NA LCS 2018 Summer Split: Power rankings and predictions
(06/29/18 6:43pm)
By Tanner Kinney
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By Tanner Kinney
Disclaimer: This review is of the Nintendo Switch version of the game and was primarily played in docked mode.
By Tanner Kinney Disclaimer: This review is of the Nintendo Switch version of the game and was primarily played in docked mode. The Nintendo Switch has proved itself to be a very versatile console to match a versatile company like Nintendo. A console that houses both DOOM and Pokemon Quest within the same shop makes for an interesting line-up. As Nintendo slowly gets their main franchises to the Switch, with Pokemon, Metroid, Yoshi, and Smash Bros. coming soon, it’s the constant drip-feed of titles that keep the console alive during dry spells. One of those games is Sushi Striker: The Way of the Sushido. Nintendo, in conjunction with indieszero (developers of the Theatrhythm Final Fantasy series), created an incredibly charming, though somewhat imbalanced game.
Nintendo’s abandonment of the traditional E3 press conference has been a huge boon for the company. No longer tied down by audio issues and strange gameplay demos, the company can focus on neatly produced game showcases, and give proper time and attention to bigger titles. With some showstoppers like a new Smash Bros, Metroid Prime 4, and the next mainline Pokemon games coming soon, Nintendo had a ticket for the best show in town. If only they actually showed those showstopping titles, aside from Super Smash Bros.
Square-Enix, despite being a long time publisher and developer with dozens of franchises under their wing, has spent very little time with E3 press conferences. Their last E3 showing was three years ago, where they showed trailers that were already shown at Sony’s conference that year. With two long-awaited titles in Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy VII Remake finally happening (eventually), Square has a lot to show, with room for plenty of surprise announcements. If fans are expecting something on the level of Microsoft yesterday or Sony later tonight, they’re going to be disappointed.
by Tanner Kinney Square-Enix, despite being a long time publisher and developer with dozens of franchises under their wing, has spent very little time with E3 press conferences. Their last E3 showing was three years ago, where they showed trailers that were already shown at Sony’s conference that year. With two long-awaited titles in Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy VII Remake finally happening (eventually), Square has a lot to show, with room for plenty of surprise announcements. If fans are expecting something on the level of Microsoft yesterday or Sony later tonight, they’re going to be disappointed. After watching the event, even fans with tempered expectations were most definitely disappointed.
Microsoft, and in particular the Xbox brand, has struggled to get a leg up over the competition throughout the current generation. The Xbox One was controversial out of the gate, and even with continuous effort from Microsoft to improve user experience they aren’t keeping their customers. With previous major releases like Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2 underperforming and potential system sellers like Scalebound getting cancelled, Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up. With only Crackdown 3, another Gears of War, another Halo, and another Forza on the horizon, Microsoft needs to make some major announcements of big, and most importantly new, exclusives to get people back on Xbox.
by Tanner Kinney Microsoft, and in particular the Xbox brand, has struggled to get a leg up over the competition throughout the current generation. The Xbox One was controversial out of the gate, and even with continuous effort from Microsoft to improve user experience they aren’t keeping their customers. With previous major releases like Sea of Thieves and State of Decay 2 underperforming and potential system sellers like Scalebound getting cancelled, Microsoft has a lot of ground to make up. With only Crackdown 3, another Gears of War, another Halo, and another Forza on the horizon, Microsoft needs to make some major announcements of big, and most importantly new, exclusives to get people back on Xbox.
Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM.
By Tanner Kinney The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte’s editorial board. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Disney has control of the box office with every film it releases. If you want your film to succeed, and it has the same target audience as the next big Disney film, you move your release date. Whether it be animated films aimed towards families or their films aimed towards an older audience, Disney is a black hole, absorbing all ticket sales within a 10 movie radius. Despite claims that “superhero fatigue” will eventually hit Disney Marvel films, they are still going strong. It seems superhero fatigue is more just fatigue of terrible films, like Justice League. Yet, the impossible seems to have happened. A big budget blockbuster film from a well-established franchise tanked in the box office. The winner of the big loser trophy is Solo: A Star Wars Story. A Star Wars film with a troubled production, that got released after two major titles in Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2. Despite ranking first in its opening weekend, Solo bombed with only roughly 100 million dollars in domestic sales, and roughly 172 million dollars worldwide. Those numbers seem pretty good though, but with a 250 million dollar production budget that doesn’t even include marketing, which could easily add another 250 million onto it, Solo has quite a deficit to overcome. The questions: why did Solo fail? Is Disney Star Wars in trouble? And can Solo even have a chance to make its budget back? Let’s break out the calculators and see if Solo can win in the end. I don’t have a really good feeling about it. Let me preface this by saying that I feel nothing about Star Wars. Despite writing about Star Wars twice previously, I was never a long time fan of the series. I think prequel memes are funny, even if they are a cynical fabrication by Disney executives to get people to love the prequels (even if it’s ironic love). I think the original trilogy is good. I even actually really like The Last Jedi, being one of the 46% of audience members on Rotten Tomatoes to give it a positive score. But Star Wars was never really my thing. I’m here for the numbers, and to see if it wasn’t Rian Johnson, but Hollywood hack Ron Howard who put Star Wars in a grave.
By Tanner Kinney Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM. Shaq Fu is sort of a legend in gaming culture. This bizarre 16-bit fighting game featured East-Asian culture, mysticism, magic, and Shaquille O'Neal in the middle of it all. If that at all seems interesting, the more interesting part is that the game is completely irredeemable. Shaq Fu was buggy, slow, unfair, and easily one of the worst fighting games of the 16-bit era, possibly of all time. Yet, its infamy garnered a significant following among an internet culture obsessed with ironic enjoyment of things. So, in March 2014, at the height of a fundraising craze sparked by Mighty No. 9, Big Deez Production (yes, that’s the real name) launched an Indiegogo campaign to create the long-awaited sequel, Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn. $473,000 and four years later, it was finally released. The best thing that can be said is that it is better than the original. But that’s a bar so low, it’s buried underneath Shaq’s wine cellar. This game doesn’t deserve to be graded on a curve.
Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM.
By Tanner Kinney Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM. Castlevania is one of the original platformer franchises and a legend among fans of the genre. Yet Castlevania, along with its NES brother-in-arms Mega Man, was mishandled by the publisher for the longest time until eventually just getting put in cryostasis until someone could figure out what to do with it. While Capcom has decided to revive Mega Man in a big way with Mega Man 11, Konami has let their respective franchise fade to dust, with only a pachinko game being released under the Castlevania name. The producer behind Castlevania, Koji Igarashi, made a Kickstarter to launch their own spiritual successor to Castlevania, named Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. This isht similar to when Keiji Inafune swindled desperate Mega Man fans into funding a poorly managed rush-job called Mighty Number 9. Fortunately, if Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (developed by IntiCreates, rather than Igarashi himself) is anything to judge by, the future is looking much brighter for fans of classic Castlevania.
The revival of Star Wars under Disney, led by producer Kathleen Kennedy, has been much more turbulent than expected. Despite the first two films, The Force Awakens and Rogue One, being overall solid action flicks, the two most recent films have left fans and critics at odds. The Last Jedi was a well-executed film that perhaps went too far in the direction of subverting expectations, which left critics content, but incited a rebellion among fans that has so far carried into the reception of their future products. The first of which is Solo: A Star Wars Story. Fortunately for Star Wars fans, Solo is a comfy blanket of nostalgia that doesn’t try to change too much of what they know. For anyone else, the film just blends too well into the crowd of run-of-the-mill action blockbusters to be worth noticing.
By Tanner Kinney The revival of Star Wars under Disney, led by producer Kathleen Kennedy, has been much more turbulent than expected. Despite the first two films, The Force Awakens and Rogue One, being overall solid action flicks, the two most recent films have left fans and critics at odds. The Last Jedi was a well-executed film that perhaps went too far in the direction of subverting expectations, which left critics content, but incited a rebellion among fans that has so far carried into the reception of their future products. The first of which is Solo: A Star Wars Story. Fortunately for Star Wars fans, Solo is a comfy blanket of nostalgia that doesn’t try to change too much of what they know. For anyone else, the film just blends too well into the crowd of run-of-the-mill action blockbusters to be worth noticing.
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte’s editorial board.
When the game series Shin Megami Tensei comes up, it generally raises eyebrows and gets confused looks. Despite being one of the tentpole JRPG franchises, the series has only recently started to gain a more significant following in the West, which is almost entirely attributed to the Persona spin-off series. And while the Persona games are definitely great, the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games are a unique experience that is hard to find in other games within the genre. The games tackle more mature themes and philosophies up-close and personal, rather than through the veil of a high school anime. Although the mainline has become more diluted by excessive anime in recent installments, they haven’t gone full Fire Emblem waifu simulator. Yet.
By Tanner Kinney The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte’s editorial board. Stardew Valley is a game that I’ve been sitting on for a while now. I always thought it looked fun, but I also was one of the few people who never got absorbed into a game of its type before. I never ended up buying it, holding out for the multiplayer update. After all, games are more fun with friends and/or family, right? Which is why when the multiplayer beta for Stardew Valley dropped, I instantly purchased the game and jumped right into it. And, within the past two weeks I’ve spent 50 hours on the game. This game is, no joke, an addiction. A good kind of addiction, not the crippling kind like an addiction to Diet Coke or League of Legends. One day I booted up the game, played it for a few hours solo, then played a multiplayer server for a couple of hours, then went back to my solo farm after we were done with multiplayer. It’s got such an addicting gameplay loop that pulls you into another in-game day by design, making it incredibly hard to quit. I’ve just reached Year Two on my solo farm, and I’m still excited to go out every day to pet the ducks, milk the cows, fish excessively and give a worrying number of diamonds and melons to my waifu Penny.
By Tanner Kinney When the game series Shin Megami Tensei comes up, it generally raises eyebrows and gets confused looks. Despite being one of the tentpole JRPG franchises, the series has only recently started to gain a more significant following in the West, which is almost entirely attributed to the Persona spin-off series. And while the Persona games are definitely great, the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games are a unique experience that is hard to find in other games within the genre. The games tackle more mature themes and philosophies up-close and personal, rather than through the veil of a high school anime. Although the mainline has become more diluted by excessive anime in recent installments, they haven’t gone full Fire Emblem waifu simulator. Yet. So when it was announced that Atlus would be re-releasing one of the mainline titles, Strange Journey, onto a more modern console, I was pretty excited. The original is a very good game that could only be improved when stepping away from the limited Nintendo DS hardware. Unfortunately, Altus did what Atlus does best: re-use as many assets as possible. At the very least, they didn’t ruin an incredible title through their laziness this time.
Disclaimer: This review is of the PC version and was conducted on a PC with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960, i7, 8GBs of RAM.
