Fanatec Shifter with GT6
Finally got a chance to configure and try out my new shifter and it's awesome. I spent about 5 hours playing on Saturday and I really like it. There is a small issue with GT6 and how it uses the clutch so I did have some problems when shifting but it wasn't the shifters fault. I've read on the forums and it seems a lot of people don't like how the clutch is implemented so hopefully they will fix it. I had multiple instances where I shifted correctly but it put the car in neutral which did cost me a couple of 1st place finishes. Playing with a clutch, 6 speed shifter, and a buttkicker speaker is an awesome driving experience.
I'm still liking GT6 and how fast it loads the races. I've moved up to the National A races where I was finishing in the top 3 when shifting with the paddles, I haven't been as good with the shifter and clutch, but I'm getting better. I may try Forza 5 sometime this week and see how that fares, from what I remember it's around 20-25 seconds to load a race and I really don't like waiting.
Logitech Z906 Speakers
Bought a set of these last week and set them up on my Obutto rig and they are great. It's a 5.1 surround sound system that is THX certified with a 8 inch sub. My older system didn't support any kind of digital input so when I played my GT6 on PS3 I only had stereo sound which isn't that great. This set does support digital with 2 optical and 1 coax, no hdmi unfortunately, but since both consoles can output sound through optical it's all I need. I tried hooking up my PC using optical but had issues with Dobly Digital Live so I just went back to analog.
The speakers sound great and are perfect for gaming. The bass is nice and deep and I heard some cool bass lines that I don't remember hearing before in some of my songs. Playing BF4 in 5.1 with War Tapes mode on is just an awesome experience, you hear planes and bullets whizzing overhead and at times it's almost too intense.
When I purchased these I had an issue with my Credit Card and I didn't think that my order went through so I used a different card and ended up getting 2 sets so if anyone is interested in this speaker system let me know. It would make a decent home theater setup as well, they really tried to make the set look nice so that it could be placed in the living room so they don't have to be used just on a PC.
New Releases - A couple of releases this week with The Walking Dead Season Two which I will get.
PC
Dementium II HD (download - $15) - Remake of a DS game that I played a bit of and enjoyed.
The Walking Dead: Season Two - Episode 1 (download) - First Season was great. Not sure if I want to wait until all episodes are released before playing.
PlayStation 4
flOw (download - $6)
The Pinball Arcade
Xbox 360
The Walking Dead: Season Two - Episode 1 (download)
PlayStation 3
Mutant Mudds Deluxe (download)
Toki Tori (download)
Wii U
Knytt Underground (download)
Vita
BIT.TRIP Presents Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (download)
Eufloria HD (download)
flOw (download - $6)
Furmins (download)
Indoor Sports World (download - $5)
Mutant Mudds Deluxe (download)
Sparkle (download)
Terraria (download - $15)
Nintendo 3DS
3D Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master (download - $6)
3D Streets of Rage (download - $6)
Banana Bliss: Jungle Puzzles (download - $4)
Winter Sports: Feel the Spirit (download)
Monday, December 16, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Fanatec Shifter, Peggle 2, BF4
Fanatec Shifter US SQ http://us.fanatec.com/Shifters?product_id=679
I got in my shifter yesterday after ordering it around July 7, the initial shipment was early November but they had some production issues with the first batch so I had to wait for the second. The build quality is amazing, it's made of metal and not plastic so it's heavy duty. It's a full 7 speed H-Shifter and with a flick of a button it turns into a sequential shifter, so it should fulfill all my shifting needs.
The hard part of course was mounting the shifter to my Obutto, no laughing. They have a desk mount but I wanted it steady so I had to hard mount it to my shifter stand which also is all metal. I got the diagram on how to drill the holes and went to the store to get my M6 bolts and drill bits. The drill bit was labeled 6,5 on the diagram and when I went to Lowes, all I could find was a 5,6, still not exactly sure what those numbers mean even after asking many of my co-workers, Google wasn't much help either. I went ahead and bought 2 bits with one of them being a little bit larger as I still wasn't sure about the size. In the end it really didn't matter because after I drilled the 2nd whole I was was already off just a bit. I had taped the diagram to the metal plate but I guess it shifted or I just can't drill, probably the latter. Once all 4 holes where drilled only 2 of them matched the shifter holes and they were both on the same side so then I had to go back and try to widen the other holes a bit.
About an hour later I finally had my shifter mounted. Since that took longer than expected I was tired so I didn't even get a chance to try it out. I will this weekend and hope to have some pics and maybe a video of it in action.
Peggle 2
I do love me some Peggle and have been waiting for the sequel, it's exclusive to Xbox One for a limited time. I went ahead and bought it for $12 and so far it's been more Peggle and I'm happy with that. There are only 5 masters this time but there are 60 levels which is 10 more than the original. Each master also has 10 trials which are quick skill games so there is a ton of content. Each level has 3 different challenges, with one always being clearing all pegs, so if you are a 100% this game has great replay value. I will probably buy it again once it comes out for the iPad, it's a game that is relaxing to me and helps me to unwind.
BF4
I updated to the latest PC patch which should be out for all console versions as well and haven't had a crash yet. I had random crashes before so it's hard to tell if this really fixed anything. I also got the China Rising DLC and the one map I played I liked. There are assignments that you complete that will give you weapons and in one of them you have to get 8 sniper kills and for me that will likely be impossible. I've managed one sniper kill in about 5 matches and that was only because I ran up to a guy and shot him. Sniping is hard.
GOG
Winter sale. They have Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics free for the next 30 hours. Awesome games get them now.
I got in my shifter yesterday after ordering it around July 7, the initial shipment was early November but they had some production issues with the first batch so I had to wait for the second. The build quality is amazing, it's made of metal and not plastic so it's heavy duty. It's a full 7 speed H-Shifter and with a flick of a button it turns into a sequential shifter, so it should fulfill all my shifting needs.
The hard part of course was mounting the shifter to my Obutto, no laughing. They have a desk mount but I wanted it steady so I had to hard mount it to my shifter stand which also is all metal. I got the diagram on how to drill the holes and went to the store to get my M6 bolts and drill bits. The drill bit was labeled 6,5 on the diagram and when I went to Lowes, all I could find was a 5,6, still not exactly sure what those numbers mean even after asking many of my co-workers, Google wasn't much help either. I went ahead and bought 2 bits with one of them being a little bit larger as I still wasn't sure about the size. In the end it really didn't matter because after I drilled the 2nd whole I was was already off just a bit. I had taped the diagram to the metal plate but I guess it shifted or I just can't drill, probably the latter. Once all 4 holes where drilled only 2 of them matched the shifter holes and they were both on the same side so then I had to go back and try to widen the other holes a bit.
About an hour later I finally had my shifter mounted. Since that took longer than expected I was tired so I didn't even get a chance to try it out. I will this weekend and hope to have some pics and maybe a video of it in action.
Peggle 2
I do love me some Peggle and have been waiting for the sequel, it's exclusive to Xbox One for a limited time. I went ahead and bought it for $12 and so far it's been more Peggle and I'm happy with that. There are only 5 masters this time but there are 60 levels which is 10 more than the original. Each master also has 10 trials which are quick skill games so there is a ton of content. Each level has 3 different challenges, with one always being clearing all pegs, so if you are a 100% this game has great replay value. I will probably buy it again once it comes out for the iPad, it's a game that is relaxing to me and helps me to unwind.
BF4
I updated to the latest PC patch which should be out for all console versions as well and haven't had a crash yet. I had random crashes before so it's hard to tell if this really fixed anything. I also got the China Rising DLC and the one map I played I liked. There are assignments that you complete that will give you weapons and in one of them you have to get 8 sniper kills and for me that will likely be impossible. I've managed one sniper kill in about 5 matches and that was only because I ran up to a guy and shot him. Sniping is hard.
GOG
Winter sale. They have Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics free for the next 30 hours. Awesome games get them now.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Gran Turismo 6
Gran Turismo 6
I bought the download version on Thursday and there was not a pre-load for North America, it was a 15G download that took a couple of hours then to install the game took another 4 hours. Once that awful mess was done it was time to drive.
The CSR Elite Wheel works perfect, you can really feel the handling differences between the cars. I started playing in Cockpit view and the sense of speed wasn't there, of course you do start off with slow cars so it could just be that, but when I switched to the hood or road camera it did seem to be faster. I've read reports of frame drops while driving in cockpit mode so I just drive from the bumper cam.
I'm playing on a PC monitor at 1080P and it's not as sharp as a PC race game but it isn't that bad. I have noticed a couple of road textures that aren't sharp before the race and some of the cockpits aren't hi-def but overall it looks great. I haven't noticed any screen tearing which I read on other forums. There are some jagged and flickering edges from time to time, but it hasn't been distracting. The replays look good.
The single player campaign is fun they mix things up with different events like hitting cones and driving the moon rover on the moon, it's not just races so it make things interesting, . They do force you to pick your first car from a selection of 1, I didn't like that. The AI isn't fantastic, but they have given me a little challenge on some races but there isn't a way to increase the difficulty during the campaign just the arcade mode.
I was really worried about the loading times because of GT5 and I almost bought an SSD but with a normal hard drive they are minimal maybe 5-10 seconds, which is awesome. I hate the loading times on Forza 5, plus my wheel isn't compatible, that's another discussion.
I've completed about 50 races and I've liked all the tracks so far, each one feels different and has their own challenges. The races occur at different times of day and some of the effects look great, racing at dusk is awesome.
Overall I'm having a blast and the initial impression is so much better than GT5. I do like it more than Forza 5 mainly because of the wheel and much less micro-transactions.
New Releases - One pretty big release I'm excited for --- Peggle 2.
PC
PlayStation 4
Nintendo 3DS
I bought the download version on Thursday and there was not a pre-load for North America, it was a 15G download that took a couple of hours then to install the game took another 4 hours. Once that awful mess was done it was time to drive.
The CSR Elite Wheel works perfect, you can really feel the handling differences between the cars. I started playing in Cockpit view and the sense of speed wasn't there, of course you do start off with slow cars so it could just be that, but when I switched to the hood or road camera it did seem to be faster. I've read reports of frame drops while driving in cockpit mode so I just drive from the bumper cam.
I'm playing on a PC monitor at 1080P and it's not as sharp as a PC race game but it isn't that bad. I have noticed a couple of road textures that aren't sharp before the race and some of the cockpits aren't hi-def but overall it looks great. I haven't noticed any screen tearing which I read on other forums. There are some jagged and flickering edges from time to time, but it hasn't been distracting. The replays look good.
The single player campaign is fun they mix things up with different events like hitting cones and driving the moon rover on the moon, it's not just races so it make things interesting, . They do force you to pick your first car from a selection of 1, I didn't like that. The AI isn't fantastic, but they have given me a little challenge on some races but there isn't a way to increase the difficulty during the campaign just the arcade mode.
I was really worried about the loading times because of GT5 and I almost bought an SSD but with a normal hard drive they are minimal maybe 5-10 seconds, which is awesome. I hate the loading times on Forza 5, plus my wheel isn't compatible, that's another discussion.
I've completed about 50 races and I've liked all the tracks so far, each one feels different and has their own challenges. The races occur at different times of day and some of the effects look great, racing at dusk is awesome.
Overall I'm having a blast and the initial impression is so much better than GT5. I do like it more than Forza 5 mainly because of the wheel and much less micro-transactions.
New Releases - One pretty big release I'm excited for --- Peggle 2.
PC
- Basketball Pro Management 2014 (download)
- Let's Sing (download - $30)
- Teslagrad (download - $10)
- The Novelist (download - $20)
- Tiny Brains (download)
- Velocity Ultra (download - $10)
- Peggle 2 (download - $12)
PlayStation 4
- Doki-Doki Universe (download - $15)
- Doki-Doki Universe (download - $15)
- Rush (eShop)
- Doki-Doki Universe (download - $15)
- Mahjong Royal Towers (download)
- Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God
Nintendo 3DS
- 3D Ecco the Dolphin (download)
- AeternoBlade (download)
- 3D Galaxy Force II (download)
- Jump Trials Supreme (download)
- Life with Horses 3D (download) - Fun times.
- My Style Studio: Hair Salon (download) - Really?
- Orion's Odyssey (download)
Monday, November 25, 2013
Xbox One
Xbox One
As soon as you lift the box you can tell there's a big difference in the 2 consoles. The Xbox One design reminds me a bit of the original Xbox, it's big, square, and heavy. I do like the design though and it looks nice with my other equipment below the TV, there is a slight glow of the Xbox logo when it's on which is better then the blue glow of the PS4. The huge power brick is back but luckily I can hide it behind my speakers. It's all touch based like the PS4 for turning on and ejecting disks.
I really like the Xbox 360 controller and it's the best controller I've ever used. The PS4 controller is really nice and if they had moved the left analog stick up a bit I think it would top the 360 controller. The Xbox One controller supposedly had over 40 refinements but not all of them were a good idea. The controller is a bit smaller than the 360 and the analog sticks are smaller as well, I have small hands so it fits perfectly, but if you have large hands it might feel a bit cramped. The d-pad is crossed shaped and makes an audible click when pressed, it's a bit different than the d-pad before but seemed to work well. The triggers have rumble in them and some resistance when playing certain games which works well. The problem is the left and right bumpers, they made them smaller and to click them you have to be on the edges and I found sometimes that my clicks wouldn't register hopefully they just need to be worn in. The headset is really nice and where you plug it into the controller is where the mute and volume controls are which is much easier to hit in the dark. The Kinect is solid and about the same width as the previous one so it does take up some space. There is a light on it but it's not bright enough to be a bother in total darkness.
The UI resembles Windows 8's interface and it does OK. There are still too many boxes to get to what you want and it can be a bit confusing. The voice commands worked perfectly for me even when I had the sound cranked up and shaking the walls, the kinect was able to hear my voice and respond immediately. I watched some videos of others and they seemed to have to say the commands multiple times, I guess my room acoustics are good. I was able to say Xbox Record that and it would create a video clip of the last 30 seconds, I really like that feature. The PS4 records the last 15 minutes by default, which is really too much unless you want to capture a whole round of COD so it takes time to edit out the part you want, you can manually make the time shorter by using menu options but the Xbox version is easier. I will upload some of those to my Youtube channel later this week.
Overall I'm impressed with the hardware and it's seems solidly built and it was very quiet. The blu-ray drive is much quieter than the PS4's. It is large though and has to sit horizontally so you may need to make some changes to your setup.
Dead Rising 3
Zombies, zombies, and more zombies. The graphics may not be the best of all the launch titles, but the sheer number of zombies on the screen is crazy and each one is unique. In one scene there must have been about 400 zombies in a block radius and there was no slowdown, it's something that couldn't be done with the 360. Creating different types of weapons and seeing how they interact with the zombies is so much fun, there are around 300 different weapons you can create plus you can combine different vehicles. The game still has it's sense of humor as I was killing zombies dressed in daisy duke shorts and shirt plus my manly fireman moustache and aviator shades. They removed the time limit which really opens the game up and gives you time to explore and experiment. You can use your tablet as a companion device which adds some new missions and other additions as well as recieve phone calls from the game, it's a nice touch that works well.
Forza 5
Only played about 5 races it felt pretty good with a controller, but I miss my wheel. The rumble triggers work ok, they are supposed to give you a better indication of when your wheels are losing grip, but it didn't help me much but I probably need more time to feel the nuances. The loading times are about 25 seconds between races which is something I had hoped would be improved with this generation so that was a little disappointing. The Drivatar feature which uses your friends and others driving tendencies to create AI drivers seemed to work ok, I did have a lot of cars crash into me. You only race 4 times before it uploads them for others to use which seems a bit quick since you are just learning, they will evolve over time as you become better but initially be ready for some crashes.
Madden 25
Played about 3 games so far and I've been impressed, it still has a long way to go but it seemed much better than the 360 version. The bad blocking seems to have been fixed as I didn't notice anything strange while watching replays. The AI seems better and it was able to run against my defense even on the default setting, I was playing as the Cowboys though.
Call of Duty Ghosts
Squad mode. Awesome. Multiplayer has been fixed.
You know how in multiplayer you get people who camp or just don't play right, it's frustrating and makes you want to quit. Last night during normal multiplayer there were 2 people who were running around just knifing people, they were able to set their perks so that it made it difficult to notice and shoot them on a regular basis. After this I decided to give Squad mode a try and it's probably the best ideas COD has had in years.
In Squad mode you create a team of 8 AI soldiers who will accompany you in battle against other AI bots or against another persons squad. The AI is much better than previous games and really feels like you are playing against real people without feeling like the game is cheating. It's very challenging and rewarding as you can equip each member with different loadouts which will alter their AI so it adds strategy on how you build up your squad for each game mode. Taking your squad out against another was better than regular multiplayer as everyone played "correctly". Also since your experience carries over to the other multiplayer mode it's awesome and has no drawbacks.
