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.

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.

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.

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

BaraChat's Games of the Year 2012 - Categories

For this year's Game of the Year awards, I've decided to do things in a simpler, more focused way. Last year I had 10 categories with about 5 nominees each and, looking back, I think I might have aimed a bit too high for my first year-ending roundup. After all, I'm not IGN, Gamespot or Edge Magazine, I can't realistically play - or even try - a hundred games per year. The fact that 2012 was clearly not as good as 2011, resulting in less games played this year, obviously has something to do with that decision. Anyway, I'll concentrate on the important stuff, eliminate some categories, maybe have less nominees (except for GoTY) and, if it's pertinent, add a few categories.

So far, what I have is :

• Game of The Year 2012
• Most impressive graphics (artistic AND/OR technical)
• Best story
• Most memorable gaming moment
• Best music
• Best sound design 
• Best game I haven't tried (yet)
• Most surprisingly good game
• Most disappointing game

It's not impossible I add more categories as the year comes to an end, but so far that's about all I have.

Gaming in 2012 : not what it used to be.

So I finally bought a new MacBook Pro, since my old MacBook - which was over 52 months old - started to show its age very quickly.

Now, having a decent computer in my hands, I decided to buy Diablo III, as I have been a big Diablo fan since the late 90's and spent probably upwards of 1000 hours on Diablo II alone. So I buy the game off Amazon (they had a 20$ off deal for Cyber Monday). I install it (it was a lot longer than I expected, but it's a huge game, so it's normal) and launch the game so I can start playing. Usually things go pretty smoothly from there. You buy a game, you play it. As you have done for the past 25 years. Simple.

Well not with this game. Since it's an online game, I had to create a battle.net account, which I gladly did and create a gamer tag for Blizzard. Simple enough. But even as I lauched the game, it didn't work because I had to activate the full game with the CD-key. I start to think : "Well why this wasn't done while I was installing the game with the DVD? Wouldn't that have been a million time easier?" But hey, no biggie. I enter the CD-key on the Battle.net website. Then it demands I enter my postal code. I do, but it doesn't work since I live in Canada and battle.net has decided without even asking me that I lived in the United States. Seriously?

All right, so let's just change the country on my account settings, right? How hard can that be? For anyone who has used the Internet in the past 10 years, changing account settings is the easiest thing you should ever have to do, unless there's a credit card involved or something. I go into my account settings and it says I can't change the country without asking Blizzard via customer support. Read that line again. And again. WHAT THE FUCK? Seriously? I delve deeper into my account settings and realize I can change the billing information of my account, country and all, in about 12.3 seconds. Which I do. But this doesn't change my account's country. I phone Battle.net support and the machine tells me I have a 20 minutes wait before I can speak to a human being. The other option is to create a ticket, a message to the customer service thing, so they can change my country. But they need governement-issued documents. Read that again. And again. Seriously? I do as told, and now I'm waiting.

So I bought a game like any good customer, paid Blizzard so I can play a f******g video game on my computer and I STILL have to jump through hoops to change my country? Honestly, what the fuck is wrong with them? I can enter and change billing information on the fly - like on any freaking website accross the Internet (I just did on Apple, credit card and all, and it took less than 30 seconds) - but I have to PROVE that I live in Canada with government-issued documents? How fucking pointless and absurd is that?

 It's a video game, for Christ's sake, not some classified FBI material. Why does it have to be so complicated? I bought your freaking game, just let me play it.

I bought a game that I can't play because the online service is absurdly idiotic and pointless. Blessed be the times where you bought a game, popped it in the system and had fun with it. Now you have to jump through 15 administrative loops and waste away hours of your life to simply start up the game. Nice.

Thanks a lot Blizzard, you've effectively pissed a gamer who has been a loyal customer for the past 16 years.

Some epic conquest match!

Yesterday I slid Battlefield 3 into my PS3 for perhaps the second time in over a month, as I wanted some frantic online FPS action. I was all set to join a Team Deathmatch and let the bullets fly. Instead, at the last second, I decided that I would let the machine decide which type of match I'll enter. At first it put me in a Rush match. It went horribly bad, my team (and I include myself) was absolutely incapable of defending a single objective for more than half a minute. After the game, I quit and decided to retry the "random" thing on the menu (I confess, I've never liked Rush, I like the idea but I really suck at it). This time it chose Conquest on Golf of Oman with 300% tickets. I was in for something big.

The match itself was pretty damn long, nearly an hour. I had one of my best games in my short BF3 career (103 hours long). I finished 46-19, leading my team in points, shooting down 3 manned helicopters with a tank (one was on the ground), destroying at least 7 or 8 manned tanks, capturing 10 or more flags, nailing 3 killstreak bonuses ribbons, unlocking a MBT medal (worth 10k points) and a combat efficiency medal (for killstreaks, my fourth, also worth 10k points). And it was double XP week for Premium members, so I gained nearly 80 000 points in a single match!

Even with one of my best games ever on BF3, I only finished 3rd and we lost. Two guys on the other team were extremely good, one of them finished with a 64-10 and over 21k points before bonuses. Anyway, it was fun, I hadn't played that epic of a match in a looong time. I used to play Conquest a lot, recording more than a few great matches with great K/D ratio (along the lines of 32-10, 23-2, 28-6, 17-1 and somewhere around 20 1st place ribbons). But lately I've been more focused on TDM, having a lot of fun, but I was not as dominant with guns only (I think I only ever had one 1st place ribbon in over a hundred TDMs). Indeed, my K/D ratio had dropped from 2.2 when I hit level 45 (Colonel) and now it's 1.9.

It was nice to see I could still put up a good fight in Battlefield 3. :)