Square Enix is ruling October with a lot of great games. I would argue that they probably should have spaced their releases out to make 2016 seem like the year of Square Enix, but that aside yes, October has been awesome with their support thus far.
First of all I waited a whole year to play Rise of the Tomb Raider. I actively hated the previous games until the reboot in 2013 wherein I fell in love and that love transfers here. No it doesn’t do a lot new, but it’s still great. The same goes for Dragon Quest Builders. Yes it is basically Minecraft with a Dragon Quest skin, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a better Minecraft to me personally in that it gives me a purpose.
Plus there’s World of Final Fantasy to tackle at some point as well. The demo makes me believe the game has promise and reviews seem to be mostly positive too. Anyway if you want to hear me spout more on Rise of the Tomb Raider and Dragon Quest Builders then check out the accompanying video Qwiktros and then by all means pick up those games. They’re fantastic!
Today marks Frogger’s 35th Anniversary. It premiered on October 23, 1981 in American arcades and earlier that year for Japan. This green frog is one of the pillars of video game history even though he hasn’t had a great track record past his first few entries. Konami experimented and ultimately, well, you can see in my accompanying video retrospective. I don’t want to spoil anything. Enjoy!
Nintendo finally put to rest the mayhem after over a year of speculation and tons of rumors galore. Well, sort of. The Nintendo NX was unveiled to be the Nintendo Switch and mostly confirmed most of the leaks that have been popping up over the past year. It was only a four-minute preview, but Shay and I deeply analyzed it and gave our general reactions in a mini video podcast. Enjoy!
Let me set the record straight from the start. This is not going to be an article debating the merits of Final Fantasy against Paper Mario. Basically I’ve played a bit of both Paper Mario: Color Splash and World of Final Fantasy and I just kind of wanted to share my brief thoughts on each. One seems promising with a lighthearted tone and the other is a horrible, but beautiful piece of trash. I wonder if you can guess which is which before you hit play on the two accompanying videos. Enjoy!
In today’s video game culture Duke Nukem is kind of seen as a bad joke. The main reason is due in part because his last adventure, Duke Nukem Forever, took fourteen years to finally release wherein it was raked over the coals by the press. For myriad of reasons mainly theorizing that maybe Duke was never good to begin with, or at the very least the video game and general media market had changed from the 90s. Despite this setback Gearbox has brought forth a Remaster in order to test how good his best performance truly was.
Duke Nukem 3D originally released on January 29, 1996 on MS-DOS computers. It’s been ported about as many times as George Lucas has gone back and ruined the original cuts of Star Wars aka a lot. Instead of sequels, other than Forever, Duke Nukem 3D received several episode updates. This entry, Duke Nukem 3D 20th Anniversary World Tour, is a collection of all those episodes, upgraded to crisp HD visuals plus, amazingly, an actual new episode from members of the original team. That in it of itself is impressive and to Duke fans, an actual treat. However, I don’t think this game, or character, holds up.
I never grew up with PC first-person shooters, or for that matter, a PC in general. The first FPS I tackled in earnest was probably Medal of Honor: Frontline on PS2. That really doesn’t have a lot of merit to this review, but it’ll give some insight into my thoughts on the game’s structure. To be as blunt as Duke’s “jokes” are, it sucks. Levels are poorly designed similar to how Arcade developers made their experiences purposely hard in order to eat quarters. For Duke’s case, it was to elongate other wise short and simplistic levels by hiding key cards and objectives obtusely throughout stages. That and aliens and pig cops just kind of show up out of the blue to blast you to smithereens. It’s not so much difficult as it is an annoying process.
The thing I will praise for this game is the addition the rewind mechanic. If you are said blasted away, you can reverse time to any point in that level. Perhaps you only need ten seconds to change your outcome, or maybe there was an earlier spot that may prove more useful. It’s simple, but brilliant and more games should implement this feature. It may create some balancing issues old school fans may bark at, but who cares. Video games should try to be more open to a wider audience offering altering styles of play for all types. Options are great so good on you Duke. That’s probably the only time you’ll hear that non-sarcastically.
Duke Nukem 3D 20th Anniversary World Tour, if it isn’t obvious yet, is bad. I appreciate what the team did in this Remaster what with the visual boosts, new episode, and time functionality, but the core game itself just didn’t appeal to me. It’s bland and yet too chaotic to feel cohesive. Fans may dig it, but if you’re new to the series like me I suggest you stay clear. Sorry Mr. Nukem, but like I feel towards Sonic, I think it’s high time you retire and let your presence stay in the 90s.
Warhammer: The End Times Vermintide originally launched for PCs on October 23, 2015. Now, a year later, it’s getting ported to the PS4 with the game’s DLC packed in from day one. With that tid bit out of the way let’s get to the review at hand.
Essentially this is a Left 4 Dead style game, but instead of fighting hordes of zombies there’s an evil race of creepy anthropomorphic rats known as the Skaven. It takes place in the Warhammer universe, which to me, was a surprise since I thought everything within this world was set in the future with Space Marines and Orcs, but that’s just because I’ve only played Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine back in 2011. That has nothing to do with this review really, but I thought it was an interesting point to clarify. I am only one man trying to cover a sea of video games after all.
Anyway the game takes place in the city of Ubersreik where five travelers have come together to stop the Skaven horde: Bardin, Kerillian, Victor, Sienna, and Markus. They each have a melee and ranged weapon, which consumes ammo, except for Sienna who wields a fire staff. There are axes, swords, hammers, guns, and bows that all operate differently with some being fast, but weak and others strong, but slow. For example, Markus’ default hammer smashes a good area of enemies, but takes awhile to swing.
