[MUSIC]
So first of all gentlemen, let's have a little chat about paragon.
Which is a game that's, exactly, that little shrug you made, that's what I would say every time someone said Paragon to me.
It sort of existed in that coin [INAUDIBLE] Chris Waters, that melange of [INAUDIBLE] Overwatch, battle born, battle cry.
It was all kind of in there together.
But I guess the closed alpha, it's still closed at the moment.
So I think they're opening it up later in spring.
We got access to it a couple of days ago.
I've been playing a lot of it.
I'm actually kind of super into it, for somebody who's never really been into moments but who loves games like Unreal Tournament.
Yeah.
So I wanna kinda ask you guys about this as well cuz we've all kind of played it.
I know you played a bit of it today.
Mike, how much have you played?
I've played a few hours.
Probably around eight total.
I did the preview event for it a couple weeks ago.
And then I played a little bit once we had access.
And yeah, I like it.
It's definitely, it starts from like epics actions roots,
Yeah.
Like the third person action.
Which they're known for and Yes, it translates very well even more than like, Battle Born has that one encouraging mode which we also had access to now we don't get any matches.
Yes.
but, this is very much like a moba, but in third person and very action focused.
It is one map, there are three lanes, there are towers that you knock down, there is a core you need to explode and it's [INAUDIBLE] as well.
I know some elements have shop in it as well.
In the car parks.
It's got jungle, which in this case is a forest, which you were saying has most of its textures have yet to grow.
Yeah, it's says alpha.
It's in alpha.
So don't worry about the mobs.
They're gonna look better, probably.
They're just kind of shells of what you would fight in a jungle, but Yeah it's as all intents and purposes is a traditional MOBA, except for third person, I guess.
So except for third person, I guess, also the thing that is different between this and most MOBA games is that most MOBA games are isometrically, you're
Most of your targets are getting locked on, so you're like attacking people and basically triggering attacks like you would.
The root of those games, games like war craft, or games like Diablo or whatever.
Where as in this game you're basically shooting like you would in any other third person shooter.
So it feels like.
It already kind of feels like when you were playing third person parts of Unreal Tournament.
The way it controls, like maybe you're in vehicles and stuff.
It feels super familiar that way, maybe in the modern ones.
But yeah, apart from that it's essentially mobile.
You're shooting creep and you're upgrading your person.
Yeah, so it's this weird kind of, yeah it feels super familiar the minute you start playing it even though you probably never played something exactly like this before.
Yeah, I mean a lot of the skills kind of translate.
It's kinda hard to expand on the world of [UNKNOWN] skills, right?
So a lot of things are very familiar.
I think I played Gideon.
His ultimate is pretty much, if anyone's played DOTA 2 it's pretty much like You know, and then it was a black hole, right?
It just sucks everything in and it's supposed to be something there for, what I like to say the wombo combo so that your team mates can come in and do other abilities and you chain off of that.
So It's cool.
I mean the action's fine.
I don't know if it was just getting, for me, that felt a little slow.
Mm.
I know that his shift mechanic let him kinda like speed up a little bit.
Yeah.
But you don't use that in combat.
That's kinda like your mechanics are kinda get back and forth faster a little bit faster outside of teleporting to your base.
Yeah, it's weird, see you hold down shift, well there's nothing new about holding the shift to run, but you hold down shift to engage problem mode.
Mm hm.
And I guess the, sort of.
The negative part of that is that if you get Kosh, if you get somebody like catches you on the way in and hits you while you're in travel mode, you get stuck for a couple of seconds, right?
And they can just pound on you for a while.
Yeah cuz when you come out of it manually it's pretty fast.
If you actually, I just started figuring out if I just activate one of my, I had a leap power.
I like Mayhem, he's Which traditionally I don't really like tank characters, but for whatever reason this kind of game I do.
He has a leaping attack, and I would just press that and it would immediately get me out of the travel mode and give me an extra 30 feet so it's kind of a good combo.
But, yeah, if someone else interrupts it, then you're kind of like screwed for two seconds or so.
And that's what's cool about this in terms of, cuz [UNKNOWN] are games of inches, right?
It's understanding the range of your opponents, understanding the range of your attacks, and how best you can do it.
And what I've really enjoyed about this is that the battles I've been having against Malay people or maybe I'm a dude with two pistols, right?
He's shooting people, he's one of the good starter characters, and he has this sort of, one of his power-ups you can upgrade is a leap Which can give you ten feet on the other person.
And I've been playing these people who are using Malay swings at me and just barely missing me, and I'm jumping out of the way.
It's skimming me.
And then every once in a while, I'll see [UNKNOWN] go down on this little Attack, turning around, using it the other way and just like, pounding on.
Yes.
And, it's fun.
It feels like, that's what I see when I see people play really good levels [INAUDIBLE] but this is actually a game that I would play.
I like first person shooters and third person shooters.
Okay, so, that was kind of where I was heading next, I guess
Because mobus are kind of thing that, they were on the rise and then they kind of plateaued a little bit because there's just three heavy hitters that you can't really get by.
And then now Smite probably the first one to be kind of successful in like a third person mode.
So it's interesting to hear that you're actually more willing to play a game like Paragon Knowing that [UNKNOWN], because maybe it just has unreal roots, or something like that.
Yeah, like cuz I went back and like, I never really played much Smyth, and I went back, over the past couple days to like, watch a bunch of Smyth again, just to like, first of all that game, I think it only came out like two years ago.
I think it was like, April 2014.
Well maybe that was like the final version.
But it just, it looks, it looks super aged.
[LAUGH]
Yeah, well,
And it made it like
This game first of all looks good, but also the feedback you get on when you're hitting people is like, you know you that in games like this.
Yeah.
You need to be able to be like, okay.
Like in the Division, you feel the numbers coming off them.
You know when your attacks land, and you know when you get that like Really good feedback from the game and this game has that really well, which I enjoy better.
So, I was encouraged to go around and try different, I don't know what they call them, they call them heroes and whatnot, and because of that feedback, be it visual or audio or whatever it is.
You also, for instance looking at the game play here of the various other attacks [UNKNOWN] you kind of pick up on what exactly all of that stuff is doing really quickly.
Where as watching all of this [UNKNOWN] footage I get if you put the timing you figure it out, but it wasn't that imperious thing.
When you're talking about a game with all of these heros, and all of these different ways of playing That stuff can get super intimidating, like with Overwatch.
Like that's another game that sells it really well.
This game doesn't have that many heroe's though.
It looks like twelve or fifteen or something?
I wouldn't be shocked if there's gonna be more though, right?
Like this is alpha.
You can always build, you can always have more right?
That's how you get people to keep buying characters.
During the preview event I had asked and epic said they plan on doing a lot of post release stuff which is
Suits the nature of these games well and that's the thing.
Like all these games like you had said that Milan just kind of actually I was, I'm about as lukewarm as you can be when it comes to like Battleborn, Overwatch I was having fun with and everything and then Tarragona, and I wouldn't say I'm like extremely excited about any of them but I am coming around to the idea and like coming around to the fact that these games all just kind of add that That reflexive quick reaction thing to the overall strategy, which I like strategy and I like shooters.
Those are both two of my main backgrounds.
Pen is just starting to realize the potential of combining those, especially, when we can talk more about Battleborn, I'm looking forward to that.
I can't speak to the overall quality of Battleborn, it does do some stuff, like interesting things.
And then Overwatch is doing its own thing.
Paragon is doing its own thing, and I'm actually kind of Looking forward to seeing all the different permutations that can come out of combining these genres.
I'm coming around to it really fast.
I'm excited.
But it's like the difference between [UNKNOWN] and [UNKNOWN], right?
If you're not in that area and playing those games, who cares?
Like you wouldn't really give a **** and I feel like these games maybe it's just personal but I feel like me and a lot of other people they were all, we just didn't know that much about them, we hadn't played them and it's just like they're all are kind of doing the same thing.
Whereas now it's yeah, they're completely different beasts.
Like Over watch, I love for loads of different reasons.
It feels like camera shy to me.
Obviously this is nothing like that game, even though I was pulling it in together and the same kind of thing.
I think my expectations means a lot.
My expectation of Paragon wasn't too high.
It's like you get to play a third person [INAUDIBLE] thing coming out this year.
But I would encourage people to play it.
I was like played a game that lasted 40 minutes and went straight in and played another one.
That doesn't happen with me in mobiles.
Yeah, I would definitely recommend it.
Playstation 4 PC.
Is what the current op is and doing some sort of paid alpha apparently?
yeah.
You can so I was trying it last night.
Don't quote me on the date because I think that's right.
I haven't slept very much but I think it's 318 if you buy it you get into the founders pack and I think the cheapest one is $20.
So, I think you will have access in a couple of days if you just haven't spent the 20 or what not.
But what's that money go on?
What is it?
Because the [INAUDIBLE] to play is in the summer time.
I'm sure I didnt, again, I didn't
Didn't look at-
Card pack
Details, yeah, but I'm sure it's like a card pack thing
Uh-huh
Or maybe like a skin pack, cuz there are-
[INAUDIBLE]
You can see that there's a drop down for like, do you wanna pick normal Gideon, or your normal hero, or a variation of your hero.
So I wouldn't be shocked if it's skin related or maybe a card pack.
Impacting, something that hopefully doesn't alter the game play, like not a pay to win thing but a cosmetic thing.
Yeah.
I couldn't.
Hopefully they know that that is not what you do with your games.
Yeah, the balance would just be trash if they did that, right?
Yeah.
Totally.
Do you have any previews up on the site about Parker?
Yes.
There's one just about like how Epics Past with Action Games has influenced it just about a week or two ago, some headline like that.
I don't remember exactly.
But yeah, I had a pretty positive experience with it.
Sweet.
If you wanna learn more about Paragon, go to gamespot.com, look up that thing that Mike just Told you about [UNKNOWN].
I don't know, do the work!
We haven't figured out a way of sending video links yet so just do it yourself and let us know if you're interested in Paragon.
If you're not interested in Paragon, if you want to check out the beta in PS4 or PC, let us know in the comments below.
[MUSIC]
