Catching up with the Time Hound -- Avengers oh my!

Hello! *wave*

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. How have you all been? I've been busy, but I'm still finding time to collect and level heroes in Super Hero Squad Online. Here's the recent additions of mine to the max hero club:

1- Valkyrie -- Tea time anyone?

2- Luke Cage -- Tiara and a fro go together like chocolate and peanut butter, yo.


3- Spider Woman -- Always reading up on the latest top secret stuffs.


You might have received the notice in the mail about all the Avengers excitement buzzing in SHSO these days.


To those ends, I'm sure you know by now that Captain America in his Super Soldier getup is now on sale in the gold shop:


And as a special bonus, looks like Gazillion/The Amazing Society put American Dream on special as well!


With all this Captain America pride going on here lately, you know the best thing to do is hold a Captain America power emote party whenever the mood strikes you. :)



I've been noticing a lot of that happening lately, and yup, I've definitely been joining in whenever one of those emote throwdown parties happen. :)

Hope you all are still enjoying these reduced hero costs as much as I am. I think I'll go update my price guide.

One last thing, Uber wife and I recorded another episode of Happy Dueling Hour a couple weeks ago, and we once again mention Super Hero Squad Online among all the other stuff we talk about. Take a listen if you'd like. Hop to the 42:49 minute mark to hear what we have to say about SHSO. :)

Happy Dueling!

Max level Ghost rider, Bucky Cap, and Bunnisher! Make your own goals past FF Spidey?

Last week was super fun as I kept on playing with these new heroes, finished off three max levels with them, and added a few more levels to my overall squad level:





BOOM! With all that leveling, my total squad level is approaching 700 now! I have to say, I love Ghost Rider and Punisher's Max Level emotes! LOL!



Bunnisher . . . just Bunnisher. Come on, that's amazing. HAHAHA! Now we know what Matt was working on there at the Amazing Society back in February. ;)

And Ghost Rider on a tricycle!


I think that should be my new expression of shock at work when someone tells me something crazy.

HOLY GHOST RIDER ON A TRICYCLE!

Speaking of crazy. I don't know if you guys feel this way, but after you finish out the challenge quest line, you kind of have to make your own goals and find a way to reward yourself, right? What do you guys do to keep it up?

Also, I'd love to see some player-created challenges past FF Spiderman . . . just to see what we could come up with!

- What would be the dividing points for squad level rewards?
- What five accomplishments would you have to do for each major challenge level?
- What hero would you award for completing the challenge?

Let me know what you think.

Happy dueling!

Kingpin, Luke Cage, and leveling news from me!

Stopped by the shop today in game and saw a couple new things for sale. First up, the Kingpin mission!


Awesome! I'd like to break out my Daredevil and Spider-Man heroes for this one and give it a spin. I'm sure if I poured through some of my old comic books I could find a kingpin issue or two. He's a classic, and it should be fun to lay the smack down in that direction. ;)

Also saw everyone's favorite Hero for Hire up in the shop for the bargain price of 300 gold!


Rock on, Luke Cage! If that's the going rate for a former Hero for Hire, sign me up! ;)

I need a few more heroes! I'm starting to run out of unmaxxed heroes at the moment. Speaking of that, Nova, aka the ultimate super space cop, just maxxed out the other day:


Don't you just hear the words, "It's a SUPERNOVA!" when you look at him? I'll admit, I've been turning the voice acting up a bit lately. (Opening doors still bugs me, but everything else is ok. I like being able to hear what heroes are near me around town. :))

Super Nova's play style in missions seems pretty standard fare . . . seems to be mostly "just out of" melee for the first part of his attack combo and finally coming in a little closer at the end as he slides forward. I'm not terribly familiar with his comic book line, but he seems to have an interesting story to him.

Of other heroes I'm not very familiar with, I decided to purchase Spider-Woman!


The moment in game that I saw she could not only wall crawl, but also could fly, I knew I wanted this hero in my collection. Awesome! Maybe I'll use my current Valkyrie and Spider-Woman characters to convince my daughter into playing this game with me again. ;)

Happy Dueling!

Sale, MMORPG.com article, Punisher, and Max FF Spidey

First thing today, we have a sale on all the 350 gold heroes in the shop! They are all currently going for 300 gold.


The only one of those I haven't purchased yet is Valkyrie. Hmm, I may go ahead and save the 50 gold there and purchase her, but I really have my eyes set on Spider Woman. Hmmm.
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Next, MMORPG.com wrote a great intro article to Super Hero Squad Online yesterday. If you're feeling it, you should add to the comments on this post. Good time to support our favorite game, and it's nice to have MMORPG write an article (that's some prime coverage).

