David Piner

Epic Games Store is a Schism The Gaming Community Doesn’t Need

May 8, 2023 Editorials

Update: It’s 2023 and the following still remains mostly true. The EPIC Store continues to be a pain in the gaming community’s side. Fighting Steam is the past time for many people in this world it seems, as we’re now seeing the Epic Store vs. Steam battle keep raging on. Which is much like the golden ages of MMOs where almost every month a new WoW killer was coming to fight the champion, who won the war via attrition and investors tired of sending their money down a bottomless pit. Now Epic Games, Discord and even Kongregate the flash game site is trying to lure you into replacing Steam with their awesome storefront. This isn’t new, Razer started selling games in their zCoin software forever ago. Twitch has the ability to buy some games, but the purchases often help the streamer. Humble Bundle was once a monthly bundle of games…

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak Review

December 30, 2018 Reviews

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was recently on the Steam Winter Sale so I finally picked it up, several years after release, because I noticed many top RTS articles had it prominently featured and I absolutely loved the Homeworld series. Deserts of Kharak was an interesting experience because it removed the Z axis from the original Homeworld series and placed the game flat on the ground, but kept the generally same gameplay. If you’ve played Homeworld before, then I’d say get it when it’s on sale or even when it’s not, because it’s more of the same but different enough that you’re not drowning in a formulaic experience. Persistence exists, so resources gathered are kept map to map along with units and their promotions. Units have an almost Atlus / Shin Megami Tensei vibe to how they play against each other’s weakness. Armored vehicles take strike vehicles out, but strike vehicles…

Heroes of the Storm’s New Hero – Imperius Announced

December 31, 2018 News

Not a lot is known about Heroes of the Storm’s next champion, other than he’s from Diablo 3 and was heavily featured in the expansion. We first met Imperius back in 2011’s Blizzcon, where the above concept art was introduced. It’s interesting that they’re moving for an Angel from Diablo 3 when we already have Auriel and Malthael. Andariel is a pretty popular request as she was the only female Evil until Diablo 3’s Diablo went and got a sex change. Of course, Imperius is a fan favorite too so this isn’t a giant upset. It’s just interesting that they’re expanding Heroes with more angels on the heels of announcing the reorganization of the Heroes of the Storm support team. Since we don’t know much about his abilities until January 2nd, let’s talk a little about who he is. Imperius is the archangel of Valor. He’s basically the greatest warrior…

Is Atlas Worth Purchasing Yet?

November 12, 2022 Editorials

2022 Update: Atlas is still not worth getting yet. Should you buy into Atlas right now? I’m going to say no, but caveat that clearly with I haven’t played and I’m simply sharing the advice that I’m following myself. Atlas has right now an overwhelming amount of negative reviews and a lot of chatter online about how buggy, broken, etc. that it is. There is also the fact that it’s allegedly just an ARK DLC wrapped around a new standalone game, ala Fallout 76, which was a DLC wrapped around Fallout 4’s engine with multiplayer added. There is also the fact it’s still one of the most watched games on Twitch this far out. So why do I say you should hold off buying? Well, it’s to let the community sort out if it’s going to adopt it or not. If you haven’t bought it yet, I would hold off…

Fallout 76’s Game Freebies Alienate Community

December 30, 2018 News

Bethesda recently announced that they will be giving gamers a free copy of both Fallout 1 & 2, along with Fallout Tactics, as an extra bonus for all of the problems and issues that gamers have ran into. Normally, such giveaways are just a bribe, but in this instance, I actually like the gesture. It’s nice that gamers are able to get something extra with a game they purchased and for the problems they’ve experienced. What’s even nicer, the free software is actually something that most gamers won’t even think of or consider. Fallout 3 was the third main Fallout game, a huge departure from Fallout 1 & 2 which were top down ARPGs. Back when Fallout 3 came out, Fallout 1 & 2 were still popular games because it was 2008, ten years since the release of Fallout 2. It has now been ten years since Fallout 3 and…