This happened out of the blue:
And honestly, this is really very cool of Bethesda to do. You can now play the full run of the core Doom games through to the current game on Switch, which is honestly a great platform for this style of shooter, especially the originals. It also helps bolster Switch's modest array of FPS style shooters, of which there are a few good ones but not nearly enough.
Switch is rapidly turning in to a premiere system not only for fans of indie games and Nintendo properties, but for fans of nostalgia and retro gaming (if we interpret nostalgia to mean anything from the 90's to the 00's and think of even Xbox 360/PS3 era titles as worthy of this title) these are great titles to have access to. But...hey, it works; I may be long done with Saint's Row the Third on PC, but the opportunity to play it in portable form at my leisure today on the Switch is great.
The classic Doom titles are priced reasonably (Capcom take note) at $5 apiece for I and II and $10 for 3. I'll continue to state what I long feel is probably an "exception to the norm" opinion that Doom 3 is the best and most underrated of the titles....Doom I and II were great for what they did, but Doom 3 was the game that actually got me seriously in to FPS gaming on PC, and the frenetic style of the 2016 Doom may be welcome to fans of the original, but Doom 3's attention to atmosphere and horror as well as story remains the best in the series for me. Playing it on the Switch is a very cool experience.
Anyway....Switch continues to be the most oddly enjoyable console I've got, mainly due its embrace of these retro ports (and no doubt other games if you're a more traditional Nintendo fan). It still suffers from having a ton of crappy indie titles on its roster (sure, there are good indie titles, too but you have to wade through a lot of garbage to find the gems), but with these tried and true classics on Switch it continues to be a fantastic console experience.
Now: Bethesda, release all the Quake titles on Switch next! Pleeeeaaaase! Doom is fun but Quake is better, and I'd kill for a good port of Quake 4 on Switch.
Showing posts with label doom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doom. Show all posts
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Gaming on the Nintendo Switch - Skyrim, Zelda, Gear:Club and More
A few months ago I decided to take the dive and purchase the only console I didn't own, the Nintendo Switch. This was based on at least four factors:
1. The Switch had gotten consistently good reviews from most interested parties, and Tobold on his excellent blog talked enough about it (and Legend of Zelda) to convince me that this wasn't a game to miss, and also that maybe the Switch wasn't another Nintendo dud.
2. The concept of a portable Skyrim was overhwhelming my common sense.
3. I had come to the conclusion that the reason I rarely engaged with my old PS Vita was that the screen was too small, and that it had no easy way for me to hook it up to a TV (and that the one option that existed was difficult and limited in functionality).
4. Finally, it was the only gadget console I didn't own and that just wasn't gonna fly in my house!
Anyway, the Switch has proved to be a really fun device, and possibly even more fun, overall (even if in smaller bursts) than the Big Two that tend to dominate my house thanks to their specific offerings (Destiny 1 and 2 for the family, The Divsion for dad, Monster Hunter: World for mom and pretty much Everything Else but especially Lego games and Minecraft for Marcus). The Switch has instead held sway as a portable that works really, really well and doesn't induce eye strain like the PS Vita, as well as being sufficiently portable that we could pack the whole thing up, docking station included, and take it on trips where we hook it up to the hotel TV. It's battery life as a handheld has also been much better than I expected, and one evening my son managed to run it down after about five hours of play.
For my own purposes I played many games on it (and a lot of Skyrim and Xenoblade Chronicles 2) well before I dabbled into the deep waters that is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is a contentious game since everone else in the house also wants to play it, but do not want me playing it where I can accidentally spoil it for them. Luckily my wife's been playing a lot of GTAV on a special roleplay server (yeah, that's a real thing that exists) which keeps her distracted, and I caved in and got Minecraft for my son on the PC so he could play AlienvsPredator mods in the game which has left me safely ignored, and enjoying what I would describe as a more colorful, vibrant open world exploration experience that is like a mellowed out version of Skyrim....or maybe to use a further analogy, Zelda is to Skyrim like The Hobbit (the book) is to its successor The Lord of the Rings (also talking about the book here).
Picking it up and playing on the go is a lot of fun, but docking it and playing on the available TV is even better. Being able to pull the whole system and move it to a different TV is actually quite handy in my household, which is dominated by 2 UHD TVs and an HD TV (and two of these TVs are also serving as monitors). If my son wants to play on the PC, and I allow it, then I can move to the living room TV and plug in the Switch, no issues at all. If I want to lounge in the safety of the bedroom where there are no televisions and play anyway, the Switch makes this possible.
So far the only negatives I've encountered with the Switch are as follows:
720p Resolution is more normal with the Switch, and wouldn't be much of an issue if I didn't also have an Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. Playing a game like Doom or Skyrim on it for the portability is awesome, but if you happen to have Skyrim Remastered on PC or Xbox One X then it's hard to want to invest big screen time in the Switch version of either game. However, being able to play either game on the go is priceless.
The Switch also doesn't currently appear to have any "family sharing" feature similar to the Xbox, which means I am not sure if I get my son or wife a Switch of their own that they could play my games on their account. Currently I can log in to my son's Xbox One S and he can play my games, even if its on his account, so long as I'm logged in (with a few notable exceptions). Even the PS4 allows this, although it has fewer family-friendly features than the Xbox environment does, but the Switch seems to lock these to your account. However, there's an upcoming online service that Nintendo intends to implement which may well provide for a family account sharing option, so fingers crossed.
