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Through Wolfy's Eyes

~ One gamer's view of the forest and the trees

Through Wolfy's Eyes

Tag Archives: fps

Early Access Games That Aren’t Trash

03 Tuesday Aug 2021

Posted by wolfyseyes in Nerdy Things

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Tags

craftopia, early access, fps, hardspace shipbreaker, multiplayer, online gaming, online multiplayer, sandbox, steam early access, survival sandbox

With all of the itchy, uncomfortable, and downright exploitative ways game dev studios are trying to monetize their game, it’s easy to pass off anything other than “gold product” as nothing more than a scam. And for the most part, you’re right. Even I can admit that crowdfunding a game is a whole lot riskier and possibly more scam-adjacent than not, when previously I had foolishly hoped that it would open up a lot more doors and ideas.

One of the most recent and proliferous forms of “alternative” game monetization schemes is the early access launch, which asks folks to buy an incomplete game, provide feedback, and watch it evolve into a fully-launched product. It’s, at the brass tacks level (and grossly oversimplified), spending money to be a tester instead of letting professionals do that and get paid for it. However, as vile as that sounds, there are a few games that I’ve come across that actually are worth the buy-in cost in my opinion, and so I wanted to take a moment to highlight them with today’s post.

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Singing the Anthem

28 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by wolfyseyes in MMO Things

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

anthem, anthem mmo, anthemgame, bioware, demo, fps, looter shooter, MMO, multiplayer, online, online multiplayer, online shooter, shooter

Thanks to some extremely good fortune, I was granted access to the VIP demo (read: pre-order bonus) of Anthem, the upcoming looter shooter from the folks at BioWare. Unfortunately, I only was able to get my code on Sunday, which happened to be the last day of the demo. As such, this is less of a deep hands-on than an initial impressions piece. Not a complaint, though, because I really had fun.

AnthemDemo 2019-01-27 18-28-05-967.png

Not least of which being the ability to wear a thick, bright pink robot suit.

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The Way Forward for Destiny 2

13 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by wolfyseyes in MMO Things

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Tags

bungie, curse of osiris, destiny, destiny 2, destiny 2 curse of osiris, fps, MMO, mmofps, multiplayer, state of the game

I haven’t booted up Destiny 2 since Curse of Osiris launched. Generally speaking, I’m the kind of guy who just goes to another game if the one he’s playing disappoints, so that’s been my solution to the problem. That said, I’ve certainly been eyeballing the uproar with the playerbase and its view of Destiny 2, so I’ve been waiting along with many to see what Bungie would respond with.

On Friday, they finally did, and I wanted to share my own thoughts on the matter as a more casual player of Destiny 2.

destiny-2-hungry-boi

Or in other words, “someone who only sees what raid content looks like via others’ screenshots.”

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Overwatch Through Wolfy’s Eyes

09 Monday May 2016

Posted by wolfyseyes in Nerdy Things

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

blizzard, fps, multiplayer, overwatch, shooter, team based, team shooter

It was, honestly, inevitable. Despite arms crossed over chest and nose upturned at the idea, I went ahead and downloaded the Overwatch open “beta”. I had my suspicions going in to how I would feel about the game, but I also had my own personal rule of “Don’t knock it ’til you try it” drumming in my head and the compulsion of my Twitter feed driving me onward.

ScreenShot_16-05-07_01-39-51-000

Also: Zarya.

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Where’s My Super Suit?

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by wolfyseyes in MMO Things

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

blizzard, city of hereos, city of villains, fps, MMO, overwatch, superheroes

That was one of my favorite scenes in the movie The Incredibles.  It just really laid out in a short few minutes the dichotomy of being a normal person and being a superhero and how clashing those two worlds really are.  But I’m not just basing the title of this blog on that single line or that movie, but more to the point that I kinda miss what that feels like.

City of Heroes was probably my third MMO, with EverQuest 1 and Final Fantasy XI being my first experiences with the genre.  The timing of the game’s discovery for me could not have been better–I was deep in the throes of collecting comics and Magic cards with almost little to no conceit of whether my utility bills were going to be paid or not.  The opportunity to create my own superhero filled me with a sense of glee that I could not have thought possible.

I could be one of the ridiculous characters I’ve been reading about in comics recently.

…uh…not quite THAT ridiculous.

For about four or five years or so I played the game off and on, most of the time with my very first level 50 character and first-ever roleplay character the Midnight Kestrel.  I never really poured an awful lot of time into the game, but there would be new things or I’d get that old urge and I’d find myself back into those comfortable old shoes or maybe try on a few new ones just to see how it felt.

It never was a game of deep commitment for me…but it always felt like it would be there for me no matter what.

So, obviously I was more than a little surprised by its shuttering.

Moving on in this genre, we’ve seen some stabs at the superhero thing but nothing terribly grand.  At least, in my point of view.  Marvel Heroes apparently is doing something right by folks, though I can’t wrap my head around why (must be the ARPG thing which I don’t enjoy that much).  DC Universe Online continues to crank out new content at a regular pace with no signs of slowing down, and even Champions Online plods along, even if embarrassingly so.

All of these games I’ve tried at multiple points.  All of them didn’t have that same feel.  They weren’t my super suit.

…and then came BlizzCon 2014, and the teaser for Overwatch.

….HOOLLYYY SHIIIIIIT!!

The teaser movie had me riveted.  I felt excited and comfortable and eager and anxious and just…I was captivated.  Captivated as only superheoes can captivate me.  This was not only what felt like the missing piece of my puzzle…like slipping in to those old tights again…but it was something with the financial backing and design and development muscle of Blizzard.

And then I saw the gameplay trailer and my heart just absolutely sank in to my stomach.

…an FPS.  Overwatch is a Team Fortress game.

What further stings is the fact that, apparently, this game was cobbled together with assets from the now-canned Titan project.  Which leaves myself and many others left to speculate just how many pieces from Titan are here, if any.  Was this the PvP arena game that ended up being better than the PvE game?  Was coding individual powers in a first-person mode too difficult or not fun?

The design of Overwatch and its style and the characters that inhabit this game’s world are probably some of the most interesting and unique designs out there, even by superheroic standards.  I mean, we have some of the usual tropes, but…still!  It just…the world and ambiance just screamed to me of a playground where the titans of meta-humanity could bound freely once more and take on incredible challenges.

We’re not getting that world.  The story will be told in outside-the-game videos or write-ups, but the actual gameplay will not give half of a third of a damn.

“Screw reasons. Shotguns and darkness powers are cool.”

I’m left asking what if in various levels of annoyance and aggravation.  Probably because nothing burns me more than wasted potential.  When it comes to MMOs especially–a genre that is intrinsically designed to create ever-evolving and growing worlds and game spaces, seeing all of that panache and style diverted instead into a small map FPS team shooter just…

It sucks.  It sucks and it hurts and it has reminded me that my super suit is still missing.

Re-reading this post back to myself in my silky-smooth lounge singer baritone would lead one to believe that I’m hating on the game.  i’m not.  I may be hating on what could have been, and I sure as hell feel like there could have been done more in the setting of Overwatch, but I most assuredly am not hating on the game existing or on people being excited for it.  By all means, please, feel free to go nuts.  Enjoy.  I hope those reading this and are excited by Overwatch’s announcement do enjoy when the game goes live.

I just can’t help but hover over what was there before things got to this point.  And whether I’ll ever find my super suit again.  Because as much as I enjoy the choices that are out now and the ideas that are coming down the pipe…there’s no feeling like that anymore.  And I miss that.

There won’t ever be another one like you, Kessie.

Destiny Through Wolfy’s Eyes

13 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by wolfyseyes in MMO Things

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

console, destiny, fps, MMO, ps3

In the circles I shuffle around in, Destiny’s mere existence seems to tick off people.  There have been no shortage of disparate remarks regarding the game’s marketing budget, the fact it’s on consoles first, it’s a shooter, it’s only got team sizes of three to six…you’d think that Bungie went around in every supermarket in America and pissed in all the corn flakes boxes.

Pictured: the Bungie Corn Flakes Peeing Street Team, AKA UriNation

Perhaps due to a mixture of civil disobedience against the raging commentariat and due to my own curiosity and want to try new stuff, I decided to buy in to the game.  Having read up on the thing and seen some gameplay videos, it seemed to me that it’d be a similar take on a Borderlands-style MMOFPS.  At worst, it’d be a waste of $60 I would have used to buy copious amounts of Baconators.  At best, it’d be a nice little time killer–something I just poke around in for a couple of hours because shooting aliens is just fun.

What follows here is a quick recounting of one of my play sessions in Destiny, as well as some of my thoughts.  I should first start off by saying that things are only just beginning for me in this game, since I’m just level 3 as of the start of this post’s account.  With that in mind, the game does strike me exactly the way I expected, with a couple of niggling issues.

Chief of which being that I can't take screenshots from my PS3

Chief of which being that I can’t take screenshots from my PS3

One of the very first squawking noises made from “deh haturz” is that the game is a lobby shooter–that all it is is just one individual location that others can join in with you before loading in to a set piece.  This isn’t entirely off of the mark, but I also don’t really see that as a problem.  Considering the fact that the options available to you from your low orbit are the same as you can access from the field, it was just a matter of going to the map, selecting my destination, then flying in.  To me, that felt a little more like a loading screen than a lobby considering that doing these things took all of maybe 10-20 seconds.

Whatever you wanna call it, this is still damned pretty.

Whatever you wanna call it, this is still damned pretty.

Another complaint is that the game has you completely alone in private instances with no contact from other players.  This is complete fallacy.  The area I was touching down on, Old Russia on Earth, is a shared playspace, with several other players phasing in as I went towards my objective.  As a matter of fact, while I was tromping up the hill to shoot alien face, a public event went off, and myself and another two players charged over to help out.