My only gripe with the game is loading times, it's about 20 seconds to load a map. The maps are larger and have more detail but the loading should be much quicker on next gen.
New Releases - Not much till next year which is good since there are so many games to play.
PC
Professional Farmer 2014 (download - $20)
PlayStation 4
flOw (PSN)
Tiny Brains (PSN)
Xbox 360
Air Conflicts: Vietnam
PlayStation 3
Air Conflicts: Vietnam
Metal Gear Solid VR Missions (psone Classic)
Oddworld: Abe's Box (psone Classic)
Painkiller: Hell & Damnation (PSN)
Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers (PSN)
Saint Seiya and Ys: Memories of Celceta
Super Motherload (PSN - $15)
Vita
flOw (PSN)
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Nintendo 3DS
3D Space Harrier (eShop - $6)
3D Super Hang-On (eShop - $6)
Race to the Line (eShop)
Nintendo DS
HeathCliff Spot On (DSiWare)
As soon as you lift the box you can tell there's a big difference in the 2 consoles. The Xbox One design reminds me a bit of the original Xbox, it's big, square, and heavy. I do like the design though and it looks nice with my other equipment below the TV, there is a slight glow of the Xbox logo when it's on which is better then the blue glow of the PS4. The huge power brick is back but luckily I can hide it behind my speakers. It's all touch based like the PS4 for turning on and ejecting disks.
I really like the Xbox 360 controller and it's the best controller I've ever used. The PS4 controller is really nice and if they had moved the left analog stick up a bit I think it would top the 360 controller. The Xbox One controller supposedly had over 40 refinements but not all of them were a good idea. The controller is a bit smaller than the 360 and the analog sticks are smaller as well, I have small hands so it fits perfectly, but if you have large hands it might feel a bit cramped. The d-pad is crossed shaped and makes an audible click when pressed, it's a bit different than the d-pad before but seemed to work well. The triggers have rumble in them and some resistance when playing certain games which works well. The problem is the left and right bumpers, they made them smaller and to click them you have to be on the edges and I found sometimes that my clicks wouldn't register hopefully they just need to be worn in. The headset is really nice and where you plug it into the controller is where the mute and volume controls are which is much easier to hit in the dark. The Kinect is solid and about the same width as the previous one so it does take up some space. There is a light on it but it's not bright enough to be a bother in total darkness.
The UI resembles Windows 8's interface and it does OK. There are still too many boxes to get to what you want and it can be a bit confusing. The voice commands worked perfectly for me even when I had the sound cranked up and shaking the walls, the kinect was able to hear my voice and respond immediately. I watched some videos of others and they seemed to have to say the commands multiple times, I guess my room acoustics are good. I was able to say Xbox Record that and it would create a video clip of the last 30 seconds, I really like that feature. The PS4 records the last 15 minutes by default, which is really too much unless you want to capture a whole round of COD so it takes time to edit out the part you want, you can manually make the time shorter by using menu options but the Xbox version is easier. I will upload some of those to my Youtube channel later this week.
Overall I'm impressed with the hardware and it's seems solidly built and it was very quiet. The blu-ray drive is much quieter than the PS4's. It is large though and has to sit horizontally so you may need to make some changes to your setup.
Dead Rising 3
Zombies, zombies, and more zombies. The graphics may not be the best of all the launch titles, but the sheer number of zombies on the screen is crazy and each one is unique. In one scene there must have been about 400 zombies in a block radius and there was no slowdown, it's something that couldn't be done with the 360. Creating different types of weapons and seeing how they interact with the zombies is so much fun, there are around 300 different weapons you can create plus you can combine different vehicles. The game still has it's sense of humor as I was killing zombies dressed in daisy duke shorts and shirt plus my manly fireman moustache and aviator shades. They removed the time limit which really opens the game up and gives you time to explore and experiment. You can use your tablet as a companion device which adds some new missions and other additions as well as recieve phone calls from the game, it's a nice touch that works well.
Forza 5
Only played about 5 races it felt pretty good with a controller, but I miss my wheel. The rumble triggers work ok, they are supposed to give you a better indication of when your wheels are losing grip, but it didn't help me much but I probably need more time to feel the nuances. The loading times are about 25 seconds between races which is something I had hoped would be improved with this generation so that was a little disappointing. The Drivatar feature which uses your friends and others driving tendencies to create AI drivers seemed to work ok, I did have a lot of cars crash into me. You only race 4 times before it uploads them for others to use which seems a bit quick since you are just learning, they will evolve over time as you become better but initially be ready for some crashes.
Madden 25
Played about 3 games so far and I've been impressed, it still has a long way to go but it seemed much better than the 360 version. The bad blocking seems to have been fixed as I didn't notice anything strange while watching replays. The AI seems better and it was able to run against my defense even on the default setting, I was playing as the Cowboys though.
Call of Duty Ghosts
Squad mode. Awesome. Multiplayer has been fixed.
You know how in multiplayer you get people who camp or just don't play right, it's frustrating and makes you want to quit. Last night during normal multiplayer there were 2 people who were running around just knifing people, they were able to set their perks so that it made it difficult to notice and shoot them on a regular basis. After this I decided to give Squad mode a try and it's probably the best ideas COD has had in years.
In Squad mode you create a team of 8 AI soldiers who will accompany you in battle against other AI bots or against another persons squad. The AI is much better than previous games and really feels like you are playing against real people without feeling like the game is cheating. It's very challenging and rewarding as you can equip each member with different loadouts which will alter their AI so it adds strategy on how you build up your squad for each game mode. Taking your squad out against another was better than regular multiplayer as everyone played "correctly". Also since your experience carries over to the other multiplayer mode it's awesome and has no drawbacks.
My only gripe with the game is loading times, it's about 20 seconds to load a map. The maps are larger and have more detail but the loading should be much quicker on next gen.
New Releases - Not much till next year which is good since there are so many games to play.
PC
Professional Farmer 2014 (download - $20)
PlayStation 4
flOw (PSN)
Tiny Brains (PSN)
Xbox 360
Air Conflicts: Vietnam
PlayStation 3
Air Conflicts: Vietnam
Metal Gear Solid VR Missions (psone Classic)
Oddworld: Abe's Box (psone Classic)
Painkiller: Hell & Damnation (PSN)
Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers (PSN)
Saint Seiya and Ys: Memories of Celceta
Super Motherload (PSN - $15)
Vita
flOw (PSN)
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Nintendo 3DS
3D Space Harrier (eShop - $6)
3D Super Hang-On (eShop - $6)
Race to the Line (eShop)
Nintendo DS
HeathCliff Spot On (DSiWare)
Friday, November 22, 2013
NBA2K13,NFS Rivals, AFL2K8, Steve Vai, Xbox One?
NBA 2K13
Tried the MyPlayer mode where you create a player and then go through his career making decisions and playing just his position. It has full cutscenes and mini-games that make that mode feel like a mini rpg. You start off by playing in a college allstar game and based on how you perform will decide how quickly you are drafted into the NBA. I was the 5th pick going to the New Orleans Pelicans, ugh.
This mode really changes how the game is played and I really like it. You have a purpose in every game and you do more than just handle the ball and shoot, you need to set picks and move around the court trying to get in good position in order to perform well and stay in the game. It's awesome.
NFS Rivals
Played a couple of more hours and improved my Cop rank to level 10 so I have a ton of cars to choose from and gadgets to equip. The seamless single/multiplayer is really cool and I'm hopeful more games will introduce this feature.
AFL2K8
I saw on operation sports that there was a mod to the game that allowed for current rosters and I got that setup and played a game.The presentation from this 5 year game is still so much better than Madden it's crazy. The graphics don't hold up well but the gameplay is top notch.There are rumors that NFL2K may be making a comeback next year. Some NFL players may have been scanned into the new engine.
Xbox One
Should arrive today. I'm a tech nerd so I couldn't hold out. I'm picking up Dead Rising 3, Forza 5, and Call of Duty Ghosts. I almost chose Ryse but the reviews weren't that great, graphics awesome gameplay boring. I have Madden 25 coming as well since I traded my current gen version. From initial reports it has some nice subtle changes that make it a better game.
There is a mandatory 1G patch that will have to be downloaded before you can use the box so hopefully Xbox live won't go down.There is no Dolby Digital support at launch. It will send uncompressed audio to a receiver so I'll have surround but it just goes to show that they did rush out the systems a little early. There have been some reports of the Blu-ray drive eating discs.
Steve Vai
Last Sunday went and saw Steve Vai play at Juanitas with Brooks and Josh. The show was sold out and the place was standing room only, I was shocked because I didn't think that many people would know who he was.The show lasted around 3 hours and it was great although by the end my feet were killing me. The sound was much better than the last time I was there. I wish Joe Satriani would come to town, I may have to make a trip somewhere to see him play live.
Tried the MyPlayer mode where you create a player and then go through his career making decisions and playing just his position. It has full cutscenes and mini-games that make that mode feel like a mini rpg. You start off by playing in a college allstar game and based on how you perform will decide how quickly you are drafted into the NBA. I was the 5th pick going to the New Orleans Pelicans, ugh.
This mode really changes how the game is played and I really like it. You have a purpose in every game and you do more than just handle the ball and shoot, you need to set picks and move around the court trying to get in good position in order to perform well and stay in the game. It's awesome.
NFS Rivals
Played a couple of more hours and improved my Cop rank to level 10 so I have a ton of cars to choose from and gadgets to equip. The seamless single/multiplayer is really cool and I'm hopeful more games will introduce this feature.
AFL2K8
I saw on operation sports that there was a mod to the game that allowed for current rosters and I got that setup and played a game.The presentation from this 5 year game is still so much better than Madden it's crazy. The graphics don't hold up well but the gameplay is top notch.There are rumors that NFL2K may be making a comeback next year. Some NFL players may have been scanned into the new engine.
Xbox One
Should arrive today. I'm a tech nerd so I couldn't hold out. I'm picking up Dead Rising 3, Forza 5, and Call of Duty Ghosts. I almost chose Ryse but the reviews weren't that great, graphics awesome gameplay boring. I have Madden 25 coming as well since I traded my current gen version. From initial reports it has some nice subtle changes that make it a better game.
There is a mandatory 1G patch that will have to be downloaded before you can use the box so hopefully Xbox live won't go down.There is no Dolby Digital support at launch. It will send uncompressed audio to a receiver so I'll have surround but it just goes to show that they did rush out the systems a little early. There have been some reports of the Blu-ray drive eating discs.
Steve Vai
Last Sunday went and saw Steve Vai play at Juanitas with Brooks and Josh. The show was sold out and the place was standing room only, I was shocked because I didn't think that many people would know who he was.The show lasted around 3 hours and it was great although by the end my feet were killing me. The sound was much better than the last time I was there. I wish Joe Satriani would come to town, I may have to make a trip somewhere to see him play live.
Monday, November 18, 2013
PS4 is in the house. The next generation is here?
PS4 Hardware
The console itself is smaller than the PS3 Slim and weighs less, as I was putting it under my TV I thought that I heard a loose piece moving around but I think it was just part of the case. The initial build quality doesn't seem as solid as any of the PS3 models, the power supply is inside the unit so there is no power brick so hopefully it won't overheat. The console does have a light on top and it's not that bright in a dark room, the controller light on the other hand is too bright and can't be turned off so I had some shadows and I could see a reflection in the TV although once I was playing I didn't notice that much. The controller is much better than the DS3 as it has more weight and the sticks have more resistance, the sensitivity was great and the shooting in Killzone felt really good. I did notice the systems fan running a bit loud when there wasn't any sound in the game, at first I thought it was my PC but it was the PS4.
There is a day one patch and it didn't take very long to download and install. The crossbar interface is back but with a nice face lift, moving through all the options was fast and responsive. I wasn't able to sign into my profile initially but had to wait a couple of hours since the PSN network was unavailable, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The PS4 still does it's install stuff but it's automatic instead of a manual process which was needed. Once the patch was loaded I was able to access the store and download my free PS+ games and the download speeds seemed to be much improved over the PS3. I do have mine hard wired, the wireless card is only 2.4ghz b/g/n which is not the latest or greatest which is a bit disappointing.
Since all games have to be installed on the hard drive the games do different things as it installs that make the wait bearable which I will describe individually. All of the games that I played looked nice and crisp, I was worried that since I had a nice PC I would be jaded by the inferior consoles but I was nicely surprised. I didn't see that many jagged edges and the frame rates all held up nicely. There are tons of particle effects that were not possible on the older consoles so the games did look much better than the older gen games, it's not a huge leap like last generation but it does compete with a decent PC graphics card.
Need for Speed Rivals
This is my favorite game out of all the launch titles, it looks and plays great and has some cool online functionality. The game runs at 1080P and 30fps which is a little disappointing since 60fps really helps racing games with a sense of speed but I really didn't notice. The game installs while you are playing the tutorial so there wasn't any wait to start playing. The game has you playing as a racer or cop and then you have challenges to increase your rank which opens up new cars and gadgets. If you play online, which you should, you are put in a world with 8 other users who you might come in contact with while you play your single player experience. It's a neat concept and it works great, you may be a cop that gets called to take out some racers and then notice that 2 of the racers are user controlled which adds a nice dynamic to the traditional single player game, I think we will see this idea in a lot of future games.
I played for about 3 hours straight and had a blast.
NBA 2k14
Probably the best looking game that I played, the character models are outstanding during replays although not every player has the same amount of facial detail. The presentation in the game is outstanding and it just makes EA's efforts look like child's play, you feel like you are watching a real NBA broadcast, it even has post-game interviews. The game starts with you playing an exhibition game with the Heat and Spurs while the game loads, it took the whole game with 6 minute quarters before it finished installing all of the game, there wasn't any announcers during this time as well. I won that game with a last second 3 pointer by Wade so that felt pretty good.
The game does play like the last gen titles so if you like that then this is a nice graphical upgrade. I feel that basketball games are a little tough to recreate with all of the collisions that occur so some of the animations are a little janky. I went through the tutorial and this game is very deep so if you want to get the most out of it, it will take some practice in combining all the moves before you are successful. You can customize the game to be more arcadey and it's still fun but if you want the games to look like the real counterpart it will take time.
Killzone Shadowfall
I was really impressed with the graphics as the world has a lot of detail to it, the lighting model is great and I've seen some really cool environments. The game play unfortunately is a bit generic so nothing ground breaking there, I've played about 3 hours of the campaign and I've had a decent time but nothing exceptional. The shooting is much better and tighter than previous killzone games as the others seemed to have too much weight, the shooting feels really good which is due to the new controller. I played one game of multiplayer and really didn't know what was going on, I got killed by our teams turrets twice so I'll have to spend a little time reading about the different modes.
Overall it's a decent game but not a system seller.
Resogun
Free with PS+. Do you like defender and wish it was updated with today's graphics? This game is from the developer of Super Stardust and it's really good that will remind you of playing defender. There are a ton of particle effects flying around which is impressive. The game is tough, I was able to beat the first level after an hour and 4 different attempts. It has the feeling of being the PS4's version of Geometry wars, a downloadable game that is probably the best exclusive game for the console.
New Releases - November along with 2 new consoles means tons of games.
PC
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! (download) - Maybe good had to see for reviews.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Got my copy with my new video card so hopefully it's good.
Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel
Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths (download)
Need for Speed Rivals -
Tank Operations: European Campaign (download - $15)
The Shivah: Kosher Edition (download - $5)
Young Justice: Legacy (download)
Xbox One
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Battlefield 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Crimson Dragon (XBLA - $20) - Panzer Dragoon sequel?
Dead Rising 3 - Decent reviews will probably pick this up.
FIFA 14
Fighter Within
Forza Motorsport 5 - Debating really upset that it won't support my nice wheel.
Just Dance 2014
Killer Instinct (XBLA - free-to-play)
LocoCycle (XBLA - $20)
Madden NFL 25 - Hopefully Amazon gets my trade-in of the old version so I can get this at launch.
NBA Live 14 - Who knows if it will be good.
Need for Speed Rivals
Powerstar Golf
Ryse: Son of Rome - Unsure probably will get bad reviews.
Zoo Tycoon
Zumba Fitness World Party
PlayStation 4
NBA Live 14
Xbox 360
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
BandFuse: Rock Legends - Has Slash and some other big name bands behind it hopefully it does well. More of a teacher than a game.
Farming Simulator
Need for Speed Rivals
Soulcalibur II HD Online (XBLA - $20)
Young Justice: Legacy
Zoo Tycoon
Zumba Kids
PlayStation 3
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
AquaPazza
BandFuse: Rock Legends
Blood Knights (PSN)
Contrast (PSN)
Farming Simulator
Need for Speed Rivals
Stick It to The Man! (PSN)
Soulcalibur II HD Online (PSN - $20)
Young Justice: Legacy
Wii U
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
Super Mario 3D World
Wii
Zumba Kids
Vita
Stick It to The Man! (PSN)
Tearaway
The Amazing Spider-Man
Nintendo 3DS
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
Christmas Wonderland 3 (eShop)
Girls' Fashion Shoot
Mario Party: Island Tour
Ohno Odyssey (eShop)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Young Justice: Legacy
The console itself is smaller than the PS3 Slim and weighs less, as I was putting it under my TV I thought that I heard a loose piece moving around but I think it was just part of the case. The initial build quality doesn't seem as solid as any of the PS3 models, the power supply is inside the unit so there is no power brick so hopefully it won't overheat. The console does have a light on top and it's not that bright in a dark room, the controller light on the other hand is too bright and can't be turned off so I had some shadows and I could see a reflection in the TV although once I was playing I didn't notice that much. The controller is much better than the DS3 as it has more weight and the sticks have more resistance, the sensitivity was great and the shooting in Killzone felt really good. I did notice the systems fan running a bit loud when there wasn't any sound in the game, at first I thought it was my PC but it was the PS4.
There is a day one patch and it didn't take very long to download and install. The crossbar interface is back but with a nice face lift, moving through all the options was fast and responsive. I wasn't able to sign into my profile initially but had to wait a couple of hours since the PSN network was unavailable, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The PS4 still does it's install stuff but it's automatic instead of a manual process which was needed. Once the patch was loaded I was able to access the store and download my free PS+ games and the download speeds seemed to be much improved over the PS3. I do have mine hard wired, the wireless card is only 2.4ghz b/g/n which is not the latest or greatest which is a bit disappointing.
Since all games have to be installed on the hard drive the games do different things as it installs that make the wait bearable which I will describe individually. All of the games that I played looked nice and crisp, I was worried that since I had a nice PC I would be jaded by the inferior consoles but I was nicely surprised. I didn't see that many jagged edges and the frame rates all held up nicely. There are tons of particle effects that were not possible on the older consoles so the games did look much better than the older gen games, it's not a huge leap like last generation but it does compete with a decent PC graphics card.
Need for Speed Rivals
This is my favorite game out of all the launch titles, it looks and plays great and has some cool online functionality. The game runs at 1080P and 30fps which is a little disappointing since 60fps really helps racing games with a sense of speed but I really didn't notice. The game installs while you are playing the tutorial so there wasn't any wait to start playing. The game has you playing as a racer or cop and then you have challenges to increase your rank which opens up new cars and gadgets. If you play online, which you should, you are put in a world with 8 other users who you might come in contact with while you play your single player experience. It's a neat concept and it works great, you may be a cop that gets called to take out some racers and then notice that 2 of the racers are user controlled which adds a nice dynamic to the traditional single player game, I think we will see this idea in a lot of future games.
I played for about 3 hours straight and had a blast.
NBA 2k14
Probably the best looking game that I played, the character models are outstanding during replays although not every player has the same amount of facial detail. The presentation in the game is outstanding and it just makes EA's efforts look like child's play, you feel like you are watching a real NBA broadcast, it even has post-game interviews. The game starts with you playing an exhibition game with the Heat and Spurs while the game loads, it took the whole game with 6 minute quarters before it finished installing all of the game, there wasn't any announcers during this time as well. I won that game with a last second 3 pointer by Wade so that felt pretty good.
The game does play like the last gen titles so if you like that then this is a nice graphical upgrade. I feel that basketball games are a little tough to recreate with all of the collisions that occur so some of the animations are a little janky. I went through the tutorial and this game is very deep so if you want to get the most out of it, it will take some practice in combining all the moves before you are successful. You can customize the game to be more arcadey and it's still fun but if you want the games to look like the real counterpart it will take time.
Killzone Shadowfall
I was really impressed with the graphics as the world has a lot of detail to it, the lighting model is great and I've seen some really cool environments. The game play unfortunately is a bit generic so nothing ground breaking there, I've played about 3 hours of the campaign and I've had a decent time but nothing exceptional. The shooting is much better and tighter than previous killzone games as the others seemed to have too much weight, the shooting feels really good which is due to the new controller. I played one game of multiplayer and really didn't know what was going on, I got killed by our teams turrets twice so I'll have to spend a little time reading about the different modes.
Overall it's a decent game but not a system seller.
Resogun
Free with PS+. Do you like defender and wish it was updated with today's graphics? This game is from the developer of Super Stardust and it's really good that will remind you of playing defender. There are a ton of particle effects flying around which is impressive. The game is tough, I was able to beat the first level after an hour and 4 different attempts. It has the feeling of being the PS4's version of Geometry wars, a downloadable game that is probably the best exclusive game for the console.
New Releases - November along with 2 new consoles means tons of games.
PC
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW! (download) - Maybe good had to see for reviews.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Got my copy with my new video card so hopefully it's good.
Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel
Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths (download)
Need for Speed Rivals -
Tank Operations: European Campaign (download - $15)
The Shivah: Kosher Edition (download - $5)
Young Justice: Legacy (download)
Xbox One
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Battlefield 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Crimson Dragon (XBLA - $20) - Panzer Dragoon sequel?
Dead Rising 3 - Decent reviews will probably pick this up.
FIFA 14
Fighter Within
Forza Motorsport 5 - Debating really upset that it won't support my nice wheel.
Just Dance 2014
Killer Instinct (XBLA - free-to-play)
LocoCycle (XBLA - $20)
Madden NFL 25 - Hopefully Amazon gets my trade-in of the old version so I can get this at launch.
NBA Live 14 - Who knows if it will be good.
Need for Speed Rivals
Powerstar Golf
Ryse: Son of Rome - Unsure probably will get bad reviews.
Zoo Tycoon
Zumba Fitness World Party
PlayStation 4
NBA Live 14
Xbox 360
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
BandFuse: Rock Legends - Has Slash and some other big name bands behind it hopefully it does well. More of a teacher than a game.
Farming Simulator
Need for Speed Rivals
Soulcalibur II HD Online (XBLA - $20)
Young Justice: Legacy
Zoo Tycoon
Zumba Kids
PlayStation 3
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
AquaPazza
BandFuse: Rock Legends
Blood Knights (PSN)
Contrast (PSN)
Farming Simulator
Need for Speed Rivals
Stick It to The Man! (PSN)
Soulcalibur II HD Online (PSN - $20)
Young Justice: Legacy
Wii U
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
Super Mario 3D World
Wii
Zumba Kids
Vita
Stick It to The Man! (PSN)
Tearaway
The Amazing Spider-Man
Nintendo 3DS
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON'T KNOW!
Christmas Wonderland 3 (eShop)
Girls' Fashion Shoot
Mario Party: Island Tour
Ohno Odyssey (eShop)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Young Justice: Legacy
Friday, November 15, 2013
Trace Young
I lost my 25 year old nephew to a motorcycle accident this week. They had the viewing from 5-8 on Wednesday night and it was unbelievable, I have never seen so many people show up to a viewing, there must have been over a thousand people. The line was packed for the full 3 hours and people were lined out the doors in the cold for over an hour. The parking lot held about 50 cars and it was full, people were having to park blocks away and some never got a chance to come in, I was in awe.
He was an eagle scout and played almost all sports growing up so he had a ton of friends. He was a people person and always greeted you with a hug. His dad was telling stories that he'd heard while greeting the viewers and one told of how Trace had met him at a stop light and from there they became good friends. What do you do when someone starts talking to you at a red light?
At the burial site they had paint setup so that everyone could dip their hands and then place them on the coffin. It was a great way to send him off.
For a person who was only 25 years old he lived life to the fullest and was a great influence to everyone he met. He will be greatly missed.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
BF4
I've played about 5 hours of the multiplayer and it's growing on me. It did take awhile to start getting some unlocks for the various classes since I've been mixing up which class I use. You can also level up your vehicles which is nice, just by riding in a vehicle will get you experience and unlocks. I don't think that I've seen every map yet, I've been mostly playing conquest with a few games of Rush. I'm playing on the Gamerswithjobs server which is a website I visit daily and it's been really fun with good matchups and no teenagers. The visual are still amazing and I was really surprised that I haven't seen any lag, I did get disconnected once but other than that I've had no other issues.
New Releases - Thanksgiving is fast approaching so that means it's game time! PS4 releases this Friday.
PC
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (download - $25) - Hmm. Not sure if just buying the older version and doing free mods will be better?
Blood Knights (download)
Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior (download - $15)
Contrast (download)
Deadfall Adventures
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition - A little too expensive will wait until it's on sale.
Redshirt (download)
SimCity Cities of Tomorrow - I really had high hopes for SimCity and although it was fun at times the overall structure just wasn't satisfying. Biggest let down of the year.
World of Warplanes (free-to-play)
XCOM: Enemy Within - Debating on this expansion. I really liked the original game even though I didn't finish it.
X Rebirth (download - $50) - Exploring space.
PlayStation 4 - Target and Amazon are having a B2G1F deal on Tuesday so I may bite.
Angry Birds Star Wars - Surprise Surprise....
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Already got a free version with my video Card.
Battlefield 4 - Tempted as I would like to play the multiplayer in my chair.
Blacklight Retribution (PSN - free-to-play)
Contrast (PSN) - Comes free with PS+ so I'll get that.
DC Universe Online (PSN - free-to-play)
FIFA 14
Flower (PSN) - Owned the PS3 version so you get this for free.
Knack - Tempted.
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Just Dance 2014
Killzone Shadow Fall - Need to see some reviews on this one. May just rent from Redbox, if they carry PS4 games.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Madden NFL 25
NBA 2K14 - The vidoes on this have been awesome really disappointed the PC version doesn't have the advanced features of the next gen versions.
Need for Speed Rivals - Probably get this version since the wheel support isn't the best for this type of game.
Resogun (PSN) - Free to PSN+ members.
Skylanders Swap Force
Sound Shapes (PSN) - Have PS3 Version so free as well.
Super Motherload (PSN - $15)
Trine 2: The Complete Story (PSN)
Warframe (PSN - free-to-play)
Xbox 360
Contrast (XBLA)
Deadfall Adventures
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
The Bridge (XBLA - $10)
XCOM: Enemy Within
PlayStation 3
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
Velocity Ultra (PSN)
Wonderbook: Book of Potions
Wonderbook: Diggs Nightcrawler (PSN)
Wonderbook: Walking with Dinosaurs
XCOM: Enemy Within
Wii U
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
Wii
Barbie Dreamhouse Party - Finally.
Vita
Flower (PSN)
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Nintendo 3DS
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Jewel Match 3 (eShop)
Senran Kagura Burst (eShop - $30)
Word Wizard 3D (eShop)
World Conqueror 3D (eShop)
Nintendo DS
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
I've played about 5 hours of the multiplayer and it's growing on me. It did take awhile to start getting some unlocks for the various classes since I've been mixing up which class I use. You can also level up your vehicles which is nice, just by riding in a vehicle will get you experience and unlocks. I don't think that I've seen every map yet, I've been mostly playing conquest with a few games of Rush. I'm playing on the Gamerswithjobs server which is a website I visit daily and it's been really fun with good matchups and no teenagers. The visual are still amazing and I was really surprised that I haven't seen any lag, I did get disconnected once but other than that I've had no other issues.
New Releases - Thanksgiving is fast approaching so that means it's game time! PS4 releases this Friday.
PC
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (download - $25) - Hmm. Not sure if just buying the older version and doing free mods will be better?
Blood Knights (download)
Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior (download - $15)
Contrast (download)
Deadfall Adventures
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition - A little too expensive will wait until it's on sale.
Redshirt (download)
SimCity Cities of Tomorrow - I really had high hopes for SimCity and although it was fun at times the overall structure just wasn't satisfying. Biggest let down of the year.
World of Warplanes (free-to-play)
XCOM: Enemy Within - Debating on this expansion. I really liked the original game even though I didn't finish it.
X Rebirth (download - $50) - Exploring space.
PlayStation 4 - Target and Amazon are having a B2G1F deal on Tuesday so I may bite.
Angry Birds Star Wars - Surprise Surprise....
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Already got a free version with my video Card.
Battlefield 4 - Tempted as I would like to play the multiplayer in my chair.
Blacklight Retribution (PSN - free-to-play)
Contrast (PSN) - Comes free with PS+ so I'll get that.
DC Universe Online (PSN - free-to-play)
FIFA 14
Flower (PSN) - Owned the PS3 version so you get this for free.
Knack - Tempted.
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Just Dance 2014
Killzone Shadow Fall - Need to see some reviews on this one. May just rent from Redbox, if they carry PS4 games.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Madden NFL 25
NBA 2K14 - The vidoes on this have been awesome really disappointed the PC version doesn't have the advanced features of the next gen versions.
Need for Speed Rivals - Probably get this version since the wheel support isn't the best for this type of game.
Resogun (PSN) - Free to PSN+ members.
Skylanders Swap Force
Sound Shapes (PSN) - Have PS3 Version so free as well.
Super Motherload (PSN - $15)
Trine 2: The Complete Story (PSN)
Warframe (PSN - free-to-play)
Xbox 360
Contrast (XBLA)
Deadfall Adventures
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
The Bridge (XBLA - $10)
XCOM: Enemy Within
PlayStation 3
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
Velocity Ultra (PSN)
Wonderbook: Book of Potions
Wonderbook: Diggs Nightcrawler (PSN)
Wonderbook: Walking with Dinosaurs
XCOM: Enemy Within
Wii U
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
Wii
Barbie Dreamhouse Party - Finally.
Vita
Flower (PSN)
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Nintendo 3DS
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Jewel Match 3 (eShop)
Senran Kagura Burst (eShop - $30)
Word Wizard 3D (eShop)
World Conqueror 3D (eShop)
Nintendo DS
Barbie Dreamhouse Party
Monday, November 4, 2013
Networking, New Console Hard Drive Sizes, New Releases
New consoles
I'm still in the debating mode about getting the new consoles. I have 2 weeks to decide on the PS4, there really aren't any games that are coming out that I really have to play, I would get a couple of cool indie games for free because of PS+ though. The biggest game for the PS4 is Killzone, it's about 50 Gig, this raises an interesting point that I just thought about for both consoles. Each console only comes with a 500G hard drive, and from what I've read Xbox One games must be installed and I think it's the same for the PS4(I've read something about caching instead of installing the whole game). Since most of the games are 40-50G that means that you can have around 10 games on the hard drive at any one time. If you want to play that 11th game then you have to mess around with hard drive maintenance deciding which game to delete or keep which is a pain.
The PS4 will let you install any 9.5 mm hard drive which 1TB is the max so that helps a bit, but no external drive support. The Xbox One's hard drive can't be replaced but will support external hard drive installation sometime in the future. Until this gets resolved it makes digital distribution not very attractive, with no way to offload games you'd have to re-download these huge files that could take awhile plus eat at your bandwidth limit so to me it's a step backwards. Hopefully they can reduce the game sizes or I guess just don't buy or play many games.
Fun Exciting Weekend
Well maybe fun and exciting isn't really the way to describe it, more like frustrating and hair pulling is a better description. Went to lunch with the guys on Thursday and after a discussion I decided that I wanted to hard wire a couple of my PC's together and finally complete the media server I've been trying to setup for a long time. I first went up to my attic to see if I could run my wires there and instantly ran into a problem. Where I have my cable modem sitting was apparently wired before the roof was put on because there is about a half a foot gap that I had to work with so that was out. I have an unfinished basement which is where I should have started anyway. It just took a long drill bit and three holes and I had my wires run easily, I'm not sure why I didn't do that when I first got the house, it could have saved me a lot of money. All the connections were working at the full speed, 100MB/sec, so I was able to transfer some PC games between them quickly, did I mention that game sizes were increasing?
So now that I had my wired network working I was ready to get my media sever setup. I bought a Mac Mini back in 2010 and messed around with it as a media server using Plex. Plex itself is awesome piece of software, but I really wasn't fan of the Mac OS. My data drives were formatted using NTFS and the Mac can't natively write to that format. I tried a couple of applications that added support but they didn't work that great, I've actually had 2 hard drives that have failed that were plugged into it so I was hesitant to use the Mac OS. I used the bootcamp utility in the past and also ran into some issues so I was thinking I might have to get another small windows PC as my server. My router does support a hard drive and I was getting around 22Mb/sec with it which wasn't bad, but I did want the faster speed. I decided to try bootcamp one last time, messing with computers is fun, right?
The first thing the bootcamp utility tries to do is download the drivers of your Mac for the new windows installation. For that you need a FAT formatted USB stick, once I found one and got it formatted it tried to download the software but failed saying something about the server being down. I tried that about 5 times and each time it failed so I skipped that step, I really only needed the ethernet port to work anyway and thought that Windows would find a generic driver for that. The next step is partitioning the hard drive and that took about 20 minutes then it started installing windows. The initial setup worked fine and it rebooted a couple of times and finally got to the part where windows really boots for the first time and I got a blinking cursor. I looked up that error and most of the hits didn't apply to my setup, I finally found one that had me issue some boot commands from the windows repair utiltiy and it finally worked, I'm not sure how he found these commands but I was very happy he did.
