Fallout 4 Season Pass Hindsight

by Jason Golling | Nov 17, 2016 | Fallout 4, Gaming, Gaming Editorial, Video Games

Fallout 4 Season Pass Hindsight

Jason Golling

The last Fallout 4 DLC came out at the end of august, now that we have the full vanila Fallout 4 it seems like a good time to look back at the season pass and see if it was a rip off or if it was a great deal. As some of you may know initially the season pass started at $30 and then in March the upped the price to $50 saying that they decided to make more content, they also did say that anyone who bought it prior to the price increase will still have it. The full list of the DLC is listed below with retail prices as of 11/16/2016. Altogether these come to $69.94 vs the $50 to buy the season pass and get them all.

Automatron: $9.99
Wasteland Workshop: $4.99
Far Harbor: $24.99
Contraptions: $4.99
Vault-Tec Workshop:$ 4.99
Nuka-World: $19.99

To break this down a bit, Wasteland Workshop, Contraptions, and the Vault-Tec Workshop DLC’s are all settlement building focused and they don’t have much or any story involved in them. Wasteland Workshop and Contraptions don’t have any story whatsoever, one adds a few small items as well as the ability to trap creatures and battle them against each other or yourself, while the other allows you to build machines to mass produce some items and it gives you the material to make rube goldberg machines with a metal bearing and some tracks. The Vault-Tec DLC does bring a bit more to the table with allowing you to build a vault and some very basic experiments, along with this comes a short questline to introduce you to the new equipment and it is a few hours of gameplay. All in all the settlement DLCs got a bad rep from the Fallout 4 community and I believe that they should have released all three of them in a single pack for $10 instead of spreading it out.

Far Harbor and Nuka-World are both large expansions with new worlds, quests, items, and characters. These two are more like the traditional Bethesda DLC releases, where they will be much larger than most DLCs and they are more of an expansion than a DLC. Both of these DLCs were made very well and arguably had better stories than the rest of the game, and they felt more like the older Fallout games than the vanilla game did, what with you solving a murder mystery for pre war robobrains or for finding weaponized nuka cola they had the wacky feel that made the Fallout series what it is today. These two are the obvious highlights of the season pass.

Automatron is the one DLC that stands alone due to the fact that there aren’t really any new areas (except indoor ones) and instead of having a bunch of stories like the larger DLCs had it just had one good story instead. With that story though it also brought along a bunch of robots you can use as followers which are enjoyable to have whether it be for combat or if you just need a pack mule.

All in all the DLC varied from great to ok and in my opinion is only worth the $50 if you do like to occasionally waste a few hours building a settlement every now and then, otherwise the price is just too steep and I would recommend waiting on a sale, or just buying the ones that you think would be good for you. To be honest it was a bit disappointing due to the fact that only two of six actually felt like true full expansion packs. They had so much story that they could have used if they had chosen to bring the Enclave back again, and allow you to either side with or fight against them they could have made a DLC the size of Far Harbor. In the end though the $30 season pass is totally worth it while the $50 season pass is a bit too expensive for most people’s taste.

Titanfall 2 Review

by Jason Golling | Nov 10, 2016 | Gaming, Gaming Reviews, Video Games

Titanfall 2 Review

Jason Golling

Pros

The campaign is the best I have seen in quite some time.
Fast paced movement and action keeps the game moving.
With everything added the game world feels much more alive and full.
Much more customization for multiplayer (about double).
Many more game modes for multiplayer.
All DLC map packs are free.

Cons

While there are a lot of weapons they don’t feel very different.
Due to the bad timing of the release date the number of people online is nearly abysmal.
The single player campaign is a little short.

Titanfall 2 recently released and despite the surprisingly low sales, due to the fact they release so close to two other large titles, is an engaging and addicting game with a lot to offer. Unlike its predecessor, Titanfall 2 has a lot of customization and it has a single player campaign, both of which were large complaints about their first entry to the series.

Firstly I want to talk about the absolutely amazing campaign, without getting into any spoilers, you play as Jack Cooper who ends up being field promoted due to nearly all of the nearby friendlies being killed you are then tasked with finishing your mission with nothing but a titan named BT. The story is paced quite well, and you progress through areas both with and without your titan’s assistance. While the campaign is not too long (5-7 hours) it is engaging and it is the best single player campaign I have played since the Modern Warfare series or perhaps even Halo: Combat Evolved. All in all if you like single player missions this is for you.

The overall movement system of the game keeps everything moving fluidly and it does not feel at all forced. Basically the first Titanfall has some of the best movement and Titanfall 2 expands on it and makes the wall running and general movement feel great, after all why else would Call of Duty be trying to copy it since the first Titanfall. The better movement along with the campaign adding extra lore and the massive expansive single player levels helps to bring the world alive and feel more realistic as a whole.

