System Shock Remastered: Will It Be Any Good?

What's going on guys, I'm back! Today I'll be sharing with you my first impressions from the System Shock Pre-Alpha, which came out on steam about a month ago and is free for everyone to try out. So without further ado, let's get started!

So in case you didn't know, System Shock is a futuristic RPG game with horror elements that is set in the future. According to Wikipedia, the game starts with you awakening in some sort of space station, and as a nameless hacker you must try to stop a malevolent AI. Naturally, I didn't know any of this since I didn't play the original and wasn't around to play it when it came out in 1994.

As for the gameplay, from what I could gather the game has you exploring the space station while solving different kinds of puzzles and defeating enemies, very similar to a lot of other adventure-horror type games. It felt very similar to a cross between Half-Life and SOMA, which is awesome since I loved both of those games and would definitely like to see more games coming out that are like them! The game seems to borrow aspects from both, with the creative puzzle-solving of Half-Life and the cinematic nature and story-driven gameplay from SOMA. There's one thing that definitely needs to be addressed for System Shock'
s full release however...

...It's the combat. From what I played, the combat was incredibly dull and empty and lacked any sort of real tension or strategy. When you get a lead pipe a couple minutes into the game and then see a robot that starts attacking you, the fight basically consists of moving in, hitting it, then moving back. Repeat that about 5 times and then you kill it. The monsters and robots that I saw in this pre-alpha also weren't very scary and all looked the same, which isn't a good thing when you're trying to make an atmospheric game with lots of tension and suspense.

The graphics do look very nice, especially considering the fact that System Shock is created in Unity, as it displays when you first start up the Pre-Alpha. The lighting, shadows and textures look good, but I feel like the look of some of the monsters could use a bit of work, as they don't look scary enough right now in my opinion. Visuals are not up to par with recent or upcoming AAA titles such as Battlefield 1 or Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, but they do look great. I'd probably rank them at about the same quality as Call of Duty 4 Remastered, which is set to drop in the IW Legacy Edition in November.

Anyway, to wrap it all up I really like this game so far, and hope that they give the combat and monsters a bit of a facelift for the final release, or maybe even an alpha or beta version of the game. You can't go wrong with a Half-Life and SOMA combo, and the atmosphere is excellent as well!

Here's some gameplay in case you're interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okPLF9Ad9ns

The project is being funded on kickstarter and has exceeded by $300,000 US its goal of $900,000, which really shows that there are a lot of gamers that are looking forward to this game as well! I'll post a link to the kickstarter page right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this quick little post! Are you excited for System Shock Remastered?!?

Thank you so much for reading, and with that, I'll see you guys later!

Zombieville USA 2: Mindless (But Fun) Zombie Slaying

What's up everyone, I'm back! Today I'll be talking about and somewhat reviewing Zombieville USA 2, which I used to play years ago on my iPod touch and had a ton of fun with, and when I got an android phone I anxiously anticipated it's release on the play store. Now that it's finally here, let's take a look!

Just like always, we'll first be discussing the gameplay. It's very simple but also addicting at the same time! You spawn into the level with 3 weapons and up to 3 perks which help you in various aspects, and it's your job to survive and kill as many zombies as possible until the timer at the top of the screen reaches zero, at which point a helicopter ladder drops down and you have to reach it to beat the level.

There's 10 different levels, which all vary in difficulty and types of zombies, but of course more zombies means you'll earn more money when you finish. The money you earn can be used to purchase new weapons and perks, and also upgrade the ones you already own. There's around 20 different weapons in the game, and each one feels and functions completely differently. There's an uzi, a pistol, a sniper rifle, an assault rifle, landmines, a minigun, a RPG, and many more guns, and each one is really fun to use. I found that I was excited to try out each new weapon I unlocked, and that's honestly how unlocking a new thing should be, so that great too!

As for the graphics, Zombieville 2 opts for a cartoony style nearly identical to its predecessor, which definitely does the job here, and adds a lot to the game through a lot of fun and violent zombie kill animations!

