Shmee.Me

June 14, 2013

Shmee wraps up E3

So another E3 has come and gone, and I thought I would give my impressions of this year’s show. I am always more interested in the show when new hardware is launched because it lets me know what kind of financial planning I need to do.

This year the big three went with three totally different strategies to selling their hardware: Nintendo decided just to focus on their own games, Sony just decided to keep things they way they are but bump the specs, and Microsoft decided to change the whole way games are bought and sold and not to everyone’s liking.

Nintendo did show off some good games this year, but they are all games that we knew they were making, like a new Smash Brothers, a new Zelda, a new Pikmin, and so on and so forth, but it was all a little uninteresting. They also didn’t have a choice in the matter with big companies like EA stopping support of the console until it can prove its value.

Sony came to destroy Microsoft this year. That was their goal and they mostly succeeded. They came in a hundred dollars cheaper at the cost of not including their new upgraded Playstation Camera with every console, and the games you buy in disc format you can do whatever you want with. These things pretty much won E3 for the company.

Microsoft decided that it was time to shake up the way console games are bought and sold. When you buy a game you install it on your console, and then the key that comes with the disk are tied to your account, so say you loose the disk, who cares, you can download it again from Xbox Live. The problem is that this restricts selling the game to someone else. You can give the game to a friend if he has been on your friends list for thirty days, or there is a family sharing program, so you can have ten friends or family members that you can share your games with no questions asked, but if they are playing one of your games you cannot play it at the same time. You can also sell your game back to authorized retailers as well. This really doesn’t sound that bad, and I especially like the friends and family sharing, but the major downside is that your console has to call in and check your games’ licensing every twenty-four hours otherwise you can’t play your games anymore.

Microsoft obviously needs a new marketing department. Checking in every twenty-four hours to play games that you own is lame, and it shows that they don’t trust their customers, but that being said that, having an all digital store does make things better. I love the friends and family sharing idea, and being able to loose my disk but not my content it perfect. They also must have won some fans with this scheme since EA is make two exclusive games for the Xbox One: Titanfall, and Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, Metal Gear V is a timed exclusive, and Square is bringing all its games to the Xbox One as well as the PS4, and that has not been the case for quite some time.

Then comes the camera deal. Sony decided to leave it out so that they could kill the Xbox on price, but I think it was a mistake. The reviews from the show floor have all stated that the Kinect 2.0 is game changing, and since it is in every box with the Xbox developers are making cools stuff for it. On the other hand the reviews said that even Sony isn’t showing stuff for their new camera, and that is a shame. Sony still could have won the price war by making the price $450 and included the camera, and made everyone happy, but instead they made sure that there will never be good content for it.

I hate the new check in mandate for the X1, but I love the things I get with it. It is also where all the games will be, and packing in the Kinect is painful pricewise, but in the end I think it was a smart move. They just need a new marketing department. Sony made a good console, and there are good games coming out for it, but it is also just the same old thing, and Nintendo has almost just decided to release a console for pretty much their own games, but they are really good games. I think that when my tax refund comes around I will be buying an Xbox One, but I hope they rethink the check in policy.

June 11, 2013June 11, 2013

Shmee Watches Event Live Blogs So You Don’t Have Too!

June 10th was a big day for tech and games, so I decided I would let you know what I thought was important or interesting.

Microsoft

First up was the Microsoft keynote for E3. This as you can imagine was about the Xbox brand and the stuff the are developing for it. They were smart with the keynote and pretty much kept everything about the games since last time they talked about it, it just sounded like they were making the worlds greatest DVR.

They started off with a cool video about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Since Metal Gear passed up the 360 it is cool to know that will be in on the action for the next gen.

They also announced a new slimmer Xbox 360, and that all Gold Live subscribers will be getting free games similar to PlayStation Plus. Which is good because Gold is a rip off, so they should give us something, but they also announced the One would cost $499 it includes the Kinect 2.0, but still ouch.

They also announced quite few exclusive games, but the two I am most interested in are: Below which is a roguelike and the first time I had heard that description at E3, and a new Killer Instinct game which has been promised since MS bought Rare.

Then they showed Master Chief in a cloak, and since he wears armor I am not sure what it is for, but I am guessing he is a mage now, so I wonder what his favorite spell is. I am hoping it is Magic Missile.

Apple

Apple at the same time as the E3 press conferences was doing their developer keynote at their WWDC, which pretty much boiled down to that they were stealing Windows Phones design language, they are launching their own Pandora, and they made a computer looks like a black trash can. Not really, but pretty much that.

EA decided for their Press conference that it would be good to keep faking people out that they were showing Battlefield, but instead showed us Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, and Star Wars: Battlefront. Both of which look like fun. Then they talked about sports games for like … forever. Like that now basketball games have a real ball with ball like physics: huzza!

Butt then they said the magic words: Peggle 2 and all was forgiven. This will be my wife’s favorite game of this new generation, and one last piece of awesome news was they announced Mirror’s Edge 2. Which is great. There are so few non hyper-sexualized female protagonists it is good to see one return.

Ubisoft

I thought Ubisoft was going to drop the ball for awhile just showing us games we knew were coming, but their new Crew racing game that takes place in the whole USA looks pretty cool, and if they are true to their word then I can’t wait to terrorize Lynden with a dune buggy in the game.

They saved the best for last and showed a new Tom Clancy game, but instead of it being a shooter it is a modern day open world RPG called The Division and it looks amazing! That is how you save a press conference.

Sony

Sony was the last presentation of the day, and they started off with some Vita and PS3 stuff, and it was all fine, but just uninteresting, Beyond: Two Souls looks like fun though, and it is good to see that they are still catering indie support.

They finally got things going with a steam-punkie game called The Order: 1866, but then they quickly just started showing us already announced games, and games from other people, but they turned it around.

The first bit of news was bad: you will need a Playstation Plus account to play online, boo, but you can buy, sell, and trade disk based games all you want, and your console doesn’t call home to check licensing, yeah, and it only costs $399, the crowd goes wild (though since it doesn’t included the Eye it insured no one would ever use it)! After that they dropped the mic and went home.

I hope you liked this little press conference write up. It was fun to put together.

June 6, 2013June 6, 2013

Defend Against Zombies in State of Decay!

State of Decay came out on Xbox 360 yesterday, and it is developed by Undead Labs and published by Microsoft Studios. Since the game just came out, this is more of an initial impressions instead of a review, but the impressions are great!

For those of you that don’t know State of Decay is a zombie survival game. You have to find food, water, medicine, and other supplies, and rescue people with the skills you need to say fix cars, cook food, or provided medical services. You take houses and fortify them so you can survive the zombies at your door.

The game is completely open world, and you save who you want, and you may not want to save them all because some people have draw backs like bad attitudes that ruin moral, or diseases that will eat up your medicine, but if they have a skill you want it may be worth it, but when people die they die for good, including your character.

This game is a ton of fun. Doing quests and looking for more resources keeps you engaged, I started playing this game and quickly lost a couple hours, and it has that ‘I just need to do this one last thing’ addictiveness that is wonderful in a game like this.

There are some drawbacks. The graphics are not the greatest, and the combat is a little wooden, and I think they made the draw distances just a little to far out, so the game can lag a little when you are driving in places with a lot houses and stuff going on, but the game is so addictive those are just minor things.

This game feels like you are playing The Walking Dead, and the stakes are just as high, so if that sounds like fun to you, and it is, then this game is for you. Though I know some of you may want to wait for the PC version with the mod kit, but who wants to wait when you can play it now.

June 5, 2013June 5, 2013

Shmee Investigates What’s Up With Prey 2

In 2011 Andy, Ryan Fadden, and I were at PAX Prime in Seattle, because where else would we be, and we decided to get in the The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim line, but we quickly got out of due to the fact it was three hours long, but as fate would have it that put us front of the Prey 2 booth. A game none of us had any interest in, but that would change as soon as the guy started the demo. We were floored, and it was my game of show for PAX that year. Two years have past and it looks like the game is in trouble.

The first Prey was about a Native American named Tony that is captured by aliens, and then tries to save his girlfriend, and along the way he has to use his Native American super powers to help him survive. The game was a straight up shooter that was only notable for its questionable architecture, and use of portals, yes like from the game Portal, but before Portal came out. You shouldn’t play it. It is not good. This is why we didn’t care about the sequel, but they changed everything for the sequel. It was about U.S. Marshal Killian Samuels and he was also captured by the same aliens, but he escapes and becomes a bounty hunter on an alien planet in a cool Blade Runner like city. It had free running and an open multi-tiered level design. It was really sweet looking.

Last year the publisher Bethesda announced that Prey 2 would not come out that year because it was not ready yet. That is not too strange it happens all the time, but then this year they announced the game was pretty much just a demo and that they were taking the game away from its developer Human Head studios.

This was a shock to me because they had a demo in 2011, and I saw it. It was great, so to have nothing a year and a half later sounded questionable, and developers from Human Head are saying that Bethesda is lying, and they had a near complete game. Bethesda is just mad because they offered to buy out Human Head but they refused so Bethesda pulled their funding, and then finally gave the game to their studio Arkane, and gave the game a new release date of 2016.

I find this story hard to believe as well because that would mean Bethesda is willing to throw away tens of millions of dollars to spite an independent developer, and most companies don’t like to waste that kind of money based on spite. Especially ones in the tumultuous video game industry.

I think the truth is between those two stories. I think Human Head was behind in development, so Bethesda got antsy and asked to buy them so they wouldn’t loose the talent working on the game, but they could bring the quality control in house, and when Human Head refused then Bethesda pulled the plug and moved the game to a new studio, and one that was in house so they could monitor the quality personally.

I am sure there is even more to it then that, and it would great to get truthful account of what is going on, but doubt that will happen. I hope in 2016 the game is as cool as it was promised to be in 2011.

May 30, 2013May 30, 2013

Don’t fall Asleep with Alan Wake

Alan Wake is a game made in 2010 by Remedy Entertainment, and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It is Remedy’s second franchise after Max Payne, and I am glad to say that they continue their tradition of quality with this game. I know your asking why I took three years to try it, but that is because I am cheap and it was five dollars on the Xbox Live Arcade.

Alan Wake starts off with the title character Alan Wake and his wife Alice on a trip to a secluded Washington town called Bright Falls. They are going there to take a break and hopefully find a cure for Alan’s crippling writer’s block: Alan is a writer but he hasn’t been able to write anything for two years. During their first night in Bright Falls something happens and Alice goes missing, and Alan can’t remember what happened, and the town’s inhabitants seem to be turning into monsters when the lights go out. Can you save Alice and Bright Falls?

The game is separated in to six episodes, and each one starts off with a “Previously on Alan Wake”. The creators did this because they love the show Twin Peaks, and used it for some of the setup for this game. There is also a lot of Hitchcock and Stephen King to found here too, but it all comes together and works. This is a very creepy game, and it made me jump more then once.

The gameplay is deceptively simple, you must shine your flashlight on the bad guys to where down their darkness and then you can shoot them with whatever gun you have with you. It makes it kind of a dual wielding/lock on mechanic that works very well. You can also make light traps to end the foes that follow you in the dark.

Also along the way you can collect pages to the book that you are apparently writing, it fills in the story, and lets you in on some of the secrets of Bright Falls.

This is a great game, and it was well worth my five dollars, and if you are looking for a game to play this summer you should add this to your list.