Oh, Halo, I have a love-hate relationship with you. Back when Halo was released, I didn’t really think much of it. I saw the box in game stores, but I never actually heard much about it. It wasn’t until Halo 2 that the series really took off and was talked about by everyone who loved it and hated it. I just so happened to be someone who hated it, even though I didn’t play it. It looked like a generic sci-fi shooter with boring guns and boring enemies. For years, I refused to even accept Halo as a good game series. I finally sat down with the first game on PC back in 2007 and felt it was like a chore. The game was overly difficult and ugly, and I didn’t get the game at all. I washed my hands of it and was done.
Later that year, I borrowed an Xbox from a cousin (the original) and rented Halo 2 from the video store (back when that was still a thing) and actually started to like it. The game felt more balanced, more cohesive, and had a more interesting story. However, I still hadn’t even touched the multiplayer, as I didn’t have Xbox LIVE. I wouldn’t experience Halo multiplayer until Halo 3. After playing through every Halo game, I started to feel fatigued by the series. ODST and Reach were extremely boring and didn’t do much outside of the story and presentation. However, I would still go back to playing Halo 2 and 3, but I swore never to touch Halo 1 again. Now, 8 years later, I’ve played through Halo 1 and like it a little more; however, it still feels like a chore.
You play as Master Chief, a Spartan in the Earth Defense Corps who just so happens to get stuck as the savior of Earth. You fight some Covenant, an alien race hellbent on capturing Halo, and then some Flood, a super-weapon species designed to wipe out all life in the galaxy. You spend almost the entire game on the Halo Ring, which is a giant ring-shaped artificial planet that looks like Earth. Later, you run into an AI called The Librarian, whose function is to destroy all life in the galaxy to wipe out The Flood, so they starve to death. Of course, Master Chief and his AI partner Cortana must not have that. The story is quite interesting; however, it doesn’t really explore much of the Halo universe, and I wanted more.
Halo’s famous for its balanced gunplay and enemy AI. While there are only about 10 different enemy types in the game, Halo was one of the only FPS games at the time to force you to change up your tactics, weapons you use, and how you approach each firefight. Despite popular belief, Halo is not a run-and-gun type of game at all. If you run out into the open, you will die almost immediately. Halo is also the father of the regenerating shield, which is a core gameplay element of the game. Without it, the number of enemies you have to kill and scenarios would not be possible, as you would die and never make it through the game. Despite the shield recharging so slowly, it makes you stop and think before you step out again and lose your health.
The guns are also very memorable and iconic in Halo. The needle is a weapon that fires pink shards at the enemy, and they home in. After a few seconds, the shards explode, causing damage. The assault rifle is probably the most iconic weapon, as it’s the standard and most basic weapon in the game. Aside from plasma and standard weapons, you can also drive vehicles. This is actually where I had a huge issue and still do: the vehicles controlling garbage. The Ghost, Banshee, and Warthog are floaty, not very responsive, and counter-intuitive to what the game wants these vehicles to do. I also don’t like how you can’t drive and shoot the Warthog at the same time; it makes you too vulnerable.
The one thing Halo has always had a problem with is the repetitive hallways and the extreme linearity. Nearly every level had you backtrack back to the beginning once you got all the way through, and this got frustrating and tiresome toward the end of the game. The core game is also just repetition, but that’s expected of any shooter. Shooting the same enemies over and over in different variations just gets old, and some people may not be able to tolerate it. Despite this, and like I mentioned earlier, Halo combats this by making you think before you run out into the open.
Outside of the shooting, the game just feels strange as a whole. It feels dated still despite the update; however, it does help tremendously and makes the game more enjoyable. The new graphical update is more than an update. It’s completely redone, and switching from remastered to classic graphics on the fly makes you realize just how old this game is. We’re talking Quake 3/Source Engine graphics here. After playing the updated version, I could never go back. The game just looks way too ugly compared to others, which makes it much less enjoyable. In fact, the updated graphics actually help make the game easier to play with better lighting and more detailed environments. I found the original Halo way too dark in most areas, and it was always hard to see.
When it comes to multiplayer, it also suffers from feeling old. While the maps are remastered, the gameplay just feels a little old and not as fast or deep as the newer games; however, there is a charm to the age. The game is very simple, there’s not much to the multiplayer, and the maps are also not as complicated as newer ones. Fans of the original game will love being able to finally play the original online, like it was intended to be.
Overall, Halo: CE Anniversary is a fantastic update and probably about as good as the original game can get without changing any major gameplay elements. On the Xbox One, the game runs at 1080p and 60 FPS, which looks fantastic, and it also has the menus of The Master Chief Collection’s, which is an upgrade over the Xbox 360 version. If anyone couldn’t stand the original, they may find it more appealing now, but expect the overall gameplay and design of the game to not have changed.
The Batman Arkham games are some of the greatest things to grace the video game industry in the past decade. With the most advanced combat system since God of War, and not to mention the best superhero video game series ever made, Arkham Knight continues this trend. While Origins was a bit of a snag, I don’t count it as part of the Arkham trilogy. Arkham Knight is another masterpiece that any Batman fan will love.
