First Thoughts: Anthem Demo

Okay, so if you have been reading EITHER of my blogs for a while you know I am a gamer, I own an Xbox one, Pay for my Xbox Live Gold yearly, and my EA Access yearly(on my Xbox, Sony does not yet allow EA Access on PS4). One of the BENEFITS of EA Access is that if there is a DEMO for a game coming on, EA will give you VIP early access to it just like you had PRE-ORDERED the game. I made use of it for Battlefield V caused me to buy the game at launch. I liked and still like it, I haven't played it as much recently as I have gone back to Forza 7 a little AND I am grinding on Black Ops 4 but I do like the game it is still fun. I use the 10 hr previews when games launch as well that EA gives with saved progression for if or when you buy the game. So if I decide "Hmm, this game is okay BUT MY BACKLOG DOH..." I don't exactly have to start from scratch.

So I saw the Anthem Demo was out, downloaded it, played an hour or so of CoD and then was like okay, lets take this Javelin for a test run

Did you ever wish you were IN Mad max, just not out of the car

No, I am not playing. I've been playing a lot of Crossout lately, now granted part of it is because they have an ingenious "sales pitch" if you will. Stay on for 2 hours get a free crate of loot. But I am getting ahead of myself. Crossout is a game set in a post apocalyptic future where you gather together spare parts to build a death mobile, face of against OTHER human players death mobiles OR random puny but annoying AI death mobiles. Yes a lot of mobile killing machines. It is part driving game(arcade style mind you, but you do drive around). If you follow me on twitter you even saw one of my revamped monsters kill two unfortunate players who didn't realize I was not the one(at least not that time in a one v one situation).

Now there are many different facets to Crossout, it doesn't really have a story mode per se. It is all online play you are either in up to 8 on 8 matches, involved in up to 4 player co op to face the AI, there is a "free for all" mode, and Clan battles. There are groups of various NPC groups that you can choose to be a part of, which will grant you spare parts, the ability to craft various parts and weapons(each sect has it's own specialization and thus part access that they grant you) of various rarities, there is an area to "showcase your builds" which can allow other players to like or test drive your latest mad mechanic creation, and a market place to trade your rare or higher valuation parts.

Games I'm playing: Magic Duels

Now way back yonder in the 90's a card game came out called: Magic the Gathering, it is in the line of the Pokemon card game or Yugioh(well maybe not Yugioh, I think you can just play cards period regardless of mana costs in Yugioh), you buy a started deck(usually about 30 to 50 cards), a few booster decks(around 15 cards per pack), you arrange the best cards you find into some semblance of a fighting deck depending on what creatures you have. Many I day did I spend playing this game, Magic is slightly different than other card games in that it is built with a potential cooperative mode from the start. Magic uses 5 different "magic types" white, black, red, green, and blue, if you look at the back of a card the line up in a pentagram pattern:

Like so, and per the old rules who ever was diagonal from you was your enemy(so for white it was red and black, for green blue and black and vice versa) and directly next to you was your friend. Now some of you might be looking and saying, "wait what, but that means both of your allies are also allies with one of your enemies!" yes, yes they are. Which makes for an interesting bit of diplomacy, because sooner or later you are gonna want to go for a kill shot and are going to have to make a request. for black to win white and green have to die, for red to win blue and white, and so on and so forth.

How you playin Fallout 4, but didn't play Skyrim

Eikichi hit me with that the other day, as if because a game uses the mechanics of another game you are committing some sort of Gaming blasphemy if you don't play them both. I mean I've watched him play Skyrim plenty of times, wasn't really my thing. Is it because I don't like bow and arrow or sword and sorcery games, nah. Seriously, do you not know how long I have been gaming I've seen damn near every game that came down the pike. Played most of them, like Dragon's Lair for those who thing Skyrim is all evil and devious with how it kills you dig the emulator up. That was evil, you didn't even get a chance to be in the fight sometimes you just turned a corner and *doh*. This is usually about when you got slapped in the arcade if a parent was around. I mean if you want to understand why your older siblings look at you on some of your death sequences like "pfft amatuer" this is why, when we say quarter eaters/vacuums THIS is what we mean. Somebody turned a choose your own adventure book into a game, sounds cool right. Then obviously you never read a choose your own adventure book.

Okay sorry, got sucked down the anger of games past moment, so to Skyrim first off it isn't online multiplayer, ding for me. While you can create stuff a lot of your creations aren't as fun in the sword and sorcery era(at least in gaming, flaming sword of ultimate evisceration sounds fun in theory but you don't really get it), where as I get all kinds of cool grenades, automated gun emplacements, laser rifles, gatling guns, sniper rifles, sub machine guns, Gauss rifles, as well as machetes, swords, crow bars, and tire irons. Now yes if this game(or Skyrim) came out 30 years ago first it would have been a quarter vacuum(cause you are a death sponge, quicksave is your friend actually it is your master. Think I'm playing, aiight walk around that corner and fall to those zombie hordes after you had just found cool weapon number 15, leveled up and completed a mission if you want to(and yes I have).