So, yeah. Fallout 76 finally got me hooked. I’ve written about thisalot. I played the game for review back at launch for the page, and was rather disappointed. Now it feels so much more complete. And I find myself hooked, and even with Wastelanders, I’m enjoying just screwing around
But I’m actually kind of bad at it. Simple things like where the F do I get plans for workshops without paying an arm and a leg to the NPC vendors? I like to keep my CAMP very simplistic and usually build it in a way that uses the environment around it (like building on an abandoned house) but I could really go for the practicality of being able to use my own workshops when I want, and leave them out so friends can stop by and use whatever they want, possibly even chill out.
Most recently I built a CAMP near the train station next to the Top of the World. It’s over the edge of the street and in the swamp, but has a nice little deck that goes over the swamp and I’m itching to decorate it with tables, chairs, and of course, workshops. I also built a little sleep shack, literally a 2×1 floor plan with a bed. I just I gotta add decorations tho.
Also, I have a bit of a silly vending machine.
In real life, I am a… soft drink enthusiast? And in Fallout 76, I like making juice and tea. I also hate the grenades in Fallout, a bit to clunky for me. My solution? My vending machine is called “Bombs n Beverages” I sell beers, liquors, juice, tea, along with frags, mines, molotovs, etc. Not sure if I’m pricing them well but I mainly am good natured so I sell the grenades for a few caps less than the recommended minimum price. For beverages, they range between 10-15 caps. Perhaps someone can help me find all the beverage and bomb plans? That would be nice. I just need to be advised on where I can find these things without paying an arm and a leg, and if my pricing is fair, competitive, or worth anyone’s time. I’ve even debated making a daily FREE beverage, most likely blackberry juice.
Also, finally, I hate crafting in almost every video game and on my first run I never bothered with it. Now I absolutely love building and modifying guns but I run out of the good resources frequently. I’m all set with water, gonna build a purifier soon but for now I have enough radaway to not worry about rads. But I do run out of wood alot. Getting resources is a bit of a time sink for a new player like me. So I’m constantly looking for great places to farm wood or get the good resources like aluminum, adhesive, screws, etc.
What’s the point of this? Well, if you’re ever wondering how the people who enjoy this game continue to play it for as long as they do, this is it right here. They have me stuck in the gameplay loop. It’s quite a time sink, no wonder the people who like it play as long as they do. If I weren’t playing other games, I’m not sure I’d stop. Because I’ll eventually get sick of it. I always do. Come @ me in the comments, if you have advice!
Hate reading? The audio version can be found HERE.
Just a couple days ago I wrote a piece on how Fallout 76 made enough marginal improvements to be worth your time if you haven’t played it. I also said it was boring. Yet somehow, as the very first story arc of the new game closed, something happened.
I could have stopped, it felt like the particular arc I was following stopped short. Then I explored some more and found some cool new things. Then I found another new quest that I thought was an old quest. Then random quests popped up as I explored.
And then I spent what had to be a solid 1.5hrs fiddling with my gear at a friendly player’s camp. You know, the high level players camps are so nice that I’ve yet to even bother to make my own, it’s actually been easier to just freeload. And they dynamic locations of the camps also makes it easy for me to fast travel to quest markers I’d normally have to hoof it to.
One night I was really steamed and needed to relax.
But did I launch Doom Eternal for the catharsis and murder? No. Did I scour the other wasteland that takes place in Washington DC? No not Fallout 3, I mean the Division 2, but still no.
I fired up Fallout 76 and had a terrible experience. A high level legendary monster killed me twice and at one point had me trapped. The 350+ rounds I unloaded on it reduced his health by… 1/32 if I’m being honest. Then I had scour the land far and wide to find a Tinker Bench because I couldn’t remember where one in particular was at. My freeloading ass went to 3 different user camps, all who had every workshop except a Tinker Bench. .
This took… I think another 3 hours of my life but I was frustrated so I QUIT. For a solid hour and a half and then jumped back on because I was so close to finishing the quest! Then another quest popped up. At some point I literally sent Xbox messages to players offering to sell of my grenades to them.
Then I looked at the curtain in my own room. And then I looked at the clock. It was 6AM. Todd you’ve done it again.
Hate reading? The audio version can be found HERE.
You already know the score if you’re here. But to reiterate, Fallout 76 had a big update that added a campaign and some NPCs to an otherwise empty world. This brought some good and bad with it.
