#it was also a very easy game. most of that time was spent in unskippable dialogue

[pechebeche]

100%ed princess peach showtime in 3 days 💪💪 (this is a very short game)

[aion-rsa]

FIFA 21 Review: Satisfactory Soccer Sim

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Having spent a week checking out FIFA 21, I’m sure that most fans of digitized soccer (or football, for you fine readers outside the United States) will be satisfied. Not wowed, and not disappointed, but satisfied.

The latest installment in one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world brings enough new content to the table to justify a new release, even for those who like to pick up the new FIFA annually but aren’t necessarily at “shut up and take my money” levels of enthusiasm. But, as always when it comes to annualized sports titles, it’s best not to go in blind lest ye be burned by the newest content not having as much of an effect on the way you engage with these games.

Take the newest elements of gameplay, for instance, since that will affect everyone who boots up FIFA 21. Because the series has the formula down pat after decades of tinkering to match the real action on the pitch as best as possible, the on-pitch upgrades are more nuanced. You’ve got a few more skill moves with which to beat defenders at your disposal, while headers are more effective and easier to control this year. Most tweaks are on that level, and it’s possible some of the more casual players won’t even perceive much of a difference.

One new tool does rise a bit above that level: the ability to direct teammates’ movement away from the ball to create scoring chances. Dubbed “Creative Runs” in EA Sports speak, it’s as simple as player locking with a press of both analog sticks, then using flicks of the right stick to direct movement. It’s a nifty little mechanic that’s entirely optional, but it opens doors to better capitalize on scoring chances.

From there, your time in FIFA 21 will probably split unevenly between the two biggest overarching modes of play: FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) and Career Mode. Again, there’s at least a little something added to each this year, but nothing earth-shattering. And The Journey, the impressive narrative-based trilogy from FIFA 17 through FIFA 19, remains conspicuously absent for the second year in a row. I won’t hold that against EA, but I don’t have to like it.

Release Date: Oct. 9. 2020 Platforms: PS4 (reviewed), XBO, PC, Switch Developer: Electronic Arts Publisher: Electronic Arts Genre: Soccer Simulation

Career mode offers the most bang for your buck, as you can either go through the life and times of a manager — in the closest thing to a traditional franchise mode as FIFA 21 gets — or take a player through his athletic career before (optionally) becoming a manager. That’s nothing new. What is — and this probably takes the gold as the best new feature — however, is a Football Manager-esque match sim that allows you to make decisions while watching little colored dots, representing all 22 players on the pitch, execute the game plan. The experience includes play-by-play audio to heighten the experience, just the same as if you were playing on the pitch yourself. If you decide to hop into the match and take over, it’s easy and seamless. And you can just as easily pause and switch back to the sim if you’ve had your fill. As someone — and I’ll be kind to myself — who is not a strong FIFA player, I loved this option, and I imagine I won’t be alone.

Also welcome additions to the career experience are Player Development decisions, such as selecting which attributes to focus on with each individual player or even training them to switch positions. It’s a passive system but would be very welcome in other sports franchises as well (MLB The Show, anyone?). This, and the aforementioned sim option, reinforce Career as my preferred way to play FIFA. Although I could do without the drawn out, unskippable dialogue that plays out during negotiations with players, agents, and other managers. A scene that should take a minute or less generally lasts 5 minutes, or at least it feels that way.

But FUT definitely is the driving force for EA’s bottom line, thanks to it’s microtransaction-incentivized setup. The card-collecting, team-building mode clearly is a favorite for many, and dedicated players should welcome the ability to play co-op with friends. It’s a long-overdue feature, but it’s here now at least and could be just the thing you’re looking for to commiserate over all the real-world money you’ve sunk into making your team better. Other than that, the most attractive new feature is FUT Stadium, which grants you a customizable home for your side. Of course, this being FUT, your customization options are limited to the cards you acquire.

