Call of Duty Mobile

By Elliot

It was during my sophomore year of college that the Xbox 360 really started to take off. The original Xbox was still around, but most of my circle of friends had moved on from the previous generation of consoles to the 360 era. I don’t know how it was for you, but for me and those around me we all had an Xbox 360. Playstation just didn’t grab our eyes. Games like Halo had come in and changed how I played games. Halo parties, where we would take 4 Xboxes and link them together to play 16 player matches of Halo quickly became a normal Friday night. It was magical, groundbreaking, and an excuse to spend all of Friday night at a friend’s house.

Then Halo 2 and with it Xbox Live. If you were around during that time, I don’t need to tell you how game changing that was. If you weren’t, just look around you now. Online gaming is what it is today because of Xbox Live and games like Halo 2. Gone were the Friday nights at a friends house. Here to stay were the long nights, next to the blue glow of a screen with a headset on, talking about how garbage the person on the other end of the microphone was; and what you wanted to do to their mom.

Online games got better too, and quickly. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was one of those games. Just about everyone had that 4th Call of Duty game. My roommate and I would find ourselves coming home from class in the evening, logging into our school’s internet. On campus we were able to play with anyone else that had a 360. Hours upon hours would be spent playing Modern Warfare with other people who lived on campus.

Then came games like World at War, Modern Warfare 2 (the best in the series), and Black Ops. Each one bigger, and arguably, better than the last. And like anything, when you release a new version of the same thing year after year, you get diminishing returns. Unless your Apple, people will still buy the same phone every year, whole sucker being born everyday with that one, I guess.

It’s to the point now where most people don’t even bat an eye at the new Fall release of Call of Duty. I haven’t really noticed them the past few years. There are quite a few shooter games out these days, the most popular ones seem to be battle royales. I’ve moved on from my college days, and with that my love of the shooter has dwindled, and Call of Duty is no longer on my gaming radar.

That was until this year, and a new free to play version, Call of Duty Mobile (COD Mobile) has been released. Releasing on October 1st of 2019, 24 days before the actual “big” release of this year’s main game, a remake/reboot/rehash of Modern Warfare; it’s here to tide you over till then. And to be honest, I’m kinda sold on it.

I don’t think shooters work well on mobile phones. I even have a hard time with shooters and controllers. Once you make that switch to PC it’s hard to argue that shooters can be better on anything else. Disagree? I don’t care, your opinion is invalid, because I am not capable of rational thought. Is anyone even reading this? Let me know.

Booting up the game was pretty simple, and much like other games of this nature you are immediately greeted with a login screen, please connect to social media before playing, so we can spam posts into your feed in an attempt to trick your friends into playing as well. Also, agree to our terms of service, it’s legit, and I’m sure they’re not collecting data to sell to other companies…

After all of that you go right into a training mode. I was playing on an Iphone 8, so not the biggest screen, I found the type to be a little small, maybe it’s my age, but I just kept pushing the button the game highlighted, trying to get through the tutorial. I know I’m poo pooing on it but the tutorial really was simple, and effective. One of the things I do like about this game is how they handle the controls. You can be basic, which is what I went with, after all I am basic. This mode does the shooting for you when you have someone in your cross-hairs, you use the left half of the screen to move your character forward/backward, the right half to move the cross-hair, almost like having two analog sticks. It doesn’t matter where you put your finger on the screen, as long as it’s on that half of the screen, it will work. And, it works well. I would play more mobile shooters if this was the method they used.

Like most of these types of games, it is filled to the brim with micro transactions, loot boxes, and battle passes. I COD Mobile has this in spades, no exception here. I don’t know what I can say that would be new to add to this discussion. Not a big fan, I get games need to make a profit to justify their existence. It’s here, it’s pretty standard, in your face, constant barrage as you are just trying to play. No one really likes it, I’ve said enough.

There is a battle royale (BR) mode here as well. I did not play the last Call of Duty, Black Ops 4, but I know there was a BR mode to that as well, and it was well received for the most part. The one on Mobile requires you to reach level 7 in order to partake, makes sense, learn a little about the game before you actually go in. Level 7 took almost no time at all to get to. I found the battle royal not as fun as the normal run and gun death match. The BR took too long, and it really seemed as though I was always playing against the computer.

At least on initial release I found that I was playing against the computer more often than against actual people. It was very noticeable when I was playing against people vs the computer, I usually lose when playing against other people, I’m a terrible old man. My team would clean house when we were playing against the computer, and it took away from my fun, I could care less about being able to beat some bad AI.

You can add you friends, and there are clans that you can enjoy. Playing with your friends isn’t hard to do, and does add to the enjoyment. The voice chat isn’t great, but for a mobile phone game it is better than some other options. Thankfully there were not a pile of nasty teenage boys screaming, the only time I heard people talk was when I was playing with friends.

Like most mobile games, ads are everywhere. Every time you log back into the game you are bombarded, and of course the buy button is three times the size of the close button. I found it bothersome, but not surprising. I could easily see how a child, or manchild could click the buy button by accident. User beware.

Overall for mobile first person shooters this is the best one I’ve tried. But let’s not forget that this is a FPS on a mobile phone. This just isn’t a genre that belongs on a phone. If you must, then have at it, but I would rather spend my time on other games.

You can listen to our episode on Call of Duty Mobile on Anchor, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Elliot is a part of the weekly Budget Arcade podcast. Find him on Twitter at @Elliot_Argues You can also find his other podcasts; Tessa and Elliot Argue, and Wall Pull where you find podcasts.

Pokémon Masters

By Elliot

I have played a lot of Pokémon games, since the beginning. In my older years I have gone away from the series as a whole, I’ve never touched Sun or Moon, mostly because I was busy with other games, after all the formula doesn’t change often so if you’ve played one, you’ve played most. I find the anime is hard to watch as a 32 year old man. My wife Tessa and I have played a good deal of Pokémon Go from time to time, finding enjoyment in the raiding, and special weekends they have occasionally. But I’m not here to talk about game but Pokémon Masters.

When Masters was announced I was initially excited for a new Pokémon game on the phone. I thought if they could harness the fun parts of Go and bring it to a new game with better combat, and a few tweeks then sign me up. I waited patiently for the game to come. After a while Nintendo said summer 2019. So I waited. Then, 26 days before Fall, Pokémon Masters showed up. And my hopes of a better Pokémon phone game than Go were dashed pretty quickly.

Don’t get me wrong there are things that this game does right. Combat being a big one in my eyes. Standard combat in Pokémon games is typically one on one, Pokémon vs Pokémon, mano-a-mano, I don’t know how else to say 1v1.. Masters does things a little differently. Battles here are three on three. More is happening in combat here than in your normal Pokémon game. More to keep track of, more choices to make, and it works. For example, you have to highlight which Pokémon you want to focus on, and when you do that their “bar” levels up faster than the other two. Moves have a cost to them, so the higher your bar the higher the move you can have the Pokémon perform. So there is some logic in which three Pokémon you chose to do battle with, which order you put them in, and which one you focus on during the fight, but being able to switch in between the three once battle starts.

Combat is an issue with Pokémon Go, I found myself comparing the two games constantly the week of review. It’s hard not to, not a lot of Pokémon games on the phone, but they are worlds apart in my eyes.

Story is a big difference. Go has absolutely none, zero, nada. Like throwing a hot dog down a hallway, big empty void. Pokémon Masters has to much, way to much, just story everywhere. More story than I would ever care to have in a game that has almost zero voiceover work. I do not want to read all that story. And I know I’m saying the word story, but that is a strong term here. The story is very basic, the “character stories” are even worse than the main story to the game. It feels like fluff here, filler with no substance, you are better off googling some Pokémon fanfiction if you need some story, might even find more enjoyment in doing so.

Like just about every phone game these days you find a gacha system in place here. This one is no different. One of the things that I am liking in the new games, almost all the Nintendo ones give you this, is the percentages on the chances to get characters. I know almost all the other “real” countries require this now, and it’s a shame we don’t in America, but I like that we still have it here in the game. It helps, I guess, to know how horrible my chance is to get Blue and his Pidgeot, it’s almost zero. Thanks for keeping my hopes low Nintendo, you didn’t disappoint.

A sticking point that really upset me here where the characters and Pokémon that were available to possibly unlock. In the game they call them sync-pairs, because you unlock a trainer and their Pokémon. Like Brock and Onix, Misty and Starmie. There are 64 pairs you can unlock when the game was first available, I’m sure that number will change as the game ages. For example Nintendo kept promoting the game before release by showing you sync-pairs that would be in the game, like Blue and Pidgeot, or Red and Charizard. But, get this, Red isn’t in the game at the time I’m writing this. Perhaps the only pair I felt like I wanted above all else, and you tease me with him not even being in the game. You cut me Nintendo, deep.

The week we played this game on the podcast I was able to look beyond all the things that I disliked to see a Pokemon game I wanted it to be. I felt that if I would just keep playing it would become that game that I really wanted it to become. I was blinded by the shiny of the game. It does look polished, which I feel is almost the worst thing. The combat is really well done, but just about everything else around it is not fun. I’ve played the game a handful of times since our first week, but I do not have any intentions to play much more. Sadly this game is not worth the investment, in either time or money. Not to mention that if you want to sink money into this game, there are plenty of ways to do so, and it is not cheap.

Not a lot of traditional things about Pokémon in Pokémon Masters, and for once, I think that is a shame.

You can listen to our episode on Pokémon Masters on Anchor, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Elliot is a part of the weekly Budget Arcade podcast. Find him on Twitter at @Elliot_Argues You can also find his other podcasts; Tessa and Elliot Argue, and Wall Pull where you find podcasts.

Mario Kart Tour

By Elliot

There are few game series that hold the magic in my eye better than Mario Kart. My first system was the SNES, and one of the first games I specifically chose to buy was the original Mario Kart. I recently was able to replay that game thanks to the SNES games that were put on the Switch. Jeff warned me not to try and relive my youth when it came to Mario Kart, and of course, I did not listen. Honestly I’m glad I didn’t shy away from replaying the game, I fell in love with it all over again.

I’ve played every version of Mario Kart, 8 probably being my favorite. I refused to purchase the game again when it came out on the Switch, I am somewhat of a Nintendo Fanboy and actually loved my Wii U, so I’m going to need you to go ahead and come out with Mario Kart 9 there Nintendo. In the meantime they have given me Mario Kart Tour for the phone.

First off, let’s talk polish. Overall I’ve been impressed by all the games Nintendo has put out for the phone in terms of look. They all look legit, and they all look like Nintendo games. They don’t always hold that initial shine, but it is certainly there.

Booting up for the first time, and I was in shock. It looked like Mario Kart, but on the phone. That feeling did not last though.

Get this, there is no accelerator, there is no brake to this game. None. A racing game without either of those two functions, are you kidding me.

Handling is awful. At first. You slide your finger one way or the other to drift, or steer. Not all at once though. The only way you can drift and steer at the same time is if you enable tilt controls. Tilt controls! I’d rather hear Jeff talk about Auto Chess for an hour. Back in the days of Mario Kart 8 you couldn’t talk to people directly in the online chat, you had to use small catch phrases, that Nintendo provided. My favorite catch phrase was “I’m using tilt controls!” so stupid.
I say at first, because once you’ve played a handful of games you get use to it. The auto accelerator isn’t too awful, the drifting isn’t too hard to learn. Annoying, but not impossible, and after a while I didn’t give it much thought. Complaint number one, the controls.

I had zero problems winning my first game. I thought, man, I haven’t lost my touch with Mario Kart, and then I learned that I’m playing against the computer. Online play is “coming soon” whatever that truly means. But it is deceiving, because the people you are racing against have unique names, even names in Japanese, so they want you to think you’re playing real people. Complaint two, it’s not a full release of a game.

There are 20 racers to unlock, 19 karts, and 11 gliders to be won in a gacha style of unlocking, again, the normal for phone games. As you play the game you level up each racer, kart, and glider. But there is a limit on how much you can level in a day’s time. Frustrating beyond belief, and a huge turn off. Just as you are getting in a groove you can still play the game, but no longer level up for that day. Complaint three.

You can listen to the podcast to hear about gameplay, replayability, and what the pay wall is all about. I will say this about what paying gets you, essentially their gold pass. The price of the play pass, which is $4.99 a month is a joke it unlocks a few addons, and the 200cc races, which is a let down to someone who is playing these games without putting money into them. You will not get $4.99 a month worth of enjoyment here, plain and simple. If you have that kind of money, go buy Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, you will enjoy it, and find it has far more replayability for that price. Price point for the gems seems to align with most phone games, not great, kinda awful, but it’s there, and it is the new normal. The price point for the pass is robbery. Complaint four.

But having said those awful things I really do like this game. I had a lot of fun, and I didn’t spend a dime all week, or felt the need to. I feel like this is a Mario Kart game, for the most part. Certainly worth your time, maybe even worth a few dollars, maybe to try out the gold pass for a month at least, just to see.

You can Listen on Anchor to this episode.

Elliot is a part of the weekly Budget Arcade podcast. Find him on Twitter at @Elliot_Argues You can also find his other podcasts; Tessa and Elliot Argue, and Wall Pull where you find podcasts.

Super Kirby Clash

By Elliot Super Kirby Clash was released on Nintendo Switch on September 4, 2019. Except that’s a lie. Super Kirby Clash is a lie. It’s really masquerading as a former game, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe. That game was released on April 12, 2017 on the Nintendo 3DS as a free-to-play game. And you would think that would be the end of the discussion. But it’s not. That too is a lie. It is true that Super Kirby Clash is masking itself as Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, but Team Kirby Clash Deluxe pretending to be Kirby: Planet Robobot, released on June 10, 2016 in America. And here inlies the problem with our current game of the week, Super Kirby Clash. It’s a port, of a port, of a mini game.
    Sure they’ve added new bosses and maps, more maps to play on (if you can find enjoyment from a different background rom the last boss fight, the only thing a “new” map provides) There’s 54 unique boss fights to be had in game, you can level each of your four “heroes” 57 times, gaining new stats along the way. Super Kirby Clash also has countless upgrade options for items, weapons and armor, as well as powerups you can use on fights. But once you get away from knowing all that you are still just playing a bloated mini game. And it feels like a bloated mini game from the start.

You take the role of Kirby, in one of 4 colors, classic pink, yellow, blue, and green, along with a unique role based on your color, sword hero, hammer lord, doctor healmore, and beam mage. If, like me, you can not find three other human lifeforms to take on the other roles, you can use the in game AI to help battle. I didn’t find the AI to be the worst, but they were also useless at times, especially during big boss fights, where time is not on your side to defeat the boss on the clock.

This game is labeled as “free to start”. I know that’s just Nintendo’s way of saying free to play, but I do feel that free to start does fit this better than free to play. The micro transactions in the game are everywhere to be seen, but they are handled fairly well. In Super Kirby Clash you are only dealing with one in game currency, gem apples, and it is used to buy everything. From new gear, opening up levels to play, to refilling your vigor- a little of which is used in before every fight, refilling 1 vigor every 7 minutes. Earning gem apples just by playing the game is easy to do, and you start to gain a pile of them without even realizing it. They can also leave just as quickly, but fear not, buying them is simple, if not a little on the expensive side. I was able to play all week without feeling like I was running low on gem apples, but I doubt I would have the same opinion if I was to continue playing after our one week with the game.

Which leads me to my final thoughts. Is there a lot of content in the game? Yes. Is it worth pursuing for more than a week? No. You can’t beat free, and if you’re looking for something to play with friends in a couch co-op setting this isn’t the worst game, but it is very repetitive, the controls are not great, but saying all of that, there is fun to be had. It did not get my seal of approval, and it did not get Jeff or Scott’s either. Super Kirby Clash is not a Budget Arcade approved game.
 You can Listen on Anchor to this episode.
Elliot is a part of the weekly Budget Arcade podcast. Find him on Twitter at @Elliot_Argues You can also find his other podcasts; Tessa and Elliot Argue, and Wall Pull where you find podcasts.