Destiny: Does It Deliver?

Developed by Bungie and published by Activision, Destiny is the newest FPS making headlines. Touted as "an online, persistent world, first-person shooter", the game was released earlier this month on current- and last-gen consoles. As the "next big thing" from Bungie since they started the Halo franchise, Destiny has endured a lot of hype over the last few months.

Having gotten my hands on the game first during the final beta test and now after the official launch, the game can be summed up as  Borderlands in a Halo-esque universe. Unlike Borderlands, the laughs are few and the tone is serious. Unlike Halo, loot grinding and exploration are core gameplay components.

What do they mean by "The ultimate adventure that unfolds over the next 10 years"? 

Let's hope they mean that the game will get better...

Gameplay: Destiny's gameplay is perhaps the greatest disappoint of the game if only because it was the biggest victim of the hype. The simplest way to describe Destiny is "Halo with loot". While that isn't an insult, it doesn't describe the sort of game that will define a console (much less a generation of gaming).

Destiny is not "the ultimate adventure" in many ways. Classes are limited to just three, and the difference between them amounts to a choice of super power. While the action is frenetic and fun, the levels and missions that the player is given are contrived and linear . While performing "impossible" tasks time and again, I actually suffered more deaths from falling off of cliffs than from actual gunfire.

Advancing and upgrading throughout the game is simply a matter of grinding experience points, which leaves a lot to be desired in the way of RPG elements. I figured that once Call of Duty eventually figured out that I should be able to allocate my progress where I want it to be the rest of the gaming world would be smart enough to follow suit, but Destiny is hardly so customizable. Traits are earned in a specific order and only after achieving certain levels. Not only does this vastly underserve lower level players who try to compete with higher level players in the PvP modes, it takes away the pleasure of connecting with your particular character if every Titan, every Hunter, and every Warlock level in exactly the same way. At the higher levels, when choices have been unlocked, there is a degree of choice in how you want to play, but tucking this away at higher levels is just unnecessary. Bungie said that 20 hours into Destiny you'll feel like you're playing a new game, and that's somewhat true, but the cost is keeping good parts out of the beginning of the game.

Loot is a major aspect of the game as well, but this, too, has its flaws. Finding chests and getting good drops are infrequent enough that when they do happen you get excited, but like any lottery you lose more often than you win. Most of what you find is more or less just a chance at getting a good item, and most of the time you come away a little disappointed. Unlike Borderlands, where loot was nearly constant if not always beneficial, Destiny gives you half the loot and a slim chance at any real reward.

Ultimately, Destiny is a mix of good and bad. Enemies don't overwhelm you and yet they still challenge you at points, which is good. The "sticky" targeting controls are friendly, but take away from the competitiveness some look for in an FPS. Maps and modes are well matched in PvP matches, but the player's levels make for such a disparity in ability that lower level characters just aren't welcome. Pick-up missions keep the leveling goal-oriented when the main story does not, but fail to impress the player and are solely used for grinding reputation points, money, and experience. In the end, Destiny's gameplay amounts to endless repetition and, as Nerdist says, it feels "spiritless".

http://static1.gamespot.com/uploads/original/78/787590/2517088-ci78003168030368170.jpg

Visual Effects / Art Style: Visually, Destiny is immediately reminiscent of Borderlands and I felt the influence of Bungie's last few Halo games as well. So, simply put, nothing you wouldn't expect artistically. While there isn't anything wrong with doing what works, there are a number of vistas in the game which are quite striking, but then turning back to face your mission becomes a bit of a bummer.

For the first ten levels or so there is little to differentiate new enemies from old enemies, and that underwhelming feeling bleeds into the later levels when the biggest difference is whether the critical point is the head or the belly. Every enemy race has fodder, bigger fodder, shieldies, and heavies all of which move, hide, fight and die alike. Moreover, set piece environments and retraversing old ground serve to shrink the environments and bring the player to boredom more quickly than they should. Seeing the same cave three times turns what should be a planet into a sandbox--and an unimaginative one at that. While this lightens the load for level designers on the production side, it costs the game its potential to immerse every player deeper into the game's universe.

And as long as I'm on the subject of aesthetics, my experience with piecing armor together has been far from satisfying. When granted to good fortune to upgrade a piece of armor, more often than not that upgrade is a different color or style from my various other pieces of armor. As a result, the players armor is seldom uniform and (at least in my case) the character ends up as mismatched as a birthday clown from Craigslist. With color being the primary aesthetic difference between pieces and dye items unavailable until later on, there is little in the way of satisfaction throughout the first fifteen to twenty hours of Destiny.

Sound Effects / Music: Happily, the sounds in Destiny are a brighter spot. Through some levels, ambient environment sounds feels out of place and become repetitive after just a short time, yet these tend not to be obtrusive or detrimental in any significant way. This can be said of the gunfire or the reloading sound effects as well, but less so as both of those come with the distraction of action. And, in any case, the upsides here outweigh the downsides.

The game's music is great. It's evocative and effective, though certainly not ground-breaking. The game's soundtrack is recognizable on the whole, and even though I would be hard-pressed to match certain music with certain game sequences, it does carry a uniqueness that allows the music to be identified immediately with the game. There are flashes of Halo's influence here as well, with chanting and bass drums, but they are too much mixed together for my taste. Gregorian chant has an eerie sense of isolation that was so fitting for playing as the Master Chief in Halo that I could see it fitting my Guardian as well (after all, the characters are virtually identical, but more on that later). As it is, the chanting comes with too much accompaniment and the accompaniment with too much chanting, but, all in all, I was very pleased with this aspect of the game.

The glaring issue with the games sounds is the complete absences of voices. There is no voice chat. Not in PvP. Not in the quest hub. Not in proximity to other players. Nothing. It's utterly, rampantly, infuriatingly, foolish. I don't care if they are pre-teens spouting inflammatory gibberish, at least they would make the world feel alive. As it is, the only way to communicate with other players is to do so through Xbox Live's party chat, and it's just unacceptable. This alone prevents Destiny from being a place to make friends. It restricts it to a game for you and the friends you already have, which is a major problem as it is also a game that is only worth sticking to if you have friends around you.

http://www.gamengadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/destiny-beta-character-classes.jpg

Story and Narrative: If you check out other reviews, they probably describe the story as "shit" or simply "not good". Let me try to do a better job of explaining the nature of the problems.

The story lacks substance in the same way that Halo once did, and that's a reason to be hopeful. At the moment, however, the game lacks a strong main character. In part, this is a hazard of the various options given to the player at the start, but on the other hand this is exactly the sort of issue that game designers should be solving. Mass Effect, for example, balanced providing the player choices while still telling a character driven story, so Destiny comes in well under that bar. Most characters are never even given real names. Everyone is known simply by a cryptic title: Guardian, Speaker, Stranger, Gunsmith, Cryptarch, etc. This leaves you feeling disengaged from a personal connection with anyone and makes everyone feel distant. Something as simple as a name is a first step toward knowing a character, but when even that is kept away the player is never invited to care for the characters in the game. Couple this with repetitive appeasement of seemingly menial tasks assigned by your "Ghost" (think, Na'Vi from Ocarina of Time) and there just isn't a story that engages you and draws you into the world.

