Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: January 29th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 10/10

I played Black Flag a LOT! This game is remarkably huge and feels quite a bit like a pirate themed GTA game. I've barely touched the story missions but I still spent a solid 30 hours in this game already. I only completed one story mission where Adewale and Edward decide to take over a fort on the Eastern side of the map. I guess this was meant as a tutorial on conquering forts, but it feels like ages since my first capture.

"Let's jump on board, and cut them to pieces." -Blackbeard

I spent a lot of time just fighting other ships at sea. I usually target the ships with lots of metal because it's been the hardest resource to find so far. I was able to upgrade my swivel gun for precision damage and added three broadside cannons. I also took the luxury of buying a new copper navigation wheel and some leather sails. It's useless, but a pirate has to indulge a bit. I also ended up hunting quite a bit to upgrade all of my new dart pouches. I hunted black panthers, killer whales and a few monkeys.

I unlocked a cool new mission type, templar hunts. James Kidd suggested to Edward that helping fellow assassins could help find 5 keys that would unlock an awesome piece of armor in the cove. These missions all had multiple chapters and were sort of mini-stories in themselves. The first I did was with a hot pirate chick who needed help fighting soldiers and their leaders. I helped her in battle, I blew up weapon caches and assassinated the leader with her. There was another interesting one where I had to sort out a quarrel between an pair of brothers, one being an assassin and the other a templar. I had to eavesdrop, steal and fight to victory. I'm truly enjoying my time with Black Flag.

Call of Duty Ghosts

TEAMWORK!

Date played: January 29th, 30th and 31st
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

While I had a horrible, sometimes sub 1.0 performance on Tuesday, Wednesday was a lot better. The clan wars are back on so I played with my clan a lot. We ran a party of 4 or 5 people, which meant the wins racked up pretty quickly. I played very well in most games, though I had a few average matches too. We managed to capture Kill Confirmed, Team Deathmatch, Cranked, Hardcore Team Deathmatch and Hardcore Kill Confirmed.

Call of Duty Ghosts

I agree with this sign...

Date played: January 27th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I played with my clan last night, at one point, there were 5 of us in the same party and we completely cleaned up in Team Deathmatch, winning every single match by a landslide. Because of my aggressive style, I tend to score very high, but I die kind of a lot too. I was usually the top scorer and had a very good performance overall. I called in Hinds helicopters quite a bit too.

My team then decided to go play Hardcore Team Deathmatch and I definitely did not perform as well here. I'm loud and have a risky playing style, so hardcore is definitely not my cup of tea. I was pretty good still, but my clan mates were usually better as they camp a lot. I fucking hate camping, so even when I should, I don't. I had a blast anyway though and having people to talk to at the same time is a lot more fun.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: January 26th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I played a ton of AC IV and cleaned up two areas to the West. I ran into a humpback whale and killed it. I gathered tons of chests and animus fragments. I completed two assassination missions and a naval contract, neither of which were very special, though they were fun. I actually spent a lot of time just fighting other ships, mainly to gather metal so that I could upgrade my vessel. I was pretty successful, though I stuck to relatively small ships. I ended up upgrading my mortars twice, they are now much more powerful, making long range combat much easier.

Edward learns about the Assassins

One of the areas I explored was an old Mayan ruin of sorts. I got a few Mayan stones, killed a black panther and stabbed a bunch of dudes. Finally, I completed a good portion of the main story sequence. I went to the location hinted at by James Kidd, the young pirate, and had to stealthily make my way in to find him. It turns out, the whole place was filled with Assassins. This was a pretty frustrating mission because I couldn't kill anyone of be detected at all. I had to restart a few times. Eventually, made it through safely by ambushing enemies from bushes and from behind pillars and such. It was then revealed that Kidd himself is an Assassin and that I set back their efforts a lot by stealing the maps from the guy in the beginning of the game.

I then explored a tomb with Kidd where I learned how to swim underwater, solved a simple block puzzle and received a blow dart. The next part of the mission had me using the blow dart to put enemies to sleep or to attack each other. It's a pretty useful tool and I can see myself using the berserk stuff quite a bit, but we'll see if it works out. 

Skylanders Giants

Date played: January 26th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 8/10

I played through a new level in Skylanders at my daughter's request. It was definitely a fun one, we assaulted a troll castle to take out air defenses. The level is well designed, with a focus on combat. Prism Break has been my go-to since I bought him because he's strong and versatile. I really enjoy putting down crystals and shooting laser beams through it to damage multiple enemies at once. I used him for most of the level, changing to Tree Rex when I needed a giant. There was a difficult battle in a water area, I was pinned against three crossbow monsters with high HP and a fast firing rate. They killed my water monster and I had to finish them off with Prism Break.

This was a beautiful level

I then went through a gauntlet littered with dangerous shells being fired from giant cannons. I took out many cannons with bombs that were lying around but some of the cannons were inaccessible, so I had to avoid them altogether. Finally, I took out the last of the cannons and completed the level.

I also went back to the previous level to get a few items I missed and bought a new luck-o-tron slot. I still had enough cash left to upgrade Prism Break's lasers which now deal a shit ton of damage.

Pokemon Y

Date played: January 25th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 7/10

I finished Pokemon Y!

The 7th gym leader was a total pushover... Hell the gym itself was nothing but a corridor with 4 trainers and a simple puzzle. I headed straight to Victory Road after that. I wasn't expecting it to be as long as it was though. I mean, I trekked across a multitude of caves, bodies of water, grasslands and cliffs to finally reach the Elite Four. Along the way, I captured a good amount of new Pokemon, many of them a lot stronger than what I was used to encounter so far. I mostly used Yveltal because I like him so much... He reached level 80 by the time I was done with the place. When I was happy with his level, I swapped in Gardevoir, Venusaur and Greninja. The dungeon was so long that I ran out of PP points for many moves and resorted to item use to keep going.

