March 5th, 2018 by Vega Montanez
Lucky Gamer Recap!
I don’t know how much longer I can do this. It’s so excruciating trying to find interesting things that have happened this week. Why is E3 so close yet so far? This drought is awful but th show must go on. Here are the reasons to feel like a Lucky Gamer this week:
1. Looks like a lot more games are making the Switch!
As the Nintendo Switch continues to find its footing on its climb to the top, it seems to continue securing its footing along the way. Every step of the way is secured by the most dense supply of vibranium possible. That’s how safe Nintendo is being, they are using imaginary metals to secure their footing. Enough silly analogies, the entire Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Trilogy is coming to Nintendo Switch April 26th! Oh, wait theres more. Outlast, one of the scariest games I’ve ever played in my life, is available for Switch right now. The Outlast: Bundle of Terror also includes the Whistleblower DLC and is available through the eShop for only $20. So yea, the Switch is gunning for the throne at a rapid pace. You go Switch, stay strong.
2. Those guys at Sony are up to something.
First they make the announcement that starting next March, exactly one year from now, PS3 and PSVita will no longer be included in the free game monthly benefit of PS Plus. It seems like a really strange move especially considering all the effort Microsoft has put into backwards compatibility but, what do I know? Oh I know what I know actually! As of April 1st, Sony is restructuring again to focus more heavily on first party properties. This move makes sense as Microsoft announced a few months back that they were going to shift focus to first party properties as well. And last but not least, Detroit: Become Human gets a beautiful release date of May 25th, just a few days after this cool kids birthday. I really hope this game lives up to the hype, I cant afford anymore heartbreak this year.
3. Fortnite gets Jetpacks and Overwatch gets more character.
The header pretty much covers the Fortnite news. Fortnite is getting jetpacks in the near future so expect to see players soaring across the sky. Or as Epic put it, “take the fight to all new heights.” Oh boy. On the other hand Overwatch is getting an all new character named Brigitte. Brigitte is more of a support character with her strength being in armor and defense. One of her abilities is throwing a repair pack that can heal an ally. I think Brigitte’s costume design is also incredible and the color scheme is great. I’m looking forward to watching her gameplay in real competition. Who knows maybe she’ll be in an upcoming thing we might be doing.
4. And the vowels are E… A… Rumors.
As I keep saying E3 is around the way and so the interesting juicy stuff is coming in slow drips. Every now and then though we get a nice little splash of refreshing news, EA takes the cake this week with first a rumored leak that this years Battlefield game will be set in WW2. The supposed title of the new game is “Battlefield V” and if the rumor holds true, this game won’t be set in the Bad Company universe. On the other side of EA Rumor city we have a quirky game that I’m surprised is still a real thing. Plants VS Zombies: Garden Warfare will be returning for the third time. That’s right Plants VS Zombies: Garden Warfare 3 was recently leaked by a comic posting on Amazon that was described as “bridging the story gap between PVZ:GW2 and GW3. Imagine that.
5. Take a trip to the jurrasic past or the land of the witchers.
As Microsofts continues to double down on their mission to prove they car about gamers a whole new set of classics are coming to Xbox One. First we have the remasters of both Turok 1 and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Each title will be available for $19.99 and it was made very explicit that these are remasters not remakes. Its interesting to see this classic title being remastered, could there be plans for a new entry in the series? On the other hand we have The Witcher 2, Crackdown, Fable Anniversary, and Forza Horizon all recently released with Xbox One X enhancements. See all these cool things from the past coming back, you paying attention Sony?
6. More apes in VR!
A new Planet of the Apes game is coming to all the VR platforms on April 3rd. Thats right HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PSVR will all be the next place to enjoy a VR experience based in the Planet of the Apes. The experience is played through the perspective of an ape trying to escape a heavily guarded scientific facility. If you are a fan of the movie series at all, this game takes place five years after the event of the Simian Flu outbreak. There you have it a VR escape game where you get to feel like an ape trying to escape. Wait a sec isn’t this the opposite of Ape Escape?
7. Whats next from the makers of Bioshock?
Blackout. That’s what’s next from the former developers of Bioshock. An all new horror game from the people who made the term “Big Daddy” terrifying. I can’t be more excited for this mostly because I have such a crazy dedication to horror games. As far as bioshock as a series, I played through the first one and had a great time. Never got a round to the rest of them cause I suck at playing video games. Either way, back to Blackout which is said to have some resemblance to Stranger Things. You know the show everyone is hooked on that I don’t like. Yea this game is supposedly gonna be similar to that story. Are you excited yet?
