So I couldn't find the time(due to laziness) to write a blog in April so this time we have to cover two months of games I've played. I actually only played 9 games in March and April, but because of Rare Replay I guess you could say I played a lot more. In addition, wrapping up games from earlier in the year, I managed to finish Binary Domain. The ending to that game is super crazy and is actually pretty cool, even if the rest of the game isn't particularly exciting. I also managed to finish my Ironman/Commander run of Xcom 2. Took me a couple tries but I finally managed to get lucky enough to make it past the early stages of the game. Lastly, I managed to beat my old high score in Devil Daggers and now sit at 264.4431.

I had a lot of time early in the year so I managed to squeeze in 11 games in January. Next, I also wrote a blog detailing the 6 games I played during the month of February. In the months of March and April I played a total of 9 games. I beat 3 games (with one I still need to go back to), finished most of the games contained within Rare Replay, played 2 sports games and also 3 multiplayer games. This brings my total game count up to 26 games I've played this year so far. Not too shabby If I do say so myself.

Lasty, I recorded what is the 4th episode of a podcast with a friend of mine talking about some games. We talk about the upcoming release of Overwatch, The puzzles of Witness and how they blew my mind, Dark Souls III and its place in the series, as well as a few smaller games that we both enjoyed. Give it a listen if you want. Here's a podcast

Completed

Tom Clancy's The Division (2016)

Oh loot shooters, why are you so weird? The Division is pretty good, but much like Destiny, it doesn't quite hit all the notes that you want it to. The campaign portion of the game contained a lot of things that I liked, those things just didn't occur often enough. The shooting feels good in the Division, but there aren't really a wide variety of weapons. The gear is pretty interesting but you don't really get enough of it. There isn't really a part of The Division that doesn't work, its just that all of its parts don't really come together in a very satisfying way. The bullet sponge nature of the enemies mean that working as a team is the key to getting through the story missions. Going in alone is often a recipe for having to try encounters over and over until everything lines up in your favour. Being able to flank enemies while your teammates have them distracted is the key to most missions and the areas are often open enough to allow that to happen. The side content in the game is very bland, but in a way its pretty necessary because it ties into the upgrades you get back at your home base. I liked the upgrade system in the Division. As you complete the main quests and also side quests you're unlocking new sections of each the 3 wings of the main hub. Each upgrade benefits you in some way and gives you many options in which to spec out your character. The upgrade stuff is well done, which makes the only decent missions a little disappointing.

Definitely the best part of the game for me was the dark zone. The dark zone has separate leveling and separate gear, which means you have to play a lot of it if you want to get the best loot that area has to offer. In order to do that, you're mostly killing NPCs in the dark zone. The hook is that there are also numerous players in there as well, and you never know when they are going to try and take your loot. In order to get the items you've acquired you have to go to a designated point and extract it, which takes time and draws attention to you. If you're by yourself that puts a pretty big target on your back so its a wise idea to travel into the dark zone as a group. The most interesting concept in the dark zone is the mechanic of 'going rogue' - If you shoot at another human player enough, the game marks you as a rogue and puts a bounty on your head for anyone who kills you. It gives you harsher penalties for dying as a rogue and anyone who shoots a rogue will not be marked as such. This creates a really interesting dynamic at extraction points of weighing whether or not its worth it to go rogue or not. You can never see just what loot exactly a person has so killing another human and going rogue is always a risk. You never know who is going to betray you and it makes the whole dark zone feel exciting. I spent a lot of time in there and although I didn't quite get as many items as I wanted, I still had a lot of fun in there. The dark zone makes the whole package of The Division easier to recommend, but you have to be into PvP and accepting of the fact that at any time anyone can turn on you and take your stuff.

The Wolf Among Us (2016)

Thanks to Games with Gold, I finally got a chance to play Telltale's Fables-inspired episodic adventure. Going back to this one was a little rough, seeing as both Tales from the Borderlands and Life is Strange both came out and are probably better games than this one. I still managed to moderately enjoy my time with TWAU though. The grim setting and gritty characters sets a good mood early on and things only get darker as you progress. Its definitely a shame the most of the choices in the game boiled down to either choosing between two people or choosing between a too lenient or too harsh solution. Its kind of a dumb conceit that most adventure games don't let you approach decisions level-headedly. I understand those games are about tough choices but in a difficult situation its never a bad idea to land in the middle rather than choosing something extreme. I did like the characters for the most part. And I sort of accidentally sent Toad to the farm and didn't send Colin. Whoops.

