E3 2018 – Sony Conference

Since I’m such a Sony fangirl, I’m always excited for this press conference the most. It’s like Christmas day sometimes for me because I’m just waiting to see what great games that I’m going to be able to play in the future. I will say that I have been let down in the past though, but I come back year after year super excited as always especially for the exclusives.

We start with some music to set the stage for The Last of Us Part II. The first noticeable thing is the age progression for Ellie. She’s not the sweet and innocent young girl that you meet in The Last of Us. She’s matured into a woman who has seen some stuff and it shows. Not to mention Ellie gets some action before the audience gets into seeing some actual action themselves with gameplay. The gameplay is really fluid and super intense making me even more excited for this game. I love the fact that Ellie is the playable character now and can’t wait to see her story unfold. Unfortunately, the game didn’t show a release date.

After this showing there some intermission as they move people from one area to another. This was a little weird and I understand they did this to set the mood for The Last of Us Part II, but it was still awkward. During intermission though, it was confirmed that God of War will soon have a New Game + added to it and that there would be some new Call of Duty multiplayer maps available for Black Ops III and Black Ops IV if you pre-order Black Ops IV. Then there was some Destiny 2 stuff shown during this very long and once again I can’t stress enough very awkward intermission.

Some music after the intermission which then goes into showing the newest game to come out of Sucker Punch which is Ghost of Tsushima. While this game is visually stunning and the actual gameplay looks good, I’m not a big samurai person and this seems to be the year of samurai games. The game holds absolutely no interest for me what so ever and the preview makes me think of Bob’s Burger. If you’re a fan you know the episode I’m talking about and it’s the one where Bob and Louise are watching the old timey dubbed samurai movie about the father and daughter.

There was some weird stuff going on in the background, I guess to remind people of that game Dreams. Remember that game? It was shown off a couple of years ago, anyway this game made a not so subtle appearance throughout the whole show. Anyway, a supernatural type game is shown next and it’s called Control. It doesn’t really look polished enough to show off at E3 which makes my interest in it dwindle.

From there we go into something that everyone has been wanting and waiting for and it’s a complete remaster of Resident Evil 2. It even has a release date of 1/25/2019. After that quick announcement there was another announcement for a Rick and Morty type game, probably because it’s from the same people, called Trover Saves the Universe. This is something that I might play. Might being the key word.

Apparently no conference is complete without something relating to Kingdom Hearts III, so we get another look at it here and it’s the same thing that’s been shown off two other times now. It makes me wonder what happened to Sony only showing a select number of games this year to make the show more intimate? It was like they scrapped that at the last minute and just threw a bunch of crap on the screen.

Now for some more Death Stranding and this game has been shown to death at E3 and various other events. Some gameplay is finally shown and it makes the game look completely unimpressive, yes I’m ready for all of the hate, than all of the other trailers that were shown in previous years. It looks like this game did a complete 180 and the only good thing about this game is going to be the cinematics and you cannot have a game that has crap gameplay and good cinematics. At this point, I’ve completely lost interest in this game that I’ve been waiting for. Still no release date even though two new characters were introduced and unless something can change my mind this is a firm no for me.

Another samurai game, or at least it looks like a samurai game, is shown off quickly and it’s Nioh 2.

The show ends with the new Spiderman game which seems like the only big exclusive to be released for the rest of the year. I have to say that even when this game was first announced it held no interest for me and seeing it again just makes me roll my eyes because it’s really not that impressive anyway. I think the only Spiderman game that I played was one that was on the original PlayStation with my cousin. This beat ‘em up type Spiderman game just isn’t my thing and it seems way too campy for me.

And that ends a show that was even more underwhelming than the EA show. The only good game that was shown off was The Last of Us Part II. Overall I was really disappointed with the showcase of games that were shown and the overall show itself.

E3 2018 Press Conference Ranking!

As promised, here is how I ranked the shows that I watched and wrote about:

1. Bethesda
2. Ubisoft
3. Microsoft
4. Sony / EA
5. Square Enix.

Did you watch any of the E3 conferences? If you did let me know what you thought about them in the comments section down below!

E3 2018 – Square Enix Conference

This is the first time that I’ve ever watched the Square Enix conference, so I’m looking for something new (mostly any information I can find on Life is Strange 2), something exciting, and of course a lot of games.

Kicking off the show is Shadow of the Tomb Raider which has kind of been played to death at this point. Unless you live under a rock, you know about this game. Some new gameplay is shown off and there’s this whole theme of “becoming one with the jungle.” I have to say though, I’m not a big graphics buff, but I’m really not impressed with the graphics for this game from what I’ve seen so far.

Stormblood Final Fantasy XIV online is up next and I’m not a Final Fantasy person so this is immediately a pass for me. I think that even if I want to get into this game, I’m a little late to the party. In the same Final Fantasy note, Final Fantasy and Monster World Hunter will be merging or doing some kind of cross over. I don’t know and I was a little confused about the whole thing.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is up next and I’m already intrigued after the announcement at the Xbox conference so I’m pleased to see more of this game and how it fits into the whole Life is Strange universe. This isn’t Life is Strange 2, but it serves as an introduction to it and it’s going to be completely free and available on the 26th of this month.

