Let's Talk About Overwatch

Overwatch is the newest game to be released by Blizzard Entertainment and has been out for a week now.  Blizzard has been well known to take existing games or inspirations and make it their own.  Warcraft was inspired the Warhammer universe and was almost a Warhammer game.  Starcraft was influenced by games like Command and Conquer.  World of Warcraft was Blizzard's take on Everquest 2 and is probably the most lucrative product out of all their creations.  Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard's own take on the Defense of the Ancients custom map for Warcraft 3 which spawned the DotA-like or MOBA genre of games such as League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, DotA 2, SMITE, and many others.  And Overwatch is Blizzard's own version of Team Fortress 2.  But it wasn't always that way.  Overwatch is the result of a 10-year development cycle on a project code named "Titan".  It was announced last year that the project was officially canceled, but about a month later Overwatch was announced as the game they were going to release from the result of their past creations.

With Blizzard's creation of Overwatch, they wanted to create Heroes rather than nameless classes to give them distinction, personality, story and depth.  Each of these Heroes would have their own weapons, abilities, and roles.  I love the game and enjoy playing each and every hero so far, but I couldn't help but see stereotypes, references, or what seems to be direct influences from other videogames and pop culture.

Story
Humans create Omnics, or sentient robots, to work and improve our world.  One day the Omnics turn on the humans and ignite a global war between humans and robots.  Overwatch is formed as an organization to stop these attacks and prevent further crime in the world.  The war between humans and Omnics cease, but crime continues to thrive in the world.  The public response to these crimes was to blame Overwatch's existence.  The leader of Overwatch seemed to have turned on the organization at one point.  A fight breaks out between Morrison (Soldier 76) and Reyes (Reaper) and the headquarters of Overwatch explodes.  Both seemingly survived, but Overwatch was quickly disbanded and the members went off in opposite ways.  Some became mercenaries, some vigilantes, and others criminals.  Finally, one former member of Overwatch reaches out to his former comrades and brings the crew back together as something big is seemingly going on behind the crime scenes.

The story immediately reminded me of Pixar's "The Incredibles".  Humans born of super powers become super heroes to stop crime only to have the public ostracize the heroes in fear of their abilities.  One of the members of the Super Hero scene wants to stop all the rising crime in the world and begins fighting on his own with later two other former Super Heroes joining him as he gets himself into trouble.

It also doesn't help that the first trailer that Blizzard put out was SUPER Pixar influenced.  But you know what?  I don't think many people cared, including myself.  It was full of personality and emotion that it captured the viewers interest in just the few minutes of watching it.

Character Breakdown (Controls based on default PC)

Offense Class

Genji - Genji Shimada

Looks like: Some of the frames from Warframe

Players claim Genji reminds them of Raiden or Grey Fox from the Metal Gear Solid series

Plays like: Kind of like Warframe - Throws shurikens instead of shooting bullets, sword attacks, run and jump around like a Ninja.

Abilities:
Left-Click - 3 Shurikens in a row
Right-Click - 3 Shurikens in a spread
Left-Shift - Dash forward with a poison induced slash
E-Key - Reflect projectiles
Passive - Double-Jump and Climb Walls
Q-Key - Brings out katana with strong melee attacks


McCree - Jesse McCree

Looks Like: Clint Eastwood in his Western movies

Players claim McCree reminds them of John Marston from Red Dead Redemption or Graves from League of Legends.

Plays like: Call of Juarez - from the rolling, fan the hammer, and quick-draw, it's very reminiscent of playing Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood and Call of Juarez: Gunslinger.

Abilities:
Left-Click - Single shot from the six-shooter
Right-Click - Unloads entire chamber
Left-Shift - Roll and immediately reload all 6 bullets
E-Key - Flashbang that causes opponent(s) to be stunned for a short duration
Q-Key - Marks all opponents into view and quick-draw for a quick kill


Pharah - Fareeha Amari


Looks like: Samus Aran from the Metroid series in armor design at least

Pharah's helmet reminds me of Eagle Riders/G-Force

Plays like: Quake/Unreal Tournament with the rocket spamming

Abilities:
Left-Click - Single Rocket shot
Left-Shift - Jump jet high into the air
E-Key - Concussive Blast that knocks enemies back and damages shields/barriers
Passive - Can hover in mid-air with Right-click or jump
Q-Key - Sends out a Rocket Barrage

Reaper - Gabriel Reyes

Looks like: Death from Darksiders 2


Plays like: His playstyle doesn't really remind me of any particular character or gameplay.  He dual-wields shotguns and can become ethereal-like to avoid getting hit.

Abilities:
Left-Click - Shoot with either shotguns
Left-Shift - Become ghost-like and phase through enemies and bullets
E-Key - A slow, short-distance teleportation
Passive - Collect souls from fallen enemies to regain health
Q-Key - Spin to Win, shoot all around you


Soldier: 76 - John "Jack" Morrison

Looks like: I can't say he really looks or reminds me of anyone

Plays like: A military shooter without ADS (aiming down sight)

Abilities:
Left-Click - Shoot with assault rifle
Right-Click - Shoot a set of spiraling rockets
Left-Shift - Sprint key, like in many military shooters
E-Key - Set a Biotic Field that heals for 35 HP per second
Q-Key - Aim-Bot, bullets lock onto enemies in view


Tracer - Lena Oxton

Looks like: No character I can really think of
Plays like: It reminds me a little of Dishonored where you can weave in and out of battle with the blink ability without the peashooters

Abilities:
Left-Click - Shoot with dual-wield pulse pistols (reminds me of Earthworm Jim)
Right-Click/Left-Shift - Blink forward for a short distance
E-Key - Recall back 3 seconds from before with the same amount of health, ammo, and position
Q-Key - Throw a sticky bomb that does a ton of damage


Defense Class

Bastion - SST Laboratories Siege Automaton E54

Looks like: Something out of Borderlands

Plays like: Any FPS that has a mounted turret scene

Abilities:
Left-Click - Shoot with a sub-machine gun in mobile mode and mini-gun in sentry mode
Left-Shift - Switch between mobile mode and sentry mode
E-Key - Self-repair by Healing 25% of HP per Second
Q-Key - Transform into a tank and suddenly you're playing Battletanx


Hanzo - Hanzo Shimada
Looks like: Heishiro Mitsurugi from Soul Calibur series
Plays like: Sniper with Huntsman (bow & arrow) equipped from Team Fortress 2

Abilities:
Left-Click - Draw and release arrow
Right-Click - Cancel draw on the bow
Left-Shift - Sonic arrow that reveals the positions of enemies behind walls and obstructions
E-Key - An arrow that scatters when colliding with anything
Passive - Climb walls
Q-Key - RYUU GA WAGA TEKI WO KURAU, shooting into walls and getting Play of the Game


Junkrat - Jamison Fawkes

Looks like: A Borderlands character

Plays like: Demoman from Team Fortress 2

Abilities:
Left-Click - Shoots frag grenades from the launcher
Right-Click - Detonates Concussion Mine
Left-Shift - Toss a Concussion Mine that damges enemies and propels them and yourself upwards
E-Key - Toss a giant Steel Trap that damges and immobilzes enemies that walk into it
Passive - Total Mayhem has Junkrat drop 8 live grenades on the floor when he's killed
Q-Key - RIP-Tire is a remote controlled wheel that can be detonated for massive damage


Mei - Mei-Ling Zhou

Looks like: Some people claim Ice Climbers, but I'm sure most people that live in extreme cold weather dress like this.

Plays like: An even more annoying version of Pyro from Team Fortress 2.  Instead of burning you, you're frozen just long enough to see how you die.

Abilities:
Left-Click - Endothermic Blasters, it's like a flamethrower that freezes instead of burn
Right-Click - It's like getting shot with a giant nail made of ice
Left-Shift - Encase yourself in a block of ice for invulnerbility and heal 37.5 HP per second
E-Key - Create a giant Ice Wall used to impede enemies progress or from them running away
Q-Key - Toss out a tiny drone that freezes and damages enemies in a large radius

Torbjörn - Torbjörn Lindholm

Looks like: Every stereotypical, smith-loving Dwarf from fantasy fiction; including Blizzard's very own Warcraft universe

Plays like: Engineer from Team Fortress 2

Abilities:
Left-Click - Long ranged rivet / Hammers turret to repair it or upgrade it
Right-Click - Close range, shot-gun like burst of molten metal
Left-Shift - Build a turret that detects and fires at enemies
1 & 2 Keys - Rivet Gun & Forge Hammer respectively
E-Key - Toss out Armor Packs for allies to pick up
Passive - Can pick up metal scraps from fallen enemies to create Armor Packs
Q-Key - He becomes stronger alongside his turret automatically upgrading to Level 3


Widowmaker - Amélie Lacroix

Reminds me of: A Night Elf from the Warcraft Universe

Plays like: Sniper from Team Fortress 2 with the charge mechanic.  007 Agent Under Fire with the Grappling Hook, and Blacklight: Tango Down/Retribution with seeing enemies past walls

Abilities:
Left-Click - Assault Rifle when not aiming, Sniper Shot when aiming
Right-Click - Aiming with Sniper Scope; Aiming will charge the shot
Left-Shift - Grappling Hook to get to higher places or to get to a new location faster
E-Key - Launches a Venom Mine that explodes and poisons enemies that's near its proximity
Q-Key - Infra-Sight lets Widowmaker and her allies see enemies heat signatures through walls


Tank Class

D.Va - Hana Song


Reminds me of: Ahri from League of Legends

Plays like: Sort of like a Mech, but not as clunky.  When she's out of her Mech, it reminds me of Zero Suit Samus where Samus uses a little pistol when she's out of her suit in Metroid Zero Mission.

Abilities:
Left-Click - Short-ranged Fusion Cannons in Mech, tiny pistol when out of Mech
Left-Shift - Boosts forward in any direction and knocks enemies back
E-Key - Brings up a Defense Matrix in front which block enemies projectiles
Passive - D.Va is ejected out of her Mech when it's destroyed
Q-Key - D.Va ejects her Mech to let it Self-Destruct and cause massive damage around it


Reinhardt - Reinhardt Wilhelm

Looks like: Mordekaiser from League of Legends

Plays like: I forget which other game had this one character that puts out a huge shield and swings a massive weapon, but I know I've played a game with a very similar mechanic.

Abilities:
Left-Click - Swings giant hammer
Right-Click - Wields a Barrier Field that can absorb 2000 Damage
Left-Shift - Charge forward and anyone caught that slams into the wall is probably dead
E-Key - Launches a ranged Fire Strike that damages enemies
Q-Key - Slams giant hammer in front of him damaging and knocking down all enemies in range


Roadhog - Mako Rutledge

Looks like: His face reminds me of something.  Not sure if it's Borderlands related.  But his large stature and play mechanics is totally The Butcher from the Diablo Universe.  He also reminds me a bit of Rufus from Street Fighter IV.

Plays like: The Butcher from the Diablo Universe/Heroes of the Storm or Pudge from DotA 1&2.  But instead of eating you, he just shoots you in the face at point-blank after hooking you in

Abilities:
Left-Click - Fires a short-ranged blast of shrapnel from his Scrap Gun
Right-Click - Fires a mid-ranged shrapnel ball that scatters on impact
Left-Shift - Tosses his chain hook and pulls in any enemy it collides with
E-Key - Inhales a special gas that restores 300 HP
Q-Key - Turns his Scrap Gun into a Gatling Shotgun


Winston

Reminds me of: The Hulk.  He's a scientist, and when he's mad he goes berserk

Plays like: I can't remember which game I played that had an Electric gun similar to his and a spherical barrier like his.  But his ult does remind me of The Hulk.

Abilities:
Left-Click - Tesla Cannon; Slap enemies around in Primal Rage
Left-Shift - Uses his Jump Pack to leap far and high distances
E-Key - Drops a Barrier Projector that absorbs projects and various damages
Q-Key - Become The Hulk with Primal Rage and knock enemies off cliffs


Zarya - Aleksandra Zaryanova

Reminds me of: Heavy from Team Fortress 2 only because of her large stature and Russian accent

Plays like: I don't think I can give a comparable example.  I think there was a gun in Halo 3 that's kind of like her's, but it's been over 6 years since I've played Halo 3 (or any Halo for that matter).

Abilities:
Left-Click - Short-ranged energy beam
Right-Click - Short to Mid-ranged explosive charge with small splash damage
Left-Shift - Project a Particle Barrier on yourself
E-Key - Projects a Barrier on an ally
Passive - Damage blocked by any of the two barriers increases the damage of the Particle Cannon
Q-Key - Launch a Gravity bomb that sucks in all nearby enemies in one area


Support Class

Name

Looks like:

Plays like:

Abilities:
Left-Click - 3 Shurikens in a row
Right-Click - 3 Shurikens in a spread
Left-Shift - Dash forward with a poison induced slash
E-Key - Reflect projectiles
Passive - Double-Jump and Climb Walls
Q-Key - Brings out katana with strong melee attacks

Lúcio - Lúcio Correia dos Santos

Reminds me of: DJ Professor K from Jet Set Radio

Plays like: Jet Set Radio where you roller blade around and skate on walls.  But instead of spray paint, you use a Sonic Amplifier (a very loud speaker).  And JSR is very music influenced.

Abilities:
Left-Click - Fires off a set of sonic waves as projectiles
Right-Click - Blast a Super Sonic Wave to push back enemies and damage them
Left-Shift - Crossfade between exciting/relaxing music to give a speed/healing boost
E-Key - Amps up the volume, increasing the effects of his speed/healing boost
Passive - He can Wall Ride with his roller blades, just like in Jet Set Radio
Q-Key - He drops the beat with a Sound Barrier that shields all nearby allies with a temporary shield

Mercy - Angela Ziegler

Reminds me of: Medic from Team Fortress 2 from her playstyle mechanics to her German accent

Plays like: Medic from Team Fortress 2 with the ability to fly to opponents who keep running away from you and towards their deaths

Abilities:
Left-Click - Heals 50 HP per second with her Caduceus Staff; fires from her sidearm pistol
Right-Click - Increase the damage of an ally with her Caduceus Staff
Left-Shift - Fly towards a targeted ally
1 & 2 Keys - Switch between her Caduceus Staff & Caduceus Blaster respectively
Passive - Hold jump to glide down slowly
Q-Key - Resurrects nearby fallen allies with full health

Symmetra - Satya Vaswani

Looks like: I don't know, but her glasses are cool looking.

Plays like: I feel like I've played another game where a character puts down tiny sentry turrets, but I don't remember which game.

Abilities:
Left-Click - A short-ranged energy beam that homes in on nearby enemies
Right-Click - A charged energy shot with slow travel
Left-Shift - Set up to 6 Sentry Turrets that slows and damage enemies that come near it
E-Key - Creates a Photon Shield around allies that can regenerate as long as they're alive
Q-Key - Place a teleporter that connects back to spawn so that allies can get back to the front faster

Zenyatta - Tekhartha Zenyatta

Looks like: A robotic monk

Plays like: No one/No game I can think of.  He's a very aggressive support who can kill easily

Abilities:
Left-Click - Chuck a metal ball
Right-Click - Charge and Chuck up to 5 metal balls in a row
Left-Shift - Throws the Orb of Harmony to an ally that Heals for 30 HP per second
E-Key - Throws the Orb of Discord which amplies the damage they take by 50%
Q-Key - Be all Zen-like and reach Transcendence which grants invulnerability and heals nearby allies

Despite this mish-mash of characters and influences from other games, it all blends together cohesively in a believable environment.  I'm gonna go play some more right now!

Raging all weekend!

I stopped writing on Superpad Unplugged, but still want to rant on games!  I've had one heck of a week that all started with trying out GunZ 2: The 2nd Duel.  It seems the game has finally is playable on Steam but still considered in Beta.


