As if zombie games weren’t already in abundance, we get yet another crappy indie zombie first-person shooter. This game caught my eye due to the live-action cut scenes, and the screenshots looked decent, but man, I was wrong. Not only are the story and the main character, Jack, laughably bad, but the live-action cut scenes are just downright hilarious.
The game starts out with you ejecting from a spaceship for some unknown reason and then crashing into a plane on Earth. You need to stop the plane from crashing, but on your way are zombies. As I picked up the revolver and started shooting, I immediately knew what I was in for. The aiming is bad, the guns feel awful to shoot, the AI is bad, and the physics are stupidly overexaggerated. Sure, some of the zombie models look decent, but this looks like a first-gen Xbox 360 game at best. The textures are muddy and pixelated, the models are awful, and the overall design of the levels is just plain bad and cramped.
So, let’s have an open mind and overlook the bad gameplay design, overly stupid story, bad AI, and awful gunplay. But if you do that, there’s nothing left to forgive, right? The game is already too long, clocking in at about 4-5 hours, but I couldn’t make it to the third level; it was so bad. Even if you just want to enjoy the awful live-cut scenes, that’s not even an option. Hell, even the menu is bad, and as soon as I booted this game up, I knew what to expect. Could this game even be a little good? Maybe for a laugh with a couple of friends, but you won’t get any value out of this game at all.
Overall, Chasing Dead may have had something with live-action cut scenes if it was done right, but there’s not a thread of hope for any part of this game that the developers could build off of. It’s a typical bad zombie shooter to please 12-year-olds who have $10 to blow on Steam.
Have you ever wanted to time-travel and change the past? How about just the last 30 seconds? You get that option in Life is Strange. You play Maxine Caulfield, who discovers she can rewind time by saving her childhood friend from a fatal gunshot wound in the girl’s bathroom. This changes Max’s life and everyone around her, but it’s up to you to decide if it’s for good or worse. Life is Strange tells a fantastically beautiful story with wonderfully written characters. The game will keep you hooked and have you playing all 8 hours with barely a blink.
Life is Strange tries to build on the revolutionary point-and-click adventure genre that The Walking Dead revived from Telltale Games. The game is a little more open-ended, but not by much. There’s more to explore and items to “look at,” which gives you a bigger insight into Max’s own thoughts and mind. Honestly, by looking at all these objects, you get to know Max better and the world around you more. Besides this, you just walk through every area to the next character that advances the story. There are some “time puzzles” that require you to select certain dialog choices and then rewind time to use that information to your advantage. It’s an interesting idea, but Life is Strange’s storytelling is a bit of a mess and requires you to pay attention very closely or you will miss something.
The game is broken up into 5 episodes, and each one has a cliffhanger ending. The game goes on at a good pace except for the final chapter, which is a roller coaster and kind of a mess. Without spoiling everything, you kind of “review” everything you have done through the game, which involves an awful stealth sequence. However, through the entire game, I couldn’t help but realize that no matter what I chose, the final outcome never changes, which is odd. It’s not until the last two chapters that all your choices start to unfold, but I feel they are just detours rather than different outcomes. Despite that frustration, the story in Life is Strange is amazing.
I have to talk about the atmosphere of this game. It’s so nostalgic and really reminded me of my adventures as a kid growing up, and it really makes you think about your family, friends, and what’s going on around you in your life. That small country life is something I grew up with personally, and the game really hit home with me. It sucked me in every minute, despite the slow start I had to push through. The entire game is so touching and full of emotion; it’s one of the best video game stories I have ever seen, but it still doesn’t top Soma. This is a story you will talk about long after the game is over and ponder over. The only thing that really annoyed me about the story is that it tries to turn this innocent teen drama “Where did my best friend go?” mystery into a serious murder mystery, which is kind of jarring. I loved exploring these areas out in the middle of nowhere and getting into shenanigans with Max and her best friend Cloe through their time travel events. Once the murder mystery stuff hit, it was a bit of a turn-off, but it wasn’t until towards the end.