This lack of story building elements extends into the PvP element. With no reward for a Guardian that performs well relative to one who does not, there is no sense of accomplishment. With only a thin explanation as to why these exercises are even being conducted, the PvP matches feel disconnected from the rest of the world. While this is advantageous as a way of stepping back from the story missions, it means that half of the game contributes nothing to the overall story.

Bungie promised an MMO-length game, but the gameplay and story don't comprise something worth that amount of commitment. The background narrative is passe, Light versus Dark, and the actions of the player are soon erased by short respawn timers. All in all, what story is made available is not made exigent, and so most gamers are left wondering why they should bother to listen to the story at all when they can just follow their objective indicator and clear the waves until they level up.

http://operationrainfall.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Bungie-Destiny-Leak_11-27-610x343.jpeg

Entertainment Value: For a AAA title, Destiny falls short of providing the player with the experience that it should. The best chance that the game has for being worth its cost is the promise of future support, and since that means waiting for the game to get good you might as well wait for the game to get cheaper. There is just too much missing at this point, most importantly the lack of social mechanics. If you've got a few friends who want to play with you then the game is well worth the cost, but as a single player the story isn't strong enough and the game does nothing to help you make friends.

The PvP is the stronger part of the game overall, but what you'll encounter there is mostly the standard fair that you could get anywhere else. King of the Hill, Deathmatch, and Free-For-All are studded with the occasional, "special" Capture gametype, but there's nothing "special" about any of them. While PvP makes a distinct and refreshing break from the single player mode, the disconnection between them will leave some players only really wanting half of the game. Matchmaking does a poor job of matching players with similar levels, gear, or attitudes, leaving every match dominated by those who have unlocked more high-level skills.

But far and away the greatest detriment to entertainment in Destiny is the loading times.They are incessant, interminable, and before very long you know you will be loading again. Mass Effect gave you snippets of conversation, Skyrim let you fiddle with game objects, but Destiny makes you watch the same lame videos over and over again. There was little to no thought put into this aspect of the game, which comes as a huge disappointment considering how much time is spent with them.  One can only hope that current-gen consoles have an easier time of it, but in any case it is a seemingly minor issue that makes the game a whole lot less fun to play and should be addressed sooner than later.

Conclusion: Destiny is not a game to play for a single player experience. It is a relatively long grind up to the top tiers of level and gear, and only from there can the PvP experience can be a satisfying one. Destiny is a game to play with your friends, and not a game to play to make friends. It is a game to enjoy for the thrill of the gameplay, and not a game to play for a compelling story. What the future holds for the game as DLC is rolled out I cannot say, but there are some glaring issues which Bungie and Activision would do well to repair before they try selling more of the same thing.

I've been very critical throughout this review, but in the end I still enjoy playing the game because it's the sort of game I like to play. Let me put this very simply: Destiny is Halo with loot. If you read that as criticism, this isn't a game for you to play. If you read that as interesting, though, and you think loot is just what Halo has been lacking all these years, Destiny is absolutely worth playing (just bring along a friend or two).

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/1a/1a82476a261fcfeb732ad5170b7ae3ba15918e6094a53731408fa1049e105658.jpg

Amazon buys Twitch for $970 million, why?

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Do5moLecq4Y/maxresdefault.jpg

I'd like to look at a bit of news.

On Monday, August 25, Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, hoisted the hefty sum of $970 million onto Twitch, a live streaming video platform, figuratively burying it in bank notes.

It is both easy and fruitless to focus on anything before the facts in a case like this, so let us get the facts straight.

Amazon.com is an international electronic commerce company. Launched way back in 1995, today they purvey everything from books and DVDs to jewelry, home goods, and apparel. Moreover, Amazon.com produces and sells consumer electronics including but not limited to the Kindle, Fire tablets, and more recently the Fire Phone. Over the course of the last fiscal year Amazon.com has seen ubiquitous growth across the board. The site boasts an international resume with separate retail websites for the USA, UK, Germany, China, India, and eight others alongside the intention to add at least three more. Suffice it to say that the retailer is very, very big and their wares are very, very diversified.

Let us turn our attention to Twitch.tv. Spawned somewhere in the rather recent past known colloquially as the year 2011, Twitch was originally the gaming-focused off-shoot of Justin.tv. In 2014, after Twitch had eclipsed Justin.tv in popularity, the company re-branded itself as Twitch Interactive. With average viewers per month up around 45 million, Twitch.tv is one of the top five sources of internet traffic as of last spring.

But the story of Twitch's growth is a very short one. There are really just two bright spots: first, in February, a stream known as "Twitch Plays Pokemon" went viral as it attempted to complete Pokemon Red via a crowdsourcing control mechanic (I must admit that the idea was clever and rather fascinating), and second, in July, electronic music act Steve Aoki live-streamed a show using the service.

The fact that neither of these events would be very noteworthy in a company which boasts two decades of success serves to illustrate the adolescence of Twitch Interactive. It is a young company, a growing company, but is it already a billion dollar company? My feeling is no, so why should Amazon.com think that it is?

http://www.quickmeme.com/Stepbrothers-Activities/page/5/

For one thing, Amazon aren't the only ones who seem to have taken an interest in the live-streaming upstart. Recently, the rumor had been that Google, through YouTube, was looking to acquire Twitch for a cool billion. And not so long ago we saw Facebook drop nearly $2 billion to acquire Oculus VR, a virtual reality technology company developing the much-praised Oculus Rift, a head-mounted display for immersive virtual reality. Importantly, however, is that while Oculus VR is making hardware under the banner of a software company, Twitch is a service platform under a retail-based company. In essence, these two moves are being made in opposite directions. What is true in both cases is that the growth of the gaming industry is something that other industries want to get their hands on.

It's a bit like trying to fit everyone in the room under a blanket, and it's likely that whoever can pull the hardest will sleep most comfortably.

http://splatter.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/blogspot.jpg

What Amazon has to offer Twitch is obvious--international infrastructure and the notoriety to raise their platform. Amazon Instant Video is out to compete with Netflix, so why not pick up Twitch and raise some hell for YouTube as well? It certainly fits with Amazon's tendency for diversity and competition. But competing in an industry you don't already belong in is risky--just look at Amazon's Fire Phone, for which sales were recently predicted by The Guardian to be around just 35,000 units.

Amazon has shown an interest in gaming for the last few years. In 2012 they created their own in-house studio. The company's Fire TV has a spattering of games to choose from, and they have already tried their hand at putting up some Facebook and mobile game fodder. So they're not entirely new to the idea, but they are  far from being thought of as more than a place to get your games from. Becoming a place you take your games to is a steep hill to climb.

But now let us step away from the facts and into the foggy world of conjecture.

http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2011/10/26/the-ghost-eye-conjecture/

What we know is that a big guy is giving a little guy lots of money. What we do not know is "why?".

Twitch does not seem like a great choice if Amazon is looking to turn over a quick dollar. Most of what is available on the site is free--watching streams, creating streams, commenting, participating, and so on. The site can run advertisements and sell premium memberships, but that doesn't really set it apart from YouTube, where serious content-producers are more likely to gravitate as they are able to cut themselves in on a bit of the profit. What I have seen more than anything on Twitch are streams used as gateways onto YouTube. "Watch an hour of our live content here and you'll want to watch two hours of our archived content over on YouTube" seems to be the general idea behind most of the streamed content. So there isn't any ground being gained by Amazon against Google/YouTube on that front, and the fastest way of breaking into something new is by stealing things away from those who already have them.

What small gains there are in advertising are great, but they are not the source of Twitch's growth and, for Amazon, they must envision some other kind of growth to invest so heavily in such a young company. While Twitch would be happy to ride on Amazon's massive coattails up to the front page of Prime Instant Video, what is the boon to Amazon?

If Amazon were to expand the platform for its own uses, as in exclusive features for its members or strengthening it's customer service capabilities and infrastructure, a myriad of benefits would seem to appear for the giant. But can we really have forgotten so quickly about Justin.tv? What Twitch Interactive quickly proved was that the room for growth in live-streaming services is in the gaming industry. While there may be benefits outside of that industry, it seems that the surest return on Amazon's investment lies in the same direction Twitch has already taken.

A quick way to turn investment into profit would be to turn on the exclusivity. Amazon has plenty of proprietary offerings beyond which they can close doors and throttle users. This would, rather quickly, ruin the service for the majority of users and streamers. Twitch is the biggest, best platform dedicated to live-streaming games at the moment and Amazon would be foolish to tarnish that title.

To my mind, Twitch was just the streaming service out in front of the pack of imitators still readying themselves to follow. With Amazon's investment they've been offered a turbo-boost. The first orders of business really only need to be two-fold. First, make streaming easier. In my experience, streaming puts such a load on my bandwidth that I'm left at a significant disadvantage in connection quality (as well as FPS). Making the whole process lighter and simpler would encourage greater participation from those who already know about the platform. Second, their new capital must make a difference in expanding the salience of their site amidst the milieu. It would be irresponsible and  irrevocable to sit back and wait for another stream to go viral like Twitch Plays Pokemon did. If that happens, great, but it's not Twitch's job to sit back and wait for it to happen again, it is their job to make all of those users who visited to see what the hubbub was about want to come back again and see what's new.

I'm not much of a Steve Aoki fan myself, but I do think hosting live events like that is a good way forward for the company. I want to see the comic conventions, the gaming conventions, the press conferences and everything else that has grown up around gaming culture live and in high-definition. I want to see a thousand channels streaming live content that interest me in a thousand ways. On one screen I want to see a symphony orchestra playing music from classic games and on another I want to see the Starcraft II tournament finals.

Twitch is getting the better end of the deal. They now have capital to grow quickly and the partnership to keep them ahead of the imitators as they globalize. For Amazon, they have to know that their newest asset isn't ready for the big-time yet. They have to know that Twitch is a company barely out of its shell, but that with some tender nursing it will soon be ready to join the hunt.

Just like this little cutie-pie.

EA's Bad Business

http://web-vassets.ea.com/Assets/Resources/Image/EA_grey_logo_banner_news.jpg?cb=1379511722

One of the first steps in understanding the gaming industry is knowing the players. I remember when I first began to recognize certain developers as sure signs of a game's quality, and, in part, it has been through the development of that knowledge that my understanding of the industry has grown.

Electronic Arts is one of the best known and most vilified publishers making games today. Within the gaming industry and the gaming community there is no company which is regarded with greater scorn and outrage. And yet, in spite of being named "Worst Company in America" by The Consumerist in 2012, Electronic Arts has not found itself being pushed out of the market by conscientious consumers. In fact, they have continued to grow into one of the industry's largest publishers.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/eb/Electronic_Arts_historical_logo.svg/1280px-Electronic_Arts_historical_logo.svg.png

I find  myself to be one of those disgruntled by their business practices. Rather than elude to that displeasure with snarky gibes, I will directly rant about some of what I find unappealing.

When I say that customer service is not a focus of the company, I do not mean to point at anecdotal evidence posted anonymously to web forums. What I do mean is that the company is clearly more focused on pleasing their investors than their customers. I am a firm believer in good customer service. It is important that business be conducted between people and that those people feel a personal obligation to be good to one another. The best business decision is often not the best human decision, but gains in social well-being have a better kind of value than simple profit. EA's propensity to think with their wallet has, time and again, raised the ire of the gaming community.

Take their recent release, Titanfall, for example. The game was sold for top dollar and, meanwhile, EA tried to snag $20 dollars more of pure profit by offering a "Digital Deluxe Edition" which included a "Season Pass" to future and, as yet, unannounced downloadable content packages. This meant, essentially, paying EA more money in order to receive absolutely nothing of value in return. Anyone who has stayed awake in a basic accounting class has an understanding of the time-value of money, but let me explain it quickly here. The time-value of money is the basic principle to explain why $20 today is worth more than $20 dollars a year from now. In short, it's better to have money right now than it is to have money at some future time. By selling something they haven't made yet, EA can cash in on quick profits and then squeeze the most value-for-dollar out of the deal while the consumer is left without recourse. To make matters worse, the "digital" part of the "Digital Deluxe Edition" means that there is no physical hardware to produce or ship, they merely lend you the pleasure of downloading the software from their servers at the cost of just fractions of a penny.

http://eaassets-a.akamaihd.net/prod.titanfall.com/sites/default/files/ddx-image-cepage.jpg?v=1100rc7

Now, as an investor, if you see a company selling a product for top dollar plus a premium while only spending a few cents to take that product to market, you see a pretty savvy investment. The fact that EA has the wealth to run large-scale advertising campaigns means that, when paired with a great developer, they can bring a pretty good game to massive popularity. And when you've done your research and found out that that company sells millions and millions of copies of its product, well, let's just say you go shopping for a bigger wallet.  As a consumer, on the other hand, you see yourself being treated like a child's piggy bank--heartlessly smashed and taken for every last cent you own.

But EA have found even more devious ways to hide fees and charges in their products. They take parts of the game and hide them behind paywalls and in pre-order exclusives. Look at Star Wars: The Old Republic, if you'd like an example. The myriad ways in which the game is locked down for those "free-to-players" to whom the game is advertised is frankly astonishing. I have found myself disgusted on multiple occasions by the nooks and crannies which the game gouges the player for (or, rather, the payer). On the one hand, if you are a subscriber to SWTOR, the game is brilliant. On the other hand, if you want to try the game before you buy into it, you'll leave with only a taste of what could have been. It has created a lose-lose scenario where there needn't be one; the player loses out on what truly could be an immersive, exciting experience, and the game makers lose out on a possible subscription. And if you're still not convinced, look at Mass Effect 3. An entire character is missing from the game for those not willing to cough up their cash early--and he's one of the most interesting characters you'll encounter across the three titles (currently) in the franchise.

http://www.technologytell.com/gaming/files/2012/01/prothean-art-of-mass-effect-universe.jpg

EA is beholden to their shareholders before their customers. They make decisions on that line even when it means pushing a product into the market before it is ready and in spite of the desires of the artists crafting that product. They take the art away from their artists. They change the development goals to suit their marketing strategies.  EA acquires intellectual property assets and makes drastic changes, betraying the desires of the fans. Regardless, it is these fans to whom the title will be marketed and EA reaps the benefit of their highly desirable word-of-mouth advertising. They restrict digital transactions through their PC game platform, Origin, which has been found to have dubious tracking software that surveys the user's online activity. And one more thing, they don't make single player games anymore--everything is online, everything is multiplayer, and nothing feels connected to the innovation and experimentation that has brought the gaming industry to where it is today.

