#GamingTuesday Until Dawn Review

Until Dawn is a new Playstation 4 Exclusive release of the survival horror genre where your split second decisions shape not only your story, but your characters personalities as well.  The story revolves around 8 teenagers on a mountain retreat after a hiatus from each other because of a tragedy that occurred during the same annual retreat a year previous. Of course, everything starts going downhill from the minute they arrive, and it's your job to get each of the characters through the night. Check out the game trailer below (we recommend watching in fullscreen):

What's wonderful about this game is that it plays similarly to Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls where you are basically in a movie, but because of your decisions, the story arc changes along the way, and you could have a totally different story during your second or third playthrough than the previous ones. There are hundreds of different story arc possibilities, and although it seems overwhelming to a new gamer, it is quite simple to play. During each cutscene, you take control of a different character and make decisions for them along the way, which could affect other characters, and their own live or die outcome. Obviously, it's your job to keep them alive.

We start off with the basic, stereotypical personalities. The jock, the mean girl, the nerd, the bookworm, and so on, but as you make decisions for the characters, you shape them and the world around them, and could possibly end up with a different personality all-together. During our second playthrough, we ended up making the bad boy a true heroic romantic, as well as turning the mean girl - easy girl into a truly complex, modest, and even sympathetic woman, when our first playthrough held true to their starting personalities. Because of this, we got brand new conversations and cutscenes, and even strengthened the bond between certain characters. And there are characters that you love to hate, who you think you might not care if they live or die, but when you are placed in their shoes, you begin rooting for them to live. This makes the game even more emotional if you end up making a decision that results in the loss of one or more of those characters. And by the way, there are no second chances. There is no respawning. You don't get a re-do unless you restart the game. So you have to try like hell to make it count.

The graphics are amazing. You really feel like you are watching a horror movie with all of the scenes seamlessly meeting gameplay to give everything a very cinematic feel. There are also two characters who have scenes during each intermission - or between each chapter. One character you play, but you are unaware who you actually are, and the other is a Doctor or Psychiatrist of some sort who observes your game play and talks to you about it during these scenes. This is where things get tailored to you, your fears, and playstyles. This is one of our favorites parts, as it plays a part in shaping the story's "scares" just for you. He asks you questions regarding your fears, and it's important that you be honest. You may hate something, and not want to see them in the game, but it will make the game all the more scary for you if you are honest instead of choosing something that may not scare you as much. Joey tailored his to spiders and zombies, where Drew choose clowns and darkness. This did significantly change some of the scenes, as Drew's game was dark and more sinister, and Joey's had more creepy crawlies and jump scares.

We also like the fact that just when you think you have the game figured out, it changes up on you. You have the obvious slasher touches, but there are supernatural parts as well, and we love when those two things are mixed.

Also, this: Start watching at 1:11 and stop right after the Don't Move feature for no spoilers.

The Don't Move feature made us almost wet ourselves. Seriously. The controller can sense your movement... in the slightest. Even breathing can make you move. And you don't want to move. Believe us. But it's a truly wonderful feature that lets us delve even deeper into the gameplay and lets us believe that we are actually in it to win it.

Also, when you pause the game, whichever character you are playing will be on the menu and in what condition they are in. If you look at your stats, it shows you how each character's relationship with the current character is, as well as how you have changed their personality during gameplay. You can tell because their starting stats are marked with a white line. Anything you change either dips below the line or goes above the line to show you how you are shaping them with your decisions. There's a glimpse of the character menu below.

Once you have finished the game, you can go back and play by chapter. Be warned, everything after the chapter you go back to will be deleted in order to re-write your story. It's not so bad if you don't like your ended and go back to the last chapter, but we weary when going back further, as you will have to play the rest all over again. This also erases the clues and such that you have found within those chapters. You can also choose how to use your controller, whether traditional, or motion. Motion makes the game a little harder as you are using full movement instead of the sticks to move like in traditional, but can be rewarding. Check out the main menu below to see more.

One last thing before you read on to our gameplay. We absolutely LOVE the theme song! Check it out below.

Playthroughs

The first playthrough was Joey and I, so we split the characters up. I took on the 4 girls, and Joey took the 4 guys. We made it a game all in itself to see who would have the most remaining characters at the end of the game. When a new scene would come up with our characters, we would pass the controller and played it as a two player game with one controller. This made things interesting, fun, and even more competitive.

You know how you can watch those slasher films and scream at the tv when people are running up the stairs instead of out of the front door? Or how angry you get when they decide to check the basement out when we all know horror movie rules, and that checking basements an attics is always a don't. You think you know what you would do, but when it comes down to actually doing it, making those split second decisions (literally, the game gives you maybe 15 seconds to decide what to do), but you just don't know until you are really in it. I thought was a Scream Queen (which I still think I'm holding my title well), but my first playthrough with Joey gave me rude awakening. Sometimes you make bad decisions because it's you, not them, and sometimes that leads to the death of your character... or all 4. Yes, I lost. Hard. I failed to keep three of my girls alive, but one of those was by choice and, well... we went out in a blaze of glory. Literally.

On the second playthrough, we had our friend Drew play with us, and split the characters as evenly as possibly, choosing them like you would choose people for your dodgeball team in gym class, round-robin style. My team consisted of Sam, Jessica, and Ashley (who I dubbed Smashly after the fist to face incident - you'll see when you play), Joey's team consisted of Josh and Matt, and Drew took on Emily, Chris, and Mike. Also, it's against the rules to kill someone else's character, so you lose points if your decisions result in the loss of someone else's character, but you can redeem yourself by being selfless and sacrificing yourself to save someone else character. Also, I would like to point out that the way Drew played some of the characters that Joey had previously was totally different, which resulted in HUGE personality changes of not only Mike (his), but Jessica (mine). We pretty much had a totally different story than the first playthrough, and because Drew was so diligent in finding all the clues to side stories, our main characters had a lot more conversation scenes that previous. Our end result was Drew winning the day  (even though he actually killed on of my characters because he didn't get to her on time to save her, but I forgave him... after about 3 hours) with all of his characters remaining alive. I came in second (tied with Joey) with one remaining character - Ashley, and Joey in with Matt being his only survivor. But, that's pretty good if you think about it. That means, in all, we only lost 3, when our previous play through left us with Mike and Emily.

Drew's first PS4 Screenshot. Just beautiful. We're so proud!

We all absolutely loved this game. We would highly recommend it, especially for story based fans, and absolutely for horror buffs. In all, we give this game a solid 9 out of 10. Make this your next purchase, for sure.

#GamingTuesday DC Universe Online Review

First off, let me say that I began playing this before finishing ESO, and was really excited about it and wanted to hop right in. All of my ESO friends were making the switch and raving about it. They kept wanting me to hop over and start playing with them, so I gave in and downloaded it. It was free to download, and free to play - somewhat. But, honestly, this game is so bad, I'm not even sure where to start.

Let's start with character creation. You get 2 starting slots for new characters. I am assuming one for Villain and one for Hero. You choose which you want to be, and then choose your mentor - Heroes get either Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman, and Villains get either Joker, Circe, or Lex Luthor. Once chosen, the customization options are pretty good. The powers are pretty awesome as well, except you can only choose a few for free, and have to pay to use others. Once you choose your powers and customize your look and colors, you are put through a tutorial. All of this led me to believe this would be a really good game.

Once out of the tutorial, you start your quests in your given area of either Metropolis or Gotham depending on who your mentor is. From here, it goes downhill. All the quests seem to be the same. Smash the thing, pick up the thing and get it to the place, defeat so-and-so. ALL OF THEM. While it is really cool getting to work along side iconic heroes and villains, it seems like all you are really doing is grinding. And here's the worst part: You're grinding for nothing because you can only spend $2000 at a time in free play. So you can't save up that hard earned money to buy an awesome iconic armor set that costs $4000 per set piece because anything you make over $2000 going into escrow, which is their way of saying "Hey, if you just pay some money monthly and become a member, we will give you access to all your cash." So you basically have find new armor and weapons, because most things can't be traded from player to player either. I find myself spending money at every vendor on everything I can just so that I get to use my own hard earned money, whether I want the item or not, and repairing my gear every 5 seconds just so that $10 doesn't leak into escrow.

Not only that, but the menu is a nightmare. It's hard to navigate and if you push the wrong button on accident your effed. The chat menu is hard to get to and figure out how to use, and it took me - it seemed like - five years just to figure out that there are social emotes like in ESO... I still don't know how to use them. The minimap for navigation is a nightmare as well. It's off in the corner instead of a bar above your head like in ESO, so you find yourself looking at it 98% of the time just to get to where you want to go, or find who you need to talk to, instead of enjoying the beautiful open world of Metropolis and Gotham. 

You also get a lair at level 10. You can't use it, however, because you have to either be a member or pay for it separately. So, it's basically just an empty building you can go into that only you and your friends can go into, and you also get to name it... if you can figure that out. Oh, also, you have to pay for it with in game cash. Yeah, they don't just give it to you. It's at least $500. 

Playing with friends isn't fun. You can form a group like in ESO, but it there are no indicators to let you know where your members are except on the mini map. You can't travel to a member from your menu (unless I haven't figured that out either) and if they are in a building or a different city, your pretty much left wondering where they heck they are. You better hope you're in party chat.

Sharing quests is a joke. 9 times out of 10 you can't share even though there is a share option. The other 1 out of 10, your friend has already done the thing.

People steal kills... and everything else they can. There are so many NPCs that you have to kill and wade through that you find yourself getting frustrated, especially since their respawn rate is insane, and once you have finally killed the 100th guy to get to that thing you were suppose to pick up, some a-hole swoops in and steals it, leaving you to fight through 100 more to get to the next thing, only to have that stolen as well. Swooping is bad. And infuriating.

All in all, this game doesn't make you feel like a Hero at all, which is what it was intended to do. It's the same old bump and grind over and over again, even when you start with a new mentor, and it's so frustrating that when you finally log out, you'll be so mad that you can't see straight. It is free, however. So, if you feel like you need to find out for yourself, go ahead and download it. But I'm telling you dude, you're going to hate it. 

In my opinion, this game was nothing but a quick release cash grab. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you decide to give it a try, choose your hero or villain carefully, don't make any in game purchases (because you'll regret them later) and play through once. I give it a 3 out of 10, and that's only because it's free and DC.

#GamingTuesday Review: Elder Scrolls Online

This technically being my first MMO, I have to say, I am very impressed.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I decided to try a MMO for the first time. My husband, who has been playing MMOs and the likes just about all of his life, has told me that you can lose days, weeks, and even years playing MMOs. There's just so much that goes into it. So. Much. And while I had laid good foundation with games like Grand Theft Auto Online, I hadn't really delved into the universe because those other games were very limited in what you could actually do in the online game. Most of it consisted of raids and boss fights, as well as PVP & PVE (player vs. player or player vs. everyone). And honestly, I wasn't sure if I would even LIKE playing with someone else who isn't sitting on the couch next to me.

After having played the other Elder Scrolls games, my favorite being Skyrim, and absolutely falling in love with the story, lore, and entire universe that had been created, I had been waiting for the next installment. My heart had sank a little when it was finally released but announced that it would be MMO. I wasn't sure if i would like that. At all. I was so used to how crappy people can be in online gaming from GTA 5, and was so burned out on it that I actually delayed in buying ESO at all. My wonderful husband, however, pointed out to me that, mostly, the people who play GTA and Call of Duty are different than the people who play games like WOW and Elder Scrolls. It's something that you wouldn't understand unless you try it and find out for yourself. And so, upon trusting his judgement, I caved and bought the game.

It rings true to it's predecessors in the ES world. It's beautifully made, overly customizable, and it's very easy to navigate in-world, and in your menu. Even when using social emotes, which are one of my favorite parts of ESO, whether I'm with a group or playing solo. It really allows you to immerse yourself into this wonderfully created world. You can do make your character do so many things in game besides swinging that ax or running. It really seems to break up the game play so you don't feel like you're doing the same thing over and over again.

Another wonderful thing about ESo is that instead of one giant map like in Skyrim, they have broken down your map into territories. Each place has it's own quest line, and just when you're tired of seeing the same scenery, you move on the the next, which could be vastly different than the previous.

You get 8 new character slots, and you WILL use all of them, if only to just create. I have created 8, and have 3 mains (even though most people have 1, but I like to switch it up more than most) - one in each faction and the others to "hold" bank items that I don't have room for in my actual bank - and you choose a faction when you begin, which there are three. Depending upon which faction you choose is where you will start the game. There is basically 3 games in one, because no faction has the same quests, places, or even scenery, and all territories are places you have heard of in other ES games. You will get to explore Tamriel this time, and visit places like the Alik'r Desert, Daggerfall, and so much more. There's so much to do, it's almost never ending. I love picking the game up where I left off or starting in with a different character knowing that I will very rarely have the same quest twice, if at all.

Alik'r Desert Screenshot by Yours Truly

Also, what's wonderful is that if you would like to PVP/PVE, you must go to Cyrodiil. Outside of Cyrodiil, PVP violence isn't even possibly (you can't even duel, although you do have the option to turn "harm innocents," - and by that they mean NPCs -on or off. This allows you to either be a great hero, a selfish villain, or just a really clumsy player), and the focus is on making groups, dungeon delving, and working together. I have already made many of online friends with this game who I love to play with from all over the country, and even some out of the country!

All of your gear is so customizeable, even down to the color. You can buy, find or create your own armor and weapons, just like Skyrim. However, they have added racial motifs. For instance, if you start out as a High Elf, you can only make Altmer armor. The same is true of other races. FYI - Playable races include: Imperial (if you buy the addition, Argonian (lizard people), Khajiit (cat people), High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Orc, Nord, and Redguard - which is the same as Skyrim. The main difference in this one is that you don't get to swim underwater, so you can't make that Argonian just to do some fishing anymore! Racial motifs can be found and bought in order to make another races gear. Most are common to find, but they have also added some badass stuff, too that you can purchase in the crown store, or if you get really lucky, you can find or trade for it with another player. Those include: Primal, Daedric, Dwarven, and Barbaric. I have yet to find one, but I did find the Imperial motif once, which if you don't start as an Imperial, they classify it as a rare motif. Each races motif is different, and evolves as you level up. It seems overwhelming, but it's very easy to understand once you get started.

You can also purchase pets from the crown store, and sometimes you can get rewarded with one. I have several pets right now that include a Golden Retriever, a stripped sench lion, and a cute little fox, as well as several different mounts that include two horses and a sench tiger. You can upgrade them on speed, carrying capacity, and stamina, which changes the look of your mount over time.

Once again, like in Skyrim, you can choose to have your character become a werewolf or vampire. They each get their own skill set, and are worth the trouble in becoming one if you are more solo oriented for vamps and more pack oriented for werewolves. They are also easily leveled up if you know how to feed and make sure to buy that perk first in the skill set. In order to become a vamp or ww, you need to find a spawn that carries the virus. Not all spawns carry it, and you must track down a specific location on either the New Moon for vamps, or the Full Moon for WW. Once a spawn is killed, it doesn't respawn until the next moon phase instead of after 2 minutes like other spawns. So it is especially difficult to obtain this way. You can, however, get the virus as a gift from a player whose character is already a vamp or a ww as long as you are in the same alliance/faction and they have a bite available. Bites are perks you must buy with skill points, and they allow you to infect one person a week in real time. A lot of people sell their bites, and many people get scammed this way. But don't worry, there are plenty of people out there who wait at the shrines to infect for free, like me.

Sometimes you like to invite your vamp friends for diner.

Werewolves make horrible photographers.

I also have a werewolf guild in the Aldmeri Dominion and a Vamp guild in the Ebonheart Pact that recruit in exchange for bites. Guilds give you the ability to store items and cash in the guild bank, so items can be exchanged without having to purchase or find them on your own, or to create guild stores, where your guild can sell to anyone in the ESO world and make a little extra cash in order to purchase new mounts, equipment, and armor.

You can even give your guild it's own look. Design banners to were over your armor to look more uniformed in battle.

My favorite part is that I can play with my husband. We don't get a lot of time together, so it's nice to have something we can delve into and immerse ourselves in while still playing with other people as well.

Sometimes you get to choose your next King.

Sometimes things get creepy.

Another wonderful little thing they decided to do was let you revisit Skyrim if you join the Ebonheart Faction. This game takes place around 1000 years before Skyrim, so you get to see what some of these towns looked like before you saw in in Skyrim. Without too many spoilers, here's some shots:

Just outside of Windhelm.

The Thieves Guild below Riften in this game is an outlaw's refuge.

Remember the murder you solved next to the Hall of the Dead in Windhelm? You can actually go inside the Hall of the Dead as well, as it is a Dungeon in ESO. Pretty cool.

If I talk about this game anymore, I may be here all night, so I'll leave you with this:
I would rate this 9.5 out of 10 stars, and give it more if I could. It's beauty, storytelling, and over-all gameplay outshines all others in it's category. I would highly recommend this to just about anyone, even first time MMO players like me.

I have put in some of my personal screenshots from the game so that you can take a look at some of the beauty of ESO. And also, why don't you sit back and enjoy this gorgeous trailer for ESO, which will be coming out with a new DLC - Imperial City - soon.