Elden Ring is an action role playing game developed by ‘FromSoftware‘ and published by ‘Bandai Namco‘. Elden Ring is said to be coming out the 25th of February 2022 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC. Elden Ring has been expected and waited for by many for a while. X35 Earthwalker has shown interest in this game. Let’s take a look.
In the world of Elden Ring, you rise (well sort off), hoping to be “guided by grace” (sounds lame) to brandish the power of the Elden ring. So yeah, there’s a ring. There’s also the ‘lands between’ which is a whole world, which you want to conquer and rule… maybe. It currently belongs to the demigods but who cares about them. So you either be a power craving being or gain knowledge. Become a lord or something else. Elden Ring has been described as FromSoftware’s “largest game”. This is a big statement which carries weight. So off course most of our point scoring is based on their large open world here and how they use it.
Elden Ring continues the style of Sekiro shadows die twice style. You know, Nioh, Mortal shell, Dark Souls style. Big boss who does massive damage while you are small, far weaker and must dodge well and know when to strike to win. Elden Ring has been described as the largest one yet. A big open world, with creatures, beings and off course giant creatures all just wondering around, looking for a fight and doing their thing. So go ahead and cause some trouble. Oh and by the way there was a rune of death and the demigods were dying. there’s a lot of story and lore going on here, so those who care will get a nice sandwich out of this game. Elden Ring, you have a lot to meet up to.
We do know that there is different ways to play the game. From decisions, endings, character build, equipment, weapons, special abilities and magic etc. There are very big dungeons which aren’t safe places for a stroll. What we are very interested in, is the world itself. We are always like open world. We want to see how they use the space. The design of the buildings, whether creative or typical lame. Is there water, can you swim, anything under the water for us? What creatures are roaming? Will Elden Ring be fair with the secrets and collectibles or will it be random nonsense? How interesting is the world overall. Elden Ring has been described as a fantasy game so we are expecting too be amazed or interested. So the world will control a lot of the points for Elden Ring’s score.
We checked out some Elden Ring gameplay and it’s what we thought it would be but the lighting is better. We take the smaller stuff seriously. Like Sekiro, stealth is a real thing and so should be practiced. the environment can be used to give you an advantage too. Like elevation, rocky, obstacles etc. Even the weather and time of day can effect some things in a fight. Use them top your advantage as well. There’s horse riding and you can use one to face others who are on horses too. Why not call on your fellow tarnished to fight by your side? Like a coward. We seriously hope the bosses are impressive, some look scary and have a solid variety. Some Dark Soul bosses were lame, like someone who lacks skill came up with the idea.
Overall Elden Ring looks like it’s going to be a great game. Visually Elden Ring so far looks great. Not Halo Infinite level but great for sure. We mentioned that we liked the lighting. We hope it stays that good consistently. We have some thoughts about Elden Ring and just know this game has multiple missed opportunities but that’s what happens when you don’t have X35 Earthwalker lead your design and development. We have very high expectations. The developers have done a great job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what Elden Ring brings and does right. Now Elden Ring might have numerous bosses waiting for players but those bosses get swept aside by… the ‘Earth Walk!’
X35 Earthwalker has already proved years ago and even recently that Xbox has many games. Too many games right now. The biggest W is clearly the Xbox Game Pass. Many games have been played thanks to this Xbox feature. Today we just wanted to go over quickly some Xbox Game Pass games that we think you should play. just to be clear, there are many good games on the Xbox Game Pass but we will just mention some. Let’s take a look.
The first game is off course Halo Infinite. What else could we start with? Nothing else. Halo Infinite has a fantastic campaign. It’s an excellent story, epic boss battles, open explorable world, lots of information and effective vehicles. This campaign has lots of gameplay time and has a completely different style fro all previous Halo Games. Multiplayer is good but definitely has it’s issues. Big team battle is fun and ranked mode allows you disable cross platform. Halo Infinite is only going to get better and better as new things are added, actual customisations and off course the Forge mode. There’s lots of room for big things.
Aliens: FireTeam Elite is the next. This game is excellent for friends and family to play. Aliens: FireTeam Elite is all about team work. If you don’t work together, you will die! Three soldiers who you can customise will face off against HORDES of aliens on big missions. Iconic weapons like the Smart gun and Pulse rifle are here and do big damage. There’s multiple character classes with different functions except one that sucks. You can change your class in between missions anytime. Level up systems for the weapons, numerous attachments for guns and a variety of enemies including big powerful enemies who have armour and lots of health and will charge you down. Lots of action here.
Next is Scarlet Nexus. This game is excellent. There’s so much to say about this game. The best thing just might be the characters. they are so different, have numerous interactions that lead to lots of entertainment. The combat system is excellent but the lack of health is an issue. You can get creative as there’s so many powers you have access to thanks to the SAS (if you play the game then you know). The game is easy to understand, set in a very different world with mystery, betrayal, questions, very difficult fights and quite a bit of turns. Scarlet Nexus has been a real big treat and definitely having fun playing it.
Doom (the first one) is definitely fun even to this day. Just a straight up first person shooter. A very different experience to what’s released nowadays. The best part is actually the multiplayer. Yep, play through the whole game but with friends and family. X35 Earthwalker literally had a full squad of four players and they all attacked a cyber demon boss with pistols until it died. That was so silly. The game allows you to save whenever you want and you have a lot of liberty in Ultimate Doom, even with the levels. Just run around, sprinting with weapons and killing everything.
