Co-Op Critics | Xbox One

January 26, 2015 In Uncategorized

Introducing Co-Op Craft: Family Edition!

We’re getting a lot of new segments and series up and running around Co-Op Critics HQ, and one of them hit our YouTube channel today. Our Co-Op Craft series will feature videos of various Co-Op Critics playing Minecraft on different platforms. But the Co-Op Craft: Family Edition is a special series that features my son and I playing Minecraft together on the Xbox One. The first episode of the series can be seen in the player above, or you can check it our on our YouTube page.

You’ll notice that the game audio in this video is unusually loud compared to our voices. That’s something we expect to have ironed out by the next installment.

Thanks for watching!

January 25, 2015 In Uncategorized

The Co-Op Crop Report: 1/18-1/25/15

We’ve come out of the box strong so far in 2015, and the evolution of Co-Op Critics is well underway. This is the first installment of a weekly update series here on the blog that will recap the new content we’ve produced between our Twitch channel, the YouTube page and right here on Co-OpCritics.com.

Last Sunday, we posted a Co-Op Plays video of Nick, Jeff and I taking on Destiny’s Weekly Heroic Strike, the “Devil’s Lair.”

On Monday, I posted some thoughts on the multiplayer mode of Dragon Age: Inquisition, featuring a Co-Op Plays video of Nick and I hacking and slashing with some randoms.

On Tuesday I posted some thoughts on Nintendo’s announcement that Club Nintendo would be winding down at the end of June 2015.

On Wednesday, I gushed over the news that Elder Scrolls Online would be dropping its subscription fee and arriving on Xbox One and PS4 in June.

Friday night featured a three-hour livestream of Jeff, Nick and I playing Destiny (Strikes, Crucible matches and Story Missions).

And today saw the launch of Co-Op Craft: Family Edition–a new series where my son Parker and I play Minecraft together. I’ll be posting more about that tomorrow.

So, it was a pretty full week here at Co-Op Critics, and we are just getting started. You’ve seen our new logo popping up here and there, and the facelift for the site will continue in the coming weeks. We’ll be back this week with a new episode of the Co-Op Critics audio podcast, and we’ll also be posting the episode on YouTube with some accompanying gameplay video.

January 22, 2015 In Uncategorized

Dropping the Subscription Fee is the Right Move For Elder Scrolls Online

When the next-gen consoles were originally announced, the one thing that had me the most excited was the potential of getting more MMOs onto consoles. I had a blast with DC Universe Online for PS3, and I was hoping the power of the new consoles would really open the floodgates.

The game I was most excited about coming to consoles was Elder Scrolls Online, because I was already a fan of the series (I put 100+ hours into Oblivion on both Xbox 360 and PS3).

Until I heard they would be charging $15 a month.

With PS4 and Xbox One users already paying a monthly subscription fee for online features, adding another fee on top of that would dissuade many a gamer from even giving ESO a try. But, I had faith that by the time the game actually arrived on consoles, that fee would be long gone.

And so it came to pass. Yesterday, Bethesda Softworks not only announced the end of ESO’s subscription fee, but they announced the release date for the console versions of the game–June 9th. The game will cost $60 up front, but after that, you only have to put money into it if you want to. As with many other free-to-play MMOs, there will be in-game perks and other things to purchase for those who want them.

It’s no secret that the MMO strategy in the current gaming landscape is to launch with a subscription fee, get as many early adopters to pay for as long as you can, then transition to free-to-play for the life of the game. D&D Online, Lord of the Rings Online, DC Universe Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic and many more have followed the same path before, and for the most part, the transition has worked for them. The main difference for ESO is that you’ll still be paying up front for the game, similar to what Guild Wars does.

But the dropping of the subscription fee is the key to survival for these games, and I like ESO’s chances now that it will debut on consoles without that fee. I will absolutely be getting the game, and I’m happy to invest $60 to dive into the online world of Tamriel.

This is the right move by Bethesda Softworks, not just for the console versions of ESO, but for the future of the game. I think ESO could be huge on consoles.

January 19, 2015 In Uncategorized

First Impressions–Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Multiplayer is Hackin’ Slashin’ Fun

I have put about 40 hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition’s (DA:I) single-player campaign so far, and I am totally loving it. Until this past weekend however, I hadn’t even touched the multiplayer component of the game. That’s hardly out of character for me, as I never played Mass Effect’s multiplayer either, despite hearing about how great it was. When it comes to RPGs, I am a single-player kind of guy, and I really had no interest in DA:I’s multiplayer, as nothing you unlock or earn in it can translate over to the single-player game.

But, fellow Co-Opper Nick convinced me to give DA:I’s multiplayer a shot, and it turns out it’s a blast.

The mode is a four-member, horde mode-style experience where you team up with others and try to make it through five areas of what amounts to a dungeon. If the party gets wiped, you’re done, but you keep any rewards you’ve earned up to that point. You earn XP and gold along the way, which can be used to upgrade your abilities and purchase random item and consumable packs, respectively. You begin with a choice of three different characters, but unlock nine more along the way, eventually giving you a stable of twelve to level up and equip.

There’s more to it than that, but you get the gist. Int he video below you can see Nick and I blast through a mission with two random players.

I’ve only played with the Legionnaire so far (a Dwarven fighter), but I’m having a lot of fun with it. The combat is exactly the same as the single-player game, and it’s more dynamic (and sometimes challenging) when you’re playing with actual people instead of AI in your party. At it’s core, this is basically a 4-player, D&D-style dungeon crawl. And it’s a heck of a lot of fun,

I plan on spending more time with the mode and unlocking additional characters. I’m sure I’ll post more about it, and DA:I in general, in the coming weeks.

December 29, 2014 In Uncategorized

Console Gaming is No Longer a Smoother Experience Than PC Gaming

Seems like you can’t go three clicks on a gaming site these days without reading about broken console experiences. Games like Assassin’s Creed: Unity and Halo: Master Chief Collection have been rife with bugs and major issues since launch. The recent hacks of both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network meant many people who got a new console for Christmas couldn’t download or play games on them.

As I downloaded the 40GB update for Assassin’s Creed: Unity on XBox One this week (because a screw-up meant the “patch” was actually a re-download of the entire game), I couldn’t help but think:

Has console gaming lost the one true edge that it had on PC gaming for years?

I don’t think I’m alone in the reason I’ve preferred console gaming to PC gaming for years now–it’s been a much smoother experience. Not having to worry about different control schemes, driver updates and compatibility issues was a major reason that I have been primarily a console gamer for most of my adult life. If there was one thing you could count on when it came to console gaming, it was that things would just work. Buy a game, put it in your console, and play.

But not only has PC gaming gotten much easier over the past few years with things like Steam’s ‘Big Picture Mode’ and the fact that most games have controller support, but PC games offer a substantial edge to console games when it comes to pricing. As I type this, you can get the Tomb Raider: Game of the Year Edition for $6 on Steam. And through sites like Good Old Games, you can play classics like the original Deus Ex for $2.50.

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have come out of the gate with a lot of the same problems that used to make PC gaming such a pain in the butt–constant updating, lots of bugs and in some cases, games that are broken on arrival and require multiple patches to fix. Add into that their unstable online services, and it feels like console gaming has lost pretty much all of the advantages it used to offer over PC gaming.

Most of the conversation around broken games and constant updates has centered around publishers and developers. But Microsoft and Sony might want to take a larger role in quality control moving forward, because the easier PC gaming becomes, the more likely console gamers are to jump over to the land of better visuals, better prices and a more stable user experience.

September 23, 2014 In Uncategorized

Destiny–A Look at the Stats Through Level 20

After another week and a total of 18 hours played, I’ve reached level 20 in Destiny. I’ve heard that the game “really begins” at level 20, and while time will tell if that’s true, I’ve had a great deal of fun getting to this point. So let’s look at some of my stats so far.

As I talked about in my last post, I’ve spent the majority of my time in the Crucible, the competitive multiplayer component of Destiny. Of my 18 hours so far, I’ve spent 8 in the crucible, just under 5 in the Story mode, and most of the remainder on Patrol missions in the various locations.

I really enjoy the way the Destiny app and Bungie.net keep track of all my stats. I’ve never been big into stat tracking, but there’s a surprising amount of depth to the stats Bungie is keeping. For example, I’ve played a total of 61 games (sessions) so far, and 39 of them have been Control (Domination) in the Crucible (Competitive Multiplayer). In those 39 matches, I’ve killed 303 enemies and died 419 times, for a K/D ratio of 0.72. That’s pretty great for me, since in most shooters I average about 0.40, and I haven’t approached 1.0 since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare back in 2007. My single best match of Control was on the First Light map, and I had 18 kills versus 4 deaths, and came in second on my team in scoring.

