Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: February 27th and 28th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

The Onslaught DLC pack is out with 4 new maps to kill each other in! The first thing that stands out is that these maps are smaller than the average Ghosts map by a large margin. This makes the battles fiercer, faster and makes it easier to be caught off guard. It also means the spawns have been pretty shitty so far.

Either way, I enjoyed all of them. Ignition is supposed to be "inspired" by Scrapyard, one of the better MW2 maps, but honestly, I didn't quite see it that way. I only played this map once, but it felt a lot larger than Scrapyard and has more vertical combat. It also had a large rocket blasting off which looked cool, but I need to play this one more to get a better feel for it.

Bayview is awesome, though I got killed by noob tubes quite a bit in this one. It's set on a nice boardwalk in California filled with tight buildings and a little moving trolley that players can ride. Those who do typically die pretty quickly.

Containment is probably my second favorite of the new maps. It has a central bridge where a large transport truck is parked. It emits radiation which disables electronics within it's range. There's a very cool looking church in the map, which I found was a good place for me to fight with the Ameli.

Fog is great

Finally, Fog is my favorite of the pack. In terms of combat, it's nothing very special. It's relatively small and has a lot of different paths, providing lots of flanking opportunities and close combat. What makes this map great is the amazing swamp setting and it's spooky atmosphere. There are bats, spiderwebs, fog (duh) and a couple of cabins that feel like they could be haunted.

Super Metroid

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

I finished Super Metroid.

What an amazing game! I am really glad I finally played it and crossed it off my bucket list. The first thing I did was kick Ridley's spiky ass with super missiles, missiles and charged beam shots. The battle is challenging, but not too hard. His attacks will hit every once in a while because he sometimes has an unpredictable pattern, but he doesn't hit hard enough to cause concern.

Ridley is a fucking badass

I then made my way back to Crateria, grabbing a few missed items along the way, to open the door that was blocked by the statue of the four guardians. That's where I made it through the final section of the game. To my surprise, I was ambushed by a GIANT metroid that attacked me. It seemed like all was lost, when it showed mercy to Samus, leaving her with 1 hp left. This was definitely the metroid that was stolen by Ridley. Soon after, I found Mother Brain's... device. A weird tank that housed the big brain. I shot it with missiles while avoiding nearby turret fire, before Mother Brain woke up proper and attacked Samus.

Mother Brain is a fucking disgusting abomination of a creature with no mercy. I fought her with super missiles and charged beams, avoiding her damaging, but predictable attacks, until she unleashed an overwhelming death ray of some kind. I thought all was lost, but that's when the giant metroid from before came in to save my ass. It fought Mother Brain for a bit, but died rather quickly. In it's demise, it somehow granted Samus a rainbow death ray that deals incredible amounts of damage, at which point, killing off the creature became trivial.

After Mother Brain's death, the whole base became unstable. A three minute countdown began with instructions to flee the planet as soon as possible. I ran, jumped, fought and swung my way through the last gauntlet to reach my ship and escape the planet. This game is a masterpiece that still holds up today, 20 years after it's original release.

Super Metroid

Date played: February 25th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 9/10

I fought and killed the third guardian, and am ready to take on Ridley. I explored all of Maridia and found Draygon's lair, a weird underwater creature with a very powerful attack. He swoops around his lair at high speeds, then switches to a sort of web attack. If Samus is hit by the webs, Draygon grabs her and deals extremely high damage. Even with ten energy tanks and three reserves, I died twice, never being able to deal enough damage to take him down. In my third attempt, I became desperate and tried using every item I had. I tried to use the grapple beam to grab on to the structures when captured, but I accidentally hit some energy beams on the sides of the level. It turns out that I stumbled upon the secret to killing this thing. I held on to the beam and it damaged Draygon to death. His minions carried it's corpse below ground in a morbid funeral.