Finally, the Switch has limited memory options. I have a 128GB mini SD card loaded up, and I think I can get a 256 GB card down the road, but while many of the games are small loads of less than 1 GB in size, all the really good games tend to lean toward 10-25 GB in size, and that means having just a few from the digital store can eat up your space. This is a very personal issue, though, and if you're like me and tend to buy many more games than you can find time to play, then you may notice it....but if you're a more focused and non-obsessive collector type of gamer who likes to finish one game at a time, then you may never notice the issue at all.
So what games have I been enjoying the most on the Switch? Well, the one's I've found the most overall fun and time consuming so far, in no particular order, include:
Gear:Club Unlimited
This racing game is no Forza Horizon 3 but in terms of general racing games its a lot of fun with just the right sort of depth for a game that plays well in both big screen and handheld mode. In fact, if you play it in both modes it feels (to me) like the handling of your vehicle adjusts in response to the way you are playing, making handheld and pro controller play equally smooth and comfortable. The game is designed around buying and upgrading cars and your workshop and racing various circuits of different types; it's a "lite" version of Forza, but the result is a great experience, and playing this while on my recent airplane trip was quite satisfying (pro tip: playing a car racing game while the plane is ascending or descending is not a good feeling, though!)
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Yes, everyone has raved about this game already, but I will add my two cents and suggest that it's a game with the compelling style of play from Skyrim, but with a more faerie-tale driven element to it, and a escalating series of mechanical elements in the gameplay that one can easily obsess over. Nothing about this design fails to tick the checklist of "things I love in a game" and it's mythology makes for a healthy introduction to the Zelda universe for people who may not know much about it (and considering the last time I delved into a Zelda game it was the Ocarina of Time on the N64, I think I count). If you like Skyrim, and don't mind if most of the violence is exclusively aimed at various goblinoids and monsters, then you will love Breath of the Wild.
Skyrim
Duh, but also, yeah, Duh! The existence of this game on Switch was for me the main selling point on a Switch, if only just to see it work on a portable, and boy, does it work. The graphics are low on a full screen version, and you can tell it's at the low end of the scale compared to Skyrim Remastered on the other consoles, but on a small screen it's hard not to argue that it looks great. Even on a big screen the game is a lot of fun, although it lacks the workshop and ability to load mods, unfortunately.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Ordinarily this is a genre of Japanese RPG I might at best dive into for an hour and then get really annoyed with and move on from. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a different breed of game, however, in that it has meticulously careful voice acting with great voice actors who really improve the game over others of its type in dramatic ways, and the game is structured around expansive open world exploration mixed with focused quests in a way that I feel better reflects the genre and play people like than, say, Final Fantasy XV (which I feel tries to hard to be something it is not). I'm still plowing through this game (and likely will be for months to come) but it is definitely recommended.
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion
This is not a game I thought I'd be playing, and I bought it because I thought my son would get in to it (he's been obsessively playing the Switch version of Lego City Undercover). Instead, he got a little frustrated with this one after a while and dad tried it on a lark. Well, I can see why he got frustrated....the game has a really interesting mastery curve, and even lets you skip hard levels in the single player "Octo Expansion" campaign, although I have not bothered to do so. The design and feel of this game is what I'd call a version of Saints Row (stylistically) if it had been done by Nickelodeon with Cartoon Network and a dollop of Adult Swim mixed in for good measure; the storyline about humanoid inklings, half human/polymorphic squid things which generate copious quantities of ink that they use as both weapons and transportation is hard to fully digest as a concept, but if you just go with it and accept the game for what it is, there's a compelling hybrid shooter/platformer experience to be had that is a ton of fun.
Honorable Mentions
Honorable mentions go to some remastered classics that are on the Switch, such as Bayonetta 1 and 2 (and you can only find Bayonetta 2 on Nintendo!), Resident Evil Revelations 1 and 2, Payday 2, and of course Doom. Doom is a game I have had my ups and downs with, but I have really had fun with it on the portable end....I don't bother to load it up for a big screen event (I have it on PC, after all) ordinarily, but as a fun thing to play in portable mode it's hard to beat.
1. The Switch had gotten consistently good reviews from most interested parties, and Tobold on his excellent blog talked enough about it (and Legend of Zelda) to convince me that this wasn't a game to miss, and also that maybe the Switch wasn't another Nintendo dud.
2. The concept of a portable Skyrim was overhwhelming my common sense.
3. I had come to the conclusion that the reason I rarely engaged with my old PS Vita was that the screen was too small, and that it had no easy way for me to hook it up to a TV (and that the one option that existed was difficult and limited in functionality).
4. Finally, it was the only gadget console I didn't own and that just wasn't gonna fly in my house!
Anyway, the Switch has proved to be a really fun device, and possibly even more fun, overall (even if in smaller bursts) than the Big Two that tend to dominate my house thanks to their specific offerings (Destiny 1 and 2 for the family, The Divsion for dad, Monster Hunter: World for mom and pretty much Everything Else but especially Lego games and Minecraft for Marcus). The Switch has instead held sway as a portable that works really, really well and doesn't induce eye strain like the PS Vita, as well as being sufficiently portable that we could pack the whole thing up, docking station included, and take it on trips where we hook it up to the hotel TV. It's battery life as a handheld has also been much better than I expected, and one evening my son managed to run it down after about five hours of play.
For my own purposes I played many games on it (and a lot of Skyrim and Xenoblade Chronicles 2) well before I dabbled into the deep waters that is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is a contentious game since everone else in the house also wants to play it, but do not want me playing it where I can accidentally spoil it for them. Luckily my wife's been playing a lot of GTAV on a special roleplay server (yeah, that's a real thing that exists) which keeps her distracted, and I caved in and got Minecraft for my son on the PC so he could play AlienvsPredator mods in the game which has left me safely ignored, and enjoying what I would describe as a more colorful, vibrant open world exploration experience that is like a mellowed out version of Skyrim....or maybe to use a further analogy, Zelda is to Skyrim like The Hobbit (the book) is to its successor The Lord of the Rings (also talking about the book here).
