BitPunch November Recap
Games We Covered This Month:
Control Ultimate Edition (Steam) | Rich
The Forgotten City (Xbox Game Pass) | Michael & Rich
Halo Infinite Multiplayer (Steam) | Rich
Forza Horizon 5 (Xbox Game Pass) | Rich
Call of Duty: Vanguard Multiplayer (Battlenet) | Rich
The Riftbreaker (Xbox Game Pass) | Rich
Nuclear Blaze (Steam) | Rich
Among Trees (Epic Game Store) | Rich
Final Fantasy V (Steam) | Michael
Yakuza: Like a Dragin (Xbox Game Pass) | Michael
Halo Infinite Capitalizes on Multiplayer Mishaps
By: Rich Matney
November was a hectic month for first-person shooter multiplayer games. The biggest surprise for most people as we near the end of the month is how well received and good Halo Infinite multiplayer is. It all started on November 15th, the 20th anniversary of the XBOX. Microsoft and 343 Studios surprised launched the free Halo Infinite multiplayer to the world. That was ten days after the launch of Call of Duty Vanguard, which launched to a tepid response from the fanbase. The launch was also just four days before the launch of Battlefield 2042. Battlefield is surprisingly now one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam. At the time I am writing this piece, Halo Infinite is the third most played game on Steam. That is more than games like Rainbow Six Seige, New World, and Apex Legends. Battlefield 2042 is the 22nd most played game currently. There are somehow more people playing the Skyrim Special Edition than Battlefield. That is insane!
So why is this? Halo has arguably struggled since Halo Reach launched in 2010. 343 studios tried to make the multiplayer more like Call of Duty and Battlefield in Halo 4 and 5, which was met with disdain from fans of the series. Halo Infinite, however, is a return to Halo 3, one of the best multiplayer FPS games ever made. Players who grew up on Halo are joining matches expecting to be crushed by 13-year-olds like they always are in modern FPS games. The reality is a lot different. Halo multiplayer is not Call of Duty. Halo is about situational awareness and understanding what weapons and equipment the enemy player has equipped and how best to deal with them. You can't just throw a riot shield on your back and sprint around knifing people. You can't just sit and snipe while prone on a table in the middle of a blown-out house. I know many people playing this game, and they all agree that their kill to death ratio is much higher than usual. These kids just don't understand how to play this game and it’s AMAZING!
It helps that the multiplayer itself is good. It is reasonably well balanced at launch. The weapons and equipment offer a ton of options for both engaging and traversal. It just feels like Halo, and that's something I haven't said about a Halo game in over ten years.
GameTrack.App Tracks Your Gaming Life
By: Michael Perry
Goodreads is an app I’ve used for years to track, rate, and review the books I’ve read throughout the years. It’s a solid app but hasn’t changed much since Amazon bought it. I enjoy the integration into my Kindle but it often updates my status of books to completed when I hop in and out of a book. Not sure why that happens but I still enjoy using it with the flaws. I mostly like it for social and tracking purposes. I’ve recently stumbled into Letterboxd and am navigating my way through that. A good dedicated game tracking app has been weirdly absent from the marketplace, but I stumbled into a pretty solid one I wanted to highlight.
GameTrack.App is an iOS-only app that is built to showcase your gaming activity. It’s connected to the IGDB database to pull in gaming metadata. I’ve never heard of this site before but it’s maintained by Twitch so I’d imagine it’s staying fairly updated. You can track your currently playing games, backlog and wish list, review, and create your own curated lists of whatever you want to track. You can even connect it to your Xbox/PS account, along with your Steam and Steam wish list lists.
the app has a free version with limited options but unlocks a lot more with the paid tier. As of this writing, a lifetime license is $40, but you have yearly or monthly options that are less. The paid tier unlocks the ability to create ranked lists, charts & statistics of your playtime, and more. There are other tracking apps out there that do the same thing, but this one appears to be more polished than the others.
I’m still learning how to properly use this app. I’ve noticed a few minor bugs, like adding the app to my iPad brought some lists over that I removed, but they are vocal on their discord for feedback and bug tracking. Overall, I’m happy with the purchase and plan to use it heavier for my blog and tracking purposes into 2022.
November Episodes of BitPunch Radio
033 - The Dollhouse, Simulated Fishing, Dune
Rich and Michael discuss lots of fishing game talk, Dune, Nuclear Blaze, The Riftbreaker. All this concluded with a full spoiler discussion of Sandman Vol. 2.
034 - Halo, Trashy People, Apple Watch
Rich and Michael discuss lots of games this week including Halo: Infinite, CoD: Vanguard, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, The Forgotten City, Inscryption, Unpacking, and more. They also discuss trashy people, Apple Watch thoughts, and OBS scandals!
News News News
There has been a huge uprising of people vocalizing that Bobby Kotick must resign as CEO of Activision Blizzard. While it seems to be trending that way, this has been a long and drawn-out discussion that doesn’t have an end in sight. Bobby Kotick has been the CEO for 25 years now. Activision’s Bobby Kotick raises possibility of leaving as CEO - Polygon
Mass Effect is possibly being made into a TV show from Amazon. Amazon has recently launched The Wheel of Time and is also working on a Lord of the Rings show as well. Amazon is nearing a deal to make a Mass Effect TV series | Ars Technica