Dragon Quest XI is shown next and it was just one of those trailers that had me scratching my head the whole time. Not really something that I’m into. Another head scratcher for me was Babylon’s Fall. It’s another game that I don’t know what to think of. Most of this conference was one big “huh?” to me anyway so yeah. While we’re talking about weird games, how about Octopath Traveler? Weird and apparently completely above my line of thought because I have no idea what to think about this game.

For any Xbox fans out there, Nier Automata is coming to that console with all the DLC available at the release. That’s something. Right?

Some more Just Cause 4 stuff is shown off and if I thought this game looked campy at the Xbox conference, this basically confirms just how campy this game is. For some reason the game will now include extreme weather to go with the extreme nature of the game.

Up next is a new IP with The Quiet Man. Not much is shown and half looked like a TV show while the other half looked like a video game. All I think that I really learned about this game is that I think the main character is deaf? I really don’t know though.

And it wouldn’t be Square Enix if they didn’t show off Kingdom Hearts III…again. This is another game that I could never get into and it’s been shown to death already so at this point the conference is basically over and I’m done with it.

Overall the show was small and confusing compared to everything that had been shown prior to this. The only thing that was of any interest to me was barely Shadow of the Tomb Raider and I was of course completely interested in the Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit. The rest of the show was just plain weird, confusing, and boring as hell.

E3 2018 – Bethesda Conference

The show basically started off with some ego stroking, which is fine. There was the promise of “surprises” and the “best of gaming” with this years theme, since Bethesda has a theme every year, being “create.” So did Bethesda hold up on any of these promises? Keep reading to find out.

The show kicks off with Rage 2 and some jokes bout the leak. After some music from Andrew W.K, we get a closer look at what Rage 2 is all about. The game kind of has this Borderlands feel to it, but not in a good way. If feels like the poor man’s substitute for the new Borderlands that everyone is waiting so patiently for. This was a total pass for me.

Then it was onto some talk about The Elder Scrolls: Legends, which is the mobile card game, and it’s coming to all consoles before the year is out. While I’m not really interested in playing the mobile version, if it’s free, I might just pickup the PS4 version.

Now onto the new expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online which is Summerset. To tell the truth, I completely lost track of this game about a week after it came out on the PS4. I just don’t know what to do or thing about this game. New DLC for this game will come out every quarter and the year will round off with a new Werewolf DLC coming out next quarter and another DLC about the Black Marsh to round out the year.

After that a very brief look at Doom Eternal is given. Doom was re-booted and released back in 2016 and I recently had the chance to play it. Doom Eternal is a direct sequel to the reboot. Hell on Earth is now here as everyone wanted and more will be revealed at QuakeCon in Dallas.

That was a good lead in to talk about some Quake stuff. There was talk about Quake Champions and eSports and the new feathers being added so that you get now git gud.

Next was a jump into Prey since it’s been released for a whole year now. The game will update the next time you boot up your disc with a new game + mode and survival mode. DLC is also going to be available and is a moon simulator type thing called Mooncrash that promises every playthrough will be unique and different. PVP will also be introduced into Prey very soon and it will consist of 5V1. Five people will be mimic’s and one human to chase them down or be killed by them.

Some unexpected Wolfenstein news is up next with the announcement of Wolfenstein II coming to the Switch. That’s not all though, a small preview is then shown of Wolfenstein: Young Blood which will tell the story of BJ’s two twin daughters and can be played completely in co-op mode. The game will be set in 1980’s Paris and will be released in 2019. Needless to say I am super pumped.

A little nap comes next as there’s talk about some VR stuff that includes Prey and Wolfenstein.

Then it’s what everyone has been waiting for which is Fallout 76. The little tease that was shown off at the Xbox conference, which you can read about here, was shown again as well as talk about how Fallout 76 is four times bigger than Fallout 4 and is basically the setup for all of the Fallout games as it’s a prequel. Vault 76 is where it all began and you start the game already underground and you are one of 25 people to leave the vault with instructions given by the Overseer. This game promises to be rich in West Virginia history and bring a lot of its folk lore to life. As some people already figured out, the game will be completely online, but if you want to play solo you can do that too. Every person you meet in the game will be a real person and you can join your friends whenever you want. Choices are yours to make and there are no rules. You can now build wherever you want and then move it to wherever you want. You can also now launch nuclear missiles and destroy parts of West Virginia. Promised support for release and years to come as well as a release date of 11-14-2018.

Last night also marked the three year anniversary of Fallout Shelter and it’s coming to the PS4 and Switch for free. Both versions are available now so go and download them!

The Elder Scrolls Blades is then announced, since Fallout Shelter did so well, for mobile platforms. Kind of feels like a joke though instead of an actual game. This will eventually be available on consoles and it will be free to play this fall on mobile devices.

