MMO News |
- Weekly Recap #279 Feb. 29th – HeroWarz, Aura Kingdom, DFO & More!
- Street Fighter V Launch Review
- Magfest 2016 Indie Games Recap
- Battleborn Whiskey Foxtrot Let’s Play
- Tom Clancy’s The Division NVIDIA GameWorks Trailer
- Battlefield Hardline Alcatraz Behind the Scenes
- Total War: Warhammer Azhag’s Quest Battle Let’s Play
- Failure Kickstarter Video
- Dungeons & Robots Early Access Trailer
- Paladins Kinessa Teaser
| Weekly Recap #279 Feb. 29th – HeroWarz, Aura Kingdom, DFO & More! Posted: 29 Feb 2016 07:00 PM PST MMOHuts Weekly Recap #279 Feb. 29th – HeroWarz, Aura Kingdom, DFO & More! A quick look and discussion for every major announcement and update during the week! This week we discussed updates from the following games: Smite, Neverwinter, Dungeon Fighter Online, HeroWarz, Elsword, Aura Kingdom, Black Desert, Paragon, Paladins, Fable Legends, Skysaga, Portal Knights & Armored Warfare! Weekly MMO News summary for the week ending February 29th, 2016 (Feb. 22nd – Feb. 29th). Smite has a leap year sale because Chronos was drunk: Neverwinter: The Maze Engine Launches on March 15: Dungeon Fighter Online reveals a new but nostalgic dungeon, The Plane: Mirror Arad: KOG Games finally reveals gameplay for the western version of HeroWarz: Add & LuCiel are the final character revamps for Elsword season 2: Aura Kingdom raises its level cap for players and Eidolons: Daum Games announces launch activities and contests for Black Desert: Paragon shows off downloadable gameplay footage for several heroes: Paladins teases a new sniper/bounty hunter character: Fable Legends spotlights the various outlaws commanded by the villain: Skysaga heads into alpha 7 with a new game mode: Portal Knights beats Skysaga to the punch and hits early access on steam (B2P title): Armored Warfare launches update. 0.13 introducing a new map and arms dealer: The post Weekly Recap #279 Feb. 29th – HeroWarz, Aura Kingdom, DFO & More! appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Street Fighter V Launch Review Posted: 29 Feb 2016 03:44 PM PST Disclaimer: Despite any and all hurdles Street Fighter V has had, I'd like to give a special thanks to Peter "Combofiend" Rosas for his hard work on Street Fighter; having a pro player guiding this project in any manner is definitely a boon. And to Evil Geniuses' Kenneth "KBrad" Bradley for both teaching me "The Pose" and for consenting to an interview about the FGC and SF5 as a whole. That interview will be coming a little later on, when we have the time to sit down and chat!
I love Street Fighter. I've been playing since I found a moldy, dusty theater that had a cabinet for "Street Fighter '87". It's a wonderful series, and though there were some naysayers, the Street Fighter IV run was pretty fantastic. There were drawbacks, though. Too many characters [and only about ten worth playing], too many iterations that we had to keep buying, et cetera. But I have hope for Street Fighter V. I say that I have hope because that's the only feature that's bloody open to be used right now! I understand offering more features as the game goes on, but I'm a little put down about the Battle Lounge not working, for example. We here at Bottom Tier are going to record a video review to go with this game, just as soon as the feature becomes available! The gameplay? Phenomenal. The mechanics of the game are sound, solid and all around amazing. It feels like we went back to the more aggressive days of Street Fighter III when everyone could parry, and damage was everywhere. None of this turtling, eternal blocking garbage from IV.  But there are so many things we're waiting on right now: More than three or four story missions per character. The Shop. DLC characters [that's understandable]. The servers were incredibly unstable to boot! That's not all, either but I'm so glad to have this game in my hands anyway. I can't do challenges to learn characters, so it's all Youtube videos, experimenting, and talking with the community. But the gameplay I cannot get enough of. Some of the characters' unique abilities [V-Skills] are very similar to each other’s. For instance, Ryu has his traditional Street Fighter III parry. By pressing both Medium buttons he can parry any attack coming in at him, including multiple hits if his timing is on point. However, [Charlie] Nash has a parry of sorts too. His absorbs projectiles, making it very easy to build his meter. But if the V-Skill does nothing? You get nothing. V-Triggers are another cool mechanic new to this game. Instead of the Revenge Gauge/Super Gauge, we have the V-Trigger to replace Revenge, and the EX Gauge for the Super Gauge. Same principle in EX gauge though. You can use that meter for EX versions of moves, or save it for your Critical Art. But meter gain is so fast in this game, you can be pretty damn liberal with it. There are some pretty amazing mechanics hiding in this game. Alpha Counters are back, in a sense. The V-Reversal replaces the old-school counter. If you have at least one bar of V-Trigger, you can [at the right time] press forward and all three punches or kicks while blocking. Each character has a different V-Reversal, and you can see them in the character move lists in game. It's not a big secret. It's not like Blazblue's counter system, where you have at least one guaranteed counter built up. Street Fighter also now has the "Fatal" system of Blazblue, speaking of which! Certain counter hits can enter the "Crush" state, allowing a pretty unique stun. Crush Combos can do ridiculous, obscene damage if you can get fortunate enough to pressure an enemy into that state!  