There’s not a lot on my PS4 plate that gets me too excited about it. Save for the likes of Best Friends 4 and the last good Final Fantasy game (in a long time), I’m still craving that one title that’ll make it all worth it. I figured that’s where Watch_Dogs would come in. I enjoy open world games immensely, AND Having a profound affection for the movie hackers, I liked the idea of what Watch_dogs wanted to accomplish.

It’s a shame that the game ended up so far away from what I had built up in my own imagination.

The thing that kind of bothers me, is that Aiden is not really a hacker. Well is he? He’s a fixer right? and what a fixer is… is a hacker that spends more time outside than a typical hacker, who probably just goes to the rainymood website to get their fill of environment. But one day after a tragic accident, he’s started using his fixer powers for good and became the city’s vigilante. ( They call him Fox. And he looks a little bit like Matthew Fox. So good on the fictional people of Chicago for making that connection.)

So here comes the part where I stop believing he is a hacker of any sort. ctOS is a city wide security system for the mystical land of Chicago. It is a singular operating system for EVERYTHING. It’s in your webcams, it’s in the traffic lights… It’s even in your grenades and waterpipes.

It’s “complex system” actually seems overly simplified. And with so much “hackers” in Chicago, I’m more inclined to believe that BLUME (the company behind ctOS) designed it to be open source, and the Apple app store is riddled with hundreds of apps for your phone that let you do anything you want in the city at the click of a button.

Maybe BLUME shouldn’t have attached a NFC to your plumbing.

So Aiden runs around the city staring at nothing but his smartphone to accomplish all of his goals. Hard for cash? There’s 30 people in a 10 foot radius that have all the money that you don’t even need. Push a button. Trying to walk through this door? Ghost Trick your way through security cameras, until you see the box that's locking it. Push a button.

It’s these simple maneuvers that make ctOS incredibly flawed and you really start to wonder why Chicago would even agree to have it run the entire city.

Especially the amount of people that just sit at home and masturbate all day, and frequently order hentai. Or how about the family of Cannibals enjoying a nice 100% organic meal in-front of their webcams, or people making Death threats to loved ones as they sleep. This is data that is circulating through ctOS’s security system and the police can’t even do their job.

It’s the worst place to live, and yet still comes out seeming better than Detroit.

Also, Aiden isn’t any better than the world he inhabits. He’s a dick to everybody he works with. Which MIGHT have something to do with the events that took place at the beginning of the game, but there’s not a single amount of compassion in his voice. Aiden is an avid fan of the Chris Nolan Batman films, and nobody has the heart to tell him that it stopped being funny years ago. Or maybe they have but he insists on still doing it, which is probably why he’s so distant and cold to everyone. He doesn’t exactly have the best sense of humour either (The kind of person that goes to a party recalling all those old, dated memes. Thanks a lot electronic Billboards.)

Maybe at some point Ubisoft didn’t really understand what game they wanted to make. It started feeling like that in the first hour and I noticed how a lot of of it's elements felt a little too similar to previous Ubisoft titles. An open world where you're a hacker DOES sound exciting, but there’s a way to implement that stuff without making the city an over-simplified Deus Ex Machina ready to go when you ask it to. It doesn’t need you constantly trying to shoot your way out of an area, or relentless chases disguising themselves as engaging gameplay either.

The game's issues as a whole, are something that @dannyodwyer nails perfectly on a previous episode of The Point.

If you give Aiden strengths, then make them his strengths, don’t give him an app for his phone. I want to do a little more hacking than ‘connect the dots’. Even if it does take place in an open world, there's nothing wrong with concentrating your efforts on gameplay that has nothing to do with it. (L.A. Noire seemed to pull it off just fine.) There's a chance that... if that stuff gets figured out, then maybe you can find a way to use the city in a more significant manner.

Despite my petty grievances, Watch_Dogs is an open world game like every other; It’s got driving and mini-games to play around the city. Sub-missions are plentiful as well, but they all do nothing more than the same thing. So aside from the main campaign there’s really not much else to do.

But I guess, if you want to make excuses, you can always check-in to your favourite locations every hour till you become mayor.

