Tag: single player

HITMAN 3. Death awaits. Wait why?

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

HITMAN 3 is a new stealth game developed and published by ‘IO Interactive‘. HITMAN 3 is said to be coming out in January 2021 on the Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS4, PlayStation 5 and PC. HITMAN 3 has been described as the conclusion to the assassination trilogy. Things are about to get real serious in the assassination world. Let’s take a look.

What’s the story in HITMAN 3? Well Agent 47, aka baldi, is back and this time he’s handling the most important contracts of his assassinating ‘career’. This time something is different. Sure he is being backed up by his agency handler Diana Burnwood… BUT!… he is working together with his long lost friend Lucas Grey. Teams overall are better than solo. The words “Death awaits” is a recurring thing and we are not sure why. Maybe HITMAN 3 is the game where agent 47 dies. Maybe not. After all will no one not notice and want revenge?  

Now this mission that agent 47 is on is suppose to be the most important ones yet. The goal is to wipe out the partners of Providence. When you make your target people like the partners of Providence then you know real trouble is coming your way. You don’t wipe out one important person and think nothing bad will happen to you. As you carry out your mission, things will get harder and harder. The action will become more intense.

Expect a lot of scenery and environment as your mission takes you across the world. Sandbox locations included. Now the theme of freedom is quite strong with this game. A good number of these  modern games especially lately and with next gen aim to have open world and more freedom for players. This is a quote from the developers website, “We’ve made sure that players will have unrivalled freedom to complete their objectives and the game world will react to everything they do. All of this is made possible by our award-winning Glacier technology, which powers HITMAN 3’s immersive game world to offer unparalleled player choice and replayability.”. Multiple gems have tried the whole consequence thing. We think HITMAN 3 has the world and setting to do it. Just don’t mess up developers. 

We were never fans of the HITMAN series but from our experience with the games like HITMAN Absolution we know they are good games overall. HITMAN 3 won’t function as one game. In HITMAN 3, players can play all three games and carry some content over. There’s a whole section explaining this on their website so we will just quote it here, “The World of Assassination trilogy is fully realised with HITMAN 3 and we are establishing our new game as the ultimate place to play all three games. Players of our previous HITMAN games will be pleased to know that it will be possible to ‘import’ locations that they own from the previous two HITMAN games into HITMAN 3, essentially putting all 20+ locations from the entire trilogy in one place. Playing the entire trilogy from beginning to end, from within HITMAN 3, also means that the progression systems in HITMAN 3 work across all locations. You can unlock an item in Dubai and take it with you to Paris, for example. We’re pleased to say that HITMAN 2 players will have the option to carry over their hard-earned unlocks and progression into HITMAN 3.”

We checked out some HITMAN 3 gameplay and it looks like another HITMAN game. The graphics are great, the environments are excellent. Same formula so far. You know what you got to do and you sneak around. You stay undetected, pay attention to routes, blind spots, hiding places,  using everything to your advantage. You have different disguises and stuff to wear but ultimately the prize is that kill. It’s HITMAN… what do you want from us? It’s not suddenly going to be Halo. Off course more information is going to come out. 

Overall HITMAN 3 just seems like another HITMAN game but obviously bigger, more action, more intense, consequences to your actions, allies, three games in one, carry over content, more freedom and whatever extra they be bringing. HITMAN 3 has a big opportunity here so don’t waste it. Now the developers ‘IO Interactive’ have done a very good job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will leave an ear open for what HITMAN 3 be up to. Now HITMAN 3 may be sneaking up on gamers but one thing it can’t sneak up on is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Raid: Shadow Legends. Too many bad issues

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Raid: Shadow Legends is a popular mobile turn based RPG developed and published by ‘Plarium‘. This game came out in 2018. Now this game is popping up in so many places. Those annoying youtubers are promoting them and being sponsored by Raid. So with Raid popping up in many places it must be good… wrong! Let’s take a look.

Speaking of youtubers funny that we never hear them give an update or talk about how things are going for them in the game Raid: Shadow Legends. We wonder why… Anyway. We won’t waste time. The first thing you will notice that every time you log into the game a micro transaction will pop up in your face. Yes, every time you log in a deal is thrown in your face. Not just 1, 2, 3, literally at times it was 5 deals one after the other in our face. The developers are literally coming to your door as salesman one after another trying to get you to buy… at four different times in the day. That’s why we have our shotgun ready. So developers are REALLY after your money. Yes we understand that game design is a business. Plarium needs to make money like any other business. This is too much though.

