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.
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.
An open jungle, a rebel war, a tyrant, a guy who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, lots of guns…sound familiar? Yes, another Far Cry run of a giant open world that might be too large for its own good. Far Cry 3’s mediocre missions were made up for by an excellent story with fantastic characters; however, Far Cry 4 seems to be doing the opposite. You play Ajay Ghale, a man trying to bury his mother’s ashes but is captured by a tyrant known as Pagin Min. Min is a man who is bringing the people of Kyrat down, and you are here to help the rebel army rise against him. It sounds cliche and boring, and it is. The story and characters are Far Cry 4’s downfall, as they are either just really badly written or uninteresting. Pagan Min isn’t so bad, but the rest of the characters just don’t hit home like FC3 did.
There are honestly more side missions than story quests, but to the point in which it’s overwhelming. Far Cry 4 is huge. Five times the size of Far Cry 3. Despite the story being bland, let’s talk about the gameplay. It’s nearly identical to FC3 in terms of gunplay and the choice of stealth or guns blazing. However, the choice of stealth, I feel, is stilted, and guns blazing tends to be the forced choice. There are multiple side quests, including destroying propaganda towers, intercepting couriers, taking over camps, storming fortresses, hunting, races, and several others. While all these are fun for a bit, they all wear thin, as there are just so many of them. There were missions that required me to sneak into an enemy base, but no matter how quiet I was, someone always saw me. The enemies have had this problem since the first game.
Outside of the side missions, you can buy weapons and maps, hunt for treasures (which is probably the most tedious), and skin animals to increase carrying capacity. Gathering plants for syringes is back as well, but all of these things are second-hand from FC3, and there’s just not enough here that’s new to make it feel like FC4. Thankfully, the gunplay is rather solid, and customizing weapons was one of my favorite things to do. I’m not saying any of this stuff was bad, but it was tedious and felt too similar to past games. Nothing really stands out on its own.
FC4 is also heavily reliant on co-op play, as some camps and fortresses are nearly impossible to take over by yourself. I died multiple times and had to exploit strategies to beat some of them. I would give up and wander around collecting treasure, taking over a tower, and completing some side quests, only to continue getting distracted from the main story. This is usually a good thing, but FC4’s world feels sterile, empty, and too artificial for its own good. Most people would love all these things to do, but it’s all just kind of dull and only good in short bursts.
The graphics are actually quite fantastic and show off the power of next-gen consoles; however, they’re not much different-looking than FC3. In the end, after completing the story, I felt overwhelmed by the vast amount of things needed to complete the game and just told myself I would come back to it later, when I’m really bored. In the future, Ubisoft needs to work on Far Cry, which feels more important with less filler content. Honestly, this series needs a reboot or a complete overhaul to justify its existence.
Zombie games are everywhere now, but they have also gotten better over the years. Zombies are probably the most iconic horror character ever, and almost everyone is fascinated by them. However, a new fascination has started coming around: What would happen if we truly and honestly were hit by a zombie apocalypse? Gone are the campy days of old horror films where zombies were just scary and cool. People are even getting down to the nitty-gritty science of zombies, and it’s now showing up in video games. Dying Light is probably one of the better zombie games out there and, for sure, the best open-world one.
You play as a man named Kyle Crane who is working for the GRE, a group tasked with finding a cure in ground zero of the zombie outbreak. The story actually doesn’t get interesting until towards the end of the game. The actual story missions are quite entertaining and well put together. My favorite moments were chase sequences as these got very intense and pretty scary. Despite all this, the characters are a little weak and disappointing. The main antagonist, Rais, had potential in the beginning by being a sick twisted ass with a God complex, but in the end, he became cliché and it all went downhill. Other characters are bit parts and aren’t as strong as other open-world characters such as Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, or even Mass Effect. They feel generic and forgettable, and honestly, nothing all that interesting is going on in this world besides zombies.
That’s what I have to gripe about the most. Dying Light had a lot of potential to create some great lore around this fictional area and develop some memorable characters, but instead went the route of just getting as many missions out there as possible and relying on the open world itself. There is just so much potential here. The world itself is well put together and huge. There are some unique areas where pieces of the story could be told, but the developers just bypassed this all together.
