Shmee.Me

October 28, 2015October 28, 2015

Halo 5: Guardians First Impressions!

After years of hype and excitement Halo 5 is out. I got to play it for quite a bit last night, so like I promised yesterday, I thought I would let you know my first impressions. It is Halo. Now that is either high praise or not depending on who you are, but Halo 5: Guardians is more of the Halo franchise we have come to know and love. I have had a blast so far, and I can’t wait to play more.

The game takes place a little after Halo 4, and it quickly introduces you to a new protagonist and his team. Spartan Locke and crew are out looking for the Master Chief who has gone rouge in the Outer Rim, so ONI (Office of Navel Intelligence) sends a new Spartan after an old Spartan. You will still get to play as the Chief leading Locke on his marry chase, but this is mostly Locke’s story (so far anyway).

Sadly Spartan Locke is kind of dull. He just gives orders and takes orders, and he doesn’t question the job. Which is kind of a shame, I understand that they wanted to give you someone like the Chief to play when you aren’t playing, you know, playing as the Chief, but Spartan Buck, who you may remember from Halo: ODST back when he was just an Orbital Drop Shock Trouper, seems like he would have been a better lead (that could just be my love for Nathan Fillion talking though). While he still follows orders, he at least questions them and wonders about the bigger picture.

Still Halo has never really been about the story happening during the game. The game has always been a small window in to large universe. I hope they open it up more later in the game, but the reviews seem to be telling me otherwise. It just seems that after Halo 4, one of the better story based Halo games, that they would have tried to up the ante a little.

Though the reason you play Halo, the great shooting action, is still present in Halo 5: Guardians. It is fast, now moving at 60 frame per second, and frantic, and the controls as far as aiming and shooting go are spot on. My only grip is that I wish I could get the dash forward button ‘B’ and the melee attack button ‘Right Bumper’ swapped. I tried to use a different scheme for awhile to make up for that, but then it was even worse. So 343i if you are listening please swap those two buttons. I may try and use the new Xbox Accessories App and see if I can swap those buttons just for this game.

Halo 5 is also the best looking game so far in the franchise, which should be no surprise. Everything just pops. The characters, the guns, the environments, just everything looks better. It matches the style in Halo 4, but just ramped up a bit.

Besides my minor controller gripe, the other issue I have is that your squad mates are as dumb as dirt. Now that could be because they make the AI squad members dumber when you play Co-Op (I have only played Co-Op), so that you rely on your human team more, but I doubt it. We will see if I play alone any time soon.

The multiplayer in Halo 5 is split up in to two areas, Arena and Warzone. Arena is the Halo multilayer you have come to know and love. Just polished to perfection. It is a four on four test of skill. Which is why I am terrible at it. My skills are lacking. Warzone is like a Halo MOBA highbred. I am not sure if I like it, I may report back on that more later. You fight other teams as well as AI controlled mobs. It was fun, but kind of un-Halo. Like I said, I may need to play more of that to get a better handle on it.

Halo 5 is more Halo. For me that is a great thing, but for you that may sound disappointing. Whether you are playing as Locke or Chief, you will shoot, jump, and punch your way through the bad guys to get your objective. I know what I will being doing tonight.

October 27, 2015October 27, 2015

Happy Halo Day!

Well after years of hype Halo 5 is now out in the wild! The reviews have been solid, so I can’t wait to get my hands on it. It should be waiting for me when I get home from work. Of course I will let you know what I think!

October 26, 2015October 26, 2015

Shmee Enjoyed Watching The Skies!

Over the weekend The Swashbuckling Samurai, The Paladin, Black Raven, and I took part in the MegaGame known as Watch the Skies. If you have never heard of a MegaGame before, just think of the Model UN as a kid, or a Mystery Dinner at a friend’s house, but crazier. I can’t really talk about what happened in this game without spoiling a few things about Watch the Skies, but that is part of the fun because people’s goals change every time, in theory the game changes every time (I say in theory since I have only played once). None the less I will give an overview before spoiling anything.

The game starts with the countries (teams) going over their given goals, or if you are the Aliens getting sequestered away. For now think of the Aliens like another country that no one gets to interact with. The goal for Japan, be a tech leader and right the flagging economy. Then inside your team you have different jobs. We played a four player team game, so the roles were, Head of State, Foreign Minister, Military Commander, and Chief Scientist. These roles come in to play during the rounds. There are twelve rounds each thirty minutes long. For the first fifteen you meet with the other countries’ team members with the same roles and then for the next fifteen you meet with your team and discuss what you want to do.

The Head of State has a board where they assign the country’s resources (i.e. money), he also wanders to other tables and talks to other Heads of State to try and figure out what they are up too. The Foreign Minister heads to the UN Council room to try and keep the country liked while trying not to get his team tangled up in all the nonsense the game makers throw at you. The Military Commander goes to the world map and moves his troops and fights skirmishes with the Aliens and maybe other Commanders, and from those skirmishes gain loot and tech which he gives to the Chief Scientist. The Chief Scientist in turn tries to make cool stuff with all the loot with the help of his fellow Scientists through trading and deal making. In board game terms it is like Settlers of Catan with more lying.

