 "Mobile games are garbage", I say as I play match after match with no signs of stopping. "Who even plays these?" I ask while I buy my first microtransaction. I play these apparently, it's me. The game in question is the latest from "Clash of Clans" developer SUPERCELL: "Clash Royale". Just what is "Clash Royale"? It's fun, that's what it is. "Clash Royale" is a two-player strategic tower defense-like game. Each player has their castle and two towers on either side of a field, and a deck full of minions and spells designed to ake down the opponent's defenses. Games last no longer than three minutes, making it fast-paced and simple. The card system feels like a watered-down Hearthstone. You build your deck out of only eight cards which are drawn at random and placed back into the deck after being used. Cards cost "elixir", which is essentially mana. A player's elixir recharges by the second, and more powerful cards cost more elixir (naturally). At the end of a game, the winner gets a chest full of gold (used to upgrade cards), cards, or experience points to level up your existing cards. Higher level cards have better stats.  The chests are where people start to describe the game as "pay to win". I disagree. The most common chest you get is a Silver Chest, which takes about three hours to open. Yes, chests open on timers. The worst offender I've found is a Magical Chest, which takes twelve hours! I paid a dollar to open it faster because I care about you and wanted to get some information about the game (definitely not because I'm lazy and impatient). Since these chests level up all your stats and sometimes include more powerful cards, of course people would call "pay to win" all over this game. I still haven't found that overpowered dragon card everyone keeps using against me! HOWEVER... This game isn't pay-to-win. It's what some people like to call Pay-To-Win-FASTER. You still get all the cool stuff without paying, you just have to wait a little. Like Hearthstone. Or Duelyst. Or any other digital card or strategy game similar to this. It's not pay-to-win, you can win just fine with the basic cards. Because strategy. Even if this game feels a little bit like a glorified Zerg Rush there's a little more strategy involved in winning. You have to know when to play a tank vs a ranged minion or when and where to cast your AOE spells. If you just throw cards out and hope for the best there's not a high chance you're gonna win. My personal favorite thing to do is to drop a Giant and a Skeleton Army in front with a ranged unit in the back. While the enemy tower focuses your tank and swarmy group your units can take the tower's health down without being targeted.  A lot of people hate hearing the name "Clash of Clans" simply because it's popular and it's mobile. I'm sure that in the coming weeks, it's gonna be the same story for "Clash Royale". So let me just say, before you let somebody tell you that mobile games aren't worth your time, that this is some of the most fun I've ever had with a mobile game, ever. It's free. It's fast. It has a pretty cute art style. It's also casual, but it has room for you to improve your skills. You can't go wrong with this one, guys. "Clash Royale". Tell your friends.
-Justin Graphics: GREAT Sound: GOOD Gameplay: GREAT Value: AMAZING (it's free, after all) OVERALL: GREAT  SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT. SUPERHOT is a strategic shooter with time control elements. Developed by the indie studio SUPERHOT Team, this game has been floating around the internet in various alpha and preview builds for a couple years now. With the commercial release finally available, it's time to see what SUPERHOT is all about.  Unfortunately, telling you what SUPERHOT is all about amounts to one gigantic spoiler, so we're gonna skip that part. Let's just say that it's a bit of a cross between The Matrix, Hotline Miami, and Serial Experiments Lain. Quite the combo. Gameplay-wise, SUPERHOT places you in the role of some nameless entity who fights against what the game called Red Dudes. It's extremely minimalistic, aesthetically reminding me of games like Mirror's Edge. On the surface, SUPERHOT looks like your average first-person shooter. The key difference is that time only moves when you move. Bullets flying your way? Stand still, plan the perfect dodge, and retaliate with some bullets of your own. In true Arena Shooter form, everything in this game is a one-shot kill, on you or your opponents. This leads to some seriously convoluted tactics, forcing you to dodge bullets with only moments to spare. As you head through the levels, you discover more weapons and one more pretty inventive gameplay mechanic; the ability to "Hotswitch" into your enemies, instantly switching bodies with them. About to get hit by a shotgun blast? Just take the body of the Red Dude who shot it, and watch him get destroyed by his own hand. And speaking of getting destroyed, the death animations in this game are BEAUTIFUL (as are the window-breaking animations, actually). This is because all the Red Dudes are made of glass, apparently, and shatter to pieces at the touch of a bullet (or a sword, if you prefer).  As you move through the levels inch by precious inch, you tend to forget just how short these stages really are. Upon completing each level, you get to watch a real-time playback of everything you just did. Spent twenty minutes on that room? Turns out it was only about five seconds of combat. You can watch all your impressive moves play out in real-time, and feel just like Keanu Reeves every time you get the slip on that one evasive Red Dude. My one (very minor) complaint is that the story is actually pretty short. It can be finished in about two hours, even if you're as bad as I am. For a game priced over $20, this might seem like a bad deal. However, there's a lot to do once the story is over. Again, no story spoilers, but the meat of the game actually comes in AFTER the credits roll. You unlock access to Endless Mode (essentially wave clearing/survival), as well as a ton of challenge modes and little extras. There are even a couple minigames thrown into the DOS-like menus. It's a pretty solid package, even if the story is short.  All in all, SUPERHOT is a fantastic game. It lives up to all the hype, and it brings some much-needed change to an otherwise pretty stale genre. SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!
