Evergate is a puzzle platformer game developed by ‘Stone latern Games‘ and published by ‘PQube‘. Evergate has already came out on Nintendo Switch and PC (2020) but will be coming out on the Xbox One and Xbox series X but NOT on the PS5. This has become a serious pattern lately. Developers going with the Xbox Series X and not the PS5. Let’s take a look.
The story in the world of Evergate is easy to understand. Basically you wake up in the afterlife and you are this small soul called ‘Ki’. You must use the power of your soulflame to navigate and get through the afterlife in order to reincarnate on earth. The description states that two spirits are involved. So simply put, you are dead, entered the afterlife and got to make your way through it to get back to earth.
Evergate is another puzzle platformer game so you know what to expect. So there’s isn’t too much to go over. It’s also 2D so this means players need to pay attention to the whole screen. The main stand out point here for Everegate is the soulflame. You can use your powers to activate and unleash the power of crystals you find in the afterlife. Crystals can also combine so if there’s multiple activate them all and see what happens. You can even slow down time with the power of your soulflame. Slow down time enough for you to take your ‘time’ and aim (see what we did there?).
By the way, the name of the game Evergate comes from an actual obstacle in the game. Ki can’t get back to earth because an Evergate is blocking her way. Ki must “decipher her mysterious connection to kindred spirit as she navigates through memories of a time once past.” We know that the players will get to travel across space and time to go through Ki’s memories which grants the opportunity to learn and understand Ki’s connection to “another soul”. So there is some mystery going on around here in Evergate.
It’s not just platforms you got to look out for but artifacts and collectibles too. These artifacts are going to make things easier for you by boosting your abilities, adding new abilities or whatever to make your life or lack thereof, easier (get it?). For example as shown above the ‘Forgotten memory’ artifact will allow all crystals to be used two times. Another example is the ‘glowpetal hook’ which makes collectible essence petals magnetise when nearby. So it’s stuff like that. These artifacts does remind us of Ori and the Will the Wisps with ‘spirit shards’.
We checked out some Evergate gameplay and it’s slightly different from what we thought it would be. It definitely looks good. We wished it zoomed in more though as we to see Ki better. There’s lots going on in the levels and very active. We like the effects on the items, the dust, the lights and offf course the background and environments. This game isn’t as dark and haunting as they describe it to be. That’s disappointing. We expected more from the afterlife. Evergate looks very good and clearly loads of work went into it.
Overall Evergate is a good game. The graphics are very good. The sounds are good. The environments are very good. We like what we see. The story concept doesn’t make much sense but it’s a fictional game so anything can happen really. We can’t say much concerning the pace though. The developers ‘Stone Latern Games’ have done a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what’s happening with Evergate when it comes to the next gen console Xbox Series X. Now Evergate may have a whole journey in a afterlife but that journey is small and pointless compared to… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Black Desert is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Pearl Abyss. Black Desert came out on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. This is just a first impression G-blog post. We saw this game time ago but didn’t really feel like it. We decided to try this game for the first time and so here’s a quick view on some stuff. Let’s take a look.
So Black Desert didn’t get off to a good start. Choosing our name was a task in of itself. It gives us set of rules concerning our names. Examples would be 3-15 characters, A-Z, 0-9. They mentioned how to use underscores etc. We tried to do ‘X35 Earthwalker’ at first but off course that has a space. So fine. We added an underscore but it still wouldn’t allow it. We sat there and tried to get the name to work from capital letter to common letter. We had to change the name to ‘X35’ only. At one point we didn’t know why we couldn’t use our name. We were ready to uninstall the game right there. The game’s mantra or slogan or whatever is “Be your true self”. Yet we can’t have the exact name we want. Our name isn’t a swear word, curse or racial slur. Very lame.
Now character creation is very loaded and we would say the most detailed character customisation of any game. You can literally adjust (slight) both butt cheeks, individually. Not joking. Most games especially if you have a female character forces you to have a pancake flat butt when in real life that’s mostly not the case. Body parts are split into smaller sections which you can just individually to be more precise. They need an undo option for each action you take though as if you restore to default it resets everything in that category. Now why are we a female? The game forced us! Let us explain. We wanted the Dark Knight class. It’s only available for female characters. This is the same stupid thing that Tera did concerning the Gunner class. Only women can be Gunners even though the gun itself is BIGGER than the woman herself. BFG 9000 from DOOM is nothing compared to the gun in Tera. Now we know it’s a fantasy game where anything can happen, logical or not but the dark knight is literally all about wielding a big tall two handed blade. It would be heavy. It’s naturally a style more fit for men. Don’t give us that sexist feminist nonsense. It’s a fact that some combat styles are more suited men or women. We can say from experience as X35 Earthwalker has many years of martial arts training and worked with weapons. Can you imagine a regular lady outside a supermarket swinging the blade of Siegfreid from soul calibur? Exactly. It’s north same size but you get what we mean. Even so we couldn’t have a male character as the Dark Knight class which was stupid design and Black Desert’s one huge flaw in character customisation. Again the slogan is “be your true self” yet we can’t pick the character we want. Fail.