With that said, the combat is actually quite satisfying. This isn’t a game in which you kill everything in sight. The whole point is to run away and survive. Sometimes you will run across a bridge that has nearly a hundred zombies. It’s best to just run on top of the cars and stay away. The whole game is in the first person, so the combat is similar to Dead Island or even The Elder Scrolls. There are many different types of weapons you can create or buy, and the ones with mods are the most fun to use. Slicing off a zombie’s head is satisfying, as is jumping over a zombie to escape an entire horde. I actually like how the game forces you to only fight when the opportunity is right. Nighttime is the most dangerous, and fighting is probably mostly avoided. Dangerous, volatile zombies that are extremely hard to kill will chase you down in the dead of night. I mostly avoided the nighttime unless a quest required me to be in it. It also helps add to the atmosphere, and I was usually scared and very paranoid when traveling at night. There are guns in the game; however, using them is very dangerous since faster, more deadly zombies will hear the sounds and surround you. Shooting is very satisfying in the game, but it’s best used in isolated areas where runners can’t respawn.
Once the player reaches level 12, they can unlock a grappling hook, which is essential for traveling vast parts of the game. It has a two-time use rather than a 10-second cooldown, but it sure comes in handy when escaping hordes of zombies or traveling large distances. With all this combined, Dying Light has a great world to explore, despite how generic it may feel. Everything does get better towards the end of the game as you can use more powerful weapons, and fighting zombies (even the more powerful ones) becomes easier and less like a chore.
Graphically, Dying Light looks fantastic. There are some awesome lighting effects, and the draw distance is amazing. The textures are a little sketchy, as are some of the zombie models. However, the game really shows off the power of the next-gen consoles and is probably one of the best zombie games to date. Outside of the generic story, the combat is rewarding, as is leveling up your character, but I just can’t help but feel that there is something missing from this game. It feels empty and lonely, but not in the way it’s supposed to feel. When it comes to multiplayer, it’s nothing special and will probably be forgotten quickly. It’s fun for a little while, but you probably have other multiplayer games that are much better.
MOOORRTTAALLL KOOOMMBBAATTT!!! Mortal Monday made gaming history when the original arcade game hit the Sega Genesis, Mega Drive, and Super Nintendo in 1992. Fast forward 23 years, and people still get just as excited for every new Mortal Kombat game. MKX is a near reboot of the reboot from 2011 by improving nearly every aspect of the game, including online. This is the first Mortal Kombat game for next-generation consoles and has set the bar for fighting games in terms of production values.
The first thing you will probably play is the story; it’s needed to unlock Shinnok as well as earn a slew of koins for the Krypt. The story is fantastic and the best one in any fighting game to date. The story has finally evolved past MK3 and takes place 25 years after the last game. Naturally, the original fighters have aged and are older (but still kick ass), and new generations or kids of these fighters are introduced. The story is actually shorter and more streamlined than in MK9. Instead of every character being shoehorned into the story, you only play as the good guys and select characters. There are about five matches for each character, and the entire story just evolves naturally. Earthrealm is past Shao Kahn and his BS (as the players are), but Shinnok returns to claim the Komidogu amulet and take over Earthrealm. After about 4 hours or so, you will get the hang of the entire fighting system and start kicking ass.
Once you finish the story, you will most likely go into the krypt to spend your koins. Introduced in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, the Krypt is a fan service full of goodies and unlocks to prolong the game and make you earn everything. Character art, fatalities, costumes, and fan art are many among the Krypt, but they have evolved. Instead of just a large room, you unlock coffins in a first-person adventure that’s its own mini-game. Players can walk around an entire set of levels, finding hidden objects to unlock new parts of the mini-game and find more koffins. At certain times, koffins will appear (think of the concept from Deception in Konquest mode), and random enemies will attack when a quick-time event pops up. Succeed, and you will be awarded a few hundred koins. This new Krypt idea could stand on its own if it were fleshed out more. It is actually quite atmospheric and can be tense.
