The next expansion of Destiny, Rise of Iron is coming! A new cinematic story takes us to the Plaguelands, a new Earth location. I’m most looking forward to the six player raid though!
Monthly Archives: June 2016
Gaming With Post-Graduation Depression
For those of you who don’t know me personally [which is a lot of you], I’m Jason, or Ragachak, whichever you might see on your screen. I do Twitch Streams and Co-Produce videos and create content for a YouTube channel as well as work here, and on MMOHuts.com. And I love it; don’t get me wrong, this is the job I’ve always wanted to have. Though I graduated college considerably late in life [30s], I still struggle with the whole “Post-Graduation Depression” shtick. Because now I have time: Time to work a lot more than I ever had. I have the ability to write about whatever crosses my mind and publish it, a freedom many people don’t have. I have the time to play more games than I have ever before! I have so many days where I sit around and fucking do nothing. So much time just watching YouTube. I have so many games on my bucket list to finish or even start! Another EarthBound playthrough, finish Bravely Second, play Metal Gear Solid V, Tales of Symphonia, Wolfenstein: The New Order, TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan. I need to finish Undertale, and finish my 100% run of FFX-2. Instead? I watched YouTube, did some work and played two games of League of Legends. I start my day with Yoga, and exercise, but I finish my day just slumped in a chair frowning at my screen.
Many have said that depression isn’t a real illness, because you can’t physically see it. That’s a lot of bullshit. That crippling self-doubt that hangs overhead like a cloud, with thoughts like, “Why are you wasting your time playing Final Fantasy X? Don’t you have something more important to do?” and the answer is “No”, I really don’t. Playing games, keeping up with what’s interesting or cool is part-and-parcel to what I do. And I have to manage social/family obligations, be entertaining on camera, pretty much all day. There is never a time when I think, “I hate my job”, because I don’t. But it can be incredibly hard to focus on finding something to write about, despite having a billion ideas. That depression floats in again and cackles, informing you that every idea you have is just shit. Why would anyone want to know what I think about 80s games, or 90s classic RPGs? I can’t help it; it possesses a lot of my thoughts throughout the day. Post-Graduation Depression makes everything I do feel dull, listless, and not worth doing. Normally a person with infinite patience, I find myself snapping at people that frankly, don’t deserve it.
I’m not the only person who feels this way; I know I’m not. But it in no way changes how I feel. I however, am very fortunate to have a job I love doing, and people in my life that understand how vexing it can be. Sure there are other places that have better “Metrics”, but they don’t love what they do. I just wanted other people to know that battle a variety of social anxieties, depression, or other tough times, that they are not alone. Gaming is supposed to be one of my outlets, where I can immerse myself in a story and find solace. But Post-Graduation Depression colors everything a shade of gray. It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone, and I hope you, as readers know the same thing. If I’m feeling that crippling doubt lingering near, I can go to one of my co-workers, my bosses or close friends, and that can do a world of good. The big takeaway friends, whether I know you or not: You are not alone. I’ve had people on Smite who follow the stream come to me and just need someone to listen: I never mind giving them a proverbial ear. Whether it’s on Twitter, YouTube, whatever, You are not alone.
What do you guys play or do to combat that kind of social anxiety? Me, I delve into deep RPGs, or ludicrous action titles.
War Thunder Update 1.59 ‘Flaming Arrows’
War Thunder‘s new video for ‘Flaming Arrows’, Patch 1.59 is live! Learn more about more hangars, ATGM Armed Vehicles, new vehicles on the ground and air, and much more!
Bottom Tier News Update Vol. 2
Attention, Internet! Every so often I use my bully pulpit to talk about stuff near and dear to me. And sometimes it’s just to shamelessly promote the YouTube channel I co-run, partnered with MMOHuts and OnRPG, Bottom Tier! A lot has gone on in the past month, and we’ve been terribly busy on both fronts, me starting new stuff with this company, Colton with his preparing to move and start a new phase in his life. But that’s no reason to not put out quality videos, because we love you guys! Lots of stuff going up soon! Stuff like:
- Two Episodes of Fatal Frame 2: We were going to do a longplay of this, but we came to the conclusion it would just be too long, and too boring in so many spots. This will be transitioning into “Saturday Morning RPG”, which I’ve wanted an excuse to play for ages! This will be a part of our ongoing “Bottom Tier Sells Out” series, for people who joined our Patreon and demand us to play things to amuse them!
- Episode 3 of Battleborn! It’s recorded, edited, and ready to go very soon! We’ll be tackling Mission 2, and that’ll be a lot of fun!
- More regular Bottom Tier content! We’ll be coming back to EarthBound, Pokémon Soul Silver, Super Metroid, and whatever else we’ve forgotten!
There’s a lot that goes into all of this, and so for the people who come to the channel and click the little “Follow” button, maybe leave a comment or a like here or there, we appreciate all of it. But we’d love to know what other people would like to see! Us playing versus games, any particular old school game/console? We’d love to know!
The King of Fighters XIV Gameplay Trailer #1
You come at the King you better not miss.
The King of Fighters XIV
The King of Fighters is back and better than even with the largest roster yet, several game modes, draw dropping visuals, and the age old wackiness only KoF can pull off in a fighting game, available for the PlayStation 4.
Come Close and Listen: Take part in tale woven amongst the characters.
Feisty: Demolish opponents with stunning game changing ultimate abilities.
Made to Mode: In addition to the story mode, improve your skills in training, check out the gallery art, and test your mettle against the world.
Agents of Mayhem
The Agents of Mayhem are a collection of exceptionally skilled operatives on a mission to save the world from Legion, take down anything that stands in your path with guns, unique abilities, and more in the open world of Seoul, available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows.
Features:
M.A.Y.H.E.M: Multinational AgencY for Hunting Evil Masterminds at your service.
Right Man for the Job: Rotate through heroes dynamically in the field to adapt to any situation.
Deep Silver: The creators of the Saints Row franchise has a new IP in their scope.
Dungeon Crash Review
By Vincent Haoson (Ojogo)
Dungeon Crash is a free-to-play energy based simulation strategy RPG from Firefly Games Inc. You play as a ruler of a kingdom that has been invaded by monsters because the legendary sword, Pandora, has been shattered. So you and your team of heroes embark on a quest to get back the shards a la Inu-Yasha.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Dungeon Crash is a surprising mix of elements that I would never expect from this kind of game. You have a simplified simulation gameplay mechanic where you need to continuously build up your town. At the same time, you will also have to focus on building up your heroes. Finally, you have a tiny tower type of game where you will mostly assign your heroes that aren’t part of your line-up to their own tasks/jobs in farming dungeons.
Heroes
Dungeon Crash uses the tired hero build-up system where you can either level up, evolve, or enhance your heroes. Enhancement and evolution would require you to eat up consumable items earned through dungeon work or instanced runs. Leveling heroes up is done either by sending them through dungeon instance runs or making them do dungeon work.
Aside from hero-centric enhancement to increase the hero’s stats, Dungeon Crash also allows you to equip upgradable weapons and gear to your hero roster. Unlike the usual equipment upgrade system found in other titles, leveling weapons and equipment in Dungeon Crash can go past your current level.

The game forces you to choose a certain set of heroes as your primary line-up or attacking force. Your line-up determines the set of passives and active spells you can activate per instance. Also as an added boost feature, Dungeon Crash has a combo lineup system in place. This means that your lineup gains more bonuses depending on the set of people you have on the team. One bonus example is the Forgotten Kingdom Combo, which provides strength and an HP buff for Artorius, Murlin and Morrigan. Another is Hired Swordsman, which gives a higher percentage of HP buff for Zack and Richter.
Another thing of note in Dungeon Crash is the source material of the heroes you can attain. Most of them are based from famous fantasy themed characters that just have a different spelling of their name. To further increase the element of familiarity for the heroes, some of these heroes’ fates are connected heavily to the source material they are taken from.
Dungeon
The hero’s fate works in Dungeon Crash as a bonus for the items a hero earns after working a dungeon. Unlike in other titles where “working a dungeon” means that they would have to adventure in the dungeon with you controlling them, in Dungeon Crash, it means you assign your heroes to literally work in the dungeons you unlock for a duration. The heroes you assign here can either be your backup or standby teams, or you can even assign your current line-up if you know you won’t be actively needing them for a bit. After each work period, your hero then earns the rewards you get based on the posted possible list of items you can earn per dungeon.
These dungeons also work like in Tiny Tower where random encounters will have you scourge through the list of dungeons you unlock. Depending on the request given randomly by the game’s AI, you’ll either be required to finish a work period, chase after a pet, or beat a certain dungeon to earn added rewards.
Of course the usual squad based dungeon runs and instances are still required in Dungeon Crash. In fact, it’s highly integral here. There’s a certain amount of star requirement needed before you can unlock dungeons. And earning those stars means you need to go through instance runs and get three stars per map.
Other quirks
There’s another quirky feature in Dungeon Crash that kind of forces you to look in the game more than your usual F2P Mobile title. This is the random hero visitations that occur in-game one after another.
Just like in any kingdom (or at least in the ones we can see in media) you have to grant audience to various heroes that visit your kingdom. All the heroes that come in offer something for your kingdom. Some come in giving quests, while others give off discount coupons, and some provide dungeon specific subquests. It’s basically the game’s way of giving you extra bonuses and busy work in a very thematic and cute way.
The problem though with this game system is you really have to put in effort to breeze through the cut-scenes that come along each visit. You have the option to skip the cut-scene but even with that measure, granting audience to visiting heroes has become a tedious process.
Resource Management
With the way the game is designed, Dungeon Crash is more of a hero management game than anything else. The majority of the things you’ll be doing in-game is to properly manage your hero roster, host them in homes of differing designs and make them useful to your kingdom building. In fact, most of your time will be concentrated on hero housing and proper dungeon assignment.
While this sounds dull, at least instanced runs are interesting. The way the game pushes the story along really feels like you are watching an episode of the anime Inu-Yasha where your line-up would throw out lines regarding the recovery of the shards and what not. I liked that the game doesn’t lose that plot point, even as you continue along the story, unlike other titles where the story is quickly forgotten and cast aside.
Conclusion: Great
Overall, my experience with Dungeon Crash is a really interesting one. I never expected a company would try to mix two unlikely game elements and even make it work. Dungeon Crash is a solid simulation-strategy-RPG title. I am actually surprised with the quality of gameplay the game has. It’s one of those rare titles where even if the energy is depleted, you have at least a reason to keep your eyes on the game screen.
Dungeon Crash is one of those titles that you either love it fully or you hate it because of the amount of time you are throwing into the game. If you’re looking for a throwaway F2P title then Dungeon Crash is something that you shouldn’t get sucked into. However, if you’re the type who wants to be engaged by their mobile game as a semi-main pastime, this game is just for you.
Injustice 2: What Do You Want?
I have NO idea! But there are some things I’d like to see in the game. I’m not very good at the Mortal Kombat style gameplay, but despite that, I do love a good fighting game. And the cast of characters for the original Injustice was pretty varied; every hero had a foil, et cetera. But I don’t know that they gave it as much thought as they could have. I have a few suggestions that maybe they’ll see, or maybe not. Is it too late? Probably! But that’s okay, that won’t stop me from having an opinion. The biggest one I want to see?
Booster. Fucking. Gold. You heard me. BOOSTER GOLD. Now, a lot of people see him as a joke character. A gimmicky loser like Dan in Street Fighter. But let me learn you some Booster Gold. He wanted to be a hero SO BADLY that he traveled back in time, stole some powerful equipment from the museum he worked at, and went back in time, armed with knowledge of the past to prevent crime and be a hero. Sure, Doomsday beat him like a cheap hooker, but for a game that’s going to be grimdark and edgy, we need that bastion of humor and good nature. That said, make The Flash funnier. Speaking of The Flash, how about Gorilla Grodd? He’s an amazing villain, and would have a great wall bounce moveset.
While I’m glad to see Supergirl [I am, honest], you know who else I’d like to see? Power Girl. And not for the reason you’re thinking; perverts. But yes. Power Girl is well drawn. But she’s such an interesting character, probably the most interesting out of the Kryptonians, in my personal opinion. Speaking of female characters, how about the Huntress? My favorite villains in the DC Universe are not represented at all. The Riddler. Larfleeze, the Orange Lantern. What about Mr. Mxyztplk? His kit would be hilarious! There are so many things that could happen in Injustice 2, so it’s time to do some speculation! Who would you want to play as? Other realities? TV show versions of characters? The possibilities are endless! Sound off below!
KINETIK Kickstarter Video
Alumni from Sony Online Entertainment are coming together to produce a shooter with FPS and MMO Qualities! Raiding, shooting, acquiring loot and shooting the crap out of things! With a Rock-Paper-Scissors weakness system, some things will be powerful, but always have a counter. Find out more in the video!












