Author Archives: Azazel

Kickstarter Experiences. Part 1

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So, yeah. I’ve not been especially thrilled with the way that most of the over-a-dozen Kickstarters I’ve backed so far have gone so far. I haven’t said much about them on this blog to date, because, frankly, I don’t really want to be an advertisement, nor have I been actually updating the blog much as of late.

So, Kickstarters. I’ll share my experiences to date as well as opinions. I have to play nice on forums, but here I can freely speak my mind. Which actually doesn’t mean being a complete arsehole.

My first one (missed out on Zombiecide by *that* much) was Kings of War, by Mantic Games. Since I felt that many of their fantasy sculpts of the time frankly sucked or were rather uninspiring, my wife and I went in for mostly new sculpts, based on a lot of faith/hope and a lot of BOGOF value. We did each get our rulebooks and dice, as well as a Mantic/Battlefoam bag, which is quite decent, but everything else from them is due in 2013. A couple sculpts previewed look less than impressive (Female Vamp) while most others look quite nice. No problems so far. Regular updates and regular pictures of WIP greens, so no problems with Post-KS communication. Would probably KS with them again. (In fact, I did!)

Second/At the same time was Sedition Wars, by McVey Studios. (Mike and Ali McVey). Again, lots of value on offer, and McVey’s reputation was quite good. The Chinese printer running off with the funds isn’t Mike’s fault, but I’ve been solidly unimpressed with the lack of updates over such a long time until recently. I know Mike and Aly were moving, etc.. but you know what? My telephone has internet access and a post takes 5 minutes of your time. So I’m not as easily mollified as many others on the internet. If SW hadn’t chalked up close to a million bucks, I might be able to swallow the reasons on lack of comms more easily. But for fuck’s sake. Mike, people gave you a million dollars. Amazon and CMON taking a chunk notwithstanding. They gave it to you. There’s simply no fucking good excuse for the length of time that your communication went dark. Even if CMON are being dicks with the updates, you have your own forum! (And yes, I realise that Mike will never actually read this.) :p

I’m also not terribly impressed now that I’m hearing rumblings that the second wave will probably be delayed because he wants the sculptors to work on the expansion as well at the same time, and so has to “juggle” between new things for the expansion and shit people paid for in full months ago. Another slightly-nicer-phrased version case of “We already got your money, so STFU and you’ll get your stuff when we send it.” Let’s also be realistic. The March stuff is going to slip. Mike is laying down the “it might slip” line now, months before, so that by the time March comes, everyone is used to the idea that it’ll come in May or whenever.

So anyway. the Nov stuff is clearly not going to be here until Jan-Feb, and while disappointing, I can understand it. The March stuff shipping to April, May, June. Not quite so OK with that if it happens. (Especially since the KS finished on July 1st) Would maybe back another McVey Kickstarter if it offered insane value again, but CMON and their lack of updates don’t impress me at all. Doesn’t look like it’ll be an issue since the SW expansion appears to be going direct to retail.

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Third was Avatars of War‘s Indiegogo. Since Felix thought offering any kind of decent value compared to retail on what is essentially an interest-free loan/investment, and also has a frankly horrible track record on delivering on pre-orders, I had to sit out on most of this, despite him being an incredibly talented sculptor. Went in for a Limited edition standard bearer, since it was such a small investment ($15) that I can’t see myself getting too bent out of shape if he takes a year to deliver on it. Which he probably will. Mostly a shame, since I’d have loved to drop a ton of money on it. it just lacked the value for the investment, and the ability to trust Felix to deliver. I’ll probably buy a bunch of these figures once they hit retail. And I don’t even play Dwarves. Rarely bothers to update to his backers using IGG. Instead you have to go looking on Facebook, or the AoW forums, or the Spanish-Language AoW forums. Fuck that noise.

If/when Felix offers another IGG, I’d probably just go in for the equivalent of the standard bearer unless they lifted their game and attitude dramatically. And that ain’t gonna happen.

Forth, the big one. Reaper‘s Bones Kickstarter. Well, being located overseas has now meant that they’re decided that they’re not going to ship the segments of my order as they’re ready (Sophies, Paint, Models) but are going to ship all my shit all together at once. Except, well, it won’t all fit in one box, anyway. So no Sophies shipped when they said they would initially (which is annoying) or paint which is somewhat understandable given the dropper bottle situation, except non-US paint orders have been tossed to the back of the queue regardless. While it’d have been quite nice to get my Sophie sets now (especially since my US-based friends are talking about having gotten theirs) I’m not as pissed off as I thought I might be. (Doesn’t the initial September delivery date look quaint now?) I’m also getting a metric fuckton of stuff from them, and I trust them, so I’m ok with them saving a bit on the shipping and sending it all at once. Hopefully it does turn up in March though. Or April.After that, I’ll start getting a bit annoyed. Funny thing – on reflection, I might have been massively fucked off with Reaper, but since they’ve been posting regular updates, I’m pretty much fine with them and the delays.

Still, Reaper have always had great CS for issues my figures have had, on a par with Games Workshop’s deservedly-vaunted CS, and more importantly, they’re giving us regular updates with sculpts and so forth. Would back again if things keep going the way they have. I doubt we’ll see anything as crazy as their KS again, though.

So, out of the first four crowdfunding projects I backed, three initially projected to have stuff in hand to me by now and only one has actually shipped me some stuff and is on track to meet their stated timeline. Two have slipped, with one threatening to slip on the second wave as well. And who the fuck knows what’s happening with AoW? For about $2k spent on this page, I have 10 dice, 2 rulebooks, and a Miniatures bag to show for my Kickstarting.

I’m happy with Mantic, in two minds on McVey, unhappy with CMON, ok with Reaper and, well. I have no expectations for AoW, so it’s hard to be dissapoint!

next:

Dwarven Adventurers, Pirate Goblins, Red Box Games, Studio Miniatures Zombies and Relic Knights!

Review: GoldenEye 007: Reloaded – Eurocom Developments – 360

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Sooo.. like a great many now-old people, I played the original GoldenEye 007 back on the N64 in the day, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I think I finished the SP campaign at least twice, and also put in a lot of Multiplayer time with my friends of the day, sneaking around the complexes and stealing a glance at their quadrant of the screen.

I skipped the PS2/XBox era remake/reimagining/re-whatever, Rogue Agent, because, well, frankly, shooters were pretty shitty on the last generation of consoles if you had access to a PC. These days, they’re acceptable, and in rare cases, better. Which brings us to GoldenEye Reloaded 2011 edition.

Goldeneye reloaded 2011.png

Now, this iteration of the game is clearly superior to the PC version, since there’s not actually any PC version. See what I did there? Anyway, as a shooter, this one fits thoroughly in the “not too bad” category, alongside other decent-but-not-amazing shooters as Resistance: Fall of Man, and.. well, probably some other ok but forgettable games I’ve played, enjoyed mildly, then put aside and forgotten existed.

I’m not going to give away the story, but it’s essentially an updated/rewritten version of the original film, with Daniel Craig’s mug in place of Brosnan’s, and Judi Dench’s voice as M (who she actually played back in the original film of GoldenEye in 1995)

Basically, the shooting action is CoD-lite. The weapon selection is decent, with a variety of modern weapons all given generic renames, and with somewhat random attachments slapped on, such as ACOG, Reflex sights, red-dot laser, silencers and grenade launchers. I enjoyed the shooting to a degree, though the game suffers a little from almost requiring quickscoping, but maybe that’s a broader limitation of console shooters. The tank level pays homage to the original and the film, and is nothing special but not terrible either. It’s not on rails, at least!

Graphically the game is decent, but nowhere near cutting edge. I’m not that much of a graphics whore anyway, so I don’t mind things not looking amazing as long as they’re good or solid. It pretty much did what it says on the box.

There are some flaws and annoyances. The side missions are sometimes a little vague, and also repetitive (hack/take photos of macguffins with your smartphone), and the “collectable” do jour in this game are silly looking “Janus” faces hidden in places like the undersides of shelves.

The game seemed to have a decent length for a modern shooter, though I couldn’t tell you how long in hours, since I tended to play this in short bursts a couple of times a week at best over a month or so, though when I finished it I was certainly glad to have done so – so much longer and I’d have gotten a bit bored with the whole thing. I understand the Wii version is slightly longer in the final stages, but then, you’d be playing a shooter on the Wii, and no-one wants that, do they?

GoldenEye 007: Reloaded Image

Everybody do the Robot.

The game’s final sequences are a little challenging, but they’re the annoying kind of difficult rather than the fun or rewarding kind, most of which just need you to figure out where to stand/run or in the final parts, memorise the boring QTE-Lite. Shit, if you’re going to QTE me to get through an animated sequence, just let me watch the cinema without needing to look out for when to press “LT”.

The Multiplayer. Does it rank up there with the classic gameplay of the original N64 game? Well, honestly, I didn’t try it. I don’t have a Live Gold sub active right now, and in these days of CoD and Battlefield ruling the multiplayer roost, along with your Halos, while every other shooter gets a shitty MP-mode tacked onto it by the marketing department who thinks it’s a necessary bullet-point for the box – which no-one ever plays, it would probably be a wasteland devoid of players and a waste of time. Especially now, a full year, almost to the day since the thing was released.

Overall, GoldenEye 007: Reloaded is a decent shooter. It’s not a bad game by any means, but it’s not amazing by a long shot. I picked it up from the bargain bin, and had a decent time’s worth from it. I doubt I’ll go back and play through it again (the pile of unplayed stuff is too big) nor do I think I’ll bother looking at the MP. Having said all that, I don’t regret buying or playing through it. If you see it around and feel like a Bond-themed kill-em-up, you could do a lot worse.

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Verdict: Bargain Bin.