Jaggy's Corner - January 31st, 2020

Welcome back to Jaggy's Corner which is my weekly post about the gaming industry for both its good and bad things. I know that a lot of gamers will agree that 2019 was abysmal at best, with multiple issues like the President of the United States blaming video games for violence, Blizzard banning a couple of people because of anti-Chinese statements made during a tournament broadcast, and the train wreck launch of Anthem. Let's not forget about the giant expose done on Riot Games and sexism in the industry (which went to court. This led to women workers receiving a payout that seemed too low, in my opinion. Recently, new information has come to light about that court case against Riot and I'll address it in another article.)

This week I'd like to talk about something that crossed my purview a couple of days ago. On January 29th, Phoenix Labs was acquired by Garena, a Singapore based company that is known for League of Legends, Arena of Valor, Free Fire, and PUBG Lite. Their specialty is mobile gaming.

The question on everyone's mind is: why did it happen? Especially considering that Dauntless, the free to play Monster Hunter game, is distributed by Epic Games. But, when I looked further into the topic, I discovered that this business deal makes a lot of sense.

Let's first start with Phoenix Labs, the Canadian developers of Dauntless. Based on a public statement made by the CEO, Jesse Houston wanted to bring their game into the hands of every player. Presumably, this is part of the reason they made a deal with Epic Games in the first place. In fact, that isn't speculation, what I just said is a fact. Right from the horses' mouth, Jesse Houston talked to gameindustry.biz at GDC last year about their partnership with Epic.

"I've had this vision for Dauntless since the get-go, of One Dauntless [the game's single account system across all platforms]," he says. "Wherever you are, whoever you want to play with, whatever device you want to play on, you can. This was even before Epic started doing the cross-platform play stuff. So Epic said they were doing cross-platform play and offered to teach us the ropes."

Another point to consider is that in early 2019 Phoenix Labs acquired Bot School Inc. This was done to help Dauntless get into the hands of as many players since they have experience with social networking (near as I can find). So far, Phoenix Labs have stayed true to their vision. As a result of the deals with Bot School Inc. and Epic Games, Dauntless has reached over 15 million players.

The logical next step for Phoenix Labs would be to expand into mobile gaming like other companies before. (Notably, Blizzard and ArenaNet in recent memory.) The mobile market is exactly the area that Phoenix Labs wants to expand into and Garena can provide their expertise. Plus, Garena has worked with Phoenix Labs before this partnership ever took place so, it was a no-brainer.

Garena is a digital entertainment company and one of the largest forces for gaming in Southeast Asia. More importantly, they are one of our longest-running investors – one that we’ve considered a close partner for years. - Source: Jesse Houston

Now, for those of us that have done some digging into Garena, another reason for this partnership might spring into focus. It's not just an investment and marketing deal, it also has to do with Tencent. (I know, I know, but it makes a lot of sense in the long run. Just stick with me here...)

In November of 2018, Tencent entered a partnership with Garena. Part of the reason this was done was most likely because China imposed restrictions on video games because of the rise in myopia. For those unaware, myopia is the medical term for near-sightedness in people under the age of 40. In China, more than half of the population is affected by this condition. Because the numbers have risen so high, the Chinese government had to do something. So, they imposed massive restrictions (like requiring players to enter their age so that the game would begin a time limit) that were high enough to stop many companies from being granted videogame licenses.

Up until that point, Tencent was making huge profits and when the restrictions were imposed sometime in 2018, Tencent for the first time in years was losing out. (There were other reasons for this, but no need to get into that right now.) The only way they could continue to be successful was to distribute their games in other countries without these restrictions. Thus, Garena and Tencent entered a partnership in November of 2018 like I previously mentioned.

Now, China has since lifted some of its restrictions on game licenses, so it stands to reason that Tencent is will be fine. But, what I can say is that Garena will be able to put Dauntless in the hands of a larger customer base because of its proven track record.

Remember the statement above where Jesse Houston said that he wanted to bring the game to everyone? Well, this is exactly how his goal will be achieved.

I remain optimistic that Garena and Phoenix Labs will continue to bring the free to play monster hunter game the best player experience. Though players might discover more free to play business models, like the relatively recent addition of a season pass and microtransactions. So long as the developers keep away from highly predatory practices like loot boxes, then I am not worried about the current future of Dauntless.

I'm sure many people aren't going to be happy with the news with Phoenix Labs and Garena, but hopefully, this article has put things into perspective.

As a slight sidestep, if I could offer up another piece of information that might help to ease the minds of what sort of company Tencent is, they have donated $432 million USD to the Hubei and Wuhan provinces to aid in the current chaos surrounding the coronavirus. But ultimately, you guys decide for yourselves how you feel about the acquisition of Phoenix Labs by Garena.

Article by: Susan N.

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Warsong - Retro Reflections

Warsong by developer Career Soft and publisher Treco—SEGA Genesis retro reflection written by Nick with a purchased copy.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

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This is an update to the original article Warsong - Sega Genesis: Possibly the best strategy game you never played - Retro Reflections posted on May 25th, 2012.

Back when I first discussed this title with our readers nearly eight years ago, I was prompted due to some other articles I had posted around the time focusing on the SEGA Genesis console. However, Warsong (known as Langrisser overseas originally) is gaining some modern relevance due to the upcoming release of Langrisser I & II coming in March this year.

Warsong has long stood as one of my all-time favorite Genesis titles, though in fairness I haven't played it in several years now, and there is a good chance the average gamer has never even heard of it, let alone played it.

I am not sure what inspired me to pick it up at the time. I had heard nothing about this game in any of the magazines I read, none of my friends had played it, but something about it caught my eye when I was mulling what game to purchase next.

