So, There's This Game Called DotA2 - You May Have Heard Of It

I received a DotA2 Beta Key off the amazing Gaming Organisation - Team Infused. I enjoyed League of Legends a similar action RTS/Fantasy Strategy game and wanted to know what DotA2 was all about, so I downloaded it and installed it when I had a chance to return to my PC.

I was familiar with League of Legends enough to jump into a Private game with a friend, I played as the character "Anti-Mage" A character I have seen played quite a bit by Team Infused's DotA2 player "Wagamama" (Stream here) Whom has great success with the character.

Me on the other hand had very little success, or actually none at all. And me and my friend lost our first Private game vs the AI (They were on easy mode, so it makes the situation much worse) As all I tried to do was raise "Anti-Mage" attack speed to an ungodly amount to try to slay my enemies. I did succeed in that though. Hitting enemies at an accelerated rate can never be bad, of course. 


Although the character "Anti-Mage" is considered to be overpowered in the DotA2 universe and is banned in most of the professional games I still had no success with the character. I transitioned into playing as "Shadow-Shaman" a mage character who I got on quite well with after playing as "Veigar" in League of Legends. Although my better knowledge of mage oriented characters I still ended up losing another game to the Easy AI...


I think this game requires a lot more playtime than League of Legends, without the experience of playing DotA 1 I was clueless to start with and without the help of a tutorial it made it even worse. You also need to know what most items do and find a build that is right for your character. As I was looking at the items for the first few minutes of every game, this left my farm time low and my character sitting at the spawn point as I looked to see what the shops had to offer in terms of weaponry.


I won't stop playing DotA 2, I will continue and possibly start recording the games I play and ask for tips to improve. Until I find some decent builds and some more knowledge of the games I'll stick to the Private games vs AI...

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Why I (still) love Halo Combat Evolved (PC)

I know this game was released in 2001 and was a benchmark of the multi-player era in gaming at the time and the start of the Halo series. The Single Player Campaign is something I'm not much concerned in. The multi-player is something that even today, I am impressed with.

You have to try and understand this game from my point of view, as a competitive player. This Blog post comes to you after two recent 1v1 games (I'm not a fan of 1v1 in First Person Shooters, especially in Halo, I will explain in a later Blog) I won both games, and doubling my opponents score on 1 map (24-12) The score doesn't matter. But I played the games, and you know what? They were damn fun.

I agreed as he asked me to "fun train" basically a 1v1 to train skills and shots, not a highly competitive game. (I know "fun train" has more than one meaning and for the record, trains are fun.) We played the most standard of maps "Carousel" and "Rat Race" and some rules that I agreed upon as they actually show skill. The rules were; No heavy weapons, no power ups (Oversheild, Camo) and no frag grenades.

The games themselves were standard, but the thing that I enjoyed the most was the social aspect and the manners shared between me and my opponent. For the last few months I have been typing "gl hf" at the start of every Halo game I have played competitively to see if I could get a response. I didn't on this occasion. However, the connections between the two players in that server were still with a positive manner. Each kill and death was met by a simple "lol" or "ns" (Nice shot) and always adding a "gg" (good game) at the end of every game.

Even though these things are very simple, this is what I enjoy about gaming, the polite, well mannered gamers that you will eventaully play your games with. Halo in itself is almost dead, not quite, but it's getting there. Lets hope the last days of it's life are similar to this one.

Please 'Like' Team Infused on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter @team_infused

Also follow @StarCraftHub on Twitter for the latest StarCraft 2 news in the UK


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Check out and subscribe to you Youtube channel here (Videos coming soon)

The Thing About "Going Random"

I've been playing Random on StarCraft 2 for about a week now. I am Top 50 in my 4v4 Platinum Division as a Random player (Would be higher, but I don't play enough)

I do enjoy playing as Rnadom, but this doesn't come without difficulty. When you're on the loading screen you have no idea what race you might spawn as and what hotkeys to prepare. S+D for a Drone (Zerg) S for an SCV (Terran) Or E for a Probe (Protoss) I have standard builds with each race, that will eventually come down to me massing Mutalisks/Tanks/Stalkers as the respectable races.