A look into the future ends the show with the announcement of Starfield, which is set in space. I’m thinking that this is going to be the new Mass Effect since apparently BioWare doesn’t want to capitalize on that game anymore. And then, the moment everyone in the world has been waiting for, a confirmation that The Elder Scrolls VI is in the works! There is no release date or details, but I’m still super excited.

That was it for Bethesda and I have to say that this was probably the best show of E3 so far with just huge game after huge game being shown off. Totally looking forward to the year that Bethesda has planned and I can’t wait to play Fallout 76.

E3 2018 – Xbox Conference

I have to say the one thing I like about the Xbox conference year after year is that they really have a no BS style when it comes to opening the show. It starts off with a trailer for the next Halo game and offers a decent look at it before the BS part comes in. Every conference has to have some BS to it, but it’s nice to see when a conference actually lets you see something before getting to the usual BS, like how great this console is and all that other stuff. But we aren’t here for a console war, we’re here to see games, so I’m going to break it down between exclusives and non-exclusives. Let’s start with the exclusives.

EXCLUSIVES!

– Ori: The Will of Wisps is the first exclusive shown and it looks a little familiar like it was shown off last year. Anyway, it’s a cute little platformer that looks like it has a lot of heart to it.

– Crackdown 3…is shown again. This has become one of those games that it’s like either release it or scrap it because I’m tired of seeing it at E3. Apparently this game will be released in February 2019 this time.

– Sea of Thieves is next as an exclusive with an update of what’s to come for the game that from what I’ve seen kind of looks meh and not really the game that I thought it would be after seeing some gameplay.

– Forza Horizon 4 is next because it wouldn’t be an Xbox conference without a Forza game. This time the game is set in historic Britain and everything changes with the season’s and is open world. This will release 10/2 of this year.

– Player Unknown Battleground is up next with a showcase of what’s coming up for the game.

– Session which is a new skateboarding game that’s coming out and it’s exclusive, no crying here. I basically thought this genre of games were dead at this point, but there you go.

– Black Desert is next which is a medieval type of game that looks meh.

– Cuphead is up next with what looks like DLC that will be available next year.

– Tunic a game that looks like Zelda with a fox. Weird…yet intriguing.

– Battletoads is back with this comic book type feel to it and a lot of hype.

– Gears of War is the last big exclusive to be shown and it wasn’t one game, but three. So the first Gears was a Funko Pop! game, I’m thinking this is to compete with LEGO. Then a new Gears Tatical game called…Gears Tactic. Then the big finale which was the promo and gameplay of Gears 5. I have to say that this is the one game that I would totally buy an Xbox for.

World Premieres!

– Sekiro: Shadows Die twice was the first world premiere of a game that will be released on all platforms. It’s a samurai game which isn’t really my thing, but it does look interesting.

– Fallout 76 is next, which was weird because I thought that they would wait until the Bethesda show tonight to show off. Apparently this is prequel to all the other Fallout games and is set in West Virginia. This is apparently a bigger game than Fallout 4 which is interesting.

– The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is up next and apparently it’s free? Anyway, it takes place in the Life is Strange universe and it’s about a kid just being a kid.

– Metro Exodus comes up next and this game is like Crackdown 3. It’s been delayed and I’m at that point of where it’s one of those games that should just come out or be scrapped no matter how good it looks. It does have a release date of 2/22/2109 which is the same release date as Anthem.

– Kingdom Hearts 3 is next because this is the first time that it will be on an Xbox console. Of course it has a Frozen theme because this movie has to be just played to death. I’m sorry, but I’m in that party of where I think that Frozen is completely overrated and overly done to the point of that I’m over it.

– Battlefield V is next with the story that was promised by EA at their conference. It wasn’t much, but it made the game look interesting. Not interesting enough to buy though.

– Tales of Vesperia which has this Ni No Kuni vibe to it is up next and just isn’t for me so I kind of zoned out.

– The Division 2 is up next and I really thought that this would be held off until the Ubisoft conference tomorrow, but it wasn’t and it was shown off in full. It looks amazing and I always like the people that they show playing and how they interact with other people, because that does not work in real life. Conversations are not like that in games and it’s just funny how Ubisoft has this concept of that’s how people play together. Anyway, the game looks amazing and I think I’ll get it on release day this time so that I won’t feel left behind when I get to playing it and everyone is already over leveled. Set release date is 3/15/2019.

– Shadow of the Tomb Raider is up next and it looks really good. I couldn’t get into Rise of the Tomb Raider, but this game looks really good and I’m sure I’ll buy it at some point. Apparently this is the game that makes Lara Croft into the Lara Croft that we are introduced to in the original game.

– Devil May Cry 5 is showcased next and it’s a game 10 years in the making. This is a game for the fans because of how bad they wanted it. Another series that I never got into and probably never will.

– Jump Force is next and promises a world of good and evil merging and having to play as the hero who fights for the survival of the human race.

