Review: Splatoon 2

Released: July-21-2017

Price $59.99

Only On:Nintendo Switch

So to start off I Mr. Mike am NOT the biggest online gamer at all! Some games that I have played online that I was actually good in are the Gears of War series, Team Fortress 2, Left for Dead, and GTA Online. Yep that basically sums up all the online playing that I have done which I was good at playing.  So when seeing that Splatoon was getting a sequel for the Nintendo Switch in the form of Splatoon 2 I got interested in the concept.  1st as I looked at the game I thought it was just going to be a kiddy like colorful game for the younger generation of gamers.  But as I watched some gameplay video on the subject at hand I grew even more interested in what I had seen. So after playing the beta I found that tactics can be a big part of the game, even though I haven't been chatting with other players. Trying to paint and splat as much of your team’s color as possible while trying to kill or avoid the other team’s players from doing the same to you is the mission. Yes there are other modes in the game but I have found that the basic Turf War mode was best for me. Other modes include capture the flag esc battles, Ranked Battles, League Battles , and the famous Salmon Run part which is a wave based mode while trying to collect the most salmon eggs while not getting killed by the enemy or bosses! 

  Yes there is also a straight forward campaign mode which you can get to through the left sewer cover in the city square hub. In my opinion Not the best campaign more for teaching you how to play, and maybe learning some tricks along the way to use in your battles. A few interesting bosses in there but nothing to really talk about. Note you may feel different about the campaign than I but remember this is only my opinion on the part.  

   Another thing on the multiplayer portion of what is basically the main game entirely is how well each area is created. Each different battle arena is made at what I think are the perfect size for a 4v4 battle. Everything is created carefully to make full use of every part of each area for great battles every time you play them. I would've liked a bit more stage swapping but still not complaining. And I wonder if they will make more New arenas to add more variety to the gameplay. But still…… No complaints from me.

   Now onto three shops and purchasing gear which is made easily as they separate each shop in the district for hats, clothing, accessories, & of course weapons! All of these have unique abilities over time when you level up in online battling. Most include getting a boost in ink resistance from either walking in the other teams ink or getting hit by the other team with ink splats. Other updates include for your character are that your ink can last longer, your character can recover faster from getting destroyed each time in battles, faster boost abilities, performance boosts for your character’s second weapon, Plus many more!  Now second weapons or abilities can range from ink grenades, to ink raining clouds, to ink jetpacks, & more! Even shielding from the opposite teams ink splats!   There are so much abilities and items to choose from and get that I still find New and exciting items to change out with my character.

            Ok while writing this review as I keep playing the game I have found some more of a use for the single player campaign of the game.  In certain levels in the campaign there hidden wooden crates that contain a single ticket and each levels tickets are different for different purchase uses. Ok? What for you may ask? Well there is a character in Splatoon Square called Crusty Sean who runs a little food truck called the Grab a Bite. For each of those different tickets you may find you can order a different item on the menu for each different ticket. There are 4 choices for giving you more rewards for your online battles. These items include Battle cash increase by 50% per battle, Battle cash doubled, Battle experience gain doubled, and Battle experience gain increased by 50%. You can only in my experience purchase 1 item at a time and each item Only lasts for 20 matches. But No worries! You can always go back to the campaign to the levels you remembered where the tickets were located at, and recollect those again and again forever!

            Before I end this review I just want to say it’s been a blast to play this game after I was convinced by my friend to pick it up. I wasn’t sure on what I was to expect from the game, and didn’t even think I would be playing the game as much as I do each day! It’s a great fast paced game in nicely created levels for anyone to easily pickup and play. My only advice for some is to turn off the motion control feature with in the game, because to me it’s Not a fun way to play this type of game! You can easily go into the menu to turn on or off the feature anytime outside the battle zone. And the campaign has somewhat grown on me a little for learning but still not for me.

What more can I say about the game of Splatoon 2 well it’s a sequel that’s for sure, and its fun as hell! Even if I never used the stupid Nintendo App on my phone to team up with friends to battle, going at it alone with others that I don’t even know still makes this game fun. Maybe even better!

            Sooooo… in my conclusion for this review for Splatoon 2, I like the gameplay aspect even though I wish there were a few new battle areas in the game in which they could add down the road as free dlc.  The campaign could have been a little better with a bigger story.  And even though this isn’t the game’s fault but more so Nintendo’s, I wish it was a lot easier to connect with friends other than that stupid App!  The good about the game is the fast paced fun online splat battles. The bad can be getting stuck with poor teammates who don’t help in battle and you can’t kick them out or leave the battle player list if selected to continue. I think this is a very poor way to host the game and can screw good decent players from having better battle scores in the end.  This game is currently retailed at the time of this review at $59.99 and worth its price. So I will score this game as GOOD! Not the best game with some of its minor flaws, others more annoying than others. This game should be considered for those who like action, 1^st person shooters, and own a Nintendo Switch.

Fallout4 Got a Mr. Mike Score of: GOOD! 

8/14/2017 Review
Played On Nintendo Switch

Review: DeadRising 4

Released: December-06-2016

Price $59.99

Also on: Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Coming to PS4 2017

1^st to start off with in this review I am a semi late DeadRising super fan, so with that said even take what some of the stuff I may say with a grain of salt.  I always state what I think in these reviews trying to give you the reader the best idea on what the game I’m reviewing is like as I had played it.  Make sure to come up with your own decisions about a game by reading multiple reviews, opinions, ETC. or just go out and rent the game before you buy it.   With all that said here is MY review of DeadRising 4 played on the XboxOne.

                Ok starting off this review by stating forget basically a lot on what you thought about a DeadRising game this is definitely NOT that type of game! No More Timers, No More Psychopaths, No More Toilet Saves, or even any easy type of saves at all! All those saves are now checkpoints which are points in the game where your adventure saves.  What? Wait! Don’t stop reading Now! There is still a lot of Great left in this game if you’re that type of gamer in which I am.  Did I mention Frank West is back? But NOT the same voice actor who played him from the 1st DeadRising game, but still a very good sounding likeness for his character which is set many years later in the DeadRising series.

Now for some cleanup, 1^st This is Not in my opinion a bad game not at all, 2^nd if you’re the type who likes challenges in their gameplay well there is NO challenge what so ever!  This game was basically dumbed down to the barebones nitty gritty for a crazy open world hack n slash adventure for all to enjoy. Basically if you’re not a skilled gamer and just want some easy fun this game is right for you.  The main part of the game starts your character Frank back in that FN mall again! Sorry Frank ha-ha… But don’t worry the giant mall is not your only place to do damage in, later in the game which is kinda split into Cases brings you out of that forsaken mall into a large open world in the town of….. You’ve guessed it Willamette!  Rebuilt with tons and tons of zombies to take on and take out with crazy vehicles, and weapons in which you create into crazy killing elements of destruction.

The game is for the story and basically accomplishes it amazingly well at least up till its semi climatic ending in which I won’t Spoil for you.  The main characters seem very well fleshed out with enough backstory to please me enough and not to get over or underwhelmed while playing.  If you’re a DeadRising veteran like me and got to play the 1^st game in the series with a much younger Frank, then you will be happy to hear that the iconic janky gameplay has returned! This is not a bad thing it was meant to be in the game for funny occurrences between Frank and his enemies.  The game simply looks and feels amazing when playing at least when horrid game bugs don’t find you. (I will get to this in a bit) Plus the time this entire story goes down is right after Black Friday / before Christmas which everything is dressed up in a holiday festiveness of fun and joy.  Leveling up Frank’s abilities is back again like in all DeadRising games, plus like I said because of the game being really easy the leveling up system in earning points is very fast, so getting to be Super Frank won’t take long at all.  This game is truly for the novice players or gamers who just want some mindless easy fun to cause havoc in an open world environment. Oh and one more quick thing! There is a lot of collecting in this game LOT’s of collecting items like, newspapers, cell phones, taking creepy burned figures pictures, ETC. If you’re not into collecting maybe think twice about this game because there is again a lot of it, to help flush out the game and its story.

                Yes as you probably were wondering why I haven’t mentioned any backstory for this game well here it is!  The story of DeadRising 4 as I previously stated starts in Willamette years later after the 1^st zombie outbreak incident which had all been cleaned up.  There is a New mall in the middle of the town called the Willamette Memorial Mall larger in scale than the 1^st.  It’s Black Friday and thousands and thousands of people are fighting to get those holiday shopping deals. This seemed much scarier than a zombie outbreak as occurred during the fighting. Now all the people are zombies again sigh!? Frank now journalist professor is 1^st introduced with secondary character Vick journalist student (a girl. Not guy! Yes this confused me at 1^st) both on a drive in which Frank thinks he’s being treated to a few rounds of mini gulf. NOT! Vick shams him into going back to the one place he doesn’t ever want to return to, you guessed it Willamette! He’s outraged over the deception then wondering why they are heading to a military base in the town.  They enter the base and find out there is a big government conspiracy going on with the zombie outbreak happening again, and that they have larger problems going on than they know.  This sums up the story in which you can chose to continue to learn by playing the game for yourself if interested.

                Now I have to talk about all the bad in this game, I don’t like doing it because of how much fun this game was for me but it has to be done.  I’m going to start off with the game breaking bugs that I had many times run into, mainly the audio disappearing which happened to me in two occasions. Once when I was in the open game world driving around killing zombies, in which the audio completely went silent. Then if that wasn’t enough the game had froze after I tried navigating the menus to get it back so I had to restart the game, but that didn’t even work! It was so bad that the game would Not restart at all just kept pushing me back to the XboxOne dashboard over and over again, then I had to just reinstall the whole game again! After the boot up it worked again but I lost all of the progress that I had done due to not getting a checkpoint save! The second audio tunnel like silence which was way less harmful was during a scene so I just turned the game off and restarted it and the sound had returned yay!?  

The second bad thing that Capcom Vancouver had majorly done was to rid the game of actual psychopaths aka bosses which made a fun and funny addition in playing the game, as they told you a piece of their backgrounds before trying to kill you. Then they had long health bars to chip away before you would dominate them in each of their battles.  This absence like most have already have stated about this game is sorely missed and makes the game very bland and empty in which the more health enemies do not fill in. So if a DeadRising 5 is in the works Capcom! Return The Psychopath Mini Bosses! This was a major messed up situation and I can’t as a reviewer understand why they had gotten rid of them, makes No sense! 

 Next if this can’t get any worse for you the reader there is 2 more bits of bad in or should I say Not in this game. 1^st being the lack of cool combo weapons which the series was so big and proud about, plus the lack of combo vehicles in this game unlike DeadRising 3 which had a slew of then to build and play with.  The second pretty bad and non-existent feature missing from this DeadRising game is the save points in the forms of bathrooms, closets, or just plain pause the game and save your state of play. These are replaced with what I think a horrid save checkpoint system that ONLY happens in certain points of the towns in which it will trigger and save your progress. Very bad indeed if you’re like me and game a lot need a break, have to run some errands, or even go to bed, which you will have to wait and go around town till it shows the glowing save box on the side of my screen then end. Wow why would this pass in an open world environment of a game now? I don’t think so! Oh and yes due to NO saving means NO multiple game saves sorry!

                Yes you might now be saying well fuck this game I’m going elsewhere and I fully understand you thinking. But even with all these problems with the 4^th DeadRising game in the series! Yes I’m talking to you Capcom!! It still has lots of a budget appeal to the game which I say is still very fun to play! Even this one item which Capcom added and promoted a lot, the Exo-Suit is a fun bite sized edition to the game in fun killing zombies. These upgradeable Exo-suits are located all over Willamette and are timed limited to play with, don’t worry they eventually respawn and are plentiful throughout the game. These suits can get power longevity upgrades and weapon upgrades making Frank super human for a moment to kill lots of zombies!  And another nice edition finally added to the game was the introduction to different breeds of zombies or zombie types. Now there more than your regular brain dead zombies, 1 being fresh bit zombies who seem to look like they have really bad headaches, scream to high heavens at you, and just run charge at you. They are very quick and grabby so be careful. The 2^nd type of zombies are what I call the smelly ones due to they look like they are covered in nuclear waste with glowing bugs flying around them.  But don’t take them for dummies they are smart, fast, and can climb walls and jump from anywhere so again be careful! 

                In my final thoughts about Capcom and DeadRising 4 are that I think due to Capcom’s financial budget problems as of late, I think the developers in Vancouver had a very limited time frame and budget to produce this game unlike DR3.  Still it’s all in all a very polished looking and feeling game when the bugs don’t surface.  If Capcom Vancouver had a few more months on the creation of this title I think this would be a must buy for anyone!  I don’t know why they decided to take out the psychopath mini bosses out of the game, but again I think they didn’t have the budget for more characters shame!  Even though Frank is not voiced by the same voice actor from previous games, he still has a similar Frank feel to him in his later years. And bonus plays the same as you remember him playing from previous entries. Again I think for budget reasons the lack of combo weapons/vehicles can be greatly missed and should have been priority number 1 for them to keep in the game.

