Monthly Archives: January 2019

Early Impressions: Unruly Heroes

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From the moment I started playing Unruly Heroes, I was immediately struck by how awkward and unresponsive it felt.  My initial reaction was to assume that I needed to spend more time with it to really get a handle on things, hoping it would eventually click with me.  Since it was first revealed, I was drawn in by the beautiful art and animation the trailers had boasted, but after spending some time with it I grew more and more frustrated with the game.

Let’s back up though.  Unruly Heroes is a side-scrolling action and puzzle platformer created by Magic Design Studios, which as far as I can tell is their first game.  You’ll be switching between one of four characters on the fly in order to solve puzzles and maneuver around levels.  Each character has different attack patterns, abilities, and either have a double jump or can float in the air.  This all is depicted in a beautiful art style reminiscent of the most recent Rayman games, but ultimately lacks the personality or charm that they had.

The first few levels I played were bland and uninteresting, opting for a snowy field and snowy cave theme which didn’t make for a great first impression.  But despite the uninspired level design, the game looked phenomenal and was enough to keep me pushing through to see what else there was.  Unfortunately, this is where things really broke down for me.

Playing Unruly Heroes isn’t very much fun.  The combat is unsatisfying and at times unresponsive.  You have a basic attack that strings into a three or four hit combo, a long range attack, a grab and an ultimate move.  On the surface it looks like you have a variety of options for dispatching your enemies, but really you’ll only end up using basic attacks.  The problem is that nothing else, save for your ultimate, ever feels fast or strong enough to bother using.

On top of the lack of encouragement to diversify your attacks, some combos end in a flourish that you’re locked into and can’t cancel out of.  One character strikes with his staff a few times before expanding into a large ball and smashing down to complete the combo.  The problem is that they’re completely vulnerable to counterattacks in that time, and enemies recover quick enough to knock you out of it.

That wouldn’t be such an issue if you had some effective defensive options, but you’re really left wide open most of the time, save for an unresponsive dodge roll that you can’t use mid-combo.  If all of that wasn’t disheartening enough, all of your characters are insanely fragile and will die the first chance they get.  On the flip side, your enemies are way more durable than you and can take one hell of a beating, while simultaneously wielding the ability to kill you in a few strikes.

Even outside of combat Unruly Heroes is frustrating and unforgiving, but not because of a well tuned difficulty, rather due to sluggish and unresponsive controls.  Switching characters, dodging, attacking and jumping all feel unwieldy and floaty.  I can’t count the amount of times I’ve fallen into spike traps, or mistimed jumps and fell to my death thanks to the hit-or-miss controls.  Nothing about playing Unruly Heroes ever feels good.

I had mild expectations going into Unruly Heroes, but within the first few minutes of playing it I was already let down.  The control and combat issues are exacerbated when combined with the bland level design and lightweight puzzles.  I’m still early in my time with the game so maybe it will click for me as I make some more progress, but at this moment I barely have any motivation to return to it to see it through.

This Early Impression is based off of the Nintendo Switch version of Unruly Heroes.

Blog: Have a Pikuniku – 01/30/19

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I’m gonna cut to the chase here and say that you should probably play Pikuniku.  If you’ve followed this site in any capacity at all, you’d probably know that I have a weakness for stylish, physics based games.  These kinds of games speak to me on a core level, and Pikuniku is the latest game to add to the list.

Pikuniku is a a game where you play as a horrible monster that’s terrorized the land for ages.  Or at least, that’s what you’re led to believe until it’s revealed that you’re actually an adorable physics blob that helps the people of this land overthrow their capitalist overlord named Mr. Sunshine.  That’s not a goof or anything, that’s literally the plot.

On your way to defeat Mr. Sunshine, you’ll partake in light puzzle solving and platforming challenges.  Pikuniku is never a hard game, just an occasionally frustrating one.  There are a handful of moments that ask a little more precision of you than the game can deliver, but these are so infrequent that they’re barely an issue.

