10 Things You Can Do To Get The Most Out of Your Profile

Posted By: Melissa - October 13, 2015

Many of us hate writing about ourselves; we’ve all seen those profiles that simply say, “I don’t like doing this so just ask me something”. The problem is, those profiles have a much lower chance of attracting someone who will be interested enough to want to ask further questions. Writing about ourselves is all part of the territory of online dating, and you can greatly increase the likelihood of somebody taking notice and

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Halo 5 Goes Gold, Gets "Gameplay" Trailer

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - October 12, 2015

Halo 5: Guardians went gold last week so 343 Industries and Microsoft celebrated by releasing a trailer today. It is nearly 3 minutes and listed as a “gameplay trailer” but mostly includes in-game cut scenes - notably a confrontation between Master Chief and Spartan Locke. No spoilers in the trailer - but watch out, Eurogamer is reporting that they are out there already. Oddly, the most talked about part of the trailer in

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Fallout 4 Release Date and System Requirements

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - October 08, 2015

Bethesda announced today that Fallout 4 is almost here! On November 10 at 12:01 EST in North America and 12:01 local time in Europe we will all finally be able to feast our eyes on the new wasteland. The screenshots look fantastic! PC Systems Requirements (Requires Internet Connection and Free Steam Account to Activate) Minimum Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required) Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equ

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Heart of the Swarm 3.0 Patch

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - October 07, 2015

Blizzard released three prologue missions that tie together StarCraft2’s expansion Heart of the Swarm to the newest installment (available November 10), Legacy of the Void - for free.  Patch 3.0 gives players access to “Whispers of Oblivion,” “the beginning of the end through the eyes of Zeratul as he searches the galaxy in an effort to prevent impending doom.” To play these, go to battle.net and install the

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Tips for Writing a Great 'About Me' Section

Posted By: Melissa - October 06, 2015

You’ve made the first step on your quest for love and joined GamerDating. You’ve uploaded a picture and added some of your favorite games to your library, now it is time to fill in your profile information. Your ‘About Me’ section is one of the most important, and sometimes intimidating, pieces of an online dating profile.   It is difficult to sum ourselves up in a hundred or so words. We’ve ga

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Grand Ages: Medieval Now Available Bundled With Gold Membership

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - October 06, 2015

We’ve added another Gold Membership Bundle! Gaming Minds Studios released Grand Ages: Medieval about a week ago and anyone who knows our team personally has been surprised that we are still working.  We sort of have a thing for strategy games - and by sort of I mean put one in front of any of us and watch as we put up blinders for hours while conquering. Gamers, we need your help.   We have a big update coming for GamerDa

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Super Mario Maker Hits 1M in Sales

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 30, 2015

Today, Nintendo announced via the Nintendo America Twitter account that Super Mario Maker has sold over one million units.   The game has been on sale for just under three weeks.  Already there are more than 2.2 million created and these combined have been played over 75 million times. Great timing as Super Smash Bros. added a Super Mario Maker stage to their DLC today (3DS: $2.49, Wii U: $2.49: 3DS/W

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WildStar is Now Free to Play

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 29, 2015

WildStar: Reloaded launched today making the MMORPG free to play.  There are also some changes and improvements made to the game; as described by Team WildStar on their site: WildStar: Reloaded includes BIG changes to core game systems; a new character creation and intro experience; improvements to dungeons, itemization, tradeskills, world bosses and group content; a class stat revamp; new quality of life features, bonus events, the Cos

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Total War: Attila Now Available With Gold Subscription

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 28, 2015

Although we haven’t been together for all of it, the GamerDating team has been playing the Total War series for the entire 15 years.  We love the combination of strategy and history, merged with ever evolving gameplay and increasingly great graphics. The Total War series has been one of our favorites. We are excited to be able to offer you the latest title, Total War: Attila, as a Gold Member package.   In 2016 we are gettin

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Announcements from TwitchCon Keynote

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 25, 2015

During today’s TwitchCon keynote, CEO Emmett Shear announced a major change to the platform: soon users will be able to upload pre-edited video to their channels.  We are looking forward to watching the war between them and YouTube. Also announced was a viewing app coming for PlayStation 4 next month and Playstation 3 and Vita soon to follow.  The app, which gives PlayStation users the ability to watch any stream

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Minecraft Coming to Oculus Rift

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 24, 2015

At today’s Oculus Connect 2, Palmer Luckey announced that the Windows 10 version of Minecraft will be compatible with the Oculus Rift headset.  There aren’t many details as yet - the deal was apparently only confirmed early this morning.  What we have been told is that the game will be available some time in spring 2016.  The consumer version of the Rift hits retail shelves at some point in 'Q1' but no official

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Horror Game Iron Fish Gets New Release Date

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 23, 2015

Iron Fish is a horror-action game for those of us who grew up with the vision of an angler fish swimming in their back of their minds whenever they approached an ocean.  The player takes on the roll of Cerys, a deep sea investigator for an elite British Naval group who has access to all sorts of great technology that was made for the exploration of the 5% of the ocean we have seen.  Iron Fish will be released for PC via Steam some

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Mega Man Legends Being Rereleased

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 23, 2015

Today Capcom announced that Mega Man Legends, the classic PS1 game, will be available in the PlayStation store next Tuesday, September 29th.  This rerelease will be playable on PlayStation 3 and Vita.

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Episode 5 Release Date Announced

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 21, 2015

In the spirit of Max’s birthday, Dontnod Entertainment decided to announce the projected release date for Life is Strange: Episode 5, Polarized.  They are “aiming to release” on October 20th.  This is a little longer than players have been waiting in between previous episodes - there is extra care being taken with the finale. Life is Strange follows Max, an 18 year old photography student who has gained the ability

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New Rocket League DLC Announced

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 18, 2015

Only a week after the first big patch for Rocket League, developer Psyonix has announced plans for the second DLC release.  Looking back fondly on their previous “football-game-without-feet,” Supersonic Actrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars, the team put together the Revenge of the Battle-Cars DLC that will be available in October.  No exact date as yet. From their Steam announcement: Revenge of the Battle-Cars has a

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The Witness Finally Gets a Release Date

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 17, 2015

In 2009 after the success of his first game, Braid, Jonathan Blow announced that his next game, The Witness, would be released ‘Christmas 2011’. Blow told Polygon: "I thought it was going to be a much smaller game at the time, so when I announced it.  Of course, the reaction on the internet was, ‘Oh my god, that's so far in the future. Why are they even bothering announcing it two years ahead of time?' Now

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Meet the New League of Legends Champion: Kindred

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 15, 2015

Riot Games, makers of League of Legends, announced their newest champion today - Kindred, the Eternal Hunters.  These marksmen are are fragile but powerful and designed for life in the jungle.   From Riot Games:  Kindred prowls through camps, marking enemy champions for death and permanently growing in strength if they’re able to carry out the promised sentence. But just as Kindred brings death, so can they delay it.

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Legacy of the Void Release Date Announced

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 14, 2015

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, the standalone expansion pack that is the third and final part of the StarCraft II trilogy got a release date and cinematic trailer yesterday at the WCS Season 3 finals in Krakow.  Legacy of the Void will be available on November 10th. The StarCraft II trilogy revolves around three species: the Terrans, human exiles; the Zerg, a super-species of assimilated life forms; and the Protoss, an advanced spec

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No 9 Day Wait For Items

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 11, 2015

Super Mario Maker released today with a patch available to remove the item-unlock delay. There has been a lot of commentary on the nine day, five minutes a day regimen required to unlock all of the items and it seems that Nintendo listened.  There aren’t any details on exactly what the requirements are to unlock everything.  Players say the unlocked content becomes available if you wait between fifteen minutes and two hours.&nb

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80 Days is Coming to Desktop

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - September 10, 2015

Inkle Studios announced today that 80 Days, their award winning interactive fiction game previously only available on mobile devices, has been rebuilt “from the ground up” in collaboration with Cambridge-based studio Cape Guy.  The game will be available on September 29th on Steam, GoG and Humble. 80 Days is loosely based on Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days.  The player controls Phileas Fogg&rsquo

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They are Billions PS4 Review - Zombies will Zomb.

Posted By: Craig - July 04, 2019

Game

They are Billions bringing steampunk zombie apolcalypse to consoles.
 

Real Time Strategy games are one of those genres that I’ve always enjoyed but have never really been that good at. I’d panic at the first site of a Zerg rush, I’d play on Easy in Dawn of War, I’d absolutely never play an RTS online against another human and I’m the sort of person who would always use the car cheat in Age of Empires because I found it funny.

Yet I still love RTS. So now we’ve got that out of the way and you may be judging me a little (it’s fine, I get it, I’m judging me too), I can say this game was fun.

They are Billions is a steampunk zombie apocalypse survival RTS by Numantian Games and ported to console by Blitworks.

None of those words made me unhappy. Let’s break that down with some scientific memeology to explain just how that went in my head:

 

Cheers Vince

 

The game initially released on PC on the 17th of December 2017 through Steam’s Early Access program with a full release coming out just last month on the 18th of June.
However...

They are Billions has made its way onto consoles as well, and it is the PS4 version that I had the honour of reviewing.

Now I know what you’re thinking. An RTS, on a console? That’s madness. You need the finesse of a keyboard and mouse to get the most out of the game’s controls! (Not since the days of Command and Conquer on PS1 surely!? - Ed)

And you’d be right! But, the PS4 (and I presume the Xbox One, but I don’t own one so please do correct me) has USB ports which can read keyboards and mice.

Did I use them? Nope. Because I’m an idiot and wanted to see what a controller would be like... plus I couldn’t find my mouse. And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. It felt sluggish to move the cursor and select my options. But it still worked. My troops still moved where I wanted them to and my buildings still placed in the right places, and everything still died perfectly fine when the infected hordes came to town…

I know my editor played They are Billions on PC, and he loved the controls as it simply worked for him, but we wanted to figure out if They are Billions lined up on PS4.

