Oh boy wowzers. What a year, 2015. Saw some good movies in Mad Max: Fury Road, Ant-Man, Ex Machina.. For TV I saw some great shit in Daredevil, Dark Matter, Jessica Jones. I even found some great and cool music thanks to that newfangled Spotify thing.

Out of all possible mediums to find absolute crap in, it just had to be video games. Almost everything I played was disappointing in some way or another. Like, come on man, throw me a bone. SOMETHING'S gotta be good? In fact, while putting together this list, I pretty much ended up forgetting what I've even played. The good has been so saturated with games I did not like that it was almost difficult just to find 5 games that I actually really enjoyed. But that could be a result of the emotional turmoil I went through by trying to find an apartment for 3 months. I dunno. Moving on.

There were a few released this year that I played and had to criticize pretty deeply. Games that were great, but also kind of shitty. I've been wrestling with this idea that I have to hold nothing but love for a video game for it to make my Best Of list. As if I'm unable to enjoy a game that I've been hard on before. Or that I'll be seen as a hypocrite of some kind. But the reality in this situation is that the two games I've been pretty harsh on ended up being some of my favorite games to go back to time and time again this year. (Except Arkham Knight, that game still sucks)

5: Resident Evil: Revelations 2

4: Fallout 4

3: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

2: Rocket League

1: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Runner's Up:

Life is Strange

I bought this game way too late and didn't have enough time to get around to playing all of it. I finished chapter 2 a few days ago and I'm way into it. I like the character of Max and the interesting look into teenage superhero life. But the only thing holding me back is I need a few days at least to process each episode and I also don't want to rush it.

I'm sure if I had more time to complete it all it would be right up here in a Top 6 list instead of 5, but I would feel strange adding this to the overall list when I hadn't even completed it yet.

Grand Theft Auto Online

Yeah, I know. Weird choice, right?

When I got GTAV on PS3 so many years ago now, it felt great. It looked great. It was a little disappointing. There weren't as many heists as I thought there'd be and the Online component was straight up broken for months. Rockstar were also constantly patching cool shit out of the game and making items more and more expensive without any better ways to get money than to just grind missions like Rooftop Rumble over and over again. And heists for GTAO were nonexistent at that time. For almost two years, in fact.

So, bored of grinding, I stopped playing for quite a while. I would check back in after every expansion and try to obtain the new items before they disappeared, but I would always stop. Also, one thing that happened was the graphical quality was dramatically decreased to make room for new shit. Clothes were now kind of pixelated and splotchy. It was weird, so I once again stopped playing.

But then, I got a PS4(Shoutout to my boy Liam, you know who you are) and I once again obtained GTAV. My relationship with the game remained mostly unchanged. I would play it occasionally and then remember why I stopped.

And months and months and months later, they released heists, they released even more expansions, and most importantly they even stopped supporting the older consoles. And that was when shit got real for GTAO. Now that there weren't almost-decade old consoles holding us back, we got some new and interesting shit. Like freemode events that didn't require matchmaking. Stuff that you could actually do and participate in. Suddenly possess from Red Dead Redemption made their way to GTAO in the form of "VIP SecuServ", which allows you to register as a VIP and even hire other members to be your bodyguards.

Coming back to this after so much mediocrity was a very big surprise. It added both the style and substance that GTAO so desperately needed and what a breathe of fresh air it is. I will keep going back to GTAO for the foreseeable future and actually have fun participating in the new interesting game modes and ideas they've got banging around.

Absolute Stinkers:

I'll keep this short and sweet.

Metal Gear Solid V. A game I have written about. A game I have talked about. A game. I wanted to write more about but was sorta homeless for a while. Now, I've got a place to live and a place to comfortably write.

One of the things I wanted to talk about with MGSV, which, of course, is just another disappointment with the game, is the aspect that the missions have on the rest of the game.

In missions you go up against Walker Gears, Tanks, APC's, Helicopters, Skulls, you name it. If the mission intros didn't spoil it each time, these things would come as a surprise. But it's not the lack of surprise that makes these additions practically meaningless, it's that they never really do anything with them. There are also wild animals out in the, uh, wild, but they're a joke. They issue no challenge. No, what should have happened is the enemies should have had hunting dogs and attack dogs to keep things tricky. Maybe even attack bears, I mean fuck this is Metal Gear isn't it? If you can train a wolf dog to wield a knife and back flip-throat-slice enemies, you can train a bear too.

One of the best experiences in the game came to me when I was just goofing around. I went into Afghanistan with a completely handicapped loadout consisting of a water gun, bionic arm, decoys and nothing else(Well I mean I had to take the SVG but I used the rank 1 variant since it's not great, therefore encouraging me to not use it). In hindsight the decoys are really OP so maybe I shouldn't have brought them along.

I started, got off the chopper, and made it a mission to get as far through the map as I could without killing or getting caught. And I wouldn't use any fancy gadgets except the binoculars. It was a complete blast. I don't think I've ever had so much fun before. Coming so close to getting caught so many times, using decoys and slowly running out of them, reducing my overall chances of success. It was harrowing and hilarious.

I must have went on for about 3 hours doing this. Eventually it came to an end when I arrived out front of Lamar Khaate Palace. See, there was a side-op in front of the palace and I didn't pay attention to the iDroid well enough to figure this out. So all of the sudden I'm sneaking in the Palace, I get caught because I'm an idiot, and WHAM, this fucking helicopter comes out of nowhere and starts to light. my. shit. on. FIRE.

The best part was, this wasn't an ordinary attack helicopter, it was solid red, indicating that it's a Custom. Meaning it is way tougher and way stronger than any normal helicopter. Which made my naked, advanced weapon-less ass pretty much boned. What ensued from here was at LEAST a 15 minute long firefight between me and a helicopter that had it out for me big time. When I ran out of ammo on my crappy level 1 gun I would run to the limited weapon emplacements and try my damnedest to use those, but the helicopter was too good. One shot from its gun and the emplacements were destroyed. Leaving me with very few options.

I ran to each individual soldier that I had knocked out in hopes of obtaining some ammo and very slowly managed to chip away at the helicopter. Eventually, smoke. I was making good progress. It took me long enough.

With a few (Read: Hundreds) more shots on the chopper, it began spinning out of control and actually almost landed on me. With the helicopter down, I felt a sense of satisfaction, of pure, unbridled reward. This thing was advertised six ways from sunday but I didn't bother looking at the map so the surprise was most of the excitement. I mean I wasn't even equipped for the fight. I could have called in a rocket launcher and blew it up, but that's boring, that's easy, that's not exciting. But this type of thing doesn't happen all the time. It really only occurred because I'm an idiot who handicapped himself and accidentally a whole helicopter.

It's moments like these that make the rest of the game feel so alone and empty. There won't be any helicopters just flying around, or any tanks just cruising. No squads with Walker Gears or anything. It's just vanilla soldiers who will occasionally wear better armor and bulletproof helmets based on your tactics for the day. All of the diversity come from static side ops that don't offer too much in the way of diversity, as ironic as that is. They are also limited in their scale and scope to certain parts of the map. I'm sure there were very good reasons for this, maybe a balance issue or other. I can't say. But it the game felt restricted, like it could have been so much more. For example, how awesome would it have been to see the game use its own mechanics against you? Imagine this happening, not by you, but against you.

It would have been so great to see random soldiers using D-Walkers out in the open world. But instead we have nothing but random missions reminding you that these machines are Not Sold In Stores™, and it does a lot to lessen the importance of such things.

It's so disappointing knowing, after a certain point anyway, that you will never just randomly be ambushed by a tank out in the open. You will never just come across a group of Skulls. You will never see a platoon of Walker Gear's driving on by.

Sometimes I forget that this game was developed for last gen consoles, and it makes me wonder just how far this game was held back because of that fact. I mean, this is it, the next gen of video game consoles and they actually have the RAM to do cool shit but there are those other consoles holding us back. Geez, is this what PC gamers feel like?

Years ago now, these images were released onto the internet. They were the very first shots of what would be known as Metal Gear Solid V.

Man, it's crazy to think it's been so long. But looking at these pictures even after playing the full, final product, all those initial thoughts that I had came flooding back into my mind. The idea of making your way across a desert, or through a thick jungle and suddenly you hear the distant sound of a purring engine. You look for it but you don't see it. Suddenly, ! KABOOM, it spots you! Gunshots pouring in from all directions, you've been detected. Making your way from cover to cover, trying to outrun the guntank and squad of soldiers making their way after you, you desperately try to escape. A full range of cover provided by the dense jungle keeps you safe, but for how long? As you make your escape, the blades of an enemy gunship helicopter makes it's way towards your last known position and begins scouting you out with it's search light. This is it, this is the next generation of Metal Gear Solid.

But ehhh... we didn't quite get that. I mean, I understand these images were very, very old compared to the game we got today and was most likely still being changed radically each and every day. But these images evoke such a response for me that it was actually difficult for me to not imagine the kind of shit I'd see. But I guess there is a difference between what I should expect and what I want to see.

Instead, we got a largely static battlefield that is more concerned with walking back and forth without utilizing vehicles in any meaningful capacity. I mean come on man, there's a huge military base in Afghanistan and there aren't even any tanks or shit parked there!

