Back in February, I got the Humble Bundle monthly package. One of the benefits of buying this package is the ability to access a large list of games and download them. One of those games is Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy, a game that I have been hearing about a lot during that time. So, I download the game and play it...then I let it rest until recently when I decided to finally finish the game. Now, I am climbing a new mountain; except this mountain I am trying to climb is the writing of this blog while trying to solidify my thoughts on the game. So join me if you would like as I talk about my thoughts on GOIWBF.

For those who don't know, Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy is a game made by Bennett Foddy (also famous for QWOP) in which you play as a man in a cauldron using a sledgehammer to climb a mountain. The game takes inspiration from an older game called Sexy Hiking, in which you essentially do the same thing in that game as well. While you are climbing in Getting Over It, Bennett Foddy gives commentary about various topics such as the inspirations to this game, frustration, current video game culture, and others. He also says quotes from various people and occasionally plays a song whenever you have a big setback.

When I first started this game, I thought it was just a funny meme game where the commentary was mainly going to be about frustration as the game mocks me on my failures. By the time I have finished, I found out I was wrong on my prediction. Through a man climbing a mountain in the most impracticable way imaginable, I found that this game is one of the most real games I have played in a while. So, what do I mean by that?

At around the beginning parts of the game, Bennett Foddy starts to talk about Sexy Hiking, a game similar to Getting Over It. He talks about how difficult the game is, which then leads to him talking about the first level. In the first level of this game, you start by trying to climb over a tree. Despite a simple objective, it is an obstacle that has proven to be too difficult for many. It is at this point when he says, "Most obstacles in video games are fake - you can be completely confident in your ability to get through them, once you have the correct method or the correct equipment, or just by spending enough time. In that sense, every pixellated obstacle in Sexy Hiking is real." Looking back at this quote, it got me thinking about video game obstacles. What is a real obstacle in a video game? What is an obstacle I have faced in a video game where the only way of conquering it is to simply bang your head against it over and over again until you eventually get it? A lot of obstacles in video games can be solved by lowering the difficulty, changing around equipment or skills, going a different path, or sometimes even luck. But few games have I ever been given one single path with no other option but to get past it with no option in difficulty or equipment. Just like Sexy Hiking, this game doesn't compromise with you. When you are presented with an obstacle in this game, you have no other option but to get past it, and the only thing that can help you is developing a method to get past it. That is one of the many things I love about this game. Everything you see in this game feels real, and every difficulty I faced in this game felt natural. This game isn't difficult in the sense that enemies have high health and damage or that you are constantly being threatened with death; its difficulty comes from the fact that climbing with a sledgehammer is hard. It's difficulty comes from the fact that climbing in general is hard, and that is what makes this game and its difficulty feel so real.

Directly after this quote, he says, "The obstacles in Sexy Hiking are unyielding, and that makes the game uniquely frustrating. But I'm not sure Jazzuo (the creator of Sexy Hiking) intended to make a frustrating game - the frustration is just essential to the act of climbing..." When I first heard this quote, I started to think about games that gives you various feelings. Are games that give you feelings like frustration or sadness designed to give you these emotions or are they just the outcome of your experience? Even though I have been writing blogs and reviews for over a year, I really got caught up in this basic question I feel like I should've had the answer for long ago. When it comes to this game, Foddy marketed it as a game meant to hurt people and something that will make you feel new kinds of frustrations you have never felt before, but I don't believe he made this frustrating game just to be frustrating. I believe he made this game as a homage to Jazzuo's game which in turn made it a difficult and frustrating game, and he uses this frustration to criticize modern video games. And this is where I want to get into the strongest feeling I have about this game: the fact that I got a feeling out of this game.

Later on into the game, Foddy says this quote that has stuck with me more than anything else in the game, "What's the feeling like? Are you stressed? I guess you don't hate if you got this far. Feeling frustrated, it's underrated." Feeling frustrated, it's underrated... After that, he gets to a part where an orange is resting on a table and he says, "An orange is a sweet juicy fruit locked inside a bitter peel. That's not how I feel about a challenge. I only want the bitterness. Its coffee, its grapefruit, its licorice." This quote is the thing that got me to not only finish and love the game, but to play it more and even write what I am writing in this blog. I begin to realize that the feelings I sometimes have while playing a game that are negative are still feelings in the end. Now believe it or not, this game didn't make me as frustrated as others (at least the first time around anyways), but I still had a feeling of subtle frustration for the game that made me lose interest in the game for a little while. But even though this feeling of frustration is a negative feeling, I actually love and cherish it now. But why?

Before the quote previously stated, Foddy said this, "When games were new, they wanted a lot from you, daunting you, taunting you, resetting you and delaying you. Players played stoically. Now everyone's turned off by that. They want to burn through it quickly, a quick fix for the fickle. Some tricks for the clicks of the feckless." When I heard "feeling frustrated, it's underrated," I started to think about the countless amount of games I have played that have taken my time but has given me nothing in terms of any emotions or feelings. In my eyes now, new games (not all new games) feel dumbed down to mindless gameplay that will give you many ways to easily pass any obstacles in your way. It's goal is to appeal to everyone, even the most casual of gamers, and in turn it offers something that is fun but isn't challenging. If you fail, it will only set you back a tiny bit or not even set you back at all, and if it's too difficult then you can just set the difficulty lower. Games don't want to challenge you because to many, even me, frustration ensues and that leads to people leaving their game. But this game has me seeing this feeling of frustration or this difficulty as the life of the game. If a game doesn't challenge you or push you, then what are you going to get out of your experience with the game other than some time wasted (excluding narrative games)?

Now the one thing that is great about frustration or difficulty is that getting past it is a great feeling. Sometimes my feeling of getting past frustration is more of a 'finally' type feeling than joy, but still getting past frustration or difficulty can leave me with a good feeling in my chest. Cuphead got me feeling joy every time I see 'knockout' roll across the screen and I can remember my heart pounding when I was the last standing in CoD: Ghosts' extinction mode and I survived when I was younger. The feeling after frustration is great, but I don't want this blog to be about that. Because the quote that got me to write this blog wasn't me thinking about the feeling after frustration, it was the frustration itself. Just like Bennett Foddy said; he doesn't want the sweet juicy fruit, he wants the bitter peel. Now where I differ from Foddy is that I do want that fruit, but where I realized I am similar with him is that I also want the peel. In an age of mindless games, the feeling of frustration made me love this game. It made the game feel real to me.

Now, their is some bias in my train of thought because I like to rock climb. I am by no means a big rock climber, but I do climb regularly and I really enjoy climbing. But when I really started to climb, I learned about how difficult climbing is. Once you get past the basic rock climbing most know, you get to rock climbing that has difficulty rankings and start to throw crazy obstacles in your way. Climbing for me went from an easy climb to a crazy difficult obstacle. Their were paths in rock climbing that I was constantly stuck on and I would get frustrated at myself for not being able to get past it. But these feelings were real, and my frustration would make me want to go back and keep trying until I get it or get too tired and come back another time and try again. The challenge was what made rock climbing so fun and the frustration fueled me to keep going. When I first thought about the parallels of rock climbing and this game, I just thought about how your goal is to climb a mountain, kind of like rock climbing. But looking at my experiences with rock climbing and this game, I realized just how alike the two are. The challenge and the frustration of failure makes rock climbing and makes this game better. And since I climbed alone, no one was there to belay me and hold me place when I got tired, and nothing is holding anybody in bouldering, so whenever I failed I started back at square one, something that can happen to me in this game (and it did). My new-found experience with my love of frustration was something that has actually been sitting there for awhile, but it was this game that opened my eyes to that thought process in video games, and that is why I love this game. You don't even have to be a rock climber to experience this too.

