Splatoon made me rethink a lot of my attitudes to online gaming a few months earlier, it was (and still is) a more social, fun environment with a unique hook for a shooter, a lot of this I attribute to the fact it offers no voice support and therefore it doesn’t risk teams becoming too overpowered with tactics and also looses the insults and bitterness that terrifies me about the internet. Another game popped up from out of nowhere with a lot of the same principles, rethinking a genre and in the process making it more fun. Rocket League (PS4) apparently a sequel of sorts, buoyed by the fact it came out with the monthly PS+ offerings. It takes the core concept of football (or soccer), reduces teams to a maximum of four, doesn’t apply set positions such as goalkeepers and defenders and finally replaces humans with cars/trucks/jeeps/vans. The ball is oversized, making it an easier target, but control of it is significantly reduced by the fact your behind the wheel, early games (and indeed some games still do) saw me driving blindly round the small pitch narrowly missing the bounce of the ball, but then something clicked, nuances to the game started to appear, don’t just boost wildly toward the ball at kick off, hold back watch the play unfold. Blowing up an opponent by boosting it the back of him leaves the other team a vehicle down for a few seconds and he respawns at the other end of the pitch. Jumping (yep the machines jump and double jump) can be tuned by a small amount of control in the air, twisting sideways, forwards or even achieving a bicycle kick. The main meat to it is online, placed in a team of strangers where communication is limited to commands such as “defend” and “good shot” and the games being contained in the perfect bubble of 5minutes rarely get tiring and being ripped apart by another team is rare. More advanced tactics have started to appear in matches, people spent more time driving up the walls and controlling the ball there, I managed to jump from the wall in a downward motion to knock the ball into the goal (the downside of online gaming at this point was the understated “good shoot” from my teammate) I’ve gained a huge admiration for the players who’ve taken it upon themselves to learn the less glamorous art of defending, saving shots and making clearances basically doing the dirty work, whereas when I go back toward my goal invariably i’ll end up knocking it into my own net. Customisation of what you drive and what it looks like is beefed up by adding ariels, paintwork and most unusually hats there is also a typical levelling up system in play, which doesn’t seem to do much but add a tag to your name. Finally there is an offline league mode, which is a fun way to practice less on display. This game came out of the blue for me, and it feels like an amalgamation of so many games I love, Micromachines, Sega Soccer Slam, NHL Hitz, Sensible Soccer, Monkey Ball and so on, at the same time it feels fresh and such a joy to play, I say this quite a lot but the PS Plus offerings have become the perfect platform for titles such as this to flourish. I’ve heard mention of it being supported post release with DLC such as arenas and an announcer, if thats the case I’d happily put money toward this game, just to see what the makers come up with next.
Not that I wanted a more traditional take on a sports sim I still played a few matches of Super Mega Baseball (PS4) for the first time, cartoony in look it retains a lot of the core principles of baseball, and explains them early on for novices to the sport such as me. What it does lock down though is the control of the matches, setting how hard the match is by setting my “ego” before the match. A mid range ego gave me enough leniency on aiming shots and hitting them, something which can be a sticking point with other baseball games, it also seemed to nudge me toward not hitting foul balls which is another thing that gets me. The games are quick between innings, a 9 innings match tends to take about 20minutes, there isn’t much animation unnecessarily added and its not littered with replays, a homerun is the one chance I was given to bask in the glory of my team. The presentation of the game is a contrast to the deep mechanics running below it, characters are exaggerated in a comical style, which fell just on the right side of silly for me, there isn’t a commentary as such but you hear the umpires call in a humorous tone. I customised a few players but couldn’t see the option to customise a team, which on reflection is fine because I’d never have thought of teams as awesome as the Beewolves and the Herbisaurs. Its a lovely touch that women and men are added to the same teams with little song and dance about it too. I’ve not got too much more to say about it, its probably the most fun I’ve had with a baseball game, I’ve played a few of the Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū (N64) games wanting to find this entry level baseball game but the cap has been a little to high for my limited knowledge. Apologies for any terminology or rule errors in the above!
Not too much else in terms of games, Animal Crossing New Leaf (3DS) is a lot less appealing when you can walk to work, getting Roosters Cafe in town was a real drag. I’ve checked in most days just to make sure the holy trinity of Roscoe, Leonardo and Croque don’t leave my town.
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