Saturday, July 30, 2016

GIT GUD Maximilian Dood’s Awesome New Show! First Two Episodes!

 

We Happy Few: Alpha, Means it’s NOT DONE!

 

           Let me say right from the start that I have nothing to do with the development or marketing of We happy Few.  I have no contact with any entities associated with making or publishing this game.  But this is really getting out of hand.

        This week Microsoft’s new early access program started(May God have Mercy on their souls).  In that we got a few games that are in EARLY ACCESS(this means they are not done).  One of these is We Happy Few which is still in early ALPHA.  Which means in this case that over 50% of the game is not finished or in the build that was sent out for people to play on XBOX LIVE and Steam.

        Most game journalists, I would imagine, would be familiar with this concept as they do get preview builds of games and are shown such builds at trade shows(behind closed doors, no less).  But this week we had a glut of journalists decide that We Happy Few was not only not worth their time but was misleading it’s audience.  Really?  Because they aren’t showing a part of the game that they admit isn’t even included in the preview build?  Because their are problems with a game that probably won’t be launched for another year?  Really?  I would say that the only “problem” I have with the way that We Happy Few was handled was the fact that they want to charge for access to the early access part of the game.  You get to play a preview portion on XBOX but you must pay for any access on Steam.  But this is normal for Steam and apparently this is what Microsoft is trying to do on XBOX ONE.   So I can’t really criticize.

        Most of the press haven’t played more than a few minutes of this game, not read anything more about it than the initial press release and written it off as some kind of failure.  This certainly doesn’t bode well for anyone else making a high profile Early Access title.  If I were a developer I would NEVER let my game be seen this early by press or public just because neither one seems to be able to handle it.

        What I think is most ridiculous is only one person in the press, Jim Sterling(who is VERY ACQUINTED with Early Access games) was able to actually explain everything that was going on and that he was glad that they had so much time to fix the game before it actually came out.  I will post his video below.  He is a contributor to the game both monetarily and he does some voice acting for it.  Which I’m sure will keep his opinion from being taken seriously by most people.  Which it should!  He is certainly better informed and has a much better video than any other outlet.

        It never ceases to amaze me what levels of laziness and unprofessionalism that can be reached by the current crop of video game coverage outlets.  These people literally have hundreds of thousands of people standing in line for their jobs and they treat said jobs as if they were doing an independent study class for high school.  Show up, do the least required of you and get out as early as possible.  Thanks…  I really appreciate all your hard work…

    Oh yeah, Thank God for Jim Sterling….

Friday, July 29, 2016

The Valley Story Teaser(PS4/PC)

      Saw this one back at E3.  Looked really good on PC.  Wasn’t aware it was coming to PS4.  Probably will have better graphics etc… On PC, but the trailer just gives you an idea of what it’s about.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Fighting Games: Why they are never going to be as big as other genres of video games

 

         The video above is what Maximilian Dood, who is a huge fighting game personality and pretty damn good at fighting games says about learning fighting games.  He is definitely speaking from a place of love for the genre and believe me I’ve been following him for years.  He LOVES fighting games.  But his answer to the question is the exact reason why most gamers will never really get into fighting games and casual gamers might try to get into a certain game; but they will quickly lose interest when they start consistently losing.

       Most people think that this is just like Dark Souls or even something like Project Cars.  But it isn’t, sadly…  Because in a fighting game everyone is getting better, not just you.  Also, there is no story to follow and there isn’t clear path to getting better in fighting games.

       In a fighting game, you are probably beginning at a disadvantage because there is a portion of the community that are getting the game early or even better are actually consulting on the game.  This is similar for every competitive genre except that those people make videos that if you don’t watch; you are at a disadvantage over all those people who did.  There are people who spend hours pounding on betas or demos to get better.  Most in the FGC(Fight Game Community) that would say the first week of a new fighting game is really the time to get in.  If you haven’t gotten in then, you are at such a disadvantage that you will probably be overwhelmed when you do actually go online.

      On the other hand, the Overwatch closed alpha and beta were on for over a year before I was able to play the game. I am still having fun and I’m mildly competitive today; I have played the Overwatch virtually every day since it came out.  But that is more or less the same for any competitive online game with a descent sized community.  But it was pretty easy game to pick up after watching very few videos online, even after week one.

     One could do the same thing with a fighting game however, and not be in that position(I did with Mortal Kombat X, Street Fighter V, and Injustice).  Why is this?  Lots of reasons, but that isn’t exactly the thrust of this article.  This is more an article about expectations…

      After the ESPN showing of EVO 2016.  People are already saying, “Oh we have arrived.  Fighting games are going to blow up now!”

      Sorry folks, no they aren’t…  Watching the best players in the world duke it out in beautiful full color, will not translate into millions of new fans.  This genre is so impenetrable, especially Street Fighter V; that all that it will take is someone to actually try the game for themselves and they will never want to play the game again.  Street Fighter V has one of the weakest single player modes in history and the survival mode is SO poorly designed that even seasoned members of the FGC have a running distaste for it.

      I would say that, again if you want to get into a fighting game, you would be better off getting in when the new installment launches, but you will never be in the same position you will be in when starting a new shooter or MOBA.  Why?

       To begin with, most fighting games pull elements from past installments and people who have played those past installments are going to be naturally better than those who have not.  And believe it or not, there really aren’t as many new people coming into a typical fighting game as the typical FPS.  For instance, I’m not exactly great at Call of Duty but for the first 3 months and for the first 40-60 XP levels I am pretty damn competitive and that is because we are talking about tens of MILLIONS of people.  This is because the game itself is simpler than the typical fighting game.  Point at the bad guys and shoot them by pulling the trigger on your game pad.  And that’s the essence…

     I would never say that Call of Duty, Halo, DOTA 2, League of Legends, etc…  Are not difficult at high levels.  But what I am saying is that on a casual, learning level, people can more easily pick them up and understand them.  Even if we set aside execution concerns, most of the popular esports games are much easier to get into than the typical fighting game.

     I love fighting games, but I will never be as competitive in them as games like Heroes of the Storm or Overwatch.  This is because I don’t have unlimited time and patience.  I also, don’t have someone to play with in offline games to get much better.  This is another reason why fighting games are so hard for the average casual person to get into.  Because you have to have someone just a little better than you to play with on a regular basis.  Because unlike most of the super popular games out there.  Fighting games require not only practice of things like execution but match ups and learning patterns of other people’s play in order to understand your opponents.  You will also probably need a really good monitor with low refresh rate and most people will probably need a fight stick which will probably cost you around $200(the fightstick, the monitor will be another $150 or so).

     Even after watching hundreds of hours of video of the best players in the world; this will probably not help you very much when it comes to fighting people on your level.  Because, they won’t be playing that way.  They will be playing a crazy random strategy that you won’t be able to figure out either.

     So you crazy FGC people, I love you.  But let’s get real here.  It’s going to take a lot more than ESPN to help us fix all our problems.  Perhaps, Capcom could help with that.  Maybe… 

    I would love to hear what you think about this.  Please send me some feedback on twitter @timothypecoraro or send me an email at hadestimes@gmail.com 

Playstation Plus Free Games for August(PS4)

Monday, July 25, 2016

Games with Gold for August Announced!

 

       I sometimes wonder if Microsoft puts games on Games with Gold based on their sales.  Because I don’t think Spelunky or Beyond Good and Evil HD have sold AT ALL in probably at least two years.  The XBOX ONE games, well, if you like Dynasty Warriors…  Or wrestling and you don’t have either one of those games, GREAT!  Otherwise, they are probably worth what we are paying for them; Nothing…

    But good on MIcrosoft for not spamming us with more indie games from three years ago on XBOX ONE and calling them the main games for the month.  Now we just have to get through the bargain bin and we will be golden…

Monday, July 18, 2016

Some Overwatch Play (Kind of Old now)

       Hope to put this sort of thing up every once in a while.  I’m Devilsalias btw, I didn’t mention that in the video.

Street Fighter V’s Juri will be Releasing by the End of July!

 

 

    According to Capcom’s own Yoshinori Ono, Juri will be releasing by the end of July(read July 29th).  But how different will she be from what we’ve already played.  I would expect not too different.  Probably some of her frame data will change and perhaps some of the damage on her moves will be adjusted one way or another.  But overall, I’m thinking we have already seen what we can expect from the final release of her.  I am a big Juri fan and have not really taken to any of the Street Fighter V roster so far.  So I’m really hoping this is my way in.  As I will more likely stick with a character if he/she is someone I really like.  I’ve played ALOT of Juri in Street Fighter IV.  She isn’t radically different but the mindset in playing her is definitely a little different.  At least as far as I could tell from story mode.  Can’t wait to see when she drops in the end of the month.

Official Master Raven Reveal Trailer (Tekken 7)

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Broken Age Review/Let’s Play Thing… Yeah, we need to work on this(Backlog)

The Backlog: Apotheon Review

 

       So, this is Backlog.  It’s a new feature that basically consists of me going through my PS4 library and play games that I either purchased or got for free but never played or never played very much.  I’m going to play the games either all the way through or as in this case, as far as I can stand it.  So here we go…

 

      Apotheon is a pretty good game, if it wasn’t so boring.  The game is set in an alternate Ancient Greece.  Where the Gods have abandoned humanity and have left them to their own devices.  It’s a pretty similar story to God of War without the action and gore.  The game mostly consists of fetch quests.  Other than that the platforming is annoying and the actual fighting is little more than an annoyance.  I basically hated the game.  And I had to do two over one hours sessions to capture game play.  Only to find out my capture device screwed up the first one.  So I put this back through the PS4 to get the footage.  Which is why I didn’t have any voice over for the game.  This is literally my first attempt at doing something like this.  But never fear I’ve worked out my technical problems and we will be all good come the next game.  Promise.  Anyway, if you haven’t bought Apotheon, for PS4 or PC.  Just don’t it’s not worth your time.  It wasn’t even worth the two hours I spent on it.

Wow, Man Thought you Died or Something!!!

 

    So this is going to be a little akward.  It’s been quite a while since I was working on this site and even longer since I’ve done any active work for this site.  So I decided to give you all a bit of a warning.  I”m back.  I have a ton of new plans for this site and it involves Patreon, Youtube, and finally Twitch.  So people this is just the beginning!  Don’t worry this time, it’s for real! Be afraid!!!!