Thursday, December 20, 2012

Hades Times Games of the Year 2012 Edition!

         In just a couple of weeks we will be seeing the end to this year.  I can’t believe it.  I can’t remember a year in gaming where everything seemed so strange for so long and certainly can’t remember a year in gaming that I played SO MANY games on my PC.  Except maybe 1998(year I discovered Civilization, but that doesn’t count).   I am also happy to report that this was also an exceptionally good year for Indie Games.  So that is pretty freakin cool.  So without further explanation or delay; here are my 10 games that you cannot miss playing from 2012.  In no particular order…

1. Journey

                   Journey was the first game this year.  Nah, first game EVER to make me feel anything other than frustration or elation.  The game is complicated for being so simple.  The game deals with everything from social interaction to religion.  This is one of, if not the best designed and executed game ever made.  So go play it, if you haven’t all ready.  It’s amazing.

 

2. Borderlands 2

      There was no shooter this year that I spent more time in or had more fun with.  While I have to admit I STILL haven’t finished the game.  I have to admit that I’ve also put in more than 50 hours into not finishing it.  So I love this game.  And if your not playing it on PC, you are SERIOUSLY missing something.

3. Diablo 3

    That’s right, did I stutter.  Diablo 3 is a fantastic game that has fantastic design and I’ve spent over 80 hours playing it.  I love the game and while I will never probably reach Inferno Difficulty.  I will say that if you haven’t played Diablo 3 then you are REALLY missing something special.  The game is one of the best that I’ve played in years.  The things that are wrong with it are small compared to the things that are absolutely incredible about it.

 

4. XCOM: Enemy Unknown

    My favorite strategy game of the year.  This game is incredibly hard and incredibly fun.  This is one turned based game that you should not miss.  There is something so satisfying getting that killshot on an alien with your favorite sniper from halfway across the screen using squad vision.

 

5. Tekken Tag Tournament 2

   The best fighting game of the entire year and possibly the entire generation is Tekken Tag Tournament 2.  Never have a I seen such a complete and awesome fighter.  The depth in this game is virtually infinite.  Without exception or qualification I have to say that this is my favorite fighting game of the year and ever.

 

6.  Mass Effect 3

   To think when this game came out way back at the beginning of year; most people thought it was the harbinger of things to come for this year.  Just another awesome game.  Never did we think that this game, considering all it’s choices, DLC, and story that it might actually be the best game of the year.  Not sure if I would say that.  But the Mass Effect series and this game especially are essential for anyone who says that they play video games.  It’s incredible and is possibly a harbinger of things to come.  Not just for this console generation but rather for generations to come.

 

7. Guild Wars 2

   All I have to say about Guild Wars 2 is that it is the greatest MMORPG of all time.  Unless bandwidth, hardware, and a slew of other things improve drastically Guild Wars 2 is the pinnacle of what can be done in a fantasy MMO.  This game makes World of Warcraft look like it was made 7-10 years ago.  It is incredible.

 

8.  Forza Horizon

  As I said in a my recent review Forza Horizon is RACING GAME OF THE YEAR.  Nothing even compared to it this year.  Handling, campaign, multiplayer.  It’s the full package.  I just wish the package was a little bigger out of the box.

 

9.  Dishonored(PC)

   Revenge solves everything.  Dishonored on the PC is an absolutely incredible game.  There is no slow down, the world is beautiful, and every action is snappy and accurate all most every time.  Even if I’m a terrible stealth assassin, Dishonored makes you want to be a better one.

 

10. Halo 4

  It’s hard not to recommend Halo 4.  The cinematics are incredible, the multiplayer probably the best in the franchise, and you get Spartan Ops for free.  So what more could you want.  I don’t know, but I’m sure we will think of something before the next XBOX comes out.

 

         Just wanted to say that it was incredibly difficult to narrow this list to 10.  There are around 20-30 games that should not be missed this year.  In the coming weeks and months I’ll hopefully be reviewing some of these games.  But for right now, this is the best of the best.  The crème of the crop…. Insert analogy here… Have a good Christmas and look forward to a new year with even more awesome games.  Cause the first 3-5 months are going to be a real beast this year.  Keep your engines hot, there is no rest for the wicked.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Farther Away Than They Are(Forizon Horizon Review)

      Driving over one hundred miles an hour down the open road is one of the things that gets race fans up in the morning.  Its what makes people do crazy things for crazy reasons.  This feeling of exhilaration definitely comes through in Playground Games Forza Horizon for the XBOX 360.  Never was there such a palatable sense of speed in a Forza game and never a departure so successfully exceuted as that from Forza 4 to Forza Horizon.  It’s going from a simulation centered game to an arcade open world centered game with simulation elements.  Excellent work…

     Forza Horizon uses the tired old concept of a “festival” to have its game centered around.  The fact that there has to be a story excuse for racing games is getting seriously over used.  There is nothing so terrible as a story in a racing game, even fighting game stories are better.  But Playground Games does a descent job of setting the game in this venue.  The lack of customization of your character and the total lack of any real hooks with the “story premise”at all make it clear that there was some kind of marketing reason for this setup rather than a philosophical one.  I would have preferred the game to just begin with the radio announcer talking about the festival and me driving there.  No characters to interact with, no stupid cutscenes of me getting multicolored wristbands.  Perhaps if Playground Games had not needed to make all that, they could have added a couple dozen more events.

       Forza Horizon has a descent selection of cars and by the time you reach around the gold band mark(75% of the way through) or so you will have enough money to buy whatever cars you feel you need to progress and win. I have to admit though, that most of the story missions seemed tuned for a certain car or range of cars. Another words if you have a stock car in this range, you will probably feel competitive but not win. If you max out your upgrades in that range however, you will probably win pretty easily unless you make some driving mistakes.

