Yearly Archives: 2016

Guild Wars 2 Living World Season 3 Press Preview

By Blair Nishkian (Tagspeech)

 

 

Once again, Guild Wars 2 is bringing its playerbase a beefy update with plenty of content to enjoy.  There was a dungeon, a PVP zone, and a fractal – fractals are bizarre PVE dungeons with platforming elements.  Like Guild Wars 2 itself, the only thing that really held my attention was the PVP (rarely do I get the pleasure of fragging devs in their own game) while the PVE just seemed like a colorful cluster-whoops.  I’m not sure how much longer I can find dodging danger zones and DPSing interesting, but I’m told to understand that some people still enjoy it.  I can’t fault Guild Wars 2 for the base gameplay, it’s just a shame that HP sponge bosses wreck that lovely momentum and throw a greasy bone in the works.

 

I vaguely remember a boss on a giant grid, and the grid lit up with electricity, and of course you don’t want to sit in the electricity.  So it was just this big game of Hopscotch/Simon Says while being chased around by a cat-demon with a giant sword.  According to the devs, it gets more and more complex and challenging on higher difficulties, with the ground getting more hostile, more active, etc.  Again, I understand some people like this kind of thing.  To each their own.  Also there were kitty golems, and when we killed them, they just respawned afterwards, missing one – so in the end, the one we fought last was the one we killed first.  It was weird.  Also there was an effed up voice barking at us and telling us how dumb we were, and recycled art from all over the game jammed in the place.  The entire thing was disorienting and strange, but kind of fun. It gets your blood pumping, especially if you’re caught up in the Guild Wars 2 Living Story and get why all this is going on.

 

Of course this is Guild Wars, and as an old school fan of the original, the highlight of any update is always going to be the PvP.  They brought back old Lion’s Arch as a new arena, and this pleases me, because I loved the old Lion’s Arch. You can now live the fantasy of crushing town spammers to cleanse this grand locale of all who oppose you. I ran around as a longbow ranger and sniped people, generally holding the top of the charts as my team steamrolled to back to back wins.  I’m a sly brat.  It was a lot of fun, too; I liked the way the map worked.  The matches were fairly close, and it was a standard ‘stand on the circle to capture the point’ deal, with a twist in the middle – cannons you can fire at enemy ships, when captured.  If you’re ahead, these cannons do twice the damage, possibly clinching a victory.  If you’re behind, you only do the normal amount.  So this zone is designed for a kind of snowball effect, yet it didn’t play out that way. Knowing how destructive the cannons will be as the losing team, you tend to rally harder to ensure said cannons aren’t fired. Both matches were surprisingly even from start to finish as a result.  I truly enjoyed this new PvP battle. I could imagine running it dozens and dozens of times without getting bored. Walking away, I felt a twinge of nostalgia for the old Lion’s Arch as well. Why can’t they bring it back?  The new one looks too much like Disneyland.

 

The last thing we did was a fractal.  I think we ran through a forest full of wolves and giant tentacles, lighting campfires along the way to save ourselves – it was pretty cool.  The devs said they designed this because most players in their PVE content just find the quickest way to run to the end and get the reward, so they decided to make gameplay that went along with that behavior.  I think it made for an intense and fun sequence, challenging in its own right.  Anything that goes toward atmospheric and away from meat-sponge tank-n-spank is all right by me.

At some point I fell off of a cliff during the obligatory fractal platforming section and I got caught in some kind of scaffold and couldn’t even die to free myself.  A dev had to rescue me, it was funny.  They’ll fix that before release, of course. You can thank me later when your character isn’t stuck and glitched.

 

In all, it was a good time with the GW2 folks.  The PVE sections sort of blurred together for me, but the PVP was memorable.  Your mileage may vary!  The good news is, GW2 keeps cranking it out.  I’m impressed.

 

Xenoverse 2 Story Possibility Discussion

Dragonball Xenoverse 2 Mobile Game Banner

Dragonball Xenoverse 2 Mobile Game Banner

Dragonball Xenoverse 2 is coming soon, and there are going to be a lot of new, interesting things to keep this series spicy. And that’s good news! I loved the first one! But I’m looking for better “What-If” scenarios than the lame ones they had. Hey, I never said the game was perfect. I’ve been really thinking about this, and there were a few ideas that I wanted to pitch. I know it’s too late to put them in-game, but maybe if they don’t happen, DLC? Just saying, guys.  Do you have ideas? Feel free to comment below!

  • Freiza’s No Fool: Let’s talk Bardock. A friend posed this: What if Freiza went to Planet Kanassa instead of Bardock and gained the ability to see the future? Now Freiza knows that not only will Bardock betray him, but his son will one day kill him [and he’ll die again to him, but you know. . .]. What does Freiza do? Does he decide to ignore that advice, or will he train, become Golden Freiza, and surprise Goku with it on Namek?
  • More Freiza: On that same train of thought. . . .what if Freiza simply doesn’t kill Krilin? Instead of killing his weak friends, Freiza immediately targets Goku, changing the pace of the fight.
  • Majin. . .Who? We could have several different people become the Majin fighter for Babadi. I’d love to see it be Goku but he’s supposed to be 100% Pure of Heart. Piccolo? Maybe Gohan? Maybe Babadi infects more people. Lots of possibilities.
  • Canon Question: Is Broly canon? What if the Freiza Army knows that there is a defector on Earth? What if Broly is recruited, and isn’t an outcast?  This one I’m not really as solid behind. I’d also like to see a return of the “Goku joins his brother” story from earlier games.
  •  Majin Hercule: Hercule Satan, tired of being outshone by the otherworldly Z-Fighters sells his soul to Babadi, to become Majin Satan. Finally, Hercule Satan has power! He can finally do battle with the main characters! And beats them!

The earlier games had so many possibilities! Cool and goofy fusions, what-if stories, etc. Will we see some of that? God, I hope so.