Microsoft is letting all Xbox Live Gold members on the Xbox One download and play Sunset Overdrive for free for 24 hours (Nov 22). If you like the game you can purchase it for $10 off this weekend only. Sunset Overdrive is an absolute blast and a refreshing new type of shooter with an entertaining story and enjoyable characters.
I definitely recommend checking it out and playing through a good junk of a great game for free today. All progress will be saved so you continue right where you left off if you purchase the game in the future. It’s worth noting that this is not a demo, but the entire game, and you can also unlock achievements while playing!
I wasn’t initially planning on picking up Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, but after seeing the early reviews and looking at some gameplay I decided by the end of the day yesterday to buy it. That turned out to be a wise choice. I’ve been having more fun with Advanced Warfare than I have with any shooter in quite awhile. The multiplayer is much more fast paced than recent Call of Duty games and it’s quite refreshing. If you take the best parts of Titanfall and the best of Call of Duty you end up with a game that feels nearly perfect, and that’s Advanced Warfare.
I want to say more, but don’t have the time just yet. I can say I played the first two campaign missions and enjoyed them much more than Ghosts and Black Ops II’s missions. I’ve played a handful of multiplayer matches and have had an absolute blast. Everything feels just right and the pace of matches is much improved over Ghosts.
It’s been quite awhile since two must buy games released on the same day, but the stars have aligned today in a sense with both Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Forza Horizon 2 seeing release. I had been quite excited for both these games and from my early impressions, neither has disappointed.
I absolutely love the Forza series, nothing comes close in the racing game genre. I never really enjoyed other ‘street’ or off the closed track racing games until the first Forza Horizon came around. Forza Horizon took everything great about the Forza series (authentic looking, sounding and handling cars, and all around great racing) and brought it off the track and it was a blast. I loved all of the different challenges in the world and the online multiplayer was amazing.
Forza Horizon 2 takes influence from Forza 5 and Forza Horizon and brings it to a new open world that’s absolutely stunning from what little I’ve seen of it so far.
First of all it’s worth noting that Drivatars return in Forza Horizon 2. I saw a lot of my friend’s drivatars in the first few races I did (they also show up in the open world) and since I only knew one other person to be playing Forza Horizon 2 so far it seems that they’re pulling Drivatars from Forza 5 and bringing them over to Forza Horizon 2 which is nice as it populates the world and gives you something more than just AI to race against.
Some other new additions to Forza Horizon include more realistic rain and cross country (off road) racing. The rain effects in Horizon 2 are pretty neat, especially while driving with the inside the car view (which honestly is the only view you should be using in Forza games!). You’ll even see your windshield wipers at work which is a neat little addition. Cross country races have you cutting through deep patches of grass and other plant life, navigating between trees (some of which are destructible) and other obstacles in between sections of asphalt or dirt road. It’s crazy looking out from within your car because you’ll find it hard to see anything and it’s an absolute thrill attempting to navigate between obstacles and other cars while trying to make your way to the front of the pack.
I have yet to try out any of the online features, but I’m excited to give them a try tomorrow. If they’re anything like the original Horizon I’m sure they’ll pack hours of fun.
Lastly, one of my favorite features from Forza Horizon is still around in Horizon 2. Everytime you level up you’ll get a chance to ‘spin the wheel’ where you can be rewarded with varying amounts of credits (including some large amounts) or even a brand new car! It’s a fun and addicting feature that’ll keep you racing toward that next driver level.
Tonight I played about two hours of Shadow of Mordor on the Xbox One and enjoyed it quite a bit. I managed to kill off a few Captains, but also ran into some very sticky situations and managed to die three or four times already. I’ve had fun so far, but I started to get frustrated toward the end of my two hours.
I completed the first two story missions (or 2 of 3 that were available) and enjoyed those. I managed to die mostly because of mistimed button presses and the fact that I tend to play most video games poorly in the first place (unfortunately there’s no difficulty adjustment in Shadow of Mordor). I’m never any good at timing dodges right, especially when you not only have to time dodges with ‘A’ but also counters with ‘Y’. I’ll do alright if it’s just one or the other, but when I’m being attacked by different enemies and have to use both I just can’t get the hang of it.
Toward the end of my time with the game tonight I ran into a Captain who I didn’t have any intel on and probably shouldn’t have tried confronting him. He had some sort of ability that made my screen go red and constantly drained my health and I couldn’t figure out what was causing it or how to stop it. I’d run away and try to find some herbs to regain my health, but eventually he killed me off and I decided to take a break from the game for now.
I really like the idea of the Nemesis system, where enemies in the game can be promoted based on their actions and become stronger and gain new abilities if they defeat you in combat. You’ll be certain to face them again later and they’ll certainly remember you. Also if you happen to defeat an enemy they may also return, beaten, battered and scarred and ready for their revenge. It’s a pretty cool system that I think will add hours of exciting gameplay as you’re tempted to try to topple them all. It’s worth noting that the genesis system is only available on current gen consoles (Xbox One, PS4, PC). I can’t imagine how the game plays on last gen systems, as I think the genesis system is a core part of Shadow of Mordor and what sets it apart from other hack and slash games.
I look forward to diving deeper into Shadow of Mordor and hopefully figuring out how to overcome the Captain’s who haven slain me thus far.
After quite a few more hours spent in Destiny I’m starting to enjoy it a bit more than I had initially. There are still problems, as I’ve stated before there absolutely needs to be some sort of voice chat (ideally limited in range so that it’s not overcrowded) in the open world and also in matchmade strikes and crucible matches. The lack of voice chat makes it feel like the entire world consists of AI bots who aren’t really human controlled at all.
That said, as a Halo fan I’m enjoying the Crucible. It’s satisfying in many ways, one of which is the fact that you get to bring your own guns into the fight. This makes everything feel all the more personal, even if there’s some sort of behind the scenes work to even the playing field. My favorite Crucible matches are the Control matches, which are basically 6 vs 6 three point king of the hill matches. When you get matched up with a good team there’s nothing more fun, especially if you get the chance to stay with those players for several rounds. Unfortunately the lack of voice chat again makes it feel as if I’m playing with a bunch of AI that occasionally acts human.
The story is still…Destiny. Not quite sure how to put it, but it’s a bunch of jibberish with the occasional cut scene spouting some nonsense or your flying Cortana cube spouting some nonsense during a loading screen. Every single mission follows the same format, infiltrate some place, find a terminal, defend, fight a boss, end of mission. This would ruin the game if the shooting wasn’t so satisfying.
There’s still no real loot drive in the game, at least for me. In games such as Diablo and Borderlands I’m constantly driven to try to find a better weapon to devastate hordes of enemies with. In Destiny no loot drop seems to make any significant difference at all. Sure once you hit level 20 you need to find legendary loot to increase your Light level (I just hit 20 today, so I can’t comment much on this process), but there’s no endless pull to cause you to keep playing like there is in Diablo and Borderlands.
All that said, I’m going to continue playing for awhile longer, probably until Master Chief collection and GTA V come out for the Xbox One.
Until then, I’ll again leave you with this: If you enjoy shooting things, Destiny may just scratch that itch. If you enjoy first person shooter multiplayer games The Crucible may give you what you’re looking for. Destiny excels at giving you stuff to shoot at and making it feel satisfying, but it’s not necessarily great at anything else. At least Halo had an enjoyable story alongside its lasting multiplayer and Borderlands gave you interesting characters and an endless supply of satisfying loot.
EA Access on Xbox One continues to more than pay for itself with a growing library of free games available in the Vault. Need for Speed Rivals joins Battlefield 4, Madden 25, FIFA 14 and Peggle 2 as the games you’ll get for free with your $5 a month subscription.
I haven’t played a Need for Speed game in ages, and I didn’t expect to have much fun with Rivals, but it’s not too bad of an experience. I tend to prefer simulation racers (Forza) and have never enjoyed arcadey racers like Burnout, but Rivals isn’t too bad. Sure the “story” is laughable and should be skipped outright, but the gameplay is enjoyable. It reminds me a lot of Forza Horizon in that you’re put into a world with other racers and basically mark various events and races on your map and drive to them to start them. You’ll be able to engage in head to head races on the way if you choose and may also get pursued by the police. Any money you earn during your session needs to be banked by heading into a safe house, otherwise if you get busted you’ll lose everything you earned (however, mission progress is not reset).
The only thing I can say I dislike about the game is the load times. Stopping by a safe house to bank earnings is a time consuming process and the load screens involved have kept me from playing more of Rivals. I definitely recommend picking up EA Access and giving Need for Speed Rivals a shot though. You’ll definitely get $5 worth of fun out of it.
I’ve been back and forth on whether not to buy Destiny leading up to its release this week. When I played the beta I most certainly enjoyed the shooter elements of the game, and it felt solid and a lot like Bungie (Halo) which was (is) a good thing. Yet one thing that really bothered me was the MMO-ness of it. The missions and enemies just sort of feel like filler with very little reward from mission to mission. At least in Halo you get some pretty sweet cut scenes (the ones in Destiny are not on par) that tie together a compelling story (is there even a story in Destiny?). I disliked the way each and every enemy takes seemingly too long to kill (have to sit there and drain its health), all acting as ‘trash’ or filler leading up to a boss and the completion of a mission. This takes out all of the speed and ‘bad assness’ you get from a Halo game. So far you always feel overly weak and helpless in Destiny.
My first hour with Destiny’s full release has been no different than my first hour with the beta release. I’m still not convinced I’m going to enjoy Destiny in the long run, and I’m not convinced the audience is going to stay tuned long enough for Bungie to do everything they wanted with the game. I tried out Defiance about a year ago and it was empty, cold, desolate, abandoned. I’m not so sure Destiny will be any better 8 or 9 months from now.
Regardless, I’ll continue to play on and hopefully find some more things to like about Destiny. You can check out my first hour of gameplay below (once it’s finished processing shortly). I’ll be streaming to my Twitch channel in the future, so be sure to stop by if you’re interested in how my Destiny journey is coming along.
So to this day I’ve never made it past the first castle in New Super Mario Bros., either for the Wii or DS. I usually repeatedly die over and over again in the same spot and get frustrated and quit. In this run I don’t even make it to the first castle… Enjoy!
Side Pocket was one of my favorite games on the NES. It had addicting music and the right amount of challenge to keep you trying to get further and get a higher score every time. I don’t think I’ve ever made it to the last round, though it’s never frustrated me to the point where I want to stop playing. To this day Side Pocket is still an enjoyable experience that I never get tired of.
Gumballs Plays Games 