Tom Clancy's The Division, living up to the hype?

Hello people of the internet, TKH here. Today I'll be giving a semi-review of the base game, as at the time of writing I'm still yet to get my hands on the DLC's that have been released thus far.

Those of you who know about the game and when it was actually released might be sitting there thinking "Why are you reviewing a game that's been out for months now?" The answer is that up until recently it was a game that perhaps wasn't as good as it could be. Gauging from what I'd heard from people who had played the game, in it's first "iteration" it was a game that was quite stale and got repetitive quickly. 

That's not to say that the cover based shooting and grindy style gameplay still doesn't. If you aren't a shooter fan and find grinding a game for hours trying to find the best gear boring then The Division is probably not for you. It's not that the shooting and cover mechanics are badly done, the truth is quite the opposite. It is perhaps more that the cover based shooting that tends to be prevalent throughout the game has been done many times over in recent years, akin to what the Sonic series' of games turned into after being driven into the ground over time.

One of the things that has surprised me the most about The Division is how powerful its story is. The game takes place in Manhattan after a bio-chemical attack and the failed attempts of the government to keep control of the city. This has rendered its glistening metropolitan landscape a lawless wasteland full of gangs, rioters and even a Private Military Company fighting over control of the city, as the remains of the JTF (Joint Task Force) try to keep some sort of law and order over the worsening situation in the city.

The player takes control of a Strategic Homeland Division (simply shortened and usually refereed to as 'The Division') agent who has been activated as part of its second wave, after first wave agents were either killed off or disappeared. As your character enters the frying pan while the heat is at its peak, it adds a sprinkle of desperation and hopelessness to the chaotic setting you see around you. Throughout the city there are phone recordings, situation reports and other collectible data and information which can be found as you wander around its landscape. As I collected these I found that they became much less of a chore than I had thought they would. I remember there was one particular phone recording I found that was quite an emotional one, hitting a chord with me as I listened to it while seeing the utter devastation and sadness which lay around me.

This is a showing of how collectibles should be done, adding something further to the experience to make them things we want to find rather than have to find. The characters may not be as extensively fleshed out as the games plot, but they do enough to keep you invested in getting control of the city back. 

Being a game which technically has you always online, there is the option to partner up with others. This can be done quite easily at any of the safe-houses dotted throughout the map, where you'll often see other agents resupplying throughout their journey. This seamless transition that bridges the multiplayer and single player experience is very well executed. It is nice seeing other agents going about their missions, an almost daunting experience at first when you are starting out and see all these high levels players around you. It almost goes without saying at this stage with any AAA game such as this that the graphics are top notch, with a very detailed representation of a snow covered Manhattan shown in The Division. 

So onto the big question, is The Division worth it? I think the answer is yes. If you've been tossing and turning on whether to give it a go, now is the time to try it out. After regular updates and DLC releases it is arguably in the best state it has been since its release. For fans of the shooter genre it ticks all the boxes, with a story-line that progresses along quite nicely without feeling like it has dragged on for too long.

That's it from me on this one, hopefully it gives you an idea of what to expect out of Tom Clancy's The Division.

Minecraft Story Mode, the tale so far...

Hello all once again, TKH here. After a long absence from the blogging scene, one that shouldn't come as much of a surprise to most of you, I've decided to try (again) to get the blog going with regular content.

To start, I thought I'd have a talk about the most recent addition to the Telltale roster, Minecraft Story Mode. I have played through the first two episodes in recent days and can say that though they may not be anything radical or unique for a Telltale game, they are still very enjoyable non-the-less, sporting the usual emphasis on plot and characters.

I went into the first episode of the game expecting the sort of thing that we always do when we play a game by the Telltale franchise, a very in depth and well fleshed out story, world and characters. In those departments the first two episodes haven't disappointed, with characters which have qualities and quirks making them people you really do care about. Being a game in collaboration with Minecraft, the world the game takes place in is fairly easily sorted, so in that department Telltale didn't really need to add too much aside from the Minecraft world we all know. It has the look that we all know of Minecraft as well which I think has been executed very well here, having that distinctive look of the game while still looking modern and fresh. 

Of course, being a Telltale game if you are looking for a title with constant action and freedom for the player to do whatever they want then this game isn't really for you. The only real interaction the player has is with quick time events that occur throughout the storyline, with occasional small areas popping up where the player can move around to interact with objects and talk to other characters. For some players that may well switch them off the game entirely, but I think the fantastic plots and characters which are in the narrative make up for the lack of traditional player movement allowed in the game. 