Posted in Articles Tagged with: action, become human, bioshock, blackout, detoir, ea games, editorial, first person shooter, fortnite, forza, fps, games, horizon, horror, jetpacks, late to the party, Microsoft, multiplayer, naruto, nintendo, nintendo switch, planet of the apes, playstation, playstation 4, ps4, racing, rpg, shooter, Sony, switch, third person shooter, turok, vr, witcher, xbox one
March 7th, 2017 by Kurt "Chet" Christel
You’ve probably heard the phrase “better than the sum of its parts” at least once, never before has a video game encompassed that idiom better than Horizion Zero Dawn. By and large, all of the elements in the game aren’t very original. It’s an open world sandbox game with multiple approaches to tasks that suits different play-styles and features crafting, hunting, leveling up, and climbing some towers. Sound familiar? It should, because you’ve played “that game” at least a dozen times by now. What makes HZD so special is in what it borrows from which games, and how it implements them.
THE WITCHER 3 – You travel along a vast open landscape fighting all sorts of monsters along the way. Just like Geralt, protagonist Aloy must use skills and tactics if she wants to win the battle against the beasts within. Mashing buttons won’t get you anywhere in either game, even on easy mode. What is done better here is the streamlined crafting system used to upgrade your gear. Witcher will have you quest all across the fields to find one particular flower for a potion you need to make, whereas the requirements for potions in HZD are more generalized. You also get a sort of “Witcher-Vision” to track down objectives, but unlike Geralt, Aloy’s “Focus-Vision” is a lot easier to follow.
TOMB RAIDER – And collecting the goods to perform crafting is pretty straightforward and easy to perform. Like Tomb Raider (the new ones), you will find all the materials you need to make things all around you. In both entries, you can craft ammo for your ranged weapons in the middle of a battle using the weapon wheel. That’s a handy skill when you’re in a bind and run out of arrows. That said, Tomb Raider keeps the types of things you can grab in the wilderness minimal while HZD has a whole a bigger assortment of odds and ends you can find. It’s also notable that the targeting reticle for the bow in both games are nearly identical.
FAR CRY – The hunting aspects of this game also found their way here. The crafting at higher levels includes the need to hunt for specific animals in order to get better upgrades for your gear and outfits. Both have the perplexing tendency to be arbitrary with what animal is required for what upgrade, forcing you to hunt down a specific animal when you just need one more pelt for that potion bag you really want. Why do you need a rabbit skin for the bag? Who knows, go get it now.
ASSASSINS CREED – It’s not really like AssCreed at all, but we have only this series along with Ubisoft in general to blame for the parts where you climb some tower to unlock the map. Hell, even the latest Zelda is doing it now. Besides that, hiding in the tall grass to stalk enemies was a big part of this game and was used extensively in Assassins Creed: Black Flag.
METAL GEAR – Tell me the corruptor enemies don’t remind you of the Gekko from Metal Gear Solid. Besides the puzzling choice of having these machines moo, the big scary spider-like enemies can be rather terrifying in how quick they move. That first encounter with a corruptor was probably the first major boss fight of the game and still sends chills down my spine every time I have to face them in the game. They aren’t even the biggest boss fight characters either, just wait until you get further into it.
TUROK – Dude, remember Turok? Because I vaguely remember Turok.
MAD MAX, WATCH_DOGS 2, HOMEFRONT: THE REVOLUTION, ETC ETC – The most important lesson HZD learned about games that others failed on is that you can’t just make an open world and then simply pepper it with stuff to do. That’s not game design, that’s just stuff to do. This goes double for games that have a large open sandbox but don’t utilize much of the space for anything. The map needs to be memorable by having locations and areas that are more than just your commute from point A to point B. HZD gives you various locations and biomes all contained in one large cohesive land mass that just makes you itch to explore.
Horizon Zero Dawn has giant robot dinosaurs. That’s never been done before and that’s very unique. The rest of the game? You’ve definitely seen it before. What makes it so great is what it achieves with the design factors it borrows from other great titles. “Derivative” doesn’t have to be a dirty word. It can’t be. If doing things similar to another popular game make it bad, the reviews for Dishonored would have been terrible.
Posted in Articles Tagged with: assassins creed, dawn, editorial, far cry, horizon, mad max, review, the witcher, tomb raider, turok, ubisoft, video, video games, watch dogs, zero