Patch 6.2 offers more grinding, and less options to gear up

Posted on 05-30-2015 by Benie

Oh look, another WoW post. Just because I’m done with WoW (and have been for months) doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to facepalm and laugh at Blizzard’s blatant stupidity.
Seriously, though.. I didn’t think it would ever get this bad. And it appears to be going south quite fast. Even to the point where a few of the well-known people who do these “WAKE UP, BLIZZARD!!!” videos are leaving the game as well.

Heelzvsbabyface is one of them. He’s already dropped his subscription months ago. And in this post, I’m going over his key issues with this expansion with you all.
So anyway, what’s so bad about 6.2? Let’s say how the elites have always said “WoW is tailored to casuals”, this remark is definitely showing itself in this patch. Heelz shows this by being decked out in the same kind of gear that I would possibly have. It’s mostly ilvl 640 gear.
It’s a mix of Crafting gear, LFR gear, and even some gear from the AH.

He goes on to say how the newest raid, Hellfire Citadel, requires 650 ilvl gear (as the minimum). So there’s no way he, or even I, would be able to do that content. Let alone contribute to the raid. Yet of course, he’ll have his Guild to back him up. I do not.
So what does he do to get the gear he needs to at least enter the LFR? You guessed it… more Apexis gear! Where do you find it? The new zone that we should had gotten in 6.0!

That zone, he describes being worse than Zangarmarsh in TBC (actually, he doesn’t. But from what he says later, I’m convinced it is). It’s Apexis. Crystal. grinding. HELL… nearly 100% of the content, is Apexis Crystal grinding that makes you feel you’re nothing but a tool. He mentions there are elite mobs to kill… yet they award Apexis Crystals.

He also mentions of a new gear set that drops, called ‘Baleful’. It’s rare, and it only drops a ilvl 650 Blue piece. If you were to upgrade this at the Apexis Crystal traders, it would cost you…20.. THOUSAND.. Apexis Crystals.
So let’s see. How many hours of your life would you have to waste to get that much, if you have started from 0 and just hit Level 100? I think you get the point here.

So, is there another alternative to get that 650 gear to do LFRs? Why, yes. And the way it’s done is quite..questionable. Remember what I said was “a good idea” of them doing? I take it back. Yep, it’s the WoW Token on the Blizzard Store. It’s the only way a Casual player can get a lot of gold, pretty fast. And it’s not cheap either.
Yet why do you need tons and tons of Gold? I’ll tell you…
The former 6.0-offered Apexis Crystal gear, is now available as Gold. All of that work you did in Draenor, running around, wasting your time? It was worthless. It’s the same slap in the face that raiders get when new currency-based gear comes out after an expansion release, and the old currency-based gear gets converted into Gold.

So yeah. Have fun spending gobs of your hard-earned money, so you can go play with your Guildies and/or your Friends! They got to get that money from somewhere, as they lost a quarter of it from their own stupidity!

To say Blizzard has their remaining customers by their privates, would be an understatement. Some people are all “Well, it’s an MMO. It’s supposed to be grindy!”.
Let me give you a good game-related thing here. Most of you know Vass, the druglord from Far Cry 3. He keeps asking that one question to you; “Do you know the definition, of Insanity?”
If he was to look over Blizzard’s practices of when it comes to this, he’d be shitting his pants and saying “THIS.. is the definition of Insanity!”

This is clearly a ‘Pay to Win’ scenario, and it’s worse than what Guild Wars 2 would had ever thought of. I mean, sure, they got the Gems which you can pay with real money. But unlike Blizzard, they have an alternative which is using Gold instead, via their currency exchange system.

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“No flying… ever” says Blizzard for future expansions

Posted on 05-28-2015 by Benie

And here I needed another reason to throw my old WoW installation in the trash can and then light it on fire while doing some strange ritual, while wearing an anti-Blizzard outfit. But this one really puts the icing on the unstable cake.

A week or two ago, during an interview, Blizzard mentioned that there will be no. more. flying in future patches, expansions… or ever in the future of WoW. I’m surprised they haven’t just banned flying period (including in Azeroth).
Amazing, how we’ve gone from the first dragon flying mount to having them have their wings literally clipped off to where they look like oversized lizards, just for Blizzard to say “you’ll get more enjoyment on the ground”.

They really dropped the bomb on this.. now ended debate over flying, to the point they’re saying “if you don’t like it, leave”.
No flying never was my reason for leaving, nor was it my reason for not wanting WoD. My reason is much deeper than that. But this proves they just don’t fucking care about their community anymore. They’re in it for the money. Nothing more.

And I doubt Ghostcrawler when he did leave last year, had anything to do with Blizzard becoming like EA. It’s Activision that changed them. They used to care (mostly), to the point of now where they just don’t. And they wonder why they’re losing so many subscribers.

It’s really sickening. WoW used to be a great game. Now.. it’s turned into this. Well… whatever. Just more of a reason to never, ever come back. It’s best anyway. I was never really good in WoW. Always soloing in a game built for multiple players.

What’s there to look forward to now? The first expansion of Guild Wars 2, that’s what. Because the developers are actually doing what Blizzard has never done. They’re tweeting about it. They’re going over every nook and cranny, making sure players understand what’s to come. They’re being very transparent with it.

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PS+ Free games announced for June 2nd, 2015

Posted on 05-27-2015 by Benie

Just saw a tweet, with IGN informing gamers of the new games coming soon for FREE for Playstation Plus members on June 2nd, 2015. And there’s a whopping 4 free games next month! Here’s the list for the Playstation 4;

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
Skulls of the Shogun: Bone-A-Fide Edition
Super Exploding Zoo
and…
Futuridium EP Deluxe

The only good game out of the five, has to be MGSV. I’ve never played the Metal Gear Solid series before, but I actually can’t wait to try this one out. The other three, going by the pictures.. I don’t think I’m going to like that much.

Playstation Plus is basically a way for developers to eventually show off their games for free, if the gamer is interested in actually purchasing them. I’m pretty sure that Sony pays them to have these games on here.

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Ether One – Taking the term “vivid imagination” to a new level

Posted on 05-27-2015 by Benie

Title: Ether One
Developer: White Paper Games
Publisher: White Paper Games
Release Date: May 5, 2015 (PS4 Port)
Game Engine: Unreal Engine 4
Number of Players: Single
Gene: First Person puzzle/adventure game

Ok. Due to editing this 13 times to get it right, I’m throwing my discussion of the game into a spoiler. You can read it in the spoiler, or you can pass it and go right to my final review. Your choice.

Spoiler

Most people dream big about what they’re going to do with their lives. Sadly, illness such as Dementia or Alzheimer’s gets in the way and robs us of those great memories we had. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a way to retrieve those long-lost memories?
This is where Project Either comes in. You, nameless person, work for them as a “Restorer”, who goes into the sub-conscience of their clients to retrieve those memories.

After stepping out of an elevator, you first need to check in and grab a keycard to access the lower levels of this facility. You can use your real name if you wish. You can also specify your actual date and time, as if this was real. You’re also greeted by a disembodied voice, named ‘Phillis’.
Phillis tells you to meet her in ‘Restoration Chamber 3’, and to get the keycard from a file cabinet. after getting lost quite a lot (at least for me), you eventually find the chambers.

Once in chamber 3, you see this large room with a chair in the center of the room, with two control panels on your left and right sides of the room respectively. You’re told to go push a button. (I didn’t know where the button was, only that it’s “on a control panel near me”. There was also these green vials, numbered with ‘300a’ or ’75a’. I think these are batteries, and the ‘a’ is for amps.)
Finally finding the button and pressing it, you hear a series of clicks, whirrs, and metal grinding. Then the disembodied voice tells you that all seems good, and to “take a seat” in the chair. (A chair that reminded me of the chair from Bioshock Infinite.)