After the Krypt, you will most likely check out the Faction Wars. This is a whole new online concept by Netherrealm that extends the tower concept that was enacted in the first game. There are many different tower modes, with the first being living towers. Using the match modifiers that were introduced in MK3 and reimagined in MK9, Living Towers will mix up a random modifier as well as tower goals. Certain matches will award koins for accomplishing certain things during a match, like jumping 25 times or finishing a match with more than 50% health. There are three types of living towers. Daily, hourly, and premier, which are every 5 days. This adds to your Faction War points, which will help you when an invasion starts. At the beginning of the game, you get to choose from five factions. Lin Kuei, Brotherhood of Shadows, White Lotus, Special Forces, and Black Dragon. Faction XP can be awarded during an invasion as well as by fighting an immortal boss. Players have 30 seconds to do as much damage as they can, but the difficulty of the boss is set to Very Hard. Invasion towers are another way as well.
These towers also carry over into single-player Tower Challenges, which is a randomized tower with modifiers and Test Your Might matches. Your final score is set, and you can send that tower to a friend to have them beat your score. It’s a lot of fun and extends the longevity of online play.
With the modes out of the way, let’s talk about the actual game. The control and responsiveness are so much better than any other MK game. MK9 tried to recreate the feeling of the first three MK games, but it got stale after a while. MKX is a whole new beast with the core familiar mechanics at play. Balancing is also nearly perfected in MKX thanks to combat variants. Each fighter has three different variants they can play as, and this sets their special moves. Instead of some characters having a long list of special moves to spam you with, they are limited this time around and cut down. Every player will have their favorite variant after playing for so long.
Outside of variants, the fighting is a little more cinematic. The camera zooms in on throws, and the new X-ray moves. X-rays are now three hits instead of two, and the models are much more detailed. More bones break, individual organs are modeled, and fibers on the muscles have depth. It looks fantastic, and this is by far the most brutal MK game to date. The fatalities are the best in any game and are just awesome. New tech allows for facial animations with twitching eyes, lips, and overall detailed gore. Organs are split in half, and they actually look like their organs, unlike previous games with generic gibs. Brutalities made a return, but they are no longer the complicated button presses like MK3. Certain requirements must be met in a match, such as having 50% health remaining, connecting a number of certain moves in a match, and hitting the right button combo during the final hit of the last round. Brutalities are now variations of special moves but have a twisted, deadly ending that throws opponents off guard and is extremely satisfying to pull off and watch.
The new characters are actually the best new fighters in the series. All are fun to play, and all are distinctive, unlike previous entries where new characters felt like cheap rip-offs. Among them, Cassie Cage, Jacqui Briggs, Ferra/Tor, D’Vorah, and Erron Black are my favorites. Kung Jin and Takeda aren’t exactly the unique characters they succeed, which are Kenshi and Kung Lao. They both look and feel nearly identical, despite having different weapons. Takeda is actually more similar to Scorpion than Kenshi, as he uses dual whips and Kung Jin has a bow and staff. Unique weapons, but their characters aren’t fleshed out much in the story mode.
With that said, MKX is an evolution of the series that it so desperately needs. The longevity that’s smart and isn’t bloated content, more online features, and the variants are hopefully here to stay. This is one of the best fighting games of the decade.
Kollector’s Edition: For $90 more, you can receive a special box, a Scorpion statue, the Kombat Pass, and a Scorpion skin. The statue is made by a sculptor named Coarse, and the skin is of the statue. It’s beautifully made and well worth it for collectors. It also comes with a certificate of authenticity.
Hotline Miami was one of my favorite games in 2013. It was violent, fast-paced, had tight controls, and rocked a retro 8-bit art style like no other game has. The music was fantastic as well, but the best part was the “just one more level” appeal. Hotline Miami 2 brings back epic music, great art, violence, and, well, some other things we didn’t really want.
Wrong Number starts out by giving us some backstory. Well, it tries and miserably fails at it. The story does not make one lick of sense because you are being flip-flopped between time periods and so many different characters. Each level just starts, and the story is just there. There’s some dialog with no connection to the previous scene. It’s frustrating and makes you want the storyless original back. However, and it pains me to say this, the story isn’t the worst thing in Miami 2. The game is excruciatingly difficult. Miami 1 was hard, but satisfying. It had great replay value because it was the perfect challenge. Miami 2 is a near-frustrating mess of endless restarts and trial-and-error.
