UPDATE: SHADOW OF THE ETERNALS...Looking DIMMER and DIMMER

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Adam Zimmerman

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A mere month after excitedly writing about how a long awaited (spiritual) sequel to Eternal Darkness was in the works, it now appears that the project is in serious jeopardy. The developer of the game is also being a little shady as well.


As I mentioned last month, with Nintendo still owning the actual Eternal Darkness name, the folks over at Precursor Games, many of whom were on the original Eternal Darkness team, were taking matters into their own hands and were crown funding a spiritual successor. At the time when I wrote the article, they were not using any of the traditional crowd funding sites like Kickstarter, instead doing all of the fund raising on their own site.


Their fund raising goal was 1.5 million dollars for the first episode of the twelve that were planned. Despite a very good initial burst of donations, about 100,000 on the first day, the donations started drying up pretty quickly. They then decided to use Kickstarter as well as their own site in hopes of boosting donation. Sadly, it only worked a little. Four weeks into the six-week donation window, the donations on each site are only at about 150,000, for a total of roughly 300,000, which is obviously well short of the 1.5 million goal.

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This is where things start to get a little shady. Precursor posted the following message on their Kickstarter page on June 4.


"To our community,

Since we announced this Kickstarter campaign we have seen more support from our community than we had ever hoped for. Along with this support has come a host of a new exciting opportunities that will make the game better than we envisioned. As a result, we have chosen to temporarily take down the Shadow of the Eternals crowdfunding campaigns on both Kickstarter and our own website on Thursday, June 6.


This doesn’t mean we are going away -- far from it. We’ll be re-launching the Kickstarter in just a few short weeks with a reveal of these exciting new developments.


As we’re closing the current Kickstarter campaign not a single dime from this campaign will be removed from supporters’ accounts and everyone from our website’s crowd-funding campaign will receive full refunds via PayPal. As we re-tool our campaign and continue development, the forums on our site will remain open and active and any interested fans can still join the ‘Order of the Unseen’ to see our progress and join in the fun of creating content for the game themselves.


We want to thank everyone who has participated, volunteered, and spoken up to support us. You are our community and we value you more than you know. Stay tuned and we’ll be back soon!"


Paul Caporicci + Precursor team

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There are a couple problems I have with this message. The first one is that they don’t, and of as the writing of this article still have not, said anything about what those possible “exciting new opportunities” are. Further, they say they are closing the Kickstarter campaign, but they aren’t closing it for 2 days. They have the ability to close it right away but are waiting 2 days. If the campaign is being closed, what’s the reason for keeping the donation page open?

 Also, they say they are going to return all of the money that was donated on their website, but once again, they have yet to do so.


Another thing I want to know is, even if they they do re-launch in a few weeks with a re-tooled campaign, how are they expecting to even get all of the original investors back. For me personally, if I had been an investor, I would be a little weary of doing so again. I still have high hopes that this game will eventually come out and be everything they are promising it to be.


Despite my hopes though, I now have serious doubts as to whether this game will actually be released unless the exciting new opportunities involve either an actual publisher or at least a business partner of some sorts to ease the financial burden.

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Sources:

Image 1: Accessed On June 6th, 2013 ( https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/514101/photo-main.jpg?1369419096)

Image 2: Accessed On June 6th, 2013 ( https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/000/561/806/18259f7fef87f6bb238920af46188d86_large.png?1367528822)

Image 3: Accessed On June 6th, 2013 ( http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U6X0N55RgQQ/UYPvARiTraI/AAAAAAAAfsU/jsILacla60U/s640/SOTE.png)

Review: "Defiance" (2013) "MMO On Consoles Mean Syfy Channel Show?"

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A few weeks ago I played the beta for Defiance and said that if Trion tightened up a few aspects and polished a few, it could be a very good game. Well now that the game is here, a polish was added to the graphics and audio, but they forgot to tighten the gameplay.

By: Adam Zimmerman

Graphically, while still not on the level of most AAA games, it is improved over the beta. Now instead of looking like a really good PS2 game, it at least looks like a slightly below average PS3 game. One somewhat odd thing is how accurate the faces of characters from the TV show, but how stiff they are as well. Their faces hardly move when talking. I wish the game looked as good as it does in the commercials, but sadly it doesn’t. Nothing really stands out for being really good or really bad.

On the audio side of things, it’s a mixed bag. The sound effects are decent. You don’t feel things in your chest, but it’s not like the sound effects are tinny or anything like that. Dialogue is where things go wrong, very, very, wrong. One of the first NPC’s that you team up with is an alien named Cass. I’m not sure but I suspect the writer’s were having a contest to see who could give her the worst dialogue. She’s a badly written stereotypical bounty hunter. It’s bad, really bad. Also, apparently aliens can’t swear in English. Human soldiers have no problems dropping F bombs all over the place, but she says “shtako.” Everything else she says in perfect English, but swearing is in her native tongue.

When you first start the game, you have to make your character. There is a good variety of option to choose from, but unfortunately except for your looks, your initial choices don’t matter all that much. No matter which class you pick, the only thing that is different is the weapons you start with. All the characters have the same powers and upgrades, and they can use every type of weapon. So if you start as a survivor (sniper) and decide you don’t like bolt-action sniper rifles, don’t worry. You can change everything soon enough.

