May is just around the corner, and with it, comes the most Mexican holiday that's celebrated in the US. Cinco de Mayo, or May 5th, commemorates the victory over the invading french in the state of Puebla. Here in Mexico it's not a big deal, schools are closed for the day and that's it. For the Americans it meant that France wasn't able to support the South during the Civil War. Things would be very different now if the outcome would have been different... perhaps we would be like Canada and have a double first language.
Now, you're probably thinking, what does it have to do with video games? The battle of Puebla was like David and Goliath. The French had more and better equipped soldiers, but the Mexicans stood their ground and scored a critical hit against European invasions. In this case Goliath is our backlog and David is our willingness to finish five games during May. See? Cinco de Mayo, wink, wink.
That's right, since May has 4 and a half weekends this year, it should be enough time to play through 5 games. I know I did it last year, and this year I invite you to join us in this challenge just like we did back for #4iF.
Here's how we did last February and here are some recommended games you could give a try if you're having trouble deciding what to play next.
It’s a damn good time to be an FPS fan. Not only are we soon to be bombarded by numerous hero shooters like Paladins, Overwatch, BattleBorn, and Law Breakers. But we are also anticipating the rebirth of a franchise that helped father in the first person shooter genre, Doom.
So, just about a year ago now, I wrote a completely scathing review of the tumultuous mess that Magic Duels was at launch.
Given the online nature of the game and given that it "perpetually renews" itself whenever new cards come out, I figured I would get back in and see a handful of things for myself. Notably: whether or not the game was more stable, whether or not the game fared better in my books if I had more cards [and a greater pool of potential deck lists to pull from] and whether or not Stainless had listened to the sheer avalanche of complaints about the game's launch state.
That last question? That's the question that binds them all. Read more
I have to start this by saying that this is a beta build and some things may change yadda yadda etc. whatever.
I happen to really like Orcs Must Die...
So last year some time when I started hearing of a third game game in the series I was pretty excited about it. The addition of a slew of new heroes to play each with their own styles and abilities and a leveling system and tons of new maps made me happy. So of course when Robot Entertainment opened up a beta for everyone to play I jumped on the boat, my thoughts follow.
Fans of the Orcs Must Die series like myself will find some similarities but only a few. First off it's all online play now and not just because of leader boards. Like OMD, players can bash orcs and ogres and kobolds to their hearts content in a survival mode facing waves of increasingly difficult enemies. And like OMD2, you'll also be able to team up with friends to do the same thing. That much is still fun and along with new hero types including the originals there's some variety in your game play. The problem is that OMD Unchained only looks like the first two titles that did everything right.
Can't place traps here on this flat and perfectly suitable surface. But just up the stairs there? Yeah that's fineThis is a screenshot from Orcs Must Die 2. No more rooms filled to the brim with traps like that in Unchained
Now instead of a setup screen where you spend your hard earned skulls on traps and upgrades you'll instead have to build a deck of cards to go into battle with. The game gives you two decks, one for Survival Mode and one for Siege Mode which I'll talk about in a bit. Once you're in the game and playing you're stuck with what you've got in that deck, no more last minute changes before the round starts. And if you want to explore the map for optimal trap placement, you'd better do it quick because the round will start soon whether you're ready or not. You'll also have a limit on how many traps can be placed despite the amount of coin you've earned. Have enough money to fill the whole hallway with spikes and napalm and arrow traps all the way to the rift? Well as long as that's not more than 50 traps then that's great. Think 50 traps sounds like a lot? It's not. It should be noted that it's entirely possible that this number could increase at higher levels.
That's where you're allowed to place a Guardian
Remember that some of the traps you had in OMD 1 and 2 included Archers and Paladins? Well in Unchained they've been replaced by the Guardian card. You'll only be able to place them where the map allows you to, on a predefined guardian platform, and they are pretty strong and help a ton but what happened to being able to put them where you felt like they were going to be the most effective? Not mention, you only get one to use on your map. You'll have to earn more cards through matches and crafting, or buy a chest from the store and maybe get one, to be able to place more guardians. This rule is the same for all of your traps by the way, you can no longer place traps on any and all surfaces. Instead you'll need to put them in specific areas that are marked on the mini-map in blue. The game calls them "Killboxes" I call them "unnecessary limitations".
