VGR 401

Season 4 of VGR starts now!  Myself, Trey, Ryan and Colleen ease into the new semester by giving our thoughts on the now past Gamescom, along with a few other stories we've plucked from the news cycle. Take a listen and stay tuned!

-=Download VGR 4.01=-

VGR Season 4 starting soon

We've got our showtime slot for this fall:  we'll be doing Tuesday evenings from 9pm to 11pm EST.  Ryan will be taking DJ's place as a regular co-host for this semester.  Him, along with myself and Trey will be playing video game music and talking about gaming news, along with some reviews, so make sure you check it out.

If you want to listen to the show live, you can stream the show from tune-in at the appropriate time:

WUAG 103.1

Otherwise, keep your eye on the blog, I'll be recording and posting as many shows as I can manage for you to listen to at any time.

Resident Evil Re-Remake

While at first glance I'd call this move a bit excessive, more of me appreciates the gesture by Capcom.  REmake is one of the most masterful iterations of the classic survival-horror formula, and to see it given a chance for a much larger release audience is pretty exciting.  Gamecube back in the day just didn't have a large enough install base that this, and other remasters of it's ilk, really got a fair chance.  To this day, you can still find lots of gamers participating in the questionable act of emulating this gem.  Ironically, we're leaving out Nintendo's consoles this time around, just about every other platform however will see a release in early 2015.

This announcement has some great timing with Game Informer's current super replay that is currently going through not only REmake, but the original PS1 version as well.  If you want to see just how radically these two games have changed, I'd encourage you to take a look.

 

Let's Play Dark Souls 2 DLC: Crown of the Sunken King

My Let's Play series of Dark Souls II continues ever onward.  The first of three DLC episodes dropped today with the Crown of the Sunken King.  Follow along as I deep dive into more souls content, blind-run style.  More episodes will be added to the playlist and uploaded as I suffer through the challenges that await.

Want to catch the beginning of the Let's Play series?  Just click here:

Let's Play Dark Souls 2

Super Ultra Hyper Hangout Megamix Accent Delta Plus Gaiden: Championship Edition

So Evo happened, some fighters got announced, Destiny is soon and Wolf Among Us is complete. Here are our thoughts on such.

Playstation 4 Is Getting a Portable Monitor Thanks To Hori

In last week's Pixel Loadout hangouts session, our fearless leader Kevin Harrison reminisced about an era in gaming history where each console of the generation (PS2, XBox and Gamecube) had a dedicated monitor.

Well here we are and like a blast from the past Hori has stepped up and is giving us gamers a monitor to game on!

While I am normally dismissive of such peripherals for being either low build quality or having poor performance, Hori is a well-known Arcade Stick manufacturer that is regarded as being at the top of the market. Being so engrained in the competitive fighting game scene I expect that they have performance in mind so hopefully we have something to look forward to.

Reported Specs are as follows:
Size 11 inches wide
External Measurements: 279mm x 275; 8mm x 28mm (10.9in x 10.8in; .3in x 1.1in)
Weight: 1.2 kg (2.6 lbs)
Full screen resolutions: 1920x3 (RGB) x 1080
Display Color: 18 bit color (262, 144 colors)
Maximum Brightness: 350cd/m2
Response Time: 25ms TYP
Video Input: HDMI x2
Audio Output: Internal Stereo Speakers, 2 headphone Jacks
Resolution: 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
Power Source: Attached AC adaptor DC 12V/2A
Electricity Usage: 24W maximum
Other: 250 mm (~10 in) HDMI cable

Source: www.dualshockers.com by way of www.gamersbook.com

Steam Sales and Such

We had a nice little hangout on Saturday evening, talking about steam sales, fighters, a little bit of E3 and other news.  I finally managed to get the hang of camera switching, so hopefully this will be a regular feature for a summer podcast, as it's easy to put together.  Tell us what you guys think in the comments.

How Square-Enix Can Improve PvP in Final Fantasy XIV

PvP as it currently exists in Final Fantasy XIV leaves a lot to be desired. Hostile to newcomers, one dimensional and incredibly grindy. I feel that if Square-Enix wants to fix their broken system, they should take a few queues from existing PvP competitive formats in games.

My opinion is heavily influenced from a near10 year history participating in, and running, fighting game tournaments. I began by playing Super Smash Bros. Melee back in 2006 and moved over to arcade fighters like Street Fighter IV thereafter. I also have been playing MMO’s beginning around the same time as well with Final Fantasy XI and afterwards dabbled in other games such as WoW and Guild Wars 2. I also have experience with other genre’s such as MOBA via League of Legends and competitive tabletop games.

The first issue I mentioned is that the PvP mode Wolves’ Den is hostile to newcomers. If a new player were to jump into PvP, of course they should not be expected to do incredibly well. However, 10 or 20 matches into the game, this trend does not tend to change save for the occasional win.

Implementation of Gear

There are several facets to this problem. PvP has it’s own skill progression where players have to effectively “Rank up” to add perks to these abilities to make them more effective either by giving them reduced cooldowns, bonus effects or other traits, also there exists and extreme raw attribute gap where players can equip themselves with specialized PvP gear that gives them a bonus to a PvP unique attribute named Morale.

The issue with these systems is that instead of allowing a player to customize how they are able to play, it instead boils down to a numbers game where the vast majority of the time the team which has the best gear or the highest rank simply wins despite player skill. And this is the main thing I take issue with, a PvP format should highly emphasize player SKILL. A skillful or experienced player should have the advantage over those who are less skillful. This is the basic mandate that many if not all competitive games, even those outside of video games, relies.

To mitigate the damaging nature of these problems, I feel that the statistics placed on gear should be uniform by class set. What I mean is that this gear there should be several sets of PvP gear per armor or class type and potentially even have variations in armor type therein (For example a Tank set that has higher STR alongside a tank set that has higher VIT) and that this gear should have Materia Slots to further allow a player to customize their gear’s statistics via the fusion of material.  This would allow player skill to have priority over character attributes while still allowing Materia to emphasize certain build types and avoid the basic numbers game where flat item level  tends to be the major factor. Guild Wars 2 does a good job in this respect where all gear is given uniform statistics relative to the class while allowing players to modify those statistics with the use of Runes.

As far as class skills are considered, I like the idea of having your character grow the more it is played with more PvP ranks to modify skills, and Square-Enix have regarded this as an important function of the design as well (The recent patch gives access to All PvP skills from rank 1). This system would benefit from a more streamlined leveling experience where players would not need to spend literally spend hundreds if not thousands of matches to gradually increase their rank.

Making PvP More Dynamic

Many have described the Wolves' Den as brief and one-dimensional. While my above suggestions do help alleviate much of which plagues the existing status of PvP they do not change the actual game play. Square-Enix could take a queue from the existing and thriving Fighting Game genre. In most games, any match is divided into rounds where a player has to win the majority of a series of matches (best 2 out of 3, best 3 out of 5, etc.). If they integrated this functionality into Wolves’ Den then it would greatly improve the playability of the content.

Why is this so important? The reason is because of strategy. In all fighting games, two players spend the first rounds of a match “learning” and “adapting” to their opponent. It is this dynamic nature of fighting games that makes them so completely engrossing and exciting to watch. To see when a player learns the habits of the opponent or their reactions and adapting to it is where the best players excel over good players and is a timeless feature of fighting games.

Practical Rewards for Skillful Play

I have seen many players moan or become unreasonably irritated due to a healer dying in the first few moments or the enemy executing a dirty tactic. Allowing best 2 out of 3 matches would not only extend the playtime for PvP (allowing DPS classes more time to play relative to their queue time) but also allow these teams to react and discuss strategy in the 1 minute “Preparation” timer before each round. 

“But Lex!” some will cry “What about the long grind for the awesome animal themed gear!” I agree, that the new PvP gear Square has introduced in recent patches are amazing, I think they should also be subject to the gear change I suggested. This gear should be reasonably priced and SHOULD NOT have a statistical advantage over lower tier gear sets. The reward should be the amazing aesthetic, not promoting the ever-increasing gap between veteran and amateur players, using the term “veteran” loosely as many of these players do not actually participate in PvP legitimately and instead win trade to divert the game play just to revel in the gear. Its these players that make the PvP content infinitely worse as they undermined the spirit of competition and seek to destroy newcomers and their weak equipment. 

What about Frontlines?

Square seems to have acknowledged many of the complaints I detailed from the rather loud response from FFXIV players. As a result, Morale will not have an impact on Frontlines. I have a feeling that Frontlines will turn out to be a much more rewarding experience as the format consists of three teams of variable uniform sizes (i.e. 8v8v8, 16v16v16, 24v24v24) and be much more political in nature. Frontlines seems to have more similarities with the MOBA genre as it is concerned more with objectives rather than just the killing of opponents. 

Here's Hoping!

July PS+ Preview

July is bringing a bunch of changes to the PS+ Formula. Beginning in July each platform (PS3, PSVita and PS4) are gauranteed 2 games each at no extra charge for PlayStation+ subscribers. Another change is that all of the games will be available for acquisition on the first tuesday of the month (July 1st). Read on to see what games are available for each console!

Dead Space 3 (PlayStation 3)

 The third installment of the main Dead Space series. This game makes a transition from the more suspensful formula of the first two games and transitions into a more "Action" take. In order to appeal to more fans, the silent protagonsit was also given a voice and it also includes a new multiplayer co-op that you have to do to access some hidden content.

Vessel (Playstation 3)

An indie game released in 2012 from developer Strange Loop Games, Vessel is a Puzzle-Platformer with a steampunk theme. The puzzles are physics based and generally require intuitive uses of water to progress.

Muramasa: Rebirth (PSVita)

Muramasa: Rebirth is the Vita port for the well received Wii game 'Muramasa'. In the game you choose between a possessed princess or a rebel ninja, each with their unique storylines, and topple gods and demons to fulfill your quest. The game features replayability in the form of Wave-based survival modes and a content grind which unlocks powerful and unique weapons. It is renowned for its beautiful hand-drawn artwork as well as the simple yet free-form combat.

TowerFall Ascension (PS4)

 TowerFall Ascension is a competitive multiplayer arena game where players fight each other on a 2D plane. The game is inspired by games such as Nintendo's Super Smash Bros series and features power ups and special abilities that players can use to destroy each other.

Strider (PS4)

 Stider is a 2014 update to the classic title of the same name. In this game you don the role of Hiryu, a cyber-ninja tasked with bringing down an evil power in the distant future. The game features a metroid-vania style of dungeon and ability progression.

Doki-Doki Universe (PSVita, PS3, PS4)

Doki-Doki Universe is a dynamic game with cartoon-visuals in which the player tries to discover and understand humanity. The game is unique in that it ivests much of the players personality in the discovery process as they discover and develop the main-character and the world around them.

Sony Press Conference E3 2014 Review

You've...uh...got some dead person...on your...ok then...

FANCY DUAL REVIEW TECH IS GO

DJ and I managed to catch Sony’s press conference at the same time and figured we’d do a back and forth on their press conference as it happens.

KEVIN: This is how you start a press conference, an M-16s on Mars

DJ: Peter Dinklage sounds different

KEVIN: He was such a troll on IGN, check that out

DJ: I did, probably contractual obligations.

KEVIN: I’m just glad we are looking at something than Old Russia finally.  Looks like a lot of new stuff to see, trailer hounds will have a field day with this one.

DJ: 1 year ago, he obliterated Microsoft, well all of Sony did.

KEVIN: Andy da Brick House, also finally where is that Beta?  July 17th on sony stuff.  Lots of Betas today.

DJ: Beta is such a loose term in todays market. It’s a demo.

KEVIN: Psch, screw that, have a damn alpha!  Eat it other betas!

DJ: New ps4, It’s friggin pasty white. As white as milk on a paper plate in a snowstorm.