Archive | April 2015

I may have been a little harsh on Hi Voltage and NetherRealm studios, but it may have been warranted.

So we’re basically a week after the launch of Mortal Kombat X, figured that since the dust has settled that it’s time to follow up.

So far the track record of NRS and HVS with fighting games on PC has proven flawed.
They had Injustice, and MK9 previously, and they copped quite a lot of flak for it.
MKX being the 3rd in a row from this combination of developers.
However I only picked up the previous two long after release with their ultimate versions so I’ll focus on MKX.

The first issue I, and a lot of other people had, was that the retail release of MKX for PC was required to be downloaded due to the shift to the streaming install model.
At the least they could have packed enough data to fill a DVD9 disc, the amount would have been good for a preload, and people would have less reason to complain.
The retail disc contained virtually no useful data other than installing Steam.
I have thus repurposed it as a drink coaster.

Then a few days after release, they decided to roll out some revised shaders for the various graphical assets to help deal with bad performance from many users.
Sadly due to the number of items, this patch ended up around 15.4gig in size, wiping out my saturday (well in theory, shifting Steam to Offline mode allowed me to play without patching and let me finish the story mode) and some of sunday.
Those fellow gamers on terrible internet like myself would no-doubt have had the same problem.
Amusingly this patch completely renders the core DLC structure pointless.

Another couple of small patches later and we’ve now got Faction server functionality back, as well as stats and online play and apparently the foundations for future DLC releases.

This of course doesn’t do anything about the rampant swarms of raging Scorpions, but then again the only way to do anything about the posterchild of Ed Boon would be to not include him at all.

Due to things settling I chose to shell out on the Kombat Pack, which is almost but not quite a season pass.
To explain, it’s a DLC package that over time will have characters and skins release.
Given the price of Goro being $4.99, I guess the $29.99 for 4 characters (Jason and Predator being two of them) plus a heap of skins such as the Samurai pack, it seems like it could be decent value.

PC may not be at the forefront of WB Games attention, but all we ask for is equal attention and support.
We want something more than a pitiful 10 thousand krypt koin bribe, we just want our game to work properly.
For the game to work with the posted minimum specifications, and well with the recommended.
To not have gameplay elements locked to 30fps for a so-called “cinematic experience”.
For us to be able to open that damned cave door in the crypt further than half.

PC gamers just want to be treated as good as console gamers, it’s the least we can ask for from AAA studios.

Mortal Kombat X publishers made a fatal mistake.

Apr16

So, Mortal Kombat X finally released.
Money was in my account.
I decided to buy Mortal Kombat X for PC and looked at my options.
I looked at EB Games, and saw they had it at $79.95 for a physical copy.
I looked at Steam and saw they had it at $69.99US (pretty much the same as the AU cost at EB after conversion, even a tad more expensive due to conversion rate and fees.)
I saw it sitting on CJS Keys for around $35AU.

I thought to myself, that with two of the options being purely download, with the third being on disc, that I might save myself the time and effort and just spend the extra money for physical copy for convenience sake.
You know, so I could just install it, grab the day 0 patch and play.
This would make sense as I’m in Australia with a slow connection.

How wrong I was, how dead wrong I was.

You see, Valve are rolling out a new Streaming install format, and MKX was chosen to pretty much be in the vanguard for it.
The concept is simple, you install the core game, and then it downloads the rest of the data as you play.
The core game is 3gig, with the rest of the 32gig broken up as DLC packages.

You’d think that might be fine, the 3gig will all be on the DVD, and I can just download the rest as intended.

Wrong again, the total size of all the data on the dvd is 2.45 GB, of which next to nothing is actually installed.

So to sum it up, we have a game at same price in-store as online (other than international sellers like CJS) with a worthless DVD and the requirement to download everything.

In this day and age is it too much to expect those people with optical drives are capable of reading dual-layer blu-ray?
Even multiple dual-layer DVDs like with GTA V.

WB Games, Netherrealm and Valve I am massively disappointed with this state of affairs.
Thus I am illuminating just how bad it is to other potential buyers.

Such a thing burns bridges, nobody will want to touch anything using this Streaming method in future.

If you’re going to buy this game, pick it up on console and minimise your discomfort

Update

4.3gig later, the core game, goro and the first three numbered content DLC downloaded, sadly no real way ingame to tell what stuff is accessible and what will crash the game due to not being downloaded yet.
Can’t even do the tutorial, but I did manage to fire up a training stage with sub zero and scorpion.

Update 2

Goro and DLC 1 through 9 down, another 20 to go. This is going to take awhile.

Like the fire of the gods, Nvidia enlightened the LANtheon

Apr15

So anyway, last post was prior to the Respawn LANtheon special event, this one is a couple of weeks later.

This one was our first in a new location with all the relevant hurdles involved, from space allocation to requiring a generator.

Now unlike usual, my regular gopher duties were unneeded due to the provided AV system, so I got to spend time playing games and enjoying myself as pretty much a pure player.

Nvidia came along as a massive sponsor, not only providing a great selection of their 900 series cards, but also making a presentation involving all the new improvements in the current GPU range with a reverse Q&A session.

Competition-wise we had a number of new things such as Next Car Game: Wreckfest, and an anniversary introduction of Smite in a 3v3 Joust format.

I played Smite with a team comprising MajorMarris and PlasmaVoid. We organised, had Curse Voice running, and after one easy, one brutal, and one stalemated match, the then named Team Respawn gained third place.

A wildcard contender appeared for solving draws, and even being used for a comp for a Smite Ultimate God Pack.
This contender is named PNOG.
Think of it like single player pong, but where the rules constantly shift and you’re fighting against the machine.
We had an event record of 69PNOGs.
PNOG being the brainchild of my friend Wolfmother, which can be purchased for $0.88 over here.

And now just a few shots of the weekend.