Sunday, June 22, 2014

Zombies, Zombies Everywhere....




So the Steam summer sale is an evil, evil…glorious thing. Thus far I have managed to only buy one game, but boy what a game it is. I picked up State of Decay on impulse, seeing the description mention a blend of third person zombie shooter and resource and team management, and I have already put 7 hours into it this past weekend. Considering this was not a gaming binge weekend and I have been fairly busy away from my computer, that’s a good chunk of my at desk time. Going to be a bit vague on the story points, even though in my opinion the overall story isn’t the big driver of this game, but the small character stories and the game-play itself.

You start off with a buddy coming back from a camping trip, secluded on your own little island away from the world for two weeks. In those two weeks, as it usually goes in zombie stories, the world has gone to hell and you return to a, well, State of Decay. This epidemic seems to have struck hard and fast, because most of the places you go have much more dead than living. The introductory area introduces you to a basic home base, little more than a space where you have storage space, as your character can only carry what their backpack allows, 8 for a small and 10 for a large (that’s all I have found so far). This storage space works off a sort of currency you need to earn. By completing missions and adding to the stockpiles you earn reputation with that group of survivors. You then can spend this reputation to take things out of storage. So if you have a gun that you toss into storage, it may earn you 50 reputation, which you can then use to get some food, medicine, and a couple rounds of ammunition. 

So in this first area, you mop up the campsites, and the story then brings you to the local town. Here you meet a group of survivors that take you in, some more grudgingly than others, and you are introduced to a true home base. At your home base, you are allotted a set number of expansion points in which you can build a garden, an infirmary, a workshop, a lookout tower and more. You need to balance the needs of the group with the allotted space of your base, which can be a bit tricky at times. The base is also where your supplies are kept and managed, and where you will find your fellow survivors with which you can readily interact. Some of these interactions get a bit heated, as it is a post-apocalyptic setting, and not everyone (read no one) is thrilled with it. Mini missions with different group mates increase your reputation with them and can settle some short fuses in a less explosive manner. 

The supplies your party relies on are found through scavenging, rightfully one of the largest parts of the game. You get to scout from house to house, garage to shed, seeking anything and everything you can use to survive. These items range from the all hallowed Twinkie, a snack that can quickly boost your stamina in a pinch, to guns, various melee weapons and painkillers for a quick healing boost. The more vital supplies, medicine for your infirmary, substantial food for your group, lots of ammo, building supplies for home base expansion and fuel are found in these scavenging runs too. Unlike normal supplies you can fit in your pack, these vital supplies are carried as rucksacks. They are heavy, slow you down significantly and you can only carry one at a time. Bringing these back, as well as adding any of the smaller items to the stockpiles, earns you reputation with your party, as well as a boost to morale.

In addition to growing the group as a whole, skill management comes down to the character by character level as well. Each character gets four basic skills: Cardio, Wits, Fighting and Shooting; and an assortment of specialized and joke skills as well. By using these skills, such as beating zombies up for fighting, or shooting zombies in the face for shooting, they level up and are then allowed to take specializations to further customize them. Something I need to work on in my gameplay is spreading my gameplay out amongst the playable characters. You need to get to a certain reputation level on a character level to unlock them as playable, but it seems like most, if not all, characters are playable. I keep thinking of the starting character of Marcus as my player character, and the rest as alternates I can play when Marcus needs a rest, but this has lopsided their skill-sets greatly.

Part of the game plays a bit in the GTA line of thinking; that is there is a main storyline to follow with main quests, but there are multiple side quests that pop up seeking my attention. They usually win in my gameplay. 

State of Decay is definitely a surprising favorite in my books, with a great mix of action gameplay and team and resource management. I know it’s only a matter of time before I screw up and one of my team members who I have come to know and love will up and die, and the anxiety of that draws me into the game even further. I just moved my base from the initial church to a large warehouse to allow expansion of my survival group, and I look forward to the new challenges the game has to offer.

The game isn’t without its faults, of course. The AI is decent, though sometimes your team members refuse to move out of your way and stand blocking a doorway as you try to toss a firebomb through. Luckily there seems to be no friendly fire, or I’d be a lone survivor. I’ve noticed at times the controls get a bit wonky, but that could just be my G13 keypad not playing nicely, either way, it’s minor and usually is fixed by letting the game have a second and then continuing on. The zombies will shift around a bit, sometimes sitting, then suddenly standing, or halfway through a fence to suddenly on top, but they are very minor things that have yet to hinder my enjoyment. 


State of Decay can be found here or on Steam for $9.99

There are 2 DLC packs available as well:

Breakdown adds a true open world, infinite survival setup with a fully unlocked map.  Your survival earns you points which you can then compare to players around the world.

Lifeline adds a new map to the game, as well as new players and a game-play mode where you need to defend your base using all the best military equipment available.

If you need me, I’ll be in State of Decay……

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter to keep on top of updates!

-Mac

Sociopathic Score

 The game is about surviving, but there is plenty of potential for Sociopathic tendencies, such as throwing members of your group out for no reason, or getting in a loud car PURELY to lure zombies towards you to run over, then back up over, and run over again....

Sophomoric Score

I've yet to see any real indication of immaturity programmed in. I'm sure you can find or add your own....

Strategic Score

You are leading a band of survivors in an attempt to stay alive in an ongoing zombie apocalypse, in charge of keeping on hand food, medicine, building supplies while making sure everyone is getting along and not suffering from depression or getting too trigger happy. I'd say this defines strategy.





Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Ultra Drop!

Looks like Carbine Studios is setting up some high expectations for its players by announcing a massive content patch due out before the end of the month.  This begins a trend Carbine hopes to continue, dropping in a “huge amount of gameplay” each month, according to executive producer Jeremy Gaffney. These content updates are called “drops” by the team, and will vary in size from Ultra Drops, such as this one, to Epic Drops to Regular Drops.

The update is called “The Strain”, themed around an alien infestation that will mutate existing creatures in game and add two new zones to explore. Blighthaven is a level 50 zone, starting a solo area and progressing into group content. It ends with an open-world, multi-wing dungeon, the last boss of which will evolve based on how much of the dungeon has been cleared to that point. The second zone, Northern Wastes, will be a re-skinned and updated version of the Northern Wilds tutorial zone, with tougher enemies, quests and challenges aimed at end game players.

According to Gaffney, at any given time one-thirds of the team is working updates such as this while two-thirds are working bug stomping, reactive changing and tweaking. We can expect new gear, mounts and player housing options from this drop as well, with housing a key point for a June 26th patch.

“The Strain” hits nexus on June 24th, ideally (testing may change this), and though I won’t be ready to tackle it now, I look forward to seeing more about the drop. The goal is to build in elements for all player types, solo, group, raid and PvP with these drops. July’s will contain content design for PvP, so keep your eyes open for it!

Thanks for following! 

-Mac

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

If Mac played WildStar, turn to page 32....





Ok – E3 is over, I didn’t get as much of it covered last week as I would have liked, but it gives me something to strive to improve on next year. I will get at least a wrap-up done within the next week with games that sparked my interest most. For now back to my usual ramblings.
WildStar
I am taking my time with WildStar, partly due to a busy life lately and partly so I don’t burn out on it in one binge. Made it to level 15 over the weekend and after getting my skills settled, buying my mount, and exploring my housing a bit…I went to bed. The next day however, I set myself up for a bit of game time and entered the queue for my first adventure – The Hycrest Insurrection. Adventures are instances for 5 group members that follow a “choose your own adventure” format. At each junction, you are given three paths to choose from, and the choice that obtains the highest number of votes wins for the group’s choice. There is a final boss to fight, and everyone gets rewarded for their efforts, plus reputation to spend at the vender at the instance entrance. A major difference between this and a dungeon is the lack of exp awarded for monster kills here. And that I have heard dungeons are far more difficult.
The fact that dungeons are more difficult both excites and scares me, because the adventure wasn’t a walk in the park. Starting off in a hover-copter, we listened to a briefing and then jet-packed down to Hycrest, a territory currently heavily under Dominion control. Our job was to help them successfully rebel and throw out the oppressing forces. We hunkered down with a leader of the insurgency and were presented with our first choice. The choices range from outright rebellion and target elimination to collection and destruction of resources.
My group went with the latter, and we set out killing the guards and destroying their property as smooth as can be. The only stumbling blocks we came upon were the constant artillery barrage as a group member carelessly stepped into the warning reticules scattered about and the annoyance of the snipers knocking us down as we ran around.
At our next juncture, we set out to free some prisoners, and were presented with some heftier enemies to take down. At this point I let my enthusiasm get the better of me, forgot to watch my threat level, and bit the dust. Up on my feet again, we pressed on and finished the objective smoothly. We did encounter a bug of not being able to see one another until we met at the rendezvous point, but it cleared itself up. We finished our last mini quest and went on to tackle the adventure boss. Here we wiped a few times, all new to the experience and not knowing the tactics. These aren’t the hardest bosses in the world, but they still require a fine level of tactics and finesse.
Overall, I love the idea of adventures. As I understand it, your story sculpts visually depending on the paths you choose, including more or less friendly NPCs, destruction, etc. I am excited to grab another group and try again, choosing different paths this time. I love the change of pace from normal exp grinding without the insane challenge I have heard the dungeons present, though I look forward to those just as anxiously. It’s definitely a unique take on group content, and it helps keep you engaged in the world’s storyline in a fun new way.
Carbine Studios is doing awesome so far, and though we are plagued with gold spammers, what MMO isn’t? Patches are coming rapid-fire, fixing bugs and rebalancing what needs rebalancing. I love where the game is, and can’t wait to see where it goes.

Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook, Google+, Twitter @Driachan or via Email or RSS to the right!

If you still haven't jumped on the WildStar bandwagon, get on board!
-Mac


Thursday, June 12, 2014

Nintendo Delivers Plenty




Nintendo took a non-traditional route this year. Clearly behind in the console war, yet still vehemently defending the Wii U as a great piece of hardware, Nintendo opted out of a live conference in favor for a web conference. Unsurprisingly for Nintendo, it was an odd conference. Interspersed throughout with scenes of Nintendo characters animated by the makers of Robot Chicken, Nintendo did have some fun things to unveil.

Super Smash Brothers Wii U

This section started with a stylized dual, a la Smash Brothers, between President of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aime and Nintendo President Iwata. After a few spectacular moments, the movements transitioned into the Smash Brothers universe and they were replaced by their Miis, officially announcing the ability to use Miis in the game. You will be able to customize your fighting style with 3 main types (Brawler, Sword fighter and gunner) and further with 1 of 4 specials for each class, giving a total of 12 fighting style options for your Miis. The game has some other new things added to it, including compatibility with their new accessory the Amiibo, which I will discuss below. Also revealed was that the 3DS is getting a version of the brawler as well. Should be good! Look out for this one Winter 2014.




Amiibo

Amiibo is Nintendo’s answer to the likes of Skylander and Disney Infinity. They will be selling many figurines in the image of their famous characters, and will be adding support of these toys into multiple upcoming games. So far the only one that will have it in for sure is Super Smash Brothers, but they promise to reveal details of bringing it to Mario Kart 8 as well. The toys release alongside Smash Brothers this holiday.


Yoshi’s Wooly World

The sequel to the highly successful Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Nintendo brings us Yoshi’s Wooly World. Also stylized in a world made of wool, the game looks just as charming and fun as Kirby’s was. The game will have no time limit and reward exploration of the levels. This game will be available next year, no solid date yet.



Zelda Wii U

And there we have it, my reason to buy a Wii U. I bought the Wii for Twilight Princess, and the gamecube for Wind Waker, and now I will buy the Wii U for this upcoming Zelda game. The world is cel shaded, a style that doesn’t usually have me sold, but I can’t deny it works, and it is gorgeous. The art style is bold, and it all flows together beautifully. Their biggest promise with this game is the world will not be segmented or linear in any way. The world will be open to explore, serene (save when the big baddies tear it up), and massive. The short clip they showed details a transition between a grassy field and a forest as a fight begins, and I caught myself drooling a bit. The buzz around the web is that the character shown doesn’t appear to be link, and I can’t disagree, there are definitely differences. It could be Sheik, Princess Zelda’s alter ego from Ocarina… but only time will tell. Again, this game will be out 2015.



Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby

Two classic Pokemon games are getting massive makeovers with these titles. 




Bayonetta 2

I never played the first Bayonetta, but it got great reviews. As such, I don’t have much of an opinion here. The fighting takes place in hell, and the art style works for the game…



Hyrule Warriors

Dynasty Warrior games are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. I enjoy them far more than I probably should...but getting to run through hordes of minion characters executing massive moves that knocks dozens out at a time…it’s fun. Now Nintendo is bringing me this style game in the world of Hyrule. If I wasn’t sold on a Wii U before, I am now. In addition to the minions to kill, Hyrule Warriors will stay true to the Zelda games and provide plenty of giant bosses to kill. The multiplayer will utilize the Gamepad, allowing one player to watch the TV while the other plays on the tablet…which seems a bit unfair, but more aesthetically pleasing than split-screen to be sure.



Mario Maker

One of the most exciting titles announced is a non-traditional…and yet as traditional as it can get…Mario. In this game, you get to create the levels a la the original Mario Brothers. You will have all the tools you need to create a classic 2d side scrolling Mario Game. It looks fun, and I feel very evil levels will exist in no time.


Splatoon

This last title had me almost as intrigued as the new Zelda. Splatoon is a 4 v 4 shooter game…with a twist. You play as a sort of human/squid hybrid. Your gun shoots ink, and your primary goal is to end the match having inked more of the level than the opposing team. In human form, you can ink the world and enemies (killing them), including over your enemies already existing ink. In squid form, you can swim through the ink, diving under the surface to wait in ambush or leaping across great distances, or up inked walls. It looks very intriguing, and if the gameplay is as smooth as the demo, I feel I could lose many hours to it.



Wrap-Up

Even when not there in person, Nintendo managed to put out some great announcements and get their fans excited. Hell, at the very least they have successfully sold a system to me.
Today was the last day of E3, I will spend the next few days pouring over all that has come of it, and get a few more opinions out before returning to a calmer pace next week.

Thanks for following, remember…if you enjoyed reading, like my page on Facebook, Google+, or follow via email to the right or Twitter @Driachan.

-Mac