Tag: Retro

#4if

Commonperson’s #4iF Failure

This year my goal was to finish Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Halo 5, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak and finally Grim Fandango. I am sad to report, I failed, and miserably. I had a 50% completion rate in no small part due to the release of several games including the time sink of Xcom 2 (reviewed on our site here by Scroo). What this exercise really hammered home is the dilemma of the modern gamer, prioritization.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate:

Assassin's Creed Syndicate
The Frye twins in action

First to touch on the games I played, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate was a solid experience, the game finally delivered on the promise of the franchise that has been missing in the last three entries. While I love Black Flag’s sailing mechanic the story missed out on a lot of elements and made me feel uncomfortable with the protagonist but not nearly as much as I outright disliked the leads of both Rogue and Unity. Simplification was the key, the use of the Frye twins (which was very hard to not make Futurama jokes about) kept the narrative fresh by switching between the two depending on the type of mission and preserving stylistic integrity of the character preventing ludonarrative dissonance from being a problem. This is one of the few times I’ve actually gone for completionism, the side quests were all solid fun and while they were plentiful they were never overwhelming like in Unity (which I basically just walked away from saying “screw this” when I couldn’t see my objectives for all the clutter of side quests). This title is well worth playing.

Halo 5: Guardians

Halo 5 Halo 5 Osiris TeamHaving bought this at the same time as Syndicate and not touched it I was actually able to finish the game rather quickly. Splitting the narrative between Blue Team with its succulently voiced Master Chief and Osiris led by Spartan Locke (or the Master Chief Grouch) the game was solid enough. There were some changes, Locke originally portrayed by Mike Colter (who is busy now being Luke Cage) didn’t return and was replaced by sound alike actor Ikè Amadi. Honestly, unless I was told, I wouldn’t have heard a difference. Amadi does his best with a bad script. I went into the game relishing the opportunity to spend time with Buck (aka my Mancrush Nathan “Captain Mal Reynolds” Fillion) to find very little actual interplay between the team members. There’s some random background chatter and the lush and beautifully rendered cut scenes which would actually make for a great movie/tv series on their own but beyond that there was no real difference who you were playing with.

Regardless if you were the Chief or Locke your companions were pretty brain dead AIs. Playing on Heroic the game never felt too tough, I was able to make it through the game with some strategy but the AIs of your companions are downright stupid often ignoring pleas for help or just running blindly into fire. Your enemies on the other hand would often coordinate attacks and make use of flanking and cover very effictively. If only my squad were so smart! The squad level commands were Spartan (forgive the pun) at best. You essentially had resurrect me, go here, use this vehicle and attack that. You don’t want to be worrying about issuing a ton of commands in a combat heavy game, understood, but some more strategy and differing play styles by your AI companions would be nice. Even the ability to set behaviour like in Mass Effect would have been cool (like get Buck to use heavy weapons or Fred to focus on sniping).
The story itself is the framing device to the next arc of the Halo universe. It feels like we may finally be done with the Flood/Covenant/Precursor story and introducing something entirely new. Allies become enemies and new alliances are forged but in the end the story felt annoying because of some of the reversals that just felt silly and the fact that much of this could have been resolved with a simple call back to base or a 5 minute conversation. That being said, the same could be said about 90% of action movies out there so there’s that.

Multiplayer is tight with none of the Halo Master Chief Collector’s Edition issues and due to its design even joining in months later thanks to a lack of a class system I didn’t feel overpowered by my opponents. The arena material was classic halo and the addition of mobility powers and clambering change the dynamic enough to make it feel fresh. The best part though is the addition of Warzone. This adds large scale team vs. team vs. environment play and is a sort of capture and hold based game play with points being accrued for destroying Precursor and Covenant who drop into the field of play. This is the most fun and revolutionary addition that could be a game on its own. One little possible concern is the addition of card packs but having played the multiplayer it’s easy enough to earn these requisition packs which unlock gear in Warzone matches as well as cosmetic material. That said, all of this can be earned simply by playing the game and I’ve not once had to buy any in game or even been compelled to consider it.

