Feb & March 2015 Update!

Hello friends!

Last month in a half has been pretty interesting. Me and my brother beat Dying Light and Halo 1 (Master Chief Collection version) in Bro-OP, I finally managed to mop of Final Fantasy 7, I’ve started Xenoblade Chronicles, I’m still working on Bravely Default, I got and beat The Order: 1886, I finally played and beat Hotline Miami in preparation for Hotline Miami 2, and I went to SXSW yesterday! I’ll touch on all of these things and maybe more! Woo and shit. Let’s start from the top of that list.

So Dying Light is the game that Dead Island wishes it was. It is a great open world zombie survival game. The parkour bit did a lot to help the game, and it worked amazingly. There were a few jump puzzle style things that were mildly annoying, but it didn’t detract much from the experience. Combat was quite smooth and very responsive, which quelled my biggest complaint about Dead Island since the combat in that game felt like shit. They definitely worked out the kinks with that for this game. This is pretty much the perfect coop game too. If you’ve got a friend/relative/whatever that is a gamer and you’re looking for something to coop, this game is really solid for that. I played the entire game start to finish over about a month cooping it with my brother. We kind of picked it up as a thing that we’d only play together coop (side note: It is possible that this game might be boring to play solo. That can be a thing. I wouldn’t know because I never played it solo). My only complaint about this game is the last 30 minutes to an hour (Basically the very last mission). You’re forced to do it solo for starters, where I had been cooping through the entire game before. It was a fairly mundane ‘lets climb up a giant tower’ exercise. There were some zombies and stuff, but aside from one section at the very start of the mission where you’re running from Volatiles (super zombies) there aren’t many threats. At this point of the game I was slicing through regular zombies like butter, and even a single special infected wouldn’t give me much trouble. So you get all the way up to the top, and you go through the final fight sequence of the game. Which is horrible. I won’t spoil it, but it was very disappointing. After this you’re left with a fucking massive cliff hanger ending. It was a really shitty end to an otherwise really great experience. If you’ve got a coop partner, definitely look into this game. If you’re running solo, maybe wait for it to drop down in price some. Still a really solid game though.

After Dying Light me and my brother started playing through Halo. I don’t really have much to add there, other than getting my stream setup for the Xbox One was a real bitch. I was having loads of trouble with my audio and it was really frustrating. We eventually figured it out, but I’ve got to figure out a solution so that people can hear my brother when we voice chat on Xbone or PS4. I’m thinking we’ll just leave Skype open with stream mics up. Should have a Bro-Op session sometime this week where we can try that out.

FF7 update is easy. I beat FF7 fairly shortly after I started streaming. I was closer to the end than I thought I was. Also started FF8, we’ve had two sessions of basically just early game grinding to make the rest of the game easier. Going towards getting Lionheart in Disc 1 so that the rest of the game is a cakewalk. FF8 is one of the FF games I’m not the biggest fan of, so I’m trying to make it as painless as possible. That is about all I’ve got there. That journey will continue – on most Sundays >.>.

In the JRPG front I’ve started Xenoblade Chronicles and I’m still working on Bravely Default. I’m liking Xenoblade Chronicles well enough, but I’m not really a big fan of MMO elements in JRPGs and the world seems a little too big right now. Like I’m getting a FF13 feel of doing way too much running. Anyways, Bravely Default is still really good. I’m getting to the point of the game where it starts repeating itself a few times. I’ve been progressing really slowly there, but it is still enjoyable.

And now the Order: 1886. I’m sure you’ve heard that the game is ‘short’ (It took me about 6 hours to beat). I don’t necessarily think this is an innately bad thing. One of my favorite Xbox 360 games was fairly short (Dead Space). The Order’s problems don’t really have much to do with the length. The biggest problem I think is that the game seems to mostly be a proof of concept or ramp up piece for a sequel. You spend the majority of the game investigating happenings and thwarting bad guys until the truth is revealed and then the last hour of the game lots of really interesting things happen that lead to a cliff hanger ending. The story is partially resolved but not fully, and it ends very much like ‘you’ll be the hero we need not the hero we want’ sort of thing. It is worth playing, but waiting until the summer lull and maybe a price drop is probably the way to go.

Hotline Miami was a game I was always interested in but never sat down and played. I managed to do this the week before last, as I was getting pumped for Hotline Miami 2. I’m going to be pretty short and sweet here. The game is really fun, very enjoyable, and has a fantastic sound track. If you haven’t played this by now you should. I haven’t started Hotline Miami 2 quite yet, but I will soon.

Last thing on the list was SXSW gaming expo. This was my first time going to this. The expo hall had more stuff than PAX South, but was a bit smaller. There were no ‘free’ panels I don’t believe. You had to pay for the actual conference (and it wasn’t cheap). I did get a chance to play some Axiom Verge and Titan Souls. I can’t fucking wait to play these games all the way through. They’re both soooooooooo good. Great visuals and gameplay in both of them. I think I spent a solid 30 minutes on both since neither was too crowded. These two games need to hurry up and come out so I can put way too much time into them.

I’m going to go back to kind of giving a general idea of what I plan on playing during the week. It’ll be very rough, but the games I’m playing should stay pretty static. Some days can get swapped around though. I’ll try to post these on Monday of every week

Monday: Minecraft Mondays! Feed-The-Beast Infinity

Tuesday: Final Fantasy 15 demo.

Wednesday: Final Fantasy Type-0 HD // Maybe Halo 2 BROOP

Thursday: Final Fantasy Type-0 HD // Maybe Halo 2 BROOP

Friday: MAYBE D&D. Maybe Ori and the Blind Forest Late Cast.

Saturday: MAYBE D&D. Maybe Ori and the Blind Forest Late Cast.

Sunday: Final Fantasy 8 (Series Run Sundays).

Future Games from Backlog: Xenoblade Chronicles, Bravely Default, Shadows of Mordor, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Sunset Overdrive, Hotline Miami 2.

That about wraps it up. Thanks for reading and as always I really appreciate the support.

 

 

 

10/12 – 10/18 Stream Schedule.

Sunday (10/12| 4PM-10PM) – Final Fantasy Day! FF7

Monday (10/13| 6PM-10PM) – Persona 4 Arena Ultramax (P4A Story)

Tuesday (10/14| 6PM-10PM) – New Release Tuesday! Tears to Tiara 2

Wednesday (10/14| 6PM-10PM) – Persona 4 Arena Ultramax (Continuing Story)

Thursday (10/15| 6PM-10PM) – JRPG Day! Tales of Xillia 2 (Continuing Story)

Friday – Won’t cast (Playing D&D, may start casting this at some point. TBD).

Saturday (Random) – I may stream something. Probably P4AU but maybe Tales of Xillia 2 or ArcheAge.

Thanks to the folks that support my silly stream effort and that come by and hang out. I really appreciate it!

http://www.twitch.tv/Klokworkk

 

August-September Update! Small PAX rundown, Destiny, and some streaming stuff.

Hey everyone!

August was PAX month and some other stuff has going on where I was fairly busy. I didn’t get to stream as much as I would have liked in the past few weeks and I’ve definitely slacked off on Final Fantasy progress. I’ve gotten less busy lately so i’m playing stuff again, and by stuff I mean I’m playing a metric fuckton of Destiny. I’ve streamed a good bit of it, and I’ve really been enjoying that. So today we’ve got a brief PAX rundown, a Destiny Mini-Review, and some updates to stream schedule (For the sake of progress!).

We had a bigger group go to PAX this year than normal, which was pretty nice. I also spent less time in the expo hall this year than any year previously and probably went to twice as many panels. Frankly because the Expo hall sucked this year. Unless you’re down with standing in 2+ hour lines, which fuck that noise. The panels I went to were all really great though. The best ones were probably the Giant Bomb live panel and the PAX Game Industry Rumble (which the Giant Bomb guys are a BIG part of). The Giant Bomb guys are hilarious and put on a great show. I hadn’t been to any of their panels before, and only went this year because I have started listening to the Giant Bombcast more and going to their website more frequently (I mostly read/watch IGN, Giant Bomb, and Escapist now). Overall, it definitely goes to show you that the PAX community isn’t really on the show floor and the panels are bigger. Next year I’ll probably make a point of spending next to no time on the show floor period and just go to a bunch of random panels. I wish I had gone to more of the Polaris panels this year. Overall, it was a great PAX. Definitely better than last year.

