Monthly Archives: March 2018

Sea of Thieves Stress Test Impressions

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), Former General Manager and Guest Writer

Ah the open sea. The magic of Wind Waker, Uncharted Waters Online, Age of Sail. Something about the setting of nothing between you and the bottomless deep besides the wood beneath your legs and the coordination amongst your crew really speaks to me. But not to all. Sea of Thieves is currently in the period of razzle dazzle when everyone is screaming its praises, and ensuring the criticism is sent to Davy Jones’ Locker in the process. Alas and Avast, there may be many low researched pre-orderers rushing into a game that will hold their interest about as long as an old bar wench after the grog has run dry. The sea holds hours of endless sandbox content… assuming you are an explorer type. Rare has set a Thanksgiving Feast for explorer type gamers with beautiful locales, dynamic weather conditions, dangerous islands, riddles, and more. But if you don’t have an itch for roleplaying, the seas may become a dull and barren place. If you don’t have close friends to join you on your journey and lack a knack for social diplomacy, all the worse. Join me as we walk the plank into the game that will be hailed as game of the year by some, and a snoozefest by many more.

If shooting the narrow is your idea of a good time, you might be in the game of the year crew.

 

The concepts are simple, far more so than many recent additions to the team-focused naval battle genre like Blackwake. Grab a quest, be it clues, maps to treasure from the gold hoarders as seen in the stress tests, or carrying prized animals or enacting devious deeds on the high seas from the other two teased factions. But why? Well glory, and a sense of self-worth. Dare I say it… fun? For the more hardcore players the driving force might be as simple as a scoreboard. The race to rack up points with all three factions to be deemed the first of the legendary pirates! But in the end, it’s all just an excuse. An excuse to point explorers off the land and into the open sea to find their own source of adventure. And I’m among a dying breed of neglected gamers who, upon hearing that, feel our blood get boiling with excitement. Such open-ended adventure in a pirate setting simply doesn’t exist!

Firing yourself from a cannon ball is more of an art than a science.

 

Of course Rare isn’t asking $60 (or even more intense prices in certain regions!) to let you play with your imagination in an empty ocean. Those with keen eyes on the high seas can stumble across sunken treasure, rumored sea monsters, intense storms, skelewags, and most dangerous of all, other players!

Hope you like drowning in Claustrophobia!

Sunken Treasure

Sunken treasure offers the most fun mini-game around for torturing those with Thalassophobia or drowning in cramped spaces. Swim into large sunken upside down ships filled with path blocking debris as you desperately test whether your greed for finding treasure that sometimes isn’t there is greater than your breath holding skills. Then when you find the treasure, swim slower as you carry it towards the surface while your character audibly suffers, with sharks nipping at your heels. I promise it’s more fun than it sounds!

Worst Time to Fight

Intense Storms

Perhaps one of the most incredible experiences Sea of Thieves has to offer is the intensity of sailing through a storm. Your compass spins erratically. Wind pushes you off course harder than you are used to. Lightning strikes and large waves pierce holes in your vessel to up the speed you take on water beyond the water you are already taking on from raging downpours. And should your captain be forced to go below deck to assist with repairs, your wheel drifts causing you to go off course even further. Unprepared sailors will likely find themselves sunk or spinning in circles for a dozen minutes before the storm mercifully passes by them, leaving them nowhere near the original course to treasure they had charted upon leaving port. Masterful pirates however may learn the harsh lessons of the storm and harness it to their own devious desires, sailing with the storm to pounce on unready vessels struggling to survive the ravages as is. Add in unexpected, unmapped iceberg size rock islands to the mix and you have an adrenaline filled feature that can spice up any journey with friends.

 

Skelewags and Landlubber Combat

Players can’t always be around to threaten your voyages and pump up the adrenaline meter. Sometimes pre-set AI has to step in to fill the shoes. As your level of quest difficulty rises with your reputation, you will encounter more and more skillful skeletons packing all the same gear as yourself. It is a fantastic way for less experienced pvpers to learn the ropes of combat with less stressful circumstances on the line. As of the stress test, you had 4 primary tools at your disposal for Skelewagging.

Some skeletons are a joke. Others will blow your head off with a cannon. Never underestimate one!

