Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It Should Be A Bigger Deal

It's finally here! I've got to say, Sekiro does not disappoint. Overall this should be very short review because there's not a whole lot to talk about. Sekiro is an absolutely amazing game. It looks great, feels great, and that's because it is great. The amount of detail is remarkable. Level design, graphics, even the music is well done. On top of that I feel like I'm following the story for once, and it's very enjoyable to see characters progress, including Wolf. The game itself is huge with versatile enemies and several ways to go about killing them. Personally I'm someone who tends not to use the prosthetic tools and I stealth kill just about every enemy. It's not that the prosthetic tools aren't good, it's just that I tend to shy away from items and things that have "limited" uses, even though you find plenty of spirit emblems. Because of this I'm capped with 999 spirit emblems in storage.

Combat is a lot of fun, but hard to get a handle on. I've been playing now for 35 hours and I still struggle with the "danger" prompts. I like though that the way to avoid an attack is to actually do something so you aren't in the way of the attack. If the enemy strikes low, jump. If they thrust, dodge to the side (or use the mikiri counter ability if you have it). Unlike Dark Souls where you roll with "invincibility frames", parts of the dodge where you are cannot be hit, Sekiro actually has you get out of the way of being hit. That or you can block or deflect attacks.

The only problem I have with the game is that when I'm in a fight and am using a lot of buttons, blocking is not one of Sekiro's priorities. What I mean is that if I'm moving and I hold the button to block, I'll keep moving instead. I want to hold the block button and have it override all other commands. Instead I have to make sure I'm not trying to do anything else otherwise he won't do it and I start getting torn apart. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

I don't want to say a ton about the game, I'd rather that you get it and enjoy it for yourself. I will say that I love it though. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice does not disappoint. It does not feel like Dark Souls but I enjoy it just as much. I 100% recommend getting it and playing it too much, cause that's what I've been doing.

Dawn of War: I'm Nostalgically Biased

About a month ago, I noticed that one of the Dawn of War games I had on my Steam wish list was on sale. Turns out they were all something like 75% off, so I took the liberty of purchasing nine different Warhammer 40,000 games. I grew up playing Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, so that one in particular is somewhat nostalgic for me. Right now I want to write a brief review of the first Dawn of War game, which technically encompasses four different games: Warhammer 40,00 Dawn of War, Winter Assault, Dark Crusade, and Soulstorm.

All four of them are RTS (Real Time Strategy) games, released from 2004-2008. In the campaign of the first game, you play as the Space Marines, encountering Imperial Guard, Orcs, Chaos Space Marines, and Eldar. Winter Assault branches out and lets you play as all four of the encountered factions but not the Space Marines. Winter Assault also adds the Necrons as an enemy towards the end of the campaign. Dark Crusade and Soulstorm’s campaigns are a “conquer the world” scenario, like Rise of Nations or even Star War’s Battlefront II. Dark Crusade allows you to be any of the aforementioned races and adds the Tau Empire to the mix. Lastly, Soulstorm builds off of Dark Crusade and adds the Sisters of Battle and the Dark Elder for a grand total of 9 playable races. I should mention that this applies specifically when you have all of the games. From what I understand, playable races are limited if you only have one specific game in the group.

           Now, as far as gameplay goes, the graphics are decent enough for me. I wouldn’t say it looks good, but there’s certainly detail in unit designs and they're all unique enough that I don't get confused. For a game that started it’s release 15 years ago, it holds up for me. Troop composition is well done, there are effective counters, lots of options, and overall solid balance. I didn’t feel like there was so much as to overwhelm me, but enough that I wasn’t bored making a bunch of the same units over and over. The biggest problem I have with the game is how easily units get stuck on each other. I've never seen it be much of a problem in other RTS games but in Dawn of War (I say Dawn of War now to mean all four games) units jam up like nobody’s business. In reality they’re actually all up in each other’s business. It’s like one big hockey fight or like the ball just snapped in football, except there’s no opposing team: it’s just a bunch of my own guys bunching up. In particular it gets really bad whenever you have infantry mixed in with vehicles. I play now with vehicles as one army, and infantry as a separate army, and I try not to have them get too close to one another. But too many vehicles will also get stuck on one another as well. The problem is you have to spread out your guys, but that’s a terrible idea tactically telling your troops to charge the enemy base in small groups.

           That aside, perhaps my favorite thing about these games is the story. The world of Warhammer 40,000 is awesome and I absolutely love it. Each faction of units is unique and different from one another, and in general I love the dialogue of the units. Space Marines are seriously the coolest and I love them just like everyone else. All the main characters are impressively done and have my respect. In my opinion Dark Crusade in particular has the coolest bunch of commanders who each represent their factions well. It would have to be my favorite game to play. I love the interactions between the different commanders when you invade an enemy stronghold. That was probably my biggest letdown playing Soulstorm. I’ve only played it once but the dialogue seems disjointed. In Dark Crusade, commanders have different conversations entirely depending on what race you are playing as. Soulstorm lacks that. The other advantage Dark Crusade has over Soulstorm is that your base stays after you conquer a territory. In Soulstorm, whatever you built is wiped, and when you have to defend from an enemy attack you start with nothing, so you have put garrisons on territories and whatever effort you put in on a previous territory is lost.

           All in all, I think that Dawn of War is enjoyable, but more because I love the story and played it as a kid than anything else. I like to play it on the easiest difficulty and just blow through it, much like I play Fable, Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy, and occasionally Halo. I like to play it in a breezy manner, feeling stupidly powerful and enjoying the story more than anything else. If you’ve never played, I’d recommend starting with Dark Crusade to see how you like it. Maybe wait till there’s a sale and get it for three or four dollars like I did.

Apex Legends Takes the Gaming World by a Perfect Storm

Just over a month ago EA and Respawn Entertainment released the newest Battle Royale game, and it's massive success is all thanks to Fortnite...

About a year ago some information on a "Titanfall battle royale" game was leaked. According to Gamespot.com "No one noticed" when the game map leaked back then, and many passed it off as "fake." However, the map wasn't fake, and EA opened February 2019, with something that would absolutely shake the gaming world.

Apex Legends has undoubtedly taken the gaming world by storm, and if you are reading this you've likely already hear of it, or even played it. Capitalizing on many tropes in modern gaming, Respawn managed to make the perfect mix of Hero abilities, Battle Royale chaos, and that lovely Titanfall styling. The game hailed as the "Fortnite Killer" (but we know Pewdiepie really killed it) may just be living up to that title. In just one month Apex's player count broke the 50 Million mark, a number Fortnite didn't reach until after 4 months of being on the market. Heck, after 3 days Apex legends had matched Fortnite's week 2 player count. Point is, this game is off the rails popular. 

There are some interesting factors contributing to this popularity level. First off, it should be noted that Fortnite still has over 200 MILLION people registered to play, and is certainly not dead yet. But as to why Respawn's new game is catching up so quickly, I think it can be directly attributed to Fortnite, among a few other things. Consider this: do you remember PUBG being crazy popular? No? That's probably because, while Player Unknown's Battlegrounds introduced the item collection and shrinking death ring components now known everywhere, it was Fortnite that made those components so widely known. I mean, honestly, according to SteamCharts, PUBG peaked at 3 million players at once. Epic Games said Fortnite's concurrent peak was just 2 days before the release of Apex on February 2nd, during an event where DJ "Marshmello" put on a live concert in the game... somehow. That event saw, get this, 10.7 MILLION concurrent players. So it's obvious that Fortnite popularized Battle Royale as we now know it, but it didn't just use those basic mechanics from PUBG: Fortnite took Battle Royale from something hyper serious and transformed it into a fun, brightly colored party with guns. Fun skins and unique dances/animations combined with a cartoon-like art style made Fortnite the perfect game for all ages. 

So with Fortnite being so popular and dominating the Youtube trending page, as well as all gaming news sources, it's no wonder everyone's eyes opened a little wider when rumors of a Titanfall Battle Royale began to surface. Apex Legends' success can be called the perfect storm of hype and a need for change. Everyone loves Battle Royale, it's the most popular genre of game out there right now, but with Fortnite being the only player in the game people have been starting to burn out on Fortnite coverage. Beyond that, people had fresh in their minds just how good Titanfall 2 was and were eagerly looking forward to Respawn Entertainment announcing Titanfall 3. So when Respawn suddenly dropped Apex Legends for free, gamers were beyond ready to jump into it. 

Normally hype born from boredom wanes very quickly. Luckily, Apex has some tricks up its sleeve. The first and most obvious change is the introduction of Heroes or Legends. Each team member chooses a different Legend when starting the game. These Legends each have different abilities, game dialogue, and animation to customize and play with. It brings an aspect of popular MOBAs to the Battle Royale genre. The next thing they did was enhance the nervous sensations and the intensity of gun-play by making the camera first person. My biggest issue with PUBG and Fortnite was that, in 3rd person, I couldn't shoot as accurately as I wanted to. The perspective change fixed that, and also added to the intensity of gunfights and the nervousness you feel running around, unable to just move the camera freely or naturally see slightly behind you. First person also helped give it a grittier feel while keeping the fun vibes of the animation. As a result Apex Legends eliminated a Fortnite problem, the childish vibe which alienated adult fans and grew an army of young children within the game. To add to that, they included executions which also have unlockable animations based on character, and the made sure to give the Legends very unique personalities. Top that off with the familiar weapons and controls of Titanfall and Apex Legends has quickly become a bona fide hit.

Apex Legends is playable for free on all major platforms and can be found for PC here: https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends