Opinion – Page 35 – Savior Gaming

The Return Of Picard..Engage.

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That headline actually isn’t a mistake. Set 20 years after Star Trek Nemesis, a new as of yet Untitled Star Trek series set to be on CBS streaming service will feature the return of Sir Patrick Stewart’s Picard. Now honestly I gave pretty damn mixed feelings about this, and the fact that it will be on a streaming service I have 0 interest in paying for since I pay for enough stuff as it is makes this a hard choice for me. However I do love me some Star Trek. Regardless check here for more and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Blossom & Decay (Preview and Pre-Alpha)

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Blossom & Decay is an interesting game, but before I get into it I want to explain how this came into my life. Not long ago on Twitter I asked everyone to recommend some good indie projects to me and I ended up following and being followed by Konspiracy Games. Then I got busy and I kept meaning to shoot them a message and see what they were up to. Their game looked interesting but I just never got the chance. Then a little bit ago they actually sent me a message. I won’t go into details but it was basically just them introducing themselves and giving me some info about the game, basically the info I was going to ask for anyway. This lead to me getting into a pre-alpha demo of the game. So after I tell you about that I will be linking some stuff at the bottom for you guys to read up on, because the short version of this whole thing is simple. If you are a fan of building and exploring games, you will want to keep an eye on this game.

First thing I have to get out-of-the-way, this was a pre alpha demo of the game so it was a bit rough around the edges. The controls could be a bit stiff at time and I often found myself a bit confused as to what I should be doing. It was easy enough to figure out tho, so even tho they invited me into their discord I never really had to go ask about anything. I would have used it to report bugs but I am yet to hit one. I am sure they are there, but admittedly I have good luck with missing bugs. I usually only get the game breaking ones. ( looking at you Fractured but Whole you game breaking bastard)

Now for the game itself, what is it? Why should you be excited? Is it fun? Well the game itself is essentially what you make it. Literally. You start out getting off a boat. As you enter the world, at least in this version, you get a small tutorial of how things work. After that the world is your oyster as they say. You want to build a farm? You can do that. You want to go exploring, feel free. Do you want to get a group of friends together and raid a nearby farming settlement and steal all their stuff, you can. I should point out tho, they will be pissed. Those are real people, and they worked hard to build that farm. If they can’t hunt you down they may pay people to do it. See the world is ever changing in accordance to what the people feel like doing. People can essentially set up their own towns, with laws and stores all with real people.

One example of this started right after I started playing. I built a small fire on the beach where I started, got some food and just messed around. About half a dozen players had this same idea. They have all since moved on. I don’t know where they went, they all left while I was asleep. Really asleep by the way, you can give commands to your player, but they stay in the game when you aren’t. My guy was crafting a few odds and ends for when I came back. The game being browser based allows for a handy feature by the way (as confirmed by both the creators and I have personally done this with my cell phone) you can start on your PC, run to the store and check on your game with your phone. As of now its mostly only useful for crafting tho, which honestly is why I wanted it in the first place.

As I stated earlier the game is a bit rough, but at this early stage the game has a boat load of potential and is already fun to play. I will be watching this game and checking back in without a doubt. Below I have listed some materials, and definitely check out their Twitter. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

https://www.facebook.com/KonspiracyGames/

https://collective.square-enix.com/projects/472/blossom-decay/

Games I Hate to Enjoy.

Some games you love to plays, some games you hates. But every so often there is just a game that you enjoy, but you don’t know why. Here are some of mine.

Dark souls 2,Scholar of the First Sin. This is probably the worst of the Soulsborne series. I also for some reason insist on the fact that I need to finish this damn game before I will allow myself to play through Dark Souls 3. This godforsaken game is the bane of my existence. I can’t explain it tho, for tall the faults of this game, I strangely enjoy it.

Crusader Kings 2. There isn’t much wrong with this game, I love the concept. You play the part of a family, make decisions for your country. I enjoy this game even if it is slow as hell. The problem? I SUCK as this game. Like real bad. I like the game, but no matter how much I play, I never seem to improve. Crusader Kings 2 (PC)

Pretty much the entire Telltale Games series. The idea is simple, take a popular series, create a story and turn it into a choose your own adventure video game where mostly your decisions mean next to nothing, but we pretend they do. The story is usually pretty good, but I can’t explain why I enjoy this simple formula, and many times I find myself finishing just because I want that easy platinum.

So what about you guys? What games do you enjoy that you can’t quite figure out why? Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Minnesota’s Emerging Writers: An Anthology of Nonfiction — The Past Due Review

I have some very exciting news to share today (hence the special, second Monday post); last month, I had a piece accepted to be included in the upcoming book, Minnesota’s Emerging Authors: An Anthology of Nonfiction! The book will be available to buy through Amazon and Z Publishing’s website on August 21st, but you can […]

via Minnesota’s Emerging Writers: An Anthology of Nonfiction — The Past Due Review

A long time friend of Savior Gaming has some exciting news, so please go show him some love and check it out.

