Turtle Beach announces Elite Pro headset at E3 2016

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

I don’t usually consider the thing that sits on my head while I am gaming a premium piece of hardware. Usually it’s just whatever headphones I use for editing video or audio. Turtle beach wants to change that with their newest set of headphones, the Elite Pro headset. The Elite Pro sells for $200USD and Turtle Beach have pulled out all the stops making this one.

Here you can see the adjustment for how tight the headset sits on your head

Here you can see the adjustment for how tight the headset sits on your head

E3 2016 with Turtle Beach

The first thing turtle beach said to us was that this headset has been designed with “competitive gaming” in mind. I was a skeptical, but when Turtle Beach sat me down and started to tell me about the features this headset had, I started to believe that claim.

E3 is a crazy haze of booths, competing with noise, colors, and size for the attention of the people who enter the Los Angeles Convention Centers two main halls.  Turtle Beach knowing this had a full stage for E-Sports set up and was blasting a loud speaker, full tilt, e-sports of one sort or another. Their booth was full of colors and lights, and loud announcers; this struck me as odd because the new headset is anything but flashy.

Leather and fabric

You can just see the fabric peeking out of the leather ear cups in this shot

Ancient history

If you have been a gamer since the PS2 and Xbox era you probably remember when Turtle Beach was the absolute last word in gaming headsets. Their wireless sets dominated the market for years, with their precision sound allowing hard core gamers to hear their enemies before they ever saw them. Sadly as the years rolled on Turtle Beach began to focus on more options, and their ultra high end sets started to suffer a bit as they played to the dominant market force of low cost. As brands like Astro and Razer rose, Turtle Beach found themselves in an increasingly crowded market with too many products and no focus.

Enter the Elite Pro

The Elite Pro Tournament headset is their answer to that problem. Created they say from the ground up for ESports team OPTIC, and clearly marketed at the very top end of all gaming headsets, Turtle Beach is hoping that the Elite Pro can see them return to the top.

The first thing I noticed about the Elite Pro was that it wasn’t wireless. For me at least this is a good thing, if you want maximum performance, you don’t use a wireless headset. The second thing I noticed was the muted colors, many gaming headset are very concerned with the idea of having you be seen wearing the headset, Turtle beach have gone instead with a muted black color scheme with a few orange accents.

In this shot you can also see the $200 TAC

In this shot you can also see the $200 TAC

yah but what does it do?

Features wise the headset has a pair of 50mm drivers, that Turtle Beach says use “NanoClear” technology, when I asked what that was, I was told it was proprietary, so I have no idea what that is at all. These speakers nest in a huge set of foam ear pads which are very round and have plenty of cushioning.  One really neat feature with the ear padding is a sort of pull that allows you to create a channel in the padding for glasses. The cups use combined leather and fabric the leather provides a beautiful finish while the fabric prevents major ear sweating during long gaming sessions.

Beyond the comfortable ear cups, the headset does a few other things with comfort in mind. Turtle Beach says they have designed this headset with long gaming sessions in mind, and so have put in some features to help that. The set uses a well-padded floating headband to try and prevent any painful contact points on the head itself. As well as an adjustment on the headset band itself for tightness. This one seems like it’s a bit excessive but if the shoe fits.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to try any of these comfort features so I can’t tell you if they really make a different feel, and the only set that was available for a demo unit wasn’t hooked in to anything so perhaps more importantly I can’t tell you what it sounded like to have them on. What I can tell you is that the marketing people really sold the set as being gaming first.

Gaming Performance

Turtle Beach promises that this is first a gaming headset, and so they haven’t spent a ton of time working on the sound response. Instead they have focuses on making sure that you can hear your opponents coming and that your team mates can hear you when your talking to them.

To that second point, Turtle Beach have said that they have deigned an all new microphone with the same quality as a boom mic so your teammates never miss your call out of one enemy at B site. There is an inline mic mute and volume control. The headset will work with any 3.5mm jack, but Turtle Beach recommends plugging it in its 200USD Elite pro Tactical Audio Controller (TAC) for best results. Again I was totally unable to try the microphone so I can’t speak to its ability to block outside sound (a major feature of tournament grade microphones) or its fidelity.

sideproducts

This is the full list of accessories for the Pro line

accessories

Turtle beach are also making two accessories to go with the Elite Pro Headset. First you have the $200 TAC, and then the Elite Pro noise canceling microphone ($30). The TAC’s purpose is the same as the old Astro mixamps, to control the levels of various things.

To use the TAC you’ll need to plug in the headphones, the microphone, and the controller you are using. On the back you’ll find an Aux in port, a stream out port, a selector switch to tell the amp which device you are on, Ethernet in and out, and optical in and out. There can be no doubt that the TAC has a lot of cables when it is all plugged in, but what you get in exchange is a huge degree of control over in game sound. The Ethernet ports are not for internet, but instead daisy chaining multiple mix amps together.

