Xenoblast91

Well, the last weekend was pretty busy for me and the next one'll be too. Two CrossFit competitions in which I'm actually training for and were thinking how this relates to video gaming experience too. 

Last Saturday went to another city to compete against other 70 people at Intermediate category; 4 heats in total (or rounds if you want to see that way), and the experience overall was incredible, adrenaline-rushing and superb. Managed to meet few heavy weights on the discipline and see how Elite people onto the sport perform in such events! And next weekend is the competition (the true one I was waiting for)... Feel so ready to tackle against other people once again. So fuel loaded and ready to smash! 

Playing Black Ops 4 has leaving me with the overall feeling that multiplayer games have become the standard in the industry. You know... few try to avoid as much as possible games with this type of gameplay because, well, I can enunciate many reasons why they suck or how amazing this experience can be. But one thing is clear for me. The competitive scene is real. I know a few people who only have games of this type on their profile. It's impressive honestly, but in personal, very few can claim that those are a thing to invest into. 

The servers shutdowns are a good reason to play those, imperatively on PS3, and I understand the rush for those, but I believe that behind those kinds of profiles there's a lot of solid, coherent and long-run communicative team, experience and people support to give a hand, just to target those co-op games that have flooded in recent years. And that's where the challenge starts. Same as what happens on sports. There's so much behind-scenes that despite we marvel about, we neglect the fact that lead to those results in first place... 

After this next weekend, I need to make a resolution. Since I love to sport, dedicating that activity solely for the purpose for competitions kill all enjoyment I can squeeze from it. Hence, having to actually manage between that scene and "for art's sake" mindset must be a balance. I want to avoid competing again as the trainings are heavy and unimagible intense, but I feel so appreciated with my coach for such support all this months, I honestly want to take it casually. 

And that perspective can be applied to trophy hunting. Yeah, I know. LEaderboards and stuff. But If you do this because you love it... the thing can change A LOT. You stop doing it for the trophies. You're doing it for you're memories. And ladies and lads, I believe that enjoying a single, non-online game can be way worthy than just having a bunch of competitive, heavy and long grind games. Those are unavoidable to some extent, but you should thinkg about your experience with them. Seriously. Thanks for comming to my TEDx talk. 

I'm super excited to play a new COD in just a matter of days. Whilst BO4 isn't near perfect as previous games in the series, I hope to engage with amazing people like I did while playing WWII. Being this time of the year around again is wonderful, as I like a lot to play this kind of titles in this season. 

If you're interested in playing this July's PS+ entry, let me know and attempt the Easter Eggs on each map, as those zombies are always interesting to play with along with (I know many aren't fond of) the battle royale and multiplayer modes! 

Mortal Kombat X - Platinum #32

GET OVER HERE!
Indeed, a Flawless Victory!

When I was a child, when the internet era was just a crazy idea and the only media where you could look for videogames info, were magazines. Nothing hyper-digital yet, but just a weird data machines that could read inputs depending on how fast or how did you trigger them in certain order. And those machines are called arcades. Relics from a glorious past before our refined 4K, 60 fps home cute monstrosities. You had to spend money per run, and not for the whole game. And if you lose, you lost your money. So, there was only an option: or you became good or don’t bother even play.

Oh! But don’t forget the mouth-to-mouth rumors spread in Elementary school, when some kiddo just came and told you that he unlocked a secret character in a game, and you had to do weird gameplay gymnastics to grab it too. And magazines, despite their incredible effort to deny certain of those rumors, they always arrived too late and the thing became widely spread among players, especially those who were amateur. And fighting games were the rule. In a time with such social changing and with advent of the new millennia, plus the rise of anime (with shōnen genre ruling them all) and the restrictive pseudo conservatism of that time gave its inevitable clash with unrest resistance. Violence in videogames was something few could imagine, but has led into the eternal strife between us (people who actually play those games) and people who somehow are “experts” in the matter and satanize everything they don’t bother to even understand. And then, the ESRB was born in North America and a wide variety of adult content that shouldn’t be placed in children’s hands, now is completely available to them, despite the effort to censure those bloody scenes that, still today, are heavily satisfying with the voice in the background yelling “Fatality!”.

As I stated in my modest review about the newest Mortal Kombat movie, I was in touch with the franchise since its origins. I played it on arcades, on handheld consoles and I even watched the previous films of it. Very few fighting games had charmed me like this series. I vividly remember playing towers with Scorpion, with his pixelated form, and even with those limited graphics, looked spectacular. And this version brought me those memories to excel them. I was worried that even the petition made for Invasions could work, the possibility to allow us to pick up 4 trophies for the platinum might not attainable again. But thankfully it worked in the end! And now I’m writing this. The fight spawned beyond the controller and had to reach Mr. Ed Boon via Twitter and expose him the reasons behind this. Despite I never had an official answer from him, the results are evident. Many people are getting their 100% in this game and that, is far more satisfying that just reaching it to me; and this year, compared to last one, seems to be a one of triumph and win.

The gameplay of this title is heavily reminiscent of the starting titles of the series. The kombos are incredibly easy to input, but are extremely difficult to master them properly. The IA, on the hardest difficulty can concatenate them without effort, and even is hurtful towards you, watching those impressive sequences of punches, kicks and wild attacks make a beautiful stance of the game. Allowing such performance to the player is something one must understand in the deepest sense of the word. You must press a button a half-second before the enemy is in the exact frame to land the attack correctly. One aspect that I liked was the inclusion of the X-Ray mechanics. A simple input and you can create a moderate to a lot of damage to the adversary, but at cost of your health, as general rule you are usually less than 50% to even summon it; this feature is the meaning behind the “X” on the title, aside that the letter fit the game, looking and sounding really cool. Include this the fact that Brutalities (loved them more than the Fatalities, as you make sure to leave your opponent with 5% of health to trigger them; some were difficult but were worth) were added in this installment and viola, you have the perfect MK title in years!

Trophy wise, well… there isn’t much to say about despite I can put them in three distinct categories, which can be handled depending on the roadmap one has chosen. Firstly, the miscellaneous are the ones you pick up quickly because you just play normally but need to be aware of the requirements to unlock them; secondly, the use of its infinite ways of options available to play, like playing towers, certain game modes and so on; and lastly, the grindy ones. Oh, man. Those are nasty because you end up tired of repeating the same thing over and over again by hours. Certainly, a true “test for your might” if you want the 100%. I can include all the fights with each character variation here, but I think it is a blurry zone between the grind and the game modes available in the title and were helpful in the end, as you had to play the story mode. You must have a certain experience with the characters, and despite you can lower the difficulty, I played it on the default one. It was unnecessarily challenging, but thinking that that was the proper way to play it was neat for that purpose.

Reaching level 65 was a pain, also having the max on every faction. Yeah, I was almost forgetting about it. There is this clan-esque type of gameplay where you must choose your side and as you play, you’ll get EXP, coins and other rewards that can improve your overall development through the game. This is exploited mostly on the online section of the game, but there’s a huge warning there. As this is a fighting game that came out 6 years ago, you must expect trolls, tryhards and an array of people looking to just humiliate you in ways that only they can understand. As a competitive styled game, you must have the guts to adventure in those wild lands and expect that kind of outcomes. Nevertheless, you can manage to win fights and enjoy the online experience, but at its natural toll. By this, I don’t understand the intent to gain 1,000 points of respect in a mode where is filled with those people. Even if you play legit, and out stand everyone else in the room, you're barely going to get any points, at all. This considering the people playing at the moment, and becomes highly lucked based trophy in that matter. Would take months, even years to reach it legit in my opinion; but as this game should be played with your fellows, appreciatively you can invite others to join you and play exactly as planned with your friends.

In overall, this game left me with a sweet taste, as I eagerly played it and wanted to gain knowledge as I progressed through it. A special title in my account, and a proud one, really. You shouldn’t be afraid of the tasks the game puts you, as inadvertently you’re going to do them anyway, and as a fighting game form a legendary series, is a must to play. The character’s rooster is pretty well-balanced, and despite few are buffed for what they should fight (especially the DLC ones), you can counter them easily with others, and if you have a favorite and know all his moveset it can rocket the experience, as you always can spam the same kombo over and over, but as the series has demonstrated, the IA and even a human player, can counter it and learn how’ll attack the next time. As I said, this requires knowledge and patience because as wonderful this game is, can be challenging for the unprepared; but in the end, it’s simply excellent.