Tag: FPS

The Steam Grand Prix

Izlain2 Comments

It’s that time of year again! Wallets shall weep and Gabe Newell shall rejoice at their weeping! Or some such thing. Whatever the case, the Steam Summer Sale kicked off this past week, and with it a new theme/game. This time around the theme is “Grand Prix” and instead of playing an actual game, you’ll instead play regular games to complete quests in order to affect your team’s positioning in the race. Each day a winner is crowned, and by the end we’re supposed to have a chance to earn games off of our wish lists. How likely that actually happens is yet to be determined, but out of the four days that passed, my team (Team Corgi) came in first place three times. We’re currently in first place again today, so if this keeps up I imagine I’d have a better chance to win something, but I’m still not holding my breath. Overall I don’t usually care too much about the events going on in the client, it’s all about the deals. This year my wish list is a little thin, and while much of it was on sale, I really scrutinized those items on my list again and ended up removing some of them altogether. When all was said and done though, I can’t resist a good deal, so I took the opportunity to grab a couple of games on the cheap. I had the opportunity to play both games for a while over my days off and have some thoughts to share about them. First up, Void Bastards:

I discovered this title via the Steam discovery queue and the first thing that caught my attention was its art direction. It borrows heavily from science fiction comic books, and looks great in its hand-drawn style. The main menu actually shows off the above art complete with a hallmark comic book cover, and much of the game’s style derives from this. Sound effects will also come with floating word bubbles, the cut scenes between missions play out in animated frames for you to follow along with. The aesthetics are amazing and that’s just the beginning!

The story goes that you are a prisoner on a space barge that has been floating along in space for some time. The prisoners on board are your fodder — you can die as many times as you like because the lives ready to be defrosted and then controlled by you are limitless. The corporation that owns the prison ship (and by extension, you) literally defrosts you, attached a little sentient robot to your body, and sends you on your way to do things. As far as the gameplay goes, this is a rogue-lite so you can expect a degree of procedural generation and to die a lot before getting anywhere. There is a global progression though, so as you gain key items and store them on the S.T.E.V., or unlock/build new gear the next inmate to be revived will have access to them. I can name quite a few games that have had similar concepts and where each little detail was borrowed from, to the point that this feels like the ultimate version of the rogue-lite game.

The gameplay loop contains elements from games like Rogue Legacy, FTL: Faster than Light, Sword of the Stars: The Pit, and probably others. From the star map, you’ll jump from location to location with an ultimate goal usually being a key item needed to progress the storyline. This feels much like FTL in that you need to always be on the look out for fuel and food in order to survive. When you arrive at a new location (typically a derelict ship, but other nodes exist) you can choose to jump to the next location immediately or to dock. Each ship will have some sort of item you’ll want to look for on it outside of wanting to grab up all of the fuel, food and ammo possible. These key items can usually be combined via the workbench into gear, but sometimes are quest related. While on the ship, you’ll switch into FPS mode and run around shooting goons and looting stuff. The set pieces aren’t all that random (I swear I’ve seen a few of the same layouts already) but when it comes down to it, this is just a vehicle for progression and nothing more. If you die, you’ll be greeted with a death comic strip, and then a new prisoner is defrosted and provided with a care package of goods to get started again. Currently I’m still trying to get some of the story items needed, but I have already unlocked several weapons and upgrades. Despite being the same sort of thing you would expect from this genre, it’s really well done and I am happy with the purchase.

The other game I picked up is also an FPS title, but not a rogue-like this time around. Amid Evil has been on my radar for quite some time. Apparently it was in early access for a while, and only saw its 1.0 released just this month so it was a good time to buy it especially with the discount. When I first heard about the game my immediate comparison was to old school shooters like Heretic and Hexen, and for good reason. This game uses a weird combination of old 3D graphics with some newer lighting effects to where it looks retro but still looks modern in some ways. It’s hard to describe, so here are some pictures to make my point:

So it looks kind of like that new ray tracing mod for Quake that came out recently, where it’s an old game engine that was spruced up with some graphic effects. I like the old school feel and there really hasn’t been a modernized version of this style of game, where it’s an FPS but you are using melee and magic rather than guns. For the Hexen fans out there, you’ll truly enjoy this. It’s fast, you can get swarmed, there are puzzles — it’s a blast from the past.

That’s all I ended up getting in the sale and I don’t see myself buying anything else. Other games I want to play are on the horizon but probably won’t see many discounts until the holiday season. What did you grab in the sale?

I Went to the Danger Zone

Izlain

Surprise, surprise! Another major multiplayer game is jumping on the Battle Royale bandwagon! Valve has implemented this feature to one of their flagship titles, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Like so many other games before it, the company is taking an established game in a different genre and adding-on this game mode to compete with the countless other titles that usually only focus on BR. CS:GO has been around for a long time, and the Counter-Strike IP even longer than that (20 years in 2019); with the success of the BR genre as a whole, I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise, yet it did for me. I suppose we should have expected this, given long-running series like Call of Duty (with Black Ops 4) having also thrown their hat into the Battle Royale ring. The funniest part of this is that the first game we saw introduce the Battle Royale concept was Daybreak’s H1Z1, and it is probably one of the least played games in the genre, with upstarts Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite Battle Royale having dominated the market since then. Despite not being a huge fan of the genre itself, I keep seeing games that I find interesting attempting to do things a little bit differently, and the “Danger Zone” is no exception.

While titles like Realm Royale added classes and others like Battlerite Royale gave this treatment to a MOBA style game, Valve has kept the core gameplay of CS:GO intact while also adding the BR elements to their game. It’s been a while since I last played CS:GO, and it appears that the menus and UI have been changed up a bit as well, I think it looks pretty sharp. It’s intuitive and responsive, so that’s a plus.

Unlike most Counter-Strike maps, it’s a rather large island with plenty of points of interest. This map is called “Blacksite” and encompasses some rural areas along with some industrious ones. Since it is an island you’ll be confined to its landmass, but running from one corner to the other will take several minutes. There’s plenty of places with hidden loot, including buildings, towers and caves. The varied terrain has plenty of places to hide, though the traditional gas cloud will slowly shrink in size forcing you to keep moving and find firefights to eliminate other players. At this point the map only supports 16 players, which is far less than most other Battle Royale games, but it seems to keep match times lower, which means you’ll get more games in more often.

Instead of a flying bus or dragon or whatever else the other devs have come up with, where you fly over the map and jump when you care to; instead you’re presented with a map and can select your starting location. This has its pros and cons when compared to other BR titles, as you have the advantage of seeing where others are planning to spawn, but don’t have the choice to drop out and then vastly change direction while in air. In this sense it’s most similar to H1Z1, as in that game you’ll just be randomly spawned in the air and can control your decent in a limited fashion. The map looks gorgeous and I’m glad to see that CS:GO has ultrawide support built in at this point. There is a brief warm up period where you can run around and gain your bearings while also being able to kill other players, and then the map opens up to allow your placement for the match. You’ll still drop in via parachute from a chopper, but you’ll won’t be able to move too far off of the starting point that you selected. Some major differences between this game mode and other BR games: you will start with a moderate amount of currency, find cash about the map along with more dropping from players that you kill, all of which can be spent with a buy menu. There are limited options for purchase, but these can be bought at any time and will be delivered via flying drone. This is also something you can use to track other players, as their drones will follow them around and give away their position. Also, given the “shoot from the hip” nature of CS:GO, there are no iron sights to be found though this doesn’t really change game play all that much.

So far my best match has been a #2 finish, which should have been a first place victory, but I accidentally hit Shift+Tab which brings up the Steam overlay, at precisely the moment that I spotted the only other surviving player. Of course they shot and killed me at that exact moment, but such is the way of things. It seems that a top 5 finish is much easier in this game over the other BR titles I’ve played, but it’s still a very skill based game from my experience. As you complete matches, there is a separate account level for this mode, and you’ll earn rewards as you level up. Weapon skins aren’t new to CS:GO, but you can earn them as you go with the Danger Zone.

My inventory is fairly limited because I spent the majority of my time playing CS:GO on the Playstation 3 back when it first released. I haven’t played the PC version for many hours so I don’t have access to things that more dedicated players may have earned. I constantly see myself being killed by people with various colored weapon names, of which I assume are different rarity skins. Of course these don’t make much of a difference overall, but if you put the time in I’m sure you can be one of those people who kill me with cooler weapons than I have. Nonetheless this seems to be a pretty awesome BR experience and definitely better than the shitshow that is Fortnite (apologies if you actually enjoy that hot garbage dumpster fire).