Tetris Effect: Connected is one of the best games ever made. No joke. This game is fantastic. It’s straight up Tetris with some additional stuff off course. The zone mechanic is awesome and can really save your life at times. The visuals are top tier for sure. It’s one of the best looking games ever. It’s particle and special effects are top tier. It’s music and sounds are top tier. Many locations, multiple game modes, special events, competitive play and multiplayer which includes a co-op mode. This game can be played with such a chill mode with low speed Tetrominos and endless modes while enjoying the music and visuals. Don’t underestimate Tetris Effect: Connected just because it’s a Tetris game. Definitely better than anything the PS5 currently has.
The Riftbreaker went above our expectations. It’s not only better but bigger too. Much bigger. The Riftbreaker isn’t a 1 hour game. It’s a huge adventure. You are transported to a far planet from earth and you need to build a base, harvest materials for building and defences to stay alive. You also have to go out and explore, fight dangerous flauna and creatures. There’s so much things to build, options and you can build anywhere. There’s aliens invading, sort of easy to die but honestly there’s so much going on. This game The Riftbreaker will truly take you by surprise. The graphics are excellent. The details are fantastic and there’s scanning to learn about creatures and gain familiarity. With each scan, we naturally think of Metroid Prime and the scanning. Try this game.
Spelunky 2 is a real challenge. It’s a direct improvement over the first game. there’s more levels, more secrets, more enemies, more items, more traps, more instant kills, more characters, much more difficult and more fun. Spelunky 2 is just an excellent game. You can play with friends and family. There’s a competitive battle mode and then off course the main mode. There’s even an online option, so you can play with others. You should definitely try Spelunky 2.
Raji: An Ancient Epic is a beautiful game. This game is very good too. If you like a visual delight with an adventure that’s not difficult and chill then Raji: An Ancient Epic is for you. We like the whole cultural and mythology elements too. You get learn interesting stuff while you have a good time. Basically the biggest god of the big three of hinduism did a seriously dumb move and gave a demon eternal life and a god slaying weapon… what could go wrong? The demon causes havoc, got many killed and caused your brother to get kidnapped. You are the big sister and you want to save your brother, which means fighting evil. Some of the environments reminds us of Abe’s oddysee and exodus, the whole odd world thing. Desert, full forest and a most beautiful city.
Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries is a completely different gaming experience. You control large powerful mechs and you engage in mech on mech violence on large scale battles too. There’s aircrafts, there’s tanks and smaller mechs that support or go against you. A few missions types but each of the mechs have different weight, weapon slots, armour, movement speed and more. In Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, there’s room for tactical fighting as you can target specific parts of kill mechs faster, disable weapons and cripple their movement. Hire pilots to control other mechs you own so you can have a team move with you on the field. Difficulty balancing is an issue though.
Gears Tactics is the last one for now. If you enjoyed XCOM 2 then you’ll enjoy Gears Tactics. Of course your cog soldiers aren’t as strong or good as the XCOM soldiers who can have alien tech rocket launchers that pass through all things. The principles are the same. Move soldiers around, get into cover, flank enemies for critical chance and clearer shots. Level up soldiers to get new abilities and create combos with your soldiers. Gears of War is a cover shooter game so the XCOM style is perfect for Gears of War. We like the brand new locusts and the variety off enemies brought in. There’s big boss fights too. Like fighting a Brumack and corpser.
Remember, this isn’t all of them. There’s many more. We just wanted to mention some and keep it short. There’s basically 100 games on Xbox Game Pass. We at X35 Earthwalker have played many and can confirm that Xbox Game Pass is the best thing in gaming. Now There may be many good games but none of them can compete with… the ‘Earth Walk!’
You have heard it many times from mainly playstation fanboys and other ignorant people that Xbox has no games. That was a lie, always was a lie and a dumb one at that. X35 Earthwalker has been playing on the Xbox console since the the original Xbox. We have played many games back then and funny enough played even more now. We will go over a lot of these games briefly. Let’s take a look.
Xbox has no games they said. Especially today, it’s the exact opposite. Matter of fact, this may sound silly but there’s actually too many games. X35 and many others have the same problem. There’s so many games that we try to split our time to play them as there’s many good ones we are into but off course don’t have as much time as we would want. It’s a problem from prosperity. Too many good games and not enough time. Back in the day Xbox off course had the greatest game which was Halo. The leading third person shooter which was Gears of War, the racing game Forza. Now those were the big three. There was also a bunch of smaller named games that weren’t exclusives but on the Xbox platform. There was the ‘games with gold’ where you got great games sometimes for free.
When you say Xbox has no games you are saying that when you check the Xbox library, there’s only three games and that’s it. We played Bomberman, Spelunky, Supreme Commander 2, Dungeon Defenders, Assault Android Cactus, Bejewelled 3, Castlevania symphony of the night, Castle of illusions (remastered), Dante’s Inferno, Dead Space, Ultimate Doom (and sequels),Feeding Frenzy, Ghost busters sanctum of slime, Harms way Knight squad, limbo, Munch’s oddysee (Abe), strangers wrath, Sacred 3, Resident Evil, Zuma and soooooo much more. So yeah, Xbox having no games is stupid. Oh you mean in terms of exclusives? Not like that matters as games are games but yeah, we can prove Xbox has games from that angle too.
