Mashing buttons since 1984
Dave the Diver is a delight. It is also a:
Resource gathering game
Restaurant sim
Rhythm game
Bullet-hell shmup
Mini-game collection (think Warioware, Iron Chef-style)
Farming sim
It is all those things while also secretly advocating that we take care of our greatest natural resource, our oceans.
Don’t waste your time reading any more reviews for Dave the Diver. Just go get it and play. I promise you will finish the first day with a smile on your face.
9.5/10
Kenshi for the PC
(I am in the process of doing the research before building a new PC. As I work through this research, I’m going to post some of the more useful/interesting tidbits I find along the way. This is the first of a series of quick posts.)
The plan is to build a moderately beefy computer. I’m not going the budget route, but I’m also not going the all-out, 4k-capable, 100fps ultra-settings PC, either. I think I’ll use the monitor as a starting point to build the system around. I’m selecting a 1440p monitor and will select components that will give me the flexibility to upgrade to the 4k realm if I so desire down the road. For now, I think 2560×1440 will be plenty of pixels.
It’s been a long time since I’ve bought a new monitor (I am still rocking this solid but definitely long-in-the-tooth Lenovo ThinkVision 24″ beauty pictured above) so I haven’t done any serious monitor research in over eight years. As you can see, the refresh rate on my ThinkVision is 60Hz. Back when I got it, no one fretted over refresh rates. It was all about resolution, and I specifically chose that model for its 1920x1200 resolution. Those extra 180 pixels turned me into a resolution snob. Oh you play at 1080p? That’s cute. My monitor eats 1080p’s for breakfast.
So since I’m not going for those ultra-high 4k settings, I’m going to look for a solid 2560×1440 monitor with a good refresh rate.
In simple terms, the refresh rate is how many times per second the monitor is able to change each pixel on the screen. While it is not tied to frames per second (that’s how many graphical images [frames] your graphics card can pump out), you need a monitor that can at least keep up with the power of your graphics card. If your graphics card is easily humming along at 100 fps, that old 60 Hz monitor isn’t going to keep up and you’re losing graphical “quality”. Having a monitor’s refresh rate be as close to the frames per second being pumped out by the GPU is essential to making the most of your system’s power. How fast you need is really a personal preference. This article I found at Digital Trends sums up what the majority of my research has shown:
In short, if you’re a gamer, we’d argue that you would see a greater, more obvious benefit from switching to a high-refresh rate monitor than you would in upgrading to 4K — as doing both can get inordinately expensive and taxing on your hardware. 120Hz or 144Hz displays make for smoother, tear-free gaming with less input lag.
The way it looks is this: the jump from 60Hz (where I’m currently at) to anything over 100Hz is going to be markedly improved. The sweet spot seems to be around 144Hz. There are newer screens coming out that top out at 240Hz, but now we’re in the realm of diminishing returns. The difference going from 60 to 120Hz is drastic. The difference from 120 to 240 is only going to be perceptible to the trained eye (that means not me).
So we’re looking for a monitor with a 144 Hz refresh rate, but that’s not all. There’s still things like response rate, sync’ing, and if curvature is all it’s cracked up to be.
For those of you who are PC Gamers:
I missed this when it was being Kickstart’ed, but have been hearing great things about it.
I’m hoping to do a live stream and hopefully turning that into a Let’s Play video. The first of hopefully many such video endeavors. Check back for more info, hopefully later this evening!
James pointed me to a post over at the PC Gamer Blog showing off some STUNNING enhancements that are possible with Skyrim.
It’s no surprise that the modding community was going to tear into Skyrim and tweak every nook and cranny and really improve upon it. Bethesda and Steam facilitated that, to their credit. But I’m actually beyond amazed what has already taken place.
What has me more interested is what the PC Gamer writer says: “Keep in mind that when that grass fills the screen Unreal reports framerates as low as 5 fps, so super-modded Skyrim isn’t always playable. But think of it as a preview of the near-future.” This is what really excites me. The near future. I’m still torn between becoming a full-time PC gamer and a console gamer. But the thought of what the next Xbox or Playstation is going to be capable of makes the graphics whore in me giddy beyond belief.
Seriously, just look at these beautiful images. Now to pick one for the new PC background.
This is another one of those “been in my Steam Library forever but I finally downloaded it” IMDH, but of the little I’ve played of Gotham City Impostors, I’ve really enjoyed it.
Torchlight II … I never played the first torchlight because the Diablo-esque video game genre always seemed to shine with MULTIPLAYER!
Thankfully they decided to listen to what the players want and added two multiplayer options (Internet and LAN). This is probably the thing that stood out the most to me. The problem I had with this was that I wasn’t able to register and create an account to use Runic’s game system. In all honesty I was hoping that it would be integrated with Steam but, it wasn’t…sadface.
FYI: I’m not going to be comparing this to Diablo 3 because everyone else is and I feel that every game should be judged by its own merits.
Anyway, on to the good stuff!
The gameplay is your standard button-mash fest but, it has several unique things that deserves some extra fanfare. Let me preface this by saying that I was privileged to have a brother who is a video game a·fi·ci·o·na·do and decided to buy the 4-pack that steam had on sale not too long ago. The first thing he told me about the game that sparked my interest was the ability to equip an item based on the level requirement OR the ability requirement. For example, you could use a weapon if you were lv 15+ or if you had 40 Str. This is a nice take on how to give multiple options for players to access different gear.
Another thing that I found very earlier in my time in the world of Torchlight II was that there are ‘Phase Beasts’ that will leave a portal behind after they die that will take you to a challenge world. An example is one that had 4 torches to light up in a specific order while you are being attacked from all sides and then once you complete this task…you are attacked by a boss! After killing this boss the screen was filled to the brim with gold and there were several dropped items that made the fight worth it.
I decided to pick the ‘Outlander’ class because I felt it would be good stealth/ranged class to play and so far the class itself has been underwhelming.
Take this with a grain of salt though, I haven’t made it too far into the game to make any judgement of the class but, I am really thinking of starting an ‘Embermage’ and seeing if it is more my style.
The boss encounters have been interesting – a decent challenge and a reward that fits.
I appreciate the fact that there are many hints at pop culture items in the game (Goonies!!!) and the art style.
The art is simple but, I really like it. The intro cut scene was a cartoon that looked really good and is a nice change of pace from the uber-realistic CGI with most AAA titles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mMyRiPPeJI
So far, I am digging Torchlight II but, I have a feeling that Guild Wars 2 will last me longer.
Time will tell…
Hello Fellow Buttonmashers!
This post will be about an adventure I took as my Asura Elementalist with my Asura Engineer friend.
***Side Note: Look out for a post here on Buttonmashing, from that friend, soon.***
To start things off I was running around the Human starting area and bumped into this guy:
There were some others trying to kill the big guy, so I decided to help out! Firestorm anyone?
After the worm, I went to meet up with a friend in the Sylvari newbie area – basically a forest/jungle/plant area. Coming into the basin where we had planned to meet, this grabbed my attention. Yea, floating rocks!
My friend who had been waiting for me was already doing the ‘Jumping Puzzle’, as I later found out they were so named, and I joined in the fun. That was for the first five minutes, then ten, then I lost count. One thing that the ‘Jumping Puzzle’ taught me was that you pretty much have to turn off the option to double-tap a direction to roll/dodge. I don’t know how many times I had to start the jumping puzzle over again because I was moving ever so slightly in one direction and felt I could take one more step and then boom, off the edge. At a certain point you were so high up you died if you feel to boot.
In the end, I made it! Thankfully there was a chest at the end of the jumping puzzle to make my efforts a little more worth it.
Whoa whoa whoa…what’s this?!?
Lets see how far the rabbit hole really goes!