But... Let's be honest here. You should be playing Sleeping Dogs instead.

I didn’t really play too many games this year. Sometimes life just really needed to get in the way, and I’ve found myself having to attend to a lot of nonsense that just prevented me from even dedicating an hour of my time to saving a prince--ah… person. So I have compiled a list of the games I’ve played this year. Even though once again, it's kind of small... maybe even smaller than last years?

Turns out, a lot of the games on this list were released closer to the end of the year. Go figure.

Despite what royalty might desperately try to beat into you. Fire Emblem is kind of a bad game. I could never get into it for the longest time, maybe I didn’t have the brain for it? Maybe I’ve spent so much of my life playing Final Fantasy Tactics over and over again, that Fire Emblem’s rock-paper-scissors approach to Strategy was just borderline insulting. Honestly when you get stuck on a 20 grid with hints of 2 to 3 scattered all over the place, how the hell are you supposed to know where anything is.

So I’d play the same puzzle constantly, waiting for the ‘hint’ to give me a sweet spot to work off of.

I don’t really imagine that this game is too different from the rest of the series, so a switch must have flipped in my brain. It’s got enough characters for you to care about. Enough puzzles to keep you busy for a fair amount of time (assuming you don’t get addicted, then it'll be over QUICK.) and I finally feel like I’m good at something that I’m sure everyone else is already better at.

There was a certain point where the fandom just killed this franchise for me. You know how it is, when you really enjoy a game, you subconsciously start paying attention to the community that surrounds it. So you join in on the phpforums, and livejournal posts...

But then people stop talking about how awesome the puzzles are, then suddenly just become rapey over ID:N-46 “French Doll”. It turns me away because I enjoy things at my own pace, and a barrier just turns on when they start talking about what they would do to Pheonix and Miles.

Many years later, I took the plunge with Dual Destinies, and even though I haven’t played anything past the 2nd game, everything is familiar to me. Half of the characters I may not know, but I’ve liked the game enough before, to know that I just get it.

Though it’s endgame suffers from constantly stalling the story by everyone repeating each others dialogue, it’s a welcome edition to the series. I’m very much 'ready and willing’ for more.

I have a history of playing Grand Theft Auto quite casually. Aside from the missions, I tend to spend hours at a time in that sandbox doing absolutely nothing. Turning on the radio, driving around. Sometimes I challenge myself to see how fast I can do a puzzle I’ve already done, soon after I do it. It’s surprising how I never really remember where any of the blocks go.

The history between Trevor and Michael is the drive that kept going for me, and It was the first time I ever became actively interested in doing puzzle after puzzle, just so I can unlock the next painting. Rockstar has really outdone themselves with this one. So now that they’ve practically mastered how to tell a story, I can only hope they get better with gameplay.

I’ve been saying this for years, probably even on the TL;DL podcast. Animal Crossing works better as a portable game. Since it’s set up to play out at 24-hour days, there can never really be that many hours to dedicate yourself to staying home incase something happens. But if you’re out and about, you can pull out the 3DS and knock out a couple of puzzles here and there.

Sheer convenience.

Though your spurts can feel short lived at times, which is the necessary way to play it. If you try to do as much as you can, you quickly become burned out. Or you’ve dried up the well and it feels like there’s nothing left to do except the same things over and over again… and you have to wait for the next instalment. (which I hear is not that far, but I have 4 of these games already if I feel the need to jump around and keep playing. But honestly, I’m always excited for more. I am willing to keep giving jupiter money.)

Oh yeah, and If you ever get the chance to have Wolfgang as a villager, tell him I said hi. We go way back.

I’m firm believer in just choosing one FPS franchise and sticking with it. There’s no point in playing all these different variations of the same thing if you have to keep relearning that feeling over and over again. There’s a couple of free to play browser based games, that when I give them a try, it’s just not the same.

I don’t know why that is, because they’re honestly all the same fucking thing. But Battlefield has kept my attention for so long, that it’s the only one I’ll ever want to play. Even though I’ve indulged in CS:GO a couple times this year, Battlefield is the one game that I keep coming back to, asking for more.

So it’s no surprise that battlefield is the only game I wanted when the PlayStation 4 came out. Though Multiplayer is really lacking with this game at first (and honestly, how can you even do multiplayer with this game.) It’s a welcome edition to the franchise.

This is the best Zelda game I’ve ever played so far. Honestly, the only reason why I’m saying that is because, for years I’ve had this feeling that the game just needed to be changed up for so long. Who would have thought that the change I was looking forward to, was for Nintendo to go Full Nostalgia on your ass. A Direct sequel to the Link to the Past, that fleshes out dat lore a little bit more, is something I’ve never known I needed.

Though it still plays the same that as always has, it manages to change up the gameplay in an exciting way. When it introduced the Mega Puzzles, suddenly solving them became 10 times more ambiguous, and with no fail state I would sit there for 30 minutes to an hour trying to figure it out.

I highly recommend this game to anyone. Love or hate the franchise, there’s something in it for all. Though I must confess that I look even more forward when they cross this game with Dynasty Warriors on the Wii U. That is probably going to be my ultimate guilty pleasure.

Full Disclosure: If you couldn’t follow along it’s because this is last minute and horribly written, but it's also because I’ve been playing waaaaay too much Picross this year. Infact the elaborate ruse was a way of saying that I've been playing Picross the most the year, and Mario's Picross + Picross e1, e2, and e3 are all together my one true game of the year.

what can I say, I REALLY like puzzle games.

Hey kids! Us wonderfully video game savvy people at TL;DL, have decided to do a delightful E3 Edition podcast of our own. Here's the kicker though, the audio only version will have to come much later, I have a little under a week to have a show prepared and I can't be caught dead giving myself time to edit a podcast for a couple of hours. Hell I shouldn't even be giving myself time to play Animal Crossing (which is an amazing game by the way.)

So without further ado, I'll just present you all with the archived video from the googles hang, it's a two parter (because at some point we invited @xeiphyer into the mix.

NOTE: Podcast doesn't actually start till 15:15 in the first video.

THANKS FOR WATCHING, NOW I HAVE TO GO AND BE BUSY NOW! KTHNXBAI

I think the title of the episode this week is fitting for a number or reasons. We did the podcast on Saturday, and it's Tuesday. The audio-only version should have been up a little quicker. But as I've said on many occasions I have a show to work on, and it takes up my time and just leaves me tired to do things like edit podcasts.

BUT HEY, here it is juys! and as a special treat @vidiot and @dolphin_butter join the podcast this episode, with the regular regulars @apathylad and @ossi. We talk about the Feminist Frequency Part 2 video that poped up within the week. Well.. I mainly wanted to because I wasn't sure if we talked about it the first time around.

We also talk Armikrog and why it'll be much better off than the Dyack venture, regardless of the person behind it. We talk more Xbox one mess, The Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, and a plethora of other things.

As I've mentioned ( I think) the iTunes feed is back up, but the library is probably still out of whack, to be honest I'm using this new episode to test the feed and see if I can get it back into some kind of order. but regardless, you have that. The straight up download link right here. and for those that like to watch, the archive of the livestream below:

Thanks for listening/watching and tune in for the next week thing, as we'll probably be talking a lot more pre-E3 stuff before the big event.

Cheers,

Professor Lapti.

So let me just get this out of the way. Yes, the iTUNES feed is still broken, but to those that use the xml stuff: This should work. So now that's out of the way, we can get down to the brass taxes. We talk Xbox's new console, we discuss what we think the market is for it, what is does that the PS4 doesn't, why we argue a case for the PS4, and also generally be in defence for the presentation last week.

For those looking into hear a serious discussion about it, I highly suggest this weeks episode. *WINK WINK*

Then about Halfway through @apathylad joins in and we talk about Things like Donkey Kong and Vertigo!

To download this weeks episode in audio form: CLICK HERE.

If want to watch the archived google hangout, watch below! (show doesn't really start till around 15:50 )

Thanks for watching/listening!

-Uncle Lapti.

Part of the problem with recording these things on a sunday is that news just passes by as I slowly do the process of Editing (which I half ass from time to time.) How about that one Xbox huh? You won't be hearing about it in THIS episode. For the news that mattered last week though? this is a pretty good show.

As usual, I am your host With @commodoregroovy on Bass, and @ossi on Treble.

Talking poonts:

• Nintendo and Let's Plays and why Bon doesn't care. We seek to define what a let's play should be about and that the majority out there are absolute shit anyway.
• The difference between Game Centre CX and “Let's Plays”
• Bon Finally watches a whole bunch of “Fast and Furious” movies for the first time in his life. Spoilers: Tokyo Drift is pretty good.
• There was a Counterstrike: GO home and be a family man FREE WEEKEND.
• Bon is a Mac gamer. #rimshot
• Software-cast.
• Ossi chat's up some of The Mighty Quest for Epic loot.
• Valve Trading cards aren't really all that interesting.
• We talk about TL;DL's RSS feed woes.
• Bonbolapti, resident Nintendo Direct/Sonic Apologist.
• Guns of Icarus online and why everyone should be playing it.
• Kotaku stuff that everyone has known for years.
• That there new Guilty Gear game.
• Harass Bon to live stream 7^th guest.

So since the RSS feed is still down because I'm so lazy, you can at least download the podcast manually right here. I'm super sorry that the iTunes feed isn't working :(

Those interested in watching the G+ hang, here you go:

Thanks for watching/Listening.

It's not everyday you can say that you hit a milestone. 30 years. 30 years we've been doing this podcast and it's been a long hard road. We've seen games and systems come and go, we latch on to the things we're most fond of. Both good and bad.

@bonbolapti is back from Vegas, with @commodoregroovy, @apathylad and @ossi joining him. Let's not beat around the bush, let's just start the show.

• BON Talks Vegas, The Pinball Hall of Fame and the difference between an American and Canadian Big-Mac.
• Ossi gives the personal perspective of the Diablo III auction house kerfuffle.
• The Neverwinter MMO: Why it's cool in it's goofy little way.
• Apathylad Showed Dolphin_Butter around little tokyo.
• Apathy's Tales addiction
• Injustice talk: Lobo, the iphone thing and Wii U owners complaining about no support for the game, so they don't support it.
• 3DS games to look forward to.
• Poketalk
• Dark Souls and the comparison to Die by the sword.
• Bene is the source of health issues.
• THEN THE SELF UNDULGENCE OF THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL HAPPENS! MAGICALLLLL.

I'm having some problem with the database, So I don't know when I can get it up onto the iTUNES store, but you can download the audio here. For those interested, here's the archive of the live video feed we did for the podcast:

Also, here's the link to the video we mention near the end, THAT EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH!

Hey guys, word on the street is that the last episode was downloaded a hell of a lot of times. So things magically stopped getting busy for us, then a bit of the pack got together and talked up a podcast.

exciting? YES.

@dolphin_butter and @ossi Join me as we hit all the right notes and more. Key topics include:

• Why Nintendo not doing an E3 keynote is far from a big deal.
• Smash Bros. Tournament style play.
• The Cancelled Maverick Hunter game.
• Dragons' Dogma, Nintendo Direct, If you're getting a New console you're only getting one or the other.
• AND MORE.

As mentioned in the Podcast, Ossi is done with school, and he has a couple of game concepts to prove it: if you go down to Bob's Cave, front and center is Gopher forest and Sheep cave. CHECK EM OUT. We also talked about Dolphin uploading a bunch of fighting game videos to a youtube channel, but I can't find it right now, I'll have to bug him for it and update this.

and although I didn't mention it at all in the podcast, I wanted to mention that I doodle whenever I can over at funkchop.tumblr.com, though it's doodling for the sake of doodling, most of the time the drawrings are video game related stoopid pictures.

Anyway, the PODCAST is available right here, and the iTunes music store as usual.

PLUS, if you're curious we usually end up live streaming the podcasts over on my youtube channel thanks to the power of google plus. You're always welcome to join in as it happens, and I'll usually remember to tweet it whenever we get the goings on.

That's about it for now, enjoy the listen! give us feedback in the comments if you like, or if you have a question or something you'd like answered on the podcast, DM me on twitter or leave a comment down below.

thank you thank you thank you,

Now if you excuse me, Deadly Premonition Director's Cut is calling out to me.

Your Pal,

Uncle Lapti

Hey kids, how is it going? Did you miss the last episode of TL;DL? Of course you did because I didn't put it up last week. What can I say, life gets in the way and then you have no enthusiasm for the hobbies that you do for fun (albeit experience.) But my treat to you is that I'm uploading both Episode 28 AND 29. It's a TWOFOR, Download one, Download the Other, OR BOTH?

Lemmie break it down for you.

It's a Bon, Ossi and Dolph cast. Which is also basically a slow news day, or as I like to call it, Not much worth mentioning day. But the show must go on, and if it's a chill day then it's still a fun time.

• We talk a bit about School and Career. Writing, Game making and TV Show Development.
• Bon talks about being another podcast where he discussed his hometown and Marvel Universe ROLEPLAYING CHATROOMS.
• Dolph went to Drama Class for the LAYDEEEES (Bon's Note: perfectly acceptable)
• Bon explains the difference between acting school and Acting Seminars.
• Ossi warns about Game Design Courses.
• GAMETALK like: Stylesavy-Fashionista-Barista
• Confusing Ossi with Greg Kasavin
• Psycon Dongle Joke (it was relevant at the time)
• Hygiene Rituals, Hair, and weather
• Threatening to kill a Groundhog
• Kill the sun
• complaining in relation to the internet.
• Ossi levels up
• What's the use of Capture stations in this day and age.
• Lengthy Afrika talk
• Then we basically close it off with One Piece chatter, Cosplay porn and Transistor.

Download EPISODE 28 RIGHT HERE.

This one is a Bon Ossi and Apathylad cast, brought to you by Sonic Dash on iOS. Suddenly it feels like there's conversations worth having. Apathy was at Wondercon, Bon still has his show, and Ossi still has school, but let's get into what's cool!

• Bon get's straight into Apathy's Wonderful Wondercon trip and we totally name drop someone while doing so. Games, panels, and the pronunciation of Xillia.
• Apathy played year walk
• another Update from Bon's Panel show, Vancouver kids take note.
• Luigi's Mansion 2, and a Deep conversation about Luigi and the Mario Universe as a whole.
• Professor Layton and the Canonical Query.
• Playing as Ganondorf in a Zelda game. That would be pretty badass right? What kind of game would that be like?
• Lego City undercover is tops.
• Touching up a little bit on Bioshock games.
• Sonic Dash, Sonic Dash, Sonic Dash.
• Ossi has been playing Final Fantasy VI you guys, YOU GUIZE! (finally)
• Fire Emblem, is it still sold out in places? Who beat it? Bon hasn't, he played it too much to burn himself out.
• Justifying DLC purchases.
• Videogame storytelling theory: old days versus the now.
• Let's open a school that teaches people how to think again.
• SHENMUE III? PS4? WHAT? GIVE WHERE MY MONEY?
• People stepping down from companies.
• Iwata and Nintendo are Maxin' and Relaxin' and why they're still a pretty great company.
• David Hayter isn't the voice of Snake anymore. Yay? Nay? Meh. (Though, Hayter himself recently addressed it, and if it's something you're genuinely mad about, you'll have to move on.)
• Old Voice actors reprising their old roles.

Download Episode 29 RIGHT HERE.

Thanks again, as always, for listening to the cast. As usual, you can also find us in the iTUNES music store. If there's anything worth bringing up or asking, for shits and giggles. Feel free to make a comment, and we'll act accordingly, for shits and giggles.

Bonjamin Laptor.

Hey folks.

I don't really have that much time to sit here and think of a blerb to say about how awesome and amazing this podcast is. What I can tell you, is that Ossi and I are playing Diablo III while we are recording in a google hangout. So even though you can get the audio from this link here and/or the iTUNES music store, we're going to have some fun and post the video of the whole thing.

Which you figure would be amazing, yet the quality is only 480p so I get I could be sitting here and apologizing, but screw that. enjoy enjoy enjoooooy the podcast.

with love,

Bonbolapti