Video Games | Gumballs Plays Games

A quick look at Magic Duels on the Xbox One

Posted on August 5, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

Magic Duels is a free to play, yet fully featured Magic The Gathering game which made its way to the Xbox One last week. The game features a single player campaign as well as a battle mode in which you can challenge AI or human opponents with your custom built decks in order to earn coins. The coins you earn can be used to purchase booster packs, or other upgrades such as converting cards to foil cards.

I’ve been casually interested in the Magic games in the past. I’ve played the 2014 and 2015 games (both of which required a purchase) but could never quite get hooked. Magic Duels certainly has a very slick presentation, however the gameplay feels sluggish and dated, especially when compared to Hearthstone. I’m sure comparing Magic to Hearthstone will offend Magic players, but Hearthstone is much easier to play and its card battles run smoother than Magic’s. There are way too many button prompts in the magic games. When your opponent plays a card the game expects you to look at it and press ‘A’. When your opponent attacks you’re expected to hit ‘A’ after every card attacks. The battles should just be able to play out smoothly, without all of the prompts slowing the game to an annoying crawl at times.

Magic Duels will certainly appeal to Magic and card battle enthusiasts, but those with a more casual interest in the genre will most likely be put off (especially for those who have played Hearthstone). Ultimately, Magic Duels has me hoping that Hearthstone someday makes its way to consoles. Sure the ideal way to play is on an iPad, but I wouldn’t mind playing a game or two on the Xbox One if it were an option.

Rare Replay is out today: 30 games for $30!

Posted on August 4, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

Are you looking to beef up your game collection for the Xbox One? How does thirty games for thirty dollars sound? If you want some serious bang for your buck, be sure to pick up Rare Replay for the Xbox One today!

Rare Replay was announced during Microsoft’s E3 press conference this summer and surprised just about everyone. The reception to the announcement was incredibly positive, especially after the price was announced. Considering most HD remakes or re-releases tend to sell for $60 while only including two or three titles, very few expected a collection of thirty games to be priced at half that.

Notable titles in the Rare Replay collection include Battletoads, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Viva Piñata and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. The collection spans twenty five years featuring titles released between 1983 and 2008. Rare Replay also features over 10,000 achievement points, however it’s worth noting if you’ve previously earned achievements from the games released on the 360 you cannot double dip.

I’ve played very few of the titles featured in the Rare Replay collection so I’m excited to try out most of the games for the very first time. I’m currently downloading the games that aren’t bundled in the download of the collection itself and once they complete I’ll have to figure out which game to jump into first.

Are you going to check out the Rare Replay collection? Which of the games featured are your favorites? Which do you recommend I check out first?

Fallout Shelter: Why am I playing this?

Posted on August 3, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

Fallout Shelter has been frustrating me lately. I can’t quite figure out why I’m playing it and yet at the same time I can’t seem to walk away from it. Fallout Shelter is Bethesda’s free to play game in which you manage a Vault in the Fallout universe, launched alongside the Fallout 4 reveal during this year’s E3. It is currently only available on iOS devices, however it is set to release on Android platforms on August 13th.

Fallout Shelter is simple to play. In it you construct various rooms and assign vault dwellers to work in those rooms to produce resources. Each vault dweller has a unique set of stats and each room requires a certain stat in order to run efficiently. You need to produce electricity, food and water in order to keep your vault running smoothly and your dwellers healthy. You can also send your dwellers into the wasteland in order to earn experience while searching for caps (currency), weapons and outfits.

The game doesn’t pressure you to pay in any money, however you can purchase sets of card packs starting at $0.99 for one pack. These card packs will provide you with either more caps, resources, weapons, outfits or even special vault dwellers. Each pack will include at least one rare item (such as a vault dweller or outfit) and they make doing well in the game much easier.

fallout shelter card packs

Opening the packs is one of the most exciting parts of the game, so last week I bought my first card pack (a set of 5 for $3.99). I got some pretty cool weapons and a few special vault dwellers with high stats. It was pretty exciting and I felt like my vault was well on its way to prosperity. Not more than thirty minutes later a radroach outbreak occurred, and as I tried to fight the roaches off every single one of my vault dwellers was killed. At this point my vault was doomed. I didn’t have the caps to resurrect any of my dwellers, and I couldn’t see anyway to advance the game.

I should’ve quit the game then, but having just spent four dollars on the game I felt the need to try again. I started a new vault and was a little disheartened to find that my card pack purchase didn’t follow to the new game. I sped through the initial setup and found myself purchasing another $3.99 card pack to get a jumpstart on my vault. This time I determined not to rush any of my production (rushing carries the risk of causing accidents such as fires or radroach invasions). I also decided not to expand too quickly which left my resources spread too thin in the first game. Since then things have been going well, however I’m constantly asking myself why I’m playing this game, and why I’ve spent $10 on card packs in just one week.

Playing the game itself provides little reward, and it seems like the only fun comes in opening card packs. You can earn card packs for free by completing objectives, however you can only hold three objectives at any one time and most of them reward you with a measly 25 or 50 caps. There doesn’t seem to be much of a point to expand my vault further, yet having spend ten dollars on the game I can’t bring myself to delete it from my iPad.

Are you still playing Fallout Shelter? How has your experience with the game gone? Should I just quit before I spend any more money on it?

Madden 15 ‘this file cannon be loaded’ fix

Posted on July 29, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

I’ve recently been playing Madden 15 regularly again and when I tried to load up my connected franchise today I was hit with the error above (This file cannot be loaded because it was created with a differente version of the game.). The game hadn’t downloaded any updates that I was aware of, so I was a little panicked. I always keep both an autosave and a manual save of my franchise so I tried loading up the manual save and was hit with the same error. After that I was really panicked. I was mid way through my fourth season and had had an outstanding career so far.

I searched around and couldn’t find any clear solution to the problem. Some posts from 2014 mentioned deleting the latest roster updates, which I did, however this didn’t fix the problem. I also tried completely restarted my Xbox One, but still had the problem.

Ultimately I was able to fix the issue by deleting my Madden 15 save data from the console and downloading it from the cloud again. To do this press start on the Madden 15 icon in your games and apps and select manage game. From there go over to save data and select it to delete it. Make sure you delete the local files only, not both (which will delete your backup!). After I did this I restarted Madden 15 and after it finished syncing the data my save file worked again.

Hopefully this will work for anyone else who has encountered this problem. Thank goodness for the cloud!!

FIFA 16’s cover featuring Alex Morgan

Posted on July 21, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

This year marks not only the first time the FIFA series will feature women’s teams (in the form of 12 national teams) but also the first time a female athlete has graced the cover of a mainstream sports game.

FIFA is one of the best selling video games in the world, so it’s pretty cool to see a female athlete featured predominantly on the cover and it’s even cooler to see the women’s national teams make it into the game. Hopefully this is the first step of many to expand the focus beyond just male athletes in EA Sports games.

I really like the cover, featuring Alex Morgan of the United States national team. I’m honestly a little tired of seeing Messi on the cover, I think they could’ve given Morgan the cover on her own to celebrate the women’s team World Cup victory.

I’m excited for FIFA 16 to release this Fall, and I can’t wait to see this cover in my digital game collection. Congratulations Alex Morgan!

Final Fantasy X HD: Just getting started

Posted on July 20, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

I’ve been slowly making my way through Final Fantasy X HD on the Vita recently. Final Fantasy X was actually my first Final Fantasy game, back in high school (I first rented it from Blockbuster in 2004). I fell in love with the game almost immediately and it took me most of the summer to finish but I enjoyed every moment of it. I was blown away by the characters, the music, the world, it was all unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

So far my return to Spira has been enjoyable. The Vita makes for a great platform to experience Final Fantasy X on. It’s great to pick up and play in small spurts here and there, and yet once you start it’s hard to put down. The game looks very crisp on the display, and the HD upgrade is pleasant to look at.

