Cities: Skylines’ Impressions and Some News

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Paradox Interactive’s city-building sim reached an impressive milestone today, surpassing 500,000 sales. This announcement follows last week’s 250k sales in 24 hours. 500k in less than a week is truly impressive, and the game has been received well. But 2013’s SimCity reboot also sold very well and was received well. But that all turned sour quick once the launch of the game was hindered by server issues.

Cities: Skyline will not suffer the same fate. Skyline won’t be bogged down by the same server issues as it doesn’t share an online world economy requiring EA’s mandatory internet access.

That being said, Cities: Skyline does borrow from SimCity extensively, but simplifies the gameplay. The game plays quick and loose, full in-game days whiz by in a blur, no day and night cycle will have you forgetting that time is moving, and your towns folk seem pretty content as long as you keep their lights on, and their streets cleared of garbage.

I had a 4 hour sit-down last night (I think without blinking), and figuring I was doing fairly well, just to find the power suddenly go out, leaving me with an abandoned city and piles of debt. Not my most notable achievement by any stretch, I quickly packed up my remaining dignity and skipped town, off to the next soon-to-be sprawling metropolis. “THIS TIME, MY CITIZENS, I PROMISE TO DO BETTER!”

Keep an eye out for my review soon.

In other, non-city related news…

Battlefield Hardline’s Couch Warfare

Someone has found a drivable couch Easter egg in Battlefield Hardline. The couch, appropriately named “The American Dream” is found in the Hotwire gameplay mode on the Dust Bowl Map. Seats 4, and drives faster than any of the other types of vehicles.

Couch Warfare

Couch Warfare

Unknown is if the couch is an Easter egg for the EA Access preview, or will be made available tomorrow during the proper launch. I guess we’ll soon find out. I’ll try to find it tonight for myself.

LEGO Jurassic World June Release

New info started coming out today about the next LEGO game from TT Games: LEGO Jurassic World. Announced a little while ago with a teaser, today there was a gameplay / a more fleshed out trailer. We know the game will focus not on 3, but actually all 4 movies, hence Jurassic WORLD, and will include almost 2 dozen dinosaurs, and all the characters from the movies. Briefly shown from the trailer are some of the key scenes from Jurassic Park.

Crytek’s New Licencing Deal?

Known for their Crytek engine, FarCry, Crysis, and Ryse – Crytek teased a new licensing deal today. No further details though.

Crytek is currently going through some restructuring, or “transitioning” as they work on some free-to-play projects and recent “strategic” moves. They’ve had their recently purchased rights to Homefront, moved to Dambuster Studios along with their Crytek UK staff. Crytek USA remains stateside to focus on their Engine.

Some positive news is better than all the recent negatives, or no news, I guess.

GTA Online stability released on Xbox

And finally, GTA Online gets its stability patch out to the Xbox community, improving Online stability for Heists, and fixing minor issues for both Online and Story Mode. Released last week on the Ps3 and Ps4.

Currently I’m in the process of staring at this game, on my shelf, willing the game’s sizable 43GB install to shrink so that it fits on my already over-full Xbox One Harddrive. I’m past the last notch on the belt guys, I’ve already purged 3/4’s of my library to the “ready to be installed” list. That last bite of dessert is a faded memory.

Thursday, though! Thursday, I’m picking up a 4TB external HDD for my XBOX One which should resolve all of my HDD woes.

New games tomorrow, till then, Go OUTSIDE!

-iRogan

Battlefield Hardline First Impressions

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Battlefield Hardline is an interesting game. It’s very much Battlefield 4, but re-skinned into the cops and robbers feel. Through EA Access, I have a 10 hour trial, this includes access to the multiplayer modes, in which there’s a handful, and the first episode of the of the single player campaign.

Battlefield Hardline

6 multiplayer modes are included in the game: Hotwire, Heist, Rescue, Blood Money, Crosshair, and then the standards, Conquest (small and large) and Team Deathmatch.

Hotwire is where the vehicles are control points that need capturing, and the more you drive them and faster you drive them, depletes the other team’s points. First team to eliminate the other’s points, wins

Heist has the criminal team trying to escort cash from the vault to their base. Criminals have limited lives. SWAT’s job is to try and prevent them.

Rescue is Rainbow Six’s new Seige game essentially. 6 vs 6. The criminals are holding 2 hostages and the SWAT team needs to infiltrate the building to extract the hostages or eliminate the criminals. No respawns. Best of 9 rounds.

