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Injustice 2 Roundtable Roundup

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
August 23, 2016

Sometimes, when time is tight, or the event is a bit larger than life, you can’t always get that important one-on-one time you need with a developer to really take a deep dive into their game. Under these circumstances, journalists are bunched together, and several of us at a time have to machine gun fire questions. That happened this past weekend at San Diego ComicCon, when just a couple hours before Friday’s Injustice 2 panel, a couple dozen other journalists and I met with some of the voice cast and NetherRealm Studios’ creative director Ed Boon to chat about the game. Here are the choicest things each person had to say.

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George, can you tell us a little bit about Superman in Injustice 2?

George Newbern, voice of Superman
Well, the first game ended with him in that [red light prison]. In terms of where Superman is in this story, there’s a lot more shades of gray going on this time around. Superman’s not in charge, and it’s not as simple as Superman is good and Batman is bad or vice versa. Depending on what is going on, you’ll side with one or the other and there’s a lot more gray this time, I think.

Laura, you’re playing Supergirl in Injustice 2, but you’re also Catwoman in Telltale’s Batman. What’s it like to hop between these two DC characters in these two very different games?

Laura Bailey, voice of Supergirl
They are such completely different characters. Supergirl is pure. She’s young and impressionable, and when she comes into this story, she’s learning about everything that is happening and has happened. Selina is old hat—she’s been doing this for years. She’s playing everyone, and is always in charge of the situation she’s in. So yeah, the [vocal] range might be similar, but the approach to all the dialogue is very different.

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Phil, Aquaman has for a long time never been taken very seriously in the DC Universe, but the first Injustice game and your portrayal helped the character turn a corner, lending him some credibility. How was it to be part of that, and what was your inspiration?

Phil LaMarr, voice of Aquaman
For me, it’s about the writing. [NetherRealm] has come up with a really cool take on the character—that’s the thing. For so many years, you had this character that is ostensibly one of the most powerful heroes, but who just wasn’t cool. And they finally figured it out. He’s the ocean personified, but he is also a man. And also, I think, for me, the hook is the kingliness. He is a ruler. He has power, but he also has responsibility, and for him it’s always about that. Either personal responsibility, or to the people of Atlantis, and I think the battle stuff of Injustice is what really put him over the top. Because you had the character conception, but then you have the trident, and the power of Poseidon, and the baddest kill move ever. And if you have great writing, it almost acts itself really. I just have to make sure I get all the words right.

Ed, what was the inspiration for the armor system in Injustice 2 and how will that change gameplay?

Ed Boon, creative director of NetherRealm Studios
If you look back at Mortal Kombat X, we had three variations of every character, and that’s for players to choose what’s their favorite version of Raiden, their favorite version of Scorpion. It’s a little more personalization in it for each player, and we wanted to take that even further. So, in Injustice 2, here are a bunch of different costume pieces. You arrange them as you want, and they power up your characters in different ways. Some might increase offense, or defense, or special abilities, the damage they do with interactive objects, etc. And you piece together a costume to make your custom version of Batman, Superman, Aquaman, whoever. And you’re in a constant process of rearranging those pieces, finding better boots that increase your damage even more for example. So that continued customization and personalization of characters really kind of separates this one from our previous games.

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George, Superman is traditionally the All-American Boy Scout and we only see deviation from that in these Elseworld-like takes. Do you enjoy these alternate Superman roles a bit more because they allow for more nuances?

George Newbern, voice of Superman
Yeah, I think so, and I love that. I’m working on a TV show right now called Scandel on ABC where I play an assassin. Just a normal guy doing these terrible things, and you don’t suspect it. In the same way, Superman is most fun when you get to go a little bit outside of the cut, square corners. It’s more fun.

Laura, you’re also in Gears of War 4 this fall, and mentioned during that panel how you and the cast recorded together for some scenes, which is more of an animation style. You also recorded with the cast for Telltale’s Batman. However, you recorded solo for Injustice 2. Do you think video games will start moving more towards that animation style or that it just depends on the project?

Laura Bailey, voice of Supergirl
It’ll depend on the project. Video games by nature are very different from animation because of the option of dialogue there. So, the recording process can be strange, and even harder with other people because for so long it revolves around what one player is doing. So, it would probably be a waste of money for companies to bring in multiple people for a session. So, it’s never completely inclusive. Even for Gears of War 4, when I did my battle dialogue that was a solo session because Liam [McIntyre] or Eugene [Byrd] didn’t need to sit there while I screamed for a couple hours at a time. But definitely for the cinematics, I think a lot of games will start doing groups, and so many projects I’m doing now have motion capture and I feel like more and more projects will start going towards that because what you can do with that is so epic.

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Phil, how hard is it to jump into the middle of a fight, but not have anyone actually there to play off of?

Phil LaMarr, voice of Aquaman
It helps to be a video game player, because you understand, for example, when your line might be right before you attack, to give it that oomph. But yeah, it’s tough sometimes, because you don’t know exactly what the context is. The other side of it is, though, if you do enough different lines, enough different versions of it, then they can fix it in editing. I’ll give you everything I got, and you put it in the right place…so we don’t end up with Resident Evil 2.

Ed, how will the armor and customization affect balancing for competitive play and tournaments in the game?

