Ziggurat (Mini-review)

Under various circumstances, I am not able to do a proper review of the kind you may be used to seeing from me. However I can and will do a mini-review for this Halloween related to a recent title with a slightly spooky (but not really scary) atmosphere. This mini-review will be simple, lack a review card, present few and borrowed images, and wont likely contain as many words as normal. Perhaps some day this will be revisited for a proper full review once I have the time and capability. Without further intro, this is a mini-review for the PS4 port of the rogue-like FPS game, Ziggurat.

At first, Ziggurat looks like a strange fantasy RPG taking place from the first person perspective. Its dripping all with the atmosphere of a dungeon crawler, the type you'd expect to normally be seen from a top-down view. You've got dark stony architecture, tons of monsters of various sizes and elements, and the walls are all alight with mysterious and magical things. Magical spirit orbs dance along walls, crystals grow out of walls, and the next door you open may host either a dungeon room filled with spinning blade traps, or it might be an abandoned library with a scroll to read you of your dire situation in this cursed series of arenas. Then with a zap of your wand, you'll notice its firing off to the beat and sound of a machine gun and realize you're in a horde-stomping FPS where waves of enemies come at you to see who can have their face blasted off first by purple wizard bullets. Make no mistake, all the conventional old-school FPS logic is there to greet you. You can carry up to four weapons, each hold an ammo type, run at fast speeds in circle-strafe fashion, you've got a health bar to hold onto, enemies bleed pick-ups, and I was not exaggerating when I mentioned that you'll most likely be firing your fantasy weapons like a machine gun. You'll also find things that could be equated to shotguns, rockets, flame-throwers, and grenades.

Of course if the game was just that, it'd be just a straight off Heretic successor (which wouldn't exactly be a bad thing either) or another case of Serious Sam accidentally falling outside of his time period. This is still far more unique and much of its own thing, because there is the Rogue-like and RPG pieces that fit into place as well. The dungeon arenas you encounter are all randomly aligned and contain a different kind of experience. You may start each ordinary game with 5 floors in mind for your end-goal, but every room on all of those 5 floors is never the exact same as it was the last time you played. The enemies in them will be different, there might be a modifier in place to enhance or tilt the combat balance, you might take a gamble with asking the gods for help, or there might simply be a new treasure you have to reach with the unpredictable tension of whether or not its what you need. Meanwhile along the way you've got random weapons placed before you, selected from a large arsenal of equipment that falls into three categories: Spells (blue mana), Staffs (green mana), and Alchemical (orange mana). Then you've got your trusty wand, which varies by the character you've chosen at the start (alongside some perks and base statistics). The goal is to get from room to room, and uncover the map until you at least find two key points: The key room, and the portal room. The key opens the portal to the next floor/level, however a boss guards each portal and commands their own flock of minions and powers to try and stop you. Defeat, means death, and you're out of the picture for the whole run if the minion of the Ziggurat are able to stop you. However its always recommended not to rush things and run to the top, as you've also got some RPG influence running in the background to help you out. Every enemy or room accomplishment leads to an increase in experience, and every level up lends its to more endurance in health and mana, as well as a choice between two random perks. The perks might be merely small incremental stat boosts that you can slowly build on with time, or they could be grand gifts that save your life in the short or long term. Its all about what your luck in the Ziggurat can do for you, and how well you adapt it to your FPS skills in combat.

Normally I'm a skeptic on Rogue-likes being fun. They just seem like their built in a mean-spirited and shallow way of killing you and having you repeat everything again. They try to entice you with "a new adventure every time", but once you know the core mechanics and see how mean the game is, its worn off that refreshing sense of adventure and becomes just a matter of how long you can find value in repeating the same beginning. Thankfully I stand by my purchase of Ziggurat with the confidence that I entrusted the right Rogue-like to open my views up for the genre. Its hard to recommend to other skeptics since it still depends on how much you can get invested into the basic mechanics, and if you think they're good enough to play from the ground-up more than 10 or so times. Still everything just felt well accomplished with this one. The RPG aspect balances your character to be on par with the chosen difficulty, and to reward you for exploring. No dead-end is truly a dead-end, as you'll always get XP for monster rooms or even lore scrolls you may have already read. Every level up feels exciting, as I press the upgrade button and keep my fingers crossed for just what I need, or some surprise that'll suddenly have me building my character up in one core aspect. One lucky game I had a Cleric who was cursed to lose his health bonus, but then at the very last floor, I started getting constant offers to boost my maximu health dramtically, and then a bonus that even let me go invincible upon taking a hit. Combined with my pre-destined luck of health drops, I suddenly became unstoppable by choosing the right series of perks.

 Meanwhile the core combat is just great. If I were to nitpick, the jumping doesn't feel natural at first, but by my 4th playthrough I almost forgot I ever had that complaint. Everything else from the shooting, to the enemy diversity and weapons, feels as great and should be right at home to FPS fans. It also helps in this game's favor that there isn't a lot of competition for a shooter with such mechanics, so seeing someone take the old-school pick-ups, exploration, and circle-strafing gunplay elements and put them in a tense Rogue-like situation is very interesting. However a big theme in Rogue-likes and keeping them alive is the "meta-game", which basically means what you can unlock that can be used in future playthroughs. Well every time you win a game, or die, you get a handful of armory items. These are things that may or may not randomly appear as items or perks to assist you. Basically your chance of discovery and options at luck are opening after even 30 play-throughs. However for the actual challenges and milestones there is the character unlocks, and then unlocking higher levels for those characters by beating medium on each. There are 17 total, with nearly each one redefining some pillar of the basics or coming in with a much different type of luck than another character. As an example, one of my favorites is Leto the Cleric who specializes in health drops, has sturdy base stats, and yet lacks wand power and has to deal with more frequent "champion" (stronger) enemies. So he's fairly ordinary aside from some good perks to start on that may or may not meet your playstyle. By contrast, there's a vampire class by the form of Corvus, who is given the unique gift of consuming XP pick-ups as health, but loses health every second, completely reshaping the way you need to play the game if you choose him as your character. Unlocking and trying out each of these characters is a real treat, and whereas some aren't of my preference, I admire each one for their strong traits and diversity, and felt each one was worth unlocking. Their diversity will add a lot to the game if you're engaged by the core mechanics that ground it. The only problem I have with it is that sometimes their description or role traits are left a bit lacking. Perk cards often help define your character and their stats, but a lot of their being is still left outside of that and may not even be in the description. Some traits hard to even figure out while playing, and you may wind up losing a match or taking the wrong risk simply because you didn't know your own character thanks to the game's lack of explanation.

As a PlayStation 4 game, it handled things in a mixed fashion. Options are pretty good, with everything from FOV + headbob choices, to being able to even turn off motion blur (which also turns off lens flare). There's even button rebindings, which is awesome. The sad bit comes when levels get intense later on. Rooms full of Imps, the last boss battle when cluttered with minions, or rooms full of acidic AoE globes are all moments where the game loses its performance. It feels like playing on a moderat or low-end PC where you can handle the game, only to then encounter a sudden effect intensive room that taxes your machine more than you'd expect... only the sad matter is, there's no settings to tweak to lower that effect. You just have to endure those hiccups, or distortedly slow moments. Otherwise, the game runs fine. Though if I were to nitpick, I do wish the lens flare option was a separate thing. I love the moon rays that come off of the open roof levels when the setting is on, yet the motion blur is distracting with the fast paced combat.

Slow-down imminent!

Summary

Ziggurat is a weird game for me to try and recommend. I stand in opposition with a lot of the genre and could not possibly explain its negative tropes away to tell those like-minded that its an exception, nor could I tell you if it has what fans seek from this kind of experience. What I can say though, is that as a guy that likes older shooters, and liked the unique setting for it, I had a great time. Risk and reward is still a heavy factor that leans on luck, but I found their balance to be rather kind than most. The core mechanics still keep a check in place to assure you that skill will usually prevail regardless of the cards you're given, and yet the same luck can of course help you. As a matter of fact the biggest luck factor that you've got to endure, is the level-up system which is almost always just going to help you. Of course serious risk gamble takers can still have fun with the riskier characters, totally blind draws of powers or punishments from god altars, or by crossing the lava pit to see if that mysterious treasure chest really had something worth the burn to get to. If I were to try and narrow down who would like this game, I'd say if you like good shooters, can enjoy a wizard theme, and want a touch of mystery with every session, then you'd probably enjoy this game.