Blood Money is similar to Heist in that its Cops vs Robbers fighting over a pile of cash, the different is each teams needs to get the loot back to their respective vault.

Crosshair is another small competitive mode where the SWAT is trying to extract a VIP, and the criminals are trying to wipe them out. No Respawns.

Conquest is the Battlefield staple. Huge maps with players and vehicles, and the point is to capture key map points to reduce the enemy’s tickets, which is their ability to respawn.

Team Deathmatch is infantry only, no control points. Just shoot everything that moves.

Multiplayer is very much like Battlefield 4. It looks pretty good, and the game modes have a lot happening, especially with the larger maps of 64 people, so some moments can be a little intense. There is level destruction and map changer’s like sandstorms in the desert maps. The vehicles feel and sound a little clunky, but some of the tools are a nice touch, with the grappling hook and zipline.

The campaign, I feel, is where the game really shines. Obviously better looking than multiplayer, it’s a slower, more personal experience that previous Battlefield games. This is probably the result of Visceral Game’s leading the project. You play Nicholas Mendoza, detective, you play a series of episode chapters throughout Los Angeles in the center of a drug war. Aside of the shooting mechanics, you can shine your badge to get the perp to freeze, allowing for the arrest, you can throw bullet casing to distract people, and you have a scanner to scan rooms for evidence or people for warrants.

Unfortunately the single player trial ends after the first chapter, so the rest of my impressions will have to wait till I’ve completed the game and written the review. Stick around.

Only a bit of news to wrap up today:

Destiny Patch Update News

Bungie has opened up about the pending Destiny patch, stating that it’ll focus on increasing the vault size for weapons and gear, and fixing up some of the Raid bugs when facing off against Atheon and Crota. Lastly, Bungie announced that they’re always listening to fans and tracking the play stats about the Strikes, and focusing more on the popular Strikes that actually get completed, so that the playlists are more to the fanbase liking.

Goat Simulator Coming to Xbox One and 360

Microsoft announced today the Goat Simulator will make its console debut on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One in April. Coffee Stain Studio’s game will be worked on and published by Double Eleven.

Xbox One March Update

March’s update adds the Screenshot functionality, which can but found and managed in the Upload app. They can also be used as background images. Suggested friends has been added, allows players to find friends easier. Tile transparency has been upgraded a bit to add different levels of transparency. And you can now report messages as spam.

See you next week, with more news, Tuesday’s new games, further impressions on Hardline and AC IV Black Flag and a review on Thursday.

Go Outside!
-iRogan

Thursday iReview, Delays, and Cops Vs Robbers

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This morning the Review for Evolve was posted, written by a friend I work with. She’s playing it on the PC, and I don’t own it yet. You can find the review here. She even picked out her own notable achievements :O.

Last night I installed Battlefield Hardline, a whopping 43GB on the Xbox One HDD, and I’m excited to play it tonight. I’ll be streaming it on Twitch, and posting my first impressions tomorrow.

In other news:

Titanfall 2 Confirmed

Coming off the heals of the Titanfall one year anniversary, the previously rumoured, and more or less expected, Titan fall 2 was confirmed by Respawn CEO Vince Zampella, and will be a multiplatform release. No official title.

I’ll be playing some more Titanfall this weekend in honor of the anniversary.

Cities: Skyline Open House

Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive have announced its city-building sim Cities: Skylines has wracked up sales of 250,000 in its first 24 hours. There’s still lots of love out there for city sims, especially after the Sim City reboot struggled. A lower price point at $35 definitely helps, and no mandatory online connection required. I’ll be picking this up shortly to share my thoughts. Stay tuned.

Saddness on the Homefront

Homefront: The Revolution has been delayed until 2016.

Dambuster studios picked up the IP for the Homefront franchise off of Crytek UK, who had picked it up off of the now folded THQ. After the acquisition, and in the interest of focusing the efforts for a quality product, the studio has announced the delays. Not really unexpected as there hasn’t been a lot of information about the title.

Go Outside!

-iRogan

Cro0ked Review – EVOLVE – Bring Friends. Get Eaten.

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Title: Evolve
Developer: Turtle Rock Studios
Platform: Xbox One, PS4, PC
Publisher: 2K (Take-Two Interactive)
Reviewed on: PC

I first heard about Evolve last year, after my friend returned from PAX Prime and told me about this new multiplayer game that had been showcased at the convention. He said that he played a hulking, squid-faced monster, and had to eat wildlife to evolve into a bigger and better beastie so he could kill four of his friends in PvP play.

Come at me bro!

Come at me bro!

