As I play youtube catch up I’m excited to share some videos that were filmed as I was starting the youtube channel and hadn’t got up there yet. First up is this video of my son excitedly digging into some Imaginext Blind Bags.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a huge fan of The Loyal Subjects and TMNT is a a shared interest between me and my son. This time the little guy was in trouble, so I pulled and discussed two blind boxes by myself. Enjoy in the video below. If you dig what you see, keep reading below the video! Likes, comments, and subscribes are appreciated.
I became a big fan of the TLS figures after checking one out when interviewing their CEO for the Nerdrahtio Podcast. You can head straight to their store here to dig into their upcoming wave 2 or if you wish you could use my amazon affiliate link to grab some wave 1 boxes on Amazon view the link below. This is the first time I have put up an amazon affiliate link, and want you to know that yes, If a purchase is made I get a small “bird dog” fee that could add up, and help me pay for the site’s hosting, give away items etc.
The Loyal Subjects Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Series 1 Figure
Sam and Brad are at it again. You can be nerdy about food, and what better why to show that than eating weird Japanese candy ? Enjoy the video below ! and be sure to jump over to youtube and like and subscribe to let us know you enjoyed it, as well as to get easy access to our videos as quickly as possible.
Warner Bros Interactive have had a bad time with PC games recently, what with the abysmal release condition of Arkham Knight, a game that was removed from the steam store for months before coming back, still in a broken state, and the the release of Mortal Kombat X which saw some people unable to even play the game, and others only getting parts of the game as it refused to download the whole thing due to a poorly integrated “play as you download” system.
Yesterday, it seems WB finally showed their thoughts on their PC owning player base when they released a trailer for the upcoming complete edition of the game, which also showed off the next pack of DLC, containing such cameo characters as leather face and the Xenomorph from Alien. The trailer advertised the release for Xbox One and Playstation 4, but notably absent was any mention of PC or steam. When asked about this, a representative from the company simply stated that the content would not be releasing for the PC platform. No reason was given for this decision, it was just done.
For WB to do this is a very low blow for a customer base that has paid for their games KNOWING that this game was being released with future content in mind, even to the point of dlc being offered as pre-order incentives before the first actual gameplay trailer for the thing was released. They cannot in good conscience say that they delivered everything that they promised, because from the start they sold Mortal Kombat X as a platform for more content to be added to in the future.
What do you think about this? Do you think that they have every right to throw in the towel after their bad history of launches, or do you think that the PC gamers deserve the same content as the console gamers, the content they have just as much of a right to? Leave a comment and tell me your thoughts
In the latest Nerdrahtio youtube, we go back to the “Nerdrahtio Kids” focus, with my opening some Imaginext blind bags. This was shot when the youtube channel was started, but I have just now gotten up.
Enjoy!
Sam, Tom, Drew, and a certain noted author chat w/ Jonathan Robinson, as he talks about his ebay find of an alternate (marvel accurate) Breaker head, that was set to be released in 1984. To listen you can click the player below, or search for Nerdrahtio on Itunes or Stitcher. Be sure to keep scrolling for pics.
2014 was a pretty lousy year for video games, with quality titles being scarce, and the rest of the releases being at best, uninteresting, and at worst, unplayable. Happily for all of us, 2015 came to the rescue with a release catalogue that has been referred to as the best in many years by people with many more followers and much more experience in the industry than I.
Now that it has come to the end of the year, many of those same people have taken it upon themselves to create lists of video games from the mass of releases, and place them in an arbitrary order. If they can, then so can I! This is the list of my top ten games of 2015
10 : Heroes of the Storm
In a world being overwhelmed by hordes of MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) games, it takes something special to be different, and while many newcomers try to appeal to the hardcore side of the audience by adding more complexities, Blizard decided to go a different way. Heroes of the storm tries it’s best to stand out by being a much more chaotic experience. Getting rid of items and shops and adding map gimmicks and mini objectives for teams to go for, such as fighting over control points on a map to supercharge a hero or collect coins for a pirate captain so that he will fire his cannons on your opponents. HoTS manages to be a MOBA that anyone can pick up and play and most importantly be able to understand quite quickly without making it too simplistic.
9 : Warhammer – The End Times – Vermintide
Imagine a four player co-op game in the vein of Left 4 dead, and set it in the end times era of the warhammer fantasy setting. Everything that Left 4 Dead did well, Vermintide did better. Each of the five selectable characters is unique and plays very differently, from the sturdy tank-like warrior to the nimble fast firing rogue and even the magic hurling spellcaster, each one is unique as well as having multiple weapon sets that change up how they play even more. Combine that with a loot drop system and you have a very customizable experience where most players are bound to find a combination of class and equipment that will play exactly the way they want to.
8 : Cities Skylines
For anyone let down by the last Sim City game and looking for a deep city management sim, Paradox has got you covered. The number of tools available to you in this game are astounding, and there is very little you cannot tweak if you are willing to get in deep with the mechanics. Districts of your city can be marked out to have their own unique edicts and taxes, public transportation and supply routes can be played with to the most minute detail, and the game has been so heavily modded that if there’s something that you can’t do, change, or build in the base game, there’s more than likely a mod out there for it to give you the ability to do just what you think the game is lacking.
7 : Tales from the Borderlands
When I first heard that Telltale was making an adventure game out of the Borderlands franchise, I was very sceptical. Borderlands is a series all about it’s gameplay and enormous amount of guns. The storyline is there but it’s never pushed too hard, only ever seeming to matter to give you a reason to go and shoot things, and give characters like Tiny Tina a reason to exist. This game blew me away as the storyline was not only good, it was engrossing, and I found myself caring about the characters like I never had before in a borderlands game. The main series of Borderlands may give you a fun world to shoot things in, but Tales from the Borderlands takes that world and makes it feel alive. Plus it contains an entire finger gun fight QTE, which means it automatically gets a place in the top 10.
6 : Kerbal Space Program
This game is a perfect toy box for anyone who has ever dreamed of building a rocket and sending it flying into outer space. You start with an empty hangar and access to all the pieces you could want. It’s then your job to put those pieces together to create a rocket ship that you can take to the moon and beyond … Or, which is more likely, a ship that will explode on the launch pad before it even gets a chance to go anywhere. It’s a game about trial and error. Every explosion is a lesson learned, and after many many failed attempts, you will finally find that one build that works and finally get to the moon, you will feel such a mass of triumph. This game is for everyone who likes to experiment and put things together to see what works, and there’s even a career mode for people who want to take it further.
5 : Splatoon
Shooter games nowadays all seem to be cut from the same cloth. Shoot at people before they shoot at you, shoot at people to stop them getting the thing, a lot of shooting people. You may argue that this is what the shooter genre is about, but Splatoon dares to turn the genre on it’s head. Splatoon gives you control of a half kid/ half squid creature, armed with a large array of ink shooters, and tasks you not with shooting your opponents as much as covering the entire map with your teams ink colour. This twist allows a lot of different types of tools for you to use, from ink cannons and quil pens to paint brushes and paint rollers. Splatoon is a unique take on an old genre that still manages to innovate.
4 : The Witcher 3
I have to admit I was late to the party with this one, but I’m so very glad I did. There is a massive world to explore with a lot of side quests to discover, secrets to find, towns to liberate from monsters, and even more. None of this is unique to the Witcher 3, and yet it manages to bring them all together into an amazing package that seems to do everything brilliantly. The stories are believable and the characters are well fleshed out. There is even a playable card game with its own quest line. Put simply, if you like action RPGs, this game should definitely be on your radar.
3 : Fallout 4
While a step back in rpg mechanics from the predecessor, Fallout 4 still manages to be a breathtaking game. The gunplay has been improved dramatically from 3 and new Vegas, and the new crafting systems allow you to outfit your character with outfits and weapons tailor made to your exact specifications. This is also the first game in the series to drastically change power armour, changing it from a late game powerhouse into almost a vehicle that increases your speed, armour, and power, but which needs a resource to function, which once used up, then becomes slow and cumbersome, almost more of a hindrance than a help. Fallout 4 is definitely not a perfect game, but I find myself having a lot of fun with it.