Once that was setup everything else on the box ran fine. Plex is really the best media server software that I've found. If you name your content correctly it does a great job of finding the descriptions, pictures, and even theme music for TV shows. The interface is slick and easy to use on Widows and on my iPad. Once it processed my 1TB of data I was ready to test it out on my living room PC. I started Plex and streamed a video and noticed that it took awhile for the video to load so I double checked my LAN connection and it had the speed rated at 10 Mbps. Yes that was a 10 and Mbps not the 1 Gbps that I was expecting, so I was so close to having everything working correctly, unfortunately I really brought this issue on myself.
The night before I was upgrading drivers and messing with the BIOS on that computer because of a USB 3 issue so I thought it was a driver issue. I messed around with various drivers and every time my connection was at 10. I googled and googled, rebooted and rebooted, and tried many different things for about 3 hours and still no luck. I was upset at myself for messing with it the previous night. Then I remembered in the BIOS menus there was a utility or something called SmartLan that I tried, it was supposed to check and see if you had any cable errors. I then Googled that and it led me to fixing the issue. I'm using a 50ft cable and I guess when I ran the utility it set my connection to 10 and the only way to clear that was to power off and unplug the PC for 15 seconds. There was something somewhere holding onto those bits and by unplugging the PC from the wall it reset them. Once I did that it worked and I couldn't believe it, sometimes PC's ..............
Now that I had my connection issues resolved I was able to test the media server and it worked perfectly. I setup remote desktop support for my 3 PC's and now I finally have my wired connected setup that I've been wanting and should have setup the first day in the house. All it takes is time, frustration, and Google.
New Releases - Call of Duty releases this week, may be the first Call of Duty game I don't buy on release day.
PC
Battle Worlds: Kronos (download - $30)
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Final Exam (download - $10)
Luxuria Superbia and Poof VS the Cursed Kitty - First of a bunch of oddly named games.
Poof VS the Cursed Kitty (download)
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies (download - $5) - The iOS version is really good.
State of Decay (download - $20) - Really liked the game on the 360 and it should improve with higher resolution.
PlayStation 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Xbox 360
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection
Final Exam (XBLA - $10) - Unsure?
Zumba Fitness World Party
Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies and Final Exam
PlayStation 3
A-Men 2 (PSN)
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
CastleStorm (PSN)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection
Final Exam (PSN - $10)
How to Survive (PSN) - Bought this on Steam and really wasn't impressed.
The Adventures of Cookie & Cream (PS2 Classic)
The Guided Fate Paradox
Wii U
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Toki Tori (eShop)
Wii Sports Club (eShop)
Zumba Fitness World Party
Wii
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Zumba Fitness World Party
Vita
A-Men 2 (PSN)
CastleStorm (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Crazy Chicken Director's Cut 3D - Has to be awesome.
Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed
My Baby Pet Hotel 3D (eShop) - Ok.....
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Power Rangers MegaForce - They are still around?
Nintendo DS
Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed
I'm still in the debating mode about getting the new consoles. I have 2 weeks to decide on the PS4, there really aren't any games that are coming out that I really have to play, I would get a couple of cool indie games for free because of PS+ though. The biggest game for the PS4 is Killzone, it's about 50 Gig, this raises an interesting point that I just thought about for both consoles. Each console only comes with a 500G hard drive, and from what I've read Xbox One games must be installed and I think it's the same for the PS4(I've read something about caching instead of installing the whole game). Since most of the games are 40-50G that means that you can have around 10 games on the hard drive at any one time. If you want to play that 11th game then you have to mess around with hard drive maintenance deciding which game to delete or keep which is a pain.
The PS4 will let you install any 9.5 mm hard drive which 1TB is the max so that helps a bit, but no external drive support. The Xbox One's hard drive can't be replaced but will support external hard drive installation sometime in the future. Until this gets resolved it makes digital distribution not very attractive, with no way to offload games you'd have to re-download these huge files that could take awhile plus eat at your bandwidth limit so to me it's a step backwards. Hopefully they can reduce the game sizes or I guess just don't buy or play many games.
Fun Exciting Weekend
Well maybe fun and exciting isn't really the way to describe it, more like frustrating and hair pulling is a better description. Went to lunch with the guys on Thursday and after a discussion I decided that I wanted to hard wire a couple of my PC's together and finally complete the media server I've been trying to setup for a long time. I first went up to my attic to see if I could run my wires there and instantly ran into a problem. Where I have my cable modem sitting was apparently wired before the roof was put on because there is about a half a foot gap that I had to work with so that was out. I have an unfinished basement which is where I should have started anyway. It just took a long drill bit and three holes and I had my wires run easily, I'm not sure why I didn't do that when I first got the house, it could have saved me a lot of money. All the connections were working at the full speed, 100MB/sec, so I was able to transfer some PC games between them quickly, did I mention that game sizes were increasing?
So now that I had my wired network working I was ready to get my media sever setup. I bought a Mac Mini back in 2010 and messed around with it as a media server using Plex. Plex itself is awesome piece of software, but I really wasn't fan of the Mac OS. My data drives were formatted using NTFS and the Mac can't natively write to that format. I tried a couple of applications that added support but they didn't work that great, I've actually had 2 hard drives that have failed that were plugged into it so I was hesitant to use the Mac OS. I used the bootcamp utility in the past and also ran into some issues so I was thinking I might have to get another small windows PC as my server. My router does support a hard drive and I was getting around 22Mb/sec with it which wasn't bad, but I did want the faster speed. I decided to try bootcamp one last time, messing with computers is fun, right?
The first thing the bootcamp utility tries to do is download the drivers of your Mac for the new windows installation. For that you need a FAT formatted USB stick, once I found one and got it formatted it tried to download the software but failed saying something about the server being down. I tried that about 5 times and each time it failed so I skipped that step, I really only needed the ethernet port to work anyway and thought that Windows would find a generic driver for that. The next step is partitioning the hard drive and that took about 20 minutes then it started installing windows. The initial setup worked fine and it rebooted a couple of times and finally got to the part where windows really boots for the first time and I got a blinking cursor. I looked up that error and most of the hits didn't apply to my setup, I finally found one that had me issue some boot commands from the windows repair utiltiy and it finally worked, I'm not sure how he found these commands but I was very happy he did.
Once that was setup everything else on the box ran fine. Plex is really the best media server software that I've found. If you name your content correctly it does a great job of finding the descriptions, pictures, and even theme music for TV shows. The interface is slick and easy to use on Widows and on my iPad. Once it processed my 1TB of data I was ready to test it out on my living room PC. I started Plex and streamed a video and noticed that it took awhile for the video to load so I double checked my LAN connection and it had the speed rated at 10 Mbps. Yes that was a 10 and Mbps not the 1 Gbps that I was expecting, so I was so close to having everything working correctly, unfortunately I really brought this issue on myself.
The night before I was upgrading drivers and messing with the BIOS on that computer because of a USB 3 issue so I thought it was a driver issue. I messed around with various drivers and every time my connection was at 10. I googled and googled, rebooted and rebooted, and tried many different things for about 3 hours and still no luck. I was upset at myself for messing with it the previous night. Then I remembered in the BIOS menus there was a utility or something called SmartLan that I tried, it was supposed to check and see if you had any cable errors. I then Googled that and it led me to fixing the issue. I'm using a 50ft cable and I guess when I ran the utility it set my connection to 10 and the only way to clear that was to power off and unplug the PC for 15 seconds. There was something somewhere holding onto those bits and by unplugging the PC from the wall it reset them. Once I did that it worked and I couldn't believe it, sometimes PC's ..............
Now that I had my connection issues resolved I was able to test the media server and it worked perfectly. I setup remote desktop support for my 3 PC's and now I finally have my wired connected setup that I've been wanting and should have setup the first day in the house. All it takes is time, frustration, and Google.
New Releases - Call of Duty releases this week, may be the first Call of Duty game I don't buy on release day.
PC
Battle Worlds: Kronos (download - $30)
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Final Exam (download - $10)
Luxuria Superbia and Poof VS the Cursed Kitty - First of a bunch of oddly named games.
Poof VS the Cursed Kitty (download)
Sid Meier's Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies (download - $5) - The iOS version is really good.
State of Decay (download - $20) - Really liked the game on the 360 and it should improve with higher resolution.
PlayStation 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Xbox 360
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection
Final Exam (XBLA - $10) - Unsure?
Zumba Fitness World Party
Ace Patrol: Pacific Skies and Final Exam
PlayStation 3
A-Men 2 (PSN)
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
CastleStorm (PSN)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Collection
Final Exam (PSN - $10)
How to Survive (PSN) - Bought this on Steam and really wasn't impressed.
The Adventures of Cookie & Cream (PS2 Classic)
The Guided Fate Paradox
Wii U
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Toki Tori (eShop)
Wii Sports Club (eShop)
Zumba Fitness World Party
Wii
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Zumba Fitness World Party
Vita
A-Men 2 (PSN)
CastleStorm (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Ben 10 Omniverse 2
Crazy Chicken Director's Cut 3D - Has to be awesome.
Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed
My Baby Pet Hotel 3D (eShop) - Ok.....
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Power Rangers MegaForce - They are still around?
Nintendo DS
Moshi Monsters: Katsuma Unleashed
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Batman Origins, BF4
Batman Arkham Origins
I thought that I was going to have to wait until next week to play the game as the video card I wanted was going to include this plus Splinter Cell and Assassins Creed 4 for free and that deal started today. On Friday I got an email from Green Man Gaming with my Batman key, I had ordered it back in August and forgot, it was a good deal though. I still got the video card so I'm selling a steam copy of Batman and Splinter Cell so let me know if you are interested, I should get the keys by the end of the week.
I've put in about 6 hours so far and I like the game just as much as the other 2. The Arkham games are awesome and they have the best melee combat of any game. This game is a prequel to the others so the Joker is back even though I haven't seen him yet. They didn't get the other games lead voices, Batman does sound like Kevin Conroy until he yells then you can tell it's someone different, since I haven't ran into Joker yet, but I did watch a video where the voice actor speaks as the Joker and it's very similar to Mark Hamill's version of the Joker.
The game set in the same city as the last game and they have tweaked the city and added some different lighting so it does feel different. There are some new gadgets and moves as well. The combat is a little faster which I like as it makes it feel a little more fluid, sometimes in the older games you'd have to wait a bit long for the counter attack. The Riddler is back and there is quite a few Riddler puzzles to solve but not as many as the last game, that one had way too many.
The graphics are awesome and some of the special effects using my Nvidia card look really cool. The Physx really adds some cool graphical effects to the game like the Depth of Field when it zooms in close as you make your final blow to an enemy. The fog and fabric effects just make the world feel believable. I haven't had any glitches or other problems with the game and it's running at max settings around 80fps. If you like the other games then it's more of the same but to me that's a good thing.
Battlefield 4
This was released at 11 last night so I didn't get to play it that much, I tried a bit of single player and about 10 minutes of multiplayer.
I played on the PC connected to my TV because the sound is amazing using the War Tapes setting in 7.1 surround sound so I was also using a controller which is fine for sp. The single player looks awesome and it's probably the best game I've seen running so far. There was one scene where you come out of some houses into what looks like Dubai and the detail of the buildings in the distance and number of birds flying around just looked unbelievable. This is a showcase game.
I then hopped into a mp match and even though I used a controller I was 1 -2 so it wasn't that bad, if I'd had one more grenade I could have taken out 5 others. You can tell they did have to tone down the graphics quite a bit but it still looks really nice and everything was smooth and I didn't see any lag. It still uses the browser interface for everything which I guess is ok, it did take awhile for the game to load in both modes, maybe 20 seconds so I'm not sure about the load times on the consoles would be greater, I'll move this to an SSD and see if that speeds things up. Hopefully tonight I'll get on with Chad and others and see how great the map layouts are.
Stuff
Tiger Woods no longer associated with EA's golf game.
Reports that Xbone is having some software issues.
New Releases - It's close to November so a ton of games are here.
PC
Avadon 2: The Corruption
Battlefield 4 - Comments above.
Blood of the Werewolf (download)
Deadly Premonition (download - $25) - Want to pickup but locked at 720P?
Football Manager 2014
Lilly Looking Through (download)
Master Reboot (download)
Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 (download - $15)
Soda Drinker Pro (download) - Awesome game, I suppose.
Xbox 360
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Waiting for the PC release next month. Getting it free with new video card.
Battlefield 4
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
WWE 2K14
PlayStation 3
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Battlefield 4
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate HD (PSN)
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Proteus (PSN)
WWE 2K14
Wii U
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Monster High: 13 Wishes
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Sonic Lost World
Proteus and Sonic Lost World
Wii
Angry Birds Star Wars
Monster High: 13 Wishes
Vita
Angry Birds Star Wars
Crazy Market (PSN - free-to-play)
OMG HD Zombies (PSN)
Proteus (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Angry Birds Star Wars
Doodle Jump Adventures
Monster High: 13 Wishes
Regular Show: Mordecai and Rigby in 8-bit Land
Sonic Lost World
Nintendo DS
Doodle Jump Journey
Monster High: 13 Wishes
I thought that I was going to have to wait until next week to play the game as the video card I wanted was going to include this plus Splinter Cell and Assassins Creed 4 for free and that deal started today. On Friday I got an email from Green Man Gaming with my Batman key, I had ordered it back in August and forgot, it was a good deal though. I still got the video card so I'm selling a steam copy of Batman and Splinter Cell so let me know if you are interested, I should get the keys by the end of the week.
I've put in about 6 hours so far and I like the game just as much as the other 2. The Arkham games are awesome and they have the best melee combat of any game. This game is a prequel to the others so the Joker is back even though I haven't seen him yet. They didn't get the other games lead voices, Batman does sound like Kevin Conroy until he yells then you can tell it's someone different, since I haven't ran into Joker yet, but I did watch a video where the voice actor speaks as the Joker and it's very similar to Mark Hamill's version of the Joker.
The game set in the same city as the last game and they have tweaked the city and added some different lighting so it does feel different. There are some new gadgets and moves as well. The combat is a little faster which I like as it makes it feel a little more fluid, sometimes in the older games you'd have to wait a bit long for the counter attack. The Riddler is back and there is quite a few Riddler puzzles to solve but not as many as the last game, that one had way too many.
The graphics are awesome and some of the special effects using my Nvidia card look really cool. The Physx really adds some cool graphical effects to the game like the Depth of Field when it zooms in close as you make your final blow to an enemy. The fog and fabric effects just make the world feel believable. I haven't had any glitches or other problems with the game and it's running at max settings around 80fps. If you like the other games then it's more of the same but to me that's a good thing.
Battlefield 4
This was released at 11 last night so I didn't get to play it that much, I tried a bit of single player and about 10 minutes of multiplayer.
I played on the PC connected to my TV because the sound is amazing using the War Tapes setting in 7.1 surround sound so I was also using a controller which is fine for sp. The single player looks awesome and it's probably the best game I've seen running so far. There was one scene where you come out of some houses into what looks like Dubai and the detail of the buildings in the distance and number of birds flying around just looked unbelievable. This is a showcase game.
I then hopped into a mp match and even though I used a controller I was 1 -2 so it wasn't that bad, if I'd had one more grenade I could have taken out 5 others. You can tell they did have to tone down the graphics quite a bit but it still looks really nice and everything was smooth and I didn't see any lag. It still uses the browser interface for everything which I guess is ok, it did take awhile for the game to load in both modes, maybe 20 seconds so I'm not sure about the load times on the consoles would be greater, I'll move this to an SSD and see if that speeds things up. Hopefully tonight I'll get on with Chad and others and see how great the map layouts are.
Stuff
Tiger Woods no longer associated with EA's golf game.
Reports that Xbone is having some software issues.
New Releases - It's close to November so a ton of games are here.
PC
Avadon 2: The Corruption
Battlefield 4 - Comments above.
Blood of the Werewolf (download)
Deadly Premonition (download - $25) - Want to pickup but locked at 720P?
Football Manager 2014
Lilly Looking Through (download)
Master Reboot (download)
Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 (download - $15)
Soda Drinker Pro (download) - Awesome game, I suppose.
Xbox 360
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Waiting for the PC release next month. Getting it free with new video card.
Battlefield 4
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
WWE 2K14
PlayStation 3
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Battlefield 4
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate HD (PSN)
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Proteus (PSN)
WWE 2K14
Wii U
Angry Birds Star Wars
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Monster High: 13 Wishes
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures
Sonic Lost World
Proteus and Sonic Lost World
Wii
Angry Birds Star Wars
Monster High: 13 Wishes
Vita
Angry Birds Star Wars
Crazy Market (PSN - free-to-play)
OMG HD Zombies (PSN)
Proteus (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Angry Birds Star Wars
Doodle Jump Adventures
Monster High: 13 Wishes
Regular Show: Mordecai and Rigby in 8-bit Land
Sonic Lost World
Nintendo DS
Doodle Jump Journey
Monster High: 13 Wishes
Monday, October 21, 2013
Next Gen, Shadow Warrior
Next Gen
I'm not sure if I really want to buy a next gen console at launch. I rarely play my consoles now unless it's an exclusive game that isn't on the PC and looking at the exclusive launch titles there really isn't a compelling reason to get either console. I did buy Madden 25 and planned on upgrading it to the Xbone version for $10 but from the videos I've seen it doesn't look like it's much of an upgrade, hopefully I'm wrong. I don't have cable or satellite so all the TV features of the Xbone are lost on me. I would like to play Forza 5 but since my new wheel is not supported my interest is low. The PS4 has Killzone and it's ok I've played all of them but only finished the second one. I do want to play the next Naughty Dog game but there hasn't been any information at all so that will be next year some time. Since neither is backwards compatible I'll still have to have my older boxes connected which just adds clutter.
I am a gadget freak so that part of me wants the new thing so that could make me go ahead and buy them now. Did Microsoft learn their lesson on the Red Ring? I hope so.
Shadow Warrior
I thought that I was on the last chapter a few blogs ago but I wasn't even close, I was on Chapter 11 out of 17 so there was a lot of game play left. I did finish the game last week and thought it was a great game, I did get frustrated a couple of times as some of the last battles were extremely tough as they put you into a huge open area and just kept throwing enemies at you. They also needed to mix up the boss fights as most of them felt the same. Other than that the game was great and I'm looking forward to other games the developer makes.
New Releases - A new Commodore 64 game is being released this week along with a ton of other games.
PC
Batman: Arkham Origins - Trying to decide if I want to get another video card as this game comes free with a purchase. I've loved the previous games.
Defense Technica (download)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut - Really liked the game and will upgrade to this version for $5, a no brainer.
Eldritch (download - $15) - Already bought and it's a first person rouge-like in a minecraft looking world.
Ethan: Meteor Hunter (download - $10)
How to Survive (download) - Intriguied
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst (download)
Path of Exile (free-to-play)
Rocksmith 2014 Edition - Probably going to get this version as the lag is supposedly gone plus there is a backing band option.
The Dark Eye: Demonicon
The Sims 3: Into the Future
Warface (free-to-play)
Commodore 64
Super Bread Box
Xbox 360
Batman: Arkham Origins
How to Survive (XBLA)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Just Dance Kids 2014
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst
Rocksmith 2014 Edition
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
PlayStation 3
Alien Rage (PSN - $20)
Batman: Arkham Origins
Beer Pong! (PSN)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Ethan: Meteor Hunter (PSN - $10)
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Magrunner: Dark Pulse (PSN - $10)
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst
Rocksmith 2014 Edition
Wii U
Batman: Arkham Origins
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Just Dance Kids 2014
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Wii Party U
Wii
Just Dance Kids 2014
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Vita
Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - Probably going to get this game as well.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Nintendo 3DS
Crazy Chicken: Director's Cut (eShop - $2)
Hometown Story
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Nintendo DS
Crazy Chicken: Director's Cut (DSiWare - $2)
I'm not sure if I really want to buy a next gen console at launch. I rarely play my consoles now unless it's an exclusive game that isn't on the PC and looking at the exclusive launch titles there really isn't a compelling reason to get either console. I did buy Madden 25 and planned on upgrading it to the Xbone version for $10 but from the videos I've seen it doesn't look like it's much of an upgrade, hopefully I'm wrong. I don't have cable or satellite so all the TV features of the Xbone are lost on me. I would like to play Forza 5 but since my new wheel is not supported my interest is low. The PS4 has Killzone and it's ok I've played all of them but only finished the second one. I do want to play the next Naughty Dog game but there hasn't been any information at all so that will be next year some time. Since neither is backwards compatible I'll still have to have my older boxes connected which just adds clutter.
I am a gadget freak so that part of me wants the new thing so that could make me go ahead and buy them now. Did Microsoft learn their lesson on the Red Ring? I hope so.
Shadow Warrior
I thought that I was on the last chapter a few blogs ago but I wasn't even close, I was on Chapter 11 out of 17 so there was a lot of game play left. I did finish the game last week and thought it was a great game, I did get frustrated a couple of times as some of the last battles were extremely tough as they put you into a huge open area and just kept throwing enemies at you. They also needed to mix up the boss fights as most of them felt the same. Other than that the game was great and I'm looking forward to other games the developer makes.
New Releases - A new Commodore 64 game is being released this week along with a ton of other games.
PC
Batman: Arkham Origins - Trying to decide if I want to get another video card as this game comes free with a purchase. I've loved the previous games.
Defense Technica (download)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut - Really liked the game and will upgrade to this version for $5, a no brainer.
Eldritch (download - $15) - Already bought and it's a first person rouge-like in a minecraft looking world.
Ethan: Meteor Hunter (download - $10)
How to Survive (download) - Intriguied
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst (download)
Path of Exile (free-to-play)
Rocksmith 2014 Edition - Probably going to get this version as the lag is supposedly gone plus there is a backing band option.
The Dark Eye: Demonicon
The Sims 3: Into the Future
Warface (free-to-play)
Commodore 64
Super Bread Box
Xbox 360
Batman: Arkham Origins
How to Survive (XBLA)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Just Dance Kids 2014
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst
Rocksmith 2014 Edition
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
PlayStation 3
Alien Rage (PSN - $20)
Batman: Arkham Origins
Beer Pong! (PSN)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Ethan: Meteor Hunter (PSN - $10)
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Magrunner: Dark Pulse (PSN - $10)
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst
Rocksmith 2014 Edition
Wii U
Batman: Arkham Origins
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Just Dance Kids 2014
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Wii Party U
Wii
Just Dance Kids 2014
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Vita
Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate - Probably going to get this game as well.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Nintendo 3DS
Crazy Chicken: Director's Cut (eShop - $2)
Hometown Story
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Nintendo DS
Crazy Chicken: Director's Cut (DSiWare - $2)
Friday, October 18, 2013
NightHawk Router, Beyond Two Souls
Beyond: Two Souls
I finished the game last week and I enjoyed the entire experience. There may not have been very much gaming in there but the story and characters were interesting enough to carry me through the whole game. The writing was decent and the ending wasn't horrible. There are multiple endings, but I'm fine with the story that unfolded from the choices that I made that I don't have any desire to go back or watch the other endings.
Netgear NightHawk Router
I've been trying to decide if I want to hard wire my devices in the house, I have the 100Mbps plan from Comcast so when I download a file I get around 7M per second so it's blazingly fast, U-verse isn't even close to my speed. I do have one PC that is my media box and it's connected directly to the router so I would like a decent speed when streaming to my other devices. I really don't like wires though because of the clutter and would like to go full wireless. I had a Netgear 600Mps router that has worked pretty well but even with 300Mps adapters I was only getting about 2-3M/s on internet downloading and sometimes only 1-2M for LAN streaming so something wasn't working correctly. I have some of the Ethernet over electric adapters and they give me a slight speed increase but the devices have to be wired to it so there's clutter. I went and bought a 600Mps USB network adapter and I was able to get about 4-5M/sec over the internet but that PC was only about 20 feet away with no walls, my other PC which is in the back bedroom is about 50 feet away and the speeds were worse so I hard wired that and just had the cable on the floor. For testing I bought another 50ft ethernet cable and was going to hook it up then I found out my router didn't support Gigabyte wired connections so I was on the hunt for a new router.
I looked at tons of reviews and finally decided on a Netgear R6300 AC router and it was in stock at Best Buy so I went to get it. Once I got there I couldn't find it but saw the NightHawk, I did some quick internet searches and thought I'd give it a try, I also bought an AC USB wireless adapter just to see if I could get better speeds. The setup was very easy and I was impressed with my results. Using the same 600Mps adapter I was getting 6-7M/sec internet downloading speeds from the PC that was 20ft away. For the back bedroom PC I used the new AC adapter and I got a tad higher speed so I was pumped. I then tried moving files between the wireless PC's and got about 15-20M/sec which was great. The router also lets me plug in a USB 3.0 hard drive so I can use it like a NAS device, I only have a USB 2.0 device connected now and I was getting the same streaming speeds of 20M/sec.
I'm really impressed with this router and it's taken my desire to hard wire my house away so I recommend this router if you want to go full wireless but are worried about wireless speeds.
Stuff
Watchdogs has been delayed to 2014 which was going to be a huge launch title for the new consoles.
PC Batman games get rid of GFWL and are cheap on Steam this weekend. If you haven't played these games you really should.
New Releases - Quite a few releases but not many that I'm interested in.
PC
Airship Dragoon (download - $20)
Bad Hotel (download) - ok.....
Eleusis (download - $15)
Goodbye Deponia (download - $20) - The first game was pretty good.
Pool Nation (download - $10)
Space Rangers HD: A War Apart (download) - Space Rangers was a pretty unique title.
Talisman Digital Edition (download - early access) - I have the iPad game and it's pretty fun.
Tetrobot and Co. (download)
The Stanley Parable (download)
Xbox 360
Cabela's African Adventures
Hexodius (XBLA - $10)
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (XBLA - $10)
Wipeout: Create & Crash
PlayStation 3
Cabela's African Adventures
The Wolf Among Us: Episode 1 - Faith (PSN)
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (PSN - $10)
Wipeout: Create & Crash
Wii U
Mighty Switch Force 2 (eShop)
Wipeout: Create & Crash
Wii
Cabela's African Adventures
Wipeout: Create & Crash
Vita
Atomic Ninjas (download - $10)
Valhalla Knights 3
Nintendo 3DS
101 Penguin Pets 3D (eShop)
My Vet Practice 3D: In the Country
Snow Moto Racing 3D (eShop)
I finished the game last week and I enjoyed the entire experience. There may not have been very much gaming in there but the story and characters were interesting enough to carry me through the whole game. The writing was decent and the ending wasn't horrible. There are multiple endings, but I'm fine with the story that unfolded from the choices that I made that I don't have any desire to go back or watch the other endings.
Netgear NightHawk Router
I've been trying to decide if I want to hard wire my devices in the house, I have the 100Mbps plan from Comcast so when I download a file I get around 7M per second so it's blazingly fast, U-verse isn't even close to my speed. I do have one PC that is my media box and it's connected directly to the router so I would like a decent speed when streaming to my other devices. I really don't like wires though because of the clutter and would like to go full wireless. I had a Netgear 600Mps router that has worked pretty well but even with 300Mps adapters I was only getting about 2-3M/s on internet downloading and sometimes only 1-2M for LAN streaming so something wasn't working correctly. I have some of the Ethernet over electric adapters and they give me a slight speed increase but the devices have to be wired to it so there's clutter. I went and bought a 600Mps USB network adapter and I was able to get about 4-5M/sec over the internet but that PC was only about 20 feet away with no walls, my other PC which is in the back bedroom is about 50 feet away and the speeds were worse so I hard wired that and just had the cable on the floor. For testing I bought another 50ft ethernet cable and was going to hook it up then I found out my router didn't support Gigabyte wired connections so I was on the hunt for a new router.
I looked at tons of reviews and finally decided on a Netgear R6300 AC router and it was in stock at Best Buy so I went to get it. Once I got there I couldn't find it but saw the NightHawk, I did some quick internet searches and thought I'd give it a try, I also bought an AC USB wireless adapter just to see if I could get better speeds. The setup was very easy and I was impressed with my results. Using the same 600Mps adapter I was getting 6-7M/sec internet downloading speeds from the PC that was 20ft away. For the back bedroom PC I used the new AC adapter and I got a tad higher speed so I was pumped. I then tried moving files between the wireless PC's and got about 15-20M/sec which was great. The router also lets me plug in a USB 3.0 hard drive so I can use it like a NAS device, I only have a USB 2.0 device connected now and I was getting the same streaming speeds of 20M/sec.
I'm really impressed with this router and it's taken my desire to hard wire my house away so I recommend this router if you want to go full wireless but are worried about wireless speeds.
Stuff
Watchdogs has been delayed to 2014 which was going to be a huge launch title for the new consoles.
PC Batman games get rid of GFWL and are cheap on Steam this weekend. If you haven't played these games you really should.
New Releases - Quite a few releases but not many that I'm interested in.
PC
Airship Dragoon (download - $20)
Bad Hotel (download) - ok.....
Eleusis (download - $15)
Goodbye Deponia (download - $20) - The first game was pretty good.
Pool Nation (download - $10)
Space Rangers HD: A War Apart (download) - Space Rangers was a pretty unique title.
Talisman Digital Edition (download - early access) - I have the iPad game and it's pretty fun.
Tetrobot and Co. (download)
The Stanley Parable (download)
Xbox 360
Cabela's African Adventures
Hexodius (XBLA - $10)
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (XBLA - $10)
Wipeout: Create & Crash
PlayStation 3
Cabela's African Adventures
The Wolf Among Us: Episode 1 - Faith (PSN)
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (PSN - $10)
Wipeout: Create & Crash
Wii U
Mighty Switch Force 2 (eShop)
Wipeout: Create & Crash
Wii
Cabela's African Adventures
Wipeout: Create & Crash
Vita
Atomic Ninjas (download - $10)
Valhalla Knights 3
Nintendo 3DS
101 Penguin Pets 3D (eShop)
My Vet Practice 3D: In the Country
Snow Moto Racing 3D (eShop)
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Beyond: Two Souls and IOS Games
Beyond: Two Souls
I really liked David Cage's last game Heavy Rain. It was more like interactive fiction than an actual game. Most of the time was spent watching an interesting story unfold and at times it asked you to complete certain actions. These actions did have consequences though, based on how and what you performed it would alter the story. There were no game over screens or loading from a checkpoint to retry, the choices were final and sometimes a character you controlled would die and that would end their story arc, so most people's experiences were different. It was a novel idea that I really liked in a story based game. If you haven't played Heavy Rain I highly recommend it, they did add move support after I finished the game so I may replay sometime.
His latest game is similar in that it's more of an interactive story than constant twitch actions with a controller, there is even support for controlling the game with a phone or tablet. The story has you playing a teenage girl which looks very similar to the girl in The Last of Us. Ellen Page is the voice lead in this game and they even use her real likeness, the facial graphics are superb and you can really tell emotions of the character by her expressions. She is not the only character you control, she has a 'friend" who is a supernatural character that is tied to her through what looks like a magic blue umbilical chord. He is like a ghost in that no one can see him, he can move through walls but is able to interact with the environment and take control of certain characters.
So far I've put in about 5 hours and it's been great. The story is intriguing and I don't mind that I'm basically watching a movie with some interaction. There is combat in the game and when it occurs time slows down and you just press a direction, sometimes it's hard to tell which direction, but I don't think there are fail states so you just get a tweaked action section based on your performance. Ellen Page does a great job and they also have William Defoe as her doctor so the acting is very well done. The story is told from different points in time so it keeps things interesting and guessing how she got in certain situations. The game has gotten very mixed reviews, most are low to middle, while some are quite high. Some people will be turned off by the main character being a girl, but I've liked the fact that I'm able see the world a bit differently. If you liked Heavy Rain then you should give this game a shot.
IOS Games
Dead Mans Draw - Awesome card game that has me hooked. It's solo only and has a lot of luck involved but there is enough strategy to keep things interesting. Highly recommend.
Marvel Puzzle Quest - It's Puzzle quest but with Marvel Heroes. It F2P and has micro transactions so I haven't spent too much time with it yet as characters have cool downs unless you pay.
Wits and Wagers - It's a version of the board game where the questions have numerical answers and you bet which player has the closest answer. It's pretty fun and is played solo but if your friends play the game it takes their answers and uses them in your game.
I really liked David Cage's last game Heavy Rain. It was more like interactive fiction than an actual game. Most of the time was spent watching an interesting story unfold and at times it asked you to complete certain actions. These actions did have consequences though, based on how and what you performed it would alter the story. There were no game over screens or loading from a checkpoint to retry, the choices were final and sometimes a character you controlled would die and that would end their story arc, so most people's experiences were different. It was a novel idea that I really liked in a story based game. If you haven't played Heavy Rain I highly recommend it, they did add move support after I finished the game so I may replay sometime.
His latest game is similar in that it's more of an interactive story than constant twitch actions with a controller, there is even support for controlling the game with a phone or tablet. The story has you playing a teenage girl which looks very similar to the girl in The Last of Us. Ellen Page is the voice lead in this game and they even use her real likeness, the facial graphics are superb and you can really tell emotions of the character by her expressions. She is not the only character you control, she has a 'friend" who is a supernatural character that is tied to her through what looks like a magic blue umbilical chord. He is like a ghost in that no one can see him, he can move through walls but is able to interact with the environment and take control of certain characters.
So far I've put in about 5 hours and it's been great. The story is intriguing and I don't mind that I'm basically watching a movie with some interaction. There is combat in the game and when it occurs time slows down and you just press a direction, sometimes it's hard to tell which direction, but I don't think there are fail states so you just get a tweaked action section based on your performance. Ellen Page does a great job and they also have William Defoe as her doctor so the acting is very well done. The story is told from different points in time so it keeps things interesting and guessing how she got in certain situations. The game has gotten very mixed reviews, most are low to middle, while some are quite high. Some people will be turned off by the main character being a girl, but I've liked the fact that I'm able see the world a bit differently. If you liked Heavy Rain then you should give this game a shot.
IOS Games
Dead Mans Draw - Awesome card game that has me hooked. It's solo only and has a lot of luck involved but there is enough strategy to keep things interesting. Highly recommend.
Marvel Puzzle Quest - It's Puzzle quest but with Marvel Heroes. It F2P and has micro transactions so I haven't spent too much time with it yet as characters have cool downs unless you pay.
Wits and Wagers - It's a version of the board game where the questions have numerical answers and you bet which player has the closest answer. It's pretty fun and is played solo but if your friends play the game it takes their answers and uses them in your game.
Monday, October 7, 2013
GTAV, Shadow Warrior, TV Shows
GTA V
I only played about an hour this weekend, it really hasn't been a game that I've been craving to play, I think it may be the combat. I enjoy riding around and exploring the city, but as soon as I have to shoot multiple enemies it just isn't fun. The aiming is clunky and the enemies are amazing shots. I'm behind cover and as soon as I pop up to shoot I'm hit and that happens every time. I'm using the lock-on feature and that takes away all the challenge but I don't like the feel of the free aim so I'm stuck. I hope to finish the story by this weekend then give online a shot. I've read that they are still having issues with online where you can just lose your character and have to restart from scratch so I'm waiting until that gets resolved.
Shadow Warrior
I think I'm on the last chapter after around 11 hours and I think it's about the perfect length. I've really enjoyed the game and the combat has been a ton of fun, I still love using the sword to slice up enemies. Most of the environments have been unique and cool to explore, I don't think I've ever found all the secrets in a level.
TV Shows - There are spoilers ahead so if you don't watch the shows or haven't see the finales just skip this section.
Dexter
Really disappointed in the final season and especially the finale episode. The writing has been pretty weak and just illogical at times. The show probably needed to end about 2 seasons ago. Hannah McKay is running from the law with her picture everywhere and she does nothing to change her appearance? Dexter can get access to a high profile prisoner without supervision then kill the guy and nothing happens? Dexter can kill his sister and wheel her out to his boat with no one noticing? A logger really?
Breaking Bad
Awesome show definitely in my top 10. Ozymandias was the best episode and there was no way the finale could best it but I thought the ending was great. They may have wrapped it up too nicely for some but I thought they did the fans justice and answered most of the major questions. We finally found out who the ricin was for and it was awesome. I was getting tired of his wife this season, I read that Anna Gunn the actress actually got some death threats personally which is crazy. Not sure what kind of mental state Jesse will be in once the adrenaline is gone from the escape. Hopefully Better Call Saul won't be terrible.
New Releases - Some good GOTY Editions if you never played those games. And POKEMON.
PC
Bionic Dues (download)
Borderlands 2 Game of the Year Edition
Dishonored Game of the Year Edition
Montague's Mount (download)
Xbox 360
Borderlands 2 Game of the Year Edition
Capcom Essentials
Dishonored Game of the Year Edition
Just Dance 2014
Orc Attack: Flatulent Rebellion (XBLA)
Orc Attack and Atomic Ninjas
PlayStation 3
Atomic Ninjas (PSN - $10)
Battle of Tiles EX (PSN)
Beyond: Two Souls - Picking this up on Tuesday. I really liked Heavy Rain.
Borderlands 2 Game of the Year Edition
Capcom Essentials
Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness
Dishonored Game of the Year Edition
Heavenly Guardian (PS2 Classics)
Just Dance 2014
Orc Attack: Flatulent Rebellion (PSN)
Wii U
Just Dance 2014
Wii
Just Dance 2014
Vita
Atomic Ninjas (PSN - $10)
Worms Revolution Extreme (PSN - $15)
Nintendo 3DS
Pokemon X
Pokemon Y
I only played about an hour this weekend, it really hasn't been a game that I've been craving to play, I think it may be the combat. I enjoy riding around and exploring the city, but as soon as I have to shoot multiple enemies it just isn't fun. The aiming is clunky and the enemies are amazing shots. I'm behind cover and as soon as I pop up to shoot I'm hit and that happens every time. I'm using the lock-on feature and that takes away all the challenge but I don't like the feel of the free aim so I'm stuck. I hope to finish the story by this weekend then give online a shot. I've read that they are still having issues with online where you can just lose your character and have to restart from scratch so I'm waiting until that gets resolved.
Shadow Warrior
I think I'm on the last chapter after around 11 hours and I think it's about the perfect length. I've really enjoyed the game and the combat has been a ton of fun, I still love using the sword to slice up enemies. Most of the environments have been unique and cool to explore, I don't think I've ever found all the secrets in a level.
TV Shows - There are spoilers ahead so if you don't watch the shows or haven't see the finales just skip this section.
Dexter
Really disappointed in the final season and especially the finale episode. The writing has been pretty weak and just illogical at times. The show probably needed to end about 2 seasons ago. Hannah McKay is running from the law with her picture everywhere and she does nothing to change her appearance? Dexter can get access to a high profile prisoner without supervision then kill the guy and nothing happens? Dexter can kill his sister and wheel her out to his boat with no one noticing? A logger really?
Breaking Bad
Awesome show definitely in my top 10. Ozymandias was the best episode and there was no way the finale could best it but I thought the ending was great. They may have wrapped it up too nicely for some but I thought they did the fans justice and answered most of the major questions. We finally found out who the ricin was for and it was awesome. I was getting tired of his wife this season, I read that Anna Gunn the actress actually got some death threats personally which is crazy. Not sure what kind of mental state Jesse will be in once the adrenaline is gone from the escape. Hopefully Better Call Saul won't be terrible.
New Releases - Some good GOTY Editions if you never played those games. And POKEMON.
PC
Bionic Dues (download)
Borderlands 2 Game of the Year Edition
Dishonored Game of the Year Edition
Montague's Mount (download)
Xbox 360
Borderlands 2 Game of the Year Edition
Capcom Essentials
Dishonored Game of the Year Edition
Just Dance 2014
Orc Attack: Flatulent Rebellion (XBLA)
Orc Attack and Atomic Ninjas
PlayStation 3
Atomic Ninjas (PSN - $10)
Battle of Tiles EX (PSN)
Beyond: Two Souls - Picking this up on Tuesday. I really liked Heavy Rain.
Borderlands 2 Game of the Year Edition
Capcom Essentials
Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness
Dishonored Game of the Year Edition
Heavenly Guardian (PS2 Classics)
Just Dance 2014
Orc Attack: Flatulent Rebellion (PSN)
Wii U
Just Dance 2014
Wii
Just Dance 2014
Vita
Atomic Ninjas (PSN - $10)
Worms Revolution Extreme (PSN - $15)
Nintendo 3DS
Pokemon X
Pokemon Y
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Shadow Warrior, GTA V
Shadow Warrior - It's fast, fun, and full of body parts.
I bought the remake of the original game and wasn't really that impressed so I didn't play too much of it. This version is a re-envisioning of the original game and it's awesome. You play as Lo Wang who has some great one liners and whose main weapon is a sword. With that sword you are able to dismember your enemies in many gruesome ways. I didn't notice until I played a couple of hours that there was a setting that allowed you to have full control over which direction you swing your sword, once I turned that on it made the combat a little more strategic as I was able to chop off the arms of a boss who was firing rockets at me.
The game feels like the original Doom games where movement is fast and there are a ton of enemies to destroy. You can hold multiple weapons and so far I have a Katana, Pistol, Machine Gun, and a crossbow and when you mix those with different sci-fi powers you have a fun arsenal to use. There are a ton of secrets to find and some of the bigger ones have areas that look like the original game with very blocky textures, I've also found a strange girl who is always sitting in a bathtub giggling, strange.
The game looks great and it has an Asian vibe so the scenery is very colorful especially filled with the blood of my enemies. Parts of the environment are destructible which makes it fun to enter a house and destroy the furniture and display cases.
Overall the game has been a ton of fun and I'm about half way through after 5 hours of playing so there is a decent length to the game. You are scored at the end of each level so there is some replay value.
GTA V - GTA ONLINE STARTS TODAY
I think I've put around 20 hours into the game so far and I'm about 30% done so there is a lot to do in GTA 5. I've been mixing story missions with exploring the environment and have ran across multiple random events, one which netted me $100,000 in stocks. The missions themselves have been hit or miss, there have been some forced shooting segments with a ton of enemies and without lock-on targeting it's too hard but with the lock-on it's almost too easy. I loved the combat in Max Payne 3 and I thought they were using that as a base but so far it's probably the weakest part of the game. I'm not sure how much of the map I've uncovered but sometimes I just pick a point and drive to it usually on a motorcycle or a dune buggy which are really fun to drive. I played the tennis mini-game and it was a full set
The online portion comes out today and there are server problems so I may wait a couple of days for the fervor to die down.
New Releases - Not too many releases this week which is good because I have a lot to play.
PC
Agarest: Generations of War (download - $20)
Air Conflicts: Vietnam (download - $30)
Arma Tactics (download - $8.99)
Espana 1936 (download)
F1 2013 (download)
Flashback (download - $10) - I loved this game back in the day this remake isn't that great from what I've read.
Little Trus Man (download - $5)
NBA 2K14
Xbox 360
Extinction Agenda EX (XBLA - $15)
NBA 2K14
PlayStation 3
Fatal Frame III: The Tormented (PS2 Classics)
Flashback (PSN - $10)
NBA 2K14
Pro Foosball (PSN) - Where's the amateur version?
Rain (download - $30) - Looking forward to this, I've read very little but it looks interesting.
Skydive: Proximity Flight (PSN - $20)
Vita
Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland (PSN)
Die!Die!Die! (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl
Rune Factory 4 - Look out Joe.
I bought the remake of the original game and wasn't really that impressed so I didn't play too much of it. This version is a re-envisioning of the original game and it's awesome. You play as Lo Wang who has some great one liners and whose main weapon is a sword. With that sword you are able to dismember your enemies in many gruesome ways. I didn't notice until I played a couple of hours that there was a setting that allowed you to have full control over which direction you swing your sword, once I turned that on it made the combat a little more strategic as I was able to chop off the arms of a boss who was firing rockets at me.
The game feels like the original Doom games where movement is fast and there are a ton of enemies to destroy. You can hold multiple weapons and so far I have a Katana, Pistol, Machine Gun, and a crossbow and when you mix those with different sci-fi powers you have a fun arsenal to use. There are a ton of secrets to find and some of the bigger ones have areas that look like the original game with very blocky textures, I've also found a strange girl who is always sitting in a bathtub giggling, strange.
The game looks great and it has an Asian vibe so the scenery is very colorful especially filled with the blood of my enemies. Parts of the environment are destructible which makes it fun to enter a house and destroy the furniture and display cases.
Overall the game has been a ton of fun and I'm about half way through after 5 hours of playing so there is a decent length to the game. You are scored at the end of each level so there is some replay value.
GTA V - GTA ONLINE STARTS TODAY
I think I've put around 20 hours into the game so far and I'm about 30% done so there is a lot to do in GTA 5. I've been mixing story missions with exploring the environment and have ran across multiple random events, one which netted me $100,000 in stocks. The missions themselves have been hit or miss, there have been some forced shooting segments with a ton of enemies and without lock-on targeting it's too hard but with the lock-on it's almost too easy. I loved the combat in Max Payne 3 and I thought they were using that as a base but so far it's probably the weakest part of the game. I'm not sure how much of the map I've uncovered but sometimes I just pick a point and drive to it usually on a motorcycle or a dune buggy which are really fun to drive. I played the tennis mini-game and it was a full set
The online portion comes out today and there are server problems so I may wait a couple of days for the fervor to die down.
New Releases - Not too many releases this week which is good because I have a lot to play.
PC
Agarest: Generations of War (download - $20)
Air Conflicts: Vietnam (download - $30)
Arma Tactics (download - $8.99)
Espana 1936 (download)
F1 2013 (download)
Flashback (download - $10) - I loved this game back in the day this remake isn't that great from what I've read.
Little Trus Man (download - $5)
NBA 2K14
Xbox 360
Extinction Agenda EX (XBLA - $15)
NBA 2K14
PlayStation 3
Fatal Frame III: The Tormented (PS2 Classics)
Flashback (PSN - $10)
NBA 2K14
Pro Foosball (PSN) - Where's the amateur version?
Rain (download - $30) - Looking forward to this, I've read very little but it looks interesting.
Skydive: Proximity Flight (PSN - $20)
Vita
Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland (PSN)
Die!Die!Die! (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl
Rune Factory 4 - Look out Joe.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
GTA V Quick Impressions
GTA V (360) Quick First Impressions
I debated picking this up because I really wanted to wait for the superior PC release but that could be 6 months away so I went ahead and got the 360 version. I've read the PS3 version is a bit better because of some texture issues but so far the 360 version has ran fine. The game comes on 2 disks and one is a mandatory install that is 8G, the second one is a play disk and you do not want to install that to the hard drive as that causes pop in issues because the game was designed to stream off the disk and Hard drive at the same time. Since I have a 360 slim the drive noise is not that bad but every time I loaded the map I heard it and it bugged me so I installed the play disk on a USB drive and it works fine because it uses a different channel than the hard drive so if you have an extra 16GB usb stick lying around you probably want to use it. I did notice a bit better loading times as well.
I've never liked the character movements in the GTA games and they have made some small refinements but controlling the characters still feels a bit like a tank, a little sluggish. The shooting is a little better then before and I did have to turn up the aiming sensitivity. Driving cars is a mixed bag, I had a lot of trouble controlling rear wheeled cars as they would move all over the road and not feel very realistic, the other types seem to drive fine. I had some spectacular crashes and when you go over a special jump you can control the car in the air and slow down time which looks really cool.
The world is huge. On the map I saw a place to take a ski lift so I found a dirt bike and started climbing a mountain. It took me about 4 minutes to climb to the top and there were places along the way to stop and admire the view, even on the 360 which is 8 years old it was impressive. Once I got to the top I wish that I had a parachute so that I could base jump but instead I just rode the lift down which took a couple of minutes. I robbed a couple of gas stations where you had to point a gun at the cashier and that was hard to do, something didn't feel right about that until I made up a story in my mind that the cashier was cheating his customers......
You play as 3 characters in the game and I was about to open up the 3rd character when I quit for the night. They each have their own skills that you can level up plus a special skill unique to each character so it does change up the game play. There are special people you meet while playing where you do some type of mission for them and then when you go on the heist missions you can call on them to help you, just be careful helping the guy trying to legalize pot.
New Releases - GTA V Finally releases
PC
Dragon's Prophet (free-to-play)
Foul Play (download)
Hot Wheels: World's Best Driver
Ironclad Tactics (download - $15)
MechWarrior Online (free-to-play)
Takedown: Red Sabre (download - $15)
Urban Trial Freestyle (download - $15)
Xbox 360
Foul Play (XBLA)
Grand Theft Auto V
Hot Wheels: World's Best Driver
Takedown: Red Sabre (XBLA - $15)
Foul Play and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
PlayStation 3
Capcom Fighting Evolution (PSN - PS2 Classic)
Grand Theft Auto V
Hot Wheels: World's Best Driver
Wii U
Hot Wheels: World's Best Driver
Wii U
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD (eShop)
We Sing 80s
Vita
Real Boxing (PSN)
Nintendo 3DS
AiRace Speed (eShop - $5)
Hot Wheels: World's Best Driver
Star Wars Pinball (eShop - $7)
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Spliner Cell Blacklist, Diablo 3, iPad Mini
Splinter Cell Blacklist (Steam)
Played through a couple of the opening missions and it felt like a refined Splinter Cell game. The graphics look amazing especially on an Nvidia card, Ubisoft and Nvidia partnered up to make the PC versions of their latest games look awesome. I did have some issues playing the game on the launch day, I had to modify an .ini file to make the game load in a window otherwise it would crash, that issue is fixed now.
I have a love/hate relationship with stealth games. In most stealth games once you are spotted it's reload time and for Splinter Cell, even though you can run away and hide, I want to try and make it through the level without alerting guards so I have to be in a mood to replay sections. There have been times that I've been spotted and didn't think I should have but it hasn't happened that often. The stealth is handled pretty well and you have a lot of gadgets to help you move through the levels. Each level has multiple paths so if you explore the area you can find some easy ways to eliminate targets.
They changed the voice actor for Sam, the new guy does a good job, but I do miss the voice of Michael Ironside. Your main base of operation is a plane and you have various crew mates in different sections where you go and talk to them and get information and some secondary missions. It feels a bit like Mass Effect. One of the secondary missions I went on was to eliminate 20 hostile targets and that was a lot of fun even though I restarted multiple times. The AI is very good in this game and they have varying routes so you have to sit, watch, and time your movements. I opened a door in one house and a bit later I had an enemy checking it out asking who left the door open. In another a passing guard was looking around for one of his buddies who he talked to earlier before I took him out.
