I've been wanting to do a blog about the games I play for some time now, but I could never find the time or the energy to do so. Eventually I settled on a bare-bones format where I'll simply throw out the thoughts currently spinning in my head and won't worry too much about visual aids or critical analysis. Which will hopefully mean this won't be the only one of these blogs. If you'd like to give tips on how to organize this sorta thing, I'm open to suggestions. Anyway, onto the games.

Fallout 3

The first time I played through Fallout 3 was on the PS3, where I had difficulty initially enjoying the game, but I eventually grew to appreciate it. The sense of scope and the atmosphere of the world are both excellent, and they helped me overlook many of the little problems I had as I played through the game. But those problems still existed. That was, until I played through a modded PC version of the game recently.

I have to give credit to the makers of the Fallout Wanderer's Edition mod, as the amount of changes it allows you to make to the core game of Fallout 3 is very impressive. Not only did the game play better, but it also changed how I played the game. I had to be more careful of the items I bought and the ammo I used, because I was a lot more fragile towards bullets. I found myself exploring the world more thoroughly as I looked for items to help my survivability. This lead to me finding more quests that I had never seen before, and becoming more invested in the wasteland of Fallout 3. By the end of the main quest (which I have to agree, has a dumb ending) I felt like I'd actually accomplished something in the game, as opposed to the constant fast-travelling, speed run-esque playthrough I had done on the console. I also tried out some of the dlc, as I didn't previously. I haven't beat them all, only Operation Anchorage, Mothership Zeta and Broken Steel. They've all had there ups and downs, and none of them have seemed essential to the experience. That being said I'm still keen to do the other dlc before I move on. At the very least I'd like an opportunity to test out the alien weapons I accrued.

Favourite Part:

Coming across a "battle" between two lunatics dressed as superheroes/villains. Amongst all the absurdity of this quest I just happened upon by wandering the wastes, the best part was that I was somehow able to sweet-talk the villain out of being evil because I had chosen the "Lady Killer" perk much earlier on. Oh, and I got her armour too.

Infamous: Second Son

So I recently took the dive and bought a PS4. Opinions on the console aside, I finished Infamous: Second Son the other day. (I haven't finished Paper Trail or Cole's Legacy, so please don't spoil those) Overall, I really liked it. The visuals, the sound, the powers, and even the movement are all a joy to experience. The soundtrack is easily one of my favourites of this year. There's no one track that is my favourite, but whenever the music would kick in, I loved every bit of it. For a showpiece for the capabilities of the PS4, it's quite impressive. The rain effects and the particles in particular are very cool. I'll have to try the photo mode when I next get a chance. But ignoring all that, the way you control the character and how the powers factor into your movement is really, really fun. One of my big problems with the previous inFamous games was the way you got around the city. You spent too much time fighting against the finicky wall-climbing system, which is still present, but it doesn't matter because you have all these powers that make the way you traverse the city much smoother and much more enjoyable. If the Batman Arkham games are the staple for good, flowing combat then I think inFamous Second Son is a great example of how you can turn getting from point A to B into an engaging experience as opposed to a chore.

As for the story, I think it's alright. None of the characters were very memorable, and I feel it suffers a little from the reduced scope compared to inFamous 2. I miss the looming danger "The Beast" brought in that game. It's not bad, but I felt it's been done better in the previous games. That being said, I don't feel like they left the series on a bad note. I'd be happy for Sucker Punch to leave it there and move onto to something else. I've had my fill of inFamous for while.

Favourite Part:

As stated above, I really enjoyed using the powers to move around the city. Be it running in neon, jumping out of exhausts with smoke, and so on, it just felt good. You can bet the first thing I did after getting the neon power was unlocking the ability that let my use the run continuously.

Battlefield 4

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was my first and is my favourite Battlefield game. Maybe it's just me, but I find that the sense of character and style that the single player mode of a mutliplayer shooter strives for has a pretty strong effect on how I view it's multiplayer. The bombastic nature of the single player of Bad Company 2 helped me enjoy the multiplayer because I felt like I was playing out a bombastic action scene, with the characterization and aesthetic seeping through into the multiplayer. So when Battlefield 3 came around and I hated the single player, I also didn't have very nice things to say about the multiplayer. Admittedly there were changes in the multiplayer that I didn't like, and the PS3 version wasn't very good, but I still feel like the negative reaction I had towards the single player affected my enjoyment of the rest of the game.

Anyway, to my point, I'm actually enjoying the single player of Battlefield 4. Perhaps it's my lowered expectations, as it's still one of those heavily scripted, modern military stories, but I'm finding myself liking it a fair bit. And what do you know, I'm also really enjoying the multiplayer. Okay, so that might be because the PS4 allows for 64 players and a nice framerate, but I'm calling conspiracy. In short, it hits the explosive highs I remember from Bad Company 2, and most of the weapons feel good to shoot.

Favourite Part:

At one point during my time with the multiplayer, I bailed out of a helicopter that had just crash landed on top of a roof, only for that same helicopter to swing round and knock my flying of the roof. I then landed on a lower-down glass rooftop, somehow surviving, only to have someone below me shootout the glass and make me fall. I still managed to survive and shoot that guy. It all happened in the space of 20 seconds and it was amazing.

And that'll do for this blog. I could write about Black Flag and Wolf Among Us, but the former I finished a long while ago (I liked it) and the latter I'll save until I playthrough the game again. If you made it this far, or just skimmed through some of the blog, thanks for your time. Hopefully you'll see another one of these once I'm done with some other video-games.