There’s a ton of fun to be had in Pikuniku as well as some pretty funny writing.  The denizens of the world are all a bunch of hapless dimwits, who are always spouting off some delightful nonsense.  For instance, early in the game there’s a guy who owns a shop that was dedicated to selling merchandise based on the legend of the evil monster you apparently were supposed to be.  But since you’re a totally chill dude, his business is in the dumps, and no one wants to buy his scary monster t-shirts anymore.  He never gets over it and will always remind you of how you ruined him.

Pikuniku is an enjoyable experience that consistently adds new mechanics into the mix to keep the game fresh throughout it’s two to three hour campaign.  I never felt bored with Pikuniku and was constantly charmed by it’s adorable art style and whimsical soundtrack.  Also, it’s currently free for anyone with Twitch Prime until February 28th, so hop on that and play Pikuniku.

Blog: That Shaping Music – 01/23/19

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Like a lot of people, I do my best to avoid ever having to open iTunes, but unfortunately a situation arose in which I had no choice.  After the absurd amount of time it took to boot up, the several update notifications, and me needing to refresh my login credentials, I was finally face to face with my music library.  A library that I’d been building on since my teenage years and oddly enough, hadn’t outgrown.

So I thought it would be a fun trip down memory lane to just highlight a few of the artists that influenced me in some way or another.  To prepare, you’ll have to transport back in time, to the distant year of 2007(-ish).  This isn’t a comprehensive list at all, rather it’s just to give you an idea of what 2007 Ari was and probably is still into.

BRAND NEW

I loved Brand New back in the day.  I say loved because in 2017, shortly after they released what would be their final album, the lead singer was accused of, and ultimately admitted to, being a creep earlier in his career.  I won’t go into it, but because of this, I no longer know how to feel about my former love for the band.

But up until this news came out, I thought the world of Brand New and the music they produced.  I appreciated how they evolved and drastically changed their style from album to album, layering in more effects driven and experimental elements as time went on.  It felt as if their music was growing up with me, and each album served as a bookmark in my life that I can distinctly remember where I was and how I felt when they were released.

Despite the gross revelations about the lead singer, I still can’t help but hold a special place in my heart for the music of the band as a whole.  I just can’t listen to them with the frequency or the fervor in which I used to.

MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA

I remember hearing some buzz about Manchester Orchestra back in the day, wondering what was so special about this orchestra that the bands I listened to were going on tour with them.  Turns out, they’re a band; A really good one at that.

I’ll admit that I kind of lost the thread on the band as time has gone on, but that doesn’t diminish how I felt about them back in the day.  Early albums like Mean Everything to Nothing and Simple Math remain my favorites, with most of their newer work not connecting for me.  To my knowledge, they’re still out there making music.  That alone makes me happy.

THRICE

In the same vein of Brand New, I think what I appreciate most about Thrice is that they were always evolving.  Early on, they were churning out some real gut punching, face-melting music that was loud and angry and would get any teenager ready to write some hardcore shit on MySpace.  As time passed, they stopped screaming as much and started belting out some real heavy and heartfelt stuff.

Eventually the band split, and the lead singer, Dustin Kensrue, went on to make some music that focused more on faith and God that was pretty good.  But I recently learned that they came back together at some point in the last few years and are putting out new music again.  Shamefully, I still haven’t listened to any of it yet.

SAY ANYTHING

This is a weird one for me, because it’s one of the bands that’s very existence carries so much baggage for me, and also I don’t think they ever had more than one good album.  But I will say that Say Anything was a band that an ex of mine introduced me to, and we bonded over.  There were lots of sing-alongs while we were driving around in my 91′ Saturn.

The lead singer doesn’t sing, but rather melodically speaks and makes edgy jokes that only a teenager in 2007 would have really appreciated.  But hey, they knocked it out of the park with their album …Is a Real Boy and the eventual re-release with extra music, …Was a Real Boy, and I have some good memories associated with them.  Too bad every album after those are just head-scratchingly bad.

YELLOWCARD

Yellowcard was so damn awesome and I don’t care what anyone has to say about that.  They were a band that was consistently releasing better and better albums all throughout my time in high school, and more importantly, taught me that even violins can rock.  And Paper Walls is their best album.  Fight me.

METRIC

Like most things I did in high school, I listened to Metric because a girl I had a crush on was super into them.  We never actually ended up dating, or having extensive conversations, but I did get a rad new band to listen to out of it.