Picking it up and playing on the go is a lot of fun, but docking it and playing on the available TV is even better. Being able to pull the whole system and move it to a different TV is actually quite handy in my household, which is dominated by 2 UHD TVs and an HD TV (and two of these TVs are also serving as monitors). If my son wants to play on the PC, and I allow it, then I can move to the living room TV and plug in the Switch, no issues at all. If I want to lounge in the safety of the bedroom where there are no televisions and play anyway, the Switch makes this possible.
So far the only negatives I've encountered with the Switch are as follows:
720p Resolution is more normal with the Switch, and wouldn't be much of an issue if I didn't also have an Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. Playing a game like Doom or Skyrim on it for the portability is awesome, but if you happen to have Skyrim Remastered on PC or Xbox One X then it's hard to want to invest big screen time in the Switch version of either game. However, being able to play either game on the go is priceless.
The Switch also doesn't currently appear to have any "family sharing" feature similar to the Xbox, which means I am not sure if I get my son or wife a Switch of their own that they could play my games on their account. Currently I can log in to my son's Xbox One S and he can play my games, even if its on his account, so long as I'm logged in (with a few notable exceptions). Even the PS4 allows this, although it has fewer family-friendly features than the Xbox environment does, but the Switch seems to lock these to your account. However, there's an upcoming online service that Nintendo intends to implement which may well provide for a family account sharing option, so fingers crossed.
Finally, the Switch has limited memory options. I have a 128GB mini SD card loaded up, and I think I can get a 256 GB card down the road, but while many of the games are small loads of less than 1 GB in size, all the really good games tend to lean toward 10-25 GB in size, and that means having just a few from the digital store can eat up your space. This is a very personal issue, though, and if you're like me and tend to buy many more games than you can find time to play, then you may notice it....but if you're a more focused and non-obsessive collector type of gamer who likes to finish one game at a time, then you may never notice the issue at all.
So what games have I been enjoying the most on the Switch? Well, the one's I've found the most overall fun and time consuming so far, in no particular order, include:
Gear:Club Unlimited
This racing game is no Forza Horizon 3 but in terms of general racing games its a lot of fun with just the right sort of depth for a game that plays well in both big screen and handheld mode. In fact, if you play it in both modes it feels (to me) like the handling of your vehicle adjusts in response to the way you are playing, making handheld and pro controller play equally smooth and comfortable. The game is designed around buying and upgrading cars and your workshop and racing various circuits of different types; it's a "lite" version of Forza, but the result is a great experience, and playing this while on my recent airplane trip was quite satisfying (pro tip: playing a car racing game while the plane is ascending or descending is not a good feeling, though!)
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Yes, everyone has raved about this game already, but I will add my two cents and suggest that it's a game with the compelling style of play from Skyrim, but with a more faerie-tale driven element to it, and a escalating series of mechanical elements in the gameplay that one can easily obsess over. Nothing about this design fails to tick the checklist of "things I love in a game" and it's mythology makes for a healthy introduction to the Zelda universe for people who may not know much about it (and considering the last time I delved into a Zelda game it was the Ocarina of Time on the N64, I think I count). If you like Skyrim, and don't mind if most of the violence is exclusively aimed at various goblinoids and monsters, then you will love Breath of the Wild.
Skyrim
Duh, but also, yeah, Duh! The existence of this game on Switch was for me the main selling point on a Switch, if only just to see it work on a portable, and boy, does it work. The graphics are low on a full screen version, and you can tell it's at the low end of the scale compared to Skyrim Remastered on the other consoles, but on a small screen it's hard not to argue that it looks great. Even on a big screen the game is a lot of fun, although it lacks the workshop and ability to load mods, unfortunately.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Ordinarily this is a genre of Japanese RPG I might at best dive into for an hour and then get really annoyed with and move on from. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a different breed of game, however, in that it has meticulously careful voice acting with great voice actors who really improve the game over others of its type in dramatic ways, and the game is structured around expansive open world exploration mixed with focused quests in a way that I feel better reflects the genre and play people like than, say, Final Fantasy XV (which I feel tries to hard to be something it is not). I'm still plowing through this game (and likely will be for months to come) but it is definitely recommended.
Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion
This is not a game I thought I'd be playing, and I bought it because I thought my son would get in to it (he's been obsessively playing the Switch version of Lego City Undercover). Instead, he got a little frustrated with this one after a while and dad tried it on a lark. Well, I can see why he got frustrated....the game has a really interesting mastery curve, and even lets you skip hard levels in the single player "Octo Expansion" campaign, although I have not bothered to do so. The design and feel of this game is what I'd call a version of Saints Row (stylistically) if it had been done by Nickelodeon with Cartoon Network and a dollop of Adult Swim mixed in for good measure; the storyline about humanoid inklings, half human/polymorphic squid things which generate copious quantities of ink that they use as both weapons and transportation is hard to fully digest as a concept, but if you just go with it and accept the game for what it is, there's a compelling hybrid shooter/platformer experience to be had that is a ton of fun.
Honorable Mentions
Honorable mentions go to some remastered classics that are on the Switch, such as Bayonetta 1 and 2 (and you can only find Bayonetta 2 on Nintendo!), Resident Evil Revelations 1 and 2, Payday 2, and of course Doom. Doom is a game I have had my ups and downs with, but I have really had fun with it on the portable end....I don't bother to load it up for a big screen event (I have it on PC, after all) ordinarily, but as a fun thing to play in portable mode it's hard to beat.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Death Bat's Top Five Computer Games of 2016
It's that time of the year again! When bloggers everywhere flock to a Best Of series of lists, make predictions for the next year, and attempt a bit of precognitive chicanery. I'll skip the last bit....next year is looking dicey at best....but I've got plenty of top fives to dicuss!!!!