I do however think the story in this title (so far anyway) is not quite as strong as in other Telltale titles such as The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. After the fantastic first episode that established the story and began the chaos which the character you play is trying to resolve, the second episode felt a bit less spectacular and meaningful to me. It was still a fun experience I felt, but for me it lacked the impact that was shown throughout the first episode. This wasn't helped by one of the decisions that was made by the player during the first episode being made essentially meaningless in the second, as either decision lead to the other being fulfilled anyway.

Despite this I still think the game is worth playing for those who like games with a heavy emphasis on a deep and involving plot and well fleshed out character development. Although the way it is played may be different from most games and the story so far may not be the best that Telltale has developed, it still has a story that is as well fleshed out and told as you would expect from the Telltale stable.

With another three episodes to still be released there is a lot of this series to play out and I expect Telltale to deliver the usual narrative prowess that we come to expect of them. 

I hope you guys enjoyed this review of sorts of the first two episodes in the Minecraft Story Mode series. Until next time, TKH out. 

World of Tanks: T-34-85 Review

Hello once again people of the internet, TKH here. So today it's another one of my tank reviews from the World of Tanks game. Today we'll be focusing on the T-34-85, a tier 6 Russian medium tank which is one of my favorite tanks in game.

So lets get the bad stuff out of the way first, one of the main weaknesses of the T-34-85 is it's not terribly effective armour. To be fair it is a medium tank, meaning that speed and maneuverability is generally taken over effective armour protection. With armour stats of 45mm for the front and side of the hull and 40mm for the rear, its chances of bouncing incoming shots is minimal. The tanks turret isn't as bad as the hull, with both the stock and upgraded turret being 90mm at the front of the turret. This can bounce when top tier and on occasion against tier 7's, making hull down tactics a possibility. This tactic shouldn't relied on however, as with the lack of a sizable gun manlet and only 90mm of base armour on the front of the turret, it won't bounce terribly often, especially when in tier 7 or 8 battles.

Now onto the good stuff, something which this tank doesn't lack. First off is its speed, which is has plenty of. While not being quite as fast as the Cromwell it is still plenty fast enough to perform the job a medium tank should, exploiting flanking opportunities and taking advantage of distracted opponents. This speed and ease of movement is complimented by a very good gun. The 85mm top gun which this tank gets has 144mm of penetration, 1mm less than the Cromwell. It does however have significantly higher alpha damage than the Cromwell, with 180 compared to its British rival which has 135. The Cromwell does come out on top in the end with a better damage per minute stat and slightly better accuracy. This still doesn't stop the T-34-85 being a very good medium tank, able to dish out a quite damaging shot to an opponent and still have a good rate of fire. 

So is this tank worth getting? Well my view is that it is definitely worth it, as it combines everything which is needed in a medium tank and is a lot of fun to play. For me, it is a reliable medium tank that rarely lets you down, having the speed to relocate on the battlefield should the need arise and exploit those flanking opportunities when they occur. It's potential as a scout is not as high as the Cromwell's, but being a medium tank this is not really its job, the scout role being covered more effectively by light tanks. Though its armour is not high, its angling can enable bounces to occur, especially when top tier. This is something which the Cromwell can only dream of, as it's armour is flat virtually everywhere, making bounces a very rare occurrence.

That has been the post for today, I hope you enjoyed it and are happy to see the return of the tank reviews for World of Tanks. Until the next post, bye for now. 

Hearthstone Card Review: Raging Worgen

Hello once more people of the internet, TKH here. So today we have the first of those Hearthstone card reviews I mentioned I'd start doing in the return article I did earlier this week. For those of you who don't know what the game is about, it is essentially a online card game where players battle each other and use cards to try to get the opponents health (which starts at 30) to 0. Whoever loses all their health first loses the battle. For today's card review we're looking at the Raging Worgen card (picture at the bottom of the post), one of the cards that has been in the game since it first began.

The card costs 3 mana to play and has 3 attack and 3 defence. In terms of vanilla stats this is not a particularly good distribution of them, but it also isn't a terrible stats spread either. The reason why the Raging Worgen can be such a powerful card is that it is an enrage creature, meaning if it takes damage it triggers a certain effect. For this card it gains 1 attack and also gets windfury, which means it can attack twice in one turn. This makes it's potential damage output per turn increase from 3 to 8, which is a very high amount to have to deal with.

This card generally is a good one to use to get the opponent to use removal cards on it, as the opponent tends to want to remove the card as soon as possible. Does this mean the card is not worth playing? This could certainly be argued, as 9 times out of 10 the card gets removed the moment or very soon after it is played. But, when the Worgen is able to be used to full effect it is an extremely powerful card. Personally I find that sometimes it can be a good card to play to get the opponent to use premium removal cards to eliminate it, as this means they don't have that card to use against a more powerful opponent. All in all however I do think the Raging Worgen is a good card with the potential to win you games if used in the right way in the right scenarios.