                In my conclusion I will give you my personal opinion first then my professional second. My personal opinion of DeadRising 4 is with all its flaws it was still very fun to play and I love hunting for collectibles crazy me right?. But I still wished they had more to it as it does feel a bit empty in a giant open world environment with mostly zombies in it.   Now for my professional opinion I think if you liked any of the previous entries of the series well this game is mostly NOT for you.  If you the type to just have an adventure, lots of collecting, love killing lots of zombies in fun ways, and don’t care about timers, psychopaths, or save points this is for you! I hope someone for Capcom reads this and takes it to heart to try to bring the DeadRising franchise back to at least the DeadRising 3 form which I thought gave everyone a bit of something special, which made this series great. Don’t cheap out, don’t cut corners makes this game feel great and Sell! Now finally for my review score on this game my very easy simple system of (Horrible, Bad, Good, Great).  This is not the best system or even a good system for most but isn’t all the game review systems out there just bad? This is my system and I’ll stick to it! I have calculated this for a bit in my mind and even though I have enjoyed this game a whole lot, I can’t ignore any of its great many flaws from bugs, lost gameplay elements, to its characters that made the franchise the way it should have been today but Not!  This game gets a review score of BAD! Sorry if you want to check it out be my guest wait to rent it or wait till it’s very cheap in store. This game is Not worth the $59.99 price tag Capcom had put on it, if they sold it for a $39.99 price at launch I would understand all of this game’s flaws a lot better. Sorry DeadRising 4 (BAD!)

Fallout4 Got a Mr. Mike Score of: BAD!

12/30/2016 Review

Played On XboxOne

Late Review: Rise of the TombRaider

Released: November-10-2015

Price $59.99

Also on: Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 (10/11/16), Xbox One

 

 

Been waiting too long to write up this review on a game that I much needed to complete, and get at least one piece of dlc finished.   To begin I've played many TombRaider games throughout the years on many consoles. The main character Lara Croft a young athletically built, smart women is the center piece of all the games. Following her path through questions and finding answers to undiscovered myths/legends on an adventure of grand proportions.  This is an action/adventure game much like the game Uncharted Drake's Fortune series which came later from a different developer, but with similar concepts.  Lara will seek, discover, & fight through a treacherous path of creatures and human enemies alike to find the answers to the questions that consume her throughout the game.

     In this game Rise of the TombRaider the story synthesis is as follows one year after the events of the rebooted game of TombRaider, Lara Croft is struggling to explain her experience of the supernatural on Yamatai. Searching her late father's research data on getting to the lost city of Kitezh also finding the ability of immortality. (Just like in that Indiana Jones film) As she gets on way with her journey to find the city and the myth, Lara keeps getting pushed off by her father's past ally/partner and an ancient order of knights called Trinity that now exists as a paramilitary organization investigating the supernatural and their leader Konstantin. Lara is continually pit up against the order of Trinity and others who get in her way to find the truth.

    

 Without going through the entire plot you start off like in the first game with minimal weapons and skills but unlike the first game you will be able to upgrade and equip these faster plus there's a lot more to unlock.  In my gameplay I was only able to unlock and upgrade up to 80% of my items and abilities, which was fine but still wanted to know how well they worked.  In the game you will be going up against Trinitu, wildlife (bears & wolves), and the supernatural.  There are many tombs to discover and raid with puzzles that can get a bit nerve racking (at least for me) on not knowing on what to do or where to go in some puzzles, others can be easy as hell.  There are also loot caves like tombs where you can find valuables to help you on your journey.

  The game looks and feels big and beautiful but is not a true open world game.  There are lots of other areas where you have to go down a certain path to get to your objectives in the game. Areas like caves, abandoned tombes, towns, old military bases, and even ancient ruins where once was inhabited by cultures thousands of years ago.   This game has many things to do in it like searching and finding ancient artifacts, hunting animals in the wilderness for their pelts, and killing your foes but sometimes that can get a little tedious when doing these things over and over again. Sometimes little fetch quests or trying to help out the people of these small villages can just be something I never touch in the game.  I feel even though there is a good amount of game the developers just wanted it a little bit more to make the game I feel like there's so much going on.

