Category: Game Review

Gaming: Stardew Valley

Gaming: Stardew Valley

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

You know what I want to write about? One of my favourite games, something that I go back to quite often. Yup, that’s right. Stardew Valley.

A farming sim game, with adorable characters and what can sometimes be a very tragic storyline.

Now, I’ve played Harvest Moon games since the first iteration on the SNES. I still remember my older brother telling me I wouldn’t like it – I sure showed him! Farming sim games are among my absolute favourite, so when we (husband and myself) first heard about Stardew Valley we were sold. Then we heard about Stardew Valley multiplayer, and we were extra sold.

We picked up the game on a Humble Monthly subscription, a subscription purchased solely because Stardew Valley was the featured game for it. I don’t even remember what the other games were, they do not matter. Farming was all.

I’ve sunk more than 200 hours into the game since we got it. My Steam account says about 220, but we got a separate extension to use a couple mods and I’m not certain if Steam recorded those first hours played.

Stardew Valley is, first and foremost, a game about running your farm. Your farm that is filled with weeds, trees and stones after years of neglect. So you start small, planting a few turnips, picking a few wild plants, and schmoozing with the town folk. When you save up enough from crop sales, you can start looking into raising some animals at your farm, such as chickens or cows.

Not long into the game, you get to make a very big decision. Are you going to be the kind of villager that wants to give back to the community and help make it a better place for all, or are you going to be consumed with profit, profit, profit. Rebuild the Community Hall, or pay for a JoJo membership and watch the space be turned into a storage facility.

I, personally, have not bought into JoJo’s pitch, and have played my games assisting the community and rebuilding the lovely Community Hall. I do plan on doing a JoJo playthrough, of course, but first I have to finish getting a few more achievements with my current playthrough. Most notably, I only have one bebe and need a second one for the achievement. I haven’t decided yet if I will start my JoJo playthrough after that, or if I’ll try to get a few of the more difficult (for me) achievements, such as catching all the fish.

One thing that I find very captivating about this game is the depth and realness that the developer put into the other villagers. They all have their own stories, which are slowly revealed to you as you become friends, or more, with them.  One of my personal favourite story lines is that of Shane, a depressed, alcoholic love interest.  He starts out quite rude to you, will barely give you the time of day and he quite clearly does not appreciate your efforts to become friends. You learn, though, that this hardened exterior is a cover for a very vulnerable person who has experienced a lot of pain in his life. I almost cried at a couple points, the details of his story were just so poignant.

With adorable sprite-like characters, the ability to not only customize your character from the outset but to also change up the appearance down the road, together with a charming small-community feel, makes this game a must-have if you enjoy any sort of sim type game.

Of course, given how long it has now been out, I doubt I’ve reached anyone new with this post, but I just wanted to talk a bit about a game that I love so much.

Happy farming,

-Arcia

 

Gaming: Fallout 76 days later

Gaming: Fallout 76 days later

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I have now had the pleasure to play a full week straight of Fallout 76 with my husband, as I had booked a week off in advance of the release date, anticipating that we would be playing it. And if we weren’t, that was still a wonderful week off to spend with the husband.

But we were playing, and enjoying, Fallout 76 quite a bit. Now, I know the game has gotten a lot of flack for various reasons, most notably due to the buggy state it was released in. Before I really get into my own updated impressions after playing for so long, I just want to note that I have not experienced any bugs that were game breaking.

The major bugs I did experience are as follows:

  • On occasion when loading into an area, one or both of my husband and myself would be invisible to the other. Our names still showed, but not our character model. This was not an issue to us.
  • One time, husband’s character bugged out so that he didn’t look like he was wearing power armor although he was wearing it. This made his character looked stretched out and alien-like, and made him move weirdly. Creeped me out, but ultimately did not affect our gaming experienceFallout 76_20181120204040
  • Once a corpse had a super stretchy, strange head. I took a screenshot. Later, we encountered two or three mongrels that were stretchy and weird and we were only able to hit them in VATS. We killed them and haven’t encountered any sinceFallout 76_20181116230705.jpg
  • My first character ended up crashing every few minutes. I don’t know if it was that day only and she is fine now as we remade (had been considering it anyway) and have been playing our new, better made characters since. All caught up, now.
  • Some server lag and crashes, but nothing too major or annoying.

 

Alright, so that is the bugs out of the way. Those are, quite honestly, the worst that I have encountered. The only other one was a bugged quest that was fixed in the first update. I understand that there have been players who have encountered bugs that, to them, broke the game. Thankfully, that has not been my experience.

So what has my experience been? A lot of fun, that’s what.

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Since my original character went kaput, I decided that a drunken brawler was really the best way to go. When I first made her, I purposely made her fat and ugly because, I mean, she was a violent alcoholic so it wasn’t too likely she was actually taking care of herself. The husband also made an overweight character, with a turned up nose. Eventually we made use of the ability to change our current character’s appearance and made them prettier. I really appreciate that Fallout included this feature – I have often made new characters in games because I no longer like how my current character looks. Yup, I’m weird like that. I like my pretty characters.

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My drunken brawler has been addicted to alcohol many times, but I have a huge supply because the husband gives me all the booze he finds, as well. I’m happily drunk at all times, running in and swinging my mole miner gauntlet with abandon. I eagerly await the day that I will be wearing a deathclaw gauntlet.

I think that one of my favourite things in this game (aside from smashing faces in, which has its own appeal) is the dystopian future it shows. I love the broken down buildings, the worn signs, all those old remnants of a society that has died and that is being repurposed by a new, fledging society that is just dipping its toe into the waters. The majority of my screenshots capture scenes that follow this theme.

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The above shot reminds me of the movie Idiocracy (a great movie, would recommend to anyone).

I quite enjoy the C.A.M.P. feature of this game, as well. The building feels smoother and looks better than building settlements in Fallout 4 and I like that for just a few caps I can relocate my base to wherever I choose. Unlocking different plans makes me happy, and I’m currently saving to get the large letters off of the super mutant merchant we found once. He will be found again.

I don’t find the lack of NPC’s to affect my experience at all.  Post-apocalyptic West Virginia is still rich with interesting story-arcs and adorably clueless robots. A lot of the automated systems that were set up pre-war are continuing to run despite a lack of human involvement. Sure, a few springs might be broken and the robots don’t quite understand what happened to their owners, but that is part of the dystopian charm.

Just yesterday, we participated in a daily event wherein a robot butler required assistance in preparing for the Hallowe’en Gala. He was quite insistent that we get everything in order before his very important guests arrived. And then he was a little baffled at the end when no one showed up to his amazing gala.photo_2018-11-18-193453_.png

There are so many amazing locales in this game, incredible places to explore and poke your nose into every corner of. I personally greatly enjoy finding the various teddy bears that are in some times questionable positions.

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All in all, I have been enjoying my Fallout 76 experience. I am still beyond thrilled that I get to explore this game with my husband and friends. I don’t think that is going to be changing any time soon.

 

Game on.
-Arcia

Gaming: Fallout 76

Gaming: Fallout 76

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

War. War never changes.

Not even when you get to explore a radioactive wasteland with your friends.

I’ve only played a few hours of Fallout 76 so far, so this is very much my initial impressions of the game. And, to be perfectly honest, I am so far impressed.

It isn’t a legendary game in terms of pushing the barrier or creating completely new experiences, in fact it feels a lot like Fallout 4 to me. But it is something that the husband and I have wanted for many, many years now – a co-op game set in the Fallout or Skyrim universes. Why? Because those are amazing and immersive worlds that we would very much enjoy exploring together.

The fact that there are no actual human NPC’s in this game is kind of crazy to me, but so far it is working. There are still robots that you can sell and buy items from, and you encounter a lot of holotapes called Survivor Stories, which are little snippets into the lives of now-dead survivors, often found near to their corpse. A little morbid, sure, but what else can you really expect from a world set after a nuclear war has destroyed civilization?

I spent my first 30 minutes or so of my play time making my character perfectly adorable (a must for any game) and then exploring the initial vault that you have been living in. The vault itself felt reminiscent of the after-effects of any “partied too hard night”, with confetti and discarded balloons everywhere. I very much enjoyed all the little stands that were set up for you to pick up essential starting supplies, like a couple bottles of water and your C.A.M.P.  I don’t know what C.A.M.P. stands for yet, but it is no doubt something clever. Bethesda is great at the clever acronyms. Upon exiting the vault, I looted a nearby corpse to find my first pipe pistol and ammo to go with. At that point, I had to shut the game off and go to work.

It was a long day, let me tell you.

Once the husband and I booted up the game that night, the first thing I did was insist that we take a screenshot in front of Vault 76 to commemorate the beginning of our adventure. True to life, it looks like he is grabbing my arse.

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That incredibly important task complete, we ventured out into the wasteland. The first thing that struck me was how incredibly beautiful this post-apocalyptic world was. Even the worn walls and weathered pictures held a beauty of their own.

In our journey, we encountered a number of other vault dwellers who had ventured from the safety. We kept seeing the same names over again as dwellers ran through the same starting quests that we were ticking off our list. Most didn’t pay us any mind – perhaps it was obvious that the husband and I were a team, or more likely because they were still taking in the game and you can’t PVP until you are level 5.

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My favourite person we ran into was a female dweller with short black hair who, after looking at me, gave me a thumbs up. My vanity said it was because she approved of my appearance. I waved hello to her. We later came across her again, and she and I waved again as we forged our way through adversity.

Aside from the obvious of now being able to play Fallout with other players, one of the biggest changes that struck me was how easy it was to get radiated. Seriously, in Fallout 4 I would maybe get the tiniest tick of radiation from doing stuff, unless I was chilling near some clearly radioactive barrels. Everything seems like it is radiated – you can’t go in the water without getting radiation, there are corpses that crumble and give off radiation when you are near them for too long. It is perfect. Being set in the earliest time of any Fallout game, it makes perfect sense that the radiation is far more severe and happens with more frequency and severity.  I don’t know if mutations are still a thing now that the game has been released, but I look forward to finding out.

Ah, and I almost forgot – S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points and perks! Rather than a big chart to look at when you decide what to do with your level up points, you choose a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute to put a point into and then choose a perk card that is available to that level of attribute. You can only equip a certain amount of these perk cards, the limit depending on how many points you have into the attribute. You are also given perk packs at certain levels (I don’t currently know if it is every level after 5, or certain levels as I have gotten 2 and am level 7). You can change these up at any time, customizing how your character plays. Personally, I’ve got some extra weight limit and the ability to drink/eat with less radiation damage.

I’m currently planning on building my character around guns – pistols and snipes maybe, or maybe just a trusty old AK, haven’t fully decided. I’ve been pistol-whipping the shit out of radiated monsters, though, and that has been kind of fun.

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May your adventures in the wasteland be fulfilling and interesting, and may you ever seek the top of the next hill.

Game on.

Arcia

Gaming: Awesome MMO

Gaming: Awesome MMO

by Heather ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If you follow me at all on Twitter (and let’s be real, at this point, if you are reading this, you probably are) you will have seen some of my recent screenshots of playing Black Desert Online, a really cool MMO. It is what one might describe as an Asian grind game – there is A LOT of grinding. Grind to get your level. Grind to get your “Life Skills” up. Grind to raise a good horse. And if you like that sort of game, BDO does it very, very well.

I started my BDO career as a Tamer. A female class that gets a bestial pet that fights alongside her. I generally enjoy pet classes, but for some reason, this one just did not jive for me. She did look awfully pretty, though, with her light pink hair and a sultry gaze.DqHiH8aUcAA4TLEDqRzMDdU8AASs_F

 

I was forced to level her up to level 56, however, so that I could have the game for free. It was a slog, but so worth it! I had a hope that once I reached level 56 the Tamer’s awakened skills would make her awesome. Alas, it was not to be so. Predictably, her damage is tied to her pet, that was fine. What wasn’t, to me, was when my pet only decided to attack about half the time, maybe less. I’m sure I was doing something wrong, but I just couldn’t get into the swing of her.

So I made a Witch.

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The husband was already a Wizard, which is the male version of the Witch class. Their base skills are identical, but their awakened skills are quite different. Where his focuses on his fire and ice spells, mine focuses on the lightning and earth spells. Funny thing, I preferred the lightning spells and he preferred the fire spells, so it worked out really well. We’ve been tearing up the mobs with our combined spells. He is worried I don’t feel powerful enough, because I’m a level behind and haven’t unlocked some of my more powerful abilities, but I know I’ll get there so I don’t much care. He has a lot more time than I do!

And there is just so much I could do in the little time that I do have to play games (I say little time, but frankly I spend all the time I can playing). The crafting is very in depth, with you needing to process some ingredients several times before they are ready to be used in building a wagon, boat or piece of furniture. You can get farm plots and grow various veggies, grains, and flowers that you turn into food for yourself or your pets.

One of my favorite aspects is the horses. You get your first horse just through the main quest-giver, the black spirit and are able to purchase horses from other players or go out and tame your own wild horse. Not only can you level your horse up, but they are also different “tiers”, a higher tier is a better overall horse. I was lucky enough that when I tamed my first horse it was a T4 or T5, out of 8, I believe. And you had better believe one of my horses has been named Epona.

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Another neat aspect is trading. You are able to make and buy trade goods which you take to a different city and pray they will pay good money for it. They weigh a lot, though, which means your horse might end up looking like the hubby’s in the above screenshot!

The game also encourages making and playing alt characters. You get two pools of points, one is your energy and one is your contribution points. Crafting stuff takes energy, and so do some conversation options to allow you to gather knowledge. The contribution points you use to invest in various nodes and cities and will be able to get workers to gather resources or get a residence and such. So how does this all mean the game encourages alts? Well, first of all, the knowledge you gain is cross-character and it helps in terms of making monsters easier to kill, things easier to find, etc. Second of all, certain (maybe all, unsure) quests give you contribution experience every time you do them on a new character. Thirdly… well, ok, I don’t really have a third except that I am a bit of an altoholic, so love making alts regardless of the necessity and whether I would actually play it beyond an hour. Oh, and you use those contribution points to invest in nodes and get residences and workshops, which is a whole big thing tied to crafting.

I’ve really been enjoying our time playing this game. One of our only complaints is that you can’t actually trade, well, anything to another person so we are unable to do our usual of splitting up the crafting so that we each focus on something different and are able to together make amazing things. It is a shame, but manageable.

If you are looking for a good MMO to sink your time into, this is one that I would wholeheartedly recommend. At $10 for the base game and no monthly fees unless you choose to purchase the ‘Value Pack” that gives you extra inventory space and access to different dyes, this is something that can fit most wallets, too. And just to add some sprinkles onto an already delicious cake, it is releasing an XBox port soon. Prior to the end of the year, if memory serves correctly.

If you do end up in the game on the NA servers, feel free to look up the Izavi Family (that’s me!)

Tata

Arcia