There's also some really cool things about this game not related to the actual gameplay. The first is that there's absolutely no microtransactions to be found anywhere in-game. You know how in most mobile games when you try to buy something but have insufficient funds and it directs you to the store to buy some? Well, there's none of that in Zombieville 2. I think this is fantastic because it takes me back to a time when not many mobile games had money-grubbing microtransactions and cheap easy ways to unlock the cool stuff. I love the idea of working hard for an achievement or unlock and then having the satisfaction of earning it, and that's how all games used to be.

Zombieville USA 2 is also only $0.99 on the play store, which is the second reason that this game is awesome. I remember a time about 5 years ago, when you paid $1 for a game like angry birds, cut the rope or doodle jump (games that I played way too much back then) and you got the full experience and the hours of entertainment that came with it, microtransaction-free. Now, there's a ton of games that should cost a buck but go for way more than that. Also, it's unfortunate that with games like candy crush flooding mobile gaming, that's not the case anymore. There was actually a story I found online that said some kid spent $46,000 US in a mobile game. That's totally insane, and really shows how possible it is to lose massive amounts of money on these games if you aren't careful. A few years ago, that might not have even been possible, since almost all mobile games were free of microtransactions.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this review of Zombieville USA 2 (and microtransactions rant). I'm sorry that my posts have to be so long-winded, but I'm very detail oriented and really want to make sure that I cover everything you need to know about a particular subject. Well, that and the fact that I just have a lot to talk about sometimes :)

I'll put a link here in case you're interested in the game:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.MikaMobile.Zombieville2&hl=en

Thanks so much for reading, and with that, I'll see you guys later!

The Most Disappointing Thing About Battlefield 1

Hey guys! Today I'll be talking about Battlefield 1, which will be released in October on PS4, Xbox One and PC. I'll be giving you all my thoughts on this game and opinions on the demos and livestreams that I've watched so far. Before we begin, I know that not everything I say will be representative of the final product. These are just the impressions that I got after gathering a bit of info on the game. So without further ado, let's get started!

As you all know, back in early May the reveal trailers dropped for BF1 and CoD Infinite Warfare. CoD got absolutely torn apart by most gamers who didn't want a futuristic entry for the fifth year in a row, while Battlefield received lots of praise for doing the opposite of Infinite Warfare and going back to the past, which is what FPS players have been asking for for a while. In the gameplay trailer, there were all sorts of cool things shown, like trench warfare, horse riding, and all sorts of unconventional melee weapons that were unique to the WWI time period. So based on this, I assumed that we would be getting an authentic World War One experience. However, after watching the first live stream at EA Play on the 12th, I realized that the game wouldn't be like that at all. After it was over, the only takeaways I had were that the weapons look different and have a lot more recoil, there are dynamic weather effects which don't actually do anything in the match as far as I'm aware, and that's pretty much it. The game seemed underwhelming to me, and just like a re-skin of Battlefield 4, albeit a much better one than Hardline.

Of course, you've still got the large scale 64 player battles, fully destructible environments, and large levelution events, such as a massive airship crashing when it's shot down. To be fair, I thought that this event was really cool since after the airship is shot down, it could land anywhere on the map, although it seemed rather random and there wasn't any way to control the landing area. When the airship crashed, it would destroy any buildings under it and create some wreckage that players could hide in and use as cover, which did seem like a nice levelution event that did alter the gameplay in some way.

Some of the weather and visual effects looked really nice as well, and I thought the way that raindrops collect and drip off your gun when it's raining was an especially nice touch that definitely added to the immersion. The textures were very crisp and beautiful as well, although I don't think they were much better than those in Battlefield 4 or Hardline. In this area, BF1 gets beaten out by Star Wars Battlefront's photogrammetry techniques to re-create famous Star Wars battles, and surreal lighting and textures. Even though SWBF 2015 was awful in my opinion, the game did at least get the visuals right. Overall, BF1 isn't a bad looking game, and I don't think it will have any trouble keeping up with the other AAA games dropping later this year, but in terms of out-doing it's predecessors it just doesn't cut it.


