Ello ello, and welcome back to BaicunnPress. I hope you're getting through the week unscathed. If you've been here before, you're likely aware that I was highly critical of EA and their handling of Battlefront. If you're interested in checking out those posts, the links are below:
With the disclaimers out of the way, let's talk about what you came her for; there's been a disturbance in the Force. Today we get our first glance at Star Wars BattleFront 2, via an alleged 50 second leaked Sony ad. Stick around after the show for further discussion. Enjoy!
So what can we see. It appears that the trailer starts right after the Rebels' victory at the Battle of Endor. In the trailer we can see something else though... looks like this title may just span the Clone Wars up to were "Battlefront picks up?" and even some post Death Star play up to the Last Jedi. Looks and sound pretty amazing right? But let's not forget EA's backhandy bullshit, when it comes to ads. To be fair though, EA has made me feel a bit better about their brand. Battlefield 1 was a pretty solid title. I played the beta. Didn't buy the game out of principal,.... but I played it, and liked it. Then EA and Respawn dropped Titanfall 2 on us, and the game is stunning. Balanced gameplay, and free DLC... that's pretty hard to beat. And I know I've said I was done with EA/ DICE and their shenanigans in the past. But the Battlefront DLC that dropped toward the end of last year really did a good job at trying to salvage the disappointment we were given. So I'm skeptical, but if EA can keep it up... I may be interested.
That's all for now guys. I'll be putting up The Breakdown later this week, but wanted to get this out ASAP. I've also started a Monday series titled Back To School, where I'll be putting up educational content meant to teach you some cool shit. Monday's post was about the laws and regulations in the US regarding Unmanned Ariel Systems (UAS). It's been taken down for the moment, as there are some busted links. As soon as they are fixed, it'll be back up. Thanks again for stopping by. I appreciate all of your support. If you like what you see, please share, and make sure to follow on Twitter at @BaicunnPress. -Chali Baicunn
Hello again, and welcome back to BaicunnPress. I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. This is a continuance to my ongoing "2016 Make It Or Break It For Nintendo?" series of posts. Part 1 is here.Today we'll be dealing with a difficult subject... The intervention to save the life of Nintendo. I get a little misty in the eyeball regions when I think about this once proud giant dying.
The Intervention Letter Dear Nintendo,
I hope you remember me... I was once one of your biggest fans. I played your greatest titles throughout my childhood; Mario, Megaman, Metal Gear, Battle Toads, Zelda, etc, etc. You had it all. You were once the brand I looked up to. You fought valiantly through the Great Console Wars of the 1990's. I knew when I grew up, I wanted to be just like you; smart, strong, inventive. But then it all changed... You changed. It's like you forgot who you were. You began to push me out of your life. I was broken at first, but I recovered and made new friends. They paid attention to me. They listened, and were there for me, and in return I supported them.
We lost touch at one point, but you reached out to me during a hard time in my life. You brought me on the adventure of a lifetime. I traveled Kanto with you, and sought out the path of a Pokemon trainer. We spent so many hours together over the next few years traveling and looking for adventure. Then almost as quick as you came back into my life, you were gone again. Occasionally we'd chill over a few rounds of Golden Eye and Perfect Dark, but then you were gone again after GameCube was released. It's almost as if you fell back in with the crowd of amateurs, rookies, and noobies you had previously distinguished yourself from.
And again I had to find new friends. Microsoft was more than happy to embrace me, and Sony hung out all of the time. I'd see you around every once and a while, but you kept ignoring me. I felt used and abused. You had nothing to offer me. No FPSs except Metroid, no RTSs, no engrossing RPGs... All it seemed you had in you were party games, and god damn it I don't always want to party. The only time you seemed to care at all was when you brought Resident Evil 4 to the Cube, but then there was nothing after that. And you only responded because you were getting crushed by Halo. Years went by, and by chance we bumped into each other again. Literally by chance, I won a Wii. For a moment, it seemed like you might have gotten your shit together. You're approach was new, and I had access to the classics again. Your new controls were classic in form and novel in design, but it seemed like you still just wanted to party. It was difficult to find any substance and depth in your catalog... It was just a party all of the time, and don't get me wrong; I like to party, but you just kept going harder and harder to the paint until I couldn't take it anymore. I finally left you. It broke me, but I had become hardened toward you. I was tempted so many times to come back to you. I wanted to through down on the classics and share it with the world, but everytime I turned around, I kept reading "Nintendo DMCAs channel into the ground", "Nintendo, takes profit from YouTuber", "Nintendo hates streamers!" One headline after another. I missed you, but I'd be god damned to deal with your shit. What's the point of us hanging out and being friends, if we can't hangout with everyone else. And when we do hang out, we just talk about the good ol' days, back before you made it clear that you pretty much hated anyone outside of Nintendo. So I end this letter with a few simple statements... Nintendo, I love you man. I wants us to be tight again. I want my son to really get to know you. But we can't until you end your addiction. Your attachment to control and your business model are killing you man. It'd be great if we could hangout again, and if I could share my gaming time with the internet without fear that you'd ruin my life, and shut down my social media and ruining my life. Your behavior is that of a sophisticated drunk. You just keep wondering around in circles hoping that you'll stumble back to your home before you pass out in a puddle of your own making. If you don't change soon, you'll die! You're better than this man. You can be relevant... I believe in you.