First we will give you the list of Xbox exclusives we made last year back when every game on this list was to come out and not released yet. These were all the xbox exclusives that were coming out at the time last year. Take into account that playstation had like only 15 or 15 games announced to come. The list was: Halo Infinite, Second Extinction, Call of the Sea, The Ascent, Scorn, Bright Memory Infinite, The Medium, New Genesis phantasy star online 2, Hellblade 2, Grounded, Avowed, Forza 5: Horizon, state of Decay 3, Psychonauts 2, Stalker 2, Everwild, Warhammer 40000: Dark Tide, Tetris Effect: Connected, The Gunk, CrossfireX, Fable, Exomecha, Gears Tactics, The Falconeer, Sable, R-Type Final 2, Morkredd, Ark Survival 2, Perfect Dark, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Starlight, Mechawarrior 5: Mercenaries, Song of Iron. 33 games right here. Xbox doesn’t have any games… right? Now off course some of these are out right now, so we have even more games available. More games than playstation got and more games than they will get including next year too.
Now for the final blow against an argument that’s already dead… Game Pass. That’s all we have to say really, but think about it. You join the Xbox Game Pass and get instant access to like 100 games, old and new games for free basically. It’s the full game too. Nothing playstation has can match that. It’s so good playstation wants to do the same thing. Xbox is leading them now. So the many third party titles, plus the 33 new games announced last year, plus the games on Game Pass, plus all the potential new ones like sequels to the games Microsoft owns through the Activision, blizzard purchase like Overwatch 2.
So yeah. Xbox has no games. That was false back then and it’s false now and it’s in fact the exact opposite now. There’s too many good games. We have streamed many things. Hopefully we can get a G-blog out soon about games we recommend you should check out and play. Xbox has lots of good games of different types. Now Xbox has lots of games but it ain’t no where near as big as… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Halo Infinite is an excellent game no doubt. The campaign is 10/10 easily and if we judged by the campaign alone then it’s an fantastic game for sure. We at X35 Earthwalker always do things fair and logically. Halo Infinite is more than just a campaign. So we are giving the final score here taking multiplayer and more into account. We will try to keep this quick. Let’s take a look.
We will say it again. The Halo Infinite campaign is 10/10 and Halo fans overall value the campaign the most. Now that score has to drop though do to a number of things. Things we have already talked about in the previous two G-blogs posts on Halo Infinite. Here’s the first, here’s the second. Now let’s get into it.
First big issue is no split screen for the campaign. Minus 1 point. Even worse, there’s no campaign co-op AT ALL. This is against Halo tradition and is a huge fail. It shows that the developers 343 industries did not learn from past mistakes. No split screen is something they have done twice in a row now. So that’s an automatic minus 1 point right there. The next big problem is that Halo Infinite currently forces Xbox players to play against pc players in all the multiplayer modes except ranked. This is bad. all the cheating X35 Earthwalker has ever seen, like increased shields and health, increased damage and other ‘shinanigans’ have been from pc players. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Then on top of that, there’s the advantages that being on pc gives. The players must have the choice as to who they face.
The armour customisation sucks. Many have talked about this already. Most things are locked. Hard to earn anything. So limited and restricted. Halo 5 Guardians still has the best armour customisation. This means it got worse. That’s a big fail. That’s minus another 1 point. Unlocking customisations and rewards is terrible in Halo Infinite. Feels like there’s nothing to aim for except have too much time on your hands. Halo 5 Guardians had a better progression system. There cool stuff and actually noticeable stuff is far down the line like rank 80+. which makes many players have to rely on the battle pass. Gears of War 3 has an excellent reward system.
One of the biggest insults that 343 gave to their players is the fact that you don’t get any rewards for beating the campaign in Legendary difficulty. Minus 1 point right there! We ranted about this already. so no more. Very simple, always reward your players, especially for big achievements. Next up is that you can’t rewatch the beautiful cutscenes. If you want to see them again, then go play through the whole game again. That’s stupid. Gears of War Ultimate Edition has a feature to watch ALL the cutscenes like a movie and individually. That game came out like 5+ years ago. No excuse. Learn from your fellow exclusive games. Gears of War and Halo are cousins.
The next are the obvious things like there’s no forge mode. We don’t want to punish them for that. It will come and we will judge how good it is then. Weapon balancing is not good when it comes to the power weapons. The pistol is very inconsistent, shotgun is super weak. That’s not point deduction worthy but it adds up.The multiplayer has been improved. We have a choice of game type now. If we judged Halo Infinite from it’s launch with how multiplayer use to be, it would lose 1 point for that straight away.
Overall Halo Infinite is an excellent game and they did a lot of good work. Big to small issues that take it down. Bad decisions that could have easily been avoided if X35 Earthwalker was in charge. Not happy with 343 industries at all. Some mistakes you just can’t make. Halo Infinite’s campaign alone is 10/10 but it has lost 3 marks by default for some of these negatives. So we will leave it at 7/10 for now until we see forge be released. Now Halo Infinite may be a great game but it’s not up to the standard of… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Infernax is a action adventure platformer game developed by ‘Berserk Studio‘ and published by ‘The Arcade Crew‘. Infernax is said to be coming out the 14th of February 2022 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC. Infernax is clearly going for that old school look and design. X35 Earthwalker is here. Let’s take a look.
The story of Infernax is very simple. You control a “great knight”. You finally return home. The city or town, whatever but things have changed. Your home is now “plagued with unholy magic”. So the town is cursed basically and there’s monsters, demons, horrible creatures and more. So all you got to do is find out what happened here and why. Uncover the mysteries of the curse. Oh and slay a bunch of enemies along the way. Told you it’s simple. Like an old school game.
So let’s keep this simple, like the game. Infernax is pixel graphics and old school style. If you liked the old castlevania games then you should like Infernax too. You go up stairs, jump up or down, strike enemies, find items, get stronger and talk to living people. Now there are a few modern touches though like a levelling up system. Gain experience points and get stronger.
