The game that I have potentially spent the most time with over the launch of the Playstation 4 and Xbox One is Killer Instinct. As someone who loves fighting games, yet has little to no reverence for the original Killer Instinct, I was as surprised as anyone to find that I was plunking down $40 on this free game to gain access to the ultimate edition of this exceptional fighting game.

Killer Instinct gets a lot of points for its presentation. This game looks pretty good. All of the characters animate really nicely, the artistic liberties that they have taken with the original designs work in the games favour, and the overall art direction of the game is appealing. Not to mention the game is completely over the top metal. There's a brutal, meaty sound that comes with every punch that makes combos incredibly satisfying to pull off. And you'll be pulling off a bunch of combos. That's the crux of the game. Stringing together attacks to create almost comically long combos which trip up your opponent and do incredible amounts of damage. These attacks might be intimidating at first, but the game provides a means to educate new comers in the intricacies of the fight.

The dojo mode breaks down the mechanics of the fighting system in such a way that makes a potentially intimidating genre of game entirely approachable. If you've ever wondered what a cross up is when casually playing a fighting game with someone who has been playing them seriously for years, the KI dojo IS FOR YOU!!

While game modes are undeniably lacking (the options are generally fighting the cpu or fighting a live opponent) there have been promises that some kind of a story mode would be coming later with the further introduction of new characters.

Overall, Killer Instinct is an exceptional fighter, wrapped in a nice looking package. the free-to-play model might deter some people at first, but if you break down what you get for the full price of the ultimate edition, its not a bad value. If nothing else, this game is a solid introduction to the world of fighting games, and I highly recommend you check it out if you have even a fleeting interest in the genre. Be warned though, this game is best enjoyed with friends. Maybe a few beers. It makes it that much funnier when the announcer is just SCREAMING at you.

I had not heard a great deal about Ryse: Son of Rome prior to my purchase of it on launch day other than it looked incredible. I try to make a habit of not making blind purchases, but in this case I made an exception. Even if the action was entirely lacklustre, if the visuals were as impressive as I had heard I wanted to see it for myself. The good news is that the game is, for lack of a better term, beautiful. The bad news? The game's action is entirely lacklustre. Again, of course, I have not completed the game yet. These are simply my initial impressions of Ryse: Son of rome.

Ryse is a fairly simple game. You play as Marius, a Roman soldier capable of dispatching several barbarians at once with a few presses of the X and Y buttons. The combat in the game might be equated to something out of the Batman: Arkham series. You enter a room filled with enemies and you bounce around them, snapping to whichever enemy you are focusing on while countering and dodging their attacks. Eventually after wearing down your assailants, an icon will appear above their head prompting you to perform an execution. When this happens you will be forced into a quick time event (albeit an entirely forgiving one) in which your enemies flash either blue or yellow and you must press the corresponding coloured buttons on your controller. These executions look impressive, but begin to wear thin after about the tenth time you see one.

There are some interesting mechanics at work in the executions mind you, as you can select different attributes for your executions that might warrant you extra experience, life, damage or focus. These are however, not interesting enough variations in the combat to keep it interesting the entire way through.

By the point I am at in the game (an hour or two in) you will have found yourself trudge through several of these combat encounters, a few bad turret sequences and a couple of areas where the game tasks you with throwing some javelins at a bridge. None of these are particularly exciting after the first few times that you do them, but its not outside the realm of possibility that the game might keep one going based solely on the fact that it looks incredible. I mean seriously. This is one of the best looking games I have seen in a while. Next ten video games, y'all...they're here.

I have always liked the Dead Rising series. I was totally on board with the inherent quirkiness of the original game and dumped hours and hours into trying to find the best weapons and strategies to getting those god awful survivors to safety. I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat humming the song that the convicts in the jeep are listening to, and it remains one of the only games that I have ever reached a level cap in. So I was very excited when it came time to throw Dead Rising 3 into the Xbox One. As with the previous two games I talked about, I haven't gone all the way through Dead Rising 3 yet, so this is not a traditional review, but instead my impressions of the game so far.

If anyone was worried that this game would do away with the quirkiness of the original Dead Rising, you can more or less put that theory to bed right now. This game is still nuts. And its great. I might go so far as to say that this game is even crazier than the previous two just because of some of the insane stuff that you can come up with...There's a weapon that consists of a dragon helmet and boxing gloves with knives in them thats just...perfection.

The gameplay is much of the same as the previous two entries. You are in the midst of the zombie apocalypse and you are using anything at your disposal to cut, slash, shoot, or crush all zombies that stand in your way. Of which there are many. This game has made it even easier to combo weapons as you can do it anywhere now, without having to find a workbench to put items together. Once you have done so, every item you pick up or combo is saved to your locker as well for later access. Your character is also a skilled mechanic, and is able to combine a motorcycle and steamroller together simply by driving them next to each other and hitting a button. This is ridiculous, but its incredibly satisfying to run over the charred remains of a zombie with the steam roller front of your flame throwing motorcycle. Weapon combinations are gated by the collections of blueprints, but these are all over the place and show up on your map, so its not too long before you're combining hilariously powerful weapons capable of taking down zombies in the hundreds.

This game is not only fun for a launch game, but for a game in general. This is one of the games I picked up at launch that I truly look forward to continued playing in the future.

This game is...not a sony exclusive. As I have expressed in the past, the playstation 4 experienced what I would call a lacklustre lineup of launch games. I have found most of my enjoyment has come from playing either this game or Resogun, the game that came free with my playstation plus membership. This is not something that's out of the ordinary, as launch lineups often leave you wanting and it is what it is. That said, due to it being a busy last month for me, I also haven't finished this game yet, so don't hold that against me, but here are my initial impressions for the latest in the Lego series of video games.

I'll try to keep this one short, as Lego games require almost no introduction at this point. With so many entries in the series, from Batman to Star Wars, and an original movie on the way, folks are mostly familiar with Lego's brand of kid tested adult approved cartoon style action. You are a Lego recreation of a character from a popular franchise punching other lego characters from that franchise, destroying various structures throughout the world, and rebuilding the pieces to solve puzzles. There are collectibles (a lot of them) and crazy people like me find it rewarding to get them all. Let's move on

In the last few entries in the Lego series, (Lego Batman 2, Lego City Undercover) the games have been playing around with the idea of an open world. In a lot of ways it was the next logical step for the franchise, but the worlds seem unfortunately underwhelming in the aforementioned games. From what I have played so far, Lego Marvel seems to be the most well realized open world in a Lego game to date. There are seemingly endless collectibles scattered throughout the world, and side missions to go out and complete when you aren't running, flying or swinging to the next main story mission. These missions seem reminiscent of missions that would be found in something like the early open world Spider Man games. They're simplistic, but its fun to explore the world. They often result in a collectible as well, so its rewarding to seek out and complete these missions when you're in the open world.

One of the most interesting parts of the game to me so far is how they've managed to make each Lego character feel different. There are 3 basic classes that you'll be playing as throughout the game: big guy (tank), brawler/acrobat, and projectile focused. But each character has their own set of powers that let them access part of the world that other's can't. Only Spiderman can pull down walls with his webs, only Hulk can lift that heavy object. Elements like this make it potentially exciting to revisit areas and try to complete them with other characters to collect everything. Did I mention that there were a lot of collectibles. This method of gating players' progress has been in previous Lego games, but because they have managed to make each character feel somewhat unique, I don't believe that it has been done any better than in this case.

Overall, Lego Marvel Super heroes is a blast to play, especially if you get your hands on another controller and play it through with a friend. This game won't show off the technical prowess of your new console, but it is certainly a fun ride.

As I had mentioned in my previous blog post, Killzone is one of the two games I picked up right away for my new Playstation 4. This decision was made based on two reasons. One: I wanted to pick up at least one Playstation exclusive right away and Knack seemed entirely boring to me. Two: Battlefield is ostensibly broken right now, and I'm worn out on Call of Duty and this was the last available shooter. While it has been out for around two weeks now, I have not found the time to complete any one of the games that I have picked up on launch, so this post will be more of an impression than a traditional review.