Scarecrow and the new Arkham Knight are the main villains in this game, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of Joker as well, despite being dead. Joker is a manifestation in Bruce’s mind, and he constantly appears everywhere, putting his two senses into everything Batman does. It’s great to hear him again. Arkham Knight is also probably the best-structured Arkham game yet. Instead of a hodgepodge of little repetitive missions everywhere, the game has a Most Wanted mission wheel. Known Batman villains are to be stopped and captured through mission branches that are a blast. Firefly, Penguin, Two-Face, and various other villains have their own little subplot. This brings Arkham Knight to a meaty and well-balanced mission structure that the game desperately needed. The only other side things you can perform are AR missions that include fight and batmobile challenges and Riddler trophies. Oh yeah, I said Batmobile.
It’s finally here! The one and only Batmobile. It plays just like you think, controls like you think, and is as badass as you think. The batmobile can transform into a tank, allowing you to engage in battles with enemy tanks, but the best use of the batmobile is puzzles. Sadly, the tank battles are probably the worst thing in the game. While they work, they are the same thing over and over and over again; nothing changes. Enemy tanks will have a white line go across the screen, showing the trajectory of their shot. This allows you to dodge enemy missiles and shots. That’s great and all, but why does combat have to be this slow? Towards the end, the battles just get bigger with 50+ tanks in one area; that’s not exactly fun in my book. While the tank battles aren’t very frequent, they are happening often enough for you to sigh and wish it was over. As for the puzzle-solving, the Batmobile fits better here. Using the power wrench to crawl the downsides of buildings, using the wrench to power things up, ejecting out of the Batmobile to glide into a tunnel. All of this feels just like in the movies and comics; there is no disappointment there.
Combat has been perfected in Arkham Knight with added moves to make an extremely complex fight system that is so simple to learn. Outside of the counter system that we are all used to, new knock-out moves are introduced. Using your gadgets is much easier, as the button combos for them are easier to remember. LT for Batarang, LT+B for an electric shock to enemies with taser sticks, LT+Y for Batclaw, and RT+RT for Freeze Blast. It is very easy to remember, and the controls pop up on the screen to help you out when the option is available. The same goes for the knock-out moves, as well as fighting heavy enemies. These guys have their own system all to themselves. Do a fast punch combo, parry a guy behind you, a red exclamation pops up at a guy with a taser stick, LT+B, he’s down, continue pummeling the heavy, three more counters, then knock the heavy out. All of this is one big combo, and it’s so fluid and fast and one of my favorite fighting systems I have ever used.
The second combat system in Arkham is the stealth part. This has been expanded exponentially in Arkham Knight. There are more gadgets introduced that allow for more ways to take down opponents. The stealth areas are much larger and allow for multiple ways of taking people down. We’re used to stealth takedowns in various ways, including hanging, grating, and gliding behind people. Multi-level grate combat is introduced, as well as enemies being able to destroy grates so you can no longer use them. Using a voice synthesizer allows you to give commands to enemies and set up traps with your electric gun or disruptor. The disruptor allows you to sabotage weapons and drones to knock out enemies (yeah, I can’t say kill since Batman doesn’t do that). The stealth combat is fantastic and so much fun, and it allows for strategy over beating everyone up.
Outside of these new gameplay elements is the story. Arkham Knight has a long and well-told story that you actually care about. There are some great moments in the game that really get you hooked, and the ending is satisfying. I really felt the strengths and weaknesses of Batman come out through the story several times, as well as the other characters. My favorite part of the game is the ending with Scarecrow, but I can’t give it away except that it’s a first-person shooter sequence. WHAT?! Play it to find out!
Let’s talk about visuals. I know that the entire world knows how terribly optimized the game was for PC; however, if you have a powerful rig, it is very playable. Not perfect, but enough to not be really noticeable. This requires tweaks (there is a tool available on the Steam forums) to the game settings to get it to work. Out of the box, the game won’t run very well at all. There are some nice new effects, like RainWorks, Interactive Smoke and Fog, and various other effects. They look amazing, and Arkham Knight is one of the most detailed and good-looking games in a long time. However, a game should ship working, and this is just unacceptable. Most people don’t know how to tweak a PC game and will get frustrated and demand their money back (which happened and suspended the sales on Steam). The other issue is that you need a very new and powerful system to get the game to run well. I tried a GTX 670, and while I got 60 FPS when I was above the city, it dropped below 30 on the ground. Interactive Smoke and Fog dropped the game to 5 FPS; however, on a GTX 970, there were a few issues. The frame rate will vary constantly. You will jump between 60 and 30 a lot, but the tweaks available make it less noticeable. Anyone running a GPU older than a year will have issues for sure and should play the game on a console for now.
