Before I begin, I'd like to explain that I previewed/played the Xbox One version of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited beta. So any and all problems I found within the beta may be resolved before the game's official release date of June 9, 2015.

That being said, I found the controls to be fine. I never found myself tripping over the controller trying to remember which button does what. You still use the left stick to move, the right stick to move the camera, Left Trigger blocks, and Right attacks. Those are the controls that need to stay the same to keep the game playable, and they are the same. 

I couldn't shake the feeling of how strange the first person camera feels. It feels....wrong. Like it isn't meant to be in the game. It's clear the developers put more time and polish into the third person camera, which works well.

The graphics for ESO on Xbox One can be very pretty at times, especially far off vistas. Standing on a mountain over looking Tamriel is a good example of that. ESO definitely has the look of a Bethesda Game Studios Elders Scrolls entry. The textures are a bit of a different story though. 

If you run up to an NPC or any texture in the world too fast then you have to wait a second or two for that texture to fully load. This is especially apparent when you run up to an NPC to open up dialogue and turn in a quest. And even with the texture fully loaded it isn't as pretty as the Elder Scrolls has been before. 

Though, I suppose this is excusable considering it is an MMO with a huge world and dozens of players with you at times. If ZeniMax Online tried to implement Skyrim level graphics into a game of this magnitude then it would more than likely run very poorly. Fortunately, ESO runs rather smoothly. One thing I have to commend ESO for is that there are no load times going into major cities. Similar to Morrowind. This was minor annoyance in Oblivion and Skyrim so it is nice to see it ironed out in ESO. The load times going into buildings is near instantaneous, which on console is a rarity so it's a nice touch. 

Magic also isn't as streamlined as it was in Skyrim. Your melee attacks are interrupted to use any magic attacks which are mapped to the face buttons. I found myself not using magic attacks at all really. Strangely enough, magic doesn't seem to be as important in ESO as it was in previous entries even though the game still encourages you to play with a magic style. Though, this didn't bother me very much because I rarely use magic in Elder Scrolls games; a lot of players still enjoy playing in the Mage class, but here it feels watered down.

In there attempts of being WoW, ZeniMax Online, have watered down the Elder Scrolls experience to the point where it, sadly, feels like a generic MMO with an Elder Scrolls coat of paint. 

Some things are strangely taking out of ESO that were in previous Elder Scrolls game. Like being able to loot all bodies, not in ESO. Only certain bodies can be looted. I suppose it's to help preserve the economy of the game so players can't farm the same types of enemies for hours. Not being able to read every book is gone too. Now, you can only read "lore books" which, yes, are still nice to read if you are into the lore, but there aren't many of those. Also, how is "The Lusty Argonian Maid" in ESO when it was written by an Imperial in the Third Era? I know this sounds like I'm really nitpicking, but it just furthers my concern with how canon this game is when the developers can't even get Bethesda's original lore right. 

You can't loot every object in the world either anymore. So no more stealing goblets and plates to sell for a few gold each. Strangest yet, no more sitting down on chairs and benches. Why this was taking out? I have no idea. Why couldn't the developers go for a more original experience rather than a WoW clone? It's the Elder Scrolls. It was one of the most original games back in the day.

If you aren't an Elder Scrolls fan, this isn't going to be the game that converts you. I am, however, a huge Elder Scrolls fanboy so I can still see myself getting lost in this game for hours upon hours when it officially releases despite these flaws. But again, like I said, this was a beta so everything I just said could be completely different when the final game launches. Maybe, and hopefully, all these issues and concerns are ironed out in the final product. 

I also recorded some gameplay if you are interested in watching the beta in action:

A big thanks to ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda Softworks for allowing me to participate in the limited access beta of The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited for Xbox One.

After the unfortunate cancellation of Rainbow 6: Patriots, many fans worried if there would be complications with their beloved series. Between September 24th and October 4th, fans were able to play a closed beta of Rainbow Six: Siege and give feedback to developer and publisher Ubisoft. The version of the closed beta I got to play was on the Xbox One.

It's important to remember this was only the beta and most of everything shown is subject to change, but how much will exactly change by release has yet to be seen. With that being said, there's an issue with the graphics right off the bat.

Upon booting up the game and getting into a match it's clear that there was pretty noticeable graphical downgrade from the E3 footage. The graphics in the Siege beta weren't bad by any means, but it's still rather unfortunate that they weren't nowhere near as pretty as early footage from E3. Siege runs at 1080p on PS4 and 900p on Xbox One.

In my time with the beta, I never ran into any issues with the graphics and the frame rate remained consistent, for the most part. The graphics were passable but, like I said before, they aren't anything that will blow you away.

Without the support of dedicated servers, the beta for Siege suffers from frequent lag and difficulties joining games. I encountered more error messages and (what felt like) near infinite loading screens than actual game time. This is a serious issue that needs to be fixed by launch.

The gameplay in Siege is where I believe most people will have split opinions on. Hardened Rainbow Six fans that have been following the franchise for a while will probably the miss the more tactical team-based gameplay of previous entries, whereas, newcomers and fans open to innovation will probably be happier with Siege's faster paced action oriented gameplay.

The two multiplayer modes offered in the beta (other than Terrorist hunt) are both Offensive and Defensive modes that are essentially take over a bomb planted by the Defense. It was actually pretty fun playing on defense and barricading the area of the bomb in an effort to keep the Offensive team out.

The problem with this though is that, in most of my game time, players did not care about the bomb and simply only wanted to kill the entire enemy team before they were killed. This especially went with people who didn't use mics.

No matter the player you might be, it is absolutely essential to play with friends that have mics or random people with mics. There is no other way of communication and it's almost a death sentence to play without mics, at least for the offensive team. Defense doesn't necessarily need mics, but it's better with them.

There were actually only 2 times where my team and I distracted the enemy team, stealthily made our way to the bomb, and defused it. I would complain more about the lack of stealth and players wanting to kill everyone rather than going for the objective, but that may be more of a gameplay style for Ghost Recon.

The classes (or in this case, "Operators") were seriously disappointing. In previous Rainbow Six games you could customize your character's individual armor pieces and clothing, but in Siege you don't get to do any of that.

Instead, you choose your Operator (after unlocking them with points), choose which gun you are most likely to use the most (you can change it any time in the menus), and then you get to customize that; that's it. The reasoning behind the absence of character customization is beyond me, but it's still severely disappointing nonetheless.

The variety of guns is about standard in what you'll find in most shooters. You have assault rifles, sub machine guns, shotguns, and handguns. Nothing really stood out to me, besides the shields. The shields can either be your best friend or worst nightmare.

Only a few classes on the Offensive team can use a shield, but all that team needs is one player in a shield class to tip the odds unfairly in their favor. The only way to kill a player using a shield is to shoot them from the side or the back. This makes it easy for them to rush into a room and kill everyone with their handgun and their teammates following behind.

Many walls, windows, floors, and ceilings in the environment are destructible. Creating your own door ways and flanking the enemy is a welcome addition to Rainbow Six; just don't expect the same destructibility of the Battlefield series.

The unique cover system that was found in Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is gone, and now has simplified it to a lean feature. While aiming down the sights, players can click in either left or right stick and lean left or right. It was an interesting feature, but I rarely found myself using it.

As a long time Rainbow Six fan, I have to say that I'm intrigued to see Siege in action at launch. Nothing in the beta really worried me about the overall quality of the game, but there were features in the beta that saddened me by being absent.

If Ubisoft listens to players and fixes the aforementioned problems with Siege, then Siege will have the capability to rival the current FPS giants that have, arguably saturated the market. I wish Ubisoft a good luck in the endeavors.

Stay tuned with us here at novoGamer for future Rainbow Six news.

After many delays since its announcement in 2013, January 28th to February 2nd, people who pre-ordered The Division (or some lucky individuals that were on a long waiting list) got access to a closed beta for The Division. As this is a beta, it is entirely possible that any and all grievances or admirations can be changed. The version of the beta I got to play was on Xbox One.

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Yes, the graphics have had a bit of a downgrading since The Division's initial reveal. This is unfortunate, but I suppose it's to be expected considering the developer/publisher. Besides this, the graphics actually were still quite impressive. The Division really benefits from having a day/night cycle and this is mostly evident during nights and early morning.

As the sun rises, sun rays pour out from between buildings and, at night, snowflakes begin to fall and even a small blizzard will sometimes roll in. Although, it's still a shame to think that the graphics could have been much better if there wasn't a downgrade.

Textures are a bit of another story. Character models are decent, and textures on clothing look good, but environment textures all look flat and dull. And, besides sun rays in the morning and headlights in blizzards, the lighting is pretty flat overall. It's as if more work was centered around one aspect of graphics than others. There also appears to be a character customization feature allowing the player to create his or her's desired face, but the beta limited this into a few default choices for male or female.

Some of you may roll your eyes when I say that The Division is a cover based shooter, and that's understandable. The cover based shooting is, admittedly, rather dull. There's a lot of cover so you can flank and get around the enemy, but all encounters are usually the same. Run up to a group of enemies, take cover, shoot, change cover, shoot, win, repeat. It's standard and doesn't do anything to reinvent the wheel of this sort of gameplay, but there is one flaw that ultimately hurts the entire side of gameplay.

You can not crouch or go prone in The Division. This is absolutely unacceptable for a game that touts itself as a more tactical focused shooter. Without crouching, stealth is no longer an option (even though you can still equip your guns with suppressors) and it's too difficult to coordinate a team that can only stand around and get shot unless they tap 'A' to take cover. Perhaps not being able to go prone is acceptable, because not all third person shooters let you do this, but not being able to crouch is not.

As well as being able to take cover, you can also climb on top of cars and other large objects to shoot down at enemies, but you'll just be standing on top of said object looking like an easy target since you can't crouch or go prone. Just don't expect the tacticality and player interaction that can be found in other Tom Clancy games like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon.

Something that surprised me right off the bat is that guns have actually weight to them. It didn't feel like pulling the trigger on cap guns. Weapons also sounded fairly accurate as well. The Division also claims to be both an MMO and an RPG. Both of these elements are really simplified. You can team up with a small group of players, but you won't see huge groups of people like you would in other MMO's like WoW. The Division does have RPG elements. You can choose perks from three different tiers, but it's very simple. Almost to a negative point.

The Division is also loot based. Meaning that enemies will drop weapons and items. In the PVE (player vs enemy) areas, enemies won't always drop worthwhile loot. You will have to go into the PVP (player vs player) area known as "The Dark Zone" to get good loot. Inside The Dark Zone, you have a completely new level system and a brand new form of currency to use at Dark Zone vendors. The Dark Zone is actually pretty interesting. You can either choose to team up with other players to hunt down enemy NPCs and get loot from them, or you can choose to either go solo or team up to kill other players to steal their loot. The only catch is that the loot is infected with a virus so you have to call an extracting helicopter to take your loot from you whilst in The Dark Zone. You are a huge target while waiting for it.

Like previously stated, all grievances and admirations can all be changed in The Division's official release on March 8th. Yet, overall, The Division still hooked me and got me very excited to play it when it finally is released. Some things like not being able to crouch and go prone are borderline unacceptable, but here's hoping that is fixed for it's release. Let's just hope that The Division is worth the long wait from it's 2013 announcement in March 2016.

Ah, the MMO...

A genre seemingly dead, yet somewhat alive; In a coma would probably be the best way to describe it. Why? Well, could do with the standstill and/or the lack of innovation, and the easily accessible multiplayer games out there, such as RUST and ARK of the survival genre. But that innovation thing is the big problem. You see, for those who are living on a rock in the middle of the Indian ocean, World of Warcraft dominates MMOs. While some MMOs started and stayed small time players in the market working hard to keep their niche player base, others just sort disappeared as quick as they existed, almost like bubbles. MMOs and their fans really haven't moved in the past decade and a half. EVE Online and WoW just sorta are the kings; they were early adopters of the MMO genre and people flocked to them, and back then showed new and wonderful things.

