Game of Thrones Episode 6: Was That a Thud I Heard?

Game of Thrones Episode 6: The Ice Dragon is the climatic ending to season one of TellTale’s episodic adventure.  With it comes a lot of loose ends, a whole lot of blood, but not particularly that much storytelling to go along with all the choices you’ve made in the previous 5 episodes.

Reader beware, after this point there will be some spoilers for the lead up to episode 6

Conclusions for our characters are what we would expect fora  season finale, but it’s not necessarily what we get here.  Only one character through my play-through actually had a real ending to their story, and that was for Mira Forester who’s story I never really connected with until episode 5.

Hmm, I choose you!

Her political dealings in the capital only really become interesting so late in the story, that the abrupt possible conclusions for her story didn’t hold much impact for me in the end, and I really could have gone either way on my final choices.  There didn’t seem to be any good way to end her story, though the last second portrayal of her true nemesis in the story was well done, and unexpected.

To the north, Garred finally discovers the North Grove.  After so much time spent talking about it, and what it is, I was really looking forward to finding out more about it’s secrets.  Unfortunately episode 6 failed to deliver in that regard, and although we do get one small secret revealed, we really learn nothing about why the North Grove is so important that we would risk so much to find it and keep it safe.  We are left here with a pretty gruesome life or death choice, but the impact feels empty without the secret of the grove’s importance being revealed.

When have I been wrong?

Meanwhile in Ironrath we get to experience the more dynamic of all the endings.  Your choice of who to save at the end of episode 5 creates great contrast in what you can do to try and save the Forester family.  Though most of our choices end up in vile bloodshed and much life lost, we still don’t really get a full conclusion here.  There are many loose strings left hanging with the hopes that TellTale is working on an yet unconfirmed season 2 to help answer some of these questions.

This place has seen better days.

In the end Game of Thrones from TellTale is left wanting.  It feels like there is still another episode of content that didn’t get that would help answer our questions and give us more of a conclusion.  Season 2 is yet to be confirmed, so it seems kind of unfair to the player to leave so many loose ends to chase.  With all that does happen in this episode, and with the overall dark sense of the story, it’s also somewhat disappointing that it doesn’t feel like you really have any way to feel like you got a win in any of the possible endings.  Each choice ends up either terribly, or terribly gray and it would be nice to at least have one character come out of 6 episodes of game-play in a better position than where you started.  Though I still enjoyed my play-through I feel somewhat empty with it’s results.

As always, thank for reading and be sure to share and comment below.  Let me know what choices you made in your game and how it ended.

You can find my reviews for all of Game of Thrones episodes here or use the links below.

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5

Building a World: The Universim

The Universim continues it’s promising growth with an early access alpha showcasing some of the early game-play.  Moving beyond the previously released tech demo, this early build brings many of the promises of the developers, Crytivo Games, to life.

It’s a small world afterall.

Though this early release is quite limited, it’s full to the brim with potential.  After establishing your first early settlement, your people, or “nuggets” get set to work as assigned by you through the simple UI.  Whether they start gathering food, stone, or start building and expanding is up to you.  Each nugget can be assigned to these roles dynamically, and can be changed at any time depending on your current needs.

Your nuggets will go off to work, and require little attention from you.  Though you are to decide where and when to build certain advanced structures, your nuggets in Universim will decide where new houses are going to be built, and where they will go to gather resources.  This makes choosing your starting point very important so as to not have your nuggets wondering miles to collect wood or stone.

The dynamic planetary weather system is also key in your early decisions.  Each planet has it’s own unique environment and weather patterns.  A quick look at the available overlays will show you wind patterns, and temperature patterns to give you insight as to where to build.  Cloud and storm systems will travel across the landscape dropping rain, snow and occasional lightning across the land.  Placing your starting town in areas where storms are common, or where the temperatures drop greatly during the winter can be deadly early on.  Crytivo also promises random events will litter the surface with earthquakes, storms, volcanoes and the such throughout your game.

Them’s storm clouds a brewin’

Your nuggets are also dynamic, and each have their own thoughts and emotions.  In later game areas you’ll have to manage all of these aspects to keep a happy tribe together, and you can expect even more problematic issues coming up as you advance into the the modern age and expand across the planet surface.  People in The Universim will live thier lives, grow old and die.  As they age their stats will change to reflect this.  Young Nuggets are fast on their feet and able to carry more produce around, but as they age they slow down, and carry little to nothing.  Clicking on each one will show their stats and a quick biography of their family, and how many children they have.

Future depth to explore

A basic research tree is also available in this release, showcasing three trees of growth available to your society.  There is nothing really new here as most of the early technologies are fairly straightforward and lead to more abilities and buildings.  It will be interesting to see what direction The Universim goes with as you move into the modern and advanced ages.

Come, meet the family

This early build gives a great preview into the potential of The Universim.  The game runs smoothly with a limited amount of bugs, and the groundwork has been laid well for the basic functions of the game.  I’m really looking forward to the various additions forthcoming that will add more layers of challenge to the game.  We haven’t seen a really great ‘God” game in awhile and they have always been one of my favorite genres.  Crytivo games has their hands full with The Universim, but my early impression is that they are the right hands.

As always, thanks for reading, and be sure to share your comments below about The Universim.  Make sure to subscribe to me on YouTube for future updates!  Previous preview can be found here!

To get early access visit The Universim and opt in as an backer for immediate access to the Pre-Alpha build.

Follow @CrytivoGames, @TheUniversim

 

Called it! : Life is Strange Episode 5 – Review

Though still a very emotional and gripping story, Life is Strange Episode 5 falls for familiar tropes of time traveling Sci-Fi stories.  The end episode of the series brings Max Caulfield’s story full circle with an emotionally gripping, if predictable finale.  

Beware spoilers to follow!

When we left Max in episode 4, Chloe was dead, again, and Mr. Jefferson had been revealed as the big bad.  Both of these were predictable outcomes from the foreshadowing of earlier episodes.  I was disappointed with this “surprise” in episode 4, and I was disappointed even more by Jefferson’s total switch to psychopath here.  The man basically becomes an evil cartoon villain with his heightened expressions and full 180 degree switch in behaviors.  I was hoping to see a more layered villain, and not somebody off of the show Gotham.

What follows this opening scene is a series of time hops, and trial and error as Max tries to figure out how fix everything and make sure everyone survives as well.  The usual rewind, try again approach that we’ve seen in previous episodes is here.  We again lack anything new to try out early in the game  or get any complexity added to our powers.

Look into my eyes!

After this initial escape scene, Max goes about her day of messing around with time, after seemingly learning nothing about messing with time before.  What follows is a series of faux-endings as you jump back through time over and over to try and piece together the puzzle of how to stop Jefferson and save everyone else.  The episode does it’s best to talk about fate and destiny without ever mentioning the words themselves.

Here Life is Strange does a good job of first pulling the strings on all your hard thought of choices, then giving you the happy ending you thought you wanted, only to pull that away too.  The lead in into a trippy, paradoxical world of endless hallways, and Walt Disney like light up animatronic displays of all your choices once certainly and interesting way to go.  It did a good job of literally highlighting your experience through the story, as well as feeding both the guild Max feels for her choices, as well as adding emotion to the game’s final choice.

An everyday hero.

Unfortunately, I found that this final choice was where Life Is Strange faltered the most.  Though both choices available to you at the end play well emotionally after all the time spent with the two main characters, it feels like there was missed opportunity to go somewhere new here.  And yes, as the title of the review says, I wasn’t surprised with the choices at the end.  Either learn to live and die with your choices, or let fate and destiny do their thing and sort life out for you.

Overall, Life is Strange Episode 5 presented an emotionally gripping finale to Max Caulfield’s, and Chloe’s story.  This emotional connection was well built up and established throughout the story and the episode, and mostly makes up for the fairly obvious plot taking place in the background.  Choices made through the earlier episodes unfortunately make little difference here and weigh little into your final choice.  In the end it would have been nice to see something slightly more original done with this story and it’s characters, but it is still very rewarding to play through Life is Strange and experience the powerful emotional connection of two friends, destined to make an impact on you regardless of your choices.

No caption required

As always, thanks for reading, and be sure to share your experience with Life is Strange Episode 5 in the comments below, and make sure to share!

 

The Universim: Game Preview

The Universe is yours

I recently checked out the early visual prototype for The Universim. Universim is a god-like civilization builder in the mold of the Populous games. Brought to us by indie developer Crytivo Games, Universim is still in pre-alpha. Though the prototype is a visual format only, and doesn’t give us any real functionality yet, it does give us a good idea of the scale and overall look the developers are going for.

The starter “Mother Earth” planet you begin on shows off several biomes. These basic environments range from grassy fields, to massive rocky mountains, vast oceans and forested areas. It also gives you a rough idea of the range of tech you will have at your disposal. From small tribes, to farms, to giant skyscraper filled cities, the plan to allow you to build a society up to the advanced stages of space flight is also evident.

Like most god-like games, the planned gameplay revolves around your interaction with the native people of each planet you may visit. The Universim plans to add more dynamic abilities by leaving these societies growth completely to the AI, and although you will be able to affect environments and events, you will not be able to control people directly. This should add a level of unknown to the game, as actions you take may often not have the results you intend. This will be balanced with a “Wrath” meter, which will fill up as you take actions, and allow you to reign down destruction on your people when they decide to take actions you disagree with.

The developers at Crytivo games have bold plans for The Universim. Colonization will be a key factor with The Universim. You will be able to send ships to other planets in the universe and build new habitats for your people. With random generated planets a lot of care and planning will have to go into each colony, as varying weather and environment effects will give your people new challenges with each planet you encounter.

With the crowdfunding effort for The Universim still on going, I am looking forward to seeing how far the devs are able to go in their quest for rejuvenating the god-like genre with their new concepts.

Medieval Engineers, Early Access Game Preview

Game Preview; Medieval Engineers

I recently got my hands on the early access release of Medieval Engineers, currently released by Keen Software House on Steam. Medieval Engineers is a voxel based, physics game, that allows you to build massive structures and mighty siege weapons using real to life engineering concepts.

Currently in early alpha, Medieval Engineers supports only a creative mode at the moment, but has a vast array of tools at your disposal for building mighty fortresses out of stone, or simple wooden homes. The game features realistic volume and physics. This means each block you place has weight and as you build higher that weight is transferred down through the layers to create load. You have to keep these factors in mind. You can’t simply build to the heavens without first thinking about structure and how you will support it as you go. By default these physics effects are live, so you have to consider each step in your build carefully, or see your walls crumble to the ground as you try to build a new level to your castle.

The real beauty in this game currently resides in this same destructibility. Poorly supported structures crumble in a fantastic effect as stones crumble to pieces, wood splinters and cracks and a cloud of dust arrises. It is sometimes just as fun destroying a beautiful castle as it was to meticulously build each step. Though at this stage of the alpha, the game engine is not yet optimized and this magnificent destruction sometimes leads to dropped frame rates and crashes. The developer team however is quick to update and fix, and is quite vocal in the community. With a quick submit option whenever there is a crash it really shows they want to get the game fully functional soon.

The engineering community so far has been able to create some amazing structures, though many of these take advantage of a few unintended effects currently in the game, the results are still beautiful with both historical as well as fantastical castles and cities rebuilt in scale precision. This creativity was best expressed as I climbed the many steps to the top of Minas Tirith from the Lord of The Rings trilogy.

Holy s*@#!

The developers are very active, so the potential for creativity grows weekly. With teased multiplayer experiences coming in the future, great fortress battles should follow. New tools available regularly allow you to control even more of your environment and structures, even the sun. I am truly looking forward to more with Medieval Engineers whenever it achieves a state ready for final release.

Free to play, or fee to pay?

With seemingly everything going free to play these days, and the regular threat of pay to win arising each time where should we gamers stand? It’s true that most of these free to play options come on mobile devices, where the majority of people are looking for quick fixes, and generally a lack of attention span is required as built in wait times in most of these games require us to close app, an open the next app, or finish that email we were supposed to be writing at work.

Free to play games have existed for awhile in the PC market, generally associated with MMORPG’s like Star Trek Online, or Final Fantasy XIV, among others, and often cases also associated with games that failed as pay to play games. There are also other popular titles the likes of DOTA, and DOTA 2, or Mechwarrior Online: Mercenaries that were designed from the start with free to play in mind. All of these run under the principle of microtransactions that add to enough money for the developers to not only keep servers up and staff paid, but the expectation that new content will be released on a regular basis.

In theory it sounds great, we the players don’t have to pay for a game, and we still get at least some basic access to it’s functions, but without the bells and whistles, extra game functions, more experience points, new equipment or tools to speed up our characters’ development. But not unlike the surge of early access games, and playable alphas currently available, free to play models are often associated with games that are not complete, and may never be complete for those of us who decide not to buy in game currency, or penny up for that new suit of armour, or what have you. When does this balance begin to ruin the play experience?

Going back to a game that I had highly anticipated having played many of the previous versions, and having had one of my first forays onto online gaming with in the early 90’s, Mechwarrior Online: Mercenaries had me hooked early on as a potential game to relive one of the better communities I had been a part of before. Although a well made game, what it became instead, was a consistent tease of what I had hoped for. A game that would grow and build a strong community that I could be a part of. Instead, it became more of a card collection game, as rather than features being added on a regular basis, it seemed only a stream of new mechs and new items to stick on my in-game dashboard were coming my way. And although these additions didn’t affect the balance or playability of the game for me, the constantly extended wait for the community made it hard for me to continue to support the game, and the friends I had reunited with, slowly slipped away into a constant offline state.

The question then stands, would I have rather paid for a game that contained all the features I wanted, or played a game for free, and potentially spent just as much money on over the long term, in hopes they would eventually add the features I hoped for?

Certainly if given the option, I would probably choose to pay a fair price over being nickled and dimed for countless months. Free to play often is a great way to take a look see at interesting game without making a financial investment in it, but once you’ve decided you like the game, and want to continue to grow your character, is it really fair to have to make regular payments to do so? I can’t say yes.

What’s your opinion? Let me know in the comments below, or like or retweet if you agree.

Besiege: Early Access Review

If destruction, fire, and the occasional crushed sheep is your thing, Besiege is the game for you. Currently released in early access on Steam, Besiege is a physics based building game that allows you to build powerful siege engines to lay waste to the massive fortresses, tiny hamlets, and yes, unsuspecting sheep.

Developed by Spiderling Games, Besiege is a tinkerer’s play box. It drops you on a map with a clear set of goals, and lets you create whatever your mind can come up with to meet those goals. Currently limited to a series of tutorial maps, these goals can range from simple destroy missions, where you must destroy a certain percentage of the environment or troops on the screen, to obstacle courses and resource collection courses.

Not unlike opening a box of your favourite Lego as a child, Besiege gives you a variety of tools and equipment to build your creations. You need to figure out the right combination of components and moving parts to get the job done, and there are always multiple possibilities for each encounter. One early level for instance tasks you with destroying a tower located on a mountain, you can do so by rigging together some springs and pulleys and ropes to create a catapult or trebuchet, or maybe create a legged monstrosity to climb the mountain side, or a flying bomber that can rain hell from above. Your choices are limited only by your imagination and ability to take advantage of the game’s sometimes finicky physics engine.

The game also currently includes a sand box mode, which acts as a test ground for various designs with a variety of obstacles and targets to test your machines on. The real fun however is in the mission play and trying to figure out new ways to destroy your targets.

The visuals for the game, are cartoonish, and comedic, with massive explosions throwing debris across the map, or throwing soldiers up past the camera. Sheep splatter into satisfying pools of blood as your siege engines crush tme with spikes, bombs, and fiery balls of death.

With a quickly growing community of siege designers, a variety of both monstrous, and incredibly well thought out creations are also available to be shared and used in your own game, and each design can still be altered or improved for your own tastes. Individual components can also be redesigned and their effects changed to serve varying purposes, like increasing the tension on a spring, or the rotation speed of a wheel.

Though the structured mission play is currently limited to only one zone, with all of the bits and pieces available in the steadily increasing inventory, it’s not hard to find new and more inventive ways to cause havoc on each map. Besiege has shown a good start to a very creative game that you can spend minutes on, or hours trying to create that perfect weapon of destruction, or a perfectly balance flying contraption.

Overall 6.5/10

Preview: Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Currently in very early Alpha build, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a “realistic open world first person medieval RPG” as per it’s developers Warhorse, a relatively new company comprised of several members of the teams responsible for the design of Mafia and Mafia 2. Taking with the crowd funding approach, WarHorse has raised millions from dedicated fans to fund their project.

Set in the back drop of historical Europe in the early 15th century, players will take control of a young apprentice blacksmith and will become involved in events that will shape the future of Europe. With plans for an open world, that allows you to progress the story at your own pace, the developers plan to give you open choice as well in exactly how you progress. Want to be a knight, and lead an army into the field, sure, or you can be a bard, and whisper sweet nothings into the ears of current leaders and gain their favor. The choice is yours.

Built with CryEngine, Warhorse studios have grand plans to present not only a very realistic game, but also very beautiful. The current build available to some people who have participated in the crowd funding effort is quite striking, and although only contains one small town is full of detail and beauty. WarHorse studios also promises a realistic combat based on actual styles from the time, so no taking on a dozen combatants yourself. Fights are tough, and can be slow paced dependant on the weapons and armour used.

As character goes, the developers have put an enormous amount of detail into not only character stats and tendencies, but even into the clothing you may wear, with over a dozen equipable slots and layered clothing to give a very realistic take on how clothes and armours of the time worked.

Pushing for as much true to history thought as possible, the designers have also added skill based crafting as a new challenge to players. In order to do well as a crafter you will have to practice, it will no longer be the case of simply repeating a task over and over till your level in that skill increases, you will be challenged with mixing the right components together at the right time to create potions, or leveraging a blade at the right angle to sharpen it and make a great sword.

With still a lot of development left, and with developers at WarHorse who are very active in the community, I am looking forward to seeing new features as they are released and how this game shapes up with it’s current release scheduled for late 2015.

Review: This War of Mine

War is bleak. And though games like Battlefield, and Call of Duty try to show us the “fun” side, filled with explosions and headshots, This War of Mine takes a very different approach and lets us peer in to the many survivers living through a war torn area.

Released in mid November, This War Is Mine is, brought to us by the Warsaw based 11 bit studios, is a dark, realistic survival simulation set in a war torn European city on the brink of collapse. You take control of up to 3 survivors living in a bombed out abandoned building, and must locate resources through scavenging, keep your spirits and health up, and defend nightly against other possible survivors who may try to raid your belongings.

The first thing that jumps out from This War of Mine, is the unique visuals, based in a side scrolling 2D environment you control your characters by point and click and are able to scavenge your new home for supplies while you try to build improvements that will make survival easier. The dark, almost monochromatic color scheme adds to the weight of the environments, but the excellent use of lighting adds an amazing amount of depth and life to both your individual characters as well as their surroundings. Visual queues are also given for the state of your survivors, as an injured friend will limp around from room to room, or drop his head low as depression sets in, to the point of sitting and being actionless once all hope is lost, unless you can find some way to reinvigorate their spirit through other characters motivation or maybe helping a neighbour.

Yes, the core gameplay of This War of Mine revolves around choice, and is broken into two major stages. Each day consists of a daytime period where you stay at home and can build improvements, or manufacture tradeable items like cigarettes and moonshine. You are given a limited time each day, so how you manage that time is critical to your success. Though you remain relatively safe during the day, you are often making critical choices that will affect the night or the next day’s chances of survival. Often times during the day you will also be visited by locals knocking on your door, sometimes there to trade, sometimes asking for your help, and other times there to do you or someone else harm. Not knowing what may be on offer as you approach the door gives some tenseness to each encounter, as even helping a neighbour could result in some misfortune coming your way later on. The ultimate effect of these encounters is when a neighbour asks for your help, and you simply don’t have the resources to assist, the gravity of these choices affects not only the player but the characters as well, as they feel sadness and fear, or even hope after tough choices like these are made.

In the night the game switches gears and allows you to venture out from your shelter to explore the local environments in search of supplies. At first you are limited to only a few locations, but these expand as you survive longer into the game. Each location offers a limited amount of supplies, and varying degrees of danger. You can also on occasion find other survivors willing to trade, but the greatest fear each time you go to a new zone is that of the unexpected. The questions swirl on whether you will find survivors there, and will they be friendly, or shoot you on site, and yes, death is a permanent in this game, and injuries to your characters can be just as grave given the limited amount of supplies you may safely be able to recover each night. Choice again is key during these night missions, as each character has a limited amount of slots and you can only carry so much in one trip. You also have to make the choice of whether to fill your bag from home with items to trade, or sometimes whether you are desperate enough to steal, often times from people in worse situations than yourself, like an old woman trying to nurse her husband back to health, but that fridge full of rare food items might tempt you doom that family in order to survive one more day.

The overall weight behind all these choices is the true momentum of this game, as each day you are forced to make difficult decisions which could result in yours, or someone else’s death or survival. This War of Mine does a great job of each of these choices, whether it be a simple choice of what new items to build, or where to scavenge, or the tougher choices of which of your survivors gets to eat each day, or use medicine when they are sick. Changing environments, and the limited pool of resources make each day harder than the previous.

This War of Mine, is an honest, and weighty depiction of what many actual survivors in a warscape may have to do on a day to day basis to keep living. The amount of choice and consequences allow for infinite replayability and the unique art style adds well to feel of lost hope, where every minor success is something worth celebrating.

Overall 8.5/10

Streaming? Into the future…?

With Nvidia recently announcing its foray into the console business in this article on IGN.com, with it’s release of the Shield console, featuring their game streaming service The Grid, I began to think about the past of physical media and the potential future of how we may be gaming in the near future.

Before the advent of affordable compact disk drives, we gamers were all quite used to a massive case of floppy drives, be they 5 1/4 or 3 1/2, we knew we’d be spending potentially hours with installing larger games onto our PC’s with multiple disk changes along the way, and heaven forbid any of them ever got scratched! Our hearts would sink, and we’d scramble to see if a friend had a copy of the install disks so we could start over. Console gamers faired a little easier, with their mostly less bulky cartridges in over sized plastic cases. We would figure out ways to stuff a dozen of them inside a knapsack with our consoles to bring to our friends. In general we avoided magnets and spills, and hoped the batteries in the cartridges didn’t die and delete all of our saves.

Obviously gaming media has evolved over the years, from those very disks, and cartridges, to compact disks with their own accomplishments of getting to that next disk in big games like Final Fantasy VII for example, and dvd’s and then Blu-Rays. Able to store more and more information with each evolution and become more durable as well. One of the last steps being the direct download. Imagine, no media at all. You don’t even have to step from your home to the store, or mailbox to get your game, just click the link and wait till it’s nested itself on your hard drive, ready to install. The real reflection however is how the technology has mirrored the general need in current society for more and more immediate gratification. Enter streaming.

Now there is no longer a need for media, even your hard drive needs minimal space, click the link, start playing, and hope there is no lag. So how does this effect the industry as a whole? We already know that more and more publishers have gone away from offering hard copies of their games, and rely on direct downloads or Steam to get their products out, though it’s not measured if this is cheaper for the publisher, and results in better overall pricing for the consumer. This is especially apparent with big AAA games that cost the same whether a physical copy or a digital copy is purchased. As a consumer we’d think that downloading and not forcing the publisher to make all those expensive disks should result in cost savings for us, but it doesn’t usually work that way.

Where streaming will differ greatly in this equation is the need for the providers to run full servers that can handle the load of their customers’ demands without hiccups in service, or the aforementioned lag. This leaves us with immediate gratification of multiple titles available immediately with no wait, but the added costs of funding the providers to make sure we don’t experience slow downs or poor quality. We’re sure to see our average costs for this “convenience” far exceed our need for immediate gratification.

The nostalgic part of me fears the potential shift to more and more online only content, and the lack of a true feel for the collector’s heart that many gamers share. A shelf full of titles to show off to friends was always a part of the pride we felt when building our collection of games. That pride will now be shared with anyone who subscribes to the service, and diminished greatly as a result. As our need for more and more immediate access grows, are we leaving some of the fun behind?

Or maybe I’m just getting old…