Life is Strange also isn’t the prettiest game to look at; it’s rather ugly. The game has a nice watercolor art style, but the game’s technical level is a first-generation Xbox 360 game at best. The textures are muddy and awful, and the character models are terrible. This is just a downright ugly game, but the story and characters keep your head out of that. Overall, this is worth every dime and all your time invested.
The Vita is a strange system, as several developers tried to make various genres stable on the system. With Monster Hunter clone Soul Sacrifice not exactly bringing about that feat, Freedom Wars is the next game to make the Vita a blockbuster hit for co-op monster-slaying fun. Freedom Wars starts out a little strange, just like Soul Sacrifice. I didn’t understand the game for a while, and it seemed like there was something missing throughout the whole adventure.
Freedom Wars tries to bring about an interesting anime-style post-apocalyptic adventure in which people are all prisoners and sentenced to fight monsters that will destroy settlements unless they have some sort of trait that the government can benefit from. Everyone starts off with a lifetime sentence, but it can get reduced based on various accomplishments such as donating loot from battles to “the cause,” fighting monsters, taking part in more missions, and behaving. This is ingrained into the player’s head from the start, as you are sentenced to 1,000 years for walking for too long. Yeah, it’s crazy, and I loved it. If you run for too long, you get your sentence lengthened, so you have to buy an upgrade that allows you to run, talk to other people, and do various other things, which are actually quite cool.
Once you read your sentence, you put your thumbprint on it, and off you go. Now, the game is very slow to start, and this is a huge downfall for these types of games, as Soul Sacrifice suffered the same problem. There’s a bunch of dialog and backstory to get through, a lengthy tutorial—not just for combat—and then getting used to controls and getting through missions. It takes over 5 hours just to get into the swing of things and start chipping away on missions, which is not a good thing. These anime-type games always do this, from monster slaying to JRPGs, and it drives me crazy.
Once you do get into the field, you can switch between melee and ranged weapons. The goal is to lock on to enemies and hack away at a weak point, but your special weapon is your grapple, which can heal or do damage, among various other things. Once you grapple to a weak point, you can hack away at it, and then the monster falls, allowing all the bots and yourself to go to town. It only gets fun when you find momentum and your AI teammates are all getting along and doing their jobs. You also have an assistant bot that always looks out for you that you can customize and assign certain weapons to. Once you fall, you can be revived, but if it takes too long, you lose your life. If you lose all your lives, your sentence is lengthened, and your reward for the next turn is reduced, making this a tough game towards the end. I was able to whittle away at 4-5 star missions, and it started getting ridiculously difficult and repetitive.
Without human teammates, the game becomes frustrating because you can fall in battle, and three bots are right next to you and won’t revive you. There are also issues with the same 3 or 4 maps being recycled over and over again and with the same mission goals. Save these VIPs, destroy all these monsters, etc. It gets really boring towards the 10th hour, and I just stopped playing after a while because I had no reason to go back.
Let’s talk about upgrading and creating weapons. This is so complicated and irritating, as most of the time you can only upgrade or create something with the components you have, and it takes quite a few missions to build up a little variety. See, you have to create and build workshops to assign the civilians you save in missions to reduce build time and create things like healing items, weapons, ammo, etc. You can upgrade these buildings sometimes, but in the end, it’s all just a bunch of filler and nonsense. Give me a workshop to upgrade and create, and leave me alone. It’s always so complex and unintuitive with these Japanese games. From JRPGs to action games, all the way to free-to-play mobile games, There are layers upon layers of unnecessary upgrade menus and fusing and defusing, etc. It hurts the game quite a bit, so I just rely on buying more powerful weapons and upgrading them; I completely skip creating new weapons entirely.
Customizing your character is quite deep, as you can buy new color packs, armor, and accessories in the game with points you earn in missions. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and there are a lot of things to customize here, so players won’t be disappointed. Overall, the game looks quite good with great lighting effects and textures; it’s probably one of the better-looking Vita games out there. There’s a lot of detail here and in the game; it’s just a mess and completely unorganized and unpolished. I feel the developers were trying several different things and couldn’t decide on just one. The gameplay is clunky, with repetitive missions, recycled maps, and annoying AI bots. The story is nearly non-existent, as it takes forever to unfold as you slog through missions after missions just to get a text-cut scene. I would love to see a sequel, but seeing as the Vita is slowly dying, I doubt that will happen.
