Marvel Heroes Omega (PS4) Closed Beta Test Impressions

Marvel characters meets Diablo-like gameplay?  Sounds like a great idea.  I have played a few hours of the PC version, but early on my computer couldn't handle it, so I waited until I got a machine that could.  Even so, it was a game that I really wanted to use a controller for, and was very happy when it was announced to be moving to consoles under the slightly changed name of Marvel Heroes Omega.

There's a new intro mission that has you play as a few of the Avengers while introducing controls and key aspects of the game.  After which you will then do the old tutorial level, the Raft.  If my memory serves me correctly, this Raft mission is a bit stream-lined from its old version, and I like this one better, mostly because it feels shorter.

It's a good thing too, since story progress is saved by character.  So, if you switch to a new one, they want you to do the Raft again to get a level and some starter gear.  With so many characters already available to try (and more that I have to wait patiently for), it's a nice idea, but there are easier ways to just try a character out.  First, there is a training room hidden in the list of teleport locations, which lets you attack a set of dummies to try out your powers.  If you want live combat, you can just enter the first street zone and run around beating up a few punks to see how it feels.

So how does it play on a controller?  For me, it's great.  You move with the left stick, and the face button uses your moves.  Several moves don't have a cooldown, so you can either hold down the button or press it continuously to use the moves.  Holding down the L2 will give you access to another set of four moves once you have them unlocked.  Setting what skill was on what button was easily done from the skill menu, too.

L1 will use a healing item, although I wasn't sure how many I had.  Maybe it isn't limited, but a cooldown?  The right stick doesn't move the camera, which I thought it would.  Instead it...does nothing?  I'm not sure what it, R1 and R2 do.  I imagine one would do the ultimate skill, but I didn't play far enough to find out.  I should when there isn't the looming threat of a character wipe, though.

However, the biggest thing I was excited about was the inclusion of couch co-op.  Many of you may know that I play several games with my awesome wife, and after sinking hundreds of hours into Diablo, Marvel Heroes Omega is a game we were itching to try.  It took a bit to get everything lined up (she apparently couldn't actually pick a character to join unless I was already in a mission), but after that it worked out really well.

The second player is basically sharing the account of Player 1.  This is good because you only have to buy characters for one account to get the benefit for others.  Inventory is shared, too, which is good (easy to give pieces to other characters) and bad (capacity will get filled faster).  With loot still being character specific (a choice I'm not too keen on), it helps to not have to trade or drop it so the other player can use it.  Of course starting inventory limits are not conducive to my play style (I'm a hoarder), so I know I'll spend some G to increase it.

As much as I enjoyed the game, I of course had a few problems as well.  Some of the UI text is absurdly small, even on a 55" TV.  I imagine (and hope) that will be fixed by launch.  I also would have liked a help page that showed the controller layout, since I had a devil of a time trying to log out the first time.  It turns out it's cleverly hidden in the lower right corner of the screen when you first open the menu.  I guess I've played too many other MMOs, since I was looking for it in the options, and other places for several minutes before I just saw it sitting there, laughing at me.  Lastly, when you level up and gain a new skill, it puts it on a button.  Fine, but it tends to duplicate it, or just put it over one you had before if you've set up the buttons manually.  It's not game breaking, but it's weird and annoying.

It's safe to say I had fun in the closed beta for Marvel Heroes Omega.  I set out to try different heroes to see who I might have to buy, and to play some couch co-op.  Both goals were met, so now I have to wait patiently for the open beta, and then the game's launch!  I'm definitely looking forward to that.


The Good:
Lots of heroes to choose from, controller works great...and did I mention couch co-op!

The Bad:
Some UI elements aren't optimized

The SaHD:
Really, really looking forward to when my boy Juggernaut is added.  And of course Venom!

(Founder's Pack / Closed Beta access codes for Marvel Heroes Omega were provided by the publisher)

Grand Kingdom [Beta] (PS4) Preview

I tried the Grand Kingdom beta a few days ago.  First off, I really like the art style of the game, and the animation is nice.  It's like a good version of Battle Princess Arcadias.

The gameplay is pretty unique, like a mix of rpg and board game.  You move around a map as a chess-like piece. There are treasures and shortcuts around the map, and a turn limit.  If you come into contact with an enemy piece, a fight starts.

Your four person party fights on three planes against another enemy group.  Each character has a movement meter that shows how much they can move, and an attack meter than depletes with each attack.  Attacks are pretty neat, since melee people have a combo you can execute, and can even launch opponents.  Archers and mages have a target mark that moves through the area, and you have to time your press to correspond to where the enemy is.  They also get multiple attacks you can chain together.  It takes some getting used to, since the mage's targeting isn't as nice as the archer's.