Still Playing

Rare Replay (2015)

With 30 games in one, Rare Replay has taken up a lot of time the past two months. I hadn't played most of the games in this collection so it was nice to play these games for the first time and see what they were about. Even though a couple games weren't present for some reason or another (Why isn't Anticipation for the NES in here??), there were still many games in the collection that occupied my time. Obviously some of the older games were absolutely inscrutable (I'm looking at you, Knight Lore, Underwurlde and Snake Rattle and Roll) but there were some hidden gems that I was surprised how well some of the older games held up. Getting to see cool games like Jetpac, Atic Atac and RC Pro Am for the first time was fun, even if those games weren't really built to last. I wont go into detail for every game in Rare Replay but there were some that are worth getting into. Also with some of the older games you can press LT to rewind a little bit if you make a mistake. Its a nice addition considering the fact that I wouldn't be able to get through some of these games without it.

The main reason I mentioned that rewind feature? I played Battletoads for the first time and boy you sure need it for that game! Its kind of weird talking about the game now because when you have the ability to sidestep a lot of the difficulty of the game, it actually makes a lot more fun to play. I never played Battletoads as a kid and now that I've beaten it, I kinda like it. Even with a lot of rewinding I can totally see how numerous areas would be frustrating (Jumping on the snakes to the goal was super cool, but maybe less so if I had died a million times on it). Some of the one-off mechanics of the game were poorly executed but at the very least I found the game to be interesting. I also had never played Cobra Triangle before and I think that's a cool game. Its a boat game where each level gives you a vastly different objective from racing, to saving people from being taken away by other boats, to destroying a huge dragon. Its awesome and one of the better Rare titles for the NES.

The N64 and Original Xbox era of Rare is something I'm not particularly familiar with so it was very interesting to go and play some of the games that were developed by them in that time period. I never played Banjo-Kazooie back in the day so it was interesting to get a couple hours into that. Thankfully they give you the 360 version with updated controls and it seems like something that young me would've been super way into. Lastly we have the 360 era of Rare, which basically means I played some Viva Pinata. It was pretty cool collecting a bunch of cutely named animals and maintaining a large pool of different pinatas to take care of in my garden. I'm probably never going to play Kameo and I haven't delved into Nuts and Bolts yet but I can definitely see myself going back to the latter once Overwatch is out of my system... In like two months.

Invisible Inc (2015, PS4 version)

Invisible Inc is a game with a bunch of interesting design decisions. Its also kind of a game that I wish I liked a little more than I do. Talking about this game is tough because I really feel like I need to play a little more before I can really talk about how the game's systems interact with each other but I'll do the best I can for the time being. The game is structured to be played multiple times, with each playthrough unlocking more characters and upgrades to start out with. I've only beat the game once on easy so far and the next game I played on the normal difficulty kicked my ass. Its a turn based strategy game that only gives you two characters to start out with, so using your action points effectively and scouring the map and collecting the upgrades you need is extremely important to making out the later levels alive. Its basically a stealth game where you have to infiltrate corporate facilities, extract key items, whether they be extra characters, better weapons, extra upgrades, leads on new facilities and more.

Being effectively stealthy is extremely important. You can't dawdle in the levels or the game's constantly raising alarm will catch up with you. Being too hasty is also a death sentence because if you rush into a room without scouting it out first, eventually you will be spotted. Being stealthy is key because once the enemy has a bead on you, its real easy for them to kill a character and once they do that character is dead for good. You do have a few rewinds at your disposal if you find yourself in an unwinnable situation. Those need to used sparingly though because of how easy it is to find yourself on the edge of death.Its neat how you really feel like a true ninja when you do pull off a successful infiltration and getting through an area unseen is really cool. But the fact that you only start with two characters is a bit of an odd decision for me to wrap my head around. It makes it super difficult to explore the entirety of the map without spreading your characters out and once you do that and you have no way of providing support to those who need support with flanking an enemy or using their special abilities. Its a hard game that hasn't clicked with me yet. I'll give it some more attempts but I'm just not sure if this game is for me.