You could say it’s a worse-level design, but that’s not the case; I feel it’s more like poor enemy placement. There are so many enemies in each level, and I mean tons. They all have a variety of guns and melee weapons, and a few can only be taken down with certain weapons. I feel the placement is haphazard; we used strategies in the last game that were way overused here and ended up being used to exploit the game to advance, which is not fun at all. Enemies will see you if you can see them; this is how Hotline Miami works. If you can pan the camera further away, you can get a quick sniper shot at them and a free hit, but for fewer points. One good strategy is to move in and out of a doorway really quickly, let some enemies see you, duck back into a corner, and slice everyone up as they enter the doorway or around a corner. That was an infrequent strategy in Miami 1, but in Miami 2, this has to be done to just get partway through one area. Miami 2 is also full of long-winded levels that seem to never end.
Abusing Miami’s strategies is a crying shame here since this game could have had so much potential for more enemies and new strategies. After halfway through the game, the levels become large and hard to navigate with traditional Hotline Miami controls and gameplay. It’s almost like the game tried to go in a new direction but didn’t evolve its gameplay for it. Miami 2 is also twice as long as the first game, but it overstays its welcome after the second act. I literally felt like the game had become a chore and just wanted it to end.
However, that’s not to say the whole “one more level” thing is gone. I was hooked, and the constant trial and error had me restarting levels dozens and dozens of times to try a new strategy, but it wasn’t really an enjoyable “one more level” feeling. A lot of times I had to exploit the enemy AI. Only certain levels can really be completed one way, and if you start a level with the wrong weapon, kill the wrong guy first, or even kill all the enemies in the wrong order, you’re pretty much screwed. More often than not, I was restarting a level not because my strategy wasn’t sound, but because the enemy AI screwed everything up because he wasn’t patrolling the correct corridor or left a room he’s normally in and blindsided me when I least expected it. Usually, this is a good thing, but not when you’re forced to kill enemies in a certain way due to poor enemy placement being overwhelming.
With that said, I hate to say that there’s really no reason to come back to this game after you finish. Do I want to spend an entire week restarting level after level again and again? Of course not. I’d rather re-download the first game and enjoy the excellent Miami-ness without all the hair-pulling. All in all, Miami 2 is not really a must-play, even for fans. If you end up never playing this, you’re probably better off sticking with the first game.
It’s been a long time since I played a game through an entire day and couldn’t put it down. Valiant Hearts will keep you instantly glued to the screen thanks to its rich history, characters, and story. Valiant Hearts is probably the only WW1 game I can remember playing. There is a huge lack of WW1 games, and I’m glad Ubisoft decided to make it a 2D platformer rather than an FPS. The game is brilliant on many levels, and fans of these types of games will not be disappointed.
You play four different characters, all fighting the tragic war in France. A German, an American, a French woman, and a Frenchman. The game reenacts major battles from World War I and also gives you a history of what really happened during that time period. You can also go around collecting trinkets that are from the war. It’s great for history buffs or anyone who’s curious about what really happened during WW1, since WWII is all anyone talks about.
With that said, the game mixes up stealth, action, and puzzle solving, all of which are excellent. There’s no real fighting in the game; you don’t get a gun. You are mainly just trying to survive this tragic war while you watch everyone around you die. It gives you a sense of helplessness and makes you realize just how terrible and brutal World War I was. The game is played on several 2D planes. Using the background and foreground to solve puzzles, all of which are completely different, but the mechanics tend to be the same, and it gets a bit old towards the end. However, many sequences are cinematic and scripted, which keeps you glued. I can honestly say the game is well-paced and perfect for a one-day gaming spree.
I did find some issues here and there, such as a few puzzles being extremely vague, but it’s nothing that some trial and error and exploration won’t solve. There is a hint system for people who aren’t very good at puzzles, but it can also be turned off. Some of the more frustrating areas were the action sequences in which bombs drop and you have to dodge enemy fire. A lot of it is trial-and-error because the game rushes you through it. Expect to restart and die several times throughout this game.
The graphics alone are just gorgeous, and the colors pop on PS4 and Xbox One. The sound is excellent, and the music is wonderful. Many pieces are classical symphonies from the time period, so it adds even more authenticity to the game.
With that said, Valiant Hearts is probably a hidden gem that many people will pass up. It’s tragic; it really teaches and shows you every step of WWI and enlightens you on just how terrible the human race can be. From mustard gas bombings to the creation of tanks and aircraft, World War I was just a stepping stone for WWII.
Bioware has a knack for creating D&D-style games that are memorable years down the road. Dragon Age is one such series. Origins helped push forward the way stories are told in Western RPGs. This was with dialog choices that would impact your relationship with fellow party members and the overall story. The game was also well known for its huge amount of lore that filled hundreds of Wiki pages online. Inquisition helps to mainly wash the sour taste of Dragon Age II out of our mouths by bringing back the original feeling of Origins.
The Inquisition has a lot of politics involved in its story, more so than the previous two. I say this because the entirety of Thedas is on the brink of being wiped out due to a powerful ancient being ripping a hole in the fade and unleashing chaos. You play as a brand new character (your choices don’t carry over here from DA2; it’s set several years into the future). You play as a nobody, just some guard serving Divine Justinia, when all of a sudden you walk into this ancient being, Corypheus, attacking the Divine. You try to help stop him, but something terrible happens to you. You take on some of the powers he is trying to acquire. This foils his plans and also weakens him, leaving the entire land accusing you of killing the Divine.
This is where the story starts off with several of your companions. Many dialog choices are brought to you to ease you into how this is done. It’s actually quite easier to understand over the last two games. Symbols will easily tell you what your choice will do. A heart will advance a romance, branching arrows could lead to anything, a question mark is an investigation, etc. While dialog and story are huge parts of Dragon Age, so are combat and exploration.
The inquiry is huge. Twice the size of Origins and DA2 combined. There are several areas you can explore, but these are large maps that take hours to completely explore. There are hundreds of side quests on top of the dozen story missions. The meat of the game is actually the side quests. If you skip these, you are missing 80% of the game. Of course, not all side missions can be blown through. Some require accessing new areas, which require being cleared or accessed through the War Table missions. The War Table allows you to send either Josyphene, Cullen, or Liliana on missions to open up new areas on maps or acquire items.
There are two major hub areas you will have, with Skyhold being the main one. Here, you advance relationships with a character through dialog, upgrade your castle, and try to capture prisoners that you captured throughout the game. Inquisition has so much going on that it will take you a good 100 hours to complete every mission and see everything. I can’t do this game’s sheer size justice just by explaining it. Outside of exploration, there is combat. It is a mix of DA1 and 2, with more control over companions by freezing time like DA1, but it’s completely optional. You can also just wail on people like DA2, but this time you aren’t just standing in one spot while fighting. However, despite this change, I felt something was missing from combat. There wasn’t much strategy to it, and it was just a button-mashing fest outside of learning what each skill’s cooldown times are and planning accordingly.
I do commend BioWare for the interesting enemy designs and wildlife. The game just has so much detail and is one of the best-looking games available right now. I mainly love the lighting in this game and the foliage placement; it’s just so beautiful. However, there are issues with pathfinding. Many missions are hard to get to, and some maps are just poorly laid out. The Forbidden Oasis is the worst offender, with huge cliffs, gaps, and hidden caves in everything on the map. It’s a chore to navigate, and most maps are pretty barren, with not much to do besides these fetch quests.
And that’s where I will wrap this up. Inquisition is a fine game; it looks amazing, has extremely deep dialog choices, and there’s so much to do here, from creating armor and weapons from blueprints to deciding what kind of drapes you want in your castle. However, it is all filler content. By hour 80, I really started getting annoyed with the game and bored. I said screw it to the rest of the romance options and any companion quests that were becoming a chore to complete and just did the final story mission. Will I come back to Inquisition to complete it 100%? Sure, but not for a while. Inquisition overstays its welcome by about 30 hours with fetch quests and item gathering. If you loved the previous games, you will love Inquisition, but haters from the past will find even more to hate here.
