Mark of the Ninja: First Impressions

After playing Marking of the Ninja, I've come to realize that there haven't really been to many stealth games. There have been lots of games with a stealth element to it and some may even claim to build their game around this one mechanic, but in Mark of the Ninja - Stealth truly is the main focus with everything else being the icing on the cake.

The closest thing I can think of to Mark of the Ninja would be games like the Batman Arkham series and maybe Splinter Cell. But the thing that faults Batman is that whenever you F up a stealth section of the game, you either take a massive pounding from baddies or you totally loose the given level. Plus overall you feel like a dick head for making a silly mistake.

Ninja's don't make mistakes and if they do, they know how to recover from it - and keep looking bad ass.

Mark of the Ninja puts you behind the hidden blade of an unnamed hero who is charged with avenging his clan. To aid in his quest he is inscribed with tattoos penned with ink made from a scared flower, which gives the wearer of the Tattoos almost Supernatural like reflexes. This comes with a price however as who ever wears the ink is cursed to go insane, so at the end of the given task the wearer must end his life, less he becomes a threat to the clan.

Some folks say the story for Mark of the Ninja isn't very deep, but for me that set up is pretty damn awesome. By now I know that the crew over at Klei Entertainment grew up watching the same stuff I did as a kid, as evident from the influences on their awesome Shank games, and here Mark of the Ninja reminds me of the awesome Ninja flicks I watched growing up (Except The American Ninja - I wanna forget about those films)

So you embark on your mission. Your sword and kunai ready for the kill, but as a Ninja... your best weapon is the darkness.

The first thing that struck me as I started up the game was the beautiful cut scenes.  This could be a show on TV - it's that good. Next I stared in aw at the amazing world that was stretched out before me. Mark of the Ninja has to be one of the best looking games out there. Forget 2D games - just across the board this game is gorgeous. To look at a screen shot does it no justice, to watch the world live and breath is a thing of beauty.

Second thing that struck me about Mark of the Ninja is the tight controls. You move exactly how you want to move through the environment, with every step and every grapple precisely executed whenever you want it. There is very little room to fault buttons and such for the errors you make. There is however one issue I had and it's best we get it out of the way now because the rest of this article will be me praising the shit out this game.

There is a context sensitive button, that lets you pick up bodies or hide behind things. If you drop a guy near a pot plant, chances are you'll hide when you wanna pick him up or pick him up if you wanna hide. This has gotten me killed a few times, but that was when I was but a fledgling Ninja - such bull shit no longer hinders my game.

Aside from the tight controls there is the addition of these sound pulses that emit from noise sources. When you run, they circle out from your feet, letting you know how far the sound will reach. When you line up a Kunai with a light, it will show who will hear the sound of it breaking. This makes you want to be very very quiet, calculating every move you make, so as not to be  seen but also not heard.

There's this really cool feature where you "Focus" and time slows down, allowing you to mark and execute things like smoke bombs, multiple kunai hits and a whole host of other cool moves. Needless to say it really ups the "bad ass" factor every time you pull this move off.

With all these things in play, you'll find yourself looking out for short cuts, enemy patterns, and that right moment to move on unseen or make that mad ass kill. Playing through the game really reminded me a lot of Metal Gear solid and even a little bit of Super meat boy because of levels involving lasers. Strangely though it never reminded me of Tenchu, which is what i thought it would throw back to.

As with most things in 2D, the platform elements play a huge part in this game, and this game means business when it comes to precession timing and jumps. But that's not to say you have too play the game a certain way. The biggest flaw with most stealth games is that you need to consciously play them a certain way to get the most out of them.

In Mark of the Ninja you are a Ninja. No two ways about it. You are made to strike hard from the shadows, and fade away ... with out a trace. And though the game emphasizes this by awarding points every time you move by a guard unseen, it does also congratulate you for your straight out kills, provided they are stylish and classy - like a Ninja should be killing. 

As I mentioned earlier, unlike most 'stealth' games where you feel like a klutz when you get caught, Mark of the Ninja allows you to recover from your mistakes with class. Smoke bombs, kunais to lights, near by vents, if you see it you can use it as a means to infiltrate or escape. It is one of the few games that truly allows you to do things your way. I think the biggest factor in this is Klei's approach to the game. Stripping away all the non essential bull shit that clutter most other games (I'm looking at you Dishonored) Mark of the Ninja aims to give you one thing only - a ninja sim. So it encompasses all the things that makes Ninjas so damn cool, and provides you with an environment that lets you go nuts.

There is some serious gaming to be had here and I think Klei have really out done the stealth genre, taking in to account every innovation in the genre that has come before and building on it greatly with Mark of the Ninja. After all this the true fun of the games comes from the narrow escapes and sudden reactions of "run" or "kill" that keep you at the edge of your seat through out. Bascially using all the mechanics to play the game, while still making your own personal story.

I really can't think of anything else to say except that Mark of the Ninja is freaking awesome and if you enjoy great gaming experiences, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Dishonored: Fist Impresssions

Dishonoured adverts tell you that you can play the game "guns blazing" as a crazed assassin mad for revenge, or you can play it cool and calculated, striking from the shadows like a dark spirit of vengeance.

These adverts fail to tell you that playing Dishonoured as a straight out first person action game is super freaking dull. Combat though flashy can get very boring very fast. In fact as I first started playing the game and went about slicing and shooting people in the face I was like: meh

If you want to get the most out of Dishonoured you need to play it taking advantage of it's stealth elements, but that's not to say that the stealth in the game is awesome, far from it. In fact for a stealth game the mechanics in Dishonoured are pretty bland. It's not gonna do anything to take fame away from such titles as Splinter Cell conviction or even the Batman Arkham games.

Stealth in Dishonoured means crouching. But even then depending on how the game feels, you might hid in a corner and have a guard walk right by you, or you might reload a save and the damn guard will spot you in the same exact spot he missed you in a while ago. And you'll find that a lot of the game is broken this way. It helps though that none of the NPCs in Dishonoured have peripheral vision, so you can just walk up to a baddie and stab him in the neck as long as you walk to em in  a straight line from behind or from the side.

Another thing about Dishonoured is that the NPCs don't really care about each other. If there are three people in a room and you kill one of them, the other two will keep talking without a worry. They won't even notice that their friend is missing. I mean come on! for all the bullshit realism the adverts for Dishonoured boasts with its "fully realised world" - you'd think they would pay attention to something like that. If they were lazy to do anything they could have just added some bull shit dialogue.

"Hey where did Ben go?"
"His probubly gone for a piss again"
"That Ben sure does have a weak bladder"
"yeah ... I won't be the least bit worried if he never came back"

Also there was all this hype about the "PC" edition of the gaming having special attention given to controls. Is that why by default your left hand is mapped to the right mouse button and your right hand is on the left button? The amount of people I shot in the head instead of quietly stabbing... 

So basically the "one on one" components of Dishonoured aren't the sharpest, but I had fun trying to stealth my way through it. So much so that I kept loading saves when ever I got caught. I actually haven't killed too many people either because it takes longer to make em pass out without getting caught - and I like that added challenge. Plus the less people you kill, the less guards there are in later levels etc.

Speaking of challenge, the first chapter of the game is probably the most demanding, at least it was for me (I'm currently on the 4th chapter)

When stealth kills are just you and the dark, it gets very intense. But then the game has all these fancy gear and supernatural powers that it gives you. I remember seeing early trailers for the game, show casing these special moves, thinking that they looked way over powered. Playing through the game with them - they are almost like "God mode."

There are tone of things you can pick, but all you really need to totally pwn everything is Blink and this ability that allows you to see NPCs through walls, including field of vision. Once you pick these up you're pretty much boss.Blink lets you instantly teleport to any spot you can see.

You also have traps and stuff, but there really is no point to these except to kill boredom.

Why set up a spring trap when you can so easily just blink behind a baddie, slice him and blink out? I only used my traps once so far - just to check em out.

Visually the game looks pretty good in a Bioshock: infinite sorta way. The art and design for the game is what I love the most and is the only thing I think it does really well. The  Gothic / "Alice in wonderland" nightmarish world you get to explore is very awesome to look at. The people look good, but move like claymation, so the animation isn't the sharpest. And though the self contained levels are big, the missions them selves are pretty leaner.

As is the trend with most of the games that Bethesda publishes, the fun parts of Dishonoured are when you make the most of its given mechanics to forge your own adventure. There is a story in here some where, but I stopped listening when our hero is accused of a murder he didn't comminet, and instead of saying "hey I just got here" - he goes all Gordon Freeman on us and allows him self to get fudged.

You may not believe me, but I do like playing Dishonoured, but it's not as awesome as the critics make it out to be. I don't know what side of the bed these people woke up on when they played Dishonoured because I can see this game very easily bombing into 'midcore' territory depending on the reviewers mood.

If you're hard out for an action game, this wont do. If you're up for a poor man's "Thief" then Dishonoured might do it for you. But be warned - it requires a great deal of patience to get the most out of it. It will basically serve well those folks who claim they want a challenge but still haven't played Dark Souls because it's too hard.

Torchlight 2: First Impressions

Sometimes I forget that I bought Diablo 3, but then the bitter memory of it seeps back in and I my heart sinks to despair.

When I played Torchlight 1 a few years back, I was hooked. The formula of loot collecting, exploring and fun combat stole hours upon hours of my life. Just like Diablo 1 and 2 did years before. I keep telling myself that I'm not a RPG fan, and I guess to some extent games like Torchlight and Diablo aren't traditional RPGs. Dungeon crawlers, hack n slash or whatever you want to call them, I love em to bits.

After Torchlight 1 came and went, I thought to myself: boy I can't wait for Diablo 3.

Without getting into the shit flinging too much, let me just say Diablo 3 started out great but ultimately fell due to its own reputation. It just didn't deliver on what I wanted and what it did serve up wasn't enough.

I was very hesitant to pick up Torchlight 2, even though I loved the first one, after the events of D3 I thought that maybe I'm just not into this genre of gaming at the moment. I should just stick to Borderlands 2  which has been nothing but the Bees Knees.

But thanks to a friend I was able to get myself a Steam copy of Torchlight 2 and I'm so damn glad that I did.

Torchlight 2 is a gem.

It's a special game. It has charm, and character and it thrusts you into a world that strives to kill you but never seizes to amaze you.

Just going through its list of 4 classes had me sitting there clicking forever because I couldn't decided which one was the coolest one to play. Eventually I settled on an Engineer named Issac and his pet ferret Ishi.

As the game begins you find that the biggest let down in Torchlight 2 is the story, or lack there of. There is a narrative in there somewhere, but even the game knows that it's not important. What matters is that you have a reason to step into your characters shoes and cause havoc.

Visually the game looks amazing, I freaking love the art style. It's unique art make it as though you were playing through a Disney Cartoon. It sort of looks like a higher rendered version of what you see in world of Warcraft, and given that the Dev crew were ex Blizz members, you can see how Torchlight 2 borrows heavily from such titles as Diablo and WoW. But what it borrows it polishes and gives back in a big way. Even the Music is done by the same guy that worked on Diablo 1 and 2 - so the atmosphere and environments are a joy to go through. In fact the music and environments to explore are a major draw for me.

Soon you don't care who you're collecting quests from, or where you have to go. You just grab quests, look at the reward and then kill shit as you make your way towards a star marking some location on a map. And this to me is the game so far. But please don't take that as a negative, because this simple mechanic of killing, looting, moving on is some how made so damn addictive by the good people over at Runic Games. If it wasn't for Borderlands 2 I would have been sitting there for hours just exploring and finding new things to kill and strip off loot. But I really want to finish my first play through of Borderlands 2 before I get into anything else.

But let me just say, that my first few hours of Torchlight 2 were insanely more satisfying than my time spent finishing Diablo 3. If D3 has left a bad taste - Torchlight 2 is here to bring the sugar.

Borderlands 2: An Epic Sequel

Sequels are a special breed. In some cases they can be used to correct certain short comings of the original installment, other times it can build and expand on the first. The hardest challenge is to create a sequel for something that has gained massive success, and it is even harder if this success came as a surprise.

When it came to Borderlands 2, from the looks of it, it seems that Gearbox followed one basic principle: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Right out of the box Borderlands 2 seems like more of the first game, but as you play on you see the tweaks and adjustments that have gone in to refine the awesome formula that made the first game so much fun.

The exploration, the loot, THE GUNZ and especially the humor of the first game have been amped up to amazing heights this time around.

There are actually heaps of reviews out for the game already, so there's no point getting into that, from my side I just wanted to share how amazingly awesome Borderlands 2 is, but I think anyone who is even mildly interested in the game already know this.

The world of Pandora is bigger and badder than ever, with heaps of new areas to explore and enemies to fill up with bullets, or if you're like me, slice and dice with a laser construct katana.

The game looks freaking beautiful, with so much added detail etched into the cell shaded world that it's a gem to behold. For me it reaches heights reminiscent of Rage, which made such a hype about it's graphics and game features. Yes the two share a similar world, but the land of Borderlands 2 feels truly inhabited. To some extent I felt Borderlands 2 offered me the gaming experience that Rage had promised.

Borderlands 2  is filled with quests that lead you to its many new locations. Some of these quests you need to look out for though as the world is filled with many hidden side quests and Easter eggs which make exploring so damn addictive. These are hidden to the extent of dropping of specific baddies after doing specific tasks, without spoiling too much, do pay attention to such areas as The Fridge or even Caustic Caverns as the quests that take you there end pretty quick, but the ones you find hidden will keep you busy.

This time around the characters of Borderlands are brought to life in a bigger way as well. All the dialogue is amazingly voiced and you can't help but fall in  love with everyone you meet, even the bad guys.

Even "Handsome Jack" the antagonist of the game is someone you can't help but cheer for when he comes in over your intercom to blurt out his funny stories and one liners.

These characters give way to a flushed out story which can get pretty deep for a FPS. I know some reviews have dismissed the narrative of the game as a back seat to the action and loot that drives it, but I found it to be very engaging.There was one moment in the game that actually pulled some emotional strings for me cause it played on my feelings from the previous game. Then there are quests that made me just laugh out loud IRL because of the dialogue and interactions that were really just honestly funny.

But the loot, O GAWD THE LOOT!

Nothing beats that rush of findiing "that gun" that out bids your current favorite, but this time around most every single gun is so good that it's actually sad for me to let certain weapons go. I  read somewhere that you shouldn't get attached to weapons and that's so true. I actually had to buy more bag/ bank space so I could keep a few guns a little longer for sentimental value.

On my current play through I'm going in as Zer0 the assassin, who is pretty much a cyborg ninja, because that's how awesome Borderlands is. I was going to play as the Commando but felt it was too similar to the Solider from part one (not that that's a bad thing) and I wanted a fresh experience. It was hard to play him as the sword wielding psychopath I had envisioned from the get go, so I started his killing spree as a sniper, but a few more levels and points in I re-speced him into his Blood Shed tree and never looked back, except to admire the trail of death and blood I left behind.

This is my eventual aim for Zer0 once I get very effective with his  Deception skill, but for solo purposes I'll be rolling with this.

Yautja

I really like the challenge of playing Zer0 as a melee focused toon, because I feel a lot of the game is easier on ranged combat. But Zer0's melee tree, if speced right, offers a lot of  straight out damage boosts which in turn allows me to get in "up close and personal" or hold back to pick off as need be. Weapon of choice is Shotguns and SMGs with a Sniper riffle for good measure... and his nifty katana.

Aside from talents and such you can also customize your vault hunter to some extent visually through the use of skins. These are presets whcih you can mix and match to suit your toons character.Though I've found a lot of skins I can't help but stick to this one called "Blood and rust" which covers Zer0 in - well in Blood and muck. It really looks like his killed some serious shizz and is out to hack up something new. And I like the contrast to the other "Clean" Zero skins that are popular online.

And my Zer0 is called Yautja (E-wat-ya) - which makes him even more bad ass.

So yeah man - Borderlands 2 is quite the shizz and I actually can't wait to get home to play it. As a successor I feel it has truly taken the franchise to new heights with its style and attitude. As a game it is truly one of the coolest shooters I've ever played, or just one of the coolest games period, cementing the franchise into my top 5 for keeps.

Borderlands 2: First Impressions

It's just like Borderlands part one but better.

Now I get back to playing.

Darksiders 2: First Impressions

Within the first few moments of Darksiders 2 you can tell that you're embarking on something purely Epic.

The stakes have already been set up very high in the previous game; the Horseman War has been imprisoned for bringing on the Apocalypse, earth is dust and Humans are extinct. As  Wars Brother you take it upon yourself to prove his innocence and bring back humanity - You are Death... and you are a Bad Ass.

The first thing that grabbed me about the game is the music, and trust me this is normally something I almost never compliment right away, but Darksiers 2 has a score that gives every task a sense of grandness and urgency.

The music drives you; it drives you to ride, it drives you to move like a beast in combat, it makes you want to save the world.

Then there's the look of the game. Where Darksiders 1 had ruined cities and sad grey subways to bring to life its dead world, Darksiders 2 has massive forests, ice lands, and areas that are just a wonder to behold. The main hub of the game where you get your weapon upgrades and spells is a wonderfully crafted area with giant architecture blended nicely with the green around it. So nice that I love visiting it over and over.

To some extent the world reminded me a little of World of Warcraft, maybe because of the similar art style.

The combat in the game is a gem as well. Gone is the bulky fighting style of War. Death is quick and fluid, leaping in to a blood spilling frenzy with ease. Combat is also very tight and responsive, with Death doing exactly what you want him to, when you want him to. In fact the dodge roll in the game is so effect that it's almost cheating. But I'm pretty early into things and I'm sure I'll need it badly later on as combat gets heavier.

But what adds extra spice to the game is its little RPG touches. You get to fashion Death into your own style of killing machine. Through out the game enemies drop loot, this can be anything from clothing to weapons that carry different stats. Want your Death to be a strong tank filled with defence and resistance? so be it. My Death is fast, full on damage and crit.

The items also change the look of Death too, so this adds to even more customizations ecstatically.

One of the coolest parts of Darksiders 2s weapon list is the addition of "Possessed Weapons", these are items that level up with you. Plus they have this ability to "eat" other items. So if you feed it an item with a particular stat, those stats become part of the possessed weapon. You can also name these weapons so at the moment I have a pair of custom Scythes I named "Twin Peaks." I am massive loot whore, in WoW it was almost an obsession, so this aspect of Darksiders 2 keeps me venturing forth like mad.

There are also combat tress that carry this even further. Now these tress aren't that extensive, it's basically just two paths allowing either direct damage or damage through spells. My Death is all about the hands on.

The story is driven through dialogue wheels similar to Mass Effect and Dragon Age 2, though the dialogue options aren't as extensive they do a good job of moving things along. If you are one for story and lore, Darksiders 2 has it in plenty. All the dialogue is wonderfully brought to life with awesome voice work, so it's all a gem to sit through.

What drives me on in the game is exploring. I've said this over and over. I love to explore, and Darksiders 2 gives you lots to explore, and you get to to do so on your trusty horse Despair. As you ride along to objectives you come across ruins and caves that lead to side dungeons filled with special baddies and loot. This keeps the game from becoming stale story wise as you constantly have heaps to do.

The characters that drive the game are brought to life beautifully, but the star of the Show is Death, as it should be.

Michael Wincott is bad ass

Death as voiced by Michael Wincott, and is probably the coolest character I've played in a while. He is mysterious, bad ass, calm in the face of everything... with has a dry humour that actually makes you laugh now and then.  With all this Death actually has a certain charm to him that I haven't seen in to many recent characters in gaming.

Plus I've always been a fan of Wincott's voice and could never get enough of it in the past from his films, so him playing Death makes me giddy as a school girl. Ever since I saw him in the Crow I thought he had one of the coolest voices ever. It's kinda cool too how in the Game Death has a crow that shows him the path to follow when moving around in the world.

I remember how Darksiders 1 really reminded me of Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kane, well Darkisers 2 feels the same way. It really nails home the old school adventure game feel with larger than life locations and characters.

But Darkisers 1 for all its awesomeness did get a little boring some times, with its derivative puzzles and long gaps between combat. Thankfully this hasn't happened yet with Darksiders 2. 

When I first saw Darksiders 2 it was the game I didn't know I wanted. But if you're a fan of such titles as Castlevania: Lord of Shadows, God of War and the like, then Darksiders 2 will be a welcome addition to your collection.

Slender: Impressions

Here's a video of my Girl friend and I checking out the Indie Horror game Slender.

Shadows of the Damned: First Impressions

What happens when you take a game concept and mechanics by Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil 1, Resident Evil 4,Vanquish), develop the gameplay and creative elements around it with  Goichi Suda (No more heroes, Fatal Frame IV, Lollipop Chainsaw) and then score the whole thing with Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill 1, 2 and 3)?

You get Shadows of the Damned which is one of the maddest freakin horror shooter you'll ever get to play.

Shadows of the Damned follows the exploits of one Garcia "Fucking" Hotspur, a demon hunter whose girlfriend has been captured by the lord of Demons. Unable to save her right away, Garcia follows the demon lord back to his world to find his stolen love and mess up the dinner dates of as many demon fiends he can get his hands on.

Now this might sound pretty straight foredward, and yes to some extent it is, but the devil is not in the details of the games story, but rather the mad characters you get to meet and kill, and the awesome Demon world you get to explore.

Like the bastard child of Evil Dead and Dante's Inferno with dashes of Alice in Wonderland,  Shadows of the Damned is an off beat, in your face horror game with a setting that could have only been conceived on a bad acid trip. .. or a good acid trip.

Graphically the game looks like an old school horror movie, with filters and effects that give the whole thing a grind-house feel. The characters play out very 'over the top' especially our hero Garcia. His a Motorcycle riding, Latino punk rocker with a gun called "The Boner." This gun is actually a demon itself called Johnson. The game is full of these sexual innuendos and at times can be overly explicit. Designs of everything in the game are twisted - it's actually very hard to explain this without seeing the game for yourself.

The shooting in the game plays out exactly like Resident Evil 4 with the view shifting over the shoulder for aiming, but you can move while shooting, which makes it also feel a little like Dead Space. It's very effective without feeling too over powering. In fact, the shooting mechanic is easy enough to pull off, but just limited enough to be tricky at times, which makes for some intense shoot outs.

The baddies too are a mix of slow and fast enemies, and its fun shooting off limbs and things to watch the demons crawl and squirm they way to you. (like in Dead Space) You have your zombies, and nightmare monsters and things stitched together, then you have your VIP demons (Very important pendejos) who are like stage bosses or mini bosses.

Garcia can dodge and roll out of harms way with easy, at first it feels like too much ease, but when you get past the canon fodder baddies and start butting bullets with the VIPs is when all your skills come in handy.

Your "Boner" can turn into three different weapon types; namely a pistol, a shot gun and an automatic riffle. These can then be upgraded with damage modifiers and other attachments such as grenade launchers etc.

It's not all just straight forward shooting however as aside from the demon nasties, there's this added mechanic that has to do with light and darkness.

Every now and then the game world is plunged into Darkness which slows you down and drains your health. Baddies that appear during this time also come with a darkness shield that renders them invincible. In order to disperse this Darkness you need to find and shoot a goat head.

Yes. A goat head.

There are things that can buy you time during this darkness phase, such as light barrels, human hearts laying around to be eaten and safe rooms here and there.

These moments make for some pretty intense gameplay and I found my self with clenched toes fits of "come on come on come on" moments as I came across them.

This whole thing of having the fire power and skills but still needing to be on your toes adds a level of cautiousness that fits well with the creepiness of the whole game, and is something I haven't come across in awhile.

Like the Splatterhouse remake I spoke about a few posts ago, this game plays like a massive  love letter to horror fans. It isn't Silent Hill creepy, like I said this is Evil Dead horror. It's a horror setting with a punk rock attitude. Think Cabin in the woods or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. Not "Scary movie" but more along the lines of From Dusk Till Dawn.

For a new IP Shadows of the Damned takes a lot of risks with it's direction and it's appeal might be limited to a very niche section of the gaming crowd, even when it comes to horror gamers. This was evident from its reported low sales, but for me personally it's become a great edition to my gaming titles.

It's not a conventional game by any means, but it has solid mechanics that are fun to play.It reminded me a lot of the things that got me into horror gaming and just horror in general. As far as movie relations go - the game feels like something that will one day be a cult classic.

I heard there's a whole stage dedicated to Evil Dead that I can't wait to reach.

Red Dead Redeption: Pure Awesome

There are great games and then there are truly amazing games.

Rock Star have published some great games done by its various dev teams, but their Red Dead Redemption, developed by Rock Star San Diego is truly a thing of awesomeness.

When I first heard of "Red Dead" I didn't look into it much because on paper it read like a western themed Grand Theft Auto. Though I own GTA 4, it's not the coolest thing I've played, as it just didn't live up to the greatness of GTA: San Andreas, which to me is the best game in the series.

Over the weekend a friend of mine lent me Red Dead in exchange for God of War. Reading up on the game had me somewhat interested, but once I poped that disk in; I was glued to my PS3 for like 12 hours straight. At one point I seriously thought my PS was gona melt or something because I just couldn't bring myself to turning this game off.

Even my girlfriend who is usually telling me to get of my games and do something, else was hooked right there next to me, as Red Dead is simply one of the coolest farkin games ever.

This shouldn't be surprising as apparently it has won over 160 "game of the year" awards and holds a Metacritic rating of 95% making it one of the highest rated console exclusives of all time.

The first awesome thing about the game is the setting. I haven't seen too many Western themed games, and to be honest I'm not a massive fan of the genre (my favorite western would probably be Back to the Future 3)

Rolling hills and endless country is spread out ahead of you as a massive open world , said to be so many times bigger than Fortune city from GTA 4, waits to be explored.

The game looks great. The environment would be the star here as it shifts from amazing sun sets to stormy nights. I spent hours and hours simply exploring the world of Red Dead. Traveling this world would be the second best thing about the game, as Rock Star has done an amazing job with the main mode of transportation: Horses. Riding a horse is almost a mini game as you have to manage the horses stamina, so instead of just pressing one button to make it go, you need to press the button according to a certain rhythm. This is not complicated though and soon you're galloping at great speeds across the vast land. Different horses have different timing, and the land is scattered with various breeds of horses to tame and collect. I'm waiting for this one rare Black Horse which sometimes travels the south lands - but is know to live up in the north. that area hasn't opened up for me yet :(

You do have a fast travel system too but I enjoy riding so much that I never use it.

The world is also populated with random encounters and events. Bank robbers, cannibal gangs, marauders, thieves, kidnappers and so much more. As you ride you come across these events that you can either intervene or join in on.

Unlike GTA4 which put away with a lot of the extra stuff your hero can get up to in game, Red Dead is just like GTA: San Andreas, in the way that there is so much more to do aside from the main story. With loads of side quests, mini games and even "jobs" like hunting, botany, tracking missions and heaps more, this is a world that truly feels alive and makes you become a part of it.

All of these are the bonuses to an awesome story that plays out like a movie. I know a lot of games claim to have a cinematic experience, but Red Dead is truly a game that you could just sit back and watch someone play.

You are John Marston, a former outlaw now working for the government. You have been tasked with capturing your former comrades, and somewhere in there your family is somehow in danger. Where this danger is coming from hasn't been reveled to me yet, but it's all enough motivation to get things going.

The supporting cast is nothing short of greatness, with all the characters beautifully brought to life through stunning animation and the best voice work I've heard in a video game. The personalities of everyone you come across stay with you long after you've met them and you can't help but care about the friends you make. There's one particular grave robber that I couldn't help feeling sorry for and liked having him around as a friend - even though he creeped me out at times.

In fact, morally this game is very interesting in how it effects you. For example, at one point I was without a horse, and I just couldn't bring myself to steal another mans horse >_<

I actually walked all the way back into town and then used one of the stable horses until I caught and tamed another horse to my liking.

Combat in the game is mad awesome too, with great responsive controls that let you do exactly what you want to do, and the guns man... they rock so hard. There is nothing more bad ass then walking into enemies while staring down the barrel of your Riffle, poping heads and taking names. To spice things up is the addition of this thing called "Dead Eye" which allows the hero to slow down time and either fire a one off shot at an otherwise hard target, or you can mark and execute the bad guys similar to the mechanic in Splinter Cell: Conviction.

The Dead Eye fills with every normal shot you fire. This all makes for some truly epic gun fights in the game.

I actually started the game on Hardcore (this ability to chose difficulty setting was apparently the first for Rock Star) and yes the game was very unforgiving at first - but once I got the hang of it, it made combat very satisfy. All the weapons in game are awesome and which gun works best depends on your play style. I like to take guys out from a distant with my riffle before finishing things up with my sawed-off :D There are some named weapons to collect too which add more damage and other perks.

Money for me is a bit scarce but so far this hasn't hindered me in anyway. All you really need to buy is things like medicine for wounds and maybe ammo now and then. Otherwise most of what you need is acquired through the game - including weapons.

The Story is very extensive and after two whole days of playing I only just finished the 1st act.With out giving away too much, let me just say that it goes places. What started off as bringing in some outlaws is currently at a revolution starting up in Mexico.

This should give you some scope as to how vast the world is, as the big story comes with the huge setting. It really reminds me of Fallout 3 without the sci fi stuff. Sort of like Desperado meets Fallout would be the best description.There is just so much to do and find in this game, with events and things unlocking perks and other goodies as you progress, that you could spend hours in it without even touching the story. The plot is very interesting though, played out through cut scenes and the various conversations you have with people as you ride. These conversations are cool because it subs the lack of the radio from GTA. When you're out and about by yourself you get to explore to an awesome music score that really sets the mood. It's sort of old school western themed music with a modern twist.

What's interesting also is how creepy the world can get at night, which is awesome because after I finish the main story I can not wait to dive into the DLC of the game called "Undead Nightmare" which adds a zombie invasion campaign to the game, along with other content such as the four horses of the apocalypse to collect, as well as creepy shizz like the Chupacabra and other old west mythical beasts. (Moth man?)

At a glance I didn't know how this zombie thing would work with Red Dead, but after playing it I think this addition will work great. A lot of times I've ridden through a woody hillside or a ghost-town expecting something to jump out and scare me.

Speaking of Ghost towns - Tumbleweed - man that place is creepy.

All in all Red Dead Redemption is one of the best games I've ever played, those who don't have access to it should be farking sad cause they are missing out on something amazing. I would love to own this thing on PC though as I know it would look even better with higher res textures.

Which brings us to the one thing I hate about the game; I don't own it! Like I said I borrowed this off a friend and it breaks my heart knowing I have to give it back, but I fully intend to buy my own next pay.

This baby is currently contending to make it to my top 5 games of all time. Will it make it? "After thoughts" to come.

Diablo 3: First Impressions

So last night I got my hands on Diablo 3.

I told myself that there was no rush - that I can wait till I have some money to spare, or at the very least I could wait till my next pay. But then like the damn Hell spawn that plagues the game, Diablo 3 crept in and possessed every corner of the internet that I frequent.

So I gave in. I couldn't resist it - Damn you Blizzard and your awesome games!

I was lucky though. By the time I had installed and started on Diablo 3, the host of issues and bugs that littered the news feeds regarding the game were pretty much sorted. In fact I installed the game with no problems and managed to log on on the first try, so my first moments of Diablo 3 were not tainted like so many other eager players.

To be honest I never followed much of Diablo 3s development process. Aside from a few gameplay vids I watched closer to release, and a few class introduction videos from earlier this year, my knowledge of Diablo 3 going in was very limited. Everything I knew about Diablo dated back to Diablo 2 and its expansion. So as I watched the intro video at 11pm last night - I thought to myself "Blizzard you bastards - you've done it again."

First off this game oozes quality. Everything from the amazing FMVs that Blizz is known for, to the interface and presentation of the game is something else. But what struck a cord with me the most is that Diablo 3 felt so familiar.

And that would pretty much sum up my entire first impression - you like Diablo? Here's more Diablo.

Yes I'm sure there are lots of tweaks and differences from Diablo 3s predecessors, but in the sorry 3 hours I spent on it last night I didn't notice too much of it.

In fact I went into gameplay feeling a little under whelmed at first. If there were any innovations to the formula, I didn't feel it last night. But then I noticed that it was 2am, so whatever it was that I was doing was certainly additive. I guess why fix something that isn't broken right?

Before I get into the good stuff I'll tell you a few things that I didn't care for.

First up (and I'm sure I'm a minority in this) is the story. I really didn't give a shit about the story. It all just picks up and starts and there's a rescue mission, but i didn't care. I just clicked on stuff and stuff died.

Another thing was the skill division - or lack there of. Gone are the trees of skills you go through to sort out your toon. Instead as you level up, one skill at a time opens up in a few different areas of your characters stats. It's not like you can focus all your skill points into making your toon offensive, the game sort of tells you "ok here's a new offensive spell" and then "ok now here's a new defensive spell" So it sort of just chooses which spell it wants to give you as you level up - a little like in World of Warcraft. But minus the talent trees.

 It is up to you which spells you actually use. So you might have like 2 primary spells - and then you pick the one you want to equip. Plus you have these runes that spice up your attacks by adding buffs and such. So there is a little cusomization - but as with most RPGs, once you find a winning combo for a particular class, I'm sure the majority of players will be using the same cookie cutter build. So it's no Dark Souls in terms of customizations (but then very few games take the risks that Dark Souls takes)

Combat gets a little messy at times when you have to click on a dozen or so enemies standing at on spot, and lets face it, there is only so much you can do with a game where you click to do EVERYTHING. You can pretty much just sit there and play the game with one hand if you wanted. Aside from the left and right click, you have 4 other assigned buttons, so maybe it gets more complicated as to how you use these buttons later, but at the moment it's very simple.

The loot whore in me didn't kick in last night either - but it is still early. I did do the normal upgrades and such, but that thirst for the next best weapon hasn't set on yet. 

With the streamed line stats system and easy to pick up gameplay, Diablo 3 feels like something perfect for the casual gamer and I think that's a good thing, because at the heart of it, Diablo 3 offers something that a lot of games seem to be scared of these days. It offers a lot of fun. It's not striving to be super cool or hardcore (though it does have a hardcore mode) Diablo 3 is just a really fun game in the most primal sense of the word.

I did loose 3 hours in what felt like 20mins last night, so despite all of the above personal short comings Diablo 3 had, it is doing something right.

What drove me most in the game was the sense of exploration. Diablo 3s world is rich and very detailed and though I'm very early into the game, what little I've seen is truly awesome. From decaying forests, to creepy crypts, Diablo 3 is a pleasure to explore. So I just wanted to see where I would end up next.

I went into Diablo 3 fully expecting to be either a Barbarian or Monk, but these characters got pretty boring pretty fast for me. Maybe you have to be in the mood for that certain play style. When I tried the Demon Hunter though, everything felt awesome.

Pretty much the Demon hunter is the assassin from Diablo 2 but with a more range focus, and for some reason pointing and clicking his moves out are a lot of fun. It just felt like a little more effort was involved compared to the "fist to face" strategy of the Barbarian and Monk that I had tried earlier. And plus he has the whole Salem Witch hunter vibe going, which is farkin cool...

The Baddies in Diablo 3 are pretty cool too. But even though the place is littered with things like "Ravenous Corpses" or giant bloated ghouls, I haven't met a baddie yet that felt creepy.

That doesn't mean I didn't have fun clicking the shit out of the.

In the end I guess the biggest question would be: was all this worth the wait? Well I wasn't really waiting for Diablo 3, and yes a lot of what I was doing last night didn't seem new to me at all. Some might even argue that the Diablo 3 formula that Blizz delivered has been improved on by other games in recent times, but too me it was more a question of "Was Diablo 3 worth the hefty sum of cash that I dropped on it" and to be honest - it was.

There's no denying the quality that oozes out of this game. The issues that were faced by many upon lunch  was a sad thing, but it should not take away from something that just feels like it was put together with a lot of care. I still have a lot to play and it is early stages, but so far it's been engaging.

I even logged on this morning to play, and had to wait in a que >_< But I can't remember the last time I tried to squeeze a bit of game time out of something before rushing off to work.

And right now I'm really looking forward to going home and playing some more.

Heavenly Sword: First impressions

So yesterday I picked up Heavenly Sword for the PS3.

I've always been intrigued by this game because all the promotional materiel for it has a scantly clad woman with a giant sword. If there's two things I like it's Pringles and Coke.


When I loaded the game up the first thing that struck me was the amazing graphics. This game came out back in 2007, but it looks and plays like something a lot more current.

Everything from the cinematic cut scenes to the actual in game animations and graphics look like a moving piece of art.

You play as Nariko, a young woman whose entire clan hates her cause she wasn't born a boy. If she were born a boy she would have been destined to carry the Heavenly Sword, a powerful ancient weapon which is foretold to lead the clan against an unspeakable evil.

But as the armies of a ruthless Raven lord named Bohan (played by Andy Serkis) descends on their village, Nariko proves very capable of dishing out the hurt. So her reluctant father gives her the sword to look after during the battle.


But then shit gets stirred even harder and she is forced to take up the blade, that we find out drains the user of their life essence.

What follows is some of the maddest fighting I've come to play in a 'beat em up.'

Nariko fights like a cross between a pretty bird and a farkin hurricane. She flips and dances around enemies before smashing them to peices with furious attacks that make the game a joy to watch.

It's actually very easy to pick up but it takes a bit of time to learn all the combo moves and counters that Nariko has at her disposal.


There's a lot of reviews for the game out there, like this one from Gamespot, so I'm not gonna go into much details in relations to that, but even after reading all the praise for it I wasn't expecting such a spectacular game.

The disk I got was pretty awesome too as it came with a complete making of for the game as well as all the episodes for the Heavenly Sword animated series.

I didn't get to play too much of it last night as I'm currently suffering/ enjoying Demon Souls, but it is defiantly an awesome addition to my collection.

Check out the very cool video below that show's off the games combat as well as awesome style and graphics.

Dark Souls: First Impressions

I'm always telling my friends about how I finish games so easily. Even while playing on the hardest setting most games I grab are done for in a few days or even with in a few hours.

I heard so much about the Unlocked hard-mode for Dead Space 2 only to shred through it over a weekend. I'm a beast in Doom3 and pride my self at pwning the shit out of that game on Nightmare.

Well yesterday I got my hands on Dark Souls for the ps3 and very quickly the phrase "Be careful what you wish for" burned into my head.


Dark Souls is out to punish you.

It's out to punish you for the slob you have become at the hands of all these games where you gawk at the shiny visuals, and grand cinematic while parading carefree through a game world that's ready to bow down and make you it's hero.

Dark Souls is out to make you it's bitch.

Dark Souls starts off very low key. It does have a grand opening video that explains the events that leads to the start of the game, which involves old Dragon lords, witches, betrayal and then all of humanity being turned undead.

You start off in a cell when a stranger throws down a body through the roof, that comes with a broken sword and a key to your cell. The two of you share a glance and then you proceed with your adventure.

The only short comings I had with Dark Souls happened right at the beining. The character customization is a joke, they really should have just gone with the Diablo thing and given you the different classes, and not bother with the face creation and such. Cause you basically just go through a bunch of shitty looking presets, and by the end of it I had created the ugliest son of a bitch I've ever played in an RPG. No wonder they never show you any faces in any of the trailers, cause you look like a poofta. But luckily I have my helmet.

The rest of you looks great though, your amour and movement animation is farkin sweet...

The second thing for me was the controls, but this just might be for me. I had to get used to the attack buttons being shoulder buttons and not the X or the O and such. But all this is bullshit because by the end of the very brief tutorial you're running around slashing shit like a pro.

so you think...

You feel pro until you leave the tutorial area and come toe to toe with YOUR FIRST FARKIN BOSS!

Firs boss!

Just as the farker came tearing through the wall I saw a message on the floor that read: RUN!

And I did...

That's one of my immediate favorite things about the Dark Souls, the messages. If you're online then all through out the game you come across messages left by other players. This sort of gives you the feeling that though you're in above your head, another adventurer hasgone through here and been through the same shit you're about to face. You get things like "Nice view" when you're on top a high tower or "try luring out" and my personal fave "Good luck!"

Another cool feature is seeing other players 'Blood stains." Activating these will play the last 10sec of that players life... showing you exactly how he or she met their death. As you play sometimes you even get hints of these plays as they manifest in a shade like form and pass by you for a brief moment.

In the game your main currency is Souls. Souls are used for everything from leveling up stats to buying items. When you die you leave these souls in a blood smear that marks the spot you died. You resurrect at the nearest bonfire that you've lit. You light bonfires to act as sort of check points through out the game. Sitting at them also allows you to allocate souls to raise stats and such thus allowing you to level up. there's a cool feeling when you approach a bonfire and see other players gathered around it too. And you can't help but wonder what shit these guys are facing. Next to one such bonfire I saw a message that read "I can't take this any more."

There are two kinds of souls you can get in Dark Souls. The most common is the few you get from killing foes, the rare ones are souls that are trapped inside shards. You find these shards scattered here and there... what makes them special is that when you die you loose the souls on you if you don't make it back to your blood stain. But shards stay in your inventory waiting to be used for leveling.

I hope so

Dark Souls is a survival horror game in the truest sense of the words. The world of Dark Souls is terrifying and brutal. It's a rich dark fantasy world that's both grand and horrifying at every turn.


I haven't been too far yet, I'm just at these ruins on top a mountain side... but the place looks amazing. Normally this kinda thing would be sweet because I love exploring, but the grand world of Dark Souls is a menacing place. You venture forth at your own risk. Everything that inhabits the world looks like they were snatched right out of a nightmare. Believe me when I say that around every corner, death is waiting.

There's also a strange sense of melancholy throughout the whole thing. In the way the NPCs talk, the tone of the music that fills the environments, and just the constant fear of risking everything for the rewards that might come. It grips you with despair that you feel you have to fight against to overcome.


Regardless of story or whatever else, you feel like you're constantly just trying to survive in this world. Picture perfect views and lavishly designed areas are simply the back drop to the eminent death that will strike you over and over. When you face something in anything other horror game, it means very little... you do it cause you're playing. In this game you actually feel ballsy when you explore and go up against things.

Combat in Dark Souls is farkin tight. You move with such precision and response that if you fail against an enemy it never gets frustrating, because you know that you missed that block or you didn't take a shot when the baddie was open for it.


I made it through two of the bosses on my first try... but my bane of last night was this one 'mini' boss that totally owned me for like 10 fights. It's not like if you die you start at the boss fight... you actually start all the way back at that bonfire you lit. With everything between you and boss back to give you hell. But the coolest thing was... that even though he pretty much two shot me the first time around, by the time we had our last fight I was dancing circles around him. Dodging hits, blocking blows and pretty much pwning him.

Never has the fear of dying been so firmly instilled me in any other game. In Dark Souls you are afraid of dying. To say that I love this game makes me feel like a sadist. Because this game is out to hurt me, and I love that pain. It expects me to man up and fight back not just to get by, but by learning real skills and applying them accordingly. That feeling I got last night when I lost my first large sum of souls, I can't remember a game that ripped my heart out so badly.

I've been engrossed by games before, namely Doom 3 and Dead Space... but nothing has ever sucked me in like Dark Souls. As far as roll playing goes... this game really puts you into your characters shoes. Cause you really fear for his or her well being. I really can't wait to go back home to survive it.

Dark Souls is brutal, unforgiving and possibly the greatest thing I've ever "played."

This is why I game...

Skyrim: First Impressions - and a bit more.

I keep saying that I'm not much of an RPGer, not in the traditional sense. But whenever I play a game, any game, I like to fully engross myself into the character.

If I don't feel some kind of connection, at a character trait level, or some game play level, I just can't go on.

Story isn't always the most important thing to me in a video, Ima be really shallow and just get that out of the way. But that's not to say that I don't enjoy a good story.


Last weekend I got my hands on Skyrim, the latest Elder Scrolls game that has been killing the reviews on gaming sites across the interwebs.

I made myself some half elf/ half human guy before deciding he looked very dickish and re-rolled a Redguard. These are sort of like the barbarians of Skyrim I guess, the only other race that looked appealing and sounded cool were the Nords, but the whole farking game is about Nords so I couldn't be bothered to roll one.

Then I set off to discover my fortune, flame magic in one hand, sword in the other - hacking and burning my way through the frozen mountains of Skyrim.

Combat started off a little clunky, and though the whole sword and magic thing was working out fine, it wasn't how I wanted to play the game. I had an idea in my head for what sort of guy Hannibal was going to be. (yes that's my guys name)

He was mean mother lover, with a giant redish Warhawk and long dangling goatie. I was trying to make him look like Conan, before I changed my mind and decided to make him look like a bandit from RAGE. And because he was so bad ass I wanted him to mix shit up with a 2 handed sword and not sissy mage magic.

The coolest thing about Skyrim is that there is no class system. You sort of just do things and get better at it the more you do them. You do get these points whenever you level up, and you use them along the tress that you unlock.

Yeah so there's no class system, but your skills are divided into these trees that open up the more you use the skill. So you can't like, swing a sword all day and suddenly decide to kill something with a bow and arrow later on in the game, well you can - but your bow and arrow skills would be shit and it would take a hella long time for stuff to die.

So any ways eventually my guy became a Sword and Shield fella, because playing in whatever combat style you want results in death if your toon can't defend him self. I actually looked this bit up online and it said that most pure DPS only builds don't work in Skyrim, because the baddies are just so punishing.


And you know, if it does work for you, well than clap clap, because I thought I could play this thing however I wanted. But no worries - because the Sword and shield thing is pretty bad ass too.

On my first day of playing I must have done like 13 hours or so on it in one sitting, and then a another 6 to 7 hours the next day. Gameplay wise Skyrim brings nothing new to anything, it looks pretty meh for a current generation game, but with so many elements happening on screen the graphics feel bigger than then they look. (if that makes sense)

I did a lot of exploring, mostly because I was trying to make my way to this one place that sold black horses. If I was gonna drop a 1000 gold on a horse, it had to be black. I tried to play most of the game with a neutral moral compass, not really being bad, but also not being a goodie. This was going along very well until this one point where I was given the choice to become a werewolf. That's where I tossed the compass and just slaughtered a bunch of people so I could get 'beast form' as they call it.

That shits pretty OP.

From the first moments of the game, Skyrim is a lot of fun. It has a lot of places to explore, from villages to strongholds, to ancient ruins and farway hidden dungeons. The land of Skyrim is rich with lore and every place has a story and adventure to take up. It was also on my next day of playing that I encountered a dragon!

Man that bastard was tough take down. There I was just riding along minding my own business when I saw the beast however low along the fields ahead of me. Riding swiftly on my mighty stead soon I was along side it, and that is when the beast decided to attack.


Though the battle seemed very brutal at first, soon you come to learn that these dragons sort of just do the same thing over and over again. Aside from the ones you encounter through scripted events, dragon killing very quickly became very boring.

And then we came to the third day of my playing.

I was given this one quest - and I blame that one quest. I was to ride all the way across the map from where I was to deliver this thing to some farkin mages. Looking at the map, I was like "shit that's far"

And looking at the quest and seeing that it was 'optional' really didn't make me wanna do it. In fact, There was like 5 quests in my log that I really had to do, and about a 100 quests that were 'optional.'

This is when it dawned on me. "What is the farkin point of this game?"

I've been playing for 3 days, I clocked more than 20 hours and nothing I have done as amounted to anything. There really is on so much 'open world' one can do before you release that you are accomplishing nothing significant.

There is a single player story, but the side quests and open world was one of the major selling points of the game. But in this open world, there wasn't a story that was big enough to engross me, and the worst thing - I had not met one NPC that I gave a shit about, not one!. And that was my ultimate conclusion. With so many things to see and do, there is nothing to really give a shit about in Skyrim.

I miss u Alister

You sort of just 'play' in this world where you're all by yourself, which no other reason than to be part of thousands of tiny stories, but never part of anything significant enough to truly feel like a hero.

After discovering this idea, noting around me meant anything anymore. This is something that someone like Charlse Manson must be accustomed to feeling because as soon I had firmly wrapped my mind around this notion I proceeded to slaughter everything and everyone around me. I even lock picked and broke into peoples houses to kill them.

I killed as many people as I could before the guards got overwhelming and I was forced to flee on my black horse who I no longer gave a shit about.

Which is cool because at one point I had left my horse so I could go fight something and I came back to find that the fucker was gone. Which would gave been fine if he were free, but I paid 1k gold for that son of a bitch.

And companions, man those guys are farkin retarted. So many times I've seen them run into mobs of enemies only to get their asses handed to them, and in turn their dead asses handed to me. This sucks even harder when you're traveling on your mount, trying to get to this one location but your damn companion has decided that he or she has to stop at every farkin mob along the way to attack them.

This results in many a roads littered with the dead bodies of my ex- companions. Again I wouldn't give a shit if it wasn't for the 500g you need to pay to hire these bastards.

Now I am actually forcing myself to play this farkin game because I went through all the hassle of getting it.

Maybe this sort of thing is just not my thing. I guess I'm just a shallow RPGer who plays commercial RPGs like Dragon Age (which I farkin loved) and DA2. Not to mention The Witcher games which remain my undisputed favorite RPG games. Even Witcher 2 with all the bitchy controls and shit, I found more engaging than this. Even the exploring in Skyrim gets old once you realize your swapping one snowy mountain area for another snowy mountain area - o but this one has a ruined castle and that one had a forest.

Hell ... Risen, have you played that? That got midcore reviews, but I loved exploring in that, and the characters though not as well done as Dragon Age, felt so much more real than the dead eyed mannequins that populate Skyrim.

The closest thing I can compare this game to is Fallout New Vegas. Fallout 3 was something I spent months on playing. And when New Vegas came out, it had all the check list points of Fallout3, but I just didn't want to finish it. That's what Skyrim feels like to me.

An open world adventure that's fun if you don't mind piecing together your own story through hundreds of tiny stories that do noting towards the grand scheme of things. Exploring is fun for the first 20 hours before realize you're all alone in a single player game that feels like it's built for an mmo.

In the end Skyrim felt to me like something that would have shined brighter if it was allowed to burn out faster. How anyone can sit through the 100 hours of quests this game has promised is beyond me. If anything this game has taught me a little lesson: it's not how long a game is, it's how much fun and engaging it is that matters.

Ima go play Super Meatboy and wait for my Batman Arkham city to ship.