In April, Activision announced that Call of Duty would be returning their WWII roots. I wrote a brief piece on the announcement and outlined my hopes and fears that I have for their new game. After spending some time in the beta, I have found that some of them have come true. In my first multiplayer match, it quickly became obvious that Sledgehammer Games had brought back the classic Call of Duty experience. No gimmicky jet boosting or wall running in this game, just good old-fashioned boots on the ground shooting. This was the most important change I wanted and I am happy they delivered. Since boosting and wall running was introduced in the games, getting kills and being killed became increasingly more annoying. I had to continuously be alert to my surroundings from all sides, leaving little time to look at my map or figure out how to connect with my teammates. Sure, it was fast paced but I never felt that I had time to plan movements or work together with my team. It was ju...

Of all the games that were released in the first quarter of the year, the one I was the most excited about was Night in the Woods . For some reason the game called to me even though I knew next to nothing about it. I found out I enjoyed the art direction and game concept from a few screen shots, one preview video, and an abstract from the studio’s website. It looked like it contained everything I love about a game: story, deep themes, and action, but I had no idea how personal the story would be to me. NITW is a side scrolling adventure game that takes place in a crumbling blue collar town called Possum Springs. The town is based off the real world rustbelt cities in the U.S. that have seen jobs move overseas, crime rise, and infrastructure decay. Interestingly, the citizens of Possum Springs are not human, but instead animals. You play the game as Mae Borowski, a cat punk rocker, bass playing, college dropout who moved back home. Your friends, Gregg, Bea, and Angus catch you up ...

My reaction when I first saw the Nintendo Switch was something like this: “Here we go again. Nintendo trying to push innovation and continuing to abandon the standard console model.” Since the release of the Wii, Nintendo has placed more value in designing innovative systems instead of adhering to the standard box top set that Sony and Microsoft have. The Wii utilized motion sensor controllers instead of the generic double stick gamepad, the Wii U upped the ante by giving the controller a screen to second the one on the television set. Because of their desire to be the black sheep of the console family they have trouble attracting third party support and instead, rely on their own household names like Mario, Zelda and Pokemon to fill their library. Their constant efforts to push ingenuity and be different has resulted in Sony and Microsoft being the first choice of consoles for developers to build their games. Despite all of this Nintendo has remained competitive in t...

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...

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...

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...

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...