Finally, I reached the Elite Four and fought them. The first was Fire based, but Greninja made short work of them, killing all the enemies in one hit. The second was Steel based which gave me a bit more trouble. I started with Blaziken for his fire attacks, but he took too many hits and I had to swap in Yveltal to finish the job. The third was Dragon based where Yveltal did all the work. Finally, I took out the Water based guy by using Venusaur and his strong grass attacks.

I finished my first Pokemon game!

I finally confronted the Champion that had a large variety of different types, but Yveltal was so strong that it was a piece of cake. His HP absorbing attack helped a lot. In the end, I got a parade and that was pretty much it. This is the first Pokemon game I play a lot of, let alone finish. It's the kind of game that is really good when you need something mindless to play. It works well when watching TV or doing other menial tasks. I don't see myself playing another one of these for a while though, I kind of have my fill.

Super Mario 3D World

Date played: January 25th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 10/10

I had an amazing time playing Mario with my girlfriend. We finished World 5 and did about half of World 6. The first level we played was littered with searchlights that sent Bullet Bills after us when we were seen. It's pretty tough to do this safely with two players, but we finally managed. The boss level was interesting because it introduced some really cool spiked frames of sorts that flipped around the entire level. We had to avoid them, jump through them and predict their movements. The boss itself was a giant version of this where we had to wait for the right time to attack it.

World 5's boss bites the dust...literally!

World 6 is incredible so far... It's set on a cloud and has had some of the best levels so far. The first was a fun ride through some clear pipes. Often, we had to dodge enemies by taking different pathways in the pipes. This one had the trickiest stamp yet, we eventually watched a walkthrough video to find it. The next level was simple, but also one of the best looking yet. Set on a derelict pirate ship during a thunderstorm, it really showed off the Wii U's power. That machine is a lot stronger than people give it credit for...

The next level is probably my favorite yet. We attacked an awesome Japanese-style temple, or dojo. My girlfriend had to use the Gamepad's touch screen to open doors, find secret passages and even helped immobilize enemies by touching them. The music and visual style here is impeccable. To top it all off, the level itself was tons of fun, filled with weird enemies, fun power ups and challenging secrets.

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: January 24th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 10/10

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Massacre Slaughter
We do what we must
because we can.
For the good of all of us.
Except the ones who are dead.
But there's no sense crying over every mistake.
You just keep on trying till you run out of ammo.
And the slaughter gets done.

39-2...

And believe me I am still alive.
I'm doing slaughter and I'm still alive.
I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive.
While you're dying I'll be still alive.
And when you're dead I will be still alive.
STILL ALIVE (x2)

Yeah.... the screenshot speaks for itself, it was like that all night. 

Skylanders Giants

Date played: January 23rd
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 6/10

My daughter was a big fan of Pikmin, but since we finished it, she has taken a liking to Skylanders a bit more. She really wanted to play it tonight so we sat down and played through a new level, chapter 7. This was easily the weirdest setting in the game yet. Without a doubt, it was also the level with the worst voice acting I've heard in a long time.

Our warriors

The ship is damaged (again...) and must land on a nearby island. At first, it looks like a grim, sad place with cardboard cut-out buildings, vegetation and even inhabitants. I found some switches that turn the world....well, "on" I guess. The colors become very vibrant, the buildings become 3D spaces and the characters come to life. Ultimately, it was a very boring level though as it really didn't have much going for it, except for the boss.

This was a bonafide boss fight. I had to damage it, kill it's minions and avoid a vacuum-like attack. The boss is a wizard that could switch between the two worlds at will. I had to switch worlds on the fly to avoid it's attacks and grab some healing items. It was pretty cool I have to admit. Prism Break did all the work in this level, with only a few spots that required I use Tree Rex. 

OlliOlli

Date played: January 21st and 22nd
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 9/10

Holy shit, they put Super Meat Boy on a skateboard and added a combo system...

OlliOlli is a 2D, side scrolling skateboarding game that is hard as fuck. It's very difficult to describe the control system, but after fiddling with it for a few minutes, I was pulling off incredible combos, grinding impossible rails and face planting more than I would like to admit. Each short level has five goals, usually consisting of a combo score target, a final score target, pulling off a specific trick and two special tasks, like grabbing spray paint cans or grinding some forklifts.

This is a game that is all about timing. A sloppy landing grants no points and one bail is a game over. Perfect timing rewards the player with higher scores of course, but also a slight speed boost on grinds that proves crucial to success in some of the levels. Bails come fast and easy, making the game very challenging. The animation is incredible and the music is pretty cool, but that's not what OlliOlli is about. It's about precision controls and timing. The Vita lends itself really well to this type of  game because it's small sticks are very precise and fun to fondle.

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: January 21st, 22nd and 23rd
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

Same old routine.

I was VERY average the first day, scoring barely above 1.0. I think it was mostly fatigue and maybe a bit of rust. On the second day, I was much better, but still not up to my normal levels. Finally, on the third day, I was back to form.

The Ameli in action

Throughout the week, I ran into some camping teams. One in particular really got me frustrated, though I still scored well. I think the problem is that my entire team thought it would be a good idea to "counter-camp", but of course, it wasn't. While I managed positive scores by being extremely aggressive and taking down cowardly snipers, most of my team was picked off by grenades, C4, dogs and even a fucking riot shield user... I even plugged in my mic to politely tell the other team that they sucked cock after the match. I find these camper teams amusing, and I enjoy taking them out in their little corners repetitively. 

Pokemon Y

Date played: January 20th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 6/10

I'm really close to the end here I think. I managed to make it to the seventh gym, though I haven't started it yet. To do so, I had to make my way through a new route. Of course, this meant I captured a few new Pokemon along the way, but my team is pretty much set at this point. Yveltal is a real fucking beast that I've brought up to level 73 and that I just love using. He has high HP, a healing spell and hits pretty hard. The route was interesting, filled with trainers, a waterfall and a cool hanging bridge. I battled my friends from the first town again, but I'm completely overpowered at this point.

Snowbelle City

Snowbelle city is a snowy area, big fucking surprise. There isn't really anything interesting here except the gym. The leader was absent though, he went on a hike or something in the nearby woods. These woods seem like they were pulled right from The Legend of Zelda's Lost Woods, but shittier. The exits lead to different areas, seemingly at random. I found some items and eventually reached an exit that led to a "Pokemon Village"...though it's little more than a flower field with garbage cans and a Snorlax. On the bright side, I captured the iconic Jigglypuff... Either way, I found the gym leader there and convinced him to go back to the city so that I could complete the gym.

Don't Starve

Date played: January 19th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 7/10

Don't Starve was free on Playstation Plus, so I would have been a fool not to try it out. It turns out that this is a rogue-like, a genre I haven't been a huge fan of in most cases. I had tons of fun with FTL when I played it, but it's definitely not a genre I'm attracted to.

Don't Starve is all about, well, not starving. It's a randomly generated world filled with trees, grass, birds, rabbits, flowers, butterflies, carrots, flint, rocks, etc. During the day, I gathered as many items as I could so that I could ready for the dangerous night. In my first game, I was killed by bees who hit a lot harder than you might expect. I didn't even make it to the night. On my second run, I was getting to grips with the way the game plays and managed to make it to day 11.

I made a little fire every night, cooked my carrots and the few rabbits I caught and huddled around it until dawn. Item management is important too because the backpack is pretty limited in space. With time, I found enough items to build an axe, a pickaxe, a shovel, a razor (for my beard!), a pitchfork, a flower hat, an armor suit made of hay, a torch and even a scientific testing machine. The machine is the only way to learn how to build new items. I found a spot with dangerous spiders which I killed with a spear I found in the ground and built a sort of little camp near it since it had lots of trees to cut down. I made a huge mistake on day 11 though, I was too slow to build my fire and was killed by an unseen creature as I was scrambling to build the fire... I was rewarded with a new character, Firestarter, who seems to be a little pyromaniac girl.

I'm not sure I will play this game much again, it's really not my type of game. Even then, I would prefer FTL or something because I just like spaceships. Don't Starve is a fun game and it's interesting to learn it's mechanics, but I can see it getting boring real quick.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: January 19th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I conquered a fort on the western side of the map. This was definitely a more difficult battle as I had to take out five buildings instead of the usual three I had been fighting in the previous forts. I was also in the middle of a giant storm and had to avoid cyclones while I aimed at the fort. I killed it's leaders and found a few chests and animus fragments.

Ship battles are the best part of this game

At the fort, two new naval missions popped up so I completed them. The first was a pretty simple one where I had to sink three ships. The second one was a real mess though. I had to take out a fucking beast of a vessel. I'm talking dozens of cannons on this thing with a massive mortar, and it was fast too! This took me multiple attempts until I finally found a working strategy... It turned out that the best way was to shower it with mortars from the furthest range possible then run away from it. I then dropped fire barrels galore while hitting it with mortars and avoiding incoming fire with quick turns. I then did a quick parallel attack, hitting it with cannons and went back to fire barrels and mortars. Eventually, I whittled down it's health and sunk it. That was such a hard fucking battle, I think it may have been intended for later in the game, but I was happy to pull it off.

I then gathered a few chests and animus fragments in the sea around the fort I just destroyed. I also hunted my first killer whale. That thing put up a bigger fight than any other fish yet.

Pokemon Y

Date played: January 19th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 8/10

I played Pokemon quite a bit last night. I completed the Lysandre labs section which culminated in the activation of the ultimate weapon. Lysandre, the bastard, wants to use the ultimate weapon to make a better world for everyone, but will kill all the Pokemon in the world to do so. When we reached the deepest floor of the lab, we were given the choice of pressing a blue button or a red button. I chose the red button, which activated the weapon, but it was clear that even if I pressed the blue one, the scientists would have still activated it. The weapon spurted out of the ground in the Eastern most town of Kalos.

We headed over to that town so that we could figure out a way to deactivate the weapon. Of course, the whole place was infested with Flare team members. I fought a bunch of them and finally reached the bottom of the dungeon. For the first time in a long fucking time, I was treated to some story content and even a nice looking cut scene. To make it short, the ultimate weapon is powered by the strength of all Pokemon, but also requires the Legendary Pokemon, in my case, Yveltal. I battled Yveltal and captured him, destroying Team Flare's plans in the process.

Yveltal is magnificient!

Yveltal is a really cool flying creature with dark attacks. I reluctantly removed Krookodile from my party and swapped in Yveltal. He starts at level 50, while my party was around level 65 already. I used all my rare candy I had to boost him up to level 57. Then I equipped him with an item that boosts it's exp. It has some powerful dark attacks and a nice HP siphoning flying attack. I made my way back to the road and reached the next town.

The road was mainly a cave where I captured a few new monsters and leveled up quite a bit. I then took an unintended detour into the Terminus Cave which turns out is optional. I cleared out the whole place before reaching a spot where I was turned away because I hadn't beat all gyms. On the bright side, I made tons of exp and Yveltal is now close to the same level as the rest of my party. My team ranges from 67-74, so I think I'm a bit overpowered.

Killzone Mercenary

Date played: January 18th
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 7/10

I finished Killzone Mercenary.

This was a good but fun shooter, easily the best I've played on a handheld, but definitely not up to par to Killzone 2 and 3. The last two missions were pretty standard. In the first, I was tasked with killing the ISA leader and blowing up their main command ship. I infiltrated the place to shoot, stab and blow up tons of ISA soldiers. In the end, I got my hands on the virus they were planning on using to wipe out the Helghast, found the leader, shot everyone and slapped that lady around for intel until I finally stuck a knife in her head.

The last mission is where things got more interesting. Still on the ship, I was contacted by Blackjack, the arms dealer. He proposed that I become and independent contractor and turn on the Helghast. I would destroy the virus, save the kid from earlier and make sure the war continues so that profits can keep rising for the business man. I shot some Helghast until I reached the deck, where my former mercenary colleague shot the Helghast leader in the head and asked me to hand over the virus so he could sell it to the highest bidder. I refused of course and we got into the final boss battle.

The final boss is the dude on the right...I didn't see it coming.

The battle was fun. I tried out a new piece of gear, the Porcupine missile, to take out the merc's dropship. I had to kill a bunch of his guards that kept pouring in from all sides while shooting at the aircraft. Eventually, I took it down and had a face to face battle with him. He has a shield and cannot be melee'd. He also had guards that would show up periodically. I had to shoot the guards, then some fuel rods when he got close to them to temporarily disable his shields, where I could now do some damage. In the end, I killed him and Blackjack erased all traces of me, ready for a new life. 

Call of Duty Ghosts

1.61 thank you very much

Date played: January 18th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I played lots of Team Deathmatch and was a beast as usual. That is all. 

Skylanders Giants

Prism Break, our newest warrior

Date played: January 18th and 19th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 7/10

So, I bought a new Skylander, Prism Break. It's my first and only earth character, and I got a Lightcore version too, so it's weapons light up when I put it on the portal. It's a stone golem of sorts that has a light beam attack and a long range stone attack. The stone stays on the ground and if hit by the beams, will split off into two and can hit two enemies at once! I like him a lot.

I spent a lot of time going through the challenge missions with him to boost his stats. When I was done, I went back into two levels to get all the stuff I missed. My girlfriend then jumped in and we completed the 6th chapter. We rode our giant robot friend into a river where we were treated to a shitty rail sequence. We stopped three times to open up parts of a dam where we fought countless enemies. One of the new enemies was a real bitch and caught us by surprise. It shoots some weird balls that stuck to us that we had to throw back. The first few times, we had no idea what to do with them and we killed several of our heroes along the way. Finally, we reached the end where our robot was killed by the bad guy and he ran off into the sunset. We must now chase after him.

On the next day, I went back into the last level to clean up the things I didn't pick up. Playing alone, this became a hell of a lot easier. I kind of wish the game had used the Gamepad for the second player, this would avoid having both players in the same screen and would make it a lot easier to see. I gathered all the missing items and finished the level.

I then went and completed the last level of the first battle arena using Prism Break. The objective was to complete all stages without being hit once. I had to start over about three times but I finally got it and was rewarded with a lucky charm of some sort.

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: January 15th and 16th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I'm in a clan and I'm fighting for territory!

A while back, I met a couple of guys from Toronto while playing Team Deathmatch. They were sometimes on my team, sometimes against me. Both of them have mastered the art of camping. When they were on my team, we stomped the opposition. When they were against me, they were the only real threat in the lobby. Personally, I'm far from being a camper. I run out, Ameli blazing and I'm fucking loud. People know I'm there and that's fine, because when they come after me, I take them out anyway. I found that playing against guys like that allowed me to patrol the areas on the outskirts of their camping area and take out people who were going after them but weren't in their range yet. After a few games, I sent them a "GG" message and I got a friend request in return. We played a few games together every once in a while and later, they invited me to their clan. I didn't make much of it until this week.

The app makes the clan wars interesting

It turns out, the clan stuff is all found in the Android and iOS apps. I installed the app on my phone and iPad and found out that we were involved in a huge clan war. It's a really interesting concept. We are basically put into a division against about 7 other clans, maybe more. They we must win a certain number of matches in a certain match type to capture a node. This node grants XP bonuses and helps win the clan war, which seems to last about a week.

We played a ton of weird game modes that I had never tried to capture some nodes. Cranked is a pretty cool variant of Team Deathmatch, except that every time you get a kill, you get a major speed boost and a timer appears. If you don't get another kill before the timer expires, you blow up and die. I was good at this mode because I already have a very aggressive approach to the game. We captured the node, beating out the other clans. We also captured the kill confirmed node. I was good, but having to reach the tokens after a kill changed my style a little too much. I died more and had a lower K/D ratio, but I captured a TON of tokens, often scoring first place.

 Finally, we captured two hardcore game modes, Hardcore Team Deathmatch and Hardcore Kill Confirmed. Hardcore mode is very different. There is no mini-map, unless we have Satcoms up. The damage is greatly increased, which meant I had one shot body kills at close range with the Ameli. There is no killcam, making the mode ripe with snipers. Finally, there is friendly fire, making mistakes more costly than in regular modes. I had fun, but the camping was a bit much for me. We are still in the middle of the war, but we have four nodes to our name. Not bad at all.

Killzone Mercenary

Date played: January 13th
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 8/10

Killzone Mercenary is a better game than people on the internet seem to think. I mean, it's not revolutionary or anything, but it's a damn fine shooter. It started with a sort of escort mission, where I had to help the kid from the earlier mission to safety. The setting was an awesome looking mall of sorts and I basically just shot everybody I could. I tried a single shot rifle and it's powerful, but not very practical. The secondary weapon I used to compensate was a powerful, close range shotgun. It worked, but it didn't fit my style as well as I expected.

Incredible...

The next mission was about blowing up some reactors. I infiltrated the area and got quite a few kills with my vanguard stealth neck stabbing thingy. When I blew up the reactors though, I was faced with a large number of enemies, including a deadly flame-throwing guy. I died a few times here until I found a way to melee kill that dude before engaging in combat with the rest. I had gone back to the regular rifle at that point.

The last mission I played was a complete surprise for me. I was now working for the Helghast! This dude is a mercenary after all, so I guess the biggest wallet wins. I helped them assault an ISA installation where we wanted to rescue a dude... one that I helped kidnap earlier in the game. I was also asked to kill the ISA leader lady, but I didn't get a chance. The mission was interesting mostly because of a hard battle against a large exoskeleton. I bought a grenade launcher to take it out and it worked out pretty well. However, later in the mission, I had to defend a spot while waiting for a transport with a turret. They threw multiple exoskeletons at me and I was victorious in a hail of bullet fire, grenades and explosions everywhere. It was fucking great. 

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: January 12th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I picked all the extra collectibles in the northern section of the map, mainly treasure chests and animus fragments. Along the way, I battled with a ton of enemy ships which I plundered successfully. I played through a major mission, the last of sequence 3. I had to sail south to a cove where the the large frigate that we scoped out earlier was docked. This turned out to be a huge settlement.

The mission was an enjoyable run through the jungle, where I took pleasure in stealthily killing guards, Tenchu-style. I even battled with some white jaguars, creatures I was only able to beat with my pistols so far. After a run through the beautiful jungle, filled with waterfalls and even a rainbow, I got to the settlement. I killed all the guards there without getting caught, then climbed on the docked ship. I assassinated the captain and took possession of the beast, which will now protect Nassau.

Edward, Jungler extraordinaire

This is where I was forced out of the animus again. This time, I had a meeting with Olivier, Abstergo's big boss, in his amazing penthouse office. He told me to keep investigating the details of the artefact mentioned by the Templars, but to keep quiet about it. As I left, I was contacted by an "IT guy" who wanted me to help him "procure" some files. He gave me access to level 1 areas in the complex and showed me how to hack computers. While the explanation of that stuff is really fucking dumb, I found tons of interesting stuff by hacking, including some recordings featuring Desmond and more details on the weird history of Abstergo.

I went back in the animus. The game opens up a bit more here as I now have possession of the cove I took over earlier. This is now my home town and I can upgrade it to gain advantages. I bought a tavern, to recruit pirates and hear rumours. I also bought a general store and a ship upgrade shop. The best part is my mansion that sits on top of a large cliff. I can upgrade things in it and started with beautifying the outdoor panels. While this is probably a complete waste of money, it's fun so I did it anyway. I now have a mission that takes me to the far west of the map, but I think I'll capture a fort and clear out the area before moving on.

Skylanders Giants

I saw a lot of this perky fairy for upgrades

Date played: January 12th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played Skylanders Giants alone, going back to previous levels to gather any missing collectibles. My daughter was picking the characters for me, so I managed to get lots of coins to upgrade my characters too. My Tree Rex has a stronger punch, Hex has a bone wall that she can summon to protect herself and Whirlwind can throw three lightning clouds at once. Drobot, my favorite, has a stronger laser eye thing that helps a lot. Cynder also has a stronger lightning beam. I gathered tons of stuff in the levels, but I ran into my first "fuck you" moment. I found an area locked off by earth type Skylanders, the only type I don't own... Sucks.

Gravity Rush

Date played: January 11th
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 6/10

I finished Gravity Rush.

Urgh... this game could have been so much better. The concept is great, flying through the city feels amazing, the art style is awesome but fuck... the aerial combat is fucking hot garbage. My session started with the coolest level in the game, an abstract platforming section where I couldn't use gravity powers. It was visually pleasing, not frustrating at all and still sort of challenging as I had to figure out the right way to approach the puzzle.

Then I had to escape from the depths of the lost village where I fought the large worm. I had to navigate a large tunnel and at the end of it, I was confronted by a horde of enemies. This wouldn't be so bad, except that one of them shoots five large projectiles every three or four seconds. It also moves around pretty quickly, a combination for extreme frustration. I had to restart this section about four times before I won.

This was my favorite sequence

The next mission was a final confrontation with the worm from earlier. This was the most interesting boss battle in the game. That thing is huge and fun to fight. I finally reached town to discover that a year had passed in what seemed like a week. The military have taken over the entire town and are ruling with an iron fist. I completed a mission for a scientist who wanted me to place sensors around the city to detect Navi. I fought a bunch of them along the way of course.

In the end, it was revealed that the doctor was the mayor-dictator's right hand man... They built a weapon that was supposed to take out the Nevi, but it turns out it WAS a Nevi! That was the final boss battle, a pretty standard fight on a larger scale. Raven helped me take it out and save the town.

While Gravity Rush was fun in general, it didn't make a lick of fucking sense. I still have no idea what the game is really about, I don't understand anything that happened and I'm still confused as hell. At least it looked cool...

Hotline Miami

Date played: January 11th
Platform: Vita/PS3
Session fun rating: 9/10

My brother came over to hang out and Hotline Miami seemed like the kind of game he would enjoy. I had the Vita nearby as we were watching the hockey game so I booted it up, showed him a quick run and handed him the thing. We then played through a few of the early levels together, handing the Vita to each other when things got too hard. This game is very fast, very precise and very punishing. Thankfully, after a few attempts on a level, things start to look a lot clearer and progress is made, slowly.

We then tried it a little bit on PS3, to have the full screen effect and the loud music, but honestly, I prefer playing it on Vita because the small joystick seems to be better suited to a game like this.  The music fucking rocks on all platforms though, that's for sure.

Call of Duty Ghosts

7 kills later, I flew off into the sunset

Date played: January 11th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I had a pretty average TDM session, and by that I mean a 2.0 kill/death ratio at the very least for most games. My first match was rough, but it's been a while since I've played, so I needed a bit of a warm up. I also ran into a group of snipers that knew what they were doing, so I didn't do great, though I was still the best scoring player on my team.

I've tried something new though, since I'm doing so well. I made a class that replaces the sentry gun with the helo pilot. I got it once Freight, a relatively small and open map. I really liked the helo pilot, but it left me vulnerable... What I didn't know is that I have full control of that thing, aside from vertical movement. It's guns are very strong, so I racked up maybe 7 kills with it before it expired. I had found a decent spot to hide too so I didn't die. On maps that have more hiding spots, I will continue to use the sentry gun though.

Faif

Date played: January 10th
Platform: PC browser
Session fun rating: 6/10

What a strange little game this is. I played Faif, a browser based tile combat game against AI. The concept is really cool. A grid, some gems, hearts, swords and skulls with each player taking turns. You must select 5 adjacent tiles then the system picks one of those for you to play. A heart restores health, gems provide cash to buy upgrades, swords deal damage and skulls hurt. When the turn is over, the five tiles disappear from the grid. The trick is, the more skulls are in your selection, the harder you hit with the swords, creating a really interesting gambling scenario. At first, I struggled a bit, but I found my strategy pretty quickly.

I ended up keeping the weaker opponents alive while I was farming gems with them, then purchasing all the upgrades, starting with the hearts upgrades. That meant I was able to build a decent pool of health, shielding me from pretty much every opponent after it. By level 18, I had broken the game, sitting at 108 hearts (you start with 5), more gems that I could ever spend and a slow battle of attrition against stronger opponents. It got boring, but that first 30 minutes was fucking great. 

Gravity Rush

Date played: January 9th
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played two episodes and two challenge missions. When Kat fell down the giant hole, she landed on a small town, cut off from the top world. She was quickly taken captive by the group, a ragtag gang of children in loin cloths and masks... They left Kat in a spherical cage under the supervision of a careless and sleepy little girl. I got out and was treated to a weird stealth mission where I had to navigate the area without being spotted by patrolling children... I was caught by the leader, but that's just when the enemies showed up, so I fought them and bought myself some credibility with these kids.

These kids are badass

I then played two challenge missions that had opened up in the small village. Then I played another mission, which had me battle a gigantic flying worm creature that was attacking the area. The fight was pretty cool, where I had to wait until the thing shot a laser beam to hit it's weak spot, avoiding fire all along. It became apparent that I wasn't going to kill this thing, when my sexy rival showed up and decided to help for once. I had to lure the worm to her traps, eventually scaring it away. This was the most interesting segment in the game since the intro I think and really surprised me. The combat was less tedious and it was cool to see a smaller area. It seems to work better for the game. I'm excited to see how this turns out.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Date played: January 8th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 9/10

I scored the Master Sword!

Before all that, I went exploring quite a bit with my new items and merge ability. Throughout the overworld, I found tons of secret caves, filled with rupees, fairies and other goodies. I made enough cash to permanently buy another item, so that's pretty cool. I also got some premium milk for a dude in the mountains, though I haven't yet found a way to get past a chasm that blocks my progress east of Hera Tower.

The most famous sword of video games?

I ventured into the Lost Woods to retrieve the Master Sword. This place is always a bitch to navigate, but this time, I had to play a little mini game to find my way. There were some ghosts standing around in a circle, and I had to follow the correct ghost to progress. They floated around in a circle, intermingling with each other while I had to keep an eye on the correct ghost or set of ghosts. I failed once, but soon enough, I was rewarded with the famous Master Sword. That thing hits harder than my previous weapon, and when at full health, launches a beam that damages enemies. With it, I destroyed the barrier surrounding Hyrule castle and am ready to search for Zelda.

Super Hang On

Date played: January 8th and 9th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 8/10

This has to be one of the best games to play in very short bursts. It's hard, it's fast, it's pretty and it's totally fun. I managed to beat my high score in the easiest circuit but still couldn't make it to the end on default difficulty settings. I've discovered that the game has a very cool tilting effect, simulating how the game would look if I was playing it on an arcade cabinet. It feels nice and doesn't detract from the game. This is how all game re-releases should be handled. 

The Walking Dead: Season 2 Episode 1

Date played: January 6th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 10/10

One of my favorite games of 2012 is back with a second season, The Walking Dead. As usual for Tell Tale games, this game will be released in episodes, and only episode 1 is available at this time. It starts off with a bang (literally) and sets into motion the events that lead Clementine through her dark adventures. The game itself is a bit more refined, mainly concerning the interface and GUI. It's easier to know what needs to be done and the prompts are easier to follow.

The story is the main draw of course, and episode 1 delivers. Clementine starts the game with some companions, but it doesn't take long before she is alone against the zombies. 16 months pass and the young girl grows a little bit older, taller and more badass. The innocent child of the first game is long gone. Clem is a hardened survivor...

For a brief period, she made friends with a dog, though shit got ugly when food was found. She lost her canine companion and was wounded badly. She was weak and about to be eaten by walkers when she was rescued by two men. On their way back to their refuge, they saw her wound and assumed that she was bit by a walker, but still agreed to bring back to safety so they could see their doctor.

That's where I met the group. It has half a dozen adults, a pregnant woman and a teenager. They seem relatively normal, but they seem to be hiding something. They have a nice house and seem to have a bit of food. When Clementine was brought before them, they were so afraid of her turning into a walker, that they locked her in a shed, bleeding from her wound, to see if she turned overnight. Clementine is a clever girl though, so she managed to escape, infiltrate the house, steal medical supplies and sneak out.

!!!

Along the way, I met the teenage girl of the group. She has been kept isolated from the events of the world and doesn't seem to know much about walkers. She reads books and makes pinky swears... When Clementine went back to the shed, she stitched her own arm with the supplies in one of the most disgusting scenes of the series. It really builds her character though, it's clear now that Clementine is a fucking badass by necessity.

The character interactions in this episode were pretty interesting and will set up some cool stuff for future episodes, though I was a bit disappointed that there was no link between this game and 400 Days, but maybe it will play into later episodes. I'm very excited to see where this story goes next!

Need For Speed Rivals

Date played: January 5th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

They patched Rivals and fixed the awful framerate issues that plagued the game. I booted it up again and it's a much better experience for it. The game now plays like a proper racing game, albeit not at 60 FPS, but still good enough. I finally started the cop career and I think I am enjoying it a bit more than the racer career. There's less stuff to spend points on, and the special tech available is more interesting. For instance, there is a spike strip, a road block and a forward ram move that helps take out racers. I made it to level 7 of the career. The events are rapid response, a sort of time trial where I was penalised for damaging the car, interceptor where I have to take out one racer and the best, hot pursuit, where I had to take out three racers.

I like playing as a cop

I got tons of cool cars, all of which are free, including an Aston Martin, a Camaro that I used a lot, and a Viper that I like quite a bit. I even had a fellow player join in on a hot pursuit, he helped me take out the racers. If there's one thing I don't like about this game it's that it's pretty difficult to play against others. There are only 6 players in a lobby and they could be anywhere in the huge map... Most Wanted was a lot better about this stuff.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Date played: January 5th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 10/10

Giant worm boss!

This is the most fun I've had with Zelda in more than a decade. I fought my way through a dungeon, hammer in hand, to eventually beat a giant worm boss. The dungeon itself was full of navigation challenges, most of which revolved around using the merge function. Link had to stick to walls and moving blocks around the dungeon to progress. He also used his hammer to activate giant springs that launched him to higher levels of the dungeon. In fact, this was really a giant tower. The boss was pretty cool and kind of challenging, but it wasn't enough to best me!

After I got out of the dungeon, I spent some time doing a few random things. I completed a little race from the south east of the map to the north west, I found a letter in a bottle that says I should bring milk to the mountain, I had some street pass battles and I found a few hidden caves. The bunny dude that lives in my house is also selling items instead of renting them now, so I spent a bunch of rupees on stuff. I bought the bow, hammer and bombs so that I never have to rent them again if I die. Now that I have all three pendants, I must venture into the lost woods to retrieve the famous Master Sword.

Skylanders Giants

Slambam and Treerex work together to win some hats!

Date played: January 5th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 8/10

My girlfriend and I played a level in Skylanders Giants, an ice themed area. Our objective was to reactivate a large robot that could help us later on. We fought our way through enemies and small block puzzles, as well as an oddly out of place fire area. For the most part, it was really fun, except one section set in an ice bowl that was really hard to navigate with two players.

My girlfriend mainly use Treerex with a bit of Cynder and Ignitor, while I used Whirlwind, Slambam and my favorite, the always fun to play Drobot. His laser eyes are fucking great! We reached the end of the level where we reactivated the giant robot which now flies with out crew.

Resogun

Date played: January 4th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

The fourth boss was a bitch, but I took it down and even saved all the humans in the level

I made it through the fourth level! Though I had to use a continue somewhere along the way... It was a pretty challenging level, and I've learned to use my overdrive more often. I don't think it was meant as an "Oh shit!" button, but more as a points booster. If I'm in trouble, I rely on the bomb a bit more too. The fourth boss was a real fucking bitch that nearly cost me three lives though... The fucker shoots homing lasers that are hard to avoid, possibly because I am using the slow Phobos ship. The boss is a giant sphere with a protective layer of...I guess they are just small cubes. The overdrive helped thin out it's defenses which gave me enough space to deal direct damage. The final level is definitely more challenging, though I only had one life to try it.

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: January 3rd and 4th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 10/10

Getting a triple kill in the final killcam feels nice

Once again, I was a complete beast in team deathmatch. If I don't hit 2.0 in a game, I feel like I could have done better. I come across the occasional skilled player, but there are so many scared little campers in this game, I just have a field day rushing in with my fire-spitting Ameli. People think they stand a better chance when they are hiding in a corner, but the truth is, when a madman comes rushing at you with an LMG and no fear, it doesn't help much. I got a chance to try the map changing reward in Strikezone. I completed a field order and was rewarded with the K.E.M. Strike, a map clearing attack that completely changes the level layout. It's a cool concept but I wish it was in more maps. 

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: January 2nd
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I finished Call of Duty Ghosts.

I mean, I finished the campaign of course. This was one of the better Call of Duty single player modes that I remember. I never made it past the second mission in Black Ops 2, I had fun with the Modern Warfare 3 campaign and I enjoyed the Black Ops campaign, but Ghosts had some of the coolest settings in the series.

I started my session with a mission that was entirely underwater, in scuba gear and all. It was kind of a stealthy mission where my buddy and I had to avoid detection from enemy scuba divers. There were a couple of fights too that felt a lot like the ones in space earlier in the game. Finally, we launched a torpedo to take out a large enemy ship and swam away through the debris. Shit, we even had to avoid dangerous sharks!

The next mission had us infiltrate a suspicious facility which ended up being home to one of many orbital weapons being produced by the Federation. The setting was pretty cool and we had some battles against riot shield enemies and had to use thermal goggles to see through smoke.

We then headed to Las Vegas, though I forget why. It didn't take long before we were intercepted by Rourke. Shit went down, people died, but in the end, the ghosts had to fight their way out of the beautiful casino. We found Riley the dog who had been shot. I had to transport him to safety in a weird but fun segment.

After the events in Las Vegas, the ghosts determine that they must assault the Federation head on to prevent the complete destruction of the US from the enemy's orbital missile launchers. We used our last aircraft carrier to attack. The mission had me defending the carrier from boarding troops, helicopters, little boats, gunships and battleships. I got to use the Osprey, a powerful aircraft, to shoot down some of the bigger vehicles of the Federation.

Yes, this is a tank being launched off the back of a plane

The next mission starts with a bang as I drove a tank that was part of a large battalion. We get dropped from a plane, then assault a nearby base, where we had to take out air defenses. The tank controls were so much fun! I had a blast as I destroyed enemy troops, jeeps and tanks. I was equipped with a machine gun, some shells, smoke grenades and even guided missiles to take out helicopters.

With the air defenses destroyed, we were able to launch a space ship to attack the Federation's orbital missile station. This was one of the coolest missions as our crew of spacemen had a space shootout! We managed to reach the command station where I was tasked with launching orbital strikes on enemy forces while avoiding friendly fire. It was pretty epic.

Finally, the ghosts were on a train where we shot a bunch of dudes until we reached Rourke in the front section. The ghosts are cunning and when it was clear that they would be defeated, they sent the order to blow up the entire train with the orbital cannon. They managed to survive and save the US! The game is definitely set up for a sequel though. I'm glad I played the campaign, it had some really cool moments and the graphics were really impressive in spots.

Gravity Rush

Date played: January 2nd
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 5/10

Urgh, I think I don't like this game. I really want to though. It looks great, has an amazing concept and some cool art, but fucking hell, it controls like ass. I played through Episode 12. It starts off pretty simply, a woman asks Kat to retrieve a letter she dropped into the abyss below the city. Seeing as I cleaned up the area, I am able to go deeper below the city without being engulfed by the weird storm.

Kat's rival is pretty cool

As I fell deeper and deeper, I found an opening. I went in and discovered that I couldn't use gravity tricks. This became one of the stupidest sections in the game. I basically had to free fall to the bottom while trying to move slightly to grab gems. The problem is that the camera is all wonky and I couldn't see where I was going a lot of the time, and the motion controls skewed my direction more than it helped. When I reached the bottom, I came out, used gravity to fly through the area and grab gems (a frustrating experience because of the way the game controls) and had to complete ANOTHER hole just like the first. I feel like they are padding the game to make it longer or something. Finally, I was met by the other gravity shifter and had a free fall battle, which I admit was pretty cool. I had to avoid her projectiles and just get to the bottom, where I fell into a huge black hole. We'll see what happens next time I guess.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: January 1st
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

Once again, Edward Kenway is pirating his way through the Caribbean seas. I played one story mission as the crew thinks of ways to fortify Nassau. One of the things needed is a big ass fucking ship to scout the area. The Spaniards have a nice big one apparently, so we decided we would steal it. Unfortunately, it's big enough that we can't just attack it and board it, we have to be more discreet, so we tailed it and gathered intel on it. The mission was quite boring, I only had to follow it around with my ship without being seen.

The best pirates of Nassau discuss how to fortify the little town

I then spent a good amount of time exploring new islands. It's really a simple concept, but I love just collecting stuff in this game. I've hunted deer and made a new armor out of it too, so that's cool. I took over another fort and now have the northern portion of the map revealed, and gathered all the chests, animus fragments and everything else I could get my grubby hands on. 

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: December 31st and January 1st
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

This is it, I've found my perfect class setup. I've taken out my third attachment perk and the red dot sight and replaced them with Focus and Amplify. It looks a little bit like this.

Ameli
Grip
Muzzle Brake
Stalker
Hardline
Dead Silence
Amplify
Focus
Guard Dog
Sentry Gun
Hind

Focus helps reduce sway and flinch when shot. It has helped greatly in all firefights as I stand a better chance of hitting my target while shot. It took a few matches to get used to as I was already compensating for some of it, but I quickly learned to love the more stable crosshairs.

Amplify is where I saw the biggest difference though. I should mention that I'm rocking a pretty solid surround sound system, with an Onkyo receiver and 5, completely balanced Yamaha speakers. I was already pretty good at locating enemies with sound, but Amplify really does what it says and makes it very easy to figure out where people are. Even the type of surface they are walking on is obvious, and since I know the maps pretty well now, it's even easier to know exactly where they are. The only problem I've found is that sometimes it's harder to know if they are on the same vertical level as me.

Since changing my setup, my K/D average has shot up from 1.36 to 1.5 and I've absolutely dominated almost every game I've played. I even played a 5 or 6 Free For All matches and finished first in all of them. In Team Deathmatch, I had an amazing 42-4 game. For those keeping track, that meant I had 56% of the kills in my six person team, and we won. I haven't dropped below 1.25 in any game, and even then, those were weak matches for me. I should also mention that I do not camp in any way and run in head first, Ameli firing on all cylinders. I kind of feel bad for the Christmas noobs.

Zen Pinball 2

Sorcerer's Lair

Date played: January 1st
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 6/10

I played a few quick rounds of Zen Pinball 2, now available on my PS4. It let me import most of my tables, but some are missing because they haven't been released on PS4 yet. I was happy to find out that a free table had been added, Sorcerer's Lair. It's a pretty fun table, featuring some interesting ramps and branching rails. It has a creepy, yet kid-friendly vibe. I also played a couple of rounds on the Hulk table and one of my Star Wars tables.

Super Mario 3D World

Date played: December 30th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 9/10

I had tons of fun playing 3D World with my girlfriend! It was a lot more fun than the last time since we got to play levels that had a bit more wiggle room for us to move around and not step on each other's toes. We beat the fourth world and most of the fifth, though we still have a couple of levels left. World 4 had a really cool rushing level that had 10 stars to grab, all within 10 second levels. We succeeded on the first attempt but it was pretty close. The castle level was cool too, though pretty easy. The best part was the boss, a giant rock and lava ball of sorts. It spawned rock and lava minions that we had to knock out then throw at the boss.

Lava Rock thing boss and his minions

World 5 is full of cool levels. The first one was set on a beach where we had to collect 5 keys to progress. The setting was simply beautiful and fun to navigate. We also got a little ride on the water dragon thing from an earlier world. The second level, Trapeze Theater, was beautiful too, though it was harder with two players. We had to swing from colorful trapeze devices to progress. The next level was one with very short time limit and a lot of cherry powerups, we had to replay it three times to get all the stars and the stamp.

We were then treated to one of the coolest looking levels yet, a wide open savanna filled with little secrets and huge cannons that launch the characters hundreds of meters away. We then played a cave level infested with Bob-ombs which we used to defeat enemies and discover secret areas. Finally, we played a level that is simply not built for multiplayer... Essentially, the level's platforms change position anytime someone jumps, which made it absolutely impossible to complete with two characters jumping. After a few lives lost, I decided to carry my girlfriend through the level as if she was just an item. That was fucking lame.