Year End Wrap-Up, part 2

Disappointments of 2015
In my reviews, I try to find some positives in the negative and some negatives to the positives, but there were still a few things that were disappointing in the world of gaming in 2015.

The biggest one to me was The Elder Scrolls Online.  I'm a fan of Bethesda's games, and while I wasn't initially sold on an MMO version, I figured they couldn't mess it up completely.  Well, I was pretty much wrong.  The game did have a massive amount of content, I will give it that.  Pretty much every other aspect was messed up or ruined, though.  The game just didn't feel like an Elder Scrolls game at all, but an MMO with an Elder Scrolls skin.  Combat didn't feel right.  Stealing was a pain, and you couldn't do the tried and true reload if you messed up.  The fact that you had to pick a class just runs against all the series has established.  I wasn't looking forward to the game too much, and it severely let me down.  I really regretted buying the game at all, let along paying full price for the monstrosity.  My wife was able to stomach enough of it to get our money's worth, but I just couldn't bring myself to play it, and I tried several times.

Most of my other disappointments were minor compared to a whole game, but the main reason I was looking forward to playing some Call of Duty: Black Ops III was another casualty.  I like horde modes in games, and I heard good things about the aliens one in a previous CoD game.  The zombie mode in Black Ops III is just not enough, nor even fun.  There's only one map unless you buy the season pass, which gives you one whole other map!  Wow, what a bargain!  Oh, right, sarcasm doesn't translate to text.  It's dumb.  Plus, you go down in three hits, which happens stupid fast because they will just come up silently from behind and take you down before you can turn to shoot them.  The first three waves go fine, then it just goes downhill for me fast.  There's a whole ritual thing you are supposed to do and items to get, but I just want a standard horde mode.  If they wanted to do this new one, fine, but make it one of a few different maps.  Have at least one traditional one that I don't have to pay extra for.  They also threw low XP into the mode for good measure.  All in all, I pretty much regret buying the game, and I got it for a very low price.

At the insistence of my fellow XPound/Pez of the Mind/WhateverItIsThisWeek member Chriz, I tried out the Star Wars Battlefront beta.  The multiplayer versus was no fun at all to me.  Even the brief time I was a hero did nothing to sway me into enjoying the experience.  It's a pretty game, but didn't have anything I really liked.  The survival mode was ok at best, but even it was only two players and couldn't pull me to the dark side.  If there was some single player I might have bothered, but I'm glad I skipped the "full" game.

Lastly, I will sadly mention some things about Transformers: Devastation.  I like the game, but it was too short.  It has some cool artwork tied to achievements that I would love to use for my background.  Problem is, some of them are for the harder achievements, meaning I'd have to put in way too much time and effort for a minor gain.  One of the ones I really wanted was a community challenge that came and went with likely nobody else trying for it.  The challenge happened a few weeks after release, when most people were long done with the game, considering you can beat it in a day or two easy.  I was able to make due to get a decent background with the screenshot tool, but I would really like to get some of that artwork to make my dashboard look cool.

Year End Wrap-Up, part 1

Favorite Games of 2015
First and foremost, I'll talk about some of the top games I played in 2015, whether I reviewed them or not.  Might as well start with the good news, which is something I don't often do.

If you know me or listen to the XER/ZR/WhateverItIsThisWeek podcast, the first choice should be obvious.  Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate was a lot of fun.  It had some significant changes to the movement of the characters, most of which was really needed.  I was afraid how it would alter the experience, but I thought the changes were good and the game was a lot of fun.  There's also a lot of content, since this is the expanded version.  Lots of new monsters to kill, and I had a lot of fun playing it.  Fun by myself, and a blast with friends.

Next up is one of my favorite games I played this year, Lost Dimension.  It was a really fun strategy RPG with a fun twist: there were traitors in your group.  Each of the five floors of the tower tasked you with figuring out who the traitor was, and getting others to follow your choice.  The traitor was then erased from existence.  Battles were fun and you could equip the power sets of any executed party members, making for some neat combinations.  I know many people didn't like it much but I really enjoyed the game.