– Dying Light 2 is up next and it makes me want to get back into Dying Light and finish it so that I can play this on release date. Anyway, with this game you’ll now make choices and it will shape the world that you live in. There are hundreds of choices to make and all of them effect the game and how everything turns out. All I have to say is that it looks really amazing.

– Just Cause 4 comes out 12/4/2018 and it’s about a man who was born to fight wars until the enemy changed. It looks campy like all of the other Just Cause games.

– CyberPunk 2077 is shown in a surprise ending and it seems like this game won’t even come out until 2077 because it was just a promo that was shown and nothing substantial.

Overall an underwhelming show that showed off Xbox’s answer to PS Now which is Game Pass. Game Pass is a monthly type streaming game service that at least includes new releases included in the price. This is nice, but it didn’t show a price which is meh. There was also bragging about Microsoft Studio’s “acquiring” smaller game studio’s to make them better. This made me question the We Happy Few trailer that was shown because this was supposed to be released for all consoles and now that Compulsion Studios was acquired by Microsoft Studio’s, I’m not sure now. This sucks because I was really looking forward to this game and now I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to play it. There was also the typical montage of games that I couldn’t even keep up with that was shown really quickly, I didn’t even see half the games that were shown. The show ended on the strong side and it hinted, just hinted at a new console. That was it for Xbox and up next tonight is the Bethesda conference that I’m looking forward to.

E3 2017 – Part 5 – Sony Press Conference

Out of all the press conferences that E3 has to offer, I have to say that I always look forward to the Sony one. It’s my absolute favorite because they show games that I know if I’m interested in I can buy. This is also the last conference that I watch and then just watch various different gaming news feeds to see if I missed anything good. Anyway, on with the Sony conference.

Things started off with a new look at Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. I have to say that this DLC/Expansion, I have no idea what you want to call it, looks amazing and it does make up for the fact that Uncharted 4 was sorely missing Chloe. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be enjoyed all that much because it is a Sony Conference and it wouldn’t be a Sony Conference without a few hiccups and there was basically no sound for the first three previews. Next up though, another glimpse at some more DLC. This time for Horizon Zero Dawn. Aloy’s story continues as she ventures into a new frozen area with new characters to meet and new metal demons to take down. This will be one of those $19.99 DLC’s called The Frozen Wilds and it’ll be available some time before the new year.

Next up was some new Day’s Gone footage and actual gameplay. While I feel like zombie games are a little overdone at this point, this one looks new and different. The zombies aren’t your typical zombies and this game involves a lot of tactics instead of just running into a horde and killing as many zombies as possible. The only thing is there is no release date. Up next was a game that I was surprised to see because compared to the three power houses before it, it looked cheaply made and kept cutting back and forth between different scenes. This game shows you some gameplay action, but not a lot making me think that it doesn’t really operate all that smoothly. This was Monster Hunter World. After that I kind of felt the show went downhill with the showing of Shadow of the Colossus, which is a complete remake, and Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite.

Because of the deal that Call of Duty has with PlayStation there was the obligatory Call of Duty stuff with the next edition into the franchise which is WWII. I gave up on this franchise a long time ago because I just can’t keep up so while this one looks cool, I’ll be skipping it because I can’t give it the time it needs to actually play. After that was just a handful of different games that you can only play on PlayStation VR. Even though some of the games looked good like The Inpatient, others were just ugh. They even re-did The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for VR now and I’m basically over it. How many times are they going to re-do this game before giving us the next addition into The Elder Scrolls franchise? Anyway, some of the crazy VR games were Star Child, some Final Fantasy Fishing Game, Bravo Team, and the creepiest game of all where it makes you look like a weirdo following a mouse around Moss.

With the VR stuff finally done, it was time to get into some God of War because people have been waiting for this. I love that this isn’t just a new edition into this already well established franchise, but a reboot of the franchise. You can see Kratos in a new light, even though he remembers his past which is shown in this trailer/gameplay feature, he is trying to raise his son as best as he can. It looks like it’s going to be amazing and it comes out in early 2018. Up next a game that I’ve been waiting for since it was first debuted. It’s Detroit: Become Human. There was new gameplay footage, the reveal of a new character, who just happens to be a Grey’s Anatomy star, and a new mission. Everything looks great and it looks like this game is ready to go, but there’s no release date and there won’t be until David Cage says so. Then there was another game that is being overly hyped which is Destiny 2. This game could be the best game ever, but after being duped into playing the first Destiny, I will not be doing the same with this game. I really don’t believe the game has changed all that much to make it into a decent game, but that remains to be seen. I just won’t be buying it. The show then closes with Spiderman. Seriously? That was it? I thought I was watching the Sony Conference. I know that people are super hyped for this game and all, but I could really care less about another Spiderman game. There was a bunch of actual gameplay showed off and it looks decent at the moment, but I’m just not into it.