Black Desert isn’t clear from the start. It’s actually the most confusing of all the MMORPGs we have played. Especially after the trouble with choosing our name, not getting the character we want we are already fed up at this point. You eventually get use to the controls and how interacting with characters work. Understanding where to go and finding your quests wasn’t easy but even that eventually makes sense. Now the best thing about Black Desert hands down is the combat. The game nailed this. So let’s break this down. You have full control of your character, everything is real time and you can run and sprint real fast making travelling easy. Everything is fast paced, very fast paced. You run up to an enemy, they get alerted if they notice you, they try to attack you can move fast and dodge and get into your preferred range. Definitely feels good for sure. The combat can get exciting.
The Dark Knight class in Black Desert is what we imagined it would be. We are so happy with it’s designed from a combat perspective. You have like maximum mobility. You can dash and zoom bot forwards and left/right at fast response. The attacks are strong, deliver bleed states effect and even launch enemies into there air. Dark Knights can also use magic as well, even a projectile that stuns enemies. We haven’t even unlocked everything yet but already we found our style. It’s fast, strong, melee and range with high mobility. We don’t even care what the other classes have to offer right now. We even faced our first boss, a big red nose monster and we successfully dodged and returned attacks of our own. We dominated that boss. We loved the Dark Knight at sight because it reminded us of Caius from Final Fantasy 13-2 (The story so far). He used like dark chaos energy for attacks and buffing himself. He was fast, deadly blows and had great mobility. Caius was incredibly powerful. We feel like him, an inferior him but we will only get stronger. The combat is the best part of Black Desert right now by far without question.
Overall Black Desert looks like a very good game. Yes we bashed it pretty hard at the start of this G-blog but those are things at the start and once you get past them and start to understand how the game works you then don’t have as much problems at all. We are only level 16 and have only recently played so there’s way more for us to discover, learn and do. So far we are having fun.
In Sound Mind is a new first person psychological horror game developed by ‘We Create Stuff‘ and published by ‘Modus Games‘. In Sound Mind is said to the coming out on the Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC in 2021. In Sound Mind is taking a risky sub genre for horror. We do hope they can pull it off though. They do have a cat though. Let’s take a look.
In Sound Mind (‘Sound mind’ is a phrase from the Bible but once again no shout out. Lame). In the world of In Sound Mind, you wake up and find yourself in the corridor of a building. Now this isn’t a regular building though. It sort of has a life of its own. The plot thickens though. The building leads you to a group of survivors or should we say victims. They all been effected by an “experimental chemical”.
Our character must be effected by the same experimental chemical as now we are seeing some strange things too as we try to figure out what’s going on around here. You now experience visions, crazy ones. Not only that but a whole load of what’s described as “imposing horrors”. this has to be referring to the dangers and enemies you will face. Not only that but there’s a cat. This isn’t just your cat sitting on a wall. This cat is weird and apparently it’s called Tonia. In Sound Mind has nothing to do with an actual sound mind.
Now remember gamers, In Sound Mind is a psychological horror. Meaning this is most likely just in the characters mind. It’s a mental thing. Unlike other psychological horror games, you can actually defend yourself. There are weapons. So expect a gun. There’s a flashlight to light your way, you know the drill. Oh there’s mannequins by the way but not regular ones as they are sentient. So have fun with that. It might be right behind you now.
Another thing that In Sound Mind is pushing hard is the puzzles. In Sound Mind has emphasis on these puzzles. Beating the bosses, that’s right… bosses, is a puzzle. There are certain mechanics and weaknesses that require gamers to use their heads… for a change (shots fired). Literally the game makes it clear that beat bosses by solving “mind-bending puzzles”. We know that the player will be stalked throughout the game too. There’s lots going on.
We checked out some In Sound Mind gameplay and it’s not exactly what we expected for some parts but more or less what we expected. You are jumping all over the place by going through door. You end up in many locations, all pretty much dark and atmospheric. We even saw smoke. There are ghoulish ghost enemies called watchers who are not friendly at all and can’t be defeated straight up. The inventory seems easy to use and understand. Some more solid enemies can be killed by firearms. A headshot can take down an enemy almost instantly. The graphics look good so far but the music is better. Sound track was done by someone called ‘the living tombstone’. Some of the tracks are very good.