And yet, in spite of all of this, I do not completely hate the company. In an industry which is growing as fast as the gaming industry has been, and within worlds of "good guys" and "bad guys", there will always be a villain. There will always be something, somewhere, cashing in on the growth for all that it's worth. EA, for all their indecent practices, is a legitimizing force in the gaming industry. Pushing sequel after sequel, unoriginal idea after unoriginal idea, puts games on the same plane as Hollywood movies. It means the market is not starving, is not shrinking, and is impossible to ignore. It puts controllers in the hands of the young and the old alike and, whatever their opinion, it makes them acknowledge the medium--and that means legitimacy, which is something mere dollars cannot buy.

So, the moral of the story is this. Let EA make games for everyone else. Let them sell Mom and Dad on the latest VR system. Let them rot the brains of the young with flashy images. Let them be the villain, and while they are busy raking in their money, keep your eyes open for the heroes. Focus the power of your own entertainment budget on the companies, games, and most of all on the people who deserve it. It isn't easy, finding games worth your time and money, but that's why I make these posts. That's what this blog is here for--to bring you the games you won't find on your own, that you won't see advertised on television or in ads of Facebook. I'm looking for the diamonds in the rough, and if you are, too, then I'm sure we can find something worth putting the power of our dollars behind.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE9emfue_OA8MjvRC-YNjB4C0k020KSDBsTmNfNlRWCzaCaN4HrDfxtOHeXiR6FwAmA_uhNkV0YSI7fcAcTCF7M4DKGBWdeGk4jGQwcScw5q6Jz5ufYJ2oWBMWlWL_bO0u98C63Z9mVSA/s1600/232_endrant.gif

Smite Gameplay

It's been too long since my last post, so here's a gameplay video I made last night.


I didn't talk much during this game in spite of being in chat with a few friends. It all seemed to work out pretty well, though. My team was able to find my heals and I was assisted well enough to escape from many tough situations. Maybe that was a bit of luck, but I think the other team was having some communication problems as well.

My favorite part of this game was actually the music that played. It's always nice to have a playlist you've made seem to work, but in this match it seemed to match the frenetic pace of some parts and the quiet lulls in others.

I seem to have good games when I play Ra. His MP5 is strong enough that you don't need much more than a rank 1 mana heal and some cooldown reduction. He makes for a very fun god and a great choice for beginners--just remember, your #3 is a heal, not a damage move, so use it like one!

In other Smite-related news, Hi-Rez have announced the game for Xbox One. My hope is that the added publicity and (hopefully) marketing budgets can bring the game to a wider audience.

I'll be back with another post soon.

Post E3 Rant

It's been awhile since I made a post, so here's a short one about E3 and what I've been playing these past few weeks.

Even after E3, I haven't found something new to be really excited about. That isn't to say that there weren't plenty of new announcements, nor is it to say that I won't want those games more when more information on them is available, but the sheer number of new games that are sequels in established franchises is what gets to me: Assassin's Creed 5, Batman Arkham Knight Borderlands the Pre-Sequel, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Dragon Age: Inquisition (sound), Fable Legends (sound), Gears of War 4, Halo 5, The Legend of Zelda for Wii U, Mass Effect 4, Starfox for Wii U, The Witcher 3. If you're a gamer with shallower pockets than you'd like, these are all games to wait for. Pre-ordering any of these (or, for that matter, believing any of their hype) is a mistake and is going to leave you disappointed. For now, let the critics sort them out and just forget about their (game-breaking) pre-order bonuses.

Now, Assassin's Creed is set up for reiteration and some others, like The Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight, have only drawn upon a fraction of their total lore, but it is clear that many of these sequels are only being made for the security of their namesake. Both The Legend of Zelda and Starfox for Wii U are pointless entries in an already protracted catalogue, for example. Sure, many gamers are (inexplicably) excited for these new games, but I find it highly unlikely that those gamers are really interested to see anything new in them. Remember Starfox Adventures? The one where Fox isn't in his Arwing for most of it? It was awful. So while more of the same thing isn't always bad (like with pie!) it leaves me altogether nonplussed.

And then there are games like Mass Effect 4 and Halo 5. Both original trilogies have ended and it's as though no one learned anything from Star Wars. A new beginning is the answer to a good ending, but apparently the heads over at Electronic Arts and Microsoft won't let a good thing go when it's over. And from a business man's perspective, their sunk costs in advertising the previous games will make the public more receptive to their next marketing campaign--so, why shouldn't they? 

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/271298-mass-effect-3-endings-reception

Because anything that climaxes has to then fall, which means things are wrapped up and the story should be ended. The story that Mass Effect promised to tell is over. The ending wasn't the best part, but that doesn't mean you can take it back and it doesn't mean that the story isn't over. All Bioware can do now is try to prolong the life of a dying franchise and hope that they can turn it into some kind of money-vomiting zombie like Call of Duty or the Sonic franchise. EA ought to let Mass Effect go and invest somewhere else, but I'm relatively certain that they won't. And, for that matter, Dragon Age didn't see much improvement the last time they made a sequel--so it's time for some new title all around.

And as for those poor souls at 343 Industries, I hope they've all come to terms with the fact that they'll be making Halo games until they quit, die, or more likely get fired. The sheer merchandising efforts poured onto Halo over the last few years is evident of a powerful company throwing its financial weight around: Books, Audiobooks, Action Figures, Animated Movies, Live-Action Movies, and Animated Movies That Look Like Live-Action Movies! The artists working on Halo have done wonders for growing the lore, but over the next decade or so that won't save the franchise from its doom. They can tell new stories until they're blue in the face, but they can't relight the fire that made Halo the exciting, new game franchise that it used to be. That means they are relegated to selling a simpler, less exciting product to an older, less exciting market.

If you can produce a game every 5 years for 30 years, then by the time you're done you'll have attracted the attention of at least one solid demographic. In theory, as that demographic ages, you can target your products to their age bracket and keep profiting. In reality, me at 5 years old was interested in entirely different games than I was at 15, and I can't imagine myself at 15 is going to have much in common with myself at 30. That's the problem with franchises like these, we tire of them after awhile. Call of Duty and EA's sports franchises are great examples of just how quickly a franchise can become tired if you release annually, and, likewise, are good examples of how to survive in that afterlife. Mario, the patron saint of long-lasting game franchises, has found that the best way to remain relevant is to innovate the game itself while leaving the established story on the liminal edge. Smash Brothers, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Paper Mario, Mario Galaxy--they all focus the players attention on the innovation to the gameplay itself and away from a rather unimportant narrative. This will not work for a franchise wherein the narrative is meant to drive the gameplay i.e. Halo, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fable, Gears of Wars, etcetera).  Their best chances at reiteration come from their multiplayer aspects, but nothing can cure the fact that you can't leave the story out of a game about a story. Halo has been tried as an RTS title to little success, and BioWare shelved their own Mass Effect FPS project before anyone got a good look at it. Fable Legends looks poised to try and change its skin with its new 4v1 play-style and some pre-fabricated character classes, but I hold little hope for this one to do anything important in the land of Albion (I did sign up for the multiplayer beta on their website, though).

But let's not focus on just the negatives. I don't think all is lost for these franchises if they can change the way their DLC packs are perceived by the gaming public. With a few notable exceptions, most of the DLC that I've played in my life has been underwhelming (i.e. Horse Armor). But this needn't be so; I've felt for years that if EA, for example, should support their sports titles with roster updates even after the newest iterations were released for a nominal fee? I'm more willing to buy a game that I can continue to use for two or three years at a time--much more willing than I am to buy one full game every four or five years. The point I'm making is this: I'd rather buy good DLC for an older game like, say, Mass Effect 2 than another entry in that series sans Shepard. I would rather be the Master Chief again than some colony-world bumpkin who idolizes him. I would rather have the titles I'm invested in supported than be asked to buy a new one. Selling new games is important too, but those should be new games instead of the high resolution reiterations that the industry is seeing over and over again.

 The lesson here is this: Let a good story be over once it has been told. It's better to trust a game company to make good, new games than trust an old franchise to hold everyone's attention.

/rant

http://fanboygaming.com/a-fangirl-weekly-discussion-dlc-worth-buying/

As for what else has been going on these last few weeks, I still think Smite is a great game that is well-supported and worth your time, but Elder Scrolls Online has been having a tough time vying for my attention lately. My brother recently went back to playing Rift after being disappointed by WildStar and I dabbled a bit when he asked me if I wanted to play too. However, to my surprise I found myself wanting to go back to a different universe--a galaxy far, far away in SWTOR. What I found there was EA up to its old tricks--adding gambling to an already addictive genre of game in what I can only assume is some depraved, cash-mad sociology experiment. I did get a cool chestpiece out of the deal, though.

I'll elaborate more on why EA is evil in another rant in the near future, but I would like to take the chance to mention their recent summer sale, which was something I hadn't expected from them. Typically, EA only sells their games for top-dollar, but a few weeks ago they put many of their games on sale for around 50% off. I snagged Titanfall and a PC version of the original Mass Effect, both of which I have been enjoying a great deal. It was Titanfall on sale that really shocked me. It's their newest big game, though I guess they have mostly been pushing it for Xbox One. I'll share more of my thoughts on the full game in a future post. In any case, their sale was likely an attempt to grab a little attention before the slurry of internet chatter began to focus exclusively and reverently on the Steam Summer Sale (going on now!). All in all a smart move from EA  to license some digital rights and a welcome opportunity for me to get some games I've wanted at a price nearer to their real value.

And before I sign off I should mention the Steam Summer Sale at least one more time. It's pretty great and all, but this year I'm just not seeing many games that I really want to buy. Even the super-cheap indie ones either don't appeal to me or I already own them. Still, there are a few days left and it only takes one super deal to make all the time and attention I've payed worth it (because the trading cards certainly aren't doing it for me).

Space Engineers

There's nothing wrong with loving space, so I'm going to follow up my post on Shattered Horizon with another on a game which I expected would be similar, Space Engineers. The game is still under development by Keen Software House, but is available for early access through Steam for the hefty sum of $19.99. Now, generally, such a price on something that isn't done yet would deter me, but after thoroughly enjoying the concept I found in Shattered Horizon, I was eager for a more satisfying game with the same "lost in space" feel to it. So, before doing any of the appropriate research, I bought Space Engineers. To say that I regret buying it and that the only good thing I'll be getting out of the game is this blog post might be too harsh so early on, but at the moment I'm a bit sensitive about getting someone's hopes up before they're utterly dashed.

And now that I've set your expectations as low as I can, let me expound on the good aspects of Space Engineers. It has multiplayer. You can swap between first- and third-person camera views. You can build things and then look at them. So, now that that is done...

The game manages to be reminiscent of Minecraft, Robocraft, Shattered Horizon, and Kerbal Space Program all at the same time. It refers to itself as a sandbox game about engineering, construction and maintenance, yet it is, in essence, merely game about blocks (at this stage in development). If you've played Minecraft in creative mode then you've played Space Engineers, except that this game is in space which apparently means you inevitably float away from whatever you are working on (Oh, and don't bump into things or those will float away, too!).

I do think there is a market for games like this one, but I am sure that I am not a part of that demographic. Minecraft is quite popular among some groups and to fans of that game I'd recommend taking a look at Space Engineers, but if you're like me then those games lose your interest astonishingly fast. Don't get me wrong, I like to build things, I used to play with Legos for hours, I found construction to be the best part of Robocraft, but this game feels aimless. The trouble is that I don't enjoy the building process. For one thing, it's infuriating just trying to stand still as you can never quite get your inertia back to zero. True, you can stand on a platform while you work for some stability, but then you move like an over-encumbered dragonborn. I understand that these things are part of a realistic space simulation, but Space Engineers is a block-building game (at the moment) that is only made more frustrating and less fun for all the realism in it. I'm supposed to be frolicking through my imagination, not struggling to get close (but not too close!) to the slab of bricks I built to take me back to the space station.

Still, Space Engineers isn't a game without hope, it's just a game that they shouldn't be selling yet. I'm hopeful for the engineering and maintenance aspects which I have yet to see added to the game, and I do believe there are gamers out there who would enjoy this game as it is more than I do. If Space Engineers can find that audience it stands a chance of entertaining some folks, but it would also be wise to avoid a more massive market unless the game has a good deal more to offer in regards to narrative and variety than is currently available.

Shattered Horizon

"Shattered Horizon" is a first-person zero-gravity space shooter by a Finnish software development company called Futuremark Studios. As a leading producer of computer benchmark software, one might expect that Futuremark's "Shattered Horizon" is a game designed for cutting-edge PCs but it seems that they've elected a safer, simpler approach to their game design.

Gameplay: The first hurdle the player faces in Shattered Horizon is the control scheme.  The game's tutorial consists of four images explaining the keybindings, the HUD, and the game modes, which altogether does little to prepare the player for the experience. It takes a game, maybe two, to adjust to the spinning and rotating which make this game special. Unfortunately, that is typically about as long as you'll be playing this game unless the number of players online picks up dramatically. Single player is simply a match versus bots and, since I have never seen another player playing online, the multiplayer mode is virtually identical. This might be related to the fact that there is no clear means of creating a multiplayer lobby. Beyond this, the game itself includes just five generic classes ranging from shotgunner to sniper.

The zero-gravity element, however, adds flavor to all of this blandness. Once you've learned to land, roll, lift-off, and boost the maps become playgrounds of skill and strategy. The first time I encountered an upside-down AI bot firing away I was convinced that the concept of this game was its strength. Not only is the zero-gravity element exciting and refreshing to a genre that is beyond stale at this point, it invites a gamer to imagine how awesome first-person zero-gravity games could be. The experience of this game is one that does not entirely serve the game because the best parts have nothing to do with the objectives. There is an undeniable joy and an immutable sense of freedom in jetpacking around structures in space which overshadows the combat-centric game modes. The fundamental flaw in Shattered Horizon is that winning the game asks the player to ignore the most enjoyable part of the game's experience--the atmosphere.

