Tag: steam

Goodbye DayZ—Hello 7 Days!

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Hey all,

During the Steam summer sales I finally got 7 Days to Die. I also made a bunch of my friends get it too so we’ve been playing every now and then. And I must say… it’s loads better than DayZ.

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Before getting DayZ, I was super excited and curious about it. A survival game that forces you to interact in a way that may come close to how you would in an actual apocalypse? Sounds fun! You must make sure you have food and water, and that you’re healthy and dry—all while fending of zombies.

Now both 7 Days and DayZ are in their alpha stages but here’s why I like 7 Days a million times better: for a game that’s charging people for their alpha, 7 Days is actually playable. Don’t get me wrong, they both have their bugs, but your experience with 7 Days is going to be a lot smoother.

In terms of the actual game, 7 Days also requires you to ensure your character is well fed, healthy, and there’s also a sprint bar. But food is a lot easier to consume (no need for the can opener in DayZ), and water is more common. Starting a fire to boil the water, crafting weapons to defend against zombies, creating locked doors—all these components work well in its alpha stages. When you die, you lose everything on your “belt”, but not in your backpack. 

DayZ frustrated me to no end because when you die, that’s it. You lose everything and start completely from scratch. While I first thought that was cool, I soon realized how overpowered the zombies in DayZ were, and alongside players who are all looking out for themselves, as well as the million other ways to die, you can see how starting from scratch is a real turn off. 

In 7 Days, if you die, you will be respawned in a random area of the map—much like DayZ. However, the map is smaller, making it less tedious to meet up with your friends. I remember when my friends and I would basically spend half (if not more) of our time trying to meet up in DayZ. Doesn’t really make for exciting gameplay. It felt like I bought Hiking Simulator for $30 instead. 

I really do enjoy 7 Days’ land claim block system, as well as the ability for your progress to be saved on a server so your locked chests and houses can be returned to. I also like the crafting system in the game. DayZ had pre-generated structures that you could not add or subtract from (also the zombies phased through the walls and floors…but I mean, it is still in alpha, so not going to judge them too harshly on this).

Our shelter for the night :)

Our shelter for the night 🙂

Maybe the “hardcore” zombie survival game that is DayZ just isn’t for me, but I honestly found 7 Days to Die a lot more enjoyable and fun to play with friends. At one point we had taken shelter in an abandoned house and started to set up base there. Suddenly some dude’s head popped into view through the window. It took us about 5 seconds to realize this was not one of us (you can’t actually see the names above people’s heads until you’re sufficiently close, and characters currently look a lot like each other), but by then the guy had opened fire on everyone in the room. Since we had about six people to his one, we took him out but were quick to fortify our temporary base with land mines.

Trying to break into some dude's locked house with a staircase made of furniture. Professional burglars here.

Trying to break into some dude’s locked house with a staircase made of furniture. Professional burglars here.

If I had to recommend one or the other, I would definitely suggest you get 7 Days to Die. It’s slightly cheaper too! 🙂 

– Karen

Dead Island: Epidemic— MOBA with a zombie twist

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Hey guys,

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My friend got into the closed beta for Dead Island Epidemic and he had several keys he could pass on to friends! Thanks Riz for sending me one of them 🙂

I had no idea they were releasing a Dead Island MOBA so when my friend said that he got a key for it I thought it was another standalone game like its past titles. I had played Dead Island before but not its sequel. I really liked the original game mostly because I could play as a Chinese lady whose father was from Hong Kong. It’s a bit silly but I felt somehow connected to her.

Let’s move on to Epidemic. Thinking about it I’m surprised that a zombie MOBA hasn’t been created yet! Zombie games are all the rage. In Epidemic we get to choose from several survivors (right now there are five to choose from). They each have different attack ranges and take on roles much like other MOBA games. There’s a guy who is better at close range and can tank, a girl who acts as a healer, and the rest can dish out damage but must stay at a comfortable distance away from the zombie mobs.

The workbench from the franchise that lets players craft their own weapons!

The workbench from the franchise that lets players craft their own weapons!

My thoughts? I think that it has got many elements that are reminiscent of the Dead Island franchise. You still get to craft your own weapons from blueprints and the art is quite similar, but you now get a bird’s eye view of everything. It’s interesting to get to always have a choice between a melee weapon and a gun since other MOBAs don’t give you that. It’s also a little different from other MOBAs since it’s not all about destroying the enemy’s base. Instead your team has to work together to complete objectives and get supplies. To compare it with something, I’d have to say its like a dominion game in League of Legends where you have to capture points. However you also have to fill up your truck with supplies and such while doing so.

Boomer? Is that you?

Boomer? Is that you?