2 : Bloodborne
I am a fan of the souls games, despite being terrible at them. I also am a great fan of the literary works of H.P. Lovecraft. Imagine my delight when I discover the team behind dark souls are working on a game that mixes the gameplay and storytelling of their past games with a dark Victorian aesthetic which borrows heavily from the Cthulhu mythos. Bloodborne also takes a step away from previous games in the series by removing emphasis on blocking, instead increasing the speed of combat and focusing more on motion, out manoeuvring your opponents and getting your hits in at just the right time. There are also a lot less weapons to choose from, with each varying drastically in how they are used, from the speed and grace of the blades of mercy, to the blunt power of the kirkhammer. The storyline is one of the best in series history as well, being spread around in item descriptions, in the environment, and very rarely, told to you. It takes a while to figure it all out but when you do manage to put it together it’s amazing. Definitely worth the difficulty.
1 : Life is Strange
This will probably be the most controversial placement on this list, but this game affected me more than any game ever has. It starts as a story of a girl who gains the power to rewind time, using rediculous dialogue that nobody in there right mind would ever use, but it quickly changes to become an epic adventure where every single choice you have to make has immense impact on the world around you and the people that inhabit it. This game covers some very deep subject matter, such as rape, drugs, and the death of a loved one, and it handles them in the most mature way I have ever seen a video game handle anything. Sadly, I can’t say much about the story without spoiling things, but know that if you enjoy games that focus on telling a story, and you’re okay with that story punching you squarely in the feels over and over again, then Life is Strange is one game you will not want to miss.
E.T. will probably be one of the more well known games that I’ll write about in this series of retro reviews. Many people know about it not because it’s good, like Mario, but because it’s bad–really bad.
As far as gameplay and sound go, you have to dig pretty deep to find anything good to say. The sound consists of a couple short snippets of the E.T. theme (played on the opening screen and when you “die”) and beeps that are annoying even by Atari standards. The game play isn’t any better. You explore a confusing world in hopes of finding 3 dots aka ship parts so that E.T. can go home. The entire time you are chased by a man in a trench coat who will take your precious dots and carry you to a jail that you can simply walk out of. You will also repeatedly fall into holes that are both surprisingly hard to get out of and to avoid. There is also a limited number of steps that E.T. can take before he dies. This ends up being one of my favorite parts of the game because if you lose track or you try to kill yourself by running out, E.T. turns into a pile of ash. Elliot then appears out of nowhere and the theme starts playing. As soon as Elliot reaches E.T. the music comes to a hilariously abrupt end and POOF! he’s gone and E.T. is perfectly fine and has plenty of steps. The game is terrible and you can’t even kill yourself to end it.
What’s actually more interesting than the game itself is it’s place in video game history. The movie E.T. had just come out and Atari gave a man named Howard Scott Warshaw the impossible task of making the game in just 5 weeks so that it would be out for the holiday season. Well, unsurprisingly the game was bad. Many customers demanded refunds, and a huge number of the games went unsold. So many E.T. and other Atari games were going unsold that Atari famously ended up burying them in the Alamogordo desert. (For more information watch the very good documentary Atari: Game Over) This ended up being the last straw that pushed Atari into debt and started the video game industry crash of ’83. Atari never fully recovered from this and it is often cited as being one of the worst financial mistakes in video game history. Atari’s decline left the door open for Sega and Nintendo to get a major foothold in America and in doing so, changed the world of gaming forever.
Although many people call E.T. the worst game ever, I wouldn’t agree with that. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s bad, but at least it’s playable. Even if half the reason to play it is to make fun of it, that’s still more reason than a few games I know of. So I would actually recommend people play this game, if they get the chance. It’s worth playing just to see how bad it is and to experience this small, but important, part of video game history for yourself.
Steven Mente
PART 1: The Loyal Subjects has become one of my favorite companies and that’s probably obvious by now! The latest batch of new images has me excited. The black Friday sale means an amazing Pre-Sale price, 40% off of these items that were just revealed, and most of them are must buy’s for me! Some of them I know I will have to get more than one of! Where do I start? Brand by Brand, Pic by Pic, I wanted to provide some commentary on each image!
Glow in the Dark He-Man makes the silver become Glow in the Dark. The Power Sword will look great pointing towards the sky glowing in a dark room. It also features mini comic inspired Axe and Shield combo. This means you get to have your He-man how you want him ! Mine will probably go Sword and Board style, like a rpg tank.
Those eyes look like creepy as heck. I’m looking forward to seeing how well these translate into the paint masks used on the factory produced figures. They really remind me of something from Zelda, like those pesky statues with an eye that shoot lasers at poor Link.
Joe Allard let us know that the plan is to go with Orange glow in the dark for this one. His design his awesome and I think a new GID color is a perfect way to spice this fig up! (although the green face would look good in traditional GID too.)
My fav out of the Masters of the Universe online exclusives (note: all single carded) would be:
I’ve always loved Battlefront but I also always thought that it was bit like a Battlefield game in a star wars skin (even down to the name.) So I thought it was a great idea when Dice, the makers of Battlefield, picked up the license to make a new one. I mean, who better to make it than the people it had been practically copying from the beginning?
Now, Dice has been known for having great sound design and visuals and that’s certainly true here. Battlefront has been brought to life with a painstaking level of detail. Everything looks and sounds exactly like the original trilogy should. The environments are actually so impressive that I’ve stopped in the middle of a game to admire them, only to be snapped out of it by an equally impressive explosion.
The gameplay in Battlefront is, obviously, very similar to Battlefield. Anyone familiar with modern shooters should quickly feel right at home. One noticeable difference from Battlefield is that Battlefront eschews the class based upgrade system where it’s tough luck if you want the medic’s gun while playing as an engineer. Instead, you use the credits you earned during battles to pick and choose which guns and stat. boosting cards you want to equip. It’s a change I personally like, but the progression doesn’t seem to go as deep as in some other contemporary shooters.
That being said, It’s not all sunshine and daisies with Battlefront. For instance, some maps could use more spawn points. As such, I’ve had some occasional issues with spawn-killing. It’s frustrating to respawn only to immediately die in an orbital strike. Also the hero’s one-liner’s are corny to begin with and, if heard enough, get annoying. However, what is possibly the biggest downside to Battlefront is the lack of any real single player or campaign mode. This and the fact that the upgrade system isn’t quite as robust as some games has led people to say that Battlefront may have less longevity than other shooters. Dice makes up for some of this though, with an abundance of game types. There is a a single player or two player co-op survival mode where you face increasingly difficult waves of enemies. There’s also 9 different multi-player game types, some of which I think are fantastic and some that are a little more hit or miss.
A few gameplay types that stood out for me were Walker Assault, Supremacy, and Drop Zone. Walker Assault is an asymmetrical gametype where the imperials attack with an AT-AT and the rebels have to destroy it before it reaches their base. Supremacy is the closest to traditional Battlefront with 20 vs. 20 games focused on capturing control points. Drop Zone is the faster paced, mini version of Supremacy. It has 8 vs. 8 matches where you fight for control of cashed drop pods. The other modes are: Cargo – a capture the flag mode; Blast – a team deathmatch mode; Droid Run – king of the hill where Droids that move around are the hill; Fighter Squadron – an aerial dogfight mode; Hero Hunt – a juggernaut mode where everyone is against one hero and whoever kills them gets to play as the hero; and Hero’s vs. Villains where the only playable characters are hero’s such as Luke Skywalker or villains like Boba Felt.
There are 12 different maps included with the game at launch with two more to be released before the movie in December in the free “Battle of Jakku” DLC. Most of the maps are based in the familiar locales of Endor, Hoth, and Tatooine but there are also maps based on the Imperial planet Sullust, which until now was only mentioned in Return of the Jedi. All of the maps are incredibly detailed and seem to do a good job of encouraging different play styles. The tight maze-like streets of Mos Eisley encourage close quarters combat while the ample hiding spots and bridges in the forests of Endor encourage longe range and sniping. The maps also have lots of different paths to get around so they don’t fall into the bad habit games sometimes have of funneling everyone into one area to be slaughtered. All together, the maps are equally well crafted and balanced.
Battlefront has a lot going for it. It’s easily one of the best looking and sounding games so far this generation. It has excellent gameplay and several new game modes but, with some minor gameplay annoyances, the lack of any single player and some questioning it’s staying power, it’s not perfect. In the end, one of the things I like most about Star Wars is the world it inhabits, and Battlefront does a fantastic job of picking you up and putting you right in the middle of that world. So if you like shooters and have even a little love for Star Wars, it would be hard to go wrong with Battlefront.
Steven Mente
Rathio 