WHAT I’M PLAYING – BattleCry: Far-Goat Simulator

Over the weekend I started playing Goat Simulator and quite enjoyed the time I spent in Goat Ville. The game is essentially just a fun physics engine, with a goat as the lead. There are a lot of fun little jokes scattered throughout, with a lot of winks towards popular memes and pop culture news.

Goat Simulator is the latest in goat simulation technology.

Goat Simulator is the latest in goat simulation technology.

I probably won’t be playing the game that long though. I got it primarily for the achievements, which are pretty easy, and the lol’s. So once those are acquired, I don’t see myself playing the game much more.

The game was originally designed as a joke, internally in the Coffee Stains studio, during a one month game-jam, and a video was posted online for a laugh. It gathered such a following that the group decided to polish, and release it. The developer stated the game was designed as “an old school skating game, except instead of being a skater, you’re a goat, and instead of doing tricks, you wreck stuff”.

Originally released last year on Steam, the game has since been released on other operating systems, and mobile. The release on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One was its first time on a console.

Keep an eye out for the review.

Lately I had been spending a lot of time on the FPS genre, and I’ve had a hard time sticking with one title. I had originally started Far Cry 4 and then Battlefield: Hardline was released. I played Hardline during the EA Access window, and then didn’t go back, relegated to the backburner.

After I needed a little break from Far Cry 4 I jumped into Call of Duty Ghosts. I quickly wrapped that up within a couple sittings. I need to quickly jump back in to get a few achievements and then I’ll jump back to Far Cry 4 for the remainder of the week.

Battlefield_HardlineThis past weekend I did jump into Hardline while I was testing some Twitch Streaming and game recording, and managed to complete a few more of the story campaign missions. I think this weekend I’ll play more of that as well, but I am definitely falling behind on Far Cry 4Hardline has been fun, but it definitely is not a Battlefield game.  It’s primarily stealth based, and when its not, its a difficult shooter – as a cop, I guess you’re not really meant to shoot people, or absorb bullets. Ammo is limited, and the shootouts are intense, as they’re typically in claustrophobic areas, normally not pre-meditated, but defensive, stressful, and usually outnumbered shootouts. If that’s the intent, its pulled off well.

The single player does look pretty good, but sadly not as good as its Battlefield predecessor in any aspects but the cut-scenes. Single player luckily does look better than the multiplayer, but that component, while it does hold its own, still doesn’t feel as immersive as Battlefield 4.


Other newer/older/other games on the horizon:

NeverWinter is free to play, so I might give that a shot, even though my previous post a week or so ago said I would never. We’ll see. I said “never” to Goat Simulator too, and see what happened?

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China has been released, and acquired, so I’ll be playing that. I also have Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag to play more, and GTA V (Xbox One) to play and take lovely photos in.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is waiting. I’ve started with the Pre-Sequel in co-op, so I’ll have to spend more time on Pandora. But again, it’s another FPS, a genre that I’m pretty burnt out on.

Besides that, I have quite the backlog of games I haven’t even opened yet – waiting, eager – on my shelf, or digital library. All in due time games, all in due time:

Metro Redux, TellTale Bundle (Borderlands, Game of Thrones, Wolf Among Us), Shadow of Mordor.  So many :'(.


Keep an eye out for more Far Cry 4, and Battlefield: Hardline info, screenshots and reviews soon, and Goat Simulator review tomorrow. New feature: Achievement of the Week, on Sunday

NEWS – New Game Tuesday and New News Tuesday

Welcome to Tuesday. We got some new games and some news.


Big releases this week are Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, and Goat Simulator. 

And the big news includes: Write/Director Leaves Gearbox, New Microsoft IP, Steam Features, Halo 5:Guardians, Alan Wake Sequel?, Gears of War Cinematic Director Leaves Epic for Black Tusk, Destiny, and this week’s Xbox Deals With Gold.