In the world of video games I had to try and exclude titles from 2015 and earlier which I am STILL playing because they are both that good and designed to stick around (Destiny, MGSV, The Elder Scrolls Online), and focus on what's actually new.
Remember, my review criteria are as a full time dad with limited game time. Stuff a twenty-something can plow through in fifty hours over a week are beyond the pale for me; if I get fifty hours out of a game in a year I'm smokin'.
Anyway....on to the list! It was a weird year at times for PC and console gaming, but there were a lot of noteworthy titles to choose from. As usual I favor the more visceral FPS and third-person based shooter with plots (or not).
5. Best Co-Op Experience: Warhammer End Times: Vermintide
I've barely discovered Vermintide but am finding it quite compelling. The game is set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, giving you an array of distinct characters to choose from as they face down a grotesque horde of skaven (ratkin) in a doomed city. It's essentially a fantasy edition of Left 4 Dead, and manages to fill that void handily.
Runner Up: Killing Floor 2. Despite a shaky early access window, the final release of Killing Floor 2 is proving to be an amazingly polished and fun experience.
4. Best Shooter: Doom
I had a lot to say about Doom earlier in the year, but since then two of three expansion DLC have released which added a great deal of content to the game....content I feel would have been better to be included in the core package, as it makes the multiplayer component much more interesting. I also snagged the game on PC with my recent computer upgrade and feel the PC edition is more interesting overall than the console versions.
Runner Up: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare took it's franchise in to space and while I think it will fail as a CoD game because that's not quite what the franchise fans want, it still made a compelling interplanetary warfare experience that I think out-Halo'd Halo 5: Guardians in every way. When CoD is making you feel more like Master Chief than Halo is, somethings wrong....
3. Best Open World Game Experience: Tom Clancy's The Division
Tom Clancy's The Division grabbed me earlier this year and has held on. I'm a slow player so take my assertions that it's loaded with content with the appropriate recognition....I'm working on leveling a third character though (now with the PC version of the game) and look forward to the final expansion pack. If you can find the complete package for under $50 I think this game is a steal....but take note that I am amused that the Xbox One version seems to have more glitches and bugs than the PC edition so far!
Honorable Mention: Just Cause 3 XL Edition proved really captivating to me this year. The game's willingness to let you blow things up in any number of inconceivably bizarre and physics-defying ways left me wondering the whole time if the protagonist was a secret metahuman or something, but it never stopped being weird fun.
2. Best Franchise Revamp and Story-Driven Shooter: Titanfall 2
It is nice to see that the devs behind Titanfall 2 realized their new world was compelling enough to deserve a single player campaign. I love the multiplayer elements with the large mechs, but the story mode really sells this sequel to the MP-only experience of a couple years back. It is far and away my favorite FPS experience so far this year. BT the robot is a great foil to the protagonist.
Runner Up: Destiny: Rise of Iron, but remember I'm a Destiny fanboy so of course I'd put it on my list somewhere! It adds to the lore and provides a great new campaign arc to what I suspect is the last DLC we'll see for the game until Destiny II arrives next year.
1. Best Story-Driven Title: Uncharted: A Thief's End
This was by far my favorite game this year. Uncharted: A Thief's End tells the last tale of Nathan Drake, debonaire explorer and thief of antiquities using the lessons they learned from The Last of Us to make a narrative that manages to lend even more humanity and emotional resonance to the series, while still going over the top with it's high concept action adventure tale. The multiplayer is kind of fun as well, but utterly secondary to the story itself.
Runner Up: Gears of War 4, which manages to revive the franchise, remain true to the style and feel of the prior games, and provides a really compelling narrative tale that --believe it or not!-- was easy to follow and really interesting all at once. Oh and I hear it has MP as well (heh). My only regret with GoW4 is how I haven't been able to invest as much time with it as I'd like due to all these other games competing for time.
Bonus Mention: Best Game I Only Just Discovered: Watch Dogs 2
I only just snagged this and have delved a few hours in, but Watch Dogs 2 is a massive improvement in terms of story, design and style over its predecessor, and a much more evocative and interesting experience as a result. The game captures a fascinating near-future take on cyberpunk that is much closer to RL if you are willing to buy in to its core conceits. I'll talk more about this one soon, including some ideas I have on how Watch Dog 2's core conceits for gameplay could translate into a similar experience in tabletop.
Honorable Mention: Forza Horizon 3. This game is a damned compelling open-world racing/exploration experience set in the Australian Outback. My favorite car game experience so far.
In the world of video games I had to try and exclude titles from 2015 and earlier which I am STILL playing because they are both that good and designed to stick around (Destiny, MGSV, The Elder Scrolls Online), and focus on what's actually new.
Remember, my review criteria are as a full time dad with limited game time. Stuff a twenty-something can plow through in fifty hours over a week are beyond the pale for me; if I get fifty hours out of a game in a year I'm smokin'.
Anyway....on to the list! It was a weird year at times for PC and console gaming, but there were a lot of noteworthy titles to choose from. As usual I favor the more visceral FPS and third-person based shooter with plots (or not).
5. Best Co-Op Experience: Warhammer End Times: Vermintide
I've barely discovered Vermintide but am finding it quite compelling. The game is set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe, giving you an array of distinct characters to choose from as they face down a grotesque horde of skaven (ratkin) in a doomed city. It's essentially a fantasy edition of Left 4 Dead, and manages to fill that void handily.
