Video Games | Gumballs Plays Games

R.B.I. Baseball 16 on the Xbox One

Posted on April 4, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

Opening day is here, and for those of you looking to get a baseball fix on the Xbox One you have but one choice: R.B.I. Baseball 16.

There hasn’t been a ‘true’ baseball game on an Xbox platform since 2013’s MLB 2k13 on the Xbox 360. Therefore, for those of us who don’t own Playstation platforms, we haven’t been able to scratch our baseball video game itch for over four years. R.B.I. Baseball 16 is the third game in the revived series that originally debuted on the NES in 1988 and returned to modern consoles in 2014.

If you’re looking for a realistic baseball experience, don’t expect to find it in R.B.I. Baseball 16. The R.B.I. series has always offered more of an arcade style experience and that’s still true in the 2016 version. The gameplay is incredibly simplified, in that at any given time you only need two buttons and the D-pad to play it. Pitching consists of pressing ‘A’ and using the D-pad or analog stick to either pitch a fastball (hold down), slow-ball (hold up), or curve (hold left or right). That’s it. Hitting and fielding are no more complicated.

On the plus side, R.B.I. Baseball 16 presents the game of baseball with a pretty realistic looking presentation. The stadiums look great and the players don’t look entirely cartoony. Unfortunately there is no audio commentary which would make for a nice addition.

For $20 R.B.I. Baseball 16 is better than having no baseball at all on the Xbox One, however I’m left wanting the simulation experience that the MLB 2K series offered.

My first gaming PC!

Posted on March 28, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

So I’m down to the final weeks of this deployment and I decided that I would treat myself to a gaming PC for when I return home. At first I looked long and hard at the Alienware Alpha and Steam Machines, coming really close to picking up an i5 version of the Alpha for $650. However, upon browsing Reddit and Steam message boards I saw an overwhelming amount of negative posts about the Alpha, most regarding hardware failures.

Ultimately I headed to iBuyPower and started putting a desktop together. They were having a sale where basically every component you selected would be upgraded to the next higher version for free. I have to admit, I know absolutely nothing about PC’s (I’ve used a MacBook Pro for the last four years, and it’s done everything I’ve ever needed it to, without ever having any issues) so I kind of went into the ‘building’ process blind. I just picked things that seemed affordable, and ended up with the following build:

AMD FX 8320 processor (with Corsair Hydro Series H55 liquid cooling)
16GB RAM (G.Skill Ripjaws X)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (2GB)
MSI 970 SLI Krait Edition (motherboard)
600W Power Supply
2TB 7200 RPM hard drive

I have no real clue what any of that means, but I’ve heard it’s not a bad start, although many people have said I should have gotten an i5 CPU over the AMD. All I’m hoping for is the ability to run PC games such as Fallout 4 that will look better and run smoother than they do on my Xbox One.

I’m looking forward to getting home in a few weeks and putting the hardware to use!

Rocket League is coming to retail stores!

Posted on February 29, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

The hit game Rocket League will be making its way onto store shelves in disc form by way of “Rocket League: Collector’s Edition” packaging set to release by Q3 2016. The incredibly popular indie hit developed by Psyonix just recently released on Xbox One but was originally available on PC and PS4 in July 2015. Rocket League has already seen close to four million downloads, but a disc based version will make the game available to an even larger player base, especially those unable to download games due to limiting bandwidth caps.

The Collector’s Edition is being made available by 505 Games, already known for making other digital releases such as Payday 2 and Terraria available in physical format.

The package will include the three DLC packs that have already released. No pricing has been announced, however if you don’t want to wait for the disc based release the game is currently available for $19.99 in the Xbox store.

Rocket League is one of the most fun video games I’ve played in recent years, and it’s incredibly addicting. Every time I play it I end up telling myself “just one more match” for hours before I force myself to put the controller down. I’m glad that more people will be able to play Rocket League and am excited that the game will get more exposure via its presence on store shelves later this year.

Rocket League on the Xbox One is not very playable outside the U.S.

Posted on February 18, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

I was incredibly excited for Rocket League’s arrival on the Xbox One this week. I had played it previously on my MacBook’s Windows 10 partition, but it never ran quite well. I figured I’d wait to enjoy the game when it released on Xbox. Last night after work, however, I was met with disappointment. Every game I played was unbearably laggy. So laggy that the game was unplayable. My car would constantly stutter and reverse direction over and over again and would randomly transport around the arena. I stuck the matches out, hoping it would get better, but it never did. I rarely came into contact with the ball, and by some miracle I managed to accidentally score a goal, brushing past the ball just before the opposing player knocked it into his own goal.

At the end of each match my ping was shown as being anywhere from 50 to 300, but even at 50 the game was unplayable. I’m currently deployed which is likely the reason for the lag as the only servers are in the U.S. and Europe, but I have no issues with games such as Destiny or Battlefield on the same Internet. A quick search on Google revealed that I was not alone, as many Australian players have reported lag making the game unplayable for them as well.

Hopefully the server issues are worked out in the near future, otherwise I’ll be waiting even longer to finally enjoy Rocket League.

It’s been slow here

Posted on February 17, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

Hey I just wanted to pop in and apologize for the lack of writing that I’ve been doing lately. I’m still deployed, with about two months until I’m out of here, so you can expect it to be slow until I get back in the states. I’ve been focusing more of my free time on working out lately, and although I’ve still played video games I have less time to write about them.

I downloaded Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam for the 3DS the other night and am looking forward to spending time with it soon. It’ll be my first Mario & Luigi game, and I’ve heard some good things about it.

Rocket League released on the Xbox One today, and I can’t wait to play it after work today! I played a bit on the PC but I’m sure I’ll have a lot more fun on the Xbox.

Other than that I’ve been getting back into Destiny, doing strikes with a friend here as he worked his way up to level 40. I’m still looking forward to checking out the new raid, but it won’t be until I get back stateside.

I’ll have more to post soon, I promise!

Patrick Klepek’s informative look at piracy and The Witness

Posted on February 2, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

One of my favorite gaming personalities, Patrick Klepek (of Kotaku and formerly Giant Bomb) recently posted an interesting and informative look at the world of video game piracy and how it is affecting the popular new game The Witness. The video is only five minutes long but Patrick goes over a lot of information and touches on both sides of the issue. Definitely worth a watch!

I’ll admit, I’ve dabbled in piracy over the years, but as digital storefronts have gotten better and easier to use, I’ve actually found it more of a hassle to pirate anything these days. Time is money, and the process of buying a digital product is so easy these days that it’s not even worth the hassle of trying to save a few bucks. Besides the ease of use issue, I’ve found it more rewarding to actually support those who work hard to entertain us. I like seeing my iTunes movie collection grow, and as much as I love video games, I couldn’t even think of robbing a hard working developer, potentially deterring them from continuing to make high quality games.

Please don’t pirate!

Testing out the New 3DS XL with Xenoblade Chronicles 3D

Posted on January 18, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

The transition from a 2DS to the New 3DS XL has been like transitioning to an entirely different platform. Technically the games are the same, but the larger screen makes a huge difference. I’m not sure how I managed playing on the 2DS for so long. To truly put the new hardware to the test, however, I decided I should check out Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, one of the games that only runs on the new hardware.

As you know, I’ve only recently been introduced to the Xenoblade series with Xenoblade Chronicles X on the Wii U (I’m only about three or four hours into that game) but I’ve liked what I’ve played so far. Therefore I was excited to check out the previous game on the New 3DS.

From the start I was incredibly impressed. The game features some truly wonderful music, and the story is exciting so far. The combat system was easy to get a grip on, as it’s very similar to Xenoblade Chronicle X’s combat.

I really like the presentation of Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. The menus look very crisp, and the bottom screen is useful, featuring a minimap and crucial information about your party.

I’m very early on in the game, but I can definitely see myself sinking many hours into it.

The game looks pretty darn good on the New 3DS, and the use of the c stick further justifies the upgrade. It’s crazy to think that the 3DS never had a second analog stick until now! I’ve also been impressed with the faster load times on the New 3DS and I can’t wait to see what else Nintendo brings to the beefier hardware!

Upgrading to the New 3DS XL..a frustrating experience

Posted on January 11, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

Leave it to Nintendo to make what should be a rather simple process exceedingly difficult. I recently bought a New 3DS XL as an upgrade from the 2DS (was getting tired of the small screen and awkward design of the system) but what should’ve been a fun an exciting experience was painfully frustrating.

I remember hearing many people complain about the system transfer process when the New 3DS first came out, but I figured by now the process should’ve been refined and easier. That turned out to be far from the truth. Navigating the menus on the 3DS already feels outdated, but setting up the system transfer process felt like something out of the 90’s. In the modern world, when you buy a new device you simply log into your account (Apple ID, PSN account, Microsoft account, etc.) and you can download all of your content from the cloud, be it saves, games or anything at all you had on your previous device. In Nintendo’s world, nothing’s that simple. In fact none of the digital games you own on a Nintendo console are actually tied to your account. They’re associated with the hardware you purchased it on, not your Nintendo ID which is absurd. All of my 3DS games are digital (all 8 or so), and trying to do a wireless system transfer was slow and filled with frustration. It took something like two and a half hours just to get to 25% and I went to bed only to wake up to an error on my New 3DS. What’s worse, is that since the New 3DS doesn’t come with a charging cord, you can only keep one device charged during the process.

After failing a wireless transfer three times in two days (starting it before going to bed or work), I decided the only practical way to do the system transfer was the PC method. So I had to head to the Bx and buy a micro SD card adapter, start the transfer process on both devices and then shut them down and transfer all the data via my MacBook. These days almost everything is simpler to do wirelessly, but in the case of Nintendo, the only feasible option is to do it the “old school” way, physically removing SD cards and copying the data over with a computer. This method only took about thirty minutes, however I would’ve much preferred to leave the SD cards in and transfer everything wirelessly.

Hopefully with the NX (expected to release later this year) Nintendo will finally catch up to modern technology and incorporate a system where purchases are tied to an account, and not a piece of hardware. It would be nice to see something like this come to the 3DS and Wii U, but I don’t foresee Nintendo bothering to reshape the way they do things on those systems.

I haven’t had a chance to play around with the New 3DS yet, but I downloaded Xenoblade Chronicles 3D on it and look forward to seeing what the new hardware can do! It already seems like the device will be more comfortable to use when compared to the 2DS, and I’ve already seen how convenient it is to fold the device and throw it in a pocket or a bag, compared to the awkwardly bulky 2DS.

Feeling nostaligic? Check out Man Crates!

Posted on January 11, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames

I can’t quite remember the first time I touched a video game controller, but I’m fairly confident that the very first buttons I pushed were on an NES controller. There was a NES at my grandparent’s house that all of us grandkids gravitated toward every time we visited. We’d play around with Duck Hunt before getting serious into Super Mario Bros., each of us trying to make it further into the game than the other. I never made it very far.

Some of my favorite memories of the NES come from sitting around the TV with four or five people, all either playing a game or rooting for the others in hopes of finally seeing the end of a game. There was no YouTube or Twitch to allow you to simply watch someone complete a game or defeat a difficult boss. You had to do it all yourself, or know a friend who could make it past the difficult parts. Of course, there was the Konami code in Contra which allowed terrible players such as myself to make it through the game in its entirety without too much trouble (I seem to remember still exhausting all 30 lives quite often). Then there was the magic little cartridge of Game Genie which allowed you even more opportunities to cheat your way through a game.

I had many favorite NES games, including Vegas Dream, Platoon and Micro Machines.

However, the game I sunk the most time into on the NES was Tecmo Super Bowl. There was nothing more exciting than sitting around the living room having tournaments. The game was incredibly fun to play, and the overall presentation was amazing! The cut scenes for touchdowns, field goals, interceptions, all of it was unlike anything else. What’s more, the music was epic, especially during the Super Bowl. The ability to play entire seasons was something very few games had, yet it was just as exciting to simulate to the playoffs and place “bets” on what teams you thought would make it there.

There are so many more memories I could share, but I’d be writing all day. If a look back at the NES era of gaming has you feeling nostalgic, the guys over at Man Crates have something just for you! If you haven’t heard of Man Crates, you should definitely check them out. They offer an incredibly unique gift experience for just about any type of person you could think of. Whether they be into the outdoors, survival, grilling or gaming, Man Crates has something fun and unique that the recipient will love. Their signature crates are just that, wooden crates that require a crow bar (included to open) filled with plenty of goodies.

Man Crates wants gift giving to be fun and they want to create a unique experience that you won’t get with any sort of traditional gift package. Just reading the descriptions of some of their crates made me laugh, and it’s nice to see a company that doesn’t take themselves too seriously (yet they’re certainly serious about providing a quality gift experience).

Man Crates offers a retro gamer crate that includes a console that can play NES games, in addition to two randomly selected NES cartridges and an assortment of candy to compliment a late night classic gaming session. Any gamer in your life would certainly be delighted to receive this package. I know I would!

If Man Crates were to create more retro gaming crates I think it would be neat to see crates centered around certain franchises, such as Mario, maybe featuring figurines, posters and similar items in a addition to a game or two.

I was contacted by a member of the Man Crates staff who asked if I wouldn’t mind creating a post talking about gaming nostalgia. After checking out the Man Crates website I knew that I couldn’t resist sharing this company with anyone who might happen to read this. I wasn’t offered anything to write this, I simply thought Man Crates was too cool not to share with you!

AVGL Plays: Xenoblade Chronicles X

Posted on January 9, 2016 by GumballsPlaysGames