Now that you kind of know what is going on I am going to share my experience so you know: SPOILERS (maybe) ! I was the Chief Scientist for our group and we decided early on that we were going to try and make Gundams (giant Anime robots). Since we figured that this was a great way to gain a tech advantage and it would give us something to sell. Now giant robots with teenagers in them is not part of the game proper, but that is were Watch the Skies really comes in to its own. The Controllers (game runners) got together and came up with new rules that let us try and figure out how to get this done. If you have an idea in Watch the Skies, the Controllers will do their best to try and let you do it.

So for me I was begging Black Raven our Military Commander to get me the parts so I could try and make these robots, but at the same time I was trying to play it cool in the Science area, so that people wouldn’t catch on. That all changed half way through the game when the USA announced the existence of Aliens to the world, so all the resources started to get snatched up for other projects. I had to come clean with my project stating that it would be a great anti-alien weapon hoping to snatch needed tech. While that was happening a Controller pulled me aside and informed me that I was an Alien, but not the kind that was hovering above Earth.

So while I was trying to build robots, now to help the Earthborn Aliens escape, I was also giving away my country’s unneeded tech to the underground Alien cause. Lucky for my team, I didn’t have too much unneeded tech, so I didn’t give much away. Towards the end of the game I came clean with the rest of my team, fearing death, but I needed their help. It turns out that The Paladin, our Head of State, was also an Alien, and he had been giving our money to the cause. The Black Raven and The Swashbuckling Samurai our Foreign Minister instead of assassinating us did their best to try and helps us.

We completed our Gundams at the last moment, but it turns out the USA sent a secret agent to disable them, so they weren’t able to help us out. During the last military round China put a huge spaceship on the board since it turns out they also had Aliens living among them, and they built it for all of us to escape on. Though The Paladin and I decided to stay behind because we had done a good job making Japan great. The Swashbuckling Samurai on the other hand was on it just because he wanted to be. Sadly the large Alien group and the other countries shot it down. We were close, but it didn’t quite happen. An exciting end!

You will notice that I didn’t motion what the Foreign Mister was up too, that is because I was never able to go and visit the UN and see how that worked. I am sure the Swashbuckling Samurai did a great job. Also it turns out during this game that Brazil became a full blown superpower, uniting all of South America. We (Japan) had no idea! So they played a great game.

If you ever have the chance to play Watch the Skies, go for it. It an amazing amount of fun, and you will get to meet a lot of new people. Thanks to Bellingham MegaGames for putting this on!

October 23, 2015October 23, 2015

Some Windows 10 Beta Updates!

Windows 10 has been out on PC for a few months and it has been a worthy upgrade, but on the phone it has been a different story. It has been a slow buggy mess. To be fair it was in more of an alpha state instead of a beta, but that has changed with Build 572. It finally feels fast enough to be a decent upgrade to Windows 8.1, or at least on a downgrade. I hope things keep progressing this way because it would awesome for Microsoft to have a viable mobile operating system, and as a bonus have it be the same OS that is on all their other devices.

Also on the Windows 10 upgrade train is the Xbox One. It is being call the new Xbox One Experience, but it is really just Windows 10 with a new console interface. For the most part the new interface layout does make basic day to day tasks better, but one problem is that the Apps and Games section feels disconnected from the rest of the layout. They should be just a blade away instead of an app. It makes it feel disjointed when you are looking for a game. They are starting to upgrade all the preview program members, but I think they may be pushing it a little. While I haven’t had any major issues with the new interface it does feel a little glitchy still.

The last little piece I am going to talk about is the new Windows 10 like start menu that they gave older Surface devices. It was nice of Microsoft to do something for Surface and Surface 2 users, and I love having the Start Menu back, but they really should find a way to put Windows 10 on these tablets. They should be far more capable then a cell phone. It just seems like they are burning those early users.

I hope Microsoft’s unified platform works out for them. They have a lot of work left to go, but for users to have one OS across all their devices would be amazing. We will see how it turns out later this Fall.

October 22, 2015October 22, 2015

Shmee Finished The Sandman And Wept For There Was No More To Read!

After what feels like quite some time, I have finished reading the mainline Sandman series from Vertigo, and like the title says I did cry a little. For two reasons, one, it does come to an emotional end, and two, I really do wish that it went on. Sure, sure Sandman Overture (the prequel series) is going on right now, and I will read it, but I want this story to continue to move forward.

I guess I can take solace in the fact that The Sandman was indeed one of the best comic book series I have ever read. An opinion that I hear I am not alone in having. The Sandman is just amazing from beginning to end. Like most Neil Gaiman stories it does meander around from time to time, but even those sideways paths are excellent, and he does manage to bring it all together in the end. I still stipulate that he writes the way I wish I could.

If you have the Hoopla app all of The Sandman books are now on it, and you should do yourself a favor and read them all right now. I don’t care if you are at work or driving or whatever, they need your attention more then whatever else you are doing (well maybe not). I am reading a lot of comic books right now thanks to Hoopla, but they all feel kind of hollow after reading The Sandman. Curse you Neil Gaiman and your fabulous graphic series!

I am going to go stare at a wall for awhile and hope that Morpheus shows up with more of his adventures. Maybe if I fall asleep he will come then. I think that is my best hope. For all of you that have not read The Sandman though, you are the lucky ones, you can just pickup a book!