In my opinion, Metric is a band that has one of the strangest arcs ever.  The first albums of theirs that I listened to featured songs that fluctuated between coffee house music mixed with beat poetry, to driving pop-punk-esque singles.  Later on they released an album called Fantasies, which is easily the most digestible and listenable music they’ve ever made.  It’s filled with catchy pop-rock tracks that heavily lean on synth leads.

Now they’re kind of dipping back into the stuff that first got me interested in them, trying some more experimental stuff once again.  It’s been fun to watch them grow in popularity, especially around the time they had music featured in movies like Twilight and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.  Also I should mention that I was super into the lead singer, Emily Haines… kinda still am.

TAKING BACK SUNDAY

And rounding out this trip through my iPod Nano of yesteryear is Taking Back Sunday.  I remember having intense disagreements with a close friend of mine over which band was better, Taking Back Sunday or Brand New.  Turns out, they were both really good and we were idiots.

To my knowledge, Taking Back Sunday is still out there making music.  The last time I heard some it, I felt it lacked the punchiness of their older work.  I’m all for bands changing it up over time, but I never got the impression that they were trying to evolve their style, rather just trying to recreate what worked in the past.  Maybe I’m off base with that, but it doesn’t change the fact that their music still gets regular play in my car.

There’s way more to tell about the music I used to bump on a regular basis that I might get around to one day, but for now, this is a good and broad look at some of the more popular acts I followed back in the day.

The 2019 Reset

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As you can probably tell, things look a little different around here.  Some stuff got shifted around, the artwork is looking a little different and our YouTube channel is a little… barren.  But that’s all part of the plan.  See, we’re working on revamping The Bonus World a little, and trying to make it more diverse and sustainable.

Last year we tried streaming a lot of stuff to mixed results, and while it was a lot of fun, it just wasn’t something we could all reliably do.  So we stopped doing any video work for a while, and though it sure made my workload a lot lighter, it did leave a large gap in our website.

So we’re trying some new things out here.  Or rather, we’re trying to find a method that works for us.  We’ve got a new video coming out this Friday at 3:00pm ET, which is exciting, and the written stuff on the site is still going at it’s normal pace.

There are a lot of things I’d like to do in 2019 in regards to The Bonus World, and bringing back video is a big one.  We’d also like to start streaming at some point in the future, but it’s unclear as to when that’ll happen.  But till then, the blog will continue to update weekly, articles will occasionally pop up, and video features are going to make a return.

If you want to watch any of our content from last year, it can still be accessed on the site in the Archived Shows portion of the drop down video menu.  Lastly, the site is going to fluctuate a bit as I finalize the design and layout of things, so if menus move around, or the art changes again, it’s probably just me fiddling around on the back end because I can’t ever just leave things alone.

Thanks for continuing to hang with us, and we hope that we can make some big strides in 2019.  Fingers crossed.

Blog: Combat Specialization – 01/16/19

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On the last day of the winter sale EA was running, a friend of mine decided to pick up the poorly titled, Battlefield 1.  This was great timing considering our friend group has been looking for something new to play, and this seemed like a cheap way to get us all together once again.  Despite me having some of my most memorable online experiences with previous Battlefield entries, upon jumping back into action I quickly realized that I think I actually hate the Battlefield games.

Battlefield, like most other competitive shooters, lives and dies by the quality of their maps.  The things I like about a multiplayer map is when it’s designed in such a way that every play style is viable on it, but can always be countered.  A sniper should be as effective and vulnerable as the player running laps around the map with a shotgun.  I know that’s easier said than done, but my point is that I value not making someone feel bad for playing the way they want to.

However in Battlefield, the matches I end up playing are usually swayed by air superiority and effective sniping, whereas everything else never feels as important or effective.  I’ve never felt quite as useless as when I pick a shotgun in one of these grand battles that Battlefield operates in.  I’m not great at sniping and even worse at driving in these games, but they seem to be the only real way to make a difference in any given match.