Ed Boon, creative director of NetherRealm Studios
Well, it makes our balancing task way bigger. Also, there’s the possibility of a player who has been leveling up a character since day one, and then another who picks the game up three months later, and how does the newcomer compete with the day one purchaser? So, our matchmaking is also going to be critical to make sure people who are in the same range are matched. And then, just our job of balancing is going to be a huge challenge. But the experience of constantly changing and molding your personal character, the novelty of playing with your character will always make it feel new as opposed to playing with the same character over and over again eight months after buying the game.
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Inside review

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment
July 24, 2016

Nowhere to run

When Limbo appeared on the gaming scene six years ago, it was a revelation for many. It’s minimalistic visual style combined with its tight gameplay and open-ended finale left fans pointing to it as a shining example of why games are art—with some still arguing the finer points of its potential message today—and the viability of the gaming Indie scene. So, it’s no wonder the industry has been abuzz since we found out about Inside, the second effort from Limbo developer Playdead. Inside may be a bit more colorful than its grayscale predecessor, but it still delivers a powerful experience.

Inside has players in the role of a small boy who finds himself running from forces who wish to restrain and capture him, bringing him back to one of any number of facilities where inhuman experiments have been carried out on less fortunate souls. Over the course of his adventure, the boy will move through factories, forests, farms, train yards, and even sunken labs via a one-man submarine. What compels him to continue on, though, is the core of a mystery that will keep you playing well past the ending, searching for secrets that hope to help fill in the blanks to another one of Playdead’s purposely vague worlds.

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It is in this familiar-yet-strange setting that we find the true star of the game. Although visually simplistic, with the gameplay never leaving the 2D-plane and much of the world painted in muted tones, the 3D backgrounds paint a macabre picture of forces at play that are beyond our understanding. It is this moody, atmospheric backdrop that shines more brightly than any potential narrative device could, and is at the core of what makes you want to keep playing Inside. It begs you to ask the question “what happened here?” and there is no greater force that makes you want to keep pushing right on your joystick to find out.

The scenery is simply the foundation for the macabre environment, however. A tale within a tale is told through the NPCs, puzzles, and death traps we are forced to navigate while playing. The gameplay is simplistic on the surface, with only three inputs needed on the controller: jump, grab, and run. Our young hero’s ability to interact with the environment around him then empowers players in a way games with more complicated control schemes often fail to do. Whether carrying and moving all sorts of items around, pressing switches to change the landscape of a room, blending in with the faceless crowd, or even using some of the facility’s still active experiments to your advantage, a beautiful layer of complexity quickly evolves from these humble mechanics.

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The evolution of said mechanics in the environment is also done at a perfect pace. Although the difficulty never reaches anywhere near Limbo’s levels, since Inside seems to want to tell a story by having players move more slowly and carefully through the world instead of testing them via trial and error, the puzzles do advance and teach players at a natural rate so you never feel overburdened. If you replay certain sections like I did searching for secrets—and yes, Inside has its fair share of secrets—the stark difference between the start and end of the game in terms of how intricate the puzzle solutions are will quickly become evident at that point.

What might be most impressive about Inside, though, is how your thinking might change as you play the game—not just in terms of puzzle-solving, but in terms of your character’s purpose. Even with over a dozen special secrets to find in Inside, everyone gets what appears to be a rather finite, closed-book sort of ending, a definite departure from the interpretations Limbo afforded. Where things changed for me with Inside was what the motivation of the boy was. I stopped thinking of him as running from something, and more possibly running to something. And this is where Inside’s value truly lies. There is so much that can be left open to analysis, that can be played and replayed, and every person can experience things in a different way, bringing something new to the conversation.

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Inside can be looked at as a mirror-image to Limbo. Whereas Limbo focused more on punishing puzzles, Inside deals more with meticulous movement. While Limbo’s simple graphics made it easy for players to focus on the task at hand, Inside distracts them with a world that is as much a character as the protagonist. And as Limbo left its conclusion up in the air, Inside might have you questioning the purpose of your journey when you reach the fixed ending. They share a common thread, however. You are told almost nothing at the start, but will come to explore a brilliantly designed, but dangerous world that will suck you in from the beginning and never let go as you fall down another expertly crafted rabbit hole from Playdead.

Developer: Playdead • Publisher: Playdead • ESRB: M – Mature • Release Date: 06.29.16
9.5
Inside is a brilliantly crafted game that will keep you talking about it long after you’ve finished playing. Its moody, atmospheric world and terrific puzzle-platforming are simply the hooks to first draw you in.
The Good Moody, atmospheric puzzle-platformer that digs its hooks into you from the second it starts.
The Bad Puzzles never pose any real challenge.
The Ugly My desire to discuss this with other people, but I’m the only one in the office to have played it thus far.
Inside is available on Xbox One and PC. Primary version reviewed was for Xbox One. Review code was provided by Playdead for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
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Mighty No 9 Waterworks walkthrough video

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I had a chance to play Mighty No. 9 on Xbox One and record my first time playing the game. Here, I take on Mighty No. 2, Cryosphere, and work my way through the Waterworks level. Mighty No. 9 will be available on June 21 for Xbox One, PS4, PC, Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, Mac, and later Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita.

