Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

Developer: Torn Banner Studios

Publisher: Torn Banner Studios, Activision

Platforms: Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 3,

PlayStation 4 (The version I played)

Xbox 360, Xbox One

There is a feeling of chaos that permeates an online match ofChivalry: Medieval Warfare. Players recklessly swing their weapons while potentially decapitating a teammate's head in the process. The ability to vote players out of a match is abused constantly and the game's frame rate is far from perfect. However, these aspects inexplicably make Chivalry one of the funniest experiences I've had in an online multiplayer game.

Players choose between the blue-and-gold Agatha Knights and the red-and-black Mason Order and choose from one of four classes before spawning into battle. The Man-at-Arms is light, agile, and can use his speed to dodge attacks. The Vanguard's ridiculously long weapons give him a significant reach advantage. Despite his fragility, the Archer focuses on ranged weapons to deal damage from a distance. The last class is the powerful and heavily armored, but slow-moving Knight. Chivalry's melee combat consists of various moves that can be performed from a first-person or third-person perspective. You can block and parry, shove back your enemies, and perform three different types of attacks that can be used in feints and combos: stab, overhead, and slash. Due to the game's focus on melee combat, fighting is done at close quarters. The max amount of players allowed in a match is 24, 12 on both teams. With that many players wildly swinging at each other, the combat becomes fast-paced and hectic. One-on-one duels are interrupted by nearby players eager to join the fray. Archers taken by surprise equip their daggers out of desperation and stab relentlessly. Dismemberment, battle cries, and death rattles accentuate Chivalry's gory combat.

The game has a friendly fire mechanic that allows you to damage and kill your own teammates. Doing so rightfully penalizes you with more seconds added to your respawn timer. However, due to the close quarters combat, team killing is prevalent and usually accidental. As a Man-at-Arms I once chucked an oil pot at a group of enemies and accidentally burned a few of my teammates. Sometimes I killed a teammate or two as I swung my sword at an enemy. I once saw someone launch a boulder from a catapult that wiped out several of his teammates without killing anyone on the opposing team. My worst team kill happened during a match of team objective, a game type in which one team attacks and the other defends. As the Agatha Knights, my team and I had to defend and escort a fellow teammate playing as a king. As we defended him from a group of Mason Order players, I got too close and accidentally killed him. Although I caused my team to lose the match, I couldn't help but laugh at my mistake. Of course, team killing isn't funny when it's done purposely. In one frustrating experience, I was constantly killed by a teammate who was very good at the game. I know this because he was able to parry all of my attacks when I tried to retaliate. Eventually, I was able to kick him out of the match using the game's vote kick mechanic. When a vote is initiated, a box appears on the left side of the screen that contains the name of the targeted player along with the percentile of team damage they accumulated. If enough players vote yes, the targeted player is removed from the match. Since any player can be targeted regardless of the amount of team damage they inflicted, the vote kick mechanic is often used to harass other players. In one match, I noticed that players on both teams were kicked out one after another as if the match were being fought with the vote kick mechanic instead of the melee combat. It's not rare to see a player accumulate 100% team damage or be kicked out simply because they had the highest score on their team.

An inconsistent frame rate really highlights the chaos ofChivalry. The PlayStation 4 port supposedly runs at 60FPS (frames per second), but I noticed that the frame rate suffers when players are in close proximity to each other. For instance, several Agathians and I were defending one of two small buildings on the game's Coldfront map. A group of Mason Order players barged in and the fight began to stutter. Everyone ran wild and swung for the fences without showing any concern for their nearby teammates. I was bloodied and exhausted. A dark reddish hue on the edges of my screen and the sound of a heartbeat indicated that I was severely low on health. My depleted stamina meter caused the frequency of my attacks to cease. I frantically attempted to keep track of what was happening, but everyone was too frenetic and relentless. Against the backdrop of an incomprehensible fight, I laughed at the madness that was happening on-screen.

The chaos that occurs in Chivalry is why I have spent dozens of hours playing the game. Moreover, my experience online was filled with moments of comedy. Seeing myself or another player get wiped out by the impact of an unforeseen boulder feels like something you would see in a cartoon. Likewise, the character model of a defeated player will sometimes glitch, causing it to shake on the ground and act as a background gag amidst the fighting. I never get tired of the battle cries that are constantly shouted or the death rattles that are humorously a bit too long. I was never bothered by team killing and vote kicking. In fact, they happen so often that it became absurdly funny. Chivalry's slapstick swordplay and player-driven chaos gave me so many laughs that I didn't mind waiting nearly twenty seconds to respawn after I accidentally injured my teammates.

The Jaws franchise was never able to get a game that wasn't panned by the majority of players and critics. The most infamous example was Jaws Unleashed which was released in 2006 and developed by Appaloosa Interactive for the PC, Xbox, and Playstation 2. In it, You take control as the shark itself and go on a rampage against not only the citizens of Amity Island, but other sea creatures as well. The game was criticized for its controls, camera, and overall bugginess. On the other hand, it was also extremely over-the-top, violent, and dumb in ways that actually made the game entertaining and memorable. Just one of the game's hilarious moments involved a final battle with a killer whale at a park similar to SeaWorld.

Another example of the franchise's history of less than stellar games was Jaws, released for the NES in 1987. A few of the game's features made it reminiscent of a Japanese Role-Playing-Game. It had an overworld and random encounters that transitioned you from the overworld to a separate screen where you fought crabs, stingrays, and occasionally the titular shark itself. The game was panned for being repetitive and not having much variety to its gameplay. You continuously gathered shells - the game's currency - in order to purchase upgrades so you could take down Jaws.

Jaws, released for the iOS by Fuse Powered Inc. in 2011, is an adaption of the first ever summer blockbuster with the same name. The game's campaign mode consists of three types of missions - Offshore Missions, Open-Water Missions, and Harbor missions. The primary goal in each of them is to rescue swimmers by flicking them to shore or flicking them to rescue boats that vary in handling and occupancy. You then draw a path on the screen for the boats to follow. Each rescued swimmer adds to your score, and a three-star system rates how many swimmers you were able to save from the deadly bite of Jaws. There are different types of swimmers that will panic, causing the Jaws meter at the bottom of the screen to increase. When the meter is filled, the iconic "da-dum" musical cue will play and Jaws will appear and pursue one of the swimmers.

The game isn't difficult and I was able to complete the campaign mode, which consists of ten missions, without losing once. There is a bit of challenge to the game which is the result of having to balance various tasks at the same time. The first mission is easy. It's an Offshore Mission that simply has you flicking swimmers to the shore away from Jaws. On the other hand, Mission 4, one of the Open-Water Missions, requires you to do more actions. You have to control multiple rescue boats at once. Not only do you have to flick the swimmers to the boats, you also have to make sure the boats don't collide with each other, causing the swimmers you rescued to spill out of the crashed boats and once again be vulnerable to Jaws. And while you're doing those things, you're also using a stationary boat called the gun boat - which can also be destroyed if one of your other boats collide with it - to keep Jaws away from the swimmers momentarily. I had no issues with the game's touch-based controls, I was able to perform all of the required in-game actions just fine.

Mission 10 is the last mission in the game and is a one-on-one showdown between you and the shark. You and Jaws are given health bars. Using the gun boat, you have to fire at Jaws enough times to trigger a scene in which he jumps onto your boat to try to chomp you. To deter him from depleting a chunk of your health bar, you have to quickly tap on a series of prompts in a small amount of time perfectly. Repeat this several times, and Jaws will explode into bloody chunks just like in the original film. Conceptually this boss battle is similar to the one in the 1989 NES game. Since Jaws is the primary antagonist in every Jaws film, it's appropriate to use him as the final boss in a video game. What I like about this game and the NES game is that Jaws is used as an omnipotent and invincible enemy that attempts to interrupt your progress until you finally get the chance to take it down in the final stage. Unfortunately, the final boss fight in this game never goes beyond just mildly entertaining. It's not difficult at all and the fight ends in just several minutes.

Jaws is a competently designed game that I completed in less than an hour. There is a survival mode in which you rescue swimmers until you lose, but the game lacks the longevity and replayability of many other iOS games, but for less than three bucks I felt like I had my money's worth. It's certainly not as memorable, or entertaining in an ironic way as Jaws Unleashed, but it's the only game based on the franchise that I would consider good, which is an achievement that took multiple generations in video game history to happen.

Nearly a decade ago, my brother and I would take turns with a Playstation 2, indulging ourselves in online gaming. He would play Metal Gear Solid Online, an online multiplayer feature included in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. When I finally got my hands on the controller, I'd play a game that coincidentally was also a threequel, Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal (UYA). The first two Ratchet and Clank games were strictly single-player experiences. UYA was the first in the series to add online multiplayer. The game modes were standard fare: deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, and siege mode in which two teams attempt to capture each other's base.

When I think about the overall time I spent playing UYA, it's not the gameplay or even the single-player mode that I remember with fondness, it's this one track from the game's soundtrack.

It sounds meditative and eerie. Back then, it encapsulated my experience with the game's online multiplayer perfectly. I had played the game several years after it was released and its online servers were now populated by a small group of dedicated and skilled players. It's common for online multiplayer games to be less active as time goes on, and UYA was no different. As a result of the small amount of players and the rarity of available matches to join, I spent more time in the game's lobby listening to that track than actually playing. The track, the small amount of players, and the time I spent just sitting around in the multiplayer lobby created this atmosphere for me that felt calm, reflective, and even desolate. It felt like I was exploring the past of a digital space that had been largely abandoned. Here I was in these digital battlegrounds, years after the game had been released, having battles of my own. I can't completely recall the matches I had but I do remember the fast-paced nature of the gameplay. I can also remember one-on-one fights that consisted of constantly jumping sideways, and the realization that a blaster-wielding snowman managed to infiltrate my team's base.

UYA's online multiplayer returned when the game, along with the two previous Ratchet and Clank games, were included in the Ratchet and Clank: Collection for the PS3. I revisited the online multiplayer and discovered that it was almost as empty as it was years ago. I enjoyed the very few matches I had though, and I'm glad I got the chance to experience that same sense of calmness and desolateness once again.

Rocket League

Developer: Psyonix

Publisher: Psyonix

Release Date: 2015

Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PS4

In soccer, an Own Goal occurs when a player accidentally scores into his/her goal, thereby giving the point to the opposing team. Own Goals in Rocket League - a video game that adopts the sport of soccer and combines it with RC cars - are more similar to how Own Goals work in ice hockey than in soccer. If a player on the opposing team hits the ball and I accidentally score it into my own goal, the opposing player gets credit for it and their username is displayed in the center of the screen after the goal is scored. The reason why it works this way was explained by a member of Psyonix on the official Subreddit for the game:

"That was by design. They way we looked at it was there are two situations where own goals can occur...

A) A defender simply makes a mistake and knocks it into their own goal without the other team helping at all.

B) An offensive player shoots the ball and a defender tries to save it, touches it, but ultimately it still goes in.

IDEALLY in situation A it would an own goal and in situation B it would be a goal for the shooter.

In SARPBC we tried to differentiate the two using some logic. If we detected there was a shot that had a reasonable chance of scoring and the ball was hit by a defender just before scoring, we counted it as a goal. But if a shot had not been detected recently then it counted as an own goal.

The problem with this is that our shot detection code is a best-guess. It would fail in a lot of situations such as when a person hit the ball all the way across the field and bouncing of a wall or two before hitting the goal. Even a human can't be sure if it was an amazing skill shot or lucky hit in that case. But if a defender touched a shot like that it counted as an own goal and the scoring player would not get the goal credit.

We decided this time around that false positives are always better than false negatives so we always give credit to the offensive player that touched the ball last to make sure that any scoring shot will always be counted (even though you get some you might not really deserve)."

Considered to be one of the most embarrassing occurrences in sports, Own Goals can ruin reputations and can cost a team the victory. An example of this occurred in a semifinal match between England and Japan during FIFA's Women's World Cup earlier this year. Laura Bassett, a player on the England team, attempted to deflect the ball away during injury time but accidentally scored into her own goal, giving the victory to Japan. Obviously, scoring an Own Goal in Rocket League isn't nearly as embarrassing and consequential as it is in soccer. There's just a lot more at stake and more investment in a game of soccer where athletes are competing at their very best. However, the Own Goal is essentially a mistake, and the feeling of embarrassment after scoring one is still present in Rocket League's online multiplayer. I have definitely scored my fair share of Own Goals. In fact, it happened to me recently. I hit the ball and suddenly felt a moment of panic when I realized it was headed towards my goal. I hoped that one of my teammates or even my opponents would deflect it and correct my mistake. Unfortunately, the ball went straight in, giving the point to the opposing team. Next, an instant replay began to play that displayed my mistake for everyone to see and for me to relive. My opponents and even my teammates sent some of the game's default messages - Nice Shot! Thanks! Great Pass! - in a way that seemed sarcastic. I could press a button to vote to skip the replay but I felt like doing that would be an attempt to hide my mistake. Instead I let the replay go on as a way of acceptance.

If Psyonix wanted to make Own Goals more embarrassing and consequential, they could have added a sound effect like the crowd booing, displayed my username in the center of the screen, and deducted experience points (points players receive to reach higher ranks ) from me. But the act of scoring into your own goal is already embarrassing enough.

Star Wars: Battlefront

Developer: Dice

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Release Date: November 17, 2015

Platforms: Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC

I've been playing Star Wars: Battlefront, a predominantly online multiplayer shooter that lets players participate in battles from the original Star Wars trilogy. I'm going to discuss one of my favorite features in the game, the heroes. They are iconic characters from the Star Wars films that are stronger than the soldiers you normally play as. They consist of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia for the rebel alliance, and Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, and Boba Fett for the galactic empire. To play as one of them you have to collect a specific power-up that is randomly placed somewhere on the battlefield. When you activate it, your character will take a knee and the hero will arrive through a brief cutscene.

Playing as a hero for the first time was exciting. I was Luke Skywalker in a match of Walker Assault, an online mode where the rebels try to destroy three incoming AT-ATs. My heart was racing as I was dashing across Hoth and recklessly swinging my lightsaber at any stormtooper nearby. I could defeat them with a few swings of my lightsaber as opposed to aiming and firing a blaster as a soldier. I could also deflect their shots as I slowly approached them. If they weren't within my lightsaber's range, I had the force push ability that could send multiple enemies flying. Luke is fast and acrobatic, so I was able to outrun and outleap everyone else on the battlefield. Being Luke Skywalker amongst all of the generic soldiers on my team felt empowering, as if I had become the de facto leader of them. It was a frenetic moment as well because a multiplayer match in Battlefront is often a chaotic mixture of explosions and blaster shots being fired from any direction.

I don't think the characters are so powerful that they break the balance of the game. As soon as you arrive on the battlefield as a hero you immediately become the target for everyone on the opposite team. A single rebel can't take down Darth Vader in a one-on-one fight (unless that player is also a hero), but multiple rebels will definitely defeat him by attrition. So playing as a hero can be just as fleeting as it is empowering.

The random placement of the power-up was a smart decision by the developers. If it had spawned at one or two specific locations, players on both teams would be rushing to them and the power-up would be constantly abused. You might even have a situation where a player is just standing in one spot waiting for the power-up to respawn. The random placement also lets anyone regardless of their skill level have the chance to play as a hero.

The enticement of the power-up is proof of how advantageous it is. The heroes do more damage, take more hits, and have three unique abilities. Not only does the power-up allow players to improve their score in a match, it also lets fans of Star Wars take on the roles of iconic characters such as Boba Fett and Han Solo. Although I've played many hours of Battlefront, collecting the power-up and becoming Luke Skywalker is still an exciting and empowering experience.