Now that E3 is two weeks in the rear-view mirror, I thought I'd follow in the footsteps of the Bombcast crew and put together some of my own Hot YouTube Content talking about my favourite games from the show. I went less with "these are the ten games I want most that were at E3" and more "these games had showings that specifically made me more excited than I already was."
Here's the content of the video in lovely text form, too - just in case you're not a fan of video.
It's been two weeks now since E3 2016 filled our eyeballs with a vast array of upcoming games and gaming tech due to arrive over the coming months and years. I thought I'd take a quick moment to reflect on the ten titles which excited me most over the course of the show. As it turned out, picking just ten was tougher than I anticipated. I've actually decided to leave out Nintendo's showing from this list, partly to make my decision easier and partly to avoid their notoriously stringent YouTube monitoring. Suffice to say I'm very much looking forward to both Pokémon and Zelda, then, as well as a bunch of other stuff that didn't quite make the cut - but here are my Top 10 Most Exciting Games from E3 2016.
- Number 10: Tekken 7 (Bandai Namco) PC, PS4, Xbox One
Squeezing in at number 10 is Tekken 7. It's been almost five years now since the last major home console Tekken Release, Tag Tournament 2, so to say that I'm eager for another King of Iron Fist Tournament would be rather an understatement. Only serving to add to that excitement is the inclusion of Street Fighter's Akuma - who seems to have brought most of the core mechanics from Capcom's franchise to the table with him, including his own personal EX meter. He's also core to the Tekken 7's story mode, which chief producer Katsuhiro Harada has claimed will bring an end to the Mishima family's tale... we'll see about that one, Harada-san.
Blasting in at number 9 is Ubisoft's latest entry in the sprawling Tom Clancy-verse, Ghost Recon Wildlands. First announced at the end of their press conference in 2015, Wildlands promises an open-world Bolivian landscape for players to roam around in, teaming up with one another to take down the incumbent Santa Blanca Drug Cartel. Eschewing a fixed narrative in favour of a completely player-determined progression is a bold move, but the potential for approaching missions in a multitude of ways, from storming a base guns-blazing with your friends to stealthily carrying out objectives under the cover of a midnight storm, certainly has me intrigued. Ghost Recon Wildlands has the potential to bring the free-form mercenary action of Metal Gear Solid V into a co-operative environment, and that's an incredibly compelling proposal.
- Number 8: God of War (Sony Santa Monica, SIE) PS4
Simmering under the surface at number 8 is the surprising return of God of War. As someone who had really burned out on the formula of the series up to this point, seeing Sony Santa Monica take a completely different approach for this new entry is incredibly refreshing. Pale manifestation of anger Kratos is back, but he appears to have taken the time since his last outing to grow a rather spectacular beard and work on that notorious temper. With tonal comparisons to be drawn to the likes of The Last of Us, forest survival undertones akin to the recent Tomb Raider titles, and combat sequences that exude hints of Dark Souls, there's plenty to look forward to as Kratos enjoys his new life in the Scandanavian wilderness... and absolutely doesn't manage to draw the ire of every Norse deity in the vicinity, right?
- Number 7: Sea of Thieves (Rare, Ltd., Microsoft Studios)PC, Xbox One
Sailing in at number 7 is Sea of Thieves, the open-world pirate MMO from Rare that promises seafaring hi-jinks aplenty for you and all your buds as you work together to crew a ship, sail the high seas, hunt for booty, and engage rival vessels in frantic naval combat. Games such as Guns of Icarus, Spaceteam, and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime have already proven just how joyfully chaotic attempting to crew a virtual ship with your friends can be, and adding pirates into the mix feels like the perfect fit for that style of game. Frantically yelling at one another as you attempt to patch up your sinking ship while also firing off salvos at the rival crew attempting to claim your hard-earned booty for themselves sounds stressful in just the right adrenaline-pumping way.
To snatch the number 6 slot without actually saying what your new game is about (aside from a hugely baffling trailer) takes a special someone - but, Hideo Kojima, you're pretty good. Given free reign and seemingly complete creative freedom by Sony, the Metal Gear creator opted to craft an initial teaser featuring a naked Norman Reedus... covered in oil... searching for a lost baby across a beach covered with stranded aquatic life... before being confronted by several mysterious floating figures in the sky. Yeah. Sure. Safe to say, then, that Kojima is still just as weird and impenetrable as ever, and I'm fascinated to find out what he has planned for his first new IP in years.
Settle down and find yourselves a table now, because coming in at number 5 is Gwent, the standalone edition of CD Projekt RED's hugely popular card game from The Witcher 3. The fact that a fairly simple side activity became one of the most popular aspects of such a broad and expansive open-world RPG speaks to the sublime design of Gwent. Not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to please the fanbase whilst also cashing in on this popularity, CD Projekt RED have spun Gwent out into its own release - including an entirely redesigned visual style, a wealth of new and re-balanced cards to expand the experience, and a full campaign mode seemingly along the lines of Puzzle Quest where you must adapt your decks to combat the specific strengths and weaknesses of each opponent. Add in the opportunity to finally take on other human players, which should play well into the rather mindgame-oriented nature of Gwent, and this is one game that could be on the cards for many years to come.
- Number 4: Titanfall 2 (Respawn Entertainment, EA)PC, PS4, Xbox One
Crashing in from the sky at number 4 is the explosive return of Respawn Entertainment's mech shooter. Prepare for Titanfall. 2. While I wasn't as enamoured as some with the first Titanfall, the fast-paced movement abilities shook up multiplayer first-person shooters in a way which sent demonstrable reperucussions through the genre. It was a solid base upon which to build a more fully-featured game, which Titanfall 2 is showing plenty of signs of shaping up to be. Replacing the old light/medium/heavy mech distinction with six mechs, each focused on a different area of combat, should offer players a lot more customisation in their loadouts. Additionally, the now-mandatory grappling hook has made its way in as another option to get you around the map and even interfere with enemy players and mechs. Alongside all these multiplayer improvements is the promise of a fully-formed single player campaign, which aims to build a tighter sense of the relationship between a mech and its pilot and should hopefully build up a greater sense of the surrounding fiction for the world Respawn have crafted.
- Number 3: Dishonored 2 (Arkane Studios SA, Bethesda)PC, PS4, Xbox One
As we move into the top three titles, there's only room for the heaviest of hitters. One of the most prominent showings during this year's press conferences was for Dishonored 2. Developers Arkane showed off the new coastal city of Karnaca, based on southern Europe. This time around, players have the choice of returning protagonist Corvo or a grown-up Empress Emily. As with the previous game, levels may be approached in a variety of ways: do you want to employ stealth or go loud from the off? Are you looking to keep the bodycount to a minimum, or will you carve a lethal path through anyone who stands in your way? Both Corvo and Emily come with their own unique ability set - Corvo retains many of his old tricks, such as his trademark blink or the ability to possess animals and move through otherwise inaccessable areas. Conversely, Emily can link enemies together with her Domino ability, causing them all to share the same fate, or deploy her bizarre shadow-walk and tentacle arm to dispatch foes. Clearly puberty has much more significant effects in the world of Dishonored, then. The first Dishonored was already a game I was compelled to play through multiple times, so having a completely fresh skillset to do that with this time around is incredibly exciting.
Just missing out on the top spot is Sid Meier's civilization VI. That's right, after six glorious years of Civilization V (and a spot of dabbling with Beyond Earth), it's time to relearn everything you knew about Civ all over again. Civilization VI retains the hex-based layout of its predecessor, but looks to change things up with a wealth of new ideas such as the idea of "City Unstacking." Major improvements to your settlements must now be placed on separate hexes within your city, meaning not only that you must have room to accomodate them, but also that attacking civs are able to target specific parts of your infrastructure and limit their effectiveness directly. You may also create districts within a city, improving certain aspects in those areas at the costs of others. Perhaps most importantly from my perpective, the game has been rebalanced to hopefully bring the viability of each possible victory condition into line. As someone who poured a ton of time into Civilization V, I'm super excited at the potentially of being swallowed up once more by Firaxis's deep, vibrant 4X game as I find new ways to Explore, Expand, Exploint, and Exterminate through the ages.
And with that, we reach the top spot. Going into E3, there was one game I wanted to see more of more than any other - and that game was Horizon: Zero Dawn. Thankfully, Guerilla Games didn't disappoint, with a lengthy gameplay demo on the Sony stage. The environments look just as gorgeous as they did last year, with a real loving design to all the robo-animals roaming the environments. There was a much better sense of how the game will play out this year, too. We got a little more of a look at the open world and some of the resource gathering and crafting elements. There was a quick glimpse of some Witcher-style dialogue options as Aloy interacted with a another fleeing human. Along with more extended combat sequences, they also showed off the ability to hack a defeated cyber-bull and ride it across the hills and plains, or even into battle. Other animals may also be hacked for different purposes, such as to fight alongside you. Mixing bow combat with agressive melee enemies could have been a recipe for disaster, but the combat seems to have a really satisfying flow to it. Pleasingly, hands-on reports from the show were very positive, saying that the game felt as good to play as it looked on the demo. Guerilla has made some great games in the past, but they really look to have stepped up their game with Horizon: Zero Dawn, and I am so excited to learn more about it in the run-up to its release early in 2017.
And that's the list! Suffice to say, there's plenty of other games that were at the show that I just couldn't fit on here - including a very promising gameplay demonstration of Persona 5, the expanded-universe adventures of BUD in Grow Up, a completely new take on a classic franchise with Resident Evil 7, and oh so much more. I'd love to hear what games you were most excited about coming out of E3, so be sure to let me know down in the comments section below.
I finally found the time to put together my Game of the Year awards for 2015. I have been writing these up for the past few years, with categories much in the vein of (okay, basically ripped whole-cloth from) the GB awards. But I decided to do them in video form this year, as I wanted to work on my writing, narration, and editing skills all in one fell swoop! I thought I'd share them here in case anyone is interested - they do clock up to quite a lot of total time, but if you watch any part of them I'd love to hear what you thought of either my picks or the videos themselves.
The categories for each day should be visible on the thumbnails, but just in case they aren't they're all in this lovely spoiler block right here:
Day One:
2015's 2014 Game of the Year
Best New Character
Best Opening
Oddball Award for Best Dumb Game
Day Two:
Best Looking Game
Best Add-On Content
Best Game-Related Series or Show
Best Story
Day Three
Best Music
Most Compelling Use of Mechanics
Best Multiplayer
Best Mission or Sequence
Day Four:
Most eSports
Best World Design
Best Surprise
Best Ending
Day Five:
Best Style
Game of the Year 2015
There's four nominees (because I'm less decisive than GB and fancied a love-in) and a winner for each category, with the sole exception being the final GotY 2015 category which is just a ranked list of my favourite ten games from last year. I hope you enjoy them!
Day One:
Day Two:
Day Three:
Day Four:
Day Five:
That's all of them! As I mentioned at the start, I'd love to hear if any of you have feedback or suggestions for me on the production end - or just want to chat about my picks and why you agree or disagree. It's all in good fun, after all. :D
Thanks for reading! It was a great year; here's to a top-notch 2016!
EDIT: I also made a video based on this list - it doesn't cover all 30 games, but it might suit some of you better than all this text.
Happy New Year, everyone! 2015 was one heck of a year for video games. Alongside a mammoth quantity of healthy (and decidedly less-healthy) debate around the medium and those who engage with it, 2015 managed to bring us one of the most jam-packed offerings of top-notch, high quality releases in years. There's plenty to be said about the multitude of magnificence that came our way over the past twelve months - indeed, I plan to offer up my own thoughts on the topic over the coming weeks - but before we sit back and reflect on the past, I fancied taking a moment to see what lies ahead over the coming twelve months.
Of course, none of these titles are certain to be here this year. Such is the way of development that I would be rather confident in stating that not all of these titles will release in 2016. Many of them will, however, as will many games that we haven't even heard of yet (and some which may still be a twinkle in their developer's eye as I write this). So, for the time being, I've picked out the 30 games which currently stand out to me as the most interesting scheduled releases for this coming year.
A special mention first to what I suppose might be considered the "Big Four" shooters that we're likely to see in 2016: Battlefield, Call of Duty, Destiny, and Titanfall. Each have potentially big things to consider this year. Is it already time for another main-series Battlefield? Can the "new IW" prove that Ghosts was a slip-up and that they have more to offer? Is Destiny 2 the make-or-break point for a superbly promising but deeply flawed franchise? How will Respawn Entertainment expand upon the core framework of Titanfall going forward? However, with none of these officially set in stone for 2016 yet, I'm going to leave them off the list for now.
So, onto the list proper. There are various reasons why these games made my list, and I'll endeavour to explain as best as possible as we go along why I think you should be keeping an eye on them. In some cases they're sequels to games I loved. In other cases, they're sequels to games I didn't love but which I think have the potential to improve. Some look gorgeous, others are rather grotesque. Some feel important to the medium, while others appeal to me personally; in some cases it's less an aching desire to get my hands on them so much as a burning need to know. One final note: I've listed them in alphabetical order, because that made my life easier than trying to arbitrarily sort them somehow. Let's do this!
Since the arrival of the New Telltale Order with 2012's The Walking Dead, I'd been waiting for them to apply their award-winning formula to a franchise that appealed more directly to me. In part this came from a preference for comedy over drama - I should note my fondness for their Tales of Monkey Island series. 2015 brought me what I wanted in the forms of Minecraft: Story Mode, which I have been enjoying as one might a Saturday-morning childrens' cartoon, and Tales from the Borderlands, which currently sits right atop my Pile of Shame.
I doubt that Telltale will opt for the comedic route with Batman, but it is still a franchise I have a lot of time for. It fits well into the formula - making snap decisions about how to apprehend a criminal or pondering over the meaning behind a clue with Robin and Alfred could certainly make for a compelling title. My only real concern is how Batman's "no-kill" policy will affect the range of decisions you will have to face, but I'll leave that up to the experts for now. Telltale have been fantastic so far at capturing the essence of the worlds they are exploring, so I'm eager to get hands-on with their take on Gotham and its heaving underworld of unsavoury inhabitants.
I'm still a little sad that I didn't spend more time with Bravely Default. I picked up the demo and spent quite a while exploring what it had to offer, but didn't end up playing the final release for a variety of reasons, not least that I didn't have time for it at launch. I thought the battle system was creative, allowing you to essentially store up "turns" for each individual character and then blow them all at once. Between that and the way jobs could be combined to augment your skill setup, it brought a unique layer to the Final Fantasy-style battle system. It also included a bunch of neat, progressive touches, such as the ability to adjust random encounter frequency.