Last night I made it to two of the first challenges in Finaly Fantasy X, the rapid fire encounters with both Sin and Sinspawn Echuilles.

The cutscenes before and after the Sin encounter are incredibly good looking (they were mind blowing back on the PS2) on the Vita. I forgot just how darn good FFX looked at times. The battle with Sin was easier than I remembered it being, I just pecked away at Sin with Lulu and Wakka while Tidus slashed away at the Sinspawn. I finished the fight without any real trouble.

Without anytime for a breather you’re thrown right into the Sinspawn Echuilles fight, which is actually a bit more challenging than the Sin fight.

You’re only given Tidus and Wakka during the fight, and Echuilles presented me with my first KO situation (I suffered a few KO’s during the fight but made it through without a complete wipe!). The fight was the first exciting encounter of the game, however with some tactical thinking it didn’t go too horribly. I had Tidus cast Cheer while Wakka used his Dark Attack which saved me from most of the Drain Touch attacks. His Blender attack, however, left me in some critical health situations that I barely escaped. Fortunately I made it through the fight to be greeted with some more scenes featuring Sin’s destructive power.

I made it into Kilika and hit up the Sphere Grid before saving and calling it a night.

I remember the Sphere Grid being quite confusing at first, but eventually it became an almost addictive leveling system. Being able to see all of the ways you could power up your characters made me want to grind away and try to get as powerful as I could. I do wish the Sphere Grid would take advantage of the Vita’s touchscreen as I feel like touch would be the ideal way to navigate the grid, but it’s not so bad once you get the hang of it again.

I’m looking forward to making some more progress in Final Fantasy X over the next couple of weeks.

EA Sports Rory McIlroy PGA Tour is terribly diasspointing

Posted on July 14, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

I pre-ordered EA Sports Rory McIlroy PGA Tour and was excited to check out EA’s first current gen golf game (also the first in two years and the first since dropping the Tiger Woods name). It took all weekend to download over the hotel WiFi, and today I finally got to give it a try.

What a disappointment! Rory McIlroy PGA Tour is lacking in so many ways compared to the great Tiger Woods games of the past. First of all the tutorial seems lazy and is also lazily narrated. The Rory McIlroy prologue lacks excitement as does McIlroy’s commentary (that you can’t skip).

Career mode was my favorite part of the Tiger Woods games, and I especially loved trying to rise from the amateur ranks to the PGA Tour, all while earning sponsorships and increasing my stats. Most of that is missing from this game. First of all, the character customization is terribly lacking.

There are hardly any customization options at all. As you can see above, there are only eight haircut styles to choose from! Not only that, but what’s even worse is you can no longer pick and choose how you spend EXP to increase your stats. The game increases your stats for you and your only choice is between a few styles to start out with (power, finesse, balanced). Career mode starts you off with the Web.com finals, and there’s no other amateur career leading up to the PGA Tour. What’s worse, is by default the game is set to simulate most of the round with you only getting to play four or five holes.

Once on the course the game doesn’t get much better. If you’re playing with spin enabled (arcade controls) any amount of spin at all affects the ball so drastically it’s almost impossible to use. Even a slight amount of backspin will stop the ball dead in its tracks and any amount of forward spin is likely to cause the ball to run clear off the green even if you land toward the front.

I’ve had several chip shots get stuck on the flag rather than sink into the hole, and putting is impossibly hard. Even with putt reads enabled putting is hopeless. In fact half the time the reads seem to be completely wrong and indicate the ball breaking in the complete opposite direction. You’re better off ignoring the reads entirely, but prepare to be frustrated beyond belief with putting. I’ve never had this much trouble with a Tiger Woods game.

There are so few courses and gameplay features in Rory McIlroy PGA Tour you’re much better off picking up any of the recent Tiger Woods games (I recommend The Masters). Rory McIlroy PGA Tour is terribly disappointing and I can’t recommend it even to the most hardcore golf fans.

Finally got a Vita!

Posted on July 4, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

This weekend I finally got around to picking up a Playstation Vita. I had been thinking about it for awhile, especially after I bought a PS TV and started playing Final Fantasy X HD and Persona 4 Golden on it. I felt like those games would play much better in a mobile environment as I never really had the motivation to boot up the PS TV. I finally took the plunge and picked up the Borderlands 2 bundle for $199 at GameStop (they accept Google Wallet by the way!).

The bundle comes with a voucher for Borderlands 2 (and its DLC) and an 8GB Vita memory card. 8GB isn’t very much, especially if you’re going to be downloading games, but my PS TV also came with a 8GB card so for now I’m using that and will throw in the new card when I want to download more games.

So far I’m enjoying using the Vita. It feels good in the hands, it’s not too heavy and the screen looks pretty darn good! The system also produces a decent amount of sound and it sounds pretty good when using the speakers.

Playstation Vita

The UI definitely navigates better using the touch screen when compared to navigating it on the PS TV, so that’s a plus, but I still think the Playstation UI is pretty ugly.

As of right now I own Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD, Persona 4 Golden, Borderlands 2 and MLB The Show 15 (which I bought in the store as a redeemable voucher only because it was $19.99 at GameStop and $40 on the Playstation store). The only game I’ve played so far is Final Fantasy X, but it plays great on the Vita. It’s nice to pick up and play for a bit here and there and will be great for my bus trip next week.

I’ve been browsing the store and nothing else is really popping out at me. I had often heard that Vita support is pretty subpar, but hopefully I’ll find some more things to check out. I’m thinking about picking up Metal Gear Solid HD collection as the only MGS game I’ve actually finished is MGS2 on the 360. Do these games play well on the Vita?

Do you have any recommendations for must own Vita / classic games? Let me know please!

Lounging around, playing The Witcher 3

Posted on July 3, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

Hey there, hope you’re enjoying the start of your holiday weekend! I spent my day off by going to the gym, cleaning and organizing a bit and now I’m just lounging around playing The Witcher 3!

Pokemon X: Finally finished Santalune City gym

Posted on June 30, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

So last night I finally made it to the first gym in Pokemon X, the Santalune City gym led by Viola. I’ve played the game very little since Vanessa got me a 2DS for Christmas this year, but I’ve been curious about the appeal of Pokemon.

The only other Pokemon game I’ve played is Pokemon Red, back in middle school when I played on an original Game Boy with no color. I remember enjoying the game, however I would often get lost and have no clue where I was supposed to go (especially after not playing for awhile) and at one point I got stuck and never returned to the game.

I jumped into Pokemon X last December and began exploring the world, slowly leveling up my various Pokemon. I not only played the game casually (two hours over six months) but also inattentively. I know very little about the Pokemon universe and have little patience to learn how to efficiently play the game. I honestly barely know what the different abilities do, and it often seems like in each fight I’m just going through the motions without much thought.

As I approached the first Pokemon gym I expected to be met with a challenge.

The puzzle like navigation over the spider web was interesting, and certainly different from how I remember the Pokemon gyms being. It seemed cool at first, but overall I think navigating the web just ended up being a hassle.

I made the mistake of not healing my Pokemon before entering the gym (I didn’t realize they were hurt as the last time I played was months ago) and I thought this might doom me. However, I made it through the first battle without any trouble and used some potions to heal up the rest of my Pokemon (minus Pidgey of course. Poor Pidgey!). I then finished out the gym quite easily and Weedle and Caterpie evolved along the way.

I’m sure there will be more challenges to come and I’m hoping I can get myself more into the game. I have a long bus trip coming up next week so hopefully I’ll make some progress during that.

Do you have any advice for a Pokemon newbie? Is Pokemon X a good entry point into the series?