Game Over

For the few of you that follow this blog closely, you probably noticed that I haven't posted since January 1st. This isn't because I haven't been playing video games. Sadly, it's because I've decided to stop writing this blog.

There were many reasons for this. Mainly, it's because I'm going through many changes in my personal life, so there's less time to write. Also, I feel like I've accomplished what I wanted to with this project.

The idea was to have an avenue for me to practice writing on a regular basis. It was also to keep a kind of record of the games I've played and to have fun getting nice screenshots or videos to accompany my posts. Over the years, I think I've improved a lot. It's quite evident if you read my first post. This project has improved my writing, my organization skills and my creativity. It also helped me learn how to schedule things and helped me be more productive and efficient in my day to day life.

Starting in January 2011 with Halo Reach and ending in January 2018 with A Boy and His Blob, I've played a LOT of video games during the life of this blog. Here are some crazy stats about my playing habits for that period.

• I have seen the credits for 175 games on 10 different platforms
• Completed the most games in 2014, with 41, and the least in 2011 with 16
• Platforming games are apparently my favorite, as I've completed 30 of those, with the closest runner-up being adventure games with 21
• As of this writing, this blog has received 284 753 unique views. That's approximately 111 per day
• January 2017 was the month with the most traffic, at 8759 unique views
• Inexplicably, my most viewed post was Crazy Taxi 2, at 533 unique views
• The most popular search that redirected people to my blog was "M60", a machine gun that I used a lot in Call of Duty, with a total of 528 searches
• The vast majority of my views came from the United States, at 227 185. The second closest was Canada at 15 951

It's been one hell of a ride. Video games are important to me, they are my favorite hobby by far and I love a lot of video games of various types. However, there are a few franchises that have taken up a bit more space than others in the last few years. Here's some fun stats about the games I've completed since the beginning of this blog.

• 12 games with the word "Mario" in their title
• 7 Halo games
• 5 Assassin's Creed games
• 4 Zelda games
• 4 Metroid games
• 4 The Walking Dead games
• 3 Forza games
• 3 Grand Theft Auto games
• 3 Uncharted games
• 3 Killzone games
• 3 Call of Duty games
• 3 Batman games
• Journey, twice

Journey isn't the only game I've bought more than once in that time either...

• Journey - PS3, PS4
• Rocket League - PC, PS4, Switch
• Overwatch - PC, PS4
• Mario Kart 8 - Wii U, Switch
• Costume Quest - PS4, PC

I've also completed a number of remastered games or re-releases

• Mario vs DK - GBA version on 3DS
• Super Metroid - SNES version on Wii U
• Metroid Fusion - GBA version on 3DS
• Mario Kart 8 - Remastered on Switch
• Flower - Remastered on PS4
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX - GBC version on 3DS
• Halo 1-4 - Remastered on Xbox One
• The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap - GBA version on 3DS
• Super Mario Bros - NES version on 3DS
• Limbo - Remastered on PS4
• Journey - Remastered on PS4
• Super Mario Land - GB version on 3DS
• Super Mario World - SNES version on 3DS
• Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse - Remastered on PS3
• Chrono Trigger - PS1 version on Vita
• Day of the Tentacle Remastered - Remastered on PS4
• Metroid Samus Returns - Reimagining of GB version on 3DS

Of all the amazing games I've played, a few of them stood out as modern masterpieces, or games I regret not playing earlier. In this time, I fell in love with Metroid, Bethesda's big RPG's, Overwatch and Rocket League. 

I also felt many strong emotions... So here's a list of games that made me cry.

• Journey
• The Walking Dead Season 1 & 2
• The Last of Us
• Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons
• Gone Home
• Child of Light
• Valiant Hearts: The Great War
• Life is Strange
• The Last Guardian

Playing video games is often a solitary experience, but my daughter has been a huge part of it through the last few years. Here are some of the games that we enjoyed the most together. She wasn't even 1 year old when I started and she is now 7 years old.

