I recently had the chance to participate in Blizzard
Entertainment’s ‘Heroes of the Storm’ Technical Alpha. I’m not a huge MOBA
(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) player, I like to dabble in one every now and
then but never play regularly enough to excel past standard knowledge. Although
I would like to become more skilled at titles such a ‘League of Legends’, the entry barrier is so high & the time
requirement is often too much for those with other commitments. Never the less,
here’s my first impression of ‘Heroes of
the Storm’.
‘Heroes of the Storm’
is Blizzard Entertainments take on the successful MOBA genre; it sticks close
to the key pillars of gameplay but offers enough twists to the formula to make
it unique.
Players choose from a pool of familiar faces from various
Blizzard games to represent them on the battlefield. Heroes fall under one of
four specific classes:
Assassin
Warrior
Support
Specialist
Each character has five abilities that are locked to ‘QWER’
on the keyboard. The majority of which can be activated while some are passive
skills that are specific to that particular character. For example Raynor: The
Renegade Commander is a ranged assassin, who has three activate & two
passive abilities. Every hero has a mixture of both active & passive
abilities that are unique their skillset. The specialist class however, is
quite different in comparison to the other classes. They contribute to the
match in a much more subtle way. I won’t go too far in-depth but think of them
as having the ability to control certain aspects of gameplay in an indirect way.
As mentioned previously, all of the standard MOBA elements
are present in ‘Heroes of the Storm’.
From what I’ve played, gameplay focuses on frantic team battle situations
rather than buying items, levelling up & slowly pushing the lanes towards
the enemy’s base. Don’t get me wrong, destroying the enemy’s base is still the
aim-of-the-game but from the matches I was involved in, I’ve seen players
grouping together and engaging in all out team combat scenarios from the get go
which allows for some extremely hectic on-screen visuals. This moment-to-moment
gameplay is a direct result of the exclusion of items. Other MOBAs like as ‘League of Legends’ & ‘DotA2’ have in-game stores where players
can buy & sell items with gold. In place of this feature is the ability to
choose from a handful of ‘talents’ at different level intervals. Think of the
talent system as a skill tree for your hero with each level barrier having the
choice of five options that alter abilities and stats.
On top of these features, Blizzard has incorporated two very
different elements to the genre. One of which is the ability for every hero to
use a mount. Players begin matches with a mount; it’s used to traverse the map
much faster than on foot. Skins for those mounts vary from a standard horse to
a dire wolf and even a rainbow unicorn.
All skins are purely cosmetic and can be obtained through a quick
microtransaction. Players begin matches with a mount, it’s used to traverse the
map much faster than on foot. The second feature, in my opinion, simplifies the
game and lowers the entry barrier almost to the point of a ‘casual’ experience.
Instead of each individual player levelling up his or her character, the whole
team levels as one. This allows teams to engage in more enjoyable scenarios
where everyone is able to be of some help in one way or another without the risk
of being killed instantly by a higher-level hero. This is a fantastic way to bring
in new players who may not be as skilled as others but I feel that a more
skilled mode may be necessary to maintain a more hardcore following. Possibly a
mode where team levelling is disabled and players level up their hero by
themselves, much like ‘League of Legends’.
Maps are fantastic… that being said… there’s only five. Matches
are played out on one of a five of maps that have multiple objectives on top of
the standard ‘destroy the enemy base’. One map sees players fighting for
control over two shrines in order to gain access to the statue in the middle. Once
activated by the team who control both shrines it unleashes the mighty dragon
knight that one player then controls. Another sees players killing minions in an
underground section part of the map to collect one hundred skulls. Once all of
the skulls have been collected two cave trolls will appears on the map (one for
each team) and how many skulls each team collected indicates the strength of
that teams troll. The maps are well thought out and add plenty of variety to
keep you on your toes during a match.
