Review: Ryse: Son of Rome

To say this is a pretty game is quite an understatement

I got this just out of morbid curiosity more than anything else after hearing not great things about the XBox One version saying that it was just all quick time events.  But after recent big award winner disappointments like Destiny and Shadow of Mordor, I thought I’d give an underdog a chance and I’ve always been a fan of the developer, Crytek.  Turned out I had a lot more fun with this than either of those combined.  First off, the most obvious point that smacks you across the chops immediately is that Ryse looks gorgeous.  Like, properly gorgeous.  So much so you may well find yourself stopping regularly just to gawk at the beautiful scenery.  Likewise, all the actors in the story are amazingly well represented and the voice acting is actually surprisingly good too.  The plot-line follows a re-telling of the well-known Roman legend of Damocles who is wronged by his commanders but returns from the dead to seek revenge on them.

“‘the Sword of Damocles’, an allusion to imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power.”

Although not the most original of stories, it also plays out nicely and at a good pace with build up to major plot points being tense and atmospheric.  And so, we come to the part that most complaints are centred around:  the game-play.  Yes, it can get quite repetitive.  Yes, there are only a handful of basic enemy types and skins and you will see them repeated very frequently.  Yes, a large part of it is quick time events.  But despite all this, I still had a lot of fun with it.  It is quite satisfying to cut and bash and chop your enemies apart in increasingly gruesome manners.  You gain experience and build this up to unlock more numerous and hideous executions as well as better gain abilities.  The gain abilities are used to recover health, gain extra EXP, focus or combat bonus after performing a successful execution.  Executions can be performed after softening a target up sufficiently and then triggering a time slow down followed by a series of button colour coded quick time events which perform fantastic limb chops, shield smashes and all kinds of other unpleasant things.

It is also a very messy and brutal game

That is the core elements of the combat.  There are other moves available such as dodges, blocks, taunts and such to help deal with the massive hordes of enemies you will face as well as your focus ability.  Once you have chained sufficient combos and filled your focus bar (with blood) you can slow down time again and become an almost unstoppable killing machine rapidly chopping and slashing through most defences instantly.  This becomes especially handy in later levels when the tougher enemies become much more numerous.  I think the PC version of this game became available to me at a good time after being frustrated and disappointed by numerous big release season games that tried to over-complicate what should have been simple things.  Ryse on the other hand, is very simple but what it does, it does very well.

“A modern take on a classic 2D brawler”

The best way I can describe it is that it’s a modern day version of an old school brawler like Streets of Rage or Golden Axe dressed up in super super HD visuals.  Yes, they were simple and could get repetitive, but they were also immense fun to play and were usually short enough that the repetitiveness never had time to become a huge issue.  The same can be said of Ryse with it taking me little over 5 hours to complete, but this felt like a good duration for this type of game to me.  Any longer and the repetitiveness may have become a bigger problem.  I think that the problem it faced at the time of the XBox One’s launch was that due to its gorgeous visuals, people were expecting an immensely deep game underneath that wasn’t there.  But to me, that doesn’t seem like Crytek’s thing usually.  Their way of doing things seems to be to make an immensely pretty game that is simple to play, but a lot of fun.  Much like the Crysis games.

And when I say brutal, I mean brutal.

Summary

It’s probably not going to win any game of the year awards and it’s no thinking man’s game, but Ryse is a short and guilty pleasure that provides a lot of bloody fun while it lasts.  However, if you’re someone who always craves depth and huge epics even in a combat game, you may be better looking to something along the lines of the Batman Arkham games.

Final Score: 3.5/5

Check out my Let’s Play footage below for a complete play-through

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh2oETQSyOwQqCDvIAxc8XBAtIEJbJIbX

Review: Middle Earth - Shdaow of Mordor

Many reviewers are touting this as a potential game of the year candidate.  Sadly, I was not quite as impressed with it as they were.  Read on to find out why.

Shadow of Mordor is an extremely impressive game in the visual department also needing 6GB of VRAM for maxed out settings on PC.

The combat is excellent being quite similar to the Batman Arkham games combo, counter, dodge, take-down system.  It’s a good system but you are quite unequipped for larger and prolonged battles in that you are not able to take much damage before going down.  High priority targets such as Warchiefs also often come surrounded by dozens of lower and middle tier enemies making actually getting to them quite tricky and trying to combat them specifically in a huge crowd even trickier.

“You know how to fight six men. I can teach you how to engage six hundred.”

There are not a lot of main missions but quite annoyingly, they are regularly padded out by other objectives which at first seem optional but then later become mandatory for you to complete before you can move on to the next main mission.  There are also a huge number of systems to get used to such as at multiple different ways to unlock abilities, upgrades, equippable weapon skills, focus (bullet time), context sensitive actions, etc.  These are all introduced at a blindingly fast pace with little explanation or time to get used to using them so many may go unnoticed making your life harder.

“One does not simply walk into Mordor”

The much lauded Nemesis system where the power hierarchy of the Orcs is interesting, but  doesn’t really add a lot to the game unless you want to get heavily invested in it which I didn’t want to really.  The Orc Warchief, Bodyguards and Captains can be killed off making some more vulnerable or allowing some to be usurped but they can never all be killed permanently as they just endlessly replace each other.  Kill one and another takes his place.  It also breaks the flow of combat every time you get meet a noteworthy foe in combat for him to say his piece and tell you his name.  While novel the first few times, this gets old quick as it even does it in the middle of combat totally breaking the flow.  Also should you die and go back to fight the same Orc again, you are reintroduced in the same manner each and every time which can get very very tiresome.

The Nemesis system is a novel idea but in reality adds little to the game-play unless you go very far out of your way to get mileage out of it.

It feels like this game is trying to aspire to be a true next-gen open-world game by adding in so many extra systems and concepts and optional side-quests.  But all these optional events turn out to not be optional at all and if you try to do the main missions without buffing yourself up through “optional” side-quests first, you’re going to have a bad time.  And seeing as the whole point of an open-world game is that it should allow you to play it your own way, I think it has failed quite badly in this aspect because it forces you down one path and to play it “the proper way” or else face an insurmountable difficulty wall.

 “Mandatory side-quests”

I didn’t end up finishing Shadow of Mordor because about 9 hours in, quite close to the end when I was reaching the end of the SECOND optional-but-not-optional Warchief culling, it ate my save and put me back to the start.  I decided to call it there and never touch it again as it had already irritated me quite enough.

Interrupting an intense battle to introduce an Orc with some smarmy lines. Cool the first few times. Tiresome after the twentieth.

Summary

Shadow of Mordor provides some excellent combat, stealth and free-running mechanics which work very well when they do.  But sadly, they are buried behind myriads of side quests that you are forced to do to be equipped to survive through the main campaign.  This is a major let down for me as I just wanted to play through the story of the campaign and not 100% all side-quests.  If you are the type of player who loves doing absolutely every last thing in a game, this will probably work better for you.   But if you prefer just to do main missions, you will have a hard time.  Due to me falling into the latter camp, I cannot personally recommend this one.

Overall Score: 2/5

Mini Review: Watch Dogs Bad Blood DLC

T-Bone is a much more easy-going character to spend your game time with

This first major piece of Watch Dogs DLC take place after the main campaign is finished, which seems to be quite standard for most DLC now, and stars hacker/crafter T-Bone who was your associate in the main campaign instead of Aiden Pearce.  T-Bone is a much more likeable character being very fun and jovial rather than Mr Sad Face, Aiden Pearce who may have had a hernia trying to crack a smile.  T-Bone's move set and unlockable skills are largely similar to Aiden's only you begin the DLC campaign with a good portion of them unlocked for you already and you gain unlock points quicker allowing you to quite easily max out an entire branch of your choosing during the main story missions.  These main story missions, of which there are 10, will take you roughly 4 hours to go through if you are doing them at a brisk enough pace and just like the main game, there are many other side missions and collectables to find.  Some of the new side quests like cracking Blume Corporation's tracking of Aiden Pearce or side jobs given to you by cop friends are interesting twists on what we have seen before in Watch Dogs and add variety.

