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 – Welcome Back to the Working Week and New Games

Welcome back, people. Welcome back, myself. Thanks 🙂

On to business, as there’s quite a bit of news to catch up on, but . . . new games:


Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones (PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One) – The initial game was first available on Steam called Stealth Bastard, and re-released on the PS3 and Vita titled Stealth Inc. The sequel was released last year on the WiiU and has now come to the PS3, PS4, PC, and Xbox One.

Bastion (PS4) – Originally released in 2011, Bastion has been re-released on the PS4.

Dark Soul II: Scholar of the First Sin (Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4) – An updated version of Dark Souls II has been released. This is a compilation of the original game and the DLC. The PS4 and Xbox One versions have also recieved an enhanced version, with upgraded graphics, among other fixes.

I see you Dragon Age, and raise you The Witcher III

I see your Dragon Age, and raise you The Witcher III

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved – Dimensions Evolved is a free title update for Geometry Wars 3 and includes 40 new levels.

Sunset Overdrive: Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machines – New, and final DLC for Sunset Overdrive. Definitely a fun game filled with platforming and mayhem. The game recently received a permanent price drop, and hopefully it’ll receive a sale, so that I can pick it up.


What else is new?

The Next Gears of War Game Won’t Come to Xbox 360

Black Tusk Studios has announced that the next Gears of War game will not be available on the Xbox 360, but on the Xbox One. I have no problem with this, as there were 4 Gears games on the 360. Time for this-gen.

Battlefield Hardline Patch

Battlefield Hardline will be receiving a patch to nerf the Kill Couch (not remove it, which I’d previously assumed). Available in Dust Bowl, the couch was the fastest and strongest vehicle. However, the patch will make the strength and life of the couch very small, as it was meant for one-off use only. Killing the American Dream, bro.

Quantum Break Delayed Again

Microsoft has announced that Quantum Break will not be released before next year, due to the holiday rush of Microsoft Exclusives already being released around year end, including Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza 6, and Halo 5 Guardians.

Tomb Raider has Sold 8.5 million copies

Speaking of Tomb Raider, Square Enix has announced that the Tomb Raider reboot has sold 8.5 million copies, which makes it the best selling Tomb Raider game. There’s a lot of hype for their follow-up later this year. Hopefully new info comes out around E3. You can find my review here: sorry, here.

tombraider

Xbox’s Deals With Gold

This week, on the Xbox One, Forza Horizons 2 is on sale, in all its versions, as well as the Car Pass DLC. Coincidentally just in time for the free Fast and Furious 7 Stand-Alone demo, which encourages you to buy the full version. My review for Forza Horizons 2 and the Fast and Furious Stand Alone.

There’s a slew of games also on sale on the Xbox 360 front: Serious Sam HD, Double D XXL, 3, and DLC. F1 2014, Metal Slug 3, and some of the King of Fighters games are also on sale.

Dues EX: Mankind Divided

The sequel to the awesome 2011 Dues Ex: Human Revolution was leaked, and has been confirmed, and it’s called Dues Ex: Mankind Divided. It’s a sequel to Adam Jensen’s story, 2 years after the events of the previous game. Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Unfortunately no release window yet.

Colour me excited. I may have to replay Human Revolution. Where’s the re-mastered versions now . . .?


I’ve also added some new screenshots to Forza Horizons 2, and I started playing the updated version of Half-Life 2,so I’ve added some screen shots from that, with some more coming.

Still playing Far Cry 4 (really wanting the Upload app to get updated), and over the weekend I finally got into Call of Duty: Ghosts, which is another game I’ve been sitting on due to hard-drive space. Expect a little more of an insight tomorrow.

-iRogan
“Yeah, RIP.”

New Games, New Cities, New News

Cities has a weird way of making me forget to blink, or watch the clock…” I say absently, clicking away, creating trees along a gravel path between houses.

“Don’t you have to work tomorrow? It’s 2AM.” She replies.

“Just need to add a bus depot and map the routes…” I mumble. “This traffic is brutal.”

I wish my city creation was this pretty.

I wish my city creation was this pretty.

Continuing with my review-in-progress of Cities: Skylines, my 2nd play through last night was definitely more successful as I slowly learned the hidden intricacies of the game. The game will tell you how to build a road, but skips on the minutia of creating a successful highway off-ramp. Go figure it out, I guess? It’ll tell you how to paint districts, and glaze over the district specializations, but how about letting me know how to find the resources on the map for specializations?

*4 hours later* Oh there’s an Info Pane for that. Wait WHAT, there’s an info pane that shows me all this? You didn’t think to maybe mention this first, Game?

My city did survive the night this time. Didn’t need to skip town as Mayor like last time, while the power was out. Check mark in the positive column.

Stay tuned for further impressions throughout the week.


Out today, new and notable, for March 17th, 2015:

  • Battlefield Hardline (Xbox One, PS4, PS3, XBOX 360, PC) – Started playing this last Thursday during the EA Access trial on the Xbox One. I’m excited that it’s now out fully and I can play through the campaign. You can read my first impressions: Here
  • Tales from the Borderlands: Episode 2 (Xbox One, PS4, PS3, XBOX 360, PC) – Titled Atlas Mugged. The  Telltale Bundle is still sitting on my “ready to be installed” list, waiting to be played. Thursday I’m picking up an external HDD so I can install my full library. Man, that’ll feel good. Much bandwidth. I do think the first series I play will be Wolf Among Us. Starting to get worried about my ever-growing list of unplayed games. Might need to hire an intern to play my games for me.

There is absolutely nothing of interest to me, out there, on Earth, at all. Save these tidbits of news today:

Nintendo’s New Partnership and New Hardware?

Nintendo announced today a new partnership with DeNA to develop a mobile platform, to bring their library to mobile devices. They were also quick to point out that they’re not out of the console market, stating that they are developing a next-gen dedicated gaming system, code named “NX”. No further details on the console till next year.

The Last Guardian Trademark Filed Again

Announced back in 2009, Sony’s The Last Guardian is vapourware at this point. Sony has filed for the trademark for a 3rd time, and stated that the game is still in development. Whether that means it’ll be the same envisioned game, still on the PS3, now on the PS4, who knows. It’s gone the ways of Prey 2 for all I’m concerned.

Weekly Deals With Gold

Grand Theft Auto takes the front line this week for Xbox’s game sales.

On the Xbox One you can purchase the in-game credit card, which included $500,000 in-game currency for $10 off the retail price. $59.49 USD. Gross. OlliOlli is on sale as well.

On the Xbox 360, GTA V, GTA IV, San Andreas, and GTA IV expansions are on sale.


All for naught, you should probably go outside…

-iRogan

Cities: Skylines’ Impressions and Some News

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

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