Online Saturday - Predecessor - Wouldn’t Recommend For First Time MOBA Players Like Myself

For Online Saturday this week i wanted to try Predecessor. Other than Pokemon Unite, i've not really played a MOBA before so i saw this as an opportunity to try one out. i got it on PlayStation 4 but i didn't know that this is an early access game. the PSN Store page and the games own home screen didn't highlight this. it wasn't until i saw in-game it say "Early Access In Development" that i knew this. Communication is one of the issues i had with this game.

Don't get me wrong, there is a tutorial and as this is my first MOBA i very much welcomed it. but it finished way too soon. it mentioned the basics, but then when it came to the real thing i had soo many more questions that the game never even tried to answer. I know it's early access, but surely they would've focused on the How To Play part.

Even tho it's early access, the game is out and there's things to buy for it so as far as i'm concerned it's open to criticism. Graphically, i have no issues with it. the game looks great, the world and character designs are varied and also look great. But the performance on #PS4 was all over the place. there were times when i noticed no issues, there were too many other times where there was a noticeable stutter and on occasion that stutter could be measured in seconds. I'm not sure if the lack of BGM is due to a bug, the game not having any, or just my recording set-up.

The biggest issue i had was a repeat of the bug that cropped up in Hawked, https://youtu.be/T9KZofqgVFo. In that game, the X and O buttons did the same thing or nothing, this meant i couldn't even start a game as the in-game graphics and in-game controls didn't match up and did nothing. In Predecessor, this same issue happened in the store. i could get into the store, but i couldn't get out unless i hit start to get the options up. i could exit the options and be returned to gameplay. this was the only time i spotted this bug, and like Hawked i will message the developers but even the latest Hawked patches didn't fix the issue, hence why i haven't gone back to do another video.

The lack of communication also affected what i could play. seemingly, all i could do was play against the Ai. i tried switching to different regions, but to no avail. If the servers are only up at specific times, then the game itself needs to message that. i shouldn't have to go hunting for that information myself, especially for a situation like this where i played this game on a whim.

Actually playing it wasn't fun. so much of the UI around the screen just wasn't communicated to me so i ignored it. when i tried to use it, it did nothing that i could work out. the first game i tried was essentially a stalemate and not fun. i tried a second game with a different character and had a much better time and my Ai Team mates and i did win that game. but it didn't feel that satisfying.

Strangely, what i was most satisfied with were the controls when using a gun. The weight of the character, the way they moved, the speed of the camera, it all worked well together in such a way i was reminded of #Killzone. If the developers had taken this engine and built a arena shooter and still had many different character classes, i would be far more excited to play that than this MOBA. The speed of the character was great for moving around, but getting around the map was far to slow. Whether that's getting from your core to the enemy, respawning, or teleporting back to your core, it all felt to slow and ruined the momentum of the game and my team's drive to the finish.

There are a number of smaller complaints about Predecessor, but ultimately it boils down to me saying that i wouldn't recommend this game for anyone who hasn't played a MOBA before. maybe gamers who understand the style of game will enjoy it, understand it, and be able to get the most from it. But for me, it's lessened my enthusiasm for trying MOBA's in the future and even tho it's free, i can't really recommend it for those unfamiliar with MOBAs.

Mobile Friday - Oops Dragon - An Idle RPG That Gets The Basics Right

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Oops Dragon. I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro.

There are two reasons why i decided to try this game. the first is the name. it's fun and ridiculous. I was very curious how they were going to refer back to the name in the game. Honestly, in this video i don't think i get an answer about where the name comes into it other than there are dragons to fight. The second reason why i wanted to play this was to see if this really is a game or if it's one of those "scam" games that are mostly adverts with some gaming inbetween. Oops Dragon's iOS page doesn't have any in-game screenshots, it's just artwork, so i didn't even know how it'd look. at least with this, i can say that yes it's a game.

It's not the most complicated game, but what's important is that they got the basics right and have a great platform to build from. there's a decent, if a little slow, tutorial that showed everything we needed to do. The game's idle mechanic didn't get in the way of gameplay and whilst i quickly understood the loop of the game, it took around 40 minutes before the grind, and the need to turn it off and wait, emerged. Another great feature about this game is that there are no intrusive ads. the game has some self promotion, which i wasn't too concerned with, but other than that there were no ads in this video. the game gave us the choice to watch them, and would've rewarded us with in-game benefits if we did.

Oops Dragon is a game that can be played on handed. coupled with no ads and no additional downloads, Oops Dragon comes across as a great choice for commuters or casual players. there are some "auto" features, too. the main aim of the game is to collect vases, break the vases, and equip better equipment. in doing so, we're able to progress further into the game, level up, and get better vases. We're able to automate most of this. the game plays itself in the background, we can automate vases being destroyed, attacks are automated to. what's left for us is choosing whether to equip the better equipment and to level up stuff. 

