Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture

I got this with PS+ a few months back, but I just got to it. I’ve read a lot online about the speed of the game. You literally walk really slowly throughout the whole thing. 

You can “run” by holding a button to build speed, but you never end up going very fast (or fast enough to call it running). Also, even if you’re holding down the button, the game will slow you down when entering certain buildings anyway. I hated the slowness. I get that it is there for artistic whatever, but… no. The slowness pulled me out of the immersion consistently. I would groan as I bumbled up stairs to get to the next point. I was exhausted by getting my built up speed automatically taken from me because I entered a warehouse.

Honestly, holding down a button for an entire game is also boring. Imagine crossing the entire Wasteland in Fallout while forced to hold down a button (and also going slow anyway). Also, I swear that the walking is slower than how the average person walks. It takes like a minute to descend stairs. I kept thinking, “I can jump down steps in 5 seconds in real life! WHY SO SLOW?”

The story was good, but the speed killed it for me. I just couldn’t get immersed while rolling my eyes wishing to get from point A to B faster than a slug.

I don’t think the forced pacing added anything to the art but anxiety. I have built huge sprawling levels in Minecraft, Mario Maker, LittleBIGPlanet, and more, and my experience there leads me to think that the speed was the developer wanting to exert control the player, to force the player to see the detailed work they put in. However, forcing dominance over the player is just not very fun for the player. Players want more options and the freedom to notice the details they want. It’s like if a sculptor grabbed a person by the skull and moved their heads to the various points on the sculpture.

OXYBORB.COM Official Review Score for Everybody's Gone To The Rapture: 6.2/10  

No Man’s Sky Tips: How to land on a hostile planet and survive

 1. Make your first landing on a landing pad.

For your first landing on a new planet, I always suggest landing on a landing pad, either at a shelter or at a full-on trading post. Trading posts have the benefit of being on top of raised platforms, which are almost always out of the reach of hostile creatures and sentinels.

The second benefit is that landing pads give you a free re-launch. If your ship lifts off a landing pad, you will not have to charge your launch thrusters. So, if you’re on a planet where resources are limited or you cannot get near them, you’re golden. This gives you time to assess your situation, and whether or not you want to continue exploring the planet.

Landing pads also almost always mean that you’ll have access to that robot-eye looking vendor. That means you can quickly dump your old cargo and restock on things you need.

2. Have everything fully charged up before leaving, and bring some extra plutonium.

When leaving a planet, make your life easier and charge all your systems up before moving on. You never know how challenging your next planet will be, so reload your multitool and life support before heading out. Also, it helps to have a little plutonium to start, since that charges everything.

3. Purchase the shield upgrades.

There are upgrades that can give your exosuit resistance to cold, heat, radioactivity, toxicity, and even allow you to breathe underwater. The cheapest versions require very common minerals, so they’re good for using / deleting as you arrive and depart from planets.

The better versions require gravitino balls. Some planets have gravitino balls littering the ground, however, you should be weary as sentinels walkers are instantly deployed upon gathering them. However, I’ve found that you can park your ship near these rare substances, gather them, and jump in and fly off before being attacked quite easily.

4. Learn how to jetpack-run-melee jump.

I wrote a tip about this, here. However, I’ll just say if you run, do a melee attack, and then immediately jump into your jetpack, you will fly REALLY FAST across the terrain. This is an important thing to learn how to do, especially if you’re on a planet with storms and other extreme conditions. This will save you time and from getting damaged. Also, it allows you to run away from sentinels and hostile creatures.

Fallout 4 DLC Desires

Fallout 4 is probably my new favorite game. I love the Minecraft + Bethesda RPG feel of it. I love collecting literally EVERYTHING. I love the settlements and power armor. Everything. As a rabid fan, of course I want more. I wanted to give my opinion on what I want to see come from the downloadable content for this game. 

Here are my ideas: 

New Structure Types: Concrete, Glass, and Plastic

Concrete – Gives us the ability to build walls, floors, and ceilings in the design of bricks or gray concrete.