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Talking with Goldberg about WWE 2K17

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June 8, 2016

I had a chance to sit down with Bill Goldberg to discuss him becoming the next pre-order bonus in the WWE 2K series and what he thinks about being in WWE 2K17.

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WWI setting means Battlefield 1’s multiplayer will be unlike anything before it

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — Leave a comment

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As part of today’s livestream and presentation, EA DICE revealed that the future of Battlefield is going back to the advent of what we might consider modernized warfare with a World War I setting. Besides a single-player campaign with multiple protagonists, Battlefield 1 is looking to provided the most robust multiplayer suite the series has ever seen.

The first aspect of this is the largest maps yet. Arabia, the Italian Alps, and the muddy fields of France from the western front have already been confirmed and are just as destructible as anything we’ve seen before. Massive battleships can pepper coastlines and reduce them to clusters of smoldering craters, while tanks can rolls through narrow alleyways in urban France, leaving buildings in heaps of rubble behind them. One unique vehicle, though, will be cavalry horses. Riding horses can provide speed in multiplayer, while also giving players access to places normal vehicles cannot get to.

The battle for air supremacy has also taken a distinct turn in Battlefield 1. You can try to channel your inner Red Baron (the pilot, not the pizza) by hopping into biplanes. Some of these old-school aircraft will also offer players a chance to dominate with friends, as they’ll seat two people, meaning one person will pilot while the other will man the guns. Whether or not you can accidentally shoot your own plane like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is yet to be seen.

The core of Battlefield 1‘s multiplayer, though, will remain with the troops on the ground. Players will be able to choose from one of four classes: Assault, Medic, Scout, and Support. Assault is great for taking out enemy vehicles, Medics are the healing experts, Scouts specialize in picking off single targets with sniper rifles or the like, and Support uses heavy guns to mow down infantry that cross their path. There are also vehicle-specific classes being introduced for the first time, like tank drivers and biplane pilots. While anyone can drive vehicles in multiplayer just like in previous games, these special classes will get boosts if piloting their vehicle of expertise.

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Personal weaponry is also a massive aspect of the new Battlefield. While flamethrowers, mustard gas, and zeppelins were teased in the presentation, we can confirm era-accurate ordnance of all kinds. Pistols, rifles (bolt-action, semi-auto, and fully-auto), and machine guns will be usable by players. You can also call in artillery strikes. Your melee weapon may be just as important as your gun, however, for the first time in the series.

In true World War I fashion, getting your hands dirty in the trenches and getting up close and personal with your enemies is going to be a large part of the gameplay. Knives, sabers, shovels, and trench clubs all offer up distinctive advantages and kill scenarios for players, while a special power called the bayonet charge will also be available for some particularly gruesome close-up kills.

One final change Battlefield 1‘s multiplayer is introducing is a heavier emphasis on team play. Lone wolves beware as charging blindly into battle should spell certain doom as EA DICE has admitted to trying to reward more strategic, team-oriented gameplay. How exactly this will manifest itself is yet to be seen.

And due to EA DICE failing to offer hands-on opportunities before EA Play in June, it’s difficult to tell just how all these changes will actually feel in Battlefield 1. The grounded, reality-based scenario definitely has me excited again, and the potential for even more varied locations not yet announced—like Prussia on the eastern front, maybe—has me wanting to know more. At the very least, it appears like Battlefield is taking a step forward by going back in time.

Battlefield 1 will launch on October 21st for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

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Gears of War 4 First Look at New Dodgeball Mode on Foundation

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April 20, 2016

I had a chance to check out Gears of War 4‘s multiplayer a few days before the beta launches. This video shows off the brand new Dodgeball mode. Similar to execution, players only have one life to live, but when a teammate kills an opposing player, dead players can respawn.

Gears of War 4 launches exclusively on Xbox One on October 11.

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Star Fox Zero review

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Let the good times barrel roll

When the decision was made for Star Fox to finally grace the Wii U, Nintendo and co-developer Platinum Games made the easy choice to stick to the series’ roots—much to the joy of fans everywhere (let’s just say that every time Fox McCloud steps out of his Arwing, you can hear the collective groan of the audience underneath the hiss of the cockpit canopy opening up). Few could have predicted just how far they’d go in wanting to remind fans of the best times the series has previously provided, however. Instead of crafting an entirely new adventure, Star Fox Zero is an interesting blend of old and new elements under the umbrella of a “re-imagining” of what is widely considered the best game in the series, Star Fox 64—a particularly uninventive move considering they already re-released that game for the 3DS (aptly titled Star Fox 64 3D) just five years ago.

For those who might be unfamiliar with the franchise, the Lylat System has been thrust into war by a former Cornerian scientist gone mad named Andross. With his incredible technical prowess, Andross has built a mostly mechanical army the likes of which has never been seen. The only ones who can stop his crazy bid for power are the ragtag heroes-for-hire pilots that comprise the Star Fox team. Equipped with state-of-the-art Arwing fighter jets and their mobile base of operations, the Great Fox, Fox McCloud and company is ready to do what’s right for the sake of the galaxy (and their bank accounts). Three console generations, and nothing has changed.