When I did finish this game, I was wiped mentally. Just like in rock climbing, I reached the top and I needed a breather. That is where I got the most interesting end-game gift I have ever been given: a chatroom. It was a simple little chatroom that can only be accessed if you beat the game, and when you leave you can't go back in until you beat the game again. Anyways, when I first entered the chat, I was greeted by someone who also just beat the game recently, but this wasn't this person's first time. That was when I was introduced to the idea of playing the game again. I couldn't possibly imagine the idea of playing again, as for it took me eight hours to complete the game... so I played the game and beat it two or three more times and each time took around twenty-five to forty-five minutes. The fact that it took me a small fraction of the amount of time to complete the game was crazy to me. While I did find completing the game that much faster to be crazy cool to me, I realized that I might lose that feeling of frustration and challenge I cherished my first time around. But every time I play the game now, I find myself even more frustrated, but the frustration comes from trying to complete the game as fast as possible instead of just trying to complete the game. Every time I play this game now, the messages I got from this game didn't weaken, they strengthened. Just like in rock climbing, when you complete one challenge, a new one that is more difficult will present itself, and that is exactly what happened here. Not only did this game convey a strong message to me, it backed it up and continues to back it up every time I play, and that is what I love about this game.

Every time you have a big setback, either a quote by Foddy or someone famous will be read, or a song will play. The song played the most (and is played at the end) is Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad by Cliff Carlisle. One of the first few lines in the song is "I'm goin' down the road feelin' bad, and I ain't gonna be treated this a-way." This to me is the experience I have with new games. I go through the game feeling frustrated, and I don't want to be treated this way. But that is not this game. This song plays whenever you fail, almost mocking you because you are being treated this way. But by the end when the song plays for one last time while the credits rolled, being treated this way was what made the game great. It made me feel bad, but it made me feel something, and that is what makes this game real. It didn't treat me like I am some mindless zombie playing simple games because I can't handle frustration, it offered a game that as a result of its difficulty gave me frustration but didn't make things easier because it was too tough. It's a game that told me that feeling frustrated is underrated, and showed me just how underrated it was. While I still enjoy the fruit, Bennett Foddy told me just how great the peel can be too, and even a peel by itself is better than nothing at all.

Around a month ago I made a blog post called The Next Trillion Dollar IP, in which I criticized Cliff Bleszinski's studio Boss Key production on the creation of their latest game, Radical Heights. The title is a joke that references an interview he was in where he was describing going to various publishers and saying "I want to make another billion dollar IP." That billion dollar IP he was talking about was Lawbreakers, a game that had lower launch numbers than Battleborn. Now, Boss Key Productions is shutting its doors for good, and I am left with the question "how did they last so long?"

Now I don't want this blog to be about me dancing on their grave, because I am a little sad to see them go and I don't have anything against the studio. Instead, I want to tell the tale of Boss Key Production through my eyes and talk about what they did right and what they did wrong. But to get started, let's ask the question for those unaware of the situation, "what is Boss Key Productions?"

The year is 2014. Famous video game designer Cliff Bleszisnski and Dutch programmer Arjan Brussee decide to open up a new video game studio called 'Boss Key Productions.' That's about the last you will hear about Arjan because from this point on, Cliff was the face of that studio and the face of their games. Just like any other studio, Boss Key started to work on a new game, which we will later find out to be Lawbreakers. After some trailers and whatnot, Boss Key took their game to various trade shows and conventions to get the game into the hands of the media and to the public. For those who don't know, Lawbreakers is a fast-paced first-person multiplayer shooter that takes place in the future. The catch? Part of each map has a lack of gravity. This is where the first red flags are raised, as for the big thing to notice about my description of the game is the lack of what type of shooter game it is. You would expect an arena shooter from the guy who is best known for his history of arena shooters, but that isn't what happened. The second red flag to raise is the fact that the multiplayer FPS genre was over saturated at the time (and still is), which means that this game was fighting an uphill battle from the get-go. Despite that, a pure arena shooter could've had the chance to be successful and get CliffyB on the right track. But that isn't what happened. After the media and the public got their hands on the game, many soon realized that this new game isn't an arena shooter; it's actually a hero shooter similar to Overwatch. At this point, the game pretty much lost all hope at succeeding in this competitive FPS market. Despite trying to say that the game isn't like other shooters on the market and trying to veer towards things it does differently like how r-rated it is, the game ultimately couldn't escape from the shadow of Overwatch.

Fast forward to July of 2017 and that is where you will find the beginning of my history with the game and with Boss Key as a whole. At this time, Boss Key was running an open beta, and I decided to hop on and see what this game is. On the same day of trying out the game, I whipped up a fast blog titled Quick Impression on Lawbreakers (back when I sucked at writing...wait, I still do). Keep in mind that at the time, I had no real knowledge of the game other than its existence at the time, but even at that time I could see the Overwatch in this game. In my mind, the game was Overwatch but with zero gravity and a faster pace. Looking back on the time I had with the game, I also remember the characters being annoying (which for a hero shooter isn't good) and the modes being very similar to each other. Still, I had an overall good time with the game because its fast pace was fun and its gravity (or lack thereof) was unique. But I wasn't the only one to feel that way.

When the game released in August, it was media with decent reviews. Despite that, the stigma of Overwatch and its failure to really differentiate itself from the competition got sales to be...rather low. Some other issues like a poor console launch and matchmaking issues also plagued the game at launch, but they were minor issues compared to the whole Overwatch thing (did I mention this game is like Overwatch?) The game had a higher player count when it was in beta and had a lower launch player count than Battleborn. Despite supporting the games with updates over the coming months, the player counts dropped to the triple and soon after the double digits. Even though they tried to keep the dream alive, even they had to accept defeat on the game. And that is exactly what happened in Early April, when they announced they will be 'suspending' support for the game. So, what's next for this studio? Well, that was a question they answered pretty fast.

Just about as soon as they stopped support for one game, they announced and released a new game. What is that game you may ask? Why, it's Radical Heights, an 80s theme battle royale with no real twist to the genre. On April 10th, Boss Key released the game into early access (key word early), and despite the jankiness the game was a serviceable free-to-play battle royale game. But where other battle royale games were adding twists to the genre to differentiate itself from the crowd, Radical Heights ultimately did nothing other than the 80s theme, riding bikes, and using cash to buy weapons from vending machines. And despite being free, the game was very similar to Fortnite in its gameplay, which hurts the game because one game has a high enough player count to run a large country and the other is Radical Heights. This is where I cross with Boss Key again in trying out this game on the day it was released. And in the same day, I wrote The Next Trillion Dollar IP (linked above).

Despite serviceable player counts, the game couldn't sustain the company, and the game has now been shut down (May 14th, 2018). The Radical Heights servers will still be up (but for how long is the question), and Cliff is taking hiatus for a little while. As for the employees, some were said to be picked up by Epic Games a month earlier, but it is unknown about the others. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Arjan left in December of 2017 to work at Epic, and ironically enough he helped make Fortnite mobile version. And that is the brief history of Boss Key Productions, a company that closed less than a year after their first release and was the victim of chasing trends. But not everything Boss Key did was wrong.

