Attack Of The Knack

I decided to take a step back from Destinythis week; not that it isn't the only thing I've been playing recently. I really had a hankering to play some co-op Knack, so I thought this would be my best opportunity to talk about this PS4 launch title.

When the PS4 launched, I had saved up quite a bit of cash and ended up with 4-5 launch titles; easily the most I've ever had at launch. Surprisingly enough, Knack was actually the game I put the most time into—that's right, not Killzone or Battlefield 4, but Knack. It was a cute little action-platformer from the brain child that brought us the original Crash Bandicoot, so why wouldn't it be fun? And let me tell you, fun it was!

Knack, unfortunately, got horribly unfavorable reviews when it was released—The Metacritic is currently sitting at 54, which considering this isn't school means the game is rather mediocre—and because of this, I feel as though many people over looked it, when in reality it was an entertaining experience. Many of the complaints stemmed from a lack of variety in the combat, something which I wholeheartedly disagree with. In terms of Knacks abilities, yes, he has his basic combo and not too much else...But what do you expect? This isn’t Ninja Gaiden or God of War. This is something in line with Crash Bandicoot. The reason I disagree with other peoples' “lack of variety” comment is because the enemies are what bring the variety. There was a large cast of enemies, and even when they started repeating, they always threw different combinations of enemies at you forcing you to approach each situation differently.

My ranting aside, I also played this game to 100% completion: That is to say I did not just beat the game, but also got a platinum trophy for it. At the time I was streaming games and Knack brought in the views so I kept playing it. On the road to the platinum, I beat Knack about 4 times, give or take (can't really remember) and considering this was a platformer, the game had some length to it. Normally you would expect something like 6-10 hours on a first go, but the fact that it clocked in around 12-15 was rather surprising. Of course around my 3rd and 4th time beating the game, I was able to complete it in about 6-7 hours since I was so familiar with it.

Graphically, the game might not have pushed the PS4 to its limits—no launch title ever does—but the models were crisp and clean. Personally I thought they were fantastic. They were highly stylized and it reminded me of a Pixar movie. What did push the system, and the reason they claimed Knack could not have been made on the PS3, were the visual effects. The main character was essentially one gigantic physics simulation, and when he used special moves, all the little pieces he was made out of went ballistic. It was a wonder to see.

Boosting this game even further is the fact that you can play it with 2 players. Originally I touched upon this briefly with a few friends just to test it out. It was fun and it makes Knack a lot more manageable on the harder difficulties (not that it was overly difficult for me, but some people online complained about the difficulty). If you have someone that doesn't normally play video games, 2-player Knack is definitely something to help them get started.

At the time when I was streaming this, everyone would come into the stream and ask me if Knack was worth a purchase. My reply was and still is: Yes! but not at the price it was at launch. Fortunately when I bought it, I had a coupon for EB games that saved me 20 bucks. So instead of paying $60 for it, I only had to dish out $40—math! At$40 Knack is very much worth it. The game is fun, challenging and has a lengthy campaign with great visuals that you can enjoy with a friend. Personally I think anyone that owns a PS4 should at least try it out. Borrow it from a friend, I don't care. It's worth the time!

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My fate Is My Own, Sort Of

As of late, I've found myself truly needing to play within a fantasy world setting. I'm not all too sure whether it's because I miss HBO's Game of Thrones or my affinity with Dota2, but I went and tracked down a copy of a game that's been highly recommend to me. Enter the world of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a single-player adventure akin to Skyrimand the forgotten-realms universe. Allow me to unravel the threads of fate that I weaved from my character's experience and simply bring light to a game you probably never heard of.

As you may have guessed it, the game revolves around the idea of fate. After initiating the game with an interesting character creation, you awaken form a pile of corpses that you were once a part of. Ultimately, your fate has been re-written and it is now your task to do as you please in the world and continue to weave those threads.  Super interesting concept and the fact that this tale is written by R.A Salvatore (one of my favorite authors, creator of Drizzt) you would expect it to be absolutely fantastic. The issue is that it's not all that groundbreaking. Within the first 10 hours of the game, I found myself playing the hero and running errands for the entire world and their grand-mothers.  The question is: why? Because I was simply there? They give you the option to attack any denizen of the cities, but again, why? I saw no purpose in exploring any of the options provided because they simply made no sense.

By the same token, the fate concept makes way for one of the best aspects of the game: the class/role system.  Ever want to be a mage who uses swords? Maybe a Knight who uses daggers? Skyrim did all that? Well they never officially named those classes did they? Yeah, it's nothing new but it's a lot of fun to explore and discover. There's only a handful to begin with but, once you start to dump your experience points into it and unlock the higher tiers, it becomes exhilarating. What I really enjoyed about it was how it actually affected your combat. The combat itself is wonderful; nice and smooth but once you tack on giant hammers and spells you've unlocked from the class trees, it too becomes memorable. Something that should be mentioned about the combat is that it's time based. Instead of crippling your fingers with button combinations, you simply tap your attack trigger in a different timely fashion to result in varied ways to dismember your opponents.

