Category: Opinion

Farming Simulator, E-Sports.

Not gonna lie, that seems like a satire article doesn’t it? Maybe some sort of click bait? Well, it’s being reported by The Verge and Kotaku and Motherboard. This is legitimately a thing, and as news to me, this is apparently quite real in life. Don’t get me wrong always knew bull riding was real and stuff like that but it seems like there is an entire world of farm games out there. Not like Farming Simulator 17 (Xbox One) farming games but like people having competitions type.

Well, the e-sports league will see people stacking hay bails and such for a chance at their chunk of 100k Euros (just over 113 thousand US dollars) in 10 tournaments across Europe, tho sadly us over here in the states are a bit out of luck. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Cultist Simulator

Cultist Simulator is a rather interesting game. In fact, it is actually a rather interesting review to try to write since to tell you how to play the game in itself would actually mess up a huge part of the game. The game is a card game, you use the card to make choices. Each card is used to do a different thing such as go to work or study. You will need to manage your money, health, and even your mental health, or your dread. Yes, you can go insane and die. You can die in a whole host of ways actually, then pick up as a new character. Once I died and restarted as a detective that had a file on my last character.

This all seems pretty vague, and the reason it sounds vague is telling you too much would actually ruin the game. The idea of the game is mostly figuring out how and what to do and what happens when you do it. I have included a video so you can see it in action, but I suggest just trying it for yourself. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

5 great Superman villains

death of superman cover

Awhile back I covered the Reign of the Supermen trailer , which chronicles the emergence of four powerhouses after Superman’s death at the hands of Doomsday, one of which being Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, a great DC villain in his own right. Much like Henshaw, villains like Brainiac and Darkseid are as much JLA villains. This countdown I tried to go a bit different by I have to say I found this trickier than I first thought with such as Mongul, DarkSeid, Brainiac, Metallo and the Cyborg Superman. Without further ado, starting with one of my personal DC favorites let’s begin with..

zod 1. General Zod-

I love Zod not because of the fact that he is a militant Superman essentially with a crew of Kryptonian followers as well as alien tech but for how duty bound he is to the people of Krypton and the cause of trying to preserve what’s left of there race and prosperity. Despite the fact he does some radical shit, Superman still respects him as a equal.

mr mxyzptlk 2. Mr Mxyzptlk-

This is a strange one. Mr M ( his full name is a royal bitch to spell out all the time) is a small, impish figure from another dimension than loves to screw with the Man of Steel. He’s magic, which nerfs most of Sup’s power set and can warp reality. He is a good antithesis to the warm, chiseled man in the blue and red tights.

bizarro 3. Bizarro-

Superman has always been known as the one of the greatest forces of good out there, but what happens when he doesn’t know what is good? What happens if right is wrong, wrong is right and you are a godlike being with the brains of Lenny from Of mice and men . Well, you get Bizarro. What makes him a tragic figure is how he truly doesn’t understand the world around him and how Superman is mean because he stops his rampages.

lex luthor 4. Lex Luther –

Of course I had to include Sup’s arch enemy, a rich, bald, pissed off dude who hates Superman because he’s basically god on Earth. That’s pretty much what it always barrels down to. Luther is a brilliant man who does invent a badass suit in the comics to go toe to toe with his near unstoppable foe and comes up with with some great schemes to wreak havoc across not only Metropolis but the DC landscape.

doomsday  5. Doomsday-

When I finished my list of My Top 10 DC Villains- part 2 I said Doomsday deserved one of the top spots for the single fact he did the unthinkable: he killed Superman. He doesn’t need a complex backstory or intricate power set, he is simply hate and destruction incarnate and he is a utter badass.

I hope you all have enjoyed my list and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Stellaris Console Comes in February.

For fans of grand strategy games that happen to be console only players, we seem to finally have a release date for Stellaris on the PS4 and Xbox consoles. February 26th to be exact. For more of the details check out Polygon. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Portal Knights (PS4)

Portal Knights is one of this month’s free games and honestly, I wanted to enjoy this one. It is kind of like Minecraft except with a purpose I can get behind. You build things, fight enemies and explore. That his more or less the entire purpose of the game, as opposed to Minecraft where you simply build stuff. So I was excited to be able to do the same thing for a reason.

The sad fact is the game just wasn’t fun or good. I was constantly hitting slowdowns, framerate drops and being disconnected. Not just once but many times over various attempts. This saddens me because the bit I got to play was fun. Regardless the game is free so feel free to try it, and I hope your luck it better than mine. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Meeple Station (PC)

Meeple Station developed by Vox games and punished by Modularity can be purchased on Steam. The premise is quite simple, build a space station, mine resources, trade with other ships, increase the size of your station and crew, repeat. It sounds easy, but it does take quite a bit of effort and time to learn. You will also be fending off space pirates and, well squids. They will both honestly screw your day up. Honestly, there isn’t much to the game, yet.

Some of the future promised content however is quite impressive if true. They are talking about a co-op mode that would be amazing for this type of game as its rarely done and even rarer is that it is done well. There is also talk that they will be implementing a way to build your own trade ships. The game is in early access and they claim it is only about 20% done which if true means there is a ton more stuff coming in. definitely, do not count this as a complete review but as more of a preview combined with a review as I will be revisiting this time in the future. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

 

Marvel Ultimate Alliance

ultimate alliance

Before Marvel’s Spider-man (PS4) , Marvel was pretty hit or miss with video games. So when we got a game that pretty much promised an Avengers level of epic, spanning most of the Marvel universe.