I vote for "all of the above"

Polls for consumer bases are often a great thing. They're the company way of saying "we're listening, now help us help you" and try to construct a list that can lead to either fixes or totally new things. This is especially beneficial in a field like gaming, where updates make this happen to things like consoles that are supposed to be with you for years. Usually when a game based poll is released I'm either thinking A) Oh, yes that one thing I want is here! Please let this win! B) Okay this is a tough choice between these few things. C) Uh oh, I hope the haters don't have their way and vote this change in. Something along those lines. There's rarely a poll or product so full of holes that it needs every sinlge one of those things. Unfortunately here we are now, with shockingly the biggest selling console producing one. Its not a huge surprise considering Sony has always been behind on user interfaces, conveniences, and just general support for various things. I already discussed that a good bit long ago within an article piece centered around being critical of one of my favorite publishers. Here's a quick picture of the supposed survey on various features, and why its so telling of Sony's major flaw. Its also an extra kick that this was an "invite only" deal, of which I did not get despite being an early buyer of the system, as well as every other one except for the PSP.

Those aren't just small brand new features, or fan requests of interesting content (well some are). These are features nearly every damn thing in existence either has, the PS3 had, or something this system absolutely needs just because it was built with some dumb oversights. The fact that this system was built in a way where freakin' betas and demos stay inside of your library list permanently alongside full blown video games you own is just outright stupid design. Then they have the nerve to leave it like that for, what two years now, and then put it in a poll so it just might be dealt with in the near future. Oh but meanwhile they found time to slip in an advertisement of Destiny right on your home menu alongside your normal games. Get your act together Sony. There isn't a single thing on that list that should have been a "maybe". If you thought about these things, knew your system lacks it, and then have the time to secretly message out some "invites" to PSN users, then you're already wasting precious time that could have been spent easily making a filter list for the library or a notification that a friend is on. You know these things are wanted, needed, or just are outright missing in off of the PS4, and its embarrassing that you can't be bothered to just fix them like a normal company. Why is something like a "wishlist" so hard to nail down? Oh wait, its not because you've done it, yet it only works in the browser version apparently. Meanwhile your priority for a PS4 version, the one where people actually shop on, is just a potential maybe for consumers to vote on? Really!?

Needs a lot of construction work

You know what, fine I'm just going to go through the whole list and help prove my point. I shouldn't have to, but just in case...

• Notifications when friends come on: Had this on PS3 for as long as its been around. Why on earth is this missing to begin with, and yet you KNOW about its absence? Get on this.
• Classics: Now this one I can almost understand. Its tougher to get and publish a full library of emulated games. That being said, it shouldn't be a question. If its possible, and you know people want it, go at it. At this point its loud and clear people would pay for this as well, so you're practically asking if you do or don't want extra revenue. Oh and if I may make a suggestion, fix your issues back with the PS3/Vita's version of this. This area honestly never got handled very competently.
• Folders: Do I really need to say something on this? It was on PS3... and Wii U... and Vita... and almost any other competent console that is complex enough to need a menu UI.
• Appear offline mode: Majorly requested feature, and just something nice to offer when you're going to force people to run online for much of their content. Its also another thing the PS3 did that the super powerful "next-gen" high tech PS4 couldn't contain for some reason.
• Hide/remove library: This isn't a feature so much as the library is just broke without a fix in sight. This one out of all of these is the most infuriating to see on here just out of the audacity of "maybe it'll be an added feature". This is the kind of poor design that should have been weeded out in the launch window. FIX IT!
• Filtering options for library: Very similar to the above. I want to know what genius decided to make a collective list of every game ever owned and played and then decided it never needed any organization what-so-ever in an age with so many digital clients that allow if not NEED such a function. Its common sense at this point.
• Download avatars on PS4: Okay so first let me take you a bit back in time to the past condition of avatars on PS4. Avatars had absolutely no support outside of their past existence, yet show up as though you could have just grabbed it yesterday as normal avatars. They carry over from the PS3 or vita, but cannot be obtained, changed (that's right, you could not change it), or bought by PS4 methods. I'd hate to wonder how a total newcomer feels about this. I've been told you can change it through Facebook though. Facebook! Let me try and summarize this again: YOU CAN CHANGE A PS4 ITEM THAT IDENTIFIES YOUR VERY PROFILE ON PS4, EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH OUTSIDE CLIENTS LIKE FACEBOOK AND THE PLAYSTATION 3!!! Thankfully this was fixed, but it just goes to show you how behind in these features Sony really can be. Now back to the survey: Should we actually have a complete avatar system now where you are capable of acquiring new avatars as originally intended? Is the sky blue? The answer to both is an ear-blasting "YES!"
• Backgrounds: Actually this isn't such a big deal by itself, but the fact that its been majorly requested by PS owners, and only just now gets brought up as a light question among all sorts of "duh!" options and you've got me still wondering why this wasn't just done instead of asked. If this whole survey was full of questions surrounding light custom options, I'd see it as a nice way to figure out what priority comes first, but on this list... its nearly the only damn thing that is merely a nice fan request.
• Wishlist: Congratulations Sony, you're behind on every single other online retail place out there, including yourselves (browser version apparently has it). Why is "wishlist" a question and not a reality?
• Party size increase: I actually can't speak much for this as I've never bothered with the feature. I will ask in return though what the limit is for, and if it can be lifted (as suggested by this question), then why the heck isn't it?
• Change PSN ID: Another majorly requested feature by nearly everyone, to the point where they had to come out and explain their reasoning behind it around the PS4's cycle. I... don't actually care all that much myself, and was at first actually glad names were fixed in. After a while though, and having looked through steam, I just don't see a reason to care that much on it. If other people want it, then let them have it. ...and to put it on a survey when you know this has been majorly requested, this is just dumb. Not as outrageous as others, but still dumb that something hasn't been done about it by now. If they're not standing by their old logic to the point of putting it up for vote to get in, then they should just give the fans what they want. However they arean't even ready to do that yet, because they released a system so backwards from their own products, or behind the times that they need to work on other parts first.

That concludes the list. At least what's been offered in the vote. Honestly the sad thing is there's actually more to it than that. You still need to be online to view trophies for some dumb and backwards reason. You also can't hide them on the PS4, and have to do it through vita or PS3 (a feature they finally added late in its cycle, only to then totally forget about in the PS4). Then just the other day, I was forced to go offline only to then have my controller fail, a glitch I've had happen numerous times alongside some other folks (though they didn't come to the same conclusion that its an offline issue. However it exclusively happens when I'm on such a bad connection that I need to cut the network in the options). I had to reset and ruin one of my best runs on Ziggurat yet. This hasn't been addressed after many "stability" patches. On top of that, I recently ran into some interesting space storage issues. Why on earth does trimming a video need extra space? That defeats part of the point in trimming, cutting down on a video and trying to get extra space. If you're worried I'll trim a piece and make a video that is too big, stop me there, not at the use of the entire feature. Its just bad design if you have to make more space while using that. Why do I also need extra space to even start up some games? ...and who knows what else is left in a mess in terms of online community like potential party system issues. I don't even use that stuff, so I don't know what's devolved, missing, or buggy in that area. Oh and then there's E3 promises. We had to wait for over a year for the promises rest mode that lets us save our game progress. Then there was the "try anything before you buy it!" that isn't even close to visible (even cloud gaming doesn't offer it, with its overpriced rental system). There aren't even as many demos as there used to be last-gen. ...and while I don't know everything about it, that ad showing you how you could download the part of the game you want first, doesn't seem to apply to anything I've seen. This was all stuff advertised when you they were revealing the console, and not with an "update pending" in sight for a warning.

The PS4 isn't a bad system. I don't want to come off in the wrong light, and keep you from thinking fondly of it. I'm mad about this stuff because it is something I invest my time in. Its a fun gaming system, with a strong library, and a lot of fun features. On top of that I'd be here equally as long explaining amazing improvements over past hardware, or great ideas like the accessibility piece giving us remappable keys that work across whatever games we could want (which aught to embarrass lazy developers, even Sony did what you've been too stupid to do in recent years, and they aren't even the ones making the games. Now if only they could force server browsers in multiplayer titles...). Meanwhile it would also be unfair to suggest that some updates haven't been beneficial. I remember being warned that themes wouldn't be a thing, yet here I am with about 8 or so free ones and a premium one I love available, and I love just how interesting they can be this time around. Meanwhile they've also expanded the share features of recording, and they're taking good feedback into consideration by making future consoles with a better physical interface and smaller power consumption. In the end, I just want this great system to be even greater. Its held back not by just small nitpicks, but by incompetent designs around the system. If or when those are fixed, it'll be a lot better to stand by the PS4 and proclaim it as the best system. As it is right now though, its the games themselves that hold it up, as well as the small new things like the share feature and multi-tasking capabilities. That's by far enough to say its an awesome console, but when its got so many flaws still left behind, and the company is showing signs of becoming increasingly arrogant and weird about their practices, this "invite only" survey just unleashes some pent up frustration by the gamer community. Stop wasting money on 3rd party crap Sony, and fix your own self first.

