PC / Reviews

Windows 8.1

Several of our readers have been asking me to do a quick write up on Windows 8.1.  I recently bought a new PC, and I decided it was time to give Windows 8 a try.  I’ve been happily using Windows 7 for the past 4 years.  Honestly, I have no complaints.  As a gamer, Windows 7 did everything I needed and felt compatible with everything.  So naturally, it makes sense to upgrade.

I’m not an expert.  Let me get that out of the way right now.  I am your slightly above-average user; perhaps more, but far from a techie.  I’m a gamer.  I spend the majority of my time on a PC playing games, writing about games, browsing the internet looking for things related to games, and talking with others about games.  Those are my requirements.

keen-start-screen

Windows 8.1 Start Screen

I heard horror stories about the start screen.  I heard everything from you no longer have a desktop to this thing being worthless.  All of that is untrue!  The Stat Screen is actually pretty neat.  The image above is what mine looks like right now.  It has that tablet look and feel that emphasizes user experience.  I’ve chosen to keep mine simple: the games I play, the programs I use every day, and the extra on the left.  You’ll notice I have a nice big desktop button.  If I click that, it takes me right to the normal desktop you’ve been using for over a decade.

This Start screen is completely customizable.  You can use any image you want, any color, etc.  You can change the size of tiles, name the groups (or not), and make it like a little command-center for whatever you want to easily access.  If you don’t want to use it, you can practically get away without ever seeing it.  (more…)

23 Comments
March 17, 2014
PC / Reviews / RPG

Quick Thoughts on Dark Souls 2

I’m a big fan of the Dark Souls games, and I’ve been eagerly anticipating the release of Dark Souls 2.  I’ve only put in around 15 hours so I haven’t seen too much of the game yet. Had I not gotten the game two days late and restarted my character five times I would probably be farther along. Still, there’s a lot of interesting changes worth noting, both positive and negative.

Spells Require Stamina

This is actually a pretty big deal. Your spells still have a limited number of charges but they also require stamina to use. So after you run away or roll to the side to avoid a nasty blow you have to regain enough stamina to cast your spells. This is pretty much why I decided not to try playing a caster on my first go through.

Cool New Covenants

I really like most of the new Covenants they added to the game. There is a decent mix of co-op and pvp along with some new PvE covenants. There’s a Champion one, for example, that makes the game more difficult and disables all summoning so you have to do it yourself. Another interesting one is the Blue Sentinals, a PVP covenant that summons people to defend members of the Way of the Blue co-op covenant when they get invaded by enemy players.

Soul Memory

This a record of all the souls you have acquired. I believe the idea of it is to prevent people from making low-level characters with powerful gear to invade the worlds of new players. Some people also claim that this prevents co-op summoning if the range is above 500k or something like that. It seems that nobody is exactly sure about the mechanics of this but it sure is bothering a lot of people. (more…)

5 Comments
March 15, 2014
MMORPG / PC / Themepark

WildStar is a 3 Monther

I’ve been in the WildStar beta since June of 2013.  Graev and I both received access early back when there were almost no other people playing on the server.   We’ve seen the game come a long way, and I feel like I can personally give a very accurate overview of what someone can expect to get out of WildStar.

WildStar is a Themepark

There can be no doubt and no surprise that WildStar is 100% true to the themepark model.  Leveling is done by going from quest hub to quest hub.  It’s go here, pick up this, click 10 of those, kill that, come back, get a levels, slot your skills, go kill 10 of those, etc.  End-game is vertical raid treadmilling.  If you love themeparks, you will LOVE WildStar.  This is the themepark fanatics dream come true.

‘Active Combat’ is annoying

First, it’s not original.  The telegraphing has been done in Smite, League of Legends, Age of Conan, a bit in GW2, TERA, TSW, and even ESO.  I hate mashing my keys constantly like I’m playing Hungry Hungry Hippos.  That’s not what I want.  This makes me love the old school original EverQuest combat.  I’ll take white damage over mashing any day.  WildStar’s “skill”-based combat is still highly completely stat and gear dependent; you won’t be out-playing someone if their gear is better than yours.

WildStar isn’t more difficult than Vanilla WoW

I don’t know where this started, but I keep hearing people say WildStar is more difficult than vanilla WoW.   Simply untrue.  I mow through mobs and level in WildStar like there’s nothing in my way.  The leveling process in WildStar is so scripted and holds your hand so well that they practically hand you levels for quest rewards.  It’s meant to be that way.  They want you to feel like you are hyped up on sugar when you play.  As accessible as WoW was back in 2004, WildStar is the accessible version of Vanilla WoW. Seriously… they show you the red circles on the floor you have to avoid. (more…)

42 Comments
March 14, 2014
Console / FPS/Shooter / PC / Reviews

Titanfall Review and Giveaway

Graev and I have been pretty excited about Titanfall ever since we played the beta.  We both consider ourselves to be ‘average’ when it comes to first-person shooters.  We’re never going to top the K/D ratio charts or consistently lead a team to victory, but we enjoy the action and get-in-get-out fun from your everyday gamer perspective.

Your options are vast in today’s marketplace.  Call of Duty and Battlefield dominate the FPS space with consistency.  Is Titanfall a contender?  Should you spend your money and give it a ‘shot’?  Read on for our complete thoughts on Titanfall and a chance to win some free stuff!

Overall Gameplay

Gameplay in Titanfall is uniquely intense without ever subjecting the player to a lapse in action like one might find in Battlefield.  The 15 available maps are on the smaller side, but with only 6 players per side and a squadron of AI controlled grunts it somehow manages to feel ‘just right’.

Leaping through windows, jumping rooftop to rooftop, wall-hanging, jet packing around, sprinting, cloaking, hanging off enemy and friendly titans, and leaping into the waiting arms of your titan — an experience you simply have to experience at least once in your life — are all enough to make any match satisfying.  The opportunities to use the map to your advantage while doing all of the above are incredible and easily a distinguishing factor between the novice and experienced players. (more…)

8 Comments
March 12, 2014
Console / PC / Reviews

Thief Disappointment

I played the original Thief games when I was younger and since then they have been the standard that all other stealth games get measured by. When I heard that a new Thief game was being made I didn’t hold out a lot of hope that it would be as good as the originals, but it looked interesting enough to try anyway. I’m not very far in the game yet, only up to chapter 3, but I have several things that I wanted to talk about.

Garrett the ThiefDifficulty Customization

Originally, I decided to try playing the game as they had designed it. I picked the hardest difficulty and left every other setting at default. I got all the way up to chapter three before I could no longer take such a patronizing experience. For some reason it seems devs think modern gamers are incredibly inept at playing games and require giant waypoint arrows, visual meters that show the alert level of guards, and special vision modes that make everything intractable light up like a Christmas tree. Fortunately the game allows you to customize the difficulty options in an attempt to make the game feel like the originals. You can disable anywhere saving, the aiming reticle, the focus vision mode, etc. So after turning on essentially every limitation and disabling waypoint arrows, and pretty much everything else, I started over. Unfortunately, there’s a lot that is still same about the game. Even though the focus vision mode is turned off you will still see climbable spots glowing with an offensive blue tint and even though the reticle is turned off objects will still highlight when you aim at them, which essentially is the same thing. (more…)

5 Comments
March 9, 2014
PC

Grim Dawn

Ever hear of Titan Quest?  It's an awesome Action RPG (ARPG) set in Ancient Greece, Egypt, and Asia.  Titan Quest was/is one of the best ARPGs ever made.  Long story…

14 Comments
March 5, 2014
Console / PC / Reviews / RPG

South Park: The Stick of Truth

south-park-stick-of-truth

The new South Park RPG comes out today and we were lucky enough to get an early review copy from Ubisoft. It probably goes without saying that the game is full of violence, cursing, and a whole lot of other offensive content, but it’s South Park so that should be fairly obvious by now. The show has been on for over 15 years or something, so I’m sure most people who would complain about anything are probably burnt out by now. But hey, at least it seems like they go out of their way to insult everybody rather than any specific thing.

cartman-the-stick-of-truthPresentation and Story

The Stick of Truth looks pretty much just like the TV show. Admittedly, I’ve only seen sporadic episodes from the first several seasons but they seemed to replicate the aesthetic rather well. The music is also fantastic and features a lot of pieces that fit really well with the fantasy motif. As far as I can tell all of the voice actors seem to be the same people that do the TV show, and the whole game seems stuffed with various cameos and references.

In the beginning you take on the role of the “New Kid” and create your very own South Park character. The creation is fairly limited but you are able to pick from several hair styles and colors, a base outfit, and even skin color (Which does influence a few conversations in a way I’m sure you can imagine.). Once you are in the game you can wobble around and explore your environment which consists of parts of South Park (Some neighborhood streets, downtown, etc.). Almost immediately you will find your way over to Cartman’s backyard and be asked by the grand wizard himself to join the KKK — the Kingdom of Kupa Keep. It’s then that you get to choose between one of four classes: Fighter, Mage, Thief, or Jew. I’m actually very curious as to how many people do a double take at that point in the game. Anyway, through most of the game you will essentially be taking part of the kids’ fantasy game that has the humans and drow elves waging war over the fate of The Stick of Truth which grants the bearer powers over the universe. (more…)

7 Comments
March 4, 2014
PC / Reviews / RTS

Banished

This past weekend I picked up a really great city-building strategy game called Banished.  The concept is simple: You are a banished group of exiles who have to settle a new area to survive.  Will you die or start a new thriving civilization that will go on for hundreds of years?  If you’re me, you’ve probably died a dozen times already.

banished
Build bridges across water to access new areas and resources.

Banished looks and sounds simple on the outside.  You simply have to make buildings and keep your people healthy, happy, and their bellies full of food.  There’s so much more to it, though, when you realize each of those mechanics are fully developed and very close to reality.

It’s all about risk and resource management.  Want to plant crops?  In other games it’s only a matter or assigning land to be farmed and workers to tend the crops, but in Banished you have to worry about which crops can survive the temperatures when it gets cold or be harvested in time.  An early winter will ruin your crops.  Working in the snow will lower worker efficiency, cause them to become ill, and then the least of your concerns will be whether or not your pumpkins withered.  Oh, and I should probably mention that if you farm in the same place for too many seasons your soil will be ruined.

Banished Snowstorm
Build a tailor to stock warm clothes to keep villagers alive in the winter months

Every resource requires real thought.  You need firewood to stay warm in the winter.  Firewood comes from wood logs.  Chopping down trees is simple, but once you chop them down they take time to regrow and mature to the point of yielding good wood again.  Distance matters so it’s not like you can just run to another big section of forest.  Reducing your forests will reduce the deer population… and then you might starve.  See the trend?   (more…)

24 Comments
February 24, 2014