Freedom Wars is only for people who love Soul Sacrifice, Monster Hunter, or are really patient and don’t mind repetitive combat to get to an ultimate goal. Playing with friends helps, but it doesn’t hide the mess and unpolish in this game.
Well, 2016 seems to be a great year for the comeback of shooters. First Overwatch, now DOOM (well, in reviewing order). DOOM could have gone so bad, so quickly. However, ID Software went back to its roots, updated it for 2016 technology, and gave the middle finger to all the rest of the stuff plaguing the genre. DOOM is by far one of the best FPS games I have played in over a decade. It’s fast-paced, challenging, fun, full of secrets for veterans, and just plain old shooting.
The game actually does have a bit of a story, and it’s done just right so that it won’t get in the way of the shooting. You play Doomguy, a UAC Marine who has to help a robot scientist named Hayden stop another researcher from bringing Hell to Earth. Amanda Pierce let the tech and religious aspects of Hell get to her, and it overran the advanced Mars facility. Most of the story is told through logs, which are actually the best way to keep the story from getting in the way or becoming a train wreck. There are few cutscenes in DOOM, and when they play out, they are a nice break from the challenging gunplay. It’s light and crisp and isn’t stale, which is great for the genre. Too many games—Battlefield and Call of Duty, in particular—try to do this Hollywood sci-fi script of I don’t know what the hell to impress the edgy gamers out there. It doesn’t work; it’s a train wreck, and those stories are a complete mess. The FPS genre relies too heavily on story and not enough on gameplay.
With that said, DOOM is just like you remembered all those years ago—forget about Doom 3. As soon as I took control of Doomguy, I was in heaven. It’s fast-paced, controls amazingly well, and the guns feel fantastic. The slow build-up of your arsenal makes you smile every time you acquire a new weapon. Seeing Doomguy pick up the shotgun brought a “hell yeah” smile to my face. Seeing the chainsaw rip through enemies just gave me satisfaction as a shooter I haven’t felt in years. There’s a strong arsenal, and not all classic weapons return; a majority are new. The chaingun is fun, the heavy assault rifle is fun, and the gauss rifle is just so much fun. DOOM starts bringing the series into 2016 with weapons mods and Praetor Suit upgrades. These seem unnecessary at first, but with the way the enemies are balanced and maps are laid out, you feel you need them. Each weapon has two different mods, which are incredibly helpful. The shotgun can get an exploding buckshot or a three-round burst. There’s no reloading ammo in the game, so the R key is used for switching between mods. To keep things balanced, there’s a mod switching animation, so going into combat with what you want is necessary.
Let’s talk enemies. The game is chock-full of them, and all the classics return. Pinkies, Hell Knights, Cacodemons, Imps, etc. They look fantastic, blow up great, and the game is so gory and full of detail. The game isn’t the most technically impressive as some textures are lacking, but the game has incredible lighting, and the game runs at a nice smooth clip at 60 FPS. It does require the latest PC hardware to run at maxed-out settings, with Nightmare textures needing a GTX 980 or higher as it requires 6GB of VRAM. If you have the rig, you’re going to be in for a visual spectacle. I also have to commend the audio. The explosions, gunfire, enemy sounds, and gory splats are fantastic. The game also has a good ‘ol heavy metal soundtrack with a techno twist. This is one of the best video game soundtracks this year.
DOOM’s level design is actually very old-school, and it works well here. Each level is made up of arenas with linear hallways in between. 50% of the fun in DOOM is finding all the secrets, thanks to the excellent map. Once you find the Auto Map, all secrets are revealed, but they are still challenging to find. You might see a collectible floating in the air, but you have to find the right switch or path to get to it. I haven’t had this much fun finding collectibles and secrets in a game in a very long time. It was done right here and was not forced. Everything you miss can be reacquired by replaying levels. DOOM also features a new Rune Trial mode, which is a super fun mini-game of sorts that is quite challenging. I was able to beat them all through the first play-through, but a few proved tough. You get timed to complete certain goals, such as killing a certain number of enemies under certain circumstances. They change up the pace and are a warm welcome to the series.
Multiplayer is a bit of a disappointment, but it’s not awful. It’s fun for quite a while, but it won’t have you coming back months later like other shooters. You have your classic modes, and it’s just plain old run-and-gun fun online. It just feels like it’s lacking something or something that needs adjusting. Hopefully, the next DOOM will address this issue, or we will get a stand-alone DOOM multiplayer suite.
DOOM is a fantastic shooter and one of the best to come out in the past ten years. It does have a few flaws; I forgot to mention glory kills, which are melee kills used when an enemy is stunned and flashing. Pressing F can launch you towards the enemy to acquire health and ammo, but it’s overused quite a bit. Thankfully, it’s totally optional, and towards the end of the game, the novelty wore off, and I only used it for health and ammo. The game does get repetitive towards the end, but not in an overly bad way. It’s just part of the genre and series and is a staple that will never go away. Outside of these issues, the game is worth a full purchase.
Speakers are something I’m extremely picky about. I have only bought a couple of sets in my life, and I love every set I get. However, my current setup was a Logitech stereo system with a small subwoofer, and that was 6 years ago. It was pretty good and did the job for the longest time, but it was time to move on.
I’ve never bought anything from Creative Labs, so this is a first-time experience with their products. It was either these or the Razer Leviathan, but there was a $70 difference between the two. Sure, Razer has snazzy features like an LCD display and a giant subwoofer, but it didn’t sound that great for a $200 soundbar. I wanted something wireless, so my only other option in the store, which was sub-$200, was this set from Creative Labs. For $130, I was really hesitant, and they are just satellite speakers. Usually, you need a separate subwoofer for good audio, but when I took them home, I realized I was dead wrong.
Plugging them up wasn’t all that much of a pain, but don’t let “wireless” throw you off. No speakers are truly wireless, as you need a power source. The left speaker also needs to connect to the right, but this could have been avoided with each speaker connecting to each other through Bluetooth and then having their own separate power cables. So two power cables, or one power cable and an RCA connection? Pick one. There’s also an option to use a 3.5mm jack for your PC, which I chose. While the Bluetooth pairing works great and is quick and simple, the sound card audio manager doesn’t detect Bluetooth speakers, so I couldn’t use my sound equalizer. I had to go through a 3.5mm jack, which kind of defeats the purpose of having Bluetooth speakers. I understand it was mainly designed for phones, as it has an NFC function on the right speaker to wake it up.
Outside of this small annoyance, I realized the RCA cable connecting the speakers is rather short. I had to buy an RCA extension cable to run the speakers on either side of my desk. The power cable was longer, which was kind of weird because it was reversed on my old Logitech set.
Once you get them plugged in and on, the sound is fantastic. These are the best stereo speakers I have heard, as the sound is rich, clear, and vibrant, and there are a lot of basses. These bad boys have bass speakers built into each satellite to pack a serious punch. After playing music for 90 minutes and turning it off, I noticed my head was buzzing from the bass. Playing video games also sounds rich and booming and provides a quasi-theater experience.
Outside of the two small issues I had, I have to say this purchase was well worth it. I don’t buy speakers very often (maybe once every 5 years) if they continue to work, so I should be happy with this for a long time. They are a great price, and having Bluetooth and a headphone jack in the front adds to their value. I also love controlling the bass and treble right upfront, like in the good old days, and not to mention the speakers look sleek and beautiful. I think I’ll be looking into more Creative Labs products.
First-person shooters have hit an all-time slump in the past 10 years. With Call of Duty and Battlefield every year, they have kind of polluted the genre. FPS games are the laughing stock of the gaming community, and it needs to stop. Even worse, FPS multiplayer has taken an all-time low as well. I have not enjoyed online multiplayer since Team Fortress 2, and that was a long time ago. Overwatch finally fixes this problem. Yes, Overwatch is the best multiplayer game I have played in nearly 10 years. That’s not an overstatement; that’s not an exaggeration; that’s a true, hard fact.