There has also got to be something wrong with the way this game picks your Random race. Out of the first 10 games I played as Random on the ladder, 8 of them I spawned as Zerg a race I have very little practice with and lose a large percent of  the games I play as them. The only problem is I have with Zerg is that I cannot hold a 6 pool as them, for the life of me. In return I also never 6 pool (Apart from one game which I did to counter another enemy 6 pool and to gain map control, but still later losing the game)

My standard opening as Zerg is as follows:
- 14 Pool
- 14 Gas/Extractor
- 20/21 Hatch

I will however, lose the hatch 30 seconds later to a Zergling run-by. This, frustrates me a little.

I do enjoy playing Zerg, but I never do reach the mid/late game however. And if I do ever reach the mid/late game then I receive a gratifying feeling when I fly Mutalisks over enemy workers and killing them all off. This fills me with happiness. However, it is is a rare occasion, of course.

I don't want my main strategy to counter a 6 pooling Zerg to be my very own 6 pool. I know there are ways in which you can Micro your workers in such a way that they can fend off a 6 pool, but such tactics are beyond me and my mouse...

Because of me spawning as Zerg so often I have gotten used to some aspects of the race. Like Larvae  injecting every 30 seconds so I receive more Larvae for units. When to Drone or spam that Zergling button but my creep spread is a little painful, to say the least. In 4v4 you will usually spawn close to an ally (I'd be a little afraid if you spawned next to an enemy, but in such circumstances a 6 pool would be ideal.) and I limit my creep spread to try and not disrupt my allies structure placement.

All-in-All I will continue my Random laddering and hope to improve as Zerg. When I eventually pluck up enough courage to switch that "4v4" button to the terrifying "1v1" button I will let you know.

Until then goodbye, and thank you for reading.

Please 'Like' Team Infused on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter @team_infused

Also follow @StarCraftHub on Twitter for the latest StarCraft 2 news in the UK


Don't forget to Follow me on Twitter @ItsAllOverdose
Check out and subscribe to you Youtube channel here

Going Random

After much deliberation I have decided to change my race for StarCraft 2. I used to play Protoss in 1v1 matchmakings and Terran in 4v4 ladder games.

I started playing Zerg against the AI to get the slight feel for the race and have now decided to switch to Random, only because I get to experience the whole game now.

I will start Season 4 playing as Random in 1v1, however, in the mean time I want to practise as Zerg to improve with the basic builds I'm now learning. I will post some YouTube videos up once I have played some decent games (Maybe with commentary once I get a mic!)


After today my Blogs will appear Biweekly or whenever I have the time and will power to write up a post

Many thanks,

Please 'Like' Team Infused on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter @team_infused

Also follow @StarCraftHub on Twitter for the latest StarCraft 2 news in the UK

The Introduction

Hello, and welcome to the new blog for myself Matthew "Overdose" Antley. This is a small introduction about myself, what I do and what I write about.


Firstly, as mentioned above I am Matthew "Overdose" Antley, I am 17 years old and attend college, studying Computing and ICT. I am a Halo Combat Evolved PC Pro and have won the HCET #1 Match 2011 with my team it's All $kill. I now multi-game and play a wide variety of games from FPS, RTS and MMORPG. I am an eSports enthusiast and love talking and reporting about gaming news from all over the world.

On this Blog I will write about Team Infused and StarCraftHub news, as well as my own opinions on eSports news from various games, but mainly of my new obsession, StarCraft 2. I will also do a mini-reviews on games I play, both multi-player and single player.

I will update this blog regularly. With all of the eSports events running and with the sport growing rapidly I doubt I'll be short on news any time soon. I will also post game play videos of myself which will be uploaded to my YouTube channel here

Thank you for reading...

Please 'Like' Team Infused on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter @team_infused

Also follow @StarCraftHub on Twitter for the latest StarCraft 2 news in the UK