Mad Max is a decent open world game born into a year of many exceptionally made open world games. Combined with the critical acclaim of the Fury Road movie released this year, the expectations leveled against this game were just too much. In a vacuum, Mad Max is a competent enough game with a lot of pieces that are good, but almost nothing great. It's well worth your time, but with tempered exp...
I score games significantly more harshly than many others. By following a 5-star scoring system, I waste only one score on games I don't like (1-star), and one score on games I'm indifferent about (2-stars). That leaves me with three scores left to help me differentiate the games I like. Let's get one thing out of the way off the top. I like The Witcher 3, so the only question I have to ask mys...
I've been having a ton of fun for the last 6 months or so as I make my way through the Metal Gear series for the first time. MGS 1 plays pretty well for such an old game, and I was absolutely blown away by the HD collection versions of 2 and 3. MGS4 was absolutely incredible as well, despite an ending that was a bit too long. Through the course of playing through MGS4 I came to a sudden and une...
Far Cry 3 was a fantastic game. Sure it had its problems, namely the kind of disgusting story, but it was one of the best open world games I had ever played. It was graphically incredible, the gameplay felt pretty good, it actually decently pulled off 1st person stealth, and the side content was in most cases actually worth doing. The hunting/crafting system from FC3 is one of the rare cases of...
Find your Zen, achieve Nirvana, or otherwise get your head in the right space, because it's time for Bloodborne. Playing a "Souls game" requires a mental preparation unparalleled in most other game experiences I undertake. In recent weeks I can't say I was in the right space to play Bloodborne, but after seeing some initial impressions, I MADE myself get in the right space. I wasn't missing out...
Few forces in gaming are more powerful than word of mouth. If the discussion turns on you, look out, because you are in for a proverbial shitstorm of trouble. Bad word of mouth can be largely to blame for the massive head start the Ps4 got over the Xbox One when both consoles launched. It's an immense force, and that's why a game that generates a burst of positive word of mouth is really headin...
In the indie games world, sequels are hard. really hard. No matter what you do, everything about your new game will always be compared against your first one. This is true of AAA games as well, but they're working on longer timelines and bigger scale, so there's more they can iterate on. The important thing is to recognize what made your first game popular, and find a way to capture that magic...
The Arkham series of Batman games began with Arkham Asylum back in 2009. At the time I was fairly entrenched in World of Warcraft mode and didn’t pick up this game right away. When I first heard of it I heard nothing but absolutely stellar recommendations. By the time I rolled around to playing it in about 2012 it suffered from a bit of a problem. The main hook of that original game was its ama...
The Wolf Among Us was about as close to an earned purchase as it gets for me. By that I mean a game that I’ll buy based entirely on the quality of a previous game. The most automatic reputation purchases I’ve ever made were both this year, for Dark Souls II and Transistor . Dark Souls and Bastion were so amazing that I was willing to throw their developers cash based solely on the trust that th...
The Wolf Among Us was about as close to an earned purchase as it gets for me. By that I mean a game that I’ll buy based entirely on the quality of a previous game. The most automatic reputation purchases I’ve ever made were both this year, for Dark Souls II and Transistor . Dark Souls and Bastion were so amazing that I was willing to throw their developers cash based solely on the trust that th...
It’s interesting what time and a different mindset can do to your impression of a game. I played Dust: An Elysian Tail for the first time over a year ago, and I didn’t like it at all. I ended up filing the game under the “Shelved” category of my Steam library, which is where I put games that I’ve played but don’t particularly want to finish. Most games never make it back from that dreaded place...
Few games come along that get me so excited that I absolutely have to pre-order and start playing right when they’re released. Even fewer of those games make me eagerly anticipate how I’m going to go about playing before I even have my copy, talking with friends about my strategy and planning out when I’ll have ideal conditions and time to sit and play. The only other game I can think of that c...
This is it guys and gals, here we go! This is when it all starts for real. November was exciting and all, having two brand new consoles launch, but the real main event comes in March when all the great games start coming out. Great games like South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Dark Souls II. Yesiree, the next gen has now become the current gen. What? South Park and Dark Souls aren’t coming out...
Oh, what a tale I have to tell you. It involves intrigue, suspense, excitement, and the rise of a relative unknown to the spotlight, then the meteoric crash back down to Earth. It’s a wild ride, and one you need to hear about. What? No! I’m not talking about Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning. I’m talking about their developer, 38 Studios. It’s an absolutely insane story that, for better or worse, wi...
As a discount game buyer I don’t usually get to play games within the first month or two of their release, but The Banner Saga came out priced at only 25 dollars and I got a good deal on top of that. I was really excited to check this out because I’d heard good things and the art style fascinated me. To me its art style looked like an old animated film, like many past Disney movies, or that ani...
As an avid video game player and massive Lord of the Rings fan I have definitely had my share of ups and downs when it comes to games from Tolkien’s beloved fiction. There certainly hasn’t been a shortage of titles and I’ve played almost all of them. From the great (Battle for Middle Earth on PC) to the not so great (Fellowship of the Ring on Xbox) I’m usually down to give a LOTR game a go. Whe...