Like I said earlier, I didn't want all of the focus on the blog to be on the failures of this company. Even though this blog is about the death of Boss Key, I feel that solely focusing on what it did wrong would make it sound like I am happy to see them go, and I am not. So I wanted to spend some time on the things Boss Key did right before turning my attention onto the wrongdoings of the company that ultimately lead to its demise. I will start with this: I never had a bad time with their games. Lawbreakers was a lot of fun to play; as for the controls were tight, the fast pace was a blast, and the zero gravity infusion into the game held a lot of potential. The characters felt well balanced (at least when I played it), the modes were too similar but still a lot of fun, and the game held an appropriate $30 price tag for the content it was offering. The game never offered harmful microtransactions that would give an unfair advantage (which is sad that I have to say) and despite the poor launch the developers kept updating the game. The game wasn't a bad game. As for Radical Heights, the game was really janky but still had potential. Now looking back at its release, I can see why they would release the game at such an early state as for it is most likely they had to release it to hopefully get some funds to at least stay afloat. It's because of these reasons and more that I am sad to see the company go because I believe that this team was talented and had some great potential to make awesome games.

Despite this talent, Boss Key made some pretty stupid mistakes that ultimately lead to its doom. Not only did they make dumb mistakes the first time around, they went ahead and did the same exact dumb mistakes the second time around, but that time they had no excuses to make those mistakes which made them look even dumber. So, what was dumb about Lawbreakers? For starters, the game was a competitive FPS multiplayer game, which meant the game had a slim chance of success. Heavy hitters like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Rainbow Six: Siege, CSGO, and many many more occupied the scene at around this time, so for a new studio to squeeze their game into that list was a losing battle. But then Overwatch happened. Now an argument can come up saying that since both games were in development at the time, Cliff couldn't have seen the success of Overwatch and escape from its looming shadow, but I disagree. I'm gonna take a guess that he learned about Overwatch at around 2015, which would give him two more years to change around his game just enough to make it a different kind of shooter, which he didn't. So how is he supposed to know Overwatch would be successful and essentially kill its competition? Simple. The answer is in the name 'Blizzard.' If Blizzard is making a new game, you better get out of the way because Blizzard is a well-liked company with a huge fan base. Still, maybe Cliff wanted to compete with Overwatch. Even if that was the case, they were going to lose. Overwatch was already out for a year by this game's release, which means its already established itself as the hero shooter (that or TF2), and its more cheery vibe and cartoonish style made the game more appealing whereas Lawbreakers felt like it catered to more of a niche crowd.

Despite these flaws being pretty easily predictable, a case can still be made that since it's their first game, they could learn from their mistakes and make a better second game. Then comes along Radical Heights, a game that literally falls into the same hole Lawbreakers dug just months before. The game was releasing into an over saturated market, had too many similarities to a big game (this time being Fortnite), and didn't make enough differences to make itself unique. But this time, Boss Key knew about their past mistakes which means this game had no excuses to do the same mistakes. What makes it worse is that at least Lawbreakers was cheaper than Overwatch, where this game was free-to-play, which meant it can't hold a price leverage against a certain other battle royale game. This game's one chance at success was a price leverage, but since Fortnite is free, more developed, and has a population too high to count, Radical Heights is always in a losing battle. Not to mention the game was starting to be made as Fortnite grew immensely in popularity, which means they knew that they had competition much larger than them. The only excuse I see with releasing this game is to keep the company afloat (which I am guessing is the exact reason they released this game), but even then they should've let this wave passed because by the time they got into it the big two games (PUBG and Fortnite) have already been established as the main battle royale games and all other games knew to change up the experience to survive. The game fell into its surrounding and couldn't adapt. A couple of other issues like Cliff's attitude towards the the studio's failures can also be attributed to its downfall, but they aren't nearly as big as their games.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That is essentially Boss Key Productions. Their first game brought the studio to its knees, and the second game gave the studio its final blow; except the difference here is that the studio saw the final blow coming but took it anyways. Boss Key Productions is a tale that was predictable but still unfortunate. It warns of following trends and not learning from mistakes while showing just how competitive the industry is. That despite a reputable name and solid games, the industry can eat you up and spit you out if you don't play your cards right. Boss Key didn't play their cards right, and now they are paying the price. I hate to see them go because that studio had some great potential, but they can only really blame themselves for their failures. So now we bid farewell to the zero-g arenas of Lawbreakers and the bicycles of Radical Heights. But mostly we bid farewell to Boss Key Productions. Goodbye Boss Key, and may you be a lesson to others on what not to do.

Games can do a lot of great things. They can tell an impactful story or the game can create stories you can share with friends. It can innovate on the gameplay aspect and bring us a whole new way to experience the medium. Hell, we can even take something as mundane as cardboard and turn it into something fun. Clustertruck isn't one of those games. It's a game about you jumping on top of trucks to reach an end goal. But while this game isn't doing anything new for the medium, it sure makes one great experience definitely worth your time.

Have you ever imagined the floor being lava while you throw around pillows in your living room and act as though they are platforms? Take that idea, replace the pillows with moving trucks and add an end goal and you have Clustertruck. This game is first-person parkour game where you move from moving truck to moving truck into you reach the end goal, without touching anything else but the trucks. While its concept is silly and its gameplay simple, Clustertruck uses those aspects to its strength to make an incredibly fun parkour game.

While games with complex mechanics and deep stories are great and all, but games that are simple have proven to me to be such a joy when dealing with complex games. It almost feels like a break to me while at the same time being more intense. While games like Shadow of Mordor want me to hone my fighting skills while trying to manage orcs and have me in three places at one time, Clustertruck asks you to do one thing: get to the end goal as fast as you can. It's through this simplicity that I find such enjoyment out of the game because I can invest all of my focus into getting better at jumping on top of trucks and trying to get to the end as fast as possible.

Jumping on top of trucks is a lot of fun, but its the levels that makes the fun last. Whether it be truck launch pads, large hammers that destroy the trucks, trucks on a lower or higher platform, or even a cannon that shoots trucks at the trucks, the ninety levels across nine worlds have something in store for you so each time is just as fun as the last. And on top of that, the game offers a level editor and Steam workshop support which means their is a lot of Clustertruck you can play. Unfortunately, I don't have the Steam edition so I cannot tell you how good or bad the level editor is and how much fun I am having with the user levels, but I still had a blast with the levels given to me. But what I do have that the other games have as well are abilities. The game has abilities like the ability to slow down time, teleport, rewind a bit, and even spawn a truck. The game also has some items like a grappling hook, double jump, and the ability to do a sick flip. Mixing and matching these items and abilities makes the chaos of trucks with bad drivers a little more manageable and it gave me a lot of cool last-second save moments.

What's the similarity between Clustertruck and Cuphead? Both start with a c, and both have short levels with the ability to restart the level quickly. I love having the ability to have quick levels because it makes death less annoying, and trust me when I say you will die in this game. Every time I die, I don't feel like I have lost a lot of progress because of how short the levels are. Sure, some levels can get a little lengthy, but the levels never dragged on for too long. This was complimented with a fast restart that got me right back into the action in a flash without a single loading screen. One click of the r key and I was right back at the start. It was a mixture of short levels and fast restart that got me into a 'one more level' mentality that got me hooked into the game.