What makes Overwatch so great? First off, the characters. Overwatch has some of the best characters gaming has seen in ages, with every single one being memorable, unique, and fun. Not once did I find myself hating a character or preferring not to play as one. But you’re also probably asking, “What is Overwatch?” A team-based shooter with 6-vs-6 with various maps, objectives, and downright amazing fun.
Overwatch does not have a story, so let’s make that clear. It doesn’t need one either, and that’s a damn miracle on its own. You boot up the game, play the tutorial, and go; that’s all you need. This is very refreshing, as I’m tired of shooters shoehorning crappy stories into games. There isn’t even a backstory for the characters, which is also not needed as it just works. I can’t express this enough; the game just works, and it’s a masterpiece.
Let’s talk about gameplay. The game is perfectly set up for this type of game and strays away from leveling up weapons and getting new gear like in other FPS games. Each character has two abilities and two modes on their weapons. Characters are divided up into class types, which are tank, offense, defense, and support. Each class has about five characters, so there are plenty to choose from. Not a single character plays the same, and this is key to balancing out matches. One feature I absolutely love is the match hints when selecting characters. It lets everyone know when there are too many offensive characters, too many snipers, not enough tanks, etc. This allows you to balance out the match and works wonders. Rarely did I play a match in which players did not follow these guidelines.
Having each character play completely different forces forces everyone to either pick a few favorites or experiment. I still haven’t played all characters yet, but I stuck with Mercy (a healer) through most of my time. She doesn’t have any defense or offense abilities outside of a small pistol that does minimal damage. It’s up to other players to protect you and use your abilities to their full extent. She can fly towards another player from a good distance, and this was a great defense. If you’re out in the open, you can fly to a character, and they will usually protect you. Her secondary fire ability is increased damage dealt, so I would use this on a player until their health dropped. Every character also has a special ability that needs to be charged. Once charged, these can turn the game around and give your team an edge. Mercy can resurrect a dead player, which I have actually won matches doing.
Another character I played a lot was Pharrah. She’s a rocket launcher offense character that can fly. Her gameplay is designed for vertical play, and it’s so much fun. Her rockets are fairly balanced and bring me back to the days of the Unreal Tournament. Her abilities are a rocket pack that allows her to glide, a super jump, and her special ability is a rocket barrage, which is best used in the air as she’s immobile during this ability.
As you can see, the game is perfectly balanced. Not one single character is overpowered, causing players to use only one character. There are melee-only characters like Reinhardt, who uses a giant shield that players can take cover behind, but he also wields a giant hammer. He’s deadly up close, but he can’t do much for players far away. Then there’re characters like Widowmaker and Hanzo, who are snipers and do great damage from far away but can hold their ground in close combat if it’s one-on-one. I just love how well each character plays and each one is unique, and I haven’t had that feeling since Team Fortress 2.
Once a match is over, there’s an awesome play of the game that is picked by the winning team. You get a cool character intro screen as well as great adrenaline-fueled music along with the 10-second replay clip. Right now, there’re issues with computers spitting out outplays via numbers, so a lot of support characters get overlooked, but Blizzard is currently working on this. The whole time I played Mercy, I was only Play of the Game once, and that was because a player I was healing killed a lot of people, and then I resurrected someone, making my numbers slightly better. It’s unfair, as characters who do quick high damage get the most plays, such as Reaper, Hanzo, McCree, Bastion, Reinhardt, and D.Va. Most of the characters have huge AoEs, which the computer considers the coolest.
Once the play is over, players can rate the match and commend the players with the best numbers, and then you go to your XP bar. Every time you level up, you get a loot box, which contains four items ranging from new skins, sprays, icons, and voice lines. These are nice perks to make your character stand out a bit, but I would have loved something more robust. Maybe being able to customize the character fully would have been nice, but any weapon or ability upgrades would break the entire game. It’s perfectly balanced as it is.
The map’s design is also fantastic. I didn’t find a single map I disliked or didn’t want to play. There are about a dozen or so maps right now from around the world, ranging from Russia to the USA, China, and Mexico. They are laid out just right so every character can take advantage of something, whether it’s a sniper spot, large open area, or corridor.
