Ubisoft’s historical tale of guys shanking other guys continues to be wildly popular, though my interest in it has been in decline for years. After the series peaked during the ACII/AC Brotherhood era, they followed them up with two clunkers in Revelations and III. I had no interest in playing IV at all, but because of all the positive buzz surrounding this latest installment, a trade-in credit burning a hole in my pocket and a thirst for quality PS4 games to play, I gave it a shot.
There was a time in my life when Animal Crossing seemed like the best thing ever. During its Gamecube days, I played that game religiously for about a year. I was fully invested in growing my house into a home I wanted to live in, building relationships with the townspeople and collecting all of cool items that world had to offer. But since then, Animal Crossing has been ported to the DS and Wii with barely anything changed or updated.
To its credit, New Leaf represents the biggest shift forward for the franchise yet. It’s also a game that managed to stay in my rotation for a long time. But did I like it? I don’t know.
With the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era nearing its twilight, we saw a number of high-profile franchises stumble over themselves with one entry too many. God of War: Ascension came and went without a care. Gears of War: Judgment I felt was a huge disappointment, as it played like a shameless cash-grab. After playing an hour or so of Batman: Arkham Origins, I’m disappointed to also toss Bruce Wayne’s latest into that pile.
Over the course of this generation, the Assassin’s Creed series has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Right now, the series is arguably at its lowest point, as Assassin’s Creed III was mired with bugs, poor game design choices and an uninteresting protagonist. Though Ubisoft has dug themselves quite the hole with their last two sub-par entries in the series, I continue to hold out hope that they’ll find a way to recapture the magic they created with Assassin’s Creed II.
To say that Disney Infinity is simply a knock-off of Skylanders is rather disingenuous. The toys may work in a similar fashion at a base level, though the actual gameplay experience is quite different. There’s also a level of nuance with the figurines and discs that goes beyond the groundwork laid by Activision. But are these differences enough to justify going with one over the other?
The sensation of power that came with using Parker’s hammer for the first time was awesome. I don’t know what space age technology or magic is packed into it, but it breaks stuff really well. With it, you can topple any building in the game, which is probably a lot more fun than it should be. During the few hours I’ve put into the game, the most fun I had with it was though aimlessly traversing through Mars, while destroying every building I came across.
Of the big titles this generation that I had on my to-do list, Red Dead Redemption has stuck out like a sore thumb. Having won over 160 game of the year awards (according to the cover art of my game of the year edition), it’s one of those must-play titles that I just never made time for. Why? Well, partly because of my general aversion to long games, and partly because of my general aversion to anything western-themed. If it weren’t so critically acclaimed, I probably wouldn’t have made any time for it at all. Better late than never, right?
Saints Row: The Third did not win me over right away. Having only played the demo of the first game before and hating it, this from a gameplay mechanics perspective felt as derivative and janky as its predecessor. Having said that, it becomes readily apparent that gameplay is not the focus here. Instead, this is all about playing a Grand Theft Auto-like experience with the humor and ridiculousness pushed to extremes. Once the game heats up, it manages to dress up relatively unremarkable mechanics and turn them into a title that’s arguably more fun than it should be.
Continue reading
The Sleeping Dogs origin story has been documented ad nauseam, so I won’t do that here. Nor did it matter to me much, anyway. I’d never played a True Crime game before, and even after it came out to mostly positive press, it still wasn’t a game on my radar. Had it not been for its awesome demo, I probably would have let this one slide. Though I can’t speak to the game’s quality before it came out, the end result is pretty rad. This is one of the most fun open world games I’ve played since Grand Theft Auto IV, and might be my favourite one yet.
In Third Person 