Glass – Allows us to build our own custom shaped greenhouses, window walls, planetariums, or even aquariums. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could make a glass structure filled with water?

Plastic – I want to be able to build a 1950-futuristic building using the plastic resource.

+Just for Fun

Fixed item placement on consoles: When I place a Giddeyup Buttercup, it sinks through the tables, floors, or shelves. I want this fixed so I can decorate more! I want to be able to display my “Gilded Grasshopper” without it sinking into the ground.

Settlement Protectron: I want to be able to build one protectron in each of my settlements. I want to be able to choose the model and also wire it to “auto-start” when my siren sounds. I want to be able to improve him with upgrades, all of which give my settlement bonuses to defense.

Settlement Distress Beacon: It would be fun to have a device that allows me to have my settlement get attacked. Maybe this distress beacon calls raiders, synths, or super mutants to try and steal your treasures. Basically, it taunts enemies to coming and attacking. I know it could be exploited for easy money, but perhaps enemies called by this simply do not drop weapons or armor.

Settlement High-Pitched Beacon: This would be similar to the Distress Beacon, but only it draws in animals. So, basically it would give you a button to call deathclaws, mirelurks, yao gai, and molerats to come and try to kill you.

Pets

I know you can purchase Junkyard Dogs for your settlements, but it would be cool if you could get other pets, such as cats. These pets would give a bonus to your happiness score as well as secondary features.

Cats – Owning a cat gives you the “Cat Reflexes” perk, allowing you to take 5% less damage from falling.

Goldfish – Owning a goldfish gives you the “Aqua Man” perk, allowing you to swim 5% faster.

Pet Molerat – Owning a pet molerat gives you the “Digger” perk, allowing you reap one extra unit of concrete from producing resources. Also, if you pet it regularly, you’ll be healed of your molerat disease if you caught it.

Bighorner – Bring one back and acknowledge New Vegas. Owning a pet bighorner gives you the “Big Fella” perk, buffing your resistance to staggering by 5%.

New Settlement Objects

Mannequins: You can place clothes/armor/weapons on them for display.

Weapons Racks: Display your weapons.

Model Display: Display the robot models that you can find.

Other models: There are small models of several things that are already in the game. The small ship inside the canned food place. The tiny house. I want to be able to make them.

More Mounted Heads: We need mounted deathclaw, yao guai, and mutant hound heads (also, mirelurk queen and radscorpion claws!).

Buses, cars, trains, etc.: I want to be able to place a bus hanging off my roof with a bed inside.

A New Radio Station with Three Dog

Character-wise, this doesn’t make sense. Three Dog wouldn’t abandon the Capital Wasteland. No! ….But I don’t care. DC isn’t that far from Boston, and Three Dog was the BEST radio host. The ones since have been good in their own ways, but Three Dog is the king and I want him back. That voice actor absolutely rocked that role. So, maybe he wasn’t careful with his info, but he’s still fantastic! MORE THREE DOG, PLEASE!

World Building Mechanics

Open-World > Linear – I want the DLC to be set in an open area to explore. This is why Point Lookout was better than Operation Anchorage. Bethesda RPGs are meant to be open.

Quality over Quantity - Getting 1-2 larger, meatier DLC experiences would be preferable to getting 5 smaller content packs.

Legendary Mode – I want a difficulty that is harder than survival. I want enemies that are actually challenging.

Moral choices matter less than choices in playstyle. I don’t care if I have to make “good” or “evil” decisions, rather than be given the choice in how I complete missions. I want stealth players, speech players, and tank players to all have options. I want to be able to win by poisoning wine or simply going behind the NPC’s back.

A story that doesn’t revolve around robots, synths, aliens, or ghouls. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of those stories. I just want to see DLC that adds a new type of enemy. How about giving the player power armor that makes you function as if you were on land, only underwater? What about creating the opposite of the Brotherhood of Steel, like a Brotherhood of Nature. They use rads to bond themselves with natural things to make animal or plant-human-hybrids.