Call of Duty has come a long way since 2003. From World War II to the Afghan War, there’s a lot going on with this series. While it has had its ups and many downs, Ghosts seems to have picked the series up a little bit, and the transition to next-gen consoles may have helped that.
The story in Ghosts is actually quite interesting and probably the only story in the series that’s even somewhat memorable. This is a huge feat for the series in itself. You play as a ghost named Logan, who is following his brother Hesh around trying to stop a global crisis. I think the reason the story is so great is because it’s fictional. This is a made-up apocalyptic scenario that seems too close to being real. A former ghost named Rorke is using a satellite weapon that can destroy entire continents in minutes. The game starts out with Logan and Hesh talking with their father when these missiles start hitting. Later on, you learn more about ghosts in flashback missions and then eventually become one yourself. The voice acting and character modeling are fantastic and help hold the story together and keep you interested.
One of the many reasons why Ghosts‘ campaign is so interesting is that each mission is completely different. Sure, you are always shooting bad guys, but the entire campaign is constantly turned up, whether you’re driving a tank, mounting a mini-gun in a helo, or fighting underwater. New ideas and better pacing are brought to Ghosts, which is exactly what this series needed. One addition is the dog, Riley. You would think this would get overused, but he’s used it just right. He’s only available for maybe 5 missions through the whole game, but that’s the way he’s used. New gameplay elements are introduced to Riley with each mission, and after the first third of the game, he’s mostly absent, which is a good thing. This makes you care for Riley and really appreciate his role as a soldier.
With that said, the shooting itself is solid, which is expected from any Call of Duty. The guns feel heavy and have weight to them, and the sound and action on-screen are crisp and really pull you into the drama going on. There’s a good mix of stealth and action as a whole, along with the other change-ups the game throws at you. There are quite a few memorable scenes, such as the firefight in outer space towards the end and the underwater level as well. However, we are still missing an organic feel that a slower, more deliberate pace would bring out. The game is still the same at its core. There still isn’t any gore, the enemy AI is still off, and everything still feels rushed and too in your face. Call of Duty can be more intellectual and less ham-fisted with macho violence and action.
With that said, multiplayer is nothing short of fun and has the same core suite as Modern Warfare. The biggest addition is being able to play a female character and customize the clothing. Of course, the customization for weapons is even deeper than before with balance tweaks and menu changes, but if you have played Call of Duty in the last 5 years, you know what to expect. I feel that the maps are a little better than past CoD games, but I have yet to play any that are as great as Modern Warfare 2.
With all that said, Ghosts is a fine shooter and was given a little too much harsh criticism. The visuals are fantastic, and the campaign is a huge step in the right direction toward pulling the series out of the stereotypical rut that it has been in for years.
This is my review for Diablo III when it first came out. You can read it to get an overview of the original game, but here I will focus on what’s new. While the console versions are still pretty much the same, a lot has been balanced, and the game is overall more comfortable on consoles. The UI and controls have been tailored for controllers, and they work very well. Each button is mapped to an attack or a shortcut. Outside of this, the difficulty has been better balanced than normal and is actually quite easy. The game runs at a smooth 60FPS at 1080p on the PS4, and it looks gorgeous. There is so much content here that you will have dozens of hours to play.
Now for the Reaper of Souls expansion. My biggest complaint is going to be that it’s quite short (can be beaten in less than 5 hours) but is a lot of fun. All new enemies, bosses, and a continued story that was so great in Diablo III. New armor and loot are also welcome, but overall, it’s still the same game behind it all. I wouldn’t drop $40 on this by itself, but the inclusion in the $60 package is a fantastic deal.
Diablo III on consoles is worth every penny. You get the fantastic Diablo III, along with its expansion and all the other fixes and balances from the PC version. The hand-tailored controls and console experience are done very well. This is by far the best RPG and/or dungeon crawler you will find on next-gen consoles.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.