Let's talk story for a bit. Fans have been clamoring for a better Street Fighter story; something that ties characters together, shows backstory, things like that. Well, we got that. Sort of. The characters each have their own story, and they tend to start with the origin [or close to] of the character. Ryu and Ken are dressed in their Alpha attire, Nash is pre-death, Necalli is freshly risen and not a bulky mass of murdering machine yet. But! There's a catch. Most characters only have three to four stages total. The expanded story won't be done til June. This upsets me a great deal, because in about an hour, I completed all the story missions. However there is something very good about them. There's no "Ref", no "Round one!", no best two out of three. These feel like actual fights. They occur outside of the Street Fighter tournament, and it feels more organic this way. This is probably the best story set up I've seen in any fighting game. But I won't know for certain for a few months yet, and that is troublesome to say the least. Final Verdict: Great (4/5) I want to rate this 5/5, because I love Street Fighter V, and it's probably the most mechanically sound fighter I've played in recent memory if ever. But it's just not done yet. There have been pitfalls, delays, deterrents. Servers don't work, lobbies can't be created, Ranked/Casual matches couldn't even be played except brief moments on day one. Lots of in-game content can't be accessed yet. Controller woes [though the folks who developed Skullgirls are responsible for us having Legacy Controller support at all!], you name it, this game has probably gone through it in such a short period of time. Street Fighter IV might be done with, but V's time has only just begun. Capcom's letting us purchase DLC without spending real money if we want to put the time in, something that hasn't been done with any current fighting game that I can think of. Sure, older games could unlock stuff, but that was when we had "unlockables" and not "DLC". But at least Capcom acknowledged the problems and is working diligently. Denjin Hadouken! + Incredibly sound mechanics, new systems, revamps of old systems. Faster pace than SF4, definitely a throwback with new look and feel. Crush Counters, V-Triggers, Crisp, clean, everything that is here works the way it should. I'm pretty glad Option Selects appear to be gone, and links/combos are less stressful to master. – So much has changed on the character front. At least half the returning characters have kits that have completely changed and move inputs that are different. The tutorial doesn't really cover the game as strongly as I'd like. Not having challenges day one made it a little frustrating to not be able to see examples of combos/inputs in the game, outside of the "command list" Option Select: + The stuff that is here, as I said, works phenomenally. Except Battle Lounge. Tons of content that's coming to the game, and quality content to boot. – But most of the content that SHOULD be in the game is NOT in the game yet. The story is half-done or less, server issues are everywhere, just as bad as they were in the beta. Being able to buy content through in-game money is great, but having to wait on basic functions of the game is not okay. Meat and Potatoes of Combat: + Footsies are way better, damage is higher. It's very much a high-risk/high-reward situation going into fights. Characters are all unique and interesting, lots of throwbacks and brand new faces into the game. – Hit Stun is INCREDIBLY easy to get, and quite a few of the Crush Counters are pretty worthless. Not all of them have good enough follow up. Some character walk speeds are pretty damn horrible. Street Fighter V Launch Review ScreenshotsThe post Street Fighter V Launch Review appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Magfest 2016 Indie Games Recap Posted: 29 Feb 2016 01:36 PM PST Two of the biggest worlds in the entertainment industry have collided once again at the Washington Metro Area to usher in the 14th annual MAGFest convention. As a celebration of music and video games, MAGFest 2016 featured a large open video gaming room, a hall of arcade cabinets, concerts by various artists featuring rock, rap, jazz, chiptune and video game cover bands, a Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) LAN Party and so much more. Since this was my first year attending MAGFest, I really didn't know what to expect. Most of the pre-event promotion was surrounding a ton of daily concerts, but otherwise I was in the dark. My expectations were blown away upon entering the convention center for the first time; the floor was an indie devs dream!