Destiny has been the big game in the news lately. It seems like the gaming press didn’t really care for it, which is sad. I kind of thing some of them didn’t really give it a chance, or maybe the game just wasn’t what they were looking for. It is hard to tell really. Personally I think the game is fantastic, and there is a lot of room for growth in the game’s universe (which Bungie plans on doing). The game is a bit grinding, but it is more-or-less another shooter take on the Diablo formula. It isn’t quite an MMO, but it comes close. At best I’d call it MMOLite. There are a couple of places to go that you can see more than just your party (Patrol missions and the Social hub), but you can’t (and really don’t) interact with these people in game. Occasionally there are public events and that is probably the only time the game kinda feels MMO-like. It is a great coop experience though. Get a friend or two (or 5 for the 6-person raids and PVP) and go kill some aliens. Most of the missions are well done, but you will end up seeing a lot of the same places. There is a good bit of repetition because of that. It probably won’t be as bad after they add a few DLC expansions, but there are only 6 strike missions to do outside of story missions. Many of these missions send you to very similar places, but you’ll take a different door to a different boss. It isn’t too bad, but the missions are all fairly similar (Go here, defend this, kill boss, that sort of thing). I’m having a blast with it so far though doing all the grinding for loot so me and my friends can do harder stuff, daily quests, and PVP. Overall, I’d totally recommend this to someone that has a group of friends playing or wanting to play. You’ll have a blast.

So some quick updates to streaming stuff here too. I’m still going to stream from Sunday – Thursday, but I’m going to kind of change up what I’m streaming for a couple of days. My general plan is this:

• Sunday: Final Fantasy Marathon (X – 10PM CST)
• Monday: Random (6PM – 10PM CST)
• Tuesday: New Release I purchase OR Random (6PM CST – 10PM CST)
• Wednesday: Random (6PM CST – 10PM CST)
• Thursday: JRPG Day (6PM CST – 10PM CST)
• Friday & Saturday are not scheduled so those will be totally random. It is unlikely I will stream on Fridays at all.

I decided on this basically because I want to make progress on the Final Fantasy marathon without burning out, and I wanted to make progress on my JRPG backlog as well. Those are also may favorite games and the stuff I would mostly want to feature when streaming (outside of new releases). Now Monday – Wednesday I could also stream a FF game or a JRPG, but Sunday and Thursday are the dedicated days. I feel like that makes the most sense. Also, all times are ‘ish’ times. Meaning I can be a few minutes late or early. I always post on Twitter when I start streaming though. This new schedule will start tomorrow.

I’ve got some other things I’m working on, but I’m not quite ready to publicly talk about them yet. Both endeavors will involve me creating more content, which could be fun. More on that once I have something to report.

That is it for now. Sorry there isn’t more here, outside of PAX I’ve had a fairly uneventful past two months as far as gaming goes :).

 

April and May Update! Final Fantasy, WoW, Streaming Stuff, review backlog, and more!

Hello friends!

I’ve got a good bit of updates to make for this post.  A couple of mini reviews, Final Fantasy progress, some changes to the stream schedule  including future FF marathon plans, and info on a new endeavor I’ve started. So this might be a bit of a long one. We’ll see where I end up 🙂

Reviews first: Titanfall and South Park: Stick of Truth. Going with my traditional single paragraph reviews.

My first impression of Titanfall was that it is a breath of fresh air in the competitive FPS genre. The first week it was out I played it a ton. The second week I played it less. After the third week I basically stopped playing. The game is great and really fun, but after three weeks I had gotten my fun with it. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. There is definitely a bit  a lack in variety in the game types and available weapons, but I don’t quite think that is it. Ultimately, I decided it is because after the novelty of the mechs wears off it is just another military shooter. It doesn’t really have anything going for it past that. So I really enjoyed what I played but eventually I just got bored. If you’re looking for a military shooter you can’t do much better than Titanfall. If you’re looking for a lasting multiplayer experience you may want to look elsewhere.