Now let’s talk about visuals. Overwatch is not as technically impressive as it is artistic. The game looks fantastic; don’t get me wrong, but this isn’t going to make the latest GPU sweat. There’re some low-res texture issues here and there, and you can tell it was optimized for consoles. The lighting effects are fantastic, and everything is highly detailed, but don’t expect The Witcher 3 status graphics.
With all that said, Overwatch has been one of the best shooters in the past ten years. I recommend every shooter fan pick this up, especially if you love Team Fortress 2. The game is perfectly balanced, has memorable characters, and is a blast to play as it forces players to work in teams even without communicating.
Monitors aren’t something I buy very often; in fact, I’ve only ever bought one type, and that was the Dell S2740L, and that was 3 years ago. It was my first real monitor that didn’t come with a setup and was fantastic, but it was time to upgrade to something more modern and bigger. I’m not going to lie; I’m not very savvy with monitors or TVs. I don’t buy them often enough to do constant research or keep up with trends. I usually go into a store with a budget and research on my phone as needed. I started out by looking for other 27″ monitors that just looked super clear and crisp, had a minimal design, and maybe some fancy settings. I first looked at the Asus MX279H because it had a fantastic-looking screen and was LED. I want to move away from LCD, and it’s a fading technology. I then noticed larger screens that were around the same price, but then there were ultrawide displays that were over $500. There was a $400 29″ LG monitor with AMD Freesync, but the 21:1 ratio was a little off-putting as almost everything is made for 16:9.
That was my major dilemma: do I sacrifice dual monitors for an Ultrawide or just get another 27″ monitor? My next thought was that I just want a 1080p monitor, as most gaming above requires multiple GPUs, and I don’t have the money or setup for that. So here I was looking at 1080p monitors that were bigger than 27″. I never thought in a million years I would ever get a 32″ monitor, as that is the size of most entry-level flat screens. Three years ago, a 32″ monitor was close to $1,000. I was also switching to a new brand; I don’t own anything from LG. So, I settled on the 32MP58, and no, I didn’t know what IPS was at the time, but it’s for the most true-to-life color you can get. Comparing an LED monitor to an LCD is a huge difference, and the size is perfect for gaming.
So, I took my new monitor home, took down one of the 27″ Dells, and plopped it down. It takes up a lot of desk real estate, so be prepared to have a large desk or nothing else on it. I had to slide my other 27″ Dell all the way to the edge of the desk to make them both fit. I can now use the LG for gaming and video and the Dell for tasks like web browsing and file management.
The setup was easy enough, and I’m shocked this monitor is VGA or HDMI—both extremes. Either go fully digital or full analog. I don’t know why, in 2016, anything has VGA anymore, but it’s there. I was surprised to not see DVI-I or DVI-D at all, which I had my Dell monitors set up as. Either way, most new GPUs come with two HDMI ports and two DVI ports. After installing the curved stand (which is minimal and sleek), I plugged it in, and on it went.
The monitor detected the video right away and turned it right on. The OSD button is a four-way switch underneath the power light, which is awkward and weird. There are many settings, and most of these are universal across all of LG’s newest monitors. I chose the gaming preset, and for the most part, this monitor needs very little adjustment. I used Windows Color Calibration, and nothing needed adjusting. I then did a little research on some LG-exclusive settings, like SuperResolution. It sounds awesome on paper, but this is for anything that doesn’t render or display natively in 1080p and needs upscaling. This is great for older game consoles but not necessary for PC games, as it just makes everything overly sharp and ugly. There are so many settings on this monitor, such as adjusting every single color under the sun, not just RGB. There’s a great black stabilizer that keeps everything from getting too dark and washed out, which is a nice feature. I also found this to be an extremely bright monitor, and as the sun went down, I had to change it from the already bright 75 down to around 47. 100 brightness is just not ideal and not needed at all.
There are other features like response time for fast-moving objects (games in 60FPS or 60FPS movies) and some other features, but mostly not many need to be touched, and that’s how it should be. There’s no software involved with this monitor like there is for Dell, which is just fine as most people don’t like that kind of thing. So settings-wise and physical design-wise, there isn’t much to complain about. I wish this was an edge-to-edge display, but the bezel is embossed, which isn’t awful, but the back is bulky. There’s also a headphone jack in the back that allows audio to stream through and can be controlled via the monitor OSD, which is also awkward and bizarre. I also have to mention that this is a very wobbly monitor if your desk isn’t quite stable. I had to push my two monitors together to keep each one balanced. If you have a wobbly monitor issue, you need to buy a stand that has braces for each side.