There’s said to be loads of treasures to collect. These treasures off course have their own effects. So find what works for you or works for the situation. Like Castelvania and Metroid there’s loads of secrets to be found, so start attacking walls and exploring every hole you find. There’s a day and night cycle as well. We would like to know more about the effects off day and night. Do enemies get stronger. do civilians come out only at day? We know there are people you can talk too.
Remember those experience points? Yeah levelling up your character is essential. Why? There’s big bosses. Big bad monsters. Bosses wielding weapons. Monsters wielding magic and special abilities. These Boses have visible health bars and clearly going to take a real fight to put down. there’s shops as well where you can get useful items and upgrades. Just don’t forget too talk to the towns people, survivors and stuff.
We checked out some Infernax gameplay and it’s exactly what we thought it would be. Old school, pixels and smashing monsters. We do like that there’s multiple endings and they are based on your choices. Like whether letting that fat guy in the cloak stay or expelling them. We vote for getting rid of the evil. They might seek revenge though, so can we get the option to kill them please?
Overall Infernax looks like it’s going to be a good game. Simple old school with some modern touches. The bosses do look quite low grade to us. We aren’t scared or impressed. We also think the special effects are not exciting enough. The developers ‘Berserk Studio’ have done an alright job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker aren’t impressed with this game but we know there’s gamers who like this style. Now Infernax may have unholy magic plague but that’s not a problem for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Halo Infinite has been out for a good while now and there’s a lot to say about this Halo game. First of all X35 Earthwalker is really enjoying Halo Infinite, as are millions of others who are inferior players. Was excited for Halo Infinite and ended up having many adventures. We won’t really talk about the multiplayer since we already made a G-Blog on it. We are going to do a quick shot review G-blog this time. Let’s take a look.
Let’s firstly talk about the campaign. The campaign is without a doubt, hands down, pants down, the best part of Halo Infinite by far. The campaign is fantastic. It’s mostly what we wanted but let’s talk about it. The campaign is big open world like we predicted and wanted. You are also given the tools to explore this world which is split into islands really. You can unlock vehicles like warthogs, mongooses, and eventually a Hornet which is a flying vehicle and even get a Scorpion tank. Your armour abilities like the grapple hook is the star of the game and it makes traversing the world real easy and fun but more on the grapple hook later. Halo Infinite looks beautiful. top level graphics for sure. When you get to the top of a high point like a mountain or installation and just take a moment to look round, you see a lot and it’s fun to do. Lots of hard work went into Halo Infinite and it’s visuals fantastic. The attention to details is excellent as well. The campaign is also riddled with Easter eggs and secrets.
We found the Halo theme song from Halo 1 (Combat Evolved). It started playing when we got to the top of a tall installation. It started playing while we was taking in the view. That was a excellent touch and the developers 343 industries did good to put that in. We also found a original Halo Infinite arcade machine… within Halo Infinite. All you need is a coin. These things are needed in a big open world as it makes exploring fun, especially when you wonder what else is out there.
There’s an upgrade system for your equipment: Grappleshot, Threat sensor, Drop wall and thruster pack. Also Armor core but that’s passive and not equipment. This is a game changer literally as it makes you become a powerful super soldier indeed. The grapple hook is not just for traversing but for mobility. You can use it to pull yourself in for a melee strike against enemies, dodge attack, get the high ground (no obi wan), pull a weapon towards you, grab those coil fusions and climb mountains. When upgraded fully you can use it more frequently, add an electric effect to shock enemies, unlocked a grapple power punch which then can have greater area of effect. The grapeshot with the reduced cool down allows it to recharge so fast that you can pull yourself up a mountain and when launched into the area after grappling, it recharges allowing you to grapple again, allowing for literal climbing. Thruster pack when fully upgraded is crazy good. You get active camouflaged when you thrust and lasts a few seconds. Helps with escaping and approaching enemies. Threat sensor is heavily underestimated. Unqualified reviewers who lack skill like angry joe downplayed and dissed everything but the grappleshot. When you play Legendary difficulty like X35 Earthwalker did, you’ll understand and appreciate how useful ALL these abilities are. Threat sensor when fully upgraded is powerful. You can launch two of them, they reveal the enemies clearly and show their health, which helps big time. Knowing how much health the enemy has makes a difference, especially with Hunters. Drop wall just ends up saving your life and giving you a few more moments to fight back or get your shields back up. Once X35 Earthwalker was surrounded and attacked by sentinels. Destroyed most and then got his back to the wall, used his drop wall which blocked all the beams and electrifies all shots he fires through at the sentinels. Use all the abilities to survive in Legendary difficulty.
The in-game cinematics are excellent. The opening scene of Master Chief fighting the banished, using his grappleshot to grab a weapon and then getting into the big 1v1 fight with Atriox himself. The fight itself was very good but a little too one sided. In actual lore, Master Chief would destroy Atriox but in terms of in game action, Atriox trashes Master Chief seeing how Atriox did 1v3 spartan red team in Halo Wars 2 and won easily. Spartan red are spartan 2s just like Master Chief, going through the same process and training so if Atriox can beat three of them, then he should easily rip apart Master Chief. Seeing the spartans, the brutes, the speeches, Escharum in showing up and even the elite spartan killer was all fun to see. The scenes are excellent. angry joe had a complaint that we never got to get revenge on Atriox. I understand him completely but that would be bad writing. Revenge would mean beating Atriox as in kill him. Atriox is too good of a villain. They need to save him for that one big moment when they clash in a final battle. When Tremonius stated that Atriox is dead, X35 Earthwalker was almost angry. He said, “What?! There’s no way. If they kill of Atriox now, especially off screen… I’m done with 343 industries and will declare them as idiot game developers.” We are glad Master Chief didn’t get revenge… not yet.
