Magic The Gathering Arena

I have a small history with Magic the Gathering. I played quite a bit when I was younger with friends, and by younger, I mean like 20 years ago. So yes, we are going back away. Then I saw a commercial for this and thought why not check it out.

Graphically it is pretty nice, each card is nicely crafted and it is clearly established what each one does which has been a problem in a few card games I have played in digital format. Many times the print is too small and you end up guessing what to do with it.

Another nice thing is the tutorials explain very clearly what you should be doing and what the rules to Magic are in the first place. The game is easy to play and understand in this format and it is quite nice. Tho I will admit it doesn’t really feel the same as holding a deck in your hands and talking to your opponent face it face and sadly this cannot be replicated. Fans of Magic, however, looking for a fix would probably enjoy it and I think those looking to learn would get a pretty good grasp of it, but it is far from perfect. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Rain World v1.7 Arriving For Nintendo Switch — STUBBORN| FUTURE OF MOBILE GAMING

 

The game is finally releasing for Nintendo Switch. Rain World is a survival platformer video game initially launched in 2017 in which the player has to control a part-slug, part-cat creature searching for a hostile, derelict world for its family. The slugcat ebris as the weapons to escape the area of randomized enemies, forage for […]

via Rain World v1.7 Arriving For Nintendo Switch — STUBBORN| FUTURE OF MOBILE GAMING

 

A pretty great article from a friend. Good to see the Switch getting some love with Rainworld.

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

star wars shadows

Love isn’t perfect and no journey ever begins with a perfect step. I got my N64 at age 7, my first ever game system, and suddenly my life was changed. The first game I ever got was Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. Set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi we follow some dude named Dash Rendar who looks like young Hano Solo but ain’t Han Solo because… well ,reasons. The game begins during the battle of Hoth via Empire, and we’re treated to a pretty impressive snowspeeder segment that is pretty badass. A majority of the game we play as Dash as he shoots and platforms his way across different worlds and bosses. At first, the game is fine. Damn near awesome I’d say. First 3 stages run good but things start to unravel. Stage 4, for most of my young life was the hardest shit I had to deal with and that evil mechanical son of a bitch I G 88 was the bane of my existence. A decade later, after some hard gaming experience I kicked his ass only to really see the flaws unfold. Boba Fett’s level pissed me off enough where I nearly smashed the TV and controller and well…I never finished it.

Shadows of the Empire isn’t a bad game, regardless of how it aged, but damn it’s flawed. Platforming can be a royal pain in the ass, the shooting can be crap and feel automated, and there isn’t much really tying it into the Star Wars we know but it is a interesting time capsule of a game, though for the love of the merciful gaming gods find the cheat codes for it so you can unlock all the stages and get some booze for the horrors of Stage 6’s speeder bike controls. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Onrush (PS4)

Onrush is one of this months free games for PSN and admittedly I wasn’t too happy at first. Soma isn’t exactly popular here at Savior Gaming and I am not a huge fan of racing games. Onrush, on the other hand, isn’t even truly a racing game. This will take some explaining.

First, there isn’t a starting and finish line, you simply go. There are two teams trying to score points by making each other crash or even crashing the random cars also on the track tho those are so much easier to crush.

Second, not every race is the same. Some will have you cruising through checkpoints to add time to your clock while attempting to stop the other team from doing the same, scoring points by not letting your clock hit zero.

The controls and graphics are amazing and easy to look at. It is actually quite easy to see why this game has such a cult following. The music is pretty great as well with a nice soundtrack.

The game isn’t perfect tho. Admittedly you can only crash cars for so long before you want something else to do and pretty much everything is existence is locked, from clothes to tricks to even gestures and it takes time to unlock them. This isn’t a deal breaker, but its enough to put me off. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Infamous: Second Son

infamous second son

Here we come to the first game I played for PlayStation 4, the continuation of the Infamous story, leading off of the good karma ending of Infamous 2 where Cole sacrificed much of the Conduits as well as Himself and the Beast to preserve mankind. At first I was hesitant to follow the series with a new hero/ villain but eventually I caved, but what did I find diving into Seattle as Conduit Delson Rowe?

The world has changed since the Beast came and now Conduits are seen as monsters, freaks. An agency called D.U.P is on the warpath against them, lead by Augustine and her concrete abilities. She’s called to a small Native American reservation on the outskirts of town in search for a Conduit fugitive that we meet our main character, Delson, the rebellious young graffiti artist who discovers his own abilities- he can copy other Conduit’s powers. After Augustine harms his people, it’s up to Delson, his cop brother Reggie, and a couple of Conduit outcasts to ban together and take D.U.P and Augustine down.

I’m just going to say, Infamous: Second Son is a hell of a first game to jump into PlayStation 4. The gameplay is remarkably smooth, especially switching between all four power sets: smoke, neon, video, and concrete (which sucks). each power has its own set of traits, strengths and weaknesses and epic as hell ultimate moves. Visually the game is colorful and striking and a treat for the eye. Because it was a launch title, there was some interesting uses of the new controller functions that work well like waving it to spray paint or getting calls through the controller’s microphone. The story is above solid on good karma but honestly the evil karma side is weak as hell. the story is inferior, all the powers replace there vast color pallets and styles with shades of red and purple. Another drawback is the fact I couldn’t help but feel the X-Men comparisons in this story. Augustine isn’t a really remarkable villain either. Overall, it’s a damn fun game but I have to say it loses it’s replay value and feels cliche but if you stay good, the game is well worth it. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

 

Override Mech City Brawl (PS4)

Not long ago I got an e-mail from a man named Geoff over at Modus Games offering to let me try out Override Mech City Brawl: Preview on PC on a sort of ambassador weekend. Some of you may remember me and https://twitter.com/SirFeliciano_ streaming it and having a blast. So when I had the chance to try it out on PS4 I jumped at the chance. So Geoff (Twitter) if you are reading this, thanks for the review code. Give him a follow over on Twitter. That being said, let us go bash his game a little bit.

