#this is literally just a cinematic version of my gameplay save over the last few years

[ophernelia]

nothing just meechi being beautiful

#lykaia #sneak peek #i am so happy i included meechi and krystle in lykaia #noor and payton too #this is literally just a cinematic version of my gameplay save over the last few years #my sims

[starfighter10]

tlou2 opinion

So I really had to share my opinion(rant) on the last of us part 2 and boy I have a lot to say. I am gonna dwell deep into this one, so bear with me if you can and want to

 But before that I have to share the feelings I hold for tlou1.Back when I finished tlou1, I knew I experienced something truly magical. I was pleasantly surprised by the beautifully crafted story, the execution of the characters, the music, the gameplay , and the effort that went into shaping the journey of the game,the character arcs and bonds. You could see and experience the uniqueness and passion that went into the first project. This game immediately became a favourite of mine.

When tlou2 was announced, my expectations were skyhigh,was elated to continue Joel and Ellie's journey and how it unfolds. The bar set by the first one was exceptionally high and probably impossible to achieve, but I had trust and faith in naughty dog, thought they couldn't go wrong with this one. After experiencing tlou2 , I am speechless.... not in a good way. I have no words to express my disappointment,frustration and anger I feel right now. I don't even know where to begin.... the absolute mess of a plot, the original characters being blatantly ignored, retconned and disrespected in favour of new bland characters, the plotholes in the story, the false advertising and marketing, naughty dog's hubris, making a complete mockery of your fans who are paying money to play something but getting baited for something else. I am utterly heartbroken and angry.

The plot - the driving force of the game is over ambitious, lazy,sloppy and nihilistic. It felt forced. Naughty dog bit off more then they could chew with this one. Tlou2 could have gone several ways in terms of plot with the existing characters, yet we get the cliche revenge plotline with the character abandoning the quest altogether to realise revenge isn't the answer. This trope has been done several times before, with more finesse and better execution. The writers aim for the " Ellie breaks the cycle of the revenge" but it really fails to achieve this as she blatanly annihilates several characters,npcs along the way in quest of her revenge. The damage has been done practically speaking. According to naughty dog's logic , I should expect Nora's sister or a random npc's friend/relatives in tlou3 hunting down Ellie in their revenge quest. Also Abby's quest literally does nothing for me. This character was so poorly written, executed and shoved down our throats, I didn't have any sort of attachment or empathy for her. I simply don't care about this character.

The circumstances that lead to Joel's death was out of character as well. Since the trailer drop in 2016, I was prepared for his inevitable death. Thought he would probably go out like the badass he is, maybe sacrificing himself for Ellie/tommy. The Joel I know from tlou1, a hardened survivor who has fought tooth and nail to survive the past 20 years would NEVER end up in a situation like that. Joel was intensely alert, critical,clever and intuitive. The argument here may be that he has softened in Jackson, but I feel at this point this should be 2nd nature to him. Something that is automatic. Yet the writer's now want you to believe he is a dumbass who would trust a group of strangers, make small talk and introductions and end up in a situation like that. One of the bigger issues was the constant reinforcing that Joel wiped down the fireflies in cold blood and doomed humanity for death by robbing them of their cure for survival,Ellie believing the cure would have been a guaranteed sure shot success ..... WHY? This retcons the first one completely. The beauty of the tlou1 was it's moral ambiguity and uncertainty. We were constantly hinted that fireflies is a mess of a group whose agendas weren't clearly known, whose actions caused the sacrifice of many people for the sake of a slight possibility of a cure.They were power hungry and were cruel enough to send a 14 year old girl to her death with no remorse,consent or any proper investigation or medical research. Joel initially negotiates to find someone else, gets shut down immediately, gets his means of survival snatched and was practically marched to his death. He had no option but to wipe clean these people who planned on killing someone dear to him, for something that is uncertain or in vain. And yes this was a selfish decision on Joel's part, and that was the beauty of it. The moral ambiguity. He was right or wrong or both - open to your interpretation. BUT NOW NAUGHTY DOG WANTS TO TO ERASE ALL THAT DEVELOPMENT. The active reinforcement that Joel was a cold, ruthless murderer who killed fireflies and deprived humanity of its cure? Trying to erase the fact that he was surviving and trying to keep his dear ones safe in this cold, brutal and unforgiving postapocalyptic world. So that we sympathize with Abby and enjoy golfing the tf outa Joel?. Ellie seems like a different character in this one, but again this character is immediately pushed to a whirlwind of traumatic events right from the start of the game. I missed her spark of joy,humour and enthusiasm. The treatment of the main chatacter in her own game is utterly cruel and disappointing, and seemed unfair to me. By the end, Ellie is broken beyond repair. Though she thematically chooses to be the better person and gives up on her vengeance and hate, she still manages to be on the losing side as she ends up losing her father figure which was her closest bond, loses Dina and the kid , she doesn't have her community, her people, her fucking fingers as well. Why? So Ellie could suffer a little more and be unable to do most important thing that bonded her to Joel. Not to mention she loses her switchblade too, her mother's final memory. Surprised that ND spared her mother's letter . Feel her pain and despair. Why does Ellie get such a shitty,depressing, worthless, futile and a hopeless conclusion while Abby not only gets her revenge successfully, forms a close bond in Lev and gets to escape possibly to a fresh start. Ellie? Nah she gets to suffer alone. Her BIGGEST FEAR has become a reality by the end. The least they could do is let Ellie have some solace and calm, surrounded by her loved ones on that farm,her trying to recover from her trauma slowly but surely, it's what joel would have wished for. But no, she is left all alone, absolutely traumatized, all by herself with nothing to look forward to. Oh and tommy is whole new character in every scene. So keep your eyes peeled for various versions of tommy throughout. The character inconsistencies are ridiculous.