The first night it was out, it was so packed that I couldn't even log in.  The problem is that the servers can only support up to 4,500 players (as far as I know).  I loved GunZ: The Duel and was excited to try out the official sequel, and I tried my best to stay unbiased by not comparing it to the first one.  I knew K-styling wasn't possible anymore (being able to block, slash, shoot, parry, and counter using cancels and dashes), but there were many other differences that just really boggled my mind.  Blocks have a threshold.  Some weapons can go past blocks.  Melee cannot block grenade launchers and flamethrowers.  You can't recover from being slashed upwards anymore.  Games are still hosted Peer-to-peer which causes lag for everyone else sometimes.  So long story short: if you get caught in GunZ 2, you're pretty much dead.  There were many ways to escape and fight back in GunZ 1, but they took all those methods out in GunZ 2 and I don't know how I feel about that.  I have to admit the game is fun.  Campaign is still hard as ever, but the combat and feedback from attacks feel nicer and more visceral.  Not to mention that everyone's internet connection is faster and stronger than that of nearly 10 years ago.  PvP is solely Team Deathmatch now as Free-For-All doesn't exist.  I think I might have played FFA more in GunZ 1, so Team Deathmatch was a bit weird at first.  I did well for a few matches, and then after that I started doing incredibly poor.  I was ending games with 1 kill and 8-15 deaths.  It was infuriating when I block but an attack goes through it.  Getting hit by one grenade usually meant getting hit by a 2nd one and dying right away.  Being headshot with a sniper was a one hit kill and even if it isn't it's still 2-3 hits before dying.  That may not seem as bad at first, but if you have 3-4 of them targeting you at the same time, there's little you can do to counter it.  Sadly, this happened one game after another and I became more and more infuriated leading me to slamming my mouse a few times (which I REALLY do not like doing, I want to respect my equipment).  Unfortunately, I might have broke my mouse a little as the right click doesn't really "click" anymore and depresses down without me knowing while the left click feels kind of like that but not as bad.  The game is fun, but I feel like it's bringing out the worst in me and I feel bad that my friend had to hear me in such a state (yelling the entire time while we were in a skype chat playing the game together).  I wish the developers the best in GunZ 2: The 2nd Duel as GunZ 1 was ruined by hackers.  Unfortunately, my friends have already encountered hackers in the game such as aim-bots, god-mode, full special bar, spawn in enemy base, and insta-kill.  Fueling my rage, Call of Duty: Ghosts was free for the weekend on steam and I decided to try that out too.

I'm glad I didn't buy Call of Duty: Ghosts back in the Steam Winter Sale.  For one, the multiplayer side itself took up 25 GB of memory.


Why was it so large?  I'm guessing they didn't compress the assets and didn't optimize the graphics for the game which lead to some pretty nasty problems.  Aiming down sight would freeze up the game for a second or two or drop the frame rate or even skip a few good dozen or so.  The maps were so huge that I would run around for a good 2 to 3 minutes before either spotting someone or getting shot in the back.  I didn't feel it at first, but I realized that there is a decent amount of lag in the game that's invisible to the eye.  From my own perspective, enemies look like they pop out of corners and start shooting immediately where I stand.  But if I watch the killcam, they had a good 1-2 seconds before actually shooting me.  This has been a big problem for Call of Duty games that has never changed.  Other problems that occurred are aim-bot hackers (1 that was on my team and one I had to face) and every terrible stereotypical CoD player talking on the mic or chat.  We have people calling each other expletives, the confused guy that doesn't know what the heck is going on, the hacker, the smack talker, the homophobic racist, and people talking in different languages.  Despite the many problems the game has, I thought it was still kind of fun.  There were some things that they did right and changed that made the game very different from its predecessors.  One of the most mind-blowing experiences I had playing Ghosts compared to every CoD I've ever played was how incredibly team-orientated everyone was.  These players were all noobs like I was playing the game for the first time, yet we stuck together, swept the field as a team, looked out for each other, and reacted to each other's actions.  It was also a bonus when I ended up with a group of players on both sides who were just so chill and friendly to each other.  I think there are two major factors that are put into play that encourages players to do this.  The maps are big, so it doesn't really make sense to go off on your own to try to hunt down enemies when they might be traveling in groups as well.  Also, the players' characters call out enemy locations in multiplayer now!  They'll shout out things such as "Enemies out in the open!" or "Sniper on the catwalk!"  So it's similar to games like Left 4 Dead 2 where the characters will call out enemy types or if they're down.  Another thing I liked was how weapons and attachments are unlocked.  Rather than having to level up and grind your way towards an item, you can use the currency provided from victories and playing called "Squad Points" to unlock the weapon and attachments you want.  I also like that they brought back infinite running to the game as a perk.  So my knifing playstyle is a little closer to what it was in Modern Warfare 2 except for two or three things that kind of break it: You die twice as fast as you do in Black Ops 2 and you died pretty dang fast in that one already, maps are big and don't have as much cover or tight areas to sneak up on people, the latency lag and graphics lag will make you miss your target more often then you'd like.  I did well on some matches but performed terribly on many others.  So more yelling and raging ensued.  I had fun playing CoD: Ghosts this weekend, but I decided against buying it despite wanting to play the single-player campaign.

In between playing CoD: Ghosts, I went back to Black Ops 2 to play some multiplayer and the connection between people are pretty bad.  Most players were at 100 ping while others reached as high as 200 to 300.  And since most of the people still playing are the most dedicated players, it made it that much harder on me.  I tried my knife-only playstyle and did terribly on most all my matches except one when I went positive.  I didn't rage as much, but I did complain a lot from BS knife misses or from teleporting enemies.  With such bad lag, I kind of have to guess where they'll end up and not where they're actually at.  I also played some GunGames on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to unwind since I generally don't ever rage on that game and performed horrendously on most of my matches.  But I was able to relax a bit from playing a few rounds.  ORION: Dino Horde has also been free for the past week and is on sale for $1.  I find it funny that it did this when Takedown: Red Sabre also had a sale of $1 with an extra gift copy a week before.  I downloaded ORION: Dino Horde once again, as I've tried it before, and checked out the new "Conquest" mode which boasts itself for being an Open-World, persistent mode within the game.  It's a little misleading as it doesn't really have a save option or save your stats after dying.  It's an interesting concept and possibly the funnest mode I've played in the game thus far where it's similar to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in a large snow covered mountain and you have to travel far to your objective and fulfill them.  It's similar to survival mode, but there's a lot more traversing involved.  Still, the game doesn't really convince me to purchase it even at $1.  I also finally tried out "Loadout".  It's a free-to-play 3rd-person shooter with a cartoony look but a very mature theme.  The game is very bloody, violent, vulgar, and ridiculous, but I can see how it can be fun.  You can build your own guns by mixing and matching the stock, barrel, scope, magazine, bullet type and such and name it whatever you want.  I did exceedingly well being first place in most of my matches and winning the game for my team; however, I felt like most people were just getting used to this type of game and not even just the game itself.  So my victories didn't seem that big in my eyes, but it did help ease my mind after raging so much this weekend.

