Volcanoids

Volcanoids I’m sure when you read the name you think robots and volcanoes which you would be correct this game has both. Let me introduce you to volcanoids, a survival game by an indy publisher and developer which share the same name indy studio. Volcanoid is responsible for this new take on the survival genre and I gotta say from what I’ve played so far in the alpha I can not wait to see this game grow. The game starts off with your character inside a submarine that’s docked on an island. The captain is your quest giver he helps you out in telling you what to do and he also walks you through the first few steps helping you get an understanding for the game as you see you won’t be building a normal base of operations.

After you get the basics down the captain is notified by the computer of an enemy drill ship about to surface only thing the ship is damaged and this ladies and gents is your new home sweet home, as you take over said ship you’re tasked with making repairs to it and adding the components you will need in order to get that puppy working.

The components are the interesting part as you have to place them on the walls of the ship theres a few that can be placed on the ceiling of the ship, you get your standard storage and refinery as well as the production module which give you plenty of tabs with things you can build to help you out on your journey.

From the map that you find in both the submarine and your ship the island is pretty big in size and you can explore it all and sitting nicely in the center of the island the main attraction to the survival part of the game the Volcano. This is what separates volcanoids from other survival games instead of zombies no you get an angry volcano sitting on a pretty timer waiting to erupt and catch players off guard and change the landscape temporarily. And if players aren’t paying attention well let’s just say a lot of work will be waiting for you and I speak from experience.

On the map the enemies you encounter are called cogs and boy are they a pest, the times I encountered them really were a pain in the butt. You see if you’re coming above ground your stuck in an arial view watching the ship leave the ground but this is where the first big issue comes into effect. While in this sequence you are vulnerable and the minute the cogs see you they’re on you blasting away and boy do they do damage to both your ship and you, now to counter these bad boys you get a trusty sawed off double barrel shotgun which if your good enough you can take the cogs down with the first 2 shots or if your terrible like me 4 shots depending on how many you miss. Depending on the area you visit you might get lucky and only find 1 or 2 cogs or be swarmed by the cog swat team and trust me they hurt. I do hope later on during beta’s or early release we see more guns cause the reload speed on the shotty is painfully slow and accurate. So far during my exploration I’ve seen 2 types of cogs the basic solders in red paint and the next level above them in a green paint, I’m sure there’s many more variations and sizes but we all need to discover them ourselves.

The drill ship itself is pretty cool but I think they could add a few more things like letting players see the underground world as you tunnel around this volcanic paradise. The drill ship being base command truly gives new life to the survival aspect always being able to move around and you can add more segments to the ship to make it longer so you can add more modules like storage as well as lockers. I hope to see upgrades to the drill itself like size or the groves on it so far weaponry for the ship hasn’t been added but the devs have told us on there discord there are plans to add weaponry to the ship which I hope they offer automated weaponry so that if your away from the ship it could defend itself or even add a system that if you leave to explore you can make the ship tunnel below till you return.

There’s a lot more I could talk about but this games really good and doesn’t deserve to be spoiled. If your a fan of survival base building games then do yourself a favor and keep an eye out for volcanoids when it hits early access in January 2019. Have a great day and take care.

Pokemon Let’s GO Pikachu and Eevee

What can I say finally after many years we get the pokemon game on console that many have wanted, yes it’s not a new generation like many hoped for it’s a remake of pokemon yellow. Which I personally don’t see an issue as I’m sure nintendo needed a starting foundation to make sure there weren’t any major bugs or coding problems for their next pokemon game and honestly what better version to be remade then yellow. Pokemon Yellow had some of the best features from the first few games The fact that all 150 pokemon were on the same cartridge, you had pikachu following you around, and similar to the tv show you found bulbasaur squirtal and charmander and made them yours without the need to trade for them.

So then where is the issue? Why are people being so negative about the games? Well in simple terms a few of the changes made didn’t sit well with hardcore fans which I can understand. I’m not happy about the catching method but that’s not stopping me from enjoying the game, another is you can’t fight wild pokemon anymore which that in itself is a bit of an issue because then to train your pokemon you are forced to fight everyone and catch as many pokemon as possible over and over again but even then that’s not enough as you struggle to train the party that you like and may be forced to use random pokemon that you catch just to make it through or you can toughen it out and keep fighting and working on your current party.

I can see that being a big negative which after a certain area in the game it is but I mean come on it’s pokemon. I have been wanting this exact product for years and I for one am super hyped that nintendo has done this and they have even said that the next chapter in pokemon arrives in 2019 so people come on, take the game for what it is an amazing rework and enjoy it till the next gen releases.

Now these two games even tho they are remakes of yellow they feel more like a mixture of all 3 games red, blue and yellow. You see the only feature they implemented was the version exclusive pokemon which isn’t an issue if your an avid pokemon go player which I’ll explain later on. Now my love for this game is seeing everything that made the game fun going through Kanto after so many years makes me feel like the first time I started playing pokemon red on my gameboy pocket… yes I’m old I know lol, but anyways I’ve seen so many memories facing off against Brock and his rock types to getting the dome fossile to visiting the S.S Ann to get the cut h.m which sadly for this game H.M’s don’t exist more on that later. My point is this game has brought back so many memories that I for one even though I have found my gripes with it am truly thankful for nintendo giving us this long awaited gem.

Like any remake there are changes to the game and this is no exception. Firstly the biggest would be the lack of an actual safari zone which is now a small safari park with a few pokemon. The zone has been replaced with the pokemon go park which is where you send any kanto region pokemon you transfer over from pokemon go. I have tested this feature out. I sent my extra dratini over because I didn’t want to wait till end game to try and get a Dragonite. The one part about this that I found annoying is that you have to catch your own pokemon again. Why do I have to go through that much trouble for my own pokemon? I should be able to walk in there, claim my pokemon, and move on. I don’t know why nintendo did it that way but they did.

The next noticeable change like I mentioned earlier is that the H.M’s are gone and are now renamed as secret techniques that your starting partner learns. This is a plus as you don’t waste a move slot on the h.m but I do hope in the next generation game nintendo brings this back. I miss the struggle of which pokemon to make the h.m only mon, and it’s a bit comical and weird seeing my partner eevee learn to fly a balloon powered bike so that I can fly to places and I just learned surf so now I can see eevee riding a surfboard to get me places which honestly always makes me smile as I see eevee making it obvious that she will be learning the moves and not me like there intended to. Now as I haven’t played this game in years I forgot where to get flash and ended up traversing rock tunnel in the dark so kudos to me.

Now the newest feature to these games is the ability to connect your nintendo switch with your mobile device and connecting your pokemon go and let’s go games so that you can 1 way transfer pokemon into let’s go, yes you read that right 1 way transfer so make sure 1 million percent sure before you transfer any pokemon over that you either A. Have a much better version of the pokemon or B. Have more than one of the same pokemon before you transfer them as you will not be able to get them back period. I personally like this as you’re helping yourself complete your pokedex which any pokemon trainer knows that is not an easy thing to do.

There are a few ways you can play the game if you paid the extra cash for the version that brings the pokeball. You can play in docked mode and the pokeball becomes your controller, I wasn’t able to buy that version. I have the basic copy which I can still play in docked mode with the switch controller to move and catch pokemon but I want the old fashion feeling I play in handheld mode and catch pokemon by pressing A which I don’t mind. I can’t be up in my bedroom which is where my switch is connected since I have a son to watch. I like how nintendo didn’t force 1 specific form of playing the game on people and understand that many want to play the game where ever they can without any restrictions.

Now that nintendo has moved pokemon from the DS console family and added it to the switch family I do hope future installments of the game add more to the small side of things like the animations with certain attacks. It would be cool to actually see the fire attacks leave the attackers mouth I know you are thinking why does that matter? Well it doesn’t but it would be nice to see more realism added to the attacks as well as maybe a rework to the fighting system where instead of forcing the first pokemon in your party to be sent out maybe give trainers the chance to pick what mon is sent out so we can feel like we are actually battling instead of waiting till it’s your turn to switch pokemon and waste that precious first move. I also wanna see nintendo go all out with there next few pokemon games and maybe even one day be graced with a game that let’s us travel to every region to battle and catch pokemon but I know all this is a long shot but hey a guy can dream though.

I for one love this game, I love the memories that this game has brought back watching jessie James and meowth run away after every defeat going from city to city and making fools of team rocket or battling my rival or gym leaders. This game is like any other pokemon game out there so do yourself a favor if you are a pokemon fan and are on the fence about getting this game well don’t be. Take the plunge and buy it and enjoy it just like the old days when you played through yellow on the special edition gameboy that was released with it. I hope my words help you to buy the game and to have fun. Have a great day and take care.

Between the Stars Demo

Yes Demo you read that right in 2018 and I’m talking about a demo. Now this isn’t like the old playstation demo’s I grew up with where you played 5 or 10 minutes, According to the timer on steam I spent 61 minutes playing said demo.

Now I’ll be honest I didn’t go into this demo with high expectations for the simple fact that the only experience I’ve had with space games is a handful of hours on elite dangerous. Now for a space game playing on a mouse and keyboard felt really alien, the W/S keys were used for what I call up and down the A/D key were used for the roll of the ship and Q/E handled the left and right your standard keyboard movement keys for any game. The arrow keys controlled the distribution of power between your engines, shields, and weapons and then the scroll wheel and the mouse handled the thrusters which I’ll be honest since not that many games I’ve played use the wheel unless you specify it it was really hard to remember that it did the most important part of the game.

For an hour long demo I’m surprised at the content I was able to play considering the demo marked it as the prologue which for many also offered the prologue in a hard mode. You start in an empty area coming out of warp drive with your ship failing as you take control and go over the simple instructions on what keys move the ship and what keys fire weapons you are soon interrupted by the enemy which puts you and your failing ship in a classic dog battle 1 against 3 which considering the weaponry they had kind of felt a bit unbalanced as you fire away with your cannons and guns. You end the trio only to have the ships A.I warn you of more enemies in same rinse and repeat fashion you destroy them and the game teaches you about looting which yay loot. You must approach the ships until they turn holo and find the red spot hover your mouse over and click and hold boom loot for you.

After the little battle intro you make your way to the nearest space station looking for repairs. After finding the repair chief you make a deal for the repairs on the ship and this brings you to the first of 2 contracts you can complete during the demo. I admit the contracts felt normal for any typical game (go here find this go there check that fight and return) Nothing major to make it stand out to the only game I can compare it to. The second contract tasks you with babysitting and exploring and finding out what’s going on near a mining area. Once you investigate and find what you need you’re thrown into another space battle against some space pirates a few minutes later their gone and you have a computer chip to decipher. Making your way back to the station, the repair chief let’s you know your ship is repaired so you set out right away along the way in warp drive your crew decipher the chip and play the message on it. Soon you find out the danger and treason said message holds as you rush to warn your superiors.

The final part of the demo has you reach a republic space station just in time to see the admiral talking to another admiral welcoming him only to behold that said admiral is the bad guy starting a galactic war. Soon your giving control back of your ship and fly into the heat of battle after taking down a few enemy ships your A.I reports that Admiral Shiao (good guy) has died in battle, hearing this you become emotional and launch an all out attack on the traitor who happens to be in the middle of a cluster of 5 other ships. Again you take over and struggle for a few more minutes after getting the enemy down to 35% the cinematics take over as you sacrifice your crew and ship to destroy the traitor and enemies around, you come to asking your A.I how the ship is down only to a few seconds later see yourself and your ship explode and the name of the demo Between the Stars show up on screen. Demo over as a message of helping to support the production of the game flashes on screen linking you to the kickstarter.

Now I don’t know if it’s like that for every space game or if it’s just me but I was bored during the whole demo it wasn’t until seeing the message of treason on screen and hearing of the impending danger that I started to get interested in the story of the game and seeing my captain die in an explosion like WTF man. Story wise I feel the demo took to long to get you to the juicy bit and then your hit with a high pressure hose of story only to have it end a minute later. I hope the game has an amazing story cause the tiny bit that I got to see left more to be desired.

I also hope to see support for controllers and flight sticks added to the game upon release. If you’re a fan of space games and want one with the makings of a good story then keep an eye out for between the stars when it releases next year out on steam. Have a great day everyone.