In terms of enemies, if you’re playing the “horde mode” you’re facing hordes of zombies with special infected here and there. The special infected took a page from those in Left 4 Dead. I’m pretty sure I saw a boomer, a hunter and a smoker (though no smoke and coughing, just a tongue monster I suppose). I thought horde mode gets repetitive and boring. “Scavenger mode” is where you work together with your team against two other teams. The dynamics of making the game a 3 team versus is quite interesting. I’m used to just playing against one other team. What ends up happening is that you may be fighting at a capture point and you may team up momentarily with a third team to fight against one team. Then once that team is all dead it’s down to the two of you. Also, you’ve got to pay attention to your capture points. If two teams constantly fight against one another, the third team will be free to roam around and capture points. I thought this was quite an interesting twist to the usual MOBA.

Dead Island: Epidemic will be free to play on Steam but has yet to announce a release date. Since it still has to go through open beta, I wonder how long that will take. If you opt to buy one of its packages on Steam you get to play it right away (in its beta form). Overall I think the game was a little bland but it’s not done yet. They definitely need to spice things up a bit and I hope in the future there’s a few changes to address that.

– Karen

 

Alice: Madness Returns— Dementedly awesome

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Hey all,

Caught in between classes and the many papers, projects and presentations that has lined my agenda. However, that makes this game I recently got perfect in terms of how I’m slowly going insane.

Alice: Madness Returns is the sequel to American McGee’s Alice. The premise of the story revolves around Alice having witnessed her family being killed in a  tragic fire. Having to face what she saw, and being the sole survivor, she is filled with the horrors that haunt her every day. In response, she escapes to a place she calls Wonderland, leading others in the real world to believe her mad. This game begins in 1875 and Alice is now 19. She has been released from the mental asylum, and is placed in an orphanage in Victorian London where Doctor Bumby watches over her. She’s getting better, but at the beginning of the game, she is sent to run an errand that accidentally leads her into Wonderland again, causing her to spiral down into her madness once again.

Now if you’re used to Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland, you’ll be pleasantly (maybe) surprised. The beginning of the game is absolutely stunning.

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The first screen cap I took in game. Couldn’t help myself— it was ridiculously beautiful.

This is not at all to say that the rest of the game is not stunning. I have to say that one of the main things that sold this game for me was how nice the graphics were. You’re moved from the natural beauty that is Wonderland before it starts to crumble in Alice’s mind, to a Steampunk-esque version of the Mad Hatter’s place. There is more (I’m only through the first chapter of the game…actually I’m stuck there, but I’ll explain why a little later on) as the game progresses, and people have hinted to me that it gets more disturbing.

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Oh look. It’s a statue of me crying.

Screencap borrowed from (x) since I have not yet gotten here yet.

What stood out to me was that at the very beginning of the game you already feel a sense of unease. There are no jump scares in this game (at least not yet for me), but as you wander through the orphanage, you can’t help but be a bit nervous for what to expect at every turn that you make. Psychological horror is awesome.

Now on to what I did not like about this game: it’s buggy. I am currently stuck in the last part of the first chapter because I cannot get my freaking umbrella open to act as a shield. It turns out that I will have to go through my configuration files in my computer to fix this. I also had issues with getting the mouse that pops up when you open the options screen to go away. I ended up with three cursors on my screen as I played the game. I had to restart the whole thing in order to make it disappear. Since this game is about three years old, I’m sure there won’t be any updates to deal with these issues, so if you do get this game, know that this is what you’re getting yourself into. It’s not horribly hard to fix, but it does mess with your game experience since you will have to exit the game in order to fix what is wrong.

Additionally, if you’re very into fighting (I guess I like it, but I understand that not every single game has to be focused on solely that), Alice is quite limited in those terms. The Vorpal blade that she uses is her main attack, and her swinging it is quite straightforward. You press your left moue button. There are a few more side weapons, such a pepper grinder that can be used as a ranged gun, and bombs, but they’re not as prominent.

Overall, I’m pretty excited to squeeze some more time out of studying and invest it into Alice: Madness Returns!

-Karen

Borderlands 2 Review– A.K.A Where did all my time go?

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Hey y’all,

I made one of the dumbest decisions one week before reading break (which is essentially Spring Break for university students in UBC) and bought Borderlands 2. The week before break is usually when everything is due– papers, midterms, presentations, you name it.

Anyway, I remember logging in and promising myself that I would play for 30 minutes. A very reasonable break duration, right? I finally logged off to hastily finish the rest of my course work three or so hours later.

What I like most about Borderlands 2 is how funny it is. I have not played the first game in the franchise, but I heard its storyline is not as well developed. I also bought the Mechromancer Pack along with the game, meaning I got to play as Gaige and controller her murderous robot Deathtrap. Gaige is a cool female character who is steampunk-esque in her attire (added coolness in my books). She built Deathtrap for a school science fair, but her opponent, Marcy, stole her blueprints and bribed the judges causing Gaige to come in third. However, when Marcy shoved Gaige, Deathtrap identified her as a hostile and killed her. Gaige then went to Pandora to evade arrest. Pretty neat backstory I’d say.

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The reason why my short break turned into a uber long one was because of the storyline as explored through quests.

