Next Week We’ll Clean up This Mess Press Start to BGN Show Recap 16/11/2017

Hey! Listen!

Welcome back to Press Start to BGN, Laurier’s gaming show by a bunch of Game Design & Development students here at Laurier’s Brantford campus. The program is very new and so is our show, so for those who don’t know Game Design & Development is headed by Dr Scott Nicholson through the Brantford Games Network or BGN, hence the name “Press Start to BGN” which sounds like “begin.” This week on the show we were kind of all over the place. But, we had a guest star and that made this episode quite the spicy boy. Thanks for tuning in!

NEWS!

• Do you like Super Meat Boy? Then you might be interested in the next game coming from the developers. Super Good Boy. Just kidding it’s called The End is Nigh.

• An Until Dawn Prequel we’ll be coming out January 24th, called The Inpatient follows the story of thesanatorium from Until Dawn, but, 60 years prior from the first games events.
• Cuphead is “Guaranteed to return” says the developers.
• Star Wars Battlefront 2 comes out this week and…. they have loot boxes to understand why that is bad you can learn more here or research yourself and form an opinion and let us know in the comments?
• Developer EA has responded to the concerns on reddit about the unlock rates of items in Battlefront 2. Their respinse is now the most down voted comment on reddit. This happened in two days.
• Nintendo will be distributing 30 million Switch’s next year.
• Apparently in Mario Odyssey you can… ahem… spank a female character

What’s Coming Out Soon!

Hey everybody! Check out what came out this week!

I have no money, no time, and no reason why I’d buy any of these games. I want all of them. It’s this week’s games that are out this week!

 

• LA Noire (PS4, XB1, Switch) (November 14)
  • The hit 2011 game is back! Coming out with a redesigned experience just for the switch, the game’s revolutionary facial tracking hits shelves (and your budget) at full speed. Mind you, if you’re a digital gamer, you might need to spend an extra couple of dollars for a new memory card. (Just buy the cartridge!!)
• Star Wars Battlefront 2 PS4, XB1, PC) (November 17)
  • ..the game play isn’t bad? EAs practices are being scrutinized for following a pay-to-win formula, but they’re making quality games to follow. This game though, you’d be spending closer to $200 for the full experience. I’ve been told both sides of the argument, so I guess you’ll have to play the game to really find out!
• Pokemon Ultra Sun/Moon (N3DS) (November 17)
  • New Pokemon. Every legendary. My wallet is empty and I have no clue where my 3DS is but GUESS WHAT IM GETTING? In all seriousness, the game is a brand new experience for Pokemon newbies and experienced alike, and I’d recommend picking it up for the new experience.
• Batman- The Telltale Series: Episode 1 (Switch) (November 14)
  • The Switch has gone from having 7 games at launch to having a brilliant line up of games, and this is no different. Telltale has been doing well with its games,and Batman is another stepping stone for their success to lean on. Pick it up and check it out!
• Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 (PS4, XB1, PC, Switch) (November 14)
  • It is the best. From Lego Harry Potter to Lego Star Wars to even Lego Indiana Jones, they’ve been making great (and successful!) Lego games for a long time. The next game in their Marvel Superhero lineup is here, which is arguably the best Lego series they’ve created. I don’t know much more than that, so check it out if you wanna know more!
• Rime (Switch) (November 14)
  • Okay, I know NOTHING about this game. It’s a 3rd-person puzzle game about a kid who washes ashore on an island. It has perspective-based puzzles, so the Switch’s gyro can work really well. I’m probably going to pick this up to see just how well it’s plays. I know of ICO and this game has been likened to it, and has good ratings, so I think it will be a good game.
• Skyrim (Switch) (November 17)
  • I hope they stop making Elder Scrolls 5 and move on to 6 soon. Skyrim is a great game, but you can’t just milk a cow and expect it to keep producing milk, you know? It’s gonna die sooner or later.Yes, I compared Skyrim to a cow.
• Sims 4 (PS4, XB1) (November 17)
  • I’ve played this for PC and just… wow. They really stepped up everything about Sims in this version, and they’re porting it to consoles? I think it’s a smart move. It will be cool to see how they port a mainly point-click- and drag- based experience to a controller.

Note from Cassie who edits this blog post: they have released Sims games on consoles before Paris. This is nothing new.

PS+

Worms Battleground (PS4)
Bound (PS4/PSVR)
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood (PSVR)
R-Type Dimensions (PS3)
Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic (PS3)
Dungeon Punks (PSVita & PS4)
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse (PSVita

Games With Gold

TrackMania Turbo (November 1-30) (XB1)
Tales From the Borderlands (November 16 – December 15) (XB1)
Deadfall Adventures (November 16-30) (XB360)

Topic of the Show

So I, Jelena Vulic, finally get to write again. Dang, just when I thought I was getting some slack… Oh well! This week we technically had two topics of the show, because apparently we forgot how we do things, but shh, don’t tell Cassie. 

First, we talked about what was the best gift that we ever got for Christmas that was game-related. Cassie and Eden both picked Dragon Age Inquisition, though Cassie added in Witcher 3. I went with my first DS (you know, the silver brick) and my R4, which had A BUNCH of games in them, like Nintendogs, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Pokemon HeartGold. Stephan talked about his magical experience doing nothing but play The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds on his special edition 3DS XL when he was in Grade 10 (Grade 10? I’m not sure. Stephan didn’t seem sure when he talked about it either, but ANYWAYS). Our special guest, Brayden, couldn’t seem to make up his mind about the best gift ever, listing Halo 3, Left 4 Dead 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, COD MW2, Gears of War 2, and Super Smash Bros as the best Christmas gifts he’s ever received.

We then accidentally went off debating the best year of gaming. Stephan made a strong argument for 2013, listing great games like The Last of Us, Bioshock: Infinite, Grand Theft Auto V, The Wolf Among Us, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Gone Home, Beyond: Two Souls, Outlast, Super Mario 3D World, Guacamelee!, The Walking Dead: Season 2, The Stanley Parable, Pokemon X and Y, Papers Please, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon.

Everybody else however concluded that the best year of gaming was 2007, as it saw many important titles, such as Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Portal, Bioshock, Team Fortress 2, Halo 3, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Super Mario Galaxy, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.

What We’ve Been Playing:

EDEN

• Horizon Zero Dawn
  • From Guerrilla Games comes their 2017 action role-playing game Horizon Zero Dawn. In this game, players play as Aloy, an archer hunter who lives in a world overrun by robots. The game comes with an open world to explore, tribes to visit and side quests to complete alongside its main story line. Discover the dangers and secrets lurking in this games world, now available on PlayStation.
    

CASSIE

• Minecraft
  • From Swedish game designer Markus “Notch” Persson comes the sandbox survival game that took the world by storm: Minecraft. Players can explore the expansive world of Minecraft to their hearts content as the game allows for several different modes of play ranging from a survival game to creative building from the player. Explore the vastness and endless gameplaying possibility this game has to offer. Available on PC, PlayStation 3 and 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Wii U, iOS, and Android.
    
    

STEPHAN

• Cuphead
  
  • From Studio MDHR comes the 1930’s cartoon inspired run and gun game Cuphead. To repay a deal he made with the devil, Cuphead and his brother Mugman must fight a series of bosses to collect their souls for the devil. Play in both single and cooperative mode in this hand drawn, Max Fleisher animation inspired game, available on PC and Xbox One.
    
• Middle-earth: Shadow of War
  • From Monolith Productions comes the sequel to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, the new Middle-earth: Shadow of War. In this action role-playing game, the story takes place right after the first installment, having players be Tailon, a human ranger, on his path of forging a new ring of power to take down Sauron for good. Amass your armies and get ready for war, available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
    
• Super Mario Odyssey 
  • From Nintendo comes the newest installment to the Mario franchise, Super Mario Odyssey. Play as Mario with his new companion Cappy, a spirit that has possessed Mario’s hat, as the two of them travel across various worlds to stop Bowser from marrying an unwilling Princess Peach. Unlike previous Mario installments, the game is more explorative with an open-ended game play structure such as that of Super Mario Sunshine and allows Mario to capture and control various enemies, NPCs, and objects with the help of Cappy. Explore and progress through the story your way in this new Mario title, available on the Nintendo Switch.
    

JELENA

• Assassin’s Creed: Origins
  
  • From Ubisoft Montreal comes the latest installment to their action-adventure stealth game series Assassin’s Creed: Origins. Players are Bayek, a Medjay officer in Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, where various political crises are at hand. Discover how Bayek became the one of the first assassins and how the Brotherhood of Assassins came into being, available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
    
    

BRAYDEN

• Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
  
  • From Nintendo comes the newest installment in the Zelda franchise, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Players are Link, a young boy with no memory of who he is as he awakens from a hundred-year slumber to defeat Calamity Ganon before he destroys the land of Hyrule. The game includes an open world to explore and interact with, allow the player to go about their quest to save the land however they’d like. Explore to your heart’s content in this new Zelda game, available on Wii U and the Nintendo Switch.
    

MUSIC

This week’s theme is SEQUELS! Brayden talked a whole lot about sequels during the Topic of the Show, and Stephan mentioned them as well while talking about games from 2013. The songs I used aren’t related to the games we talked about, but eh. These are the songs I used:

Intro: Saints Row: The Third – Menu Music

Intermission 1: Kanye West – Power (Saints Row: The Third)

Intermission 2: Snoop Dogg & The Doors – Riders on the Storm (NFS Underground 2)

Outro: The Evolved – No Place For a Hero (Borderlands 2)