       Forza Horizon has the Forza 4 engine running it so some of the draw distances are not great and while I was impressed that they finally added night racing to Forza.  It was understandable that there were no weather effects.  Considering that would have probably over taxed the engine.  But again, most open world games DO have weather effects and most DO have night racing.  But I never found the game wanting mechanically in it’s current condition.  Except in those rare occasions where I had to catch someone online and was unable to see them after they turned an open corner that I should have been able to see.  It’s not that important, especially for an online experience but Forza is definitely squeezing all it can from the 360 hardware; just up to line where it impacts your experience with the title.

  

    Tuning is gone in Horizon and while you can do upgrades either automatically or manually.  I have to say that some of the decisions they made about how far to go with upgrades was off putting during my play time.  If I want to change my drivetrain, why can’t I?  Especially in a car that you could have done so in Forza 4.  I can’t imagine it would have added that much work to the game.  But that aside, the player does get an optimized decal editor from Forza 4.  The editor definitely seemed more user friendly and possibly even more powerful.  I haven’t done an actual side by side comparison.  You can import all of your images from Forza 4 which is great.  But other than taking lots of pictures of certain cars, I really felt the reason to customize a little unnecessary.  In comparison to Forza 4, there aren’t even half as many cars.  And there are no Porsches which is really odd.  The reason to customize used to be to have something no one else did.  But for some reason the smaller the car selection, the less interested in that I became.

      The majority of the fun I had with Forza Horizon were the point to point races both online and offline.  I did like some of the boss races, but most were just not all they were cracked up to be.  If you pull up in some crappy car and I’m in my Lexus that is completely maxed out.  I’m going to smoke you no matter what.  Sorry A.I. opponents, I guess the lack of variety in upgrades cuts both ways. This is to say that some of the cars did feel both underpowered and overpowered.  I’ve had an Enzo Ferrari in every version of Forza since it first appeared and this one was definitely the most underpowered version of any of them.

       Some of the touches that Forza Horizon had to make so the open world was more manageable were not universally good.  The Outposts for instance, these are areas that have events and some features of the main hub; like garages, paint shop, etc… You must clear all the events in these hubs to fast travel there for free.  But I found myself just fast traveling back to the main hub for free and then driving back out to where ever I was.  This to me, was a huge oversight considering many of the events at the Outposts really weren’t worth doing.  This would have been made easier if the regular events somehow tied into the Outposts and doing THOSE would allow you fast travel there for free.  I did really enjoy driving every single car in the game however, so I guess it was just as well that I hardly ever used fast travel.

      Forza Horizon promises a deep, open world, racing game; on this it delivers, I just wish there was more of it.  The longer I played Forza Horizon the more the sense of running out of things to do began to creep in.  I even bought a treasure map to find all the hidden cars; thinking perhaps I was missing some large part of the game.  I was not…  At it’s current length, I wouldn’t call Forza a short or small game; clocking in at over 25 hours to finish the main campaign if you are rushing and probably another ten hours if you are not.  The online provides you with some new cool modes to play around with.  But these I had my fill of in around 5-7 hours.  This is definitely not a short experience.   But in comparison to games like Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and Forza Motorsport 4 which I spent over 40 hours on each.  I felt like a wasn’t exactly getting my money’s worth.  Playground Games is made up folks that worked on everything for Project Gotham Racing to Grid and this definitely shows in Forza Horizon.  I loved this game and while I have a lot of problems with it, I do think it was the BEST RACING GAME OF 2012. That said, while I love season passes, I keep getting the sinking feeling that large parts of this game were broken off for DLC. 9/10…

      

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Some VGA Trailer Mania! Just want to get it out of the way!

 

 

 

 

 

 

     I think that’s about it.  Hope you enjoyed…

Friday, December 14, 2012

Amnesia Fortnight and the Opportunities that Come When Pressure is Applied.

        I really wanted to talk about Double Fine’s incredible Amnesia Fortnight at some point.  This is where the development house takes a break from their main project and for 2 weeks breaks up into separate little teams to make as many as five games that have been brainstormed by different teams members.  Games like Costume Quest and Stacking have come from this process.  It’s amazing…  Well this time…  The team went on Humble Bundle and made the voting process public(Usually Tim Schafer just picks).  So we are at the end of the two weeks and all the people who participated in the bundle were able to download the prototypes today.  They are all AMAZING!  The idea that each one was made in two weeks is absolutely incredible.  They aren’t exactly games, as they are little pieces of what the final game could be.  Like the spirit of the game.  Hence prototype.  I wanted to have screenshots and such but for whatever reason my screenshot capture thing, doesn’t like any of these games.  And there are no screenshots online.  I was able to take some screens from Hack n’Slash and Space Base but that is because they run natively in windowed mode.  None of the others would work.  So I have some screens from them.  Let’s start there.

        Hack n’Slash is an amazing little game.  It is in homage to the Legend of Zelda.  But instead of getting a sword to fight enemies.  You get a laptop.  And here the fun begins because as you download more and different codes you can begin to change the game.  Making paths where there aren’t any, slowing down time, etc… The prototype doesn’t really allow you to do this but you do get the idea of what the game could be.

     I think this is a great prototype and the game could be absolutely amazing.  Even if it would end up being a mobile game with simpler controls that would be cool too.  But this game definitely deserves a chance.

      On to SpaceBase….

      SpaceBase is basically a version of the SIMS except in space and with a slightly more interesting art style.  I really loved what they are trying to do here.  Probably one of those sky’s the limit projects for a full game.  Especially because Engineers can build out the bases themselves.  Which really adds to the dynamics of what could be in a finished product.

