How to be a videogame tester

In the last months I managed to write at least two articles per week with one being the usual weekly article. I tried as much as possible to keep up, but this week time was not my friend. Trying to finish Shadow of Mordor, starting Lords of the Fallen, checking the Evolve alpha test and searching for a new video card (add to this my terrible day to day job) was just too much for me.

I’m going to put the review for Shadow of Mordor on hold, because I have reached the second area of the game and is pretty big and as I’m a completist I will try to do everything there is in this area before finishing the game. 

I already beat Lords of the Fallen, in a surprisingly short amount of time and didn’t rush through the main story but rather tried to complete everything the game has to offer. I have a lot to say about this game so I will hold my thoughts for a review, which hopefully will come next week if everything goes according to my schedule.

                There is no NDA for Evolve and I could write an entire article about it, but being in Alpha stage I won’t do that, because I like to respect this fact even if sometimes this so called Alpha or Beta tests are just a lie and nothing more than a marketing scheme. What I can say is that the game didn’t impress me, it has some good graphics (CryEngine 3), great level design and an interesting idea, but it feels like a console game and I don’t think will offer enough to keep players coming back to it and for a 50$ multiplayer only game that is a big deal. Mostly I think this because of the 4v1 game style, which involves a really low amount of players and only one team, because the player controlling the monster is always alone. Maybe if they expand the gameplay for bigger player setups will be more interesting and feel less like a gamble to purchase this title.

                Ironically, I talked about three different games and the screenshot of this week is from neither of them (the title gave it away!). I took a break from ARMA 3 for a while now to have enough time to play all the RPGs that were released in the last few months, but I couldn’t stay away that long from this game, my lust for tactical shooters has to be satisfied and at the moment this is the only game that can do that. ARMA 3 is a wild ride, you never know what to expect from a game, it can be as tactical as a modern army in a war or a complete waste of time with selfish players, but sometimes these things don’t even matter because what you get to experience is something completely unexpected (well if you are a hardcore ARMA player, you should be expecting this!).