Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Defiance: The Game 9/10
So i haven't done a review in a while..... Mainly because I've been playing the game i wanted to review so much. Its Defiance, the new Trion MMO that is on Pc, Xbox 360, and the PS3. Its the first of its kind, an MMO that is across all platforms. And if you read that sentence and thought, "Hey Mike, you forgot about the Wii console." I didnt forget, i just don't count it as a playable system. But back to Defiance. It is a SyFy third-person shooter as an MMO. On day one, the servers were absolutely terrible because Trion didn't anyone would buy this game. If i were making a game with online servers, i would make sure that on day one, there would be enough room on the server for every copy of the game that was created and if you didnt need every server, then clos some down. But after a day or two, Trion more than doubled their server, fixing most of the server issues.
So in the game, you hear of the back story of a huge war that happened and that most of everything was destroyed and you are one of the survivors. You get the choice between four different classes, being the Outlaw, Machinist, Suvivalist, and the Veteran. The only differences I have seen in the different classes are the starting weapons.I have yet to see and story missions varying from class to class. The other thing that you can change to make your character different is his/ her race. You have to choice between a human or and alien race. Nothing except changing what your character looks like. There are also new character races coming out with the season pass to the game. And like every other MMO out there, you can change your characters features. Do you want black hair, blue eyes, etc. There are four skills that you can pick, consisting of Blur (faster movement and increased melee damage), Overcharge (increasing the amount of damage your guns for a short period of time), Decoy (created a copy of yourself to distract enemies and can be used to teleport to decoy's position), and my favorite, Cloaking (self explanatory). Along with the Main Skills, there are many perks that you can use to build your character to accustom your play style.
As you start out, like every other game in existence, you have a tutorial. It teaches you how to move, look around, and to shoot, all the basics. Then you have your first series of "Quests" like using the mini map to find lost salvage and grenades. Then once that is completed, you are taken to Defiance and meet all of your fellow Ark Hunters. When you're at the Republic camp, you can see a lot of other players, but it is incredible seeing how many people there are at an Ark Fall at 11 pm eastern on any given day. This game has its own experience when you have a massive group of people all attacking the same objective.
Just like every open world game, you have your main missions, side mission, and some other time killing races or horde mode. But the thing that makes this such a great game is that you dont have a limit of how many people can help you. as you do some of the missions, you have other players doing the same mission, making it easier for everyone, as there are a lot of enemies in most missions. The only missions that you have to do by yourself are the Episode missions. Those missions are based off of the next airing episode of Defiance. Yes Defiance is a tv show too!!!!! I watched the first episode two days ago and it was great. It tied into the game and explained everything i had questions about from the game. It explained who Nolan was and how the world came to be.
Overall, this game impressed me. I thought an MMO on the Xbox would be a terrible idea and had doubts until i started playing it. Yes, the servers weren't the best on day one, but they are much better and I have no trouble logging into the game now. I even was able to recruit one of my friends, Snarf to play, which ended up making my friend Cees buy the game because he was by himself most nights playing Gears of War or Halo, while the rest of us were playing Defiance.
For Defiance, I have to give it an 9 / 10 just for how good the game has been so far and the ability to do almost any mission co-op and the extent of the skill trees and constantly finding better loot and mods.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
PS4 Annoucement / Next Gen Talk
So it has been a while since my last post. But I'm still alive. I'd like to talk about the recent annoucement of the PS4. My overall impression of the system is very good. I think that it will be Sony's best system yet. It changed my least favorite part of the PS3 system..... the XMB or Cross Media Bar. It is extrmely unorganized and duplicates are everywhere. Oh you want Netflix??? Its under Tv Shows, Movies, and Streaming services. I'd prefer going to my pins from the Xbox 360 Dashboard and telling my Kinect to open it for me.
But back to the PS4. On the tech specs side, it has a great processor and 8 GB of RAM. That is getting closer to most PCs now. Obviously if you have a desktop for gaming, you may have more, but this is huge for a home console. And after almost 20 years, Sony decided to change the design of their controller!!!!! Not that there as anything terribly wrong with the old controller, but come on.... that controller was great for playing Spyro and Crash Bandicoot when I was 5. My hands have grown since then.... Make a bigger controller!!!! Hopefully the PS4 controller is better. There is now a share button on the controller so you can share and upload your gameplay to Youtube and other places to show your friends that sweet headshot on Callof Duty or that last second shot in NBA. But the biggest downer of the PS4 is that none of your previous controllers will work. This makes me think... Will any of the PS3 accessories work with the PS4. What about that Turtle Beach headset you just bought? How about Sony's Pulse headset? They confirmed that the Dual Shock 3 Controllers will not be compatible with the PS4.