The gameplay, beautiful sceneries, and new characters like dina and jesse are few of the positives of game - leaning more towards Jesse. Dina felt perfect for Ellie and Jesse did manage to lighten up few of the moments. The space shuttle cutscene, the museum flashback sequence, ellie and joel's flashbacks were the only parts that remotely captures the magic and beauty of tlou1. I got emotional watching them. The space shuttle sequence hits you with the feels. Joel slaying a bloater with a machete was cinematic art. (Hot too)

Abby... the forced deuteragonist, is an utter failure of character execution. Her character was forced onto us, felt hasty and lacked real build up. She starts off on the wrong foot by killing one of the most popular characters. If ND really wanted this character to work, the only possible way would have been to play her point of view and backstory prior to her mercilessly killing and torturing a guy who just saved her life. What was ND thinking? That a few hours of her pov,forced out of the blue background story, her getting to play with dogs while ellie has no option but to attack the dogs, the abby-lev bond which is pretty much discount or the walmart version ellie and joel would be enough to side with her over ellie and joel???? The part where they force you to play as abby against ellie? It made me sick. I felt cheated and disgusted.

The false advertising to make us believe joel is alive and good? That this is an ellie and joel centric game?To tug at your heartstrings like this. A complete mockery of the fans who waited 7 years to see their favorite characters get horribly treated,retconned, disrespected and thrown under the bus in favour of new unlikable characters. Butchering the heart and soul of the last of us - Joel and Ellie's bond. The fact that these two don't even get a heart to heart before his death, that Joel dies uncertain of ellie's future, maybe thought he could not save Ellie in those final painful moments, that she had never forgiven him, Ellie never getting her closure with Joel, or really getting to tell him how much he meant to her.... all these thoughts legit made me shed tears. Broke my heart. This is how much ND wanted to honour and respect ellie and joel.

The game's conclusion is hollow, futile, worthless and depressing. And in my opinion, this is non canon. This is the only way I can cope with this unsastifying conclusion. It is immaturity I guess... but I will feel better about it.

Though I utterly despise tlou2, tlou1 will continue to remain one of my favorite pieces of work in fiction. JOEL FUCKING MILLER WILL ALWAYS BE THE BADDEST BITCH AND NOTHING WILL CHANGE THE LOVE I HAVE FOR HIM.

If someone actually read it all the way, thank you for your time and effort. Really needed to rant and let these negative emotions out.

#the last of us #the last of us part 2 #tlou spoilers #tlou #tlou2 #tlou joel #tlou ellie #my rants #ellie #joel miller #joel

[paulbenedictblog]

%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

News Google Stadia latency issues, value and library make it not worth the investment - The - The Washington Post

News

The Google Stadia felt esteem a miracle the moment I loaded Destiny onto a Google Pixel cell phone. Sitting in a lounge chair on a rooftop, I became once tremulous to conception that I became once in a situation to stream my broken-down Hunter around in aesthetic 60 frames-per-second fight. On a cell phone!

Nonetheless moments are fleeting, and latency on Google Stadia — the time distinction between your finger pressing a button and the game reacting to it — lasts longer, and leaves a extra lasting impression. The truth is, it generally renders video games unplayable. The service can and would possibly perchance perchance seemingly enhance, and already has one day of the early evaluate length. Nonetheless that’s essentially the most most well-known distinction between purchasing Stadia and real investing in gaming hardware. Google is promoting a service — and services would possibly perchance moreover be unreliable.