On the front you have a large volume knob, and 4 sliders. Each slider has a center click to tell you when you are at 50%. The 4 controllable sliders are for game volume, background noise cancellation, outbound mic boost, and mic monitor level. Since this is a powered amp your going to be able to do a lot more than you would with a just the headset. The TAC comes with 4 preloaded presets, but if you are spending 200 USD on an audio set up, you should probably be setting your own levels.

The second accessory is the $30 noise canceling microphone. This microphone has a bit of magic in it, with a front mounted mic that pics up noise around you, and then uses the mixamp to filter it out that noise.  Once again I have only the word of the rep giving the presentation to go by on this one, but hopefully independent testing will arrive in the future to verify this claim. According to the current reviews that are out there the consensus seems to be that there was very little difference between the default Elite Pro headset and the extra offered microphone.

TACBACK

There are a lot of ports on the back of the TAC

The final word

Overall this headset looks promising, unfortunately I am unable to bring you and real “testing” of the set as Turtle Beach have not provided a review model, but I can say this. This is a very well-constructed pretty headset. The Elite pro is designed with  comfortable long gaming sessions in mind. It is a project that comes from a need in the space for a dedicated tournament grade headset. If you are in the market for a new high end headset, this should for sure be on your short list. Hopefully when Turtle Beach has the available inventory for reviewers, I can get one set for you our audience to do a full run down with.

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VIZ Media to parther with OverDrive to provide digital manga titles at participating libraries in the U.S. and Canada.

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

lovers of manga who were alive in the 90s and early 00’s, will remember when you could walk in to a Barns and Nobel, or a Borders, and find shelves and shelves of manga. Most of this manga was readable in store. I can remember spending long hours waiting in the stacks of those book stores wishing I had the money to take some of that manga home. Kids of today have a better option. Services like OverDrive bring digital titles to libraries across the United States and Canada, and now VIZ media has announced that they will be joining OverDrive.

VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest publisher, distributor and licensor of manga and anime in North America, has announced an agreement with OverDrive to provide a wide variety of its most popular digital manga (graphic novel) titles at  participating libraries in the U.S. and Canada.

What is overdrive?

OverDrive is a leading digital distribution platform, supplying the industry’s largest catalog of eBooks, audiobooks, streaming video and periodicals to 34,000 libraries, schools and retailers worldwide, including 90 percent of all public libraries in the U.S. “OverDrive’s digital platform offers an innovative, cloud-based and fully scalable channel to offer a diverse selection of age-appropriate digital manga content to library patrons and our partnership with the company will ensure that users have access to some of the most popular titles from the VIZ Media catalog,” says Kevin Hamric, Senior Director, Publishing Sales & Marketing, VIZ Media.

What about the manga?

Viz will begin offering through the Overdrive service  several popular and award-winning VIZ Media titles such as NARUTO, DEADMAN WONDERLAND, VAMPIRE KNIGHT, and NEON GENESIS EVANGELION. Viz is placing these titles  in digital collections at libraries around the country for young readers to check out. Viz plans to keep adding more titles as the year goes on with many more already planned. If you are interested you can review the full list at  www.overdrive.com/publishers/vizmedia. 

“VIZ Media is a proven leader in manga publishing and we are very excited to add some of their most popular series to our service,” says Karen Estrovich, Director, Collection Development at OverDrive. “OverDrive delivers a large catalog  combined with intuitive, easy to use eReading apps. Manga continues to be one of the most popular categories at libraries and we invite readers to discover all of the exciting new VIZ Media titles with our service.”

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Sekai Project Heats Things Up With Steam Summer Sale

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Steams summer sale is upon us! Each year in the summer Steam teams up with all the bets developers including our own beloved Sekai, to bring all the best in games, for the lowest prices. Seaki’s entire catalog is basically on sale! I can recommend my beloved Nekopara, as well Clannad from exepreience! Titles prices range from 10% off all the way up to 85% off! Now is your chance to grab all of those games on your wishlist. From visual novels and kinetic novels to platformers and puzzlers…there’s something for everyone! The sale even covers the newest set of releases, The Orchard of Stray Sheep, My Little Kitties, and The Labyrinth of Grisaia.

So whats a VN anyways?

If you have never played a Visual Novel (vn) before ill give you a few tips and a basic overview! Most visual novel are a story that is read out loud in English or Japanese. Along with this reading are images that show the story progressing! Some also contain minigames, or other story mechanics to progress the story!

I personally recommend Nekopara, it is a visual novel about adorable cat girls who work at a bakery! Its rated M an has some very adult content. If thats not what you want Clannad is is a sweet story about love. If you are more in to the action world you can check out ReversexReverse a game full of action and adventure!

I am really excited to be able to pick up and play some of these VN’s! Which ones will you be playing? tell us on Twitter or Facebook!

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Warhammer Inquisitor Martyr – E3 hands on preview

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Warhammer Inquisitor Martyr was one of the games I most wanted to see at E3. I am a massive fan of Warhammer 40K and this game has a custom physics engine on board, to make everything look awesome, and be able to be destroyed. I was unsure of how cover would work in an ARPG styled game, but it turned out I didnt really need it at all. Check out the trailer below for a good idea of how the game plays.

