Category: ramblings

The Year (So Far) In Games

A bunch of sites have been putting up “Best Games of the Half-Year” posts this week, and I was tempted to follow suit, but after looking at my Games Played spreadsheet I found myself wondering how I could spin Wolfenstein: The New Order and South Park: The Stick of Truth into 800 words; it’s just not happening.  Those are two surprisingly terrific games, and they’ll most likely end up in my year-end list, and you should play them if you haven’t already.  Beyond that, it’s a bit of a reach.

I don’t know if it’s fair to call the first half of 2014 a disappointment; I expected this transition period between last-gen and current-gen to be a little weird and underwhelming.  That being said, a lot of the year’s biggest-hyped games fell relatively flat for me.  I was certainly impressed with the tech in Infamous: Second Son, but I hardly gave it a second thought after easily getting to 100% completion.  Similarly, there are certainly quite a few things to like about Watch Dogs, but if I think about that game for more than 5 seconds I get irrationally angry.  And Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is what it is, I guess, though I haven’t felt compelled to pick it back up since I finished it the first time.

I could continue on in this vein – there’s plenty of bummers on my Games Played spreadsheet (*cough* Thief *cough* Mario Golf World Tour *cough*) – but I’d prefer to keep the rest of this somewhat positive.

Jazzpunk!  That’s a spicy meatball if there ever was one.

I enjoyed playing Tomb Raider again on the PS4 and my HDTV, although I suppose its retail success is partially to blame for the HD double-dips that are in our immediate future as we wait for the real next-gen stuff to appear, i.e., The Last of Us, GTA V, Diablo III, to name a few off the top of my head.  And I’m planning on at least renting all of those games, too, so I suppose I’m partially to blame as well.

Speaking of Diablo III, I suppose I should heap a little bit of praise on its Reaper of Souls DLC and the additional patching that game’s received in the year since I last turned it on; the DLC managed to suck another dozen hours of my life after I’d sworn I was finished with it forever, and the daily missions and objectives are an intriguing carrot that I still consider chasing after.

I really enjoyed Bravely Default right up until I realized that I was going to have to play the entire game a second time; and then I read some walkthroughs that revealed that I’d actually have to play the whole thing 3-4 times before getting to the final ending.  This will not do.

What else, what else… I’ve not yet had that much time to actually play anything in depth on my PS Vita, and yet I keep downloading free games on it.  I’m very happy to finally own it, though.  The port of Fez is great – I just love having it in portable form – and Luftrausers is excellent and I need to get back to it, and Olli Olli hurts my brain but is also really good.

I was also going to include my favorite bits of gaming journalism and criticism, but it’s a gigantic list so far, and it’s also full of rather depressing stories of how toxic this industry is.  Still, if you’d like to check it out, I’ve made it publicly available as a Google Doc.

This weekend I’ll be away with the family, so I’m not sure what gaming there’ll be.  I’m currently playing A Story About My Uncle, which is both exhilarating and frustrating, sometimes simultaneously; I’d like to try and finish it tonight, since I’m not taking my PC with me.  I picked up Civ Rev 2 for my iPhone this morning; it’s not quite as graphically interesting as the 360 version from a few years back, but it’s leaps and bounds better-looking than the previous iOS version, and the touch controls are a lot more intuitive.  I’m still way over my head most of the time, but such is life.  And I guess I’ll bring the Vita along, too, and maybe keep plugging away at Tearaway and also perhaps one of the 6 Final Fantasy games I’ve got on there.  (The voting was inconclusive.  I might go with 8 or 9, since I’ve never touched those before.)

Have a happy and safe 4th, everyone.

E3 2014: the morning after

Unfortunately, I can’t do the super-in-depth impressions of yesterday’s press conferences that I was hoping to be able to do; I’m home with my son who’s running a high fever, and there’s no telling how much time I’m going to have to formulate my thoughts – he’s currently trying to take a nap, actually, and there’s no telling how long he’ll stay down.  Even if I weren’t home with him, though, that Sony presser ran pretty long, and so I’m sorta wiped out.

It should go without saying that the Grim Fandango HD announcement knocked me out of my chair.  Grim is one of my all-time favorite games, and I’ve been hoping for some sort of HD remake for years – I even said so in my E3 2013 wishlist (see #5).  So the fact that it’s actually happening is freaking me out.  I don’t care what happens over the next few days – that announcement is the #1 highlight of the show for me, no question.

