The past few months I haven't really been finishing any games and this month is no different. I did play quite a bit of each of these, but have definitely not finished any of them. Maybe if I beat them my thoughts would change, but I highly doubt it.
The Division
I played the first Division beta and I enjoyed myself greatly. Now that I've played the full game I no longer enjoy myself greatly. I want to preface this by saying that I think The Division is a solid game, but it's just not for me. I find it to be supremely boring. Everything is so plain, and the mission objectives are almost all the same. There's nothing fantastical at all. You're fighting looters and a PMC in New York City. It's a generic looking city at Christmas time. The occasional holiday lights give the world personality on occasion, which it desperately needs.
I don't want to be reductive, but The Division is very similar to Destiny. It's a shooter RPG that's trying to be an MMO. However, like Destiny it doesn't do a good job of actually being an MMO. The game world is quite large, but it's barren. You never see other players out in the world. They're only encountered in safe areas. You run into random enemies, and sick people on the streets. You'll be traveling from place to place a lot and the only thing you can do other than shoot people is shut car doors. Why aren't other people around? You have to be constantly connected to the Internet. What's the purpose if you never see anyone? Yes there is the Dark Zone, but that's technically a PvP zone. You do see other people there, but you're choosing to go into that area.
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| Everywhere looks exactly like this. It's realistic, but not exciting. |
The Division is a third person shooter. You pick up guns and armor, which you equip. It's an RPG in the sense that your guns do damage based on their stats and your current level. The enemies are almost all bullet sponges. You're going to be shooting people a lot before they go down. You can get headshots for more damage, but it's still going to be a chore. What sucks even more is that you never truly get strong enough to take enemies down with ease. The game scales with you, so most enemies end up taking the same amount of bullets. Shooting guys takes a long time, and that's all you're doing the entire game.
The two most interesting elements of The Division for me are the base building and the dark zone. For the story missions you're building The Divison HQ. There are three wings and you get specific supplies for each one. When you have enough of each supply you can buy upgrades to the wing that give you new perks. It's too bad none of it is very meaningful. On the other hand the dark zone is very meaningful and I think it's the best part of the game. It's a quarantined area that has better gear than the regular areas. In order to get it you have to extract it by helicopter. The caveat is that other human players can kill you and take your loot. So you have to call in a chopper and survive long enough to get your loot onboard. It's interesting, because you always have to be worried about other players in the vicinity jacking your loot. It's a cool concept that sadly gets old fairly quickly. Especially since you're getting better loot to take back into the regular boring gameplay. It needs something like the raids in Destiny.
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| You better like cover shooters if you're going to play The Division. |
I feel bad bringing up Destiny when talking about The Divison, but it's a very reasonable comparison. However, I think one plays well and the other is boring. For as much shit as I give Destiny I think it plays like a dream. The shooting feels good and the guns have meaningful differences. The Division doesn't have that. All the guns feel the same, and it's just another generic cover shooter with the added bonus of RPG elements.
Nothing about The Division stands out to me. The city is bland, and the gameplay is totally average. At least Destiny has the space setting to make everything seem interesting and varied.
Pokemon Shuffle
I don't know exactly when this game came to mobile platforms, but it definitely did. I remember when it first came out for the 3DS and I had no interest in playing it. Now that I have it on my phone I can boot it up for quick sessions. It's good that I'm looking for quick sessions, because the way the game is designed they have to be quick. You can only play five stages before you run out of stamina. It's a serious bummer.
Pokemon Shuffle is a classic match three game. You have a four Pokemon party, and those four Pokemon's heads will fill the play field. You want to match three or more, which you do by switching the places of two heads. Each stage features a Pokemon that you have to defeat. There's an extra layer of strategy above just matching three, because the typing still matters. If you're fighting a grass Pokemon your fire Pokemon will do more damage. As you defeat enemies your Pokemon level up in order to do more damage. When you beat a stage you have a chance to capture the Pokemon and add them to your arsenal. Your score and remaining turns add up to give you a capture percentage. If the capture fails then the game will increase the chance a bit and allow you to pay coins to use a great ball and try again. If that fails as well, then you just have to beat the stage again in order to capture.
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| Gotta match em' all. |
A big component of Pokemon shuffle is that the head of your party is a mega Pokemon. If you match them enough, then they will mega evolve. If you match them in their mega form they will clear out large swaths of the field. The way they clear the field depends on the mega.
I really enjoy playing it, but I feel like the game tries to stop me at every turn. You only have five stamina, so you can play five stages. That takes about five minutes on average. Once you're done you have to wait hours in order to get five tries again. You can pay real money to get more stamina, but it's only one time use. I would pay upwards of $15 to get rid of the stamina requirements, but sadly I can't do that. To make matters even worse the game artificially gates you every so often. There will be points where you can't proceed unless you've caught so many Pokemon. So if you don't have enough you have to go back to old stages and waste your stamina to try and catch something you've already fought.
I'm going to keep playing it, I just wish it wasn't such a cash grab. It's never a good sign when I want to play a game more, but can't.
Stardew Valley
I recorded a whole podcast about Stardew Valley, which you can find here. Despite the fact that I talked about it at length there I'll still tell you all about how much I love it here.
Over the past few years everyone's favorite farming simulator Harvest Moon has gone downhill. The good old days of the SNES and N64 Havest Moons have long passed and we've been left with an empty shell of what the series used to be. However, one man decided that the world needed a new Harvest Moon style game and took it upon himself to make a game in a similar vein, but improve upon what once was and make a much more compelling product. That man calls himself Concerned Ape, and the game he made is Stardew Valley.
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| Virtual farming is all the rage these days. |
At its core Stardew Valley is the same as Harvest Moon. You're a dude (or lady) who inherited a farm. Now it's up to you to plant crops, and get to know the villagers. You need to till the ground and plant seeds. You have to water the crops every day until they mature, at which point you sell them for money to get more crops. It sounds boring, but it's oddly compelling. It definitely helps that farming isn't all Stardew Valley has to offer. You can also mine, fish, and forage for nature's raw goods. There are many paths you can take, which sets it apart from the games it's paying homage too.
What's even better about Stardew Valley is that the town of the same name is very much alive. It changes over time and is filled with very compelling people. You can talk to them and give them gifts in order to learn what their deal is. Unlike Harvest Moon where everyone is a quirky anime style character the denizens of Stardew Valley are gritty and real. How many games have you played where someone is struggling with alcoholism? How about extreme depression? It's cool to see people struggling with real issues in a video game. You're just a humble farmer who moved out to the country. You're not a super human who's duty it is to fulfill a prophecy and save the galaxy. It's a refreshing change of pace.
April Showers
For some reason I was thinking that I was going to take a video gaming break in April. I was under the impression that nothing I wanted was going to be released. Then I remembered that Dark Souls 3 comes out next week and I got super excited. I love Dark Souls, and I can't wait to play the third and final entry in the trilogy.
I don't know what else I'll be playing, but I will definitely be playing a whole lot of Dark Souls 3. So look forward to that next month!
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