I saw in early reviews that the new campaign is too easy if you use your veteran character so I made a new one. After talking to some intro NPCs, I headed down to the starting place for all players.
Except instead of being an empty campsite… there’s an empty campsite, a bar, and a very friendly user C.A.M.P. nearby. Go into the bar to start your quest, visit the nearby user houses to help you starting out. This part is really nice, other players are largely helpful individuals. Some guy just gave me 10 super stimpacks.
But, now I’m wondering if it was because he was being nice or because I had a female avatar? I didn’t have a mic and neither did he but he used enkugh emotes for me to get it. I mean, my character is a strong independent black woman who ain’t need no man! Meh, who cares, thanks stranger. Also, he showed me a cool bug.
It’s nice to have the new NPCs but I got a bit confused. I accidentally started following the original “campaign” and the only difference is that every where you get lead to has exactly ONE NPC standing around doing nothing.
As I progressed further, this always seemed to be the case.
But the new questline did have actual interesting characters to interact with, and I’m on a slightly interesting quest to find a treasure or something. Sounds underwhelming but I like it when the plot isn’t immediately about saving the world.
So, going in, if you haven’t played F76 in a while, it may be refreshing. But at the same time, if you start over you’re gonna realize it’s the same boring game with more stuff added. I’ve not found the survival interesting, and I spend way too much time fiddling with equipment before I go anywhere. But hey, if you like survival, knock yourself out. If you’ve never touched Fallout 76 before now, it’s in a much better state to begin playing. [Also, I’ve stayed this before but don’t let them fool you with that “deluxe edition”, the regular version is available for $40.]
And of course, before I let you go, it wouldn’t be Bethesda without an absurd bug coming with the update. As discovered by many users, if you die and you have friendly NPCs helping you, there’s a chance an NPC will loot your corpse and take your best weapon. And you can’t get it back, you can’t trade with said NPC and you can’t kill then. -sigh- It just works!
I’ll continue to sleep my way through this update. I refuse to pick up a new title until I genuinely need something new to play. This expansion is a solid mediocre. Maybe you think it’s really good, or a huge waste? Come @ me in the comments.
Here’s a gaming news robot to tell you more about the glitch.
Hate reading? The audio version can be found HERE.
You know I feel like gamers have been rather apathetic as of late. We finally get Half Life 3 (sortof) and everyone shrugs. We get a “Remake” for the beloved Final Fantasy VII and judging by the comments on my previous post, people have several misgivings about the release (to put it mildly). Now we have the game fixer everyone has been waiting for.
The massive failure of a game, Fallout 76, has finally done the unthinkable. It’s become an actual fallout game with quests, plot, NPCs, you know, Fallout stuff. The brand new “free” WASTELANDERS campaign is available to all owners of Fallout 76.
It has also been re-listed as Fallout 76: Deluxe Edition with the store icon changed to a new Wastelanders icon. The game is back at full price right now @ $60, or so they would make you think. The Wastelanders update is free, this deluxe edition is just giving you all the extra fluff crap you don’t need. Search harder and you’ll find a the vanilla version of Fallout 76 for $40 USD.
Reminder if you own F76 on disc.
The disc is basically just a 520MB license file, the game is all download. At least on Xbox, not sure on the exact numbers for PS4 and PC. Still no announcement of we’ll be getting it on Nintendo Switch (as if!).
I purposely avoided reviews for several reasons. I want to go into this expansion blind, and with a fresh frame of mind as I haven’t touched the game since they did the “Nuclear Winter” mode (which was oddly okayish). I’m sure there are plenty of opinions, hot takes, and reviews pouring into the net as we speak.
So, are you gonna go back to play it? Did you get rid of your copy? Are you no longer interested? Have you seen the reviews? Come @ me in the comments.
A final reflection on the games of 2019. It’s a bit late to talk about last year but I filmed this a month ago and it needs to be seen. Consider this a preamble to the HMG redemption arc.
2019 WAS AWESOME, I HATED IT.a final reflection on the games of 2019. it's a bit late to talk about last year but I filmed this a month ago and it needs to be seen. consider this a preamble to the HMG redemption arc.
That’s right, 2019 was awesome, I hated it. As of right now, YouTube sucks so I’m going to be sticking with Facebook Watch or any other non-YT video hosting platform. Plus, the FB page is where all the memes are at, so follow the video to my page and SMASH THAT LIKE.
Allegedly, Rage 2 was an endangered game until Avalanche Studios “rescued” it. I’m not sure that is truly the case. The shooting in the game is still the ultra-satisfying and fast paced action you expect from id software. It’s just too bad there’s this whole map and plot that get in the way of your enjoyment. How so?
GRAPHICS: 1/2
If you like sand, you’re gonna love 80% of this game. There are spots that aren’t sand, and they actually don’t look as good.
There’s no designated aesthetic for Rage. It has been, and always will be, a combination of other similar games smashed together.
The draw distance on the map is dismal, and that’s on the Xbox One X version. And don’t get me started on their FOV slider.
Some games make you stop and stare in awe at the land before you. In Rage 2, I couldn’t ignore the scenery fast enough.
At least there was nothing distinctly terrible about the visuals?
STORY/IMMERSION: 0/2
I don’t always skip cut scenes on a first playthrough. But when I do, it’s usually another id software game. Like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, I regularly bypassed the plot out of sheer boredom.
The plot is too hard to follow anyway, the game expects you to just know stuff about the lore of Rage, which is something nobody has.
Did I even need a reason to shoot baddies? The game could have just said “here’s the bad guys, shoot them” and I would have had a blast.
But the game is so serious and the ridiculous action is at odds with the serious plot.
The plot also seems considerably unfinished, like it’s one third of a Far Cry game. And just like Ubisoft, they were keen to just litter the map with different stuff to do that earned you points towards being given story missions. One of which was a real slog.
This game was finished during a 3-night rental. Well, 4 nights total but I didn’t play it one night. I had to sort of force myself to plow through it.
AUDIO: 1/2
Soundtrack sounds like it’s on autopilot. And even worse, there were times where it became grueling. Because occasionally the action music won’t shut off and continues looping.
I’m trying REALLY hard to remember any song in this game and I just can’t. I distinctly remember the Mutant Bash TV song being OK. But that’s because it was comical.
The guns and explosions are satisfactory. You can certainly feel the impact when you pull the trigger.
Voice acting isn’t bad. Not that I know that much since I skipped half the cut scenes. It’s whatever. It did the job bare minimum.
When you pick up items of any kind you hear the same exact “pow” noise every time. You also get a chime when you upgrade but there are many upgrades where there’s no sound at all. Really removes the “ooomphf” from leveling up your sh*t.
The sound FX are like a poor imitation of Titanfall 2‘s BOMBASTIC level up and weapon sounds.
GAMEPLAY: 2/2
Despite the open world feeling like more of a nuisance than a gameplay feature, it does leave a lot of areas to go to. And in all those areas are baddies and you get to shoot them. This game is at its best when you are shooting the baddies.
But seriously, id software has first person shooter mechanics down pat. It seems like Avalanche just used the exact same structure they did in their “Mad Max” adaptation, but let id do all the fine tuning.
The powers are fun, and while the challenge dramatically change, it’s not bogged down by any RPG elements. Each location just has a challenge rating, from 1-10, and I appreciate that you can just walk on in to a high difficulty area and still win if you’re good enough.
There are probably cooler guns, yet I spent the majority of the game with a heavily upgraded version of the starter weapon, the ranger assault rifle. And it never got old. Especially when upgraded to high capacity and faster fire rate. Why aim when you can shoot more bullets?
FUN: 2/2
When this game is a shooter, it’s a great shooter. When this game is an open world sandbox, it’s a boring commute between combat sections. I almost would have preferred to just have a loading screen to teleport me to all the missions.
You know what really breaks immersion though? Having a pause menu that stutters and lags when you go from category to category.
Also the HUD disappears if you press the “Xbox” button. I had to do this frequently because I was capturing footage.
Despite all the complaints above, the actual combat just makes up for it in so many ways. It’s similar to Destiny in a way. They got themselves a great shooter that feels well polished, looks good, but lacks in story and creativity.
As stated earlier, this game was finished during a rental. By the time I finished, I had not done many of the side quests and locations to clear. If I had more time, I might be inclined to do them. But, it’s just not a $60 experience. That campaign is short and there are plenty of elements that keep Rage 2 away from greatness.