Overall In Sound Mind looks like it’s going to be a good game. We hope the puzzles are good quality and not annoying. That they are of varying difficulty and actually make sense. It’s psychological horror so it better be scary and confuse the player due to mental strain and not bad plot. There’s lots of work to be done in the game. We aren’t thrilled by psychological horror but maybe In Sound Mind can change that. Maybe. The developers ‘We Create Stuff’ have done a good job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what In Sound Mind brings. Now In Sound Mind may have a cat, mannequins and bosses but none of those are remotely special when compared too… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Indivisible is a RPG platformer game that was developed by ‘Lab Zero Games‘. Indivisible came out on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. Right of the truck etc just say this is an awesome game. This is once again another awesome game that didn’t get enough attention. Silly games like Among us gets attention but not Indivisible. It’s the world we live in. We have beaten the whole game, written about it before, had a lot fun and so here’s our views. Let’s take a look.
Indivisible has many strong points but our favourite has to be the characters. From their design to most specifically their interactions with each other. As you go through the game you’ll meet a whole host of different characters with very different designs from each other. Very different. Our favourite characters are Thorani, Zebei and off course Dhar. The characters have made us laugh more than once. We have cared about some characters, one by far the most. Before all that though take some time to actually look how Zebei fires his bow with his up-based attack where he’s in the air. He got too much skill and swag.
Our favourite scene of character interaction has to be when Thorani, Zebei, Baozhai, Dhar and Ajna tried the strong alcohol during their escape from the slime at the iron kingdom. It had everything. Clear relationships between certain characters, age reveals, behaviour, humour and more. That moment when Kushi asked to try the drink and Zebei simply said “None for you child” then kushi got upset just made us laugh and reminds us of a father with a daughter or big brother little sister sort of relationship. It makes sense as Zebei is a full fledge protector while kushi is an apprentice. Zebei is responsible for her. We learnt that Dhar is 20 years old while Ajna is 16 (clearly). Thorani is the clear mother of the group and clearly mature and behaves wonderfully. An excellent example woman. We won’t cover everything as you should see for yourself but Dhar can’t handle his drinks and Baozhai is a fun strong person to have around.
Next let’s talk about the adventure itself. It’s a big game. You won’t complete this in two hours. You seat in an Ashwat village, then get to a Flying Fortress, then reach Mt Sumeru, then a desert, then a lovely city at the end of the desert with a port, water, merchants, everything. Then the adventure becomes less linear and opens up for access to three more places: Iron kingdom, Tai Krung and Kaanul. We enjoyed the variety of environments and each place is very different from each other which is a good thing. Tai Krung is basically china town but for some reason has reggae music. Hey! Shut up! That background level music wasn’t chinese. It was reggae, off course a bit of a twist to it but reggae nonetheless. Iron kingdom is clearly the military power country with machinery and advanced technology. Kaanul is so nature based with trees, plants, temple styled buildings and more. It’s a jungle. These levels also have a Metroid feel to it in terms of you can’t go through here because you need a certain ability. So you go to another place to learn it and progress. Lots of travelling to and fro through the places.
Next let’s talk about the combat. It’s so different from other games. We like and respect uniqueness. You start with two characters and one button on your controller controls one character’s actions like ‘A’ button and the other button like ‘B’ controls the other. You use those buttons to attack AND to defend. To get a perfect defence you need to time it and press the button at the same time as the attack comes in from enemies. So it can get confusing at first. An enemy will choose who to attack or both and you must control the right character for defending and attacking. Then you will have four characters fo A for one, B for 2, Y for three and X for four if on Xbox for example. This is where some peoples brains can get confused. Holding up or down while pressing the button does a different attack from default. There are advanced combat techniques too. So you have to remember and juggle all this information at the same time. Seeing new players trying to manage all this is funny. You get use to it quickly though. The combat has layers to it from juggling enemies to generate more iddhi, to combo-ing into an ultimate back into a juggle etc.
Another great thing about Indivisible is that we could easily understand the characters. What they are about, their mentality and what their negatives or issues were. We understood Gingseng’s passion for botany and his goals. We knew he would be honoured to study under angwu at the tower of wisdom. Gingseng for the most part was normal. We liked him. Ajna right from the start we knew she was a typical troublesome teenager. She wakes up late, not very responsible person, backchats and argues with her dad over everything. Even a smack across the head doesn’t help (if she had a Jamaican dad her attitude would change). She claims she listens while interrupting people. You just knew she had to go on a journey or maturing, listening and being a better person. It was good to see her development. She cares though, values friendships greatly, loves to help others, determined to help the world and right her wrongs. Thorani is empathetic, sense others feelings like if they are sincere or not. She has a strong desire to want to help others and cares for others. Even calling Ajna and others her children (well she is old enough). We knew her problem would be that she would want to help others so badly that she is willing to over tax herself. Risk or harm herself in the process. She also doesn’t open up to others has much and keeps it in. Sure she’s over a thousand years old and can’t relate woman problems to 16 year old immature Ajna but there’s Zebei who’s an adult. Phoebe was married so she can understand. Baozhai is a no no as she might make some moves if you know what we mean. So not her.
The game wasn’t cryptic at all. Most stuff was easy to figure out, a good amount of clues was given concerning what to do but the game didn’t hold your and. There were secrets to find, hidden characters to discover, ways to upgrade yourself through the ringsels. Each character had a personal mission of their own for you to discover and complete which results in… we aren’t entirely sure what the benefit is except sometimes getting a new costume. We think the characters gets stronger too as they get way more hearts which the game didn’t explain by the way. We believe they get stronger, the new customer is cool though. We didn’t even get an achievement for completing all of them. Their own personal quests were fun to pursue and complete though. It definitely relates with the character in some way and were for the most part interesting. The most unique character was Zahra. gamerant are terrible at analysis and overall not good gamers as they said she was a terrible character in combat and not worth a space. They are so wrong. So they lost any credibility they had with us. Zahra buffs your team one by one and you can stack the buffs which are speed, damage and defense. The buffs are gone if you get hit. You need to perfect block with her to keep the buffs. So if you are skilled you can stack speed, damage and defence boosts on all characters which makes them very powerful. Zebei with a speed boost makes him so fast it’s actually over powered. We have seen Zebei use all his attacks, run back, recharge and go back in before the other characters even get a chance. Zahra is amazing.
Most characters have their own clear uses while there are some who are basically useless from a combat perspective. For example Yan just gets outclassed in damage, juggle and effects. Naga rider is a better version of her when it comes to juggling, ultimates and straight up damage (unless there’s something we don’t know). Zebei is faster than her. We don’t see a reason to use her. Kushi and Altun get outclassed by Tungar for area of effect damage. Her ability to fly isn’t as useful as you think, quite limited. The dog Lanshi hasn’t impressed us. The dog is for set ups and we definitely like how different the dog operates from the other characters though. Sadly Baozhai isn’t good either. Her default attack does no damage but powers up the cannons which aren’t impressive damage and can hurt our own teammates, so little to no combo potential. It would have been good if all characters had their own use or advantages. Even Phoebe eventually got replaced on our team and we liked her.
Another negative about Indivisible is that we started new game plus but there’s nothing so far that’s different about the game. We even saw someone claim there’s nothing different. Ajna has different colour hair, and has the same design as the new Ajna after her interaction with Kala but still no difference. We thought maybe what she says would be different or maybe the characters would recognise her and engage with her differently. Off course we haven’t finished new game plus but so far everything is the same which is very disappointing. We also noticed a very small map mistake where the ma shows you there’s an incarnation (blue flame symbol) on the map when there isn’t.
Here’s two more negatives we had with Indivisible. First is a secret hidden boss called meownster. We found this secret boss and we are sorely disappointed. First of all it looked stupid. We just a huge disappointed sigh when we first found it. That’s not how a powerful super strong final boss should look. Kala looked cool but meownster was lame. Next it was badly designed. You take its life down and it then gets a bit bigger and gets full health back. You do this 5 more times and you wonder how many times do you have to beat it. It’s annoying when you have no idea. It then gets stronger moves with a few that can one shot your entire team. The entire boss fight was boring, it was long, we couldn’t be bothered and worst of all, you don’t get anything for doing it. No over powered move/ability, no epic custom, no cheat menu no nothing. Don’t waste your time on this boss. Not worth it.
The last thing that was a negative that we certainly hated was Ajna’s tribute to Dhar. Spoiler alert. We were mad that Dhar died. Made us not want to continue playing. He sacrificed himself for the Ajna, for the team. Ajna finds his sword and her tribute to him was that she didn’t like him, blames him, will never forgive him but thanks him for preventing her from becoming something she would hate. That’s it! What kind of bullcrap tribute it that for someone who went on a whole adventure to you, dedicated himself to help you save the world, the first person you encounter (not on good terms) and last of all gives his life to help you, for the mission. We disliked Ajna after that. We didn’t care about her anymore. We were done. We don’t care if Dhar killed her dad and that she’s 16. Childish or not. Let’s defend Dhar. Dhar killed her dad yes but they were on opposing sides of a battle and normally in battles and wars one side loses and people die. Dhar was raised in a lying dictatorship like country in an army that believes what they are doing is right. He was indoctrinated as he grew up. He knew no better. Ajna and the crew fought and most likely killed many beings and people on their journey like the soldiers of the iron kingdom. How many of them were dads, brothers, sons, husbands etc. She didn’t care… but when it’s her dad its bad. That’s called battle, war whatever. Dhar learnt the truth, admitted what he did was wrong and explained how he was indoctrinated and thought his leader would help bring world peace but Ajna still won’t forgive him after death. Lame. Pathetic. Forget Ajna and her stupid tribute, rather they didn’t have that scene. Dhar is our favourite character.
Here’s another good thing about Indivisible. The final boss and main villain of the game is Kala. She looks cool, clearly powerful and has her own issues and story. Even Kala does through some development and learning too. Every encounter with Kala was a good one. At the start of the game we thought she was some particle thing ike energy. Then we see she has a body and solid form. She is huge and can step on you. The final battle is completely different from everything else we ever faced. The very end where we had no hope of beating her due to her power but by remembering the basics of solid defense you out last Kala’s assault. Kala was a great villain. She made sense, especially in terms of combat and power. Unlike other video games like god of war where kratus is able to kill zeus who is supposed to be the strongest of all the gods by far and way superior to kratus. In Indivisible it makes sense that Ajna is no match for Kala and can’t beat her. It’s realistic in that sense. So victory must be taken in another way. It was exciting to be right outside of Kala’a area about to head in to settle the fight.
Overall Indivisible is an excellent game. We had lots of fun playing it. 100%-ing this game isn’t really hard. Just got to put in time. The bosses were cool to face with the serpent queen being the most cryptic. For a bit we didn’t know what we were suppose to do at one point. Off course we aren’t going to go over every little thing. Oh by the way. Everyone go get this game. It’s available on the Xbox game pass (greatest deal in video game history). We literally just surfed the game pass and saw this game and was like yes we get to play it. Downloaded it and had a great time. Indivisible is an adventure that you have to go on. We didn’t talk about the clear cultural inspiration for this game. Indivisible is a 9/10 for us. Try it for yourself. Truly an amazing game. Now Indivisible may be an amazing game but it’s nothing special if you compare it to… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Sable is a new adventure game developed by ‘Shedworks‘ and published by ‘Raw Fury‘. Sable is said to be coming out 2021 (more sources say 2021 than 2020) on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC and Mac. This game looks like another big but relaxing exploration game for players to chill and have a good casual time. Let’s take a look.
In the world of Sable players control a character called… Sable. Yeah, that’s her name. This is a huge desert world and it requires exploration. So hope on your hover bike and make your way around. There is lots to discover and learn here. after all it is an alien planet. Sable is being described as on a rite of passage. Somehow Sable is connected to this world. She must find her place in it.
There isn’t much to say about Sable really because this type of game has been done before and you can predict it. You know what to expect. We have seen games like ‘Shape of the world‘, ‘Beyond Blue‘ and ‘Abzu’. You stay relaxed, got good music and just cruise through the game at your own place being large places and being amazed. We know that in Sable there are ships that have fallen from space, monuments that are ancient and even architecture but clearly ruined. So get to it.
So off course Sable wants to know the history behind these things. There’s more though. You aren’t alone. There is a nomadic people on this desert planet too. Sable has the opportunity to learn how they got here and why they are staying here. This desert planet isn’t full of life, nor is it the most welcoming place in existence. What’s this rite of passage though?
We checked out some Sable gameplay and it’s what we expected except for the graphic style. The graphics style is very line drawn heat and bubbly particle if that makes sense. The gameplay is what we predicted though. It’s smooth and the hover bikes are a great idea for traversing the world. Climb walls, run, enter, go underground, light up, hover bike etc all around this place. Apparently this is a personal journey and lessons to learn. games haven’t been the best at teaching good lessons for life.
Overall Sable looks like a simple game. We can’t tell if it’s good or not yet. It does what it says on the box. It’s entertainment factor is unknown. It’s an exploration game. No suggestion or showing of enemies so we don’t expect a surprise factor either. We like the design of the planet and environment though. The developers ‘Shedworks’ have done an alright job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to wait and hopefully hear something new about this game. Now Sable may have a large desert world to explore but what’s way more exciting is… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is a new action First Person Shooter game developed by ‘Treyarch‘ supported by ‘Raven Software‘ but published by ‘Activision‘. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is said to be coming out November 13th 2020 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC. It’s another Call of Duty game. We know what to expect but let’s hope this one has something going on for us. Let’s take a look.
Let’s get this out of the way first. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is another call of duty game. Most gamers should know what to expect. We have literally zero excitement for this game. From what we have heard and seen from most call of duty fans is that they don’t really care about the story (campaign). Multiplayer is where it’s at and then secondary it’s zombies. We expect people trying to drop shot, camp with snipers, spam the meta gun and hop/ jump around corners. We just hope Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has something that actually interests us.
Now concerning the campaign this is all the whole website had to say about. “players will come face-to-face with historical figures and hard truths, as they battle around the globe through iconic locales like East Berlin, Vietnam, Turkey, Soviet KGB headquarters, and more.” This is literally all what the ENTIRE WEBSITE said concerning the campaign. So it’s taking a bit of a historical turn and players can expect to hear some maybe famous names. We have checked out some campaign gameplay and it definitely looks good and actioned packed. We don’t believe all the levels will be like that one but it definitely makes you want to see more. Since players will be in different parts of the world, we can expect a variety of environments and therefore hopefully different combat styles of the enemies. After all the countries do not fight the same way. Ask Vietnam (reference, if you know it you know it. if not then shame on you).
The multiplayer is where it’s at. The multiplayer in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is similar to previous Call of Duty games which isn’t a bad thing at all. It works doesn’t it? Pick your weapon. The maps have loads of spots for hiding and cover. So the return of the campers. Sniper rifles are dangerous and off course can one shot you. The aiming feels easy right now. The beach level looks very cool. It has multiple levels, water, sand, boats, lights and it’s night time. Nice design from a visual perspective right now. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is sticking to it’s fast paced gameplay. Quick respawns and sadly even quicker to die. We’ve seen people spray someone and kill them within a second, not including headshots. If someone sees you and aims well, then expect death almost instantly. Not our style. You literally die so fast. So you can kill someone, then they know where you killed them from because of the death cam then you respawn so fast and could even respawn behind that person and get instant revenge. S far it’s standard Call of duty multiplayer. Nothing standing out. You can call in abilities and support, so make sure to earn those.
Zombies is back and that’s a good thing for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. If you don’t know what zombies is then basically you and a team (or alone) must try to survive against a horde of zombies. To overly simplify it. Zombies has some new stuff. For starters squads can be created across platforms and console generations. Not only that, you are awarded for playing as the battle pass is advanced through time spent in Zombies. Concerning the upgrades and perks, there is crafting of items and even field upgrades. Old one like speed cola and juggernog are here too. Now about those weapons. All weapons have a rarity system like Apex legends and Fortnite as in the more rare it is, the better the damage. Fan favourite weapons are here too so be proud of that fans. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will also have what’s described as “Cold Ear-era weapons”. We’ve seen some futuristic and wacky weapons in there. It’s cool and gives of a more relaxed less serious image to this mode. Be chill and have a good time.
We checked out some Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War gameplay and it’s what we expected. The multiplayer will be what all the videos and streams be about mostly. Zombies will be second and campaign last. It’s fast paced, looks great, lots of action and does what it says on the box. The only real problem is meta weapons in multiplayer. There’s one gun (we won’t say which) which is dominating the matches. We even saw a match where everyone except one person was using that gun on the opposing team. That says a lot. So glancing needs to be improved for sure.
Overall Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War looks like a very good game. We never said the game wasn’t good. Just doesn’t interest us at all and it’s multiplayer isn’t our style. There’s cool modes like VIP where you must kill the enemy teams VIP while guiding yours safely to extraction. Gets tactical. Graphics and sounds are great. The maps are very good and there’s some variety in this game. The developers ‘Treyarch’ with ‘Raven Software’ have done a good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War really got. Now Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War may have more action and speed but none of that matters in the presence of… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Samurai Shodown is a action fighting game developed and published by ‘SNK‘. Samurai Shodown isn’t a new game and has come out in 2019 on the Xbox One and PS4 and also 2020 on the Nintendo Switch and PC. Also game out on Stadia. Interestingly though it will come on the Xbox Series X BUT not the PS5 in 2020. This game is definitely flashy and about powerful battles. Let’s take a look.
Samurai Shodown takes place between the events of Samurai Shodown V and the original game. Samurai Shodown is said to “carries on the legacy of the one true weapon-based fighter”. Simply put this is a fighter game like Street Fighter in the sense that it’s two characters on opposing sides of the screen and you use your attacks and whatever to bring the enemies life to zero. Off course this isn’t street fighter but something still very different. In Samurai Shodown it’s more about weapons like Soulcalibur but no 8 directional movement. The game being called samurai has an obvious theme. So expect swords, blades and flashy abilities.
Let’s talk a bit more about the fact that Samurai Shodown is coming to the Xbox Series X but not the PS5. We are seeing a number of games doing this. Develeopers are picking the Xbox Series X over PS5. Even one of the recent games we just wrote about called R-Type Final 2. A number of games are moving like this. On top of that. The Xbox Series X has been selling out like crazy in Japan. Japanese developers are going to be releasing games on the Xbox Series X and not PS5, especially thanks to Sony and it’s unnecessary censoring. Japan is a significant place when it comes to video games. It’s a fact that PlayStation, Sony is losing ground to Xbox, Microsoft. How many more nails is Xbox going to put into the PlayStation coffin?
We have never seen this game before so it’s new for us. We noticed that there’s mechanics around the weapons themselves. For example you can knock a player away from their weapon and off course they then are a much smaller threat, have limits and less range. This leads to certain tactics like knocking the enemy away from the weapon then backing off to get the weapon off screen or stand by their weapon and play keep away. It’s an interesting feature and reminds us off when Vega looses his claw knives in Street fighter.
We checked out some Samurai Shodown gameplay and it’s what we expected. There’s strange symbols, imagery, lots of flash and explosive moves. Weapons are the focus, a heavy theme and action, action, action. The characters don’t look that interesting to us though. No one stands out to us but the gameplay does. The special powerful moves get right to the point and does what you’d expect. It does look good and the background settings are very fitting and relevant to the Samurai theme.
Overall Samurai Shodown looks like another fighting game to us just having a mechanic that makes the game stand out but clearly still falls into the group. The graphics and visual aren’t impressive but possibly that could change with the next gen console Xbox Series X. It’s definitely flashy though. The developers ‘SNK’ has done an alright job. We know some gamers are looking forward to this. Now Samurai Shodown may have swords and flashy action but that’s all super dull when compared to the action of… the ‘Earth Walk!’
The Falconeer is a new open world, aerial combat role playing game developed by ‘Tomas Sala‘ and published by ‘Wired Productions‘. The Falconeer is said to be coming out the 10th of November on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One and PC. It’s another Xbox exclusive coming out on the Xbox Series X launch day. The Falconeer is said to be bringing a “new take on air combat”. We would definitely love to see that. Air combat is pretty standard but The Falconeer has got something going on. Let’s take a look.
Now the story in The Falconeer is practically unknown. It’s described as an “singular conflict”. So this is basically one big war. There are multiple factions too and it’s been made clear that players will get to play as all the factions to see each perspective of the war and battles. That’s simple and still easy to understand.
Let’s dive into what we see right off the bat. You are a Falconeer who use to be a messenger and guardian. You are riding a falcon or a really big bird and diving head first into wars. You will be targeted and attacked by all types of forces in this game. Everything is in third person so you have better views of what is going on which is good because there is a lot going on. The types of enemies you will face have been described as land, sea and air forces. So basically you aren’t safe anywhere.
We have seen others on big birds coming after and taking shots at the player in the Falconeer. There are big ships with loads of turrets and cannons. There are even what looks like stationary turrets and vehicles on the land. We like the variety of enemies here. The whole land, sea and air thing reminds us of two things: Supreme commander 2 (the units) and Kaido (from One Piece). This literally means that you aren’t safe and there’s more room for a wider variety of enemies. Games like this with loads of combat need loads of enemies to keep things interesting and have enough to keep things difficult.
We are seeing airships, battle ships and other big bird riders. The real question is how are the going to balance this? This might help. The Falconeer has creatures too. not just machines. You will face what looks like flying beetles, There are also manta rays but they don’t look cute. There’s even long bodied fling “dragon-like weavers”. Do It gets worse… there’s even krakens! Giant octopus looking things. This is a good move by the developer. Machines and creatures are here in this battle.
Now off course being a Falconeer doesn’t mean you fly up to enemies and your bird punches and kicks enemies. Wrong! You are equipped with powerful long ranged weaponry. Shhot and blast from a distance, manoeuvre and dodge bullets and other projectiles. Outfly and swivel around your enemies. It’s straight up aerial combat around here in the Falconeer. Since it’s open world, there’s numerous areas to explore.
Guess what we saw. The big green badge. You know what that means. “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 120 FPS.” The developer made it clear he wants the Falconeer to have constant 60frames per second. The best visuals and best performance will only be on Cboc Series X and high end PCs.
We checked out some gameplay and it’s what we thought it would be. Big bird or falcon, flying around, slower than we thought though. Falcons are incredibly fast birds but off course they are slower here for gameplay reasons. It’s been confirmed there are secrets in this game and some are even below the waters. Now that’s sounding cool. Can we dive. Does our falcon survive under there? We got questions. There is a form of in game currency called soulshards so players need to make sure to grab as much as they can. So search the whole Ursee which is the name of this whole place.
Overall The Falconeer looks like a good game. More information is needed specially concerning the combat mechanics, the enemies etc. From a concept and world perspective it’s good and we like what we are hearing and seeing. Visually it’s not impressive but it’s good for the style that it’s doing. Just take a look and you’ll see what we mean. The developer ‘Tomas Sala’ has done a good job here. We at X35 Earthwalker will keep an eye out for what the Falconeer will accomplish.
R-Type Final 2 is a new side scrolling shooter game developed by ‘Granzella‘. R-Type Final 2 is said to be coming out in 2021 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC. R-Type Final 2 definitely has something going for it. Side scrolling shooter games have a tough time standing out and a number of them are just too similar. Let’s take a look.
Now we didn’t know anything about R-Type Final 2. We never heard of it. Even the story we aren’t sure of what’s going on. We do know that the main enemies in the R-Type are the Bydo. Humans are in a serious battle with the Bydo… for years. Simply put it’s man vs aliens with space battles and machines. Now that’s not the focus here. The focus is that you control big ships with mad firepower to destroy pretty much everything. So focus on that.
One of the main focuses on the R-Type Final 2 gameplay is to make players feel real good about destroying the enemies. There’s multiple weapons for clearly different purposes. There’s a charged up weapon that has piercing effect that flies through multiple enemies. Good for a line up. There are bombs for when extra damage is needed or just to clear out a group of them. Laser beams which have obvious purposes. There’s spiral based flaming attacks. There’s loads of weapons in R-Type Final 2 from what we have seen.