When played on a browser or LCD 4K TV, horrendous latency plagued singleplayer and multiplayer video games, giving a cinematic game esteem Shadow of the Tomb Raider the texture of an avant garde college grad venture, replete with buggy, rapid cuts. Precision photography had been now not doable in Destiny 2. Even strolling in a straight line became once a command within the otherwise honest indie game Gylt, the console’s handiest unfamiliar title.

I would possibly perchance perchance silent stress that every body among this took issue while taking half in Stadia by the employ of the Chromecast Extremely, which comes filled with the Founder’s or Premiere Model consoles (that some obtained’t receive quickly ensuing from stream delays), or by map of Google’s possess Chrome browser.

On the cell phone, on the opposite hand, an fully various story emerges. Whereas taking half in Destiny 2 in 60 fps on a Google Pixel 3a XL over a WiFi connection, there became once nearly no blurriness and barely any latency. Barring just a few noticeable but rapid skips one day of play, the photography produced had been rapid and gripping on the cell phone’s 2160x1080 resolution show hide.

These tests had been conducted with my WiFi at home, which gave me anyplace from 45 to 55 Mbps obtain speeds, smartly above the 35 Mbps Google says would possibly perchance perchance silent give me 60 frames-per-second stream in 4K resolution. They had been also conducted on The Washington Put up’s Gigabit Ethernet and WiFi service. In all cases, the cell phone outperformed the abilities on browsers and TVs.

As of Monday night time, the service in my home was seriously higher, even despite the indisputable truth that gameplay silent experienced some order.

Sooner than open, Stadia warned reviewers that taking half in on a Chromecast Extremely at work is now not supported, as “Chromecast doesn't toughen WPA2-Endeavor networks. Stadia’s TV abilities with Chromecast is designed for home networks the attach the Stadia controller and Chromecast are on the the same Local Residence Network.”

On the opposite hand, our work tests that displayed heavy latency and enter inch had been performed on a Chrome browser by map of an Ethernet-wired notebook computer within the newsroom, as smartly as over the newsroom WiFi on the Pixel. A Stadia spokesperson acknowledged company networks would possibly perchance perchance now not play smartly with the service this present day.

“Corporate networks also are usually congested ensuing from a high quantity of job, which is counter-productive to increasing distinct you possess a soft gaming abilities the attach processing occurs in true time,” they added.

We examined six titles forward of Tuesday’s open: Destiny 2, Crimson Dreary Redemption 2, Mortal Kombat 11, Gylt and Kine. Destiny 2, a 2017 game, is Stadia’s open centerpiece, and the preferrred various game incorporated with the $9.99-a-month Stadia Pro subscription apart from closing-minute addition Samurai Shodown. In a closing-minute effort to procedure extra avid gamers, over the weekend Stadia announced that it could perchance be expanding its open lineup from 12 to 22 video games, reasonably just a few them over a year broken-down.

The worth of taking half in Destiny 2 on Stadia comes from Bungie’s horrible-saving characteristic, which allowed me to import my PlayStation 4 character into the Stadia version. Bigger than a novelty, it’s a helpful and efficient formulation to acquire up and grind out just a few ranges in low-stakes gameplay while using in a automobile. And that you just would possibly well even salvage in just a few multiplayer rounds from the comfort of your mattress.

The truth is, Stadia’s worth is at its top with a game esteem Destiny 2 — and truly no various open title we examined. Crimson Dreary’s taking pictures and Mortal Kombat’s ... smartly ... fight all functioned as expected, at least at any time when enter inch and streaming latency weren’t a controversy. Nonetheless they’re all otherwise the the same broken-down video games, real generally extra fuzzy and no more purposeful as they had been years ago.

Within the mean time, Stadia appears easiest suited for video games that assist persisted, gradual development, especially ones that enable for some horrible-platform aspects esteem Destiny 2′s cloud saves. Stadia works huge for the vogue of player who needs to register on their game one day of the day. There’s a limited more than a few of video games on Stadia that fit this bill. Essentially the most evident omission is Fortnite, arguably the enviornment’s most smartly-most well liked video game.

Fortnite and the original Name of Duty: Contemporary Warfare would had been two huge releases to showcase Stadia’s versatility. Whereas the Stadia isn’t supreme for aggressive play, the video games’ development methods don’t require high-level abilities. One clear, compelling employ case for a Stadia player is the capacity to growth in a Fortnite season pass from the neighborhood library’s computer.

One other disappointing discovery: Video games on the Stadia cease now not characteristic the graphical strategies supplied on PC releases. Gamers obtained’t be in a situation to toggle resolutions, visual or texture outcomes or frames per second. With regards to presentation, gamers are left at the mercy of developers and Google’s servers.

Reviewing Stadia as a service feels a little esteem reviewing YouTube. The boom material isn’t reasonably there yet, and the service isn’t huge both. Nonetheless this model is presented as an intentional more than a few.

“It’s a residing, breathing service,” Jack Buser, Stadia’s director for video games and industry construction, stressed out in an interview with The Put up. “The Stadia you conception on day one will consistently evolve over time. We’ll be adding original technology, original aspects, original video games. Over time, it’s going to develop, we’ll toughen extra monitors, in consequence of we’re now not limited. We’re truly in a situation to enhance the technology within our recordsdata services with out having the consumer obtain original hardware.”

Google promised to commit to Stadia, mentioning various successful products esteem Gmail and the Play Store to engender some faith. Nonetheless it surely’s also laborious to brush aside the literal digital graveyard of past Google efforts. A web page known as KilledByGoogle.com lists 156 services, 18 apps and 16 hardware suggestions scrapped by the firm.

So right here’s a four-phrase evaluate on the Premiere Model in 2019: It’s now not worth it. We are able to’t guarantee it’ll work smartly with your connection, given the wild variable instability we experienced at The Put up even with high-traipse broadband capabilities. As reported broadly, a host of promised aspects aren’t on hand at open.

The controller, for what it’s worth, is exceptional, a pleasure to retract. Nonetheless the triggers feel a little looser than they ought to be, and future Stadia users will potentially be higher off using any controllers they already possess.

Premiere Editions are silent on hand online for $129 which comes with a controller, a Chromecast Extremely ($69) and a 3-month subscription to Stadia Pro, which affords you Destiny 2 and Samurai Shodown totally free. Besides the Chromecast Extremely packed in with the sector, Stadia is playable on Pixel telephones and tablets working the Chrome running machine. Heaps of gadgets, esteem the iPhone, could be on hand later.

The varied video games esteem Crimson Dreary Redemption 2? You silent must lift them one by one, albeit at a lowered imprint. Crimson Dreary Redemption 2 is the finest title at open, but it’s over a year broken-down and silent sells at the open imprint of $60. It’s laborious to mediate the player who truly wanted to play Crimson Dreary Redemption 2 and lacked the property to play it a year ago, but who would pony up $129 to play it on Stadia this present day.

Stadia’s deplorable salvage admission to will open subsequent year, and it’s handiest then that Stadia’s beefy capacity could be seen: As a web storefront to salvage admission to essentially the most fresh video games straight away. There’s novelty and worth in that.

As Crimson Dreary 2′s open date became once moved up, I became once in a situation to salvage admission to the game on my Stadia app straight away. No downloads, no patches nor updates. I real jumped shapely into the game’s snowy introduction in lower than a minute. I silent keep in mind the hours it took to acquire the fashioned. By comparability, taking half within the game straight away in a browser feels esteem the future.

Stadia is definitely paving a original assemble of recordsdata toll road for gaming. My advice this present day is to dwell for your original lane except they cease that work.

Learn extra:

[thegraytalon-blog]

Kingdom Hearts III

Alas, The Gray Talon chooses his targets wisely as the hunter considers his prey! 

With that being stated, today we are going to discuss, pick apart and review  the 14 year old game in the making, Kingdom Hearts III seeing as though I have just finished the story last night. First off as always I may slip and include a spoiler here any there so if you don’t want anything ruined you may want to click or look away before we go any further. However, if you don’t mind a mild spoiler or two, let’s jump right in and get started!

Overview:

Square-Enix in association with Yensid, er, I mean Disney, has brought us at long last a true sequel to Kingdom Hearts II. A game that was originally released in Japan in late 2005 and in NA/Europe in spring of 2006. The genre of this title is an action/RPG, with heavy emphasis on the action and a light to moderate notion to the RPG aspect. We will be looking at an array of features in this game ranging from graphics to gameplay and dissecting the story and overall seeing in the end if it’s truly worth your time!