Beyond just the story, Star Fox Zero stays true to a lot of the gameplay aspects from what we played 19 years ago on the N64—all we’re missing is the struggle to find AAA-batteries for our Rumble Paks. Like Star Fox 64, Star Fox Zero is a mostly on-rails space shooter experience, with “all-range mode” sections of gameplay opening up into an arena for frantic dogfights against massive bosses and Star Fox’s evil counterpart, Star Wolf. The action is fast and heavy, harkening back to when many games still had arcade sensibilities, relying on twitch reflexes and with a single playthrough not lasting more than a few hours. Also, in true throwback fashion, it’s not about beating the game once; it’s about beating it again and again in new and fantastic ways.

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Star Fox Zero parallels its inspiration by featuring branching paths that open up different worlds of varying difficulty depending on certain feats. Beating a level within a time limit, getting a high number of kills, shooting open an alternate path while on rails, or destroying bosses via not-always-obvious means are just some of the catalysts to cause the game’s path to splinter. In addition, achieving high scores on each route not only looks impressive when everything is totaled up at the end of the game, but also awards medals that can be used to unlock special features outside of the primary experience. Even after almost two decades, this remains a great way to offer up a lot of replayability for what would otherwise be considered a short game by today’s standards.

A fair amount of locations from Star Fox 64 have also been reused here—including planets like Corneria, Fortuna, and Titania—but they all see a drastic facelift. Star Fox Zero has fully fleshed out each world you explore. Lush jungles full of dangerous “bioweapons” overrun one world, while another sees shifting sands half hiding space battle wreckage. This level of detail—giving them characteristics and enemies unique to every location—shows off a personality that the planets in previous games never really had. And not every planet is a rehash. There are also some brand new ones specifically designed to offer opportunities to show off the select changes that were made to the gameplay.

And it’s in these changes where things get dicey with Star Fox Zero. New scenarios have been added where you can turn your Arwing into a chicken-walker (sort of like the AT-STs from Star Wars) and you can now move around on the ground in levels you used to only be able to fly through. Your controls change between Arwing and walker modes—and, in a testament to repurposing mechanics, the walker features a Z-targeting system similar to what’s been seen in Legend of Zelda games for years. Z-targeting makes circling, strafing, and dodging enemy fire a lot easier for the slower moving form. Because of this, there are actually times when the walker mode is not only the preferred way to combat Andross’s forces (like in narrow corridors), but also for finding those alternate paths I mentioned earlier.

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Of course, there are moments where you’re forced to use the walker, and its lack of speed and maneuverability compared to the Arwing form becomes a hindrance. Those sections of the game artificially up the difficulty to frustrating levels, making you wish you could just stay in the Arwing the entire time. In fact, when the walker options don’t work, you’ll end up questioning why the transformation was added at all. Ground levels should just be left to the Landmaster.

Speaking of the Landmaster, it’s now gained a flying transformation. If you wanted me to fly in a particular stage, why not just let me stay in the Arwing? Mixing flying/ground sections in a single level—instead of just adding more dedicated levels for each, or allowing you to replay levels with different vehicles—was a curious decision. The transformations for both vehicles work, and work well for the most part; they just didn’t feel necessary. The same can be said for the one new vehicle, the Gyrowing, which adds stealth gameplay on its respective levels. While I can understand a handful of Gyrowing levels could be inserted as an attempt at a change of pace, they aren’t really something a Star Fox game needs.

The Gyrowing also features a sidekick called Direct-I, which requires players to pilot a secondary hacking drone into narrow crevices, slowing down the gameplay even more. All told, flying both the Gyrowing and Direct-I feels decidedly un-Star Fox-like and harkens back to the less than stellar adventure games of the series—even though we’re still technically in a ship—and not the fun flying action we want. Not to mention controlling Direct-I via first-person on the Wii U GamePad while the Gyrowing is left defenseless on your main TV just screams gimmicky controls.

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That leads me to Star Fox Zero’s largest problem: the controls. I’m reminded of The Wonderful 101, another Nintendo and Platinum collaboration that used the Wii U GamePad entirely too much. There is nothing worse than having to take your eyes off of the TV screen to see a different perspective on the GamePad, and more than anything, I wish the ease of control was what had been brought over from Star Fox 64.

When the game is played on your TV, it’s in the traditional third-person view, with the camera positioned directly behind your ship. The Wii U GamePad offers up a first-person perspective from Fox’s cockpit. This by itself would’ve actually been pretty cool, but the problem is that the aiming reticule is then married to the motion of the GamePad, forcing you to dance around your living room like a buffoon as you try to lock on enemy ships. Worse yet, the game mandates use of the first-person view in some sections—especially in the all-range mode arenas—to get the best shots on certain enemies. There is one alternate control scheme that allows you to lessen the impact of these controls, and I ended up spending most of my time using that option. Even so, doing that doesn’t do away with the motion controls completely, and you’re still required to move around far too much to aim/shoot at bad guys while playing.

Star Fox Zero manages to capture the essence of the original Star Fox 64, and rides that nostalgia train hard. At the same time, it leaves a lot to be desired. I can’t help but feel that choosing to re-imagine an older game instead of creating a truly brand new one painted the developers into an unfriendly creative corner. Star Fox Zero is a solid game, but due to its lack of ingenuity and difficult controls, it continues the trend of one of Nintendo’s most beloved IPs just kind of middling about.

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Developer: Platinum Games, Nintendo EPD • Publisher: Nintendo • ESRB: E10+ – Everyone 10 and up • Release Date: 04.22.16
7.0
Star Fox Zero’s status as a love-letter to the past is solidified. While it does a good job channeling a lot of what was great about Star Fox 64, it fails to really build on it in new and exciting ways, and stumbles because of the Wii U Gamepad.
The Good Searching for alternate paths through the Lylat System remains addicting.
The Bad I felt like I was fighting the Wii U GamePad half the time.
The Ugly Every time Falco shouts, “Thanks for the friendly fire, Fox!” I think I should go upgrade my Internet browser.
Star Fox Zero is a Wii U exclusive. Review code was provided by Nintendo for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
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Star Fox Guard review

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Don’t let your guard down

Over the course of Star Fox’s history, whenever the decision is made to deviate from the space combat the series is known for, it’s often led to disaster. Even with Fox McCloud and gang being revered and lauded amongst Nintendo’s great original characters, when the Star Fox team steps out from their Arwings, it usually spells trouble for the series and a lack of fun to be had by gamers. Well, never one to be deterred, Nintendo has again tried to branch out and expand upon the Star Fox universe in the form of Star Fox Guard, and again it seems they’ve failed to create a compelling game.

Star Fox Guard sees players take on the role of a security guard at Corneria Precious Metals, Ltd. The company has been expanding exponentially to all corners of the galaxy due to war raging in the Lylat System, and so company owner Grippy Toad, uncle to famed Star Fox pilot and mechanic Slippy Toad, felt he needed more help. Players must use each security camera—conveniently equipped with a laser blaster—in every CPM facility to find and destroy the evil robots that want to disrupt the mining operations (by decimating each plant’s power core, thus bringing their metal output for the war effort to a halt). It’s not the deepest story, but you don’t really need a lot of setup when it comes to a tower defense game.

I typically enjoy the tower defense genre, having many in my collection ranging from South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! to Ninjatown. However, I can say, without a doubt in my mind, that Star Fox Guard is one of the most shallow and downright boring tower defense games I’ve ever had to play.

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Every level gives you a dozen cameras to place around each CPM facility in order to destroy all of the invading robots. Your TV acts as a sort of security monitor bank, with the screen broken into 13 segments—one for each camera along the edges, and a larger one in the middle signifying which one of the 12 you’re controlling at that given moment. Using the gamepad touch screen, you can switch from camera to camera, changing which one you control to better fend off incoming threats. And right here is where the problems start.

When first looking at Star Fox Guard, the controls appear downright simple. The analog sticks move the camera you’re controlling, and every other button on the controller fires the camera’s laser. The issues arise from the fact that you can only control one camera at a time, forcing you to look down at the Wii U GamePad in order to switch between them. Instead of giving us an easier option to rotate through the cameras, forcing us to use the GamePad leads to something I always despise when Wii U games make me do it: taking my eyes off the TV screen. During more frantic moments, when a half-dozen robots are rushing the facility core, looking down at the GamePad’s display and then back up—taking a second to re-focus your attention—is valuable time wasted in a tower defense game.

This also touches on the second issue with Star Fox Guard’s gameplay, and why it fails short as a tower defense game: the cameras aren’t automated whatsoever. The best tower defense games are meant to test your ability to strategically plan both before a match starts and on the fly. Star Fox Guard only tests your twitch reflexes as you bounce from GamePad to TV and vice versa, and from camera to camera. There is a minimal amount of strategy involved, since often the default placement of the cameras is the most strategically sound, and you’re given them all before each encounter. Some of the game’s challenge missions—extra levels with unique win conditions that make up half of the included 100 levels—get away from this, allowing you to slowly build your defenses up. Unfortunately, those mission types are few and far between.

Since there are only 12 cameras, there are also very limited upgrades. As you continue to successfully defend Grippy’s metal processing plants, you’ll level up your security clearance. At certain levels, you unlock a multi-shot cam, a freeze cam, and a slow-time cam. You only unlock one of each, however—so, at most, you’ll have nine regular cameras, and then three specialized ones. It adds a little bit of strategy, but not enough to really give the game the depth it so desperately needs.

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Not everything about Star Fox Guard is a complete bust, though. The game offers up some challenge with the variety of enemies it throws at you. Fifteen types of enemy will mess with your cameras, including some that steal them away or knock them offline for an extended period. If the cameras are offline or gone, obvious holes can start to appear in your defense, which the remaining 11 enemy types will take advantage of. That’s 26 types of enemies total, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, making you wish even more you could do more with the cameras.

The other nice aspect of all those enemies is Star Fox Guard’s Squad Mode. Once you beat the first 20 or so stages, you unlock the game’s online component, which allows you to put together your own robot horde and send it after a buddies’ processing plant core, or reverse the situation to defend your own personal core from their army. Successful attacks and defenses increase your online rank, while losses will knock you down the leaderboards. As you face new enemies in single player, you’ll unlock them as options for your multiplayer horde, giving you at least one reason to grind through the game’s 100 lackluster and repetitive stages.