Meanwhile, the game itself offers everything you would expect from titles of this genre. There's tons of loot to be had, mystical creatures to slay and quest givers who's intentions are questioned. However, the world still feels unbelievable. There's something that doesn't allow me to believe that this universe exists. The forgotten realms universe, although vast and broad, is believable and perhaps this game should have been set in it. That being said, I can't figure out why I simply can't care about what fate has for all the citizens and creatures inhabiting the decently sized map. Similarly, the dialogue is rather dull and aggravating. The voice acting itself is fine, it's simply the sequence. The moment you trigger a conversation with an NPC, you enter a weird locked camera mode that tends to blot out the NPC or you. In addition, you have the opinion of speaking with all NPCs about relevant topics such as their town, a specific race or faction, etc. I attempted to hear everyone voice their opinion but it was so tedious and boring. None of it is really important and the fact that your avatar is mute doesn't help.

All in all, with the short amount of time I've invested into the game, I've enjoyed it. Sure, the world is kind of boring but there’s just enough intrigue sprinkled into it that it allows you to persevere. The combat itself should be reason enough to check it out. GIANT HAMMERS, I'm telling you, they’re super sweet.  It's a dorky game with a dorky premise but there's good fun to be had.  Sure the graphics aren't the best and my ps3 has some issues with the sound but it's a good trek. I give the game seven thumbs up out of ten with the potential to go up. I was promised an interesting set of side missions so here I go to weave my fate yet again.......after a couple hours of Disney Infinity 2.0.....yeah.....

GIANT HAMMERS!!!!111!11

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That’s All Folks: My Thoughts On Completing Video Game

After spending the little time I did with Legendof Dungeon last week, I decided it was best to return to, and hopefully finish with, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. Not that the game is bad, mind you. It’s a decidedly engaging dungeon crawler with a tempered encounter rate, unique common foes, challenging bosses, etc. In other words, it’s difficult and variable enough to warrant my focus and energies.

Psychologically, deciding to finish any form of entertainment endeavour is always a herculean task for me. Not that I don’t enjoy finishing games; more, I often negatively stigmatize my remaining hours with an IP to the point where I no longer enjoy it. What results are feelings of apathy, apprehension and excitement, all mangled together into an intolerable anxiety, which plagues me as I mindlessly approach encounter after encounter leading to the grand finale, and the eventual ending cinematic—which is often very cathartic.

For instance, the last three-four hours of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter felt excruciating. Much of the time was spent felling foes far too strong to simply strong-arm my way to victory. They demanded strategy and foresight which I didn’t want to devote to defeating them. I became weary to the point of almost stopping. But I mustered on, and eventually began a gauntlet of 5 near back-to-back boss encounters.

Upon finally defeating the last boss, I felt the excitement that comes with being unshackled from a weighted and dissatisfying obligation. But what is it about endings that force me to consistently devolve into an irrational fit?

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one

Much of this dissonance, I feel, is rooted more deeply in a general disinterest in finishing with any entertainment medium more generally, including TV shows and books. As I’ve mentioned before to Adam, I don’t feel that many endings are simply worth the energy to see through. They often feel inorganic, stiff and unoriginal.

I tend to prefer endings which suggest an ongoing existence of the fictional characters portrayed in a story. For this emotional resonance to exist however, much work must go into properly establishing a historical past and present, so that a hypothetical future can be envisioned organically.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is not one of these games, sadly. Characterization is severely lacking, and much of the game’s world is hidden behind an intuitive new game plus feature. What I’m left with on my first play through is very little emotional payoff, and thus a great deal of apprehension toward finishing the game in the first place.

Fin

Ultimately, I’m glad I played Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, and would highly recommend it to most RPG-enthusiasts. My gripes with the late-game are more a general malady I contract whenever I recognize a game’s ending in sight. More generally, it is the recognition that something I’ve invested time into will have its value weighted, calculated and determined. I often find that intellectualizing this process is a taxing experience. Thankfully, much of the time leading up to this ending often outweighs its final moments. Thankfully still that I’ve developed this confusingly psychological manner of thinking. As a consequence, I was actually able to enjoy Mass Effect 3’s pre-patched ending! How’s that for a Hollywood ending, internet.

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My Beginnings As A Gamer - Part 2‏

Asmentioned last week, as a kid I owned a Sega Genesis, but only had 3 games. Of course I rented a few, but the ones I owned made great memories. Today, in this 3-part post, I'll talk about Virtual Bart.

By definition, "great" doesn't necessarily mean good. By that I mean Virtual Bart was great in being horrible at game mechanics. As a kid, you’d just buy your games off cover art, and everyone was a fan of The Simpsons, so I figured, why not? And boy was I greatly disappointed.

The game presents itself as a set of minigames, 6 of them if I recall. Each is horrible in its own right, so I commend the developer in finding different ways of making bad minigames. The game starts off with Bart going to the school’s Science Fair and getting trapped in some spinning wheel contraption, which ends up being a random stage selection. The wheel spins randomly and chooses a minigame for you. Not having the choice already makes me angry.

