Gears 5 is here again and this time they have something new with Operation 6. This means new characters: Colonel Victor Hoffman, Queen Reyna and locust Zealot. It also comes with a new… well not new a map from the past called Speyer. We are overall disappointed with it. Like that’s all. That’s not going to bring in new players or change anything really. We like new characters though. Just stop messing around and give us Aaron Griffin!!!! The Coalition need to step it up.
Now this isn’t about about Operation 6. We always did like Hoffman and locust Zealot does look real cool. Don’t like how Queen Reyna looks though but hey. Tis is about horde and some issues it has. Even the new event which came with Operation 6 called ‘Escape from Kadar’. So lets’ get right into it. Horde overall is our favourite thing in Gears 5. We have survived hundreds of waves solo (with random players) and in a team. We have beaten inconceivable difficulty many times, even in Escape mode. So yes we are more than authoritative and relatable as a source of information.
Horde needs an additional resource for players. Players use their collected energy to power up themselves with passives like increased health, ammo regeneration, critical damage etc. This is very good and cool but then this means players aren’t donated their enemy to the fabricator for the mechanics t build strong defences. After all you need to be powerful to survive so you priorities yourself first instead of the team. They need to make it so that collecting energy contributes to both a energy and maybe boost points or experience points which you can use for upgrading yourself and the energy for fabricator or building. So yeah, they need a second resource management bar.
Now let’s talk about one big problem, actually scratch that – two! Two big problems with one literally being bigger. Firstly the Swarmak. This big good for nothing son of a pharaoh results in an instant loss. It’s presence means you lose. It spawns in and just heads straight for your base. It doesn’t take it’s time. If you aren’t under shelter or up in a really high place where the boltok spawns in Gridlock then you are screwed. Fences don’t stop it, sentry don’t stop it. Nothing stops it! We hit it with the demolitionists ultimate ability, had brawlers set it on fire and even a whole team attack it and it doesn’t die in time. Sure there can be exceptions like two demolitionists using their ultimates and then lancer grenade launch missiles spam with boom shots maybe but then another spawns to take it’s place which is stupid design. Why another? You out of resources by then. Regardless even if the whole team faced the swarmak, the whole horde are still coming for you including pouncers who jump right into your base, scions with heavy weapons and more. The Coalition got the formula right in Gears 4. The Brumak would sit back and fire it’s guns and missiles from a distance then after while it then makes it’s approach. It’s like it either waits until you almost killed all enemies or after a certain period of time. Do that developers instead of have the swarmak comes straight for our base and destroy everything. It’s better for the team to run straight at the swarmak and get themselves killed to so when they start again they get a different boss and keep all their fortifications alive, saving energy.
The Guardians and Sentinels are huge problem and simply put have no business in Horde. These guys are fast, deal immense damage and worst of all have large amounts of health then on top of that… they have shields. Cool design but shouldn’t be in horde. Imagine this. You have a nice base with great defence and sentries. Wave starts. A Sentinel shows up and heads straight for your base. It flies OVER all your defences and parks itself right in the back of your base while spraying it’s Tri-gun (which is like the strongest weapon in the game) killing everyone. If you are allow health class like demolition, marksman, mechanic etc you go down within half a second on inconceivable difficulty. We have seen it wipe out a whole team before. It doesn’t care about defences as it flies over. It’s so strong that you aren’t beating it 1v1 unless you are a Gunner class or maybe Pilot in your silver back. The shields get stronger in later waves too for some reason. You manage to get it’s shield down bu then it flies away behind cover out of reach so you can’t get it. Then comes back with it’s shield again. Wasting your ammo and time. So you need a team to face it which means less or no one is focusing on the horde coming to you since you are either fighting or reviving downed teammates. It can also straight up kill a downed person too which is unfair. Guardians are worse as they have salvo rockets which can down groups at the same time even when trying to revive. They can truly ruin a good run. Shriekers from Gears of War 3 were fine because they had really low heath but if ignored can really weaken your team as they fire from high up meaning cover is useless. Remove sentinels and guardians.
Now for the main reason that Escape from Kadar sucks. This big woman above this paragraph. The Matriarch is the alpha woman. Body building ladies don’t mess with her. All jokes aside she does rule. She doesn’t give a shake about your fortifications. Actually she doesn’t even acknowledge them or know what they are. She just walks through them and wonders what she hit (she doesn’t seem blind like beserkers). In Escape from Kadar you have loads of locust hybrids which come at you with pipes which delivery a one shot kill strike. Unless you have really high armour or good stim etc. Then you have Sires which rush you down and try to grab you. If they grab you, it doesn’t matter how much health you have as it’s instant kill if you don get freed from it’s grip. Those aren’t too bad but then the boss on wave 5 is a Matriarch which isn’t too bad but she does destroy all your fortifications. St wave 10 there’s TWO of them though at the same time. Unless you are a very specific build of classes you can’t stop them in time. It’s like Attack on Titan. The Matriarch is the armoured titan who smashed a hole through the wall and so the locust hybrid and sires can come straight in. Imagine fighting the sires and pipe swingers while dodging the big women who are trying to kill you. Also she can grab you and rip you apart even in the middle of your chainsaw execution! You be saying something she be like “wat chu doin likkle one” Then rip. We be like you can’t do that, it’s na execution. She be like “I make the rules”. So cheap indeed. We did beat them though. X35 Earthwalker being the universe ultimate strategist came up with a plan and it worked so well that we actually made it so easy. Inconceivable difficulty next. The Swarmak is the colossal titan and the matriarch is the armoured titan. Most teams can’t beat Escape from Kadar, even in advanced difficulty. It’s super tough unless you find that good formula.
