Retro Game Friday: Rampage World Tour

I’m back with a guilty pleasure game from my childhood for this week’s Retro Game Friday. It’s all about Rampage World Tour!

Plot Synopsis: George, Lizzie, and Ralph have been released due to an explosion at a Scumlabs facility. The trio begin to destroy all of Scumlabs’ bases scattered throughout the world.

Plot: I totally didn’t even remember that this game had a plot, but that was never the draw.

Gameplay: It’s like one of those old arcade side scrolling punch em up games, except your main targets are buildings and you just beat the crap out of it with your fists and occasionally eat your friends if they were untransformed by losing too much health.The game was fun to a kid, but it’d probably get boring to me really quickly.

Music: Don’t remember it much, but it definitely had that old arcade feel.

Art: Pixel graphics make this a pretty timeless classic.

Overall: It’s probably worth an hour of your time, but probably not much more.

For those who like: Old games, Arcade Style Games, Timeless Art.

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

Video Game Tuesday: Giving up on Destiny

 

This week on Video Game Tuesday I’m explaining why I’m done with Destiny until it gets fixed properly.

My Issues With Destiny: The lack of Story isn’t a huge factor in me no longer playing Destiny, but it does affect it. The bigger issues are the fact that it has taken Bungie Eight Months to do more than admit that there are major issues with bugs, and they choose to only address one of them. Another of them is the fact that they seem hellbent on pushing their idea of their ideal fairness on everyone. If they weren’t expecting to deal with exploits, like pushing Atheon and Templar and Crota off edges to their doom, they were beyond stupid.

The fact that people have to resort to things like pulling their ethernet cord out to beat a boss easily is beyond stupid. That says something major about their design team, and it’s not a good thing. It means that the majority of players aren’t able to complete end game activities without resorting to a glitch of some sort. In fact certain fights are impossible without resorting to it. A good example is the Abyss section of Crota Hard Mode, by the end of the mad dash to the end 3-4 players of 6 will be dead and those left have to fend off hordes of enemies by themselves. The only way to survive through that is jump onto a certain rock to avoid 98% of the enemies and take out the only ones that can hurt them, Ogres, from a distance before they get in range and kill you in three seconds. The artificial difficulty added in the entirety of Hard Mode is beyond dumb as you will always get one shot from certain enemies, and if they catch you unaware for even a second while you are dealing with the hordes of Thralls you are going to die very quickly.

Another fault I’m sick of dealing with is the fact that RNG rules everything in the game, from the inventory of the weekly weekend vendor Xur to the drops from a standard PvP match in the crucible. I’m sick of seeing someone who didn’t participate at all get one of the best guns while I’ve been trying since day one to get one and still haven’t gotten it. By the way I find the statement of his inventory being totally random to be utter crap as the week he sold the Icebreaker most recently had every top tier exotic for every class and helmet engrams for sale as well as the Icebreaker. That is so statistically improbable that it just can’t be possible.

Another issue I had with Destiny is the fact that the new exotics all suck. Every single one is terrible, from the No Land Beyond to Necrochasm. Not a single one is worth using over older guns. These are supposed to be some of the best guns in the game, but they all are so terrible that no one wants to use them.

The last straw for me though was this last week’s update informing everyone that they were punishing players for using guns that are effective over using guns that aren’t as effective. I understand the desire to balance the game, but when that strays into affecting one part of the game (PvE) because of another part that has nothing to do with it (PvP), it becomes extremely frustrating to the players.

So I’m done with Destiny, until they fix their mistakes and stop pushing their ideals on us. Will I play House of Wolves, maybe. I might go through the raid once, do the story missions to see if they fix anything, but I’ve got no hopes that it will go well anymore.

I have moved onto greener pastures with the friends I’ve made from Destiny and I’m actually going to play a game that doesn’t feel like screwing with you every chance it gets.

 

Retro Game Friday: SkiFree

 

This week for Retro Game Friday, I’m talking about a game that was a contemporary to Chip’s Challenge, it’s SkiFree!

Plot Synopsis: There is no plot to this game.

Gameplay: In what is probably the very first “Endless Runner” style of game, you control a skier who tries to complete a course on the slopes, but even after the course you can keep going, until big fat and ugly pictured above eats you, skis and all. The gameplay was very simple, you controlled it with your mouse or keyboard, and after completing the course the goal was to see how long you could flee from the Yeti.

Music: I honestly don’t remember if this had music.

Overall: It’s a fairly simple game, but if you love endless runners, you should at least try to find a flash version of this game to play.

For those who like: Impossible Games, Endless Runners, Repeated failures.

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

Video Game Tuesday: Strider

This week on Video Game Tuesday I’m covering Strider a game that plays like a Metroidvania game and was recently released for the Playstation 4 and other consoles.

Plot Synopsis: The Strider organization sends their best assassin, Strider Hiryu, to kill the villain, Grandmaster Meio, in the metropolis of Kazakh City.

Plot: I’ll admit I haven’t gotten very far into the game, but from what I can see the plot is revelead as you play, and it’s not that serious a plot. Decent, but nothing spectacular like a Mass Effect game or even as good as Halo’s plot. Maybe if the plot was a bit more interesting I’d be playing it more often.

Gameplay: The gameplay is quite good, and it fills that need that’s been left since no really good Metroidvania games have come along that I’ve gotten, read paid my limited supply of money for, since Castlevania: Order of Ecclasia years ago. I just wish the plot were as good as the gameplay. That being said, this is definitely a very punishing game, and there are sequences where I’ve been frustrated at the lack of a more modern save system. I feel its a bit outdated to have to find a save station somewhere in the map.

Art: The artwork is beautiful, but nothing spectacular, granted this isn’t a Triple A game.

Music: The music is okay, but doesn’t add anything spectacular to the game.

Overall: If you were lucky enough to get this for free with Playstation Plus in July and haven’t played it yet, try it out.

For those who like: Metroidvania-style games, Action, Brutal difficulty.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, or an outdated saves system.

Video Game Tuesday: Bioshock Infinite

This week for Video Game Tuesday I thought I’d cover one of my favorite FPS games, Bioshock Infinite!

Plot Synopsis: Set in 1912, the game has protagonist, former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the floating air city of Columbia to find a young woman, Elizabeth, who has been held captive there for most of her life.

Plot: It’s an amazing piece of work and I absolutely loved it from the first minutes of gameplay to the very end of the game. I can’t say anymore without spoiling anything.

Characters: The characters in Bioshock Infinite are amazing, Booker is a bad ass and Elizabeth might be my favorite person to escort in a game ever.

Gameplay: I generally don’t like FPS games, but this game was incredibly well done and I loved every moment of it, Special mention goes to the AI that Elizabeth uses because every game with AI partners should steal, I mean copy, the system that makes Elizabeth the best AI partner I’ve ever played with.

Music: Normally I don’t think of music in FPS games as being epic and heart pounding, but like everything else Bioshock does it surpasses every expectation and than some. I especially liked the quartet in the opening 20 minutes of the game who sings a Beach Boy’s song (It makes sense later on in the game).

Art: Amazing and I particularly loved how Elizabeth’s attire changes over the course of the game.

Overall: A must play game, the story in it is absolutely amazing and should be thoroughly enjoyed.

For those who like: Amazing story, Amazing AI (especially in your AI partner Elizabeth), Awesome art, shooters with a plot (something that CoD really hasn’t ever done well)

Not for those who like: Any of the above, or lack of Multiplayer this game is strictly a single player game, also gore this game has lots of it.