Dead Rising 4 Review - Dreaming of Red Christmas

"Rumors of human trials, psychopaths, illegal human experimentation, abandoned missile sites. How can you say no to this Frank ?  This is our change please!"

Frank West is back for Dead Rising 4, and he is kicking serious butt just in time for Christmas.  This time around Dead Rising puts you in a small town of Willamete, where you must use your journalism skills to uncover a scientific mystery, report your findings/evidence and save the world from another deadly zombie outbreak.  Dead Rising 4 is a fill good button masher mixed with a little over the top drama, challenges to overcome impossible odds, and utilizing your environment to be creative and dominate maniacs that want you dead or zombies that want you for a meal.

What's New?
Capcom nailed Frank's personality, bizarre charm, presentation and story.  Fundamentally, combat has not evolved nor the challenges from the three prior dead rising games.  The biggest change is the removal of the countdown timer which allows you to explore more and have fun without pressure to get everything done in 72 hours deadline.  The reason the developers removed the timer was because this dead rising world is dense and loaded with challenges to encourage you to have fun!  There are endless amounts of survivors to save, blueprints to find, and weapons/vehicles to craft.  A big bonus is you are no longer forced to seek out a workbench to craft your combo weapons or vehicles from the blueprints.  All you need to craft from blueprints are the required materials.

Photography plays more than a tool to level up. Frank's camera has new batman like filters that let you detect hidden clues, use night vision or take selfies. They borrowed the exo-suit from the call of duty series which will give you an advantages in hoards melee fights or maniac boss battles.  There are no longer stronger zombies at night.  They are replace with a fresh infected zombies that come out at all hours and they are faster, smarter and stronger.  You can't throw melee weapons anymore as well.

What's wrong?
If you are familiar with the Dead Rising series, then you know glitches are bound to happen.  Textures pop in and out, frame rates stutter, clipping and collision issues get annoying, new crafted vehicles are undriveable,  and you can fall through levels.  They drop the co-op player mode and replaced the mode with a multi-player mode.  It's good in theory but with glitch issues and lost connections, it can really make the game unplayable.

Overall
I feel Dead Rising always found a way to capture an audience share culture and break down walls of what is expected from a good game.  Instead of zombie outbreak/weapon, the experiments are used to mass produced unskilled labor to do mundane task like farming or manufacturing.   If you're a fan of Dead Rising, then you know what you're getting.  If you not a fan, then you aren't going to find a hidden gem here.  Dead Rising 4 is a care free, have fun, and laid back game with enough content to keep the story paces and side quest to challenge you.  I'm a fan of the series so I give Dead Rising 4 a 8.5/10

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.

Dying Light: The Following - Review and Best Easter Eggs

"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.  If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge in the other."

                ~ Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the Movie

Every zombie inspired game needs to pay ode to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein because she made the legend of re-animated corpses socially acceptable and profitable.  I like to do is be different from the other video game bloggers out there.  In order to do that, I like to provide different content from what else is on the market. Dying Light The Following is one of the recent AAA titles that was release on February 9, 2016 that I had a chance to play.

Review
Overall, Dying Light: The Following is about Kyle Crane following a lead from a member of the Children of the Sun Cult known as the Faceless.  The lead is rumor about domesticate zombies and cult of villagers with an immunity to the zombie virus. With a low reserve on antizin at the base, Kyle goes to the nearby Harran countryside to see if the cult's cure is on the level the dying man said it was.

While searching for the cult, Kyle eventually runs into some needy villagers that want you to do missions for them in order to gain their trust.  Bandits have been raping, killing, and using the low wit villagers for entertainment during the outbreak, so the villagers trust levels are low for outsiders. Trust is big for the locals, and the more they trust you, the more they will help you or reveal information about the Faceless, Mother, and Children of the Sun.

Overall, the goal of Dying Light: The Following is to raise your trust level with the Children of the Sun.  As you gain the villagers and the Faceless trust, you gain new equipment such as a semi-automatic weapons, a dune buggy and a crossbow to assist you in your quest to restore peace and infrastructure to the countryside.  Once you have gained enough trust with the group, you will meet the leader of the cult known as Mother.

Mother will inform you that there was no real cure to the zombie outbreak/military experiment in Harran.  Mother will reveal to you that she was one of the original zombies that has evolved and can use mind control or telepathy on other zombies.  Mother used the pagan Children of the Sun religious beliefs of the villagers to rally them around her cause. In the end, she ask Crane to play God and destroy the world that exist or rebel against her. Either way, Crane must choose between taking away hope in a cure, a future or new beginning for all. Really powerful stuff.

Easter Eggs

While playing I notice a few Easters Eggs that I found quite interesting and I'm sure you will enjoy as well. I think developers tried to show in this expansion that even dwellers of the countryside enjoy and appreciate good movies from time to time.

1. Onur

He references one of the greatest lines in cinema history: The Room 2003

"I did not hit him, it's not true! It's total bullshit! I did not hit him! I did not. Oh hi, Crane"

The Room 2003: 

Johnny to Mark -  "It's not true! I did not hit her! It's bullshit! I did not. Oh, hi,Mark!

2. Harry Potter's Bedroom

Harry Potter's Bedroom can be found under the stairs.  Broom, wizard's hat and glasses included.

3. Lost TV series reference

"Not Lost: Just Exploring"

4. The remains of Indiana Jones

Explore the cave and you will discover the skeleton and whip of the archaeologist Indiana Jones.

5. A Van for Stuffed Turtle: Food & Stuff references the TV show Parks and Recreation

6. The Aftermath of a gang shootout references the No Country for Old Men

7. 15 Rocks can be placed on murals that light up at night.

Once you collect all the stones and bring them back to the room, you will be treated to a cut scene of a two chickens on a stick talking talking crazy to each other in a foreign language.  Eventually you are dropped off in a field and given 5 fission cores as a gift for the aliens night with you lol. 

Here is the link to finding the locations for finding the stones:

7 Days to Die Alpha 13: All Dramatically Improvements and Updates

The release for Alpha 13 is almost near.  The fun pimps spoiled us with an update or new alpha every 5 weeks, so this long wait really is having gamers wondering what have they been doing that could take this long.  Here is a sneak peak of what to expect in 7 Days to Die: Alpha 13.

Hit Points, and Cars, and new Guns

Tracing all of 7 Days to Die 12.5 alphas history of hit points, before, all blocks had 10 hit points and then we used a hardness to say how hard it was. In the end it was really just a bunch of math that made it difficult to balance the game and also made it impossible for us to really display a health bar for blocks. Now each block shows a hit point value as you harvest it, and you can see how effective your tools are and the impact low stamina has on damage too, feedback that was always invisible before. Plus you will get a feeling for what blocks are the strongest in the game because well, stats are awesome.

Cars are now harvest-able. Rather than blowing up you can mine them and get metal. But if you are smart, you will use a wrench and disassemble the car to get all kinds of cool parts, like short metal pipes, springs (now required to make a blunderbuss), cloth, small engines, batteries, radiators and more. You can still loot them too, but the loot isn’t guaranteed like before, since you can harvest them, and now that they aren’t entities (eating collisoin and server cpu).

Speaking of the blunderbuss, its now the most powerful shotgun in the game, followed by the sawed off, and then the long barrel pump. Of course range and reload time make a big difference, but for up close one shots, the blunderbuss is king. Also, a badass home made looking rocket launcher is being introduced in the alpha 13 update. I hope it makes a better impact than the explosive arrows.  All the arrows did was blow holes in the ground and attract the annoying spider zombies that would scream and unleash a flood of zombie hordes.

A welcomed additional feature will be flooded basements! Now, underwater exploration in looting is added as well. Instead of water destroying anything in its path, water only floods over items realistically. Under water exploration could be dangerous though, you never know what you might find.

They added dismemberment of limbs.  You can dynamically cripple enemies by shooting or cutting off a limb in combat.  You can continue to cut pieces off even if they're more dead...well completely dead we are fighting zombies, lol.

Melee will be an worthwhile investment in Alpha 13. Here is the first look of the new machete. Looks like a machete will be useful when dealing with the modifications and animations made to the improved zombies. 

As seen in other games like ARK cold weather survival will present a new challenge. The entire world has a global temperature and then each biome has a modifier, as well as time of day, wind, sunny or cloudy all influence the perceived temperature.

Each clothing item in the game has an insulation value which can be positive or negative. Fire warms you up as well and running raises your core temperature. Running raises your core temperature, drinking coffee warms you up as well.

In order to cope with the cold weather survival system clothing has been upgraded with stats that will play a factor in conducting heat and improving defense.  The starter gear will be the same plant fiber armor we have seen in prior games.

Here is a look at the new leather duster coat. I’m really excited about the new coats and armors. Shown here is the leather armor, denim pants, leather duster, cowboy hat and a blue plaid shirt.

Abandon houses are redesigned and serve as a better survivalist haven than in prior alphas. Abandon houses won’t have any zombies near them, but hardly any loot either, and far from secure. But if your cold and desperate and willing to put some elbow grease into it, it might make a place you can stay at for a night or two. 

You can upgrade everything: floors, doors, walls and window to the steel level.  On the right side of the screen you will see the upgrade cost and materials needed for upgrading. You can take an dilapidated home and upgrade it to something livable or a complete steel fallout shelter.

Other cool new additions are garbage piles make random noises when you walk over them.  It doesn't seem interesting now, but when you are exploring and a zombie is trying to sneak up on you...that random noise will be very useful to you.

Call of Duty Black Ops 3

"We're on a off the books mission in pursuit of a high profile target when all hell breaks lose.  As in case of most call of duties, if you want to succeed, then you have to get your hands dirty.  This is the story of Call of Duty Black Ops 3.

Mark Lamia 

The presentation for Call of Duty Black Ops 3 focused on the multiplayer feature . I know I personally enjoy being online playing against players of all ages backgrounds and beliefs from around the world to complete a mission.  

Call of Duty Black Ops 3 takes place in Cairo, Egypt in 2065.  A lot of emphasis was put on improvements to the games fluidity and coop functions.  Activision promised the the social networking experience of multiplayer will be integrated into the campaign much like the experience we had Titanfall.

Call of Duty Black Ops 3 will feature a single player campaign with the option to multiplayer coop, zombie outbreak mode, and the multiplayer mode. Players selecting the right weapons at the beginning will determine success and survival in the war.

The release date for Call of Duty Black Ops 3 is 11/6/2015.