Your weapons can be frontal or backwards which is a good feature. Games like this need loads of weapons, there needs to be a form of upgrade system. Some games do have this but something more is needed. R-Type Final 2 does try something that’s actually different. It seems like some levels have special conditions. There’s one stage that has decaying organisms. So new enemies are formed from the destroyed remains of other enemies. So basically as you play R-Type Final 2 you will face new and stronger enemies. Stage factors like this a good spin.
Now the stages evolve as well. Off course players will be making changes to their fighters over time with different weapons and features. So the stage, enemies and fighters will be going through changes over time. What stands out to us more than any of that stuff in R-Type Final 2 is the ship designs. Like seriously look at them. There’s all sorts and types with some looking like living creatures. Technology has come a long way hasn’t it.
We checked out some R-Type Final 2 gameplay and it’s what we expected for the most part. R-Type Final 2 brings a sense of progression as players will unlocked and develop new fighters of different types as they go through the game. Some ships (fighters) are clearly better for some levels than others because of their features. So it’s up to players to know what’s the best options for the situations ahead. We like the level of flashiness and explosives and special effects. Thos look amazing and the design of the aliens. We always respect creativity and we hope to see more unique and cool looking alien enemies.
Overall R-Type Final 2 looks like a real good game for sure. There’s loads of action, unique and cool looking enemies, customisation, multiplayer is going to make R-Type Final 2 a serious game. Just being able to play with others is a big deal. The graphics of the ships, enemies and the visuals of the firing and attacks are very good. The developers have done a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker look forward to seeing what R-Type Final 2 will do. R-Type Final 2 may have loads of action but that action is real boring when compared to… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Sword of the Necromancer is a new dungeon crawler action role playing game developed by ‘Grimorio of Games‘ and published by ‘JanduSoft‘. Sword of the Necromancer is said to be coming out in the last quarter of 2020 on the Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, PS5 and PC. Sword of the Necromancer doesn’t look flashy but looks like solid action. Let’s take a look.
The story of Sword of the necromancer is actually quite simple. You are this dude called Tama. The girl you love is dead but you won’t leave her dead. So you do whatever it takes to bring her back. This apparently means acquiring the Sword of the Necromancer (the title by the way) and slaying enough monsters and even the necromancer himself to get enough soul power to bring Koko (the girl) back to life. We at X35 Earthwalker condemn the practice of necromancy, so don’t go grabbing death swords to bring back a loved one. You’ve been warned.
Now just take one look at Sword of the necromancer and you already know what you are getting yourself into. It’s pixel graphics, you going through what looks like dungeons and you are swinging your sword at many foes. That’s all you need to know really, but there’s something more though. This sword, sword of the necromancer, has an unsurprising ability where the enemies you kill can be brought back to life under your control. You keep what you kill. So eventually you need to raise an army of monsters to help you destroy necromancer and the guardians.
Now it’s not just your sword that you will be wielding. The weapons are different and there are relics to acquirer to help you out. Also the weapons are random generated so you will get something different from your friend… or by pure chance you do get the same thing. The problem is you only have four item slots. So you can equip a monster you defeated to summon it against your enemies, or you can equip the bow and arrows or go for a giant axe, or maybe equip a shield which protects you from projectiles. There’s a whole lot of different combinations of resurrected monsters, relics or weapons. So get creative.
As you fight and defeat enemies you will level up. As you fight alongside the monsters you turned and summoned they will get stronger too. So there’s quite a bit of management to do. Levelling up is key as you need levels to improve your stats and upgrade. If you die (you will die… probably), you lose all your equipped weapons and monsters but keep half the levels you gained. On the other hand there may be opportunities for you to leave the dungeon. Doing this let’s you keep all your equipment but lose all your levels. So you need to take risks to become the ultimate killing machine.
We checked out some Sword of the Necromancer gameplay and it’s what we expected. It’s nothing flashy or fancy. It’s your dungeon crawler, action game. A solid game at that with a cool new concept of turning defeated enemies into allies. This concept along will catch the attention of gamers. We like this concept and it makes you wonder what monsters you want to aim for, how useful they will be and who to spend time fighting alongside to level up. The pixel style works here and the designs look good. Work went into this game for sure. Again, nothing big or special but solid.
Overall we like what we see. It’s interesting and cool. Best of all Sword of the necromancer has local co-op. You can play with a buddy and face the dungeons together. Local co-op is just the best. You hear that Halo Infinite! MAKE SURE TO HAVE LOCAL CO-OP!!! Sorry readers we don’t know what came over us. *clears throat* The graphics are nice, the combat is solid and the options seem plentiful. This game just needs a bit more and some flair. The developers ‘Grimorio of Games’ have done a good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what Sword of the Necromancer truly brings to the table. Now Sword of the Necromancer may have a great concept but it’s a dumb one compared to the creativity of… the ‘Earth Walk!’
