Tag Archives: Gaming

ACHIEVEMENT OF THE WEEK – Valiant Hearts: The Great War

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Recently I’ve found that I do not have a lot of time during the week to play games. Due to work and other commitments. Instead, I play a lot over the weekend. On a milestone front, I’m quickly coming up to 150,000 Gamerscore. I won’t be surprised if my next Achievement of the Week is the one that lands me at 150K.

I had a party when I broke the 100K milestone. That one seems a little more impressive than 150K. A rounder number to be sure. I landed exactly on 100K which was what I was aiming for, and I’ll try to do the same here. That DOES mean, however, that I need to play more Mad Max, as that game has some 3G achievements, and that’s ruined my even 5’s and 0’s. As of this writing I’m at 149,337G.

Over the past two weeks I’ve put some more time into Saints Row IV with ILLESTRADER, Shadow of Mordor DLC. Last week I did a Review for SoM which you can check out here. Played some WWE 2K15 as well. This weekend I spent a big chuck of time in Rayman Legends, World of Tanks and Valiant Hearts: The Great War.

Valiant Hearts is an interesting 2D side-scroller which incorporates stealth and puzzles. The game had a very interesting art style, and told a tragic tale taking place in World War 1 following 3 different characters. I’ve been playing it off and on now since October, playing a chapter here and there. I decided to wrap it up this weekend, and I’ll do a review for it for Thursday. That’s also why I’m highlighting it for this Achievement o’ the Week – in this case: Achievement(s). Plural. Because I missed last week’s. 😉

Achievement of the Week – Valiant Hearts: The Great War


valianthearts1Some will survive… – 35G
Save Karl

 

valianthearts1…Some will not – 90G
Finish the game

 

Both of these are campaign related and cannot be missed, I just appreciated them for their naming, and they popped up one after another, telling their own story in a way.

 

Speaking of the War theme, I started up World of Tanks. I played it briefly on the Xbox 360 when it was released, and didn’t really touch it again afterwards. As it’s free to play, I reloaded it on the One. I got a bunch of unlocks and prestige stuff for, I guess, playing it again after 1 year since I first started. Annual bonus or something. What was also a nice surprise was that I re-unlocked all the original achievements. GTA V did the same thing. I’m guessing its a server related thing. You don’t have to do everything over again. I’m going to to include them in the list below regardless.

Monday Feb 22 – Sunday, Feb 28: 220G

WWE 2K15

  • The next big thing (MyCAREER – Reach SmackDown) – 30G
  • Money maker (MyCAREER – Earn an overall total of 1,000,000 VC) – 70G
  • A creator is born (Upload some kind of user created content once) – 20G
  • Over the ropes you go! (Eliminate 12 opponents with the same superstar in a single Royal Rumble match) – 20G
  • The Deadman defeated (WWE Universe – Defeat Undertaker at WrestleMania using a custom superstar) – 30G
  • Warlords (WWE Universe – Play and Win WWE World Heavyweight Championship 3 times) -20G
  • Match maker (Win in 20 match variations) – 30G

Monday, Feb 29 – Sunday, March 6: 920G

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

  • A Short Introduction (Begin a new hunt with Torvin) – 10G
  • Jaws of Shadow (Complete 25 Stealth Caragath Kills) – 30G
  • Wretched Retch (Use a Wretched Gruag’s Projectile Vomit on a Uruk Captain or Warchief) – 20G
  • Nom Nom Nom! (Eat a Captain with a Wretched Gruag) – 30G

Saints Row IV

  • Betrayed (Completed “All Hands on Deck” as if you needed another to want to perforate Zinyak) – 30G