So when I first heard that South Park: Stick of Truth was going to be a thing I assumed it was going to be a dumb game with a lot of annoying TV show references. Then I heard it was going to have JRPG style gameplay. I was a little more on board after that. Then I watched some trailers and became really excited. To put it shortly, South Park: Stick of Truth is basically everything you’d imagine playing through an episode of South Park would be like. The game has a unique narrative and doesn’t steal from any of the existing shows. It plays very well. They don’t force the references, but there are a ton of them and they flow in naturally. There was a boatload of side quests as well, all of which were very entertaining. Overall if you like JRPGs and/or South Park you will enjoy this game. Definitely worth it.

So next up is Final Fantasy progress. This runs into my plans for streaming a bit, but we’ll focus on how the FF marathon is going here. So we’ve beaten FF1 – 5 and we’re about halfway through FF6. I haven’t really made any progress in a few weeks though for various reasons. Burn out contributing a little as well. As a result I plan on changing up some of my streaming schedule to be a bit more flexible. So let’s get into that.

I still plan on streaming at least 4 nights a week. I’m just not going to designate a specific game for any of my schedule. So instead of saying I’ll be playing FF6 on whatever day, I’ll just say I’m streaming that day. So to make it simple: my set in stone stream times are Tuesday – Friday from 6PM CST to at least 10PM CST. Sat – Mon will be extra streams with unspecified times, but I’ll post on Twitter and Facebook about them. Monday would also be 6 – 10 if that occurs. Additionally, at least one night a week I’ll be streaming a Final Fantasy game and continuing the FF marathon project. My goal is to complete one a month.

The only other major thing I’ve got going on is my recent return to World of Warcraft as my main MMO. I have decided against playing anymore Wildstar. Long story short I wasn’t a big fan of the gameplay. So instead I’ve decided to take another serious crack at WoW. I’ve made a guild with a couple of old friends, with the intention of creating a hardcore 10 man raid team to clear all the current high-end content and then move into the next expansion. This has been taking up a lot of my gaming time (as MMOs tend to do) as I attempt to get my old Shadow Priest back into a raid ready state. I’ve already streamed some Raid Finder stuff, and I intend to continue to stream raids for my guild. This sort of progress is very slow though if you want to do it right, so once I get to a point where I don’t need to do a ton of stuff for my character I’ll probably play less until the guild is raid ready. I’m pretty excited about this though, mostly because I miss raiding and playing a Shadow Priest. Shadow Priest has easily been one of the most fun characters I’ve played in an MMO.

In other random gaming news:

• I now have a Wii and a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles. I’ll try to stream that once I start it.
• I’ve bought a Vita, Persona 4 Golden, and DanganRonpa. I don’t have the capabilities to stream games from my 3DS/PSVita right now unfortunately. So I’ll have to play those during stream downtimes, which is fine :). You can expect some blog reviews about handheld games that I finish. I still need to finish Bravely Default too.
• I’ve already secured copies of Wolfenstein: The New Order, Transistor, and Watch_Dogs. I’ll probably stream Wolfenstein a lot next week until I beat it. Transistor I want to take my time with, so I’ll probably play it AFTER I play through Watch_Dogs on stream.
• I plan to do something for E3. I haven’t really decided what yet. I’ll take better notes this year though and actually make a post.
• I’ve started playing League again a little bit. Probably won’t get into it as much as I was previously. Mostly just wanna play with friends.

So with all of that, here are things you can expect from me now (kind of a TL;DR).

• Streaming at least 4 days a week starting this coming Tuesday.
• Continuation of the Final Fantasy Marathon, but taking it slower so I don’t burn out. Finishing FF6 in May.
• More WoW/MMO talk on stream and in the blog.
• Simple Paragraph Reviews for (at least): Wolfenstein: The New Order, Transistor, and Watch_Dogs. Hopefully Bravely Default or Persona 4 Golden too.
• E3 Post and a ‘Games I’m looking forward to’ post.

That is about it for now. I’ve got a few posts I want to make that aren’t update posts too. I might do one of those soon, we’ll see. Most of them are focused on MMOs, but I’ve also got some stuff in mind for Nintendo, FPS genre, and more! Thanks for reading, and check out my stream this week 🙂