Apex Legends - First Impressions

Apex Legends, the alleged apex predator of the Battle Royal games, has just been released into the wild of the internet for the eternally hungry and salacious gamers of the fibre-optic forests to devour. Following their last game, Titanfall 2 - a criminally underlooked FPS that features the most fluid running and gunning I’ve ever played - Respawn Entertainment have decided to venture down the booming free-to-play battle royale genre route.

From my very limited time with Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and Epic Games’ Fortnite, I can tell that Respawn decided to make their vision of battle royale the most fluid yet. The movement is fast, the shooting is tight and the whole experience feels sleek; especially for a game that’s been out for just under two weeks. I distinctly remember Battlegrounds taking quite a few months before it finally found its legs, and even then it still didn’t feel anywhere this good.

Apex Legends irons out all the obvious kinks and problems of the genre by making traversal effortless. It doesn’t feature Titanfall’s wall-running, or double-jumps, but it still feels just as slick as you can utilize ziplines to navigate around the map, and even relaunch yourself using certain balloon points to relocate to a completely different zone. I spent a lot of time in Fortnite running around just to get blasted in the back of the head by someone three miles down the road, so at least in Apex Legends I can zipline to my inevitable grave at a lightning-quick pace.

Within the gameplay itself, you can choose between eight decently-diverse Legends. Much like the heroes in Overwatch, these Legends each have different personalities, skins and abilities focusing on a certain playstyle. They feature one passive, active and super ability each. For example, Bloodhound’s passive ability tracks the movements of his enemies; his active ability pulses, briefly, showing location of any enemies, or traps within a certain radius; and his super ability enhances his senses for a limited time, allowing him to see enemy tracks, while also making him super fast. The core-gameplay of shooting - which is almost exactly the same as Titanfall 2 - isn’t at all affected between the Legends, but the abilities do create some nice diversity that’s otherwise lacking in battle royale games.

When you die - which I do so much you’d think I believed it was the ultimate goal of the game - you turn into a banner which your teammates can use to revive you if they deliver it to specific access points littered across the map. So, even if you suck as much as I do, you still have a chance to come back for another try. Even if it does conclude with the obvious: me getting shot dead while spastically spraying bullets at every point my enemy isn’t located.

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The most interesting feature comes in the form of the Ping system. No longer do we have to actually communicate in these games to create a tight unit, now all we need to do is push a button and it pings whatever it is you’re looking at. If you ping a building on the horizon, it will notify your teammates that you’re heading that way; if you ping twice in any location it will notify them there’s an enemy present; and pinging a weapon or item will point it out for your teammates to pick up. On paper it doesn’t sound like it would work as smoothly as it does, but it’s a surprisingly intuitive system. The enigmatic Colonel594Mustard and I became seemingly-lifelong squadmates over the course of a short-lived match. We pinged this and that and gave each other very clear instructions of what we were going to do at all times, entirely without uttering a word to each other. I still think of Colonel594Mustard fondly as I type this, and I hope he’s doing well out there in the eternal war of Apex Legends.

I started writing this impression as an admittance of being legitimately bad at these types of games and denouncing them forever in a blazing article, but after playing a few more hours, I’ve actually gotten marginally better at it. I no longer bumble around the map like a headless chicken with an itchy trigger-finger til I inevitably meet the one saviour who mercy-kills me. I actually have a sense of what to do now, I’ve even gotten a few kills myself. In one match I actually took out a full squad, which naturally ended up with me dying at the hands of the sneaky dude who just watched this whole battle from the bushes like a sexual predator. So, admittedly, I am finding myself enjoying Apex Legends after all.

Apex Legends combines Titanfall 2’s slick gameplay, Overwatch’s heroes and PUBG’s everything else and smooths it all out into one refined package. Basically, if you’re even mildly interested in anything this game has to offer, I suggest checking it out. I mean, hey, it’s free-to-play after all. What else do you have to lose other than your precious and incredibly limited time on this earth?

- Aaron Mullan

Hollow Knight: Silksong Announced

Team Cherry have just announced Hollow Knight’s highly anticipated sequel Hollow Knight: Silksong, which is to be released on the PC and Nintendo Switch. What was first announced as a DLC for the original game has expanded into its own fully fledged adventure which features a brand new kingdom, touts 150 new enemies and bosses, new combat abilities, navigation tools, quests and more.

You can check out the announcement reveal trailer below.

And you can also check out my overwhelmingly positive review of the original game here.

- Aaron Mullan

Resident Evil 6 & 7 Retrospective: A Look at Resident Evil's Fall from Grace and Redemption

I have risen from my grave to take a look back at Resident Evil 6 and 7 and to see how the former impacted the latter.

You can read this retrospective here.

- Aaron Mullan

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Recent Events on St. Kilda Beach

Some things happened recently on the used-syringe and broken beer bottle-ridden St. Kilda beach. I wrote some satire about these events.

If you don’t know what satire is, and apparently a lot of people don’t these days, I feel it is important that I point out that my use of multiple parenthesis is not because I believe the left-wing bias in the media is a Jewish conspiracy, but because I am mocking morons who might believe such silly nonsense.

Indeed, I don’t even believe there is a left-wing bias in the media: any political bias in any entity big enough to be called “the [something]” is by default in support of the status quo (assuming the status quo is stable, of course; and nothing is more stable than the Australian parliament at the moment), regardless of what it is; well, that and profit of course—which is probably more important, if we’re being honest.

And what is profitable? In precise order: Horror, whatever may save us from such horror, a vision of every day existence that is characterised by an unbearable ennui merely so that any minor event may be sensationalised whenever required, sensuality and, lastly, eccentricity (whether to be patronised or mocked).

Now, you may be wondering why sensuality is so low on the list, but the product that is being sold is the audience’s attention to advertisers, so the objective is to keep the audience watching and not to institute a system of positive reinforcement through encouraging associations; not to mention that it makes the eroticism of the ad breaks all the more contrasting and alluring. Anyway, if sensuality were enough to keep your attention for extended periods of time, you’d be masturbating while reading this (if you are, I’m very flattered), rather than off buying a packet of cigarettes because you saw some glamorous strumpet sucking on a fag . On other hand, you’re less likely to buy them if instead of an attractive logo (what’s even better than porn? Logos! Chimpanzees will give up food while electrocuting themselves, just so they can have a single glimpse of those iconic Golden Arches—note I don’t even need to tell you what Golden Arches refers to!—Bonobos, on the other hand, will pick the porn every time) or a scene of simulated fellatio, there is a picture of a hideous tumour on the packet instead. And, incidentally, this may well sustain your attention for a longer period of time (depending on how fast you can bring yourself to climax) than a fag’s white smoke blowing all over a strumpet’s face.

Err, what was I saying? Anyway, even if all this makes me sound terribly cynical, at least I understand what satire is. Or do I? You be the judge.

St. Kilda beach at the height of Australia’s infamous Sepia Australia policy.

Metal Gear S&M

I recently completed Metal Gear Solid for the first time (my pirated copy stopped working after the raw eroticism of the Grey Fox struggle), which we’ll hear all about if we ever record another show.

On sating Grey Fox for a second time I was reminded of a fan fiction parody I wrote for my GameSpot blog, and thought I may as well post it here. Don’t forget to bring some tissues, as it’s a bit of a, nudge nudge, wink wink at a blind bat, tearjerker.

As a bonus, here’s a rhyming review for Metal Gear Solid 4 that I have no recollection of having written:

Oh Kojima what were you thinking
You had a great game
That ticked all the boxes
Then you did some tinkering
And took Dawkins’ influence too far
And ruined the ending
It was really bizarre.
All you had to do
Was end it at the sunset
Instead you ham-fisted it
And ended it with a bum-fest.

