Retro Game Friday: Soulcalibur Legends

This week for Retro Game Friday I’m covering a spinoff of a series that is often overlooked. It’s Soulcalibur Legends!

Plot Synopsis: The story of Soulcalibur Legends takes place between Soul Edge and Soulcalibur, and is based around Siegfried Schtauffen’s transformation into Nightmare. The game begins as Siegfried finds Soul Edge on a ship. He battles Cervantes on the deck of the ship.

Plot: The plot is pretty sparse, and frankly isn’t all that good. But if you are a Tales of fan you’ll enjoy the guest character Lloyd Irving from Symphonia!

Gameplay: This had both co-operative gameplay and competitive gameplay. Frankly the gameplay wasn’t that good either.

Art: Terrible, and it’s aged incredibly poorly.

Music: Don’t remember a whit, but probably wasn’t that good.

Overall: Skip this entry of the series, even if you are a hardcore fan of the Soul series.

For those who like: Action-RPGs, Mediocrity.

Not for those who don’t like: Either of the above.

Video Game Tuesday: Nintendo Switch or Ditch?

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m talking about the news regarding the upcoming Nintendo “console”. It’s all about whether you should Switch or Ditch Nintendo!

Switch?: In case you didn’t hear the news last week for whatever reason, Nintendo revealed their latest “console”, what we called NX up till now, is the Nintendo Switch and will be a home console that you can pick up and play on the go. That’s about all we know about it’s functionality in general although we know that it will have a touchscreen, that won’t be in use when in console mode, and two types of controllers, the basic which is sort of goofy looking and probably way too small for adult hands, and a pro controller that takes after the Xbox 360 controller. We don’t much else about the system, although they showed off Skyrim on the system and announced a whole bunch of developers who will be making games for the system, we’ll have to see how it pans out as that really doesn’t mean anything.

Ditch?: Because this is yet another gimmicky console, the PlayStation 4 is boring compared to the Switch, but it gets the job done and does it with flying colors. The switch looked like it had a hard time playing the upcoming Zelda game. That doesn’t bode well for the system considering that usually Nintendo’s first party games have always run amazingly well on their systems. In addition we have no clue how we’ll be able to play on the go. Will it be off Wi-Fi only? Will we have to buy a data plan like any other tablet? What about the battery life? Will it last an hour? Five? 50? We don’t know any of the answers to those questions yet, and frankly that’s unacceptable. It will release sometime next year and we won’t learn of the release date and price until January 2017. Again unacceptable in this day and age. I loved playing Nintendo games growing up, and I love their IPs. But I won’t be buying a Nintendo Switch for myself with my own money if it can’t prove to me that it can match the PlayStation 4 Pro in power while it’s working in console mode at bare minimum.  So for now my answer to the question of “Switch or Ditch?” is a definite Ditch.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday!

Video Game Tuesday: Fads in Gaming

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering what I really hate about the gaming industry sometimes. It’s all about Fads in Gaming!

What do I mean Fads in Gaming?: Touch Controls, Motion Controls and just plain weird Controllers are just some of the things that come to mind and those are the main topics for today.

Touch Controls: Other than for mobile (smartphone) games, a topic for another day, I despise touch controls. Especially with a stylus. It’s a control method that I hate personally because it doesn’t allow for people with a minor physical disability or poor gross motor functions to play games. Many people struggle with these things and touch controls only limit customer bases for a developer, not expand them. Thankfully this fad has died down for the most part, with the exception of mobile “gaming” which like I said before is a topic for another day.

Motion Controls: Again Motion Controls are a limitation for people with minor physical disabilities or poor gross motor functions. Why people jumped so fast onto this particular fad I don’t understand. In addition it was way too easy to use control schemes in ways other than the developer thought. The Wiimote in particular was highly inaccurate and was a terrible controller. The fact that it required a strap for the wrist is laughable design wise because it’d fly out of peoples hands and into things like TVs, Windows, or other people’s heads. If you need to take the controller slipping out of ones hands and becoming a projectile into consideration you are designing them wrong.

Weird Controllers: Remember the Nintendo 64 Controller? No one used the functionality of the D-Pad on that thing, so having the three prongs on it was just weird design wise. A good controller is something like the Xbox 360 Controller, not that oddly shaped piece of crud we used for the Nintendo 64.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday! What are some of your despised fads? Leave a comment below!