As it stands, Arkham Knight is a fantastic game and the pinnacle of the Batman video game franchise and superhero games in general. Taking all of what made the series great and optimizing and compiling the best of what everyone loves. More villains, more stories, more Batman. That’s what we came to see, and we got what we wanted.
After all these years and growing up with Windows 3.1, I have seen an entire evolution of computers and software. Touch screens and large resolutions were a pipe dream just 15 years ago. Now it’s the norm. Going from a Packard Bell (yes, before HP) that couldn’t run 3D Ultra Mini Golf and saving Paint pictures on floppies to Windows 98 and creating embarrassing songs on the Midi Keyboard, and finally getting 300kbp/s DSL so I can watch Backstreet Boys music videos in “300K”—yeah, the K meant something else back then. Going from that to Windows 2000 and XP and playing Half-Life 2 for the first time using a weird piece of shitty software called Steam. Something that pissed people off when they had to install it and just wanted to play Half-Life. From using an ATI (before AMD bought them) Xpress 200 onboard chip and struggling to play HL2. Going from Windows 7 and the first DirectX 11 GPUs and dual-core CPUs rolling into games like Crysis and Microsoft Flight Simulator X to quad-core CPUs and GPUs that are thousands of times more powerful than that first computer I had. Now we’re at Windows 10. What a journey!
My childhood in a nutshell
Thank you for updating Steam…ing pile of shit!
Windows has had its ups and downs, but Windows 10 is finally another up for Microsoft. With a monster of a new strategy (and a risky one) as well as lessons learned from Windows 8 and Vista, Microsoft has released the next best OS around. Taking the fundamentals from Windows 7 and fusing them with the cutting-edge technology of Windows 8 allowed Microsoft to create the ultimate operating system that will finally kick-start an entirely new generation of OS from here on out. There are millions of people on the fence with Windows 10, but I jumped in on day one like 15 million other people, and here’s why.
More Automated Installation…for Dummies
Windows 10 now reassures you that you can be lazy and not touch a goddamn thing, and it will do everything for you. How freaking convenient! Now, with most people having the attention span of a goat, Microsoft has realized no one will wait around 90 minutes to check for new installation progress and click through menus. It will tell you things like “Sit back and relax,” “Just a few more things,” “Almost Done,” and “Wrapping Things Up.” All things that impatient people love hearing. I’m not one to complain. If I can install Windows from here on out without touching a damn thing, I’m fine with it. Just watch a big white circle fill up, and your PC will restart a few times. Pretty painless and simple. The initial setup is as easy as setting up your phone. Want to know why Windows 10 is a lot like a phone? Because everyone has one! Why not make it look like something 5 billion people already use every day? Or we can act like neanderthals and demand something that was practical 20 years ago. Your choice.
Windows 10 Leaves the Keepsies Game
Hate Windows 10 with a passion? Is the simplicity too much for you to adjust to, and do you want to go back to dozens of windows and menus? Just go into settings and roll back to your previous OS. No keepsies, Microsoft promises. Want to go back to Windows 8 and torture yourself? Go back to tablet mode. Microsoft won’t keep it from you. They promise.
Underneath it All, It’s Still Windows 7
Don’t be scared; it’s okay. Come out and play. Underneath the shiny new exterior is Windows 7, almost exactly as you left it. Power users can still find their tweaking options where they want them in the control panel. All Windows operations from Windows XP onward are still here. I promise, right where you left them, Of course, they are under a shiny new skin, but it’s just one button click away from seeing that all-too-familiar panel or list of settings you are used to. Don’t want to use apps from the App Store? Fine, go ahead and install your programs like normal. Want just a basic, boring start menu? Go ahead; just right-click on the taskbar like you have for the past 12 years and customize your start menu. Want to change your default apps? And what starts with Windows? Go ahead and do it the long, boring way, as Microsoft now knows what was a pain in the ass to change and what wasn’t. You can do it the long way, but Windows 10 makes things easier for you unless you’re a martyr. Do it the old way.
Windows 8 Without the Windows 8
While Windows 10 looks like an overhauled Windows 8, it’s not Windows 8 at all and never will be. The start menu and taskbar are a shiny new black, and the start menu now acts as normal plus Live Tiles. Honestly, these are great, and they are customizable. Like tiles but not alive? Kill them dead and turn it off. Want them to be smaller? Go ahead, or you can supersize them. Want to know what the weather is like? Pin it as a live tile, and every time you open your start menu, you can see the weather. Want a picture of a giant boob on your start menu? Go ahead, why not? Don’t you like going outside and forgetting what hemisphere you live in? It’s just a click away! Why does this matter, and why should you care? Because you can do that now, that’s the beauty of harnessing more advanced UIs. Did you want the Windows 8 taskbar but the Windows 7 desktop? That’s the default now. If you love Windows 8 for some unknown reason, turn on tablet mode, and you can join the other 10 people who also enjoy it.