My favorite quote from the article is, "The colors and environments of MSHSO are vibrant as would be expected. What is surprising is the obvious effort that Gazillion and The Amazing Society have put into making the spell/hero effects really impressive looking. Dr. Doom’s lightning sizzles with awesome purple power. Wolverine’s roar is loud and literally earth shaking. Phoenix’s AOE Hero Up attack dazzles in fiery fury (and does some pretty amazing damage too!). I was very impressed overall."

My favorite quote from the comments is, "One of the metagames that would really appeal to adults is the card playing "PvP" battles. Building decks with the right combo of cards is an elegant and complex work. :)"

I like Suzie Ford, the author of the article. I actually met her in real life once, but that's a story for a different time.
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I bought Punisher yesterday!


He's all about the guns there, isn't he? I've been filming his play a bit, and I'll probably put together a short game play video of him soon. Pretty much it feels like Punisher just wants to be in the thick of the battle. His normal attack has him firing off rounds in every direction and his heroup attack has him blasting a hole in the earth all around him. Good times!
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My Future Foundation Spidey finally hit max level!


Haha! Took me long enough! FF Spidey is an absolute blast to play. He's a really nice reward for finishing your challenge quest series. His attacks in combat are solid, he makes travel around town super fast, he's hilarious, and you're sure to get friend invite after friend invite when you're running around with him because it's just a really cool status symbol in game as well.
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And that's all I've got for today. Let me know what you're up to!

Happy Dueling!

Invisible Woman, Shadowcat, Iron Patriot, and Wasp (TO THE MAX)

As predicted, I had a few more heroes max out over the weekend. WOOT!

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First up, Invisible Woman.


Maxing out IW also unlocked her third power emote, which is the best way to walk places I've discovered.


Why run places when you can just plod your way through the game laying waste to all in your path?

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Next, Ms. Shadowcat.


It's so awesome she gets to bring out Lockheed to blast stuff as her first power. Lockheed is awesome! He should be his own super hero squad character! He was a member of Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers after all. ;)

Did you know you can read all four issues of Pet Avengers for free online at Marvel's website? LOL! Here's links!

Pet Avengers 1
Pet Avengers 2
Pet Avengers 3
Pet Avengers 4

Good to get Shadowcat finally leveled to max. :) Did you know Shadowcat and Illayana were roomies back at the X-men Academy? See! More evidence they should put a couple New Mutants into the game! ;)

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Iron Patriot was third to level to max. Um, I did take a picture of Iron Patriot hitting max, but . . . uh . . . it got moofed, so . . .


This JR SHIELD hero was also good to finally put to bed as a max level hero. I really like Iron Patriot's first star power the most in missions. For the cost of one star, there's a lot of push and shove crowd control. That may just be me though. :)

As for playing the hero himself? It feels kind of awesome to know you get to play a highly confused bad guy in SHSO. Norman's wacky, which makes for a lot of fun possibilities with this character.

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Finally, Wasp hit max level:


I have to say her final power emote is officially awesome.


SHSO has a couple of reoccurring jokes running through it, one of them being pigeons. A handful of hero emotes have something to do with pigeons, and Wasp riding on a pigeon cowgirl style cracked me up. :)

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Playing all these heroes was fun, and I enjoyed each and every one for different reasons. Hope you're all having fun with your squads!

Happy Dueling

Jr. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Again! More Max Heroes :)

That's right! I'm back in Jr. SHIELD agent status again. :) That meant it was time to finally get Hulkbuster here to max level!


He was only 200 experience points from 11th anyway. ;-)

I still have a few levels left to gain on Shadowcat and Iron Patriot out of my Jr. SHIELD agents.

From my main pool of heroes, it was also time for Reptil to hit max level.


Yay, Reptil! Reptil is great. I've always been more of a New Mutant reader than a Avengers Academy reader, but he may convert me, yet! (Would it kill 'em to throw Illyana in the game to hang out with her brother, Colossus? ;))

Also of note, I finally saved up enough silver to purchase Bucky here:


Last time I had that much silver in my bank account, I blew it all on Jr SHIELD heroes until I had nothing left. hehe. Egads, how many more spins until I get the surfers?! I really do need an auto-spin feature.

Next up to level to Max for me will be Invisible Woman, Shadowcat, Iron Patriot, and Wasp. They're all around ninth level as of today. I'm shooting to get Ghost Rider before he turns 1,200 gold. :)

Oh! And before I forget, one of my friends was finally nice enough to invite me to the Bullseye mission finally! And what's this? Punisher as the narrator?