Wait. Four friends against you?

Hell yes! Play as the single ferocious monster, or one of four hunters determined to track it down. Evolve is the first one versus four game – a pioneer of a new, interesting take on multiplayer – developed by Turtle Rock Studios (the creators of Left 4 Dead) and published by 2K. The game boasts a myriad of options for you to choose from: as the single player, you get your choice between the beefy Goliath, the long-ranged Kraken, or the swift Wraith. Hunting monsters more your style? There are four Hunter classes to choose from for your four-man team: Assault, who deals the majority of damage; Support, who buffs the hunters; Medic, who heals the hunters; and Trapper, who traps the Monster. Each hunter class has a choice of 3 characters, with the first tier of characters available upon booting up the game. The other two tiers you have to unlock by “mastering” the previous one’s abilities, effectively making sure you’ve played each one enough times to understand how to use them.

Evolve is the first one versus four game – a pioneer of a new, interesting take on multiplayer

The game is currently played in two modes: Skirmish Hunt mode, in which the Hunters must track down and kill the Monster before it evolves to Stage 3 and kills them (or destroys the power relay); or Evacuation mode, which is played over a series of 5 matches – these matches are played over 4 different game modes and will all take place on a different map. Gameplay consists mostly of evading the Hunters and eating wildlife to evolve and acquire new skills as fast as possible when you’re the Monster, and running after tracks, corpses, or fallen trees to stay on your quarry’s trail as the Hunters…then shooting the beast to death once you find it.

Now is the time to PANIC!

Now is the time to PANIC!

The Cons

If you’ve heard of Evolve, you’ve likely heard of 2K’s questionable launch decisions. To start, there were confusing packages available for pre-purchasing the game, priced from $60-$120. For many of them, the content you paid for was not available on launch (and is still not available, but will be…soon™). Evolve was also released with day one DLC which sparked quite a bit of discontent from gamers who just dropped $60+ on the title. The biggest note about the DLC is this – it is currently cosmetic only. TRS has been very clear in stating that all future maps and modes will be made available to everyone free of charge, and that the only DLC that will be paid for are cosmetic weapon or monster skins or new characters.

The game was also plagued with bugs upon release. Hunters dying and dropping like stones through the floor, Monsters turning invisible and progress resets on Xbox One are just a few of the major bugs present in the game right now. There is an upcoming patch to fix these issues, but it’s been a month coming so far, with only the Xbox progression issue fixed to date. The game isn’t unplayable, but a few of these bugs definitely cause frustration for both Hunters and Monster players alike.

Speaking of matches, the matchmaking in the game is getting negative reactions from some players. The matchmaking system allows you to set a role preference, but it prioritizes a human player for the Monster over an AI, so even if you set the Monster as your least-preferred role you may be stuck with it anyway on occasion. Luckily there are no real penalties for leaving a lobby if you don’t want to play the role you’re assigned, just a one-minute timer before you can re-queue, but TRS has indicated this will change in the future due to abuse.

Some players have noted a lack of re-playability for the game, as the modes and maps are limited for now. This con is subjective – it depends on your preferences when you game. If you need badges to pop up every time you kill someone, or see your rank shoot up over everyone else, you may find the game dull after a week or two. For those gamers who look for improving their skills slowly and coordinating with a team, it may be much longer for you.

You really need a microphone. The game is frustrating at best if your team does not communicate, and due to the fast pace and constantly changing engagements, verbal communication is the most effective.

Evolve Monsters

You must always be able to predict what’s next and then have the flexibility to evolve.

The Pros:

This game is fun. It is the most fun I’ve had with a new release in quite some time. The adrenaline rush you get as the Monster is undeniable, and the thrill of chasing a hulking beast through an alien world – knowing it could jump out and kill you at any moment – is exhilarating. This game is even better when played with other people – either friends or randoms. The player community on PC is the only one I can really speak about, and I must say that this game has the least amount of flaming I have ever experienced in a PvP PC game. The community seems to embrace new players, teaching them the ropes and helping them to improve rather than telling them to (expletive) themselves with a (expletive).

You really need a microphone.

I also find that the unlocking system they have in place, though tedious, is essential to furthering your gameplay. It ensures that you have an understanding of each Hunter character before moving along the line to try the next one. This comes in especially handy during matchmaking, where you may not get the role you prefer. That way, when you enter the game you (hopefully) have a grasp of all the characters, not just your preferred class. This also makes sure you don’t select some of the more nuanced characters right away, whose role in a fight may differ slightly from the norm.

Another refreshing thing about this game is how engaged the developers are with the community. They are regularly haunting their forums and taking suggestions from the community seriously. Though a bit slow to get things out, they show their appreciation for the Evolve fanbase through community play events, even releasing their TRS developers signature gold Monster skins to the public for free this past weekend. The player community for this game is also thriving, even though the playerbase has dropped since launch due to the DLC fiasco and the buggy release. There are still active players in many forums, and the majority of them are very friendly and willing to teach new players.

All in all, if you are willing to spend the $60 on this title, Evolve is a ton of fun. It’s a unique experience with a rush you won’t quite get anywhere else. Though the release and marketing could have been more streamlined, the gameplay itself is well worth the cash for hours of hunting.

Notable Achievements:
Cockroach (Kill the Monster while incapacitated outside of the Tutorials) – 30G
12-Sided Die (Reach elite status on all Hunters) – 90G

-Cro0ked

What I’m Playing, Pipe-line Projects, and your News Fix

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As Assassin’s Creed IV – Black Flag warms up, and I’m loaded into the head office of Abstergo Entetainment, I’m happy to see the triangle logo is still in place. Curiously missing or at least less prominent in the last few Creed title, I was beginning to worry they had done away with the logo entirely. Worrisome, considering I do have the tattoo on my wrist.

Animus Unite

Animus Unite

Assassin’s Creed IV – Black Flag, not really considered a new release anymore. Can’t fault me for sticking to my slow methodical pace through some of the AAA titles on my shelf. Not that I don’t bang off a new title now and then, but it really needs to grab my attention. Or must stray from the default 3rd person Ubisoft Open World platform genres, FPS, or Racing title.

But when it comes to the Assassin Creed title, I’m usually always at least one generation behind.

I think the title’s annual similarities is the reason. They sometimes take months to complete, and the next edition then comes out later that year, and is just more of the same type of game play with tweaks to the story. At least when you consider Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, Revelations. III started the trend into the right direction, and then IV really is a breath of fresh air. Because you’re on a boat. Ha!

Assassin’s Creed IV is the current title under review, and as mentioned in an earlier post, I wrapped Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) in co-op, so expect a quick review of that. I’m also playing Sniper Elite III in co-op, and playing through Forza Horizons 2 Storm Island DLC. In the pipeline is Far Cry 4, and Shadow of Mordor.

Lastly, I’ll be providing my first impressions of EA and Visceral’s Battlefield Hardline with the early Access on March 12th. Cities: Skylines is also on the list for the next PC game I want, but I’ll need to upgrade my graphics card first. So close :(.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be posting a friend’s review of Evolve, as she’s been playing it on the PC, and has some thoughts. Very nice of her to provide that.

To increase game-time, gotta get news-time out of the way…

Uncharted 4 Delay

Naughty Dog’s highly anticipated release of the next Uncharted game, 4: A Thief’s End has been delayed until spring 2016. It’s not uncommon for Naughty Dog to delay games, as they do have an incredibly high standard for their products. The wait will be worth it, and it gives me the extra time to save up for a PS4.

GTA Online Heists Launch Issues

Tell me if you’ve this before…Rockstar’s long waited Online Heists DLC update has had a bumpy start, as players are experiencing problems connecting. After about 24 hours the service seems to be more stable. This news isn’t entirely surprising as the GTA Online mode had a rocky start to begin with, and there’s been a lot of hype for this DLC to boot, so obviously a lot of people would be trying to play it as soon as they could. Now I just need some friends to play it with. 😦

Titanfall DLC for Free – One Year Anniversary

Celebrating the one year anniversary of Titanfall, the 3 DLC packs have been made free. This includes nine new maps. No use to me, as I had already purchased the season pass on launch, but this does give me the motivation to jump back into the game. Unknown is how long the free season pass will be available for.

Check my review from Titanfall: Not Here, but Here

Remember Me 2 is “Ready to be Made”

Capcom’s Remember Me developer, Dontnot, has made a statement that the sequel is, technically, ready to be made.

“We know what we would do for Remember Me 2,” said Dontnod creative director, Jean-Maxime Moris. “The main story has been written, we know what we would add to the recipe. We know what we would fix. It’s a game that’s ready to be made, but that decision is Capcom’s to make.”

So development hasn’t been started. Better than no news I suppose. I have a lot of Reviews “ready to be made” too. They just have to be written first. :p

Check my review of the first game:  Remember Me

That’s all for now. Check out the Evolve review tomorrow.

Go Outside!

-iRogan