Melee weapons can be charged for strong attacks, items found throughout levels can be selected via the D-Pad such as a healing potion, and certain heroes have skills as well. Most characters can defend, but Bardin’s shield will hold out longer, Sienna can summon a circle of flame, but needs time to recharge, Victor can whip out another gun, Kerillian can zoom in with her bow, and Markus can use melee with his gun. However, the only hero that feels like they have a true perk is Sienna with her flame ring. Ultimately they kind of all play the same albeit with minute alterations and comes down to aesthetic differences when choosing who to play, which is fine, but disappointing as it doesn’t give the characters enough variety.
In the campaign you can group up with three other players be it random, or a customization match through a handful of levels. These missions include protecting a Wizard’s library to helping out a caravan from monsters. All in all it involves four people whaling on hordes of disgusting rats who give zombies a run for their money, as they’re faster and more intelligent. They go down pretty easily, but when you’re surrounded it can be tricky. I often found myself, even with others, outmatched by the waves of Skaven as Vermintide emphasizes melee weapons rather than ranged. There’s definitely a balancing issue at times.
Be that as it may I never found myself frustrated. To me the fun isn’t completing the game in a single, linear fashion, but like any good multiplayer match in say Battlefield, my enjoyment came from hoping online with some strangers and destroying as much vermin as possible for quick sessions. That said the process did become old fast even with the RPG elements. Whether a mission ends in success, or failure, you still get experience. Once leveled, it’ll grant bonuses to the bar hub, such as unlocking a forge for weapon customization, or creating new slots for accessories. Levels are spread throughout all characters and the only thing that is locked to a certain hero is loot, which is acquired through random dice games rewarded from success. It gave Vermintide a good progression loop, but not enough to elongate my playtime.
Warhammer: The End Times Vermintide is a satisfying Left 4 Dead experience bringing with it some great ideas to the table. The gameplay is solid, connections are fast, and the banter between charcters is cheesy yet charming. It lacks polish and a craving to stay with it for a prolonged amount of time, but sometimes fun doesn’t have to last forever in order to merit a good game. And that’s all there really is to it.
Video game fans are fantastic in myriad of ways. One of the coolest things I often drool over is hacks and mods. There are a lot of great ones still being developed for classics like Super Mario Bros. decades later. It highlights the dedicated associated with a lot of these games along with showcasing talent.
With that said, the NES Mini is almost here so I decided to check out some NES hacks based on classic titles like the aforementioned Mario. However as this is also October and Halloween is right around the corner, well, I wanted them to be kind of horrifying, but also erotic for Sexy Pixels. These ten hacks will borderline on offensive, trust me, but we found solace and joy anyhow. Enjoy!
GameType is a new feature I’ve been cooking up for a while now. Essentially I’m establishing it to look at an entire genre’s catalog of games on a variety of platformers. How many RPGs are on the Super Nintendo? What shooters are on the PS2? The list goes on. Not as history lessons per say like my retrospectives, but more as curiosity pieces.
To start I decided to looking at fighting games on the NES because the genre was basically established in 1976, which would then make this year their 40th Anniversary. Now the actual award of which game created the genre is debatable, but it was a good excuse as any to begin here on the NES. With all that said enjoy this small twelve game retrospective.
We’re at the last stretch of 2016 and boy is it going to be a fun three months. The fifteen games below are my most anticipated games for the rest of the year. The accompanying video is a review of the third quarter’s lineup. It was a little disappointing, but there were some nice gems in there as well. That’s all I have to say for now so enjoy!
Phew, September certainly was the month for delays. My most anticipated of the year, Final Fantasy XV, for example, didn’t come out and another long developed gem, The Last Guardian, slipped from its original date as well. Plus so many others. I guess September is the best time to announce these things for the big rush of Fall games, but it wasn’t entirely bad. Let’s review everything video game related last month from the news to all my terrific content. Enjoy!
News
Disney shut down Marvel’s Avengers Alliance
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero was delayed, canceling the last-gen versions in the process
Duke Nukem 3D is getting a new expansion for both PC and console versions called Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary Edition World Tour, due out October 11
Chroma Squad will release sometime in 2017 for PC, PS4, PS Vita, and Xbox One courtesy of Bandai Namco
Telltale’s next season of The Walking Dead will premiere in November
The Wii U version for Hyper Light Drifter was cancelled
Super Mario Run was announced for iOS due out in December for an unknown price
South Park: The Fractured But Whole has been delayed into early 2017
Digimon World: Next Order is getting localized for the West on both PS4 and PS Vita in early 2017
NIS America announced they’ll be localizing Birthdays the Beginning and GOD WARS: Future Past for early 2017
Bandai Namco will be releasing Dragon Ball Fusions on 3DS sometime this December
Blizzard is shutting down Battle.net, which has been around since 1996
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was delayed into 2018
Sony isn’t allowing mods to be supported for Fallout 4, or the upcoming Remaster of Skyrim on PS4
Titanfall: Frontline was announced as a card RPG for mobile devices
Wasteland 3 was announced with CO-OP
Nidhogg II was also announced and may support VR
Release Date Announcements
Shadow Warrior 2 10/13 (PC)
Batman: Return to Arkham 10/18 (PS4/XONE)
Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors 10/11 (Vita)
Lego Harry Potter Collection 10/8 (PS4)
Aragami 10/4 (PC/PS4)
Ride 2 2/14/17 (PC/PS4/XONE)
Assassin’s Creed; The Ezio Collection 11/15 (PS4/XONE)
Unforgiving Difficult: A Bastard’s Tale 10/4 (PS4)
Game Jurk 