Overall Sony had a really weak show. There was nothing really concrete to show off and they focused way too much on VR. I’m not buying into the whole VR thing where I feel like I’m going to have to be dropping Dramamine every couple of hours just to play a video game. While a lot of games are coming out this year, I felt like we will be seeing a lot of these games again next year with probably no release date. What’s the point then? I want to see games that are going to be coming out sometime in the near future so that I can play them. This isn’t just for Sony, but for a lot of the conferences. I know they’re supposed to showcase games that are coming out, but I don’t feel like they should make multiple appearances at E3. When a game makes multiple appearances at E3 because it isn’t done yet, it makes me feel like it’s that company reminding you about this game because clearly with everything else that has come out you’ve forgotten about it so it turns into a show of “don’t forget, we still have this game coming out!”

E3 2017 – Part 3 – Bethesda Press Conference

I have to be honest and say that I didn’t watch this one live because I live on the East coast and that would have meant staying up until after 12 when I had to get up the next morning at 5:30 to be at work. It wasn’t happening, but I did get up early the next morning and watched while I ate my breakfast before work. Anyway, I was kind of confused as to why Bethesda was having a conference this year because I really didn’t think they would have much to show off. Keep reading to see if the conference was worth it or not.

It looks like Bethesda is trying to re-do their image with the whole theme park thing. I know it worked for Fallout 4 and was fun and creative, but for the company as a whole, I’m not really sure it worked. It made them look campy and I really wasn’t digging it. Anyway, there was a huge focus on the VR stuff that included Doom VFR and Fallout 4 VR. I’m still not catching onto this phase and I’m not sure why they would spend so much resources already making these First person games into VR. This had me shrugging my shoulders as they moved onto some Elder Scrolls Online talk. There’s a bunch of content added in already and they concentrated a little on the new release of Morrowind. This is one of those games that I played at launch, but could never really get into so I had that glazed over look while I watched because I must be doing something wrong when it comes to this game. Then there was a focus on Elder Scrolls Legends which is basically Gwent, just not available on console. If this was available on a console I would have more interest in it, but since it’s not I just shrugged my shoulders again.

Bringing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to switch was a big thing especially since you can dress up as Link. Who doesn’t want that, am I right? While I watched the person playing, I thought to myself, “this looks like a really difficult way to play Skryim.” Anyone else think that? Then there was some new Dishonored content which was basically what Uncharted did with The Lost Legacy. It’s kind of like a DLC but it’s stretched out longer to get more money. Since I still haven’t played either Dishonored game, this will be a pass until I can at least play one or both of those games.

Then there was stuff like this new Creation Club for mods, but the catch is that you have to pay for them. I’m not sure if you use real money, like the money I get from working, or money that you earn in game. This was a little confusing to me because who would pay for mods with real money? Then of course there was the eSports section that showed off the Quake Championships. This made me wish that I could be good at one of these games and actually compete so that I could say I played video games for a living instead of working like everyone else.

Finally, the show ended with two big reveals because it turns out they didn’t have too much to show this year which is why the conference was super short. It first started off with The Evil Within 2. This looked a lot like Silent Hill for me, but I still haven’t played the first one so I’m not sure. Also it’s a super scary horror game which is probably why the first one is still sitting in my backlog. Good news is that it comes out this year on 10.13.2017 which just happens to be Friday the 13th. Nice marketing strategy. The last game they showed off was Wolfenstine II: The New Collusus. This game looked pretty amazing. I have to say thought that I have two Wolfenstine games in my backlog that I would like to play before this comes out because I liked how it had this BioShock feel to it. Everything about it from the gameplay to the cinematics looks amazing and it looks like a really fun game and the good news is that it also comes out this year on 10.27.2017. Looks like this year is shaping up to be a pretty huge year for games again.

And that was it, I felt the conference was a little weak because they only ran for about half an hour and they didn’t have much to show. There was no HUGE game like when they announced Fallout 4 or even when they announced the Skyrim remaster. Those were huge, I felt like this year just didn’t bring it and I hope that next year if they do a conference they’ll have a little more.

What makes multiplayer good? The game or the people?

This topic has been on my mind for the past couple weeks as I’ve been finding it harder than usual to actually enjoy a game that has multiplayer, specifically a game that has multiplayer separate from the actual game itself. This made me wonder, was the multiplayer in a game good because it was just good and super addictive, or was it good because of the people I was playing with. There are a bunch of games with multiplayer outside of the single player that I just for some reason cannot get into, for example there’s Call of Duty, Watch_Dogs, some Uncharted games, and Grand Theft Auto just to name a few. Then on the other hand there are games that have multiplayer outside of the actual game that I can totally get into and spend hours upon hours playing. For example my biggest one is probably Mass Effect 3. I thought this would continue with the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda, but it hasn’t actually and it’s been quite the opposite which brought this question up in the first place.

Before having my established group for Mass Effect 3 multiplayer I would say that I probably spent around 4-5 hours a day playing the multiplayer depending on how it was going. Were most of the matches a win with full extraction? Were the random people I was playing with any good? Was I happy with the overall quality of experience I was having? Don’t get me wrong, the multiplayer for this game was good, I mean I was spending quite a bit of time playing it, but I was also dividing up my time playing the single player which of course was my favorite. Then things kind of changed when I found a group of people to play with.