    Because I don’t have any more screenshots to show. I decided to use the team leader’s pitch videos that are on Youtube to give you an idea what the finished prototypes are like.

 

        Next we have Black Lake.  Which is amazingly beautiful prototype.  Where you are the hunter’s daughter following a fox with some really creepy woods.  You have to use special sense powers and a combination of turning on and off your lantern if your going to survive for long.  The demo does somewhat reward exploration.  But as in many of these prototypes the game has a fixed camera which severely hampers your ability to check for enemies.  This, I’m sure has to do with this being a prototype and having only 2 weeks for development.  I loved this little bit, I got to see and can’t wait to see more.

     There were more videos for our next game Autonomous so I decided to pick a more action oriented one.  The game is a about creating robots out of spare parts in an 80s future.  Like Tron…  The game looks very cool and sounds very cool.  The controls are a little floaty but that is really the only thing I can level against this prototype.   A full game of Autonomous would be a massive amount of fun.  Would love to see this…

 

       White Birch is probably the most whole of any of the prototypes I’ve played from Amnesia Fortnight.  It’s about a girl who is trying to reach the top of a tower and get the prize hanging from it.  All of the elements of this are completely realized with descent platforming and a beautiful art style.  The girl tends to slide around on surfaces sometimes which makes them hard to maneuver through but it does checkpoint you from the very last place you were before you died so that’s great.  Also, no fall damage.  I think this would make a great game and would love to see it get published as a full title.

       In closing, I would just like to say that this was an amazing process to watch.  Seeing the fruits of the team’s labors was very satisfying and even if none of these prototypes would take a person more than a few minutes to play they are all wonderful and definitely show that the teams are committed to the spirit of these game ideas.  The other thing I love about each of these titles is that none of them really call on practiced tropes.  They all want to say something new and different.  Even if it’s as simple as, “What if the SIMS took place on a Space Station?”  or as complicated as “What if in a game there were other ways to progress other than shooting/killing something.”  If it seems like I’m gushing..  It’s because this is the kind of creativity and freedom that people in the game industry have seemed to lose as a whole.  Everyone is SO worried about taking chances that they never stop and think what they could do if they weren’t afraid.  I think that’s what the real lesson of Amnesia Fortnights are, “Don’t be afraid to be creative!”

               Would just like to thank the entire team over at Double Fine Studios.  You folks are awesome.  And everyone who contributed to Amnesia Fortnight was really lucky to get a glimpse into what you folks do everyday.  Even if none of your prototypes become full games, I would like to reiterate that they are all wonderful and are REALLY good ideas.  Thanks again…

                                    Your Fan, Timothy Pecoraro…

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Dark Souls younger more platformy brother! (Black Knight Sword)

           This game is excellent. Try it on XBLA or PSN today with a free trial which consists of the first level of the game.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Video Games, I Love You! But I think We Have A Problem…

       Sometime in the last two or three months something has occurred to me that has been gnawing at me for the last year or two.  It’s all ways in the back of my mind and I usually discount it to me being lazy or bad at video games in general.  But as we enter the very beginnings of 2013 and potentially a new console cycle(it’s about DAMN TIME!).  I’ve begun to see things that weren’t there before; or perhaps were there but I didn’t notice before.  There are FAR TOO MANY GAMES OUT THERE!

       A lot of people jokingly complain about going broke during the last Steam Sale or having an incredible backlog of games.  Me being one of those people.  I’ve sitting here now with the soundtrack to Hotline Miami playing in my headphones.  Which I wouldn’t even own if it wasn’t for it being $4 on a Steam Sale.  Why?  Not because it’s a bad game! I’m not even suggesting that.  It’s because I have FAR TOO MANY GAMES to play to even deem it an idea to buy more.  At this point if I played all the console and PC games I have to their completion I would probably be down at least around 150-250 hours.  This sounds like a lot, but I’m not even counting old games that I bought on Steam because they were in a pack and cost me practically nothing.  I’m not even counting the 9 THQ Games that I got from the Humble Bundle because I could pay a $1 a game.  No, I’m talking the games that I have that I purchased with the intent of sitting down and playing the moment after I bought them.

       Don’t forget, I don’t get paid to play games and review them.  So any time I spend playing games is my “free” time and therefore sometimes can be at a premium.  I’ve spent quite a lot of time over the past two months being sick during my “free” time; mainly from working or trying to work too many hours and not getting enough sleep.  And what do I do then?  I come home and buy a whole bunch of games that I will probably never complete or even start in some cases.  Why?  Because at the time of purchase I fully wholly believe that I will not only play these games but at the price I’m buying them for; it’s ludicrous to not buy them.  But you see, I’m buying them on sale.  But I know people who are buying all of these games at FULL PRICE!  Why?  Because they too believe that they will play these games to completion.  Most of the time they even believe that pre-ordering and buying said games is the only way to ensure that they get to play them; any time around the time they want to play them.  Which basically means, before everyone has “moved on…”  I heard a game journalist spout this little gem the other night and I all most lost my shit.

         “Moved on?”  What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Is that the same concept as not seeing the big movie during the premiere weekend or not watching the “hot” television show live?  Oh god, it is… Isn’t it?  There are actually people who look at a game’s launch week or month the same way people look at the premiere weekend or premiere night of a television show.  Really?  A movie costs around $10 and television shows probably cost around $1 each if you don’t watch many and you pay for cable or satellite and this is comparable to a $60 game?  You guys MUST be joking….

           Sadly they are not…  There are lots of people who feel like not getting the game the during the first week of launch is a bad thing.  I, in fact, used to be one of those people.  Around 10 or so years ago when I was playing XBOX and PS2 like a freakin fiend.  I would play a game a week.  Except for some old standbys that were multiplayer.  Like Halo, Mech Assault, etc…  Back then I was getting around 1 game a month for free from my work (XBOX Evolved. the website, not the UK magazine that came later).  But that was no where near enough for me.  Was writing around 2-3 reviews a month to fill a one review quota.  The art team on the website was starting to secretly hate me I think because they had to keep making custom mastheads for all of my latest and greatest feature reviews.  I can’t say my reviews were good but they were the best on the website and my editor was all ways thrilled so what did I care.  I was spending probably around triple what I made and trading games in for a quarter of their value to good ol Gamestop.

           I don’t know when I woke up; probably around 2-3 weeks after the website went dark and I was no longer writing reviews.  I was sitting playing something; rushing through to the end and I came to this realization,

             “What the hell is the rush?”

          I couldn’t answer.  From then on I bought much fewer games and only purchased the titles that the people who got paid to write reviews said were really good.  I never pre-ordered a game unless it had awesome special perks for doing so; then only grudgingly.  But my philosophy about pre-ordering could fill another article so, I won’t go into that.

           This kind of revelation is something that comes from either not having any money to support your habit anymore or simply realizing for yourself at some point.  I often find friends who rush through titles get much less out of them and often are much harder on games in general.

             “If it doesn’t strike me in the first ten minutes.  It’s shit!”

            No truer game critic words have ever been spoken by someone who is paying $60 a pop for their games and not getting them from the publishers for free.  It’s very sad and as someone who knows this I try to give you the consumer(last two months not withstanding) a kind of best/worst of game reviews.  So that if there is something out there that you absolutely MUST play or MUST NOT play.  I try and cover it.  But this seems to be beginning to veer slightly from my original statement.  But you’ll see it really doesn’t….

            This year was an amazing and strange year for games.  Things that we thought we understood have been proven in some cases to be completely wrong.  Which is a cryptic way of saying that this was the year of the Indie Game.  Games that were in the past thought to be too small or too low budget to compete have been proved to be excellent experiences worthy of our time.  Games like:

               The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)

               Journey (Thatgamecompany)

               Hotline Miami (Dennaton)

               Trials Evolution (RedLynx)

          There are so many more than the ones above.  But each of the above games showed that they could compete in ways that made mainstream AAA publisher stand up and take notice.  Which is wonderful for the industry.  As are programs like Humble Bundle.  Where a bunch of small games get bunched together for a modest starting price and then the audience pays whatever they want.  Some money goes to Charity, some to the developers, and usually a very small amount to the Humble Bundle folks.  This works like a Steam Sale.  It’s great for customers and developers alike because even if the developers don’t make a lot of money during the sale.  The word of mouth on their games all ways spikes drastically.  With everyone from gaming press to other publishers and developers to even just the average gamer who might tell a few friends on Twitter or Facebook.  So this is great stuff.

          All of this stuff is great and there has never been a time in our “hobby.”  God I hate it when people call it that…  To get a load of good games for a low price(as long as your doing it on the PC.").  And even if your not playing PC games, there are tons of games on XBLA and PSN.  Especially with the Playstation Plus Program; you can get games for free or at a steep discount.  The problem with all of this is that we ACTUALLY have to have time to play them.

          I did get Halo 4 and Black Ops 2 during their respective launch weeks (congrats!  343 and Treyarch, you convinced me to pay full price for your games, good job guys.  Don’t expect it to happen every year, k…)  I had Halo 4 first, and I had to read 3 books and watch a movie before I started the campaign as to know what was going(glad I did, thanks to the folks on Twitter that suggested that).  So I just began playing multiplayer.  Which took me right into the Black Ops 2 launch.   Which I normally don’t play the campaign for COD games, as when I have; I haven’t like it.  I will probably play this one, eventually.  Anyway, so I began playing multiplayer for BLOPS 2.  Only to realize a week or two later(I was sick for about a week during this period).  That I could now play the Halo 4 campaign.  Which I have started and it’s quite amazing(awesome graphics, incredible voice acting, etc..).  But in that time I’ve also prestiged in BLOPS 2 and I’m around level 25+ and screwing around is fun enough that I might want to prestige again.

           But since, I bought games during the big holiday sales and picking up Hitman Absolution, Dishonored, Need for Speed Most Wanted, and a copy of Mass Effect 3(for $5) to finish off the DLC that I’ve missed since launch.  Along with that, I have copies of Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed and Far Cry 3 to review.  Also, I was able to pick up a few games during the latest Steam Sale.  Oh, did I mention I haven’t finished Borderlands 2 yet?  Yes, my original intent before any of these other games came out was to finish Borderlands 2.  But that seems like a distant memory now.

         No matter what you might think of any of the games I just mentioned.  You can’t argue that they are some of the best games of the year.  So it’s not like I’m wasting my time on bad games.  But come on, how is a normal person who has a life(watches a little TV, reads books, has a job, and occasionally watches videos on the internet).  Supposed to keep up with all this?  If every publisher just published one or two games a year.  They would be consumed and finished by everyone(as long as they were good games).  But at some point.  Perhaps during the PS2/XBOX/Gamecube era.  Everyone both in the industry and consumers of the industry decided that there had to be tons of games coming out.  Well, now with indie games, AAA titles, and IOS/Android we have that and I think it is terrible for everyone.  Especially the industry…  Even among friends or other people who play lots of games.  I’m rarely playing the same thing my friends are and if I am I’m usually either much farther in it or not even close to where they are in it.  Why, because I either wanted to play something else right after it or I was playing something else and I’m late to begin playing it.

         All of this is actually very crazy considering once December is over.  There is going to be a virtual avalanche of games that got out of BLOPS 2 and Halo 4s way.  They will start coming in January and build to a crescendo by March.  In fact, unless a lot of games are delayed; this will be the biggest release list ever for March, in HISTORY.  Does anyone actually think that all those games are going to get the kind of numbers they deserve?  Of course not, why would they?  We have all been spending money like mad people just to keep up with the games that have been coming out since the end of August.  Let alone have lots of it let over for March.  After Christmas and before Tax Refunds.  Probably not the best place to put your big AAA, we need this to sell a few million copies game.  But this is all a symptom of having so much product on the shelf by an ever dwindling number of publishers and developers.

       There probably plenty of you out there railing against what I’m saying. Instead demanding that there aren’t ENOUGH games coming out every year; not too many.  Well, if only there was some way that I could prove you wrong….  There is, the game industry has been on a steady decline since 2010 when we had our little economic crash here in the US and in Europe.  Games have been selling fewer copes, developers are being closed down and there are fewer and fewer new IPs from AAA developers because it is just too risky.  Most are hoping for a new console cycle to reset all their problems.  But this is not an issue of innovation, excitement, or even descent games.  Games have never been better and we are probably looking at time of maximum innovation.  But there are only so many dollars to go around.  If the hardcore can’t support every game the way it should be supported, then who will? No one…

        This has been a very long article to simply state that there are WAY too many games coming out every year and that most people either never play or never finish most of them.  Developers and Publishers should get together and create fewer bigger projects and make sure they are wonderful.  Because the other thing that really kills is a game that could have been awesome if it just had a little more time to get better polished, play tested, etc…  No one cares if you hit your ship deadline if your game is a pile of buggy crap.

       Some people may believe that my stance here will squash innovation and make every game a COD or Halo clone.  No, because with so few games they won’t sell either.  By changing the parameters of your whole market, you lose all the garbage and only the best is left.  And, I’m sorry to say that this happening slowly and naturally anyway as the market responds to middling games.  This involves studio closures and massive layoffs.  At least my way, every gets to keep their job and we get some REALLY good games.

      In closing, I would love to say that this article is simply an apology from a part time game journalist who’s website probably won’t have much of a Game of the Year feature this year.  But its far worse than that.  I truly believe that unless publishers put the reigns on how many games they make a year.  We very well may see a drastic and catastrophic decline in the industry.  In this case, all games would be free to play or subscription MMOs.  That way developers and publishers would get a constant drip of funding.  But the quality of these games would surely suffer for it and games that are single player narrative type experiences would disappear completely unless they had funding through Kickstarter or some other investor base.  If nothing else, look at the number of game journalists this year, who’s job it is to keep up with games that are scrambling to play a whole pile of titles just to not sound uninformed during Game of the Year discussions.  If they can’t keep up, what hope do any of the rest of us have?

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Reports of this Site’s Demise Have been GREATLY Exaggerated!

 

       Just a quick note to let you know I’m still here plugging away.  Since October I’ve had the flu and some other kind of upper Respiratory infection. Still have my other job and have been playing quite a few games.  Some to completion, others, not so much.  I will do my best to keep staying on top of things.  But as usual life intervenes.  I would love to write for this site full time.  But as with many things the way that would work keeps it from happening.  I.E. post enough every day that advertisers and readers take me seriously.  Well, that would mean quitting my job.  But I can’t afford to do that until I have a source of steady income…  You see undoubtedly, where this is going….  So if anyone has any ideas for me let me know.  My twitter is @timothypecoraro I normally read that before anything else.  Also, if you want to tweet me and let me know what you like and don’t like about the site.  For instance, do you like the videos or should I just stick with articles?  Let me know.  Also, I do post quite a lot on Twitter so you want to follow me there that would be cool too.

      So don’t worry, I’m not dead or on a protracted vacation in the Bahamas. I’m just sick…  Will hopefully be putting some new stuff up soon.  Sorry for the long delay.

                    Timothy Pecoraro

Old School Nintendo LOVE!

       I normally don’t do this kind of Retro stuff.  But with the launch of the Wii U, I’m feeling nostalgic.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Darkstalkers Franchise gets the WUB WUB Treatment with Darkstalkers Resurrection!

  I have to say early 2013 is a LONG TIME to wait for this!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

And now Pandas! (World of Warcraft)

 

   And that my friends is the most your going to get from me on the new Expansion for WoW.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Tag me IN! (Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Review)(PS3)

       With some exception I tend to not review fighting games until they have been out for a while(sometimes as much as 3 months).  I tend to believe that both community and developers need time with the game in the wild to determine how good or bad a game is.  But Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was the type of game I could have reviewed the first week it came out.  I was never more impressed by so many things in a fighting game.  Except perhaps the original Street Fighter IV.  Which blew my doors off like nothing has since.  But that was more of a case of the perfect storm rather than a game that was so above and beyond that it was amazing.  Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is my fighting game of this generation.  And here is why.

       TTT2 a fast paced fighting style that makes sure that everyone is always awake and paying attention.  Blocking will get you thrown or just struck by getting hit by a sweep or an overhead.  All the moves are responsive and don’t have too much animation priority.  The game never feels cheap or convoluted.  There are breakable walls and floors that open up stages similarly to those in Tekken 6.  Every hit has a kind of impact that I rarely feel in fighting games.  Much like Street Fighter this fighter makes the player feel involved in the fight with excellent animations and good feedback.  The tag system is responsive and is useful.  In fact, in most cases the game is made a little easier using the tag system as opposed to complicating things..  Tag Assaults and Tag Throws both have impact and can be done pretty much immediately.  There were only a few times where I thought the system wasn’t responding to my commands in clutch situations.  As you play Tekken Tag Tournament 2 you will definitely find yourself in clutch situations.  The game moves very fast and moves do a descent amount of damage.  If I had to compare I would say that this game has Marvel versus Capcom 3’s pace with the move set of something like Virtua Fighter 5.