I found Neocore Games booth way in the back of South hall, as I approached and saw just a few computer and a TV screen, I wondered if i was in the wrong place. Luckily for me I was not, the large display TV clearly showed that the title of the game and a nice set of B roll footage playing in the background. After a presentation about the world, the physics engine, and the eventual scope of the game. I was allowed to sit down and play for about 30 minutes, I had access to one level, and one of the games three planned classes, but even with these limited options, I had a hell of a lot of fun.

Right away I noticed that this was a very pretty game, Neocore games have cooked up their very own new graphics engine for this game and it shows. Lighting is very important in the 40K universe, it is literally a GRIM DARK, universe. Martyr does a great job with this aesthetic. Everything is dark, but also looks like it’s in the future. Much of the galaxy of 40K is 10,000 years or more old, made up of lost technology, and often in ruins. This is very clear in the tile sets that the developer have chosen. Most of environments I saw looked ancient, to the point of being ready to crumble.  I was only able to play on one tileset and indoor metal based one, but earlier trailers have shown other more open or outside tile sets will be in-game.

This is the kind of crap inquistors have to deal with

This is the kind of crap inquisitors have to deal with

The custom designed engine takes good advantage of that terrain. It is all fully destructible, and this is one the things that the developer is very invested in this destructible cover system, as you can see from this video.  The environment also provides another layer, offering cover for you or your foes to hide behind. These covers can then be destroyed. The system works all right, but felt a bit out-of-place in an ARPG.

Sitting down and playing it, the cover system honestly doesn’t feel like its needed. I say this with trepidation in my heart because developing a major system just for a game like this is really a great thing, but an ARPG is by its design action based. I don’t want to hide behind cover, I want to jump in to a pile of enemies and kill them all. You can do that, but since enemies also have good AI, they will use the cover to evade you, and you will spend more time chasing if you don’t play the way the developers want. That being said the Warhamer universe is as good as any for an ARPG to be set in. With weapons like chain swords, and psykers who can throw powerful attacks there is no shortage of material for an ARPG .  Even with just the small slice of the game I was shown I could see some of that and the developers spent a lot of time stressing that we have only seen a small amount of it so far.

At the E3 demo we were also treated to video and explanation of a new class. The assassin class looked rough around the edges, since it seemed to have only a snipe, and a few stealth abilities, but nothing to really do much damage. I hope this class was still in development and will look a bit more polished when the game is finished. It does have promise, but since the game is a single player experience im unsure why anyone would chose not to play the heavily armored tank of a champion that is the crusader class.  The Crusader is the games tank and is who we have seen in other gameplay videos, and who I was able to play in the demo. There will be a third class (I am hoping for a magic user) which has yet to be revealed as well. Each class will have different weapons, and each weapon will have different attack “modes” meaning that your sword will be able to do things that aren’t just swing pointy end at enemy. I saw a bit of this when I played, being able to use my sword as a finisher after shooting a bunch with my bolter.

This is you, you are a bad ass, you kill xenos.

This is you, you are a bad ass, you kill xenos.

At its core this is an ARPG, you will take on the role of one super powered Inquisitor from the Space Marines faction of the 40K universe, you will then hack, shoot, and explode your way through purifying the aliens, mutants, and heretics of the 40K world. Neocore are going to give players a whole sector to play around in, and have promised that players decisions will make major changes to the sector. Two types of campaign will exist in game. In the first mode your character will fight alone in massive sector, but special events will tie the various missions together. When you finish the story, which is promised to be a classic 40K story with a mystery as old as the inquisition itself at its core, you will then have access to the open world of the sector and be able to play endless levels with procedural generated maps and objectives. In this open world sandbox is where Neocore have promised that your actions will effect the larger sector.

I was only able to play one mission, with the objective of killing a boss at the end. It was pretty much the most basic ARPG style game play you could imagine. I had a series of abilities, triggered with the numbers on the keyboard, I could shoot my gun with right click and move with left click. The class I was playing had two weapons choices. The first was a sword and bolt pistol, this combination is fairly balanced, and gave me the ability to both shoot at things far away, and chop things that got close to with my sword. While using my sword I had access to some neat finishing moves that could be triggered when an enemy’s health was low. I could for example behead an enemy soldier, or stab him through the chest. My secondary weapon was a Lascannon, which shot a single target with a high damage slow-moving projectile. The Lascannon also had a AOE ability that I found myself abusing quite a bit, it launched a slow projectile that landed and cause a large amount of damage. This was my only AOE that I was able to find. As far as I could tell the only other place I could get AOE damage from was grenade. While this wasn’t as much as a problem as it would be in say Diablo, Inquisitor Martyr did still throw groups of enemies at me, so I would have been quite happy for another AoE ability. I mean I have a sword, let me swing it in a wide arc or spin it or something!

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room

this is about as crowded as one room will ever get, enemy density is very light. Also notice the ever present ARPG red health globe.

So as I got started on the mission that I was allowed to play, I was dropped in to a grim room, with a lot of gothic flare, if I had to guess I would say I was one of the massive space ship hulks that feature in the 40K universe. I was allowed to wander down a few hallways, which the developers told me were procedurally generated, and fought a few enemies. I seemed to be fighting the chaos faction, and at saw at least 5 enemy types even in this early prototype of the game. The destructible cover works, you can destroy almost everything people hide behind, but I mostly spent my time kiting enemies out of cover to kill them, so I found the cover mechanic at best annoying. Now is the part where I have to say that this is not a typical ARPG, as fast as something like Diablo is with huge swarms of enemies coming to you and you hitting them and using abilities on them, this is the opposite. The game moves slowly, you feel like a giant terminator, walking slowly along shooting and faster enemies who you are forced to either try to kill before they get to you. I did not feel like I was close to dying anywhere, but it was a demo designed for press, so it may have been toned down.

Overall I enjoyed the game, I think it really captures what I feels like to be a super powerful terminator alone and arrayed against the whole galaxy of Xeonos. I could have done without the cover mechanic I never used, and I think the difficulty needs some tweaking for sure, and since the demo build I played had no loot in it, I really didn’t get that ARPG feel that comes with say Diablo or other games like it. The developers did say that they were working on loot, diversity of enemies, and whole slew of more weapons from the 40K universe. This is a game to keep on your radar as it gets closer and closer to done. As of today the game has no release date, and the developers are still calling it an alpha product, so I would expect that there is a ton of work to still be done on the game, but when it is done, I think it will be a worthy entry in to the 40K video game cannon.

I leave you with this one final trailer by the developers about mass destruction, and my thoughts on the game. In order for this to work as an ARPG loot needs to come in to the game. The developers were adamant that they were working on it but wanted the loot to “make sense” before it went in to game. The rest felt quite good, and I plan to play and review this game when it comes out sometime in 2017.

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All of Titan Fall 2’s DLC will be free

Posted on June 21, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

It is all too easy to lose sight of news post E3 and just talk about all of the amazing games you played, things you saw, and stuff you did. However something as important as this shouldn’t be ignored. Titan Fall was a good shooter, its lack of campaign kept it back from being great, and it had a few mechanics that needed tweaking, but it introduced several elements that most modern shooters now emulate.  So good was it that even with lack luster sales on PC and a fan base that cried for a single player experience in its rich world it is still getting a sequel. Rae and I both got to play that sequel at EA’s fanfest, and we will bring you a review when its out, you can read the preview here. Now I fully expected EA and Respawn to fuck up the sequel with that oh so EA day one DLC. So you can imagine my surprise when last week it was annoucned that all of the DLC for the game would be free.

During EA play Titanfall 2’s lead programmer Jon Shiring said: all of Titanfall 2’s maps and modes will be free. “One of our lessons is we’re not gonna sell maps anymore,” Shiring says. “All the modes and maps coming to Titanfall 2 after release will all be free.”

titanfall2

Well that awesome I thought at the time, and well still mostly do. Now we are getting a little bit more detail about what really went in to that decision. Vince Zampella head of Respwan entertainment said yesterday: “We still want to provide post launch content because people want it, but it’s not free to do. If we’re going to support the game, that costs money. The specifics aren’t nailed down yet, which is why it’s really hard to talk about it, but the smart money would seem to be on paid DLC that won’t keep people from playing together if they don’t all have it: cosmetic items, boosts, and that sort of thing.”

I have never minded cosmetic DLC, and find that I even end up buying some usually, especially if it has that cool element of gambling or randomness like crates in Overwatch, or cases in CS:GO. I guess we wont know what exactly the DLC model will be until Titanfall 2 comes out on Octobter 28, but we do know it wont involve maps or game mode, so good on you Vince and EA.

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Koihime Enbu a fighting game with cute girls | review

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Koihime Enbu is one of those games that surprised me, I was offered the chance to review it by the publisher Degica and honestly was planning on taking a pass until I saw some of the still images that went with its PR packet. I am a huge sucker for cute girls, and this game is full of them. So I booted it up. I was expecting sort of Tekken vibe, and was rewarded with a satisfying and easy to get in to fighter that does lack some depth but is still fun. There is a lot here to explore and with so many really great characters to play, each of which has a unique visual vibe.  13 Unique fighters make the game feel fresh and diverse.

Full disclaimer I am not an expert at fighting games, I lose to all of my friends regularly in Street fighter, Mortal Combat, and Soul Caliber, so I am literally the worst when it comes to skill at fighting games. This became important when I learned that this basically a non-technical fighting game. While you can do air combos, blocks, recoveries, and even reversals, this isn’t Street Fighter 5. Air combos are really important at higher levels but you can play with out using them and still do all right.

The basics are pretty standard fighter, the characters are all girls, who come from a VN with the same name in 2007. The art style is absolutely beautiful, the colors are bright the models are alive. the stages are diverse. I can easily recommend this game just from its amazing art style. Each girl has a unique weapon and they span from generic swords to a set of heart shaped hoops. There is a lot of diversity both in character models and environments.  Each of the character models is technically 3d so you get some nice side effects as your characters move around and fight, but since they exist in 2D space these are more like hints of depth than any actual depth.

The game offers Story mode, arcade mode, vs, training, and online mode. I dove pretty heavily in to the Story mode, which is fully and beautifully voiced in Japanese with English subtitles. There is  a story but like most fighting games, the story is mostly about something you no doubt will not care about at all. Primarily it serves as a beautiful rest and transition period between the fights. I cant say i was at all invested in the story, or that I even played the VN this game hearkens back to (I don’t even remember 2007). The story is mostly fluffy and I am reasonably sure that I absorbed none of it at all, but it was very well voiced and each in between segment took several minutes to watch.

Koihime-Enbu-Feature-Image

Enbu is a 4-button fighting game with 3 core attack buttons (low, medium and high), and another button being used exclusively for throws. The throw button can only be used after you hit a stun, The games simple buttons are nice for people like me who are not really very good at fighters with complex control schemes. This control scheme mapped well to the Xbox controller I was using. Each of the three main buttons went to X, A and Y, and grab went to B. The layout  felt pretty good, as my fingers spent most of the time pressing the two buttons on the left and bottom of the controller, and much less time on the right side, which for someone with small hands is harder to reach. The triggers are also used providing an easy press for multiple buttons. I thought it fit pretty well to use the Xbox controller even with its notoriously horrible design when it comes to fighting games. All of the buttons are mapable but I am not the type of person to spend any time remapping the buttons for comfort.

I spent the vast majority of my time in game watching the games  amazing character models move and attack and just exist in the games bright vibrant world. I was sorely missing the standard fighting game tutorial, but honestly this game does all right with just button mashing and skin of the teeth reactions. I will never call myself a great player of fighting games, and anime fighting games tend to be even more specific in their needed buttons, thankfully this game does not have that problem. Combos and special moves are the same set of buttons for every character. While this made me quite happy, I think many harder core fighter fans will find this lack of diversity boring. I like it because you can move across all of the characters with very few problems. Super and special moves are all executed via a simple combo of buttons and assist calls are done with just a single button combo (half a circle and the throw button).

combo

The game does lack the depth that you will get if your chosen fighter is say Street Fighter. But, for someone like me this is the perfect game to just jump in to and have fun with for a few hours. The game includes the necessary social and multiplayer modes. I dipped my foot in to them, got smacked in the face a bunch and decided it was not for me at all. However, if you like competitive online multiplayer, it does exist here. The one drawback of this being such a niche fighter is that since its launch the online community has taken quite a dip, and other outlets have reported that it can take over 10 minutes to find an online match.

If you see this game below its current price of $39.99 I would say pick it up. at 40USD I can’t recommend it unless you are a big fan of either anime fighters, or cute girls beating each other up, but if it was more like 30USD it would be an instant buy for me.  Make your own decision on this one based off of how much you really like anime fighting games.

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Hands on with Agents of Mayhem | E3 2016

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

One of the things I absolutely could not miss this E3 was the new game from Volition and Deep Silver. makers of the Saints Row franchise. which I absolutely love. This new game is called Agents of Mayhem. Featuring a three character team – each with unique abilities from a team created to oppose the evil masterminds of the world. During the short presentation, we were given prior to the demo we were told to think of the playable hero’s more as rogues, your Han Solo or Dexter Morgan than a true good superhero. This really comes through in the game, as we started out by having a developer telling us that if we used out special ability it would “detonate” any pedestrians that we walked past. Ped-splosion it was called by him. He was not kidding, I activated the ability and purple lightning started emanating from me started a 3 second counter over anyone I walked near. When that timer reached 0, BOOM, no more pedestrians. They literally exploded into tiny little bits of meat all over the place. That single bit of gameplay from the demo would color my entire experience. The whole demo was just fun. Its really hard to describe fun, but imagine basically feeling like a superhero (a stated objective of the game) but one who doesn’t worry about damage to the local area of pedestrians.

20160606_AOM_Announce_05

that floating thing is dual pistol girls special move, its controlled by the AI and does MASSIVE damage

 

To get into the actual game itself, you play as a team of three “agents” which you can choose from a stable of 12. I chose three of the most basic, a large man with a shotgun and a harpoon (really? a harpoon, I swear it worked just fine) a tiny girl who had two fast shooting pistols that worked on a cooldown system, and a Hollywood reality star who fast-talked through his lines spent as much time talking as shooting. Each of these team members had a unique weapon and a unique ability called their agent ability. My favorite of these abilities I can only call crotch rocket, which was on the Hollywood reality star character. He sort of stops does a pelvic thrust and it just shoots out a missile in front of you. This is basically the whole game. It is all like this and it is amazing.

20160613_AOM_E3_01

The shotgun guy is large.

Mechanics wise, each hero has a main weapon that is their primary damage, for Hollywood this was a rifle, for the smaller girl two pistols, and the the large man a shotgun, each also has a powerful melee attack which is great when things get in real trouble. The vast majority of the time I didn’t feel like I was in trouble, but there were a couple of moments when my shield did get low, and a large group of enemies was nearby so I resorted to the meele, and I must admit it felt a bit more powerful than it probably should have.

The game is going to rely heavily on building combos, and using different heroes- each with their own different roles.  Each hero has a main weapon, an ability, a sort of super move, and a meele, and it mostly feels balanced. I didn’t feel like any one  of the three I played were more powerful, more like each had its own set of abilities and strengths, some were good at AOE, some had a strong main attack weapon, and some were more balance. Each level will be generated in a  procedural manner, so you will be able to play the man levels of the open game world again and again and again while never really getting bored.

20160606_AOM_Announce_02

The game is very colorfull

Squad choice is going to be important, but the developers also told us that each player will be able to play to their style, even if maybe it’s not the best strategy. What stood out the most about the demo was how much it felt like a game that was designed to be fun. Every little piece just seemed to be about having a good time. The Saints row style of dialog, the lack of respect for basically everything on the screen, it just feels good. The demo had a very arcadey carefree feel that took me back to the end of Saints Row 4 when you had max everything powers wise, or perhaps even Crackdown where you could just bounce around and destroy anything you wanted to.  It’s clear that story will be important, each of the Heroes has their own unique stories and they will all fight against the evil organization that is legion (no not the 4chan people that’s what the enemy organization is called). I am looking forward to seeing what sort of unique power-ups and upgrades each hero can get. Sadly during our short play-through there was not enough time to see the whole upgrade tree, but we did get to see a little bit and I can confirm that there are a lot of upgrades that can upgrade damage, health, shields, and other things.

Even though I only had about 20 minutes with the game, I feel like its going to be one of those games that I get lost in for days at a time just like the other games that take place in the same Saints Row universe.

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Space Marines arrive in Battlefleet Gothic Armada

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Battle Fleet Gothic is near and dear to our hearts here at Brokenjoysticks. I have about 40 hours in the game our number one streamer Rob has a ton more even than that, so you know we love the game. Right now your coming up on the end of the early adopter period where you can get  Battlefleet Gothic: Armada. Getting it now means you  get a couple of DLC races for free: the Space Marines and the Tau. Those Space Marines are due to arrive on June 21, which also is the last date to buy the game as an “early adopter”. So if you want Space Marines in your big mad space cathedral RTS, and you don’t want to pay for the,, consider picking the game up on Steam like right now.

Here’s a quick trailer introducing the grim Space Marines. Hope to see you out there in the galaxy killing some Xenos.

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First time VR experience from a total newb featuring War Thunder VR and the HTC Vive

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

So while attending E3 this year I had the chance to check out the amazing War Thunder from from Gaijen entertainment in vivid amazing VR, with the help of and HTC Vive and the amazing  Warthog Hotas from Thrustmaster. I had never experienced VR before, having missed the whole wave of VR. Both because of price, and because of generally not liking to adopt things before they get to their full and ripe potential. (remember Windows Vista? I was day on on that you would stop early adopting too).

So this was really a cold entry in to the VR sphere for me. I sat down and put headset fully expecting to be immersed in to an amazing world of flying airplanes and scenery and other random crap that flew up to me and made me want to throw myself back like in all those cool first time VR videos.  I did not have that type of reaction at all, but I still appreciated it. Two things really prevented it from being that amazing moment for one, the first of which was partly my fault. I didnt have my glasses on when we started, making a lot of the games menus blurry and unreadable. The second issue was that I was not wearing a headset. Lack of sound really takes away from the experience of being in VR.

hotaswarthog

That good looking man is not me, however this is exactly how the set up looked right down the razer keyboard.

Its worth mentioning that I know my way around a HOTAS (Hands On Throttle-And-Stick) from years of playing MS flight sims and a genuine interest in aviation. Which meant that going in I was already probably better prepared for this than most would have been. I found my hands quite easily rested on the stick and throttle combination that the Warthog offered, and I quickly found all of the major flight surface controls even with the headset on. Initial problems were solved easily (it feels odd to know more about flying than the developer of the game). I was able to set all of the flight control surfaces to neutral on the HOTAS and get flying with any major difficulties.

After starting a few missions and getting a good feel for the game, I really felt like VR was a huge boon for the game. Instead of looking left and right by hitting the 4 way hat on the top of joystick which is the most common way of doing so in most sims, I was able to just look up. This was pretty amazing, and I found fairly few issues with the game itself in VR beyond some of the text not being readable to start off with.  The blurriness issue was fixed when another member of the games dev team told me to put my glasses back on. Finally able to see the text in menus I felt a lot better about being able to actually see the instruments that are needed for flying (you know like the altimeter?) and got my self out there in the sky to do some flying.

Flying felt pretty good, the controls quite responsive, and although there is no one to one mapping with the Warthog, the screen did sort of reflect the changes in the sticks location. Since they aren’t mapped 1 to 1 like some other flight games are I did have some issues with the disconnect between my mind and body, and at one point the game did crash leaving me in darkness, and I opted to not have the headset on for sound since I was working in tandem with Rae and needed to hear her directions for filming and what not.

warthunderVR

low res textures really take away from the VR aspect of the game

War Thunder is a huge game, with a ton of planes that recently passed 100 use able vehicles, so I only got to see a tiny tiny slice of it, but the missions that I did get to see looked fantastic, and I only had a few small problems with the Vive itself. I was often able to see the swirls of the lenses in the vive, which sort of threw me out of feeling like I was there in the plane, and at a few spot the whole thing crashed leaving me in a disconcerting darkness. Other than that the headset fit my rather large head quite well, and I had no issues with fit or comfort.

Over all I was fairly impressed with my first time in VR. Head tracking is almost flawless, and since this was a full production Vive unit it also came with the two small sensors which are placed on walls around the pc in use to give you mostly flawless head tracking and the ability to stand up and sit down or move around as you want to. This ability to move is not very useful when you are in a small single seat airplane, so again I really felt like maybe this wasn’t the best first VR experience for me. This had very little to do with War Thunder and very much to do with the fact that it just isnt the best use of VR out there. Even so it was still great fun, and if you are a flying simulator enthusiast I recommend taking a look at this set up.

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E3 a Convention in photos

Posted on June 18, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

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Mafia III is looking very strong | E3 Preview

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

E3 is about half hands on demos, and half theater’s showing hands off demos, so I wasn’t surprised that this year 2K brought their much anticipated Mafia III game to the convention, with a huge booth, complete with a french quarter and a live band and free beer. Unfortunately (at least for us) they did not bring a playable Mafia III demo. Instead they showed about 30 minutes of game play in a private theater, which all thought it wasn’t live was directly captured from in game.

The footage started off with a quick explanation of what was going on in the Mafia III world, we are going to play Lincolin Clay, a man on a mission to avenge his mob which was betrayed and killed by the local Italian mob. Now hes now alone in this quest got three lieutenants to help him out and he’s going on the war path.Your three capo who will help you to rebuild are: Cassandra, who is the  leader of  a local Hatian gang, Thomas Burke -A man the Italian mob betrayed who now hates them with a passion and wants to get revenge., and  Vito Scaletta – a former mob boss now turned against his former colleagues. These three underboss or capo will help you take back your city from the Italian mob who betrayed you. These capo will be responsible for managing your districts which you can take over saints row style, and will give you more money or influence or bonuses based on who manages them.  With these three capo you will set out to rebuild the criminal empire that was taken from you.

mafia 3

Tommy guns are confirmed in game! Lets sweet some streets!

Mafia III is set in a representation of NewOrleans in 1968 amidst a time period when the south was none too kind to people of Mr. Clays persuasion. The city is a central character in the game and 2K showed us a few of the districts, and said that in the final game theree will be 10. The mission in the demo video took place in the famous french quarter then ended out in the Bayou, so clearly missions will span the districts.  Hayden Blackman, who is the creative head for the game, talked about how the city is one of the games main characters, and emphasized how each of the districts has its own look and feel. The demo showed off a short driving segment so travel seems to mostly be car based between the maps massive districts. 

The demo showed quite a few neat game mechanics, I was most reminded of Saint’s Row 3, since there are districts you can conquer. The mission that was demoed showed you taking down one of the districts bosses by first doing a series of small tasks to starve the district boss of his money, each act of killing, or shaking down, or seizing drugs, made a little counter in the left corner increment down untill you took away all of the bosses income, and he had to come out of hiding in a special sort of event.  Specifically for this demo we were taking back the famous French Quarter from its current controller Lou, who is the brother of the head of the Italian mob in the area. We did a series of tasks that eroded Lou’s control of the French Quarter which then triggered an event at which we were to kill Lou himself.

mafia

Meele combat seemed to be secondary to guns, but it was there in the trailer.

The event took place on a river boat, and was a good show of different mechanics, the person doing the demo used all manner of weapons, in combination with stealth to take down a huge force of enemies and get to the target.  I watched as the demo cycled through stealth kills, brutal weapon finishers, and standard shooting kills all in the name of getting to the underboss who you were supposed to be killing. Health seemed to be of the regenerating type as after we took damage, we just ducked up to cover to wait it out.  Prior to each of the shown mission segments we were given a bit of background, and the game world really feels fleshed out and complete even just based on the limited slices that we saw of it.  Story I think will be the main driver of this game, even though it is advertised as open world, it seems to not have the eternal open world problem of not being able to fit the story in to the world very well.

After we killed uncle Lou, control of the French Quarter was given over to our organization, and we got a small look in to how managing the cities districts will work . We sat down with our three under bosses and each told us why they should be in charge of the newly obtained district. In the demo that was shown we had a rocky relationship with Burt who we had I guess left out of previous deals, and again we chose not to let him manage this district. This was the last straw for B, and our demo closed out with Lincoln having to go to Burts home base and kill him, demonstrating that there is a chance that your three under-bosses could become two or even one if you really fuck up.

Over all despite this just being a theater demo my interest was peaked, the game looked great, no question about that, since I wasn’t able to play it I can’t tell you how it handled but the shooting looked smooth enough, cover seemed to be needed, and it seemed like wood and other “soft” objects could be penetrated by bullets.  Mafia 3 releases October 7th

 

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E3 Day 1 In Photos

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

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Astro annoucnes new flagship A-50 wireless headset

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Today I had the chance to see the all new Astro A-50 wireless headset. Astro just announced this headset, which is compatible with the Xbox, PS4, and PC. Many Astro fans no doubt long for the days when the A40 was the top of the world of headsets. Astro hopes to return to these glory days with the new A50 wireless gaming headset.

I got a a chance to see the product which will be out in August of this year before it was available to the general public at Astros booth at E3. Some of the cooler features that I was told about were that the wireless base station will pair with the xbox or Play Station with out you doing anything, just plug and play. You can swap from PC to what ever console you want with the flip of a switch, so you’ll never end up re-pairing your new wireless headset.

IMG_5047

Astro has stuck with their classic look, with strong lines and those two metal tubes on each side. A lot of aircraft grade aluminum has been put in to this build to keep the strength of the metal, and not make the headset too heavy. Most of the pieces that are made of plastic are replaceable, and Astro will again be selling a “mod kit” that allows you change out the ear cups and a few other things, but for quite a premium cost.

Along with the new headset there is a new base station, with a lot more visual feedback than previous units. You can see when you have the Dolby sound on, you can see how much battery is left, and if you are using PC or Console inputs. Astro is claiming 15 hours of battery life, and says it will take about 5 hours to charge the on board battery. To save battery life the headset features an accelerometer which if you set the headset down will turn the headset off. The headset rests in the base station with gold contacts and magnetic attachment points while it charges. Astro says the expect the headset to last between 3 and 4 years of average work.

IMG_5046

 

 

Astro have move the vast majority of the controls for the headset to the the headset it self. The ear cups now have controls for volume, source, mute, and other things instead of using a mixamp like older style ones do. The downside of this is that you no longer get to remove the ear plates, so no more custom printed ear plates for the A-50 line.

Astro has moved all of the EQ settings and sound processing off of your machine and in to the base station, and they claim that their software does not use any CPU cycles to encode the 7.1 simulated audio. It is important to note that the 7.1 audio us simulated only, and not provided by 7 drivers, but instead by 2 much larger 40mm drivers. which they claim can handle up to 48khz 16bit audio streams wirelessly.

I hope to see a lot more on this headset as it gets closer to market, and to get the chance to review it, hopefully for 299$ it will live up to the legacy of Astros last generation of great Wireless headsets.

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EA play is it necessary?

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

So this year EA has decided that they need to have their own E3, right next to E3, but in the days leading up to E3. Well, Rae and myself managed to get media registered and get ourselves in to EA Play (which is what the event is called) where we were able to see and play the best upcoming EA titles. This is a major change from a closed show floor that’s normally seen. Anyone who was in LA could walk up to the desk and register for the chance to go in and play EA’s biggest suite of games for 2016

Ea used the venue to do some pretty awesome stuff, first showing off TitanFall 2 on the roof of the building with a fancy tent set up, then using another level to demo their EA sports offerings, and Battlefield one. It was a cool set up, small and intimate, the whole felt like an exclusive LA only only party (complete with a free sandwich and soda!)

One difference that was apparent was that EA play was open to the general public. Im not sure most of the general public would travel cross country to get the chance to lay hands on a single round of Titan Fall 2 and a single 20 minute Battle Field 1 game play demo. That being said both of the demos felt pretty unpolished (to be fair they are demos) but I think most of the general public was probably really excited to play games before they are released.

This fountain was really, really, cool

This fountain was really, really, cool

Titan Fall 2 was really fun to play, and honestly felt like a great addition to the series, I will look forward to hearing more as time goes on with this game. Madden and the other EA sports titles also made an appearance, and I overheard some pretty intense madden games going on in the arena that was there. Sadly as press we dont really have the time to attend such fun and awesome things as the Madden Championship, but we do get to wing by them occasionally.

Another neat feature was a massive store that was selling all sorts of EA branded stuff, from Mass Effect to Plants vs Zombies. The store had some really great merch in it, the time you usually only find at EA exclusive events being given out to VIPs. I really wanted one of the bags, but at 60USD it was a bit much for my wallet this trip. (EA if your reading this I would love an N7 bag!) most of the rest of what was at the EA play was mobile, or other EA properties that wernt as featured.

So now we get to the end, was it worth it? Well I feel like im probably not the only person who thinks this, but I think it was a bit excessive. I asked our EIC Rae about it and she said “I wouldnt say its excessive, but was is necessary nnnnooooo. Public booths outside would have done just as good of a job, with out all the dressing” I tend to agree with Rae, while I know everyone likes to be treated like a VIP (none more guilty than me) and EA has managed to create the exclusive club sort of feeling with EA play for sure, but I just feel like its excessive. There wasn’t enough content here to justify spending more than an hour or two, and I must say I really felt it would have done better on the show floor at E3. The only real advantage to this, was it really gets the games out to the fans, EA is trying to connect with the fans, more than the journalists. While I do applaud their efforts, I think they could have handled it better.

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