Draygon

This opened up a few new doors in the area, where I found the powerful Plasma beam. A high damage upgrade to the bounty hunter's cannon. I also found the Spring Ball, an upgrade that allows Samus to jump while in morph ball form. While it hasn't been very useful, it is practical. Finally, I found the Space Jump, an amazing upgrade that allows Samus to climb up while spin jumping, seemingly forever. It makes almost all platforming challenges moot.

I then headed down into the fiery depths of Norfair to confront Ridley. I made my way through the gauntlets guarding it's lair. While there wasn't much to slow me down here, two guardians gave me a lot of trouble. The two space pirates are invincible except when they jump around. They were very quick and incredibly hard to defeat. I won the battle, but it was fucking sloppy. I found the door to the battle with Ridley, but that's where I stopped playing.

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: February 23rd and 24th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

It's double exp week and I'm taking full advantage by winning a lot and getting high scores. I think the screenshot speaks for itself... I'm excited to play the new maps that come out Thursday!

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

Date played: February 22nd
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 10/10

I played through the second world and one level of the third. The level variety in Tropical Freeze is astounding... Sawmill Thrill was one of the coolest levels so far. It's a mine cart level set in a sawmill where giant blades chase DK and carve the track ahead on the fly. While that was interesting enough on it's own, Retro ups the ante by swapping the cart for a floating water log midway through, and finally puts DK back in the cart for the finish.

Sawmill Thrill was amazing

Alpine Incline features beautiful mountain scenery and has the Kongs bounce through dozens of hot air balloons. Wing Ding has a bunch of bells for DK to ring as he travels through. This would destroy stone structures that block the way. A lot of these were on incluned horizontal vines that DK slides down on, so the timing was important. Crumble Cavern is filled with dangerous ledges, vines that fall out if held too long and fast shooting barrels.

Rodent Ruckus is the return of the dangerous barrel rocket levels from the previous game. The level scrolls automatically, but the barrel falls if no thrust is applied, so the challenge becomes to give just enough thrust to stay alive and get the KONG letters.

I then played a beast of a level... Bopopolis, the bonus level. This was the toughest level in the game so far. No checkpoints, no stopping, no mistakes allowed. The big thing about this level is that it requires carefully timed bops on flying enemies. There is ZERO room for mistakes here and required a perfect run to reach the end. I was successful, but it took me a solid 25 tries!

I then beat the boss, a giant owl. It had three phases, each requiring three hits. It was pretty tough as it used many tactics against me, throwing eggs, shooting feathers, flapping it's wings to create wind and even trying to sit on DK. I had to throw eggs back at it to defeat it.

Finally, I played the first level of the third world, a savannah. The music in this level is fucking incredible and really sets the mood for the beautiful stage. I jumped, bounced, climbed and swung my way through the jungle. The trees were dancing, the giraffes were bopping and the elephants were swinging to make this my favorite level yet.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

Date played: February 21st
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 10/10

DK is back baby!

Donkey Kong Country Returns is one of my favorite games of all time. When I played it in 2011, I was left hoping for more, and finally, it's here as Tropical Freeze. The move to HD is very fucking welcome as the game looks simply incredible.

I played through the first world and the first two levels of the second. The first world is a tropical paradise filled with coconuts, palm trees, and of course, bananas. The level design is just as wonderful as it was in DKCR, but look a lot better on the more powerful Wii U. Many of the levels have secret exits that lead to additional levels, and while I found them all in the first world, they were definitely not obvious. There was a return to the silhouette levels of the first game, and of course, a mine cart level. Both of these were very fun to play and interesting to look at.

The game hasn't lost it's high level of difficulty either, even on the first world, I died quite a bit to dangerous jumps, enemies and other deadly contraptions laid across the levels. Of course, one of the biggest changes to the game is the addition of Dixie and Cranky as partners. Dixie can give Donkey Kong a lift during difficult jumps, and Cranky can use his cane to jump on spikes and other dangerous terrain. Dixie can also speed up Donkey's swimming by swinging her hair as a propeller.

