Video Games | Gumballs Plays Games

The Witcher 3 makes Dragon Age hard to return to

Posted on May 24, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

I was, like most people, incredibly excited when Dragon Age: Inquisition was released last Fall. As much as I enjoyed it, however, I never got around to finishing it. After awhile the whole idea of having to grind boring missions to get enough ‘Power’ to advance to story started to get on my nerves. Before too long I stopped playing Dragon Age altogether, after getting something like two-thirds through the game.

Now that I’ve been playing The Witcher 3 I started to wonder if I should dive back into Dragon Age again, especially while waiting for the save game glitch to be fixed. Last night I decided to do just that, and give Dragon Age another try.

It didn’t take long to realize why I stopped playing in the first place. I needed 30 Power to advance the story, and I had 10. Therefore I just picked a random place and started running around the map knocking out missions, closing rifts, etc. I spent an hour just grinding through points on the map with hardly any dialogue or anything to keep me interested in the story.

One mission was particularly annoying. Rocky Rescue in Emprise du Lion completely crushed any desire I had to continue playing Dragon Age. In the mission you have to run around a quarry fighting Red Templars and freeing imprisoned villagers. The problem is there’s a small cutscene that plays every time you have your rogue open a prison cell. It takes at least five seconds with a fade to black before you’re given control of your character again. Having to sit through this seven times was excrutiating.

It took about twenty minutes, if not longer, to complete this mission which grants you only 2 Power (or 4 considering you’re likely to complete ‘Red Captors’ in the process) which means I still needed 16 Power to advance the story. During my time in Emprise du Lion I managed to net 10 Power while spending about an hour to and hour and a half running around the world completing random, hardly exciting tasks.

My time with The Witcher 3 so far has been much more enjoyable. The open world is more captivating than Dragon Age’s, and most of the side missions so far have been much more enjoyable, featuring unique characters and dialogue throughout. The combat is also much more enjoyable, and all in all Dragon Age feels more like a lonely MMORPG where you hold down RT and grind pointless quests while The Witcher feels like a refined, epic RPG that promises to be enjoyable for hours to come.

I’m looking forward to seeing where else The Witcher 3 will take me. It’s been a beautiful experience so far!

Trying to avoid The Witcher 3’s save glitch on Xbox One

Posted on May 23, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

If you haven’t heard, those playing The Witcher 3 on the Xbox One have been susceptible to a nasty glitch that can make your saved game unusable. If you fall victim to the glitch you can no longer save your game and will have to start over from the start (or possibly a previous save, though you’ll still likely lose hours of progress).

It seems the glitch is caused by putting the game into suspend mode and then trying to resume it later. I use suspend mode all the time, and it’s incredibly convenient. Luckily I hadn’t used the feature before I found out about this glitch yesterday.

Since then I’ve been playing scared. I feel like I’m constantly looking over my shoulder, just waiting for the game to screw me over. So far I’ve managed to avoid running into the glitch, and hopefully I stay safe until it’s patched.

When I finish playing I save the game and then quit to the menu of the game. From there I hit the home button and then manually close The Witcher 3 (select it, press start and select quit). I’ve also been keeping multiple save files, though I do that with most RPGs anyway. Hopefully this process keeps my save files safe until the bug is fixed!

Have you been hit with the glitch? Are you avoiding playing until it’s fixed?

Why is The Witcher 3’s text so small?

Posted on May 20, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

So I just started playing The Witcher 3 this morning (on the Xbox One) and one thing is really bugging me. The text is so darn small I can barely read anything from the couch without having to lean forward. Not a good design choice at all. It might be acceptable on a PC where you’re close to the screen, but the text in The Witcher 3 is way too small for consoles (on a 47 inch TV).

Is the small text size bugging you too? I feel like I’ve missed so much information already because I really haven’t felt like squinting to read the text. Hopefully it’ll be patched soon!

A look at the newer 3DS Streetpass features

Posted on May 11, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

Not too long ago Nintendo rolled out some new content for 3DS streetpass users to enjoy. Streetpass is one of my favorite features on the 3DS (or 2DS in my case) so I was pretty excited to check out the new features.

First up is a $4.99 upgrade that adds a couple of features to the streetpass experience.

The upgrade allows you to collect the birthdays of the Mii’s you meet via streetpass (in the form of month and day only). When you great Mii’s at your Plaza Gate they’ll now mention their birthday (if they’re sharing that information) and you’re challenged to collect a birthday for every day of the year. At first look this seemed pretty cool, as I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the people I StreetPass with. It would be interesting if the year were included to get an idea of the age variation of all the Mii’s you’ve collected, but I can’t imagine Nintendo including such a feature.

For your $5 what else do you get? Well you can now hold the shoulder button to make Mii’s move faster at the start of StreetPass games, and you can permanently save Mii’s to your VIP room if you want them to stick around forever. Ultimately the $5 purchase isn’t really worth it, unfortunately I got excited and bought it before realizing it wasn’t valuable. I honestly believe Nintendo should’ve included this updated functionality for free and I’m quite puzzled as to why they decided to charge for something that is equivalent to a patch.

Nintendo also introduced two new premium StreetPass games: Battleground Z and Ultimate Angler. They’re $4.99 each or $7.99 if purchased together. Since I enjoy fooling around with StreetPass I ended up buying them together.

The first thing I can say is that both of these games are much more time consuming than Find Mii or Puzzle Swap. So far that’s not necessarily a terrible thing, but I could see the tasks getting tedious in the long run.

In Battleground Z you collect Mii’s who are equipped with a weapon based on their interests (for example a Mii that enjoys playing video games wields a Wii controller as a weapon). You’ll then be tasked with defending an area from a zombie invasion. You’ll be able to find the Mii’s you’ve StreetPassed hanging around and they’ll either join you or give you their weapon to use. Each of the weapons functions differently, however I haven’t yet really needed to collect more than one weapon to finish a task.

I’ve had a decent amount of fun with Battleground Z and I like how it populates leaderboards with those you’ve StreetPassed. I’m not sure how enjoyable the game will be in the long run, but for now it’s not bad.

Ultimate Angler is also a little more demanding if your attention than the other StreetPass games. You’ll collect bait from Mii’s you StreetPass and are tasked with catching certain fish in a given area. Each type of fish is attracted to a different type of bait and you can mix baits to create advanced baits that will attract larger fish.

ultimate angler 3ds

You cast your line and wait for a fish to bite and you’ll then have to hook it and reel it in. You can reel with the touch screen or by cycling the analog stick (I find the latter to be much easier) and the difficulty of the process will depend on the size of the fish. You generally want to let the line run when the fish is fighting and reel when the fish is resting. If you reel too hard your line can break, however if you’re not making enough progress the fish will escape.

Ultimate Angler has also been somewhat enjoyable, but it is quite repetitive and I’m not sure if I’ll end up playing it too much longer.

Have you checked out the new 3DS StreetPass games? What do you think of them?

State of Decay on the Xbox One

Posted on May 10, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

This weekend I checked out the Xbox One release of 2013 zombie survival game. The re-release, titled the ‘Year-One Survival Edition’, features a graphical enhancement and both DLC add-ons. It would seem that re-releases almost outnumber actual new releases on the current generation of consoles, and yet I keep buying them.

I had picked up State of Decay during one of the Steam sales, however I don’t have much of a gaming PC. I can run most games at relatively low to medium settings on my 2012 MacBook Pro running Windows 10 via Bootcamp, however I don’t often bother booting to Windows even though my Steam library is filled with something like 150 games. I remember playing State of Decay for maybe 45 minutes and not really getting into it. It felt pretty clunky and I just didn’t really see the point of it.

After spending an hour playing the Xbox One version, I can say I’m more impressed with it now than I was then. It certainly looks a good bit better, however I feel like it plays a little smoother as well. I enjoyed exploring the world and watching over my shoulder as I rummaged through abandoned buildings trying to find supplies. I also like the idea of trying to build up a home base while trying to survive.

I’ve found the combat to be pretty satisfying and going on supply runs gets my heart pumping, especially when I accidentally alert a horde of zombies. There have been a few times I barely squeaked through the gate at my base with my life intact. The game is quite thrilling so far, and I’m enjoying it, possibly more than I enjoyed Dying Light (probably because I suck at climbing in that game).