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Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China (PS4, PS3, XBox One, PC) – Chronicles is a series of 2.5D Assassin’s Creed games developed by Climax Studios, and published by Ubisoft. The games will feature a new protagonist. China’s protagonist is Jun, who was trained by Ezio Auditore.

The follow up games later this year will be Chronicles: India, and Chronicles: Russia.

 

Release Trailer below shows the story and gameplay. I’ll be picking this up shortly and playing through it. The art style and gameplay looks intriguing, and I’m all about the Assassin’s Creed titles.

goats

Goat Simulator (XBox One, XBox 360) – Finally released on all the Xboxs, Goat Simulator is here. I played some over the weekend, and I’ll be talking more about it tomorrow, with a review on Thursday.

Trailer


On to some news for Tuesday:

Writer/Director Leaves Gearbox

Matthew Armstrong has left Gearbox Software. Credited as a writer and game design director of Borderlands.

“Things changed. No longer working at @GearboxSoftware. I will always love Gearbox, but it’s adventure time.”

New Microsoft IP at E3 2015

Xbox head Phil Spencer announced that new exclusive IP would be announced this June at E3 2015. He confirmed that it would not be another military space marine game or racing title.

I’m excited about E3. And I’ll be live blogging the day of the press conferences, June 15. So look out for that.

Steam Features Unlocked to Paying Customers

Valve announced that, in a move to protect its customers against spamming and phishing, it would be locking some of its features to all but paying customers.

Users who have not spent the $5 will not have access to features such as sending friend invites, voting on Greenlight, or submitting content on the Steam workshop.

New Halo 5: Guardians Trailer

Regardless of the fact that its a trailer announcing pre-order bonuses, it is a pretty cool gameplay trailer showing off new weapons and abilities. The trailer focuses on Spartan Locke taking out Covenant in pursuit of Master Chief.

Alan Wake Sequel Possibilities

Remedy has announced that even though the Alan Wake 2 sequel project was scrapped, a prototype was created after the first was released. The company opted to work on their next game Quantum Break instead. But the possibilities are still there.

“For Alan Wake, from the get-go, we assumed there was going to be a sequel and we mapped things further out when it came to character, story, details and focus changes. We knew we would have to iterate and refine, but there was always a rough road map there.”

Remedy is 100 percent focused on the upcoming Xbox One exclusive Quantum Break, which was just recently delayed until 2016.

Epic Cinematic Director Leaves Epic

Greg M. Mitchell, who was previously responsible for the cinematics in the Gears of War franchise, has left Epic Games to join Black Tusk Studios, to most likely work on, yup, cinematics, on the next Gears of War game. Way to branch out.

“BIG NEWS!! I’m leaving Epic, but heading to @blacktuskstudio to work on #Gearsofwar!! I’ll quote Marcus Fenix, by saying “NICE!!” :)”

Destiny’s House of Wolves Reveal Trailer

Destiny has launched a newer trailer showing off some new information about the upcoming DLC House of Wolves: New social space, new characters, new gear upgrades.

There’ll be a Twitch reveal tomorrow.

XBox Deals With Gold

Mostly Call of Duty games this week on sale. Maybe it’s time to get Advanced Warfare? Let’s see . . . (nope):

Call of Duty: Ghosts and Ghosts Hardened Edition are 60% and 40% off on the Xbox One, respectfully, and Never Alone is 40% off. Ghost review is upcoming, and check out the review for Never Alone here.

Ghosts, Black Ops II, and COD 3 are on sale as well, on the Xbox 360.


That’s all for today. Check in tomorrow for thoughts and impressions of Goat Simulator, and Thursday for the review.

It’s raining, so don’t go outside.

-iRogan

NEWS – And the Monday’s Have It…

So I was finally able to export some of the screenshots from my time in Far Cry 4. Sadly, I haven’t gotten around to completing the game, but I’m getting there. The only frustrating thing so far with the Upload studio on the Xbox One, is you’re only able to Upload one photo at a time. This alone, coupled with the fact that I had approx 300 screenshots saved, was quite time consuming. I’ll have to make an effort to export them daily, instead of building up a queue. Check out the screenshots here.