Nice!

The mission itself didn't seem to bad, but yeah, you really don't want to get caught in the path of those lasers. There's a couple giant ones you have to avoid while fighting Bullseye that's incredibly dangerous.

Hope you all are having fun with Super Hero Squad Online!

Happy Dueling!

Three More Max Heroes, Some Reactions, and Badge Improvements Please!

The latest updates are now live in the game and I think it's good news that the introductory price of classic daredevil is a bargain as far as gold priced heroes go!


You can also see pictured there the new Bullseye mission. Anyone tried that?

Also good news is that you can turn these new voices down or off completely:


They aren't that bad, but extended play with them can be a bit . . . distracting? There were some interesting choices made that I'm not sure I like. I don't really think my character should say something every time he/she opens a door or heads to the sky. I wish the frequency was tuned down just a little bit. Like maybe every tenth time I opened a door it would say something or every fifth time I hit a flight spot. Either way, that volume slider for voices is a welcome sight. I was kind of getting annoyed at Invisible Woman this morning as she wondering "Hmm, I wonder what's in here" while I opened the door to the Baxter building. yeah. She's not that ditsy.

Anyway, I do have three more max heroes in my back pocket!

First up is Street Clothes Wolverine:


Next to ding max was The Beast:


And finally, just this morning I dinged max on The Human Torch:


All three heroes were fun to play. Beast's double jump makes him great around town. Human Torch has one of the coolest looks in the game. Street Clothes Wolverine was free! ;p Give me a free hero, and I will play it to max!

I played both Beast and Wolverine in missions (and they were fun), but I think all I did while leveling The Human Torch was collect tokens, kill troublebots, and click chasables. I need to play a few missions with him still. That's on my "fun agenda" in game. hehe.

Here's a quick idea: I wish earning badges in game meant more. Like, if I unlocked a badge on a hero, it should equal something like 5-10 gold or a bunch of tickets. It would really give me some extra incentive to revisit my heroes after they've hit max. Tying rewards (any kind of reward) to unlocking badges would be such an awesome motivator.

What do you think of the new voiceovers and updates?

Happy Dueling!

Ding 554!

There it is!




For once I'm actually at kind of a loss for words! I was pretty freaking excited about it last night after it happened. It felt really good for that final challenge to be won. Here's how it played out (hehe, playing my brand new Wasp purchase at the time):



I definitely spent too much time indoors earning that level. ;) The sunlight, it burns!

I just want to thank you all for reading along with me as I worked toward that final challenge. Hopefully I've covered any "advice" I'd give along the way already. Really, it's all about leveling and buying those heroes, working out a good deck for the challenges involving card battles, and having a lot of Marvel super hero fun along the way.

The game's challenges encourage you to discover all that you can do in Super Hero Squad Online. I think the ultimate goal of the challenge quests was to help players answer the question, "what can I do here?" whether that included being rude in a pond, playing through some missions, scoring reasonably well on an arcade mini-game, or just making friends. It's all one can ask for in an MMO like Super Hero Squad Online.

The big question you have to face after completing the final challenge is probably similar to what people were asking when the game didn't have a challenge quest line. What's the point? What I believe the designers are hoping you do is continue doing everything you've done up to this point, just without the golden carrot at the end (but with a promise of something greater coming in the future). What do I do? Go be rude in a pond, play through some missions, score reasonably well on those arcade mini-games, and just make friends! :) There are still 30 (and growing) heroes or so that I've never played before, right? Right.

I'm sure the future will bring more challenges and more changes to the game. It will all continue to grow, and I'm pretty sure the fans of the game will help direct its future. So don't be quiet! Let them know what you want to see in the game. Inspire them to greater programming, finer design, more beautiful art, killer marketing, and streamlined production. That's a fan's job.

That's what I say at least.

Did I say I was at a loss for words?

Happy Dueling

Elektra drinks the Hero Up Potion! :)

I was skimming the goodies shop and came across this potion that I had failed to notice before.


WOW! LOL! Nice, you can buy a level! Do you know how game changing this would have been back in the old days of Everquest where it would take a few months to level a character? ;) In SHSO, a level can happen quite quickly. The only really challenging levels on a hero would be those post 8th or 9th level when it starts to take 1,500 experience to gain a level.

50 gold for one SHSO level is kind of a steep price, but I had just the character I wanted to try it out on.


Elektra! How about a delicious drink of awesomeness?


Ahhh, refreshing! LOL!

Well that's definitely an easy way to level from 10th to 11th. ;) I wonder if the fine people at The Amazing Society would let me hold a raffle to give away a code for one of those? I'll have to ask them and let you know.

