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Checkpoint

Checkpoint 2/17: Play War Anywhere

Welcome to Checkpoint, a segment from the authors here at LevelSave designed to quickly let you know what is on our minds, how we are reacting to current news and trends, and some looks into content coming soon from LevelSave.com. 

February 17, 2017

Halo Wars 2 launches today if you bought into the high-end price point.

I bought into the high-end price point.

Checkpoints:

  • I look forward to playing around in Halo Wars 2 on both my Xbox One and PC this weekend. It’s a play anywhere title, meaning you only have to buy it once to play on both platforms, and your achievements and game saves transfer between them via the cloud seamlessly.
  • It’s also an early-access title, as the official release isn’t until Tuesday, February 21st. You have to buy the ultimate edition of the game for $80.00 (US) in order to play early, but the added price also grants you a remastered copy of the original game. I think that’s a pretty darn good bonus, considering it’s also a Play Anywhere title.
  • Both games have keyboard and mouse support on PCs, alongside the controller support the series pioneered in 2008. I like that the remaster got the added keyboard and mouse support, since it never hit the PC in its original form.
  • I feel bad Sony is shutting down PlayStation Now Access for PS Vita, PS3, and Smart-device users. The draw of a streaming-game service  is that it should work well with most internet-connected hardware regardless of the horsepower. This is less true now.
  • As someone who used it on the Vita specifically, I was quite pleased with the potential it offered. Playing games the Vita was normally incapable of playing was a great perk, but ultimately it may not have had enough users to justify the cost of keeping things running.
  • Retro game I’m playing at the moment? Gnop, a pong clone that Bungie made many years ago.
  • Zelda is getting DLC via a Season Pass. Wii U owners are getting it too, thankfully. I’d say Nintendo deserves some kudos for not abandoning those users, but that’s not going to happen. They are absolutely giving up on that platform and this is just one last meaningless release. Shame.

Bonus Level:

I was bothered by the Zelda DLC announcement when it first hit the internet this week. Details were sparse at first and then became more plentiful as time passed. For a $20.00 asking price, I was skeptical about what will be included and if it would be worth it. I don’t care for season passes at all, generally speaking, mostly because they are used as justification for withheld content at launch. Most companies use it more like DLC pre-ordering. Buying a pass now, before the DLC is actually released, saves you a few bucks compared to buying the DLC one package at a time after it lands. It is clearly a profit-driven motive that is another part of the toxic pre-order culture gaming has turned into in recent years.

However, I keep reminding myself that Nintendo isn’t the same as other developers. Their DLC efforts are still young, comparative to the rest of the industry, but the small amount of DLC they’ve released for Mario Kart 8 and Smash Brothers have been quality releases, and their asking price was reasonable. That said, they never asked for my money up front via a “season pass”. This is new for them, and while the contents of the season pass seem like an above-average offering, I still don’t like the idea of paying for it in advance.

Ultimately, they win. We’re all going to get it, right?

…Right?

Checkpoint reached.

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About the author

James T. George

Jim, a proud native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, enjoys a variety of things other than games, movies, music, sports, and technology, but usually falls prey to character limits when filling out

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