 

The reason they come for your money so hard is because Raid: Shadow Legends is literally based on money. Sure the game is free but it’s clearly pay to win. We can literally say so much about this but many have huge problems with Raid: Shadow Legends and literally bashed this game… and for good reason. ‘The Gamer’ literally said on their website “Raid: Shadow Legends is absolute trash and we’re not afraid to say it”. It gets better as they then gave a paragraph explaining how essential spending real life money for success in this game is. They said, again on their website, “Are you stuck on a particularly difficult dungeon and don’t want to grind for more gear? Use your Visa! Do you need more silver to equip a new weapon, because for some reason that costs in-game currency? Break out the MasterCard! Are you dissatisfied with your rank in Arena against the teams boosted by other players and their credit cards? Then spend more money, or forever stay in the lowest ranks of “competitive” play, you filthy, poor casual”. This made us laugh but honestly this is true. Legit. 

Everything revolves around money, why? Because the game is so grindy that it makes you want to speed this up. Humans don’t like waiting. Lag makes people mad, a slow computer gets on our nerves etc. Everything in the game can be sped up… with money. You can buy all the silver you want. You can buy the gems. You can buy artefacts. You can buy champions. You can buy training slots. You can buy levelling up beverages. You can buy chicken which are used to rank up your champions. You can buy anything you need. It’s literally pay to win. If you and your friend start Raid: Shadow Legends at the same time but you are regular you with your comfortable minimum wage job while studying for example but your friend has a rich uncle who spoils him. In the first day of playing this game, you who is playing naturally will get some uncommon champions maybe a rare get to maybe level 10 (we forgot how fast you level up in the start) find some artefacts none good but it’s better than nothing. Your friend because he got lots of cash from his uncle can have a full level 60 squad of champions with some legendary champions and full mastery without having to face the minotaur. We aren’t joking! You can literally do it all in a day if you have enough cash. To give you an idea of how strong a legendary champion is here’s the order: common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary. So just think about this.    

Let’s talk about this grind. Everything is a grind. Levelling up is done fastest when you repeatedly do some of the hardest campaign levels you can do over and over again. So set the speed to 2x and ‘auto’. You don’t even need to play really. This is harder because each action requires energy which you have a limited amount of daily unless you buy more with money. In order to ascend your champions you need to collect the respective potions (magic, spirit, force, void, arcane) which you get from fighting in the respective dungeons same way with campaign. To make it grindy-er these fights also cost energy and you need a combination of the potion of your champions type with arcane as arcane is needed to for all ascensions. This means more fighting. Also the dungeon types are open on different days. So for example the magic dungeon might be open on Mondays, spirit is open Tuesday, force is Wednesday you get the idea. There is lesser, greater and superior potions of each type but we will get into that later in the blog post for a serious reason. In order to get your champions mastery, you need to (you guessed it) fight again but this time against the minotaur in his dungeon. If you win you get scrolls. There’s three types of scrolls, basic, advanced and divine. The type of scrolls you can get it decided by the difficulty of the dungeon. So you can’t get red scrolls until you get real strong in the game to defeat the dungeon. Which means come back later until strong after lots of grinding to get that strong. You need 5-30 basic for the first set of masteries, 80-120 advanced for next set and 200-350 divine for the final set. If you get strong enough like we did you can face stage 15 which is a level 185 minotaur. You can win from 24-32 basic, 11-16 advanced, 6-12 divine. Hold up… it gets worse.

So quick maths to fully max out your masteries concerning the divine scrolls you need 200+350= 550. 550/12 (it’s based on chance, so you won’t get 12 all the time) = 49 rounded up. Your champion will need to do this 49 times to complete one branch and that’s not counting the basic and advanced scrolls since you go through the masteries in order, you must max out the basic first before moving to advanced before moving to divine. If we counted basic and advanced it would be 49+15=64. Notice we said ‘one branch’. You can do only two branches and both cost the same except for the second branch can’t have the final category so double it. 128-29 (the last category of the second branch) = 99. So basically 100 times. Wait, notice even earlier we said “your champion” and not your team. Every time you successfully complete a minotaur dungeon ONLY ONE champion of your team at RANDOM gets the scroll prize. So the first time you win Athel might get the 12 divine scrolls but the second time your Frostking might get the 12 scrolls and the third time might be your Coldheart. Get it yet? The developers, to increase the level of grind made it so that your whole team doesn’t get the prize but only one. So it’s 100 times per champion! So your full squad of 4 or 5 means 400-500 times of repeating the minotaur dungeon. Oh and each attempt in the dungeon at this level costs 14 energy and at profile level 54 (what we were) you only get 124 energy daily so that’s 8 (as a whole number) attempts with what you got. Yes energy slowly comes back during the day so you might fill up your energy three times in a day so lets say 24 attempts each day. That means to fully max out your team of 4 you will need 400/24=17 (16.6) days of nothing but minotaur dungeon to fully max out your squad. It gets worse! Remember that the amount of scrolls you get per win is based on chance. We said on the highest difficulty dungeon you can get between 6-12 divine scrolls. We high balled the amount in our maths to show you the shortest amount of time. If you get 8 or 9, or even 6 the it’s going to take even longer. IT GETS WORSE! When you start the game you aren’t as strong as we were, you would need to start at lower level dungeons which give lower amounts of scrolls. For example stage 8 you can get 8-12 basic and 1-3 advanced, divine isn’t available at this level. It is available at level 11 but only 1-3 divine scrolls. So it would take forever. This is the definition of grind. 

We mentioned chance in the last two paragraphs but here’s where the chance gets real bad and one of Raid: Shadow Legends big problems. They don’t give enough information concerning chance. The lesser, greater and superior potions are dropped at chance. There’s even a chance you won’t get potions at all but a beverage for levelling up etc. We don’t know the chance of the drop. They say the higher difficulty of the dungeon gives a better chance for a greater and superior potion but how much more? What’s the chance. Weirdly we have received more superior and greater from lower levels instead of the higher levels. That’s weird. Even the whole artefacts are base on horrible chance. When you complete a campaign it’s all chance what you get in terms of the level of it and what stats it has. The worst is fighting the giant spider dungeon for rings, amulets and banners. Whenever you beat the spider queen thing, it’s all chance if you get a ring, banner or amulet. It’s all chance what level you get. It’s all chance what faction you get it for. So if you wanted to get a 6 star banner for Athel it becomes a nightmare you can’t control as you might get a banner but it’s the wrong level or you finally do get a level 6 banner but it’s for the orc faction so Athel can’t use it. Plus getting level 6 is harder than getting level 4 obviously. We have tried numerous times to get a specific banner or amulet and just don’t get it regardless of the number of times we tried. Remember that all the time we try to get a specific item from the spider queen we aren’t doing the minotaur, so no mastery for us. The chance gets worse in Raid: Shadow Legends. Shards is the main way to get champions. The type of shard has different chances for getting certain rarity of champions. Let’s focus on what matters here. When using an ancient shard you have a 0.5% chance of getting a legendary champion. 0.5%!! This means 1in 200. That’s like having 200 cards on a table face down and only one of those cards is the winning card. This game allows double of champions from shards so you can sacrifice to level up abilities. So after you pick a card, the whole table is shuffled with that same card back in the deck for you to pick again. Now if you use the sacred shards which is the main way to get legendary champions you have a 6% chance to get one. 6%! To give you an idea of how rare sacred shards are you only 1 every month! That’s if you do your daily and weekly quests with the monthly quest. It’s so bad that many have complained about this online. If you want more sacred shards then you have to BUY them. h and they aren’t cheap. Make sure you have a friend with a rich uncle.

So basically Raid: Shadow Legends has so much grind, the most grind we have ever seen in a game. So players get annoyed and want to speed it up. You speed it up by spending money which many are tempted to do as they keep throwing their deals and shop at you. Players buy gems because gems can be used to pretty much get anything else like full maxed out masteries. There’s a offer of £100 for 4200 gems. Do you know what we could buy with £100… not 4200 gems that’s for sure. Players use real money to everything else. The sacred shards are in packs that cost £49 and £29. The dumb part is  that the cheaper of the two has better stuff than the more expensive one. So if you want to have four attempt with sacred shards to get a legendary champion you will need to spend £116. Plus the £100 for the gems so that’s over £200. We checked online and some people have spent over £1000 on this game over time. One dude spent £2400 over 4 months. Some have spent more over time but never realised how much they put into this game. According to ‘sensor tower’ Plarium got 7 million in estimated monthly revenue as off May (check for yourself as we don’t know how reliable that information is). People need to manage their money better. Plarium will never earn a single dime from us and no we didn’t even spend over £50 over our months of playing the game. 

So we won’t try to defend Raid: Shadow Legends. We abandoned Raid: Shadow Legends. If you want to advance in arena against other players you need to spend as so many people in your low ranking like silver have full squads of legendary characters all level 60 with masteries. You will never catch up to them unless you spend or play the game for two years. Too much grind, too much money hungering and too much hidden and bad chance makes Raid: Shadow Legends a terrible game. We stopped having fun and got frustrated. There are more problems like the mission objectives, unbalanced characters etc but we will stick to the grind, chances and spending. We are literally being merciful, there’s so much more to say. Now Raid: Shadow Legends has so many problems which will forever keep it away from… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Skeletal Avenger. No meat included

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Skeletal Avenger is a rouge lite hack and slash game developed and published by ‘10tons‘. Skeletal Avenger is said to he coming out in late 2020 on the Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS4, PlayStation 5 and PC. There is definitely some ‘boney’ action going on in this game. Let’s take a look.

The story in Skeletal Avenger isn’t much really. Basically there re a bunch of dead skeletons and they are waiting for their turn to get revenge. Here’s how the developers worded it, “Avenge a thousand wrongs in a reverse roguelite where the skeletal avengers ascend from the depths to demand a payment in blood!” So literally a bunch of angry salty skeletons who just want revenge but take turns to do it.

Now off course you aren’t just some skeleton, as in you get one slap and you crumble. No. You have a number of weapons to pick and use from like hammers, swords, daggers, spears and more. It gets even better. As you succeed and complete revenges you get new gears, weapons and tools. These will provide you with new perks and abilities. So make sure to get them and become powerful enough to face whatever comes your way. C’mon you are a skeleton, use your head… get it? No literally you can take off your head and throw it at your enemy in skeleton avenger.    

Remember that these revenges are always targeted against a certain being. Every run you do, you’ll need to choose who your enemy is. Then hunt them down and make them pay. Even so remember that they aren’t the only enemies around. As you make your way around you’ll face scorpions, hooded figures, worm monsters, fire traps and more. So far we haven’t seen anything unique or terrifying though. The enemies seem generic and nothing seems like a legitimate threat so we hope they step that up. The enemies in a game make all the difference. Look at Maze Time, they have numerous enemies with different levels of threats and some unique. 

Once again we are happy to hear that Skeletal Avenger has co-op gameplay. You can get revenge alone or work together with your friends. 4 player co-op. The more games that have room for co-op the better. Majority of the time it’s better to play with friends.  

We checked out some Skeletal Avenger gameplay and it’s what we imagined it would be. You are a skeleton and navigate around, attack enemies, avid damage and keep on rolling. There are area of effect attacks and you even have the ability to dash to avoid hazards, evade or just move around faster. We like that the items and gear you get is visible on your skeleton character. Not all games do this. 

Overall Skeletal Avenger just seems like another rouge lite hack and slash. This game needs more to be something special but definitely looks functional and good as it is right now. It’s style is traditional with the whole dark, stone, underground theme. It looks good too. The developers ’10tons’ have done a nice job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will just have to hear what noise Skeletal Avenger makes. Now Skeletal Avenger may have salty skeletons who’s focus is revenge but they aren’t focused enough for… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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The Medium. The other half coming soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

The Medium is a new horror game developed and published by ‘Bloober Team‘. The Medium is said to be coming out “Holiday 2020”. It’s an Xbox exclusive and it’s coming on the Xbox Series X and PC. The Medium aims to give a new meaning tithe word perspective here. We see what it is working but will it work? Let’s take a look.

The Medium is not just horror exactly but psychological horror. So expect the game to mess with your head and expect specific music. In the Medium players take control of a young lady, who is a medium by the way, who wants answers concerning the murder of a child. That same murder has been haunting you in visions. So you head to an abandoned hotel resort which is said to be the place where the event took place.

She isn’t ordinary. This medium is a fraud like mystic meg. This medium can have a perspective that one one else can have. She can travel between the natural and spiritual realm. Thanks to this ability she can see what others see too. In this world and with this ability, you’ll soon learn that everything has another side.

We checked out some The Medium gameplay. From what we have seen this is definitely going to be a psychological horror. There’s a lot of night time, at times silence, there’s also a lot of weird stuff in this game. Expect supernatural elements humanoid beings wearing masks and music. Yeah, a bit about the music. It has been declared that  The Medium has dual soundtrack Arkadiusz Reikowski from Bloober Team, and Akira Yamaoka, the composer guy for Silent Hill.  

The Medium’s advantage is being optimised for the Xbox Series X which means it’s using the development kit to “take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Xbox Series X. They will showcase unparalleled load-times, visuals, responsiveness, and framerates up to 120FPS.”

Overall The Medium looks like it’s going to be a good game but we haven’t seen enough to make us think wow yet. We have seen and written about many psychological horror games. Off course excellent graphics and details are excellent too. The Medium needs more. Are there real enemies? We will have to see. The developers ‘Bloober Team’ has does an alright job so far. We like the idea of world jumping but we need more info. Now The Medium may have music and spiritual realm but none of that is match… the ‘Earth walk!’

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Scorn. A weird world coming forth

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Scorn is a new horror adventure game developed and published by ‘Ebb Software’. It is not clear when Scorn will be coming out. It is an xbox exclusive. It will come out on Xbox Series X and PC. The heavy themes here is horror and puzzles. Also, this is a weird game in case you couldn’t tell. Let’s take a look.

Scorn is set in a weird world. It’s been described as an open-ended world with different interconnected regions. That’s not the weird part but we will get to that. Each region is designed to be like a Maze. Various rooms and different paths. The weird part which you can tell just from looking is that this world is alive, literally and quite breathing. You see what looks like living organism entrails or whatever that grow along the walls like vines and plants. Some things bound to the wall are living things. Sort of like when the Gravemind from Halo with the flood takes over an area like the ship high charity. It becomes alive. Think of it like that.

There are no cutscenes Scorn. This means that everything concerning the story can be found and revealed in the game itself. So looking around and exploring is the responsibility of the player. Players have been given a warning though. The official website said, “the game won’t show you any sympathy if you miss something important on your uneasy travels”. This alone says quite a bit. This suggests that maybe Scorn can be beaten without doing everything but will result in a bad ending that doesn’t answer all your questions. 

Now it’s clear that this game wants to gross players out. This whole design, the character, the beings are all creepy, gross, sticky looking, you see what we mean when you look at gameplay. The game wants players to be fully aware of their character’s body and movement whatever that means. The developers also want players to have a realistic experience. As in you need to use your hands to pick up things (instead of just floating), also machines and certain instruments require the player to grab the levers, controls etc. 

Scorn isn’t some exploration game where you just walk and look around. There are threats in this world. Players will need to think things through and decide when to fight something and when to just hide. Not only that but we knew this game would also make your decisions have consequences as in effecting the world you’re in. You have an inventory to manage and it’s very limited space. So decide what you want and what you may need later etc.

We checked out some Scorn gameplay we can find and yep, there is definitely combat. We saw three different types of weapons which fire differently and all look alive-ish. They come apart and fleshy, with bits. They fire what looks like small pellets which through the organism gun makes deadly like a shotgun. Ammo must be very limited meaning players need to really decided whether to fight or not. The game looks icky and gross but very good. The visuals are very good and you know it’s improved from two years ago so must look better. The world is definitely alive, gross but very cool. It’s certainly atmospheric and we hope they pull of the horror well.Developers make sure not to forget terrifying enemies that you have to avoid. 

Overall Scorn does look like a good game just a very weird one that not everyone will be into. They will look at the game and get turned off. Yet there will always be gamers who will want to play it. We like how different this game is from other games. We like the risk the developers took and the game visuals and style. The developers ‘Ebb Software’ have done a good job wit this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will keep an ear and eye open for Scorn and what they do. Now Scorn may be risky and different but what’s not risky and hasn’t changed is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Bright Memory: Infinite. Pure action

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Bright Memory Infinite is a new First person shooter action game developed by ‘FYQD-Studio‘ and published by ‘Playism‘. Bright Memory: Infinite is said to be coming out in 2021, so yep, next year. It’s an Xbox exclusive that’s coming out on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One and PC. Bright Memory: Infinite is looking real serious. Let’s take a look.

Bright Memory: Infinite is set in the future. How far?  The year 2036 in a “sprawling metropolis”. Things seemed normal until something unusual happened. Basically something wacky is happening in the skies over various regions. Some look like little black holes or spheres in the skies plus other stuff. The SRO (Supernatural science research organisation), wait that’s two S’s. Shouldn’t it be SSRO? Whatever we didn’t develop this game. Basically the SRO sent out their agents to go and see what’s up. 

Now there isn’t much information on Bright Memory: Infinite but we did pick up some things. We are going to focus on the action s it stands out the most. So whoever we are controlling they are well equipped. Guns for traditional long ranged combat, machine guns, auto pistols but seeing the sword brought things to the next level. The sword can create shockwave blasts when you slam down to the ground, off course swings to slice them up and even break through the defense of certain defensive enemies.

Things get crazier as special abilities are also in play. There was what looked like a time stop ability or should we say stasis as the environment wasn’t effected by time or slow down so more like stasis. Stasis or time is always an amazing power. Also impressive is an energy or ionic tether whip which you can use to grab ip pull yourself to that location or even enemies and pull them to you “get over here” style. Seriously this character is shaping up to be a powerful contender. Think ab out it: Guns, sword, stasis and energy tether whip. We just hope Bright Memory: Infinite has worthy enemies.    

We have to talk about the visuals right now. The graphics are excellent. Completely amazing. We checked out the developers twitter account and he showed comparison pictures of a rock and step showing the difference the engine he’s using makes on the details of the objects. It’s a step up. The grass, the rain effects, the wind, the trees, the wood all looks excellent. The graphics are excellent. When we enter this game we will take a moment to just look around and see what’s happening. In case you didn’t   

We did notice some of the enemies and currently more on the disappointed side. There are off course human enemies with guns who are standard but there’s also what looks like centurion type enemies, shield sword, helmet etc. These guys are tougher, shield block bullets and actually have a projectile. When they swing their blade at you it released a ball of energy or whatever straight at you so evasion is needed. The sword is a good counter against these enemies but even tis enemy isn’t enough. We truly hope for a big variety of enemies, maybe some that can teleport to match your speed and fire power for example. The enemies are currently underwhelming but we will have to see.

We checked some Bright Memory: Infinite gameplay and it’s just pure action. Besides everything we already mentioned there is even more. Basically at the end of the trailer the character called in a vehicle in which she got in and was pursued by another vehicle. It became a car chase. We don’t know if there will be car chases in the game but this trailer is strongly suggesting that this is the case. It’s got to be the main method of traversing the game like with the hover bike like thing in Destiny. So we can look forward to a vehicle.    

Overall Bright Memory: Infinite looks like a very good game. Not much is known from a story point of view but from what we have seen it looks very good. The graphics, environment and action are excellent. There’s some force type techniques too like a push punch. There’s definitely more to be seen. The developers ‘FYGD-studio’ have done a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker look forward to seeing what memories, Bright Memory: Infinite will create for gamers. Now Bright Memory: Infinite may have futuristic battles and abilities but those things are no where near advanced enough to match… the ‘Earth Walk!’ 

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The Ascent. Restoring order soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

The Ascent is a new solo and co-op action RPG developed by ‘Neon Giant‘ and published by ‘Curve  Digital‘. The Ascent is said to be coming out in 2020 but no specific date. The Ascent is an Xbox exclusive that’s coming out on the Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC. We normally like games of this style so naturally we checked it out. Let’s take a look.

In the Ascent universe there is a corporation… well a mega corporation known as the ‘The Ascent group’. They are said to own every everyone, including the player. This mega corporation has collapsed… somehow. This effects everything including security and order. So off course with The Ascent group gone, there is chaos and violence as let’s just say… non peaceful corporations and gangs are taking advantage of the situation. So off course you got to get control of the situation and found out what happened.    

Now we definitely got an interest in The Ascent simply because of style. We like the whole top down shooting games thing. It reminds us of Alien Breed for example. Now that game is very good and a lot of fun with co-op action. So far The Ascent has those elements in terms of co-op action (which is excellent and the straight up combat. Games like this are not hard to make good but it’s the job or developers to take it to the next level. Hopefully The Ascent does such a thing.

The Ascent has a number of areas for the player to explore. There are many districts and some are run down and not so great like the slums while other places will be high end luxury places spheres. So make sure to take pictures – we mean be on your guard. Don’t forget that you will have opportunities to make allies and enemies. So be careful, do you really need more enemies, but what do they want in return for being an ally. Some people you can’t trust. Especially if you meet a alien called pablo.

There are a variety of enemies and off course each have their own strengths and weaknesses. She enemies are sower with their attacks. Some are melee only, others just attack from afar. You get the point by now. Off course don’t forget that The Ascent is also an RPG. Enemies can drop loot. The most dangerous enemies are worth slaying as they can drop the best and rarest loot of all. Your characters can also be augmented and customised. How you build your character will pretty much effect how you should approach the enemies. Use cyberware to modify your body, and your equipment makes a difference. 

We checked out some The Ascent gameplay and it’s what we thought it would be. Top down, move around, dodge attacks, keep distance, shoot them down and make your way. You explore the area (as you should) and open up chests for items. The shooting enemies don’t seem so aggressive. There’s also abilities like a ground pound attack so you can mix that in to destroy groups of enemies. There is a dome shield that moves with you and offers excellent protection. The Ascent is already setting a huge bar for games to follow with no loading, environment destruction stays and it’s incredibly detailed and this isn’t even the final build yet. As expected we say playstation fans just dumping all over it for no logical reason but hey if you like it, play it and have fun. 

Overall, The Ascent looks amazing so far. It’s incredibly detailed. The graffiti, the environment and as mentioned before the environment damage stays. The graphics are excellent, the sounds are serious and the in game character animations are excellent too. If this is what the Xbox Series X is brining then we are looking forward to it. The developers ‘Neon Giant’ have done an amazing job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker definitely look forward to what The Ascent truly brings. Now The Ascent may ascend gameplay but nothing is as ascended as… the ‘Earth Walk!’ 

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Call of the Sea. Calling us soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Call of the Sea is a first person adventure puzzle game developed by ‘Out of the Blue‘ and published by ‘Raw Fury‘. Call of the Sea is said to be coming out on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One and PC. The release date isn’t known yet (maybe we do know but won’t tell you). Now this game has got our attention. It can’t be that mysterious right? It’s just a wife looking for her husband… normal stuff… right? Let’s take a look.

In Call of the Sea players take control of a woman called Nora. She is looking for her husband. Basically on his last expedition, he disappeared. He’s missing. Being a caring spouse she goes to look for him. Her search leads to an island. Now off course this isn’t a regular island. It’s said that loads of secret and mysteries are on this island. So take a look around I guess.

Now when you see a game like this you think about exploration games like Beyond Blue,Shape of the Worldand Abzu. Except Call of the Sea isn’t just exploration. It’s a full on adventure with a story, objective and mystery. The fact that it’s classed as a puzzle game means that players will need to be very observant, pay attention to detail and mentally link things together to progress. After all, finding your husband isn’t an easy thing.

The previous expedition here has left traces and clues around… but what happened to them? One of the main objectives in Call of the Sea is to find out what happened here and to them. This means there will be ships to explore. If there’s a voyage then there’s a ship. Check their equipment, their records, their writings, what they found. Sort of feels like detective work too.  

The graphic style and visuals is the main attractor for us concerning Call of the Sea. The whole game is very colourful and inviting. This whole island is very nice to look at with lovely design. There’s definitely lots to see here. There’s even ruins. Not all games have good ruin design. In case you couldn’t figure it out, Nora isn’t your average woman at all. Nora has got skills and will have to put them all to use on this South Pacific island. Some elements in this game is surreal. We already like Nora as a character but she does sound quite confused concerning her self discovery.  

Remember that Call of the Sea is coming on Xbox Series X. Xbox stated on their website, “Games built using the Xbox Series X development kit are designed to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Xbox Series X. They will showcase unparalleled load-times, visuals, responsiveness, and framerates up to 120FPS”.

We checked out some Call of the Sea gameplay and it’s what we thought. The game looks calm from a violence perspective as in we saw no enemies and don’t think there is really any. Not much action at all which was expected as Call of the Sea is focused around mystery, exploration and puzzles. We even saw what looked like a transformation on what looks like Nora. She had webbed hands like a reptile and was traversing the water easily. There’s definitely stuff going on here. Simple looking controls and how you move about play this game.

Overall Call of the Sea looks like a good game. Not something huge but definitely packed. There’s more going on than simply a wife searching for her husband. We hope they don’t take the self discovery part too far and focus on the island and what it contains. We liking the graphics right now and style. The developers ‘Out of the Blue’ have done a good job wit this game so far. We at X35 Earthwalker hope to see more concerning this game. Now Call of the Sea may have mystery but one thing more mysterious is clearly… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Goosebumps: Dead of Night. Alive soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Goosebumps: Dead of Night is a new action adventure game developed and published by ‘Cosmic Forces‘. Goosebumps: Dead of Night is said to be coming out the 12th of June 2020 on the Xbox One and PC. We heard that it’s coming out also on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. Slappy is back and he’s up to no good. Let’s take a look.

In Goosebumps: Dead of Night, Slappy is back. He escaped from the pages of goosebumps. Not only that but he has brought together his crew of monsters. The goal of the player is to trap Slappy back into the goosebumps book. Slappy has a plan and is up to no good. The player must solve puzzles and thwart Slappy’s plans. Off course his monster friend aren’t going to simply let you do that.

So as you are searching fir the missing pages of the book, the monsters will be about ready to mean you harm. Expect to encounter the Annihilator 3000, graveyard ghoul, werewolf of fever swamp, lawn gnomes and murder the clown are all here and ready to roll. They will stop the player and deliver a scare while they’re at it. We honestly hope these enemies are scary though because we feel like we can punch that clown in the face and it will be over with. 

We checked out some Goosebumps: Dead of Night gameplay and it’s sort of what we expected but we we believe it needs more. We get that it’s Slappy but this doesn’t seem scary in the slightest. We like that the werewolf crawls after you. We like that there are areas, in the three chapters that you play, that are recognisable, described as classic Goosebump locations. So fans of the Goosebump series will like this. It seems that the monsters function differently. The lawn gnomes seem to be more of a annoyance and distraction, running away and causing trouble while the clown and werewolf seem to come straight for you as a clear threat. This will mix things up as it should do. Simple enemies aren’t fun.

Overall Goosebumps: Dead of Night just seems like another indie game. It will be fun for some gamers as it’s quite simple, run away from enemies and search for pages, reminding some of Slender man. Youtubers will like it as it’s more fuel for views by screaming and running away. We honestly don’t see enough for this game to be a big deal for us. It just seems like simple fun and facing off against Slappy. The developers ‘Cosmic Forces’ have worked hard on this game. We at X35 Earthwalker always recognise work and effort. Some gamers will enjoy this. Now Goosebumps: Dead of Night may have Slappy but he’s a complete joke when compared to… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV. Short and awesome

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV is a 2D side scrolling action game that was developed and published by ‘Square Enix‘. A King’s Tale was released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. We didn’t know this game existed when it launched. We heard about it last month and decided to give it a try. It’s Final Fantasy XV after all. To put it shortly, it’s an awesome game. Let’s take a look.

The story in A King’s Tale is very simple. It’s set in Final Fantasy XV (off course) and it’s King Regis telling a bedtime story to his son prince Noctis. Off course this takes place years before Final Fantasy XV because Noctis is clearly a child and Regis is looking younger and ‘clean wid it’ (looking good). Noctis has heard all the stories in the book and wants something new. So king Regis gives him a story based on his past adventures with his friends. Noctis says it’s fin for his dad to add, exaggerate and make it up as he goes along. So ‘A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV’ is literally a tale from king Regis to his son… in the world of Final Fantasy. Plot twist!!!

First things first, the controls. A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV has simple controls… not as simple as the controls in another amazing game called Maze Time but simple still. Not only that, the game effectively explains everything and throughout the game gives you reasons why you should use them. Some games fail to do that. Everything is incredibly responsive and the invincibility frames on your roll dodge is very generous. Everything has a purpose. Now even though the controls are simple, the game mechanics are quite deep. For example there are combos you can perform which have different amounts of damage, effects and even counters. Use the first few levels to practice and  try them all to see what feels good and works best. Now as an example strong slashes are great against master ronins, quick slashes work very well against goblins while shield bash is great coeurls. Use roll dodge to get out of any situation. Here’s your greatest piece of wisdom of 2020 for now from the great X35 Earthwalker… “When in doubt, just roll dodge.” You’re welcome. 

So run from left to right, defeating all the enemies that come your way until you can move on. It’s like Streets of Rage as a side scrolling action game. Simple to understand. So let’s talk about the enemies. Almost all the enemies have a stronger variation of themselves that normally has an extra ability or effect. For samples you will encounter the skeletons which will always block the third attack of your combo but the master skeletons will block strong slashes and will counter quick slashes. So if you strike with a quick slash, it will parry it and then hit you back too quick to dodge. A ronin can be hit with anything but a master ronin will block quick slashes and shield bashes so strong attacks are needed. A literal upgrade of previous enemies. The Midgardsormr will pop up from underground to strike you but can be stunned with a specific strike. You have to do strong, strong then shield bash from behind it. The iron giants are big and strong but wait for them to strike, get behind them and start swinging. Even the behemoth is in A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV. These guys have a tail attack that can hit both sides if you are too close. Be careful. Goblins attack in swarms and will try to use their knives. They aren’t difficult at all as there’s many ways to deal with them. There are explosive enemies called bombs that will explode if you stand near them. If you attack them with a slash they get knocked back and grow bigger but won’t explode. If you shield bash them though, you can send them flying towards enemies so they can get blown up. Believe it or not, there are more enemies and they have their own tricks too. A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV has many enemies and variety is a good thing.

The game isn’t long at all. A skilled player can beat it within 2 hours. It was never meant to be a big game. There is some deployability though. First of all we heard there is an alternate ending to the story so players got to beat it again to get that different ending. Also there is Dream Battles. Basically Noctis dreams the story he heard but with a slight twist to it. You play each level of the game again but there is a specific mission condition you must fulfil. It could be like defeat an army of flan enemies but use no magic. It could be to beat a frenzy of enemies within a time limit. It could be to finish a whole mission without the aid of your companions. So there’s still stuff to do. Oh and speaking of companions…

Probably our favourite thing about A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV is working with your companions to defeat the enemies. There’s a whole system to it. If you get 8 hits on enemies without  getting hit yourself you can call one of your companions to jump in and launch their attack. Each one is powerful and has their own use. The main man Weskham comes in with dual pistols firing at enemies in front and behind him dealing good damage. Cid jumps in and does a single powerful slash that travels across the ground with piercing effect. So line em up and ol Cid will knock them down. Clarus comes in and swings his dual blade three times damaging everything within his attacking circumference range. If you hit enemies a total of 24 times without getting hit you can use the Armiger. This ultimate attack allows Regis (the player) to use his Lucius family power of the king. He warps to an enemy, normally the one with the most health, levitates and uses four of his royal arms to smash an enemy dealing immense damage. Now listen up kids. If you use each of your companions attacks before using Armiger you, each on of them will come in and do a different more powerful focused attack on different enemies before you finish up with the royal arms. Very cool mechanic that promotes avoiding damage and playing flawlessly to get these abilities.    

A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV is a deep game with it’s mechanics, enemies and the combat. We mentioned it but didn’t explain that there’s lots of combos and moves. Simply you can do 3 quick slashes, 3 strong slashes and 3 shield bashes. There’s also quick quick shield, strong strong shield and then there’s quick quick strong which launches enemies into the air where you can then launch repeated strong or quick slashes or defend with shield. You can do quick quick strong to bring your enemy down with a strong descending strike. . You can do dodge roll to jump of your enemy and them either dash straight into an enemy on the ground with a strike with a quick slash or with shield after jumping to do a descending shield ground pound attack to knock back, or use a strong slash to do a big area of effect descending smash move. There’s lots you can do. So try them all out.

Overall A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV is an awesome game. It’s short like it was suppose to be but definitely awesome. It has simple controls but the mechanics surrounding enemies and attacks are deep. The final boss battle is epic. You have lots of dangerous enemies constantly coming for you while you target and deal with the boss at the same time. It’s a hectic battle with lots of opportunities for your companion attacks and Armiger. This game is difficult though as more enemy types like the Tonberry and Cactuar come in, things can get real crazy. The developers, ‘Square Enix’ have done an awesome job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker really enjoyed playing  A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV. If you haven’t played this game before, we recommend it. Now A King’s Tale might be set in the awesome world of Final Fantasy XV but even that doesn’t put it on the same level as… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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