Hello friends, Chet here. What you are witnessing is one of the absolute best games Bethesda has ever made. This game single-handedly shows of the true depths that the developer and publisher can reach. This is an absolute game changer, both literally and metaphorically. Because it changed the Fallout games, and as a game changed the whole world! It’s so good, that we had to give you a whole ELEVEN reasons as to why this game was so good, because 10 just wasn’t enough. In fact it’s so good we are not even going to review it. Check out why it’s great over here!
In case the blunt sarcasm wasn’t enough, it shouldn’t have to be pointed out that this video is SATIRE.
The release of Bethesda’s Fallout 76 has been nothing short of a complete disaster.
Terrible reviews (even from games media).
Abysmal user scores everywhere.
Old glitches that were never fixed.
Disconnection issues.
Uninspired gameplay.
Tedium, very little to do.
Ridiculously easy to cheat.
Canvas bag changed to cheap garbage.
Annoying map and compass layout.
And accidentally doxx’ing their own customers due to a hiccup in their pre-orders for the Power Armer Edition. Ouch. The UK sales figures are showing a huge drop in sales, a whole 80% or more down from Fallout 4. It’s not a good month for Bethesda. It must be an even worse week for Todd Howard. At least as of now, they are fixing the issue with the cheap bags and getting people what they bought.
I’m trying my hardest to play this game and enjoy it, but it is so fundamentally flawed, it’s hard to work up the nerve to carry on. This game doesn’t feel like an actual product. It’s at best either an early alpha. It feels more like someone tried to mod a survival game with Fallout elements. But this combo doesn’t stick so well. It’s… bad. You know it’s bad. We know it’s bad. Everyone knows it’s bad. Except for the concurrent user base who are still playing it. They can force their fun in all they want, it’s still not going to make it any better.
So, that’s a bad review, right?
0/2 GRAPHICS – Why does this game look and run so terribly even on the One X?
0/2 STORY – There is no story. What about player progression incentives? Nope. There is none of that either.
1/2 AUDIO – The new soundtrack is surprisingly soothing. But there’s nothing special about anything else.
0/2 GAMEPLAY – Realtime VATS. The inability to pause or be safe anywhere whatsoever.
0/2 FUN – It’s not. It’s really not. I can’t “MAKE” it fun either. Nobody is playing.
If you wanted a number, there’s your number.
SCORE: 1/10
But that’s not a real review. And that’s no way to go about it. So, no, that score doesn’t actually count, and we will review the game eventually. We are going to wait and see if Bethesda can fix this. Why? Because it’s possible. There’s been plenty of games that failed when they started and turned out great later on. We all remember the backlash Hello Games got when they released No Mans Sky. A lot of the features they said would be in there were absent. They didn’t say much about this.
Instead they put themselves back to work. Now we have a No Man’s Sky that has a lot more to do and suits many different playstyles. The same could be said of Destiny 1 & 2. Same for Final Fantasy XIV. Even Bethesda themselves had this with the original release of Elder Scrolls Online. Each one was pretty short and dry on content, but expansions greatly improved upon them. The same could be said of a large number of indie survival games.
That’s the boat we are in right now. Bethesda, your game is broken. Fix it. We’ll get back to you when you do.
The past week or so, we were faced with some really good games. Like Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee. And probably Warriors Orochi 4, I guess. But you know what wasn’t great? Fallout 76 and Battlefield V, two big ticket games. Both were set to make a splash in the crazy release season that is November. But neither could achieve what the wanted. Fallout 76 was vastly undercut by it’s monotony and lack of direction. Battlefield V was just the same Battlefield as always with a new coat of paint. BFV also had it’s critics for its inaccurate portrayal of WW2 by people on the internet, but that’s the internet. Everybody hates everything on the internet. Besides that, both games got major BETA playtests from regular users. This is honestly a good step, allowing the actual PLAYERS some advanced look at the game instead of some journalist who intends to write a giant think piece. Both of these games have a huge focus on multiplayer. Fallout 76 is the first major multiplayer game for Bethesda and Battlefield V is a multiplayer game with a campaign tacked on. Only their campaign was even shorter AND less interesting.
Either way, we haven’t finished enough of either to give you a consensus. But… if you are absolutely dying to play an online shooter game, we have something interesting for you. We are going to compare the games using our review system. But instead of the score, we are going to say which game did it better! Let’s start, shall we?
