Dino D0Day Review

Game: Dino D-Day
Year (s): 2011
Company: dev. 800 North and Digital Ranch
pub. 800 North and Digital Ranch
Engine: Source
Type: Shooter, Multiplayer
Viewpoint: First-Person
Metacritic Score: 53


Price (as of September 29, 2013)


Regular list price on Steam: $9.99
Not available anywhere else.


Obligatory Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdmCNfPMr1I




The Concept


The Nazis have dinosaurs! Rigged up with guns and explosives, Dino D-Day introduced a ridiculous, fun idea for team-based deathmatch and control point combat.




The Execution


The dinosaurs are fun, but the human characters are nothing exciting. The Allies only have one dinosaur character. Bot support was added, but the AI was not very good and this negatively affected the game. Bots do not go after objectives, and are much more difficult to sneak up on (two of the dinos are all about sneaking).


For a couple of years, there were a dozen or so dedicated servers. In the heyday, one server would be populated, and the rest empty or only with one or two players. There are no longer ANY dedicated servers.


A single-player campaign was promised to come, and would help players learn how to use some of the characters. Now that the servers are gone, I doubt this will happen.


As far a mods go, Dino D-Day is up there. It does something new, and has some humor. As far as games go, Dino D-Day is pretty lacking. The novelty of dinosaurs can't make up for lack of servers and crappy bots.

BioShock Infinite Review

Game: BioShock Infinite
Year (s): 2013
Company: dev. Irrational Games
pub. 2K
Engine: Unreal Engine 3
Type: Shooter with some RPG elements
Viewpoint: First
Metacritic Score: 94
My Score: 7 out of 10


Price (as of September 23, 2013)


Regular list price on Steam: $40
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping): $20


My Game Time: 22 hours first time on normal (may be inflated due to being paused for long periods)


Obligatory Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjer5bs8WLc


See Also


BioShock Review: http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2010/11/bioshock-review.html
BioShock 2 Review:
http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2012/07/bioshock-2-review.html




The Good


BioShock Infinite starts out with the player traveling to the city of Columbia. In the early 1900's, Columbia is a marvel that floats on balloons and has great steampunk technologies. The player explores this fantastic setting for a bit, then the authorities start attacking him for reasons unknown (for almost the entire game). The first taste of the game reminded me of City 17, and the graphics are solid. Very Compelling Setting.
Combat controls are steamlined, and hitting a button tells you where to go if you get lost.




The Bad


I got bored with combat. Initially, you're murdering the police, and that's unsettling. Eventually, you're killing every faction of the city. If you run low on ammo, The Girl gives you more, so combat is pretty easy. If you die, you respawn, further simplfying things. The sniper rifle is best, as most areas are wide open. I found the Sky Line (sort of like a personal roller coaster) to be an interesting idea, but poorly integrated in regards to combat.


On a major note, Infinite is terribly written. Initially, there is no explanation of things. After about five hours, the players says he was sent to smuggle The Girl out to pay off a debt. Shortly thereafter, the player hops to alternate dimensions (with no way to get back) in lieu of solving problems in the current one. Being in an alternate dimension should bring into question what you're trying to accomplish exactly, but strangely, this is not mentioned. The ending pissed me off, and ultimately gives us a mess of plot holes, when we'd been expecting plot twists.


The Verdict


I really liked BioShock. BioShock 2 had a different developer; they made some poor choices for us color blind folk, but I didn't hold it against the franchise. BioSchock Infinite is the only game for PC I have ever payed full price for, and I was severely disappointed with the 10-year-old-boy writing quality. It's critcally accliamed, but that doesn't matter. The great setting is wrecked by abominable writing. The streamlined combat is too easy, offers nothing new, and so we're left with a highly acclaimed, annoyingly mediocre game.
I suppose it might be worth it if you get it on the cheap, but don't expect to be impressed.

Su-Chi Deck

Years ago, I built a black/artifact deck on the cheap.  The basic premise was Su-Chi + Culling the Weak = Big Mana.  Spirit of the Night, Baron Sengir, Patron of the Nezumi... I used whatever I had at the time.  It was a hit or miss deck, as it required having  1.  something to sacrifice  2.  something to sacrifice it to, and 3.  something to do with the mana.

I have rebuilt the deck, now also including white, for more synergy.  Big creatures now (mostly) bring my sacrificial creatures back or do something mean when one of my creatures dies.  A bad shuffle can still result in a failure of the 1+2=3 premise, but it's better now than it was before.  Deck list:

Su-Chi Deck

60-Card Format

Black, Whtie

4 Myr Moonvessel

4 Cathodion

4 Su-Chi

2 Priest of Gix

4 Ashnod's Altar

4 Soldevi Adnate

4 Priest of Yawgmoth

4 Butcher of Malakir

4 Bringer of the Wite Dawn

2 Repear from the Abyss

1 Shoeldred, Whispering One

1 Reya Dawnbringer

2 Angel of Despair

LANDS

1 Phyrexian Tower

Multicolor Lands

Plains

Swamps

Antichamber Review

Game:  Antichamber
Year (s):  2013
Company:  dev.  Alexander Bruce
pub.  Demruth
Engine:  Unreal Engine 3
Type:  Puzzle
Viewpoint:  First-Person
Metacritic Score: 82
My Score:  An astonishing shit.

Price (as of July 21, 2013)

Regular list price on Steam:  $20
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  Not Available

My Game Time: 18 minutes

Obligatory Trailer:  http://store.steampowered.com/app/219890


Review

I first noticed Antichamber about a month ago.  After watching the trailer, I came away thinking that it had graphics to rival that of 1990 (I am not exaggerating, check out the trailer).  Nonetheless, it had a decent Metacritic score, solid reviews, a few awards, and sounded like something different.  When it was discounted during Steam's summer sale for six bucks, I figured it was worht a shot.

Antichamber is a game without an introduction or tutorial.  You start off with a red flight of stairs going down, and a blue one going up.  There are two pictures on the walls that change, but there are no clues as to what you're supposed to be doing.  At one point, I'm pretty sure I found the objective, but I couldn't figure out how to interact with it.  I tried hitting E, F, clicking the mouse, nothing.  So I continued on the stairs.  After eighteen minutes of that, I deleted the game.

Don't be fooled with the Escher-esque pitch, the awards, or anything else.  This game looks awful, teaches you nothing, and, out of 176 total games, is THE WORST GAME I have ever gotten through Steam.

BRINK review

Game:  BRINK
Year (s):  2011
Company:  dev.  Splash Damage
pub.  Bethesda Softworks
Engine:  id Tech 4 (modified)
Type:  Red vs. Blue shooter
Viewpoint:  First-Person
Metacritic Score: 72

Price (as of June 26, 2013)

Regular list price on Steam:  $19.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  $6

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8HYs90WXms

The Good

BRINK allows for a great deal of unlockable abilities and weapon customization.  The more you play, the more things you have access to.  A selection of dozens of firearms are avialable, and any weapon can be used by any character class.  There are a few different game types to keep things interesting, and there's full bot support.


The Bad

As shown in the trailer, the game is supposed to be big on parkour movement (trailer is NOT actual gameplay).  During the campaign I could climb on some objects and sometimes get a slide to work.  I found this more realistic, but not particularly useful in a firefight.  I certainly didn't move like they do in the trailer, I don't know if these movements had to be unlocked or if the game just failed to teach players how to do things.

Another flaw is lack of a map or compass waypoints for objectives.  Levels are not symmetrical.  While I could see where my teammates were, following bots doesn't always lead one in the right direction.

Personally, I didn't feel that the four classes were very different.  Some objectives had to be completed by a specific class, but gameplay was mostly the same.  


The Verdict

BRINK is one of those games that is meant to be played with friends.  I think I could really get into the unlocking and weapon customization aspects, but my experience playing with bots was just not quite enough to have me tell friends to buy this.  BRINK isn't a bad game, per se, it just didn't do it for me.

Morph Deck

I recently came across Ixidron, an interesting guy that flips all other creatures face-down.  If my guys all have morph, this isn't so bad.  Training Grounds and Dream Chisel help ease the mana cost for morph guys, and the rest is pretty straight forward.  Here's the deck.


Morph
60-Card Format
Blue

Ixidron
Ixidor, Reality Sculptor
Voidmage Apprentice
Willbender
Quicksilver Dragon
Vesuvan Shapeshifter
Aphetto Runecaster
Weaver of Lies
Echo Tracer

Training Grounds
Dream Chisel
Extraplanar Lens

LANDS

Islands
Zoetic Cavern

Serious Sam 2 Review

Game:  Serious Sam 2
Year (s):  2005
Company:  dev.  Croteam
pub.  Devolver
Engine:  Serious Engine 2
Type:  Old-School Shooter
Viewpoint:  First-Person
Metacritic Score: 74
My Score:  The nadir of the franchise.

Price (as of May 19, 2013)

Regular list price on Steam:  $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  $6

My Game Time: 17 hours

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=334FeWTYDCU

See Also

The First Encounter Review:  http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2011/06/serious-sam-first-encounter-review.html
The Second Encounter Review:  http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2012/05/serious-sam-second-encounter-review.html
Serious Sam 3 BFE Review:  http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2012/01/serious-sam-3-bfe-review.html

Plot

Sam must fight through several planets, gathering pieces of a medallion, in order to defeat Lord Mental.


Save System

Manual Save?  No
Quick Save?  No
Area Load Save?  Yes
Checkpoint Save?  Yes


The Progression

This was the last game of the franchise for me to play.  Carrying through the franchise we have tons of enemies, retro gameplay, some humor, giant bosses, and general quirkiness.  The Second Encounter added a few new enemies and several new environments.  Serious Sam 2 had almost completely new enemies and environments, the addition of vehicles,  new weapons, and replaced textrual plot with cut scenes.  

Then, the HD versions of The First/Second Encounter were realesed, continuing a gradual graphical improvement.  Croteam lastly went back to the basics and the original enemies and environments for Serious Sam 3: BFE.


Final Thoughts

The nearly complete departure from familiar foes, along with some jokes that fell totally flat, made Serious Sam 2 feel like a third-party knockoff.  From a plot perspective, SS2 is the last game of the bunch, and I thought the ending was very unsatisfying.  I say pass on this one.