Sea of Thieves Impressions

As someone who loved Rare’s games on SNES and N64 (Donkey Kong Country, Banjo Kazooie, etc), I’ve been curious about the studio’s most recent title, the online co-op pirate game, Sea of Thieves. Taking advantage of the free trial of Xbox Game Pass (which is also available on Windows 10), I’ve been giving this game a spin over the past few days. Here are my impressions now that I’ve had a few hours to get my sea legs:

• Even though Rare may have changed a lot over the course of the last 20 years, I was immediately struck by the way this looks and feels like a Rare game. The music, art direction, and overall quirky charm that pervades the whole game were recognizable and distinct.
• I appreciated the fact that in this cartoon pirate world, the water physics are very realistic. My pirate ship bobbed, rocked, and tilted on the waves exactly the way I would expect an actual boat to behave. For me this, this enhanced the sense of immersion, but for players that are prone to motion sickness, this may cause an issue.
• As you would expect from a game about pirates, the majority of one’s time playing Sea of Thieves is spent on your ship. I found that dividing up the on-ship tasks with my teammates to be the most satisfying part of the gameplay. Having to juggle steering, navigating, manning the cannons, adjusting the sales, and repairing damage ensures that all players have something to do and delegation and cooperation are the keys to success. The game offers 2-person sloops and 4-person galleons. While each of the two ship sizes have different layouts to accommodate their respective crew sizes, they offer similar capabilities.
• The general gameplay flow goes like this: Pick up some quests in town, sail to the island marked on the quest map, find the treasure or beat a specific enemy to fulfill the quest objective, return to town to cash in the spoils. In other words, each gameplay session is a series of pirate-themed fetch quests.
• Completing quests rewards the player with reputation points and gold. Reputation points allow you to take on more challenging quests that offer more valuable loot and gold can be spent in town to purchase clothing for your character and accessories for your ship. Characters do not have stats and all players have access to the same weapons and ships, thus anything purchased with gold is purely aesthetic in nature.
• Since everyone starts with the same gear and all the character upgrades are cosmetic, all players are on a level playing field. This makes the player-vs-player action (especially ship vs ship combat) the most exciting part of the game since it relies entirely on skill and teamwork rather than time/money investment.
• The downside of this balanced setup is that since the only reward for completing quests is gold, and the only thing to spend money on are cosmetic items, I felt like there was very little in-game incentive to actually doing quests. Players that come to games for a feeling of progression or accomplishment, might find themselves lacking motivation once they've gotten a feel for each type of quest.
• The game's structure and mechanics are very simple and there is no story or progression system to hook the player. Thus, one's enjoyment of Sea of Thieves after the novelty has worn off is entirely dependent on the social experience. The game's primary purpose is to provide a novel environment in which to fool around with your friends.
• Since Sea of Thieves is an Xbox Anywhere title, I was able to play on PC with friends who were using Xboxes. I have to give Microsoft credit for making the cross-platform experience so seamless.

Ultimately, Sea of Thieves offers a collection of novel and amusing mechanics that when viewed strictly as a video game, don’t necessarily come together to make a compelling package. However, with some imagination and the right group of friends, there is still the potential to have a lot of fun in Rare's cartoon pirate world. As someone who prefers a more structured gaming experience, I'm not confident that there's enough here to hold my interest after my 1-month trial expires and I feel that the $60 price tag is a little steep for the content the game offers.


However, if you decide that the pirate's life is for you, you can pick up a copy of Sea of Thieves and support this blog by using this Amazon affiliate link: Sea of Thieves - Xbox One / Windows 10


Acknowledgment: During my time with Sea of Thieves, I had the distinct pleasure of teaming up with fellow Twitch streamer, @BogusMeatFactor. Since he's a much more experienced player, sailing the high seas with him gave me a lot of insight into what Sea of Thieves is all about. Be sure to check out his Twitch channel!

Stick Fight Review

A poor man's Smash Bros... but that poor man probably knows how to party!

Stick Fight: The Game is probably one of the most simple and straight-forward titles I've ever reviewed. In this physics-based fighting game, each player, represented by a stick figure, is dropped into an arena and battles to the death with an assortment of random weapons that fall from the sky. The controls are exceptionally simple for a fighting game; the only moves are run, jump, and attack. Players defeat each other by either dealing enough damage to score a kill or knocking each other off the screen. The moment that there is only one stick person left, the arena reconfigures itself and everyone respawns. Repeat.

Despite the simplicity of the game, Stick Fight kept my friends and I glued to our computers for several hours. A combination of three factors makes this seemingly shallow title so entertaining: level variety, unpredictability, fluidity.

• The level design in Stick Fight is the game's strongest feature. Each time the stage reshuffles, the players are thrown into another set of environmental hazards that can range from lava flows, to explosive barrels, to destructible ice platforms. There are probably about fifty different stage layouts and the key to victory is quickly figuring out how to use the environment to your advantage. 
• Nothing in Stick Fight ever plays out exactly as you would expect. Sometimes just the right weapon lands at your feet to give you the upper hand. Th next thing you know, you're firing that weapon at your enemies and the absurdly strong recoil causes you to ricochet off a series of explosive barrels to your doom. Every once in awhile a brazen unarmed stick person can rush into a barrage of bullets and land a knock-out punch on a heavily armed foe. A few seconds later, a stray bullet might topple a stack of crates that crush the triumphant pugilist. Some guns fire angry snakes instead of bullets. Anything can happen in a bout of Stick Fight and it's hilarious.
• The flow from one match to the next is seamless. Bitter about that last round where your victory was snatched from you at the last second? In a few seconds, the next round will begin and you'll forget all about it! Each battle usually lasts no more than a few seconds and after a quick flash of text acknowledges the winner, the next round begins immediately.

Stick Fight is one of those games that you and your friends will find yourself saying "just one more round"... and then you look up at the clock and realize that whole hour has gone by. Eventually, you'll see every level, weapon, and zany outcome that can happen in a match, but in the meantime, you'll have had several hours of laughs with your friends and have more than gotten your $5 out of the game. I'd highly recommend Stick Fight to those looking for a fun multiplayer game that they don't have to take too seriously.

Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Acknowledgement: I'm playing this game as part of #FightingGameMonth. This event is part of the Chic-Pixel blog's Community Game Along series. For more info, check out their post on this month's theme.

Jackbox Party Pack 3 Review

 A party in a digital box

Over Mother's Day weekend, I was having family over and looking for a game that could entertain everyone regardless of their gaming skill level, thus the release of Jackbox Party Pack 3 on Nintendo Switch couldn't have come at a better time. Each entry in the Jackbox series consists of a set of humorous trivia-based party games in which players use their cellphones or tablets a controller. Here's a brief rundown of the five games included in Park Pack 3:

• Quiplash: A game of fill-in-the-blank where each player does their best to submit the funniest possible answer.
• Trivia Murder Pary: A trivia quiz in which the players that answer questions incorrectly face off against each other in mini-games in order to keep from being eliminated.
•  Guesspionage: Players attempt to guess the results of worldwide polling data for a series of silly survey questions.
• Tee K.O. : Everyone draws pictures and writes slogans on their phone screens, and then players complete to mix and match these to make the funniest (and usually most offensive) t-shirt designs.
• Faking It: All but one player (the "faker") are given a piece of information or a task. The other players then attempt to guess who the faker is, while the faker tries to blend in with everyone else.

While in my household, Trivia Murder Party and Tee K.O were the clear favorites, I would still say that Party Pack 3 offers a pretty well-rounded and consistent collection of party games and surpasses its predecessor in overall quality and fun. The fact that Jackbox 3 uses cellphones as controllers is both one of its greatest strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, the fact that I didn't have to go out and spend a fortune on extra Joy-con in order to get the whole family playing was a real blessing. On the other, the inherent inconsistencies associated with everyone using different personal devices did create some disruptions in the fun (system updates, varying device performance, receiving calls mid-game, etc). Overall, these minor issues didn't detract significantly from the experience and the game succeeded in keeping my whole family (ages 28 to 55) entertained for many hours over the course of the weekend. The package also includes a "family friendly" setting in the options menu in the event that there are younger players joining in, but I didn't have an occasion to test this for myself. Overall, I'd highly recommend Jackbox Party Pack 3 to anybody entertaining guests of mixed gaming skill.

Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️