I’m looking forward to checking out more of State of Decay in the coming days. For $30 I’d recommend it if you haven’t previously played it, there’s plenty of fun to be had.

FIFA 15 is now free for EA Access subscribers

Posted on May 10, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

If you haven’t yet subscribed to the EA Access program on the Xbox One, now might be a great time for you to do so. This weekend FIFA 15 became the latest game to be added to the EA Access library of free to play games. We’re still four months out from FIFA 16, so it’s pretty nice to see EA hand out one of their best selling games for free.

EA Access is $4.99 a month and gives you access to a growing library of free to play EA games. Those games now include: Battlefield 4, Madden 15, Madden 25, FIFA 15, FIFA 14, Need for Speed: Rivals, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, EA Sports UFC, NBA Live 15 and Peggle 2. You also get 10% off on digital purchases of EA games, which is pretty cool as I saved a couple bucks on Dragon Age: Inquisition on day one.

I’ve subscribed to EA Access since the very beginning and have enjoyed it quite a bit. I had held off picking up FIFA 15, so I was quite excited to see it advertised on the Xbox One home screen this weekend. I can’t wait to dig into it and start a new career!

Watch Dogs is still kinda fun

Posted on May 7, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

I hadn’t played Watch Dogs in forever, and until recently hadn’t ever thought of going back to it. I remember downloading it on the Xbox One last summer in Hawaii, not because I was necessarily excited for it, but just because I wanted something more to play beyond Madden and FIFA.

I was initially impressed with the game. I enjoyed what seemed like a fresh take on the GTA style game. The hacking mechanic was enjoyable, especially when used while driving to wreck those pursuing you. Playing around with the cameras in order to obtain a tactical advantage over the enemy was also quite satisfying. The story and its characters, however, did little to keep me engaged. At some point I hit a roadblock in the story missions where I got frustrated and I never went back to the game.

This morning I booted up Watch Dogs for the first time in at least seven or eight months. I again found playing around with the cameras to outsmart my enemy to be a blast…literally:

Instead of trying to rush in and engage in a firefight, I scoped out the area by hacking into as many cameras as I could reach. I stalked my enemy from a safe distance, waiting for them to place themselves close to a hackable explosive so I could reduce their numbers. I then slipped in and completed my objective unnoticed. It was surprisingly satisfying.

I then decided to try out one of the “digital trips”, or mini games. I tried out the Madness mode and it was incredibly addictive and fun. The sky turns crimson and demons overrun the streets as you find yourself behind the wheel of a sinister looking vehicle designed to splatter said demons. And that just happens to be your goal: splatter demons and watch your points rack up. It was an absolute blast! I couldn’t stop myself from trying again and again to get further into the challenge while earning and spending skill points to become even more deadly.

Lastly, I decided to fool around with some of the online modes that I had previously ignored. The first one I hopped into was a stalking mission where I was supposed to observe another player without them catching on. I’m not sure if the game lets the person know you’ve entered the game, because I hopped in on a person engaged in a shootout with the police as I creeped around in my car entirely unnoticed (earning an achievement!).

The second mode I played involved finding and decrypting data. You have to hold the data to decrypt it, however the other players can kill you or hack it from you (by getting close enough to you for long enough to steal it). It was pretty chaotic and quite fun. The data switched hands a few times before I managed to grab it and hop on a motorcycle which allowed me to outmaneuver my pursuers long enough to win the match. What fun!

I’m looking forward to playing some more Watch Dogs this weekend. Hopefully I’ll get around to finishing it at some point, however at this rate I’ll probably spend more time engaging with the mini games and multiplayer.

Have you returned to Watch Dogs? What were your initial impressions of the game? Would you recommend it for someone who hasn’t played it yet? If you asked me that eight months ago I probably would have said no, but after today I think I’d have to give it a thumbs up. Watch Dogs is still enjoyable in 2015!

Mortal Kombat X’s overly difficult tutorial

Posted on April 26, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

I’ve been having quite a bit of fun with Mortal Kombat X on the Xbox One, even though I’m generally terrible at fighting games. I don’t have the best coordination and can never rattle off button combos fast enough. Heck, most of the matches I’ve played so far I’ve just spammed Raiden’s kick following up with a dive kick and it’s worked well enough. I’ve only won a singular ranked match, but I consider that a triumph on its own.