Put your money where your mouth is, and do this "for the players"

Transformers Devestation: A good game in disguise

 

 



I rented Transformers Devastation recently. I would have wrote something about it, but between the beta review and actually playing the game, I was much happier to spend my time playing it than typing it. Originally when I heard of it I for whatever reason saw it as a Transformers game in the style of Anarchy Reigns. It was a 3rd person brawler with an emphasis on "six characters to play as" and footage of small arena brawls in a city. However as I looked deeper into it before rental, I found out it only had story and Challenge mode, and it was really short. So it was more like Metal Gear Rising with less story, and fan service to a universe I cared way less about. Not my ideal kind of game, but it was developed by Platinum and got good reviews, so a rental was necessary. Good thing I gave it a try too, because I may just call this small budget licensed game the best spectacle fighter I've ever played. Now that doesn't mean a ton from me since I'm not big into the genre, but it does me that it trumps what I've played of Madworld, DMC, God of War 1, Metal Gear Rising, and a couple others. I just love it, and... y'know what, lets turn this into a top 8 list (sorry to skimp on 10, but smaller list for smaller subject matter) of why.

 

8) Twin Energon Blades

I did something right at some point to be awarded with A grade Energon blades. Why is this important? Well let me describe it to you as this: Its two short swords that shoot out flaming energy as they slash at quick speed. Again that is fast slashing swords that literally shoot arcs of flaming energy out of them. I don't know why, but this stands as just one of the best weapons I've ever enjoyed using. I think at some point when I was little, for whatever reason, used to imagine up a sword that would shoot off energy arcs, and now I'm dual wielding them in a video game as top of the line material. This is truly awesome, and goes down in record as one of my favorite gaming weapons.

7) Difficulty is perfect

Difficulty adjustments are rarely compelling for me to look into. Its usually too extreme whenever you go beyond normal. The game was already built pretty tough or long to bother raising it higher, or the game's higher difficulties are just cheaply made with super sponge enemies and glass health players. Of course some games do health sliders right, but its rare that it exclusively works for a compelling difficulty mode. There's rarely that game that raises the difficulty at a steady pace or with clever changes, even when examples have shown through and proven valid methods. TD admittedly doesn't do anything revolutionary, but I have to really admire the balanced path its taken, and its one of the few games that have a compelling system where I actually want to play harder difficulties.

Okay so at its simplest going from easy to hard basically makes every hit hurt a lot, removes combo finisher prompts (you have to go off a visual indicator), and maybe the enemies health is increased but its mostly only noticeable with ranged weapons, meaning you really have to get in there. Its a very hard sort of hard mode, but one that feels like it justifies practice, patience, and solid execution, and it feels legitimately rewarding. Easy really is very easy, to a degree in which any moderate gamer should never see death nor need inventory items (I didn't realize they were even there until the last level). Medium makes boss fights pretty tough, and maybe you'll have to use an item boost to help you. Hard... well again its really going to keep you on your toes in every fight. Add on top the grading system for each set of fights, and its a great scoring system in which you'll be trying to master a difficulty, get a score, and when high enough proceed to try and master the rest. Its given me extra replays out of the level because I legitimately practice with the character, and feel like I'm moving up a league and able to do better, and want to see it through. It feels great.

6) Fan-service served right

Now this is a weird point to make, but I'll justify my actions later. Its because I'm really not into transformers. I feel that I probably should be, as it feels like the kind of action cartoon universe with eccentric characters forming alliances and rivalries, that I would love. I also grew up watching and enjoying the Beast Wars spin-off. However fact is, I don't know the material hardly at all within this game. I don't get the big deal with Optimus, I've never heard of SideSwipe or Wheeljack (and I still don't know if they're actually important characters or underdogs that just got to be playable), and this my first time hearing Soundwave's supposedly iconic voice. So forgive me if I'm missing something as I probably am (though considering your other modern representation is the Michael Bay films, I'm sure fans will accept this despite whatever minor shortcomings), but from an outsider's perspective this game does fan-service exceptionally well.

There's the baiscs like the fact that they supposedly got all the voice actors from a show several generations old, a solid cast of characters to appear in the first place, they captured a great animation style, got everything to run smoothly, and then there's the extras. Extras like database lore reports, conversations from or on characters logged into the read-able bits, tons of concept art all categorized differently from each other, and then there's the model viewer... complete with theme music for the individual model you're viewing. Look I may not be a fan of this specific franchise, but I respect it when any developer takes this much time to get things right, and then let the player inspect secrets and pieces of the world they've been playing in. The novelty of a model viewer is small, but not brings a smile to my face every time I see one in a game... out of the three or four times I have seen one. Its a great gesture that helps bring the game and the player together to marvel at the digital universe that you paid for and love, as well as a subtle way of bragging as a developer that your work is just that good. ...and in this case, it is indeed that good.

5) The loot & crafting system

Fighters and RPG elements have gone together plenty before, but never have I seen one work in a crafting system like this. So basically you earn new weapons by playing the game and finding them or punching them out of people. Getting high grades, beating challenges, and maybe even the difficulty contributes to what loot you get. Loot comes in different weapon types, can be used by certain characters, and come with their own statistics and elements, and also host special perk effects like making your faster or your focus last longer. You can increase their stats or give them another weapon's perk by essentially fusing the weapons together. All weapon XP then becomes a part of the new weapon, however the higher level you are the more XP is required to level up and activate the stat boost. So basically you'll need two level 4 weapons to put a good dent in leveling up your level 8 energon fists. However another catch is the grade of the weapon. That weapon grade is acquired by performing better, and makes a difference in how far you can level up.

Unfortunately (but in good design) a higher grade costs high money to level up, even if you're just starting to boost it to something like level 3. So you'll want to combine a lot of cheaper lesser junk parts to make into one grand weapon, and then feed that in for a huge XP boost for the same price as you would one junk weapon. Its an amazing loot system that keeps you playing, challenges you to try new things, equip a diverse loadout, and has so many measures put in place to keep you out of exploiting the system in some boring easy way. Its such an engaging system that it pretty much keeps the end-game vibe going long, long after the last level. Heck you may not have even known about some of the weapons until you beat the game, and then one incident happens in challenge mode, and then 8 more hours of gameplay are dedicated to this magically awesome weapon and your goal to max it out. Uh... yeah, see point 8 for my case of that.

4) Five characters to master

So this game has five different characters to play as: Grimlock, Optimus Prime, WheelJack, SideSwipe, and Bumblebee. The differences between some are subtle, and for others grand, but in the end they all offer something new to try and fool with. Just enough to have me wanting to beat the whole game maining in each of my favorite three. Each guy has their own exclusive weapon, their own two specials, and some starting stats and speed differences. SideSwipe was my favorite, being strong, fast, a solid ultimate special, and nice weapons. Optimus is a pretty good heavier fighter and has my favorite special attacks. Grimlock is the odd ball who turns into a dinosaur, and... well his controls are just quite different to put it simply. You kind of get the idea this point, and I'll let to figure out things on your own from here. Given the challenge mode, campaign, and ranking + looting systems, this was a great game for some character diversity, and it helped keep me hooked and playing. I regrettably barely even touched Bumblebee, so there's a whole corner of the game still left unturned. Oh yeah and I nearly forgot to mention, each character also has their own individual enhancements as progressed by the player, so you can basically make them more diverse yourself by giving them odd passive perks or by buying up their RPG style stats.

3) Challenge mode is awesome

Challenge mode is this little thing off to the side to substitute the lack of... well, anything else. There's no multiplayer, no horde mode, and despite all my compliments let me remind you the campaign is tiny. So in these circumstances a game would usually stuff in these shallow challenge arenas sometimes with weird rule sets. I'm not sure how many people actually play these, but I'm willing to guess most of the time they really don't last and just feel tacked on. In this case though there are 50 of these challenge missions, taking place under normal game arenas (thankfully not the crappy VR stuff Platinum did in MGR), and working in sync with all that you've done in the campaign (and vice versa). Basically this is the game's way of letting you basically play free-roam, just with the mechanics rather than a world. You choose between all sorts of missions and arenas, choose your character, choose your loadout, and then go at what you choose and aim to get the best ranking you can. I've literally sunk hours into this mode before I've even unlocked all the challenges, and I then had to wake myself up and go "oh yeah, there's a campaign I can replay as well." Its just so good and works so well with the game's other systems.

