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Impressions: PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds!

Sean Alexander

An exercise in frustration, or an amazing game with a great concept?

 

So PUBG is something I have been aware of for a few months but never got into for monetary and other reasons. I simply had too much to do. But yesterday, live on stream, I played my first few matches.

 

I had only seen sparse footage of the game, or real discussion about it beyond its influence on Twitch and gaming as a whole. I know the story behind its creation, but not much of the actual gameplay beyond what is, on paper at least, an amazing concept.

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Airdrop up to 100 players into a huge map. Have them scavenge for armour, weaponry, tools and upgrades to their equipment…and kill each other. As they do this, the play area shrinks. Fall outside of this, your health is drained. So you have 100 people being funnelled down into a smaller and smaller area, and the last man standing wins.

This is truly an excellent concept…on paper.

Personally the idea of only two maps is a bit disheartening, until you realise these maps are huge, and the high variance of the games means every play will be different. You’ll never have the same round twice. Almost.

 

The execution of this concept is what drives me to a mixed reaction to it.

There are primarily three scenarios for your time in PUBG:

You are not likely to have two matches play out the same, unless you are unfortunate enough to be airdropped in next to someone, or a few people, who quickly find weapons, and bang, you are out of there within two minutes.

That isn’t the most fun aspect of the game. If you get lucky and don’t die immediately (Great! You got lucky!) you now need to find weapons. You can spend a good while running through open spaces (And thus be an obvious target) between buildings that may or may not end up with you defending yourself. Or dying if someone is hiding in one. That can happen too.

Long and short, you can spend a long time not being able to actually partake in the core of the gameplay.

Finally, you can end up in the third scenario which plays one of two ways. You’ll either get extremely fortunate and end up in semi-frequent bouts of combat and win, or die, or end up not finding anyone until the map shrinks and there are about 20 players left, and then come out on top…or die.

As shown above I made it to 7th place in a match…where I got two kills and spent a good 20 minutes sat in a house waiting for stuff to happen as the play area shrank and shrank, until I got blasted from the side.

This is easily the most fun part of the game. It’s high adrenaline, and goodness knows a grenade or gunshot with headphones on makes you leap out of your skin in what is a quiet world otherwise. Plus the knowledge that combat is inevitable and closing in on you is an amazing feeling.

This is where PUBG works best. Occasional combat instances, good luck finding weapons, and being able to play smart, assuming people don’t snipe you. Of course, you’ve got a 1 in 3 chance of your game even getting that far. More often than not, it feels like it won’t.

 

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Of course that’s just the game design. Visually the game can range from alright to almost N64 style in visual quality, even at full resolution, as sometimes models and textures are incredibly poor. Other times not, which is a weird inconsistency. Maybe this a downside of playing on “Medium” settings, while streaming.

It should be noted I had very few network related issues, even when streaming the game and hosting a Skype call at the same time. That much is very functional at least, which is mandatory for a multiplayer game.

In terms of controls, I used both a Dualshock 4, and Keyboard/Mouse.

Keyboard worked fine for what it is, everything is mercifully within reach, just as I have explained before however, it’s not the most comfortable solution for me as a player. The downside of using a controller means some features like underhanded throws and quick switching through weapons, aren’t available without sacrificing other things. It’s a prioritize what you need kind of situation.

Finally, aiming seems a little…weird. Guns have the appropriate kind of blowback, which means you won’t just fire in a straight line. But reviewing some “Death Cam” footage (It happened a lot), I can see players do have a hard time lining up shots or even getting them to connect. I don’t know if that’s a network thing of if the aiming is just slightly off, but it’s a strange oddity.

 

Overall I can say PUBG on PC is something to at least try out. On Xbox One, I don’t know as I can’t test that version, but from what I have seen it’s not as smooth an experience at the moment, compared to the now out of “Early Access” PC version.

But therein lies the problem: The idea of the game is amazing. It’s just luck as to whether it plays out in a way that you enjoy, or if it effectively ends with you in a boring scenario where nothing happens for a good while, or die immediately upon starting.