There’s a reason why Star Fox Guard is a free pack-in game bundled with the first run of physical copies of Star Fox Zero. It’s not a broken game, but there’s really not enough to grab your attention and hold it for more than a few levels. It’s a shallow cobbling together of tower defense parts that relies too much on the Wii U GamePad, one that doesn’t do anything interesting beyond Squad Mode. If you should tire of Star Fox Zero at some point, I could see you devoting a couple hours to it just because it was there if you get the physical version. On the other hand, if you’re going the digital route with Zero, there’s little reason for you to chip in and pick up Guard along with it.

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Developer: Platinum Games, Nintendo EPD • Publisher: Nintendo • ESRB: E10+ – Everyone 10 and up • Release Date: 04.22.16
5.5

Every time Star Fox tries to do something out of its space-combat comfort zone it fails. Star Fox Guard sadly continues this tradition of games that make you go “meh” when Fox and the gang step away from their Arwing cockpits.
The Good There’s a lot to do and the online component adds some surprising replayability.
The Bad Shallow, repetitive tower defense play that relies too much on the Wii U GamePad screen.
The Ugly Slippy’s uncle is nothing but a war profiteer.
Star Fox Guard is a Wii U exclusive. Review code was provided by Nintendo for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
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Stories: The Path of Destinies review

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Choose your fate

Immersion has always been a big factor for me enjoying not just games, but a lot of the media I’ve consumed over the years. So, it shouldn’t come as a shock to find out I was a fan of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books while growing up. I found it particularly easy to insert myself directly into their stories, and it could take hours to repeatedly work my way through them, finding all the different endings. It’s no wonder then that I immediately fell in love with Stories: The Path of Destinies.

Stories follows a clever fox rogue named Reynardo who, through a series of unfortunate events, has found himself smack dab in the middle of a civil war between an evil king and his kingdom’s upstart rebellion. The events that led to Reynardo’s involvement in the war also saw a magical book find its way into his possession. This book allows him to see his potential fate based on decisions he has yet to make, and only by overcoming countless trials and errors will Reynardo discover the truth behind the war and discern what will be the one path he can take to victory.

While the story sounds simple enough, much of the charm of Stories comes due to its lone voice actor. The storyteller/narrator acts similarly to the one in Bastion, dynamically and amusingly calling out many of Reynardo’s actions, from the epic (fighting off a dozen enemies and not taking a hit) to the mundane (yes, smashing all those pots is necessary). Some of the writing misses the mark, but most of its mistakes can be forgiven considering the tone of the entire adventure. Plus, it should be commended as a whole, considering how everything interconnects.

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You see, just like those Choose Your Own Adventure books of my youth, Stories features 25 different endings for our hero, and only one of them can be considered “good”: the good guys live, the bad guys don’t, and the world is saved. The fun, though, is in collecting the clues to learn how to get to that good ending.

Each playthrough of Stories only takes about an hour total as you work your way through five chapters. Each chapter has a decision at the end of it, which branches the story off in different directions before culminating in one of the endings. With each “bad” ending you receive (Reynaldo dies, world is destroyed, etc.) one of four universal truths is potentially revealed. These are facts that never change, no matter what path Reynaldo takes, and which contain knowledge he can then use when he flips back to the front of his magical, fate-revealing book. The truths also unlock additional choice paths when you replay certain scenarios due to the new information our protagonist has gained.

Once you learn all four truths, you should have the pieces necessary to figure out how Reynaldo must navigate the book—like a magnificent meta-puzzle—in order to emerge a true hero. Of course, with 24 bad endings, there’s no guarantee that each ending will reveal a truth, but the fun is in course-correcting each time around, changing one decision—or many—in an attempt to uncover the information you need. So, at minimum, you’ll need five playthroughs (I admittedly stumbled and needed a sixth) to unlock the hero’s best path.

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My only gripe with how this was done comes from the fact that unlike a true Choose Your Own Adventure, you have to replay full storylines just to get to the one decision you want to change. For completionists out there who want to see all 25 endings, this will be particularly frustrating, because instead of being able to bounce back to a decision in chapter four, you have to go all the way back to chapter one each time and start all over, forcibly lengthening the game.

This becomes particularly bothersome when you realize there are only around eight different levels rotating in and out of the five chapters, so playing the game over and over again causes you to see a lot of the same areas repeatedly. Each level has a couple of alternate paths that you can unlock on subsequent playthroughs, but when you’re traipsing through the desert for the tenth time, the levels lose their luster.

One aspect that helps keep this repetition from bogging the game down too much is the gameplay. Stories plays like a relatively straight-forward action-RPG, but there is some surprising depth to the combat when you mix in the four swords Reynardo can acquire and level up, the hookshot that allows him to quickly close the distance to enemies, and counter attacks reminiscent of the “exclamation mark above the enemy’s head” system from super hero games.

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There’s also a deep leveling system, with perks that carry over from playthrough to playthrough. This way, by the time you’re trying to make a speed run for the good ending, Reynardo will be almost tank-like in his ability to mow down enemies and keep pushing the story forward.

There is a shortcoming with the gameplay, in that there are a fair amount of glitches in the game. I found myself stuck to certain walls, or half-submerged in the ground like it was quicksand, on several occasions, requiring me to restart the chapter. While no chapter is more than 15 minutes long depending on how much you explore, it quickly got bothersome after it happened more than a couple of times.

