It’s lights out for the Destiny 2 open beta

I never got into the original Destiny, but I sure watched a good amount of coverage on that game via those chuckleheads over at Giant Bomb, enough so that I felt like I understood the ups and downs of Bungie’s latest sci-fi first-person shooter that wanted to be a big ol’ massive multiplayer extravaganza, but was severely lacking in the story department. Still, people went ga-ga for this thing and constantly cried out “The shooting feels great!” to any naysayers while I contently hacked away at Borderlands 2 and the online multiplayer aspect for Gears of War 4. That all said, I may be interested in checking out Destiny 2, especially now that I got to nibble a bit off the larger loaf via the recent free and open beta.

What was in the Destiny 2 Beta, you ask, probably already knowing the answer, but helping me segue into a new paragraph nonetheless? Well, it features activities from three core experiences to use the company’s own words: Campaign, Cooperative, and Competitive play. I’ll talk a bit about each below and my experience with shooting alien monsters that were shooting at me and accidentally hitting the “dance” button one too many times. Mmm-hmm. Evidently, you could visit a specifically hub section called the Farm, but only at a special time, that which I did not know. That’s fine. I prefer not to be social.

The campaign mission is called “Homecoming,” and it’s a mix of single-player action with some wave-based enemy elimination near its end where other real-life players can join in to help out. You are responding to an emergency distress call from the last safe city on Earth. Also, I forgot to mention, you get to pick an already decked-out character at the start of the Destiny 2 Beta, and I went with the Hunter class. I also tried out its two subclasses, namely Arcstrider and Gunslinger, preferring the latter greatly, but only after I figured out how to activate my super ability; I’m sure original Destiny players had no trouble with that, but the game never instructed me on how to pull this off, so I had to look it up in the control options menu. Anyways, it’s a short, linear, and perfunctory mission, where nothing goes wrong, with some story stuff at the end involving the word “light,” sometimes capitalized as “Light,” that went completely over my teeny tiny head.

Next up is the Cooperative Strike called “The Inverted Spire,” which tasks you with infiltrating an enemy stronghold alongside two other Guardians to take down all active threats. Also, here’s a bit of descriptive text that is lost on me–The Cabal awoke something deep beneath Nessus’ surface. Right. So, I went into this with two other players, one of who spent a long time jumping around the milk waterfall and trying to reach out-of-reach platforms. Eventually, you get to a big boss fight at the end, which is where everything went to crap, especially because communication was non-existent. I died, they died, we all died, and I eventually dropped out (sorry, peeps with gamertags I can’t remember). I can imagine this being easier and more fun, as well as rewarding, with a dedicated group of friends that are able to issue commands to one another. Plus, there wasn’t any loot to pick up, which is an important element for a loot shooter.

Lastly, there’s Competitive Multiplayer, and several versions of it to try out. I don’t think I could tell you what mode I played, but it was one team versus another, and we were trying to control certain points, indicated by capital letters, on the map and keep the opposing team from getting them. I wasn’t great at this, but I did manage to shoot a few guys and hold a flag for some seconds. It’s very quick and somewhat chaotic, and despite my constantly changing affection for Gears of War 4 online multiplayer, this was most certainly not for me. I felt like I barely had a chance to do anything, and when I finally did and something went wrong, it went bad fast. I’m sure there’s a whole cut of the population that loves this, but if I’m to play any Destiny 2 down the space road, it’ll likely be campaign stuff and Strikes, but only when I’m with a trusted group of Guardians. If such a group can exist.

So we’ll see come September if I’m interested in picking Destiny 2 up. I can concur with those that shouted about the shooting feeling good. It does. It really, truly does. I also like its overall look and the names of the weapons and pieces of armor and the tougher enemies, but I also want a good story, sue me. I don’t want to have to piece things together via websites and an app on my phone. I want characters, and I want those characters to interact with me in a meaningful way to get me to care about Earth blowing up or things going dark or whatever the plot turns out to be. Perhaps I’ll wait a bit and see what people have to say about it. Maybe while I do that I’ll play through all of Halo: Reach. Er, maybe.

Doom’s demo proves one glorious, gory point

This might come as a shock, but I first experienced Doom via its Super Nintendo Entertainment System port back in late 1995, at a neighbor’s house. I remember its red casing well, as well as my friend’s father being the sort of lawn fanatic that concerned me even at the virtuous age of twelve. This game and my copy of The Offspring’s “Smash” on cassette were items we hid whenever this man walked by his kid’s bedroom, but perhaps the topic of keeping things with parental warnings on them secret is best saved for another post.

Regardless, I am one hundred percent certain that this is not the version the developers over at id Software intended for people to play first. The SNES edition was published by Williams Entertainment and featured a custom engine programmed by Randy Linden. Naturally, this meant there were some stark differences between the PC and console versions, though I didn’t know about them back then, only years later upon reading about it via the Interwebz. One element that stands out is that, due to animation issues, there could be no enemies fighting other enemies, something that I found deeply amusing in the original first-person shooter where you fight demons from Hell.

Anyways, that’s not the Doom I am talking about for the rest of this post. That Doom is the new Doom–still just called plain ol’ Doom–from Bethesda and id Software and released back in May. I watched the Internet go all bug-eyed crazy over it and moved on with my life as, when it comes to shooters from Bethesda, I prefer the ones that let you slow down time and stuff your inventory full of coffee mugs. Well, to probably everyone’s surprise, the company kicked off E3 2016 by releasing a free demo of Doom‘s first level for all to taste, and here I am, some number of months later, ready to talk about it. Such is how my summers now go.

Let me give you some deep narrative setup so you understand why the ultra violent, ultra faceless character you are playing as is so invested in shooting demons from Hell into bloody bits with a supply of deadly firearms. As the lone DOOM Marine, it’s up to you to obliterate the relentless demon hordes invading the UAC facility on Mars. Mmm. Okay, there, now that’s done, and the guitar-ripping action can begin, and it does, oh so fast. I’m sure it is blindingly speedy on PC, but I was still charmed to see how quick and smooth everything moved on the Xbox One. There’s running, there’s gunning, there’s clambering, and there’s glory killing, all of which is happening simultaneously as a hard rock soundtrack plucked from some forgotten album collection in Satan’s attic pumps you onward.

Doom‘s demo is the entire first level of its single-player campaign, and it wastes no time getting into the thick of things. The DOOM Marine wakes up on a slab in some room of worship, grabs some armor and a gun, and begins blasting Possessed and Cacodemons in their faces. From there, it’s all forward momentum. You’ll push ahead and kill everything in your way, eventually ending up in arena-esque areas where you will have to keep moving to keep breathing. Performing a glory kill–a cinematic take-down you can activate after damaging an enemy enough–will provide you with some health pickups, so there’s more to do here than simply destroy all evil things. I also liked combo-ing one glory kill to another, feeling like a true powerhouse. You can also find collectibles in the environment, as well as take key cards off dead dudes that turned out to not be true powerhouses.

If anything, this demo worked as intended. It gave me a taste of how new Doom plays and feels without restricting the player or holding their hand through the entire experience. That first level is the first level. There’s also no strange Nintendo-like restrictions that say you can only play the demo X number of times or within a specific amount of time. I liked what I played, but I’m not ready to commit just yet, with too much still in my backlog to get through, but at least I know that when I get to this, I’ll have a bloody good time. I promise not to play this Doom‘s SNES port either…unless the rumors of cartridges making a return to the NX prove true.

Friendly fire is not be tolerated in Battlefield 3, so they say

When it comes to war-based videogames, I’ve always kept my distance. This is a twofer: a severe disinterest in using a digital gun modeled after a real-life version and shooting a digital person modeled after a real-life counterpart, and stories that all seem to blend together, usually constructed around the ideas of straight-up terrorism and accented patriotism. It’s not that I don’t love the country I live in, it’s just that I don’t love it enough to want to blast open someone’s face with an M16A4 and then high-five my buddy and toss back a beer.

In all honesty, I can count the number of interactions I’ve had with war-based videogames on a single hand. First, I once dabbled in Battlefield 1942 back in my summers off during the college days, as a friend then constantly had it running at his house, and all you ever had to do was sit down in front of the computer and start playing. I was never any good, but we always had a laugh when trying to fly a plane only to end up crashing three seconds after takeoff. Think I also watched some friends play SOCOM. Then there was that time I tried out the demo for…um, it was a Call of Duty game on the Xbox 360, but I really don’t remember which one. There was snow and falling in snow and maybe infiltrating an airbase of some kind. Maybe Modern Warfare 2? And my third dip into the political warfare pool has been with Battlefield 3, given out for free the other month to PlayStation Plus members.

