Unravel Review

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Unravel is another game that I wrote a review for last year. Please check it out and let me know what you think. 

Unravel, unveiled at E3 2015 by a nervous Martin Sahlin from Coldwood Interactive, oozes with emotion throughout its twelve-stage journey. With colorful landscapes, exciting antagonists, and a heartwarming soundtrack, Unravel defines how a modern puzzle-platformer should look and feel. Unfortunately, the puzzles don’t provide much of a challenge, hindering what is an overall excellent experience.

     Yarny, Unravel’s cute anthropomorphic hero made out of yarn, takes a trip down memory lane in order to restore an unfinished photo album. Yarny relives certain memories in order to reclaim lost relics that belong to the photo album cover. These memories range from heartwarming and touching to dark and melancholic. The story feels complete, but lacks any real depth making it hard for the player to care about anything other than Yarny.

Unravel's visuals are stunning to look at. The beautiful view of a

snowy field, a dilapidated hazardous waste ground, and sunny beaches all make for fun and unique levels. The musical score tied to each level adds emphasis, drama, and sometimes urgency, but overall it's emotionally soothing.

Yarny is attached to a string of yarn to keep himself together, which halts the progress if puzzles aren't properly solved with enough remaining slack to reach a checkpoint. Every checkpoint consists of a random ball of red yarn that replenishes Yarny’s supply and they’re frequent enough to make the play-through uncomplicated. Yarny uses string from his own body to swing across gaps, lasso items he can move, and build tight ropes to walk across.

     The use of Yarn as a tool is refreshing and new, however, the puzzles are never overly complex. Occam’s Razor can be applied to every puzzle. Instead of looking for the complicated answer, it’s usually the easiest one that is correct. 

     The unique enemies throughout the game are the highlight of Unravel and serve as nice palate cleansers between puzzles. Yarny flees when an enemy chases him and this pacifist approach makes for some intense escapes. Running from a flock of birds, cockroaches, crabs, and woodchucks really gets the blood flowing.

Unravel’s immersive environment is pleasant to look at while the fantastic soundtrack emphasizes every moment. These set the tone of each level beautifully and traversing through as Yarny will make you feel right at home. The story, albeit lacking in depth, feels heartwarming and fun. Unfortunately, the only thing holding Unravel back is the lack of complicated puzzles that truly test a gamer's will.

+Stunning Visuals

+Heartwarming soundtrack

+Exciting chase sequences

-Lack of depth in story

-Puzzles are too easy

Halotitan on Twitch

It feels pretty good to be back in the world of blogging. Rather than sitting in front of this blank virtual page and unhinging the door that holds all of my crazy story ideas, I’m releasing all of my emotions. It’s such a freeing feeling being able to write in the moment, even though all the dirty crap I just said about my ex wife won’t make the final cut. I jest of course. I didn’t write anything bad about her and I quite honestly don’t feel ready to write about my particular issues with her. I did that during our divorce and it became a massive spectacle that wound up being taken down because it was “slander.” I digress. But it still feels so gratifying to just spill my guts without worrying about how bad my writing is and if anyone will like it. You either do or you don’t which officially makes it not my problem.

So instead of spilling my guts on my personal life issues, I’ll instead be talking about my part time gig as an affiliated broadcaster on Twitch. Part time gig you ask? Yes, I’m attempting to make it a full time job but that takes a lot of hard work. Before I get into all of that though, I feel like we need to reacquaint ourselves since it’s been so long since I’ve blogged on the regular. So I’ll get this started. Hello, my name is Cody and I’m an alco…er…I’m a writer, affiliated broadcaster, and completely unemployed. People know me by many different names though, Halotitan, Halo, Titan, and That Guy with the Large Penis. You can fill in your part in the comments below.

So now some of you may be reading this and thinking, “hey this is The Guy with the Large Penis! I’ve seen him on Twitch.” Yes I know, calm down, I’m super famous. During my rise to stardom I’ve become affiliated on Twitch, which means I have more ways of earning money. I also recently celebrated my one-year streamiversary and surpassed one thousand followers. Ok…I’m certainly not famous and haven’t had a path to stardom, if any gaming broadcaster can even claim that. I do think it’s important, however, to really celebrate the small achievements. I’ve set goals for myself and I’ve finally managed to accomplish a few of them while I still pursue the others.

My first goal is my most important and one that never ends. It’s to never give up. No matter what struggles I’ve had over the past year I’ve managed, with the help of some close friends, to overcome them and keep my head up. It was very difficult to start streaming to an audience of zero people and to keep talking to no one like the homeless man touching himself on the bus, but I did it and over time an audience has grown and continues to grow.

My second goal really isn’t as much of a goal as it is a commitment to stay true to myself. I refuse to stream any game that would net me some easy followers in order to inflate my numbers. I will only stream games that I actually want to play no matter how popular they are to watch. I do bend that rule every now and then in the sense that I won’t stream a brand new game right away because the large, famous streamers tend to get a lot of attention streaming them off the bat which means a small fry like me gets buried beneath a mound of shit. I can say that I’ve never streamed a game that I didn’t want to play though.

My third goal was to earn one hundred followers before turning on my donation button. Some people in my circle thought that was an odd choice, but to me it was very important. I didn’t want to be this small time turd asking for money from random strangers on the Internet because I was providing them with some mediocre entertainment. Those big broadcasters you see raking in money faster than a Vegas stripper busted their butts to earn that and they deserve it. I did see people smaller than me asking for money using donation perks like doing a shot for a five-dollar donation or swallowing a can of cheese wiz for ten. It’s pathetic and I wanted people to see that I’ve put in the effort rather than pander for cheap entertainment. Now I know most people didn’t stream as long as I did for their first hundred followers but after 7 months of streaming I hit my mark.

My fourth goal was to hit one thousand followers before the end of 2017. I knew this one might be a stretch because I only had ten months to reach it. But thanks to a growing audience and the new Twitch app that throws out fistfuls of follows like condoms in a sex education class, I hit that goal in a little over six months. During that time a new goal popped up, becoming a part of the newly announced affiliate program. This goal was actually pretty easy to obtain because I already met all of the requirements needed. I was invited the day after the program launched and I’m very proud of this title.

Those are my accomplished goals but I still have more in the works. Hitting two thousand followers, having one hundred concurrent viewers, earning a thousand dollars on stream in order to fund a new PC and green screen, and to improve the quality of my broadcast. All of this will take a lot of time and effort and by reaching all of these benchmarks I’ll be able to reach my ultimate goals, becoming a partnered broadcaster and streaming for a living while I become a very famous writer on the side.

So no matter what you’re doing in your life and no matter what your passions are I urge you to work for it. Anything in life worth having is worth working hard for. Celebrate the small goals along the way because they are the stepping-stones to your true success. I know I say this to you as a small time broadcaster, but I’m so much farther along on this journey than I was when I started and it will only get better. I love streaming on Twitch. I love watching Twitch. It’s a wonderful place to hang out with your friends and your favorite broadcasters who provide entertainment like we’ve never seen before in the past.

If you’d like me to talk more in depth about anything Twitch related, shoot me a message and let me know. That also goes for any other topics you’d like to read about. If not you’ll be stuck with whatever my brain decides to dump when I sit down to write. Also be sure to go check out my sexy broadcast over at twitch.tv/halotitan and let me know you found your way there from here!

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 Review

I originally wrote this review about a year ago and had it posted up on our now obsolete website. I'm re-posting it here for your viewing pleasures. There is also a video version of the review if reading isn't your thing. Enjoy!

Plants VS Zombies Garden Warfare burst onto the shooter scene in 2014 showcasing its wonderful characters, colorful gameplay, and fantastic third person mechanics all while maintaining the charm of its tower defense origins. Despite its greatness, Garden Warfare lacked in variety of game modes, providing a somewhat limited experience. Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 remedies that issue with a bountiful, yet time consuming journey, with new, yet familiar content, and six new characters. 

Garden Warfare 2 adds new content right away by replacing the traditional menu from its predecessor with an interactive hub world, The Backyard. Searching for chests, hidden rooms, and collectables makes for hours of fun without ever having to go online. The Backyard’s colorful surrounding neighborhoods, albeit fun to explore, lacks in size and gets old with no way to enter buildings.  

Each faction has a central base separated by an unclaimed battleground, making up the largest portion of The Backyard. Each base allows players to set up a portal to multiplayer, take off to battle waves of enemies in Garden or Graveyard Ops, view stats, purchase cards from the vending machine, jump into split screen, and customize characters.  

Garden Warfare 2 caters to players who prefer to play alone with solo quests. The newly added Solo Ops allows a player to jump into a Garden or Graveyard Ops with three AI controlled teammates that can be switched to and from at will. While Solo Ops remains just as fun as regular Garden or Graveyard Ops, the short single player quests lack substance and variation preventing an immersive story. Whether you’re tasked with defending a certain location or running across the map to kill a certain amount of bad guys, solo quests are repetitive and boring. The final few missions do spice it up with some challenging bosses, but it’s just too late to impact the entire experience. 

Progressing through single player unlocks two additional modes, Infinity and the Flag of Power. Infinity takes place in an alternate universe where you use a mech to fight off endless waves of gnomes trying to destabilize time. Raising the Flag of Power initiates a war in The Backyard with endless waves of enemies fighting to dethrone you. These new modes grow tiresome after realizing that they are nothing more than watered down versions of Garden and Graveyard Ops, the definitive tower defense game type carried over from the first Garden Warfare.  

Challenges have a new home in Garden Warfare 2 through a frequently updated quest board. Unlike Garden Warfare, where every challenge was tied to individual characters and were used to level up, Garden Warfare 2 rewards coins and stars upon completion. Stars can be used to unlock chests, clear rubble to make room for decorations, and gain access to Infinity. Coins are used to unlock card packs at the vending machine. There are literally thousands of cosmetic items to unlock as well as consumables and character variants. Unfortunately, too few cards come with each pack meaning countless hours of play will be needed in order to achieve everything. This hinders the sense of accomplishment and takes away from the overall experience. 

Online multiplayer features fantastic modes such as Gnome Bomb, Team Vanquish, Vanquish Confirmed, and Turf Takeover all returning from Garden Warfare. Turf Takeover tasks one team to defend its territory from the relentless onslaught of the enemy. Gnome Bomb acts as the assault game type where each team must grab the bomb and deliver it to the opposing team’s safe haven. Team Vanquish and Vanquish confirmed return as Garden Warfare 2’s deathmatch game type. All of these game types are exact replicas from Garden Warfare, only with new maps to play on. 

In addition to familiar modes, Garden Warfare 2 suffers from extreme balancing issues. Rose initially overpowered everyone else with her long-range homing shots that dealt loads of damage. She has been nerfed since, which paved a path for both Super Brainz and Imp to be dominate characters on the map. Although it doesn’t break the game completely, players may grow frustrated each time they die as a result of being bested by imbalance issues. 

The heart and soul of Garden Warfare lies in the variety of unique characters and their abilities. All eight characters from the original game make an uneventful return with no new abilities. The Engineer is the exception and veterans will notice he now has a turret ability rather than his remote controlled bot. The six new characters in Garden Warfare 2 steal the show this time around, and for good reason. Kernel Corn, Rose, and Citron charge the field as the new members of the plants while Imp, Super Brainz, and Captain Deadbeard stand firm with the Zombies. Each new character brings something new to the battlefield ranging from Super Brainz Turbo Twister, Captain Deadbeard's Canon, and the Imp’s Z-Mech to Rose’s goatify, Kernal Corn’s air strike, and Citron’s EMP. Each character provides a refreshing breath of air to a multiplayer experience dominated by characters from the past by initiating new ways to tackle each game played.     

With the total number of characters growing to fourteen, the number of different variations climbs beyond one hundred. This, along with the countless customizable options, makes playing alongside an identical character near impossible. The new leveling system adds to that uniqueness since each individual character variation can be ranked up fifty times while being promoted for every tenth level obtained, much like prestige in Call of Duty. This makes the level cap well over five thousand. 

Plants Vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2 provides an excellent experience that surpasses that of its predecessor. With over a hundred different characters, countless activities, and endless customization, Garden Warfare 2 sets a new standard for this franchise. Unfortunately, with the absence of a real story, balancing issues, and time consuming unlockables, there is still plenty of room for improvement. 

+ New characters 

+ Loads of customization 

+ Beautiful Graphics 

+ Backyard Battleground 

• Online balancing issues 
• Lack of substantial single player 
• Time consuming unlockables