Overall, the games and video looked amazing on this monitor. Some of the best picture quality I have seen on any monitor to date. With my older Dell and this side-by-side, I can see the difference, and even the size makes a huge difference. Should you go larger than 32″? Maybe 34″, but that might be pushing it. I won’t be purchasing another monitor anytime soon, probably not for a few years, but I am very happy with this purchase, and $300 is quite fair for what you get. With a sharp and crystal-clear display, beautiful colors, and great physical design, you can’t go wrong here.
Mousepads aren’t something that most hardcore PC gamers should overlook. A great gaming mouse is only half the battle, as the surface you move it on affects everything. I used the Razer Vespula for over 2 years and loved it, but I was ready for something bigger, with no wrist pad, and cool-looking.
There are various types of mouse pads, from size to surface type. Most are made for low DPI or high DPI, and some mousepads can fit your entire desk. I was looking for something bigger, a little less smooth, and flashy, and the Firefly was perfect. My initial thoughts were that the chroma effects were a gimmick and that it was a crappy mousepad. After initial testing, I was dead wrong. This is the nicest mousepad I have ever used, and the lighting effects are just icing on the cake. It’s very minimal, with a Razer logo in the top right corner, an LED bar along the bottom and sides, and then a small bar at the top where the power cord goes. Yes, this is probably the only powered mousepad in existence, and while some may naysay this, it’s needed for the LED lights. If you’re on a Mac or gaming laptop, this may be an issue due to the few USB ports. However, my PC has 8 USB ports in the back and 2 in the front, so it doesn’t make a difference for me.
When I first opened the box and felt the slightly rough surface, I was worried it would be too rough and drag my mouse down. I am currently using a Logitech G700S with a 2900 DPI setting. After setting the mouse down, it was actually perfect. It made me realize just how smooth the Vespula was, and I needed that little extra grit. The playing surface is perfect and not too small or big. However, the $60 price tag is for those cool LED lights, right?
They are worth it. Razer’s Chroma SDK doesn’t support much right now, but the effects you can change in Razer Synapse 2.0 are enough for just a light bar, and the ambient glow it gives off when on a surface is fantastic and cool. I currently only have seen Rise of the Tomb Raider and Overwatch support (that I own); the pad with Overwatch only uses an orange glow at startup. Right now, I use the Audio Visualizer app in the Chroma store that flashes the bar with sound, which is just fantastic. Hopefully, over time, the Chroma features will be embraced by developers and not abandoned like their touchpad or Hydra devices.
My only complaint is that the bottom of the mat isn’t sticky enough, and I’m having to reset the position of the mat at least once an hour during heavy gaming. A small gripe and nothing that I feel deters the price point. The USB cable is going to be hated, person by person. I don’t mind it, and the cord is long enough to reach almost anywhere. However, if you don’t care for LED lighting, I can’t recommend this for just a really good mousepad either.
Point-and-click adventures are a dying breed. They used to rule in the 1990s, when computers weren’t quite powerful enough to fully render beautiful and detailed environments. Instead, they would be pre-rendered images or animation that played out with triggered scripts. This was carried over to consoles with games like Dino Crisis, Resident Evil, and even Final Fantasy. You won’t see pre-rendered graphics anymore, but there’s a novelty about them. Stasis is a modern game but is built like it was in the 90s, which gives it a certain charm. I have to say this is one of the best I have ever played and is so memorable.
With this kind of game, it’s all about the story and characters, as well as the atmosphere. Without those adventure games, life is pointless and uninteresting. There’s very little gameplay involved with just you guiding your character around and solving puzzles, as well as unraveling the story. Stasis does all this perfectly with very little inventory management. You just use your mouse to guide John around on the screen and click on things. Puzzles are actually quite good and make sense most of the time, but occasionally you get the one where you have to finally break out the walkthrough. This is an unfortunate staple of the genre, and there’s no fighting it.