 

The trusty pirate saber, capable of blocking melee strikes, grants you fast moving dodges to throw off the aim of enemy firepower, and a charge attack that can be slightly glitched to allow you to quickly close the distance with an off-guard opponent. With set combos and attack cooldowns, the sword offers a great tool that’s easy to pick up but will take months on the high seas to master.

The pistol is your tried and true starter weapon, with fantastic accuracy, decent damage, and a fast enough reload time to make it a jack-of-all-trades. If I’m on the defensive in a fight I did not plan for, the pistol offers enough utility to never make me feel uneasy.

 

Sharks or Blunderbuss. Either is an execution.

 

The blunderbuss is a proto-type shotgun that can literally blow someone’s head off at point blank range, or offer a scattershot if used from a mid-range elevation that can rain chaos on a passing ship. It’s the great equalizer when you face superior numbers as a single well placed shot can turn a 2v1 into a 1v1 before the 2 even knows the 1 is there. That said, this gun is very lackluster in places where you can’t close gaps easily like elevation differences or fights in the middle of the sea. So watch your footing when blunderbussing!

Finally, the bane of PC players is the sniper. Although it packs one hell of a wallop if landed, the movement on the scope is so painfully slow that all you are likely to hit with it is a skelewag or AFK player: And that’s assuming the sea isn’t tossing your ship around at forty degree angles. This weapon will likely see a buff before launch because as of now, its only real use is sending warning shots to get another ship’s attention.

You never know when you are being sneaky, and when you are sailing into a trap.

 

Ship Combat

The greatest beacon of light in Sea of Thieves is the ship combat. A team has to come together on all fronts from coordination steering, decisive anchor drops to throw off opponents with quick turns, raising and lowering sails and constantly readjusting them to min-max sharp turns with high speed, and managing repairs. At some point during all this a team has to have the wits to grab a cannon and land a shot on a fast moving and (in the case of sloops) very small target, sometimes at great distance. Then there is the ever present danger of solo players boarding each other’s ships, sometimes carrying explosive gunpowder barrels with them that can wreak havoc! Plus if you are fighting to protect chests you have looted, or later even livestock, you can imagine just how much damage a rival pirate can do as they kill crew members assigned to repair the hull or even grab the nearest chest and jump into the sea with it. Add in shallows, sharp rocks, unexpected third ships, and the occasional unwanted storm, and Sea of Thieves offers the most interesting and adrenaline filled arcade feeling ship battle on the market.

 

When you let your friend drive for the first time…

 

The only downside is the rarity of it happening. During the stress tests, there were times when I would find myself in three naval battles in a half hours’ time whether I was looking for them or not. Other times you might see a ship on the horizon once an hour, and ships you do see turn sail and run before you are ever in range of engaging them. This will be addressed with the addition of skeleton fort raids at launch, but just be aware that the seas can be a lonely place from time to time. Try sailing a solo sloop to islands around the edges of the world and you will start to wonder if you are even in an online server.

 

Bringing the Captain’s Chest home safely with pirates hot on your tail is a rewarding feeling.

 

Closing Thoughts

Sea of Thieves is a love letter to fans of exploration and tight knit guilds or friends that have a set time of day to join up together to compete online. It has niche appeal to very patient PK types as well that are willing to sail for half an hour to find their challenge and get their jollies out of wrecking others’ hard work. For Sea of Thieves to work, much like an ecosystem, you are going to need a healthy population of explorers and a smaller population of PK junkies to join together and find the game mechanics interesting for the long haul. The game is fully built around horizontal progression, so the prestige of doing well at what you love in the game has to be fine-tuned to offer slow and steady progression that speaks to both style of players.

 

Counting out paces isn’t for everyone.

 

Unfortunately while the game mechanics speak to me, I have watched over the past three stress tests as those around me have waned in interest at varying speeds. Most worrying is my hardened PK friend lasted about an hour before the lack of ship battles bored him to tears and he never signed back in. My extreme explorer wife was blown away for the first weekend, and then lacked the motivation to join for the long voyages as the repeating islands began to bore her. My casual gamer friend was interested the longest but the constant switchup between intense stressful encounters and half an hour on the open seas was throwing off his gaming feng shui as he prefers to know which of the two he is signing up for when he games.

 

This is my Final Flash!

 

To go the distance, Sea of Thieves is going to need a better way to bring together the orphaned survivors of their initial friend groups after the glow of launch fades. Better systems for drop in, drop out friend invites, friends sailing together on the same servers, guilds to keep communication flowing beyond simply their shipmates to spice up long voyages, and highly prevalent ranking systems that reward PKers and chest hunters alike will be the elements that make or break Sea of Thieves one month post-launch. Whether they will be in place in time remains to be seen, but being ship customization is still a post-launch goal, it’s clear Rare is treading water trying to keep this beautiful ship afloat.

Neverwinter Lost City of Omu Giveaway (PC)

We’ve partnered with Perfect World to celebrate the launch of Neverwinter: Lost City of Omu with a limited mount giveaway!

Neverwinter is a free-to-play action MMORPG that features fast-paced combat and epic dungeons. Players explore the vast city of Neverwinter and its surrounding countryside, learning the vivid history of the iconic city in the Forgotten Realms and battling its many enemies. Neverwinter is available on PC and is free to play digitally on Xbox One (with Xbox Live Gold*) and PlayStation®4 (PlayStation®Plus not required).

*On Xbox, Xbox Live Gold membership (sold separately) required.

Neverwinter: Lost City of Omu is now live on PC! Learn more about the game and its latest expansion by visiting http://www.playneverwinter.com


Teal Axebeak Tooltip

Item: Suratuk’s Teal-Dusted Axebeak

  • +110% Movement Speed
  • Three Insignia slots

To Redeem your Key:

  1. Visit playneverwinter.com to install and launch the Arc client if you haven’t already.
  2. Select the gear icon at the top right of the client.
  3. Select “Activate a Product,” enter the item code and click Next.
  4. Select the Library icon below “Charge,” locate Neverwinter and launch the game.
  5. Your item can be found at the Rewards Claim Agent in Protector’s Enclave.

Please note that these items are Bind on Pickup and may only be redeemed once per account.

Note: Unfortunately ad blockers may interfere with our site. If you have any issues claiming a key, please disable them and try again.

Miss out on one of the limited codes? Drop by our forums and check for a second chance to win!

Nintendo Switch News – 3/5/18 – 3/9/18

Nintendo Switch News 3.5 - 3.8

by Jason Parker (Ragachak)

Good morning, Internet! Well, it’s been quite a week for Nintendo! Yesterday, the March Nintendo Direct hit the Internet, and boy did fans erupt with joy for some of it! Now on a personal note, I’m only really excited for one of the games coming out that was announced: Octopath Traveler! It received a release date (July 23rd, 2018), Crash Bandicoot was announced as well. His trilogy remake is coming to the Switch, making a lot of folks very happy. More Wii-U titles are on the way too! Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is the next Wii-U title that many might have missed out on. Then there’s the Dark Souls Remaster (And the Dark Souls Amiibo that is a must-have for me at the very least), not to mention Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes. I will say that I’m shocked that South Park: The Fractured But Whole is coming to the Switch. But perhaps the biggest news to arrive from this Direct was Super Smash Bros. Now, we don’t know much about it, other than that Splatoon’s Inklings are playable. If you’d like to watch the full thing, I’ll embed it below. But let’s look at some more viable, playable games!

Scribblenauts Showdown (March 6th): Scribblenauts is an adorable, wonderful franchise, and the latest title, Showdown, is a party-style Scribblenauts game. With a 35,000 word dictionary, conjure just about anything you desire in over 25 games. It also has a fun Sandbox mode where you can exercise your creativity in truly phenomenal ways. Up to four players can get down with some colorful action, where using your words is the way to win. But you can also play against the CPU in a Versus Mode, so even people playing alone can have fun. 39.99 Retail/Digital.

Fear Effect Sedna (March 6th): From Square Enix and Forever Entertainment, an action/stealth game also seen on Steam/PS4/XBox One, it’s enhanced by what it calls the “Fear system”, you can harness your team’s dynamic abilities to solve puzzles in unique ways. A sequel to the 1999 hit, Fear Effect on the Playstation, enter the spirit realm to stop mystic forces, only if you are brave enough. The weapons are cool, the cutscenes are stylish and intriguing, there’s definitely a lot on offer with this stand-out title on the Nintendo Switch. I’m glad Nintendo consoles are getting edgier, Mature content and Fear Effect Sedna’s on that list with a Mature rating. 19.99 Digital

Steredenn: Binary Stars (March 8th): Do you love roguelikes and SHMUPs (Shoot ’em Ups)? Well, Steredenn: Binary Stars is the pixel-art game for you! Gorgeous pixels, with co-op and solo action, you fight the worst scourges the universe has to offer. It’s also very much in the style of the Japanese Bullet Hell, where pixel-perfect timing helps to avoid huge walls of colorful, aggravating bullets. A host of weapons await you, the pilot, as does an engaging soundtrack. Travel through gorgeous space-scapes and unleash laser-based Hell on any that try to bar your path! 12.99 Digital

Immortal: Unchained Alpha Thoughts

by Jason Parker (Ragachak)

Immortal Unchained Alpha - Start

Looks hopeless, right? That’s okay, we’ll learn to kill.

Now I know this is some kind of crazy hot-take, and it’s going to make some folks on the internet boil with anger, but here goes: Immortal: Unchained is a Dark Souls style game. Yes, yes, I know. Dark Souls is a pure, unique creature that nothing can ever be but a pale imitation of, but hear me out. Immortal: Unchained takes that formula of “die often, learn a lot” and puts it in a more futuristic setting. Instead of dodging forever, and swinging a few times, you . . . well, you still do fancy rolls and dodges, but instead of wielding medieval weaponry, you have a host of different guns to equip, each with their own stats, sprays, and damage to account for. Instead of “souls” you have “forgotten bits”, and that is your currency to up stats and do a variety of things. You’ll see a lot of similarities, but that’s not a bad thing. I’m universally bad at this style of game, so my time spent learning was a little higher than normal. But you know what? I did it. I learned what I was doing, even if it meant I spent well into eighty minutes on the tutorial stage, mostly because of the final boss. I was trying to do too much at once, and dying for it.

Immortal Unchained - Combat

You might call this a real clash of styles.

Immortal: Unchained has you playing a nameless man, muscular and mute. Awakened with no weapons, no memories and no chance, he travels through these tombs, scrounging for a pistol, a knife, and a prayer. The game will give you some brief tutorial hints, like which button does what, how to reload, how to equip weapons (at Obelisks), and briefly mentions the targeting system. This is what makes this stand out from its brethren in the genre. You can aim and shoot, which is normal, but you also have a body-part/aiming system.Each enemy has a set of body parts you can target, and in addition to their health meter, there’s also a stun-bar. As you hit body parts, that meter will drop (less if they have a shield to defend themselves). When it glows red, they’re staggered/stunned, and you can really lay into them. This is harder to do when multiple enemies are on the field because you have to dodge one, shoot the other, dodge one, shoot the other until you’re incredibly powerful. That never happened to me, sadly. What I found worked the best, was aiming at a leg, swapping to the other leg, then to whatever arm they were shooting you with. I rotate parts until stunned, then shoot them in the head. Unless they’re very weak, then I just go for headshots and move on.

Immortal Unchained Alpha - Stats

There are no stat resets (yet if ever), so be careful.

This is such an interesting system, adding a lot to the tactics and strategies of trying to fight for your life, because if you die, you lose all of your bits. Like the Souls games before it, you can go back and retrieve them. Just don’t be like me, store 5/6k bits, die, then die a second time. That’s the most frustrating thing because now you have to start farming again. That leads me to Obelisks. Obelisks are where you upgrade stats, equip weapon blueprints, restore your medkits/grenades, and upgrade weapons if you have the requirements to do so. Activating it also resets all the encounters, so you can’t just kill something, run away, heal at the Obelisk then move on unmolested. This is a great way to learn patterns, and farm up bits because leveling stats is expensive. Oh my goodness. Each time you level a stat, you level up, but I highly advise waiting to level stats too quickly. The cost ramps up very high, and I learned this lesson the hard way. The first “random” weapon I picked up was a sub-machine gun (to compliment my pistol and assault rifle), and it was a higher rarity, had an elemental effect (acid) and was, in general, amazing.

