Dying Light Initial Thoughts

Welcome to LittleWatt Gameplay. Several weeks ago I was asked what game I had played that with the best story. I believe my response was something to similar to “I don’t know that I have ever played a game with a story or storyline. I mean where is the story in Madden Football or Gran Turismo? There isn’t one. And I suppose games like Metal Gear Solid and Tomb Raider 1, 2, 3, had some story to it but not much. And I’m certain Resistance: Fall of Man had a story but I wasn’t interested in doing anything in that game other than shoot the chimera and get to the end.

I recently finished DOOM (the 2016 release) and found it had a fairly decent story in it even if it was easily glossed over or dismissed altogether. The story had to be read, which easily slowed the game down from its balls-to-the-wall gameplay. Who wants to slow down to read anyway? It would be easy for me to argue DOOM had the best story in any game I’ve ever played.

But that isn’t true anymore. Although, I’ve put several hours into Dying Light, I’m still only fifteen percent finished with the game. Now I’m not certain if all the side missions are included in the game completion percentage, and if they aren’t, then the game will move along quickly as I’ve only done a few main story missions. Compare that to seven or eight side missions or quests. Hell, I’ve even done a scene for a movie with some film director whose camera I tracked down during a side mission. And I have to say splattering forty zombies with a double barrel shotgun in under two minutes (I think) was great fun (I had forty-four seconds remaining).

Even though all that zombie killing is great fun, and gets even better once the player levels up and the weapons can be modified into serious zombie destroying tools, the story behind the game is equally good. There are some real-life politics and stereotyping in the game. Some high drama and backstabbing. And the commentary of the main character is wonderfully clever and witty. And the thing is, all the quests or side-missions are key into unravelling the entire story.

Initially, I found the controls to be complicated and not well thought out. But I was also coming off hours and hours of DOOM where all the controls had become second nature, and they were also fairly standard controls. But now that I’ve put more hours into Dying Light the controls are easily to handle and don’t feel nearly as cumbersome. (And with the acquisition with the grappling hook everything thing has become just a bit easier—you’ll need to be survivor level twelve to receive the grappling hook.)

During the night missions, stealth plays a major factor in succeeding. Again with the grappling hook night missions will become far easier. During my first night mission, I was killed in short order but have successfully survived the night four times without even being noticed. Still, the stress level goes up quite a bit during the night, armed with the massively destructive double-barrel shotgun or not. (All those hours spent looting, accomplishing side missions, stealing airdrops from thieves, unlocking all the safe houses,and killing zombies will level you up quick enough to get specialty weapons. But you can craft one of the best weapons in the game right away—the Molotov cocktails. These bottles of flaming liquid will dispatch nearly all enemies, and multiple enemies, with little to no effort. One Molotov is good for a least six dead zombies all at once so long as they are grouped together. Nothing works as efficiently.

Dying Light is a must play game for anyone interested in first-person, zombie, horror, or survival games. And it has a wonderful story to boot.

DOOM Review

Welcome to LittleWatt Gameplay. I've now completed my first game since I began this blog. So that means it's time to write my first review. The review will be scaled from zero to ten in several categories. Here's some history of DOOM. 

I line up the shot!

DOOM, a first-person shooter, was first released on December 10, 1993 by id Software. Although it wasn't the first, first-person shooter it did remake the genre with heavy violence and gore and 3D graphics to IBM-compatible computers. Do you all remember IBM-compatible computers? DOOM II: Hell on Earth was released in 1994, which was followed by addition releases from that same engine, and Final DOOM released in 1996. In 1997 DOOM 64 would be released followed by a several year hiatus. In 2004 a prequel of the first DOOM as released but with all new technology. All of the previous versions of DOOM would have secondary releases except Final DOOM. There are books, comics books, and a movie based on DOOM. All in all, a successful institution. 

The newest version of the game, titled DOOM, was released on May 13, 2016. And that is what this review will be covering. I haven't played many first-person shooters so I won't have much history to compare DOOM and other games in the genre. This review is based on the PlayStation 4 version. 

I'll be rating the game in different categories with a scale from 1 to 10. 

Fun Factor: wow this game was a hoot. It moved quickly and the interest stayed up. And I stayed up late many nights playing the game. That being said, I'm scoring DOOM an 8 of 10. 

Replay Factor: I often returned to previous missions to complete missed challenges, work on weapon mastery, or discover missed secrets. I found myself enjoying the game as much when I repeated a level as I did when I first played the level. I mean pulling a demon’s arms off under the influence of the Berserk power up or hacking a demon in half with a chainsaw never gets old. Again an 8 of 10. 

Story Factor: I found rating this a bit more difficult. The story in DOOM is there and it's a good story. But the story isn't easy to follow with the multiple ways it unfolds. At times there was the magnificent demon voice narrating a story during the trips to hell. Other times Samuel Hayden told a story. But most of the story was developed with the Data Logs, which could easily be glossed over or ignored altogether. Understandably, DOOM is designed for high RPM fun and too much story would lug the engine, but at the same time I felt like the story needed to be more forced. Certainly the artifacts picked up in hell don't take away from the energy of the game. A similar design needed to be employed for the rest of the story. Say, for instance, Olivia tells the story of the demons and Hayden discusses Mars and the work done on Mars. For story factor DOOM receives a 6 of 10. 

Imagery Factor: I considered breaking this category into several but chose against it since this category is rather subjective. Sure there are obvious differences in last generation console and current generation, and even current generation compared to PC games. So I felt it best to keep concepts like graphics and images and real life modeling and soundtrack in one category. For DOOM, the imagery factor is high—8 of 10. The soundtrack was perfect, high octane and aggressive, which fit exactly with DOOM. There are several sections in the game where the imagery was so life-like it can easily be passed off as real. The smoke and fire and explosive barrels are all images that appear real not game. And I could easily peruse my gameplay videos and literally take hundreds of incredible stills. Other things like Samuel Hayden's size was subtle imagery. And Olivia’s degradation in the game as she slowly fails to accomplish her promises. And several of the gruesome images in the game tell a subtle story. One of which we would expect when dealing with demons and hell. 

Overall Factor: This is an accumulation of all the category ratings added together with category totals and averaged out. DOOM gets an above average score with a 7.5 of 10. 

Last Minute Gripes: I didn't include this in the main review because it didn't play a significant enough part to be included. Although the game never locked up on me, it did have a glitch or bug or something in one level where the mission challenges weren't being recorded. This forced me to complete the mission and restart. Ultimately this didn't have a detrimental impact on my game goals and was only a minimal annoyance. 

DOOM Playlist

This is where you can find all my DOOM gameplay videos posted to YouTube. I've learned through trial and error and still have some tweaking before I like where I'm at with the videos. Please stay patient with me as I am learning the craft. Some of the videos are repeats as I moved up from the PS4 video capture to a capture device. I redid the second and third video in the series and renamed them with "episode" instead of "part." All the videos with now be titled with "episode" from now on.

Thanks for watching and for the support.

DOOM PLAYLIST

Gaming History

Welcome back to LittleWatt Gameplay. I thought I would share a little gaming history. And hopefully you'll respond with a little gaming history of yourself too. 

Although, I can't pinpoint exactly the first video game I played, I believe it was either Missile Control or Space Invaders, I can recall what system I played on. It was a Commodore 64.  

After the Commodore 64 came the Atari. With games like Pac-Man and Q-bert and Asteroids. One button and one control stick. The games were so simple back then and I managed to find hours of entertainment. Now it takes an hour just to figure out all the controls and buttons. 

I continued to improve consoles as they came out. The Super NES was one the entire family enjoyed with classics as Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt to Tecmo Bowl and Mike Tyson’s Punch-out. I branched off and also bought a Sega Genesis. Sonic and Madden Football being favorites. I eventually upgraded my Sega with the 32-bit spaceship thingy. Not sure it did anything but look like it did something. 

Of course the major change came with the PlayStation. It was a huge event and major leap in gaming. Black CDs and game storage. Of course Crash Bandicoot and the Tomb Raider games. Madden Football was only to get bigger and bigger. Let's not forget Metal Gear Solid. It was one of the Tomb Raider games I participated in a co-op mode of sorts. I shared time playing the game with my sister. She did most of the work; I only relieved her when she got stuck and frustrated. 

With the PS2 I shifted (pun intended) away from platform and puzzle games to racing simulation and racing games and football, both Madden and NCAA Football. But not all racing games or all football games. I didn't branch out beyond the Gran Turismo series for simulators and I stayed with Need for Speed: Most Wanted. I simply didn't enjoy other racing games. And, admit it, Madden football has been the go-to football game. But way more than half of my game time was in Gran Turismo, and when GT4 came out, I spent hours upon hours racing. I completed all the races, some dozens of times, and all the side events. And to this day, I think GT4 was the best game in the series for putting time behind the wheel, which is something I have—a racing wheel. GT4 had the most laps and most races out of the box in the series. And if I had to pick what game I would love remastered for the PS4 it would be Gran Turismo 4. And racing is still a major part of my game time. 

As for NFS: Most Wanted, I enjoyed the shit out of that game. I restarted the campaign over and over again. And I even co-oped a campaign with my little brother. He didn't have the racing skill so he did all the cop chases and I did all the races. And even though it was arcady racing there was a proper racing line and my hours playing GT3 and GT4 helped finding those lines. Unfortunately, the NFS series has yet to match the entertainment of the first Most Wanted. 

When the PS3 came out, Gran Turismo 5 was a long wait, and that's when I returned to first-person shooter games with the iconic Resistance: Fall of Man as well as the uber-fun Motorstorm. But, I continued racing GT4 on the PS2, and once EA worked out all their Madden issues for the new PS3, I stuck with football. 

Gran Turismo 5 was a big disappointment for me with the overall lack of laps and races available within the game. Everything was pushed to online play, which is something I don't do. I completed one race online, and just as I was making my move out of the slipstream, the racer in front slammed on his brakes and wrecked me. He refused to lose, and I refused to race against other humans again. And I still don't. 

On to the PS4. I had the console for a year before, I actually bought a game for it. The console came with The Last of Us, a game I still haven't played. Slowly I added games to my library, hoping Gran Turismo would be out, but here it is 2016, and no game yet. 

Still, I collected games for the PS4 only to return to the PS3 again and again. What finally grabbed me was MLB The Show 15, a game I've put hours into. I played MVP Baseball years before and enjoyed it, but football was my game so it fizzled away. And MLB The Show has also slipped away with bug-filled MLB The Show 16. 

But, things have picked up with the PS4 now. I spend lots of time on DOOM, and am anxious to start playing Dying Light, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, The Last of Us, and the Uncharted series. 

So, that's where I'm at now. I intend on building a gaming PC to add to my PS4. And hopefully building my YouTube gameplay channel. Do me a favor and look me up on YouTube. Here's my latest video:

How about you? 

DOOM Guy Challenge

Welcome back to LittleWatt Gaming. 

In an effort to accomplish a couple of goals this month, I'm creating a challenge. One of the goals is to build up my YouTube channel and the other goal is to become more healthy physically. So here's the challenge:

For every like I receive on my DOOM gameplay videos I add a minute to my daily exercise, which now stands at twenty minutes. For every comment on the video, I'll add ninety seconds, and for every share, I'll add three minutes. For each new subscriber, I'll add five minutes. 

Obviously, I'm not going to rely on these little perks to become more physically fit, but it'll add some encouragement to me personally to see others interested in my videos. 

I'll be willing to try suggested workouts from any comments left on the video posts. 

I'm going to tag this as #doomguychallenge. 

DOOM Intro

This is my first ever game capture video. And I'll admit it was harder than I thought. I'm not much into to talking, especially by myself and basically to myself. I find it easier to talk when someone is asking me a question. I had been a guest on a couple radio shows previously and I don't recall be nervous or self-conscious during those interviews. But for whatever reason I was both of those for this gameplay recording. I'm hoping it'll get better as I finish more videos. 

Anyway, on to DOOM Part 1. This is a basic intro to the game. You get a weapon and fight some demons. Find a new weapon and fight new demons along with the old demons. Some of the story is also coming out during the first video. 

Thanks for watching and please hit the Like button. 

If there is anything you would like me to talk about during the gameplay, leave the suggestion in the comments section.