2) One of the greatest soundtracks in gaming

As I was playing this game, one thing never left my mind. Actually scratch that, even putting the game aside one thing of it never left my mind: the music. The amazing (mostly metal driven) music just never fell short of keeping me in awe. Here's just a casual fight tune that breaks out from grunt fights. Here, give Soundwave's theme a listen... or two, or three because this one hour loop is well deserved. Then listen to the more unique electronic ark music. Its all just so amazing! The only shame is that its actually hard to look this stuff back up because most of the music is uploaded by "fight #" rather than what theme it went to or when it played. Still its worth digging through, because whenever you skip past the obvious slower parts that barely stick in the game, you get some truly amazing electronic and metal fused stuff that is just a joy to hear. So much so that I was actually picking up and playing the game for the soundtrack itself. No other game I can think of has actually made me play the game for music rather than sheer fun. This soundtrack though gets stuck into your head, and your enjoying every moment of it so much that you have to go back and beat up Soundwave or StarScream again for their theme song. Of course along the way you're enjoying every other tune that shows up, and may spend an extra minute in the ark for its theme. This soundtrack is just perfect! I've heard others say Metal Gear Rising did it better, but much in the same vein as challenge mode I tend to disagree by a strong margin. MGR did have a great soundtrack, but I wasn't totally into the slight angsty punk vibe it had going for it. Transformers replaces that with a orchestral + melodic metal tones (while retaining some electronic stuff), and its just incredible. I want to buy this soundtrack possibly more than I do the game, and as you can tell by now I really love the game.

1) Everything just comes together...

Everything is typically done for a reason, and normally you'd want to make sure it all comes together right when you're designing a game. Rarely is it though that I consciously feel like every detail, every major element, and every input is coming together in such a clever way that its keeping me hooked. Transformers is one of those cased though, where I can see it and feel it, and its all so awesome in how it does that. Usually we have to be wary of games like Destiny that do this for squeezing out cash, or a straight up skinner box that wastes your time, but sometimes there's a game that's manipulating things in the name of fun like an ARPG style skinner box. Transformers is doing that kind of job, and then wraps it all up in a box that is just amazing to look at.

The music fits amazingly well with the action, the cheesy writing and dialogue, and the wide open yet re-used map lends itself to plenty of secret finding which guides you to the well crafted fan-service. Oh and the graphics fits in to create a nice 3D style cartoon that oddly suits or even improves over the slightly dated show's animation style. Meanwhile the mechanics are all perfectly tuned for a fighter, then there's a really well done challenge mode, and a diverse cast of fighters to select. However those fighters are given disposable weapons and a large supply of loot and 4 slot weapon choices. With the grading that carries over from the well made combat, you must raise the stakes and continue fighting to get better loot and new weapons. You should also be playing challenge mode for it, each of which keeps up with your score per difficulty level so that you try and unlock the best you can for each one. Finally once you start getting strong weapons, you might find yourself getting even stronger weapons, so you feed those strong weapons into your super A rank weapons, and then need to go get more strong weapons, which means more play time, which is all so much fun because you can keep trying new character, new difficulties, and the combat is so well done that its not really boring at all. Oh and did I mention you're doing this all to one of the best soundtracks ever, and (despite not being a fan of it) one of the best loved sci-fi franchises ever at a rock solid (and proven stable) 60FPS/1080p? Don't rush it though, take breaks to check out the neat lore, every character model used in the game (with music attached), and some epic art.

This game just does every single thing right to turn a 6 hour campaign into a 16+ hour action-packed treasure hunt with a great cast. Every single point I've discussed on this list works into another, and added to the entire game as a whole. I suppose its a bit of a cop-out to make that in itself a point on a short list, but I think its worth saying because of just how cleverly done the entire deal is. Whoever put this game together like this is a genius, and needs to be the director of... well, every budget small title ever made. The only other game I can think of that comes even close is Ratchet & Clank Nexus. The game isn't perfect of course, but its close enough for what it is. Its perfect enough to be my favorite in its genre, and one of the best rentals I've made in a long time.

Now playing: Spyro A Hero's Tail

 

I'm slowly but surely working on an article to talk about how amazing Transformers Devastation is, and have a few more article ideas including an interesting thought of the R&C movie with its new trailer. However while I figure out that I thought why not discuss an unusual game I've returned to: Spyro A Hero's Tail. Actually I've found quite a few good PS2 games I may be trying out again. This is the first one, and hopefully one I'll see through if it continues to hold up.

This game is, uh... interesting. Look believe it or not I actually kind of respect Enter the Dragonfly for at least being the only big console bad spyro game to keep its formula. Meanwhile this one was kind of a forgotten limbo space in between the transition from Mario 64 style gameplay to the Legend Of Spyro series that wanted to be a lord of the rings type beat 'em game. Niether of which though feel justified here, and instead this is just a confused game that has nothing in common with either side and the legacy of almost nothing. At best, some fan art seems to remember Ember from this game, but otherwise its like this thing didn't leave a trace of impact on the Spyro name, and I'm not sure it really deserved that... yet I can't back it up too well either. This kind of feels like what Spyro would have been if it were introduced about 6-8 years later during the middle of the PS2 cycle where all 3D platformers were going for a linear adventure approach. That and if it were made by a company that didn't know quite who to pander to.

To put it simply, the game is more in an adventure format with more of a Zelda vibe icing the top of a 3D platformer. Money bags returns as a shop keeper where you buy mostly consumable items like lock picks, health, and ammo for special fire shots. You navigate areas that are connected to other areas, get new abilities, backtrack, and end up picking up collectibles like eggs while smashing dark crystal shards. Meanwhile you stop frequently to play a character driven mini-game like Sgt bird or Blink the mole. Unfortunately mini-games are done twice in session in almost all cases. One is for a dragon egg, and the next is for a light gem, but the stage will remain roughly the same. My favorite so far has to be Hunter (Who seems to always come out of these weird redesigns really well, I mean look at his LoS counter-part), who has a solid move set and some archery fun, and plays much closer to the normal game than a mini-game often does.

 Laughably looking back for research I'm finding a lot of "of its fairly unchanged" or even complaints that its a stale formula by now. Ugh, no wonder I don't remember PS2 critics that fondly. They loved trashing on games and over-simplifying facts. I suppose if you tilt your head sideways and squint your eyes hard enough you could say this game is roughly the same. You still go to areas, flame or charge enemies, collect stuff, and play a character driven bonus game. However saying that is the same is missing a lot of the finer details of how exactly that's done, and describing it as the same formula is like telling me Rocket League is the same as Basket ball because your running from one side to another with a ball. You're missing a lot of details, and you're practically lying to fans that know better of either or both subjects. At the end of the day this game has more in common with Jak and Daxter if you ask me. Heck, wasn't there also a turret section mini-game in a swamp? Seriously I remember that happening in both games, which is a very weird coincidence to have.

It feels like Vivendi Universal actually developed it themselves with a half finished bulletin point of Spyro traits. The game feels more childish than a game probably should, but with pokes and references to a couple events without proper context to them. People are kind of slapped in at weird points and in places where they don't make complete sense. Oh and for whatever reason the attack control mapping that has worked well for several years has been reversed, as though to mess with all of our heads. It just feels like the tone was thrown together by a corporation rather than the actual artists and designers. That being said, the music still has a nice tone that is nice and fitting for the game and series.

At the end of the day though I am enjoying this game, especially coming back after some time. I never finished it nor paid much attention to it long ago when I realized just how distant it was from Spyro. The level design was also confusing. Now I'm playing it and aside from the slightly patronizing tone of it, its kind of better now. The platforming is rough, the tone is off, and the mini-games are badly implemented for repetition, but it still manages to bring out enough fun moments to warrant at least one playthrough. Besides, I think we all know and see, that Spyro can be much worse than this. I'm hoping to stick to it until the end. For now though I just need to worry about world 2.



Thoughts on Hardware Rivals (beta)

There are actually quite a lot of betas lately. One I tried to get into even before Battlefront was one in the "spotlight" area of PSN called Hardware Rivals. It was clearly a vehicle game, but its competitive combat edge and bright sunset-overdrive type art style made me want to give it a try. Unfortunately it was locked for a few days, and only just recently did I decide to give it another try and get in. The result thought was pretty great.