World of Tanks

  • American Connoisseur (You’ve got the itch! You have successfully started your american tank collection) – 10G
  • Elite Status (You’ve completely researched a tank!) – 5G
  • Light Recruit (You’ve played 10 matches as a light tank) – 5G
  • Victory (You’ve won your first battle and survived!) – 10G
  • New Toy (You’ve acquired your first upgrade) – 5G
  • Driver’s Ed (You’ve completed the training) – 10G
  • Junior (You’ve researched a tier III tank) – 10G
  • I Am Super Man (You’ve blocked more damage than 2x the hitpoints of your tank) – 30G
  • This is World of Tanks (Was the last tank to be destroyed on your team) – 5G
  • MVP (Had the highest XP of your team) – 10G
  • Silent Assassin (You have destroyed an enemy tank while not detected) – 10G
  • Top Operative (Completed 8 new operations) – 15G
  • Boom Goes the Dynamite (You’ve destroyed a tank with full health in one shot) – 20G

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

  • Helpful Laundryman (Push all the laundry bags) – 25G
  • Revenge never meant happiness (Defeat the Baron Von Dorf) – 15G
  • So close yet so far! (Escape the French army with Anna and Karl) – 20G
  • Brothers’ Keeper (Save your entire platoon during the battle of Somme) – 70G
  • King of the Hill 145 (Shoot the German flag with the cannon at Vimy’s ridge) – 55G
  • Knowledge is power (Read 30 historical facts) – 45G
  • Healing Hero (Save Karl for the third time without making any mistakes) – 60G
  • Some will survive… (Save Karl) – 35G
  • …Some will not (Finish the game) – 90G
  • Ypres’ Wake-up call (Ring the bell 3 times in Ypres) – 40G
  • Taxi racer (Complete 1 taxi mission without damaging the car) – 50G

Rayman Legends

  • Challenger! (Unlock all the Challenge paintings) – 20G
  • Everywhere! (Take part at least once in the 4 different Challenges) – 10G
  • Shoot them up! (Get rid of 100 enemies with the Flying Punch) – 10G
  • Axe skater (With Barbara or Elysia, slide on your axe for 30 meters) – 10G
  • Splash! (Complete the “Gloo Gloo” painting) – 10G
  • Teensies’ hero (Rescue 300 Teensies) – 30G
  • Princess savior! (Rescue the 10 princesses) – 20G
  • Strike! (Kill 5 enemies using turnips) – 10G
  • We could be heroes (Unlock 10 Heroes paintings in the Heroes Gallery) – 20G
  • Let him do the job (While the Luchador chases you, let him kill 10 enemies) – 10G

 

More news for the upcoming week, the big, big release is Tom Clancy’s The Division. I’ll have a review up for Thursday in Valiant Hearts, but otherwise this week will be pretty quite as I’m in the early stages of moving. More on that later.

Laters…

-iRogan

FUNKO, NEED FOR SPEED, Xbox Update and New Games- IDL NEWS

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Overwatch Funko

Funko’s POP! collection will feature some of Overwatch’s playable characters. Four figures have been announced so far—Tracer, “the time-jumping test pilot;” Reaper, “the mysterious mercenary;” Widowmaker, “the ice-cold assassin;” and Winston, “super-intelligent, genetically enhanced gorilla.” To be released in May.

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I really like the POP! vinyls, and have a growing collection. I prefer the video game ones to the TV show or movies, so these will look nice with my collection. I have all the Assassins, and Borderlands 2’s Claptrap, Moxxi, Jack and Psycho, Bioshock Infinite’s Booker and Elizabeth , and Kratos. I am missing the Evolve and Mass Effect ones :(.

Need For Speed Free Update

EA has confirmed that the next free update for Need For Speed will include drag racing. It will also include some new Hot Rods, a bigger warehouse to store vehicles, and livery editor tool improvements.

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Xbox Update: March

March’s Xbox Update will bring backwards compatible Xbox 360 games to the Xbox One store to be purchased digitally, and Party Chat can now be publicly broadcasted via the Twitch streaming app. The host of the channel can choose who will be heard within the party.

Killer Instinct Season 3

Killer Instinct Season 3 will be launched on march 29th, 2016 on both the Xbox one and PC, and will feature cross-platform play. Season 3 will feature Battletoads’ Rash and the Arbiter from Halo, among others.

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New Releases – March 1-4

Heavyrain


Heavy Rain (PS4)
Heavy rain was a fantastic game for the PS3. A game of story twists and turns as you play from the perspective of 4 characters trying to solve numerous murders. The game has received both a visual and performance upgrade.

16544766Beyond: Two Souls (PS4)
Another game by Quantic Dream, and plays similar to Heavy Rain, both are drama action-adventure games And both have received the performance and visual upgrades and released as a combo package.

Mortal Kombat XL (Xbox One, PS4)50743282
The ultimate Mortal Kombat X experience.The package includes 2 brand new characters in Leatherface and Alien, plus all the playable characters from the original release and Kombat packs. Includes new skins and a new stage.


Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (PC)
PC release of the completely redone Gears of War 1. The Xbox One release came out in August.

Far Cry Primal (PC)
PC release of last weeks Far Cry game, that came out on PS4 and Xbox One.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (WiiU)
HD remastering of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, originally released on the Wii and Gamecube in 2006.

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Currently plugging away at my review for Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, which is the pure definition of a late review. So that’ll be ready for Thursday fingers crossed.

-iRogan

 

iReview – PNEUMA: BREATH OF LIFE

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Pneuma: Breath of Life

Publisher: Deco Digital and Bevel Studios
Developer: Deco Digital and Bevel Studios
Platform: Xbox One, PS4, PC
Reviewed On: Xbox One

Mind the stairs, and don’t trip over your own feet.

Pnuema started out less a game, and more of a tech demo, even going so far as to show us how to pronounce it’s title name: /’ nju:ma /. The purpose of developing it was to show off the Unreal 4 Engine, and test positional-oriented rendering, developed by a small team of 6 twenty-something year old’s, who worked throughout the day to put it together, and then worked all night at their regular jobs to fund their project. And, thanks to some very clever positional-based puzzles, a well written, witty narrative, brilliantly voiced by our game’s lead, the end product is a very smart, good looking game.

Pneuma: Breath of Life_20150713223348

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We start the game in a black void. The narrator of the adventure, our character, becomes self-aware, and begins to wonder where they are. He then utters some famous words, along the lines of “let there be light” and suddenly a door opens up ahead. We take control, and walk forward into a plain white hallway. The voice in our head, upon the realizing he has just created light, and quite possibly the whole world we just stumbled into, obviously thinks he is now a god. This is where the game shines, in its writing. Our god-like narrator begins to list the laws of physics that are keeping him grounded, and while moving around watching the world beautifully build itself around us, begins to realize that he is not in fact moving, but the world is moving around him. And then begins to add colour and warmth to his surroundings.

IT’S PRONOUNCED NJU:MA

At this point, if you decide to walk backwards, you’ll see all the changes become undone, and the world revert back to its pale empty space. This kind of evolution and realization follows us through the whole game, and creates a good sense of progression.

I really liked the voice actor who plays the narrator, his wonder and excitement regarding his new world and his ability to create. Reminds me a lot of Wheatly from Portal 2. His high level thinking and his god-like status slowly begins to wear away though, as we start to come across puzzles. Why would a God like me be forced to do these menial tasks? There are a lot of philosophical questions and points that the narrator raises during the campaign, as he tries to figure out why things are the way they are, what it’s like to be alive in this world, and are we playing the game, or is the game playing us.

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The puzzles start off pretty easy to grasp, and graduate to fairly moderate, none of them too hard to handle, but you may get a bit queasy when the game starts to rotate the game world, leaving you a little turned around.

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“ARE YOU GOING TO OPEN THE DOOR? AT ANY TIME?

The puzzles are position and focused based. There are eye markers placed around each level, and these will control walls or floor tiles, or doors. When looking at the object marker, it may move as you walk closer, or when you walk away – no explanation as to why this is happening. But these are only affected when looking at them. The camera has to see the eye. For example, when looking at a door marker, the doors may only open as you walk away facing them. Do that for a distance until they open fully, turn around so your eye and the eye marker no longer make contact, and then walk backwards through the open door. Afterwards our narrator will chime in, confirming what we did, and coming to the conclusion that what we did was correct. That’s the easy stuff.

The puzzles get a little more difficult as your progress. Standing on certain pedestals in one area, and rotating the camera will rotate the whole room, and leaving you feeling a little woozy. In the next area, tiles on the floor need to be turned on or off by viewing them at one colour and looking away and coming back to change the colour. These puzzles require time and patience, as one slip up with the camera, and you will have to start all over again.

The puzzles in each area follow a similar mechanic, but don’t feel repetitive or tedious. They are short however, and the game as a whole, is not long, only a few hours, without any real reason to play again.

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Pneuma: The Breath of Life is very pretty, brightly coloured, and beautifully textured with smooth marble or bumpy stone, and fill with lush fauna and bright skies. At times, it does feel like a visual tech demo, showing off the capabilities of the Unreal Engine on a console. It’s just a shame that since all of the puzzles are visual and position based, so we spend a lot of time avoiding eye contact with the markers, and instead spend it looking at our feet.

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The achievements are very generous: 8/11 of them are for just completing each chapter totalling 850G, and then the 3 remaining are for extra puzzles, these being easily missed.

For those that liked Portal, The Stanley Parable, or looking at your feet.

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT
There’s a puzzle for you (Complete the Game) – 150G

 

 

March’s Games With Gold, Star Wars Battlefront, New Games, and Far Cry Impossible- IDL NEWS

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Far Cry Patch

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Spoiler alert – Far Cry Primal came out today. Alongside the launch came a Day One patch (gotta love those) coming at just 560MB. The patch, which includes some stability improvements, companion behavior and some other tweaks, also includes an Expert Mode. This mode halves your health compared to the Hard difficulty. It speeds up the A.I attack speed, while lengthening their forgetfulness cool-down, and enemies are not shown on the mini-map unless tagged. It reduces the aim assist, and reduces your damage.

For those who are into that sort of thing. More on Far Cry Primal later on.

Xbox Games With Gold: MARCH

Xbox One
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments – March 1-31
Lords of the Fallen – March 15-April 15

Xbox 360
Supreme Commander 2 – March 1-15
Borderlands – March 16-31

I am excited for both of the Xbox One games. Sherlock looks like a pretty adventure story game not unlike Telltale’s ilk, and Lords of the Fallen looks like a poor man’s Dark Souls crossed with Darksiders. I’ll take it. On the 360 front, I’ll try out Supreme Commander 2 as I’ve always liked RTS games on the PC, like Command and Conquer or Age of Empires. Borderlands I’ll pass on. The game is eons old and I’ve already played it many times. Get outa here.

Star Wars Battlefront

star-wars-battlefront-offers-first-look-at-fighter-squadron-mode-488398-2Star Wars Battlefront’s large February update has started rolling out. Jakku’s DLC content is being patched into the , so it’s not longer a separate item in the store, and you can delete any existing downloads from your HDD.

A new map called Twilight on Hoth has been added, and it can be played in the Walker Assault, Supremacy, Turning Point, Blast, Fighter Squadron, Drop Zone, and Heroes vs. Villains game types.

A new survival mission has been added: Survival in the Ice Caves, and the Turning Point gameplay mode has been added to the Jundland Wastes, Forest of Endor, Outpost Beta, and SoroSuub Centroplex maps.

Thumbs up.

DOOM Up In Here

Pre-ordering DOOM on the Xbox One will net you the original DOOM and DOOM II for free, as they are both part of the backwards compatibility list. Pre-ordering nets you some other multiplayer exclusives as well: armour sets, weapon skins, etc.

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New Releases – Feb 23

hitman_go_2

 

Hitman GO: Definitive Edition (PS4)
From the makers of Lara Croft GO, their first title was Hitman GO. I bought this on Android and never go the chance to play it before I shattered my screen, and then bought an iPhone. Guess I’ll have to re-buy it, as I loved Lara Croft GO.

 

maxresdefault (7)Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2
(Xbox One, PS4, PC)
The sequel to the original, a 3rd person shooter / tower defense game, in the Plants Vs Zombie world. The formula has been changed up, as now the plants are on the offensive as the zombies have completely taken over.


far_cry_primal_beastfaceFar Cry Primal (PS4, Xbox One, PC)
Same Far Cry world and mechanics, but now in the Stone Age era, with Woolly Mammoths and Sabretooth Tigers. Humanity is now on the low end of the food chain. Gone are the guns and vehicles, replaced with clubs, and spears. This might be the first Far Cry that I’ll actually pass on, at least for now.

Far Cry as a series, to me, has always been a shooter within a believable world and crazy villains. While this one appears to have a very detailed, gorgeous and believable world, I can’t see myself getting as immersed into the world, with its close range combat and 100% subtitled story, as I have with its predecessors.

We’ll see though.

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With that said, back to the gaming grind. Thursday has a review for Pneuma: Breath of Life while I continue to plug away at what I’m playing. Might jump back into Star Wars Battlefront to try out the new modes and map.

I’m hoping to get some opinions up for The Division beta ahead of its release, and spend more time in Assassin’s Creed Unity, Oddworld, and Mad Max.

-iRogan

ACHIEVEMENT OF THE WEEK – Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty

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This week I didn’t get up to must on the game front. Tried out The Division beta starting on Thursday, wrapped up some DLC in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, put some time into Assassin’s Creed Unity and The Swapper (on the Xbox One, see my original PC thoughts: The Swapper), and tried out Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty. Basically all over the map.

Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty is a 2.5D platformer with an emphasis on puzzles. Its gameplay is 2D but it has a 2.5D art style. We play as Abe, who finds out that the meat processing plant that he works for – that makes delicious snacks – has just introduced a new snack. The problem is the secret ingredient is made from the inhabitants of the planet. His goal is to rescue all the world’s people.

The game is a remake of the original, from 1999 on the Playstation – Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, but remade from the ground up.

I chose this game as the highlight of the week because the other games I played haven’t had any interesting achievements yet, and even though I’ve only play a 1 or 2 levels, the first achievement I got was accidental, even in name.

 

Achievement of the Week – Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty

Oddworld


Opps… – 0G
Fail to observe your surroundings

This achievement (or challenge) happens when you accidentally kill one of the world inhabitant (Mudokons) but pulling a switch that opens a trap door. The door is intended to drop a guard.

 

As I mentioned above, still playing through Assassin’s Creed Unity, and loving the art and visuals. It’s truly an incredibly detailed game. I’ve been plugging away in Grand Theft Auto V on the XOne. They had a 2x bonus weekend, and I failed to connect to a single multiplayer game without someone getting dropped. So that’s been a blast. And I also wrapped up one of the SoM DLCs.

Sunday, Feb 14 – Sunday Feb 21: 250G

Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty

  • Opps… (Fail to observe your surroundings) – 0G

Assassin’s Creed Unity

  • A Long Time Ago (Complete the Prologue) – 10G
  • Youth in Versailles (Complete Memory Sequence 1) – 20G
  • Rebirth (Complete Memory Sequence 2) – 20G
  • First Blood (Complete Memory Sequence 3) – 20G

EA SPORTS NHL 16

  • Keener (Get an overall grade of A- in Be a Pro mode) – 15G

Grand Theft Auto V

  • Altruist Acolyte (You delivered an unsuspecting victim to the Altruist Cult) – 5G
  • A Friendship Resurrected )With friends like this who needs enemies?) – 10G

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

  • The Maker’s Bow – Complete all Azkar Legend Missions) – 30G
  • Eregion Reforged (Build all the Forge Towers in Udom) – 40G
  • Battle Forged (Maximize the power of the Ring by completing all of the One Ring missions) – 20G
  • Betrayed (The One Ring has returned to it’s Maker) – 50G
  • A Mighty Doom (Acquire a level 25 Rune) – 10G

 

Next week is back to news and new games (Far Cry Primal the most notable), another review lined up for Thursday, The Division impressions, and more.

-iRogan