Some of the most prominent issues and complaints were that the multiplayer did not bring enough customization and if you didn’t buy the season pass you wouldn’t play with the same people online. However while making Titanfall 2 Respawn Entertainment didn’t make the same mistake. Not only are all of the DLC maps going to be free to all users but there is much more customization to be done for both your titan and your pilot. This time around there are nearly twice as many customizable options for everything which adds much more playtime and will keep Titanfall interesting much much longer.

While there is a lot to like in Titanfall 2, as with every game, there are some things that aren’t that good, namely my biggest issue with the game is that while there are quite a few weapons to choose from they didn’t feel that different from each other. I never felt that one machine gun had any edge or different use over another. This goes for the machine guns and marksman rifles alike, both of those types felt nearly the same (with few exceptions), however the shotguns (while there are only two of them) both felt very different and useful for many scenarios, one has a fast fire rate and large magazine, while the other is pump action and has awe inspiring range. As good as the campaign is, its only drawback is the fact that it is pretty short, and I have been left wishing that it could continue in more content in the future.

Lastly I wanted to talk about the absolutely horrible timing for the release date. The game release right in between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare this timing is quite possibly the worst time for a FPS shooter to release, due to that release date the number of people online is low (for the time being that is), however I take it that once people see what this game is the number will increase despite the rough start to the online multiplayer.

Rating: Everyone

If you are at all interested in getting a new FPS Titanfall 2 is a great choice, or if you just love a good story mode in a game it covers that base as well. All in all a great game.

Mafia 3 Review

by Jason Golling | Oct 21, 2016 | Gaming, Gaming Reviews, Video Games

Mafia 3 Review

Jason Golling

Looking for an open world with a great story to lose a couple of days in? Mafia 3 can fit the bill. Between the story and open world, Mafia 3 delivers a competent game and is refreshing as we have not seen a game like it in quite some time.

Pros:

Extremely story heavy
Satisfying combat
Decent stealth system
Actions have consequences
Upgrade system
Music

Cons

Game crashes fairly often (PC)
Cops are overpowered

Mafia 3’s main focus appears to be on the storyline and the progression of the characters involved. This is fairly unique (and refreshing) as most games lately are more focused on everything else and the story ends up as more of an afterthought. I don’t want to spoil anything so in a nutshell the story took me 32 hours to complete and there are multiple different endings based upon your choices. On top of that there is an additional scene at the end of the credits following the game. Finally my favorite thing about their story is how they decided to tell it. Rather than follow what most games do, Mafia 3 will periodically switch to an interview with a few of the people involved in the story (interviews taking place years later).

The combat involved in Mafia 3, while nothing new, is satisfying and the takedowns are often brutal. The stealth system is quite basic and deals mostly with direct line of sight combining this with the cover system and you can get through otherwise difficult situations with relative ease. That being said, the combat and stealth while both competent do not bring anything new to the table that we have not already seen in other games.

One of the best parts of Mafia 3 is that your actions actually have consequences, what I mean by this is that when you give areas to the people that work for you the others will resent that and if you consistently don’t give anything to them they will turn on you. At the same time, however if you constantly give the same person more and more they will like you more and more. All of these factor into what kind of upgrades that you can get and how the story ends. As far as the upgrades go, whenever you take a part of the city and give it to one of your men to run, they will give you something, whether it be a new gun or a car upgrade you will then have to choose between your men to see what you want most, or who you like most.

As far as the good things this game has to offer the last thing that I wanted to mention is the music. There is a lot of good music in Mafia 3 all of which from the time period, including artists such as Elvis Presley and The Rolling Stones. The music most definitely added to the game experience, and helps a lot with the in game immersion.

While Mafia 3 certainly has good things there are still (as always) issues with it. My biggest issue with it is that it crashes often. I play on PC so it may just be due to a bad port, but my game would completely crash once or twice every few hours and for no apparent reason. Luckily the game’s auto save system works just fine so it wasn’t that long before I was back in the game. My other gripe with Mafia 3 is that the cops are way to overpowered. For example when you are attacking anyone other than cops, in order for them to call in backup they have to yell or run over to a phone and call backup, however if you come up behind a cop who is alone and sneakily kill him, somehow backup gets called and they are pulling up in cars before you can get back in your car and drive away. On top of that they will have a seemingly endless amount of reinforcements coming from every direction. If that wasn’t enough all of the mobsters that you fight have the cops in their pocket so if you ever get in a fight where both the mafia and the cops are both there you will be fighting both of them.

Rating: Buff

All in all Mafia 3 is a well put together game with a great and entertaining story, competent gameplay, and a decent amount of player choice. However if you don’t care much for a game’s story or if you are easily offended by language, I would stay away from Mafia 3.

