It's fifty three minutes into the year 2015 and I'm playing Far Cry 4. Ajay has just failed in spectacular fashion at a caper that would have been a meticulously planned elephant bound blitzkreig into a regime filled training camp, but ended rather prematurely in a self inflicted explosion. Elephants are not fireproof it turns out.
I can't think of a more fitting end to my gaming escapdes of 2014.
The only cure to my affliction is more dead Grey Phantoms.
The yearn for souls was feverish this year, Dark Souls II isn't as good as its predecessors but to deny the impact it had for me this year is just plain dishonest.
I was a citizen of Drangleic for months, I poured meticulously over the ruins and bones of this place never once feeling that it was a lesser land than the realms of it's forebears.
Dark Souls II is filthy with atmosphere, nasty with secrets and begrimed with replay value. That the most major complaint levelled at this game is that it does not stand toe to toe with arguably the greatest game of last generation tells you all you need know, Dark Souls II is astounding.
All hail the Rat King.
There are signs, ways to see beyond the surface of something and into the hearts of the people who created it. The unyielding attention to detail in just the sword sheathing animations of Shadow of Mordor told me everything I needed to know.
This game has weight, every element wrought out of some dense material to a precise finish, the visuals, the Nemesis system, the progression, everything.
The feel of gameplay when teleporting across a vast span of scorched earth is like breaking through the spirit realm and back into the mortal at Mach I.
This is how you build a triple A game.
I soured my own experience with Ground Zeroes, I rushed through the end of Peace Walker again, I started my first play through with a bunch of the new assists turned off, I was too rigid, too strict in my approach, here we discover the Metal Gear method blown open. The variety of options are subtly disabling, Ground Zeroes needed to be released before Phantom Pain, not for the story, not for the money, not even for the marketing. A small taste a confined area