Diablo 3 (360)
Having so much more fun playing the console version versus the PC. I've already found a couple of legendary items and that's just in Act 1, also vendors are selling quite a few of them. The loot is so much better in this game that it just adds to the I just need to play a bit more to see what cool thing I can find next. I started out playing a Witch Doctor and was enjoying the ranged attacks, it felt a bit like Pikman or an RTS because of all the minions I had fighting on my behalf. I could stand back and play general as I was hurling jars filled with spiders and sending in my 2 summoned zombie dogs to attack the enemy. I created a Monk and that class is really cool, I barely played with that class on the PC version. The sound design in the game is amazing as every melee attack just has a resounding thud when it lands that just makes the hit feel powerful.
iPad Mini
I bought my parents the original 3G iPad when it came out since they live in the country and don't have Internet access. My mom used it a bit to look at pictures but my Dad was never got interested in it until 2 months age, now he's hooked. He's never used a computer or a smart phone so there is quite a bit of a learning curve, the iPhone seems easy but in reality it's not very intuitive. The hardest thing is all the passwords you have to remember. He wanted to attach pictures to an email and when he went to the photo page he selected 10 pictures but the email option didn't show up he could only send the photos as a message. After doing some researching I found that In iOS 5 you could only send 5 photos in an email, the email option should have been grayed out to let you know this instead of just disappearing. I was impressed that he signed up for Paypal and eBay.
The original iPad is pretty old now and since it doesn't support iOS6 I upgraded him to an iPad mini this weekend. We got the Logitech keyboard/case and it works very well. I like the feel and the size of the mini. The speed increase is very noticeable and he's able to get 4G speeds where he lives so that will help as well. We got the 3GB plan for $30 so I'll see how long that lasts before he has to upgrade to the 5GB plan for $50, it also includes tethering at that price so it's not too bad. Last night I got a call about him having trouble connecting to email so I spent about 40 minutes on that. We eventually had to delete his email account and recreate it to fix the issue.
New Releases - Next week it GTA V.
PC
Aarklash: Legacy (download)
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (download - $20) - First game was probably one of the scariest games ever.
Arma 3 - Multiplayer only. Single player campaign to come later.
Huntsman: The Orphanage (download - $15)
Iron Soul (download)
Legend of Dungeon (download - $10) - Cool indie Rouge-Like
The King of Fighters XIII (download - $30)
Volgarr the Viking (download)
Xbox 360
DuckTales: Remastered (XBLA)
NHL 14
PlayStation 3
Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunter HD (PSN)
Dragon Fantasy Book II (PSN)
Hunter's Trophy 2: Australia (PSN)
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix - A remake of a classic Disney and Square Enix calaboration.
Mystic Heroes (PS2 Classics)
NHL 14
Puppeteer - Awesome looking platformer. Probably picking this up.
Sanctum 2 (PSN - $15)
Wii U
The Wonderful 101 - Finally another game for the WiiU probably pass though.
Vita
Killzone: Mercenary - A good FPS on a handheld?
Played through a couple of the opening missions and it felt like a refined Splinter Cell game. The graphics look amazing especially on an Nvidia card, Ubisoft and Nvidia partnered up to make the PC versions of their latest games look awesome. I did have some issues playing the game on the launch day, I had to modify an .ini file to make the game load in a window otherwise it would crash, that issue is fixed now.
I have a love/hate relationship with stealth games. In most stealth games once you are spotted it's reload time and for Splinter Cell, even though you can run away and hide, I want to try and make it through the level without alerting guards so I have to be in a mood to replay sections. There have been times that I've been spotted and didn't think I should have but it hasn't happened that often. The stealth is handled pretty well and you have a lot of gadgets to help you move through the levels. Each level has multiple paths so if you explore the area you can find some easy ways to eliminate targets.
They changed the voice actor for Sam, the new guy does a good job, but I do miss the voice of Michael Ironside. Your main base of operation is a plane and you have various crew mates in different sections where you go and talk to them and get information and some secondary missions. It feels a bit like Mass Effect. One of the secondary missions I went on was to eliminate 20 hostile targets and that was a lot of fun even though I restarted multiple times. The AI is very good in this game and they have varying routes so you have to sit, watch, and time your movements. I opened a door in one house and a bit later I had an enemy checking it out asking who left the door open. In another a passing guard was looking around for one of his buddies who he talked to earlier before I took him out.
Diablo 3 (360)
Having so much more fun playing the console version versus the PC. I've already found a couple of legendary items and that's just in Act 1, also vendors are selling quite a few of them. The loot is so much better in this game that it just adds to the I just need to play a bit more to see what cool thing I can find next. I started out playing a Witch Doctor and was enjoying the ranged attacks, it felt a bit like Pikman or an RTS because of all the minions I had fighting on my behalf. I could stand back and play general as I was hurling jars filled with spiders and sending in my 2 summoned zombie dogs to attack the enemy. I created a Monk and that class is really cool, I barely played with that class on the PC version. The sound design in the game is amazing as every melee attack just has a resounding thud when it lands that just makes the hit feel powerful.
iPad Mini
I bought my parents the original 3G iPad when it came out since they live in the country and don't have Internet access. My mom used it a bit to look at pictures but my Dad was never got interested in it until 2 months age, now he's hooked. He's never used a computer or a smart phone so there is quite a bit of a learning curve, the iPhone seems easy but in reality it's not very intuitive. The hardest thing is all the passwords you have to remember. He wanted to attach pictures to an email and when he went to the photo page he selected 10 pictures but the email option didn't show up he could only send the photos as a message. After doing some researching I found that In iOS 5 you could only send 5 photos in an email, the email option should have been grayed out to let you know this instead of just disappearing. I was impressed that he signed up for Paypal and eBay.
The original iPad is pretty old now and since it doesn't support iOS6 I upgraded him to an iPad mini this weekend. We got the Logitech keyboard/case and it works very well. I like the feel and the size of the mini. The speed increase is very noticeable and he's able to get 4G speeds where he lives so that will help as well. We got the 3GB plan for $30 so I'll see how long that lasts before he has to upgrade to the 5GB plan for $50, it also includes tethering at that price so it's not too bad. Last night I got a call about him having trouble connecting to email so I spent about 40 minutes on that. We eventually had to delete his email account and recreate it to fix the issue.
New Releases - Next week it GTA V.
PC
Aarklash: Legacy (download)
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (download - $20) - First game was probably one of the scariest games ever.
Arma 3 - Multiplayer only. Single player campaign to come later.
Huntsman: The Orphanage (download - $15)
Iron Soul (download)
Legend of Dungeon (download - $10) - Cool indie Rouge-Like
The King of Fighters XIII (download - $30)
Volgarr the Viking (download)
Xbox 360
DuckTales: Remastered (XBLA)
NHL 14
PlayStation 3
Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunter HD (PSN)
Dragon Fantasy Book II (PSN)
Hunter's Trophy 2: Australia (PSN)
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix - A remake of a classic Disney and Square Enix calaboration.
Mystic Heroes (PS2 Classics)
NHL 14
Puppeteer - Awesome looking platformer. Probably picking this up.
Sanctum 2 (PSN - $15)
Wii U
The Wonderful 101 - Finally another game for the WiiU probably pass though.
Vita
Killzone: Mercenary - A good FPS on a handheld?
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Rayman Legends, Diablo 3 Console
Rayman Legends (Steam)
Fun, Fun, Fun. Remember when you were a kid and games were just fun, they weren't trying to be super realistic or edgy, but just wanted you to have a good time? I really liked the last Rayman Origins game and thought it was a spectacular platformer, Legends is so much more so. The graphics in Origins looked great but they really went all out for Legends, it's probably the most colorful game I've ever played. The screen is filled with stuff, the backgrounds have a lot of detail that is easy to miss when you are running through a level. The platforming is varied and each location feels different so there is no chance of getting bored. The best levels are the music levels, the first one has you platforming to Black Betty and the jumps and attacks are all tied to the beats of the music, they are awesome.
My only gripe is the Murphy levels, the game was originally designed as a WiiU exclusive so those levels involved using the touchscreen gamepad. On PC using a controller you just press the Y button and Murphy moves automatically so it does slow the pace down during those levels luckily there have only been a few so far.
There are a ton of different ways to play from daily and weekly challenges to 4 player local couch co-op which seems like it could get real crazy. They included 40 remixed Origin levels, I played one of them and even though it looked familiar they did a good job of making everything new. If you have the money you definitely should pick this game up, it's awesome.
Diablo 3 (360)
Well I double dipped and got the 360 version yesterday and spent about an hour playing and I really like it. The graphics aren't as sharp as PC and there is some screen tearing but other than that the core Diablo game play is there and it works very well. One of the biggest issues of a PC game that only uses KB/M that moves to the consoles is how well the controls are translated. So far I haven't had any issues, I like having direct control of my character with the analog sticks as it makes me feel more connected to my onscreen persona. The powers are mapped to the face buttons and the right analog is used as a roll for every character so you can move away quickly if needed. I find the movement and use of powers to be a lot easier, it just feels more fluid using the controller than the KB/M. I haven't tried a ranged character yet so I'm not sure how easy/hard it is to target enemies out of a group but there were a lot of times on the PC where it would be tough to click on the correct one. The inventory system uses a radial menu that works very well so they did an excellent job in porting the controls.
There is no auction house so they had to redo the loot system and it's much much better than the PC version. I played around 50 hours on PC and hardly ever got anything worthwhile for my character, sometimes I would get something cool but it would be for another character class. The loot on the console version will drop more items based on your character class. There isn't as much loot either but there is a bigger percentage of getting better equipment. Some people are seeing 8-15 pieces of legendary loot playing on normal difficulty which I only think I got 1 piece.
The console version is based of the latest PC patch version which added the option to play on normal but with hard enemies, kind of like the maxplayers command in Diablo 2. I tried starting out on this level with a barbarian and died about 6 times in 10 minutes so I had to back it down.
Overall I'm really impressed and think that the console version is the best one. They are supposed to be releasing Loot 2.0 which fixes the issues on PC, I wish they would port the console controls over to the PC game, but I don't think that will happen. I need to try some online and see how that works and from what I've read it works very well. Blizzard does it again.
Something big is coming........
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Witcher 2, Dead Space 3
Witcher 2
Finally finished the game this weekend after starting it about 5 different times during the past year. The graphics and presentation are probably the best in any game, the detail is amazing. I played it on my triple monitor setup and it was awesome. My main gripe with the game is the combat, when the game first released there was some lag in the combat so it wasn't as fluid as it needed to be. They did release a mod that fixed this issue but even after that I still wasn't a fan of the combat.
I played most of the game on the easy mode because the story was interesting and I just wanted to be in the world. The best part of the game are the decisions that you have to make. Just about every decision in the Witcher games are tough because your choice will have it's consequences, there really isn't an easy, good vs bad choice. Even the smallest decisions could have long term impacts on the future, it's a really cool aspect that does make you want to play again or reload the last save to try something different. I reloaded my game several times to see the different outcomes.
Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt is coming out in 2014 and looks to be awesome. Hopefully they will get the combat right this time. The first game is still one of my favorite games of all times and even thought the second one falters a bit it's still an enjoyable game.
Dead Space 3
I fired that up last night and I'm not sure why I stopped playing it when it first came out. I loved the first 2 Dead Space games and so far the third game has been awesome. They did seem to speed up the game just a bit and they introduced more human enemies, but it still retains the eerie feeling of moving through tight levels and not knowing what might be around the corner. The enemies are as scary as ever and they do create tension when you see a couple running towards you. Some of the battles have been intense and I do catch myself breathing a little harder at the end of them. The opening sequence of the game has some great moments so I hope the rest of the game has more of them. I really liked the zero gravity missions of the second game and they seemed to have opened that up more in this game.
New Releases - Quite a few good games this week. Diablo 3 is now on consoles.
PC
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (download - $15) - Remember this fondly on the Genesis
Cosmic Predator (download - $4)
MirrorMoon EP (download - $10)
Outlast (download - $20) - FPS horror game. Looks very scary.
Rayman Legends - Pre-ordered and ready. Game has gotten some great reviews. The last game was one of the best platformers.
Total War: Rome II - Interested but probably too much learning curve.
Xbox 360
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (XBLA - $15)
Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate
Diablo III - Not sure how well this will translate to the consoles they did have to dumb down some of the UI.
Freefall Racers (XBLA)
Rayman Legends
PlayStation 3
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PSN - $15)
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (XBLA - $15)
Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate
Diablo III
KickBeat (PSN)
One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 (PSN - $50)
Rayman Legends
Wii U
Rayman Legends
Vita
KickBeat (PSN)
Rayman Legends
Finally finished the game this weekend after starting it about 5 different times during the past year. The graphics and presentation are probably the best in any game, the detail is amazing. I played it on my triple monitor setup and it was awesome. My main gripe with the game is the combat, when the game first released there was some lag in the combat so it wasn't as fluid as it needed to be. They did release a mod that fixed this issue but even after that I still wasn't a fan of the combat.
I played most of the game on the easy mode because the story was interesting and I just wanted to be in the world. The best part of the game are the decisions that you have to make. Just about every decision in the Witcher games are tough because your choice will have it's consequences, there really isn't an easy, good vs bad choice. Even the smallest decisions could have long term impacts on the future, it's a really cool aspect that does make you want to play again or reload the last save to try something different. I reloaded my game several times to see the different outcomes.
Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt is coming out in 2014 and looks to be awesome. Hopefully they will get the combat right this time. The first game is still one of my favorite games of all times and even thought the second one falters a bit it's still an enjoyable game.
Dead Space 3
I fired that up last night and I'm not sure why I stopped playing it when it first came out. I loved the first 2 Dead Space games and so far the third game has been awesome. They did seem to speed up the game just a bit and they introduced more human enemies, but it still retains the eerie feeling of moving through tight levels and not knowing what might be around the corner. The enemies are as scary as ever and they do create tension when you see a couple running towards you. Some of the battles have been intense and I do catch myself breathing a little harder at the end of them. The opening sequence of the game has some great moments so I hope the rest of the game has more of them. I really liked the zero gravity missions of the second game and they seemed to have opened that up more in this game.
New Releases - Quite a few good games this week. Diablo 3 is now on consoles.
PC
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (download - $15) - Remember this fondly on the Genesis
Cosmic Predator (download - $4)
MirrorMoon EP (download - $10)
Outlast (download - $20) - FPS horror game. Looks very scary.
Rayman Legends - Pre-ordered and ready. Game has gotten some great reviews. The last game was one of the best platformers.
Total War: Rome II - Interested but probably too much learning curve.
Xbox 360
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (XBLA - $15)
Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate
Diablo III - Not sure how well this will translate to the consoles they did have to dumb down some of the UI.
Freefall Racers (XBLA)
Rayman Legends
PlayStation 3
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (PSN - $15)
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD (XBLA - $15)
Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate
Diablo III
KickBeat (PSN)
One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 (PSN - $50)
Rayman Legends
Wii U
Rayman Legends
Vita
KickBeat (PSN)
Rayman Legends
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Saints Row IV DiveKick
Saints Row IV
Played co-op about 2 hours this weekend with Mark and had a blast. I've been playing Saints Row The Third recently and while that is an awesome game this new version is even crazier and funner.(spell check didn't mark this word.) One of my favorite games is Crackdown and they basically added the core game play concepts from that game into the Saints Row universe and it is awesome. You have super powers in the game, which is explained in the story, and the first two you get are super speed and super jump so you can run faster than cars and climb buildings easily. You use these skills to collect the 1125 clusters that are scattered around the world to upgrade and open new powers, we spent most of the time just collecting clusters.
DiveKick
An interesting fighting game that only uses two buttons, a jump and kick button, you move your character using those buttons as well, it's a game you can play with one hand. Most fighting games have too many complex button combinations that make it almost impossible to just pick up and play. Divekick strips away the complexity of the controls and makes actual fighting strategy the main focus. There are around 10 different characters who all jump and kick in different ways so there is a good variety which allows multiple strategies. Each round is only 30 seconds and one hit kills, if no one is hit within that time frame the character closest to the middle of the arena wins, it takes 6 kills to win the match.
New Releases - Some good games releasing this week.
PC:
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - Getting great reviews. Picking this up.
Castlevania: Lord of the Shadows - Already pre-ordered. The game was fantastic on the 360 and should look great on the PC includes the DLC which I never played.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Hopefully this fares better than the last time it launched.
Lost Planet 3 - Absolutely no press on this one, I haven't seen any ads or trailers.
PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate
Shelter - Want to care for some baby badgers?
PS3:
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F
Killer is Dead - Grasshopper game so I'm going to buy. Hopefully it plays well.
Lost Planet 3
Madden NFL 25 - Really debating this. If you buy the $100 Collectors edition you get Sunday Ticket for free on mobile devices. A decent deal.
PSV:
Real Boxing
Spelunky - Should be great on the platform.
360:
Killer is Dead
Lost Planet 3
Madden NFL 25
Painkiller: Hell and Damnation
WiiU:
New Super Luigi U
Pokemon Rumble
Played co-op about 2 hours this weekend with Mark and had a blast. I've been playing Saints Row The Third recently and while that is an awesome game this new version is even crazier and funner.(spell check didn't mark this word.) One of my favorite games is Crackdown and they basically added the core game play concepts from that game into the Saints Row universe and it is awesome. You have super powers in the game, which is explained in the story, and the first two you get are super speed and super jump so you can run faster than cars and climb buildings easily. You use these skills to collect the 1125 clusters that are scattered around the world to upgrade and open new powers, we spent most of the time just collecting clusters.
DiveKick
An interesting fighting game that only uses two buttons, a jump and kick button, you move your character using those buttons as well, it's a game you can play with one hand. Most fighting games have too many complex button combinations that make it almost impossible to just pick up and play. Divekick strips away the complexity of the controls and makes actual fighting strategy the main focus. There are around 10 different characters who all jump and kick in different ways so there is a good variety which allows multiple strategies. Each round is only 30 seconds and one hit kills, if no one is hit within that time frame the character closest to the middle of the arena wins, it takes 6 kills to win the match.
New Releases - Some good games releasing this week.
PC:
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - Getting great reviews. Picking this up.
Castlevania: Lord of the Shadows - Already pre-ordered. The game was fantastic on the 360 and should look great on the PC includes the DLC which I never played.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - Hopefully this fares better than the last time it launched.
Lost Planet 3 - Absolutely no press on this one, I haven't seen any ads or trailers.
PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate
Shelter - Want to care for some baby badgers?
PS3:
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F
Killer is Dead - Grasshopper game so I'm going to buy. Hopefully it plays well.
Lost Planet 3
Madden NFL 25 - Really debating this. If you buy the $100 Collectors edition you get Sunday Ticket for free on mobile devices. A decent deal.
PSV:
Real Boxing
Spelunky - Should be great on the platform.
360:
Killer is Dead
Lost Planet 3
Madden NFL 25
Painkiller: Hell and Damnation
WiiU:
New Super Luigi U
Pokemon Rumble
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Planescape Torment and Some Rumors
PlaneScape Torment
I put in about 8 hours over the weekend and I'm not sure how much longer I have until I finish the game, it's not on Steam so I can't see my total playtime. I've had to use a walk through a couple of times because the game is pretty massive and there are a ton of people to talk to and if you miss talking to one of them you can have a quest seem impossible to finish. That is probably my only gripe with the game in that the journal and quest log are not detailed enough and it's not easily searchable so it makes finding specific people or places cumbersome.
Stuff
Candy Crush Saga makes 650K per day.
Madden demo is out today for 360 and PS3.
Rayman Legends Demo Aug 20.
PS4 Launching Oct 21?????
GTA V coming to PC's this fall????
New Releases - A lot of games but I'm not buying much.
PC
DuckTales: Remastered (download - $15) - I never played the original but it's supposedly fondly remembered from the NES days.
Europa Universalis IV - You can import your Civilization Kings 2 Saves.
Gone Home (download - $20)
Hammerwatch (download)
Payday 2 (download - $30) - Improved over the first PayDay $30 seems a tad much for only a multiplayer game.
Postmortem (download - free)
Space Hulk (download - $30) - Interested in this one and will probably purchase based on reviews. Another tactical Turn based combat game.
Unholy Heights (download - $4) - Never heard of it.
Worms Clan Wars (download - $25) - Another worms game.
Xbox 360
Charlie Murder (XBLA - $10) - Read some positive impressions.
Disney Infinity - Here it is the next Skylanders type game which could make a lot of money since it's using Disney Characters.
Payday 2
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
PlayStation 3
Disney Infinity
DuckTales: Remastered (PSN - $15)
Mars: War Logs (PSN)
Payday 2
Thunder Wolves (PSN)
Wii U
Angry Birds Trilogy - Thought this already came out.
Disney Infinity
DuckTales: Remastered (eShop - $15)
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
DuckTales: Remastered and Disney Infinity
Wii
Angry Birds Trilogy
Disney Infinity
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
Nintendo 3DS
Disney Infinity
Donkey Kong (eShop - $5)
Heavy Fire: Black Arms 3D (eShop - $5)
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
Nintendo DS
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
I put in about 8 hours over the weekend and I'm not sure how much longer I have until I finish the game, it's not on Steam so I can't see my total playtime. I've had to use a walk through a couple of times because the game is pretty massive and there are a ton of people to talk to and if you miss talking to one of them you can have a quest seem impossible to finish. That is probably my only gripe with the game in that the journal and quest log are not detailed enough and it's not easily searchable so it makes finding specific people or places cumbersome.
Stuff
Candy Crush Saga makes 650K per day.
Madden demo is out today for 360 and PS3.
Rayman Legends Demo Aug 20.
PS4 Launching Oct 21?????
GTA V coming to PC's this fall????
New Releases - A lot of games but I'm not buying much.
PC
DuckTales: Remastered (download - $15) - I never played the original but it's supposedly fondly remembered from the NES days.
Europa Universalis IV - You can import your Civilization Kings 2 Saves.
Gone Home (download - $20)
Hammerwatch (download)
Payday 2 (download - $30) - Improved over the first PayDay $30 seems a tad much for only a multiplayer game.
Postmortem (download - free)
Space Hulk (download - $30) - Interested in this one and will probably purchase based on reviews. Another tactical Turn based combat game.
Unholy Heights (download - $4) - Never heard of it.
Worms Clan Wars (download - $25) - Another worms game.
Xbox 360
Charlie Murder (XBLA - $10) - Read some positive impressions.
Disney Infinity - Here it is the next Skylanders type game which could make a lot of money since it's using Disney Characters.
Payday 2
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
PlayStation 3
Disney Infinity
DuckTales: Remastered (PSN - $15)
Mars: War Logs (PSN)
Payday 2
Thunder Wolves (PSN)
Wii U
Angry Birds Trilogy - Thought this already came out.
Disney Infinity
DuckTales: Remastered (eShop - $15)
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
DuckTales: Remastered and Disney Infinity
Wii
Angry Birds Trilogy
Disney Infinity
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
Nintendo 3DS
Disney Infinity
Donkey Kong (eShop - $5)
Heavy Fire: Black Arms 3D (eShop - $5)
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
Nintendo DS
Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff
Friday, August 9, 2013
Papers, Please
Papers Please (Steam)
Here I sit in this small confined well guarded room, people are standing in a massive line waiting to pass through so they can conduct their business. It's almost 8 am and I just walked to work from my small apartment that I share with my wife, her mother, and our son. I only have $5 to my name and my son is sick because we can't afford to heat the house. I calculated last night that I need to process 20 people today so I can afford medicine. I quickly read over the new instructions that I receive each day from the head office, since we had a terrorist attack yesterday that resulted in one guard being killed, new arrivals will need to have an entry ticket as well as their passport. Two minutes till 8 so I get out my guidebook and turn to my bookmark so I can quickly assess each person. I click on the switch and the cold iron gate slides up slowly revealing behind it the dull gray brick wall that is my backdrop each long day. I press another button that turns on the microphone and I speak the words everyone is waiting to hear.......Next.
It's 9 pm now and I've had a long day, I sit cuddled next to my wife under many covers, the house is freezing. I was able to earn enough money to buy medicine but turning on the heat will have to wait for another day, I sure hope nothing else unexpected happens.
A new day, new instructions, they've upgraded the entry tickets to an entry pass, just one more document I need to check, this is starting to get complicated. The first group of people had all the proper documents, but then I one person had an entry ticket so I had to turn him away, I could hear him curse me under his breath and mentioned he paid a lot of money for that ticket. The next one had Female listed as his sex but I knew it was a man, I questioned him about it and they had no response so I sent them away, man I hate my job. After lunch I see Istiv, he's crazy, I wonder what he has for me this time. He steps into the booth and just stands there I smile then ask for paperwork, he apologizes and then slides me a passport that he clearly made himself, it's drawn in crayon and at the top it says pre-approved, the face does look like him though. I press the decline stamp and tell him to try again another day, I wonder how long he waited in line. It's getting close to 4 so my eyes are getting weary so I quickly glance at the paperwork and stamp approve and let them go, almost immediately there is a knock on my door and I receive a paper stating that I just let someone in with an expired passport and that my pay will be deducted at the end of the day. Man I hate my job..........
This game just showed up on Steam yesterday and I glanced and passed on it and purchased Spelunky and Guacamelee. I then visited a couple of websites and saw the Giantbomb quicklook and immediately returned to Steam and bought the game. The game is about a mundane job but it's suprisingly fun and stressful at the same time. There is a story mode which is what I wrote about above and an endless mode that opens up after you've completed the single player game. The story mode has something like 20 different endings so I'm curious as to what they are. I highly recommend this game, it's only $10 so give it a shot.
Here I sit in this small confined well guarded room, people are standing in a massive line waiting to pass through so they can conduct their business. It's almost 8 am and I just walked to work from my small apartment that I share with my wife, her mother, and our son. I only have $5 to my name and my son is sick because we can't afford to heat the house. I calculated last night that I need to process 20 people today so I can afford medicine. I quickly read over the new instructions that I receive each day from the head office, since we had a terrorist attack yesterday that resulted in one guard being killed, new arrivals will need to have an entry ticket as well as their passport. Two minutes till 8 so I get out my guidebook and turn to my bookmark so I can quickly assess each person. I click on the switch and the cold iron gate slides up slowly revealing behind it the dull gray brick wall that is my backdrop each long day. I press another button that turns on the microphone and I speak the words everyone is waiting to hear.......Next.
It's 9 pm now and I've had a long day, I sit cuddled next to my wife under many covers, the house is freezing. I was able to earn enough money to buy medicine but turning on the heat will have to wait for another day, I sure hope nothing else unexpected happens.
A new day, new instructions, they've upgraded the entry tickets to an entry pass, just one more document I need to check, this is starting to get complicated. The first group of people had all the proper documents, but then I one person had an entry ticket so I had to turn him away, I could hear him curse me under his breath and mentioned he paid a lot of money for that ticket. The next one had Female listed as his sex but I knew it was a man, I questioned him about it and they had no response so I sent them away, man I hate my job. After lunch I see Istiv, he's crazy, I wonder what he has for me this time. He steps into the booth and just stands there I smile then ask for paperwork, he apologizes and then slides me a passport that he clearly made himself, it's drawn in crayon and at the top it says pre-approved, the face does look like him though. I press the decline stamp and tell him to try again another day, I wonder how long he waited in line. It's getting close to 4 so my eyes are getting weary so I quickly glance at the paperwork and stamp approve and let them go, almost immediately there is a knock on my door and I receive a paper stating that I just let someone in with an expired passport and that my pay will be deducted at the end of the day. Man I hate my job..........
This game just showed up on Steam yesterday and I glanced and passed on it and purchased Spelunky and Guacamelee. I then visited a couple of websites and saw the Giantbomb quicklook and immediately returned to Steam and bought the game. The game is about a mundane job but it's suprisingly fun and stressful at the same time. There is a story mode which is what I wrote about above and an endless mode that opens up after you've completed the single player game. The story mode has something like 20 different endings so I'm curious as to what they are. I highly recommend this game, it's only $10 so give it a shot.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Cardhunter, Dragons Crown, Rise of the Triad
Cardhunter Beta
I've been in the beta for awhile and I've put in about 3 hours and I've had a great time. It is a CCG, but it's focus is more on the single player campaign than multiplayer. The card game uses a grid board where you place your characters and battles feel similar to the combat in Heroes of Might and Magic.
I have some beta keys if anyone is interested.
LWHF-NTCC-ZPHK
DQSC-WNHN-MJZL
Dragon's Crown (PS3)
Put in roughly two and a half hours last night and would have played more but I was exhausted. The game was developed by Vanillaware who are known for their beautiful 2D hand animated games and this one is no exception. It plays like Castle Crashers where you have up to 3 AI players fighting enemies with you. There are different character classes with different weapons and abilities plus loot drops so there are some RPG elements. The artwork is extremely detailed, the animations are very fluid, and the backgrounds look amazing, it's one of the best looking 2D games I've played. The combat can get hectic when there are 4 characters plus enemies on the screen so it can be tough to find your character sometimes. You can choose to just play by yourself and not have any AI companions if that does bother you. Once you play to a certain point in the game multiplayer opens up which has you going though similar dungeons from the single player but added pathways and extra enemies as well as bosses. From most of the reviews I've read the multiplayer is the best part of the game. I haven't reached that level yet, which I think is around 8-10 hours, so hopefully I'll get to try it soon. The game does support couch co-op so if you are looking for that type of game. There is also a Vita version that I almost got instead but I felt the graphics would look better on a bigger screen, the game does support cloud saves so you can share saves between platforms.
Rise of the Triad (Steam)
I remember playing this game years and years ago, it was different than the dooms and quakes as it had platforms that would send you soaring into the air and rocket launchers that would reduce enemies to a thousand pieces, I think it coined the phrase ludicrous Gibs. I'm not sure it reached the sales of Doom so I was surprised to see a remake. This game is probably the fastest FPS that I've every played. The camera movement speed is insane on the default level, I had to turn it almost all the way down to be able to hit what I was aiming at. The graphics looks pretty good but I've had instances of slowdown. They did include all the elements of the original even the coins that you collect make the same sound and of course there are ludicrous Gibs. I'm not sure that even at the $15 price point that it's worth it. The AI is very simple and the game has checkpoint saving so you will be replaying some long sections.
Stuff
Xbox One - Will include a headset. Game recording and sharing does require Gold membership. They did increase the clock speed of the graphics chip. There is a video of the launch version unboxing so the release should be soon.
PS4 - Game recording and sharing does not require PSN+.
John Carmack founder of ID and creator of Doom and Quake is new CTO for company creating the Occulus rift headset.
Rockstar did have an add for a PC programmer so maybe more of their games will come to PC, I'm hoping for Read Dead Redemption.
I've been in the beta for awhile and I've put in about 3 hours and I've had a great time. It is a CCG, but it's focus is more on the single player campaign than multiplayer. The card game uses a grid board where you place your characters and battles feel similar to the combat in Heroes of Might and Magic.
I have some beta keys if anyone is interested.
LWHF-NTCC-ZPHK
DQSC-WNHN-MJZL
Dragon's Crown (PS3)
Put in roughly two and a half hours last night and would have played more but I was exhausted. The game was developed by Vanillaware who are known for their beautiful 2D hand animated games and this one is no exception. It plays like Castle Crashers where you have up to 3 AI players fighting enemies with you. There are different character classes with different weapons and abilities plus loot drops so there are some RPG elements. The artwork is extremely detailed, the animations are very fluid, and the backgrounds look amazing, it's one of the best looking 2D games I've played. The combat can get hectic when there are 4 characters plus enemies on the screen so it can be tough to find your character sometimes. You can choose to just play by yourself and not have any AI companions if that does bother you. Once you play to a certain point in the game multiplayer opens up which has you going though similar dungeons from the single player but added pathways and extra enemies as well as bosses. From most of the reviews I've read the multiplayer is the best part of the game. I haven't reached that level yet, which I think is around 8-10 hours, so hopefully I'll get to try it soon. The game does support couch co-op so if you are looking for that type of game. There is also a Vita version that I almost got instead but I felt the graphics would look better on a bigger screen, the game does support cloud saves so you can share saves between platforms.
Rise of the Triad (Steam)
I remember playing this game years and years ago, it was different than the dooms and quakes as it had platforms that would send you soaring into the air and rocket launchers that would reduce enemies to a thousand pieces, I think it coined the phrase ludicrous Gibs. I'm not sure it reached the sales of Doom so I was surprised to see a remake. This game is probably the fastest FPS that I've every played. The camera movement speed is insane on the default level, I had to turn it almost all the way down to be able to hit what I was aiming at. The graphics looks pretty good but I've had instances of slowdown. They did include all the elements of the original even the coins that you collect make the same sound and of course there are ludicrous Gibs. I'm not sure that even at the $15 price point that it's worth it. The AI is very simple and the game has checkpoint saving so you will be replaying some long sections.
Stuff
Xbox One - Will include a headset. Game recording and sharing does require Gold membership. They did increase the clock speed of the graphics chip. There is a video of the launch version unboxing so the release should be soon.
PS4 - Game recording and sharing does not require PSN+.
John Carmack founder of ID and creator of Doom and Quake is new CTO for company creating the Occulus rift headset.
Rockstar did have an add for a PC programmer so maybe more of their games will come to PC, I'm hoping for Read Dead Redemption.
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