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So…What New Console Will I Buy Next?

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Console War

This past Monday was supposed to be my deciding factor with the new console war. Sony’s PS4 reveal conference really won me over, and Microsoft’s Xbox One reveal left me really disappointed. However, I didn’t want to make a call as to which console I’d commit to first (because honestly, I’m going to get both eventually, just not at launch or at once), since Microsoft’s reveal only presented two games. Neither of those games did anything for me. I was introduced to a rule by a friend, and I’ve tried really hard to adhere to this rule–do not buy a console until three games for it you want release. I’ve followed through with this rule with the Xbox 360, the 3DS, and the Vita (I really wish I had with the PS3), and it’s served me fairly well. It’s why I haven’t gotten a Wii U, even though my friends think it’s because I hate Nintendo with the fire of a 1000 suns, which is very untrue.

In other words, I need to see a launch lineup for games for each console, and the one with the most appealing [to me] exclusives will win out. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the pricing of the consoles has also been heavily weighed in, so the PS4 ran to the front after the Sony E3 conference.

I have not found an official launch line-up list for either the Xbox One or the PS4 as of yet. The closest I have found comes courtesy of GameStop, which is currently offering “bundle” pre-orders online. Each bundle includes the system and one game, and the games offered are launch games. Based on this alone, I won’t be buying the Xbox One first, because they show absolutely zero games that I want. Notice something missing? Ryse, one Xbox One exclusive I’m really interested in, is not listed at all. In fact, the game isn’t anywhere on GameStop’s site at the time of this writing. It’s not on Amazon.com either, curiously enough. I know this game is a launch title, so I have to wonder if anything else is possibly missing from this list.

If you go to GameStop’s PS4 page, I see three game bundles I want right off the bat, and two are exclusives (at least they claim to be exclusives now): Killzone Shadow Fall, The Order 1886, and Watch Dogs. But now I have to question this list for a different reason. I’m certain that Shadow Fall is a launch title, but I have heard nothing of the sort for The Order. I would be ecstatic if it was true, but at this time, without hearing anything definite myself, I remain skeptical.

What about upcoming games? From what I have seen of the Xbox One’s upcoming games for Spring 2014, nothing appeals to me at all. I know that The Witcher 3 is coming in 2014, but I don’t know specifically when. Since the game will utilize The Witcher 2 save files, that seals where I will buy the third installment. I really hope this lack of games [for me] changes, because I’ve grown to really like my Xbox over the last couple of years. I want to continue to support it, especially since it is my console of preference for shooters.

If I look at the PS4’s upcoming games, I’m a bit more excited, specifically for inFamous: Second Son. I have loved everything about this series, and I’m thrilled they will continue it, even without Cole.

So that’s four games in favor of the PS4 and the console is $100 cheaper? Yeah, I know where I’m leaning at this point. Granted, a lot can change between now and the holiday season, and that’s the beauty of preordering from Amazon. I haven’t preordered anything yet, but I’m getting dangerously close. Oh so close.

All I need now is for strategy guide companies to confirm with me if they will be producing guides for these games. That will pull the preorder trigger in a heartbeat.

Monday Gaming Diary: My friends are liars

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The Walking Dead Episode 4

My friends obviously want me to get through a certain game so badly that they’re willing to lie about what I should expect. If that weren’t the case, they wouldn’t have lied to me about Episode 4 of The Walking Dead. I kind of want to punch them, but fortunately for them, they’re all in Iowa, several states away from me. Jerks, the lot of them. Hopefully I’ll be over it before we record the next podcast.

If you want to avoid spoilers forThe Walking Dead, then I’d just skip this week’s edition of my gaming diary. Fair warning.

So Episode 3 hit me right in the gut. Hard.I believe I went over it in some length last week, so I won’t go over it again. I did tell everyone via Twitter that night and the next time we recorded a podcast that if I had to (spoiler incoming) kill a kid again, I would quit playing the game immediately, even if I was 20 minutes from the end of Episode 5. Everyone assured me that I was safe in Episode 4, especially my podcasting cohorts.

You’re all LIARS.

Within about ten minutes of Episode 4, I had to kill another kid. This time, it wasn’t as drawn out, and I hadn’t gotten a chance to know this kid. Poor little guy hid from the zombies in the attic and starved to death, so he was a tiny, scarily thin zombie kid when my party found him. He was already a zombie, so technically it shouldn’t count, but it was hard all the same. He was so weak and sad and tiny. Poor Kenny was having horrific flashbacks after what happened to his own son, so of course, who has to put this kid of his misery once again? Me/Lee.

It was so hard to continue playing. I had already sworn I would be done if I had to kill another kid, and here I was again, killing another kid. The only reason why I kept going was because it wasn’t a child I knew, and it wasn’t like he was a kid I found who was bitten so I had to make that terrible choice all over again. But my God…it was still a child. And then Lee buried the poor kid with his dead dog in the backyard…could this get any sadder?

Why do I play this game again?

I guess I’m just as much of a liar as my friends, because I did not quit playing. I completed Episode 4, and no other children were killed. May this trend continue in Episode 5, as that’s going to be a gut-wrencher anyway, without killing any children.

Or maybe Episode 5 will end with “Rocks fall, everyone dies.” That would be so bad, it would be funny.

Binary Domain Mini-Review

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Binary Domain box artBinary Domain is going to be one of those really fun games that just falls by the wayside. I hadn’t heard of it before Gaming Angels asked me to review it, and after playing it, I want to smack Sega for not promoting this more. Or I guess I should say, for not promoting it at all.

It released right before Mass Effect 3, so that didn’t help matters much. I think most things that released within that two-week period were overlooked and forgotten. However, that’s not much of an excuse for not effectively marketing a super fun shooter. It’s only been a few months, and already retailers are not carrying it. Many haven’t even heard of it, and that’s a damn shame.

The best way to explain Binary Domain is to say that it’s a Gears of War with robots. Lots and lots of robots. However, it has a bit of some Mass Effect-dialogue-choice features mixed in.

One very unique feature to Binary Domain was its use of dialogue and dialogue trees. When NPCs talked to Dan, occasionally Dan could respond and prod a conversation of some sort. Depending on how you responded in these dialogue trees affects the NPC’s level of trust in you. The level of trust actually influences how well your team will listen to you when you give orders, how your team responds to certain cut scenes, and if your teammates will be willing to come to your aid if you’re down. Inputting dialogue could be done one of two ways: via controller with a BioWare-like radial or via your headset mic. If you use the mic, you aren’t limited to what choices the radial provides, and the characters will respond to a wide variety of voice commands. I tried this once just to see how it worked, and I had to turn the mic off after I was losing trust from my team because they thought I was cussing at them. Apparently I yell at my TV more than I thought I did. The trust feature isn’t solely based on the dialogue either. Friendly-fire is most decidedly turned on in the game, so if you shoot your teammates, you will lose their trust.

I was also completely blown away by the story. Just when I thought the final twist had reared its head, another popped up. And then another. And all were fantastic.  If you want to read more about the story, then you’ll just have to pay a little visit to Gaming Angels to see what I had to say.

In the end though, I cannot recommend this game enough, something I gushed about in a recent (not yet posted, grrr) episode of the EvilCast. If you like third-person shooters at all, pick this game up. You will not be disappointed; I can almost guarantee it.

SGR is Going to E3 2012!

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E3 Prepped Stack of ShameAh yeah, it’s official. I will be going to E3 2012 with the Gaming Angels, which means I’ll have plenty of tidbits to share with all of you about the games I see and hopefully I’ll meet with the guide publishers again. I had an absolute blast at all three of those meetings.

And so, as a result of this recent development as well as learning of a few of the appointments I will be taking at the show, I’ve had to completely readjust my stack of shame. I am GA’s shooter expert, and I’ve already been told that I will be analyzing Halo 4. That’s great and all, but my OCD personality needs to have all the information before I go in there, which means I need to play all zee Haloz gamez. The three I have are back in the stack. Dear God I hope that the campaigns are typical shooter campaigns–a/k/a short due to multiplayer–and they aren’t as long as the first game. I’m still surprised at how long Halo: Combat Evolved was.

Transformers has also returned due to the possibility that Fall of Cybertron will be at E3. Well that and I just want to play the freaking game.

I have Borderlands in the list in the off-chance that I’ll have an appointment with Borderlands 2. I find that to be highly doubtful as I fully expect my boss to threaten to beat my ass for it. Either way, I have to prep for that game’s release in August.

Whether I have an appointment or not, I want to have ACR finished before E3 so I can once again be fully informed for AC3.

Of course, this all needs to be worked in midst my current review schedule, which consists of Binary Domain (of which I’m almost done), The Witcher 2, and Kingdoms of Amalur. I’m not sure what has possessed me to try to take on two massive RPGs at once, but I never have once claimed to be sane.

Wish me luck! This is a very tall and most likely impossible order.

 

Sequel Preparation

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Buyer's Remorse

From Dueling Analogs

I’ve only played one video game series where I started in the middle and didn’t play the first game. No, wait, there are two: Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted. I’ve never played the first one of either of these games; it was the sequel that reeled me in. I’m about to embark on a third–Witcher 2–but I never really like doing that. I like to take everything all in together and experience the game as a whole. People tried to get me to skip the first Mass Effect game and go right to ME2, but I refused. Aside from the fact that I already owned the first game, I would have played it anyway as I had heard that the decisions you make from the first game carry into the second.

As I look at the schedule of game releases for 2012, I realize that I have a fair number of games on that list that are sequels to games I’ve never played before. Pretty much all of them are shooters since I only got into that genre near the end of 2010. I would also like to be the one who reviews these guides, as I’m fairly certain that’s going to be asked of me from Gaming Angels on the game review side anyway. As I take a look at the list, I see I have way too much catching up to do.

Halo 4 – November 6th

I never would have thought I would have liked Halo as much as I did, but there it is. Fellow staff reviewer Blake gave me Halo 2, 3, and 3:ODST for Christmas, so they’re at my disposal…I just have no idea how I’m going to fit in four more games–can’t forget Reach–before then. I’ll just have to pray that the games run as long as the typical FPS shooter or just reside to the fact that I’ll more than likely pass the guide review off to SGR’s resident Halo addict.

Assassin’s Creed III – October 30th

Assassin’s Creed Revelations sits there, literally taunting me. I just need the motivation to freaking play it. I guess I’m tired of playing as Ezio, and well, the story for ACR is extremely convoluted, even for an AC game.

BioShock Infinite – October 16th

I have never played the first BioShock game. I have also been able to shield myself thus far of any spoilers about the game (I really do have a talent for media blackouts, I have to say). I want to play the first game. I know I don’t have to in order to play the sequel–at least, that’s what I gather–but I still want to be wholly enlightened before I get into BI.

And before you ask, no, I will not play BioShock 2.

Borderlands 2 – September 18th

Ever since I opened up my genre-base to shooters, I’ve been told by dozens of people that I need to play Borderlands. They say the story is crap, but hey, the game is fun. I’m a story gamer, but I’ve been known to like a game for the gameplay despite the story–Final Fantasy XIII-2. If it’s a crap-ton of fun, I can let a bad story slide, and I’ve heard that Borderlands is a crap-ton of fun.

Resistance: Burning Skies – May 29th

This is simply downright unrealistic. I’d have to play Resistance 2  and 3 within a month, and I need that month for The Witcher 2. I haven’t heard if there will be a guide for this Vita title or not, but I have to admit that I’m hoping there will not be. I’m also going to have to hope that GA doesn’t send me a review copy. Then I’ll be able to get to it after I fulfill my little utopian dreams.

It’s official. I really am going to need a clone. And a vacation with my Xbox and PS3.

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