For Honor - Closed Beta review and impressions
- By Ash
- in Reviews
For Honor is Ubisoft's medieval murderfest where the noble knights, enigmatic samurai, and bloodthirsty vikings all smack each other over the head with very big things in an effort to show who truly is the best. And what better way to showcase your supremacy than to fragment yourself into small groups and then engage in 4v4, 2v2, and 1v1 skirmishes all across the land! Since I've spent way too many hours playing the Dark Souls series I obviously sided with the knights, because if an action game doesn't let me wear the Elite Knight Set its not a game worth playing!
On a more serious note, I've spent the past week playing the For Honor Closed Beta, so if you're wondering whether this is the sort of game you'd enjoy, allow me to give you a detailed overview of what For Honor really is. Naturally, this is a beta so things can change between now and release, but given that we're only two weeks away I think its safe to assume this is more or less exactly what For Honor is going to be like.
Bioware has recently revealed the second Mass Effect: Andromeda cinematic trailer
- By Ash
- in News
If you were itching to find out what exactly you'll be doing in Mass Effect: Andromeda, besides the rather nebulous goal of finding a new home for humanity, you'll be glad to hear that the latest trailer offers at least a tiny bit of insight. It features a few brief glimpses of the main bad guy, the male Pathfinder and his trusty crew, as well as a couple of rather lovely worlds.
There's not much in terms of gameplay on display, but if you're up for some hilarious facial animations and absolutely gorgeous landscapes you'll find the trailer right down below. Have a look:
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire crowdfunding campaign is currently blazing through its stretch goals
- By Ash
- in News
For those of you that might not be in the loop, Obsidian has spent the past two weeks teasing something called "Project Louisiana". Given the name and the success of Fallout 4 many expected this to be the long-rumored Fallout: New Orleans, but as you can probably guess from the title it was actually Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire... not that I'm complaining!
What followed next was a Fig crowdfunding campaign that asked for a rather significant $1,100,000 in order to cover the most basic version of Pillars of Eternity 2. Much to my delight, that goal was squashed on the very first day, and as of right now Pillars of Eternity 2 sits comfortably at $1,783,697. There are still 25 days left to go, however, so I have a feeling that number is going to get much, much higher.
Galactic Civilizations 3 has recently received the rather large Update 2.0
- By Ash
- in News
Stardock's 4X strategy game Galactic Civilizations 3 has recently received one of its biggest patches so far. The rather plainly named Update 2.0 brings with it a new resource, Starbase Administrators, reworked diplomacy, a better ship builder UI, as well as various bug fixes. Out of all these changes the biggest one is the addition of Starbase Administrators which you will now need in order to construct... you guessed it, a Starbase! As such, you will no longer need to crank out Starbases in order to stay competitive, so feel free to toy around with smaller, more focused empires.
As for diplomacy, the AI will now take several factors into account when determining trades: your current standing with them, your relations with their allies and enemies, how the trade will affect their economy, and so forth. If trying to keep track of all of this sounds a bit tedious, worry not as Stardock has also added detailed information on why a specific trade was accepted or rejected, so you can always adjust your strategy in future deals.
For those of you interested in all of the specifics, here are the full patch notes:
Tales of Berseria Gameplay Showcase - Breaching the Fortress [No Commentary]
- By Ash
- in Gameplay Showcase
Tales of Berseria is the seventeenth iteration of the Tales series and a prequel to Tales of Zestiria, though set in the distant past. It brings with it a cast of surprisingly lovable misfits, an exciting combo-based combat system, and the same sort of narrative focus as its predecessors. The one big difference is that Berseria's storyline is far darker, with characters often acting out of self-interest, which is a fairly rare and rather intriguing take on the RPG genre.
If you're wondering what all of this might look like in action I've prepared a decently lengthy gameplay video going over both the story and combat. And don't worry about spoilers as I've chosen a mission that mostly revolves around obvious goals and plot-irrelevant character interactions. With that said, here's the video:
The upcoming Overwatch PTR will bring with it some much-needed Bastion changes
- By Ash
- in News
When you have a game as diverse as Overwatch not every hero is going to be viable at all levels of play. Junkrat for example is a great hero at the lower ranks, but as you climb higher his lack of accuracy starts becoming a serious detriment, hence why most higher ranked players tend to avoid him. But there is unfortunately one Overwatch hero nearly every skill tier tends to avoid - Bastion. As it turns out, having the potential to dish out insane amounts of damage does you little good when you're a sitting duck for every enemy projectile.
There is some hope on the horizon, however, as Overwatch's Principal Designer Geoff Goodman just recently posted a couple of Bastion changes they're going to release onto the PTR (Public Test Realm) in the near future. Here's what you can expect to see:
Hearthstone's Game Director has released a brief post defining "complexity, depth, and design space"
- By Ash
- in News
Hearthstone is currently going through a bit of a rough patch. In Legend rank 40% of the players are using Shaman, every class capable of utilizing the 'pirate package' is doing so, and the rest of the decks are either a Reno variant or Dragon Priests. And to top it all off, Hunter and Paladin are in such a bad shape right now that they might as well not exist.
While all of this is pretty awful when it comes to Hearthstone's fun factor, it has managed to at least bring with it one blessing - Blizzard has finally started communicating! In his most recent Reddit post Hearthstone's Game Director Ben Brode has detailed how the team treats complexity and depth, as well as what exactly "design space" means for Hearthstone. The whole post is fairly short, so if you're interested in the design side of Hearthstone I fully recommend you give it a read. As for me, I would like to comment on Brode's thoughts on strategic depth: