Overfall - Something New

Do you like RPG's and strategy games? Do you like vikings and fighting?  Do you like sailing and exploring an open world?  Do you like negotiating and diplomacy?  Well, I have an underdog hit that you may like called Overfall.

Indie game brought to life with your help and Kickstarter
I remember Overfall because developers had a fund raiser for the game's development nearly a year ago. 1,430 backers pledged $67,768 to help bring this project to life.  Now, Overfall is nearly finished, and it is a dream come true thanks you fans.

What is Overfall?
Overfall is available for early access on Steam, but it will be fully released on March 1, 2016.  In Overfall, you are the captain of your own ship and can explore the shifting seas of a strange realm. Fight challenging foes…or befriend them. Recruit lost souls and learn their histories. Take part in stories of the absurd and the tragic, the magical and the mundane - intimate, epic, and never the same twice in this fantastic strategy role-playing game!

Why is Overfall unique?
The most exciting aspects of the game is it use of teamwork with the fighting system and the storytelling.  Developers stated "one of the main strengths of Overfall comes from the stories you encounter during a playthrough, an island-to-island experience where you don’t just sail around trying to save the world - you can just as easily encounter a charming stand-alone story or a self-contained quest progression. The more of these encounters we have, the richer and more fun the overall experience will be. We wanted these encounters to be perfect, and to achieve that, we started searching for ways to improve our storytelling."

What is separates the writing from other RPGs?

Developers said "Game Writing Style Guide, which would explain the basics of creating a story in Overfall, give some ideas on how to write a good story, and outline Overfall’s writing style with a couple of examples. And we already were in touch with the best person for writing this kind of guide, not only because he’s a great writer with worlds of experience, but also because he’s great mentor material.

Combat and progression
Overfall is similar to Xcom with its combat strategy movement system.  You have to move a limited amount of spaces, and select your attack or buff to progress the battle.  It's unique because team work is everything.  You can't put faith or level up one character to accomplish everything.  You have to use one character in support, and use a stronger character to support. It's one of the few RPG's in a while to make you think about choices because enemies will gang up on you in order to end your game.

Barter and Trade
You also have to barter, trade, and maintain an inventory of supplies that will determine if you have the ability to explore and enter combat.  Deciding between restoring your health, upgrading weapons or ships will be key to surviving.  Dust is a drug and currency that you use to barter.  Dust is a magical ingredient which causes some to become addicted to it.  It can be used to upgrade utility skills at guild ships.  Also, can be used to alter movement speed of the ship for a short period of time by pressing SPACE key, this process stacks up 3 times and fades slowly.  I wonder if dust can be exploit later to those who are addicts?

Overall on Overfall
It's definitely worth a playthrough.  Right now it's still a beta version.  When the game is released on March 1, 2016 in its full version, it will be priced at $9.99 to $19.99.  It's not on the level with final fantasy graphics, but it gets the job done and tells a good story.  I enjoyed being one of the fans that help support this project, and I encourage you all to play Overfall as well.

Can The Division Overcome the Disappointment of Destiny?

For those of you who played Destiny 1.0 you are a sucker for hype, lol. Bungie owned up to their mistake and tried to fix their lack delivery of quality gameplay in Destiny 2.0: The Taken King expansion. When you look at what Destiny had to offer, the true question is what went wrong and what can The Division do right to avoid the same mistake?

Destiny's greatest mistake was its ambition. Destiny was a combination of first-person shooter, RPG, open-world, co-op, competitive and MMO-lite genres into a single package, but the sum of its parts didn't rise up to the challenge of over-hyped gameplay it advertised.

Looks like Ubisoft has paid attention to detail and noted the complaints raised against Destiny and integrated solutions to resolve what it’s advertising for The Division. Let's compare and contrast Destiny with The Division.

Destiny’s game world is a series of playable interconnected fauxpen-world hubs with required inefficient two-step travel to reach: to orbit, then to the next location, even if it’s on the same planet. This means that Destiny players are tolerating multiple loading screens just to get to where they want to play.

By comparison The Division has an enormous open world that allows players to seamlessly switch between solo play, cooperative antics and competitive multiplayer, without two-step travel and without loading screens.

There are specific safe spaces where you can run into random players or your buddies and co-op to tame the dystopia of a post-pandemic New York City. It’s resembles the Tower from Destiny, except there’s no situations of dragging everyone back to orbit before going into a properly playable space.

The Division has a selection of emotes, just like Destiny, which range from options such as star-jump, to wave and surrender emotes. Also, players can use proximity VOIP, so you use your microphone to communicate with anyone in close proximity to your playable character. It creates a practical impact in terms of inviting other players to join you, or warning them about hostile territory ahead, it’s also a tactical tool that means you can hear chatty and potentially hostile players in the Dark Zone, and get the drop on them.

The Dark Zone is rumored to be the best-integrated player-versus-player-versus-environment (PvPvE) space, to date. Halo 5’s PvPvE Warzone mode recently had a crack at the mode-straddling space, but fell short mostly thanks to the pay-to-win feel of the REQ system, particularly as it relates to the RNG approach to scoring meaningful vehicle drops.

The Division combines the PvE looting of Destiny’s formula, with the PvP idea of Crucible, except that you don’t have to engage other players, if you don’t want to. In fact, like playing a Raid in Destiny, it’s smarter to team up and work with up to three other players to take down the AI-controlled enemies in the space. Then again, given that these supporting players may turn on you at any point in the Dark Zone, you’ll never be sure of who you can and trust, or for how long they can be trusted if you choose to work with them.

Unlike Destiny and your average RPG, The Division doesn’t force players to pick and stick to a predefined class, with all of the pros and cons that this implies. While players in The Division can specialize in terms of three roles that can be broken down into damage-dealer, damage-taker or healer, players are also free to mix and match abilities (and the gear that complements a particular play style) on the fly.

The Division’s game world isn’t your usual post-apocalyptic space, either, with the developer pledging that players will feel that they’ve made an impact on winning back New York City at the end of the campaign. Players will actually be able to see tangible evidence of their impact on the game world, even if it’s only limited to the base of operation and particular NPC/wildlife encounters, instead of the Destiny-like approach to a game world where absolutely everything resets. Completing a mission from the trio of story threads in The Division lets players unlock a specific station in one of three wings in their base of operation that leads to the unlocking of a new ability in the associated medical, tech or security tree.

There’s a greater relationship between narrative and abilities, it also means that the solo player will be able to visit their base of operation and see the fruits of their labor in civilizing New York City. At the end of the original Destiny campaign, regardless of class, you were given the same weapon and felt as though you’d achieved a whole lot of nothing in terms of the grander narrative.

In conclusion, The Division will deliver what it PROMISED!