Loop Hero Consuming My March Gaming Time
By: Michael Perry
I started the month out playing a handful of different games including Civilization 6, Valheim, Ni No Kuni, and some others that aren’t worth mentioning, besides my dear sweet Divinity. Browsing the Steam store, which isn’t something I typically do, I seen a game on the top charts called Loop Hero that was on sale for 15% off and has a pretty high user rating. I’m a sucker for cheap fun games so I bought it knowing nothing about the game except that it has an old school art style, contains cards, and is a roguelike.
fifteen hours later and I finally finished the first boss. This game requires you to do some digging to look for tips to help you throughout the game. For instance, The oblivion cards can destroy the pillars around the first boss thus making him easier to defeat. I fought him five or six times and only after destroying those pillars was I able to beat him.
Regardless, this game completely caught me by surprise. I did a poor job describing what Loop Hero is on episode 15, but most podcasts are struggling to explain this game. I’ll just say watch some footage of the game, and if you ever get stuck playing, there are plenty of bloggers offering tips on how to get through Loop Hero. The SEO is strong in this title :)
update 3/30/2021 > While I still suggest people check this game out, I burned out after finishing the first boss, which had me about twenty hours into the game.
2021 The Year of the Backlog
By: Michael Perry
Following the gaming industry you’ll notice a trend with this years releases; they are all hopping to 2022. This is absolutely fine with me as I’ve had a growing backlog of games that I should now have some time to finally check out. Now 2021 still has a handful of games I’m looking forward to and will discuss in the next newsletter, I have a list of services including Amazon Prime, Game Pass, Epic Games Store, and others that continuously dish out free older games to check out.
One that I’ve wanted to check out for a while is Fae Tactics. It’s a game that came out last year and has been loosely compared to Final Fantasy Tactics. Plus it’s a shorter experience, 30 hours vs. the 100+ I put into Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
Rich and I have been playing through some co-op games from Game Pass. We wrapped up gears 4 and are currently playing through Gears 5 on Game Pass.
Some other games I would like to get through this year include Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Pokémon Sword, Civ 6, and more. I thought about the Yakuza series as the entire thing is on Game Pass, but that just seems too daunting. Someone feel free to convince me to spend 200 hours playing Yakuza.
Shadow Streaming Service Files For Bankruptcy in US.
By: Rich Matney
I have never been much of a PC gamer. I played almost all games on consoles as I never had access to a legit gaming PC. The whole thing honestly seemed like a hassle to me. Needing to buy all of the parts and pieces in order to even play games just never appealed to me. I just wanted to play games and not worry about things like drivers and firmware. With both video and game streaming becoming more prevalent over the past few years, I have watched closely as these services would solve some of those reservations I had. Which is why I bought into Google Stadia from the get go, and ultimately looked to Shadow when Valheim released and was a PC game only.
I have had Shadow for less than 30 days and love it. It works remarkably well on my fiber optic internet connection (which I am lucky to have) and MacBook Pro. I can play Valheim with my friends which no lag or issues, it’s exactly what I was looking for all along. This is why I was pretty bummed to hear that the company that owns Shadow, Blade, is filing for bankruptcy. Shadow launched in early 2019 right before the COVID-19 pandemic started. Shadow was marketed and intended to be a gaming service, but with the pandemic, tons of customers were subscribing to use the service as a virtual Windows machine for work purposes. This meant Shadow needed to scale up and take on a ton of debt to meet demand. They were simply a victim of how good their platform worked for a use they didn’t initially anticipate.
For now Shadow will stay live as they work through the bankruptcy process and seek investment. Hopefully they can find the right people to help them grow and continue what they started.
Sources:
Shadow game/PC streaming service files for bankruptcy - 9to5Google
Links:
Valheim’s Biggest Secret? Trusting the player | polygon.com
Microsoft Confirms Bethesda Games Will Be Exclusive | kotaku.com
More links can be found in the podcast shownotes on Bitpunch.Tech
March Podcasts:
EP015 - March Gaming News | BitPunch Radio
Listen in as Rich and Michael discuss the March video game release schedule, along with discussions around Ni No Kuni, Loop Hero, Valheim, Pokémon Anniversary, Switch Rumors, and more.
EP016 - The Antilife Equation | BitPunch Radio
Rich and Michael discuss the Snyder Cut, The Falcon & the Winter Soldier, video games, comics, and more. beware of spoilers!