Robot just seems to have strayed too far from a great formula for this mode of game play to be enjoyable as a whole any more. I would probably really enjoy it if the Survival mode and Siege mode just had different systems. It makes sense in Siege for the placements and limitations to be the way they are, but not in Survival.
Leveling...
Is not as great as it seems like it would be. You'll be juggling your battlefield level, your hero level and account level. Battlefield levels are gained while playing a round and each will unlock a tier of boosts to help your character survive the oncoming hordes. They are temporary levels and will reset after each match. Hero levels are just what they state, a level rank given to whichever hero you're currently playing and seem to have little to no effect on play as of now, at least none that I could really notice. Your account level grants you access to new and more difficult maps to play.
The Heroes...
Themselves are pretty cool, with nice looking models and at least decent animations. There will be at least 15 heroes to choose from at release and those that are available to play now are fun. Everyone is different enough to be a separate entity, has their own strengths and weaknesses and feels very balanced in multiplayer. As it is now though, make sure you choose wisely because once you click a hero to play you can't change your mind until the match has ended. Meaning that even before the match starts an accidental click will mean that's the character you're playing as during this round.
Game Creation...
Is pretty quick and straightforward, but it also has its limits. For instance, finding a multiplayer game is easy, just click on the matchmaker and you'll be in game soon enough. Want to make one yourself? That's easy too, add your friends via a very convenient invitation system, select a mode and you're off and running. But if you want to make a custom game things feel a little beta still. Only Siege games can be created in the custom tab, no Survival mode here. You'll get your friends together in a 5v5 match (no more, no less) choose teams and go. If you need bots then you'll have to set them up individually before you can begin. Admittedly though, the bots seem to be pretty decent at their jobs.
The Store...
Ahh yes, the inevitable in-game store. I mentioned back in my recommendation for Marvel Heroes, that some titles pull off the free to play model pretty well. Orcs Must Die Unchained is NOT one of those games. Now the heroes and skins themselves are within reasonable limits even for this title, sitting around $5 to $10 each. What I have a problem with is the ability to purchase chests of random items that are guaranteed to contain things that will make a character stronger than others owned by people who don't want to spend money on this game. Pay to win isn't cool people, don't support it.
The good side to this...
Is that heroes are free to play albeit slightly gimped because experience gains won't be 100% until you purchase that character. Still, you'll be able to try everyone out once they're all available and get an idea of what you're in for before making a decision.
Maps are many and well designed. Despite the limits OMDU places on you, at least the usable areas are well made.
Siege mode...
Is pretty fun actually. This is clearly where Robot was heading with the core development of the game. Where the classic survival mode feels very different and overall bad, Siege mode feels solid and pretty refined. This is essentially a MOBA with the elements of traps from Orcs Must Die. Ten players, five on each side of a symmetrical map, fight to get their minions through the enemy rift. However lanes don't conflict with each other so your minions wont ever fight other minions. Instead your players will choose roles and become Attackers, Defenders or Pillagers and benefit the team in their own way all in the name of getting those friendly minions through enemy traps with the goal of getting them to the enemy's rift and wearing down their points. When a rift reaches zero points, the opposite team has won.Defenders will start with money to place traps and barricades in enemy attack lanes to help stop minions from reaching your team's rift. Attackers will start with a bonus to attacking and friendly minion defense, and the Pillagers will be more effective in collecting items from crates found around the map to upgrade minions.
When it all boils down, it's just a MOBA, but it's just different enough to feel like something new. And even for someone like myself who doesn't particularly like MOBAs, it's actually pretty fun. Yoda, myself and Twinstiq friend and my little sister, Phirary13 played a couple of matches that I'll link here in a kind of NSFW video due to our language. This recording includes some of the Survival mode as well, and any OMD fans will see the issues there. Though I will say that even the Survival mode is much more fun with friends.
The Deck Editor...
Has a lot of slots for decks, thank goodness. But why does this even need to be there? Why can't it just be earning traps by playing the game? Why does it need to be a CCG inside a Tower Defense game being overshadowed by a MOBA? The answer is because then players wouldn't have anything to grind out. Did I mention that you can craft cards? Well you can, and it takes a lot of materials that are gained by completing matches. What this does is drag out your play time because in order to get that next trap or guardian you'll need hundreds, if not thousands of skulls and dozens and dozens of materials that drop on certain maps. And it's not just materials, there's also a whole separate category of "parts"...Uuuurrrgghh why can't we just have a screen to purchase and upgrade gear and traps like there used to be? Why must it be so convoluted? It's just too much book keeping for such a simple game. As I mentioned above you can purchase a chest from the store with real currency to possibly bypass the tedium of material farming but that's exactly what this system was designed for.