Graphics
Battlefield V is flat out gorgeous, with heavily detailed maps and great lighting that really set the mood for a lot of maps. There are some glitches but it works for the most part. The smoke grenades set up some serious smoke particle FX. And the detail of the character faces is surprisingly detailed for a game that doesn’t have too much focus on what the player looks like. Fallout 76 looks… exactly like it did several years ago. Fallout 3 and New Vegas never looked that great. Fallout 4 didn’t look that great. Fallout 76? It’s markedly improved, sure. But does it look great? No way, it looks as trashy as its level design and full of all sorts of ugly textures. Several of the ugly textures have taken more than 20 seconds to pop in. Yikes.
Victor: Battlefield V
Story
Battlefield V is one of the many, many, many, many iterations of World War II presented in game form. Somehow, it managed to make history even more boring, despite trying to spice things up with some creative historical fiction. What you get here is a mere 3 stories, as opposed to 5 in the previous entry. It’s really hard to feel anything for these characters because you spend such a small amount of time with them. It ends up being boring. Fallout 76 is boredom incarnate. Using the gaming worlds least interesting way of telling stories, any thing plot related in the game is played out in VERY LENGTHY audio logs. They can’t be paused or fast forwarded. If you interact with your pip-boy and click the wrong thing, the tape will stop and you have to start it over. Other than that, you only other window into the events of the game are logs written on terminal screens. In old Fallout games, this was done for lore. In 76, they are main story points. Super lame. All the same, when it comes down to brass tacks, it would seems that Fallout 76 still has a better overall story. Having a ton of lore is better than a bog-standard WW2 plot.
Victor: Fallout 76
Audio
Battlefield V has all the standard sounds you’re used to hearing. The audio was on autopilot in this regard. Every single gun sounds like it did in every other game. You will not in any way be inspired by the sound design of the weapons, nor will you be interested in the orchestral OST. It’s there because it’s supposed to be there, not because it wants to do something engaging. Fallout 76 surprisingly has a decent OST going for it. The ambient music that plays while you’re wandering the world is noticeably better then previous versions. It’s actually notable and really adds to the mood of the game being very lonely and desolate. And if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there’s always the old sock-hop records to keep things going. The fantasy weapons also have wonderful unique sounds.
Victor: Fallout 76
Gameplay
In Fallout 76, you are bombarded with nonstop activity. The game is always online, so that means no pause menu. If you want to look at the map, it’s realtime. If you need to sort your junk on your Pip-Boy, that is also real time. There is nowhere safe to be when you play this game. You absolutely will be bombarded by enemies at any and all opportunities, with very little time to rest and get a bearing on things. In Battlefield V, the campaign is atrocious. But the multi-player is on point. It weird, the game is so much better in multi than single. It makes you wish the they skipped the campaign, instead of Black Ops. Anyway, the game is direct and lets you “play it your way”, which is very important. Divided into four classes, you can spawn is as a specialist in Assault, Medic, Recon, and Support. Don’t let the names fool you, all of them are combat roles. It’s what you do with them that matters. Either way, BFV manages to be a great shooter while Fallout 76 stays wonky as ever.
Victor: Battlefield V
Fun
To put it simply, there’s an easy dichotomy here. Fallout 76 has a “make your own fun” approach to game design. If you want to have any fun, you want to team up and do fun stuff together with your friends. Otherwise it’s a drag. Battlefield is good at grouping you with interesting colleagues that you help out during the many combat modes. Even if you aren’t on voice chat, the game finds a way to make you feel connected with your squad. It’s admirable that it manages to gel so well with random strangers. Meeting random strangers in Fallout 76 are few and far between. They are also as underwhelming as ever.
Victor: Battlefield V
It is clear that the winner is Battlefield V with a victory spread of 3-2. We haven’t heard too much of the game in the blogosphere of gaming. But this may be because the game just… is fine. It’s not spectacular. It’s just fine. Despite early complaints, the bottom line is that BFV is a better experience than Fallout 76. If you need a brand new game to satisfy your itch for fast paced, online, multiplayer shooter action, you could do worse than picking up the latest Battlefield. Me? I got so bored during the campaign that I jumped into multi. I never do that. Not until this iteration. How surprising!
Sizzle reel greatly featured the dev teams, it was very personable and charming.
Then another reel full of VIOLENT VIDEO GAMING ACTION.
Pete Hines came out, talked about their games of 2017, then mentioned they were the top-ranked publisher on Metacritic.
Then he made fun of Wal-Mart Canada for leaking their game.
Then Andrew WK happened so they could properly introduce Rage 2.
Everyone seemed to be excited about Rage 2, saying RAGE IS BACK.
Then they didn’t know what to say and got stuck.
Rage 2
This trailer gave us a bit of story.
Then we got a gameplay trailer so good you have to see it for your self.
Elder Scrolls Legends
It’s a card game with a very good trailer that showed very little game footage.
But everyone claimed you would just love it.
Elder Scrolls Online
A dev from the game came on to talk about Summerset for too long.
Then they spoiler all of ESO in case you planned on playing it.
After spoiling the game they showed you some of the things in you’ll see in Summerset.
Doom Eternal
A trailer came on revealing Doom Eternal.
And it turned out to be an announcement for an announcement, as they’d say more at Quake Con. And that was it.
Quake Champions
A dev from Quake Champions came to talk about Quake Champions and how good Quake Champions was and how everyone loved Quake Champions and that they should continue to enjoy Quake Champions.
They showed a trailer with new characters like it was a hero shooter.
It is also currently free to try from June 10-17.
Prey Mooncrash
New DLC for Prey was released, featuring new play modes.
It also had a new simulation where each play is unique.
And a multiplayer mode 1v4 where 4 players get to be mimics and hide as objects from the players.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood
This was revealed by two devs who talked too long about the game.
Then we got a 2D trailer that featured some plot and a two women protagonist team.
Prey Typhon Hunt & Wolfenstein Cyber Pilot
Pete came back to talk about these two games and showed nothing.
Todd Howard
It’s Todd Howard, everyone!
He’s been with Bethesda for 25 years.
We learned the history of E3.
He made fun of everyone!
Skyrim
Watch it.
Fallout 76
We were treated to seeing the same trailer.
And then we saw the first few moments of the game.
After, Todd Howard revealed that the only people you interact with are “other humans”
He explained the game in more detail, in that it’s more like a drop-in, drop-out squad-based shooter, but you can also play solo.
Turns out you can build wherever you want, making the game more like Fortnite than any MMO.
The crafty Vault-Tec videos explained how the mechanics work.
The game also has… RECREATIONAL NUKES.
Then the BETA gets announced and Todd Howard admits that Bethesda has buggy games.
Todd Howard reveals the collectors’ edition that comes with a map that “glows in the fucking dark”, along with action figures, and a working Brotherhood of Steel Helmet.
Release date slated for November 14, 2018.
Also, Fallout Shelter is coming to PS4 and Switch.
Elder Scrolls Blade
Todd Howard also showed off this game designed for iPhone.
You can play the game with a controller or play it vertically, one-handed.
Todd Howard also calls everyone “degenerates”.
It’s a full Elder Scrolls experience available for Free that will be made available on multiple platforms and plans to have a complete cross-platform play, but currently just Android and iPhone.
Starfield
A teaser featuring the name of the game was revealed.
Elder Scrolls VI
A teaser featuring the name of the game was revealed.
Who knew they meant playing the game when they said return to hell…
Damn. What a ridiculous piece of… Well, let me not say that. The damn thing probably just needs an update. It’s just stupid frustrating that I can’t just get the game to work. This is no where as fun as playing God of War. Let’s see how long this update it is… I really hope it’s just an update issue and not that I need to buy Move Controllers. What!? 36 hours to download the update! F*ck this, Doom is stupid. I’m gonna go buy Move Controllers this weekend.
(Flashback an hour)
Ok, I spent way too much time last week using the PSVR as a glorified 70inch screen that I could play on while laying in bed. Let’s bust open this Doom VFR and see what the hype is about. Maybe I’ll even learn what the F stands for in VFR haha. I walked over to the physical game palace (my wall shelf) and looked through the spines. I grabbed the fully sealed copy of Doom VFR that came packaged with the HMG PSVR. Cracked the bad boy open and threw it in the PS4 to install.
While the game began installing I did what everyone should do while waiting for games to install. I went to poo. How could anyone ever play any games on a fully loaded bowel. Even worse, a VR game. Yea not gonna get me to throw up anytime soon, I’m smarter than the average bear. For the record and for the young that was a Yogi Bear reference not a homosexuality reference. Moving on.
“I went to poo.”
I completed the deed and went back to find Doom had fully installed. Hazzaahhh it was time to shoot things. Or so I thought. I booted the game and for two whole scenes had barely any control of the game other than moving my camera and my head around. Oh and of course watching the on screen hands squeeze every time I hit the trigger buttons. Can’t pretend I wasn’t entertained by this. Then it happened, the game broke. Maybe? I’m not quite sure but when it was finally time to play, I couldn’t aim vertically and so I could not progress through the first tutorial prompt.
The first tutorial prompt people. I legit had to google a Doom VFR walkthrough video to see if I was missing something or just having technical issues. And that led us to where we are now.
(Flash forward an hour)
I really hope that getting Move Controllers will solve the problem, cause my internet sucks.
E3 is around the corner so you know how antsy I’m getting. I’m sure you’re feeling it just as much. I’m here today to hit you with all the bad news this week. It sucks but it is what it is. This one is going to be short so don’t miss it flying by. Behold the most negative LGR to date:
1. Shenmue 3 delayed to 2019!
I think it’s fair to say that I warned everyone reading that this was going to be more of an UnLucky recap. Rip the band-aid off quick and tell you out the gate, Shenmue 3 has been delayed. It was originally planned to come out fall of this year but given the lack of marketing and development progress you would be a fool to be surprised by this. Honestly, I have my doubts that it will even make it to release next year. Call me a pessimist (actually please don’t) but Shenmue 3 is quite a long way out. Good news; we are still getting the remastered versions of 1 and 2 this year.
2. Metro Exodus delayed to 2019.
This delay on the other hand is super unexpected. If you don’t recall, Metro Exodus was the first game to show us a zombie bear in action at E3. It was terrifying. The game looked incredible and I’m pretty sure it had a playable demo as well. THQ Nordic bought Deep Silver which means this delay is most likely to make sure the marketing is labeled and handled properly. In this case I feel like this is more of a winning situation for fans of the series. You know, cause Red Dead Redemption is going to outshine everything this fall.
By now some of you have realized that all these delays come from the same company. If you didn’t, it’s pretty clear now. THQ Nordic buying Deep Silver has put a big shift on the way the game release schedules are working. So the interesting new IP, Bio-Mutant, and the revival of an IP that should never have died, Darksiders 3, are both under revision for release. Fear not, this doesn’t mean these games are going bye bye, it just means they gotta cook in the oven a little longer. Still thinking this is good thing. Also thinking, news about THQ in 2018? Man if I could time travel, the old me would be all messed up.
4. Skull and Bones delayed to at least 2019-2020
Not all dogs go to heaven and not all delays come from THQ. Sometimes they come from ridiculously incredible publishers with a ton of great IP’s. In this case the culprit is Ubisoft. And as much as I love to entertain the idea that this delay is to make room for the more exciting return of Splinter Cell, that’s probably not true. Skull and Bones is essentially the boat parts of Assassin’s Creed. Ubisoft saw how terrible Sea of Thieves release was and they said “Uh oh, maybe we need more.” Boom and that’s how games are delayed, next question. Damn! 2020 though?
5. Okami HD Comes to Switch.
Because we are a small team and I’m terrible at finishing video games we had to pass on reviewing this when it released late last year. It’s okay though, now that it’s officially releasing on Nintendo Switch, Chet can experience with fresh eyes what I played on PS2. This is light news, but it does a little making up for all the delays right? Right? Please, just say yes. Oh and I just remembered a version of Okami came to Wii as well. Look at that. And Okami HD comes to Switch August 9th.
6. Stalking will be cool again starting 2021.
Well, stalking has never actually been cool. It had a brief moment when the classic survival series, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, last title was released in 2009. That didn’t stop the announcement of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 from happening. Well technically happening again because the game was previously announced and then canceled in 2011. When this game releases it’ll officially have been a full decade since the last title. The funny thing about it is, that seems to be working for games pretty well lately. Examples include: Final Fantasy 15 & Last Guardian but not Duke Nukem. Absolutely not Duke Nukem.
7. The Kingdom holding your heart will be yours, soon.
I couldn’t be a complete ass and give you only bad news. Here I saved the best for last. Only the greatest news makes it to the end this week. Are you still with me? Alright here we go. Kingdom Hearts 3 will be officially arriving next month to tell you when it will be releasing for your gaming pleasure. That was fun. Yea so Square decided to indulge in the hype of this game by teasing a day they would provide a release date. Pay attention though folks, this month is May which means next month is June. June is E3. Half-Life 3 confirmed.