I found it to be a mindless, but educational experience. As well as reconfirming. Battlefield 3‘s single-player campaign is both traditional and not; the story it tells is generic “save the world from the bad guys” stuff, with you know who playing their respective roles, but its narrative structure will toss your mind overboard. You begin at the end, playing as Staff Sergeant Henry Blackburn in hot pursuit of a man behind some terrorist attacks. However, you then hop back to eight months before all this goes down, investigating a possible improvised explosive device in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan. Things happen from there, and eventually you end up playing as a couple other characters, some shadier than others: Sgt. Jonathan “Jono” Miller, a M1 Abrams tank operator deployed in Tehran; Lt. Jennifer “Wedge” Colby Hawkins, an F/A-18F Super Hornet Weapon Systems Officer; and Dimitri “Dima” Mayakovsky, a Russian GRU operative. These side stories all eventually form a bigger picture. Levels are varied in location and objective, but more or less, other than driving a tank or flying a Super Hornet, you are running down a corridor, shooting enemies until they fall down.

So, the biggest thing I learned from my short time with Battlefield 3, and probably all other realistic-looking first-person shooters, is that I would make a terrible soldier. Now, it is common knowledge that my eyesight is worsening every day, but I got new glasses last year, upping my ability to see things father away much clearer. However, in a game with super realistic graphics and lighting and a lot of shadows, I had a hard time deciphering friend from enemy, often shooting a team member thinking they were evil. When you shoot a friendly person, a message pops up: FRIENDLY FIRE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! This would alert me to my mistake, and I’d target somebody else. Further down in the mission, I’d get the message again. Rinse, shampoo, lather, whatever…and so on. Evidently, if you cause too much friendly fire damage, you’ll fail the mission, but I was never that consistent. To me, it felt like a warning that was never acted upon. That said, I’m glad I was allowed to get by with so many blind bullet mistakes because otherwise I might never have made it out of those darker levels.

Oh, and I’m not afraid to admit it: I played the game on Easy difficulty. That’s what it defaulted to, and so I kept it. Considering how fast you lose health and can frak a mission, I doubt I’d have gotten very far on a higher difficulty. I’ve not yet–and probably never will–touched the multiplayer aspect of Battlefield 3. Some wars just can’t be won.

Red Faction to get the Syfy treatment sadly

Red Faction and Red Faction II are games I enjoyed yet never beat. Haven’t played Red Faction: Guerrilla save for the demo, which was fun, but I’m sure I’d have a great time not beating that game as well. Pew pew pew, explosion, explosion, save, accidentally forget to play again. That’s my process, at least. I enjoy them for the slow-paced shooters they are, and blowing holes in walls is always a party.

That said, I’m a little concerned about this news: THQ signed a deal with the Syfy channel that will allow them to produce a two-hour, direct-to-television movie based on Red Faction, the first game in the series which was about space mining and a rebel uprising.

And more so this news: In addition, Syfy will be involved with the next Red Faction game in some capacity.

Eep.

As well all know, videogame-movie adaptions never work out well. Yes, I know, I own Street Fighter: The Movie on DVD, but hush. The adults are talking. And just because Red Faction has all the makings of a Saturday afternoon Syfy “film” (let’s use that word sparingly)–mining colonies, slaves, futuristic weapons, bad voice-acting–that doesn’t mean it should be made. Alas, I don’t get the Syfy Channel anymore so I won’t be able to tell you all how this monkey-made movie turns out…

Just beat BioShock, still processing it all

I’m happy to report that I just beat BioShock, a pristine example of gaming and genre mixing done excruciatingly well. One-word summary: wow. Three-word summary: kinda crazy game. More words summary? Well, that’ll come later because there’s a lot to talk about, both good and meh. And trust me, I understand how late I am to the party, but I’ve brought everyone their very own ADAM-flavored cupcake…so don’t bite my head off.