But something about the back of that box must have sparked my interest, because I took the game home, put it in and and began to play. To define what Warsong is, I would say it was a fantasy strategy/RPG hybrid – maybe the first I had ever played quite like it.

I immediately loved the game’s art style. The graphics had a colorful, anime feel to them when showing character portraits. The actual battles that took place were actually pretty active as soldiers kill each other off. The backdrops and map designs were actually pretty well detailed also.

The sound and music get the job done. There was nothing terribly memorable about it, but this was a game that was more about the tactics. It would have been nice to have a bit more variety in the music, but I don’t recall it ever particularly bothering me either.

So how did the game play? Well, there were two aspects to it. There are the leader characters, and they are the most important. Hints of Fire Emblem here, as when a leader dies, he or she is gone for good. I recall saving often to prevent that from happening. Shades of Dragonforce follow, as each of these main characters had soldier units they could control. Each character has a range or aura of influence and if their soldier units fight within that range, they got bonuses to their stats. Each leader can hire different kinds of soldiers at the start of each level, and there is a sort of rock/paper/scissors mechanic to which soldier units perform best against one another.

There are other factors as well, such as terrain and if your leader characters have any gear equipped (at the start of each level, a scenario is given to you and you have a chance to spend your hard earned gold on different kinds and quantities of soldiers, and that is also when you can choose to put a piece of equipment on a leader character). I recall getting so good at the game that I could go through the first couple of levels or so without buying any soldier units, to conserve money for when I would need it more in subsequent levels.

When a leader character dies (the enemy units are made up of these as well), their support soldiers will perish as well. Some levels also have assorted neutral characters who will go after anyone who gets to o close. Some missions are designed for certain types of soldiers as well – for example one of your heroes can hire mermen and they are almost essential for water combat – but useless in levels without water to cross.

The game is made up of twenty levels, which may not sound like much, but each stage can take quite some time to get through. The menu and controls are very simple to navigate and while it is easy to learn – there is are so many different tactics and unit strategies to apply that there is perfectly valid reason to come back and play again once you beat the game.

The story itself is nothing new – good guys are put on the run for attacking bad guys. Good guys regroup after getting smacked around a bit in the first level, and rally a force to defeat not only the known bad guys, but the evil controlling them behind the scenes. It is all really well presented though, with story pieces between levels and dialog scenes from characters on maps. While you have no options to change the storyline itself, it was actually one that I found fairly interesting.

The RPG elements come in the form of gold, equipment, experience and levels. In fact, this game was the inspiration to a leveling system I implimented on my MUD over a decade ago that I called a Tier system. Your characters start off a specific class, level up to a point, and then choose one of two. Level up some more, and you can again choose one more new class from a new set of branching options. Some characters were so similar that their later tiers became the same thing, like Magic Knight, but there were unique ones too. For example your lead character Garrett can become a King class, and no one else can. Each tier brings new skills and powerful stat boosts and adds a good deal of replay value to the mix.

And replay I did – I can recall beating this game at least three times – maybe more. And it was a hit among my friends who initially asked: Warsong? What’s that?

But these were the same friends I had gotten hooked on strategy games on the NES years before too (Nobunaga’s Ambition, Bandit Kings of Ancient China and Romance of the Three Kingdoms to name a few) – so they gave it a shot and not a single one disliked it. Most of them borrowed it long enough to beat the game once if not twice (and one other friend borrowed my copy for a day and a half. I was a bit surprised when he handed it back to me and said I could have it back. I asked if he had not liked it – turned out he simply went out and bought his own copy afterward).

To this day, this ranks as one of my favorite all-time video games, and influenced my opinion on what a strategy game could be. It also had clear effects on my own game design years later for my MUD, Kingdoms of the Lost. I played it again recently and feel that it holds up pretty well today still. If I bring it up in conversation with most gamers though, none seem to have ever heard of, let alone played this under-appreciated classic.

The strategy/RPG hybrid genre has seen a nice uptick over the last several years, since I first reflected on Warsong here at Chalgyr's Game Room, led largely by the Fire Emblem series, but numerous other titles like Fell Seal, Banner Saga and Disgaea have had popular runs as well. In particular, Fire Emblem: Three Houses in 2019 received rave reviews, and was even my pick for 2019 Game of the Year.

This is a genre that has always just stuck with me, and I'm excited to see how the updated take on Langrisser 1 pans out, and I never did get to experience the sequel. I was aware of its existence, but it never came over to North America, so this is a chance to see where the story had gone. I am looking forward to doing a modern review of this retro title once it does release in March.

Score: N/A

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Orangeblood - PC Review

Orangeblood by developer Grayfax Software and publisher PLAYISM—PC (Steam) review written by Richard with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

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Orangeblood is an interesting new take on an old concept. Taking some classic RPG elements and mixing them up with some fresh new ideas to create what is more or less a weird mash-up of borderlands, final fantasy, and yakuza.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, let me just say that Orangeblood takes a LOT of risks. Whether it’s in the story, the gameplay, or the weapon system, there is a lot to find in Orangeblood that you won’t particularly see very often, if at all. So what is Orangeblood all about? Well, essentially a new island has been created off the coast of Okinawa called “New Koza”. This island has become a hotbed of crime and villainy, much like that island in Black Lagoon that I keep forgetting the name of. Either way, New Koza is contested by the Russian, Chinese, and Japanese mafias, as well as the “irregulars” group.

Your job is to help Vanilla, a peppy and trigger happy young(?) girl, who has recently been released from government captivity to perform a job for them. This job entails exploring the depths of New Koza, which is done with the ragtag group that Vanilla puts together. Fair warning, Orangeblood does deal with a lot of “mature” themes, such as violence, drugs, prostitution, and robots with chainsaws. There’s a lot of language and even more asshole cars, so maybe not the best choice for the faint of heart. Or your grandma.

