FTL

Date played: March 30th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

I'm not quite sure why, but I really wanted to play FTL last night. It's been a while since I last played it, so my first run didn't go very well. I used the engi ship, which has an ion cannon to disable enemy systems and a drone bay. I really like it as I was able to keep the shields down with the ion shots, while damaging the ship with an attack drone. I died because I forgot how to repair the hull.

My ship's glorious demise

I gave it another go and reached the end boss this time. I had a solid crew, a fully powered weapons system, full shields, a heavy laser and hull beam and enough power to launch a level 2 attack drone. I destroyed everything in my path pretty easily actually, but couldn't take out the last boss. That thing is so fucking strong, it's incredible. I did damage it a little bit, but fire and death came quickly. I unlocked the stealth ship, so maybe I'll try that one next time.

Hearthstone

Date played: March 29th and 30th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

I like the rogue. I like her a lot.

Valeera is fucking awesome

I unlocked all of Valeera Sanguinar's cards and I really like how she plays. Maybe it's because of the way I built the deck too, but I won a LOT with her in both casual and ranked modes. The deck I built revolves around her class cards and cards that have summoning abilities. At times, I had the maximum number of minions on the board. None of them are very strong on their own, but in numbers I was able to overwhelm my opponents, and I did it quickly. Her spells focus on weapon damage and low cost stuff, which leaves a lot of wiggle room for versatility. I only have a few cards that are strong on their own, most of it is weak but fast.

I also played with the priest a bit and I like him too, though he seems somewhat weak overall. Of course, his focus is on healing, and he has a few cards that really enhance that. I built his deck around healing spells and creatures that get stronger when they are hurt, since I can heal them. I haven't lost with him yet, which is a great sign, considering I haven't even unlocked all his basic cards.

Skylanders Giants

Slam Bam is a badass

Date played: March 29th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 6/10

I finished Skylanders Giants!

The last level was pretty fun overall, but I ran into a nasty glitch. Twice, I had to pull the power plug out of the Wii U because it froze, and both times it was in the same room. While this was very frustrating, it did give me lots of gold and exp, which I used to upgrade Slam Bam a bit more. He's very strong now and can take quite a beating.  Spyro is now fully upgraded, as is Drobot. Cynder is much stronger now too. I found that I liked him a lot more now that the enemies hit really hard, because his ghost attack allows him to go through enemies without damage.

The last boss was a real fucking bitch. It was Kaos in his robot, which I had to damage by attacking the arms. Unfortunately, there were a lot of strong minions alongside, which made me lose most of my Skylanders. If I had bought fewer, I probably would have died. In the end, we destroyed it and Skylands is safe....until I buy Swap Force that is.

Killzone Shadow Fall

Date played: March 28th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I played through one level last night. Sinclair gave a mission to infiltrate a space laboratory and retrieve the scientist that made the virus. Sinclair wants her so that he can use her bio-weapon against the Helghans. The level starts in zero g, with a breathtaking view of Helghan below and debris floating in space. I got inside and had to explore the spire to find the scientist.

I was first confronted with spider mines, little mechanical proximity bombs. I had to hack their storage boxes to stop them. I also encountered a new, powerful enemy type. They are soldiers with strong shields that can be disabled by the OWL's stun ability or with the rifle's charge shot. They are fun to fight and can be a challenge when there is more than one at a time.

The space station is breathtaking

I made my way through the spire and it's guards, including an exciting free fall through a turbine. I found the doctor eventually and had to help her move the virus from one section of the spire to another. To do so, I went into space where I protected a container from attacking space drones. When I reached the other side, I had to defend the cargo and my allies from a huge assault from the Helghast. This was quite a standoff that was pretty tough to deal with.

I used a fucking cool weapon, a sort of electric burst rifle. It's very powerful, fun to use, and can shoot right through enemy shields. When the attack force became too much to handle, I used the nearby dropship's powerful guns to fend off the huge wave of enemies. After all the fighting, Echo showed up again, wanting to kill the scientist to stop the genocide. Sinclair ordered me to kill her, but I disobeyed and let her kill the scientist. Echo and I escaped to Helghan by using small atmosphere piercing vehicles then free falling to the planet. I'm excited to see what happens next!

Hearthstone

Date played: March 26th, 27th and 28th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 10/10

I'm winning more than I'm losing. I had three daily quests lined up, the first was to win three times, the second was to win twice with a warrior or rogue and the third was to win twice with a priest or warlock. I started by redoing my warrior deck from scratch and made it revolve around taunt creatures. The warrior doesn't have a lot of cool cards though, most of them revolve around building armor, using weapons and a few other direct damage cards. It doesn't have a lot of control cards though, and I tend to prefer that. I won quite a few casual matches either way, unlocked all the normal warrior cards and moved on to a new class.

The warlock is a weird class, but it's become my favorite so far. It's pretty much all based on self-sacrifice to gain power. It's a control heavy class and cards are usually high damage, but costly to the user. It's class ability is one of the best, but also most dangerous, as it lets you draw a card in exchange for two lives. I built my deck to be spell damage heavy with a few taunts thrown in for good measure. I don't use the warlock specific minions much though, they don't really seem worth it. One of the coolest cards is Hellfire, which damages everything on the board for high damage. I've won a lot with this one, unlocked all it's cards and reached rank 20 in the ranked play mode.

I fucking love the warlock

I played a bit with the mage again, to complete a quest. I remade her deck to be focused on pure control, including lost of cards that freeze and slow down the other player. This is where I lost my first match due to running out of cards against a warrior. He has high defense, I had lots of control, we both had low offense, so it went on too long and sucked. I'm not a huge fan of the mage, but she has some cool tricks.

Finally, I started playing the rogue a bit to unlock it's basic cards. I made the deck to be summon heavy and while I like it, I haven't managed a win with it yet. The rogue has a lot of low cost, high damage cards, but seems to run out of steam a little bit. Maybe when I have more of it's base cards it will be easier to make a decent deck.

Hearthstone

Date played: March 24th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 8/10

I played a bit more Hearthstone and unlocked all the class cards for the hunter, and finally won my first game as a hunter against a human. It was in casual mode, but it felt good to have a win. I then decided to try out the warrior class, which I don't really like so far. It's kind of a weird class, based on building armor and using weapons.