"There is an undeniable joy and an immutable sense of freedom in jetpacking around structures in space which overshadows the combat-centric game modes."

Visual Effects / Art Style: Shattered Horizon relies on the atmosphere it creates to deserve your playing time. To this end, it is important that the game's visuals serve both as interesting spectacles and entertaining battlegrounds. Satellites, shipping containers, and asteroids create an environment which is desolate, eerie and captivating. The cold silence of the final frontier can be felt best when the player deactivates their HUD (purportedly to make them harder to detect for enemy sensors) leaving them in the soundless vacuum of space. The environments themselves are highly satisfying and provide an engaging backdrop to the task at hand, but the backgrounds beyond are less adept at maintaining the ambiance as they tend to be mere star maps. As for the visual effects specifically, the HUD is hard to read and the maps are entirely static. It would be nice to have a chance to blow up a few things or start a fire here and there in order to make the environments a more engrossing place in which to play. As it is, the map textures are pleasing, but the game lacks a deeper attention to details.

"As it is, the map textures are pleasing, but the game lacks a deeper attention to details."

Sound Effects / Music: The most powerful sound in space is silence. The darkness is vast and bleak and the game should capitalize on the opportunity to make the player feel lonely. While deactivating the HUD and drifting near your team's spawnpoint demonstrates that Shattered Horizon is capable of this, the objectives and endless respawns of AI bots counter this effect a great deal. Given the space-faring concept of this game, it is subject to the principle of 'less is more',  and yet it seems the developers did not keep this well enough in mind. It's nice that deactivating the HUD gives the player that deep-space feeling, but the game's design makes this an unreasonable strategy. Between the gunfire and audio messages a great deal of the ambient satisfaction is lost, and that's a real shame in a game which has demonstrated that it is capable of it.

"Between the gunfire and audio messages a great deal of the ambient satisfaction is lost, and that's a real shame in a game which has demonstrated that it is capable of it."

Story and Narrative: I wish there was more to say here. The simple fact is that the majority of the story that Shattered Horizon provides comes in blurbs tucked away in loading screens. While long loads makes for ample time to peruse these tidbits, they do little more than explain the motives for each teams presence. The teams themselves aren't any different, so the games have nothing beyond a simple "red vs. blue" setup. I mentioned above that the game invites the player to imagine ways that the game's concept could be employed elsewhere, as in an FPS-RPG à la Mass Effect. In short, it feels like there is a lot of potential here that's being squandered by a tired game model.

Entertainment Value: There are a few things worth experiencing in Shattered Horizons. For one, there is the atmosphere that a zero-gravity first-person game creates. For another, there is the joy of exploring the space-scape, dodging behind asteroids and peeking over solar panels. And yet for all the promise held in the game's concept, the execution leaves much to be desired. They started with a great idea and they made that first idea work, but then they followed a formula for everything else. Couple that with empty multiplayer lobbies and you've got a dud on your hands. A pretty dud, mind you, but a waste of $9.99 all the same. If this were a F2P game, I'd say download it and experience the atmosphere, but instead you're better off waiting for a better developer to pick up the idea and do something worthwhile with it.

"...you're better off waiting for a bigger developer to pick up the idea and do something worthwhile with it."

Lastly, I've got a couple 3-day passes for the game. Leave a comment if you're interested!

New Post Format II

After some thought, I'd like to make a few tweaks to the way I focus my reviews. In some ways these changes take a new angle on the same essential ideas, while in other instances it will lead me to talk about games in more specific ways that I might have in the past. So, let's talk specifics:

Gameplay: Still my first category but no longer one I would consider "most important", Gameplay is where I'd like to discuss the way a player plays the game. This means the control schemes, the duration of play sessions, and how these things effect the "feel" of the experience. I intend to make this category shorter and more specific.

Visual Effects/Art Style: An adaptation of the "Graphics" category, Visual Effects and Art Style will still be about the visual experience of the game, but will include more specific discussions on the aesthetic qualities of particular facets of a game. I will focus on moving away from relative comparisons and into my thoughts on what the visual component adds to the game.

Sound Effects/Music: In my previous posts, I have found a tendency to emphasize the necessity of effective in-game sounds. I hope that bringing greater specificity to this review category will bring new insights into good game design and a better guide to how a game creates atmosphere.

Story and Narrative: To my chagrin, many of the games I pick up lack well-developed stories. This is a serious problem among free-to-play games (which I review most frequently) that typically sets them apart from bigger, triple-A titles, but rather than using this category to grind that axe, I hope to focus more on constructive criticisms pertaining to how a game's narrative could be further developed.

Entertainment Value: An adaptation of the "Value" category which also borrows from what was cut from the  old "Gameplay" category, Entertainment Value is where I'll discuss a game's value-for-dollar as well as the impact of the experience. Games cost time, money, and attention in order to provide an entertaining experience.

Previously, in the "Value" category, I had intended to discuss the artistic contribution a game made to the whole industry, but the nature of much of what I am able to review makes this largely unnecessary. I don't mean to say that F2P games don't contribute to the art of video games, but I have seldom found it to be a highly relevant factor to recommending a game. If a game has artistic merit, then I would expect that merit to make a contribution to the way a game entertains the player and it will still be considered in the "Entertainment Value" category.

The next post I have planned is about a game called Shattered Horizons. I will be giving this scheme its first run there, and also plan to include a gameplay video. Look forward to it!

ESO Launch and First Impressions

The Elder Scrolls Online officially launched on April 4th, but I've been playing since March 31st with 5-day early access. My initial impressions were positive: I saw a great many players roaming Tamriel with their pre-order bonus vanity pets and Imperial Horse mounts. Last minute changes to the starting zones were frustrating to some story-centric players, but as someone who participated in several beta tests I found the opportunity to skip ahead of much of what I had already experienced to be a pleasant surprise. All in all the launch for both the 5-day and the 3-day early access went very smoothly.

With the true launch of the game on April 4th, some new problems came up. While the game itself is far from bug-free, the bigger troubles came from policies and systems external to the game. With the end of the early access periods and the beginning of subscription-based play-time, players were required to use their 30-day pass (included with the game) as a sort of registration key before they were prompted to select a subscription plan. The failure or inability to do either of these things meant being locked out of the game. This frustrated players who wanted to use their 30 days before deciding whether to subscribe for longer, but more egregiously those who had not received their codes were left helpless. In response to this, a grace period for submitting the code was extended through part of Sunday.The problem was that deliveries aren't made on Sundays, so some players were unable to play the game until their codes were delivered on Monday. This is what happened to me and, as someone who paid for the Physical Imperial Edition (the expensive one), it was disappointing to not be treated as a valued customer.