Gameplay in Orangeblood is fluid at best and…frustrating at worst, I suppose. For the bulk of the game you will be getting in and out of combat, generally by either running into or shooting these little ghost icons on the map. Once in battle things take a traditional RPG battle system, where speedier characters go first on a turn line, which gets reset after all units have finished their actions. As a game, Orangeblood seems to pride itself on its gun-based combat. Essentially, your main weapons are different guns that any party member can equip, but consist of different types.

For instance, assault rifles are generally single target, low damage, multi-hit weapons, where shotguns are one shot that attacks all enemies. Of course this will vary depending on weapon and attached skills, but the basis is fairly standard. Guns have ammo, and so do you. Reloading when your clip is running low is heavily suggested, as a forced reload by attacking while not having enough bullets will give you a detriment while you’re waiting for your turn to come around again.

You also have various skills at you disposal, which can be learned through acquiring certain items that aren’t wholly uncommon. Skills are part of two categories: instant and action. Instant skills come into effect as soon as you use them, and count as a “free action”, allowing you to perform more moves, whereas action skills will take your turn. For instance, the unique skill for your fourth party member is an instant, whereas Vanilla’s unique skill is an “action”. Weapons can also have elements or statuses attached to them, such as burning or stunned (via shock).

In addition to plumbing the depths of New Koza, you are free to roam New Koza, performing various tasks for the locals. These are generally “collect X by killing Y” though, but may be repeated for a sizeable chunk of cash. You could use this newfound cash to create a rainyday fund, or you could snag some “hopefully” fancy new gear for your teammates. I say hopefully because gear acquisition in this game is… sort of abysmal. I say this because everything is left to chance, and I’m about as lucky as a slap in the teeth. I’m pretty sure I was using the same gear until I hit level 20 or so, when I finally had to try implementing some strategy instead of attempting to steamroll people with that one decent assault rifle I found in a unique chest back at level 6.

Gear is actually pretty interesting, as each piece tends to have different abilities attached to them. As an example, probably my favourite combo was a shotgun that did bonus damage if the target was frozen coupled with shoes that had the effect of giving you 3 times attack power on an attack skill if you had a full ammo clip, and shoes that “significantly increase damage against frozen targets”. Couple this with guns that did freeze with my other characters and suddenly I’ve got a murder frenzy. This didn’t change for about 20 levels. I’m not sure if I just found some really good equipment or my rolls were bad, but it’s certainly an entertaining concept to try and balance desired skills against raw stats and weapon types you would prefer to use.

As you beat up enemies they may drop key fragments that you may use to unlock chests floating around various areas to try your luck at the equipment raffle. Spoilers, I lost a bunch. Combat somewhat waffles between being interesting and being a chore, as longer fights tend to roll you over, spank you hard, and tell you to call them Daddy. Normal fights tend to end in one well used skill that attacks all enemies for more damage than the game was intending based on my build.

While the in-battle ammo and sp system where you gain sp upon taking actions, are an interesting addition to the standard RPG format, the game is riddled with poorly handled text boxes and transitions. Some textboxes extend over the edge of the screen, or past other textboxes of item names, and some aren’t even translated, or are translated poorly enough you question the function. As an example, your second party member has a skill that reduces party damage by half, or something similar. Well, it doesn’t actually do what it says. It reduces enemy defence by about half, although it took much to long to figure that out. Given some of the slangier terms, I couldn’t tell if the translator was particularly good at only “white girl gangsta” or if they weren’t certain what they were doing, as quality checking seems a little lax.

Let’s talk a bit about the music and art style here. The music is gangster-y, I suppose. Honestly, it isn’t really my preferred style, but what I can tell you is that it’s now stuck in my head, which is really rather impressive. Too often is a game’s soundtrack treated as something that simply exists, an often overlooked resource that I find can really make or break a game. As someone who grew up very musically inclined, getting me to love a soundtrack is actually pretty difficult. I know some people *cough* P.Y. *cough* will replace soundtracks or mute games and watch Netflix in the background or something (bunch of heathens), I find it really difficult to play a game without music, or good music, at the least. So the fact that I’ve been humming different parts of the Orangeblood tracklist for the past two hours *despite* the music genre they choose not being my favourite really just goes to show they did a wonderful job of it.

The art style as well is a bit of a pixelated throwback to the past. If the past had shotguns, assault rifles, and anime stylized characters that have varying degrees of non-standard hair colours. A couple of tips from this idiot here, first up fullscreen mode can be engaged by actually clicking on that “enlarge” box that I haven’t had to use in the past 5 years and may have forgotten about, and second is that the CRT mode is super frustrating, and you should spend some time fiddling with the graphic settings when you start up the game.

Overall Orangeblood really pushed the boundaries in some aspects, with an interesting and surprisingly in-depth battle system if you give it the time, some quirky and unique characters all with their own personalities and special moves, some nice retro style pixel graphics, and a catchy soundtrack, but ultimately falls flat in other areas, as combat begins to get repetitive, dialogue starts to go from quirky to “trying too hard”, and the textboxes appear and go away too fast, not to mention some of the poor translation quality and just general issues with how the game handles occasionally. I came away feeling like Orangeblood is a title that should be on a handheld and was a developer’s first attempt at a game.

The gear balancing is rather atrocious but is exploitable enough to get by, and half the combat scenarios towards the end of my playtime felt like I was only surviving by virtue of the enemies missing. Seriously, when you lose half your health per attack and the enemy gets three attacks, you basically just sit there and pray they miss. On the plus side, the battle system is rather unique and the whole game felt like it was really trying something new. Despite the lack of multiple unique skills per character, each felt like it had it’s place and belonged to a certain style expected from that character. It is also really nice to see that the devs are introducing patches and fixes, so hopefully Orangeblood will be a lot more polished in the future.