My initial experience with Killzone is completely fine. But that's about all I can say about it. It's fine. There's nothing overly unique about it. It's not a big game-changer thats going to alter the way we think about contemporary first person shooters. The game looks very pretty, and its entirely serviceable, but there's not much in the way of substance or originality, making the overall single player experience somewhat of a slog.

One thing that is worth noting is that start up is incredibly quick. No logo builds, no nothing...Just straight into video games. This is entirely welcome, and if more games down the line, be they first part exclusives or not, plan on doing this then its time to get excited about video games again as this is one of my favourite things about this game so far.

The single player experience so far has been entirely standard and consists of your character, the orphaned Lucas Kellan, wandering open areas that seem for lack of a better term lifeless, and gunning down Helghan. This is fine, but it's nothing spectacular. It would have been nice to see the team take the world in some interesting places, perhaps opening areas up to exploration encouraging branching paths and different methods of attack. Instead the areas feel entirely linear, which isn't always a bad thing, but in the context of Shadow Fall it feels like somewhat of a missed opportunity.

Killzone sets itself apart from other shooters by the introduction of your floating mechanical cohort called the OWL. This is a small drone that is always around and is capable of providing cover fire, popping a shield, hacking electronics, stunning enemies and firing a hipline. This is interesting, but none of these attributes are ever used in any meaningful way. I have been playing for multiple hours and have not found one useful application for launching the zip line other than forcing myself to do it because its there and I wish it was more well realized. The game is also very dark and it seems like another missed opportunity that the OWL is not provided with a simple flashlight function. Instead you are left sending your little buddy out in "gun mode" and hoping it will light up the area you pointed it at. This is all handled with a swipe of the touch pad which more or less works, but the whole thing feels kind of clumsy.

The online multiplayer is, at least so far, the most fun part of the game, where modes like "Warzone" return and have you run through a cavalcade of different game modes in one match. This varies up the gameplay in a way that prevents most matches from becoming stale. If you're a fair-weather online player like myself, this might be a mode for you to check out.

All in all, Kilzone Shadow Fall is - like i said - a fine game. It's story is very obvious and even without completing the game, it's easy to see where they're going to go with it. The gameplay is par to the course, but much of it can feel like a missed opportunity at times, which is kind of the theme of the whole game. It's difficult to develop for a console that doesn't exist yet, and in that sense Killzone Shadow Fall gets a pass. Its mostly forgettable action wrapped up in a story that won't turn too many heads. At least it'll look really pretty while you're playing it though, right? And boy does it start up fast!

So it's been just over a week now, since both the Playstation 4 and Xbox One consoles have been released from Sony and Microsoft and received into our hearts. As a professional crazy person, I made it my mission to procure one of each of these new pieces of hardware and two big dips into the wallet later someone will finally love me, right? Right?! Of course I jest, but in all seriousness, don't live like me. I'm a cautionary tale. A cautionary tale with a new Xbox and Playstation 4, but a cautionary tale nonetheless. Yet the question remains on everyone's lips. Which one is better? Well friends, in this post I hope to at least partially answer this question. Though it might be bigger than you or I, assuredly there is someone out there who is struggling to decide which console to drop their hard earned cash on this holiday season and as resident crazy person I'd like to make it my duty to help as best I can.

I can start by saying that my experience thus far with each console has been a pleasant one. That is to say that both work as intended out of the box. Functions that I have been looking forward to on either console like quiet background downloads and cached installs make this generation's particularly large-sized games like Killzone Shadow Fall (which clocks in at around a 45 gb install) fairly hassle free. For example, after cramming Killzone into my Playstation 4 for the first time, there was a short wait period as the console launched the application, then the game booted up. There was no progress bar inching by at a snails pace and virtually no wait times. Just Boom! Video games! What's more is that Killzone has no logo builds on its start up. There's just a quick animation of a computer looking face and then once again, Boom ! Video games! This is not to say that Killzone is a tremendous game by any stretch, but this definitely doesn't hurt its case at all.