That leads me to my one issue with ‘Heroes of the Storm’; there just isn’t enough depth at the moment
to keep the hardcore fans invested. At this stage, the game has a much lower
entry barrier than other MOBAs, which may be enough to establish a fan-base but
certainly not enough to maintain one. There’s nothing addicting about the
gameplay, no in-game shop and small hero roster. That’s not to say that I don’t
like ‘Heroes of the Storm’ because I
do, there’s just nothing to keep me coming back. Other MOBA’s like ‘League of Legends’, ‘DotA2’ and even ‘Infinite Crisis’ are appealing in their own way but they also hold
onto those core MOBA values. Developers drip-feed the community new characters,
tweek the stats of characters & items and generally patch the game on a
regular basis and this consistent re-evaluation just isn’t there for ‘Heroes of the Storm’ yet.
At the end of the day, ‘Heroes of the Storm’ presents a fresh take on the popular MOBA
genre. It’s too early to make an overall judgement especially since it’s in its
technical alpha stage. With Blizzard accepting sign-ups for the Beta stage and
wiping the player accounts hopefully for the last time, I know I’ll be coming
back from time to time to check out any new features or updates that pop up.
Like a smooth bourbon, a MOBA should be sipped & tasted… not pumped down
the back of your throat in a matter of seconds. Remember,
if you liked my preview and you want to see more, follow me on Twitter
@DylanPerrett or subscribe to my YouTube channel, 'The Quiet Gamer' for some fun
and sometimes inappropriate Let’s Play videos.
Diablo, it’s the godfather of point & click loot-fests
and it’s making its way to PS4 & Xbox One in the form of Blizzard
Entertainment’s ‘Diablo 3: Reaper of
Souls – Ultimate Evil Edition’. Having been released on PC in early 2012
& last gen consoles in late 2013, ‘Diablo
3’ was okay but it had some glaring problems and fans of the previous two
instalments didn’t find the same appeal. Luckily, the ‘Reaper of Souls’ expansion fixed the majority of the major issues
found in the base game and added a wealth of new content for players to enjoy. The
‘Ultimate Evil Edition’ packs all of
that content together and then some for current gen & last gen.
There’s a fair bit of Diablo lore, much like ‘World of Warcraft’. All of which is
quiet confusing & long winded but bear with me, I won’t go through much.
All there is to really know is that there were three Prime Evils, Mephisto –
the Lord of Hatred, Baal – Lord of Destruction & Diablo – Lord of Terror.
They were obviously trying to do some pretty awful things but the player
stopped in the previous games. Through some convoluted events, the five Great
Evils (Mephisto, Baal, Diablo, Andariel and Duriel) were combined into the one
Prime Evil – Diablo who had engineered a scheme to finally defeat the High
Heavens. It’s the player’s job, along with a handful of supporting characters,
to put a stop to the Prime Evil’s plan.
From the get go players are greeted with an absolutely
astounding amount of visual polish. Environments range from forests full of
vegetation & castle crypts to the gracious High Heavens & vast desert
sands. Enemies are devilishly gruesome with all sorts of ghouls, monsters &
demons crawling out the woodwork. Models, textures and sound are refined well
past the quality of its PC counterpart. Running at 1080p and aiming for a slick
60 frames per second, the ‘Ultimate Evil
Edition’ rarely dips below its intended specs which leads me to the
conclusion that this would considered as the superior version of the Diablo 3
console experiences. Character design is a huge focus for Blizzard when it
comes to all of their games and Diablo is no exception. Players have the option
to choose from six classes:
· - The Barbarian
· - The Demon Hunter
· - The Monk
· - The Witch Doctor
· - The Wizard
· - The Crusader
These classes allow for plenty of strategy which is all
tailored to different play styles. It doesn’t matter what your play style is,
there’s a class for every type of player. Staying back & peppering enemies
from afar, the Demon Hunter. Charging in & knocking back enemies, the
Barbarian. Each class looks distinct
from one another through use of various sizes, skills and armour designs; it’s
hard to get them confused with one another although players can lose track of
themselves in some of the bright & colourful onscreen visuals. The ‘Reaper of Souls’ expansion brings the Crusader
class into the fray. A mid to close range melee tank often compared to the
Paladin class from ‘Diablo 2’. It’s
the class that fuses defence & support together through its use of healing
and stun abilities.