But when I think about judging a game's launch, what is happening in the game is far more important. If I'm delayed a few hours for some server downtime or a day for a delivery to be made, I would still be more frustrated by the game itself not working for me. In that respect, bugs are still popping up in spite of the lengthy beta testing phase and relogging to fix small glitches is disruptive to the experience. If the Elder Scrolls universe was not one which I loved, I would feel more inclined to recommend it to MMO players. As it is now, I would say the game better serves Elder Scrolls fans as the atmosphere is true to the game's predecessors and knowledge of the world-lore adds depth in the world which is otherwise easily skipped over. It might be more effective if ESO served as a bridge for MMO players into the Elder Scrolls universe enabling the Elder Scrolls fandom to grow, but the opposite is true and I see ESO bringing Elder Scrolls fans towards the bewildering landscape that is MMO gaming in this Free-to-Play, Pay-to-Win era.

Speaking as an Elder Scrolls fan, what I want most from ESO is for it to bring on an expansion of the franchise, not just internally through the game's lore, but externally as well as the fandom grows and more people take notice and take an interest in the game.

To that end, I'm already finding amazing things. For example, ShoddyCast, a YouTube channel, has been publishing an Elder Scrolls Lore Series:



And there are a lot more things coming from ESO, like these gamplay walkthroughs from YouTube channel IFreeMZ:



In my opinion, though, one of the best things coming from ESO are these trailers from Bethesda Softworks themselves:


Overall, ESO's launch certainly hasn't been perfect, but they have avoided some of the bigger pitfalls that other games have fallen victim to (like entirely halting digital sales of the game, FFXIV). The game itself is satisfying to Elder Scrolls fans like myself, and as long as we keep talking about it the game's popularity is sure to grow. The game needs to continue to grow as well, in patching up its bugs and glitches and in providing players more and more story to delve into. We are adventurers, after all, and we're going to need a steady supply of mysterious dungeons, caves, and keeps to hold our interest.

Smite's Official Release!

Today, Smite is officially out of its beta testing phase! This game is one which I have posted about multiple times in the past, and a game which I play almost every day. Most of the changes the game has seen over the last few months have brought it closer to a League of Legends clone, and yet, while that's not typically a compliment, I believe it has helped guide this game. Even their new cinematic teaser (below) is reminiscent of LoL's trailers in style and mood.

Recent changes to the item store in particular have made this game feel even more like League of Legends. LoL's popularity has been growing and the realm of e-sports has been growing around it, so hitching their wagon to LoL's train isn't a bad strategy. Still, it is becoming more difficult to describe Smite in its own terms. If the abilities become known by their LoL counterpart, and gods which should feel unique become amalgamations of LoL's champions (who are themselves amalgamations of DotA characters), then it becomes difficult to bring new players into the game--something I dearly hope for.

They're newest addition to their roster of gods, Ullr, doesn't add much to the game creatively. While I'm interested to explore his strengths and weaknesses, I would hope that future god releases include characters with a little more imagination in their abilities. It does compensate, somewhat, that his skin, "Strider", makes reference to  J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", but I would prefer that the skin itself was more than just a change of color. The other skin they added recently, Dark Lord Sun Wukong, is clearly "inspired" by Star Wars, and if they're willing to run the risk of copyright infringement, why not an Assassin's Creed "inspired" skin for Ullr?

Now, before Hi-Rez has a chance to make major changes to their game again, I would like to share a quick gameplay video I recorded a few days ago. This match was over after only about 10 minutes, but most matches are between 15 and 25. The gametype is Assault (ARAM) and I play as Ra, a relatively basic god and one of the several available to new players for free. More than anything, though, my goal here was to give you some idea of what this game is like and, at the very least, this video can accomplish that.

If you haven't heard of Smite before or would like to give the game a try, check out it's page here

The Feel of the Game: War of the Roses vs. Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

Last night, I got to thinking about how "feeling" makes a game into what it is moreso than the mere facts of its description. To illustrate this, I present the examples of War of the Roses and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. These are two games which look very similar on the outside, but feel quite different to the player playing them. While WotR feels rooted in history, Chivalry is really all about the action.

On it's Steam store page, Chivalry is described as "a fast-paced medieval first-person slasher with a focus on multiplayer battles" and it's most popular user-defined tags are "Medieval", "Multiplayer", "Action", "Melee" and "Gore".

User-defined tags for War of the Roses are very similar: "Action", "Free to Play", "Medieval", and "Multiplayer". But the game's description is less focused on describing the gameplay than it is on the historical aspects: "Battle online with up to 64 players through 7 historically inspired war zones as you experience the conflict between Lancaster & York first hand!"

But trying to describe their differences is inherently difficult. In both games you take on the role of a soldier. In both you choose between a variety of weapons, whether long-ranged or close, heavy or light. And in both games your ultimate goal is to slaughter the other team with superior skill and tactics. Getting more specific, both games ask the player to rely heavily on timing blocks and attacks, both try to inspire the player to see the match as a battle in a much larger war and world, and both use similar control and camera schemes. But the games become different as soon as you actually play them--once you actually feel them.

So, let me show you what I'm talking about.  Below are two videos of me playing each game. In Chivalry, there is a sense that buffoonery and ridiculous ideas have a place. It is more light-hearted than WotR, wherein a serious sense of historical accuracy is made dominant. Both games feature a wider variety of game types and weapons than I can demonstrate here, so my goal is to focus on what it is like to play an average match rather than explore the potential depth of the experiences.

What cannot be imparted through video or words is the way a game responds to the players inputs. This is an important part of the feel of a game, but short of putting the game in your hands it is not something I can show you. How well you are able to control a game makes a significant contribution to how you feel while playing it--are you in control or out of control?

What you are able to see in these videos is how pace and style develop the atmosphere, community, and sensations of these games. While WotR is slow and serious, Chivalry is fast and frenetic, and yet both games are trying to accomplish the same thing--an enjoyable, medieval experience.

In parting, I would be remiss not to mention "War of the Vikings", the next game from Fatshark and spiritual successor to WotR. I had a chance to play the game in its alpha-stage and, while avoiding saying anything specific, the game does a better job of accomplishing what it sets out to do. It has more in common with Chivalry in ways that don't make it unlike WotR and I feel that it will represent a step forward.

Twitch, eSports, and Orion: Dino Horde

Twitch.tv, an internet streaming service, isn't the only site on the net for streaming games, but it is quickly becoming the most popular. Through a Twitch account, users can stream live video onto the site for anyone to see. Streams can also be recorded and re-watched later. Similar to the "Let's Play..." style videos on YouTube, Twitch's service is providing a platform for players to connect, communicate, and learn from one another. But beyond this, the service enables gamers to watch their favorite e-sports in much the same way as they watch more traditional sports. In short, gaming livestreams are making e-sports more accessible and that enables them to grow.

Previously, Major League Gaming (www.majorleaguegaming.com) was the place for watching live streams of big-money gaming tournaments. But this limited fans to only popular franchises like Halo, Call of Duty, and Starcraft, while less popular gaming communities were left out. The rise of Twitch and similar services is an opportunity for the gaming industry in many ways, and I'm hopeful for the changes that are coming.

Currently, Twitch is streaming content from League of Legends, Dota 2, Starcraft 2, which are games you could have found elsewhere, but they are also streaming games like Diablo 3, Minecraft, DayZ, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and Super Smash Bros. which would have been much harder to find in the past.