It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure. - Sade

Game Under Podcast 106

In episode 106 of the Game Under Podcast, Tom and Phil celebrate ten years of the VG Pressrom Podcast, and with the help of their randomly appearing, but always special, guest Aarny, they discuss the Devil May Cry series.

Just how good is this series? You can find out here.

Game Under Podcast 105

In Episode 105 of the Game Under Podcast, Tom and Phil return to discuss both industrial and "wild" fires, the podcast's influence on Australian politics (having had the same two hosts for a hundred or so episodes, we can't be blamed for the yearly purges), developments in game criticism, and pose the question:

Is Resident Evil Remake HD the greatest mansion simulator yet? Regardless, It certainly simulates the atmosphere of summer nights in Richmond; whereas Richmond itself simulates foggy winter nights in Silent Hill. 

You will find the answer to this important question here.

Toshihiro Nagoshi

Tom brought this forum post from Resetera.com to my attention. As a subscriber to Edge magazine I look forward to my next copy, where they have a feature on Toshihiro Nagoshi, a favourite developer of the Game Under Podcast. (which the link above includes some excerpts).

Any resume with Yazuka and Super Monkey Ball on it allows you to dress like this.

With a gameography as below it's no surprise as to why Tom and I enjoy Nagoshi's work so much:

Virtua Racing - Game Designer
Burning Rival - Director
Daytona USA series - Director
Scud Race - Director
Shenmue - Supervisor
SpikeOut - Director
Planet Harriers - Director
Super Monkey Ball series[12] - Producer/Director
F-Zero GX/AX - Producer
Yakuza series[13] - Producer/Director/Executive Director
Binary Domain - General Director
Hokuto Ga Gotoku - Executive Director

Here is a link to the excerpts, thanks again Tom for bringing it to my attention.

- Phil Fogg

Game Under Podcast 104

In this episode, Tom Towers and Phil Fogg cover everything from IGN's plagiarism scandal, the NES Classic, cats and fashion, Santo, Sam and Ed, and whisk[e]y—and that's just trademark banter!

More importantly, the two return to their dissection of Silent Hill; revealing even more fascinating parts of its complex anatomy.

You don't want to miss it. You can't miss it, if you click here.

Australian Hardware Review - Hyperkin Retron 77

Just over a year ago, I was very interested in Hyperkin's Retron 77 announcement at the 2017 E3 conference in Los Angeles. Hyperkin, who has a mixed record with emulation and product quality, was showing promise by releasing hardware on which you could use your own Atari 2600 cartridges, or homemade ROMs, on modern televisions by use of an HDMI cable.

As any Atari owner knows, hooking up an Atari to any television made in the last twenty years or so is not without it's challenges.  The Atari 2600 relied on a coaxial radio frequency (RF) connection -- not something that you'll find too often (though I did, check out this story).

You no longer need one of these to re-visit your Atari 2600 collection.

Which is why an HDMI Atari 2600 clone was so promising.  But would it come to Australia? And would it have some of the difficulties of the Retron 5, with ill-fitting cartridge slots that make you feel like you are destroying pins every time you use it (not to mention the questionable provenance of the emulation engine).

The unopened box is a good start. Very high quality with the Hyperkin dog-eared edge to the upper right corner of the box.

The Retron 77 has not yet had an official release in Australia, but a store in Sydney, which I've been buying games from for over 30 years is selling what appears to be imported North American versions and selling them for $155 (they sell directly from Hyperkin in the United States for $69 USD ($94 AUD). The delivery time was prompt, and for an Atari 2600 fan, the price was right. Aussie buyers please note that you will need to buy an adapter to connect the USB power source to an Australian power supply, but to most Aussie's this is not a new thing, you can find them on Ebay for less than $5 or at any airport or Big W for slightly more.

The console itself evokes the original "woody" design, and is embellished with the Hyperkin dog ear on the front right-hand side. replete with blue LED back lighting.

When first confronted with the Retron 77, I experienced a feeling of measured satisfaction with the industrial design. It's small, because it makes sense, less than twice the width of an Atari 2600 cartridge this is a pleasing choice, regardless of the technological  and economic factors which lead to the finished product. When put in a world of Nintendo's miniature consoles the choice by Hyperkin makes even more sense.

The Retron 77 compared in size to one of the most famous releases from Atari (right up there with Warren Robinet's, Adventure).

What left me a less satisfied was the quality of the wood grain sticker and die-cut of the plastic molding. Clearly the design was set to the best intentions, but the fabrication could not meet the same level. Even so, it's the best that Hyperkin has managed to accomplish to date, and for the price understandable.

Hyperkin really went all out in terms of giving players options available on the original Atari 2600 and then some more.

On the front of the system you have original Atari 2600 controller ports (more on this later), skill levels for both players (nice touch), a mode selector and reset button. And, new to an Atari-like device a Save and Load button.  The appreciation that Hyperkin included six option buttons was not lost on me (a likely tribute to the six switchers that preceded the four switch option Atari's).

Even more mystery's onthe back with a FRY and Memory slot

Moving to the back of the box (Game Under Podcast fans rejoice), Hyperkin included even more tributes, which when you think of the extra expense they could have excluded,  no-one would have complained. They include a black and white colour option, which is completely unnecessary, but appreciated. They included  a memory slot, which appears to have a Micro SD card inserted. I tried to remove it to see what it was, but there was some resistance, so rather than potentially damage my unit I relented.

There is a video ratio button which enables a choice between 4:3 and 16:9, which for classic Atari players is not a choice at all.  In fact, one of the few disappointments with the console is that this must be selected each time you play, (to change to 4:3, which really should have been the default).

Hyperkin also included a "FRY" button, which to me, was again an indication that the designers of this hardware were devout in their actual appreciation for the Atari 2600 or at least consultative with the Atari community.  "Frying" a cartridge was an activity of turning the off and on button rapidly, either by itsel,f or in combination with other inputs while playing. This would often lead to the game "glitching" in an entertaining manner, sometime opening up later levels of a game prematurely.  This is something Hyperkin could easily have left off the design, but chose to include, which even if I don't use more than once, is appreciated.

Identical? Read the review for more.

As for the included controller, a lot of reviews say that the Retron 77 and the original are identical.  This is not the case, as you can see from the photograph above. The dimensions are slightly different, but not in an unpleasant manner. If one did not have the direct comparison you would not discern the difference.

Hyperkin has pleasantly dog-eared both lower corners of the controller, consistent with their aesthetic, but also more ergonomic than the original controller.

While they were in an accommodating mood, they also tipped the hat to the lefties out there by providing a second button (much as Atari did with they Lynx design).

It really is more comfortable.

The only substantial difference from the original controller is that the buttons on the Retron 77 have half (yes half) of the "throw" of the original button. While the original has a spring, the Retron 77 is purely digital.  This more responsive button makes most twitch games way too easy.  Fortunately, you are able to plug in original Atari 2600 controllers.

For those that do enjoy the Retron 77 controllers, the uncomfortable question arises, what if you don't already have an Atari 2600 controller for a second player?  As of now, you cannot buy a second controller from Hyperkin.  Given that the system requires actual Atari cartridges, it is unlikely that you would not already have a second controller ready to go as an aficionado.

Another difference (thankfully) is that the Retron 77 controller has a cable twice the length of the original Atari 2600 controller, a choice that sadly Nintendo went in the opposite direction with it's NES classic.

In terms of actual use, I put almost every cartridge I could find in the Retron 77 and it worked perfectly with both Atari and second party games from Imagic and Activision.

I cannot but heartily encourage Atari 2600 owners to pick up a Retron 77 -- the only way they cold have improved it was by having it emulate Atari 7800's, let's hope that is in the plans.

- Phil Fogg

9/10