How ridiculous are video game clothes these days? No, I'm not regarding Sora's zippers or fucking female armor, but the costing of these fake clothes for your fake characters that you paid real money for. Resident Evil 2 is around the bend here s we're just about nine days away; the Deluxe Edition of this game three outfits for Claire (maybe we should get onto female armor), two for Leon, and a pistol modeled after the series' villain's handgun. Is this worth the extra ten bucks which then makes the price 69.99? Not to this guy.

Though, among the three for Claire is an outfit that her original intended character, Elz Walker, was wearing in the original Resident Evil sequel before the project was scrapped and reworked; this sequel has been labeled Resident Evil 1.5 as it was shown to the masses in many forms so for those of us old enough we remember what this outfit looked like from the rarely seen trailers of the day or in any of the numerous video game magazines of the time.

To tug on nostalgia is a tactic incited often. It doesn't end there, though, as the biggest factor for the Deluxe Edition may lie in the Retro Soundtrack Swap which isn't only a soundtrack swap but it'll also alter some sounds to that of the original game, too! Ah! Nostalgia you fucking bitch. The first time I'd witnessed the original game was in a dark room with a horribly lit EGM magazine that had a guide for the beginning hours of the game, as I tried to navigate my older brother beyond the utterly terrifying Licker players initially meet; this was pants-pissing reaction was different from the original Resident Evi's experience where my brother decided it was a grand idea to call a zombie a "bastard" in front of our mother as she was on the phone with our grandmother.

Fucking brilliant.

Here we are, though, 21 years later as much I'm looking to capture lightning in the bottle I can't justify to my wallet nor myself that fake clothes are worth the money, enticing as the soundtrack may be it is highly outnumbered and sadly even listed as the last bullet point on this premium package. The era of nickel and diming over microtransactions or incentivizing an extra cost for what is already built into the game but locked for those only seeking to overpay, initial and apparent or not, must come to an end.

*Will edit with thoughts as time goes on throughout the week.

Completed:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (May 9)
2. Way Out (May 9)
3. Far Cry 5 (May 24)
4. Prey (June 24)
5. Assassin's Creed Origins (June 26)
6. Super Mario Odyssey(July 10)
7. Detroit: Become Human (September 15)
8. Spider-Man (October 18)
9. Gears of War (September 19)
10. Metal Gear Solid (December 24)

Started:

1. Fable (Xbox)
2. Jade Empire (Xbox)
3. Max Payne 2 (Xbox)
4. Psi Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
5. Shenmue 2 (Xbox)
6. Tony Hawk’s Underground (Xbox)
7. XIII (Xbox)
8. Fallout 3 (Xbox 360)
9. Portal 2 (Xbox 360)
10. Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)
11. Saints Row (Xbox 360)
    My wife and I played through all of the insurance fraud activity sets and moved on to the same activity in the second game. Sure, maybe she wasn’t the best at it but any time I get to actually hand my controller to my wife and she’s actually willing to take it is a highlight!
12. Saints Row 2 (Xbox 360)
13. Attack on Titan 2 (Xbox One)
14. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (Xbox One)
15. Fallout 76 (Xbox One)
16. Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One)
17. Gears of War 4 (Xbox One)
18. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox One)
19. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Xbox One)
20. Overcooked (Xbox One)
21. Quantum Break (Xbox One)
22. State of Decay 2 (Xbox One)
23. Sunset Overdrive (Xbox One)
24. We Happy Few (Xbox One)
25. Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze (Nintendo Switch)
26. Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! (Nintendo Switch)
27. Splatoon 2 (Nintendo Switch)
28. Super Smash Brothers Ultimate (Nintendo Switch)
29. Beyond Good & Evil (Playstation 3)
30. Metal Gear Solid 2: HD Edition (Playstation 3)
31. Mighty No. 9 (Playstation 3)
32. Absolver (Playstation 4)
33. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (Playstation 4)
34. Batman (Telltale Series) (Playstation 4)
35. Firewatch (Playstation 4)
36. Grand Theft Auto 3 (Playstation 4)
37. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Playstation 4)
38. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Playstation 4)
39. Heavy Rain (Playstation 4)
40. L.A. Noire (Playstation 4)
41. LEGO Harry Potter Collection: Years 1-4 (Playstation 4)
42. Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (Playstation 4)
43. Monster Hunter World (Playstation 4)
44. Rayman Legends (Playstation 4)
45. Red Dead Redemption 2 (Playstation 4)
46. Resident Evil Revelations (Playstation 4)
47. Shadow of the Colossus (Playstation 4)
48. South Park: The Fractured But Whole (Playstation 4)
49. Tekken 7 (Playstation 4)
50. Vampyr (Playstation 4)
    Let me call this my “Most Low-Key Hyped Game of the Year” followed by “Most Disappointing Game of the Year.” The latter would be an unfair assessment as I have not finished this game, but, oh my lord, if that combat ever becomes a dominant aspect of a chapter in this game it would permanently push my overboard to never return. This was started to almost instantly fall to the backlog so AC: Origins and Prey could both be completed.
51. Yakuza 0 (Playstation 4)

A testament to the oddity that we will collectively remember as 2018 is the fact that in the Adam timeline there was a God of War game worth playing. Years back I grudgingly ran myself through the three numbered games and the two spin-offs available at the time on the Hard difficulty, it was a horrible experience. Not because of the challenge, that was embraced, but the monotonous flailing of these firey whipping swords was veiled with a revenge story with the world's worst loud protagonist. Here we are, though, with Adam saying, "Play God of War!"

As much as you can still go flailing about, a bit of strategy is often employed here more than it was in the hack-and-slash of yore. Very few weapons offer as much satisfaction as the Leviathan Axe, Kratos' main weapon that can be swung but also thrown and recalled with just as much ease. A few times a situation would arise leading into frantic combat and I'd get a little weary thinking this really just can't handle those moments the same, a new control scheme and refreshing lone camera angle offer a vastly different game than its predecessors, but would end up grinning like a lunatic as an overload of magical, particle effects and virtual blood flew across the screen.

Not only does Kratos control or appear differently here but he is thankfully a completely different character from the one we left off. Sure, he's the same guy in the continuity of God of War, yet we no longer have a Kratos who just yells about everything at everyone everywhere every time he meets them. What is left behind after the trilogy is a broken man who has not yet come to terms with who he is but also what he is as a father, a god, and at times a mass murderer. With his son Atreus, the pair set off on an adventure to spread the ashes of Kratos' wife and the boy's mother while along the way both come out the other end a little different. There is a bit in the middle where Atreus has a tonal shift, purposefully, and as maddening as it is you see why and how he landed there, and you feel so glad when he understands and redeems himself. There are a few other grievances with portrayals, a bit of heavy-fisted drama for the sake of it, but overall the story here is above anything the series, and about gaming as a whole, has offered before.

This will never make me want to replay the old games, but it does have me excited for the new journey Kratos finds himself on as he dispatches the Norse pantheon.