Titanfail - Respawn Updates Titanfall PC with LESS Content, Not More

So this past week, Respawn Entertainment released Titanfall's first piece of DLC.  Three all-new maps for ten bucks.  FPS players are no stranger to overpriced map packs offering "more variety" to their experience, and while I could go on at length about how map-packs used to be community-generated content, and ways for developers to support players, and their game, instead of scummy sales tactics and cash grabs, I'll let that go by the wayside so that I can bitch about what I came to bitch about.

Released alongside the "Expedition" DLC was an update for Titanfall that had more than its fair share of bugs, that are currently being hotfixed and worked on.  What wasn't a bug is this: Capture the Flag and Pilot Hunter game modes have been REMOVED as options when selecting "Play Multiplayer".

Respawn cites these modes as "not being widely used on PC" and having "overlong wait times to find other users, and it was making for a poor experience". (If you're so inclined, you can read the rest of that blog post here.)

This Week in Gaming - March 31st - April 5th

Tsaikotyk and myself have talked regularly about doing news wrap-ups in the past, and I figured it was about time that we do one.  There's not much from March that we haven't covered (besides D3: Reaper of Souls), so it's a pretty good time to get a jump on what's going on in April.

ANNOUNCED
Divekick Addition Edition hits tomorrow, April 4th, and has in store a BOATLOAD of changes. Not one character went untouched in this revision, and The Baz even got completely redesigned. In addition to this, the menus have been redesigned to work with directional pads, bugs have been fixed, and the style gem has been updated. For a complete list of changes, check out this list on Shoryuken.


RELEASED
Ashly Burch, famous for the webseries "Hey Ash Whatcha Playin" and her voice role as Tiny Tina from Borderlands 2, has just landed herself as the host in a new Geek and Sundry web-series.  Titled "Unplugged", the series takes two YouTubers and pits them against each other both in-game and the real world.  Contestants will have to battle it out in a predetermined game, but that's not the fun part.  After competing on the digital scale, players will then go head-to-head in a real-world competition that is as closely-related as safety allows to the game that they just completed.

Always glad to see the Burch family getting things done outside of HAWP, and I'm sure having Ashly as the host of Unplugged will do great things for both Geek & Sundry and Ashly herself.

PATCHED
Titanfall got its first major patch this week. After about a week of beta testing, Respawn has initiated changes in the way the matchmaking works.  The change is currently only in effect for Attrition and Hardpoint game modes, but is designed to put skill-matching above speed and level-matching.  After a few rounds, if the computer notices a clear difference in skill, it will make an attempt at remixing and re-balancing the teams. This should make games far more enjoyable and remove the frustration of being repeatedly dominated with no hope for new opponents.

The Big Releases of March 11th, 2014: Titanfall Review, Dark Souls II First Impressions

Having played as much of Titanfall and Dark Souls II as my tight schedule allows, I figured it was time to post my thoughts. Titanfall, being the bigger release, has gotten the bulk of this time, so a full review follows, whereas the sadly neglected Dark Souls II only gets a brief look at my first impressions with the few hours I've spent with it.

Review: Titanfall - Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots

Last week I had the (dis)pleasure of being available for the midnight release of Titanfall on PC (via EA's Origin).  Now I know what you're thinking: "But Latency!  You told us you weren't going to be caught dead anywhere near that bug-ridden, server-crashing, lag-inducing piece of filth for the first week!"  Well, you'd be right except that money talks, and so when Tsaikotyk threw $80 at my PayPal and told me to go pre-order the digital deluxe edition, who was I to argue?

I probably should have though, because the launch was about everything I expected.  I spent roughly five hours in the game client and about one and a half actually playing.  The developers publicly acknowledged on launch night that there was a 'glitch' that caused the game to 'initialize' when searching for a server connection.  This didn't mean anything except that the client was now stuck diddling itself and didn't care much for connecting you.  Fucking called it.

First Impressions: Titanfall Beta (PC)

The new title from developers Respawn Entertainment (better known as "formerly Infinity Ward") dropped the beta for their upcoming sci-fi shooter, with giant fucking robots, this past weekend, and wrapped it up on February 19th.  It goes without saying that the good people working on this title have more than their fair share of experience in the first-person shooter genre.  The question that seems to be on most fans (or haters) minds is: how will Titanfall stack up to Call of Duty?  Lucky for you guys, I'm here to help answer that question with my limited experience in the PC beta for the game.