One bit of controversy that I should mention: The game has now become free to play, after what, 6 or 7 years of being a paid title? This is for obvious reasons, as the company is trying to bring in new blood to the franchise but also because BR games are generally free to play and the new hotness so they want to try and compete with the others that are out there. There has been a flood of negative reviews on Steam due to this, and though I understand that people are upset because they paid money to play CS:GO and now anyone can jump in for free, but given that it’s an old title, I don’t see how they can expect refunds and/or more free stuff after paying for it years ago. I paid for my copy (two, if you count the purchase on my PS3), and I’m not upset that this old ass game is now free. Valve could have easily given us some sort of in-game reward that would have pacified these folks, but even then I suspect that people would still bitch and moan. Whatever the case, new blood is never bad for an older title, and it doesn’t deserve the negative press. Honestly I would rather that they made a new version of Day of Defeat (even with a BR mode) because it was my preferred mod from back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, but to each their own I guess. People will always find something to complain about, and this is clearly no exception. Still, being free to play, now is as good a time as ever to check out an excellent game if you haven’t played it before. I’m happy to join up if you want to play, just drop me a friend invite on Steam (I’m Izlain there like most places).

Let me know what you think about the game in the comments if you do try it out. As always, happy gaming!

Thoughts on Warface

Izlain

Warface came at a time when I was sick of Military first person shooters. Back in 2012 we had already begun to be inundated with this type of cut and paste hoorah nonsense that can be fun to play but isn’t something you want for every meal. Warface is a free to play lobby based shooter that released back then for PC, made by the Crytek guys, famous for the Crysis series. I paid the game no mind when it came out, but it recently was ported to the Playstation, and I tend to check out free games often because it gives me more options for playing with IRL friends who own the system. I downloaded this a few weeks back but just gave it a shake the other day in my spare time.

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Initially the game drops you straight into a tutorial of sorts. It’s a pretty standard FPS so the control scheme should feel familiar to most. For a title that was developed a few years ago, it still looks pretty decent, and I was surprised by that. I can’t really tell the difference between this and the Call of Duty games from recent years. The tutorial is pretty straight forward, though you’ll be put through a few more later on dealing with other classes in the game. There are four in total: Rifleman, Sniper, Medic and Engineer. However, this doesn’t really feel like a Team Fortress or other Hero Shooter type mechanic, these classes are really just loadouts as each class uses different primary weapons and have particular skills to support each other. The Rifleman can refill ammo, the engineer provides armor and the medic provides health. They can all provide these boons to themselves as well.

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The menu system is pretty straight forward. Being free to play there are various currencies and ways to become a “VIP” and get boosts. It’s all stuff that we’re used to. I haven’t spent any real money and can still compete so it’s a non-issue. Some items in the shop are able to be purchased temporarily or permanently. I guess it’s nice to be able to try something out before you buy but oftentimes it costs the real life currency which you don’t really earn much of in-game.

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After the tutorial you are limited in what you can play. Initially you have to play through a co-op match, which is fairly eash, and then the medic tutorial opens up. Once you rank up again you’ll open the engineer and versus modes, where the real meat of the game is.

In all, there are several co-op maps of varying difficulty, a bunch of popular game modes in versus, and special operations which function like Raids. Apparently you can upgrade your class gear and take on more difficult content. It’s interesting enough and sets itself apart from some of the competition by doing a little bit of everything.

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I’ve played a bit of everything and have enjoyed it well enough. I let my best friend know about it but we have yet to play together. Everything is better with friends! Recently added was a Battle Royale mode and I have to say, if this is what Black Ops 4 is trying to do, it’s one of the better BR experiences I’ve had. I like the forced first person perspective (no looking around walls you cheaty bastards!) and though you don’t drop in on the map, it’s easy enough to get around, get armed and survive. I placed first in my first round playing it, and that’s my first chicken dinner in any BR game I’ve played. I’ve done fairly well in other PvP modes as well, so if you’re experienced in these sorts of titles, you’ll probably have a good time as well. Anyway, that’s my two cents on it.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Izlain

Borderlands: The Pre-sequel! is by no means a new title. It released back in 2014 for last-gen consoles and PC, but was later remastered for Xbox One and PS4 as part of “The Handsome Collection” which compiled both Borderlands 2 and The Pre-sequel.  My history with the series has been very positive.

The original game in the series released back in 2009. I finally got my hands on a PS3 at the beginning of 2010, and this was one of the first games I purchased for my new console (along with Fallout 3). I loved it. Not only is it one of the zaniest first person shooters I’ve ever played, but it combined its sense of humor with tight combat and loot of Diablo proportions. I played this one mostly solo, though I did jump in with a couple of friends for some of the more difficult content. I earned the Platinum trophy, played through all of the DLC and eventually moved on.

When the sequel was announced for release back in 2012, I knew I was going to pick it up so I went ahead and preordered it. Doing so got me some sort of bonus via GameStop, and I was able to pick up on release day and jump into the action. I played this one mostly solo again, but eventually my best friend got a copy and we ran through it again co-op. I also picked up the season pass but I don’t believe I ever completed all of it. It was still a great game and a bunch of fun.

When The Pre-Sequel was first announced I wasn’t as thrilled. I was more looking forward to a proper third game in the series rather than a game that was shoe-horned in between the two existing games. I knew I wanted to try it, but I didn’t want to pay top dollar. Thankfully I had become a more frugal gamer by this time, so I ended up picking up the base game and all DLCs for it for something like $10. Back when I was doing the podcast with Eri of Healing the Masses, we were continuously looking for games to play together to help feed the content creation side of things. It turned out that she too had a copy that sat unplayed so we decided to try this one out together. This was back in 2015. We put in about ten hours before we moved on to other things, and as such the whole of my experience with the game was in co-op and I honestly don’t remember much. Here are some screens of our time with the game back then:

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We clearly played for a bit, and I remember having a good time running around blowing shit up and chatting via comms. This title is very similar to the others. Graphically it looks a bit better than the first two but probably only because I played those on a PS3 and played this one on a PC. The gameplay is exactly the same though some slight modifications were made to the mechanics in that you can jump around a little differently due to the low gravity of this moon and also have to pay attention to your oxygen tank while space walking. Otherwise it’s more of the same but it’s a good same. There are some Aussie jokes that I didn’t really get but that she understood being from the same country as the devs.

For now I’m using this post as a jump off point, as I’ve been eyeing the game for a while now and want to get back into it and finish it off. It’s likely I’ll play solo but I’ve always enjoyed that anyway. I’m just wondering if I should try to pick up where I left off or just roll up a new character and start over. I played as Jack’s Doppleganger the last time and remember him fondly enough, but I know there is the other DLC character and a couple of the originals that I wouldn’t mind trying as well. So for now, this is a preview post for things to come, but I do plan to grind this one out soon and strike another title from my backlog list.

Thoughts on Quake Champions

Izlain

Quake Champions first came on my radar around this time last year when it was announced at E3 2017. It was shown off a bit again this year during the Bethesda conference, but being an Early Access game in beta it’s not quite done yet. It started off with a buy-in price of $30, but more recently there was a starter pack put up on Steam for $5, which doesn’t come with all of the champions that exist in the game. As a special E3 week promotion, that starter pack was made available for free, so I took my chance to finally experience the game first hand.

Touted as being the same sort of game as Quake III Arena that many of us played back in the 90’s (and was the direct competition for Unreal Tournament) and helped spawn the Arena Shooter genre, it has a modern twist from adding Champions with special abilities (to compete with titles like Overwatch, I’m sure). This claim holds true, as the champions appear to be mostly modeled after the Quake III skins though now they each have a special ability that recharges during matches and can be used to shake things up a bit. Of course, the nature of the game is to grab the best weapons and power-ups to mow down the competition, so the special abilities don’t add too much depth. Still a nice touch though.

The starter pack grants access to Ranger and Scalebearer, while the other champions are unplayable save for whatever the current week’s free rotation is. This is fine if you want a limited pool and would rather save up favor or platinum to buy the champions, but for $20 (currently) you can instantly unlock them all. Like most free to play games on the market, there are most of the expected trappings; you can buy champions for in-game currency (favor) or buy the RMT currency (platinum) for similar use. Skins come in many flavors, from customization options for your champion and the weapons they use. It seems that you can also further customize things with a rune system that I don’t quite understand yet. I assume it’s similar to systems found in League of Legends, though the runes seem tailored to each champion individually.

When it comes down to it though, this is the fast paced Quake that we all know and love straight out of the 1990’s. There are several different game modes and I’ve felt right at home with it. I love a mindless arena shooter, but this adds just enough nuance to make it feel at home in 2018, despite being firmly steeped in nostalgia from the past. I feel like it’s worth the $20 to get all current and future champions; it’s a good deal just like it’s been for other games like Smite and Paladins.

Jumping into the action has been a blast and I truly enjoy this updated version of Quake. I wish we could get a full campaign though, because the original Quake games were epic and we’ve had this new era of DOOM titles coming out so I’d like to see what id Software might come up with, but I’ll settle for the arena shooter that Quake has become. If you have ever loved a Quake title, I’d suggest picking this up now while it’s free, but even if you miss the promotion, it’s worth dropping the asking price for. I imagine it will be out of Early Access soon enough, as it feels polished and nearly feature complete at this point, but I also believe there will be new content added for some time to come.