Shmee.Me

December 26, 2013December 26, 2013

Halo Spartan Assault Lands On Xbox One!

I reviewed Halo Spartan Assault for Windows Phone 8 earlier this year, but now it is out on Xbox One, and I thought I would give my updated impressions.

This is still the same game that was released for Windows Phone except that they have updated the graphics, and added a co-op mode. That being said, it is way more fun on the Xbox One mostly due being able to use a controller. I suppose if you bought this game for Windows 8, and then plugged in an Xbox 360 controller nothing would be different, but not having to try and mimic the motions of a dual stick shooter while your fingers cover the screen is just much better. Plus this game gives the feedback triggers on the Xbox One a workout. They are rumbling all over the place, and it is a cool feeling.

They must have developed a high resolution texture pack because the scenery looks much better on the Xbox One versus the phone, but the same love did not make it to the character models. They look a little low-rez, but since there is so much happening on the screen it is a just minor annoyance.

Another minor annoyance is the length of the missions. A three minute level is perfect for a mobile device, but on a console it seems like I am barely getting in to the action, and then it is over. Luckily since the Xbox One has more than enough power to run this game there is almost no loading, so I am never out of the action too long.

If you are looking for a little Halo to go with your Xbox One, Halo Spartan Assault will fit the bill for now since this is as little as Halo gets. If you have bought this game for Windows 8 or Windows Phone 8 it is only $4.99, and it is totally worth it at that price, but if this your first time paying for it, it jumps up to $14.99. At that price I think it is still worth your hard earned cash, but I could understand waiting for it to go on sale. It is much more fun on the Xbox One due to the better controller, and it shows why consoles are just a better place to play games.

December 24, 2013December 24, 2013

Shmee Weeps For Crimson Dragon!

When I heard that they were making a spiritual successor to the Panzer Dragoon series for the Xbox One, I was ecstatic. While those games were on rails, the sense of exploration and discovery combined with great controls and cool enemies was brilliant. Sadly, Crimson Dragon by Grounding Inc. is not near as good as its predecessors.

The story is about a planet that has dragons on it, and you can ride them. Score! Things are great, but then this disease/invasion called Crimsonscale shows up, and it makes all the local wildlife hate you, so you have to kill it using your awesome dragon riding skills.

There is probably more to it than that, but it is displayed so awfully that I really didn’t care to sit through it all. They must know that because they will have a “cutscene” (some pictures with some text and an annoying guy talking), and then they will have another character tell you the exact same things over again. It is some pretty poor story telling, but I could forgive all that if the gameplay was good, but sadly that falls a little short too.

To control your dragon you use both sticks. The left stick controls slight left and right movements and the right stick controls the camera and the aiming of the dragon’s weapons. The bumpers allow you to do barrel rolls, and the left trigger selects the weapon you want to use and the right trigger fires it. This control scheme should work fine, but everything just feels a little loose, and not quite responsive enough.

Part of this was my problem, because when I first started playing it I tried to play it on “classic mode”, but I got my butt handed to me over and over, so I just gave up and started playing Peggle 2 (which I do not regret). Luckily my little brother came over and showed me the error of my ways and started to play it on “casual mode”. The difficulty dropped to something much more playable.

Once Cameron figured out what mode to play it on, things got much more fun, but the game still had problems. It forces you replay the same areas over and over, and even if it is easier, the poor camera still got in the way of the game being totally fun.

This is not the Panzer Dragoon game that we were waiting for, but there is some fun to be had once you get your dragon in the air. Not enough that I can recommend buying this game, but enough that you will not feel totally ripped off once your Panzer Dragoon dreams have been dashed.

December 17, 2013December 17, 2013

It Is Hard To Go Back Again: Fallout 2

Fallout 2 a 1998 RPG by Black Isle Studios made my list of favorite games of all time, so when it was free on GOG.com, I jumped at the chance to play it again. I am glad that I did, but it is play sessions like this that prove how far we have come in making video games.

The plot continues some time after the first game, and the village the Vault Dweller from the first game founded is in trouble. It is up to you to find a Garden of Eden Creation Kit to save the village.

The things I loved about Fallout 2 fifteen years ago are still what I love about the game now. It has a wide open world, and you can do pretty much whatever you want. The dark humor is fantastic, but much like all things in life, my mind forgot the bad parts of this game.

This game has one of the worst interfaces of all time. It requires you to press down on the mouse with just enough force not to select an action, but kind of click hover, and than drag the mouse up or down to select the action you would like to preform. It is so frustrating kind of picking all sorts of things, but not having them work.

It also lacks a good quest log, so I am always trying to remember exactly what I was trying to do, or that I accepted a quest at all. Than add to that, there is no auto-save, so if you die and have not saved in like fifteen minutes you will have to hover-click and figure stuff out all over again. This is particularly troublesome because for the first part of the game just about everything can and will kill you.

Not to mention if you, like me, decide to make a smart fast talking character, you will have to get used to the word “missed” a lot because you cannot hit anything. You will just sit there and stab at that scorpion for what seem like an eternity. In the mean time you will have no antidote for all the poison that has been thrust in to your frail frame, so you will just have to watch yourself die a slow and painful death.

I am not taking Fallout 2 off my favorite games list, because once I got used to all limitations of the game I started to really enjoy myself. It is always difficult to play old games because of all the streamlining and tweaking that has taken place over the last few decades, but if you tough it out you can still find what made you enjoy them so much in the first place.

December 13, 2013December 13, 2013

My Thoughts On My Xbox One!

After waiting for what seems like forever for K-Mart to deliver my Xbox One, and as you can tell by my Peggle 2 review they did. I am finally ready to give my impressions of the device.

Lets talk about the size of the device first. It is much bigger than the Xbox 360. I guess they are not taking any chances with it overheating, but once it is in with the rest of your AV electronics you don’t even notice it. It is a black box surrounded by black boxes. Plus you can now use the Xbox One as a Blu-Ray player, so that saves a little space.

The Kinect is also a little bigger and heavier, but they have put a lot more in it this time. The nice thing about the bigger Kinect is that it actually works much better now. It can see you and identify you better, and it tracks movement to a much higher degree. Having the Kinect actually work is nice, compared to the hit or miss model that came with the 360.

The new controller is pretty much just a streamlined version of the 360 controller, and that is a good thing. They made the analog sticks a little wider, the triggers rumble, and the D-Pad is finally usable for fighting games. Some people like to rag on the bumper buttons because they don’t really press in. They kind of just click a little, but after using them for awhile, I like them better because I can “bump” them easier when I am playing a game instead of having to press them in.

The biggest difference is the new interface. If you have ever used a Windows 8 device, you will see the resemblance. It has a bunch of square icons that you can press. You can navigate the whole interface with your voice or with your hands via the Kinect. On the 360 you only had certain areas that this worked. The switching between apps and games is very fast, and it is fun to snap two things on the same screen every once and awhile.

The downside for me, is that all my apps and games end up in the same place, and it is kind of a mess to search through to find my stuff. You can pin things to the start screen, but a little more organization would be nice. Just like the 360, I am sure the interface will be tweaked a lot in the future.

People that hate the adds from the 360 should be happy, because apart from the game and apps stores and store fronts, they are gone. It is just your stuff. It is nice not to have even more adds in my life considering we are bombarded by them enough.

It is a good machine, and I am glad I have one. If you get one under your tree this year or next, I am sure you will be too. If you have any questions about the Xbox One let me know, and I will do my best to answer them.

December 10, 2013December 10, 2013

Basking in the Warm Glow of Peggle 2!

There are not a lot of games my wife and I agree on, but Peggle was one of them, so when PopCap/EA released Peggle 2 for Xbox One yesterday it was a must purchase. Peggle 2 is mostly just a prettier version of Peggle with different characters, but that is like saying “meh it is just tastier chocolate”. Peggle, like cowbell, is something that you cannot have too much of.

For those of you that did not play Peggle, I would like to welcome you to the end of 2013, and ask what rock you have been hiding under for the last decade? Peggle is an awesome mix of plinko and pin ball with a crazy cast of characters that give you special abilities to destroy all those orange pegs. In Peggle 2 you do the same thing, but there are new characters, and each level has special optional extra challenges to add to the replayability. Plus each character has their own set of trials that test your skills in doing crazy ball shots. There are also character costumes to unlock.

Despite being a 2D puzzle game, they still updated the graphics quite a bit. The special abilities have really cool particle effects, and the characters are much more animated on the side lines. The backgrounds are much more intricate. While this game is still about the fun gameplay, the new graphics do make the game more enjoyable.

Some people are complaining that there are only five characters, and six worlds to explore, but there are still 160 puzzles to play, which is much more than the original. That is still a lot of bang for $12 bucks, and this game is impossible to play without a smile on your face.

One of the big reasons for the smile is the music. In Peggle it was all about hearing the Ode to Joy play at the end of every level, but in Peggle 2 each character has its own Fever music, from Ode to Joy to the William Tell Overture, and they all sound great and make that last shot one of the best things to happen in all of video games.

The only downside about this game is that it ships without local multiplayer. They just announced that it would be added in the next DLC, but its exclusion keeps Peggle 2 from being perfect. It was one of the things my wife and I enjoyed most about the first game.

I like Peggle 2 quite a bit, and if you have an Xbox One it is more than a worthy purchase. For me it is a must own. If you do not have an Xbox One, I am sure, much like Peggle, it will be on just about every platform known to man soon enough.