Stories: The Path of Destinies is a love letter to the Choose Your Own Adventure books of my childhood. It’s multiple paths and endings will keep you coming back for at least a few playthroughs as you attempt to unlock the best ending possible. It also acts as a solid action-RPG, with a surprising amount of depth to keep you engaged for at least as long as it should take you to uncover all the hidden truths. If you’re looking for a narrative-driven game that you can come back to again and again, then Stories: The Path of Destinies is a game you should probably choose.

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Developer: Spearhead Games • Publisher: Spearhead Games • ESRB: T – Teen • Release Date: 04.12.16
8.5
Solid action-RPG gameplay is elevated by the meta-puzzle that is the game’s branching storylines. The entertaining trial and error of trying to find the one “good” ending channels Choose Your Own Adventure books, and lends itself to a story that you’ll love playing again and again.
The Good Choose your own adventure-style narrative with over two-dozen endings for tons of replayability.
The Bad Level repetition can lead to fatigue, especially when needing to restart due to a collision glitch.
The Ugly Thinking too hard about a fox falling in love with a cat.
Stories: The Path of Destinies is available on PS4 and PC. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Spearhead Games for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
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MLB The Show 16 review

Filed under: EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly), Written — 1 Comment

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Take me out to the ballgame

I’ve loved sports all my life, and while football and hockey have earned copious amounts of my attention over the years, my first love remains baseball. Many of my earliest sports memories revolve around playing, watching, and studying the game (my 1995 MLB Almanac that began my obsession with statistics still holds a special place in my personal library). So, it’s no wonder that I get an extra spring in my step when Opening Day begins to roll around once more. I start studying rosters, rotations, scouting reports, schedules, and more with the tenacity of an FBI manhunt for a most wanted criminal.

In recent years, my annual routine has slightly shifted to include playing MLB The Show. I’ve picked up every copy of the game since 2010, and have found it is a great way to prepare for the season—even if it’s never exactly been perfect. But each year I still return to the only true baseball simulation on the market to help take the edge off when I need a fix of America’s pastime.

This year’s entry into the annual franchise, MLB The Show 16, looked to enhance the game in every aspect and mode while also adding a bevy of new features, especially in their online suite. Some of these changes add a lot to the experience, and I can say Sony San Diego knocked them out of the park. Others, however, are clear swing and misses.

Visually, the game is stunning. More realistic lighting, and a whole slew of new hitting, running, and fielding animations makes this easily the prettiest entry in the series thus far. Even after putting nearly two-dozen hours into the offline modes, there wasn’t a glitch to be found.

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The core modes of MLB The Show—Franchise and Road to the Show—have also seen upgrades. Franchise mode, which gives you total control over your favorite MLB team, has more stats than ever before, and finally gives a player’s full career history when you look at their numbers. Baseball is a stats driven game, and it’s about time this was included.

Also, taking a page out of EA Sports’ NHL franchise, players now have morale indicators based on a variety of factors. These influence their performance, as well as the likelihood of them signing or re-signing a contract with your team. Whether your team is located close to their home, how much money you’re offering, the coach, your team’s position in the standings, and much more will affect the player’s happiness level, making contract negotiations a more involved process than just throwing more money at players.

Road to the Show, which gives you a chance to create a player and live out your own major league aspirations, has added even more new features than Franchise. One new aspect in particular hugely changes gameplay here, and it’s called “Showtime”. This special meter allows players to slow down time and focus on really big moments. Need to make a diving catch to save a run? Stepping to the plate, down by three with the bases loaded and wanting to walk-off in style? Slow down time, hone in on the moment, and come through in the clutch. It takes a fair amount of time to get used to—especially when you slow down your at-bats at the plate—but when you get the timing down, it’s a fun new wrinkle to help accelerate your player’s growth from AA-prospect to MLB-superstar.

Another way that RTTS accelerates your development is that you can play entire series after one load screen. Sitting down and fast-forwarding to each of your at-bats and moments in the field in three or four game clips really zips you through the minors if you’re good enough. I polished off my first month of the season in just a couple hours, a process that used to take much longer in previous years.

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Besides this, new training tools allow you to add perks to your players as they improve, like better contact when hitting to cut down on strikeouts in high-pressure situations, or increasing the likelihood of opponents making errors in the field so you always get on base. The mode even kicks off with a chance to play in the Bowman Scout Day, helping define your player the second you start down the path to a major league career.

The biggest changes that came to MLB The Show 16, though, easily fall under Diamond Dynasty, MLB’s online fantasy mode that lets you put together a dream team by collecting different player cards. More cards are available than ever before, and that’s because of a new category called “Flashbacks.” These cards feature superstar players who might be in the twilight of their career, but with statistics from different chapters of their MLB playing time. Texas Rangers MVP Alex Rodriguez, and Oakland Athletics rookie Kurt Suzuki are just a couple of the new cards featured, and Legend cards also return featuring the likes of Nolan Ryan, making it so you can turn your online team into a juggernaut in no time.

To help flesh out your rosters, there are also more ways than ever to get cards, using either the franchise’s traditional in-game currency earned by playing the game known as “stubs,” or the brand new ticket currency added to MLB The Show 16. When you start the game, you’ll be allowed to pick from one of six special captains from around baseball: cover boy and reigning AL MVP Josh Donaldson from the Blue Jays; Mets pitcher Jacob DeGrom; retiring Red Sox slugger David Ortiz; defending world champion Royals first-baseman Eric Hosmer; Astros speedster second baseman Jose Altuve; and Cubs superstar first-baseman Anthony Rizzo. By playing different modes in MLB The Show 16, you’ll earn experience towards each captain. In a way, the six captains work as a form of prestige for the game itself, because by leveling up each captain to their max, you’ll have a chance to buy special cards associated with each one at higher levels. Each captain also offers unique challenges towards earning those award tickets, which can then also be redeemed for special reward cards.

I like the idea behind the captain system, but I think, as it is, it’s a bit too convoluted. Trying to keep track of what challenge you’re going for and introducing a second currency feels like a ham-fisted attempt at trying to jam more overarching content into the game. Plus, limiting the system to only these captains—instead of offering less levels to max each one out, but representing each team around baseball—feels like a missed opportunity. Not to mention, you can always find a lot of the cards being offered in random packs or the game’s online auction house. The inside track this mode offers doesn’t really expedite anything, considering the grind to max each captain out to get to the best cards available.

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There are also two new modes in MLB The Show 16’s online suite of games.

Diamond Dynasty is no longer limited to just playing people in head-to-head matchups, as there’s now also a weird RTS Risk-style game where you take your team online in an attempt to conquer all the other MLB teams across North America. By playing and winning repeated games, you’ll earn more fans and your influence will grow. When you completely absorb the fan base of another team, you’ll conquer their region.

I love the concept, but as is, even with each game being limited to 3-inning exhibitions, this mode is a grind to play. It might take you days to beat Conquest even once, and considering the game forces you to play on higher difficulties when you have fewer fans (or your fans are too spread out between multiple fronts), the reward for playing feels minimal compared to the time investment.

The other new mode is Battle Royale, which takes a page out of EA Sports’ Madden playbook in that it comes off a lot like their Draft Champions. You begin the mode by drafting a 25-man team from current and hall of fame baseball players. After setting your line-up, you have to hop online and play 3-inning games against human players. If you win, you’ll earn more player cards. The more you win, the better cards you get, and the stiffer the competition you’ll face as online rankings start being taken into account. If you lose twice, the mode is over and you have to re-draft and start over, trying to win crappy cards again before moving on up. The mode is also a gamble as it requires 1500 stubs to play. That isn’t a monumental amount, but it’s enough for most folks to take pause before jumping right in—and the rewards don’t feel like they justify the time sink.

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Unfortunately, I ran into one major issue with these new modes during my time with MLB The Show 16, and that’s the fact that they require you to be online in order to play them (unlike RTTS and Franchise). Lo and behold, just like almost every other year, the game’s servers have been completely unstable at launch. In fact, in the first 48 hours of playing post-release, I’ve had more full disconnects from MLB The Show’s online servers than I’ve been able to connect and finish a 3-inning game with people. And even when I do connect, the lag is atrocious.

Talking with friends and even the strangers I’ve played online, I’ve found they are experiencing the same issues. I’ve played other online games without a hitch, again pointing to the fact that just like every year, Sony San Diego could not get their online act together in time for launch. It’s a huge disappointment, especially considering these new modes are all tied directly to online play.

There also seems to be a tendency on Sony San Diego’s part to fix things that aren’t broken instead of fixing things that are. I’m sure the servers will get to a better point sooner rather than later, but minor things like UI changes to the menus and stat cards for players—including player stamina meters now being a circle bar instead of a more clearly readable long bar like in last year’s game—just seem wholly unnecessary when you have these sorts of netcode problems.

A part of me wonders if it all stems from the fact that MLB The Show 16 maybe tried to offer too much new stuff this go around. Had they focused on making a couple of the new features they included as polished and user-friendly as possible, and for once had a smooth online launch, this could’ve been a very special baseball sim. As it is, it is very good, with some solid ideas being added, yet you can’t help but knock them for botching online play again—especially when the majority of new features are connected to it. You can’t win the World Series in the first month of the season, but you can lose it with a slow start, and there’s no doubt that MLB The Show 16 at least stumbled out of the gate on that one. That said, if you need a baseball fix and find you spend most of your time playing RTTS and Franchise modes anyway, MLB The Show 16 delivers in spades on those fronts.

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Developer: SCEA San Diego • Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America • ESRB: E – Everyone • Release Date: 03.29.16
8.0
MLB The Show 16 continues to find innovative ways to push the series forward by adding new features and improving on old ones. Some new problems have arisen, however, and old ones—most notably the horrendous stability of online play—continue to persist and hold the series back.
The Good Deeper Road to the Show mode, better visuals, and the concept of new online modes.
The Bad The online play itself is as atrocious as ever.
The Ugly Even with thousands of new lines of commentary recorded, Steve Lyons, Eric Karros, and Tom Vasgersian still started to repeat themselves after only a half-dozen games or so.
MLB The Show 16 is available on PS4 and PS3. Primary version reviewed was for PS4. Review code was provided by Sony for the benefit of this review. EGM reviews games on a scale of 1 to 10, with a 5.0 being average.
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