TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Tag: Shooter

  • I Played Destiny’s Iron Banner and All I Got Was a Lousy Wolf Cloak

    IMG_0396

    Note: See below for an update!

    I’m not a great Crucible player, but when I saw the promotional pictures Bungie put out of the Hunter Wolf Cloak, I decided to play Iron Banner so I could get it. Well, I got it, and it is pretty awful. I think it looks lousy in game, but in the App, where the picture above came from, it just looks odd, particularly with the second wolf head.

    So, yeah, I regret the time I spent in Iron Banner and the Legendary Marks I spent to get the hideous thing. Oh well…

    In other Destiny news, my Titan finally got through the King’s Fall Raid, but got an underwhelming loot haul from it, including 2 butt-capes from the same drop. Why did I need 2? I didn’t. I got the raid hand cannon, which is kinda nifty, but takes forever to reload. Very odd design, Bungie.

    Update: The cloak is more cool than I first thought. The rendering from the app hints at it with the two heads. When I am in the tower and have chosen to show my Hunter’s head, it uses the back wolf head to show that the cloak is off my had and it can show my face. Of course, that’s the way I kept seeing it, so I assumed it was that way in combat too, which was not what the promo material showed. Well, in combat, it uses the upper wolf head, which now covers my helmet and does look like it should. So Bungie was, in fact, very clever, and a rendering error in the app is the only problem.

  • Destiny Iron Banner – Mediocrity Perseveres

    I had more PvP success in Destiny last night, this time playing in the Iron Banner tournament. Between this video and the last one I posted, it may seem that I’m trying to say I’m good at the Crucible. I’m not. I’m very often nearly the worst on the team, but sometimes things come together and I can do well and help the team to victory. Here, I had a nice shotgun that made a difference.

    I’m doing the Iron Banner with my Hunter because I need that fancy Hunter cloak with the Wolf head! It’s amazing how much fancy fashion-forward gear is for the Hunters. I already have Taniks’ cloak (which is great, because it doesn’t have a hood), and I think the Flayer capes look pretty cool too! I don’t know of anything quite as fancy for my Warlock or Titan.

    I’m also posting this video because I like the map. They’ve made an abandoned town in Europe a battleground, so it is familiar and looks good. I thought it used to say that it was in the “European Exclusion Zone” or something like that in the intro screen rather than just putting “Widow’s Court” twice at different font sizes. In any case, here’s a video of me not playing particularly well, yet coming out on top in a very close match.

  • Destiny Crucible Success

    I finally did well in the Crucible Rift mode, which I tend not to like. I also finished the crucible kills required towards my Exotic Sword questline. Because I was so happy with my results, I’m posting my first ever Destiny video.

  • Gave Destiny another try. Why, oh why did I try?

    Because one of my friends wanted to help me try to get Fatebringer, a great handcannon only available from the Templar in the Venus raid, I gave Destiny another shot. I recruited another friend who has yet to get a Gjallarhorn rocket launcher, so she hoped to get it from the Gorgon maze chest. As usual, it was a night of disappointment for all.

    We succeeded in beating the Templar three times after quite a while of herding cats to get a team together. While the actual Templar battle was fine, it wasn’t actually fun. More of a chore, really. And, nobody got a Fatebringer, especially not me. And nobody got an Exotic, so my friend didn’t get her Gjallarhorn.

    Now I know that the random, gambling-style loot system of Destiny doesn’t give out fancy gear like water (except when it does), but I’ve been through the Venus Raid many times (not as many as some, though) and have never been graced with a Fatebringer or a Praetorian Foil (not that I need one of those). I did manage to get one Vex Mythoclast, but only once.

    My point is that some of these tedious Raid parts are the only places to get certain stuff, though the drop rate is low, and it isn’t that much fun. And yet, once you get something, you’ll get lots more. Once I got a Gjallarhorn, I promptly got 2 more. I get and discard Dragon’s Breath and No Land Beyond way more often than makes sense. I even got a second Hawkmoon last week, though I’ve yet to get a Monte Carlo or the Ram helmet for my Warlock. So RNGesus is fickle and Destiny seems to be punishing with its reward scheme.

    I gave Destiny another try, and learned why I’d been avoiding it all over again.

  • Loving Dragon Age: Inquisition, trying Borderlands on PS4, avoiding Destiny

    So last week, when Bungie announced that they were going to adjust weapons yet again (read “nerf” for the good ones), I sent a snarky tweet that I would have more time to play other games. Well, I mean it. I’ve avoided Destiny since then and will not play much. I’m not specifically upset about the nerfing of a particular one of my favorite guns (except Ice Breaker – c’mon, ammo already regenerates slowly – don’t make it even slower!), but it’s the constant messing around to get us to play the game “the way they intended.” First of all, making any guns less powerful is worse than making others better. And if you want to fix Thorn in Crucible, give Guardians a little more poison resistance rather than reduce the poison effects on PvE enemies. But enough of that. I’m just sick of them messing with things. Every time I get comfortable with something, they mess it up. And yet they don’t fix the actual problems with the game, like inventory and lag in the Crucible. Well to heck with Destiny.

    Dragon Age: Inquisition, on the other hand, is amazing. Is it possible for a game to have too much plot? Dragon Age comes close. There is so much to do, and most of it is great fun! Sure, there are some annoying bits, like: why am I, the powerful Inquisitor, responsible for collecting all the herbs, and rocks, and other crafting materials. Obviously they’re just trying to draw the game out, but there’s no reason to do so – the game is already long and full of content. So Dragon Age: Inquisition remains great fun and I’m playing it a lot!

    I picked up the Borderlands Handsome Jack Collection when it was on sale for my PS4. I loved the original Borderlands (except the lame ending), and Borderlands 2 on my PC, so I decided to try on my PS4. Well, it looks great, but I’m not as good at aiming with the controller as I am with a mouse, so everything is harder. I’m currently stuck at the first boss fight in the Pre-Sequel having obviously chosen poor strategies to take him down. I will go back to it next time I feel like playing a shooter.

    For fun, I also bought Goat Simulator for my iPad, since it was on sale for a dollar. Very cute game, and while the controls aren’t as responsive as I’d like, it’s a fun diversion. And I got the Michael Bay achievement for headbutting a gas pump and blowing up a gas station, so humor for the win!

  • Destiny Flawed Raider

    So there is an achievement in Destiny called “Flawless Raider,” which is earned when all members of your fireteam complete a raid without dying. This is not a thing that I ever aspire to do, because I tend to die a lot. That being said, I have done the raids a few times. The first time I went through the Vault of Glass (the first raid), we made it all the way through, but couldn’t kill Atheon, the final boss. We tried lots of times, and I learned a whole lot, including that if I had to, I could carry the relic after being teleported, but I wasn’t the best at it.

    The issue with Destiny’s raids is that they require everyone to not screw up. In the Vault of Glass, 3 people are teleported to either a past or a future version of the vault, filled with nasty enemies. Even worse, glowing balls called Oracles spawn, and, if they are not killed quickly enough, everyone dies and it’s back to the checkpoint. So if someone dies after being teleported, it can spell doom. Those left unteleported need to kill a bunch of enemies and stand in a certain spot to open the gate to allow the others to get back. If they fail, everyone dies. Falls and enemies can kill players as well, so it is a challenge. And in hard mode, you can’t even revive a downed teammate.

    The new Raid is, if anything, worse. Instead of relying on 3 people at a time, the success depends on one sword carrier who must whack Crota with a sword. Sure, the others have to take down Crota’s shield, kill various enemies, stop pairs of Hive knights that are shooting deadly weapons down on everyone, etc. If anyone dies, there is a new mechanic called the Oversoul that everyone else must attack or else everyone dies. So if the sword carrier dies, it is very bad news, but if even one of the others dies, killing the Oversoul is tough. In general, if someone dies, we all just get wiped by the Oversoul and start again.

    So the group I sometimes play with have the Vault of Glass down to a science. Some time ago, I got invited and we finished it one normal mode. Then a few weeks ago, I went with them and finished it on hard mode  on all my characters. I ended up with a few nice goodies, but the raid armor is no longer very good, since the DLC bumped the levels up.

    Still, Crota tasked me. I tried once with a group that was mostly not the folks I play with regularly, but we tried for hours and couldn’t beat Crota. We mostly knew what to do, but always someone made a mistake and we wiped. Once or twice, we even managed to kill the Oversoul so we could continue, but that was a terrible waste of precious ammo.

    So last Thursday night, the group I sometimes play with invited me for a normal mode Crota’s End raid. We made it through and killed the bugger! Yay! And my Hunter, who didn’t have a tracking rocket launcher got the Hunger of Crota which does track, so I was happy. Finishing a raid, even in normal mode, is quite an accomplishment for me!

    Then on Friday night, the group invited me again, but for hard mode this time. My Warlock couldn’t quite get to level 32, but was close (limited only by 1 or 2 Radiant Shards), so I brought him along. Despite a few glitches, mistakes, and problems, we got it, and I got the raid scout rifle, which I like quite a bit! Then the group decided we needed to go kill Atheon in hard mode on all three of our characters. So while we needed a few tries to kill him, we took down Atheon 3 times in about an hour (from the Gatekeeper checkpoint, so we didn’t do the entire raid).

    Because of all this, I went from having exactly one primary weapon that caused elemental damage (Vision of Confluence – a great scout rifle) to 8 or so in the space of a week. I got an auto rifle and 2 pulse rifles from the Crota raid, as well as a couple of the raid auto rifles and pulse rifles from the Vault of Glass.

    That being said, I didn’t get the holy grail of guns, the Vex Mythoclast, nor have I got the Black Hammer sniper from Crota. So one of these days, I suppose I’ll have to try again to complete these raids. While Destiny’s raids are stressful and challenging, it feels great to finish them!

