Games – Page 120 – Savior Gaming

Red Dead Online Beta First Impressions

First, let me get this out of the way, this is not meant to be an all-encompassing review. This is just my first impression of the first couple opening hours. Do not take this as gospel. There is a lot of stuff to do and it would be impossible to get it all out in a timely manner. So keep in mind some of what I say I may change my mind about later, plus it is really just a beta.

That last part I mean, it does suffer from many of the things a beta does. For example, a few friends complained about being kicked off multiple times. One couldn’t even play when she should have been despite playing day one. There are also reports of people just being toxic trolls similar to what you run into in GTA tho I personally never experienced it, so keep that in mind as well.

There is a lot of good tho. I had a blast hunting with friends and doing missions. The story is also nice and takes place prior to the events of the main game. I love that much of the main game aspects are in the online game such as animals running around and people. The missions are easy to find or you can just go into the menu and pick one. The missions are pretty standard, mostly kill each other and races.

There are a lot of things I still want to do and try, but so far I am pleased with what I have played. It is pretty much what I wanted, Red Dead with my friends. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Alien Blackout Could Be Revealed Soon

Variety and many others are reporting that 20th Century Fox has trademarked the name Alien: Blackout. There have also been some hints that maybe it will be announced at the gaming awards in December. Either way, this should be good news for Alien fans, best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Beyond the Beyond, The Game I Enjoyed That People Seem To Hate.

Beyond The Beyond is a game I played as a kid. I liked the characters and the turn-based battles and just the graphics at the time. The game isn’t perfect and is well known for having an insanely high encounter rate, dungeons that were long and insufferably annoying and even had a character that spent half the game cursed and was pretty much useless. All of this is true, and I enjoyed it anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, all the criticisms of the game are warranted and have merit. You really couldn’t walk 6 feet without a battle and god forbid you wanted to simply attack with Sampson, the guy I mentioned was cursed the entire game. The story was also cliche and cliche comes. A child turns out to be the chosen one, fights a great evil that is controlling an empire. Nothing special at all, yet I still loved the game, and I can not truly explain why. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Civilization VI (PC)

With the new expansion coming soon, called Gathering Storm, my friend got quite excited and wanted someone to play with. So with Black Friday sales abound I get an email on steam, turns out my friend decided I was the one to play this game with. I was a huge fan of Civ 2 and Revolution and I put a little time into Civ V so I am hardly a noob in the series, but this one is quite a bit different.

First, very few upgrades are built in your cities. They now are built by aptly named builders, units with limited uses. Districts are built in tiles around your city, just like farms and such would be. Another addition is governors, each one has their own abilities and skills to help run your cities.

Outside of a few of these finer points, the general idea of the game is actually quite the same. Build units and towns, grow your empire and win certain types of victories tho now you can win a religious victory. For me personally, I have enjoyed this Civilization game more than most and I suggest picking it up. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Should Video Games Be Viewed The Same As Books and Movies?

Any of you that went to school know what High School was like. Or you know years 9-12 for those non-Americans. You get stuck reading books many of us don’t want to read by Shakespear or having to read Moby Dick. We have seen War and Peace and thought screw that, the book is huge. You hear the same sentiments about movies, the Godfather for example or Citizen Kane are revered as some of the best movies of all time. Even many people that don’t really read or watch movies know many of the things I just named. The question is, should video games be viewed and revered in the same way?

Well for starters, about two-thirds of Americans own some sort of video game playing device. I couldn’t find the numbers for other countries but I imagine it is at least similar, so most people seem to own something to play video games on whether it be a console or PC. It basically can’t get any more mainstream than it currently is. There are websites dedicated to it, there are entire Esports leagues that give away million dollar prizes and companies that sponsor them. So why is it when people discuss books and movies they are essentially high-class art, but video games are still just the ugly stepchild of media and entertainment?

The question is why? They have their own art style much like a movie or even a painting or drawing. They tell stories that are thought out, written and teach lessons just like movies or books, but also sometimes are simply about action and adventure or friendship. However, unlike other forms of media, there is a barrier of entry for all of it. Books and movies won’t tell you no if you aren’t good enough. You can simply look up words you don’t understand for a book or movie. Games, on the other hand, won’t let you advance if you lack the skill to play it. They are designed to make you learn certain skills.

They also have other similarities to other mediums of entertainment and media in that they take a ton of time to create. Some games take years to create and write and have hundreds of people involved. They can be massive undertakings just like a movie. So why are they many times so looked down on?

Well, honestly I think it is because of how new they are. Relatively speaking they are the newest addition to the entertainment realm. Books are thousands of years old and movies over 100 at this point. Video games, however, are young, in fact, my parents remember when you could not buy a home console. There was a time when books were burned because of their contents, hell that still happens. I remember being a kid and being mocked and laughing at because I loved video games and now many of those same people are talking about them daily. So while right now video games aren’t viewed the same I think someday games will be viewed as important and artistic as movies and books. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Forest (PS4)

The Forest is a survival horror game much like many others. It is also sort of like the TV show Lost. You crash on an island with weird stuff going on and you have to survive. The twist here is the cannibals running around that steal you son right after you crash.

Your mission here is to survive on the island, unravel its mysteries and find your son. Sounds easy right? Well, a lot of things sound easy. But can you find food and water while building a shelter all while avoiding people that want to eat you?

The cannibals are smart, they will watch you and occasionally strike but not always right away. Sometimes they will circle around and try to catch you when they think you have left. They also will many times retreat as opposed to dying and will even come back with friends or simply not attack at all if they don’t have superior numbers.

The cannibals aren’t the only enemy, the weather also plays a part. The rain will soak your clothes and getting cold is also an issue. I won’t cover all the dangers, as some of that I will leave as a surprise for those playing the game. As a huge fan of 7 Days to Die Revisted I have to say this game is probably better. At the very least graphically it is, tho it is not perfect. It does have the occasional frame drop and rendering does take a second on occasion in heavily populated areas but none of this is too bad, tho admittedly the game is pretty dark even if you pump the brightness up. Regardless, the game is well worth the $20. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Dragalia Lost

Dragalia Lost is a mobile game from Nintendo with quite the good story. It works quite simply with the touchscreen, simply use your hand to guide the character and taps to attack and choose abilities. The story itself is a tale of wonder and dragons as you search for a stone to keep the fiends at bay. This is why it pains me to say I can’t honestly recommend this game for everyone.

The issue is quite simple. The game is huge, but it doesn’t start that way. You start with a small download, then get hit with another one that is about a gig. Then each mission hit me with another. None as big as the gig but the game takes up quite a bit of space, space that many either don’t have or won’t want to part with. Added to this it does have the usual buy stuff with real money to get better stuff, but by now with a free game, this is expected. You do get a full party for free tho and they were quite useful during my time with the game. Regardless, if you don’t have plenty of space you are willing to part with this is one you will want to skip. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Sega Heroes (Mobile)

Sega Heroes is a new mobile game from, of course, Sega. It is a puzzle game much like many of the other puzzle fighters out there. You match colors to make your characters attack the enemies, all of which are Sega characters.

The game is fun and quite honestly easy to play, my only real issue is if you want to collect all the heroes, it is going to cost you some money. Now the game is free, so obviously they need to make their money, my issue is you can’t really choose which characters you buy. I would love to collect all the PhantasyStar characters and I would even be willing to drop a few bucks on them, but I can’t simply buy them, I have to hope that is who I get and that is an issue for me. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Override Mech City Brawl: Preview

Override: Mech City Brawl is exactly what it sounds like, a mech brawling game. Over the weekend I was lucky enough to be part of their preview this weekend with Modus Games. I honestly never expect much from mech games. In my experience, they are usually clunky to control lack any real replay value. There are obviously a few exceptions, and I am happy to say Override is one of them. The preview was lacking the arcade and single player modes and focused on beating the crap out of your friends and other people, it also let you add CPU bots into the mix which me and my friend added in a few times. I will add a few videos below so you can see the game in action.

The controls felt nice tho and with so many mechs to choose from I really thought at least a few would feel like just copy and pasted versions of another but I never felt that. Each mech had its own special moves and strengths and weaknesses. Some take more skill than others to master but all are very viable contenders with none being at a particular advantage. This game will absolutely be on my list of games to watch when it releases on PC and PS4. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Valthirian Arc Hero School Story (PS4)

Valthirian Arc Hero School Story is a cute and fun idea that is home to one of the worst design choices I have ever come across. We will get to that later tho. The game itself puts you in the shoes of a school principal with the responsibility of building a school and training heroes for the queendom. The queendom consists of one High Queen and five lower Queens, tho as you would assume the High Queen dies and you must find her one heir as the place is thrown into chaos.

The game is fun and easy to control, and there are 2 types of quest, errand quest which you send your students on and quest you send your quest on that you control. Each quest will take a set amount of weeks, but here is where the worst design choice ever comes in. If you send all of your students on errand quest, there is no way to speed up time. You have to sit there and wait for time to pass, slowly. It took over 30 minutes for a few weeks to pass with nothing for me to do except watch the screen. Nothing to build, nobody to control. Just wait. Now, this is easy to avoid obviously, simply send one set of students on errand quest while you yourself control a different set on a quest you control. The weeks will pass no problem, but do not send all your students on an errand quest because you will regret it.

The game is quite interesting and while not 100% original, it isn’t something you see often and it is refreshing to get a taste of it. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.