Immortal Unchained Alpha - Guns

I needed guns, bits, and half-a-chance. Who provided these funds?

However, it required 15 in two stats, one of which I had been working on, the other I was not. So I had to farm for what felt like an eternity to just get the second stat at 15, so I could equip this amazing gun. It was worth it, but at this stage of the game’s development, there are no resources to look online as to what you can equip, what it’ll cost, and what you should focus on. In this case, Finesse and Perception. Each stat has its own purpose, and you have eight of them. I feel like something could be modified here. Either fewer stats, or decrease the costs just a little. It’s very overwhelming, to except the most hardcore players, I imagine. I’m not suggesting you make it easy, but the early gun stats I found were just nuts in terms of stat requirements. I didn’t need it to defeat the first boss, but I bet money it would have helped. I do wish you didn’t have to activate Obelisks to simply equip weapons, but here we are. I’m not a fan of it, but it is an interesting concept. It’s also important to note that every weapon has a “power” ability, which is used via the R1 button. It uses your blue/mana meter, so don’t spam these either, unless you’re farming via Obelisk.

Immortal Unchained Alpha - Levers

Levers … how do they work?

You also have a variety of consumable items, from items that increase your resistances, grenades, medkits, and possibly the most interesting, Cyanide. Yes, you can commit suicide in this game. At first, I thought this was just insulting and stupid, then I came to a realization. Maybe you’re out of health, in a bad position, no other handy items, but don’t want to give up all of your bits. Retreat somewhere near an obelisk, perish, then go back with full medkits/etc, and acquire your bits. So it made way more sense than I was giving it! You also uncover these items called “Cerium Decree”. They open doors, activate levers, open some treasure chests. What I like about this, is that they aren’t consumed once you activate an item. So, think of them like Super Mario 64 stars, and you need to collect as many as possible. They’re very important, and it looks to me like you’ll have to backtrack to use some of them. I found a chest that required 10 very early on, and there was no way I’d have that many. So I have a feeling we’ll be going back and exploring areas as we grow more powerful. I don’t think it will be required, but will certainly be useful.

Immortal Unchained Alpha - Auto Target

Tight corridors like this make auto-target incredibly frustrating.

Combat is as complex as it needs to be. You have a finite amount of ammo, but the Undead you fight are pretty good about dropping caches of ammo for you. You have a melee attack (which is honestly, for lack of a better phrase, absolute godawful), your aim, using the right stick to aim at body parts, a run/dodge/jump button, and your item button. The melee just feels weak because almost every enemy I’ve encountered has a gun, and the melee units hit incredibly hard while you do not. How you press the dodge button changes what it does. Tap it lightly, and he hops in the direction you’re holding. Pressing harder is your roll, and holding it down is run (which consumes stamina). If you press R3, you’ll lock on to your closest opponent, but can shift to others with the Right stick. This is definitely a sticking point for me because once you’re in that lock-on mode, your movement is seriously hampered. If you’re trying to move back behind cover/around a corner, it’s going to be very stiff and slow going, and that is the cause of about 40% of my deaths. If you could perhaps use the targeting system without locking your movement down, that would be a huge benefit. I’m, of course, not discounting that I could simply be doing it wrong, that’s feasible. But as a newcomer, it definitely felt stiff and unforgiving, even in that movement system. Bosses are powerful, big, and mean. They have predictable patterns that you can certainly learn and will have no choice but to do so if you want to survive. All enemies have some kind of pattern, and as all things in this style of game, you learn or you die. It’s all about learning. Learning when the enemy needs to reload, what points you need to hit to stagger them.

 

Immortal Unchain Alpha - Boss

These bosses do NOT mess around.