Love, Chali
Thanks for stopping by again guys. What do you think? Let me know. I'm going to give Nintendo a bit to find itself, but be sure to keep check back for more content and part 3 of this series. I'm thinking a title of "Part 3: Redemption or Bust" seems fitting. Again, I want to thank you all for your support and your readership. As always, I'll see you later.
Hello and welcome back my fine nerdy brethren. Thank you for stopping by! It's time for the Midweek Breakdown, where I serve you up with some tidbits of wonderfulness to help you make the final stretch of your work week toward the weekend.
First up on the list is a new Superbowl Commercial, from our friends at the Pokemon Company:
If you didn't know Pokemon has several major events coming up this month. On February 27th Pokemon will turn 20 years old. That's right, if you an OG trainer from back in the day, you're officially old... To celebrate their anniversary a special edition 3DS in the States with Pokemon Red and Blue pre-loaded on the device. In Japan, fans of the franchise will be able to pickup a 2DS bundles with choice of Red, Green, Blue, or Yellow theme, and matching game pre-installed. The American bundle price is listed at $199.99. As a side note, if someone sends me one of these they'll get free adspace on here for a year. (Can't blame me for trying. Haha!.. But no seriously.) The Pokemon TCG will also be receiving the next edition this month with XY-BREAKpoint. Honestly though, all of this doesn't hold a candle in the wind to the expected release of Pokemon GO. Widely believed, to be releasing on February 27th. If you're a Pokemon TSG fan checkout the video below, and if you're interested in some more info about Pokemon GO, please stay tuned for future posts coming out this week.
Also out this week, Bethesda has announced that it will be making a return to E3 this year. With the success of Bethesda's showcase last year, I'm expecting another great showing in 2016. If you're interested in speculations about the showcase, make sure to check out my post from last week; Pure Hyperbole: Bethesda's E3 2016 Showcase Speculation .
Over last weekend, The Division beta released and almost immediately got pwn'd. Specifically the PC version of the beta was compromised, by users that discovered that the game clients were running in a trusted status. Long short, this means that the servers didn't give a fuck about what speed, amount of ammo, or well any other player stats as long as the info was handed to it by the client. This was possible due to the fact that the servers were not checking the data to verify that it had not been tampered with. The beta was open to everyone who pre-ordered and a lucky few who made it onto the beta waiting list. No word from Ubisoft, if anti-cheating systems were left off on purpose or not. I recommend that you go check out the reddit devoted to the game here , as has a lot of great information posted on it.
I'd also like to remind you, that the Deadpool movie releases next week. So make sure you treat you're significant other to a romantic classic about a guy who'd do anything to stay alive for the woman he loves. And significant others, if you love your significant other, you'll recognize that it is a proper Valentine's Day movie. I now leave you with the following PSA:
Thanks again for stopping by. I really appreciate your support. If you feel that I missed anything, let me know. Please make sure you follow the site on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, And as always, I'll see you later. -Chali Baicunn
Hey what's going on guys! Thanks for stopping by. Sorry for not posting anything yesterday; I was tied up with other things. Today we'll be discussing Nintendo's place in the console market. This will be a 2 to 3 part op-ed. I hope you enjoy!
Oh what terribly sad days we are living in. The ancestral sage of modern gaming is in a pretty tight spot, and 2016 may be the year they thrive or die. For many years, gamers have been speculating on the demise of the old guard. The questions now: Is Nintendo going to make a come back, and are they working on a console exit strategy as I write this?
