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Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain on PS3

 

Until Dawn on PS4

I am spooped.

 

Minecraft

 

Mad Max. Dig the hell out of it. Only being from America I keep getting in the wrong side of the car.

 

Same.

 

Replaying AC4 and AC3 as part of a Kenway Saga Marathon. Gearing up for Mario Maker on Friday!

 

Bastion and Superbrothers:Sword & Sworcery EP on iPad. Not really explored the iPad as a games platform (up until a few days ago, Civilization Revolutions was my only game on it), but I've been blown away by the atmospheric music and graphics presentation of both Bastion and S&S. Very impressed.

 

GTA V

 

You didn't get the Master Chief Collection?

 

Isn't that still a bit of a mess?

 

He's a diehard Halo fan. I was going to ask him for his impressions on it.

 

What gives me away as a diehard Halo fan?

The Master Chief Collection was bundled with my Xbone and I play it regularly. As it usually happens with Halo, I need a break ever so often. GTAV does quite well in that regard.

Is it still a mess? Well, it shouldn't be, considering that the patches the game has received since launch are almost as hefty as the game itself (total installed files weigh in at over 70 gb). The campaigns play just great, and have never looked better playing at 1080p and nearly 60 fps (if I'm not mistaken). The game is designed for local and online coop. I played the remastered Halo 2 coop with a few folks over the weekend and it is a fun experience. Legendary-one-shot-in-pinkie-instakill jackal snipers, though, still not fun at all.

The major issues the game had at launch were mostly centered on its online component and I believe they've been mostly fixed. One can usually find games in a reasonable amount of time and usually with even sized teams most of the time. Lag is still an issue in some game types (usually with Halo 3). It's been my personal belief though that long matchmaking waits are mostly due to the diminished size of the community, who had long since abandoned Halo in favor of COD or other shooters like, ugh, Destiny. Regardless, if their intention was to build anticipation for Halo 5 or otherwise sell Xbones, 343/MS screwed the pooch bigtime by releasing the game in such a crappy state in the first place.

 

I have mainly been playing Skyrim and some occasional Halo and Call of Duty. Specifically I finally got around to finishing a third wing on a homestead, Heljarchen Hall, though I haven't bothered with the others yet. I am probably ready for Skuldafin and Sovngarde, but I want to get all of the perks for either Heavy or Light Armor first, which should also get me to level 60, right where I want to be for Solstheim.

Between TMCC's woes and what 343i is doing with Halo 5, especially the almost complete focus on online, and Smart Scope and sights in general (especially the Battle Rifle, DMR, and Light Rifle), I am not seeing much of a reason to get an Xbox One. The PS4 has more interesting exclusives, and is also getting all of the love when it comes to exclusivity deals on multi-platform titles, that the Xbox One doesn't really have much to offer.

 

Much hate for MS I sense in you, yes.

Yo do know that the PS4 requires some online connectivity too, right? And I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with the Xbox having not much worthwhile to offer.

 

Online connectivity isn't a deal breaker, though I definitely don't care for it. The problem is besides the campaign, Halo is now almost completely focused on online under 343i, thanks to the removal of Firefight. Even more so than Call of Duty, which seems to be offering something other than the campaign for offline since MW2, though Zombies barely counts, since it relies on DLC to get the full experience.

With no other exclusives interesting me besides Halo, the Xbox One doesn't have much to offer.

 

Um, you CAN play Halo 5's campaign offline, you know. All Halos have had online and offline components since...forever. You're seriously kvetching over lack of Firefight? It was fun, yeah, but fighting bots/AI does grow old quick.

 

Yeah, but the campaign is all you can play offline, since splitscreen has apparently been abandoned in favor of 1080p 60fps. Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach gave me an expectation that Halo needs and must have offline modes beyond the campaign, which made Spartan Ops very frustrating for me, since it could be played solo, but wasn't available offline.

 

I'm sorry to say that your expectations were perhaps a bit too high. Maybe M$ torpedoed offline components beyond the campaign after Reach in order to emphasize connectivity though XBL.

 

Well, it backfired, because forcing me to get the complete experience with online just makes me not even want to bother with the experience, unless the experience is specifically an online experience like Destiny. The fact the console already has a limited requirement for internet would be all of the encouragement I need to adopt XBL.

 

Mad Max. I posted this in that game's dedicated thread, but I'll do it again here.

Do not buy this game.

I've only had experience on the Xbox One version, so I'm not sure if what I'm about to talk about applies to other platforms. Most of the time, when you die in Mad Max, the game freezes when it tries to reload (maybe six or seven times out of ten, in my experience). When you exit the game and restart, it gets stuck verifying your save game files at the main menu. In order to get it to work again, you have to unplug your console and plug it back in, restarting it that way. One time I did this and lost about forty-five minutes worth of progress. Daunting, but I figured it was a one-time thing so I made it back up. Just now, it happened again, and I lost about two hours of tedious side-mission progress.

Which is absolutely heartbreaking, because the game is actually pretty fun. But how can I be expected to continue when there's a possibility that everything I'm doing could be erased? The game's been out for two and a half weeks, and still there's been no patch. This is inexcusable, and after having similar issues with Mortal Kombat X and glitched achievements, I can't say I'll ever buy a WB published game again. A shame.

 

Just finished another playthrough of the original Deus Ex, and just started another run on the original Fallout. These games are amazing feats of game design, especially because of how they cater to different game play styles. It adds some real replay value to these games. After replaying these masterpieces, I'm finding it very difficult to get excited for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Fallout 4. Bethesda Fallouts are always fun for the mods, but as a game, Fallout 3 was more similar to Elder Scrolls than Fallout. From the little information I have seen on Fallout 4, they are making some dubious design decisions (Critical Hit system, No Skills, Unlimited Level Cap). As for Deus Ex, Human Revolution was only mediocre and Mankind Divided has one of the most screwed up preorder system ever. I'll probably still buy these games, but almost certainly not on release day. The current state of Fallout and Deus Ex really shows how far the games industry has fallen.

 

NHL 16. Much improved game. The 6v6 online play is a blast. Thank goodness hockey season is back!

 

What exactly was changed from NHL 15? I have a blast playing 15 locally with my brother or friends, though sometimes the puck dynamics and shots-goal ratio seems a bit ridiculous (ie. wrist shots from the center line making it cleanly into the net).

 

Seems to be way harder to score. They also added all the modes that should have been in the game last year. Seems to be a very realistic nhl game.