       Series staples are here like shared health bars and a huge cast of characters.  The graphics and production values in the game are first rate.  The developers obviously went all out to make sure this game looked amazing and had the flashiness to get people’s attention.  There is no Story mode, falling to the end movies in the Arcade mode to show the series hallmark CGI end movies for each character.  All modes in the game can be taken on in either Solo or Tag formats.  Playing Solo makes your damage increase and your red health SLOWLY recharge.  Tag may give you another character to share health with but your health recovers when that character isn’t playing and it recovers more quickly than in Solo format.  The offline single player has Arcade, Time Attack, Survival, and the excellent Ghost Battle Mode.  To choose from along with the Training and Practice modes. 

       Training mode takes a unique track where you play the character, Combot.  Who is created by Violet to be the ultimate fighting machine.  The challenges here are goofy and for the most part fun.  It makes practicing annoying mechanics more palatable.  But the mode is far shorter and less complicated than I expected. If Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has a failing it’s this mode.  It just isn’t enough and the lack of pick up and play aspect due to the terrible checkpointing in the mode make it even less appealing for folks just trying to drop in and then drop out.  The mode DOES allow you to customize Combot’s moveset to eventually get a unique character having only the moves you like.  Which is a fun distraction.  But I can’t really see anyone being that interested in this sort of thing.  But as I said, it is an excellent introduction for the new systems in TTT2 as well as a good practice for the more annoying to practice actions.  Practice mode is great, with features allowing you to record moves and combos and then fight against those moves or combos to your hearts content.  It’s definitely a huge step for fighting games.

        Overall, I found playing a Tag Team tended to be easier than playing Solo. But this depends greatly on your character or characters and your opponent. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 features over 50 characters and it appears that by the end of the year the game may have close to 60 characters. This could be viewed as too many characters to learn but this is also what gives Tekken Tag Tournament 2 all most unlimited depth. And finding the right Tag Team for you can be a VERY LONG process of experimenting with many combinations until you get it right. In total I’ve played close to 400 matches of TTT2 and still haven’t found my perfect team

      Throughout all most every mode in the game you are given money to go to the customize area’s store and purchase items, costume pieces, etc… To customize the look of your character.  You can change the colors of these items and even add items to your characters that might add a move to their move set.  This part of the game is one of the areas that keeps me playing and I know that Namco is going to be putting out some additional DLC for this area soon.  So it will keep me playing long into the future.  This very mode is what kept me playing Tekken 6.  What I never understood is what I like about this mode in Tekken that I don’t in SoulCalibur.  What I can say is that this mode has the worst menus in the entire game.  Too many layers, too much loading, too many button presses.  But after a while you get used to it.  But it definitely could use an overall, if that’s even possible at this point. 

    Online has the standard modes for lobbies, ranked matches, and player matches.  But with the addition of the free World Tekken Federation that allows a kind of stat tracking found only in services like Call of Duty Elite.  The online definitely shines.  As well as, at least same region games(that’s all I played). Being completely lag free.  I couldn’t have asked for too much more from the Online except maybe the system they have for Soul Calibur V.  Except, SCV doesn’t have the World Tekken Federation which definitely makes up for it.  If I have any criticism it’s for Namco to drop the Online Pass.  But considering the developers have made the World Tekken Federation and promised that all game downloadable content will be free.  I can’t complain too much. 

    Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is a deep, complete fighting game that makes no shortcuts.  There is definitely some nod to the button mashers of the world but this is a serious fighting game with an eye on competition above all else.  The people that will get the most out of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 are those who put in the time.  Since I’ve had the game 9/11/12, I’ve put in around 40 hours.  While this is not a lot of time; that is only because I had other games to play and review.  I would imagine the average player has all most twice that invested all ready.  I love the game and I know I will be playing long into next year and probably the following year.  Not only is Tekken Tag Tournament my fighting game of 2012.  It is my fighting game of the XBOX360/PS3 generation.  No matter what Capcom has in store for us next year it won’t be able to touch this package.  If you love fighting games, you NEED to play Tekken Tag Tournament 2: 9.8/10.

Definitely Not a Power Blow! (Dead or Alive 5 Review)(Xbox360)

  The first time I’d played a Dead or Alive fighting game was way back on the XBOX.  It was Dead or Alive 2 and I thought the game was pretty good.  Not as good as say, Mortal Kombat or Tekken.  But good.  With this recent episode I have to admit I was more skeptical than usual.  The game seemed to be focused on “fighting entertainment” which I guess means flashy crap that doesn’t really do much for the mechanics of the game.  Which is more or less what I was afraid of.  Most of my experience steams from Dead or Alive 4 and the MANY MANY hours I spent online.  I believe that game was held back by many of the same things that are holding this one back. But in addition this game seems to have picked up a few bad habits of it’s own.

            First and foremost. It must be gotten out of the way that this game does look great and does animate very well.  With the exception of the breasts of course, which are more alien than anything I’ve ever seen in a modern video game.  Whatever they are made of it seems to have a very fluid quality that is both strange and gravity defying.  I don’t know what the problem was here, but it distracting at best and disgusting at worst.