Graphics:

In terms of visual style and representation of the polish, I can say without hesitation that here is one of the few key areas where KH3 shines. And I mean literally shines. By using the Unreal 4 Engine, the shiny and robust environments, textures and landscapes are truly a feast for the eyes. Even the cinematic cutscenes will have your jaw agape in awe that they are using in-engine graphics to undertake those scenes. The transitions from cutscenes to in game action are near flawless as well, allowing you to jump back into the action after a scene plays out without having to wait for a loading screen or any type of fade to black scene to transpire. There is an extremely noticeable difference from past KH titles to KH3. You’ll begin to notice little nuances such as Sora’s hair flowing in the wind as he’s jumping in the air to Donald and Goofy’s clothing swaying as they’re running around. I was playing this on my PS4 Pro and it seems to have an output of 1440p overall and does not include an option for HDR on either versions of the game, which is a little disappointing, but does not hinder the core experience. There is an option for framerate to either be locked at 30FPS or an free flowing framerate mode, which is defaulted from the start. I cannot stress enough that you should just leave the default settings as is because the game runs much, much better without locking up the framerate. The framerate, in fact, on free flow mode is almost consistently over 50FPS, nearing 60, which is impressive considering I was playing the game on the PS4 Pro and not the Xbox 1X, which tends to be more of a powerhouse in terms of hardware. Overall the graphics are pristine and what you would expect from taking a large chunk of an advantage of the Unreal 4 Engine.

Gameplay and Control:

The hack and slash action returns ten-fold in KH3 and honestly more so than I would have liked or expected. Don’t get me wrong, the gameplay works and overtime at that. There’s numerous moments when you’re struggling to keep up with the fast paced mayhem transpiring on screen as you keep mashing X, while waiting for that inevitable Triangle action command to prompt to go into a little mini-game mode with yourself, Donald, Goofy or whichever 4th party member you have from whichever world you are presently in. In my opinion there is just too much relying on mashing 1 or 2 buttons here and in the beginning when you’re in the honeymoon phase with KH3, you will rejoice and possibly say this is the best action game you ever played. However, when you’re 3 or 4 worlds in and doing the exact same carousel or water slide mini-game you’ll begin to feel burnt out from the tediousness that never seems to differ. One of the biggest problems of KH3, besides it’s overly convoluted story, (which don’t worry, we will get to shortly), is it’s over saturated use of relying on 1 or 2 buttons to kill an enemy with the same move over and over again with a teeny weeny hint of magic here and there and washing, rinsing and repeating until the very final moments of the game. The combat honestly feels like it’s just been slightly enhanced from other KH titles and does not do anything to evolve the core fighting mechanics as time goes on. You mash a button or two until something dies, use cure or a potion here and there when need be, and keep on repeating until the credits roll. The controls feel tight, slick and responsive as you move Sora around the map and by the simple press of a button can instantly send him wherever you want to go in whichever fashion you like. The camera works with you too as opposed to against you. The free camera control is always a welcomed sight and the only time the camera almost got in my way was during the final boss fight when it switched to an overhead view to better scope out your surroundings but it was a minor hiccup in the end. But you would think after over a decade in development, Tetsuya Nomura would focus more on the combat aspect instead of just tossing in a mere handful of random action sequences that replay more than a sitcom does reruns in the summer. But no, Nomura-san decided to invest all of his time and energy into providing us with one of the most complex storylines known to man that can even rival trying to figure out the proper timeline in The Legend of Zelda series, only much, much more nonsensical. 

Story/Narrative/Campaign:

