Monthly Archives: April 2018

ECO Early Access Preview

By Terris Harned (NWOrpheus), Guest Writer

Ever since I first saw the Kickstarter trailer for the game Eco, I wanted to give it a try. The premise of a survival-style game where you are required to balance the ecosystem of a planet, while progressing technologically in order to save it from a meteor, appealed greatly to me. Although Eco is still in Early Access, Strange Loop Games has not disappointed with their offering.

The character customization is relatively limited in many ways. There are only 4 hairstyles – including bald – and 3 facial hair examples for the ‘masculine’ model. Yes, masculine. There are no male and female in this game, only masculine and feminine, which I personally find novel and an interesting choice. The current selection of clothing is rather limited, but more are expected in the future.

I repeat however that this is Early Access and, according to SLG’s Community Manager Shay McLean, there is likely to be more customization in the future. Unfortunately there is no timeline for that feature. On the plus side, the colorization options for clothing are in the millions of colors spectrum, offering you the rainbow slider and a hue selector.

ECO Screenshot

When you start the game you have the option of choosing between joining a server or creating a new one. If you create a new server you can choose whether to allow friends to join, as well as the level of cooperation you want to instill in players. These cooperation levels dictate the speed at which you gain experience points, as well as the experience point cost of learning skills and specializations – more on those later. If you have high cooperation set, for example, players are going to advance very slowly on an individual basis, meaning that some people are going to have to supply food, others will chop trees, and someone else will provide stone. On a low or very low cooperation server, you generally won’t have to worry about each player having a narrow focus.

Once you’ve joined your server and created your avatar it’s time to get down to business! Thankfully, the game has a plethora of tutorials that flash on your screen to guide you on your path. This includes one that encourages you to spot the meteor that will one day collide with your homeworld, unless you can build the lasers to blow it to smithereens before it has the chance! If the tutorials aren’t quite enough for you, there’s also an excellent Getting Started guide on the Eco wiki page. You can also find tooltips for pretty much everything in-game. They’re even linked together so clicking part of one tooltip will take you to associated recipe or skill. The controls are fairly intuitive and transparent, with the tutorial directing you to most things you need to see, and a little experimental clicking of icons allowing you to find the rest.

ECO Screenshot
In the early game Eco plays much like most other survival games. Gather resources, build a dwelling, manage hunger, etc. Unlike other survival games, however, Eco has no health bar. That’s right, none! Instead, you have a calorie and nutrition meter. Most actions, including running, consume a set amount of calories – this amount can be reduced by certain specializations, which are a type of skill. I’ll get to those soon, I promise!

There are two things that make Eco’s hunger system very unique. The first is the fact that it is broken up into 4 nutritional facets: fat, protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins. The second novel factor is that balancing these facets increases the rate at which you gain skill points. Thus, while you can simply forage tomatoes or huckleberries to fill your hunger meter and keep working, you’ll find yourself gaining skill points significantly slower than if you have a more varied diet. This makes farming for food an essential, but not critical, aspect of gameplay.

ECO Screenshot

Skills: Yet another fairly unique and core feature of the game. There are a variety of skill sets, from mining to masonry to hunting and even forestry. Under most craft skills there are 3 aspects; crafting recipes, crafting efficiency, and speed. Gathering skills similarly have various ways to improve, such as increasing the amount gained from each harvest, or reducing the amount of hunger consumed when swinging a tool.

ECO Screenshot

What I really think is a marvelous feature is the fact that you gain skill points over real-life elapsed time – even when you’re offline (this only applies to multi-player or dedicated servers.) There is an option for the server admin, set at launch, allowing you to gain skill points for each task completed. Most multiplayer servers seem to have this turned off, considering it a better option for single-player mode, since you don’t get that benefit of offline skill point gain.

Some of the other features of the game include an incredibly useful map, which assists in locating any resource the game has to offer, as well as displaying pollution and temperature levels in an area (helping you maintain the ecological balance and avoid rising sea levels). You can even set your main view to display this information as well.

ECO Screenshot

ECO Screenshot

There’s also an elaborate voting system that lets you create a leader for your society – in the future, you’ll have the ability to have more than one government – as well as setting laws and restrictions, such as disallowing deforestation in an area.

ECO Screenshot

Joining a server is not one of my favorite parts of Eco. There are a boatload of servers, each with unique rules, different progressions into the game, various skill rate settings – and no way to sort them, other than searching by name. This can be a bit frustrating if you’re looking for something specific, though using the Eco Discord server – linked on the front screen of the game – can help greatly, as they have a #server-ad channel specifically for finding a server with your desired options. This is another aspect that Shay said would be fixed eventually, but isn’t the highest priority of the developers.

ECO Screenshot

Once on a server, or on the Discord, you’ll find a generally helpful community, after all, the game typically forces cooperation. That being said, it’s probably a good idea to spend some time in single player navigating your way around the game before jumping online, as people inevitably get a little touchy when too many basic gameplay questions are asked.

Despite its cartoony graphics, I found myself immersed in the game, whether I was chopping trees or shooting turtles with my bow. I still chuckle every time my avatar yells “Timber!!!!” when felling a majestic fir tree. The music and birdsong in the background are a soothing enhancement, rather than an overwhelming distraction.

ECO Screenshot

At thirty dollars, some might find this game to have a steep price point, especially for an Early Access title. Having actually bought my copy out of pocket, I can say it’s been very worth it to me. My personal system of judging is one hour played per dollar spent, and I’m already well past that point, despite having owned the game less than a week. It has more features and less bugs than most Early Access games I’ve played, and has only been on Steam since early February.

ECO Screenshot

With more vehicles on the way (oh, did I not mention vehicles?) as well as enhancements to other existing features, this game can only get better. With a unique method of skill acquisition, innovative voting system, and positive community, I can see myself coming back to this game time and time again. Keeping in mind its Early Access status and improvements coming, I give Eco 4.5 out of 5.

Horizon Chase Turbo Reveals New Trailer at Pax East

A heavy dose of nostalgia is coming to Pax East this year, as Horizon Chase Turbo, the arcade racer inspired by the 90s-era classics sets the pace at the Sony Entertainment booth. Convention-goers will be able to experience the game with new features, and a fresh new teaser to show of the art, vehicles, tracks and more.

Horizon Chase Turbo is a standalone homage to classic 16-bit racers that defined a generation of high-speed, frenetic arcade fun. With Horizon Chase Turbo, PAX East attendees will race all over the world with lovingly designed next-gen gameplay that maintains a retro feel, dousing racers with nostalgia that includes head-to-head split-screen multiplayer couch co-op action; and catchy contemporary chiptune-style music from legendary arcade sound designer Barry Leitch (Top Gear, Gauntlet Dark Legacy).

Astro Boy: Brick Breaker Has Released

Astro Boy: Brick Breaker

Funple Stream has announced that a new game, “ASTRO BOY: Brick Breaker” has launched on iOS and Android today (April 5th, 2018). Astro Boy: Brick Breaker is in the mobile arcade genre, developed with the official licensing of Tezuka Production in Japan, then launched on a global scale through Google Play and Apple App Store (except China). Players will challenge 400 stages and each will have a variety of bricks, and removing them all or other objectives (defeating a monster while power light is off, et cetera). This can also be played without an internet connection once the initial download has completed to remove the strenuous use of data (and the download is less than 20MB).

A player can also enjoy a story of Astro Boy to rescues the earth against the conspiracy of Dr. Brick
who threats the earth to make it a block. ‘Astro Boy’ is a popular SF comic which was released in the monthly comic magazine ‘Shounen’ and it was born in TV animation and loved to be broadcasted in
the 40 countries as well as Japan.

Spyro Returns with ‘Spyro Reignited Trilogy’ in September

Spyro is back, and better than ever! The HD remake of the Spyro trilogy returns on September 21st in the “Spyro Reignited Trilogy” for Playstation 4 and Xbox One family of consoles. Fully remastered versions of Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon are all coming back on one disc for a suggested retail price of 39.99. In celebration of this, starting today, owners of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (in North America) can enter the same code from the original reveal (Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right Square) on their controllers in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped to watch this trailer on their console.

Remade from the ground up by lead developer Toys for Bob, the Spyro Reignited Trilogy features the fun and nostalgic gameplay that fans remember with more than 100 levels, enhanced reward sequences, Spyro’s gang of zany dragons and other goofballs (including Sparx the Dragonfly, Hunter, Sheila, Agent 9 and Sgt. Byrd) and more. The trilogy also includes improved environments, updated controls, brand-new lighting and recreated cinematics for added flavor in this one-of-a-kind adventure.

“We’re deeply passionate about staying true to the legacy of the original three Spyro games with the Spyro Reignited Trilogy,” said Paul Yan, Chief Creative Officer, at Toys For Bob. “We’ve poured a lot of love into making the personalities and worlds feel just like fans remember them, while also keeping the game collection surprisingly fresh with lush, high definition detail. We’re bringing back the Spyro we all fell in love with 20 years ago.”

Overwatch Retribution Mission Trailer

Overwatch reveals Retribution, a new archive mission arriving April 10.

Travel eight years into the past and join Blackwatch as they seek to capture a high-ranking member of the Talon organization. Fight in the streets of Venice as Genji, Moira, McCree, or Reyes (later known as Reaper) to complete the mission and unlock pieces of the past with over 100 items from last year and 60 new ones—including highlight intros, emotes, sprays, and more.