Wow, okay so it goes pretty far!
Like any good explorers, we decided to kill everything in the picture (sarcasm). The most annoying part was the flower mortars that bombarded us from all over – we were always trying to find where they shot at us from. From here we found a back entrance hidden in the bottom of a mountain that contained this area inside.
NEXT TIME!!! On An Asura’s Tale!
We delve into the murky waters of Ventry Bay!
Yo Buttonmashers!
I have a little more free time than usual this week and it has allowed me to make this post about Guild Wars 2. Here are some of my thoughts on my experience in the first hours of the game.
First things first, the people at ArenaNet have their stuff together. Anyone who has played the first Guild Wars or has seen some of the beautiful concept art will know what I mean when I say video games can be considered art. I feel that the art team on Guild Wars 2 should be the winners of every award they can get for their wonderful work – regardless of the game itself.
Lets get to the game already!
It plays great. Currently it feels like an MMO without the subscription fee and that isn’t bad in my book. Something different from the first is that your weapon will determine what the first half of your skills will be. When you switch your weapon (2-handed, dual-wield two weapons of the same type, dual-wield weapons of different types) the skills will change and you will need to work on unlocking them by using the skills in line prior to them. Then the other half of your skills will be skills of your choice that you can unlock with skill points.
I have found that the easiest way to get skill points is to use the skill point events out in the world. One of these skill point events was as easy as clicking on a fountain of power and boom, you get your skill point. A second one of these was to kill a group of three bandits – one of which was named – and then you get your point. Its pretty straight forward but, rewarding regardless.
There are 8 professions and 5 races.
Races:
Official Name – My translation
Norn – Barbarians
Asura – Gnomes
Sylvari – Elves
Humans – Humans
Charr – Dogmen (they are one of the unique races that Guild Wars introduced)
Professions:
Warrior
Guardian
Engineer
Thief
Ranger (my choice at the moment)
Mesmer
Necromancer
Elementalist (Current champ! – I can summon elementals!)
I will say that the best thing I have found so far is the random events in the world. You could be running along minding your own business and out of nowhere there is an event. Luckily in writing this post I logged in to look for some awesome scenery to show everyone and low and behold I encounter an event.
This first picture is me running into an event where people were taking down an Oakheart,
After checking out the battle and throwing a few arrows into the mix, I continued on to find a better screenshot for all of you.
I guess I should warn you, if you don’t want to have part of the game spoiled for you by reading the rest of this post.
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SPOILER!!!!
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OK!
That’s when I happened upon the swamp and noticed something through the trees that began to roar in the voice of the Balrog from LOTR.
I decided to grow a pair (mostly because the death penalty is minor – repair some gear and start over at the closest waypoint, plus events like these are like akin to, ” a moth to a flame” to quote a friend) and venture into the madness. Needless to say the ‘Shadow Monster’ was NOT happy.
The fight continued for a good 4 – 5 minutes, I even got knocked down once. Thankfully, ArenaNet added the ability to be revived by anyone – effectively removing the need for a “Cleric/Healer” class and makes the game flow a lot better in my opinion then the standard MMO fare. Even shadow monsters go the way of the Earth and it was defeated!
To my surprise, as this was my first BIG BOSS world event, there was a huge chest left where the monster had stood and it was waiting with treasures all for me!
The PvE (Player vs Enviroment) has not disappointed me in the slightest. The world is huge and there is plenty to do, you can look for vistas, quest, grind, event hop, etc. that I think I’ll be busy for a while. I haven’t even scratched the surface of PvP (Player vs Player) or WvW (World vs World) where three servers are pit in a battle against each other, fighting for control of forts, with siege weapons, hot oil to burn attackers from the turrets, etc.
I’m just starting out but, let me know if you’re in-game! Dragonbrand server.
You know what…I think I’m going to hop in now and get back to it.
See you inside!
(More to come – Next up:Rock JUMPING!)