Minecraft: The Breakdown

So I would have reviewed another game if I had not been sucked into playing this game. So I'm doing something a little different. This is still a review, but breaks down the game a little more, telling you what to expect from it.

Made by Mojang, which is lead and founded by the very famous Markus Persson, also known as Notch, Minecraft is a surprising indie sandbox game that is now one of the top three highest selling games in history. So this game has some serious stats backing it up.

I'm going to explain Minecraft like the readers if this article haven't heard of it. Which I'm pretty sure is statistically impossible because last I heard it is the highest selling game that will ever exist. I'm joking of course, but this game is huge. Even the graphics of Minecraft are very influential, although a very simple voxel based graphics system that uses cubes and randomly generated worlds to create a new world for each player that loads the game up. The graphics and a lot of the base numbers in the game are 64. The graphics are 64 bit and a "stack" of items  in the player's inventory is measured in 64's, so it is a recurring theme. As far as actual statistics go, for the PC version of the game at least, there is no clear framerate as the game's settings and different computers will vary the performance. On a regular machine with medium settings you can get 60fps so that's the standard. The actual pixel graphics are clean and look good, even in bulky cobblestone structures and wooden walls, and they blend in well with each other 

One of the really amazing things about Minecraft is resource packs. Resource packs are community made skins for the blocks and creatures in the game that can vary the style of graphics in the game. Resource packs can vary from standard 64 bit and up to 512 bit realistic graphics. Resource packs can really spice up the game.

Minecraft is the game that put sandbox voxel based games into the mainstream. In being a sandbox game, there is no objectives. Like at all. None. There is no narrator, there are no characters, and there is nothing telling you what to do. This is the beauty of Minecraft. You create your own objectives. You can choose to build vast cities on your own or play online with a friend to survive the night. There are three main worlds, which is the normal overworld, the Nether, which is the game's version of hell that has lava lakes and dark red stone, and all the enemies shoot fire. The final world is the End, which is used to fight one of the game's bosses. Yes, there are bosses, and yes I said there was no story but to prove my point, the game never tells you about them, you have to find them. You can choose to fight the Wither or the Ender Dragon, the Wither being a very hard normal boss with a special way to summon it, but only considered a mini boss by the rules of RPG's. The Ender Dragon is considered the final boss of the game by these same rules. You have to collect items to open a portal to The End, where you destroy towers to damage and kill the dragon. After beating the dragon, some very cryptic, drug induced credits roll and you are put back into the world like nothing happened. This is the only story to the game and it leaves a lot to be interpreted. 

The way Minecraft plays is very simple to start, but can become overwhelmingly complex if you invest in the game. You can play one of three game modes. Survival is a game mode where you simply create a world with a health and food bar, and you have to survive the night against zombies and spiders and other enemies, all while staying fed and having to make a house and mine for iron and gold and diamond to survive. You break blocks with your hands at first, collecting them in your inventory, which has room for items as well as special slots for armor and crafting. You start off collecting wood and basic materials, but you can use the materials like wood and such to craft items, which involves placing materials in a crafting table or the crafting section of your inventory to create new items. These items can be blocks, utility items like chests to store things and furnaces to cook or smelt things, or you can craft tools and weapons, tools like shovels and axes being able to destroy certain types of blocks faster and weapons to deal more damage to creatures. With these tools you can mine for better materials to improve your weapons, all of which have durability and will break. You can also gain experience through mining or killing enemies. Experience gives you levels which can be used in an enchanting table to enchant wepaons, tools, and armor to have special attributes. The mobs of the game can be broken down into three classes. There is hostiles, which are enemies like zombies and giant spiders that spawn in dark places and at night and try and hurt the player. There are NPC's which are things like pigs and cows and chickens which can be harvested for food. There are also villagers, which live in randomly spawned  and generated villages, and you can trade with them for their currency, which is the very rare emeralds. There are also pets like wolves and cats and horses, which can be tamed with certain items to fight for you or for you to ride on. With all of these aspects, the surviving aspect of Survival mode can quickly dissipate and be replaced by building better houses or getting the best armor. One other mode is Creative mode, where you are immortal and can fly, and instead of having to survive, you can infinitely build massive structures and cities. The final mode is adventure mode, where you can play community made story driven maps where you cannot break blocks and have to play the way the creator meant you to play, which adds a story to the game, but not made by the devs, made by the community, adding a lot of variety. Some other cool features are redstone, which acts as electricity and can be combined with pistons and repeaters to make circuits and very cool wiring feats. There is also a completely different aspect of the game which is multiplayer. You can simply choose to play with a friend over LAN or you can play or create a server to play with a friend online, but some of the group made servers have things like mini games and currency systems, which are really cool and well made.

