‘Nioh 2’ takes the hardcore action RPG to new heights
by Ben Sapet
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by Ben Sapet
by Nick Black Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is an odd, but compelling, sub-series in the Pokémon franchise. The idea of humans never existing and Pokémon having to evolve, both in the natural and the philosophical sense, has always been a cool concept. Despite this, my only experience with the franchise was on the 3DS with Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity. I don’t remember hating it—in fact, I really enjoyed it—but I remember getting bored very quickly. On the other hand, I was 13 years old back then and I thought the First Pokémon movie was really good cinema…so, my memory is near perfect. But when it was announced (and pretty randomly I might add) that they were going to do a remaster of the original Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, I must say I was curious. At first, I actually had high hopes; no one does re-releases quite like Nintendo, since they're usually packed with extra content like with Hyrule Warriors or Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. However, this is also The Pokémon Company, AKA the lazy backbone of the Nintendo Corporation. I hadn’t forgotten about Pokémon Sun and Moon re-releases being nearly the same exact games as beforehand, as well as the fact that storing Pokémon on my Switch is now somehow more expensive than my Switch Online membership. So, my expectation was a little bit mixed going in. However, this is Nintendo, and even when their lazy part does something right, they do it really, really right!
The Cardinal Esports League of Legends team took on Northern Illinois University (NIU) for their college tournament series on Feb. 22 in the Unified Media Advertising and Creative Suite. Cardinal Esports went into the match with a 4-0 record, but ended up finally breaking their winning streak after losing 0-2 to NIU. Photos By: Adele Reich [ngg src="galleries" ids="36" display="basic_thumbnail" thumbnail_crop="0"]
by Nick Black Remember when the Wii U came out and Ubisoft made a big deal out of its exclusive game, ZOMBIU? The game was remembered fondly for its death system, environment, and even characters and story… but also made fun of and torn apart by critics because of how bad the forced Wii U motion control and menu system interface was. It hosted systems that screwed with gameplay and the ability to make quick decisions. Now, also remember that this game, 4 years ago, was remastered for both Xbox systems and Steam and re-titled ZOMBI. It took all of those garbage motion controls out for a smoother, simpler first-person survival horror game. Remember all that? Probably not, no one bought a Wii U anyway. Now, imagine that a game came along on another new generation’s form of interactive gameplay, that not only is zombie-survival-based, but is almost completely the same game as beforehand but with less creativity, and attached to a franchise who refused to stay dead after jumping the shark. Well, imagine no more my friends, for it exists. And its name is The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners.
By Blake Chapman The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte’s editorial board. Since the current generation of video games stepped onto the scene back in 2013, we have witnessed some of the most spectacular moments ever before in gaming. Within this last decade, video games have grown from a niche genre in the scope of the entertainment industry to a powerhouse of influence and economics dominating the global market. Money is not the only factor of notable importance though. When looking back on this generation, it is the ability that games have to connect across differences that excites me the most. Esports and its professional players have garnered as much respect and notoriety as traditional sports teams and athletes. Games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Disco Elysium, and even the Quantic Dream collection have redefined storytelling in an interactive space. Arguably, the most impressive aspect of the last ten years of gaming is the range of artistic expression only possible in a virtual landscape. The rise of indie culture has offered some of the most beautiful games ever conceived. Along with beautiful graphics, you have experiences that become more personal and emotional the deeper you dive in. Undertale, Cuphead, and Life is Strange are just a few games that are like this. https://youtu.be/AURVxvIZrmU However, not a single year goes by that controversy is absent from the headlines of gaming media. Now that 2019 has come to an end, it seems that we will be discussing the discourse of that year far into the future. Between the abandonment of EA’s newest live service ‘Anthem,' Blizzard’s abhorrent reaction to community dialogue about the Hong Kong protests, all the debates surrounding the gameplay of Hideo Kojima’s ‘Death Stranding,' and online personalities’ fall from grace like Projared; there are a ton of topics to cover and debate. One confrontation that happened throughout 2019 reminded me how fragile the gaming community is and how close it can get to caving in on itself. The online strife surrounding Gamefreak’s development of ‘Pokemon Sword and Shield’ drove gamers to turn their scorn and dissatisfaction against each other. When the dust settled, their rage had evaporated and everyone decided to just deal with the end product instead of working toward legitimate change. The lack of proper care on Gamefreak’s part was the biggest disappointment in gaming for 2019 and caused this longtime Pokemon fan to reconsider my affinity to the franchise.
