Month: December 2015

Happy new WRUP

Last WRUP of the year and I almost forgot. Should tell you something about the state Twinstiq has been in for the last couple of months :)

Makes me that much happier to still see some of you Joystiq guys visiting, writing and hanging out in our team chat (btw: if you are reading this and want to join the chat, let me know).

As I’ve said previously (somewhere), Twinstiq isn’t going away. We may not have provided the home most people wanted, but I’d like to imagine that we eased the transition into a Joystiq-less time for some. For me personally it re-opened a previously closed chapter in my life, at a time where, as it turns out, I really needed it. It led to me dipping my toes back into the muddy sewage that is gaming journalism which resulted in my personal highlight of the year: having my work printed in an actual physical magazine (although that’s still a month away) that I subscribed to 10 years ago and receiving the offer to do more paid work for them.
The dream of having Twinstiq making it “big” might be over, but maybe we can still create a home for people who are interested in gaming and who want to do something creative in that space? A tribute to Joystiq not by imitation, but by helping those who want to enrich our favorite pastime? A first step to maybe a professional career? How does that sound?

 

But what about you? What was your highlight this year? Or lowlight, if you’d like to share.

Oh, and what is everyone playing over the weekend of course?

 

  • Greywolfe (Twitter, YouTube): inca's over!  police quest 3 is over!  okami is not!  the hearthstone tavern brawl is pretty shruggy this week.  i just finished armada [which is an ok book.] - right now, i'm just between things.  lots of stuff is going to start up on sunday [a new sierra game!  other stuff!]
  • Scrooloose: Getting a start on Darksiders 2 Dethinitive Edition, I'd forgotten how cool those games are. I really hope the new owners of the Darksiders series (I believe it's Nordic Games) are able to bring out a 3rd installment. As I understand it, the Deathinitive Edition was a sort of experiment in people's continuing  interest in the series. Might also play some Victor Vran, or Leathal League.
  • Thomas (Twitter): No idea if I’ll actually have time for gaming, but if I do, it’s probably going to be DmC. Really not that bad and I really don’t understand all those “Dante is emo now! BOOOHOOOO” cries it received back when it came out.
  • Yoda0VGs (Twitter): I'm also gonna try to hop into some more Victor Vran, really fun rpg looter. I also got Kerbal Space Program as a Christmas gift and have finally started digging into that, tons of fun but hard --I mean it is Rocket Science ;) -- Aside from that I'll prolly play some more matches of Dirty Bomb, had no exposure to this game until earlier this week and it's what I wanted CS:GO to be at launch. So yeah really surprised by how fun Dirty Bomb is and kinda wanna play it now.
  • Trish: Uhhhhh boobs! Boobs and gaming

 

And before I forget it: Happy new year everybody!

WrupFish

It's like Swordfish.

But not at all.

Hey, folks.  This is Greywolfe here, wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year on behalf of Twinstiq.  Given that it's holiday time, we've all basically gone fishing, but we'll be back.

While we've gone fishing, do feel free to tell us what you're playing!

Read more

Just Cause 3: Blowing stuff up and Admiring the View – A review from Scroo

Well as with everything fun and exciting, there must be an end. Just Cause 3 has been recently finished and it held its share of surprises. This was a fun one guys, read on for my thoughts on this crazy destruction sandbox game.

A quick run down for those who don't already know: Just Cause 3, is an open world action adventure game where you play as Dictator Removal Specialist, Rico Rodriguez. Your goal? To liberate the island Nation of Medici from an oppressive ruler by destroying all the government infrastructure you can see by any means you have at your disposal.big baseSo that's the plot in a nutshell. Though even with the very close similarities between all the games in this series, Just Cause 3 actually has a little deeper story. You'll just have to work a bit to see it told, as the games story missions only cover the necessary elements to get you through to the end. The rest of the finer details are found through collecting scraps of an audio diary told from the perspective of the dictator himself, Sebastiano Di Ravello. We even get to learn some of Rico's own history in this game. Now, this is certainly not story telling on the level of let's say The Witcher series, but for an action arcade, "being a badass" game Just Cause 3 is actually pretty interesting.

