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.