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........