Even some of the characters in this title are a little more fleshed out and memorable. We meet Rico's childhood friend Mario Frigo, early on and he's a kind of sleezy, weasel of a guy but he's actually pretty likeable as well. He wants to be at the forefront of the action right along with Rico, but he possesses none of the skills so he tends to be the guy Rico looks after more than the guy he fights along side. But even though he's a bit of hindrance, Mario plays a lasting part in the story and is really a true friend to Rico. I don't want to go in too deep so I don't spoil it for anyone who's interested in the game. It's just nice to have relatable characters in a game where causing havoc with no regard to safety is the main goal. By the way the image below is not of Mario, just a couple more interesting folks.annikanteoSo back on day one of the release I mentioned things like long load screens and lots of cut scenes etc. that slow down the games movement and kind of break up the flow. Well, the good thing is that after the initial training and first couple of missions you're free to go about your business however you see fit. This helps to minimise load screens and it's pretty cool to be able to go anywhere at any time and even just skip the story mode if you choose to. There are only a few large military bases that pretty much have to be liberated by playing the story missions. Freedom of exploration has always been a big deal in this series and it's good that Just Cause 3 has kept that going.viewSomething else I mentioned in my first impression that I should revise here is that the main enemy in the game is the Di Ravello Militia. So the game has you literally fighting DRM. But when you start the game up it logs you in to your Square Enix account and makes you take part in leaderboard nonsense and what have you. One could argue as I did that is in fact drm in itself. However even with all the seemingly mandatory login stuff it's not actually mandatory. Here's why. So you start the game, and before you even get menu options, you're logged in. However if your login fails for some reason or you happen to lose your connection in game, it makes no difference. You're not kicked out to the main menu or removed from play, instead you just can't take part in the leaderboards until the connection is reestablished. So yes, drm in the fact that you have no choice in being connected or not, but not drm in the fact that if you do lose a connection you can still play in offline mode. The worst of it is that the game will pause while it tries to reconnect, this only takes a few moments and also only when you open your map which effectively pauses the game anyway so who cares. For PC at least, you'll even be able to go into offline mode through Steam and still play with the same results, just no leaderboards. So in my opinion this is in fact pretty well handled drm-ish material and has little to no effect on game play.

So, on to the fictional Island of Medici. This is a really pretty place guys. The landscape is beautiful and feels very natural. You'll see these really lovely cliffs and hills, fields dotted with ancient ruins and small charming Mediterranean coastal villages filled with people going about their every day lives. You'll see folks driving on the roads, working fields on tractors, tourists taking selfies and talking on cell phones it all feels very normal and work-a-day until you hear the propaganda being spouted by speakers mounted near buildings and on vans driving around town. You'll see billboards and statues dedicated to the vanity of Di Ravello. Militia will always be near by, armed and ready to strong arm anyone who steps out of line. This is a beautiful place idyllic in it's very nature, but everywhere you look there is a military presence. It really sets the mood, and puts you in the shoes of a guy who can make a difference.Helicopter waterpretty placeGraphically, this is a wonder. Just Cause 3 has a 400 square mile, seamless map. View distances are great, you can literally see for miles. The ocean surrounding Medici is one of the best and most real feeling I've seen in a game. You'll be able to see deep in to the water and watch the waves roll in. The further out you look you'll see white caps and larger swells. The lighting is wonderful and volumetric. Clouds and trees cast rays when the sun is behind them. When it rains everything gets wet and after the storm has passed you're left with puddles in the roads that dry slowly over time. Get in a helicopter and hover it close to the ground and you'll see dust fly and vegitation fluttering under the heavy wind it causes. Likewise with water. The UI is a little noisy, it makes sure to put everything right in your face so you can see it, but it's not too tough to tune out once you get used to it. Particle effects are of course amazing, because you can't give players the option to blow up everything from gas cans to fuel storage tanks to mega sized bucket wheel excavators without having excellent particle effects. The game runs great as well, very optimised. I experienced very few frame drops overall, which is saying a lot for a game with a map this big running at max settings.

My system is a few years old now with a couple of more modern upgrades but I'm running an AMD Phenom 2, 3.3gz 6 core 1100T processor coupled with an AMD XFX R9 280x GPU with 3 gigs on board video ram and 16gigs of 1600 mhz system ram. Also my games drive is a standard 7200 rpm, 2 terabyte HDD, so I don't even have the added access speed from an SSD. For those who can utilize it, this game also supports 4k resolution.excavatorsphere tankA side note here, the devs put in these cool tributes to loved ones. I just feel this is worth mentioning.tributeThere were some initial issues for us AMD users who had these crazy tears in the world due to some updates that came from the new Crimson graphics drivers themselves. I showed a screenshot of that back here. This wasn't Avalanche's fault everyone, leave them alone in that matter and keep in mind that a fix is in the works. For me and many others the latest beta driver updates from AMD fixed the issue. This wasn't case for everyone, but reverting to older drivers should fix that problem as well.

