STAFF WRITER,
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
In the gaming world, there’s a commonly used phrase, “hype-train.” If you are on the hype-train for a game, it basically means you’re excited for it and believe it will be good. Many gamers and critics alike boarded the No Man’s Sky hype-train; this game received numerous best-of-show rewards at the E3 gaming conference, the cover for an issue of GameInformer, as well as air-time on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. This is all rather impressive, especially considering that No Man’s Sky was developed by a small indie team, Hello Games.
In gaming, if a game is dead it is no longer played by a sizable audience. Battleborn is a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)/first-person shooter game, developed by Gearbox Software (the renowned developers of the Borderlands series). I first heard of the game prior to its release, in 2015; I like MOBAs and shooters, also I loved playing Borderlands, so the game seemed like a must-buy. I managed to get into a beta-test while Battleborn was in its pre-release, during this test the game impressed me and I preordered it. It released in May, I played it, found it to be a solid MOBA/shooter despite some flaws, and reviewed it as 8/10. Just before this fall semester, when I was planning to run my review, I picked up Battleborn again, and immediately wished I hadn’t, because now I have to rewrite my review.
In Fire Emblem Fates you play as a prince who can turn into a dragon; also you can marry and have kids with your siblings… oh, right, context. Fire Emblem Fates was one of my most anticipated video game releases of this year; now, after having completed it, it’s currently my biggest disappointment of 2016 (don’t worry Final Fantasy XV, you’ve still got a shot to disappoint). Fire Emblem is a series of tactical turn-based RPGs set in a medieval-fantasy world, and it’s debatably the most popular series in the genre.
In my classes at Monmouth, every now and then I’m introduced to a concept which I already know something of from a video game. I remember last year, in Dr. Patten’s intro to political science course, when he explained the prisoner’s dilemma to us. I was already familiar with the concept thanks to Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward, and this helped my group to avoid a potential 10-year prison sentence in our exercise.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Cold Steel is long and at times nonsensical, much like its title. To be completely honest, I went into Legend of Heroes expecting a 20-ish hour game and a very easy review. The premise of the game is basically teenagers going to school and fighting stuff… Where have I seen this before? Oh, right, Valkyria Chronicles 2, Final Fantasy Type-0, every Persona game ever, Harry Potter, and in a million other cheap knockoffs. The image running with this story actually mirrors one released for Final Fantasy: Type-0, right down to the protagonist holding a flag (no one will accuse this game of being original). Actually, in many ways this game feels like a PG version of Final Fantasy: Type-0; there’s a very similar premise/setting, but no mature content about the horrors of war. That said, as a whole I’m glad that I played The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Cold Steel, and I look forward to the sequel.
MMORPGs, or massively multiplayer online role playing games, are often thought of as “time sinks.” Games in this genre typically expect players to sink hundreds of hours into them (perhaps thousands, in some rare cases). Black Desert Online is an entirely different animal in that it expects the average player to log over 1000 hours, and quite quickly. Black Desert has been designed to accommodate players with limited free time; due to several innovative new systems it allows one to accomplish hours of work with minutes of play. I personally feel that these features make Black Desert an ideal MMORPG for college students, but more on that later.
Metal Gear Solid: V, Bloodbourne, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Destiny: The Taken King, Final Fantasy: Type 0, Fallout 4… Games like these make it clear that 2015 was a very good year for video games. If you’re at all like me, you’re disappointed that you didn’t have time to play them all. However, when one stops to think about it, this attitude makes no sense; there are a number of advantages when you’ve waited to play a game. For one, the hype dies down; it’s now easier to tell the must-play titles from the duds. More information is available on them, so if you get stuck at some point, there’s sure to be a solution posted online. On top of all that, they’re considerably cheaper, and games that were $60 last year can now be found for under $20. With all this in mind, I’m going to be rounding up and recommending some of my favorite games of the year.
Sometimes it seems like all the good games are right around the corner, but often upon release they turn out more hype than anything else. Last semester, I ran a feature on video game preorders, within which I gave advice on which games to preorder. I advised caution towards Star Wars: Battlefront, and recommended both No Man’s Sky and Fallout 4. Since that time Fallout 4 and Star Wars: Battlefront have been released, and their reception has been mostly in line with what I predicted. In this feature, I plan to describe several upcoming, noteworthy games that I have played pre-release.
Earlier in the semester, I wrote a feature on video game preorders in which I mention Star Wars Battlefront. I cautioned readers away from preordering Battlefront, citing questionable business practices of the game’s publisher. I also warned of potential bugs/balance issues, and that this new Battlefront title may bear very little resemblance to the original Star Wars Battlefront titles on which it is based. I finished on a positive note, stating that Battlefront would probably be a great, albeit flawed, game, due to Dice being the developer (Dice is known for the wildly successful Battlefield series). After spending a large number of hours playing it, I can say that I was very wrong about Star Wars Battlefront. It is not a great game, and, for most gamers, isn’t even worth playing.
I’m about two hours into Fallout 4 and have just made friends with “Dogmeat,” a stray German Shepard and my first in-game companion. I’m walking along, mostly following a road, occasionally going through ruined woods, and doing a bit of scavenging. By the time I come upon a red rocket gas station, I’ve picked up a double-barrel shotgun and a pipe-rifle to go with my 10mm handgun. Dogmeat and I kill off a few nuclear mole-rats infesting the place and are quite happy to find some empty cans and a hotplate.