But there is a new player here to have a go at recreating the MMO...

Introducing Chronicles of Elyria.

Started as a dream in a bar almost ten years ago by a handful of game developers, the people at SoulBound Studios have poured their time, effort and dosh (roughly a million) into creating the player-run MMO of dreams. Calling the features and mechanics ambitious would be an understatement... unimaginable would be a closer word. Chronicles of Elyria is a MMORPG with a story and economy run by the players. NPCs are simply extras to help mold your characters' ripple on the world of Elyria and push their epic with some engine generated storylines; We'll get to that later.
Here is my understanding of what the game will be like:

SKILLS, LEVELS AND CLASSES

The game lacks an overall level and classes and replaces it with overall skills which umbrella over specific skills;

-Combat: which covers unarmed, one-handed, two-handed, thrown and ranged as well as duel wielding and sneak attacks.
-Survival: which is specifically the skills of surviving out in the wilderness. It covers finding food and water, tracking prey, bandaging wounds and navigation.
-Crafting: the art of turning raw goods into useful items, covers producing meals and drinks, armors and weapons, furniture and fine jewlery.
-Gathering: the skill of being able to procure raw goods from various sources covers identifying and handling organic materials (such as plant or animal based items) as well as inorganic materials (such as ore, stone, metals and gems)
-Deviant: the skills of thievery and stealth. This skill allows pickpocketing, purse cutting, crafting false identities, disguises and forging documents.
-Bardic: the skills and arts of academics and performing. This allows characters to play music for buffs and entertainment, reading forgotten languages on ancient documents, performing forensic actions to hunt down criminals and the art of map making.

These skills are taught by either books, NPCs or other players. Someone who has never done smithing will always fail and must procure some style of training to begin. Once someone has learned basics they will be of Novice level. Continuing learning and grinding of skills will eventually bring them to Apprentice, then Journeyman, Expert, Artisan, and eventually to Legendary if enough dedication is given towards a skill. Specific combinations of skills will create player made classes; perhaps you want to become an explorer and map the world? Survival and Bardic would be your best bet. Or perhaps become an assassin? Deviant and Combat would do the trick. But no matter what, it is for you to decide.

CHARACTER CREATION, SOULS AND PERMADEATH

On the subject of skills, I must talk about those learning it; your character.
From my understanding there are two separate entities when referring to "you"; your soul and your avatar (or character).

Your avatar is the physical embodiment you play as in the world of Elyria. You are born either as a ward of the state or into an actual player family (each of these have their pros and cons). Your character will develop skills, battle scars, physique and a story over your life time. They will eventually die of wound or old age, depending on how physically damaged they are or how many times they have been forced to "Plane Walk" (past KO, before perma death. Similar to WoW were you have to walk to you dead body). The average played life span is between 80 and 120 in game years, and each in game year is 4 IRL days (And each of these days will be a different season). But your character will die, and you can't stop it. When you die, you have the chance to pass on your belongings in a will. Perhaps, if you have a family, it will be your next of kin played by another person or yourself? It's up to you.

Your characters body will die, but your soul will live on. Your soul will have passive skill attributes given to it by default and over the course of multiple lives, affinity (basically karma) and talents; bonuses in specific skills and special abilities such as magic or the ability to soul walk when one pleases. Achievements are things that players do over time that are bound to a soul over the course of lifetimes; Maybe you were once the champion of the arena for a kingdom, maybe you were the master and founder of a very successful guild, or an adventurer who chartered far off lands never seen before; what you achieve is up to you.
Each soul is also given a "destiny" which can be unlocked by doing specific tasks unknown to the player. Once these tasks are completed the player will then be able to follow their destiny, and once completed will have changed the world of Elyria forever in some way. Perhaps it is your destiny to adventure into a deep dark ruin, battle great beasts and retrieve the blade of kings? Or perhaps it is your purpose to FORGE the blade of kings?! You'll never know unless you trigger it. Every soul is also given a soul mate. You don't know who they are, but they share a bond with you like no other soul; their destiny is the same as yours, their talents are identical and their skills are yours if you find them. You won't know who they are unless through pure luck you find them; you can tell if they are near you through some undisclosed mechanic. And if you're forced to plane walk while you're near them you will most certainly be able to find your body with ease and plenty of time. But of course, there is a catch; your soul mate may develop to become your rival through either affinity or politics (such as guilds or kingdoms)

Oh, by the way, there is a weird soul-based subscription system..? Apparently once you perma-death (which is no easy feat) you have to cough up around 30 USD to start a new character? I don't really know, I'd love someone to clear this up for me, but a "Spark of Life" apparently should last as little as 3 months and 3 weeks to as long as a full year, which is good value since that's roughly 7 USD per month if you last as long as the minimum

TRADE, CONTRACTS, CRIME AND "OPCs"

Chronicles of Elyria removes the well known trade system and market houses and instead picks to go with contracts and player based couriers or merchants. Trading is done in two ways; face to face where you simply exchange goods or services to receive goods or services, nice and simple, and there is over trade agreements.
You sign a trade agreement (or contract) with someone when giving them a task or making an order/promise for items with a written document to prove it to them or authorities. Say, for example, you are a mercenary and have been tasked to protect a merchant shipment or cart, and in return you'll be paid. You both sign the document, you do the task and you receive your payment. But what if they want to swindle you? Then you have a document to prove it and can be given a bounty token, which depending on the laws of ye kingdom will allow you to have authorities go after them, to rob their house in compensation or to brutally murder the goy. Or perhaps YOU swindle them? Well they can do the same and go after you for not delivering, and you'll have to either flee or change identities through the use of forgery and disguises. However, what if you want to set someone up? With the skills of forgery you can trick authorities into allowing you to go after the poor bastard and stealing his stuff with a fake document.
And how would you get caught? Well, someone with forensic abilities might be able to identify a fake document, and will have you jailed or executed by authorities for your vile ways; as you should be, criminal scum!

What happens when you go offline? You don't disappear, you become a "Offline Player Character" or OPC. You can "code" your OPC to do specific tasks, such as act as a vendor or guard a specific area. But what happens if you die when offline?..I actually don't know. But it's safe to assume you'll either want to go somewhere safe in the middle of nowhere or be guarded by other characters.

EDIT- OPC deaths while the player is away will begin your Spirit Walk on your next log in. Permanently die after ~30 IRL days if you don't log in

CITIES, BUILDINGS, MAPS, RESOURCES AND RUIN

From my understanding of the game this is how it is; there are finite resources, but items that aren't so easy to replace such as metals can be replaced at a 1:1 ratio via a smelting process. Cities and buildings are also made by the players of CoE in a style that I'd say is similar to Starwars Galaxies and RUST or ARK. But the finite part of environments creates dilemmas and problems; people demolish a forest and don't plant new trees? Well the trees won't be coming back naturally. People manage to flatten an entire mountain? It won't ever be coming back either. The Soulborn engine, an engine that creates the stories, recognizes player developments and other dynamic things, and will work server side and separately to the Unreal Engine, with the ability to recognize new towns and cities through different criteria and account for them. For example, a leader has amassed enough people and resources to start building a town, then a city and eventually a kingdom. The game will start to work around this, marking on a server side map this creation. Cartographers begin creating new maps marking this city with the name of "Derginsaw" and the engine will recognize this and so on. But the city is one day attacked and razed mostly to the ground, and is left forgotten. Eventually cartographers will start not marking this place as a city, or not marking it at all and the engine will eventually turn it into a dungeon of sorts for adventurers to explore for ancient treasures and, more importantly, more old maps which will show the way to other ruins. But let's say Derginsaw was captured by a different faction, and the king wants to rename it to "Krathlanaw"? Well, he'll have to pay a huge amount of cartographers to update their maps with this new name and make it the mainstream name (like Constantinople Istanbul) and eventually the Soulborn engine will recognize this change on the back end. Oh, by the way, maps are created by players, which means people will go out of their way to map new areas, then detail them with different things such as forests and names, and then sell these to people so they can be copied or used for navigation. This hefty job will be most valuable to tacticians, adventurers and anyone who likes knowing where the hell they are. You will also have to rely on sun dials to reliably get the time of day,use a compass to find north and use astronomy to find where you are at night. Players also have a "Sensory" mini map which will show temperature, smells and sounds heard by the character, allowing you to notice finer details impossible with current technology, such as the smell of wood and cooked meat from a nearby camp that you haven't seen yet whilst hunting for bandits.

Farewell, and I hope to see you in the lands of Elyria!

The premise of the game at first glance seems to be like most in the survival horror genre, survive until you die. What makes the game unique is that its utterly pitch black all day, everyday. Thankfully it seems like you can through various means and tools, create life affirming light. Unfortunately for you there are mobs of zombies who are attracted to any and all sources of light. So an interesting dilemma is offered to the players, how do you survive when you can't see anything and any light you turn on will bring zombies like flies to a neon light. Live only off what every light your torch provides or look for greater sources of light, and of safety or at least some safety.

Darkness Overrun hopes to be a open world, with a lot more ground to explore that what was shown in the reveal. It also will have base building. So hopefully you'll have the chance to go full I Am Legend and pimp a sweet pad to keep the zombies out and the light in.

The game is obviously in pre-alpha so it's a very long way from being done, but Shadow Zone is going to have a alpha demo live soon so you'll have a chance to play for yourself. If you're interested in keeping up to date with whats going on you can follow the studios Twitter @SZSGames.

Where do I begin? Lawbreakers is an arena shooter that really brings downright fun to the table. It is slightly reminiscent of old school shooters of its genre like Quake or Unreal Tournament, with a modern shooter twist to it. Lawbreakers can be summed up in a couple of words: dazzling, but lacks a bit of luster (hopefully these things will be fixed by the time of the full release). But where does it fail? Where does it succeed? Well first off, Lawbreakers fails at a couple of things that I noticed right away.

CONS:

For one, the classes seem to be really unbalanced as of now. I started off playing as the assassin and being completely new started cleaning house without even knowing how to effectively use my specials. The reason being is that the two daggers you have seem to have a ton more reach then they should. All the other classes are okay and have problems but they work to how you would expect.

Another is the game mode they offered for the often beta, which was great except for one detail. For all of you that don't know, this game mode is charging a battery that both teams need to fight over and who ever charges this battery first will win. This is where the problem lies. In this game mode the battery cannot lose charge. So say red team has the battery charged at 98%, but the blue team comes in with three of the Titans, come busting down your door and all activate their special and shock the shit out of everyone, steal the battery bring it back to their base and by the time everyone has spawned they've already won. Might seem unlikely but it happens!

PROS:

Now for the positives! One thing I would like to say is to say how thankful I am to Boss Key Productions for really working with the Alpha community and listening to the problems we have had and actually fixing them to our satisfaction. Sure there is a ton more that still really needs to be fixed, but just seeing the forum and seeing them to respond to almost every single one of the pleas is fucking amazing. You guys should really pat yourselves on the back.

Another thing, the game's atmosphere is goddamn gorgeous. The visuals are amazing, everything is animated very well, you name it and it looks great! The only thing I would say that is wrong with the visuals is the more photo-realistic art direction than one more cartoon-like which would have made the game a lot more timeless. It would have fit the game a lot more in my personal opinion.

The game-play is great. Shooting at your foes, finding a way to sling behind them with your grappling hook and go for the kill is so much fun. I have to admit here that over time I really start getting angry with PvP games. This one however really didn't do that. I was very shocked at myself that I wasn't getting mad at the game; everything really seemed like it was all out of good fun! Honestly I really like that about this game because when you die, you can only really blame yourself for what happened because there are so many ways to avoid death. There are heath stations on the map where you can stand in and get healed to get back into the fight. There are also so many different ways to escape combat that you know you cannot handle alone. Zero-G is where the game gets fucking crazy now. There are these anti-gravity zones that seem to randomly appear through out the arena and really change up the way combat works. Almost all the classes have one special dedicated to how you move. This really comes into play as you are drifting about in zero-g, you really have to rely on that to keep you moving and dance your way around your foes before you run out of juice. When the cool-down starts you feel hopeless. Just trying to defend yourself in any way you can 'til you can get the hell out of there.

Verdict:

Overall, while I enjoyed my experience with the alpha, there are a lot of minor adjustments that do NEED to be fixed. I would really recommend this game to be tried as of now. Boss Key said there will be more Alpha tests down the road! So while you can, I would try to squeeze your way into that Alpha before it's to late! Expect a better review when it's released!

Interestingly, I've never been too big into the RTS genre. Just like most things, I believed it had a rightful place in gaming, but I could never really get into it. If you like RTS games, you'll like Divided We Fall. If you don't, Divided We Fall isn't going to be the game that turns you. Does that mean it's a bad game? Absolutely not. From an RTS standpoint, and even in it's current state, Divided We Fall is very good game that could very well set new standards in its completed state.

After joining a server, and assuming the current match has ended, you will choose to join either the Allies or the Axis force. From there, your squad leader will issue commands to their entire unit. You're free to follow orders or disobey and run around until you're dead. The gameplay itself is very tactical and really forces the squad leaders and all other players to think since they are working against actual living people and not just an AI. Divided We Fall definitely has me raising an eyebrow in a new found interest in the RTS genre, although I can't speak for everyone in that regard.

Divided We Fall is multiplayer only. You are asked to create an account on a launcher, although it is not mandatory, and then you have a choice of servers to start out on. The best option would be start on Training servers to familiarize yourself with the mechanics of the game.

Perhaps it was the timing of my playtime, but almost every server I joined had the actual developers playing alongside us. Not to moderate and dictate how we play, but to play with us and make sure we were enjoying ourselves. They would even add to jokes and take the time to ask what we personally want to see added in the future. We were also told when updates are planned to appear and what would be included.

I'm not completely sold on it being multiplayer only though. AI squads would probably be just as good, if not better, than random people on the internet that can, and will, gladly disobey orders and end the match in a loss. The servers themselves are a bit laggy, but the developers have stated that these problems will be the first that will be remedied in the next patches. Still, I can't help but feel that multiplayer should have been a secondary gameplay choice rather than the main attraction.

As it stands, Divided We Fall is pretty basic in terms of RTS games, but some of the additions planned to be added are: better balancing, more maps, more nations to choose from, more weapons, and Steam Workshop integration. The words "Early Access" typically turn away many potential players due to the sheer volume of controversy that has followed in the past, but we shouldn't completely disregard a game for that reason. Especially since the developers do seem genuine in their plight.

(Disclaimer: Any and all content that this game's beta contains may be changed or altered in its final release. Please keep this fact in consideration while reading.)

The story is wacky, but simple. A young but passionate baseball player named Sally hits a homerun so hard that the ball speeds through space and crashes into an alien planet so forcefully that it makes a crater upon impact. As such the aliens get pissed and invade earth to exact their revenge. So Sally takes it upon herself to fend off the invaders with her trusty bat and ball. It gives of that early 90's style of creativity that you don't see very much. The story doesn't make much sense, but it doesn't have to as the gameplay is what matters most. I love games like this because the surreal plot makes for some interesting mechanics due to the setting that the story gave it. Most game companies don't seem to grasp this any more.

Now as for the game's controls, they are very responsive and I can't seem to find anything wrong with them. You hit the ball into the blocks and aliens on top half of the screen, you grab power-ups that you can activate at any time to make completing the stage easier, and you can slide along the ground to temporarily become invulnerable to enemy fire. You only get three strikes (HP) before you're out though, but I think that's more than fair considering that the game's challenge scales at a natural pace and you don't fail if the ball ever touches the ground; Instead you just lose the score combo you've built up to that point. I never felt like the game was unfairly difficult in the 5 stages that the beta offered at the time.

Now while there were so few levels in the beta itself, it did offer a level editor which I tried out to a fair extent. Now while it wasn't the most intuitive level editor I've used, I never found myself frustrated on how to use it. It was very easy to learn and placing blocks and enemies was quite painless because the whole system was tile-based. Now I have no idea if sharing levels will be a feature that will be added to it any time in the future, but I sincerely hope that the developers will at least consider it.

Overall, I had a ton of fun with what little was presented to me. The music was extremely well composed and had a Sega-like feel to it, the graphics and spritework was expertly made and was vibrantly colored, and the fact that it's gamepad compatible is just icing on the cake. I was especially impressed by the fact that it was made in Unity as the sheer abundance of crappy Unity-made games makes ones like Aliens Go Home Run! shine as a result. There are a few bugs here and there but due to it still being in its testing phase, that's to be expected. I personally can't wait until the full version of this game is completely finished and released on April 2nd, but until then, I'll be seeing you.

(Disclaimer: Like before, any and all content that this game's beta contains may be changed or altered in its final release. Please keep this fact in consideration while reading.)

So first of all, what can I say that hasn't already been said? Each of the 70 stages and 9 bosses have their own unique challenge to them witch gradually increase in difficulty as you play. But I did have one major problem with one stage and one stage only: 5-7. Every regular stage before and after it were perfectly fine and a lot of fun when it came to their difficulty relative to where it was placed in the game, but this stage in particular was severely unbalanced. I get that the game is still in beta and is currently being tested for bugs, but when I'm subjected to a bullet hell while avoiding mines AND those thwomp-like enemies for nearly an hour where every other stage took roughly 5 minutes (bosses at no more than 10 minutes), it starts to feel more like a chore. The only other gripe I had with the game is that some of the achievements didn't proc when they were supposed to, but that didn't bother me too much. I've never been big on collecting achievements in games.

Now that one stage didn't ruin my experience of this wonderfully crafted game. It would take a helluva lot more than one bad stage to make me hate a video game; I'm not that petty. So like I said, my overall opinion was largely unchanged. And now that I've beaten the game, I feel that I can properly score this game like I have in every other review I've done. So until next time, I'll be seeing you.

Score

Now a year later cre-ture has rebranded the name simply to Session, and has launched a kickstarter that has succeeded it's goal of $62,935. At the time of the submission of this article the campaign has reached $118,019 and has completed 7 of its stretch goals. Though the campaign is being funded daily through the support it is receiving through all forms of social media, including gamers YouTube videos of them playing the game.

The great classic thing about how cre-ture is going about promoting the game is a free prototype demo. I remember playing that first Tony Hawk Pro Skater demo at my neighbor's house before the game was out when I was in highschool. It was just one level, but we played it like it was a fully developed game. You can spend the holidays mastering your skills and playing Skate with your friends, just like us old farts did back in the day.

You may be asking yourself. Why is this game the evolution of skateboard games? Well cre-ture posted on the campaign that:

Session focuses on the authenticity of skating, both in the way the game feels and is presented to the player. Based on this philosophy, each feature makes the game even more innovative, fun and respectful to the skateboarding culture. The main purpose of the game is to live the sport in its entirety. Feel what it is to be a talented street skater. Explore and tame the concrete, film yourself, your friends and share your footage on the internet with the worldwide skateboarding community.

So the game seems to give you the tools you need to become the best skateboarder in a virtual community of skaters. Though there is no point system so that means there is no ranking, this is all about earning respect in the streets.

Today is the last day to donate. This is a great gift for you or your Skateboard gaming friend. Along with supporting a great up and coming independent game company, and the next great skateboard game.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/100195109/ses...