Perhaps I'll find the time to get around to Bravely Default, but I've also heard several things about the structure of that game which make me a little wary of diving into it. With Bravely Second on the horizon in 2016, it's possible that this will prove to be a great jumping-in point. Second is set in the same universe as its predecessor, but a while after the events of the first game, so I'm hopeful that the story will still be approachable to those new to the series. If they manage to incorporate what the first game did well and build on those strengths, Bravely Second could turn out to be a must-play for fans of that style of JRPG.
I spent a not-insignificant chunk of time with the first Cook, Serve, Delicious! It's a game I go back to every so often and just run through a few days of restauranteering - balancing out orders and chores, trying to make sure that all the customers are satisfied; that no-one has an overcooked steak, that people get the right Flavor Blast in their soda, and that the toilets are polished and shining. It's a constant series of spinning plates - both metaphorically as well as literally, sometimes.
I'm incredibly excited for the follow-up, which looks to be sticking with the formula but expanding and improving on it in a whole breadth of ways. More dishes to create, deeper customisation of your restaurant, new chores to take on, a wider variety of (wonderfully straight-faced) clientele to keep content, and much more. Developer David Galindo has been keeping an active blog on his Tumblr and the official CSD website explaining some of the improvements he's hoping to make. Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2 looks to be shaping up to be a follow-up that does for it's predecessor what Rebirth did for The Binding of Isaac - taking the core formula and making it bigger, better, and more beautiful.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I could write one hundred thousand words attempting to sell you on Cuphead and still achieve less than a few seconds of footage could do. So I'll save myself the trouble and tell you to watch this trailer instead.
The artstyle, the animation, the music... I wouldn't even consider myself as a fan of side-scrolling shooters, yet I feel compelled to get my hands on Cuphead. Were it not for reassurances from multiple people who have played it, I'd almost be skeptical that you could really control it, It's bizarro 1930s cartoons made into a video game, and it's dripping style from every orifice. Delightful.
Oh, Dark Souls, how I love you so. I doubt there are too many people out there now who don't have some opinion on this series one way or another, which seems like a rather spectacular ascent from where both Demon's and Dark Souls were at the time of release. Such a rise speaks to the power of From Software's creations, then. They may be divisive, but there's no denying that - for the people who love them - few other titles hit their marks more spectacularly. Even within fans the series there are advocates and detractors for every entry. Personally I enjoyed Dark Souls II well enough, but it felt like it was missing that special spark. Bloodborne rediscovered that spark for me, so I suppose there might be some real credence to the "Miyazaki magic" - at least for my own personal tastes.
As much as I adore it, however, Bloodborne sacrifices a lot of variety in world design and character building to fit into its tight aesthetic. While that didn't bother me during my time engrossed in Yharnam, I'm certainly excited to return to the more open-ended approach that Dark Souls offers. I haven't paid too much close attention to the details of Dark Souls III so far, because it's very much a game I want to see in its whole form rather than attempting to pick apart pieces of the scraps that are thrown out to sate the initial appetite for teasers. That said, Miyazaki's team are huge fans of mystery, intrigue, and misdirection - as Bloodborne proved. So I'm sure there will be plenty to discover and pore over once Dark Souls III rolls around early this year (it's currently scheduled for worldwide release in April).
Darkest Dungeon has been available to users as part of Steam's Early Access program for a large chunk of 2015. Personally, I made the decision a long time ago now that even if I was interested enough in an Early Access title to buy in, I would wait until full release to start putting time in. After seeing some early footage of Darkest Dungeon at the time that rolled out, I was eager to see where Red Hook Studios would take things over the journey to a finished product. The initial offering certainly caught my eye: a randomly-generated turn-based dungeon crawling RPG where party members can easily die - or suffer any of a wealth of terrible mental or physical conditions thanks to dungeon-related trauma - and must be carefully treated (or replaced) between outings, as appropriate.
I haven't followed the Early Access period too closely, but I've heard that there have been some ups and downs with regards to how updates have been received by the community. That said, the last news I heard sounded very positive and with everything that Darkest Dungeon looked to be shaping up to be from the outset, I'm keen to check back in with it once they hit version 1.0, which it sounds like will be fairly soon.
The first Dishonored is another game prone to splitting opinion. I'm definitely amongst the Love Squad for this one; I adored the aesthetics and design of the world, I loved sneaking around on rooftops and down alleyways with Corvo's potent supernatural skillset, and while I thought the binary good/bad ending split based purely on your kill count was a little hamfisted, I adored pursuing the "alternative" solutions to each quest - solutions which almost uniformly turned out to be more terrifying and horrendous fates than if I'd simply given all the targets the ol' "Requiescat in pace."
Bethesda has shown off very little of the upcoming sequel - it was unveiled officially during their E3 press conference in a rather unfortunate Doom/Fallout 4 sandwich, both of which had rather meaty gameplay demos and thus left more of an immediate impression. Yet I came away very excited about taking the reins as a grown-up PrincessThankfully, it sounds like developers Eidos Montreal learned a lot from the post-release community feedback, because despite a few minor flaws Human Revolution seems to have won itself many fans. Emily, alongside her protector Corvo, and seeing what new stories can be told in Dunwall. The city was certainly far from redeemed by the end of the first game, so I'm sure there will still be plenty of grimy city streets to wander and ravenous sewer rats to fear.
Speaking of Doom, the rebooted genre-definer is set to be unleashed on the world all over again in 2016. I liked parts of what I saw of the game at Bethesda's E3 showing - although I still think there's absolutely room for a well-made game that plays with the simplicity and speed of the original game, which this is very much not. That said, it looks weighty and visceral; packed with violent, up-close kill moves and an arsenal of the beefiest weapons you'll see outside of the Adult Movie Awards.
I'm glad they chose to step away from the more survival-style elements of Doom 3, which had their novelty but felt out of place for a franchise so deeply-rooted in the simplistic joy of pumping round after round into terrifying hell-beasts until they collapse into a pile of meaty chunks and ribcages. The modern tech also looks like it will enable some of the most iconic monsters from Doom's demonic cast to be realised at the scale and size they deserve, which could lead to some breathtaking encounters. Throw in multiplayer that allows you to play as a revenant and the shades-of-Timesplitters multiplayer level creation tool SnapMap, and you have my attention.
2011's Human Revolution was another game which I didn't get to at release, and then heard just enough things that made me hesitate when I was contemplating playing it that I've still never given it a proper shot to win me over. I can say with some confidence, however, that the unfortunately-outsourced boss fights which proved near-impossible for players with certain builds to deal with were certainly that game's biggest weakness. There were also some notable issues with the AI, which often led to scenarios where guards would pile up on the floor as you took them out one-by-one while they investigated a disturbance in turn.
Thankfully, it sounds like developers Eidos Montreal learned a lot from the post-release community feedback, because despite a few minor flaws Human Revolution seems to have won itself many fans. While I may not be the genre's most avid fan, I'd certainly class myself as pro-cyberpunk, so the world on offer does hold plenty of appeal for me. Games with multiple solutions to a puzzle, such as "hack this terminal," "jump over this wall with your cyberlegs," or "murder everyone with your future gun," certainly also pique my interest - so I'd love it if Mankind Divided successfully pulls off being an improved, more polished version of its predecessor.
I liked Far Cry 2 a fair bit. I loved Far Cry 3. I adored Far Cry 4. The progression through the core series has very much been an upward curve for me. While it is certainly a prime example of the Ubisoft Open-World Game, it pulls off almost every aspect of that to a more satisfying degree than anything else can. Climbing towers is a rickety, creaking joy! Side quests feel like genuinely pleasing distractions rather than box-ticking busywork. Cleaning out camps is intense and thrilling, whether you're doing it alone or co-operatively with a friend. A lot of it comes down to just how tight Far Cry's mechanics are at this point: shooting, sneaking, gliding, driving... every aspect of the gameplay is easy to grasp and fun to engage with.
