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Paladins Impressions (Nintendo Switch)


Posted on July 25, 2018 by Rae Michelle Richards

At first blush Hi-Rez Studios Paladins is easily compared to Blizzard’s Overwatch – both games are bright and colorful, both games feature a large roster of heroes with different play styles and both games are all about co-operative teamplay. In the two years since launch Hi-Rez has worked hard to distance their game from Blizzard’s offerings so much so that they’ve revamped player progression twice and even cancelled entire game modes – Siege and Survival (that latter being spun off as Realm Royale). 

Hi-Rez’s PR department sent me a Founders Pack code for Paladins on Nintendo Switch ahead of today’s free-to-play. With the recent Rise of Furia event ending on PC and PS4 with the release of the latest patch – which should be out on Nintendo Switch sometime soon – I thought it would be a perfect time to share my thoughts on the game. 

Core Gameplay Is Solid 

As a team based first person shooter Paladins has quite a bit of competition, mainly from Splatoon, which also has a bright and distinct art style of its own. Paladins feels great to play with the joycons both in docked mode and handheld (which I used primarily while playing for this piece). Draw distance, team markers and character effects are all readable and get your attention even on the smaller screen. Once you get used to the game’s UI everything just works when playing in handheld, which is excellent. Similar to Overwatch, Paladins doesn’t bog you down with death percentages or KDAs, instead even assisting with a kill will count as an elimination – something that I wish more competitive FPS games would adopt.  Paladins in Switch might not run at the same 60 FPS as its PC counterpart but this is really not a huge drawback, given how well it seems to hold at 30FPS in handheld mode and can be played anywhere.

Progression Feels Like A Mess (and is RNG Dependent)  

Paladin’s Founder’s Pack instantly granted me access to all of the available champions with the promise of automatically receiving any future additions for free. When comparable MOBAs can single characters for upwards of $15 USD the $29.99 Founders Pack seems like a no-brainer, when it comes to Free to Play Title. What’s not advertised however is that the majority of the “progression” in Paladins is unavailable even with all of the unlockables provided within the Founders Pack. 

By completing games in either of the available modes you’ll earn gold which can be used to level up an individual champion.  Along the way, throughout the 50 individual character levels your chosen champion will be granted a spare amount of emotes, alternate voice lines and there’s a final “golden skin” available for those who make the ascent to level 50. The remaining various unlocks for all of Paladin’s champions are hidden behind RNG loot boxes which can only be earned through a premium currency. It is true that this currency can be earned in small amounts by completing 7 days of login rewards but it would take you almost a month to earn enough for a single chest, and even then you’ll have no control over what cosmetics are unlocked.

Playing As Furia

Furia wields a semi automatic mid range rifle with a bayonet attached. She is a ranged healer who can use one of the abilities automatically bound to the left shoulder buttons to apply a massive 1000 HP heal to a single target. Pyre Blade summons a slow moving vertical beam of light that deals a massive amount of damage over time to opponents who are within its range. Her utlimate – Inflame – acts as a sort of team boost, making Furia un-targetable for 2 seconds while giving teammates increased damage and movement speed. In the right hands Furia can be a valuable clutch healer and kill streak powerhouse, during my time playing her I think I racked up multiple 20+ streaks.

Try It For Yourself

Paladins: Champions of the Realm is now free to play on Nintendo Switch. You can go grab the game’s client and try it out for free from the Nintendo e-Shop as of today. Hi-Rez PR provided an advance copy of the Founder’s Pack prior to the public release for our consideration meaning that I had all of the game’s characters unlocked from the start. The free to play version provides a rotation of ever-changing free characters as well as the ability to complete daily challenges to unlock gold to purchase individual characters.

 


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Hi-Rez Studio’s Smite Coming To PlayStation 4


Posted on February 20, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Smite Logo

Smite: Battlegrounds of the Gods, Hi-rez Studios’ free to play MOBA title has now entered closed alpha testing on the PlayStation 4. The game has been around since 2013 and features 70 different gods inspired by many different real world pantheons.  There are 5 free gods that players will be able to choice from the get-go (Ymir, Thor, Neith, Guan Yu, and Ra) and additional gods will be able to be purchased a premium currency. Like other free to play MOBA titles, there is also a weekly free rotation that provides all players with gods that cover a number of different play styles.

Exclusive skins will also be available once the game enters closed beta. Some of these skins will be tied to a “founders pack” that will become available on the PlayStation Store once the beta begins. Here is what Amanda Erickson had to say on the PlayStation Blog about the premium skins:

“As Smite makes its way to PS4, the Closed Beta will introduce several new skins for the gods of Smite, each available exclusively through PS4. Odin’s “World’s Collide” skin will serve as the free reward for players who link their PS4 accounts to their Hi-Rez PC accounts. Additionally, Kulkulkan’s “KuKu4” skin serves as the exclusive reward for all PS Plus members.”

There are lots of more information about the game on the PlayStation Blog, Hi-Rez and Sony also released the following in-game trailer:

[youtube id=”QPgil7sgcL8″]


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Celebrate 20 Years of Tribes By Downloading The Entire Series


Posted on October 31, 2015 by Rae Michelle Richards

Tribes developer Hi-Rez studios has released the entire back catalog of Tribes titles available for free on their official website in honor of the series’ 20th anniversary. If you are into fast paced shooting action with a retro look & feel this might certainly be worth your bandwidth.

For those unaware the Tribes series is a futuristic first person shooter series with a focus on infantry based aerial combat.  The latest title in the franchise, Tribes: Ascend is a free-to-play multiplayer only title for Windows PC that released in 2012. Its game modes include the classic Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Arena (limited player re-spawns) and Rabbit (hold the flag, basically).

For such an old free-to-play title Tribes: Ascend is still receiving updates. In just the past two months the game has received two new maps – Ice Coaster and Terminus.

We reviewed Tribes Ascend upon it’s launch in 2012 and had this to say:

Two teams struggle for dominance on expansive maps over flags, kills, capture points, more kills, energy generators, and orbital death lasers. The currently available standard game types are Deathmatch (team or solo), Capture the Flag, Capture and Hold, and Arena. To facilitate this mayhem, players choose from nine character classes, divided into light (Pathfinder, Sentinel, Infiltrator), medium (Soldier, Technician, Raider), and heavy (Juggernaut, Doombringer, Brute). When you first register your account, you receive the Pathfinder, Soldier, and Juggernaut classes for free, with the others on the bench hoping you find them worthy of your real life money or your real life time.

If you’re wondering exactly what games are included in the free Tribes anniversary download here’s a complete list:

  • Earthsiege (1994)
  • Earthsiege 2 (1996)
  • Starsiege: Tribes (1998)
  • Tribes 2 (2001)
  • Tribes: Aerial Assault (2002)
  • Tribes: Vengeance (2004)
  • Tribes: Ascend (2012)

[youtube id=”sncpbqRfeUw”]

[Source]


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Tribes: Ascend | Review


Posted on May 14, 2012 by Andrew Minott

It’s like a classic joust in the days of knights and kings.

You skim across the valley floor at 120 kph. High above you, an airborne ally gets hit in the chest by a microscopic sun, sending bits of his armor showering down, and bits of him… best not think about it. Ahead, a flash of light. You see the reflection half a second before the explosive blue disk hums close enough to your head for you to write your name on it. That Blood Eagle bastard is headed straight for you, claiming this crack of earth as his own.

Your assault rifle bursts to life, only a handful of rounds finding their target. Before you can even reload, you and your target have passed each other. You spin, easing to the right to ramp up from a small mound. Your jetpack ignites, teaming up with your momentum to launch you dozens of feet into the air; your dancing partner has done the same. Two more spinfusor disks buzz by you, one of them hitting what’s left of a tree struggling to grow on the edge of the mountain wall. You can’t get a steady shot while you’re both in mid-air, so you switch to your grenade launcher. His shadow and his speed give away where his landing area probably will be, and roll the dice. His toes barely touch dirt before your grenade throws him against a boulder. His momentum is gone, his jetpack is still recharging, and you reload. You land a little rougher than you’d like, but it doesn’t matter much because you just got ran over from behind by a grav cycle.

Thankfully, the respawn timer keeps you away from the mayhem for only a few seconds.

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