In short, if you like Halo and the universe Bungie created you’ll enjoy where 343 Industries are taking it. If you don’t you may not really enjoy the gameplay which can be at times frustrating due to working with team AIs that feel like they have brain damage. However, given the ability to play co-op, this could change the feel of the game especially with friends you can to something more enjoyable. Really with a 16 mission campaign that depending on play style can be run in 5 to 6 hours unless you are a fan of the universe or the multiplayer I’d suggest waiting for a sale.

 

Grim Fandango Homeworld Deserts of Kharak

 

That brings us to my shameful failures, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak and Grim Fandango, to be honest I barely touched them. I did get a bit more time in with Homeworld but I found the lack of ability to issue commands in formation or line up where my units sat on the 3D environment frustrating and over the month of February, I had several betas pop up that were limited time, a couple of “Seasonal events” roll around in a few games I regularly play and the release of several new titles.

When I started gaming in the late 70s there were literally a handful of games a year. Many of them rehashes of existing games with just different plastic sheets you'd tape to your TV.

During the 80s and 90s it picked up but it still wasn’t the same kind of frantic pace you have today. You could get away with buying “all the games you want” because even at its peak during the "Holiday Season" it was still only a few dozen games at most which means you wont be overwhelmed.

But now we have new games showing up on a weekly basis. This doesn't count Betas, DLC, season events and so on. All of this makes it a challenge to just focus. I have access to Steam, PlayStation and Xbox and these libraries are littered with titles I’ve not finished. Many of these games are great - as long as I'm playing them - but I never really seem to make any headway through my backlog because of the sheer constant barrage of New Hotness that might be floating around in the gaming world. Thankfully, those games in those libraries aren’t going anywhere and I can always return to them, but as time marches forward it feels harder and hard to return to these abandoned games.

It makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be better if game companies cut development in half and focused on titles making really amazing experiences versus the constant iterations on old titles, re-releases, HD Upgrades, and the crazy release schedule we deal with now. In the end, no one forces me to buy these games and I’m lucky enough to have disposable income enough that I can live easily with my poor impulse control, but if I was a kid who didn’t have a lot of cash it would have been frustrating. I guess I’m lucky enough to have grown up in a time where 5 of my friends could split the cost of a game and share it using floppy disks to copy the game. Man, how the times have changed.

Destination Sol: A Review From Scroo

Hey everyone. Do you love AAA games with cutting edge graphics? How do you feel about stealthing your way down a hall, hacking your way in to a locked door and stealing classified documents? Is third person shooter action what you live for? Well if you answered yes then this is definitely NOT the review you came to read.

Title image_2

If you're still with me then join me for a trip through a game that this review is actually about.

Destination Sol is a free to play, randomly generated, 2D space exploration and combat rogue-like game. It's got a retro style and as the player you'll be flying around a vast open space sandbox and blasting away at various enemies while looting items and trading with space stations. And there are no microtransactions!

Currently it's available through Steam as a PC version and is also available for free on the Google Play Store as an Android Mobile version. And for a totally free single player title it's pretty cool. Let's check out the PC version.

This title is fairly easy to just pick up and play, but a quick tutorial covering all the basics is available from the start menu.

tutorial screen
Click to view knowledge dropping at full size

You'll start as small space ship at a space station in one of two star systems and are immediately free to explore the space around you. Once you open your map and zoom out you'll quickly notice that the game world is pretty expansive and fully accessible.

While in the map view you'll be able to see your position in real time as well the rest of the available area. Just about everything you need to see is marked, space stations, planets, asteroid belts and quick travel points are most prevalent but you may also see other ships.

However that doesn't mean the map is perfect. Missing are the abilities to create waypoints or markers of any kind; and in an open world it would be nice to have the option to point yourself in a direction. You're also unable to drag the map screen around to see objects off-screen.

Click to a big space map in full size
Click to a big space map in full size

Conveniently, the map also marks what areas are considered too strong for you by flashing skulls on their positions. Who has two thumbs and didn't pay attention to skulls? Oh that's me. I decided on a whim to fly to a near by ship that was flashing as a skull. A clear red flag, warning me to turn away before it was too late. As I neared an actual warning came up on the screen that said bluntly "Dangerous Enemy". Just before I became a smoldering pile of scrap on the ground I thought to myself, "I can handle it. I have the hang of this game already". Afterwards I respawned and went in a different direction.

 

Skulls are bad mmmk?
Skulls are bad mmmk?

There are no missions in Destination Sol, so happily you can pick a direction and just start out exploring. Soon you'll find yourself  sailing through asteroid fields and battling space pirates who will provide you with currency and items as your reward for their defeat. Speaking of asteroids... Anyone remember the classic arcade space blaster Asteroids? That's how this game controls too.

Now, in Asteroids if you hit something (say, an asteroid perhaps) you blew up and it was GG thanks for playing. In Destination Sol your ship is a bit more durable so it takes some significant speed to blow you up in a collision. It can happen though and if it does...GG thanks for playing.

It's not all as hardcore as sounds though since the only penalty for death is a loss of some currency, and your respawn will always put you back at your original starting space station. As a result there could be some downtime in flying back to your place of demise to recover money lost or items left behind. Not to mention you might run in to more space pirates or get sidetracked by something shiny...

Like a planet. Yes, Destination Sol allows you to seamlessly descend into the atmosphere of an extraterrestrial world. There are three types of planets to explore and you'll know when you're near one because a bar-like feature consisting of several blue dots will appear on the outer edge of your screen. Perhaps just for the sake of argument we'll call it an atmospheric indicator. As you near a planet these dots will move along the edges of your screen to determine your position in relation to the planet and will also glow brighter. Remember that tutorial image at the beginning of this review? Who am I asking, of course you do. In the upper right corner of that image is one of these atmospheric indicator bars.

combat screen
Click to see some combat full size

As you enter the atmosphere you're greeted by gravity, clouds, a sky, some pirates, and even a day night cycle of sorts. It's a small detail overall but I really liked that there was a light and dark side to each world.

In my experience the pirates on planets are far more dangerous than most of those in space. At least early on. They have better weapons, faster ships, and bigger shields. Plus they may be backed up by gun turrets on the ground. But if you can manage to get by them there's almost always a trader on the surface with upgrades, repairs and ammunition.

planet trade screen
Click to see me limp to the trader at full size

Unfortunately this about where planetary exploration hits it's peak. I found planets to be pretty small and once cleared of evildoers and looted for every item and monetary credit it was back to space with me.

We haven't talked about items and weapons yet so let's get in to that a bit. Destination Sol advertises over 50 items and weapons to find, buy, and equip. Your ship will begin it's journey with a basic set of gear to get your started and it's all visible in the upper left corner of the HUD.

Items are pretty self explanatory. For instance, your shield will absorb the damage before it fails and your ship starts taking physical damage. In which case you'll see your hit points drop, if they reach zero, GG thanks for playing. Fortunately for you it's possible to buy bigger shields that absorb more damage before failing and thus avert tragedy a bit easier.

Also available are repair kits. These kits will self-use when you become idle for a few seconds and repair a total of 20 damage before being used up. Only need to repair 13 damage? That's ok the kit will stay in your inventory until it repairs 7 more.

Your ships armor will increase your damage resistance allowing your ship to take punishment when your shield inevitably fails under pressure. Higher levels of armor are available for purchase to increase your damage resistance further.

trade screen
Click to see trading at full size

Weapons are varied in both number and effectiveness. Your starting weapon is the good old blaster. As a starting weapon it has infinite magazines meaning it can reload forever. Reloading takes time and takes place only when you're out of ammunition, and only automatically.There is no manual reloading in Destination Sol. A point that I wasn't fond of at all. I don't know how many times my ship needlessly exploded because I couldn't prepare for a fight by reloading before hand.

Other weapons, ballistics, missiles, bombs, mines etc. all take ammunition that you'll have to buy from a trader or space station. In other words, no infinite reloads. Different weapons are more, or less effective vs. shields or ship armor so there's a modicum of strategy involved in what you may choose for a certain situation. Also weapons come in two categories: Light and Heavy. Your ship will show you which is applicable.

Herein we see the balance of the game. The Guardian ship has a light weapon slot, which is able to rotate automatically like a turret to fire. It also has fewer hit points. Whereas the Fighter has a heavy weapon slot which cannot rotate, meaning you use your ship to aim. However it has more hit points allowing it to face danger head on a bit easier. Categories are clearly marked in the trade screen. Combat itself is handled, very simply. Point your reticle at the enemy and fire. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

Click image to see full size
Woah, Doc... This is Heavy!

Destination Sol gives you the availability of piloting up to 6 different ships, a few are in the image below. Some of these ships have more than one slot for weapons, and each has it's own unique special ability. The guardian ship has the ability to temporarily slow time and comes with one light weapon slot. The larger Hunter ship has the ability to teleport in battle and comes with two heavy weapon slots.

My favorite ship so far is the Hunter class. It's big, intimidating looking, and I put two heavy machine guns on it to rule space with a hale of lead of fire!

You'll have to buy ships from traders and outposts, and they can be pricey. They are worth the buy though and they'll use items you currently own.

Click to see the full size ship exchange
Click to see the full size ship exchange

Also usually available at traders and outposts are mercenary allies. Hiring one of these mercs can be a little expensive but they can be very helpful and each has their own abilities. Plus during boss battles they double as bullet sponges. Meat shield anyone?

"Boss battle" is actually a loose term here. There are no true bosses in Destination Sol, at least none that I'm aware of. I never ran in to anything like that in my play time. What they tend to be are usually just larger more heavily armed and armored ships that give greater rewards for their defeat. But they show up during exploration, not in an encounter type situation with a large health bar and narcissistic monologue.

My own first sighting of a boss ship was while I was exploring a planet and suddenly, there from above, was a relatively enormous pile of guns blasting away at me. I managed to win the fight by the skin of teeth and collect a veritable treasure trove which I immediately unloaded on a trader for a significant pile of cash. It was very satisfying.

So far I see no end to this game. Which is great on the one hand because you can just play and play. In these days of 10 hour titles costing $60 it's refreshing to have free title with a play time as long as your attention span. On the other hand there's only so much exploration and pirate battling one can do before starting over.

Which brings me to my final subject here. Destination Sol, is classified as a rogue-like, hardcore, arcade, space RPG. A mouth full to be sure. Now don't box this in to the same category as a more familiar title like FTL. The similarities are few if any at all. I don't see much as far as an RPG element goes in Destination Sol. Though you're able to aquire and equip gear and items there's no leveling system. There is no dialogue, and there are no quests. Not even a story line to follow.

But, it is very arcade like, and Rogue-like in a way. The arcade elements are pretty obvious when you play. The game is only lightly physics based and there's just that old school joystick and two button feel. Like I need to be dropping quarters in a machine.

Rogue-like elements seem to mix with the hardcore. You have what equates to as infinite continues. Die and you'll respawn and move on more or less the same as you were (minus a few credits), but the game state is never saved. Your ship's build is saved when you exit the game, but the world is different every time you start. From the main menu you'll have the option to start over from scratch or go ahead and use your previous ship with your items etc. I guess you could argue this as being rogue-like since it's a way of having a legacy... to a point. I personally feel more comfortable calling it an arcade space exploration and combat game.

So in conclusion, Destination Sol, is a free to play title with no micro-transactions. It's pretty well put together with a few things maybe needing some polish. For instance I know I didn't mention above in the review but this game has no music. I really think it could benefit from a soundtrack. But it's supported on Steam with updates so perhaps we'll still see improvements where they're needed.

Would I recommend Destination Sol? So I kind of have mixed feelings about some portions but yes, I would recommend it. Why, you ask? Well dear reader, if you're in to a retro style of graphics and a simple character controller I'm sure you're going to dig this. And possibly more importantly, it's free and it's fun.

System Requirements for Destination Sol, are as follows:

Processor: 1 ghz or better

Ram: 512 mb or better

Graphics: Support for OpenGl 2.0 at least is required

Sound card: Any

Hard Drive Space: At least 100 mb free