Video Game Tuesday: Good Games to play in Quarantine

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m back with a list. It’s some Good Games to play in Quarantine!

Skyrim: This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever heard of this game but if you’ve got a fairly decent PC Skyrim has nearly endless potential for gameplay with it’s countless mods that have been released in the nearly 9 years since it first released. Even if you don’t have a PC Skyrim is full of fun things to do for those in Quarantine. Whether it’s collecting every piece of Cheese in the province of Skyrim or just following the story you’ll have plenty to do.

Bonus Suggestion:

Morrowind: If you are feeling really adventurous you can load up Morrowind, it’s been out for 18 years and it also has plenty of mods to use. Thankfully this game should run just fine on almost any PC that’s been made since 2010. I do suggest getting a mod that increases your run speed though. You do move very slowly in that game.

Tales of Berseria: I’ve always loved the Tales of games, and Tales of Berseria is the best of the bunch. It’s got an amazing story, fantastic gameplay, excellent graphics and musical score. Frankly this is a must play regardless, but you might find this to be a very fun game to play if you need something else to do and prefer JRPGs over Western RPGs.

Persona 5 Royal: Sadly this game is only on the PlayStation 4, but Persona 5 Royal is a great game that has a fantastic story and while less action oriented than most RPGs, it’s still a very fun game.

Minecraft: Like Skyrim, Minecraft on the PC has plenty of mods, and is literally endlessly replayable, although some might get bored eventually.

No Man’s Sky: This game has come a very long way since it first released and has gotten very good. If you want to explore a nearly endless galaxy full of planets and moons to land on, No Man’s Sky is the game to play.

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

 

Serial Saturday: Kuro’s Days Chapters 1-13 by Branya

This week for Serial Saturday I’m covering a real oddball series. It’s Kuro’s Days Chapters 1-13 by Branya!

Plot Synopsis: I was a 30-year-old good for nothing, but because I had run out of food, I had to rely on my only hope. Expired instant noodles… When I finally awoke, I found myself as my loli game character from the game Skyrim in a magical cyberpunk world. I could tell that this new life was not a game and it would be a struggle just to survive. I experienced too much unreasonableness in my life. This time, I will absolutely live a happy life in this new world. Huh? You say instant noodles don’t expire? I also believed that, but in reality, they can….

Plot: Like I said, an oddball series. Honestly this is a self insert fiction that takes the main character’s abilities from Skyrim. It’s not that great, amusing at times, but not that great.

Characters: The entire cast is pretty odd, and while they aren’t lacking depth, they don’t have a ton of it either. Also Kuro is a huge pervert, so if that is a deal breaker you’ll really want to stay away from this series.

Overall: You can find a lot better series out there, but you can also find worse ones. This has it’s own amusing moments, but it’s got no overall plot, and really just showcases the protagonist’s daily life as she gets used to the new world she finds herself in.

For those who like: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Slice of Life, Action, Adventure.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, mediocrity, or perverted lead characters.

Video Game Tuesday: Graphical Mods

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering a topic that get’s overlooked by most console gamers, myself included. It’s all about Graphical Mods!

PC MASTER RACE!: Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard that before. It’s an old and tired shtick, and console gamers are pretty sick of it. There are downsides to being a console gamer, but there are also upsides. That being said, that’s a topic for another day. However there is one thing that warrants special mentioning. Graphical Improvement Mods.

Graphical Improvement Mods?: Yeah, so there are of course custom 3D model mods out there for all sorts of games, like Skryim or Grand Theft Auto. However this isn’t what I’m talking about, not exactly. I’m talking about mods that completely improve your entire visual experience of the whole game. Stuff like NaturalVision Remastered. Go check out the video I’ve linked. I’ll be waiting, and it’s definitely worth a view.

Done?: Great, so these sorts of mods are huge projects and I have immense respect and admiration for anyone who does this sort of work. It’s incredibly difficult and you rarely see something of such high quality like NaturalVision Remastered. Honestly the person behind the mod deserves to be hired like immediately into the industry. They are an amazing artist and coder who understands gaming engines and graphics to a degree that I can only wish I had even a tenth of their skill and knowledge. Of particular note is that the original NaturalVision mod aims to be as intensive as the base Grand Theft Auto V game. That’s an incredibly difficult goal, but they did it for the most part.

What goes into such a mod?: Well for a big part of it, it’s all about improving the textures to a much higher resolution and detail. That’s not an easy goal, not at all. You have to literally work on every single texture used in the entire game and improve them. That’s a massive undertaking by itself. However that’s not all, mods like NVR also tweak the physics and lighting systems and those are not any easier to deal with. The fact that the mod is attempting to do all of that and still be only as intensive as the base game is nothing short of a masterwork. Like seriously Rockstar, or any company with a decent reputation, you need to be trying to hire this modder.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. Are there any favorite graphical mods you like and I didn’t mention? Leave a comment below!

Video Game Tuesday: Console Mods

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering a subject that I find both frustrating and interesting. It’s all about Console Mods.

Why frustrating?: Because companies like Bethesda have made an effort to bring mods to consoles, but are doing a terrible job of it. They won’t properly curate the mods for games like Skyrim’s Special Edition and Fallout 4, and this causes many mod authors to have their work stolen by thieves without proper acknowledgement. I know if they did acknowledge it that a lot of mod makers wouldn’t be so upset, but the fact is that Bethesda has done a piss poor job with their efforts to bring mods to consoles. I’m not surprised that Sony won’t allow Bethesda to bring mods with unique assets to the PlayStation 4, they just don’t respect the mod authors that breathed so much life into games on the PC. Skyrim has a thriving mod community, but Bethesda has continuously screwed them over, with paying for mods on Steam and the console mod debacle.

There’s other games and companies that won’t allow mods, like Square Enix with Final Fantasy XIV. However Square Enix actually has a valid reason, FFXIV is an MMORPG and as any MMO gamer will tell you, if a portion of the audience can’t download mods the mods are next to useless. Plus theres the toxicity that comes with mods like Damage Meters, something that can quickly devolve into huge flame wars on forums and chat channels.  I used mods when I played World of Warcraft, and I required all my raiders/guildmates to install them if they wanted to raid. Some were invaluable, like Deadly Boss Mods, while others were just for fun, like Bejeweled. All of them were useful in one way or another, but I don’t regret not having them in FFXIV. I actually enjoy that I don’t need any mods or VoIP programs to succeed in doing the hardest content. Yes it’s helpful, especially the VoIP programs, but they aren’t necessary at all.

Why interesting?: Because I love mods, some of my favorite game modes in games like Warcraft III were mods like the Angel Arena maps. They had custom models and I had great respect for those who made those models. I hope one day we’ll be able to use mods on consoles properly and add fun things like Thomas the Tank Engine to games like Skyrim in the future. But until such mods are properly curated and monitored we won’t be getting them with any amount of frequency if at all.

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

Video Game Tuesday: Thoughts on the Switch

Hey all for this week’s Video Game Tuesday I’m going to cover my thoughts on Nintendo’s upcoming console/portable system. It’s all about my Thoughts on the Switch!

Price and Release Date: It releases on March 3rd, and is priced at $300. This sounds okay, although you’ll get more pure gaming and multimedia functionality out of a PS4 Slim for the same price.

Controls: The Pro Controllers sound pretty good, although it will be fairly pricey to get extras.  The Joy Con controllers though are a bit worrisome. The halves themselves can be used individually and from the way it looks they are pretty small when that happens. I know a lot of friends who have large hands, unlike a certain orange lunatic, and they won’t be super pleased to using the Joy Con in that mode. In addition they are keeping motion controls in each controller type. That piece of news was less than welcome for me, frankly I was sick of Motion controls a day after playing Wii Sports for the first time.

Games: So we got confirmation that Breath of the Wild is going to be a launch title, which is great. That being said it only running for 3 hours on the go is a bit of a bummer. New titles that were announced include, 1 2 Switch (think Wii Sports but party games), Arms which is a crazy motion controlled fighting game, Super Mario Odyssey (A new Mario game that takes place in our world) and Splatoon 2. There were others, but those were the highlights from Nintendo.

Third Party: We’ll be getting various third party games, including Skyrim (although it’ll launch in Fall 2017 for some reason) and a Bomberman game. Bandai Namco has said they’ll be bringing Tales games to the system, but frankly I’ll believe that when I see it.

Online: Probably one of the biggest shockers was that Nintendo is finally going to be charging for Online play, which is unsurprising albeit very late to the game. There will be a free game each month people will be able to try out. Unfortunately when that month is over, so is the try out period. Frankly that was a really stupid move on Nintendo’s part, but if it includes major first party titles and AAA games relatively soon after their retail launch it would be better.

Overall: Frankly I’m on the fence still, there were lots of interesting things, but I don’t know if they can interest me to pay $300 for a system that won’t run games as well as my PS4 will.

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