Pokemon Sword
Leading up to its release, Pokemon Sword and Shield received some hate for the Dexit controversy. Developers Game Freak decided to cut many Pokemon from the game to save time. In total, Pokemon Sword and Shield’s Pokedex supports just over 400 Pokemon. That’s less than half of the total Pokedex across all regions. However, my first impressions of Nintendo’s latest JRPG are very positive.
Pokemon Sword: Dexit Doesn’t Matter As Much As You Think
My favorite Pokemon, Emolga, has been cut from generation eight. It sucks. The question is how much of a negative impact does that have on my playthrough? A little for sure since Emolga is usually a lock for all of my teams. Generally speaking though, I got over it pretty quickly.
Here’s the thing with the Galar region. Many of the new environments are very open and encourage exploration. Actually seeing wild Pokemon roam free is far more fulfilling than just discovering them in grass patches. There’s a genuine feeling of surprise when you see something exotic or unexpected in the flesh.
For example, I encountered a level 32 Haunter within my first hour of playing Pokemon Sword. The idea of a Haunter just roaming around was cool enough, but the surprise of its strength panicked me. I had to find a way out of the battle before it swept my team. Fortunately, I had my trump card. Ninjask.
Ninjask is a bug type Pokemon with a staggering base speed of 160. That makes it the second-fastest Pokemon in the entire national dex, after Deoxys Speed Forme. Despite being less than half the level of the opposing Haunter, Ninjask’s crazy speed let it escape on the second try. Somehow, it managed to tank a Hex to the face.
I’m not saying these experiences couldn’t happen with the entire Pokedex present. Obviously, they could. However, I think Game Freak deserves a degree of credit where due, By sacrificing a large portion of the Pokedex they have managed to find time to enhance the encounter experience. I imagine if we had all 800 Pokemon they’d have just rushed in a generic old-school system instead. The lack of Pokemon sucks but there’s still plenty to fill the Galar region and create experiences like these.
It’s Not the Prettiest Game
Many haters like to exaggerate generation eight’s visual shortcomings. Pokemon Sword and Shield are not ugly games necessarily. In saying that, even for Switch standards they are underwhelming in certain areas. Specifically, some environments feel lazily implemented and poorly rendered.
There’s a clear resolution issue present too. Certain edges or angled lines are very jagged due to a lack of pixels to accommodate them. Pokemon Sword and Shield runs at 1280×720, 30 FPS at all times. I didn’t notice any resolution upscaling in docked mode. As a result, the docked mode can look pretty unimpressive. Stretching out a 720p image that far is a recipe for disaster.
This is disappointing because we know full well the Nintendo Switch can perform better. ARMS runs at 1080p, 60 FPS when docked. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe also manages to comfortably hit 1080p, 60 FPS in docked form. Even an open-world game like Super Mario Odyssey can hit 900p, 60 FPS most of the time.
The only conclusion I can come to is that Game Freak just doesn’t understand Switch hardware as well as other first-party Nintendo developers. That seems to be the only logical explanation for the dire pop in too. I’d say Pokemon can appear invisible on screen as close as 10 meters away. It hurts what is otherwise an excellent opportunity for open-world exploration.
For clarity, I don’t think Pokemon Sword is a bad looking game. Pokemon models, as well as the character models, are well done. Equally, the cities and towns look better than ever. The environments whilst battling are pretty clean and, most important of all, I’ve yet to experience any significant frame drops. The visuals may not be ground-breaking but they’re not bad enough to really impact general gameplay.
My Opening Verdict
It’s still very early days and I’m certainly in no position to review this yet. Honestly, I’m only three hours into the story. A proper review will follow either on Monday or next week, but early signs do suggest this is better than the haters would have you think.
At its core, Pokemon Shield is just that, a Pokemon game. You explore an exciting new region, collect Pokemon and try to become the champion of Galar. It has plenty of new, interesting characters as well as arguably the best new Pokemon we’ve seen in years. From the Pokedex leak I can already tell there aren’t many new Pokemon I don’t like.
A defining moment going forward will be when I get to properly check out the new raid battles. Currently, I’ve only done one and it was against Rufflet. It wasn’t very fun as the Rufflet’s move set was so dysfunctional I didn’t have to try much. I and my adorable little Yamper just Nuzzled baby America Bird to death.
For now, that’s all I have to say. Hopefully, I can come back and give a proper verdict and breakdown after playing through the entire game.
Be sure to let us know in the comments back you think about Pokemon Sword and Shield. Were early concerns justified or was the hate unfair? We’ve love to hear what you have to say.
I have never been afraid to rip into a terrible game, regardless of the publisher. If an editor turned around to me and told me to down tone an honest review, I’d quit. An awful trend in game critique over the years has been the increasingly obvious pandering to publishers. For example, NBA 2K17 managed to score 90% on Metacritic despite being fundamentally broken. For me, an 8/10 is an exceptional score. Other critics use this as the ‘above average’ mark instead.
Score dilution has resulted in games receiving ridiculously high meta scores. Modern Warfare does not deserve an 82. Anyone who has played more than an hour of multiplayer should realize that. Overwatch, at launch, was nowhere near a 91. Don’t even get me started on Battlefield 1’s hilarious 87.
Of course, there’s a clear counter-argument to this. The developers that work on these games are still people. Mindlessly shredding into their product isn’t useful. Naming individuals even less so. However, within a reasonable level of respect, critics should not care about this point.
I’ll be honest in telling you that I am not the biggest fan of battle royale games. I’ve played just about every popular battle royale on the market, but most fell well short of my expectations. A lot of them are just poorly made like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and H1Z1. However, not all of them are buggy messes. Games like Fortnite and Realm Royale are perfectly functional but don’t synchronize with me well on a personal level.
High octane, competitive multiplayer isn’t for everyone. Many players would prefer a good old-fashioned run and gun story-focused adventure instead. Frankly, in 2019, that’s a more difficult ask then you’d think in the FPS market. Releasing an FPS in this day and age without multiplayer is the anomaly, not the rule.
Competitive FPS come in all shapes and sizes. The vision many gamers have of these kinds of games tends to be pretty distant from reality. Many core FPS titles are not overly focused on aim but rather more so on positioning, teamwork and game sense. This is what makes Counter-Strike: Global Offensive so unique. CS: GO is an old-school aim first shooter.
If CS: GO is a trial of mechanics, Overwatch is a trial of game sense. Over the three years since its release, Overwatch has shifted from a traditional FPS to a more MOBA style of gameplay. Many heroes do not require much mechanical skill but rather demand excellent game sense, positioning, and prediction.
At launch, Rainbow Six Siege was not a very good game. Early reviews had it marked as a passable but buggy multiplayer-focused title. Its sales reflected this. Siege only shipped 76,000 copies on day one. For comparison, Final Fantasy XV managed around 5 million sales in the same time period. Early signs suggested that Siege would become Ubisoft’s biggest failure to date.
Perhaps the most significant part of this leak is that we now know the entire Pokedex for Generation 8. 
The leak confirms thirteen new Galarian forms. Thankfully, Game Freak hasn’t just pandered to first-gen fans. Several other non-Kanto Pokemon are receiving a Galarian makeover like Stunfisk and Darumaka.
With the reveal of the Pokedex also comes the reveal of the starter evolutions. Surprisingly, none of the starters will ever gain a secondary typing. The last time none of the three starters gained a second type when evolving was way back in Johto. Since then several starters from Mudkip to Rowlet have all gained a second type. In fact, in the last two generations none of the six starters remained mono types.
Fallout 76 was first announced at Bethesda’s 2018 E3 conference. Given that it had been three years since the last Fallout, fans were anticipating a new game for the fall of 2018. Well, at least at the reveal, they weren’t let down. Bethesda’s director and executive producer Todd Howard announced a prequel to the entire series, Fallout 76.
Later that year on November 14th, Fallout 76 officially launched. There were some early concerns pre-release regarding texture quality but nothing too major. As far as fans were concerned, this was going to be the online co-op Bethesda game we’ve all dreamt of for years.
Actually no, I’m not talking about any dodgy Bethesda business practices, for once. I mean sure, their censorship of criticism shortly after the release wasn’t exactly angelic but it happens… I guess. Instead, I’m talking about how this broken game had a few exploitable glitches that vaporised Fallout 76’s progression system.
The Silver Screen Bottling Company was made responsible for creating one of Fallout 76’s pre-order bonuses. The bottle itself cost $80 and was expected to be a premium collectible for dedicated fans. However, the final product wasn’t even made of glass. Instead, the outer case was a cheap plastic overlay for a generic bottle of rum.
Given everything you’ve read so far, it’s fair to say Fallout 76 is a failure of a video game. However, there’s always an opportunity for redemption in 
The final update we have on Fallout 76 came from The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. This commission is responsible for the protection of consumers from company exploitation. They have determined that Bethesda and their parent company, ZeniMax, owe Australian consumers a refund for misleading them.
This has been a disaster since day one. Bethesda has managed to lie and break their promises so much that Fallout 76 is now a dead game. Just to artificially inflate sales figures they had to put it on sales as high as 50% in just its first few months. You can pick Fallout 76 on PC up for as little as $15. That is shocking for a AAA game released just over a year ago.
Last year’s FIFA was not well received by fans. It felt sluggish and rewarded low skill, high reward tactics. For example, competitive Ultimate Team defending was based on holding A to jockey the attacker. There was little else involved outside of occasionally manually tracking runs made behind.
Since their introduction in FIFA 17, Squad Building Challenges have consistently been Ultimate Team’s best feature. The core premise has players build teams that fit specified criteria. For example, you could have to put together a team that features at least 3 rare silvers and 7 Premier League players. Later SBCs get more complex and can require several teams built to acquire a special one-off card or pack.
