As someone who plays an alarming amount of games on a wide-variety of platforms, holding my attention past journalistic obligations can be a real challenge. More often than not, when I’ve turned in a review or preview, I’m immediately off to the next game. Very few titles manage to stick around and when they do I know I they are special. Only a couple games in recent memory have succeeded, including Battlefield Bad Company 2, MLB 10 The Show, the glorious Mount&Blade and my eternal passion, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved on XBLA, which I will apparently be playing until the day I die. I can now add Pocket Legends from Spacetime Studios, a mobile action/MMO for iPhone and iPad.

If you haven’t heard of Pocket Legends then listen up: imagine having a portable version of a game like Diablo and World of Warcraft on your iPhone and/or iPad, featuring fully-realized 3D graphics, great sound, instanced dungeons, tons of loot, 3 character classes and low-latency multiplayer. Too good to be true? That’s what I thought. Pocket Legends will make a believer out of you.

I recently conducted an interview with Cinco Barnes, Creative Director at Spacetime Studios, which you can find here.

I’ve been following the development of Pocket Legends since the day it was released and have been very impressed by Spacetime Studios relentless updates. This is a game company hell-bent on winning, delivering fan-requested features and functionality at a blistering pace. Recently, Spacetime Studios released their biggest update yet in 1.1 and in so doing, have evolved Pocket Legends into something even more grand.

Here are some of the biggest changes:

• Players can now trade items, which is great because prior to this, you couldn’t give your bestest friend in the whole wide-world that epic sword you randomly looted, so now you can silence the bitching and moaning.
• You can now stash lucrative items in a vault for later use and expand the size of the vault by paying a small fee.
• Instead of purchasing items like potions from the Store tab from within the character interface, players can now visit a proper vendor and, like World of Warcraft, marvel at the sheer number of players standing around, showing off their spell effects and emotes.
• NPCs have a little more soul now, engaging the player in conversations and serving as tutorial guides for the uninitiated.
• Players can now use Private Tells to secretly communicate. This is especially useful now in light of player trading, as you can easily pester that warrior in your group to kindly trade you that epic bow in exchange for something else.
• The host of a game can now kick players, so that level 6 warrior who joined your level 25 group to leech XP can now be properly shown the door.

Those are the biggest changes, with quite a number of smaller features that add a great deal of polish. As awesome as this update is, Spacetime Studios isn’t going to just kick back and leave well enough alone. They have big plans in store for Pocket Legends, plans that include the following:

• Increased Player Customization
• Bank
• Mailboxes
• Quests
• Secure Trades
• Pets
• PvP
• Guilds
• World Map
• Player Housing
• Auction House
• Achievements and Leaderboards
• Randomized Dungeons (oh God yes!)

That’s a hell of a list for a hell of a game.

If you haven’t joined the Pocket Legends bandwagon then you should get off your ass and start downloading. If you have just a shred of interest in MMOs then you owe it too yourself to see where the genre is going and how effective the mobile platform can be in handling this game type. Hell, even the Xbox 360 and PS3 continue to suffer an MMO drought; meanwhile, who would have thought the iPad and iPhone would fill the void? Blizzard may not want to dilly-dally on their mobile plans too much longer…

If I’ve piqued your interest then great. You can start downloading Pocket Legends right now, free of charge. Still not convinced? Check out the video below:

Pocket Legends for iPhone

Pocket Legends for iPad

Despite what Microsoft or Blizzard may lead to you believe, real life achievements existed long before the video game ones.

The most specific example that comes to mind is Boy Scouts.  Where else, besides the military, will you get the chance to show off every challenge you have conquered, such as a rank advancement or a sports achievement, with a fancy addition to your clothing for everyone to see?  It’s an even better way of saying, “Hey, look at me!  I have more achievements than that guy!”

So really, we can see that Xbox Live and World of Warcraft just copied merit badges.  Digital merit badges.  It makes sense.

Need proof?  The Cub Scouts (the younger version of the Boy Scouts) have just introduced a video games belt loop and pin for all aspiring scouts.  These are the requirements for the belt loop:

1. Explain why it is important to have a rating system for video games. Check your video games to be sure they are right for your age.

2. With an adult, create a schedule for you to do things that includes your chores, homework, and video gaming. Do your best to follow this schedule.

3. Learn to play a new video game that is approved by your parent, guardian, or teacher.

For comparison’s sake, let’s take a look at some comparable Xbox 360 achievements – say, from Modern Warfare 2:

Look Ma Two Hands

- Kill 10 enemies in a row using akimbo weapons in Single Player or Special Ops.

Colonel Sanderson

- Kill 7 chickens in under 10 seconds in “The Hornet’s Nest.”

Back in the Saddle

- Help train the local militia.

As we can see, Microsoft and Blizzard blatantly ripped off the Boy Scouts and no one bothered to call them out on it.  Killing seven chickens might as well be the cooking merit badge in video game form.  And training your local militia?  Hell, that’s a good deed for the day.  Even better than helping an old lady cross the street.

Now, I just have one question:  Where was this wonderful achievement when I was in the organization?  Back in my day, the oh-so-long-ago early ’90s, we had to earn belt loops based on archaic physical activities such as archery, soccer and physical fitness – things modern day kids only experience in their most recent round of Wii Sports Resort.

If my NES-obsessed brain had been given the chance to earn a video games belt loop back then, I would have not only worn it on the front of my belt, but I would have ordered a second one and proudly glued it over the Cub Scouts logo on my hat.

Too little, too late I suppose.  But at least this current generation of kids will have something more digital entertainment-based to help them connect Cub Scouts with their lives.  Hopefully the Boy Scouts follow suit and offer a video games merit badge soon.

You can check out the full information for both achievements on the Official Boy Scouts of America website.

Countless people lose control of their World of Warcraft accounts on a daily basis, whether through good old-fashioned hacking, falling for phishing scams, clicking on bogus email links, etc. In answer this ever-growing problems, Blizzard released the World of Warcraft Authenticator at an extra charge, offering participating players a solid layer of security between their passwords and WoW account. Up till recently, the WoW Authenticator proved robust and secure, but has since been the target of a successful hacking attempt.

Blizzard suspects a keylogger may be involved. A Keylogger is a nefarious bit of code that sits on your computer and reports all keyboard interaction, ultimately ratting out your passwords so a hacker.

MMOCrunch article:

So the Authenticator is not a fail safe way to keep accounts safe but it is still a very good investment. If you want to check to see if you have the virus just search for the file “emcor.dll” on your computer. If you have it then your account most likely has already been hacked.

Tools like the Authenticator can only do so much. It is really unfortunate that people are getting hacked even with this security measure but it all comes down to the user. Safe browsing habits, a good anti-virus, common sense (against phishers) and things like an Authenticator can make your account virtually hack proof.

Going outside. It’s quite dangerous. Just ask a World of Warcraft player. Gang fights, turf disputes, trade swindling, imposing authorities, Mr. T. – and we’re not even talking about WoW yet.

So imagine what happens when you mix those things, rampant drug and alcohol usage, internet anonymity, a cross between GTA-style violence and Harry Potter-style witchery, 13-year-olds, and good old FPS teabagging. You get a rather dangerous place called a “PvP Realm.” Roughly translated for those who haven’t yet mastered WoW-speak, it means “open season on your ass.” But since Blizzard has yet to debut its patented in-game butt cup (available soon for only $10, limit one per account) to shield your character (aka toon) from unwanted posterior intrusions, you’ll have to settle with my $5 “Don’t-even-think-about-going-there” tour guide, provided to you free of charge.

So, without further adieu, I bring you, ranging from “hunting guide for Dick Cheney” to “sparring partner for Chuck Norris,” the top 10 most dangerous world PvP areas of WoW.

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