As a small aside before I continue however, I would just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who gave me feedback on my Gold Making post. I had well over 6500 views on that post alone in the two weeks it's been up and all of the people contacting me on Reddit, in game and on Facebook made me feel like I had helped a few people. I will definitely be continuing to post more newbie guides to WoW.
Without any further introduction, lets dive headfirst into this edition of the Random Ramblings.
Pokemon X and Y
I recently obtained a 2DS and a copy of Pokemon Y. If you've been reading the blog for a little while you know I am a huge Pokemon fanboy, and it is really my only handheld game obsession. X and Y have done a fantastic job of tapping into the group of players that started with Red and Blue all those years ago. How? Kanto starters. Being able to obtain all of the Kanto starters through one means or another makes this whole game a huge nostalgia trip for me.
The overworld gameplay has changed a whole bunch. Being able to move diagonally makes movement that much more interesting, and the roller skates as another movement type is also a great addition. As far as looks go, everything being rendered in 3D has only added to an already recognizable art style in the game. Where the game truly comes into its own however, is the battling.
I'm the first to admit, I was dubious about the mega evolutions that were added to the game. I really didn't see how it was going to add to the game, besides making some Pokemon look good. I'm also the first to admit, I was totally wrong. Mega evolutions add so much more in the way of tactics to the game. Being able to only mega evolve one Pokemon per battle, and then having that effect wear off if the Pokemon faints or is switched out means you need to use it at the right time to get maximum effect from it. The battle animations have completely changed, with all of the Pokemon being fully animated throughout the entire fight (think Pokemon Stadium style). Everything in the battles just feels better and more immersive.
All in all, I love Pokemon Y. It's just the right combination of old and new to make it an ideal Pokemon game for me. Here's to many more years of amazing Pokemon games.
Warlords of Draenor Leak
Now this isn't official, so take it with a pinch of salt. On Tuesday while the server maintenance was happening, people were able to log in for a few minutes and see the interface for character boosts. The following picture was posted on /r/wow and MMO Champion.
Obviously this is subject to change and by no means should be taken as the final price, but if the boost does go live at $60 I feel it's a good price. I'm a strong believer that pricing something so that people have to actually think about it is the best for a micro transaction in a game, especially for something like this. Pricing it around this does 2 things: 1: It stops people from just buying one of every class and killing the low level zones (something I mentioned in my Boosting to 90 post as being the only legitimate reason I could see boosts being bad), and 2: Still keeps it within range of everyone playing as an option.
The whole point of the level 90 boost is to give an option to skip leveling on a character if you needed to. But for it to be effective, it needs to be just that, an option. If every man and his alt is getting boosted, the low level zones suddenly become dead, dungeon finders are no longer an option for traditional leveling and WoW loses one of the best aspects: the story leading to max level. But if no one but those with the deepest RL pockets can afford to boost, it opens up a can of worms about imbalances (although how and why is never addressed by those people), Blizzard being greedy and general rage from the community. If it is $60 for a boost, then Blizzard has made a good choice in my opinion.
Giant Robots and Parkour: Titanfall
If I seem happy, I'm actually not. You see the Titanfall beta is over, and that means I have to wait until the middle of March to be able to play it again. That's like 3 and half weeks man. It's almost a month of waiting. I just don't know if I can make it.
I got into the beta 2 weeks ago, and despite my initial reservations, I really, really, really, really love Titanfall. Actually add a few more really's in there, and you might even come close to how I feel about it. My reservations about the game come from how I feel about the CoD style of multiplayer, and with the team behind Titanfall (Respawn) having a lot of the guys from Infinity Ward in it, I was worried that it would feel exactly the same as CoD.
To continue the theme of today's post, I was wrong. Titanfall is so much better than CoD. It retains the parts of CoD that make it brilliant (weapon customization, fast paced shooting), and adds jump jet assisted parkour and giant stompy mechs. The beta had 3 types of mech that you could play, but only one readily available in the Atlas mech shown in the picture above (the other two came from one use only cards that you unlock from gameplay).
The biggest issue with the game currently is the lack of Australian servers. All of the servers are done through Microsoft, and they currently have no data centers in Australia. This is being worked on, but if you do pick up the game before it is, expect to get anywhere between 100ms to 250ms ping. The netcode is rock solid however and with the exception of one or two games, I had no issues with it feeling as though I was lagging at all.
There really is no way to actually describe the feeling of playing Titanfall, as the only reference I have is playing Tribes or Brink. The fast paced movement that you can achieve in the game, combined with the feeling of power you get in a Titan add up to make Titanfall one of the best multiplayer experiences I have ever had. If you like FPS games, give Titanfall a go. You might be as happily surprised as I was.
As always,
GAME ON!
No comments:
Post a Comment