  The gameplay feels great just like how a Tomb Raider game should feel and play like.  Movements of Lara in the environment climbing up mountains, swimming under the water, and battling enemies feels fluent and natural.  Story holds up even with the supernatural storyline that felt a little like the previous game did but had enough to follow, even when not played for a few months like I did. I had come back to the game and still was able to follow the rest of it to the end.  Just to let you know and not a game spoiler at all it did feel like the game ends abruptly when you don't know about it, when you think you're going to be going further into Lara's world the game basically just ends.

This is not a letdown at all and even has some aftermath potential for another game in the series which will happen.  There's a card system in the game like most games nowadays have and seemed to just be tacked on. I never really used the system and have no idea why they even have it in the game at all.  But I guess it's to add more money to their pockets due to you being able to purchase more cards at stupid unnecessary prices.  Lastly I did play one dlc mission that I had purchased which was the Baba Yaga mission and it was pretty interesting as an add-on. Note I did not purchase any of the other dlc due to the others revolving around the Russian army which I just skipped.  Finally for real now there is one last dlc coming out in the near future involving Lara in her mansion like some sort of a haunted horror film, interested in what that might be like.

  In conclusion I think I basically covered everything that made this TombRaider adventure the best game I had played in 2016.  Recommended for those who like TombRaider games with action and puzzles, which may be clamoring for something besides those Uncharted games? In this case I fully recommend to those who haven't picked up the game yet on XboxOne or PC, and who might be interested in getting it on the PS4 when it comes out on October 11th 2016. Note I have played this game on the XboxOne it looked and ran great which I guess could be said the same for the PS4.

I give this game a score of GREAT, I loved it and the adventure I had with Lara herself a definite purchase.

 

 

Rise of the TombRaider Got a Mr. Mike Score of:  GREAT!
10/10/2016  Review
Played On XboxOne

Late Review: Pacman 256

Released: June-20-2016

Price $4.99

Also on: Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mac, Linux

OK 1st yes a late review but who cares? No one ok let's start this off with this is typically an endless game with tons of fun to have over & over again. If you’re a fan of Pacman or even not so much this review might change your mind. Even though this is not the typical Pacman game due to the fact you keep on going through level after level.  Play alone or Co-op with friends in a race to collect as much Pac-dots, fruits, & other point increasing methods, but avoid those pesky ghosts they are gunning for you!

Now this game is as simple as they get and don't let all those power ups scare you, they are very easy to figure out plus you will quickly figure out which ones are best for you.  My multiple hours playing this game by myself and with friends felt great with its unpredictable nature of where the ghosts travel.  But there are a lot of tricks you can pick up throughout your gameplay travels. Sometimes it’s watching certain ghosts patterns or just by stopping your Pacman before you turn that corner, waiting to see what some of the ghosts do next.  Sometimes some might not do anything waiting for you to cross their path others will seek you out.  I found that sometimes I’d get stuck in a corner or make a mistake by turning the wrong corner and get surrounded by trouble and getting caught.   The plus in this game is the powerups even though sometimes you may not even need one they are great to pick up.  Helping you crush your ghost rivals into digi dust in many interesting ways, like by laser, fire, giant Pacman, ghosting plus more! Trying to move up through the levels to claim your Pac freedom if it’s really possible to do so?   One sometimes minor or major problem with the game to me was the fact that on the upper left hand side there would be this kind of rival mini leaderboard that would popup.   I might not explain this to well but seeing others from my friends list who played the game would show there the highest point total they had gotten in the game, and show the main leader.  This would be just fine if the text didn’t get in the way blocking certain key spots where my Pacman would go to hide and decide the next strategy. Instead got caught by hiding ghosts which I could not see this would get really annoying to me while trying to rack up as much points as possible. 

           


     In conclusion I can safely say that when I turn on this game and play it by myself or with friends there is always fun to be had.  Making little games with in the game on who went the farthest or even who got the most points racked up in the end.   No real glitches of faults with this game at all. Not bad for a once made for phone now for console type of game which gives you a lot of bang for your cheap buck to play repeatedly over and over again!  Now if you think this is a short review about this game I would have to say yup!  But this is why it’s a very simple fun type of game to play where any 1 to 4 players can jump in and have a great time.   Yes this is still Pacman in the best way and yes this is where all the fun is at with very minor problems this is definitely a solid buy for anyone.  I give this game a rating of GOOD, with all the good very minor problems do surface and could fixed down the line…. Or not!  So come and play a NEW generation of Pacman for the fun of your lives.

Pacman 256 Got a Mr. Mike Score of:  GOOD!
9/2/2016  Review
Played On XboxOne