Conclusion...
What really sucks about this direction is that those of us who are fans of the OMD series and expect to have that great, wave on wave, tower defense game play will be severely disappointed. As of now there is no unlimited wave mode, only what the map calls for. Maybe this will change before release, maybe a lot of things will, but I'm certainly not holding my breath. This is an open beta and that usually means a release date is just around the corner.
It just feels like Robot was going for a Deathmatch / MOBA feel, and since it was called Orcs Must Die, they had to put some semblance of the original games in as an afterthought. And frankly that blows because no matter how much fun Siege Mode is, I can't recommend this game to anyone expecting Orcs Must Die Unchained to be anything like the great titles that came before it. Robot should have just called it what it is, Orcs Must Die: PVP Siege Arena.
System Requirements for Orcs Must Die Unchained are as follows
As a computer science major, years ago, I had a pair of classes that were about writing. Very specifically, in order to become a Doctor of Science you had to write a research paper. We had two very different classes with two very different lecturers for those classes. The first - and most vital subject was called Research Methodology. That guy hated us. He didn't get tenure and he was frustrated at us and everything around him. So he set crazy rules for every essay we ever wrote.
The second guy was way more mellow. That particular class was Thesis Writing. Both of these two classes combined went together to form our Thesis Project and one of the very few lessons that stuck with me came from very early in the writing cycle: If you're writing a Thesis, you NEVER write from the conclusion backward. Never.
You set up a working hypothesis. You devise tests for the hypothesis. You analyse the data. In short, you make sure that you're surprised in the end so that your conclusion isn't a foregone thing.
But some writers don't like that approach. It's time-consuming. There's so much you have to do to arrive at a completely novel [or at least unexpected] result. All those tests you have to devise? They take time. All that analysis? Why bother? Read more
March is typically a time of the year when new game releases are pretty sporadic. As such, it can sometimes be difficult for gamers to figure out what they should be playing. If that happens to be the case for you, I have a helpful suggestion. Why not play games that pay tribute to the god for which the month was named?
The word March is a derivative of Martius, which was what the Romans called it. The month was named for Mars, the Roman god of war. For a good part of Rome's early history, March was observed as the first month of the calendar. Along with the start of spring and the agricultural season, March also marked a return to warfare (the Romans traditionally ended most of their military activity in October). Many festivals were held in the month of March to celebrate the god whom they viewed both as a symbol of their military might, as well as a father to the Roman people.
In keeping with the original spirit of the month, it seems only appropriate to play games that are related to Mars and to warfare in general. Here is a list of 9 great games to play when it's March.
Broforce is part of this month's PSN+ free games promotion. It won its place by getting the most votes in the "Vote To Play" contest that was held last month. I had some interest in it but never enough to pay full price for it on PC. I guess it was never dirt cheap and now I know why. It's a pretty good side-scrolling action game.
Broforce is a celebration of old-school action movies. We get parody versions of most iconic film and TV heroes like Rambo, Commando, Neo, MacGyver and B. A. Baracus to name a few. All of them play differently. They have different speed, weapons, special moves and athletic abilities. For example, Rambo has a machine gun and hand grenades, Neo is a melee fighter and his special is the red pill which basically turns him into an invulnerable killing machine for a short period of time, Mr. T has a very useful flamethrower and fire grenades which are great for fighting bosses from a distance.
When you begin the main story you'll start with only one character, Rambro. You'll be dropped in the jungle by a helicopter in order to liberate the area. You'll do that by killing terrorists left and right with guns blazing, literally. On your way to kill the Devil at the end of each level, you'll find prisoners. If you set them free you'll get a free life and that's the way you'll unlock new characters. For better or worse, when you set free a prisoner, you'll randomly switch to a different action hero.
Randomness is a big part of Broforce. After you've unlocked a new character, heroes will be switched every time you lose a life, start a level or set free a prisoner. There's no way of manually changing to a hero of your liking. This gives the game a lot of variety as you have to adjust to to whatever weapons and abilities the hero you have at the moment has. However sometimes you'll feel you need a specific hero for that challenge and let's be honest, some of the heroes are lame. I'm looking at you, Brocketeer.
