Where are my Satellite Guy's gamers at?

[king3pj]

I tried out Marvel Heroes 2015 last night. From what I can tell so far it's basically Diablo set in the Marvel universe.

It's a free to play game but so far I haven't been pressured to buy anything with real money. There are currently 54 heroes to pick from and from what I have read all of them can be unlocked with in game currency. I read that you can play all the content in the game for free.

It sounds like the way they get you to spend real money is if you want to play more than 2 characters without giving up your loot. Unlike Diablo, where each character you play has their own inventory slots, Marvel 2015 has a set number of inventory slots. When you find loot it is permanently tied to the character you first equip it on. If you play more than 2 characters you will run out of inventory slots and have to start giving up your rare loot on one character to make room for another character to get rare loot. You can only buy extra inventory slots with real money.

You can also spend real money on unlocking individual characters and cosmetic costumes if you don't want to grind out in game currency. The in game currency and loot drops appear to come at a steady pace though. We'll see if that continues as I get further into the game.

When you start the game you are given a choice of starting characters. You don't get to pick from every character in the game at this point. I think there were about 15 but I'm not positive. I chose Cyclops but there were pretty recognizable characters for non-comic readers who saw the cartoons and movies like myself. I can't remember all the starting choices but I know Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, Black Panther, Rocket Racoon, Luke Cage, Punisher, and Hawekeye were options.

I'm not sure how long I will stick with it. So far I think I still prefer Diablo 3 but I have played a ton of that game between PS4 and PC. I do love my loot grind games so I'm planning on playing at least a little more of this.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Thanks to morbid curiosity I decided to try out Tony Hawk 5. I wish I could say it is a diamond in the rough game that was unfairly bashed because of it's horrible initial release, yielding hilarious moments such as these:




While I can say that the awful glitches/bugs are fixed, doesn't mean that the game is much fun. Now I consider Tony Hawk 3 to be the DEFINITIVE game of the series.

Sorry but to bring you all into how I think. As I was writing this I thought to myself, "Yourbeliefs, you formerly verile creator of children. Maybe you shouldn't slag off on THPS 5 so much. Maybe you should see if the game is really bad or if you just suck. Go back and play your precious THPS 3 and see if the problem is with you or the game." Well, I did exactly that. I started writing this post until this thought came in my head and I proceeded to stop and find my Xbox copy of 3. Then after I put the resolution down to sh*t levels (read: 480p) so the damn game would run on my 360, after a mere 5 minutes of playing I concluded, "No, I don't suck, THPS 5 does." Even without the glitches, THPS 5 just doesn't play as well as 3, or 2, 1, or 4 for that matter. It doesn't help that the single player campaign is lacking, or that you can't adjust the damn camera angle. No offense to Tony Hawk but I'd rather see the rest of my surroundings more than I wish to see his svelte ass. The missions you have to complete aren't the worst I've seen, but again, if the game just isn't fun to play, then even if it was distributing porn as a reward it doesn't matter because the process to get there isn't worth the reward.

In conclusion, if you want a true Tony Hawk experience, get 3 any way you can. Seriously, it's the best in the series, it's one of the few games to get a 10/10 from Gamespot, and it's just damn fun. Avoid the mess that is 5.

In other news I finally started Bloodbourne, but I can't say much as I'm about 2 hours in. I will agree with the general consensus in that the game is hard. Still, I haven't rage quit yet, and I am interested to see where everything is going. It would be nice though if developers on these new "great" consoles would figure out how to get a damn steady 30 FPS, but I digress. Still fun so far.

 

[king3pj]

I'll be interested in seeing what you think about Bloodborne after you get further in. I got as far as installing it but still haven't set aside the time to try it.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well after about 2+ hours into Bloodborne, I have to say I'm at a bit of an impasse. Yes, we all know the game is really hard, and even I'll admit after dying the numerous times that I have so far that really each death was my fault, as opposed to something cheap or a glitch, but that's little solace when, like Metal Gear Solid V, I can end up COMPLETELY losing 30 minutes of progress because I couldn't find a save spot before the big beast I thought I had successfully avoided snuck up behind me and bashed me into the ground, losing 2000+ blood points (or whatever the currency is called in the game.) This was made even more annoying when I tried to get them back and played it a bit less cautious and ended up getting overwhelmed and beaten by a low level enemy, thus losing them forever (at least I think forever.)

