So I’ve started playing Destiny here and there again, and I’m still getting frustrating by a very annoying occurrence that happens way too often. Three times since this weekend I’ve gotten into matchmade strikes only to find that one of the three players is just standing still, refusing to move (or just outright “AFK”). This makes some of the strikes more cumbersome than they should be and it’s certainly not fair to the other two players.
Each time I make sure I report the player in Destiny and also through Xbox One, and I’ll usually send them a message as well (and block them of course). It’s infuriating to constantly run into these worthless, unsporting players in strikes. I wish Bungie would add a way to vote to kick players from matchmade events, and I wish AFK players would be automatically penalized for refusing to play the game (why bother even trying).
Anyway..I guess I’ll have to find a group of players to join up with, but I’ve only just hit level 24 today so I’m a bit behind the curve.
The REACT channel has quickly become one of my favorites on YouTube. With over 3 million subscribers and over 180 million views, REACT features videos where kids, teens, YouTubers and elders react to various subjects (videos, movies, video games, etc.). Their videos are quite hilarious, and their ‘Elders Play Grand Theft Auto V’ video released this week is no different.
Watch as the elderly let out their inner anarchists and laugh with joy as they mow down innocent civilians. Love it!
Back in 2008 Civilization Revolution on the Xbox 360 served as my introduction to the wonderful strategy series that’s been around since 1991. The gameplay was incredibly addicting and winning battles was wonderfully satisfying again and again. One night browsing the app store in my hotel room in Hawaii I stumbled across a pleasant surprise when I saw Civilization Revolution 2 for sale. I bought it immediately and spent countless hours trying to dominate the world rather than sleeping. Revolution 2 plays great on the iPad and offers hundreds of hours of enjoyment for longtime Civ fans or newcomers alike. I’ll be enjoying Civilization Revolution 2 well into 2015 and beyond, and it certainly deserves recognition as one of the best games released in 2014.
Number Four: The Wolf Among Us
Telltale Games’ The Wolf Among Us took me by surprise this summer. I was never blown away by the Walking Dead games but decided to give The Wolf Among Us a try. I downloaded the entire season on the iPad this summer and dove right in. I was immediately blown away by the unique, dark world and the amazing characters within. The music and scenery during the introduction following the preface absolutely blew my mind and ranks as one of the most awe inspiring sequences in a video game I’ve ever experienced.
The mystery Bigbee gets wrapped up in kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire experience and every twist and turn made it so hard to put my iPad down. I burned through the episodes as quickly as I could and loved every minute of it.
Number Three: Hearthstone
Hearthstone is an incredibly well made, free card battle game. Blizzard took a chance and hit a grand slam with Hearthstone. The game features great artwork, animation and sounds along with easy to pick up, hard to put down gameplay that provides countless hours of entertainment. I feel like Hearthstone is quite easy to understand and get the hang of compared to other card battle games like Magic the Gathering, but there’s still plenty there for more seasoned players. Hearthstone is so hard to put down because no matter how badly you’re being beaten you’re never quite out of it. I’ve been on the edge of defeat and have gotten the right cards at the final moments and have battled back from that edge and onto an incredibly satisfying victory. There’s hardly anything more rewarding than experiences like that!
Number Two: Tales from the Borderlands (episode one)
Telltale games have had a big year this year. The Wolf Among Us came to a wonderful conclusion this summer and then this winter saw the start of two new adventures with Game of Thrones and Tales from The Borderlands. The latter has not only been my favorite Telltale game to date, but also one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had with a video game ever! The first episode is upbeat, colorful, energetic and absolutely hilarious from start to finish. I’ve never laughed so much while playing a game. I had a smile on my face from start to finish as I made my way through the exciting chapters of the first episode. There was never a dull moment and the conclusion to the episode had me dying for more. I can’t wait to experience the rest of the story! Tales from the Borderlands confidently lands at number two on my list because it was a refreshing experience with some incredible writing in a great world. I highly recommend it!
Game of the Year: Halo: The Master Chief Collection
This is sure to be a controversial pick for a variety of reasons. First of all, this is technically a re-release of games spanning from 2001 to 2013. Secondly, the game had an incredibly rocky launch, and was not ready to be released upon the salivating masses in November. It’s true, for the first three weeks I owned the game I was only able to play around 15 matches which is entirely unacceptable. That said, now that the game has been more or less working as intended for the last week or so it’s easily been my most enjoyable gaming experience of 2014.
Being able to jump into matches across four different Halo games with my friends from around the world with whom I’ve played the games with in the past. It’s amazing to see how much Halo has grown all in one package. We used to throw our cumbersome CRT TV’s in our cars and drive miles to a central meeting place, lug our TV’s downstairs, order pizza and play Halo for hours on end. To be able to jump into a game of Halo Combat Evolved or Halo 2 with the push of a button is awesome. To be able to play a match of Halo 3, 2, and CE in quick succession is equally awesome. The Halo 2 Anniversary remake is a stunningly beautiful way to relive both a great campaign and a great multiplayer experience.
I will easily spend hundreds of hours over the next year and beyond enjoying the Master Chief Collection. The last week of fun alone has already made up for the three weeks I was barely able to play the game I invested $60 in. From the start the Master Chief Collection was a bargain for $60. They could have easily charged $60 alone for the Halo 2 Anniversary edition, but instead they threw in three more games and gave us an unimaginable value. For that, Halo: The Master Chief Collection is crowned A Video Game Life’s Game of the Year! Congratulations 343!
If you’re an Xbox One owner and were looking forward to checking out episode one of Telltale’s Game of Thrones adventure game today, you might be slightly disappointed. Although it’s been released on PC and PS4 today, it won’t make it to the Xbox One until tomorrow, December 3rd. It’s not too long to wait, but it’s unfortunate that we have to wait awhile longer to play the highly anticipated game.
Game of Thrones will also be released on iOS on Thursday, the fourth.
I’m so sick of seeing that every time I boot up the Master Chief Collection and try to get into a multiplayer match. I’ve tried on and off for the last two weeks and still have not been able to reliably find matches. This weekend there has been some improvement, but the matchmaking process is still not flawless. 343 put out a patch last week that seemed to improve the matchmaking process for most people, yet I’ve found the matchmaking process still to be slower than it should be. Also, they have yet to add all of the other playlists they removed (such as Team SWAT) which is disappointing.
I’ve been able to find a few matches this evening with wait times as low as a minute (a massive improvement over launch week where I’d have to continuously back out of matchmaking and retry for 15 minutes or longer just to get into a single match).
I should be excited that I can finally play some Halo multiplayer, however with Dragon Age, GTA V and Farcry 4 now out, Halo is probably going to take a backseat for awhile. The Master Chief Collection was one of my most anticipated games of the year, but its rocky launch has soured my attitude toward the collection right now and I’m having too great a time with Dragon Age and GTA to even think very much about Halo right now.
I’ve read that Microsoft has been honoring requests for refunds for those who own digital copies of the Master Chief Collection, however I think in the long run once everything is working smoothly I’ll still be happy to own the collection. One thing I can say is I probably won’t be buying Halo 5 during launch week now.
Has the Master Chief Collection’s launch affected your excitement for Halo 5 or future Microsoft games? Are you going to be sticking with Master Chief Collection or are you have you already given up hope?
I believe I’m about 5 or 6 hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition and I’ve been having a blast. I’m enjoying the characters, gameplay and exploring the world. What’s especially fun are all the weird little things that pop up in RPG’s. For example in the video above I send an enemy flying off a cliff and to his death which is always amusing.
Also it’s fun to be able to ‘jump climb’ up mountains, something I learned from Elder Scrolls games which can make getting around the world just a bit quicker than taking the long way around.
I look forward to advancing further into Dragon Age: Inquisition and exploring the insanely huge world. I definitely recommend checking out the third Dragon Age game if you haven’t done so already. It’s a blast!
Yesterday I got an e-mail from Microsoft celebrating one year of the Xbox One and it included some pretty interesting stats about my year. It pointed out that I’m in the top 5% of Xbox One gamers with 6650 gamerscore earned on the Xbox One. I’ve also spent 371 hours gaming on Xbox Live on the Xbox One which places me in the top 25% of gamers. It’s kind of cool to learn about these stats and see where you fit in with the rest of the Xbox One community.
If you’re interested in seeing some more stats you can check out rewards.xbox.com/myrewards and see what you’ve done over the last 30 days.
In other Xbox news, the long awaited HBO GO app has finally arrived on the Xbox One. I’m glad to have the app because the interface is nicer looking and easier to use than my Dish On Demand interface.
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!