When I found a group of people to play with my game time went from about 4-5 hours a day up to 8-10 hours per day. Crazy right? While we didn’t always have a group of 4 people, there were always about 2-3 of us playing at one time and then with some random person filling the missing void, who probably thought were absolutely insane, that would come and go as they please. This was totally fine with us. There obviously had to be some correlation between playing alone and then playing with a group of people right? I mean look how much my playtime went up and basically doubled.

Cut to five years later with the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the multiplayer. As you can probably already tell, my group has disbursed to where there’s just one or two of us left. Not to mention that the overall gameplay of the multiplayer has changed drastically. There are a lot of things that come in the play with his new game as I’ve spent maybe a total of 10 hours outside of the single player playing the multiplayer. Not yet having the chance to play with my little group that’s left, I really don’t know if my obvious lack of interest in the multiplayer is because of the fact that I don’t like playing with the random people that I’ve encountered or that the game itself really isn’t that great.

In conclusion, I’ve kind of come to the realization that even though the multiplayer for Mass Effect: Andromeda isn’t what I was expecting, which was something much similar to Mass Effect 3. I mean if you think about it, the multiplayer for Mass Effect 3 was a huge success so they didn’t have to reinvent the wheel as much as they did. I think that what’s holding me off from playing as much Mass Effect: Andromeda multiplayer is a combination of both actually. I do miss my group of friends that I always played with, and the game itself just changed way too much to even be similar to the previous game. When it comes down to it I think that for a multiplayer game that’s outside of the single player game to be good it has to have a combination of both. You need a group of people who you actually like playing with and the game itself needs to be decent.

What to expect at E3…Maybe Part 1

E3 is less than a month away and as you can probably tell, I’m super excited about it. I love just about everything at E3. Especially the conferences. I usually have pretty high expectations, and I usually come away pretty hyped for the upcoming gaming year. Keep reading to see what I’m expecting at this years E3 starting with the EA conference.

EA Conference

Let’s start with the EA conference since they will be kicking off the E3 conference line up. What I’m expecting from them is the following:

• More information on Star Wars Battlefront 2. More information on the game itself as well as more information on the actual story mode that has been previewed.
• The new BioWare IP announcement even though it won’t be released until 2019. It’ll be big, and I really think BioWare will have a big presence at the EA conference this year.
• Since we’re already talking about BioWare it goes without saying that there will definitely something Mass Effect: Andromeda related will be announced and I’m thinking it will be the first major DLC for the game. I know EA said they were holding off on Mass Effect stuff, but I still think there will be DLC for this game. At this point it might not be much, but it’ll be something since there was a ton of build up especially towards the end of the game.
• I’m also thinking on the BioWare front there will be a very small peek at the next Dragon Age which probably won’t be released until 2018.
• One last BioWare item will probably be something to do with Star Wars: The New Republic.
• Moving away from BioWare, I’m sure the next Battlefield will be announced.
• I’m also expecting something PvZ related or Peggle related.
• Then I’m expecting a little bit of a snooze fest as we get into the sports stuff.

SURPRISES!
I’m expecting some surprises from this conference as well. Something that would be a surprise would be the announcement of another Titanfall. And then something that would also be surprising, but most welcomed would be the announcement of the Mass Effect trilogy being remastered for the Xbox One and PS4. Why am I thinking this? Because the famous N7 day falls on a Tuesday this year and it would kind of make the whole day since this has been something that has been asked for.

That’s what I’m expecting out of the EA conference. Agree with me? Disagree with me? Expecting something entirely different? Let me know in the comments section and come back tomorrow to see what I’ll be expecting from the Microsoft and Bethesda conference.

Mass Effect: Andromeda – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Mass Effect: Andromeda has to probably be one of my most anticipated games ever. It’s one of those games that I’ve been waiting for since the last Mass Effect and was super excited once it was announced. I even stayed excited as I waited for it to be released as I tried to gather every little piece of information about the game as I could. Then the early release reviews started coming out and it kind of felt like the ending to Mass Effect 3 all over again. Wanting to play the game for myself though, I subdued my excitement a little until I could play for myself. Even though I haven’t completed the game to 100%, I have completely finished my first playthough, before the game was patched, and figured I could give some honest opinions about the game. Just as a side not though, while I have played the multiplayer for this game, I haven’t played enough to actually comment on it so multiplayer will not be mentioned in this post.

Side Note: When I had originally wrote this blog, sometime last week, there was no news of a patch or anything, but since then a patch has been released that addressed a lot of the issues that I had with the game. To be fair, even though I had to sit through an unpatched game that had some annoying moments, I have excluded the gripes that I had prior to the patch.