Happy dueling

Max Hero Madness

Since the last time I posted about maxing out Deadpool, Red Hulk, and Ironman, I have maxed an additional six heroes!

Those would be Nick Fury:



Mr. Fantastic:



War Machine:



Thor:



Black Suit Spider-Man:



and finally, the Tuxedo-clad Thing:



Whew! That was a lot of fun . . . a lot of daily missions, a lot of collecting tokens, a lot of chaseables, a handful of card matches, and a lot of troublebot destruction.

Each of those characters played a little differently and felt different as I was playing them . . . except maybe Tuxedo-clad thing. Since that hero is basically a new skin on an old favorite, there really weren't many surprises to him. I kind of hoped that at the end of his power emotes, there would be something just slightly different than the regular thing, but oh well. I liked playing the original thing so much that it wasn't bad playing him again . . . plus . . . well . . . the tux is awesome.

Black Suit Spider-Man also plays pretty much like the other Spider-Man I'm touting around in my bag, but unlike Tuxedo Thing, the final emote was different. It paid homage to the venom suit as Peter Parker tried to peel it off his skin.

I don't know about you guys, but I prefer power emotes with a punch to 'em. I'd much rather use a power emote to kill a troublebot than I would to actually pick them up and throw them (or bat them away in the case of Gambit--there's my exception). It kind of all depends on if the punch part of the power emote comes early or late in the emote. Like Mr. Fantastic . . . you had to wait a bit for him to mix his chemicals before they would explode and then kill the troublebot. When I got my second emote for Mr. Fantastic, it made me wish it had a kick to it like the first power emote. I'd rather spin around and slap a troublebot dead than do the chemistry set emote to kill them.

War Machine has to have one of my favorite emotes in the game. when he readies every gun imaginable on him, and they all do the bang-flag trick instead of going off . . . seriously, it's a classic. LOL. Playing War Machine in missions was fun as well. Ranged attackers seem to have a somewhat slower pace to their missions, but you really get to see them lay the smack down.

Nick Fury is . . . well . . . Nick Fury.

Thor though, Thor was rocking! He'd take these big, meaty swings of his hammer at opponents and just mow through stuff. When it was Hero up time, BOOOM unleash the thunder. Just the fact that he throws the horns when dancing is enough to make me like him. :) The only thing that would have made him more fun to play was if he was riding on a gigantic dog.



I need to do a quick inventory of my heroes, but I still have a number to level. From my estimations, I at least *have* enough heroes now to make Major. It's just grinding out the last few levels.

Happy Dueling!

More Max Heroes! Red Hulk, Ironman, and Deadpool

Obviously I'm still hot on the quest for Major, and I'm headed there one max hero at a time! Today's Max squaddies are Red Hulk, Ironman, and Deadpool.





Red Hulk was fun to play(like I'm sure all the hulks are). The main reason being I love his jumping ability most of all. High-jumping around as the hulk is possibly the most awesome thing ever, right next to the creation of nachos. You know, it seems The Amazing Society is incredibly fond of re-skinning hulks. It makes me wonder if they'll ever make Kluh.

Ironman is great. It wasn't much different than playing Stealth Armor Iron Man, but anytime I can throw out the speaker system and play I Am Ironman, I'm happy, you know?

Deadpool is an interesting character, mainly because 1- He's canadian, 2- He's buddies with Death, 3- He first appeared in a New Mutants comic, 4- he likes to pogo stick, blow up pinatas, play whack a mole, and smash things with gigantic squeaky green gauntlets. LOL. I may not understand this Deadpool character much in this game (also like I don't understand many Canadians), but I dig him nonetheless (also like I dig many Canadians nonetheless). His double jump ability was super fun. :)

Happy Dueling!

Major, here I come!

That's right! I'm on Challenge #40. The last one of the bunch.


Now to just grind out those last 100 levels or so.

To those ends I added two more heroes to my squad yesterday and this morning.



Reptil is an interesting character in this IP. Before SHSO, Reptil was only really seen in the Avenger Academy mags in the world of Marvel, but in Super Hero Squad Online, he's a total rockstar.


The moment I started running around with him, I had 4 or 5 friend invites in the span of a minute. LOL!

And then there's Beast. He's a pretty good bargain hero (fairly new as well) at 600 gold with a +3 Marvel squad score. Beast is beast. What can I say, everybody who's ever checked out the X-men knows Beast. As opposed to the mere handful of comics that Reptil has been in, Beast has been in over 550 comics, cartoons, and you know . . . the big screen.



Oh Kelsey Grammar!

Happy Dueling