In conclusion, Orangeblood has given me a real tough time trying to score it. It is frustrating, fun, annoying, endearing, confusing, and entertaining all wrapped into one pixelated rap-tastic package that just sort of falls short of achieveing what I feel it really could. All the groundwork is there to make this a really unique and andearing experience, but a bunch of quality issues really do hold it back. Orangeblood is an unpolished gem, and while it’s still getting shined at the moment, it still has a ways to go to really meet what I would like to expect from it.

Ultimately I would have to call Orangeblood rather lacking as a package deal. There are tons of concepts there that could really rule, but just get pummelled and that ain’t cool. A game with a focus on music and hip-hop, should have some rhymes that just don’t stop. Instead what we get is some sub-par translations, I swear I’ve seen better in MTL stations. While combat and gameplay provides something unique, it just isn’t quite enough to get a winning streak. So while Orangeblood is definitely worth trekking, it certainly needs some quality checking. So while a somewhat subpar score I’m contriving, I really do hope these devs keep on striving. Peace out homes.

Score: 6.5 / 10

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - PS4 Review

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim by developer Bethesda Game Studios and publisher Bethesda Softworks—Sony PlayStation 4 review written by S. M. Carrière with a purchased copy.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

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Welcome to Sonia’s Sassy Reviews, reviews of games from the unique perspective of a total newbie gamer whose only just started to indulge a lifelong love of video games, who also happens to be an adult(ish) woman. So, here we go!

Look, I know this game is ancient, by gaming standards, and I have been playing it for almost forever. I've never quite finished the game (or, at least the story. Can you every really finish this game?) until the night before writing this review. Hush. I didn't want to finish, okay? I didn't want it to be over.

Spoilers. Duh.

Character Design:

One of the things I like best about Skyrim is that you get to decide who you play as. You may choose your gender, your race, the details of your face, hell even your weight. Lordy. Half the time of my first gaming session with Skyrim was spent deciding what I looked like, I swear.

For the record, I almost always play as a heavy-set female Bosmer. With tattoos. Obviously.

Similarly, you get to choose your own play style. You may, for example, play as a magic user, destroying your enemies in balls of flame, lightning or... uh... other magics. Can you tell I don't play that character? You could play as a heavily armoured, heavily weaponed tank, who rushes in with a hammer or two-handed sword and obliterates your foes. Or, you could be a feisty, lightly armoured sword and shield specialist. If it suits you better, as it did me, you may instead choose to play a sneaky ranged fighter, specialising in sniping fools with a bow unseen. There are combinations of these, too, if you wish. This flexibility permitting various kinds of play-styles and personal player preferences when it comes to character design is to be commended.

The vast number of races and base facial features helps to lift the character design where it otherwise fails; all the characters are built the same. There isn't a whole lot of difference between the shapes and sizes of characters. Given the sheer volume of characters, however, I'm okay with this.

It's not like the cast is small. Furthermore, the lack of diversity of body sizes is tempered somewhat by all the different facial features of each person, as well as their various actual personality traits. They feel individual when you meet them.

Some of them are genuinely good folks.

Jarl Balgruuf the Greater	Irileth, Balgruuf’s Military Advisor
Kodlak Whitemane, Harbinger of the Companions	Grandmaster Paarthurnax

These are just a few of the characters I found I really liked while in game.

Some of them are, well, they're basically Nazis. Looking at you, Thalmor.

Ondolemar, head of the Thalmor Justiciars	Mercer Frey, leader of the Thieves Guild
Miraak, from the Dragonborn DLC	Alduin, the dragon Nazi, basically.

There are very few folks who are genuinely awful people in Skyrim. These are pretty much them

Story:

As readers of my Sassy Reviews well know, I gravitate towards games that promise me a good story. Games like The Last of Us, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, and 2018's God of War, are some examples of games that I adored, largely thanks to the story.

Skyrim is much the same, though the nature of the story is different. You, the player, find yourself thrown into a world in the middle of civil war, at a time when an ancient enemy shows up to make things hellish for everyone no matter which side of the conflict they fall on.

How and when all these issues are resolved depends entirely on the player.

It's this silver of story in an epic broader narrative that makes Skyrim so much fun. I delighted in running around the countryside, stumbling across various locations. The ruins, in particular delighted me. There was, for example, a ruined cottage that was literally just a door frame standing beside the road.

If you headed up north, you could stumble across a carcass of a mammoth, frozen in the ice, weapons of all manner sticking out of its hide, evidence of a great hunt.

There's a lighthouse in which lie the bodies of a family who had moved in to retire, only to come across a nest of man-eating bugs and their Falmer care-takers.

There is a skeleton that can be found opposite a sabre-tooth carcass, the said carcass being riddled with arrows.

Puzzle stones, randomly.	Rkund, Dwemer ruins
Random burnt down farmhouse	This mystery is hilariously called Pincushion Peter. Heh.

These crumbling locations, as well as dialogue references to past and current events, individual perspectives on these events, random encounters that show the aftermath of someone else's life or death situations and so on created a world that felt ancient and lived-in and entirely, utterly immersive. I wasn't playing a game, when I visited Skyrim of an evening. I was on holiday in another world... and then got myself involved with their troubles.

This is precisely how and open world single-player game ought to be done.

The story of Skyrim was vast, and we, the player, are just a little person in this epic narrative, doing what we can in the world in which we find ourselves. Yes, please.

Happily, also, there are very few true villains in the world of Skyrim.