Garrosh Hellscream, the warrior

I lost a lot with him in casual mode, didn't win once. I did unlock a few cards for him though. I built the deck to be focused on taunts and high defense, but it doesn't really work so far. I'll have to tweak it quite a bit. 

Skylanders Giants

Cynder plays well, but doesn't look this awesome in the game

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

We are very near the end of Skylanders Giants, I think there's only one chapter left. Chapter 15 is set in the lost city of Arkus, the place we've been trying to get to the whole game. Since I don't give a flying fuck about the story, I just went ahead and killed a bunch of dudes. The enemies are very dangerous here and gang up on you pretty easily. I lost many units in the battles, the weaker ones I was trying to buff up.

The one that became more useful than before is Cynder. It's ability to slide under enemies and leave damaging ghost's in it's wake was very good against the hordes of strong, melee enemies. I also boosted Spyro quite a bit, but haven't had a chance to try it's new abilities yet. I'm starting to look at buying Swap Force so that I can play more Skylanders with my daughter, and it seems like the PS4 version is the one to get, but we'll see.

Hearthstone

Date played: March 22nd and 23rd
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

I'm hooked on Hearthstone, Blizzard's virtual card battle game. It's free to play and doesn't penalize players that don't spend money, at least it doesn't seem like it so far. It's reminiscent of Magic The Gathering, but it's quite a bit simpler and a lot faster. It's also more fun, at least for now. The 9 original classes are selectable, and I started with Jaina, the mage. At first, I played against the AI to unlock all the classes. It took me a few rounds to actually win my first one against the AI, and some of the classes were harder to beat for me, such as the priest. Soon enough though, I was leveling up the mage, getting new cards, winning rounds and unlocking classes.

After I had unlocked all the classes, I made myself a deck with the easy to use editor, and took on real people in ranked play. I swear, I must have played 15 matches, using different classes, different decks, different strategies, and I lost every single fucking match. I then decided to try the arena, the paywall mechanic. The first attempt is free, but each subsequent play is 2$, or some coins which are pretty hard to earn. The arena is a great concept. It shows you three random classes, and you pick one. Then it shows you three different cards, and you pick one. Repeat until you have a full deck. It's now time to take on some human opponents. After three losses, the arena is over. The more you win, the better your rewards. I managed to win my first match here using a druid deck I built with the random cards. I really like this mode, but it's too bad it cost money every time. I would have paid 20$ for this game if it included a few arena matches every week. As it stands, I'm unlikely to spend any cash.

I lost. A lot.

I then played more ranked matches, now with a paladin. I set it up so that it would have cards that boost each other's attack power, while spamming many low level minions that benefit from the boosts. It works pretty well, but even though it was close, I couldn't manage a win. That's when my friend came online, and I challenged him to a friendly, no stakes duel. He used a shaman and used many totems and overcharge cards, which damage then entire field to great effect. I was convinced I was going to lose when he had more than 10 lives left and I only had 1.... but I won. Through attrition, luck and intelligent planning, I held him off and took him down slowly for the victory. It was very satisfying...

I played more ranked matches, and now that I had a better understanding of the game, I built some better decks. The one that gave me 5 victories and ranked me up from 25 to 22 was a druid deck built around the charge and battle cry mechanics. Charge lets a card attack as soon as it hits the board and battle cry has effects that play out as you play put the minion on the table. This resulted in very fast attacks, versatility and overwhelming force. I haven't lost with this deck from 25 to 22. I fucking love this game and wish it was available on iOS, it would work very well on the iPad.

Killzone Shadow Fall

Date played: March 21st
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I completed chapter 4, the train mission. I cleared out the train area and found one of them to be filled with dangerous chemicals, set to be used as a weapon. I shot the moving train's magnetic rail clamps with a minigun and went after Tyran, the head of the terrorist Helghan faction. In an epic sequence, I held on to a rope tied to his dropship, shot a couple of his henchmen than stabbed Tyran in the foot before falling off and landing on a deployable inflated landing pad.

Chapter 5 was really cool. I was set to infiltrate a Helghan refugee camp of sorts. It really sets the mood at the beginning by making me walk through the security checkpoint as if I was just a regular person. We boarded a train, where I made my move, took out the guard and jumped down into the city. People say that graphics don't matter sometimes, but holy fuck, the beautiful lighting and incredible visual design really helps set the tone and makes the experience more enjoyable. Screenshots don't even do this game justice, it really does look amazing.

I found a gun, shot tons of dudes and figured out where Tyran was hiding. When I found him, I managed to destroy the building, kill him in the process and escape alive. Unfortunately, I was also captured by the Helghans, again.

Chapter 6 was a big change of pace. It starts off with the hero in jail with no weapons or communications. The jail is set in Containment City, an enormous sort of shipyard where thousands, maybe millions of shipping containers act as jail cells. I got help from a Helghan I assisted in the last chapter who opened my cell, guided me through the area and led me to a safe area. That's where Echo, the half-Vektan, half-Helghan chick from before, joined me and asked for my help. She makes a convincing case that both factions are working towards genocide and that something must be done. We sort of became a little rebel team.

Echo and I hold position against droves of enemies

She gave me a weapon and the ability to hack little mechanical spiders to navigate hard to reach areas and destroy security consoles and cameras. Echo helped me escape so that I could convince my superior, Sinclair, to stop the war in some way. The mission was tons of fun. She has the ability to snipe enemies and I could ask her to take out specific targets. I made my way through the Helghan refugee camp and eventually destroyed very strong mechanical, 4 legged machines of war. Finally, we reached the border and had to hold out against a huge attack from many enemies. Echo controlled flying mechanical weapons, which I used to destroy large enemies, while taking out infantry with my rifle.

I'm surprised at how much I love this game, though I shouldn't be. I loved the other games in the series...

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Date played: March 20th
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 9/10

Another PS+ freebie, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is tons of fun and kept my attention for a good amount of time. When I played the demo on Wii U, I had a really good time, and the Vita version plays just as well and looks almost as good, considering the small screen.

I played through many world tour events, which are a variety of events including of course many races, but also special events like drifting, boosting, rival races and even a flight challenge. The game has three vehicle types, cars, boats and aircraft which are activated on the fly in different sections of the level. It's really cool, though the car sections are by far the most fun for me.

Ulala is my favorite

The characters are varied, and each has a special "all-star" ability, a super powerful move that seems to be granted at random with item pickups. I played as all the unlocked characters. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Metal Sonic, two monkeys from Monkey Ball, a Crazy Taxi driver, Alex Kidd, Beat from Jet Set Radio, Wreck It Ralph (WTF) and finally, my favorite of the bunch, Ulala from Space Channel 5. I also unlocked the monkey from Samba de Amigo, Danica Patrick (again, WTF) and Shadow.

The best part of the game are the amazing tracks. They are well designed and fun to race, with a few exceptions. For example, I didn't really like one of the Jet Set Radio tracks and the Golden Axe track, but I loved Space Harrier, Sonic, Monkey Ball and most of the others. I am definitely keeping this game installed and plan to play more.

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD

Stranger and his ammo

Date played: March 20th
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played Stranger's Wrath back when it first came out on the original Xbox and loved it at the time. The HD release which I got free with PS+ is exactly the same game, with better graphics. It runs quite well on Vita and is quite pretty, but I'm not sure I'm ready to play this game again. I went through the tutorial and the reached the first town, using the funny animal ammo to progress.

The only problem I had with the game is that melee attacks are performed with the back touch when in first person mode. Back touch is almost never a good idea in my experience. I haven't deleted it because it's a competent game, but it might be the first one to go if I need space.

Urban Trial Freestyle

ATTITUDE

Date played: March 20th
Platform: Vita
Session fun rating: 6/10

I've been going through a few Vita games I got from PS+ because I'm running low on memory on the device. I have an upcoming month long trip where I will only bring my portable systems, so I want to make sure I have the best games with me. I figured I could try a few and delete what I don't like.

I started with Urban Trial Freestyle, a blatant Trials clone. This is a 2D motorcycle game, but it's not about racing, it's about navigating obstacle courses. I had played Trials quite a bit on 360 when it first came out and liked it. UTF seems like a pretty good clone so far, though the framerate is pretty low and distracting. I only played the tutorial and one real level and enjoyed it. I won't delete it just yet.

Skylanders Giants

The jet felt like I was driving this hunk of junk

Date played: March 19th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 4/10

My daughter wanted to continue Skylanders after dinner last night, so we managed to get through one new level, chapter 14. The concept is pretty cool actually. We infiltrated one of Kaos's bases filled with enemy robots. The gimmick is that the level is navigated using a little jet in a weird corridor thing. While it sounds cool, it controls about as well as drunk-driving an old dodge.

There were little platforms to stop on and explore, gather items and kill enemies. Slam Bam was dead, so I couldn't enter one of the areas, blocked by a water fence. Either way, I finished the level, upgraded Slam Bam and called it a night. 

Civilization V

Date played: March 18th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 10/10

Lucifer tempts his peers and God

Civ V is the fucking devil. THE FUCKING DEVIL.

Civ: "Hi Seb how are you? We should play together!"

Seb: "Hmmm, I don't know, I don't want to go to bed too late..."

Civ: "Well, you understand the new concepts of Brave New World now, it's a good time to try them out with a new civilization. You should avoid cold storage of this valuable new information. Just try it out, maybe reach the Medieval era and call it a night."

Seb: "What about the Koreans I started yesterday? They were doing pretty well..."

Civ: "Sure, but they have no chance of the new cultural victory. Tourism is awesome, you should try it!"

Seb: "All right, I'll start a little game. I figure the Egpytians will be a good choice, since I'll want to produce a lot of wonders to generate great works of writing, art and music. And let's go with large islands, that should be fun."

Civ: "Great choice!"

*Hours pass...*

Seb: "Well, I really should be getting to bed, I reached the Renaissance era and have built a strong, three city empire that generates tons of culture and religion. I also established some trade routes with every civ."

Civ: "I admire your use of the new features from Brave New World! You're getting pretty close to a cultural victory, you should play a few more turns!"

Seb: "Yeah you're right, maybe I'll play a few more minutes."

Civ: "One more turn."

Seb: "..."

Civ: "ONE MORE TURN. ONE MORE TURN."

Seb: "But... I have to work tomorrow."

Civ: "ONE MORE TURN MOTHERFUCKER. DO IT."

Seb: "Yes master."

Skylanders Giants

My ship is pimped out

Date played: March 18th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 6/10

I replayed Chapter 13 a few times to get all the stuff we missed at my daughter's request. It was a bitch to find everything though as the level is full of branching paths. I got everything though, and upgraded a few Skylanders. Drobot has new afterburners that give him more flight speed. Tree Rex charges faster and further. Spyro has a charge up fireball that hits really hard and a little fire shield when he shoots fireballs. The fire shield has proven to be very useful when dealing with many melee enemies.

Civilization V

Date played: March 17th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

I had an itch to play some Civilization, and decided to buy the Civ V expansion, Brave New World. The new civs are nice, as well as the new units, buildings and wonders, but the bulk of the game's expansion is built around trade routes and a new culture system, both of which weren't easily apparent during the early game. I started out with Ghandi and his Indians on a shuffled map and I played it for a until year 0 or so, but I was dealt a shitty hand in terms of geography and quickly fell behind. I decided to abandon the match and try a more balanced map.

My Koreans

This time, I picked the Koreans and a continental map. The results were better, as you can see in the image, but I've had production issues that have slowed me down. I have a focus on growth right now, which works pretty well, but I haven't really set up how I want to win the match yet. Maybe scientific would work, or diplomatic. However, I am still learning the basics of the new cultural victory and I think I might try again with a new Civ. There's a new stat, tourism, that acts as offense while culture acts a defense. The trade routes are nice too, allowing for caravans and cargo ships to trade money and science.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

Date played: March 16th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 10/10

I finished Tropical Freeze!

This game was an amazing, challenging experience. People shit on the Wii U a lot, but that thing has some really good games on it, Tropical Freeze being my favorite game on the system so far (Pikmin 3 is a close second).

I started by playing the last secret level, Icicle Arsenal. Set in a cave with falling icicles and wobbly platforms, it was a pretty standard level overall. 6-K, Slippy Spikes was also kind of standard, though of course it was a lot harder, being a K level. It had some really interesting movement in some parts, but nothing too special.

Finally, I was up against the final boss, a large...walrus maybe? Either way, this was one of the most intense challenges in the game and took me a solid 45 minutes to beat and more than 30 lives. He has a pretty simple pattern to recognize, but the timing, accuracy and endurance required made this a very difficult battle. On a flat, 2D plane, he jumps into the background and throws enemies at me. I must then bop them on the head, grab one of them and throw it at the boss in the background. He then jumps back onto the foreground where he charges DK. That's where he is vulnerable and needs to be hit on his back during his charge. At first, this is pretty easy, but on the second and third phases of the fight, he gets fucking fast and hard to hit.

He then launches ice dragons from the background to freeze the different areas of the ground. After dodging the dragons, DK slips around and must avoid huge butt stomps, while avoiding the lava that spits out from below. After 6 hits (this took me a while...), the boss adds a stomp that makes the floor rise and fall into lava, then shoots giant fucking ice dragons at incredible speeds that must be jumped over or ducked under. I got him, but holy shit, it was quite a battle.

Everything in DK's world is back to normal, and the credits roll to some funky music. However, I also had collected all the K levels, which gave me three bonus levels. The first, Levitation Station, was one of the best 2D levels in recent memory. I had to navigate platforms that were being flung from the bottom of the screen to almost instantly fall back down, requiring intense precision and some memorisation.

Rocket Rails was a wacky combination of falling platforms, a hardcore mine cart section and a fun rocket barrel ride. The best part about this level were the floating fish that littered the level and the upbeat music.

The Kongs celebrate victory in style!

Finally, the last level was Crazy Clouds, a very difficult trek through the air as crumbling propellers, shaky cloud supported platforms, strong winds, insane enemy placement and a very fast rocket platform combined to test all the skills I had acquired throughout the game. Tropical Freeze is a modern masterpiece for experienced gamers and I'm very happy to have played it.

Bro special!

Date played: March 16th
Platform: Wii U and PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

One of my brothers came over to have dinner and play games. We started with a bit of Super Mario 3D World. We played through the first four or five levels in multiplayer. We had a great time and were really in synch. The level where we rode the dinosaur was really fun with him.

We then played a couple of Wipeout 3 races. This is a game that we played together quite a bit when we were young teens. My brother is a graphic designer, so he had lots of little comments on the ingenuity of the UI considering the low resolution, as well as the general design of the ships and logos in the game.

I wanted to show him the amazing graphics of Killzone Shadow Fall, so I played through the second level with him. He really enjoyed the sniping mode on the rifle, as it has one hell of a kick and makes enemies fly in the air. He also enjoyed watching the incredible lighting effects.

Finally, I played through the third level of Dead Nation Apocalypse Edition. He had already played through the game in co-op with his girlfriend, so he had many valuable tips to give me. For example, shooting vending machines acts as a sort of alarm, attracting zombies. Also, molotovs can make a wall of fire to give the player a bit of time to shoot as many enemies as possible. The level was really fun, a stressful romp through city streets where I killed dozens of policemen, firemen and even a disturbingly large group of clowns from a nearby circus. 

Skylanders Giants

Date played: March 15th and 16th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played a good amount of Skylanders Giants with my daughter this weekend. We completed two new chapters and went back to a previous chapter to gather a few missing items. Chapter 11 was an assault on the bad guy's drilling machine. It turns out that this drilling machine is fond of singing and has a pretty good beat going. The level was filled with dangerous contraptions and the enemies are getting stronger and stronger. Finally, the battle against the boss itself was really cool and my favorite in the game so far. It's a real boss fight with patterns to recognize and multiple phases.

The best boss in the game so far

Chapter 12 had a really cool concept. I visited an "oracle" who has eight limbs, floats, has one eye and can see the past and to some extent, the present. We needed his help to reach the hidden city of Arkus. The level gives the player branching paths into small, secluded areas, which means multiple plays are required to gather everything. It's setup quite nicely, where the oracle asks vague questions to help me choose a path. I will definitely have to go back to this one.

On the Skylander front, Jet-Vac, Hex, Spyro and Tree Rex have all received a few upgrades. Drobot also has a new laser ability that shoots even more lasers for insane damage. Drobot is the best fucking Skylander ever...

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Date played: March 15th
Platform: 3DS
Session fun rating: 10/10

I got back into Zelda last night. After a few lingering street pass battles, I finally headed to Hyrule castle, where I fought a few enemies on my way to the princess. When I got there, the bad guy turned her into a (beautiful) painting... I chased him down, only to find him escaping through a mysterious rift in the world. Of course, Link followed. That's when I discovered the dark world of Lorule. It is ruled by Princess Hilda, Zelda's friendly, dark haired counterpart.

The bad guy managed to find and capture all 7 sages and Princess Zelda then turned them all into paintings. This allowed him to summon Ganon, the pig looking beast, and "merge" with him, becoming an all powerful wizard. Hilda saved Link from death by putting a temporary spell on the beast. Link must now find the seven paintings and free the sages, scattered through Lorule.

Lorule

Lorule is a really cool, dark version of the world. The music is fucking incredible too... I spent a lot of time exploring the central area of Lorule and found tons of interesting things, including a giant flower bomb that follows Link to destroy large boulders. At the slightest touch from enemies or fire, it explodes and the path must be rethreaded from the original point. It's a cool mechanic. The world is split because of large chasms, so in order to reach certain areas, I will have to find rifts in Hyrule to reach the other areas of Lorule. I started with the dungeon located in Kakariko village, a thief hideout.

The gimmick with this dungeon was a partner. After exploring the dungeon a bit, it became clear that certain areas couldn't be reached without the help of another person to step on switches. I found a thief who had been imprisoned by her boss for a reason I forget, who was willing to help me if I helped her escape. The dungeon itself was standard fare, with conveyor belts, switches, statues to move and lots of enemies to fight. I reached the boss and killed it pretty easily. The fight was quite interesting though. I had to merge into the big skeleton's shield to reach his back side and swipe at it with my sword.

I also managed to gather enough rupees to buy every single item in the shop. The boomerang is turning into a mainstay for me, simply because of it's quick stunning ability and low cost per use. I also like the fire rod, because it deals high damage and destroys enemy shields. I rescued one sage, bring on the rest!

Dead Nation Apocalypse Edition

Date played: March 15th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I had played a bit of Dead Nation when it was first released on PS3. Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed at one point and erased my progress. This had killed my motivation in playing it, but now that it's being re-released on PS4 with better graphics and a couple of new features, I gave it another shot.

Corpses litter the streets.

I played the first two chapters of the Housemarque developed twin stick shooter. The thing I find most interesting about this game is the way the shooting works. It's not like in Resogun or Geometry Wars where holding a direction with the right stick will continuously fire. There's a trigger, and it adds tension and strategy. For example, to get powerful headshots that can kill multiple zombies with the rifle, I must hold the trigger for a bit. I upgraded my rifle all the way to the maximum and started working on the shotgun.

Killzone Shadow Fall

Date played: March 14th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

Since my game crashed due to some game-breaking bug in the first level the last time I played it, I restarted chapter 2. It was a lot faster to complete of course and I tried out more weapons to see how the handled. I ended up using the sniper rifle a bit more than last time and found it to be very good.

Chapter 3 is a weird, infiltration mission on a large spaceship that has been affected by some sort of virus. The Helghans and Vektans had agreed to both work together on this ship, when suddenly, the Helghans started dying from some illness. My job was to get on the ship and route it into a nearby sun to eliminate any traces of the event.

When I got there, the place was mostly empty, filled with dead bodies and debris. It was reminiscent of Dead Space in a lot of ways. It even had a few zero-g segments, though there was nothing to do but get from one door to another. I explored the empty vessel, using picked up power cells to progress, until I powered on the reactor using a daisy-chain of power cells. Finally, I headed to the bridge to re-route the ship towards the sun. After that was successfully completed, I saw the half Vektan, half Helghan spy woman I encountered earlier. She held a hostage, the woman I was sent here to kill, so I chased her down. Along the way, I fought many Helghans, using a few new automatic weapons that I liked quite a bit. Finally, I found the spy and had a hand to hand skirmish with her before she managed to escape with the hostage on another ship. At the same time, the ship I was on exploded as I scrambled in space to reach the extraction vessel sent for me.

Yes, that's a spaceship crashing into the sun

While the mission itself was pretty cool, it's the incredible lighting effects that kept my attention. The PS4 has a lot of promise, and it's clear with a game like Killzone. While in essence, it's a conventional FPS shooter, it's graphics are something quite special in my opinion.

I played a little bit of Chapter 4 too, but haven't finished it yet. Back in Vekta City, the Helghans finally attacked. They bombed the ISA headquarters, just as our hero was approaching. I got up, killed a couple of dudes and set off on a shuttle to deal with it. The first order of business was to retake control of the train system. I navigated the dangerous suspended tracks, avoiding high speed train traffic, while fighting Helghans. The OWL's zipline ability came in very handy in this level so far, allowing easier navigation. 

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

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Game Boy Advance SP acquisition report

Date played: March 10th
Platform: GBA
Session fun rating: 9/10

I bought a GBA SP on eBay for a decent price. It came with a large lot of games, some of them great, some of them completely awful. The hardware itself is a great little piece of electronics. It has a perfect size for portability, has very long battery life, a great screen and great build quality. I tried every single game though, so here we go.

The worst game in the bunch has to be Star X. This is a little space shooter that looks a lot like a shitty version of Star Fox, except it sucks balls. To be fair, it's quite a feat that they made a fully polygonal game on a GBA... but the game is awful. It controls like crap, has a disastrous framerate and is quite boring.

Road to Wrestlemania X8 is a hilarious looking wrestling game. I've never liked any wrestling game, ever, so it's no surprise that I had no interest in this. I fought Hulk Hogan as The Rock and managed a couple of funny looking grabs, big punches, and understood nothing of the combat system.

Madden 2003 is an awful version of the famous football game. I have no idea how to play these games. I couldn't stop one person on defense and couldn't gain a single yard on offense when I quit the game.

I thought Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets would have been at least passable, but it turns out it's an unresponsive, boring mess with oddly washed out graphics. Everything looks too bright, like they turned the gamma on too high.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is a Game Boy Color game and let me tell you, it's an insult to the franchise in every way. The game is a side scroller! I couldn't figure out how to do any tricks beside grinds and the short level I played was complete and utter shit.

Cross Town Heroes is a kid's game where you control a fire truck (I think there are more vehicles later) in a small town to take out fires and rescue puppies. There was also a crazy mini game where I had to douse burning clowns in buildings and avoid the pies they threw at me! It plays well enough and while it's too simple for me, I might get my daughter to try it.

Jurassic Park III: The DNA Factor is a weird looking side scroller where a scientist collects DNA which is scattered around the island. It features two "levels" of navigation, the top path and the bottom path. I played a bit of the first level where I fought a few small dinosaurs with a knife and jumped over chasms, none of which was any fun.

Top Spin 2 is a simple tennis game that plays all right and look all right. Nothing special here folks.

Scooby-Doo 2 Monsters Unleashed is as awful as you might expect it to be. At least it controls well enough and looks pretty good. It's also very weird playing a game without a battery save...

All-Star Baseball 2004 surprised me in it's quality. It's a well made, good looking baseball game. Too bad I hate baseball video games...

I got the original Game Boy Tetris too and it's still as amazing as it ever was. Plus, I forgot that the GBA adds color to the GB games and it looks quite nice.

Spider-Man: Mysterio's Menace is a pretty cool game. It's a 2D beat 'em up where everyone's favorite photographer superhero beats up thugs. I made my way through the first level, punching and kicking bad guys all over and using web shot to stun and damage them. The swinging mechanics are tons of fun and Spidey is easy to control. I got to the boss, but he promptly kicked my ass, though I wasn't playing very carefully.

Pokemon Pinball is very special for one simple reason: it has rumble. Rumble on a fucking portable platform. It's also a pretty cool pinball game. The table itself is simple, but there is a Pokemon catching mechanic some progression mechanics.

Cruis'n Velocity is a fucking mess, at least at first glance. I will give it another go, but the camera is too far away from the car, the track is ugly and boring and it controls about as well as a donkey.

Super Monkey Ball Jr. is a pretty great rendition of the popular monkey-in-a-ball-rolling-around-on-a-dangerous-platform game. I played a couple of levels and was surprised at how well it played. While this isn't the type of game I play for long periods of time, it's a great little time killer.

Bomberman Tournament surprised me. From the title, I expected....well, I expected a Bomberman Tournament! It turns out it's a weird, action/RPG hybrid... It has towns, villagers, items, and I even had a weird turn based battle using a minion I picked up. I explored a little forest, gathered some upgrades and battled deadly balloons and trees that come to life. I also built a landmine bomb. This game is pretty cool.

Spyro Orange is a sort of crossover with Crash Bandicoot. It's a well put together side-scroller that I kind of liked. I didn't play long enough to say much about it except that it controls very nicely and has good looking sprite graphics.

Namco Museum is a nice collection of retro Namco games. It includes Ms. Pac-Man, which plays well but is really hard to see on the small screen. The same can be said of Galaga and Galaxian. Dig Dug works very well on the handheld. Pole Position too. Not too shabby.

Iridion 3D is Shin'en's first game. Recently, I played Nano Assault Neo on Wii U and it shows that this is a team that loves their schmups. Iridion 3D looks really good graphically, it controls well and was pretty fun. I died on the first boss. It's a tube shooter, which makes aiming a bit difficult on the small screen sometimes, but it generally works well.

I played a tiny bit of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 which is a technical marvel, but I think I've had my fill of Tony Hawk for a lifetime. Besides, I'd rather play OlliOlli for my portable skateboarding fix.

Lady Sia is a weird little 2D action game. Sia is a warrior equipped with a sword and a magic ring that has to battle evil. It has a very cute art style, it made me think of Scribblenauts. It controls well and is fun to play, I will definitely be back to this one.

Mech Platoon is a very interesting RTS that managed to keep my attention longer than I expected. I build a little base, little workers, little robotic vehicular combat units and upgraded stuff. It plays a bit slow, but since this is a device with four buttons and a dpad, it ends up working pretty well. I like this one a lot.

Crash Nitro Kart is an excellent kart racer with colorful graphics, a fantastic framerate, fun weapons and interesting track design. It also has a cool adventure mode that reminds me of Diddy Kong Racing quite a bit.

Mario Kart Super Circuit is a game I won't play on this machine too much, since I have it on 3DS as part of the ambassador program, but it's still an amazing game that plays like a dream. DK is still my favorite character to use in this series...

Top Gear Rally is the surprise of the day. It's a VERY good racing game, even if the GBA doesn't have great 3D graphics, bad sound and no analog stick. That didn't stop Top Gear Rally from hooking me. It's pretty deep too, with different gear ratios, tires for all kinds of surfaces, multiple brake and steering settings and challenging tracks. The best part about this game is that it controls very well.

Metroid Zero Mission is the reason I got this eBay listing instead of many others. It goes for a hefty price on it's own, hasn't been released on any other platforms and since my recent love story with Super Metroid, I was very much interested in playing it. It's technically a re-imagining of the original Metroid, but I think it's been heavily modified. I only gave it a couple of minutes, but I expect this one will get played to completion sometime soon.

PS1 vehicular gaming special!

Date played: March 10th
Platform: PS3
Session fun rating: 9/10

I got a few cheap PS1 games on eBay and played a few minutes of each. It seems I had a yearning for some vehicle based games as all I got were racing games, a couple of space sims and a sci-fi tank game. The games I got were Ridge Racer Revolution, R4, Jet Moto, Colony Wars, Colony Wars: Vengeance, Colin McRae Rally, Uprising X and finally, the masterpiece, Wipeout 3.

I started with RRR, and boy, that game has fucked up controls. While I had some fun with it, I couldn't remember how to drift properly, so I will have to try this one again later and test out different methods. Without drifting, this game devolves into ridiculous wall crashing pretty rapidly. The same can be said about R4, though I'm sure I'll figure it out soon.

Jet Moto is crazy, but really hard fun. I don't quite know what I'm doing wrong with it, but I can't seem to win a race, or come in better than 14th. This game, as rough as it is, would be very interesting on current consoles or handhelds. Hell, it would be incredible to play a game like this against an all human grid of 20 online players.

Colin McRae Rally wouldn't boot. I'm sad, pissed and hopeful at the same time. Perhaps it will work if I try it on my PS2, but we'll see. I love this series and would have loved to try the game that started it all.

Colony Wars is a very interesting game and is another one that could use and HD reboot or sequel. This is a pure, arcade-style space combat game featuring incredible, true, 360 degree movement. It still controls really well and is actually quite fun, at least as far as the first two levels go. I can see myself playing this game for long periods of time. It's that fucking good. I haven't tried the sequel, Vengeance yet, but will try it soon.

I didn't try Uprising X yet, the tank game, but I will try it soon. I remember it being a really good game, but it's hazy.

Finally, one of my favorite games ever, Wipeout 3. I was afraid the rose tinted retro goggles would have lost their lustre, but by the heavens, Wipeout 3 holds up like a fucking champ. The simple, but fast graphics are still excellent to this day. Sure, the textures are kind of rough, but the framerate is butter smooth, the track is easily seen and understood and enemy ships I easy to identify. I don't know if I can make this any clearer, but I FUCKING LOVE THIS GAME TO DEATH. For the love of all that is holy, I want a new Wipeout game on PS4...

Call of Duty Ghosts

One more prestige notch in my belt

Date played: March 9th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 8/10

I slaughtered a few folks in some friendly Team Deathmatches and managed to reach my second prestige level. I made a new character, gave her some fresh looking gear, patches and weapon camos and set out for some more combat. I also made a new class that I'm trying out to test out my sniping abilities. I set my eyes on the Lynx, a high damage rifle, and fitted it with a thermal scope and chrome barrel. I threw in some akimbo pistols for close range battles, set up perks that make sense for a sniper, and since I was going to suck, equipped some support perks. While I wasn't very good, I also wasn't all that awful either. I did all right sniping on Launch and Fog, though the akimbo pistols came in handy more often than I expected. I didn't set the scoreboard on fire, but I managed to keep a positive K/D and did all right. I'm not nearly the beast I am with the Ameli with it, but I enjoyed it. 

Skylanders Giants

Whirlwind is now semi-useful

Date played: March 9th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 5/10

I replayed the last two levels to get the items I missed. In the process, I used some of my weaker skylanders to boost their pocketbooks and get a few new moves. I used Jet-Vac, Whirlwind, Cynder, Spyro, Hex and even a little bit of Slam Bam. Then I headed to a new level and again, tried boosting my weaker units, though a few of them died in the process. The level was a pirate ship and featured way too many turret shooting sequences in the bow of my ship. Those sections suck balls. I then made my way through the ship, mostly battling enemies, which are getting stronger and stronger. There was a nice interlude where I rolled giant balls of death down a slope.

The Walking Dead: Season 2 Episode 2

Date played: March 8th
Platform: PC
Session fun rating: 9/10

I finished The Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 2.

Episode 2 is out, and it's a good one. Don't read this if you plan on playing it because I'm going to spoil everything... There is almost no action in this episode, the focus being mostly conversations and tensions between humans. The game starts off with Nick and Clementine holed up in a shack after the death of Pete. Nick gets drunk off home made whiskey they found in the shack. They try to make a run for it but Nick gets held back while Clementine escapes to the house.

The group decides to go out to find Nick while Clementine stays in with Carlos's daughter Sarah, the sheltered innocent teenager. That's when a strange visitor entered the house and had a weird conversation with Clementine. It turned out to be Carver, the man the group seems to fear for some reason. The conversation was pretty uneventful in the end, but it's clear that Carver had beef with the group.

When he left and the group got back, they decided it was time to move on to avoid Carver. They cleverly avoided telling me why they were running from him... It's clear that Rebecca is pregnant with Carver's child, but it's not the reason why they are running. We started our journey and found Nick alive and well in the cabin, so he rejoined us. We eventually found a large bridge near a ski lodge, which seemed like a good place to stay. Clementine and Luke, the leader of the group, go ahead to scout the bridge and make sure it's clear for the group.

Luke falls as a wooden beam breaks under his weight, and of course, zombies show up. Clem fights them off with rebar and manages to save Luke. They then saw a man on the other side of the bridge armed with a rifle. After a short conversation, it seems like he is friendly and will help us. However, Nick shot him in the face from a distance, thinking he was a threat to Luke and Clementine...  Fucking idiot.

We finally reached the cabin and had a HUGE surprise. Kenny, one of the main characters in the first season, is alive and lives in the cabin with a small group! They offer us shelter. After talking a bit and having a nice dinner, we figured out that the guy Nick shot on the bridge was part of Kenny's group. Walt, one of the men in the group, was his lover. I convinced everyone to admit to the event and while Walt took it really hard, he seemed to take it pretty well, considering. We also met with Bonnie, one of the women from 400 Days. We gave her some food and let her go.

Carver

Zombies showed up and we got overwhelmed, but were saved by Carver's men who showed up with assault rifles, including Bonnie, who is a lying bitch if you ask me. The help stopped there though as they took everyone captive except Clementine, Kenny and Luke. Kenny shot one of Carver's men, and he retaliated by shooting Walt in the head in front of everyone. I convinced Kenny to surrender to avoid more bloodshed, but Luke was nowhere to be found. Carver took us to his camp and the episode ended.
I can't wait to see what's in store for Episode 3, there's more to this story than what is apparent right now.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

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

I completed world 5! Beehive Brawl, a secret level, was a dangerous trek through a dark beehive. Scrumptious honey became a hazard and fucking bees were on my ass the whole time. It featured some really cool swinging houses of sorts where I had to hold on to the vines on the side.

Panicky Paddles was one of the worst levels in the game... mainly because I had a really hard time getting the G letter collectible. The level had me navigating a multitude of rapidly rotating platforms, usually leading to a spiky death if missed. There was a tricky underwater section too. The G letter was really hard to grab because it was on the underside of one of these rotating platforms, and it was pretty damn far from a checkpoint. Eventually, I gave up my roll-jumping attempts and brought in Dixie, which made this easier, but still took me three attempts.

Jammin' Jams featured some large fruit crushing machinery that stood in DK's way. This level was fun to navigate and added challenge with a few barrel shooting sections and some disappearing platforms. Jelly Jamboree was one of the most fun, if easy levels so far. It's a basic jumping level, but it features giant globs of bouncy jelly to navigate.

Frosty Fruits was the first time (at least I think) where there was actual ice in this game. Ironic since the game is called Tropical Freeze... Many areas of the ground were frozen and slippery, definitely cranking up the difficulty on some of the jumps. It also had some very fast sections where I was shot in different directions by plants that bumped me horizontally.

Then I hit the K level. As usual, it was unforgiving, though it felt more reasonable than some of the others. There were some very tricky parts to it, mainly in a section where platforms moved around quickly and flipping into the background at certain points. The timing on this stuff is really hard to describe in words, but it required intense concentration and skill.

Polar bear boss!

Finally, I took on the boss, my favorite in the game up to this point. DK accidentally knocks an icy treat from a polar bear's claws. Of course, this results in an epic battle. I had to dodge it's hammer and bop it on the head. I also had to avoid it's dangerous high jumps. I avoided ice blocks it threw at me and finally jumped over very fast ice bullets to kill it. It was an awesome fight!

Skylanders Giants

Spyro is fun to play

Date played: March 8th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 6/10

My daughter wanted me to play some Skylanders, so of course, I obliged and played through a full level. This was an assault on the bad guy's home, a trap-filled castle. The monsters are getting tougher and tougher, so some of my Skylanders are starting to struggle as I haven't upgraded them as much as my better characters. For example, my daughter put on Hex, a witch. Hex is already slow as fuck, doesn't hit that hard and is pretty weak overall. I used her to take on one of the arena-type areas of the level, but had to swap her out before the battle was over to avoid death. I also used my main stays, Drobot and Prism Break, so that went well. I had fun with Spyro too. Spyro has good abilities and even without any upgrades, he held his own and got enough money to upgrade his fireballs.

Killzone Shadow Fall

Date played: March 7th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

I bought Killzone Shadow Fall. It was on sale and I've enjoyed Killzone 2, Killzone 3 and Killzone Mercenary, so I figured I would have a good time with this one too.

The first thing that is apparent is that the PS4 is a beast of a machine, which I hadn't seen with the last gen ports I played, like Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed and Need for Speed. I mean, this game looks fucking incredible graphically. Seriously, this is miles ahead of anything else I've ever played. The lighting effects really show off what this generation of hardware can do. My jaw literally dropped half a dozen times during my time with the game so far.

The game starts with the Helghans occupying half of Vekta, the ISA stronghold, as a political negotiation of some kind. I played as a child during the first days of the colonization where I escaped the Helghan soldiers with my dad. Of course, he gets killed along the way and an ISA soldier takes me under his wing. 14 years later, I am part of an elite force of soldiers and get captured by the Helghans while on a mission on their side of the planet and then exchanged for another hostage, a woman.

The first mission was an epic infiltration of the Helghan facilities. I first sneaked around, killing guards with melee. I soon obtained the OWL, a very useful drone that can hack, attack, stun, shield and act as a zipline for my soldier. I use it in every battle and it's a crucial part of the gameplay.

There is also a sort of scan ability that detects nearby enemies and cameras, an adrenaline pack that heals and gives a combat boost and of course, grenades and guns. The mission had me find stranded allies, recover some data, hack some Helghan computers and finally, take out AA guns with C4.

So far, I like what I've played of the game...except that I ran into a game stopping bug. After I completed the last portion of the mission and escaped the exploding facility, I started falling in the air infinitely. This was definitely not intended and I could see through geometry. After reading up on it online, it seems that I will have to restart the mission. Pretty shitty.

Call of Duty Ghosts

Date played: March 6th
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 9/10

There was a minor patch rolled out this week, and it added some cool stuff for completing operations. In the past, only a few select operations were made available at any given time, and would refresh every few days (weeks?). This made it really difficult to complete some of these as it seems like the new operations were randomly assigned, making some of them NEVER pop up. With this patch, all operations are available at all times. This allowed me to complete quite a few of them in a few matches and unlock customization items.

I'm doing better in Bayview now that I know the map a little better

I mostly played the Onslaught DLC maps last night and did very well for myself, usually scoring 2.0 K/D or above. I did surprisingly well on Bayview, now that I know it's many dangerous hot spots and the common hiding spots of cowards. Fog went well too as I'm starting to understand how most players move around in it better. Launch is one of my favorites now, mainly because there are a few long sight lines that advantage my LMG. When I get into some of it's confined spaces, I have a bit of trouble, but as long as I look in the right direction, I do a lot better than before. Containment is a crazy map though, I'm still having trouble finding my groove in it, but I score well enough.

Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

Date played: March 4th
Platform: Wii U
Session fun rating: 10/10

I completed world 4, including all the secret levels, the "K" level and the unbelievably cool final boss. I also played through 3 levels of the fifth world. Shoal Atoll was a weird, underwater maze of sorts. It had no checkpoints, and I had to find various keys to progress. There are multiple paths available and I got lost once or twice, but eventually I got through.

Current Capers was a rough swim through a machine infested cavern. I had to enable some devices to open doors and swim through. The challenge lay in avoiding the many spikes and other moving apparatus of death scattered throughout. That's when I hit 4-K, a devious bonus level. It featured rapidly moving platforms surrounded by deadly spikes and very tight jumps. To make things worse, the second half of the level has lava rising from the floor and sinking platforms. It took me a solid dozen tries, but I made it.

The boss was fucking great. It was underwater, which scared the shit out of me, but it turned out to be pretty manageable, but challenging. The boss is a giant yellow puffer fish that inhales water to puff up, pulling DK towards it's big flappy mouth. Then it would change the direction of the current and push DK towards spikes on the edges. I had to hit it's soft underbelly, which was pretty easy at first, but as he sped up, I became more and more desperate in my movements and made many deadly mistakes. I took him down and made my way to the colorful and fruity 5th world.

Harvest Hazards welcomed me into world 5 with a bang of color, cool music and new enemies. The difficulty is definitely getting higher and higher as I progress. Here, I was confronted with dangerous swinging platforms, lizards with bouncy fruit on their backs and slugs that shit poison.

Reckless Ride was CRAY CRAY!

Reckless ride was an epic barrel rocket ride with a dynamic camera. I shot my way through giant fruit that was being hauled, chopped up and hurled at me, all the while avoiding the attacks of a giant mechanical car with spiky hands. Finally, I played Fruity Factory, a dangerous romp through a fruit factory. As expected, I avoided slicers, squishing machines and other fruit cutting devices. Towards the end, I was treated to a nice platforming challenge that had me jump on freshly sliced fruit as it fell back down into the bladed crusher. I really like the theme in the 5th world and am glad to finally be out of the water.

Need For Speed Rivals

Date played: March 3rd
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 7/10

I played more of the racer campaign in Rivals. You know what? There are a ton of things that are great about this game, but there's also a ton of things that are bad about this game. For example, I love the actual driving, the routes, the beautiful graphics, the sense of speed, the cars, the events and the special abilities. However, I just hate the way the game is structured.

Race towards the sun baby!

I think what I hate the most is that I can't restart an event while being chased by the cops. Even worse, I have to LOSE the cops before being able to restart AFTER the event is over. The exclusion of a pause button fucking sucks too.

Either way, I completed a few events and got a couple of new cars. I'm up to rank 10 as a racer and have unlocked a very nice Ferrari and a fragile Lamborghini. I've used the Ferrari quite a bit and love the way it handles. In many ways, the handling in this game reminds me of games like Outrun, heavy with long drifts and high speeds. 

Need For Speed Rivals

Date played: March 2nd
Platform: PS4
Session fun rating: 7/10

The Mercedes SLS

I played just a little bit of Rivals, but only managed to complete a couple of events. I went with the Racer career and started with an interceptor event. I fitted my Corvette with some level 2 EMP's and some level 2 mines, which let me destroy a police car and progress to level 7. I unlocked the Mercedes SLS and bought it. I ran a few events with it, including a thrilling head to head race where a real player started chasing us as a cop and I like it, but I prefer the Corvette. I wish I had played longer, but life got in the way. I also ran into a ton of connection issues, which has never happened before, hopefully it won't happen again.

Call of Duty Ghosts

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

I'm getting better in the new maps

I played the new maps again in both Team Deathmatch and Kill Confirmed. I know the maps a little bit better now so my general score was a bit better, including a nice 25-5 match on Fog. I've noticed that the players in the DLC playlist are a bit better than the average player, with lots of clan gear and high level prestiges. I'm having problems fighting on Bayview though, as it's more close combat focused than the other ones and has a lot of little paths to learn. I'm sure I will do better the more I play it. I also tried out rapid fire attachments on my Ameli and it works pretty well, but my long range ability drops from the loss of the muzzle brake.