Jurassic Bart

This was probably the best minigame out of the 6. Bart turns into some kinda dinosaur and your job is to get him out of the level safely. I never beat this one, but I had more fun with it than the other 5. The jump mechanics are poor and Dino Bart ends up sliding around the level. I mostly ended up dying from attacks from other dinosaurs. For some reason Lisa and Maggie are seen, in human form, throwing crap at you. I never understood why, but I hated them even more.

SpiderPig

In this minigame, Bart is now a pig. It’s pretty much exactly the same as the dinosaur level, with a different setting. I think it’s even worse, because pigs aren’t as cool as dinosaurs.

Baby on Board

Bart’s a baby. He jumps even more poorly than in the dinosaur level. You swing on branches and then end up at a carnival. Basically, you have to time and land every jump perfectly. This was easily the most tedious of the 6, and I hated getting stuck with this one. 

Tomacco

Bart basically has a sack of tomatoes, and he’s throwing them at school kids. You select where you throw and aim for someone. The point of the game is to hit everyone except Principal Skinner and maybe a few of the teachers (my memory here is hazy). The problem here is you can’t really tell if your aim will be on target because you can’t choose your distance accurately. Bart is standing, hidden behind a mailbox, and as such, he doesn’t move. This is fine, but what’s horrible is that you can’t determine the angle you throw at, only the distance (the yellow line you see in the pavement in the above image scrolls up and down to determine distance, but not angle).

Hell’s Satans

I guess this is a Road Rash clone. Bart drives a motorcycle and picks up fuel while defending himself from Jimbo and Kearney, as well as buses. I never finished the level because I found the controls too annoying.

Mount Splashmore

Bart goes on a deadly waterslide and you have to avoid people and traps. Again, the controls weren’t tight and the waterslide splits into different paths. Take the wrong path and you’ll either end up dead or the time will run out.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I was disappointed with this game as a kid, which doesn’t say much because most kids wouldn’t fault the mechanics, but rather assume they’re not adept enough to beat the game. I knew the truth because I’ve played through that irksome Battletoads level and lived. Virtual Bart was and still is a giant piece of garbage.

All was okay though, since the 3^rd and last game I owned was the saving grace for my time with the Sega Genesis. 

Till next week.

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Loading Destiny

I sunk my teeth into Destinya bit more this week. Probably put in another 6-7 hours. I was able to beat the "single player" campaign and did some grinding as well, if you can even call what I did grinding. At this point I feel as though I've experienced enough of Destiny to talk about it, although at the same time I've only scratched the surface of the late-game content.

Destiny Awaits

Currently I sit at level 20 which is the soft cap. I say soft cap because you are able to get to a level past 20 but not by any conventional means—you know, with experience. Instead what you have to do is find equipment that has a special attribute on it called light. It is this light that will level you past 20. It's an interesting idea for sure and I don't remember it being used in any other game before. But, it isn't without its faults. Destiny basically forces people to grind for equipment once they hit level 20. I have yet to take part in any real grinding since someone recommended that I focus my efforts in another way. But essentially the way to grind in Destiny is by focusing on kills per minute. Since each enemy has a drop rate for loot and the game ignores an enemy's level, enemies will drop equipment for your level instead—which is awesome by the way—so you can grind anywhere you like, be it against strong or weak enemies.

Now what got recommended to me was to focus on daily and weekly events. Doing these missions is not only more active and entertaining for the player, but I also gain money and I can work towards my bounties, which are these passive missions—like headshot killing 100 enemies, or melee kill 30 enemies without dying—that give you experience and faction points, the latter of which can be used to buy sweet ass equipment for level 20+ characters.

So to get to level 20 I went through the story, which is negligible at best. I can easily say I did not pay much attention to it, and maybe not because it was bad per say, but because it fell into the MMO trope, at least for me. The moment I start playing a game with a friend (or even when I was streaming games) I get too focused on the co-op / talking with people that I hardly ever pay attention to the narrative. The same exact thing happened in Halo. I never played Halo alone and to this day I could not tell you what the story was about other than you gotta go kill aliens before they wipe you out...which spoiler alert: That's more or less the gist of it in Destiny.

The missions are enjoyable at least, and the environments—Earth, the Moon, Venus and Mars—are all unique looking and are host to different enemies and factions. The smaller 2-3 person raids in each zone are like longer missions with big ass bosses at the end. They're pretty cool, but unless you're a higher level, I would suggest going in with 3 people versus 2. The larger 6 man raid is only available to people that are at least level 25, so I have yet to try it, but it's supposed to be fantastic.

A few things do bug me about Destiny though. The load times are atrocious, and I really do mean atrocious. This is like first Mass Effect elevator bad. But whatever, it won't kill me. It's a fairly minor point that won't stop anyone from buying or playing the game, but it does get in the way everywhere.