Whenever I write about a game I recommend, I try to write as much as I can about the different aspects of the game. But for this game, I don't have much to say. But just because I don't have much to say doesn't mean this game is great. Simply put, I don't have a lot to say because I don't think their is much to say about it. This is a game about jumping on trucks and reaching an end goal. This game doesn't really innovate, but it instead offers a simple game with nothing radically new, but a game with a lot of fun to be had, and that is what I love about this game. If you like parkour games, tight levels, or just a simple game to pick up and play, then might I recommend Clustertruck.

Ten lists, ten months, but only five selections. Welcome to my monthly series where I talk about my top five anticipated games of the upcoming month. What is the month? Why, it's May of 2018. and what's that coming up? Why, it's the rules I put upon myself.

The game has to be released on at least one of the major systems (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch). The game has to be new, so no remasters or re-releases onto new systems. One thing I do count is a game either entering or exiting early access, but that game can only be counted once. If a game does have multiple release dates like Destiny 2 or GTA 5, then I will only count the earliest release date. Finally, it has to be a game, not a DLC. With the rules out of the way, let's look at my top picks for May.

5. Detroit: Become Human

This upcoming narrative-driven game by developer Quantum Dream has us in future Detroit where androids exist and are there to serve, until now. Detroit: Become Human is a game I am still skeptical about, but I still have hope in. I actually got to try the game back at Gamestop Expo back in August, and I think if I hadn't played it then, then it wouldn't be on the list. I'm not the biggest fan of narrative-driven games, but I find this game to be surprisingly enjoyable to play. The piece I played involving a hostage situation was actually quite a bit of fun, as for the narrative aspects were great and the gameplay was surprisingly engaging (you can read some more on it if you click on the Gamestop Expo link). Despite that, I still have some gripes with the game. Despite my game session with it, I still don't know if the gameplay will be engaging enough for me, and I personally think the future-robot-slaves-trying-to-be-free is a bit dry by now and may make the story uninteresting. Still, I hold hope for this game and I hope I am proven wrong on my gripes when the game releases on the 25th for the PS4.

4. State of Decay 2

State of Decay 2 is the sequel to Undead Lab's first game in which you are tasked with surviving in a zombie-infested world. While I didn't play the first game, I can tell that State of Decay 2 is a big improvement upon the first game. A bigger world, up to four player co-op, more diverse characters, and more shows how improved the second game is over the first. What holds me back on the game is the survival mechanics, as for I am not the biggest fan on survival games like DayZ. Still, I would like to give this game a shot because unlike DayZ, I think this game has more focus on surviving against zombies than fighting other players. State of Decay 2 will release for Xbox One and PC on the 22nd.

3. Garage

A drug dealer protagonist and zombies....on my clean Nintendo Switch?! Garage is a top down zombie shooter with a b-movie vibe that tasks you, an ex-drug dealer, with exploring parking garages with a secret while slaying hordes of zombies (and maybe some others). Like I said, I love a good zombie game, and I think this will be a fun one. It's VHS style with fun zombie gameplay looks like a lot of fun to play. I'm not expecting a Last of Us 2.0 from this game, but I do see a fun mindless zombie game that could eat up my time. I'm ready to shoot, stab, and mutilate zombies when the game releases on the 10th for the Nintendo Switch.

2. Trailblazers

Blazing trails and raising Hell is what I'm good at. Or, maybe just the blazing trails part. Trailblazers is an upcoming racing game by Supergonk that combines the fast-paced racing of F-Zero with the painting mechanic of Splatoon. How does that work? Simple. In this game, their are actually two teams, and each team has a color. What happens is that players apply paint to the track as they drive and when they hit their color paint, they get a boost. So the game is both about winning and controlling the track with your color to gain boosts to win. By combining the two, I see a whole lot of potential in the game, and that is what got it to be on this list. I love the upbeat style, fast gameplay, and the potential strategy I can see with this game has me pumped for the game. I can't wait to blaze trails and raise...paint when the game releases on the 8th for all four systems.

1. Moonlighter

When a portal opens up to another realm, what do you do? Why, sell stuff of course! Moonlighter is an action RPG by Digital Sun that tasks you with visiting these other worlds and fighting the deadly monsters, then bringing back the loot and selling it. Ever since I played Slime Rancher, a game that combines exploration and farming, I have been trying to find a game that scratches that itch. The combination of excitement and mundane feel like a perfect match for me, so trying to find a game that combines fun gameplay elements with something like upgrading a city or selling wares has been something that's been on my mind for awhile. I know their are some games out there that will scratch that itch, and I also know Moonlighter is one of them. It's a game I have been watching for awhile, and I am really excited to get my hands on it. Both the gameplay and the shopkeeping mechanics look like a lot of fun to play, and that is all I need. Moonlighter releases on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on the 29th, with a Switch launch sometime after.

Special: More games to check out.

Every time I have done these lists, I usually pick out ten-to-thirty games that I have some sort of interest in, but don't make it to the list because it either doesn't meet my rules or I just don't have as much interest in the game as the top five. This month (and maybe more in the future), I wanted to list the games I had some sort of interest in because I think these games are worth mentioning and exposing. So, here are some more games worth checking out (in alphabetical order, not in order of interest): Agony, Beat Saber, City of Brass (I put it on a previous list), FAR: Lone Sails, Hyper Sentinel, Laser League, Omensight, Pixeljunk Monsters 2, Pixelripped 1989, Raft, Soulfire, Wild West Online, and Wizard of Legend. Again, these games aren't part of the top five, but are still games releasing in May and still worth checking out.

Well, that about sums it up for this month. I might not be able to make a list for next month because of moving complications, but I'll still try to make the list. What is your top five? Put 'em in the comments below. As for now, I am done. Thank you for checking out my list and I hope to see you another month for another list (hopefully).

This is a question I feel is more prevalent now in the games industry. It is not a question of when the game will launch, but when the game is at a state that should've been at launch. It isn't a question of if I should pre-order, but if I should buy the game within the year it has released. And I am not saying a game should have all of the content in the game at day one, but that their should be enough content on day one to make its price worth it.

About a month ago from this blog release, Sea of Thieves released to mediocre reviews. Why? The game was lacking content at launch, and the lack of content was driving players away, and a lack of players means less encounters on the high seas. When these reviews came out, I thought about doing a blog on the game talking about its flaws. But in the end I decided to sit on the idea because I didn't want to critique Sea of Thieves. I felt that if I did critique the game, I wouldn't get across the message that I wanted to get across. A message that doesn't just affect this game, but affect other games that have released in the past and a message that I hope affects games in the future. That message is: where is the content?

What does Sea of Thieves, Destiny, and Star Wars: Battlefront have in common? Despite having $60 price tags and some great aspects to the game, they all suffered at launch do to a lack of content. Sure, these games also had their own separate issues, but none were as big as those main reasons. These three games had great potential when they were leading up to launch, but because of its lack of content at the start, the reviews only went so high. Of course the games added content later (Sea of Thieves will get there) and made the game great, but because of their slow start the game ultimately suffered. The initial stigma and reviews around the game is like a ball and chain to these game that can never be taken off because no matter how much content is added to the game, the thought of its launch will always be there.

But this isn't an issue that only plagues those three games. While it isn't the biggest issue in the industry, it is one that still pops up from time to time and one that should be addressed. Saying that your game has a multi-year plan or that their will be content paid or free in the future doesn't excuse you from launching a product with enough content in it to deserve its price tag.