 

Thanks for reading this Impressions piece on PUBG! It was an interesting experience and you can bet I will be doing more like this in future! If you enjoyed this article or have your own thoughts on PUBG, let me know on social media or in the comments, and I will see you next time: Happy Gaming!

Sonic Forces Has Some Dire DLC…

Sean Alexander

I never thought I would write the following words: Super Sonic is DLC.

 

Okay, so before we go in to this, we need context on both Super Sonic, and Sanic.

Sanic is a meme. Honestly I would love to just leave it there and have it expunged from the game entirely, but the series has decided to embrace the crudely drawn MS Paint rendition of Sonic, dubbed “Sanic”, in ways that move beyond just the TV Show as a reference (Alongside the fan-fiction of all things) and a nod in LEGO Dimensions.

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Sanic is available, for free, in all copies of the game, as a t-shirt design for your custom character. Okay, at least it’s free. I mean I would honestly prefer it if the series was a little more….delicate? about being self-aware, rather than just opening the door and saying “Yes, all this mockery online is entirely just”. We all know how the mockery of a fan base can actually impact people mentally, it’s not a very smart thing to do, just let folks enjoy what they enjoy, you know?

I think there is a fine balance between being self-aware and poking fun, and straight up embracing what was a joke meant to demean the franchise and it’s titles (Because many have been lacklustre prior to 2010, and a couple since) feels like…almost giving up. Like the series has no integrity anymore. On one hand yes, nice joke, and in some loose ways it does fit the avatar creation side of things.

On the other hand, you put a reference to a meme used to demean the franchise…in Sonic Forces. 

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This is a game that is hardly “Good”, instead treading the fine line of mediocre to plain boring, it has obvious development problems, clear instances of things being scrapped and restarted, insanely short levels and not very fulfilling gameplay, and what do they do? Put some DLC in the game used to mock the franchise. Did they actually not see how amazingly self-fulfilling that is?

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But anyway, on to Super Sonic. This little feature has been a part of the games since 1992 in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, usually as a reward for certain tasks, like clearing the Special Stages, or for the unlockable final boss throughout the mid-2000s.

Super Sonic did return to fully playable status in 2010 with Sonic 4 and Sonic Colours (The first time ever in 3D), and this has remained the case for Generations, Lost World, and Mania. Super Sonic has been there as a reward for completing the game, or certain milestones.

So Sonic Forces came along and in the PC version they found inaccessible (Though later accessed and fully playable not long after the game came out) code for Super Sonic. It’s in the game, fully playable. I assumed it was just dummied out. I wish it was.

So again, for 25 years Super Sonic has been a part of the franchise as your reward. An in-game thing meant to reward you (Or beat up a final boss in some cases). In Sonic Forces however, it’s in the game, but you can’t access it. Unless you pay up for some DLC of course.

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Yes, for the first time ever, this feature of the series for over two decades, is now on-disc DLC. I am absolutely dumbfounded and also surprised. It’s free for around a month, but as of late January, cough up some dough for Super Sonic.

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This is honestly a problem that goes further than the Sanic DLC, as this is removal of a series staple and put behind on-disc paywalls. It’s very egregious, and frankly one thing it does have in common with the Sanic DLC is the feeling that it’s just rubbing salt in the wound.

We had it so good, heck Sonic Mania was months ago, and this game comes along, from the team that brought us Colours and Generations, two highly loved games, and it falls flat in so many ways. To rub it in how unfinished the game feels, we get to wear a mockery of the series made official, and pay up for things that used to be standard.

 

At the same time though, as we have talked about here before many times, this feels like it is becoming the norm. Things you used to be able to just do are now locked behind cash, and the games mock you in the same way trolls on the internet do.

I don’t know what is worse really: Seeing Super Sonic become on-disc DLC, or having to see a meme people have almost weaponised in a game so utterly mediocre it surpasses parody and enters the realm of “Oh we know”.

 

I guess we can rest easy knowing Mania 2 will be a thing?

Games and Accessibility: Don’t Leave Us Out

Sean Alexander

My past year in gaming has highlighted things that really should be addressed in games more often.

 

So fun fact: I have severe deuteranopia. This means some shades of red/green/brown (Anything in that range) can look identical. This means the colour spectrum I see is far more limited.

