I survived Kyrat 2014

Last night I managed to finish the story for Far Cry 4. I did so in about 15 minutes, without shooting anything (I didn't even get a gun), without driving a vehicle, and without even leaving the dinner table...

That's right, by following Pagan Min's instructions (as well as the audio cues courtesy of The Clash), and simply staying put, and waiting for him to return, I was taken straight to Lakshmana. Lakshmana is where Ishwari Ghale (your in-game mother) requests you take her ashes. There is a brief playable part where you get to place Ishwari's ashes, and open a door. Then there's a short cut scene, and before you know it the credits are rolling. Mission accomplished!

While the alternate ending skips all the fun parts of Far Cry 4, it enabled me to get a glimpse of the world before heading to bed last night. The opening scenes look really good, especially given that I'm playing on a old gen. console. It was at the dinner table where things started to look a little dated. Pagan Min looks as though he has had time to not only wash all the blood from his face, but also all the detail, texture, and life too. 

After Min had left the room, I took the opportunity to look around. Note I said look around, not walk around. I'm not sure if the alternative ending will play if you move from the dinner table. From my vantage point I could see three rather thick bank notes strewn on the table, several half eaten meals, some trinkets/ chimes blowing in the wind, and a flashing (collectible?) item in another room. I noticed that if I moved the camera around too quickly, the screen got glitched in half due to lag. I don't recall this happening at all in Far Cry 3, which also uses the Dunia 2 engine. I'm not sure if this phenomenon occurs in the game's outside world too, or if it is restricted to pagan Min's dining hall. I'm assuming due to the increased detail outside, it'll still glitch, but hopefully this will be fixed in the coming patch. 

Despite the graphic problems I'm looking forward to giving Far Cry 4 some proper game time, and am especially looking forward to tackling some honey badgers. 

2 Patches + 2 Days = Far Cry 4

Far Cry 4 has only been out for two days, and there is already a preview from Ubisoft giving some details of  Patch 2.

I pre-ordered Kyrat Edition for the PlayStation 3 mostly for the extra stuff, but also because many of the reviews were saying it played very much like Far Cry 3. In my mind that is a positive comparison, especially given FC3's many favourable reviews, and the extent to which I enjoyed it.

News of Patch 2 comes only hours after Alex Hutchinson (FC4's Creative Director) claimed that the Day 1 Patch was a means of preventing pirates from enjoying the game:

PC players! If you're online complaining about the lack of FOV control ... You pirated the game.

— Alex Hutchinson (@BangBangClick) November 18, 2014

It's a little disheartening to hear that almost every game to be release this year has come with a fairly substantial 'Day 1 patch.' It's great that developers continue to work on a game even after it has 'gone gold,' but why aren't these errors being picked up during play-testing and quality control before the discs are sent of to be manufactured? I completed the entire story of Far Cry 3 before I had figured out how to connect my PlayStation 3 to the internet. If there had been a Day 1 patch, I wouldn't have been able to download it, and essentially would have wound up playing an 'incomplete game.' I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the experience as much, nor spent nearly as many hours exploring the Rook Islands if the game had such fundamental errors as corrupted save data.

I will probably start a proper playthrough of Far Cry 4 this afternoon. I'm hoping that I wont encounter too many issues. If I do find the experience to be flawed, the I'll put FC4 aside for a few more days and wait for Patch 2. At least I still have Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel to keep me busy, and I'm quite enjoying my second run through Elpis.

Okujira - King whale

Okujira, the collaborative project between Richie Londrez (Sol Invicto) and Amy Yanick (Thekeenone), is back with another ripper. King whale continues the collaboration between Thekeenone (Amy Yanick) established with the first track, Black gold.

I'm really enjoying this series of collaborations, and am looking forward to hearing the material the duo will come up with when Yanick begins recording her new solo album "very soon," which is to be produced by Londrez.

As per usual, if you like what you hear, download links are provided in the widget.

The brain of a serial killer infographic

A friend of mine recently posted this on Facebook. While I was reading though it my, wife looked over my shoulder and asked if I could email it to her. She now wants to read the 'book.' 

I'm not sure if I should be worried about my wife's intentions, or if she is worried about my intentions.

Source: NowSourcing

Evovle's Big Alpha Infographic

Evovle's 'Big Alpha' event has come and gone, and from this infographic it looks as though it was a huge success:

These were the dates that the Big Alpha ran for.

At the moment it seems that playing as a hunter means you have a 56.75% chance of winning a game, versus only a a 42.25% chance if you play as a monster.

That seems to be a pretty balanced outcome. Given that most players would have been familiar with a 'hunting style,' it's not surprising that the hunters fared better. 

What will be interesting to see is how these figures change after a few more balancing tweaks, and after the games official release. I'm fairly certain some players (see below) will opt to become specialised monster players, honing their skills at evading hunters, optimising evolutionary progressions, and learning which abilities to use in particular environments and scenarios.

These figures really intrigue me. Assuming that every match had five players, four hunters and a compulsory monster, it's interesting to note that the Assault and Monster classes were the most favoured. I'm guessing the Assault class was popular because of flamethrowers, miniguns, and lightning guns. I mean who doesn't like flamethrowers, miniguns, and lightning guns?

Well me actually. Personally (and if South Africa hadn't been excluded from the Big Alpha), I would have chosen to play as either Griffin (Trapper) or Lazarus (Medic). Obviously harpoon guns, silenced sniper rifles, personal cloaking devices, and "slightly illegal" devices that effectively make your character a necromancer aren't as sexy as flamethrowers and lightning guns. Whatever.

That's a lot of rounds played. Just imagine how many more rounds there could have been had so many PlayStation 4 players not experienced issues.

It seems a lot of people like to watch with approximately 5 viewers per round played.

It definitely seems like a lot of people like to watch. Creepy bastards.

Were these just regular players, or was there a developer involved?  

If you like gaming orientated infographics here are a couple for Call of Duty and Diablo III.

Tales from the Borderlands is coming this month

I've spent quite a bit of time playing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel since its release, but i'm not here to tell you about that today. Check back in a few days though if you do want to hear more about it. 

Today I'm sharing with you the most recent trailer for Tales from the Borderlands. 

As the timeline from the video (also below) explains, the 'Tales' from the Borderlands are set after the events of Borderlands 2. For those up to date with events of Borderlands 2, it hasn't yet been explained how Handsome Jack is able to narrate the trailer for Tales just yet (SPOILER: Jack dies in Borderlands 2), but I'm sure that that will be explained in the first episode. Given Telltales' success with The Walking Dead series, the possibility of Handsome Jack coming back a zombie can't be ruled out, but it is more likely that Handsome Jack left various ECHO recordings, or hologram messages to be found by the player, which would explain how he is able to communicate with the player from beyond the grave.

In addition to Handsome Jack, former vault hunter Zer0 also makes an appearance in the trailer. He is definitely still alive, and seemingly responsible for rescuing Fiona, Rhys, and Vaughn from a bunch of bandits. It'll be interesting to see how that interaction plays out in the first episode of Tales, as well the rest of the season.

I'm a big fan of the artistic style used in the Borderlands and The Walking Dead franchises, and I'm an even bigger fan of the stories from the Borderlands universe. While I'm really excited to see in which direction Telltale take the Borderlands story, I'm not as excited about the episodic nature of the release. I'll likely wait for the five episodes of Tales to be released on a single disc.

That's what I thought I'd do with The Walking Dead game too, but then my brother ended up getting it for Xbox 360. I figured that instead of buying the same release, I would rather save my money, and simply TWD in successive visits home. Instead during my last visit my brother and I ended up playing couch co-op. Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. Ironically RoS is a game we both have, and technically I have two copies of the base game.

Tales from the Borderlands will be available on old and new gen. consoles, PC, Mac, and iOS devices, with "other platforms to be announced." If you're intending on getting this for PC, then Steam is currently offering 10% off the regular price of US$24.99. I don't know if that is the price for episode one only, or the entire series, but the description leads me to believe it's the former. I could be wrong. Steam's 'pre-order special' is only valid until 25 November which could mean that that is the release date for Tales.

The only things still to be announced by Telltale is what bonuses will be made available to folks who purchase Tales, and have also purchased Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel? Could Tales hold the key to the hidden Baroness character?

Will you be buying Tales from the Borderlands digitally on day one, or will you be waiting for the compiled edition on a disc?

Overwatch: Blizzard's online multiplayer shooter

Following on from Blizzard's StarCraft II announcement, here's a look at their new IP, Overwatch. I get the impression this title has a very similar concept to that of Evolve, but instead of going up against one overpowered monster with a few friends, your team of six mercenaries will be up against another six mercenaries. 

Blizzard are well known for their epic cinematics, and the reveal trailer for Overwatch does not disappoint.

From the gameplay trailer the classes look very similar, and even some of the character design/ abilities seem to overlap heavily between the two titles. For instance Overwatch's Mercy looks quite a bit like Evolve's Val, but with Lazarus' resurrection ability. 

Overwatch's medic, Mercy, sizes up the sniper-medic, Val from Evolve 

One thing that will definitely set the two titles apart (as can be seen above) is the artwork style and animation. While Evolve's has gone for a more realistic representation of its environments and characters, the developers of Overwatch have gone for a more cartoonish-look, and I really like it.

While this is potentially the type of game I'd like to play (and I particularly like the looks of Reaper), I highly doubt my current PC will be able to handle running it. When Evolve was first revealed to be next gen. and PC only, I had seriously considered upgrading my PC. But then the whole idea of buying a console was so that I wouldn't have to get a new graphics card every 6 months as a new game came out.

So while Overwatch, Evolve, and to a lesser extent Battleborn look like great co-operative shooters, the chances of me purchasing any of them are slowly approaching zero. Now if one of these titles were to launch with a worthwhile single player campaign, then things might change.

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void announcements

It's been nearly two years since the release of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, but finally Blizzard have announced the third, and final installment of the StarCraft II trilogy; Legacy of the Void.

I still haven't gotten around to playing the previous games of the StarCraft II saga, but now that the story is being wrapped up with the release of the LotV 'expansion,' hopefully it wont be too long before a StarCraft II: Battle Chest is announced. That is something I will definitely buy, especially if it has a few extra goodies, like strategy guides, soundtracks, etc.