Titan Fall – Angel City Demo

Titanfall_wallpaper2560x1440Ok, I have to admit:  I am a sucker for Mech-based games.  And when Respawn took the stage back in E3 this year with their announcement that “TitanFall” was coming out in the near future.. I was excited.   From EA and Respawn Entertainment are bring the thunder, with Mechs’ stomping around, blowing things up; “Call of Duty” Style game mechanics and next generation graphics.. This seemed to be the next best game coming out.

Then I found out the sad news:  TitanFall will be a exclusive title for the Xbone, and may (or may not) make it over to the PlayStation 4.   And since I really like what Sony has come out with as far as the PlayStation 4, that’s the platform I am leaning towards.  The good news is that it will also be available for the PC (whether or not the rig can actually play it is another matter entirely!)

*A little history side note: Respawn Entertainment is the company built from the ashes of the nasty split from Activision and the developer “Infinity Ward”. I guess this is an excellent score for Micro$oft, giving them a shooter that will stack up against “Call of Duty” and the “Battlefield” series.
But, it truly shows what you can do to sway a developer when you throw money at them. 🙂

Check out the Angel City video, courtesy of Gamersyde.com

 

 

Battlefield 4 Beta : First Impressions

BF4_Levolution_Siege_of_Shanghai_web_0EA and DICE released the Battlefield 4 Beta demo back on October 1, and since I haven’t had much else to do (see the local paper if you aren’t up on the latest federal news..) I, along with several other hundred Battlefield 3 Premium members, decided to test it out.

Now mind you, DICE from the get go stated that the Beta is just that: a Beta product, and that a lot of the issues that are being experienced in the demo have already been addressed.  Though, if DICE and EA are listening, here is a laundry list of things that could be fixed:

Bring back the original controls from Battlefield 3. Its bad enough that I had to learn a whole new control scheme jumping over from Battlefield Bad Company 2 to Battlefield 3.  Please make every effort to allow the PLAYERS to control their own button mappings!!

–  Fix the shotgun reloading:  I can’t figure out how I start out with 6 in the shot gun, along with 48 extra shells, try and reload, and my count goes down to just 6 remaining in the shotgun.  Where’d the other 48 shells go??

–  Balance the weapons:  For some reason the concept behind an Assault Rifle and Light Machine Gun are a bit lost.. with the former winning out every time over the latter.  (especially since I just plunked 46 bullets into someone and they shot me twice and I died..)

–  Helicopters are flying tanks??:  Ok for some reason the “scout class” helicopters can take tremendous punishment from heavy caliber rounds, yet they can easily buzz by a armored vehicle (or tank) with their miniguns and rip them to pieces.  Sure hope this isn’t by design.. or the Chinese really do manufacture crap!

–  Fix the building in “Siege of Shanghai”:  It would be nice if the damned building in the middle of the map wasn’t destroyed in like the first 5 minutes of the game.  Maybe a “possession” timer so that once that has expired, the building can be demolished.. (though it is still very cool to see blow up and fall.. turn your speakers up!!)

Of course, I gotta take all of this with a grain of salt:  EA and DICE are using the Beta to test out their Multiplayer servers, the matchmaking service, and generally balancing things out before the current gen versions of BF4 go on sale late October.   Overall game play is just like the previous Battlefield games.  Sniping, Suppressive fire, Tanks blowing Sh*t up..  I just sure hope they get a ton of feedback and pay attention to making some adjustments!

Battlefield 4

Spaghetti Westerns coming to the PS4

S_PonchosSecret Ponchos, a “over the top” style of gameplay (think back in the early 80’s, with Robotron 2084), is coming soon to the PS4 via the PlayStation Network… Free for those of you who have a PlayStation Plus subscription.

 

Secret Ponchos is coming out in early 2014. Should be a good time, for a free game.

 

So, will this get you to buy a PSVita?

krieg610Along with the previous announcement from Sony, that the “majority of PS4 games will be playable on the PSVita”, Sony and developer Gearbox have teamed up to finally bring Borderlands 2 to the PSVita.  All that carnage, mayhem, jokes, etc that you so loved on your Home Console will soon be available on your portable gaming system.

I got to hand it to Sony.. If they can get the majority of the PS4 games, and bring Borderlands 2 to the PSVita, and make them actually enjoyable?  They have struck it gold!

 

Borderlands 2 PSVita Announcement