 

So on a 4K TV you have many more pixels, many more instances of colour, but with how little colour range I have, it can mean that a lot of those pixels look the same. The same is true for 1080p, or even 240p. But the more pixels there are, the more there is for my eyes to confuse.

In the image below, its actual the SDR image where I get better detail:

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Add in HDR and well, we have a mess. The increased colour range of the display is nice, assuming you can distinguish them all. If you can’t, that’s just more shades of red and green to mix in with the others you can’t distinguish. And no, this isn’t me against the notion of 4K.

 

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I didn’t know I was colour vision deficient for 19 years of my life, but in 2016 I got my hands on DOOM. Great game, by the way. This was relatively smooth sailing, until the 4th stage, which was in Hell. A lot of red and brown. Red mists, rocks, particles, red enemies, brown objects, you guessed it, it was like looking at a blob on the screen.

Thankfully, there is a mode for each form of colour deficiency, so I got a lovely, what the press termed it before release, “Piss filter” instead. But everything is far more visible, and I am no longer walking off of ledges because I can’t see the end for the other objects in the distance. I am no longer missing my shots, or my jumps.

But if the game, like so many sadly, didn’t have this feature? I couldn’t beat it. I have tried, even with my memory of the game, I can’t do it. Some games I find impossible to play. If Overwatch didn’t have colour blind options, I couldn’t tell who was on what team unless they hit me.

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But this higher resolution, wider colour range thing is what Microsoft, Sony and PC are pushing towards. Bigger screens, more colour…and not having the colour blind modes so people like me can play the game without either straining, or just having to give up. A lot of games simply don’t feature them, and there are games I want to try, but can’t.

Plus in marketing, taking DOOM again, I wanted to see how the Nintendo Switch version looked compared to my PS4 version. The catch was, no colour blind footage. So I had no way to tell how low the game looked to my eyes.

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And of course, this is not just to mention my article on the sheer importance of controls. Take 1-2 Switch, a game I will never talk about again most likely, that can be played by the hard of sight due to relying on sound and haptic feedback for a lot of games. That is a huge deal!

But a lot of games don’t account for the fact that this is a thing. Sure, you can’t make a controller that works in every situation, but occasionally you get a Rhythm Heaven or 1-2 Switch for the hard of sight, you get a colour blind mode for someone like me, you develop ways to make games more accessible, some far simpler than others.

 

Ultimately, I’d like to see even the basic modes be implemented into future games, since while the tech pushes on and on and creates more impressive visuals, with each passing year people like myself are left further and further behind, and some have been left already. In the world of gaming, that is just upsetting to see. We are all gamers, and we should all be able to play.

 

As always if you enjoyed this article give it a share and leave your thoughts below, and I will see you next time! Until then, Happy Gaming!

Controllers: Why They Matter, And How I Learned To Love Overwatch

Sean Alexander 2 Comments

Controls are the most important aspect of how you interface with a game. They come in all shapes and sizes but sometimes they aren’t ideal for the player.

 

Sometimes controls can be weird. Or fun. Or intuitive. Sometimes they can be downright bad.

Now for reference when talking about “Controls” in this context I am referring strictly to the device in your hands that you use to move the player controlled object and interface with the game, not the actual movement of a character, as that’s an entirely different discussion.

So why do controls matter? Well it’s simple. If the way you are playing the game isn’t comfortable, then…well you won’t have as much fun, obviously. This is down to a few things, namely preference, necessity, and layout.

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For instance with controller layouts, there are some that just end up with your hand like a pretzel, the immediate thought being Terraria on PS3. That is definitely a doable experience but is in no way optimal, given the game and it’s design is based around a keyboard layout.

For preference, let’s take aiming in a FPS or Third-Person Shooter. Using an analog stick for this, while doable, is miles from using a mouse or gyroscopic aiming. For note, in Splatoon I use gyro controls for aiming with the analog stick being reserved solely for minor movements on the x axis. Attempting to play something like DOOM (2016) on PS4, while certainly doable, feels slow and clunkier compared to a mouse or gyro. Most likely this is an issue with precision and how fast a mouse/your arm can move compared to an analog stick. Sure, sensitivity adjustment helps, but on an analog stick you lose the ability to stop precisely. You’ll aim in a direction pretty quickly, but stopping where you want is a hassle.

 

Another famous anecdote from across the web is that keyboard and mouse is “Superior”. Now, this is true: But it depends on the game. I can wholeheartedly say playing a 3D platformer with a keyboard is the definition of a nightmare, and actually crosses with something I’ll bring up on a personal level later. But something like ARMA III, you won’t play that in any way other than a keyboard, out of necessity.

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And now we come to the personal anecdote, and I realise that most likely no one else will ever play this game in this way, but it works for me.

 

So I was gifted Overwatch on PC by a friend and after many months of just…well never booting it really, I finally gave it an honest go, keyboard and mouse. And I hated it. The main complaint I had is both personal and one I have stemming from consoles.

So my personal complaint is that keyboard and mouse is just uncomfortable for me. My right hand has injuries that make prolonged mouse use not fun and my left hand doesn’t mesh well to a keyboard for jumping between inputs on a moments notice given the sheer volume of keys.

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The issue stemming from console gaming is actually that of the D-pad. See, WASD at the end of the day on most keyboards is basically a D-pad. The keys are digital, meaning they are either on or off. There are no precise movements like those gained with an analog stick (And Overwatch does in fact have this built in, just you can’t do it with most keyboards), and another huge problem is that Overwatch is a game in a 3D Space, that is based heavily around movement.

Now for the life of me, no matter what it is, I can’t stand the imprecision of digital movement in a 3D space. 2D is more bearable, but in 3D there is more precise movements to be made, due to the nature of the space. Further to that, using WASD is effectively using a D-pad (Only not in an exact + formation, which I admit is fun for muscle memory in 2D games!). You have what is ultimately 8 directions of movement, via 4 digital buttons. It’s a D-Pad in principle. And in Overwatch, as I started to play it, I found not only was I mis-clicking, but also suffering from awkward movement, and my hands were aching. This was a truly miserable experience.

So, with some Discord game development friends they suggested I try a controller. Now that would mean I have to aim with a stick, but we gave it a shot. Now I don’t own an Xbox branded controller anymore (Because of my hand issues that right analog stick is discomfort incarnate) so we went to my next best thing – My default PC controller: The Switch Pro Controller.

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And It’s not supported by Overwatch (Figures, it’s a DInput controller not XInput) but we whipped out some keybinding software, and have it an honest go. Movement with an analog stick, despite still being digital at the end of the day, felt better due to how the analog moves compared to, again, 4 buttons in a 3D Space. So my movement grievances were solved! But then came the aiming.

Never map a mouse to an analog stick. Just don’t. That’s a sensitivity mess that just doesn’t work, as you map the free movement of mouse to a more limited stick.

So we ended up (And props to Nintendo for making Joy-Con individual controllers) a controller setup now dubbed “Controller and Mouse”. And my God, does it work.

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So on the Joy-Con I mapped Jump to ZL, Ability 1 and 2 to ZR and Up, Ultimate to a click of the Stick, and reload to SL where my finger rests. On the mouse is just Fire and Ability 3/Alt Fire where applicable. This obviously requires reconfiguring based on which hero I use, but man. The free aim of the mouse and movement of the Joy-Con has opened this game up to me.

Is this ideal? Probably not. I’m sure Blizzard wants me using keyboard and mouse but again, if you aren’t comfortable in playing the game, you want to stop playing. I was determined to give Overwatch a go, and I did, and I really enjoy it. I don’t love it, but it’s fun.

And across the internet you can find people using special controllers, really kickass fighting game players who are blind, some who swear by fight sticks, and hell, you can even find Super Smash Bros. Melee players who use the Gamecube controller…upside down! That controller is still supported in the series to this day.

 

Controls are a huge factor of a game: The single most important if you ask me. If the game is unintuitive or uncomfortable to play, people will seek a work around where possible.

 

What do our readers think? Leave a comment down below with any games you had hard times controlling, or crazy control schemes you’ve seen, and as always, share the article and happy gaming! 🙂