by Tanner Kinney It’s often tough judging Wii U games, particularly ones released toward the latter end of the console’s life. These titles, despite relative critical acclaim, were ultimately left in the dust. Titles like Xenoblade Chronicles X are genuinely wonderful and make great use of the Wii U’s gimmicks, particularly its bulky-but-comfy Gamepad, but being on the Wii U is both a blessing and a curse. A good Wii U game is a rare breed, considering how few great games were released for the console. So, there’s always the chance that a mediocre title on this system looks better because options are so limited. As a big fan of RPGs (Role-playing games), the Wii U was lacking in some of the better RPGs that released during its lifetime. But it did have Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, a game released by Atlus in the final year of the Wii U. I remember fondly finishing the game twice; it was a wonderful time and one of my favorite Wii U games. In the Nintendo Switch rerelease, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, the game has hardly changed, which in itself isn’t such a bad thing. In a market full of incredible JRPGs, though, this isn’t a game I’m going to have on replay.
by Blake Chapman A member of /r/StreetFighter reverse engineered a solution to Street Fighter V’s 4-year-old netcode issue in two days. The modder, who goes by ‘Altimor’ on Reddit, posted the fix on January 9 to /r/StreetFighter with a download link along with source code and instructions. They cite the bugs of Street Fighter V’s online mode along with Capcom’s negligence as the key reasons behind coming up with a solution. Other players are not required to have the solution downloaded, but it is still possible for one-sided rollback to occur on their end if they do not have it. Fighting game netcode was not something that Altimor had previously encountered while modding. “It was a bit harder than most UE4 [Unreal Engine 4] games. Street Fighter V uses an entirely custom networking solution, so the UE4 source code didn’t help me,” said Altimor in a Reddit direct message. Ever since launch, the latest iteration in the Street Fighter franchise has been plagued with issues stemming primarily from online play. Even when two player’s games are synced, the game loop, which includes everything from controller inputs to character animations, can lag behind. This issue is compounded when a packet of frames is transported between players, and inputs up to 15 frames or a quarter of a second late can cause artificial lag. While this occurs for one player, the other continues the match like nothing ever happened. Reaction from the fighting game community has been mostly positive—the original post on /r/StreetFighter has close to 3,000 upvotes and a repost on /r/Games has over 6,000. However, the program is only available for PC, and if downloaded, can seal off the Playstation 4 players from crossplay. Rest assured, Altimor does have a patch in the works. As for Capcom, they are aware of the newfound solution and Street Fighter Executive Producer Yoshinori Ono took to Twitter stating, “I’ll try hard to win back your trust.”
by Emily Worrell We’ve finally arrived at the day we all knew would come: It’s time to say goodbye to Sean and Daniel, our favorite road-trip-brother-outlaws. After loving Episode 4, I was excited, yet apprehensive to play the final installment, as I had faith that the developers could do what they had done before—I just wasn’t sure if they would. In a way, the game proved both of these senses right; while there were some elements in the final episode that were frankly mediocre at best, the ending managed to—more or less—make up for them by packing an emotional punch that left me sobbing almost an hour after finishing the game.
by Trevor Sheffield Disclaimer: This review is of the PS4 version of the game and was played on an original PS4. Arguably, one of the greatest losses the video game industry has suffered after Disney’s wholesale acquisition of the Star Wars franchise and George Lucas’ Lucasfilm was that of Lucasarts. Known for being the breeding ground for oddball adventure games like The Secret of Monkey Island, the Sam & Max series, and Tim Schafer’s Grim Fandango, the company also worked on a bevy of titles based on Lucas' works, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones… and mostly just those two. After Lucasarts was unceremoniously shut down in 2013, lingering only as a licensor with all staff fired and multiple in-development games stuck in Development Hell, Disney sought out third-party publishers to bring a galaxy far, far away to home consoles and ultimately gave the keys to a most unexpected successor. Enter Electronic Arts (EA), a game distribution company known for two things: their heavy reliance on microtransactions and forcing developers to hit unreasonable deadlines, along with being voted one of the worst companies in America multiple times. Their first whack at Star Wars came in the form of DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront (a revival of Lucasarts’ own multiplayer shooter), where fans at launch derided the game’s severe lack of content. The second go-around, Star Wars Battlefront II, suffered the exact opposite problem. The game relied extensively (at launch) on microtransactions and glorified gambling through loot box mechanics to better oneself in the game or even unlock franchise mainstays like Darth Vader without needing to play for over 40 hours first. The situation was so extreme that it literally forced the hand of legislators across the globe to examine loot boxes as a whole and famously decry Battlefront II as a “Star Wars-themed online casino.” With a new Star Wars game having recently fallen into our laps, all of this begs the question: given EA’s exclusive rights to produce Star Wars games and the shadowy board of investors and stockholders that force EA’s hand into meddling with projects to “maximize” profits, is it possible for a Star Wars game in 2019 to avoid these missteps? Is there hope that it can actually be good?
Cardinal Esports is beginning to take advantage of advancements in cross- platform technology along with the creators behind some of the organization’s most popular PvP games.
by Emily Guffey Digimon, as a series, can be best described as always being in the shadow of Pokemon but never being forgotten by the hardcore fans. Many would be surprised to learn that the series has many different projects coming out soon. These projects include a movie to wrap up the original story of Digimon Adventure, a re-release of the 2015 Digimon Cyber Sleuth on PC, and a whole new survival role-playing game called Digimon Survive. There’s a good chance you may not even know that Digimon has created quite a few successful mobile RPGs, such as Digimon Links. Now, Bandai-Namco has released a new game worldwide called Digimon ReArise.
by Katherine Simon If there’s one thing video game enthusiasts can agree on, it’s that live-action film adaptations of video games are usually pretty bad. While there are a few stand-out exceptions such as Detective Pikachu and the Ace Attorney movies, the bad examples vastly overshadow the few gems in the rough. Whether it be the hilariously awful Super Mario Bros. Movie or the 70 billion Resident Evil movies that keep getting made for some reason, video game movies are notorious for their low quality and complete disregard for what makes the source material work. With the infamous Sonic movie being on the horizon and a live action Monster Hunter movie that has nothing to do with the source material being in production, this trend does not seem to be dying anytime soon. While we’re on this dark timeline, let’s take a moment to think about what it’d be like if Undertale got the Hollywood treatment. While Toby Fox has yet to sell out his critical darling to the hands of Hollywood yet, I’d like to take a moment to think about what kind of disaster a live-action adaptation would be like.
by Emily Guffey Disclaimer: This review is of the PS4 version and was played on an original PS4. Borderlands is a series near and dear to my heart. I’ve enjoyed pretty much every Borderlands game that has come out to this day. I knew from the day Borderlands 3 was announced I was going to get it. I preordered the game and waited with bated breath for the fated day. Not even Randy Pitchford and the insanity surrounding him could prevent me from getting this game. September came around, I pre-downloaded the game and watched as the clock ticked by and the thirteenth quickly approached. What do I find on the other side? A beautiful mess of a game. Great, yet full of missed opportunities; an experience lacking in the worst places.
by Emily Worrell Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Intel Core i7-6700, 16 GBs of RAM. This review contains spoilers for the game Life is Strange 2. After the utter debacle that was Life is Strange 2: Episode 3, I must admit that I didn’t approach the long-awaited fourth installment with very high expectations, despite my high opinion of the previous Life is Strange series and its related content. If anything, when I was downloading it, I felt like it was something that I had to do as a reviewer and loyal fan of Life is Strange rather than just a fun game that I really wanted to play. However, within the first few minutes of gameplay, I found myself enraptured more deeply than I had ever been in Episode 3. This episode has proven to be easily the greatest Life is Strange 2 episode thus far, and perhaps one of the best episodes of anything set in the Life is Strange universe at all. Life is Strange 2: Episode 4 starts off three months after the explosion at Merrill’s farm that ended the last episode. Our protagonist, Sean, is in the hospital, recovering from injuries sustained in the explosion. With his younger brother Daniel still missing after the blast, and the inevitability of being thrown in juvie after his recovery is complete, Sean knows he has to find a way to escape the hospital and find Daniel. However, in doing so, he finds a lot more than he originally bargained for.
by Blake Chapman The fighting game community has become one of the most prolific in all of esports. Year after year thousands of combatants flock to tournaments and test their strength in the pursuit of both impressive monetary prize pools as well as global recognition. Every August the hopes and dreams of competitors and fans alike come to fruition in Las Vegas at the world’s largest fighting game event: Evolution (EVO). This year sees an impressive range of new titles for athletes to participate in including Super Smash Brothers Ultimate and Mortal Kombat 11. Returning stars of the show like Tekken 7 and Dragonball Fighterz are sure to make a substantial splash as well even when considering their relatively low entrant numbers. As we head straight into the group stages let me give you a quick player guide and some useful predictions of who might be sitting on the main stage in top 8.
By Blake Chapman The world of video games has gone through a plethora of innovation and evolution. The jump from pixels to polygons, the advent of online play, and all the warfare between console and pc loyalists are just a few examples. All of these stories and more have only added to the history of the most expressive and interactive entertainment medium the world has ever known. When looking back on the most impactful moments in gaming that have come during my lifetime, I can not help but think of Minecraft. The memories and hours spent building my own world have impacted me in more ways than I may ever realize. As we pass over the first 10 years of this monumental game, it seems best that I reflect on my own experiences that made this game so special to me and millions of others across the world.
by Matthew Yapp The original Super Mario Maker hit Wii U's everywhere way back in 2015, and straight away it was a smashing success. The game offered players complete free reign to be as over-the-top and creative as they wanted in level design, as well as an ability to share their courses online with players across the globe. This game was a high point in the Wii U’s library and now, four years later, its successor has hit the Switch. While the core mechanics and ideas of the original game have remained the same, there have certainly been some tweaks that set this sequel apart. That being said, does Super Mario Maker 2 live up the excellence of its predecessor?