lundi 30 décembre 2013

My PS3 broke for the last time.

I've owned a "fat" MGSIV-bundle 80GB (upgraded to 500GB) PS3 since 2008. It has been my main companion in gaming-related activities (i.e. : gaming). This evening, it got the infamous Yellow Light of Death (YLOD) for the 4th or 5th time in the past 18 months as I was just done playing the highly-anticipated Gran Turismo 6. Now the dude I usually go to for that repair charges me 50$ for a YLOD, but I'm done paying more and more for that same console which keeps breaking down.

So I've decided to retire that very console and buy a new PS3. Now, since I don't have 200$ laying around and considering the fact I've bought a PS4 at launch, I can't justify buying a brand-new console just yet. I will buy that next PS3 new, probably a Slim/SuperSlim version, which breaks down waaay less often. When? I don't know, but I hope I'll have the money soon enough as I have many games to finish on that console, mainly Zone of the Enders HD Collection, Katamari Damacy, Dark Souls, Ni No Kuni and the aforementioned GT6.

I was mildly pissed when it happened, but I'm certainly not going to complain about it when I have a Wii, a PS4, a 3DS XL and a PSVita lying around.

lundi 23 décembre 2013

What Am I Playing NOW - Part V

Since I got a PS4 a few weeks ago, you would think I would play on it non-stop, that my PS3 (my main seventh-generation console) would only gather dust. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. While I enjoyed three different games during that time on the PS4, I still spent more time on the PS3, trying to clean the slate before the big games arrive in spring.


These past few weeks I played mainly through Puppeteer, a very pretty and entertaining platformer which takes place in a theater setting. I say very beautiful because I think the artistic design is as impressive as anything I've experienced this generation. The game itself is longer than you'd expect - I would estimate around 10-12 hours to go through the seven acts - but it always fits the purpose of the story. As this game takes place in a theater with, curtains, acts and a "live" audience, you'd be entirely right to think that it would be focused on the storyline. The plot itself is not revolutionary, but it is delivered masterfully by the rich characters and fantastic voice-acting. The gameplay is sadly not as superb as the character or artistic design, but it is solid enough and offers the player a unique control scheme based around the use of "Calibrus", a pair of legendary scissors your hero use to do basically everything from slicing enemies to traveling at high speed through fabric. You also collect heads as you go along (your head - you are a puppet, and I should've mentioned that earlier - has been taken at the beginning of the adventure by the main enemy, the Moon Bear King), and those heads have unique abilities. However, these abilities are basically useless for the main storyline, as they only serve to open bonus stages (one per curtain, three per act) or to shower you with gifts like stars (the "coins" of Puppeteer). Overall, it's a pretty entertaining and charming game, and definitely one of the best PS3 exclusives of 2013.

I also just finished Contrast this past week, a PSN game for the PS4 which was - and still is - offered for free to the PS+ subscribers. You play as Dawn, a woman who can only be seen by a little girl named Didi, and you have the ability to shift in and out of walls using your own shadow and other objects'/people's shadows to move around. As Dawn, you help Didi discover what exactly is going on with her dysfunctional family - and actually help said family - through a series of 3D/2D puzzles. The ability to shift into walls is the focal point here, and is interesting enough to carry the game all by itself. Otherwise, the gameplay is a bit clunky and is subject to glitches at some points. Some puzzles, like the one where you have to repair an pirate ship attraction for a circus, are well done enough that you see the potential in this new gameplay mechanic, but the puzzles are wildly uneven and hinder the fun of the game. The game last about 3 to 4 hours, depending on you puzzle-solving skills and whether or not you're committed to finding all the collectibles. Overall, it's a solid game solely on that shadow-shifting gameplay mechanic, and I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel - or spiritual sequel - in the future.

 
Back to the PS3, I just started Katamari Forever, which has to be one of the weirdest games ever. I'm not sure I understand exactly what the point is, but basically you have to roll around with a Katamari (a ball upon which everything sticks) and form the largest possible ball, which will become a star. Why? Because your father, the King of All Cosmos, has destroyed every star for some reason. If it seems to you as a peculiar setting for a video game, you're entirely right. But so far (I've done 3 stages only), it's pretty entertaining even if I suck as I'm still getting used to the controls which use, almost exclusively, the two joysticks. More to come on this strange game.

Finally, we'll finish on the 3DS, where I've only just got the Master Sword in the new game The Legend of Zelda : A Link Between Worlds. It's a well-known fact for everyone around me that I LOVE the Zelda franchise, which I consider to be the greatest videogame series ever. A quick glance at my personal "Greatest Games of All-Time" rankings will tell you that much, as 3 Zelda titles occupy the top 10, including the #1 spot for, obviously, Ocarina of Time. This new title, A Link Between Worlds, is the sequel (a rare moment for a Zelda game) to A Link to the Past, the wildly - and widely - loved SNES masterpiece. A few hours in, it has become quite evident that Nintendo has pulled it off, creating a whole new game in a very familiar setting. Since I'm really not done with the game, let's point out the two most interesting gameplay features - so far - this game is offering. First, you'll gain, very early in the game, the ability to merge in - and out of - walls as a painting, which, as you might suspect, opens up the game quite a bit and makes for very interesting puzzles and combat strategies (you can't stay in wall forever, you have a gauge to consider). The transitions are seamless and very satisfying to execute, unlike in Contrast, where it often gets clunky. The second will be a real surprise to anyone who has played many Zelda games in the past. Most of the series' beloved items, like the bow, the bombs or the boomerang, are not found in dungeons as usual, acting like a clue to which item will be required to defeat the dungeon's boss. No, they're all at your house, available for rent from a merchant named Rovio. What you have to do, then, is rent whichever items (all of them if you want), for a price between 20 and 100 rupees, you'll want to use. You can keep the rented items as long as you please, unless you die, an event upon which Rovio will take his items back and you'll have to rent them again. At first I thought I wouldn't like this feature, since I've always loved finding items in dungeons, as it felt like a tremendous accomplishment. But so far it has proved to be another great idea by Nintendo, basically asking the player to plan ahead and keep a lookout on his rupees count in the case he dies. A Link Between Worlds, after a few hours, is shaping to be a real winner and clearly among the best games of 2013.

samedi 7 décembre 2013

Seventh Generation Review - Most memorable moments

The 8th generation has - mostly - arrived and it's time to look back at the rather excellent Seventh Generation slowly leaving us. Last time I reviewed what I perceived to be the best franchises of this generation, and Bioshock took the proverbial cake in a very, very close fight with Portal. This time around I'll look back at the most memorable moments of the 7th gen. There will be mainly in-game moments, obviously, but there will also be a few industry-related events which captured my attention and deserve to be mentioned here. There will be no rankings involved, although some will definitely be more "important" than others.

The Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare campaign
Regardless of the general feelings towards what the Call of Duty franchise represents today, no one can argue the importance Modern Warfare had. Much has been said and written about the now-omnipresent multiplayer feature, so I'll skip over that. What I'll remember most about it is the campaign, which is still the best I've ever played in a military FPS (and that's saying something). I specifically remember, as most everyone who played this game will, three moments.
  • The first one is the "All Ghillied Up" mission, which had me holding my breath from A to Z. As I was crawling around listening to Captain McMillan, I was constantly thinking : "I can't believe I'm doing this, how the f*** did they achieve this?" And basically every military FPS has tried to emulate this mission since, including all the other Call of Duty games I've played. It shows how important it really was.
  • The second one is your character dying when the nuclear bomb hits. As I was witnessing Sgt Jackson slowly agonizing, I kept thinking what games had taught me for the past 15+ years : Your character never dies. So obviously something was going to happen soon to save me. But nothing happened. You simply died. 
  • The last one, while not as epic as the first two, was one of the most enjoyable and captivating missions ever designed. I can't remember the name, but you're in the AC-130 raining death upon your enemy via your black-and-white screen while receiving orders through radio. It's pretty darn amazing and copied 19748927 times since. It's no wonder CoD4 stands tall as one of the most important games of all-time.
The PSN "outage"
I don't know what to call that "event" exactly. I've read terms like "Security breach", "Intrusion", "Hack" among others. No matter how you call it, it was a big mess, as Sony acknowledged sincerely. Since I wasn't (and still isn't) much of an online gamer, it didn't affect my playing time on a day-to-day basis, but it was still a bit freaky that a company as large, as powerful and as seemingly untouchable as Sony could be hit like that. While it didn't affect me personally (apart of hooking me on PS+, which they offered for a sizable discount after the outage), it did beg the question of personal information security in this new day and age.

The Bioshock : Infinite reveal
Rarely - if ever - have I been more hyped for a game. And it all started with this trailer and this gameplay video. Still epic years later.

The first platinum trophy
Some people will likely remember their first achievement or first trophy (depending on which console you preferred at that moment. For me though I had to log on to psnprofiles.com to remember which trophy was my first (2x multiplier from LittleBigPlanet), but I really didn't need it to identify my first platinum. It was the Fallout 3 platinum trophy. I have to admit I needed help (from the Internet) for a few of them, notably the one where you have to find and defeat the 5 Super Mutant Behemoths in the game, but I loved the game so much I didn't really care about extra hours spent roaming around. And it has to be said I only have 12 platinums, so I kinda remember all of them a little bit. But the first one was extra special.

The LittleBigPlanet introduction
Opinions might differ on LBP's real worth in the gaming industry (I personally think it's an awesome piece of work), but few - if any - can deny the quality of the game's introduction. It's such a happy moment, I couldn't help but smile, amazed by the beauty and happiness of it all. Obviously, the narrator himself, Stephen Fry, played a large part in its charm - the British accent does help. Anyway, while I was guided through the main features of the game, I once thought something along the lines of "Hey, this intro will soon end. No! I don't want it to. It's way too much fun. Don't end!" And that says it all.



The Bioshock "plot twist"
I won't go into too many details in case someone still hasn't played the game - and if that's the case, close this window and go play it now - and plans on playing it. Bioshock is one of the most beautifully crafted adventures ever conceived. And, for me, it all starts with the storyline, exquisitely written mysterious. When you reach the confrontation with Andrew Ryan and discover the true meaning of your presence in Rapture, you probably won't believe your eyes nor your ears. I clearly remember being frozen, jaw on the floor and not knowing what to do or think. Remarkably executed.

Telltale's The Walking Dead
All of it. Every single second of it was just amazing. The most amazing part is, I went in thinking : "Oh this thing was free (1st episode) on PS+, let's try it" with absolutely no knowledge of the game, the comic books or the TV Series. I finished Episode One in a flash and immediately purchased the rest. I just couldn't wait. I'm the kind of gamer who usually - meaning 90% of the time - doesn't play for more than an hour at the time. But playing this, I just HAD to finish the episode if I started it. I finished it in about a week and it won my Game of the Year award for 2012 over games like Borderlands 2, Dishonored and Journey. All of which were pretty epic. Anyway, now I have started the Comic book series and it's yet another very enjoyable experience.

Metal Gear Solid 4's ending
Truth be told, I never played a Metal Gear Solid game before I got my hands on my PS3. In fact, the PS3 model I bought was a Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle, so I kinda had no choice but to play it. And I have to admit I was intrigued because that website I used to visit in 2008 gave it a very rare (for that website) 10 out of 10. Anyway, MGS4 bamboozled me for a while because the story was extremely hard to understand (at least for me), but the end stuck in my mind for some reason. I particularly remember when Old Snake had to go through a tunnel filled with some sort of microwaves burning through his suit and his flesh. As he slowly crawled for what seemed like hours, I felt very uncomfortable watching this old man suffer like this and all I could do was press "X" infinitely. After witnessing that, you had no choice but feel emotionally attached with Snake. The following fist fight with Liquid was beyond unexpected and the hour-long ending cinematic confused me even more, but it sealed what I consider to be a very important game of the Seventh-Generation.

Bloodwing's death in Borderlands 2
In last year's awards, I pointed out how fond I was of Bloodwing following the superb original Borderlands and how actually pissed I was when he was killed by Handsome Jack in Borderlands 2. Anyhow, as painful and sad as it was, I have to say it was a powerful - and memorable - moment.



Many, many things in The Last of Us
This game was as close to perfection as any this last generation. I'm not going to say anything here you haven't read anywhere on the Internet or in magazines, as it was widely acclaimed by critics and gamers alike. But damn... it is a fantastic piece of work. You could point out more than a few very powerful moments, like the perfect ending or Ellie savagely killing David in the burning restaurant, but I found that the game and the characters felt more alive and real in the small details. The conversations, the one-liner, the way Ellie sits somewhere when you try to figure out something, all the little things together make for a fantastic, epic game.

Fus Ro Dah!
Fus Ro Dah, a Dragon Shout acquired in Skyrim which can be translated by "Unrelenting Force", is one of the most satisfying thing ever put in a video game. Most of us grew with Dragon Ball's Kamehameha as the ultimate attack, yelling it hundreds of time because it was such a thrilling thing to imagine, blasting people off with pure energy. I think, in a way, the Dragonborn's Fus Ro Dah enabled us gamers to experience the closest thing to a Kamehameha yet. When you finally get the whole shout, you can't wait to try it on people, animals, enemies, anyone! It's so powerful and savage, and now I want to play Skyrim all over again. Which I probably will...