Alduin, the world-eater, would be the main villain of the piece, him devouring souls in Sovngarde and wanting the end the world and all. Jerk. I would also contend that the Thalmor are also major villains, their whole superiority schtick making them basically Nazis. Jerks.

Every other person could be a villain or a hero depending on your perspective.

Ulfric Stormcloak is either a rebel hero or a selfish, power-hungry tool, depending on your perspective.

Honestly, I found I sympathised a great deal with Ulfric's cause. I'm all for the open worship of whatever or whomever as a deity so long as it hurts no one. The Thalmor and their superiority complexes didn't like that a human and not a mer is included in the divines and so outlawed Talos worship.

That said, the Stormcloaks were nearly as bad as the Thalmor when it came to the treatment of other races, and I wholly disagreed that shouting the High King to death was the way to resolve the issue.

I also believe that the war for independence was incredibly short-sighted. The afore-mentioned Talos was the first emperor. And also, if there was to be any hope to defeating the Nazis – I mean, the Thalmor – you'd need the strength of a unified empire.

Similarly, General Tullius can be a symbol of oppression, a tool of the Thalmor persecutors.

A native of Cyrodiil, the general has no real grasp of Nord traditions and is tasked with carrying out the terms of the White Gold Concordat, which is a betrayal of the Nords by the emperor. Depending on your perspective, General Tullius (who I do not doubt was modelled quite deliberately after Julian Caesar) could very well be the villain of the story.

Other opposing forces that might be the heroes or the villains depending on where you sit may be Delphine, leader of the Black Blades, and Paarthurnax, a dragon who seems to have his eyes on Alduin's position as king of the dragons. Leader of the dragons? Ruler? Whatever Alduin is to the dragons.

Both Delphine and Paarthurnax, however, are good folk, making the choice between them something to really mull over. For the record, Paarthurnax lives in my play-through. Sorry Delphine, but I'm not going to kill him. He's a friend.

All of these oppositions, existing within characters who are still fundamentally good folk, depending on where you stand creates a wonderful experience, and a world that is so immersive, it sucked me right into the story.

Also, I got to kill dragons and steal their souls, so...

Women:

I love how this game treated women. Not only is there an option for the most powerful person in Skyrim (hell, the continent, really) to be a woman (that's you... the dragonborn), but women were everywhere in this world, and they weren't a monolith.

There were female jarls, female companions, some of whom were absolute units, female travellers, shop owners, soldiers, rebels, friends, foes, wilting flowers, feisty leaders... The variety of roles afforded to women in game was refreshing and fun.

Nor was it forced. It just simply was. This world felt genuinely equal and it was fantastic.

Uthgerd the Unbroken, my companion for the majority of the game. She broke my heart when she retired to be the steward of one of my manors. I loved adventuring with her.

Not directly related to women, but I also appreciated how the game handled sexuality. You can marry folks the same gender in game if you wish. I did not. I played a female bosmer, and I married this dude:

Argis the Bulwark. Yeah, he's a hottie. Incidentally, Argis is canonically bisexual. He's a marriage option if you're playing a male character, too. I am here for it.

Game Play:

The game play was ridiculously easy to pick up, becoming second nature quite quickly; accessing and arranging your inventory, switching between weapons and spells, and so forth made perfect sense.

Also, you get your choice in how you play. I played a sneaky ranger-type, choosing as my companion tanks who would run into battle and take all the damage, keeping enemy eyes off me. First, this was Ungerd the Unbroken. When she retired, I went adventuring with Argis the Bulwark, who later became my game husband.

I really liked that the game could adapt so easily to people's preferred game styles, with a whole lot of options for mixing and matching. For example, I did not do magical things much, except for healing stuff. I maxed out my sneak, my archery and also put a number of points in lock picking, because it comes in handy. Any points in light armour were accidental. You get those by being hit a lot.

Playing wasn't stressful or confusing, even if I found combat with a sword and shield awkward and silly (slash, slash, spasmodic running). I absolutely loved delving in to ruins - the ancient Nord ones, and the Dwemer ruins. I loved killing dragons and stealing their souls. I loved making decisions that challenged my sense of morality.

There were a few odd bugs, like floating objects, and a horse that randomly followed me wherever I fast-travelled to (until bandits killed it. The bastards), to companions that forgot how to human and had trouble with stairs sometimes. Still, these bugs were more amusing than troublesome, and I look upon them fondly, like you would a playful horse mucking around in the field. They didn't affect game play enough for me to consider them problematic. Mostly, they were funny.

Skyrim was the game that got me into gaming. I bought my first console because I saw other people playing it, and I wanted in. It was my entrance drug. It is so incredibly immersive, swallowing well over 400 hours of my time in a world I could not get enough of. I cannot understate how much I love this game. I have two versions already (one for my Xbox and one for my PS4), and I'm saving up for a PS4 VR set so I can have an even more immersive experience. I cannot give it a perfect score, because of the many bugs, but it is by far the closest to it I've yet played.

Score: 9 / 10

Note: Most of the images in this review are from UESPWiki, The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages.

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Frostpunk – The Last Autumn - PC Review

Frostpunk – The Last Autumn by developer and publisher 11 bit studios—PC (Steam) review written by Robert with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

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I first covered Frostpunk in May of 2018 and was instantly hooked on the frozen society survival title. Developed by 11 Bit Studios, Frostpunk put you in charge of managing a post-Ice Age settlement that focused on managing citizen needs against the harrowing effects of a constant super winter. Though brutally difficult, gorgeous if bland on the color palette side, Frostpunk was a strong contender for my Game of the Year choice.

With the console release in October 2019, Nick gave the challenging city-builder a go and likened the thematic atmosphere of Frostpunk to Naughty Dog's beloved Last of Us; regardless of the genre of game, that is extremely high praise. Now 11 Bit Studios has released The Last Autumn, a self-proclaimed "turning point in the Frostpunk universe" that stands as the prequel to the core game. Gone are the frozen wastes of Frostpunk in favor of the lush and gorgeous colors of mid/late autumn. In the retelling of the events at Site 113, 11 Bit Studios has truly cemented themselves as unique developers capable of attaching a gripping story with challenging gameplay in the societal survival city-building franchise juggernaut that Frostpunk has come to be.

One of my, albeit petty, problems with the Frostpunk core game was the stale color palette; now I know (as many here do) that I am fairly horrifically colorblind, but the palette has always been high in contrast and stale throughout the entire base game. The Last Autumn changes that, ushering the ambience of autumn in a way that I never knew possible. While still teeming with life, the slow decay that is associated with autumn is damn-near palpable in The Last Autumn. Tie to it the expansion of the fantastic lore in Frostpunk and it is a recipe for excellence. Better yet, 11 Bit Studios continues to not pull its punches as The Last Autumn is difficult, difficult enough that I (shamefully) cut it back to Easy in an attempt to move through the scenario.

Gone is the micromanaging of your heat, however the time management needs in The Last Autumn are far more crucial as you work to develop your settlement around the special reactor that you're trying to build before the super winter appears. Managing time versus the needs of your settlement versus the need to progress through the varying research stages help keep things tense (and at times humorous) while removing some of the more challenging aspects of the core game. Die hard Frostpunk fans might not feel as challenged as new players, and while I don't consider myself "die hard" it's still a fantastic addition to the overall Frostpunk experience.

One of the primary concerns I have with The Last Autumn though is that it seems to struggle a bit with regard to performance in the later stages of your city's development. Running Frostpunk on an Intel Core i7-7700k with an nVidia GeForce GTX 970 and 16GB of RAM say some significant chug near the tail end of the scenario when all settings were maxed-out at 1080p. It is something to note, though, that running Frostpunk - The Last Autumn on either a Ryzen 7 2700x with a nVidia RTX 2080 8GB with 32GB of RAM or a Ryzen 7 3700x, 16GB of RAM, and a nVidia RTX 2080 Super (both at 1440p) saw no slowdown, so if you want to see Frostpunk - The Last Autumn in all of its glory then you'll need to be running some hefty hardware.

All in all The Last Autumn is a fantastic addition, both in lore and in gameplay, to the Frostpunk base game; capable enough for newer players to jump in and get a solid feel for it while having more than enough content for seasoned players, The Last Autumn is worth every penny. While I would like to see better optimization in the long haul, The Last Autumn is still an engaging and gorgeous experience. Managing the new mechanics in lieu of managing your settlement's temperatures is smartly done, the new buildings are gorgeous and help with the overall narrative, and as its base game before it, provides players with a weird sensation of both relaxation and tension. The Last Autumn smartly expands the lore of Frostpunk and is a must-play expansion.

 

Score: 9 / 10

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BATTLETECH - Heavy Metal - Second Look

Battletech - Heavy Metal by developer Harebrained Schemes and publisher Paradox Interactive—PC (Steam) preview written by Susan N. with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Introduction

Paradox released two mammoth games right around my birthday, which made for a fun and busy time in the end of 2019. The first was Age of Wonders: Planetfall – Revelations (which was already reviewed here) and the second was BattleTech: Heavy Metal, which I am covering today. It is the last DLC for this title and I’m among many that were stoked about it.

At its core, BattleTech: Heavy Metal is a DLC designed for the main fanbase and most likely will not attract many new players. I assume this because of what Heavy Metal adds to the game like the new mechs and a few new mission types, but these cater to current players. If your expectation was to get massive content (like in Flashpoint) or something else other than some quality of life changes, this might not be for you. That said, being that I am one of those core BattleTech fans, the additions they made actually excited me. Keep reading to find out why!

Gameplay

So first thing is first, Heavy Metal is the final DLC. Players have to think about what they expect from a DLC before deciding if it is worth their time and money. At its core, Heavy Metal offers a couple of quality of life tweaks, a few new mechs, a couple of new maps, official mod support, and some new weapons. It also offers a mini story mission to explain the existence of the developers custom mech. Is it worth the price point? I think it’s within my expectations for DLC content but it’s hard to rate whether the price point is right. But then, I’m not a developer, so what do I know? Anyways, let’s break Heavy Metal down. 

From playing through a new career mode, I found that the new mechs add more value to the game. It balances the scales a little bit with the addition of the Assassin mech and Warhammer (more on those later.) While I still suck miserably at using lasers and at keeping all of my lance alive, the fact that the career mode freely gave me an Assassin made my life much easier. And although I still feel that throughout the game, missions still tend to favor heavier mechs to light ones, the Assassin is a medium mech that is quite versatile. We still could do better by reserving the light mechs for certain flashpoint missions which are dependent on high mobility. With that Assassin mech, I was able to not only successfully stop a couple of enemy pirates from escaping with valuable cargo, but could also viably support my other mechs. 

In a few skirmishes, I tested out the new mechs against another lance of equal capabilities. Some of the mechs were more successful than others. As per normal, long range targeting caters to my style of gameplay than close range combat. I say this because the Flea and the Vulcan did not survive very long in the scenarios I put them through, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good mechs. (Incidentally, both of those mechs come equipped with flamers and can definitely do a lot of damage to an enemy lance, so long as they can get close enough to them.) Often, my downfall is close quarters combat.

Let’s go down memory lane for a brief moment. In one case, the Flea was positioned on top of a building because I was using it as my line of sight to the enemy lance. Unfortunately, that was a bad mistake. They didn’t even take out the building underneath it, they just landed an epic shot before I leaped off to get out of dodge. However, the bugger came up behind the Flea and destroyed the little thing. Sorry Flea. I failed you…

I also had a chance to look at some of the new skins for the various mechs. While this isn’t a needed addition to the game, a little customization is never a bad thing, especially since these two or three skins are in the game for free. Those variant looks are not acquired by some ridiculous microtransactions that other games throw in. Couple that with the fact that players can now rotate the mech camera inside the bay is a neat quality of life feature. Players can really see the full mech. Booya!

In my playthrough of BattleTech: Heavy Metal, I felt a lot better about my abilities. (Truly. I mean, I never did say that I was a GOOD player at the game, I just said that I LOVE the game.) You see, in the base game, enemy lances would always manage to crush my units fairly easily, forcing me to constantly restart whole missions just to get passed one. (Yes, yes. I can hear you laughing…) After the additions of Flashpoint, Urban Warfare, and now Heavy Metal with all of the quality of life changes, mech additions, and flashpoint scenarios, I feel less frustrated in individual missions. Yes, they are still challenging in some cases, but with the newest mechs, I’ve found that the game has balanced itself out for me. Maybe I just understand certain things about it more. Who knows?

Anyways, with the 50 new missions added to the game, there’s several more hours to enjoy using the new mechs in them. These missions aren’t readily obvious to players because they will appear under the same name as other missions that already exist in the game. Sure, one could say that players who’ve completed the campaign might have an interesting time discovering these new missions, but it does add to the element of wonder. Perhaps new players might come into the game with a more rounded complement of mechs, missions, and weapons but we’ll see. 

The Mechs 

First up is the Flea. The mech lives up to its name in that it’s a light mech equipped with flamers, machine guns, and small or medium lasers. Now granted, the mech comes equipped with the targeting baffle which is meant to make the light mech much harder to hit. That’s all well and good, but if you are in close range, the mech is not immune to taking damage. My Flea died often, which just solidifies why I don’t run with light mechs…

The Assassin is my favorite new mech in Heavy Metal. As a medium mech, it comes with Intercept System which has trajectory tracking and ignores a couple evasive charges. It’s also quite mobile and packs a mean punch. Because it does a decent amount of damage and it has some good mobility, I repeatedly grabbed this mech in my lance. In fact, I think BattleTech knows me well, because at the beginning of a new career mode, I was given this glorious mech. Call me a happy clam!

The Vulcan has the Close Quarters Combat Suite which allows it to do some real damage from short range. This is actually a mech that came back from the original BattleTech series, meaning that long time fans were overjoyed with its addition. It comes with flamers and medium lasers making it excellent for taking out an enemy lance by overheating them. Just be warned, it can’t take a ton of damage…

Next up is the Phoenix Hawk, a medium sized mech that comes equipped with a Vectored Thrust Kit which make it more agile. This medium mech can jump further than most and also gains a small boost in damage. Personally, I like this mech because it has machine guns. Though, it also comes with lasers which may work well for some players, but I’ve always had a hate/hate relationship with the things. Trust me on this.

Beginning with the first heavy mech in the new complement is The Rifleman with the Rangefinder Suite. This bad boy shoots much further than other long ranged mechs, but more importantly the suite reduces the recoil on long range shots, giving it a chance to hit a mech more easily. Since I have a tendency to play a long ranged lance, this is a perfect addition for me. The Rifleman did not take a lot of damage in different circumstances and hit its mark more frequently than others in my lance. 

The Archer has the missilery suite that boosts the stability of short ranged missiles. Again, being a player that prefers to take on an enemy lance from range, using this mech was rough. It would not live for very long, and with only a medium laser to back that up, well… you can imagine it didn’t go well. This mech does have a variant with LRM 20s, but given that I wanted to balance out my lance a little more, I chose erroneously to use the SRMs instead. Whoops!

Another favorite mech of mine is the Maurader, which sounds as action packed as it is. This fun heavy mech comes with the Lance Command Mod that gives a flat 10% reduction on damage done to your lance. WOW! Not only that, but the Maurader comes equipped with my favorite weapon in the game, the PPC. It also has AC 5s and of course a medium laser (because this game seems to love lasers. You know, oddly I’d rather have a bunch of machine guns than lasers because even if they do little damage, they are more likely to hit something, at least that is the case when I play BattleTech…)

Another spectacular mech is the Warhammer that sports Optimized Capacitors which boost the stock damage on energy based weapons. You know what that means? More PPC damage! It also comes with medium or small lasers or machine guns with its variant. This beauty of a heavy mech has a ton of firepower and had me satisfied as part of my lance. Not only can this baby take the hits, but it can also dish them out too!  

The first of the new assault mechs introduced in Heavy Metal is none other than the Annihilator which comes equipped with Ballistic Siege Compensators. Ballistic weapon damage is increased with this system and it maximizes the mechs stability. Complete with some AC 10s, this mech is nothing to sneeze at, except you know… lasers… (From now on, I’m selling lasers. Anyone want them? Or, some one give me the coin to pay off the RNJesus gods…)

Finally, the crowning mech that was specially designed for BattleTech by the developers is The Bull Shark, and what a doozy it is. This mech was created to be a mammoth piece of machinery. It has excellent use in long range combat and comes equipped with the Thumper Cannon.  This cannon does a metric fuck ton of damage on light mechs and vehicles that can easily tip the scales in missions.  However, keep in mind that this weapon has extremely limited rounds, so make the epic shots count!

