Shmee.Me

April 22, 2015April 22, 2015

Is Costume Quest 2 A Trick Or A Treat?

I love games made by Double Fine, and even more than that, I loved the original Costume Quest, so it was only a matter of time before I played Costume Quest 2. It took a few months, and a sale, but its day finally came. While I still found the sequel charming, I just wish that they would have done more with the game in its four year hiatus.

This game takes place right after the events of Costume Quest. Wren and Reynold jump through a portal that will hopefully lead them home, and it does, but their evil dentist is traveling though time to ruin Halloween forever. Wren and Reynold will have to don their costumes and take the evil Dr. White down.

The story is easily the best part of this game. It is creative, and is a great way to get the kids back in action. The problem is that there isn’t enough other ideas to keep even a game with Costume Quest 2’s minimal run time interesting. It took me about six hours to complete this game and that felt padded. Like in Costume Quest, this game involves Trick or Treating, but 2 forces you to do it in like six different areas with minimal breaks in between. It makes the middle three hours of this game quite a slog.

The game mechanics are very similar to the first game, but with some tweaks. It is a simple turn based RPG, and your options are: a basic attack, a super attack or heal when a character’s meter is full, or playing a Creepy Treat card. The cards do all sorts of things like double damage or heal teammates. Your attacks change depending on the costumes your group is wearing. Also during battle if you time things just right you can do more damage, attack twice, block, or counter attack. It is nice little detail to keep you more in the game, but it still gets a bit repetitive.

This game almost felt like an expansion to the first one, and maybe it would have been better that way. Pretty up the first game and add in the new combat system, and then tack on a new three hour adventure. To try and force this game to be six hours was a shame, or they should have thought of more things to do, but still this game is cute, and if you played the fist one it is a good excuse to go back to the world of Costume Quest. I just hope if Double Fine makes a third one they can think of a few more activities.

March 30, 2015March 30, 2015

Xbox One Has A Big Opportunity This Fall!

We know the date of Halo 5: October 27 2015. It is shocking to think that the Xbox One will have gone two years without its own Halo game, but Microsoft is finally giving Xbox fans what they want. What is also surprising is that all of Sony’s big exclusives have been delayed until next year. The big exception to that is Bloodborne which I hear is amazing, but it is super hardcore and it will only appeal to a certain crowd. Halo’s appeal on the other hand is near universal. It is no secret that Sony has been kicking Microsoft’s butt in the console battle (never release a console with less power for $100 more), but if Halo 5 gets to come out by itself Microsoft may take back some ground. The PS3 proved that you are never out of the console war.

Microsoft will not be able to fumble this release like they did with Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Halo 5 will have be near perfect, and something tells me Microsoft knows this. With the super early multiplayer betas, and kicking off the advertising in March. Microsoft is playing hardball with this one. The two new trailers have gotten me intrigued, so I may actually have to watch Halo: Nightfall, and see for myself how Locke’s story plays out. I have been putting it off until I completed Halo 4 (I know I am way behind), but I am almost there. Here are the two trailers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHQiYPiNVEE&list=PL0il2l-B_WwZ9sXU3L69ZJ_1ycnbNVKYC&index=0

And just so you don’t think the Chief is going down without a fight, here is his version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rd8FWUCCZk

I am guessing they are both wrong, and that Locke and the Chief are working together, but we will see October 27th!

March 24, 2015

Batman: Arkham Knight Looks Incredible!

I was disappointed to hear that Batman: Arkham Knight was delayed again, but after watching this trailer I don’t feel so bad. It is not often that you get a game of the year contender coming out in the summer, but it looks like Warner Brothers and Rocksteady are going to give us something to play on those long warm summer nights. Good job ladies and gents. This looks special.

March 5, 2015March 5, 2015

GDC 2015 Highlights!

Usually there isn’t a lot of news that comes out of the GDC (Game Developers Conference) since it is primarily a show for developers not the public, but this year was a little different, so I thought I would give you some highlights.

Everyone is in to VR now:

Oculus Rift showed that VR could be done well and cheaply, and since then everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. This year Sony showed off more of its Project Morpheus which will work with its PS4 due in 2016, but Valve and HTC’s Vive stole the show. Apparently it is the best VR headset ever demonstrated, so we will see how that turns out.

More Set-Top Boxes:

Valve is not content to stay on your computer it wants a piece of your TV as well. It announced that Steam Box, a PC based console, will finally launch this year, and it is also launching the Steam Link. A little box that Streams your PC games to your TV, so that if you already have a gaming rig you can play your games anywhere in your house. It is an interesting concept, and for a certain subset of gamers I can see it being very attractive. nVidia announced a new Android TV based console that is part of their Shield line. It can stream games from the internet as well as play games locally. We will see how that works when it launches for $200 later this year.

nVidia wants AMD out of the game:

nVidia has been busy launching new video cards in its great GeForce GTX 900 line, while AMD can’t seem to get their Radeon R9 300 series out the door, so nVidia went for the knockout blow by announcing the Titan X. It has 12 GB of RAM and 8 Billion transistors. I am sure this card will cost a mint, but there is nothing faster than it on the planet.

Game development is now free to try:

You can now download and try to make your own games using the Unreal Engine 4 or Unity Engine 5. Tools like these used to cost upwards of $10,000 a license, but now they are available to anyone. These are not the stripped down versions either. You are getting the full set of tools. Once you are start to make money you will have to pay for them, but if you just want to try it out you are free to do so.

Microsoft’s one OS world comes in to focus:

Microsoft is getting serious about only having one OS. At the GDC it explained more about its universal app store, updates on the new DirectX 12 API, Xbox to Windows 10 cross play and cross buying, Xbox One to PC streaming, and lastly a bunch of new games coming out to its platforms using the ID@Xbox program. Most notably Elite: Dangerous. I think it is clear that Microsoft sees itself as an underdog at this point, and is working really hard to try and be a dominant player again. We will see how their plans work, but at least it is good to see them truly trying again.

It has been a great GDC, and still has a couple of days left, but all the major players have had their say. If anything else noteworthy happens I will update this post. I can only hope next year’s GDC is as interesting.

February 25, 2015

New Batman Arkham Knight Trailer!

Oh man I cannot wait for this game! It is the third Batman game from Rocksteady, and since the first two are classics, the expectations for the third are off the charts. I am interested to see what Scarecrow will bring to the table as the main villain since his levels were always a lot of fun in the past games. It will be trippy if nothing else. June 2nd cannot get here soon enough.