           All right now that we have that out of the way.  The mechanics of Dead or Alive 5 seem to be a little confused.  The blocking mechanic is terrible, because there is no feedback.  The blocking character doesn’t have impact and the striking character certainly doesn’t have any.  The little sweat drops that come off of the blocking character, are completely useless as they are usually practically invisible in every stage.  Throws are also terrible, as normally if you are standing on top of a character and you throw them; you are either being teched(your throw has been blocked) or you do a throw.  Not in Dead or Alive 5; all characters seem to be able escape throws so seamlessly that the animation is simply you missing the throw.  It makes no sense.  You can’t duck my throw if you have no frames to do so.  I’ve watched on multiple occasions my characters being struck after they finish their throwing animation by a character who is using a mid-strike.  How are they not being thrown?  Low throws have the very same problem.  I’ve been hit during my low throw animation by a low strike.  Also, in previous Dead or Alive games there was some stun on all of counters.  So that if you countered someone they couldn’t just get directly up and hit you.  But not in Dead or Alive 5.  Almost every time I counter held a character, they simple went into a combo directly after.  Completely negating my counter hold and what damage it did.  What convoluted tech roll, the game has never works and you are all most all ways hit on exit of the roll or even during the roll which kind of negates the having the roll completely.  Too many characters have one hit, uncounterable strikes that send their opponent flying across the screen for 20-40% damage.  This is too much.  Tekken has similar moves but they are more reset moves than spammable counter hits.

           DOA 5 doesn’t seem to be the least bit interested in balance or fairness.  The danger zones in the different stages where the character shot into them incur extra damage is often done from a “Power Blow” which is a charge move that can shoot the character into a danger zone(which itself does extra damage).  These Power Blows are like super moves.  The problem with them is that for the amount of damage they do(50-75%) they have a very wonky hit box on them.  So much so, that you can be doing a mid-combo and be just far enough away from the character performing the move to just whiff the whole thing.  I suppose this is something one could get used to.  But each character seems to have a different power blow animation and therefore a different wonky hit box while doing it.

           Dead of Alive 5 has a tag mode.  Which can be used in Arcade, Survival, Time Attack, and of course Online.  The tag system is awful.  Most of the time the tag ins are so late, that I often found the character that I needed to tag out had all ready lost all their remaining life by the time the move went through.  The tandem moves, like Tag throw and Tag assault are also a hit and miss affair.  Often, I just hit the buttons and hoped for the best.  This is definitely the weakest part of the game, mechanics wise.  A final bit on the mechanics.  I have found two different infinites on two different characters.  Completely by accident.  They are both wall ground hits.  But they seem to be pretty obvious to anyone using Christie or Mila.  Usually infinites are EXTREMELY hard to find.  But I found them while playing the Story mode.

           The Story mode is a loosely collected group of fights that last an incredibly long time.  Each Story fight has a bonus mission which if the player completes they get a reward.  A title usually, sometimes a new costume for the character performing the move.  The Story mode is SO BAD, that there is an Achievement for not skipping any cutscenes.  The difficulty has a pretty steady slope and normally the player will be fine with it by the time they reach the end.  However, considering how often they use different characters having a default one round fight is kind of a mistake.  Also, having unskippable intros is absolutely ridiculous.  I have NEVER played a fighting game with unskippable intros for each character.

                   The arcade mode is simply a collection of 8 fights and the prize for winning is simply a new costume for your fighter.  There is no boss, even though the final character is skewed a bit more difficult than the others fighters.  The Time Attack mode is the arcade mode where time getting from beginning to end is important.  Survival mode is where you must fight ten fighters back to back with only one round each and no breaks, intros, or much of a health reset(although there is some).  Training mode offers some good options with command training, and the ability to setup lots of situations.  But overall it is no better or worse than most of the other training modes out there.

             Online is the normal offering of Ranked, Player, or Lobby matches.  There wasn’t any lag in the 10-15 online games I played.  But I found that it takes too long to up your rank so many people who were the lowest rank had in fact played many games.  This was not only deceptive for the new player but probably maddening to anyone looking for descent matchmaking.  Considering the paltry offering the online pass seemed all most insulting.  But I suppose that is the way of things these days.  The last Ninja Gaiden had an awful online mode and it too had an online pass.  Perhaps if these modes were WORTH paying for, the pass would no longer be necessary.

            Dead or Alive 5 overall is a descent fighting game; and fun button masher for the casual player.  But for anyone who is taking fighting games seriously this game’s mawkish mechanics and complete lack of mechanical polish will drive anyone serious about fighting games away quickly.  It can be argued that the same mechanics that make the game fun to play for casual players are the very same mechanics that will make the serious player feel unfairly beaten or in an all or nothing situation far too often.

             Perhaps after patching and balancing the game could be worth playing.  But I’m not sure there will be anyone left playing it for such changes to matter or even be worth implementing.  I had some fun with Dead or Alive 5, but fighting games have definitely passed this game by. 7/10.

 

Update: the Infinite I was talking about:

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Just wanted to Thank my Community! You know who you are!

 

        Hey everyone just wanted to thank you for all your views and support.  I know I don’t say nearly enough but we just hit over 55,000 hits since the site opened a couple of years ago.  And while in the grand scheme of things this is a VERY small amount.  I am thrilled that I have been able to touch so many people in this period of time.  So for all of you that have been with me since the beginning and for all of those who have just looked into one post or one series of posts.  THANK YOU.

       Please free to hit me up on Twitter: @timothpecoraro or just write a comment on this post if there is anything you would like to see more of.  I will do my best to do it.  I know text sites are dying and everyone is moving to video.  So thanks for being interested enough to ACTUALLY read my articles and reviews.

          Thanks Again, can’t wait for the next 55,000.  Hopefully it won’t take another 3 years.