Of course Disgaea 5 would be on my list.  I like strategy RPGs, and Disgaea is still their king.  Fun characters, new troop types and some great additions and changes to the Netherworld made this a great entry in the series.  I'm really tempted to buy the season pass for the extra characters and levels.  I'm not always fond of what seems like every game having a season pass, but I liked Disgaea 5 enough that I'm tempted to shell out money for more content.

Even though I have not finished the review of the game yet, Eiyuu Senki should be on this list.  No harm in being thorough, right?  The game is really fun, even without all the AO-rated stuff.  I often debate if I should continue assaulting my next target, or simply do more personal events.  It's not too hard, and I've found the game to be funny, too.  Look forward to the full review early next year.

Lastly, I really liked Divinity: Original Sin.  There were a lot of small problems, but they didn't add up to enough to ruin the whole game.  Plus, I played 95% of it with my wife.  Couch co-op is a lot of fun with a good partner, and the game worked beautifully for both of us.  There are a lot of ways to build a character, and I have another one or two that I'd love to try out, even if it is by myself.  A really good RPG that takes awhile to play.  Just be prepared to get your butt handed to you sometimes.  I'm hoping the sequel will also makes its way to consoles.

Legends of Eisenwald (PC) Quick Review

I received a review code for Legends of Eisenwald a while ago, and got a chance to check it out for a bit.  It's a turn-based RPG with some unique elements that make it unlike any game I have played before.  The graphics are pretty good on my PC (i7-something), and the game runs really well with no hiccups or slowdown that I experienced.

Combat takes place on a hex-based grid.  When a character's turn comes up (based off of their initiative), they can choose a target to attack.  You will then move toward them and attack.  However, there is a chance they will counter-attack, so the aggressor might take some damage too.  Depending on which side you click on, the character will move to a different hex.  There are a few caveats, though.  You can't just have a person move somewhere, as they have to have a target.  If you are next to an enemy, you have to attack them.  This can really hurt archer units, but can be used to your advantage.  Sometimes, when one enemy is left, they might surrender, ending the battle early!  That alone is pretty cool, since I haven't seen that in a game yet.

Since your main character is whichever class you chose for them, you will need to fill out your ranks with mercenaries.  Your party can have a lot of characters, but you'll have to pay for them.  You aren't just limited to fighters and archers, though.  Healers and mages can also be hired.  Both use magic to heal, support or do other effects.  They can't attack with weapons like the others can, but they can retreat to a safe hex if an enemy is in their face.  If you don't have enough to cast a spell, they can meditate to restore some magic for the next turn.  Magic type characters are useful, but they can't do much if they are the only ones left.

Your main character can purchase skills when he or she levels up.  Hired warriors will instead upgrade their class, and there are splits in the tree where you have to decide which class to make them.  It is possible to have different types, since you can hire several different people to help you out.  Each character can also equip several different pieces of armor, and some can even ride horses (assuming the terrain allows it).  People have default equipment that you cannot remove, but anything you have them equip will be used instead.  This threw me off for a bit in the beginning, since I didn't realize why they had secondary slots under their equipment.  From a gameplay perspective, it's nice so they aren't stuck punching guys if they don't have a weapon equipped.

There is also a time mechanic to make use of in the game.  By default, time will only move forward when you are moving.  It is possible to have it go forward when you are standing around as well.  There are certain events that may only happen at night, plus you will have to pay your mercenaries when the next dawn rises.  I've seen the day/night cycle in games before, but it seems much more natural in Eisenwald.  The cycle isn't too fast or too slow.  Plus, you can adjust the speed that you/the clock moves if you want to move it along.  Just a well done aspect of the game.

I haven't played a whole lot of the game yet, but Legends of Eisenwald is pretty fun so far.  The unique hex-based strategy combat is very interesting.  The game is a good challenge, and the prologue is good at teaching you game mechanics without hand-holding.  As an involved RPG with a lot of focus on the story, there are times when you have to choose one side or the other.  On the other hand, it isn't a very easy game to pick up and play weeks later, but the quest log will help you find your way again.  Legends of Eisenwald is a solid RPG for PC players to pick up.

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.