Terahawks Corner

For once, I have no video's in this update - instead I'm following up on my previous post and the things to come. Well, the Overwatch open weekend came and went and I didn't even get as far as downloading it. Currently only really have a couple of hours a days at most to pick which games I play and that same weekend had the Pit People closed beta running. There will be Pit People video's coming onto the Youtube channel over the next few days. Behemoths next game is a lot of fun. Recognisably in the Castle Crashers style, it's a turn-based strategy game, with co-op play if wanted, set on a world that is somewhat skewy. It's post-apocalytic state was caused by a bear crashing into the ground (and actually visible on the world map ...) and the weapons and armour are not standard weapons (my hero started with a fence post shield, a sword and a moustache and is currently rocking a filing cabinet, toilet brush and mollusc hat in those same slots). Being a be...

New Month, new Games With Gold, new video's on the channel. I'm starting with Xbox this month and we have an older game: the lovely Forza Horizon . I gripe about the arrow line that changes colour depending on whether you are at the right speed or not but it is actually quite helpful for someone like me who learn to race in the age of the d-pad (there was acceleration and not, and not the gradulated analogue that is the standard now. The other video is: Earthlock Festival of Magic . This doesn't fair so well. In part this is because only giving 15 minutes or so for an RPG means that it hasn't really got going. Of course, the game hasn't really grabbed my attention within that time either which doesn't bode well. Not that I'll be giving this game any time any time soon. Overwatch is on a Free Play Weekend 9th - 12th September, I'm part of the closed beta of Behemoths Pit People , my fire team is enthused for The Division Underground havin...

I'm noticing that a larger portion of my gaming these days is comprised of demo's, tech tests and free play weekends. The latest addition to the partial games taking up my Xbox One disk space is the tech test for Titanfall 2 with a First Time Play: and a following Thoughts of the Game vid: The game itself is quite enjoyable but the front-end is very cluttered and I'm going to predict that it's going to lose out against some of the other upcoming shooters coming out this season (not least Battlefield One ) and the larger names still holding their own ( Destiny , Overwatch , Halo 5 , Black Ops 3, stop me when appropriate ...). I do like this trend towards a more objective led gameplay. As popular as the deathmatch game mode has and is, I prefer this more team based approach to games (it's why I stuck with Unreal Tournament 2004 for three years) - I'm not the best aimer in the world so getting points for objective completions helps me and I'm a...

One day my internet will work properly again - hopefully soon enough that I'll actually be able to play GTA Online on my Xbox One. It does encourage me to play other games at least, and Xbox buddy WatchingSeven and myself have been slowly working our way through the Nightmare campaign on Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 . The concept behind this is great: take the story campaign of Black Ops 3 , swop out the original story for a bioweapon virus that turns people into zombies and go! Even the cutscenes are re-used and by altering the voice-over (and removing character voices) they have been able to put a story in that uses the locales from the main campaign and 'remix' it - helps when the levels don't need to be in the order that they originally were. It's also nice to be able to play zombies and be able to utilise the cyber abilities - however Treyarch also made the decision to alter how weapons are handled. The weapons themselves are the same as you'll fine i...

Last month was a little quiet from me in the upload stakes - picked up a rather nasty cold bug mid May that continued to linger well into June, with some sick days taken as a result. This in turn has shot my sleeping patterns to all hell. Combine that with a particularly busy stretch at the day job and I've not had much time, and not much energy. The busy season is easing off though at work - the cold bug has departed (though I think I may have just replaced it with a summer flu instead ...) and my internet connection remains a known qaundary (there will be no twitch recordings any time soon. Back to the games. Largely this month when I have reached a console, it's needed to be a child-friendly title. As generally has been the case this last year, Lego steps quite handily into the breach. And currently Lego Indiana Jones 2 has been the choice. As Telltale always seem to do, it's moved to a different set-up from previous games - a pseudo open world mini version of the...

With May rolling around, that means new games available for download. For this month that means Sunset Overdrive on Xbox One: On Xbox 360 I think it's Grid 2 . As I'm a Burnout man at heart, this game is unlikely to be checked any time soon And finally on PS3, we have LocoRoco : And Bionic Commando 2: Rearmed [if you are reading this then I haven't yet uploaded the video] Rather than talk through the games in the blog (seeing as I do so on the videos), I'm instead going to sidestep (or strife if you like) and go into a mini-rant on technology, as I seem to do from time to time. The following is a first world problem. Depending on what point you read this, the chances are that there are three videos above. However, as I write this, there are only 2 video's and Bionic Commando is waiting. This is largely due to my internet connection which it can be easily guessed from those who watch the YT channel is not great. Ookla when we test it regularl...

Traveller's Tales Lego  games have become a staple within our household. The quality of the games is somewhat variable - so some I will go back to and play; particularly as the younger members of the family get older and some some won't be quite so high up the replay list but there is one feature missing from every Lego  game I've played since the original Lego Star Wars  - a customised party I've found in every game that there are characters that I prefer to use - often not the primary characters. For instance, in Lego Pirates of the Caribbean , my female character choice would be Park (one of the supporting pirates from the Singapore segment) or my preferred webslinger in Lego Marvel is Venom. Yes I can pick a preferred character, but every game will auto-select the other characters in the party. Yes I can select other characters on the fly (in Free Play at least) but it won't remember previous selections. I'd firmly expect this to be something not ne...

this weekend, I've so far sunk 8 hours into the open beta for Tom Clancy's The Division . and I suspect that I'll sink a few more hours into it before it closes. First impressions are very good - it's basically a RPG with a 3rd person cover based shooter approach set in a virus ravaged New York City. I caught one forum comment liken it to Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, which is actually a very apt summation of it's strengths and weakness's. It plays well, and it is a realistic vision of a city that is under siege from within - it's the trappings of video games that go towards breaking this (bullet sponge bad guys, for instance). As with ME3  multiplayer, it plays better if you have friends to go to town with and I like that the base of operations is instanced for each player. The Dark Zone area with it's PvPvE set-up works very well - though I wonder if it's a little easy to go rogue. That said, making it easy to go rogue was very satisfying when I ...

This month I was reminded that when updating software, you need to check the settings before using it in anger. So, new month means new subscription games. The first one that I pick was  Hand Of Fate on Xbox One: The game itself works well and I recommend it to anyone looking for a pick up and play RPG. However, when setting up to record it, my GameCapture informed me that version 3.whatever was available up from 2.2.some number. Ran the update, then went straight into the capture. I noted the updated GUI but didn't look any further, particularly as my set tags were there. It wasn't until I'd done the capture and moved it into MovieMaker that I noticed the commentary track was missing from the folder. Checking the raw files I also didn't find it there then realised that the commentary was embedded into the video - and as I didn't alter the audio settings when I started playing, the commentary was all but inaudible. However, because I have the audio ...

So, a little after the fact but there is a First Time Play up for the game Zheros. A side scrolling beat 'em up IN SPACE! The concept reads a little like Double Dragon in a Ratchet and Clank universe - the execution is a little more lacklustre sadly. Graphics are good but not great, audio does the job but is not outstanding, it does allow for co-op gameplay but with stereotypical characters but the worse part is that it's just somewhat clunky - something which is not that much of a desirable factor in any game, never mind a beat 'em up. There doesn't seem to be much going for this game, as you notice in my video: However, one thing it does have going for it seems to be an extraordinarily huge TrueAchievement score. For this 1,000 Gamerscore game, you could get potentially 25,194 points. To note though, at the time of writing, of the 26,200 members of True Achievements not one has completed it. A challenge perhaps for someone out there ... or an indication t...

This month's 1st First Time Play is Medal Of Honor: Warfighter , currently available for free for Playstation Plus subscribers for the month of January 2016. It starts badly for the game as it needs an update before it even starts. As I mention in the video, and have done previously, I do not understand why a digital download game requires post download patches. I've just purchased GTA V for my Xbox One and whilst that did require an update, it was also a physical disc - there's enough dlc for that game I understand why the disc isn't up to date. But for a game that I entirely download, which has been released for a period of time and which Sony will have decided ahead of time to release for PS+, there really doesn't seem to be any good reason. The opening level is shown in the video - the graphics are fine though not amazing but the sound effects are far too loud, a magnitude above games like Call of Duty or Halo which I also expect effects to be not...

In my last post I mentioned that I would shortly be able to be undertaking higher res recordings and also be able to start gaining HDD space. Anyone who's checked out ReprobateGamer on Youtube by this point will already have been able to guess the answer, as there is now a number of Xbox One captures up on the channel. Yep, finally joined the current gen of consoles with Microsoft's offering. The PS4 remains tempting but there aren't currently any games available on that system that I can't also get on Xbox One and I know more people on Xbox Gold to actually play with at the moment. The older consoles are still hooked up so there will be still recordings coming from them both (I haven't forgotten about the Gunslinger  playthrough that has been in abeyance since last summer) but I'm currently working on a Top Tips for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Zombies  newcomers which is definitely proving how much of a hassle MovieMaker is to use - predominantly that I hav...

So my last blog spot was a catalogue of woes regarding the October PS+ games. Sadly, November hasn't been much better. Positive news first: I have got a First Time Play for Dungeon Siege 3 up on the channel: Which does at least mean I've got it up whilst it's the November Games with Gold freebie for the Xbox Live Gold subscribers out there. So far better than Dirt 3 (for which I have no space on the console HDD to download), Walking Dead Episode 1 (downloaded and untouched) or Battlestation Pacific (video recorded but is unlikely to be uploaded now) However, for the PS3, I'm wondering if we'll manage to get any of this months games up and out. Let's see, we've got Beyond Good and Evil HD - which I have played previously so wouldn't technically be a First Time Play. I'm also not certain that the opening to that game would do it justice in a 20 min or so video. Then we have Invizimals on Vita and The Walking Dead Episode 2...

Another week, another upload to the Youtube channel: Kung Fu Rabbit is this weeks lucky winner. I had planned to get all the PS+ subscribers October games up but suffered from a couple of technical hitches this time about. First was Kick Beat where the audio commentary ended up a couple of minutes longer than the visual and there is no sync betwixt them (ironic for a rhythm action game). Then I tried Chariot but forgot to change the title from Kick Beat , recorded it with the wrong name then mistakenly deleted it when starting to edit Kick Beat (right before finding the synchronisation issue. Finally started to record Unmechanical and middle of recording ran out of HDD space. Not my week all in all - 1 video uploaded out of 4 isn't a great result. But I do still have the footage from KickBeat so I just need to re-record the commentary and I can possibly even get two separate videos from it. And the little monster has taken a shine to Chariot so maybe there...

Following on from my previous post, I've finally managed to get the Twisted Metal first play up on the youtube channel: I end up being a little hard on this game - but actually it doesn't help itself. The graphics are not outstanding. It's possible that following immediately on from Crysis 3 may affect my view on this but then, I've also been playing Lego Pirates and Littlebigplanet 2 with my little monster and Twisted Metal is just a little rough around the edges visually compared to them also. The music is all guitar rock and heavy metal - which I don't have a problem with, but I heard Sweet Tooths theme so often just recording this video I was getting very bored of it. Especially as it's the music that plays (just once) from the XMB when it's the highlighted selection. There are also inconstancies within the game. As an example, towards the end of the mission played, I get a message to say that I've killed Sweet Tooth. But I'm ...

Next video upload onto the Youtube Channel. This time around, it's the turn of Crysis 3 . I manage the achievement for completing the tutorial level but miss the arrow in the knee achievement  The game seems enjoyable so far but I did spend a couple of minutes wondering around the port in the opening level as there did not seem to be any kind of objective marker and I missed the NPC as he headed off in the rain. The joys of video editing mean that that aimless wondering at least is not for public viewing (other than a few seconds with a life bouy ...) Link below Got this monthly free game out but missed getting a video for Pacific Battlestation before it came down from Games from Gold. On the Playstation side, I got Teslagrad uploaded and I've recorded one for Twisted Metal Online (which is the only other PS3 game on PS+ this month) - but I need to edit that video still so it'll only be a few days up before the next batch. Teslagrad vid below:

So, there I am in the process of setting up a Plants Versus Zombies walkthrough on the Youtube channel. I've captured part 4 (to be uploaded soon!) and was lined up to get part 5 recorded in turn ... ... when my little monster, looking for a change from Kinect based games, and having seen PvZ on the Android tablets is interested. Her and myself are now in what would have been part 8 and she is proving to be not too bad at slowing zombies down. That walkthrough series may be a little delayed until I can work out the most convenient method to restart from the beginning, ideally on a different storage device so I don't lose the progress that she and me have made. The series starts here: On the plus side, it also means that I can look to do the Nom Nom Nom acheivement on the first available level. Bless her cotton socks, I not certain that was her intent ...

Next video is up on Youtube. First time playing the game Rain is now live at this link: https://youtu.be/Osr9NUdKkcw A first play of Mousecraft will follow - I'm just going through a technical difficulties patch with the video either not uploading, or the internet connection not working, or trying to upload with too much data traffic on the connection, or ... E2A: And here's the Mousecraft video, a day late but not a dollar short

The next video upload is (or at least should be) live once you read this. The next in my monthly First Time Play series, I take a quick look at the first level of Entwined . https://youtu.be/-sQw-LSKSIA It's a quick look as it's a quick first level - I've breezed through the next two levels in about as quick. Cant tell if it's an easy Trophy claim or if the 'story' mode is simple as the challenge mode is the meat of the game The graphics are lovely but seem quite derivative of Rez , Child of Eden , Amplitude , Insert similar game title here ... Can't decide yet if I'll take the time to continue with this one or not. I doubt I would have bothered with it if not for PSN Plus (much like Race the Sun last month really) Think it's becoming clear that Sony are putting PS3 onto the back burner and gearing up on PS4 (they just recognise that there are still a lot of players on PS3 ...)

Another week, another Youtube update. This time around it's a first play on the PS3 as I take The Unfinished Swan out for a waddle: This follows on from last weeks First Play where I ride out on Call of Juarez: Gunslinger : Not decided on my next video update but as I'm very likely to be in Los Santos with the upcoming DLC, it may well end up being GTA V related. There plenty of games to pick though so watch this space (actually watch the youtube space but you get the idea)