The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone - Playthrough Part One

Rocket League: Dual

Back on the Horse

Hello, it's been a while.

Four and a bit months actually, my biggest break from writing about, well, anything since I started this thing.  Life has been pretty hectic the last four months, there's a book there somewhere, maybe, but it has been fun.  It's also been kind of gameless.  Those shiny new consoles have seen little to no action apart from the odd bit of COD and my weekends have been filled with a girlfriend, friends, family, kittens and Festivals instead of a game pad.  Then about two weeks ago I had my first weekend at home since the end of May and I put Watch Dogs back on.  It sucked me in a little, I actually forgot how much I liked the online aspect, the ability to hack and be hacked by other players and the story is kinda fun.

Then I received a text, 'Are you getting Diablo 3?'

I'd not even realised it was about to come out.  A game I'd deliberately avoided buying on PS3, because I knew it was coming out for next gen (or this gen, you know what I mean).  So I said yes and bought it on XboxOne.

Firstly, it's gaming mana.  Hitting things, lots of spells, collecting stuff, hitting some more things,  manage an inventory, craft things, hit that thing over there.  Lovely.  Secondly, it's gorgeous.  It might be a game with an isometric POV but it just sings on my One.  And at times there's a serious amount of stuff going on, like, an insane amount and there's no slow down, none.  It's the first game I've bought for one of the new consoles where I've really felt like I'm playing something worthy of the grunt under my TV.

Then there's the social bit.  Now the One, despite the annoying dashboard, does this better than the PS4, and the headset that comes with it is miles better than the one the PS4 ships with.  But all that aside the social bit of Diablo 3 is just a joy.  Playing with a friend, in this case @ben_cameron from Twitter, has been really good fun.  We've been playing through the story together and when we've not been able to, we've been building up another character each in a different class to the one we started with.  It's geek heaven, obviously, but both hitting the hell out of waves of demons and then both saying, 'Hang on, I need to check my loot,' is a genuine gaming marvel.  Yep, Diablo 3 is an old school dungeon crawler but it's just got so many layers.

So there you go, I'm back on the horse.  Bring on Destiny, Dragon Age 3, FIFA 15, The Division, The Witcher 3 and all.

I'm back.

Music and Games

For maybe three weeks I've been listening to a song on Radio One.  I liked it, and I finally got around to tweeting that I liked it without really knowing what it was.

I heard a song I really liked on the radio today. It was by some Canadians. That’s all I’ve got, sozza.
— diaryofaledger (@diaryofaledger) January 15, 2014

I know, I'm quite the wordsmith.  The thing is though after a bit of digging and after buying Half Moon Run's album,  I realised something.  It wasn't Radio One that sold the song to me, it was Assassin's Creed IV.

I mean obviously this had happened surreptitiously.  Which is probably how advertising is supposed to work or something, but I must have seen that ad half a dozen times at the cinema and turned to my mate and said, 'I can't wait to be a pirate' before hearing it on the wireless.  The song had floated into my receptive subconscious and sat there for a couple of months until Nick Grimshaw unlocked it on the breakfast show.  I can't get 6 Music in the car, stop judging me.

So a song and a game. Together as one, exciting and of course a one off.... BUT IT'S not.

You see last year I bought FIFA 13, or was it the year before?  I'm not sure.  Anyway it was FIFA 13 and I bought it somewhen between the years 2012 and 2013 and it had a song on it.

FIFA, you see, has menus screens between matches of the soccer and when you're on those screens, songs play.  Beautiful songs.  Most of them are a bit rubbish and not beautiful, you know, chart stuff that no one over 25 cares about.  But there was this one song, with admittedly a terrible middle eight, I really liked.  If I'm honest, because of the nature of gaming, I never quite got to the terrible middle eight while playing FIFA.  That's the trouble with gaming, no time to enjoy the soundtrack... Unless you're playing a Nintendo game and then all their soundtracks are brilliant and you love them... and you are mad.  Anyway the song was called G#.  It has a hashtag in the title so I was immediately drawn to it because I use them all the time, particularly on facebook.  I think deep down because the hash tag is after the 'G' I was duty bound to like it because that's not how you're supposed to do it and I like not doing things the way you're supposed to.  It turned out the song was by this little band from the States called Kitten and I bought a couple of their EPs.  I know, people still make EPs.   Who knew?  They're virtual EPs these days though which is much better for a reason I can't explain here.

Here is G#.

The video is terrible but imagine winning the Champions League with Colchester United and hearing it.  I know. Amazing.  (That actually happened.  Still skipped the middle eight.)

I love games.  I love music.  And now I'm finding music because of games.  It's a wonderful life.

Hurrah.

Xbox One v's PS4

Having both is possibly my biggest extravagance ever.  But y'know, I'm a gamer, it's kinda my thing, so two Thursday evenings in a row I stood in very different sized queues and bought an Xbox One and a PS4 and my credit card felt the burn.

I like them both.  They both feel like a step up from their predecessors but which one is the best?

GTA5

I drove up the coast to the pier, planning on getting in the little speed boat thing and collecting bits of a submarine but when I arrived the bar called, a gang was firing shots into it.  So I turned the car round and parked up, took out my sniper rifle and popped them from a distance.  One of the little bastards ran for it so I chased him down in my Audi and ran him down.  Job done.  Back to the pier.  An hour later I had the pieces of the submarine for the widowed wife pulling an insurance scam.  She gave me ten bucks for my trouble.  Ten.  She walked away.  Ten bucks.  I pulled out my rifle.  Three shots and she was down.  A couple of guys noticed on the pier and ran or it.  I turned and watch them jump on the railing at the end and dive into the sea.  The beautiful sea.  It was tempting to try and take them out but it had been a long day and I couldn't be bothered with a chase.  I turned and strode up the beautifully rendered wooden steps only to find the bloody car had gone.  The sun was dipping over the hills as I walked across the road to the car park and broke into one of the cheap looking 4x4s.  The owner was close by and spotted me, he dragged me out of the car, the fool.  Three punches and he was down.  The 4x4 was slow and I was hurrying to get home so I pulled in front of the BMW and took it.  Silly fucker was calling the cops as I drove off.  I got my chase anyway.  One star though so no bother.  Head into the hills, trash the BMW, switch cars.  Gone.

GTA has its faults.  Rampant sexism.  That torture scene.  All need addressing.  Big time.

BUT. BUT.  As a sandbox, nothing, nothing does is like this.  It is, if not one of the best, then one of the most impressive games ever.  Above is a snap shot of an hour and a half of GTA.  Every hour and a half in GTA is like this.  Ebb and flow, Trevor, Michael and Franklin chasing the money.  They scam, get scammed and kill folk.  They smoke dope in front of their TVs, pour a glass of scotch, make crystal meths and drive cars really fast.  A lot.

GTA5 isn't perfect, it is a flawed, sometimes terribly flawed, diamond.  But when you catch it in the right light it shines like nothing else.

MMO

MMOs had never ever tempted me before.  I'd dabbled, very very briefly with World of Warcraft but it just didn't grab me.  PC gamers will call me a philistine but I prefer my games on a console with a game controller my hands have moulded to.  But... Final Fantasy XIV had me intrigued, however the original version only ever came out on the PC, although by all accounts it was a huge disappointment.  Now though it's been relaunched as Final Fantasy XIV A Real Reborn and it is on PS3.  I'd heard good things about the Beta and decided for £25 and 30 days free it was probably worth trying out.

After a first week of long waits to get into the world of Eorza, or the downright failure of the servers all together, Square now have things up and running properly and I can honestly say I'm hooked.  It's nothing like I expected at all.

The Top Ten Games of the Outgoing Generation - #10 - Assassin's Creed 2

The first Assassin's Creed had been a major disappointment failing to live up to a brilliant marketing strategy.  But there had been promise, lots of promise.  With the sequel Ubisoft went to renaissance Italy and had a field day.

Everything that's come since in the series has stemmed from the glorious open world free running of this game, but what really made Assassin's Creed 2 sing was a lead character it was easy to invest in.  Ezio begins the game as a young care free rich boy.  He's already scaling walls but it's not until his father and brothers are hung and he becomes an Assassin, seeking revenge and justice for his family, that you really start to like him.

You take Ezio across two massive open world cities, a couple of towns and the Italian countryside.  It's a huge game to get lost in, brilliantly realised and full of stuff to do.  Discovery is key here.  Often the best areas are tucked away in seemingly inaccessible buildings or vaults.  You'll scale dizzying heights just to unlock a piece of the map and then dive off into a bale of hay far below, chase a thief over rooftops and get your equipment upgraded by your mate Leonardo Da  Vinci.  It's full of imagination, looks brilliant and put the series properly on the map.

Ezio's first tale spawned two sequels and while the series stubbornly refused to get rid of it's modern day premise (the game's actual protagonist is reliving the memories of his ancestors) this game in particular isn't damaged by it.  In fact it's ending sequence positively revelled in the madness of it all.
Ezio will go down as one of gamings greats characters.  The third game's muted Connor never really had a chance.  Over to you Edward Kenway.

Games Over Films

I sat in a cinema this week on my own (I know, so brave) watching the new Superman film wishing I could do what I'd do with a game.  I wanted to stop the narrative and explore.

At the moment I'm playing The Last of Us, a survival horror classic released towards the end of a console generation and I am, to all intents and purposes playing someone else's story.  But, and there's a huge but, I can pause the story and poke around in each area of the game as much as I like.  There's reward for doing it, it's almost a necessity in a post zombie apocalypse, but I could forget my meanderings if I chose to and plough forward.  But for me they bring the world of Joel and Ellie, as they struggle across America, to life in a way a film can't do.  The better the story telling gets in games (and it is getting better) the more appealing they become and the worlds they sit within are becoming more and more tangible.  Games also tend to last considerably longer than a lonely trip to Cineworld.

Mass Effect: This is the End?

Spoilers contained in this post.

There's a small section in Mass Effect 3 where you climb to a really high point of The Citadel, a massive space station built tens of thousands of years ago and throw bottles into the air with a squad mate and try to hit them with a sniper rifle.  You barely even play this section, apart from deciding whether to let him win or not and yet, without a doubt, it's one of the most touching moments I've ever seen in a game.

Mass Effect 3: Video Blog #1

Okami (Part 2)

As Amaterasu, you travel across Nippon with your companion, the tiny celestial envoy Issun, who provides most of the comic relief, particularly if he's talking to a lady who's taken his fancy. The game's initial hook is its visual style, which takes traditional Japanese water colours as its inspiration. The animation of Amaterasu is wonderful, with flowers sprouting up behind her as she travels across Nippon. Over time, you will converse with various gods who will imbue her with powers that she has lost during her long sleep which, in true Metroid-vania style, will open up pathways to areas you have been able to see but unable to access. You'll meet a wonderfully varied cast of characters, the majority of whom who are unable to see Amaterasu for who she is, but will converse with the ever chattering Issun. Doing favours for these people, as well as feeding the friendly animals, will earn you praise, which can unlock more life, or alternative abilities, RPG-style.

Mordin Sings in Mass Effect 2

Possibly one of the oddest moments in a game ever.

Yes, that is a glimpse of my FemShep.

Born Again in Mass Effect

It was a tough break, the day my 360 died and took my Mass Effect game save with it, but after taking a deep breath and two weeks off I restarted my 'Mass Effect experiment' and began the trilogy all over again. 

Okami (Part 1)

Greetings! I’m Toby, otherwise known as @timePoorGamer. Gray has kindly agreed to let me write the occasional column on his excellent website, so I’ll be chipping in from time to time with some kind of game related stuff. I’m going to be taking things in a more retrospective direction than Gray, so we shouldn’t crossover on subject matter too much. I have a tendency to write a lot, and he’s told me to keep them fairly short, so let’s see how this works. First up:

Ōkami (part 1 of 2)

Ōkami is the most beautiful game I have ever played. Yup, even in these days of high definition gaming, I have yet to see something that caught me in the same way it did. Sure, there are games now with better graphics – the gorgeous Skyrim being a great example – but with Ōkami there’s beauty in the entire package that’s not found in the same way anywhere else. It’s a game that gets frequently mentioned in the “Are games art?” debate; I’m not going to get into that here (do games even need to be art?), but if you are familiar with it, you’ll know why.

The Day Mass Effect Died

Some of you will no doubt have finished Mass Effect, had a reaction one way or another to the ending and moved on with your lives.  Others among you won't have a clue what Mass Effect is or care remotely.  For me Mass Effect began as an experiment.  I'd not played the games that I'd heard so much about and I wanted to see what my reaction would be to the ending that caused so much controversy.  So I started from the beginning with a six year old game and slowly fell in love.

Bio Shock Infinite: God Only Knows

This is all kinds of brilliant.  Occurs about twenty minutes in to the game.

Diablo III on a PS3

First trailer of Diablo III running on a PS3.  Looks pretty.  Will you be getting this or hanging back for the PS4 version?

Skyrim: Real Vision

Skyrim, running with around 150 mods on a high end PC.  Stunning.  Roll on PS4.

Terminal

Terminal was a map on Modern Warfare Two you always looked forward to ticking around.  It was set in the infamous opening level of the single player campaign.  You know the one right?  The one where you played as a terrorist gunning down civilians in one of the most inappropriate gaming segments from recent years.  All the praise Infinity Ward had heaped upon them, after the first Modern Warfare, was quickly replaced with scathing criticism.  Did it hurt sales?  No, sales were beyond what anyone could imagine.