The game exudes American Patriotism. It's taken to parody levels and it feels awkward sometimes. I mean, at one point you'll be playing as European legends like 007 and William Wallace and they will be raising American flags when reaching checkpoints. That was very odd. When you finish a level you get to the chopper, explosions start all over the place and the light in your dual shock 4 controller will start flashing red, white and blue. It's that American.
While Leon is not an American, the Brofessional certainly is.
The gameplay is pretty simple, just run and shoot. There's no reloading in here. I really liked how this helped the action to flow very quickly. Some other games that have reload like Mercenary Kings and Helldivers really put me off since it over-complicated what should have been quite simpler, in my opinion. I guess I was not the right audience for those. I like how it feels like Contra where you don't have to worry about such detail. Unlike Contra, this title does have destructible terrain which you can use to your advantage to change the path you take to reach your goal.
There are some things that I wish the developer had addressed before releasing the game. The PS4 version of Broforce has some bugs that seem out of place in a title that looks like a 16-bit shoot-em up. Each time you restart a level there's like a second or two where your controller won't receive your inputs and your character will stand still vulnerable to enemy attacks. At first this won't bother you much, but in the later levels those seconds could mean life or death. Loading times can reach up to 1 minute in the later stages. I really thought the game had frozen and I would have to restart the console because there was just a black screen with no loading signs and it took way too long to start the missions. There were also frame rate drops when there was a lot going on. You would expect that in a SNES, but not in a PS4 brand new title that looks like it would have been fine in the 16-bit generation.
The broforce cast includes some of the most iconic action stars. A couple of Stallones, Norris, Gibsons, Van Dammes and three Schwarzeneggers to name a few. More heroes are still being added.
Besides those bugs, it is very much playable and enjoyable. It has a lot of humor and variety. I had a great time playing it and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in action games with a retro vibe. I tried it in multiplayer, but it felt much better in single player. Just be warned that the last level is a tough marathon. the ending will make it worth it, though.
Please note: This article is LITTERED with links. They will open in a new window and will take you off-site.
Now that four-in-February is behind us, I thought I'd take some time to look into games that I'm at least a little curious about for the calendar year of 2016. I have divided my choices into three broad sections:
Things that will almost definitely be with us in the near-future or before the end of 2016.
Things that might make it into 2016, but you never know.
And, finally, things that I'm totally worried about. Sometimes with good reason.
So, let's take a look and see, shall we? Read more
Alright well we've all seen free to play ARPG's out there and most of them are too good to be true. They allow you play to a certain level then charge you money to continue playing, or they lock specific gear you need to continue behind a pay wall or some such nonsense that makes an otherwise fun, free game, much less free or fun.
But some get it right. Path of Exile, for instance created and published by Grinding Gear Games, is a great fantasy ARPG. Nothing locked behind pay walls, and donations are made for cosmetic items only if you so choose. All content is free and fully accessible and the support is excellent. It remains one of the best examples of how the free to play model can really work. But let's say you're sick of the typical dungeon crawler, D&D fantasy style isometric Diablo clone ARPG.
Enter, Marvel Heroes. It pretty much speaks for itself but here's the rundown. You'll be a super hero or villain from the Marvel Universe and follow a very graphic novel style story that takes you around the world to see places like New York and the Savage Lands while giving you home bases like Avengers Tower and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. The story is told through missions as you play of course, but also with some very cool comic book style cut scenes.I've been playing this pretty consistently for a while now and I'm noticing that this another good example of a player friendly free to play model. So let's look at this game a bit and see why it's such a good experience. It's 100% free. You can grab Marvel Heroes on Steam if you have an account, or you can download it right from the source at the official site and soon enough you'll be confronted with a choice of what hero or villain you want to become. When you first start you'll have access to 12 heroes and after the prologue that number increases to 55 and more are still being added. Here's the current list of playable characters.
You'll be able to play every hero or villain until level 10 and then the game reminds you to remember to switch out heroes or choose to "uncap" the current one. They give you one hero for free to level all the way to 60 but want you to play as many as you can so that you can make an educated choice. I tried: War Machine, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, X-23, Juggernaut, The Thing, and Cable, to name a few (there were more) before finally deciding to continue on with Captain Marvel. The rest of the heroes and villains remain playable at any time you wish from just about anywhere in the game. So if you feel like you need a quick change just press "T" and choose a new hero; no need to log out and back in to switch. It's a pretty smooth operation.It's important to remember that every playable character is free until level 10. I reiterate that because if you grab this game on Steam you'll see some fairly pricey DLC on the list that includes heroes. Those DLC packs include cosmetic items and alternate costumes which you can purchase separately in-game. They'll also uncap that hero for you but the most useful thing they include is a character specific inventory, which would actually be pretty great because inventory and stash space is shared and storage is kind of limited if you're going to play more than one hero. It's also important to know that if you do decide to uncap more than one hero you can do that via the game store with real money, or if you're patient you can collect "eternity splinters" (items that drop off enemies) and use them to purchase your next uncap. They aren't very rare and the game will even provide you with a pack of 400 of them as a login reward and that alone is enough to buy most heroes, they range from 200 to 600 splinters each. The point here is that you only need to spend actual money if you want to.
I've chosen to purchase an alternate costume for my Captain Marvel because it's not expensive to do so in most cases (some cost more than others) and I figured I'd support the title in at least a small way. And like most free to play games Marvel Heroes has deals and sales on bundles of items and the like pretty often.Need a sidekick? Get a team-up hero. The game will provide you with at least one, but all the playable heroes and some extras (like Carnage, Agent Venom and many more) can be purchased as a team-up. They have their own items and skills and gain levels just like you do. Plus if for some reason you need to go AFK for a bit they'll hang out and protect you.
My only real complaint is that I think this game needs a lot of balancing. Now don't get me wrong I know that it makes sense to be vastly powerful what with being a super being and all, but there's almost no challenge at all. It's possible to wipe a out a group of dozens of mobs with the use of one skill. In fact the only times I've been defeated since I started playing regularly are in the "Patrol maps" where everything is stronger and bosses come at you in multiples. To be fair though there is supposed to be end-game content for level 60 heroes that provide a much better challenge, but since I'm only level 41 at the time of this writing I can't speak to that myself. Also co-op play with friends will increase the difficulty of enemies on the map. So there we have it, my recommendation to play a really good, friendly, free to play title with a great model. Marvel Heroes uses Unreal Engine 3 Engine so it runs great while looking great, and there's even a Mac port in case you use one of those things for games.
Our own Yoda0vgs introduced me to this in a sort of trial by fire live stream that we did a few days ago. You can see the video here on our Twinstiq LP channel, skip ahead to around the 11 minute mark to actually see us start playing.
System Requirements for Marvel Heroes are as follows
Windows
OS: Windows Vista 32/64, Windows 7 32/64, Windows 8 32/64, Windows 10 32-bit
Processor: Core 2 DUO 2.1 GHz / AMD Athlon X2 2.1 GHZ or better
Memory: 3GB
Hard Disk Space: 30GB*
Video Card: Shader Model 3.0 Compatible with 512MB VRAM (Nvidia 8800 Series, ATI HD3800 Series, Intel HD 3000)
*30GB is required for installation. After installation, Marvel Heroes will require 15GB of storage.
OS: Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 8 64-bit, Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Current Generation Quad Core (Intel Core i7, Core i5 or AMD FX Series)
Memory: 8GB
Hard Disk Space: 30GB*
Video Card:Discrete video card with 2GB of VRAM (Nvidia GTX 600 or 700 Series, AMD R9 or HD7900 Series)
*30GB is required for installation. After installation, Marvel Heroes will require 15GB of storage.
Mac
OS: OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 4GB
Hard Disk Space: 30GB*
Video Card: Discrete or Onboard GPU with 512MB VRAM (Nvidia 9600m GT, Intel HD 4000)
*30GB is required for installation. After installation, Marvel Heroes will require 15GB of storage.
Please note: some of the links in this review will take you off-site. These have been set up to open in a new window.
Where do you go after you've made three games in a universe and have - rather neatly - tied the series up? When confronted with this problem, Al Lowe chose to go in a completely bizarre direction, "skipping" Larry 4 and giving us a somewhat cartoon-y, rather crass and not very pleasant New Larry. I wasn't really a fan, as you can tell from this review.
The Space Quest saga had a similar quandary to ponder.
Not mention, you only get one to use on your map. You'll have to earn more cards through matches and crafting, or buy a chest from the store and maybe get one, to be able to place more guardians. This rule is the same for all of your traps by the way, you can no longer place traps on any and all surfaces. Instead you'll need to put them in specific areas that are marked on the mini-map in blue. The game calls them "Killboxes" I call them "unnecessary limitations".