The Skulls Unit is another example of a missed opportunity. They were very lame as a far as boss battles go, but it would have been very interesting if it was possible to just come across them randomly. If they actually had some sort of traveling mechanic where they wandered around allowing you to stumble across them it could have added a sense of tension that I think the game is sorely missing. I mean Sniper's are pretty rare to come across as well so there's generally no worry about randomly getting caught. But add the element of the Skulls onto the field and suddenly it could get a lot more exciting.

For example, it's actually possible to sneak past the Skulls in the few places you encounter them, yet it seems a bit silly that there's no real risk/reward except you avoid another confrontation. But you're doing that the whole game. I mean sure, you could always go in guns a blazing, but all of the mechanics are designed around sneaking by things and avoiding fights.

Take in what I wrote before about how there aren't any other factions for the enemy to fight, it would have been balls to the wall to see something like tanks fighting tanks fighting The Skulls. That should would go from zero to real in a heartbeat.

After a certain point you are actually way overpowered anyway. Tanks pose no threat, helicopters pose no threat. The Skulls are chumpchange once you figure out how to parry them correctly every time. Yet, you get to call in airstrikes. You get to call in an attack helicopter that you can upgrade to both take and dish out a massive beating. You have a super powered sniper by your side that you can call upon when you need her, and a battlesuit that can withstand pretty much anything.

But the enemy doesn't evolve like you. The just... remain. So after some point the challenge is mostly gone. I mean sure it's still a challenge to sneak through and whatnot, but that's not what I mean. I mean, you just know what to expect. You will never be surprised. It's all just so predictable.

In the paraphrased words of Paz, "the execution of potential never came... the execution of potential never came..."

Fallout 4 is a really complicated game for me. Complicated because the story is such shit and the gameplay is really fun so I want to go back into the game again and again, but I don't want to interact with the factions and push the story forward. It's just so trite and arbitrary and I hate pretty much all of the quests dealing with the factions. But since the factions are the main quest, it's impossible to proceed without them.

So once my original save was completed, I created a new one and avoided the story as best as I could, and focused entirely on leveling up as fast as humanly possible and also building my settlements from the ground up, which is easily where I have the most fun.

Whereas my original save was mained by a woman named Maria, for my new save I decided to change it up and play as a total beeftank, Frank. Frank the beeftank.

Meet Frank. And the workshop tutorial tip that I can't seem to get rid of.

See, I found Spectacle Island a little late in my playthrough. Like, post-game with very few quests left to go and I was running out of reasons to continue playing. But Spectacle Island was such an interesting location. One, it's a big ass island that you can turn into a settlement, and two, the added isolation of it being an island made it feel more real as a settlement. So I definitely wanted to spend more time there on a fresh save.

I thought, hey, this could be much better than the Red Rocket station I'd been using since the beginning of the game. And so playthrough 2 began.

Once out of the Vault I turned the difficulty to Survival and made my way straight to Saugus Ironworks and obtained the book that allowed me to place statues. It was a bit difficult as I was very, very low level, and there are some high level enemies over in that area. So after dying 50+ times as I entered the door, I finally managed into the room with the boy I am normally supposed to save and the guy wearing power armor and I skipped right past the dialog and was surprised to see that they won't actually attack you. I walked right up next to the leader of this enemy group and he just kind of looked at me, waiting for me to respond. But you don't have to. In fact, I came back 30 hours later and he was still just standing there, waiting for me to respond.

Once out of there, I headed straight for Diamond City to use the exploit to allow me to buy out their entire inventory, Shipment of Copper included. Once I did that, I went back to Red Rocket(Or, went there for the first time) and obtained Dogmeat. What proceeded from there was a several hour long session of duping Copper and then placing hundreds and possibly thousands of statues all around Sanctuary, leveling up slowly but surely.

Eventually after not so long I was level 60+ and ended up starting to play the game the right way.

Once I was out and about for real in the world, discovering places and actually willing to play, I happened to notice how willing the world is to just blow the fuck up. Pure carnage. Pure Anarchy. Pure Canarchagey.

I wouldn't say the world has much depth in it. As with the rest of Fallout 4 it's all quite shallow. All factions seemingly shoot to kill on sight and there's no real emphasis on Raiders "doing what they can to survive", they all just seem like a bunch of fucking psychos. Actually speaking on something similar, if the Gunners are mercenaries then why do they just attack on sight? How come I can't hire them or something? That seems weird.

Anyway. Even though I don't like the narrative of the game, the gameplay itself always seems really immersive and rewarding to me when I'm walking from one place to another and then in the middle of the journey, fatmans are going off, raiders are screaming, mutant hounds are, uh, hounding. Then when you jump into the fray, a Vertibird flies in over head and suddenly the fucking Brotherhood of Steel are getting their kill on. It's awesome and insane. It turns something as uninteresting as walking from somewhere to somewhere else into this huge brawl of high level enemies and explosions and nukes and fire and death and, well, it's great.

See this video where the universe sets up the punchline and then delivers, with style.

It's the little moments like these that make the game feel so much more rewarding. I mean, what were the chances that something catastrophic blew up right at that time? It's fucking hilarious.

Or in this video, where I thought I was about to receive some BoS backup, only to see what was really happening.

Goddamn Gunner's stole the Vertibird!? What in the hell? That was great and totally unexpected. In fact, I haven't seen anything like that happen before.

Or this one, which was really annoying for a while because I kept dying over and over again. The entire area was filled with high level enemies so it was definitely a tough fight.

I was just trying to go check something out nearby when this entire fucking town exploded into Gunfire. Then the Brotherhood of Steel, once again joins in and gets shit kicked in.

Honestly, for a faction that is built around the words Brother, Hood, and Steel - all cool words on their own, even cooler together - and also use big powered suits and fly big powered ships and shoot big guns, these guys get taken out a lot. Very rarely have I ever witnessed a group of BoS actually kicking anyone's shit in.

It actually makes me think a lot about Metal Gear Solid V and other types of games entirely. In MGSV, you are given multiple excuses as to why you never see any other factions fighting in the area. In Afghanistan it's because the Mujahadeen soldiers have left the area and so you never really get to see anything authentic in Afghanistan. You rescue one Afghani soldier and that's about as much of the war in Afghanistan as you get to see. It's fairly disappointing as the war during this time was pretty intense, I mean have you seen Rambo 3?

Same thing when you get to Africa. You are told there's shit going down but you never get to see it yourself. Because "reasons".

As much as I love MGSV, the open world gameplay it presents, and the options it gives you, the open world itself is very dull and barren. Some animals here and some soldiers in the exact same place doing the exact same thing there. It took the concept from Ground Zeroes(Or was it that Ground Zeroes took the concept from The Phantom Pain?) of soldiers on their patrols doing very minimal movement and it made sense. It made sense that these marine soldiers are guarding this base and not just walking around willy nilly, so it's an easy sell.

But in The Phantom Pain, since there is no threat of danger or any chance of an enemy attack(and by enemy of course I mean the Mujahadeen), they just stand around doing nothing except waiting for you to fulton them.

I actually almost shit myself, metaphorically speaking when I stumbled across soldiers in the middle of target practice in the big military base you find Huey in. I thought they were shooting at me, but bugged out. Then I looked closely and noticed the targets. I thought that was the shit! They are doing stuff, real stuff! How immersive. But that's it. You don't see them sitting around eating, you don't see them doing jumping jacks or pushups like soldiers would probably be doing. They just stand around, walking back and forth, waiting for you.

I defend the gameplay in MGSV very fiercely. I think out of all of the things the game did wrong, the gameplay was not one of them. And yet, while you yourself have many options at your disposal, the enemies really don't. I remember hearing from a guard that they have gained chopper support, so whenever I get caught I'd have to deal with an attack helicopter. I was really excited to hear that because that's so cool! And it also makes perfect sense. But then I realized, I had already completed the game and chocked up a total gameplay time of something close to 220 hours. Maybe more by now. So I got to see zero of this feature in places where it would count, in the actual missions to liven up the world and make it less repetitive.

It's was a little heartbreaking to hear of this basically hidden feature the enemies could use against me to even the odds. Because after all, you never see any real vehicles outside of a mission other than jeeps and trucks and they do nothing to make the game more challenging or even interesting. But then, I never saw a chopper. I believe one was called in once, and I saw it coming via the iDroid, but then for some reason it turned around and went away. And I was all, what the fuck. THAT was your chopper support!?

Another game I am reminded of is The Last of Us, one of my favorite games of all time. It features a story of a near zombie apocalypse, but you never see any enemies dealing with the infected. In fact, the other enemies very rarely even seem to care about how much noise they make or what they are currently doing. They seem, very clearly, there for Joel, and not under any assumption than anything else is going to get them.

There's actually one moment in Pittsburgh, in the hotel, where you see an enemy with a shotgun shoot a dead clicker, and also at the checkpoint where they are sniping infected from the spotlight area. But that's it. And it's not even a real "interaction". They just kind of shoot at them and sometimes they clearly miss, but the infected go down anyway.

