued to believe that I wouldn’t write a review for the game because I simply wanted to enjoy it without putting my critic glasses on at the end. However upon completing the game I knew that I had to write something about this game; so here we go.

EGX Rezzed

A couple of weekends ago, we had the chance to go EGX Rezzed at the Birmingham NEC.

As a first Expo for both of us, we didn't quite know what to expect or how to prepare!

Smash Bros Direct Rundown

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again. Last night Nintendo released a very special episode of Nintendo Direct. This episode was purely dedicated to the new Smash Bros games that are coming out for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Among the announced features are new items, new characters, new game modes and rough release dates. Read on for more info!

Kaiju Panic

One of the Indie Games that caught my eye at EGX Rezzed was Kaiju Panic. Its a real-time strategy game where cute little critters have never been so stressful.

The story is that there has been a massive meteor landing on Earth and giant monsters begin to rampage across the world attacking all major cities and causing panic on the streets. It is your job as the military leader to build new weapons and defences to protect the people and destroy the cute monsters of doom.

At EGX Rezzed two levels where playable and they where so much fun, there is a wide variety of NPCs who run around the map from clowns to punk rockers. 

You will be able to upgrade the defenses and weapons, at Rezzed we were shown missiles and acid.

This game on the surface seems like a solid game that having already pre-ordered I can honestly say I will be spending a lot of time playing and won't even realise how much time has passed as it is that much fun.

All our pictures from EGX Rezzed can be found here

DayZ Epoch: The Battle for Sosnovka!

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here and today I am going to share a story that happened to us last night on DayZ Epoch. DayZ Epoch is another form of the DayZ mod for Arma II, in this mod there is currency, traders, you can build bases, and several other things that generally make the mod better. Read on for what happened to us!

Ringing Hell's Bells

So with less than a week until the release of Reaper of Souls, a quick retrospect on Diablo's patch 2.0 overhaul is in order!

Heroes Of The Storm is now in Technical Alpha!

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again and today Heroes Of The Storm went into Technical Alpha! Heroes Of The Storm is Blizzards upcoming MOBA (Massively Online Battle Arena) game and as a massive Blizzard fan and former League Of Legends player I am incredibly excited for this. The heroes that you can play as are all from Blizzard games (Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo) and there are already lots of heroes to play as. From what I can tell it follows a similar concept to most other MOBAs where there's a set of free characters to play that changes regularly, and to keep a character you either have to save up in game currency or pay for it with real money. On top of this there are also skins you can get for each character, some can be bought and others have to be earnt via in game quests for that character.

 Only big streamers / video makers and I think a few randomers got keys but there is no NDA so people are already streaming it on Twitch.tv. I opted into the beta as soon as they announced it at Blizzcon and I hope I get in, can't wait to destroy people as my favourite World of Warcraft champions such as Illidan Stormrage!

Anyway, that's all from me for today, so goodbye until next time!

Hearthstone - Changes to Nat Pagle and Tinkmaster Overspark!

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again and today I am bringing you information about some card changes that will be coming to Hearthstone. Nat Pagle and Tinkmaster Overspark are two cards that are incredibly RNG based and can either win or lose you a game based on the outcome. Both cards are currently heavily used in high end gameplay and I will explain the changes that are coming to these cards.

The Best Things in Life #1: Classic Spelunky

“The Best Things in Life” is a new segment I’ll be doing every so often taking a look at some of the excellent games available for the grand total of nothing.

Kicking off this series is Classic Spelunky, a free rogue-like platformer originally released in 2009 as a free download and then updated and re-released as a paid version on Xbox Live, Playstation Network and Steam.

Hearthstone Review

Unfamiliar with the Warcraft universe having largely steered clear of the entire franchise, I have been hearing great things about Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, the new card game based on the series' lore. The game is still in beta but is free to play and despite my beliefs that it would be a poor iteration of other fantasy card games, the positive noises I was hearing (especially from other members of this blog - it's worth noting that this review is my opinion, as are all the reviews I post, not that of the rest of the team) and the non-existent price tag inspired me to put aside me prior assumptions and give it a go.

DayZ Adventures commence!

Litomatoma here with a weekly update.

As many of you may know DayZ Standalone was released not that long ago after many disputes of the future of DayZ and when it will be released.

I bought it immediately and haven’t played it all that much as the content is still very raw as it is in its Alpha stage.

However, with a few friends we decided to do some old school DayZ like old times, scared for our lives in the world of zombies.

The Last of Us, a Retrospective Review

With The Last of Us Downloadable Content set to drop, I returned to the original game for the first time since its release over 6 months ago. At the time, the Playstation 4 was on the horizon and as the then-current generation approached its final curtain call, Naughty Dog; already established as a leading Playstation-exclusive developer through their Uncharted series, delived an action packed and heart wrenching tale set in a post-apocalyptic world.

New characters announced for Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros 4!

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again, just a quick one from me today. So last night was the first Nintendo Direct of 2014 and along with a load of games that are coming out they also showed new trailers of Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros 4, showing off some more of the new characters that they are adding.  Hit read more for more information and for some images of the new characters!

The start of Litomatoma Robotiod, EVE Online

After many years of almost buying EVE Online, three days ago I decided that I would go for it.

The game is a subscription game in the same vein as WoW, you can either try it for free for 14 days via the website http://www.eveonline.com/start/ or you can buy it on Steam like I did meaning you get the game and 1 months subscription free. This also creates an account linked to Steam and the EVE Online website.

As my internet is so slow it took me two nights to download and patch. But nothing to worry about, it's not that big of a download as my friend did it in under an hour... Anyway, back to the game not my terrible internet.

The story is based off people from Earth going through a wormhole to the other end of the universe to a new galaxy named "New Eden". The wormhole was stabilised for a while, creating a giant gateway bearing the titular name "EVE" but it unexpectedly collapsed, leaving the people that had passed through stranded on the surrounding planets.

After many years man kind rose back up into the stars and was divided into 5 factions that you choose from. I won't ruin everything as there is a huge plot twist in there that will explain the game a lot more.
Currently I have made a character called "Litomatoma Robotiod" whom I will travel the universe of EVE Online as.

The game is really enjoyable, but not for the people that want fast paced games as there are times in which you must travel for literally 30 minutes for a mission, which is what I'm doing right now.
Now this could all be because I chose the path of business which said, "This is for the sort of people that will eventually want to sit on their leather chairs and smoke cigars on their spacestation".

I will keep you updated on future EVE experiences and hope I can inspire you to play, Ciao.

Ian "Litomatoma" Comina

The Elder Scrolls Online Beta!

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again. This weekend there was a server stress test for the Elder Scrolls Online and I managed to get my hands on a key! I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement so I don't really know how much I am allowed to say but I've had a whale of a time playing it over this weekend.

Hearthstone - Just pulled a golden legendary out of a pack. Yay?

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again. It was my birthday on Monday so I thought I would use a bit of my birthday money and crack open some packs, hoping to pull one of the popular legendaries. Now, the thing about me is, I would rather wait until I have 3200 dust and craft a golden legendary of choice rather than having lots of ordinary legendaries (I like the shinies!), so I have crafted a golden Hogger and a golden Tirion Fordring but don't yet have a Ragnaros the Firelord, Sylvanas Windrunner or Ysera of any kind... Yet today, from the last pack I open, what do I pull? Of course it's another golden Tirion Fordring! The chances of getting a golden legendary are small enough but getting a golden legendary that I have already specifically crafted? Those odds must be minute.

Anyway, after disenchanting one of them I now have enough dust to make another golden legendary so I think I'm going to craft a golden Sylvanas Windrunner as I play control Paladin and I love the mind games that she plays with the enemy, then on top of that it's an incredible deathrattle. Anyway, until next time, goodbye from me!

Hearthstone - Over excited Rogue makes a rookie mistake.

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again to bring you a quick story about something that made me laugh in a ranked game a few days ago. Below I have posted the screenshot relevant to what I am talking about.

As you can see I was only on eight health, and the rogue said a hearty "Well Played!" as he slams down his Leeroy Jenkins and buffs it up with a Cold Blood to get the damage he thought he needed to finish me off, however he clearly wasn't paying attention because Leeroy Jenkins only has two health and I have a two attack Gnoll on the field. He tries to attack my face and suddenly realises his error, and sadly says "Mistakes Were Made". From this error he wasted two cards (one of which is a very powerful Legendary card) and also his whole turn. I felt very sorry for him, but it was a very rookie mistake to make, he just passed the turn and I killed Leeroy Jenkins with the two Whelps that it spawned, and went on to win the match. Goodbye from me until next time!

#CODeSports v1.0.1 Ban List

Making this list of all banned items in the built in #CODeSports Ruleset seeing as they have now implemented it into Clan vs Clan! 
Just so it's easier to make a whole range of loadouts without any time constraints.

The Dissection of a Brackern - The Shadow Challenge - Final Part

For this final comparison, Skarner will be compared to Hecarim. 

With AoE Q attacks with reduced cooldown, a tanking aspect from a shield/heal, a sprint and CC, the two have, what I feel as similar kits and are played similarly in terms of their purpose.

The Dissection of a Brackern - The Sting - Part 3

So with Skarner's ability to affect the early game in terms of a ganking jungler considered and critiqued, it is time to move onto the most defining feature of this lone Brackern: His Stinger.

A unique suppression ultimate, where the target is left not only helpless and stunned, but also dragged around the battlefield at Skarner's whim and Skarner himself is left to do as he wishes.

For this comparison, CC Ultimates from other junglers will be looked at and damage will be disregarded for the purpose that the most important aspect being compared is the effects of the crowd control.

The Dissection of a Brackern - The Nitty Gritty - Part 2

After a quick overview of the rework, it is now into the nitty gritty comparisons.

Looking at the changes, the biggest ones are evidently Q and E, and Fracture [E] will be the main focus for this comparison between many other junglers and Skarner himself.

The Dissection of a Brackern - An In-Depth Look at Skarner's PBE Rework - Part 1

Hi everybody, Rob 'I am Lam' Lam here to share with you a comprehensive breakdown of the new Skarner rework that is looking to hit Live servers in the near future.

When it comes to League of Legends, I am fanatical about the competitive scene and all the work that has been accomplished on the eSports scene by RIOT, fanatical but unbiased. 

As a neutral viewer I like to appreciate each match for it's own quality and style, from stand-out individual performances of mechanics to exceptional team tactics and execution.

As a player, I didn't begin until introduced some way through Season 2 with Fiora the login screen I first recall and I have battled with constraints through University, employment, horrific internet and outdated hardware to play this game that captures my attention at all turns.

I won't claim to be a genius at this game, as my pretty horrific Ranked statistics would suggest I am rather awful, and mainly due to my own jitters and nerves that surround anything competitive be it a cricket match, Call of Duty GameBattles or a League Ranked game.

However my strength lies not in my ability to play, but my technical analysis of predominantly data and to extract conclusions, though made of opinion, that are as logical as I can guarantee.  

For RiotScruffy, let us dive into the Skarner rework that is currently on PBE...

32GB Premium Wii U is £179.99 at Argos/Very/Amazon, so we bought one!

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again. So me and my fiancé have been wanting a Wii U since release, however we haven't been able to afford it till now. We had a PS4 pre-ordered but also realised we couldn't afford that so we gave the pre-order to my friend and we weren't really bothered about it seeing as every single good looking title got pushed back. We said we'd wait and pick one up at a later date, however, we then decided we didn't want the PS4 at all seeing as most of the games would also come out on PC and/or the 360 (Destiny) or the Wii U.

I was sitting there browsing Facebook when I saw a post from Official Nintendo Magazine saying how crazy it was that Argos were selling the 32GB Premium Wii U for £180! We jumped at this opportunity and got it put on her parents Argos card so we don't have to pay for it for six months, and I have to say, the Wii U is so much fun!

A Hearthstone tale of RNG, Legendaries and a probably very upset Warrior.

Hello everyone, Kieran 'Mukea' Miller here again and today "Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft" finally entered Open Beta! As of now it is only open in America but either way, in celebration of this I am bringing you a story that happened to me in a match earlier today. I am trying out a new script in which you can hover over the card names and it will show a tooltip of the card that I am talking about in order to make it easier.

Welcome to 5Piece Gamers!

Hello everyone my name is Kieran 'Mukea' Miller and I am one of the founding members of 5Piece Gaming.

We started as a small group of friends and since then members have added further friends to the group and we have become a community focussed on gaming. Now that life is getting in the way a bit more with members getting jobs etc we started doing less as a group.

This is our attempt to add an extra spark to our community and in doing so share our experiences and tales of gaming with you. We are a group of gamers, entertainers and artists who will be sharing our experiences, moments, thoughts and observations with you all through this blog.

At the moment I mainly play “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft” and many of us play “League of Legends” but we play a wide range of games on top of this.

From me, and all the other members of our group, we welcome you to our blog, “5Piece Gamers”!