First Impressions of Metal Gear Rising

Metal Gear Rising was one of the main games that appeared on my top 10 list of games that I'm waiting for in 2013, though I was bothered with the idea they ignored Kojima's request a game with Frank Jaeger (AKA Gray Fox) as the main character, seeing how ever since he got killed by Metal Gear REX and Liquid Snake (and his sexy blonde hair) he was never explored again (With the exception of his appearence in Peace Walker), talk about bad luck (In fact, being Frank must be the shittiest life anyone can ever had. You're a cyborg ninja, yet a Secret Agent which has nothing but his fists and guns completely humiliates you on battle; You killed your parents; You fucked with your sister's life when you get killed; You got killed, in a way where it looked like you were an ant stepped on a boot; You can't talk about Zanzibar or else you will have a seizure and the list goes on)...

So, I played the game in an Xbox 360 device as opposed to the Playstation version which is considered by Platinum Games, the true version of Metal Gear Rising and what I have to say is that this game, although opposed to the Metal Gear formula and also disappointing to the eyes of Metal Gear Fans at the VGAs, is outstanding.
The way how Raiden serves justice and causes humilliation towards his enemies makes him a great anti-hero, but still ruins the family man aspect the character was supposed to have, and the whole I'm doing this for my family thing...doesn't sound right (To me, it's Raiden's way of saying I'm going to pretend I'm home while my wife is away but in reality I'm in a bar).

The blade of Raiden's katana slashing through it's enemies feels amazing, this isn't any typical hack n slash in which your steel sword can cut the background, Metal Gear Rising gives you free reign over your slashing that sometimes might be a fun distraction during gameplay (Or Not, like this one time where I first started as the new Raiden and I accidentaly cut down the stairway I'm supposed to go, after wenting through a deep analysis that has gone further to almost finding the meaning of life, I discovered that I was the world's biggest dumbass until I find out there was another passage to the game which thankfully avoided me from restarting).
The game feels fluid on speed and most of the Quick Time Events, though scripted, feels great and unique, especially how they tend to be over-the-top and gives the Metal Gear players a great sight for a new series.
Though the series tends to focus on the hack n slash element, it still makes the player go through stealth sections and this game can be somehow compared to Batman Arkham City, with one section being a lock down arena beatdown and the other being a ninja stealth section which requires one button to stab your enemies, this section actually made me feel happy as they sticked towards the stealth formula the Metal Gear series is mostly known for, while improving to make it feel more like the ninja that Raiden is; Though, I shouldn't get too happy about it, maybe later in the game they will do the exact same thing they did to MGS4 and only focus on action that will vaporize the stealth sections.

Now I don't know if this happens on the PS3 version, but I noticed during the Metal Gear REX fight that
when I cutted it's shield protecting the feet from pieces to atoms, I noticed a huge drop on the framerate (So huge that I honestly thought the game was going to freeze and display a message saying "Fuck you") and the game's original purpose was to have 60 FPS, I'm not actually experiencing much of that, I will say it's mostly around 50 FPS.

Overall I think this is the game that I was looking forward to this year, it pleases both Platinum Games fans and Metal Gear fans with it's great approach torwards the hack n slash genre while still mantaining characteristic to Raiden's personality; I have been looking torwards some reviews around this game and there are currently complains about the lenght, I don't know if this will affect me as this game looks like something you would replay a lot in your free time.
The only complain I have currently is how it's story is a bit weak in Metal Gear stanards, I acknowledge that the hack n slash formula might have backed out the story elements, but, I was hoping that Kojima Productions would do something about it and bring a great Metal Gear story that would actually fascinate the player and bring a new mythos to Metal Gear.
I think that what could have backed out was the stylish gameplay.

See You, Space Cowboy...

Gaming Predections: The 8th generation of gaming

Greetings,
With the announcement of the Playstation 4 yesterday coming rather out nicely, there have been some arguments on the internet recently (Going from people saying wheter the Xbox 720 might pull out something different to some Brazilian douchebags that calls the Wii U as a baby console and still thinks that one day he will go to Disneyland with his imaginary girlfriend AKA pillow with a picture of Yoko from Gurren Lagann); I can affirm to you, that with the PS4 it's proven that the industry is growing  rapidly though there can be a secret threat though, and that is the game console trying to become a smartphone by implenting social networks and a really different user interface.
Online is getting rather dependent which sorta scares me off as it seems like everyone in the planet is trying to be a PC.
Graphics are factors to a console but if a gaming company thinks that this is a way to make games more "realistic", then they should take some character and story development with Telltale.

Now, let's start with what I think will be the next-gen:

PS4:
The PS4 looks brillaint, it's promises sound great and the first few games released did make me catch an eye for them (Even though my inner rage is spreading a bit after seeing the announcement of an inFamous game without cole), though the game will be at first like the PS3 (AKA no gamez HURDIHURDIHURDI -4Chan user), it will get a dedicated fan base and some really good games, unfortunately, everyone will start sucking dick to Microsoft.
Because DirectX.
Though, the PS4 will still be considered a great console towards gaming, and it's many options and how it's region unlock, will satisfy a bunch of people around the world.
However, the Internet will shame it's image, like the case with the PS3 and PS2, that is mostly given because how they seem to gather more trust with Microsoft due to their experience in making PCs and in consequence of this experience that Microsoft has, most gamers around the web will go to the microsoft option.
This is also supported by the fact of Call Of Duty, where Activision strongly supports that the Xbox 360 version is the best towards the other versions.

Wii U:
The Wii U is the one that won't be as powerfull as the PS4 and Xbox 720, but that's ok, because even with the limitations, a being's imagination can surpass all the borders of limitations, that was the case of Suda51 and No More Heroes.
I can see the Wii U being a great indie platform due to it's partnership with Unity, a lot of PC RTSs being well adapted to the console like Firaxis' XCOM and there will be PS4 and Xbox 720 , there will be games ported to it even with the UE4 (Seriously, there is adaptation for everything, if Capcom could port the MT Framework into the 3DS and Vita, then Epic Games can as well port the UE4 to Wii U. BTW, the Elemental demonstration on PS4 looked nothing impressive compared to PC and the inFamous Second Son trailer looked better polished; Sure UE4 is going to be unpolished on the Wii U but hey, it works).
The Wii U will become the PS3 of this era, good console but overall companies will only port games into it due to how it's less powerfull than the new Xbox 720 or the PS4.
However, thanks to the support of the Indie companies and the JRPG audience, the Wii U will hold out just fine, as the PS4 seems to be approaching Microsoft's direction, by calling out Western companies like Blizzard to make their games.
Sony used to have a large support over the Japanese audience, but because of this new direction, the Japanese customers because of their different tastes, won't be satisfied; Not even Knack can save them, since the game, even though made by the Japan Studio, approaches more towards an american taste;
And With the support of Unity, the Wii U will allow more indie companies to approach their games.
Nintendo won't be doomed by the fact of the Japanese market and because of how their brand and their handheld approach are so effective towards the market, the 3DS will help Nintendo mantain the market and if they go to the sony direction and make new IPs as well as hire other Western companies; Nintendo might be just safe.

Xbox 720:
The crotch kicker is here, even though it's Slightly more powerful than the PS4, companies will still take this as the better console due to it's DX11 support and we will see as the Wii U and the PS4 getting port after port while the X720 will still have the "superior" versions.
Microsoft will still have the same tactic: pull out a Halo Trailer with Master Chief and a new Hat, invest on 3rd party games that are already on PCs and other platforms and finally, Kinect crap that nobody gives a damn at E3.
I don't hate Microsoft but it's always been the same, they never think and say "Hey, you know what would be good? If we make a franchise that appeals to everyone like Sony does", no, what they do is instead is milk Cortana's tits to death in order to make a new Halo which though is pretty awesome, it needs a rest, we already stopped the war and the idea of making a new trilogy seems nice but the idea of bringing Convenants back isn't smart and how they already copyrighted Halo 5,6 and 7; This is worse than the time where we almost had 9 Shrek movies.
The Xbox will be the "hardcore" console, which will feature a vast 3rd party library and a preference for EA Games and Shooters from Call of Duty to Army of Two.
Don't get me wrong, I do think the Xbox 720 will be good, but it doesn't hype me like Sony or Nintendo, Microsoft needs to branch out and focus on exploring new ways and create games that can attract all audiences without the need of the kinect.

Whew, that was it.
The new generation is approaching and the price seems to be a problem as the consoles seem to getting more pricy than Gaming PCs (You know like the 80s and the 90s in an alternate dimension), all these companies will prevail and as much as people say it, this won't be the home consoles or Nintendo's last stand (saying that makes you look like one of those douchebags that say Home Theater shall destroy Cinemas, really people, it's just an half assed DVD with better audio quality).
And we all know that one day, Gabe Newell shall release Episode 3 for all the consoles and peace will be restored.

See You, Space Cowboy...

Antichamber Review

It has been a long time since I don't do a post on this blog, I have my reasons why but why waste time on it; I have to say that I'm one of the few people in the universe that hasn't played an indie-game that isn't Castle Crashers or Minecraft (Which to be completely honest, I never got to approach more into the game since I barely could do a shit on it, I once built a house and my friend asked: "Why did you build a Water Closet?").
But everything changed when I came upon one game, one game so fucked up that even John Lennon can say   that this game was one of his acid trips; That game is Antichamber, a game so mindbreaking that you're going to doubt everything from making new paths to discovering that a duck might be a rabbit.

Antichamber is one of those games that has a Valve touch on it as it can be compared to games such as Portal without leaving a trace of being anything near a Portal show-off, as this game is completely different and how it's interaction to the enviroment is so huge it's simply jawdropping; The game has this sort of moral mechanic as you often see puzzles that can change everything and how it leads to so many paths, Antichamber manages to be so simplistic yet so complex.

The game's gameplay is often focused on Pathlike puzzles whom many of them most be solved with Colored guns whom have all sorts of abilities, one version of the gun can be something completely unexpected or something that is enchanced and can help you further in the game; The game is a living pathway and each path you take might be something that you can take hours to do it as you are stuck, the puzzles and paths can mess up with your brain and psychology and have you question things in life after you're done with it (Like what are you? ; What is your objective; Are you a human being or a furless monkey that is trapped by other peoples belief  that you're a human being; How many licks does it take to a totsie pop; How can Daniel beat the guy in Karate Kid with a kick to the face if it was against the rules, and I think these questions are too complex for you); The game is often simplistic and offers thousands of ways for you to conquer it, showing that surpassing obstacles might be hard but when you have confidence and find a way to beat it, you can see that things that are often considered hard can have the easiest of solutions (You'll be surprised how there is an easy way to beat this game in a question of minutes).

The Game's Artstyle is a living masterpiece of art, it really shows how it can incorporate things that you often see in a museum with so much interactivity (I really hope the game appear in the Smithsonian museum someday) in a simple yet provocative cel-shaded artstyle, that can be colorful and psychodelic too due to it's strong tones; The tips in the game are like proverbs that you see in school or in a fortune cookie and the tips are often seen as a sight of a human being living through these proverbs and acknowledging it.
What I can say about this artstyle is that it's often make me compare to the simplism of cubist like art (AKA that artstyle that you learn in school, whom your teachers make it look shit compared to graffiti or a work by Da Vinci or Van Gough but when given to someone creative, in this case the Game's developer, you can actually see what is the point of it) and I can see the reason why they chose it is to make the game show feelings to the gamer by only assosciating with colours.

Now to what is probably the most intense and calm part of the game, the soundtrack, which feels like something that came out of Peter Gabriel and Genesis; It really fits the enviroment and how smooth the sounds can be, it's something that shows what the game feels like; Siddhartha Barhoorn did give this soundtrack a touch and has that distinctive feel from any other soundtrack you see in a game, I strongly suggest for people to buy Antichamber Suite on Bandcamp (Believe me, it's an anger killer).

Overall, Antichamber was an amazing experience and can really make Valve or any indie dev envy the developer; Yes, Portal and Q.U.B.E will be forever in our hearts, but Antichamber just defies Ebert's logic that games can't be art and shows how something so simple that doesn't use the same technology of a Hollywood  filmmaker can cause something so deep.

I rate Antichamber an 9.5/10

Pros:
-How it's so artistic
-The deep analysis the game offers
-The amazing soundtrack
-How mindbreaking it is
-Complex puzzles and hard challenges it offers
-It's simplistic graphics

Cons:
-No cons whatsoever.

See you, Space Cowboy...

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots review

Metal Gear Rising is just months away to get to our hands; With some kick ass action brought by the studio that made MadWorld, the game will give a break for Solid Snake and Big Boss with Raiden on it's lead, with  the ability to cut anything on your sight; Now, we're going to have Metal Gear Rising, Metal Gear: Ground Zero and Phantom Pain whom is rumoured to be Metal Gear Solid 5, but all of these games doesn't feature a  revelant character to the series, Solid Snake due to Kojima being tired of using the character (Tired? He only appeared in 3 games in the Solid Saga, while Big Boss had a shit ton of titles incluiding ones for the PSP like Portable Ops and Peace Walker, not to mention the 3rd game of the Solid Saga is ported to every single platform, heck, I bet the Gizmondo has Snake Eater on it or at least planned to have).
So to say goodbye to Snake, since in the Rising universe he must be dead, I'll review the last released Solid Snake game, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

Guns of The Patriots is one of the first released titles for the PS3 and exclusive to the console too; The game takes a different approach to the Metal Gear Solid with a sort of futuristic setting where the planet is dependent of War Economy and War has Changed (Admit, you read this while talking Solid Snake) as everything has gone cyber with ID Locks on Weapons and fucking giant bipedal cow robots.

The Story like any other Metal Gear Solid game is Christopher Nolan movie quality writting (heck, why not put Nolan as the director of the Metal Gear movie?) and has one of the best acting of all time, especially to David Hayter, Quinton Flynn, Debi Mae West and Christopher Randolph; though the story can get predictable (in fact, let's play a drinking game, take a shot when the gekkos appear); but by far this is the most entertaining Metal Gear story I've ever seen, I'm going to be surprised if Roger Ebert one of my favourite critics doesn't change his mind after seeing some cutscenes of this game on youtube.
Though the choice of an old Solid Snake as the main character is great especially how they portray his difficulty in adapting on his age and battlefield and the Clint Eastwood personality they gave to him; Otacon is more evolved and his personality was vastly improved and Cyborg Raiden was a surprise if you ask me.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is also known for it's graphical fludity, the backgrounds are very detailed and the characters look good but not the best for PS3 (Though you can probably fap to it easily, especially how every character has their asses' size similar to a space station), but each scenario is unique, the transitions from the Iraqi warzone to Europe is jawdropping, the lightning affects are top especially in the europe level where the lightning is mostly done with the lamp posts on the street (but godammit was the level difficult, I mean seriously, we're in the middle of a secret war yet the Resistance members walk around like they have feces on their brains often doing shit that often screws you up).