Especially when said chair suddenly goes down as Phillis tells you who your client is; a 69 year old woman with dementia (who you never meet. At least from the start). Then the chair faced the ceiling and you’re seeing this thing coming down towards you. You’re calm and collective and not freaking out due to the scary, unknown thing coming from the ceiling towards you, and not mashing every button on the controller to try to look for a way out of this mess, thinking you’re about to be brain probed…

But it’s not a good ole fashioned alien-style brain probing. Instead, you’re surrounded by an egg shell-like thing being formed around you. Then Phillis says “are you ready?”, and then everything goes dark as the shell is firmly sealed around you, sealing out all light and air.
All is quiet, then lights turn on. Suddenly, the egg fills up with water. Again, you’re as cool as a cucumber, and totally not freaking out madly pressing every button on your controller in hopes to escape from drowning.

Once you pass out from drowning, you find yourself is what is known as ‘The Case’. Where there is many like it, but this one is yours. It’s like a household in the space-time continuum (I’m guessing). I think it’s similar to your Pod in Little Big Planet(except in this, you can’t customize it). Here, you’re told you can freely walk around this quite spacious, lighted place. It even has a.. well, a ran down kitchen area. But it has a working shower in the bathroom! That’s awesome.

Hitting Triangle allows you to teleport to and from this place. Where the teleport goes, is inside the mind of the client you’re trying to help, with Phillis still telling you what to do. Yet it’s more like “you just go explore, and if you hit an important marker that’s invisible, I’ll come in and tell you about it”.
It’s much different than in the Project Ether place. The air is crisp and beautiful. There’s grass, a picnic area, trees, blue skies, and.. wow.

Following a path down leads to a mine, called the ‘Devlin Mine’. An abandoned mine, to why is a mystery. One you must solve, as the center of the client’s thoughts (and the source of the dementia) are in the mine.
The game is a puzzle game. Hints are hidden in notes, and even under plates or bottles. If you can pick it up, look at it closely as it might contain something you need to solve a puzzle.
If you find something that you think that can help you, you can teleport it and yourself back to The Case, and place it on the several shelves available. Here you can retrieve it if you’ve reached a part where you feel you need it.
But note, that you can only carry one thing at anytime. Which kind of sucks.

[collapse]

.
And now I’m ready for my final review, as I’ve seen enough to give my honest opinion;

Good:
-It’s in First Person. I love first person games.
-Working shower FTW.
-So far, no monsters to run away from.

Bad:
-Confusing gameplay. Where is this “client” you’re working for? How did you get this job, and who’s the guy on the phone when you start (and why is he saying not to go somewhere)?
-Low quality graphics for a PS4. Water is crap. It’s just a moving texture sheet to simulate water movement. Is this why it’s free?
-There’s two areas of the mine that are problematic. One is getting stuck behind an invisible wall, and the other is an FPS drop in a specific area.
-No option to toggle sprinting.
-Subtitles are faster than the actual dialog they’re supposed to cover, especially the phone call scene.
-Really, really confused in the chair chamber. The disembodied voice wasn’t really clear when she mentioned hitting a button. Why are there these power capsules? They don’t really serve any purpose except getting an achievement.
-Don’t get this stupid mechanic of only being able to carry one thing with you at anytime. Don’t you have two hands, and pockets…?
-No autosave feature.

Neutral:
-In a few images of the game, the guy’s holding a lantern. Where is this thing? Is it in the later levels?

Overall, I would not recommend this game. It has flaws and confusing gameplay, like it doesn’t even know what kind of game it is. Plus seriously… studdering on a PS4? That’s the sign of a bad port.

EDIT: And it just got worse. I was trying to give this game a chance, until I saw I started from the second level again. No autosave system. I can save by hitting my OPTIONS button. Only three save slots kind of bugs me.
And then I go to an area, following a walkthrough of the PC version of the game. It tells me to write something on this note, and so I do. Then when placing the stamp, the game crashes after the animation stops. And it happens everytime.

Because of the repeating crash with no working workaround, I’ve uninstalled the game. Get the PC version. Not this. This is a bad port, and Sony should be ashamed to have such a buggy port.
But.. no wonder it’s free. I hope the next four games next month will be better.