  • Destiny is KILLING me!

    Destiny has been out for a few weeks, and while the critics kind of hate it and the shine is wearing off because of all the grinding, it still has me in its clutches. Whereas LOTRO or Star Trek Online used to be my “comfort games,” now Destiny fills that role. I always felt like playing LOTRO or STO, even if I just has a little while. I could blow off steam, accomplish something, and complete a mission or two. I didn’t touch either LOTRO or STO this weekend, but opted for Destiny in every moment I could spare. I’m a little sad about this. I have a lifetime subscription to STO, so I’m not wasting money by not playing it, but there are still places to see and aliens to kill. I do pay yearly for LOTRO, so if I’m not playing it, I’m wasting money. Besides, I still haven’t even finished the new story that came with the latest update. So I feel guilt over my choice in how to waste my time.

    Destiny, on the other hand, has a very short story that I’ve finished. Everything else PvE is just replaying the same things over and over, with the exception of the Raid, which I won’t be able to tackle maybe ever. But the gameplay mechanics are so comfortable and natural and satisfying (note that I didn’t say “rewarding” – more later) that it is easy to jump in and do a couple patrol missions or even a short story mission when I have a few minutes available. If the infernal and interminable loading could be reduced or eliminated, the game would be even better and less annoying.

    The game isn’t very rewarding, however. Most missions give no reward or perhaps some random crappy reward. The Queen’s Wrath missions are a great way to get good gear, but they are very hard and often give the same damn helmet over and over! Random loot drops are all we can hope for, and I got very lucky yesterday when my first and only Legendary Engram turned into an Exotic sniper rifle. Yay!

    And then I went into the Crucible (PvP) and got my ass handed to me.

  • Finished Destiny’s Story Missions

    I finished the “story missions” in Destiny last night after nearly 18 hours of play. So all the people that claimed the Destiny world is small (myself included in previous posts) are both right and wrong. It turns out that we only get a small region to explore on each of the game worlds (Earth, Moon, Mars, Venus), but those areas are pretty big, detailed, and complex. Also, if you think about it, 18 hours is a lot longer than it takes to finish most games other than RPGs and MMOs these days. It’s way longer than The Last of Us and Tomb Raider, to name a couple.

    So now that I’ve finished the story missions and reached the level cap (20), what’s next? Well, now the game takes on a new life. I haven’t even touched the PvP Crucible, nor have I put much effort into maxing out my reputation with any of the various factions. I’ve only played one Strike mission (twice, though). I’m not even high enough level to play the current raid nor some of the harder mission difficulties. The game changes into a lot more grinding, which could be bad if it weren’t for the good game mechanics and nearly perfect feel of the action. There is a lot more to do, much more to explore, and more fun to be had. Places to go, things to see, baddies to kill…

    I haven’t even tried out all three character classes (only the Warlock so far). In addition, each class has two different skill trees that are apparently quite different, but I haven’t touched the 2nd Warlock skill tree.

    Now that I’ve reached this milestone, however, I will try to obsess over Destiny a little less and get back to LOTRO, STO, Diablo III, and more. But Destiny certainly offers more compelling future fun than Titanfall does, in my opinion, yet the costs the same (at release).

  • Glitches in the Destiny matrix

    I played the first 4 missions of Destiny last night and enjoyed them, even though they were exactly like the beta, as far as I could tell. I got the slight impression that thing were a little harder than the beta, but that may just have been my lack of practice. But I did notice some glitching that wasn’t in the beta: Some enemies were glitching between a couple of different spots, much like laggy play in other multiplayer shooters. Except these were computer controlled enemies, not players, so it wasn’t due to someone’s crappy internet connection. These were also very low level enemies (level 2), so it wasn’t some special ability – it was a glitch. It wasn’t a terrible problem, but it sure messed up my aim as I tried to kill them. It also messed them up, too, so at least the disadvantage went both ways.

    Other than that glitch, all seemed just as good as the beta, and it was good fun. I played the 4th mission with a friend (who was much better than I am), so that was great fun.

    One of the things I like about Destiny is that the enemies are not omniscient. They can be surprised if you sneak up on them, and some of them can even be a little cowardly if you knock down their shields. Overall, the feel of the game is great, so I’m looking forward to playing more.

  • Fellow Guardians, I did buy Destiny for PS4

    Despite my previous plans not to buy Destiny, I did pre-order it at the last hour, so now my PS4 surely has it all downloaded so I can play tonight.

    I didn’t succumb to the hype, but I bought it because some of my friends pre-ordered it, and I decided that if I wanted to play with them, I’d better get the game. As with so many games (Titanfall, anyone), my friends and I have a burst of playing, then the interest fades. Since I’m not a big multiplayer shooter player, I have skipped all the Battlefields and CODs, but because I enjoyed the Destiny Alpha and Beta, I knew I would enjoy playing the game to some extent. Let’s hope my $60 was well spent…