Video Game Round Table -- 8 BITS -- June 2013

Just something I think I'd leave here It's scary just how many of these bills are there.  :

Why are governments so afraid of a 1st amendment internet?

Writing Posts On A Blog 20% Cooler

You may have been wondering where I, the N00basaurus, have been the past few months.  This blog has been rather dusty and unused for a little bit.  Well let me tell ya!  Things are a-chang'n.

First and foremost, I've been picked up by another blog, one much more professional than this one, to write video game reviews.  It's got quite a bit more traffic as well, so yeah, kick ass!  Only slight downer is that I have to be more..."family" oriented... I guess is a good way to put it... so less fuck'n cussing and what not, which is fine.  I'm used to that after being on the FM radio waves for quite some time now in my local city (Funk yeah KJHK 90.7FM) doing a show called BREAKFAST FOR BEAT LOVERS.




Above is the type of music I play on air.

 

"Where's this mystery blog?" you might be asking.  It's www.SciFi4Me.com

Go check it out, it's pretty swanky.

It's a lot more than video games.  In fact, it's mostly not video games at all.  It's more on Science Fiction tv shows, books, comics, conventions, and all around geek/nerd fanculture good-ness.  And what's cool, is that it doesn't limit itself to one niche or another.  All nerdyness gets on there.



So far my reviews have been pretty well received   Did one for Borderlands 2, did another short one for Sam & Max: Ice Station Santa: http://scifi4me.com/2012/12/16/sam-max-visit-ice-station-santa-hilarity-ensues/

So yeah.  I think what I'm going to do is just use this blog to link into my posts on the more professional one.   So yeah, stay tuned.

--N00basaurus

They Said I Could Be Anything, So I Became A News Post!

So a little bit of news is in order since this blog has stalled for far too long.

Things have been pretty hectically insanely busy the last couple of months.  School has started back up, got a new job, papers, quizzes, making 'sandvitches'.  You know how it goes.

Also, there have been very few games that I've wanted to pick up lately.  Nothing, for the past few months, have really looked at all that interesting (nor have I had the funding to splurge on new games that I wasn't already emotionally invested in to begin with.

However... as mid-late September rolls around....Holy Shit Snacks Batman!  There are so many new games that have just popped into existence and/or about to stomp me in the face as they burn out spots on game store shelves.



So, I'm plugging through Guild Wars 2 to give it a chance for a full impression before my hammer of judgmental justice slams down on it's head...  I can tell you now, I have mixed experiences and opinions on it.

Games to be reviewed:
[PC] Guild Wars 2 (why turret? why!?!)





[Xbox360] Boarderlands 2 (waiting...)

[PC] World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (from beta to release)

[PC] Bullet Run (short, and terrible)

So yeah, that's what's going on, games I'm reviewing and such.  Stay tuned.  Also, side note: Starting to think of improving the blog's design... Need to think of a more aesthetic logo design and such.

so yeah, Rawar!
--The N00basaurus

FUS RO DAH!

Finally I'm able to talk about something I've been wanting to for a while now.  Most of the bugs in my game have been fixed with patches and it is now more than playable.  I have been sucked back into "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" with their recent expansion "Dawnguard".  Huzzah!  To be honest, I really think this is the best game in the Elder Scroll series to date.

Insert dramatic music here

Game: The Elderscrolls V: Skyrim (with expansion "Dawnguard") 
Dev: Bethesda 
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 
Rating: 9 So many bodies, so little ketchup. 

"HEY-- YOU-- GUY---S!"

Dramatic landscapes come standard, of course.

And here we have the review that's been a long time in the making, really.  Constant saves and loads, checking back to see if I can progress or not.  Let's be honest.  Skyrim (much like Diablo 3) didn't have... the best nor smoothest in terms of game launches.  It is reminiscent to the issues that Lion Head studios had with their game "Fable 2". When that game got released it was just rough. Both games were riddled with bugs like Swiss cheese with holes.  Bugs were more rampant than fire breathing dragons, and that's saying something.  But now that the game has been out a while, patches galore have pretty much smoothed everything over to a gentile, if not smooth finish.

Ye olde bug spray.

So onto the game: What is Skyrim?  If you don't know by now, it's another in a long long list of open sandbox first person RPGs.  You run around doing quests and what ever at your leisure.  There's a couple main story arcs and nearly endless random quests for whatever.  Pretty simple.  You get weapons and abilities and points and levels and perks and stuff.  Magic and dragon shouts and all sorts of gizmos and gadgets to defeat dragons, poke town guards, and take arrows to knees.

Life force before hos.

The expansion, Dawnguard, adds content in 2 parts.  The 1st part is the more obvious one.  That is like adding a new story arc, new items, new areas, and the usual mumbo-jumbo.  The other part is going back into the old game and adding features.  The biggest of which, and my favorite, are the perk trees for werewolves and vampires.  I only wish the trees were bigger, more complex, and had more perks  thatcould be gained over a longer period of time.  What they have is good, but more would be better.  One other quick note, was that I was a little disappointed in both the werewolves and vampires, in the sense of their end transformation.  What they have is alright, but it would be amazing if they could incorporate hints of your gender and/or race in the final product.  Like khajiit markings in the werewolf fur, skin tones on the vampire lord/lady, making your character design settings reflect into the beast you become, instead of just overriding into X generic stock image that everyone becomes with no differentiation what so ever.

There he goes again, waving around that glowing shit like he owns the place.

"Call me 'Pussy', one... more... time..."

They also revisit some questions that arise from the original Skyrim and refined your knowledge about the lore there, which is always a good thing.  They added a few more "collect x" quests as well.  Still, a way to re-allocate your points to go with the newly added content would have been nice as well.




Overall, there's just a plain satisfaction of screaming at dragons and running your knife/arrow/lance of ice through any given opponent.... That and chowing down on their corpse to feed your wolfy hunger...hehe.


Game: The Elderscrolls V: Skyrim (with expansion "Dawnguard") 
Dev: Bethesda 
Platform: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 
Rating: 9 So many bodies, so little ketchup. 

(All images gained from Bethesda's public website)

Pandas Don't Know Rights From Lefts

A short review this time.  This is a game I've been comically struggling with.

So I'm a huge fan of Kung-fu.  Everything kung fu is win in my book.  From bad 60's films to the real life guy that can do hand stands on nothing but his thumbs...thumb-stands?  So it's only natural that I quite enjoy Dreamwork's Warcraft knock off with the "Kung-fu Panda" series.  So I picked up the game a while ago...

Game: Kung-fu Panda 2
Dev: Griptonite Games
Platform: PS3, Wii, DS, Xbox 360
Rating: 5 Too much sticky rice.

I get by with a little help from my friends

First off, this wrongly titled game isn't the movie "Kung-fu Panda 2".  It takes place right after the fall of Lord Shen in the aftermath.  Of course there's a vacuum of power and of course there's a new evil so behold, video game.  This is more "Kung-fu Panda 2.5" if you want to go all numbers.  It's the epilogue, 'nuff said.

To be honest, I haven't gotten through it entirely.  Story wise, what I have seen I have rather enjoyed.  The mini games are interesting and entertaining with the kinect (depending on how finicky my sensor is being).  And the transition of game play from one scene to another is rather smooth.  But the biggest folly of this title is the game mechanics themselves.  Which is a shame, really.

Combat.  With Kung fu, there's fighting (as the well known disco song suggests).  And this... well... you can clearly see what they were aiming for, but they really missed their mark.  Combat is split into 2 trees (that take turns in alternating phases).  An attack tree and a defense tree.  Attack tree you have various "moves" single punches, single kicks, jump, and double fist and from there they fit and interact with various situations (like an opponent dodges, you flail about in that direction and activate a jump move).  Kinect has difficulty reading double punches since your fists push in the same line as your torso so your hands become invisible to the sensor some times.

Rickshaw...

Defense tree is the biggest issue, and it's a really important issue at that.  Defense is broken down with single blocks, double block, quick time event counters, and dodges.  Dodges are the worst idea in this game since square wheels.  This notion of dodging attacks is carried out poorly.  The idea makes sense, the execution was sloppy. And when I say sloppy, I mean to the point where it makes the game practically non-playable.

Here's the idea: An enemy glows when they are doing an "unblockable attack".  They "charge" up in a slow motion movement and the player dodges in the correct direction of their movement.  Novel right? Sounds great.  They even had the enemies glow different colors depending on which way your supposed to dodge.  Sadly, they didn't tell the game they did that.  So enemies glow randomly between the two colors (red and red-orange, which is GREAT for the color blind) and your supposed to "guess" which way they are attacking.  Even worse, most enemies carry huge round shields which block a good 70% of your line of sight so you can't tell "how" they are "charging" their attack or which way they are going to move.  Even worse, they all lean to the right, so instinct says "dodge left".  You're always in the line of fire.

The models flow like in the film

When it's just small fish, yeah, you can get through a small pack of mooks alright.  But a boss? Forget about it.  You have to dodge 3-4 times in the same defense phase on every defense phase, and each failed attempt takes huge chunks of health from you.  The game is unforgiving as well.  If you fail on the super healthed out boss, you have to start at the very beginning of the level.  square one, and survive the minions again.  Depending how the first few fights go, depends greatly how many dodge hits you can take.  And you WILL take the dodge hits.  It's safer to just stand still than to try and guess where it's going.  Probably get the same results.  There's no changing of difficulties to make up for the poor game mechanic either.  Your just suck with it, and it's made me very frustratingly stuck as well.

I really want a cheat code that just lets me watch the cinema scenes instead of try to chew through the bad mechanics.

No Kung fu is complete without a pagoda

Now, keep in mind, this was a very early kinect release.  So the fine tuning of the kinect sensor really hasn't come through yet (it still hasn't, but it's getting there).  So things are really understandably choppy.  But it almost feels like nobody played the game before it got put out on shelves.  It doesn't matter if the game is "finished", some one had to have seen that it couldn't really be played very well.

There's a very easy, easy, easy fix that I'm sure they could probably patch it in through PSN, what ever the wii has, or Xbox Live.  Simply add an arrow to the GUI.  Dodge in the direction of the arrow.  Easy peasy.  This isn't an argument of difficulty or skill as some of you might argue.  Think of it more like playing Tosh.0's Rock, Paper, Balls.  There is no winner, only pain.

A quick note: I do like their modeling, and the visuals are pretty great.  It really catches the feel of the movies...just wish I could see everything in the game...


Game: Kung-fu Panda 2
Dev: Griptonite Games
Platform: PS3, Wii, DS, Xbox 360
Rating: 5 Too much sticky rice.

Another Mists of Pandara Beta Screenshot

I've been plugging away at the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandara beta for a few weeks now.  So far I really like the direction it's heading.  Everything is very pretty to look at.

Click to Enlarge: Bodies, bodies everywhere....

It is, however, a beta.  So it still has a lot of bugs and polish that needs to be worked out before it's ready.  One such of these are exploitables.  There are zones where mobs and NPC's continuously spawn in great number, and those classes that have massive AOE's can constantly down those NPC's for massive experience points.  Shown in the picture is one such area where shadow priests were camping. Notice the massive pile of bodies on the rock in the background.  I had to scale my graphics to the lowest possible settings just to be able to log in due the shear amount of clutter.

Every game has alphas and betas, which is where things are meant to get tested and worked on.  A common saying is "Beta is beta".  It's very true.  This is by no means a final product.