Now Playing: January 2017

Shortly after I posted about what I played in the latter half of 2016 at the beginning of this month (a week later to be precise), I finished my first game of the new year. It was Watch Dogs.

I enjoyed my time with Watch Dogs more so than it’s reputation would lead you to believe is possible. The story is passé as you’ve probably heard, but since I don’t get caught up in worrying about that I had fun.

Oh and I uploaded ten clips of things I found amusing while I played Watch Dogs. Take a peek at them if you so wish.

With my current game I’m three stages from being finished. It’s Bujingai: The Forsaken City on PlayStation 2. It’s has an enjoyable combat system where you play as a character that was motion captured by singer Gackt.

The problem with the game is figuring out where to go or what exactly to do on some of the stages. Stages range from dead simple straight forward affairs to mind-melting mazes of confusion. Clearly a well-planned out and cohesive game Bujingai is not. To avoid wanting to chuck a controller at the wall, I suggest having a FAQ on hand. I’m playing on Easy to help this out as well.

*****

Finally I have more purchases to tell you about.

Shadow Complex Remastered on PSN was for about $6 on sale so I went for it. Also, I have picked up locally two movies: Big and Enemy at the Gates.

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Now Playing: May-December 2016

In the latter half of 2016 I played a number of games. Doom 3, Max Payne 3, Saints Row IV’s expansion, Infamous 2, Crysis 3, etc. I’m currently on Watch Dogs for the last month and I’ve been enjoying it more than most people did. I’m with Jim Sterling on this game and it’s fun for what it is. I haven’t been expecting more from it. My thoughts on other games are as follows.

I started out playing Doom 3. It was much better than I thought it would be, but it’s still a bit cliche for the gotcha type of horror it went for. However, I did like it and I felt the pace was a small amount faster in the expansions of Resurrection of Evil and The Lost Mission. Those were a welcome addition.

Then I moved onto Max Payne 3. It was the fun Payne gameplay we’ve come to know just with an updated sense about it that’s needed in today’s gaming scene. The story was the good, but I did feel the game lasted longer than I had liked. It was still worth my time regardless of this complaint.

Next up was Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell. The previous game in the series I played was Saints Row 2. I was going to do the usual play them in order since I have SR3 and IV, but I thought screw it. I went for the out the top hellscape adventure because Usagi704 was playing it and it looked wonderfully fun in all of its ridiculous glory. It was certainly that.

Continuing on with the PlayStation 3 marathon I was on, I played and finished Infamous 2. I had tried to start it 2014, but felt the need to get back to my gaming roots at that time. I was worried I would abandon it again, but thankfully that was never an issue this time around. I played on the evil side the first and only time I plan on playing it. It’s just easier to have fun Infamous’ open world that way. In the end I chose to become what I hunted for the whole time.

Crysis 3 was the last game before Watch Dogs and it was pretty much what I expected. The only problem is that eventually I was placed in, what I felt was, an unfair boss fight. I took my sweet ass time throughout the game and since I was ready to be finished with it, I called it “done” when this fight failed multiple times.

In the future I plan on playing every single game I haven’t played that I received for Xmas. This includes the lot I was given this last holiday too. In total it’ll encompass 19 games starting with Bujingai: The Forsaken City. I won’t force myself to beat a game if I’m not entertained by it. But hopefully it won’t be much of a problem. Wish me luck.

Happy New Year!

You Can’t Beat 100%

In the last month or more I’ve been on a game-free diet of mainly movies as I had explained at the time in Now Playing: April 2016. Despite this I haven’t stopped buying games. I’ve bought five more that have been stuck on my wish list for awhile.

Back in March I tried to get both of the newest Wolfenstein games with only a 50% success rate. I completed in getting the missing The New Order this time. I did a redundant buy as well with the Far Cry Compilation. It includes Far Cry 2, 3, and Blood Dragon. As you might remember, I played and finished both FC3 and Blood Dragon last year. So did I get this compilation for Far Cry 2? Nope. I got it for Blood Dragon. I wanted it on a disc for the impending offline of PS3 on PSN. The disc plays FC3 from it with installers for the other two games. If you’ve experience with other three-game packs from Ubisoft, then you know what I’m talking about.

The other games are WayForward’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze, the FC3 sequel Far Cry 4, and the return of Rico Rodriguez in Just Cause 3.

Thanks for catching up with me. Take care!

Video Game Deals

Hi, there folks. I’ve new purchases to speak of and movies I’ve since watched in the last week.