The public event in question is a standard sort of thing–staying in an area to defend it from waves.  The FPS gameplay made it more engaging, as we had to find cover or flank enemies while also avoiding fire from the dropship unloading baddies on our heads for the set time limit.  The rewards for doing so weren’t exactly mind-blowing, save for some XP and a couple of random dropped items, but it was nice to be able to dart away from the objective regardless.

After the event clear, I headed back on to the path towards my objective, which lead me into a series of really dark rooms that were coated with some random…smoky dark stuff.  The one thing I will laud about this game is that the places you’re taken in to for firefights are damned pretty, even on a PS3.

626

…you’re just going to have to take my word on this.

One of my initial impressions were that the enemies weren’t exactly displaying Rhodes scholar levels of intelligence.  I’m told that later levels see things amp up, but this mission introduced me to my first mixed engagements of ranged and melee baddies…and they also displayed some pretty competent tactics, as the melee’s flanked me and forced me to withdraw into a bottleneck so I could handle them individually.  Meanwhile, the named boss-like enemy I had to take out continued to retreat, sending more aliens to try and impede my progress.

The whole “boss that spawns additional enemies = challenge” thing is never a design decision I find terribly clever, and this one got my eyes rolling all the same.  Still, I had fun, and when I was able to close the distance (and blast through the target’s shield) I was victorious.

See? Just like every other Final Fantasy I've played, there's a "You Won!"-style screen!

See? Just like every other Final Fantasy I’ve played, there’s a “You Won!”-style screen!

After this mission I was told to head back to The Tower, which is the primary hub/social region for all players, which brings me to another complaint–the hub city is also a lobby and nobody will ever talk to you.  Or, everyone will be talking because everyone is going to be mic’d up and it’ll be an assault of homophobic racist console-kiddie banter.

Since the game does rely on provided voice chat as the primary source of contact instead of a chat box, you’d perhaps be forgiven for the second assumption.  Instead, that’s not the case.  The first holds more truth, since everyone’s darting about doing their own thing without completely acknowledging each other.  The difference, to me at least, is that this is not unlike every other hub city experience I’ve had in every MMO I’ve played.  The lack of a scrolling chatbox full of /shouting idiocy doesn’t excuse that truth.  These hubs are just like every capitol city in an MMO I’ve been in.

Behold! The consol

Behold! The console MMO hellscape!!

After the turn-in and subsequent new shiny armor reward, I decided to fly in for one more run-n-gun.  This time I was to track down some signal of some sort because blah blah blah Peter Dinklage droned at me.  That is one complaint that is absolutely right–Peter Dinklage’s performance as your accompanying AI, Ghost, is absolutely toothless.  It’s so phoned in you’d think he had lost a bet.  Whether he was given poor direction or the amount of fucks lessened with each zero added to his check is irrelevant.  As the chief voice giving you updates on the situation as well as lore on the game, he needed to perk it up and just failed to.

Chief of which being I can't take screenshots from my PS3

“Blah blah blurgh need to find out what they’re looking for…ugh, am I done yet?”

Shortly after arrival on Old Russia again, there was another public event, this time of the “Mass multiple people to kill an over-healthed big bad because that’s totes heroic, u gaiz”.  The event actually was rather long, and the enemy in question was kiting all four of us around to a fairly long stretch of the region. It was becoming close, as I was running out of ammo, right until one among our number had the bright idea to hop aboard his Sparrow mount and gun him into pieces.

It, sadly, took all of us an embarrassingly long time to think that one up.

After I followed Yawny the Bored Robot to two different scanning points, we tracked down the signal to a large warehouse.  As Ghost scanned the computer to source the signal, waves of enemies came pouring in.  This was one of the more intense firefights, as it mixed up melee, ranged, several lieutenant-style enemies and some stealthed baddies into the mix.  I had died on a couple of occasions, which was annoying as I had to spawn back to the checkpoint and face off again.  When I did succeed, though, it was a great feeling.  The firefight, the challenge, and especially the music all combined into a sublime little pile of combat.

623

My experience might have been enhanced, though…

Overall, this game has been a solid buy for me.  It’s not something I’d want to play for spans of longer than a couple of hours, but for those couple hours there is a very solid piece of FPS gaming going on here.  The fact that I’m a Hunter role doesn’t really seem to make a huge amount of difference except the fact that I can throw fire grenades….most of the time throwing them at myself….but the tree of abilities leads me to think that things will become very interesting very soon.  Shooting with a controller will always feel like I’m operating a motorized wheelchair with a turret sitting on top of it, but gunplay is tight and things are starting to come together.

I don’t think it’s worthy of such hype, but I also don’t feel it’s worthy of such immense rage either.  But then, I suppose we’re not all allowed to have nice things.

As an aside, I want to thank the Couch Podtatoes podcast for their spotlight on my blog.  I’m honored to have gotten a nod and also glad that one of my posts incited some conversation and thought.  Though I will have to wonder exactly why they wrote me as a woman on their show’s site.

Genuinely can't fathom why they'd think that.

Genuinely can’t fathom why they’d think that.

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