Looking at my stats confirms what I already knew–kills are not where I score my points. I get a lot of assists (153 so far) and I capture a lot of control points (185 so far). I also get a decent amount of defensive kills (47 so far), because I tend to linger around a point I’ve captured and try to defend it if there’s an enemy in the immediate area.

My overall strategy for control point-oriented games has been the same since the original Modern Warfare, and it works for me. Most of my levelling in Destiny has come through these matches, and through the completion of Bounties (challenges) that are tied into multiplayer.

Now that I’ve hit level 20, experience points are taking a back seat to Light–a special property of armor components that allows you to earn levels beyond 20. I’ll be diving into some of the high-level raids and strike missions that are now open to me, as well as joining up with one of the factions that I’m now eligible for. I suspect I’ll be diving back into Story mode as well.

September 16, 2014 In Uncategorized

Why Destiny’s Competitive Multiplayer Stands Out for Me

According to Bungie.net, I’ve now spent almost eight hours playing Destiny.

This game has definitely got its hooks into me. What’s most surprising to me though, is that it’s the competitive multiplayer that I’m becoming addicted to, rather than the story campaign so far.

I’ve played through all of the Halo games, and it was always the campaign that I spent the most time with. I played mostly solo, although from time to time I’d have friends jump in and co-op with me. I suspect it will be the same for Destiny, if the first few hours are any indication. I played through three story missions with friends, and it was a lot more fun than playing through alone. I’ll talk about that more in my next post, though. Let’s talk multiplayer now.

I have always been pretty terrible at the competitive multiplayer modes in the Halo games, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were extremely well designed. And Destiny’s multiplayer modes share a lot of DNA with Halo, but there are some huge differences that so far have made my experience a lot more fun than frustrating.

I think the biggest difference between Destiny and Halo (and most other shooters) is the Abilities and Super Abilities that you can use in addition to your weapons. Some of the abilities function like grenades, which isn’t that big of a deal, but they have different properties by class, which adds variety. It’s the Super Abilities that really change the game, though. Each class a Super that charges over time and with certain actions. It’s usually a devastating attack that if used correctly, can take out multiple enemies at once. And if you wait until the right moment to use your Super, you can change the tide of a battle.

Another thing I really enjoy about the multiplayer in Destiny is the Bounty system. You can take on certain challenges that reward you with experience points upgrades and even weapons based on the type of bounty they are. So, if take on a few Crucible (multiplayer) Bounties, there are additional challenges I’m trying to complete while I’m playing through matches.

Finally, after each multiplayer match, there are gear rewards given out to random participants. So every match could end up netting you a new weapon or piece or armor.

All of these systems work together to make Destiny’s competitive multiplayer feel more dynamic to me than most other games. They give me a reason to keep coming back, even though I’m average at best and usually get owned by more skilled players. If this was a Halo game, I’d have already checked out of multiplayer to focus on the campaign by now. It’s the tweaks that Bungie has made to the formula that have kept me engaged so far.

September 10, 2014 In Uncategorized

Destiny–Quick Impressions From the First Hour (Xbox One)

Like pretty much everyone else, I picked up my copy of Destiny yesterday. Unlike a lot of others though, I hadn’t really followed a lot of the coverage leading up to the game, and I didn’t play the beta at all. I kind of wanted to go in as unspoiled as possible. As someone who enjoyed the Halo games, I was excited to see what Bungie would do with their next big project.

I’m sure I’ll be writing quite a bit about Destiny in the weeks and months to come, but I just wanted to get some quick impressions down after playing through the opening mission and getting to the Tower.

I chose a Warlock class to begin with, and while the customization options were pretty sparse, I’m guessing (hoping) that you’ll be able to unlock more options in the future, like the ability to create your own markings, or at least cobble together new ones from existing assets like you can with emblems and callsigns in the Call of Duty series.

One of the first aspects of Destiny I immediately fell in love with was the score and sound design. The sweeping orchestral music in Destiny is amazing so far, and I’m less than an hour in. The music lends to feeling that this is the beginning of an epic tale, that the setting has a long history and that you play an important role in what’s to come. I loved Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori’s work on the Halo series, and it’s top-notch here (it’s a bummer O’Donnell is no longer with Bungie). The legendary Paul McCarney also lent his talents to the Destiny score, so there’s even more reason to love it. The overall sound design is pretty great so far as well, especially as you’re making your way through the cramped metal environment of the opening mission in Old Russia. From the weapons to the Warlock’s Vortex Grenade, it all sounds great.