Empire In Ruins, Revisited.

Empires In War is an Indy title for PC getting ready for release in the coming months from the company Hammer and Ravens.

Many of you may remember a while back when we first looked at the game Empires in Ruins (Preview) The guys over there have been hard at work getting things together for release and the EGX event in September. Sadly living in the United States I won’t be attending the event to visit them and check things out. They were however kind enough over the weekend to hook me up with a beta to check out.

A few things to note, the beta is on whats known as a workbench map. It is basically just there for test purposes and isn’t in the full game. Another thing is pretty much everything started out unlocked and there was no tutorial. A bit of fooling around tho and I got the hang of it. I just wanted to say up front, I didn’t play anything close to a full version of the game. I can honestly say tho, I am already impressed and looking forward to more.

The game itself looks good. Fantastic in fact. Each character and building carefully created with care.

This is just one example I swiped off their Twitter page. I do recommend you check them out over there, they are pretty good about posting updates about what they are doing.

Another part of this I absolutely loved was the music. I rarely say this about games, the music for me is usually just there for me but I actually found myself looking forward to the next wave simply because I liked the music that sounded to me like a sort of hybrid bagpipe rock music sort of deal.

Now the part why most of you are probably still reading, the actual game play. The beta itself. It only showed the real-time combat portion of the game, and none of the story. You start with a small amount of resources to get you started. You can build what you want to survive the first wave or two, it’s up to you really. I won’t tell anyone what to do here that is on you. You two builders will get these built pretty fast, then you can get to the action. As your towers protect your main building from enemies you will get some gold to help you build new ones. The first wave for me consisted of these guys.

Now I have to admit, I loved reading the descriptions for these guys simply because they made me laugh. I will include a few of my favorites below. As a general rule each wave gets a little harder than the last, with a few easy waves tossed in to give you time to repair or just introduce you to a new enemy. One way consist of a new flying enemy that was pretty easy for me to kill because he was alone, but later multiple showed up and they pretty much ruined my life for a bit. They designed the came in such a way that if you understand how it works and set things up right you can be prepared for anything, if you just randomly toss things down like I did my first go at it you could really do a number on your future. That isn’t to say the game is unforgiving, it is quite fair. The game will just reward you for knowing what each unit does and how to prepare for it.

A good example of this is late game my main building was practically dead, I think I was on wave 18 or 19. I wasn’t prepared for this unit that can use the water to swim around and avoid the roads and it used that to attack me. Game over for me. I couldn’t be mad, this was in no way unfair or cheap. I made a mistake and paid the price.

I must say I have played my fair share of Alpha and Beta versions of games, many with varying degrees of quality. Some being damn near broken to the point I question why they would even let them be played, others they were perfectly playable and I was happy to give my feed back and look forward to seeing how they turn things around. This one however falls into a class all its own. I have never before played a beta where I really didn’t have much to say. I played it for a few hours and never ran into bugs. I never thought the game was unfair towards the player, and even when I thought that dude with the giant hammer or the guys with the muskets did more damage than I liked, it didn’t do anything to stop my enjoyment. They are just stronger units you need to account for,and once I did I was back to killing things. This game is definitely on my must own list when it comes out. Check it out in the Steam Store. Best wishes and may the gaming god bring you glory.

Pokemon Go teases Gen 4 Pokemon

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Pokemon go recently posted some new artwork on their official Twitter account, interesting enough however it includes pokemon such as Piplup, Tortwig and chimchar all of whih are not currently in the game. Obviously this could be an oversight, but most likely we will soon be able to catch these cute little guys.

Is evil, evil?

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Below there will be spoilers for multiple movies and TV shows that I will list.

Supernatural 2. Marvel Infinity war 3. final fantasy 9

When I was young I remember never questioning things like this. The good guys were good, the bad guys were bad. That was it. There was no in between. The character I played or the protagonist in the movie was the good guy, the people they faced off against was the bad guy and that was how I viewed things. But then I got older and things didn’t seem so simple. However in my old age I have to wonder, maybe it isn’t so simple.

Watching Supernatural I see Gordon Walker, obsessed with killing Sam who happens to be the Antichrist. Now for those that watch the show, this isn’t entirely wrong. He actually does help mess things up pretty badly. The Winchester brothers while a force for good and saving the innocent numerous times do inadvertently cause some problems, like start the end of the world. While maybe not the best way to go about it, was Gordon a bad guy? Killing Sam would stop all kinds of bad things from happening and save many lives.

Thanos is another good example in the MCU Thanos Not the Villain? while he may not be the typical example of a hero, and he may have a messed up way of going about it, he is far from being truly evil. What he says is factually correct, and his solution will actually work.