Runner Up: Killing Floor 2. Despite a shaky early access window, the final release of Killing Floor 2 is proving to be an amazingly polished and fun experience.
4. Best Shooter: Doom
I had a lot to say about Doom earlier in the year, but since then two of three expansion DLC have released which added a great deal of content to the game....content I feel would have been better to be included in the core package, as it makes the multiplayer component much more interesting. I also snagged the game on PC with my recent computer upgrade and feel the PC edition is more interesting overall than the console versions.
Runner Up: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare took it's franchise in to space and while I think it will fail as a CoD game because that's not quite what the franchise fans want, it still made a compelling interplanetary warfare experience that I think out-Halo'd Halo 5: Guardians in every way. When CoD is making you feel more like Master Chief than Halo is, somethings wrong....
3. Best Open World Game Experience: Tom Clancy's The Division
Tom Clancy's The Division grabbed me earlier this year and has held on. I'm a slow player so take my assertions that it's loaded with content with the appropriate recognition....I'm working on leveling a third character though (now with the PC version of the game) and look forward to the final expansion pack. If you can find the complete package for under $50 I think this game is a steal....but take note that I am amused that the Xbox One version seems to have more glitches and bugs than the PC edition so far!
Honorable Mention: Just Cause 3 XL Edition proved really captivating to me this year. The game's willingness to let you blow things up in any number of inconceivably bizarre and physics-defying ways left me wondering the whole time if the protagonist was a secret metahuman or something, but it never stopped being weird fun.
2. Best Franchise Revamp and Story-Driven Shooter: Titanfall 2
It is nice to see that the devs behind Titanfall 2 realized their new world was compelling enough to deserve a single player campaign. I love the multiplayer elements with the large mechs, but the story mode really sells this sequel to the MP-only experience of a couple years back. It is far and away my favorite FPS experience so far this year. BT the robot is a great foil to the protagonist.
Runner Up: Destiny: Rise of Iron, but remember I'm a Destiny fanboy so of course I'd put it on my list somewhere! It adds to the lore and provides a great new campaign arc to what I suspect is the last DLC we'll see for the game until Destiny II arrives next year.
1. Best Story-Driven Title: Uncharted: A Thief's End
This was by far my favorite game this year. Uncharted: A Thief's End tells the last tale of Nathan Drake, debonaire explorer and thief of antiquities using the lessons they learned from The Last of Us to make a narrative that manages to lend even more humanity and emotional resonance to the series, while still going over the top with it's high concept action adventure tale. The multiplayer is kind of fun as well, but utterly secondary to the story itself.
Runner Up: Gears of War 4, which manages to revive the franchise, remain true to the style and feel of the prior games, and provides a really compelling narrative tale that --believe it or not!-- was easy to follow and really interesting all at once. Oh and I hear it has MP as well (heh). My only regret with GoW4 is how I haven't been able to invest as much time with it as I'd like due to all these other games competing for time.
Bonus Mention: Best Game I Only Just Discovered: Watch Dogs 2
I only just snagged this and have delved a few hours in, but Watch Dogs 2 is a massive improvement in terms of story, design and style over its predecessor, and a much more evocative and interesting experience as a result. The game captures a fascinating near-future take on cyberpunk that is much closer to RL if you are willing to buy in to its core conceits. I'll talk more about this one soon, including some ideas I have on how Watch Dog 2's core conceits for gameplay could translate into a similar experience in tabletop.
Honorable Mention: Forza Horizon 3. This game is a damned compelling open-world racing/exploration experience set in the Australian Outback. My favorite car game experience so far.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Overwatch vs. Battleborn vs. Doom
I know I said I'd stop droning about Doom but.....it was hard to resist.
This is not a comprehensive review of any of these games, but rather some quick factoids for those looking for some raw comparison data on May's plague of shooters event going on RIGHT NOW. Here you go!
Premise: Every shooter needs an excuse, a reason if you will, to shoot stuff. Here they are:
Battleborn: a team of 25 battleborn superheroes in the future fight stuff. There may be a plot involving an evil empire. They all feel like the season four cast of an undisclosed Borderlands sequel.
Overwatch: a team of 22ish Overwatch dudes, all superheroes who got together to stop aliens, are now back together battling evil doppelgangers of themselves (or something). The game has a ton of lore that is so far mysteriously not supported in actual play.
Doom: you are Doomguy and you need to kill all the demons and blow up the evil corporation if possible, too.
Gimmick: these games each have a play gimmick (besides being fast-play FPSes)...here's what they are:
Battleborn: you play and level your dudes while unlocking more dudes, armor, and other stuff. You "micro-level" in the course of a scenario on a ladder of abilities.
Overwatch: you have dudes with preset stats but can change characters on the fly. You are really playing a MOBA blended in an unholy union with the FPS viewpoint.
Doom: you are playing a game from 1992, but with better graphics and the ability to look up and down.
Playing With Friends: every game should let you do this, and in 2016 a shooter which doesn't let you play split-screen is evil. How do they stack?
Battleborn: split-screen co-op! YEAH!!!! Also lots of online stuff.
Overwatch: lots of quick ways to find all your friends on the console who aren't playing the game, but no split-screen, and all missions are kinda sorta co-op with strangers.
Doom: no split-screen and no co-op, but you can find friends and kill them in multiplayer.
Playing With Yourself: even more important than playing with friends is the game's ability to play with yourself....
Battleborn: supports full solo gameplay in arenas and a complete 8 chapters of storyline missions! YEAH!!!! But they go kinda fast.
Overwatch: you can go co-op vs. AI bots and pretend those other guys you are playing with are also bots, but they might not respect you in the morning. (Truthfully, the MOBA elements of Overwatch were so noticeable I got kinda uncomfortable playing, as MOBAs have a strong rep for inducing the GIFT in people).
Doom: A full campaign that won't test your patience for several chapters, and the wonderful Snap Map mode where you can easily play other people's home-made levels. COOOL
Longevity: how long will these games last you? I have no idea, hut here's how long these are likely to last for me....
Battleborn: until you unlock all the characters and grow weary of the whole affair. If you are lucky this will happen before the DLC arrives.
Overwatch: I'm not sure. I haven't figured out what the point of the game is, beyond some fun missions. The long-term goal seems dependent on my inherent sense of competition, and I am not someone who feels competitive....I like goal-based objectives. So Overwatch's cosmetic loot boxes confuse me right now.
Doom: it will last until you finish the campaign +2-3 hours in Snap Map, and maybe an hour of painful abuse in multiplayer.
Style: you can go watch trailers and play videos to figure this out, but here's my interpetation:
Battleborn: slick, feels like a 3D graphic novel from the ninties, with a heavy does of Aeon Flux mixed in.
Overwatch: cartoon comic-book fun that makes me wish the time spent on this game had instead been focused on World of Warcraft II. Not as annoying as the trailers led me to believe.
Doom: Heavy metal LP cover meets modern space marine graphic design.
Assessment: my own assessment, so far! Overwatch deserves more follow-up, though....but it's only been out a few hours and already has me intrigued and stressed for all the wrong reasons.
Battleborn: it is a shooter, through and through, with some interesting implementation from other game types, such as tower defense and such. Each scenario feels like a mini campaign in its own right, and it has an evocative look. The quirky Borderlandsesque characters are generally fun but one would not be remiss in thinking Take2 was trying a bit....ah...too hard here.
Battleborn is a game I can play with my kid, which is also cool. Splits-creen for the win!!! I can't play Doom with him due to subject, and Overwatch seems like a bad fit due to the MOBA aspects, and lack of offline play or split-screen.
Overwatch: I have to spend more time to really say, but so far my favorite mode is the AI mission practice levels because holy shit I was getting ground up in the regular game. Despite that I kept getting "Play of the Moment" awards or something, which were odd, and I got a lot of up-votes from coplayers. I was ecstatic to get them....but also reticent to keep playing because I was really uncomfortable with the idea of being put up on display for judgement by my peers; I assume I suck, and if I don't suck, I assume the unwashed masses will turn on me rapidly if I fail to live up to lofty expectations even once. Future of Overwatch on my Xbox One uncertain!!!!
I'll tell you one thing, Overwatch needs a single player mode. How can Blizzard have so much lore and then show none if it in the actual game experience? They make Destiny look like freakin' Tolkien....!
Doom: See prior blog on Doom!!!!! I will say that I grew generally tired of this game before the end. But I figure I'll give it a break and then explore more Snap Maps.
This is not a comprehensive review of any of these games, but rather some quick factoids for those looking for some raw comparison data on May's plague of shooters event going on RIGHT NOW. Here you go!
Premise: Every shooter needs an excuse, a reason if you will, to shoot stuff. Here they are:
Battleborn: a team of 25 battleborn superheroes in the future fight stuff. There may be a plot involving an evil empire. They all feel like the season four cast of an undisclosed Borderlands sequel.
Overwatch: a team of 22ish Overwatch dudes, all superheroes who got together to stop aliens, are now back together battling evil doppelgangers of themselves (or something). The game has a ton of lore that is so far mysteriously not supported in actual play.
Doom: you are Doomguy and you need to kill all the demons and blow up the evil corporation if possible, too.
Gimmick: these games each have a play gimmick (besides being fast-play FPSes)...here's what they are:
Battleborn: you play and level your dudes while unlocking more dudes, armor, and other stuff. You "micro-level" in the course of a scenario on a ladder of abilities.
Overwatch: you have dudes with preset stats but can change characters on the fly. You are really playing a MOBA blended in an unholy union with the FPS viewpoint.
Doom: you are playing a game from 1992, but with better graphics and the ability to look up and down.
Playing With Friends: every game should let you do this, and in 2016 a shooter which doesn't let you play split-screen is evil. How do they stack?
Battleborn: split-screen co-op! YEAH!!!! Also lots of online stuff.
Overwatch: lots of quick ways to find all your friends on the console who aren't playing the game, but no split-screen, and all missions are kinda sorta co-op with strangers.
Doom: no split-screen and no co-op, but you can find friends and kill them in multiplayer.
Playing With Yourself: even more important than playing with friends is the game's ability to play with yourself....
Battleborn: supports full solo gameplay in arenas and a complete 8 chapters of storyline missions! YEAH!!!! But they go kinda fast.
Overwatch: you can go co-op vs. AI bots and pretend those other guys you are playing with are also bots, but they might not respect you in the morning. (Truthfully, the MOBA elements of Overwatch were so noticeable I got kinda uncomfortable playing, as MOBAs have a strong rep for inducing the GIFT in people).
Doom: A full campaign that won't test your patience for several chapters, and the wonderful Snap Map mode where you can easily play other people's home-made levels. COOOL
Longevity: how long will these games last you? I have no idea, hut here's how long these are likely to last for me....
Battleborn: until you unlock all the characters and grow weary of the whole affair. If you are lucky this will happen before the DLC arrives.
Overwatch: I'm not sure. I haven't figured out what the point of the game is, beyond some fun missions. The long-term goal seems dependent on my inherent sense of competition, and I am not someone who feels competitive....I like goal-based objectives. So Overwatch's cosmetic loot boxes confuse me right now.