Ultimate Alliance is a huge dungeon crawler that begins with a massive attack on S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters by the nefarious Dr Victor Von Doom. In his final desperate moments, Nick Fury has non other than Captain America, Thor, Wolverine, and the friendly neighborhood Spider-man to help push back the assault. As the story moves on we go to venture into Atlantis, Asgard, and Hell facing off against Doom’s army, Mephisto’s hellish army, Loki, and even Galactus  as you’re joined by Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, Ms Marvel, Spider-Woman, Ghost Rider, Dr Strange as well as many others. Can all these heroes triumph over the machinations of Dr Doom?

I have to admit, I’m not a fan of dungeon crawlers but there were times I was addicted as hell to this game. When you’re knee deep in badass robots, demons, or mythical creatures with a four man group of your favorite heroes, it can be really sweet. The roster is impressive for it’s time and I like the bonuses you get from putting certain characters together like the F4 or X men. What puts me off is how unbalanced some of the characters were: shouldn’t Iron Man or Dr Strange be way stronger than Deadpool or Human Torch? Certain characters were way stronger than they should’ve been while the OP characters were toned way down. Game-play gets monotonous but the sights and cameos help dilute the fact. My favorite thing may be the beautiful loading screens dedicated to each character. In the end, if your a Marvel fan or fan of those kinds of games like Diablo, this is worth a shot and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (PS4)

As always with these things, I like to be upfront and say a huge thank you to the people over at Bandai Namco for the review copy of this fine game. It is always a huge honor to be chosen, and this one meant a lot more than normal to me since I loved this game on the Xbox 360 and I was dying to see how the Definitive Edition was.

The story is pretty much standard JRP fanfare, you start playing as Yuri, right after the town water system controlled by a blastia goes haywire. Blastia controls certain objects of the world and help humanity in various ways. This will lead you to chase down a thief and into the castle. You will meet a woman, Estelle. She will want your help escaping the castle and warning a knight and your childhood friend, Flynn, that he is in danger.

The story goes off from here and eventually leads in a different direction but admittedly I do not want to spoil what is, in my opinion, one of the best stories of its original release era. It stands up pretty solid in 2019 as well to be honest.

As a remaster the game looks and sounds great, but it does have a couple issues. For starters, Yuri is voiced by two different people. Neither voice actor is bad but is extremely distracting and even odd to suddenly be listening to Yuri with a different voice than have it pop back. Also, there was this.

Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition_20190118201215
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition_20190118201232

As you can see both voice bubbles are coming from Yuri, tho one of them is Karol speaking. Again, this isn’t a major mistake but it was a bit odd to see and seemed a bit careless to have not fixed. Another issue is the DLC you can get with it essentially breaks the game. It gives you access to high-level gear and items from the very beginning and gives you about 40 levels for all your characters allowing you to just walk through the game. So unless you are having a really hard time or just want to see the story I really encourage you not to use it.

None of that, however, is a deal breaker. The voice thing is annoying but tolerable and without the items, the combat is challenging and rewarding when it needs to be but fair. The artes system functions well and each new move feels like its own reward. All in all, I agree with the other reviews I have seen. This game is a solid title worth your purchase, which I will post amazon links for at the bottom. 8/10. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

PS4

Xbox One

Switch

Celebrity Deathmatch: the game

deathmatch game

When we were kids, didn’t all of us get a bit giddy when our favorite movies or shows got a game? Later in life, we see the ploy and can see it as the usual cash grab it is. There are exceptions of course, like Alien: Isolation but those feats of effort and love are rare. And then we get the game for Celebrity Deathmatch

It’s a basic fighter with an incredibly small roster and very limited play ability. A problem with a game like this, based on celebrities is that its going to feel dated and here is a prime example: we got celebs like Anna Nicole Smith, Mr T, Marilyn Manson, Ms Cleo, and the Frankenstein monster to name a few; it’s also a point I have to say I played this in 2004 and even then it felt pretty dated then, let alone how ancient it would feel now. There are some really funny movements, especially Ron Jeremy’s moveset and sicking Ann Nicole’s dog on people to hump there leg’s. The controls are crap; you mash buttons and hope for the best. The weapons are meh except for the chainsaw which is nice for hacking limbs off. There is some gore, but nowhere what you would expect sadly. The campaign is a series of episodes, 3 fights each for 6 episodes total so you can finish the game super quick. In the end, the game ain’t really worth it for fans or gamers and it’s worth skipping. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn

evil dead 2

As much as I love the original Evil Dead I admit, I never really set out to follow Ash’s further adventures. I wasn’t a fan of how the series slipped into comedy at a slope but I had a chance to sit down and judge for myself if I was being too hasty. Was I right?

We begin the story with an alternate retelling of events from the first movie: a much more rugged, manly Ash and his love Linda crash a vacant cabin one picturesque weekend only to stumble on the book of the dead and the book proceeds to take her over. Where the last film leaves over, the demons won’t let Ash leave the cabin and Linda won’t stay dead. His mind is slipping as even his own flesh turns against him, forcing him to chop his own hand off with a chainsaw. To make matters worse, the daughter of the professor who translated the book and set this all into action is going to the cabin to see what became of her parents. can Ash pull it together and live to see dawn?

While nowhere as creepy as the first movie, I do love how off the rails it goes. This movie’s greatest strength is just how creative a lot of the scenes are. My favorite maybe when Ash is trying to chase his severed hand and when he finally shoots it through the wall and he gets sprayed with what seems to be hundreds of gallons of blood, only to have time reset like it never happened.  I did laugh a lot but I give the movie credit, it knows how to show some creepy shit and have it feel like slapstick comedy. Ash is a great horror icon and dare I say- groovy. I love the ending which sets up the batshit insanity that is Army of Darkness. Evil Dead 2 is a damn good horror comedy I recommend to new commers to the series and may the gaming gods bring you glory.