I personally believed 12 to 13 years ago that Nintendo had one last console in it, before they went the way of Sega, and began producing only games. I was wrong in that assumption... Wildly wrong, but that's because I couldn't perceive the impact of the Wii's shtick; cheap family friendly "fun". I Couldn't have seen how the Wii's motion controls and low purchase price gimmick could have moved the volume that it did. I had no idea back in 2003 and 2004 that the DS platform would have taken off like it did. Both kept a significant flow of capital rolling into Nintendo's coffers, but it may have also set them up for a terrible fall.
It may seem as a bit of a stretch to argue that Nintendo is in dire straights, and this year will prove a lot. I am in no way saying that they'll stop making the DS platform... Why would they? It is obviously a cash cow for them, selling over 5.88 million 3DSes in the last 3 months of last year. These posts will specifically address the things that have brought Nintendo to this point, and what they may do or maybe doing, to move forward.
Big Trouble In Kyoto:
In it's lifetime, Nintendo has gained a reputation for themselves in the industry, for being difficult to work with. Especially, in regards to game development. From the control they exercise over developers to poorly documented devkits. Which has pushed devs away from them into the arms of Microsoft and Sony.
And in recent years, Nintendo's choices to use older chip sets in their consoles has alienated hardcore games and third party developers. Gamers are moving away due to a lack of graphics, and the inability of Nintendo to land quality titles outside of Nintendo family of developers. All the while third party devs are staying away, due to the time and cost of porting their games and apps to the older architecture. Thus become cost prohibitive for 3rd parties to do so as, Nintendo's console user base is shrinking and resources could be better directed at supporting their core user base.
You'd think that this would leave Nintendo, to lean back on small hobbyists for third party support... Well they've done the opposite. In an interview with Gamasutra (here) in 2011; Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime stated,
"I would separate out the true independent developer vs. the hobbyist. We are absolutely reaching out to the independent developer. Where we've drawn the line is we are not looking to do business today with the garage developer. In our view, that’s not a business we want to pursue."
Well if not hobbyists devs, then who?... Internet "let's players"? That's a gigantic NOPE! As it turns out that developing for Nintendo is actually easier, than giving them free publicity on the Internet. Nintendo has been waging an incessant campaign against people sharing video of any of their games on the internet. Known for their serial DMCA'ing of YouTube channels, Nintendo has effectively cut themselves off from their audience. With all of the hype and bullshit out there, it's hard to trust publishers enough to buy their games without seeing gameplay. In fact may publishers, including EA give Beta and early access to many popular YouTubers, because they realize the value in free publicity.
Nintendo has continued to tow these ideological lines even through the the shortish disappointing life of WiiU. From a gamer standpoint this has lead Nintendo into a state of entropy. Where they are increasingly desperate, and grasping at air. As if the WiiU was going to continue the gravy train that was the Wii.
I don't believe that this is due to Nintendo's Executives being incompetent or even arrogant. It seems to me that maybe they can't see the forest for all of the trees. Nintendo has always been so cautious in protecting their brand, and I believe they've now done more harm. At this point, you'd think that reality would have slapped Nintendo in face hard.
Is there hope for Nintendo? Maybe... What you think? Make sure to comment on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or in the comment section below. Part 2 has been released and can be found here. Don't forget to like and share. Thanks again for stopping by. As always, I'll see you later.
Hello! How's it going out there in the wild today! Seems that the seemingly unsinkable ship, that is EA is growing very concerned about their relationship with their community. If you've read my previous posts, you'll know that EA and I are not on the best of terms currently. I'm not going to go into my personal feelings about EA today, but instead want to talk about some HUGE E3 news involving EA.
Amid the blowback of several failed title launches, and the presumed PR nightmare of a growing contempt amongst many gamers directed at EA over the quality and value of their products. EA has decided to pull their booth from E3 showroom floor. Instead EA has reported that they will be hosting an event at the Club Nokia venue outside of E3. This event will be called EA Play. Unlike E3 the event will be open to public from June 12 to the 14th. On June 12th in London, EA will be hosting a similar event as well.
On EA's official announcement page, they are reporting that live attendees will get hands on time with demos, along with competitions, special guests, and exclusive schwag. On top of public access, they are also reporting that they will be live streaming their press conference, new games, and behind the scenes content. Gamesbeat is currently reporting that an EA spokesman is quoted as saying,
"It’s an all-new event that puts our players first and creates a play
experience built around them. Play LA will be at Club Nokia at LA Live
on June 12-14, and Play London will be at The Mermaid on June 12. Both
events will kick off with a live press conference and offer hands-on
with our games, and more."
The press conference is currently scheduled to begin at 1PM PT on June 12, 2016. It's presumed that the Press Conference and events will be live streamed on there Twitch channel here. If you're interested in getting more details about the event and how to get tickets, you should go to the official EA announcement page here and sign up for email updates.
So what do you think? Is this just standard PR? Or do you think that EA may have turned a corner? I personally hope they have. Let me know what you think. Please share and follow on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. Thanks for stopping by again, and as always I will see you later.
Hello and welcome back again! Thanks for stopping by. Brand new Star Wars Battlefront news just released, and oh boy is it good-ish news. I'm trying to be hopefully optimistic, but with the shit stain that EA keeps leaving in my life it's going to be hard to do. I have not hidden my feelings about this game. I have been more than disappointed. As an interesting side note, I did not lock down my PSN account, and over the weekend, myself and my 5 year old became the owners of the Season Pass. Although this was my fault and I do not expect any refunds, I am now $115 deep in this... So I'm going to keep posting on it, and calling out the bullshit when I see it, and give praise when it's deserved. With that said, this post and any future posts about Battlefront and it's Developer/ Publisher will be subjective, but I will present logical & possibly inflammatory arguments to support my opinion. You'll also see several times in my posts that I refer to EA and DICE interchangeably, and that's because EA owns DICE and so as a concept they are the same thing. So let's not delay any further and jump right into the post.
Battlefront is finally getting an update today, and EA is being a little more transparent. All of the details are outlined on in a post titled "The Road Forward" written by Sigurlina Ingvarsdottir;
Senior Producer for Star Wars Battlefront. And with this update comes a bit of renewed cynical optimism for me. I'm honestly not sure that EA/ DICE can save this title, as they are going to be restricted to what the engine can do. Also at this point, any of the changes asked for by the community are completely dependent on EA's ability to listen to it's audience.
First we'll start with the really bad. If you remember in last weeks Midweek Breakdown, I had mentioned that Battlefront Community Leader; Sledgehammer70, had congratulated the community in smashing the Christmas Holiday Community Challenge. He was so pleased to tease us with a special gift for the community, in the following post made on the Battlefront Community Page:
"Just before the holidays, we kicked off the first Star Wars Battlefront community event, where we asked you to play 500,000 hours as Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Today, we’re happy to let the community know that you smashed the 500,000 hours played mark, playing over a total of 1.2M hours as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo between START and FINISH. Most impressive.
This achievement is worth a special reward that directly ties to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. What could this reward be? In true Jedi fashion, it will be revealed in the coming update this month. You will want to look to Hoth to show the fruits of your labor once the January update has been released. Stay tuned to our official channels for more details."
This tease left many in the community to speculate that the gift would be playable tauntauns. Well the wait is over. The update is coming today, and do you know what these def bastards gave us? Mother fucking Luke and Han themed outfits when playing as either on Hoth! Fucking really?! You know and I both know that the tease was masterful execution of PR bullshit.
To be fair though, there are more updates being released today. (Link to the release notes at the bottom of this post.) Along with some pretty significant balancing tweaks, we're also getting some well needed spawn adjustments. We can also now play Blast, Droid Run, Drop Zone, Hero Hunt, and Heroes vs Villains multiplayer modes on Raider Camp. This is the same map used in Tatooine Survival. EA also made the following promises in their announcement:
"In February, we will continue to add more free content for all
players, including a new Survival mission on Hoth, and a brand-new Hoth
multiplayer map that will support our larger game modes including Walker
Assault, Supremacy, Fighter Squadron and Turning Point. Speaking of
Turning Point, we are also excited to make this popular mode available
on all maps that currently support Walker Assault and Supremacy in the
February update.
In March, we will be adding another exciting new multiplayer map on
Endor that will support Walker Assault, Supremacy, and Turning Point,
and an additional Tatooine Survival map."
So it looks like we'll be getting a bit more free content. I believe these kinds of changes are great steps in the right direction. And I will even thank EA and DICE for do these things. But wait there's still more...
The other major parts of today's update have to do with adding private match functionality, Community Events, and Daily Challenges. I currently do not know how well or even the mechanics of private match making. I have so far been unable to find information on the number of players allowed, or game mode restrictions. I know people have been asking for it, but it does little for me as most of my friends have abbandoned this sinking wreck due to hollowness of the game. It's probably safe to say they won't be coming back just for private matches, a few maps, and some added balance.
Community Events and Daily Challenges are a whole other beast. Honestly this announcement makes me think that DICE/ EA are not really in touch with the realities of gaming. Especially when we look at what the follow section of their public announcement says:
"The introduction of Daily Challenges and Community Events. These are
designed to rally the Community around certain goals and objectives,
giving players the chance to earn credits and unlocks even faster. We'll
have more news regarding Community Events and Daily Challenges in the
days ahead."
Just let that sink in for second... If you've played Battlefront for any extended periods of time, you should realize that at some point credits become useless and stop adding any depth to the game. After unlocking ever gun and ever Star Card, the only thing to spend credits on are skins. As I and many other reviewers have pointed out, the skins are lazy and add nothing to the game. Many people have even argue that they may even take away from the game, as most of the alternative skins simple remove the helmet from the stormtroopers, and this is not ok with many a Star Wars fan.
So we've established that more credits are kind of meaningless in the macro-scope of the game. Then if history repeats, and we assume that community rewards for completing challenges and events will be more character skins. So this equation would then apply:
More Credits + More Skins = 0 Net Gain
This is speculation at this point. But it feels par for course when it comes EA and its subsidiaries, and is absolutely the dumbest way to reward people play for playing the game. It adds no depth or substance to the core game, and only pisses of those of us who purchased a over hyped product with high expectations. This shallow attempt at appeasement, will only further decrease interest. Thus setting up a scenario where EA cuts its losses and stops truly supporting the title.
The final bit of news released with the update announcement was details about the Season Pass DLC. As expected the DLC will be
released quarterly, with expected releases in March, Summer, and Fall of
this year, and one more release sometime in early next year. The
following list and descriptions are taken directly from the update post:
"Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Outer Rim (March 2016) - Fight among the factories of Sullust and battle within Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Bespin (Summer 2016) - It's hunt or be hunted in this action-packed experience set in the Cloud City of Bespin Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Death Star (Fall 2016) – That’s no moon! One of the most iconic locations in the Star Wars universe makes its debut in Star Wars Battlefront. Star Wars™ Battlefront™ Expansion Pack 4 – Title TBA (Early 2017) – We will have more details to share about this exciting new expansion pack in the coming months."
Many of these changes seem to indicate that EA and DICE are listened; at least some what listening to the community. But they've had since November to address these issues and have not. So why now? Is it because the swell of Christmas noobs that have beaten down the forums with complaints? Is it because of the hordes or vocal and disappointed reviewers? IDK...
EA ends their announcement with the following:
"At DICE, we're passionate about what we've created with Star Wars
Battlefront, and are committed to supporting not only the game but all
of our fans over the months ahead. We can’t wait to keep traveling
through the galaxy far, far away, with all of you."
The above statement just really rubs me the wrong way. Yeah it's a great sentiment. It makes people feel warm and fuzzies. But, after personally witnessing at least a decade of EA's consumer abuse. In their slowly escalating extortion campaign of releasing what can only be described as underwhelming and incomplete
titles with pay for DLC. Each proceeding title worse than the last, in content and in sales. It really just seems like EA and it's subsidiaries are seeing just how far they can push the line before gamers revolt.
So here are some parting thoughts for EA/ DICE: How many people in the Battlefront community have to tell you that they want substance, not skins? How many people have to complain about your lack luster performance before you supply their needs? And honestly you wouldn't be so bad if your marketing hype machine wasn't so good, and your business model so opaque. Again, I'll admit that you took baby steps today, but is it that you cannot provide for the wants your fan base due your inability to deliver? Or does your failure come from some morally abstract authoritarian concept that you alone may be the gatekeeper of the needs and wants of your customers? I'm personally leaning towards the latter. Your names have become synonymous with a concept of everything that is wrong with the gaming industry. If I'm wrong prove it! Own your mistakes, make good on your hype, and earn back the respect of not just your customers but the greater gaming community.
At this point, I'm a bit more hopeful. However, I'm not holding my breath. EA has screwed the pooch so far, I can't expect much more for the fixes. And with that I'm done for now.
Thank you guys for stopping by. I really appreciate your suppose. So what do you think. Am I over reacting? Should I take it a bit easier? Let me know on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or in the comments sections below. Please share, and as always, I will see you later. And as I said earlier you can expect more Battlefront content in the future. I'm going to beat this dead horse until it becomes a horse zombie, and starts trying to change other horses into zombie too. (Well that an excessively convoluted metaphor, but I think it works.)
Hello, and how's it going out there! Thanks for stopping by. Today we are bringing another archival post from E3 2015, out of the vault. I've taken the liberty of updating the post some, and included some new info, and videos. Enjoy!
-Chali
From Bethesda's E3 2015 Showcase, the world was given it's first look at Dishonored 2, from Arkane Studios. In the next chapter of the Dishonored series, you'll be returning to the Empire of the Isles. Playing either as Corvo Attano, from the original title, or as the former princess Emily Kaldwin. The Empire is under attack again, this time by an "otherworldly usurper". Your return to the Empire take 15 years after the events in Dishonored, on the island of Serkonos. It's been revealed that this island is Corvo's birthplace. Arkane has promised that the new title will keep the original mechanics; allowing players the freedom of choice in the sandbox environment that they enjoyed in Dishonored. Arkane even announced that it will be possible to complete the game without kill anyone.The title originally was slated for a Spring 2016 release. However, the release has been postponed until December 30, 2015. Now strap yourself in, and let your optical cortex be assaulted the beautiful game trailer below:
Official E3 Trailer
What did you think? I think it's very pretty! Now what are we going to do for pretty much a full year?... Well shit! I guess while we wait for a year here's some more Dishonored 2 videos.
Who Is Emily Kaldwin
Welcome to Karnaca
Thanks again for stopping by. I'm sure there'll be more details released by the end of E3 2016. Keep checking back for more details. Please comment and share. I really appreciate all of the supportthe site has received. As always hope to see you in the future.
Hello out there in the wonderful world wide web! I hope you're not too terribly scarred from yesterday's philosophical post. It's Thursday, and you're probably questioning the reason you got out of bed. Work sucks, and you're now stuck in the weekly purgatory that is Friday-eve. Well fear not for today, I'll be introducing the first installment of a new weekly series; The Midweek Breakdown. Making sure that you're properly informed on all things nerdy going on in the world. This is going live today, but the series will be making a weekly appearance every Wednesday.
ESA officially announced that E3 2016 is scheduled for June 14th through the 16th at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Coming in next, USA Today announced that Poe Dameron will be getting his own dedicated series. Marvel's Star Wars creators Charles Soto and Phil Noto will be taking up the reins. The Poe Dameron series will be written by Charles Soule of the "Lando" and "Obiwan & Anakin" series fame, with art supplied by Phil Noto. Noto had previously provided art for the "Chewbacca" series. The series is slated to release April of this year. ESPN recently added an eSports section on their Sports Portal. ESPN is promising to cover everything esports related. If you're interested cruise over to espn.com to check it out. In case you somehow missed it, we have the first Suicide Squad trailer released since Comi-Con:
Also just out, Disney has announced, that it ill be delaying the release of Episode 8. Originally scheduled to release in June 2017. Release has now been pushed out until December 2017. It should be noted that Avatar 2 is also scheduled to release at the same time. In other Star Wars news, a patch is coming to Battlefront sometime this month. Along with this announcement came another from Star Wars Battlefront Community Manager; Sledgehammer70. Sledgehammer put out the following statement on the Battlefront Community page: "Just before the holidays, we kicked off the first Star Wars Battlefront community event, where we asked you to play 500,000 hours as Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Today, we’re happy to let the community know that you smashed the 500,000 hours played mark, playing over a total of 1.2M hours as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo between START and FINISH. Most impressive.
This achievement is worth a special reward that directly ties to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. What could this reward be? In true Jedi fashion, it will be revealed in the coming update this month. You will want to look to Hoth to show the fruits of your labor once the January update has been released. Stay tuned to our official channels for more details." Some in the Battlefront community are speculating that this means we'll be seeing tauntauns in game soon. And finally, it's been announced that Darkwing Duck will be making a return to TV in 2018, on Disney XD. Disney has promised that the show will have a “gritty look that this generation of kids love.” but retain the “same energy and bumbling crime-fighting spirit”. Thanks for stopping by again guys! I really appreciate it. If you think we missed anything, let us now. Please share, and comment. I appreciate feedback. And always, I hope to see you in the future.
Hey guys! How's it going out there in the spaghetti western that is the Internet?
Well it's a new day.. and.. I have a confession to make that's been eating at me for a few weeks. I haven't really told anyone because I feel foolish, but I've just got to get it out there, and the haters can judge me... I let EA put it in my butt, metaphorically speaking that is... There I said it; I admitted it. You see what happened was that EA took me out a few months ago. They let me play with their blasters, and we hung out every night for almost a week. Then EA told me that they had to go away on business for a few weeks. And while EA was away, all I could think about was how much I really wanted to hang out with them and their Imperial armor. Weeks went by and we finally got to hangout, it was fun but the date cost me $60. Halfway through the date things got a little steamy until I realized that I was participating in our very own Tijuana donkey show; Like a drug fueled night in Bangkok, I was being bent over. Then when I thought it was all over, EA asked me for another $60 to finish up!...
Dramatics flare aside. I'm pretty pissed at EA and myself at this point. I bought into the hype, and got sold a Star Wars scented bottle of snake oil. And since EA was totally OK with pedaling this turd for $60, I'm totally OK with publicly reviewing their product for free. I'm really going to try to be fair with this, but it'll be hard at this point.
To fully understand my point of view, I need to take you back in time to June 2013.... It was a hundred and stupid outside on that fine day in Oklahoma, and it that seemed nothing would break the drought. I remember fondly the joy I felt when it was announced that Battlefront would making a return. At that point, it didn't matter that the sun had seemed to park itself on the surface of the Earth, because I had found a drop of water in the desert. I resolved to survive the droughtpocolypse at least long enough to play it.
After E3 2014, time seemed to fly by. The sun had returned to it's normal point in the sky, and it seemed that every couple of months, more of its secrets were revealed. And the videos. Oooooo!... Shiny! They glistened in highly polish polygons, like blood diamonds in southeast Asian black markets.
You see, I had been itching for a new shooter for a little while by that time. I had left the caustic communities of competitive FPS/shooter gaming, resigning myself to a quiet retirement of RTSs, survival, and fringe indie games. (A man can only listen to so many unfounded and baseless accusations directed at his mother's honor. All the while dodging the vollies of pejoratives spewed forth from the mouths of 12-year-olds.)
With The Force Awakens just around the corner, the release of the Battlefront beta made October of 2015 feel so hopeful. The week of the beta seemed so right at the time. Walker Assault on Hoth felt like Star Wars. Drop Zone less so, but I was optimistic. It was a time of bonding with my 5-year-old. You see the Battlefront beta was his first shooter. He quickly decided that Vader is by far the BAMF-Y-EST BAMF that ever did BAMF. This set a light in him, a truly deep interest in the Star Wars universe. As we played, I was able to regale him with the lore from long long ago in a galaxy far far away. (feels....)
I had resolved myself to getting Battlefront. Christmas was coming up. The kiddo was on board. I was on board, and the wife approved. (Oh snap!) Then it came, bundled up nicely in it's bland brown Amazon.com box. The wife immediately deemed it to be a Christmas present, and threatened the life of whatever hero should try to liberate the fair maiden from her tower keep; known only as top of the closet. I protested! (Fuck it! I'm a grown ass man, and if I want to play the game I will!)
So Christmas day came, and the boy and I cracked the cellophane on the case. (I know... I know... What happened to all of that I'm a man shit? Do you want to piss my wife off? I don't.) Disc goes in, queue epic Star Wars Theme Song, and draw the shades... It's time to kill me some Imperial scum! To my surprise there appeared to be content missing, and I was already being hit up to drop $60 more on Season Pass DLC, all before I had started a single match. And there are no details given about the Season Pass. I ignored the instant irritation surging through my body, because it's Christmas, and I simply verify that there is not a missing companion disc in the case. I get a prompt that there's an update. Download it, and restart... Nope no more content than before. (I should have prefaced this by saying that due to the aforementioned cockblocking by the misses, I had decided to not go digging for details about the game after release.)
Fast forward to today. I'm now several hours invested in the game, and I've built out the following list of my likes and hates:
What I like: 1) It looks like Star Wars. The terrain and models are beautifully presented and pretty well polished. 2) It does feel like you're in the Star Wars universe, especially when playing on Endor and Hoth in first person. 3) The sound engineering is pretty spot on, with one exception that I hate (keep reading for more on that)... And that's about it. 4) Kid friendly. 5) Fun for a few matches here and there. What I hate: 1) There is a complete lack ofinteresting or populated game types; even Walker Assault is really just a moving point domination game. The populated exceptions being Blast (classic deathmatch) and Fighter Squadron (deathmatch with spaceships). 2) There's no campaign.. Nothing! Nada! Not that I was expecting a whole lot but seriously, nothing? 3) The maps are pretty, but there's basically only four maps to play on for any one game type. 4) With no campaign, this game is really forced to stand on large scale objective based combat. However, I find the lack of team chat disturbing. It's like playing Battlefield 2 circa 2004 with people running everywhere trying to figure out what to shoot next. 5) Remember how I mentioned that there is an exception to the quality? Well that exception happens to be the voice acting for the Heroes. They do not sound in anyway close to their movie counterparts. They really couldn't have just used one liners from the original trilogy? Come on EA! Is it too much to ask that Vader sound like Vader, and Han to sound like Han?! 6) So "deathmatch with spaceships" or as EA calls it, Fighter Squadron. I'm willing to concede that it can be a fun mode to play for a short time, but for whatever reason the devs saw it fit just not set up decent controls. There's no real roll command except for an evasive maneuver that has a god damn cool down timer before it can be used again! Oh, and your spaceships never get the opportunity to, you know, fight in space! 7) The spawns are terrible, and I don't mean that in a dramatic way. I mean that they are genuinely awful. With issues ranging from spawning in the wide open, and spawning in on a gun fight. Or my all time favorite; spawning in basically where you died! You know, so you can immediately die again, and your respawning teammates can also die with you.
8) There's no accuracy penalty for not going ADS, and there's no accuracy buff for crouching. Because fuck game mechanics. So basically it's just running around and hip firing. 9) Vehicles feel like an after thought. No Snowspeeders flying out of hangers on Hoth or TIE fighters dropping from the belly of a Star Destroyers. Not even an AT-ST being unloaded from a dropship, Instead teammates are stuck racing each other around the map trying to pickup floating blue "coins" in order to use the vehicles. And even then the vehicles feel forced at times. 10) There's a dick load of unlocks in this game. Unfortunately, they're mostly character customizations and, well.. lazy! Here's a video post to illustrate my point:
11) Did I mention that when playing as Palpatine, you're squishier than the level 5 healer you took on your last dungeon raid? And as a plus your only real attack is force lightning, which conveniently has a cool down timer. 12) So there's a ranking system, but it really isn't anything more than a timer used for your unlocks. It means nothing in the grand scheme. It doesn't prevent a noobie from being fed to the wolves and their much more powerful loadouts, as all ranks are tossed in the same lobby. And not having a real ranking system pretty much destroys the possibility of the game being recognized as a competitive shooter.
There's more, but I'm honestly just tired at this point. My son is still into it (It's just a shame his "first love" is so basic), and I guess I'm just playing the game out of spite at this point. If you have young kids they'll probably like it. Or if you're just looking to play a new Star Wars game, you'll probably like it. However, a franchise title from this publisher, with this title, and with the budget this one had, has absolutely no reason to be this lacking in substance.
I once had high hopes for Battlefront. In hindsight, I'm not real sure why. @PonStory had warned me to not get too excited. I'm also keenly aware that in recent years EA has become more and more hostile to their customer base. Hammering out title after title, with very little change or innovation, and then flooding the market with paid DLC. It seems that EA's marketing strategy is a pump and dump scheme; they push the hype, sell you half a game, and then extort you for the other half, year after year in a seemingly endless cycle of communal profiteering.
I guess what I got is what should have been expecting. To be honest, I would have been satisfied with re-skinned and updated Battlefront 2. Instead, EA's Battlefront appears to be a clear downgrade from a game made a decade ago. I think that a picture of EA's executives flipping you off--instead of the content on the disc--would have been more intellectually honest and less lazy then what they gave us.
I don't know who made this, but it paints a telling picture. It's a little old and is missing the game modes that are available
Thanks again for stopping by. Let me know what you think of my review. Was it fair? Was it not? I think it is fair to say that I fell prey to nostalgia and pageantry.