The Last of Us is a different example, and there are probably much better examples to make. But it was one of the biggest "Oh, doi!" moments I've had when I realized... they never fight. Raiders and Infected never go at it, dukes up. While they do in the DLC and while it is way satisfying, I would have liked to see more of it in the base game.

I have played a lot of open world games in the past year or two and a lot haven't really utilized the scale of the open world for anything meaningful. Basically every Ubisoft game falls into that category. Grand Theft Auto V didn't have a lot of stuff going on in the open world, though it was developed for last gen hardware. Now that they've stopped supporting last gen consoles GTAO has already made huge leaps into the kind of content that one would expect from an open world game. So I guess that counts for something.

The Witcher 3 had a lot of great landscapes and the open world mostly felt alive and filled with things to do and find. I called it a "true open world", not as a true open world game where you have like 500 activities to do, but because the world was beautiful and teeming with shit. And I quite liked it.

While Fallout 4 may not be the most in-depth game, or the most polished, it's certainly nice that you can sit back on some rooftop somewhere and watch a hoard of Super Mutants fight Gunners, only to be interrupted by 3 Vertibirds filled with power armor wearing Brotherhood of Steel soldiers ready to fuck shit up and then immediately lose the Vertibird because holy shit it has like no health comparatively.

And that's pretty cool.

Yo how's it going. My name is N7. I like to write blogs and shit when the mood hits me. Usually I write a lot on my own site but I like to share them here from time to time. I don't post all of them here because I don't want to spam the place, hence this disclaimer at the end, but I also like to share them because I want tot contribute to the discussions here.

SPOILER ALERT

I TALK ABOUT THE ENDING OF THE GAME

PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Melodramatic(And incorrect!) titles aside, I've been playing a lot of FOB. I mean a lot. Sure, not as many as those weirdos that stream FOB all the time, going for hours and hours and hours. But I've played a lot.

In my time playing, I've gone through a variety of emotions. The unparalleled joy I felt by successfully invading a base even with a player defending it. The unparalleled rage I felt when I was successfully invaded while looking right at the invader when he did it. The feeling I have right now, coming to terms with how I can't spell unparalleled without technological intervention.

Konami are trying to stand in the way of my love for FOB, by constantly adding new items that cost unimaginable amounts of GMP and resources, making you want to buy that extra FOB, and now an extra extra FOB to process those raw resources. They are also adding new and interesting additions, but at the cost of my sanity. These new items cost several million GMP and take 7 to 10 days IN REAL TIME to build, which is fucking nuts. To go even further, due to an "unforeseen glitch", you can only develop 4 of them at once. But the kicker is that you can "hurry" their development and finish immediately with MOTHER BASE COINS. That's right, an unforeseen glitch. Now you can bypass it entirely by spending your real money! (Yes, I am implying they did this on purpose to get you to spend your cash on finishing items now and then building more)

Yep! You can bypass an extremely long wait time by spending real cash. But it's not cheap. To "finish now" an item that takes 10 days to build, it requires 1000 MOTHER BASE COINS, which is equivalent to TEN DOLLARS, American.

It's a sad turn of events, because I quite like FOB. I find FOB to be some sort of zen mode that I can enter and just... coast. Continue to infiltrate, over and over again, adapt to new enemy and trap placements, hide from UAV's, just go for it, you know?

A lot of my friends(Read: All of them) seem to hate FOB and I can understand that. First you'd have to deal with the crazy amounts of bullshit microtransactions that Konami are trying very, very hard not to just force them down your throat and get it over with. Then you'd have to deal with the bullshit that is FOB.

FOB, by the way, stands for Forward Operating Base. The narrative idea is that Diamond Dogs grew so big that they eventually place other bases in the oceans of the world, filled with staff to carry out their missions with an expanded reach.

The mechanical idea is fuck you we want your money.

After a certain point in the game, the game allows you to have an FOB for free. It doubles the amount of staff you can hold. It also has stats associated with it that determines how many more raw materials you can process. A higher rank of course means more can be processed, saving you from hours and hours of grinding because holy shit does that suck. It's also a time sink. It just goes and goes...

Unlike your actual Mother Base, these FOB's don't really serve much of a role in the story or anything like that. It's just a side activity to give you something else to shove microtransactions into to do. It works in a similar vein to the invasion system from Dark Souls. You're just chilling in a mission and this big fucking alarm goes off in your headset nearly giving you a heart attack and then your shit is being stolen by some brother jack dude with too much time on his hands. You have the choice to go to your FOB and defend it or just leave it to your security staff and stay away, but by going to your FOB you lose all current mission progress, even if you have checkpoints. So if you're going through the game for the first time and trying to earn some stuff, it can be a difficult decision.

But where FOB shines, in my person opinion, is the feeling of entitlement it can evoke from attacker and defender. It's an unusual feeling to face during, ostensibly, a 1v1 deathmatch with some A.I collateral thrown in. But it's your A.I. collateral! It's your resources! You worked hard for them. Busted your ass in those fucking skulls missions trying to find S ranks, repeating Hellbound time and time again for some fucking fuel. You EARNED that. And some geek off the street comes in and tries to take it? Enter: Armed conflict.

Once the invasion goes through, a time limit is put in place. They call it a "blockade", the idea being that the other Diamond Dog crew are going to come in and block the base off from the attacker, forcing him to give up. In reality, once the timer ends the defender loses. The higher your security team is, the shorter the time limit. So aside from being a better and stronger security team, the time limit also closes in on the attacker, really putting the pressure on. Which is another reason I love playing FOB's. I quote "Pressure turns coals into diamonds", therefore, I suppose, making people who can withstand the FOB trial of fire, the true Diamond Dogs.

But pressure, as they say, can also turn diamonds into dust. It's a ratrace of skill and patience, willing to play a sneaking game like it was some sort of speed strategy game that rewards you with resources and even the possibility of high ranking soldiers, should you be lucky enough to steal them from the enemy FOB or earn them in the random volunteers at the end of a successful infiltration.

While playing this "zen" mode of mine, where I can turn off my brain and coast from one platform to another, I start to get ideas about the mode, about how similar it can be to certain other experiences. I mean, you're just this random guy infiltrating this super military's remote base, trying to remain undetected from point A to point B, with the possibility of getting caught and having a massive firefight and even a real human defender come to muck your fun right up.

FOB really gives you the idea that you can be overpowered in the way that main characters and bosses can be, by allowing you to use all of your equipment and items. You can come in with a sneaking suit and non lethal weapons, or hit the FOB hard, throwing caution to the wind with battle armor and heavy weapons.

And, while sometimes frustrating, it can be surprisingly liberating to go up against a defender with a fully stacked deck of explosive weapons capable of demolishing you whole cards. It really sets the tone that this isn't supposed to be a fair fight, and you've got to do what you have to do to win.

It's also no surprise that the most efficient way to play as the attacker is, of course, sneaking and playing stealthy. Not interacting with anyone unless absolutely necessary. Defenders usually come armed to the teeth with grenade launchers or missile launchers and heavy machine guns. It really does a lot to set the boss "battle tone".

Even more so when you don't play as Snake, but play as one of your own custom soldiers. I believe they changed it up a little, but back in the day if you went in as a random soldier and got captured or killed, that soldier was gone. You would then have to be invaded by that other player to even have a chance to get that soldier back.

FOB reminds me a lot of Outer Heaven. The player(infiltrator), finds a way inside of a top secret military(PMC) base, and subsequently begins to sneak his(or her) way through to the end, wading through cameras, traps, and highly trained soldiers with top notch equipment, with the possibility of another player(boss) coming out at the worst possible time to put the player's skills to the test.

This of course then makes me think about how Metal Gear Solid V was supposed to be the MISSING LINK of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, presumably showing the creation of Outer Heaven and recruitment of several main characters from MGS history. It's funny because in a way, FOB is similar to what we thought we would see. Instead of reprising our role of Solid Snake(Since that never happens) and taking the fight to Big Boss himself(Since that also didn't happen), it's just two players duking it out on a base stationed in the middle of the ocean, with their entire arsenal of highly advanced, prototype weaponry and equipment.

The ending of MGSV tells Venom that, he, no, we, are Big Boss. That we aren't living in anyone's shadow, that we can make our own legend. Just because someone will ultimately remember us as someone else doesn't matter, because it's a legend that we ourselves will create. So too, then, must FOB be our legend, our own personal Outer Heaven. Forged in the resources stolen from other players, staffed by soldiers stolen from other players. Engaging in the cycle of attack and defend, cat and mouse, the cycle of revenge that keeps battle going day and night, giving soldiers, be they S++ or E ranked soldiers, a place.

With FOB's, every day is just another day in a war without end. Until Konami shuts down the servers.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Yo whatup, I'm N7. I usually write a lot of blogs here and on my webzone but I've been away from GB and a majority of the internet for a few months because I've been looking for a place to live, but I'm going to (hopefully) move into my apartment tomorrow, so I will be able to share more blogs with you guys... until someone gets fed up with my spamming and runs me out of town!

I posted this as a review as well.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm not holding back. I will dive deep into story spoilers for Batman Arkham Knight.

I liked Arkham knight, but I didn't like Arkham Knight.

In Arkham Knight, the final entry in the Batman Arkham series created by Rocksteady, Batman faces his biggest challenge yet. No, it's not Scarecrow. No it's not the eponymous Arkham Knight, or 200 Riddler trophies. Instead, Batman's biggest challenge is the realization that he is just not enough to keep Gotham safe anymore.

It's an interesting angle, one I'm not too familiar with in Batman comics. Usually Batman goes up against incredible odds but comes out on the other side stronger, usually with a few scars along the way. The idea of Batman is an always prepared defender of justice. Someone who is ready and willing to put his mind and body on the line to protect the people of Gotham.

And in Arkham Knight, it's all put on the line as the biggest villains of the other games all commit to bringing down the bat by joining forces and going all out on the city on one Halloween night.

The problem that I have is it just doesn't feel big. The stakes are supposed to be high but it never really makes the leap of believability for me. After all, Gotham is completely abandoned of civilians and is entirely inhabited by thugs and bad guys. All of the villains work together to bring Batman down and yet they are mostly done away with rather easily, and quickly. The only reason it really takes a long time to bring them down is because the side missions are gated by story progress.

Take the Two Face missions for example. In the midst of an abandoned Gotham City, Two Face and his thugs take to robbing empty banks. This is all well and good, this seems like something a villain would do. The thing that bothered me about these missions early on was the dramatic misuse of Two Face as a villain. He's intelligent and brutal, with capacity for kindness and compassion. A man with a split psyche who decides on which action to take based on the flip of a coin. And yet, you see none of this.

Instead, these bank robbing missions turn into predator missions in which you have to take down his thugs before they steal all of the money. Honestly, I like the concept, but there was no risk. What will happen, you die and then have to restart? In other Arkham games you would have had hostages or some sort of risk for not being silent and careful. Here, Arkham Knight wants you to be loud and reckless. No, I mean it. It really does tell you "The alarms going off will cover any noise I make, so I can be as loud as I want", allowing you to go HAM against these thugs and get it over with as soon as possible.

And during the final Two Face bank mission, the big bad man himself joins the mission... but because of where the game places you, and because of where the game places Two Face, you could literally take him out in about 5 seconds. That's it, you've done a silent take down to Two Face, so he's done. No boss battle, no epic QTE fight, nothing. It's just over.

You get none of that classic Two Face personality in this game. In fact, he plays himself as more of a One Face as he's entirely brutal and menacing with his speeches and demeanor. And yet, you can remove him from play in about 5 seconds. It's a little embarrassing. It feels like just another thug than one of Batman's big bads.

Same thing with most of the side missions, unfortunately. The Firefly and Man-Bat missions are literally the exact same thing every single time you do them. With Firefly, you have to chase his jet-packing ass through the city with the Batmobile and wait for him to run out of fuel(Or that's what I think is happening, but maybe the Batmobile uploads a virus to him to get him to land sooner or something). Once he runs out of fuel, you eject out of the Batmobile and tackle his ass, but ohhh noooooooooo he gets away and you have to do it again, and again, and again. And it's the exact same thing each time. No variations, no diversity in the mission.

Same thing with Man-Bat. You get the shit scared out of you when you come across the rooftop he's hiding out in and then you chase him, and tackle him. That's it. During the cutscene, Batman takes out his injector and forcibly takes a blood sample to figure out what this thing is. The next time you see him, it's the exact same cutscene except you're injecting a cure. And the next time, the exact same cutscene, except you are injecting more of a cure. I'm not familiar enough with the Man-Bat to know how it should have went, but I know it shouldn't have gone as easy as 3 rinse-repeat cutscenes where you deliver him to GCPD.

The lack of side mission diversity was a little shocking, actually. I figured what was supposed to be the biggest and best and most finalist Batman game would have been, you know... bigger.

In fact, one of the biggest embarrassments to the game is the mission where you single handedly take down Hush by throwing him into a table like a fucking Duddley Boy or something. I was so hyped for Hush because of Arkham City, and I know he's one of Batman's most dangerous foes in what I think was one of the coolest Batman stories. But in Arkham Knight, he's a one-off mission that you complete in roughly 3 minutes. A complete waste of a character and a joke at that.

Honestly, the reaction I get out of this game is that Rocksteady just wanted to be done with it. There are no more challenge maps, instead replaced with "VR Simulations" like from Arkham Origins, but you can't play as anyone but Batman so it doesn't make any sense. Why have(With the respective DLC, of course) Robin, Catwoman, Harley Quin, The Red Hood, Nightwing, Batgirl and presumably more characters to play as if you can't even play as them in the challenge maps? I was excited to see Catwoman open up in my showcase, as if I could actually play as her, but nope. You're limited to Batman and at least Nightwing from one dual-play VR map.

And with talk of characters, let's dig into the Arkham Knight. Or as I call him, The Most Obvious Character Reveal In The World, Like Seriously, I Bet People Who Didn't Even Read Under The Hood Would Know Who This Guy Is Because You Make It So Painfully Obvious. Or, alternatively, TMOCRITWLSIBPWDERUTHWKWTGIBYMISPO. Which is a bit of a mouthful.

I didn't follow Arkham Knight before released. I saw maybe one trailer and one gameplay video and said, yep, that's cool. I knew I would be getting the game, so I didn't want to spoil myself on plot details. After all, this is the big finale of a game series I absolutely adore. So better be safe than sorry! But when they showed the image of the Arkham Knight, I said two things: Jason. Todd. And as much as they protested and pleaded that the Arkham Knight was a new character, I saw straight through their ruse... I mean, after all, Arkham Origins was like totally about Black Mask, right? Right guys?

It was disappointing to say the least. I'm not the most well read Batman fan. In fact there are several major arcs I haven't even read. I'd say that I'm more of a casual Batman fan. I don't hold any particular love for the character, though I do like him and his related characters. Instead, I'd say that I hold more love for the Batman Arkham games. They are truly something fun to play around with.

But, as you play through Arkham Knight, the game actually spoils the big reveal all by itself. Later on in the game, Batman begins having visions of Jason Todd being captured, tortured and murdered by The Joker. But the kicker is: Jason Todd is voiced by Troy Baker. Who else is being voiced by Troy Baker? Two Face... oh and also this "Arkham Knight" guy. So it's tooooootally not going to end up being Jason Todd. In fact, this same twist happened in Arkham Origins where Troy Baker voiced Black Mask and The Joker... except The Joker was disguised as Black Mask. So I'm over here thinking "Oh hey! That's Troy Baker too? HMMMM I WONDER..."

And it ends up being Jason Todd. But once that twist is out of the way... he is gone. In fact, weirdly enough, a lot of characters in this game just end up being gone for a while. Gordon leaves for like half the game. Oracle is gone for 89% of the game. Robin sidelined for the entire game. Catwoman disappears after you save her. And the Arkham Knight leaves once he reveals his identity and that's it, he's gone. Well, he does show up at the very end of the game for a second, but he doesn't say anything. In fact, there's really no repercussions for him or his character. He shows up, does a lot of bad things, reveals himself, and is gone. There's no closure at all. You don't even fight him or anything.

In fact, there's not even really that many boss battles in the game. A majority of them are stealth based Batmobile boss battles that are so boring after like the first one that I just didn't care anymore.

It's disappointing to see so much emphasis placed on the Batmobile in a game about Batman's last hurrah. To see that even Deathstroke's surprise cameo appearance is relegated to a stupid tank boss battle instead of an actual fight can put a lot of things in perspective for where they were going with this game.

There are positives, however.

The game runs incredibly well on PS4. The framerate holds up well even during some insane sequences, and has only dropped really badly that one time I ran over 25 people in the Batmobile. That was about it.

The game LOOKS incredible on PS4 as well. I was honestly surprised to see such a nice looking game being accompanied by such a nice lighting engine. The lighting I was definitely the most impressed by, especially on Founders Island where there are a lot of modern building designs and neon lights. Incredible to look at, even more fun to play around in.

The combat is as tight as ever. Giving you some new options, while also taking others away. I was at first annoyed that you couldn't do a double silent takedown, but realized that it was probably for the better to make sure you aren't insanely overpowered. I respect Rocksteady's restraint to not just go ahead and give Batman all kinds of insane multi-takedown options.

The voice cast is pretty good. Aside from a few weird lines here and there, it's mostly solid. John Noble is the stand out with his performance as Scarecrow. Johnathan Banks also does a pretty good job as Jim Gordon. Mark Hammil's Joker is probably one of my favorite parts of the game because he really goes all out.

The soundtrack. Not gonna lie, I had to put Spotify on pause when going for most of the trophies because the soundtrack has a few really, really good pieces on there.

The Batmobile. I don't blame the Batmobile for all of the stupid boss battles you have to do with it. I do like the Batmobile, and I thoroughly enjoyed driving around Gotham in it. It's a big, meaty tank that looks great and, aside from being a little sluggish, is a real blast to drive. Literally, 'cuz it goes through most things.

I don't hate Batman: Arkham Knight. It has a lot of good. It has a lot of bad. It lacks a lot of the content I would have wanted, like challenge maps so I can pick up Nightwing and go to town on some fools, but hey... there's always DLC...

Sigh.

E3 is usually an event that is all about excitement, hype, and entertainment. So imagine how melancholic it was that E3 for me began with a brand new trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. What's so melancholic about it? Well, it's the last trailer by Hideo Kojima... ever.

First thing is first: Wow. Incredible trailer. In my opinion, the best one yet. I didn't think anything would beat the GDC '13 trailer, also dubbed the "Nacho People" trailer. That trailer was fucking awesome and even if the Nuclear trailer was pretty good too, Nacho People holds a special place in my heart.

This shot, found in the new E3 2015 trailer at about 1 minute in, is particularly depressing. Almost sobering, really.

The Kojima Productions logo, sans, er, the "Kojima Productions" part.

The parallels between Big Boss and Hideo Kojima are really interesting, if not coincidental. The story of Big Boss, a man who lost everything only to build it back up, and then Hideo Kojima, a man who built up an incredible career and studio only to lose it because Konami thinks mobile games are the future, or something. The guy who put Konami on the map by making games that few dreamed of and even fewer could actually make.

After all, Hideo Kojima has been telling us since 2008 that there's no place for him.

But it seems with the release of the new MGSV trailer, and with the actual game only a few months away, that statement will finally become true.

Kojima did seem to be aware of this, or at least it appears so, or it's just a cosmic coincidence. But Ground Zeroes featured a mission where you obtain a special gun with a light on it that erases the logos from past Metal Gear games. Erasing all of them will prompt a statement from Kazuhira Miller saying the games may be gone but the memories will remain forever, following a message from Hideo Kojima saying "Thank you for your support!".

In that very same mission you find 2 other logos, one for Kojima Productions and Kojima Productions L.A. but they are missing the FOX found within the logo. The FOX logo is attached to a search light that requires you to get on and aim into the logo boundaries. Once you do this, Kaz asks questions like "Kojima Productions? What are they doing here?" as to imply that he doesn't know who or what that is.

It seems, as best as I can understand it, that Kojima knew far ahead of time and did his best to make these meta references to the fact at least a year before it would even go down. Clever, but sad. And also liberating for him to go out and then do whatever his beautiful and creative heart desires.

The music, titled "Elegia", is from the band The Order. Elegia, latin for "elegy" was written in memory of Ian Curtis, a member of New Order's former band, Joy Division.

Clever and cheeky, just what you'd expect from Kojima. On on hand, it's an incredible song that goes well with the haunting imagery from the trailer. And on the other, a funny reference for Kojima being fired. An elegy for him, if you will.

The trailer itself was on a whole 'nother level. It goes the distance by making everything insane and amazing and confusing and awesome and even more confusing at the same time.

The first and most immediate reaction from me would have to be the facial capture being on point for this trailer. It's looked great in past trailers, sure, but wow you can really see the fucking disdain in Big Boss's face when Miller interrupts him.

Then there's the incredible scenes of the, if I remember right, "Parasite Unit" which look absolutely fucking nuts.

Seriously. I don't even know what to say there. I have no idea what's happening but it's both terrifying and amazing at the same time. It's funny that I see something like this and completely forget that I'm going to be FIGHTING THESE THINGS. Not only that, there's potential that these fuckers are gonna pop out after me in the open world somewhere. That's some crazy shit.

The trailer goes places, places I can't comprehend. Seeing familiar faces, and voices, I didn't think I see again.

Honestly, the most exciting part of the trailer was seeing all of this insane shit going on. Because even though MGS has a pretty major paranormal presence in the series, I can't help but think about how this could all be a crazy delusion from Big Boss due to his fucking brain damage. For all we know, those Parasite Unit people could be normal soldiers coming to kill Big Boss after shooting down his chopper, but the giant piece of shrapnel in his head is making him piece together things from his past, like The Fear and The Sorrow. But of course these guys are most likely just the typical "freak show" enemies you will encounter this time around.

It doesn't hurt that they look fucking. amazing.

Just look at his face! It's like his puppy just got kicked, shot, set on fire, revived by nanomachines and then stomped like Gray Fox at the end of MGS1.

To think, I actually mocked the facial capture at one point. I mean sure, I think it's kind of dumb that we're getting a mostly-mute Big Boss, not because of brain damage or any actual logical reasoning, but because they would rather convey his thoughts, feelings and mood through his face. But still.

Really, the newest trailer just makes me excited. Flat out. So many game trailers will spell shit out pretty explicitly, but the MGSV trailers have made a very good job asking questions, not answering them. So that helps get people excited to get their hands on the game and figure this shit out. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this trailer made us ask a lot of the wrong questions in an attempt to mislead us, because it does seem to hint pretty heavily at certain things.

Like Skullface potentially being a figment of Big Boss's imagination. Or maybe, since fucking ghosts exist in MGS, he's a fucking ghost. But I think that'd be a waste of everyone's time.

Then there's Eli, where it's STRONGLY hinted that he may be Liquid Snake. But it's too simple, you know? You take one look at him and go, oh yeah, of course it's Liquid. There's no mystery. But just once I want a game to really surprise me. Like, really surprise me. Like you play the entire game under the assumption that Eli is Liquid but it turns out he's just little Jimmy Jacobs who one day will start his own auto repair business and strike it big.

But if everything was spelled out all the time, it would get boring. We've got to have trailers that hint and suggest, because for all we know they'll just pull another MGS2 and change some character models so that this character was actually that character. But hey, don't stop there! Shove a giant piece of metal and bone into Big Boss's head and we can skip the trailers and start doing that shit during the actual game.

As per usual, I'm mega hype and can't wait for the game. It's cruel and unfair that these trailers are so good because it makes the wait even harder. I mean there's so many hours I can put into Witcher 3 before I duel everyone in the world and run out of cards to obtain. But hey, maybe MGSV will have it's own collectible card game!

Yo, I'm N7. A Metal Gear superfan. I've got my own website here where I write shit. I love the Giant Bomb community though so I bring it to you through blogs, but really, I just want to strike up some conversations and I know I can get that here. So holla atcha boy. Or not. That's chill, bruh.

When I got my hands on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I was immediately gripped by it. The world, the characters, the presentation. Everything popped and stood out. Everything except this stupid little card game I played in a tavern right near the beginning of the game. A card game called Gwent.

The tutorial for it was simple enough, it's a game where each card has a number value and when you play that card, that number is applied to your points. Simply have more points than your opponent over 2 rounds and you will win.

But, I mean, I didn't care. It was such a huge game and the hype surrounding it was going off the charts, I didn't care about some stupid little card game. I just wanted to get in and stab some monsters with my sword.

And I did that. For what must have been over 100 hours. I avoided every instance of playing Gwent because that's not why I was there. I missed out on bonus objectives for quests, I missed out on rare exclusive cards from characters that would either go on to die or just leave all together.

In fact, there is a casino you go to for a quest that allows you, as far as I'm aware, to earn a ton of money by beating the patrons. But I decided to just get down to the nitty gritty and simply stab dudes with my sword.

The funniest thing about Gwent, easily the funniest thing about my entire 50000 hour long playthrough of Witcher 3, is that when I did finally sit down and try to get into Gwent, I fell in love. Like, 10-year-old-just-discovered-Yu-Gi-Oh love. And any former 10 year old out there can tell you, that's some intense shit.

The rules of Gwent are simple: At the start of the round you draw 10 cards, but then must redraw 2 cards by choosing which 2 cards get sent back to your deck. This can help you weed out the chuff and get better cards in your hand.

The round system is set to a "2 out of 3" win system, as you have two life gems. You lose a life gem(and the round) when your opponent has a higher number value than you do. Since can't draw more cards, the usage of "Spy" cards become invaluable.

Once summoned, spy cards are placed on the enemies side of the field, and then you draw two cards. The interesting thing about these cards is once placed on either side of the field, the cards will stay with that player until the game is over. You keep your cards, there's no risk of losing your stuff, but what I mean is, they stay in that players discard pile. So they can place a spy card on your side of the field, the round ends, then you can summon that card with the help of a medic card. So while the game may be as simple as "Have more points than your opponent" the strategies in which you can do is staggering.

Easily my favorite cards in the game, and that says a lot because I only have 2 of them, the medic cards! Once placed, you can summon a card from your discard pile. It's important to note that nothing works on Hero Cards, which means you can't lose your hero and then immediately summon them back again. But these cards work in a pinch when your opponent uses spy cards, which means next round you get to summon them and a bunch of other cards!

I would say that Hero Cards are the Bread N Butter for your deck, only because by this point I have, I think, all of them. But the reality is I have better more reliable cards. But the hero card, as depicted by Witcher 3's main cast of characters, and some important supporting characters, are the muscle. They are who you send in when you're down 15 points and have to make back the difference before you lose.

Other than the basics of the cards, you've also got a leader card that gives you a special perk. For example, my current leader card allows me to double the strength of my siege unit cards, which, considering how many siege cards I have, can, and usually is, the wining move.

Unfortunately, if I had to say anything bad about Gwent it's that the A.I. seems to let you win by making decisions that ultimately hurt them more than help them. One game I played with a guy who had a shit-ton of spy cards. He was winning, and I mean BOY was he kicking my ass, and then all of the sudden he started playing his spy cards. While yes, it was allowing him to keep drawing more cards, he gave me like 5 cards, making my score tower his, resulting in me winning. Another game, which is pretty similar to what happens in my above video, the person built an entire line of close combat cards. There had to be at least 10 of them. The line itself was imposing, but then he used a commanders horn which DOUBLES the strength of each card. But he used it on the ranged combat cards, of which there was only one. So the one card sitting there went from 5 to 10 points, whereas he could have very easily won if he had used the horn on his close combat cards.

It's funny to point all of his out, as it's just one small feature of a major game in both scale and scope. A game I spent a majillion hours in without even touching the card aspect. But when it comes to Gwent there is good and bad. Artificial difficulty that makes it impossible to win sometimes, and also once you get good cards, impossible to lose. Regardless of the issues found within the Gwent side of the game, or anywhere else, it's a solid addition to the game and one well worth digging hours into building your deck, living out the open world Yu-Gi-Oh game you never knew you wanted. Well, be damn sure of this: It's here.

Play Gwent. Love Gwent.

Yo I'm N7 I do blogs and stuff and I wanted to let you know about Gwent because I passed that shit by for like 40,000 hours of my Witcher 3 playthrough and that turned out to be a big mistake. I also got my own website but it doesn't have ads or anything weird like that. Unless you want to buy some blackmarket health tablets, in which case I know a guy...

Spoiler warning: I don't spoil much of anything in the story at all. I have added two videos that are also very light on spoilers, so you should be good.

I decided to go with my heart on this as the other titles I had in mind were a little uninspired. Such as:

Witcher 3 is the game that Dragon Age Inquisition tried and failed to be. Witcher 3, this game is fucking rad. Witcher 3, enough fat asses to please Scott Steiner.

Actually, those all sound pretty inspired to me, but whatever, I've made my choice.

Let's get one thing out of the way: Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is abso-fucking-lutely massive. The in-game time tracker is broken so I can't actually know how long I've spent in the game, but seeing as how I've not stopped playing in about 5 days straight, I can tell you it's got to be a long, long time. And the funny thing? I'm not even at the end yet. "But wait a minute, what kind of reviewer doesn't even beat the game!?" Well, I guess me. But the point I'm trying to make is, Witcher 3 has already won me over in every facet and the end isn't even in sight.

Everything I do deepens the game, the combat, the story, the characters. And yet, after days and days of play time, I'm not even at the end yet. The countless monsters, bandits, quests, upgrades... after everything, there's still so much to this game.

And that's the thing, it's an open world game. An open world game that chooses its genre not because it wants to put endless fucking collectibles around the map and then tell you to fuck off and collect them for a couple of hours and then get back to the game. With the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the world is alive and filled with countless activities to uncover. Quests, missions to hunt and kill monsters terrorizing the locals, treasure hunts, random events, and, the most important thing... the game remembers. The game cares.

Take for example, an early activity I did in the game. And by early I mean it was like 10 hours into the game, but because it's so expansive and huge, that's actually very, very early. I was riding my horse along a path, I had just gotten out of the prologue area called White Orchard and into the meat and potatoes of the early game called Velen. I came across a soldier who had been tied up and left to die. He had come under attack by a group of enemies called Drowners, amphibian type dudes who usually stick near water and swamps.

Long story short, I saved him and he was grateful. So imagine how surprised I was that this guy showed up many, many, many hours later in my playthrough as a bandit leader in a a camp filled with the bodies of his victims. Honestly, the initial act was so inconsequential that I didn't even remember him until he mentioned it. I was amazed, even after all I had already seen and accomplished because, as I say above, it was so small, so unimportant.

The world is filled with things of this nature, characters calling back to things you did and or said. Another example that struck me immediately: In RPG's like these, where you have dialog opens in a list that you are allowed you choose what to say, I like to pick them in the order presented. I figure, I'm going to get the same answers anyway, right? What does it matter? Well, Geralt and Yennefer go through a particularly traumatic experience during some side quest and at the beginning of a dialog sequence, Yen is very clearly shaken and dishturrrrrbed by what had occurred and I had the options to say something along the lines of "What was that all about?" "What do we do now?" and "Are you okay?" (I'm paraphrasing, of course. It was like 800 hours ago). They were presented with "Are you okay?" last, so I decided to do that one last. So I asked her what we were to do now, only for her to reply with scorn over me not asking how she was, as she was clearly shaken. Shocked by this, I decided to choose the "Are you okay?" option, only for her to reply with even more scorn as she was offended that she had to practically tell me to ask if she was okay.

It was great, but for multiple reasons. 1: They actually call you out on your bullshit(Which happens a lot in this game), and 2: It was clear from interactions like this that CD Projeckt RED went out of their way to build the game from the ground up for moments like these, moments that help suppress your suspension of disbelief and immerse you into this deep, rich world filled with deep, rich characters.

When it comes to gameplay itself, I heard it was a very easy game to play, so I started it off on the hard equivalent and it feels great. I do a lot of damage, enemies do a lot of damage. My health doesn't regenerate during meditation. Blocking, using your magical signs and using healing items when the time is right can be the difference between life and death. That's obvious though, because how can you possibly hope to win if you play stupid? Man, I'm a bad writer.

You've got your horse, named Roach, that you can upgrade with things like saddles, improving your stamina and allowing you to horse-sprint faster, saddle bags to allow Geralt to carry more weight, horse blinders which lessen the fear meter of your horse so you don't get bucked off when enemies are close. And most interestingly, you've got a "trophy" slot, a slot for you to take the decapitated heads of your fallen foes and tie them to the side of your horse. They range from pretty huge to normal humanoid sized heads. But it's not the size that matters, it's the stat bonus they apply. Some can allow you to earn 5% to 10% more experience from monsters and or humans, while other increase your chance to dismember enemies.

In the early game I found getting on the horse to be a nightmare, as it seems like you have to let completely go of the left analog stick before pressing X or else Geralt will just daze around waiting for something. Later on, and so far for the entire ride of the game, I've found that getting off of the horse can also be a nightmare. It usually always happens the same way, you're riding around looking for quests, monsters, bandits, bitches, anything, and you eventually run near an enemy. You try to get off your horse but for some reason it just doesn't happen, and then that enemy runs up on your horse, scares it, you get bucked off, and before you can even get up, you're dead.

The auto-saving is pretty good for things like this, but sometimes it can set you back a bit. When you're just out and about, time goes by in a flash. And to die so frustratingly can be extremely disappointing. Because I'm playing on hard mode, it goes by a lot faster than it probably would on normal, especially since even lower leveled enemies can still pose quite a threat.

Honestly, the massive open world reminds me, weirdly enough, of a weird mishmash of Fallout 3 and Red Dead Redemption. I know what you're thinking "Oh, the RDR comparison makes sense because of the wild open world and horse travel, but why Fallout 3?" Well, I don't want to get too metaphorical or deep, man, but the reality is... video games kind of sucked after Fallout 3. No, no, I'm not one of those "Video games today sucks" kind of guy, I mean, Witcher 3 is a video game today, so that wouldn't work.

What I mean is, Fallout 3 was the last real game I just hung out in. I would explore and explore and explore, and read whatever I could, look at whatever I could. I didn't care if there was a marker leading me there or not, I needed to see it. I had to interact with everyone, I had to know everything. I loved the world and gameplay and wanted to see all of it. And I did, across many a playthrough. And with Witcher 3, it's the first game that has such a busy, full of life open world that I can do that again.

You look at other games like Saints Row, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, Watch_Dogs, Dragon Age: Inquisition, you name it, and you see their worlds and... well, they're dead. Void of life and activities for you.

They're static almost. They have people walking around, cars driving, deathclaws, uh, deathclawing, but that's just chuff. That's just filler. That's not alive. The most excitement I felt out of GTAV's open world was playing online and forgetting the singleplayer even existed. There was nothing to do, nothing to see anymore. The next logical step was online.

But with The Witcher 3, the world always moving. What with NPC's having dynamic dialog reflecting your journey thus far, or a random enemy getting a little too close and causing them to all freak out, or you coming across a crazy enemies lair and then fighting to death, completely unaware that this was actually a part of a quest you could have accepted, so now when you do, you just jump straight to the reward. The scripted-but-completely-natural-feeling random events that lead to interesting quests, the side quests themselves sometimes being far more important and grand than even the main quests. The incredibly weather effects that actually manage to instill worry in my gut as the winds howl and the trees bend, with the crack of lightning ringing out like a bell in silence. It goes on.

I haven't even mentioned the incredible voice cast in this game. I have yet to hear a single line of dialog that wasn't well delivered. Geralt, for example, is one sassy motherfucker and I love it. His voice actor sells the lines incredibly so. Mastercraft if I've ever heard it. Geralt goes from being friendly and kind to being a sarcastic and cheeky bastard. It never feels out of place or forced, as it is usually up to you to choose the dialog option yourself. Though, sometimes characters do call you out on it.

The dialog is well written, which it probably should be since the games are adapted from novels. Combined with the fantastic voice acting and you can be safe to assume that when a cutscene comes on, you will be entertained. The framing is also pretty good. There's your standard "character talks, turns around so that everyone is facing their back and then says something dramatic" shit going on, but they make a valiant effort to make the shots as nice as they possibly can. And it pays off. Each shot is well directed, tying into the extreme amount of effort that went into the game. It's accented by some serious facial animation technology goings ons that show you what a character is feeling before they even say anything. It's not, say, as accurate as what we've seen from MGSV, but it has been one hundred percent effective at conveying emotion and tone. The eyes in particular are incredibly well animated.

Really, the storytelling in this game is exceptionally well done. There's one side mission in the game that goes from an almost slapstick comedy routine only to evolve into a deathly serious murder mystery. The tonal change is striking, but to be expected. The Witcher 3 may be fantasy, but there is nothing happy-go-lucky about this world. Darkness looms overhead at all times, reaching down from time to time to remind you that not all is safe. Yet there Geralt stands, like a pun-making beacon of light, ready to tell people to go fuck themselves and then stab them in the face with a sick ass silver sword.

Honestly, this review is a little off the wall since I didn't get into basic plot details or specific controls, you know, like a real reviewer would, but I mean, this game is out there, that shit is well documented already. I wanted to share my viewpoint, my feelings. From the heart or some shit. You know?

The Witcher 3 has a lot of heart, and it resonates well with me for more than just the reasons I've listed above, as I've omitted several story related spoilers as that's something that should best be experienced by yourself. But when it comes to my opinion, this game is one of the best. A must buy, for everyone.

Yo, I'm N7. I write "articles"(Glorified blogs) on my website, but nobody ever comments there because google is weird and tracks your browser history and sends it to the NSA or some shit so I try my best to contribute to the Giant Bomb community by posting them here as well. I don't do it to spam or try to get "e-famous" or anything, I do it because I just want to share my thoughts and generate a discussion. Holler atcha boy! Or don't. I mean that's cool. Hate the player, not the game, ya dig? Ah fuck it this blog is over.

About 10 or so days ago I was made aware of this beta that was then floating around the PSN. A beta for a game called Rocket League. It's a RC car based sports arena game where you take your car and ram a ball into a goal while also trying to defend from the other team doing the same to you. It's soccer on wheels. Mini-wheels. Made by Psyonix, Inc, who also made the similar game Super Sonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars.

I got my hands on it and decided, eh, I've got nothing else to do until Witcher 3 gets here, so I might as well. Boy, to say I was blown away is an understatement. It's a very, very simple game. Simple, but endlessly fun. It's soccer, but instead of people, you control a little RC car and you have to use your momentum and limited use boosts to take control of the ball and knock it around until you get it into the other team's goal. There's really not much else. The arena you are in during this particular beta is encased in glass, giving you walls to drive on and a roof so you can keep the ball in bounds.

The modes in this beta were 1v1, a duel mode where you can go mano-a-mano and prove your Rocket League MLG status. 2v2, which is a very tactical game where setting up shots for your buddy can be crucial. 3v3, which seems to be the standard way to go and what I ended up putting the most time into. The final mode was a chaotic 4v4 game mode that was just so busy and intense that I played one game and decided, welp, I'm not good enough for that.

The controls are simple as well, R2 is forward, L2 is reverse, X is jump. Jumping into the air and pressing X again allows you to slam in any direction that you push. Forward will jet you towards whatever you are aiming at, and holding the boost button will allow you to fly a short distance, left or right is a corkscrew type maneuver. Circle is your boost, which you can refill by driving over the many boost pads that are spread out across the field. The square button is a powerslide, allowing you to quickly and rather stylishly reposition your vehicle, and triangle is your "ball cam" a camera angle you can toggle that allows you to lock your camera onto the ball at all times.

Depending on how fast you hit the ball and where, you can send it flying across the field or rather just give it a little love tap. The trick is to learn the momentum behind your vehicle and choosing your moments. Sometimes you'll fly off the handle all excitedly and only end up scoring a goal in your own post, earning the other team a big fat +1 and leaving you to the sneers of your team mates. And that timing can be tricky to nail. It seems like the players of the game Super Sonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars are right at home with this game, as ever time I was dominated, the players pointed out how they were pros at the previous game.

And it shows. In my short time with the game I went from bumbling idiot that could barely even drive right to somewhat proficient enough that I could do alright. While I was pretty good at getting goals, I was piss poor in playing defense. Those guys knocked that shit straight into our goal time after time. But honestly, the game itself is so fun losing doesn't mean much. A "GG" here, a "Nice shot!" there, regardless of the team, sent through the in-game chat system, builds a sense of camaraderie. The games biggest feat was making it feel like you're all just a group of friends sitting down to play a game together, no matter the results, no matter who wins. No enemies, no strict competitors, just a bunch of friends having some fun.

I spent countless games thinking, okay, after this I'll be done for the day. Just one more game. And then I'd look at my clock and realize it's been 4 hours and I don't know where I am. But then reality sets back in and I sit down to play just one more game.

Speaking of that, games are quick, lasting just 5 minutes. So you can continuously churn out "one more game" after "one more game" at a steady pace.

It's addicting. Getting the goals, hearing the crowd cheer during a critical goal, reacting with the ebb and flow of the game. Electrifying. This game is just a beta and yet I'm already hooked. So disappointing is it then that the beta ended a few days ago, and I can feel the withdraws already. This was a game that at first I wanted to play only because I had nothing else, but it quickly became the nightly routine of my life for about a week or so. I made a lot of friends, I certainly made a lot of enemies, and I even made an epic save or two and felt like the cock of the walk(Only to screw up and score a self goal and feel like a huge idiot for a game or two).

The full game is set to have more modes, more arenas and a ton of customization for your little cars. It doesn't have a release date yet, but they are at least planning on it being out by Summer.

I can't wait to get my hands on the game. I recommend everyone keep an ear out for this thing.

Hello, I'm N7. I write shit from time to time at my website. I usually post them to Giant Bomb as well but I felt like I was spamming the joint and got a little self conscious so I stopped. But this Rocket League game is something truly special so I thought I just had to share my thoughts with people, especially because the Rocket League page is pretty barren. So I hope you enjoy my thoughts as much as I enjoyed the beta! But probably not because my thoughts are kinda shitty and that game is kinda awesome, so it's not fair to compare them.

I haven't written anything in just about a month and a half. Pretty weird for me because I was pumping out some stuff before. That's just it though, I only write when I have something to say. And I had a lot to say. But in the past month, I've experienced a lot. My shitty TV got a dead pixel and I had to rent another one. I played Deus Ex and was gonna do a big ol' thing about it, but eh whatever it's a pretty good game and it's as simple as that.

But then... something happened. I got a PS4. But not on my own volition, it was a gift. A gift from someone I have never met and will probably never meet. A good friend of mine. @yummylee. You may know him as the guy who's face is always on the front page of the forums since he's currently the only user with the highest post count to not be banned. And also, I hope you come to learn of his large, charitable heart.

That's right. If it sounds crazy, it probably is. He took a chance on my poor ass and it's probably never going to pay off really, because now he's got to deal with me on the PS4 as well.

Sometimes I wonder who I was in a past life to have earned such good friends. Friends who were seemingly always willing to help out. They're always there for me, and one day when I'm a world renown blogger/writer/podcaster/videogamedesigner/philanthropist, maybe I can return the favor. But alas, the only thing I can give right now is my thanks. Thanks to @yummylee for affording me the opportunity to play games from the next generation.

And then came the games.

First up was a bunch of downloadable games I had from PS+. I'm told games like Don't Starve and Binding Of Issac are fun but I didn't really get much out of them. Maybe I didn't play them enough, but they didn't really reach out and grab me. Then I played some Transistor and that game was pretty cool. I should probably finish it but right now I've got no desire to play it. That happens to me sometimes. I'll like a game and then not want to ever play it again.

Then the discs started coming. The full games were on the way.

First up: inFamous: Second Son.

Second Son was okay. I was pretty indifferent about it. I'm really into the inFamous series and inFamous 2 is probably one of my favorite PS3 games of all time, up there with games like MGS4 and The Last of Us. But Second Son was just... a game. It didn't even feel like a sequel. There wasn't a single mention of Cole, and when Zeke shows up, he does so in a DLC that we in North America can't buy because for some weird reason, it's only available on the European PSN.

The game starts and you are Delsin Rowe. You're the "punk". You tag buildings with spraypaint and hate authority. You like to jokingly quip at everything under the goddamn sun and "stick it to the man". How convenient for you that "the man" needs a sticking.

The story is, 7 years ago, shit went real bad. Conduits were using their powers for all kinds of bad stuff and were close to taking over the world or something, I don't know. I thought the story was kind of dumb. I liked inFamous when it was about superheroes and supervillains punching each other and jumping all over roofs. Now Second Son comes out and has to "send a message" because Nate Fox got "randomly selected" at an airport 20 years ago or something.

Personally I didn't like the character of Delsin.When Troy Baker fails to make a character likable then you know you've fucked up somewhere. It's his inability to take anything seriously and always brush things off like it doesn't matter. I couldn't tell if this guy was supposed to be in his 20's or somewhere in his teenage years.

I also didn't like going to Seattle. Empire City and New Marais were so interesting, even if they weren't particularly noteworthy, because they were new. They may have been your typical Fictional Cities, but they were new and different. Going to Seattle takes all of that out because you'd pass by some fountain and think "Huh, guess that's a landmark or something".

By going to a real location, they take some of that mystery of their universe away. The chances of seeing a statue of Cole or something is gone because you're in real place and they wouldn't have that, would they? They'd have a statue of some real guy who did some real thing. I don't know, maybe it's not a big deal, but with the complete lack of connection to the rest of the inFamous universe, pretty much every decision made by Second Son put me off in a big way.

But then you get to the gameplay. The gameplay wasn't bad, it just wasn't noteworthy. You've got games like inFamous 1 and 2 where you have powers that do something other than endlessly shooting at people with your power powers. For example, you could bring up an electric shield to protect yourself from gunfire in the other games. In Second Son, all powers are action a gogo, baby. And worse yet, they are just reskins of each other.

It's also worth mentioning that unlike Cole, who could use Electricity and Ice(Or the other one, fire or something) powers at the same time, Delsin has to manually switch powers from the source. If you want to use smoke, you have to find smoke somewhere and absorb it, if you want neon, you have to find a neon sign and absorb it, etc, etc. They could have taken away the endlessly repetitive reskinned powers and crammed them into one single tree and the value of the gameplay would have been increased exponentially. You could have things like the Television hover, the Neon sprint, the smoke... nothing, because that one sucks. They could have done what they did in inFamous 2 and give you another type of ability instead of an entirely different tree that spirals out and does all kinds of different stuff. They went for quantity over quality and it really hurt more than it helped.

The only real differences in powers are the navigational stuff. Neon lets you sprint around anything and everything at a very fast pace. You can climb up and down things like it's nothing. Neon let's you get around fast. Television's version of the Glide move can be upgraded into a hover, so you can hang in the air and pick your shots against enemies easier. It also has a very fast burst of speed that allows you to get about half-way up most buildings, but it almost seems pointless because why would I want to get halfway up a building and climb the rest of the way when I can just use Neon and get to the top in a fraction of the time, or the effort?

The navigational stuff was different at least, even if Neon was always the way to go. But when it comes to the actual powers themselves, as above, they are just reskins. L2 and Triangle will shoot some kind of missile, L1 will throw a grenade of some kind, and square will always melee.

The game didn't feel rushed, even if it was short, the world was empty and all of the powers aside from Neon were boring and lifeless, it was at least somewhat polished(And don't forget how beautiful the lighting and particle effects are in this game), it was just... okay.

Then there's the smoke powers but they are boring and generic. You can't get around as fast and have to rely on manually climbing up buildings like in the other inFamous games, but unlike the other inFamous games, the climbing in Second Son is so unbelievably unreliable that using smoke was always too much trouble for me to use. Whenever I had the chance, I would switch back to Neon powers. I would never use Television or Smoke. They felt so underutilized that it was like I was being punished for using them.

And then there's the enemies. inFamous had all kinds of variable enemy types. In the first inFamous, you have different kinds of gangs with different looks and styles. When you got to inFamous 2 you had giant enemies and super powered ice soldiers attacking you from every which way. Second Son has lame-as-all-fuck Russian Mob and D.U.P. soldiers who use a form of concrete. They mostly all look the same and they are all boring to fight. No one ever switches it up and it's usually the same fight every time. You shoot until you are almost dead and then you run away until your healing powers kick in and you shoot some more. There's practically no variety. Nothing in this game stands out. It's a one note game and that note isn't worth anything.

So how ironic is it that photo-mode, some random little thing is more fun to play with than the game itself? Again, I didn't hate Second Son, it was just so disappointing. After the bombshell ending that inFamous 2 got, you'd figure the sequel would be all kinds of crazy. But nope, you get barely a single mention of the other game to the point that this thing might as well be the gritty reboot, even if it's not remotely gritty.

Second up: The Last of Us: Remastered

I'll actually start this off by saying that it's ironic that I liked photo-mode more than the game itself in Second Son, because so far the photo-mode in TLOU: RE is pretty lame. You have a lot of the same options as in Second Son, but the camera is locked on Joel's character model in some weird way. You could turn the camera away from Delsin at any point to set up a nice shot, but it's locked to Joel so you'll either need to hide your model or figure out a way around it.

It also doesn't help that Joel constantly makes those stupid fucking faces making it entirely impossible to take any nice shots. The filters themselves also aren't up to snuff with the Second Son filters. Second Son's filters seems to change the lighting and colors, but for some reason the filters in TLOU seems to only change the colors. It's hard to explain and I'm also not entirely sure of the exact processes of filters, so I'll just say the ones in Second Son looked way better.

Honestly, I had a bunch of stuff written up about the game already, but I've put a lot more time into the PS4 version(I just got to the horses) and everything has changed. So I deleted it. And I'll tell you why.

It seems so much easier. I'm playing on Grounded mode because TLOU and Remastered do not share a trophy list, so I want another easy Platinum, and also because I hate myself. But imagine my surprise when I run into scenarios that gave me a ton of trouble before were actually so easy I were able to beat them on the first playthrough.

It's insane and I honestly don't believe it, but it feels like they made it easier. I mean sure, a lot of the early game problem spots still exist, like the school in Bill's Town. That whole thing sucked. But then the Bloater boss battle was a lot easier, for whatever reason. Maybe I just had better accuracy or maybe I got lucky, but I pretty much walked right through that boss, even though he had given me tons of trouble on the PS3.

And then there's the clicker tunnel when you're separated from Ellie and Henry and all you have is Sam with you. I beat this in one go. It was... an accident to say the least. Someone may remember from my other blogs about The Last of Us's Grounded mode, I point out how the companions get in your way so much that it becomes a big problem because of the difficulty. Well, that happened again, and actually made me look like an idiot in the process, and also making the hardest part of the game so easy I felt like I was going insane.

Thanks to the power of the next generation, I have a video to back it up! (Heads up, in this video I sound like a know-it-all because TLOU: Remastered had a few tricks up its sleeves. And boy, it got me good)

During this video my mind was processing so much and not knowing what to do with it. The single most difficult spot in the entire game, and I just walked right through it... because Sam took my place and I got caught by infected?

The levels of what just happened in the video are insane. By getting caught, I pulled away all of the infected from the ladder area so that I could just run up and go. But by sneaking, they would all be there as usual. Sam got in the way, and in doing so created an opening that I ended up using to get through. One that I never saw before. One that made me feel like a big ol' idiot.

And that's crazy. Because as many times as I beat The Last of Us on the PS3, nothing like that ever happened. The infected would rain down on me like an infected bombing run. But on the PS4... they kind of relented a little. I don't know if I got lucky(Doubt it because I never, NEVER got lucky on the PS3), or if they actually did some kind of... fixes, or something, but The Last of Us Remastered is definitely leading way to new experiences that I would have never imagined.

So many hours have already been shaved off of my playtime because I'm able to walk through really tough areas and it leaves me feeling weird. I know this has never happened before, and so it all seems so bizarre. Maybe I'm making a big deal about it, but it's absolutely not just "Old hat TLOU". There's something new going on under the hood. Whatever it is.

One thing I'd like to talk about before I wrap this massive blog up, is that TLOU: RE is actually... kind of buggy. Also what's up with me and these ellipses all of a sudden? Did I forget italics for some reason? Have I not written a blog in that long?

Anyway yeah. The game has kind of bugged out on me quite a few times in my first ever PS4 playthrough. At one part, in the library area of Pittsburgh, right before you get to the hotel all of the guards got stuck in place. It's like they were alerted for a short amount of time and then were frozen in place or something. They wouldn't move on their own unless I made a noise or something. And when it came time for Ellie to pull out her jokebook for the first time, she simply pulled it out, asked me if I wanted to hear a joke, and then immediately put it away before I could react. I don't know what's up with that, and I know these things never happened to me on the PS3, but it's certainly weird to see bugs all of a sudden. I mean personally I found it weird that the game still has just as much pop-in as it did on the PS3, but the bugs are just so weird.

IN CLOSING...

Photo-mode is a great feature and I'd like to see more games use it. It gives people like me just another cool thing to do. Some people might not like it because it can be pointless, but I think it adds a lot to the game. inFamous: Second Son has a ton of opportunities to set up a great shot and a lot of options to make sure it comes out looking great. It doesn't hurt that the game itself looks great.

Other than that, my first exposure to the next-generation has been okay, I suppose. I didn't quite get the same level of a reaction as I did with the last generation. Mostly because I had games like Motorstorm showing me how incredible games could look. Or the hype of MGS4 to keep that hype-fire in my heart burning strong.

Though to be fair, one game is just a better looking PS3 game and the other is a lame attempt at a late PS4 launch title. So once I start getting heavy hitters like Shadow of Mordor coming in, I can get more of a feel for it. I am happy to get a chance to experience it though. I guess that's what it's like to have great friends!

Also I have a blog or something so come yell at me. I don't feature ads or anything weird like that. I'd feel scummy for posting them here but I honestly wouldn't do it unless I wanted to share my words that kill. So why not do it in the least douchiest way possible by actually interacting with the community? A win win for us all.