Gameplay involves players activating abilities which are
mapped almost every button on the Dualshock 4. Coming into the ‘Ultimate Evil Edition’ without playing
the PS3 version and only the PC at launch, I was quite sceptical as to how the
game would feel using a controller. Standard action RPGs on the PC use the
mouse for targeting & movement and the keyboard for character abilities.
Early gameplay videos and thoughts led me to believe that it might be a watered
down twin-stick-shooter version of its PC predecessor. I could not have been
proven more wrong. The controls have been tweeked specifically with a
controller in mind, making console players feel right at home. In addition to
that, Blizzard have added a dodge mechanic into the game, this is mapped to the
right analogy stick. This new feature is a wonderful addition and makes
navigation & combat much more fluid.
Balance, detail, quality & loot are the key pillars to
any successful action RPG. They are what gamers have come to expect from this
genre and ‘Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls -Ultimate Evil Edition’ just oozes
quality. Other games such as ‘Torchlight’
(PC), ‘Divinity: Original Sin’ (PC)
and ‘Marvel Heroes’ (PC) are worthy attempts
at recreating the life-stealing addiction that previous Diablo instalments had but they didn’t quiet capture the essence
in terms of progression, publicity & that steady feed of loot that players
crave.
‘Diablo 3’, at the
time of its PC release, didn’t seem to live up to the standard set by previous
games. Having to always be connected online, a completely useless loot system,
an online auction house and of course the infamous ‘Error 37’ left a bad taste
in player’s mouths as they waited for their issues to be fixed. One by one
these issues slowly started to disappear and about two years after release, the
‘Reaper of Souls’ expansion pack was
released with a bunch of new and completely revised systems, not to mention the
addition of Act V. Everything from paragon levels and rebalanced character classes
to the new features like adventure mode, the apprentice system & Nephalem Rifts.
But the big one, the one that made the biggest splash was the revamp of the
loot drop system in the form of ‘Loot 2.0’
‘Loot 2.0’ overhauled the reward system in a big way.
Legendary items in ‘Loot 2.0’ dropped in much smaller quantities but at an increased
quality meaning players may not have multiple legendary items dropping at their
feet every five minutes (most of which wouldn’t even apply to the players
current class) but instead players would lose hours waiting for the next
jaw-dropping legendary item to appear. Better yet, ‘Loot 2.0’ uses a feature
called ‘Smart Drops’ where the item that a player picks up will have random
attributes that are generated specifically with that class in mind. And with
that, the loot addiction was back and players who had put ‘Diablo 3’ down found themselves picking it up again.
The next new feature is the Apprentice Mode. This new system
makes it easier for new players to play with friends who have a higher level
character than they do. For instance, I hadn’t played Diablo 3 on PS3 so I
wasn’t able to transfer a character between consoles but my friend had. Once I
booted the Ultimate Evil Edition up and jumped into his game with my level 0
crusader and his level 70 barbarian, my gear and stats were altered to the point
that I could fight alongside my friend rather than be slaughtered by a standard
enemy. It’s an incredibly thoughtful idea that allows friends to play together
no matter what level they are. That being said, the amount of experience I was
earning was altered in a different way.
I found myself earning ridiculous amounts of experience
while playing in my friend’s game. I’m talking upwards of one or two levels
every five to ten minutes of play. This isn’t technically a ‘bad’ thing, I felt
it took away some of the achievement of earning a level by myself as I wasn’t
doing much of the slaying but at the same time it give players that extra boost
to help them it ‘end game’ content a little faster.
Paragon levels allow the players to further increase their
stats through points which are attributed to specific skill trees, of which
there are four tabs, and within those are another four tabs.
·Core
oMain Attribute
oVitality
oMovement Speed
oMaximum Resource
·Offense
oAttack Speed
oCooldown Reduction
oCritical Hit Chance
oCritical Hit Damage
·Defense
o Maximum
Life
oMaximum Armour
oResistance to All Elements
oLife Regeneration
· Utility
oArea Damage
oResource Cost Reduction
oLife on Hit
oGold Find
Upon earning a paragon level, the player is granted a new paragon
point. These points alternate between the four tabs as to not allow the stacking
of one specific stat. Each point increases the chosen stat by a small
percentage. These increases may not seem to be much in the beginning but they
are vital for playing through tougher Nephalem Rifts. The ‘Ultimate Evil Edition’ removes the cap from paragon levels,
allowing players to infinitely progress & improve their characters.
As I mentioned previously, a slew of improvements and
features were added in the ‘Reaper of
Souls’ expansion and subsequently, the ‘Ultimate
Evil Edition’ as well. Act V sees players learning of Malthael’s plan not
long after defeating Diablo. The former Archangel of Wisdom, now the Angel of
Death, and his forces descend upon Westmarch in hopes of eradicating humanity
from existence. The player, with the assistance of Tyrael, must put a stop to Malthael’s
plan and save the world once again. This chapter houses a much darker, gothic
feel than the rest of the campaign. Players traverse city streets in deep blue
and black tones rather than the more vibrant desert & forest colour schemes.
A new feature exclusive to the ‘Ultimate Evil Edition’ is the nemesis system. When a player is
killed, the creature that killed them has a chance to morph into a ‘nemesis’. A
nemesis is a new type of boss enemy that jumps to the game of a random person
on the dead player’s friends list. A nemesis is a much harder to kill and often
spawns shadows of the heroes it’s slain. If that friend managers to kill the
nemesis, they are rewarded with experience and gold as well as a legendary gift
for their dead friend. If the player is unsuccessful in killing the nemesis, it
then jumps to another random person from that player’s friends list and so on.
The nemesis will continue to jump through player’s friends list until it has
been slain or unless it slays a certain amount of players.
With the expansion comes the addition of Adventure Mode.
Adventure Mode grants the ability for players to jump between acts and
waypoints as they please to kill endless amounts of enemies & complete
bounties. Bounties are randomized objectives such as ‘kill this boss’, ‘clear
this dungeon’, ‘complete this event’ or ‘kill this unique enemy’. Upon
finishing a bounty, the player’s rewarded with gold, experience, blood shards
and keystone fragments. Blood shards are a form of currency new to ‘Reaper of Souls’ which allow the player
to purchase items from a special merchant for a random piece of loot. Obtaining
five keystone fragments on the other hand, opens a Nephalem Rift which is a
randomized dungeon which players need to defeat 100% of the enemies in order to
summon the Rift Guardian. Rift Guardians are much tougher than other bosses and
drop a ton of loot. I believe this is where the game will get its longevity. I
know that I will definitely be coming back to delve deeper into this game mode…
That is, unless ‘Destiny’ consumes my
spare time.
‘Diablo 3’ has a
player vs player (PVP) multiplayer mode as well although it’s nothing to write
home about. It’s not exclusive to any version of ‘Diablo 3’; it was introduced through a patch in the form of a ‘free
for all’ arena. This mode is simply called ‘brawling’ because that’s literally
all it is. There is no leaderboard, no objective & no loot for performing
well. Nothing special, right? Blizzard ultimately scrapped the initial PVP
modes upon realising that they didn’t have the required depth to make them
interesting enough.
‘Diablo 3: Reaper of
Souls – Ultimate Evil Edition’ takes what Blizzard Entertainment does best,
builds upon that & tailors the experience for consoles. Boasting the
features & updates from the ‘Reaper
of Souls’ expansion as we as some new ones, the ‘Ultimate Evil Edition’ is a triumph in bringing a PC franchise to
the wider console audience.
Remember, if you liked my review and you want to see more,
follow me on Twitter @DylanPerrett or subscribe to my YouTube channel, The
Quiet Gamer’ for some fun and sometimes inappropriate Let’s Play videos.
Survival horror, it’s a genre that's been done
to death. Games like ‘Dead Space’, ‘F.E.A.R’and ‘Condemned’ offer great
scares and a haunting atmosphere but fall short of a true survival experience.
Enter ‘The Last of Us’, the latest
cinematic thrill ride from Naughty Dog, Sony's flagship developer. Previously
accustom to making more light-hearted experiences like ‘Jak & Daxter’ as well as the globe-trotting ‘Uncharted’ series, this is Naughty Dog's
first official step into the realm of survival horror. Not only is it
graphically unrivalled but the game's ability to tell pieces of the story
through the environment has never been done this well before and probably won’t
be bettered for some time to come.
You play as Joel, a grizzled gun-for-hire tasked with escorting a young girl
out of one of the last remaining quarantine zones and across the United States.
The catch? In 2013, the world was hit with the cordyceps virus, a mutant strain
of an infection that previously only affected insects. With humans though, the
infection replaces the host tissue with fungus and causes them to become zombie
like creatures that devour anything living. It's been two decades since
the collapse of society; Joel's seen his fair share of odd jobs that have
earned him a reputation among the people of the quarantine zones. It's easy to
see from the get go that the past 20 years have been less than kind to Joel. From
his rugged complexion right down to his personality, it’s noticeable that
Joel’s endured some pretty awful things. As mentioned previously, Joel’s job is
to escort a young girl across a destroyed & hostile United States. This
young girl is Ellie, born 6 years after the infection hit America and
presumably the rest of the world; she’s a tough and independent 14 year old. The
apocalypse is all she’s ever known, Ellie’s had to grow and mature much faster
than a child normally would. Even though she puts up a strong and mature front
for others to encounter, underneath that there’s a little girl screaming out
for love & care.
‘The Last of Us’ tells a deep and
immersive story through the use of various environments. As players make their
way through rotting town houses; a decayed office building or an abandoned city
street, they'll come across small snippets of information like dog tags; hand
written notes and photographs that tell another survivors story through Naughty
Dog's post-apocalyptic universe. These pieces of lore act as collectables
through Joel & Ellie’s journey and present a decent challenge for trophy
hunters. Objects such as old newspaper stands; evacuation boards and letters
from people attempting to reach loved ones serve to enhance the emotional
connection players develop with the universe.
It’s no secret that Naughty Dog’s graphical benchmark
is only rivalled by a handful of studios in the industry. ‘The Last of Us: Remastered’ showcases exactly what the PS3 could do
at the end of its lifecycle and then some, with the developer upgrading the games
superb aesthetic to a visual extravaganza through the use of the PS4. Behind
every corner is another breath-taking vista as good as or even better than the
last, an area populated with menacing hunters or the terrifying infected, or a
new environment that tugs at your heart strings as you read the desperate
scribbles of a survivor’s final moments. ‘The
Last of Us’ stands as a testament to the evolution of games, not just as a
form of entertainment but as an outlet for creative minds to produce products
that evoke the deepest of human emotion.
Breathing life into an overly saturated genre, ‘The Last of Us’ focuses on stealth &
survival rather than bullet crazed action or unpredictable scares. Basic combat
sees players assuming control of Joel as he sneaks, strangles, stabs &
shoots any or all that he comes across in his travels. Although there’s a
larger focus on stealth, which allows players to sneak between a variety of
different covers and silently subdue enemies, the game also offers a handful of
ranged & melee weapons as well as an assortment of craftable tools to use if
the situation gets heated. Depending on the chosen difficulty, of which there
are three to begin with, I personally think that firearms would be used more
wisely as a ‘get out of jail free’ card rather than the go to strategy as it
almost always causes a tight situation due to a distinct lack of ammunition on
the harder difficulties. This risk/reward system opens up a mixture of
different paths for players to experiment with. It’s delightfully stressful
dealing with a room full of human enemies who’ve spotted you while you’re
furiously crafting a bandage or a flaming Molotov. Most weapons become available
as players progress through the roughly fifteen to twenty hour campaign
depending whether you’re a completionist or not.
Joel has the unique ability of ‘listening’ to the
surroundings in order to better navigate environment. Once active, this ability
allows Joel to see enemies through walls. Although this game mechanic allows
for a more tactical approach to the combat scenarios, I found it to be more of
a cheat on the easier difficulties. Luckily the game’s made more challenging on
the ‘survivor’ difficulty, taking the ‘listen’ mode out entirely.
Upgrades come in the way of items called
‘supplements’ that are found in secret rooms or scattered around the environment.
Once the player has accumulated enough of these supplements, they can upgrade
one of Joel’s capabilities. These are passive upgrades such as being able to
craft items faster, increase Joel’s maximum health and even increase the range
of Joel’s ‘listen’ ability.
In the previous generation, it was the trend to
include multiplayer components to games that didn’t necessarily need them. ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ added a
multiplayer where three Joker gang members fight three Bane gang members and in turn, a
two man Batman &Robin team.As harsh as it may be, this
implementation of multiplayer was absolutely useless. ‘The Last of Us’ however, stands head and shoulders above the rest,
packing all of the single player elements into a competitive atmosphere.
Matches consist of two teams of four, which keeps things nice and personal.
Instead of running off on their own, players are encouraged to move in groups
as they’ll have a far greater chance of survival.
Gameplay elements from the story mode are mirrored
superbly in multiplayer. Crafting, stealth & combat are nearly identical in
both instances, which is a feat that’s only truly rivalled by the ‘Assassin’s Creed’ franchise or last
years ‘Watch_Dogs’. Players loot,
craft & kill their way to victory in a handful of modes. Enhanced and
bundled together, ‘The Last of Us:
Remastered’ contains the original two multiplayer modes: supply raid and
survivors, as well as interrogation which was added later through an update.
These modes allow for a variety of gameplay that focus on eliminating the
opposing team; scavenging enough supplies or collecting enough information from
the opposing team.
What’s surprising is that not only have Naughty Dog
constructed a very smooth and fair multiplayer experience; they have also
included an intensely stressful meta game. Outside of the multiplayer matches,
players assume the position of the leader in their own small group of survivors
and through their success or failure in competitive matches, that group will
grow and shrink accordingly. This extends to not only winning matches but
completing smaller objectives throughout a match.
The detailed aesthetic of the PS3 version of ‘The Last of Us’ is absolutely stunning
and with the power of the PS4, Naughty Dog have elevated their masterpiece higher
than expected with ‘The Last of Us:
Remastered’. Naughty Dog have crafted an online experience that can, at
times, be frustrating after seeing your group members get sick and die but at
the drop of a hat, be so uplifting after your group survives another week and
has supplies to spare for the next. Whether it’s the heart wrenching story or
the intense situations between you, the hunters, or the infected, very few
games can match the raw emotion that this game invokes. Joel & Ellie are
remarkably well built & fleshed out characters who are accompanied by a
diverse supporting cast of rag tag survivors. Needless to say that ‘The Last of Us’ soars above & beyond
all competition.
‘The Last of
Us’ gets 10 ‘Muted Microphones’/10
+ Devastated Yet Beautiful World
+ Diverse & Memorable Characters
+ Absolutely Gorgeous
+Addictive But Sometimes Annoying Multiplayer Remember, if you liked my review and you want to see more, follow me on Twitter @DylanPerrett or My IGN under 'bobert9497'.
