I have picked up a game called Arena of Valor on the Switch. It's from the huge Chinese game company Tencent, and it's basically a League of Legends clone meant for mobile phones, but now ported to the Switch, and so playable with a controller. It's a lot of fun, actually, and distills a lot of what makes games like LoL and Dota so much fun, which effectively makes it more accessible. You don't have to think much about skills or gear you buy, and matches rarely seem to go to twenty minutes, even. I could do with some improvements to the UI and UX, but this is a very good start.
This past weekend I also made a little progress in Shovel Knight, defeating one of the mini-boss guys on the map, and buying some new armor at an armorer.
I also played a couple of matches of Fortnite, also on Switch, just to see what was up with how the map has changed lately.
I continue to practice my Spelunky runs, and to make progress through Red Dead Redemption, as well.
Showing posts with label Fortnite. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fortnite. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Gaming While Abroad 2018
Having the Switch has been a real blessing in terms of the breadth and depth of experience available to play while way from home. I would never have thought to be able to take with me games like Fortnite, Bayonetta, Breath of the Wild, or the hottest new JRPG on the scene, Octopath Traveler, in the days of even the Vita or 3DS.
Much of my game time in Japan this year was spent with those, but I also checked in on a few others, including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (for the kids, mostly), Shovel Knight, and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.
I took my 3DS along for the trip with the express purpose of playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, and I did just that. I got about 3 hours or so in. So far, so good. the dungeon exploration is reminiscent of Etrian Odyssey, though thankfully without the need to manually draw in features on the map.
I thought I might like to play some Rocket League, but my wifi speeds are apparently not sufficient for it to work well via the Steam Link on my TV, so I guess I will have to keep that bounded within the four sides of my desktop monitor for the time being.
Much of my game time in Japan this year was spent with those, but I also checked in on a few others, including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (for the kids, mostly), Shovel Knight, and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon.
I took my 3DS along for the trip with the express purpose of playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, and I did just that. I got about 3 hours or so in. So far, so good. the dungeon exploration is reminiscent of Etrian Odyssey, though thankfully without the need to manually draw in features on the map.
I thought I might like to play some Rocket League, but my wifi speeds are apparently not sufficient for it to work well via the Steam Link on my TV, so I guess I will have to keep that bounded within the four sides of my desktop monitor for the time being.
Monday, June 25, 2018
Shooter McWeekend
I was bitten by the shooter bug this weekend.
I woke up Saturday and played a little Quake: Champions, and I would return to it late Sunday night after podcasting. Champions has the unparalleled feel of the original Quake game, and is a pretty casual and accessible shooter, being the basics of the genre as it emerged, and nothing like a lot of the more modern games which feature things such as cover, destructible environments, vehicles, and even reloading. I've had a good time playing the game so far, and I think I'll continue to do so. I've somehow managed to be the top scorer on my team in two of the four matches I've played. Matches seem to either go 10 minutes or until one team gets 75 kills. The mode I have been playing so far is four-on-four. I have one character unlocked aside from the Slipgate Marine, an alien warlord called Scalebearer, whose active ability and starting armor value I prefer, I think.
On Sunday morning, I thought I would check in on Call of Duty mutliplayer. However, no one is playing Call of Duty 2 online these days, so instead I decided to check out the campaign mode. I played the first 3-4 missions as a Russian in Stalingrad, and it was good fun, if a very simple game at its core. I don't think I'll bother going back to it, when there are so many other Call of Duty games to choose from. I have World at War still sitting untouched, and I would bet there are still people playing the first Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare online, as well.
Later Sunday, before going out for the day, I thought I would knock another off my backlog: Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity. I played the first mission of the first episode, and it was cool. This may be a little more in line with the original game than the first mission pack, Scourge of Armagon.
Finally, Sunday afternoon, as a reward for finishing my chores for the day, I let myself try out Fortnite Battle Royale (now just Fortnite) for the Switch. I really like the game on that platform, maybe even more than on the PC. It's much less of a pain to run endless distances with an analog stick than by holding down W, and it seems easier to quickly swap to build mode, as well. I think it's a good fit for the system, but what's not? The only drawback I see is that the Switch requires Wi-Fi, and unfortunately does not use LTE, and so it's portable playability is hampered. I'll play more of the game this way.
