I Review Everything: Day 252 – Waiting in Overwatch

I hate waiting in games. I really do. Which is part of the reason I’ve never really been into multiplayer games.

Overwatch has taken it’s grip though, and now I’m stuck in eternal loops of waiting.

Waiting for a friend to load the game. Waiting for a match. Playing that match. Waiting for a new game after a new friend joined. Going into a skirmish. Not enough players, waiting for a game again.

I actually think that I may have spent as much time waiting, as I have playing. Which is ridiculous since I just hit 100 hours of play time.

There’s just so much. It’s great being able to talk to my friends, but it all feels like a waste of time. But it comes with it. Unfortunately of course.

5/10

I Review Everything: Day 155 – Bad Ping

Living in New Zealand I’m pretty used to bad ping. Living so far away from servers causes low response times, and there really isn’t much to do about it. Of course the advent of Australian servers helps. And they are more common now than ever. But that doesn’t mean my ping issues have gone away. Like most New Zealanders they’re still here, and they still suck.

I have been playing a lot of Overwatch lately, keeping a close eye on my ping. At best it averages 60-70ms. Not perfect, but playable. Basically every time I have played though, that number has escalated. Usually to roughly 300ms, but I have even seen it reach heights of up to 1500ms.

At that rates games are unplayable. The characters jolt around you, bullets land next to where you aimed, and health is lost out of nowhere. I know New Zealand isn’t the only country to have these problems either. It’s a crappy thing. When fantastic games like Overwatch are released, it just sucks to know your scores are affected by ping. Of course I don’t want to blame my performance entirely on lag (I have horrible mouse aim), the feeling of bad ping lingers across games.

I’m pretty sure the big problem is our internet. We made a big mistake going with Vodafone. They are legitimately a disgraceful company. But of course Internet is pretty horrible all over New Zealand. I don’t know the true cause. But I know free trade and capitalistic ownership has a big influence over it. It’s a shame that something as joyous as gaming with your friends can be ruined by corporate greed. But that’s the system we want isn’t it?

Why did this turn into a political rant? Because right now my ping is too high to play Overwatch, and I must funnel my frustration into my writing. Screw you Vodafone. Screw you Chorus. And screw you National Party.

2/10

I Review Everything: Day 139 – Playing Overwatch until 4am

Oh wow, it’s 4am. I swear it was midnight just a while ago. Overwatch is beginning to take over.

I took a risk and tried a new character. Lucio. I’ve loved playing him. Actually getting to effectively contribute to eliminations is an awesome change of pace, but I still get to heal, I still get to do what I love doing. Sure he may not be as strong as some offence characters, but actually defending myself is a big draw.

The tricky part has been getting his ultimate down. Knowing when to use it is tough, and it takes so long to generate that it’s always a risk to use it. So I end up holding on to it, barely making use of the fantastic shields.

I wasn’t expecting to stay up this late. But it doesn’t matter, I don’t have plans tomorrow. Apart from more Overwatch.

8/10

I Review Everything: Day 126 – Farewell Disney Inifnity

Disney Infinity has been cancelled. They will release no further sequels. Everything planned is now gone. All we have left are the remnants of an ambitious franchise, that failed to capture more imaginations the way it caught people like me. Over manufacturing of stock is supposedly what caused the failure. Not enough people were buying the figurines. They simply built too many.

Now I must say goodbye. At least kind of. The previous games still exist, and I still have all my figurines. I’m not losing anything really, only potential. I’ve always enjoyed Disney Infinity, even through all the clunky gameplay, boring playsets, and weird character choices. I just loved the concept. I got to collect figurines, and play games at the same time. It was awesome seeing the games progress as well. They just kept getting better, with no signs of slowing. It’s unfortunate that it had to halt. I genuinely will miss the series.

I still remember the giant box I had to carry on the bus for Disney Infinity 2.0. I remember when I only had six figurines. Looking at my collection now, I don’t regret it. Sure it was a lot of money. But I had a lot of genuine fun. In a world full of realism inspired, gritty games; Disney Infinity was a chance to unwind with my favourite Disney Characters. I could go farming with Spider-Man, racing with Luke Skywalker, and loot hunting with Rapunzel. You can’t say that about many other games.

 

Another thing I will miss is the couch co-op. A dying game feature, couch co-op is still a great way to spend time with friends, especially in a game so simple and fun. Everyone who played with me spoke of how fun the game was. Whether we were fighting robots from the Incredibles, or destroying the Death Star with Darth Vader, we simply had a good time.

I will miss Disney Infinity. But I will never forget it. I will still play from time to time, and I will continue to display my figurines. But I will never forget the series.

My bank account will surely be happy though.

7/10
The cancellation is bad. The memories are not.

 

I Review Everything: Day 119 – Overwatch Open Beta 2

Yesterday’s review didn’t cover much. Why? Simply because I was having too much fun playing. Overwatch is great fun, fun I again wasn’t entirely expecting. In another attempt to expand my gaming, I’m trying out Overwatch in the interest of multiplayer shooters. It’s a genre I don’t play often; since I just never seem to have fun. But Overwatch is different. Overwatch panders to me through it’s roster of distinct characters, it’s visual prowess, and it’s reliance on team play.

The first thing I noted in the beta was obviously the roster. My biggest issue with most shooters is that you have everyone running around as the same guy. Sure they might have different guns, but it’s just a bit boring in my opinion. Overwatch has 21 different characters, and every single one plays different from the last. You have a floating monk who throws orbs that heal, debuff enemies, or damage, and then you have a powerful robot who can turn into a turret or a tank. A teenage girl who drives a tanking mech, a british speedster who can turn back time, there is something for everyone in the massive roster. I haven’t even had a chance to play every character since I’ve had so much fun playing as my favourites. Every character moves differently, shoots differently, just all around plays differently. And to me that’s awesome, it’s exactly what I want in a multiplayer game; diversity.

The game is impressive visually as well, running on what looks like a new engine, the game looks insanely slick, even while moving at great speeds. Every map is distinct in style, and learning them offers a massive advantage.Plus playing good looking games is just fun. Good visuals may not be everything in a game, but they sure do help.

Most importantly Overwatch forces you to work in a team, much like Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm, as without teamwork, you will never win a match. The game recommends team builds early on, warning you when there’s no tank or support, or even telling you that there is too much of one character. It’s a great way to get people to try out new heroes, as it sucks being the last to pick and seeing that the team is unbalanced. Don’t be that guy that picks Reaper even when there’s already two. Just don’t be that guy. Team building is fundamental to the mentality of the game, every builds need to change to accommodate the various maps and game modes.

Look Overwatch is great, and you should try it, at least while it’s free. I will continue to play it, and will likely even buy it now. My experience with multiplayer games is limited, so I’m of course not doing too well, but that doesn’t change how fun the game is.

8/10

 

I Review Everything: Day 118 – Overwatch Open Beta

It’s great. So great even, that this is all I’m going to write for the review.

10/10

I Review Everything: Day 111 – Time With Rocket League

One of the best features on Steam would have to be the free weekends. For 72 hours you can try a full game out completely free. A full game. Of course the games featured are basically always online, and I’m sure it works as great advertising for the game, getting more players onto perhaps dwindling servers.

This weekends game was Rocket League. A simple game where players drive cars around a small field attempting to hit a humorously large ball into the oppositions goal. Yes, soccer with cars. Now the thing is, I don’t really like soccer, hell I don’t even like sports. Which is precisely why I never looked at the game twice. Sure it looked cool, and I was happy to see such a creative title garner such attention, but knowledge of its existence was enough for me; I really had no desire to play. A friends recommendation changed my outlook. Not greatly though, I was only intending on seeing what the game was like, plus, it was free.

That outlook dramatically shifted once I played it.

Now I can’t tell you why I like it. It’s hard for me to describe, because as I said before, I don’t really like sports, nor sports games. But there’s just something so rewarding about the game. Why? Because it is ridiculously easy to play, and to write a cliche; insanely difficult to master. It’s easy to drive up and hit the ball. It isn’t easy to control the direction though. Oh, now you can control the direction? Cool an enemy is now doing the same, and you have to stop them. This kind of gameplay is addictive, as each close shot becomes incentive to succeed next time, and every goal drives an exhilarating passion for more.

I didn’t need to spend much time with the game to realise I would buy it; which I now have. There are so many great things to say about the game, and I am excited to play more. The soundtrack is great, the controls slick, and the graphics smooth. It’s a great experience, one I highly recommend.

But even after all of that, after every great triumph this game has proven to me, nothing satisfies me more than the progression system. Through playing you unlock a variety of customisations for your car, whether it be bodies, headpieces, or flags. A great way to create a unique vehicle for play. The best part? They are purely aesthetic. That rainbow boost doesn’t make me go faster, the viking helmet doesn’t give me bonus meade, no, they do nothing but make my car look cool. When I go onto the playing field, every players car is just as good as mine. Everything comes down to your own skill. And in my opinion, that’s what online games should be (Looking at you Battlefront).

Should you play Rocket League? Yeah sure why not. I’m not you, think for yourself.

9/10
Go buy it.

I Review Everything: Day 5 – Couch Co-op

Gaming has taken a massive shift in recent years, attempting to connect as many gamers together as possible. This shift has changed the way we play together, allowing us to join our friends at any time of day, in any location. Provided they have a good internet connection of course.

Because of this, couch co-op is becoming a thing of legend. No longer do we pack into a compact room, with all eyes glued to a single screen. Now we join each other online, communicating through headsets, never seeing each others faces. Game developers are also following this trend, removing the functionality of offline co-op, in favour of online.

Now, while I do enjoy online gaming, a part of me is always saddened when I can’t couch co-op a game at all, even as an additional feature. It saddens me that it is often now surprising to even see offline co-op in a game at all.

Just recently, an attempt to play Star Wars Battlefront on my PC with a friend was cut short when I found no offline co-op at all. What made this worse was the fact that you can play offline co-op on the console versions of the game. An omission on PC that makes no sense at all.

The only games that do seem to still have this feature, are usually more child focused. Games such the Lego series, Disney Infinity, or Skylanders. So in a spur of the moment decision today, I sent my copy Disney Infinity into my PS4, hoping for a short game to pass the time before work. My flatmate Max was in the room at the time, and he decided to jump in with me. Just like that, we had begun a session of the fabled couch co-op from years ago.

Playing as the angsty Kylo Ren, and the charmingly excited Poe Dameron respectively, we carved through waves upon waves of First Order Stormtroopers on the planet Takodana. Multiple times we set up enemies for each other, called out to be revived, and made jokes about how uncanonical what we were doing was.

Playing on the highest difficulty resulted in a lot of broken figurines on the screen, forcing us to make the painfully hard decision of who to play as next. But that was again part of the fun. Rapidly grabbing figurines, and launching them into the digital world, helped add to the excitement surrounding the entire experience.

The game made me nostalgic of the days of playing games on the couch with my friends, again, an experience that happens a lot less often these days. Partly because I am older, and I generally want more depth than offline co-op ever gives, but also because less and less games feature this old, but fun piece of gameplay.

Overall the experience reminded me of how fun couch co-op can be, even with something as basic as Disney Infinity. It is an experience I definitely want to try again.

8/10