Another thing is the public events. After completing a couple of missions at each location, you get the ability to do a patrol around the map. On patrol, you can pick up inconsequential side missions that don't take too long to complete, and on occasion a public event will occur. A public event is like a mission everyone can take part in together, and they just appear on the map. They usually consist of destroying a large boss character, or defending a point from a barrage of enemies. If you've played any MMO recently, they are all starting to do this. Guild Wars 2 was one of the first games I played with public events in it and it's quite a bit of fun...you know, when there are actually people in the zone helping! The first public event I took part in, there was a ton of people joining in. It was super cool and I had a lot of fun. Every other time one appears on a map, I'm apparently the only person around to do it. It's possible to finish with a gold rating on your own, but holy shit is it hard! One of the reasons for this might be that there is a cap on how many people are in a patrol instance at any given time, and if memory serves, it's not a very large number (8-12 people I think but don't hold me to that). It's just not enough.

Final Thoughts

All-in-all I'm enjoying my time with Destiny. I love playing online with my friends, and I really want to hit level 25 to try out that large scale raid. Tune in for more next week!

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Battleborn, More Like BattleAWESOME

Through the years, gamers are exposed to a slew of game producers who release titles that just may tickle your fancy. Some of these titles infatuate us so much that we find ourselves absolutely obsessed with them. Once the producer of said awesome game follows up with an equally awesome sequel then we come across, what I like to call, the team bias. Team bias is when you will eat up just about everything a production team will spoon feed you because you're convinced that they're the best. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong; in the case of GearBox and Battleborn, you're absolutely right!

Just to get this out of the way, I am all kinds of crazy hyped for this game. Gearbox have left their mark on the world with their fantastic Borderlands series. I've played countless hours of those titles and considering that they're putting the same kind of personality into a MOBA game results in me being more than enthused. That being said, there isn't too much information released yet on Battlebornbut, everything that is sounds incredibly promising. Like I expressed, it's a GearBox original, how can it possibly be bad?

Nevertheless, this week brought forth a couple of video previews allowing us to gaze at the intensity that is Battleborn. When I first heard that it was going to be a MOBA with a first-person perspective, I was really baffled. As a fairly new player to DOTA 2, I figured the whole genre was played the same way but watching it in action, whoa, excellent! It truly looks and feels like borderlands but in a more controlled environments framed by lanes and towers. There's a campaign mode that's available and allows you to play cooperatively, as well as the standard competitive multiplayer. The trailers also allowed us a peak into the narrative. So far, we know that all the stars in the universe have darkened except for one. The different races have retreated from their home worlds and find themselves together on this last planet struggling to survive. Nothing crazy, in fact it's a standard general storyline but considering their record, GearBox is sure to make it entertaining enough.

In contrast, the character information that has been revealed is pretty entertaining. We now know that there are a number of factions that your character originates from. The Peacekeepersare a law-bound people who enforce regulations in a strict manner. The Eldrid are lovers of nature and the natural order of things. The Jennerit Empire are your born-to-war conquerors. The Rogues are simply "factionless" characters and the Last Light Consortium are profiteers who sells arms to all factions. The characters revealed were some of the most unique designs I have seen in a long while. Montana is a giant soldier who wields a Gatling-gun but has an itty-bitty head. Miko is some fungi ninja, who turns out to be of the fairer sex. Marquis, my personal favorite, is quite a dapper android fellow, complete with rifle and monocle. There are tons of other characters to discover and many more that haven't even been revealed yet. Much like the Borderlands games, they present a lively, colorful and wild array of characters. The designs alone intrigued me enough to look into the game further.

Sadly, not much else has been revealed but the gameplay looks solid and with the standard M.O.B.A. setup of having to regain levels every time you play is an interesting mechanic for an fps. We know that there are two sets of trees that allow you to experiment with your characters. We also know that each character has a special move of sorts that is unlocked around level 6 or 7. There also seems to be some objective-based missions but nothing is too clear at the moment. Regardless, I, for one, am incredibly stoked for this game. In any case, what do you all think? Will this be as popular as Borderlands or DOTA? Looking forward to seeing any and all of you online upon launch. Toodles.

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Hide and Seek LOL

I’ve been playing League of Legends for about 4 years now but I’ve never been a huge fan of the ranked system; so when I hit level 30, it never gave me much endgame content or satisfaction until I discovered the player created custom game types and the wacky crazy fun that they offer. There are a bunch of different game types and this week I’m gonna talk about one of the more common ones: Hide and Seek. I'll give you a brief summary of the rules, and some strategies that are useful.

This game is always played on Crystal Scar, in Draft Mode. The blue team plays the hunters and receives first pick; purple side plays the hiders and will get the counter-picks. The objective of the game is to hide and seek obviously, and killing the hunters is pretty frowned upon. Hiders get 5 lives and the game lasts 40 minutes. The map objectives are off limits and capturing one means the game is over and the team at fault automatically loses. The game is won when all the hiders run out of lives, or if forty minutes pass without the seekers having killed all hiders. There are a few smaller rules like: only one person on each team may have a passive slowing item active items have no restrictions so long as they slow or speed up, etc..

Hunters have to wait 2 minutes to leave the base after the game starts to give the hiders a head start, and of course hiders must leave the base before the 2 minute mark. The centre fog of war is the only place you hide, as the outside rings of the map are off limits and if a hider is found hiding in this area (different from quickly getting the health relic) they automatically lose 1 life. Any side not sticking to the rules loses 3 minutes per fault, meaning if the seekers are caught cheating once, the hiders need 3 minutes less to win the game by surviving.