Now herein lies the Achilles’ heel to not only KH3, but the plethora of all KH games to date, leading back to KH2 when the overly complicated cast of Kool-Aid cultists known as the Organization XIII were introduced, killed out, reintroduced, renamed and resurrected into different bodies. It’s just plain old unwarranted for a game that revolves around Disney and Final Fantasy characters. Oh, and speaking of Final Fantasy characters, or should I say lack thereof, KH3 shifts the focus to solely Disney and no, delete delete, Pixar characters in it’s entirety. If you have the smallest expectation to see Cloud, Squall, Auron or any of the other beloved FF cast then you best not ever even dare to dream about picking up and playing KH3 for the sheer amount of disappointment that will ensue. There is maybe 1 or 2 references to the FF characters but they are nowhere to be found here in KH3. There is only Sora, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, the Organization XIII wackos and the 4 new Pixar worlds they added in total of 6 worlds in KH3 because a 10 year developmental period only allows for a handful of new worlds to be created. The returning worlds are Olympus Colosseum, which opens up the prologue of the game with (and my personal favorite in the entire game because you fight a ton of titans and Hades with a reprising James Woods doing his role) and for some daft reason Pirates of the Caribbean, because why not? The Pirates of the Caribbean story is also as complicated as a monkey trying to solve Chinese algebra so why not marry it to the conundrum that is the KH storyline? It makes sense right? Yeah, as much sense as strapping your nuts to a car battery because you like the way it feels. Now moving along, besides the lack of FF characters, the story and plot itself is very loosely explained. Sure there are some subtexts you can find and revisit in the main menu, but it rarely does justice as Square and Tetsa Nomura-San really wanted to you play either all 10 of the other KH games prior or by spending full price on the Story So Far PS4 title and watching the 17 hours of cutscenes so you are all caught up, because why else do we exist on this planet, if not to uncover the intricate meanings of a game about why there’s an organization trying to steal people’s hearts who also have a nobody and  unversed counterparts with Disney characters somewhere mixed in? And excuse me, because after reading that sentence back to myself I think I just gave myself Syphilis stage 3. But this is not the sole issue of the KH story. In KH3 especially, there is no focus on the plot, even as complicated as it may be. The vast majority of the game you are trying to get Sora to find the power of waking and from the opening prologue (which I kid you not as you enter Olympus the words spew across the screen Kingdom Hearts 2.9, you sleazy rat bastards) once it is mentioned and as you begin to traverse the worlds, Sora and pals tend to forget what their goal is and what they are doing, other than visiting worlds and getting intertwined with their own unique dramas. In the final act of the game, the story picks back up in tidbits only to try it’s best to close out the supposed final chapter in what has already been a painstakingly long and drawn out franchise. Lastly, if you think the story is over after KH3, hilariously the way the game ends makes it feel like The Dark Knight Rises, where you can create your own ending and definition to the fate of Sora. Only if you manage to collect all Mickey emblems can you see the “true” ending, which again doesn’t even make sense like the rest of this game. Sora and Riku are on some kind of Final Fantasy Versus like world on another adventure insinuating a KH4. Right. KH4, coming in the year 2099 after all the nuke’s finish dumping on the world and all that’s left is KH4 and a handful of mutants. If I had to rate KH3 on it’s narrative alone it would get a C- but luckily the slick gameplay and amazing musical score helps balance out the awkwardness of it’s plot.

Sound, Voice and Music:

Another saving grace in KH3 is in it’s musical opus. When it wants to, the score is reminiscent to that of a grand orchestra, that can damn near rival the likes of such famed composers as Hans Zimmer, Harry-Gregson Williams, Bill Conti and even John Williams at times. Some very familiar tunes return from previous games and the final battle music is a delight to the ears to behold and take in. The copulas sounds of a beautifully integrated choir with a robust orchestra really bring the world around you to life. The voice acting holds up well too for the most part, when they aren’t talking complete gibberish about the plot. Disney characters sound as you imagine they would in their respective films. Although Tom Hanks and Tim Allen couldn’t reprise their roles as Woody and Buzz Lightyear, their stand-ins do just fine to make you feel like you’re playing a side tale of Toy Story. Meanwhile, the return of almost the entire cast of Frozen made you feel like you were watching Frozen 2.0. And lastly, the sound effects in terms of inanimate objects and clashing in the world sounds crisp and clean. There are some stale voice acting, though from time to time. Such as whenever some Organization XIII members try to explain the plot and they sound like they’re reading off of a bad script from an Uwe Boll or Paul W.S. Anderson movie. At the end of the day, the music is exemplary and the voice acting is solid on an average scale.

Replay Value:

At best, it all depends on how big of a fan you are at the end of the day. In the 30 hours I spent with KH3, for me, I am a moderate fan of the series so once I saw those credits roll, I was satisfied. I felt no further need to return to a previous save and collect all of the ingredients for the Ultima Keyblade and/or go around hunting down those fat pieces of flan goo taking pictures of them along with those Mickey emblems for a trophy and a secret/true ending. The amount of tedium present in KH3 is heavy in terms of combat that doesn’t escalate beyond pressing 1 or 2 key buttons and a narration that runs circles around itself providing little to no answers or logical sense. It’s a solid action game at it’s core with lots of flash and little in terms of substance and depth unless you count the ridiculously deep never ending rabbit hole of it’s complex plot. 

Overall Score/Worth Your Time?:

When all is said and done and the smoke and pixie Disney dust has settled I cannot help but give KH3 a 7 out of 10. It upsets and pains me in a sense to have to say this, but after waiting oh so very dearly long (and dearly beloved) for this game to come out, something very, very wrong happened in it’s prolonged and obtuse production and development and it’s really hard to pinpoint exactly where as in a nutshell the game is a bit of a mess all around in most areas. While the gameplay and controls are tight and fluid, it suffers from overusing the same stale combat over and over again in tandem with a story that is just too damn hard to put time and energy into figuring out. The musical score is probably the only area of KH3  where I can safely say it’s flawless. The rest of the game is up in shambles, endlessly clashing with itself and can’t figure out what direction it wanted to go in for the majority of it’s campaign. And that’s not just present in KH3, it’s now present in most of the other KH games after KH1 as well. It seems that Tetsu Nomura bit off more than he can chew when in reality a cute and cozy video game about Disney and Final Fantasy characters should have simply been about crossing over the 2 franchises and not trying to engross the masses in a plot that would make Interstellar, The Matrix and Inception look like Cool Runnings or Encino Man. (Remember Encino Man? Yeah, I liked Brenan Fraser in the 90′s...) But I digress, is Kingdom Hearts 3 worth your time at the end of the day? And in all honesty, unless you’re a super nerd and have played all 10+ games in their entirety and took a course to understand the intricate workings of the story, then no, it is not worth the 30 hours of your life. Go play Resident Evil 2 remake instead, which I beat twice and is simply glorious. 

PRO’S:

Beautifully rendered worlds and graphics with stable framerates.

A simply magical musical score that is a delight to hear.

Tight and responsive controls.

CON’S:

Tedious combat that does not evolve and challenge the player.

Overly saturated and convoluted plot that does not warrant meaning to casual and even some avid gamers.

Absence of all of the beloved Final Fantasy characters.

Only a handful of new worlds to visit (about 4 in total) mostly from the Pixar universe.

Repetitive encounters and battle commands that hinder the excitement.

#kingdom hearts #video games

[slci-lions-roar]

Red Dead Redemption 2: Best Game of 2018

By: Dan Cheng (Gr. 12)

Backstory:

In 2010, Rockstar Games released one of the greatest games in history, Red Dead Redemption.

It pretty much set the expectations of what a video game based in the wild west would be like to the highest and broke those expectations with an uppercut through the roof, scaring all the other video game developers out of ever trying their hand in the old west genre.

It told the beautifully painful story of John Marston, a former outlaw turned bounty hunter, as he hunted down his old gang to save his family from the Feds. The gameplay mechanics of Red Dead Redemption, such as the weapon wheel and Dead Eye, have since inspired a great many games that came after. But what did that leave us after we beat the game? Only 8 years of anticipation and conspiracies., Iin 2016, we finally got confirmation that Red Dead Redemption 2 was coming. Having been delayed twice, the game finally released (for PS4 and Xbox One) on October 26, 2018.

Installation details:

Red Dead Redemption requires 106GB of hard drive space available to install. After installation, it gives back 50GB of space back to you, so it only takes up 56GB to keep it inside your system. Delete it and you need 106GB to reinstall it. Capiche? If that’s not enough to make you punch yourself in the gut, the game comes with TWO discs. Yeah, that two disc thing hasn’t happened since “Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes” on the Gamecube. Anyway, the first disc is the data disc that has the first half of the game’s data and the second one is the play disc. It has the second half and it's the disc you will use to play the game. What else…?? Oh yeah, the installation is two to three hours long and takes even longer if you aren’t quick enough to change the discs as soon as the first half of the installation is done.

Story Details:

The story of the game is 60 hours long and I’ve only been playing for 17 hours. Yes, I’ve destroyed my social life, mental health, vitamin intake, kidneys, and mother’s patience in the first 8 hours. What is real life? Is it a legendary animal? ...Girlfriend, you say? Is that an expensive weapon? Anyway, the story is a prequel to the first Red Dead Redemption and the gist of it is pretty simple.

Set in the 1890’s, the beginning of the end of the Wild West. You are Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van Der Linde gang led by Dutch Van Der Linde (a major antagonist in the last game) and accompanied by not only the guys you were supposed to kill in the last game… but also John Marston. A robbery went bad in a town called Blackwater and now the government is hunting your gang down. The main objective of the story is to go on the lam and survive off the land. The story so far is quite amazing. It not only engages the player in dialogue, it also makes you want to keep going. Keep seeing how it all plays out in the end. The first chapter, in my opinion, was a little stretched. While it did set up some good introductions to characters, the chapter mainly acted as a tutorial disguised as part of the story when you could have essentially taken that part out all together or made it as an option for players who want a tutorial and as an option to skip for players who don’t… either way, it wouldn’t change the story that much as the beginning of chapter two likes to reinstate the issues in chapter 1 enough that anyone who was just finally starting to pay attention would be able to understand. Either way, it is quite amazing to see how the gang members develop into the villains you kill in the first game. You will play as Arthur Morgan for the first 6 chapters and play as John Marston for the epilogue, setting up the start of the first Red Dead Redemption.

Gameplay:

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of those games that truly lives up to its predecessor and then some. The gameplay is so vastly improved and dynamic from the first game;, it’s like video games can hit puberty. The mini map design, dead eye and weapon wheel mechanics make a return, but better. The mini map is now interchangeable to a degree that it's more convenient than the tediousness of just pausing the game to open the map. The Dead Eye mechanic no longer relies on a V.A.T.S-like protocol of waiting for you to confirm where you want to shoot, it will automatically mark a spot, allowing you to be quick when using Dead Eye and conserving Dead Eye power. This more reliable Dead Eye also has a drawback in that constantly turning on Dead Eye means accidentally shooting where you don’t want to, making you waste needless Dead Eye power. I like this as it not only makes players treat Dead Eye as a valuable resource instead of just an easy way to play, it also forces the player to get better at hand eye coordination so they won’t rely on Dead Eye. The weapon wheel is pretty much the same as always, with a few changes. Because Red Dead Redemption 2’s game engine is meant to be realistic as possible, the weapon wheel has been limited to only three firearms (or two firearms and one bow) because nobody can realistically pull 30 different types of guns from an invisible bag in their pants (looking at you, Grand Theft Auto V). Switching weapons ingame is also quite cinematic. Say you’re in a gun-fight and you want to switch from your carbine to your revolver. Arthur won’t just sling his carbine over his back or make it disappear from reality. He’ll hold the carbine by the barrel with his left hand and use his right hand to shoot the revolver. This realism of how guns are held was no doubt inspired by Max Payne 3, especially when you get the option to dual wield two revolvers or pistols. One excessively strange feature is the Eagle Eye ability. This is essentially a carbon copy of the Eagle Vision from Assassin’s Creed, most notably the version from Revelations. Eagle Eye essentially slows down time when you walk or crouch (like Dead Eye, but without being able to shoot a gun) and tracks animals you hunt by highlighting the trail they took. Red Dead Redemption 2 is teeming with several things to in your free time when you feel like exploring the world. You can shave your beard, get a haircut, get a bath, get a girl to give YOU a bath, play five finger fillet, order food, order drinks, cook food, go hunting, murder people, rob people, play poker, buy guns, buy clothes, get drunk, rob houses, rob everything, kill everything and most importantly… all you had to do was follow the train, CJ!. No really, Chapter 3 has a mission where you literally follow a train. It nearly broke my thumb.

I absolutely enjoy the fact that there is more customization in this game than the first one, as the first one only had full outfits to choose from and this one allows you to mix and match to create custom outfits while also forcing you to dress according to the weather. Yes, like Breath Of The Wild, you have to dress according to the game’s climate (hot, cold and average). The option to wield a bow is awesome, but I wish there was more than one. As an archer myself, I do pride myself on knowing what kind of wood my bow has and if its a recurve or longbow.

Unlike the first game, Red Dead Redemption 2 focuses on realism, so that means survival needs and hair upkeep. Eating or neglecting to eat will affect Arthur’s cores (Cores are Health, Stamina and Dead Eye). Eating will increase health, but bring down stamina, with neglecting to eat doing vice versa and causing Arthur’s weight to change. Yes, you can be a fat outlaw. Sleeping is essential for keeping your cores recharging at normal speed. The same can be said for consumables, although it does annoy me that Arthur takes one puff of a cigarette or cigar (both of which increase Dead Eye at the cost of stamina) and throws it away. Its surprisingly satisfying to watch Arthur eat a meal or drink coffee at camp while walking into the morning sun. Hair and beard will grow over time, but slowly. It’s annoying if you want to keep short and clean shaven like in the military and agonizing if you want to do Forrest Gump during his three years of running.

The bounty system also makes a return from the last game, but in a much easier fashion to survive and harder to be rid of. Bounties are more realistic, forcing you to wear a bandana to avoid being identified, lest you pay hundreds to the post office to remove your bounty.

Speaking of realistic, the weather in the game is highly dynamic. The snowy mountains feel like Canada during the winter of 2009, the canyons feel peaceful as you gallop through to see the sun shine over the road, the desert landscape in certain towns bring a paranoia of lack of vision and the night is ACTUALLY dark.

Final Thoughts:

Red Dead Redemption 2 deserves a 13/10. It truly is game of the year and nothing can beat it.

Excellent story, a vast amount of activities/sidequests, the most massive playable map I’ve ever seen and near flawless realism with a few hiccups of glitches that are forgivable.

Lets have some moonshine, boys and girls, Arthur Morgan’s story will go down as a classic.

#december2018