Category: Opinion

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.

Left Alive: Gameplay Trailer

After what feels like months of waiting, we finally have a gameplay trailer for left alive, and honestly it kind of looks like The Division.

I don’t mean that as an insult by any means. Graphically it looks beautiful and I love any game that allows me to make choices that matter tho admittedly it makes me realize why I shouldn’t be allowed to make choices in the real world. I am a bit worried the game will primarily be escort missions involving getting people to shelters but I suppose in a few months we will find out. Until then enjoy the trailer, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The 7th Guest: The Board Game

The 7th Guest was a PC game originally released back in 1993, which you can still purchase over on Steam believe it or not. It has some mixed reviews but overall it seems solid enough and tells the story of, quite simply a mansion full of puzzles and toys. You will attempt to spend one full night there and the winner gets their hearts most secret desire. Their Kickstarter page has a ton more info.

This is where the board game comes in. It is for 2-6 players (ages 12 and up) and can take one to 5 hours depending on the rules you play with. This seems pretty cool because sometimes honestly I am playing with my friends while having a few drinks and we just want something to do while having fun. We want something to do for 4 or 5 hours. Other times I am playing with my kids and they do not always have a huge attention span so 1 or 2 hours is great.

The game itself is largely puzzles and logic test for you to solve to advance which the other players can steal ( and you can steal theirs) This all sounds pretty simple but of course, nothing in life is. There seems to be some twist and turns such as spaces that will toss you someplace else or force you to unlock extra rooms on your way to the exit.

A good sign in all this is the game is actually being created by people like Rob Landeros and Charlie McHenry, the people that founded Trilobyte games and created the original game, so if you happen to be a fan of the game and are worried this will deviate too far from your beloved 90’s memory I don’t see that being an issue. They even started to design the game from the ground up around the original map of the PC title. I have spoken to them and it looks like the game will be shipping in January so as you can see I am finding out about this a bit late. Savior Gaming doesn’t even normally cover board games, but this one just seemed pretty cool and I decided to share it with you guys. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Thank You

I just wanted to give a quick thank you to every single one of you. I know there are a couple weeks left in the year but the last year has been great. Hell even this week has seen a lot of new followers on both WordPress and Twitter as well as over on twitch ( I swear I am going to start streaming more often) You guys have made what I thought was going to be a quick hobby while I recover from some injuries turn into something magnificent that I really can’t imagine not doing. I have made some great friends like that started out following my blog that I now look forward to reading their work and talking to, like BeardedGamer or real life friends that decided to start their own blog like GamingWithNoobs. It has all in all been a great ride and sincerely thank you all for joining me, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Walking Dead: Final Season Returns

As reported by Gamespot The final season of Walking Dead will return in January 2019. Many of the core developers have apparently returned to help this along despite the closure of Telltale games. So for those that have been waiting, episode 3 is coming soon. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory,

Monster Hunter Iceborne

Well here we are, Capcom delivered the news they promised at the Gaming Awards to Monster Hunter fans and it was HUGE. People thought everything from new monsters, to new hunter gear levels, to new areas a few speculated it was simply a new crossover event. They were all right, and there was so much more. First, the newest crossover event coming early 2019 is Geralt of Rivia. Yes, Witcher 3 is coming Monster Hunter world, fully voiced and with full cooperation from CD Projekt Red. Some of you simply wanted a new event monster? Well soon, (December 19th until January 3rd) you can tackle arch tempered Kulva Torath. Not good enough? Come spring arch tempered Nergigante.

Now I know I know, what else? Come Autumn, a full-fledged expansion. It will have a new story that takes place after the MHW base game, will over a new rank (on past games known as G Rank) Now if all that isn’t enough, nothing will be. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Godzilla King Of Monsters Trailer

Many of you know I am a huge Godzilla nerd. I love monster movies in general, from Godzilla to Rodan to obscure monsters like Gorgo. So the dropping of a new Godzilla trailer always fills me with both excitement and dread because let’s be honest, the king of monsters is not always treated well. This newest trailer tho looks phenomenal. Seeing Godzilla I always nice but to finally see Rodan get some love and that Mothra looks like Mothra was just something fans have both dreamed of and been scared of. And King Ghidorah (also known as monster zero) looked great. I don’t know how the movie itself will play out, but damn this looks amazing. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

What Makes a Good RPG?

The title says it all, what makes a good role-playing game? That is what we are here to figure out. For starters, while graphics are clearly important, I in an RPG they may be the least important of all gaming genres. To this day some of my favorites are the older SNES and PlayStation games like Mario RPG or Suikoden. This may sound like a personal preference and it technically is but it is a pretty popular preference. If you can make a good sounding sprite-based RPG with a solid story it will probably be more enjoyed then an amazing looking game with no story and bad gameplay.

This brings me to sound. The sound is pretty important, it sets the tone for everything that is going on and with the undeniably most important aspect of the genre. Music can touch emotions just as well as any word can and many times even faster. Walking into a town with upbeat music you can feel happier or know this is going to be a good visit. The dreariness of a cave or castle can instantly let you know this is not a place you are not going to want to be for long.

Gameplay is also highly important, a good turn-based system for many is loved but some prefer the Dark Souls style of trial and error and learning. Every mistake and death teaches you something for the next encounter and every win brings a sense of satisfaction in either case. I remember the first time I beat Emerald weapon just as vividly as the first time I took down Father Gascoigne, tho admittedly Emerald took much longer for me.

All of this, however, pales in comparison to the one thing that matters the most, story. IF your story isn’t solid and well planned and thought out people won’t care to play the game. There are plenty of examples of this I am sure, and just reading that sentence I am sure many of you instantly thought of a game. I won’t name any since I don’t want this to turn into a debate on the quality of specific games but you all know the type I mean.

As one last bonus thought, characters. Two games pop to mind with this and any Final Fantasy fan will instantly think of FF12 and 13. They are notorious for characters like Snow and Vaan, characters nobody seemed to care about or like. The little back stories they had did very little to endear most fans to them and undeniably took away from those games. So to me, a good RPG requires a good story and characters followed by solid gameplay and music. What do you guys think? Best wishes and may the gaming gids 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.

 

 

Cover Bands and Music

This isn’t my normal blog post, and I have intention in making covering music a normal thing here at Savior Gaming. Sometimes I just like to listen to music as I sit here and write my post and I noticed I end up listening to a lot of cover music. Some of it quite odd, for example, this Disney cover of Prince Ali by Jonathan Young.

I can’t really explain why tho I do enjoy Disney movies and Aladin is still my favorite.  Hell, all the music I listen to isn’t even in English ( yes it’s my native language and the only one I speak fluently tho I do understand some Irish Gaelic) one of my favorites is Seo Linn Lion Man.

I really can’t explain my love of a good cover song. I think maybe it is because I love to see how other people feel about songs which you can usually get an idea of by how they perform it. As you can tell I have quite the erratic taste in music, so what about you guys? What are some of your guilty pleasures? Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.