Why I Love/Hate Diablo 3

        There are, I’m sure people who have put in many more hours into Diablo 3 than I have.  In fact, due to my complete lack of play since all of the hacks; I’m sure there are probably more people than ever, that have more time invested.  But considering Diablo 3 is the first game that I have put in over 100 hours into I feel like I need to say a few things about it.  Diablo 3 was my most anticipated game of 2012.  And since the beta I was able to play, I was even more excited.  I hadn’t played too much of the previous installments and was waiting for the third to get really engrossed.  I was fine with the all ways on DRM, because as most people tend to gloss over Starcraft 2 has an all ways on DRM.  So I was not really thrown off by Diablo 3 having it.

         Things changed a little the day that Diablo 3 came out.  I was out of work so I stayed up late and spent four hours trying to get connected and finally being able to play a little bit at 4 AM on launch day.  Which was fine.  I played for two hours and then went to bed.  I was in love.  There was nothing more interesting to me than just busting through the campaign the first time.  But I didn’t know which character I wanted to play.  So I started one campaign for each.  Yes, I did what most people said what exactly not to do.  Many of my game journalist friends in fact are now in Inferno with the character they created on day 1.  And haven’t touched any of the other characters at all.  I felt this was a big loss.  Why not beat the game at least once with every character.  I had no problem going through the story five times.  No problem at all.  I was able to share gear and gold throughout my account and made good use of rare drops and legendaries on my all of my characters.  But this WAS in fact, the wrong decision.

        By the time my favorite character, the Wizard got about half way through Nightmare.  The Auction House was a mess.  Anything worthwhile for her or any of my other characters cost around 100,000 gold.  Where it used to only cost around 20-30,000.  This was an insane price jump and one that didn’t jive with the rest the rate of gold my characters were earning.  I’m certainly over-geared at this point.  But I LIKE being over-geared.  And I know that I will hit a hard stop around the end of Hell or so.  Also, the real gold Auction House was useless to me s people were only buying Inferno level gear and nothing else.  So, until the prices dropped I decided I would stop playing.  Most of my characters were around level 35-39 so I figured I’d just come back for PVP.  But this was not to be.

       When the cheats, hacks, etc… Began being reported was near the tail end of my overall playtime.  I had gotten a second job, so I didn’t have time to play anything except that which was for work.  So Diablo 3 had taken a backseat.  When I heard about the hacks, I knew that the auction house prices would be even more ridiculous and not to bother even logging in until all this was patched and straightened out.  And for the most part Diablo 3 had completely gone out of my mind.  This game that I really loved, was just a memory and even though I occasionally saw it on my desktop I didn’t have any desire to play it at all.

        Recently, Patch 1.0.4 came out and there were lots of balance changes, new Paragon system, etc…   All of this was just what I needed to log back into Diablo 3(besides another Battle.net hack that required me to change my password).  I played for about 2 hours last night with my Wizard and was just about to snag another new level when I decided to stop and watch some Fringe on DVD instead.  Yes, Diablo 3 has been relegated to a tier below old television.    I’m afraid this means that I will probably never see Inferno difficulty and my copy of Darksiders 2 is still calling to me as I write this.  My September will be a balancing act between Guild Wars 2 and Borderlands 2.  Do I ACTUALLY think I’m going to have time to play Diablo 3? No… I won’t…

        Blizzard had their shot.  It came out 2 days after my Birthday when I was out of work and I played it for a solid month all most every single night for at least 5-7 hours.  But that was it.  Sorry guys…  A linear story, a terribly balanced economy, and a difficulty system that should have been rebalanced the moment it was considered.  But with all this I have to say that Diablo 3 is in my Top 10 games of the year for 2012 for sure.  Why?  Because with the exception of what I just mentioned it was a good enough game, with good enough systems for me to play longer than any other game I’ve ever played in life with the exception of World of Warcraft.  Which doesn’t count.  So if there was so much wrong with Diablo 3 why did I play for so long when other games of “supposed” superior quality have fallen by the wayside and even if I ever pick them up again I would never invest that kind of time in them; even if I could.  I usually have a hard time beating games and I’ve beaten Diablo 3, SIX TIMES.  Believe it or not, I put this to the incredible amount of polish that this game has.  The character models, the environments, the leveling system, and the bosses.  There is no where in Diablo 3 in the Normal or Nightmare difficulty where the player can get stuck.  Yes, there was never a point where I didn’t know what to do or got worried about getting lost.  These things seem like no big deal.  But they ARE the reason this game does design better than anyone out there.  Yes, the game is relatively simplistic.  But the point is that it isn’t TOO SIMPLISTIC.  It’s just simple enough to draw people in and keep them there.  Other games all ways have SOMETHING wrong with them.  Something that a person who isn’t “dedicated” to finishing the game will make them just drop the game and go do something else never to pick it up again.

       Some of my favorite games of all time do this.  Assassins Creed Franchise, Shadows of the Damned, Lollipop Chainsaw, Bayonetta, Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Elder Scrolls Skyrim, etc… Except of course, for my favorite games of all time Journey and Bastion.  They too know how design works.  But they are both very short experiences compared to Diablo 3.  I’m talking about two games that take less than 10 hours to beat and comparing them to a game that to finish completely would probably take over 200 hours.  This is an accomplishment that I think has been made too little of; by the press, by the designers, and even by players.  Everyone takes Diablo 2 as the comparison for Diablo 3.  But that is not a fair comparison, it is wrapped up in nostalgia and a familiarity that requires Diablo 3 to be a REVOLUTION rather than an EVOLUTION.  Games have changed SO MUCH in the past 10 years.  Hell, games have changed a lot in the past 5 years.  Diablo 3 is an incredible achievement.  And while many people look at it as more of the same.  I think most people who play Diablo 2 and then play Diablo 3 will find there is a significant difference between the two and in more than graphical quality.  Also, Diablo 2 has had over 10 years to get patched and changed.  I can only dream what Diablo 3 will look like in ten years.  All I know is that it won’t look anything like it does now.