The Good

The one good thing about this game is that it’s still Mass Effect. It still has all the core principles that made me fall in love with the Mass Effect series to begin with. This time around though it’s a new galaxy, a new main character, a new crew, and a new story. Even though I’ll admit to still missing Shepard and her crew, Ryder has started to grow on me along with the rest of her crew. Then there’s the story. The story is massive and there are so many aspects to it that it’s almost impossible to find something about it that you won’t enjoy. The main story of finding out who the Kett are, trying to make nice with the Angara, and trying to find the missing Arks are all deeply engaging and will draw you in. The new main character is a complete 180 from Shepard. Mostly because Ryder is new to all of this. She’s not a seasoned solider, she’s learning as she goes and the game shows this. The game shows the progression of her character as the game goes on and is really developing the character into something more. Sure, she has her awkward moments, but haven’t we all? I guess that makes her a little more relatable when you think about it because it shows that she’s human. Then there’s the crew. While there are little aspects of each crew member that make them resemble past crew members, they are each new characters. Sure it’s easy to say that Cora is the new Miranda as they both have some obvious daddy issues and so on, but these characters are new and each have their own individual stories and purposes for traveling 600 years away from the Milky Way. Each character is well crafted and if you take the time on ship and off ship in docking areas to interact with them they’ll quickly grow on you. Let’s not forget about the fact that this is a completely new galaxy. There are a ton of different planets to learn about and explore not to mention the ones that you can actually land on and find out more about. Each planet that you can actually land on is beautiful in its own way. The graphics for the landscaping of the planets is top notch and you can tell a lot of time went into making each planet feel like it was alive. I don’t know how many times I’ve stopped playing just to admire the scenery around Ryder and take in each new planet. This all comes to a head when you first go to your new planet which usually isn’t ideal and has something wrong with it, but then when you “fix” the planet, the subtle differences that you see are beautiful in their own way.

The Bad

With good always comes bad, and yes there are some bad things that come along with this game. It’s almost obvious to see that this game wasn’t properly QA tested as there are certain aspects of the game that just don’t work right. This is probably the worst part of it all. Missing dialogue, invisible objects, invisible people popping out of nowhere, glitched animations, combat lag, and mission stalling. All of these are part of the bad that come along with Mass Effect: Andromeda. If you’re a BioWare fan and have played some or all of their games you know that this happens for each and every game. This is in no way an excuse for them and you would think that with a new engine they would be fixed, but obviously they aren’t. Moving forward this isn’t good, and that doesn’t excuse the fact that the game should not have been released with these problems to begin with. Moving away from obvious glitches in the game, the game itself isn’t perfect. A lot of games have this problem with finding the proper balance of story missions and side missions and this game is one of them. This game already has enough content to keep you going for hours, but add in the horde of side quests and you’ll be tearing your hair out at the amount of fetch and come back quests that are in the game. Sure you don’t have to complete them, but you’ll be left with a bunch of exclamation marks on your screen if you don’t. Then there’s all the driving. There is so much driving in this game until you unlock the proper fast travel stations on each planet that it’s unbelievable. While it wasn’t meant for the Nomad to be the Mako version 2.0 it truly is as you’ll struggle to drive around each different landscape the planets have to offer. Driving around isn’t as carefree and awesome as they promised and it makes me groan every time I have to go into the Nomad to drive somewhere knowing that I’ll probably get stuck in a patch of dirt or not switch to the six wheels at the right time and will be unable to go over the smallest little hill. Looking back, I would take the Mako over the Nomad any day.

Good…but also Bad

A good thing is that each planet that you can explore is huge! A bad thing is that each planet you can explore is huge! It’s great to explore and find new things, but sometimes it just gets to be too much. I understand that the new normal in video games are these unfiltered words that seem to have no boundaries, but sometimes you need boundaries especially when it takes away from the actual game itself. BioWare is known for the stories that they create not the environments and exploration. They should have kept it this way and focused more on what they’re good at instead of trying to get into these huge open world type games. Another good thing, your Ryder isn’t alone. You have an already made family for you consisting of your dad and brother/sister depending on which Ryder you decide to play. The bad thing is that you’ll care about this family as much as you cared about your family in Fallout 4. Which, if you’re like me, when the bomb dropped in Fallout 4 you were already out the door running for the vault with your husband or wife screaming behind you that they had Shaun. Who’s Shaun? Oh that’s right the kid that you had. The family aspect only works if there is some way to for the player to form an emotional connection to them and this game lacks that. Then there’s the combat system which is new and different from previous Mass Effect games, this is also one of those good and bad type things. It’s good that it’s new, but also has that familiarity to it. You’ll know how to play if you’ve played the previous games and if you’re new you’ll find it easy to get used to. The bad is that this was one of the things that Mass Effect didn’t need to change. The combat system was fine just the way that it was in the previous games. I hate being limited to only using three different powers at a time. It’s annoying when you want your full arsenal of combat, biotic, or tech powers at your fingertips, but you can only use three at a time unless you want to constantly be switching profiles which isn’t as seamless as you would think especially in the middle of combat.