Next-Gen Garbage: Revisited

So E3 is over.  Now that Sony is done making Microsoft look like an ass and Microsoft is done making Microsoft look like an ass, it seemed like the perfect time to revisit this topic.  I know that I was originally pretty hard on both consoles, but this was also at a time where all we had to look forward to was a new Assassin's Creed, a new Call of Duty, and Watch_Dogs, which is releasing on both current and next-gen platforms.

Now, after press conferences from both MS and Sony, along with two major developers that will be releasing content on both platforms,  I have to say that I've got somewhat of a new outlook on the future of gaming.  That doesn't, however, mean that it's bright.

E3: Abridged - Part III

So here we are at the one-week mark from E3 and I still haven't finished my write-ups.  You can blame The Last of Us and, by association, @Tsaikotyk for getting me on that train.  Expect to see Part IV tomorrow, as I should finish this series off before it becomes too irrelevant.

Electronic Arts (EA):

Chief Operations Officer Peter Moore kicked off "The Download", EA's press conference segment.  He stated that everything we'd get to see would be for the upcoming generation's Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles.  He got things rolling with a "beloved franchise that, over the years, has captivated millions of fans worldwide".

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare - With a trailer opening that looked like it would be EA's cash cow Battlefield 4, we instead received a 4-player-cooperative-third-person-shooter variation on the PvZ franchise.  Goodie!  Just what every tower-defense player wanted!  Yet another bland, generic horde-mode shooter.  Dear PopCap, fuck you.  Nobody wanted this.  Your idea to take "everything we love about action games and blend it with everything our fans love about PvZ" (Brian Lindley, Producer) is a piss-poor excuse to pander to the OTHER masses.  The ones playing Call of Duty and Battlefield, and give them something.  Well guess what?  IT WON'T WORK.  Hardcore gamers already have their realistic shooters, 4-player-coop-shooter fans already have their Borderlands 2, and casual gamers already have the ACTUAL Plants vs. Zombies.  This is the kind of blind developmental stupidity that is causing so many studios to go belly-up.  When you try to cater to every demographic, your game loses vision, flavor, and becomes the bland forgettable first/third-person shooter #3234273 that nobody talks about.

Oh well, at least you announced Peggle 2, and that will keep you afloat for another 7-10 years.

Titanfall - Two games made their debut on stage during Microsoft's conference, and were later reshown during EA's own conference.  One of which was Titanfall (and the other being Battlefield 4, but who cares).  Having already shown us the semi-cinematic trailer, and some quality gameplay footage during Microsoft's stage time, Respawn gave us a little behind-the-scenes look at the game with some of the developers.  These people were working to create a fun game that blended the scale between the pilots and their mechs.  An attempt at creating a multiplayer game that still gave you the feeling of a single player experience.  And of course, redefining those giant robots.  Titanfall still looks awesome, and I can't wait to play it on the PC.  =)

There was a short blurb between presentations about EA's two new engines for the upcoming generation.  In-house you had the EA Sports division working with EA Sports Ignite, and you had DICE (developers of Battlefield and Mirror's Edge) using the new Frostbite 3 engine.  An engine that they'd be using in the upcoming game: STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT 3.  YES IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING.

Need For Speed: Rivals - Coming on stage after Ubisoft gave EA a huge disadvantage for their racing game.  The Crew already promised to blend single and multiplayer experiences together in a living open-world racing game.  So when EA showed us NFS: Rivals, it was pretty underwhelming.  Through "AllDrive", they'd blend single, coop, and multiplayer modes together into one fluid experience.  The game also has some level of tablet support.

Then star of Breaking Bad, Aaron Paul walked on stage and got to talk a little about his role in the Need For Speed movie.  Fucking why?  We've already got 6 Fast and Furious films.  Why make another branded by EA?  The director Scott Waugh commented that "Need for Speed is accurate and authentic to real car racing culture".  This quote was immediately followed by footage of a police SUV being flipped off the side of the road, so I'm not entirely sure he knew what he was talking about.  The movie will be hitting theaters in 2014 and I plan to ignore it.  I will probably be too busy playing The Crew to notice.

Dragon Age: Inquisition - EA didn't give us a lot of details on Bioware's new RPG heading to next-gen, except that you get to lead an inquisition.  The trailer showed us the sky tearing open and all hell raining down, and that we'd see the game sometime in 2014.