The Hunt for Red October is a thriller of a film with Sean Connery as a defecting Russian sub captain. It’s probably the only time I really liked a Tom Clancy book come to the silver screen. The next, as voted on by my followers via Twitter, was The Deer Hunter. Sadly, I didn’t get more than an hour into this one. It just didn’t hold my attention and, at the length of three hours, I felt it was too long so I moved onto the next vote. This one was Ghost from 1990. Regardless of the main stars on the poster, Whoopi Goldberg’s character interacting with the ghost of Patrick Swayze’s character is played seriously, but ends up fairly goofy. It was hilarious to watch.

The next two films to vote on are Zoolander (2001) and Sicario (2015). You can vote in the comments section below, if you wish.

Onto video game purchases:

A controller I had seen from Capcom was advertised back in the ’90s with the Super Nintendo and Genesis port of Super Street Fighter II. It’s called the Capcom Pad Soldier. Its design is quite odd. After remembering it all these years later, I wanted to try it out so I purchased a used one from eStarland. The buttons are at an odd angle for use of your thumb, though it’s doable. It’s at that angle to suggest the use of your fingers instead. It’s quite the unique experience that I can see using on a SNES, but Sega’s 6-button controller on the Genesis is more than adequate.

Usagi704 on Twitter said:

“I just told @hartknight #Yakuza5 is 40% off and he immediately rushes back where he came from to make the purchase! heh”

This is true and exactly what I did. As soon as he told me about the sale on Yakuza 5 I was like “Oooohhhhhh!,” turned around, and took advantage on said PSN offer.

Also, speaking of offers I took advantage of, I had major discounts available to me at the nearby Meijer. I took them up on a $30 off Assassin’s Creed Syndicate digital coupon, 20% off GM employee coupon, and the regular 10% employee discount. This got me three PlayStation 4 titles: Batman: Arkham Knight, Bloodborne, and the previously mentioned AC game.

I’m sure it won’t be difficult to find co-op buddies for Bloodborne in the future once I’m ready to Game On once again.

2015 Game of the Year

Now I present my 2015 Game of the Year award winner. If you want to see the nominee list, check out my previous blog post.

For my best game of 2015 that I played that year I had to go with Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. It had a lot of the same elements that made Far Cry 3 itself enjoyable, but also streamlined the whole upgrade progress. The graphics and ridiculous nature of the story made for a very entertaining time.

For my runner-up I went with TRON: Evolution. I played it at the end of the year because I needed some classic Prince of Persia wall running action with a distinctive art style. The disc based combat was challenging at first, but eventually it became quite simple as long as the rarely available upgrades chosen were done so wisely.

Game of the Year 2015 Nominees

My thoughts on a personal 2015 Game of the Year for myself will be brief. I will be foregoing the usual series of gaming award blog posts that I’ve done in recent years. I’m going to present a single Game of the Year award to my top pick like I did the last time for 2010.

Until I figure out what the winner will be I’ll give you my list of nominees.

Tomb Raider (PS3, 2013)
Far Cry 3 (PS3, 2012)
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (PS3, 2010)
Fighter’s History (SNES, 1994)
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (PSN, 2013)
TRON: Evolution (PS3, 2010)

Now Playing: December 2015

Most gamers are probably familiar with Quantum of Solace on the PS3 and Xbox 360 where the game is a first-person shooter, as is the case with most 007 games. However Quantum of Solace on the PlayStation 2 is a third-person game developed by Eurocom instead of Call of Duty mainstays at Treyarch. Since this version of the game was released for an older generation of system at the time in 2008, it gets a smaller budget and looks worse than PS2 games from 2004. It gets the job done, but is overall of obvious poorer quality.

The game itself is nothing to write home about. It tries to act like stealth matters at different points, but unless it’s forced upon you, I never felt the need to do so. The best sections of the game was where you’d be chasing an enemy and needed to keep up. The worst aspect was hacking doors/cameras and the QTEs. Skip this game unless you like mental pain.

Free Radical Design’s PS3 exclusive game, Haze, was the next one played. This is an FPS and an mediocre one at best. The story of the game has a good message, but it’s bluntly ham-fisted that it feels forced. Both sides of the conflict are extreme opposites of being angelic and the devil. Most of the game you’ll play as the rebels and I felt it was much more fun for it. Regardless, you can skip this game too unless you like wishing Haze was “the shit” instead of mostly shit.

I’m currently playing TRON: Evolution because I felt the need for some Prince of Persia wall running and platforming in my life. It is as good as ever, but with the cool TRON visuals. Combat can be frustrating at first, but once you get the bomb and stasis discs the fighting is much more fun. You can be creative and slow your enemies down and then pummel them. Of the three games I played this month, TRON: Evolution comes recommended to fans of the Prince of Persia games.