I woke up Saturday and played a little Quake: Champions, and I would return to it late Sunday night after podcasting. Champions has the unparalleled feel of the original Quake game, and is a pretty casual and accessible shooter, being the basics of the genre as it emerged, and nothing like a lot of the more modern games which feature things such as cover, destructible environments, vehicles, and even reloading. I've had a good time playing the game so far, and I think I'll continue to do so. I've somehow managed to be the top scorer on my team in two of the four matches I've played. Matches seem to either go 10 minutes or until one team gets 75 kills. The mode I have been playing so far is four-on-four. I have one character unlocked aside from the Slipgate Marine, an alien warlord called Scalebearer, whose active ability and starting armor value I prefer, I think.
On Sunday morning, I thought I would check in on Call of Duty mutliplayer. However, no one is playing Call of Duty 2 online these days, so instead I decided to check out the campaign mode. I played the first 3-4 missions as a Russian in Stalingrad, and it was good fun, if a very simple game at its core. I don't think I'll bother going back to it, when there are so many other Call of Duty games to choose from. I have World at War still sitting untouched, and I would bet there are still people playing the first Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare online, as well.
Later Sunday, before going out for the day, I thought I would knock another off my backlog: Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity. I played the first mission of the first episode, and it was cool. This may be a little more in line with the original game than the first mission pack, Scourge of Armagon.
Finally, Sunday afternoon, as a reward for finishing my chores for the day, I let myself try out Fortnite Battle Royale (now just Fortnite) for the Switch. I really like the game on that platform, maybe even more than on the PC. It's much less of a pain to run endless distances with an analog stick than by holding down W, and it seems easier to quickly swap to build mode, as well. I think it's a good fit for the system, but what's not? The only drawback I see is that the Switch requires Wi-Fi, and unfortunately does not use LTE, and so it's portable playability is hampered. I'll play more of the game this way.
Monday, April 2, 2018
The End for These
Every now and then I revisit a game that put me off previously, or that I'm kind of on the fence on, and decide that it really just is not for me. I had around of these over the weekend:
Hearthstone - I thought to go back and give it another shot after a long time away, but it does definitely still turn me away with the nature of how random and haphazardly balanced many of the game mechanics and card abilities feel. I also really don't want to put in the time it would take to learn all the cards and combos I would need to get good, or to go about acquiring all of the cards to use, either. I am looking for something like a deck building card game to fit into my life, but this is not it.
Destiny 2 - I thought I might like to spend some more time in this game after recent updates, but just tooling around it a little the other night was enough to make me certain I had no interest in continuing to try to enjoy Bungie's latest, beyond completing the base campaign. At least not now. I might have been hasty to uninstall, but really I do think it's for the best. This game is nothing but a treadmill in the end.
Fortnite Battle Royale - I've had a fun enough time playing about 30 rounds of it, but I don't feel any drive to play to win, and I don't really care for the moment-to-moment gameplay now that I've seen most of the map. I get why people like the game, if not quite why it's hit such a critical mass lately. I just don't personally want to play it anymore. I'm really hoping for this mode to be dropped into another game I like and for it to be paired with some kind of interesting strategic progression or something I could sink my teeth into.
On a separate note, I my have a new beginning for an old favorite, Final Fantasy Tactics. I found a fan patch that would take the PSX version of the game, which is technically superior to the PSP port, and inject into it the new and far superior translation from said PSP port. Through the magic of emulation, this best-of-both-worlds amalgamation is playable on my PC. I would no doubt already be deep into the game once more, but for the fact that I am trying to finish off Tactics Ogre at the moment, as well. I do look forward to eventually playing through the game again in this theoretically optimal incarnation.
Hearthstone - I thought to go back and give it another shot after a long time away, but it does definitely still turn me away with the nature of how random and haphazardly balanced many of the game mechanics and card abilities feel. I also really don't want to put in the time it would take to learn all the cards and combos I would need to get good, or to go about acquiring all of the cards to use, either. I am looking for something like a deck building card game to fit into my life, but this is not it.
Destiny 2 - I thought I might like to spend some more time in this game after recent updates, but just tooling around it a little the other night was enough to make me certain I had no interest in continuing to try to enjoy Bungie's latest, beyond completing the base campaign. At least not now. I might have been hasty to uninstall, but really I do think it's for the best. This game is nothing but a treadmill in the end.
Fortnite Battle Royale - I've had a fun enough time playing about 30 rounds of it, but I don't feel any drive to play to win, and I don't really care for the moment-to-moment gameplay now that I've seen most of the map. I get why people like the game, if not quite why it's hit such a critical mass lately. I just don't personally want to play it anymore. I'm really hoping for this mode to be dropped into another game I like and for it to be paired with some kind of interesting strategic progression or something I could sink my teeth into.
On a separate note, I my have a new beginning for an old favorite, Final Fantasy Tactics. I found a fan patch that would take the PSX version of the game, which is technically superior to the PSP port, and inject into it the new and far superior translation from said PSP port. Through the magic of emulation, this best-of-both-worlds amalgamation is playable on my PC. I would no doubt already be deep into the game once more, but for the fact that I am trying to finish off Tactics Ogre at the moment, as well. I do look forward to eventually playing through the game again in this theoretically optimal incarnation.
Monday, March 26, 2018
Very Much Timely, Very Much Not
The hottest new thing in the gaming zeitgeist at the moment is Fortnite Battle Royale. Epic announced Fortnite what must have been 5 or 7 years ago, and it languished in development hell for ages until Player Unknown's Battlegrounds found huge success last year, when Fortnite quickly bit off that same idea and recreated it within their game. It's been a massive success. They even got me to give it a shot, which is nothing short of miraculous, being that I had to download Epic's own separate game client to give it a shot.
In short, I think Fortnite Battle Royale is a pretty solid and fun multiplayer game mode. It's a very good fit for me, particularly because of the solo mode where the game is everyone-for-themself. That said, there's a lot of downtime in the game as I have played it thus far. I have been electing to drop into various areas around the map, usually away from others, in order to scrounge materials and an arsenal before making my way to wherever the shrinking circle is. I'm usually careful to keep a low profile until I have seen someone I can get the drop on. This means a lot of running behind cover and scouting out a location before venturing in. Sometimes a match can be 10 or 15 minutes of this before ending in just few short seconds of a firefight, or being sniped from afar with no warning whatsoever.
It's been fun to play some, and I'll keep dipping in for now, but it's hard to say how long it might hold my attention. I've made it into the top 10 a few times, as high as 5th place once.
I wanted to knock a game off of my backlog, and I was up to Q in the rotation, so I went with Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon. I'm on to the third level now, I believe. I keep hopping back and forth between this, the main game, and DOPA, the mission pack Machine Games put out a couple of years ago to celebrate Quake's 20th anniversary. I absolutely love Quake. These new missions feel pretty good for the most part, as well. They have added some environmental puzzles and elements to the game, and a few new weapons and enemies as well. I don't really have much of anything to complain about with what I have seen. Quake is great, and more of it is always a good thing, as far as I can tell. At some point maybe I'll get around to playing other games in the weird series.
I have also continued to make some progress through Tactics Ogre. I have taken Denam and his band up to chapter 4 in the campaign now. It appears he and his sister Catiua are secretly the heirs to some title somewhere or something. I don't quite follow the story, but then this campaign has been in progress since around 2010. My plan from here is to go find the next story mission and then grind if need be to finish it. Once my characters are closer to level 20, I can go to the pirate island in the southwest to do the optional mission there.
In short, I think Fortnite Battle Royale is a pretty solid and fun multiplayer game mode. It's a very good fit for me, particularly because of the solo mode where the game is everyone-for-themself. That said, there's a lot of downtime in the game as I have played it thus far. I have been electing to drop into various areas around the map, usually away from others, in order to scrounge materials and an arsenal before making my way to wherever the shrinking circle is. I'm usually careful to keep a low profile until I have seen someone I can get the drop on. This means a lot of running behind cover and scouting out a location before venturing in. Sometimes a match can be 10 or 15 minutes of this before ending in just few short seconds of a firefight, or being sniped from afar with no warning whatsoever.
It's been fun to play some, and I'll keep dipping in for now, but it's hard to say how long it might hold my attention. I've made it into the top 10 a few times, as high as 5th place once.
I wanted to knock a game off of my backlog, and I was up to Q in the rotation, so I went with Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon. I'm on to the third level now, I believe. I keep hopping back and forth between this, the main game, and DOPA, the mission pack Machine Games put out a couple of years ago to celebrate Quake's 20th anniversary. I absolutely love Quake. These new missions feel pretty good for the most part, as well. They have added some environmental puzzles and elements to the game, and a few new weapons and enemies as well. I don't really have much of anything to complain about with what I have seen. Quake is great, and more of it is always a good thing, as far as I can tell. At some point maybe I'll get around to playing other games in the weird series.
I have also continued to make some progress through Tactics Ogre. I have taken Denam and his band up to chapter 4 in the campaign now. It appears he and his sister Catiua are secretly the heirs to some title somewhere or something. I don't quite follow the story, but then this campaign has been in progress since around 2010. My plan from here is to go find the next story mission and then grind if need be to finish it. Once my characters are closer to level 20, I can go to the pirate island in the southwest to do the optional mission there.
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