EA SPORTS: "IT'S IN THE GAME"

Now, I'm not a fan of sports games.  I consider myself to be an actual gamer, and if you do too, then you also probably ignored this section of the conference.  Well, to bring you some of the best out-of-context quotes from EA's press conference, I actually watched the damn thing.  Here you go:

"It's always lacked the depth of true ball handling." - Sean O'Brien, Executive Producer - NBA Live '14

"Through major gameplay innovation, we've given players the ability to think intelligently and move more like elite NFL athletes." - Cam Weber, VP and GM of American Football - Madden 25

"For the first time players can now make intelligent decisions." - Matt Bilbey, Group GM - FIFA '14

"Lets fighters organically alter their strategies throughout the fight.  This is a huge part of fighting and it takes a unique level of intelligence."  - Andrew Wilson, Executive Vice President - EA Sports UFC

Battlefield 4 - Yes!  The moment everyone who is not me has been waiting for!  Modern military shooter madness!  EA showed off the newest installment in the Battlefield franchise yet again.  With "levolution", players can now "experience destruction and dynamic environments that react to your every move" (Patrick Bach, Executive Producer).  Yeah, we had the start of that back in 2001 with Red Faction, where were you?  Though to be completely honest, Battlefield actually surprised me, because it's one thing to spew words like "dynamic", which doesn't mean shit in the game industry.  It's just a filler word that execs use to sound more important.  I was impressed during their gameplay demo when their 64 person skirmish ended with the collapse of a skyscraper, destroyed by human player gunfire.  That was impressive.

Mirror's Edge - EA closed it out by showing us Mirror's Edge, a poorly marketed, visually stunning and elegant first-person parkour platformer for the last generation.  It's getting rebooted for next generation, and it looks even more stunning this time around.  Let's just hope they don't fuck it up this time.

Part IV should show up tomorrow when I praise Sony for kicking in Microsoft's door and laughing in their face.

E3: Abridged - Part I

Ah, E3.  Once a year we get a chance to watch the console gaming industry and its major players publicly humiliate themselves, while trying to convince us to buy whatever it is they'll be pedaling to us in the upcoming year. I've tried to stay atop the news as it unfolded during the long week and with so much to talk about, I decided it was best to break my write-up into pieces.

Microsoft:

After the reveal of the Xbox One, which could only be described as a press disaster, Microsoft decided that it was best to spend their E3 press conference being "all about the games".  You would think this would be a good thing, seeing as how their reveal wasn't about the games at all.  There were no games.  Give me games.  For the game console.

Speaking of game consoles, MS also showed us an "updated" Xbox 360 which looked exactly like the Xbone, and would cost the same as the existing X360.  This was a push for us to purchase their soon-to-be-outdated console before the new one hits this November.  We were also informed that Xbox Live will be passing out 2 free titles a month for Gold (paying) members until the launch of the Xbone.  Something Playstation Plus has been doing since last year.  Thanks for joining us Microsoft.

On to the games they announced for the X360:

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain - MS kicked things off with a trailer for Metal Gear Solid 5.  Either the game comes with an optional slow-down/speed-up time function, or the trailer was a rather poor representation of actual gameplay.  I'm not a fan of the series, but I don't really hate on it.  All I really know is that MGS4 was more interactive cutscene and less video game.

Then we were shown a console specific version of World of Tanks, an online multiplayer game where tanks blow the shit out of each other.  Now, as it stands, I don't know a single person that plays or has played World of Tanks on the PC.  Frankly speaking, this just sounds like an online patch for Battletanx on the N64.  Whatever.

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood.  An indie title that seemed to combine the drawing elements of Okami with your standard 2D platformer.  Now indie games have surprised me in the past.  I'm a huge fan of Bastion and, in fact, most of my favorite games in my steam library are indie titles.  However, we'll have to see how the little X360 title does when it hits later this year.

Dark Souls II - Everyone's favorite ragemaker!  Little more than a fancy trailer was shown for this one.  Though I imagine it's comprised entirely of death and frustration, like it's predecessor.

After telling us all about what we could expect to see on the X360, MS moved into their Xbox One segment.

Ryse: Son of Rome - A game about Roman warfare that seemed rather uninterested in letting you play it.  Almost all of the footage from the press conference consisted of quick-time events and cutscenes.  It was, however, pretty.

Killer Instinct -  Look Microsoft, if we should have learned anything from Squarenix's whole Tomb Raider debacle, it's that we should let franchises from 1996 FUCKING DIE.

Sunset Overdrive - A stylized open-world shooter.  Insomniac Games tells us that it's going to be a living world with user-generated content.  Sounds like Little Big Planet with guns and free running/parkour.  Nifty, but not enough to convince me to shell out the $500 for an Xbone.

