Top 10 Games Of This Generation – Honourable Mention – Gears of War 3

(Original Review)

If this was a list of the most influential games of this generation, the original Gears of War could very well take the #1 spot. It’s take on the third person shooter and cover mechanics became the blueprint for third person action games. However, despite enjoying it enough to beat the campaign 3 separate times (including on insane difficulty), I felt like that game was rough around the edges. Some of the action outside of its core mechanics felt sloppy, the last boss encounter wasn’t fun or satisfying and its dumb story felt tacked solely as a means of justifying the gameplay scenarios rather than being integrated at a root level.

Gears of War 3 cleans up all of the mistakes of its predecessors to finally reach the franchise’s full potential.

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Top 10 Games Of This Generation – Honourable Mention – Injustice: Gods Among Us

(Original Review)

Injustice: Gods Among Us won me over long before it came out. At Fan Expo 2012, I got to play an early build of the game featuring only Batman and The Flash. Though I didn’t have very long to play it, something about it just felt right. More right than even the Mortal Kombat reboot, which I also really enjoyed.

What I did not anticipate was how far down the Injustice rabbit hole I’d go. Having played virtually every major fighting game released this generation (most of which are good), most of them just fall out of my rotation while I continue to play the same old Street Fighter and Marvel. But once this game hit, I couldn’t put it down.

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Top 10 Games of This Generation – Honourable Mention: Mark of the Ninja

(Original Review)

I hate stealth games. I hate the myriad of artificial fail states that oftentimes come with it. I hate the oftentimes fake openness that really boils down to 1 or 2 options you may have at any given point. I hate the trial-and-error nature of the gameplay. I even hate the very conceit of stealth in video games. When i play a video game, I want the power fantasy. In most stealth games, you feel like a weakling who has no other means of getting through a scenario.

I hate stealth games, but I love Mark of the Ninja.

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How I Gave Up On Battlefield 4

“Wow!”

I don’t consider myself as someone who is easily swayed by graphics. However, I couldn’t help but feel a bit taken aback by how gorgeous Battlefield 4 looked at first glance. There was a level of fidelity to its visuals that was beyond anything I’d seen before. If you’re looking for a showpiece game to impress your friends, this is as good as it gets right now.

If only the rest of the game reached the same highs as its graphics. Unfortunately, the PlayStation 4 version of the game was a buggy mess.

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Top 10 Games of This Generation – Honourable Mention – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

(Original Review)

Many will feel that I’ve chosen the wrong Call of Duty for this list. That is a fair point. Historically, everyone knows that the original Modern Warfare is the one that changed the industry with it’s great single player campaign and legendary multiplayer. Heck, having played both of these titles, I think the original has its successor beat in the single player department.

So why is Modern Warfare 2 getting all the praise? Being my first Call of Duty definitely had something to do with it.
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Top 10 Games Of This Generation – Honourable Mention – Tomb Raider


(Original Review)

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve held a lifelong disdain towards the Tomb Raider franchise. At the time, I hated the fact that it played a major role in gamers adopting the PlayStation One in droves, which did not sit well with my Nintendo fanboy self. I also just thought that the few experiences I had with a few of the games in the series didn’t strike me as anything interesting or special. The last time I tried to play a Tomb Raider game was Legend on the Xbox 360, which I grew bored of after an hour of playing the demo.

Regardless of the validity of my claims against the Lara of yesteryear, they don’t apply here. The new Tomb Raider is awesome.

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Top 10 Games of This Generation – Honourable Mention: Left 4 Dead

Unlike many a gamer, who had no shortage of fond memories with Valve games, their catalogue of work was alien to me until Left 4 Dead. As an active avoider of PC gaming, I missed out on Half Life and Team Fortress completely, while being years late to Portal. Thankfully, I was there on day one for Left 4 Dead.

On a whim before the game’s release, I downloaded the demo on Xbox Live. I was not ready for the awesomeness that would ensue.

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In Third Person’s Top 10 Games of This Generation: Intro

The Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/Wii generation has been quite the trip. In its almost 8-year run, we’ve seen the meteoric rise (and fall) of the Wii. We experienced how online technology fundamentally changed the way we interact with the medium. We also got a plethora of wonderful games to play.

Ranking them is no easy task, and there is no right answer. As a list-maker, all you can do rank them how you see them and open the door for discussion. Over the next few weeks/months, I’ll be counting down In Third Person’s top 10 games of this generation.

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Hard Corps: Uprising Review

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As much as I love the first and third iterations of the franchise, Contra as a whole has way more misses than hits. The franchise has struggled to find new ways to freshen up the formula, especially when it haphazardly forayed into 3D. As a spiritual successor to Contra, Hard Corps: Uprising gives the series an anime twist thanks to the handy work of Arc System Works, who are best known for Guilty Gear and BlazBlue.

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Far Cry 3 Impressions

What was supposed to be an extreme sports adventure on Rook Island goes horribly wrong when you and your friends are captured by pirates. Some are killed, others are missing, and you barely escape their clutches. Now it’s up to you to free the rest of your friends and get the heck out of there. While the main objective in Far Cry 3 is clear throughout, it’s easy to get sidetracked by the plethora of other experiences to be had. By the time you’ve wrapped up your work, you may have poured in dozens of awesome hours into this expansive open world.

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