Apps Make Life Easier…Seriously
While some people may call them “lazy,” apps on your smartphone are wonderful. Can you imagine your phone only having a web browser and having to go to every single website through that? Well, it’s more practical on a PC, but why can’t we use apps too? I just want to surf YouTube for a few hours. Get one of the non-official YouTube apps, and it’s its own thing. How about just shopping on eBay or Amazon for a while? Download the apps. It’s just like on your phone, naysayer, just like that. Click install, and it installs just like on a phone. No pop-ups, no pre-requirements to install, no.NET Framework, no runtime files either. Don’t you want it anymore? Just click uninstall in the start menu or Apps & Features (the new program features), and you’re done. Want to use just the browser and not be hip and cool? Do it.
All the Tweaks Under Fewer Clicks
Do you know the settings on your phone? Windows 10’s most basic functions and settings are now condensed under a settings window, just like a phone. Stop whining; once you use it, it becomes a pacifier, and you’re fine. Click Settings in the start menu, and you are introduced to all those pesky things that took hours to do and multiple windows to click through. System Settings has all your Windows Updates, Windows Defender, Add/Remove Programs, Notifications, and Power Settings. Holy sh*t, yeah, it’s all there now under one roof. I thought that would never happen, did you? It’s amazing! How about all your device crap? Bluetooth, printers, scanners, webcams, typing, and autoplay are all under one tab. Just click on the device and choose what you want to do with it. Wait. AutoPlay?! Wasn’t that something you had to go through eight different windows to get to? It’s right here in this devices tab. Wow! Personalization, accounts, ease of access, privacy. All these settings that took multiple windows to open are now in one single window. It’s a freaking miracle! Oh, yeah, and you sign in to your Microsoft account to sync all this stuff if you ever re-format. Yeah, that happened too.
Action Center is Back Like a Crappy Ex That Turned Around
Remember the Action Center? That annoying flag that wouldn’t stop telling you things you don’t care about? Now it tells you things you need to know and comes in handy. Do you remember all those apps I was talking about? Action Center is now your notification hub, like on your phone. Think of this as your pull-down menu. Email alerts from the new email app, Windows Updates, notes, reminders—it’s all here. The new Action Center notification pop-up is also overhauled and is now a nice little square box that blends in with the OS and is not annoying at all. Think of it as a pop-up notification on your phone. Simple and elegant, yet very useful. I’m also talking about every single pop-up that used to appear in that damn corner. New devices being installed, errors, Windows update notifications, everything.
Windows Explorer is Now and Adventure…and Includes All Gear
Windows Explorer finally has all those options that required right clicks and scrolling through the settings menus, all at the very top of the window. It’s a brand new menu bar that includes things like delete, rename, move to, copy to, properties, select all, invert selection (!), pin to quick access (!), and… sharing! Holy freaking hell, no more uploading to PhotoBucket and then linking to your social media. Oh yeah, and the view tab has all your viewing needs. Columns, size all columns to fit screen, file name extensions check box. What?! That was hidden in the Explorer settings and required an online tutorial to figure out. Is there a checkbox now at the top? Man, did they think of everything? Apparently, they did.
More Desktops, Less Monitors
Or more desktops with more monitors. Why not, right? Have 18 projects going at once and don’t want to close anything out? Microsoft decided to actually use RAM for something useful, and the old Show Desktop button has transformed and evolved. Working in Photoshop with 25 reference windows open in your browser? Want to go back to editing videos and ripping YouTube videos to make a “Top 10” list? Create a new desktop so you don’t have to close your Photoshop crap. Have two monitors? Now you can have four desktops and three monitors. Learn algebra.
Keyboard Shortcut Fetishists Are Now Welcome
One of those one handed guys who doesn’t One of those one-handed guys who doesn’t like clicking? There are dozens of new keyboard shortcuts, from Windows Key+This to Shift+Alt+That. For virtual desktops, selecting text and opening apps. Enjoy…I guess.
Xbox is Now a Parasite
Just kidding, but not really. Xbox is now an integrated part of Windows 10, which is cool, but for the millions of Xbox not-owners, it’s only good for one thing: video capturing. For the first time, Windows now includes video-capturing software, so you can stop pirating Fraps now. For Xbox owners, you can do a lot of cool things, like do Xbox things on Windows. Right on.
Windows Media Player Still Sucks
That’s about it, moving on.
That about sums it up
Cortana. Like a Kitana But More Corn.
More like Siri with less Apple. Or more Google with less Now. It’s really a personal assistant right on your desktop. No more moving your hand 2 feet to your phone. You can now search for restaurants, get told to get your ass to work, and find drive times. You can even save maps offline! Great for when you have a laptop and no wifi and get lost on treadmills. Voice recognition works with a simple “Hey, Cortana!” I’m sure Halo players have wanted to say that for years! It’s a great new way to get all your travel needs in one spot.
