gaming – workrock

October 1, 2019October 2, 2019

Thor in Avengers A Day

Although Thor has been frequently used in video games, most recently in God of war in which he’s referenced throughout the story and teased in a mysterious cutscene at the end, he is best recognized as Thor Odinson in Marvel universe.

With a string of movies in which he plays the lead character and his appearances in The Avengers, Thor’s popularity is at an all time high. In the Endgame he’s the only character who can stand up to the tyranny of Thanos. If not for the infinity stones he would have been the most likely character to defeat him.

[And perhaps even with the infinity stones, if only he had aimed for the head]

While Thor is an Asgardian God, the movies have tried to humanize him. And they have done it quite well. He cracks jokes, plays video games and like to beat baddies with some Led Zeppelin playing in the background. How cool is that?

People like Thor. But it’s one thing to be a good character in comics and films and quite another to be a good character to play. Thankfully Thor has not disappointed in this respect. If we go by the three Marvel Ultimate Alliance games that have featured him, he has lived up to the expectations of being one of the most powerful characters that you can have in your party.

In Marvel Ultimate Alliance, he’s adept at both Melee and magic attacks. Using his Mjølnir to charge at and smash his enemies. Or using it as a hose to spray (yes literally spray!) thunder on his opponents.

He can use summons to cast lightning or conjure up whirlwinds. Besides dealing offensive damage, Thor is also a decent support character with abilities that can restore the health of the entire party while at the same time electrocuting all the enemies on the screen. Despite being a God, Thor is a team player through and through. At least in Ultimate alliance games. Here’s a good demonstration of Thor’s abilities on the battlefield

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhC77fDDvXE

Still the ultimate alliance games are a hack and slash adventure. His depiction is more realistic. But Thor has also managed to make a good impression in the Lego Marvel superheros game too. The focus in these games is not so much as combat as it the funny dialog, platforming and quest for collectibles.

Like Marvel ultimate alliance games ,Thor can fly at will, but in Lego games the world is more suited for exploration. An environment that makes full use of his flight abilities. It is a joy to scale buildings and cruise over volcanoes and riversides. If you ever get tired doing that, it’s also fun crashing into enemies from the sky.

Here’s a free Roam gameplay of Lego Marvel superheros showcasing Thor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYU9lJZLwcc

Now as compared to comics some of the abilities and scenes don’t really translate that well in video games. For sure Thor has Superhuman strength , speed,agility and control over elemental forces of thunder. But since all of that is so fun his alter ego Dr Blake is usually given the boot.

While in comics Thor can travel faster than light and go back in time I don’t really think that these powers would make it to a video game.

Marvel’s avengers :A day promises to be a different kind of superhero action game. Its taking the RPG and hack and slash elements from Ultimate Alliance games while adding the free roam theme from the Lego games, and yet it feels like a proper action game. The moveset of the characters, from what I’ve seen may have been from a God of War or Devil May Cry. I guess the best comparison that can be made is with saints Row 4. WIth a more serious tone that is.

Thor with his ability to fly, would make for an excellent character to explore the universe of A day. I can’t wait to play as him. When I’m done with hulk that is.

Mobile games

Way back in 2004 Nintendo launched the first portable console to feature 2 gaming screens, the lower one being a touch screen. And while I never had a chance to play on the DS, I was always fascinated with the quality of the games it offered and the response it received from the fans.

On paper DS was weaker to PSP (the immediate competitor) but it terms of games that were fun to play it was second to none. DS offered gaming experiences that could match or even surpass any handheld or console device on the market.

DS launched with the intention of creating games that anyone could play. Even if you were not a gamer. Things like brain age and nintendogs appealed to a lot of people outside the gaming circle. And this was one of the big reasons for its massive success. Comparatively speaking neither the Vita, nor the 3DS did as well as their predecessors.In Fact mobiles slowly became handheld gaming device of choice.

Mobile phones have taken this concept of casual gaming to a new level. Online distribution. Free to play games. Being a device that everyone carries with them, mobiles have fully realized the vision of the Nintendo DS, with games that everyone plays.

Mobiles are not without their own faults. As radical as DS was it did not try to get rid of tradition altogether. It still had buttons. Similarly, while Wii was experimenting with motion sensing to make games more appealing to non gamers , the wiimote could also work as a traditional joystick. Nintendo switch, the latest gaming platform from nintendo can transform between the home console and a handheld but it’s still a proper gaming system.

Mobile phones on the other hand, well they can play video games all right. But they are not designed for it, for purists at least. It’s fun touching and poking on the screen for a while but serious gamers miss the physical buttons. A racer doesn’t feel as responsive on a touch screen. Nor does a fighter. Moreover touching on a screen impedes the gameplay. On a portable device screen space is limited. And if that is being obstructed by the finger it can take you out of the experience.

But there is one category of games that stand out on mobiles and have found a natural home.

RPGs, both western and japanese flavors. The games that focus on the atmosphere and story as opposed to the action. The gameplay is slower and more strategic. You won’t die if you are a bit slow to react. You can take your time in between turns. You can pause the game and come back when you’re ready to play. Turn based RPGs are seeing a resurgence on mobile.

While on consoles these games are passed on in favor of big budget titles on the mobile they are appealing. For one you can play them in short bursts. Rather than sitting through a 50 hour RPG you play it 15 minutes at a time. In the subway. Between meals. Before going to bed.

And here you’ll find so many great mobile games. From old school classics like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy to steven universe attack the light. Even when it comes to action there are certain games that translate really well.

Take lego games for example. Whether it’s lego batman, or marvel’s super heroes or for that matter star wars, lego games are mighty fun to play on mobile. Its their focus on light action, tight platforming and plenty of collectibles that make their translation on a portable device seamless. Even when there are no physical buttons.

PUBG and Fortnite have proved that a mobile can be used to play competitive multiplayer games online. Pokemon go shattered records when it was released a few years back.

It’s no surprise really, a mobile still has all the advantages of a handheld console. It may not have buttons, but it’s got better built in social features. Facebook, youtube, twitter all on the same device. You can play and let your friends know about your experience.

Or you can look up on guides if you’re stuck. Or you can simply put your phone on sleep if your tired. The game starts off from where you left. You don’t have to commit to a play time. Its liberating in a way only a handheld can be.

And yet despite all it’s advantages it feels incomplete. Something seems missing. You don’t really get to see the same amount of dedication among the fans for mobile as there was for handhelds in the past. Why is that I wonder?

workrockin@gmail.com

September 14, 2019September 14, 2019

What borderlands is all about?

Borderlands is a game about guns. I guess that would be an accurate and succinct description. Guns are everywhere in this game. Kill enemies and they drop guns. Open up loot boxes and you find more guns. There are vending machines that sell guns. Character quests give you guns as reward. You can find guns hidden in locker rooms, frozen in ice crystals, stashed in fridges and washing machines and I promise that I’m not joking about this when I say that you can find guns in toilet seats. Yes borderlands is a game where you can find guns hidden in toilets.

I’ve never played a game with as many guns as in borderlands. Of all varieties. Thunder pistols, acidic machine guns, poisonous rocket launchers , shotguns that explode when reloaded sniper rifles that can do 200 times damage on every critical hit and high speed smg bullets that explode when they hit the target like tens of grenades going off at once.

As crazy as these things sound they are among the more normal, I’m tempted to say bread butter ,weapons in borderlands. Wait until you encounter crazier designs like “bane”. A gun that screams (no it literally shouts) when you press the trigger doing rapid damage but at the cost of reducing your movement to almost nothing making it useless for normal combat situations but handy when you have to fight while standing still (like while trying to get a second wind,more on that later)

Talking of grenades, borderlands has them as well. And they are just as fun as the guns. If not more. There are bouncing grenades, there are grenades that suck the enemy in a vortex, there are grenades that transform into a fire hose constantly doing fire damage to all enemies in the radius (yes it’s as cool as it sounds). Then there are grenades that break into a number of tiny bombs on detonating destroying enemy shields.

Some enemies have shields but so do you. And you can either choose to buff up your defence or sacrifice some of your shield points to do additional damage on your first shot. There are shields that set the enemy on fire if they come to close, or electrocute them, or self explode taking all other enemies out. In borderlands even shields are offensive.

All these weapons won’t be of much use if there were not many targets you could use them on. Luckily for us borderlands delivers in this respect.

You’ll find all kinds of bad guys to pump your bullets in. Psychos, skags, badasses, convicts with huge spiked shields midgets tied to them! Gunmen that are quick on their feet , rat like thugs that steal all the loot lying around, psychos that move into your cover and explode. In borderlands you’ll have to learn quickly to crowd control.

Changing covers, using your secondary skills effectively and perhaps most importantly using second wind to your advantage. You see when you run out of health in borderlands, the game gives you a chance to “fight for your life” in this mode if you kill any enemy you’re restored with full shield and a portion of your health. By knowing when to go in all guns blazing , confident that even if you’re taken out there are enough enemies on screen that you can get a second wind, is a key tactic of winning in borderlands.

Every opponent requires a different strategy to beat so that when the game throws them together they become quite a challenge. Different enemies have different elemental weaknesses, different attack range and different health points.

Robot types are weak to acid, flesh types to fire. Goliath’s are tanks that go into an enraged mode when they lose their helmets getting more aggressive and even killing other enemies for you! At higher difficulties enemies even respawn health that makes them even harder to take down. Suffice to say here that you’ll be on your toes all the time.

The world in borderlands is presented in a beautiful cartoonish style that suits the overall zany narrative of the game. Nobody takes itself too seriously here. Even the main villains are quite cool. Yes they want to realize their nefarious plans and yes they’ll do anything to stop you. They’re still nasty and mean and bossy. The kind of crooks that you expect, but they are always joking about it. And frankly it’s a bit of a relief from the usual highly moody baddies that you have to deal with in video games. In borderlands when you beat the main boss you miss them in a way. The fact that you’ll no longer be able to hear their utterly ridiculous but totally entertaining monologues is a bit of a let down to be honest.

Thankfully the post game content in borderlands is huge. In that respect the game is like the western version of Monster Hunter. You want to find awesome new guns. You want to fight new enemies and you want to try out new characters or level up your existing build post game. The replayability in borderlands is huge. And that’s not even counting the multiplayer aspect. Yes you can go online and play borderlands with your friends.

It’s little wonder that borderlands 2 sold 22 million copies since its release in 2012.Of course with the release of Borderlands 3 we can say that the game is now officially a franchise. The latest entry promises exploration of new planets.

It’s deeper than Ratchet and clanks planetary platforming, but not quite on the level of no man’s sky intergalactic exploration. Still the world we have is richly detailed and there are new things to find on every corner.

Borderlands is a game that proves that an RPG does not have to mean a shoddy action game. With it’s pumping first person shooter gameplay, western Sci Fi themed story and loot that makes other RPGs blush borderlands is a dream game for fans of shooter as well as RPGs. It shows how RPG like customization and collectibles can add depth to a genre that is as populated as FPS. Borderlands manages to stand out from the crowd of shooters. And if you follow the game industry closely you can appreciate how big of a deal that is.

And frankly speaking borderlands is no longer merely a game. It is a benchmark on which other shooters and rpg games will be judged.

If you haven’t played a borderlands game yet, now would be a good time to do so.

workrockin@gmail.com

September 8, 2019

How to get better at monster hunter?

With the release of Iceborne a new monster hunter is upon us. Back in the day expansions in monster hunter meant the ‘G rank”. An ultra hard level that added new monsters, made them harder to defeat but also rewarded the player with better gear if they managed to take them down.

For old timers monster hunter expansion meant 100s of hours of gameplay. However the tougher levels tend to drive away new players. Which is a bit unfortunate because more people.should be experiencing this game.

As it stands monster hunter is already quite a difficult game. I won’t deny it. It is hard. But it’s fair. It will test your patience. However, if you persist you will have months of fun. Here are some of my tips to improve your skills and have more fun with the game.

Understand the Movement

Monster Hunter’s gameplay is all about the movement. Monsters have detailed attack patterns and rich animations that bring those attacks to life.

A tigrex for example stands tall just before he’s about to star spin or roar. A diablos shakes his head a couple of times before howling. Kirin’s attacks are hinted by the tilt of it’s head.

As a first timer these patterns will go unnoticed. Your timing will be spotty,you’ll miss most of your chances and get hit instead. And there’s no easy way to learn these patterns.

It’s best to go into a quest with the purpose of only dodging enemy attacks. For the first few times don’t try to hit at all. Go into the fight and learn to dodge. Quit the quest before time runs out so that you don’t lose your money.

Training guild can be helpful but nothing beats seeing the enemy fight in its natural surroundings. Which brings us to …

Know the environment

In monster hunter the environment plays a big factor in the outcome of your battle. In harsh weathers you need to take appropriate items on your quests. Cool drinks for hot climates and hot drinks for the icy areas.

Fetch quests can be a great way to learn about the environment. As they have you roam through the different parts of the area to gather materials and to collect items.

After you’ve done a few of those you’d have a good idea of what to expect. As you progress through the game more areas will be available and you’ll have to understand them as they are discovered. The learning time reduces greatly. As the game opens up you become a better hunter too.

Besides, you also need to be aware of the specific locations in which you’ll be fighting. Is it an open area with plenty of room for dodging. Or is it a constricted space in which you can get easily hit if you ‘re not quick? If you followed step 1, observed your target and tried to dodge it then you’d already have gotten used to it. If not,do that!

Get comfortable with your weapon

There is a huge variety of weapons in monster hunter and they all play differently.

Dual swords, hammers, bowgun, arrows, switch axe, Lance, long sword hunting horn etc. It’s difficult to master them all. Pick one that suits your style best.

In the beginning it won’t be easy to decide. Watching YouTube videos of end level gear would help you visualize the kind of hunter you want to be.

It would be even better if you’d just try the entry level gear before going down a weapon path.

Once you’ve decided, try to stick with your choice. At least for the toughest fights. You don’t want to use a weapon in which you’re inexperienced for hard battles.

As important as it is to draw the weapon it’s even more important to quickly sheath it. A drawn weapon makes your movement slower as compared to the sheathed one. Some weapons like hammers , dual swords and hunting horns are designed to be played so that your movements are always in tune with them. Especially with the charge and release attack of hammers. Others like switch axes and long swords are better suited to hit and then sheath tactic.

Remember to experiment. If you know the moves of your opponent well you can always dodge the attacks even if you’re not scoring that many hits. Try new weapons. Or new moves with existing ones on monsters you know well.

Prepare for the fight

Quests in monster hunter require solid preparation at the base. In fact it’s the other half of the game. Make sure your weapons and armor sets are upgraded as best they can be.

Check if you can forge more powerful gear before taking in this quest. Maybe it’s better to postpone taking on a new dragon until you’ve gotten a better gear?

Pack in potions and items to create more supplies. All the effort that you put into this stage will help make your fight more smoother and easier. If you go in unprepared even if you fight well you can lose. So take time to have things in order.

Don’t get greedy

Never ever try to score more hits than possible. Monster hunter is not like other RPGs where your stats can overwhelm the enemy. Even a low ranking monster can make short work of you, if you don’t respect the movements. When they attack dodge and position yourself to land a strike.

After striking move again to find openings for your next attack. A fight in monster hunter is more like an intense dance sequence. You can’t stop the opponent from participating. Instead play along. Move to the tune. Learn the rhythm. Know when you strike and when to move away.

Well that’s all the tips I have for you today.

Back in the days of PSP monster hunter became the reason for owning the handheld. It was the most loved PSP game. And for good reason too. Monster hunter is a game that encourages exploration and understanding of the environment. It’s ecology. Whether you’re in a jungle or a desert. In the mountains or inside a volcano.The game is all about exploring the world you’re in. And it has not lost it’s spirit even after a decade. No other game has managed to capture this feeling in the same way.

For old and new hunters hours of adventure awaits. Have fun with Iceborne.

workrockin@gmail.com

May 25, 2019

The wireless features of Nintendo Switch

Nintendo has done it again. Just when you that it would be hard for the company to match xbox one and PS4 in the home console market or maintain its lead the portable gaming segment it comes out with a hybrid console. Who else could have thought of A single unified gaming platform that allows gamers to play on a wide screen in the TV mode. Take it with them on the road in the handheld mode . Or simply enjoy a quick local multiplayer match in the table top mode. Its three consoles in one.

Only Nintendo could have done it. And boy haven’t they. Breath of the wild came out at launch took the world by storm. Critically acclaimed, nearly universal positive press. Anyone who loves video games loved Breath of the wild. Nintendo followed it up by Super Mario odyssey another smash hit sitting at a total of 15 M in sales world wide. They have kept the hits like super smash brothers ultimate and Mario kart deluxe coming in on a regular basis. On switch the fun never seems to stop.

But we’re not here to talk about games on switch. As awesome as they are today we’ll be looking at Switch’s hardware. More specifically the wireless capabilities of the platform.

As I’ve said before [1] local wireless adhoc multiplayer games are all set to make a comeback. Therefore it becomes doubly important for console manufacturers to carefully design wireless capabilities of their products.

Nintendo switch goes the with Broadcom’s BCM4356 [2] networking chip with PCIe support. The chip was released in NOV 2014 [3]. Almost three years prior to Switch’s release date.

The system on chip module seems to have been manufactured by FOXCONN [3] . Here’s a review of the specifications and the features of the chip.

The device operates at 3.3 V optimally at temperatures between 0-70c
Supports both Bluetooth and wi-fi modules.
Is dual band works in both 2.4 ghz and 5ghz bands with a peak speed of 866.7 mbps [4]
Supports 256 QAM modulation. 20hz, 40hmz and 80 mhz wide channels . Protocols 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac are supported along with 2X2 MIMO.
The chip has a tiny 768KB SRAM and 640KB ROM
ARMCR4 processor included on board [5].

Boradcom’s chip is impressive in the range of features it provides with such limited resources. Although the low specifications may be the cause of frequent disconnection limitations on max number of adhoc players as well as local multiplayer lag.

To compare nintendo’s wifi hardware take look at Mediatek wifi chip MT7628K often found in entry level routers and note that the system comes with an embedded RAM of 8MB!

https://www.mediatek.com/products/homeNetworking/mt7628k-n-a

In today’s day and age 768 KB is nothing. Though it should be noted that the chip would probably have access to system memory via DMA. A dedicated wifi chip with enough ram and processing power would have certainly helped here.

To be fair to Switch the built in wifi chip is only used as a communication device for local adhoc multiplayer. It won’t be used as a router. Plus in handheld multiplayer mode you’d have multiple devices so its not like a single chip is doing all the processing.

Infact broadcom’s own product description justifies the specifications

This product family is used as client devices in smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, digital televisions, PC products and other products requiring small size and low-power connectivity solutions.

The purpose of the wifi chip is to transmit and receive signals. In that respect the onboard wifi chip may indeed be sufficient for the wifi processing requirements of a single switch system. Successfully transmitting and receiving signals from upto 8 players at a time. I however do get a feeling that the under powered chip may be one of the reasons of frequent wifi complaints among the users.

Additionally in switch the chips are not being used simply for client connections. They also act as base stations in case of ad hoc multiplayer. In a wireless multiplayer game one player would start the multiplayer match by creating a lobby. His wifi mode would turn into a station. Other players would join the match as clients. In this case the player who started the game would have to do additional processing of keeping the connections of all the other players intact besides exchanging the multiplayer data. This is one area where switch could have been better.

Since Nintendo switch has lan support it might be possible to offload wifi processing to a third party router. For the games that support LAN multiplayer all devices could connect to a single access point that takes care of the communication while each switch device simply acts as a client. This would reduce the burden on wifi chip allowing for a better multiplayer experience. Any game that would work on a wired lan will also work on a wireless lan [7].

Despite these problems switch supports a long list of local multiplayer games [6]. The games are diverse enough appeal to all kinds of player. Where as super smash brothers and Mario Kart deluxe are competitive multiplayer games utilizing both tabletop and handheld mode wireless multiplayer. Monster hunter generations ultimate is a collaborative multiplayer game that works only in the handheld mode. In other words there’s no split screen.

Handheld mode only local multiplayer games require dedicated devices as well as game copies. To play monster hunter in multiplayer mode for example you’ll need separate switch consoles as well as copies of monster hunter game.

A key part of switch’s wireless architecture are the joy con controllers. Like Wiimote before it joy-con are wireless remote controls with built in motion sensing technology. In detached mode they communicate with the main unit via bluetooth.

All in all switch’s execution on wireless remote control and ad hoc play is exemplary. It out did its previous work on the WII mote. Which is high praise considering that wii mote was one of the most innovate controllers to come out that popularized motion sensing technology in console games as well as mobile phones.

Nintendo positions its games and consoles towards families . Games that everyone can enjoy. By integrating wireless multiplayer in the consoles it makes the package more appealing. After all a family that plays together stays together.

At workrock we help deliver the best wireless gaming experiences. Need someone to help you wireless gaming setup? Looking for custom built gaming routers? Want to organize a wireless LAN party?Email us on

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Footnotes

[1] Return of wireless ad hoc multiplayer (https://workrockin.quora.com/Return-of-wireless-adhoc-multiplayer)

[2] https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/wireless-lan-bluetooth/bcm4356

[3] FCC Document filed by foxconn (https://fccid.io/ANATEL/01241-15-01802/Manual/4F4D11AB-B7BD-48F8-A1D6-AA502921BFA1/PDF)

[4] In the 80 MHZ 256-QAM 5ghz band (http://mcsindex.com/)

[5] https://developer.arm.com/ip-products/processors/cortex-r/cortex-r4

[6]https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/9tg0fp/updated_list_of_local_wireless_multiplayer_games/

[7] That is just how networks work. A wired network is no different from a wireless network. For a guide on how to use wired LAN for switch games check out this page (https://www.imore.com/how-throw-lan-party-your-nintendo-switch)