With the controls and gameplay aside, let’s talk about the story and atmosphere, and man, does it have a lot of that? The atmosphere is so scary and incredibly detailed that it trumps some AAA games today. John wakes up on a desolate ship that’s been torn apart. He wakes from stasis sleep and must find his daughter and wife. This involves talking to a character through radio content who guides you the whole way, and the whole story folds out mostly through PDA log entries, which are perfect for this kind of game. Without reading these logs, you won’t care much about the story, but the logs are written so well that the characters come out. They are small entries that take a few minutes to read, but they really stick with you through the whole story.
Each area of the ship has a set of characters that were fighting about something or going through some sort of psychological issue prior to the ship being overrun by hybrids. This tells you how life on the ship was before and during the disaster. The Groomlake is a mining vessel turned laboratory run by a corporation that specializes in human cloning and genetic research. This, of course, goes awry as their experiments break out and kill everything on the ship. It sounds cheesy, but it’s unfolded slowly and very well. The atmosphere is pronounced with the great voice acting, sound design, and music that go along with it all. Gore is everywhere, as are some of the most disturbing imagery scenes in a game that would give anyone nightmares. The horror and ambiance of this game are bar none and really set some standards in my book.
When John screams or is in pain, you really feel it, despite it being a pre-rendered animation on the screen. The sound effects are just blood-curdling and make your skin crawl. From the weird robotic voices of the announcers to the blood splatters and screams you hear, it’s sound design on a whole new level. The Brotherhood really mastered the adventure genre, and this game would have made headlines back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I don’t want to spoil anything but say more scary or horrifying moments, but I played this straight through and didn’t stop, and that’s an accomplishment. Like I stated before, the gameplay is lacking, but that’s okay as the atmosphere and story keep you sucked in, and you don’t want anything too complex that would detract you from that.
In the end, come for the story and atmosphere. If you don’t like adventure games, this may just change your mind, and anyone who loves the genre has to play it. It sets a new standard for the genre and brings it back to my eyes.
I love games that are emotional roller coasters, as they bring out emotions that AAA games just can’t achieve these days. The indie games are usually the best when it comes to story and characters, and That Dragon, Cancer isn’t a good game, but a good story. Seriously, gameplay-wise, this game stinks, but if you come for the story, you will feel some heavy stuff.
I personally took this game to heart, as I have my own son on the way, and the things that this family went through brought out some emotions I’ve never felt before. A little boy named Joel is battling brain cancer with his family, and you go through the emotional turmoil mostly through metaphors. The game captures most of the parents’ (the dad is part of the development team and helmed this game) memories that are both good and bad. There’s literally zero gameplay involved as you click through levels with flat-colored textures and listen to audio recordings of the family or read letters from other people that are actually real. The emotions didn’t really kick in until about halfway through the game, when you really start to feel the parents’ suffering with this battle.
Outside of clicking to the next area, there are little mini-games, but games say a lot. There’s no objective to various “tasks” like having Joel dodge cancer cells in space, clicking on constellations as they turn into animals and he rides them, etc. These are timed and don’t have any clear goal; you literally just wait it out. As a game, this is one serious piece of a turd, but I didn’t care as I wanted more of the story, and that’s hard to pull off. The best (or worst) part of the game is walking around a hospital and reading real letters in the form of cards from real people; there’re a good hundred of them. The biggest memory was of the dad sitting in the hospital room with Joel with what seems to be a real recording of him wailing in pain as the dad goes through emotional battles in the form of visual metaphors that you listen to him narrate. The crying hit a nerve with me as the dad told him to stop crying, and Joel was bashing his head against the crib. It’s honestly disturbing, but great at the same time.
The game is only about 90 minutes long, and everyone will walk away with this as a crappy game but a great story. I wish they concentrated on the gameplay elements more, as you can tell that was on the back burner. The father was so anxious to get this out that he forgot it’s actually a game. Most children won’t play it as it requires patience and a soul and heart to understand; anyone going through cancer or who survived it should relate, or anyone who adores their children. If you’re a typical heartless gamer, stay away.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !