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.