The Ugly

If you’ve read anything about Mass Effect then you already know what this section is going to be about. This game has the most ugliest characters and facial animations that I have ever seen in a game and I’ve played some pretty crappy games. For a AAA game that took 40 million dollars to make, these are not the facial animations that you would expect. There are games that came out years ago that have better looking characters than this game. With all of the advancements in technology this is something that cannot be overlooked and I can understand why people are so upset about this. These characters just look like really bad Sim characters as everything looks plastic and fake. There is nothing real about any of these facial animations or the way the characters behave. I understand the whole thing about using algorithms when it came to doing the facial animation stuff, but seriously no one picked up on the fact that this did not look good. Seriously though, who said “wow this looks amazing! Cutting edge technology here!”? Someone had to say that in order for this to pass and clearly that person didn’t know what they were talking about. When it comes to the characters and facial animations this game has become one huge meme and it’s really sad.

Side Note Since the latest patch, I have seen some improvements to certain cinematic scenes. The characters look a little different than they did when the game launched, but it hasn’t fixed everything. That being said, I’m not sure how many patches it’s going to take to actually fix all of this or if there will be a time when BioWare just gives up and says the characters and facial animations are what they are, but this is just something that should have been fixed way before launch.

Without making any kind of excuses and being blunt, this game isn’t perfect in anyway and could have probably used another 5-10 months of polishing in order to make it the worthy successor of the Mass Effect trilogy. At the moment, it seems a little unworthy of carrying the Mass Effect title. There seems to be this equal balance of something good, something bad, and something ugly, but that’s not what you want. You want an outstanding number of good things and then some bad things that can’t be helped, not to mention you want to stay away from the ugly. While patches may make all of my points irrelevant in the future, the fact of the matter is that they exist now while not only myself, but tons of other people are trying to play this game. That being said, this is still a BioWare game and it still excels at telling a story which is what BioWare is great at doing, but at the moment the bad and the ugly are kind of overtaking it. I can find myself playing for hours and enjoying myself until something bad comes along, another glitch that can’t be ignored, another awkward facial animation that cannot be overlooked. It’s my hope that by the time I truly finish the game, get all of the trophies, and publish my final review, that a lot of these things have changed in order to make this the game that it deserve to be.

Does Horizon Zero Dawn need DLC?

With Horizon Zero Dawn already selling over 2.6 million units in the first two weeks of release, it’s really no surprise that Guerilla Game’s is working on an expansion on this game to further the story. While DLC is common, I mean come on even LEGO games have them now. This raises the question that even though developers can make as much DLC as they want does the game, specifically Horizon Zero Dawn, need it?

SPOILER ALERT! There will be some minor or major spoilers in this blog so if you haven’t played and want to see how things go for yourself, then I suggest stop reading. If you’ve competed the game or just don’t care, read on.

If you’ve played and finished the game, you know that our main character Aloy is on the search for not only her mother, but also a way to stop Hades. Hades is your main bad guy in the game as he’s released into the world thinking that it isn’t perfected and that it needs to come to an end in order for GAIA to start all over again. Hades was basically the failsafe if GAIA messed up so bad the first time around that things would have to start again. The thing is, everything that was once GAIA is kind of destroyed so if Hades succeeds then the world is basically done for. Being the hero that Aloy is, she defeats Hades, or at least she thinks she does because she doesn’t know that he’s captured again by Sylens, and basically finds her mother. This is a great ending, it takes all of the games questions and answers them and gives closure to Aloy. So why is there DLC on the way?

This is one of those games that I felt had so much closure and a little twist at the end that I would really hate to see more DLC for it. The ending was perfect and alluded to a sequel that doesn’t have to involve Aloy. At the end of the game I felt that her journey was completed. She did what she wanted to by bringing people together and finding out what happened to her mother and how she was created. As much as she was a great character, I just felt like her story didn’t need to be continued. Aloy’s story had that closure that not a lot of game characters get. She’s young enough that there could be 5 or 6 of these games to see her character develop from a young adult into actual adulthood, but there’s no need for it. Her story was perfect and should be left at that.

Saying that, that doesn’t mean that I’m not open to a sequel for this game. With Sylens capturing Hades at the end of the game, it’s pretty obvious that the Horizon story is far from over. That being said though, I would like to play as a new character the next time around only to keep this franchise from falling into the same faults as Mass Effect and Uncharted. It’s a proven fact that using the same character over and over again gets the player attached to that particular character and not want to see a change. It works for some games as God of War keeps pumping out game after game with you playing as Kratos, but some games don’t want that. I really feel that Aloy’s story is over and would like to see the next game take place in another part of the world with someone as unique as Aloy.

I like to think of this game as one of those rare complete package games. This means that it doesn’t need DLC, but it does need a sequel. I would rather have Guerilla Games work on the sequel that this game deserves rather than waste their time with DLC after DLC after DLC. Although, when you think about how the game ended then jumped back to a point in time before the game ending, you knew that there had to be DLC coming. It didn’t say it, but it alluded to it. That being said, I’m a sucker for DLC for some games and this will probably be one of them, it’s just my hope that after all of this DLC is released a second game gets the time it needs to be fully developed and with a new hero.