Moving onto some news for the week: Star Wars, Cities: Skylines, Destiny, Dues Ex, EA’s Free-To-Play, 2K Australia,

Star Wars Battlefront

Lots of news came out over the weekend regarding all things Star Wars. Check out the launch trailer below. The game will be first available to Xbox One users who have EA Access (me), so that’s exciting. The game looks really exciting, although disappointing is the exclusion of any type of campaign. There are smaller co-op/split-screen missions that can be played, but the main point of the game will be the large scale battles online. Also excluded are any type of space battles as all flying segments will take place in-atmosphere. Also announced was that this game with be the original trilogy, before the prequel era.

The first 4 planets were revealed to be Endor, Tatooine, Hoth, and a previously unexplored planet Sullust.

First DLC will be free for those who pre-order, and will be The Battle of Jakku, from the new movie, The Force Awakens.

Release date November 17th, 2015, PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Cities: Skylines

Paradox Interactive announced that Cities: Skylines has sold 1 million copies within the first month. This is obviously exciting news for the brand and genre. I should get back into my city, as I’ve been neglecting it.

6GB Destiny Patch

Destiny’s latest patch, 1.12 is a whopping 6GB. Included in the fix is some online multiplayer changes, bug fixes to the Raid bosses, and a new Colourblind mode. The House of Wolves Expansion is just around the corner, dropping on May 19th.

More on the patch, Data miners have discovered the plans for two more social spaces to be added to Destiny. To be included in the Expansion, or at a later date, who knows?

Dues Ex: Ghost Mode

The director of Dues Ex: Mankind Divided announced last week that the ghost option will be available throughout entire levels and even the boss fights. Ghost option is the ability to make it past all enemies and levels completely unseen.

EA’s Free2Play Games Getting Shut Down

EA announced that they will be stopping development and support for several of their free-to-play games, including: Battlefield Heroes, Need for Speed World, FIFA World, and Battlefield Play 4 Free.

They did announce, however, new story content and continued support  for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

2K Australia Closing

The Borderland: The Pre-Sequel developer has been announced to be closing. 2K Australia is Australia’s only remaining AAA studio. Previously they were apart of Irrational Games,, best know for the Bioshock series.

“We can confirm we have taken steps to begin the studio closure process for 2K Australia in order to better manage ongoing development costs while improving the working proximity of our creative teams.  We are very grateful for the team’s valuable contributions to numerous 2K projects, and are working with affected staff to explore reassignment opportunities where possible.”


Stick around for the new game releases tomorrow, we’ll talk more about Goat Simulator, Battlefield Hardline, and Far Cry 4 on Wednesday, and I’ll have a quick review up for Goat Simulator on Thursday.

Going outside now….

-iRogan

ACHIEVEMENT OF THE WEEK – Goat Simulator

So I started thinking of different ways to arrange my week. I believe I play games almost every day, at least in some respects. I at least talk about them or think about them about as much as any normal guy talks about . . . other things . . .

Usually every day I talk about some newsworthy things, that’s usually the main purpose of Monday, talk about news and the week to come. Tuesdays in news and New Games, Wednesday I usually talk about what games I’m currently playing and plugging away at, and Thursday’s I try to throw up a Review if I can. This is what I try to do every week, assuming something else doesn’t intervene.

But this also got me thinking about what I can do achievement related. In the reviews I try to include the notable achievements at the bottom. Something I felt was particularly creative or had a cool name. But I wanted to do more, since they are a true motivation for me. So I think every week, on Sundays to end the week, I’ll be including an Achievement of the Week post. Something quick and painless, to get me motivated for the week to come. These posts will be specific achievements that I’ve acquired throughout the week, and usually lead up to a screenshot gallery, or upcoming articles.


This week will be GOAT SIMULATOR. Released late this week, April 17th, and it’s only $9.99. It’s not really much of a game, but a fun sandbox physics simulator to play around in when you’re bored. It also has some easy achievements to chase. The game is somewhat of a parody of itself, and has some pretty entertaining moments in slow-motion. Thursday I’ll throw together a quick review from the Xbox One version.

