#hirez studios

[funkii4-blog]

Full stop I’m absolutely devastated as a years-long dedicated Paladins player right now

It saved me at my mentally lowest and I’ve poured the most hours into it that I’ve put into any video game ever (nearly 2000), and to see it be suffocated by the higher-ups this way is so hard to watch.

I love this game with my entire being and I’ll continue to show love for it even after it’s gone, because it’s sadly looking very bleak right now.

Fuck you Stewart Chisam I hope Smite 2 fails and this layoff plan of yours to focus every company resource towards it goes up ur fucking ass

[patchoulii-2hu-144p]

note: hirez hid it it from steam and disabled their masterserver BUT you can still use community servers, all you have to do is just add the community masterserver ip to the steam launch options and you're good to go

assumption: you've played tribes: ascend at least once

genuinely i keep forgetting that exists LMAO. i wanna check it out at some point tho!

[lowpolynpixelated]

Echo Point Nova: Tribes Ascended

Echo Point Nova may be one of the best cases I've ever seen for people wanting to frag like its 2001. Today's gaming landscape, particularly the independent scene, is thriving with revivals of all sorts of proto-FPS genre shooters. From the singleplayer campaign driven "Boomer Shooter" games like Amid Evil and Zortch to those who long for the multiplayer days of Unreal Tournament with games like Splitgate or the squad tactics of Battlefield 2 with games Battlebit Remastered, these styles are certainly coming back into style. I want to talk about a very particular type of action that was lost long ago in a sea of games and buried revival promises, I want to talk about Tribes.

Releasing originally in 1998 as Starsiege: Tribes the game garnered its own following thanks to its fast paced movement centered approach to Deathmatch and Capture the Flag gameplay. Jetpacks combined with a physics engine bug that let you "ski" around maps a la sliding down slopes and ramping off hills made for incredible fun action packed fights. Three years later in 2001, Tribes 2 debuted making skiing an official form of gameplay, building on the fun of the previous title. The game fell somwhere in between quake arena and unreal tournament, with vehicles, large open maps, a bevy of scifi weaponry, and fast paced action. Though the series would go on all the way to 2012 with the free to play Tribes Ascend by HiRez Studios, the game has since been yet another title in an ever growing pile of "forgotten classics". Until now.

So what IS Echo Point Nova? Stay with me here, EPN (to save some time and typing) is a scifi action shooter where you explore an open world of floating islands with the help of a grappling hook, a hoverboard, and a momentum system that only slows down when you tell it to. EPN is in almost every way, a singleplayer/co-op successor to Tribes. Trading out the scifi weapons for a more modern military arsenal doesn't take away much of the fun. Zipping around and clearing out hordes with a .50 cal sniper rifle is just as fun as a railgun, and blasting mechs with an RPG is just as satisfying as a triple rocket launcher could be. The game WANTS you to feel fast, to feel dangerous, like only the best of the best could stop you. All it's missing is proper PVP, which the developer wants to add support for soon as of the writing of this article. Lets get more specific though.

Level Design:

One half of the puzzle is how EPN's world gives you truly unbridled freedom to explore at breakneck paces. If you thought the vistas and cliffs of breath of the wild being open was impressive, this puts that to shame handily. A massive world of floating island arenas awaits you, all you have to do is get there. As mentioned before the game provides you with a few modes of transit, a grappling hook, your hoverboard, and a set of supplementary equipment like air boost pads and grenades that you can use to gain height very quickly. Movement in the game is nothing short of gorgeous. Fast, fluid, and effortlessly smooth, you can glide and hop your way to just about everywhere.

Let's talk more about the hoverboard, arguably the games most shown off feature. Holding down what would traditionally be a sprint button allows you to speedily glide over any form of terrain the game can throw at you. Grass, snow, sand, lava, all of it. On top of this, touching any flat surface that isn't the ground or a floor with the hoverboard will allow you to grind across and up said surface, gaining you some sweet style points in the process. The game is VERY generous with the grinding, and lets you stay on unless the terrain itself is too uneven to glide over without launching yourself off. Using this you can scale entire mountains and grind circles around the poor enemies of the game, giving them little chance at keeping up with you. Combined with the grappling hook, which allows you to propel yourself in whatever direction you're aiming despite where you grappled on to, you can reach truly dizzying heights and speed with ease. All of this is to say that the game's level design allows for pure freedom of movement. Rarely will you find yourself not jumping or grinding your way around spacious combat arenas laden with half pipe ramps and grind rails. Verticality is KING in Echo Point Nova, and the world knows that. Vast desert expanses, rolling mountaintops, fractured shards of floating rock, its got it all and it is good.

Gameplay:

Though I already went over the gameplay a bit in the last section with the movement and traversal, I'd like to focus a bit more on the core shooting of EPN and just how good it feels to do so. The game gives you access to a decently sized array of pistols, SMGs, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles/DMRs, and explosives to do in the cyborg mercenary armies that oppose you. All of which feel incredible. Perhaps the only negative point I could give is that many weapons can often feel very fast and loose, but the game's projectile system more than makes up for it when allowing you to pepper entire areas with two entire glock magazines. Complimentary to the guns are the perks you earn from doing the game's core combat loop of arriving in an arena and spawning enemies until you've killed the requisite amount for that particular challenge. Perks can range from giving you more ramming speed on your hoverboard (oh yeah you can ram enemies with your hoverboard by the way) to the very first perk you gain, Adrenaline, slowing down time for a few seconds via a refillable meter you gain just for moving at high speeds.

Combat becomes a gravity defying dance of bullets and explosions. Ramping off enemies here, grappling them into them there, throwing out a grenade to pop a shield and riding the explosion shockwave up to the scifi quad-copter that's firing missiles down at you the entire time. Its a beautifully chaotic mess that relies on your mastery of the game's movement to be proficient in. Sure you could just run around Call of Duty style and pop cyborgs in the head, or you could send them into the endless abyss by slapping them with two and a half feet of hoverboard all the while sending a .50 cal round through two of his friends.

It is a joy to experience. The exploration is always rewarding leading you to new challenges that give you either new perks, a new gun, or a fun hat to wear over your character. If you played the dev team's previous game, Severed Steel, you know exactly how high energy and impressive the combat encounters can feel.

Story:

Honestly? It's nothing special. You crash land onto one of the many floating islands, a mysterious voice tells you to get your gear as comrades from whatever scientific group you're a part of tell you to also grab your gear and survey your surroundings. It's VERY loose, and it's perfect that way. The boss fight set pieces don't come bogged down with lengthy cutscenes or anything at all to break the pacing. Voice acting is kept to enemy shoutouts, and everything is told through text logs that you're guided to pretty steadily throughout the game. EPN's story is just what it needs to be and the devs know that. Severed Steel boasted an equally loose but compelling story following the game's protagonist rising up against her scifi imprisoners, and Echo Point Nova is just as short and sweet with its writing. Serviceable, short, and just right.

Soundtrack:

How could I ever talk about this game without mentioning the positively electrifying soundtrack. Composed by artist Floating Door the OST has a range of action driving Drum and Bass tracks that just make you want to go faster. Ethereal synths combined with strong pulsing bass tracks create an otherworldly feel as you grapple and hoverboard your way around the islands, picking up into heavier more chaotic tracks when enemies are found or an encounter is started. It reminds me so much of the more techno/trance inspired soundtracks of later PS1 and PS2 titles that I can't help but grin and nod my head as I zip around blasting things with an RPG. No notes, 10/10, it fits the game beautifully and is a strong set of tracks to listen to on their own. Give it a listen!

Conclusion and comments:

I got away from myself a little bit in this review, but I'd like to close by doubling back to that Tribes comparison. Does Echo Point Nova have EVERYTHING that tribes had? No. It's missing things like vehicles, structured modes of play, hell even proper PVP matchmaking, but that's not the point. The spirit is what lives on in EPN. That 2000s fast paced techno-shooter with weird movement and momentum. The rush of a movement shooter before that phrase was even considered to exist. I don't think this game is Titanfall+DOOM 2016 like a lot of other reviews like to say. What I WILL compare it to if I must, is Halo, Tribes, and just a hint of classic Call of Duty (think COD 4). It's wonderfully made with a clear amount of love and respect for old school shooters. Refined to a razor edge of fluid mobility and rock solid shooting. I really do think its a big step towards keeping the spirit of old games alive without just remaking them or making things that only exist as tributes to them. If I've gotten anything wrong, and the devs never played anything like Tribes before, then that's fine I've been wrong before and I will be again. But playing this game was like playing a love letter written in voxel landscapes and high speed firefights. One that I'd happily reread over and over, or at least listen to the music.

Check out Echo Point Nova here:

[sigyn-foxyposts]

Hirez studios actually added Thrud and Hodr in their old app game called Smite Blitz?

I had to bring this to attention at some point and I decided it would be today. Sadly the game is gone for good since 3 years ago, practically half lost media but..

PLEASE WHERE ARE THEY, CAN WE GET THEM BACK IN NEWER GAMES SINCE THEY HAVE A CANNON DESIGNS??

Also the rest of the norse gods are kinda.. *bites lip* (Fenrir is there too but he's pretty much the same dawg lmao)

[echoes-lost]

1,4,9,21

1. Art programs you have but don't use

Well, photoshop is still installed on my PC but I'm no longer subscribed because Clip Paint Studio is equal or better for the use I have, and less expensive.

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

Curly hair xD I love love love drawing hair in general, and curly hair is so pretty but gods it's a pain.

9. What are your file name conventions

Commissions are named something like 'comm_clientusername_relatedpun_final/web/hirez/finalFINAL02"

personal art usually is something like "pickleasjkhdksjh"

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

Clean, cutesy art like https://www.instagram.com/michelle_coffee

I cannot escape from messy details no matter how hard I try.

[a-bluedream-posts]

Neith by LumiNyu

[nekomancersama]

This new skin is pretty cute *-*

*added to my cosplay wish list :D *

[siryl]

“Isis” by Simon Eckert.

[thegreatwudong]

“Semi-consistent” should not be a selling point, but you’re not wrong. Arthur got a new stand in every card art lol

I’m just disappointed that glow studio served a cute Lance and hirez gave us Lester the court jester

no i get it a little now. i see why you guys like the gay little knights i have seen his lil mane of hair and hes kinda cute

[funkii4-blog]

Well this is really bad

I logged onto Paladins for the first time in months today, I played the new dawnforge map and afterwards I feel like I’m gonna vomit or have a seizure or both /srs

it was 5-10 minutes of a total mindfuck that made me feel as if I got legitimate brain damage, I’m not even photosensitive that I know of and the bright colors and everything looking the same made my mind go numb and lose all ability to differentiate anything on the screen, needless to say we lost

If to my control I would never play that map again, it made me feel horribly sick even after a super short game /also srs

[mikahorror]

The characters I’m having the most fun with. 

Me? Actually enjoying...a melee character?? Only played Nemesis for a quest but I may actually level her if someone’s already picked Chang’e.

Someone else pick healer ¿

[nyxatnight]

[trueharemking-blog]

I took a break from this game and this was my first game back :D Hope you enjoy and thanks for watching. 

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/trueharemking/ 

Twitter - https://twitter.com/TrueHaremKing 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/trueharemking 

Tumblr - https://trueharemking.tumblr.com

[whothehelcares]

Hey if you liked this I would really appreciate it if you gave it a like and a reblog it really helps me out 

So a quick warm up before I crack on with my commissions 🙈💕 some fluff incommiiinngggggg 😉 

🌻🌻🌻🌻 please do not use or repost this anywhere without my permission 🌻🌻🌻🌻 

[abrakabadarka]

Paladins - Lore Cinematic - Koga's Revenge

Aaand the patch notes.

A new guy is coming to our realm, but who cares about him when we got a new Cassie skin like this?

[ngc-3576]