The high profile targets was an excellent idea. Placing infamous and powerful enemies around the map for you to find and beat added flavour to the campaign. These were a range of units: Grunts, Jackals, Elites, Brutes, Hunters and that new flying enemy which we referred to as Drones from Halo 2 as they practically do the same thing which is fly around and shoot. Not as fast or annoying but bigger weapons. These fights were sort of underwhelming at times though. Especially when you read their resumé. One of them called ‘Okra Vagaduun’ was described as “considered one of the most lethal infantry assets in the covenant.” Having “remarkable combat resolve”. He “hailed from a long line of sword fighters” so he’s well trained and “repeatedly defied odds, surviving even when VASTLY outnumbered”. This guy sounds like the Master Chief in some ways. He’s the real deal and should be a major problem and battle… but nope! Just put my ghost vehicle in position and sprayed at him until he died. He behaved like a regular elite really and it was lame compared to his reputation and experience. they should have made these guys big big battles like boss battles or show them do something impressive at least. Most of them went down like female dogs. Zeretus was a real problem though as long as you didn’t cheese him out. He had a homing shot rocket launcher! You can’t beat that. So yeah, the high profile targets was a good move, not executed perfectly though.
This leads to one more thing. The boss battles. They are epic. We finally got actual boss fights. They are powerful and no joke. They can kill you within second if you played on Legendary difficulty. Bassus was especially crazy as she wield a powerful gravity hammer in close corners. He has a lunging attack where he leaps forward quickly and smashes the ground. He even uses it to get across a gap and kill you. In legendary difficulty, he needs one hit to kill you. Same for the Escharum as well. All he needed was one hit and his ranged weapon shredded you. In legendary difficulty you couldn’t stand up to these guys. You have to run and dodge for your life… literally. The cloaking elite boss fight was tense and difficult. If you made a mistake you were dead. simple. We hoped the high profile targets would have fights sort of like this. The bosses are fun and each one is memorable.
We love the Grunts. Halo Infinite has the best Grunts so far. Everyone including the marines have better and more dialogues and lines but Grunts have the best. They perfectly do their role as cowards who are comical. We have heard them mock Cortana, mock the Master Chief himself, make fun of humanity. Brag about their greatness. Accuse you of being a coward when you run to get your shields back up. Point out that everyone is dying. Even beg. Act brave-ish. Even accuse you of cheating. It’s very funny and entertaining. We suggest you just listen to the Grunts talk. Especially the propaganda towers. the dialogue of everything is significantly improved. We here the banished communicate with each other. Update each other on what the player is doing. Even give instructions to others like telling one to rush the player as they know you are hiding to get your shields back. One jackal told a brute to go after X35 Earthwalker but the brute replied “Don’t give me orders” or “don’t tell me what to do”. Something like that. The enemies feel more real and like an actual team. We even saw a brute weapon top of our moving vehicle and climb on to pull a marine out from the vehicle. These additional things completely add to the game. There’s always going to be that one guy who will fearlessly take a risk like diving on to a moving vehicle.
Next is the FOB. These forward bases is part of a whole system which adds a role playing game effect to Halo Infinite. As you completed those missions like unlocking those mini bases, rescuing marine squads, destroying propaganda towers and completing main missions gives you valor. Get enough valor and you unlock new things. You can get marines who spawn at the base and can follow you. Then stronger marines with different weapons. A marine with shotguns, marine with sniper, marine with rocket launcher. You can get gungoose which is surprisingly powerful, a razorback which is the best vehicle and we will briefly explain why later. You can get the scorpion tank and even the hornet which can fly. You also unlock weapons as well which you can get free of charge unlimited amount from your FOBs (those mini bases you take back). This is awesome as you can equip your marines with whatever weapons you want. Get a Razorback, get fie marines and give them sniper rifles and rocket launchers and maybe one gets a ravager. Then get them all in your vehicle and just go for a ride. Marines have unlimited ammo and excellent aim. Able to shoot and hit targets well out of the normal optimal range. Almost unlimited at times. It’s crazy how good it is.
We don’t want this to be too long so we will make this the last positive significant thing. We liked that Halo Infinite not fully but address the issue that is Master Chief’s humanity. Cortana hinted and talked about it in Halo 4 and Halo 5 Guardians. Master Chief is a spartan 2. Kidnapped, abused, indoctrinated, forced to train etc. He didn’t have a normal life. No graduation, no part time job, no dates, no cinema, no first crush or first kiss, no normal conversations etc. You see this through the game. He hardly talks and when he does it is because a superior in rank like lord hood, captain keys etc speak to him. Or it’s military related. Short and quick. He doesn’t have casual conversations and never really mentions how he feels. He doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything either. Is he man or machine? That’s what cortana wanted him to figure out. She said something like “figure out which one of us is the machine”. That hit kind of heavy. Halo Infinite campaign is the first Halo game that forces master chief to sort of deal with this issue slightly. When he tried to delete the weapon AI which led to them having a fall out (no 76) they weren’t talking. Everyone was disappointed in master chief even the pilot. Yet master chief never said anything but kept it mission first and business.