I hope that Microsoft keeps the same controller. Because if they do, that is less money that they will get at lauch, but it will sell more consoles with the controllers remaining the same. You can switch the controllers from the old system to the new with the click of a button. I am most worried about the accessory compatability of the Next Gen systems. I am big into headsets and have headsets for both systems. On my Xbox 360, i have the Tritton Warhead. Its a 7.1 surround sound, fully wireless headset. And it cost a pretty penny. Its a $300 headset that is worth every penny, but i dont want to have to buy another one for when the new Xbox is released. Microsoft can easily make it so all of the accessories still work and I hope they do.
And the biggest thing that will be big for both systems is the ability to play used games. They always complain about not getting money from the reselling of games, but they easily make it up with everything else. Xbox has Xbox Live that is 100% profit. They don't need to charge for anything, but they do. And it only makes the experience better. Sony will have to start charging for online play on the PS4 or it will not survive. Even $40 a year would help them significantly. Undercut the Xbox and try to do something.
So in closing, hopefully the Next Gen is as great as we all expect and they make good decisions with their products.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Videogame systems
So one of the biggest things that people ask me at work is which system is best. And there is no answer. No system is the absolute best system. They all have their pros and cons.
Xbox 360: My absolute favorite. But it may not be yours. The online experience is the best by far. Anyone who says that the online on the PS3 has never played online with an Xbox 360. The download speed is faster and has much smaller updates and less need for a huge hard drive for game saves. There are also more games for the Xbox. They may not all be amazing. But the exclusives that the Xbox has are amazing. Whether its a great RPG like Fable or a Shooter like the Halo series. And the biggest thing that a PS3 owner will say is that it costs money. Ever heard of you get what you pay for. Sometimes its not true and you can find a good bargain, but I would never cheap out on my gaming experience. That's right its an experience. Would I rather pay $60 per year to play online or pay nothing and be tortured. I rather pay the $60 per year. It comes out to be $5 per month for a good online gaming service. Now who can complain about that? If you can complain about that, let me ask you how much do you pay for your texting plan? More or less than $5. Cuz mine is a little more than that. So if you have a problem, too bad.
One of my favorite features of Xbox Live is the party feature. You can invite your friends and be in your own private chat while you are playing a game. Better yet, you don't have to be in the same game to talk. Take that PS3! It lets me play a sport game, while one friend plays an RPG, and while another watches Netflix. Its better than having to make a phone call. And you can have up to 8 people in a party chat at one time.
PS3: Now I've had my PS3 now for about three years. I bought it my first year at GameStop. I bought it with the intent of using it as a Blu-ray player and for some of the exclusives like God of War and Infamous, two of my favorite PS3 games. The PS3 is also great for its many RPGs that makes getting a PS3 worth it. Unfortunately, Sony hasn't done too much renovation to the PlayStation console in term of controllers. It is still the same shell from 1995 and the only updates to the controller have been the addition of the analog sticks to the PS one controller, the dual shock addition to the Second Gen controller, the color change for the PS2 and it then became wireless and had six motion sensors with the PS3. And does anyone remember when Sony said that no one cared about a controller that rumbled..... Yeah, that lasted a whole couple of months. Then a line of Dual Shock 3s came about to replace the initial sixaxis controllers. So getting back to the system. It's a great overall system, with a lacking online services. They have their Netflix, Hulu plus, and several other services, but it doesn't make up for the long updates and several down days per year for the PSN maintenance. The last day I can remember that Xbox Live was down was in November of 2009. As I said earlier, Xbox has a party chat. The PS3 does have a similar chat system, but the drawback is that you cannot be doing anything else. The chat is the only thing you can do. No multitasking! This system is good only if you don't like to play online or if you're looking for a good Japanese RPG like White Knight Chronicles.