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Guacamelle! Super Turbo Championship Edition – Smacking chickens around is fun

Posted on 05-27-2015 by Benie

Title: Guacamelle! Super Turbo Championship Edition
Developer(s): DrinkBox Studios
Publisher: DrinkBox Studios
Release Date: August 21st, 2014
Game Engine: Unknown
Number of Players: Single (with support for up to 4 players)
Gene: Side-scroller, action based

One of the longest titles of a game I’ve ever played. It’s one of the two free games for PS+ members, on the Playstation Store. Grab it while you can. Dan’s played this game, and it actually looked really fun. He even recommended it.

This game… this game is just so silly. Chickens that cannot die, others that actually talk to you (plus one calling themself the “Combo Chicken”), a guy being the “king of the Goat-Men”, and humor all around.
You play as Juan. You start out as a nobody who looks very worn out and wishing they could go back to bed. Your main objective is to prepare for a festival of sorts. It does go wrong when bad guys kidnap the leader’s daughter, and you’re killed… that is until you manage to find a mask who a mysterious person shows up to tell you, how this mask found you.
The mask will get you back into the world of the living, and you to be a hero; a ‘Luchador’. A Luchador is basically a freestyle wrestler who’s very strong and just as brave.

The dead walk again(aka skeletons), and you’re the only one that stop them. How? The title has an obvious word in it; “melee”. Punching things is what you do, and preforming combo moves is how you do it. In the later game, it challenges you to use these combo moves.

Time for my final review;

Good:
-It’s funny when it wants to be.
-In certain situations, it reminds the player what moves would work best for that area.

Bad:
-If you don’t speak Spanish, you may have a hard time understanding some of the dialog.

Overall, I like it. This is a keeper, and better than the last games.

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Two more PS4 game reviews coming soon(ish)

Posted on 05-26-2015 by Benie

The newest games of the Playstation Store (for Playstation Plus members) have arrived on my console;

Guacamelle! Super Turbo Championship Edition
Ether One

The first game I think Dan has played(yet I don’t think this specific version). The second, don’t think he ever did. Anyway, as usual, I’ll be doing reviews of these games, how awesome or lame they are and that kind of stuff.
Right now I’m really into Modded Minecraft, so the reviews will probably come.. maybe by Friday? Once I have time to play each one, anyway.

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WoW Q1 subscriptions drop to staggering numbers

Posted on 05-11-2015 by Benie

I was looking for something new in Youtube. For the most of it, I’ve been trying to ignore WoW videos, as they usually talk about the meh stuff coming.
But one featuring Heelsvsbabyface, who claims that subscriptions have dropped from 10 million to 7.2 million (and still dropping)… wow. This is such great news.

I don’t need to tell you how this is great news. But it seems people are waking up that Patch 6.1 was very sub-par with the whole selfie thing. But what makes this big news, is this… lmao. I still can’t believe it. As much hype Blizzard put into WoD, and got the highest subscriber base they had… then… wow… have it get lowered to the LOWEST they had (7.1 million)! Plus, have it lowered so QUICKLY! 2.9 million people (including myself) have left the game. Hoo HOO! 😀 They fucking DESERVE this! Yes.. they deserve every loss.

They…. they have ruined WoW, and I’m very glad people are waking up and seeing this. And I’m hearing from Blizzard, how this is normal and… just more BS I don’t care to hear.
But seriously, I don’t hate WoW. I still like the game. I just don’t like where it’s going.

Will this make Blizzard wake up and finally grasp reality again, NOT make stupid shit Selfie patches, break class balancing, and actually move the story forward in a sensible way? … Nope. After what Heelz said, Tannan Jungle has “more Apexis Crystal grinding”. I.. wow. Makes me glad I left when I did.
Here I kind of hoped 6.2 would get me get back into WoW… looks like it’s not. On top of that, that WoW token subscription thing? I hear it’s 25% more than a standard subscription.
25% more.. than a subscription. That’s nuts. And speaking of subscription fees, I heard that Blizzard actually raised the price of it in a few countries, just to offset the losses. Do they only care about your money anymore? Because it seems so.