Oops Dragon does have a couple of minor issues that don't really get in the way, but stick out mostly because of how solid the rest of it is. The one that annoyed me the most was the lack of a countdown timer for when things recharge, or an in-game tutorial explaining how to recharge them if it's not a countdown timer. The other is the music and sound effects. each area as a different song, but it's fairly obvious when it loops. and the sound effect of breaking a vase was grating so when i found out how to turn it off, i did. the tutorial could've pointed us towards the settings as it's not in the most obvious place.

Oops Dragon is certainly one of the better idle games i've played this year and a solid choice for younger gamers, casual gamers, but i would say it's got enough depth for more "seasoned" gamers too. I do recommend downloading it and trying it out.

Version 1.0.5 Played.

Demo Play Thursday - Umbraclaw On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Umbraclaw, developed by Inti Creates Studios.

Whilst i wasn't great at playing at this demo, i actually had a great time with it. Umbraclaw doesn't say how big this demo is and i don't reach the end of it during this video. It feels like it is the actual start of the game.

The most noticeable thing about Umbraclaw is the art style and design of the world. I played the Switch version and it looked great and played great, too. it's out on PS5 and i imagine it will look impressive in 4K. What was key is that the game's style doesn't get in the way. there are a lot of colors on screen, but the details are still there and everything from the platforms to the enemies are clear and easy to spot.

The demo starts with Chapter 0, which acts mostly as a tutorial before the main aim of the game starts with Chapter 1. the tutorial isn't the best, it does offer pictures to try and show what to press and what happens, but it comes across as the game telling you everything at once. With there being a Chapter 0, i feel like the tutorial could've been spaced out better. It wasn't until the end of the demo that i remembered there's an upgrade mechanic as the game also doesn't seem to have reminders.

The upgrade mechanic seemed to be the solution to the small gripes i had with the controls. for example, i felt like the basic attack's reach was a little shorter than i wanted. The first upgrade can help fix that. Umbraclaw has a few other mechanics that really set it apart from other games. the biggest is how death works in the game because you're already dead. So when you "die" in the game, it's not game over. You're a cat, so you have 8 more "lives" left. you respawn stronger than before with new powers. There are many of these different powers, each offering something either to attack, to defend, to evade, or to platform. The game is open in saying that you can die and get a bunch of these powers and that's a strategy. But there's yet another twist. each time before you respawn, you have a choice. use up "hope", the main currency in the game, to stay the cat you are or become more feral and get stronger. Not just in attack power, but also in the amount of hits you can take. But as you're bigger, certain non critical areas of the map are now off limits.

There is another, more feral, stage. but the trade off is that you remember less and less of your previous life and the reason why you're making this journey. For me, i found it useful to go feral because of how much health it grants you. Umbraclaw isn't too hard, but it has a decent challenge as a cat because it's a one hit KO. The game does let you revert back to a cat at certain points, like at the end of a stage. there is a sense of not only strategy about all this, but also replay-ability and challenge.

The other game mechanic of note is one that i'm just as impressed by. All too often i come across games where the game is gated by ability. if you're not good enough, then you can't access the whole game. But with Umbraclaw, not only are there 3 game modes you can choose from before you play, the game will notice that you're struggling in a section and offer to lower the difficulty to the easiest one so that you can make it through and continue the game. I personally would play this game on the easiest setting so i can enjoy the combat, the story, the world, and the music. but for the demo i tried it on the default setting, akin to medium. and in this video i did get stuck and took the game up on it's offer to switch it to easy so i can get to the end and continue the game.

This demo for Umbraclaw isn't the best in some ways because it fails to communicate what it is. i don't even know if my save file will carry over to the main game. But it is super useful because i'm very interested in the game now i've played it and i highly recommend the demo for anyone who is interested just from looking at the screenshots like i was. Umbraclaw is more than a puzzle platformer, there are hints and influences from other genres and games in this. The important thing is that it all feel's cohesive and i'm genuinely interested in it now i've played the demo.

Backlog Conquering - Deponia On PS4 - Part 1

It's time for a new backlog conquering game and this time i've started the PlayStation 4 version of Deponia, a game developed by Daedalic Entertainment that is out on many other platforms.

I have had this game, as well as others in the Deponia series for a while now but i haven't started any of them. I don't know what i expected from the game but i think it's clear from the video that i wasn't expecting a point and click adventure game. it's a style of game i rarely play as i don't often do well with them.

I feel like this first part is just an hour of me struggling over and over again. i did enjoy many aspects of the game and it's humour worked well. I don't think that i quite grasped the game's logic during this part. I know it's an old game that originally came out on PC and there are aspects of it's design that feel old or like it was designed for an audience used to this style of game as there are few concessions to help newcomers like myself.

I think i wil do a part 2, but i'm not quite sure as yet.

Stories on Tuesday - Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz - Part 9

Hello and welcome to Part 9 of the new series here on QTE Gamers!

The goal with Stories on Tuesday is to play games with a heavy focus on their story. this can be Visual Novel games, like today's game, or it can be something more episodic. For me, it's a style of game i've not really explored. i have several games across a few platforms that i haven't played but i bought them because i wanted to. So now the time has come for me to experience these sorts of games.

Our debut game is Alternate Jake Hunter: Daedalus - The Awakening of Golden Jazz. I have the game on PS4 via DISC but i'll be playing the PlayStation Plus version of the game that's been downloaded to my PlayStation 4.

In this part we wrap up our time in Silver Snow, tho i do wonder if we'll be back, by correctly working out who is a murderer. The game's story seems to come across like everything is finished now and things can return to normal in Silver Snow, but Deadalus themself moved out a while ago and is still at large. We return back to New York with Chapter 4 and it starts with us retracing the final steps of our Grandfather to try and work out what he was working on, seemingly in secret.

If you're interested in watching the stories unfold without my commentary, head over to Ko-Fi. there, you can subscribe to the "Stories on Ko-Fi" which will let you watch all the stories. This tier will always be one week ahead of the free video on QTE Gamer's YouTube Channel. Or, of course, you can head to https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers and donate via PayPal.

Cloud Monday - The Wild at Heart - Part 1 - Auto and Manual Saves Make This A Good Streaming Game

This week's Cloud Monday video is part1 of playing the PS4 version of The Wild at Heart via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

This game, from developers Moonlight Kids, isn't one i knew about. The Icon on the PSN drew my attention but it was watching the trailer that made me interested in playing the game. i was impressed that the game looked like the icon and whilst the gameplay shown looked like Pikmin, there were extra ideas that seemed cool. So i was keen to play this game to see if it played as well as it looked.

A great idea at the start is we, the player, get to choose our style of playing. i went with a story focused style, but if i wanted a challenge i could've chosen the second style. i prefer this more than just a simple difficulty slider. I do think it made a difference as i never felt like difficulty or challenge was getting in the way of the game telling me it's story. i was happy to make regular progress.

That's not to say there aren't issues with gameplay. it does feel like the game is lazy when it comes to tutorials. an example early on is how it just puts on the screen use the left stick to climb. that could've easily been taught to us through gameplay at the start if we had to climb down from a bunk bed for example. there are a few moments where stuff is put on screen when it could've been an in-game example. other times, i feel like  the game could've offered hints, the one that i didn't work out for a while is that our vacuum can be used to collect the spritelings too.

In the hour i played, most of these felt like missed opportunities rather than deal breakers. what i played was good and it had a fantastic soundtrack accompanying it. The game also has a great save system that helped make it be one of the better games to stream from the cloud. not only does it make frequent auto saves with a clear icon when it does, but you're also able to make manual saves. there is a slight cravat tho in that when you reload that save it'll put you either at camp, if you saved there, or at the entrance to the area  you entered. But this is all explained by the game, something that is rare to see.

I look forward to part 2. in this part, there were only a second or two of issues due to the game being streamed. i felt no delay in the controls, the audio was fine, and the video quality was high with no dips in the bitrate of the video being streamed to me. so far, streaming The Wild at Heart from PlayStation Plus seems like a great way to play the game.

Switch Funday - Splatoon 3 - April's Weekend Splatfest Tricolor - 15 Battles 8 Wins!

Welcome to Switch Funday.

It's day two of April's Splatfest weekend so today's video focuses on the Tricolor game mode in Splatoon 3. 

Just like yesterday, https://youtu.be/QJn1Mw3Md3c, matchmaking didn't take too long and my teams and i managed to get several wins. The only negative was how few Tricolor matches i played in were against the other two teams, Baby Chicks and Bear Cubs. it felt like there was a lot of Bunny on Bunny action today. 

The 3 weapons i used today were the Bamboozler 14 Mk 1, a weapon i didn't enjoy using that much and one that never seemed to either have the power or range i needed at any given time. Also, the charge to attack felt out of place in Tricolor when people are moving around so much. The second weapon i used was the Gold Dynamo Roller. i have used it before and a complaint back then was how long it takes to do the jump attack and that was still true today. but it's inking was very useful. the final weapon was a new one i bought and it's the Custom Splattershot Jr. it looks strange shooting it as it seemingly can't shoot straight. but it did a good job at inking, attacking, and not using up ink quickly so i think it's one i'll use a lot going forward.