Although most people that play this game will say it, this game is good. It is currently about 30$ on Mojang's website, PSN, Xbox Live and Apple's App Store and anyone who is creative should at least check it out.

App Review: QuizUp

Quick summary of why I did an app review instead of a game review. I went on vacation and didn't have access to my PC, only my phone. There, now the review. Keep in mind it will be a shorter review because it is only an app. Also sorry it's a day late, didn't have internet. Whoops

Made by Plain Vanilla Corp, which is another dev I only really know from one game, QuizUp is a very neat little trivia app for iOS and Android that has tons of categories and a very clean style. It is very well made and there are next to no glitches or problems. It is online with leader boards and I'm addicted to it. But can it make a name for itself in the over saturated market that is the app store?

Honestly, coming into this game I heard it from another reviewer who just happened to mention it on his podcast, so I expected it to be at least fun. The game is very professionally made, yet it stays modest. Whereas other trivia games boast about how many categories they have, QuizUp just puts its cards on the table and leaves them there, it never shoves promos or In App Purchases down your throat. In fact, there are IAP's and I didn't know about them for the first couple months I played this game. It handles itself professionally, never whoring itself out for rates and purchases. I liked that part a lot. The second thing you notice about this when going to get it is that it is free. No money to download it. The In App Purchases are all XP multipliers which you never need to progress. I've been 5th in the world in Games: General category and never paid a cent. This is maybe the best part of QuizUp.

The graphical style of the game is simple, which makes it much more appealing and easy to play. It is mostly text on screen but the font is nice and the animations of text showing up and disappearing is fluid. Any pictures that show up are mostly high definition and the preset character avatars are simple and funny. The statistics page for your play time and win/loss ratio is all pie charts and it makes it look much nicer than just plain numbers. The whole game looks nice and is very consistent with the art style.

I normally save game play for last in my reviews because it is the longest section but because this is a trivia game there is little to talk about. It is a competitive, timed multiple choice game. So the way it works is you and your opponent are asked seven ABCD type questions in a round based system where each question is it's own round and you are given ten seconds to answer. If you answer correctly, you get ten points plus however many seconds left on the timer when you answered. The round ends after both people answer or the timer runs out. The seventh question is worth twice as many points and then the game decides the winner based on who got more points. You can score up to the maximum of 160 points and if both you and your opponent have the same amount of points it is a tie. You can then challenge them to a rematch or continue playing other people. During a match if you feel outmatched you can also surrender, instantly making the opponent the winner but not giving them points for the questions not asked yet. 

Another feautre is that there is also a leader board system that has global and country specific leader boards based on all time and monthly levels. You level up by winning and playing matches where you get XP equal to your points in the match. Another cool feature is the way you can play friends. You can send friend requests and be friends with people, then challenge them to games exclusively. You can play a normal match or if they can't play at the moment, you can play by yourself and when they accept your challenge they will play your ghost. It is pretty cool. The only other thing to do after getting bored is you can earn titles and achievements. Titles are earned every ten levels in a category up to level 50 and are different each category. They are displayed below your name in any place your name is displayed. Achievements are earned by completing special tasks and are really just to feel a sense of completion because you can't use most of them as titles. And that is the game play of QuizUp. The only bugs or cheats I encountered are that you can close the app in the middle of a game and instead if declaring a winner, the game will say you disconnected and will stop the match, so there are people with a record of no losses that cheated to get that. 

So in light of having no PC access, I played this game a lot, and I recommend it to anyone who plays phone game's and would like to test their knowledge. With a huge category list and short rounds, QuizUp marks one of my favourite mobile games. 