Microsoft Just Got Edgier
Gone is the Internet Exploder! Wooo! Party! Kind of… Microsoft Edge is an honorable change from such a terrible piece of software. It’s well…edgier. In more than one way. The UI has sharp edges, and the boxes have edges. You can open new tabs, write notes right on the web page, and send them to your phone via Cortana. I hope the Master Chief knows this is going on. Eh, it’s good for people who love IE or don’t have a preference. If you’re an old guy who just watches porn or a hipster, this is perfect for you. It doesn’t have the options that Chrome and Firefox have, which is what Microsoft really needs to wake up to, but the mobile integration and cleaner design are a much welcome change.
Bottom Line…It’s Freaking Free
Yeah, it’s a free Microsoft product. Who would have thought? It’s a revolutionary strategy that Microsoft is taking a serious risk with. Free for a whole year? Damn. Where’s the money coming from? Bill Gates, but that’s besides the point. If you have Windows 7 or 8, you get this great piece of software for free forever. Your current key just converts over to Windows 10. Hell, even pirates get it for free. You’re welcome.
The New Order was a fantastic game. It oozed atmosphere, excellent action, weighty guns, and a decent story. It was the best Wolfenstein since Return to Castle Wolfenstein on PC, which was released over 10 years ago. The Old Blood returns to give us a little extra snack with a nice prequel leading up to the beginning cutscene of The New Order. The Old Blood is all about finding the documents to Death Head’s compound while also fighting one of Nazi Germany’s many paranormal agendas—zombies. Yes, thankfully, they don’t overstay their welcome. They only appear in the final chapter, but it is a nice pace from the broken stealth and gunfights.
While The Old Blood’s story isn’t as fleshed out as The New Order, it’s not bad or awful, at least. The same storytelling mechanics are used here, such as BJ’s narration in his head and some excellent voice acting all around. The game is literally the same outside of a couple of new guns. All the action from the previous game is here, and it just feels great. It shows why Wolfenstein is one of the better shooters in recent times. It’s satisfying to shoot everything, and it’s also extremely challenging, which most shooters don’t offer. You have to use strategy and actually use cover, or you will die quickly.
There are a few boss fights in the game, some of which are the hardest I have fought as a shooter in ages. The challenge alone is enough to bring hardcore shooter fans smiles, even if they don’t like Wolfenstein. Despite the game’s short length (about 4-5 hours), there are a lot of different locales, so things change constantly. My biggest gripe about the game is the stealth. It never really worked in the last game, either. You know you are in a stealth area when the commander’s location shows up on the screen. You are supposed to sneak around to silence them, or waves of enemies will keep coming until you kill them. Most of the time, the areas are set up in a way that you just can’t sneak around. This drove me nuts in The New Order, and I’m saddened to see it return here. I don’t know why stealth would be put into such an action-heavy game; it ruins the flow and pace of the game.
Outside of the gameplay, the graphics are pretty good, except for the textures. Even on PC, with all the bells and whistles of DirectX 11 graphics, the textures look muddy and ugly up close. I don’t know if this was to squeeze them onto consoles, but I don’t like it. This game requires a monster rig to run at full settings, some of which are questionable. 32x anti-aliasing, really? It makes the game run at 8 FPS and under 30 FPS even with a Titan X. Some other settings, such as the 8196 shadow map, just slow things down with no noticeable upgrade. I honestly think this is just crap to make PC gamers feel happy and to shut them up. The game isn’t optimized too well with texture pop-in either. Yes, I know there’s a setting for texture to fade in, but it doesn’t work. Outside of that, the game looks decent, but with all these options available, it should look better.
The Old Blood is well worth the $20 price tag. We get a lot of quality games for that, and hopefully this isn’t the end of Wolfenstein.
NOTE: Controller was tested for 6 hours with Ryse: Son of Rome, Project Cars, and Resident Evil 6
I had my Xbox 360 controller for Windows for about 4 years, and I felt it was time to finally upgrade. I won’t lie, the Xbox 360 controller is fantastic and was the best controller of the last generation; it was sturdy and extremely ergonomic. My 360-degree controller for PC has been through absolute hell. It has traveled with me for nearly 5 years on my gaming laptop, and I have played dozens of games with it, from Batman: Arkham City to Need for Speed: The Run to Saints Row: The Third. It’s scratched up, the four bumps on each analog stick are completely worn down, and the left trigger squeaks like a mouse. The cable is split in one area; I have taken it apart to clean it; goop got stuck down in the buttons; you name it. However, the controller hasn’t failed on me and works just fine for nearly any game that supports a controller. Any game that has supported a controller since 2006 supports the controller. I have never had to use a third-party button mapper for this thing. It’s fantastic and just awesome. Again, it’s time to move on and upgrade to the next biggest thing.
The Xbox One controller is actually better than the 360 one out of the box since you don’t need a specific controller for a PC. Just grab any Xbox One controller and plug it up via standard micro USB, install the drivers off Microsoft’s website, and you’re golden. Of course, these are $20 more than 360 controllers, but you’re getting a more advanced and better-feeling device. The XBONE controller is black, which is better than the 360’s off-white theme. The glowing white Xbox One logo helps the aesthetics compared to the glowing green one on 360. There’s a little glossy black piece that sticks out above the new menu buttons that hold the Xbox One logo. This is a great new design choice, as it makes the controller look sleeker. Of course, the button doesn’t do crap on PC, but it’s nice to press when you’re bored, I guess.
Holding the controller itself feels better than 360. The handles are tapered smaller at the bottom and are angular rather than round. This makes gripping the controller easier for people with smaller hands, and it just feels better. The triggers have been completely redesigned. They are softer yet glide much smoother and feel more responsive. They have a soft stop, so you’re not slamming the triggers into the controller. It just feels so much better. The LB and RB buttons are a little disappointing. They are much louder and are a little harder to press. However, the bumpers vibrate for minute sensations, and this is brand new for controllers. PS4 has the touchpad and speaker, and Xbox One has this new rumble feature. Honestly, I’ll take the speaker and touchpad over this any day, but it’s nice knowing Microsoft at least tried. Outside of that, the face buttons are much larger and flatter, which is awesome. They don’t look so cartoony and aren’t colored like the 360. They are clear black, but the letters are colored. So much better looking. Now, here’s the make-or-break part. The analog sticks and D-pad. The analog stick is actually wonderful. They are looser than the 360 sticks, but you have more controllers. Everything on the Xbox One controller is looser but much smoother, with a “glade” feeling that just feels natural and buttery in your hands. The D-pad is something I really like. It clicks with feedback, but not like your thing. This is a raised D-pad, like the horrible one on the 360. It’s an in-set D-pad that feels responsive and fast.
Here’s the dumbest part of the controller: It still needs AA batteries. 2015, and Microsoft is still making controllers like it’s 1995. Their theory is that you won’t run into half-life issues and have to buy a new controller. I call bullshit on that. My PS3 controller from 2009 has been charged who knows how many times, and I still get 15+ hours with it. This is just a money-making scam from MS to buy the $25 play-and-charge kit for the controller. The way around this is rechargeable AA batteries, which MS surprisingly doesn’t suggest. Gee, I wonder why. With rechargeables, you can keep two spares for a quick swap.
Here’s another downer: the controller can’t be used wirelessly on a PC, at least not yet. The wireless dongle is yet to be released and will only work with Windows 10. Another stupid roadblock. Thankfully, you can use any USB cable, so the 360’s extremely long and thick cable isn’t an issue here. All in all, the Xbox One controller is fantastic and the best one you can get for a PC. Just some stupid design choices get in the way of making it perfect.
I first want to say that Ryse isn’t as bad as critics made the game out to be. However, I can see why it was bashed so much. It was the most anticipated Xbox One launch title. When you throw down $500 on a new console plus $60 for a game, you expect to get your money’s worth. Ryse would have pissed me off if that was the only game I picked up for the console. Is the game awful? No, it is just very repetitive and feels like a typical rushed console launch game.
The story and characters in Ryse are fantastic. You follow a Roman centurion named Marius Titus who is fighting the barbarian tribe known as Britain’s. Marius’ family gets murdered by the barbarians; however, there are quite a few plot twists that left me wanting more of the story. I actually love how the story and characters play out. It felt very authentic to the Roman Empire era; I felt like I was playing a piece of history, and you can’t say that often about games. The architecture and the way the characters dressed just sucked me in. Even the fighting styles are brutal and authentic to Roman culture. The excellent facial animations and voice acting help drive the story even further, but it’s just so sad that the story was taken down by the repetitive and bland gameplay.
The game actually seems really awesome in the first chapter. You get to order soldiers to fire volleys at enemies and control a Scorpio, but you don’t get that much control. You literally pick where your soldiers go to make the scenario easier or harder for you. There are several instances where this happens, and I felt like it wasted potential. Swordplay is just so boring by the end of the game. I actually avoided execution moves because they made me nauseous just looking at them (from repetition, not the gore). When you execute an enemy, the camera sweeps around in a cinematic frenzy. This is just so cool at first, but then you realize the quick-time events don’t do shit. The enemies will glow yellow, blue, red, or green, corresponding to the face buttons on the controller. This quick-time event concept is actually great because it’s non-intrusive, but if you miss the quick-time event, there are zero penalties. The animations don’t stop, the enemy doesn’t get the upper hand, there is no loss of health, nothing. It doesn’t even interrupt your combo, which is pretty much blasphemy in the action/adventure genre. Imagine playing God of War and failing a quick-time event; after that, the kill continues and nothing happens. What’s the point of the QTE, then, right?
There is one interesting mechanic that forces you to do QTE’s, which isn’t too bad. There are four different things you can acquire from these QTEs: health, XP, strength, and focus. I used the health drain and XP the most. I never even used my focus except for a couple of fights in the entire game. That’s not a good sign. To top it all off, the boss fights are just boring and awful. Each boss uses the same two move sets throughout the whole fight, and it becomes just a yawn-inducing repetitive hit-and-dodge game. What makes the combat the worst of all, out of everything, is that the same 10 execution animations are used on top of the same 5 enemy types that are just reskinned. It’s a lazy move that cost the game its legs and character that it got from the story and characters.
