PKMN TCGO: Vs Ladder Reset

 Let's have a look at this ladders firey Pokemon prizes.

First up is Flareon.  Admittedly not the best attack cost but as it only requires one fire energy you could get away with stacking your deck with double colourless energies to reduce the power up time.  With items and luck you are looking at 100-120 damage (without weakness or resistance) which isn't bad for a stage 1 Pokemon.  Additionally the ability to make any stage 1 Pokemon a fire can be a powerful tech tool when there are so many other Pokemon that have a weakness to fire.  This means that your stage 1 Pokemon can all be hitting x2 damage should you get your match-ups right.

Of course you could always play other Eeveelutions with a similar ability to cover all your bases and run a rainbow energy...


Ninetales is a bit of a mixed bag.  If you time it right you could cause some serious aggro to your opponent just by having him on your bench.  Dropping your own stadium and then evolving your Vulpix could lead to some pretty deadly combos which would be impossible to stop until they have taken out your Ninetales.  So in theory you wouldn't really want to be attacking with him and would protect him and your combo for maximum damage.

However, should you be forced to attack Ninetales is a bit pants.  He has no lesser cost attack meaning it will take you three turns or a Stadium to power him up.  At 90 HP three turns is a long time, especially with some of the EX and Mega evolutions.  The card is saved by a slightly higher attack point and by putting your opponent to sleep, which again would prolong whichever combo you have going.

Unfortunately the manner of the card means you can't rely on it in game because dropping it at the wrong time would mean you would not be able to play your own Stadium card and making any combo you had planned useless.

Camerupt EX has an average HP for a Pokemon EX and his first attack is pretty basic.  It is his second attack that you want to focus on.  For a whooping four energy Camerupt will do 50x Fire energy attached to your Pokemon.  By equipping your deck with energy retrievals/searches and Pokemon with the ability to generate energy or draw cards you will be able to ensure that once your Camerupt is powered up there will be no stopping him!  Especially if you choose your energy cards wisely.

I would also make sure that I have some way to pull him back in your deck as he is pretty powerful but also super heavy.  Heal items are a good idea too so that you can just leave him up front for as long as you can.

Let us know if you come up with any interesting combos for these cards.  

We would love to see what you come up with!

Telltale: What it Means to be a Girl in a Videogame

Being fully aware that Telltale Games’ next season of The Walking Dead is just around the corner (as I started writing this to be released 20^th December 2016) and I'm as excited for Season 3 as I am for AMC's Season 7, I want to talk about Telltale Games.

For this blog I want to look at how they have made me reconsider perceived gender roles. There'll also be a follow up blog looking back at some of the characters portrayed in their games going as far back as the first season of The Walking Dead (TWD).

To be honest this article was inspired by a scene in the recently concluded Minecraft: Story Mode (MCSM). I’ve sat and played through it with my son with the default character settings for the protagonist, Jesse, as well as the first few episodes using one of the female options. The thing is, this is exactly the same character, just a new skin and a different voice actor… This doesn’t affect the story and there’s no noticeable differences in any dialogue. So then why, when playing as the female Jesse, did I see a different team dynamic, pick up on different details and infer different relationships?

In the first episode Jesse meets Petra and there is an obvious bond. However, with the male Jesse I found I was thinking of this as some kind of mutual attraction. Whereas in the exact same scenes with the female Jesse I got the impression that Petra was more of a celebrity or “cool kid” with Jessse taking more of a “little sister” role. If there was ever a time for “notice me senpai” memes this would be it.

As each episode released fans have continued to ship Jesse and Petra, Jetra, but is the story designed this way or are most of us programmed to pick up on this boy meets girl dynamic?

You can even see a similar effect in Jesse’s relationship with Lucas, known to most of the characters as "Blond Guy". With the male Jesse there’s a bit of an uneasy friendship, but play as the female version and perhaps you’ll think of other reasons for the awkward pauses and goofy responses. Whatever social construct or mental process I'm subject to, it apparently reaches further than I thought.

Jesse has two friends, three if you count his/her pet pig, Reuben. In my eyes at least, being male or female shifts the dynamic of this group… It feels more natural for fem-Jesse to be close friends with her pet, hang out with Olivia and kinda just tolerate Axel. Whereas the male Jesse appears to think of Reuben as a brother, respects Olivia for her skill with redstone and likes to do stupid stuff with Axel. I have to wonder if anyone else sees it this way and how much of it is intentional design from Telltale, with so much player choice it's hard to tell.

Sometimes I think that Telltales's choices can tell you a lot about yourself, but given some of my recent options in other games that would make me un-trusting, cruel and selfish so perhaps I won't judge myself too harshly for having these preconceptions in a videogame.

I do want to take a closer look at what these observations say about the game and society though. Firstly the fact that the game can function with both interpretations and probably many in-between is a testament to Telltale’s story telling abilities and integrity; the story wasn’t changed to make it more "manly" or "girly" depending on your character design. I can’t say if it’s intentional but there’s a massive message about equality and gender stereotypes in the real world.

The game gets criticised for inconsequential decisions but when your dialogue choices can reflect how you see your character and their part in that world you realise how important it is that you can make these little personal touches (more on this in an upcoming blog). I've always strongly believed that these games are more about your choice than any consequences of that choice, but that's a rant for another time. An example of this tailored storytelling occurs early in the series; you get a chance to enjoy zipping through the Nether in a minecart with Axel or you can tell him to calm down and keep an eye out for trouble. You might find that you feel like one version of Jesse is more suited to one of those options than the other. Maybe it's best not to read too much into your decision but I'm fascinated that my mind made this distinction.

So what does this say about society? For one it shows how deeply ingrained cultural norms can be. I didn't expect to see the two versions of Jesse as separate characters. This makes me wonder what other social conventions I've assimilated without even realising. That I'm surprised that a male and female character are treated exactly the same in a video game is telling, without diving down the political minefield (and mixing too many metaphors); it suggests that maybe we don't get this kind of equality often.

Feel free to add your own comments below!

Niche Game Club: Final Fantasy

A bit different this week, it won't require PS Plus and maybe no purchase at all. I don't have much choice given the time I'm sinking into Final Fantasy XV.

While cruising the world of Eos in your very fine car you can listen to soundtracks of previous Final Fantasy's (Fantasies?). So my question for this months game club is this, which Final Fantasy had the best soundtrack and why?

No Man's Sky: The Foundation Update

Today I realised this game has got me bad, something about it really clicks with me. I admit it's been a few weeks since I've played but coming back to it, everything feels fresh, crisp and new. The recent update has added features and removed some of the rough edges (figuratively and literally thanks to some anti-aliasing tweaks) .

The new quick bar and a few small UI changes make quite a difference, particularly for space combat which suddenly  feels more satisfying, I still have control sensitivity turned down but single handedly taking down 6 pirates while weaving through the new and improved asteroid fields was a thrill.

Terrain and structure generation has also been tweaked; it could be pure luck but my first new planet blew my mind and reminded me why I fell in love with the game originally. A rather nippy snow covered planet, with electric pink scars where bare ground showed through, forests of spindly trees with a few withered trunks and rare splendid firs glistening either from ice or their own pearlescent foliage. Orbs of Heridium and Nickel hung in the air, the crisp sunlight giving them a more ethereal appearance than usual. I then followed some of the largest and most expansive snakes of rock I had seen on any planet, down towards a small circular plateau where an abandoned base lay nestled between the rock formations. Around the base were flashes of neon as white snow gave way to bright pink caves filled with a disco of bio-luminescence. The sky was criss-crossed by trade routes as a space station hung just above the horizon, all watched over by the great eye of a black hole. This was to become my home planet and my first base.

Yup the first big new addition to this update is base building. It was rumoured a while back and now it's here we can understand it more. You won't be tied down to one planet and you wont lose your home in the vast cosmos, space stations now have teleporters that lead you right back home. Stations are also now visited by a number of specialists that you can recruit to your base, which helps the stations feel a little more lived in.




(Tip, early on it might help to find a Korvax station, but you'll need a Gek building specialist first.)

Building is actually more intuitive than I expected with holographic templates that snap into place and build instantly if you have the right materials (more on that in a bit). Setting up you base requires you to first find an abandoned hub building and recruit a building specialist, this specialist and any future recruits you meet will then give you a few quests to get things going. I haven't been able to find out how many of these quests there are yet but a dose of structured content is welcome and might be just what a few players were looking for.

Eventually your base will become very useful, creating tradeable resources, new tech and upgrades and offering extra storage space, you'll even learn how to place nav beacons, building scanners (now named signal boosters and thankfully no longer requiring bypass chips!) and deployable save points, oh and you'll be able to leave message pods behind for other players to discover, all of these structures can be placed wherever you need them.

The second big headline feature is that you can now dock on and purchase freighters ( the cheapest I've seen was 4mil credits - hopefully crashed freighters are added in the near future). Basically an extra inventory with super large slots for those looking to stockpile or trade resources. It's a shame that saving a freighter from pirates doesn't net you a discount but it does give you a chance to claim a reward from the Captain.

One other big addition won't grab any headlines but still brings a lot of new life to the game, new resources! Whole new elements to procure, often specific to particular biomes or even requiring new advanced tech to retrieve. These materials are tied into the all the new crafting recipes needed for base building, there's now more reason than ever to go out, gather and explore. It's even a little easier finding what you need as major elements on a planet can be detected from space and the planetside scanner has been upgraded too. To get started with your base you'll need Iron and then some fancy new Spadonium, extracted from cactus on a barren planet.

If this isn't intriguing enough there are also two new game modes, a creative mode to focus on base building without needing to track down resources and a rather brutal survival mode, for anyone that complained there was no challenge in the game previously.

Whatever you think of Hello Games and their lack of communication running up to this update, it's obvious their time has been well spent, doubly so when you read the patch notes and realise this is only the foundation of things to come. This might not be enough to appease those that cried/asked politely for refunds just yet, but if you're one of the folks that fell in love with the concept only to find you stopped playing for lack of content, then there is more than enough reason for you to return.

Full patch notes can be found HERE,

No Man's Sky X Space Dandy:Atlas has Issues, Baby!

 For those not familiar with Space Dandy the anime was review in issue of Niche: Treat Your Geek and is available on Netflix. Anyhoo, Dandy is the perfect guest writer to bring you misadventures in No Man's Sky, the space exploration game from Hello Games.

Stories from No Man's Sky featuring Space Dandy: he's a dandy guy, in space. He combs the galaxy, like his pompadour, on the hunt for aliens. Planet after planet he searches, discovering bizarre new creatures, both friendly and not. These are the spectacular adventures of Space Dandy and (without) his brave space crew... in space.

--------- Transmission Incoming --------------

Next planet, time to chill… on a great dust bowl of a planet, there’s giant dogs here so that’s…. nice?

Learnt how to make my own antimatter, dandy has the power baby.

Next up, desert planet, freekin cactus, bodacious beaches and tropical rock pools… there’s even great piles of resources jus' floatin'.

Night hit, everything changed, creatures came out. I said ‘ello to a little worm guy and scanned some other freakies.

The scanner let’sme name stuff? Design flaw! It doesn’t agree with some of my finer suggestions but then doesn’t complain when I come face to face with a… a Foxiliato Arsist… what even is that? and do I really wanna know?

Not much of anythin' happened 'til I left this ball o'rock, but then ........

Space pirates, terrible space pirates, they're pirates, in space! Seems they want my booty AND my booty.

I lost those losers thanks to my superior skills, baby!
Landed on a new planet, 

Ran into that Atlas guy again, red blobby thing called me to le me know it wasn’t talking to me anymore. 

I think it has issues. Anyways, forward with the dandy way, baby!

------ Transmission Complete -----------

As this Dandy travels the cosmos you might see his discoveries within the game, follow him on PS4 real_space_dandy and while you're there, check out the Niche: Treat Your Geek PS4 Community (search for us under the community tab of the PS4 menu)

Space Dandy and No Man's Sky are properties of their respective owners and not owned by Niche. Article intended for entertainment purposes only.

CASTING CALL: Hunters Hunted

The team behind the Chronicles of Ollundra series are looking for new talent to work with them on their feature 'Hunters Hunted'.


The project will be proceeding on a paid basis subject to funding and is set to film next year.

If you are interested in getting involved with this project please contact them on their Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/Hunters-Hunted

PREVIEW: The Wildlands

In Niche: Treat Your Geek issue 15 our very own Shot In The Dark will be doing a full review of The Wildlands along with a short preview of this amazing comic.

"Writing wise The Wildlands is, in short, awesome... Art wise it’s just and utter delight to look at... This story will make you FEEL"

Get the full review and sample only in Issue 15 of Niche!

Niche Events Page

The WildLands Facebook

Full Review: Exiles End

Exile's End is a 2D side-scroller that has just made the jump from Steam to both the PS4 and PSVita.

The game is described as "NOT a Metroidvania" and a homage to old Amiga era adventure games. Now that alone was enough to get me interested. I'm always happy to relive my Amiga days and I've never had a great relationship with metroidvania (Metroid/Castlevania style) games.

Unfortunately this means I don't have a great deal of experience with the genre. I've seen plenty of other reviewers saying this game definitely is Metroidvania. I think the developers are trying to say that it isn't a Metroid or Castlevania clone and that it's lineage goes back further to more European roots... I'm ok with that and I'll bear it in mind for the review.



The art style and graphics are straight out of old classics like Flashback, updated to look half decent on HD displays. If you're looking for flashy modern graphics then you've come to the wrong place! Exiles End feels very fitting for a nostalgia trip and turning on the TV effect filter in the options actually made me feel like I was playing an old game but with much smoother performance than old tech or ropy emulators can manage. The art was actually developed by staff who have worked on games such as Secret of Mana and Mother 3 and there's heritage in the sound design too, with music provided by Keiji Yamagishi (Ninja Gaiden for NES). The music loops like it would have back in the day so it can get a bit droning in places but for me it all added to the nostalgia value.

Now gameplay is a tricky subject, as far as the game says it's not a metroidvania it sure has a lot of the key features with large areas to explore, new upgrades to uncover that will let you pass certain obstacles and find new places to explore. Like I said I'm no expert on these games, but there's enough similarities that the game should please fans of the genre.

The game starts as a slow deliberate platformer and until you pick up the first upgrade you'll take a lot of fall damage, luckily you can hold the down button to check below you. I actually enjoyed the slower pacing of these sections, they almost reminded me of of Abe's Odyssey, and it gets you used to checking your environment without too many enemies to worry about.

The controls are simple and effective in a delightfully old school way. You can only shoot in one direction but jumping feels precise and predictable.

Combat has some issues but they're mostly products of how close the game sticks to it's inspiration. Enemy AI is super basic resulting in a few occasions enemies have ran through me before attacking, and I'm not blown away by their design either. I've seen generic man, generic alien, generic flying alien and space slugs... so many space slugs. They are used quite nicely to up difficulty but the pacing is still rather slow and deliberate which may not be to everyone's taste.

The autosave feature is also both a blessing and a curse. Dying results in a game over (very old-school) but thankfully it takes seconds to get back into the game and you'll find yourself back at the time you entered that screen. However, if you entered that screen with your last sliver of health then you're going to have a rough time. I'd have liked to be able to keep a manual save as a backup, which oddly is possible on the PC version.

On balance this release has the advantage of all the previous bug fixes and a survival mode right from the beginning. The PlayStation release happily includes some new sounds, enemy patterns and secret rooms, but not so happily it also get's a whole new platforming section. I have a love/hate relationship with this section as it adds a tense finale and gives you a sense of achievement. It also shows off a few more retro videogame tropes and even the annoying ones make this section feel authentic. However, it is really obvious that this was developed separately as there's nothing quite this intense or cheap in the game... except for maybe the boss fights.

I actually like the designs of the bosses but I feel it's one area where the old fashioned mechanics get in the way. You'll find you take a lot more collision damage than anything their attacks do. The only effective way I found of dealing with them is throwing grenades in their face, which feels horribly cheap but completely necessary. This isn't made any easier by having to scroll through an entire inventory to find you next weapon or health pack.

Quick Pro Tip - Grenades can be thrown at any time using the triangle button.

The story is pretty simple and delivered by sparse floating text, however there are cut scenes... kinda. The game description refers to them as NES-style but I remember a few from my Amiga days too. I still find the almost static, letterbox images to be oddly atmospheric and I had to smile at the attention to detail during a "dramatic camera sweep" that had an intentionally low retro frame rate. Plot-wise the story is interesting but very familiar.


It's been  a while since I've played anything like this (Knytt Underground maybe) and so I've had the full blast of nostalgia, meaning that a lot of negative aspects have become part of the experience. The graphics and sound may put some people off. Others might not like the constant backtracking or might get confused by the lack of explanation or annotated map - I'm just glad that I didn't have to draw the map out by hand or refer to the back of the manual (there isn't one, that's just an old-school gaming joke).

The game is a very good example of what it sets out to be. However, standing alongside modern games it might only appeal to a certain niche of gamer with a good memory and plenty of patience. An almost perfect example of games from a forgotten age with absolutely no spoon-feeding. Knowing that a lot of the quirks and annoyances are part of the design does help, they don't make (many) games like this anymore... I'll leave it up to you to decide if that is a good thing.

PKMN TCGO: Versus Ladder Reset

Today on Pokemon Trading Card Game Online the versus ladder has been reset with a grass theme.  Cards up for grabs include Genesect EX, Lilligant and Amoonguss.  Lets take a quick look at how these cards can be incorporated into your Grass decks!


Amoonguss


Although his attack and HP are not the best Amoonguss has the ability to Confuse and Poison your opponents Pokemon when you use him to evolve a Foonguss.  Playing this at the right time can seriously hinder your opponent and cause them to retreat, heal or risk considerable damage.  Best case your opponent will take 10 damage between turns and hit itself for an additional 30 by the time you have your next turn for a maximum total of 50 hit points per turn.  Should your luck continue 'Rising Lunge' can hit up to an additional 50 damage per turn before using Pokemon Tools.

There are a lot of other Pokemon such as Ninetales from the Dragons Exalted set which can cause additional damage depending on the conditions already on your opponents Pokemon.  In this case using Amoonguss to cause two status conditions will allow for Ninetales to do a guaranteed 120 points the turn you evolve Amoonguss. Should your opponent survive they will then be hit with 10 hit-points of poison damage before even thinking about dealing with confusion!  All things going your way you are looking at 170 damage for the wonderful value of one fire energy and one very well timed evolution!


Lilligant

Lilligant is not the greatest Pokemon on it's own.  However, when combined with the Poison/Confusion power of Amoonguss, 'Dream Dance' can cause some serious damage! While asleep your Pokemon will be unable to retreat meaning they will be forced to sit and take silly amounts of damage from their poison and (should they ever wake up) the possibility to hit themselves with Confusion.  This kind of mass Special Conditions on Pokemon can scare less experienced players and be hard to over come without lucky trainers and heals.  This is why 'Lead' is a useful tool.

Packing your deck with supporters and means to search out healing methods would be essential when using this card as it also puts itself to sleep.  Although not the end of the world you would also be stalling your own deck, which is never great.


Genesect EX

Now here is where a good plan all comes together....

Although his attack 'Megalo Cannon' is not great, it still attacks for 120 points per turn.  The double grass requirement is a bit of a pain when you have many double colourless users hitting for just as much.  However, what we are really interested in is his Ability 'Red Signal'.

When you attach a Plasma Energy to Genesect you may switch one of the opponents benched Pokemon with their Active Pokemon.  This means that when you are holding your Amoonguss in your hand and Lilligent/Ninetales is at the ready you can pull out your opponents Mega/Ex Pokemon with the millions of Energy cards attached to it and start smashing it with Special Conditions!

Remembering that a lot of the EX/Mega series have HP above 150 and attacks that can be brutal against basic/weaker Pokemon being able to stop them attacking with Sleep/Confusion is a great defence.  Being able to pull said Pokemon out before it has the time to power up is also a great strategy as your opponent will be left scrambling to either heal, retreat or power up their Pokemon before you defeat it!

These are just a few ways that you can use this periods Vs Ladder rewards.  If you find any new combos feel free to comment bellow!