When I compare Battlefield to something like the Call of Duty series, I find I have more fun with the latter because it favors faster gameplay in more tightly constructed environments.  That isn’t a qualitative statement as much as it’s a preferential one.  I like getting back into the action fast and being able to see my enemy (for the most part) before I’m dispatched and ultimately reborn, cursed to endure that cycle until the timer runs out.  Both games can be eternally frustrating, but I have much more fun with Call of Duty than Battlefield for this and other reasons.

titanfall2

In theory, I should love Battlefield.  These grand scaled battles that occupy various forms of combat simultaneously, a large player count and destructible environments should be a slam dunk for me, but it always ends up leaving me feeling more frustrated than satisfied.  If only there was some sort of shooter on the market that was able to blend the fast and frenetic action of Call of Duty with the scale and scope of Battlefield.  Oh wait, it’s called Titanfall 2, the game I was thinking about is Titanfall 2, and it’s phenomenal and didn’t deserve to be buried the way it was when Battlefield 1 came out.

Blog: Nintendorama – 01/09/19

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I’ve been toiling away in the Nintendo mines lately, chipping away at some of my ever expanding backlog when I came to the incredibly rare and never before talked about realization that those folks at Nintendo know how to make fun games.  This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I’m serious.  I think they might be onto something.

In all seriousness, I’ve been grinding my way through some Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and am having the most fun I’ve had with that series in ages.  I know a lot of people didn’t like the concept of having to unlock most of the 7000 characters in the game, but it’s kind of kept me on the hook longer than I expected.  I don’t know what will happen when I unlock everyone, but for the moment it’s enough motivation to keep me coming back.

Speaking of getting them all, I’ve also been playing Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu and am having a similar experience to Smash Bros. Ultimate.  I’ve never been a huge Pokemon guy, but this game is so darn delightful that I can’t help but be charmed by it.  I think my favorite part about it might be all the bullshit they’ve cut from the Pokemon formula.  Random encounters are gone now that you can see all the little critters rustling around in the bushes, swapping Pokemon in and out of your party is no longer something you need to return to a town for, and all your little Poke-pals get experience just for being there after a battle.  Although I guess I don’t know for sure if these are new changes to the series, but they’re new to me.  The game thus far is a low stress experience and I hope it remains that way.

2019 seems like it could be a big year for Nintendo with upcoming titles like Animal Crossing and Metroid Prime 4, and I can’t wait to see how it pans out.  Like tons of people my age, I grew up with Nintendo, and after seeing the disappointment that was the Wii U, it’s nice to see them back on top with the Switch and it’s lineup of fantastic first party games, as well as overwhelming indie support.

Blog: 4K All Day – 01/02/19

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Who’s got two thumbs and was so wrapped up in the holidays that they forgot to write an actual post?  This guy.  Yeah, I really goofed it up this time and lost track of the days, so we’re gonna have to make due with something light this week.

I guess the thing I’ll talk about is my experience with buying a new TV.  After over a decade of rocking with the same TV, I decided it was high time that I upgraded and joined the modern era with one that has more than 1 HDMI input among other things.  I was interested in a 4K display, but didn’t really consider it too hard until I saw how cheap they had become.

I picked up an Insignia 43 inch Fire TV because it was affordable, pretty, and was still in stock.  After fumbling around with the settings and getting the display to a place I liked, I thought it was high time to test out the 4K and HDR capabilities in earnest.  It was then I realized that all of my hardware is incapable of doing that.

See, I have a regular launch PS4, that sounds like it’s taking a trip to Mars every time I play something, as well as a GTX 970 in my computer which in all fairness is a great graphics card, but not so great at doing anything in 4K.  I booted up NBA 2K19 and while it was absolutely stunning to look at,  it felt less like watching a game on TV and more like watching a low frame rate GIF.

But it isn’t all doom and gloom, because I loaded up Red Dead Redemption 2, and despite the PS4 not being super powerful, the HDR capabilities of the console really made the game look new all over again.  I sat there slack-jawed at how impressive everything looked.  You might be wondering why this is such a big deal to me, so maybe it would help if I mentioned that my last TV only output at 720p.  So literally everything I put on this TV looks fucking fabulous.

One day I’ll get a graphics card and a console that can fully take advantage of the TV, but as it stands I’m very happy with my purchase, even if it has made me fully aware of how obsolete my other hardware is becoming.  Also, Happy New Year.  Probably should’ve led with that.