There have been very few game series that have brought me more enjoyment than the Elder Scrolls series. Oblivion was the first game I got for my Xbox 360 and probably the one I played the most until Skyrim . So when I found out Bethesda was making a remastered edition for the current console generation I was extremely excited. The idea of being able to travel across Skyrim again spoke to the nostalgic side of me. Listening to atmospheric orchestra pieces while admiring the world of has always been great but with updated graphics it would be even better. The remastered edition definitely has noticeable graphic quality improvements. Firstly, the water effects are much better and looks more natural instead of some weird mirror you can fall in an out of. It even appears to flow better along rivers and rapids. Textures on all environmental features are tremendously improved adding to the realism. Lighting effects looks more realistic and so do the shadows it produces. More foliag...

 The holiday season is always chaotic and a mix of emotion for me as I am sure it is for many others. It’s the time where you either love to see your family or you pretend to, and you give them gifts accordingly. Looking back on it, as a child the holidays represented more than gifts and giving, it represented the one time of year where my sister and I bonded and understood each other and a large part of the reason for this is because of video games. Growing up my sister and I both loved playing video games. She had an original Game Boy with Super Mario, Tetris and Kirby. It was one of her most prized possessions and she loved it, secretly I did too. I would have to wait until she was gone to sneak into her room and play it or if I was lucky, she would let me play it when she was home. She was pretty good at sharing when she wanted to and we both had a good time playing, that is when we weren’t fighting. My sister and I were almost always at odds. We bickered and fought...

Yesterday Nintendo released the NES Classic in the United States. Gamers everywhere salivated at the thought of being able to relive their childhood memories by playing NES classics like Super Mario Bros, Punchout and The Legend of Zelda. But in typical Nintendo fashion they bungled the release. The NES Classic sold out in every store within minutes of opening and some did not even receive any. Stores that were lucky enough to have some were only given a limited supply, some as few as ten. So why did Nintendo fail to anticipate the excitement of the release? simple they didn't. Nintendo has a history of failing to understand supply and demand. The Wii was one of the hottest systems to own 8 years ago. But Nintendo was never able to keep up with demand. During the holiday season 2009, they doubled their supplies but were still unable to make sure stores across the U.S. were stocked. Similarly the Majora's Mask 3DSXL went out of stock in mere minutes after its release. N...

I recently wrote an article on the importance of remakes and why they are more than just a money grab. Since then then I have put more thought into the pitfalls that follow their success. Replaying the BioShock series and diving back into Call of Duty 4 is great but they do not add any new ideas. I fear that the growing amount of remakes is a sign that game publishers and studios are losing confidence in their own creativity. To explain this further I want to use Hollywood as an example. Movie studios have recently been criticized for regurgitating the same principal ideas into the movies they create. Every year a new super hero movie comes out and it is largely the same premise. Good guy with super powers fights bad guy with super powers to save the world, with some change ups in between. Super hero movies are fun and provide entertainment plus revenue for movie studios that desperately need it. But they do not add anything new and creative to the silver screen. A super hero ...

I have a problem with playing games and never finishing them. For me the conclusion of a game brings all of the fun and excitement I had while playing crashing down. It stops the story, the character development and all of the great experiences you had within the game. Simply it just ends. The game that defines this experience perfectly for me is Bully . For those that don’t know Bully is a game developed by Rockstar (The creators of Grand Theft Auto ). The game takes place at a school for delinquent children called Bullworth Academy. You play the role of bad boy Jimmy Hopkins who takes on missions for the various groups in the school (nerds, jocks, preps, etc.). The story plays out very much like Grand Theft Auto and you can customize Jimmy in a similar fashion to characters in GTA. The weird thing is Bully is one of my favorite games of all time and yet I have never beat it. It is hard for me to believe I haven’t beaten the game and I have been playing it since it was fir...

On September 6, 2016 I attempted to log into PlayStation Network (PSN) only to discover that it was offline. This isn’t surprising for me and many others users who have faithfully stuck by Sony as its online services have gone down time and time again. PSN is a paid for service and users have to sign up for a paid subscription called PlayStation Plus in order to play online games.  What makes this most recent outage more frustrating is the fact that it was recently announced that the cost of an online subscription is increasing, making customers pay more for a service that is inconsistent at best. It is true that Sony has not raised the cost of PlayStation Plus in quite some time but why should users pay more for a product that lacks features and is unreliable? As far as I know Sony is offering no new features that warrant a price hike which is a shame because there are plenty of improvements that can be made. It would be nice if Sony would allow users to change their PSN user...

Recently I wrote an article detailing my first impressions of No Man’s Sky . Since then, my time playing has dwindled from little to none at all and apparently I am not alone. Various media outlets have been giving No Man’s Sky negative reviews and negative player reviews on Metacritic are near equal with positive ones. Many feel that it has failed to deliver on what was promised. Suspicions started to arise after two Twitch streamers realized they ended up on the same planet in the game but could not see or interact with each other. Multiplayer was implied from the beginning but this event proves that is not the case. The creators also said you could become a trader to complete the game, or you didn’t have to mine for minerals at all but this seems to be far from the truth. Players accused Hello Games (Creators of the game) of lying because they completely whiffed on incorporating gameplay mechanics (or at least stretched the truth) they said would be part of the game. ...

After playing the Battlefield 1 Beta one thing has become immediately clear, it is the most realistic war game I have ever played. I discussed my hope for this in length in a previous post . While playing, I genuinely felt anxiety as I started the game running across the desert with my comrades. As we made it to the first town we were ambushed by an enemy tank and we had to quickly dive for cover in a freshly made crater from artillery. As a medic I tried to revive my squad mate but when I made it to him I was gunned down by a German sniper. I respawned into the machine gun of an allied truck and quickly found myself returning fire at a bi plane that was trying to rip us apart and all of this was just my first game. Never before has a war game been this realistic. The magic of Battlefield 1 lays in the fact that you are going to die, a lot. Death is simply around every corner. If you are not blown up by a tank, shot by a sniper or gunned down by a plane, you will certainly be ra...

When I was in elementary school Pokémon was my life. I remember when the first kid brought Pokémon cards into class. Everyone was amazed and I think we all went home and begged our parents to buy us some, I know I sure did! So when I walked into my classroom the next day with my new starter pack I thought I was going to be the best there ever was! But to my surprise many others had the same starter pack and the same idea. After that period of my life Pokémon has taken a backseat to many of my other gaming interests. I will pick up a new game here and there but I never invest the time and energy into making my Pokémon the best. When Pokémon Go came out it reinvigorated my interest and got me excited for the next games in the series, Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon . So if you are like me, and you grew up in the privileged generation that experienced the original 150 Pokémon, you can understand me when I say that the new generation of Pokémon absolutely suck! Ok maybe suck is too har...

This past weekend Respawn Entertainment released their “ Multiplayer Tech Test ” for Titanfall 2 . The test is open for everyone to enjoy regardless of pre-orders. It showcases some of the new features players can expect to see when the new game is finally released in October. Two new maps are playable, as well as a new game variant called “Bounty Hunt”. There have been some tweaks for gameplay classes and Titans. Respawn Entertainment stresses that the test is a “pre-alpha” model of the game, meaning that the game is still in development there are known problems so it does not reflect the final product. Overall, my time playing this weekend was enjoyable but I did make notes of certain aspects of the game that may need some heavy tweaking. The two new maps, Boomtown and Homestead were fun to play on but large in scale. Homestead is a rural sprawl with a large circular tower (perfect for snipers) front and center in the middle of the map. Boomtown has a more urban setting, allowin...

After four years of waiting and delay after delay, No Man’s Sky has finally launched. The initial release has been successful, and has not had the same server crashes that have become a signature of launch day titles. Created by Hello Games, No Man’s Sky puts you in the shoes of an explorer traveling the vastness of a seemingly endless galaxy. Throughout your journey you will need to find minerals and other items used to craft upgrades for your ship. Doing so will allow your ship to continue traveling until you reach the end game goal. But the games enjoyment lies in what you do in between reaching that goal. Discovery is the major driving force behind my enjoyment of No Man’s Sky . Finding and exploring new planets is loads of fun. You truly feel like the first person to step foot when you land your ship on an alien planet. You can also find and travel to planets that other players discovered. The developers of the game pride themselves on the fact that the game contains 18 quin...

It was recently reported that Blizzard is planning on releasing an HD version of Starcraft . Starcraft is a widely successful real time strategy game that was released in 1998 and helped make Blizzard a house hold name in the game industry. Its success spawned the sequel, Starcraft 2 in 2010. Similarly, Nintendo released an HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the 3DS , and Microsoft gave the go ahead for the entire Halo series to be updated and released for the Xbox One . But why do game studios decide to re-release games from the past, instead of creating new games? One reason is that not all game sequels will be met with the same praise that their predecessors were. The Resident Evil franchise is regarded as one of the best in horror. Resident Evil 4 was nearly universally praised by reviewers and gamers alike but Resident Evil 5 and 6 were panned. They provide an example of how hard it can be for long running franchises to create fresh ideas that con...

One of my favorite games of the year is Firewatch which puts you in the role of Henry as he spends his summer in a lookout tower in a Wyoming, watching for fires. His only means of communication is a walkie talkie he uses to talk with fellow firewatcher Delilah, who is your only guide as you investigate the vast wilderness. You begin to build a relationship with her but soon events begin to unfold that bring both of you to your breaking point. Firewatch is a game that is as much about its own narrative as it is about the player’s personal experience within the game. Because of this some players have felt that the ending was bad. I do not believe they feel this way because they didn’t like the game, or because they failed to immerse themselves within the story. I believe that today’s gamers have become so focused on the “end” as the most rewarding experience that they have failed to see the “journey” through the game as the most important one. Recently in an article about the end...

One of my favorite games to play is Rocket League . The game consists of controlling a high speed car with rocket boosters attached, flying around, blowing up other cars all the while trying to hit a large ball into a goal. Just imagine playing soccer with rocket propelled cars and that’s the game. Rocket League has servers spanning most of the world in order to maintain consistency with multiplayer connectivity. It is fun and addictive with each match being an action packed five minutes. Since multiplayer games are competitive, anger and rage among players is not far behind. Matches can quickly turn into an exchange of toxic slander, bigotry and bullying. I do not have a problem with this because I believe anybody can say what they want, and trash talking and competition go hand in hand. What does bother me is how often it happens when playing in American servers compared to European ones. If I took the time to record how many times I have seen or been on the receiving end of abu...

Before the release of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, I was considering purchasing a gaming PC. It made sense, a larger selection of games, upgradable hardware and free online competitive multiplayer. But old habits die hard so I caved and purchased a PS4. I would have been happy with this decision if the current generation of consoles adhered to the old rules of the previous generation by remaining current for close to a decade. But both Sony and Microsoft have decided that in order to remain competitive they needed to release upgrades nearly at the beginning of the current console lifecycle. Essentially anyone who purchased an early generation PS4 and Xbox One have wasted their money. The Xbox One Scorpio and the PS4 Neo promise to bring upgraded hardware to improve the overall experience. The PS4 Neo will support 4k televisions, have better graphics, better processing power and cost more . While a new system is nice, there are multiple problems that arise from this. Firstly, wh...

The upcoming release of Battlefield 1 will signal the franchises return to its historical roots, and the first time a triple-A gaming franchise has used World War 1 as its setting. The Battlefield series got its start with the highly successful Battlefield: 1942 . Taking place during World War II, the game allowed players to fight against each other in a recreation of the D-Day invasion at Normandy and many other historically based scenarios. The game also utilized weaponry and vehicles from the war to give players a more authentic feeling. The Medal of Honor series mastered this and the highly successful, and critically acclaimed Call of Duty franchise also got its claim to fame using World War II as the foundation of its first games. As Battlefield and Call of Duty have battled one another for sales and players, they pretty much exhausted every major narrative from World War II in the process. To continue their success, both have taken their games from the modern battlefie...

The explosive success of Pokémon GO is more than a bright spot for the future of mobile gaming, it is also helping to create a more social gaming community that has started to cross generational barriers. Even though the initial release server crashes have hindered my quest to catch ‘em all, it has not stopped me from finding new Pokémon to catch and PokeStops to raid for items. The town I live in has a lot of PokeStops and I have created a “farming” system to hit them all in one walk. Before Pokémon GO I used the path for walking/jogging, it takes me along a river and through a small park. The river has moderate pedestrian traffic but the park is usually always vacant. I was shocked when I entered the park and found upwards of 30 people looking down at their phone. Some were walking together in groups, some were riding bikes, others were talking and some were by themselves. But what they all had in common was Pokémon GO . Now I can’t say for certain that every singl...