My thoughts/review of Marvel: Avengers Alliance Facebook Game

I enjoy playing the occasional video game and one of the "free" games that I am currently playing on Facebook is a game called Marvel: Avengers Alliance. Marvel Avengers Alliance is a simple flash game based on various heroes from the Marvel universe.

The game involves your team of 3 characters comprising of a SHIELD agent and two heroes. In Chapter 1 of the game, you start the game with Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. Each hero belongs to one of five classes (blaster, bruiser, infiltrator, tactician, scrapper, and generalist). Your SHIELD agent starts off as a generalist but you can change it at later levels by research and purchasing the appropriate uniform.

It is a "free" game in the fact that it is possible to play this game without spending any real money on it. When I first started playing it, the only game commodity that you could directly purchase with money was gold. This gold could be used to purchase silver, SHIELD points, or command points. Currently the two game commodities that you can purchase directly with real money is gold and silver. Gold is the more scarce commodity and is rewarded every time your agent gains a level and every time you get 4 stars on a particular mission. Silver is gained via sending your heroes out on the flight deck as well as during battles (and visiting allies). The more allies (Facebook friends who also play Marvel: Avengers Alliance) you have, the easier it is for you to get silver and SHIELD points. As you progress in the game, the game requires a minimum of 3 allies/friends in order to obtain the 8 level 1 ships on the flight deck. If you don't have enough allies, you will have to use gold in order to get the ships or upgrade the ships which is not recommended.

In my opinion, you should only use gold to get weapons and inventory items (mainly ISO-8 items which increase the statistics for your heroes/agent). The only other time I would use gold in the game is if there was a limited hero/uniform that you did not have enough command points to purchase directly before the deadline expires. Command points (which are used to purchase new heroes or uniforms for the heroes) seems like hard items to get is somewhat easy to get by going to a particular battle in a chapter mission and fighting these hidden "epic bosses" and once they drop their command point, you let your team get killed. Although very boring, you repeat this until you get enough command points to purchase your hero or a hero's uniform. Currently, hero prices range from 15 command points to 90 command points. Generally, the high tier heroes have better abilities/powers or are more popular. An example of a high tier (90 command points) hero would be Spider-Man while an example of a lower tier (15 command points) would be Invisible Girl.

Heroes gain special abilities when they reach level 2, level 6, and level 9. Their abilities/powers have various strengths and weaknesses.

There is so much about this game that it is impossible to write one blog entry that covers this game entirely. As such depending on the interest, I might write additional blog entries regarding Marvel: Avengers Alliance.

If you like the heroes in the Marvel universe and you have a Facebook account, you can give this game a try. The game has its good points and bad points. One of the bad points is the random sales/pricing that the game developers seem to often practice. What this means is that sometimes when you see an item for sale in the store for a certain price, it is possible that another player has a different (lower or higher) price for the exact same item.

If you have any comments/questions regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave me a comment in the comments section. Please note that comments are moderated and any comment that contains a URL link (whether embedded or not) will be flagged as being spam and will not be posted.

Google Authenticator & Google's 2-Step Verification Process Review

Since I sometimes log onto public PCs to check my Gmail account and I wanted a bit more security because I didn't know what was installed on those PCs (keyloggers, Wi-Fi snooping, etc.), I configured my Google account to use the 2-step verification.

For information about 2-step verification process, please refer to Google's YouTube information video about it below.

How this works is when accessing your Google account (like Gmail), after entering your Google password, you are prompted for a specific algorithm generated PIN. This PIN is displayed on a program called Google Authenticator which can be obtained for Blackberries, iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad), and AndroidOS devices or it can be sent to your cellphone via SMS or it can be configured to call your phone where the PIN is given to you via an automated voice system. Since I have multiple phones, I sometimes use the automated phone system to get the 1-time usage PIN on the phone that doesn't have Google Authenticator activated with my Google account (for example: I might have the Google Authenticator program on my personal cellphone whereas I would configure the automated phone system (or SMS) to use my work cellphone. You should be aware that when the Google system calls you, the incoming phone number will be a blocked/private number. If your phone is configured not to accept blocked/private calls, you will have to allow for blocked/private calls if you want to receive the automated phone calls from the Google Authentication system.

I've installed the program on all 3 phone platforms but it will only work on 1 phone at a time because the Google Authenticator program must be configured for the Google account on 1 device only. If you change devices or want to use Google Authenticator on another device, you will have to go into the 2-step verification set-up and select "Remove/Replace" for the device.

What I like about Google Authenticator is that it allows you to get an extra level of security for your Google account where it displays the 2nd password (PIN) on your phone. The Google Authenticator program doesn't require data or WiFi and the code is generated via algorithm so if you don't have WiFi coverage and/or you don't have a data plan, you can still use the Google Authenticator application. In a lot of respects, it is similar to the security card that we use where I worked called a "RSA SecurID card".

What I don't really like about the 2-step process is that some applications don't support it and you will have to generate these application specific passcodes for these applications. Every application specific passcode that you create is another method of gaining access to your Google account so you have to be careful where you enter these codes. The good thing about these codes is that they can be revoked if necessary.

One another thing about the 2-step verification process is that you can generate 1 time usage passcodes. These passcodes are similar to the application specific passcodes except that once you enter them once to access your account, the passcode expires and you can't use it again (even on the same computer/browser or with the same application).

What makes Google's 2-step verification system and Google Authenticator great is that even if someone manages to guess/hack your Google password, without your cellphone (or the associated Google Authenticator program), they won't be able to get into your Google account.

If you have any questions/comments regarding this blog entry, please don't hesitate to leave a comment in the comments section below. Please note that comments are moderated and comments that contain a URL link will be flagged as being spam and will not be posted.