• Journey
• Pikmin 3
• Pokemon Y/X and Sun/Moon
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
• Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
• Skylanders Giants
• Child of Light
• Hohokum
• Costume Quest 1 & 2
• Flower
• Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
• Sunset Overdrive
• Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
• Never Alone
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
• Rayman Legends
• Skylanders Swap Force
• Yoshi's Woolly World
• Far Cry Primal
• Ratchet & Clank
• Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
• ABZÛ
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Bound
• Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
• Super Mario Odyssey

Video games are a great way to discover new music. Here are the games that had a direct impact on my music library or stood out from the rest in terms of music.

• Afro Samurai
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Journey
• Syndicate
• Sound Shapes
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Wipeout 2048
• Hotline Miami
• Child of Light
• Hohokum
• Sunset Overdrive
• Axiom Verge
• Forza Horizon 2 & 3
• Final Fantasy XV
• Watch Dogs 2
• Super Mario Odyssey

Another cool thing about video games is that with technological improvements comes the ability to wow the player. Here are the games that made my eyes glitter as I admired their beauty and technical achievement.

• L.A. Noire
• Trine
• Uncharted Golden Abyss
• The Last Of Us
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Pikmin 3
• Killzone Mercenary
• Wipeout 2048
• Killzone Shadow Fall
• inFAMOUS Second Son
• Child of Light
• Hohokum
• Destiny
• Driveclub
• Gunman Clive
• Sunset Overdrive
• The Order: 1886
• Batman: Arkham Knight
• Yoshi's Woolly World
• Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Bound
• Super Mario Odyssey

This is a bittersweet goodbye, as I really love writing, but I can't afford the time required to do it in this format anymore. I'm definitely going to keep writing, but it will be something different with less pressure to write daily. Gamer's Log Daily is dead, but my love of video games and writing isn't going anywhere.

Thank you for being along for the ride! 

A Boy and His Blob

Date played: January 1st
Platform: PS4

My daughter and I were looking for something to kill time New Year's day and it's been a while since we played with the friendly alien blob, so we took on the final world together. We played about 5 or 6 levels, most of which revolved around using the cloning jelly bean.

A Boy and His Clone?

When Blob eats the clone jelly bean, he turns into a copy of the boy that copies everything I do. This creates some pretty interesting scenarios for puzzles and challenges. Interestingly, together, the boy and his clone can move objects that were previously too heavy. We missed a few hidden treasures, so there's a few bonus levels we haven't seen yet, but we did reach the final boss!

Unfortunately, we ran out of play time and had to leave the boss for another day!

Assassin's Creed Origins

Date played: December 29th
Platform: PS4

I wrapped up most of the stuff I had to do before entering the big city of Alexandria. I did a variety of smaller side missions. In one of them, I had to carry a drunk back home on camel back.  In another, I had a difficult arena battle where I was given some honorific weapons and armor and a fantastic looking costume. In another, a woman needs my help to keep bandits away from her farm. I stealthily destroyed them all, hiding in bushes and whistling at them to grab their attention. Another side quest had me clear out a villa of enemies.

This one went well at first, I was killing them all in their sleep, but someone walked by and saw me. I ended up getting into a giant brawl that lasted about 5 minutes as reinforcements arrived steadily. This was a good opportunity for me to really practice the fighting system. I'm really starting to feel at home with it. I think they key is to block at all times, dodge big attacks then swoop in with a combo of my own. Right now, I'm rocking a regular sword and a big war ax. I use the sword for most battles, but take out the ax for stronger enemies or mounted combat.

The missions progressively brought me closer and closer to Alexandria. I had to assassinate a VIP at the gates to the city. This was fun because it felt like the types of missions that were in the first two games in the series. That means a target that is heavily protected, some walls to climb and a perfect spot for an air jumping assassination. I jumped and stabbed the man in classic Assassin's Creed fashion.

So, I have to talk about Alexandria. It's hard to describe really, but seeing the sprawling city, extending beyond the horizon, was a spectacular, breathtaking sight! I was floored by the size of the city, but also the incredible attention to detail and the busy commotion of the markets and temples. I haven't really started exploring it, but this place looks like the main hub of the game. I am incredibly impressed by the craftsmanship of the team that made this game.

Alexandria awaits

I decided to leave the city and do a bit of hunting and exploring before delving into the story missions again. I did some hunting (I even killed some hippos!), gathered materials and made a few upgrades to my gear. I also went back to the lake to synchronize a tower and got into a bit of a naval battle along the way. So far, the easiest way I've found of fighting other ships is to set my arrows on fire with the lantern on my boat, then shoot their boat. This starts a big fire that immobilizes it and burns it's occupants. I then shoot an arrow or two at enemies to take them out. It works pretty well.

I'm ready to go back to Alexandria now I think, to meet up with my wife, Aya.

Cuphead

Date played: December 28th
Platform: Xbox One

I played a little bit of Cuphead yesterday, focusing on the two platforming levels and the mausoleum in the third world. The first level I played was Rugged Ridge. Set in a mountainous areas, I was attacked by pickaxe-wielding mountain goats, hopping Satyrs, sludge monsters, baby dragons and even a giant fucking cyclops!

As usual, this was hard as fuck, requiring good accuracy and precise jumping. I struggled with a stone lion statue that blew wind in my face periodically as a mountain goat threw pickaxes at me as I balanced myself on a tipping scale... Fucking stone lion.

Cyclops battle!

The animation in this level is amazing in general, but the cyclops is one well animated motherfucker. He runs at me at full speed as the level auto-scrolls and I jump from ruined platform to ruined platform. It took me a good while to get a good rhythm, but as usual, perseverance and patience paid off and I made it through.

The second level, Perilous Piers was a bit more frustrating, and honestly, not as much fun as the first. That's mainly because it felt a bit more random, thanks to some weird flying fish, starfish and other obstacles. Still, the pier level was still lots of fun and once again, incredibly well animated.

I decided to use a different weapon here, because of the fish and the vertical aspects of the level. The heavy hitting, bouncing shots of the Lobber were perfect for most encounters. I loved riding the big craps in the middle of the level, and I couldn't help but smile anytime I fought with Kaptain Krustacean, a big lobster that shoots lightning.

The final part of the level is where it got frustrating though... I was riding an octopus, floating on top of the water and had to dodge a number of projectiles or shoot them. The problem was the pink jewel on top of the octopus head. Because I had the perk that auto-parries equipped, I think it made this portion way more difficult than it had to be. I should have been smart and changed equipment, but I made it through eventually.

I now have a ton of bosses waiting for me, at least 5, so I can't wait to boot this game up again and take them on.

Assassin's Creed Origins

Date played: December 27th
Platform: PS4

After jumping back into the Animus, I take control of Bayek on camelback, as he arrives in a new region. My main mission is to go to Alexandria and meet up with Aya, Bayek's wife. I started in the open desert and I could see the pyramids in the far distance. There is also a big lake, a big village and a some farms. I'm very impressed with the world that the game presents... Every detail is amazing and it looks spectacular at all times. It's a very impressive game world that's for sure.

I brave a sandstorm on camelback

I did a bit of hunting around this area, mainly crocodiles. I use my bow a lot more than I was expecting, it's a powerful tool. I also played a few minor missions from villagers. Most of the missions are similar, but the camps and battles are all slightly different, so each enemy camp is it's own experience. 

Water is a big element in this game, which might be surprising considering this is still a game set in Egypt. Either way, there are a number of large bodies of water, each with hidden treasure, triremes, fishing boats, dangerous animals and islands. It's really well done. I particularly enjoy riding small boats at high speeds.

Boat riding is a lot of fun

I spent a good amount of time hunting animals, or stealing materials from bandits and stuff. This allowed me to upgrade a lot of my equipment and I've picked up a bunch of new weapons along the way too. I'm rocking a sniping "predator" bow, a standard "hunter" bow, a pair of quick short swords and a heavy axe.

Wow.

In the village, I also completed a number of smaller errand missions, including a funny game of hide and seek with some kids at the temple. I'm skipping a lot of details here of course, but there's a lot of little side quests to do everywhere. Thanks to the missions being tagged with a level requirement, it's pretty easy to know which mission I should do first, I typically just take the lowest level one.

Assassin's Creed Origins

Date played: December 26th
Platform: PS4

After killing my first real target, I got to play a flashback scene, one year prior to the game's opening, as Bayek who must protect a valuable artifact in a vault. I guess he's some sort of guard or policeman. The thieves are 5 masked men who have taken Bayek's son hostage, a young boy of about 9 or 10 years old. Bayek, with a clean shaven face and short hair, resists the men's interrogation, but then they threaten to hurt the child.