New random encounters/events. Some of the best ways in which Bethesda games shine is due to random encounters that you meet while aimlessly exploring. Like, once, I was just flying in my Jetpack around Boston, and I met two copies of the same person on a building, arguing about who was or was not a synth. It left me with the choice of who lives (which I figured out with a speech check). But that random encounter had nothing to do with any quest. It was just a cool thing I discovered randomly. I want more of that.

Story: A Salem Witch Trial I felt like the Witch Museum was a missed opportunity. Also, the interior looks nothing like how it does in real life. Where are the crappy animatronics? Where are the witch statues? I want a DLC story focused on witches. I want there to be a new, uncovered, “basement” in the museum, where the crappy animatronics have been placed. I want a new trial.

Powered Up

New Power Armor customizations – We’ve collected a million units of power armor. Give us some nifty upgrades, even useless visual ones. Such as, let us plate our power armor in gold (so we can display all of our extras in ridiculous ways). How about Winged Jetpacks, so we can glide? How about arm upgrades with “Magnetized grips” so that I can climb the sides of buildings? Arms that let us shoot shock wave? How about Super Mario Bros. Movie-style rocket-jump boots?

A power-armor obstacle course/racetrack. This was almost teased with the Atom Cats.

Finally, my last idea for Fallout 4 DLC is this: Vertibird Power Armor Delivery You should be able to store a set of power armor in a vertibird and have it delivered to you no matter where you are in the Commonwealth. I LOVE how power armor works in Fallout 4, but the one downside is having to fast travel back and forth when the going gets tough. Wouldn’t it be great if I could just call in my power armor to come to me when I need it? The Batman Arkham games have this idea, sort of. Bruce Wayne calls in for parts or his Batsuit and it rockets to him. That would be cool in FO4.

Well, thank you, dear readers. Leave feedback in the comments or add your own ideas. In the small chance that Bethesda Games Studios sees this, THANK YOU for making my new favorite game of all time. I love every aspect of it and I’m hungry for MORE MORE MORE!

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The bittersweet emptiness of finishing The Witcher 3

I didn’t just beat the game; I got all the trophies (I played it on PS4). I don’t always aim to Platinum a game, but there are just some games that make me want to become a master of it. I have never played the first two games or read the books, so W3 was my first experience in this world.

a funny glitch I came upon

Now, my blog is about constructive criticism. I am a creative-type; I love thinking about how to improve games. I don’t usually gloat on and on because that’s boring to read, but I will say this:

The Witcher 3 is awesome storytelling. It takes each character from its huge cast through an individual story, allows you to get to know them, makes you love them, and then brings the entire cast back in the last act for a grand finish. The last act of the game, I kept saying to myself, “I love how all of these characters have come together. I love seeing ________ here.” Even minor characters, like a certain swamp godling, return for the last act. The whole thing gave me the feels. Well crafted dialog, well thought out plot, believable characters. Lore that is rich and rewarding. Monsters that give you the moral choices to allow them to live. The Witcher 3 left me feeling bittersweet about the game's end, because the character-drive writing was so, so good. I wish it could have gone on and on.

The Witcher 3 is a masterfully crafted work of fiction. Well done, CD Projekt Red!

Let me also gush on that developer. Wow, kids. You’re really a AAA dev now. I expect a million more games from you. Not only is the storytelling some of the best in gaming ever (right up there beside Mass Effect), but it also might be the absolute most beautiful game graphics I’ve ever seen. It’s stunning. I don’t even know how or why games would ever need to look better than this. Wow.

On top of all that, CD Projekt Red made me feel so excited and love-stricken with this dev before I had even popped the disk in the PS4. Just opening the package for this game yielded a helpful story booklet (for people like me who are new to The Witcher), a soundtrack (which is AWESOME, beautiful music), a nice unfolding map of the world (in full color), and a slip of paper with the note in red:

This was really classy. Really classy. I’m not being sarcastic. The dev is saying that they recognize how hard I’ve worked to pay for their game. It makes me feel good inside, to know that they intend to support me as much as I’ve supported them. This small slip of paper is AAA customer service from a AAA dev.

And they lived up to it, with honors. Most companies take ages to patch their games, but The Witcher 3 has been patched several times, and I’ve downloaded tons of free DLC. They listened to criticisms against the game, and they’ve reacted with fixes. I’m just really, really impressed.  

 

SPOILERS AHEAD! CAUTION! 

2014 Game of the Year

So, this list isn’t a list of my favorite games that released out in 2014… this is a list of my favorite games I played this year. Some are old games that I just finally got around to, some are new games.

Want to know who won in other years? Here’s the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2013 list.

2014 is THE YEAR OF NEW!
This past year has been about my new systems. I bought both a Wii U and a Playstation 4, so most of the games I played were on those systems.

So, without further ado, my 2014 list of favorite plays (in no particular order):

Assassin's Creed: Black Flag

This game was one that I bought on a whim. I had a break from work (I’m a teacher, so I get off most holidays), and I wanted an open world to explore. I played this on PS3 (I didn’t have PS4 yet) and I was incredibly impressed. I doubt that there could even be a better pirate game. The ship sailing mechanics astounded me so much! MORE THOUGHTS BY ME ON THIS GAME HERE!

Pikmin 3

This is a game I got for free with the Mario Kart 8 promotion. I loved both Pikmin 1 and 2, and so 3 was a natural get for me. While controlling 3 characters at a time and the inferior control scheme (as opposed to the Gamecube controller) makes me rank it the lowest in the series, Pikmin 3 was still a marvelous play and an absolute must-own for anyone with a Wii U. MORE THOUGHTS BY ME ON THIS GAME HERE!

Red Dead Redemption

This is a game that actually made an “honorable mention” in last year’s GOTY post from me. I got to Mexico and quit… well, I’m happy to report that I got the urge to play the other half. It was awesome, one of the best stories ever told in videogames. Much like Black Flag was the best pirate game, Red Dead is certainly the best cowboy game ever made. I cannot wait to see what’s next in the series! MORE THOUGHTS BY ME ON THIS GAME HERE!

Mario Kart 8

Best is a word I use too much, I guess, but Mario Kart 8 is the best racing game I’ve ever played. The DLC that came out is great, too. My friends started a weekly tournament, which we played for many weeks after! I even won a good portion of them! I have, somehow, become extremely good at this game, to the point where I barely have anyone to compete with. MORE THOUGHTS BY ME ON THIS GAME HERE!

Skyrim

This is a game that made the same list last year. At that time, I hadn’t even beaten it yet. 2014 allowed me to do so, finally, after putting a million more hours into it. I also achieved the status of a platinum trophy. I will probably end up playing Skyrim again in 2015, since I have the goal to get all of the rest of the DLC trophies. I did a massive writeup about my thoughts on this game. MORE THOUGHTS BY ME ON THIS GAME HERE!

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U

Smash is the game I obsess over every time it is announced. I watch videos, read blogs, I click on the smashbros.com site, I surf smashboards.com, and I OBSESS. Sometimes, I think my anticipation of the game is almost as fun as actually playing it. It’s so much fun to speculate over which characters and etc. will be in the game. I’m doing something really special for my inevitable blog post about Smash, but I’m going to take my time on it. It’s already the longest post I’ve ever made, and I’ve made TONS of new artwork specifically for my review. I’m thinking that the end of January/beginning of February will be when I post this, and when I do, I’ll update here, too.

Mass Effect 2 and 3

I didn’t play the first game, because I owned a PS3 and began with 2. 2 was a game I started when it first released, but I never finished it. 2014 was the year I took to beat the game, and the sequel, too. This game had amazing world building aspects. I loved the alien races and graphics. The dialog and dynamics of choice were cool, too. This was almost a tie to win my GOTY award, but I chose the other because this game’s ending was a little frustrating. MORE THOUGHTS BY ME ON THIS GAME HERE!

Honorable mentions: (still just games I played in 2013, not necessarily released)

Super Mario 3D World – Very fun but quite easy! I beat this within a few short play sessions and got most of the stars/unlockables!

Shadow of Mordor – A fun sandbox with an enemy system that created a personal story of my adventure

Assassin’s Creed 3 – I played half of this game after Black Flag, but it’s not as good. Still quite fun, though

Fallout: New Vegas – I revisited this game so that I could platinum it. I began a new playthrough to do some evil
Wii Fit U – An exercise game I put a lot of time into. I was hoping for DLC, but they never made any

NES Remix – I love retro Nintendo, so this was right up my alley. I hope they made 100 more of these, covering all the old systems
Sonic’s Sega Genesis Collection – A game I got with Christmas money last year. It was fun enough for me to platinum!

The Oxyborb Blog Game Of The Year for 2014

Infamous: Second Son & First Light

Strangely enough, I never wrote about this game on my blog. I suppose it’s because this game was so good that I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say about it. I loved the past Infamous games, and guess what? I loved this one. I played Second Son twice! I got the platinum, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
 

a pic I took from the top of the Space Needle

Infamous has been a series that has helped me through extremely tough times. I beat the first two games after going through a divorce and leaving Seattle, a city where I learned so much. I learned how to make friends. I learned how to be alone. The first two Infamous games felt like the spirit of Seattle, they felt like the experiences I was going through. Loss. Anger. Sadness. Survival.

I loved Seattle. I loved being in motion, a place where things were happening. Seattle was a city I missed, and then Sucker Punch, the developers of Infamous, announced that Seattle would be the city setting for the next game. I was stoked. I saw the game and yearned for it because it was my way of going back. Of course, I realized that the game’s Seattle and real Seattle were not 1 to 1 or even nearly the same, but the spirit of the city is what made me feel at home again. I climbed the Space Needle. I walked into silly hipsters with their coffee. Second Son brought me back to Seattle at a time when I really was missing the city.

My emotional reasons for loving the game are not the only reasons why I picked it. Truth is, I had a dilemma between picking Second Son and Mass Effect. ME has the better story, but SS has a great story too. SS has better characters, but Mordin is the best character.

The biggest reason why Second Son wins for me is gameplay. Being a conduit is FUN. I love all the powers in Second Son and First Light. Neon is ingenious. Concrete, smoke… video…  these are powers that were designed for an urban environment. They were extremely well thought out, and they were extremely fun to use. Second Son had an extreme variety of things to do and ways to play. It was impossible to get bored.

So, I guess that’s it for 2014. Thanks for a great year on my blog! Let me know what you think in the comments, in fact, tell me what your personal GOTY was!

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
UNRAVELSPACE UNRAVELTIME

Mass Effect - I beat it, here's what I think:

FYI, I only played ME2 and ME3, because ME1 wasn’t out for PS3 when I felt like playing it. So, this is all about the last two games. Also, for ME3, I played Citadel, From Ashes, and Leviathan DLC (I skipped Omega). I played as an Engineer; my most used sidekicks were Liara, Garrus, and Javik. I played on Insanity. I achieved the platinum trophy on ME3, but not 2.

SPOILER WARNING: I am going to litter this with spoilers, so if you haven’t played the game, go play it. That’s all you need to know. Mass Effect is amazing. Go play it immediately.

Mass Effect was beautiful.

I loved the worlds. I loved the set pieces. I loved looking out from where my shuttle landed and seeing a grand expanse of terrain. The views were incredible. Whereas most video games place you in a windowless room to fight through so that they don’t have to worry about creating outside visuals, Mass Effect creates large open windows and allows the player to see the world beyond. I loved looking around and admiring the horizon, seeing the battles unfolding far beyond the space that my character can go. The indoor settings were even expansive… seeing the inside of the Geth Dreadnought and the endlessly large tunnels… Incredible.

The graphics were some of the best I’ve seen on the PS3.

On the critical side of the visual spectrum, I will say that Bioware games have always, for me, had a problem with coming to life by way of motion. Whereas in games like Skyrim, the NPCs walk around, sharpen tools, use the log cutter, ride horses, etc… Bioware games, like ME, usually are populated with static NPCs that don’t move much beyond idling animations. I would like to see Bioware work on this, as their worlds are some of the most engaging and immersive ever created, they deserve to have NPCs that feel alive. Why is the same Volgon always in the Embassy when I show up? Why always standing in the same place? Doesn’t he live somewhere? Doesn’t he have other things to do?

Can't Buy Happiness

So, I bought a Playstation 4.
Unboxed it. Set it up.
Played on the menus for about 5 minutes.
Then it died.

No joke. It crapped out on me and became unusable. When I push the power, a blue light flickers and it beeps once, then it dies. I called Sony, and ran their tests. They tried to boot to safe-mode, but it wouldn’t go past the first beep. The only solution was to send me a box coffin to ship it back to them with. They’re going to fix it for free and all, but it still sucks.

I’ve been really, really missing Seattle lately. 

I had been doing so well—making herds of friends and all while I was out there, but then I had to leave it all and return to the cornfield that is Southern Illinois. Most of the old friends I had here moved elsewhere, and I suppose I will move away again someday, but…

My Playstation 4 was supposed to take me back. I bought a game called Infamous: Second Son, which is set in Seattle. You can explore the city freely—it’s an open world without the linear restrictions of normal games. But, my PS4 died 5 minutes after the unboxing. Figures.

On the car ride over to the video game store, I even said, “I’m just trying to buy myself happiness.” I guess I’ve been super lonely recently. In some ways, I guess that’s by design. I’ve been really reclusive lately. I’ve felt like doing things but I’m so annoyed about how there’s nothing to do without driving a million miles away that I’m frustrated. I went to the STL Zoo recently, attempting to go out and do something by myself for myself. A self-date, I guess. I wanted to see if I could have fun alone, so I went to the STL Fair and then walked to the Zoo. It was boring. I bought myself a root beer float and sat alone eating it. It sucked. At least I know that I hate being alone, now.

The other reason I’ve been a recluse is because of my writing. I really, really want to be a writer, and I know that I have to work at it full-time, even though I already have a full-time job, if I even have a hope of ever being published. I’ve been working extremely hard at it, and writing is a lonesome activity. All of people you hang out with while writing are characters that you’ve made up in your head. Those characters are all bits and pieces of you. So, writers really are a weird sort of introvert. Self-examining, social creating, but only with fictitious copies of the self. Err.

Well, that’s my life recently. Also, more weird dreams.

I posted the other day, but I had another last night. Here it is:

I was in a giant observatory, and I walked through a painting. On the other side, the painting had become solid and so I could no longer go back. I was on the top floor of a tower, inside a room that looked like Dumbledore’s office. A tall pale man in a pinstripe suit was there, and he spoke to me about how to become immortal. Suddenly, the floor collapsed and I fell into a room surrounded by spider webs. Spiders trickled out from all the walls and gripped me. I wasn’t afraid, though. Suddenly, my dream cut to a giant open field of hilly grass and flowers. Tall women, with thin purple legs were striding over the hills singing. I was walking under them but they kept going. I woke up and Enya was playing on my computer—I guess that’s where the singing came from.



Follow me @Oxyborb and check out my website at http://www.harrisonaye.com Thanks for reading!

MY GAME OF E3 2014

No Man's Sky

This game looks STUNNING. Like what Spore should have been. I love open worlds... try open universe. I love the concept that there's a very tiny chance to encounter other players online, since the universe is so big. I love that dinosaurs exist. I love the art direction and the use of color. I love the science fiction, new frontier. I love the community exploration and discovery aspects. I love that you share your discoveries with everyone that is playing. I just cannot wait to purchase this game. I hope it lives up to what they're showing. Spore, honestly, did not... so I'm hoping this will be the fulfillment of universal exploration I've been wanting. Awesome show, Hello Games. I wish you guys the best of luck!