In my own experience, streaming to Twitch has been difficult for online games. I wanted to stream some Smite, but the lag I experience while doing so makes the game unplayable. In concession, I went to find another game I could stream and share my thoughts on. So, here it is, in all of its anachronistic glory, Orion: Dino Horde!

Watch live video from zzSandman on TwitchTV

Loadout

Loadout is a new free-to-play, over-the-top, third-person action shooter. In addition to being a magnet for compound adjectives, Loadout is being touted on the virtues of its in-game customizablity. The game's developers, a company called Edge of Reality, have been in the game industry for over a decade, but this game isn't like most of the work they have done in the past.

Gameplay: Loadout doesn't innovate. You've played it's gametypes, you've fired it's weapons, and you've traversed it's maps. If I was going to forgive that, I'd say so about now, but I'm not. The biggest problem with Loadout is that it fails to stand out and try new ideas. When I think about the gameplay I'm reminded of another F2P game from last year called Renaissance Heroes that closed down last December. The games had a lot in common in terms of how they feel to play, and that was enough to keep me entertained for at least a few weeks. What sank Renaissance Heroes, in my opinion, was the exorbitant costs of the "micro" transactions. Loadout shouldn't have this same problem, but the fact remains that the gameplay has been tried and has failed.

If the customization options were truly deep, or if there was really much of an option at all, there would be more to say for this game. While the options are there for higher level or premium players, for most the game doesn't live up to its promise. Between a tech tree for new weapon options and experience points to spend upgrading and customizing your loadouts, the game has a capacity for depth that isn't realized until days and hours have already been sunk into playing it. The customization options should bemore readily accessible to new players if that's what this game is going to seel itself on. Without something special, without something to tell your friends about, Loadout doesn't stand a chance against the superior gameplay of its competitors. 7/10

Graphics: The graphical style of the game (reminiscent of Borderlands' "concept art style") is supposed contribute to that "over-the-top" sensation. Effectively, I've seen few players with the premium items and so much of the game looks repetitive. The maps are nice, but nothing special, and, while the projectiles are okay, the explosions don't make much of a visual impact. The animations are good and the way that damage shows on your character is downright admirable--easily one of the best parts of the game. 7/10

Sound: Loadout doesn't fail to utilize sound, but it does fall short of gaining anything form it. The clips of music and the beeping response you hear when you get a hit are effective at giving feedback, but they fail to add much to the experience. Sound hasn't been ignored in this game, but it has again failed to innovate in any way. 7/10

Value: As a free-to-play game, value is usually an easy win. Something for nothing is always worth it, and in Loadout you won't be overwhelmed by pay-to-win players (there just aren't very many of them). The premium currency reasonably priced, unlike it was in Renaissance Heroes, the F2P game I mentioned above, where a new weapon cost around $20. Moreover, daily rewards offer a chance at unlocking some of those premium items for free which is great. 8/10

Playing Time: Daily rewards area  great way to get players into a game day after day, but once you've gotten it there is little reason to stick around. For me, Loadout is a game I'll play for two or three matches (fifteen or twenty minutes) before I move on to something I enjoy more. I play a couple of matches, spend my experience, and move on. This is a game I'll play for a few weeks, and when I find something else I'll move on. While a game like SolForge has kept me playing with it's dailies, Loadout doesn't lend itself to quick sessions quite as well. All in all, I'll be done with this game before I really get a chance to enjoy it's customization options. 5/10

Overall: I'm not impressed with Loadout. The game is fun, but lacks anything to keep me hooked or to tell my friends about. There are no cool gimmicks or refined systems. It is too easily put down and too easily forgotten. I'm disappointed that I didn't have more customization options available to me at the start, and I feel that to be the first and foremost failure of the game. 68/100 F

Titanfall Beta Impressions

I was lucky enough to have the chance to play in Titanfall's multiplayer beta test this past weekend. The game's developers, Respawn Entertainment,are up against high expectations with their first game. The game studio formed in 2010 after Infinity Ward (makers of Call of Duty) fired Jason West and Vince Zampella (one of the Infinity's co-founders) for "breach of contract and insubordination".  Following the age-old playground tradition, Zampella and West started their own game--that's Titanfall, a game with a chip on its shoulder.

If you were doin' the Duty before it was just "cod", you know that the folks at Infinity Ward have had some pretty great ideas over the years. Besides being the "The Spiritual Successor to Call of Duty", Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall is an FPS made of equal parts speed and high-explosive. That's a recipe for disaster if the game isn't balanced, but, from what I've played, Titanfall is expertly balanced.

I had a great time playing the game. Multiplayer was exciting, challenging, and everything else a triple-A FPS title should be.  6v6 matches were just right for the maps and kept spawning players away from danger but never too far from action. AI-controlled "grunts" are absolutely a revelation to a genre which has stagnated as big names like Call of Duty and Battlefield begin to feel like are being manufactured on an assembly line. The constant presence of enemy targets keeps snipers sniping and CQB ninjas checking their corners.Their impact in the game has less to do with points and more to do with the experience of playing the game. Pointjockeys will still be better off hunting Titans than peppering the cannon fodder, but a players won't be able to ignore them, either.

Whether on foot or in a Titan, the matches maintained a sense of pace. Messages popping in from tacticians as well as chatter from the grunts filled the environments with a sense of purpose and kept up the pressure. Beyond filling the maps with action, AI grunts provide a thrilling contrast to real players, who in turn feel more like formidable opponents in a single-player mission. And, overall, the battles can feel like they are  on a large scale like in Battlefield 4 or Planetside 2 but with fewer players and on much smaller maps.

Besides the AI component, Titanfall's matches feel more like real battles because they have an ending. An epilogue sequence after the final points are scored brings closure to each match in addition to providing the opportunity to finish that last kill or rack some extra experience points. The effect that these additions have on making the multiplayer feel more like a narrative is astonishing. Titanfall is the best game I have played at making me feel like both  the single and multiplayer components belong in the story.

But there are still things keeping me from buying this game. For one thing, it's published by EA and will be played (on PC) through Origin. I really do not like the way EA behaves in the gaming industry, so giving them more of my money is something I try to avoid whenever I can. Still, the game looks and feels like a $60 game and I will have a hard time not buying it. 

Personal grudges aside, Titanfall is something of a fusion between Star Wars Battlefront and Call of Duty, but with much more from Call of Duty. Calling in Titans makes you tough and a tough-target for everyone on the battlefield, and I was reminded of spawning as a Jedi in Star Wars Battlefront, but the game looks like Call of Duty in so many ways. The menus, the challenges,  and the loadouts are all distinctly reminiscent of CoD, and I spent a good deal of time with them as there was more than a minute of waiting time between each match. I do feel that having a lengthy break after each match contributed to longer playing sessions, but it also gave me plenty of time to get distracted. 

There are still two things I want to hear about this game before I'm sold on it. One, that the single-player story is significant and worthwhile and, two, that the game has a powerful soundtrack. I realize that soundtracks aren't usually selling points on games in this generation, but, from what I've played so far, I feel it would be an unjustified shame if Titanfall didn't have some incredible music to accompany its stunning visuals--there's just something so evocative about a huge, flaming mech...

Finally, here's a great video from Rev3Games including Adam Sessler, Vince Zampella, and some gameplay video. It gets particularly good around 10 minutes in.