On the flip side, many of the people we see as heroes, aren’t truly good. Captain America in the same movie in his refusal to trade lives is guilty of the same “evil” we accuse Thanos of. He took the choice as to living or dying away from countless people in both Wakanda and in the universe as well as for Vision when he refused to let him sacrifice himself. By the time Vision was allowed to make that choice, it was far to late. Both Thanos and Captain America are arguably equal on the scale of good and evil.

There was a time in video games this wasn’t very common however, it was simply a good vs evil story. There are however exceptions to the rule. Garland from Final Fantasy 9 for example, he was a bad guy but only mostly. While he is responsible for Kuja and some unsavory things he wasn’t lets destroy the world evil like Kuja.

Now I am not saying all evil characters aren’t evil and all good ones aren’t good. But as a kid the subtle things were lost on most people and as an adult going back and seeing these things is rather odd. Fun, but odd. Now there is no real reason for this, just some random thoughts. Tell me what you think or any examples you have, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Is Cross Play Important?

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The question today is simple, is cross play important? This kind of depends on how you look at it. Sony recently has been getting a lot of flack for not really being involved with it which honestly isn’t as true as it is made out. They have plenty of cross play with PC games for example DC Universe online. That isn’t to say it is great with it, but the idea that Sony is completely against it and has none is false.

The other problem is people keep throwing around the term anti consumer in reference to it, but that also isn’t true. Anti consumer is when a company’s policy is unfairly against the customer in favor of the company. Sony being against cross play is in no way unfair to anyone. You aren’t being punished or hindered from playing the games.

vgchart If you look at total consoles sold for PS4, Xbox one and the Nintendo Switch The PS4 has outsold both the Xbox and Switch, combined. To say there is some anti consumer practice going on where PlayStation 4 users are being hurt and lack people to play with is insane. There is no anti consumer practice occurring.

Companies do things to benefit themselves on a business level and to help their customers, but cross play with Xbox and Nintendo honestly doesn’t add much for Sony. They already have the biggest player base outside of PC gaming. They would simply be giving their competitor access to their customers. And when something goes wrong, they would be blamed. And as a person that owns both Xbox and PS4 I can’t help but acknowledge that I run into far more issues with people on my Xbox than my PlayStation, and I spend more time on my PS4.

Now on to the flip side of things. While I do agree and acknowledge Sony is 100% right for not embracing cross play in a wide-spread manner because truly it does not help them, and people are also ignoring that in the early days of online game play it was Sony that attempted to make cross play happen and Microsoft that said no, and it was because they had the bigger online population which nobody seems to care about or want to acknowledge, there are some games I think Sony would be smart to simply bite the bullet on and just let it happen with. Minecraft and Rocket League for example have been out for so long at this point anyone that is going to buy the games, have basically done so. While it doesn’t benefit them I don’t think ti will really hurt them to go along with it either.

Sony has outsold everyone at this point, and as such they are smart not to let their competitors simply have access to their players at every turn. Especially since most people I have personally come across and know personally legitimately don’t care and can take it or leave it. But to save face and pacify some, Sony would be smart to simply embrace cross play for some older games and see how it goes. Most people don’t care, and with older games it won’t cost them anything. And while right now they are undeniably king of the mountain, at one point so was Sega and Nintendo, being right and being smart aren’t always the same thing. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Last of us 2

Just in case you have been living in a cave these last few weeks, I am going to go the opposite way and show the trailer first which is the opposite of what I normally do.

There we go, now we are all caught up. Or not, I can prove you actually watched an over 10 minute video. But the The Last of us 2 isn’t without some controversy. First and to a minor scale, many people have claimed the game play was scripted or even in more extreme cases completely fake. I can buy scripted, because let’s be honestly nobody wants an E3 catastrophe. Fake? That is pretty unlikely considering the backlash they would face when caught, and they would get caught.

The other controversy, people are pissed off, that Ellie is a lesbian. Just like she was clearly was in the last game. Seriously were these people not paying attention, and this is especially true if you played the DLC, she had what amounts to a post apocalypse date with the girl right before she ends up infected.

The game looks amazing by the way, The story of the first seems to be carrying over nicely into the second. Ellie has grown up and her combat skills have aged to fit into her more adult frame. No longer does she struggle to do simple things, yet she clearly isn’t some super human woman either which I like. Tho admittedly the game isn’t exactly realistic either, but hey the game isn’t realistic to begin with, look at what you fight. Either way what are your thoughts? Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Elder Scrolls Blades

The Elder Scrolls Blades, look I am just going to be honest, I love the elder scrolls series. I fell in love when I played Morrowind for the original Xbox and never looked back. I enjoy the card game, I play the online game, I am enjoying the Summerset chapter. That being said, who the hell asked for this? The game seems to be a weird mobile walk around use your finger to slash enemies sort of adventure game. Now admittedly I may be overly critical here. Also it should be noted it Pete Hines said in an interview they want to put it on “every platform that will run it, including VR” The game however just doesn’t look fun to me for some reason. I do hope I am wrong, but I will definitely be waiting on this one.