Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Trying out the Destiny Beta
The beta for Bungie's new game, Destiny, is out on the XBox 360. See my thoughts below after a few hours playing.
Destiny is a combination of games in my opinion. It feels like a combination of Halo, a Call of Duty/Battlefield mix, and Mass Effect. Parts of the game seem to be like an MMO, with the ability to see other players in the campaign map zones and the common area. While in the campaign zones, teamed or not, you can help each other out, but not really hurt each other, except for the possibility of someone getting good at stealing mob kills. While I have not seen that, I do see that it could possibly happen since multiple people can damage the same enemies. In some cases, its encouraged with random special encounters. The one I ran into with a few friends required a Devil Walker Tank (a large spider-like tank that has massive amounts of hit points) to be taken down in less than 5 minutes.
While running around, we noticed something else. While you can just run around, you get less experience for killing high level bad guys than you do for doing a mission that involves killing lower level bad guys. We tested this by running through the Strike mission labeled The Devil's Lair at level 5. I moved up about half an experience bar. We went back and did the level 2 quest at the beginning of the map itself and leveled up easily. Hopefully, this is just a way for Bungie to push people to do the quests in the beta and will be toned down in the retail release of the game.
Multiplayer (aka The Crucible), was not as fun. It may have been a case of us coming into a room of people who do nothing but play the matchmaking thus having that age old map knowledge advantage, but it was hard to have fun when you pretty much died within 3-5 seconds of spawning while the other team has 3-4 people with 15+ killstreaks. I'll be giving this another go tonight to see if that was the case.
Apparently, there is a level cap on the game at level 8, possibly to get people to try out all the class options, so I'll likely make another character as well tonight.
All in all, I recommend this game to everyone. I plan to pick it up the day it releases and I plan to put some serious hours into it.
See you guys in the game!
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| Visit www.bungie.net for more on Destiny |
Destiny is a combination of games in my opinion. It feels like a combination of Halo, a Call of Duty/Battlefield mix, and Mass Effect. Parts of the game seem to be like an MMO, with the ability to see other players in the campaign map zones and the common area. While in the campaign zones, teamed or not, you can help each other out, but not really hurt each other, except for the possibility of someone getting good at stealing mob kills. While I have not seen that, I do see that it could possibly happen since multiple people can damage the same enemies. In some cases, its encouraged with random special encounters. The one I ran into with a few friends required a Devil Walker Tank (a large spider-like tank that has massive amounts of hit points) to be taken down in less than 5 minutes.
While running around, we noticed something else. While you can just run around, you get less experience for killing high level bad guys than you do for doing a mission that involves killing lower level bad guys. We tested this by running through the Strike mission labeled The Devil's Lair at level 5. I moved up about half an experience bar. We went back and did the level 2 quest at the beginning of the map itself and leveled up easily. Hopefully, this is just a way for Bungie to push people to do the quests in the beta and will be toned down in the retail release of the game.
Multiplayer (aka The Crucible), was not as fun. It may have been a case of us coming into a room of people who do nothing but play the matchmaking thus having that age old map knowledge advantage, but it was hard to have fun when you pretty much died within 3-5 seconds of spawning while the other team has 3-4 people with 15+ killstreaks. I'll be giving this another go tonight to see if that was the case.
Apparently, there is a level cap on the game at level 8, possibly to get people to try out all the class options, so I'll likely make another character as well tonight.
All in all, I recommend this game to everyone. I plan to pick it up the day it releases and I plan to put some serious hours into it.
See you guys in the game!
Monday, July 7, 2014
Mini Review: Gotham City Imposters
Hey guys,
So, Gotham City Imposters was listed for free on XBox Live for Gold Subscribers. I've messed around with it for a bit, and here's my two cents on it.
1. Visuals
Visually, the game looks nice. Its not trying to wow you with graphics. They are somewhat cartoonish and remind me of Team Fortress Two actually. However, when things are not lagging, it looks nice and has a good flow. I did not notice any major issues when the game played properly. You have the option later on to customize your wannabe Batman and your Joker gang outfits.
2. Weapon balance
Unfortunately, I have to admit, that I got incredibly tired of people spamming the invisibility skill or the katana/roller skates combo. Also, sniping is harder to pickup than it is in other games. More punishing for not getting a headshot too.
3. Match types
Plenty of game modes to play. It may have been the fact that the game is free to Gold members right now, but the deathmatch option had alot of lag and was very jarring. Played an option that is basically Kill Confirmed from Call of Duty and it ran fine for the most part.
Final Thoughts:
For free, its a great pickup and time waster. While its not Call of Duty, it is a fun way to spend an evening every now and then. If you go in with a friend or two, its even more fun as you describe the mayhem going on with how you died or how you killed someone to each other. The lag issues should die down as the "Free for Gold" rush dies down a bit.
My score: 85/100.
So, Gotham City Imposters was listed for free on XBox Live for Gold Subscribers. I've messed around with it for a bit, and here's my two cents on it.
1. Visuals
Visually, the game looks nice. Its not trying to wow you with graphics. They are somewhat cartoonish and remind me of Team Fortress Two actually. However, when things are not lagging, it looks nice and has a good flow. I did not notice any major issues when the game played properly. You have the option later on to customize your wannabe Batman and your Joker gang outfits.
2. Weapon balance
Unfortunately, I have to admit, that I got incredibly tired of people spamming the invisibility skill or the katana/roller skates combo. Also, sniping is harder to pickup than it is in other games. More punishing for not getting a headshot too.
3. Match types
Plenty of game modes to play. It may have been the fact that the game is free to Gold members right now, but the deathmatch option had alot of lag and was very jarring. Played an option that is basically Kill Confirmed from Call of Duty and it ran fine for the most part.
Final Thoughts:
For free, its a great pickup and time waster. While its not Call of Duty, it is a fun way to spend an evening every now and then. If you go in with a friend or two, its even more fun as you describe the mayhem going on with how you died or how you killed someone to each other. The lag issues should die down as the "Free for Gold" rush dies down a bit.
My score: 85/100.
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