Overall it’s clear that horde has some problems. Swarmak needs to be reprogrammed, Two matriarchs should be just one instead and less amount of enemies on later waves , guardians and sentinels need to be removed. AAn additional resource needs to be added for personal upgrades instead of the energy. This is us keeping it simple though. We aren’t going to go into every little detail. Horde needs to be improved. Maybe we will talk about the classes more next time. Now Gears 5 has horde problems but it’s problems are clearly seen by… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Thunderflash is a new action adventure arcade shooter game developed and published by ‘SEEP’. Thunderflash is said to be coming out the 26th of February 2021 on the Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, PS5 and PC. This game is coming with the old school style for sure. Ley’s take a look.
The story in Thunderflash is very simple. Here’s what it says, “The Kashmir is being occupied by a criminal organization known as Bloody Wolf, and your job is to make your country proud by taking them all down.” So you are dropped straight in the action with your gun. Firing at everything that moves. It doesn’t matter what it is. you see a squirrel… then shoot it. It shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Just one look at Thunderfash and you know it went for the old school 1980’s look. Pixels and everything.
There are two characters right now: Bad boy commandos Rock and Stan. That’s what they call them. You can either play Thunderflash solo or cop with a friend. Co-op makes a big difference for games. It’s a simple game. Just fight your way through numerous enemy soldiers, vehicles, explosions off course, drones and even bosses. Thunderflash does remind us of ‘Smash TV’ with the style and top down shooting but also reminds us of Contra due to the intensity of the combat. So if you did like either of those two games then there should be something for players here. Now off course an arcade shooter game needs lots of weapons or at least gun power ups. In Thunderflash you can get powerful weapons to use against the horde of enemies. There is also a boss rush too so when you beat the game you can face the bosses and show them who is boss (get it?).
We checked out some Thunderflash gameplay and it’s what we expected for sure. It’s top down, running around, shooting enemies coming at you in squads, power up, try to survive and take down the boss. Arcade style, lives remaining, pixel graphic style, scrolling screens and of course explosions. Thunderflash isn’t something big and new or anything special. Just something a number of players will enjoy, either for old time sake or because the style is their type.
Overall Thunderflash seems like. simple but alright game. You get what it says on the box. Just old school shooting action. You can’t get mad at it. We wish the game did look better graphically. We have not seen enough but we know what exactly it is. The developers ‘SEEP’ have done a alright job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to listen out what what gamers say about Thunderflash. Now Thunderflash may have old school action but that’s too old for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Base One is a new space station simulator game developed by ‘PixFroze’ and published by ‘Blowfish Studios‘. Base One is said to be coming out in the second quarter of 2021 on Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4 and PC. This is about to be a new type of survival. It’s cool to see a game like this. Let’s take a look.
Base One is not just a simulator game but it’s survival. It’s described as hardcore survival with RPG mechanics. So you know it’s not about to be simple. You are space explorers who want to expand and build new homes in space and far in space too. So players must build new space stations and do all kinds of management. You need to manage power, heating and off course oxygen. There’s a whole campaign as well with a story with “socio-political drama” involving special interests and the powerful. That’s not what interested us in Base One though.
You will need to make multiple stations and off course the more stations you have, the more responsibilities, management and… threats. That’s right, there are threats in Base One. Asteroids can come your way and collisions with them will cause serious damage. If you don’t repair and handle it then expect to lose lives and maybe the whole station. Not only is there asteroids but there’s also aliens. Aliens are here too and they come with their ships and start firing at your stations. You can build defences and things to fight back, destroy asteroids and keep people alive. Again these things cost resources. So watch out for those in Base One.
There’s even a very detailed mode in Base One where you can monitor and clearly see which part of the station is getting power, how much you have and what’s going on in just more details. This is pretty cool but for a game like this, that’s needed. We don’t know if there is indication when the aliens will attack or when they are on the way like a warning. Maybe there’s something you can build that monitors activities going on a distance from the stations. There’s a number of things that can be built so make sure to check your… menu.
We checked out some Base One gameplay and it looks very good. We like the frame rates, we like the visuals of the space, we like the designs of the station parts and the details on them. We think the aliens need to be better though. So far the game does look easy but we need more information concerning certain factors like the attacks, asteroids, types of aliens etc. A true difficult survival game was Metal Gears Survive. So if Base One wants to call itself a “hardcore survival” game then it’s entering a different genre all together. It better be difficult. We know that you have to save your home planet from a serious danger.
Overall Base One looks like a very good game. We don’t have as much details as we wished but based on current information it’s a very good game. Plan scientific research, handle resource extraction and what you make. Just don’t forget to handle your crew. The developers ‘PixFroze’ have done a very good job with this game so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to listen out for anything more concerning Base One. Now Base One may have resources and serious survival but that’s not even a challenge for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Chivalry 2 is a new multiplayer first person slasher game developed by ‘Torn Banner Studios‘ and published by ‘Tripwire‘. Chivalry 2 is said to be coming out June 8 2021 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS4, PS5 and PC. Chivalry 2 has got some big battles and it eventually got our attention. Let’s take a look.
Chivalry 2 doesn’t have a story really. It’s basically that you, the player, are a knight and you are thrust into battles and wars. It’s just sword shining, spear throwing action. The game just gets straight to the point here. So there’s no story from what we have seen. Like a battle royale you just jump straight into the action and battle it out.
The concept of Chivalry 2 is simple. Just get in there. Chivalry 2 is a multiplayer game with up to 64 players. There are what’s described as ‘massive maps’. There’s castle sieges and even rain of flaming arrows coming down on you. Expect large groups of armour clad enemies coming straight for you. Since it’s multiplayer, know that enemy players are coming for your head. This is where things get really interesting.
The combat isn’t just simply slash and swing your sword around like an idiot. You have to time your swings because enemies can block your strikes leaving you wide open for a counter strike. There are thrusts and swings and off course other weapons like spears and axes. This means match ups is important so there is some strategy to this game… hopefully. We hope the developers took that route. What we do see and like is that limbs can be cut off. You can make your enemies useless in battle and do clean executions.
We checked out some Chivalry 2 gameplay and it’s what we expected. We do expect more though. Chivalry 2 reminds us in some ways of ‘For Honour’. Interestingly, For honour seems to have the better combat mechanics so Chivalry 2 needs to step it up. There’s potential here. They have done good stuff like cutting the arm of an enemy which is holding the weapon is a good start but there’s more that can be done. Do your best developers.
Overall Chivalry 2 seems like another multiplayer game that’s designed to provide simple fun and jump straight in action. Visually it looks good. We do like some of the environments we have seen. We need to see more and possibly an expansion on combat styles. The developers ‘Torn Banner Studios’ have done an alright job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker need to see more if this isn’t going to be a simple game. Now Chivalry 2 may have big medieval battles but those are all wimpy compared to… the ‘Earth Walk!’
X35 Earthwalker the one true Earthwalker, the legendary and eternal soldier himself is here with another special G-blog post. This time it’s about great games. Some are even fantastic games. Sadly these games have been damaged by the terrible reviews of critics or bad judgements from fans. Criticism is good but when it’s straight up false or misunderstanding then that’s a problem. Only intelligent people like X35 Earthwalker have reviews you can call accurate and authoritative. Let’s take a look.
For the record we are going to go over these quite quick. So don’t expect full blown details here but we will tackle the main stuff. We have done big full blog posts either about these games or we talk about these games for a bit in those posts. So you can always find more information on our website.
The first great game we will talk about is Gears of War: Judgement. This game is considered the worst of all the gears of War main games by a big number of fans. We can confirm those fans are all wrong. Gears of War: Judgement is a greta game. Not fantastic though. The biggest issue some specific fans had with the game was that the gnasher shotgun wasn’t the hands down dominate gun in the multiplayer. Some weren’t a fan of the story either. No good reason actually comes to mind but it’s what we heard. There is rightful criticism though like no locust in multiplayer, smaller pool of characters and no DBNO (down but not out). Concerning the first two we mentioned. gnasher shotgun being the strongest gun is one of the things we believe damage Gears of War multiplayer. Gears of War: Judgement actually has the best weapons balance of all the Gears of War games. All weapons are viable and gets the job done unlike Gears 5. Concerning there story we really like it as it goes back to the death, darkness and fear that was in Gears of War 1. There’s dead bodies everywhere and destroyed cities. The boss was an actual big bad monster that you had to wait for and then meet in an epic battle. Gears of War: Judgement is just another great game that had a major weakness that people used as a excuse to attack the whole game.
The next game is Metal Gear Survive. This game was mostly hated for not playing and being like the main Metal Gear games. Huge hate came because of angry joe’s review too. For what Metal Gears Survive is, it’s a great game. It’s the most survival heavy game we know. Your character gets hungry, thirsty, tired and even a whole range of sicknesses, conditions or injuries which all effects how your character acts and performs. You have limited time in the fog and you need to scavenge like crazy to get materials which you need to craft even the most basic stuff. Your weapons get damaged and worn down as you use them. You have to maintain your weapons and provide the ammo. The ammo like arrows and bullets must be crafted and you have to use them wisely. You can get an infection from drinking dirty water. It’s very realistic and done very well. You literally start with nothing and then build up to have good weapons, base and even good food and clean water. We do wish the other enemy types showed up earlier. Having other big tough enemies that are about in the dust would have been awesome. The game has it’s problems and areas to improve but overall Metal Gears Survive is a great game and we had lots of fun.
Halo 5 Guardians is another great game or should we we say excellent game. Now the only complaint we hear is the campaign… that’s it. That’s how bad the Halo fans have gotten. One aspect of the game wasn’t great but the whole game must be condemned because of that. Terrible logic. Let’s be logical here. Halo 5 Guardians has the best graphics, best animations, best cutscenes, best multiplayer, most armour customisation, most assassinations, most vehicles and weapons, the best multiplayer game mode (warzone) and the best, deepest forge mode. Halo 5 has the most advantages over the other Halo games but according to some it’s the worst because the campaign wasn’t great. While we agree that the campaign didn’t live up to our expectations we still thought it was good… not great though. There was missed opportunities for sure and they didn’t follow through with the theme of intense hunting concerning Master Chief vs Lock. There’s other issues but the campaign by itself is still good. It’s a bridge episode, not an explosion one. If you followed X35 Earthwalker then you would understand what that means. Simply put, Halo 5 Guardians is an excellent game and we say it’s the best Halo game so far. Really excited for Halo Infinite by the way. We have had a number of unpopular stances and opinions but we have always stated strong and proved our case against others.
Overall this happens more times than we know. Great games but wrongly reviewed. We will only do these three for now. We are sure you know of other examples too. Our advice is that instead of following the crowd, check out the games for yourself and think about it. We saw that a number of people who actually decided to play Metal Gears Survive with a clear head admitted that they actually enjoyed the game. So Gears of War: Judgement, Metal Gears Survive and Halo 5 Guardians are great games but they clearly aren’t as good as… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Ghostwire: Tokyo is a new first person shooter action horror game developed by ‘Tango Gameworks‘ and published by ‘Bethesda‘. Ghostwire: Tokyo is said to be coming out in October 2021 on the PS5 and PC. Said to be coming out on Xbox Series X a bit later but that might change especially with the whole Bethesda being under Xbox now. Ghostwire: Tokyo definitely got our attention only recently. Let’s take a look.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is off course set in Tokyo (you dummy). You control a character who decides to remain behind in the city. What’s wrong with the city? Some mysterious major league disaster happened which resulted in 99% of the population to disappear without any heads up or explanation. There are clothes left behind though which prompts some theories but nothing concrete. You are here because a supernatural force, clearly evil shows up in the city. This could be responsible for what happened to the city. It’s the only lead you have. You aren’t here to talk though.
You are here to FIGHT! Remember? This force is evil. In Ghostwire: Tokyo you will be fighting numerous spirits, some are powerful but they al have their own supernatural powers. You must combat them with your own supernatural abilities or should we say “spectral” abilities. Also figure out what happened here concerning the disaster. Some Ghostwire: Tokyo mystery right here. Maybe this can be reversed? Strangely the evil spirits aren’t the only things here in the city. The ‘Visitors’ are here. A group, of what looks like losers to us, who wears Hannya masks. Another mysterious masked group huh.
In Ghostwire: Tokyo they aren’t just simple dumb mindless spirits though. They have variety and shouldn’t be taken as a joke (unless you are us… which you aren’t). We have three names so far: shiromuku, amewarashi and kuchisake. We’ve seen spirits that are humanoid and attack from the ground. Some fast and leap while other slowish like a zombie. Another looked like a flying pumpkin sack head which launched projectiles. We hope there is a bit more variety though for this type of action game. Ghostwire: Tokyo can easily benefit from having a big range of enemies to allow for a more strategic approach concerning their weaknesses and making more abilities more useful or even add more abilities.
We checked out some Ghostwire: Tokyo gameplay and it’s not exactly what we thought it was but it’s awesome. The graphics are excellent. Like go look up footage of the food in this game. Very detailed. The city looks very cool and dark. The effects and supernatural visual stuff happening is excellent and we like the smoothest of the combat and the creativity in the powers from fire blasts, to melt based attacks and the mobility. Ghostwire: Tokyo is looking quite special right now. It’s dark and horror but you get to fight back for real and that’s good.
Overall Ghostwire: Tokyo looks fantastic. We truly hope they expand and capitalise on the world they have here to bring out a bunch of new stuff that keeps things new, exciting and fresh. The developers ‘Tango Gameworks’ have done a fantastic job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker are looking forward to this game and will keep our eyes out for sure. Now Ghostwire: Tokyo may have the supernatural going on but it’s supernatural is only child’s play compared to the supernatural of… the ‘Earth Walk!’
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is a new Tactical role playing game developed and published by ‘NeocoreGames‘. King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is said to be coming out on the Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC. Concerning release date, there has been no information given. This game its looking cool though. So we decided to check it out. Let’s take a look.
The world of King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is set in what’s called arthurian mythology. So expect stuff surrounding the legends of King Arthur. Except there’s a dark fantasy twist to it (thank goodness for that). The story though is quite simple but cool. You are sir Mordred who is an enemy of King Arthur. You killed him in combat but he in his last moment landed a killing blow on you too. You both died. Yet, someone called the ‘The lady of the lake’ who is the ruler of the mystical island of avalon brings you back… somehow. Guess what? Arthur is back too… somehow. You have to defeat Arthur again but he’s demonic or corrupted or something. Expect darkness.
Now remember that King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is tactical. It’s been described as a hybrid of turn based tactical game and rpg. So have your team vs an enemy team facing off against each other. We at X35 Earthwalker enjoy tactical turn based games as there is so much to take into account, requires lots of thinking and being strategic with each move. Each position matters, where you move matters, what unit classes you have on your team matters, what abilities you have available matters. Pretty much everything matters in a good tactical turn based. This game got a ton of support ops kick starter too so there’s high hopes for this game and expectations.
This isn’t just a straight up turn based like XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. You will have to take in your environments, move around and even scout ahead to see where your enemies are. They could be hidden or hiding waiting for an ambush. There are mechanics to help with this. There are lures to lead enemies away and even traps you can set up to get that advantage. There’s also a variety of enemies and mythological creatures that will come against you, so make sure to learn about them, gain experience and be better prepared for the next time. Planning is key in this game.
There are more than 30 different heroes. There are also 5 different classes too. The heroes are the game changers. The different knights aren’t just mindless strong units they actually have their own personalities. Some of your knights will even clash with each other. The knights will pay attention to what you do. So it’s not just their strengths and abilities but if they are with you and your goals. You have to pay attention to their loyalty as it’s possible for them to turn against you. Settle their disputes and don’t anymore enemies than you already have. The heroes also have skill trees so character development is here but we hope there is clear variety, clear strengths and a clear reason as to why to use this hero over another. It’s a role playing game after all.
We have checked out some King Arthur: Knight’s Tale gameplay and it’s what we expected. There is choice dialogue when speaking with certain characters in the story so we get choice, again not sure how important it really is. Your heroes can die and get serious injuries that if not handled right, will die from them, losing big firepower. The game ma for selecting, viewing missions etc looks very nice and we like how the sea looks. The spaces and movement in combat is clearly highlighted and shown to help prevent mistakes. The mini map looks very good and clearly shows useful information. From what we can see so far, King Arthur: Knight’s Tale. One big concern is that we hope they present Christianity correctly. Out of respect to the Christians make sure you present Christianity correctly.
Overall King Arthur: Knight’s Tale seems like a really cool game. We like new or creative creatures and monsters. We want to see the developers take full advantage and go creative with the mythology. We hope to see more moves and abilities be available for the unites and heroes. We still need to see more but this game has our attention… for now. The developers ‘Neocoregames’ have done a great job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will keep an eye open for King Arthur: Knight’s Tale. Now King Arthur: Knight’s Tale may have knights but those knights will lose their life if they face… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Gears 5 is a very popular third person shooter game developed by ‘The Coalition‘ and published by ‘Xbox Game Studios‘. Gears 5 is off course an Xbox exclusive that’s also on PC. So Xbox Series X and Xbox One. Right of the bat this game is overall very good but not excellent and we will be discussing the reasons why and what needs to change. The developers aren’t very good at listening. When they do listen it’s listening to the wrong people. Let’s take a look.
Let’s jump straight into the biggest problem that Gears 5 has. It has lost lots of players. So much that it’s a fraction of what it use to be. It’s improved a bit in recent times but still embarrassing compared to what they use to have. It was so bad that there were videos being made about Gears 5 dying and why it’s dying. So that’s clear proof of a problem right there. The biggest reason the player base has shrunk is because the game is a narrow corridor. There’s only one real way to play. Gnasher shotguns only + wall bounce like a maniac. If you can’t wall bounce really good and use the Gnasher shotgun then you are going to die, again and again. New players can’t do this, they just want to play the game but get abused and end up with final scores of 4 kills and 19 deaths. Gears 5 is suppose to be a third person shooter, not a beat em up game. That’s how close range this game is and has become. You even have youtubers like Landan2006 and others who even mock anyone using lancers and keeping back like they aren’t suppose to do that. Man, Landan and those youtubers use to cry about the retro lancer through the whole video. The remaining body of players are like Landan in this sense (we know from first hand experience and hate mail).
Let’s explain some more. New players join a match maybe taking what they learnt from the campaign. They see enemies, take cover and fire with their lancer. Since the enemies are wall bouncing like crazy most bullets miss them, even when out in the open with certain tricky movements. They close the gap. The new players tries to get their shotgun out but are dead before they can get a shot off or danced around. That’s their experience for the whole match. Gears 5 isn’t new player friendly. Those players are just there to serve as fodder for others montage highlight videos for youtube. That’s not fun. Those players don’t return. Developers need to do something and fast. Yes, practicing is important but Gears 5 doesn’t offer much room for that. You just get bodied (killed) again and again. Other games have done a much better job. For example Star Wars battlefront 2. X35 literally did a livestream on that game yesterday. It was his first time EVER playing the game. No warm up matches or anything but in his first matches he got eliminations, double kills, did the objective and won his first match against players who have been around for a good while. Sure X35 Earthwalker has natural skill and is the greatest and smartest gamer of all time but he has never played a Star Wars game before. Freshly downloaded and jumped straight into multiplayer. You can watch the livestream here. We will turn those matches into a video and later edit them into this post. Star Wars is new player friendly and gamers of different skill can make a difference and even fight back against seasoned players. In Gears 5… new players will literally be everyone’s whore… and being a whore isn’t good.
Now new players also struggle because there isn’t any help for them. The Lancer got nerfed to the point where it is useless in many cases. Gnasher users can just ignore it a lot of the time if it’s just one person lancering. This nerf decision game from dumb developers who listened to Gnasher shotgun only users… only. So they did their terrible decisions from Gears of War 4. Back then they nerfed the lancer, removed the retro lancer, removed the hammerburst and made it into a power weapon, limited to some maps. Basically every option players has that can counter a Gnasher shotgun has been removed or limited. The Lancer in Gears 5 is garbage. There’s actually nothing you can do against those gnasher players who spend all day on Gears 5 with their wall bouncing trying so hard to be like those pro players like explosive, franchise and toy soldier or like those youtubers like Dan the man (the best) or zeus the moose. Causal or newer players don’t stand a chance. Who wants to keep playing a game where they die all the time, stand no chance and have no fun? So the players leave and go to Fortnite, Star Wars, or call of duty. We saw two players (one was the guest of another) and they got destroyed. Their scores at the end of the match were like 2 kills, 20 deaths and 3 kills, 19 deaths. We never saw their names again. Gnasher shotgun users don’t care and glad the rifles get nerfed because it’s in their interest ALONE, not the game or communities interest. Well keep listening to them The Coalition (the developers), your player base is getting smaller. Congratulations. Make your game new player friendly and give options for newer and casual players. No casual or new player is going to look up and watch those videos online of what settings to have for your controller, sensitivity and how to hold your controller in a reverse claw grip stupid motion. No. We just want to play the game and have fun.
This leads to the next problem. There’s more to say about the last one but we have to move on (got things to do). There’s no options in Gears 5. Your options for starting load out in social matches is: Lancer, Gnasher, smoke grenade… that’s it. You select your lancer it only gives you the option to change skins. Gears of War 3 was so much better. You can pick between Lancer, Hammerburst, Retro Lancer, gnasher, sawed off. Gears of War Judgement was the best at this. There options was Lancer, hammerburst, retro lancer, Gnasher, markza, classic hammerburst, sawed off. For grenades it’s: frag, ink, stim, smoke and spot. Compare Gears of War: Judgment and even Gears of War 3 to Gears 5. There’s no options. Like we said before, Gears 5 is a narrow corridor, linear and boring. Lancer and gnasher only. Don’t you just love a restaurant that has a big fancy menu but when you open it, the only thing there is rice and chicken. That’s it. No lamb, pork, beef or duck. The rice is just white rice, no basmati, no brown and no jellof rice. Just white rice and chicken (no seasoning). That’s Gears 5. Gears of War 3 has the best multiplayer of all Gears of war games. Gears of War: Judgement is second. People still play Gears of War 3 now and at times it’s faster to find a match on 3 than 5 at specific times. Gears of War 3 is casual friendly but skill gap is very clear so the best players still come out on top but causal and newer players can fight back and get kills still. The retro Lancer countered the gnasher. The hammerburst countered retro lancer. Certan tactics with the sawed off countered hammerburst. The options allowed for different strategies, different tactics, different styles and different matches. Wake up developers… people like options.
The next problem is that Gears 5 is lacking very popular and good game modes from previous Gears of War games. Many people liked Beast mode from Gears of War 3. Many liked Overrun from Gears of War: Judgement. Where are those two modes now? Beast Mode was good fun and allowed for serious destruction as the powerful locust horde. Overrun is basically beast mode and horde merged together but not perfectly. Players still come back to Judgement for the Overrun mode. X35 Earthwalker did a recent livestream on Gears of War: Judgement, playing Overrun and some players joined eventually. Gears 5 is missing out on those big modes. Why can’t they create their own perfect horde + beast mode. Human players fight to gain points and build fortifications while the locust horde players tries to tear it all down. Missed opportunities here developers. What’s also a bad move is that they changed king of the hill. It use to be three rounds in Gears of War 3 (first to win 2 though) but now in Gears 5 we only have one round. That’s a problem because now you get less time to fight with your opponents, less time to learn about them concerning how they fight and how to adjust, less time to get revenge on the player that killed you and also less killing time and action. In Gears of War 3 X35 had two matches that lasted a long time and he got over 121 kills in one and 105 in the other roundabout. You can’t get kills like that anymore. Don’t mess with the things that players loved.
Another poor decision that The Coalition has made is making characters and skins mainly purchasable instead of earning them like in Gears of War 3. In Gears of War 3 you had to do stuff like get 2000 kills with the Lancer to unlock this skin and medal. Play 100 matches of horde to unlock this character or by levelling up. Get 1000 kills with each weapon to unlock chairman prescott. It was always play a certain amount of this, or get this medal or get this many kills or revive this many people etc. In Gears 5 it’s buy these coins with your money so you can buy this character. We at X35 Earthwalker have nothing against microtransactions. You can’t buy items that put an advantage over other players in Gears 5 which is good but when you had a certain character in Gears of War 3 it was also a statement to show you earned that character through that means. Like not everyone had Aaron Griffin. You had to play lots of horde to get him. So when people saw you had him, it was cool.
Gears 5 doesn’t even have the medals that appear next to your name. X35 Earthwalker completed the Gears of War 3 and Judgement campaign in the hardest difficulty and earned awesome rare medals as proof. They were displayed next to his name and hardly anyone had that medal. You felt special and elite. Gears 5 hasn’t got that. Bring it back The Coalition. Stop taking out good stuff! The medals also had certain titles and names that comes with them like ‘brutal Legend’ for the highest level of the MVP medal. There’s ‘god complex’ for the highest rank of revives. They appeared next to your name like ‘Gear deity’. You’d see some cool names and stuff you maybe haven’t got and would like. X35 Earthwalker had the ‘King of Cog’ title in Gears of War 3 which was fitting as he use to rule Gears of War 3. He was king. In Gears of War: Judgement his title was ‘Seriously judgemental’. Those were cool things. Nothing in Gears 5. Can’t even be done. Sad.
Gears of War: Judgement had many good things in it and one of those things that Gears 5 doesn’t have is character skins. In Gears of War: Judgement you could have a flaming skin, neon glowing skin. digital data effect skin and a whole lot more. In Gears 5 it’s just the character and that’s it. Gears 5 has weapon skins but not character skins which were cool and made you stand out. Imagine your Old man Marcus character but has a desert camouflage skin or golden marcus, or flaming marcus, even silly funny things like bunny suit Marcus or clown suit Marcus and he will have lines like “Hey stop clowning around” or when he gets shot but in the bunny suit says “that’s not very bunny… I mean funny, oh shut up!” That would be hilarious. You might say that doesn’t belong in gears of War but only the campaign needs to be all serious. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun in the multiplayer.
Since we are talking about Gears of War: Judgement, another thing that Gears 5 didn’t add that Judgment has is rewarding players for playing the campaign and other modes besides online multiplayer. Gears of War: Judgement had prize boxes that you aren’t for killing enemies, earning ribbons and levelling up. This applied to campaign as well. People who played the campaign weren’t wasting their time. In Gears 5 you get nothing for playing the campaign. The only way to get cards for your horde and escape character classes, or experience points to level up is to do multiplayer. Sort of recently The Coalition brought out a dlc that’s about the hive buster characters Mac, lahni and keegan. Only two days ago have we heard of just two people who started playing it. There’s no talk about the dlc at all. Everything is either multiplayer matches, horde or escape. Why? There’s no real reason to play it. You don’t get anything awesome, level up or anything. Hey developers! How about you reward players for playing the campaigns. Simple thing but yet they won’t do it.
Another problem is weapon balancing. We mention that the Lancer has been nerfed in Gears 5 and even worse they removed the increased damage buff you get from a perfect active reload. Anything that threatens the gnasher is nerfed or removed. The strongest weapon, most dominate weapon, most used weapon and what appears in the most montage videos is the gnasher shotgun. Always has been and looks like it always will. This is the problem. Imagine a shooting game where one gun is the dominant clear best gun and everyone uses that gun and only that gun. Image a call of duty match where everyone uses one gun only. Not fun or creative and it’s the same boring thing every time. Gears of War: judgement had the best weapon balancing of all the Gears of Wars. Gears 5 has terrible weapon balancing. They need to learn from previous games that have better multiplayer. In Gears of War: judgement almost all the starting load out weapons were strong and viable except the sawed off which was terrible. X35 Earthwalker got kill streaks and did serious damage with ALL the guns (except the sawed off). Lancer, retro lancer, hammerburst, classic hammerburst, markza and gnasher. The gnasher shotgun didn’t dominate anything except for code range co meat (as a shotgun should). Gears 5 it’s the gnasher all day every day.
Lastly the gnasher shotgun has certain, let’s call them trick shots, which shouldn’t be in the game. You have what’s referred to as a ‘back A’ and ‘forward A’. If someone comes in within range while you’re in cover you can do either one of those and consistently get one shot kills even though the shotgun isn’t facing the enemy! Last time we checked, bullets come out from the barrel of the gun, not the direction the camera is facing. I have seen pro players and try hards slide towards a cover, hit the cover then almost instantly pull back and fire at someone on the other side of the cover and instantly kill the person while their gun is facing 90 degrees in a different direction. That’s stupid. Sometimes it looks like their shot curves around a corner to fully one shot down you. Why is the gnasher shotgun capable of that dumb stuff?! Go online and see for yourself. It’s weird to describe but simply put, the gnasher shotgun is capable of trick shots where the bullets come out, from what looks like the camera, instead of the barrel of the gun. As if the gnasher needs anymore help. That’s almost like saying, Superman can move planets, destroy planets, hold a black hole, move in negative seconds, survive supernovas but that’s not enough… let’s give him more powers. How about as Superman breathes, his strength increases. You wonder why the player base has shrunk immensely and hardly anyone is talking about Gears 5 in a positive light. You wonder why Gears of War in it’s current state can’t compete with Call of Duty, Definitely not Halo (the best) and not even star wars battlefront 2 which we are currently having more fun with right now. Gears of War 3 had some of the most fun matches we have had in gaming EVER. Gears 5 can’t do that bro.
To summarise. There’s a lot of things that the developers, The Coalition, need to improve on and fix. There’s stuff from previous games that wasn’t put in Gears 5 which was a bad job. This isn’t us being mean and making fun of them. We are harsh because we truly care about this game. We can’t help it that we are better developers than all these current day game developers and if they had our input and leadership all these games would be better. That’s just facts. We have played Gears of war since Gears of War 1 and completed the campaigns in the hardest difficulties and played each multiplayer. We have done many game reviews and have shown to know what we are talking about. Check this out. We have asked many Gears of war players and most agree that Gears of War 3 had the best multiplayer. X35 Earthwalker’s mother plays video games and one of the games she plays is Gears of War. She loved and was serious about Gears of War 3. She wasn’t a big fan of Gears of War 4. Gave Gears 5 a try and soon went back to Gears of War 3. When most of the players, even a gaming mother and off course the greatest and smartest video gamer of all time (X35 Earthwalker) agrees that Gears of War 3 is better, then that clearly means Gears of war 3 is better! This means The Coalition is doing a worse job than what they did in Gears of War 4 and currently not as good as Epic Games with their Gears of War 3. It’s not hard. Take note of what was good and bring that into your game and if possible make it better. Add… not subtract. You’ve lost many players. Chased away new players and making some of the current players bored or annoyed. Fix this! Stoo making dumb decisions like making hammerburst a power weapon. Forum pages were full of players hating that decision with a few gnasher only users happy about it. Stop pleasing the few and sacrificing the many.
Overall Gears 5 is still a very good game and well made but clearly there are some areas that need improvement and some things that need to change and others that need to be added in. We lobe Gears of War. Our favourite multiplayer is Gears of War 3. It was the best. We had many great matches and we want more of that. Hopefully developers like The Coalition will learn from this and reach out to us. We can test games for you and look at your ideas. We want to help. Now we could say more but typing takes a lot of time. Now Gears 5 needs to change and Gears of War 6 must not make these mistakes but what doesn’t make mistakes is… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Dustborn is a new action adventure game developed by ‘Red Thread Games‘ and published by ‘Quantic Dream‘. Dustborn is said to be coming out 2021 on the Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC. This game has a very cool concept in it but even so, it has to prove itself to us as we are getting a certain image from this game. Let’s take a look.
Dustborn is set in the year 2030. You are in the United States of America but you can’t call it united anymore. Things are very different. There was a specific and big broadcast that took place 30 years ago (so 2000) that changed everything but the sounds of it. You controlPax. She’s an outcast, a con artist and ex convict. So basically a very nice girl who you bring to meet your parents. She’s got a mission, to bring a certain package across America to Nova Scotia. She’s on a journey. A road trip you can call it. She can’t do this alone, especially being four months pregnant. Is there anything NOT going on in her life?! She will meet others who will join her on this journey.
Dustborn has been described as “third-person, single-player, story-driven, road-tripping action-adventure about hope, love, friendship, robots — and the power of words.” Dustborn is already making us quite concerned. From the description of the game to the design of the characters. It’s giving us that new marvel comics horrible forced agenda character designed feel. Now Dustborn isn’t in that league at all but it’s the feeling we are getting. Instead of writing this game off, we decided to look in and see what’s going on and the main things that made our ears open is their concept concerning words. The power of words. So don’t just write this game off. Just check it out first. It’s doing it’s own thing.
Now the power of words. They say that words have power… actual power. You can use your words to attack enemies, manipulate characters and change things. Another thing inspired by the Bible, as it teaches about he real power of words and it’s impact on people and the world but off course no one is giving credit to the Bible. In Dustborn you can use words to literally attack enemies and literally manipulate peoples thinking and ideas. We saw pax, with the large word “Move” forcefully shove a group of soldiers away, knocking them all down. There are NPCs in the Dustborn world that you can talk to but by using your words, you can completely change things. If it’s not clear, Pax has powers but they are fuelled by ‘disinformation’. Interesting.
Your crew is the interesting thing. Like just look at them. It took us just one look to understand what’s going on. There’s a robot for crying out loud and a very large woman with the typical nose ring. She’s bigger than everyone in the crew. Then you got Johnny slick hair with a mechanical hand. Looks like he ran away from a wealthy home or was part of a criminal group. The designs are saying something. Yes that’s right. Robots are moving about, talking and doing their thing. Even the robot has a story. Each character has their own story and what they are running away from. So make sure to listen to them, learn and keep the information in the files within your head. You must manage your crew too so what you say to them and how they interact each other does matter. Do your job as a leader.
This road trip is not a normal one in case you couldn’t tell. You will reach and explore a whole number of places. There’s a decommissioned school in Nevada for gifted children. There’s a former government re-education camp in Oregon. A weird great plains exclusion Zone and even robot factories in Detroit. There’s a whole lot of “pit-stops across America”. Exploration is important, especially to understand the history of America in Dustborn. The civil war that took place. The different factions and ideologies that are going on. Information maybe of the army that’s chasing you guys. Just remember, you are posing as a rock band.
We checked out some Dustborn gameplay and it’s mostly what we thought it would be. At first we thought their wouldn’t be any real combat but there is actual engagements with the enemy. The game is described as if you will have options when it comes to your crew and recruitment but there really isn’t any. It’s the set people. We like that this is quite the adventure. We like that the world is quite active but our favourite is the concept surrounding words and their effects. Hopefully gamers playing this will rethink their view on words and their impact on things and people.
Overall Dustborn looks like a good game. It’s big and clearly doing it’s own thing with different approaches, from the cast of characters to the unique concept concerning words. We’ve seen this graphic style before and it normally works just fine, like here. We do like the environments too. It’s sort of comical in a way too. This game looks like it has a big story to tell with twists, especially with Pax, the main character. The developers ‘Red Thread games’ have done a good so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what happens with Dustborn. Now Dustborn may have a road trip across America but that’s truly a small journey compared to… the ‘Earth walk!’
Among Us is that online multiplayer deception lying game developed and published by ‘Innersloth‘. Among Us is said to be coming out on the Xbox Series X and Xbox One in 2021. It’s off course already out on Nintendo Switch and PC. This game was incredibly popular and left many people salty, even angry and betrayed. Let’s take a look.
Now how do we feel about Among Us? We feel it’s fun to watch at times with specific people only and less fun to play. We aren’t fans to play it as it’s all about encouraging lying and deception which are both wrong but as a game it’s made very well. We like that it is simple on the surface but can get much deeper. Pretty much anyone can jump straight into this game regardless of skill or intelligence. You get the hang of things real quick and the more technical stuff are simple to learn.
Let’s quickly go over this. When you are the imposter you want to kill as fast as possible because if the crew mates finish all their tasks, they win, which is only a matter of time. You don’t want to get caught killing someone as you will get caught in a 50/50 situation and get voted out. So kill quick, kill with stealth and generally make others look suspicious. We have seen all the tactics and they aren’t secret. Our strategy is actually something we haven’t seen anyone try yet and that again makes sense as X35 Earthwalker is the universes ultimate strategist. He’s smarter and wiser than the others.
Being on the Xbox just means that more people will be able to play. So expect Xbox minds to join the game as there are some people who wanted to join but not a lot but who knows, Among Us may surprise us. Now there will be updates and quite big ones. For example, players will be operating on the airship from Henry Stickman. That place had many functions, very large and a cool location and change of scenery. Plus it’s super high in the sky, so getting ejected leads to certain death. There’s a number of things the developers can get creative with on the ship from the items and rooms shown in the Henry Stickman episode.
We have checked out some Among Us gameplay and it’s what we expected. It definitely has been hyped up more than it deserves but it’s still a fun game. The best parts is clearly the death animations. The multiple stabs in the back and the crawl away but get shot one are the best and funniest. You will have loads of fun with this game but it’s only for mature people though as Among Us can ruin friendships and relationships since you need to call people liars, blame others and be a scum bag. The worst feeling is be telling the truth and know you are telling the truth but someone is lying on you and everyone believes the liar instead of you then get voted out. You start to see your wife, best friend or relatives differently. Then you aren’t talking anymore. Only the mature who knows it’s just a game and keep it as a game should play. Big cry babies like the twitch streamers shouldn’t play this.
Overall there isn’t anything new to say about this game. Sure there’s going to be some quite big updates but it’s Among Us. Prepare to be lied too, followed and stabbed in the back LITERALLY. Just please remember it’s just a game goes. Off course X35 Earthwalker is far above these little childish things but you aren’t him, so be you instead. Now Among Us may have been very popular but it’s popularity is nothing compared to… the ‘Earth Walk!’