I was actually praying this wasn’t Blizzard’s doing; that Activision had a gun pointed to their heads. This news proves either they’ve been ‘brainwashed’ by multiple figures of money, or… they have long since snapped due to all the whining over the years on the forum.

But this proves that we can damage a corrupt company with our wallets instead of our voices. If only the same could be done to Ubisoft, EA, and all other companies that care for their customer’s cash than the actual customers.

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Wolfenstein: The Old Blood completed… thoughts (I have many)

Posted on 05-07-2015 by Benie

Ok, the ending confused the fuck out of me. This.. this is NOT the prequel of RTCW… it’s the prequel for The New Order. H… HOW?! I was so certain!

I think I need to re-play RTCW, yet I remember almost vividly, that..that… gah. I can’t say this without revealing spoilers for both games! I… OK. I can’t continue until I give spoilers. I’m going to use tags here, so the ones who just want to see my thoughts, won’t see the spoilers.

Spoiler

Right. So in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Helga dies from what she’s trying to bring up. She gets ripped to pieces. Yet she ALSO dies in this expansion! I mean.. how can she die in two separate games?
That’s the only thing I don’t like. What proved that it was a prequel for The New Order is seeing the pilot from that game, there.

[collapse]

EDIT: Actually, it appears I’ve been wrong on so many counts. I’ve been told from one player, that RTCW is completely separate from Wolfenstein 3D (as in a ‘reboot’ to the series).
He also mentions a ‘Wolfenstein 2009’ that I never heard of, and The New Order is a sequel to that.
And as for Helga, there’s actually two of them. So yeah. Parallel universe, much?
There’s Helga von Bulow who was in RTCW. And then there’s Helga Von Schabbs. Two different Helgas, yet both of them worked for the SS Paranormal Division.

Spoiler

There’s also another thing I want to go over; my thoughts about the shamblers that pop up past the halfway point of the game. When Helga’s lackys “drop the bomb” which causes most of people, Nazis and regular, to turn into zombie-like things.
They’re both a challenge and annoying, especially what you think is a regular Nazi. You headshot, and it turns into a fucking flaming zombie instead that requires more bullets to kill.

This is even more annoying during the final missions. There was two more stealth areas. It’s tricky enough to hope your single silence pistol bullet headshots the guy you’re pointing at, but having him suddenly go zombie and having him alerting everyone to your position… seriously, ugh. I don’t know how many times I forced-resetted the stealth parts to make sure I manage to kill the Commanders as quietly as possible.
Yet when I have regular nazis turn into those damn things, I’m forced to take them down very quickly so that the others don’t see the flaming animated corpse.

[collapse]

Right. For the ones that didn’t (or did) read the spoiler, time for my final spoiler-free thoughts.
I liked the game. It’s what The New Order should had been, as I said before. Pretty much all I can say, except the game is definitely worth the $20. I would even go so far as to say, it was worth $30. And that’s a first from me.

Though I’ve been hearing similar issues with certain Nvidia cards not being able to run this game, compared to what I went though with The New Order. I really lucked out here. Not one crash. Game ran beautifully, even on the highest settings.

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Wolfenstein: The Old Blood – “You look like a B.J!”

Posted on 05-06-2015 by Benie

Now playing the game that took several hours to download. Been playing for awhile, and wow. There’s a LOT of game here for $20! It almost feels like a typo in Bethesta’s part that it was supposed to be $40, instead the 2 was hit.
There is content beyond Castle Wolfenstein itself. And oh yeah, not one sex scene. Just good ole fashioned Nazi ass kicking with German-named weapons. THIS is what I hoped would be in The New Order. Instead it was more story and less action.

When I launched for the first time, the game warned me that my GPU drivers are out of date, and to install the version (that only supports GTA 5)… why? Still, I was able to go past it and still play with no problems.

So the game is all about retrieving some documents from Helga, who is the ruthless bitch in Return to Castle Wolfenstein. She’s still as ruthless, but you get more backstory about her through old letters made by her. She also owns the castle, which I never knew.
The fact she’s still alive, proves my theory that this thing is a prequel. Yet it can also be seen as a pre-sequel (happening in the timeline between two existing games).
So anyway, it seems BJ is unphased of returning to the castle. Like this is his first time. But you got to go in there and retrieve the documents. And that’s as far as I’m going to say without revealing spoilers.
Seriously, it’s only $20. Get it and get the answers for yourself!

Yet the fact BJ doesn’t care about going into the castle, it makes me wonder something. Did the original game, Wolfenstein 3D, even happen inside the castle? Assumably so, as the next game is titled “Return to Castle Wolfenstein”. As in, you’re going back to those 8 bit, basic level editing walls (that even I could make) with 2D enemies that were sprites (way before 3D modeling ever existed).

So this is what I think so far;

The Good;
-Takedowns are still quite brutal, especially with two pieces of pipe.
-The new wall climb mechanic is quite cool, and it takes time to master.
-There’s no super (“I’m going to be sick IRL…”) parts, like in The New Order.
-Absolutely no unwanted sex scenes. It’s the classic Nazi ass kicking we’ve all been waiting for.
-The game is pretty long; longer than a typical expansion. We’re possibly talking Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon length. You can go to areas beyond the castle.
-Health regen is a must for me, as there’s no trainers available at this time (game’s too new).
-Starts off really, really slow of killing Nazis. But once it picks up, it doesn’t stop.
-Boss battles are very challenging and have their own set of fight mechanics, even in ‘Can I play, daddy?’ difficulty.
-The ‘Nightmare’ levels of Wolfenstein 3D. Upon completing one, you can easily do the same level again. What’s interesting is they seemed to have added new rooms to the old existing levels.
-The map is somewhat more helpful, even offering visual help in the form of colored circles. Yellow ones indicate a secret or something valuable, and blue ones indicate something to interact with(such as popping a grate open).
-BJ is still a fucking badass. He gets stabbed, shot at, and still manages to hold a gun with ease.
-It’s now easier to pinpoint the direction where a Commander is, during stealth areas. There’s a little white ball that gets bigger the closer you get to a Commander.

The Bad;
-There’s things in the game that should had been added, yet weren’t. Such as swinging from a chain, or pushing a fucking rope out of my way. Yet I’m strong enough to carry a heavy machine gun! Is this why it’s $20?
-BJ is still talking to himself about his war stories while during gameplay, in certain areas. Seriously, just focus on the mission! Makes me glad that he’s a semi-mute in RTCW.
-Wish there was a way to takedown a Heavy without using a gun. Yet you can take down a Mech-Soldier(if it’s connected to a wire) by cutting off its power source.

The Neutral;
-Fully supports multi-monitors (even so far as to telling it of what monitor to play the game in), yet forces a set resolution. However, it doesn’t screw up my second monitor.

Overall, liking the game so far. I’m just amazed on how much content there is for $20.

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New Rodina update offers first person cockpit camera

Posted on 05-05-2015 by Benie

I’ve seen this news before when it was in the devs’ “beta branch”. It’s gone live today. Also includes some optimizing and bug fixes, which is always very good.
Though I had uninstalled the game and several others, due to not playing it as much as I used to. Yet the thing re-installed itself to apply the update.. not cool, bro. Unless this is a “You got to try out the game now! You’ll like it!” thing.

Still waiting for the following;
-Extension to the existing story. Still haven’t rescued that guy yet.
-Be able to make a brand new ship, instead of just re-editing the interior.
-Has the issue with nodes that have things related to the story that you can’t pickup because they’re invisible, finally been fixed that they disappear?
-Will actually killing all the enemies(the red dots) on a planet keep them from respawning?
-Any new planets? Would be awesome.

I guess I’ll check it out here, while my download of The Old Blood continues.

EDIT: Checked it out, and it crashes when I try to enter first person mode. I believe I know why. Believe it’s because of the way the interior I made isn’t properly facing the ship. Instead, I got one side of the interior as the back of said ship.
Submitted the crash. So hopefully it gets fixed to where it doesn’t matter.

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