Microsoft gave about as good a press conference as one could hope for; all games, no bullshit, and their exclusive stuff doesn’t look half bad.  Sunset Overdrive and Forza Horizon 2 both look terrific, actually, and I even got somewhat excited about the Halo Master Chief Collection.  I was also obviously excited to see Crackdown 3, though the trailer wasn’t exactly much of a gameplay reveal; and considering how terrible Crackdown 2 was, I’m still a bit wary – the thought of chasing after next-gen orbs is enticing, to be sure, but I need to see a bit more before I start saving up my money.  Reviving Phantom Dust is an interesting idea; I played a fair amount of the original game back in the day, though I worry about microtransaction abuse.  More importantly, Microsoft’s collection of indie titles look pretty great – Cuphead in particular has a fantastic look.  Inside, the new game from the creators of Limbo, was another highlight (even if it also looks a bit like Limbo 2).

Ultimately, I came away from their presser feeling a bit more optimistic about the Xbox One.  I’m not necessarily 100% sold just yet, but I’m a lot closer today than I was yesterday morning.

That said, Sony’s press conference was outstanding, for the second year in a row – even if there was a bit of a snooze-fest there in the middle, and even though there wasn’t nearly enough Vita coverage as I’d have liked.  Any fears I had about Sony dropping the ball, or being too complacent now that they’d reclaimed 1st place, were immediately wiped away.  Even without the Grim Fandango announcement, they threw one top-notch title after another for a good 45 minutes at least – and the Devolver Digital montage that immediately followed the Grim announcement was amazing, and I only wish I’d been able to focus on it a bit more.  (You gotta understand – I’m still quivering about the Grim thing.)   I’m having trouble remembering everything they announced, but certainly No Man’s Sky continues to look absolutely incredible.

As far as multi-platform games go, I’m certainly very pleased to see a new Tomb Raider – and while it wasn’t shown in any of the press conferences, apparently there’s also going to be a new Guardians of Light sequel, too, which is great news.  The next-gen-only Assassin’s Creed Unity looks a lot better than I’d anticipated, and 4-player online co-op is very exciting indeed.  I’m feeling a little weird about Far Cry 4; some of it looks absolutely incredible – like a first-person Uncharted – but the narrative stuff is, as always, what worries me.  I’m also really happy to see that EA’s new, Tiger Woods-free golf game is returning to the craziness of its early years – those new fantasy courses look ridiculous, which is great.  I didn’t necessarily lose my shit over either Dragon Age Inquisition or Witcher 3, but they certainly look promising.  Sony’s reveal of Batman gameplay footage looked absolutely insane – the Batmobile in particular is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  And having GTA V on the new consoles is good news; it’s not the Red Dead 2 I was hoping to hear about, and I’m not sure I’m going to buy it again, but being able to transfer my 360’s online profile to the PS4 is the sort of news that makes a double-dip a bit easier to swallow.

(Gotta sign off now – the kid awakes.)

 

500

So this is, apparently, my 500th post here at Shouts From the Couch.  True, some of them are imported from the old Blogger URL, but still – 500 random acts of blathering under one brand name!

I wish I’d known this was coming a bit sooner than I did; it wasn’t until shortly after I finished the last post that I looked at the number in the WordPress dashboard and actually recognized where I was, and I’d have liked to have done something special to mark the occasion.  (It doesn’t help that I was listening to Marc Maron’s 500th episode of WTF at the very same time I made the connection.)

The most popular post I’ve written here is this little thing I wrote earlier this year about collectibles, which blew up only because it was a response to Patrick Klepek’s tumblr, which he happened to retweet.  That post received more traffic than this entire site did in all of 2013, to give you some idea; indeed, the traffic I got the day after his tweet was still larger than anything I’d ever gotten before.

The second most popular post is this one, and I’m guessing that the only reason why it comes up so often is because a lot of people do Google searches for “god mode dark souls”.  This is hilarious, because I’m obviously all for god mode, and yet the whole point of the Souls franchise is their extreme difficulty.  What is the point of playing those games without the challenge?

Still, all the same, I’m thrilled that you’re reading this, that you’ve been here with me for however long you’ve been here, and that you’ve read whatever it is I’ve had to say.  Writing about games – especially as an amateur – is a weird experience, and I’m trying to get better at it, and I’m grateful for your patience as well as your patronage.

Next week I’ll have some expanded thoughts on my Gamemoir column that’ll also be going up on Monday, and I’ll also talk about Wolfenstein: The New Order (which I finished last night), and Watch Dogs (which I’ll hopefully have played a little bit more of).  Watch Dogs made an absolutely horrific first impression on me; now that I’ve seen a little more, I’m getting a better grasp on it – well, rather, I’m recognizing how similar it is to Assassin’s Creed, so I at least have some context with which to explore.  Still, I’m a lot more sour about it than I’d wanted to be, and that’s purely on a mechanical level.  I’ve seen almost nothing of the plot, but if this amazing, absolutely vital Cameron Kunzelman piece is any indication, I’m probably not going to feel much better about it.

Once again:  thank you so much for being here.

EDIT:  yet another milestone fell down today; SFTC has officially crossed 10,000 pageviews.  !!!

The Xbox One: What Now?

Even after sleeping on it, I’m still trying to wrap my head around yesterday’s news that Microsoft will start selling the Xbox One without the Kinect in June.  There are so many angles to this story that it’s hard to know where to start.

Well, I suppose I should start with the most obvious question, being that this move seems tailor-made for me in particular*:  Am I now more likely to purchase one?  Well, it’s certainly got my attention, that’s for sure.  I’m still a very happy PS4 owner, even if the games aren’t quite there just yet, but I’m also a long-time Xbox loyalist, and I’m not against owning one – as long as there’s a good reason.  Bringing the price down goes a long way towards making the purchase easier/more justifiable, but it doesn’t solve all the problems the XBO has.

One of those problems – and, indeed, probably one of the biggest reasons why I haven’t bought an XBO yet – is that multiplatform games receive a noticeable, measurable performance boost on the PS4.  With this new, Kinect-less XBO, however, there are reports floating around that the XBO could now theoretically devote extra resources towards game performance, now that it doesn’t have to save those resources for the Kinect.

If this helps to bridge the performance gap with the PS4 as far as multiplatform releases are concerned, that’s also a plus in my book.  But this now reminds me of the early days of the Xbox 360, when it launched without a hard drive.  360s that had hard drives performed better, and games that were designed with the hard drive in mind obviously make life difficult for 360 owners without one.  So, then – what happens to XBO owners who already have the Kinect?  Would they not be able to get these hypothetical performance advantages?  Would the XBO be smart enough to turn the Kinect off if, say, Titanfall 2 or Halo 5 required the extra juice?

That obviously doesn’t concern me, specifically, since I’m not one of those people.  Except that now I can’t help but wonder if it might be better to hold off until Microsoft comes out with a new and improved XBO model in a year or two, with improved specs (and a Kinect-less design philosophy) that can directly compete with the PS4?  This is not unheard of, as both the 360 and PS3 went through a few redesigns, though those were mostly cosmetic.  But in this case, Microsoft – who is clearly trying to right its perceived wrongs as quickly as possible – might very well put out an XBO with specs that could go toe to toe with the PS4, thus ending the performance gap once and for all.

I still maintain that exclusive games are the key to getting my money, and right now the PS4 has the better-looking lineup – especially as far as the indie scene is concerned.  But if Microsoft is making this announcement now, a month before E3, one has to assume that they want their E3 presentation to be as positive, forward-looking and with as much emphasis on games as humanly possible.

So, then:  this looks like it’s going to be yet another really interesting E3.

*  In an interview with Forbes, Yusuf Mehdi, a senior officer at Microsoft, specifically says:

“People have been more satisfied with the Xbox 360 than the PS3, so in that respect people have less of a need to upgrade in the short-term due to regular updates for the Xbox 360…”

This is 100% true.  I still kinda mess around in GTAV on my 360 every once in a while, and I do intend to see that last bit of Mass Effect 3 DLC that I’ve not yet gotten to.  Meanwhile, my PS3 is currently acting as an extra BluRay player for the bedroom TV.  Given that we do not watch BluRays in our bedroom, and also given that we have a Roku in there as well, I literally haven’t turned my PS3 on since I moved it in there to make room for the PS4.

the rundown

1.  I am beginning to think that the universe does not want me to own a Vita.  After Amazon received my defective unit, I pre-ordered the new Borderlands 2 bundle.  It was supposed to arrive today.  But late last night I received an e-mail from Amazon telling me that it won’t ship until somewhere between mid-May and mid-June.  Honestly, at this point I’d just give up and forget about it… except that I spent nearly $100 on a 32gb memory stick, and it’s loaded with some quality content, and I’d at least like to see some of it one day.

2.  My rental copy of Mario Golf: World Tour for the 3DS arrived last night, and I’m sad to say it’s probably going back to Gamefly relatively soon.  I adored the Mario Golf game for the DS, and played it endlessly, and loved nearly every minute of it.  This… thing, on the other hand, feels so half-baked, utterly bland and devoid of content that one wonders why it kept getting delayed.

3.  A rental copy of MLB 14: The Show will arrive later this week for the PS4.  I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating:  the MLB games are unparalleled in terms of presentation, gameplay and the overall experience.  And I’m also terrible at them, at least as far as hitting is concerned.  I’m excited for next-gen baseball – especially as I recently cut the cable cord and no longer have access to live sports – but I also know that this is probably a “try one game, be impressed while madly flailing at pitches far out of the strike zone, send back” sort of situation.

4.  It would figure that the day after I sing Diablo 3‘s praises for an unprecedented run of incredible loot drops, I’d spend an hour or two and get nothing but crap.  Still having fun, though!  And having fun is all that matters.

5.  Late yesterday afternoon I pitched a feature article to a site I’d very much like to write for, but I haven’t yet heard back.  This is a little depressing, I guess, but in the meantime I’m going to start getting it into shape, and so if it doesn’t go up there, it’ll most likely end up either here or at Gamemoir.  I’m not sure why I’m telling you this, except I always feel compelled to have 5 things in these numbered posts.

2 quick updates

Since posting this morning’s entry, two things happened.

1.  When I wrote that the week looks quiet on the new release front, it was because I’d totally forgotten that Child of Light is coming out.  Reviews at the larger outlets have been mixed but generally positive.  I’m not sure I can pick it up this week, but I’m definitely looking forward to checking it out at some point soon.

2.  A nice-sounding dude from the third-party vendor that sold me the fraudulent Vita (once again, their name is Tax Free Distributors) called me to personally apologize for the order, to make sure my refund would be expedited as quickly as possible, and also to offer me $20 in Amazon credit if I would rescind my negative feedback on their storefront page.  I am pleased to report that even though I’m short on cash right now, I still possessed enough moral fiber to tell the guy on the phone that a $20 bribe was disgusting and offensive, and that I would do absolutely no such thing.  As my negative review has already been pushed off their storefront page, I’m resorting to twitter and this blog, where I can keep it up as long as I want.

back from the break

Before I get into the vacation recap, I’ve got an update on my Vita situation.  It’s not good, though there is somewhat of a happy ending.

I came back to work this morning and saw what I assumed to be my repaired Vita waiting for me on my office chair.  But when I opened the box, I instead saw a note that said that the Vita could not be serviced because “it is not a North American product.”  I contacted Sony immediately thereafter, and quickly discovered that the Vita’s serial number does not actually exist in their records, and there’s no manufacturing region that it can be traced back to.  So then I looked at the order on Amazon, and saw that it was sold through a company called Tax Free Distributors.  The Sony customer service guy had never heard of them, and Googling their phone number turned up almost nothing usable.  I’m not sure what their deal is – they seem to operate somewhere in Nevada – but they sold me a fraudulent Vita, and I’m really, really pissed.

Amazon is getting me a full refund, which is great – because now I’ll probably wait for the Vita Slim, which is the thing I was hoping to get in the first place.

But the moral of the story is:  if you buy anything on Amazon that goes through that company, use caution.  Side note:  I left a scathing review on their feedback page and I can’t help but notice that a whole bunch of short 5/5 star reviews are going up really quickly, possibly in an effort to push mine off the page.

henryandme_beach

So, then:  I am back from the first real vacation I’ve had in maybe 3-4 years.  We flew first to Chicago for my great aunt’s 100th birthday and to see my extended family on my mom’s side.  While we were there, my kid took his very first unassisted steps, right in full view of everyone, and we caught it on video.

Then we flew to Naples, Florida, where we spent an absolutely beautiful week with my wife’s parents.  Many more kid firsts:  first time with a babysitter that wasn’t one of our parents (which went just fine), first visit to the ocean (he didn’t like it), first dip in the pool (he loved it), first trip to the zoo (I wasn’t there for this, but he supposedly liked it, even if he conked out towards the end of it).

I should also point out that the thing I was most concerned about – the actual flights themselves – were totally uneventful, as far as the baby was concerned.  He slept through the first two, and while he was a little cranky on the final flight, he did eventually sleep through the back half of that one as well.

It should also go without saying that this was not necessarily a relaxing vacation.  Don’t misunderstand – I loved not being at work, and I loved being out of the dreary NYC weather, and I loved being with my family and (especially) with my kid.  But that’s the rub – when you have a toddler, you can’t really stretch out and relax unless the kid’s asleep.

So, yeah – even if my Vita had been working properly, I probably wouldn’t have used it all that much.  Indeed, I was very nearly entirely game-free the entire vacation.  I did a few levels of Hitman Go on the iPad (which is quite good), and I did a few of the tutorial hands in Hearthstone (which is not grabbing me as much as I’d like, though I didn’t really give it my full attention).  But that’s about it, as far as gaming is concerned.

Did quite a lot of reading, though.  I can highly recommend Max Barry’s “Lexicon”, which I devoured in, like, 2 days.  I also finished The Pioneer Detectives (though it’s pretty short).  I also read through most of “Up Up Down Down Left Write: The Freelance Guide to Video Game Journalism” by Nathan Meunier, which was informative and inspiring (if also a little overly cutesy with pop culture references and is probably geared for someone about 20 years younger than me).  Being that I’m slowly starting to branch out onto other sites, it’s good information to have handy.

We also saw some movies, too, at the absurdly nice Silverspot theater, where the huge leather recliner seats are reserved in advance and where they serve you booze; we saw Captain America (which was awesome) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (which was great, and which keeps growing on me as I continue to think about it).  Also:  I can highly recommend the theater’s Italian Mojito, which was delicious.

I’m back, now, and trying to get into the swing of things, gaming-wise.  Last night I dusted off my PS4 and tried getting back into Trials Fusion – I am now up to the “Hard” difficulty levels and all I’ll say about it is that it’s inspiring me to write a column about frustrating difficulty levels, and why I’m willing to punish myself with Trials while being utterly dismissive about Dark Souls II.  Also did some fooling around with Infamous Second Son‘s new photo mode; I’m not thrilled with the photos I took, but it does seem to be a pretty cool tool.

Mario Golf: World Tour comes out for the 3DS on Friday.  I love video golf in any format, and I loved the DS Mario Golf game, but I’m not thrilled with the reviews that have been trickling out of late, especially as far as the solo campaign is concerned.  Being that I’m somewhat broke for the immediate future, I’m probably going to hold off – or at least I’ll stick with renting it from Gamefly.

Beyond that, it looks like a quiet week, gaming-wise.  I’ve got some columns I need to write up for some other sites, though, so I do need to get caught up on the last week’s worth of RSS feeds…

A quick addendum, and then a quick adieu

I’m going on vacation tomorrow, and so unless I get really bored and/or really sick and can’t do anything with my family, this blog is going to be silent for the next week.

But before I go, I just wanted to make a quick adjustment to yesterday’s Trials Fusion impressions.  I’d downloaded and played the game on Tuesday night, and so Wednesday morning I’d made mention of the excruciatingly long load times after races.  I played a little bit last night, though, and those long loading times are gone.  Like, completely gone.  So maybe the servers weren’t working right, or something – you can never tell with Uplay-  but in any event, consider that particular demerit scratched out.

I’ve been filling up my iPad with some stuff to play – Hitman Go, Warhammer Quest, FTL, Shadowrun, and then finally Hearthstone, which people are flipping out about.

I’m a little concerned about playing Hearthstone, though, specifically because my Blizzard account is totally screwed up.  Back when I was addicted to Diablo 3 on my PC, I’d used the iPhone’s Authenticator app for some added security.  Problem is, the original iPhone that the app was on broke, so I never had a chance to formally remove it or de-authorize it or what-have-you; and when I tried logging in a few months ago, I had to re-download the Authenticator and it was never able to sync up with my account.  So then I tried removing the Authenticator entirely from my account, which is something that apparently requires a passport and possibly a lawyer.

I’ll need to get that problem resolved eventually – there is a part of me that really wants to check out the recent Diablo 3 expansion, either on PC or on PS4 – but in the meantime, I might just have to create a dummy account and hope I don’t screw anything up too terribly.

Anyway.  That’s my problem, not yours.  I’ll see you all on Monday, April 28.  Maybe I’ll have my Vita back by then!