Game Review: Contagion

So I bought this game on Steam recently, and in the drought of games before August I thought I'd review it. The game was made by an indie company called Monochrome and it is a Source engine game based on Left 4 Dead but with a lot more realism. But can this little indie game make a name for itself in the world of DayZ and Left 4 Dead?

The first thing that grabbed my attention was the fact that this is only a source based Left 4 Dead mod, because the menus and graphics are at a base level the same. The graphics themselves aren't too impressive or spectacular, but running the game at the highest settings it looks like a newer title, which in it's self is impressive for a small indie dev. The art style on the other hand, was a little different in it's approach, changing from the Left 4 Dead almost comic book style to a simple film grain effect and a lot less light. This does achieve a much more creepy vibe when you are walking down a dark hallway with your flashlight off so you don't alert a horde.The HUD itself is different from L4D2 with just a small health and stamina bar in the top right corner and a four slot inventory on the left. You do have a phone that sends you texts for objectives or useful tips. The items in this game are much more subtle, with ammo and guns only glowing with a corresponding color when your cross hairs are directly over them and you can interact with them. Things like melee weapons and interactable objects like doors that do not open without a key don't glow at all and you have to be observant in order to not miss them. This adds a level of difficulty that boosts the limited supplies difficulty immeasurably that if it kept the L4D2 art style and objects glowed through walls, the game would be immensely easier, but with the combination of dark rooms and subtle item drops, you need to actually explore and be brave in order to survive. This is one of the reasons this game is wonderful.

The second thing that struck my interest was that there is no "story" to Contagion. There are singleplayer and multiplayer missions and game modes, but none of them have a narrative or plot other than, "You are in a zombie infested neighborhood/prison/medical facility, ESCAPE!" And I'm surprisingly OK with that. There doesn't necessarily need to be a story to a good game, especially in one with game play that makes you immersed right away. You feel like the playable characters, each with a short back story on how they survived. And then without a story, you feel more interested to hear your character say "I'm more scared of my ex wife than you," because it both gives you a little hint of back story while also stating emotion. There is no story to this game, but there is still emotions.

The game play in Contagion isn't like the base game L4D2 as much as it's a smaller, more concentrated version of DayZ. The zombies are slow but hit hard, your character can't really run and you have stamina for it and melee weapons, and the resources are scarce. So scarce that on the hardest difficulty you almost have to pick up a melee weapon because there is little to no ammo anywhere. The actual gun play and combat is satisfying yet difficult, with normal zombies taking several hits to the body or one instant kill shot to the head making combat a lot slower than other games, you can't just pump bullets into zombies or you'll die immediately, you have to line up head shots and keep retreating so as not to get hit by zombies. it makes it very tactical. Sometimes using a gun actually hurts you, because the zombies rely on sound more than sight, so firing a gun attracts way more zombies than either sneaking past or luring them with melee weapons. And you sometimes can even use the environment to your advantage, luring zombies into fire or electrified water to kill them for you. the weapons you use are varied as in L4D2, there are several types of pistols and a revolver, there are shotguns and sniper rifles, there are even some machine guns for sticky situations. Most of the guns only have iron sights except for the crossbow and sniper rifles, but for the aiming with iron sights you can be very accurate, I have several times both hit a zombie from across a courtyard and missed point blank. You have to be calm to aim properly, and in turn survive.As far as actual game modes go, Contagion isn't that special. it has a couple PVP modes, one is survivor v. survivor, one is survivors v. players controlling zombies, and there is an escape type mode, an objective based mode, and a horde survival type mode. In a multiplayer server, 8 people can join and in co-op the usual amount is 4 people. in a cooperative game mode, especially on harder difficulties, you really have to work together with your resource management and communication skills. it is because you can pick up ammo for someone else's gun and you can really only have one of each type of special item with room for weapons, it really makes you have to decide who has a key for the locked rooms and who has a fire extinguisher for the flaming areas. it is a really hard thing to do as a team, and that makes it super rewarding when you beat a level. On the opposite end of the team spectrum, is the PVP aspects, which makes the game a lot harder when not only do you have to kill zombies coming after you you, but you have to be quiet on the most part so another player doesn't sneak up behind you with a handgun bullet to your head. To top off the difficulty, when a player dies, if there is still more than one player left, he or she comes back as a zombie with the ability to summon a horde, move faster than normal zombies, camouflage itself as a normal zombie, and track players. The multiplayer isn't actually about killing the others so much as surviving longer than they do.