Old school car combat

I've had the growing suspicion on my mind that, AAA issues aside, we're looking at a very PS2-like sort of era with our consoles. Weird niche stuff has been popping up everywhere, and even the AAA industry doesn't know what it wants to copy and past yet aside from last gen staples, so we're sort of in a state where obscure fun stuff gets more attention. This game just proves my point. Its apparently based on a flopped PS2 era online game by the same name of Hardware, and it certainly feels like a PS2 era game. You have a choice between choosing a tank or a smaller off-road jeep type of vehicle, and then go at it with a bunch of online players in an arena style shooter. You've got super charged weapon pick-ups, an announcer with a deep voice, deadly wipe-out type map hazards, and very simple controls. If it weren't for a slight progression system and common online interfaces, I'd accuse this game of just being dug up out of a time capsule and ported over. Not only is this all a bit old school in design, but to see it in vehicle form as well makes it a double rarity since nothing like it has been done since......... well Twisted Metal is the closest comparison, and its still not quite the same.

Unlike twisted metal, or ironically even unlike Hardware's past PS2 entry, Hardware Rivals sports a very nice cartoon style that feels like it decided to put the colorful punk teens of Sunset Overdrive in tanks. This is backed by an electronic funk style music choice, some colorful camo color schemes for users, and occasional automated trash talk from the silly character voices. Its a generally up-beat romp that really captures the spirit of the game perfectly. Its a simple summer-time sort of blast good to have for an hour, or for a day with some friends. Its fun, its over-the-top, and its kind of innocent and nostalgic of simpler times in gaming. Of course that may turn some people off, because I can see where some may find it too simple.

The game is set up to be really arcade and better suited to small sessions. You've got one weapon, can only aim from side-to-side (its about leading the shots and the auto-targeting), and bare bone controls that move and shoot. Even the progression system is simple and kind of tossed in, with it just being about setting one perk to a row of different elements, and they all unlock in a stern order. So you'll have to unlock all your engine parts before you can unlock your first targeting for example. Its kind of a dumb system, and I also have to question if its out of balance since it quite literally rewards top tier players with additional support on all specs where as a guy on even level 10 just has 2/5ths or so of that same power. We're talking about things like speed, extra health, extra damage (you can do both at once too), etc. Of course I wont say I've noticed anything like this out in the field, so maybe whatever improvements occur are super subtle, but then that begs the question of why its there. I was dominating my first matches before I even knew of an upgrade system, and after applying better top speed and better lock-ons... well I feel nearly the same. Whatever the case, its at least kept to a 25 level area, so if you're decent it'll be somewhere within 50-100 matches of play rather than the absurd 1000 you may have to do in other games. However outside of the questionable XP system, everything works fine, its just all so PS2-era simple. You shoot enemies that move, and get power-ups to shoot them even harder. You collect armor + health to stay alive, and occasionally an apocalyptic event is triggered that you have to hide from. That's about it to the core game experience. Its got a strange skill ceiling as a result since you've got to worry about map skill for a change, get used to the driving controls, weapon priority, and can mess people up with a well timed ram, but everything else is pretty loose and up to luck.

Sure I can talk about how simple it is, but I want to also talk about how fun it is. Now a game is never about winning, but that does enhance the experience when your having an ego hype trip during a match where you win 20-4. I'll admit full bias for that before I proceed, because I truly found a game where I'm capable of dominating. Not perfect, not always on the top, but close enough to say I feel good about doing well in this game, and that's weird for me. I'm more of a jack of all trades, master of none kinda guy. I adapt fast to anything, but peak early, and yet I manage to stay near or on the top consistently with this game a lot. It was a blast though strolling through this game, blasting others, and getting into cross-fire fights. Then there's just that urgency when you see a power-up in a crowded area, and damn do I miss that feeling of old school pick-up races. It was a great feeling to have that occur again where I beat someone, or someone snatches something from right in front of me. Even more fulfilling if you beat the guy that got it despite his edge over you. That's the sort of thing I miss out of older shooters, and something online these days really lacks. Even Battlefront, which reintroduced them, did it wrong because games have forgot how to be arcade in the fun ways. This one has that in addition to style, crazy crashing car physics (its so fun to ram someone!), a cool announcer, and colorful explosions. Playing this beta was a ton of fun, and a good return to form. Its hard to imagine just how long it would hold my attention, or that of anyone else's, but I think they've got something good enough here worth buying at the right price and playing on those occasional days where you just want a good rush of online competition.

Problems for the mechanics to repair...

The game ain't perfect. Actually its got a few really prominent flaws within the beta, and some things to be desired in case this really is the bulk of the game. They weren't exactly tight on what content got through out of what we know, and its so hard to figure out information on the game. That's really the first issue, this game doesn't even have its own wiki page and is pretty much ghosting around aside from the poorly timed PS+ ad its getting for this month. That's also where that statement comes back to the center. It was kind of messed up for them to advertise this in with the PS+ give-aways like a free game, only to then introduce people with a "sorry we're closed. Please come back later" message. It had just finished on its closed beta, and was going to start its open one about 4 days or so later... when the much more advertised and ambitious Battlefront was about to do their own open beta run. Meanwhile we sit here knowing almost nothing about this game. Will there be bots? A single player of some kind? A more dedicated time trial system? How many maps? What modes other than deathmatch types? What price will it even be, or is this supposed to be a retail launch? A lot of issues arise from this lack of information and obscurity alone. Heck when does this beta even end!? Has it already, or is it going for another day, or two, or three? I just don't know anything about this stuff.

However lets talk about improvements within what can be stated in the list. Ironically unlike Battlefront, there's some clear beta bugs that need to be worked out. The follow are precise beta bugs that need to be fixed:

• The scoring system is messed up. It'll tell you kills and deaths on the scoreboard, but your total in-game tally will give you a completely different number.
• The matchmaking system can break at times and leaves you sitting in a frozen lobby on a timer of 00... meaning the match should have started.
• I've had one case where the matchmaking just failed on itself.
• Why is there sometimes a waiting time on the server? Is this just a beta limitation, or is there really some kind of awful server stress limitation? That needs to be worked out I'm sure. It also went from telling me to wait for 3 minutes to giving me 5 more.
• The temple's lava trap seems to kill players twice over. I think this is somehow a glitch with the kill cam or respawning, because its a delayed thing almost as if switching the camera triggers the second death.
• Okay so this might actually be intentional, but the 3 round playlist mode doesn't consistently keep its match together. You may end up joining an on-going game somewhere, and that sort of screws with the vibe of trying to blast through a marathon of deathmatches.

Next up are some desires or wishes to improve the general game. Some of these work off of assumptions or blind guesses since there's really nothing to go off of for much information. So some of this is probably already in or is finalized as either existing or not, but just didn't show for the beta.

1. Bots support: Look I really can't trust this game to stay active by the way its being managed. Even if I could though, its just a crummy idea to make an online only game that could easily have bot support. The game is very simple and all you really need is some path finder AI programming skills to make it happen. Of course customizable bot matches is ideal, so some menu and rule set tweaking would be nice to.
2. Server lists: Again, rule sets and tweaking would be appreciated. There was already a hint that this was in the game, as a wait in the lobby has a special menu you can go to specifically laying out all the rules and settings with locked in arrows as though you could change it. Now why would that be in there if there wasn't someone who could set it up and have other players check it over to see if they like it? The sad answer would be that its just residue from private match options, but I'm hoping they're going full on server browser and customization support. This would help benefit an online arena game greatly.
3. More modes: Seriously there's the training grounds, deathmatch, and team deathmatch. Considering training isn't even a real mode, we've been stuck with the two most pure and ancient barebone modes ever. Considering the game itself is also very simple, that's a sign for quick fatigue and death in the community. Please let there be more modes. King of the hill would be amazing in this game, then there should be a CTF mode, and assuming server lists don't happen there should be a shorter round of deathmatch since some players (and even sometimes I myself) have felt the standard is a bit too long. Heck personally I would love it if the 3 match playlist was a special mode where you're playing 3 rounds of smaller deathmatches. Put us all in an arena for like half the time and see who can rush to the top first, then do it again, and a final time. That would be great.
4. More personal customization: Simple, I just want more than 4 colors to choose from. I think I've seen more while browsing for screenshots for this article than what I have through the beta so I bet this is already done, but just putting it out there in case.
5. Some extra clarity: Challenges could be shown a bit better, there could be a "How to Play" in-game manual with visual keys for all the power-ups and a small bit of info, and then the most important one is an indicator for opponent's health. As it is now, fighting is a bit random in how much of a chance you have against someone. Sometimes if you're really close, you can see that their vehicle model is damaged which may put them anywhere between 5hp to 30-ish. Even then though, you usually can't see that. Your taking a chance of luck against picking your fight, and you never know who has been damaged, who is way stronger than you, or if they have armor. A part of me kind of likes this mystery, but in the end I think it'll do a lot more good if you had more tell signs. I think they could do a nice compromise by giving you a 3 bar indicator and a hit confirmation tick in the crosshair. Armor can stay invisible, and you still wont quite have a certain fix on their situation, but you'd still have a better idea of who you could afford to pick fights with and more to calculate on the field.

Concluding...

Hardware Rivals is a lot of fun, but it has a few issues to sort out first, and for its own sake it should start with its marketing. However its got promising potential to fill a missing niche for fun arcade vehicular combat. Its also one I can really get into, and under the right conditions I'd love to own this game. Its got a strangely simple skill ceiling, bare gameplay, and yet it was a blast. I think its really refreshing to see a game in this style again. Back in the PS2 era we saw games with this arena format all over the place, and now its practically non-existent... especially with vehicles. Now comes along this colorful and fun new one in the age of mainstream online access, and I want it to shine in this time. However lets hope it does allow for more than just online, because I fear it may not last long in its current condition, and if that fear goes deep enough I can't promise I'll spend money on it. I hope Hardware Rivals turns out well.

That moment when its almost right, and then so wrong....

Just a quickie here, but I feel I had to say something. Having thought it through at multiple angles, I'm going to just be blunt. Call of Duty's team has just announced a new feature of their game. That feature is having the entire story available to you from the start. That means you can literally jump into the last level from the very first moment your game is installed and ready, and you don't need any prior context. Sounds like such a weird move, right? Well their logic was explained, but its more baffling then you'd think, and painfully ironic considering the franchise its coming from. Here's what was said (and source):

"The unlocking level system is an archaic mentality we've had since we did bedroom development back in the day - you do this, then go on to the next one.Consumers and game players in general are far more mature these days. There are so many things vying for our interests today. It's about, how do they want to consume it? Maybe they put it down on level two, and then they're in work the next day, and some guy says, 'dude, you've got to check out level four!' And he's like, 'okay, I'll have a quick look.' That's totally fine. I think it's their choice."

Better yet, I'll focus on the bit that irked the most of my reaction.

"The unlocking level system is an archaic mentality we've had since we did bedroom development back in the day - you do this, then go on to the next one."

Um... sound familiar? Like that entire skinner box clogging up the multiplayer? The thing that revolves around an entire leveling system that feeds off of primitive instinct rather than creative fun? That 40-60 level climb seems to be the elephant in the room here. I don't want to spend hours upon hours of repetitive grinding just to see what the last assault rifle feels like (and then hours upon hours to unlock its pieces). Not only that, but with every entry it seems like they get increasingly more absurd in stupid arbitrary requirements. Currently you not only have to level up to get tokens that buy stuff, but you have to also level up so you're able to even have a choice on what to spend that token on. Then you have perks to consider, streak rewards, and then there's 9 or more specialists each with their own two abilities you should get at some point. Then once again, there's the attachments for all weapons. Basically in the end the grind for even your first run (not even touching on prestige, which also holds content hostage and makes you want to repeat all of this again) should take around 40 hours or so. Obviously it differs by how good you're playing, but not by so much. Oh but that campaign? That 6 hour campaign with a chronologically ordered narrative focus was what was clearly taxing your time too much by daring to ask you to play it in the sensible order. Truth is actually progressing in campaigns holds meaning, where as actually progressing up the rank ladder in multiplayer is an arbitrary system implemented to suck up your time by giving you a carrot on a stick to chase after. This was so close to being self-aware, so close to fixing a problem I've had with the series for years, and yet they totally miss it and use similar language to say the campaign of all things needed fixing. Thankfully you came close enough that other people have already leaped out ahead of me to bring up the lame skinner box you took from Battlefield and together made into a multiplayer staple. Almost every game now requires around 20-40 hours or so of grinding in order to just try out everything in multiplayer, and its absurd. I'm not totally opposed to progression systems in general, you could easily build one off of cosmetics that could be fun, but that's just not how things have turned out.

However I don't want to just come off as tearing this out. Looking at the statement from a totally pure perspective, I can't say its that bad. Nobody should be trying to play the campaign out of order, but at the end of the day that's their own damn choice and nothing is wrong with giving them that choice. Meanwhile if something were to ever happen to my save data, and all I want to do after a rough day is come home and play mission 7 where you get to use some fancy super gun, then I'll be super grateful that I can do that from the base game itself. So this news isn't so bad, its just that it comes so close to making a big point, only to take a total 180 turn in an unpredictably naïve statement. To be honest though it might have done more good that it happened considering I'm not the only person triggered into this kind of rant, and maybe Treyarch will open their eyes. Of course, knowing how the industry works now, I think it'll just result in Activision pointing to some microtransaction short-cut DLC that pretty much confirms how F2P-ish the entire grind system was to begin with. Oh well, here's to hoping Black Ops 3 turns out well for those with good hopes for it.

Yes, micro-transactions do effect gameplay

Well I guess we're talking about microtransactions again. Its not because I'm auditioning for the league of extraordinary dead horse beaters, but rather because there's a lot of it being declared lately alongside the same excuse. Its funny how corporate excuses are often regarded as "damage control", and yet they more often then not can be torn apart and make them look ever worse standing as liars... or at least more shady at least. The excuse to allow microtransactions is always the same: "It doesn't effect game or game balance." This can sometimes be followed up by who they're for, and sometimes it quite hilariously contradicts. The best example is that the micro-transactions only exist to "speed up" unlockables for busy players. This argument defeats itself, when we all know of an entire genre that essentially exists on this mentality as one of the worst offenders of money grabbing. However even with that set aside, I'd like to argue that it actually does effect the game, and it does effect us as consumers, and maybe it even does effect game balance and you're just making it really subtle.

Here's a thing to note: Metal Gear Solid 5 is selling player a tuxedo for Big Boss. For those unfamiliar with this, you may be shrugging and wondering what the big deal is. Afterall, its just a costume that looks like this, or this. Oh wait, that doesn't look like MGS5 did it? That's because its been in the series for a long time as a secret sort of unlockable for big fans to get, and there you see it in its free but earned status. In MGS5 it seems you can only acquire it by real cash and a trip to the PSN (or whatever platform you own) store. Does it effect the game's balance? Not that I'm aware of, its just a suit. Does it effect the game? Ask these guys who made a whole thread dedicated to this gaming treat. Alternate costumes are traditionally extras that have been unlocked, earned, or simply
stumbled onto as a little treat to fans with a sense of humor. Its an extra bit of fun, where the artist or director can put something fun and non-cannon into the game and let the players discover. Some even have small stories behind them. R&C had one skin that went from a fun little inside joke, to being a small memorial piece that makes its way into pretty much every game. Oh, and that has a traditional tux suit as well, but hopefully we wont see that slip out of place to.

Extra content like this is what helps to make games special. Extras used to be a standard thing in practically any game that cared, and even to this day you'll often see some top tier or "fun" focused games containing it. It usually ties into extra content as well, like collecting masks in Sly Cooper 4 for new canes and character skins, or post-end cheats in Uncharted. Its takes completionist fodder, and instead turns it into fan rewards that people can enjoy. It adds replay value, humor, and just general fun to a game. Well guess what? Thanks to current culture, your lucky if that's all that's held back. Pre-order bonuses, Uplay syncing, season passes, and Microtransactions all step in to tell you this stuff is a separate deal now. That does effect the gameplay, and I'm tired of the excuse that tells us otherwise just because players aren't literally paying to win. However it does mean that there's less extras, less to unlock, and less incentives. At the end of the day, I would definitely say that MGS5 lacks secret costumes like the tux, and now its clear why.

The funny thing of course is that at the end of that day, micro-transactions don't bother me so much. I made an article defending fighter games, Shadow Fall, and others on such a thing. People loved moaning about being "nickel and dimed" over later cosmetic stuff, and that baffled me. I used to love checking the LBP add-on page for little extras like that, or seeing Killzone content hit Uncharted 2 as DLC. I love seeing games get long term support, and knowing there is a caring team supplying that. However its the exact opposite case in situations like this. Now more than ever, we're seeing this stuff planned and cut out ahead of time, and then showing up at launch or really damn close. Meanwhile even Shadow Fall, a game that had this model ideal in place as DLC revenue, didn't even launch with the audacity of say Evolve or MGS where microtransactions were built in from the start. I think things have taken a downhill turn at this point, and developers and publishers are indeed charging us for content that should be there. They shouldn't be coming up with arbitrary grinds for us to pay our way out of, nor launch day skins for us to purchase, those should be part of what comes with the game. Instead they're being ripped out now, and sold to us even when we know they've been with the game, or the entire franchise, for so long. Its a fun harmless extra, now soul-sucked into another cash grab exploit, and that's why I'm saying something about it. Its an abuse I wont support, and I urge others to treat it the same.

Here its done right

My thoughts on Star Wars Battlefront (Beta)

I've tackled this game twice in a pretty mean spirited way, and in both cases I felt kind of bad about it, yet stood by what I said. It seems like a fitting example of just want I don't want out of today's market. However in both cases I also let it be known that I wasn't trying to frame the game as objective trash (unless it really releases broken, but that was just a rumor + prediction which I hope doesn't hold true). Either way I feel I owed it to the game to play and discuss its beta and list out the positives... but still keep it honest where the negatives belong. I think I can let it stand that my views on it are mixed.

The Basics

So without mentioning modes, or tech fluff, its my personal priority to discuss core mechanics. I haven't followed the game quite as well as I thought I may have, because quite a few things caught me off guard. I was aware power-ups would roam the field, and there was supposed to be some card system replacing classes, but how it all fits in is weirder than I ever imagined. The set-up is actually really basic for a shooter today, yet still on the verge of mocking COD at the same time, its kind of strange. You have one weapon. That's it for your real guns, you carry that one around and use it as a main rifle. It has no reload system, but rather a heating system, which is oddly something that I think is more true to star wars than the older games were (of course my memory may be fizzled on that). Also as mentioned before, there are scopes but not iron sights. The difference is trivial in the end though. However its not exactly just you and your gun. Instead there is also this, dare I say it, MOBA-like piece where you have cool-down abilities. These are your cards, and they can consist of utilities, grenades, or weapons that in any other game would be gun loadout choices (grenade launchers, sniper rifle). So instead of designing a load-out, its almost like your selecting a characters abilities in an MMORPG, or MOBA. That's a very strange concept that I kind of like.

The sad thing is this counters one other trait of the game: Its progression system. The beta progression system is a bit weird. You start base multiplayer with nothing but that one weapon. Doing absolutely nothing but getting one weapon, and even being told to stay out of the other mode until even after that, is a bit messed up. Its either a self-destructively strict tutorial process that gets you killed for being new, or its a really bad way of giving us a "You gotta earn it all and tough it out" approach. I admired Killzone 2 for doing the latter and making it a true progression system where you actually felt yourself truly earning and advancing things. However the difference here is that Killzone has more entertaining gunplay and gave you the basics to work with: pistol, grenade, rifle. Your next few levels were things like more ammo, a shotgun, a new class, squad leader abilities, etc. Of course on top of that you could choose your server, and go into a newbie only level. Here I was tossed in with people who were dropping orbital bombs, grenades, sniper rifles, jump packs, and all I had was one rifle and the phantom pain of missing the items I loved from survival (the first mode I tried to practice in). Yeah that's not only unfair, but its just boring. Thanks matchmaking + XP system, you live on to remind me of why shooters used to be better. Next level from there just lets you get your hands on a grenade. Even after I got both common card slots in and a choice for a new weapon, I was still told I shouldn't enter the other mode. Something is just... wrong with this picture. This isn't a tutorial so much as it is a failure of modern trends, and oddly at the hands of people who were ahead of the trend.

On top of all that previous mentioned, I could moan about how the unlock system is a double-walled layer. You have to level up and then pay for what you unlock. Then there's the question of why this system even needs to be here to begin with, and with only 4 beta weapons that's low, even for a beta. Just how far they can take star wars weapons in terms of variety anyways? You can't do blaster rifle #14 as a level 50 unlock like generic shooters do. That kind of shows when the blaster pistol of all things is one of your core weapon choices. I can't help but wonder if this game will stand up well in the public, because I know for a fact other people aren't as complacent as I am with low weapon counts anymore. Of course the locked up cosmetics area could be telling that there will lie the bulk of the grinding. If that's the case, then consider that a positive from me, but others will whine. So it appears like you have a grinding system that irritates old-school shooter fans like me, likely won't have enough content in general to please the skinner box loving modern market, and is set up to force an awfully boring and unbalanced start no matter what kind of shooter style you like.



Uh... I guess the gun shipment took a pit stop on the worm asteroid

Now on health I found some good news and bad news. The good news is that there's a health bar that contextually shows up, showing your chances of survival once you've been hit. This is especially welcomed for survival mode, where you have a solid bit of health to keep up with. The bad news is that last statement only applies to survival missions. Multiplayer battles have the COD policy of shoot first, die later, where its nearly impossible to engage in a real gun fight before someone dies. This especially comes into play when you realize your run speed is pretty slow to. Getting shot in the back is a very helpless situation, and getting shot from the front only is a matter of accurately landing about 3 shots. To shorten this up, the time to kill (as people like to call it now) is too fast for comfort or fun. Whenever I have had a gun fight last longer for a couple seconds though, it was a lot of fun. I've had some really great wildwest-style potshot battles with enemies around the rocks of the drop pod match, and being defeated or winning that way always felt like a just and satisfying experience. Save for the low health, gunplay is pretty solid, but I'll explain more about that later as I feel its more due to the presentation.

Vehicles and Jedi are introduced in power-up form. For whatever reason, Dice didn't want the vehicles being hogged by players who race for them, so they decided to make them obscure power-ups that... everybody can see and chase after. Yeah a really silly misstep. I love how it looks whereas your character calls for "support" and the camera fades to a big walker or a cut-scene of your hero, but otherwise this system is honestly just stupid and keeps compentant players out of their preferred method of play unless they have the luck to stumble into something. You can go intire matches without getting a vehicle, and then find one match where yohu happily bump into them three times. You can also have the tokens snatched right from you. In other words the vehicle system is just badly designed and failed on their goal. Oh and your first one or two rides for each thing are basically junk, because there's absolutely no tutorial to them. You just snatch in during live online play, and get used to it by trial and error... and error means dying and losing your token privilege until you find the lucky jackpot again. I've only gotten to touch the AT-AT once, and the only thing I managed to learn is that its noisy, hard to aim, and has an orbital strike ability built in. That being said, once you understand the vehicles they are a blast to use, and are very fun.

Game modes + map design

So first thing I did was survival with a solo run. That was actually pretty cool. Being tossed in and told to survive isn't my idea of a fun mode in most cases, but it was a fun way to get introduced to the game here. My first fight was around some tents when suddenly blaster shots shredded through them, turning them into shattered clay rubble bits and dusting up everything.  I held off some waves, blasting through troopers like cannon fodder, and then struggling against awesome boss-like walker fights. The terrain is open, yet curvy with a lot of turns and circles, so you can kite enemies around and lead a great chase when you need to shake things up a bit. Meanwhile there's some verticality as well, and its great for the jump pack your given in either loadout. It was a pretty great experience, but it gets old fast given what little we have. So I decided this would be fantastic online, and... oh, its friend based only. I really hope that's just a bad beta decision, but seeing as they show but lock up so much I'm getting the feeling they forgot to let you do public online matches in survival. Lets hope I'm wrong, because its pretty good for a survival, and very few games have left me complimenting a horde mode. However it would have helped if you could do more with the loadout. As it was you selected any of the 4 guns, and then two pre-set card choices. I would have loved to mix them up, or at least had one with a grenade.

The first true test of multiplayer came in with drop pods (and its the only one your supposed to play for a few hours, because the XP system hates you). I got a very weird feeling from this mode, and I'm not sure if the bad side is from the map, or just how the mode is set up in itself. Its basically a round of changing KOTH spots. You get a drop pod, defend it until the timer is up, and you get a point and pick-ups if you win. The map is a small area basically designed as if you were playing as bug-sized people inside of cracks of some kind. The entire map is just a giant cracked surface. It has lots of jagged hills, lots of narrow veins all around, and tiny patches of open areas. Oh and did I mention everyone dynamically respawns? That's fancy terminology for spawning in the middle of wherever and hoping you don't get shot in the back. Get used to that, the map loves that kind of gameplay. With the speedy time to kill, explosive side weapons, unpredictable sniping spots, and a focus to one area, your going to find that anybody can come from anywhere and just send you in a death loop. It kind of feels like MOH... the rebooted MOH. Dice also worked on that (MP only), so not such a huge shock. The good news is that when people moved slow and played cautiously, it was fantastic. However if they were just running around like headless chickens, and the spawn hated you, then it just feels like a poor man's COD. Like I said, I'm not sure if its the map doing this because of how aimless it is, or if its the mode itself since it has this frag-fest with a flag type of vibe. Thing is I was really enjoying it once the tiny learning curve was over, and when I got a fair team line-up where we were playing things with a mixed bag of caution and chaos. Stopping to listen to the blasters, sit in a corner and have your friends play spotter so you can get the edge, or taking that dive to charge in after a neautral point only to succeed and then wedge yourself under a broken tie fighter were all fun moments and made me love this mode. On the other hand, I had one boring one where nobody could find anybody and the result was a one sided ghost town even with the server being nearly full. Then another match where people just showed up wherever and shot you in the back. Again its value is all about whether the spawns and people are working right for you. Its just a mixed bag.

The Walker Assault mode is more true to what they'd advertise as Battlefront. Its on a wide open hoth map, has Jedi and vehicles, there's the famous AT-ATs, and... well you get the point. Its star wars fan service on one of the most iconic scenes. Your goal as the imperials is to defend the AT-AT, and screw up these command post type locations where rebels are signaling fighters from. You have a couple of sets and must push on the rebels to force them out of that position. If you're on the Rebel's side though, you have to defend these points to the best of your ability and open fire when the wave of fighters comes in and weakens the AT-ATs. This stage is really fun, especially if you don't care about winning. If you do want to win... well, stay faithful to the old empire, because its been well known and confirmed that this beta favors their side by a large margin. At no point did I see even one AT-AT go down. However just playing it, its fun. I tend to equip the rebel's with the imperial weapon though, as that's just better, but aside from adapting to the open terrain you can really enjoy yourself here. Struggling through the trenches, ducking in and out of rocks, and sniping from the mountains are all great. Power-ups make you try and think real smart about them, and can put you into some really interesting situations. Meanwhile if you do get the treat of using a vehicle, its great. Basically this is the best mode to be playing for fun once you get used to things. However if I were to complain, I would say it could do with a  better explanation, and the map itself can take a sour turn when things get too chaotic (like what I said about the other really).

Presentation

If there is anything this game gets completely and 100% right, its the presentation. Everything on a technical level, the UI, the use of the license, and just the feel of it all, is done soooo very well. If you came here on the sole basis of a star wars game, then you'll be very happy. For starters lets talk graphics. I've heard mixed talk on it, but mostly praise, and while I don't think I'd call this "the best" I will say it looks great. I can't find any faults in it. Snow sparkles with little glittery bits, distant backdrops look great, textures all feel so full of life, and the lighting is stunning. No really, stunning hasn't ever been a better use of that term for visuals, because the lighting is actually set up in such a way that you can be blinded for approaching it at the wrong angle. You actually can be looking outdoors or indoors on Hoth and not see a damn thing until you come close enough to have it seemingly adjust. Its a very weird and interesting thing to have happen in the game, and it actually feels kind of intense since you don't know if the enemy is looking right back at you ready to shoot. If its really running at 60fps to, then this is an amazing accomplishment right alongside (if not better than) the FOX engine. There's been some light controversy over its resolution, because of course there is on the internet, but I think they need to shut up and appreciate what's being done here as I can see Dice has put some good work behind the visuals and performance of the game. It doesn't need 1080p to look good, and it does look good. Of course I will say its a shame they went off course of their stated target for the PS4. Generally, it all performs well too. Of course I wont be surprised if that isn't the case with its launch, but I'll discuss any lingering doubts on that in the end.

Not quite this good of course, but closer than I predicted

Now lets talk Star Wars. I'm nowhere near a star wars nerd like I used to be around... middle school? Still this game so clearly ties into the series, to amazing accuracy. Sound effects were right, the right music was picked and kicks in at perfect points, the weapons all seem familiar and fire as I'd expect them to (minus the horrible accuracy of the Stormtrooper's rifle, because obviously that's a bad quality to imitate), and the terrains and vehicles all feel like they came out of the SW universe. Oh and the hero units, definitely seem believable at the expense of balance. I remember dying by Darth Vader over and over again at a distance with his force choke pulling me in. I remember seeing look flip across the battlefielding, taking high leaps, and strong confident sabre slashes. Meanwhile its next to impossible to hurt either with their skillful moves, and blocks. If you want to be immersed in Star Wars battles without resorting to the obsolete PS2/xbox era methods, then your in for a real treat.

Meanwhile I'm not sure I've ever been so won over in gunplay by effects alone. I mean Killzone 2 is about my highest standard, and that is due to everything from accuracy, to the weight system in aiming, and yes the presentation as well with thundering heavy sounds and visual recoil where every shot feels like deadly metal being charged out a barrel at high speeds. Most games work kind of in a similar fashion, you judge them based on how the control, sound, and accuracy is, and of course its usually with mundane or fantasized guns. Its all about tying mechanics in with the presentation. Battlefront here is an exception to that, mainly because it takes the road less traveled with lasers, and perfects their own style. Mechanically, its very flat to the point of pretty much doing nothing. It doesn't have a strong weight to it that sensitivity bumps can't fix, there's little if any recoil, and there isn't even a reload function or true ADS (thankfully). You just point and shoot, and then there's that time to kill problem I discussed earlier. Yet the sounds... oh that sound is just so perfect. There's a true feeling of power behind that sound, seeing a bright light come with it, whizzing across the battlefield, and someone collapses smoking from a successful take-down. You truly feel like your holding a devastating face melting sci-fi gun in your hand, and the only thing that comes even remotely close to comparison is Doom 3's pulse rifle. To say that every gun feels like (or even better than) Doom 3's pulse rifle is a very strange, but good compliment from me.

Conclusion

Can it survive

Looking at it from all that I've analyzed and wrote about, this game is good, but not all that good. Its a solid shoot in the vein that we've come to know shooters from last gen... you know, where it all acts trendy and then dies in a year, and then it might get a sequel that is even less subtle in trying to borrow from the leading competitor. Its a B grade multiplayer focused FPS, only with a really great skin thrown over it. Buy it if you're desperate for a new online game and COD isn't your thing, or buy it if you're a Star Wars fan; that's my broad recommendation. Like the last two MOH games, there are some nice tweaks and novelties at play here, and under better circumstances (like if they cared enough for bot support and server lists) I'd trust it to be worth its launch value and a great experience. However considering how the industry's run now, and how some other bits are shallow or bad (time to kill, lack of team strategy, etc), its just not something I can buy confidently. However its also worth noting I'm not big into online or Star Wars, so once again I recommend it to those crowds. I mean I'd consider this a better buy than Destiny, and yet that has a fairly fierce attachment from certain people. Sometimes people will still click to something that's low or of confused quality just on the basis that a couple shallow aspects stand up well... in this case, it controls well and does Star Wars right, so I can see that happening.

I also still advice people to be cautious with this one. While it may sound like my worried "ITS GONNA BE BROKEN AND TEARS WILL HAPPEN!" article I wrote is obsolete, I already took the beta into account and still stand by the possibility of a launch tragedy happening. The beta is very polished for what it is, and as others have brought up there's already been clear improvement seen over a game that at one point didn't want to leave a floppy framerate. So is it time to cheer and say it'll be alright? Well, no. BF4 was also looking great to if you remember it. This beta wasn't so open, even to the point of not allowing online survival runs (part of the server your supposed to be testing in a beta) or cosmetic customization. We got 4 whole weapons, a few card picks, two maps, and each attached to one specific mode out of what will be quite a few in the end. This could very easily be a vertical slice, and considering all the conditions we're going up against I stress to people that this game should not be pre-ordered. Let others be the final beta testers who burn $60 on a questionable product. Its still a movie tie-in set for the holidays, published under EA, and even Dice themselves have come forward and said this was originally an intimidating thing to squeeze in. I'm keeping my fingers crossed this all goes as well as the beta does though, because the beta really was a smooth experience.

..and of course, just a small reminder, don't take internet analysis too seriously. I may be harping on all the negatives, but at the end of the day I'm still coming up to the beta and playing it, often smiling and happy I did so for at least a few minutes. Its a game, and one made by a company that has a sizable fanbase for various reasons. At the end of the day, its going to have its rough spots, but its also going to be fun because... well its a video game. Do I think its one worth $60? Ha, no! However the more time I put into it, the more I come to understand and just appreciate that its here to play in my free time. There are times where I stopped writing this, played it some more, and felt bad over spending so much complaining about the XP system that is no longer an obstacle and the current match is going great. ...then I respawned into a wave of enemies twice in a row and wondered if I wasn't harsh enough. Its a game, its going to be fun, and its going to be flawed. Considering this is a free beta, you shouldn't be taking beta reviews like this so seriously, and instead go out and play it yourself and just stand by your own feelings. Then ask yourself if you'd pay for the type of fun you're having, and how much would you pay for it. Then you have an answer that is better than all the hours spent on this whole opinionated report.