First up: Just Shapes and Beats Just Shapes & Beats is a simplistic action and music game created by Berzerk Studio. As the title suggests, the game is simply about controlling various shapes while dodging other shapes to the beat of various songs. While it sounds simple, the game quickly shows its players that they will need very quick wits and timing in order to dodge and master each song available in the game. This game is filled with a handful of unheard of tunes such as Chronos by Danimal Cannon & Zef (as heard in the teaser trailer) and popular tunes including the original Mortal Kombat Theme Song. When I first played through the demo at their booth, I didn't think much of it at first, as the challenge of dodging red shapes didn't seem that hard. Plus the music was average at best. But as the demo progressed, the challenge started to get more and more intense, as well as the music selection. Once I got up to the final boss of the demo, I really got into it, as there were so many shapes flying on the screen, narrowly escaping hit after hit was a total rush for me. We’ve been following this game since PAX East 2015 but for quite some time it’s been a static demo as funds to continue development dried up. However thanks to recent investors at the end of last year, we saw actual progress towards completing the game at Magfest. Hopefully we can see this game launched later this year! It really is a simple concept, but an addictive one once into it. Next game is called Default Dan. Now this is a popular title by the YouTube community, because this is a game that just screams Ragequit potential. Imagine a game the takes everything you know about platform games such as Super Mario and turns them into one big lie? Well that game is Default Dan in a nutshell; a game where everything that looks harmless like coins, mushrooms and power ups will actually kill you, whereas bad things like spikes, pitfalls and intimidating monsters are actually good things to help you complete a course. Just from the first stage alone, it took me five minutes longer than the course should have, all because I couldn't stop trying to pick up coins or avoid pitfalls. This is a game that really plays with your head, because it's so hard to just ignore years of platform game knowledge that has been burned into my brain. However, when I finally managed to get past the first stage, the game slowly started to get easier, but only slightly because new things were constantly being thrown my way, like happy clouds, fire flowers that actually set you on fire and other things that should be harmless but will wreck your whole day. And once I got to the third stage, I just had to call it quits at that point. Overall, this is a challenging game for all the wrong reasons, but in a good way (if that makes any sense to you.) I'd say if you have a friend who has never heard of Default Dan before, I would urge to have them play the game blindly; don’t let them watch footage ahead of time. Trust me, it will be a lot more fun that way. Next up was Combat Core, a beat 'em up fighting game by Micah Betts. Inspired by gaming classics including Power Stone and Custom Robo, Combat Core features a colorful roster of eight starring characters, each with their own unique fighting styles. These fighters can bring different core abilities with them into a match that will alter their strengths and weakness, as well as give them one unique special move that can either give players a huge buff in stats or a damaging blow that will scrape a huge chuck of health off of opponents. With that said, as a previous backer of the game on Kickstarter, I was really excited to meet Micah in person to learn more about the game. With the game's presence at MAGFest, he was there to spread awareness about the game and give attendees more details into the upcoming Early Access version that will be on Steam very soon. Since I had plenty of time to spare, I managed to get a ton of rounds against Micah as well as some random attendees. The combat was fast-paced and chaotic as players can attack, guard, dodge, parry and perform all sorts of attacks. Along with the core system that can be mixed and matched between characters, the level of depth in Combat Core makes the game much deeper than Power Stone in terms of its gameplay mechanics. After winning a few rounds, Micah was actually quite surprised at how good I was at his own game, until I told him that I was actually one of alpha tests from the Kickstarter campaign, that is… Last up was Camelot Unchained Conveniently located right next to the Just Shapes & Beats booth, this Kickstarter sensation by City State Games was also shown off at MAGFest this year. For anyone in the know, this should be quite a surprise as City State Games is extremely protective of sharing footage of anything alpha for this massively funded Kickstarter title, unless you’re a backer of course. As I’m outside the loop and our Portal Manager has stayed perfectly loyal to the cult of alpha backers inside the game already, this was my first chance to understand this RvR PVP focused MMORPG. As a spiritual successor to the original Dark Age of Camelot, Camelot Unchained pushes PvP and only PvP as the driving force behind all things from crafting to horizontal progression. With several unique races, a fully customizable skill system, sandbox tools to create your own environments and more, this game plans to set a new standard for the MMORPG genre as a whole. As I got a chance to sit down and play the game, it was quickly apparent to me that the game was in a very rough but playable state – far closer to an engine test than an actual game. When most games these days like to spread the words "Alpha Test" or "Beta Test" or "Early Access" around, it usually amounts to the game already being in a fairly finished state using buzz words for marketing. Not the case here. Camelot Unchained’s demo was as raw as it gets. Many of the items and features in the game do not even have their text or icons properly labeled, which such items being seen as "file_itemset_armor1" or something similar. Regardless, the staff at the booth showed me a handful of possibilities that the game has and will offer, such as completely meaningful open world PvP, a freeform skill creation that allows players to literally create any kind of abilities they want with their own strengths and weaknesses, vast open worlds to explore and many other features currently in the pipeline. Recently, many development breakthroughs have been made, such as the new and improved lighting system that’s managed to recreate real world light reflection and bending with various shades of shadow in a dynamically not pre-rendered world. The C.U.B.E. system has also gotten tons of love as beta 1 approaches, in the hopes that player structures will be just as satisfying to build as they are to destroy. When I asked the staff on deck regarding these new features, I was told that the lighting system was so new that they sadly had no new details to give on its current develop status. C.U.B.E. on the other hand is one of the most advanced testable features in the game, but still only available via an offline client as it had yet to be implemented into the alpha game on a regular basis. Soon they’re hoping to release a system for players to post their achievements in C.U.B.E. online to showcase to others. With all that said, it became clear to me that City State Games was here to raise more awareness for the game, but I was left fairly impressed by what they had to show off, as well as the live demonstration they had with both 3D and 2D modeling arts showing off their creations in front of a live crowd. If you’re on the east coast and looking to start a career in game programming, they couldn’t emphasize enough that they’re hiring. Be sure to hit them up for a job! With so many indie games shown off at MAGFest, it just goes to show everyone that the indie gaming seen is alive and well, and will continue to grow for years to come . The post Magfest 2016 Indie Games Recap appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Battleborn Whiskey Foxtrot Let’s Play Posted: 29 Feb 2016 11:54 AM PST An official Battleborn let’s play of Whiskey Foxtrot, a recently revealed Rogue, in a story campaign mission. The post Battleborn Whiskey Foxtrot Let’s Play appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Tom Clancy’s The Division NVIDIA GameWorks Trailer Posted: 29 Feb 2016 11:38 AM PST Ubisoft showcases how it uses NVIDIA GameWorks to bring Tom Clancy's The Division to life. The post Tom Clancy's The Division NVIDIA GameWorks Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Battlefield Hardline Alcatraz Behind the Scenes Posted: 29 Feb 2016 11:17 AM PST A showcase of the new Alcatraz map in Battlefield Hardline: Betrayal, inspired by the Californian island prison. The post Battlefield Hardline Alcatraz Behind the Scenes appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Total War: Warhammer Azhag’s Quest Battle Let’s Play Posted: 29 Feb 2016 10:56 AM PST An official Total War: Warhammer let’s play featuring Azhag’s Quest with a focus on key battle mechanics and Greenskin units. The post Total War: Warhammer Azhag’s Quest Battle Let’s Play appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Posted: 29 Feb 2016 10:14 AM PST Failure, a blend of CCG and RTS, launches its Kickstarter campaign with this promotional video. The post Failure Kickstarter Video appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Dungeons & Robots Early Access Trailer Posted: 29 Feb 2016 09:50 AM PST Dungeons & Robots begins its Steam Early Access today, offering an online action shooter RPG for solo, co-op, and more. The post Dungeons & Robots Early Access Trailer appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| Posted: 29 Feb 2016 09:10 AM PST Paladins teases a short animation for one of its new champions, Kinessa, coming soon. The post Paladins Kinessa Teaser appeared first on MMOHuts. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from MMOHuts. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
