31 Dec 2019

Top 20 Games of the Decade 2010-2019

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Games Review, Highlights, top 10 | 0

We made it! And it feels like quite a strong decade of video games overall – Starting in the 360/ps3/wii era, and then transitioning into ps4/xbo/wiiU/switch. VR has been born and somewhat refined during this era as well, from the Oculus Rift’s birth and then refinement with the valve index. Graphics have gone from a shitty geforce 300 series in 2010, to the absurd 2080ti which you costs as much as a preowned car – though I suppose nowadays a top end phone also costs the same amount, the samsung Galaxy S was released in 2010, and the specs in comparison to the current S10 is a crazy difference.

The era has seen the birth of new game genres, Dark Souls popularized the appropriately named soulslike genre, and Battle Royale went from a cult film classic to the next MOBA thanks to games like Fortnite.
Battle passes and games as a service have started to be a thing as well now, instead of the standard DLC or Expansion model we were all still not particularly enthused with, now most games will launch with a season pass and modern FPS will continue to abuse you with micros and lootboxes even after you’ve purchased the game, even if you’ve already paid £50 for it.

Anyway, lets move on to the list!

20. Max Payne 3 [2014]
I don’t really have much special to say about this, I just really enjoy the gunplay in Max Payne 3 and it’s super smooth and satisfying to play.
Whilst the location and story wasn’t as good as the previous 2 games, this was still a great game.

19. Titanfall [2014]
I’m pretty sad about the changes they made to Titanfall 2, because the original game was such a good FPS. The changes they made to movement made waves in FPS for the next few years with wall running and double jumps becoming standard for a bit, and the Titan VS Pilot gameplay was well balanced and allowed for a surprising amount of cat and mouse moments. Respawn also did away with having 8 different assault rifles in favor of unique weapons where everything had it’s place and playstyle, which I actually really liked because it totally cut out that meta of ‘best AR’ because you only had limited options.

18. Resident Evil 2 (Remake) [2019]
They did it, and it was great. I was skeptical of the over the shoulder view initially but they really managed to preserve the feel of the original while still making it a new and fresh Resi game. The engine and graphics were very impressive also.

17. SSX [2012]
Still the best snowboarding game out there in my opinion, and nobody else is really competing for it. It wasn’t the perfect sequel to tricky and had some over reliance on being edgy but it was so fun to play and landing big air was super satisfying. It’s a shame it’ll probably never see a re-release because god i’d love to play it again in 60fps.

16. Mario Galaxy 2 [2010]
The best 3d mario game ever made in my opinion, and oh my god the soundtrack…

15. Dark Souls 2 [2014]
One of the dark souls had to go in, if im honest, I don’t really know if Dark Souls 2 is my favourite of of the soulsbourne games, but it’s the first one which really made me understand the magic, so I guess it holds that special place in my heart.

14. The witness [2016]
I love puzzle games, and the witness was an amazing one, I feel like those who wrote it off never really got very far into it to see the real magic in the game, it had some of the best ‘eureka’ moments I’ve ever experienced in a video game and one of the biggest ‘holy shit’ moments of the decade. If you enjoy puzzlers at all, this really is a must play.

13. Monster Hunter World [2018]
Monster hunter has always been one of those games i’ve wanted to get into, but not been able to hack the controls (and to be fair, it didn’t help that it didn’t have a main release on a console I owned).
MHW was that perfect storm of a fantastic release, a lowered barrier of entry with the QoL additions, a bunch of friends who were keen to play, and it finally being on PC, I have 200 hours clocked already and Iceborne preordered and ready to go when it drops in a week.

12. Red Dead Redemption [2010]
After a slightly too long tutorial, RDR turns into basically the best western game ever made – with the only real contender being it’s sequel. I’m not entirely sure what makes the original a better game, perhaps I just liked the sand and desert over forest and mountains (in a western), or perhaps I just played RDR2 too recently for the flaws to be forgotten yet.

11. Celeste [2018]
Arguably Celeste doesn’t do anything special, but it’s so incredibly refined and sleek, just enough story and world building, fantastic soundtrack, loads of bonus levels, and a difficulty which goes from casual all the way to ‘what the hell am i looking at’.

10. Obra Dinn [2018]
Lucas Pope has once again basically created an entirely new type of game, and in the same way that Papers Please has it’s clones, I really hope we see some similar detective games like Obra Dinn because it was a damn good puzzler.

9. Rainbow 6 Siege [2015]
R6S is the only thing i’ve played this decade to even come close to being the next Counter Strike. Attack and defense feel different yet similar, the operators are enough to keep players occupied and there is just such an insane amount of ways to play each objective that you would have to be playing for a very long time to see all of the tricks each map and operator have to offer.

8. Payday 2 [2013]
Payday is such a simple premise that i’m shocked more people haven’t tried to copy the formula, it was a great game on launch but the relentless DLC which has been released has both worked for and against it, with a fair bit of bloat but also there are now an insane amount of maps and difficulty levels that you can really spend quite a long time playing just trying to clear each mission once. It’s also great coop in coop and most importantly I guess it’s just really fun to shoot hordes and enemies in the face.

7. Yakuza 0 [2015]
My first introduction to the Yakuza series and easily the most memorable, it takes too long to explain the magic of the Yakuza games so if you haven’t already tried one, I strongly suggest doing so. I actually loved the story in Y0 and while later games (6/K2) changed the engine and made huge quality of life changes, I still think Yakuza0 has the best combat.

6. Undertale [2015]
I hate most turn based RPGs but the combat system in Undertale really did something different, that combined with quirky characters, some great humour, storyline twists, turns and multiple endings, and the soundtrack was fantastic too. I had true goosebumps the first time ‘hopes and dreams’ started playing during the final fight.

5. Divinity Original Sin 2 [2017]
The scale and scope of Divinity OS2 was crazy, I really enjoyed the amount of ways you could accomplish things, and the way the world was set out. Combat constantly skirted the border of too hard which had a possibly unintended side effect of forcing you to tactically cheat your way through in a way which promotes gameplay mechanic knowledge and thinking outside the box. It’s the Baldurs Gate sequel we always wanted in terms of freedom, and I can’t wait for Larian’s next project.
This honestly might be the best western Tactical RPG that I’ve ever played.

4. A Hat in time [2017]
Charm for days, Hat in Time was just super enjoyable to play all the way through. Every chapter of the game has new ideas which makes this more than just a generic 3d platformer – It’s a platformer, oh now the floor is literally lava, now you’re solving a murder mystery, now you’re leading a conga line, now it’s a horror game, now it’s open world, etc etc etc.
The powers are well thought out and functional, super tight controls, the game rarely tries to slow you down, also Hat Kid and her interaction with the world is just too adorable – giant grin on my face every time I play.
Did I mention the soundtrack is incredible? This might be my favourite 3d platformer of ever.

3. Grand Theft Auto 5 [2013]
Part of me hates that GTA5 was so good, because it’s become the cash cow that Rockstar won’t stop milking, that said, I played the shit out of the singleplayer in GTA5, getting 100% completion, and I really enjoyed the majority of it. The shooting (on PC at least) is way better than previous games, the world seemed to have loads to do, the story with its 3 characters was much more exciting to me that GTA4’s Niko, and similar to payday2 there is just something incredibly satisfying heists in games. Here’s hoping that GTA6 continues to expand on the world detail and small things which make GTA5 so good, instead of just being a fresh paint of coat.

2. Factorio [2016]
I love a good automation game and Factorio is probably THE automation game – a genre which may not have even existed before this decade. The puzzle and incremental aspects of Factorio just make it really satisfying to play, especially as you take breaks after building to just zoom out and look at how far you’ve come – from literally mining coal by hand to nuclear reactors which automatically process uranium. The modding scene is very much alive as well, making it very hard to exhaust the content – though to be honest, even just launching the missile in vanilla is a real challenge in itself, even on peaceful modes.

1. Minecraft [2010 (Alpha)]
So before one of you drops the ‘um acktually’, the Alpha of Minecraft was only released mid 2010, the 2009 build didn’t even have inventory or crafting, the 1.0 release wasn’t until 2011.
With that out of the way, Minecraft was probably one of the decade’s most influential games, and I’ve clocked a ton of hours in both it’s creative and survival modes. Even the beta was super enjoyable so the kids today are practically spoilt in how huge in scope minecraft has become, with towns, underwater temples, quests, trading, leveling system, enchanting, etc.
We also have to mention the modding scene, because the mods for minecraft are what really take it from a 9/10 to that 11/10 status – there are so goddamn many, you want to play a Battle Royale map? have jetpacks? ingame computers that you can script on? Factory automation stuff? Transport fluids using pipes and pumps? Fly to the moon and have to build self sustaining oxygen? You can do all of these things, it’s actually insane!
Also I genuinely believe that redstone is going to lead and inspire a new generation of kids to become engineers, and that is an amazing thing.

Games which made the shortlist but were cut from top 20
Skyrim
Hollow Knight
The walking Dead
Sleeping Dogs
DOOM
Bioshock Infinite
Shovel Knight

28 Dec 2018

My GOTY 2018

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Games Review, Highlights, top 10 | 0

There was simultaneously too much to play this year, and not really enough.
Whilst I didn’t play a lot of the new games this year, for the most part I just didn’t want to, outside of a few (RDR2, Donut County, Tetris Effect)
Thanks to my brother I did at least manage to play a lot of the large PS4 releases, however on PC i spent most of the year just playing older games and wrestling with my backlog, whilst trying to play all of the humble monthly games.

So, here are my personal top 5 picks of the year – You can see a list of games I would have liked to try, but didn’t get to below, as well as games which I did play but didn’t make the list.

5. God of War 2018 (PS4)

God of War was just an all around good game, I don’t really think it did anything too special but what was there was all well refined and good.
I think it won a soundtrack award, but i’ll be honest I don’t remember anything about that, however I do remember smashing a lot of undead face, and the incredible first boss fight. GoW was also much more of a story driven game than previous titles (from what I remember anyway), which some people will find offputting but I kind of enjoyed the downtime between fights.

4. Yakuza 6 (PS4)

The Yakuza series in general will unfortunately go unrecognized again this year, but Yakuza 6 was a surprisingly good game. The story is one of the better ones in my opinion, and the new characters introduced are all interesting and quirky in their own ways. The switch to the new engine breathes new life into the series, helping to reduce downtime and allow you to explore with more freedom without worrying about being bogged down with load screens, as well as speed up fighting random thugs on the street as you can transition from exploring to face smashing seemlessly, with only a brief pause to transition out. The minigames are good fun this time round also, with an RTS squad battle one, a fishing minigame which plays like a sega lightgun game, a baseball simulator, and others which i haven’t the space to talk about (the camgirl chatroom minigame is fantastic though).

3. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)

Obra Dinn is unlike anything you’ve ever played or seen before – The art style is obviously the most common thing you’ll see or read about this game, but the gameplay is the real treat here. For those unaware (I wasn’t), Obra dinn is a puzzle detective game, where you basically travel through time and see 3d pictures of each person’s final moments, over the course of the game you then have to piece together what happened to them, and who everyone in the scene is – this may be by something obvious, a crewmate saying “Jack, watch out!” for example may easily slap a name on them, but for the most part, the game really makes you work for it.
Obra dinn runs at about 8-10 hours and is truly a unique ride, you need to check this out.

2. Celeste (Multi)

I bought Celeste on a whim after being bored one day and seeing the game on sale, and i’m so glad that I did.
The main story is a decent length for this sort of game, and is a brilliant blend of challenge and new mechanics, without messing with the core mechanics of your character – the game will pass you through chapters, introduce a mechanic and then pull and replace it with a different one to keep things fresh. I enjoyed the story and thought there was a surprising amount of character development considering the amount of text in the game could probably fit on a single A4 paper.
The soundtrack is also really memorable, and does that thing where the music subtly changes over time based on your progress, I love that shit.
If you go into the game blind, you will be shocked at the additional content, the game and challenge just keeps going for hours after you’ve completed the main campaign, after the 175 strawberries to the B-Side Challenge levels you’re looking at maybe 20-30 hours of solid platforming satisfaction.
Be warned that the game is brutally hard (i’m at 6000 deaths and counting), but the achievement of clearing a hard room is on par with reaching a bonfire in Dark Souls or winning a fight with magic pixel health.

1. Monster Hunter World (PC)

It would be hard to not give first place to Monster Hunter World, which I personally spent around 200 hours with during the month of it’s PC release.
I’ve never really understood or gotten into the previous monster hunter games, but the latest entry with it’s lush graphics and quality of life improvements really sucked me in. I spent a good amount of time playing the game on my own but by far the standout experience was playing as a full group of 4 and experiencing the content fresh for the first time without using guides, without worrying about builds or tier lists, just pure “how do we kill it, and how do we not get killed by it”. MHW was genuinely the most multiplayer fun I’ve had in a long time – the horror of seeing Diablos explode out of the desert, making fun of the commander’s voice, and trying not to get carpet bombed by blazblue, are all moments i’ll remember for a long time.

Didn’t play list:

AC Odyssey, Gris, Obra Dinn,into the breach, Hitman 2, A way out, Red Dead 2, The messenger, Forza horizon 4, Tetris Effect, Guacamelee 2, Octopath Traveler, Frost punk, CrossCode, Wandersong, Iconoclasts, COD blops4, Overcooked 2, Far Cry 5, La-Mulana 2, Pokemon Lets go, Battletech, Shadow of the tomb raider, Detroit Become Human, Battlefield 5, Fallout 76, Donut County,

Didn’t make list:

Smash Ultimate, Deltarune, DJmax Respect, Florence, Spiderman, Dead Cells, Subnautica, Lethal League Blaze

3 Jan 2018

Top 10 Games of 2017

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games | 0

Disclaimer: I definitely didn’t play all of the notable games in 2017, I had nowhere near enough time to do so.
So the below list is the top 10 of games which I played.

Missing from the list (unplayed) is:
Zelda BOTW, Mario Odyssey, Mario rabbids battle, Golf Story,
Nioh, AC Origins, Wolfenstein 2, Finding Paradise, South Park FBH, Hellblade, Prey, Evil Within 2, Destiny 2, Edith Finch, PUBG, Fortnite

Special Mention – Hidden folks

Wheres Wally for a digital era. A little bit short, but while it lasts, Hidden Folks is fantastic.
The maps are huge, yet the clues provided make the finding fair. it’s also casual friendly for those with girlfriends.
Short but fun, and something a bit different to the normal gaming fare.

10 – Snake Pass

Fantastic looking Rare style platformer game, with a super unique control scheme which I’ve never seen before. Snake pass was a fantastic way to chill out and just collect some stuff after work while snaking around.

9 – Resident Evil 7

Just the right amount of spook, action and exploration. The first arc of the game is survival horror masterclass and gets the game onto the top 10 list on it’s own, the game unfortunately starts to taper off once you leave the house but nonetheless still an enjoyable game. (though i’m not sure it needed to be called Resident Evil)

8 – Sonic Mania

Hooo boy, nostalgia to the core.
Best 2d sonic game since Sonic and knuckles, and imo better than Sonic CD.
Great music, cool levels and the physics and mechanics all felt spot on – which is my main issue with every other sonic game – even the ones that have 2d segments.

7 – Doki Doki Literature Club

There aren’t many games like Doki Doki Literature Club – and it’s hard to really say anything further without spoiling things.
It’s probably unlike anything you’ve ever played.
Also, it’s completely FREE.
2-3 hour experience, soldier through the first 90 minutes.

6 – Horizon Zero Dawn

Self explanatory dinosaur free roam game? It’s really expansive, the combat is fun, the visuals are stunning for a PS4 game…
It just feels like a good all rounder, not really going to win awards for gameplay originality (though the world is kind of cool) but sometimes you want to play a AAA adventure game and I think HZD will have me occupied for as long as I let it.

5 – Hollow Knight

just a really really solid Metroidvania.
super polished, interesting areas, good level design and progression, easy on the eyes, varied enemies etc.
Has everything you would want from this style of game.

4 – Persona 5

Admittedly, I haven’t actually managed to finish Persona 5 yet. Is it because the game is bad? Hell no. It’s just because i’m old.
I am 80 hours or so in and the game keeps refusing to end, this game is long and unfortunately I’ve already romanced all of my favourite characters and so the remainder of the game left for me is dungeon crawling and personamon catch-em-all stuff.
Persona 5 is fantastic, and probably the only JRPG I’ve had the patience to sit through in the past few years.

3 – Cuphead

Just solid platforming boss rush action. Brutally tough at times, yet almost always fair.
Cuphead has a great difficulty curve and some fantastic fights.
My only complaint was that it only took me 4 hours or so to complete.

2 – Yakuza 0

This was my entry point to the Yakuza series, as I suspect it will be for many others.
The story was cliche but I really enjoyed watching it play out, the characters were ridiculous caricatures and I loved all of them, the combat is repetitive and yet varied enough to still illicit a verbal “ooooh” response after 20 hours.
Yakuza 0 has loads of great reviews, and after a few hours running around and doing a few of the quirky side missions, it’s so easy to understand why.

1 – A Hat in time

Literally cannot think of a better 3d platforming game that I can play on pc without using an emulator – and honestly even then I think i’d have a hard time picking a favourite between Mario Galaxy 2 and A hat in Time.
Beautiful colours and art, memorable and catchy soundtrack, charming design, interesting and varied levels,
A Hat in Time is pure gaming bliss for the 10 hours it lasts, and my personal favourite game of 2017.

18 Dec 2016

The best PC games of 2016

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Highlights, top 10 | 1

Notable PC games this year: Overwatch, Dark Souls 3, Owlboy, Stardew Valley, Battlefield 1, The Witness, Inside, Dishonored 2, Gears of War 4, Titanfall 2, DOOM, Abzu, Planet Coaster, Hitman, SUPERHOT, Overcooked, The Division, Zero Escape 3: ZTD, Mirrors Edge Catalyst, COD Infinite, Steep, Quantum Break, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Firewatch, Civilization 6, Darkest Dungeon, Thumper, Dead rising 4, Oxenfree, Watch Dogs 2, Street fighter 5

Top 5 Games of the Year

5. Battlerite

How the hell did this sneak on here?
I may have mentioned before that when I bought Battlerite a few months ago, I literally set a timer so I could decide whether or not to refund it just before the 2 hour mark. I’m now at 61 hours or so, which is more than everything else on this list. It’s a MOBA arena game which just manages to do everything pretty well – Any complaints of ‘not enough characters’ and ‘shit cosmetics’ will almost certainly be resolved later on down the line, as will the ‘high’ price tag of £15.

4. Planet Coaster

It has been X years since Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, and naturally we were itching for a modern release (as, let’s be honest, RCT3 was pretty barebones in terms of 3d graphics). Then just at the right time, along comes Planet Coaster, with all of it’s gorgeous visuals, it’s curved paths, it’s ‘how fucking many?’ Rollercoaster types and practically infinite ways to decorate your park and shops (provided you have the time). Aside from optimization and maybe some more variation in shops/rides, it’s hard to really think what else could be improved on in Planet Coaster as far as single player experiences go.

3. Zero Escape 3: Zero Time Dilemma

Kotaro Uchikoshi does it again. Whilst not quite on the same level as it’s predecessors, ZE3 has some great puzzling, and interesting branching story. Best of all, even though you know there is some weird shit going on, the revelation moment will still manage to catch you off guard and give you that holy shit moment. I have to say though that eric in team Q is literally the most irritating character i’ve come across.

2. DOOM

Doom did not mess around, it threw you into this linear world filled with hellspawn, gave you a shotgun and then proceeded to just wail guitar and dubstep noises at you relentlessly until you finished the game. It was in your face, dumb and myself and just about everyone else who played doom fucking loved it’s straightforward nature. Shoot things in the face, move on, repeat – No cover, No long story sequences, No vehicle traversal between areas. Anyone looking for a fantastic singleplayer FPS campaign should give this a play.

1. The Witness

The witness undoubtedly gave me the most ‘holy shit’ moments in gaming this year, whilst I wasn’t particularly fond of the ending, the puzzles and the unique ways in which you need to approach them are absolutely amazing, similarly the world and it’s mystery and secrets provided plenty of additional things to do between getting stuck. I also really loved that the game basically doesn’t tell you anything, even the tutorials I don’t remember the game explicitly giving me any directions but rather ‘here is something simple, figure out the rules for yourself’ – and I love that, especially in an age of videogaming where developers feel the need to really hand hold the whole way through out of fear of losing the player, Blow’s masterpiece does the polar opposite and sets off with or without you. I’d imagine anyone who has played through the game will agree that it’s puzzles are genius in both creativity and design, and those who have played through and doesn’t probably didn’t ‘get it’, which is of course is a big problem in a game where all of the enjoyment is derived from eventually ‘getting it’.

Bonus!

Just missed the list:

Inside – Short and sweet, I completed it in a sitting or two and it was a fantastic experience throughout. Didn’t really do anything groundbreaking but it was incredibly polished and had just the right quantity of mystery to push you forward.

Hitman – A fantastic return to form for the series, it’s a shame there are so few levels, but the levels that are there are some of the best in the series. The new detection system works well too, making more sense than the old blood money system while not being as daft as the absolution ‘ima just hide my face’ system.

Dark Souls 3 – More of the same, and that’s hardly a bad thing, though I have to admit it’s not gripped me quite as well as it’s predecessors.

Biggest Disappointment:

Titanfall 2 – I absolutely adored the first Titanfall, hitting the level cap multiple times over, so when Titanfall 2 was announced I was super hype, the potential for basically the same game with new maps, more weapons, more abilities, customization and so on sounded awesome. And then the beta dropped, and somehow they had just gotten everything wrong, the movement was slower, they changed certain mechanics, and whilst the retail version of the game has fixed some of these changes, the result is still more ‘Call of Titanfall’ than the Titanfall I fell in love with. I’m yet to really clock much time with it because I just have no urge to play, the gunplay is as solid as ever but it feels like TTK is down, the titans are crazy fragile and rarer, the new abilities are rubbish, no custom titan loadout choices, can’t change the AI voice and the maps are all really forgettable and boring. A cry everytime.

Best Singleplayer Experience:

Titanfall 2 – Okay so yeah I just finished talking about everything I’m not keen on with Titanfall 2, but you’ll notice there was no mention of the campaign that they added. The campaign was awesome, i’d actually argue better than DOOM’s. It was literally the opposite of everything I just said in the paragraph above. Awesome level design, titans feel satisfying to play with the added shield, clever use of game mechanics and a super interesting part which you won’t see coming. The short but sweet campaign was memorable and great fun.

Most Overhyped:

Overwatch – I’m still struggling to see the appeal of Overwatch, the time i’ve spent with it was ‘okay’ at best, lacking much satisfaction when you do well and being a real slog if you are on the back foot.

Game whose servers are going to be empty by this time next year

Steep – Calling it now. that game is boring, people just haven’t realised it yet (or maybe they have?).

26 Oct 2016

Analysing Battlerite

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Highlights | 0

So I’ve been playing Battlerite for the last 2 weeks or so, and I have to say, I’ve been really impressed by it.

Unlike some other games where I spend my non-playing downtime thinking about what the hell the developers were thinking, Battlerite has a really shocking amount of fantastic design choices, and I wanted to talk about some of them.

You are always left side

Through some crazy wizardry, Battlerite has you always spawn from the left. Your enemies will always run at you from the right. I’m guessing it does this through some mirroring and client side magic but god is it cool. The maps are, of course, completely symmetrical.

You only get coins for winning

I’m guessing this is primarily to combat botting or any form of ‘cant be bothered’ attitude. If you don’t win, you won’t get any money. This effectively rules out most bots or any form of AFKing or low effort game joins, as they are essentially pointless.

Maximum health, and fulfilling the counterplay trifecta

Your maximum health can only ever be +X from your current health. What does this actually mean? Say you start at 200hp and take 20dmg, your max hp is still 200 and you can be healed to full, if you were to take 80 damage, your maxhp will drop to 150ish.
So why is this particularly clever? Because similar to other MOBA’s where you particular playstyles have counters, they exist in Battlerite as well. Heal beats poke, Burst beats heal, and poke beats burst (usually).
It also means people can’t whore 3 support/healer teams, which is nice.

Chat is disabled by default

Because nobody really needs to get called a retard.

3v3 Matchmaking tries to give a balanced team comp

Playing solo, about 90% of the time you’ll get matched into a team with 1 support, 1 melee and 1 ranged. Which you would think is just common sense, but other games have shown us otherwise.

Everything is as obvious as possible

All the big damage spells have obvious casting animations and noises, all the buffs and debuffs are obvious. This basically means you always have the opportunity to counterplay.

