The Division Review

Hmm, Black Friday aka “The Most Chaotic Day of the year”. A day in which so much money changes hands and merchandise is bought it is “Christmas” for business owners. Sadly for the world within, The Division, a world crafted by the late, great, Tom Clancy, Black Friday is now known as Day Zero. The day in which the virus broke out and ravaged the entire New York City metropolitan area. You're now one the many sleeper agents activated with the simple task of reclaiming back the city, finding out what happened to “Wave One”, and discovering the origins of the virus. Grab your go-bag and get out there!

I feel like The Division has some of its gameplay elements taken from other fellow Tom Clancy games like Ghost Recon with the advanced weaponry, Splinter Cell for it’s not very obvious “Last Known Location” mechanic, and Rainbow Six Vegas 1 & 2 as they utilize the cover based system, tagging systems, and usage of gadgets to kill enemies. This game is taking the formula and places them into a fairly solid MMORPG format and man is it enjoyable if you ask me. I clocked in numerous hours in the Alpha and both Betas and have logged in about 3 days of playing time in the full release, I have been having enormous amounts of fun running the streets of Manhattan assisting desperate citizens with my scavenged supplies, exploring contaminated zones, finding ECHOs, as well as slaying enemies out on the streets, inside the iconic Madison Square Garden and the UN Building (just to name a few places), collecting loot, purging the Dark Zone, and kicking ass and taking names! It's all been a rush for me, so much so, that took off a day from work and even ignored my girlfriend for 3 days, just so I can fully delve into the world and explore until my heart’s content.  

So I'm going to tell you my likes and dislikes about this game without sounding too much like a biased fanboy.

Let's start with the bad:

Early game is pretty much simply run and gun, this is so you can get acclimated to the game mechanics, but the AI feels a bit “dumb” as they lack tactical usage.

I hate the forced walking zone when you first enter into the Base of Operations. I don't understand why I can't just run through that area to get inside and get to what I want to get to.

Restock crates in the world don't restock your health packs, only in your base of operations, safe houses or Dark Zone checkpoints and safe houses.

Fast traveling to the base of operations places you across the street from the entrance and not inside your base.

When in a party you can't see your allies inside your base of operations, but you can see everyone at the initial starting camp and have the ability to recruit other players to join up with.

Extractions should allow for more than 4 people to extract items, at least 6-8 (unless this is upgraded in higher areas).

How easy it is to be baited into going Rogue with people diving in front of you as you’re trying to kill a boss.

The Phoenix coin nerf (at the time of writing)

Not being able to inspect players gear.

The bosses are just slow moving bullet sponges that don't utilize much tactics, just rely on the heavy damage they dish out.

No real boss variety they usually just hide in cover (both mobile and stationary), have HEAVY shields, increased damage, or lots of more annoying mobs. There’s no multi-tiered system where they respond to you different when they lose shields or when they’re being pushed back. Hope to see more variety like when you fight Gen. Bliss in the future.

Now for a decent list of good things:

Lots of loot to find in game, from crates found in the world, the guaranteed item after completion of a quest; drops from enemies; rewards for helping citizens; buying them vendors; stealing them from players in the Dark Zone, and end-game dailies. There’s many of ways to get good gear.

4 man parties AND matchmaking for BOTH free roam, missions, and DZ..

Good in game chat system.

Mods, who doesn’t enjoy making their favorite weapon (for the time being) more bad-ass by decking it out with the things you want to have. I usually slap a silencer on everything so I don’t pull aggro when I’m in the field.

Story missions feel like epic instances or dungeons. They’re multi-layered and are engaging and fun.

Talents on gear, this is standard in an MMO but it’s nice to get a good weapon or gear with some good stats and extra talents to make you more unique, but be ready to yell at the Gods of RNG to get that “perfect” roll.

Fast traveling to a party member, which is a clutch remedy for going to new places you haven’t touched yet and when you get stuck.

Detailed overlay of base at the entrance. I like that you can see a overall percentage of how much of your base is unlocked and such, still hate the SUPER SLOW walking speed.

Seamless transition into the story missions. You don’t have to wait at a loading screen to get into story missions because they’re fully interactable. For example, for the MSG you just walk up to the door and the charges blow out the boards and you can then proceed to clearing out the enemies.

Not a lot of loading screens; only time there’s a loading screen is when you’re matchmaking and you have to move to the host’s instance; loading into the game or when you’re fast traveling.

Weapons react differently; you can’t expect to shoot an assault rifle accurately at long range as you could a marksman, just like you can’t expect to have a high success rate of hip firing with an LMG as you would an SMG.

Skill flexibility, I love the fact that you can change your skills on the fly (granted they’re not on cooldown) to allow you to change tactics on the fly when need be. This helps allow anyone to swap into the role they deem fit or is needed without having to have multiple alts (unless you enjoy making those).

Lots of cosmetics, which you can view in real-time and show off the new digs to friends or even work on coordinating with each other and feel like you’re apart of a guild or something.

I could possibly continue this pro and con list for a long time but let's get to more interesting tidbits about the game.

The game play is up first. The Division feels like a revamped version of the cover system you see in Rainbow Six Vegas 2, which is another Tom Clancy high action third person cover shooter, but has to slow itself down being that it has to be balanced due to no ability to change difficulty. The movements feel nice, the moving to cover is good looking as well. I wish however that the vault animation was a bit more fluid and realistic. It's weird seeing your character only at times jump over things like an actual human, with their free hand supporting weight as they vault and then when they drop from high places they don't roll out to reduce damage? I mean they are trained agents, you'd figure they would know how to roll out to reduce impact on their knees. The way they move with their weapons is nice to and the running is nice. I do hate that armor feels practically useless being that you're mainly going to negate or mitigate damage is by being in cover, but if you get outside of that, you practically get chewed up faster than the mobs do, especially on HARD. That does break realism especially being that we are wearing armor after all.

Graphics are gorgeous on console, hop into the visual options and ramp “Sharpen Image” to 100 and enjoy the game.  Of course they shall glisten and pop even more on the pc due to texture files being able to be manipulated and I can see pc with a 4k patch within a year, but overall they do well. I enjoy the attention to detail that's provided in the game. I love watching the fires and then seeing things frozen over after a wicked random snowstorm blows in and changes everything.

There's a good amount of content offered in game that can entertain a casual player for about a good solid hours but once you hit level cap of 30 in pve; complete side missions; run the story missions on NORMAL and HARD; work towards the level cap of 99 in the DZ (granted you don't die too much) you hit the typical grind for better gear drops, phoenix credits from bosses (if level 30), and/or money to enhance weaponry and gear. This can be a bore for most gamers who don't see the appeal in grinding, though that's to be expected in any MMORPG with loot and shops. There is an abundance of collectibles to find, they give a little experience and some lore that can be overlooked except by the most dedicated of players who want to learn everything they can about the game world.

Overall The Division does a decent job at filling a void that was left by Defiance, Destiny, and Firefall, for me. It could be because of the more realistic approach to the genre and the fact that I'm a resident of the state of NY. It could be because I'm a fan of the games of the TC franchise, but from playing the game I see myself playing this for a good while until they run out of substantial content, which I don't see happening for the foreseeable future. The game plays nicely, and I've been enjoying the fact of leaving my mark upon the history of the desecrated NYC and saving lives by taking them, yeah I know super cliche.

Firefall: Razor's Edge

Most people have only heard of Red 5 and their flagship MMORPG Firefall due to the whole fiasco of their employees not being paid, but let's switch gears to something more positive and enjoyable. The new expansion to come out, Razor's Edge. To be quite honest the word "expansion" doesn't even really give the proper emphasis on what they actually did to the game, so we'll call it "Reconstruction". For the last few years the game itself was nothing more than a decent open world shooter, but it lacked much content besides farming resources from the planet via giant machines called, Thumpers. They did start to add in story elements but they felt rushed and smack together and lacked enjoyment. Now enters update 16, Razor's Edge, this update brought a lot of new things to the table and gives me hope of seeing Firefall become a proper enjoyable open-world third person shooter MMORPG that they had sold to many people oh so many years ago. Let's begin the breakdown of this newest update.

Pros: 

- A much better structured story-line
- Weekly/Daily bounties
- Endgame raids (Titan Hunts)
- Gear variety
- Classes feel more polished and balanced
- More frequent dynamic open world events
- Mods
- Upgrading feel worthwhile

Cons:

- Still quite a few technical/graphical issues
- Cut-scenes are out of sync at times
- Campaign quest unlocks are not properly implemented and explained
- No crafting until further notice
- Silent protagonist

Story: 

The story has had some overhauling as of late, soo much so that even high level players, such as myself, had to restart the entire campaign from the beginning. It's a nice take on reintroducing the story, but I do have one gripe with this move, the missions drop your level to fit within the level range and thus also drops gear at that level (which is otherwise useless). The story goes as you play the silent protagonist known as, Ares 35, and you're subordinate/handler, Aero, must be connected to your thoughts somehow being that you never utter a word of dialogue in game. She just seems to know exactly what you're thinking and says it for you. The main focus of the story is that there's an alien storm called, The Melding, that has been covering the planet and it's up to you to help push it back by defeating the alien race known as, The Chosen. The story comes off as your basic hero storyline, but Red 5 does through in some creative flair to keep the story from falling flat due to boredom. They've even managed to have some pretty memorable characters sprinkled in the story too, which is a very good thing in an MMO's story to have.

Gameplay:

The one thing that Firefall has kept well polished is the gameplay, whether you're shooting Chosen or whatever decides to trigger hostile on you, the guns feel good when you tap the button and watch their health drop. The movement is also pretty good and the environment uses the vertical and horizontal spaces very well. Your jetpack allows you to reach high places and has enough charge to get you up to a decent height before running out. The gliding is a lot of fun, especially if you can get up to a very high elevation, you can glide for a good 2-3 minutes, real time. The physics in the game for gliding and falling are also pretty realistic, if you come in too fast and crash  your glider, you can die or suffer massive damage, the same can be said about falling from high locations too. The driving aspect could still use some work, being that the vehicles are soo bulky it's a pain to drive them to fast because they're quite horrible with turning. The AI in the game could still use some work, because really all they do is run at you and shoot, then run away, then return back. Higher level enemies only have larger health and increased damage. This "bullet sponge" seems to be the most common way to deal with "difficulty" scaling it seems in this genre.

Content:

As with any MMOs the story isn't the only thing that most people join in a game for. As to be expected there is a fair decent amount of content packed in this game. Of course you can follow the campaign which does offer a mix of instanced missions and "overworld" missions.

You can run the challenge missions (once they're unlocked) to have a chance at getting some better gear. This mode can be played at it's unlock level, or you can go "Hardcore" which is only for level 40+ players.

You have bounties which come in 3 flavors, Quick, which are easy bounties to claim, but give very little items; Daily which require a bit more work and give some green or higher drops, and then you have Weekly which need more work and give you some blue or higher drops. Once you complete a bounty, you gain "Bounty Points" that stack up to a final cap of 10k "Bounty Points". Once you hit the mark, you unlock an epic chest with some really nice goodies hidden inside.

You also have ARES Missions, which are pretty much like dailies with some story to them at times.

You can run around and do some Wandering Missions, or stumble across a dynamic mission that can alter the area of the overworld, if left unchecked.

Titan Hunt is Red 5's take on raids in which you slay a Titan level beast in search of some of the best loot in game currently.

But if your need to slay others is more your style, you have access to both open world pvp and instanced pvp to whet your appetite.

Overall:

I feel that Red 5 is definitely making moves with Firefall in the right direction. I do hope that they keep adding in things to make the game more fun and hopefully even change up the meta from the dull resource grind and frame leveling. I do hope they continue to advance the story in more original ways to keep it engaging and keep the content flowing. So with that said, if you're looking for a pretty fun sci-fi third person shooter with some good gameplay I would recommend giving Firefall a shot. It's a free-to-play game, so you don't have really anything to lose by giving it a whirl. Just make sure you take your time in the game and learn the mechanics and KILL EVERYTHING that turns red on your screen, chances are it will drop something useful and give you experience (which is also useful). Good luck out there Ares 35!

Brawlhalla Beta Review

An enjoyable PC (soon to be on the PS4) brawler that embodies the thrill and excitement and creates a great game to play with friends both locally and online.

Pros:
- Great gameplay
- Expanding roster
- Good map selection
- Local co-op
- Native controller support
- Variety of game modes

Cons:
- Bots difficulty is to easy even on "Hard"

Graphics:
A visually beautiful game that has a great art style, with a great level of detail and polish. This is displayed from the character models to the map design.

Music: 

Each map has its own unique song associated to it, and fits the "theme" of the map as well.

Content:
Large roster that will continue to grow (had 3 new champions added in since I've been playing), nice amount of maps, various game modes for offline and custom, along with ranked and unranked online.

 

Gameplay:
An amazingly well crafted game that shows that an indie company can craft a great brawler to contend with the giants. The game runs smoothly at 60 FPS, rarely experience lag, and the online community is enjoyable. It can be deemed a more competitive game with the Ranked system that allows for Singles and Doubles matches to be played and you work your way up from Bronze up to Diamond.

Overall:
If you've been looking for a PC game that does have some influence from the larger games in the genre (i.e. Super Smash Bros.) I'd definitely suggest you give it a shot. It's free to play, but it does have a cash shop to buy champions, skins, and colors. They do have a similar package to SMITE in which you drop $20 you get all current and future characters that are released. So if you want a good competitive game that does have some influences from Super Smash Bros and don't want or have a Wii U, this is a GREAT alternative to pick up.

Krosmaster Arena

Krosmaster Arena

Krosmaster Arena is the online version of the PvP-centric strategy board game under the same name from Anikama. You battle in terms of strategy and placement with a team of up to 5 Krosmasters to secure victory either through a combination of elimination and/or attrition.

Pros:

- Large rotating roster of Krosmasters

- Skill based gameplay

- Adventure/Arena Modes

- Colorful palette

Cons:

- Difficult learning curve

- Unbalanced Krosmasters

Graphics: The game has a very nice art style that does relate to a degree in the 3D space. You can understand who your character is via the nice display of portraits each Krosmaster has associated to them. The arenas in which you battle upon also have a nice color palette that gives off a peaceful vibe even though you’re in the thick of battle.

Gameplay: Though it is a strategy based game, it does move fairly well even when you’ve got about 5 Krosmasters on the field to move, attack, and collect coins with. Each master has a set amount of movement points (usually 3) and actions points (usually 6) in which they can set themselves up to attack, collect, or escape from their opponents. You have about 60-ish seconds to complete all the required actions per master. Do to the large map and permanent decisions players will take their time before committing to their actions to keep from making mistakes. Due to this matches tend to run on average between 20-35 minutes depending on skill and roster.

Music: The music when you’re in battle has a peaceful tone to it, which allows you to not feel so tense when you’re in the process of moving or waiting. This does help because when matches get down to the wire, having added stress of the music doesn’t help you keep a clear head and make rational decisions.

Overall: Krosmaster Arena is an enjoyable experience especially if you have a love for either strategy games or a fan of the board game. I would recommend you give the game a shot and see what you think of it.

Starbreak Beta Review

Starbreak

Crunchy Games' browser Roguelike MMORPG that is brutal as it is fun.

PROS:

- 4 unique classes; Shells

- Procedurally generated dungeons

- Stat upgrade system

- Challenging bosses

- Skill based combat

- Permadeath

- Personal loot

CONS:

- Lack of story

- Health packs are scarce

- Some attacks still damage you after their frames end

- Socially awkward environment

GRAPHICS: Elaborately detailed dungeons greatly capture the area in which you're combating in. The first map, Fire Forest, has lush greenery and dangerous flora and fauna. Whereas in the Fungus Mines, the grays and blues and weird puss-filled walls and mutant mushrooms hearken slight discomfort.

MUSIC: The scores used on the map are great. While you explore and eradicate the aliens from the maps you're greeted with music that doesn't deliver a sense of urgency, but once you enter the realm of the Boss, the music picks up to a more dramatic scale that triggers a slight feeling of "on edge" that something seriously dangerous is up ahead.

STORY: The brief introduction tutorial to the game mechanics sadly doesn't tell you much of the story of what the main game's focus is. You just play it, die, and then become a "Spirit" and possess "Shells" to I guess get revenge on the ones who destroyed a planet, possibly your home planet. It's all very vague, which I feel needs to be fleshed out.

CONTENT: Your main sense of content comes from the large array of maps and all the loot you can find on the maps. In terms of items, if you find something truly awesome it's best to just warp back home and stash it, lest you die on the map and lose everything courtesy of the permadeath troll.

GAMEPLAY: Starbreak plays amazingly for a browser game, especially when you happen to join into a dungeon with upwards of 10+ people all hunting for loot. Though I have a few issues with some of the attack animations, it's still a great experience.

RATINGS:

GRAPHICS: 10/10: For a browser based game, the game displays and plays beautifully even with a screen cluttered with 10+ bodies all trying to claim victory.

MUSIC: 9/10: The music is very good, when exploring it's mellow and enjoyable; when it's time to take down the boss, it changes to more intense music.

STORY: 2/10: Aside from the brief "tutorial " when you first begin, the story is nonexistent and leaves quite a bit of unanswered questions behind. I mean leaving the player to craft a story is nice, but I would've loved more substance.

CONTENT: 7/10: In terms of gear there's a lot to gather. The amount of maps gives you something to work towards exploring (granted you don't die too much and reset your progress). Outside loot and maps, you don't have much else aside the social hub.

GAMEPLAY: 10/10: Really enjoyable to play and with a controller it feels even better than keyboard  (granted some keys seem weird, but you can adjust key bindings.) When you get into a map with a large group it can be fun and chaotic for all the right reasons.

OVERALL: 7.6/10: A fun and challenging roguelike. It's biggest flaw is the lack of story and a few technical issues (or could be my lack of skill). The game as a whole is solid and death does make your soul cry especially once you get some good gears.

Massive Chalice Review

Massive Chalice is the latest entry from the develops Double Fine; whom we've known to make some very unique and entertaining games. This one is like XCOM and the Sims had a badass child and decided add in some gods and a literal Massive Chalice for flavor.

Pros:
+ Create unique lineages
+ Various class types
+ Relic Weapons
+ Aging System
+ Random Encounters
+ Enjoyable art style
+ Good Challenge
+ Unique Personality Traits
+ Fertility System
+ Variety of Enemies
+ RPG Elements

Cons:
- Permadeath
- Certain enemies can make or break your team

Massive Chalice is a nice refreshing take on the RTS style game with its unique 300 year world story and it's vibrant art style. It gives you a nice palette to gaze upon when you're in the midst of protecting your land from the invading enemies known as the Cadence. The game plays well and has a relatively small learning curve, especially if you've played games such as Shadowrun Returns or XCOM. It does offer many hours of strategic game-play from navigation through the Fog of War, the environmental hazards, and the enemies you encounter. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who's curious and for those who have an Xbox One, it's free for the month of June, so why not give it a go.

Now to begin the breakdown:

PROS:

+Create Unique Lineages: In this game, to begin your story (after the prologue/tutorial mission) you have to choose two of your warriors to become the Regent (Ruler) and Partner (Spouse). I use the term "spouse" because they do allow same-sex marriages in game, just that they can't produce children naturally, but you can adopt children for them to raise. So either way it can be a Win-Win scenario.

+Various Class types: There are a good number of class archetypes that you play as in Massive Chalice (9 to be exact).You have your three basic classes, Caberjack (melee class), Hunter (ranged class), Alchemist (melee/ranged/thrower hybrid class). Then you have hybrids that can be unlocked through having two of three classes mating and creating a baby of the new class.

+Aging System: I have yet to come across many games that have your characters age (except Fable). In this game when your character ages through different "stages" in life certain stats are increased while others are decreased. When a character is born they actually age along your timeline and once they reach the age of 15 they can begin to fight. Some of your heroes can live and die either late in life or early in life, depending on traits gained from bloodline and randomness as well. Also once a character dies of old age and they were a valiant fighter the can leave behind a relic for their lineage to utilize.

+Relic Weapons: These gems are truly unique to the game for they can ONLY be created/discovered when one of your great fighters dies and leaves behind their legacy in the form of a really awesome weapon. These weapons have higher stats and  can only be given to a member of the lineage, and once all members of that lineage die, the weapon is placed in a tomb and is no longer able to be used ever again in the game.

+Random Encounters: I call these encounters side missions just for ease of understanding, but that's incorrect to call them. Random encounters are exactly as they sound, they happen randomly while moving through your timeline. Upon triggering one you can either choose to quell your curiosity or you could decide to ignore it all together. There's a very big Risk/Reward at play when you come across these. Sadly for me, all of my encounters have ended in disasters.

+Art Style: The style of the game is very nice and basic. The geometry on the terrain isn't over done, but the style of the characters are very quite unique in of itself. I personally enjoy looking at the terrain while I have my characters move around it, which has resulted in me having some unfortunate blunders.

+Good Challenge: This game even on "Normal" gives you a good challenge in which the weight of each of your moves could either make or break the dynamic of your team. Your moves are permanent (like most RTS) so you must be very cautious and calculating because once you commit, that's it.

+Personality Traits: These traits are random to adults you can save or children you adopt. As for the children you produce, the traits of the Regents' Bloodline comes from the parents. So there's a good chance to get those good stats, but also be weary that you will also get some negative stats as well. They have to keep it balanced, so you can't become an overpowered killing machine until you die at the ripe age of 81 (though it is possible, I had one character do that and dropped me my a beastly Relic Weapon, he shall be missed *tear tear*).

+Fertility System: Now when you're trying to make babies in this game, there's a fertility system in place to let you know how "likely" a couple is to produce a new child. There's varying levels from Very High to Infertile. This will greatly affect your lineage's ability to survive, because once that lineage ends, that's the end of that line and you must create a new one.

+Enemies: There are a good variety of enemies that each have their own unique perks. Lapses when they hit steal 150 exp per hit AND they can delevel your character if you're hit enough times. Wrinklers have the ability to age your heroes by 5 years per hit; Cradles spawn Seeds (the basic enemy in the game) per turn and spawns 3 more when they're killed.

+RPG Elements: The game does have a RPG system in place where your character levels once you hit the level cap and as you level you do unlock skills that help make your heroes more versatile and powerful.

CONS:

-Permadeath: I put this on the con list because I hate when I lose my highly favored badass to age or a mistake that I made while out in the field, and when they die all I can do is look at their bodies lying on the unforgiving ground, never to be able to fight again.

-Enemies: This also falls on the cons because of the Lapses. These enemies when you encounter a large number of them, can truly destroy your team because if they hit you enough times, not only do they damage your heroes, but the experience steal is also even more harsh than any other enemy in the game. I'm not asking for a nerf on them, just that they can be very damaging to a team that just leveled up.

Blade and Soul Coming to the West

As I know many of you have probably already heard, but just in case you didn't, NCSoft is FINALLY (after many years of pleading to them to release this game to the West) has it been announced that we shall be getting the heavy stylized MMORPG.

I personally am happy to get my hands on this game, being that I've been following the game through multiple mediums, from YouTube to Twitch. I think NCSoft finally decided to make this move being that there are quite a few other "action" MMORPGs on the horizon that I hope shall be coming out over the next several months (Bless, Black Desert, The Repopulation, Cabal II, are on my top list).

This is a very much appreciated welcoming, but I sadly think we're really only getting this game being that Wildstar didn't take off like they had hoped it would. Yet, I'm not knocking Wildstar, it's a fun game honestly, but to many of us who've been wanting to have that BNS itch scratched, it isn't satisfying enough for us.

There are some pretty sweet features coming along with the game's release and I hope it shall have the servers to handle the large influx of players jumping on this game, once an official release date is issued.

Features:
24 player dungeon system
Large amount of outfits
A fairly well written story
Wall running
Gliding
Air Running
Water Sprinting
Skill-based PvP (Need good twitch skills)
4 Races
6 classes
Uncensored Outfits
Guild/Faction PvP
Wardrobe System
Enhancement System, Bopae
Achievements
Crafting System
Weapon Upgrades
No Stamina/Fatigue system to allow unlimited playtime

This list is really exciting and has me anxious to know when we shall be able to play it, because I've been dying to play an Assassin Jin, for the last 5 years now.

Also sign-up for Newsletter, there's supposed to be a CBT coming this summer, and the launch window is this winter (if they stick to it, they should get some good numbers, due to holiday season)

There shall be a reveal Stream tomorrow at 10amPDT/1pmEST, tune in!