Bayek's son manages to grab a knife from one of the guards and gives it to his father. At the last moment, Bayek attacks with the knife and knocks out most of them. Holding the knife to the throat of one of the masked men, Bayek is fooled by a slick move and ends up stabbing his own son in the heart, killing him.

This scene was very well made and the emotional impact was solid. I couldn't believe it, and I felt the same anger that Bayek felt. Bayek manages to kill one of the masked men (fucking brutally too), then the game cuts to the present time.

Yes, this is still an Assassin's Creed game, and yes, that means modern world scientists jumping into people's "genetic memories". I am Laura Clemens, a reckless Abstergo technician that was never able to climb the corporate ladder thanks to her dubious work ethics and disregard for procedure and safety. She somehow managed to get dispatched to the Qattara Depression in Egypt to recover a valuable artifact. Though I still don't get the details, she managed to access Bayek's memories.

Back to Bayek, I must now leave the Siwa region to find the next masked man. There's talk of his wife, Aya, who is looking for information on the masked men in Alexandria, in the Great Library. I decided to stay back a little bit and complete a few side quests and explore the area.

I explore Siwa

There's some missions that are just about killing elite animals. The first was a hyena, protected by a dozen weaker hyenas. These guys are easy to take out with my melee weapons since they just charge at me. Another of these missions required that I kill an Ibex, which was an easy kill with my bow.

I spent a bit of time gathering the last few remaining treasure chests in the area. I found a little enemy encampment that asked that I kill the leader. Thankfully, I approached the camp at night and most of the soldiers were asleep. I killed them in their sleep, then took out the leader with a quick assassination. I'm now ready to leave the region and search for my third target.

Street Fighter V

Date played: December 26th
Platform: PS4

I was hanging out with my brother last night and we ended up playing a few rounds of Street Fighter V, mostly trying out some of the new characters. We had about 7 or 8 battles and we started with a classic Ryu vs Ken. This went well, I won, but barely.

Laura really fits my playstyle

I had a really good time playing as both Laura and F.A.N.G.. Laura is closer to my style, favoring slow movement with heavy impact moves, focused on her kicks. Her special moves are comfortable to pull off for me, since they are based on quarter circles, like Ken and Ryu. F.A.N.G. was a lot weirder to use, but lots of fun. He uses charge moves, so I wasn't as comfortable, but he's got very odd movement, akin to a drunken master or even someone like Voldo in Soul Calibur. He was harder to use, but he was honestly lots of fun to play as.

Street Fighter V is a lot better than when it first came out, and there's a big arcade mode release coming soon, so I might pick it up in the next year sometime. It's definitely a high quality game and it's awesome to play local versus.

Assassin's Creed Origins

Date played: December 25th
Platform: PS4

Assassin's Creed Origins was one of my Christmas gifts, so I spent a bit of the day trying it out. I have a long history with this series... I was there when the original broke technical barriers and provided a huge world to explore, teeming with people. It also introduced the now ubiquitous "free-climbing" mechanic. I was there when Assassin's Creed II took open world storytelling to the next level with Ezio's story. I was there when Assassin's Creed III disappointed most of the world (I liked it). I sailed the seas of Black Flag, joining the gaming world in a moment of naval combat enthusiasm. I skipped the bug-ridden, microtransaction infested Unity. I returned to the series with Syndicate a couple of years ago, set in 1800's London.

It's been kind hard to be excited about these games for the last few years. They follow the same formula with minor changes. Syndicate was good, but it was also kind of just, more of the same. It had a few cool ideas, but it didn't really do anything very special, except maybe having two very cool characters.

Ubisoft took their first break from releasing these games every year in 2016, to make some bigger changes to the franchise and come back strong in 2017. So far, Origins seems to prove this was a good gamble.

Assassin's Creed Origins

Origins is set in Egypt in the year 48 BC. I play as Bayek, a warrior who is charged with protecting the Siwa Oasis. The story is kind of unclear at this point, but Bayek is trying to find 5 men and kill them. From the sounds of it, it's starting to look like a revenge tale. Bayek had a wife and son before, that's for sure, and I think they've been killed somehow.

Regardless, the story isn't really the appeal of this game for me so far. The giant, open world of Egypt filled with hundreds of missions, collectibles, shops, cities and fortresses is what I love about this game. There's also a number of major changes to the game's mechanics that a big difference.

The biggest change is combat. This is no longer "Batman" combat, where groups of enemies surround the player and attack taking turns, turning battles in a series of counter attacks. Instead, this feels more like a traditional action game, like God of War or something. Bayek has a shield and a variety of weapons. He can also "lock-on" to enemies and swap targets on the fly. Finally, there's a bow and it allows for some really fun stealth attacks, similar to Horizon. There's a number of different weapons, each with different speeds, range and damage potential, so I'll have to find the weapon I am most comfortable with.

Another fantastic little touch is Bayek's camel! It's just like a horse, yeah, but it's a camel!!! I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Egyptian setting is very refreshing. It's really nice to see the game return to ancient times instead of always getting more and more modern. The architecture, the animals, the cities, the wild open world, it's all executed brilliantly.

It doesn't hurt that this is one of the best looking games on the market. While it's not as beautiful as Horizon or Gran Turismo, it's still one hell of a good looking game, particularly in HDR. HDR is really cool in video games and it makes a big difference in Origins. At one point, I was deep inside a cave and Bayek's silhouette was completely black, contrasted by the light of fires in the distance, burning brightly.

All this, and I haven't even talked about a single mission... The biggest of them all was one of the main story missions, killing the second person on my hit list. To find him, I had to infiltrate the Temple of Aman, a huge facility crawling with enemies. I started by clearing the outskirts of enemies. I tend to favor stealth in these games, so I hide in bushes a lot and I snipe with my bow a low. Close range assassinations are the most satisfying to me though.

I did pretty well, staying out of sight or at least killing the ones that spotted me. However, at some point, I got spotted and just had to fight my way out. I'm still learning how to fight, but I was good enough to survive this one and kill my second target in the process. There's still a lot that escapes me in the game, and systems I don't quite understand, but I'm really loving it so far. I can't wait to get back into the world and explore it all!

Yoshi's Story

Date played: December 24th
Platform: Wii U

I was sitting in my living room, looking for something to do. My daughter was playing on the iPad and nothing urgent needed doing, so I picked up the Wii U tablet to fill my time. I ended up playing about an hour of Yoshi's Story, the weird N64 2D platformer. This game came on the heels of Yoshi's Island, a undisputed masterpiece, so the hype was at it's peak. Unfortunately, Yoshi's Story is not even close to Yoshi's Island.

Yoshi's Story, a weird little game from the N64 era

The game has a very bizarre structure and I honestly don't understand it yet. The world is separated into 6 story pages. When I begin a level on a page, it links into the other 3 levels of that page. Most of the time though, I wasn't able to see the entire level. That's because progression is based on the number of fruit Yoshi eats.

So, for example, once I gather 20 fruit (maybe it's more) in page 1, I reach page 2 regardless of how many levels I competed on page 1. It's weird and makes almost no sense to me. Still, the mechanics and levels were pretty good. Yoshi can still swallow enemies and make them into eggs, as well as shoot those eggs. There are still dozens of Shy Guys trying to kill Yoshi and there's still some really cool level design and enemies. I even fought a pretty cool boss where I had to eat parts of it's body until it was small enough to swallow.

The graphics are pretty awesome too, considering this is from the N64 era. While the smaller details are a bit blurry, most of the game looks fantastic, with a fun aesthetic and lots of bright colors. The music isn't too bad either.

However, I completely lost interest when I died on the 6th page. Before starting a page, I had to pick one of 6 Yoshis, all of different colors. When I die, that Yoshi gets taken to a castle and isn't available anymore. In the 6th page, I lost my last Yoshi and was greeted by a Game Over screen. When I restarted, I was back on the first page! I believe progression is kind of saved in a way, but I didn't bother to look into it just yet. Maybe I'll try again some other day.

Super Mario Odyssey

Date played: December 23rd
Platform: Switch

Yesterday was a Mario day for me, I played a ton of it in the afternoon. I started with some time exploring the Sand Kingdom, gathering as many moons as I could. Most of the easy ones are done now, so I'm hunting harder for them now. When I was spending most of my time just running around, I decided it was time to try a different world, so I went to the Luncheon Kingdom.

My first trip to the Luncheon Kingdom was kind of short, I really just focused on the main story mission here and barely did any exploration, so there was a lot of stuff left to find here. In fact, I hadn't even completed the second portion of the main quest!

I warm up the soup

The Luncheon Kingdom is well known for it's wonderful stew, slowly cooking over the towering volcano, but it's been taken over by a giant bird. I had to find a way to the top to fight the bird. This meant a lot of fun platforming, vaulting from forks and tricky jumps. Eventually, I reached the stew where I fought the bird in the body of a fireball. The fight itself was pretty cool, as I had to climb through the bird's "vomit" with my fireball to defeat it.

Now that the stew is free of the bird's threat, the villagers have peace of mind and host a big carnival, inviting people from all Kingdoms. This opens up a ton of new little missions to get power moons. I spent a lot of time here...

I explored the depths of some new caverns, including one where I had to warm up the soup by possessing a fireball. There were many moons that required I use the fireball form in fact. It allows for new forms of movement, including some cannons, moving through lava and even jumping into hot tomato paste. Another good one had a crazy platforming challenge on some brightly colored moving platforms. This one was pretty damn hard.

However, my favorite of all missions here were the two races against the Koopa guys. I had to jump through a series of moving platforms, inhabited by some fireball spewing piranha plants, then climb to the top of a structure. The first little bit was hard, but straight-forward. In the climbing parts I managed a bit more creativity though. I pretty quickly found a really good shortcut, where I had to use a fireball to jump up, then turn back to Mario to make a few acrobatic jumps, which led directly to the goal line. It was tricky and required a bit of practice, but it felt great to kick the golden Koopa's ass with a sick jump.

I'm missing only 3 purple coins in this world, but I can't imagine where they could be. I still have a number of moons to find, but the easy ones are all out of the way. I might head to a different world next time, but I'm sure I'll return to this colorful gastronomic world soon enough. 

Overcooked

Date played: December 23rd
Platform: PS4

I've been meaning to try this one out for a while, but haven't had a chance until yesterday when my brother came over to hang out. Overcooked is a local multiplayer game where each player is a member of a kitchen crew. We must make orders to satisfy customers by picking up ingredients, chopping them, cooking them in various ways, putting a plate together, delivering it to the servers and washing dirty dishes.

I cook the soup while my brother serves the dishes and prepares the ingredients

It's simple, but getting a good score is very difficult. The levels are laid out in a variety of fun ways. The simplest level is just a kitchen with a couple of cutting boards, a sink and a couple of ovens. We had to communicate quickly and loudly to be successful. Then shit got really crazy when the orders got more complicated, or even worse when the levels started being insane.

For example, in one level, there's a conveyor belt that runs around the room. The two players are separated from each other by a wall, so they can never be in the same room or give each other stuff like plates and ingredients. Instead, we must do our part of the process (washing, cutting, cooking, etc), then drop the items on the conveyor belt for the other person to pick it up.

Another great level had us riding in a restaurant truck, cruising on the highway. The truck is fucked up though, since it's separated in the middle, periodically making the two halves of the kitchen divided by pavement.

It's all very crazy, silly and most of all, extremely hectic. It's also a shit ton of fun! I'd really want to try this with 4 players to see what it can really do, but it was amazing with two players. I definitely want to play this one again. 

Rocket League

Date played: December 22nd and 23rd
Platform: PS4

All 3 screenshots are from the exact same moment

Rocket League has become my default "filler" game these last few weeks. When I don't have anything in particular I feel like playing, I just boot up Rocket League and play a few matches. These last couple of days however, I feel like I really stepped up my game and have been making a bigger difference in matches.

I got myself quite a few goals, even more assists and my aerial game is much better than it was a few weeks ago. My favorite play was a high altitude pass from the side of the arena, to the center field, which was then picked up by a teammate for the goal.

Last night, my youngest brother came over to play some games and we ended up getting a bit of online split screen. He was rusty, but he got better really quickly and we had tons of fun playing it.