**Mid-game spoiler**
I was doing the Rising Action quest and I logged in during my “30 minute break” to finish it up and hand it in. Once I submitted the quest, in which I insert a new power core to generate energy for the rebel base called Sanctuary, I was notified that it had all been a trap. Now the inhabitants of Sanctuary were under attack because the corrupted power core hacked through the power shield that was protecting the city. However, there are other heroes in the story (Lilith, for those of you who have played Borderlands, returns as a NPC), and they manage to teleport the entire city into the sky, but accidentally leaves you behind by accident.

Reading the quest description...

Some of the quest descriptions in this game…

This basically meant I had to find my way back to Sanctuary. Which took me about three hours. I was so desperate to get back to the safe zone for rebels and log out there instead of anywhere else. I was quite attached, you see. I felt bad for drastically changing life in Sanctuary, and causing probably a few deaths to civilians in the process. I had to find my way home. In other words, I was hooked.
***End of mid-game spoilers**

Borderlands 2 revolves around the gamer playing one of the six playable characters on Pandora (4 without DLCs). You are a vault hunter, which means you have unique abilities. For example, my character Gaige can control a death machine in the form of Deathtrap as a Mechromancer. Maya, another character, is a siren, which means she can suspend enemies on another dimension. This allows her to do crowd control.

Unfortunately for you, as a vault hunter, the villain Handsome Jack (who is a brilliant villain by the way) is on the lookout for you. His aim is simple: kill you. Vault hunter interferes with his business of gathering the mineral Eridium and ruling the world so he must get rid of you. And everyone else in the city of Sanctuary who are basically the last of the resistance on Pandora.

handsome jack

This is a roleplaying, FPS game. If you’re looking for something fun, I would recommend this. You play this solo, so I sometimes get bored of it for that reason (you can invite a friends for a co-op mode though if they also have the game), but I take a break and I find myself missing it. Very funny, interesting characters (even their NPCs such as Moxxi and Tiny Tina! Google them up, they’re really cool. I may do a post in the future just to explore the characters in Borderlands!), and great storyline. Not to mention, they broke the world record for the most number of weapons in a game: 17,750,000.

-Karen

Steam Early Access: Paying to be an alpha tester?

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Hey everyone,

I’m pretty new to Steam– I used to get my PC games at Gamestop/EB Games or directly on the game’s official site. Anyway, Steam came out with their Early Access games last year, allowing game developers to release their games in their alpha stages so players can get in on the action early. Sometimes, these games are free. Players do have to deal with a lot of bugs or unfinished aspects of the game. At the same time, the developers are very conscious of the feedback provided by these early alpha testers, and will constantly release new updates that improve gameplay.

Why am I so interested in all this? Well recently, I’ve been intrigued by a game called DayZ. It was a mod for ARMA 2 (no idea what that is), but is now being released as a standalone game. DayZ opened itself up to Early Access on Steam last month and the developers were really hoping to get a quarter of a million in sales ($250,000/ $30= 8,333 copies sold)– if they achieved this, they would have considered it a success. Little did they know that they would sell a million copies of the game within the first month of Early Access.

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What is DayZ? It’s a survival multiplayer game in an open world. As a character in game, you must loot houses and defend yourself against zombies. What’s special about this game is how real it is. And I don’t mean graphics wise (though they are not at all lacking in that department), but in gameplay. You must keep yourself fed and quenched amongst other things. If you die, you basically die. You do not have extra lives. You must restart as a new character in the world of DayZ, losing all your inventory and stats.

This leads to an interesting twist in the game. As a player, you are more conscious of what death means, and will try harder to preserve yourself. You may find yourself killing another player simply for a can of beans. At the same time, you may want to save your health and supplies and calmly tell the other player to drop all their things and leave if they don’t want to die. Some people say that running into other humans (players) is scarier than running into zombies. There’s a psychological aspect to the game.

At the beginning of the game, you start with very little. But as you progress, you may find yourself being able to restore an abandoned car and drive off with it. Of course, I imagine that will alert all the nearby zombies, but you know– you get a snazzy car. Another realistic aspect of this game it that its day and night cycles follows real time. If it’s night in Vancouver where I am, and I’m in a server in my region, the game will be pitch black when you log in. There is no electricity in the post-apocalyptic world, so your screen is simply black. However, this problem can be fixed with flares and a flashlight. There are advantages to playing in the dark.

Some reviews of DayZ in its alpha stage on Steam

I’m intrigued by this game and I really want to buy it, but at the same time, in its alpha phase, I will have to deal with a lot of issues in game. Apparently, as of now, the spawn rate for food and supplies are almost nil– they only respawn when the server gets reset. There are other issues of course since its in development. As a game, there are also problems with how easy it is to grief other players. Do I want to pay $30 for a game that hasn’t even reached its beta phase yet? Or do I want to wait till it passes testing, but will then have to probably pay around $60 for the full game?

-Karen