You want to see some more Rocket League Rides?

I know I do!!!  One of the most fun things in this game is the endless customization options of how you want to look in game.  I've been changing mine nearly every night.  Here are a few of the latest I've rode onto the battle field with (in style).

Rocket League Initial Review (First Week)

So yeah, Rocket League is addicting.  I mean in the simplest terms everything I’ve been told about this game is correct.  You’re a rocket powered vehicle, you hit a huge metal explosive ball with parts of your car, and you try to angle it into the opponent’s goal in a giant soccer like rink.  The other team is obviously trying to do the same against you.  Simple…. Or is it?

The first thing I noticed was this game is pretty easy to pick up.  I mean right away any gamer should be able to steer a car, press jump, and hit a booster.  I could make some goals against other noobies (surprisingly defending is a lot harder haha).  But as you play you quickly learn there is a lot of neat advanced stuff going on, especially with better players.  There is a whole level of ariel play that separates good players from great ones.  Jumping, boosting in air, and controlling where your car will go is a thing of beauty and takes time to perfect.  Knowing how to defend, clear the ball, and where to position takes experience.  Add them together and you can quickly pick up the game, but can definitely spend a lot of time mastering.

Even once you get the basics and learn more about the game.  The action is fast, quick and fun.  Give up a goal?  On to the next.  Lose a match?  Few minutes later you are in a new one.  Time flies when playing this game, it’s been a while since I’ve played a game where all of a sudden it’s a lot later than I thought and I should be going to bed J.  With 5 minute games paused only slightly for sweet scoring recaps the games are relatively short but just long enough for a good fight.

One feature I’m also enjoying so far is the cars are pretty customizable in appearance.  You have a few out of the gate cars and upgrades and get “free” items unlocked after each match.  Almost every car can be painted 2 colors, each color with a different finish (like glossy, metallic), have decals (like flames), roof toppers, different tires, antenna toppers, and jet streams (the boost stream behind your car has tons of outrageous options like money or bubbles).  I really enjoy theming out my cars depending on my mood and I know my options to do so will only increase as I unlock more choices.  The best part is the cars are mostly preference and only have very slight differences in how they play, so you aren’t underpowered by choosing a car you like or feels good to you.

Lastly, this game has a tangible excitement feel to it you get from a real soccer match.  When minutes go by and it’s hard to score every scoring chance counts.  There can be a lot of drama to getting that score, and when a cheap one gets in or a dumb play costs you, you actually feel it.  I find my feet kicking under my desk when trying to “flip” my car correctly at the ball.  Or me actually leaning towards a shot or a block.  So far Rocket League is a pretty awesome game, I’m looking forward to getting better at it.

Here's a few of my rides I made this week:

Hot Rod

Iced Out

Here is my mish mash of tips and thoughts on early level PvP in Destiny

 

1.       The hold the point games don’t work like they do in other games.  You don’t get a ticking time amount of points just for holding them.  What you get is points when you kill an enemy player, the more flags you have when you get the kill the more points your team gets.  So while its important to cap and get points, its even more important to be careful and not die a lot.

2.       Brings me to my next point.  Stay with your team especially if you are new.  If the enemy is distracted targeting someone else or under fire from somewhere else you can get your shots off and not as easly get shot yourself.  Also if you are the guy getting shot at but you are with a team they are getting free shots.  Its valuable to try and stick with teammates.  Sometimes its ok to go run off by yourself but I’d say it’s a more advanced thing to do once you get much better at the game and even then caution is actually way more important than aggression.

3.       For main weapons as a starter I’d suggest using the fastest firing automatic weapon possible.  The damage is normalized for pvp based on fire rate and impact.  But as a beginner its much easier to hit and make some kills if you can squeeze the trigger and just let the bullets fly as many as possible.  Later once you are good something more powerful and precise is great.  But starting out you can’t afford to miss those shots on that type of gun.

4.       On maps that have vehicles get in and ride!  They can take a lot of punishment, kill pretty easily, and are pretty fun.  My best tip for them is if you are under strong enemy fire hit the boost button and just race on out of there fast.  Recharge your shields then head right back.  Best if you can catch someone out in the open areas.

5.       Crouching takes you off the radar, make sure to crouch, sneak and find good places to hide and watch the radar for your enemies!  This will help out a ton once you get good at looking up there.  Find the places where you are above them and they can’t see you well or you have a nice hallway to defend or others like that, terrain advantage and knowing where you can and can’t go are also very important but just require practicing and play time.  Don’t be afraid to run around on the map and look for these areas.

6.    Get bounties before you go!  Getting bounties from the tower for different things you can accomplish (such as play 5 games) will go a long way to helping you level up, get more skills and abilities, and enjoy your time spent PVPing.

Destiny - First hours brief impression

Gameplay = solid, computer AI seems tough but not impossible.  They don’t just sit there and let you blow them up.  They hide, they dodge, and they fire.  Firing weapons was a challenge for me using xbox 360 controls, so will take me a bit before I don’t feel like a total novice.  So far had 3 different gun types and all were pretty fun.  The shotgun (which I really really really want to like) is the hardest to actually use.  You have to be pretty close range and then when you shoot it the recoil knocks your camera up so high you can’t follow up and do anything lol.  It could just be the crappy low level shotty I have though as well.  I got some other charge electric shot gun which is interesting but I haven’t played with much yet and a few sub machine gun types which end up being what is used when I run out of ammo on the others.

For other attacks you get grenades (which are cool).  My titan has one that disorients so I can run in and destroy stuff for a few seconds without it firing.  One thing that stood out pretty odd in my eyes was melee attacks though.  You damn near one shot anything you hit in melee.  That’s probably ok if you are a warlock with force push, or maybe even a hunter with a knife, but as a titan you are strait punching stuff.  It feels odd to blast away with a gun at a creature taking 3+ shots to kill it when swinging my right hand knocks the thing dead in one shot lol.  I think some sort of explanation to this would have been cool (like your suit is so powerful to create a strong punch).  Actually a few things in the game seem to leave you to your own imagination on how it works, this also is ok since its not important as gameplay but it was a interesting decision.

One of those things is race choice.  You start out the game and class choice is easy enough (they give you plenty of description of the three).  So you get a decent idea what you are picking there.  But Race choice has no bearing on the game (only looks) which is totally fine, but there is no description what any of those things really are.  You can be human, alienish, or robot.  But why?  Maybe they reveal this stuff later but its kind of odd choosing a race and not knowing why you chose it.  Did these alien race guys fight along side humans?  Did these robot things help?  Why these three races banded together to begin with?

Story line has been ok so far.  Lots of questions but I think that’s by design.  I’ve followed it ok though and enjoyed the missions.  Had to fight a few mini boss type guys and the fights were challenging.  Died on one of them which actually was a good thing since I wouldn’t want the game to be too easy.  There were also other real people playing in the area’s im in but the game really gives me no indication why or how.  My boss fights were instanced I think, but the surface areas had others.  Oddly some were quite different level than me (12s and even 20s) so I’m not sure why they were running around in the same zone as me.  I can only guess it spawned some mobs their level I couldn’t see but that too would be odd since I wouldn’t be able to kill those mobs.  I only saw enemies around my level.

Looking forward to more group play and seeing how that goes.  One guy seemed like he was inviting me to join him but I couldn’t quickly figure out how to accept.  By the time I found the menu and invited him to my fireteam or whatever it is he was off somewhere else and I think didn’t accept.  Was cool running through a few quick parts with another player though, felt like I had a little cover at least lol.  Pvp should be fun, can’t wait to try that soon.

Diablo 3 Beta - That Funky Monk-y

So I get the chance to take to the 4th class in Diablo 3 the Monk and I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was!  First off you get to kick, punch, and crazily attack like a paladin without a sword.  Second off it uses a system similar to the Barbarian in which you gain a spirit metre with certain attacks, while using it with others.  The spirit gaining attacks were fluid and had a special animation for every third hit with special effects.  From snaring, to dizzying there were tons of effects.  The Monk also had options to run dodge and other auras which I didn't use to great effect but I could see how they might be pretty strong later and especially when running a team, not to mention nice utility like a aoe heal!

So that's all great and dandy, but how cool does he look?  Well let me show you.

You want Fist?  Oh we got fist... dipped in lightning

How bout kick?  Yeah eat some of these.



Oh, not enough fist?  Sorry lets let the aoe fly.

And the thing that made the Monk a sweet super fast crazy karate master and my favorite thing that made me love the class was the fact he got a crazy blink charge move.  Flys through enemies and allows him to zing around the map like a crazy bald mad man.  this my friends is the Barbarian equivilent to leap, u need this!

All in all really cool melee class, going to be hard to choose a main with all these great designs.  Demon Hunter up next, and then a recap!



Diablo 3 Beta - Wizard Time!

Heya big Mr. Skeleton King, lil Wizard here has got something for ya.

Diablo 3 Beta test char number 3.  The wizard has been a great and fun class.  Focusing mostly on lightning powers in the low levels it sure has been a lot of fun cracking out burst after burst of pure electric fun.  Of course there are many classic spells below such as magic missle, ice armor and frost nova so don't fear, electric isn't the only way to go.  For that matter it seems there may even be a possibility for a melee wizard option, the class comes with a weapon dmg buff, a great armor/slow buff, and a spell that cuts the air in front of them for weapon dmg.

Melee Wizard?

 Oh, did you want to see some of that Juicy Electric power?  Ok, you got it.

So yeah, the wizard is a total powerhouse of power and a ton of fun to play.  Don't believe me?  Enjoy this last supernova of complete and crushing knock back psychic pwnage.



Diablo 3 Beta - Barbarian first look

So you want to smash some enemies into bits with a in your face, barbarian shouting, fury generating, tough guy twist?  You've come to the right class.  Barbarian brings back all of your favorite feelings from Diablo 2 all rolled into one massive brute.  I found the class a little slow until you got leap, and then it was just so much fun leaping all over the place onto unsuspecting enemies and pummeling them all.  You could esily switch betwen an aoe style of hitting multiple enemies or a more single target approach.  He was beefy, he was berserk, he was a Barbarian.

Fist meet Face - Zombie meet wall

HAMMER TIME!

He leaps through the air with the greatest of ease

Who dat?  Miniboss?  Me smash...

Hey Mr. Skeleton man, you no longer the king sorry.