At the end of the day, I don't think that Battlefield 1 is or will be a true successor to Battlefield 4, and just looks like a reskin. DICE didn't seem to be interested in making a new experience for players, and instead just opted to go the lazy route and just throw a new coat of paint on BF4, which made far more innovations compared to its predecessor, such as massive levelution events, 64 player matches on consoles, and commander mode. So far, this game doesn't seem to have anything super innovative about it, and that's a shame because they could have done so much more with this setting.

As you probably know, there will be a beta sometime this summer or in September that will give me the chance to actually play BF1 for myself. As such, you can definitely expect another "thoughts" post after the beta is over. There's still a lot more of the game that we haven't seen yet, and I'm hopeful that something that's in there is innovative or different from previous Battlefield titles that makes it worth checking out.

Before I go, I also know that a lot of people are super hyped for this game, and I'm not trying to extinguish your excitement at all. I'm just highlighting some important points on the game that Battlefield players and gamers in general should pay attention to. I also don't think that this will be a bad game, because as you know, there are people out there who take things like this out of context sometimes.

So, that's it for this post! I hope you enjoyed, thank you so much for reading, and with that, I'll see you guys later!

Awesome Online Game: Plazma Burst 2

Hey guys! I know it's been a long time since I last posted, but today I've got something new for you! This time I'll be showing you a really awesome online game that I found a few years back, even before I had a blog. The game is Plazma Burst 2, and it's a side-scrolling shooter game where your only objective is to reach the end of the level, and as with any shooter game, there will be enemies trying to kill you, so naturally it's your job to annihilate them with an arsenal of different weapons available to you.

There are 50 levels in the campaign in total, and they are all intense and really fun to play. There's a mission where you pilot a walker and a buggy, one where you use lots of boosters on the ground to fly through the air and destroy enemies from above, one where there's multiple teleporters and you and the enemies are utilizing them to try to get an edge on the other, and even one with invisible . It's a really fun game, and in terms of gameplay I've probably got about 20-30 hours out of it in total. That's more playtime than I have on a lot of games that I paid for, which is a real testament to the amount of fun available in the game!


As for weapons, there are about 15, ranging from assault rifles to pistols to shotguns to plasma guns to rocket launchers and even dual energy swords! The weapons are all really fun to use, and there are also multiple variants of each. For example, there is a variant of the assault rifle for you, one for the human enemies, and one for the alien enemies, all of which have different rates of fire and damage profiles, in addition to looking different.

There's also a way to slow down time in Plazma Burst 2, which you'll definitely need because of the very rapid pace of gameplay. It's also really fun to blow your enemies apart with shotguns and rocket launchers in slow motion, which is something that you'll really enjoy with this game!

The game even somehow includes multiplayer. I'm not entirely sure how they made it using html code, but they did! I haven't really given it a serious look as I've only played one or two games of it, but from what I did see, it wasn't too bad.

One of the biggest issues with the game is that there's no fullscreen mode! I always like to have as big a viewing area as possible so I can easily and comfortably see what's going on, but it's only possible to play in a tiny window on the website, which is frustrating. That's definitely something that the developer needs to take a look at.

Before I go, I'm sure you've noticed that there's not as many images in this post as usual, and that the one that is here is terrible quality, and that's because I'm having some strange errors whenever I try to add an image in 720p or 1080p. It tells me that "This page contains HTTP resources which may cause mixed content affecting security and user experience if blog is viewed over HTTPS". I have no idea what that means since I'm not browser savvy, but I'll definitely be looking into the problem in the future and trying to solve it to the best of my abilities.

Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed this post, and if you're interested then you can play PB2 right now!

http://www.plazmaburst2.com/?s=2

And with that, I'll see you guys later!

Battlefield vs Call of Duty 2016: Who Will Come Out On Top?

What's up guys, today I'm back with another post! This time it'll be a discussion on Battlefield vs Call of Duty, where each franchise stands in relation to the other, and which game will come out on top!

So, if we're going to be talking about these games, the main thing that needs to be brought up is each new iteration that's coming out this year, Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1. Something that's evoked a lot of complaints from Call of Duty players is the fact that Infinite Warfare is also not only set in the future, it's set in the far future, as in laser guns and interplanetary travel. The setting is getting more and more far-fetched, ridiculous and laughable every year, which is probably the reason why it's being absolutely obliterated by the fanbase, seeing as the reveal trailer has a massive 950,000 dislikes! This is the most in-character move that I could expect from Infinity Ward and Activision at this point, since the last three Cod games were all set in the future despite fans constantly asking them to make a historical game or at the very least, a modern one. It's also the biggest showing of incompetence that I could imagine. In the interview, the lead designer talks about how the team is 'super excited' to show players what they've made, and that this game will be everything that players want and "expect" from Call of Duty, as if we still have any expectations from this dying franchise at this point. Are Infinity Ward's egos so inflated that they feel that their vision of a futuristic cod game can completely outpace the player's desires and the game that they want to play? Judging by this behavior, I can't help but completely agree with that. Keep in mind that this isn't the first time Infinity Ward have dropped the ball in a major way. The abomination of Call of Duty Ghosts is the biggest example of how they have had no idea what they're doing since Vince Zampella and the original lead devs left. Between massive maps with tiny player counts, insanely quick time to kill, and the removal of everything that made Black Ops 2 good, Ghosts was, simply put, an epic fail that made me facepalm super hard at it's aura of amateurism. Another thing that I hate about Infinite Warfare is that it looks like once again, they're stealing ideas from other games that have actually had some originality in the past,

And on the other hand, gamers are going absolutely wild for Battlefield 1 (and in a good way!). The new Battlefield game is set during WWI in the 1910's, and as such it features weapons from that time period. It seems like Dice looked at what Infinity Ward was doing and the public backlash, and decided to do the opposite of that to appease the fans, similar to what the PS4 did back in 2013 relative to the Xbox One. To be honest, I'm not really sure what to expect from this game, as I know hardly anything about World War One. Even though I wanted another modern battlefield game, I think that this will be better, especially since we've got a modern game for the past three releases and it would be great to see some diversity in the franchise for 2016's game. As you can see in the picture and in the trailer, there is a guy using a flamethrower, which I think is awesome since it means that there will be a usable flamethrower in the game, and those are always fun to use in multiplayer FPS games. Although Battlefield 1 takes place a hundred years ago, Dice have said that the game will feature a wide variety of vehicles, including tanks, aeroplanes, and even horses! I'm a huge fan of the battlefield series and I think that these games are better than Call of Duty in every possible way; they have much bigger maps with vehicles, 64 players at once, and overall large scale warfare that Cod will never be able to match. It's not even debatable that BF4 took advantage of the next-gen consoles of the time a lot more than Ghosts did.

I also hear that there's going to be an open beta sometime in August or September, which you can sign up for now. I'm definitely doing that so I can try the game out, because I'm really excited for this game!

And does anyone else find it strange that the Infinite Warfare trailer on YouTube is one of the most disliked game trailers while the BF1 trailer is one of the most liked? It really demonstrates the level of interest by gamers in these two franchises, and I'd even go so far as to say that Battlefield might actually steal Call of Duty's crown in the FPS genre. A few years ago, I would have said that's not possible, but it looks as if that's what is happening in 2016.

What are your thoughts on Call of Duty and Battlefield and the state of the mainstream FPS genre at the moment?


Thank you so much for reading, and with that, I'll see you guys later!

My Thoughts on Slither.io

Hey guys, I'm back with another post! Today I'll be talking in general about the browser phenomenon Slither.io, which is also an android app on google play. This article will probably be pretty unstructured and random, so be prepared for that. Anyway, let's get started!

So in case you didn't know, Slither.io is a game that you can play in your browser on PC. The game seems to somewhat resemble another browser game, Agar.io, which had the exact same ".io" tag after it and has the same general goal. The objective in Agar.io was to basically get the biggest cell out of all the players in the game, and you had to eat food and absorb other cells to get as big as possible and top the leaderboards. The goal in this game is similar, but there are some key differences that make a huge difference in terms of gameplay.