One of the most important things when presenting a product is the first impression. In a story, one of the most important chapters is the first one. In an article, one of the most important parts is the title and lede. And meeting your future parent in-laws for the first time will also be one of your most important times in meeting with them. First impressions are important as for that is where you get someone hooked, or that is usually when a judgement is made about something. The same can be said for a video game. If a game cannot hook you in its first few hours, then it will most likely not hook you in its last few. So why is this practice of first impressions lost on releasing games? Reviews for the game happen at the launch of the game, not three years in, so why make what should've been 1.0 a year later when the game will most likely not be reviewed?

Now I am not saying that games have to release with all of the content in the world. I support adding in new content into the game over the game's lifespan, even if that content is paid. Take Dying Light for example: the game has done an excellent job at releasing with a good amount of content at the start as well as supporting it with content both paid and free after launch. Maybe not all games can have post-release content like Dying Light, but all games should at least have enough content at launch to make its purchase on day one viable. Sure, it will cost more money to push back a release date and work more on the game, but if you have that content there from day one, I guarantee that the higher reviews will bring in more sales and the increase of content will keep people playing your game and keep interest in the game.

Their is a famous Wendy's commercial in which a few old ladies surround a burger with a very small beef patty and ask "where's the beef?" I would like to think of these games like a burger with a low of beef. If you eat that burger, you are only getting a small amount of beef, and no matter how many fries are served to you, you cannot forget the fact that your burger had very little beef. Does having a low amount of beef a bad thing? No, just don't expect people to buy it at full price. Is adding unlimited sides a good thing? Yeah, as long as you make sure the first part of the meal worth it. And who knows, maybe adding in the essential content later and selling 1.0 a year after release and at a cheaper price may be more profitable, but the reviews will still be there. So I ask the games of the future that want to charge me full price these two questions: where's the beef and when should I buy your game?

One of the most prevalent topics in online gaming is bullying. Bullying is all over multiplayer games, and many games and other entities try to combat bullying in a variety of different methods. Personally, I think the best method of dealing with a bully is to mute them, but muting a bully doesn't stop them from bullying others. So, how do we combat bullying? That is where this new organization Bully Hunters comes in...and they're gone.

Before I get into my criticisms that you have probably already heard on Bully Hunters, I want to make abundantly clear that I am opposed to bullying and I am not denying that bullying happens. Now I think some methods of deterring bullies goes too far, but the different methods and how first amendment rights and what is hate speech is for another day. Still, bullying sucks and is rather annoying.

I think one of the best ways to end bullying of any kind is to give the bully a taste of their own medicine. Nothing can show a bully the ways of being good better than bullying the bully. But how do you do that in a video game. That is essentially the premise of Bully Hunters. So what is wrong with this new organization? Everything.

So what exactly does a Bully Hunter do? The services was only offered in Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and what happened was that the bully victim called a Bully Hunter to enter into that person's game and kill the bully. Afterwords, they would leave in the chat "harassment is not a game" and leave. A taste of their own medicine, right? Already, three glaring issues come up.

For starters, let's talk about the game selection. The problem with CS:GO are the many hurdles you have to jump through just to get a single kill and leave. The victim cannot be in the main mode of the game because they don't allow people to enter mid-game (this will be important later on). Then, the Hunter has to be in the right game that isn't a full lobby on the right team, unless they are fine with team-killing the bully (though I don't think that will get the message across). Then, the Hunter has to make sure they and they alone get the kill while dodging all of the other enemies (or killing them too) just to get the bully. Long story short, the stars have to align just to get the optimal solution to this problem. But even if all of that works, you get to the next issue.

In a shooter game, death is common. Needless to say, killing someone in a FPS game is about as common as walking. So do you think being killed, even in the most humiliating way by a person who is only there to make you look like a fool, would make you have an epiphany? I remember watching the livestream of Bully Hunters and watching their services in action made me confused because it was just watching the Hunter knife someone in the back. Big deal, you killed him. Then it turned hysterical when they acted like they were sports commentators analyzing the kill. And remember when I said not being able to play competitive is important? I said that because not only is death in a shooter game meaningless, but the modes where this service can work are more casual experiences (their is literally a mode called 'casual'). At best, people are in those mode to warm up for competitive. Dying in competitive is at most a bit meaningful, but dying in these other modes aren't. The worse things I can think of are going back a gun in arms race because you were stabbed or dying in the modes where you don't instantly respawn, but since the game is more casual death still isn't that meaningful. For a game like Escape From Tarkov where loot is on the line, this service would be great. But for this game, not so much. But the biggest of the three problems lies within using the service.

If a bully were to see that you called a Hunter on them, what would that Bully think? Would that person see that they are the target of a Hunter and realize they are the bully and leave the error of their ways? No. If someone is bullying you on a game, they know they are bullying you. So what are they going to do? They will most likely see that you cannot stand up for yourself and have to call upon others to fight your battles and will most likely bully you harder because of that. If you want to think about it this way; you are essentially snitching on a bully to a Bully Hunter, and snitching never works. The second you use this service is the second the bully knows you are weak, and he will prey upon that weakness even harder than before. All of that is what is wrong with the service itself, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Now this service may sound bad, but what if I told you I left out one key detail that didn't allow everyone to use the service? This service is only for females. It's ran by females, the Hunters are females, and the victims (as far as I can tell) can only be helped if they are females. Do I have an issue with females running the show? Not at all. Do I think that female harassment happens more than male harassment? Probably. But only offering this service to women is saying that this is a big issue that only really happens to women, when it is in fact something that happens to us all. I'm not saying they are denying male harassment, but only offering the service to women leaves out a whole lot of men who are also being harassed. Now I see this service as a thing by women for women, but only serving women can be seen by some as saying women cannot defend themselves as well as men against bullying and that they need this service.

Only serving some people is bad, but scandals are worse. Multiple statistics being used by the group were proven false, the whole livestream was pre-recorded, the same person played both the victim and the hunter, the main spokesperson ZombiUnicorn has used insults in game herself, and the whole thing being used by SteelSeries to sell some headphones. Then you can think about what could've happened if the service continued, as for their are more Bully Hunters on Steam than actual Bully Hunters and the internet is known to have a crazy time with stuff like this. If anything, they are lucky to dodge websites like 4Chan from grabbing hold of this service.

I think the premise of this service is great, but that is about all this service had going for it. It's rare seeing a service fail at every conceivable level like this one, but here we are. Something like this takes time, money, and planning, and it baffles me how they went through all of the trials and tribulations of making this service (they actually rented a large room filled with computers) without seeing the glaring flaws that would render this service unusable. I don't even know if leaving this thing behind and saying "at least it got the message across" means anything because anyone who plays video games already knows about bullying and wants to stop it (or they are the bully themselves). Honestly, other than fighting the good fight, I don't have much sympathy for this service. This feels like something that was hardly given any thought other than "it's against bullies so it would obviously work." Because of all of this more, I am predicting that Bully Hunters is one of gaming's biggest disasters of 2018.

Despite pulling everything down, here is a video of the livestream:

Sniper Ghost Warrior, a series of mediocrity. Unlike my previous two ranking lists on Far Cry and Resident Evil, where my thoughts on the game go from hate to love, this series goes from hate to feeling okay about the game. This to me isn't a spectacular series, but this series can still be ranked. Welcome to my ranking of the Sniper Ghost Warrior series.

Before getting in, I want to give out some extra detail as to my experience with the games. I will be ranking all four games (Sniper: Art of Victory and Sniper Ghost Warrior 1-3). I am ranking them based off of my experience with their single player campaign offerings. So multiplayer and DLC will not factor into my ranking. let's get started.

4. Sniper: Art of Victory

Sniper: Art of Victory is a bad game. The sniping, the integral piece to a sniping game, was broken, the game was incredibly buggy, most of the other guns didn't work well or at all either, the enemy A.I. was terrible, and the graphics looked like they were for a game made in 2002 despite being a 2008 release. In most games I can find a redeeming quality, but this isn't most games. I guess their is one redeeming quality to the game, and that it's price tag is appropriately at $3 on Steam (although that may be too much to ask). Fortunately, none of the other games were as bad as this one, though they weren't great either. Let's move on to number three.

3. Sniper Ghost Warrior 2

Despite better shooting mechanics and a big increase on graphics, I actually came out of Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 thinking that it was worse than the first game. Sure, the first game was buggy and didn't age well, but it did something right that SGW2 didn't: it allowed me to tackle enemies and missions my way (mostly). When it came to big sniping parts, the game would direct you to who you should shoot next instead of allowing you to choose. Also, these big sniping parts would have you up in a sniping point instead of being in that area, which made more sense but wasn't as fun. The game only really gave me freedom as to how I tackle enemy encounters along the way to big sniping parts, but usually the amount of enemies to kill was small enough to make tackling the enemies easy in a boring way. Also, issues like a serious lack of weapons and the sniper dot taking an annoying amount of time to appear as well as some other gripes plagued my gameplay experience. Ultimately, the game's biggest downfall was that it got too linear and took too many options from you that what you are left with is a game where they tell you to shoot dudes in an order and move on. Stealth games shouldn't tell you how to tackle enemies, but this game did that as well as other issues puts this game at number three.

2. Sniper Ghost Warrior

What got this game at this point wasn't because I felt that this game was better and belonged at number two, but that the other two were worse and this game fell into the number two spot. Despite some issues like terrible gun controls, terrible dialogue (though this is an issue that plagues all of the games), bad alternate missions where you become part of an assault team instead of a sniping team, and more, Sniper Ghost Warrior Still remembered to be a sniping game. Levels were open and allowed you to take on enemies your own way, with occasional levels guiding you (though these levels felt like they needed to be guided more than SGW2's levels). Despite a lack in weaponry, their was still more diversity than SGW2 and you could even pick up weapons off of the ground. The assault missions were bad, but it was still nice to have an occasional break from the sniper stealth missions. And my gameplay time with this game was longer than the second game. Despite not aging like a fine wine, the first Sniper Ghost Warrior game was more daring and more open than the second game, and that is what ultimately puts this game at number two.

1. Sniper Ghost Warrior 3

I don't think this game is great, but I do think it was alright and a little bit underrated, which is ultimately leagues better than the other three in the franchise and makes this game easily number one. The sniping felt so good to me in this game that I actually turned off the red diamond and started sniping dudes by calibrating my scope and checking wind speeds. Not only did I feel like I was a real sniper because of how I was calibrating a sniper rifle (though I bet it is much more difficult in real life), every sniper kill felt like a mini accomplishment. The game being open world worked hand-in-hand with stealth sniping, and this time the game had a large enough arsenal that allowed me really tackle missions the way I wanted to. I can't say much is great about the game; the environment is ugly, the story sucks, and it ultimately feels like it is copying a basic open world formula similar to Far Cry. But that was a change I ultimately think the game needed, as for it ultimately nails what is important in the series: stealth sniping. And because of that, I put this game at number one.

That is it for my list. I know multiplayer is a big piece of the pie for some of the games and may have changed the list up, but I didn't play them because I assumed their multiplayer's were dead. Also, at the end of each game I felt like I have had enough of that game that I probably wouldn't have played its multiplayer either way. But what's done is done, and this list is done. Since I haven't seen any other ranking of this series and I have no clue how people gauge the series, I would love to hear your ranking of the series in the comments. Thank you for checking out my list.

"I want to make another billion dollar IP." This infamous lines made by the famous designer or Unreal Tournament and Gears of War Cliff Bleszinski was for his then upcoming game Lawbreakers. It was supposed to be the shooter that took the industry by storm, and with Cliff's experience we at least trusted this game to be a solid arena shooter. The developers at Cliff's new studio Boss Key Productions even as well as Cliff even went out of there way to repeatedly say that this game is unlike other games (and unlike one specific game, take a guess which one). They also said this was the shooter for adults, filled with gore and coarse language, unlike other shooters that feel like they are "PG rated shooters" (can you take a guess at which game he is talking about)?

In the first paragraph, I was hinting at a very specific game. If you don't know which game I am talking about, it is Overwatch, and that is what Lawbreakers became. Instead of becoming a billion dollar IP and an original or refreshing shooter, it became another-one-of-those shooters in an over saturated shooter market. It's highest amount of peak players on Steam is lower than 8,000 and the game now averages a player count that doesn't fill a single match. And in the end the "R rated shooter" vibe personally killed it for me as for it made already unforgettable characters annoying more than hardcore.

Now don't get me wrong, Lawbreakers isn't a bad game. My time with it was fun. The controls felt tight, the character balancing was fun, the gameplay was fast-paced,and the zero gravity was neat. I also had some issues with it like the similarity in game modes, but overall it wasn't a bad game (I am going off of my time with the game in beta shortly before the release, and I even wrote about my thoughts here). But in the end, that's all it really was: a slightly faster and more gory Overwatch with a zero gravity section and forgettable characters.

It seems like at this point more people have talked about its failure than its peak player count, so why talk about it now? In a blog post on their website, Boss Key announced that they will be moving on from the game and working on new projects. They say that they want to breathe new life into the game and continue support, but they cannot focus on the game as of now. Essentially, it's dead. But this blog isn't about dancing on Lawbreakers' grave, it's about the studio's newest project.

Only announced the day before release and releasing today (April 10th, 2018) into early access on Steam (key word is early), Cliff's new game is Radical Heights! What is Radical Heights, you say? It's a....battle royale game. Boss Key is back at it again releasing another-one-of-those in what I personally feel is an over saturated battle royale market.

Now I have actually tried the game. I don't want this blog to be about my thoughts on the game and if I do or don't like it, but here they are. The game can mostly be related to Fortnite with its cartoonish style of play and its tiered weapons. Some smaller aspects like armor can be traced to PUBG, but saying that this is Fortnite without building (other than a trampoline) is more accurate. If you couldn't tell by the title, the game takes a heavy 80s theme, which I think works well with the cartoonish action. Other small things that this game does differently includes adding in a money system that allows you to buy health and items around the map, reducing the map by grids instead of a shrinking circle, significantly reducing the map when it's the last ten-or-so people (which I love), bicycles and bicycle races, and a few more. I find most of the differences between this game and the competition to be small but positive changes. On the other hand, the game is so unfinished that I don't think it should've released yet and buying new close is stupid expensive (which I can't hold against the game that much considering it is free-to-play). Their are many buildings without textures, matches will constantly glitch, and more. But I also don't hold technical issues against the game that much either because I know they will be fixed. Still, a little too early. I will say that one thing I don't like about the game gameplay-wise is that you can only hold one weapon and one item until you pick up items that increase capacity, which was annoying. Overall, the game feels like it could be a competent battle royale game, but I don't want this to be about how good or bad the game is.

When looking back at Lawbreakers, I see a competent game that ultimately failed because of its similarities to a recently-released hit in an over saturated market and lack of differences to make its experience unique. I wanted to make this blog about this issue because ultimately I see their newest game to be a (soon to be) competent game that will most likely fail because of its similarities to a recently-released hit in an over saturated market and its lack of differences to make its experience unique. They just fell right back into the hole that was just dug for Lawbreakers, but this time their is no excuse. What happened to the idea that you wanted to make an original or refreshing game to the point of denying similarities to other games? What happened to looking at big hits and saying "let's not go in that direction?" And on a side note, what happened to you not wanting to have the "PG rated shooter?" I am happy to see that this studio is still making games because I believe that they have talent, but to see this game honestly shocked me and for all of the wrong reasons. What are you doing?

Now I can get straying from those previously stated aspects and following a trend because at the end of the day people have to eat, but honestly I couldn't think of a worse time to jump in. For starters, many other studios have either released their own game or released a mode into their main game, so now you have to compete with them as well as the big cheeses known as PUBG and Fortnite. But on top of that, you released a game that doesn't really distinguish itself from Fortnite, which means it will be compared directly to Fortnite and Fortnite will always win because of its immense popularity. At least with some of these other games and game modes, they try to twist up the formula. Even though I don't think Hunt: Showdown is a battle royale game, some do and they change things up by adding NPC enemies, a main bad guy, and more. Darwin Project reduces the player count to ten and includes a broadcaster that can alter the map. Even the big two are adding in events that alter their own game. Sure, some games do a direct copy with little changes and succeed, but with how big these games are that train already left. I'm sorry Boss Key, but if your biggest difference between the rest is a theme, then I think your chances of being the next Lawbreakers are close to 100%.

Could I be wrong about Radical Heights and it becomes the next big thing while I come back to this some time later and laugh at wrong I was? Maybe. But from what I have seen and played of Radical Heights, I predict that this game will not be a hit. I'd love to see this studio get a smash hit because I think they are capable and I think that Lawbreakers was a good game that couldn't have released at a worse time. But at the same time, I am almost think this whole thing is a joke because their is no way they looked at Lawbreakers' failure and think it could have a good chance at succeeding. Maybe their is a chance, but that is a fat maybe. I know you aren't reading this, but good luck Boss Key, you're gonna need it.

Now that Far Cry 5 is out and I have played a good deal of it, I believe it is time to make my rankings on the Far Cry franchise. Unlike my previous Resident Evil list that only included games 4-7, this list will include all games, except for the weird spinoffs based off of the first game. This list will include Far Cry 1,2,3,4,5, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, and Far Cry Primal. I will not consider multiplayer or DLC as a factor that affects this list, but co-op and alternative single player modes will. Let's get into the list.

7. Far Cry 2

Despite laying the groundwork for the series, Far Cry 2 is a game I personally hate. I respect the fact that this game brought Far Cry into the open world and that this game brought certain elements like gunplay into the series. But for every good experience I had with this game, I was met with five bad experiences. Whether it be constantly spawning enemies that were hard to conveniently deal with, the weapon degradation system, a map that has few fast travel points and not enough gun shops, or many more things; Far Cry 2 is a game that is hard to play. I even wrote a blog about my hatred for the game. Fortunately, this was the only bad experience I had with the franchise, but this game still adds a small weight to my experience with Far Cry as a whole. Let's move on, shall we?

6. Far Cry Primal

Where Far Cry 2 was the learning experience of the series, Far Cry Primal was the experimental phase. Credit where credit is do, I think taking the series to the primitive age was pretty ballsy and I love the fact that they made a game in a time period that is hardly touched. But in the end, I don't think it necessarily paid of. The game wasn't bad, but I also think it better than the rest. The primitive age was cool at first, but soon turned annoying as for resources are limited, the more hunter-gatherer approach throws away what I think is a good balance between fighting people and hunting animals, and what seem like cool characters turn into laughing stocks because any emotion they try to convey is thrown away with the made up language in the game. Despite that, I think this game did bring in some cool mechanics to the game that I wish could be in future titles. Saving people adds them to your village that I enjoyed watching grow, I liked the idea of upgrading side characters' huts to get new missions, and taming animals for your own use meant that you could have an ally for fighting or for riding, and that was great. My overall experience with the game was pretty good, but in the end I think the primitive age didn't have a lot of content, and the game was stretched out too much to make the game worth $60. Personally, I think Primal should have been the $15 standalone experience that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was.

5. Far Cry

I'm not going to lie when I say I find my experience with older shooters to be mediocre most of the time, but I actually found my experience with the first Far Cry game to be quite enjoyable. It isn't like any of the other Far Cry games, but I found many elements of the first game to be a good influence on what Far Cry is now. Lush and vibrant environments, open ended levels that allow you to take on enemies in your own way, some strange not-so-realistic elements (mutants are in this game, and weird high elements and other silliness in the future games)and more are things that you can find in the first Far Cry game. Despite being a fun and enjoyable experience, it isn't entirely a Far Cry experience in the end. I wouldn't be mad if the Far Cry games played the same as the first game, but I know that I enjoy this newer experience more than the first game. Still, Far Cry is a good experience and worth playing.

4. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

I know I said I won't include DLC, but since this is standalone I am going to consider it its own game. Despite being a much smaller experience with a lot less content, I actually think that this one was pretty close with my number three spot. Despite only having eight main missions, the missions were more exciting and meaningful, the outposts were better, the 80s theme made everything cooler and actually didn't wear me out on the game, and the blood dragons that roamed the map added a new element to the game that made things harder and easier. I think what ultimately keeps this game at this spot is the size. I don't think that shorter games are worse, but I do see this game as a little side experience of the franchise, and I feel having it at this position feels right. Blood Dragon is a great little experience worth playing.

3. Far Cry 4

I found these last three to be pretty difficult. I was close to taking a path that would have me rank the top three by what was being offered with the game and not my experience with it. The top three was originally going to be 3,4,5, but while this may be true in how the game has improved it wouldn't be true to me. So I went with my experiences with these top three games and how fondly I remember them. It kind of goes with how I ranked the other four games and at the same time it kind of doesn't. I feel like I am over complicating my top three choice when it should be simple, but I also feel like any combination I take with these top three would be correct. I honestly feel like the top three are all my favorite to me for different reasons, and that makes it so difficult for me to choose. But in the end, I gotta choose, so I chose Far Cry 4. Despite improving upon Far Cry 3 with new tools like the gyrocopter and grappling hook and adding in new features like a map editor for single player modes, and co-op within the campaign, it's forgettable but still good villain (in which I feel that the villain is key to Far Cry) made Far Cry 4 feel like a worse experience to Far Cry 3. On paper it is a better game than 3, but I think its lack of changes made it feel like more of the same, and trying something good the second time isn't as good as the first time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, but at least do something meaningful.

2. Far Cry 5

Now you may think that this is even more of the same that it should rank higher, but I actually think their are enough differences to this game that makes this feel like a fresh experience. The way you tackle story missions, how the map opens up to you, the American vibes, its cultist-religious extremist approach to the game, and much more makes this game feel different. Instead of just adding some new tools, it changes up major systems like hunting for upgrades, climbing towers for map unlocks, take on story missions in a linear fashion, and more. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and this game understood that and took pieces that could use polishing and polished it. And its new items like actual planes and helicopters, specialists, robust map editor, villains that I found to be complex and great, and more adds on to the game better than Far Cry 4 adding onto 3. I think that Far Cry 5 is on a very technical level better than my first entry, but I would say my experience with this game isn't as good as I remember my experience with this other game. I still had a great experience with this game, and for those reading this list wondering how high up this game is and if you should get, I think you should get it.

1. Far Cry 3

Like I have said earlier, this top three were hard to make. I originally wasn't going to put this game at number one because I felt that since this was the first Far Cry game I played, I would put this game on a pedestal were it cannot be touched by the others. I don't know if Bioshock Infinite is better than the first game, but since I played the first game first I will always say that the first game is better. At first I didn't want to put this game above the rest because I know I have my experiences with this game on a pedestal above my experiences with the other games, but then I realized that is the exact reason why this game should be first on my list. Things are always best the first time around, and this is true for this game. This was my first Far Cry experience, and man do I cherish those memories. I even cherish the first time climbing up the tower and opening up the map. Plus, Far Cry 3 was the game that really got Far Cry to where it is now, and I still think Vaas is one of the best villains I have ever seen in a video game (though I do like FC5 main villains quite a lot). Their are a few moments in video games that will stick out to me in video games, and Vaas telling me the definition of insanity is one of them. The other games may be better on paper, but Far Cry 3 is the highlight of my Far Cry experience.

Well, that about sums up my list. What is your Far Cry list like? Rank 'em in the comments below. Also, if you want to you can check out my pretty old (and probably pretty bad) reviews on Blood Dragon and Primal, you can. As for Far Cry 5, I might review that too, so if you want to hear me talk more about FC5 then maybe tune in for that. Thank you for reading my list, and see you later for another list some other time on some other series.

Welcome all to my ninth list of my anticipated releases of the month. It's weird to think I have been making these lists for almost a year, but here we are. Normally I post this the day before the beginning of the month, but clearly I haven't so I apologize. But now isn't the time to talk about my faults, now is the time to read or skim through my list. But first, the rules I put upon myself on choosing the games.

The game has to be released on at least one of the major systems (PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch). The game has to be new, so no remasters or re-releases onto new systems. One thing I do count is a game either entering or exiting early access, but that game can only be counted once. If a game does have multiple release dates like Destiny 2 or GTA 5, then I will only count the earliest release date. Finally, it has to be a game, not a DLC. With the rules out of the way, let's look at my top picks for April.

5. Frostpunk

Frostpunk, an upcoming strategy city building game by 11 Bit Studios, tasks you with operating a city in extreme cold while making hard decisions and ultimately keep the population alive. Despite the fact that I am not a big city builder guy, I still find Frostpunk to be fascinating. It's survival steampunk theme looks really cool, the gameplay looks tough yet fun, and the choices I make on how to run my city can make each playthrough feel different and feel like my own. But in the end, what holds me back are my thoughts on the genre. I don't hate city building games by any means, I just find that very few click with me. Still, I hope that this one will click with me when the game comes out on the 24th for PC.

4. Minit

This upcoming game by Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Jukio Kallio, and Dominik Johann tasks you exploring the world the world in this retro to-down adventure game. Sounds familiar, right? Well Minit gives you only, well, a minute to explore this world until you die and start back at home base. This unique twist on a familiar genre is interesting and one I would like to experience to see if it would work. How far can I go? How much can I do? Is a single minute enough time? These questions and more is what I have for the game (and questions that are probably answered already, but I don't want to look up because I want it to be a surprise). Despite this cool aspect and fun-looking gameplay, I don't feel like their is much else being offered with this game. Still, this does look like a fun little game and it is coming out on the 3rd for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

3. Extinction

Iron Galaxy's new game Extinction puts you in the shoes as one of the last guardians tasked with protecting cities and people from hundred foot tall monsters called the Ravenii. Extinction looks like a lot of fun. It's cartoonish art style, arcade-y action, destructible environments, and big monsters really appeals to me as something I want to try that I feel like I have never tried before. I've faced tall boss monsters before, but I can't really think of a time when a one hundred foot tall bad guy is actually just a normal enemy and not a boss fight. But what holds me back on this game is the lack of information, mainly on what you do in the game. Obviously the game is mainly about kicking ass and developing new skills to kick more ass, but other than fighting, saving civilians, and picking up missions which I have a feeling will be about kicking ass or saving civilians, I feel like the game as a whole is shallow. As cool as procedural missions sound, I think the missions will be rather basic. But hopefully this game can prove me wrong when it releases on the 10th for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

2. God of War

SIE Santa Monica Studio's newest game God of War has you back as Kratos, but this time older, wiser, and in Norse mythology instead of Greek mythology as you and your son try to survive in this new Norse world. I have never played a God of War game before, but I can already tell the differences and changes made to the game. It's more mature tone speaks to both story and gameplay, it's narrative is more personal, and the combat is less hack-n-slash. God of War (2018) looks to take the franchise and breath into it darker tones that I feel will enhance the series in every way. So what makes it my number two? What is keeping this game at number two for me is the fact that I haven't played the other God of War games. I know I could just look up what has happened in the previous games and I know that this game is a departure from the other game's narrative, but I still feel like I need to know what Kratos has gone through to get to this point. I thought about putting this game at the top because obviously this is the big release of this month and all, but this is my own list, and I feel like for me to truly enjoy this series I have to go back and play the previous games. Still, I think this will be a fantastic game, probably on of the best PS4 games of 2018, and it releases on the 20th.

1. Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption

I'm not going to lie when I say that when I first formed this list, Dark Star's Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption fell into first place more than a choice I made. Obviously I am excited for the game because it wouldn't be in the list if I wasn't. This game fell into first because I believe all of the other games aren't better or worse than each other, but rather they belong perfectly where they belong. for example, I believe that Frostpunk is a number five game not because it is worse than the others, but because I think it fits perfectly into the five spot for my feelings on the city building genre. But the longer I thought about this game being first, the more I realized that I would've put this game first anyways. This game looks to be a cross between Dark Souls with its combat and bosses and Furi with its level structure, two games I love (no, I am not saying Dark Souls just because it is difficult. I too am annoyed by people who say games are Souls-like just because they are hard). But it's more than that. It's level-down system that makes you weaker after each boss sounds intriguing and I want to see if it works, the themes of the seven deadly sins is a great theme, and I am interested to see how they implement new game modes and items into the game. I cannot wait for Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption when it releases on the 25th for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Bonus: Nintendo Labo

I was really close to considering Labo a game for my top five, but I felt like it would be better as a little bonus. Despite the heavy price and the cheap material, I am excited for Nintendo Labo; not for myself but for others to enjoy. I think this product is great for a younger audience as for it combines the fun of video games with the fun of creating things like legos. I think this is such a weird yet cool product, and I hope it will succeed. The variety kit and the robot kit release on the 20th, with new packs not yet announced. (P.S., the link leads to a blog I wrote about Nintendo Labo).

Well, that about sums up this list. What are your top five of this month? Put it in the comments down below. Thank you all for reading or skimming my list and come back next month for another list for another month.