That said, we're getting to the point where it's all feeling a tad repetitive. I would still play a straight-up Far Cry 5, because I know I'd have a good time. But I suspect that partway through, I'd start to wonder why. I don't want to burn out on something which is riding so high right now, so I'm glad to see that Primal is aiming to take things in a slightly new direction. Whether it'll end up being a mere re-skin or whether it'll feel genuinely original remains to be seen, but a game wrapped around those core mechanics and layered with a new approach is a pretty easy sell for me. Perhaps I'm getting soft... I did just praise first-person platforming sequences, after all.
I said at the outset of 2015 that I didn't think it would be Final Fantasy XV's year. Honestly, I didn't want it to be - I don't know where I could have squeezed it in. But, while I'm sad that we missed out on some minor year/entry numbering #synergy, I think 2016 is going to be the year that we get our hands on that roving band of J-Pop funsters and their oversized swords. I've been a long time fan of Final Fantasy for some time now (and possibly one of the few who's enjoyed all of the recent main-series iterations). The thing which immediately caught my eye way back when Final Fantasy XV was first shown was the combat system - at the time, it was impossible to tell how it would actually play out in-game, but it looked unlike anything the series has had previously.
Final Fantasy certainly changes up its systems dramatically between every entry - in fact, I'd suggest that desire to offer up a fresh experience with each adventure is one of the core reasons why I keep coming back - but this feels like one of the most dramatic shifts to date. Recent gameplay demos, including the playable one offered to those who bought Type-0, seem to have all but confirmed that. It also looks simply gorgeous, with the spectacle on show in some of the trailers (including some of the larger encounters, the cities, and the summons) enough to leave my mouth agape in awe. That should come as no surprise from this series, but it doesn't make me any less excited to get my hands on it and experience that spectacle first-hand.
We've only really had a few small glimpses at segments of Horizon: Zero Dawn so far, but already it's looking as though it has the potential to become one of the first real standout new big-budget ideas since the current generation of consoles arrived. It's wonderful to see Guerilla Games branching out to something so different from all their work with the Killzone series, if only to see what else they are capable of. The bright, colourful landscapes of Horizon's post-post-apocalyptic world are enough by themselves to make me want to dive in and explore them, even without taking the likes of the gameplay and storyline into account.
That doesn't mean you should discount those aspects by any means, though. Fiery-haired rotagonist Aloy comes equipped with the "future primitive" toolset of a spear and bow. To accompany that you can seemingly craft a wealth of different arrows to use, such as electrically charged shots, explosive tripwires, and grapple lines which can tie the hulking cyber-dinosaurs that roam Horizon's landscapes down so that you can finish them off and scavenge precious materials from them. There's still plenty to be seen about how the majority of the game plays out and where exactly the story might be heading, but everything I have seen of Horizon: Zero Dawn so far just makes me want to see more.
I want to believe. There's been worlds of speculation about where development the next Legend of Zelda title is right now. With Nintendo's new NX console looming on the horizon, speculation has been rife that this will see a Twilight Princess-style cross-generation launch. Whether that's the case or not, there's every reason to get excited for this latest return to Hyrule. Personally, I'm coming off A Link Between Worlds, which I played early in 2015 and was the first full Zelda game I've been through - it hooked me in an instant and kept me going for two full playthroughs straight. I'm hoping that this new game can do for 3D Zelda what that game did for top-down Zelda and win me over.
It's not that I disliked other games in the series, but I hadn't found one which captivated me quite that way until recently. The promise of a more open-ended approach, one which sounds more akin to the original stylings of those top-down entries, has piqued my interest. It certainly also doesn't hurt that all the footage so far has been simply jaw-dropping to look at. The artstyle is sublime, the animation is smooth and flowing, and the vistas are lush and spectacular. It's certainly shaping up to be on heck of a year for good-looking games. The only real doubt on this one is whether or not it makes 2016 - but I'm sure Ninty would love to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series this year with a big new release.
I'm not quite sure where I got my copy of the original Day of the Tentacle. It was one of those few PC games that my parents collected during my childhood - I suspect it may have come from one family friend who was responsible for slipping quite a few of his older PC classics my way, but I could be mistaken. Regardless of its origin, Day of the Tentacle was a wonderful introduction for young Ken to the world of the point-and-click adventure game. I wasn't able to finish it initially, but would return a few years later, that little bit older and wiser, to push past the puzzle that had trounced me and complete the remaining half of the game.
I'm certainly not alone in my love - Day of the Tentacle is still widely considered to be one of the finest titles in its genre. Industry legends Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman weaved a hilarious and wacky tale of three friends cast through time in an attempt to put a stop to the mutated and power-hungry Purple Tentacle before he can take over the world. It's still playable through the use of ScummVM (indeed I replayed it in such a way a few years ago) but I'm incredibly excited both to experience it for myself once more with a fresh new coat of paint and also to have an easy way to introduce one of my favourite games of all time to as many people as possible.
I'm going to be realistic here and say that of all the games on the list, this is the one that I am least confident about releasing in 2016 that I still felt had enough of a chance that I should include it. I will also note that even if it doesn't actually come out, I'm still excited at the prospect of finding out more about what Mass Effect: Andromeda is going to be. We've seen very little of it so far, so there's not really a whole lot to say. But the idea of a new story in the Mass Effect universe is certainly enticing.
I don't really mind what they do with it - BioWare have certainly had their ups and downs in recent years, but their world-building and storytelling is still some of the most compelling stuff out there even when it's not firing on all cylinders. I'm also including this game as yet another platform to tell people who skipped it to go play the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer - I've been back to it recently and it's still one of my favourite co-op modes of the last generation. It absolutely still feels fresh even today (and after spending around 170 hours with it) and I really hope it sees a return in Andromeda.
I'm absolutely on Team Mirror's Edge. That shouldn't come as a surprise at this point - not only did I talk lovingly about my time clambering about Dunwall in Dishonored, but I even praised the relatively simplistic first-person platforming sequences of Far Cry 3 and 4. So it won't shock you to learn that I adored a game which provides probably the most satisfying and breathless free-running experience to date: one where you sprint, leap, and scramble your way through a gorgeous yet minimalistic future cityscape to a sublime ambient soundtrack. Yeah, I'm on Team Mirror's Edge alright.
Catalyst is an exciting prospect for fans of the original - it's been described as a much more open-world design, which should help to make the parkour feel a little more natural and free-flowing than, "find the one object you can climb/grab/push to get to the next area." The team at DICE also seem well aware of the issues that people had with combat interactions in the first game, and it sounds from some initial previews that they're very much "sticking to their guns" and avoiding sequences where Faith would have to do the same. (It's not going to be a shooter. I just needed to make that pun, okay?) Solar Fields, the composer behind the original game's soundtrack, is also returning - so we can expect plenty more of those glorious, evocative soundscapes.
I have to know. That said, I feel as though we have a fairly good idea of what No Man's Sky is all about at this point. But we still need to reach the point where it comes out, everyone can get their hands on it, and we can all make our own decisions about whether it's the game for us or not. We know that it will have billions of procedurally-generated planets in a single universe, all governed by one single creation seed (so all players will have the same universe, though any given two of them will likely never see the same parts of it).
We know that you can name planets and the species which inhabit those planets, if you are the first to discover them. We know that you can analyse the environment and mine resources; that you can upgrade your ship and your suit for further exploration and action; that you can engage in space combat or encounter a mysterious on-world "police force" if you are deemed to be a troublemaker. But there's still that certain "je ne sais quoi" that no-one outside of Hello Games seems able to put their finger on. Whatever No Man's Sky ends up being, I think I'll enjoy seeing it for myself.
Oh boy. We're really going to have the Duel of the JRPGs in 2016, aren't we? While Final Fantasy has long been sitting atop that pile, it feels more and more like Persona is building up an almost unstoppable momentum across fans of the genre. After a brief initial brush with Persona 3 and its (quite literally) mind-blowing "Evokers," I was introduced to the series fully with Persona 4 and it didn't take long to see why so many people were in love with it. The wonderful balance of living your daily life and fighting through surreal dungeons against the manifestations of people's secret desires, wrapped up in a gorgeous package filled with some of the most memorable characters and most catchy music tracks to make their way into a video game... Once you've experienced the world of Persona, you won't forget it.
Persona 5 also follows the life of a Hot Teen who has just transferred to a new high school and has to deal with the troubles of everyday teenage life while also contending with the aforementioned mysterious forces. Expect to see an early appearance from series regular Igor, but after that anything goes. Reassuringly, series composer (and producer) Shoji Meguro is returning - which all but ensures a raft of hot jams* which will be stuck in my head for years to come. I put Persona 5 atop my most anticipated list at the start of 2015 - but, much like Final Fantasy XV, I didn't expect that last year would be the year for Atlus's banner RPG. I think 2016 is the year though, so get ready for two of the biggest franchises out of Japan to clash for your time. At this early stage, I think Persona has my heart - but I fully expect to lose a lot of hours to both releases this year.
* I've had this extended cut of 'Specialist' from the P4 OST on loop while writing this. So good.
As a fan of Pokémon since it launched, being the perfect age to get in from the ground up back in 1997, and a long-term fan of the Tekken games, which began with Tekken 3 but developed to the point where I have ended up spending lengthy amounts of time with every single entry in that series, I'm probably at the perfect cross-over point for Pokkén Tournament. That said, my expectations are somewhat tempered: I'm interested to see what Harada and Hoshino will come up with, but I worry that it won't really be able to hit upon the things that I love from either series.
Both Tekken (Harada) and Soul Calibur (Hoshino) are combo-heavy games filled with lengthy move lists that don't make a ton of sense with Pokémon's (intentionally) fairly limited skillsets. Similarly, the vast roster and tactical depth of Pokémon is unlikely to translate over fully to a fighting game. That doesn't mean that Pokkén Tournament can't be a fun novelty - indeed if they pull it off, I'm sure I'll have a ton of fun with it - I'm just not expecting it to reach quite the high standard I regard either franchise in by themselves. I'm more than willing to be proven wrong, however!
There's certainly been a lot of personal favourites littering this list over the past few games... Ratchet & Clank is no exception. I've been a huge fan of the series since it's initial release on PlayStation 2, which is precisely where this new game is aiming to re-visit. Set up as a tie-in for the upcoming movie - which I still can't quite believe is happening, as much as I can see it making perfect sense as a Pixar-esque family movie - this Ratchet & Clank "re-imagining" returns to the original game but will include additional mechanics and sequences to bring it in line with the film's expanded plot.
I've actually been playing through the original game fairly recently on PlayStation Vita, so I can definitely speak to how that original game feels now. It certainly still plays well and the crisp art style means it pleases the eye even today, over 13 years after its original release. That said, by comparison to later titles the levels feel tight and the mechanics are notably simplistic. A lot of the upgrade features weren't introduced until the second game onwards, so the arsenal feels a tad underwhelming despite a fairly novel selection of tools at your disposal (although even that pales in comparison to the weird and wacky variety on offer in later releases). It's still a great game, but there's no doubt that it stands to benefit from a full overhaul.
This one might be a bit of a cop-out, as it already released in 2015. However, I don't have an Xbox One yet so I'm very much looking forward to playing this on PC or PS4 when I find the time to squeeze it in. I played the early hours of 2013's Tomb Raider reboot and liked it well enough, but it didn't keep me hooked in for much past the initial areas. Everything I've heard about Rise has me interested, however - it sounds as though they've smoothed out some of the rough edges and cut down on some of the "interactive cut-scene" sequences and murderboner ultra-deaths in favour of, y'know, some actual Tomb Raiding.
The game also looks absolutely gorgeous, which suggests it'll be a strong candidate for one of the best lookers of the year when it hits the PC (and early 4k screenshots are certainly proving that to be a valid assumption). I'm definitely all in favour of a shift towards more puzzling - it can certainly be tempting to weight the puzzle/platforming/combat triangle in favour of the latter third, but I'm definitely a believer that a well-designed puzzle or platforming sequence will often be just as striking and memorable, if not more so, than a good combat sequence. I'm fully expecting to get deep into the challenge tombs when Rise of the Tomb Raider hits multiple platforms this year.
I'd always been more of a 3D fighters guy until Street Fighter IV came along. I knew that people had a lot of love for 2D fighting games, and I spent a little time with the likes of Street Fighter II, but I never really grasped their fundamental concepts and mechanics. However, when SFIV arrived on the scene, the chatter around it was so intense and enthusiastic that I felt compelled to give it a shot. Everything lined up: starting at launch meant I wasn't trying to play a game people had spent years learning inside and out; One of my close friends had played enough of the series to understand the mechanics and help me learn them, but wasn't familiar enough that he would completely trounce me; and we were in our first year at University so had plenty of free time on our hands to spend with it.
And practice we did. Fast-forward to now and Street Fighter IV (in its many iterations) is absolutely one of my favourite games of all time. It's still a joy to play every time and just as much fun to watch, whether it's a group of friends sparring or big-money games on the competitive scene. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the SFV betas (without pre-ordering) and though I haven't had a ton of time to spend with them, I'm already loving how simultaneously familiar and different it feels. The roster has been shaping up excellently, the V-stuff is all a neat replacement for the Ultra mechanic, and the way they've been talking about post-release support and buying DLC characters with earnable in-game currency sounds incredibly promising. (Also the first run of those includes both Ibuki and Juri - so thanks for paying attention to that wishlist I sent you, Capcom.)
Originally designed for a First-Person Shooter game jam in 2013, Superhot puts its own twist on the genre by tying the passage of time to your movement. This means you can set up shots, note incoming bullets, and then dodge out of the way of them. It's a joy to experience - and you can do so right now, as the original release is still playable on their website (no download; it runs in-browser through Unity, just make sure you have the Unity web player set up). If you haven't seen it, go give it a shot and I'm sure you'll see why it makes this list.
It's a game that oozes style, from its minimalist red-on-grayscale look through to the sound of bullets whizzing idly past your ears and the "SUPER. HOT. SUPER. HOT." which comes upon the completion of each level (something you won't be able to stop yourself from repeating over and over for quite some time). With the final version due early this year and set to include features such as a speedrun mode and the much-requested "replay completed levels in real time" option, Superhot is set to be the finest Tool-Assisted Speedrun simulator on the market. SUPER. HOT.
2014's Gone Home split opinion in a number of different ways, but it certainly got people talking. The sense of place, the attention to detail, and the small-scale, personal stories it told certainly resonated with a sizeable audience. So Fullbright's next game is certainly one to watch out for. This time, the setting takes an off-world twist; taking place on a Lunar Transfer Station. There aren't too many specifics out there yet, which makes sense when you consider how little information most people had going in to Gone Home and how key the sense of discovery was to that whole experience.
Much like its predecessor, Tacoma looks to set you as the lone human exploring said station, with all interaction coming from an on-board AI by the name of "Odin." Unlike Gone Home, however, this interaction appears to be slightly more of a dialogue than the voice-over in that game. That won't serve to make the whole thing any less unsettling, I'm sure - but the potential to tell a slightly more sci-fi tinged story compared toGone Home's very much grounded offering should be an interesting twist. If you liked Fullbright's previous work, then Tacoma should certainly be on your radar.
Okay, this one's been so long in coming that perhaps Ubisoft can't put it off any longer. I've been saying for multiple years that we're nowhere near The Division seeing the light of day - but by now there's been enough clear indications of gameplay and enough people have put hands on that game that we have to be close. It sounds very much like this could be shaping up to be Ubi's third-person answer to Destiny: group up in small teams to head into "Darkness Zones" and complete missions to earn loot. No messing around either... rarity-graded, colour-coded loot with numbers that get bigger. The Division really does appear to be a not-so-secret Secret Numbers Game.
With all that said... I loved playing Destiny. Even back in its first year, when it was fairly simple and the content was light, earning those new weapons and increasing those numbers felt great. My biggest concern with The Division will be how it holds up mechanically. Destiny worked for me because, underneath all the polish and the loot and the numbers, there was one of the most resoundly satisfying first-person shooters I have ever laid hands on. If The Division is a blast to play, then that might be enough. Or maybe there's some additional layer to it that we've yet to see. Or perhaps they will have learnt from the mistakes of others and just included enough content and story in it from the get-go to keep people compelled the whole way through? Personally, I've never been completely sold on this one being a game-changer. Regardless, I'm still fascinated to see how it actually turns out.
I'm certain there are a whole bunch of licensing and marketing people behind why this could never happen, but I will never look at this game's name and not feel a tiny pang of sadness that it isn't called "Total Warhammer." That said, I'll still continue to keep an eye on it because it does pose some interest to me. After all, I've had a ton of fun with the Total War series in the past (although certainly less so over their more recent iterations). My knowledge of Warhammer - and bear in mind that this is the Fantasy variant, not the 40k one - is limited to a brief stint with the tabletop RPG during University, but it seemed like a fairly entertaining and well fleshed-out fantasy world to be in.
I'm probably more excited for this as a Warhammer Fantasy game than I would have been were it a 40k offering, simply because I tend to find it a little more in my wheelhouse - at least from the perspective of a strategy game. It sounds bizarre to say, but 40k feels a little "closer" to reality, so perhaps it's the potential for a sizable departure from the Total War norms that interests me here. As I mentioned earlier, however, I've been a little disappointed in what I've played of The Creative Assembly's more recent offerings - so, in a year seemingly packed full of big games, this may need to be quite a notable step up if it's going to convince me to make what is usually a fairly hefty time investment. Still - one to watch out for, especially for the legions of Warhammer fans out there.
By the time Uncharted 3 arrived, I'd probably had close to my fill of cheeky murderman Nathan Drake and his chirpy, whimsical adventures. This wasn't really Naughty Dog's fault - if anything, it was a testament to the first two games in the series that I replayed both multiple times and wore myself out on them. I played through (and enjoyed) the third release, but never felt any compulsion to return to it after the credits had rolled once. Since then, we've had a few years away from Drake and friends. I recently picked up the Nathan Drake Collection as it was on sale, and found myself playing through the first game two and a half times over the course of a few nights and burning my way to the Platinum trophy. So perhaps it's been long enough, for me at least.
The series certainly needs a little freshening up, however - but it looks as though Naughty Dog's time developing The Last of Us has given them plenty of new ideas. They look to be incorporating more open-ended environments and bringing across the stealth mechanics from TLoU - probably the one real stand-out improvement that game made to combat over the Uncharted series. Whether that will be enough to make this game stand out remains to be seen, but I think I'm ready to play another Uncharted game now. Additionally, everything from its name to the talk coming from Naughty Dog (and departure of former series lead Amy Hennig) suggests that this might actually be the conclusion to the Nathan Drake arc that Drake's Deception didn't quite manage.
Remember the Swedish Yarn Man from last year's E3? There's no doubt that Martin Sahlin, creative director of Unravel, brought a lot of smiles to people's faces with his impassioned tale of Yarny - the cat-like creature made of a thread of yarn - and its representation of love. It was a bizarre and heartwarming offset from the rest of EA's (fairly lacklustre) 2015 press conference.
When all's said and done, it looks to be a fairly simple 2D puzzle-platformer centred around unravelling yarn from your character to hook onto things, swing across the environment, pull objects about, and so on... but the presentation is so pleasantly adorable that it'll certainly be worth a look. It's also representative of the fact that a big-name company like EA doesn't always have to be about the "triple-A guns and explosions" and can sometimes get behind small, personal projects like this one.
The Witness may be the closest we get to Braid creator Jonathan Blow's magnum opus. Originally announced in 2008 following the successful launch of Braid, it has apparently evolved through an extensive development cycle which has seen Blow pour time and money into perfecting his vision. Harkening back to the days of classic puzzler Myst, the player is set on an island where they are free to explore and solve the various puzzles they encounter around the world to progress deeper into certain areas. The narrative has been kept largely a secret, other than that the player is trying to work out exactly who and where they are, and why they ended up there.
Blow himself has stated that his original intent was to create around an 8-hour experience, yet his most recent estimates have put the total for the finished game to be around 50-80 hours. That's certainly a mammoth feat for what is seemingly a puzzle game, so it'll be fascinating to see how much the tasks on offer differ over the course of the game and whether it can stand up to that length of play without ever feeling stale. That said, its launch date early in the year may make it a perfect game to dip into in short bursts and play for a while until you hit a wall, only to return a few days later and take a fresh approach at it.
Time to round things off with another early release - albeit likely a much more intense one. XCOM 2 is the follow-up to 2012's reboot, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Wonderfully, developers Firaxis decided that the canonical ending to the original was the human race losing their fight against the invading alien forces - certainly a believable outcome, especially if you played on Ironman or the harder difficulty levels. This means that XCOM 2 sees the world under the rule of said forces, and you take control of a roving force of rebels attempting to wrest back control from the invaders.
Expect plenty of familiar aspects if you've played the previous entry - the side-on base construction returns, allowing you to outfit your home facility (built inside a scavenged alien transport ship) with a variety of research, development, intelligence, and medical facilities. The in-mission combat will feature the same grid-based movement and cover systems, with plenty of careful planning and tactics required if you're going to complete your objectives without losing key members of staff. It's going to be an even tougher fight thanEnemy Unknown... and I can't wait to scramble every last scrap of hope together to struggle against the odds for the survival of the human race.
And that's it! I could go on with a couple more titles that I'm interested in, but I set this list at thirty entries and I've already kinda cheated once by mentioning more stuff doing my introduction, so I'll refrain from doing that again here. Suffice to say that it's looking like it'll be another fantastic year in gaming. 2015's going to be hard to top, but I think that 2016 has a chance to come close.
It's also probably worth noting that this could be a big year in gaming for another reason - the (official) launch of Virtual Reality. Final release VR headsets are set to start making their way to market for real this year, so it'll be fascinating watching that unfold. I certainly think the tech is worth people's time - but is it worth the hefty investment that will be required (between the VR sets themselves and the hardware to run them) for the experiences that are currently on the table?
There are plenty of other questions too, such as whether the average home setup is going to be accommodating for any VR experiences which require more than sitting at a desk. Ultimately only time will tell on this one - this first full release may completely change the way the world plays games, or (more likely) it may remain a thing for the super-invested and the early adopters for the first couple of years, until more compelling software becomes widely available and the cost of entry reaches a more mainstream level. I can't wait to find out where VR goes after the next twelve months, and while I'm not yet ready to invest I'd certainly love to give it a shot for myself this year.
So, let's wrap things up for now. If you weren't already looking forward to another year of fantastic games, hopefully this list helped you think about what you might be most interested in coming up. If you want to see more from me, be sure to keep an eye on this blog as well as my YouTube channel and my Twitter page as I'll no doubt be talking in-depth across all three of those platforms about many of the games coming out this year. Here's to a wonderful 2016!
Ken Allsop finds a heart-pounding survival horror... lurking deep within the biggest, brashest First-Person Shooter on the market.
Starved of ammo, I take a chance and dart the short distance down the deserted street into the nearest building. Scurrying upstairs, making sure not to be spotted through the windows, I lie as flat and still as I can among the furniture.
I take this opportunity to check the map. This leaves me vulnerable but also holds the key to my survival – the current positions of every infected are visible to me. I let out a deep breath I didn't know I was holding. They appear to be moving away from the house. A quick count suggests their numbers have swelled to eight or nine. I know that with no rounds left in my M16, there's no chance I could take even one of them on by myself... despite their size, the infected move near-silently and are capable of striking a man down in one fell swoop.
My fellow survivor has not been so lucky. Caught up in Seatown's back alleys, he has had to seek refuge in a one-story building with only two real exit routes. Suddenly I notice the infected around him begin to close in: one of them has caught sight of him through a window, and now his safe house has become a deathtrap. I watch, helpless, as they swarm through the doors and cut him down as he attempts to flee through a window. Just a few minutes ago he had helped me to bring one of them down – but that was when we had bullets, and their numbers were small. Now he is one of them, and at last I am alone. Suddenly it dawns on me.
He knows. Just as I knew where he was when he fell, he must have seen where I had fled. My position is no longer available to him, but now my hiding spot is compromised. But my revelation comes too late: under his guidance, three of them are already around the house. Suddenly I realise one is climbing up to the second-floor window behind me. Downstairs is not an option – another infected is lumbering in from below. I have to move now, or there is no hope...
Abandoning stealth, I spring from my hiding spot and smash a window out, scrambling through and falling into the marketplace. The landing rattles me, but I know I have to keep running. I sprint forward, knowing there are three or four behind me... If I could just make it to that arch... at that moment, another rounds the stall in front of me and cuts me off. Damn. Without pause for thought, I turn and dash down the nearest side alley.
Too late, I glance at the mini-map. The infected I hadn't checked for steps out in front of me. I attempt a desperate and futile dash past him, but with one swing he knocks me to the ground... It's finally over...
“Damn it, I didn't see you coming!” I shout to my friend across the headset. The scene in question was not one from your traditional horror games, but rather in the somewhat unexpected territory of blockbuster mega-shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Lurking among the private match options are some of the Wager match variants returning from Black Ops, such as “Gun Game” and “One in the Chamber”. But the real winner has been the “Infection” mode, which will be familiar to many as the custom game type from Halo 2 which was made into an official playlist for Halo 3.
The concept is simple. At the start of the match, one player is infected at random. Anyone they manage to kill becomes infected. Slowly the numbers swing from being in favour of the survivors to turning against them, until the last few have to hold off as long as possible against the hordes of respawning infected players until they succumb. The standard setup appears to be a shotgun for the survivors and a knife (perhaps with throwing knife) for the infected. At first, the infected players struggle – with small numbers, getting close to shotgun-wielding opponents is a dangerous game to play. But as more and more players become infected, the slow fire rate of the SPAS-12 or Model 1887 makes it increasingly harder to survive being rushed by three or four players simultaneously.
Among the group I was playing with, however, we found after some experimentation that our favourite way to play was with the odds stacked against the survivors. In particular, making the infected into “Juggernauts” (with their very high health) meant that survival early-on relied on cooperation, and late-game became near-impossible. The game I described earlier pitted the players with M16s with two spare magazines against Juggernauts who only had their mêlée attack. Survivors were given increased sprint distance by Extreme Conditioning and could see Juggernauts on the map, but the Juggernauts had Dead Silence, making them near-impossible to hear coming.
Another later variant gave the survivors MP5 sub-machine guns (almost useless against the Juggernaut infected), pitting them against RPGs. This led to a tense situation in which I fired off a couple of rounds to alert a nearby infected to my position, allowing a friend to sneak slowly and quietly below the walkway he was standing on and away to (temporary) safety.
Over the course of a couple of hours, Infection quickly won a place in the hearts of our friend group. And we are far from alone. It has never been unusual to receive private game invites from recent players in the Call of Duty series, but predominantly in the past these have been “quickscoping lobbies” and the like. Now it seems almost every invite is letting you know that the sender is running an Infection session and to join if you want to play along. And you know what? Next time you receive such an invite, I seriously suggest considering doing so, although I would also note that the fun is exponentially increased with people you know – so if you have that option, go for it.
Just as a brief background, Call of Duty is one of my main fall-back games – my friends and I will often return to play it whenever there is a lull in new releases we are checking out. The online competitive multiplayer remains as easy to pick up, fast, and exciting as ever, plus the other multiplayer game types offer another fun, repeatable experience. We have in the past spent a number of hours on the Zombie modes present in the Treyarch-made releases, but at a point where a game of Zombies can last for well over an hour, Infection offers a very short, but even more tense and frantic, alternative.
PLEASE NOTE: Potential spoilers. Nothing big here (I'll avoid any direct quest naming or big plot points), but it doesn't hurt to point out that I may mention something you'd rather find out for yourself.
- Finally travelled to Riften (avoiding a double dragon fight along the way).
- Convinced a loanshark to cancel a debt. My speech must be coming along well as this was far easier than anticipated.
- Stole a ring and planted it on someone else, getting him arrested. I believe this was the first "criminal" act I have performed in game (I did fight someone and got a small bounty which disappeared when they died, although I believe I was supposed to do this for the quest I was on).
- Visited the thieves' guild down in a bar in the sewers. This involved first fighting my way through some lowlifes in said sewers, one of whom was named "lowlife". Most of the rest seemed to be individually named, which concerned me slightly, so hopefully I didn't take out any quest characters.
- Browsed a couple of random dungeons leading to some desperate inventory management as I struggled to stay unecumbered. Eventually managed to sell everything off, albeit across three seperate towns.
- Couldn't work out how to lower a bridge across to me (the only lever around just triggered a fairly obvious spike trap) so managed to find a way to jump across instead.
- Fought a named Draugr who created illusions of himself and (along with said illusions) used the Unrelenting Force shout to ping me around the cavern like a pinball. I used my Fire Breath shout to put a stop to that.
- Went to a quest location behind a waterfall with the intention of forging an amulet. Found a note suggesting I leave the location in peace. Left the location in peace. For now.
- Killed two bears, and a mountain lion. Now significantly less tense when wandering through unexplored undergrowth to reach a new area.
Carried on with Rogue Warrior today - encountered a crash at exactly the same place (about five minutes in). Decided to not let it put me off, and continued regardless. That game is pretty much still the same as it was yesterday, it's competent enough but playing on hard makes it more a case of trying to exploit the fairly basic AI because getting into a straight gunfight will end with you on the floor in a second most of the time.
Also played a little more Horde today in four-player - we did a full run, although a disconnect meant I missed out on my fourth "Long Hauler" ribbon. Oh well. Just got the Silverback left to upgrade now though so will be working on that one. Batman's out real soon though, and from that point I figure I'm going to be pretty darn busy. Still, if I have any spare time after all that there's always Call of Duty 3 - which my friend finished this morning on Veteran - which I've never played. Apparently it's not great, but that hasn't stopped me from ploughing through Rogue Warrior, right?
Today I decided it would be appropriate to pick up Rogue Warrior from the two missions in I'd reached earlier in the week and play through it. I'm on the hardest difficulty, which seems to consist of fairly stupid AI which hits you incredibly hard and incredibly quickly, meaning that you can only stay out of cover for about a second at most before you need a good five-second rest to get over all those bullet wounds. Hey, Dick's one tough mercenary alright.
In fairness, the game does offer you the option of stealth-killing people while you manage to remain undetected. However, there are a number of problems with this. Firstly, "stealth" appears to have been translated as "stay behind the enemies" as you can run around like a loon and fire your silenced pistol all you like so long as they don't see you. Secondly, the instant kill is achieved by pressing X in close proximity to said enemy - this works whether they are alerted or not, although every so often it won't trigger straight away if the man you're intending to assault is busy in an animation of some kind. The moves themselves are probably so far the most satisfying part of this game (plenty of fulfillment of all your face-and-neck-stabbing desires to be found here, although the "Uh uh uh uh uh" is replaced with a gruff, sweary one-liner generally referencing how communist and/or bad the victim is). However, the game world carries on around you, giving the other guard plenty of time to walk back - or, if he's already arrived, shoot you square in the face while you're engrossed in your dirty work.
Also an issue is that no matter how sneaky you are, missions generally seem to involve you blowing something up (intentionally or otherwise) around the halfway mark, meaning that the second half is entirely an exercise in the passable (but nonetheless frustrating) cover-based shooting. Anyway, the game decided to lock up about another three missions in, so I took this as a sign and put Rogue Warrior to bed for the day.
Instead I decided to finish my solo run of Halo: Reach on Heroic. With the last two missions out of the way, my conclusion is thus: I enjoyed Halo way more playing it on Heroic. My first experience with Reach (and the Halo campaign in general) was playing through in 2-player Co-op on Normal, which involved a lot of running around with Shotguns and Gravity Hammers and very little actual tactics. Playing through tactically and focusing on weapons such as the DMR, Sniper and Magnum Pistol was ultimately far more satisfying, although fighting Hunters occasionally felt a little like a grind.
Also I played some more Horde on Gears 3. But that's what it has been for the last couple of weeks, although still good fun. Plan for tomorrow is to continue with Rogue Warrior, but we'll see how that one pans out.
So since Gears 3 came out, I've pretty much been playing Gears 3. But I'm finally starting to burn out a little on it, and I'm getting back into other games again. More specifically, I've picked up my beloved DualShock 3 once again. I've been absent from PS3 Land for a couple of weeks now, but what with all the new releases nigh-on here over the next two months or so, I'm going to be spending a lot more time on that side of the fence from now till Christmas.
I started Rogue Warrior the other day (something I picked up cheap just because of the Quick Look), but haven't gotten far so more on that one later. However mainly today I got back into Mortal Kombat with the ambition of finishing Arcade Ladder with everyone and actually bothering to go through the Krypt and spend all my Koins on everything that wasn't the alternate outfits (the only things I'd bothered unlocking before now). Probably about two-thirds of the way through all the characters too now so might be finishing that one off today.
I also picked up Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Decade Duels in the XBLM sale this week. My only other knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh! is the GBA game which I played purely to see what Yu-Gi-Oh! was actually like to play. (I'd like to take a moment to note how bloody awkward it is to type Yu-Gi-Oh! on a keyboard, even for an adept typist such as myself.) The game seems fine and the board layout is nice, my only real problem is that all the card pictures seem too low-res to read. They have the text typed up elsewhere but in a game based entirely around cards it seems a little foolish not to have said cards look clean and readable.
I leave you with the Quick Look which inspired me to pick up and play a fairly shoddy first-person-shooter-with-cover-elements. Hilarious, but perhaps not one for those of a sensitive disposition.
Sooo... I think I may have just bought StarCraft II.
I'm not really sure what happened. But I'll start by saying that yesterday I walked into town and when I went into GAME I saw Wings of Liberty by the entrance and said to myself "Oh yeah, StarCraft comes out today". And I very briefly contemplated buying it simply because it's been ten years in the making, waiting and anticipation. And any game that can get Brad that excited must be pretty good - if you haven't seen the unboxing, check it out.
Or perhaps you shouldn't. Because watching that alerted me to the StarCraft quest. Which led me to watching five videos this morning, culminating in the multiplayer walkthrough. Then the other three multiplayer commentaries. Which I loved, and thought "I might follow this game on occasion, but I doubt I'll pick it up". But even then I had my doubts in those words. And one Giant Bomb live stream later, I went and hit up Amazon for my very own copy of StarCraft II.
It just seems like so much fun, and so well made. And I know that, because it's Blizzard, there will be constant updates and balancing patches for the next few years. I picked up Diablo II this year and upon installing it found they'd updated it in the last couple of weeks. That game came out a long damn time ago, y'know.
Also drawing me in is the fast pace, which is a little different from most RTS games I play, and actually quite the reverse of my turtle style in most games of this ilk. But then my favourite RTS is Z, and that's incredibly quick (in a similar fashion - if you take even a second or two deliberating, you're probably going to be dead real soon). Also, with the switcharound of people I'm living with next year, I will be in a house with three guys who are all big RTS players and a girl who has expressed interest in joining us for some C&C Generals: Zero Hour (our standard game of choice after I picked up the First Decade for a fiver early this year). Now at the moment they aren't StarCraft players, but I suspect they will be at least somewhat interested.
Other enticing things about the game include the challenges to help you work your way up to multiplayer, the 50 initial games online with no penalty to stats, and the supposedly excellent matchmaking system in place to ensure I'm usually matched up against the other players who still have trouble remembering hotkeys and performing high-speed micro mid-battle after those initial games have been spent.
I've talked enough for now. But suffice to say no game previously has gone from "not really interested" to "buying week one" for me in the space of about four or five hours as far back as I can remember. Perhaps I'll say more in the future.
Well, amongst the revision, Tom and I got a fair bit of BlazBlue in this morning. Really getting to like Tager now, he's quite good fun once you start calculating workarounds to his near total immobility.
This was followed later by some fine Street Fighter IV action, which only served to make me want the new version more. However, I remain insistent that I can wait for just 2 more weeks till my exams are over. Also played it briefly online, and had a lovely moment where I hit up Player Match, got to character select and decided to hit Random... and the other guy did just the same. Which made me happy, even though my Zangief then went down in a tight 3-1 to his Fei Long.
The plan is to take an extended revision break tomorrow and get deep into some more Borderlands. I suspect Tom and I could keep playing that game for several years. Mind you, you could say the same about SFIV, but then that's not an RPG with a finite story length. Anyway, I'm off to bed. Goodnight society.
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