I am going to do this review a bit differently. I actually don’t have many bad things to say about it so I want to get those out of the way first. First, there are some frame rate issues on rare occasions and almost exclusively during the 4 man brawls when a lot of things are going on at once. I also can into an odd glitch, on 2 separate occasions in the same match. A  character named Pescado has a suplex move that when I used it managed to slam the other players through the map and they were unreachable for the remainder of the round. Tho I lost since the had more health than my team (we played 2v2) it was rather funny.

That is it. I am out of complaints. Both of which are easily patched out with an update.  The pros outweigh all of that. See I was expecting a tossed together story in arcade mode, probably a silly tournament between robots. That isn’t what we got tho. The story itself while short tells the story of an alien/mutant attack that our mech pilots fight back against all over the world. As you do missions you can power up your mech of choice. (I suggest Setesh)

Override: Mech City Brawl_20181204154819

There are also mods and weapons to unlock in the story to unlock. All this to me really seemed to work as a training exercise for the real draw of the game. Online multiplayer. Here you have some options. There are 1v1 ranked matches, where yours truly gets his ass handed to him time and time again. There are also standard 1v1 matches that are basically the same as ranked but its more for fun, I have better luck here but not by much.

Last but not least, my pride and joy an favorite game mode. Brawl. This lets you have up to 4 people or some computer-controlled bots just go at it in a winner take all brawl, or simply have a team game. There is a lot of fun to be had here, in fact, most of my time playing has been spent here. You can even put multiple people in one mech with people controlling different parts of it.

With all that, you must be wonder how does the game look and sound? In short beautiful. The visuals of buildings going down and explosions going off, absolutely stunning. But here is the important part. This is the best controlling mech game I have ever played.

Now, why you are all here, should you buy this, or pass? It is quite simple if you like mech fighting games, this is a must buy. I don’t even like the genre to be honest for various reasons usually involving the way the game’s control, but this one is without a doubt the best I have played. 9/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Override: Mech City Brawl_20181204140500

Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir

  Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, despite its odd name, is a beautiful side-scrolling action RPG. You start the game controlling the Valkyrie, Gwendolyn. After receiving the spear of her dead sister after she died in battle. Her story is one of love and betrayal, tho not necessarily in that order.

 The battle system itself is fast and easy to control, it mostly takes place off a few buttons but it is fluid and amazing to watch. You can mix potions and items for new and more powerful spells.

I do have a few complaints. For example, much of the game is very repetitive, and the normal difficulty mostly is not difficult at all. The main way of gathering experience is by eating food, which is a bit weird to me. It works however so realistically speaking it isn’t bad, just odd for me to rely on eating food. You do get experience from enemies but not much so you rely on gathering ingredients and gold to eat.

Aside from all that, the story is the real selling point here and it is magnificent. This is one of those games RPG fans really need to check out, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Nautical Life (Mobile)

Nautical Life on Mobile is a cute game about buying a yacht, traveling the world and fishing. The graphics are nice, furnishing your ship is fun and gathering a fleet of fishing vessels to gather riches is kinda neat. There are some major flaws here, mainly in the fishing itself. The process itself isn’t bad, but from the very start you run into fish you would need to be very lucky to catch. The money you receive to buy a new rod is also slow to gather and can be frustrating. You, of course, can use premium currency to get an edge in this offline game, but really with so many games to choose from this one simply isn’t worth paying money into. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Infamous 2

infamous 2

Infamous left off with Cole standing over Kessler, enlightened that a dark future was coming. The Beast was coming and Cole was going to fail against it. Infamous 2 begins right after the first leaves off, with the foretold Beast invading Empire City and Cole faces off against him, failing miserably and the city does fall. Cole and Zeke fall back to the Cajun town of New Marais so Cole can heal and grow his shattered powers to new heights he has yet to achieve. Monsters emerge from the Bayou, the gangs are fighting over the streets, a hate filled politician with a dark secret is fueling the hate against Conduits, and Cole finds himself facing bigger, harder choices that go beyond New Marais, but the future of man and Conduits. The Beast is coming…

Infamous 2, like many sequels, kicks up the crazy factor up 10 fold. Cole’s electric powers from the first return, now with multiple options to each attack, a cool new set of melee attacks, faster travel, and the ability to splice your powers with icey Kuo or firey Nix making a epic ton of options. The story maintains good quality and once again there is a lot of replay-ability. While the Beast wasn’t as interesting or as challenging as Kessler in the first, Bertrand makes up for it as a interesting villain. One huge issue I have is even on hardest difficulty, the Beast is too easy. A smaller issue I have is with all the attack options, having to stop the game to open a menu to readjust everything can be cumbersome but you get used to it. The game is epic as hell as the first one and definitely worth playing. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Goosebumps: Horror Town (Mobile)

Goosebumps Horror Town is a mobile game quite similar to Family Guy the Quest for Stuff or The Simpsons Tapped out. You build a city based on the books and show. Each character has small activities they can do to gather coins and items to help level you up and unlock new buildings and unlock new characters. The story is, of course, made for the game and of course it rather nice for fans of the series. You can play the game entirely for free, tho to be honest many of the more notable characters, Slappy, for example, require premium currency. You get some of this playing the game of course but it does help to use real money.

The game also relies mainly on making you wait for actions to complete so you can use it as a nice way to waste some time, but all in all if you aren’t willing to spend some money to get a few of the classic characters you won’t ever get them and this sadly is the way for most mobile games like this. Fans of the series will enjoy it, but for most people, it is just kind of there. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.