Multiplayer & Sports Games that Kind of Defy Classification

Duck Game (2015)

In April, Steam had a free weekend of Duck Game going and seeing as I was already interested in the game I figured I would give it a shot. I'm a guy who is super into multiplayer in almost any capacity and Duck Game definitely scratches an itch that I have for multiplayer. The game is along the lines of something like Towerfall or Samurai Gunn where you're in arena trying to kill each other. But it almost has a Smash Bros like component where you're picking up items on the map like guns, swords and various other weapons. In addition, most of the arena aren't walled in so falling/being thrown off the map is a possibility. Some of the weapons in the game are pretty interesting. One of my personal favourites is a sort of web gun you shoot and your opponent to trap them in a net for a few seconds and them pick them up and throw them off the map. Its super satisfying.

Definitely one of the more unique aspects of this game is the fact that all of the maps are hand crafted. You would think with a game like this that either the weapons that spawn or the maps themselves would be randomly generated but that isn't the case. For me personally, I think this works really well because first of all, there are more then enough maps to see so that repeats happen very infrequently. In addition, having static maps allow you to really learn the maps and craft specific strategies for each map. It adds an extra layer to a game that already has a nice amount of depth and nuance to it. Once you learn what the weapons do, its fun playing around with different strategies and going for specific weapons on map with many different options. The look and sound of it gives the game a very sega genesis-type feel to it which suits the game very well. Overall, I had a blast playing it with friends and definitely recommend it if you like that kind of chaotic multiplayer where its great to watch people die in spectacular ways and then gloat to them about it later.

Ultimate Chicken Horse (2016)

Another multiplayer game here that I think is pretty fun. If you want to describe it succinctly, you could say that Ultimate Chicken Horse is basically competitive Mario Maker, where you're all building on one level that you are trying to complete while simultaneously trying to get everyone else to fail. All players place items on the board at once and you pick from a small pool of items every turn, usually a mix between platforms, traps, obstacles and the like. There's a great push and pull between making the levels too easy and incredibly hard. Shortcuts one turn become trap-laden nightmares the next. Using one well placed platform can mean the difference between no one winning and everyone making it through. The levels are constantly changing every turn so you have to always be thinking about new possible routes to make it to the end. The platforming feels good and knowing exactly how the physics work, with hitboxes and double-jumping and what the patterns of the traps are is key to victory. This is also a game I really recommend because its more of a thinking man's game than you might expect.

Typefighters (2016)

Turns out I'm pretty bad at typing. I played this game with a friend a couple times, got annihilated by him and haven't played it since. It was 2 dollars, I dunno.

F1 2015 (2015)

Thanks to one Drew Scanlon, I both watched some Formula 1 races and played an F1 game for the first time. I like the simulation-style driving in F1 2015, where you have to keep things like tire wear and fuel consumption in mind. You really have to be aware of the track so that you are taking your turns smoothly without losing speed or going off the track. While it was really hard at first to not take advantage of the cautious AI and not just dive into the inside and blow by everyone on turn one, eventually I learned how to almost race properly... almost. Learning how to properly use specific areas of the track to overtake or defend your position is key and in a weird way helps you get a unique perspective on actual F1 races. I'm not going to say I think like an F1 driver now, but at least I have a little more insight into how they might think about how they race. Thanks @drewbert for getting me into a sport that I can't even fathom how they do it.

MLB 15 The Show (2015)

Baseball has always been a passion of mine and over the past year or so I've wanted to delve into some recent sports games and see what they're all about. Having already dug into Madden and FIFA, I figured April was the perfect time to finally give the show a go. Thankfully, it wasn't too daunting of a task and while I didn't put a ton of time into it, I did like what I've played. It seemed like it was pretty easy to pick up seeing as the controls weren't too complicated and when I did learn what I was doing I had a decent amount of fun with it, even if I was playing on a easy difficulty where I mostly annihilated the other team. I don't have much to say about the actual video game but hey - baseball is a fun sport, even if it is objectively the most boring of the four major sports.