Three champs are auto banned and for pretty good reasons: Evelynn, for obvious reasons (she is always invisible unless you are on top of her); Kassadin, because he's impossible to catch or escape from; and Rengar, because the cooldown on his ultimate is too short making it either a guaranteed escape or kill depending on which team he’s on. The rest of the rules are more bureaucratic so here's the list. I had on a word document on my pc that was stolen from a forum post somewhere.

Seeking Rules

• Seekers are allowed 1 passive slowing item on the team (ex: Rylais, Frozen Mallet, Iceborn Gauntlet)
• Oracles are banned until 15 minutes
• Seekers must return to their base BELOW 300 HP. Likewise they must be given the chance to do so.
• If a seeker does not return to his base BELOW 300 HP then none of the kills he assists in or gets do not count toward hider lives.
• If a seeker does not return to his base BELOW 300 HP the hiders may kill him after a short period of 5 seconds.
• Once a seeker begins to "back" they must finish the channel, regardless of a hider stumbling onto them
• Seekers may not leave their base until 2 minutes into the game, while "their base" counts as the area where enemies get hit by the fountains laser.
• Seekers may not kill a unit on "Grace". If done, the kill does not count. If repeated, the hiders lose 3 minutes.

Hiding Rules

• A hider may not use an ability unless it provides "Hard Crowd Control (CC)" (SLOW, STUN, ROOT, PULL, CAGE, FEAR, TAUNT, PUSH), MOBILITY, SHIELDING or HEALING.
• Skills that provide only a SILENCE, VISION or DMG ONLY ARE NOT ALLOWED AT ANY POINT. ("Silence" and "Vision" are soft CC and are illegal.)
• Combination skills that lead to any of the named "Hard CC", such as brand stuns, kennen stuns, Lee Sin Q or Tempest are NOT ALLOWED. Riven's 3rd "Broken Wings" is allowed, so long as she is not INTENTIONALLY using the first 2 procs to deal damage and ONLY being used for escape purposes.
• No more than 2 hiders may hide together. This is to stop the popular group and run tactic.
• If there are 2 hiders in a brush together a third is not allowed to join them even being chased, if done, the hider loses 1 life.
• The group and run tactic is also not allowed at any point, even being chased it is only allowed to get help from up to 2 more hides NEVER from 3 or more.
• Thornmail, GA, Frozen Mallet and Sunfire Cape are banned for hiders.
• Any items that don't give movement, cc or defense are automatically banned in addition to items already mentioned. If bought, caught, and confronted you must return to the base and sell the item. You may not buy any additional items afterwards. You are given "Grace" for that time.
• Hiders must hide in the center of the fog of war.
• Hiders may NEVER auto-attack (even to heal) unless it is A HARD CC SKILL (udyr bear stance, blitzcrank popup, etc.) and even then only once per application. If abused and auto-attacks occur outside of CC, a warning should be issued, afterwards the hider will lose 1 life upon the hunter's discretion, if properly warned.
• Once a hider re-spawns, it is their responsibility to state the time upon when their "Grace" ends in /ALL. If they do not, they do not receive grace and may be hunted freely, the timer still applies for 45 seconds regardless.
• Once a hider dies, they may buy until they re-spawn and up to 45 seconds afterwards during their grace period. At the point when the hider spawns, they must write in the "/all" the exact time they have re-spawned and has 45 seconds from then on to leave the base and hide. This is "Grace" and is suggested to be used to run and hide, not stay and buy.
• If you interfere while on "Grace" your "Grace" ends promptly, you are now free game to hunt.
• During the 45 seconds of "Grace" hunters may not intentionally follow hiders.
• If a hider fails to leave base within "Grace" they lose 1 life and they are immediately free game to hunt.
• Hiders may not intentionally/accidentally/subconsciously/figuratively/literally prevent seekers from backing.
• Rylais does not legitimize a hider's spell, but one may be purchased among the group.
• Teemo Mushrooms may not be "Stacked" and are limited to 2 per bush or bush-sized-map-space.
• Shaco boxes may not be "Stacked" and are limited to 2 per bush or bush-sized-map-space.

Final thoughts

The game type is a ton of fun and takes very little to get up and running. It’s also the best way to teach new players the finer points of mechanics and escaping on a lot of champions. It’s a good way to train yourself how to juke and take advantage of player movements and vision control. This is the first “for fun” game type I ever played and I instantly fell in love with it. If you're looking for something other than ARAM (All-Random-All-Mid) and the basic Summoner's Rift, I highly recommend giving this a try. It has a great community of die-hard fans and it just shows that players can make anything fun, even Dominion.

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Legend Of Dungeon: Booming In Name But Whimpering In Execution

It’s refreshing to spend some time away from Breathof Fire: Dragon Quarter. Not that the game itself is bad. It’s just a touch laborious, a sentiment I’m not always inclined to spend my free time involved with.

Enter Legend of Dungeon, a game booming in name but whimpering in execution.

  

Much of Legend of Dungeon is spent aimlessly exploring its endless, drab corridors, fighting internet memes and monsters you’ve seen in other games. You play as a randomly generated pixelated being who must conquer a dungeon 26 floors deep. Armed with a sword, you navigate the game’s world with up to three other friends.