 

This isn’t what I meant when I said invite a few friends for dinner…

 

Now, for those of you who read my last article on here discussing Door Kickers (thank you, you’re too kind), you may recall I had a major gripe with the game about having nothing in the way of a tutorial or any means of explanation for the controls, leaving me to fumble around to figure out the controls myself. Well, guess what… They are Billions HAS NO TUTORIAL! It gives you multiple options on how to make the Survival mode easier (much appreciated) but no actual tutorial.

However, credit where due, there is an extensive Help menu on the title screen which does go into great detail to explain the way the game works and how to fumble your way through with a controller if you’re some kind of sadist who can’t find his mouse (hi, I’m Craig, have we met?). This was really helpful and left me feeling at least moderately prepared for the game ahead, understanding the purpose of the different resources and how the infection mechanics worked. Sure, this was a false sense of security as my first try at a Survival map had me chewed alive within seven minutes, but, learning curve. I got better. My second try I lasted a whole ten!!

(On the PC, this is no different. Part of the beauty and challenge, when I first picked it up, was learning how to survive for mere minutes! - Ed)

That’s not to say that this game is hard. Challenging, yes, very, but you can tailor the maps to match your play level very well, which is a feature I greatly appreciate in older RTS games so it’s nice to see it here as well.

Visually, the game is lovely. It clings to a grimy steampunk aesthetic without just going down the route of slathering everything with copper and cogs (copper cogs count double) and the sprites all hold their own unique level of charm between the Unit types; a Hunter looks like a Hunter, you can actually visualise these lithe, silent warrior women stalking through the woodland ready to kick ass and not be seen. The Soldier by comparison is much bulkier, much more armoured; he looks like he can take more of a kicking and dish out just as much. And this is just from tiny sprites!

 

Snipers gonna snipe

 

The game boasts 4k graphics for PC. Is this true for PS4? I’m not sure. I don’t have a fancy enough TV. But what I did get was crisp and definitely HD textures that ran very smoothly, especially when you had literal hundreds of infected bodies sprinting right for you. There wasn’t a single frame dropped, no lag, nothing, which a lot of PC purists would be surprised by I’m sure. See? We console scrubs can have decent frame rates too!

Gameplay-wise, as I’ve said, it is a learning curve and it is a challenge. This is offset somewhat by the game having the interesting mechanic of being able to place buildings and assign unit commands while paused. Now, this is not a new feature to videogames, it’s been around since Baldur’s Gate, but it is nice to have in an RTS. Also, there is a very nice grid mechanic when placing buildings. It shows you exactly how many squares a building will take up, and if it’s a resource gathering building, it will show you exactly where it can be placed when in close enough proximity to the specific resource. Again, this is nothing new, but it feel nice and is very helpful as a visual indicator.

There is currently no campaign mode in the console version of the game, only custom survival maps for the time being. But this is fine, as every game is different and you can make it as difficult or simple as you wish. There is also currently no sign of an online multiplayer, but there is the “Challenge of the Week” where you put your skills against other players across the globe and try to get the highest score on a pre-set map with specific rules and tasks to accomplish… I didn’t do well.

As for the units. I’ve already mentioned their uniqueness in looks, but they all play differently too. You start with the basic Hunters and Soldiers, and even between these two troop types you can feel the differences. The Hunters move so quickly, but they are squishy compared to the slower Soldier’s heavier armour and higher damage output. But even above them, you have the likes of the Lucifer, an exo-suit wearing, flamethrower wielding juggernaut akin to the Firebats from Starcraft. These things just tear through the hordes of the smaller infected.

 

Burn, baby, burn

 

You then have Snipers who have less armour than your Soldiers, but a higher damage output and a much longer range, so they make excellent support units. Then if you survive long enough and can afford them, you get my personal favourite, the Titans. These are GIANT FRIKKIN ROBOTS!! Ugh. I love me some hot Mecha violence action. You’ve seen Love Death + Robots? These are like one of those mechs off the farming episode and I absolutely love them!

 

Titans gonna….tite? (It's better than the alternative - Ed)

 

Overall, I can see myself sinking a lot of time into They are Billions. It’s an enjoyable game and as I’ve mentioned before, I’m stubborn, so I want to do better. Would I recommend it on console? No, probably not. While not unplayable on controller by any stretch, as I’ve mentioned before, it is a slower way to play and it will hinder you somewhat. Unless you have the peripherals to play it properly.

Would I recommend it as a game, however? Definitely. It has all of the familiar charm of an old school RTS with exciting survival elements and a really cool visual aesthetic. While limited in its current form, this game is constantly being updated with new features and gribbly infected to chew your face off. There may even be a campaign mode somewhere down the line for us console gamers, which will only add more longevity to this already fun game.

They are Billions is currently on sale on Steam for between $29.99 or £23.99 and I can only assume it will be available for a similar price when it becomes officially available for console purchase.

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