Wednesday, April 26, 2017

The State of Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3

Hey Guys, before I actually share my thoughts on this particular topic I have to mention that I have never played any of the Sniper: Ghost Warrior games before. While I may be seen as unreliable due to my lack of experience on the games, I still can have an option based on the number of issues being reported. Anyways, let's get this going.
Image Provided by GameSpot

















Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is the first AAA game from CI Games. Well, in the sense of having a much bigger budget. The other games were obviously very linear and the gameplay itself was relatively simple due to not having much of a budget.

Both of the previous games were pretty much ravaged by critics, but it somehow sold well. According to CI Games, the series sold around 5.5 million copies. I don't know if this number is right, but I'm guessing the games have gained a cult following despite critics not liking the series as a whole. Hell, I'm surprised that the whole series did sell this much despite there being a lack of promotion for the games.

Anyways, you'd expect with a bigger budget that Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 would be the best game in the franchise. Right? Oh boy.

While the game is generally getting mixed reviews from bigger gaming news outlets, a lot of small YouTubers are giving honest reviews about the game especially around its technical performance. Just looking at gameplay videos of the game makes you want to cringe because of the amount of framerate drops, bugs, and glitches.

What the hell did CI Games do with the budget? Did they spend most of it on the visuals and open-world environments? Did they even playtest this shit!? Seriously, where are the testers at? Either they're not using them or didn't bother hiring some for this game.

Even when you get past all the technical stuff, all you get is a generic story as well as subjective gameplay. By that I mean that the gameplay has potential, but it's going to depend on the player's preferences. Actually, it's heartbreaking to think that this game did have potential, but this game was clearly rushed out the door due to its poor performance. This is happening on PC as well, so imagine how bad this game must run on consoles.

Do I have any intention of playing this game? Probably not. Imagine how much better this game would be if the developers took the time to polish it.

Battlefield 4 and Assassin's Creed Unity were already prime example of what happens when they are rushed out the door way too early. However, this shit is still happening. Not on a grand scale, but it's still happening. Will it ever stop? No. These publishers especially are the ones to blame. Keep in mind that the publishers are the ones to make these deadlines, so it's mostly their fault that games are not given enough time to be polished.

Before I end this, I just watched the Call of Duty WWII trailer and will post my thoughts tomorrow. Right now, I just want people to takeaway the lesson here. Publishers are to blame for all these buggy launches.
Till Next Time!!

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Xbox Live: Free Games of May 2017- Not for everyone...

Hey Guys, I know this news is late, but I guess it's better late than never. I know there was a lot of important news in the gaming industry like the discontinuation of the NES Classic Edition and the announcement of the new Call of Duty. I'll be giving my thoughts on the new Call of Duty game once the world premiere occurs. Anyways, let's continue with my worthless opinion.
Image Provided by Major Nelson's Blog.

















It's been a while since I played any Tomb Raider game. The last one I played was Rise of the Tomb Raider and I have yet to complete that. I think I got stuck on one of the optional tombs and haven't returned to it. Maybe I'll check out this Lara Croft game, but I'm not a fan of the gameplay style of this particular game.

I seriously hate when games people have never heard of are made for free. What the hell is Gianna Sisters? Why not make another game for free that is around the same price!?

Lego games are actually pretty fun. However, not everyone is going to like the Lego games even if is Star Wars themed. I might check this out once it releases, but I don't know anybody who is willing to play it with me. Believe me, the Lego games are so much fun when you are playing with someone else.

I never played any of the Force Unleashed games. I heard the second one was a mixed bag. I'm not sure if I'm going to touch it since I didn't play the first one when it was free. Could be that I'm not a big Star Wars guy or I just don't have as much time as I like to be playing video games.

Before I leave, just know that Xbox One owners got scarred for May. One of them looks decent enough, but this is really divisive. Some people are going to like the gameplay others are not. I'll see you guys next time when the new Call of Duty game is revealed.
Till Next Time!!

Monday, April 17, 2017

Star Wars Battlefront II: My Thoughts

Hey Guys, the gaming community as well as Star Wars fan are buzzing about the recent announcement of Star Wars Battlefront II, which will be released on November 17th, 2017.
Image Provided by Den of Geek




















I'm going to start off with the positive. It's a cool idea that pretty much every character from both the new and old Star Wars films will be appearing in the game. How they'll be balanced is beyond me, but fans are going to be happy about this nonetheless.

The visuals just capture the Star Wars feeling. This is just a game that looks and feels like Star Wars much like the original game.

Additionally, no Season Pass! I was surprised to even hear this especially when it's coming from EA. However, they want to try something "different". Who the hell knows what that means? Honestly, the DLC should be free and the game's longevity would be prolonged. The original game's playerbase dropped significantly around the three months it originally released.

What disappointing me was the amount of players that could be on one server, which is 40. This is Battlefront! Why couldn't we get 64 players?

However, this game is going to be class based, so it's possible this is going to a lot less causal than the original game where a lot of the criticism was drawn at. While I prefer to not see a Call of Duty approach to it, I don't want this to be a reskin of Battlefield.

The one thing that has to be mentioned is the inclusion of a campaign mode! Finally! Even though DICE is the developer, it's great that EA is giving them time to actually work on both. I do hope the campaign is actually good.

Before I go, I just want to give a PSA to NOT PRE-ORDER. Even though it looks like DICE is doing what they can to improve the game, this is still being published by EA, so anything could happen.
Till Next Time!!

Monday, April 10, 2017

Update: RIP Wallet, Xbox Scorpio, and Stuff

Hey Guys, just wanted to make an update post since it's been a while. Today, I'm going to talk about the Xbox Spring Sale, the price of the Xbox Scorpio and something unplanned.

Xbox Spring Sale
Anyways, the Xbox Spring Sale starts tomorrow and I really can't buy anything at the moment since part of my tuition bill is due next week, so I'm incredibly pissed about that. I would have loved to catch Watch Dogs 2 on sale as I beat the first one about a month ago. Maybe I'll get one game that is less than $20, but I can't be spending anything more than that.

Xbox Scorpio
With the specs finally revealed for the Xbox Scorpio, I see a lot of negative feedback about it mostly from PC elitist. Look, it's a console. A very powerful console. It's not going to compete with a PC that is installed with a GTX 1080. However, it is impressive that the console is going to be running games at native 4K at 60fps. I thought that would be a stretch, but I guess Microsoft is going to pull it off.

I'm not a graphics whore or anything, but 4K at 60fps is just erection worthy. I don't think every game will run like that, but it's still impressive nonetheless from a console.

A lot of speculations are being made about the price. I've seen price predictions from $400 to $900. Keep in mind that when the Xbox One initially released with the Kinect it was $500. The PlayStation 4 Pro is only $400. Assuming that the Xbox Scorpio is being released without a bundle, I would imagine that $500 is a fair price point. If that son of a bitch is going to be $400 or $450, then you bet it's going to sell like hotcakes.

Persona 5 Streaming Situation
This has got to be one of the most controversial moves that Atlus or any game developer has made so far this year. To make a long story short, Atlus worked their asses off on Persona 5 and don't want Western players to be spoiled on the game's plot, so they are going hard on people who stream Persona 5 story gameplay.

You can show certain parts of the story, but not much else. If you do stream more of Persona 5's story, you're going to get hit with copyright issues.

Fair use is literally being ignored by the world. However, a lot of scumbags in the world are going to try to find a loophole in the system, so they can abuse content creators for this kind of bullshit.

Are they going to censor websites that discuss the game too? What about Wikipedia where you can literally read the game's plot? This kind of thing will literally make you want to give up hope in humanity because of how little respect we have for one another.

Now that I have my ramblings out of the way, I'm done for today. Not sure what else is going to be new for this week, but I'm going to try to have six posts this month.
Till Next Time!!