One of the things that sets slither apart from agar is the fact that when you collide with another player, you die no matter how big you are compared to them. The thing that's great about this is that you have somewhat of a fighting chance from spawn, and you won't just get outright steamrolled right away by big organisms like in Agar.io, although bigger snakes do have an edge. This also makes for some really intense situations where there are multiple snakes all trying to push out in front and force a head-on collision from the others so that they may absorb the essence of the ones that have fallen. It's an intense game without a doubt, especially since it takes so long to get huge and you don't want to die and lose all the effort you've put in before you've reached the #1 spot.

And that sums up the entire game pretty well. It's an incredibly simple game to play, and that's probably why it's become such a smash hit among pretty much everyone recently. It's a game that anyone can pick up and play, and because of the accessibility, it's played by kids, adults, people at school, my friends, major youtubers, and basically everyone else you can think of. It's really fun for me to try to out-do my friends in the game and prove my skills, and it makes for some truly memorable moments when you or they get eliminated in a hilarious manner.

There are some issues though. First of all, once you have typed in the username you want for the game and click play, it literally takes about 10 minutes just to start up. Having to wait so long just to start playing the game is definitely an issue that needs to be fixed. Also, the app has some serious framerate drops when there are lots of snakes on the screen at once, and I found that the controls on the mobile game aren't too great. You're supposed to make your snake move by dragging your finger across the screen, but as a result your screen is obscured and you can't see where you're going or what you're doing. I think that a virtual d-pad would fix this issue, and should be implemented or, at the very least, added as a UI option in the game settings.

Overall, I think that Slither.io is a really fun free game that is worthy of becoming a phenomenon on the internet, and it's a great time killer when you've decided you don't have anything else important to do. I'll definitely keep playing this for a while!

So, those are my thoughts on Slither.io! What do you think about this browser hit?

Thank you for the support, and with that, I'll see you guys later!

My Thoughts On The Doom Open Beta

Hey everyone! It's really been a while since I've made any sort of content on this blog (I think my last post was the Android N Preview Rundown) but today I've got something new for you to read! In this post, I'll be talking about the Doom Open Beta that ran from 4/15 to 4/17 this weekend. So without further ado, let's get started!

Reviewed on PS4

First of all, this is not a beta. This is a demo. I found the game to run extremely smoothly at 60fps with no slowdowns and no bugs or graphical glitches whatsoever. If this were a beta, the game would definitely have at least some of those issues, but you won't find them here. Besides, the whole point of a beta is to release an unfinished prototype to testers and then make tweaks to balance and game code and things of that sort. So basically, to find out if the game is broken and anything else is wrong (and then proceed to fix it), you need to release a beta test version a lot more than one month before the game comes out. This game is releasing on May 13, which means that there's literally a month until the final release. I have the sneaking suspicion that they actually do have all the multiplayer maps and gamemodes and whatnot finished, they're just withholding them from us on purpose to have a reason to actually call this a beta. Trust me, it's not a beta. It's a demo that lasts for a few days with a fraction of the finished game's content. Anyway, now that that's out of the way, let's discuss the game.

The most important thing in a game in my opinion is gameplay. So what's it like? Well, this game tries to be a hybrid of fast-paced arena shooters like Quake, and slower paced console-pandering games like Call of Duty. The end result is an abomination that does not cater to either crowd. It's like Doom can't make up its freaking mind about what it wants to be, so it just ends up being trapped in the middle and tries to do everything while succeeding at nothing. This might be due to the fact that the game was most likely developed specifically for consoles and then ported to PC, and Bethesda and ID Software know that a real arena shooter can only be played properly with a keyboard and mouse, so they just decided to water down the gameplay to make it possible for the consolers to enjoy. The result of this decision is a game that does not take advantage of the PC's capabilities and does not satisfy the PC communities' expectations, and I don't blame them for thinking that this game is garbage (36% positive on Steam!).

Another thing that I don't like at all about this game is the fact that there are loadouts. The whole point of an arena shooter is that you spawn with nothing and then have to pick up the weapons from different parts of the map. Why are we just throwing that idea in the trash? Just to protect casuals and console players? Oh yeah, I just remembered that this isn't an arena shooter. It's a pathetic attempt to recreate one that has a lot more in common with Call of Duty. This is totally unacceptable. Check out this review from one of my favorite reviewers, he has pretty much the same stance on it as I do.

Regardless, I still had a bit of fun with the open beta, although this was probably just because it was something slightly new, and pretty much all games are fun for the first few hours. It might also have been because the game's skill gap is so compressed that you can pick it up and be destroying people within five minutes. I'm sorry, but that's just not right.



There are seven weapons in the game, the Heavy Machinegun, Super Shotgun, Plasma Rifle, Static Rifle, Vortex Rifle, Rocket Launcher, and Lightning Gun. I played with all of these weapons except the Static Rifle and liked most of them, although I really wasn't a fan of the Rocket Launcher in this game. It felt way too weak compared to the other weapons, which is surprising considering that launchers tend to be the most overpowered guns in FPS games. Instead, the Super Shotgun takes the cake as being the most overpowered weapon in the game. Seriously, this thing is ridiculous. It always kills in one or two shots, while guns like the HMG have to land about 20 shots to get a kill. That really needs to be balanced before the final multiplayer release. Other than that, I found that all of the weapons in the open beta were pretty well balanced.

As well as guns, there are also three pieces of equipment that can be inserted into loadouts; the standard Frag Grenade, the Personal Teleporter, which you throw and then teleport to wherever it lands, and the Siphon Grenade, which steals health from enemies and heals you in the process. There aren't really any issues here, although I did feel like the Siphon Grenade was way too weak compared to the Frag Grenade, so of course that needs to be buffed significantly to have a chance against other equipment.

There is a bit of customization in the game as well. You can add patterns and colors to all of your weapons, as well as being able to rename them to whatever you want. You can also change the armor pieces, as well as add colors and patterns to it. Finally, you can change your character's taunt, which is the action that they perform when you get top of the leaderboard and your character is shown on the victory screen. All in all however, I didn't feel that the customization was very deep or meaningful and could have easily been left out entirely.

As for the graphics, I thought that they were not only nothing special, but looked mediocre at best. Nothing really impressed me in this department, but I can overlook it since I don't really care about graphics in games. I'm perfectly happy to play a game from 1995, even though I wasn't around back then to play games. As long as the game is fun, I don't care. To make up for the average graphics, the game does run at a buttery smooth 60fps even on consoles and doesn't show any signs of slowdowns in any areas. I almost said that this was impressive, but we should have much higher standards by now. Every game we play on consoles should run at 60fps no problem in this day and age. The fact that we're only two years into the Xbox One and PS4 and they've already reached their technological limitations is a true indication of their actual worth and capability.

So far, there's two maps in the beta, heatwave and infernal, and two gamemodes, Team Deathmatch and Warpath. Basically, Warpath is king of the hill where you have to capture and hold a hill with your team, except the hill is constantly in motion along a set path. I thought this game mode was an absolute blast to play, and really made up for the sub-par, lackluster, and ultimately uninspired Team Deathmatch mode.

There are some pickups lying on the ground throughout the map, including tons of health and ammo crates, a massive railgun that is an instant kill weapon, and a demon rune, which causes you to become a hugely unfair and overpowered demon with twin rockets that instantly kill players and deal splash damage. The demons in this game need to be seriously nerfed, because it's really frustrating to be constantly stomped on by them by a player who happened to get lucky enough to find it in the match.

Overall, Doom seems to not only be a pretty generic FPS game, but also an abomination mash-up between two different genres of games, similar to what happened with Call of Duty Ghosts. The beta was fun this weekend, but in the end this isn't a game I can see myself paying $60 for and then continuing to play into the future. Unless the single player offering is absolutely fantastic, I think I'll give this one a miss. I thought that this would be the first multiplayer game that I would truly enjoy on my ps4, but I guess I'll have to keep waiting...

So, that wraps up my thoughts on the Doom Open Beta, what do you think? Is this a game you'll be interested in buying?

Thank you so much for reading! :D

And with that, I'll see you guys later!