And that’s it. Interspersed between when you start playing the game, and when you decide you’ve had enough are numerous weapons, potions and hats, all of which appear to provide you with some sort of benefit, though none of this is apparent or clear.

I assume what makes Legend of Dungeon worthwhile—the developers’ light-hearted approach to crafting a roguelike—is lost on me because at its core, the game is far too simple. You enter a room, engage any enemies by repeatedly mashing the attack button, then claim whatever prizes are littered on the floor following their demise.

Sure, other dungeon crawlers can be explained in the exact same manner. But Legend of Dungeon lacks the tactical qualities of better games in this subgenre. There are no combos; there is no flash to gameplay; and there isn’t any variety to how you attack enemies. You essentially press the same button continuously, watch as your being flails its arm, watch the enemy bump against you and take damage, and then die. It’s a boring game that tries hard to pretend that its randomness and kookiness can excuse poor game design.  

The music is great, at least. The chiptunes are catchy, and the game’s 2D pixel graphics are pleasant. It’s just too bad the game wasn’t a 2 minute song with a catchy music video to accompany it.

Final thoughts

Legend of Dungeon is an inside joke which I don’t care enough to be a part of. Superficially, much of what makes the joke funny is lost on me. The time and effort put into making sure that I fight the occasional plant or zombie from Plants vs. Zombies can’t hide the stench of mundane gameplay.

What I’m left with is a jumble of nonsense that appears to be little more than human language overlaid by a cryptic semantic password; the game is a husk, clothed in game-like qualities but lacking the enjoyable gameplay which should accompany hip graphics and phat tunes. A great dungeon crawler brims with smart and difficult gameplay. If this game is any indication, a legend of a dungeon crawler brims with internet memes and glosses over everything else.

  

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Touch Screen Dinos!

Ever get tired of hearing how fantastic Hay Day is? Ever want to have your own farm simulator but with dinosaurs? Well I've got the game for you; however, you may want to be careful what you wish for. Dinosaur fever is in the works with the recent passing of Walking with Dinosaurs and teases of the new Jurassic World movie. Therefore, it's a good time to discuss Jurassic Park Builder for your tablet and mobile phone.

Firstly, the game is pretty heavily based off the first movie’s settings. You'll see the familiar Jurassic Park gates and the striped green off-road vehicles made famous by being stomped on by the big T-Rex himself. The game presents you with an overview of the heavily forested park and tasks you with demolishing patches of trees to allow you further expansion of your personalized park. Much the same as any other simulator, you have resources to replenish and distribute throughout the park. In this case, you have a harbor that allows you to gather green crops for your herbivores and meat for your carnivores. Both buildings on your harbor can be upgraded to provide more of the specific resources but it's so painfully long to get them upgraded to a satisfying rate that it's not really worth-while. This leads me to my first complaint: the game tries to keep you interested by intriguing you with the notion of "new" upgrades, "new" dinosaurs, etc. However, the progression is so painfully slow that it simply becomes a nuisance. Everything requires money or a large sum of resources, and if you don't have what you need then you may opt to spend real life cash to quicken the pace. Why? Why bother designing it in such a way that you feel the game forces you to have to pay for everything? The only time these mobile games have ever had me spend any cash was if it felt like a treat to myself, not a means to proceed through the game. It's a huge issue that slows the game down significantly enough that I may find myself deleting the game far earlier than I had planned.

Consequently, what should be the most entertaining part of the game, the dinosaurs, are also let down by the fact that it takes a millennia to get anything accomplished. For instance, the early game provides you with a Triceratops that you may feed and grow to provide you cash to develop buildings and scenery. However, the Triceratops takes so few resources that you end up dumping as much money and greens into it resulting with little leftover to work with. That's fine and dandy because the game provides you with mission objectives that reward you yet again with cash and resources that are then again dumped back into the Triceratops. Okay great, now I've got a larger Triceratops and I just unlocked the Dilophosaurus who you realize earns you far more cash than your Triceratops did, but at a far lower level. This is great if you didn't already spend all your money on your 'Tops. That my friends, is the biggest issue: you always find yourself in this purgatory of not having any resources or money to spend and therefore you click away at your dinosaurs to earn money. This simply reinforces the same issue of pace. All aspects of the game are slow. You can't get excited to obtain a new dinosaur because the five that preceded it used up everything you had and therefore you probably can't afford that new Allosaurus.

Incidentally, the game does offer some joy to dinosaur fans. It provides a well-rounded collection of dinosaurs, both famous and obscure. Not that I could enjoy any end game species because I simply couldn't make it there. There's also an interesting evolution mechanic for the dinosaurs. Every ten levels that your titanic lizard achieves, it can evolve. This allows it to be reborn as a baby but with a different skin pigmentation. Although the creature was reborn, it continues to level up where it left off; meaning that if it was evolved at ten, it would now be level eleven and so on. If you level your beasts high enough, you may enter an arena mode that pits your ferocious beasts against CPU-controlled dinosaurs in a deathmatch style setting. Optionally, you may also partake in a PvP tournament but, I couldn't be bothered because every match up was against a player who was at least four times my level. That being said, the combat animations for the dinosaurs are pretty sweet and almost endearing due to some of the design aesthetics. The Ceratosaurus in particular is a chunky piece of flesh and teeth who's a bit too cute to look menacing. Likewise, the sound design is great but also uninspired. The growls and screeches the dinosaurs make are fantastic but the music and sound effects of feeding them are kind of boring and unbelievable.

All-in-all, I would pass up on the game but if you've caught dinosaur fever and fancy a trek into the world of Jurassic Park, this isn't your worst option. There's some interesting items to be exposed to and if you love dinosaurs than I'm sure you want to get your grubby lil' hands on anything that has a T-rex for a logo. Just don't expect to see a Spinosaurus or anything particularly cool unless you invest a whole lot of time and money into the game. I'll explore the prehistoric scene further to see if I can come across anything better attuned to dinosaur lovers.

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My Beginnings As A Gamer - Part 1‏

I was probably 7 or 8 when I got my first console: a Sega Genesis. I think I was even given the choice of either the Super Nintendo or the Sega Genesis, but that blue hedgehog reeled me in and I had my mind set on a Genesis. Unfortunately, I ended up getting 3 games through its lifespan, and none of them were Sonic games. I plan on talking about each one in the next few weeks.

 

The first game I ever got came packaged with my Genesis. It was supposed to be Sonic 2, but Toys R Us ran out of the bundle. I think my dad haggled for a game, I don’t remember, but he didn’t know what he actually got me. In fact, I try and block this game from my mind, but it usually comes back to haunt me. While cleaning up my room, I found this amazing gem:

Yup, I was 7 years old, playing NFL Football ’94 Starring Joe Montana. No disrespect to the sport, but I had no interest or knowledge of football, and I blame this game for feigning any interest in it now. I hated it, but it was my only game for 90% of my time with the Genesis as a kid. If you look carefully at the cartridge, you’ll even see I drew a smiley face on Joe Montana; this was because I got no happiness out of this game.

 

Ok, I lie: the intro song to the game is quite catchy, and possibly my favorite memory:

Besides that intro, I barely understood how to play. I remember seeing a lot of formations, which made no sense to me as a kid. They confused the crap out of me because all I saw were lines and circles, and then all of a sudden I was allowed to play again.

When it came to actually playing the game, of course I sucked. The only time I would get/score a touchdown would be if I was lucky enough to run from my end zone to the opponent’s. Again, I didn’t understand anything about the video game or the actual sport, so I would either fumble or get tackled incessantly.

My favorite team was the Miami Dolphins. Because come on, dolphins are cool.

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Starting Destiny

This week will serve as an abridge for my upcoming post. I am still currently playing Destiny, although much to my chagrin I have had other obligations that have stilted my play time. Within the first 2 days I had pumped a good 8 hours into the single player (part of that co-op / the 3 man raids) and another few hours into the Crucible which is what they call the PVP arena. Yes this is a lot of play time for 2 days, but now being a week into the game, I have not had much time to put anything else into it.

First things first, Destiny is a huge amount of fun. It's incredibly enjoyable whichever way you decide to play it. Want to run through the game solo? That works. Want to go around doing the campaign with a friend? Even more fun. Want to kill your fellow gamers in a blood bath? Go right ahead. It's all solid and the game really does control just like Halo—which isn't a bad thing considering how much that series is adored.

I would go into a lot more detail, but I feel as though I need to sink my teeth into Destiny a little more to get a full opinion if it. Right now, it's great any which way you decide to play—with or without friends basically—but I want to go through all the campaign content and see what's what. As of this writing, the 6 man raids have yet to open for the public to play, but they will be available shortly. Those 6 man raids are supposed to be "end game" content, and since I have yet to beat the game, I will stop writing and start pumping more time into Destiny! I have a few spare hours this week, so I will definitely put them to good use!

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Powered by Steam

I think it was sunny out. Maybe it wasn’t. I was in the midst of playing Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and my brow began to sweat. I was no longer concentrating on oafishly navigating my avatar through a post-apocalyptic rendition of an ice cavern. My mind was focused on Steamand its sales.

The Deft Hands Of Steam Making A Run With My Money

Earlier in the week I was sorting through my emails when I came across a notification from Steam that Thiefwas on sale for $10. I thought nothing of it. As I recently mentioned, Itake no pride in comparing how long my backlog is to others. I am no magpie, intent on hording speckled and asymmetrically shaped shinny objects to increase my ranks within society. And yet, moments after deleting the email, I began to think irrationally about purchasing Thief, a game which I’d heard was decent at best.

So be it, I began to rationalize to myself. I’ll simply speak to others about whether the game is worth paying $10 for. Most people I asked told me the game was enjoyable but not great; fun but inconsequential.

My answer was set: I was not to buy the game if I would likely forget I played it moments after finishing it.

I Am A Magpie

Five minutes later, I bought Thief. Not a big deal I told myself. It cost me $10, and it was decent, even inconsequential! I’ll simply set some time aside to play it at some point in the near future.

I Am A Zealot

Thief was a gateway into Steam. Last week I was a magpie: I was attracted to Steam sales and items on my wishlist that went on sale. I am now a zealot. My mind and body are honed, and I am constently thinking of the daily and / or weekly sales offered by Steam.

Perhaps I am simply being swept up by the novelty of being able to access games immediately through the digital distributions magic of Steam. Maybe in a week I’ll have calmed down, and can get back to playing games I actually want to play. Or maybe I’ll grow poor and weery, with eyes soar and fingers blistered from having spent so much money on so many games.

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Raising The Dead Tree

We’re back again with more zombie action this week. I’m talking about my most recent zombie acquisition: Dead Rising 3. It’s no secret that I love zombies and the Dead Rising series has been one of my favourites—the wacky weapons and open world have always made these games a ton of fun—and they’ve evolved over time, implementing new ideas well and adapting to changes and issues that arose in the previous iterations.

Dead Rising at its core is one thing: killing a ton of zombies, and there's nothing wrong with that! Over the years they've come up with more and more interesting ways to kill, maim and utterly destroy your zombie foes and the psychopaths that litter the post apocalyptic landscape of the games. In Dead Rising 3 however, they did a lot of cool things that solved a lot of smaller problems I had in the last two games, first of which was allowing you to create combo weapons on the spot. Now if you haven't played any games in the series I’ll elaborate: since Dead Rising 2, the games have allowed you to create more powerful weapons by combining two or more items. These weapons do more damage, give more XP and are more durable making them the better option in the long run. Now in the previous game you could only create them at crafting stations dotted along the map, but in Dead Rising 3 they’ve removed the crafting stations all together allowing you to create these badass weapons anywhere you want. There is a trade off though, you can only create items that you’ve found the blueprints for, which is a huge difference and somewhat limiting because in the last game you didn't need the combo card to create a weapon, it only served to show you a possible combo and make it stronger. This subtle change is surprisingly frustrating when you’re holding two items that you know go together but can’t do anything with because you haven’t found the blueprint that tells you so.

With that being said, this is a small complaint and after a while of collecting you’ll have all the blueprints you could want or need, it’s just a mild frustration when you find a baseball bat and a box of nails and your character has no clue what to do with them.

Another large portion of the gameplay is spent on combo cars which are basically a necessity for getting around the city. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that this isn’t an awesome addition to the franchise, I just wish it had been better implemented because a fairly large percentage of the game is spent traveling between the three major city hubs, across these massive bridges and roadways which are absolutely flooded with the previously living, so you are pretty much required to do a lot of driving which becomes tedious pretty quickly. The game really could've used a fast travel mechanic, at least to put you in a spot somewhere in each city, allowing you to hop around a lot quicker but instead they left you with the combo cars as your only real option, which while fun, lose their appeal pretty quickly as you slowly plow through an ungodly amount of zombies on all the roads.

The game itself is fun - don’t get me wrong - there are just small things that I found really slowed down the game and were kind of a take away from the previous version. All in all, the game is still a ton of fun and has a great story, the new weapons and combos are awesome and creative, and the gameplay is tons of fun. There's just a few small kinks that slow down the game. If you're a fan of the series or looking for a new game to play, I’d recommend giving this a try.

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Just Copy Steam Already

While I don’t think physical copies of games are going to disappear any time soon, you can certainly assume what the fate of physical media in the long run will be. We saw it with CDs, movie rentals took a plunge since Blockbuster no longer exists, and we already see that PC gamers are embracing this change. Don’t quote me on it, but I remember reading that 80-85% of PC games are bought digitally. Microsoft and Sony: take notice and act accordingly.

I won’t talk for many of the others on the blog or at the podcast, but I can say that Adam and I are very anti-digital when it comes to console gaming. It’s weird because we too embrace buying digital on PC, but would go out of our way to get a physical copy for console. We are a clear minority, so I assume that regular consumers will ditch physical if the price is right (cue music).

Steam sales are crazy, and there’s nothing like that on console. You will never get amazing deals on big-name, non-indie titles. Or so I thought…kinda.

Being a PlayStation Plus member grants you free games, but also provides you with some pretty great discounts. Here’s a few I personally want:

• Alice: Madness Returns $6.29
• Battlefield 3 $4.89
• Dead Space 1 and 2 $4.89 each
• Mass Effect Trilogy $13.99
• SSX $5.24

I think these are great deals, but since this is on the PS3, it feels a bit “too little, too late”. Yes, the console will still live on for a few years, but if consoles can take this idea a step further, Microsoft and Sony could actually compete with Steam/PC.

What I’d like to see moving forward, are deals similar to the ones I’ve mentioned, but on the new consoles. Just take all the launch titles and price them at $10 online. Also, try and tempt non-Xbox Live Gold/PlayStation Plus members with some great deals too. When Battlefield of Duty 2014: Advanced Hardline is being sold for $60 in-store, charge $5 less online. Consumers are technically saving publishers' money in terms of manufacturing the product, so why not pass the buck?

Tl;dr Microsoft and Sony should just copy Steam already.

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