Your remote control car, Eugene, gets you out of many sticky situations

As with most DLCs, this one assumes you have already finished the main campaign and sets the difficulty bar a little higher because of this with most missions featuring large numbers of tough enemies that will readily flank you from all sides.  Personally I preferred this though as I much prefer the unsubtle approach of going in with a large machine gun and simply shooting everyone between me and my objective so it was good to have some challenging targets for a change.  One well-advertised new gameplay element in Bad Blood is T-Bone's remote controlled car, Eugene who gives you the ability to sneak into tiny tunnels, remote hack, stun, explode and much more.  Because T-Bone is not only a master hacker, but also a master engineer, as demonstrated in his crazy booby trapped car lot when you met him in the main game, he is able to craft quickly and easily including any replacement Eugenes should he get destroyed.  This remote control car adds an interesting twist to a lot of missions because its defences are limited but can go a lot of places T-Bone can't so you must work together with Eugene to get into previously inaccessible locations.  Sadly, most of the same graphical glitches that I witnessed during the main game are still present in the game engine such as wall colours flickering and lighting not behaving as it should.  I was hoping they would use the opportunity of updates to fix some of these rather unsightly problems, but it does not appear to have happened.

Large shoot outs with many enemies are commonplace. But I never choose the escape option

Summary

Bad Blood offers mostly more of the same Watch Dogs game-play but adds a much more likeable main character and some genuinely interesting new twists in to the mix.  It seems to be becoming a common trend for Ubisoft to play a main game safe and then try different more interesting things in following DLC.  It's a trend I like and I'd say if you weren't too fussed on Watch Dogs' main campaign, this may help sway you the other direction.

Overall Score: 4/5

The end of the backlog

Well, it's finally happened. After almost 5 years of concentrated effort, my backlog is finally finished.

Many less appealling games had to be culled from the list as well as games that I had just got for no reason or for other people to play but I never ignored any of the games I truly wanted to play and over the last few years, I have worked my way through hundreds of games to get to this goal. And at the same time, I managed to keep ahead of the new releases and never felt behind in the gaming world.

So where to go from here? Well, there is still a wishlist of 45 or so games that I keep. About half have yet to be released and half of them I have just never got around to getting. So I'll delve into these over time and as the unreleased ones appear. 2 of these are due to come out tomottor: Wolfenstein the New Order and Transistor so these will keep me busy for a little while and then, the much touted (and future successful franchise) Watch Dogs appears next week so you can rest assured I will have plenty to say on all of these.

There are also a number of franchises that I have never delved into at all or very briefly:

• Kirby
• Castlevania
• Phoenix Wright
• Secret of Monkey Island
• Professor Layton
• Ratchet and Clank
• Jak and Daxter
• Fable

I feel I have missed out on so these will be more avenues to research. Along with plenty of favourites that I want to replay, huge games I want to play more of and piles of DLC that I have saved up, there will still be plenty of Life on the Grid to come yet.

It feels like a great achievement to have finally finished my backlog and I hope that everybody else still battling with theirs sees that it can be defeated and is not an impossible goal.

Here's to the next phase of gaming.

The backlog is finished

The backlog is finished.

Old school FPS action with the Judge in Dredd vs. Death

Dredd vs Death was another game purchased recently just for the pure co-op lulz. Originally made over 10 years ago back in the heady days of the sixth console generation, the game feels a little clunky by todays standards but is still worth it for a decent co-op shooter romp.

Mega-City-One is again under attack from a malevolent force. This time it is the Dark Judges, a group of 4 undead Judge spirits from a parallel dimension who see all life as a crime to be judged. At the start of the game, they are safely imprisoned but manage to effect an escape and it is up to Dredd to find and stop them before they can destroy the city.

The game plays like any early 2000s FPS in that you move like a tank at a pretty much constant sprint. There are the usual plethora of different guns to pick up like shotguns, machine guns, grenade launchers and such, but the Judge's signature gun, the Lawgiver pistol is one of the best throughout the game due to it's ability to fire a wide range of munitions ranging from armour piercing to ricochet high explosive. This gives you a wide variety of options for different situations, but sometimes finding the right ammo quickly can be troublesome so it is not without it's disadvantages.

The game also gives you the ability to Judge people who surrender to you willingly. Once they kneel down with their hands in the air, you can cuff and Judge them where it shows the perp's crimes and sentences. These can be quite amusing as it seems damn near everything is a crime with such things as "Owning a goldfish without a license" popping up on some perp's details. You also get a law meter which shows your adherence to the law. If you only fire in defence and arrest rather than kill when you have the chance, this meter will stay high. If you shoot and kill everything without asking questions, then this meter will deplete and if it totally empties, it's game over. But I shot almost everyone I could see and this rarely happened so you need to be very very unlawful for this to happen.

One downside, which is common with older games like this, is that due to limited graphical capabilities and such, many areas look the same and are not sign posted. Combine this with often ambiguous and poorly explained objectives and it can result in a lot of time spent wandering around trying to find your next objective or simply ascertain exactly what the next objective is. Checkpoints can also be quite sparse which again, was quite common at the time but co-op adds to this problem because if one of you dies or fails an objective, you are reset to the last one. These are small annoyances though and usually didn't detract much from the murderous fun and hilarious no-nonsense gruffness of the Judge. Who is monstrously ugly in this particular incarnation and I wonder how his fellow Judges do not often shoot him mistakenly thinking he is some form of hideous monster.

Dredd vs. Death provided fairly standard issue but still entertaining co-op FPS action through and through with some minor annoyances along the way that are easily over-looked. A blast in the face from the past to be sure. Nothing new or shocking here, but still fun for those who like shooting dudes in the face.

14 years later, I finally finish a PS1 titan, Vagrant Story

As mentioned in the title, this is a game I acquired in 2000 when it first came out (near 14 years ago now) in the golden age of the PlayStation 1 when quality titles for it were abound and quite easy to come by. A large number of the PS1 games I acquired in those days I never finished and eventually retired but this one one I always wanted to keep because it always intruiged me. And I have finally finished it now, but sadly, it didn't appeal to me as much as I would have hoped.

Personally, I would think that the main problem I had could be summed up in two words:

Endless customisation.

Practically every weapons, piece of armour and piece of gear in this game can be dissasembled, reassembled, modified and retrofitted to make it into almost any item you want to. And while this sounds good on paper, in reality it means you spend more time looking for bits and pieces to do this and constantly tinkering with your weapons and gear if you want to actually make any progress. You can get by with standard gear for a while, but you pretty soon hit difficulty walls where you have to improve your equipment or die. So you are forced to scour for parts and experiment with your equipment until you find something that works on the monsters you are facing at the minute. Chaining is another very important part of the combat where you must time hits to make them successively land. I never quite got the hang of this and could never get a very high chain which seemed to further increase the difficulty level.

Gameplay takes the form of an action RPG where you move through small rooms set on a map. Along the way, enemies will attack you and at any point you can stop time and bring up an attack sphere to target enemies within your reach and then carry out the attack. From here, you can carry on to execute chains or special attacks with specific button combinations. You progress through the maps often doubling back after finding key items required to proceed or defeating bosses in your way. As well as a normal health meter, you also have a body health meter. So specific parts of your body can be damaged with adverse affects such as legs to reduce movement speed or arms to reduce combat effectiveness. You also have a risk rating which increases as your combo does and can lower accuracy but increase chance of critical hit. Balancing risk against combo size and leaving yourself open to counter attack is important to increase combat effectiveness.

The story takes places in the dead city of Leá Monde in the kingdom of Ivalice. This is the same kingdom that other Square games such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 take place in. You play Ashley, an elite riskbreaker warrior who is sent in to investigate a cult leader called Sydney who is in possession of mysterious powers and his possible connection to a politician. Along the way you meet other characters some of which are friendly and some of which are not in your mission to unravel the mysteries of this ghostly town that seems to have the power to bring the dead back to life as well as Ashley's own past which he has seemingly lost.

The game has quite a lonely feeling to it because apart from these few aforementioned characters, you do not meet many other living people. There are also no shops and no NPCs to interact with so there is a distinct feeling of isolation and loneliness as you make your way through these dark tunnels and underground passageways. The only respites that you will find are the save points and work benches where you will spend a lot of time tinkering with your equipment.

There are a huge variety of enemies to hinder your progress as well as as imposing bosses all over the place. You can barely go 6 or 7 room sometimes without running into one. Especially in the end game where almost every other room contains a boss.

Sadly, for me, Vagrant story did not live up to what I hoped it to be and I found it a bit too obtuse and difficult to make progress without large amounts of experimentation. Endless customisation is a nice thing to have as an optional side endeavour for those who want to wring every last ounce out of a game, but it doesn't feel right to make it mandatory just to complete the main story. I think I would have preferred this more were it less of a trial to make it through with normal equipment and have the option to tinker should you feel the need.

I much prefer a sense of momentum when I am playing a game. I want to be able to feel events unfolding and a sense of making progress. All too often in Vagrant Story it felt that progress was forcibly being grinded to a halt in the aim of more tinkering. But if you are into endless tinkering, then this will be right up your alley.

I try out a JRPG other than Final Fantasy with the epic Suikoden V

Long have the Suikoden games lingered on my backlog. I acquired all 5 of the main titles at various stages either out of curiosity for myself or for others to play but I have never got around to playing any of them. I came dangerously close to culling all of them due to lack of interest at one point, but a good friend convinced me to try at least one of them to see what I thought of the series and number 5 was suggested to be one of the strongest so I decided to give it a try.

Things start off in the usual way for most epic tales with everything being fine and then it all suddenly goes to shit. You play the role of a young prince in a Royal family who lays claim to an artefact known as "The Sun Rune". This powerful mcguffin weilded by the Queen has the power to scorch the land with the sun's rays. This power had been used on a neighbouring town before hand and this is where the game starts off with you going to visit said town to try and repair relations. The plot quickly advances with the Royal family being betrayed and fucked over, your characters being cast out as traitors and then you must go about building a rebel army to repel the invaders from your homeland.

You do this by travelling all over the land and trying to rally support of various groups, races and nations. Sometimes this is easy and some will join simply after being asked. But most are not so simple and will require you to do something for them first before you can secure their services. This travelling around the country gives the good feeling of being on an epic quest as you visit many different places and peoples along the way in order to amass a sufficiently sized rebel army.

As with most traditional RPGs, there are several modes of operation in the game:

The world map: where you do most of your travelling moving from places to place either on foot or by a vehicle. Viewpoint is zoomed out to a large scale and when on foot, you are vulnerable to the usual RPG random encounters.

Towns and buildings: where most of the dialogue and story telling occurs. The viewpoint is zoomed in much closer here and you can walk around free from random encounters to talk to other characters, visit shops, etc.

Battles: the meat of the game. Every battle is fought on this field in a traditional statistic based style such as the older Final Fantasy games where both you and your enemy select their moves and they are then performed in the order of which characters have the highest speed rating. These battles allow you to have up to 6 characters in your party which I liked as it produced a sense of action and event that there was so much going on. While in battle, you can do the usual attack, magic, defend, items etc commands but there are also a few new ones worthy of note. Certain pairs of characters that have relationships to one another can do co-op moves which use up both of those characters turns, but usually do more combined damage. There is also an auto-battle feature which will just make everyone do their default attack to allow you to speed through easy battles. Again, I found this quite useful in saving time on the smaller and easier engagements.

Battlefields: a rarer features in RPGs. In many places in this story, you are called upon to command a number of units in large scale ground or naval engagements. These happen in real time and use a rock-paper-scissors approach where there are 3 types of unit and each is weak, strong and normal to attacks from each type. here the races, groups and people that you recruit for your army really come into play as they will bring more units for you to use as well as boost stats and provide special abilities. The goals for these battles can range from wipe out all enemies to survive for X amount of time to get to X point on the map. While these battles seemed fun at first, they became less fun over time as they usually were quite long and slow and started to feel over-used as the game progressed.

You can also recruit optional characters to further boost your army's power through various side quests but this is entirely optional as the units you get through the story are more than adequate.

A couple of other note worthy features were that besides from the 6 main characters you take with you into battles, you can carry an extra 4 alternates should any of these 6 be neutralised and you cannot revive them or if you need to mix up your skills for different engagements. You can also carry 1 non combatant support character who provides you with various skills like a mobile shop, healing after battles and such. Characters can also choose to specialise in 2 areas each. Selectable skills include such things as defence, attack, defensive magic, sword magic and so forth. Characters can be equipped with quite a slew of gear with each one taking up to 6 pieces of armour/accessories. However to balance this, each character keeps the same weapon throughout the whole game and it is improved at various shops throughout the course of the adventure. All these extra twists on the battle system provided something a little different than the usual which I found quite interesting.

But still, having said all that, it didn't draw me in enough to continue on playing more games in the series. It was a fun RPG while it lasted, but didn't fill me with much of a desire to continue playing more in the Suikoden series. I'll just leave it there, I think.

I finally dive into the world of Kingdom Hearts. But I don't think I'll stay too long

This was given to me for a birthday 11 years ago back in 2003. And I have finally finished it now after putting it off for so long due to fear of it's length and the hype built up around the series in general.

Kingdom Hearts as a series has an enormous following. It may be because it is the perfect combination of video games and cutesy Disney characters for those that are into that sort of thing. Myself, I'm more into games. It's not that I dislike Disney but nor does it make me gush at the mouth. That being said, it was still cool to see many characters from my childhood show up in this game like Donald Duck, Goofy, Ariel and more.

The basic game-play of Kingdom Hearts follows basic action RPG premises. You go through a number of areas battling enemies that gradually get tougher as you progress, fight bosses at the end of most of them while along the way, earning experience to level up your characters and hunting down new gear to make them better in combat. There are the usual tropes of melee combat and magic so none of it is that surprising. Along with Sora (your character), for the majority of the game you will always have 2 other characters with you. These start off with Goofy and Donald, but as you travel between planets, which represent different Disney worlds, you will pick up new characters along the way like Ariel, the Beast, Jack Skeleton and many more. You will also encounter some characters taken from the SquareSoft side of things such as Cid (FF VII version), Squall, Aeris and Cloud himself.

The plot revolves around trying to find "King Mickey" who has gone off on some kind of mission and stopping some jerks called The Heartless. These generic shadowy enemies form much of the cannon fodder that you fight throughout the game but these are being controlled by eviler jerks from the Disney films such as Jafar from Aladdin, Hades from Hercules, The Boogie Man from Nightmare Before Christmas, Captain Hook from peter Pan and the Witch from Snow White. Some of these you get to fight and some you do not but it's always nice to lay the beat down onto well established bad guys. The aim of this group is to capture the 7 Disney Princesses (such as Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, etc) to unlock the Kingdom Hearts itself making them all powerful. The heartless (and these other evil jerks) but be stopped by Sora and his friends because only they have the heart to do so (get it?). It's usual fairy tale stuff and can feel a little cheesy at times but is all in good fun.

The basic flow of the game consists of arriving at a new world, moving through it and killing enemies to find some kind of dilemma usually involving one of the aforementioned princesses and attempting to rescue her. You then use the "Gummi Ship" (made by the Chip'n'Dale Rescue Rangers) in a StarFox-esque segment where you fly through space to the next world shooting down obstacles and enemies in your world. While this cycle does get a little repetitive after a while, it's always a little exciting to see what film the next world will be based on and what characters you will meet there.

Kingdom Hearts proved to be overall, an enjoyable animated romp through a lot of familiar places but often with new twists on them and a new element of interactivity that Disney films obviously lack. However, while it was an enjoyable game, I don't think I have fallen for the series as hard as many of it's fans have and do not have much of a desire to continue playing other entries in the series. For me, the journey ends here.

Geralt's story continues in the much improved and polished Witcher 2

This is another game that a good friend of mine has been encouraging me to play for some time now. And I initially bought it back in 2012 when I rebuilt my gaming PC because I heard it was a very demanding game with beautiful visuals that would push machines to their limits but this is the first time I actually played it. They were not wrong on the claim about visuals...

The Witcher 2 picks up not long after the ending of the first game with Geralt in prison being 'questioned' about his involvement in the murder of a king (hence the name). This involves some flashbacks to the events surrounding the assassination which mainly act as tutorials to get you used to the games mechanics. You are quickly exonerated and go about your merry way in finding the real assassin. Along the way you are also trying to find Geralt's lost memories as he is still missing most of his past life's memories. This involves the usual RPG like quest of visiting areas, talking to people, finding out they have problems, solving those problems for them and then eventually getting their help in solving your problems.

Most of the mechanics stay the same from the first game, but some have been changed quite significantly. Combat being the main one in that you no longer have different stances but can perform different kinds of attacks like slow, heavy, parry, block, etc. You no longer have a sword style dedicated to group combat so it makes things a lot trickier when fighting multiple enemies (which is quite often). Later in the game, you can acquire skills that will increase swing range and aid you in group combat, but for the majority of the game, rolling is your friend. Geralt must now roll around like a mother fucker to dodge blows and keep enemies strictly in front of his blade and not facing his back. I found this made the combat a lot more interesting and dynamic compared to the previous game's which did sometimes have a point and click feel to it. You can also still learn multiple offensive and defensive spells which will further aid against groups and single opponents.

Once again, I did a brief summary of the plot just for the lulz

Also, instead of the multi-layered skill tree of old, there are now 4 main upgrade paths:

• Witcher: general physical enhancements like health, speed, etc
• Magic: stronger spells to stop you dying and help others die
• Swordmanship: all kinds of sweet sword skills including group combat skills later on
• Alchemy: make better and stronger potions to enhance yourself before fights

A lot of the annoying problems of the first game have been fixed such as now being able to meditate or make potions anywhere. Sadly, this is balanced by only allowing you to consume potions when not in combat but it seems a fair trade.

And on the topic of the aforementioned visuals, well...just look at them for yourself. This game truly is a feast for the eyes with every character and vista being rendered in stunning detail making the world feel so vibrant that it could suck you right into it. One particularly interesting part for me was at one point visiting an encamped army where every soldier spoke with a Northern Irish accent. Being from Northern Ireland myself, it is not common to hear local accents in video games and has only happened one other time to my memory:

The Witcher 2 provides further adventures for Geralt in an achingly beautiful world where every problem from the first game has been tweaked and improved to make the overall experience much more smooth, polished and easy to jump into and enjoy right away. All in all, a vast improvement over an already very good game making this even better and easier to recommend. Those of you wanting to get in on the Witcher action, but not keen to play all 3 games, I'd advise that it is possible to start with this game as long as you get up to speed on the story of the first game beforehand, which this game does not do a great job of recapping sadly.

This game also does a better job of leading into the next (and final) game in the trilogy, The Wild Hunt, by small mentions here and there and hints of things to come. So by the time I was finished with this one, I was very excited and looking forward to The Wild Hunt only to find shortly after that it had been delayed until next year. Sigh. But I'm sure it's for the best in the long run and will only make this final game even more awesome than this one.

On a side-note, this is the last PC game on the backlog. Yes, there will still be plenty of PC games played in co-op and there will be future releases on PC added as and when they come out, but for now, this is the final single player PC game on the backlog. Just goes to show how close I am getting to the end of the list if there is no more PC games on it seeing as they have always been the majority platform.

The Wii U gets a Mario launch title with New Super Mario Bros U. But it wasn't quite what the fans meant...

I picked this up shortly after getting my Wii U, being a consumate fan of all games Mario and this made for quite a quick-fire succession of New Super Mario Bros. action after playing the 3DS New Super Mario Bros. 2 barely even a month beforehand. But this is hardly a problem because even despite being relatively samey, the New Super Mario Bros. series always delivers plenty of enjoyable 2D Mario action harking back to the original pre-3D Mario Bros. games and this one is no exception.

Things start as usual with the princess being kidnapped yet again by Bowser. And it is your job to save her yet again. The Koopalings again return here acting as the final bosses for most worlds before you fight Bowser in the final world. Power ups remain mostly unchanged from previous New Super Mario Bros. titles, but do introduce a few new ones. The Super Acorn being the main one here which turns you into a flying squirrel able to glide like the racoon or caped Mario can as well as cling to walls. He can not fly however, unless you pick up the P-Acorn which is similar to Super Mario Bros. 3's P-Wing allowing unlimited flight throughout the level you use it on.

Mario in his new flying squirrel get-up

Baby Yoshis also make a return appearance not having been seen in a main Mario game since Super Mario World. As before, there are a few different colours each with different abilities such as bubble attacks, lifting you into the air and acting as illumination. These new power ups help to mix things up and the majority of the older ones are still there as familiar old friends.

The multi-player from New Super Mario Bros. Wii returns allowing up to 5 people to play the game at once. 4 of these control on screen characters with WiiMotes and the 5th can act upon the world using the Wii U gamepad to either help or hinder the other players by moving platforms, disabling enemies and the like. Hilarity always ensues as players can bounce off each other and steal power ups so this can lead to some quite insane messes occurring with more people sometimes making the game harder than easier.

You progress through the game again in the usual way going through various worlds with themes like grass, ice, fire etc, but I was particularly glad to find some of the levels dedicated to my favourite world in Super Mario Bros 3., Big Island, where all the enemies are gigantic creatures towering over Mario. This game seems to contain a lot of references to Super Mario Bros. 3 in particular including others like battle tank levels, Boom Booms and airship levels. I found this to be fantastic nostalgia as this is still my favourite 2D Mario game.

Big Island, or Giant Land as it was originally called in the NES original Super Mario Bros. 3

New Super Mario Bros. U proved to be yet another fantastic Mario game in my opinion. And while the New Super Mario Bros. series can seem quite samey from title to title and never gets the same applaud as the full fat 3D titles these days, each one is always guaranteed to be extremely worthwhile for fans of Mario and both platform games in general. You know who you are. So buy it if this is you!

A deep and dark action RPG set in a morally ambiguous world where no choice is really ever the right one

I have been long persuaded (pretty much since this game came out in 2007 so for 7 years now) by a close friend of mine to play this game as he touted it as an excellent action RPG and thoroughly enjoyed it so said I should play it. 7 years later, I finally did and it was very enjoyable indeed.

The Witcher starts off with you playing as Geralt of Rivea. You are a Witcher. A highly trained and genetically modified monster hunter. The game is set in a medievil-like era and starts proper with you and your Witcher buddies having their base attack by some jerks who steal the materials used to mutate normal humans into Witchers. You are understandably quite pissed about this and give chase.

And so begins a great trek across many kingdoms where you gather clues as to where said jerks have gone to. Encountering them here and there along the way before tracking them to their HQ. But that is almost as brief a summary as I put on my Facebook page and as usual, there is a lot more to it.

My brief plot summary

Being monster hunters, Witchers do tend to get involved in the affairs of others quite often but their policy is one of strict neutrality. They are not supposed to get involved in conflicts or pick sides. And Geralt in particular (much like myself) has an extreme distain for politics. Despite this policy, you as the player are given the choice to take sides many times in many different situations and it is these decisions that shape how the game will play out for you.

There is an ongoing war between the humans (championed by the knights of The Order of the Flaming Rose) and a race of elves called the Scoi'a'Tel. Many times you are given choices that will align you with one or the other although it is not always apparent when you are making the choice who you are siding with. There is also usually a 3rd course of action and that is one of neutrality or non involvement. The number of times you side with one force or the other will determine how events unfold and in particular your involvement in the final climactic battle between the 2 sides. Because, like I mentioned, it is not always obvious who's side, if any, you are picking, the choices themselves are often quite hard to make as it seems there is no real "right" answer or route a lot of the time and you just have to try to find the least bad or path of least resistance. But quite often, choices you make can come back to aid you making you grateful you picked that path or bite huge chunks out of your ass making you rather regret it.

The core of the game play is traditional western action RPG where you travel through areas asking questions, are given tasks, get into trouble and usually have to kill things to get out of said trouble. You gain experience as is the norm and level up to increase your stats. You can also pour skills into various areas such as magic, swordplay and agility. You are also given 2 swords. A steel one for humans and a silver one for monsters. Each is most effective against it's intended target and both can be used in 3 different combat styles:

• Single target: large slow and powerful swings for big bad enemies
• Fast target: small quick and weaker swings for smaller enemies who will dodge a lot
• Group targets: huge arcing and circular but weaker swings designed to hit everything round you when cornered by a group

These different sword styles as well as the ability to use magic make for some very interesting combat scenarios and except for a few isolated difficulty wall situations, the combat was all in all very enjoyable.

The Witcher proved to be a very enjoyable action RPG all in all. It is quite lengthly taking me over 25 hours to beat even going at a brisk pace and not doing many side quests. Do do more of these would raise the time a lot but there is a lot to this world the more you dig. I could easily recommend this to any fans of RPGs and am looking forward to the even more widely acclaimed sequel.

A curious move from Eidos in the form of a mobile Deus Ex game

Long term reader of this blog will know that I am a big fan of the Deus Ex series. All of it from the first entry to the misguided sequel and especially my 2011 game of the year, Human Revolution.

Adam Jensen hard at work solving the homeless problem in Deus Ex: Human Revolution

So it was with great excitement that I had heard there was another game in the series planned, Deus Ex: The Fall. And it was then with great disappointment that I discovered it would be a mobile only game. And an iOS exclusive nonetheless. Long term readers will also know my distain for all things Apple so this was a double punch in the gut. Shortly after the iOS release, Eidos promised an Android port but this never seemed to appear.

So by the time I had finished reading the book that the game follows, "The Icarus Effect", and there was still no sign of the Android port, I felt too compelled to play the game to wait any longer and had to play the iOS version.

And what a mistake that was.

I played it on my other half's iPad 2. Which is the minimum specification iPad that the game will run on. But it seems they were pushing it even to get it to run on that because it was extremely slow and laggy and very prone to crashing. Like every 7 minutes. These technical problems sadly did decrement my experience quite significantly but I still felt that I got to experience enough of the game to form a decent opinion about it.

Overall, The Fall plays almost identically to it's bigger brother, Human Revolution only you are playing a former mercenary Ben Saxon rather than security agent Adam Jensen. Ben is on the trail of his former employers, the Tyrants, and trying to bring down their schemes of world domination. It plays in the same style of first person shooter view most of the time moving to third person when clinging to cover. You move through areas hunting down objectives through the same mix of murder, stealth, hacking and so on that we all know and love from Deus Ex. You can upgrade your augmentations just like before only you can do them on the fly anywhere, anytime now rather than having to go to a LIMB clinic to have it done. You can also buy and upgrade the usual slew of weapons both lethal and non lethal. Naturally, I opted for the former as I preferred to shoot my way through most areas. And when there was too much for just myself to shoot through, I would take control of bigger guns or large robots to do the killing for me via proxy.

The gameplay is very satisfying just like Human Revolution was, when the hardware co-operates and if you can get into the flow of smoothly shooting and taking down without stalls or crashes, it's feel just as great as it did in the fantastic game that came before it. But again sadly, the hardware let me down with stalls and crashes being very very frequent. There were other minor problems as well like the game being quite short (less than 4 hours for me), but it is planned to be an episodic series with this just being the first one. The voice acting is also very phoned in, Ben's voice in particular sounding nothing at all like I imagined it to be while reading the book and it actually sounds quite weasely unfortunately.

Deus Ex: The Fall is a great game in theory being almost as good as the excellent Human Revolution, but the awful hardware let it down sadly in this case.

Even more annoyingly, the Android port came out literally days after I had finished this on iPad. I got to try this version and it is silky smooth and crash free.

And even more annoying than that, a few weeks later, a PC version was announced with full controller and keyboard support which would jsut solve every problem this initially mobile exclusive game had and make it truly great. Le sigh....

The Wii U finally gets a fully fledged 3D Mario game in what is now the best reason to own the machine

Many other reviews I saw for this game before getting to play it were hailing it as the best Mario game for a long time and the best Wii U game and the reson to own a Wii U. And being a long time fan of the core Nintendo games, especially Mario ones, I was quite understandably quite excited to get playing this one for myself on my shiny new Wii U console. So when I got this game as a gift, I was very excited to get into it.

And I was not disappointed. From start to finish, this game was pure enjoyment and made me feel like I was a kid again experienceing the pure joy of Mario platformers. It's pure old-school action just like Mario Galaxy, Mario 64 or Mario 3D Land. But where 3D Land was very vertical to make good use of the 3D, 3D World is much more horizontal to give huge spread out levels that can take full advantages of the Wii U's power now that we can finally see Mario and friends in proper 3D.

Many old power ups turn up like the fire flower, ice flower, giant Mario and boomerang Mario. But as always, there are some new ones to mix in. The main new ones are multiple Marios. Collecting cherries will make clones of Mario and you can end up having several of them all running around the screen at once. They all respond to your controls in the same way so getting them all to line up and behave at once. The other main new power is the widely publicised Cat Mario where you don a cat suit. This give you the ability to do scratch attacks, lung attacks, float in the air and most importantly, run up vertical surfaces using your claws. This greatly expands the areas that you can reach and really adds a lot to each level giving you lots of new ways to attack challenges and power through levels. I found this cat power up to be far and away my favourite power up in the whole game, but it does tend to make most things a lot easier and sadly, the power up was very scarce in the later portions of the game probably for that exact reason. Cat Mario can also ascend the flagpole at the end of each level always netting you a 1-UP which is a good bonus if you can hang on to it.

The layout of the game is a familiar map world system which has been in most Mario games since Super Mario Bros. 3. However in this one, instead of just being routes that you follow, you are free to walk all over the map and explore. It doesn't add a lot because you still have to go to the levels in the end, but there are small hidden bonuses hidden around world maps that you can find if you explore. There are the usual mix of normal levels, ghost houses, castles, toad houses and moving tank/train levels a la Super Mario Bros. 3's tank levels. There is one new addition to the level type though in the form of the Captain Toad levels. In these, you take command of Captain toad and must walk around 3D isometric cube levels to find stars. As Captain Toad, you cannot jump, so you must use the layout of the terrain and viewpoints to navigate around. These are very different to the normal platforming action and are much more puzzle based, but are a lot of fun nonetheless and I think Nintendo could easily make a whole new game out of these kind of levels.

The mighty Captain Toad in action

There are also a number of other variety and themed levels including ones where you ride a giant dinosaur down a flume, a Mario Kart themed level where you run across booster pads to go at the speed of a kart, theme park levels and many many more. Up to 4 players are also supported through various multitudes of controllers. I have yet to experience this madness myself, but it looks like a lot of fun.

I could go on and on about how great this game is, but I'm sure you get the point by now. I can scarcely think of one negative thing about this game and needless to say, if you own a Wii U and haven't played it, go get it and play it. And if you don't have a Wii U, go get one and this game and play it. Now.

Pikmin 3 returns to the series' root after a long time away with some new twists and a great new control scheme

Pikmin 3 was supposed to be a launch title for the Wii U, but due to numerous problems, it was delayed but thankfully it was worth the wait. After 2 Pikmin installments on the Gamecube and none on the Wii, we are finally treated to a 3rd Pikmin game on the Wii U. And once again, it takes on the form of an RTS game that is wrapped up in cuteness and colours but underneath is actually quite a grim warfare simulator.
The reasons for this are not obvious but are there if you look closer. The Pikmin themselves are quite docile when left to their own devices, but as soon as you, the "general" get involved, they become vicious killing machines who will kill and destroy and cannibalise anything you can point them at. They will also wade into any situation you command them too, even a suicidal one, without hesitation if you command it. And when they are killed, you can replace them as quickly as they died. It's all quite disturbing once you get past the initial cute layer and you do feel genuinely bad when the Pikmin under your command are snuffed out knowing that you sent them them to their deaths to accomplish your goals.

All that being said, Pikmin 3 is still a highly enjoyable strategy game that flourishes on the Wii U for a genre that is usually aimed at PC and extremely difficult to make work on a console. The overall layout of the game takes cues from both the previous games before it and also adds in a few new things to keep the formula fresh. While Pikmin 1 had a strict 30 day time limit making it feel rushed and Pikmin 2 had no time limit but poor level design, Pikmin 3 strikes a balance between these two. There is a time limit, but this is dictated by the amount of juice you have remaining to feed your crew. But this supply can be refreshed by searching the levels and finding fruit to bring back to your ship. So the time limit only becomes strict if you neglect collecting fruit.

The story in this installment focuses on a crew of 3 visiting earth to collect edible fruit for their planet. But as usual, things do not go to plan and the 3 are split up, their ship is damaged and their fruit hunting mission is put on hold until they can be reunited and their ship repaired. As with the miniature visitors that came before them, they meet up with the Pikmin and they instantly begin to respond to their every command and help them complete their mission.

As shown on the cover of the box, there are 5 Pikmin varieties in this game:

• Red: strong warriors who are fire proof
• Blue: water proof
• Yellow: bomb carriers, can be thrown long distances and are immune to electricity
• Rock: heavy hitters used to stun enemies and smash glass
• Winged: can uproot buried items and carry things over gaps/water

You find these types throughout your quest to reunite with your crew members and fix your ship so areas that are initially inaccessible to you later become open as you get more Pikmin types and crew members. Speaking of crew members, since there are 3 crew member this time, a heavier emphasis is placed on multi tasking. You are now able to easily split up into groups with each crew member commanding their own Pikmin allowing you to divide and conquer or team up to get to new areas. Unfortunately, I probably did not do as much multi tasking as I should have, so it took me a little longer to complete the game than it should have.

The Wii U gamepad is very well used in this title acting as an always on map that can be used to point units to waypoints, find Pikmin, see how many Pikmin are unescorted and much more. It also features gamepad only play allowing you to use your TV for other things and only need the gamepad to play the game.

As with previous Pikmin games, there are many gigantic bosses (which are actually quite small) and they all need very different and varied methods to defeat. Most of them also need quite a lot of time to defeat and in some cases, I had to leave them partially defeated and return the next day to finish the job. I felt that these bosses were much more of a challenge than the bosses in the previous Pikmin games which had always seemed a little easy so this was a refreshing change.
Pikmin 3 is a great return to form from a series that has been away for too long and I can only hope that it means more installments in this neglected and unique franchise.

Plus, one of the crew characters shares the name and appearance of my other half:

An open ended Assassinate-em-up allowing you to kill (or not kill) any way you see fit in the form of Dishonored from Bethesda

Going into thisar game was one that managed to tempt me into getting it in the Steam Christmas sale of 2013. I was told by a few others who has played it that it was short and fun so I decided to give it a try. These days as time becomes a scarcer commodity, I find myself preferring the shorter, fat-free games that do not have much padding to them and are just all pure enjoyment. This may well be why 17 out of 20 of the games remaining on my current backlog are very lengthy RPGs....

Going into this game, I knew that one could take either a stealth approach or a murder approach and which one you did would affect the ending of the game. Going through carefully and not killing people unless necessary would net you a good ending but bad game finale whereas murdering everyone would give you a bad ending but better finale. Regular readers of this blog will know that I usually prefer to murder everyone I can clap my eyes on, so this was the route that I went for.

The basic plot is one of revenge wherein within you play a royal bodyguard called Corvo who within the first 4 minutes is framed for the murder of those that he is guarding and is therefore Dishonored. So naturally, you drum up some allies and go about extracting revenge on those that wronged you. But naturally, things are never that simple and murderous hilarity ensues.

Each main chapter of the game is focused around killing one main figure head in the plot against you. You must gain entry to where your target is by whatever means you see fit and then do the deed. There are any number of ways that you can move your way through areas and to your objectives from shooting and swordplay, knocking people out, hiding in the shadows, possessing enemies and animals or just setting up accidents. You can acquire a number of magic like skills to help you on your way such as the ability to slow time, teleporting, possession, adrenaline fueled instant kills and many more. Once again, preferring the killing route, I took as many powers that would allow me to kill more enemies harder, better, faster, stronger and spent the majority of the game sprinting full speed into battle with every enemy I could see blasting and cutting open every enemy I could clap my eyes on in a slow motion rage and adrenaline fueled rage whirlwind of murder, lead and steel. This of course was immense fun but actually lead to me accidentaly killing my main target on more than one occasion when they would rush in along with a pile of other normal goons due to the chaos and noise and I would shoot them in the face before knowing who they were. I thought this was a nice change of pace from the likes of games such as Assassin's Creed where your main target was always sealed away somewhere that you had to get into. It was interesting to see the "boss" come to you to be killed for once.

You can choose from a wide variety of equipment that can be both augmented and upgraded as you go through. You always have your basic sword in one hand and a gun of some kind in the other if you so desire. While the sword itself can not be upgraded your skill with it can. I thought the swordplay was one of the better aspects of the combat even if the enemies sometimes seemed to have an unfair advantage in terms of stun recover and blocking abilities compared to your character. You can also carry a variety of firearms, explosives and non lethal projectile weapons for your other hand which can be upgraded both in performance and your ability to use it.

The art design in Dishonored is quite unique and interesting and follows a semi realistic/semi cel shaded style. The architecture, character and equipment design follows a sort of pseudo industrial/steampunk (don't like to use that word, but it fit) look which makes it feel what Bioshock could have been like had it been set in Britan in the 1940s. Everything looks crude yet artistically engineered at the same time and is genuinely interesting to look around and gawk at.

As mentioned before, I went through the game just killing everything, so that meant that my run through was quite short (under 6 hours). But if you were to take the more stealthy route, it would take you a lot longer. As is standard with all new games now, there are also dozens and dozens of hidden mcguffins and collectible whachamagiggers that don't really do much over than give achievements and boost powers higher than you need them to be so I didn't really go too far out of my way to get many of these.

Dishonored provides lots of rampaging action and sneaky stealth and while it was enjoyable for what it is, nothing really seemed too exceptional about it in my opinion. It was fun while it lasted, but it seems unlikely to provide any lasting memories or desire to return to it for another play through. A little underwhelming overall considering the hype and build up for it.

Glory to the great nation of Arstotzka and all those lucky enough to enter therein

I heard about this Indie game in conversation not long before Christmas and then saw it getting quite a few rewards over the Christmas period so my curiosity begun to pique.  I was then fortunate to be gifted it by a friend through Steam (thanks Barney) so I was eager to try it out.

The simplest way of describing this game is a paperwork simulator.  I know that paperwork is one of the most tedious things in the world and after hearing that description, any sane person would think “Why would I want to play that?” but stick with me.  

Ordinarily, paperwork is slow and tedious and remains the same constantly, but in the world of Papers, Please, it is fast paced, closely timed and mixed in with many other over-arching factors that can sometimes leave the actual paperwork as one of your last concerns.  The game begins with you being called to work on the immigration border in the fine nation of Arstotzka (which resides somewhere in the Eastern block from the looks of things) and you must check the paperwork of people coming into the country from neighbouring ones.  You must examine each entrant’s papers and make sure that they are all valid and present.  If they are, you give them an admit stamp and welcome them into your fine country.  If they aren't, you given them a denied stamp and kick them out.  Each work day has quite a short time limit and you are given wages for each person you process correctly.  Processing entrants incorrectly will leave to lost wages and eventually fines.  You must use these wages to support your sizeable family by providing them with heat, food, medicine and such.

Like it says.

This all sounds quite simple and for a time, it is, but things soon start to complicate as paperwork rules and regulations and even the documents themselves change at a rapid pace.  New rules can be introduced barring people from certain regions.  New documents can be introduced that certain entrants must have.  Forgeries start to appear that you must be vigilant for.  Smugglers come into play that you must detect and detain.  Kickbacks and bribes from certain individuals are offered to do things not above board.  Terrorists attack.  Anti-government agencies try to recruit your help.  A vast multitude of events and paths start to unfold resulting in 20 different ways to end the game depending on what you decide to do.

All this means that you have to focus quite intently and try to stay focused on the details of the papers as all this is going on around you and in the end (if you survive to the end), you have to decide if you want to remain loyal to your country, aid in it’s take down or flee to another.

It creates a very immersive mix of both the mundane and surreal happening at the same time and makes you feel like you are struggling to keep your head above water.  It sounds very odd.  And it is.  But it also works surprisingly well.  You want to keep going and process as many people in a day as you can.  And every time you slip up and process someone incorrectly you are cursing yourself thinking “Damn!  Why did I not see that?”

This is definitely not a game for the impatient or those with a short attention span because you have to both stay intently focused on tiny details and aware of the big picture going on around you.  It also provides a great deal of laughs by some of the excellently written regular characters all of which go about their business with typical Soviet attitudes.  Engrossing from start to finish and well recommended to any budding TSA officers out there.

A hilarious journey into LEGO City for my very first Wii U game

First Wii U game!  Hurray!  This particular title I just got in a surprise Wii U bundle for Christmas from my very generous other half and boy was I glad to get it.  Of course, this also means a lot more new incoming games for the backlog for this new format but they’re almost all going to be awesome Nintendo games so it’s all good.

I had seen this newer LEGO game in some reviews and such but was not too aware of what separated it from the others apart from being a Wii U exclusive so I went into this one fairly blind.  Now having played it, I can say that the simplest comparison I can make for it is that it is Grand Theft LEGO.  The majority of the game is spent going around a huge open world LEGO city as the hero Chase McCain who is on the hunt for his arch nemesis Rex Fury.

You can “steal” cars and drive around as you like (although you are actually commandeering them for Police use) and tackle any huge number of side quests and missions and such.  But most of the main story missions take place in isolated separate maps referred to as “special assignments”.  These are most similar to the traditional LEGO game levels where you must move through various screens by performing various tasks such as smashing things open to find bricks, building things from bricks, finding keys to open doors and using various different character’s special skills.  But in this title, instead of separate changeable characters like a high jumper, a gunner, a small character, etc, Chase McCain has a number of disguises he can switch between which afford him different abilities such as robber, astronaut, fireman, farmer and so on.  You acquire more of these as the game progresses and can access more and more areas both in the special assignments and in the open world.

This is the first LEGO game that I have played to have an actual original plot and characters and not just be a LEGOfication of an existing franchise.  These new characters also have voice acting now so it feels much more like a fleshed out game rather than just a campy re-enactment of a different story.  But thankfully, all the same wacky LEGO humour that made all the previous games so lovable and funny is still there which was of great relief to me.  There is also a great number of pop culture and classic film references all over the place which I feel was put in for parents who play through the game with children as most of them are too old for anyone born this millennium to get.  One particular gem was a construction worker who sounded very like a certain well known Austrian actor who would work the names of said actor’s well known films into as many of his lines as he could.

The Wii U game pad does have some extra features in this game making navigating the open world easier such as a handy world map, way points and communicator.  It is also used in some mini games as a camera or listening device or search tool which help to mix things up a bit.

I found LEGO City Undercover to be a very charming and funny original adventure into the world of LEGO that expanded on the previous LEGO game framework greatly by adding an open world and original storyline.  Great fun to play and it’s also a great glimpse back into childhood as you can clearly remember many different LEGO figures, brand, vehicles and pieces and how you used them all as a child in your very own LEGO city.

Lots of fun but nothing really new in this second portable entry in the New Super Mario Bros. series

I’ve been interested in this sequel to New Super Mario Bros. for a while now, but due to my 3DS being American and it being region locked, I preferred to wait until I was back in America again to pick it up. 

I did greatly enjoy New Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros Wii, the later I played co-op with Big Phil and it was an insane mess.  But apart from the madness of bouncing off each other in co-op, and the series’ trademark Mega Mario power up which allows you to destroy everything on screen, I have never found anything terribly remarkable or memorable about the NSMB series.  They all seem quite samey and like they’re just going through the motions of a 2D Mario game.  They all also have the usual grass, fire, ice, sky etc world that Super Mario Bros. 3 was the first to pioneer.  The first half dozen or so 2D Mario games were all very distinct, different and memorable because they were changing and evolving alongside the hardware platforms that they appeared on.  Super Mario Bros. was very limited by the NES’s small technical abilities, but Super Mario Bros. 2 pushed them a bit further and looked very different (because it was originally a different game).  Super Mario Bros. 3 returned more to the old form, but introduced the world map and retainable power ups and many more conventions that are now standard.  Super Mario World introduced secret worlds, multiple exits to stages, saving etc.  Each of these games evolved and changed the Mario games with each new one adding in new features and abilities and each one being notably different.

But now it feels like all that can be done has been done and there is not much left to add other than the occasional new power up.  So the end result is that all the games in the NSMB series have a feeling of disposability and will never be as memorable or distinct as the older games.

All that being said, this was still an extremely solid and fun 2D Mario game.  It’s just more of the same, but when it’s this good to play, you don’t mind that as much.

The one new twist that this entry in the series does add is an obsession with coin hunting.  The game keeps tracks of total coins and you unlock small rewards at milestones.  There is also a new Coin Rush mode where you race through 3 stages as fast as possible to get as many coins as possible.  A kind of coin score attack if you will.  There are also various new methods to gathering coins such as the golden block which makes your head into a golden block with Mario’s face on it that will keep dishing out coins as long as you’re running until the timer runs out.  And a gold hoop which turns all enemies gold giving extra coin rewards for killing them and any kicked Koopa shells leave coins in their wakes.  I’m sure there are plenty of other new ways to farm coins, but these are just some of the ones I found.

I would definitely recommend this to any fan of the Mario games because Mario games are always a lot of fun and the coin hunting aspect does add a small new twist.  The only caveat would be the aforementioned feeling of overall sameness in these games.

First game beaten of the new year!  The end of the backlog creeps ever closer.

Another year of gaming passed. The backlog is reaching it's close!

The year in gaming

Collage in more sizes

Statistics:

A year even more amazing than last year.  A staggering 166 games stricken from the list this year.  28 more than last years number.  The goal of beating the backlog is so close I can taste it.  It would have been down to almost a dozen if it weren't for the usual end of year Christmas in-surge of games from gifts and gift cards and the Steam sale and such.  But as of today, it stands at 22.  The only problem with that seemingly small number is that the majority of them are huge time-consuming RPGs that I have been putting off because I know they will be very lengthy.

PC was once again by far and away the most used system with almost half of the year's games for obvious reasons such as power, performance, convenience, ability to mod and customise, ease of taking screenshots and more.

This will undoubtedly be the last year of the backlog and from then on, my gaming will purely consist of new releases, replaying old favourites, further completion of games I went through quickly and picking up old classics I never owned.

As mentioned before, I am now down to 22 games left on the list.  Or 2.2% making it at 97.8% completion.  So close....  Again, a fair few number of games were culled that I never knew I was going to play.  Good progress was made due to switching jobs twice this year giving me a couple of weeks off work between them to chew through the list at a rapid pace.

Quite a few systems were closed off this year including Android, Gamecube, N64, XBox 360, XBox, Vita, PSP, Wii, XBLA and more meaning that other than any new games I may get for them that take my fancy or anything that is done for co-operative gaming purposes, there will not be a lot more playing done on these systems in the future.

Game of the year

Game of the year?  Undoubtedly Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.  It's use of the excellent Far Cry 3 engine to deliver everything awesome about the 80s in one sleek neon package just made me grin from ear to ear the whole time I was playing it and laugh out loud at every cheesy one liner.

A close second would probably be The Last of Us.  It takes the excellent game play mechanics of the Uncharted series and wraps it up in an amazing and touching story with characters so real you feel you can reach out and touch them.

Resolutions:

As for the list of resolutions that I made at the start of last year, I got the following done:

• original megamans 9-10, x7-8
• metal gear series (solid 3, portable ops, peace walker, solid 4)
• remaining f-zeros (x, gx)
• spec ops the line
• rage
• tom clancys endwar
• burnout dominator
• remaining gtas (Chinatown wars, San Andreas)
• remaining light gun games (point blank 3, crisis zone)
• mario golf (toadstool tour)
• wipeouts (pure, pulse)
• fear series (1, extraction point, perseus mandate, 2, 3)
• Soul reaver series
• DJ Hero
• lost odyssey
• mario golf (n64)
• wipeouts (2048, fusion, 64, 2097)
• fallout 3 and fallout: new vegas
• elder scrolls 4 & 5
• L.A. Noire
• the last story
• contact

I did not manage the following:

• both witchers
• okamiden
• final fantasy ii

Although I am quite sure I will get these done this year.  As well as the rest of the list

Complete list of games completed this year ordered by system popularity:

PC (76)

Episode One: All That Remains  (PCDL)
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3  (Origin)
Need for Speed: Rivals  (PCDL)
Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag  (PCDL)
L.A. Noire  (Steam)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim  (PCDL)
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2  (Steam)
Rayman Legends  (PCDL)
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion  (Steam)
Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition  (Steam)
Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition  (Steam)
Battlefield 4  (PCDL)
Alpha Protocol  (Steam)
Batman: Arkham Origins  (PCDL)
Psychonauts  (Steam)
Hitman: Blood Money  (Steam)
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin  (Steam)
Hitman: Codename 47  (Steam)
Beyond Good and Evil  (Steam)
Atom Zombie Smasher  (Steam)
Amnesia: The Dark Descent  (Steam)
Metro: Last Light  (PCDL)
Metro 2033  (Steam)
Aliens: Colonial Marines  (Steam)
Lost Planet 3  (PCDL)
Saint's Row IV  (Steam)
Splinter Cell: Blacklist  (PCDL)
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified  (PCDL)
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City  (Steam)
Saints Row: The Third  (Steam)
Saints Row 2  (Steam)
Just Cause 2  (Steam)
Organ Trail: Director's Cut  (Steam)
400 Days  (PCDL)
Legacy of Kain: Defiance  (Steam)
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2  (Steam)
Prey  (PC)
Alien vs Predator  (Steam)
Return to Castle Wolfenstein  (PC)
F.E.A.R. 3  (Steam)
Ghostbusters  (PCDL)
F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin  (Steam)
F.E.A.R.: Perseus Mandate  (Steam)
F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point  (Steam)
F.E.A.R  (Steam)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Athena Sword  (Steam)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 Gold  (Steam)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Island Thunder  (Steam)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Desert Siege  (Steam)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon  (Steam)
Lone Survivor  (Steam)
Hotline Miami  (Steam)
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon  (PCDL)
Cave Story+  (Steam)
BIT.TRIP RUNNER  (Steam)
Bioshock Infinite  (PCDL)
Simcity 3000: World Edition  (PC)
Super Meat Boy  (Steam)
Crayon Physics Deluxe  (Steam)
Gratuitious Space Battles  (Steam)
VVVVVV  (Steam)
Hammerfight  (Steam)
NightSky HD  (Steam)
Osmos  (Steam)
Tomb Raider  (PCDL)
Revenge of the Titans  (Steam)
Cogs  (Steam)
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP  (Steam)
Crysis 3  (PCDL)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas  (GFly)
Machinarium  (Steam)
Section 8  (Steam)
Tom Clancy's Endwar  (Steam)
Rage  (Steam)
Spec Ops: The  (Steam)
DmC: Devil May Cry  (PCDL)
Moonbase Alpha  (Steam)

PS3 (14)

Gran Turismo 6 (PS3)
Gran Turismo 5 (PS3)
Grand Theft Auto V  (PS3)
Killer is Dead  (PS3)
The Last of Us  (PS3)
Star Trek  (PS3)
Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel  (PS3)
God of War: Ascension  (PS3)
Battlefield: Bad Company  (PS3)
Metal Gear Rising: Revengence  (PS3)
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West  (PS3)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots  (PS3)
House of the Dead III  (PSN)
House of the Dead 4  (PSN)

PS2 (11)

Wipeout Fusion  (PS2)
Extermination  (PS2)
Colin McRae Rally 04  (PS2)
Colin McRae Rally 3  (PS2)
Time Crisis: Crisis Zone  (PS2)
Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith  (PS2)
Mega Man The Power Battles  (PS2)
Mega Man 2 The Power Fighters  (PS2)
Burnout Dominator  (PS2)
Mega Man X7  (PS2)
Mega Man X8  (PS2)

Xbox 360 (9)

Race Driver: GRID  (360)
Project Gotham Racing 4  (360)
Lost Odyssey  (360)
Just Cause  (360)
DJ Hero  (360)
Call of Duty 2  (360)
Gears of War Judgement  (360)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2  (360)
Dead Space 3  (360)

Gamecube (6)

Phantasy Star OnEp III C.A.R.D Revolution  (GCN)
Eternal Darkness  (GCN)
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles  (GCN)
F-Zero GX  (GCN)
Mario Golf Toadstool Tour  (GCN)
Viewtiful Joe  (GCN)

Android (6)

The Dark Knight Rises  (Droid)
Shadowgun  (Droid)
Asphalt 7: Heat  (Droid)
N.O.V.A. 3  (Droid)
Angry Birds Space Premium  (Droid)
World of Goo  (Droid)

Vita (5)

Wipeout 2048  (PSVita)
Assassins Creed III: Liberation  (PSVita)
Killzone Mercenary  (PSVita)
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker  (PSVita)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater  (PSVita)

Wii (5)

The Last Story  (Wii)
Kirby's Epic Yarn  (Wii)
A Boy and His Blob  (Wii)
Wario Land: The Shake Dimension  (Wii)
Wii Play Motion  (Wii)

PSP (5)

inviZimals  (PSP)
Wipeout Pulse  (PSP)
Wipeout Pure  (PSP)
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars  (PSP)
Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops  (PSP)

XBLA (5)

Battleblock Theater  (XBLA)
Outpost Kaloki X  (XBLA)
Wik: Fable of Souls  (XBLA)
Connect 4  (XBLA)
'Splosion Man  (XBLA)

XBox (3)

Ninja Gaiden Black  (Xbox)
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay  (Xbox)
Colin McRae Rally 2005  (Xbox)

3DS (3)

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds  (3DSDL)
Resident Evil Revelations  (3DS)
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!  (3DSDL)

Atari St (3)

Space Crusade  (AtrST)
Thunder Burner  (AtrST)
Chicago 90  (AtrST)

Playstation (3)

Wipeout 2097  (PS)
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver  (PS)
Point Blank 3  (PS)

DS (2)

Contact  (NDS)
Picross DS  (NDS)

Game Boy (2)

Dirty Racing  (GB)
4 Wheel Drive  (GB)

WiiWare (2)

Mega Man 10  (WW)
Mega Man 9  (WW)

iPad (1)

Need for Speed: Most Wanted  (iPad)

N64 (1)

Mario Golf  (N64)

GBA (1)

Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga  (GBA)

Virtual Console (1)

F-Zero X  (VC)