Send the Clowns Away

Tags

aaa developers, anthem, anthem game, curse of osiris, destiny 2, developers, forsaken, game dev, game devs, looter shooter, MMO, multiplayer, online multiplayer, online shooter, shooter, the division, the division 2

Yesterday, I picked up The Division 2. Haven’t played it yet at the time of this writing, but I had some extra money to light up and I’ve been looking at it from the sidelines for a little while as something different to try out. Coincidentally, I had picked up Anthem just after it released and played that a fair bit, too, but also completely stopped.

What makes me think that The Division 2 will stay in my gaming rotation when Anthem fell away? There are a number of ideas, but chief among them is that even though I really do enjoy Anthem’s gameplay, I also really can’t bring myself to fire up a game when the developers are making clownshoe decisions. I have managed to be convinced to fall out of love with playing in a giant, pink, stompy robot suit, which isn’t a sentence I expected to type.

The Pink Cadillac, moments before it started collecting dust.

Singing the Anthem

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.

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

How Atlas Reactor Made Me Like PvP

Tags

arena, Atlas Reactor, MMO, pvp, shooter, tactics, Trion Worlds, turn-based

I don’t pretend to be very good at PvP. When it comes to dungeons or certain raids, I’ll become the linchpin or try like hell to refine my combat skills, but PvP has always completely eluded me. Rotations that I otherwise would have down complete are suddenly lost to me, and I turn in to a jittery mess.

So that’s why it’s such an amazing thing to me that Atlas Reactor has not only cleansed me a bit of those nerves, but also has made me actually want to engage in PvP.

Admittedly, controlling a pastel robot helps.

Overwatch Through Wolfy’s Eyes

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.

Also: Zarya.

Bright and Shiny

Tags

a green mushroom, assault android cactus, colors, fun, gaming, shooter, splatoon, whimsy

At long last, it is mine.  On the good grace of my husband (or in an attempt to shut me up I’m not quite sure yet), it is in my possession.

..hhnnnggGGGGHH!!

I first played this game several months back when it was doing a “Test Fire” to see if their servers could ha–oh who am I kidding?  I can’t even type that without rolling my eyes.  We ALL know that it was a sales beta.  Thing is, it worked–Splatoon is easily the most entertaining and fun multiplayer shooting game I have experienced on any platform, and after that “test”, I was hungry for more.

And one of the reasons for that is its color palette.

Make Me a MOBA

Tags

combat, Gigantic, MOBA, overwatch, pvp, shooter, team based

MOBA’s, like most PvP-related games, are one of those things that I watch from the outside looking in with a mixture of curiosity, jealousy and concern.  I have a weird compulsion to try one out but worries about both the behavior of myself and others as well as my own performance bringing down everything.

See, PvP things are one of those styles of game where I try it out, get annoyed, hate myself, ragequit, then come back to after a while to try again.  It’s the same thing I feel with strategy and bullet hell shooters.  I love to hate them.  It’s masochism.

“WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF?!”