BUT THERE'S MORE!  I also finally completed Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone after two years of playing it!  According to steam, I put in 39 hours into it.  In game, I spent about 6 hours the first time around when I was playing on the hardest difficulty and then started over on the easiest difficulty because I couldn't handle all that grinding.  With my full run-through, it took 28.5 hours to complete.  I think it didn't count being paused and conversations as part of the gameplay time in-game.  I loved and hated the game at the same time.  I probably love it more than I hate it, but can't emphasize the amount of times this game has made me yell at it.  More than anything, I yelled specifically at the character "Sana" for not healing me when I needed it most!  So the game is a Metroidvania of sorts with the ability to take control one of three characters in the game: Arche the swords girl, Sana the healer, and Stella the fire mage.  The entire game takes place within 11 days which sounds short, but the whole experience from the game felt like a big adventure.  It's a heart-warming tale of friendship, growing up, making up one's weakness with their strengths, of trust, and of overcoming great obstacles.  That last one is especially important because that's what the player has to go through the whole game.  The game gets progressively better as you play and sadly gets worse as well.  The game flow involves some conversations, then traveling somewhere to fulfill a goal while fighting off monsters in-between the way there.  The two biggest problems I have with the game that breaks that flow is "knowing what to do" and "where the !@#$ do I go?"  The game suffers a case of "Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest" in which the game or NPCs hint at what you're supposed to do next, but is so obscure and sometimes so scripted that it's impossible to figure out unless to travel absolutely everywhere and talk to everyone multiple times.  Castlevania 2 and Metroid didn't have maps in-game for the NES, but they did have strategy guides with the maps on them.  Fortune Summoners doesn't have an in-game map or a strategy guide with a map.  Fortunately for me, there are GameFAQs that players have made that helped me get through the game.  But the directions were so specific that I had to check it in every room that I went through.  The other two things that isn't really a problem but pissed me off to no end was the enemy AI and allies AI.  Normally, I would complain about how stupid or lifeless the AIs are in a game; however, the enemy AI in Fortune Summoners are so smart and clairvoyant that I genuinely get so angry at them.  I love and hate this at the same time.  The enemies are so difficult to deal with sometimes, but I feel so good when I finish them off.  For the ally AI, they sometimes do that craziest combos and attacks to help, but other times they just want to troll you and stare at you while you die!  If I play Arche, the AI Sana doesn't always want to heal me.  But if I play Sana, the computer doesn't know to protect the healer and runs up!  Or if I'm tanking with Arche, the other two casters runs up into the middle of the battle and putting themselves in danger.  It's a tricky balance between them being incredibly smart and powerful while sometimes being profoundly oblivious to what's happening around them.  Fortune Summoners is such a cute game though.  The characters are adorable, the story is heart-warming, and the graphics is so vibrant and lively.  One of the major gameplay aspects I really liked was the combat system.  Arche has a complex arsenal of moves under her disposal that's akin to fighting game mechanics allowing her to attack fast, slash high, roll under, thrust forward, or flip back.  Sana was my least favorite to play as she focused more on healing, buffing, debuffing, and semi crowd-control.  Besides, the computer didn't really know how to protect me when I took control of her, so I played Arche most of the time to protect them while they did their thing.  Stella is such an amazing character.  She was the typical, stuck-up, rich princess that looked down upon everyone.  But when the story turned its attention to her, I warmed up to her and I ended up loving her character so much.  She has a huge list of spells to cast that does a devastating amount of damage.  I don't know how many times I've posted this same video of my friend playing the game, but it's an example of what Arche and Stella is capable of:


I also really liked the soundtrack.  The songs are whimsical and memorable.  The one track that really stood out for me the first time I played the game was when a large amount of enemies showed up:

The instruments don't sound realistic, but the composition of the song is so powerful and has such an impact in the game that it really bolstered the experience I had with the game.  It's such a funny contrast to have cute little girls in a colorful environment with sweet music bring out so much frustration and anger when I'm in combat.  In the last 3-5 hours of the game, I yelled so much that I wondered if it was worth completing the game.  I'm so glad I did, because I felt so happy and satisfied when I finished the game.  Fortune Summoners is a strange mix of making you feel happy and angry in a crazy roller coaster ride.  I did feel a little empty after I exited the game because I've grown so attached to Arche, Sana and Stella and the adventures that they had.  But I know for a fact that I won't be replaying the game any time soon.  It's just way too stressful, man! @_@;  If you're a hardcore gamer or just really like challenging games, I highly recommend picking Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone on Steam the next time it's on sale!

I also played some League of Legends with my friends the past few days.  I haven't done that in a while.  Hexakill mode is out right now and will disappear in a few weeks.  This mode allows 6 v 6 on Summoner's Rift.  I played one with my friends and won and played one with my sister and her friends and lost.  I played one ARAM by myself and won (I got Blitzcrank that match, yay!).  So it's kind of been up and down with LoL, but losing just added to the amount of failures I've had in the past week in other games so it felt a bit salty.

Other than that, I played a little bit of Alien Rage last night which obviously made me rage a bit (it's right there in its name!).  I actually kind of like Alien Rage because of how it looks and feels, but there are problems with it.  I'm only half-way through the game so I rather hold my thoughts on it until I finish it, but I'd say the biggest problem it has is that it has an identity problem.  It can't decide whether it wants to be an arcade-like shooter or a tactical one, because trying to be both isn't really working out all that much.  Going all out could get you killed rather quickly because of the amount of enemies firing at you; however, trying to take cover has its problems because grenade launchers splashes past it and hurts the player and a lot of the enemies rush towards where the player is to take them down immediately.

I think that's enough ranting for one day.  I feel a bit better.  I don't like losing my temper and getting angry, but maybe it's good for me.  Maybe I needed to let some emotion out and be more expressive.  The good thing is that I wasn't yelling at anyone in particular, just at the game and perhaps at my own inability to perform better.  I really need to get back on track and focus on my goals though.  I feel so inspired to work on some projects!  But I also feel mentally and physically lethargic recently and I don't know why.  Oh well, I'll find my way.

Kicking back and looking forward

Aside from my daily writing, I haven't done any work whatsoever ever since my sister came back from graduating.  She's back in Southern California now, but for the past 3 weeks I've been mostly playing League of Legends, Playstation 3, and such with her and my friends online.  My Birthday hangout this year went alright.  I was able to get 3 friends together and play the downloadable games on my Playstation 3 and then gather 2 more friends online to play Left 4 Dead 2 and Counter-Strike: Source.  I also had my first Birthday Cake Shot which is half Hazelnut Liqueur and half Vodka (tasted pretty good).

This weekend, a friend gave me a beta key to Hi-Rez Studio's new Action MOBA "SMITE" which is essentially DotA in a 3rd-Person Perspective played like an Action Game.

Source: Youtube Channel smitegame

It's a fun game.  It feels pretty balanced, though lacking in content because it's currently limited to 5 characters in the beginning out of the 18 available.

Although I've been playing a lot of League of Legends, I still have a love/hate relationship with it.  The fun part of the game comes from the contingency, spontaneous moments, and team work that's required to win.  The problem is that playing alongside with random pubs (public members of the game) can be some of the worst experience you'll have to face when things go wrong.  Much like the people on the internet, League of Legends is filled with trolls, immaturity, elitist, whiners, ragers, and everything in-between.  There are too many instances where players feel above all others and are obligated to treat everyone like trash.  It doesn't matter how good of a player you are if you can't even stick with the team and work with them.  The most fun I've had with League of Legends are with and against friends where everyone knows each other and can have good clean fun without someone throwing a fit and spamming the chat box.  It's because of the random pubs I've had to deal with that I've been staying away from LoL more often nowadays.

I've started Vanquish on PS3 (finally) even though I haven't finished Ninja Gaiden Sigma or Devil May Cry 4 (which I had planned on finishing before starting another Action game).  Vanquish is what I expected it to be, though it's a bit more challenging than I had anticipated.  I also got Dragon's Dogma for PS3 in the mail 4 days ago and tried a bit of it.  I really like the combat mechanics and the pawn system is pretty interesting too.  I have to admit from a lot of the critic reviews that the pawns are a little too chatty though.  It's fine during combat since they actually give out cues and some helpful information, but they talk unnecessarily a lot during exploration and in town.  My sister got Theatrhythm Final Fantasy for the 3DS and I played a few songs on it.  It's an obvious lure to long time Final Fantasy fans who've played the games since the first one on the NES; however, I still found the game to be quite engaging and entertaining.

Two games had announcements that caught my attention.  Guild Wars 2 is finally nearing its launch on August 28th and I'm especially excited to play it since I haven't had a chance to try it out.  Just today, Phantasy Star Online 2 was announced for a Western release!  So now have two games to look forward to playing!

Steam Summer Sales have been the hot topic on the internet for PC players the past month, and it still hasn't happened yet.  The wait is seriously driving me nuts as I've been waiting for the past 3 weeks thinking it's going to happen to no avail.  I'm hoping that it's next week, but I've been saying that for the past month.  I can only hope.

I don't think I mentioned it in last month's post, or maybe I haven't found it yet, but I ran into a new animé series I've never heard of before and instantly fell in love with it.
  Acchi Kocchi is a Slice-of-life, Romantic Comedy with a lot of artistic choices that's similar to Kyoto Animation and their work (but it's not them).  The girl (Tsumiki) likes Io, but is always too shy to admit it.  Io, who's oblivious to Tsumiki's feelings for him, supposedly likes her too but doesn't show it too prominently enough for her to know for certain.  This creates the premise of the story where each day their friends try to do extreme things to get the two together.  It's very much part of today's moé style animé and probably interest a very specific audience.  I haven't been very good with keeping up with Animé in the past 4 years ever since I've graduated, but Acchi Kocchi definitely makes me want to get back into it.

Aside from all the play I've been doing, I'm hoping to get back on track and work on music, art, exercising, writing, job hunting and game making.  But if Steam Summer Sales really is next week, I might be playing a bit longer...

Missing Summer Break

It's near the end of June and Summer has begun. The difference now is that I don't get a summer break and I continue to work. I also don't get vacation time either. My birthday came and went faster than any weekend I've had in the past half year since I started working. I didn't do anything that special, but at least I had fun.

The day before my birthday, I just called over 6 friends over (4 of them made it), connected an extra PS3 one of my friends brought over and played Call of Duty: Black Ops the whole day. We had some pretty exciting matches online, and it was so different being able to yell out and coordinate with each other rather than trying to guess what other players are doing online. We played some Zombie mode too, and it was the first time I played with 4 players. It was still difficult and we didn't really get that far (I think round 16 was as far as we went). My parents cooked an incredible dinner and I had my aunt's family come over to join us. At night, we got our computers together to have a LAN night. Before we started, two of my friends presented me with a pair of Sennheiser headphones as my birthday present which I was surprised with and very happy with since I recently had two headphones break. We played Global Agenda (GA), which became free-to-play now, and I really enjoyed it. I've had GA since last July, but didn't play that much since it always took so long to load and it was graphically laggy for me. But I really wanted to play it with some friends and it was really fun. Unfortunately, one of my friend's laptop kept crashing and he didn't get to play that much. He was so tired that he himself crashed at around 1AM. We tried playing with random players for mission mode, but I realized that players are a lot more inexperienced than before because of the transition to free-to-play. I couldn't believe how bad some of the people were playing and kind of miss the quality of players the game once had. The good thing is that it's much more populated now. I think I'll be playing GA more, and I should after spending $35 to buy it last year. We switched over to good old Counter-Strike Source and played for a while, but my other friend got tired too (considering it was already 3AM). I continued to play GA with my friend who wasn't tired yet, as I was, and got him to level 10 so that we could play Player vs. Player. The first match was pretty bad and our team mates were rather uncooperative. The 2nd match we had was really fun though. Everyone was at the capture point, a lot of fighting was going on, and it was much more involving than the first match. By the time we finished, it was 4:43AM and we were both tired. I was thoroughly satisfied being able to play Global Agenda, it was a lot of fun. I kind of wish we had more time to play Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 2, but we ended up playing some more Counter-Strike Source the next morning. I played some Crysis 2 with my friend who knocked out first the night before and switched off on multiplayer while preparing to go play Tennis. Crysis 2 is a lot of fun, and I think I'm going to get it the next time it drops below $30. When we went to play Tennis, it was rather hot. Okay, it was VERY hot! I wore dark clothing and I forgot to bring water with me. There wasn't that much shade at all on the court and I haven't exercised for 3 weeks ever since I got sick. So after barely 30 minutes, I stood under the patch of shade I could get under and watched my two friends play. Unfortunately, my father wasn't feeling well, sooo we didn't go out for dinner that night. I barely remember what I did after dinner; I think I watched Dragon Ball Z Abridged videos and then went to sleep. Yeah, my birthday wasn't very special this time, but at least I had a bit of fun.

In news of games, I'm not even sure where to start. I guess I can talk a little about the stuff from E3 last month. E3 wasn't spectacular, and there wasn't that many games that were announced that no one didn't already know about. I guess one of the coolest news was the announcement of Nintendo's new system, the Wii U. It has a touch screen controller with a camera and microphone as well as a motion sensor device, and a traditional key layout with two joysticks, 4 face buttons and 4 shoulder buttons. The system will also support graphics synonymous to the Playstation 3. For games, most of the ones I'm excited about has already been announced before. I'm really excited for Dark Souls, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (kinda sorta), Blacklight Retribution, Elder Scroll V: Skyrim, and the one game I haven't heard until E3: Dragon's Dogma.

Most of these games won't be out until the end of this year or later next year. There also many other games that's worth mentioning that was shown at E3 such as Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Mass Effect 3, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, 3DS games and such, but I'm still working on the predecessor's of those games so I'm in no rush to look at those games yet.

A lot of exciting new things have been happening on Valve's Steam program recently. Daily Deals have been introduced, and so a selected game will been on sale each and everyday now alongside with the usual mid-week madness sales and weekend deals. Steam has also started supported Free-to-play MMOs from publishers like ijji and Perfect World on their platform. It's nothing too new to me since Champions online has been on Steam for a while and recently became free-to-play as well as Global Agenda. Aside from those two, there were 3 other games that were announced as being hosted on the program when they launched the support. There was Alliance of Valiant Arms from ijji (which I have played already with an ijji account) and the other two are Spiral Knights from Sega and Forsaken World by Perfect World (which I've been wanting to play but have had trouble getting the client). The biggest plus for me on this new structure is being able to download the clients of free MMOs with less trouble. Aside from support 3rd-party MMOs, Valve also announced transitioning to a free-to-play model as well. Everyone's speculation was that DotA 2 was going to be free when it released (and it's still possible). Just last week, Valve revealed that their incredibly successful First-Person Shooter game Team Fortress 2 was free-to-play. Looking at it now, I'm not surprised. Their micro-transaction store has been surprisingly successful and Team Fortress 2 is generally $10 anyways. With items costing $15-$200, they might as well turn it into a free-to-play game to attract more customers. I would say that Valve is being greedy with it, but they have provided the players with so much service and free content with some of the best quality gameplay in online gaming that I hardly care. They also FINALLY released the "Meet the Medic" video that fans have been waiting for years for. The only one missing at the moment is the Pyro.

I'd really like to get back into MMORPGs, but I also want to finish more of the retail games I have collected in the past few years. I tried out Eden Eternal during beta and it was pretty interesting. Once you reach a certain level, you can change into any class you want whenever you want. There still seems to be a lot of grinding though. Besides Global Agenda, I think the one MMO that will release that I'll want to get into is Guild Wars 2.

I seriously had no interest in the game until just a little while ago when I started to see some of the changes and new classes that they're adding to the game. The gameplay just intrigues me since it's Guild Wars 2 seems to want to aim for the "non-grinding" type of gameplay that its predecessors had. I never did finish Guild Wars Factions, and I would still really like to sometime soon. For other MMOs, I have barely tried out Spiral Knights and Forsaken World, so I'll be playing more of those as well as Vindictus which I have relentlessly have neglected, even after waiting for so many years for it to come out. There were a few other MMOs I wanted to try out, but I think I'm biting off more than I can chew. I know for sure that I'm doing that with retail games.

Last night was a very bad night to play FPS games. After a really long day of work and finishing up my other responsibilities, it was already 10:30PM. So I decided I wanted to play some FPS on PC to test out my new headphones some more, but updates were being downloaded and applied on Steam. So I started the night with Medal of Honor (2010) which I usually have no problem playing at all. Last night was just terrible as every shot I successfully landed didn't count as the server recognized that I was killed first. This continued to happen 5 games in a row. I understand that the game is laggy sometimes, but I've never had so many kills denied before. True, I was 2nd in the team every match, but I always ended up with a negative k/d ratio which is no good in my eyes. By the 6th match, it was already so dumb that I couldn't even move. I forgot about how badly implemented the spawning system was that players could predict exactly where you spawn and kill you before you even move. I gave up and switched over to Team Fortress 2 since I haven't played for so long. I was up to 5 kills and 5 deaths when suddenly the server shut down. I love Team Fortress 2, but one thing I really hate about playing it is how ridiculously long it takes to connect to server. I just gave up tryingn to connect to another server and moved onto playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2. My team was really bad in trying to attack in "Rush" and we were kept at bay the entire time. When we lost and switched positions to defend, we couldn't do a thing at all. 2 Helicopters hovered above our base, spawn killing my entire team and me. A ship was constantly barraging our cases and a ton of men rushed in to set the charges with no one being able to get near. After dying 10 ridiculous deaths and being backed into our last base, I gave up on that too. I just wanted to play something simple and kill in-game at that point, so I started up Counter-Strike Source and got into a gungame. Counter-Strike can seriously be one of the dumbest games to play sometimes as some people can take 3 straight shots to the head from a shotgun and not die while a single bullet from a pistol can take me out. I couldn't tell whether players were using aim-bot or not since gungames immediately respawn a player after dying, but it was still very frustrating nonetheless. I ended up negative every match and was pissed as hell by then. My last hope was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Guess what? I couldn't connect to a single game. 10,000 players online and I couldn't connect to a single game, that is sad. I think after last night, I need to take a break from multiplayer FPS games as it has betrayed me in every way. I ended the night playing Dynasty Warriors 7 and it did make me feel a lot better. I'm still so amazed on how great Dynasty Warriors 7 turned out and am really glad I bought it. I think I should focus on retail games and MMOs for a while, it's much less rage inducing.

Besides my regular everyday job for work, I have picked up two projects to work on over the summer. One of them got back to me yesterday and explained that the project will possibly slow down a lot more now which makes me think that it may not finish. I think I need a new rule on making music in that the game is at the very least playable or near finished before I agree to make music for it. The other project is one I previously worked with for the Game Jam Spring 2011 competition. The team wants to polish it up and host it on Xbox Live Arcade and needs about 7 more songs or so. Besides these two projects, I think I should consider dropping all other ones I had before to start moving forward and making my own games. I have yet to even touch the Starcraft 2 editor which I purposely bought to practice with. So I'm still practicing my art (barely) and still working with more music to prepare for my own game developments. I've been still trying my best to practice piano when I can, but I simply cannot play as well as I did when I was Jr. College which I practiced everyday back then (at least technically). I think I've gained a better understanding of playing music on the piano, but my dexterity and nimbleness has faded with the lack of practice. For guitar, I think I've actually improved a lot from what I used to be able to do. I'm thinking of doing some more demonstrations and practices that I have been doing on Facebook as an incentive to continue learning more. For violin, I have become more comfortable to use more parts of the strings and bow rather than staying near the top all the time. Can't say that I've improved that much more on violin though. I'll need to buy a new bow and I need to change my bent bridge. I'm hoping to go to guitar center sometime soon and finally get my first Electric Bass, which I've been wanting for a while now. So even now, I'm still staying very active in music. Writing is something I'm staying very active in with my blog: http://superpad.blogspot.com/ And it's also my main role for work to edit texts and create new ones. I'm really not sure what to do anymore since my future is so blurred right now. There's things I want to do in terms of career, and then there's things I want to do for enjoyment like playing games and reading books (yes, reading book. I feel like I can't since I feel like I'm wasting time reading a book when I really want to play a game). And then of course there are the things I need to do: have a steady job, build up experience in working, keep going to the gym to stay somewhat active, etc. I barely have enough time to work on game development, art, music, and reading/writing (not blogging). I guess you can say I feel trapped within my own life, but I suppose everyone does when they're stuck with what they don't want to do.

I think that's enough ranting for one post. June was rather short, and I feel like I've accomplished very little. I'm really glad a few of my friends are back home for the summer, that's for sure. It feels really sucky to be working throughout summer when it's so beautiful outside (well, not today since it's all cloudy and cold) and it reminds so much of my past summers of being free from responsibilities and allowing myself to be carefree. This may be the year of the rabbit (supposedly brings tons of luck to those born in that year, which is my year), but so far it's been pretty sucky which very few occasions where I felt honestly happy. Now that my birthday has passed, I hope things will get better for me.

Beta beta beta beta beta~

I had an okay weekend I guess.  I spent most of Saturday playing piano and beta testing Legend of Edda in its closed beta.  Sunday (yesterday) I spent about 2.5 hours playing violin and guitar and then spent the rest of the day beta testing Kitsu Saga from Aeriagames.  After that, I did some game hopping.  I'm not sure if its an actual term, if not, I invented a new term!  Dahahaha~  Anyways, it's the act of jumping from one game to another in small durations so that one can play various games in a short span of time.  It also shows will power if you can pull yourself away from one thing to go to another.  So, I think it went something like: Team Fortress 2 (PC), Beat Hazard (PC), Trine (PC), Global Agenda (PC), Mount & Blade (PC), Cabal Online (PC), Sega Superstar Tennis (PS3), Demon's Souls (PS3), and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (PS3).  I think that's the best game hopping in terms of quantity I had.  And yes, I enjoyed it.  I got something out of every one of those games (well, maybe except Mount & Blade because all I got were extra items...).

Anyways, it's a new week and I'm planning it out as I go along kind of.  I might skip finishing a game this week in order to devote time into beta testing Medal of Honor and work on a music project I have in mind.  I haven't much got to do what I wanted to set out for post graduation, and so I thought I'd start doing some of that now.  I've also noticed how much I written about videogames and have been considering doing an actual public blog to share with the gaming community.  We'll see.  I'm also debating whether I should do some open beta testing for CosmicBreak since it's back up for a 2nd round.  I enjoy that game and am considering to play that game for real and devote some time into it.  I don't think I've devoted as much time to any game lately as much as I have for Team Fortress 2 and League of Legends, both which have over 100+ hours of gameplay logged in.  I've been trying to log more hours into Global Agenda since I haven't really played it since I've bought it.  It's a shame that I don't since it's a fun game.

Here are some quick comments on recent betas:

[Legend of Edda - CampusGames]

The voice-over is kept in its original Korean language, which I don't mind and am kind of glad for.  The game is pretty straight-forward in terms of typical MMORPG elements.  You are sent somewhere, you get a quest to kill x amount of enemies and then you turn it in.  There are six classes to choose from, and you get one of the skills right from the start.  The graphics are adorable and the environment is very clean (meaning it's not cluttered and hard to get around).  It bothers me a little that the camera is fixed, but it's not that big of a problem.  Honestly, it's not a game I'd want to really log in hours to.  The fact that I've played over 30 Point-n-Click MMORPGs makes me more picky on which ones are good and which ones feel more desirable to play for long durations.  If you've never played an MMORPG or want some type of time killer, then it's worth a try when it's out of beta.  The quality of the game is nice though.

[Kitsu Saga - AeriaGames]

Had to do some research, but found out that this game was developed in Taipei, Taiwan and a lot of the text still has grammatical errors, coding errors on names, and some text is still in Chinese.  A lot of the games that come from China have been kind of "ho-hum," cookie-cutter, boring with good ideas.  The number one common issue I have with Chinese developed MMORPGs is that there is an incredible amount of walking an each one.  Not so with Kitsu Saga.  The places are close by, the story progresses smoothly, and battles don't take forever (seriously, Legendary Champions takes 2-3 minutes for one enemy to die...)  Something that bothers me specifically in this game is that the labels of names of your character, players, NPCs and enemies are huge!  They take up so much screen space that I can hardly find my way around.  I'll be sending that in to Aeriagames and see if they'll do anything about it.  I do like how in Kitsu Saga, and many other Chinese MMORPGs, how there is a auto-routing mechanic that allows the player to click on the destination name or person they need to speak to and the character will find that place.  I spent much more time on this game than I did for Legend of Edda.  It takes some time to really get into the game's core combat system when you choose a clan and is given abilities that can fight multiple enemies at the same time.  The quality of the game is poor, but the gameplay is interesting.  I may beta test it longer, but I don't think I'll be playing the actual game.

[Cosmicbreak - Cyberstep]

Back up with its 2nd open beta in the process, Cosmicbreak provides all that's fun in an MMO and allows the players to do them fairly quickly.  Instances, PvP, FvF, PvE, Quests and such can be started remotely from the main city or by walking to a certain area.  The RPG is action based is reminds me of games like Virtual-On and Exteel, both which I really liked.  The game is fast paced, the PvP is exciting, and the boss battles are large scale and intense.  The voices are kept in its original Japanese language, and I think it fills a certain atmosphere into the game that makes it feel right.  Oh, and the game doesn't take up that much hard drive.  It's less than 1 GB worth of memory.  Lots of customization, lots of characters to use at the same time, no grinding, levels between players don't mean as much as the team-work and skill it takes to pvp, and clean graphics makes this at least a must try.  I'm gonna continue playing it when it launches.

[Medal of Honor - Electronic Arts]

I'm about to try it right after this blog post.  It's open beta from today till friday.  I didn't care much about this game, but the more I see footages of it, the better it keeps getting.  I just hope the gameplay is just as good.

[Nucleon - Team Awesome Fabulous]

What's this you say?  Why it's one of the games that spawned from the Week-Long competition I hosted in the videogame development club!  I also did the music composition and sound effects for it.  We're practically done with beta and planning to publish it this Friday (I hope).  I'll finally have a published game under my name to add to my resume.  Once I get word that it's out on X-Box Live Arcade, I spread the word.

That's it for now, I wanna try Medal of Honor.

Resist it all

Ahhh, there's so much news to talk about.  I don't want to drag it out though.  I just checked the length of two posts ago on this blog with Microsoft word and found out I wrote 17-18 pages worth of words double spaced.  I think it'd be able to do a 100-page analysis on Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2 if I had to, haha.  Anyways, right off the bat I wanted to say that I beat Resistance 2 on PS3 and was disappointed with it.  But there are things about it I did like, I'll get to that last I think as I want to talk about a few other news first.

[Golden Axe 1/2/3 - Sega Genesis]

Remember my last post about Golden Axe: Beast Rider on PS3?  Well, I played the original three Golden Axe games on Sega Genesis (it's old, but it still works, haha) to see if I was really fooling myself in thinking that the old Golden Axe was better than this new rendition.  Right away, having no two-player co-op on the PS3 version was upsetting and took a huge element out of the gameplay from the original one.  If I were part of the development team, I would have went for a three player co-op, if not two, with an sort of angled overhead view of the environment and adjusted the mechanics of the already existing counter system into it as I find huge potential in their design.

The music of the original three were a huge hit of nostalgia and I still remember them very well.  They really impacted the mood and setting of each level and especially the boss fights.  Death Adder had such a daunting theme when you fought him.  The battles were intense too.  Sure, it wasn't filled with spectacular special effects, CG cut-scenes, and had a dialogue, but the Death Adder from the very first Golden Axe struck me as dominating and powerful.  The Death Adder in Beast Rider was a joke when he took off his armor (not going into too much detail just in case anyone plans on playing it in the future) since it destroys the image or perception of his existence.  He was more of an entity rather than a physical being, and that mystery behind him made seem almost haunting.  The music truly had an influence to the series, but it did not carry into Beast rider.

The AI in the original ones were actually programmed really well.  When I was a little kid playing the game, I just thought "wow, evil monster!"  When I was playing just a week ago, I was thinking "Wow, the programmer really thought this through!"  Sure enough, they had a pattern that could defeat them, but the enemies were smart enough to get on each side of the player to chain attacks.  Skeletons were capable of charging at the player and when missed, immediately about face and charge again.  I laughed at how awesome that was, even though I was getting my butt kicked.  Sure enough, the old Golden Axe was really difficult.  The new one followed a lot of the same frustrations the old one had such as enemies knocking the player off a cliff, enemies chaining attacks that immobilizes the player, formidable bosses that required patience and reading patterns, and of course getting knocked off a beast frequently happens.  So maybe I was a little "too" harsh on Beast Rider; however, the criticism on the death concept still stands.

The original Golden Axe games were based off an arcade game, which in turn made the game very short.  Players were able to continue right where they had died with a set amount of lives right from the start.  The problem with Beast Rider is that it is an on-going adventure that requires much more time.  Lives were found and not given, which doesn't guarantee the ability to continue with each passing level.  Since the player just continued after dying each time in the original, the flow of the game kept moving forward.  But in Beast Rider, the player must constantly go back to each checkpoint after dying to repeat the same tedious task of taking out the enemies they've slain several times over already.  The flow of the game was very disruptive and killed the mood of the player.  I wasn't imagining things, I really did like the old Golden Axe, and I think I still do.

News time!  I think I'll bullet-point them and make them brief with more information linked to each one:

-Nintendo's 3DS announced for next Spring and reveals hardware capabilities.  Also this neat trailer of how some of those components will be used:

Is it wrong that I like this trailer?  Aside the fact that it's a date-sim game, I'm excited to see how developers will utilize the hardware and perhaps create augmented reality games.

-James Benson finishes animation project he's been working on for 4 months:

-MAG for PS3 get's a huge patch that changes the way players level up their skill trees and acquire weapons.  I got to play an hour last night and really enjoyed some of the changes and frowned a little on others (I can't use Anti-Personnel Mines until Level 44 now...).

-EA "says" that pre-orders for "Medal of Honor" exceeds all previous ones in the series and expects a huge number of sales.  No actual numbers reported, so we'll see.

-Like MAG, Team Fortress 2 undergoes game changing updates to the client and added new levels, mini-games, items, modes, and a micro-transaction system (ew).  I haven't gotten to play it yet since I was playing MAG and Resistance 2 last night.  Oh, and it's also 50% off on Steam right now in introducing its new patch.

-Activision's new Guitar Hero is busted.  That is, consumers all over the world are experiencing a "disc read error" on the newest release of Guitar Hero and is causing quite a problem for Activision.  I bet the higher ups in EA are laughing their butts off on this one.

-Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage is coming out November 2nd.

-Kitsu Saga just went closed beta.

-Legend of Edda just went closed beta.

-Dynasty Warriors Online is going closed beta on October 14th.

-EA releases "Medal of Honor" for multiple platforms on October 12th.  Open beta for multiplayer is from Oct. 4th-7th, I think I'm gonna try it out and see if it's any good.

-Vindictus Open Beta launches on October 13th.  This game is a.k.a. Mabinogi Heroes.

-Cosmicbreak is going through their 2nd Open Beta and closes on October 17th.  I like the game, I went through 1st open beta.  The game doesn't take up very much HD space, it has an in-depth multiplayer system for both PvP and PvE, lots of different characters to choose from, and doesn't require grinding.

I believe that is all I have from the top of my head.  Now, about Resistance 2...

[Resistance 2 - Playstation 3]

Resistance: Fall of Man was really fun.  I bought that game late (just last summer) for very cheap ($20 was it?  As opposed to $60), but really enjoyed it.  The original had a gripping storyline/narrative, creative weapons, and non-stop action.  The sequel I bought just recently since my sister and I beat the first one on super-human difficulty and wanted to know what happened in the next one as well as having another co-op game to play.  Well, sucks for us since the developers took out two-player co-op in campaign mode and made a separate online/offline Co-op mode.  The sequel improve tremendously on graphics, animation and controls.  The schematics for the controls mimics those of Call of Duty for a faster-paced shooter in this installment of the series.  There were things about the game I liked, but there were so many things I didn't like as well.

Graphics

Hands down, the graphics are impressive and very believable to the world of Resistance.  The background is filled with hundreds of moving units, creating a happening environment around the player as they go through the story.  The boss battles are large scaled enemies with detailed works all around each component of the anatomy (the weapons, animation, lighting, etc.).  Old, familiar foes appear as well as a slew of new ones that keeps the player on their toes as to how to deal with them.  Aside from the graphics artistically, the design of some of the areas are not quite balanced for the campaign as some cover doesn't help at all or leaves the player out in the open entirely.  Despite some setbacks on some of the awkward animation of dismemberments, movements of characters and enemies, and some small problems near the end of the game (lighting effect glitch on characters face and the proportions of the environment to the player), the game had a solid grasp of the direction they wanted to take the art style to.  Graphics: 9/10

Audio

Ugh, they changed the voice actor for Nathan Hale (main character) and in turn also changed the personality he possessed from the first one.  I actually liked Nathan's passive, non-speaking attitude he had in the first one.  In Resistance, they turned him into a typical American war-fighter: butch and headstrong.  The quiet personality he had in the first one made him seem more mysterious and dangerous.  I found him to be generic and annoying in this one.  The music changed and I didn't like it as much in this one.  The composer is different, so it's not a surprise the style wouldn't match the first one.  The voice-acting was top-notch though.  Though against my acceptance to Nathan's new voice actor, the whole crew really brought the characters to life and made it fitting for the mood and situation they were in.  Sound effects were about the same, good quality.  Audio: 8/10

Story

I won't spoil anything, but I personally did not like the story to this installment.  I didn't like how it was told, what it told, and how it ended.  The story was not told through a narrative, but rather through dialogue from the characters in-game and through cinematics.  It's very similar to how the story was told in Valve's half-life where characters in the game spoke to the player directly while playing.  It felt unfitting, forgettable, and detached from the player.  It should have been more involving since the player took the role of Hale and saw everything from his eyes rather from another (like in the first one).  The flow of the story wasn't fluid as well.  The narrative was told in chunks with each passing chapter and created a gap between each area.  The progression of the story in the first one was seamless, and so it had a very nice flow to the story and the gameplay.  In the 2nd one, I felt as if I was dumped into a story, and then thrown into another when I got to a new chapter.  Like the first one, the ending was a cliff-hanger.  But unlike the first one, which delved into the curiosity of its players with the question "what happens next?", Resistance ends with a predictable "shocker" with a groan-worthy hook: something worse is about to happen.  Actually, the ending to Resistance 2 is very similar to Golden Axe: Beast Rider and gave me the same reaction I had with that one too!  Clichés can be useful, but they can also be detrimental to the world of creative writing.  I'm really curious to how the story is going to be like and told in Resistance 3 as it seems like the player will be taking the role of new faces and might work with other players in a multiplayer co-op style gameplay.  Story: 4/10 (hey, at least I got to find out what happened!)

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the characters in the story didn't really connect with the players.  By the end of the game, I really couldn't care less about any of them (Hawthorne, Blake, Warner, Malikov, Capelli), even Nathan Hale.  There was a lot less characters in Resistance: Fall of Man, but the characters' interactions and dialogue with one another made the story much more involving.  Resistance: Retribution for the PSP probably had a better story than that one actually.  The main character in Retribution had personality, progression, and connection with the player.  I actually really liked how the story built itself in Resistance Retribution.  Stephen Cartwright, Rachel Parker, and Nathan Hale were characters that spoke to the player (literally!) with Parker narrating the events Nathan Hale went through and was thus made her opinions matter in the first Resistance.  James Greyson from Retribution had a bitter attitude towards everything as he was forced to kill his own brother who had turned into one of the Chimera in the beginning of the game.  The way his character changes throughout the story and how he changes was memorable and meaningful.  In Resistance 2, I believe the writers were trying to achieve on telling an epic story about humanity itself and how only one man can change that.  But the story was predictable, straightforward, and boring.  The first one had mystery and a gripping narrative.  Retribution had progression, realization and change.  But Resistance 2 was just "earth is in trouble, go save it" and then went on to stuff as much innovation from different games into the campaign (read through Gameplay).  I hope this is a much better justification of not really liking the story.

Gameplay

Yeah, I separated the story from gameplay this time since it was such a pivotal role to my interest of the game.  I believe that the team that worked on this installment of the game is different from the first one since a lot of the elements of style in all the works (art, audio, writing, game mechanics, modes, weapons, etc.) are all distinctively different.  I couldn't help but feel that this game used a lot of aspects from various first-person shooters that released to the market before it, and it can be notable when each of those aspects presents itself during the game.  The controls changed, which really threw me off when I jumped in to play, to an action orientated schema that mirrors the controls of Call of Duty.  The scope is hold rather than toggle, which I really did not mind after adjusting myself to it, melee is R3 rather than a face button, weapon switch system is taken out entirely, and a few others I can't quite note at the moment.  Rather than carrying various guns for certain situations, the player can only hold two weapons at a time.  The ship areas looks very similar and plays very similar to the design of Halo.  True, the first one had a similar system with its self-regenerating health-bars that borrows the idea of Halo's shield system, but it was unique in its own way.  Well, that health-bar was taken out in exchange for a Call of Duty style "blood" system where the more red the screen becomes, the closer to death the player is.  Staying out of enemy fire for a small duration returns the health back to normal.  What sucks about this is that the player can experience 1-hit kills to the head by a random bullet from enemy fire.  The narrative is done in a similar fashion to Half-Life.  Sections of the game where 30 skinny chimeras (the enemies in the game) come after the player seems to pay homage to Left 4 Dead's massive scale zombie attacks.  One part of the game had the player running across boards and objects to go up to avoid the rising water which contained a sort of alien fish that kills the player in one hit.  I felt like I was playing Mirror's Edge jumping around like that frantically.  Well, those one-hit, headshot kills do remind me of Counter-Strike, but that happens in many FPS games.  There are other times where the player dies instantly though: monster in the water, invisible creature (chameleons), pitfalls, strikes from boss monsters, etc.  Those moments reminded me of Half-Life where everything seemed to kill the player in one hit.  The difference was that in HL, you could save anywhere and load anywhere.  In Resistance 2, you die and then go back to the last checkpoint, unskippable cut-scenes and all.  The new system to see enemy heat on the Auger, that didn't apply to the first one, is similar to the revealing system Haze had when using nectar.  The difference was that it was yellow in Haze and green in Resistance.  This was cool and all since the developers really tried to innovate the gameplay so that it wasn't exactly like the first one; however, this amalgamation of various styles really broke the game apart and its consistency interrupted multiple times throughout the campaign, a flow that the first one had that this one didn't.  This section does not pertain to the multiplayer as I'll do a separate section for that.  Yeah, I didn't have fun playing the campaign, I doubt I'll be playing normal and difficult (yes, I was playing casual).  Gameplay: 5/10

Multiplayer (Offline/Online)

There are two multi-player options: Cooperative and Competitive.  Offline, you can play 2-player split-screen cooperative which I find very difficult to accomplish.  I played with 4 of my friends who are more skilled than I am in FPS and we still couldn't finish the very first level.  Well, I tried out online early this week in a 8-player co-op match up on that very level.  It was mass chaos since the more players there are, the more enemies show up!  But with so much more players in-game, there is a higher chance of survival since players can revive each other while other pushed the enemies back.  I had a BLAST playing with those people and ended up with the least kills, but the 2nd most experience points since I was the medic and healed more than anyone else.  Everyone else had an average of 50+ kills.  I think the first place team mate I had was up to 181 kills, that's how much enemies popped up throughout the level.  I was thinking that competitive mode was a straightforward death match with the weapons from the game.  Nope!  You can change your loadout from the beginning in a team death-match with a special ability that gives perks to players who contribute to the team.  I played long (didn't feel long) match of 30 vs 30 to 1000 kills and had a lot of fun playing that too!  Sure it was hard, players didn't die as fast as they would in MAG or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, but it had the same arcadic magic that 007 Goldeneye had when I played with my friends back in the N64 days.  Weapons were aplenty (maybe not as much as GE007, but still a good amount), battles were hectic, team play was fair since each shot to the enemy gave experience points, and levels were nicely designed for both co-op and competitive modes.  Unfortunately, I think the community playing Resistance 2 is dropping in numbers since there was only one other server that had activity besides the one I played on.  Multiplayer also has a level system that makes room for progression for the player.  I think I'll continue playing this game for the multiplayer since both co-op and competitive was very enjoyable.  Multiplayer: 9/10

Replay Value

I honestly don't believe the campaign is worth playing again a second time, unless you plan on buying the third installment and forgot what happened in the second one.  The multiplayer is definitely worth playing and has the potential of 100+ hours of replay time since the player can constantly level up and receive more items and levels.  Replay Value: 8/10 (I haven't played multiplayer long enough to verify whether I'd get bored playing it or not, so 8/10 as a general estimation.

Overall

The game was both a disappointment and a surprise since I didn't like how the campaign was re-designed, but loved what was done for multiplayer.  Unfortunately, I never played online for the first one, so I have no basis for comparison.  I bought the game for $30 I think if not $40, but I wouldn't have been happy to have bought it for the original $60.  For the price it is now, I think it's worth getting just for the multiplayer until Resistance 3 comes out.  I think the third one will be really different and will be multiplayer based judging from the trailer it released.  Overall: for campaign (5/10) for multiplayer (9/10) for the game as a whole (8/10).  If it was $60, I'd probably give this game a 7/10 since a developer shouldn't ignore an entire campaign mode for an innovative multiplayer.  If that is the desire, create a spin-off or separate game so that half the game doesn't suffer from it.  So yeah, Overall: 8/10

I think I'm getting dizzy from all this writing, or maybe it's from the whole week as I've been hard at work finding a job, applying, getting projects done and such.  There are a lot of articles I'm planning to write soon.  I wish I would get paid for all this opinion giving since I'm investing so much time into them.  I could (with ads on the side and all), but I have too many personal things I add into this blog such as school, life, and work.  And if I started a new blog, I might neglect this one.  Though that is an option, I shall consider it.  I'm off for now~