I never noticed it growing up, but sports games are pretty badly made. From 
It wouldn’t be a new generation without some fresh faces. The Galar region will introduce players to 
Pokemon Sword and Shield is the second Pokemon game to feature version exclusive gyms. In Pokemon Sword, you’ll face Bea, a fighting type expert. In Pokemon Shield, ghost type specialist Allister stands in her place. It’s very possible that more exclusive gyms will be announced closer to release.
The Galar Region is based on the United Kingdom. This isn’t too much of a surprise with Gamefreak moving towards foreign locations in recent games. Unova was the US, Kalos was France and Alola was Hawaii. Galar’s champion is the talented trainer Leon. Leon is the brother of Hop, the player’s neighbour, and rival. Leon has “
Every new Pokemon game features a big new mechanic. In that sense, Sword and Shield are no different. Dynamax is a weird hybrid between mega evolving and Z-moves. When used, Pokemon will grow to several times their own size for three turns. This increases their stats and lets them use powerful Dynamax exclusive Max Moves. Dynamax can only be performed in special areas like gyms. Presumably, Dynamax Wailord will be a magnificent sight.
There are of course many smaller features that are difficult to all fit in. Given that, here are five smaller details that may be of interest to you:
It’s no secret that of the major Call of Duty studios, Infinity Ward has the worst balancing team. Many of their older titles feature dreadful gameplay balance from top to bottom. Call of Duty 4’s M16 could one-shot burst anyone in the game. Modern Warfare 2 has a ludicrous amount of game-winning, momentum stacking killstreaks. Let’s not forget how dominant Modern Warfare 3’s MP7 was either. That thing straight up didn’t recoil.
The maps are hit or miss. In truth, it’s difficult to judge them in the game’s current state. This is because spawning is atrocious. It’s not uncommon to spawn in the middle of the air and immediately fall to your death. On one instance, I was playing Ground War and spawned in a room with at least ten enemies.
To Modern Warfare’s credit, I cannot pull out the cliché of “it feels like another CoD game.” Seriously, it really doesn’t. Modern Warfare plays like no Call of Duty title before it. Maps are far larger, and the gameplay is slower than ever. I find on Ground War this is beneficial. The slower-paced, vehicle-centric combat creates a more casual version of what Battlefield used to do so well.
It’s debatable when the fall of RuneScape truly began. Personally, I believe the 2007 changes to the Wilderness acted as the ignition for its decline. Previously, most player versus player content took place in an area called the Wilderness. Unlike the rest of Gielinor, players are not protected here. Death in the Wilderness means losing all but three items on you.
Whilst one development team worked on Bounty Hunter, another worked on improving RuneScape’s trading system. At its most basic, RuneScape’s trading is brilliantly simplistic. Players select what they want to trade, review if they agree with the trade and finally confirm the transaction. RuneScape’s trading even gives players multiple confirmation screens to counter potential scamming.
After the reintroduction of free trade and PvP, RuneScape experienced a short but sweet golden age. Players now had their old school RuneScape experience back but with more content than ever before. This didn’t last long. One year after free trade and PvP had been reintroduced, Jagex added something far eviler. RuneScape entered 
EasyScape is a colloquial term used by the community to describe RuneScape’s gradual movement toward easier gameplay. Historically, RuneScape was a very difficult game. In RuneScape 1, now known as RuneScape Classic, leveling skills to 99 was effectively impossible. No efficient leveling methods existed at the time. Even as late as 2012 skills like Prayer, Agility, and Runecrafting were still very time consuming to train.
The Evolution of Combat update, released in late 2012, aimed to add a skill curve to RuneScape. Jagex had already shown signs of interest in introducing a competitive environment. Bounty Hunter featured full MMR and ranked placement features. In Jagex’s eyes, RuneScape had a core problem that prevented it from becoming a skill-based title. It’s combat.
RuneScape is a fantastic case study of poor game development. Jagex had the world at their fingers but bad decision one after another had everything slip away. If Jagex just listened to their community, this would have been avoided. I don’t believe Evolution of Combat killed RuneScape as many others proclaim. Instead, it was the final straw following several other far worse decisions. The player base lost trust in Jagex.
It is important to state in the Borderlands 3 review that it is set seven years after the fall of Handsome Jack. In his place, a new Pandoran superpower has risen on a quest for godly power. The Calypso Twins. Troy and Tyreen aspire to be the greatest stars in the universe. Their plan? Unlocking The Great Vault. Whilst it’s unclear what The Great Vault contains, the Calypso Twins are sure it’s a certified route to interstellar dominance.
Well, it’s Borderlands, that’s for sure. The gunplay, the movement, the abilities. All of it feels like something you’d expect in its game. Innovation isn’t the primary goal of Borderlands 3. Rather, it tries to deliver a marginally more refined version of Borderlands 2.
From what I gather, the console version of Borderlands 3 hasn’t been received too well. For starters, the local split-screen doesn’t work properly. 
We will discuss issues in the