Couple Of Games Off Mount Backlog And Why Are You Broken Lego City Undercover?

On 04/11/2017 at 12:18 PM by goaztecs

You know at some point I really need to get back to my usual routine of Monday/Friday entries but for now Tuesday will have to do. Good morning Pixlpeeps! It is a nice and cool Tuesday morning here and the entry I should have written yesterday but I got sidetracked by a muffin. Today I will save the muffin for after I write this so that will either calm the appetite down a bit or I will rush through this blog entry and it will show, either way let's get started.

Two Games Off Mount Backlog

I'm back in the grove and it feels good to knock games off Mount Backlog.

Borderlands – Steam: This game is easily my least favorite of the three Borderlands games, I finally finished the story mode and yeah I'm done with it. I didn't find anything appealing about this game. It felt slower, and not as funny as 2, and less interesting as Pre-Sequel. I'm glad I actually started the series with 2 or else I wouldn't have played the other games. Anyways I'm glad it's off the backlog.

Portal – Steam:

Full disclosure, my 11 year old cousin beat this game for me because I was stuck on the second to last chapter. He breezed through the game which made me a bit proud, and ashamed that I got stuck. Anyways it looked like a fun last two chapters and I gave such profound and inspiring advice like “You better not mess up” and “take out this boss”. I like to think my words of wisdom inspired.

Guilty Gear X2 #Reload – Steam

I tried the story mode of one of the characters thinking it was going to be long and drawn out like other fighting games are (I'm looking at you Dead or Alive on 3DS) but instead it was a quick couple of matches with a lot of dialogue screens and then that was it. The story mode couldn't have been longer than 30 minutes. Because of this I figure why not play through each character's story mode. I mean the last time I did something like that was with Mortal Kombat IV and I had a long weekend.

I'm not familiar with the GG line of games but from what I've seen/played the style is a bit smoother than Mortal Kombat, almost like the X-Men fighting games that were on the original Playstation (man I miss those games and I rock when I button mash the hell out of Wolverine). I accidentally found a couple of special moves that I sprinkled into my button mashing expertise and found my through the story mode. I like it, but I want to kick up the resolution a bit.

What Chris Is Playing

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare – PS4: My other younger cousin, an eight year old brought this game over because he wanted to play this mode where you roam around and shoot Zombies at a mall. Since I can't play a lot of FPS games without getting dizzy we could only play a couple of games where an eight year old outscored me. No shame considering I figured he's played this game a lot more and I tried running around and Melee killing Zombies. Have I mentioned how dumb I think the whole Zombie thing is? I have? Good.

As for the single player of this game I really don't like it. It doesn't flow right for me compared to other COD games. Also it didn't help that I was yelling “You know nothing Jon Snow” while an 11 and 8 year old wondered why I was doing it (that's good parenting when GOT references fly over their head). Also there are a couple of other familiar faces in the game. Back to the gameplay, the game doesn't feel as fluid but I do like some of the new weapons. I was informed by the 8 year old that running through a nest of bad guys isn't a smart thing to do and I should use my grenades. He has no appreciation for yelling LeRoy Jenkins.

Lego City Undercover – Steam

Let's call this game for what it is, a freaking mess that should have had no problems considering it was made in 2014. Bad frame rate problems, problems changing the resolution, the game forgetting that I am using a controller, and did I mention the frame rate problems? There isn't as much going on, on the screen compared to a GTA V but man it drops like no other. How are these games so buggy? Do the developers not have game testers? Are the testers not doing their job and trying to break the game? There was a small patch but it didn't fix a lot.

I do like the GTA like load screens at the beginning of the game. It makes me happy for a bit before I run into problems. Granted I got the game running to at console speed but if I wanted that I would have bought the PS4 version with the Police Car poly bag.

Lego City Undercover does have a lot of references to movies, which I love

I won't ruin which films it references but when you play it, you'll get it. There's a bit of a spoiler in this picture.

Grid Autosport – Steam

I finished one of my races with Team Ravenwest over the weekend. I was so far ahead in the standings that I didn't have to compete as hard and still win comfortably so I let my teammate win the last two races while I played the role of enforcer and I may have flipped my rival's car. It was kind of a pit maneuver (you folks who watch a lot of police chases know) and I ended up finishing third and fourth in my last two races. I am now in the Tuner discipline and my drifting is terrible but I am destroying the competition.

The final game I'm playing is a tablet game on iOS

Transformers Forged To Fight – iOS

Now I don't know if I ever mentioned how much I hate the new Transformers stuff, but here's the Cliffs Notes: I HATE THE NEW TRANSFORMERS. Usually I wouldn't touch this game because of that but I saw Optimus Prime and he looked like the old G1 version and it is, so I downloaded and gave it a spin.

This is your typical tablet fighting game where you play through missions, unlock gold/crystals/any other items that can be useful, while playing with a time limit dictated by how many lightning bolts you have.

The unlockables help you upgrade your Transformers into more powerful versions that you can use later on to take on real players around the world who probably sink ungodly amounts of time into the game or are playing on jailbroken devices (I'm looking at you Asia). So you're asking yourself, “Chris why are you playing this game?” Well curious reader I'm playing it because the fight controls are actually good. Left side of the screen you swipe left and right to move your character and up and down to change their position. Right side of the screen you swipe for medium attacks and tap for light attacks. Bottom left of the screen is your special. Because of this setup it is easy to get some good combos going which makes the game enjoyable.

The Chapters are fun to play through. Its setup like a path where at times you encounter a fork and have to choose a path. One is a lot easier than the other but the more difficult one has a bonus unlockable. You can play through the chapters multiple times to fully explore it, and you can stock up on unlockables. There is also the feature where you can mine for gold, join an alliance with other players, attack other player's bases, and go full on PvP. I'm really not interested in the multiplayer stuff so I'm staying off the radar but we shall see how long that lasts.

The best thing is everyday you get a crystal that you exchange for a character, usually one star, that you can forge with a copy and create a stronger character. The character models aren't locked into one generation so you get a nice mix of old school Transformers and the current big robots pretending to be Transformers. I like the game, its fun to play in spurts and if you have an Apple device give it a spin.

Alright Pixlpeeps, that muffin is calling so I am out. Have a good week!

That's all for now, more later!

-Chris

Super Step Contributing Writer

04/11/2017 at 03:31 PM

Still haven't played BL and got stuck in Portal earlier than you, I bet.

Finally, you talk of a Guilty Gear game! I will say Arc Systems gets a little too verbose with its story modes (in newer GG and Blazblue, story modes are literally just cutscenes that last FOREVER, and are full of the most anime-cliche weirdness and confusing plot points), but you can skip over the dialogue in GGX2 and like you said, there's not TOO much of it.

I can understand wanting to up the resolution, since the pixels on those sprites can get obvious when playing on a newer screen than intended, but get a copy of GGXrd Revelator, and I'm sure the issue will be moot. lol

It's funny how the adults turn into bigger kids around kids. lol

I didn't realize LEGO City Undercover was a remake. Wonder if the PS4 version has the same issues.

GRID AFTERNOON. I mean AUTOSPORT. I got nothing and started typing part of an email a student sent me. I'm tired.

I really want to play that Platinum Transformers game.

goaztecs

04/20/2017 at 11:53 AM

I jumped on the Portal bandwagon really late, like when Steam gave away codes for Portal late. My cousin was talking up how he wanted to try Portal 2, I thought about buying it just so he could pass it but then we saw it was $20. That was a no go. Instead he got a stack of PS4 games from my pile of beaten games.

Those cutscenes man, there are a lot of them. I kept hitting whatever the skip button is just so I can get back to the fighting. I'm going to play more this weekend. Yeah I'm sure with the later games all my little annoyances will be solved. When they go on sale, watch out!

The adults are just big kids with cash. My uncle and his friend were talking about how great older arcade games were and how they miss them. A couple of minutes later and showing them the app store they both have clones of the games they grew up with. Heck that's why I have a ton of NES carts in the closet and a ton of Lego.

Speaking of Lego, yeah the game was originally made for the WiiU and 3DS (the 3DS game is ok). I would like to think the PS4 version has no problems because this is just me trying to justify buying another copy.

04/20/2017 at 12:20 PM

I still haven't rebought Shovel Knight on PS4 because it's still at $15, which was its brand new price. So I hear you. Someone pointed out to me I can play my Steam version using my PS4 controller too, soooo ....

Yeah, new GG (Xrd) has animated cutscenes before fights, as do the Blazblue games, but in GGXrd you can skip those scenes completely and in BlazBlue you can skip some but just get others to speed up the dialogue. The Story modes I'm talking about are different from Arcade mode in that you're not actually playing; they're literally just low-rent anime movies using the in-game engines and not a whole lot of animation/too much dialogue. I'm interested in the game's lore, but the fact Arc Systems Works games literally have in-game libraries if you want to catch up is ... a bit much.

Yup, big kids with cash and a desire to relive parts of their youth. One of my professors in grad school would always say if you want a reference for how adult social interactions work, visit a playground. The only thing that changes is peoples' "professional" act in public. Ha! That's why I think the show Recess was kind of brilliant.

Well, I tend to believe what Cary says, so ... I guess go for it. Although I don't necessarily want to support buying multiple copies of things. lol I would suggest just buying games like that on PS4, since you don't run into the IT crap you might with computers and how varied they can get vs. what kind of system the game was made for. That and prohobitive initial cost is what keeps me from mainlining PC gaming.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

04/11/2017 at 06:09 PM

"Don't mess up" is the most inspiring thing I have heard today. :p

That transformers game looks cool. I was just actually on the app store and discovered that. I like old transformers too, I hate that Michael Bay shit.

04/20/2017 at 11:54 AM

Haha easily one of the better pieces of advice I have given

Yeah the new stuff is in there too, but I'm trying to stick with the older models, unless I get a super powered newer one

KnightDriver

04/11/2017 at 09:51 PM

I got stuck in Portal near the end too.

I hope the Wii-U version of Lego City Undercover isn't buggy. That's the version I want to play.

04/20/2017 at 11:56 AM

Its all about timing and patience. I didn't have towards the end but my younger cousin breezed through it.

I think the WiiU version of Undercover is the polished version. I believe it scored high by reviewers.

04/20/2017 at 10:28 PM

That's a relief. I've had a few bad experiences with lego games over the years.

Cary Woodham

04/11/2017 at 10:30 PM

Sounds like most of those problems with LEGO City seem PC specific. I haven't run into any problems while playing LEGO City on PS4 for my review. Although I did have to start a driving mission over once because of a bug, but at least it didn't freeze the game. Not a big fan of those driving missions so far.

Some of the references they put in the game are hilarious. I doubt too many kids would get the jail one that you mentioned, or the Columbo or Goodfellas references either.

Hooray for Portal!

04/20/2017 at 11:58 AM

I'm glad its just on the PC side. I like the concept of this game and I want a solid version on the PS4 so when it goes on sale I will buy a copy...or at least try to justify owning another copy (it'll be my third copy)

I love those references in the game. Kids get sucked into the Lego part, while the references keep the adults entertained.

PixlBit