Sounds are also super good. Wind whips through your ears while you're parachuting or wingsuiting. Cars and boats have great engine noises, aircraft are loud and very realistic. You'll have the chance on many occasions to just stand there and listen to jet take off from a runway and I suggest doing it. Weapon noises and explosions sound pretty convincing as well. Overall there's a very visceral feeling to it all.

Gameplay itself is fun, even though there are really only a few things to do to progress in the game. It's a matter of how you go about doing those things that gives Just Cause 3 it's variety. You can choose to assault a base on foot with the good old run and gun up close and personal attitude, which works just fine and is a lot of fun. You can also assault that same base by jumping in a stolen military tank and firing cannon rounds at everything, also very satisfying. You can fly in with a helicopter and fire rockets or missiles, or swoop in on a bomber and crater the place. You can skydive from a cliff overlooking it all and just parachute in guns blazing, throwing grenades and liberate the whole place without ever touching the ground. These and many other ways to accomplish your goals will help remove some of the repetitiveness that can take place when the excitement of having an infinite parachute, a retractable grappling hook and access to pretty much any weapon and vehicle you want wears off.  I mean, honestly would you just walk up to an enemy and shoot them with your pistol to get the job done? Or would you instead take a liking to spearing them with a grappling hook then attaching the other end to a near by gas bottle so you can shoot that then sit back and watch the guy rocket hundreds of feet in the air ending in an explosion that happens to bring down an enemy helicopter that was flying too close? If you chose the first option then you're better off going back to Halo or something.

I never noticed the game to be particularly difficult. Most enemies aren't very tough, and Rico can take a lot of punishment. Even if you are defeated, your progress up to that point is saved so it means very little. I guess I'm saying if you're looking for a challenge, this isn't really going to scratch that itch. But if you want to have fun in a great and many times even humorous setting, this is your jam. infinite parachuteparachuteJust Cause 3 gives players a few more options than just liberating bases and towns. You'll unlock challenges that earn you points toward improving the effectiveness of your gear. There are daredevil jumps when the goal is to grab a car or motorcycle and drive super fast off a big ramp over a thousand foot drop and score points based on how cool you did it. There's also a bomb blast mode where you'll be given a vehicle with a big bomb that will explode if you drive to slow, but if you make it to your goal and bail out before it explodes it will just blow the absolute crap out of the enemy you're targeting. And... you can choose to drive that vehicle in to a military base if you wish and blow that up instead. There are wing suit courses, plane and helicopter courses and boat races. There's this really cool grappling hook trial where you're given a vehicle and what equates to a magnet. You attach the magnet to the vehicle and drive around collecting a mineral to drop in a pit while the military is trying to blast you away. The goal of all these challenges is to unlock things for your gear, I.E. stronger cables for your grappling hook, and different modes for your planted explosives etc. After you beat the game you can even revert towns and bases to their oppressed state so you can liberate them again. Awesome replay-ability.

I'd also Like to give props to the design teams. They actually made some original and really cool vehicles for this game. Plus if you can see it, you can drive it. Just bring it to a garage and Mario will chop it for you allowing the rebels to drop it wherever you may need it. This includes all vehicles: cars, motorcycles, boats, tanks, planes and helicopters. A rebel drop will also give you weapons and ammo if you so choose. To get a rebel drop you'll need to use a beacon that Rico throws on the ground. These beacons are refillable at various places throughout Medici.carracecarcarsSomething I just can't stand about the game though is a thing like, $25 dlc on day one of release. This of course spans more than just the Just Cause 3 game, it's a widespread problem. Xcom 2 will also have day one dlc, in fact it's on sale already and the game's now due out until February. This is just in general a bad way to release games. There's no reason why these skins and color changes shouldn't be unlocked through playing a game we've already purchased. Especially because if developers have the time to create dlc that goes on sale immediately, then they should be able to release a bug-free product (ahem, Bethesda). And what's with the prices guys? At least make the incentive to buy worth it.

Anyway, my play through took me around 60 hours. This is a pretty good play value in my opinion. The story itself is probably only worth about 12 to 15 hours of play time if you just skip the liberations and blow through story mode only. However this is a game about being awesome. Think of Rico as a character from the Expendables movies. Of course you're gonna blow shit up! This is rediculous fun that had me actually laughing and wide eyed through most of it.

Would I recommend Just Cause 3? Yes, I would certainly recommend it. If you're looking for mindless fun or a playable action movie this is your game. As well as the other Just Cause titles. I might suggest waiting for a sale only because if you've played the other games in the series then you've played this one as well. But I definitely liked Just Cause 3 and I'm sure you guys will too.

System requirements for Just Cause 3 are as follows.

MINIMUM:
OS: Vista SP2 / Windows 7.1 SP1 / Windows 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500k, 3.3GHz / AMD Phenom II X6 1075T 3GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (2GB) / AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB)
Storage: 54 GB available space

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Vista SP2 / Windows 7.1 SP1 / Windows 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz / AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (3GB) / AMD R9 290 (4GB)
Storage: 54 GB available space

Here are some more screens from Medici. Just stuff too cool not to share.

archesskull rockcorvettesea cave cloud rays easter egg snowmanview3

 

Non-Stiq: The Force Awak-ictions Possible Plot by Yoda0VGs

Ok, so we’ve seen tons of trailers and the anticipation for Episode 7 of everyone's favorite epic space opera franchise is through the roof. I’ve avoided any spoilers and major plot details that 3rd party publication have either leaked or discussed, and since tomorrow (the 17th) I finally get to become lost in the 4th Star Wars film I’ve seen in theaters (‘91 baby here), I figured I should write out what i think will happen in the film before I see it. While i may not actually have the clairvoyance of the real Yoda, I do want to warn anyone from reading any further if you do not want any possible spoilers if I happen to be right about anything in the film. So, let’s make our attack run on this things plot...

Read more

I Did a Timed Lap Around Medici in Just Cause 3

So I was playing with boats in Just Cause 3 and I decided, just 'cause (see what I did there?), to see just how long it would take to encircle the islands and then bore you guys with some math about the whole experience. So I had the rebel forces drop me a fast boat and I set up my stop watch. The image below shows the path I took.Lap-mapJust Cause 3 has a map size that claims 400 square miles, which translated puts the playable area at around 1036 square kilometers. My trip around Medici didn't include the Volcano in the northwest portion of the map, nor did it include Boom Island to the far southwest, which is covered by the logo in the image above. I chose to circle the islands central to play and I started and ended the trip to the far southeast at one of the bases in Sirocco Sud. Travel was done clockwise around the islands giving the land a fair berth to avoid restricted areas and slow speeds.

I did this with a series of way points and by the time the test was over I had traveled a distance of 85 kilometers or around 52 miles and it took me 48 minutes and 20 seconds at around an average speed of 62 knots, or 115.9 kilometers per hour, or 72 miles per hour.  Calculated that puts the area inside my travel at around 216 square miles or 559 square kilometers. So if it were a real place the island of Medici would be roughly comparable in size to the Isle Of Man between Ireland and the U.K. which weighs in at around 221 square miles, or 572 square kilometers.Isle_of_ManPerspective can be pretty cool. On the one hand 400 square miles is a big ass area and a huge achievement to create in a game world. Props to Avalanche. On the other hand in real life terms there have been wildfires that size here in California in fairly recent history. For instance, the Rim fire burned very close to where I live and covered a little over 400 square miles.

Another thing Just Cause 3 has is probably the best ocean I've seen built in a game. Now facts aside, here are a few screen shots from JC3 boat trip!2015-12-04_00016 2015-12-04_00019 2015-12-04_00023 2015-12-04_00025

[Credit for the image of the Isle Of Man here]

 

Just cause 3: First Explosion… I mean Impression

Rico's back everyone! He's blowing stuff up for justice!

Did you guys ever play Just Cause? Just Cause 2? Well this is those games but with a "3" at the end. Join me now for my first impression of the first couple of hours of Just Cause 3.Rico

So the first thing I noticed when I loaded up for the first time is holy shit these load screens are long. Like, there was a point when I first started the game that I thought it had locked up before the menu options even loaded. So I got up to get some coffee, cos yeah I play games in the morning, and when I got back the screen said "Performing online login"; oh good, login DRM. Aaaanywho, the menu finally loaded and I checked all my options, and set things the way I wanted them. By the way, make sure you guys do this because it won't set a native screen display for you. Other than that the menu auto detects your system specs. Then I loaded my new game and was greeted by some pretty cool cinematic intro stuff. plane wing viewJC3 is of course an action game that is presented as an action movie from the very start. I liked that quite a bit honestly. No boring slow tutorial screen, you're just thrown in to the action with a few "press this button now to learn" type of things and before you know it you're blowing stuff up and laughing your head off.tankThe biggest problem I had, and it was big folks, is that I recently updated my graphics drivers and that caused huge holes in the world. Well you know, the game world, not the actual world. Anyway turns out AMD didn't properly support JC3 in their latest driver suite so that was an issue that needed solving. Luckily the newest beta drivers over at AMD fixed that for me and most everyone with that problem. I happen to run an R9 280x, but not everyone with an AMD video card has this problem. According to various discussions about the subject, AMD is working with the JC3 teams to solve the issue with a full update soon. See the tearing of the world below.graphic bugsgraphic bugs 2Ok, on to interesting stuff. Just Cause has always been about discreetly overthrowing a corrupt government by quietly marauding your way through an island nation secretly destroying everything as loudly as possible. Right so words like quiet and discreet aren't really in Rico's vocabulary but the point is, Just Cause 3 is still just about liberating the downtrodden from an oppressive ruler. And man it's fun! I just wish the game would let you have fun. To paraphrase Demetri Martin, Sometimes when I'm giving and example I don't use the phrase, for example, instead I use something such as, such as for example. So for example, one of the first missions is "get to the rebels" you are given something such as a helicopter to do that and you have about one minute to complete the objective. If you don't get there in one minute, you fail, a long load screen comes up and you start over. Ugh. It seems about every 45 seconds there's a new load screen leading to a cinematic that leads to another load screen then you can play again. This is pretty damn annoying.

You'll also be greeted by this ever so subtle mission complete screen when you're done with something. you know, in case you weren't sure.mission completeHopefully such as in Just Cause 2, this will lessen and even fall away completely as you progress and missions become longer etc. Don't get me wrong this game is crazy from the get go, but there's a lot to contend with just to be allowed to actually play. Once the training is over with you'll have your freedom to explore and choose missions as you see fit. Oh and yeah, since you're playing online all the time there's some bullshit leaderboard nonsense to see too.mission screenVehicle control is a little lacking but really it's just something to get used to. Cars, turn really slow then suddenly dive one direction or another. Aircraft seem to handle better, but Ive only used a helicopter so far so I can't say much about that.HelicopterGraphically, this is a great looking and well optimised game. Textures are nice, especially the water. Character, world and object modeling looks great. Animations are fairly good as well, aside from spinning like a top when you turn your character around. Particle effects are of course epic because you can't have mass explosions without great particle effects. View distance is long even with options turned down, which is cool because it's important to be able to see a long ways out in these games. JC3 runs perfect on the highest settings with my now three year old system, so chances are good that it will run great on yours as well. Frame rate is sadly locked at 30fps, boo to that, But it feels smooth regardless. Hopefully Avalanche or Squeenix or whoever's in charge will unlock that later on. cliff jumpAnyway, I'm gonna conclude this because after all this is a first impression not a full review. So, long load screens and some general annoyances aside, I'll say that at least so far I would recommend Just Cause 3. It's the same as it's predecessors, but who cares? It's mindless arcade fun. This is a game about action and pure entertainment. This is a world where you can launch a grappling hook at a helicopter, throw the pilot out, get in and aim said chopper at a fuel station, jump out and open up a wing suit, fly to the ground and turn your back just in time to not look at the explosion! I love run on sentences.

System Requirements for Just Cause 3 are as follows:
MINIMUM:
OS: Vista SP2 / Windows 7.1 SP1 / Windows 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500k, 3.3GHz / AMD Phenom II X6 1075T 3GHz
Memory: 6 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (2GB) / AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2GB)
Storage: 54 GB available space

RECOMMENDED:
OS: Vista SP2 / Windows 7.1 SP1 / Windows 8.1 (64-bit Operating System Required)
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz / AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (3GB) / AMD R9 290 (4GB)
Storage: 54 GB available space