I unlocked 42 out of 51 Achievements during my playthrough. I did not actively use a guide, but I did skim a list of things to keep in mind as I explored Rapture to potentially unlock all I could. Going in, I immediately knew that I wouldn’t harvest any Little Sisters, supposedly making Jack’s trek that much harder. I guess it was? I did miss some Achievements though, as shown below:

• Weapon Specialist (20G, Acquire all upgrades for all weapons.) — In order to get this, you must upgrade all your weapons, but I did not find all the Power to the People stations to do. Only was able to upgrade three in the end, namely the pistol, the machine gun, and the crossbow. Mmm…love that crossbow and its trap bolts.
• Research PhD (20G, Max out all possible research.) — I missed fully researching the Nitro Splicer to get this. Any time those dudes would show up, my main concern was to shoot first, snap pictures second. Guess that didn’t work out too well.
• Historian (50G, Find every audio diary.) — Hahaha no.
• And two secret Achievements — One I won’t spoil here, but it was my fault because I axed a certain someone prematurely, and the other requires beating the game without using a single Vita-Chamber. Not to repeat myself, but hahaha no.

BioShock is definitely a game I’ll remember, but don’t suspect I’ll replay. The only moral decisions are harvesting or rescuing Little Sisters, which ultimately determine how much ADAM you get and whether a certain character is nice towards you or not. Otherwise, it’s the same beautifully detailed Rapture swarming with splicers, gun turrets, and Big Daddies, which is not a bad thing, just not a different thing.

Full review forthcoming. Would you kindly wait for it?

I finally understand the whole “Would you kindly?” thing

I’m making excellent progress in BioShock. In fact, just last night, I played a golfing minigame with Andrew Ryan. Or rather…I watched Jack go over par.

But yeah, “Would you kindly?”

This is a phrase I’ve seen tossed around on forums and Interwebz postings all the time, and thankfully, I never investigated further. I mean, I knew from what little I previously played of BioShock that Atlas said it a few times, and I chalked it up to be a stylistic quirk of his. Little did I know, little did I know. It’s pretty neat that this, these three wee words, is actually pivotal to the plot, to Rapture.

We’re always being told what to do in videogames: collect seven stars, defeat the evil wizard, find a way out, drive Mumbo Jumbo to his apartment, bring someone the head of the youngest cabana boy, and so on. It’s refreshing to finally have a game reference this; not only reference this, but bend it, break it, make it their own twisted weapon to justify the means. Ultimately, we’re going to keep playing BioShock regardless of what Atlas wants, which is exactly what the developers are banking on, us hamming it up in the palms of their hands, completing the circle.

I mean, it’s like Andrew Ryan sorta said, “A man chooses, a gamer obeys.”

REVIEW: Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter

Developer/Publisher: CroTeam/Devolver Digital
Platform: Xbox 360 [reviewed], PC
Genre(s): PEW PEW PEW/Samicide
Mode(s): Single player/online co-op
Rating: M
Time clocked: Around 10 hours or so

Last week, I won a free download code from That Videogame Blog, and all I had to do was follow them on Twitter. My prize? Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, a shooter à la DOOM that is hardly serious and was seemingly inspired by a combination of sugar rush speedtrips and masochistic tendencies.

I’ve voiced before on here that I’m just no good at first-person shooters. Let me clarify that more. Fallout 3 is the kind of shooter I’m decent at because it’s not really a shooter at all. I did moderately okay in the single player modes for games like Red Faction and Killzone, which were slower, zone-to-zone sort of adventures, and I have many fond memories of taking down Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D. However, scenarios where you have to be quick on your metaphysical feet and spinning like a madman while still shooting with precise accuracy as hordes of enemies barrel down on you—yeah, not my favorite dish to order.

That said, with numb hands, I recently completed Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. It wasn’t a good time. Continue reading to find out why.

XIII for $2.00–yes or no?

So, while browsing the bargain bin of PS2 games yesterday at my local GameStop, I found a copy of XIII…for $2.00. Yet I did not buy it. Instead, I came home and searched for some reviews. Talk about being scared of the Recession, eh?

Anyways, what do you think? Is XIII worth the $2.00 (plus tax)? Seems like a stylish FPS with a somewhat stereotypical plot.