Video Game Rant: Screw You Activision

Hey there guys. So today I'm going to rant. I... should probably provide some pictures as well I guess. Probably. We'll see.

As the title suggest I'll be talking about this stupid company called Activision (and their associates of course) because I recently played the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare and by the gods was I pissed.

The game itself was nice. I actually liked it. The graphics was great and they added a lot of little touches to make the game feel more realistic and mechanical. You could peek out corners now (yes I know it sounds dumb and they're probably just copying those battle royal games but still, its long overdue) and you can slide now so that's cool. The interface is also simplified as much as possible to provide players with as much immersion to the whole ambience and the atmosphere of the story.


STUPID DAY 1 PATCH

That's all well and good but the one thing I got so pissed at is the fact that I played it on the PS4. Yeah yeah you shouldn't play FPS on console. Sod off. So I got a physical copy and when I inserted the disc in lo and behold, an 80GB "update". I know a lot of games nowadays tend to do this but it gets worse and worse every single release. These day 1 patches are getting really obnoxious ya know.

I have limited internet so I said to myself,"Oh well. No online functions I guess. I'll just play the campaign first. This isn't really a problem". Boy was I wrong. Despite having the physical copy of the game, the only thing I could access was 1v1 bot match. At this point I realized I was sold an incomplete game and the only thing they gave me in the disc was a "means to kill the time while I wait for the 80GB patch to download".

So download the patch I did and after a few hours I got to play the campaign. Here you peeps might say,"But that's normal. Most games have day 1 patches anyway these days". Well screw you too. I think developers nowadays are taking advantage of the fact that they can update the game via online and just release incomplete products full of bugs because everyone thinks its the "norm" nowadays.

I guess it sucks more for people who don't have complete access to fast and stable network connection. Like me.


BAD SPACE OPTIMIZATION

After two days of binge-playing the campaign on normal (yeah I'm an FPS casual I play these games for funsies) I finished it and it was time for me to Coop Special Ops with my housemate. When I clicked it, it said that the special ops was a DLC. Fine. No surprises there. The main game was a friggin DLC why wouldn't the side content be.

As I went to the PSN Store to download it, the system tells me I had insufficient space. So I deleted a few of my old games and got a total of 80GB+ of free space in my PS4 and the system tells me I'm still short of space. Curious, I decided to check how big the damn game was. Its 134GB in size.

A game. That I have a physical copy of. TAKES MORE SPACE THAN A GAME I FULLY DOWNLOADED ON THE STORE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME INFINITY WARD?

Maybe I'm the stupid one for thinking this. Maybe it is quite hard to actually reduce the size of the files so that its not so taxing to keep in the hard drive. I don't know.

They're also planning to add more maps and modes and also a Battle Royal (as with the trends I guess) into the game so I'm pretty sure the game's gonna grow in size as time goes by. Sure I only have a measly 500GB PS4 and I could just upgrade if I so wanted but still. Do I really have to? For a game that not only screws me over not once but twice?


SO YEAH, SCREW YOU ACTIVISION

I guess that's it. Again, don't get me wrong. The game looks beautiful as hell and I loved the gun customization and the little details they added. It's definitely a cool game but I really can't say what they're doing is justified still. I don't know. Maybe its just me. Who cares. I'm just ranting.

See you guys next week. Wolvenciel, signing off.

Slay The Spire – For That TCG/Rogue-like Itch of Yours

Hey there people. As always, popping on and off like zits on your face, Wolvenciel here with a game showcase this time around. Now some of you might have heard of Slay The Spire as its been in alpha for quite some time but it was only properly released late last year. So I’m gonna jump right to it.

A Good Blend of Cards and Deaths

Now as the title suggests, yes this is a roguelike card game. Slay The Spire lets you choose a base deck at the start of the game and as you climb up the Spire you’ll fight enemies and these enemies will give you more cards to add to your decks. Some stronger enemies and treasures along the way will also give you useful and/or detrimental passives to help with climbing up.

The first base deck unlocked for you is the Ironclad. You'll get the other two as you play the game.

Its basically a draft match one after another.

And yes as all rogue-like games are, this one also has its own bonfire for you recuperate.

Climbing Up

The Spire itself is random-generated but the cards you get will all follow your base deck’s color (unless its a colorless card) so you wouldn’t have to worry about the deck being too much of an abomination as you add more cards to it because most of the choices have a semblance of synergy to one another.

Say if you chose a red deck, you'll always get red cards to add to the deck.

You can also choose what route you would want to take as you climb. These rooms range from you bog-standard monsters that add common cards to your decks to even random text-based choices that could totally alter your decks for you. So each climb would be very different from one another.

Each stage has its own sets of enemies and encounters and you choose your routes via the map

The fact that its random also means sometimes you’ll get lots of crazy stuff that enhances your deck and make you a spire-slaying god and boy does it feel good when that happens.

An example of a crazy enough deck that happened from me stacking relics on top of more relics.

The Spire will have three levels each time you climb and after you finish all three levels with all three base decks the game unlocks a new challenge for you.

When you beat the stage boss, the game lets you choose a rare card to be added to your deck.

And of course, a rare relic which are mostly core to your play through.

The End Game

The title of the game is pretty self-explanatory. Slay the goddamn spire. Each time you climb and reach the end you’ll deal an amount of damage to the Spire’s heart and each time you climb with a deck you’ll unlock more cards and relics for the decks themselves.

Some examples of the relics you can unlock.

Although if you happened to finish the climb with all three decks, you’ll unlock the Spire’s keys. On all your runs afterwards you’ll have chances to collect these keys and fight the main boss one on one. If you do get to that point, I wish you luck.

You'll also gain access to shops to spend your hard earned cash. You can buy cards, relics and even remove cards.

No I have not beaten the main boss of the game yet and I don’t know if I ever will. It… was quite the shocker for me. If any of you readers did beat it, do tell me in the comments below.

My Thoughts On It


I’m a fan of card games so Slay The Spire really just made me fall head over heels for it. One fact that just made me fall in love with it is the core mechanics of the game. This game lets you see the enemies intents and you can decide how to react to that. It never hides any of the monsters’ special abilities from you. The game expects you to look at the problems presented to you and find a solution for it via the deck that you built and the hand that you have drawn.

Ironclad uses a ramp style deck which focuses on buffing you up and hitting the enemy with big cards

I’ve been playing the game for quite some time and still haven’t managed to beat the main boss so you can already surmise I’m not that good a card game player. Maybe you guys can do better yeah?

One of the bosses on the third level. Got lucky with a loop deck. But yeah. Even this deck wouldn't be able to beat the Extra Boss. Good luck with that.

See you guys next time. Wolvenciel, signing off.