It worked...well enough for the most part.  It was way too easy to hit your own people (heals can also work on enemies, yuck), since the target areas and arcs aren't accurate.  Plus a rebounding enemy can hit other characters causing some damage, which is more annoying than I would have thought.  Battle controls aren't very intuitive, and took me some getting used to.  Even after an hour or so I would mess up the buttons occasionally.  The in-game tutorials teach the map and battles well enough.

What they don't teach is some of the other nuances.  While they over-explain some things like menu selections, something as important as the stats of your characters are left up to your imagination.  When you level up, you can give some bonus points, but I wasn't sure if some things affected others.  Str gives physical attack damage, but does it affect bow attacks?  Usually that is dexterity or agility, but no stat in Grand Kingdom mentions bow damage.  I wouldn't be so bothered by this, but I always get the sense that I was messing up my characters, or not getting what I should be doing with their growth (more on that below).

Even so, the single player experience was really fun.  After doing the one map, you are then forced to do some of the multiplayer versus.  It is thankfully not actual pvp, but more kingdom v kingdom.  I don't fully understand it all, but I had to do it, which isn't fun.  I tried it once, won a battle, and then the entire war was lost.  I have no idea why, it just said it was over.  The enemy group was the same level as my party, but a really hard fight.  That's where I started thinking I messed up my bonus stats, since player enemies had much longer combos than I did.  At least you can just leave the AI to do it for you, and I'm hoping the full game has enough single player that I can ignore the pvp nonsense.  I'm game to try it!

The Good:
Nice art style, unique gameplay and the fights were fun.

The Bad:
I don't like pvp, and it didn't make much sense here.  Hopefully it isn't forced in the full game like it was in the beta.

The SaHD:
It seems the beta is the "lite" version, so maybe the pvp focus is in some kind of free-to-play version which will bump up the people playing the game.  Or people will just do it on alternate accounts to beef up the armies they want to win...

Battleborn [Beta] (PS4): the Good, the Bad and the SaHD

The Good:
I can't overstate how much I appreciate that there is a story that can be done solo or co-op.  I'm bad at the competitive portion of most games, so I like having a fun option for people like myself.

The Bad:
The game is fast paced and hectic...I didn't always know what was going on.  Plus, the story missions were pretty hard.

The SaHD:
I tried one round of the versus.  I was on a team of low level people (1-5), and our opponents were very high level (20-50+), so it was really unbalanced.  There was a vote to surrender only 4 minutes in, and it just seemed to instantly pass without me even getting to vote.

Yeah...I'm definitely interested in checking out the campaign levels, but will likely not put much time into the versus modes.  The game felt very much like a fast-paced Borderlands, which isn't a bad thing.  Just one I would have to get used to.

(Battleborn [Beta] was obtained as a free download from the Playstation Store)

Black Desert Online (PC) Beta Preview

I was recently supplied a code for the closed beta test of Black Desert Online.  It only ran for a week, but I got in a little time to play at, and after seeing the character creator, so did my wife.

Before I get into the creator, though, I would like to say the game looks really nice.  My machine is likely ancient by now (purchased 7 months ago), but the game ran smooth on the medium settings.  Setting it on high had a noticeable dip in the frame rate.  Either way, the character models looked really good, as did the environments.  The opening cinematic was a little choppy though.

The character creator was really, really good.  It had far more details than I would have thought.  Granted, there weren't a lot of costume options, likely because your character shows what they have equipped, but there are several selections to show you what some of their armor sets look like.  You first set a family name, that all characters on your account will share, but later name each individual.  You can set their astrological sign, which seems only good for RP purposes right now, and even see what they look like in different lighting conditions.

Many body parts are editable with sliders to the three axes (depth, length and width) to give some good freedom.  It reminds me a lot of the systems found in the WWE games for creating a wrestler.  Each hairstyle also has many points that you can click and drag around to give personal touches to it.  That was pretty impressive.

There were several character types/classes to choose from, but they seem locked into predefined genders.  There might be some reason for this, but it's not what I would prefer.  Either way, I spied at least 2-3 that I would like to try out, and so did my wife.  I first went with a sorceress, who, according to the description, has some strong ranged and melee attacks.  Sounds fun.

I don't play many games on the PC, but I have played my fair share of MMOs, so I have a decent point of reference for using the keyboard and mouse.  In Black Desert Online, it just felt...awkward.  Aiming with the mouse worked fine, and your two primary attacks were on the two mouse buttons.  So far, ok.  Moving was with the WASD keys.  A and D would strafe, but turn you if you were moving.  That may be a newer thing, but I prefer to have strafe and turn to be different buttons.  Nearby keys, like F, were other attacks that you could learn.  You could use the number keys above to do the hotbar attacks, like many other MMOs, but that also felt weird, simply because the combat was so action-oriented.  Using the keyboard, you just needed  a lot of different buttons, and no configuration seemed to fit me.

However, you can use a controller!  I was happy to see that, since there are just some things a controller does better.  And once I got used to the controls, I felt it did work better overall.  There are a lot of shortcut functions plastered on it, and remembering them all can be a chore.  The game does try to remind you of the buttons, but most times it reminds you in the default keyboard layout, which doesn't really help when you are using a controller.  There were a variety of combat moves, so keeping them all straight wasn't easy.

The environments looked nice, but there was a bit too much scenery for me, to the point where it interfered in combat.  Enemy types blended in to each other, and it felt liked I rushed through the first several missions on my way to level 9.  This of course may well be because it's the beta, but I just kinda went to the marker, killed stuff, and moved on.  Nothing really stuck with me afterwards.

The beta for Black Desert Online was kind of fun.  The combat was nice and action-oriented, and using a controller felt good.  There were a lot of commands to remember, which was a tripping point for me.  The UI was busy and needed a lot of tweaking before I got to something I liked.  Most of my small issues could easily be cleaned up by the next closed beta.  I'm looking forward to see any improvements they've made in the future.

Destiny of Spirits (Vita): Beta Impressions

Destiny of Spirits is a free to play RPG on the PS Vita.  For battle, you use a party of three monsters to battle other monsters.  There is a little meter under each monster that fills, and when filled, the monster will attack.  Each monster also has a special ability that uses a communal SP meter that refills between missions.  The targets and menu options are mapped to the touch screen, and it responds really well.  Just like most RPGs, there is an elemental chart where each element is strong against one element and weak to another.

The game breaks the world up into a grid, and places you on it according to your location.  There are a few missions per area, and once you finish them, a boss fight will appear.  If you defeat the boss, that area becomes purified, and you can choose to do more missions in neighboring areas.  I like that it your location changes your starting point, plus it shows you where your friends are on the map.  Monsters you can get from summoning are dependent on region (America, Europe, Asia, etc), which would bother me more, but you can get those from the destiny summons (more on that below).  Plus, it is really easy to send friend requests to other regions, and you can trade for monsters you may not be able to get.  I wasn't able to try the trade function yet, so it might not be that easy, especially if you have to coordinate it.

There are several ways to get monsters for your party.  When starting out, the game gives you one.  To get more, you can spend Summoning Stones, which can be obtained from winning battles, and at least in the beta, as a bonus for logging in.  These can be spent to get a random summon, either common or uncommon.  Destiny Orbs can be used to summon a random uncommon, rare or super rare monster.  There may be something above super rare (maybe ultra rare?), but I didn't see it.  Some Destiny Orbs were given as login bonuses, but I suspect those will be purchasable in the store (the store option didn't work in the beta).  They could be used to heal your party (they will heal after 30 minutes), increase your total monster capacity, and summon special monsters.  The special monsters are only available for a certain time, and the ones in the beta were related to the Playstation cats (Koro and Toro I believe) and the characters from Gravity Rush.  A pretty cool idea that they have Sony themed characters that you can get for your party... maybe we will see some God of War characters in the future, too.

The other ways to get more monsters was a destiny summon that you can do once per day.  When you log in, you can choose a person taken from a random list of other players, and it will summon two of a random monster and give you each one of them.  It's pretty nice, and I actually got a rare monster or two out of it.  You can rarely get a monster as a reward for a mission, and you can also "hunt" them.  For this it requires location data, so if you use your Vita while travelling, you can probably get some nice new monsters.  I was only able to use it once, unfortunately.

To make the monsters stronger, you have to fuse others into one of your choosing.  You can fuse up to five at a time into a chosen "base" monster.  You get more experience if they are the same element, and presumably, more for rarer monsters or ones with higher levels.  It would have been nice if you could see how much experience you are going to get before you fuse them, to see if it is even worth it, or if it's better to fuse more than two at a time, but they don't tell you until after it's too later.  It wasn't that hard to get more summoning stones from fights so you could get more monsters to rais the level of the ones you like, but I would like to get the most out of what I'm giving up.  To finalize the fusion process, you need to spend Spirit Points.  For those of you keeping score, that's three different kinds of numbers you need to be aware of when not in battle.

You can also use the Spirit Points to "rent" a monster from another player for a mission.  It's a nice function, since the person you rented it from will get some of those points.  It also allows you to try out other monsters you may not have yet, or get help from a higher level or an element that could help you out.  You can't pick which monster it will temporarily replace, which is not a great thing, but you get plenty of Spirit Points, so it was a good thing to spend them on.  Also, if one of the random people on your list is a friend, you get a discount for renting their monster.

Every day you play Destiny of Spirits, your luck and elemental affinity will change.  Affinity will change which element of your is stronger in battle, so take advantage of it whenever you can.  Luck affects things like critical rate, drop rate and acquiring rarer monsters from the random drawings.  If you are so inclined, Destiny Orbs can be used to boost your luck (or drop it) for the day.  I think I got "average" luck every day I played (all 7), and didn't spend any orbs to increase it.

Besides the special monster availability, the other timed event during the beta was a special raid boss encounter.  The raid boss could appear in any zone you were in, but you could choose not to fight it.  It's HP would not deplete if you lost, since you are meant to take it on with groups of other people.  The one I fought was totally beatable solo, but I took me two tries and several monsters to win.  Beating the raid boss at different levels and more times gives several rewards.  The one I wanted was the playable version of the raid boss, but I didn't fight her enough.  Still, I thought it was a neat idea to put into the game so players check back to see what new events will keep them playing or get them back into the game.

Destiny of Spirits was pretty fun.  I'm not sure how intrusive the shop will be, and how much money you will need to put in to get the Destiny Orbs, so it could still go horribly, horribly wrong.  It used the Vita features well, but the reliance on having an internet connection can make it hard to play on the go (unless you have 3G), since I had to be close to my Wi-Fi access point to not error out.  That also made each facet of the game take a bit too long to load.  Other than that, I liked the game and will definitely try the full version when it comes out.  It's a good pick up and play game.

Defiance Beta Impressions (PS3)

When I first read about Defiance, I got the impression it was a competitive game with MMO elements.  I decided to try the beta, since it was up for PS+ members, and I'm glad I did.  It reminds me of an MMO third person version of Borderlands.  Is that a good thing?  Yes, yes it is.

The character creation was really sparse, and I'm not sure how much of that is because it's a beta and not the full version.  You could choose one of two races, but it didn't say if that actually affected anything (like stats, etc.).  If it is supposed to, let's hope they tell you.  There also weren't very many options to personalize your character, so I'm hoping that armor you find changes their appearance.

The game played pretty well.  With the pistol, I had aim assist and it actually helped (I turn it off in most games, and I'll try it without in Defiance later), but sometimes the aiming was finicky.  It didn't always seem to move at a consistent speed, so maybe it's really sensitive to the analog sticks.  Also the aiming was really tight.  The reticle is a certain size, but only the dot in the middle is where you hit with your shots.  I usually feel in most shooters, you don't have to be that exact, but it feels like you do in Defiance.  It didn't get me killed or anything, but I wasn't as good at shooting things as I am in other third person shooters.

Like other MMOs, you run around and get quests to grab things or kill things.  It was still fun to do here.  One thing I didn't like was enemy spawns.  Since I don't know where enemies are, they would frequently spawn really close and get a few pot shots while I figured out where they were.  A few times it was because it was a normal spawn for the enemies, but most times the quest would spawn the enemies.  I'm not a fan of enemies just piling out of a clown car and the like, so the waves of enemies for some missions were annoying.  I don't know if it was just me, but I sometimes had a hard time picking out the enemies while running around.  Things didn't really stick out from the background enough.

There are some bugs, though, that I'm hoping get ironed out of the final release.  The biggest one I had was related to a quest "boss" that appeared.  Or didn't, as at first there was nothing there after the cutscene.  I was able to run into the area where he was supposed to come out and it was clearly an area you weren't supposed to be able to go.  A bit later he did spawn and I was able to finish the quest.  However, about 20 minutes later someone made him spawn again and it showed me the cutscene and teleported me close to his location, which was halfway across the zone.  So, yeah, I had to run all the way back to where I needed to be.  It was fun being reminded of my old game testing days, though.

I didn't think I would like the game, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It wasn't perfect, but I had fun and I might be able to convince my PS fanboy buddies to buy it so we can all play.  If I can't get a review copy, I'm sure I'll pick it up down the line.  Hopefully the game and show are popular enough that the servers will be around awhile, otherwise it would be pointless to play.  Again, that's the worst part of MMOs.  I'd love it if they all had some offline/ single player component, but they don't really care to do that.