Volta Football received a little attention too, although I get the sense I’m among a small minority who enjoy the FIFA Street-lite futsal action. An optional introduction called The Debut features the bare bones of a drama-free story that heavily features retired Brazilian star Kaká, but The Journey this is not. Also new and nominally present is an online co-op feature in Volta Squads which, one week after launch, still will not work right for me. The options to group up with friends or drop in with strangers are essentially broken in their current form. I’d love to play alongside literally any human in Volta, but that’s not an option. Not exactly the right path to winning over new fans to this mode, EA.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

For all intents and purposes, this is the swan song to this console generation for the FIFA series. Generally, the game before a new console generation launches isn’t going to re-invent the wheel, and that’s manifested with most of 2020’s sports titles — especially while dealing with a global pandemic that has radically affected game development teams. While FIFA 21 is a far cry from the series’ PS4/XBO peak with FIFA 17, it’s also got a leg up on last year’s poorly-received entry. Take that as faint praise if you like.

The post FIFA 21 Review: Satisfactory Soccer Sim appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[danisgotagun]

Yooka-Laylee

2017 was heralded as the return of the Collectathon sub-genre of 3D platformers. I would be inclined to agree. Hat in Time and Super Mario Odyssey are amazing games that use that formula. But the first big one we got in the year was... Not so great. 

Of course I’m talking about Playtonic Games’ “Yooka-Laylee”.

To preface my thoughts on this game, now that I have completed it 100%, I have never played Banjo-Kazooie. Or any of Rare’s classic 3D platformers, surprisingly. It’s definitely one of my favorite genre! But for this I see it as a positive as I wasn’t going in with any real expectations based on the names. Also, I own the PS4 version of the game, so I may have had a more buggy experience than PC/Switch players. 

The Collectathon sub-genre never truly died, I think. The core of what made those games what they were transferred to a lot of modern games. One of the big reasons that genre took off was the jump to 3D itself, and being able to explore a 3D space and discover its secrets was a novel concept. Trophies, achievements, open world games, etc. all pull from that to some degree. So for the Collectathon, as we know it, to come back (and man do I want it to come back) it has to present itself in a fresh form. We’re stripping a game to the core, and using basic gaming conventions and we have to make that enjoyable with new ideas. Super Mario Odyssey did this exceptionally well. This is a point I think Yooka-Laylee fell short on. 

Not only did Yooka-Laylee not bring something truly fresh to the genre, any real modernization for it to hold its own in the current market, it failed to do a lot of the things the Collectathon genre entails. Given the pedigree of the developers, this was the most shocking thing to me and most people who found themselves disappointed in the game. 

There are plenty of collectables. But finding them, especially the quills, feels awkward. Things seem to thrown around the level haphazardly. It’s not as bad as I anticipated; that one quill in the Tribalstack Tropics was definitely the worst offender, but it never really got better past there.  

Which brings me to the levels themselves. We have 5 big worlds that can be expanded once to make them even bigger. It’s a cool concept, in theory, but it doesn’t really mean much when the levels feel so barren. You’re running around huge levels with no real way to fast travel, finding paths that lead nowhere and getting tired of finding maybe a few quills in one entire section of the level. The characters that inhabit the levels don’t... really inhabit the levels. Nothing changes when you complete a task, characters don’t interact with you in any significant way really. I would’ve liked if they at least responded to you attacking them or jumping on them, something that even the early Collectathons like the original Spyro trilogy, had accomplished. It’s little things like that that truly tie a game like this together. But Yooka-Laylee is a very loose experience.

There’s no structure, is what I really want to say here. Most of the game doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The jokes, while some of them are good, are everywhere and usually shoehorned into dialogue. Hints and clues for completing certain tasks (and even move descriptions!) are obtuse at best. The Sonar Splosion says “Do not ussssse near glasssss.” The average player would think this means it would break open the cracked glass walls you run across. But no. What breaks those? The Spin Dash (which, coincidentally, feels like it should be the move to break the blocks Sonar Splosion breaks.) The huge levels are easy to get turned around in, landmarks and consistency in direction (especially when you’re going after quills off the beaten path) is a mess. The best level in the game, as far as structure goes, also feels like one of the emptiest ones to a degree, that being the final world, Galleon Galaxy (which personally I loved tbh but it was still large but not dense.)  

And then there’s “identity.” The game wants you to feel nostalgic for the genre, but it doesn’t seem all that concerned with making you feel attached to itself. Characters are generally bland, up to and including Yooka himself, and aren’t all that memorable. Laylee is fun with her wisecracks, but even those get annoying. (Ironically, one such joke is her talking to Rextro about “annoying character dialogue.” Hmm.) And despite this lack of personality, characters will drone on and on and on. You can skip through a lot of dialogue, but the transitions between speech bubbles is slow itself, and there’s no skipping that. There’s just no real charm, nothing to really let the game hold up. If it wanted me to think it was an old collectathon that hadn’t aged well, then it would have succeeded. It lacks a lot of polish. 

But here’s the thing. I could continue complaining about the game, and saying things that have probably been said a million times before against it. But the most frustrating thing about the entire game is that you can see the potential. To me, that is the worst type of bad game: One where the potential is right in front of your face. You can’t just simply dismiss it as garbage, and it’s a strange and terrible feeling when you play a game and think to yourself “this could have been great!” 

The designs are cute, and the worlds, while empty, are beautiful to look at. Some of the challenges to get pagies were clever; and there’s neat areas like the Icymetric Palace. The music is fantastic and whimsical. 

On the note of good traits, I want to talk about perhaps the best part of the game: Capital B. A great villain design, has the most personality of anyone in the game, and the final boss fight is genuinely fun. Albeit, it’s a long fight with unskippable transitions between and even within each of its 4 phases with no chance of healing anywhere. It would have been a perfect final boss if the second phase was maybe a little shorter, and butterflies appeared occasionally (especially in the 4th phase, where stamina recovery is almost necessary.) But overall, Capital B is an excellent, cleverly designed antagonist.

The game has so much quality in it that the overwhelming lack thereof that is also there feels all the worse. I spent about 3 days doing a 100% run, and I genuinely had fun. I don’t regret buying this game. 

Now, what exactly do I want to take away from this experience? I want to hold out some hope for Playtonic Games. Yooka-Laylee teases (in more than a few ways) that it will get a sequel. While I hope this isn’t Playtonic’s only IP over the course of its (hopefully) long life, I do want them to perfect Yooka-Laylee before they move on. I hope that they listened to all the criticisms people made of this game, and polish a sequel to be up there with the great collectathons of yesteryear and the ones that are reviving the genre today. If a Tooka-Laylee comes out, I am definitely picking it up, and I sincerely hope that it is a huge success and Playtonic can become a renowned developer that helped save collectathon platformers. 

I feel like Yooka-Laylee was a labor of love from the Rare alums, and their ambition and creative freedom may have got the better of them. I genuinely believe their next project will be an improvement, and I look forward to seeing what they have in store for us.

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Mario Kart Needs to Learn From Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled's Grand Prix Mode

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/mario-kart-needs-to-learn-from-crash-team-racing-nitro-fueleds-grand-prix-mode/

Mario Kart Needs to Learn From Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled's Grand Prix Mode

I can’t stop playing Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

, and I don’t intend to anytime soon. It’s no surprise that the kart racer is a great Crash Team Racing remake, and as a longtime Crash fan I expected to put in plenty of hours on Crash Cove. But the remake’s developers, Beenox, have added such a smart additional feature post-launch — the Grand Prix — that is the primary reason for my addiction. And it’s something that CTR’s kart racing competition, namely, Mario Kart, needs to steal, stat.

What Is Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled’s Grand Prix?

The Grand Prix is an ongoing mode with three iterations. Each Grand Prix runs for several weeks, offering new karts, racers, decals, and paint jobs as rewards earned through a new point system, as well as one new, free track.

With each Grand Prix, pro-level challenges, along with themed, weekly, daily, and “quick” challenges are all introduced to Nitro-Fueled. Completing any of these challenges (with the time-sensitive ones refreshed according to their name) earns you Nitro points, which contribute to an overall point tally you’re accumulating throughout the entire event. New rewards are unlocked at certain point milestones, while Grand Prix-related items are also newly available in CTR’s shop. (Beenox has also introduced a couple weekend events that allow users to earn more coins to more easily facilitate purchasing those items.)

That overall point tally, and the various challenges, create a new meta game in Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled. One day you might need to complete the Wumpa Cup, while the next you have to tackle the Aku Cup. And for one week you might have to earn 10 race wins driving with a Team Cortex kart, while the next it might be Team Trance or Team Oxide.

And to help further the meta, you can earn incremental percentage increases of points depending on whether you’re using karts, racers, and more unlocked from the Grand Prix. So, driving with the new character Tawna, for example, while using the Crash Buggy kart and its new paint job, allows me to earn 20% more points than I would using any old character from the base game.

Why I Love the Crash Team Racing Grand Prix Setup

Honestly, I was a bit skeptical at first of the Grand Prix’s introduction. I was worried it might be a way for Beenox and Activision to shoehorn in microtransactions that would have me paying for any real extra content.

Instead, I’ve gotten free characters, karts, and more just for investing more of my time in Nitro-Fueled. And boy have I invested a lot of time. I’m not kidding when I say I’ve spent at least an hour or two every night after work playing Crash Team Racing to complete the new daily and quick challenges while chipping away at some of the longer term ones.

The first and most obvious reason for why CTR has taken hold of my life like this is the point system. I’m a sucker for a good meta-game, and CTR’s is fun to chase because it both feels manageable and fun. There are definitely some tougher challenges (and I’ve learned the hard way playing online that I’m not the expert kart racer I was only racing amongst my middle school friends back in the day). But even when some feel out of my grasp, CTR is constantly introducing new, smaller achievements that make me feel like I’m making some real progress.

Rewards have felt like they come at a steady enough pace that the next kart or sticker or racer is always in sight, while everything is also earning me coins so that I can work toward buying other unlockables in the Pit Stop store. It’s a great exemplar of the games as a service model not only working to suck me more into a specific game but that lets me feel like that time is meaningfully returning new content.

I also love it because it encourages me to interact with every facet of Nitro-Fueled. At any given point, challenges normally require me to try out single player or local multiplayer races, battle modes, and online races. Sure, you can absolutely cheese some of the challenges (and I have no shame in admitting I’ve bumped some AI difficulty down to easy to earn points from a Battle Mode challenge or two). But they’ve also encouraged me to try out tracks more often I might otherwise ignore, learn the layouts of race or battle levels to be better at them later on, and just overall gain a deeper appreciation for the level design present throughout the game.

It’s also unobtrusive enough (after the unskippable introduction cutscene), that those who don’t want to partake in much of the Grand Prix can ignore it (outside of the Pit Stop store), and simply race locally or online to their heart’s content. But with two more Grand Prix’s (including one adding Spyro the Dragon), and Beenox’s commitment to the feature, I’m far more committed to the racer than I would have expected, even despite the fuzzy orange dice on my desk.

Why Mario Kart Needs to Steal the Grand Prix Setup

Crash Team Racing does a lot right, but the Grand Prix may very well prove to be its masterstroke, keeping me invested long after I might have originally. And it’s absolutely something Nintendo must find a way to integrate into Mario Kart.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Mario Kart needs fixing, t, whatever side of the Crash Team Racing vs. Mario Kart debate you may fall. But, especially with Mario Kart 8 having pulled double duty on both the Wii U and the Switch, the ‘new car smell’ of some of its courses have started to wear off. It’s still an excellent kart racer, and has some of my favorite tracks from the series (in part thanks to the revival of some older ones.) But Nintendo’s post-launch strategy definitely needs to evolve.

The original Mario Kart 8 saw two major DLC packs, which were later integrated into 8 Deluxe. That more recent version has only seen a couple of additions like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s Nintendo Labo support, and while the Master Cycle from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a neat inclusion, Mario Kart has been lacking the post-launch attention to keep me committed to it beyond a periodic party game.

Nintendo could absolutely capitalize on the model of the Grand Prix, even if it offered less free content and chose to continue its paid content route from the last iteration. Adding a meta game to Mario Kart, tasking players with completing various courses, cups, battle modes, or online races could seamlessly be integrated into the experience. It’s a great boon to longevity, a reason to keep coming back long after I may have gotten my fill of the racer’s courses, and a great incentive to test out various racers or karts I may not have otherwise used.

Mario Kart is, of course, a bit more stat dependent on its karts and various parts, whereas CTR is determined by the character. Nintendo could easily sidestep this by offering additional costumes that have no gameplay impact (Mario and Luigi have had plenty of costume changes in their many careers) while still maintaining the gameplay-altering kart system it has in place. Would this make some of the awards feel less consequential? Maybe, but even just having the meta-game to work toward, or to have to compete in point tallying with friends and strangers could easily add some life to the kart racer.

There’s not a lot wrong with Mario Kart these days, often considered the king of kart racers. But it certainly could learn a thing or two from its new, but also old, competition. And while the Mario Kart vs. Crash Team Racing debate has been renewed thanks to Activision’s remake, the Grand Prix is certainly a point in CTR’s camp that I hope Mario Kart, and any other potential kart racers, find inventive ways to include and improve upon.

Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior News Editor, big Crash Bandicoot fan, and a dedicated Polar main outside of the Grand Prix. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

Source : IGN

[theinvinciblenoob]

Snapchat needs reasons for teens to come back every day as it struggles to grow amidst competition from Instagram, so it’s capitalizing on its Los Angeles roots. Today Snapchat unveiled its fall slate of a dozen “Original” video shows including its first scripted programs from top producers like Keeping Up With The Kardashians creator Bunim/Murray and Friday Night Lights writer Carter Harris. There’s the supernatural soap opera Dead Girls Detective Agency, college comedy Co-Ed, and a docuseries about the “cash me outside” girl Bringing Up Bhabie.

The Snapchat Originals will appear in Discover, which will soon have a dedicated section for Shows, as well as new permanent Show Profile pages available through Snapchat search where users can sign up for push notifications when each episode is released. Reaction lenses make it easy to post about a Show’s biggest moments. And with new Show Portal lenses, users can stick an augmented reality doorway in their Snaps that they can walk through to explore a scene from the Show and then tap to watch that Show, allowing them to spread virally.

“Time spent watching shows on Snapchat has tripled this year alone” Snap’s VP of Original Content Sean Mills tells me. The stats on Snap’s previous 60 shows from CBS, Viacom, the NFL and others since the project launched two years ago made it clear there was an opportunity to double down, especially as original mobile programming efforts like Facebook Watch and Instagram’s IGTV have stumbled. NBC News’ twice daily show Stay Tuned has doubled viewership in the past year to 5 million unique viewers per day, over half of which watch at least 3 days per week, while SportsCenter’s show reaches 17 million monthly viewers.

Portal lenses use augmented reality to let viewers step inside a scene of an Original show and send the experience to friends

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel telegraphed today’s announcement in a leaked memo, noting that the app sees “over 18 Shows reaching monthly audiences of over 10M unique viewers. 12 of which are Original productions” and that “We are also working to identify content that is performing well outside of Snapchat so that we can bring it into Discover.”

Snap Inc was cagey about sharing exactly how the deals to produce the shows work. Some Originals are funded entirely by Snapchat, some fully by production studios, and some are joint efforts. Mills claims “We’re not bidding on shows that are being shopped around town.” They’re always shot vertically for Snapchat and will at least be exclusive to the platform for a window of time. Snap says the shows are created with fast-paced mobile behavior patterns in mind, employing overlaid graphics, split screens, quick cuts, and other modern video elements.

One thing’s for sure: Snap doesn’t want to follow Facebook’s footsteps in funding original content. With Watch and Live, Facebook paid out big upfront sums to secure creators, but when that funding dried up, it was unclear how the unsubsidized shows would survive. “We want to set these things up for longer-term success” says Mills. “We’re not trying to just seed the market with huge investments and then hope it turns into something later. We’re very interested in the viability of this at the onset.”

Originals will be monetized through two or three six-second unskippable Commercial ads in each show sold by Snap, the producers, or again a combination. Snap will try to seduce advertisers by pimping out its new Originals at the NewFronts West conference today in LA. The company will also embark on perhaps its biggest marketing effort to date after focusing on minimalist yellow billboards and airport security tray ads. Snapchat will be running ads on Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube plus some outdoor marketing in LA to clue people into its revamped content lineup. The dedicated Shows carousel  should also help the premium content rise above the news publisher clickbait and shoddy user generated content currently stuffed into Discover.

Snap can’t afford to spend too much on Original programming and not have it pay off with ad revenue. The company llost $353 million last quarter, and at this rate may have to raise more money in 2019 or it could run out. An analyst yesterday predicted they expected Snap would lose $1.5 billion in 2019, which dragged the share price to $7 — by far its lowest ever.

Snapchat’s forthcoming Shows channel in Discover and the new permanent profile pages for Shows

As I wrote 18 months ago, Snap’s big opportunity is to fashion itself as the HBO of smartphones and use that draw to get people hooked on its whimsical ephemeral messaging. Though the slate of Originals look higher quality than much of the reality-style and vlogger video content already made for mobile, Mills says Snap isn’t ready to commit the resources to forge its own tent pole Game Of Thrones. “We’re still in the phase of learning about what the audience wants. We’re not setting up for one premium epic show that’s going to bring in all the rest” Mills tells me. “It’s possible that in three months or six months we’ll start making bigger bets after learning what works.” So essentially, Snap is in the Sex In The City, pre-Sopranos stage of turning into the mobile box office, or it’s like a modern Netflix funding lots of experiments but that’s yet to find its House Of Cards.

After losing 3 million daily users and sinking to 188 million total last quarter, Snapchat needs something to reverse the growth trend. While Instagram and Facebook’s other apps have copied Snapchat’s Stories and visual messaging features, the Silicon Valley giant has yet to nail how to do premium mobile video content. If Snapchat can be the place for must-see TV on the go, it could lure in new and churned users looking for a relaxing escape from the competitive world of social media success theater.

Here’s the full list of new Snapchat Originals:

Endless Summer – Summer McKeen and Dylan Jordan try to balance love, friends, family, and fame in this intimate snapshot of their lives in Laguna Beach. Produced by Bunim/Murray Productions. Docuseries – launching 10/10

Class of Lies – Best friends and college roommates Devon and Missy crack cold cases on their successful true-crime podcast. But can they solve the most important case of all when their best friend disappears without a trace? Produced by Makeready. Scripted – launching 10/10

Co-Ed –  Juggling classes, parties, and down-the-hall crushes, freshman roommates Ginny and Chris try their best to face whatever college throws at them, discovering who they are along the way. Produced by Indigo Development, Entertainment Arts and DBP Donut. Scripted – launching 10/10

Vivian – Vivian, the youngest scout at modeling agency Wilhelmina, takes us inside an exclusive world where she has the power to make wannabes’ dreams come true — but can she do that for herself? Produced by NBCU Digital Lab, the Intellectual Property Corp. in association with Wilhelmina. Docuseries – launching 10/22

The Dead Girls Detective Agency – This darkly comedic supernatural soap follows Charlotte Feldman, a young woman who must work from beyond to figure out how and why she died, in order to avoid an eternity in purgatory. Based on the young-adult novel by Susie Cox. Produced by Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts, Insurrection, and Keshet. Scripted – launching 10/22

V/H/S – The next generation of the horror anthology series brings four new frightening experiences to the palm of your hand. Produced by Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts and Studio 71. Scripted – Launching 10/28

Bref – Based on the French format, Bref (loosely translated as “whatever”) is the story of a single man who is trying to live his best possible life with the least possible effort. Working title. Produced by Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts and Paramount TV. Scripted – launch date TBD

Bringing Up Bhabie – Follow the dramas of up-and-coming rap sensation and “cash me outside” viral star Bhad Bhabie, both onstage and off. Produced by Invent TV. Docuseries – launch date TBD

Growing Up Is a Drag – Follows the coming-of-age dramas of teen drag queens. Produced by Bunim/Murray Productions and PB&J TV + Docs. Docuseries – launch date TBD

Stunt Brothers – Three daredevil brothers obsessed with Hollywood movies recreate them at home with explosive consequences, and explore their archives of stunts from across the last 20 years. Produced by Magilla Entertainment. Docuseries – launch date TBD

Deep Creek – Follow a group of friends’ yearly summer trip to Deep Creek, Maryland — but this year, they all have emotional secrets to reveal. Produced by Woodman Park Productions. Scripted – launch date TBD

#Vanlife – Romantic comedy about a young couple that decides to opt out of the rat race and start a new life in a 2004 Dodge Sprinter — only to discover the glamorous life they’ve been following through hashtags is actually just straight-up living in a van. Working title. Produced by Indigo Development and Entertainment Arts and Above Average. Scripted – launch date TBS

via TechCrunch

[donutpwns]

Thoughts on Andromeda

Alright, since I just finished my first play through of Mass Effect Andromeda, I thought I’d write up my own impressions of it. Before I dive in though, I would like to preference that I did like the game, a lot, but this review will go over both the good and the bad of the game. I will do my best to avoid any major spoilers.

Okay, lets start with the obvious worst thing; the repetition. The number of times I found myself saying ‘shut up SAM’ because he continually told me how to mine or that we had left a safe environment…both equally frustrating as there was a visual indicator for both things. Doing a gun fight on Voeld where I had to continually leave the warm zones became a battle of annoyance as SAM seemed to be on a constant loop of “Temperature dropping/returning to normal”. This along with the unskippable cutscene every time you land on a planet or leave were headache inducing. Here’s hoping a future patch removes the issue with SAM. And maybe a setting to stop the motion sickness inducing animation as you explore the cluster. A loading screen, my kingdom for a loading screen.

Aside from that, I found the gameplay overall very fun, if not a little unbalanced by the end. I started on casual because I’m not the best at shooters but bumped it up to normal fairly quickly. For a while it was a challenge and I did find myself switching profiles and powers regularly to compensate for more difficult battles…but that only lasted for a little while. Soon things returned to being fairly easy as the game didn’t seem to be making smarter enemies…just more. By the end of the game, it wasn’t the enemy AI that was causing the most struggle but the fact that there was so damn many. The final battle I rarely switched from my sniper rifle and when I did, it was to use a shotgun on an enemy that had full armor. Again, it was still fun, but felt more like a test of endurance than actual skill.

The writing of the game was very good; certainly not the best in gaming history or in Bioware’s own history, but good. There seemed to be more of a focus on humor than in previous Bioware games and the humor was very good. I found myself laughing a lot and few jokes missed their marks.

That said, I feel like this humor came at a cost of drama and the serious moments did feel a touch phoned in. A powerful reveal that should shake things up is addressed and overcome in basically a single scene, and without a feeling of resonance. The game lacks, at least to me, that singular moment that defines the game in my heart. For all the game tries to be big, it never truly felt big to me.

The characters are great, as Bioware knows how to make you love a person, but they lack the cohesive whole that I know they’re fighting for. For all the mentions of the crew being a family, we don’t really get to feel that. Terrible things happen to various characters but aside from some ambient dialogue, your crew doesn’t seem to connect outside of a few select pairs, such as Vetra and Drack. They’re amazing individuals but as a whole seem to fall short. I found myself comparing the crew not just to those of the Normandy (which is a bit unfair as they all had multiple games to bond) but to also your squadmates in Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition. Particularly Inquisition which seemed to take a lot of care to show that your friends existed outside of you and had relationships among each other, which ME:A never truly seems to do, again outside of Vetra and Drack or even Drack and Lexi.

Speaking of relationships that lack…let’s talk about the twin. Was I the only one severely disappointed in my twin? For all the marketing seemed to play them up and talk about building a relationship with them…well, it all fell a bit flat, didn’t it? Everything to do with the Ryder clan kinda fell a bit flat by the end, never truly coming together in a way that made the weight feel justified. By the end it felt very much like we should care about them because we were told to, not because the character was someone to care about.

Overall, I feel the biggest hindrance to ME:A was that it tried to do too much. It was trying to build a new galaxy for us to enjoy but in the process missed out of the little things that make all the difference. I can’t be the only one that had 1000s of unused research points and continually forgot that the strike team was even a thing, right? Or that never really bought anything outside of requirements for quests. Hell, aside from a better sniper rifle, a melee weapon, and upgrades to make the Nomad less annoying, I don’t think I developed a single thing that wasn’t mission related. Several times I realized that I hadn’t spent my skill points in several levels (once finding out I had over 30 points to spend). I only ever used about 3-4 powers outside of the bot Peebee gave me…I got all four planets to 100% viability and there was still mountains of missions left on each one that I could not ass myself to do.

At the end of the day, the game was worth the money and my time, but it has its flaws. I respect how little it seemed to callback to the original trilogy as it works to stand on its own and I look forward to how it will grow as this new series continues, even if it would’ve been nice to not leave so many threads dangling. We’ve gone 600 years to the future to a new galaxy and even though it may feel like we stumbled a bit back, it’s a new frontier. New stories and characters and life will hopefully bloom from the seeds planted.

I should go.