That's the blog post for today, the first of hopefully more Hearthstone card reviews to come. I hope you enjoyed the post and until the next post, bye for now.

Story and Plot in Gaming

Heyo once again people of the internet, TKH here. So first off I must once again apologise for the lack of posts lately. But I do want to try to get regular posts up, though those of you who have followed this blog since it began will probably be rolling your eyes with skepticism. But alas, I shall do my best to keep content on this blog coming. The usual World of Tanks tank reviews are planned to begin again soon, with possibly some Hearthstone card reviews starting as well and of course other gaming related things. 

So today I thought I'd have a little talk about a gaming series that is probably one of my favorite in gaming, especially the PS2 titles of the franchise. It is called Ace Combat, a series where essentially the player controls aircraft and destroys enemy targets. The series has been mostly set in a fictional world, Strangereal, which has it's own history, law and politics. One of the reasons this series has captivated me as much as it has I think is the amount of depth it has despite (in essence) being an arcade flight simulator gaming series.

It also isn't afraid to show just how awful war is for all involved. One mission in particular which comes to mind is the 11th mission in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, where your mission is to protect allied(coalition of multiple countries in the game) bombers as they perform a bombing mission on a enemy (Belka) industrial city. Firstly the name of the mission is "The Inferno",  something which destroys everything in its path and scars what it destroys for a very long time. The operation name is "Operation Cannibal", once again another heavily negative word, something which betrays it's own, is a savage and inhumane. 

As the player starts the mission the first thing that one notices is how dark the scene is, as the mission takes place during the night. This gives a very dark setting for the mission, only emphasizing the sadness and chaos war brings. The only light is from the target city, which as your wingman Larry "Solo Wing Pixy" Foulke puts it is a "burning city", as the allied bombers having already started their bomb runs on the city. The next thing is the music, which is extremely dark stuff. During the first half of the track you can almost hear the corruption and darkness filling the track. Then the track takes on a different tune, as it fills with sadness and loss of hope as the city before you is bombed into submission. The scale of the bombing is only made worse when the player hears that it was supposed to be a "strategic bombing" mission, essentially meaning that the targets were meant to be bombed with precision to avoid civilian causalities. Instead, the allied bombers start carpet bombing the city instead, not caring whether civilian building are hit as well. 

Then comes what I think is the factor which completes the darkness which this mission is designed to show. The name of the city is "Hoffnung", which I thought didn't mean anything when I first saw it. But then after realizing how dark and depressing the mission is, I thought to look it up and see if perhaps it actually means something. As it turns out the word is actually a German one, and translated into English it means "Hope". So effectively what your allied bombers are doing is carpet bombing hope. This feeling of anger at what is going on is only made worse when the enemy decide to burn the city as they retreat, to leave nothing for the allies. The line which the player hears which seals the feeling in this mission is this, "Abandon Hoffnung", or abandon hope. The events of this mission are so impactful that (spoiler alert if you want to play the game and not have any story ruined) your wingman (Larry Foulke) decides to defect to a organisation called A World With No Boundaries, as he feels that the political games which are being played to gain control of resources by the allied countries after the chaos and ruin which has occurred is wrong. 

Larry defects in the next mission, one where the Belkans decide to drop seven nuclear bombs on their own cities in South Belka, claiming that North Belka is the "true homeland" of the nation. Really this move was most likely made to make sure that when the allies took South Belka (something which was only a matter of time away from happening), they were left with nothing. The nukes are actually dropped as the mission is happening. As it happens the effects of them are felt by the player, with communications being damaged and the player being attacked by a squadron of enemy fighters after the confusion of the nukes has occurred. Once the nukes are dropped the music which had been playing up to that point of the mission stops, only emphasizing the loneliness and silence the nukes bring.

The examples of how much impact the events of the Ace Combat series has had goes on, but I feel it is quite astonishing how a game series with such a simple premise can be so in depth and hard hitting. Keeping in mind as well that the Belkan War game talked about here is about ten years old now, showing that even a decade ago (and older) games could have big messages to show to their audiences. Gaming may seem like something which is childish and meaningless to some, but there many examples of when games can have as much (if not more on occasion) of a fleshed out and powerful story behind them than even the best movies, TV shows and (I'd go as far as to say) books. 

So that is the post for today, thanks to those of you who read through the whole thing and I hope you enjoyed it.

World of Tanks: ISU-152 Review

Hello people of the internet, TKH here. First off I would just like to apologize for the lack of posts lately, my motivation and time to do posts for the blog has been rather low, but I really am trying to keep this thing as regular as possible. So onto today's post content, which is a review of the ISU-152 Tank Destroyer as seen in World of Tanks.

So the mighty ISU-152, feared even at tier 10, and for good reason. First of we'll start with some of the negative points about this tank. First thing to note about this tank is that its armour is probably one of its greatest weaknesses. With 90mm of frontal and side armour, and 60mm in the rear this tank doesn't stand much of a chance in head to head fights with other tanks, even in most circumstances in games where it is a top tier tank. Its traverse speed is also quite poor at 18 degrees per second on the standard suspension, and 21 on the upgraded suspension, both being very slow turn rates. This means the tank can be circle killed by light tanks and fast mediums rather easily. The top radio has a shorter range than a number of its tier 8 TD counterparts, with its range being 625m. For example, the American T28 Tier 8 TD has a top radio range of 745m and the French AMX AC mle.48 Tier 8 TD has a max radio range of 750m.

Now I'll talk about some of the good things this tank has going for it. First off, its top speed is 43km/h, which is a pretty good top speed for its tier when compared to its fellow tier 8 TD's, though it does lose a good chunk of said speed when turning. Like all TD's its camouflage value is high, though this tank isn't the smallest of tanks which does make it easier to hit once it is spotted. 

Now we move on to the big drawcard of the ISU-152, the mighty 152mm BL-10 gun. Yes the grind up to this gun is a long and painful one, but it is completely worth it. This gun has an average penetration of 286mm, along with an average damage of 750 per shot with standard Armour Piercing shells. This makes this gun the highest penetrating and damaging per shot in its tier, even nearly matching tier 10 TD guns. This makes this tank a major threat in any game it plays, purely because of how beast the gun is. However its accuracy and rate of fire isn't great, but it is a big Russian derp gun, so hence this doesn't really derail from the usual Russian gun formula.

This review does sound a bit familiar doesn't it? The ISU-152 has the same kind of deal as with the S35 CA, in that pretty much everything about it is average or bad, except for the gun. Once again though I would highly recommend this tank, as it is one of the most fun tanks I've played in World of Tanks. Yes be prepared for a painful grind, but after that the tank becomes an absolute beast and a lot of fun to drive. Thanks for reading today's post; I hope you found it both enjoyable and entertaining. I'll see you all next time.

World of Tanks: S35 CA Review

Hello people of the internet, TKH here. Today I thought I would do another review of a tank in the game World of Tanks. On the chopping block today is the S35 CA, a French tier 5 tank destroyer. I'll attach a image or two of the tank so that you all can see what it looks like.

So the S35, what is known in WoT as "the bathtub", because of just how much of a bath it looks like. It also has about as much armour as one too, with only 56mm at the front, and 35mm on the side and rear. With these levels of armour the S35 is very unlikely to bounce anything that it faces, as even tier 3's can penetrate it from at least the side or rear. With this in mind the S35 is best suited to staying away from places where it can take fire. This means it is used to either side at the back of the frontline behind the heavies and heavy TD's and take shots with lesser risk of having return fire taken, or pouncing on distracted enemies to possibly take shots at their flanks or rear if able to. 

The S35 also isn't particularly fast either, and turns at a very average pace (28 degrees per second) so the risk of being circle killed by a fast medium or light tank is quite high, especially if you get in a situation where you have no support. That is made worse by the fact that the acceleration of the tank leaves something to be desired. The S35 is also very vulnerable to artillery and High Explosive (HE) fire, as the open top of it makes these very effective at taking it out. Being a tier 5 TD, its hit point count is also rather low at 330, meaning that it can't take much sustained fire (not much different to the other TD's at tier 5). The lack of armour compounds this fact, along with the average at best speed and somewhat sluggish turning speed.

But there is one thing that the S35 has that is its main attraction, which is the gun. Probably having one of the best selection of guns out of all the tier 5 TD's (possibly in the game), this is what people play the tank for. The stock 17 pounder gun (used only on this tank) actually has the most penetration of all the available guns, with 171mm of it and an average damage of 150 per shot. If you are after damage per minute (DPM) with this tank then that's the gun you would pick. The second gun is a similar one to the BDR's gun (tier 5 French heavy tank), which is easily the worst of the gun choices. Then there's the 105mm AC mle. 1930 S, the top gun on this tank. With 165mm of penetration and 300 average damage, it's a beast of a gun that can tear through anything it will face. When you consider how the tank doesn't really have any other strengths other than this, it starts to make sense as to why the guns are so good. There are a few other smaller pros, the gun mantle can be surprisingly bouncing at times, it has a very good view range and the gun has a wide traverse area.

Would I recommend this tank you ask? Personally I would definitely say this tank is worth getting and keeping if possible, as it can be a lot of fun to play, while also being challenging with the cons that were pointed out earlier in the post. So that was today's blog post, I hope you found it both interesting and informative to read. See you all next time.