Cloud Monday - Brink - Part 1 - An Interesting Approach To Single Player Missions

This week's Cloud Monday video is part 1 of playing the PS3 version of Brink via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4. I have previously uploaded the PlayStation 3 XMB game Previews for the Beta to Brink, version 1.00 https://youtube.com/shorts/uWjRVuGWWZ0 and version 1.01 https://youtu.be/AQGrYqGH7Bg, but it was so long ago i don't really remember much about the game. i know that it didn't do as great as they expected and i remember there being some complaints at the time, but i don't remember what specifically the main issues with the game were.

It starts well with an interesting intro video detailing the story of the game. it tries to provide both the point of view of both sides as when it finishes it asks you to pick a side to play as. Whilst the following character customisation section was easy to navigate, i wasn't a fan of the character design. i didn't like how at this point, it asks you to customise and at first glance it looks like there are lot's of options, but in reality a lot are locked behind progress. i would've preferred the lock stuff to be separated.

Brink has an interesting approach to the tutorial in that it's a video, longer than i expected. it's very detailed and seems to go over everything. There's bonus XP for watching it. i was just surprised that there was no where to go and practice it. the video is a lot to take in and i honestly forgot a few things as i played.

The online servers for Brink are offline, but it does have a single player mode. i was really interested to see how this would work not just in this game but also as something that's being played in the cloud. some of the best designed games are those with lots of auto saves and manual saves. It soon became apparent that the single player part of the game is built inside the multiplayer. It was never made clear if your progress was being tracked with an auto save, so if Sony does disconnect you from the service you could hop back into where you were, or not. personally, i think that there is no auto save/check pointing and if you're disconnected you'll have to start again from the beginning. 

As the single player mission are timed, the compromise is that you won't loose too much progress other than the mission you're currently playing. But the fact it's being played inside a multiplayer shell also means how it works is kinda interesting. What took me a little time to realise is that i can respawn. i kept on expecting my team mates to heal me but when i understood the respawn mechanic other aspects started to make sense. i had noticed that the enemy was relentless but so where my team mates. but i also noticed that players on both sides were getting killed. now i understood that both sides have a respawn mechanic. A bonus to dying is that you're able to respawn and change your job to suit what's happening. I only tried out the medic, but by the end of the video it was clear that the medics job in this mode isn't that beneficial as the Ai players die so quickly. 

I wouldn't say the Ai players are that smart either. it wasn't too frustrating playing with them, but it certainly was unpredictable. Ultimately, it's great that we're able to still play this game. it looks good, the cinematics were great, but i still don't like the character art styles. aspects of the game feel very modern, so it's possible the game was ahead of it's time, but there are certainly aspects of it's design that feel very much of the PS3 generation. Having the ability to play it on PlayStation Plus in the cloud is a bonus, but it's clear that the game isn't designed well enough for it. Part 2 of playing Brink is will probably be more about experiencing this past game.

Online Weekend - Foamstars - Launch Weekend – Smash The Star, Happy Bath Survival, Rubber Duck Party

We have an Online Weekend for Foamstars! It's the debut weekend for the new free to play "Shooter" from Square Enix and Toylogic. Foamstars is out across PS5 and PS4. I'll be playing the PlayStation 4 version of it.

In yesterday's video, https://youtu.be/ycbDurdOG_w, i did the tutorial and tried out the PVE, Player vs. Enemy(ies) Solo missions and online missions. Today's focus was in the PVP, Player vs. Player(s), modes. i didn't have expectations going in as even tho it's easy to compare Foamstars with Splatoon 3, they are quite different so i was really curious to see how the PVP mode was going to be done. Turns out it's not Mode but rather Modes!

The basic PVP mode is Smash The Star. Each team gets 7 Chill-Outs, that's when you're knocked out of the game and are waiting to respawn. once all 7 are used, the best player on that team becomes the star player and gets some bonuses. the other team's goal is now to Chill-Out the star player. helping the star player, on top of the bonuses that character gets, is the fact that their team mates get unlimited respawns. I played this mode 5 times and it's not bad. probably the best of the three i played. But it drags on a little if the two teams are evenly matched. There is an overall match timer that's maybe a minute too long. But overall it's good mode. i was a little surprised that there aren't many stats presented to you after the game. i tried a few characters but i don't have the stats to say which performed better than the other.

The other mode that was available when i started was Happy Bath Survival. This is a best of two mode where there are two players from each team in the arena and two others above. those in the arena are still trying to chill-out the opposing team. those above are trying to help. Like Splatoon, your team mates move quicker on their color so those above are trying to lay down as much. those above are also trying to aim at the enemy players. But of course, so is the enemy two players above. Even tho we won, i didn't enjoy it that much. i found the lack of information of when your team mate is coming back and what's happening above to reduce my enjoyment and it just felt chaotic rather than teamwork.

I couldn't play the third mode until Happy Bath Survival timed out and was replaced. That's one reason why this video is long. But once it did time out i was able to try out the third PVP mode called Rubber Duck Party. Unfortunately, the other reason why this video is soo long is because i couldn't get into a Rubber Duck Party match as it kept having connection issues. the first time it happened it dumped me back into the start menu at the beginning of the game. thankfully the other times it happened i was put back into my social space. It's the most broken the online had been this weekend. 

In Rubber Duck Party, there are two goals. firstly, it's still PVP so you have to deal with the enemy. The second goal is escorting a DJ Rubber Duck to the enemy's section. Some of this is familiar, you have to capture the duck for it to go in the opposite direction. What's unique is that because it's a DJ Duck, there's a stage for your character to dance on. completing a dance will speed up the duck, but it leaves you open to attack so the risk reward is high. This was frantic and it looked like we were going to loose really quickly. but we were able to fight back so it's great to see that it's possible and that things can change. But everyone felt soo overpowered compared to the task at hand. I feel like Foamstars is missing out on a mechanic. For Example, the Duck is a DJ. so if it changes the song, maybe new rules can be added like no abilities, no supers, or something weird like no jumping.

Rubber Duck Party wasn't that fun because it felt unbalanced. it's something different and maybe each time i play Foamstars i may play it once or twice whilst i focus on Smash The Star. That feels like the most solid PVP mode but it's not perfect either. But i prefer both of those over the  Happy Bath Survival mode. with Foamstars being a game where modes can be put in and taken out, i'm encouraged that PVP is something that'll be kept fresh and experimented on.

Online Saturday - Foamstars - Launch Weekend – Tutorial, Solo, And PVE Missions

We have an Online Weekend for Foamstars! It's the debut weekend for the new free to play "Shooter" from Square Enix and Toylogic. Foamstars is out across PS5 and PS4. I'll be playing the PlayStation 4 version of it.

I didn't play the beta version of Foamstars as it only came out on the PlayStation 5 so today's video is my first time starting the game. thankfully, after a cool cinematic the game starts with a simple tutorial. As the game doesn't have too many or complex mechanics, the tutorial is fairly short but also robust. after it ended i felt like i knew how to play it, what i didn't know were the game stages.

It's easy to compare this game to Splatoon 3 and the level designs in that game are very varied with a mix of hights, moving things, and more. So i was wondering if the levels would be the same. unfortunately, i didn't find out as i only tried out the PVE missions in this video. Like Splatoon 3, Foamstars does have a method of travelling fast in the foam you spray on the stage. there are other similarities like your character having a normal shooting mode and a super. one difference is that Foamstars have 2 extra moves as well as those two. These are called skills and each character have different ones. visually, they are impressive and are good at dealing with enemies.

Even tho this is the PS4 version of Foamstars, the game looks very impressive. You probably could hear my PS4 in the background as the game does push it really hard. It'll be interesting to see if tomorrow's PVP video will be even noisier as during the missions, most of the foam is cleared between waves of enemies. there is a weird dithering on the foam on it's edges when looking far away and all over when up close, but it's not really an issue. the only thing thing about the PS4 version that i imagine is lower quality than the PS5 version would be the loading times, oh and maybe the city background. Everything else feels high quality and not a compromise. 

Another plus is how quick matchmaking was. Splatoon 3 is well known for how quick matchmaking is. Pokémon Unite is also up there as one of the quickest games for matchmaking. But many other online games i've played have suffered from waits a minute or more. the wait for Foamstars was 30 seconds or less, so it's very good. it'll be interesting to see if it does get longer as the game gets older.

It's not all great with Foamstars. In trying to be different from Splatoon, the free to play nature of the game uses the character, weapon, and social areas aspects and puts them mostly behind a paywall. one of the more fun features of Splatoon 3 is how you can customise your character using money you've earned, how your levelling up dictates the weapons you can choose to buy from or the items in the store. In Foamstars, nearly everything is behind a paywall, with just a few things available via the free version of the season pass. It'll be easy to see who has paid for things and those who haven't.

So for my first time with the game, i had a great time. i'm excited to try out the PVP in tomorrow's video and maybe more into the future.

Mobile Friday - BirdHeroes - It Looks Good, But It’s Too Rough To Recommend For Now

For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out BirdHeroes from RYUJI KUWAKI. I Played this on my iPhone 14 Pro, but it's also out on Android.

I had previously played SubaraCity and was eager to try out this new game. Unfortunately, it doesn't start off great as it immediately puts you into the game without any instructions on how to play it. i only had a vague sense of what happens because i had seen the screenshots and video in the app store. This is something that continues throughout my experience with BirdHeroes and it became a big frustration.

There are some tutorial sections, but they often came after the section where the mechanic was introduced. There are other tutorial levels, but it's not immediately obvious they're levels you can select and not just trees that are part of the background. When you start them, the English is sometimes vague and even unhelpful at times. It's a sign that this newly released game needs more work and maybe got released too early. 

I had issues with the tutorials, issues with the translation, and issues with the game mechanics. i had guessed a lot and was mostly correct with what happens. but actually doing it proved to be the issue more often than not. With nearly every bird i tried to ride, when it came to sections off the bird i was mostly unable to get back on it. All the birds move, some more unpredictable than others. But the game says there's a 5 second window on these sections when the game is essentially paused. so there's a rush to collect as much fruit and get back on your bird. But your bird may have other ideas and is moving around, flying behind the stage, or just darting unpredictably. i honestly have no idea how it works. sometimes i feel like the bird moved to grab me, other times i fell right beside it. sometimes the bird was quick to get me back, other times it felt too long for it to grab me. i didn't like these sections when ever they came up. even after this video, i still don't think they've been fully explained either.

So with these puzzle platforming sections slowing me down, i came to a point where i couldn't beat any of the levels. these are start of the game levels and i could not get better than 2 out of 3 stars. Unfortunately, the game does nothing to offer hints or tutorials on what to do or how to get better. there is a Upgrade Building i got to, but i have no idea how it works. i couldn't access it. i don't know if that's because i've not done something, if i've not got something, or if it simply wasn't accessible.

With such a large part of the gameplay becoming very quickly frustrating, it was almost inevitable that the game would have intrusive adverts. Thankfully, these adverts are short. but they appear seemingly randomly after some levels with no warning.

Perhaps i came into this game with expectations too high. It does look good. the music is good, too. the screenshots and trailer looked like fun. but actually playing it simply became frustrating. I do think there is potential with this idea, but with the game in such a bad state right now i simply can't recommend it. It needs far too much work for me to even suggest downloading and waiting because it's just not worth playing right now.

(Version 1.0.05 Played)

Demo Play Thursday - Mario vs. Donkey Kong On Switch

For this week's Demo Play Thursday i played the Nintendo Switch version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong. This game previously came out on Game Boy Advance and i feel like there's a chance i tried it out on it, but it was so long ago i don't remember one way or another.

So going into this game, i didn't really know how it was going to play. Other than possibly the first game, i've not played any of the subsequent releases. i've seen trailers and heard people talking about them, but that's it. So coming into this i was really expecting the game to tutorialize what to do and how to play it, not just because it's a #demo but also because it's different from other Mario games.

I was surprised by how unhelpful the tutorial was, what little there was. It's always possible the main game might be a little different as this is a demo that knows it's a demo. the main landing page says demo and it has a link to the eShop. But i suspect that's not the case. The biggest issue with this was the final level with the Mario Toys. i genuinely had no idea what to do and all the game said was guide the toys to the letter blocks. so i walked them to a letter block and they did nothing. it wasn't until i jumped and moved that i realised the toys were following me and have no Ai intelligence themselves.

The demo is only 4 levels and two difficulty levels. the first 3 levels were nice and short with some different platforming and puzzle stuff. the fourth level was the one with the toy Mario's. But it was the difficulty levels that i found most interesting. i started with casual, as it's my first time, but i didn't really know what it was as the game doesn't say what the differences are between them. but after playing i can say that casual adds checkpoints to the levels and a bubble save to the already lives you have. in the normal mode, you only have lives.

I didn't have fun playing this so i'm glad that it's short. it was nice that the demo had a trailer and screenshots for the game. overall, the demo knowing it's a demo was great and a brilliant example of how to do demos. but all that extra detail helped to confirm that this isn't a game i want to play. as well as the poor tutorial, i also found basic stuff like jumping not what i expected and disappointing. i would recommend people try the demo before buying the game as it does feel outdated. it may look nice, but it's accessibility is lacking nowadays. 

Backlog Conquering -Titan Attacks! - Part 1 - More Than Just Space Invaders

I've started a new game from my backlog, now i'm playing the PlayStation 4 version of Titan Attacks!, from developers Puppygames, as part of Backlog Conquering.

Looking at my trophies, i have already got one for getting the max multiplier. but it looks like i never cleared Earth. And i did it many years ago. So i went and deleted that save file so i could go in to it fresh. I was surprised that when i started the game, i was straight into it. thankfully, i guessed what to do as there is no tutorial. the music is great, the graphics are cool, and it starts like Space Invaders. but it quickly changes that old formula and adds it's own twists and ideas.

because there's no head's up about what's coming, no tutorials explaining any of the systems, the first part of this video is more frustrating than fun. i can imagine that this game wasn't very approachable to a lot of people. if i didn't make progress, i would've ended this game with just one video. but thankfully, i managed to get past the first stage Earth.

Then it gets crazier on the Moon. immediately, as well as the aliens i also had to face off against Asteroid looking asteroids impacting the moon. But not long after the aliens also leveled up and starting dropping bombs. this was more difficult because of how busy the screen is. it's hard to pay attention to what's coming down whilst you're looking up to try and hit the aliens. during this stage, that's the thing i complain the most about and whilst i started to adapt in this video, i've got a way to go. 

Thankfully, i'm able to upgrade my own craft. but it's soo slow. plus, i'm spending most of my money trying to restock my shields. like i said above, i'm being hit and not knowing why and it's eating into my shields. it feels more unfair than just being hard with the game struggling to telegraph enemy attacks and what's happening in general.

I will do a second part. the goal will be to try and beat the Moon stage. But if it continues to feel unfair rather than hard, then maybe i'll leave it at two videos. i do enjoy the music and the look and feel. but it's the gameplay that's lacking and perhaps not living up to potential.

Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday - Nintendo Switch Edition - Quest Mode - Dungeon 14 - Starlight Sanctuary

Welcome to one of the final Puzzle & Dragons Tuesday videos! 

With the series being retired on YouTube and finishing over on Ko-Fi, https://ko-fi.com/qtegamers, i'm celebrating by showing off the Quest Mode.

This video shows the 14th Dungeon, Starlight Sanctuary. the closer i get to the final dungeon, the harder these are becoming and the more time they're taking. So the remaining few dungeons will come one at a time.

Come back next week for what will be the 15th,and final, Dungeon!