Doom: it will last until you finish the campaign +2-3 hours in Snap Map, and maybe an hour of painful abuse in multiplayer.
Style: you can go watch trailers and play videos to figure this out, but here's my interpetation:
Battleborn: slick, feels like a 3D graphic novel from the ninties, with a heavy does of Aeon Flux mixed in.
Overwatch: cartoon comic-book fun that makes me wish the time spent on this game had instead been focused on World of Warcraft II. Not as annoying as the trailers led me to believe.
Doom: Heavy metal LP cover meets modern space marine graphic design.
Assessment: my own assessment, so far! Overwatch deserves more follow-up, though....but it's only been out a few hours and already has me intrigued and stressed for all the wrong reasons.
Battleborn: it is a shooter, through and through, with some interesting implementation from other game types, such as tower defense and such. Each scenario feels like a mini campaign in its own right, and it has an evocative look. The quirky Borderlandsesque characters are generally fun but one would not be remiss in thinking Take2 was trying a bit....ah...too hard here.
Battleborn is a game I can play with my kid, which is also cool. Splits-creen for the win!!! I can't play Doom with him due to subject, and Overwatch seems like a bad fit due to the MOBA aspects, and lack of offline play or split-screen.
Overwatch: I have to spend more time to really say, but so far my favorite mode is the AI mission practice levels because holy shit I was getting ground up in the regular game. Despite that I kept getting "Play of the Moment" awards or something, which were odd, and I got a lot of up-votes from coplayers. I was ecstatic to get them....but also reticent to keep playing because I was really uncomfortable with the idea of being put up on display for judgement by my peers; I assume I suck, and if I don't suck, I assume the unwashed masses will turn on me rapidly if I fail to live up to lofty expectations even once. Future of Overwatch on my Xbox One uncertain!!!!
I'll tell you one thing, Overwatch needs a single player mode. How can Blizzard have so much lore and then show none if it in the actual game experience? They make Destiny look like freakin' Tolkien....!
Doom: See prior blog on Doom!!!!! I will say that I grew generally tired of this game before the end. But I figure I'll give it a break and then explore more Snap Maps.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
The Last Word on Doom
Okay, here it is, my final Doom assessment:
Campaign: The single player campaign gets better, and becomes about as entertaining as I recall Doom 3 being. They just spread the "plot bits" out more evenly this time (as you might recall Doom 3 had it all front-loaded, except for the sundry transcripts you could find throughout the game). But after a few hours of playing it's feeling a lot like the classics to me, in a not uncomfortable way. I also like that each level can be finished in about an hour, which means you can enjoy it in bite-size pieces if the fast Doom pace is otherwise too fraying on the nerves. A solid A, but maybe more of a good B+, as I'd feel more highly if I didn't find the color palette of yellows and greens so odd.
Custom Map Madness: Snap Map is awesome and will extend longevity of the game for me, although map tools look daunting, and are beyond what I want to do. But that said, some people are already recreating classic Doom I and II levels rather nicely in Snap Map. A+
MP Madness: Multiplayer is a glorious OSR mess....OSR video game style, of course. It feels like old Id as you might remember it, which is great if you liked that sort of thing. For me? Not so much. It also introduces some modernization, including level up mechanics and a ridiculous level of character customization, judging by the badasses I was playing with online. Interestingly the crowd by the speaker sounded mostly like older guys. No venom-spewing 13 year olds during my pathetic attempts to reaquiant myself with hyper-fast run-and-gun gameplay. Not my cup of tea, but that works for me....I'm led to believe the season pass is for 3 DLC packs that are all about the multiplayer, so I can resume ignoring it and stick to the campaign and snap map for my fun. D- for me, B+ for everyone else, I suspect.
A Doom Downside: no split-screen support that I can find. This is important when you have kids! But maybe not a horribly big deal, since my kid is too young to play Doom. We'll stick to Battleborn instead, about which I'll tell you a great deal more soon, as Battleborn is the dark horse title I have been completely swept away by....and my kid, too. C- as split-screen is still relevant, sorry publishers. Some people still like co-op couch gaming, and nothing you do to stop it will make me buy two copies for my household.
Cliff Blezinksi (of Gears of War fame) critiqued the glory kill (critical strike) options in Doom as being too excessive. I just want to set the record straight that what Cliff is demonstrating is envy, at how cool they are in Doom and how easy they are to execute, unlike the horrid chainsaw mechanic in Gears of War that is effectively the same deal (except of course how the chainsaw in Doom works quite nicely and without some timing button press issue that makes it nearly impossible at times).
Final Verdict: A solid A for the single player component and a B+ for the multiplayer if you're in to that stuff; this could have benefited from split-screen support and offline bot play options, but the snap-map feature makes up for the absence of these options.
A-
.
.
.
And now! Let us never speak of Doom again on this blog. For a while at least. Now where's the Quake reboot, Id/Bethesda? Hmmmm?
Campaign: The single player campaign gets better, and becomes about as entertaining as I recall Doom 3 being. They just spread the "plot bits" out more evenly this time (as you might recall Doom 3 had it all front-loaded, except for the sundry transcripts you could find throughout the game). But after a few hours of playing it's feeling a lot like the classics to me, in a not uncomfortable way. I also like that each level can be finished in about an hour, which means you can enjoy it in bite-size pieces if the fast Doom pace is otherwise too fraying on the nerves. A solid A, but maybe more of a good B+, as I'd feel more highly if I didn't find the color palette of yellows and greens so odd.
Custom Map Madness: Snap Map is awesome and will extend longevity of the game for me, although map tools look daunting, and are beyond what I want to do. But that said, some people are already recreating classic Doom I and II levels rather nicely in Snap Map. A+
MP Madness: Multiplayer is a glorious OSR mess....OSR video game style, of course. It feels like old Id as you might remember it, which is great if you liked that sort of thing. For me? Not so much. It also introduces some modernization, including level up mechanics and a ridiculous level of character customization, judging by the badasses I was playing with online. Interestingly the crowd by the speaker sounded mostly like older guys. No venom-spewing 13 year olds during my pathetic attempts to reaquiant myself with hyper-fast run-and-gun gameplay. Not my cup of tea, but that works for me....I'm led to believe the season pass is for 3 DLC packs that are all about the multiplayer, so I can resume ignoring it and stick to the campaign and snap map for my fun. D- for me, B+ for everyone else, I suspect.
A Doom Downside: no split-screen support that I can find. This is important when you have kids! But maybe not a horribly big deal, since my kid is too young to play Doom. We'll stick to Battleborn instead, about which I'll tell you a great deal more soon, as Battleborn is the dark horse title I have been completely swept away by....and my kid, too. C- as split-screen is still relevant, sorry publishers. Some people still like co-op couch gaming, and nothing you do to stop it will make me buy two copies for my household.
Cliff Blezinksi (of Gears of War fame) critiqued the glory kill (critical strike) options in Doom as being too excessive. I just want to set the record straight that what Cliff is demonstrating is envy, at how cool they are in Doom and how easy they are to execute, unlike the horrid chainsaw mechanic in Gears of War that is effectively the same deal (except of course how the chainsaw in Doom works quite nicely and without some timing button press issue that makes it nearly impossible at times).
Final Verdict: A solid A for the single player component and a B+ for the multiplayer if you're in to that stuff; this could have benefited from split-screen support and offline bot play options, but the snap-map feature makes up for the absence of these options.
A-
.
.
.
And now! Let us never speak of Doom again on this blog. For a while at least. Now where's the Quake reboot, Id/Bethesda? Hmmmm?
Monday, May 16, 2016
Doom (Take 2) - Second Thoughts and also Snap Map Is Cool
After the initial shock of encountering an old school shooter out in the wild, with AAA aesthetics and a suspiciously absent plot....I recovered and have since found a bit of fun with the game. Really, I mostly reminded myself that the level of fun to be had in Doom was about comparable to what I am getting out of playing Resident Evil: Revelations 2's Raid Mode to death (which I love)....so why would I dislike Doom? Answer is....I don't, really. I just was sort of hoping for something more directly inspired by the grim and horrific Doom 3, which was the definitive Doom I came to enjoy.*
Still, being a direct descendant of the first 2 Dooms is ultimately not bad if the game still looks great and feels good while playing. The story won't win awards (but lets hold off until I finish said campaign mode....it could surprise me) but the Snap Map option is really cool, and the designer maps already available dramatically extend the game's longevity. Short description: it's the tool which lets you make and share maps, and there are already a lot of cool maps to explore.
Next, multiplayer....I'll report on that soon.
*I liked the creepy, horrific elements of Doom 3, and spent a lot of time treading carefully in that game, which oozed atmosphere. I also know that the "surprise monster jumps out from behind you" feature in Doom 3 wasn't all that popular among many gamers, but I found it nerve-wracking.
Still, being a direct descendant of the first 2 Dooms is ultimately not bad if the game still looks great and feels good while playing. The story won't win awards (but lets hold off until I finish said campaign mode....it could surprise me) but the Snap Map option is really cool, and the designer maps already available dramatically extend the game's longevity. Short description: it's the tool which lets you make and share maps, and there are already a lot of cool maps to explore.
Next, multiplayer....I'll report on that soon.
*I liked the creepy, horrific elements of Doom 3, and spent a lot of time treading carefully in that game, which oozed atmosphere. I also know that the "surprise monster jumps out from behind you" feature in Doom 3 wasn't all that popular among many gamers, but I found it nerve-wracking.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Initial Impressions: Doom
I have Doom on the PS4 (preordered) and may already be wishing I hadn't done so. I'm not a classic FPS shooter fan, although I've tried to engage with the older games as best I could....it's just not a style of play I dig much; without a sense of plot and purpose I find these games hollow experiences. I didn't really play a Quake or Doom I liked until Quake 4 and Doom 3. But, don't get me wrong....I totally understand where fans of the classics are coming from when they complain about the overly elaborate stories of those two titles (we're using the word elaborate very loosely here, admittedly) and the move away from insanely fast run-and-gun multiplayer combat. You know...the sort of combat perpetuated by Team Fortress 2, Unreal Tournament 3 and such, the sort of stuff that invented the idea that rocket jumping is a sensible course of action, and that dual-wielding rocket launchers sounds completely feasible.
Doom, the new reboot/remake/sequel (I can't say for sure which it is, as the game moves back to original 80's style Doom in terms of story depth) is all about creating a modern, graphically pleasant version of that style of game. It will not be for everyone, but if you happen to just want fast and crazy multiplayer and a singal player campaign that makes Painkiller look deep, then this might be your cup of tea.
I bet there are a lot of old Doom fans from the 80s who will get very nostalgic about this new edition (and just as many who will disparage any slight differences, as well). I just happen to be a guy who more or less despised most shooter titles like this until Half Life 2 changed everything and started to set a trend for meaningful (okay, more interesting?) story and game play.
I'll keep chugging along for a while, see if things change. This is definitely not a sequel to Doom 3 in any conventional sense, though....oh well. It is definitely a sequel to Doom 1 and 2 though. First hour of game play gets a B+ for controls and graphics, and a D- for holding interest, but hopefully that will change.....or, I guess I can just be reminded that it's not actually a smart idea to preorder games if I'm not totally sure of what I'll get.
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