Yesterday I played my first two Kinect games on the Xbox One. That’s not to say the Kinect hasn’t been useful, I love using it for voice commands, streaming, logging in, switching / snapping apps, changing channels, the list goes on and on. I just haven’t used it to play a Kinect game yet (I have used Kinect features in games and enjoyed it). Last night I downloaded both Just Dance 2015 and Dance Central Spotlight and enjoyed both quite a bit.
I had never played a Just Dance game before, but right from the start I was impressed. I really love the sleek and quick menus and the collection of songs available is quite enjoyable. The game features about 40 songs but you can buy more for $1.99 a song (we bought a handful including PSY’s “Gangam Style” which is so fun to dance to I’m surprised it wasn’t included in the game).
A look at the menu on Xbox One. You can navigate either with hand motions, voice commands or with a controller.
The dancing in Just Dance 2015 is simple enough to make it accessible to just about anyone, but it can be challenging in a fun way with some more complex moves (some even requiring you to get down on the floor, or hold another dancer). At the end of the song you’re presented with a highlight reel edited by the ‘autodance’ feature which will make you look as good as possible (but still quite goofy if you’re me).
You can choose to share your highlight reel with the Just Dance community and even Facebook if you like. At the moment, however, the Facebook functionality in Just Dance 2015 is not working on the Xbox One for many users. Once it launches the IE app to connect to Facebook there’s a URL redirect error. I’ve e-mailed Ubisoft support (as have many other users) but I haven’t seen a response yet.
My highlight reel from “Gangam Style”. Not the best dancer, but hey there was alcohol involved!
There’s some multiplayer functionality available in Just Dance 2015 as well. You can compete with other dancers by adding challengers and you’ll see their scores alongside yours throughout the song. These are pre recorded scores you’re competing against but it gives you an incentive to up your game. I’ve also received challenges in my Just Dance feed from other players. I assume the game is curating these challenges rather than being issued by the players, but I haven’t played enough to know for sure. You can also compete against live dancers in the World Dance Floor mode, however I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. When I was playing last night there were on average 25 dancers online in World Dance Floor mode at any given time throughout the evening.
Dance Central Spotlight is Harmonix’s dancing game available as a $9.99 download on Xbox One. As opposed to Just Dance which bundles 40 songs into a $50 package, Spotlight charges a minimal fee for the game and throws in a small sampler of songs (10 songs) and then allows you to purchase only the songs you want for $1.99 a song (some bundles are available for $3.49). I actually like this business model of charging just for the content you want. There are quite a few DLC songs available for download already with more to come (I picked up “Turn Down for What” and “Party Rock Anthem” so far and plan to pick up a few others).
Dance Central focuses more on a core set of moves and incorporates those moves into the various songs. The game wants you to learn those moves and master them as the difficulty raises and more and more moves are introduced. From my experience Just Dance has unique dances for each song and doesn’t reuse any routines, however this can lead to quite a bit of chaos (which can also be fun). Once you learn the moves of Dance Central it’s easy to nail routines and feel like you’re not just flailing limbs around like what tends to happen in Just Dance.
So far I’m enjoying both games quite a bit and they have me wanting to check out Harmonix’s Fantasia Music Evolved as well. I may end up picking Fantasia up in the few weeks to experience some more Kinect content. If you’re looking for some fun party games that make use of the Kinect I highly recommend checking out Just Dance 2015 and Dance Central Spotlight on the Xbox One.
The other night I picked up the Xbox One Stereo Headset. I had been wondering if the Xbox One headset adapter would allow me to plug headphones directly into the controller as opposed to the TV (you can), however the BX was out of adapters and only had headsets so I figured what the heck.
I’m glad I made the purchase. The headphones deliver pretty good sound (I’ll stick to my Bose SoundTrue for movies) and are more comfortable than the Turtle Beaches I used to have (again the Bose are still more comfortable in the long run). The main thing I like about them is that they get game sound from the controller, there’s no need to plug anything into the console or TV (something I hated about the Turtle Beaches).
They seem to be designed quite well, and I like how the microphone tucks into the headset when not in use, as you can see below.
I also like the flat design of the wire which keeps it from tangling.
For around $80 (they were on sale for $50 on Amazon last I checked) they’re definitely a worthwhile purchase if you don’t already have a headset (if you do, pick up the standalone adapter for $25).
Lastly, I enjoyed the box design, as silly as it seems. Check out the unboxing gallery below.
Gumballs Plays Games 