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superoddgaming · 5 years

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My Top 10 Games For E3 2019

E3 2019 is on the horizon and you know what that means; endless predictions and guesses and what the hell is gunna be going down from the 8th to the 13th apparently.

A bunch of companies are having their own showcases and conferences except for Sonyand I believe EA this year but I’m not really gunna run through all of the different conferences I’m more so just gunna run through the games that I am most excited about.

10// Session

It’s been almost a decade since we have seen a good skateboarding game on console or PC. Skate 3 released in 2010 and since then nothing has been able to dethrone it as the last well executed skateboarding game.

Tony Hawks Pro Skater sure as hell didn’t even come close. If anything that game made us have even less hope for the genre. But then along came Session, announced at 2018’s E3 slated for a late 2019 release on PC and Xbox.

I hope that we get to see more of Session during Xbox’s conference along with a look into a campaign for the game as well as a final release date.

9// Animal Crossing

I am the most excited about this one mostly because of the Switch’s portability and this will be the perfect drop in drop out game to have on the go with you.

I’m really hoping for an Island or vacation themed one this time around, I think that would be so cool.

8// Control

Control looks all kinds of bizarre, creepy, fun and holy shit the physics they have in this game is just absolutely crazy.

Destructible environments, almost everything is interact-able and they really showcased it at the end of their trailer and where she picks up the projector and shoots it at the wall and each of the boxes and papers all act independently.

I am amazed with this game both technically and from a story standpoint, it looks like a descent into madness mixed with a little government conspiracy.

I’m really excited to see where this one goes and it does look like it will be another PS4 exclusive. Sony is KILLIN IT with the single player experiences.

7// Biomutant

I have had my sights on Biomutant for what it feels like years now. I have eagerly been watching and awaiting more news and insider looks for it. It looks like so much fun, it’s got style, zany humor, really funny narration and the game play looks really promising.

Not only that but the world that your creature exists in is really fascinating with all of these spliced creatures all over the place and interacting with each of them to find out how the world went to a over-polluted corrosive wasteland is sparkin’ some interest in me.

I have a feeling we will get another gameplay demonstration as well as a release date but I’m honestly not expecting this one to come out until 2020 or 21.

This is one of those games that I’m fine with if it takes forever to come out just because I really want it to succeed.

6// Outer Worlds

Space is yours to explore, for a price. Impossibly cool looking monster combinations, beautiful unearthly landscapes and a crazy cast of characters on top of that and you got yourself a new favourite to sink only what I can assume will be over a hundred hours.

They showcased some game play for it and the writing is just awesome. The fact that they has the crowd and myself laughing without and voice acting done in the game yet is a testament to their comedic writing.

What I love most about this game is there’s no real good and evil. You play the game how you want to play it. If that means going along with the story and being a boring upstanding citizen you can do that.

If that means literally murdering actors because of a terrible performance and then disintegrating the director you can do that. Either way you are still rewarded in some fashion for your quests and I just think that is so cool paired with all the other face swapping goodness.

5// Pokemon: Sword & Shield

This will be my first Pokemon game in probably a decade. The last one I played was I think was Ruby and Sapphire.

I’m hoping that Pokemon gets some love during the E3 Direct and we get to see a little bit more of the Region and possibly a look at the starter evolutions.

Y’all know I’m #grookeygang for life. Doesn’t matter what it’s final evolution is look at that little bastard.

They look like they are introducing more RPG elements and the Pokemon franchise could use a refreshing new implication of their pattented Pokemon formula. Hence the reason I haven’t gotten a Pokemon up until this release.

Here is to hoping that they showcase more of the technical improvements beyond just content. I do have a feeling some of the millions of Pokemon IP’ currently being released might get talked about instead though.

4// Cyberpunk 2077

This will come as no surprise it’s in my top 5.

It’s in everybody’s top 5.

It’d be doing this game a dis-service to not have it in your top 5.

CD Project Red, the people who made the Witcher 3, have been working on this game for a millennia now and last year it was showcased and said to be playable from start to finish at that point.

I think we will get a final showcase of all the polishing and finishing touches they’ve put on the game and set it up for a release window.

And I mean what’s not to love about this game?

The concept of cyberpunk the style alone is already badass but a whole dystopian world set around that and knowing that Project Red can do with world building, questing, dynamic abilities and interactions.

If you ask me I don’t think it’s going to be coming until late 2020. This is a game that NEEDS to be perfected. It needs to have a good release. People have been anticipating this game for years, including myself.

My wallet is going to be so empty...

3// Astral Chain

This is what I want to see from Nintendo!

No more Sequelitis, finally an interesting fully developed IP and it looks absolutely badass.

The world, the intricate fighting system, badass robo-cop persona’s on leashes, being a cool ass detective.

This game just looks amazing. We need to see more of it. We know almost nothing about the story so far or even how expansive this game is shaping up to be.

YOU GET TO RIDE ROBO-DOG MECHS! whats not to love?

But hey it’s directed by the dude who did Nier Autmoata and that game was a hidden gem for a while. I’m really hoping this game get to bask in the spotlight a little bit more.

I want this game to be successful so bad. As fun as the Mario and Zelda games can be I know that the Switch can have some serious independent releases like this one.

Astral Chain my just be the trendsetter the Switch needs to prove that it’s not just the Mario console, it’s something that can hold it’s own up against the Xbox and Playstation.

2// The Evil Within 3

This is my wildcard.

I know next to no one is anticipating this game but I LOVE THIS FRANCHISE.

I love the world they have created, the resident evil vibes, the terrifying distorted monsters, the twisted visuals that send a chill down your spine.

The ever looming threat of always being hunted, watched or taunted. The Evil Within masters the atmosphere of never feeling truly safe. You are always on guard and that makes for very interesting game play in a horror narrative.

There was worlds of improvements made between the first and second game and I loved each of them dearly. We were left with a couple unanswered questions at the end of the second game and I really want to see the story come to a close and finish off the trilogy.

I’m not expecting and game play or even a release window but at some point during Bethesda’s conference I really really want to see this pop up. We know they’re not announcing the new Elder Scrolls so there is definitely room there for a surprise release.

This is just me being really really desperate for a third game, the second game had such an incredible world and we saw the characters grow so much it would be a shame to see all of that get stuck in just the second game.

Not to mention that this is the most fun I’ve had playing an actually scary game in a long time. Let’s make it happen Bethesda

1// Square Enix: Avenger’s Project

The long awaited and incredibly mysterious Avenger’s project form Square Enix is the cherry on the cake of this E3.

Square Enix is hosting their own panel and while I know majority of it is going towards the 7 remake and possibly a new final fantasy announcement they would be just plain dumb to not have this ready to announce.

With the MCU concluding it’s current phase with Endgame now is the perfect time to showcase this project. It has been two years since we had the teaser and people were going bat-shit then, imagine what would happen now.

The crazy thing is that this will be the first part of a multi-game deal between marvel and Square Enix which means that this game will just serve as the starting block.

We have seen Marvel make an incredible comeback into the gaming universe and they may be doing exactly that. Creating a gaming universe to pair along side their cinematic universe. This one just might surpass PS4 spidey though. It’s got some serious hype going behind it and we might just finally get to see it at E3 this year.

The Wrap-Up

Anyways that is my top 10 list for this years E3. Are they the biggest announcements or releases? Not by a long shot!

But they are the ones that as of right now I am the most excited about!

Are there anything that you think I’ve missed or forgot about? Are you one of the only other Evil Within fans that want a third instalment?

There’s gotta be someone else out there wanting this as bad as I do!!

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filligan-universe · 6 years

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Game Review: MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF WAR (2017)

It’s 4 AM and I’m mad. I’m mad at the current political climate, I’m mad about the literal climate, I’m mad that it’s 4 AM, I’m mad that you can’t order CDs through Amazon unless you like cracked jewel cases (yes, I still own physical CDs and also purchase them!). And I’m mad at Shadow of War, which is weird because I normally don’t give unenjoyable games much time. But I’ve poured over 50 hours of tears and groans and sighs and sweat and blood on that one day I had a hangnail into this game, and I’m still mad at it.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Loading had one job: be better than its predecessor. This is not always easy when you borrow two of your game’s biggest mechanics from franchises that have failed to top their earliest entries (Arkham Asylum and Assassin’s Creed), but bless Monolith Productions for givin’ ’er anyway.

Hey, if you’re reading this far and I still have your attention, let me ask you a question: what the hell is this game? What the hell is going on? Are we even alive?

Backstory: in the first game, Shadow of Mordor (better title, too), you hacked through orcs, snuck up on orc fortresses, did battle with strong opponents, and got to play around with the unique chess board called the army menu. You could single out orcs. Orcs that bested you rose higher on the board and you felt compelled to hunt them down to cut their ascension short. The game made you plot you every step in battling warchiefs. Were you going to run in sword blazing? Or would you assassinate his bodyguards to weaken his defenses? Or would you dominate his bodyguards – turn them to your side – to ambush the warchief? Different strategies for every enemy, but how you played that chess board was left to you.

Shadow of War should be called Shadow of Army Screen, because that’s the crux of the game. You must take over a significant amount of captains, and you must place high-ranking followers on each of the five capturable forts in order to progress. Things have improved in that you can order your followers around in much more interesting ways. You can create missions for yourself to level up your captains the way you want to. Or you can do this up to a certain point, at least.

Okay, here’s the thing. Here’s what really got my goat. I hit a level cap before I hit the actual level cap. I beat the game, but the game doesn’t truly end. The game consists of four acts, and the end of Act Two culminates in the whole game inverting itself on your ass and nothing being as it was again. It doesn’t really affect the gameplay, but it affects the story. Sure, fine. Act Three is two boss battles. The end. Act Four – oh, ho, ho, Act Four. Act Four is called the Shadow Wars, and this is where the forces of Mordor try to retake all of your forts. Multiple times. These are siege battles, and they’re actually kind of fun, though more so on the attacking side. The stronger your warchiefs in the fort, the stronger the fort, and you’ll be given an effectiveness rating to compare with your attackers. Level up your guys, gain some better defenses, improve your rating, win the siege. Simple, right?

Ah, you fools! Your followers cannot be stronger than you. So if you’re level 45, then level 45 is the strongest possible orc in your command. A problem if, within the attacking siege party, is a couple of orcs above level 45. What’s the big deal, you’re asking me. What the fuck is wrong with you, you’re asking me. It’s an RPG action-adventure hack-and-slash regular-old piece-a-crap – why don’t you just level up your dude so you can level up your orcs so you can beat the fucking sieges and finish this godforsaken game? Well, you arrogant fucks, because leveling up is slower than orc blood in January in Act Four. Once all story missions are finished, you have little options to gain XP. One is to farm nemesis missions, which net about 3000 XP each. Of course, you could be like me and just press on into the sieges because they grant the most XP and hope, with your head and your heart, that the game will propel you enough to keep you on track with the next sieges.

But it won’t!

I… I don’t know what to do. Ever since I reached Act Four, I feel empty inside. I feel like the game gave up on me, but I don’t know what I did. Why did it just up and leave me? We were having a good time, I thought. Sure, I was groaning and sighing a lot, and I’ll get to why, but we had something. Or I thought we did. I dunno, man. I hit level 45 and it felt like there was no reasonable way for me to level up to continue at the same pace I’d been moving.

I don’t know if I’m getting older or if games are getting more lax with the bullshit. It might be a sad combination of the two. And I’m not talking about loot boxes here. I’m talking about games taking their sweet, sweet time with every. Single. Fucking. Thing. They ask you to do. This game takes six hours to load every time you jump between regions. That’s bad enough. But good lord baby Jesus, why does Monolith keep taking the game out of my hands?

In the previous game, each time you confronted a captain, they gave you a little speech that rarely eclipsed fifteen seconds. That tradition continues in the sequel, but now these orcs… these fucking orcs. Sauron taught them how to read Shakespeare or something because they absolutely will not shut up. I’m pretty sure some of them yammer for the better part of a minute. And the problem with that is twofold: 1) I don’t care what these orcs have to say. Nobody does. Nobody ever did. It’s always the same shit over and over and over again delivered from one of three different voice actors. At least in the first game these speeches were short like “Arrrgh I’mma kill ya now, ya fuck!” or something, you know? 2) You did not have to confront nearly as many captains in the first game as you do in this one. This game is all about confronting captains. If you didn’t confront captains, you would not be doing anything. The game could be called Shadow of Confronting Captains. And you still have to hear their speeches every. Single. Time. It wears thin.

This sounds like a trivial complaint, and maybe it would be if the game would just let me play it. That’s all I ever wanted! That’s all I ever ask of a game: let me play you. But the cutscenes are obnoxiously common. The game will surprise you with an ambush or a betrayal way too frequently and – I’m certain it’s programmed this way – at crucial moments with other tasks. I’m an achievement hunter, and there’s one for killing a drake while on a graug. These creatures are randomly generated and they’re not too easy to find. You can probably find a graug in a cave, but then you’d have to find a drake. Twice I managed to do this. Both times, just before I could finish the drake, I was ambushed by a follower betraying me, and I lost the drake kill because every time you’re ambushed, the whole game just totally stops and suddenly there’s an orc and suddenly you have to listen to his whole goddamn speech.

Recently, I was defending a fortress in a siege. Things were going south. All of my captains were dying. When your orcs are in peril, they begin to bleed out and you have to rush over to them and hold B to revive them. This is almost always impossible – you’re often too surrounded by enemies to complete the revival. But guess what happens every time one of your captains dies? That’s right! The whole fucking game stops and you have to watch them bleed out in slow motion, because somehow bleeding out in slow motion is a thing that is even possible to convey. If you have ten orcs fighting for you and shit goes south, that is ten times the game will halt you, no matter what you’re doing – attacking a difficult enemy, trying to regain ground, trying to counter an attack, trying to dominate an enemy, trying to execute an enemy – no matter what you are doing, the game will whisk you away so you can watch your orc die because there is no better way they could have possibly given the player such information.

On the army chess board, your followers will randomly enter missions. If you have a specific orc in mind for a specific task but he’s busy in a mission, you cannot control him until you either force the mission to start and see it to success or advance time three times, which takes forever just from the loading screens. If you seek out an orc to dominate because he’s perfect for a plan you’re crafting, he can instantly enter a mission after he joins your army, and he’s useless to you until he’s free of that mission. If you enter the mission and help him complete it, there is a possibility he will instantly enter another one. Again, you will have to complete that mission before you can use him for what you needed him for. This happened three times in a row with one orc. Just let me play the game! This is not playing the game. Nobody wants to do these shitty things. You can’t set up your game on the premise of free exploration and a choice of how to proceed, then box players in because you couldn’t figure out a better way to integrate this system into the chess board.

So, these loot boxes. The rule of the follower level cap still applies. If you find yourself desperate for powerful orcs, you can purchase them in loot boxes, but they still won’t be a higher level than you, so if your problem lies in enemies stronger than you, loot boxes won’t help. You can gain XP boosts, which seems like the only route to take at this point.

There are two “online” modes: Vendetta and Conquest. Both have you enter another player’s world, which looks identical to yours, and either kill a warchief (Vendetta) or capture a fortress (Conquest). Both modes take ages to load, ages to complete, and the perks are minuscule at best. You rack up spoils of war points, which is a point system segregated from your single-player experience, and every online victory brings you closer to a free loot chest. I’ve thought about doing a bunch of these in the hopes for free XP boosts, but the sheer time it would take is offputting.

The most tragic thing about Shadow of War is the core game, which is identical to its predecessor, is still fun. That’s why I’ve sunk so much time into it. There is a good time to be had here when you brush past all of the garbage development choices. I want to hit the actual level cap, but I have never in my life played a game where I feel like I am just unable to because there’s not enough for me to do. I could farm nemesis missions for days on end and eventually get there, but I’d only resent the game more for it and have a worse time than I am now. I actually Googled a solution to this because it baffled me so much – I was certain I had missed something or done something wrong. The top solution amongst players is to lose your fortress in a siege, then retake it, because that grants you three times the XP of just defending it. I can’t think of a less satisfying way to beat a game, so I may never see the sun in Mordor again.

#Middle earth Shadow of war #Middle earth #Shadow of war review #Shadow of mordor #Middle earth review #Middle earth game #Shadow of War

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