Launch Station: Rayman Legends

The time has come.  After close to a year of waiting, Rayman Legends is finally on store shelves.  It has been a long and tumultuous road of delays, loss of exclusivity and many other crazy circumstances.  While this writer is baffled about how horrible Ubisoft handles one of their premier franchises, it is relieving to finally get our hands on a game that should have been out six months ago.  Rayman may not be a sales powerhouse like Assassin's Creed; this limbless hero is easily taking the platforming world by storm thanks to polished gameplay, excellent controls and beautiful hand-drawn graphics.

After sleeping for a century, Rayman and friends are awoken to world far less pleasant than they left it at the end of Rayman Origins.  The Bubble Dreamer's nightmares along with the dark teensies have grown in strength and kidnapped the princesses of the land and the peaceful teensie people.  It is up to Rayman and friends to stop the nightmares and dark teensies from corrupting the Glade of Dreams.  Rayman Legends improves on the platforming gameplay of Rayman Origins as running, jumping, collecting lums and saving teensies are the name of the game.  Just like its predecessor, Legends allows up to four players to participate in these levels.  Note that this co-operative multiplayer is only available locally.  Apart from the standard platforming fair, Legends offers brand new levels where you take control of Murfy the fairy.  As Murfy, players interact with the environment to assist Rayman and friends such as cutting ropes, activating switches or distracting enemies.  On the Vita and Wii U, players control Murfy with the touch controls on the Wii U's Gamepad or the Vita's touch screen.  While on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, Murfy is controlled by a button press.  Rayman Legends includes 80 brand new levels and 40 remastered levels from Rayman Origins along with remixed versions of each level available upon completion of the game.  While Rayman Legends offers a ton of content for its single-player component, it offers a robust online component as well.  The online Challenge mode offers challenges for players to complete in order to earn trophies and rise through the leaderboards.  There are new challenges offered everyday to keep gamers coming back each day to post their best times and distances.

Rayman Legends has been a high anticipated game for yours truly.  It was the game this writer bought a Wii U just to play.  While the delays and other obstacles Ubisoft threw at us were disheartening, those actions will not deter my enjoyment of Rayman Legends.  The men and women at Ubisoft's Montpellier studio put their hearts and souls into this game and for them this writer puts down his money in support.  While Diablo III and Grand Theft Auto V may suck up a ton of money this September, let us show Ubisoft that Rayman and Ubsioft Montpellier deserve a lot more respect than they give them.  The only way to make this change is to talk with your money and pick up Rayman Legends for your console or handheld of choice.

First Byte: Xbox One

It has been well over a year since the first and funny enough last edition of First Byte.  Originally starting out as a reoccurring demo impressions article, it is time to evolve First Byte.  It is hard to keep demo impressions coming at a steady pace when you do not play many demos.  Now First Byte will be a first impressions article.  No need to wait for demos, it will cover my first impressions on a game, console or anything video game related.  What a better way to kick off the new direction of First Byte by giving my first impressions on the recently revealed Xbox One, Microsoft’s next generation gaming machine.  There has been a full week of news about the Xbox One so everybody and their mother has an opinion on the third Xbox console.  Without any further ado, let us get down to business.

To get right to the point, Microsoft has not made many happy with the reveal of the Xbox One, this writer included.  The reveal was an absolute mess, but the news that has come out over the past week has not given many a positive outlook over the system.  This negative buzz surrounding the Xbox One has come from Microsoft’s plans for online, new games and used games (three things Microsoft conviently did not touch on during the Xbox One reveal).  First, the Xbox One will not require you to be connected to the Internet at all times.  The one exception being that you have to connect to the Internet at least once a day.  If you do not have an Internet connection whatsoever or your Internet goes down for a day, you cannot use the Xbox One at all.  So Microsoft stays away from the negative connotations of the "Always On" buzz word, but still finds to screw the consumer.  Not everybody has access to or the money to afford the Internet, but they may be able to buy a game system.  While Microsoft has found a way around repeating the same always-online disasters that were Diablo III and SimCity, they are extremely limiting the appeal of the Xbox One with this strategy for online.  Second, new games will require a one-time activation and mandatory installation to the hard drive.  Once the activation has been used, you must buy another activation to use the game on another Xbox One.  No longer can you share games with your friends or use game rental services such as GameFly with the Xbox One.  What a great way to undermine one of the many reasons that people buy home consoles and destroy the camaraderie and free advertisement built from sharing games with others.  Right now, you may be thinking that this activation with new games will kill used games on the Xbox One.  Well that thought leads right into the last point.  Microsoft is working with certain retailers to create a new used game market.  You will be able to trade in used games at the retailers that Microsoft specifies at a later date.  Microsoft and the publishers will be getting a cut of the used sales from these retailers.  The whole debate surrounding the used game market has been well documented.  Personally, I believe that the sharing of new and used revenue between publishers and companies such as Gamestop should have happened years ago.  While this partnership is a step in the right direction, it will be interesting to see how it will impact the amount of trade-in credit a customer receives or the price of used Xbox One games. 

Microsoft can put in all the cool multimedia features, push Kinect as an integral part of the system and create an all-in-one entertainment suite, but the fact of the matter is the Xbox One is first and foremost a video game console.  People do not want all these other features; they just want to play games without any interruption or unnecessary badgering from the manufacturers and publishers.  The Xbox One is the culmination of Microsoft's new direction.  This new direction may seem like an excellent idea in Microsoft's world.  In actuality, it is the complete and utter opposite.  At this point in time, Xbox One looks to be a major step in the wrong direction for the industry.  Instead of finding a happy medium between pleasing both the game publishers and consumers, Microsoft looks to be creating a machine that completely alienates their consumers in favour of appeasing the giant third-party publishers such as Activision, EA and Ubisoft.  It is hard to tell if the Xbox One will be Microsoft's downfall only a week after the reveal, but this system will definitely have an uphill battle in the months and years ahead.

Hump Day Video: Newsroom

If you have been following this blog for a while now, you probably noticed I really like Screwattack.  It is one of my favourite video game site on the World Wide Web and I enjoy everything this group of gamers does.  Yesterday, Screwattack launched a new monthly show by the name of Newsroom.  In Newsroom, Screwattack news editors Jared and Lauren perform a little skit on a big news story in the gaming industry.  The first episode was on the 40 second wait gamers have to "endure" to connect to Blizzard's servers for Diablo III and the disdain of most gamers.  This skit has Jared complaining to Lauren about waiting these supposedly long 40 seconds and Error 37.  After complaining to Lauren for the entire 40 second wait and receiving Error 37, Jared comes to the conclusion of complaining on the Internet.  The result seeing Jared immediately banned from the online forum.  Newsroom lasts under 2 minutes, but provides tons of laughs for any gamer.  We will have to wait until next month to see what news story Jared and Lauren parody next.  While you wait, watch the first episode a few times.

Launch Station: Max Payne 3

Diablo III is not the only big game to release today.  The long delayed Max Payne 3 from Rockstar Games has finally hit store shelves after a few years of anticipation.  While Max Payne 3 is at a big disadvantage of being overlooked by most gamers due to the huge game it has to go up against, the Rockstar name and the legacy of the first two games will keep it from getting completely destroyed by Diablo III.

The years have not been kind to former NYPD turned vigilante, Max Payne.  His life is in the dumps and seems to have no where left to go.  Then Max gets called up by an old friend for a job working as private security for the wealthy Rodrigo Bronco in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Max takes the job in hope of escaping his troubled life in New York City.  Sadly trouble seems to find Max wherever he goes as he gets pulled into a conspiracy involving the warring Sao Paulo street gangs.   Max Payne 3 features some improvements to the series' core run-and-gun gameplay.  The new over the shoulder zoom and cover mechanics help Max Payne 3 compete with current third-person shooters.  Max Payne 3's main selling point is the return of Bullet Time, which allows you to slow down time in order to dodge incoming bullets and return fire to foes.  If Max has one painkiller on him when wounded, you can activate Last Man Standing.  In Last Man Standing, if you are able to kill the enemy that delivered the wounding shot, you will recover enough health to keep on going.  Max Payne 3 features a new version of Rockstar's Euphoria physics engine, which makes shooting and killing enemies more realistic than in any other Rockstar game.  Another new feature found in Max Payne 3 is the cinematic action movements, interactive cutscenes that seamlessly transition into continuing gameplay.  New to the Max Payne series is a full-on multi-player mode that offers maps the dynamically change during the match, rewards, ranking, clan support and Rockstar social club integration.

Have never got a chance to play any of the previous entries in the Max Payne series, so I am not that interested in Max Payne 3.  Honestly, I am a little more interested in Max Payne 3 than Diablo III only because I like Rockstar a little more than Blizzard.  Other than that I could care less for Max Payne 3 as I am not going to pick it up anytime soon.  If anybody is looking for a good third-person shooter, Max Payne 3 will definitely fill that void.

Launch Station: Diablo III

There has no game that I can possibly think of that has been as highly anticipated as Diablo III.  Starcraft II comes to mind, but I personally believe Diablo III's anticipation trumps that of Blizzard's other franchises, Starcarft and Warcraft.  Some gamers have waited 12 long years for this one game that May 15th will be a significant date in their gaming lives.  It is not hard to imagine stores crowded and servers pushed to capacity as millions of gamers looking to play Diablo III.

Two decades after the events of Diablo II, a fiery harbinger of doom strikes the very ground where Diablo once entered the world of Sanctuary.  This fiery harbinger from the sky reawakens the ancient evils of the Prime Evils.  As a hero of the Sanctuary, you are called upon to defend humanity against the army of the Burning Hells once again.  At the beginning of the game, you are able to create your hero from five different classes.  These classes that you can choose from are witch doctor, barbarian, wizard, monk and demon hunter.  At Diablo's core, it is a dungeon crawler in the truest forms.  You accept quests, complete randomly generated levels, battle monsters and collect tons of loot.  With 12 years since Diablo II, Blizzard has had a lot of time to add new features to Diablo in its' third entry.  Some of these new features are destructible environments, in-game damage effects, the ability to pick up gold and loot by just touching it, replacing the potion bar with a skill bar, having enemies drop health orbs to replenish your health and skill runes.   There are two big new features in Diablo III that might possibly rub certain gamers the wrong way.  First is that Diablo III requires players to be constantly connected to the internet in order to play, even in single-player.  The second feature is the Auction House, which allows players to auction in-game items for real money.  Also Diablo III features co-op play and player vs. player battles with up to six players.

I can see why gamers love Diablo.  Blizzard created a game in which gamers could lose themselves in for thousands of hours, finding new encounters with enemies or new pieces of loot around every corner.  It is engaging, extremely gratifying and has an incredible amount of polish.  Personally I have never cared for anything Blizzard has developed.  I tried Starcraft, Starcraft II and Warcraft III.  After playing them, I found that Blizzard games just don't interest me or even appeal to me as a gamer.  Other than a few games here and there, I have never really been that big into PC gaming.  Sure, there are certain games like Dragon Age that I will only play on the PC, but I am not what you call a hardcore PC gamer.  Never been into upgrading my computer every couple of months.  While I might not care for Diablo III, there are certainly millions of gamers out there than do and have already bought the game and have been playing for the past day.  For those on the edge, give Diablo II a try or wait until Blizzard releases a demo for the game or see some reviews of the game.