I managed to find all the KONG letters across the world, which opened up the first of many secret levels. As in the first game, these are fucking crazy and extremely difficult. They require pinpoint accuracy and don't have any checkpoints. This one revolved around swinging on vines and travelling on giant balls on rails... I made it through, but it took a good dozen attempts. I then beat the first boss, a large seal that uses a halfpipe to attack. It wasn't very hard, but was tons of fun.

The second world is set in a temperate forest where windmills were built. On the second level, I was pleased and surprised to ride Rambi, the rhinoceros mount from the SNES DKC games. All of it was completely awesome.

So far though, my favorite thing in the game has to be the David Wise's enchanting music. There's really nothing like it in other video games, and it truly makes the game a better experience. I cannot wait to play more of Tropical Freeze! 

Super Metroid

Maridia is wet and swampy

Date played: February 21st
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 7/10

For the first time, I got truly stuck in Super Metroid. I had to resort to a walkthrough to find the solution. In the depths of Maridia, I couldn't find any way to progress. I explored every nook and cranny, scanning with X-Ray vision everwhere I went. I found a few items, but many areas were blocked off or lead nowhere. There are lots of fish, quicksand pits and other aquatic creatures that hinder Samus's progress.

It turns out, Power Bombs can destroy glass, something I never even thought of. One of the tunnels I had used earlier was made of glass, so I blew it up and opened up Maridia for real exploration. I found a few upgrades still, but nothing major just yet. I discovered some invincible space pirates too, which makes me hope for a new weapon soon, but we'll see.

Super Metroid

Date played: February 20th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 9/10

I made good progress again today, gathering the Grapple beam, the Gravity suit and X-ray vision. X-Ray vision has been a real blessing in particular, as it allows Samus to scan the area and see through walls, making it a lot easier to spot secret passages and hidden power ups. The Grapple is really just a traversal tool, but it opened up a whole new section of the map, a haunted wrecked spaceship. Finally, the Gravity suit allows Samus to control normally while submerged in water, a very useful ability.

Crocomire dies

To find this stuff, I had to explore the depths of Norfair and battle Crocomire, a red lizard thing that I pushed into a lava pit with missiles. It screamed in agony as it melted there and exposed it's skeleton before falling dead.

The wrecked spaceship was pretty cool. At first, it's power was out, so I explored a bit but most of the ship was off limits due to the lack of power. To restore power, I had to fight Phantoon, a spectre of sorts that shot blue fireballs at Samus. It was a pretty easy fight, which restored power to the ship and allowed me to explore it fully. That's where I got the Gravity suit. I am now entering the depths of Maridia, a swampy hell.

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: February 20th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

28-1... I repeat, 28-1

I was unstoppable today. I fucking owned every match I played and completely dominated the leaderboards in each game. Hell, I even managed to get a Loki satellite from a care package. The dogs were chewing, the turrets were ripping and the choppers were blasting to the sound of sweet, sweet victory. In almost all games, I had a kill/death ratio above 3.0. There was only one match that gave me real trouble when I faced a team of snipers that had good positioning and even then, I was above 2.0. 

Super Metroid

Date played: February 19th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 10/10

Holy fuck, this game is incredible! I played a LOT of Super Metroid and feel like I'm probably about halfway through, maybe a bit less. I clawed my way through the depths of Zebes, exploring every nook and cranny I could find. This led to the discovery of many upgrades for Samus's suit.

I found the Charge Beam, which lets me charge my cannon for a higher damage shot.  Also, the Spazer, a beam upgrade that shoots out three laser beams instead of one bullet. Then I found the Hi Jump boots that give a big boost to jump height. I got the Varia suit, which lets Samus withstand extreme heat. I found the Speed Booster which lets Samus run at very high speeds and blast through weak materials and enemies, provided she has space to gather speed. It also has a special ability that lets her jump very high after boosting, but it's been useful in only two spots so far. I also got the Wave Beam. which is an upgraded version of the Spazer and lets Samus shoot through walls. That shit came in really handy more than once. I got the Ice Beam, the best upgrade so far. It allows Samus to freeze enemies in place and even use them as platforms to jump on. Finally, I also found Power bombs, which opened up tons of new places to explore. They are also pretty useful in combat when there are a lot of enemies on screen.

Kraid

All of these items are awesome, but getting to them is the best part. What's really great about this game is just exploring everywhere and trying to find the right place to go. There's no indication of where you should go next, and there are many rewards for going back to previous areas. There's no glowing arrow, annoying fairy, no narration, nothing. Just a bounty hunter and her map. It's fucking great.

I fought an interesting creature, a sort of dangling ball of death I guess. I had to dodge it's attacks and shoot it when it opened up at regular intervals. It wasn't too hard, but after a few hits, it accelerated it's movements, which caught me by surprise and almost killed me.

The best part of my session was the battle against Kraid, a large, reptilian monster. Now this, my friends, this is how you do a boss battle. Kraid himself is very intimidating visually as he's gigantic, has large teeth and scary looking eyes. The battle was hell, though I did manage to kill him without dying once. I had to avoid projectiles while navigating thin platforms, then shooting the dude in the eye so that he opens his mouth. Of course, I would then shoot some missiles in his mouth. I was very close to death many times because I fell in the spikes below, so I spent a lot of time just regaining health by fighting the debris that Kraid shot at me. It felt great to finally see the beast die with a horrifying cry...

Super Metroid

Date played: February 18th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 8/10

I recently lent my copy of Metroid Other M to a friend, and she was surprised that it was a direct sequel to Super Metroid. Of course, this led to a discussion about my shameful secret. I've never played Super Metroid for more than 5 minutes...

So I started Super Metroid. The game has a really cool visual style. It's grim, dark, mysterious and very detailed for a 16 bit game. The sound design is also very interesting and helps set the mood for the bounty hunter's adventure.

Samus had brought a Metroid back to the scientists and left, when Ridley, the flying dinosaur thing, attacked the scientists and stole the Metroid. Samus rushed back and briefly fought Ridley before having to escape the ship. She then lands on planet Zebes to recover the Metroid from Ridley and begin her adventure.

I explored the first area and gathered the morph ball, missiles and bombs. When I got the bombs, I had my first mini-boss fight, a Chozo statue that came alive. I had to avoid it's attacks by going into morph ball form and shooting it's chest. This felt like a truly classic, pattern recognition battle. It was fun. Now that I have bombs, I have to find the next place to explore.

Call of Duty Ghosts

My Astro A40's

Date played: February 18th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

Again, I completely dominated in Team Deathmatch. I mean, my KDR is pretty good, usually close to 2.0 or above, but what I do best is win fucking matches. Some people have a great KDR, but they only get 5 or 6 kills a game. I hover around 18-22 in most games and am almost always the top scorer. There was one exception today, a match against a decent team of snipers on Stonehaven. While I had fun assaulting some of these guys with my LMG, they were well positioned and smart. I still had a good score, but the snipers were racking up kills faster than I could find them.

On another note, I bought myself a set of Astro A40's, a high end gaming headset. I already have a great surround sound setup, but sometimes it's a bit loud when my daughter is sleeping or my girlfriend is doing stuff. I'm very impressed with the A40's sound quality and surround sound capabilities. It's also very comfortable. The mixamp works well and allowed me to fine tune the sound levels of voice chat to my liking. 

Gone Home

Date played: February 17th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 7/10

I started and finished Gone Home in one sitting.

This isn't really a game honestly, it's more of an interactive story. You play as Katie, a young woman who is returning home after a long trip through Europe. When she gets there, no one is home. The game consists of navigating the house in first person and finding clues about what happened and where her teenage sister and parents are.

It's mostly about the sister though. I won't spoil this short experience here, but I will say that I enjoyed it quite a bit. I explored the large house's many rooms, including a basement, an attic, bedrooms and even a few hidden passages. The exploration is rewarded with interesting nuggets of info about the life of the family in the form of letters, forms, diaries and notes. Every object can be picked up and scrutinized from every angle. While many objects are pointless, there are many that are very interesting. My favorite part of the whole thing was finding cassette tapes (did I mention this takes place in 1995?) and playing them while exploring. The female punk rockers featured in the game really help to set the mood. Gone Home is worth playing.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: February 16th and 17th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 10/10

I finished Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

Of the AC game's I've played, this is by far my favorite. The sailing was so amazing, it could have been a game of it's own. Without it, the story isn't good enough and the game wouldn't have kept my attention as long as it did.

In the last two days, I went through the story parts at an accelerated pace, as I was completely done with...well, the fun stuff. The story goes to crazy places. It started with a visit to the Observatory with the sage, Roberts. After stalking blow dart spitting natives through the jungle, we reached a weird building where we found a special skull. This skull can show what any person in the world is doing via hologram-like projections, provided a sample of blood from that person is slotted in. Roberts then betrayed Edward and threw him off a ledge. When I found a way out, my crew had abandoned me and left me stranded, tired of my esoteric goals.

I then spent some time in jail in Port-Royal... I was soon saved by an assassin. The two ladies of Edward's life had also been taken prisoner, Mary and Anne. I ran through the jail and managed to save both of them, but Mary was ill and died in my arms as we were leaving. In Kingston, I made contact with Adewale, my former quartermaster, who gave me my ship back and informed me he had joined the Assassin's Creed. Anne then became my new quartermaster.

Edward realized that he had to redeem himself. He had been selfish, overly ambitious and greedy. He agreed to help the assassins in their quest to rob the Templars of the skull at the Observatory. This is where the game became a simple series of assassinations. I killed Rogers, Roberts, the Governor and even his right-hand man through a series of copy and paste missions. On the bright side, I scored a bullet proof Mayan armor in Tulum, which really helped make combat easier.

The ending was quick, but effective.

The real world part of the game also took an interesting turn as the hacker turned out to be a descendant of Roberts, the sage. In the end though, this was really Edward's story. He met with his long lost daughter and went back to England. During the credits, it was revealed that Edward is Haytham Kenway's father, and of course, Connor's grandfather.

Either way, this was an amazing game in every way and I'm really glad I took the time to play it through!

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: February 16th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

24-7, Business as usual

Even though I haven't played Ghosts in a long time, I performed really well in the few matches I played. Most of my matches were around 2.0 K/D ratio. I'm kind of excited for the new maps that come out at the end of the month, including the Scrapyard remake from Modern Warfare 2. It's always been a favorite of mine because it's tight and well designed. I'm sure my Ameli will dominate in this map. 

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: February 14th and 15th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 10/10

I think I've completed almost all of the side stuff in Black Flag. I explored the remaining areas to the south of the map, I got all the animus fragments and chests on the world map and fully upgraded my ship. I also finally took on the four legendary ships and was victorious! These ships were, without a doubt, the hardest naval battles in the game. Two of them were fairly standard battles except that the enemy ships had more health and dealt much more damage. However, the other two were a different story. One of them was VERY fast and had a devastating ram attack. I ended up winning with only a sliver of health left. I mainly used chain shots to slow it down and got in close to use heavy shots and swivel guns. The other battle was against TWO strong ships at once. Mortars were most useful here until I sunk one of them. Then the remaining ship ran me down at high speeds so I ran away and littered the sea with fire barrels.

Captain Kenway in all his glory

I also completed quite a bit of the story. I first met up with Blackbeard at his retirement spot. Before having a swig of rum with him, Edward spotted a dude that looked suspicious, so I tailed him, only to find out the English were just about to attack Blackbeard. After running out of the now fiery jungle, I got on the Jackdaw and fought the attackers with my ship. Blackbeard and Edward boarded the same enemy ship at one point and that's when it happened. Blackbeard was killed in action.

Edward had gathered a clue though, he found out that the Sage was on an African slave trading ship. We gathered intelligence by tailing and boarding an African ship and soon figured out that we could find him on a vessel named Princess. Unfortunately, Rackham felt like an asshole, as usual, and left Edward and Vane stranded in the middle of the ocean while he sailed away on the Jackdaw. Fucking asshole.

The next sequence was really cool, as Edward and Vane struggled to survive while marooned on an island. Vane didn't trust Edward anymore and was stealing his food. My mission was to find Vane and kill him. I trekked through the dangerous jungle, armed with only my trusty assassin's blades, avoiding Vane's gunfire and grenade lobbing, to finally kill him. Soon, a ship sailed into the bay and gave Edward a ride back to Nassau.

After only two months, Rackham had managed to get in major trouble and had to accept the pardon from the English . I took my ship back from him and went on with the search for the sage. This led our crew to the African coast, where the sage was hiding. I met him there and convinced him to help me find the observatory in exchange for my help in fleeing the area. I assaulted the fortress, killed it's leaders and brought the sage, Roberts, back to the Caribbean.

We went to work right away. Roberts was looking for blood vials carried by a Portuguese fleet. We stole a flag from one of their ships and pretended to be Portuguese for a while, tailing the ship with the vials in it. Finally, we managed to commandeer the ship, a Man'O War, and escape with the vials intact. I got to command the large vessel which has a lot of firepower, including some rear facing cannons. That was pretty cool. I'm not sure what's next, but I believe Roberts will show me the observatory!

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: February 13th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

This outfit fucking rocks

I completed an assassination mission, then headed to the Black Island, a DLC area. It was rather disappointing in terms of gameplay...it was just like any other area in the game...but with less stuff to do. However, I scored a really cool outfit and some black sails.

I also took over the last fort in the game and completed all the naval contracts, scoring me some fucking awesome golden pistols that kill even the toughest foes in one shot. 

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

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

We destroyed the blockade in Nassau! We loaded up Rackham's ship with tons of gunpowder, I then escorted it to the enemy ships and let it explode for massive damage, clearing up the blockade. I spent the rest of my time exploring one of the two remaining sections of the sea to the south west. I explored a few underwater areas, gathered some chests and animus fragments and completed two small settlements. I took out a fort too and a couple of naval contracts.

Adewale and Edward chill in the storm after clearing the blockade

I fought a ton of ships to gather metal and improve my fleet. This allowed me to upgrade my broadside cannons and ram to elite status (golden!) and I even added a higher level Man'O War to the fleet, which carries 80 cargo. I can finally start working on some of the tougher trade routes in the fleet mini-game. While I'm sure I still have quite a bit of story to go through, I feel like I'm reaching the end of the exploring parts of Black Flag. I still want to explore the Black Island DLC too, so maybe I'll do that next.

Fractured Soul demo

Dual screen mechanics!

Date played: February 11th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 8/10

Once every blue moon, there is a game that does something unique with the hardware it was programmed on. Fractured Soul is one of those games. Taking full advantage of the 3DS's two screens, the game offers challenging platforming that plays on BOTH screens at once. The main character, a space marine or some sort, can only be active in one of the two screens at once and becomes a hologram on the inactive one. The levels are built in such a way that switching between the two worlds quickly is required for success. For example, I jumped from a ladder, switched screens, and landed on a platform only available on the second screen.

Honestly, it works really well and can be very difficult to do well at times, forcing your brain to be very active and to look at both screens quickly. I made it through the four level demo and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

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

Sequence 7 has stranded me in Nassau. The red coats have set up a blockade of ships outside the village and are preventing any ships from leaving port. I started by doing my fleet stuff but I hit a wall. Some of the missions require 80 cargo space, but my best Man'O War only has 70. I'm really not sure how to get a bigger one, I'll probably have to look it up.

I then played three story missions. The first had me tail the Englishmen as they had a conversation with Vane, Rackham and the other dude whose name I forget. Eventually, they reached the town's fort, which I had to infiltrate in a fun platforming segment. I used stealth to make my way to the middle of the fort to steal some vital information as the men were discussing the blockade and the pardon.

Edward and Vane scheme together

In the next mission, Edward and Vane decided to move their operations to Edward's bay and villa. The first step was to get out of the blockade though, so we started formulating a plan. My job was to steal gun powder from nearby English camps. I basically just ran in, killed everyone and stole the gunpowder. As the mission concluded, we heard through the grapevine that the English Commodore was planning on destroying all the ships docked in Nassau very soon. That's where the third mission came in. Again, I had to tail a couple of officers to figure out where the Commodore was so that I could assassinate him. It turns out he was hiding on his ship, so I climbed on and killed him from the mast.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: February 7th, 8th and 9th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 10/10

I had a Black Flag weekend! This is the only game I played the whole weekend, and I've made pretty significant progress. The fleet has been an interesting venture for me as I started using it so late in the game. I ended up fighting a LOT of ship battles to gather new ships for the fleet (or harvest gems, the fleet currency) so that I could take on longer and bigger trade routes. The coolest part of the fleet stuff is receiving cool furniture for my mansion as a reward.

I completed sequence 6. Basically, Nassau is plagued with illness, disease and death due to a lack of medical care. Edward and Blackbeard decided to find some medicine. Our first attempt was to use a diving bell to explore some wrecks in the hopes that they would have medicine to gather in their stores. I thought that was a dumb idea, but it gave me the ability to go underwater and explore wrecks at my leisure.

Using the diving bell, I explored my first wreck and found some medicine, but it was spoiled. After this mission, I was now capable of exploring other wrecks, so I went nuts and did all of them except for two that are in the southwest area of the map. The underwater stuff is pretty interesting. It looks incredible and is filled with animals, plants and caves. Some of them had hidden coves where other pirates and smugglers hide. Others are infested with dangerous sharks and eels, which I had to fight off with quick time events. Others had spiky urchins that hurt Edward. Some even had strong currents that carried Edward where I had to navigate around obstacles at high speeds. I found a few upgrade plans in the process, so I fought more ships to gather metal. I ended up upgrading my swivel guns and mortars to max level. They are gold now, it looks great.

Underwater exploration looks amazing!

The next mission was cool too, I had to tail a ship through a bayou to try and find medicine another way. Finally, when it docked, I got out and tailed the captain through crocodile infested waters. It turns out that sleeping darts work pretty well on them. Finally, I was seen and broke into a wild chase through the area. It looked incredible and was tons of fun.

I was thrown out of the Animus after this mission and was asked to meet with Olivier, the head of Abstergo. When I got to his office though, I was asked to wait outside. That's when I was contacted by the shady tech again. He granted me access to level 2 security doors and asked me to hack a camera system to spy on Olivier. We discovered that he is working for the Templars (though it was obvious) and that they want to discover more about the Observatory. I spent the rest of my time exploring Abstergo, hacking into the computers that were made available by the level 2 access card. I found tons of interesting stuff about Abstergo, but now I'm ready to get back to Edward.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: February 5th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

Kingston is fucking huge! I've spent a lot of time gathering everything in Kingston, though I'm still not 100% done. This includes 6 new songs for my crew that I'm really excited to hear, as dumb as that sounds. I gathered countless chests and manuscripts, completed 6 very normal assassination missions and grabbed a dozen tricky animus fragments. Some of these were a lot more trouble than what I've been used to so far, requiring branch swinging and wall jumping. Kingston has an interesting layout because it has Port Royal nearby that is technically part of the city, but is across a large bay. Edward can swim across, but it takes forever. Thankfully, there are little row boats available to speed up the process.

I completed one story mission, where I tailed the Governor and another guy because they could lead me to the Sage. I tailed them through the city, jumping on rooftops, hiding in bushes and killing anyone that got in my way. In the end though, I was discovered and had to fight a bunch of dudes. James Kidd was with me, but he had a different idea. He wanted to just kill the Governor, so I had to chase him down and tackle him. He seemed pretty angry but made Edward promise to lend a hand when the time came to assassinate the target.

Uplay's special outfit makes Edward look like a real fucking pirate!

Finally, I FINALLY fixed my online issues with the game by opening a ticket with Ubisoft. They relinked my Uplay account and now I have access to the social features, including the fleet battles. This is a menu driven mini-game that feels a lot like a free to play mobile game. I use ships in my fleet that I gathered from fighting ships in the Caribbean. I must send ships out to trade resources and battle other ships to make the routes safer. It's all very simple, but it brings in money, awards decorations for my house and my ship and runs on a real world timer. It's pretty cool.

Call of Duty Ghosts

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

I had a short, but great night of Team Deathmatch in Ghosts. Our clan actually ended winning last week's clan war so I scored a new background, patch and a scary looking red head for my character. I played a few matches and did very well, as usual. I was above 2.0 kill/death ratio in every match I played last night!

All pimped out

Toki Tori 2+

Date played: February 2nd
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 8/10

I picked up the Two Tribes pack during the last holiday Steam sale and Toki Tori 2+ was the main draw for me. This game is an easy to play 2D puzzle game. With direct control over a chubby little flightless bird, the game tasks the player with navigating to the end of each level using only two abilities; a tweet and a stomp. the tweet can be used to call other creatures towards the bird and the stomp can be used to scare them away, as well as stomping down on unstable platforms.

Charming

The game is VERY charming in every way. I must say, I was impressed by the way it looks. The graphics are well defined, very colorful and could be described as "happy". I made my way through a few levels, maybe 3 or 4 and enjoyed what I played. The depth of the game comes from the crazy environments and the creatures living in it. There are frog-like things that can eat smaller animals, which then burp out enormous bubbles that can carry the bird to higher ground. There are friendly craps that reside inside wooden platforms that must be coerced into going left and right. There are little creatures that repeat after the bird, effectively increasing the range of the tweet. Large birds carry friend and foe to their nests.

In one level, there was also an element of light manipulation where I had to ensure light reached the different creatures so that they could see where they are going. I even used luminescent butterflies to light my way. I like this game a lot because of it's simple controls, but complex puzzles. It helps that it looks incredible too!

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Date played: February 1st and 2nd
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

Loot! More loot!

The sea is a treacherous mistress

I find myself playing Black Flag more as a treasure hunt than an action game... Again, most of my playtime was spent gathering treasure, exploring new towns and villages, completing assassination contracts and naval contracts. I even took out a Man 'o-War English ship. I also captured another fort, a well defended one this time. It had 9 structures to destroy for a successful capture, but my ship is really strong now so it wasn't an issue. Speaking of which, I upgraded my ram to it's highest, bought a mermaid figurehead and bought a few more cannons. I feel pretty much unstoppable right now, but I'll wait a bit more before assaulting the dangerous-sounding elite ships.

I also made my way to Kingston, the last big city in the game, but I haven't really done anything here yet.

Call of Duty Ghosts

CRANKED!

Date played: January 31st and February 2nd
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I decided to unlock all the camos for my trusted Ameli machine gun. This meant I had to create a new class without attachments. I took that opportunity to put on the perk that helps with hip fire. The three challenges I still needed to complete were kills without attachments, hip fire kills and leaning kills. I was surprisingly good at getting hip fire kills in Team Deathmatch. The Ameli is a two shot kill at close range so I would wait around busy corners and was quickly done with that task.

Leaning kills are a different story. On some maps, they are very easy to get, for example on Freight, where there are a lot of doors, buildings, and square corners. On something like Whiteout, there are fewer opportunities. I eventually got the camos which unlocked the golden one. I like it on the Ameli, it's loud and obnoxious, and a blingy camo seems like it fits the big gun.

Later, I played with some clan mates and we took the Cranked node. Cranked is a really weird mode, but I generally do well in it because of my aggressive play style. After you get a kill, a 30 second countdown begins and you don't get another kill before it expires, you explode and die. The trick is that fast kills aware more points towards victory, so it usually over in less than 5 minutes. It also helps that being "cranked" boosts your speed, reload time and aim down sights time. We captured the node and as of this writing, are still on track to win the war.