Now to the gameplay, wait this game has gameplay, oh yeah, this is a problem that most people talk about this game, it's a cutscene fest and half of the game is about the movie like scenes (Acts 3 and 4 are the ones that mostly have gameplay, Acts 1 and 2 are easy as cake and most of the time is polluted with cutscenes that can sometimes be extremely worthless); This problem mostly affects the game's lenght as it can make it pretty short not to mention that after you beat the game, there ain't much to do as the MGS Online servers were shut down, unless you have the trophy add-on to beat the requirements to platinum the game.
The Gameplay is remiscent of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subistance and plays more action oriented (speaking of MGS 3 was I the only one who liked the original's camera? Are there more people who agree or am I the chosen one for the camera?), honestly, this can ruin stealth sections a bit especially as sometimes I can just kill two enemies even when I'm on alert and made a noise that is as powerfull as Dragonborn's Fus Ro Dah yet the alarm goes off; But it plays and controls great and it's especially easy to learn the controls in this game at first (There is also a Virtual Range facility to test gun performance and the controls, but I mostly use it to kill the living shit out of the AI, I really don't think it's worth it unless it's for gun customization) but for a camera like that on a stealth game can feel awfully weird.

New Gameplay mechanics include the ID locked guns in which you must deactive Drebin's Shop (where you can also buy weapons, ammo, custom parts for you guns and items) and the psyche gauge which can affect Snake's gameplay and cause more difficulty in battles and make snake more vulnerable (really liked this addition to be honest).
A worthy addition is the gun customization, it can help on making your gun more handy, powerful and accurate and it's extremely easy to customize (It could have been more cool if they didn't shut the MGS Online servers), fuck Call of Duty and it's limitations; you buy the custom part and there you go, your gun now has the part you need it, pratical and easy.

There are also some new items like the syringe that can replenish psyche; the Mark II (aka Otacon's Robot Hacker Turkey), which is fun but you won't use it much; the Solid Eye which features a bigger map, night vision and some worthless binoculars and the active camouflage which can be automatic or manual, though it's cool to have a bunch of skins your camo can save, it makes the game too easy in stealth compared to the other MGS titles that made you carefuly choose your camouflage.

The area of soundtrack is amazing like any Metal Gear game and it fits the moment of action, trama and intense scenes like any other metal gear game (the Enclosure and Sorrow themes are sad as fuck, try hear them and not feel bad about it for a moment), the soundtrack often ranges but it especially keeps the focus of being depressing, sad and serious; To whoever did the soundtrack I will give you my thumbs up of approval on this game, the feel it gives us, the reflection, everything fits in and can have a deeper analysis in it.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots is a really artistic game and can be genius when it comes to story writting, if you are a fan of Apocalypse Now, the Metal Gear Solid series and Spec Ops: The Line is perfect fory ou, chances are that you will not ashamed of the game; It closes the Solid Snake saga with a golden key and opens it's way to other heroes of the franchise (A Meryl game could be interesting if you ask me). I give Metal Gear Solid 4 an 8.5/10

Pros:
-Great Story Telling
-Movie like Acting performance from the Voice Actors
-Interesting Character Development and how it's trama is handled
-Easy Gameplay
-The Scenarios and Backgrounds the game offers
-DOSE ASSES

Cons:
-Story can be confusing sometimes
-Stealth is dumbed down
-The Europe Level (ugh)
-How the story is so conclusive to Snake
-Cutscenes, Cutscenes everywhere

See You, Space Cowboy...

Top 10 Upcoming Games of 2013

2013 for some reason sounds like a year that will be good to gaming with all that is coming, however, the year barely started and yet it opens up with Deep Silver putting a fake torso of a woman in bra (titties included) in the collector's edition of Dead Island: Riptide which caused a somehow scandal and degradation of the gaming audience by making them look like 13 year olds that checks for daily updates on a Brazzers site (don't start acting like a diplomatic parent and say I shouldn't know about this site, everyone in the world already knows what Brazzers is and I bet that your Father and Mother checked a Playboy magazine once).

Let's also not forget that America is still recovering from it's wounds after the Sandy Hook Massacre, which instead of a goverment changing the rules of gun use (seriously, how can 15 years old have a license to have long guns yet they can't have a handgun), they instead decide to blame the forms of media once again, even if there was obvious evidence that the mother of the child was a lunatic and a gun fanatic which could have lead to the child's attitude

But before this list turns into a G.I. Joe PSA, let me show you the Top 10 games I'm currently waiting in 2013.

Honorable Mentions:

Splinter Cell: Blacklist, yeah bite me; I have nothing against this new Splinter Cell game, heck, I love Splinter Cell and the Sam Fisher character, but nowadays, the game is lacking stealth and the new Kill in Motion system just looks like it makes the game way easier than it should be (yes, Hitman Absolution had something similar, but you had to use wisely and not just blast every enemy on the screen).
I don't mind if Sam Fisher has a different actor, I ordered my Splinter Cell with patient stealth and actual thinking; If the game becomes good, I will go to Ubisoft Toronto and apologize to Jade Raymond (while trying to find a way to not look like an imense douche without a life).

South Park: The Stick of Truth; I love South Park, it's one of the few shows that are 10-15 years old yet it manages to still be funny (Isn't that Right, Simpsons?).
This game is like any South Park fan's dream: A Story writeen by the creators of the show, a game being developed by a talented studio (Obsidian) and some of the best uses for the kinect, trolling Eric Cartman; With the E3 trailer building me up chuckles for it and how the series itself can be dumb yet at the same time have some smart humour material, I can see where the game's humour is going to.
And the ability of releasing summons like Jesus with an AK-47 (GOTY material) and Good Times with Weapons' Professor Chaos, this game might be the best RPG game of all time (as long as Obsidian doesn't overpopulate the game with glitches).
Though I need to get this out of my guts, before making a game, don't fill this with pre-order bonuses and freaking one day DLCs, good god, the game barely has a release date yet there is a Good Times with Weapons DLC pack.

10.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate

Returning to the Metroidvania gameplay style that was implented in Symphony of the Night, this game looks promising, I really liked how they rebooted the Castlevania Universe with Lords of Shadow giving a more western and dark tone to the series and though this 3DS game was made to build up hype for the upcoming Lords of Shadow 2, it still looks very promising; The graphics meet with 3DS standards but they are so detailed that it looks fantastic (though they need to fix the damned lyp synching of those characters), the voice acting sounds superb (they even got Robb from HBO's Game of Thrones in it, though Jon Snow is still better than him) and the writing seems that it can get somewhere in the borders of good writing.

9.

Last of Us

Wow, I putted this game really low on the list, but it is explainable, Naughty Dog is a good dev (though reviewers need to stop jerking off to Uncharted) and their story writting is great, their objective of achieving well developed character developments and a triple A drama might be something they can achieve, but Telltale Games' Walking Dead game will always have superiority in it (Don't get me wrong, Naughty Dog did a lot of things, but achieving a Lee Everett is something nearly impossible to do it).
But either way, this still doesn't stop the game's spark, the dynamic stealth mechanic and how the game adjusts the player's prefference are fantastic ideas not to mention Joel and Ellen Page Ellie's bound can be something similar to the Lee and Clementine relationship, it's two complete strangers that are trying to take care of one and other and develop a close bound while still trying to survive, sure, Ellie is more mature than Clementine but this doesn't change the fact that it's still an interesting concept.
Naughty Dog, impress me.

8.

Dragon Age III

Hold it, how can something like Dragon Age III go so low on the list? Something wrong with you? In a matter of fact: no; You see after I played Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age II, I felt disappointed with Bioware's quality, especially with Mass Effect 3, the game was good overall but was very lackluster compared to what Mass Effect 2 brought to me (yes, Mass Effect 3 story is better than Mass Effect 2, but how the gameplay felt and how it's so dependent of DLC pisses me off).
But, I'm still excited for this new Dragon Age title, especially by it's story that involves a huge civil war between mages and templars that might change the Dragon Age III universe and possibly end with a golden key (and by that I mean different endings, Bioware, choice decisions that actually affect your party's fate), the gameplay also sounds interesting by implenting more of the power of teamwork with your party members which require more thinking to beat your opponents and less about the use of brutality, I don't know about you but I love managing in gaming (I secretly own Footbal Manager and not because I like footbal or soccer as you americans say it).

7.

Metal Gear Rising: Reveangence

There are people out there that still call Raiden as the adrogynous pussy that replaced Snake in MGS2; Well, they don't know Metal Gear Rising.
One of the few "serious" games made by Platinum Games, this game escapes the general Metal Gear formula and incorporates one that fits Cyborg Raiden, cutting the living shit out of anything and cause brutality in a hack n slash enviroment.
Though the game suffered a drastic departure from it's original form, the game still features stealth since in most free-areas it suggests for you to take a silent approach to your enemies, even with your liberties.
The game looks amazing and how it will run at 60 FPS on any platform is a fantastic piece of news (Though how there are no humans to kill in this game is a shame).
With fabbed writting by Kojima Productions and Gameplay by the studio that brought you Anarchy Reigns and Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising shall satisfy the newcomers of Metal Gear Solid, Fans of action games and possibly Metal Gear fans.

6.

Injustice: Gods Among Us

A Fighting game that has a good story while being based around intelectual property that belongs to an other type of media? Blasphemy! Yet Injustice manages to do that, though not much detail has been spread about the story, just by how they got the guys who did Dead Space: Downfall as story consultants and how DC is working alongside Netherrealms studios to insure to get a great story for a superhero game makes the game's story really interesting to look into (Let's not forget it's Netherrealms we're talking about), their story modes for MK vs DC and Mortal Kombat 2k11 were great).
Also, I like how Netherrealms is making this game different than any other fighting game by adding some actually badass Stage Hazards, two different character types, the character traits system that changes your character's stats or pull out a powerful attack and how each of these characters feel different from one another makes this game look promising, freshed out and genius.
I hope they put Aquaman as a character (because every fighting game needs a punching bag, and nothing is better than a punching bag with a mullet).

5.

Star Trek

Yeah, Star Trek; Having the studio that co-created Unreal Tournament developing the game, the writers of the movie's story alongside the woman that wrote God of War and Shank and the cast from the movie in this, it's possible to say that this project looks flawless; Mixing in the perspectives of Kirk and Spock by having both play out extremely different, the game will mix out 3rd person shooter goodness with Captain Kirk and stealth sections as Spock (Who needs Snake or Sam when you can do a Vulcan Nerve pinch on your enemies and mess up with their mind).
Digital Extremes never managed to fail me (except with Dark Sector) and seeing how they are putting effort on it by giving out some really stunning visuals into it, some customization on it and having the cast of the J.J Abrams movie on it (and at least trying to convince them to give a fuck about the project), I can safely assume that the Trekkies are really hopping to get their hands on this game.
And they better not mess with this game, because Simon Pegg is in it, you can't mess up a game with Simon Pegg in it, have you ever seen something with Simon Pegg that didn't suck other than Ice Age 3? I bet not.

4.

Remember Me

This game will be a beast, showing a new IP to an era that is conquered by the already known intellectual properties, Remember Me is a game with a twist; Having the acrobacy and stealth of the Assassin's Creed series, combat similar to the recent Batman games (which can be diversified thanks to the almighty combo labs which has over 50,000 combinations for combat techniques that the player can create) and the most interesting aspect of this game, memory insertion, which can have you control your target's thoughts (I want to control the thoughts of the guys that made Jersey Shore, so they can make actual shows).
A company like Dotnot is a group that nobody has ever heard of, not to mention how Adrift was never shown in any interesting form, but this group may have imagination in their minds; The road they are taking are full of hazards and pits of doom as the consumers are hard to please, but Remember Me if everything goes right, will be 2012's biggest surprise.

3.

Wasteland 2

This game is being made in unity yet it still manages to attract a lot of attention and interest into it; The game has you control 4 survivors of a nuclear Fallout on a tatical role playing game in a similar fashion to the first Fallout games in which the player's acts toward their Rangers (the playable characters) can change their personality as you progress giving unique feels to each of them, not to mention the NPCs that are along with you in your journey, that can help you progress the game and each with their own opinions, personality and motivations.
I tend to like turn based gameplay and Wasteland 2 seems to be in my tastes.

2.

Grand Theft Auto V

NUMBER 2?! BLASPHEMY! With that said, let me continue, Rockstar Games is a great dev, often making some wonderful games that often change in eras and periods each with their own charm; Taking a new approach to the GTA series by having a story that involves bank robbery, some pretty amazing visuals, the ability to play as three anti-heroes, more developed currency system, some pretty intelligent AI and how you can explore new cities in one giant map is fantastic.
You have anything you want in a GTA game (except dating, because you saw how some hot coffee can blast a soccer mom's morality) everything you ever wanted in this controversy fueled series (and I'll kick Joe Manchin's ass if he bans this game).

1.

Watch Dogs

Thumbs up, Ubisoft, Thumbs to the up; This game right here has the best concept I've ever seen, you have control of anything that happens on this electronic fueled city in the hands of a hacker; Cause havoc by disabling cars, cut off a people's talk on the cellphone and most importantly, kick some people's asses with your guns.
The game's concept of using a city against itself plays amazing especially in a sandbox game like Watch Dogs, I expect an amazing ammount of exploration in this game and cause an evolution to the sandbox genre with a creative plot and liberal gameplay.
I'm happy to see that in the gaming market where bankruptcy, in-game scandals like on disc DLC and many companies trying to follow a traditional trend, Ubisoft comes up with fresh ideas and still mantains herself.

Also Check out these upcoming games:
Fuse, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Pikmin 3, Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z, Project CARS, Company of Heroes 2, Beyond: Two Souls, Soul Hackers, Metro Last Night, Crysis 3 and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

See You, Space Cowboy

Vega 012's Top 10 games of 2012

Welcome to my first blog post, I am Vega012 and I congratulate for coming to this blog right now, 2012 was a good year to gaming, not a beast like 2011, but it was an 8.5/10 in my opinion; Hey look on the bright   side, the VGAs didn't suck this year.

So without further delays, this is the top 20 games in 2012.

Honorable Mentions:

The first Honorable Mention goes to Street Fighter X Megaman, a brilliant Freeware game that first started as a fangame and later became an official product published by Capcom, I'm not this huge fan of Megaman, though I do have some fond memories of Megaman X for the Super Nintendo, the game is a homage to the old NES days (like if we didn't already had that with Megaman 9 and 10, no offense to megaman fans everywhere) and over the basic willy and evil robot masters formula, you have M.Bison and the Street Fighters and get to have each off their powers (BONUS: Akuma/Gouki is a boss), though this game is a no brainer, Street Fighter X Megaman is a great gift for the Megaman fans.

The second and final Honorable Mention goes to Street Fighter X Tekken, the gameplay of this game is great and how they managed to incorporate the Tekken characters into a 2D enviroment worked, the game manages to be simple and complex at the same time with a great tag system; the gem system which is a great tool for battles and tournaments as even when you choose the same characters, the gems can make a difference; the scramble battle mode which was fun at most and the pandora which works as a method of escape and can really make a difference in the last minutes of a fight (unless, your friend jumps from corner to corner like a retard trying to escape from you); The problem is how the game becomes repetitive, the On disc DLC whom some of them aren't supposed to be available on Xbox but are on the game's code and how some of the characters are broken. Ah capcom.


10.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

One of the few KH titles that isn't a spin-off, Kingdom Hearts 3D is a great game for your portable system, introducing the hack n slash RPG series to the 3DS, this game is really addicting and how there are so many additions compared to the previous games for the PS2, most notably the Dream Eaters and the Dream Drop gauge; This game is stylish, beautiful and frenetic, but it suffers a problem like any other Kingdom Hearts game: The main character has little to no dimension, the story is just flat out dumb and let's not forget the legion of Fangirls this series brought to us...Fanfiction is gross; Now all that the Kingdom Hearts fans have to do is wait for their Kingdom Hearts 3, I hope they release it to Steam and so they can make a humble bundle with Half Life Episode 3.


9.

Papo & Yo

People when they talk about Sony's interaction with indie devs, they always mention Journey, but when this topic comes to my mind, Papo & Yo is the game that I think about; You control Quico whom has a monster that is following him, the monster can be helpful sometimes, but when he sees and eats a frog, you better run; The game relies on platforming and puzzles to progress so Quico can escape the monster from hurting him, even though the graphics are mediocre when you compare to other games for the console, you can't complain about the art direction and the favela setting they chose for the game, not to mention it's simple yet deep story, it actually made me reflect about myself as like Quico, I suffered the same problems as he has, I won't spoil anything but the ending is shocking; Papo & Yo is a simple game with a deep sight on a problem on society while still maintaning an elegant artstyle and basic level design.

8.

Persona 4 Arena

Blending ATLUS' amazing RPG series with the frentic fighting and well done character models by Arc System Works, Persona 4 Arena is epic; The Persona ability is well implented into the game and each character plays different from each other with some actually well done balance that they putted on their characters compared to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros which is filled with clones such as Fox & Falco and Captain Falcon & Ganondorf, and how Capcom can't make a single fighter that doesn't feature a broken character (who doesn't remember how frustrating it was to face Cable in Marvel vs Capcom 2? Let's not forget Iceman who can't get a slight bit of damage while defending).
The avid fighting fan will be pleased with the product, the gameplay is remiscent to old arcade games like Street Fighter Alpha, the Personas work well and each with their own ability , the artstyle looks amazing with it's character models having fluid and color, and  the controls are great for those that are still new for the fighting genre.


7.

Mark of The Ninja

Klei Entertainment is a company that often pleases me, when they developed Shank, I became interested on them, now with Mark of The Ninja, I can say they are one of the best indie devs in the gaming market; I have to say that their formula of a 2D Stealth game sounded something that by today's stanards, would be outdated; In my surprise, it worked, this indie game brings a challenge to the player as they cannot fight their enemies face-to-face but rather in a one hit stealth kill, the AI is smart and the game blends the stealth of games like Dishonored where stealth is very dependable with a retro cartoony platformer layout similar to Ninja Gaiden.
If you want a game that makes you feel like a ninja and offer some hard challenges to the hardcore gamer, buy this game.
Do me a favor, sell your Ninja Gaiden 3 that costs like 25 dollars preowned and buy this for 15 dollars, imagine what you can do with the 5 dollars that is left on your pocket, I bet you can buy a mansion and a Jetpack.

6.

Assassin's Creed III

Ending the Assassin's Creed saga, the new title is a golden key to the series, sure it can't beat Assassin's Creed II (aka the pretty boy of the series), but it actually brings a lot of effort to this new game; The story plays nicely, the Connor character is interesting and the game looks gorgeous; The idea of putting an Assassin's Creed game on a considered "modern" setting for the series was overall genius; The hunting mechanic played it's role nicely and the ability to steal your enemy's weapon feels great, yes, you could do that in Assassin's Creed II, but could you steal the enemy's gun shoot at it's face and then use the bayonet of the gun to stab the other enemy to death? No you couldn't.
My only complain goes to the ending, many people talked about Mass Effect's ending being bad, but when I saw the Desmond ending...Yeah...

5.

Borderlands 2


The first Borderlands was good, but it lacked substance as nobody gave a damn to the story and the characters weren't interesting; The second borderlands, however, changes everything, with a story written by Anthony Burch, the creative mind who brought Hey Ash, Watcha Playing? , a fun multiplayer and a vast area to explore, Borderlands 2 is actually better than it's predecessor.
The character development and the black humour of the story is well played, even the little characters that are insignificant have some interesting details and they even gave the characters from the first game some rather interesting personalities compared to their first appearence where they had the personality of a plastic shell , this shows that Gearbox has put a lot of value during the game's development.
Each class plays great (except you, Commando, nobody likes you), the AI is well developed, the difficulty is hard and often crushes you (no matter what happens, Second Wind is your friend, especially on single player) and the mix of RPG, FPS and Sandbox game that the Borderlands series incorporates is brilliant; Though If I see another Angry TMP on my loadout or during scavenging, I swear to god I'll shove these things up Handsome Jack's asshole.
Let's not Forget the ammount of easter eggs the game has.

4.

Far Cry 3

This game overshadows the previous Far Cry installments and quickly makes the player forget about Far Cry 2; The graphics in this game are stunning, they are Crysis 2 level graphics, ranging from the water's brightness in the game to the overall jungle areas in the island of the game, the engine of this game made the Island of this installment possible, as it's a huge vast area full of vibrant colours, tatooed enemies and underwater caves.
The main antagonist is possibly the star of this game, as his sadistic ways and attitude upon his enemies is what makes Vaas so appealing, with his definition of insanity marking the player and the character's minds through out the game as the insanity is what affects the story, making the character think wheter or not is he being a monster for doing such atrocities to save his friend and tries to mantain sane for all of the events that are happening.
The gameplay is also easy and quick to understand, especially as the game is an FPS, but makes the player think of plans to takedown their enemies, because trust me, it isn't easy to beat an enemy, especially dogs, god damn it, why are dogs so annoying in video games.
For those who are Minecraft fans, I say to buy the PC Version as you can download the Minecraft skin for this game and experience the violence of Far Cry 3 in the eyes of bloody blockyness pleasure.


3.

Dishonored

Dishonored is an amazing experience in a dark way; the city of Dunwall is a star in this game, the City 17 of Dishnored, the moral system might be average compared to what you can do in Sucker Punch's inFamous or Bioware's Mass Effect series, the game is still creative and challenging at most, especially on your reliance on Stealth and Corvo's powers, Arkane did a great job on putting this game which mixes Steampunk with French monarchy; the combination of powers and corvo's equipment is a well done mechanic and often executes flawlessly.
This is a game where you must think twice before doing your acts and often says to you to use stealth over brute force, though character interaction could have been better.
Even though Dishonored is a game that features some cliches that are mostly featured in a Bethseda game, it still manages to pull out a very different approach.

2.

X-COM: Enemy Unknown

Firaxis is an interesting dev and with their new reenactment of X-COM, the game is one of the few RTS I've played since Starcraft and I loved it; How you can customize your characters and support during missions, the way the ant farm elements play, how they treat the dead soldiers at war on the game which was sort off used as a marketing campaing too and how the game plays itself is amazing; Firaxis is a great development team and moving them to something not having the name Sid Meier all over it was a great tactic; This game shows that the FPS reboot is not even needed and that video game companies should stop being money whores and worried about the product without rebooting as an FPS, no offense I sort off liked Syndicate, but how game companies are thinking nowadays of always adding a shooting element to anything is becoming a bit annoying.

1.

Telltale's The Walking Dead: Season One

This game is excellent in any possible form, it shows AAA drama in a game and actually makes the gamers feel something for the characters when they play this; The Walking Dead proves that too make a realistic game, you don't need fancy graphics, you need a development throught out the story, that each character needs a backstory, emotion and heart.
The game is quite depressing and though I like the TV Show, the game manages to surpass it, Lee is an enjoyable character that can easily be a better character than Rick Grimes.
Telltale's Walking Dead debunks the fact that Point N Click games are dead and that they can't keep up pace or be interesting in the modern ages, that you can't die in them and that games can't be a form of art, this is a huge step forward to Telltale after the Jurassic Park fiasco and I'm looking forward to Season Two.

See you, Space Cowboy.

Other games to mention:

Resident Evil Revelations, Prototype 2, Sleeping Dogs, FTL: Faster Than Light, Soul Calibur V, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, The Amazing Spider-Man, Lollipop Chainsaw, Ghost Recon (would have put on the list, if it wasn't for the fact Ubisoft can't handle the fact about used games and blocks full access to online), Rhythm Thief, 30-Second Hero, Fall For Cybertron, Transformers Prime and so much more.

Happy 2013