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Vampire Wars Game Review

Vampire Wars is a free massively-multiplayer online (MMO) game hosted on Facebook. You get to assume the form of a powerful vampire as you increase your power while you slowly take control of the neighborhood, as well as battle other vampires!

Vampire Wars is from Zynga, the developer of some of the most popular games on Facebook, including FarmVille and Mafia Wars. It uses the turn-based gameplay style that is very popular among Facebook games such as Mafia Wars and Castle Age. The core concept is that game turns are taken depending on how much Energy and Rage you have available. These 2 stats control the actions you take in the game, and both of them slowly fill up with time. These stats can also be accumulated, so that a player who plays all the time will not have an advantage over someone who only logs on once a day. This is a brilliant concept that levels the playing field and allows both hardcore and casual players to enjoy the game.

There has been a lot of interest in vampires lately, from the TV series True Blood to the recent blockbusters Twilight and New Moon. With all the hype and interest in the genre, it's not surprising that Zynga's game about these mysterious gothic creatures is growing exponentially.

You start the game by choosing an avatar for yourself. You are able to choose a bonus that will help you throughout the game, and you can customize the look of your vampire. Your avatar's clothes and accessories can be upgraded as you progress through the game.

The purpose of the game is essentially to become the most powerful vampire in the area, learning the most powerful abilities and taking control of the most number of minions. You do this in two ways, either by taking part in missions or by fighting other vampires. Both missions and combat will provide you with the experience required to gain levels and become more powerful.

Missions involve you going on a journey to discover your abilities as a vampire. To complete each mission, you will need to spend energy, with later missions requiring more energy than the earlier ones. In addition, each mission will require you to have learnt certain vampiric abilities before you are able to attempt it.

Combat with other vampires involves you fighting other players. Your rage stat determines how often you are able to initiate combat, while your health stat determines how much damage you can take. Combat isn't just a duel between two vampires though; it is actually a battle between the vampires' clans. So the more people you have in your clan or army, the more powerful you become and the better you are at combat.

You will need to learn various abilities in order to meet the requirements of the missions you attempt, and also to become more powerful at combat. There are three types of abilities: offensive, defensive and movement. These abilities range from standard vampire fare such as fangs and flight, to the more obscure and interesting ones such as immunity to garlic and the ability to summon a succubus!

The standard abilities can be bought from vendors, which simply requires the standard vampiric currency of blood. Other abilities can be obtained as rare drops from missions, by praying to the elders, by logging onto the game on a daily basis, and even by gambling with a treasure chest! Quirky abilities are also available on special occasions such as Halloween, and powerful abilities feature in a weekly sale at the bazaar.

Blood is what makes the vampiric world go round, and you get it via dominating the hapless humans around you. From the park jogger to the diner waitress and even the high school football team! Keep your minions happy and they'll keep the blood coming. And you will need lots of blood too to pay for and maintain your most powerful abilities.

There are also many little bits in the game that make Vampire Wars a very engaging game that will tempt you to log in all the time to immerse yourself in its vampiric and gothic splendor (especially the treasure chest that lets you gamble on powerful abilities everyday). Form a vampire clan with your best friends and wage war against other bloodsuckers trespassing on your turf. The world of vampires is there ready for you to take control and make your own.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

You can read more about Vampire Wars at http://www.game-tycoon.com/vampire-wars.html

About the Author

Steven maintains Game Tycoon at http://www.game-tycoon.com , a website devoted to strategy, simulation and time management games. You can read game reviews, download games and play them online.

My history reading list for Winter. Comments?

Robert W. Merry--A Country of Vast Designs (Polk, US-Mexican War)
David Clary--Eagles & Empire (US-Mexican War)
Peter H. Wilson--The 30 Years War: Europe's Tragedy
Harlow Giles Unger--The Last Founding Father (James Monroe)
James J. O'Donnell--The Ruin of the Roman Empire
David Stewart--Impeached: The Trial of Andrew Johnson
TJ Stiles--THe First Tycoon: Cornelius Vanderbilt
Anthony Everitt--Hadrian & the Triumph of Rome
John Keay--China: A History
Robert Service--Trotsky: A Biography
Antony Beevor--D-Day: The Battle for Normandy
Chris Wickham--The Inheritance of Rome
John M. Cooper--Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
Craig Nelson--Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon
Tim Egan--The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & the Fire That Changed America

das Buch ~ sounds interesting but one question is this personal or academic? May I make a suggestion to toss in a good battle book of war during the snow/cold months? Last year I read Stalingrad in my back yard (with a fire pit) and it cold as heck outside. I really "felt" the battle so to speak with the cold all around me. I read Antony Beevor's version of Stalingrad. This winter I will either go to the Battle of the Bulge or a visit the Chosin Reservoir where the Marines pulled out of during a long winter battle that was hard fought.

Have fun!

Gerry D.

Breaking new ground
On Tuesday morning, Kevin Waldman’s biggest headache was protecting big shots like architect Zaha Hadid, billionaire tycoon Eli Broad, Michigan State University president Lou Anna Simon and Gov. Jennifer Granholm from stepping in the March mud at the groundbreaking of MSU’s Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.

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