Normally at this point would be where I'd just say "F*ck it" and move on to another game, but rather than do that I think I'm going to take a step back and watch a few LPs of people playing the area I'm stuck on (which won't be hard to find as it's the first part of the game, embarrassingly.) Given the fact that BB has gotten more praise than a new restaurant that gives free bjs with each pizza delivery, I think I need to figure out what exactly I'm doing wrong.

The main issue is that this game (seems) to demand perfection. You obviously can't just hack and slash your way to victory like you're playing God of War. Each enemy is a legitimate threat, and god forbid you're caught off guard or someone you didn't see comes up and hits you, which can EASILY drain close to all your life. Sure, shame on me for not being aware of said guy, but my current play style of having to tread lightly throughout the level, constantly watching my back, making sure I don't get overwhelmed, picking off individual enemies by drawing them away from crowds by throwing rocks at them, also making sure I have the right weapon type equipped, then making sure my energy isn't too low, etc etc right now just isn't a great deal of fun. However I'm not ready to throw BB into the category of "Not my cup of tea" given the ravenous fan base this and the Souls games have. Clearly they're doing something right. Hopefully I can figure out what it is soon, or else I'll be selling this game back to Best Buy in the near future.

 

[king3pj]

I'm not sure how closely Bloodborne follows the original Dark Souls formula but I have seen lets plays of that game where people get stuck. When this happens they just kill a group of easier enemies near their bonfire (checkpoint). They then go back to the bonfire. Since the enemies, except bosses, respawn every time you do this they are basically able to farm souls until they have enough to level up their character and take another shot at the boss.

Again, this is what I have seen people do to get past tough parts of Dark Souls 1. I have no idea if the same strategy works in Bloodborne. Farming the same group of easier enemies doesn't sound like the most rewarding gameplay loop either but it's not like they are constantly doing this the entire time. They just do it when they get stuck.

There is also the whole summon mechanic where you can bring in a friendly stranger from the internet to help you fight a boss.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Well I played a little of Dark Souls and Demons Souls (the lesser known Souls game that came first and was a PS3 exclusive) and these games definitely share the same DNA and just have some slight alterations, much like my children (hopefully.) And as this veteran mentions here, while they are similar, mastering one doesn't mean you're automatically going to be a master in another. One of the things that also drew me to BB was that a common theme I heard was "I wasn't a really big DS fan but I LOVED BB and now I'm getting into DS as a result." Also I've heard those that have been able to play DS 3 in preview form say that DS 3 takes a lot from BB and the changes are good. Like I said, I'm not going to throw in the towel yet. However, I may need to invest in some sort of stress relieving chew toy I can use after my wife scolded me for swearing loudly last night while playing the game (for the record my swearing wasn't that loud but we have a split level house and the game room is right under our bedroom.)

 

[satjay]

Not sure if there are any FIFA players out there, and if there are if you have experienced this. I purchased FIFA coins from the Playstation network, and they never made it to my game.

Though shame on me, in doing some research, I see its a common occurance, and trying to talk to the EA advisors is a joke

 

[king3pj]

Not sure if there are any FIFA players out there, and if there are if you have experienced this. I purchased FIFA coins from the Playstation network, and they never made it to my game.

Though shame on me, in doing some research, I see its a common occurance, and trying to talk to the EA advisors is a joke

Did you try Sony support? I have no personal experience with Sony's support team but everything I have read about them suggests they are a joke too. Good luck....

 

[king3pj]

In addition to all the other games I've been playing lately, I've also been playing Halo 5. I lost interest in the campaign about half way through. It's not that it's bad. I just think I have done this stuff way to many times between playing Halo 1-4 and Reach before it. It probably doesn't help that I have played some of those campaigns several times.

Again, if you love Halo campaigns you will probably like this one too. The shooting still feels as good as any game on consoles. Like the previous games, every weapon has a unique feel to it and most of them are fun to use. Maybe it's the story but the campaign just hasn't been grabbing me. When I sit down to play it I find myself thinking rather be playing something else. The last time I played it I actually booted up and played about 30 seconds before turning off my Xbox One and moving to the PC to play Fallout 4.

As most people probably know you play part of the game as Master Chief and part of the game as Locke. Both of these characters have a squad of 3 other Spartans with them. Nathan Fillion as Buck on Team Locke is a bright spot. The problem is that it feels like they designed this game to be played in 4 player co-op and if you are playing it by yourself like I am it can feel a little hollow. I'm sure I would be having a lot more fun if I were playing with 3 friends, or even 1 friend in co-op, instead of 3 AI Spartans.

I am having fun with the multiplayer though. I have been playing both multiplayer modes. Arena contains all the game types you are used to in previous games. Warzone is their new thing that is more like Battlefield's conquest mode where you have to take a series of objectives to drive the other team back into their base and eventually take the base. I am having fun with this mode and I am earning enough in game currency to not even consider paying real money for card packs.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Halo 5 will probably be the next game I get from Gamefly so I'll finally get into that.

Recently I've delved into 2 older games, first off Call of Duty Ghosts, for no other reason than to just try it out. I passed on it when it originally came out but I decided to go back and try out the campaign, even though I hadn't heard great things about it. Lord knows it isn't worth playing the multiplayer given the number of people still playing..

So far it seems okay. There's not much to say in terms of gameplay, as if you've played any of these before Advanced Warfare you've basically played them all. Story hasn't really picked up yet, but it hasn't turned me off yet either.

The other game I've been playing is Zone of the Enders HD on Xbox 360. Before you open a new tab to Google what that is, it's another Hideo Kojima game that isn't Metal Gear. I didn't have much interest in the game until after I played Policenauts and became more receptive to his other games. Then the limited edition went on sale, discounted from $100 to $15 (well, $15 after taxes.) I knew nothing about the game before I picked it up (I mean I read some reviews that said it was good but I didn't delve too deep.) It seems similar to Mobile Suit Gundam and other "Mech Fighting" games that takes place in the future. You play a boy named Leo who is living on a colony near Jupiter that looks suspiciously like the halos from Halo that is suddenly under attack by, some group of mechs that all look like Metal Gear Ray that seem to just want to blow everything up. While running away he stumbles upon an idol mech that ends up taking him in so to speak and he takes control. It's like The Last Starfighter meets Gundam. So far I'm having fun. The voice acting is decent and the mech's AI serves as interesting fodder to the protagonist. Playing as a mech with long distance projectiles as well as a sword for CQC feels quite satisfying, although for some reason whenever I was involved in battles this song kept playing in my head. I'm interested to see where this goes, and actually the HD collection is 2 games. Unfortunately almost everyone says that 2 is far superior to 1, but if I paid for 2 games I'm going to play both. Besides, the first one couldn't have been THAT bad if they made a sequel. Looking forward to more, especially since there seems to be some open ended gameplay. You seem to be able to take side missions, although your AI warns you that deviating off the main mission can result in severe consequences. I wonder how true that is. Kojima's games have been known to have real consequences to your actions. Hell this was the guy who wanted to make games with permadeath.

 

[king3pj]

Well, I've been hanging on to my copy of Halo 5 from Gamefly so I can occasionally play the mulitplayer. Realistically I kept it because I got a 3 month, 2 disc at a time membership as a Christmas gift and there aren't 2 console games I want to play more than the stuff I already own right now.

If you want to try out the campaign in co-op I would give it another try. As you can see from the post above yours, the campaign hasn't really grabbed me but I think it was really designed with co-op in mind. I can see how it would be a lot more fun that way. Plus I read the campaign is only about 7-8 hours long so it's not a huge time commitment.

 

[yourbeliefs]

I got word today that my copy of Halo 5 shipped out, so maybe this weekend we can delve into the campaign.

 

[king3pj]

I got word today that my copy of Halo 5 shipped out, so maybe this weekend we can delve into the campaign.

If you can have a game shipped from Gamefly on a Wednesday and have it at your house in time for the weekend you are getting much better service than I am. It takes me 5 business days each way. Every time I want to send a game back for a replacement I'm looking at a minimum of 10 days round trip. That means that I go 1/3 of the months I pay for without any games in my possession.

 

[Scherrman]

This time of year I always start to get the baseball itch so last night I got out the old SNES and played some Ken Griffey Jr: Winning Run. This has always been one of my all time favorite baseball games. I always loved their trading system.

 

[king3pj]

This time of year I always start to get the baseball itch so last night I got out the old SNES and played some Ken Griffey Jr: Winning Run. This has always been one of my all time favorite baseball games. I always loved their trading system.

MLB the Show on PS4 is probably the sports game franchise in my opinion. I know people love their NBA 2K, EA's NHL series, and Madden but I think The Show is better than all of them. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I'm a bigger baseball fan than any other sport.

If you like baseball games and you have a PS4 The Show is a must buy. At this point it may be worth waiting until March 29th for the 2016 version though.

 

[Scherrman]

MLB the Show on PS4 is probably the sports game franchise in my opinion. I know people love their NBA 2K, EA's NHL series, and Madden but I think The Show is better than all of them. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I'm a bigger baseball fan than any other sport.

If you like baseball games and you have a PS4 The Show is a must buy. At this point it may be worth waiting until March 29th for the 2016 version though.

I have The Show for my PS3 and I loved playing it. I think it's about 5 years old now though. The funny thing with that game is that as much as I played it I never really played against anyone or even a full, regular game against the CPU. I'm not sure I'd remember how to pitch or play defense. I pretty only played the career mode and it would skip to my at bat every time. I loved that feature.

I'm thinking of getting The Show this year because I want the current Cubs roster. So many great players I'm excited to play with.

 

[yourbeliefs]

So the king3pj and I just finished off Halo 5.

I guess the best thing I can say about the game is that it was fun in spite of itself.

First off, it was fun in spite of the fact that the plot was weak. Basically Cortana (who if you remember died in Halo 4) is somehow alive again for reasons that didn't seem adequately explained IMO. Because of that I'm going to assume it's because she was commissioned to act as a personal AI to everyone who has Windows 10, Windows Phones, and whoever was stupid enough to download the Android/iOS app because they wanted a sh*ttier version of Google/Siri respectively, and as a result goes mad and decides to take over the universe by getting all these big space ships called Guardians that look like a cross between this boss from Contra and a Transformer. And for some reason she wants Master Chief to be with her while she does this, and Master Chief hears the call a'la Mass Effect dream premonition style and goes after her. However for some reason his superiors forbid him from doing this, to which MC says "Sorry, but after saving the ENTIRE GALAXY 4 goddamn times, I don't need to listen to your lame rules, MAN!" and goes off anyways with 3 other Spartans. Another team of Spartans goes after him, so your action is split between these two fireteams (A term, BTW which was NOT copied from Destiny because fireteam is an actual military term.) Sadly there's no real conflict between the two. MC and Locke get into a fight that goes on as an unplayable cut scene which looks insanely stupid, and since this happens less than MID WAY through the game, the tension is basically lost after this. Oh, and whoever was in charge of the marketing campaign of this game deserves to be put on trial for fraud because the whole "Two Sides to Every Story" and "Is Master Chief bad/becoming bad?" angles are complete bull. Of course, anyone that follows 343 Industries knows that honesty isn't their best trait, given the fact that previously they released a game that was so horribly broken on release (and in some ways still is today) as opposed to in preview that numerous game reviewers had to change their review policies to accommodate when other companies try to pull the same sh*t that they did.

The game was also fun in spite of the numerous bugs we experienced. The most offensive bug was in the checkpoints, in that they seemed to only work when they wanted to. On a handful of occasions checkpoints wouldn't trigger properly under certain conditions, meaning that when we died we'd lose a more than comfortable amount of progress, but then when we went back and did basically the same thing as before, the checkpoint would be triggered. This also led us to constantly look at the bottom left corner of our screens in hopes of seeing "Checkpoint" during and after major gunfights in the hope that we wouldn't get disintegrated by some assh*le with a sniper rifle we didn't see and have to take it all from the top. Also not fun were the numerous times that my controller would just turn off during the game or when I would get knocked offline trying to start a game. Also, while not exactly a "bug", the game uses a graphical performance effect to keep the game looking good and running at a constant 60 FPS, but the downside of this is that when lower res textures were loaded, it was painfully obvious, and you could trigger the high/low textures very easily simply by walking. For a better description of what I'm talking about see this video here. Finally, the AI is crap. You're always in a team of 4 but your teammates serve no real purpose other than standing around and waiting for you to go down so they can revive you, and sometimes they don't even do that right. Nothing like having an AI character a fart's distance away not doing ANYTHING to try to help you while you sit there trying to put your intestines back into your stomach until you eventually die.

Lastly, the game was fun in spite of the fact that it didn't really FEEL like a Halo game. Yeah there were Halo weapons and Halo enemies, but with the game at times felt more like Call of Duty than it did Halo, which depending on your perspective is a good or a bad thing. I still found the game to be fun, but it's becoming more and more evident that 343 Interactive is no Bungie, and now that they're starting off on their own new storyline (without wishing to spoil let's just say that this game could be called "Halo Episode V: The Cortana Strikes Back") I do wonder if these guys know what they're doing with this. And as King pointed out, it is a little odd that Microsoft named their AI technology after a character that is essentially evil.

Still, like I said I did have fun, although I doubt I would have had as much as I did if not for playing the game co-op. I can recommend the game as a rental for the campaign, and I can't speak to the multiplayer because I refuse to play it out of general principal. Probably by the time Halo 6: Return of the Master Chief comes out I'll be in the mood for more Halo again, but for now I'm fine with throwing the MC into a cryogenic freeze for a while.

Now I need to finish off Call of Duty: Ghosts and then get back into Zone of Enders.

 

[king3pj]

My opinion on Halo 5 hasn't changed much from what I wrote in this post. I definitely had a much better time with it playing co-op with yourbeliefs than I did when relying on 3 AI squadmates.

The shooting is still as solid as ever and the game is fun when it isn't frustratingly hard. They included a boss that kills you with one hit from his sword and also has a projectile ball of energy that will also kill you with one hit from across the map. Oh, and you can only do significant damage to him by shooting a glowing blue spot in the middle of his back. Even when shooting that blue spot it takes quite a few rounds and he doesn't make it easy to shoot that spot.

343 thought it was a good idea to make you fight this boss five or six times throughout the game with increasingly tougher enemies helping him out or just multiple copies of this frustrating boss trying to kill you at once while there are also laser turrets shooting at you. Still these fights were much easier in co-op than they were playing by myself. We could at least get on opposite sides of the map and take turns distracting him while the other shot at his back. The AI just isn't smart enough to pull this off though. They walk right in front of him and take a sword to the face.

It also pulls the same thing as Halo 2 did where the end of the game has no meaningful resolution. Halo 2's ending was just there to setup Halo 3. The end of Halo 5 was nothing more than a setup for Halo 6. I guess that's just part of being the middle game in a Halo trilogy.

I didn't hate Halo 5. I think I'm just a little burned out on the franchise for now. It probably didn't help that over the course of the last year I played all of Halo 1, all of Halo 4, Half of Halo 2, and part of Halo ODST all through the Master Chief Collection. By the time Halo 6 comes out I'm sure I'll be ready to jump in again and see how it ends.

 

[yourbeliefs]

So I just wrapped up CoD: Ghosts..

I'm not really sure why this game was so panned when it came out. Maybe the multiplayer was crap but the single player campaign IMO was very good, mostly.

I won't delve too much into the plot because all CoD plots basically are the same: America gets attacked by X, things look bad for America, then America fights back and saves the day. Yeah Ghosts didn't deserve any awards for originality when it came out, so instead we need to look at the set pieces and combat situations, and in that regard I found the game to be quite entertaining. From drowning cities to huge skyscrapers to desert casinos and even in outer space, the game definitely has that fun summer blockbuster feel, which really is all you can hope for with these games at this point. I mean in terms of interesting/unpredictable plots the the series basically blew its load back with Modern Warfare, and then had a good 2nd round with Black Ops. But yes, overall I enjoyed my time with Ghosts, mostly.

Why "mostly" you ask? Well, without to spoil, IMO the ending is sh*t. It sets up for a sequel when there doesn't seem to be room for one. Basically the game ends with everything accomplished, and then the credits start to roll, and then the game pulls them away and says

Spoiler

Oh sorry, but that bad guy you thought you killed is apparently a cyborg that can't die, so he's going to pull you kicking and screaming into a sequel

Seriously, when I saw this unravel in front of me I was disgusted. It's not the worst ending I've seen, but it was like going out on a date and having a lovely time, and then when you get back to the person's house and close your eyes for a goodnight kiss, your date lets out a loud, audible shart and then runs inside and slams the door in your face.

Even with the awful ending and sequel bait I can still recommend the single player campaign of Ghosts, assuming you're one of the VERY few people that still play the campaigns in these games. If the latest game is anything to go by, it appears that only 10-15% of players actually finish the campaign (assuming I'm interpreting the PSN Trophy statistics correctly.) I hope they don't decide to completely eliminate the campaigns and focus only on multiplayer, but if they did, I wouldn't exactly be surprised or hold it against Activision.

Not sure what I'll play next. Maybe I'll delve into Game of Thrones. Actually I'll probably go through The Beginners Guide since that's a short game and go from there.

 

[king3pj]

I never played the campaign but the multiplayer was not very good. It was definitely my least favorite COD game to release during this console generation.