Category: Computer

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So I Hear You Want Overwatch In Your Quake!

Are you old enough to remember Quake?  The game where memorizing the map and running a circuit to maximize weapon and armor spawns was vital to staying alive and climbing the leader board?  Well Quake Champions is still that, except now you have the titular “Champions” with special abilities.  So while you are running your circuit, every now and then you can pop your ability and go invisible, teleport or leave a stream of plasma in your wake.

There are a couple of new modes: Duel, where you pick your three favorite Champions and then go one on one with another player.  Kill the other player’s three Champions and you win!  But since I am terrible, this is not a mode for me.  However, Sacrifice, which is center flag but like LawBreakers you need to guard the “soul” in your area for a while before you get the point, is a lot of fun.

My only reservation about Quake Champions is the price.  It is “Free”, but that only gets you one Champion.  There is going to be a deal to unlock all the Champions from the start, but they haven’t said how much that will be yet.  In my mind it should be like $20, and then they can nickel and dime you for chests and backpacks which give you Champion customizations and whatnot.

Quake Champions is a fun game, and it feels like its namesake.  I just hope that the free2play aspects of the game don’t ruin it.  If you can get the base heroes for a reasonable price I can see this becoming a hit.  If Bethesda overcharges for the Champions, there are a lot of other games to play, and the draw for Quake Champions will just not be there.  Especially considering  I can get Quake 3 for just a few bucks.

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Phantom Dust Is Back! … And Well … Its Back!

Hey remember Phantom Dust from the original Xbox?  No?  Well you are not alone, but you should remember because it was an excellent game.  It is a third person action/RPG/Collectable Card Game!  Yes, it is all of those things.  Phantom Dust has had a troubled past, but now you can play it for free!  That is right, FREE!  And you should.

Phantom Dust was a Japanese game for the original Xbox, and as such it never really caught on, but those that did play it, loved it, and those diehards have been asking for a sequel/reboot for years.  It seemed in 2014 that those fans were getting their wish, but the reboot got canceled.  Then at E3 last year Microsoft revealed that they were rereleasing the title with achievements and Xbox Live play, but they didn’t really talk about it for a year until like a month ago when they did a gameplay video with Polygon.  Then two days ago they just released it … for free.

Since it is an old game it will run on anything with Windows 10, even with the high resolution turned on (though to go full screen you need to hit Alt-Enter, I had to go on Twitter to learn that), or of course you can play it on your Xbox One.  While the graphics are nothing fancy, they do hold up surprisingly well.  With the exception of the in-engine cut-scenes: they look terrible.  A word of warning, the single-player starts off slow.  I mean really slow.  The deck building component doesn’t come in for a few hours, and that is most of the fun.  Just getting random Skills and then spamming them at bots gets a little tedious, though it is a good reminder on how to play.

Oh yeah, how you play.  Pretty much you make an Arsenal (AKA Deck) then you hope the Skills (AKA Cards) that you selected show up in the order that you want them to in the form of orbs on the battlefield, so you design your Arsenal around Skills that compliment each other.  Then run around trying not to get hit with other player’s Skills while launching Skills of your own.  Though not all Skills are attacks.  Some are shields or let you fly, steal or wipe out other player’s Skills, that kind of thing.  Anyway, it is a great way to represent a card game in an action game.  The more matches or single-player you play, the more money you get, so the more Skills you can buy, or you can spend real cash on Skills as well.

Since Phantom Dust is a rerelease and not a reboot, don’t expect to be blown away, but the core gameplay holds up very well, and with the non-existent price of admission, you should give it a shot.  Though if you are going to grind through the single-player to get cash and Skills, remember to be patient.  It gets better, much better.

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Even Digital Games Have A Shelf Life

Just seven years after its release Alan Wake has been removed from digital store fronts.  For some this is rather shocking.  I mean the whole point of buying games digitally is that they will always be available, but apparently always available is not the same thing as always for sale.  It turns out Alan Wake’s awesome soundtrack is what did it in.  It got to the point that renewing the licensing on the music made selling the game no longer profitable.

Of course Alan Wake is not alone in its demise.  Racing games are always disappearing from store fronts because car companies ask a king’s ransom for their cars’ likenesses in games, and just like music, those licenses expire.  We just notice less with racing game because there is always a newer and better one on the Horizon.  With Alan Wake, there is not another one coming.

While all of this make sense, it is strange to think that in this modern era where storage is cheap that digital items will not always be for sale.  Even more ponderous is that a song from 1963 is that main culprit.  All of this to say, if you have been meaning to buy a game for a few years now, maybe you should pick it up when it is on sale because it may disappear forever.  Though for a chilling game like Alan Wake, disappearing without a trace is a fitting end.

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What Is Going On With Game Studios Today?!

The internet has been going crazy the last 24 hours with reports that BioWare Montreal in the middle of restructuring, and since they were the new “Mass Effect” studio, the second Mass Effect: Andromeda game is on hold, but is it really?  Now I can see restructuring, finding a new lead dev team and bringing in some better writers, but even after Mass Effect: Andromeda’s “failure” (it has already sold way over a million copies) it is still one of the most popular gaming franchises out there.  If I see people wearing game related clothing out and about, 50% of it is Nintendo, 30% is Minecraft, but most of the rest bears a large N7 and the BioWare logo, and coming in third to Nintendo and Minecraft is nothing to upset about.  If you are EA you don’t just toss that kind of brand awareness away.

I am guessing the next game is delayed a year or so.  Just enough time to clear out some games that BioWare is currently working on so they can shuffle teams around.  Is this bad news for the people that lost their jobs? Yes (though apparently most of them didn’t), but there will be a Mass Effect game out before we know it.  EA likes to make money, and a good Mass Effect game makes them tons of cash.  We will see how things go, but I am guessing we will hear about a new Mass Effect game around E3 2019.  A long time to be sure, but considering all the games in BioWare’s pipeline, it will just take a little longer to come around again.  Now to things that aren’t okay…

IO Interactive is being sold off by Square Enix.  In some regards this understandable since Hitman is not one of Square’s major franchises, but on the other hand Hitman sold very well and won several game of the year awards.  It isn’t clear yet if the sale will include IO’s IP (Hitman, Freedom Fighters and Kane and Lynch), or if they are just selling the physical assets.  Though like most things in life, I am guessing that is negotiable.  Unlike BioWare Montreal, IO should be hard at work on its next game and reveling in its success.  I hope they find a buyer soon, so they can continue making games and avoid being shutdown.  If IO doesn’t find a buyer and I don’t get my second season of Hitman, Square Enix will enter my World of Assassination!

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What The Heck Is Going On With Buying Games On Twitch?

Did you know that for the last month you have been able to buy games on Twitch?  Well you can.  Do you know how?  Of course you don’t.  I said it was going to happen, and low it did.  The way it is supposed to work is that you go and watch a stream of a game, then if you like it , you buy it.  If you are the one doing the stream you get a 5% kickback.  Fun huh.  Well in practice it is not going so well.

On the main streaming page the link to buy the game doesn’t show up.  You have to go to game info.  If you just want to shop for games it takes several clicks to find what you are looking for.  There is no central store to see what games Twitch has for sale.  If you search for games on Amazon, Twitch’s parent company, you will only be able to buy Steam licenses.  Which makes no sense.

Speaking of making no sense, what are the capabilities of the Twitch Launcher?  Does it do cloud saves or friends lists, can you buy games from it?  The answer to all those questions is of course no.  It is just a crappy app that you have to have to download “some” of the games you purchased on Twitch.  If you buy an Ubisoft game, you get a key for UPlay.  So unless the game was on sale it probably makes more sense to just buy your Ubisoft games from the UPlay store and save yourself a bunch of time.

If I sound frustrated it is just because Steam needs some real competition, and I think Amazon/Twitch is just the company to do it, but not with the crappy system they have now.  At a minimum there has to be some way for me to know what games I can buy on Twitch, and if I am streaming, a visible way to buy the game.  The UPlay thing I kind of understand.  They will sell keys for all platforms to generate revenue, which is a way to differentiate from Steam, but it makes their sales platform look segmented and fractured.  I am sure all of this will get better, but I expect more and better from a company that makes its money selling stuff online and has thousands of developers at its fingertips.