First time going around the Nürburgring in Gran Turismo 5
Top Gear (UK, not that terrible US version) transformed me from someone who didn't care about cars to someone who reads EVO and Top Gear every month. And when you talk about exotic cars, sports cars or basically any car with any sense of speed, the Nürburgring is a must. So in Gran Turismo 5 I was pretty anxious to try it out. But it wasn't available from the start of the game, you had to unlock it by completing a challenge. And I didn't complete that challenge until much later. Therefore, the first time I "drove" on the Nürburgring was in A-Spec in a VW Polo race. Sure, a 100hp-or-so car doesn't sound as enticing as a Ferrari F40, but it worked for me just fine. Since the car wasn't extremely fast and very easy to handle, I could enjoy my ride around the world's most famous track. And it was a blast. I enjoyed it like I couldn't believe what I had just did. The track is so tricky, so long and so intense. Eventually I went around in other cars (GT-R, SLS, etc.), but that first time was unforgettable.

The M95 Sniper in Battlefield : Bad Company 2
In my many years of gaming, I've yet to come across a Sniper Rifle half as satisfying as the M95 was in BC2. I don't know if it's the "best" or the most powerful one in the game and frankly, I don't even care. Just hear the sound this thing makes. It's so violent, so powerful, so freaking manly, it feels like it could pierce through a meter of concrete without even slowing down one iota. As youtuber nickbunyun once said, I'm pretty sure you can hear it from other servers. Not only that, but using that sniper in BC2's multiplayer made me actually a decent Recon soldier. I'm usually not a sniping type of player in online shooters, I'm always a tenth too slow. With most gun types, it doesn't matter, but with a sniper, it makes a HUGE difference. In BC2, I was actually not bad with the M95, I even managed a few solid kill streaks. Sure, I was still way better as an engineer or assault, but that gun made me decent at something I was bad at... and that sound.

jeudi 14 novembre 2013

The 8th generation is upon us!

So yesterday I received this in the mail :


(And then my cat tried to eat it).

So I got my first PS4 game! For a few weeks I went back and forth between this game and Battlefield 4 as being my first 8th gen game. I finally went, obviously, for Killzone. I still might get Battlefield before or around Christmas because it does look epic, at least the multiplayer component of it, which is basically what BF4 is for.

And, furthermore, this morning I received an e-mail from Amazon where they told me my PS4 would ship tomorrow morning (Friday)! I will probably get it by next Monday or Tuesday. I'll have more hands-on info when it gets here.

samedi 26 octobre 2013

Talking the Talk without Walking the Walk

In a previous post I mentioned how, around the year 2008, I started participating in forums and discussions on a popular video game website (for various reasons, I've stopped visiting that website nearly two years ago). Since that time, I've discovered many gaming websites, blogs, Youtube channels, magazines. My two main references for any gaming-related news, reviews, previews, random features, analysis, etc. today are the website GamesRadar and the magazine EDGE, although I still visit other websites from time to time and for a few years I read various publications on the gaming world.

Anyway, I realized recently that I've been spending quite a lot of my free time reading, listening, watching anything gaming-related instead of actually playing games. And it's not the first time something like this has happened. I remember that, when I was in university, I was very active on that gaming forum I mentioned earlier and I probably spent hours per day debating with strangers about games and sports (the website had a sports forum as well). Of course, I didn't have as much time to play games since I had to study, but even when I got home and had free time on my hands, I still spent many hours per week on that website instead of actually playing the games we discussed or argued about. And I didn't hate it at all. I loved reading other people's opinion on games, why they love or dislike certain games or genres (as long as the argument making some sense, not the "HAlo3 iz bettar than everyting it haz colord tanks you guyz al suk balz wit gay-ass Cal off doody" type of arguments).

It seemed to me illogical to talk about something more often than actually doing the thing. Then I started to think about it a bit more. There are certain subjects, hobbies or activities where it makes a lot of sense to spend more time talking about it than doing it. For example, if you like climbing, you might talk about it a lot with friends and people who do this activity with you, many hours per week, but you can't realistically practice climbing many hours per week if you have a regular job and other responsibilities (and it can get expensive). Another example is professional athletes. Certain sports, like American Football, require a tremendous amount of preparation per week for a 3-hour game, and a lot of it is off the field.

So the act of "talking more than doing" is not at all illogical in certain cases where the talking actually helps the doing a LOT. However, as far as gaming is concerned, it's kinda hard to justify doing so. But I honestly think it helped me being a "better" gamer. Not getting-high-kill/death-ratios-and-high-scores-better, but more capable of understanding gaming as an industry, as a "world" Understanding who the developers and publishers are, which games influenced others in the same genre and whether genres really should be a thing anymore, how JRPGs dominated a certain era, the development (a bit) of physics engines, etc. I'm certainly not pretending to know everything and anything gaming-related. Faaaaaaar from that, actually. Very far. I still consider myself a sort of novice regarding many aspects of the gaming industry, but I love to learn about it. I love reading interviews with Mark Cerny, the PS4 system architect, or Platinum Games founder Shinji Mikami. I think it's a fascinating, fast-growing and always-evolving industry.

Thinking about it, I kinda love the fact that video games are a bit more than a simple "hobby" for me. Considering all the time I spent on reading and watching all that stuff, I can safely say it's more of a passion, not unlike (even it's to a lesser degree) my lifelong passion for basketball. This situation kinda reminds me of what happened to me this week while talking to a colleague where I currently work (a bookstore). I was explaining to her what my field of study was (teaching), and while I was pointing out why I chose teaching as a career, it made me realize (even more) how much I love teaching. Same thing happened here. While trying to make sense of me spending more time talking/reading/watching games than actually playing them, I realized how much I like Gaming as a whole. A passion, if you will.

samedi 5 octobre 2013

How "Bit.Trip presents Runner2 : Future Legend of Rhythm Alien" explains life

A while ago, I read an "article" on a video game website explaining how the legendary game Tetris can serve as a metaphor for life. At the time, I thought it was a pretty funny (and silly) piece of writing, but it still held some "truth" regarding modern human life.

But the other night, just as I was falling asleep, I had a life-altering revelation : the game that really explains life is not Tetris, it's actually Bit.Trip presents Runner2 : Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (and since that's a mouthful, let's just shorten it to Runner2).

Here are the several truths you can extract from Gaijin Games' side-scrolling platformer  :

1. No matter who you are, life goes on at the same speed.

So far, humanity has yet to discover how to make time - here on our blue planet, forget the going-to-space stuff - stop, slow down or even go faster. An hour will last an hour for every human being walking the planet today, whether said human is rich, poor, Canadian, Ukrainian, Indian, black, white, gay, heterosexual, skinny, fat, etc. In Runner2, every character (man, woman, walking pickle, burger-headed guy, etc.) goes at the same speed. You can't stop. You can't go backwards. You can't slow down. You can't accelerate (there are speed pads at some point but you can't choose to go faster by yourself). Time and speed are the same for everybody.

2. Things start out pretty easy, but it slowly becomes tougher and tougher to cope with everything going on. Happily, you always learn new abilities and skills to deal with whatever life throws at you.

During the first few months of your life, you clearly had very few skills except for breathing, laughing, crying and pooping. But you didn't HAVE to do anything else just yet, so it all worked fine. Eventually though, you had to deal with social pressure and your entourage's needs and learned how to walk, to speak, to interact with other human beings. As you begin that huge challenge named "school", you learn how to count, to write, you become capable of reasoning to a certain extent, you learn a new language and/or a sport. Later on, in high school, as social and academic interactions become extremely more complicated, you develop any pertinent skill needed to survive the harsh environment of your school, be it sarcasm, sense of humor, understanding trigonometry, getting a driver's license or hitting 85% from the free-throw line. College is more of the same, only tougher and you often have to combine other skills to get by. But you're brighter (or at least you please yourself thinking so) so you learn how to deal with it. And finally the adult, who learns - often on the fly - many of life's more boring skills like taxes, mortgage, washing the windows because Good-Lord-these-things-get-dirty-fast, getting life insurance, saving money so your kid can get into private school, etc.. At least now you're a master in all the other basic skills you learned earlier in life, and they're now basically automatic. Even if sometimes you will inexplicably botch the easiest word ever in an awkward social situation or scratch your car wheel on the sidewalk for no apparent reason.

The same goes with Runner2. Starting off, easy, you don't even have to do a thing, the game propels you forward without you having any say at all. Then you face the first obstacles, which oblige you to react and jump. Good. Eventually other obstacles can't be avoided by jumping, but only by sliding. You learn how to slide. The you learn how to use a shield. Then how to kick barriers down. Then how to slide-jump, or jump-kick, or slide-kick, or jump-shield. Then combinations, which require thumbs-wizardry and good hand-eye coordination. Your newly learned skills serve you well. But you still have to do basic stuff sometimes, like a simple jump over a single obstacle. And even after clearing dozens of amazingly complicated obstacles like a boss, you might f*** up on a single, extremely simple jump. And you wonder what the hell just happened. A bit like hitting 23 fade-away three-point shots in a row with an annoying defender in your face to bring the score to 83-85, then missing the game-tying layup on a breakaway on next possession. Good God that's humiliating.



3. The big scary challenges you will face are actually a plethora of simple, small challenges bundled together. Take them apart, and everything will become easier.

Let's face it, life is hard. It is full of challenges, small like your jeans' zipper getting stuck in the denim, big like learning to drive a manual car at 16 or like preparing for that huge exam coming up in two weeks you still haven't started to study. We all deal with those small challenges on a daily basis, and while some are more annoying than others, we usually go through them in a matter of seconds or minutes. Sweeping the living room is annoying, but it rarely takes more than 10-15 minutes. Filling up your car is not the most entertaining endeavor in your week, but you're done in a few minutes and it's not hard. You don't fear the day you'll have to sweep or fill up your gas tank (unless you have a big-ass SUV). But you most likely dread those renovations you'll have to do in that house you just bought. It's such a big enterprise and it's kinda scary when you look at it as a whole : "I have to redo the whole kitchen and the living room. Everything!!". But take it apart and it's basically a ton of small, relatively easy tasks you have to do one after the other : painting a wall there, installing an electricity cable there, nailing a few 2"x4" here, bringing in and plugging that new shiny fridge, moving that couch over there, drilling a sheetrock panel here etc. Every basic task, all by itself, is relatively easy and can be done in a few minutes (painting is a tad longer, but it's pretty damn easy, so there). You don't have to do the WHOLE thing in one single "task", you do each step separately. When you look at it this way, it's still time-consuming, but it's not a "hard" project anymore. That's how I see it, in any case.

In Runner2, I'm pretty sure that if I could have, before starting a level, looked at what was ahead and every obstacle I'd have to go through, I would have put my controller down and walked away. Like you might have done in high school when seeing that 20-pages-long math exam you have to do in 3 hours (with a pencil, not a controller). But each obstacle will come in its own time and you'll deal with it when it comes. From far apart it would look like a wall of obstacles, but basically it's a bunch simple obstacles stacked together and you have to deal with each one separately. A jump there. A slide there. A jump-kick there. A slide-jump there. Individually, these little tasks are quite easy. I said earlier that it can sometimes require some "thumbs-wizardry", which is true, but you take them one by one as they come and not try to overdo everything, it's a lot simpler. That's how I got through the harder levels. I said to myself : "Yes it looks hard, but a bit of concentration will help you see each task on its own". And it worked, as I actually beat every single level on hard when I'm usually not that good in side scrolling platformers.

As you can see, Runner2 can really help understand life, its truths and how to cope with everything... All kidding aside, it's a very entertaining game and I strongly recommend you play it!

jeudi 19 septembre 2013

What Am I Playing Now - Part IV


When I wrote Part III of this feature nearly 3 months ago, I mentioned how "early" 2013 games like Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite were contenders for the best game of 2013 crown. While both are still amongst the best games of this whole generation, they were up against such excellent competition this year they had no chance to stay on top. That "excellent competition", you will have guessed, is Naughty Dog's The Last of Us.

While I finished that game maybe 6 weeks ago, its impact is too important to be ignored here. I'm not going to drag on for too long here, but let's just say The Last of Us will have a prominent role on the upcoming "Best Games of the Seventh-Generation" list.

Since I finished that epic, hype-shattering masterpiece (I'm not even exaggerating), I turned my attention to the third/fifth installment in Ubisoft's Triple-A franchise Assassin's Creed. After finishing, earlier this year, the good-but-not-excellent Assassin's Creed : Revelations and being, at last, intrigued by Desmond's story, I went ahead and bought Assassin's Creed III for 19 dollars at Costco, thinking it was a bargain. It was not. ACIII is by far the weakest entry in the series so far. The hero, Connor Kenway, is painfully uninteresting and very hard to root for. In fact, halfway through the game, I found myself rooting for the Templars instead of the Assassins. That's kinda problematic. Not only that, but the pacing of the game is completely off, the transition between cutscenes and gameplay was horrific and made the storyline very difficult to follow. At many points during the game I thought about abandoning it, only to fight the urge because I wanted to see how Desmond's story would eventually end... The ending was very awkward and off-putting, and not in a good way. I probably would have been better off reading the plot on wikipedia. Anyway, the game was somewhat saved by the solid gameplay and by the impressive amount of content (side quests, hunting, naval missions). Overall this game could have been a 4.5 / 10 and somehow ended up in the mid-6s range. Not abysmal, but certainly a long way off the quality of Ezio's adventures.

After that I played a game offered for free on PS+ a few months ago : Sleeping Dogs. This GTA-like puts you in the shoes of an undercover cop operating working his way inside a Hong Kong triad named Sun On Yee (Fun fact : if you google it you will eventually come across the Wikipedia entry for Sun Yee On, a real-life Hong Kong triad). The cop's story is interesting enough to take you through the 30 main missions this game offers, but he's pretty much a one-man-show throughout the game. The only other two or three interesting NPCs aren't exploited enough to make them stand out as much as they could. Same goes for the setting. Hong Kong looks very pretty in Sleeping Dogs, with tall skyscrapers and bright colored neons highlighting the Chinese and Western influences on the city. However, it's a bit dull. Sure, there are a few side quests available, random events triggered and a few favors to complete for people, but they get old quick and very few are actually fun. As far as the gameplay is concerned, Sleeping Dogs does one thing very well : hand-to-hand combat. Apparently influenced by some Tony Jaa's movie, the melee combat system is excellent, one of the best I've experienced in a non-fighting game except maybe for the Arkham franchise. But I have to say some of the in-combat QTE prompts weren't as sharp as I would have hoped, making for a few frustrating encounters. You have two kinds of experience points for the missions throughout the game : triad and police. Both will net you new skills as you reach levels depending on how badass you were (triad) or how well-behaved you were (police). There's also a "Face Meter" which fills up and levels up as you do favors for people. It's pretty much useless from a story standpoint, but it does let you buy better cars and "cooler" clothes. Overall I'd say it's a very good game. Certainly it's not as deep and complete as Grand Theft Auto IV, but the interesting story and melee combat system make it an enjoyable experience.



While playing Sleeping Dogs, I also finished a PSN game with an amazingly inefficient, yes still kinda funny, name : Bit.Trip presents Runner2 : Future Legend of Rhythm Alien. As it names suggests, it's an endless runner, meaning the character goes forward (in this case he goes right as it's a side-scroller) automatically and you have to jump, slide, attack or block to evade incoming obstacles and make it to the end untouched, or you'll have to restart (there's a least one checkpoint midway through every level). I think it's some kind of achievement when you can include a start-the-level-over feature in a game, yet still make it very enjoyable. It'll make you come back for more as you hunt for "Perfect"(collecting all golds in a level) and "Perfect+" scores (all golds + hit the target's bullseye at the end). It's also a great game for gamers who enjoy high scores, leaderboards and the sorts. Superb game all-around.

The "biggest" news of the past few months (since last entry) is me selling my Xbox 360 to buy a Nintendo 3DS and Ocarina of Time 3D. I just wasn't playing anything on the 360 except Forza Horizon (and Gran Turismo 6 is coming.), so I figured I should sell it for another console.

I hesitated about buying a Wii U instead of a 3DS, but it'll have to wait since there are not enough games just yet (Only two come to mind. Yikes...) to justify a 350$ hole in my budget. Anyway, I just started OoT3D but I won't be writing about it just yet. I also bought classic SNES game Chrono Trigger for the DS to play on my new 3DS. In fact, that game could have made the "Best Games I've Never Played" feature, but it won't! I'm 2 hours in and enjoying myself a lot. I usually don't love turn-based combat, but this one is fluid enough to keep things interesting. Great stuff so far!

jeudi 15 août 2013

The most annoying things in video games - Part II

Every single gamer, at one point in his life, said aloud or wondered incredulously : "Why/How is this thing/man not dead??" while he was playing a game. In some cases, it will be for a simple enemy you cribbled with bullets or sliced a half-dozen times with your katana, and other times it will be a boss you squashed with a train, made fall down a 50-stories high building while on fire. And he or it is still alive. And you're mad because it doesn't make a lick of sense.

And this has become a bigger problem lately, with all the emphasis put on graphical fidelity, realism and the slow death of hubs, energy bars and other increasingly old-school gaming concepts. You play a game where an enemy will react accordingly to where the bullet hits, you expect a couple bullets to the head to make him drop dead. But no! He or it doesn't die!

Obviously, in games like Fallout 3, Skyrim, other RPGs and many retro games, where damage and health is calculated in "points" via numbers or a health bar, this is not a problem because it's part of the structure of the game. But when I shoot a guy in the head twice while playing a "realistic" military shooter (online or offline), I don't expect the guy to continue living and acting as if he didn't have a bullet lodged in his brain. When I stab a guy twelve times in Assassin's Creed, I don't expect him to continue fighting as though nothing happened.When I shoot a random thug four times with a shotgun standing five feet away in GTA IV, I don't expect him to stand up and shoot me with ease.

When I throw a monster off a tall skyscraper, set him on fire AND run a freaking train over him, I don't expect it to be alive and transform for the fourth time into something even bigger and even MORE annoying. Yes, I'm looking at you, Resident Evil 6. It's stupid, it's annoying, it screams "Well we can't think of anything else, so let's put this guy again, just a bit bigger with more disgusting features. And again here. And again here. And again here."


Anyway, that sounded a bit like a rant, but as a gamer I hate to feel cheated by a game and I really dislike pointless repetition (fighting the same boss over and over again is repetition, no matter how much he has transformed). It ruins the fun, and fun is the main reason why anyone plays games.

jeudi 8 août 2013

Best Games I've Never Played - Part II



From 1998 up until 2008, I thought there was at least ONE universal truth in the gaming world : The best game of all-time was The Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time. In my head, it wasn't even a debate, it was a fact. An undeniable, solid and widely known fact.

When I first started to participate in gaming forums in 2008, I learned that some people actually had different ideas of what the best game of all-time was, and I was confused and somewhat frustrated at times, because I thought they were all wrong and that Ocarina of Time was better than anything else, period. I'm actually exaggerating, I knew that different people had different opinions and it's all a matter of taste, but I was surprised at the number of games "contending" for that basically-impossible-to-determine title of the best game of all-time. And there was one game that kept being mentioned, quite possibly even more than Ocarina of Time itself.

That game was Final Fantasy VII. On that particular forum, it seemed like FFVII was popping out everywhere, but that's not all. While reading people's posts, it occurred to me that other titles in the Final Fantasy franchise were mentioned by my fellow gamers, most notable FFIII. (Quick side note, I was also surprised that another Zelda game kept popping up : A Link to the Past. It's a superb game too, so it makes a lot of sense...)

And then it hit me : I had never played a Final Fantasy game in my life !!! I always knew the series existed, I knew it was popular if they had released at least 12 of them (I had no idea there were spin-offs as well), but it never occurred to me that it was as important for some people as the Zelda games were in my life. Obviously this can be explained by the fact that, when I was younger, my parents paid for things I bought and I only bought a few games and never ventured past the known pastures of Mario, Zelda, anything Nintendo made and a few other popular games like Sonic, GoldenEye or Street Fighter. And it has to be said that I never owned a SNES before 2008 (Made the jump from NES to N64 via a Sega Genesis, for some weird reason...) nor did I ever own a PSOne or a PS2, so it's not THAT hard to see how I never had the opportunity to try a Final Fantasy game.

I eventually tried FFXIII on the PS3, but I never could get into the game. Some people tried to explain by saying how FFXIII was too linear and that it never was a "real" FF game. Anyway, I got bored an hour in, because I never really liked anything with turn-based combat other than Pokemon games and the first Paper Mario. I also tried FFV or FFIV on the Playstation Store, but when I died without saving or knowing how to save for basically 90 minutes, I never touched it again... I kinda liked the game, but even then I could never get that much into it.

Perhaps one day I'll have the patience and courage to start a Final Fantasy game again - and I want to, if only for the fact that they're a staple in the gaming world - but until that moment I can't say I've ever PLAYED a Final Fantasy game.

mercredi 12 juin 2013

What I took away from E3

The title makes it seem like I actually went to Los Angeles and participated in the festivities. Sadly, nothing of the sort happened and I had to enjoy the experience via various video, livestreams and articles around the web to construct any sort of review/opinion on the matter.

First off, let's talk about the "new" hardware we've seen, the PS4. Let's just skip over the looks of the actual console, because while it does look good, a fine piece of design I'd say (I also liked the fact that they brought the mind behind the design on-stage. Nice touch), it hardly matters when you'll be putting a disc in and playing it. Anyway, the announcements that garnered the most applause from the audience were the "No Restriction on Used Games or on lending games whatsoever", the "No online verification needed to play", the "PS+ on all three PS3, PS4 and PSVita" and - the best part - the 399$ price tag. In that regard, Sony clearly knocked Microsoft out. Although rumors are circulating around the Internet about the fact that Sony's policy towards used games might not be as open as the conference led us to believe. But nothing has been confirmed yet, we'll see! Anyway, I was also excited at the number of indie developers Sony were getting along with, including Supergiant Games, of Bastion fame. The first-party exclusives (The Order : 1886 looks like an awesome steampunk game) in development also had me pretty pumped for the first year of this new console. Some multiplats were also showcased and looked quite appealing to me. Destiny looks and feels like a gigantic project undertaken by Bungie (read a good piece on it in EDGE lately) with amazing potential, while Ubi's Watch Dogs showed some spectacular depth in gameplay, a wildly interesting story setting (so far) and jaw-dropping graphics.

Overall, I was so happy during the conference I immediately pre-ordered the PS4 from two different places when it became available later that night.

I won't lie, I have a slight bias towards Sony's consoles. But to my defense, I went out of my way to try and defend Microsoft's position when talking to people. I'm not a big Microsoft fan, I work on a MacBook, my 360 is barely ever used at home and various stuff like that would make you think I hate Bill Gates' company. Which is not true. I try and be as objective as possible when arguing about consoles. I try not to fall in stupid, pointless arguments about the "better" choice and I will try to distantiate myself as much as possible from my subjective feelings when talking consoles.

Anyway, I haven't watched Microsoft's conference. I heard many negative things about it, except for the games which looked pretty impressive when I watched a few trailers. And when it's all said and done, for a gamer like me, Games should be and usually are the central focus of every discussion. If you have good games, your console will fare better. So that's why I went on and watched a few trailers, to get soaked in and better evaluate the console for the games it offers and not for some controversial marketing choices. Ryse : Son of Rome looks like promising take on a somewhat forgotten historical era (a least in video games) with visceral combat and tactical warfare, although I'm not sure how I feel about all the button prompts/QTEs... Games like The Witcher 3 and MGS V are no-brainer AAA titles. The only other one I saw was Titanfall, and I really liked what I saw there as well. It looks like a somewhat futuristic Battlefield with mechs and other neat concepts. So while everyone is shitting on the XBone for various reasons, they still had some very decent software to show for. And you can't go wrong with good games.

I haven't watched Nintendo's either, but I still took in a few trailers to see whether or not this console was worth it before the next Zelda game gets released. The trailer for Super Mario 3D World looked absolutely epic, everything you'd expect from a Mario game, like they've been doing at Nintendo for over two decades... just pure gold. Pretty much the same goes for Mario Kart 8, although I wish they had come up with a better name for it... I'm one of those who feels like "numbered" series are shooting themselves in the foot. Why? Not only you are saying to the audience you have no imagination, but you also make it seem like there was A LOT of games before it, which makes it seem like nothing more than a rehash of old ideas. Which is why, even if I'm far from being a Call of Duty fan, I appreciate their idea of not calling their games by the number since the first one. I know you'll find numbers like in MW3 or BOII, but at least we're not simply at CoD9 or something, which would make it even worse.

Anyway, back to Mario Kart 8, it seems to me like Nintendo could make 89 Mario Kart games and somehow still come up with new tracks, new concepts, new ideas. They're just THAT good. I'm not buying a Wii U for that game only, but holy crap it looks fun... The last thing I saw from Nintendo this week was The Legend of Zelda : Wind Waker HD. If I remember correctly, Wind Waker is in the top 10 of my favorite games of All-Time, amongst the legends of GoldenEye, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 4, Super Metroid and Bioshock. It tells you how much I loved this game. I think it's a great opportunity for the many who shunned the GameCube version for idiotic reasons like "It looks childish".

So I haven't been able to get through ALL the games yet, but I've seen enough to be excited about the next generation in gaming. Bring on the PS4!

lundi 27 mai 2013

What Am I Playing NOW - Part III

To tell you the truth, the short answer to that question for the past two months would be "Not much..." But of course, there's a (somewhat) longer answer. Yes, I haven't had the time to play as much as usual for various reasons : being quite busy at work since the end of the school year is approaching fast, some never-seen-before high temperatures in late april and early may which called for a lot of basket-ball outside, more activities planned with friends and family, etc. But I still finished two 2013 Game of The Year contenders and started two other good/great games.

The In-Between-Games Game
I always have some games that I play "during" other games, usually a racing game or a sports game because there's usually no storyline (or one so uninteresting that I simply don't care about) so I can play without mixing up plots or characters or whatever. Plus I can play those game on mute or with a very low volume, which is practical for someone like me who listens to many podcasts per week (sports related, all of them). So during those past two months I've been playing a lot of Forza Horizon and a bit of NBA 2K12 and Shift 2 Unleashed.

The Early Contenders
Earlier this year were released two superb games I had preordered ages ago : Tomb Raider & Bioshock Infinite. Both lived up to the hype and one could even argue that Tomb Raider exceeded it (although it has to be said it wasn't as hyped as Infinite). Anyhow, Tomb Raider proved to be as good as the so-called Tomb Raider clone, the Uncharted series. Perhaps the story or characters, besides Lara herself, weren't as developed as the Uncharted cast, but the gameplay was simply superb and I was glad the developer didn't copy Uncharted's infamous "everyone is shooting at me from everywhere even from places I've cleared 1.5 second ago" moments which kinda infuriated me at times (I'm not hating though, that trilogy is hall of fame worthy). Also, I liked how they  didn't feel obligated to follow Drake's globe-trotting expeditions and managed to exploit a small island and transform it into a semi-open world with tons of stuff to find, even the area to explore clearly was not that big. Great stuff!

As for Infinite, I was expecting sooo much out of Irrational's masterpiece it was practically unfair. But, amazingly, it lived up to the hype. I wasn't that fond of Booker for the first few hours, but that was mainly because I was speculating on the man's story. When you learn a bit more about him, you have to like him. As for Elizabeth, nothing wrong can be said about her. Charming, useful, deeply attaching, she's basically the best A.I. partner a video game has ever seen. You simply care for her, not unlike this new Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. The story is a bit hard to follow, especially the ending, which had me spending 30 minutes on the Internet to be sure I actually understood the right thing. But it's truly excellent, many developers have something to learn from Irrational for story-telling. I wish we would have seen more of the Songbird, but that's a small price to pay for such a superb game. The gameplay is perfect, the variety of actions you can do during combat is impressive and the set pieces very, very fun. The combat is harder than I would have expected, but nothing out of the ordinary. Anyway, it's a great, great game, clearly among the best I've played this generation.

I would have to talk about Assassin's Creed, but I have a piece coming on the series.

I first started writing this more than two weeks ago, but never had time to finish because of work and other obligations. Since that time, I've started XCOM : Enemy Unknown, finished Braid in a few hours (old, I know, but I had to finish it at one point) and my PS3 broke down for the third time. So I had to bring it to this repair man I know. Meanwhile I play more Vita and other consoles, but not that much since summer is starting at last and I can finally play basketball, tennis and other sports.

I'll try to do this more regularly in the next two months.

mardi 26 mars 2013

Bara_Chat' 2012 Game of the Year awards

So it's been a very busy three months for me, with Christmas, work (hundreds of exams to prepare and correct), having many cats at home as my wife has a cat shelter thing going on, etc. Anyway, I had to do a Game of the Year entry sooner or later, so here goes!

Most impressive graphics (artistic AND/OR technical)
Instead of having two "graphics" categories, I'll have just one for the most impressive graphics. Now this is a very subjective assessment of a game's graphical achievements, because I'm not a huge "Best graphics" gamer like some people who won't play a game if it's not good looking (cannot for the life of me figure out how that thinking works). But sometimes you have to give credit where it's due.
  • Journey (PS3)
  • Far Cry 3 (PS3) - WINNER!
  • Forza Horizon (X360)
  • Dishonored (PS3)
  • Okami HD (PSN)
Far Cry 3's beautifully detailed island was a joy to behold during all 20+ hours of gameplay. There's not much else to say, really.

Best story/writing
  • Dishonored (PS3)
  • Mass Effect 3 (PS3)
  • The Walking Dead (PSN) - WINNER!
  • Max Payne 3 (PS3)
  • Diablo III (PC/Mac)
I think this was the easiest award for 2012. At first I considered Mass Effect 3 as a contender, but the more I played The Walking Dead, the more it appeared to me that this game is a serious contender for the best writing in a video game since, well, forever. It's just that epic.

Most memorable gaming moment (MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR SPOILERS!!)
  • Bloodwing getting killed by Handsome Jack - Borderlands 2 - WINNER!
  • Loyalists betray Corvo - Dishonored
  • Burning weed crops mission - Far Cry 3
  • Squad-synchronized quadruple headshot - Ghost Recon : Future Soldier
  • Collapsing on the snow mountain - Journey
  • Deckard Cain dies - Diablo III
  • Ending - The Walking Dead
In the first Borderlands, I played almost exclusively with Mordecai, completing the game twice with that same character. Obviously, I got used to using Bloodwing a lot and kinda got attached to it as it was so freaking useful.

Best sound design (including voice acting)
  • The Walking Dead (PSN)
  • Mass Effect 3 (PS3)
  • Borderlands 2 (PS3)
  • Dishonored (PS3)
  • Sound Shapes (PSVita) - WINNER !
You know a game will have epic sound design when the word "sound" is actually part of the name. Sound Shapes would look a peculiar platforming game to most gamers, but it's actually a lot more than that. The harmony between the levels and the music behind it is pitch perfect (pun galore!) and the level creation tool is epic.

Best game I haven't tried yet (According to GameRankings.com)
  • Persona 4 Golden (PSVita) - 93.94%
  • Xenoblades Chronicles (Wii) - 91.78%
  • Trials Evolution HD (XBLA) - 91.58%
  • Mark of The Ninja (XBLA) - 90.44%
  • Guild Wars 2 (PC) - 90.26%
  • Fez (XBLA) - 89.41%
  • XCOM : Enemy unknown (Multi) - 89.22% for PC - WINNER!
  • Pinball FX2 : Marvel Pinball - Avengers Chronicles - 88.80%
  • LittleBigPlanet PS Vita (VITA) - 88.65%
  • Torchlight II (PC) - 88.55%
Logically, the game with the highest score would win this category. But I'm not always a logical man. So I took the 10 highest scoring games on GameRankings.com that I hadn't played in 2012, and chose the one which I would like to try the most. I was both surprised and happy to see that "big-budget" games like Black Ops II and Assassin's Creed III weren't there.

Anyway, I almost bought XCOM last week. I was very intrigued when the clerk let me try it in the store and explained a bit how it played. I have to say that I'd like to try Torchlight II and Guild Wars 2 if I had a gaming PC and that I loved the first Trials HD on XBLA.

Most surprisingly good game
  • The Walking Dead (PSN) - WINNER!
  • Kingdom of Amalur : Reckoning (PS3)
  • Mutants Blobs Attack (VITA)
  • Gotham City Impostors (PSN)
I've never watched the famous TV show The Walking Dead, although I know, surfing the Internet as much as I do, that it's insanely popular with young adults and gamers alike. I don't know what the story actually is or whatever goes on in that show except that it's about zombies or "walking deads". But I heard many great things about the game from critics, it even won a few GoTY awards here and there, even if didn't even know what type of game it was. I tried the first episode, which was free via PS+, and I was hooked instantly, finishing it in basically one sitting (I stopped to eat at one point). I have yet to try the other episodes, but I'm sure they're as good as the first.
Most disappointing game
  • SSX (PS3) - WINNER! (or LOSER!)
  • Resistance : Burning Skies (VITA)
  • Uncharted : Golden Abyss (VITA)
  • Resident Evil 6 (PS3)
  • BONUS!! Far Cry 3's cooperative mode (PS3)
I was hyped for SSX months before it was released last winter. Except for a bit of Amped on the original Xbox at my friend's, I hadn't really played a snowboarding game since 1080 on the N64. At first I was happy they wanted to make a more grisly and realistic game (The whole Deadly Descents thing), then was a bit sad they came back to over-the-top action. Nonetheless, I bought it and thought it was pretty entertaining for the first few hours. Then it got extremely annoying, especially with those freaking bottomless pits you often can't see until you are actually falling inside of them. The game does offer you a rewind feature (in most descents types) to help you finish the ride, but in a conventional race you lose so much time the other guys/gals have taken an insurmountable lead. Not only that, but in a tricks battle the points you lose actually add up in your combo and can make you lose HUGE amounts of points. For example, say you're currently on a 13x2450 points run and you fall into a pit, use rewind, which costs 6500 or something, and now you're on 13x-4050, basically minus 50k points or so. Seriously? And since those bottomless pits are everywhere and often impossible to predict, it ruins the experience completely.

Game of The Year 2012




  • Mass Effect 3 (PS3)
  • Journey (PSN)
  • Borderlands 2 (PS3)
  • Dishonored (PS3)
  • The Walking Dead (PSN) - WINNER!
Until I played The Walking Dead in the past few weeks, this was going to be a tough battle between Dishonored and Journey. But the I completed the five episodes of The Walking Dead, not really knowing what to expect of this game (Though I have to admit I was influenced by GamesRadar's GoTY nod to actually try it). It really is a fantastic game with probably the most gripping storyline and most endearing characters since... I don't even know. It's now right up there with Bioshock, Fallout 3 and Super Mario Galaxy as the best games of this seventh-generation. I can't wait for a second season, I NEED to find out what happens to Clementine.

jeudi 21 mars 2013

Seventh Generation Review - The Best Franchise

With the seventh generation of video game consoles coming to a close this year (it actually started late 2012 with the Wii U), let's have a look back at the very best games of this past generation.

First, let's lay some guidelines. Only two, in fact. The franchise must have started on a current-gen console or on a PC during that era. Reboots aren't allowed (Prince of Persia or Medal of Honor) and franchises within franchises aren't allowed (Modern Warfare within Call of Duty). Then, to be considered a franchise, you obviously need more than a single game, so at least two different games.

Now, let's look at the best franchises of this generation. We'll start with a list, made off the top of my head, of all the worthwhile franchises born on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or Wii. I'll try and include PC as much as possible, even if my expertise in the matter is kinda limited. I read A LOT on PC gaming over the years anyway, so I have a pretty good idea what were the best rated games and user-appreciated gems in the past 7 or 8 years.

In no particular order :

- InFamous & InFamous 2
- Portal, Portal : Still Alive & Portal 2
- Uncharted : Drake's Fortune, Among Thieves & Drake's Deception
- Demon's Souls + Dark Souls I & II
- DiRT 1, 2
& 3 & DiRT : Showdown
- Gears of War 1, 2 & 3
- Bioshock, Bioshock 2
& Bioshock : Infinite
- Batman : Arkham City
& Batman : Arkham Asylum
- Mass Effect 1, 2
& 3
- Borderlands 1 & 2
- Skate 1, 2 & 3
- Rock Band 1, 2, 3
& Bands (Green Day & The Beatles) & Multiple spinoffs
- Dragon Age I
& II
- Crysis 1, 2
& 3 & Crysis : Warhead
- Assassin's Creed I, II (including Brotherhood & Revelations)
& III & Multiple spinoffs
- Resistance 1, 2 & 3 + portable versions
- The Witcher & The Witcher 2 : Assassins of Kings
 

I realized that it is a LOT harder to compare whole franchises than it is to compare single games. Why? For a lot of reasons :
  1. Franchises can evolve quickly, so games can have significant differences from one to another (Dragon Age II vs the first game).
  2. Some entries can be a lot better than others.
  3. The number of game varies (Can a franchise with two games like Borderlands 2 be "better" than a franchise with 7+ games like Assassin's Creed).
For example, if I think Mass Effect 2 is better than Borderlands, but that Borderlands 2 is better than Mass Effect 3. Which is the best series?

Anyway, after much debate within the One-man team (I actually started thinking about this a few weeks ago...), here are the results. From the fifth-best to the best.

5. Borderlands (2 games)

It's no secret for people who know me that I have a deep, deep love for the Borderlands universe. I absolutely loved the first game and the sequel, while a bit more "mainstream", was one of the most entertaining games of this generation.

4. Mass Effect (3 games)

Along with the Elder Scrolls & Fallout franchises, Mass Effect helped push the WRPG genre to new heights while basically owning the space/sci-fi fanbase. The compelling story and memorable characters make it a great, great experience.

3. Uncharted (3+1 games)

The closes thing to a Hollywood blockbuster the world of gaming has ever seen. Uncharted has insance production value and some of the most endearing characters ever created digitally.

1b. Portal (3 games)
1a. Bioshock (3 games)

I honestly can't say which franchise is better. I love both for different reasons. I love Portal for its outstanding gameplay, clever writing and world-class design. I love Bioshock for its extremely addictive atmoshpere, its philosophical implications and its storyline. So the debate isn't closed yet... And it has to be said that Bioshock : Infinite is right around the corner and looks poised to make a legitimate run at the "Best game of this generation" crown.

vendredi 22 février 2013

Best Games I've Never Played - Part I

According to a list I'm constantly updating, I've tried nearly 300 games in my "career" as a gamer which has spanned over more than two decades (and there's probably dozens I'm simply forgetting...). In this list you find a number of historic franchises (Zelda, Metroid, Diablo, Fallout, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Uncharted, Need for Speed, Mario, Mario Kart, Call of Duty, The Elder Scrolls) and outstanding titles (GoldenEye, Biochock, Journey, Yoshi's Island, Ico, Paper Mario, etc.). But even as I played through some of the most amazing games the industry ever offered, I missed many of the greatest titles, according to the Interwebs, the world has ever seen. Now is the time to come clean...

This past August I bought Counter-Strike : Global Offensive on the PlayStation Network, which is the latest installment in the long-running PC franchise. Amazingly, as I bought it, I came to the realization that I had NEVER played a Counter-Strike (CS) game before. Not the original one, not CS : 1.6 or even CS : Source. The funny thing is that most of my friends and even my brother (sometimes) played it (I'm talking here about the first one) and I really enjoyed sitting there and watching them play. But I never played or was even tempted to play. I can't pinpoint exactly why, but if I had to guess, I'd say that I was intimidated by the skills and speed of everyone playing. I didn't think I could perform, so I chose to sit and watch.

In fact, except for GoldenEye and Perfect Dark on my N64, I almost never played FPS games before the GameCube came out. Of course I tried some of the classic games (Duke Nukem, Doom, Turok, Allied Assault), but I would rather play action, adventure or platform games. When I got my GameCube I played more of them (Time Splitters 2, Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2 and Halo at my friends') but still not that much compared to other genres. In fact I played a LOT more FPS's since I got my PS3 in 2008 than I've ever played before. Now I can say that I like the genre, but it's getting harder and harder to find some innovation.

That's where CS : GO came in. I won't lie, I don't play THAT much, but I really appreciate how there's no leveling up, no XP, no "perks", no unlockable weapons or no clear advantage for veteran players (except sheer experience) over "newbies". Weirdly, it was a breath of fresh air, even if I'm not very good and I'm having a hard time adjusting to the gameplay.

Next up : Final Fantasy VII