Battlefield 1 Beta Thoughts

by Jason Golling | Sep 3, 2016 | Events & News, Gaming, Gaming Editorial, Video Games

Battlefield 1 Beta Thoughts

Jason Golling

The Battlefield 1 beta has been going since August 30th, and the questions going around are wondering if it will be a good game or if it will be like the last DICE game (Star Wars Battlefront) and be tremendously disappointing. Firstly let me just say that I won’t be judging it based off of any glitches that I came across (of which there were many) due to the fact that it is still in beta, so glitches are expected.

Right out of the gate it does not feel like it is a realistic WWI shooter in any way shape or form, as only class has a bolt action rifle and there is next to no trench warfare (at least on the one level available for the beta). There are four different main classes to choose from that have different weapons and gear. These classes are Assault, Medic, Support, Scout, and there is an assortment of mini classes for the vehicle/horse crews. These classes feel well balanced, and the main classes are also customizable, that way you can choose which weapons and gadgets you want to bring with you.

As far as the level design goes I can’t say much as there was only one level in the beta. They seemed to try to mix both close and long range combat into a small desert city. It works in such a way that no matter where you are you never quite feel safe, as at any moment you could be sniped or blown to pieces by the massively overpowered light tank (needs to be nerfed). This suspense keeps the game moving quickly and feel too short despite the fact that the rounds are all 20 minutes long. The conquest game mode has different flags spread out around the map that you need to capture and hold as long as possible, this game mode has a massive battle of 64 players, and it definitely feels like an all out war.

The more that I played Battlefield 1 the more that it reminded me of Star Wars Battlefront 2, which in my opinion is one of the best games ever. There are some things that DICE needs to avoid in order to not screw it up, the main thing being level variety. A large amount of levels alone will help Battlefield 1 to last longer and still be enjoyable. In my opinion that was the largest downfall from the Battlefront game DICE made last year, was that there were only like four different maps for each of the different game modes (with a lot of overlap) and another issue was that while there were many game modes only one or two were actually fun to play. If they can get around these issues Battlefield 1 will be a good game.

All in all trying to guess on what the full game will be like is a bit of a hit and miss, myself I will be buying it, at the very least to let you guys know how it turns out.

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Review

by Jason Golling | Aug 31, 2016 | Gaming, Gaming Reviews, Video Games

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege Review

Jason Golling

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege was a bit unexpected, as the trend for more recent First Person Shooter (FPS) games is to make the games not only faster paced, but more futuristic as well. Siege takes a different approach, there is no respawning which makes most players become very cautious, on top of that Siege is in general much slower paced than many other FPS games recently. Another difference is that they leaned more towards realism than sci-fi, meaning that all of the gadgets are either real or possible to make if needed.

Pros:

Level design
Diverse and creative operator abilities
Breakable environment
Addictive and challenging gameplay
Many possible play styles

Cons:

Multiplayer only no story mode
Often bad communication with other players

One thing that Siege does quite well is in their level design, the levels are diverse and large enough that in about 60 hours of gameplay I am still seeing matches play out in new ways that I have never seen before. One large reason that it works this way is that many walls, ceilings, and floors are breakable, however in order to make this still balanced the defenders can reinforce a limited amount of walls during a preparation period. During this same period of time the attackers are sending drones in to find the objective, if they fail this the attackers will be coming in blind. These factors, among others, help to keep each match feeling unique.

As was stated before, Siege leans towards being more realistic than most recent games. In that respect, there is no health regeneration, and it only takes one or two well placed rounds to kill you. As in most games there are many playstyles, Siege follows suit and has many play styles as well ranging from running around with a shotgun, all the way to camping in the corner with a sub machinegun (SMG). Each operator has a special piece of equipment in which to use. These pieces of equipment help to keep the matches interesting as they range from bear traps, to thermite charges and all the way to a shield on the front of your gun.

While Siege is quite fun, there are still quite a few problems with it. One of these problems is that there is no single player story mode in the game. This means it is only multiplayer, so be aware that if you don’t have a good internet connection, or any at all, you will not be able to do much beyond playing terrorist hunt on solo mode. Which, as you can probably guess, gets old pretty fast. The other issue is not necessarily a problem with the game itself, but rather with the community that plays the game. The ways to communicate with your teammates is either by voice chat or via a chat box (if on PC). This means that even if everyone on your team is good at the game then they other team can communicate well, but you can’t then you will probably lose.

Rating: Buff

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is quite fun overall, unless you like slow paced FPS games…then you probably won’t like it.

All in all Siege is a solid game that has a similar feel to Counter Strike: Global Offensive by Valve, and is quite addicting. While it may not be from the same publisher, or part of the same series, Siege in many ways feels very much like a spiritual successor to Global Offensive. If you liked one, then you will most definitely enjoy this newest game.