Gone Home is an interesting game that came out a bit later in 2013 and I managed to get my hands on over the holiday break. That timing happened to coincide with quite a few gaming sites releasing their game of the year awards and lists. Just before starting the game myself I noticed that it was getting very highly reviewed, often cracking the top 5 in game of the year discussions and even taki...
Splinter Cell: Blacklist came to me by way of opportunity. I was buying a new graphics card and it was included along with a few other games in the bundle. It wasn’t a game I was specifically thinking about picking up, but I certainly welcomed it as a bonus. I hadn’t played any Splinter Cell games recently, but I remember the original game fondly. It was one of the earlier games to really nail...
This review is going to be short, which is unbelievably appropriate given my experience with Proteus. It’s a funny thing that happens when you’re a PC gamer. You end up participating in a lot of Steam sales and picking up Humble Bundles. In addition, there are a lot of other sites now (GreenManGaming, GOG, Nuuvem, etc.) that are constantly having sales. As a result, I’ve had to keep a document...
The Driver series is kind of a funny thing. I couldn’t tell you exactly what the point of the franchise is exactly. I mean, it’s not a “Driving Game” in the traditional sense of the word like Forza or Gran Turismo. On the other hand, I wouldn’t necessarily group it together with Need For Speed either. For me it has always suffered from the problem that the driving isn’t good enough to compete w...
Who’s ready to have some fun?! That’s what video games are supposed to be all about right? Sometimes as grown ups we get caught up in thinking way too much about things, and we need a nice, mindless outlet for entertainment to enjoy. Sure, the appearance of this fun has changed over the years. It’s not necessarily WCW Vs. NWO Revenge or Mario Party 2 anymore (Mario Party 1 was banned from my ho...
With the Tomb Raider “Definitive” Edition being released, I figured this was an excellent time to catch up and give my thoughts on the Tomb Raider “Promoted As Totally Good At The Time But Now We’re Kind Of Shitting On It” Edition. Square Enix, if you ever end up going back and changing the name I expect a royalty check. It should be noted that I played Tomb Raider on PC, which most people seem...
When I was growing up I was mostly a Nintendo/Original Xbox kid (NOTE TO COMMENTORS: My first console was a NES in 1990. I didn't mean Xbox was one of my first consoles. Don't worry, you're not old), so there are some game series I have never really had a proper chance to appreciate, namely those on the Playstation consoles. I’m lucky enough to have recently picked up a PS3 and have enjoyed cat...
The developers of X-Com: Enemy Unknown had an impossible task laid at their feet. First, they needed to revive the classic X-Com series of games. Not only that, they needed to do so in a way that was accessible to new players. They also needed to stay true to the brutally difficult and unforgiving roots of the franchise. That all sounds difficult enough, but on top of that this game needed to b...
It's a trope of the horror/thriller/suspense genre. An individual finds themselves on a ship or space station completely isolated from any outside contact. The ship (or station) is abandoned and (almost) all signs of life have been extinguished. It is up to the individual to find out what happened and hopefully avoid the same fate themselves. We've seen this before, but when we see it the first...
The Assassin’s Creed name has lived on for years in the gaming industry for one very simple reason. Everyone, EVERYONE, loves to feel like a badass. Simple as that. This is something The Assassin’s Creed series always did well, particularly starting with AC2, yet somehow in the latter half of Revelations and certainly all of AC3 they lost it. I didn’t feel like a badass anymore. Worse still, th...
I’m not really sure how to review or even classify this game in a traditional sense, but I have heard it included in a very unusual set of games that some people are calling “empathy simulators”, and I think that is about as close as you’ll get to identifying Papers Please. In most of these games you don’t win or lose as you do in most others, and there isn’t even a clear cut ending in many cas...
This is going to be a delicate entry to write for a couple reasons. First, the game is, in terms of hours to completion, pretty short. That means my inclination would be to go into greater detail about the specifics of the game. Second, the story is truly something to be beheld, and I'll have to do my best to avoid giving anything away the best I can. I take this task very seriously because I t...
If you have friends who play video games pretty frequently and you’ve never played Bastion, chances are one of those friends has yelled at you to play it right away. They were right to do so. As someone who was at the time just beginning to delve into the wide array of amazing games the indie downloadable scene had to offer, Bastion simultaneously sold me on the whole “genre” and spoiled me wit...
There are a lot of reasons people play video games. It’s a fun, stimulating, often relaxing activity that requires thought and interaction. Fantastic stories unfold in which you carry a level of involvement. It’s a wonderful medium, but beyond that there lies a simpler draw. We want to feel legendary. There’s nothing wrong with that urge, it’s great. It’s the reason we get jazzed about seeing a...
With thousands of video games being released every year across dozens of different platforms and genres being combined and redefined constantly, it really is a rare treat to see a game with truly unique playstyle and mechanics. Completely ignoring the visuals or the story, Mirror's Edge is absolutely like no other in the way you control your character. It shows some pretty glaring flaws at time...
Ah, the 80's. What a cocaine filled, violence driven, neon coloured, white suit wearing time that was. Granted, I was four years old when the 80's ended, but if movies have taught me anything, it's that if you weren't savagely beating a man with a pool cue with a light dusting of white powder on your nostrils you just weren't 80's-ing hard enough. Well don't worry, Hotline Miami has you covered...