Don’t get me wrong, the game is worth a weekend rental, and it’s quite enjoyable thanks to the frequent locale changes and fast-moving story. Thankfully, the game doesn’t overstay its welcome by clocking in at about 4–5 completion times. I was able to get nearly all the upgrades before the end of the game, but this game is not worth a second playthrough, not one bit.
Let’s talk about visuals. Ryse is actually one of the best next-gen console games to be released, looks-wise. On PC, there are some enhancements like AA and SSAA, as well as better shadows and higher-resolution textures. However, this game requires a monster rig (GTX Titan) or SLI 8xx-9xx cards to run at 60 FPS maxed out. My i7 4770 and GTX 670 dropped down to the teens in some areas. Ryse uses the CryEngine 3, which looks freaking amazing, and next-gen consoles finally have the power to use it. If you don’t have a rig that was built in the last 18 months, you should probably play it on Xbox One. There’s even an option to use insane textures for 4GB VRAM GPUs. Ryse is one of the few games out that really pushes new rigs to their limits, so this is a good thing for PC gamers.
The screenshot was taken directly from my game
To top it all off, Ryse isn’t an awful game. It’s a game that has strong legs that are weakened by repetitive combat and awful boss fights. Many of the locales are just awesome, like the Colosseum, but they don’t overstay their welcome, which can balance this out a bit. If the game was pushed back another year, we could have had the best gladiator-type game ever made (Shadow of Rome and Spartan: Total Warrior still remain at the top). It’s a great weekend rental or bargain bin purchase, but nothing more.
Killer Series wifi cards have been elite gaming cards for a long time. With the new Killer N series, smaller-sized WiFi cards are now powerful beasts. The Killer N1202 also packs in Bluetooth 4.0 and 2.4Ghz/5Ghz speeds. Killer Series cards are known for low jitter and smart data streaming. N1202 has a feature that will prioritize speeds for applications that need it the most, such as game clients, Chrome, torrent clients, and various other speed-hungry applications. You can manually set speed priority for other programs, such as Windows Update, anti-virus updates, or various other programs that don’t require much speed. This is an amazing tool that you notice within the first few hours of use. I can download a game on Steam and surf Chrome without slowing down my download. I tested the card on a 100 Mbps/s connection, and I rarely ever dipped below 10MB download speeds.
Various other tools in the software allow you to see other wifi connections that are nearby compared to yours. This can help you pick a more vacant channel. There’s also a pie chart available to let you know what apps are using the most data, and this can be reflected in the app control manager. The software even lets you put in your internet connection speed according to your ISP to help regulate and get the most speed out of your connection. Outside of the software, the drivers were extremely easy to download and install with zero problems or hiccups. Windows recognized the card as soon as it was installed and booted up. However, there is a separate driver for Bluetooth that I was unaware of and didn’t get until I needed to connect a device.
This is the best wifi card I have ever had. With the low $40 price point, it’s hard to pass up for people who don’t want to be wired. With the data control and smart streaming software, gamers, movie streamers, and heavy downloaders will love this card. If you have a rig that uses a half-mini card, I highly suggest ditching whatever is in your system and picking this guy up.
When I first heard about Ground Zeroes being released, I thought of one other game: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. A glorified demo that showcased the tech behind the game. This usually happens when games take way too long to release and the developers need some feedback. So they release a chunk of the game for about $30 and get the world’s reaction. Ground Zeroes is actually a glorified demo of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. If you aren’t a Metal Gear fan, well, what the hell are you reading this for?!
Ground Zeroes is actually taking place after the PSP game Peace Walker, which really surprised me. The game is made up of one giant mission in a large military compound. You must rescue two children, Chico and Paz, who were the main characters in Peace Walker. The first thing I noticed about GZ was how much everything has improved, from visuals to controls and animations. The entire familiar gameplay is streamlined, like it should have been years ago. No longer do you have the radio menu where you dial in and talk to people with long dialogue sequences. Just press a button to get hints on what to do, genius. The aiming is also a lot better this time around, as is inventory swapping and interacting with objects. Again, it’s all very familiar but just more streamlined. My favorite combat feature is that when you alert a guard, the game will slow down and turn towards the guard you alerted. You get about 10 seconds to put the guy down before he raises the alarm. Thanks to the more open environments, it’s much easier to see where everyone is. Climbing up a watchtower and using your binoculars to tag enemies is just what the series has needed for a while.
That’s another thing some MGS fans will not like: the open-endedness of the levels. The compound is huge, with many rooms, areas, and buildings. A new feature in MGSV is to interrogate an enemy while sneaking up on them and grabbing them. They will tell you where something valuable in the area is, like armor, a weapon, or enemy placement. You can choose to kill enemies or knock them out with your tranq pistol (like the good ‘Ol days). Figuring out where to go wasn’t too difficult. My first objective was to get Chico from a prison camp not too far from where I started. The second objective, finding Paz, was a real pain, as I had to use sound clues from a cassette recording to find out where she was. I finally figured out what area, but getting to the right building was tough. Silencers in this game eventually break, so I was stuck with just a tranq dart and couldn’t disable cameras. I had to run around finding armor that had another silenced weapon to continue, and I died many times doing so.