Forza Motorsport 5 - These guys actually opened with an ad for McLaren.  Appropriate since they brought on stage with them one of two existing McLaren P1's in the world.  That's right, Turn 10 Studios brought a CAR.  Good for you.  Next time, maybe you can bring a gameplay video and impress me with that. What I enjoyed most about the Forza segment wasn't any of the shiny car footage they'd brought with them, but the word "Driveatar".  A portmanteau of the words "Drive" and "Avatar".  The game learns how you race as you race, then when you're away, creates an AI based on your driving "style".  Interesting.  But realistic racers will be realistic racers, and for that I'd need a driving wheel, which I have yet to acquire.  So I, personally, will stick with my arcade racers.

Minecraft: Xbox One Edition - Okay, the people who like Minecraft are already playing Minecraft on the PC.  A small handful might have the Xbox and mobile edition, but I really don't think that adding Minecraft is going to sell you any consoles, Microsoft.

Quantum Break - Promising to combine both television and gaming, I have little to no hope for this game.  Defiance already tried that, and it fell flat on it's face.  Aside from a shiny trailer with no game footage, we don't have the slightest idea what the story is, who the characters are, why we can stop time apparently... bleh.

D4 - A cel-shaded game about a murder mystery by Swery65.  I actually had to look the guy up to find out that he is NOT Suda51, even though the game trailer makes it look and sound like he is.

Project Spark - This title looks like what would happen if Lionhead Studios, the developers of Fable, made their own version of RPG Maker, or a console release of a Blizzard game's map editor.  After dicking around a bit, they showed us some clips of what the tiny little in-house (I'm assuming) "community" has created.  While some things might have been legitimate games, or just a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon, I did recognize blatant Limbo and Geometry Wars rip-offs amongst the clips.

Crimson Dragon - A little bummed that this was a Xbone exclusive honestly.  From the team that brought us Phantom Dust and more importantly Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crimson Dragon basically looks like a 3D "on-rails" shoot'em up, similar to StarFox.  It looked like a spiritual successor to Panzer Dragoon, and as someone who owns Panzer Dragoon, I'm kinda jealous of the Xbone. But not enough to make me buy it.

Dead Rising 3 - Capcom brought open-world zombies to the table, yet again.  They also brought a lot of gameplay footage with them, which was something that actually made me happy.  It's easy for publishers to forget that those of us who aren't in attendance at E3 won't get to see how these games play, and it's important to make gameplay trailers so that we know what we'll actually be getting our hands on.  Otherwise you end up with things like D4 and Quantum Break that I mentioned earlier, which is the high-budget equivalent of showing us the box art.  Sure it looks great, but what does it play like?

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - I haven't followed The Witcher franchise, but it's supposed to be some hot-shit fantasy RPG.  There was almost as much talking done by the dev as there was trailer time.  It promised a "multi-region open world", "dynamic and tactical combat" and to be the "defining achievement of the RPG genre".  Frankly speaking, these are all things I've already heard said about Skyrim.

Battlefield 4 - No E3 would be complete without EA waving their modern military shooter dick in everyone's face, and MS got to show off Battlefield 4 during their conference.  Now playing at an astounding 60 FRAMES PER SECOND.  I'm pretty sure this is something that the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race already had.  The highlight of the BF4 segment was watching them fire up the trailer without sound.  Now this happened to Crimson Dragon as well, but they just rolled with it.  BF4's presenter stopped the trailer and restarted it.  When the video lagged out and took forever to load, the guy nearly left the stage!  Oops! Sorry!  Technical difficulties!  Just, uh... go check it out at our booth. It'll be great!

Once the trailer did finally load, it was chock-full of gameplay.  Unfortunately, it's the same kind of gameplay we've seen from every other modern military shooter so, UNIMPRESSED.

This was followed by a trailer for a new indie cave-crawler, and some random trailer for an as-of-yet unnamed "triple A" franchise.

Halo - What Xbox would be complete without Halo?  The trailer really seemed to rip off Journey pretty hardcore and didn't feature anything besides Master Chief in a ripped cloak and some giant robot.  Well, at least MS knows who they're trying to pander to.

Titanfall - Lastly, we got a look at Titanfall, a new game by Respawn Studios (former Infinity Ward employees that didn't get along too well with Activision).  It's a sci-fi shooter that actually intrigued me.  For starters, it's a sci-fi shooter that isn't Halo.  Second, giant fucking robots.  It looks as if everyone gets their own "Titan", which is a giant mech suit that you get to pilot the same way you moved around as a foot solider.  Just from watching the trailer, the game felt really solid.  Standard FPS mechanics, implemented in a sci-fi universe with giant robots and jet-packs.  I honestly wouldn't care if this game didn't come with a singleplayer mode.  The multiplayer looks awesome enough.

That wraps up the Microsoft conference and my opinions on just about everything.  Next up, I'll be tackling Ubisoft and how Jerry Cantrell is NOT a McLaren P1.