Just like everything else with this game, gameplay is mixed bag as well. One major issue I had was how long it takes to get through the introductory area. It literally takes roughly 12 hours of gameplay to move on to other areas. It wouldn’t be so bad if the first area was incredibly fun, but it isn’t. Most shooter campaigns don’t last more than 10 hours these days. 3 to 4 hours would have been perfect. As it is, it drags on way too long. Mission objectives offer a good variety, but sometimes the difficulty expectantly ramps up and you end up dying way more than you should. Luckily the penalty for dying isn’t too much.

You lose some money and that’s about it. There’s no respawn timer or anything. Once you do finally get out of the initial area, there are signs of improvements. I played a few missions that were more fun and had better dialogue than anything up to that point. It would have been a much better game if they started with missions like these instead of the way the game actually started. Another issue I experienced a few times was problems with quest objectives not working properly. I could see dozens of other people completing the objective with no issues, but I wouldn’t be able to activate it. I had to restart the game to get them to work properly.


The action still is lacking for me unfortunately. Things may get more difficult, but I never felt my heart beat rising with the action. There is still a lack of intensity for me which takes away from the experience a bit.

Where the game really does shine is what are called Arkfall events. These are random events with big boss like creatures that draw in players from all around the surrounding area. They turn into large co-op battles that everyone looks forward to.

I haven’t really played the PvP part of the game yet so I won’t get into that.

While I played the PS3 version, I do feel obligated to tell you that the Xbox 360 version has been having a lot of problems so far. There are widespread reports of framerate problems, login issues (which I did experience on the first day with the PS3 version, but not since then), and server crashes. A patch that was released helped with some of these problems but they still occur when too many players and NPC’s are in the same area.


Our Honest View gives Defiance a 7 out of 10. The bad has been set for Bungie’s Destiny, which comes out later this year. It’s not an incredibly high bar, but a bar nonetheless. It still has potential, and there are both high and low points. Hopefully future patches with address some of the bugs, and once the TV show starts on April 16th some new, interesting story elements will be added.

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Replay Value: Moderate

Similar Games:

DC Universe Online

Diablo

Review: "Defiance Demo" (2013) "Shooting MMOs From Televison To Consoles"

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While the PC gamers of the world have been enjoying MMO’s for a good long time now, console gamers have mostly been left out, with the few exception’s being Phantasy Star Online, Final Fantasy XI, and Everquest Online Adventures and of course DC Universe Online. While those have some good series behind them, none of those three were really any good.

Now along comes Trion games and their upcoming release Defiance.


Now many people are confused as to what Defiance is. Defiance is a massively multiplayer online (MMO) third person shooter, and also a TV series. One of the wrong assumptions out there is that you need to experience one to fully enjoy the other.

This is not true.

Both games take place at the same time, the year 2046 on Earth, but the TV show is set in St. Louis while the MMO is set in San Francisco. There will be crossovers between the show and the game, but while you might understand more if you watch the show and play the game, doing both is in no way required to fully enjoy either.

While many games have branched out into other forms of media, Defiance is the first to have crossovers to this extent. There are two characters that you run into early on in the game. When they leave the game they are driving away in a car, the first episode opens with those same two characters driving with the same clothes on and in the exact same vehicle. Another example is a character might be a villain on the show, leave the show and redeem themselves in the game, and come back to the show a changed person.

One of the cool things that has been mentioned as a possibility is that some of the top ranked players in the world might see their characters walking around in the background of the show. Also, one of the pesky enemies in the game, known as hellbugs, are prominently featured in an episode.
It somewhat hard to get a good grip on how good the game is going to be, even after playing the beta. There are several systems that aren’t fully in place, most notably the dialogue and sound effects. At one point I was playing and when this huge enemy bursts through a door, it basically said this sound effect is not in place yet: bang!


Graphics wise, like virtually all MMO’s, it will in no way be considered a visual marvel. It’s probably end up being strictly decent, but once again, since this is only the beta, not all of the finishing touches are in place. The last coat of polish has yet to be applied.


When you create your character, as of right now you can pick between male and female humans or voltans. Once you make that decision you can customize the look further, and then you your class. There are four classes to pick form, which are essentially soldier, sniper, etc.
Gameplay wise it is sort of like a cross between Borderlands and World of Warcraft. You are told to go somewhere to get a quest, it tells you what your rewards will be for completing the mission, and off you go. The actual action feels a little like a shooting gallery at this point. In the various battles that I got into, I never got that sweaty palmed intensity. It was never bad; it just lacked a certain intensity found in other blockbuster shooters. All the missions can be done on your own or with friends… or complete strangers for that matters. I did several missions alone, but there were also several missions where another player happened to be doing it at the same time and we teamed up. Clan support is included so if you want to team up with a bunch of your friends, it’s not a problem.

On the disappointing side, Defiance will not be cross platform.

By that I mean PS3 players won’t be playing with Xbox360 players, and neither of them will be playing with PC players. If you want to play this game with your friends, find out what system they are getting it for first.

Once the game launches, you will be able to buy a season pass, which includes the first five DLC’s, for forty dollars.


Our Honest View gives Defiance a 3.5 out of 5. Defiance is a game that shows potential. If Trion polishes it up and tightens up a few things, it has a chance to be a very good game and have it’s rating moved up to a 4.5 out of 5. It seems that current generation gamers may finally be able to join the PC playing brethren in the quality MMO world. Wait until the game comes out for our full review of the game.

By: Adam Zimmerman

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