X35 was saying that chief needs to apologise but besides when he was a child, has master chief ever apologised or had to apologise for anything? Even at the end of the game he never said I’m sorry. That’s sad. Yes the weapon is an AI and not an actual person but still… come on. She was clearly upset and felt betrayed and even got an attitude like a real woman. Yikes. When he put his hand to the console to collect the AI he hesitated a bit as if he wanted to ay something, like address the situation, maybe apologise or whatever but quickly dismissed the thought. Then when the pilot hugged master chief which is a huge deal by the way, as no one has hugged the master chief. When hugged, the chief didn’t wrap his arms around and hug back. He moved his arms then stopped them. It’s like he didn’t know what to do, which hit hard. A call detail but a big deal. He didn’t know what to do. Imagine a person who never talks about his feelings, can’t say sorry and doesn’t know how to return a hug. A broken sad person. That’s the master chief’s biggest human issue. Cortana was more human than him she didn’t want it to be that way.
So when that amazing scene happened where the pilot confronts and kind of yells at the master chief when he was afraid after chief saved him from the two spartan killer brutes. He reminded the chief that he isn’t a super soldier like him. Fearless, can fight and do anything. He’s just a man, not even a soldier, just a pilot. Like when he gets scared the chief tells him to “stop it” like he’s a child. He’s normal. He knows he’s nothing compared to the brutes, he knows he doesn’t stand a chance. Hiding the entire time. It caused chief to stop, take a knee down next to the pilot who was on his knees feeling worthless and pathetic and give the pilot a bit of a heart to heart… sort off. He tried to relate to him that he failed once. We won’t say everything but the scene was excellent. Not everyone is like you chief. He isn’t spartan blue team. He’s a normal family man who gets scared when a 10 foot brute rolls up with a big gravity hammer wanting to kill him. That was big.
Now let’s talk about what’s not good quickly. First and foremost there’s no split screen! AGAIN!!!! This clearly shows that 343 industries didn’t learn from their past mistake. Many including X35 Earthwalker are angry about this. Splitscreen is a Halo tradition. Bring it back or admit that you suck as developers. Halo Infinite has a world made for team exploration but you can’t do that. Next big issue is that there’s no reward for players who beat the whole campaign in Legendary difficulty! that’s so stupid. Always reward your players for doing hard or impressive achievements. It’s hard to beat a Halo game on legendary difficulty. Give us something cool like a unique spartan skin for multiplayer. Or a stance or armour effect that epic that shows this guy completed the campaign in legendary. Something that can’t be bought but earned. Gears of War 3 had rewards for completing in the hardest difficulty so 343 industries has no excuse. ALWAYS reward your players. It doesn’t cost you anything to make a cool reward for it. Speaking of earn. The little that you do get in the campaign which are the mjolnir cases which when found give you some customisation item. They suck! We can’t think of one thing we got that was memorable or epic. They all suck! We completed the whole campaign on legendary difficulty and it feels like we got nothing. That’s because we got nothing. None of it matters. We checked the customisation menus and everything is basically locked. Got nothing cool. No armour effects, no armour attachments, no cool helmet, not even a visor (Halo 5 Guardians gave a visor) or anything. Nothing to earn unless you have tons of free time as in you got nothing else going on in your life or you have lots of money to throw at the store. If you are in college and after doing your coursework or whatever you then have free time like we use to then that’s good for you. If you are rich or have a rich uncle, then good for you. Overall this is terrible. No rewards and no customisation and many players look exactly the same in multiplayer. So much for thousands of different combinations.
We won’t talk about the multiplayer as we already did a blog post on it. Forced to play with pc players, weak so called power weapons, pc cheaters, lack of mode selection and more all done in that post. Check the top of this blog. Next big issue is that there’s no cinematic viewing mode. Halo Infinite has excellent cut scenes which you want to watch again or check for small details but you can’t because there’s no option to view the scenes again. WHY!? Gears of War Ultimate edition has a feature where you can rewatch all those cool improved scenes. Gears of War ultimate edition isn’t a new game. Why do they have it and Halo Infinite don’t? Proof that 343 Industries don’t learn and make dumb decisions. If X35 Earthwalker was ultimately in charge of the design, as in supreme command, Halo Infinite would be so much better. Not just Halo Infinite but many other games too. So if you missed a cool scene or missed a small detail or whatever you can’t view it ever again unless you start a new campaign and play through the whole thing again. That’s stupid. We checked everywhere and didn’t see a feature for it. If you find it, then tell us. So sad to say the but there’s nothing to gain from playing the campaign. Want to know the story? Then watch the losers on youtube and twitch who played and beat everything on day one and spoiled everything with their thumbnails. You don’t get anything. Like for real. Why couldn’t you give as a reward for beating legendary difficulty a cool lightning armour effect, or water effect or a victory stance where you are posing with Escharum’s gravity hammer or that final elite boss’s red beam sword? Or where your spartan is sitting on a throne chair like a boss, learning on the arm of the chair on his hand, legs spread with a cocky look. Something! Anything!
Overall, we have more to say but it’s better done in videos and besides this blog post is long already and took us hours. Halo Infinite has a fantastic campaign which has a few issues relating to it and the rest of the issues are related to multiplayer. We will do one more that’s a quick summary but that’s it. Fantastic campaign and the campaign is what’s carrying Halo. Now Halo Infinite may have a fantastic, we mean a mid 10/10 campaign but it’s not as good as…the ‘Earth Walk!’
FAR: Changing Tides is a vehicle led adventure game developed by ‘Okomotive‘ and published by ‘Frontier Foundry‘. FAR: Changing Tides is said to be coming out the 1st of March 2022 on the Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4 and PC. FAR: Changing Tides is looking cool and quite familiar at the same time. Let’s take a look.
FAR: Changing Tides is all about a boy named Toe. No not Toe from Happy’s Humble Burger Farm. this boy finds himself in a flooded world. things are destroyed, abandoned and in some parts, not safe. It’s just Toe and his ship. You are the captain of the ship off course. Your objective? Finding a new home. This off course won’t be a simple or straight forward journey.
Now FAR: Changing Tides does look familiar to X35 Earthwalker. That’s because FAR: Changing Tides is part of the FAR world. The first game X35 Earthwalker already wrote about in the G-Blogs. It’s FAR: Lone Sails. Where you was also a captain of a ship but you was in a desert world. Your ship went through the sands and you had some dangerous weather hazards and conditions to deal with while doing maintenance on your ship. FAR: Changing Tides is the same world but different area. Instead of sand, it’s water this time… for a bigger deeper challenge.
So expect a similar formula. There’s some water hazards like stormy seas. Your ship also has the ability to dive and go under water. This opens up a whole world of exploration. This world isn’t dead either. Ocean life exists and you can come across jelly fish and other creatures. We like the transition of being on the water surface to being under the water. Looks awesome.
FAR: Changing Tides is an adventure of Toe and his ship. Maintenance of the ship is still a real thing. As your journey, you must find and unlock parts for your ship. fix your ship and make repairs where needed. As you progress you’ll learn a whole lot more about your ship and it’s abilities. So go light the furnace, raise the the mast and even hoist and angle the sails. Players are very much involved with what’s going on.
It doesn’t end there. In FAR: Changing Tides you have to go out of your ship and explore the waters by yourself too. Players will have to search the depths of the waters to find salvage and hopefully fuel. You put on some equipment and head on out. Even down there you see sea life too. We loved that the whale was there and it does look intimidating but it’s a cool moment and we hope to see more of that in FAR: Changing Tides.
We checked out some FAR: Changing Tides gameplay and it’s what we expected. It does look cool. We naturally prefer the water world over the desert as there’s more going on in FAR: Changing Tides. FAR: Lonely Sails had no life really, there’s no creatures or exciting dangers from like a giant creature or something. So it’s unfair but that’s what’s happening. There’s definitely puzzles for the players to overcome, along with the environmental hazards which we hope are real dangers and exciting.
Overall FAR: Changing Tides looks like a good game. Here’s what they said concerning the sounds and music, “A dynamic soundtrack reacts to player and environmental actions, amplifying key moments in the game and heightening the atmosphere”. We don’t see this being impactful but let’s see. We like the visuals and water. The jellyfish looked awesome, the whale was cool and the waters look fantastic. The animations are excellent for the creatures too. The developers ‘Okomotive’ have done a very good job. X35 Earthwalker will have to see what FAR: Changing Tides, surfaces. Now FAR: Changing Tides may have a flooded world but it’s way too shallow for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Unbound: Worlds Apart is a Puzzle Platformer game developed and published by ‘Alien Pixel studios‘. Unbound: Worlds Apart is said to be coming out the 9th of February 2022 on the Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5 and PS4 but it’s already out on Nintendo Switch and PC. Unbound: Worlds Apart huh? Not for long. Let’s take a look. By the way we are trying a new thing concerning the X35 Earthwalker G-Blogs. See for yourself.
Unbound: Worlds Apart is all about Soli, the main character. Some catastrophe has ravaged his world. He seeks to learn more about this event. The origin of it, what happened, why, etc?. Now platformer games need to stand out from each other and do something cool like a whole new or unique mechanic. Unbound: Worlds Apart has their own thing. Soli can create portals. Magic portals. He uses these to travel between different dimensions.
Focus on the portals as that’s what Unbound: Worlds Apart is all about. So basically inside these portals, that look more like circle area space you open up, physical properties of the world elements and even characters can change. Look again at the images we put up above. So a nice green forest area but when you open a portal you see more like a fiery volcano area. Where there was grass, you now see deadly spikes etc. We do like this mechanic. Nice move Unbound: Worlds Apart.
Yes, there are dangers off course in Unbound: Worlds Apart. Besides the natural environment as a platformer has. there are enemies. Dangerous creatures that you can mess with, using your portals. Remember in the portals even the physical properties of creatures and more can change. Their behaviour can change too. So you have to deal with these creatures and it requires using a bit of your brain to do it. What’s strange is that the developers left gamers a serious warning. This has built our interest. Here’s what the warning says, “Beware of the lady bugs!” now that has to make you wonder, what kind of lady bug are we dealing with here?
Overall Unbound: Worlds Apart looks like a good game right now. We like the mechanic. We like the graphics and graphic style as it works here. We like the animations. They are good. Particle effects and glowing lights are very good too. We like how the portals are not just a cool mechanic but also brings about some new ideas and ways to handle or play certain parts. The developers ‘Alien Pixel Studios’ have done a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker, the best game designers of all time, will keep an eye out for Unbound: Worlds Apart. Now Unbound: Worlds Apart may have different reality portals but those have no impact on… the ‘Earth Walk!’
ELEX II is an action role playing game (RPG) developed by Piranha Bytes and published by ‘THQ Nordic‘. ELEX II is said to be coming out the 1st of March 2022 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC. ELEX is back. This has caught our attention. Let’s take a look.
ELEX II is back in the “post apocalyptic science fantasy world” of Magalan. What’s happening this time? Basically the Hybrid was defeated by Jax some years ago but now a new danger is here… coming from the sky. Everything on the planet is in danger. These invaders are too powerful for Jax alone. His mission this time is to get out there and convince the many different factions to unite and work together to beat the invaders. Easy right?
ELEX II is keeping the huge open world approach which is a good thing. Players are given more freedom here. This is what the description says, “The game allows you to explore the planet of Magalan with unprecedented freedom”. Unprecedented is a serious word here. So we will hold the developers to this very word. Players have a jetpack allowing them to fly around and explore the world just like Anthem. Anthem brought the amazing in game flight mechanic and made it fun. We hope ELEX II took notes and did it just as well. Flying is such an awesome way to do things so this is good. This does bring up questions concerning the big world that players can explore. How biggish it? What things are there for players to discover. How difficult is the world? Is ELEX II going to be a difficult game? Will there be level zones? Many questions for sure but we are patient.
Let’s look at the factions. There’s: The albs, berserkers, outlaws, morkons, skyands and clerics. These 6 don’t sound impressive The berserkers basically had no technology and was very simple, medieval even but ended up getting access to magic. The morkons basically locked themselves away and don’t trust anyone or eat much. They became savages and want to destroy others. Skyands get their power from the dark elex and they seek to infect everything. Basically the bad guys. No one can beat them. The albs basically gained magic, meaning they have both magic and technology. They lost their emotions and empathy in the process. The clerics are highly technical and believe they are the only ones who can save the world, destroying those who don’t join their mission. The outlaws are the losers. They uses flex to make drugs. They get high and do whatever they want. Murder, steal whatever. the law of the strongest is their mantra.
The world is said to be intractable. Players off course will be interacting with the factions. This whole world is filled with NPCs. Listen to what the game says about them. That the NPCs will remember what you do and react accordingly. That they will join or leave your group and it’s based on how you act and what you do. they also can be killed. them dying or living does have an impact on the story. We wonder how far this goes though. What if you get everyone killed? Are there any characters that just can’t be killed? Are there different endings. Does their view or relationship with the player effect combat and in game play like troops on the road? Games try to get the ‘consequences of your actions’ mechanic and most fail. We actually don’t know a game that does it well yet. We hope ELEX II do better.
We checked out some ELEX II gameplay and it’s less than what we expected. It doesn’t look as smooth and animated as we hoped. Yes that it isn’t the final build but we can only judge based of what we can see. It should be improved drastically. The flying isn’t as good as it is in Anthem either. We will have to wait for that to be improved as well. Remember that ELEX II is suppose to be next gen open world action RPG. So off course we expect lot. The morkons look disappointing. Thought they would look more different from regular people. Judging from their description, we expected them to clearly stand out. We knew about ELEX and didn’t care overall so ELEX II has to be special to get us into it. ELEX II can be very good and has the room for it but delivering is a different story.
Overall ELEX II looks like it’s going to be an alright game. We want to be proved wrong though. We want it to be great but we haven’t seen enough though. The combat looks simple. Remember that this is still early. More work is going to be done. We are looking forward to seeing the variety in the ELEX II world. The developers ‘Piranha bytes’ have done an alright job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what ELEX II looks like and does when it’s released. Now ELEX II may have a new threat but this threat is a simple problem for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Evil Dead: The Game is an action adventure game developed by ‘Boss Team Games‘ and published by ‘Saber Interactive‘. Evil Dead: The Game said to be coming out in February 2022 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4 and PC. Evil Dead: the game is looking kind of interesting right now. Looking like another zombie game so we hope to see something special. Let’s take a look.
Evil Dead: The Game is off course based on the Evil Dead… the characters and the franchise. It’s a multiplayer focused game. A team of four characters must work together to battle against evil forces. These evil forces came from the necronomicon ex-mortis. So you know these are bad dudes. There’s quite the range of characters to choose from. You can play as lord arthur, pablo simon bolivar, Ash, scotty, “and more”. You know they have their own voice lines, dialogue, brought to you by people like Bruce Campbell. Work has gone into this game.
Now Evil Dead: The Game this can be treated as a multiplayer zombie game. After all X35 Earthwalker are the gaming experts. So you therefore know what to expect. The enemies are called deadites. The four characters must work together to survive. Exploration is needed, so don’t be a coward and sprint through to avoid stuff. Looting is a mechanic, so that means crafting is a thing. So go make the weapons you need and the weapons you want. There’s a “managing your fear” mechanic too. We would like to know more about this. The players main objective really is to find key artifacts which are needed to seal the breach between worlds.
Now working together is all good and stuff… but you can be the player to control the Kandarian demon in Evil Dead: The Game. That’s right. Someone can be that thing. It’s job is to hunt down the characters and swallow their souls. The kandarian demon can possess deadites, the environment and even the survivors themselves. This creature is clearly a problem. So watch out.
We checked out some Evil Dead: The Game gameplay and it’s what we expected. Besides the chainsaw hand, it looks like another zombie game. You swing, slash, bow and arrow, smash, shoot and fight your way through the enemies. Covering each others backs, surviving and now off course watching out for the kandarian demon who is exclusive to Evil Dead: The Game. We see clean animations and the visuals of the characters are nice. Still we see basic character design but they are based on already existing characters. Things look good. The graphics are very good.
Overall Evil Dead: The Game looks like it’s going to be good but we haven’t seen enough to make it stand out as it’s own thing from the many zombie games. Back 4 Blood is out, so you see what we mean. Off course the kandarian demon, especially being controlled by a player does shakes things up. So we will have to see how it all plays out. The developers ‘Boss Team Games’ have done a good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker like to see new mechanics and ideas. Now Evil Dead: The Game may have a kandarian demon but that thing gets wrecked by… the ‘Earth Walk!’