Unsurprisingly, the mechanics are smooth as butter. The Halo series was always a joy to play from a mechanical standpoint (at least for me), and none of that has changed with Destiny. I’m still getting used to the button layout, but I can always change it if I want. Aiming, shooting, sprinting, jumping–all of it feels great.

To be honest though, the opening mission feels very Halo-y. The way the enemies move, the way the areas are laid out, and the overall encounter design feels very much like Halo. Now, I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing, and I actually think it’s by design. It feels like Bungie is easing Halo players into this new game, and that’s okay. I fully expect things to open up, especially when I get into the cooperative multiplayer aspects of the game.

When I got to the tower, I immediately had visions of the Citadel from Mass Effect and the player hubs in DC Universe Online (which is one of the few MMOs that I play). It definitely feels like an MMO hub, so no surprises there. I walked around a bit, and picked up some armor, which it looks like I can’t customize (although I’ve since read you unlock that ability at some point).

So, my first impressions of Destiny are that it’s very pretty, and it sounds and feels great. The game is very curated so far, and the early design feels a lot like Halo, with MMO elements. I look forward to diving in deeper, and I’m sure I’ll have much more to write about. I’ll also be doing some streaming, which I’ll post highlights of here on the blog.

June 30, 2014 In Uncategorized

First Impressions– Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark

The last Transformers game that I spent a good amount of time with was 2010’s Transformers: War for Cybertron. I had a lot of fun with it, and especially enjoyed the campaign co-op. High Moon Studios’ received solid reviews on two of their three Transformers games, so there were certainly some questions about how developer Edge of Reality would handle the next entry in the franchise, Rise of the Dark Spark.

After spending a few hours with the game, this new installment feels similar to War for Cybertron, and the little I played of its two sequels. In short, it’s a fun third-person action game that pretty much nails the whole transforming part. One click of a button switches from vehicle to robot mode, and the combat controls are pretty easy to pick up as well.

I like the loadout mechanics of the game so far. You unlock new weapons and upgrades as you go along, which lends a measure of customization to the game. And because the main storyline switches back and forth between Autobots and Decepticons, you get to play with a variety of characters.

In the video of an early Decepticon mission below, you’ll see me alternating between looking like I know what I’m doing and looking like I’m playing with my eyes closed. Enjoy.

Watch live video from CoopCritics on TwitchTV

June 11, 2014 In Uncategorized

E3 2014: What I’m Excited About (Part 1)–New Crackdown!

Last week I made my wish list, and now the E3 press briefings for Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are behind us. While it looks like only one of my wishes are coming true, there were some things from each conference that I’m really excited about/ In the next few posts, I’ll highlight some of them.

First up, let’s talk about my one wish that came true. We are getting a new Crackdown. Here’s the new trailer:

It doesn’t look like the MMO I was hoping for, but from the look of the trailer, it’s going to be big. There were a number of encouraging things in the trailer, even if it didn’t feature any gameplay. First off, we see the leader of the Los Muertos gang in this new city, which means the gangs from the original Crackdown are back. The trailer also leaned heavily on the concept of cooperative play, as the agents are all working together to make an assault on the gang boss’ headquarters. The big moment in the trailer certainly suggests there will be some destructibility in the environments, which would be a great addition to the gameplay.

Perhaps most exciting though, was the fact that this game is not being called Crackdown 3. Whether it’s a complete reboot or not, I like the idea of giving the series a fresh start on the new platform, and it suggests this could be an ongoing franchise moving forward.

The only thing that bummed me out was there were no Freaks in the video, which means it looks like the franchise is moving away from the concepts introduced in Crackdown 2. That’s probably a good thing, as Sunset Overdrive is using a similar concept, but I actually enjoyed the Freaks in Crackdown 2. Remember them?

I am really looking forward to learning more about Crackdown, who is developing it, and getting some idea of when we’ll see it. My gut tells me it won’t be until 2016. In the meantime, I would love to see a port of the original Crackdown (and maybe even Crackdown 2) for the Xbox One. I wouldn’t even care if they gave it the full HD treatment, as the cartoonish style holds up better than a lot of last gen games. I just want to dive into that world again–soon. Here’s a great fan-made trailer for the original, in case you forgot how much fun it was. There’s a lot of great ideas that the series doesn’t get credit for, like the voice of the Agency who is constantly commenting on your actions in the games.