No shared vision

Holy shit the jukes. 1vs3? still not impossible.

The centre orb keeps the action where it needs to be

Essentially king of the hill all the time, the orb in the middle provides massive benefits and basically keeps the action in the centre.

Battlerites let people play how they want, diversifying the champions they have by 2 or 3

The perks system is fantastic. You want a damage support? You want a super slippery Ranged? The battlerites provide plenty of choices, and mostly none of them are wrong.

As an aside, The community is surprisingly nice, and everyone seems to acknowledge that if you lose, it’s almost certainly because you got outplayed. Even the few times we’ve seen people leave or AFK, the games have mostly descended into ‘1v1 me’.

Whilst it may be on the expensive side for what will eventually be a free to play game, it’s so much fun.

8 Oct 2016

Week 40 2016 – New best endeavours

by Steven Meng | posted in: blog, Games | 0

Poor blog has been neglected a lot this year, I guess maintaining it was never going to be easy once I got out of education and into the ‘real world’ but this year in particular it’s taken a real back seat since I moved out of home and started my new IT career.

And so, Starting from this week, i’m going to try and make, at minimum, one blog post a week which will focus on life stuff. Weekly posts will likely come out every Sunday, unless i’m away doing other things or have another post scheduled.

Games

The past month has been fairly uneventful but i’ve managed to get plenty of hours in with my bro GrantDN in various games, we played a ton of The Crew (maybe 30 hours) or so and completed the campaign, bought the DLC, completed some of the new mission stuff, did some extra shit, bought drag cars, drifted round mountains at night, and all that good stuff. Genuinely had a blast with that game, it reminded me of the best parts of Fuel and little bit of the joy from Midnight Club.

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We also picked up the very entertaining and intense Battlerite, a 2v2 or 3v3 arena brawler, best described as a game build completely around MOBA teamfights. Have had a lot of fun with it, but god is that game hard. The small teams make it really hard to pin blame as well, as losses will almost certainly have something to do with your own competence – be it just a missed skillshot or not positioning properly. It’s currently a little bit steep at £15 but I believe it’s going free to play eventually, best enjoyed with a friend though, im not sure i’d want to play this solo.

On the games backlog we also have Indigo Prophecy, which I started with bae but then we haven’t picked it up in a little while, I also started playing Quantum Break – which is fantastic, and then there is Mirrors Edge Catalyst as well, which I started yesterday but it didn’t really strike me as anything too special.

TV

Oh man, TV, Did you guys see Stranger Things yet? holy shit that show is good. go watch it.

Mr robot is fantastic as well, though I’ve still not had a chance to finish season 2.

New anime season started last week, blog post to be written very shortly, I skipped last season, but this season everyhthing is garbage so it’ll take me like 15 minutes to gather photos because nothing is worth watching.

On the korean front, GF and family coerced me into watching ‘W’ Which is actually kind of a neat concept, it’s about a comicbook artist who is trying to kill off his character so he can end the story, but he manages to keep resisting death, eventually people from the real world get sucked into the comic world and shit happens. It’s a really cool concept, but because it’s K drama I can almost guarantee that it’s just going to turn into a generic romance story eventually.

Life

Did I mention i’ve got a trip booked for the first week of December? We are going to Vienna (Austria) and then getting the train over to Prague (CzechRep), should hopefully be really good.
However I’ve been kind of worked hard lately, so a few weeks ago I thought i’d try and get a quick holiday in before my real holiday (as you do), some quick deciding later and we’ve decided to go to Belfast for a few days this coming weekend. We’ve booked an excursion out to do a game of thrones sightseeing thing (apparently a bunch of castles and stuff were filmed in northern ireland) and the tour also includes the incredible looking Giants Causeway.

8 Sep 2016

7 Knights

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games | 0

You know how some games are garbage but you stick with them anyway for whatever reason?

7 knights has been that for me.

Unlike something like Puzzle&Dragons which I spent ages playing and loved, 7 Knights has been a boring grind for as long as I can remember, yet for whatever stupid reason, I stuck it out and have been playing it almost daily for the last 1 or 2 years. Part of it was for the rush of slowly climbing my way up the PVP ladder I guess, but the other part was I suppose some obligation to the guild I was leading.

I slowly raised this guild from level 1 to 10, and upgraded a bunch of the other extras like guild castle and so on, and we were pretty regularly fighting amongst the top 1% of guilds, I think we ended this season a little outside the top 100 – which, not bad considering there is only 1 server outside of korea.
I used to hate going through and pruning inactives, but eventually we started getting more dedicated players, people who would play as much as me, which was fantastic as I could basically just delegate that shit and chill.

But alas, eventually we attracted people that were too dedicated, who would literally no life that shit, go wild on IAP, and play all day. One particular member took it upon himself to advertise the guild on reddit, create a facebook group, and try to force everyone into the fb group to chat about the game daily.
He actually PM’d me on facebook one time when I didn’t log in for 2 days.

About a month ago now, I got this new job, and subsequently had less time to spend on trash, I started playing less and basically ignored the facebook chat because I couldn’t care less. Then, rather entertainingly, I log in today to find there has been a mutiny! Ironically the most entertaining thing to happen in the game since I installed it. A bunch of the more hardcore players had left overnight, and to my surprise, I felt a wave of relief rather than sadness.
I realised that the last few weeks I was practically logging in to start up the autoplay just so that people over the internet wouldn’t harass me – You know something else you often force yourself to do daily? fuckin’ work! This shit was a chore!

And so, what better time to ‘retire’ and remove the game from my phone. I set someone else as delegate leader on the guild and don’t intend on re-opening the app any time soon. I won’t disband or pass over leadership of the guild of course, that shit is my legacy now.
it was entertaining while it lasted, but god that’s the last time I start a guild on a phone game.

11 Jul 2016

Pokemon Go

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games | 0

So i’m incredibly torn on Pokemon GO right now,

On one hand, it’s great to see impromptu gaming communities appearing out on the streets all of a sudden, you can walk around town and practically point out people who are walking around looking at their phone a little bit tooooo closely. and the game is kind of fun too, finding a new pokemon or leveling up feels genuinely pretty good, moreso if you have some friends you can show off to.

But for every good point, it feels like there are two bad points.
The game eats data for breakfast, the GPS is janky as fuck, half the time you’ll see nothing but pidgeys and rattatas, you’ll find rare pokemon and then not be able to catch them because the game bugs out on you or you lose signal, the pokestops don’t work properly half the time, and practically none of the game is explained to the player at all! (seriously, PokeGO is where mechanic explanations go to die).

But for now… it’s fun I guess, the gimmick is just enough, and when it works, it’s good – though hayfever has been a very aggressive reminder from mother nature that my place is indoors.

I’d put up a picture of my team but the game can’t log in right now, which… says a lot I guess.

30 Dec 2015

Top 10 PC Games of 2015

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, top 10 | 0

Perhaps getting more and more jaded each year, but haven’t had a chance to play many of this years big releases :(
That and a bunch of this years big games were only on console- bloodborne, until dawn, splatoon, xenoblade chronicles X, GH Live….
Still haven’t really had much incentive to buy a new console, especially considering how underpowered they seem to be, 20something FPS on games only a few years after release doesn’t really bode well for the future of the console. Majority of the games thankfully have had PC releases as well.

So without further ado, here are the best games i’ve played this year – emphasis on ‘I’ve played’, i’ll list a list a bunch of the big releases that I haven’t played at the bottom for reference.

#10 – The Beginners Guide

Walking Game // Everything unlimited ltd // £7

Something of an alternate game, The Beginners guide sends you on a rollercoaster of emotions and twists in the 90 minute or so runtime, while it’s undoubtably the least ‘fun’ game on this list, it’s (hopefully) fictional story elicits emotions rarely found on this medium, and that’s impressive in it’s own right.

#9 Fallout 4

Action RPG // Bethesda // £40

Yeah, sure, it’s more Fallout, it’s a good game, the base building stuff was a nice addition, as well as generally streamlining a bunch of stuff, the gunplay is more satisfying this time round as well which is always a good thing. Yet in true fallout fashion, at some point I left the game for a week or so and just found myself fed up and tired of it all, the 40something hours I spent with it were great though.

#8 Her Story

Puzzle? // Sam Barlow // £5

Surprise indie hit this year, Her Story did a lot of neato things we haven’t really seen before in video games, including lack of a proper video game ending, letting you simply finish when you think you are done. Her Story doesn’t hold your hand at all, doesn’t remind you what has happened or well… do anything aside from present a chopped up bit of video and let the player have at it. That said, the story and the unique way it unfolds is incredibly memorable, as instead of having key points of plot revealed to you, you have to piece it all together yourself, making you really feel like a detective.

#7 Keep talking and nobody explodes

Party/Puzzle // Steel Crate Games // £11

Oh man, best local co-op experience of 2015? I think so! KTANE is a truly genius game, and one that isn’t out of place at a party or small social gathering filled with ‘normies’. This bomb defusing puzzle game is equal parts accessible, challenging and hilarious, regardless of which side of the asymetrical gameplay you are a part of. For those unfamiliar, one player sits at the computer and defuses a complicated bomb with the help of experts – and by experts I mean your idiot friends sitting on the couch in your room with you, staring at an equally complicated defusal manual where they must use logic to decipher the correct steps to relay to the defuser.

#6 Invisible Inc

Stealth Strategy // Klei Entertainment // £15

I did a full review of it way earlier in the year, but Invisible inc was a surprise gem this year, with it’s turn based stealth action and roguelike features, Invisible Inc was metal gear solid meets FTL in the best of ways, providing a challenging but fair game with some great rewards and replayability for those that get invested.

#5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

Shooter // Treyarch // £40

Surprisingly, this year’s Call of Duty instalment is genuinely fun and the first title where i’ve truly enjoyed the multiplayer since MW2. There is some fair value for money here, with a full 4 player co-op campaign, zombies co-op campaign, dead ops 2, zombies, and of course the multiplayer (though good luck finding much other than TDM/Domination on PC). Guns in online seem fairly balanced and specialist weapons are less annoying than expected (though that flamethrower quite desperately needs a nerf), it’s still not as good as TItanfall in my opinion, but it’s probably still the best online shooter i’ve played this year.

#4 – Cities Skylines

City Builder // Colossal Order // £23

A fantastic city builder, after the fiasco that was the latest Sim City I think everyone was really gagging for this sort of game, and developer Colossal order’s stance on modding really helped push Cities Skylines to it’s maximum potential, with the community fixing all of the minor gripes people had issues with.

#3 Life is Strange

Story Adventure // DONTNOD entertainment // £18

I’m a sucker for a good time travel story, and Life is strange hooked me in from the first episode with it’s interesting approach to being able to see all of the decisions you can make. My biggest mistake was not waiting for all of the episodes to be out before playing it, but thankfully that’s now a non-issue. The plot is a real rollercoaster of emotions, in a good way, and though there were a few tedious segments which slowed down the pace of the game (i’m looking at you, bottles and stealth sections) LIS was a very enjoyable 10 hours or so.

#2 – Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Stealth Action // Konami // £46

It was a painful shame that the latter part of the game wasn’t as good as the first, but thankfully the first 20 hours of the game are so good that you’ll probably be able to forgive it’s lackluster ending and unfinished story.

#1 – Undertale

RPG // Toby Fox // £7

Don’t let the very vocal diehard community put you off, Undertale is an incredible game – fantastic gameplay coupled with brilliant writing, lovable characters and a great soundtrack, the game is short but oh so memorable, and undoubtedly this year’s must play game, and game of the year. I was still getting chills down my spine listening to bits of the soundtrack weeks later.

Special mention: Grand Theft Auto V (PC)
Only just got released for PC this year, but obviously the game has been out for much longer than that, Seeing release in 2013 originally, 2014 for next gen, and 2015 for PC. I held out and didn’t play it until this year and holy shit the amount of content and sheer enjoyment packed into this game is fantastic, so glad I waited for this version. If I was treating this game as being released in 2015, it would probably be number 1.

Unplayed: Bloodborne, Witcher 3, Arkham Knight, SW Battlefront, Rise of the tomb raider, Rainbow Six Siege, AC Syndicate, Halo 5, Until Dawn, Rocket League, Pillars of Eternity, Mad Max, Xenoblade Chronicles X, GH Live, Amplitude, Helldivers,

16 Oct 2015

Undertale (PC) Review

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Games Review | 0

Just a quickie, because it deserves it.

I played through undertale a few days ago, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s metacritic score of 94 was completely warranted, this plain and dull looking game that I kept seeing screenshots of.

A short 5 hour playthrough later, and I was sold, it’s incredible. Probably the best game this year, probably one of the best games of all time…
Lovingly crafted and likable characters, hilarious dialogue, unexpected comical twists and turns, a battle system which is 50% puzzle and 50% shmup, and topped off by a soundtrack which is easily on par with your favourite chiptunes.

3 days on, i’m sitting in my van listening to the soundtrack and getting goosebumps, and thinking of the characters and smiling to myself.

I dont know who the hell Toby Fox is, but the man is a true wizard. I expect people in 20 years will still pick this game up and enjoy it just as much as we are today, because unlike some other games which rely on jokes, undertales humour doesn’t need to rely on pop culture references or similar external factors.

Go play it. It’s £7, that’s a ridiculous price for this gem. You’ll thank me later.

5/5

ps. papyrus and sans are the fucking best.

13 Sep 2015

A rant about Metal Gear Solid V

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Games Review, rant | 0

So thanks to the wonders of internet companionship I’ve spent essentially the last week or so playing through the wondrous metal Gear solid 5, and thought I’d do a little rant about it.

The gameplay itself is so very solid (ahem), going into outposts and abducting entire squads of guards and any vehicles they have is a incredibly addictive, and the core sneaking stuff is really good as well, however the game starts to rapidly fall apart once you have completed the main story and become left with just the side missions.

Speaking of the story, the game barely even feels like a metal Gear solid game, the core story is light at best and a complete joke once you hit the end of chapter one. It is probably the only game to pleasantly delight and then brutally disappoint me with its game length, in the space of only a few hours.

For those who haven’t played it, after maybe 30 hours/missions of gameplay and a major boss fight, the game rolls its credits, practically nothing in the story has been explained and you are left feeling confused and upset… But then you get a ‘trailer’ for chapter 2! And the game swiftly transitions into chapter 2! Fantastic! And then in an almost taunting fashion the game takes that joy away over the next few hours. Where the previous 30 missions were interesting and somewhat advance the plot, the next 20 missions consist of 14 hard mode missions you have already played, and 6 proper story missions, of which manage to introduce more questions rather than answers – and then the game ends.

Apparently people have dug into game files and found art for chapter 3, suggesting that the game was due a significant amount more content, and behind the scenes footage which show an episode 51 would have at least provided some closure to one of the games many plotlines.

Playing the postgame content becomes almost upsetting afterwards, a selection of maybe 6 different objectives which all play out more or less the same way, sneak in, neutralise everyone and then escape with prisoner /Intel.

The open world offers nothing but a collection of barren land and a collection of outposts and structures you have been to during the story.

I also have grown to despise the mother base expansion system, with the game requiring you to have X amount of materials before you can upgrade to increase your population cap, these materials are only generated while you play, and you will only recieve a relative trickle compared to how much is required for the later upgrades.

There is almost no doubt that the latter is formulated in such a way to make way for their shitty microtransaction crap, the same stuff they claim is not required – a new base requires 1000+ mb coins, yet you will recieve maybe 20 or so per day for a login (this tiny amount of coin isn’t even guaranteed, as the login bonus is often a bunch of plants or irrelevant material).

The game has a dispaych system which lets you send out your recruited soldiers to do stuff for reward, but the majority of them run on ingame time, there is another selection of missions which run on real time but these take 1-2 whole days to complete, and will contribute towards your teams limit (which is, again, linked to bases you can only really build with real money). The ridiculous amount of time it takes for these real time missions to complete is so ridiculous that is you are playing the game even vaguely regularly its more efficient just to pick the ingame time missions, so why even put the real time ones in the game? =/

The FOB / PVP stuff seems pretty silly as well, you can invade each others bases and steal their resources and men, fair enough, a tried and tested formula which worked well in Dark Souls… except the part where you get invaded while you’re offline and there isn’t much you can do to stop it because the AI guards are useless as fuck. Seriously mindblowing, I log in every day to see that my resources and men have been stolen and theres fuck all I can do about it. 10/10 PVP.

Spoilers below this point :

Did i mention how unfinished the story is yet? What happens to psycho mantis and the man on fire, what happens to huey? What about quiet who carrying the English strain of the virus (you know, the virus that the whole game is basically based on).

I also really REALLY hate that quiet leaves and essentially locks you out of using her for the postgame, you can supposedly hack her back in on PC but god it’s so ridiculous that you even have to consider it.

Spoilers end here

MGS5 is one of the best games this year, even in it’s half finished state with it’s bad design choices – however the fact that this is the last game in the series by Kojima makes me sad that it just wasn’t as good as it could have been. Small tweaks here and there could have easily taken this game to legendary status, but instead we are left with a collection of ‘extract X’ missions tied together by the weakest metal gear storyline in the series.

This has been an awful rant typed up on my phone while waiting for a package to be delivered at work, it’s probably painful to read, you have my sympathies.

6 Aug 2015

An Untapped game genre: The factory builder

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games | 0

So in very late 2013 we used to play a lot of Minecraft, the tekkit modpack in particular – this modpack included a ton of smaller mods within it, but the jist of it is that you gained access to factory machinery, electricity, pipes, pumps, conveyor belts, build things from blueprints, and a ton of other things which are less relevant to this blog post. Going on a personal mission to build a self sustaining mining/farming operation in tekkit was genuinely one of the greatest video game experiences i’ve had – planning out individual areas, before linking them into a carefully designed production line, to be broken down or sorted for later use (or stockpiling because you can).
For those unfamiliar, a vague example of something you could do would be like… an automatic mining operation produces gold and silver -> send it to the pulverizer to turn it into powder -> powders go into a machine to mix them into a powder blend -> blend goes into a smelter to make electrum ingots -> ingots go to another machine to turn them into ???
However of course in the above example, how do you seperate the gold and silver from everything else being mined, how do you select for those two powders to go into the mixing machine together, what happens if the smelter is full, etc etc.

This stuff has been around for years now, why then are there still hardly any games in this subgenre? One could argue that the subgenre has always been a part of games like city builders or other games with digitial economies but they don’t quite function in the same way, (eg. Commercial business in cities skylines require Industrial goods, which require staff from residential) and they certainly don’t have the magic I experienced back in 2013.

Zachtronics have gone a kind of offshoot with most of their recent games; spacechem and infinifactory – these games provide a single element of what I believe to be the factory genre, that being the complex engineering part, zachtronics takes it to the extreme making it a goddamn nightmare to even produce a single product in most cases, and while it’s very satisfying to admire your assembly once it’s finally done, most of the levels in these games are just that – levels, single compartmented achievements.

I haven’t really found much else that is similar and fully released, perhaps this genre is too niche? A few searches on google have suggested OTTD, but that’s about it.

But wait.

There are two on the way.

Big Pharma is one of the games i’ve had my eye on for maybe a year or so now? It looks to be similar to what i’m looking for, though i’m yet to go out and buy it because I want to wait for the full release. The jist of it however is to design and make a drugs factory – a mix of business sim and logistics puzzle, probably with some quirky machinery involved.

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85I89ZrwIfU” ]

Factorio is the other one, which I only very recently found out about (It’s still in Alpha). Unlike Big Pharma, it sticks with the mining theme i’m more used to, and drops the business simulation stuff for what appears to be some form of base defence mechanic. I haven’t actually played this one yet either, but i’ll be keeping an eye on it to see how it turns out, because it definitely seems to have the massive factory thing that i’m looking for.

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yDZM0diiYc” ]

It’ll be interesting to see if these two games do well upon release, Many people never played tekkit as it was kind of an oxymoron – a very grown up and complicated mod in a game primarily played by children and those that watch pewdiepie videos. It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to me if it suddenly kicks off it’s own genre and set of clones in a way that minecraft introduced the open world crafting/survival bullshit phase that indie games are finally starting to phase out of.

Long story short: It’s strangely satisfying spending 2 hours designing something that will do a 3 minute task over and over again. I want to play more games like these.

9 Apr 2015

Why you should consider Heroes of the Storm

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games | 0

Take everything you hate about traditional MOBA, then leave the shit teammates in, and then… actually wait, put the stealth characters back too. Long story short, Heroes of the Storm might be the MOBA that gets you on the train, or gets you to change trains if you already play one of the other big MOBAs.

A quick summary of the game in comparison with other moba’s, is that blizzard seem to have tried hard to streamline the entire experience into ‘just the fun’, which results in almost a combination between traditional 3 lane MOBA, and arena style TDM.

Heres a list of things which are different, and that I liked:

– Recharging fountains just behind first tower to help with laning phase

– Getting outplayed rather than Outgeared

– Skirmishes / Baron dance all day

– No need to fuck around with items, lets be real, you’d buy the same shit every game anyway

– No need to last hit creeps, now you can focus on last hitting your enemy in the face

– No Wards, so ganks are more effective

– Gates along with towers which introduce blind spots

– Towers have ammo systems, meaning pushing the lane to the tower is always the optimal strategy

– Talents which augment your abilities, think Diablo 3 style
– – Forgo talents for additional spells if you need them, these include poly’s, attack buffs, cooldown refreshes, and blinks. Everyone knows a spell like Blink is strong, so do you want safety or do you want carry power or an even crazier ult.

– Choice of two ults to fit your playstyle, as an example, Raynors Ult1 is great for sieging and teamfights, while Ult2 is great for single target DPS.

– Free palette swaps on skins

– Side objectives are meaningful and always give the teams something to fight over, focusing the action. 1 Man split push is rarely the correct strategy.

– Pick your hero and the game matchmakes you into a party, means you play what you want, rather than what others force you to pick

– Less reliance on an established meta

– ‘Jungle camps’ grant your team additional push/siege capabilities

– 3 Skills and 1 talent point at level 1
– – Full scale 5v5 battle over recon point at level 1

– Mana costs feel about right.

– Not played all of them yet, but i’m yet to find a hero I dislike playing as.

– No postgame chat or All Chat means you can’t flame your enemies, avoiding unnecessary salt and drama

– Granted im still relatively low level, but toxicity seems lower than other MOBA, this might change when i hit ranked/max level though. At the very least, there aren’t legions of smurf accounts waiting to fuck me up.

Here’s some things that are bad about it

– Some Lag compensation / choppiness issues (Though these seem to be better on the 32bit client)

– Pricing model, Not enough ingame gold generation for the price of heroes.

– Less heroes than other games in genre (35)

– Still closed beta

– Can’t hard carry due to shared XP and no items.

26 Mar 2015

13 Reasons why Resi Revelations 2 is awful

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games | 0

So against my better judgement I decided to continue on with the game, playing through the other episodes.. eventually finding myself towards the end of Episode 4, when something tipped me over the edge and I just said ‘fuck it. I can’t deal with this game anymore’ and I exited out and probably won’t ever launch it again. It gets that bad.

As odd as it is to say, Revelations 2 somehow manages to feel like a poor resident evil clone of the recent ‘Evil Within’ game.

Anyway, Have some bullet points.

– The story is fucking retarded, even by resident evil standards

– Moiras dialogue is fucking retarded, even teenagers don’t say the dumb shit she says, you can’t just write normal angsty dialogue and then throw ‘fuck’ in there every now and then “I’m going to survive the fuck out of this”. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

– The level design is terribly linear and this only gets worse after the first episode

– The level design is also retarded, with enemies and traps in places seemingly only put there to annoy.

– There are enemies which are completely invisible and kill you instantly if you get to close to them, and then the level designers thought it would be a good idea to throw these into timed escape sequences, where the average player is going to be holding the run button. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHO THOUGHT THIS IS A GOOD IDEA. I HATE YOU.

– Natalia (the little girl) apparently has enough physical strength to pick up and carry a generator unit which has dimensions probably 1m^3, this annoyed me more than it probably should have.

– The game has serious pacing issues

– Episode 4 featured possibly the most boring 10 minute area/segment i’ve ever played in a video game ever – and i’ve played a lot of video games.

– There are lengthy segments clearly designed for co-op play… the co-op play is of course missing from the PC version

– There was a part where the AI decided to fall off a cliff, causing me to get a game over.

– Overabundance of items which are completely useless without ‘bottles’, and then an item system which refused to let me discard said useless items. I wasn’t aware this shitty rag of cloth was important to the overarching story of the game.

– Unexplained inconsistencies toward the end of the story, bitches be teleporting around location wise or coming back to life etc.

– Bosses are lazily made, having only 2 or 3 attacks.
– – The boss in the claire campaign would regularly manage to attack me through terrain
– – One of the bosses in the barry campaign features an instant kill grab attack and is fought in a small enclosed area, and you bet your AI partner is just going to be standing around.

– Fucking hell did I mention how bad the story was?

To Summarize:

9 Mar 2015

Astro’s Rhythm Game Q1 Meet, and the end of Programmed World

by Steven Meng | posted in: blog, Games | 1

Just remembered I haven’t done a post about Q1 yet, Astro City were conducting their quarterly community meetup, I turned up on the saturday and stayed overnight.

Lots of antics as usual, we also had a larger selection of home setups available than last time, with people bringing along Sound Voltex, Reflec Beat, and Jubeat – making the arcade very busy indeed, and making sure there was more or less something for everyone to play at all times.

I previously remember Reflec beat not being a whole lot of fun when I played it in Japan, but I actually rather enjoyed it this time round, though the green notes at the top still threw me off. I still don’t think i’d properly spend too much money on it, but it was definitely pretty fun. (oh, and it has ‘Watching you’ by LIL and a bunch of other neato songs, KPP anyone?)
Jubeat actually ended up being the opposite, I remembered it being fun in the arcade but playing it again properly and having a longer go with it, I don’t really like that game much at all as it feels too hard to properly read. Maybe i’m just getting old.

Q1 also coincided with my birthday, so there was lots of birthday love given out, which was honestly a really nice change compared ot the usual treatment I get when I basically just go to work, or sit at home and do nothing at all (I’ve never been big on birthday celebrations if i’m honest.)

Alex previously bet me a free curry if I was able to pass IIDX’s 7th Dan before/on Q1, and I actually somehow managed to pull it off! I guess a good sign that i’m slowly improving, my gauge dropped down to 12% or so at one point. Lua was manning the stream computer so I even got a video copy of it as a souvineer!

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7rYakieW7A” ]

Woo! So basically, I passed a major milestone AND got a free dinner on my birthday.

Group selfie. Obviously.

DDR was pretty busy throughout the night

Me being coached by Alex

It was a really fun night, and fantastic to see everyone again…. It’s sad then, that as of last night, the community start to fizzle again.

Without going into too much detail, basically we in the UK don’t have proper access to the latest versions of the arcade games, and we don’t have proper access to the online features as they all go through Konami – who don’t operate outside of Japan (and recently, some patches of NA).
We were kind of able to circumvent this through what was basically server emulation, however over the last weekend Konami have decided to take the banhammer to the service (Programmed World), which basically means we are going to lose access to the latest versions of the games we’ve been playing, along with all of the online features – Paseli (digital currency), Score saving, Rivals (data comparison), Clear Lamps… Basically everything which gives the games proper longevity and replayability. Imagine having a version of guitar hero with 4000 songs that you can go through and clear, and it’ll save your hi-score etc… then suddenly that is replaced with a version that only has 3000 songs and wont save your scores or info in any way.

The main worry right now, is that the arcades that supported the games, and in turn relied on the game’s income and playerbase, are now in a position where they will lose much of their custom. Considering there are other ways of playing the games that do have the aforementioned features, it puts people in a position where there isn’t a massive advantage of going to the arcade rather than just playing at home or similar.

It’s really kind of sad because for us, there isn’t even the option of joining konami’s E-amuse service, so we’re just shit out of luck. I’d hate to see the community kind of stop going to the arcade because of this, but honestly, even for me i’m probably less likely to go as a result.

27 Feb 2015

Dragonball Xenoverse (PC) Review

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Games Review | 0

It’s been a hell of a long time since i’ve played a Dragonball game, probably the last one I remember was one of the Budokai’s or Tenkaichi on the PS2, with some 15 games and 10 years since my last foray into the series, I was intrigued and excited.

Dragonball Xenoverse is for new gen consoles and PC, and starts the game with a hype as fuck metal version of the anime’s original japanese song, Cha-La Head cha-la, which really gets you into the mood for punching dudes. From there on, it’s a collection of new story, ingame and anime cutscenes and a slew of campaign and free missions to play.
Xenoverse is a 3rd person fighter, and plays similarly to the zone of the enders series (lock on, and mash buttons dynasty warriors style, or use some of the many Ki attacks).

So what do you need to know about Xenoverse…
The story is an interesting ‘history is being rewritten’ one, and has you travelling back in time to all of the famous battles you watched as a child, only something plays out differently – the end result is almost always the same of course, kill the enemy, but the way in which these scenarios are presented (well animated cutscenes) is a nice touch and helps explain why you are fighting with X, and why you are fighting against Y.
The core of the game is set out almost like an MMO – after creating your character, you progress through the story which unlocks the free missions, you get exp for playing anything, and can use this to buff your core stats in whatever way you choose (I like.). Your cosmetic choices are generally governed by your money (also gained from missions) or can be random drops in free missions, similarly all of the skills in the game can be equipped, but are dropped randomly by their respective user in free missions, or they can be provided by ‘trainers’ which are basically the named characters which appear in the hub world.

It’s a pretty cool choice, and a nice change from ‘oh ok, i’m Krillin, i guess i have destructo disk, solar flare, etc’, as now you can dress vaguely how you want (tied down to lore based dresswear of course) and pick whatever skills you desire – You’re free to go for a heavy melee fighter with physical combo skills and breakout moves, or you can put 4 variations of the kamehameha as your spells (why.).

There is online multiplayer as well, with co-op free missions, as well as online 3v3 battles and a tournament mode, which I assume is either 8 player rumble or perhaps a structured 1v1 tourney, i’m honestly not sure. I get the feeling this game will be great fun to play with friends, and either really fun or really frustrating to play against people online depending on the level of your character and how good you are at comboing/evading.

The main part of the game then, if not already implied, is combat – everything else is kind of this facade for the actual game which is just a 3d fighting game. Is it any fun? Ehhh… It’s OK. And that’s where Dragonball Xenoverse sort of starts to come apart. I love almost everything else about the game, the characters, the skill selection, the grindy nature of it… but the main dish, the actual thing you’ll be doing 90% of the time, feels lacking. There are only so many combos available to your character, and then you can select 4 special moves, and 3 ultimate moves, everything after that just turns into rushing down your opponent, mashing 2 buttons and finishing with a skill – occasionally holding block or tapping A to evade out of an enemies combo. It’s pretty binary and doesn’t really lack the strategy that traditional fighting games has, and where everyone has such large health pools, you’ll find yourself having to do the same thing over and over before they go down. As a side criticism, there is this gigantic hub world, but it’s filled with pretty much nothing, theres no way to teleport or dash around, and so you end up wasting a lot of time running between counters for shops/missions.

As a final note, the artstyle is awesome – a nice cel shaded look which is clear to read and fitting for the series. The game also runs really well, at a straight 60 for me even with AA – it also supports 4k resolutions and 120/144 fps, so theres that too. Oh yeah, theres a shit load of characters (I was shocked when I found out the character select menu could scroll horizontally), there are around 40+ I believe – Personally, i’ve never wanted to play as any of the smaller members of the Ginyu Force, but y’know, that’s an option here.

Verdict:

If you can get over the somewhat mediocre combat, Dragonball Xenoverse has a ton of stuff to do, as well as online battles for you to show off your character and skills once you’ve geared up. The art style is spot on and the game is fun in short bursts – though you’ll often find those short bursts turning into hours of play due to the length of battles and grindy nature of the game.
If Xenoverse were a cheaper price (like £20, £25 max), i’d totally buy it, and I’m only the bare minimum of a Dragonball fan.

Approximate Game Length : Long
Actual Worth / Steam Price: £20 / £40 = 0.5
Should you play it : For series fans only

Rating: 4 / 5

26 Feb 2015

The Talos Principle (PC) Review

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Games Review | 0

I feel like Talos Principle went kind of under the radar late last year, and I suppose why wouldn’t it, the game had practically zero marketing and is a puzzle made by Croteam – yeah, THAT Croteam, the one with the long history of making deep puzzle games, OH WAIT. all they have made are serious sam games which involve headless men trying to jihad you.

It was a surprise then, when Talos Principle actually turned out to be an incredibly competent 3d puzzle game; even more surprising is the massive amount of lore and storytelling they have managed to throw into the game. The core of the game involves small individual puzzles inside hubs which are inside other hubs, you’ll use lasers, jammers, fans, timed clones and more to make your way around doors, enemies, turrets and so on. There are a ton of puzzles, probably somewhere in the region of 100+ normal puzzles, then there are super hard puzzles which are unlocked by collecting star pieces, and these star pieces basically augment the normal puzzles and make them harder or require thinking outside of the box.

TalosPrinciple2 — Wall in the way? Put a laser transmitter on top of a box, and then float the box using a fan. Duh.

The hub worlds and the route of progression is pretty unique – each puzzle awards a tetromino which is used in the main hub to unlock new items or doors (to other hubs), it’s a strange world within world within worlds concept that ultimately really works in both a difficulty limiting fashion as well as a gated progression fashion, ensuring just enough of the world is left tucked away to keep you wanting to push forward. As expected, the further you get into the game, the harder and longer the puzzles become, however I felt the game did a fairly good job of introducing concepts gradually and letting the player figure out the rest – that is of course assuming you play the levels in order, which you don’t really have to. There are definitely some challenging levels in Talos Principle though, I personally found myself looking up hints/solutions about 5 times through my 9 hour playthrough, which isn’t too bad really, and shows that most of the puzzles can be fairly logically solved.

The story/narrative are also very impressively well done, and are not forced upon the player in any way – which is my favorite type of story. All of the lore and story are tucked away in obvious audio logs, or stored on computer terminals which are not required for progression – however the more you put in, the more you will get out, as the lore and world in Talos Principle is actually really interesting and mysterious (though I won’t say much more than that for spoiler reasons). I really did love the start of the game where nothing is explained, and everything is a mystery.

While there isn’t a massive amount of replay value, the game does it’s best at extending the game through natural means instead, as already mentioned there are a ton of crazy hard puzzles available, hidden behind extra hard puzzles. There is also just in general a lot of ground to cover and an expansive world to explore. Then finally there is a massive amount of easter eggs hidden away in the game, along with 3 endings.

While Talos Principle might not have the strong storytelling of the portal series, or the more interesting mechanics of Quantum Conundrum, i’d argue that it has one of the more interesting worlds to wander through and has this mysterious tone throughout – and on the more obvious side, it’s really fucking long compared to everything else in it’s genre that i’ve seen, while being good enough that you’ll want to see it through. The game ran me approximately 9 hours for a normal clear, and probably much longer if you want to go for the stars and star levels.

Oh, as an ‘and finally’ note for the PC version, there are options in the graphical settings to change contrast, brightness etc, but also saturation, which I thought was really neat. More games should let me make them more colourful.

Verdict:

Talos Principle is a shockingly good 3d Puzzler from Croteam, and easily puts up a good fight against it’s genre rivals like Portal. It’s filled with some great level design and game mechanics, beautiful environments, relaxing music and intriguing story.

Approximate Game Length : 9 Hours for basic clear with minimal extras
Actual Worth / Steam Price: £16 / £30 = 0.533
Should you play it : Yes, especially if you enjoy the genre.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

ps. At £30 normal price, the game is maybe a little on the steep side, but is probably a good buy at £20 or below.

25 Feb 2015

Resi Revelations 2 Ep1 (PC) Review

by Steven Meng | posted in: Games, Games Review | 0

Mmmm.. So Resident Evil Revelations 2, admittedly I feel like i’m a tad out of the loop nowadays when it comes to Resi games, I didn’t get very far in Revelations 1, and I barely touched Resi 6 (for reasons we won’t get into right now). I did recently finish REmake HD again, but that’s a resi game from another time so i’m not entirely sure if it counts.

And so, here we have Revelations 2, a new episodic title in the franchise – As I understand it, there are 4 episodes to this game, each available for £5, or the whole lot for £20. These episodes, rather surprisingly, are also coming out on a weekly basis rather than the telltale style of waiting until everyone has forgotten what happened on the last episode before releasing the new one.

I guess I’d better start talking about the game itself. It’s very similar to all of the recent Resi games, you run in a mostly linear fashion, you shoot zombies in the head, there is a second character with you (though done in a less clever way than Resi 0), you mostly don’t have ammo problems, there are grenades, you find items to progress and then there’s probably a climax event where you have to survive because everyone talks about that opening sequence of resi4 and so they just can’t let that shit go.

The differences in Revelations 2 (at least in the PC version) is that there is a mysterious lack of co-op – despite there being 2 characters throughout the game, the second character also does not have a firearm but will instead possess a unique ability. There’s also a weapon parts/upgrade system, which is actually kind of cool and works by letting you add parts to your weapon to upgrade it. For some reason also, they have decided to put in a skill tree, I vaguely remember something like this being in one of the other recent games, so maybe this isn’t new at all, but you can spend your bp (exp) to unlock some small buffs – it’s worth mentioning that these aren’t your conventional skills, in that none of them actually straight up increase your health or damage, but rather work by changing the way your abilities work, or add bonus damage in special circumstances. Other new features include the ability to combine items to make new ones, alcohol can be combined with a bottle for the obvious firebomb, or combined with some cloth for a dressing – which is practically a necessity due to the new bleed system. The new bleed system occurs at a fairly low frequency, but will fill your screen with annoying blood splats and make your character drain health (seemingly rapidly) over time, I only got inflicted with bleed once by a large enemy, but it was highly annoying.

An unfortunate consequence of being part of the revelations series, seems to be that the game has kept in the item scouter from Revelations 1 – a laborious way of introducing extra items into the area, provided you scout them out, Revelations 2 does this by forcing you to use your second, defenceless character to point at items so that blind claire/barry can pick them up. Failure to play this shitty minigame of theirs will result in you having less ammo to fire, less herbs to use, etc.

Episode 1 takes place in a prison kind of area, and then a forest, with gameplay divided fairly equally between the Claire / Moira team, and Barry / Little Girl team (yeah, I forgot her name. always a good sign that you’ve made a memorable character and tried your hardest to integrate her into the story OH WAIT.). There is some overlap between the two, which I actually thought was kind of cool – seeing the consequences of one journey affect the next. Unfortunately the game kind of ends just as you start to get into it – the problem with episodic games I suppose. The title runs at exactly 90 minutes for me, though I imagine if you wanted to zerg it you could manage it in 30-45min on your first attempt.

Raid mode is unlocked on completion, which appears to be this title’s taken on the Mercenaries concept – However I remember mercenaries being more… intense, the raid mode in this feels more akin to running a low level dungeon in a PVE mmo on your own. The missions provide you with a linear path and then puts randomly spawning enemies in your area for you to kill, and these zombies (at the start of the mode at least) are the lowest of the low – providing absolutely no challenge whatsoever. So you run around, kill zombies, and then there are chests around the place which provide you with unidentified weapons/parts which you can use on your character, I imagine you can see where this is going. So what we have then, is a character who needs to level up to equip skills/items, we have a gold system, and then we have random item drops, and zombies with levels and life bars above their heads. Welcome what can only be described as a free to play Resident Evil game! …. Except its single player only… and you have to pay for it…

As a final note, many people on steam are complaining about bad frame rate issues and crashes, I didn’t experience any of these, but then again I was using a.. uhh.. ‘offline review copy’ we’ll say. If you do want to purchase this, it might be worth looking into patchnotes and stuff to make sure your experience isn’t marred. Personally, I had no issues running this on high settings @ 1080/60 stable.

Verdict:

Ehhh. The campaign mode of this episode can only be described as ‘adequate’, it’s not particularly scary, the new character doesn’t add a whole lot to the gameplay, and it’s terribly short. Raid mode has some interesting ideas, and would genuinely be a game I would play if it were online and free, but sadly it is neither of these.
It’s a solid modern Resi game, but that sadly doesn’t count for a whole lot nowadays.

Approximate Game Length : 1.5 Hours for this episodes campaign. Putting the estimate for the full game at 6-8 Hours
Actual Worth / Steam Price: £2 / £5 = 0.4
Should you play it : Nothing special. Fans of the series should wait for the inevitable steam sale when all the episodes are out.

Rating: 3/5

ps. Moira’s dialogue isn’t as bad as I anticipated from the early footage, majority of her lines are badly written to the point where it’s comical though, perhaps they are trying to establish shit dialogue as a Resident Evil feature?

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