Hello everyone! Last month I got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to partake in a roadtrip to RTX 2015 with a good friend of mine. (I'll have pictures below). It was an awesome trip and I got to attend the RWBY panel as well as play the demo for RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. It was my first time in Texas and I am saving up to hopefully attend the event next year (that's also why I didn't post anything for the month of August).
Pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha build of RWBY Grimm Eclipse.
Controls for the game thus far.
I'm the tall guy cosplaying as Neptune from RWBY.
Sneak Preview of Season 3 of RWBY!
In other news, Destiny: The Taken King has just been released (as of September 15, 2015) and I've traded in my "Vanilla" copy (the original disk) for the new & improved "Neapolitan" version. I'm calling it that because it comes with the first two expansions The Dark Below as well as the House of Wolves in addition to, the new Taken King content.
I had to pay a fee of $40.00 or so to upgrade (which was twice the price of the first two DLC expansions) and unfortunately, within about 3-5 hours of gameplay, I'm nearly finished with the added storyline. So, was it worth it?
Well, in some aspects my initial gripes about the game have been alleviated, albeit only slightly. Bungie has indeed been listening to fan feedback this last year and has worked hard to reinvent Destiny. The story is presented in a coherent manner with excellent narrative, as well as clever dialogue (particularly that from Nathan Fillion's character, Cayde-6). Some of the missions themselves are character specific and will not allow access for other players even if they are of the same subclass (i.e. the "Nightstalker" missions). Those specific missions are meant to be played solo.
However, the content can easily be beaten in one short session and that leaves little else to do outside of several side missions and patrols. While I did enjoy some of the new additions, such as utilizing the Ghost to scan items of interest, (Which is something that the Metroid Prime series has excelled at for years...), the opportunities to do so were few and far inbetween. The only time I felt like it was truly a significant feature was when I was looking for Cayde-6's ally in the field, Tevis (No, I haven't spoiled anything). You'll attempt to locate this hunter Guardian and use your Ghost to key in on his location. After which (spoiler warning) you'll unlock the Nightstalker subclass and be able to use the void bow.
Unfortunately, it's basically back to the repetitive grind until more content is released (like the Raid this Friday). After the dust has settled and people realize that there really isn't all that much new meaningful content, Destiny: The Taken King will become a monotonous epitome of sadness as we spend our time yet again farming for materials.
Overall, I welcome some of the changes, just not all of them. In particular, the new algorithm being used to determine attack values for weapons is alarmingly confusing. This is especially true when comparing one gun or piece of armor to another. I'm still puzzled as to why my green "uncommon" ghost shell has a base defense of 175 compared to my blue "rare" one which is at 170. It makes little to no sense that one would be better than the other, without at least some consideration for rarity.
On a scale of 1-10.0 with 10 being the utmost best expansion this could be, I'm giving this an 8.0/10.0 B. It's equivalent to the House of Wolves in terms of improvements (I particularly liked the voice acting of April Stewart as Petra Venj and the banter between her and Variks).
Positives:
- Lots of great cutscenes and quality dialogue
Negatives:
- It's incredibly short. You could literally beat the content in a single session, and then be able to return it for a refund.
- Rarity makes no cohesive sense when comparing weapon & armor values.