Mortal Kombat X’s tutorial, however, has frustrated the heck out of me. I wanted to play through it last night in order to earn the achievement for doing so, but once I started getting into the combos I could not progress any further. No matter how hard I tried, none of the combos would work. My thumbs were aching as I spent at least 45 minutes on the combo section alone, failing again and again. I searched around and found that some people had some success by tweaking some of the gameplay options (such as the release check toggle) but this didn’t help me at all.

Ultimately, out of extreme frustration, I decided to skip through the rest of the tutorial. And guess what? You get the achievement anyway, even if you skip through the entire tutorial! That would have been nice to know beforehand!! I could have been enjoying the good parts of the game instead of wasting time on a tutorial that taught my absolutely nothing. But hey, at least I got the achievement!

Final Fantasy XIII-2….what did I get into?

Posted on April 17, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

The last Final Fantasy game I actually finished was Final Fantasy X. Heck, the only two Final Fantasy games I finished are X and VII (in that order). I played XII for awhile but could never figure out what the heck was going on and why any of the characters were relevant and eventually decided it wasn’t worth my time (after maybe 12-15 hours). XIII looked nice but was boring to play and again none of the characters caught my attention (and the story made no sense if there was even one at all). I played about up until the first or second hour of the second disc and never went back.

So why did I pick up XIII-2 tonight? I can’t quite say. I just played through the opening sequence and I’m starting to regret the purchase, even if it was only $12. The game is so far overly flashy with too much happening on screen for seemingly no reason at all. Maybe it’s because I hate anime, but all the flash and pointless acrobatics just bug me.

Maybe it’s because I never finished XIII, but I’m already so lost as to who is who and what is even happening. Not only that, but the abundance of quick time events so far has my grinding my teeth. They haven’t been satisfying at all and I’m not sure why they’re even there.

Hopefully this game will get better with time, but I might not be able to take it much longer. I’m more tempted to just go back and continue my journey with Final Fantasy X HD.

Trying to figure out Dark Souls

Posted on April 11, 2015 by GumballsPlaysGames

I played Dark Souls once before, not long after it became a huge ‘hit’ out of nowhere. I had heard the game was unforgiving, and as someone who often gets mad and quits games when they die, I should have known Dark Souls wasn’t for me. I remember having absolutely no clue what I was doing and repeatedly dying while trying to climb some stairs on the mountain side, VERY early in the game. At that point I gave up and swore never to come back.

Well now that I have a 360 again, I downloaded Dark Souls and decided to give it another try. I think all of the Bloodborne talk lately got me wanting to check out the Souls experience again.

This afternoon I still had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I had to Google what Humanity was and still couldn’t quite figure out what to do with it. I made myself human and redeemed some humanity (by redeemed I mean I used it so a number shows in the upper right corner) but have no idea what affect that had.

I managed to make it past the stairs I got stuck on before, but it was ugly. I’m absolutely terrible at anything that involves timing and can’t parry an attack to save my life. I basically ran up to enemies while holding my sword in two hand mode and flailed at them until they died, all while taking a few hits here and there.

I wandered around aimlessly and used up quite a few Estus flasks and my divine ability or whatever (I’m playing as a Knight) and somehow made it to the second boss after summoning another character (which I assume is another player?). The boss immediately sent me flying off the bridge into the ether and to my death. I started off back at the campfire way back below those stairs I was stuck on before and decided to call it quits again.

Maybe there was another campfire between there and the boss (I would hope so), but I certainly did not feel like running through all that again. Heck, I barely made it to that boss with my life intact and I don’t see the appeal in doing it all again. Furthermore I’m pretty sure all of my souls and humanity are irretrievable seeing as my body was thrown into the nothingness. Not cool.

At this point I’m not certain if I’ll try again. I don’t think I can take repeatedly trudging through the same area and enemies just to die again and again. I think I’m just not cut out for this game. I may take a look at a strategy guide or watch some ‘Let’s Plays’, but for now I think I’ll fire up Tiger Woods ’13 and relax on the links.