Hype Train: On Schedule:

Normally, I don’t really play these kinds of games. I’m bad at them, and while I can learn how to get good, I don’t really have that kind of time in my day-to-day. But Immortal: Unchained feels solid, the world is intriguing, the controls are pretty smooth and are definitely responsive. They recommend using a controller, and I certainly agree. There’s already lore in the game when you click on certain monuments and other in-game items, where you learn alongside your character. The maps are well-designed, and so far, a lot of them feel like mazes, which I assume is the idea. I kind of wish I had a mini-map to use, but I feel like that would take away from the game. I just want it because I’m bad! A tactical, careful approach is definitely the way to tackle this game. Don’t assume just because you have guns you need to go in blazing, because you will die, repeatedly.

Immortal Unchained - Snow

It’s not all grim moody bleak darkness either.

Immortal: Unchained is in Alpha, but it’s definitely got the right idea, and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing how it is adjusted, and how it grows from here. I was disappointed that my file got reset until I realized that it would be a great way to see just how much I’ve learned over the last couple of days. And for the most part, I just blew through the first stage, until I got cocky. Then I paid for it and lost 4,000 bits. But it was my own doing, and I cannot blame the game. It’s still in need of some polish but it is in Alpha after all. The major issues I involved the targeting system and movement. I stand my thoughts of adjusting the stat system somehow. It just seems too high for what you’re getting off of regular enemies, especially with that many stats. Or perhaps making it more clear what weapons need what stats? But it’s coming along, and I’m excited about it. I think Souls-fans will enjoy it and get a ton of new challenges and excitement out of it.

We have a limited number of closed alpha keys available!

Note: A game key was provided for preview purposes.

More Immortal: Unchained Screenshots

 

Immortal: Unchained Closed Alpha Giveaway

We’ve partnered with Toadman Interactive to offer access to the limited Closed Alpha for Immortal: Unchained!

Unleashed and unforgiving. Can you rise to the challenge?

Immortal: Unchained is the latest addition to the genre of ultra-hardcore action RPGs. Take the role of a living weapon, unleashed to stop the source of a cataclysmic event threatening to end all worlds. Discover the secrets of these worlds, master the unique but lethal gun combat, and defeat legendary bosses.

Being an ultimate weapon, you have been locked up for millennia by those who fear your potential. It will require many harsh lessons to unlock this potential in an unforgiving universe full of murderous foes. On your journey, expect no mercy and no assistance: Those that aren’t trying to kill you, will instead try to use you to further their own agenda. Trust no one.


Your key grants you access to the Closed Alpha for Immortal: Unchained on Steam (PC). This alpha runs from 2pm GMT / 6am PST on Thursday, March 8 through 2pm GMT / 7am PDT on Monday, March 12. More details on the Closed Alpha are available in this FAQ.

Read our thoughts on Immortal: Unchained here!

To Redeem your Key:

  • Launch the Steam client software and log into your Steam account.
  • Click the Games Menu.
  • Choose Activate a Product on Steam…
  • Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the process.

Note: Unfortunately ad blockers may interfere with our site. If you have any issues claiming a key, please disable them and try again.

Laser League’s First Early Access Update Hits Steam

Laser League is an arcade-style multiplayer action sport of the future from 505 Games and Roll7, and it is presently in Early Access on Steam. Today receives its first content update, expanding on the title in a big way. The update offers a new Stadium with four new maps, two new teams, 2 new powerups, and 3 additional maps for the original arenas.

Introducing a new location in Doha, the modern and impressive Al Shama Stadium, home to two of the region’s most formidable teams – the Falcons and the Cobras. A cool blue oasis in the harsh desert, Al Shama stadium’s Laser maps flow like water, with intricate, constantly morphing designs that require perpetual movement in order to survive.

 They are:

  • CHEVRON: Restrictive. Requires constant movement
  • VEXATION: Complex. Breaks into regions
  • SLINGSHOT: Dynamic. Dangerous long lasers
  • SINGULARITY: Centric. Centre domination is key.

Teams playing in Al Shama will experience the effects of 2 new powerups:

  • Stun, which briefly downs the opposing team.
  • Lockdown, which prevents one team from wall wrapping!

But this is not all, as the original arenas also see new maps added:

  • [Empire Campus] WRAPGAME: Tactical. Wall wrapping is key.
  • [Geng Hao Megaplex] CROSSFIRE: Shred. Long spinning lasers.
  • [SilverTip Arena] TURBINE: Locomotive. Kinetic domination of space.