Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

This Week in Review: Firewatch, Quantum Break, and More - February 7-13, 2016

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • This Week in Review: Firewatch, Quantum Break, and More - February 7-13, 2016

    I've decided to may try something new here. Each weekend, or each "weekend when I have something relevant to talk about, I will put up a new "This Week in Review" at TGN. This will hopefully be a small bit of content that includes short reviews of games I played in the past week and maybe a paragraph or two on some "interesting" bit of news I saw recently that I have an opinion about.

    Let me open with some quick reviews for a couple of games I played this past week: Firewatch and American Truck Simulator.

    Firewatch is one of those games that will undoubtedly upset a lot of people, especially when it comes to the ending. Many have already harped on the game for being a "walking simulator," which is apparently the catch-all category for games that are more story driven than action focused. Don't get me wrong, there is still plenty of "video game" things to do in Firewatch, but not as much as the Call of Duty generation would probably like for there to be. Because it's story driven, people will also be turned away from the fact that the ending isn't some grandiose or fairy tale "video game" ending. It's an ending more rooted in reality. It's an ending that could actually happen in reality without embellishment. As the Firewatch Steam page clearly states, "Firewatch is a video game about adults having adult conversations about adult things" and that is without a doubt 100% true. If you're looking for high-impact thrills and chills, you should probably look elsewhere.

    I personally greatly enjoyed my time with the game. I do wish it was a bit longer than it was (took me about four hours to complete) but I enjoyed almost every second of that experience. I felt that the game was very well written with believable and relatable characters. It didn't hurt that the game also looked gorgeous with a very unique art style. Sadly, the use of Unity was as much a curse as it was a visual feast for the eyes because framerate performance was a bit inconsistent on the PC.

    Overall: 4 out of 5
    Firewatch (Developed by Campo Santo)
    $19.99 (USD) via Steam



    Next up on the quick review block is American Truck Simulator. Here we have a game that comes after the popular Eurotruck Simulator games. I do own those but I never really played them outside of a few minutes here and there. However, I felt compelled to give American Truck Simulator a fair shake, and shake I did. I have already spent about six hours in American Truck Simulator, though this is nothing compared to the more dedicated out there. As the title implies, you spend all of your time driving a big rig through the United States. Only, it's not all of the US, it's only two states (for now): California and Nevada. You make deliveries on contract, earn some cash, and eventually you can start building your own trucking company and send hired NPCs out on delivery runs to help your empire grow.

    The game has proven itself to be a very relaxing experience despite its lack of content (areas to explore), sometimes questionable driver AI, and harsh (unfair) fines for speeding. User-created mods do help to mitigate some of these complaints. The ability to listen to an in-game radio or your own music adds to the relaxation factor. The game also works very nicely with the Steam Controller, allowing me to just kick back and enjoy the scenery on my various trips. I just wish there was more of the United States open to exploration.

    Overall: 3 out of 5
    American Truck Simulator (Developed by SCS Software)
    $19.99 (USD) via Steam



    I'd like to say that XCOM 2 is a great sequel to the much beloved XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM: Enemy Within, but it's not. The technical issues have just been too severe to overlook. Performance is abysmal for many users, including myself. And while I personally stopped playing I've seen a number of streams where the last mission turned into a broken mess. I'm talking about textures and the environment flashing bright colors that render the entire scene unplayable. I've seen players encounter invisible walls pop up where previously there were none. All of this results in broken saves and broken games that actually makes Iron Man impossible to beat for many users as a result of these issues. I've seen the game seemingly pause while the game tries to figure out Overwatch engagements. I've seen the camera cut away to a black abyss during alien activity. It's just not a good experience.

    Fortunately, the improvements made to the core gameplay are quite nice in comparison. It's just unfortunate that these improvements are not enough to overlook the technical shortcomings of the game. These issues are near inexcusable given that this game was developed solely with PC gaming in mind. I'm sure the score will be higher once some much needed patches are rolled out.

    Current overall: 2 out of 5
    XCOM 2 (Developed by Firaxis)
    $59.99 (USD) via Steam



    This week we also saw news that Quantum Break is coming to the PC on the same day that it's out for the Xbox One. Microsoft is pushing this former Xbox One exclusive by including a pre-purchase incentive that allows users to purchase the Xbox One version and get the PC version at no additional charge. On paper that sounds like a tremendous deal and a real great move by Microsoft to finally show the PC crowd some love. In reality, it's a pretty shitty attempt from Microsoft in a long line of shitty attempts by Microsoft to show PC gaming some love.

    First off, they are only offering Quantum Break through their Windows 10 Store. Based on historical precedence with their Rise of the Tomb Raider offering, the PC experience is going to be severely lacking. Windows Store games run in a sandbox environment. This means that things like overlays will not work. Overlays include things like framerate monitoring, GPU/CPU usage monitoring, temperature monitoring, and even the Steam Overlay. This also directly prevents the Steam Controller from working with the game. On top of this, graphical enhancements like ENB, SweetFX, ReShade, or GeDoSaTo will not work with the game. This sandbox environment also prevents the game from working well with OBS and Nvidia's ShadowPlay, even making things like forcing AA through the Nvidia control panel a very difficult task. New technologies like G-Sync also reportedly don't work. Others have reported issues that include a lack of exclusive fullscreen mode, always-on V-sync, and not being allowed to use mouse software that allows you to create per game customizations. There have even been reports that it's also incredibly difficult getting SLI to work with Rise of the Tomb Raider through the Windows Store.

    If this is the trend for Microsoft and their latest weak promise of a "renewed focus on PC gaming" then you can count me out. We've seen this same song and dance from Microsoft in the past. They really haven't changed one bit.



    Here's one I saw just before going ahead and submitting this. It seems as though Rise of the Tomb Raider won the Writer Guild of America's Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing. The nominees it beat out were Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Pillars of Eternity, and The Witcher 3. Of all the options here, Rise of the Tomb Raider is easily the weakest as far as writing is concerned. It's a perfectly enjoyable game (except through Windows Store) but the writing is really not one of its strong suits. This is especially apparent when compared to The Witcher 3 and Pillars of Eternity.
Working...
X