Dinosaurs! – Beasts of Bermuda

Beasts of Bermuda is a dinosaur game coming late 2018 (December) or early 2019. While an exact date isn’t set in stone, they hope to release as soon as they can. A version of the game that is firstly worth buying, but also fun and compelling.

It’s important to mention that the developers – Predatoria (Matthew) and Vipe (Leo) – are most importantly focusing on gameplay before all else. It’s important to them that the game they are constructing is fun. Of course, things like graphics are important to them as well, but making sure the game is playable is pretty much front and center.

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The developers are very open and clear, they personally seem to be very, very interested in public opinion and issues, and are not only quick to address them but will literally fix bugs seconds after they’re reported. But not only that, they’ll make combat adjustments just as quickly if one playable creature seems to have a higher, unfair capability over others. For example, if a Parasaur can run down any dinosaur, and not only out-run them but kill them in two hits. Frankly, that’s nerf-worthy! And nerfing it received.

Balance is quite an important part of the game due to its high combat focus, making sure that one creature isn’t picked for its specific ability to melt everything else is…ideal.

Mechanics!

Beasts of Bermuda boasts many mechanics that increase not only it’s level of gameplay, but just how replayable it is. While you could argue I’m biased due to the fact I’m one of their skin makers and moderators, I enjoy everything that has come out of the game thus far.

Some “passive” mechanics include; Stress/Comfort, Weather, Tides, Growth. These are mechanics that pretty much run in the background without your (necessarily) input. You’ll gain and lose comfort depending on where and -how- you are. Growth, Weather and Tides will run their course regardless of what you’re doing.

Weather is easily one of the coolest parts of Beasts of Bermuda.. Especially Tornadoes. Now, I have a love-hate relationship with tornadoes. They are amazing, beautiful. Insane and frankly I’m certain that they’re not quite…just normal weather. How come they chase people in real life? I mean, five guys died when a tornado literally made a 180 turn despite the wind direction and beelined for them.
Speaking of Beelining tornadoes… Tornadoes will totally chase you in Beasts of Bermuda. So you better hide from them!

Here’s a video by everynightxRIOT showing off some of the extreme weather!

Also, they absolutely do leave behind destruction wherever they go.

There was a forest here once.

Some more invested mechanics are Carrying, Burrowing and Beaching. Carrying is a mechanic that allows you to move around objects in the world, like plants, crystals, carcasses. You can pick up and move these items around, to wherever you would like.

Burrowing is a mechanic that is coming along with the new creature “Oryctodromeus”. The ‘Orycto’ – or ‘Ory’ – is currently the only creature that will be able to dig burrows in the game, giving it somewhere to live and be comfortable, and more importantly hide from carnivores. But that may not necessarily always be the case.. You may find little carnivores deciding to pop in for a visit too.

And there’s also beaching! Though this really only affects you if you’re an aquatic creature. Basically, don’t go trying to climb up the sand. You’re gonna get stuck and it’s not pretty. You’re a sitting duck of sorts if you’re there because believe me, you can’t move fast in any direction. I’d say you’d be easy pickings for me, but I play a parasaurolophus. We decidedly don’t eat meat.

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Right now, Beasts of Bermuda has mechanics down they seem pretty happy with! They’re mostly focusing on appearance now in terms of actual graphics and dinosaur models. They’re slowly replacing the older models that they didn’t like, and the game looks so much better for it!

Here’s the new Pachycephalosaurus model by Manuelsaurus!

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Beasts of Bermuda is definitely something worth keeping up with. The community is amazing, the developers are amazing, the team is amazing. What they want to do is amazing. So, absolutely and definitely give it a shot, even if you’re not into dinosaurs!

And if you have discord, here’s an invite to their community!

https://discord.gg/HwDZfwM

And if you don’t have a discord, feel free to keep up using the steam page or website.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/719890/Beasts_of_Bermuda/

https://beastsofbermuda.com/

Game on!

Red Dead Redemption 2 – Thus Far

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No spoilers, yay!

Red Dead Redemption 2 released while I was on holiday. And boy, was I gutted about that. I have loved the franchise since I started playing the first game over 8 years ago now. So around the release of the first.

Everything about it, I adored.

Being able to experience the hard lives of cowboys in the 1900s while actually in the safety of your own home was certainly something. John Marsten is easily one of my favourite characters. He was humble, rugged and frighteningly capable with a gun.

Go figure, one of my favourite parts of the game was running around on various horses. They did it well.

8 years later, Red Dead Redemption 2 was released. One week later, I could start playing. And oh boy did I start playing.

At first, I was taken aback by the graphics. They were great. The characters could easily be real if taken at the right time. Being able to see the pores of your characters is not only strange but actually awesome at the same time? I wish I could see that well without my glasses.

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The horses. OH, the horses!

I want them all. I need them all. I only have 4 stable slots… Dang it. Rockstar, why do you make so many gorgeous horses, but only allow us to keep four at a time? I have enough money to build my own stable! But alas, I can only have four at a time, and I end up swapping out way too much. Shires, Drafts, Morgans, Mustangs, Tennessee Walkers, Ardennes, Andalusians, Arabians, and more oh my. And they have different models and builds! They really went out of their way on this and as a horse-lover… I am satisfied.

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Combat is fun but I do sometimes feel a little useless when in large gang shootouts with my own. Boy, are they good shots, because a lot of the time, I poke my head out to get a shot and find that the enemies are all dead. Well, makes my life easier. Means I can go back to riding around various horses.

Aside from gang shootouts being.. very quick. A lot of other combat is actually really fun. Deadeye is always awesome in its own way since I don’t have to fumble around trying to make sure that I’m aiming in the right place so that I end my enemies quicker, instead of having to shoot them 5 times before they actually stay down. I’ve died way too many times because of my aim. I guess it’s a good thing Arthur seems to know what he’s doing when I clearly don’t.

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I’m only at around chapter 5 or 6, so I’m not really anywhere near the end of the game. Somewhere about 31% completed. So, not finished! And I’m glad. I feel like I’ve done so much, and have so much more to do.. and I love that. Because I frankly don’t want to finish the game because of how much I’m actually enjoying the game. And those who watch me play in the background seem to enjoy it from their perspective as well.

It has fantastic graphics, insane attention to detail, a great and fun story and some really eye-opening information that ties up some loose ends left in the first Red Dead Redemption.

The game is worth playing, whether on PS4 or Xbox. If the current price is too expensive, then definitely grab it second hand, or when the game becomes less steep in price in time.

It’s worth the wait.

Game on.

<All images used are labelled for reuse and are copyright to their respective owners, I did not take these images.>

And so it begins…

Blogging is something I’ve wanted to try out for a very long time, mostly due to my love of writing. So maybe it would be a good idea to begin trying to get some background in it. But not only that – I have so many thoughts and feelings that I’d love to share with people, that this could be just the way to do it. I love creating conversations with people. The more in-depth, the better.

I hope to use this blog to not only review games that I play (Hence, Confessions of a Gaming Freak!) but give a bit more insight into the kind of life I have, the things that I personally struggle with. I have this belief that gamers are generally gamers for similar reasons, so maybe it would be nice for people to have somewhere to go to that they feel similar. Something familiar to them.

I hope to update this blog every other day. Maybe more or maybe less, depending on my life scheduling.

So, hopefully, see you there!

Game on.