Tag Archives: Monster Hunter World

Blog: The Hunt is On – 02/19/20

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Recently, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne was released on the PC much to the delight of existing Monster Hunter players.  Now, I never finished or even got far in the base game and I’m not even close to being able to touch the new content, but it certainly has piqued my interest in Monster Hunter World again.  So I decided to take the plunge and ask my friends to shepherd me along my long grind in the hopes of seeing that snowy wonderland called Iceborne.

The main hurdles with me and Monster Hunter World in general can be simplified into the combat, and how cumbersome the whole game can feel.  The combat itself is a little slower and more complicated than I usually like, requiring a lot more forethought and planning before encounters.  Despite being listed in the corner of the screen and giving you a training area to try out each weapon, I still always feel like I’m getting lucky in combat more than being skilled.

The other thing that bugs me is just how many menus you have to navigate to do the simplest functions.  Upgrading weapons and armor, posting quests, joining multiplayer games and crafting are all done in the most daunting and convoluted way.  I just feel like there are too many times where my screen is just covered in menus.  But that could just be me and my aversion to games with deep RPG mechanics.

I get that people really like Monster Hunter World and I realize that my quibbles are my own and clearly not reflective of the popularity or success of the game.  I’m the weird one in this situation and I know that.  But I just wish the game was a little more action oriented and less menu driven.

But none of that has managed to kill my drive to keep playing and see what else there is.  I still am very eager to hop back in and slay some more creatures with my pals.  I did just get to a new area called the Coral Highlands or something to that effect, and that’s been a nice change of pace and really recharged my batteries.  But I just think that Monster Hunter World is successful in spite of itself.  I know that this is technically the most accessible the franchise has ever been, but it hasn’t dumbed itself down enough for me just yet.

Blog: On The Hunt – 05/08/19

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It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that I wrote about how difficult it was to find a game my friends and I can all play.  Since then, we’ve managed to add two games to our collective wheelhouses that has made playing games a lot less of a concept, and more a reality.

The first game we tried out was the recently released World War Z.  The game itself is more or less a love letter to Left 4 Dead and it’s style of throwing endless amounts of zombies at people.  I’ve never been the biggest fan of L4D and games of its ilk, primarily because of how one-note it always felt.  Horde modes in general never really did anything for me, and L4D just felt like they decided to make an entire game of one of those modes.  It isn’t bad, but that style of game just never left me wanting more.

Surprisingly though, World War Z feels like a more robust and fulfilling experience.  On a base level, the game has a decent progression system where you unlock skills and perks for individual character classes.  Things like, healers, melee, demolitions and so on, are some of the skill trees you end up dumping points into.  You also gain proficiency with the weapons you end up using the most in a level, and level your weapons up just by using them, which is the kind of progression I typically enjoy.

It’s those extra systems that make me feel like I’m not just spinning my wheels constantly.  It isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to keep me wanting to play more.

On the exact opposite end of the complexity scale though, is the other game we’ve been dumping some time into.  That game is none other than the ever inscrutable Monster Hunter World.

Yeah, so Monster Hunter World is a game that on paper is super cool.  You and your pals go around and hunt various monsters in an overly anime world, take their parts and make cooler stuff to help you kill bigger and badder beasts.  The main issue I have with game however, is how cumbersome everything feels.

The game is menus and sub-menus all the way down.  I routinely find myself drowning in pop up windows, tutorial messages and HUD elements, trying to make sense of everything.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying playing the game and intend on sinking further into it, but if it wasn’t for my friends pulling me through, I probably would have already bounced off of it.

There’s just so much going on in that game that it’s hard to keep track of sometimes.  Between equipping items, upgrading armor, navigating through the sea of missions, side missions and bounties, it’s just a lot to take in all at once.

That said, it’s a hell of a time, especially if you’ve got some friends working with you.  But boy howdy is it a steep hill to climb.  Even little things like syncing up with friends to do hunts is way more cumbersome than it needs to be.  Why in the world can’t we all just watch a cut-scene together instead of not allowing people to join you till you’re done watching them.  Why does my party disband after every mission?  It lacks some modern accessibility options in favor of some unnecessarily clumsy alternatives.

Either way, both of these games are great for our purposes and are a great way for us to play something cooperative that we can all enjoy.  These games may not be my exact cup of tea, but my friends are way into them, and that’s good enough for me.