SUPERHOT can be found on Steam for $25, which may be a bit steep for what it is, but I personally found it to be worth the price. Some people might not, and that's okay too. Wait for the inevitable sale. -Justin Graphics: AMAZING Sound: GOOD Gameplay: AMAZING Value: GOOD Overall: AMAZING  ©Nintendo Co., Ltd. Soon after the Pokémon Direct of last week, we received a Nintendo Direct featuring some new games and also featuring some new information about already announced games. Here, I’ll talk about some of the main highlights of the Direct.  ©Nintendo Co., Ltd. ©Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development ©PlatinumGames Inc. They kicked things off with Star Fox Zero. Unlike some of the newer entries in the franchise, this one will be following a setup similar to Star Fox 64, with the addition of more branching paths, 2-player co-op and amiibo compatibility. Packaged with the game will be Star Fox Guard, which looks like tower defense game that revolves around using cameras placed on the field to deal with enemies and also features the ability to create custom maps. Both games will release on April 22nd. For you Super Mario Maker fans out there, some new features will be released. Most importantly, the addition of keys (and of course locked doors) along with a new Super Expert Mode and more. The Bookmark site will also be seeing some improvements and updates. All of this is slated to happen March 9th. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (formerly known as Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem) will be releasing on June 24. Instead of focusing on the crossover, they are now focusing more on the prevailing themes of Jpop and idols in a modern Tokyo setting. They even mentioned that this RPG will feature music from Avex which is one of the biggest records label in Japan.  ©Nintendo Co., Ltd. ©Intelligent Systems Co., Ltd. Next up, a brand-new Paper Mario game was shown off, called Paper Mario Color Splash. This one will be on the Wii U, and revolves around the themes of colors and paint (perhaps similar to de Blob?). It’s slated for release sometime this year. Nintendo’s new loyalty program was finally official revealed as My Nintendo. It seems like rather than all purchases adding to your ‘points’ like the previous program, only digital purchases will mean anything. To counter that, it was mentioned that using Nintendo apps will also allow you to gather up points. You can already signup for one of these new apps, called Miitomo, here: https://miitomo.com/en/. Hyrule Warriors Legends was also featured a bit. While it will come with all the DLC that has been released on the Wii U version, this game will still receive new DLC as well available individually or via a Season Pass (just like the console counterpart). Purchasing the Season Pass will also give players a Ganon costume based on his Wind Waker design. People who purchase the game within the launch window will acquire a special theme and also a code that allows all the new characters to be unlocked in the Wii U version. Finally, Medley from Wind Waker will be available for free for both versions when the game releases on March 25th.  ©Nintendo Co., Ltd. ©Next Level Games Inc Finally, there was some clarification added to Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Sadly, due to the negative reaction back when it was announced, the producer felt the need to defend their action in making this game. He went into the history of the game, having started development in 2009. This was around the time the DSi was released, and it was then that they realized that their online multiplayer focused ideas wouldn’t happen on the limitations of that system. When the New 3DS was finally released with much better hardware. Thus, Federation Force finally saw the light of day. While Samus will be featured in the game, the game revolves around an elite group of Galactic Federation soldiers called the Federation Force. This game will revolve around the war between the Galactic Federation and the Space Pirates (presumably sometime after Metroid Prime 3). This new entry in the franchise will have weight limitations on the characters, thus forcing you to be wise about your weapon and ability choices. These limitations are going to allow the player to be able to customize and choose player roles in a sort of pseudo-class system. Metroid Prime: Federation Force is slated of a late Spring release. There were also a handful of other games presented as well as some other items like new amiibo. The year is certainly starting to look up for Nintendo fans, so start getting your wallets ready! FULL GAME LIST - Star Fox Zero (Wii U: April 22) - Star Fox Guard (Wii U: April 22) - Splatoon Update (2 Updates coming soon) - Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (Wii U: June 24 and 3DS: March 18) - Super Mario Maker Update (Wii U: March 9) - Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (Wii U: June 24) - Lost Reavers (Wii U: April 28 with Open Beta April 14) - Paper Mario Color Splash (Wii U: 2016) - Pokkén Tournament (Wii U: March 18) - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (Wii U: March 4) - Mini Mario & Friends: amiibo Challenge (Wii U & 3DS: April 28) - Animal Crossing amiibo Cards and Standalone Isabelle amiibo (June 10) - Pilotwings (3DS: Available Now) SNES Virtual Console - F-Zero (3DS: Available Now) SNES Virtual Console - Super Mario World (3DS: Available Now) SNES Virtual Console - Super Mario Kart (3DS: March 24) SNES Virtual Console - Earthbound (3DS: March 24) SNES Virtual Console - Donkey Kong Country (3DS: March 24) SNES Virtual Console - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (3DS: April 14) SNES Virtual Console - Super Metroid (3DS: April 14) SNES Virtual Console - Super Metroid (3DS: April 14) SNES Virtual Console - Pocket Card Jockey (3DS: May) - Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 (3DS: Summer) - Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation (3DS: March 10) - Hyrule Warriors Legends (3DS: March 25) - Disney Art Academy (3DS: May 13) - Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS: April 15) - Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past (3DS: 2016) - Monster Hunter Generations (3DS: Summer) - Metroid Prime: Federation Force (3DS: Late Spring) - Rhythm Heaven Megamix (3DS: Later This Year) - Kirby Planet Robobot (3DS: June 10) - Teepu Full Nintendo Direct Video |
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