Missy's Game Shelf

  • Microsoft/XBOX Recent Shut Downs May Be Due To Massive $70 Billion Activision/Blizzard Payoff

    Recently, Microsoft shut down studios named Arcane Studios, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Games. This comes as a shock as most of these studios created amazing games. Arcane may have missed the mark with Redfall this year, but it was still the talented developer behind Prey and Dishonored. Tango Gameworks was the winner of several awards due to their newest title Hi Fi Rush being both commercially and critically acclaimed. Alpha Dog Games haven’t created anything groundbreaking they were a mobile game developer, but were responsible for Wraithborne and Monstrocity: Rampage. Roundhouse games is the continuation of Human Head Studios and often assisted game development. There are rumors that there could be more. This has caused near everyone to ask why these were small, but talented teams capable of creating memorable games that people loved.

    The change comes in light of an estimated $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. While it was expected the XBOX Game Pass and games developed would offset costs those had been going down in recent years. So Microsoft began cutting studios to fill the costs and fix losses. Rather than letting these studios grow and develop their IPs they shut the studios down breaking their promise to them. Many more studios are terrified for continuation. So Microsoft basically made a bad deal and others suffer job loss and loss of revenue because of it. They basically shut down studios that had potential for a company that has a good idea every few years otherwise they just release a new Call of Duty game that is basically the same as the last one.

    Sources:

    “Microsoft & Xbox reports reveal reckless Activision Blizzard acquisition & failing Game Pass gamble” YouTube, uploaded by Yongyea, 9 May 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpn-p8_D8GY&t=938s

  • Dragon Age Origins: Awakening Expansion Review

    This review is different from usual the gameplay from Origins is basically the same so I will not be going over gameplay because I already did that for a review of the base game. Giving gifts and keeping Companions approval up is back. There are a number of bugs in the expansion that can prevent you from even starting Companion Quests in one playthrough I couldn’t even trigger Velannas and accepting a quest makes Sigrun’s impossible. As soon as you figure out how to navigate the quests in this game there is still a chance Velanna’s won’t show up as it is tied to a Random Encounter that doesn’t spawn often. A bug also causes Ogren’s approval to rise slowly if you recruited him in the base game.

    Awakening, Witch Hunt, and Golems takes place several months after the events of Origins and sets things up for Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition. Here you meet characters that have minor to major roles in Dragon Age 2 and many rumors in Witch Hunt reference Kirkwall the area explored in that game and set up Flemeth as an enemy. Awakening introduces Anders and Justice as companions and this is later important context for Dragon Age 2. While Golems isn’t referenced in future games as much as the other two and the base game. It does show varying effects of Lyrium and shows off the Harvester this would also not be important till Dragon Age 2 and the introduction of Red Lyrium. So while the expansions are small they do focus on the overall plot more. You can skip them and not much will change other than more knowledge of the characters backstories and in a game series like Dragon Age where the plot and characters are the focal points.

  • Battlestate Games and Escape From Tarkov $250 DLC. May Have Just Lost Their Entire Audience.

    I think at this point I should just have a paragraph saved that says I’m not a financial advisor or lawyer so I can just copy paste it every time something happens. This situation happens less than a month after the Star Wars Outlaws thing I wrote about. I’m not a fan of Escape From Tarkov. I didn’t think a company could be this stupid or greedy. So I pulled up the website and it was true.

    Now all that said the actual situation. Escape From Tarkov is an Extraction Based Shooter similar to Helldivers 2 and The Division. You go to an area, loot as much as you can, and return to a base to trade or switch gear. Up till now, Escape from Tarkov has been doing great in the industry. They have an audience and as a game of this genre that is hard to do. The updates and content have been relatively well received. This includes a DLC that costs $150 and was advertised that all future updates and DLC was free you only need to download it. This expansion actually lowered in price and someone is actively changing it on the website, but the original is still viewable in way back machine.

    The controversy comes in when a new PvE mode was introduced and an update to the game. The problem is not only was this expansion far more expensive than anything else at $250 already too expensive in my opinion. So it could be argued that false advertising is in there they then tried back pedaling saying that it isn’t DLC, but an update. I struggle to know the difference. Now, normally you’d expect one or two people to defend this game, but everything from the games Twitter to the Reddit has people leaving.

    Battlestate Games. “Escape From Tarkov Purchase”  https://www.escapefromtarkov.com/preorder-page

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  • UBISOFT PRICING MODEL FAILURE

    I have bad news and more bad news. So EA may have finally lost the Star Wars license, but this comes to who did get the franchise. Well, with the announcement of Star Wars Outlaws it seems Ubisoft got it. Now, most may think that is amazing news sad to see Star Wars Fallen Order might not continue, but it beats another Star Wars Battlefront 2 fiasco. So when people heard about the new game it was time to check for the pricing and it is the worst thing I have ever seen. One the base game is $70 over the usual $60 and I’d ignore that preorder bonus it just looks like cosmetics they didn’t put in the game. Now in the gold edition it is $110 getting the base game, some cosmetics, and a season pass. The season pass just includes a mission and a pack that seems to be more cosmetics as well as a 3 day early access making me question why 3 days are not a lot. If it already sounds bad the ultimate edition is $130 comes with everything, 2 cosmetic packs (Does this game have no cosmetics of it’s own?) and a digital art book.

    Now, I’m going to tell you the even worse part. Ubisoft has a second launcher aside from the ultimately horrible Uplay called Ubisoft+. While Uplay may not be used anymore or they just rebranded it this means to even play these games you need to pay $20 no matter the version so let’s review, to simply play the base version and cheapest version of this game you need to pay at least $90 alone, and anything after that can mean $130-$150 for things I don’t consider content. Or the alternative idea buy about 10 indie games or two AAA games that you could have more fun with at an equivalent amount of money.

    Sources:

    Ubisoft. “Star Wars Outlaws  Standard Edition.” Ubisoft, 20, April, 2024 https://store.ubisoft.com/us/star-wars-outlaws/645ba713a9ce0448bffa4c12.html?ucid=SCH-ID_188881&maltcode=brand_C2W_SCH_googlesearch___SWOUT____&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwrIixBhBbEiwACEqDJWTYLjopjti7QKS0ldv_lifLLBfpdbIIyoMQ4gooYjttWCgJXrgNbBoCRVsQAvD_BwE

  • Hesitant to Play and Review Dragons Dogma 2

    For the record my favorite games tend to be RPGs. So Dragons Dogma was a game I played, but the game was clunky and at the time was new, but looked a generation old. Further the draw to any RPG are the characters and story and honestly Dragons Dogma has an awful story and your party members and major characters are bland. While they are supposed to be other players in an online type of thing they give zero reason to actually wonder about them. The story is a dragon stole your heart and you need to kill him with no stakes or risk if you just don’t in fact one of the endings has you choose not to. To say I am hesitant to waste money on Dragons Dogma 2 is an understatement. Greedfall had moments that separated itself from Dragon Age and Skyrim, but Dragons Dogma constantly had me asking why am I playing this when I could be playing something else. Dragons Dogma never felt like a game I would want to return to and consistently did everything worse than Dragon Age from graphics to characters and story. It failed in comparison to games older than it and felt like a mish mash of ideas thrown at a wall to see what sticks rather than a coherent story and game. Now things could be better in the sequel, but I wouldn’t know.

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  • Dragon Age Origins Review

    With the news that Dragon Age: The Dreadwolf could be releasing sometime this year I wanted to revisit the series. Dragon Age Origins was the first in the series and while not my favorite Bioware game it is clear that elements of this game was included in their other games. This is also the only Dragon Age game that doesn’t have a Dialogue Wheel mechanic rather choices are written out and clear while the wheel isn’t bad I prefer this system better. The game has an emphasis on keeping companions approval up if you don’t then some will leave your party at different parts of the game. Also each companion has a side quest that is tied to approval and what happens around them.

    The game has three classes Warrior with a focus on sword and shield, Greatsword, and dual weapons. While powerful and with a lot of health they are constantly tanking damage. Rouges focus on archery and dual weapons which later games would make exclusive to rouge rather than shared with warrior they are more tactical fighters using stealth, but aside from the ability to pick locks the gameplay didn’t change much between the two. Mage is the last class and this is by far the one I had the most fun with. Mostly due to the differences Mage is ranged fighting and can cause damage that adds additional effects further some things they can do are just unbalanced like the crushing prison or creating a giant storm.

    The plot is based on the Of Frost and Fire book series the same thing that inspired Game of Thrones. So each Origins protagonist has their own origin story quest and motivations. This is something I wish they would bring back. Inquisition does have varied races, but none of the quests change. The game starts with a war with monsters known as the Darkspawn and the need to destroy them and bring peace and the player navigating the different politics of each area. I need to mention this games graphics have aged poorly. I don’t know if it is because I was playing on the XBOX 360 so regardless the game wouldn’t look good compared to the PC, but it still looked awful even compared to other 360 titles. If you are looking for a game that pushes the XBOX then look somewhere else the clunky graphics can take away from the gameplay, but if you ignore it then it is still a good time.

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  • Pokemon X and Y Review

    I haven’t played this game since launch which is saying something. X and Y are not my preferred gen 6 games. I like Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire more, but with the announcement of a revisit to Kalos I decided to take a look at the game again. The game takes place 3000 years after a war and a giant weapon was used to basically destroy everything and now some Pokemon can Mega Evolve. Mega Evolution was a big deal some new forms and boosts to already powerful Pokemon sounded nice except I never really used or needed it. I was consistently 10 – 20 levels above my opponent and since the only Pokemon on my team that could Mega Evolve was strong enough without it I rarely used it. This was the generation that started that trend though. Pokemon this generation aren’t that interesting I liked Pokemon like the Flechling line, but others are pretty boring and over half the monsters is older Pokemon so monsters are hit or miss. The game is a fairly linear turn-based RPG and while it looks nice Omega Ruby also exists and somehow did everything this game did better. The starters aren’t great and the battles are easy. This was the introduction to Fairy-Typeing, but it doesn’t feel fleshed out and with it some Pokemon just a waste. It had a nice post game, but everything about this game is outclassed by games that came before and after. It remains a game with potential, but never hitting those marks one thing I can praise however, is presentation. In games after this when you hear about disasters happening all you are given is a newspaper talking about it or one boss fight in a desert where nothing can really happen. In this game you see houses toppled over, dust clearing after disasters, and the aftermath it was a nice change to just being told about something going on to you actually seeing it. As Pokemon’s first main series 3D game it really shows Pokemon at its best and worst it is an average game, but never gets past average.

  • Cheating And Exploiting Games

    With all the talk over Billy Mitchel, Jawdiwi’s, and Queenpwnzalot cheating recently I wanted to talk about the sheer toxicity these people can create. Is cheating, hacking, modding, or changing a game in some way bad? If you are doing it on your own or in single player games without any competition or contest then I think that is okay because you are only hurting yourself rather than anyone else, but the minute you are going online to play with others or as part of a competition that is crossing a line and I struggle to see how anyone can say that is a good thing. Take games like Among Us, Call of Duty, and Fall Guys all three have large audiences, but most won’t even bother playing anymore because hackers cheating at the game when a majority of players just want a fair round. I firmly believe hackers just want to skip actually getting good at a game and try and cheat their way to it and see the irritation, anger, and lack of fun they cause other players as a trophy they can brag to other hackers. I actually can’t play online games anymore due to games with legitimate players only looking for a good time eventually coming to an end thanks to these guys who can’t be bothered to give a fair win and in my opinion if you are willing to cheat people you don’t know online in a game what are you willing to do to people in real life to people you do know? There may not be consequences in the online space, but you can’t cheat people and get away with it.

    The Billy Mitchel situation is well known he did cheat his scores and submitted them in a competition then lied about it. He did so to increase his popularity and financial position. The competition was only for authentic and approved Donkey Kong arcade cabinets, but it is widely believed that he used an emulator by the name of MAME. Emulators can change certain things about a game in this case the opening cutscene is choppy, the ability to move diagonally, and in some cases faster gameplay. Which on the original Donkey Kong only had four directions and a jump button thus the things MAME allows can be an advantage compared to other players. When questioned on any of this he tries to sue or hide his involvement. Many wrongly say he was the first to score a perfect score on these games. This is especially terrible towards Ginnis World Records and to be honest they are the worst source for gaming records and you are better off looking this up yourself. Even they were wrong to reinstate his scores due to a settlement lawsuit. Twin Galaxies also settled and his scores are only on their site when you access the ‘historical archive’ on their site. In my opinion it should be renamed to cheaters archive and is only named as such for legal reasons.

    Jadiwi used a spliced Speedrun to try and cheat their way to specific bounties and clear a game in a given time. A splice is when someone does multiple runs and takes their best times for different parts then submitting it as a singular run. Bounties are money given for times in this case $6000 for a glitchless run of Pokemon Red done in 52 minutes. The thing about this is that all speedruns submitted to speedrun.com need to be verified and while Jadiwi got away with it before there was shade towards this run so moderators looked at this and the other runs and found several inconsistencies. Pokemon rarely has a speedrun cheater in fact this was the first major cheater in over a decade and understandably in that no one wants to accuse someone of cheating just for some things looking off, but when everything from NPC behavior to IVs of their Pokemon is off or a small chance entirely even healing her team at weird times that cost the run a few seconds so she wouldn’t attract attention to themselves and avoid getting a record run. They almost took $6000 from a more deserving runner who submitted the same month. Furthermore, the reason her splices were hard to detect was because she knows video editing to a certain degree and picked certain moments where it would be hard to detect to splice in better runs.

    Queens cheating is still being covered, but in all honesty makes me question Asmolgold I know he isn’t an expert, but it should not be hard to figure out. Queen was attempting a blind run of a boss fight in Monster Hunter World. A couple of things caught my eye about it she was able to correctly dodge and pinpoint enemy attacks so she could see you could say specific sound ques for attacks, but how does she know the exact distance needed to dodge. Anyone doing a blind run usually takes a lot of damage during fights due to under correcting or overcorrecting positioning or goes for strategies that are a sure way to win in this case: lock on to ensure hits which she never uses or move out of range which she doesn’t just goes to a spot where the move won’t hit her. Furthermore, she is seen fixing her camera to face the boss this shouldn’t be necessary as if you are blind it doesn’t matter where the camera is. In fact people who have done blind runs sometime knock their camera and the entire run goes by staring at the ceiling the reason they don’t fix it is they don’t know it is. What makes it worse is she tried to cheat a second run of the same boss fight to prove something only to insult this community more.

    Jobst, Karl. “This FAKE Blindfold Speedrun Fooled Everyone…” Youtube, uploaded by Karl Jobst, 29, February 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTLfU4ysKHg&t=1174s

    Jobst, Karl. “Streamer Fakes Blindfold Speedrun For Clout” Youtube, uploaded by Karl Jobst,
    19, February 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugT5eLpuwMo

    Jobst, Karl. “Billy Mitchell Lost His Lawsuit” Youtube, uploaded by Karl Jobst, 16, January 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7mE1LkkOGg&t=53s

    Abyssoft. “Caught Red-Handed: Streamer FAKES A Blindfolded Speedrun” Youtube, uploaded by Abyssoft, 29 February, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OlxQb0jT-w&t=16s

    PulseEffects. “Biggest CHEATER in Pokemon Speedrun History Was Just Caught.” Youtube, uploaded by PulseEffects, 11, January 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px5fOalltXw&t=51s

  • Pokemon Day

    Pokemon Day Update

    I already made predictions and I guess I was right at least a little. Pokemon spent half the time talking about new chracters and crossover events for the apps. The first was a Pokemon Horizons crossover with Go. The characters from the ongoing anime are making an appearance as well as showing up during that games screenshot and picture modes. I stopped playing Pokemon Go due to its limited gameplay, but it might be welcome for fans of the anime. The next game was Pokemon Sleep Raikou, Entei, and Suicune are set to make their appearance in that app. My thoughts are that is still a relatively useless app. Pokemon Masters has some new events and characters surrounding Silver and Geeta while a more traditional game doesn’t have a lot to it. Pokemon Unite is adding Miradon in some capacity I find Pokemon Unite repetitive so that won’t add much. Pokemon Café Remix seems to have the least amount updated as it was more a showcase of what was added before. Finally, a new app was announced Pokemon TCG Pocket it does look interesting if you’re a fan of the TCG and its art.

    The last thing Pokemon showed off is the next main title, Pokemon Legends Z. It looks like a revisit to Kalos. We don’t know the starters yet and with the subtitle makes me think that we see a version of Generation 6 hundreds of years prior to the events of Pokemon X and Y. The Z in the title means we are more than likely dealing with Zygarde at one point. The Mega Evolution symbol comes up at the end meaning we will likely be able to Mega Evolve Pokemon and could mean new Megas on the way to. I don’t want to say anything regarding the game yet, but am planning to replay X and Y to try and remember anything about that game. I know I beat it I just don’t remember anything else regarding plot. I think I blazed through the whole game with an overpowered Blaziken and an over leveled Greninja. So expect a Pokemon X and Y review soon. This came out of left field for most as Pokemon was promoting Unova and Johto in apps and in main series games.

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  • SKULL AND BONES FOLLOW UP UNLISTED PROBABLY

    Steam recently was actively promoting Ubisofts new game Skull and Bones, but after searching the title on Steams main page it seems to have been quietly taken down not that I’m surprised. I am just shocked I was actually right; it did take less than two months for Skull and Bones to disappear. Now I may not play a lot of online games, but I am certain when your game is unlisted on steams platform that can’t be good. Ubisoft likely took it down due to poor performance and dwindling player numbers. As many players have jumped ship to other games like the recently released Helldivers 2 and the already existing Sea of Thives. The only thing Ubisoft got out of this game is getting more players to get a U play account if that. I just find this in poor taste the same company that brought us Rayman, Assassins Creed, and Rainbow Six Siege gave us this. A company that used to be known for fun level design, great mechanics, and amazing gameplay is now known as just another publisher trying to nickle and dime their costumers. I suppose EA needs company when they receive the worst company in America rewards I just thought Square Enix was more than happy to take their place.

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