Heavy Metal DLC Contents – Shortform

• New Mechs and New Weapons (expanded below)
• Free additions:
  • 50 New contracts
  • Official Mod support
  • New Store drop down filter
  • Mech rotation in the bay
  • New skins/paint jobs for mechs

New Weapons:

• COIL gun – Contained Overflow Inertia Linkage which is a beam weapon that does more damage the farther a unit moves in a turn
• LB X – Heavy Cluster Cannon that is similar to a shotgun
• Infernos – Napalm missile launcher that takes up an SRM slot. Deals heat damage and a stacking burning damage
• NARC Beacon – A weapon whose shot marks a target upon impact causing increased damage from other missile attacks
• TAG – Target Acquisition Gear that helps ballistic and energy weapons do a small amount of  extra damage
• Snub PPC – Particle Projector Cannon which shoots a small EM effect
• Mortar – Single-use artillery piece that acts like a massive grenade dealing a ton of damage in an AOE. It mounts to the side torso of any Mech
• Thumper Cannon – A weapon that is always mounted to the Bull Shark where a mortar is able to be added to any mech. The AOE is larger than the mortar but the blast radius is still awesome, making it an insane addition

Final Thoughts

I had an excellent time playing with the new mechs and starting a new career mode to get a feel for a new lance. For me Heavy Metal adds enough replayability for a DLC that completes the Season Pass. I’ve tried all of the new mechs and delved into using some of the new weapons. Plus, having the ability to customize the look of your lance with a couple of skins is a nice touch. I’m also a huge fan of the filters that were added in a previous DLC and adding a third map filter helps players track down items they intend to use in their lance. Furthermore, the Bull Shark is ridiculous – in a good way. That mammoth of a mech is nothing to sneeze at!

Summary

Overall, I'm extremely happy with the Heavy Metal DLC contents. There are ten new mechs, a new star map filter, 8 new weapon types, specialized systems for the new mechs, official mod support, and a bunch of new missions hidden in the depths of game play. It may not live up to everyone's expectations, but this is my review! As such, I rate it very similarly to my colleague and give BattleTech: Heavy Metal an 7.5 out of 10. It still remains as one of my favorite strategy games of all time, and I will continue to talk about it.

Score: 7.5 / 10

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Psikyo Shooting Stars - Alpha - Switch Review

Psikyo Shooting Stars - Alpha by developer City Connection and publisher NIS America Inc.—Nintendo Switch review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

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Psikyo Shooting Stars - Alpha is the first of two new packaged Shoot ‘Em Ups (Shump) / Bullet Hells to release on the Nintendo Switch. Combining the action of six titles in which several are sequels to one another, there’s more than enough vertical and horizontal side scrolling action to keep you busy for a while!

Starting with the main interface, you can select each of the six available titles and then dive right in through their main menus. Splitting the six titles up into three groups, you have the 1995-97-99 releases of Strikers 1945 and Dragon Blaze which are your vertical Shumps, you have Sol Divide which is your horizontal Shump and then you have Zero Gunner 2 that while it moves you on a track, you can switch the direction that you are shooting at will. The menu makes it easy to dive straight in and come right back out of any of these titles so with six to choose from, where do you start?

Starting from the obvious Strikers 1945 (1995 Edition), I set out to basically blow up the most amount of flying objects from my path until hitting the first boss. Growing up I used to play these a lot starting all the way back with 1942 on the NES but there’s one thing that even that didn’t prepare me for. Giant. Mechs. Oh yeah, the bosses in Strikers 1945 (95-97-99) aren’t just hulking mammoths of flying military prowess, they are mechs that as you attack them break off into parts requiring a lot more effort than you originally thought necessary. And I thought Jonestown was tough at times…

That’s what made these titles fun though. The stages themselves are short and sweet and then you’ve got an epic leveled boss fight hopefully bringing out your bullet hell skills in order to dodge everything coming at you. With a few lives in reserve and a couple of continues in the bank, how far you make it and how large of a score you accumulate for the leaderboards is up to both luck and skill.

In comparison to the tech based Strikers 1945, Dragon Blaze is a fantasy based affair in which you can choose from four different dragon riders in about the same overall concept. The difference here is that you can detach from your dragon to keep them attacking forward while you zip around and dodge incoming fire. With different ultimate abilities that can be used, each dragon rider plays differently enough that it could take a bit of time to figure out what works best for you before once again going into mega multi partitioned boss fights.

Sol Divide is the only present title that scrolls horizontally and because of this, acts as a whole different ball game to the other five. Set in a fantasy world, you get to pick one of four adventures that is off to save the world from obvious destruction at the hands of some powerful sorcerer. Constantly moving from left to right except for boss fights, you can launch ranged attacks at your enemies, slash or smash them with your melee weapons or truly hit them hard with magical abilities that require Mana from your pool. Keeping in line with the same quick and easy stages before going into the mega boss fights Sol Divide was perhaps my favorite of the bunch with cheesy dialog and just an overall good gameplay system.

Finally, the last on the list of titles is Zero Gunner 2 which is basically like Strikers 1945 but you get to aim wherever you need to in one of the weirdest ways possible. One does not simply turn to aim in this title, instead, you have to hold a button and turn in almost a spinner kind of sense. In all of the available titles, this was perhaps the one that took the longest to get used to because of this method of turning but when you really think about it, even in regards to controllers it comes from an age where there weren’t two thumbsticks available. I know what you’re thinking, those were some dark times. Just think about us growing up where there weren’t any! All hail the arcade joysticks and the d-pad! Just kidding, but honestly, once you get used to it, Zero Gunner 2 is probably the prettiest of the package.

Overall, I would say that Psikyo Shooting Stars - Alpha is just about a must for Shump fans. Six titles, six sets of leaderboards, plenty of options to change up your options such as extra continues and loads of different gameplay options, this first of two packages is worth picking up.

Score: 7.5 / 10

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