This week’s Achievement of the Week (AotW) is from Goat Simulator:

100646-hiGoat Of The Hill – 15G
Everything the light touches is your kingdom

And all this will be mine?

And all this will be mine?

The goal is to reach the very top-most part of the crane in Goat Ville.


In other news, I’ve also started to export some of the screenshots from Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Far Cry 4. Would you kindly check them out here. -iRogan

WHAT I’M PLAYING/ iREVIEW – The Swapper

In a random gift of love and affection towards my PC, I jumped onto Steam and perused the list of games that had been Recommended For Me. First one to show up was a little nifty game called The Swapper.

Title: The Swapper
Developer: Facepalm Games
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, PS3, PS4, Vita, WiiU
Publisher: Facepalm Games
Reviewed on: Windows

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Not really knowing anything about the game other than it was a puzzle platformer (gathered from the trailer), I jumped in. The Swapper is a sci-fi themed space game. You play a scavenger who crash lands on – and is now stranded aboard – a research station that appears abandoned. The goal, I suppose, is to find out what’s going on around this space station, and obviously try to escape.

THE PUZZLES THEMSELVES ARE VERY SMART AND DO REQUIRE THOUGHT AND PERSISTENCE AT TIMES

As the player, you acquire a hand-held cloning tool which allows you to create up to four simultaneous clones of your character, and grants you the ability to swap your consciousness across each one, as long as they are within sight. Once created, the clones mimic the moves of the player as long as there are no obstacles in their way. The clones can also die from falling from a great height or through general environment hazards. If a clone dies, they’re reclaimed and can be re-spawned. Clones can also be reclaimed by being absorbed by the player.

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Time also slows down when creating a clone with the Swapper and this game mechanic allows the player to traverse vertical areas. You can shoot a clone up towards the ceiling, and swap your consciousness over, and while the clone is falling in slow-motion, you can then create a 2nd clone to the platform you wish to reach (previously out of the field of view of the original player) and swap again.

Some rooms also have certain lights sources to illuminate the area. Blue, Red, and Purple – these lights can either prevent the clones from being created, or will prevent the player from swapping their consciousness to the clone across the room, or both. This is where using multiple clones to activate triggers comes into play. The puzzles themselves are very smart and do require thought and persistence at times.

The goal in each area is to acquire the orbs that activate the teleporters which then allow us to activate the next area.

SUPERB USE OF BLOOM EFFECTS FOR LIGHTING AND DEPTH OF FIELD

As you progress throughout the space station you come across terminals that start to tell the story of the game. Similar to Dead Space, the crew of this station have found space rocks on a nearby planet, and the rocks themselves seem to give off this electro-wave activity, leading the crew to believe that the rocks are somewhat alive or conscious. Once aboard, the rock’s telepathic abilities start to penetrate the minds and dreams of the crew, and without cause or reason, they start to die off, leading the remaining members to believe that the rocks themselves are driving the crew mad. Unfortunately they’ve brought so many aboard they can no longer get rid of them.

We actually come across these telepathic rocks throughout the game, unknown are their effects on us, but they do tend to share their disturbing thoughts with us.

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The game is straight forward in its design, and it looks very pretty, with superb use of bloom effects for lighting and depth of field. The characters actions are limited to walking and jumping, and there are gravity sections that will require the use of the Swapper to boost around. These areas can get very disorientating as the room itself rotates, and not the player. There is also the opportunity to use the occasion physics object to activate triggers or hold up walls.

The game’s atmosphere is to be lauded. Its quiet and creepy, deep and loud sounds can make you eager to press on, or have you looking over your shoulder. The score, with piano being the main instrument, tends to reveal the vast emptiness of this space station we’ve found ourselves in. Makes us feel very alone.

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For those who like platformers, creepy empty space, or watching their clones walk off ledges.

-iRogan