As someone who had limited experience with the Kinect on the Xbox 360, it was no small surprise to me that the Kinect bundled with the Xbox One actually works. Voice controls to navigate the UI, jump in and out of applications and Bing things on the internet is entirely functional and requires little to no frustration after a short set up when you first turn on your Xbox One. Motion control is still hit and miss sometimes, although I do prefer the "press David Duchovny's face to watch X-Files on Netflix" rather than hover over an icon to make something go. It feels entirely more tangible and responsive. I have had no experience with the Playstation Camera thus far so I cannot speak to the functionality of that peripheral.

In terms of System Level features, The Xbox One is concerned with making itself the one entertainment device at the centre of your home theatre set up. There is an HDMI in port so you can pass your cable box through and yell things like "XBOX WATCH TV" and watch TV through your Xbox. What a time to be alive! Features like the one guide (a snappier cable/satelite guide to navigate channels with your voice) are not available in Canada yet, so I have no experience with it. Both systems offer record functions that allow you to capture the last few minutes of gameplay and push them to social media outlets. The Playstation's gameplay recorder seems a touch more robust with a more fleshed out editing service and more places to send your videos after you've recorded them. Xbox only allows you to capture gameplay thus halting anyones' plans of recording clips of live television or what have you. I have not spent huge amounts of time with either of these features, as right out of the gate I have been more concerned with the gameplay experiences that the console offer, but as I look at features like this further I hope to make further posts.

In terms of the games that either console offer, I will be writing more detailed posts about the games that I have played so far. The games that I have picked up immediately are the Killer Instinct Ultimate bundle, Dead Rising 3 and Ryse on the Xbox One and Killzone Shadowfall and Lego Marvel on the Playstation 4. A discerning reader might recognize that one of the games for the Playstation 4 is not an exclusive, which might make my point that right away the Xbox One has a more varied and overall better launch line up of games. If you're looking at which system can provide you a better gameplay experience right away, I might be inclined to suggest the Xbox one. There are better quality exclusives on day one and it seems like it might be a little while before we get anything especially worth while on the Playstation 4, with Infamous landing in March. However, if you're not interested in Forza, Ryse or Dead Rising, then theres no incentive to picking up an Xbox One over a Playstation 4.

So when it comes down to it, which console is better? Well that's not really up for me to decide...This is an entirely subjective question and the answer will be different for every person. If you're someone who watches a lot of TV and think it would be keen to be able to watch an episode of something while you wait for a minimum download level to be reached and want to control something by yelling at it and don't have kids, then go with an Xbox. If you want to open something up and get right into video games and are more interested in recording and sharing your experiences and don't have an expensive recording system, then go with a Playstation. When it comes down to it, look at what's coming out - which exclusives will you like better down the line? Find out which one your friends are going to get and buy accordingly. Finally if your an insane person like myself, maybe take the plunge and buy both. That way you'll be covered for exclusives to come out on either system.

Of course when talking about the purchase of something that costs a couple hundred dollars, there's no easy answer, and Sony and Microsoft have made the decision even harder by putting out two completely competent, functional machines each of which that offer a lot of promise for things to come. Like I said, my experiences with either system has been exceptional and more than anything I am excited for these systems to only get better in the coming years.

I want to keep this short and sweet, as I have already written and deleted this post a number of times. Today, Monday, July the 8th 2013, We learned of the loss of a great man. Bonafide duder, Ryan Davis, has passed away and will be sorely missed. As a rule I try not to speak for other people, but I think in this situation I can say that the thoughts and prayers of all members of Giant Bomb go out to Ryan's friends, colleagues and family in these sad times. It's hard to believe that just before his passing I was watching one of my favourite archives and was reminded of how funny and likeable Ryan was. Again, he will be greatly missed. Giant Bomb is left with a hole that will not be easily filled.