The game is currently 20$ on Steam and while I would say it's worth it, I think it's a little pricey. if it ever goes on sale though, I'd snatch it up in a heart beat. If you do have money to spare though, get this game, it is very good and always has new updates. Plus if you use Tunngle or Hamachi, you can use a LAN server over the internet to play with distant friends online.

Game Review: Fez

So recently I got a PS4 with PS+, meaning I get two free games each month. Just recently one of these games was Fez, and since you can get it for free, I thought I would review whether or not to get it

Just a disclaimer, this game was made by Phil Fish, who is kinda crazy over certain games and while some people hate him for it. I'm actually totally cool with the statements he's made, but this review will not be biased based on the dev and I will not mention the things Phil's done. Anyway, the game was made almost single handedly by Phillipe Poisson or Phil Fish as he's known to his fans. I like the game, it's very nice and pretty and makes you think. The story of how this game came to be is actually pretty crazy and is included in Indie Game: The Movie. Phil Fish had to face very steep odds to make this game and I give the dude props. I do think this game is amazing. It is one of the best indie game's of all time and you can very clearly see why. The graphics are beautifully hand crafted pixel graphics, the mechanics and controls are tight and satisfying and the plot is both well written and something that makes you contemplate society which is something that rarely any other games do. Well let's get into it then

WARNING: CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST LEVEL. DEAL WITH IT

The graphics of this game blew me away the first time I played it on PC, mostly because I had already heard that it was made by one guy. All of the textures are beautifully made and look like they were hand made, which they were. The textures are like snowflakes, there are no two that are the same. Oh, sure there are several graphics that are the same, but the atmosphere and music and animations make them feel individual and alive. The whole feel of the game is great. The happy, upbeat parts make you feel great and uplifting, and the creepy, lonely parts make you feel desolate and alone. The music only adds to this, with symphonic songs that draw you in and go perfectly with the stupefying visuals. This game just feels like it's a grand adventure. Not to mention that every time you rotate the screen (which is something I'll talk about later) you can just see how intricate and smooth every single block and pixel looks. Not to mention the whole 1080p 60fps thing, which most triple A games can't even do.

The premise of Fez is simple, yet at the same time has so many secret meanings and messages. You play as Gomez, a little pixel person (Human? I don't know)

who lives in a floating 2D village. The village elder requests to speak with you, and he tells you that the fez he wears allows him to see the world as it truly is, and he gives you a fez. This very special piece of head wear allows you to rotate the 2D world around you as it is actually 3D, but you can only see one plane at a time. Then, a magical hexadecahedron thing shows up, telling you in a non-understandable language that it is your friend and that it is looking to repair a special cube that will save the universe or some other cool thing. The pieces of the cube have been scattered all over the world and you must find them. You then set out on a quest to find them and that's that. The story is very good and one that will most likely stand the test of time.

The mechanics of Fez are really simple, but are executed perfectly. It is a platformer and Gomez can jump from platform to platform and climb vines and ropes. But the really cool thing is rotating the world 90 degrees. If a platform is unreachable or you need to align two platforms up to go somewhere, you can rotate the world until you can get the platforms aligned. It is very nice and while you master it quickly, there are puzzles that make you have to use your skills to their max to solve them. I loved it ,mainly because even though there are no enemies, there is a very present danger and a feeling of challenge that only very good games can get right. I loved it.

So in summation, this game is amazing and worth the ten dollars it's being charged for. But for free on PS+ for the month of August really seals the deal and I recommend this to anyone who likes platformers or art games. I do have to mention that there are bugs that glitch the game if you save at waterfalls or black holes, but I didn't experience any of them. But yeah, this game is good and amazing for an indie game. And I would say anyone that buys this game should go watch Indie Game: The Movie because it's very inspiring and just a good story.