Wii: This one will be short, I promise. Mainly because I dont like the Wii. Yes they have Mario and Zelda. But those two combined cannot convince me to buy a Wii. Its excessive need for more accessories and attachments can drive you up a wall and empty your wallet. The graphics aren't that good and the controller is horrible. Who wants to play with a bar like controller and a nunchuck. Its not comfortable or easy to do. The wire could snap in-between the controllers and your done. This system broke so many TVs with its motion gaming, it was ridiculous. Not to say that the people playing were too intelligent. The system system tells you before every game that you should put on the safety strap. Overall, I never owned a Wii and I never will.
Wii-U: Now this looks interesting. But not interesting enough to buy. The 2012 holiday item of the year goes to the Wii-U. It was the thing on every Nintendo fan's Christmas list. Replacing the controllers with a tablet for most games seemed like a good idea to someone, but it lasts as long as the 3DS battery, which I will touch upon later. But to say it shortly, its battery life sucks. A measly 3 hours. Though, some games still can use the old Wii remotes, as long as they are the motion plus controllers. So if you want to play Just Dance on the Wii-U, no need to worry. Its a new system so that's all I have for it. I'm not a Nintendo guy, so I'm not going into great detail about it.
Now onto the handhelds..
So only two companies have handheld systems. There is the Nintendo 3DS and the PS Vita.
3DS: This system is what you need to play your Pokemon and your Mario. But other than that. Nintendo hasn't launched any huge titles for it. It has 4 Mario games and a few N64 remakes. Who cares. Nintendo dropped the price of this system by $80 after a year of launch. And what did they give the customers that paid the full $250, a few games that they own the digital rights to, so it cost them nothing.... Yeah, I feel much better about my purchase after that...
And the 3D of the system isn't even all that good. They say that children under 7 shouldn't use it for more than 5 minutes per half hour so it does not strain their eyes and hurt them. And after a year and a half, they release an "XL" version. Now that's just not good business ethics releasing a new system every other year since the DS to the 3DS.
Vita: Sony's newest handheld is actually pretty impressive. They ditched the UMD disks and replaced it with a small memory card like chip. Now they are harder to keep track of, but there is no disk to scratch and its easier to change games. At launch, they offered a 3G version of the Vita, and I found it rather useless. You have to go through AT&T, which I dont mind because they are my cell phone carrier. So I know that they have a good service it starts at $15 per month until you hit your data limit. But the games are awesome, the touch screen and back touch pad are awesome, and the battery life is pretty good too. The vita gets my best handheld award.
Xbox 360: My absolute favorite. But it may not be yours. The online experience is the best by far. Anyone who says that the online on the PS3 has never played online with an Xbox 360. The download speed is faster and has much smaller updates and less need for a huge hard drive for game saves. There are also more games for the Xbox. They may not all be amazing. But the exclusives that the Xbox has are amazing. Whether its a great RPG like Fable or a Shooter like the Halo series. And the biggest thing that a PS3 owner will say is that it costs money. Ever heard of you get what you pay for. Sometimes its not true and you can find a good bargain, but I would never cheap out on my gaming experience. That's right its an experience. Would I rather pay $60 per year to play online or pay nothing and be tortured. I rather pay the $60 per year. It comes out to be $5 per month for a good online gaming service. Now who can complain about that? If you can complain about that, let me ask you how much do you pay for your texting plan? More or less than $5. Cuz mine is a little more than that. So if you have a problem, too bad.
One of my favorite features of Xbox Live is the party feature. You can invite your friends and be in your own private chat while you are playing a game. Better yet, you don't have to be in the same game to talk. Take that PS3! It lets me play a sport game, while one friend plays an RPG, and while another watches Netflix. Its better than having to make a phone call. And you can have up to 8 people in a party chat at one time.
PS3: Now I've had my PS3 now for about three years. I bought it my first year at GameStop. I bought it with the intent of using it as a Blu-ray player and for some of the exclusives like God of War and Infamous, two of my favorite PS3 games. The PS3 is also great for its many RPGs that makes getting a PS3 worth it. Unfortunately, Sony hasn't done too much renovation to the PlayStation console in term of controllers. It is still the same shell from 1995 and the only updates to the controller have been the addition of the analog sticks to the PS one controller, the dual shock addition to the Second Gen controller, the color change for the PS2 and it then became wireless and had six motion sensors with the PS3. And does anyone remember when Sony said that no one cared about a controller that rumbled..... Yeah, that lasted a whole couple of months. Then a line of Dual Shock 3s came about to replace the initial sixaxis controllers. So getting back to the system. It's a great overall system, with a lacking online services. They have their Netflix, Hulu plus, and several other services, but it doesn't make up for the long updates and several down days per year for the PSN maintenance. The last day I can remember that Xbox Live was down was in November of 2009. As I said earlier, Xbox has a party chat. The PS3 does have a similar chat system, but the drawback is that you cannot be doing anything else. The chat is the only thing you can do. No multitasking! This system is good only if you don't like to play online or if you're looking for a good Japanese RPG like White Knight Chronicles.
Wii: This one will be short, I promise. Mainly because I dont like the Wii. Yes they have Mario and Zelda. But those two combined cannot convince me to buy a Wii. Its excessive need for more accessories and attachments can drive you up a wall and empty your wallet. The graphics aren't that good and the controller is horrible. Who wants to play with a bar like controller and a nunchuck. Its not comfortable or easy to do. The wire could snap in-between the controllers and your done. This system broke so many TVs with its motion gaming, it was ridiculous. Not to say that the people playing were too intelligent. The system system tells you before every game that you should put on the safety strap. Overall, I never owned a Wii and I never will.
Wii-U: Now this looks interesting. But not interesting enough to buy. The 2012 holiday item of the year goes to the Wii-U. It was the thing on every Nintendo fan's Christmas list. Replacing the controllers with a tablet for most games seemed like a good idea to someone, but it lasts as long as the 3DS battery, which I will touch upon later. But to say it shortly, its battery life sucks. A measly 3 hours. Though, some games still can use the old Wii remotes, as long as they are the motion plus controllers. So if you want to play Just Dance on the Wii-U, no need to worry. Its a new system so that's all I have for it. I'm not a Nintendo guy, so I'm not going into great detail about it.
Now onto the handhelds..
So only two companies have handheld systems. There is the Nintendo 3DS and the PS Vita.
3DS: This system is what you need to play your Pokemon and your Mario. But other than that. Nintendo hasn't launched any huge titles for it. It has 4 Mario games and a few N64 remakes. Who cares. Nintendo dropped the price of this system by $80 after a year of launch. And what did they give the customers that paid the full $250, a few games that they own the digital rights to, so it cost them nothing.... Yeah, I feel much better about my purchase after that...
And the 3D of the system isn't even all that good. They say that children under 7 shouldn't use it for more than 5 minutes per half hour so it does not strain their eyes and hurt them. And after a year and a half, they release an "XL" version. Now that's just not good business ethics releasing a new system every other year since the DS to the 3DS.
Vita: Sony's newest handheld is actually pretty impressive. They ditched the UMD disks and replaced it with a small memory card like chip. Now they are harder to keep track of, but there is no disk to scratch and its easier to change games. At launch, they offered a 3G version of the Vita, and I found it rather useless. You have to go through AT&T, which I dont mind because they are my cell phone carrier. So I know that they have a good service it starts at $15 per month until you hit your data limit. But the games are awesome, the touch screen and back touch pad are awesome, and the battery life is pretty good too. The vita gets my best handheld award.
First Entry
Hey Guys.... So I've decided to write a blog about some of the more recent games, systems, and such.
Just so everyone knows a little bit about my background, I'm a Gamestop employee and I've been there for three years. So I guess you can say that I know a little bit about games. I won't say that I know everything, and anything I write in here are my opinions about how I think certain games should have been made.
So I hope you enjoy reading this and for movie reviews, you should head over to http://alexthedinosaur.blogspot.com and see what Alex the Dinosaur has to offer.
Enjoy!
Just so everyone knows a little bit about my background, I'm a Gamestop employee and I've been there for three years. So I guess you can say that I know a little bit about games. I won't say that I know everything, and anything I write in here are my opinions about how I think certain games should have been made.
So I hope you enjoy reading this and for movie reviews, you should head over to http://alexthedinosaur.blogspot.com and see what Alex the Dinosaur has to offer.
Enjoy!
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