Once I got Paz, I called in a chopper to pick her up. I jumped on an AA gun since her being missing was discovered and the whole base was on alert. Thankfully, no one took the chopper down, and I was able to squirrel away to the starting point to end the one-hour mission. After the final cutscene, the game ended, and I thought that if I had paid for this game, I would have been really pissed off.
With that said, Ground Zeroes shows us just what Phantom Pain will be like, and I also have to mention that Kiefer Sutherland pulls off a better Snake than David Hayter. Yes, I said it; bite me.
Fighting Fantasy novels are some of the best fiction I have ever read. Being translated into a game is even better, thanks to all the perks that come with a game. Not having to keep track of stats, inventory, or where to turn the page. Sorcery is a series created by Steve Jackson and is wonderfully crafted. It’s not so much the characters in the game as the world itself and how it’s portrayed.
When the game starts out, the player comes across a beggar and has complete freedom to kill him, greet him, or just ignore him. In fact, this is a completely open game; every choice matters until the very end. I was just surprised at how much detail went into each choice and each move. Every step of the way, a choice can be made that can kill you, help you, or show consequences later in the game. Just greeting or ignoring someone can be optional, or that is the person you need to talk to to make your path easier. It’s so organic, though, and that’s the magic of this game.
The goal of the game is to find four magic lines that you must recite at the north gate of the city, which has been locked for thousands of years. Of course, you can leave the city and leave it to be burned down by the raiding orcs and goblins; however, this is the cheap way out. If you missed one of the four nobles, you must find them so you can go back to a point in the city and try the area again. Another thing I really loved is that your character remembers going through these areas, so the game is adjusted accordingly. You can avoid traps, being captured, and fights to make going to areas you missed easier. You can also rewind any encounter at any time without any penalties, which is a blessing for these adventure games.
The visuals are rather charming and feel like something that has come right out of a book. The sound design is a little lacking, but when it does kick in, along with the music, it’s fantastic. The other two elements of the game, besides adventuring, are magic and combat. Magic is used throughout the entire game, whether for predicting traps, weakening enemies, creating shields, or making yourself bigger. Magic can be used to help or harm people. Combat is strategic in a way that you must read what’s going on with the enemy and then watch their stamina bar to predict how hard your next attack should be or to defend.
In the end, I had one problem: I couldn’t figure out where the last two nobles were. I almost gave up on the game, but some of the clues finally made sense, and I was able to find both nobles in one try before going back to the north gate. The story flowing organically allowed me to remember where I heard about the nobles and that I had visited those areas, and it finally clicked. Once I opened the game, I finished the ending and couldn’t wait to jump into Sorcery 3. This game is highly recommended for RPG fans and adventure fans.
I absolutely love short games that tell beautiful stories. A game that really doesn’t have much gameplay but just enough to get the story across and help you feel for the characters. Toren is one of those games; it has so much potential but is extremely rough around the edges. There’s actually more negative than positive in this game, but for some reason, it’s worth a playthrough, simply for how the game is told and unfolds.
The game starts out pretty simple. You start as a baby girl who is waddling toward a sword. I had a pretty strong image of gaming when I was a baby. It tends to be a sensitive subject, but Toren pulls it off just fine. After grabbing your sword, you get segments of jumping puzzles and are faced with a dragon. This dragon sits in one spot and will shoot out waves of black that will freeze you. See, the game is a little bit like Infinity Blade in a way. Failing is the only way to go forward (of course, the failing bits are scripted). The girl will try to reach for something or solve something, and the dragon will get her. She is reborn and thus can use her frozen body as a stepping stone or something to climb.
The whole point of the game is to climb this large tower called Toren to bring back the night. A dead man tells a story about a man named Solidor who tried the same thing and failed. It’s a little confusing in words and makes more sense in pictures and cutscenes. Between trying to fight off the dragon during weak puzzles, there are platforming segments that are set in strange dream-like areas that are just really great to look at. They aren’t tough, but this is where the flaws come in. The jumping mechanic is very floaty, there are a lot of collision detection issues, the sword fighting is barely waving your sword around aimlessly, and even controlling the girl can be a bit difficult as she feels like an ice cube walking around a frozen lake.
The visuals are even rough, and while there are some nice lighting effects, the game has texture quality that is all over the place. The framerate is also everywhere, but anyone who enjoys the subtly of indie games will look past all this. The game can also be finished in one sitting—about 2 hours. While it lasted, I enjoyed the game. It broke up the dragon fights with the platforming segments well, but the issues with the game make it more difficult than it needs to be.
With all that said, Toren is an interesting game with a beautiful story, but it is encased in a sloppy game with rough graphics and slippery controls.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !